The Pandemic Could Be the Crisis Liberalism Needed – Foreign Policy

The world may be reaching a dangerous inflection point for liberalism. According to the latest reports from Freedom House, over the last 15 years the share of unfree countries in the world has risen while the share of free countries has dropped. Today, government deficits are spiking in response to the publics demand for intervention to mitigate the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic, and some warn that authoritarian leaders are seizing the opportunity to expand their control.

Still, this may be a time when liberalism starts to gain ground, not lose it. A new study by World Bank economists, drawing on data from 190 economies spanning the last 15 years, finds that fiscal crisesof the sort created by the pandemic in countries around the worldare likely to spur liberal reforms, particularly in the economic policy areas of property, investment, and trade.

How liberal advocates act on this glimmer of hope will be crucial. Post-Cold War efforts to spread liberal democracy have disappointed to date. Instead of ushering in the end of history, as Francis Fukuyama predicted in 1989, a know-it-all approach to proselytizing liberal institutions to other countries has engendered widespread resentment toward Western influences. And yet, its more complicated. The political scientists Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes recently argued that we should think of that resentment not as a rejection of liberalism, per se, but as an indignant reaction to its perceived imposition.

Whats the lesson here? Liberals must stop thinking of liberalism as theirs alone to give. Instead, they should recognize it as a universal ideal that has roots in many different traditions and cultures. It is on such foundations that enduring liberal institutions can be built in diverse places.

Extensive research on institutional change bears that out. There is a saying: People support what they help create. For liberal institutions to stick in new places, they must not be mere knockoffs of institutions that grew elsewhere. The Wests own liberal democratic institutions, including the division of powers, property rights, freedom of exchange, free speech, and public deliberation, are idiosyncratic versions of liberal ideals, but not the ideals themselves. They are successful, but theyre works in progress. They are worthy of thoughtful study, but theyre not suited for franchise-like plug and play.

This should prompt a tectonic shift in the foreign aid approach to development. A growing number of voices within development circles have been trying to do just that. They advocate a localization agenda, which means shrinking the role and influence of foreign governments and nongovernmental organizations and narrowing their focus to a few areas where they are better suited to help, such as information-sharing and providing operating support for local NGOs to increase their capacity to lead change for themselves.

With widespread belt-tightening across the development sector due to the coronavirus pandemic, including at major institutions such as Oxfam and the U.K. Department for International Development, such a radical change has become thinkable, perhaps even imminent, in a way we would not have imagined a year ago. This may provide a short window to permanently curb the undue influence of outsiders on local development questions.

Thats not to suggest a pure agnosticism about what to support abroad. Liberal reforms and liberal institutions should remain the priority. The same logic that commends federalism and its principles of subsidiarity applies equally to development work in other countries: Decentralization works. But if foreigners continue to hold the reins, even unwittingly, their efforts will continue to breed resentment and, more importantly, fail to serve local needs.

For maximum effect, we should look to private philanthropy for most grant-making to foreign NGOs. Voluntary nongovernmental philanthropy is less liable to special-interest distortions and political manipulation. Just as importantly, private philanthropy can be less rigid about predetermined compliance requirements.

Such flexibility is important. Through the grant-making our organization has administered to think tanks and other NGOs in recent years, we have learned to hold our tongues and listen. We invite our grantees to tell us whats possible, whats important, how they will do it, and, most importantly, how they will measure meaningfully their success for the projects they are proposing.

That model fits best with what we know about the diffusion of good ideas and practices. In their study on Regulatory Reforms after Covid-19, Simeon Djankov and other World Bank economists also found that countries that share borders or that trade heavily with each other are more likely to adopt for themselves the reforms of their neighbors and commercial partners. They see with their own eyes the successes and failures in neighboring countries and can, on their own initiative, decide for themselves what changes to pursue and how best to pursue them.

Decentralized liberalism is a prudent strategy for navigating this time of great uncertainty. In 2020, we have seen the limits of centralized models at work. From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to the Internal Revenue Service to the Food and Drug Administration in the United States and, at the global level, the United Nations World Health Organization, big institutions have failed. Its a stark reminder that there are very real limits to the types of problems that distant authorities are able to solve, no matter how well-funded or well-trained they are.

Early in this crisis, the Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates invested billions of dollars in seven different vaccine candidates simultaneously knowing that, at best, one or two might work. Gates knows what a big mistake it can be to place all your bets on one unproven solution. Not only does it raise the stakes considerably if you get it wrong, but it also severely limits any opportunities for learning, since there are no alternative results for comparison.

