Comments by Steven P. Rader | Eastern NC Now

That is indeed a great slogan for the winning party, but the rejection of the climate alarmist agenda in that election went much deeper than that. Having looked at all of the results, voters all over the spectrum - traditional right, populist right, and even left rejected climate alarmist policy. The populist right ANO which came in first did directly reject "green madness" as well as illegal immigratoin in its very campaign slogan. The second placed party, the governing traditional conservative Civic Democrats, had a leader in its sitting prime minister who has been very vocal against the EU Green Deal and illegal immigation. In third place was a new populist right party even more strongly opposed to both the climate alarmist agenda and illegal immigration, Prisha a Motoriste, led by a retired race car driver who vowed to arrive at his first session of the EU parliament "in a car with a large carbon footprint". While the Green Party and the center left Social Democrats got smoked, the only energy on the left was in the fourth placed party, a new coalition called Enough! that also campaigned against climate alarmism and illegal immigration. Also grabbing one of the Czech Republic's 21 seats was the Freedom and Direct Democracy Party which not only strongly opposed illegal immigation and EU green policies but also called for a referendum of Czech voters on leaving the EU entirely. All in all, a pretty solid rejection of climate alarmism.

Commented: Friday, June 14th, 2024 @ 9:26 am By: Steven P. Rader

If Trump had the same professional and fair judge, the same professional rather than highly political prosecutor, and a similar less politically stacked jury pool that Hunter Biden had in Delaware, there is no doubt in my mind he would have been found not guilty. Politics ruled the day in Manhattan and people around the world know it. That puts a big black mark on our entire legal system, although few states in reality have as corrupt a legal system as New York

Commented: Wednesday, June 12th, 2024 @ 12:09 pm By: Steven P. Rader

The situation with the UK's Conservative Party is really sad. Boris Johnson, a "small c" conservative, led them to a landslide victory in the last election. When a minor scandal erupted over Covid policies within the prime minister's residence, he seemed to be about to weather that storm when he was suddenly stabbed in the back by his number two in government, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak and a couple of his allies, leading to Johnson's resignation. Sunak wanted the prime minister's job for himself. Under Conservative Party procedures, the Conservative members of parliament narrowed the choice for prime minister down to two and those two were submitted for vote by individual party members. Sunak was the top choice in parliament, but small "c" conservative Liz Truss easily defeated Sunak among the rank and file and became prime minister. Some big financial operators, who happened to be buddies of Sunak then went after the British pound financially, and the Bank of England, whose governor was a close Sunak ally refused to intervene. Truss resigned. This time in choosing a new prime minister, it was left just to parliament and the grassroots party members were not allowed to vote. "Fishy Rishi" Sunak then became the prime minister. Party polling under Sunak has been terrible, and backbenchers in parliament have been manuevering to try to replace Sunak with someone more electable, one possibility mentioned being a return of Boris Johnson. To protect his own flank, Sunak then called this election early.

This election is likely to be a low water mark of the Conservative Party, given the dislike of Sunak among grassroots Conservative voters, the strong appeal of Nigel Farage, and the fact that the right of center vote will be divided. Sunak has badly blown Johnson's landslide, and has set the stage for an almost certain Labour majority.

Commented: Monday, June 10th, 2024 @ 9:49 am By: Steven P. Rader

Any attorney will tell you that a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich if the DA asked it to. A trial jury in a highly political trial in a jurisdiction where the target politician only got 5% of the vote is also likely to convict a ham sandwich if the name Donald Trump is on it. Add a highly unconstitutional jury charge from a politically biased judge and unconscionable restrictions on evidence the defense was allowed to present, and you have a witch's brew of reversible error. There were two remedies to get an honest and unbiased jury pool, a change of venue or a special venire, but this political judge refused. They would not have had to go that far to find a more honest and unbiased jury. Staten Island would probably have been fine.

The article above sets out solid evidence that Biden, or at least Biden's handlers WERE involved in this witch hunt against Trump.

Commented: Thursday, June 6th, 2024 @ 4:45 pm By: Steven P. Rader

Sorry, bud, but level of wealth is an irrelevant factor in political prosecutions in politicized courts. One of the first targets of Putin's political prosecutions was a billionaire oil company oligarch who also owned some key TV stations that were not Putin-friendly. Putin had some fake charges trumped up, the oil billionaire jailed, and took away his TV stations and oil company through political prosecution. Biden has clearly learned a trick from Putin.

Here is a good article - "The Day the Democrats Putinized America"
europeanconservative.com

Commented: Thursday, June 6th, 2024 @ 12:32 pm By: Steven P. Rader

As a lawyer, let me correct Bob's gross misunderstanding of the law. In North Carolina, as in New York, if there are factors where a party cannot get a fair trial in the jurisdiction where charges are pending due to a tainted jury pool, there are two remedies. One is a change of venue, where the entire trial is moved to another jurisdiction with a fairer jury pool. The other is a special venire, where the trial itself is not moved, but jurors are brought in from another jurisdiction where there is a fairer jury pool.

