Caseless Link Sausages

Since I haven't finished what little holiday shopping I'll be engaging in, I'm not going to wrap these link sausages either.

• So the rich want to buy into nobility (semi$wall) despite the American prohibition on titles of nobility, do they? Well, that's certainly not the only benefit of an original position advantage. Nobel prizes appear to be directed that way, too. Not to mention the irony-free criticism of a "nepo baby" by another "nepo baby".
• That last note leads to a few musings on the meaning and strategy of President Biden's pardon of his son Hunter.

  First, let's clear something out of the way: So far as I can tell, President Biden did not criticize any action or decision of the judge(s), so the judicial faux outrage is unwarranted. What he instead was criticizing was misuse of prosecutorial discretion — and choosing to elevate these charges to criminal (instead of the ordinary assessment of civil penalties on both the tax and firearms charges) should raise eyebrows, because it certainly presents the appearance that a Drumpf appointee with a history of vindictiveness in his prior Drumpf appointment may have failed to consider the complete context. Anyone who tries to pretend that there's never any pressure on individual prosecution decisions coming from institutional loyalty concerns has never been there, or at least never had misgivings about a particular matter. Let alone any regrets.

  Second, consider the timeframe. This is both legally sophisticated and a slight error by President Biden and his advisors. What he has essentially done is cut off the ability of a new administration to continue prosecution on purportedly "new" charges that are similar to those already raised. It's not just that extending backward to 01 January 2014 includes the entire period during which Hunter Biden was on a Ukrainian board of directors; it's that it extends three years backward from 20 January 2017, slightly over three years — that is, the statute of limitations for federal offenses for all except RICO (four years), continuing conspiracies, and outright murder. In turn, that means that in order to get a subpoena, a newly-appointed special prosecutor is going to have to demonstrate probable cause that something over ten years old by the time Drumpf is in office (another, obscure evidentiary-value issue that would force a judge reviewing a warrant application to at least pause) remains not just relevant, but persuasive. It's a slight error because going back 11 years, instead of 10, would also have related to RICO charges (four years prior to the prior Drumpf Administration initiation — it's a bad argument, but one that can be made in camera with a straight face for political purposes). Of course, this analysis is coming from the outside, without any inside knowledge of what was actually being considered… but in light of some previous frustrations with statutes of limitations.

  Third, this is intimately connected to Drumpf's own past and future conduct regarding pardons. Past, in that he pardoned his brother-in-law (cousin-in-law?) and now proposes to appoint that convicted felon individual to an ambassadorship (for which he's manifestly unqualified, but that's a half-century tradition that crosses party boundaries, I'm afraid; at least it's only to France); how this differs from Biden pardoning his son will be a tale told by a fool, full of sound and fury but signifying nothing. Future, in that criticism of Biden for pardoning his son as a white-collar criminal and for technical regulatory violations that (so far as is known) are unconnected to any substantive offense will underly any conversation about prospective pardons for insurrection. One might suggest that the holier-than-thou of all politico-personality loyalties ponder hoisting by one's own petard, but that sort of goes off the rails once one says "ponder," doesn't it?

  And, frankly, this is a lot more verbiage and consideration than the topic deserves. Don't kid yourselves: Pardons have always been politically dubious, if only because they necessarily involve second-guessing specific decisions by the judicial branch, the legislative branch, or both — not to mention depend upon finding third-party advocates (especially visible/prominent/powerful ones) more than the underlying facts, however those facts have been determined.

• Unfortunately, this just leads into other contexts and considerations of prejudice in action. (n.b. These examples have been carefully selected to offend as many unthinking doctrinaire assumptions as I can conveniently stuff into a single sausage. OK, maybe that's an eyebrow-raising assertion after the preceding one, but a foolish consistency is for small minds — and this is surely about foolishness.)
• Or, I suppose, we could just ponder yet more inaccurate, inadequately considered assumptions about large-language generative Eliza. It's not "intelligence" if it doesn't enable actual, defensible (even if incorrect) reasoning by analogy — and the "teachers' assumptions" built in deserve a lot more consideration than they've gotten. It's not even particularly insightful, however convenient.