Liberal economies, with their presumption of decentralized decision-making, allow fast-acting, widespread, uncoordinated experimentation and learning. That model takes advantage of centralized knowledge and expertise, to be sure, but it also integrates the dispersed knowledge the rest of us possess about our individual circumstances. People close to the problems can find solutions that actually work, long before a large and distant bureaucracy ever could.

Our instinct when facing fear and uncertainty is to shift the tough decisions to the experts and to insist on one uniformand presumably bestsolution to our diverse problems. Experts play important roles in collating and disseminating knowledge, but they cannot know enough to successfully conjure up one great solution for us all. Its the lesson we have learned in our failed attempt to install liberal democracies throughout the world. In this moment of crisis, we now have a second chance to get it right. Lets keep making history.

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The Pandemic Could Be the Crisis Liberalism Needed - Foreign Policy

Reclaiming the liberal idea – The Tribune India

Shyam Saran

Former Foreign Secretary and Senior Fellow, Centre for Policy Research

The liberal spirit is suffering from terminal angst. Its political expression in liberal democracy is an endangered political species. What is the liberal spirit? It is a conception of society where the dignity of the individual is sacrosanct and rights are citizen based. A liberal society upholds the fundamental rights of each individual to life, liberty, expression and association, the only restraint being the rule of law, not the rule of state or a group or community. The liberal spirit not merely tolerates but celebrates dissent. It believes in the dictum that what is more dangerous is not when there are questions to which there are no answers but rather when there are answers which are not open to question. A liberal society creates equal opportunities for each individual to develop his innate genius and realise his potential. It is non-discriminatory among individuals irrespective of caste, creed or religion. But fraternity is equally fundamental because a sense of affinity with ones fellow citizens, the empathy for one another in recognition of a larger humanity, these are values without which a liberal society has no meaning.

To survive and to flourish, a liberal society needs a unique state structure, namely, the political dispensation of a liberal democracy. The state is as much bound by the rule of law as is the citizen and exercise of state authority is subject to challenge by even the most humble of its citizens. Another feature is the existence of independent and constitutionally empowered institutions which serve to restrain the arbitrary exercise of state power. An independent media and a robust civil society are its other essential ingredients. For a concrete and comprehensive articulation of the liberal spirit and the institution of liberal democracy, one need look no further than the Constitution of India. But while lip service is paid to the Constitution and constitutionally empowered institutions still remain in place, these are being systematically and relentlessly hollowed out. This is not just true in India but in other democracies as well. How has this happened?

I trace the origins of this slide to 1980 when Reagan in the US and Thatcher in the UK led the retreat of the state from the economy and elevated laissez-faire economic strategies as instruments of both economic prosperity and social welfare. The role of the state in wealth and income redistribution was progressively decimated and even made illegitimate. The collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s gave further momentum to this trend. The magic of the marketplace was now hitched together to the notion of liberal democracy. Free markets led to successful liberal democracies and liberal democracies became synonymous with free markets. Thus was born the touching faith in the inevitability of Chinas embrace of capitalism leading to its becoming like one of us. But the very moment of seeming victory of liberal democracy marked the beginning of its unravelling. It became obvious that there was nothing automatic about a free market leading to egalitarian society. The enshrinement of competition, above all else, in delivering prosperity paid no attention to those left behind.

The failure of liberalism lies precisely in its acquiescence in this new orthodoxy, its failure to question these answers. Globalisation delivered immense benefits across the board in terms of rising prosperity but states failed to ensure the egalitarian distribution of these benefits because the free market was assumed to achieve that automatically. Globalisation is not responsible for inequalities of income, wealth and opportunity. It is the failure of public policy which liberals failed to expose. When the free market went into free fall in 2007-08, so did the credibility of the liberal democratic ideal. India has not been immune to these forces. The orthodoxies of the past four decades are no longer tenable. How can one salvage the liberal ideal and liberal democracy?

