CNN is featuring a concert with James Taylor and Carole King. It's not only a great performance but for an hour I tuned out everything else going on in the world. If you can, catch the re-run. [More....]

New Year's Eve seems very somber tonight.

In Boulder, the fire has been devastating. Here's a few second video from the West Metro Fire department. Updates are available at the Boulder Office of Emergency Management.

In Europe, the Wall St. Journal has a report on how Antwerp, Belgium has become the "Miami of the 1980s" with respect to money coming in from cocaine. It's a "cash tsunami". (free link). The Mayor says,"Every layer of society is infected.”

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Ghislaine Maxwell has been found guilty on five of the six counts against her. The only count that she was found not guilty of was enticing the accuser who testified using the name “Jane”.

I am really surprised by this verdict. The impeachment evidence was overwhelming in my view.

I will explain why when I get to a computer later tonight. (I am typing this on my iPhone in the grocery store parking lot. Please excuse any typos).

Listen to the Science:

At the global level, we expect 3 billion or more omicron infections in the next two to three months, which will translate into a tripling of global reported cases. Because the infection-detection rate is going to be lower, that will translate into a global surge in hospitalizations, but fortunately smaller than the previous delta surge and previous winter surge in the Northern hemisphere. And even smaller will be the global impact in terms of mortality, but global deaths will go up somewhat in the next few months.

Omicron is in all 50 states. Cases could reach one million a day before the end of the year. Hospitals are breaking records. You can't find a testing kit on the shelves of retail stores. Apparently, Americans don't care.

Nearly 2 million people passed through TSA checkpoints on Tuesday, roughly the same number on the same day in 2019, according to the agency's daily count.

What can you do? Get boosted, wear an N95 (or at least a K95) mask. Stay home. Make sure any guests have been tested.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome.

I've got a lot to do today, and every time I look at the news, it seems I'm only interested in reading about Ghislaine (hoping her Denver lawyers Laura and Jeff kill it on cross-examination) and events in Central and South America.

Since I doubt many readers are as interested in these topics as I am, here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

If you do want my thoughts on these topics or other international criminal cases, let me know in comments. I'm pretty fascinated these days by Alex Saab, kidnapped or extradited from Camp Verde (depending on your point of view); the capture of Otoniel in Colombia (the Colombian President says Pablo Escobar was small potatoes by comparison); and the sentencing of Emma Coronel-Aispuro (El Chapo's wife) to 3 years.

What I'm not interested in: school and workplace shootings, missing white girls, the January 6 events at the capital, or anything having to do with Donald Trump. I barely remember him and I have no desire to be reminded.

From the first I heard about the fatal shooting of Halyna Hutchins on the Rust movie set, I suspected that the gun Alec Baldwin was holding in the "church pew" discharged on its own as he was practicing the "cross-body move" he was supposed to make with it. Many news accounts were pretty sketchy on whether he pulled the trigger or intended to pull the trigger.

In an interview to be broadcast on ABC with George Stephanopoulos, Baldwin gives his first detailed interview on the shooting.

Asked .... how a real bullet got on the "Rust" set, Alec Baldwin says: “I have no idea. Someone put a live bullet in a gun. A bullet that wasn’t even supposed to be on the property.”

He also says the scene he was practicing didn't call for the shooting of the weapon. There would be no reason for him to practice shooting with it, and he would never point a gun at someone and pull the trigger.

There is new evidence in the case. Yesterday, the Santa Fe Sheriff's Office executed its fourth search warrant, this time on the business of Seth Kenney, who supplied the ammunition for the movie. You can read the Affidavit for the warrant here. [More...]

CNN has suspended Chris Cuomo indefinitely, after a report was released this week with thousands of pages from the NYS Attorney General's investigation of sexual harrassment allegations against his brother, Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo. CNN released a statement saying it had given him a pass in August when the topic came up, but after the documents were released, it appears he had a greater role advising his brother than previously dislosed.

Chris' 348 page deposition is here. I'm on page 131 and haven't found anything objectionable yet.

I like watching Chris Cuomo. He's comfortable, like a favorite pair of slippers. He's polite to his guests, and he wears his feelings on his sleeve. He doesn't sound phony. Why wouldn't he give his brother the benefit of his thoughts? [More...]

Happy Thanksgiving to all. Personally, I find the media depictions of large and mostly maskless crowds at , at grocery stores, airports and public events concerning. I would have thought by now we all know what comes next - another round of mutating Covid viruses.

Colorado happens to be one of the states with a high number of new COVID cases and increased deaths. [More...]

Kyle Rittenhouse's chief counsel, Mark Richards, hasn't been known to give interviews about the case. Now that it's over, he has spoken.

It's an enlightening interview about the role of criminal defense attorneys. We don't represent causes, we represent individuals.

I was hired by the two first lawyers. I’m not going to use their names,” Richards said Friday. “They wanted to use Kyle for a cause and something that I think was inappropriate – and I don’t represent causes. I represent clients"

.....Richards...said that to him, the only thing that mattered was “whether he was found not guilty or not.'"

As for the choice of a defense strategy:

Regardless of what was happening behind the scenes, the strategy from Richards and [co-counsel] Chirafisi in court was clear: get the jury to regard Rittenhouse as a scared teenager who shot to save his life.

[More...]

Closing Arguments are taking place in the Rittenhouse trial.

Here is a summary of the prosecution's argument.

The judge tossed a charge of possession of a weapon by a person under 18 today because the statute required the gun barrel to be of a certain length, and the prosecution agreed that Rittenhouse' weapon was short-barreled and didn't qualify. It was punishable by a maximum sentence of 9 months.

The Judge also allowed a lesser included instruction for the shooting death of Anthony Huber.

Where the parties differ:

Rittenhouse said he feared for his life and acted in self-defense. Prosecutors sought to portray him as the aggressor who bears responsibility for the bloodshed.

The defense argument is live here.

500 National Guard troops are on call for after the verdict if requested by the state police. [More...]

I'm sorry for my absence the past few weeks -- it's temporary, to be sure.

We need a new open thread, so here it is, all topics are welcome.

Former New York federal court Judge Shira Scheindlin has an op-ed in the Guardian on how Trump took over the federal Judiciary with his abundant lifetime appointments of judges to our federal courts --including district and appellate courts and the Supreme Court.

There are a total of 816 active federal judges comprising the supreme court, the 13 appellate courts, and 91 district courts. In just one term Trump was able to appoint 28% of those judges due to past and continuing vacancies. Most importantly, he appointed 33% of America’s nine supreme court justices and 30% of the appellate judges.

Trump, desperate as always to leave his mark on something he touched, made sure to appoint young (by judicial standards) mostly white males to our nation's courts. [More....]