Oh yeah, It's shocking how poorly Taibbi understood finance even a decade after the crisis and his awful writing and understanding has been ripped apart here before.

With quotes like this

It's hard to tell if he is just an idiot or is purposely lying to keep an audience with certain views. He wrote that 10 years after the crash. Those retirement investors who lost 30% not only made that 30% back, their stock holdings had doubled in value from the peak before the crash. Meanwhile, a giant bank like Citigroup, that was supposedly sucking up all the value from the marks is still down 90% from before the crisis.

Not defending Taibbi as I do not know much about him tbh but I am curious if your point here is about the bounce back of the general market without consideration of all the lower middle class people that were driven out of it without an ability to ride the return back up, while the rich 'cost average down' and then enjoy not just the bounce back but have that added extra benefit of being a buyer in a downturn.

Speaking specifically in 2009 sure 'housing values bounced back' but that does not mean many on the margins (lower middle class and even regular middle class) were not devastated while guys like Steve Mnuchin and his firm bought up all those homes with gov't guarantees to help cover any risk of losses and then enjoyed the ride back up.

So a distant look and analysis might say 'yes but the housing market bounced back, thus those who lost not only made it back but are up now', but that would be a very weak argument against the point as it only considers the 'Asset Bundle's' rebound and not who the holders of that returned wealth are and how it shifted.

Divided Decade: How the financial crisis changed housing

That's funny. I've never heard that saying before, and it's certainly not an advisable way to practice law.

I'm not sure why this offended you. Settlements are not an indicator of unethical lawyering or poor lawyering. Unless you have a specialty trial practice, if you take a high percentage of your cases to trial, it it is very likely that you are giving your clients bad advice.

I am talking about cases specifically where a conclusion was basically made that the case was unwinnable or unlikely to be won and then certain people in the group, who were more the Trump type of litigious would switch instead to discussions of 'how much pain and cost it would cost the defendant' and 'how likely they were to settle it regardless of merit'. Those talks often lead by a law firm introduced by the more aggressive litigious people in the group.

The one time I really objected was when the case was agreed to be very weak by all but the lawyer made the case we could basically free roll it. He was certain at a minimum we would get them to settle for our costs as he had dealt with the plaintiffs insurance company many times and they were always amendable to avoiding court, in most instance.

So we had nothing to lose and only to gain if he was correct but I killed it anyway to the consternation of my Board member. I've faced completely garbage and specious suits as the defendant and my lawyers agreed they were, so I did not want to be culpable in that process that saw the lawyers as the only winners.

Criminal lawyers generally don't ask a client "did you do it?" In civil litigation, it's quite common to encounter witnesses who claim to barely remember anything. And it's common practice for lawyers to prep witnesses to avoid speculating about things that they don't clearly remember.

I have never encouraged a witness to avoid telling me some fact that would gut a defense. And i've never seen anyone else do this either. It would be the height of stupidity. If you don't know the bad facts, then you can't prepare for how to deal with them. And it is much more difficult to lie convincingly than most people assume. There is almost always a paper trail. If you tell a story that is obviously inconsistent with the documents, you won't have much credibility as a trial witness.

I will accept that. It seems that you only really see a good side of law and only see lawyers acting in good faith in these issues and never stretching things or even provoking things to increase billings.

I would say that is true of my good friends who are lawyers too ...so many they would similarly believe that of the entire profession. I don't know?

I am certainly not suggesting ALL or even a majority of lawyers are the less ethical type. i am sure most aren't. MOST. But most profit more due to those that are. MOST.

But I am curious as to why you think the general public had this declining view of Lawyers, Politicians and Biz Exec's as I think I know the pretty clear answer. Im a biz exec myself so I am not going after you anymore than myself.

I am also curious if your view is the same of divorce lawyers? Call it anecdotal but the number of couples I know personally who walked into their divorce lawyers suggesting they wanted an easy and more peaceful divorce and came out swinging and then engaged in family wealth destroying litigation (lawyer wealth building litigation) is pretty huge.

Also do you agree with me it is scandalously bad that they don't force divorce mediation in all jurisdictions before litigation which would absolutely keep more money in families hands at the time they most need it (split) but result in far less money in the lawyers hands?

It would almost certainly reduce the acrimony that the court case exasperates allowing for families to heal and move on easier.

