Category: Uncategorized

Posted on

Some Thoughts About The Manafort Sentencing Yesterday

This is a good summation from a front-pager at Balloon Juice, and he sums up quite nicely my own observations so I’m going to just copy and paste his words:

While everyone is correctly pointing out the terrible discrepancies in our criminal justice system, it is important to remember that Paul Manafort’s sentencing today is not the end of this story. Next week Manafort will appear before Judge Amy Berman Jackson in Federal district court in DC. It was Judge Jackson who ruled that Manafort had, in fact, lied, obstructed, and witness tampered in regard to the Special Counsel, his investigators, and his prosecutors post trial and conviction in her court. And it is Judge Jackson who will sentence Paul Manafort next week. Unlike Judge Ellis, who is a well known crank and who, in a properly functioning political system with two actually functional political parties concerned about the general welfare, the rule of law, and the common weal, would have been removed from the bench a long time ago, Judge Jackson is considered to be a jurist who takes her responsibilities seriously. Do not expect Judge Jackson to be lenient. And don’t expect her to ignore actual facts to state that Manafort had previously led a blameless life. Do expect her to hand down a sentence with teeth in it. It is entirely possible that Judge Ellis departed from the sentencing guidelines because he knew Judge Jackson wouldn’t. Doing something like that fits with his history of contrarianism masquerading as jurisprudence. Regardless, Paul Manafort will die in prison. And we should all be thankful for that.

1 comments

Posted on

Best to Leave the Past in the Past

I was going to write a short “Twenty Years Today” post because occasionally I find something worth sharing when looking back, but after actually reading a few of my Journal entries from March 1999—and then going down the rabbit hole of reading all the entries from 1999—I decided I really didn’t want to subject you to any of that.

There’s nothing lurking in the past that needs to be regurgitated now.

What stands out the most from twenty years ago is how profoundly unhappy and lost I was. While it wasn’t clear to me at the time (at least consciously) in hindsight, it screams off those pages. It’s no exaggeration to say (as I have many times) that the Mark prior to the cancer diagnosis was someone completely different from the Mark who emerged after treatment. When I think of the hundreds—no, thousands—of dollars I threw away on stuff, trying to fill the very obvious emotional hole in my life that leaps off those pages, well…I’m not here to judge that past self or anyone else, but damn gurl, I was a mess.

0 comments

Posted on

Quiet Time

The doggies don’t know it’s the weekend, so almost without fail they’re dancing on me at 5:30 am, wanting to go out. I can’t sleep in the way I used to when I was younger (last Sunday returning to bed after letting them out and sleeping until 2 pm was a very rare exception), but occasionally instead of immediately feeding them after they come back in we all head back to bed for another hour or two.

Most of the time, however, I stay up and utilize this quiet time (Ben can—and does—still easily sleep in on the weekends) to write or organize the week’s downloads accumulating on my computer, or post nekkid menz while the doggies sleep on the couch in the den beside me. These seem to be the few times during the week when I can actually focus and not be distracted by every shiny object that crosses my path.

Squirrel!

1 comments

Posted on

Speaking of Television Programs…

…I’d rather not publicly admit to watching.

Just once I’d love to see the outtakes from Texas Flip ‘n Move where the potential buyers/paid actors touring the finished homes prior to auction blurt out, “WTF is this crap? What were they thinking?!”

0 comments