Three times while I was actively practicing law I was involved in cases where the venue was changed. One was a capital murder case in Martin County. The trial judge initially denied our motion to change venue, but after a week of trying to seat a jury, he finally understood the issues we had raised in our motion, took up our motion again and changed venue to Pitt County. Another was a drug smuggling case in Hyde County, where a Wilmington attorney for a different defendant got in the case early and moved for a change of venue and it was moved to Martin County. When other defendants got local attorneys, we all considered that a very bad move, and we all moved to have venue returned to Hyde County, which the court did. The third was a civil case originally filed in Duplin County, on which venue was changed on my motion to Beaufort County.

My late law partner John Wilkinson was hired by the victim's family as a private prosecutor in the notorious Joan Little murder case here in Beaufort County. As private prosecutor, he could only consult and advise the District Attorney's office. In that case, venue was changed on the defendant's motion to Wake County. That was very adverse to the prosecution, but our local Democrat DA, William Griffin went along with it for political reasons. The laws on change of venue required the case be sent to either another county in the same judicial district or a district that bordered our district. Wake County did not qualify as a county to which venue should have been changed.

Probably the most famous trial that ever happened in Beaufort County, the George Washington Carawan murder case involved a crime that actually happened in Hyde County. The venue was changed to Beaufort County because of fears he could not get a fair trial in Hyde where the murder happened.

I do not think I have ever seen a case where justice cried out for a change of venue or special venire more than the Manhattan case against Trump.

Commented: Wednesday, June 5th, 2024 @ 2:55 pm By: Steven P. Rader

What is particularly impressive, in addition to the overall total, is that 30% of contributions to Trump were from people who had never contributed to a political candidate before. Spontaneous contributions of that volume from non-political people show the profound concern that the American people have over the political witch hunt and abuse of our judicial system against Trump. The Democrats have opened a pandora's box that is a huge threat to our democratic heritage and the Rule of Law.

Commented: Monday, June 3rd, 2024 @ 5:08 pm By: Steven P. Rader

According to the polls, the American people from the beginning knew that Trump could not get a fair trial in Manhattan, given the heavily Democrat jury pool and the Soros-tainted DA. Throw is a judge who is a Joe Biden political contributor who has a daughter who is a political consultant for Biden's running mate Kamala Harris, and all the incredients were there for the kangaroo court that developed.

In the decades where I practiced law as a criminal defense attorney, I encountered a few judges who were ex-prosecutors and were still mentally prosecutors. Defense attorneys considered we faced two prosecutors, one behind the prosecution table and the other on the bench holding a gavel. Those judges were fortunately rare but they did exist. But Judge Juan Merchan went way beyond that. Most such judges did their rulings for the prosecution within grey areas where they did not think they would get overturned on appeal. Judges with integrity were always concerned about being reversed on appeal, even if they took every opportunity they thought they could get away with to side with the prosecution. With Merchan, on the other hand, it was one blatantly reversible error after another. He did not seem to care if the case got tossed on appeal, as he was hell bent on getting a conviction on these bogus charges in the short term whatever that took.

There is an old saying that a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich if the DA asked it to, but in this case, the trial jury was one that would convict a ham sandwich, if its name was Donald Trump. That was clear to me from the time the jury was picked. If you look at their "sources of news" only one mentioned the center-right New York Post, the third largest circulation newspaper in the United States and with most of that circulation local to New York City, but almost all mentioned the ultra-liberal New York Times. One even said he listened to Michael Cohen's podcasts but he remained on the jury. A defense attorney has a limited number of preemptory challenges to jurors which allow removing a juror for any reason, and sometimes with an adverse jury pool, as this one was, decline to exercise challenges for fear of running out of them and being stuck with jurors that are even worse.

One thing stuck out immediately about the jury from the beginning, the fact that there were two lawyers on it. Most attorneys on either side of a case take lawyers off of juries because they tend to have an inordinant influence on their fellow jurors. I have never seen a case, civil or criminal, when I was actively practicing law where one lawyer was allowed to stay on a jury, much less two. The only exception would be if you know enough about the attorney that his attitudes on matters connected with the case would be favorable to your side. The fact that the DA, who had first crack at the jury, let them stay on the jury was a sign that they knew something about them, perhaps political. I was surprised that Trump's team did not challenge both of them.

This is a sad day for the rule of law and for democracy. Clearly, the rule of law does not exist in Manhatten any more than it does in North Korea. Democracy is being seriously challenged in the United States.