The liberal idea must be preserved. It still has the power to help us deal with the challenges we confront today because it is the unbounded contention of ideas that will engender possible solutions. If globalisation is here to stay, as I am convinced it is, then we need societies that are capable of adapting to change, of being able to handle immense diversity and cultivate a new spirit of cosmopolitanism and internationalism. Only liberal democracies with their respect for diversity and commitment to non-discrimination are best suited to navigate the new landscape. The pandemic raging in our midst is laying bare the bankruptcy of populist authoritarianism and crass mediocrity that pretends to represent the disempowered and deprived but is unable, unwilling and incapable of mobilising society to deal with current and looming challenges. Instead, there is a constant recourse to quick fixes, the bypassing of institutions and of constitutional norms, and worse, the overturning of the very notion of the rule of law. This is how in India, we have ended up with brazen encounter killings to applause from large sections of society which are unable to understand that once the rule of law is breached they will be its next victims.

How do we engage in a discourse that leads us back to a contemporary design of liberal democracy? What must be its key features? The renewed exploration of the Constitution is a good starting point. Even those paying lip service can hardly object.

If liberalism survives in India, its future in the rest of the world may be brighter.

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Reclaiming the liberal idea - The Tribune India

Love him or hate him, but conservative Greg Gutfeld is the ultimate test for liberals – ThePrint

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Famous late-night show host Stephen Colbert once quipped, Reality has a well-known liberal bias. Is political comedy inherently a liberal act? It is an interesting but half-ignorant question. Primarily because most people consuming political comedy might never have actually heard a conservative comic.

Since the 1990s in the US, and over the past decade in India, stand-up comedy has had a predominantly liberal tone. But only if it ended here. Stand-ups around the world have now become the vanguard of liberalism, and consider it their moral duty to call out the excesses of the regimes in a funny, sardonic way.

But 55-year old Fox News anchor and comedian Greg Gutfeld would like to disagree. Recently, he compared cancel culture to Covid-19, calling it contagious, air-borne, with a low barrier for entry. For Libs (liberals), nothing is safe, including Hamilton the musical they all adored. The critics now point out that (Alexander) Hamilton was a White guy who owned slaves, who knew? he said.

Well, we all did, Gutfeld responds to his own rhetorical question with a straight face.

In the recent past, the comedian has made fun of liberals who, after propagating defund the police, clarified by asking not to take the words literally. He called Hilary Clinton the gift that keeps giving because you can come up with analogies, metaphors and descriptions for her, just by the virtue of her never going away. And Steve Bannon the ideological godfather of Donald Trumps 2016 election campaign as a circus peanut, left out in the sun on a minivan dashboard.

You might laugh at his joke, you might get annoyed by them sometimes, but Gutfeld is the conservative comic we need to preserve. There arent many of his kind, and we are at a time when we need someone to make fun of liberals who just keep pushing the ceiling. And there is perhaps no one better than Gutfeld, who is blowing up the Beltway liberal consensus of America.

Liberals should engage with Gutfeld not just because of his fine political insights, but also because if you can laugh with him, you might actually pass the ultimate liberal test.

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Also read: Agrima Joshua is Everywoman on social media with a view. We know why she apologised

Greg Gutfeld started off as a magazine editor, and earned initial fame as the editor-in-chief of mens health magazine, Stuff. Under him, the magazine increased its readership from 7.5 lakh to 10.2 lakh, creating a controversy month after month. But Gutfeld really gained popularity through his 3 am late night show called Red Eye, which ran from 2007 to 2015.

The New Yorkers Kelefa Sanneh described Red Eye as an odd and often funny late-night show that is not exactly satire, and not exactly anything else, either.

Its sensibility is snarky and surreal, thanks to its host, Greg Gutfeld who adopts a tone of half-sarcastic alarm, as if he cant decide which is more annoying: the politician he is talking about, or the fact that he has to talk about politicians, Sanneh wrote.

Gutfeld now runs his own late-night show, The Greg Gutfeld Show, which had an average of 2.86 million viewers in April, ahead of Colbert and Jimmy Kimmels late-night shows.

Also read: Move over political comedy, Danish Saits lockdown humour pokes fun at middle-class Indians

Gutfeld likes to identify as a libertarian, but what makes him unique is his inert need to constantly stray away from the popular norms and opinions, even when it comes to comedy. This is what gives Gutfelds comedy a refreshing sense of political realism.

Nothing highlights this better than Gutfelds take on Trumps decision to halt funding to the World Health Organization (WHO) in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.