I'll share an anecdote on this point.

As a very young lawyer, I worked at a large firm. For a period, I worked on the defense side of a securities fraud case that revolved around dubious merger accounting.

During the course of reviewing materials for a deposition prep session the following day, I came across a document that I immediately knew would be one of the five worst documents in the entire case for our side. The document had been collected from hard copy files. As best I could determine, it had never been saved electronically and it had never been sent to anyone by email. Based on the content of the document and the location of the hard copy files, I was 95% certain that the author was a relatively high level executive (just below C-suite).

I took the document to the partner on the case. I explained why it was bad and why I thought this particular executive had written the document. She told me to set up a phone call with the executive and to let her do all the talking.

An hour later, we were on the phone with the guy. The partner made it seem like we just needed some help understanding how to interpret the document. At the end, she asked the executive in passing if it was possible that he had written the document. He gave some nonsensical response along the lines of, "I can't be sure. It covers a lot of topics that I was focused on at the time, but it doesn't seem like the format and language that I would have used." She thanked him and the call ended.

When we got off the phone, I asked the partner why she had been so gentle and why she had accepted that mealy-mouthed bullshit about who wrote the document. Her response was, "I was worried that if I came on too strong, he would get defensive and tell me a lie that he would never feel comfortable backing away from. In particular, I was worried that he would be emphatic that he had not written the document. I'm already stuck with a horrible document. I don't want to get stuck with a horrible document AND a lying witness. If I give him a little time, it will be easier for him to admit that he wrote the document."

An hour later, the executive called the partner and said, "I've given that document more thought, and now I'm pretty sure that I wrote it. I know it's bad. How should I handle it at my deposition?"

It was one of those moments when I realized that I didn't know everything about how to be a lawyer.

Great story and one I would cite to restore faith in the profession if I came across anyone too cynical.

Make no mistake as I do think a lot (most) lawyers do very good and valued work.

But I also think, in that same situation, you could find enough who would bury that document, or in a leading way coach the client in how to lie around it in a way that would allow him and the law firm to escape culpability.

My view is that the lawyers ethics (their version of a hippocratic oath) should REQUIRE them to put truth and fact as a first principle and then if you can tailor a defense around that great. If the defense sucks if it has to rely on truth and fact then it must suck.

A lawyer being obligated to give a vigorous and thorough defense should not involve any furtherance of untruths, even if creatively done and if found out they should be sanctioned, in my view.

I am not emotional about this issue. I don't feel that I being personally attacked. And I don't really care to defend valid criticisms of the profession or the people in it, of which there are many.

To your point above, it is indisputably true that I have had more exposure to the top 10% of the profession in the U.S. than the bottom 10%. No matter the profession, bottom feeders are going to bottom feed.

Here are two things that I think you don't fully appreciate. First, filing nuisance suits isn't the model for a successful law practice. It isn't a way to get rich. It's a strategy that is mostly used by desperate lawyers who are just barely getting by.

Second, the overwhelming majority of cases are in a grey area. They are not obviously meritorious or obviously frivolous. Let's take what I would call the Erin Brokovich scenario. A textile mill is polluting the groundwater in a rural community. There is compelling science to show that the pollutant increases the incidence of blood cancers. The causal connection between the pollutant and other forms of cancer is far less compelling but there is still arguably a connection.

An enterprising lawyer is likely to sign up all the people in the area with blood cancer as clients, and he may well sign up people with other types of cancer. Based on the difficulty of proving causation, the lawyer estimates that the blood cancer cases are 80% likely to succeed at trial and the non-blood cancer cases are 40% likely to succeed at trial. The non-blood cancer cases would have an even lower chance of success were it not for the fact that the local community was very angry about the pollution. Importantly, none of the cases is a lock. Is the lawyer filing frivolous lawsuits? It is indisputably true that some of his clients would have gotten cancer even in the absence of pollution. And it may be the case that the polluter didn't cause any of the non-blood cancers.

I don't think it is obvious that the lawyer in this scenario is acting unethically by filing these cases.

Only poor people don't like lawyers

Most people also think their lawyer is good and moral but the opposing counsel is always a cheating scumbag.

Arizona Republicans' ballot recount confirms Joe Biden still winner of 2020 election, draft report says.

A five-month-long review shows Democrat's victory in Maricopa County expanded by 360 votes over Donald Trump.