Commented: Thursday, May 30th, 2024 @ 8:29 pm By: Steven P. Rader

There are two parts to presidential immunity. The first is that a president cannot be prosecuted while in office. That is very well established and, for now, protects Biden from his corruption history even though much of that happened before he was president. Biden, however, may be open for prosecution of matters prior to his presidency after he leaves office.

The second, which is less well established and is now before the Supreme Court is permanent presidential immunity for actions taken while president. Most legal scholars beleive that such immunity exists at least to some degree but the issue is whether it covers all actions or just particular types of actions, and that is what the SCOTUS must now decide.

Commented: Wednesday, May 29th, 2024 @ 8:50 am By: Steven P. Rader

Agreed, Alan. Joe Biden's Afghanistan fiasco set the stage for lots of bad actors to start aggressions. The attack on Israel is one, and Putin's attack on Ukraine is another. If Trump were still in office, none of that would have happened.

Commented: Tuesday, May 28th, 2024 @ 1:13 pm By: Steven P. Rader

There are other creative state boundary changes that could be constructive. For example, Arllington was originally supposed to be part of the District of Columbia. It completes what would be a square, but Virginia took it back. If Virginia reversed course and gave it back to the District of Columbia, then that would make Virginia as a state much more competitive for Republicans. Arlington has more in common with DC than the rest of Virginia anyway.

Commented: Saturday, May 25th, 2024 @ 9:35 pm By: Steven P. Rader

If government punishes people for the content of their political speech, then free speech does not exist where that is done. Our courts in the US have consistently ruled that political speech is the most protected of all speech. Bob, you have a totalitarian mindset and that is very obvious.

Commented: Thursday, May 23rd, 2024 @ 9:57 am By: Steven P. Rader

I have seen some of Dershowitz' writings and heard him on the radio today. He described this Manhattan court as well as the International Criminal Court as "out of control" and a threat to democracy and the rule of law. Indeed, he called Merchan's court the most "Sovietized" court he has ever seen. I guess that is perfect for this Stalin Show Trial that is being orchestrated. Dershowitz also described how Merchan himself was personally out of control.

Dershowitz said that America already had six bananas on his banana republic scale, with ten being full banana republic, and could still add anohter banana or two depending on further developments in this trial. He also got into how the Biden DOJ raid on Mar-a-Lago was badly mishandled.

Commented: Wednesday, May 22nd, 2024 @ 1:08 pm By: Steven P. Rader

There have been academic studies showing the partisan bias of the alphabet networks going back at least fifty years. As long as that is who is relied upon for moderators, there will be bias in the debates. Trump is just the most recent GOP nominee to run into this problem.

Commented: Sunday, May 19th, 2024 @ 4:45 pm By: Steven P. Rader

That Turley column says it all. I share the concern about getting a fair ruling out of Judge Merchan given his background. When I had a case in eastern North Carolina where the prosecution's case was as weak as this one, I would often use a strategy of offering no evidence in the case. That did two things. One, it gave the defense instead of the prosecution, the last argument to the jury which is very beneficial. The second is that the pattern jury instructions that the judge must read to the jury in such cases set out that a defendant does not have to offer evidence but can rely on the weakness of the state's case. Jurors can often take those instructions as a sign that the judge himself thinks that particular case is weak. While I would use such a strategy with a Beaufort County jury or a Hyde County jury or a Washington County jury, it might not come accross as well with a jury in Trump-hating Manhattan. Failure to get a change of venue to a more neutral jurisdiction (like more mainstram Statten Island) or a special venire (jurors brought in from a more neutral venue) has also signalled to me that the deck was stacked against Trump in this courtroom.

I would also note that I have seen judges recuse themselves on their own motion, without being asked, for conflicts much less than the conflicts of interest that the judge in the Trump case has. That speaks volumes about what to expect from this judge.

Commented: Wednesday, May 15th, 2024 @ 7:36 pm By: Steven P. Rader

We should not forget that DEI has raised its ugly head at Beaufort County Community College, where its number two administration was sent off to a workshop on it, and they have reassigned a staff position as a full time DEI cooridnator. DEI is all about dividing society insread of uniting it, and it is totally against Dr. Martin Luther King's admonisition that people "should be judged on the content of their character rather than the color of their skin."

Commented: Tuesday, May 14th, 2024 @ 4:35 pm By: Steven P. Rader

No, my position is that while perjury happens all too often in courtrooms, and indeed in Congressional hearings, it is very rarely charged. People know that, so the possibility of being charged with perjury is not a very effective deterrant to lying in the courtroom, or before Congress. Since a prosecutor is likely to be involved in any prosecution of perjury that does happen, lying by taking a position favorable to the prosecutor is extremely low risk to a witness.

One prominent figure who has clearly committee perjury before Congress is Fauci, but the odds of him being prosecutred for that are almost non-existant.

Commented: Monday, May 13th, 2024 @ 7:52 pm By: Steven P. Rader