Describing Trump, Gutfeld opened his show by remarking, Well, the big orange meanie has struck again. Then, reacting to liberal media referring to Trumps decision as obscene and madness, Gutfeld said, Its a reaction we have come to expect from the children in the room, none of whom cared much about the pandemic because they were too busy smoking the crack pipe of impeachment

But are you surprised by Trumps actions? Are you like the media in which every day is the first day of Trumps presidency? No, you get it. Trumps strategy from day one is based on incentives Nothing is off limits, he said, chiding media anchors at CNN and MSNBC.

In contrast, Colbert reacted to the same news by saying, He is defunding the World Health Organization during a global pandemic. Brilliant. Its like when your house is engulfed in flames, first thing you do, burn down the fire department.

Colbert is not wrong, neither is he any less funny, and probably a lot less angry than Gutfeld. But there is something that makes the latter unique, his comedy often gives insight into how Trump thinks, unlike most Left and liberal comics.

Also read: How cancel culture has turned liberals against each other and is rocking newsrooms

Greg Gutfeld is nowhere close to a liberal, and his shows are a window to his politics. For instance, while doing a segment on Trumps infamous rally at Tulsa, Oklahoma, in June, Gutfeld just gave a rundown of what the president spoke, without once commenting on the fact that no social distancing was practised at the rally.

At the end of the day, Gutfeld is a Trump supporter which is not an issue but it often makes him defend preposterous policies of President Trump.

On the recent race protests in the US following the killing of Black American George Floyd by a White policeman, Gutfeld said, When you are having 10 million arrests and something like 15 million police encounters a year, you know ten of these incidents could very easily happen, make 20, twice a month if we treat these the way we treat them now, without context, this country is not gonna survive.

We have to stop making this a Black versus White issue and make it a Black and White issue, he added.

But there is still something unique that Gutfeld brings to the table. During an interview in 2018, Gutfeld tried to shed light on Trumps thought process and his political method.

Speaking about his observations on Trump during the 2016 campaign, Gutfeld said he started to look at him less as a political figure and more as a host of a comedy roast. And what he had done was he had basically redefined every context he was in.

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Love him or hate him, but conservative Greg Gutfeld is the ultimate test for liberals - ThePrint

Edmonds’ descriptions of liberals in recent column were shocking – Wyoming Tribune

As a liberal Christian woman of Jewish heritage, I read Harlan Edmonds' words Sunday, July 12, with horror.

Descriptors like ignorant, divisive, treasonous, liars, arrogant and evil are words I have read before. Substitute Jews for liberals, and you have speeches from 1930 Germany. Yes, liberals believe in rights for all people; yes, they see that racism toward Black, Hispanic, Native American or any group based on color, creed or faith as wrong.

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Edmonds' descriptions of liberals in recent column were shocking - Wyoming Tribune

India knows what Bari Weiss is talking about: The intolerance of liberals – Firstpost

Weiss observations hold true for most self-proclaimed liberal newsrooms across the world.

Last year on 5 August, when India mainstreamed its state of Jammu and Kashmir by taking away special status under Article 370, liberal western media erupted with war cries. An unending stream of articles started appearing, targeting India and nationalist Hindus.

None of those pieces took into account that India as a sovereign nation is entitled to grant a part of its territory equal, not inferior, status under law. Or that Article 370 was a tool to egg on separatism and Islamic terrorism in Kashmir. Or that it impinged on the rights of women, Dalits, migrant labourers, and even LGBTQIA persons.

After relentlessly attacking India in its op-eds, when The New York Timesapproached Indias nationalist governments ideological anchor organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), it was met with scorn.

On being told that it never carries the other view,NYT apparently agreed to carry a piece by RSS ideologue Manmohan Vaidya. But senior RSS leaders say that when the piece was submitted on the condition that portions would not be conveniently edited out, it never appeared.

The NYT apparently cited a lone piece by the Indian ambassador to the US to say it had done the needful, implying it would be an excess to give the Indian view any more space. It, however, continues to carry scores of articles from the Left and Islamist anti-India standpoint on Kashmir.

Most Indians, therefore, are not surprised to read Bari Weiss' scorching resignation letter to the NYT, accusing it of the most nauseating, oppressive censorship and bullying in the name of liberalism.

Stories are chosen and told in a way to satisfy the narrowest of audiences, rather than to allow a curious public to read about the world and then draw their own conclusions, she writes. My own forays into Wrongthink have made me the subject of constant bullying by colleagues who disagree with my views. They have called me a Nazi and a racist.