Full audit findings will be released Friday, supposedly !

https://www.12news.com/article/news/...8-9767753c25f5

I don't think anyone really knows how the thing was started. I'll concede any version of the initiation that you want because it doesn't matter. If it was ill conceived but still found legitimate reasons to impeach Trump I would be as happy as any of you deranged conspiracy theorists. Not going to get into a Baye's theorem discussion with you people, but the fact that no prosecutions relating directly to the underlying claims have happened does make it less likely that the initial investigation was "properly predicated and necessary".

What's matters a lot more is how the investigation itself was conducted and how the allegations to follow were constantly reified through a series of leaked lies. On that front you've got Crowdstrike saying there is no evidence Russia lifted the DNC emails. The conflating of "hack" and "steal" you guys have been running is probably the best you will ever do and it aint ****.

Every journalist now thinks they are a social theorist or sociologist or historian. I don't know why that is. He wrote a critical piece on the Frankfurt school somewhat recently. That's something he probably heard of this year for the first time. Why do journalists do things like that? I don't appreciate it. They get a little notoriety and try to show what an intellect they are. It's embarrassing for them in my view. Something starts trending a little and they all act like they are experts on it. It's part of the neurosis of the Left.

But when he is covering news items in earnest he is quite good. He's a professional with a lot of experience. Plus he's always in a lot of cross hairs so he can't be sloppy about reporting or else he will be crucified for it. It's not like with Maddow who misleads people for years, knowingly, and is rewarded with a 30 million dollar yearly salary. That's like over 100k per day, and she is just an insinuation machine. When you play ball for the establishment it pays. That's why we are in the situation we are in, that of open corruption. The 3 main journalists doing honest reporting on Russiagate are Taibbi, Aaron Mate, and Glenn Greenwald. All 3 are highly intelligent, highly trained, highly accomplished and lauded journalists who have learned their craft in mainstream organizations- except for the selling out and lying parts.

Do you really know what QAnon people say? Have you actually read them or do you just take it second hand that they are crazy in a certain way you recognize and therefore don't need to concern yourself with the details of it?

I've read them. They are crazier than you passively think. They seem to believe in an alien or super secret intelligence or technology which is predicting political events. It's really nutty. But I think you would believe all the same things if Rachael Maddow told you to believe them.

While QAnon and I both distrust the media, their approach to things is nothing like mine. They are taking information and drawing all kinds of ambitious conclusions. I'm not really into that sort of thing. My main insight is that those who lie to us repeatedly are probably going to keep lying to us if we let them. I don't see why that basic knowledge isn't applied to Russiagate and expressed through a demand to see all the evidence.

You are QAnon because you are affirmatively saying Trump did this or Russia did that or Trump and Russia coordinated here of there when there isn't any evidence. That's the same thing they do. What a bunch of liars in the intelligence agencies merely assert without supporting, by the way, isn't evidence. Is that your core stupidity here? not understanding that simple fact?

Do you find saying Russia was responsible for the Kaepernick episode to be sane and knowledgeable? Because that's what no less than the current VP of the U.S. said.

Do you find saying that Tulsi Gabbard is a Russian asset is sane and reasonable? That's what Hillary Clinton said.

Do you find it reasonable and sane to fear monger about Russia taking out our entire electrical grid? That's what Rachel Maddow did.

And in the end Trump was vindicated. So you can't claim you are nutty savants whose methods don't make sense but get the job done nonetheless or whatever you tell yourself.

You are probably the most far gone of anyone in this discussion. I say that because you constantly look to see who is making an argument instead of what the argument is. That makes you a tool, in the literal and pejorative sense.

https://eu.azcentral.com/story/news/...20/5835521001/

Early drafts from the controversial Cyber Ninjas audit of the voting in Maricopa County have been released (leaked?). I don't know if this will be the final report, so grain of salt etc. The report seems to focus on various issues they have with the voting process, but given that these aren't really elections experts, but rather people from "stop the steal" movement, that isn't exactly surprising.

As for the count done by Cyber Ninjas, the leaked draft shows less votes for Trump than in the official records.