She says her work and character are openly demeaned on company-wide Slack channels where masthead editors regularly weigh in. There, some coworkers insist I need to be rooted out if this company is to be a truly inclusive one, while others post ax emojis next to my name.

Weiss observations hold true for most self-proclaimed liberal newsrooms across the world.

Mainly because the very word liberal has been hijacked by the worlds two most illiberal ideologies: Islamism and Communism.

And these two ideologies have systematically taken over campuses in the West and democracies elsewhere, and are now baring their wolf fangs from under their sheep skin of sanctimony and political correctness.

In his piece The Rock That Broke Liberalism in the Dhaka Tribune after Narendra Modis 2019 election sweep, Shafiqur Rahman does some hard analysis on the failure of the liberal order.

Stubborn defence of group identity by Muslims of the world has made upholding group identity respectable for all groups, majority or minority, powerful or weak If Muslims can be unabashedly assertive about the sanctity of their religious identity and traditions, other groups can be unapologetic about their respective identities too, Rahman writes.

In established democracies, Muslims are generally politically allied with liberal progressives, and this alliance has opened liberals up to accusation of double standards in protecting a very illiberal minority identity. Abandoning universalism and embracing identitarianism is hollowing out liberalism from within. Either the principles of liberalism apply for all groups or none at all.

It is this hypocrisy that Weiss repeatedly dwells on while talking about the NYT newsroom.

If a persons ideology is in keeping with the new orthodoxy, they and their work remain unscrutinised. Everyone else lives in fear of the digital thunderdome. Online venom is excused so long as it is directed at the proper targets, she writes.

Indian journalists, students, academicians and intellectuals with a Right-leaning, Indic or nationalistic view have suffered this secular, liberal apartheid for over seven decades. They would be taunted, hounded, denied peer review of their books, called regressive or vernac, not hired in jobs, marginalised or sacked.

On TV, there would be a token dissenting voice in a large panel and the anchor would seldom allow that person to speak uninterrupted even for a short while.

The situation has changed in the last six years, but derogatory labels like sanghi or bhakt or fascist are widely used to cut them down to size and avoid genuine debate on issues.

Such is the intolerance of the Left activists that even basic conservative or nationalist ideas of capitalism, individualism, limited government, strong defence and pride in tradition are portrayed as tyrannical. The Wests new social justice warriors justify violence against those who hold such ideas.

American journalist Sasha Polakow-Suransky argues in his book Go Back To Where You Came From that failure [of liberals] to confront the real tensions and failures of integration, by pretending violent extremism and attacks on free speech were not problems, infuriated many voters and left them feeling abandoned by mainstream parties.

Alexis Levit elaborates on this violent, head-shrinking intolerance on campus in the Stanford Review:Ben Shapiro spoke at Memorial Auditorium in November, causing intense upheaval. Following the speech, Dailyheadlines asked, When will Stanford begin to protect its students? Activists portrayed Shapiro as a cockroach to be exterminated. A large crowd amassed outside Memorial Auditorium to harass attendees, shouting loudly about the lives that had come under attack as a result of Shapiros appearance. Does something so trivial as a speech by a conservative really warrant this type of hysteria and outrage?

Francis Fukuyamas 1989 prediction of the end of history and a permanent liberal order with the collapse of Soviet Union was grossly premature.

By sleeping with the worst illiberals and condoning them, liberals have set off something quite the reverse.

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India knows what Bari Weiss is talking about: The intolerance of liberals - Firstpost

Liberal churches remain closed, focused on issues of the day – Wyoming Tribune

Sunday morning, I went driving around Cheyenne to see what churches were meeting under the new guidelines the governor put out recently. One observation was evident: The majority of evangelical churches were meeting in person.

Of the 10 liberal churches in town, only one of them was meeting in person. I drove by at the times those churches normally meet, and only one had people who came to assemble themselves together, as Hebrews 10 commands Christians to do. On a number of the reader boards outside these churches, the message said the service was online.

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Liberal churches remain closed, focused on issues of the day - Wyoming Tribune

Local restaurants making their own policies on masks – 13abc Action News

The latest order by Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer leaves staff and business owners in a tough position.

Whitmer's newest order requires businesses to refuse entry to anyone not wearing masks, unless they are under five years old or have a medical condition. It's up to the business to enforce the rule

Pete's Garage has been operating in Monroe, Michigan for more than 40 years. The well-known restaurant, whose owners also run Michigan Bar & Grille, published a Facebook post that is taking heat online, even after being altered multiple times.

The restaurants original post stated:

IF YOU HAVE A MEDICAL CONDITION THAT PREVENTS YOU FROM WEARING A MASK, YOU DONT NEED TO WEAR ONE

IF YOU ARE NOT WEARING ONE, WE WILL ASSUME THIS IS THE CASE. DUE TO HIPPA, AND THE FOURTH AMENDMENT, WE WILL NOT ASK YOU ABOUT YOUR CONDITION.

The restaurant has signs posted on the door for their new guidelines, which also include touchless URL menus on tables, seating 6-feet apart, and parties required to be less than 10 people.

Manager Brittany Van Riper says when it comes to medical conditions that may exempt a customer from wearing a mask, Theres no way of really telling, thats at the trust of our customers and the trust of our staff.

Michigan businesses failing to require masks could face a misdemeanor, a $500 fine, and possibly losing their license.

In Toledo, the Ottawa Tavern and other restaurants on Adams Street took a different approach, with their new slogan: "Mask on your face until your butt is in place."

Ottawa Tavern owner Zack Jacobs says he came up with the phrase. Jacobs says the new signage and blanket policies make the dining experience safer for staff and customers.

Face masks are also offered at the door, costing a dollar.

The official policy of all bars on Adams Street: Mask on your face til your butt is in place!

If you are a person who is compromised and unable to wear a face mask, then maybe going out in public during a pandemic isnt the wisest move for you to begin with, Jacobs said. Consider your own health and safety and making your own good choices for your health and safety before you step out into a local business thats just trying to stay open and serve our customers in a safe way.

Follow this link:

Local restaurants making their own policies on masks - 13abc Action News

Understanding ‘Qualified Immunity’ And Its Place In The Police Reform Debate – WBUR

One area of significant contention in the state senate's recently passed police reform bill was whether to limit "qualified immunity," a legal doctrine that protects police and other public employees from lawsuits.

Qualified immunity has been both a lightning rod in local and national police reform debates, and a source of confusion about what it actually entails.

We turn to Nancy Gertner, a retired federal judge, WBUR legal analyst and senior lecturer at Harvard Law School, on what qualified immunity is and why many law enforcement officials are trying to hold on to it.

On how the "qualified immunity" doctrine came about:

"The doctrine is a judge-made doctrine that came about in pretty much the late 1970s and early 1980s. And it was literally a concern that constitutional criminal law, in other words, the ways in which the Constitution limited or affected police behavior that it was unfair because of new developments in constitutional law, to have a police officer bound by those new developments. Famously, one judge said ... a cop on the beat shouldn't have to be reading the advance sheets (the ways in which people get notice of opinions). And it was really phrased in terms of a police officer could not anticipate legal developments. It was focused in on the big and new constitutional changes that were going on after the Warren Court and said, 'How could a police officer know about those kinds of changes?' But over time, it has evolved into something really quite a bit different. It's not just saying a police officer couldn't have known what the Supreme Court decided yesterday about the Fourth Amendment, but it has come to be that the police officer, for him to be held liable, there had to have been an existing precedent on the specific fact in question."

"Let me give you an example: There was a case of a SWAT team that fired tear gas grenades into a house carrying someone they wanted to arrest. That person wasn't there. That caused considerable damage. The Court of Appeals said, 'Well, there's no qualified immunity because there was no precedent involving tear gas and houses.' Now, there was precedent about the scope of searches, etc., but there was no specific precedent that dealt with ... tear gas going into a house, or a case of ... a police officer [who] shot a dog trying to apprehend someone in a backyard, and wound up shooting a young girl. And the court literally said that the child's right not to be accidentally shot in the leg is not clearly established. So [what] I'm saying is, over time this became not 'How could a police officer have known, you know, the latest constitutional issue,' but ... a police officer gets excused if there was not an existing precedent involving the facts that are in his case. Well, there never is an existing precedent involving those specific facts."