Which is of course somewhat amusing, but I fear the amusement can overshadow the larger issue of a largely unprofessional effort, using questionable methods, sponsored by political capital and exploited by a lot of elected public servants who are happy to sacrifice trust in democratic process for cheap and short-sighted political gain. I suspect there is also fear at play, I wouldn't be surprised if GOP politicians who privately oppose these efforts face a lot of threats to themselves and their family if they maintain that stance in public. We have reason to suspect this was an factor in the impeachment case.

Would be funny if the unqualified agenda based group hired to show the election was rigged ends up saying the mistake was that Trump got too many votes by the official count. Would remind me of the long defunct poker site Real Deal Poker that was made by riggies for riggies that died within a week when all the riggies thought it was rigged. Anyway, another audit to audit the audit is required. Great opportunity to hit people up for more money as they prepare for the case to be before a Supreme Court somewhere by Thanksgiving. Also, a good deal on pillows can be had when staying up to date on this stuff. Our local Qderp will not be swayed by any of this.

bingo will be so relieved to know that Cyber Ninjas believes that the outcome was correct. As bingo explained to us, he didn't really care who won. He just wanted to get to the truth.

On a more serious note, no matter what the final CN report says, no one should use the report as affirmative proof that Biden won the election. That is the road to validating the bolded.

I do.

Indeed.

For starters, I never watch Rachel Maddow. In my entire life, I recall watching her on television for more than 30 seconds only one time. That particular episode (which I don't remember having anything to do with Russia) was the usual stuff. She promised a big reveal if you hung on until the end of the segment, and when she got to end of the segment, it was mostly nothing. I honestly have very little understanding of the details of her reporting on Trump and Russia.

But to your larger point, sure, I attach some weight to the reliability of sources. If the BBC reported that hostile aliens had landed a spacecraft in Piccadilly Circus, I'd be a lot more concerned than I would be if some anonymous, self-proclaimed government insider said the same thing on reddit.

Am I doing it wrong in your opinion?

Agreed. I've seen headlines stating just that based on the leaked draft, which is a bad thing. There is no reason to give this report much credibility, it stems from a political eco-system where connection to reality is best described as "optional".

You have to give Deuces credit. He comes here with his aberrant theories and his goal of educating everyone and showing us the truth. He regales us with pages upon pages showing the "obvious" distinction between hacking a server and stealing iemails. He glosses over evidence that does not support his theories by dismissing the legitimacy of the source but gives full credit to the opinions of those who are clearly biased and out of the actual information loop.

And when he is unable to convince anyone that is he is anything other than another run of the mill CT nutjob, he calls us all stupid and blames the MSM for corrupting our brains.

I think an alt account that agrees with him may actually save his mental health.

Great that you no longer argue the Investigation was properly predicated re the George P, statements as it was and that is a fact.

But on the above point you continue to also be factual wrong so you need to amend that too.

Most of the Prosecution but also the JUDGEMENTS Mueller got in court were as directly related to the underlying claims of the investigation as could be.

In case you forget what the underlying claims (predication) for the investigation were, let me remind you.




Full Doc here



If you need citations of those prosecutions and judgements related to links or coordination's between Russians and Trump campaign let me know?

Taibbi certainly purported to cover the financial crisis "in earnest." As escriture pointed out, he wrote a lengthy piece ten years after the fact in which he continued to display little or no understanding of the subject matter. In 2009, I could have given him the names of 25+ knowledgeable people who were sympathetic to his instinct to criticize Wall Street. Spending two hours with any of them would have vastly improved the accuracy of his reporting, assuming he actually listened to what they told him. I don't know what else to say. You will never convince me that he gave a **** about the accuracy of his articles on that subject.

I'm not sure why you think Taibbi is any more in the cross hairs than Rachel Maddow, Tucker Carlson, Maggie Haberman, or whoever. They are all in the cross hairs. It's just that different groups are pointing the gun at different people.

if I was behind the Cyber Ninja's agenda and was advising them I would suggest they give a little before the big reveal to try and establish they are not just partisan actors.

So saying 'when we look at the physical vote it seems Trump may have got a few less votes' is a nice little give that is meaningless to anything but they can say 'see we were willing to share our findings negative to Trump, if we found them'. Then in the next big reveal they say 'we found wide spread systemic abuse that tends to show this was stolen from Trump that has nothing to do with that physical count'.

Give first on meaningless one. Nail them next on the substantive one.

I guess we will see what follows this minor reveal???