On why it's front and center in the current police reform debate:

"Well, what happens is that the 'immunity' entitles a judge to dismiss the case without it ever getting to a jury. While a jury ... might get the issue of what comprises excessive force or what comprises an unfair search, qualified immunity entitles a police officer who's being sued to move to dismiss, and the case is then gone. And it's gone in a way that is particularly troubling. The judge is supposed to decide, or at one point was supposed to decide, was the plaintiff's rights violated? And then the second question is, was the law clearly established? Over time, and because of the Supreme Court, judges no longer ... answer the first question: whether someone's rights were violated. So that meant the law is not ever going to be established even going forward, because case after case was saying, essentially, 'I don'tknow whether [the police officer] did anything wrong, but it wasn't clearly established.' "

On how qualified immunity plays out in lawsuits against law enforcement today:

"The notion that a police officer who does something that comprises a crime will be punished and go to jail is true, although we recognize that that doesn't happen very often, as we saw in the George Floyd case [with criminal charges]. But we're not talking about criminal prosecution here, because that, to some degree, is the most extreme example of wrongful conduct. We're talking about a civil suit, if someone violated your constitutional rights. It may not comprise a crime, but it was essentially violating your constitutional rights. ... [The police officer] did something wrong, he went outside the boundaries of what the Constitution allows. To say that people can sue, yeah, you can sue and it will be dismissed if it doesn't fit [these], in my view, absurd requirements. So it'll be dismissed. ... This is like constitutional malpractice. It's as if saying the only way you can deal with a doctor that left his instruments in your body after the surgery is if it's a crime. Well, we're not talking crime. We're talking about civil damages for violation of a constitutional right. So the fact that people can be sent to jail doesn't control conduct. What controls conduct is lawsuits."

On the argument that eliminating qualified immunity will put undue financial and civil risk on law enforcement, curb their behaviors, and make them overly cautious:

"It is a false argument. Ninety-nine point eight percent of cases that are brought I've looked this up of constitutional claims against police officers are paid for by the government or even sometimes the union. In other words, the municipality or the state will pay whatever damages are assigned to the police officer. So there is really no financial penalty at all. And what you're talking about is having a range of conduct that may well be wrong, that is broader than the range of conduct that we allow now, and allowing those cases to go to go to trial before a jury. So it's really not an impediment to the police at all, any more than malpractice since actions against doctors keep doctors from doing surgery. Good doctors do not have a problem [with that]."

On if the end of qualified immunity could affect police officers decisions:

"That's really the usual kind of scare tactics that the police use whenever there are efforts to curb their power. The fact that those who are engaged in malpractice like a doctor or a lawyer can be sued for it and wind up with damages against them, doesn't stop people to being doctors or lawyers. It makes them exercise more care. And that's exactly what we're trying to do. So that's just simply absurd. If they think twice before they violate someone's constitutional rights, rather than, as Justice Sotomayor just said in a case where she dissented, she says, with qualified immunity ... it's the wrong signal: shoot first and think later, and count on being exonerated."

Link:

Understanding 'Qualified Immunity' And Its Place In The Police Reform Debate - WBUR

How to Watch Comic-Con@Home on IGN Live and the Full Panel Schedule – IGN Southeast Asia

San Diego Comic-Con and IGN are teaming up to bring pop culture and entertainments biggest annual event straight to your screen with a new online virtual event: Comic-Con@Home. For the first time ever, every panel that is normally at SDCC, will be broadcasted live and IGNs hosts will be there to present new trailers, do exclusive interviews, highlight awesome cosplay, and so much more. If youd like to join us for this momentous event and watch some of the biggest panels during the show -- including official Comic-Con@Home panels for The New Mutants, The Boys, The Walking Dead, Bill & Ted Face the Music and more -- heres everything you need to know to tune in.

Asterisks denote official Comic-Con@Home panels. All listed times are in the Pacific timezone.

A look ahead at the biggest panels from Comic-Con@Home with hosts Akeem Lawanson and Sydnee Goodman, and IGN special guests, plus an interview with Rob Liefeld where he calls out Kevin Feige for not using Deadpool before talking about his new Hasbro IDW comic series, Snake Eyes Deadgame.

4:00-4:50pm:GeekEd: Watchmen and the Cruelty of Masks*

HBO's Watchmen put forth the idea that "masks make one cruel". On college campuses, many people, both students and non-students have taken up virtual masks to make statements and take actions that would not be acceptable if done in public. Zoom bombing, doxing, and anonymous threats have caused much dismay, particularly as campuses move to remote learning due to COVID-19. Come hear what educators have to say about the power of masks and how Watchmen and other comics show us a path towards heroism or villainy. Dr. Kalenda Eaton (University of Oklahoma), Dr. David Surratt (University of Oklahoma), Hailey Lopez (UC Berkeley), Robert Hypes (Phoenix Creative Collective), and Alfred Day (UC Berkeley).

4:50-5:00pm:Comic-Con@Home on IGN: Preview Night Post-Show

Join IGN hosts Sydnee Goodman, Akeem Lawanson and Terri Schwartz for a look-ahead at Comic-Con@Home, and share what you are most excited to see using the hashtag #IGNComicCon.

5:00-6:00pm:Up at Noon - Comic-Con@Home Edition

IGN's Max Scoville and Brian Altano host a special Comic-Con@Home edition of our weekly variety show Up at Noon, featuring an exclusive Yakuza: Like a Dragon interview and reveal, as well as collectibles reveals and unboxings.

Star Trek broke barriers when it first premiered more than 50 years ago, inspiring people of all walks of life by championing cultural diversity, scientific advancement, and the exploration of new frontiers. Today, this legacy carries on through the Star Trek series on CBS All Access, where Starfleet and new characters alike take on exciting missions and explore uncharted areas of the universe while keeping true to the ideals of Star Trek that society needs now more than ever. Join us as we virtually bring together the casts and producers from Star Trek: Discovery, new animated series Star Trek: Lower Decks and Star Trek: Picard.

11:25am-12:00pm:IGN Live: Close Enough Interview

IGN interview with JG Quintel about HBO Max series Close Enough.

12:00-12:52pm: Mattel & WWE Elite Squad Fan Panel*

The superstars of WWE and the Mattel action figure design team reveal the most exciting, authentic, upcoming WWE figure releases. Moderated by "The Last Professional Broadcaster" Sam Roberts, the panel features Mattel Elite Squad members Bill Miekina and Steve Ozer, and WWE Superstars Edge, Johnny Gargano, Candice LeRae, Rhea Ripley, and Ricochet!

12:52-1:00pm:IGN Live: Nick Frost Truth Seekers Interview

IGN interview with Nick Frost, star, co-writer and co-creator of Amazon Prime Video's Truth Seekers.

1:00-1:53pm:Amazon Prime Video: Utopia*

A twisted, eight-episode thriller about a group of young comic fans who discover the conspiracy in a graphic novel is real, and embark on a high-stakes adventure to save humanity from the end of the world. Join writer and executive producer Gillian Flynn (Gone Girl) and series stars John Cusack (High Fidelity), Rainn Wilson (The Office), Sasha Lane (American Honey), Ashleigh LaThrop (Fifty Shades Freed), Dan Byrd (Cougar Town), Desmin Borges (You're The Worst), Javon "Wanna" Walton (Euphoria), and Jessica Rothe (Happy Death Day) for a Q&A moderated by Entertainment Weekly's Christian Holub.

1:53-2:00pm:IGN Live

2:00-2:45pm:The New Mutants*

Join Writer/Director Josh Boone and the cast of Twentieth Century Studios and Marvel Entertainments The New Mutants, including: Maisie Williams, Anya Taylor-Joy, Charlie Heaton, Alice Braga, Blu Hunt and Henry Zaga for a discussion about the upcoming original horror thriller moderated by Ira Madison III.

2:45-3:00pm:IGN Live

3:00-4:00pm:The Boys Season 2*

Join executive producer Eric Kripke, along with series stars Karl Urban, Jack Quaid, Antony Starr, Erin Moriarty, Jessie T. Usher, Laz Alonso, Chace Crawford, Tomer Capon, Karen Fukuhara, and Aya Cash, with moderator Aisha Tyler, for a behind-the-scenes look at the upcoming second season of The Boys. Executive producers Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg will also make a special appearance. Based on The New York Times best-selling comic by Garth Ennis and Darick Robertson, The Boys is a fun and irreverent take on what happens when superheroes - who are as popular as celebrities - abuse their superpowers rather than use them for good. The even more intense, more insane season two finds The Boys on the run from the law, hunted by the Supes, and desperately trying to regroup and fight back against Vought.

4:00-4:43pm:Bugs Bunny's 80th Anniversary Extravaganza*

Take a trip through eight decades of laughs and carrots when Warner Bros. Home Entertainment (WBHE) presents an all-encompassing look at one of the world's most beloved and recognizable stars. Join three of the current voices of Bugs Bunny--Billy West (Space Jam, Futurama, Doug), Jeff Bergman (Tiny Toon Adventures, Our Cartoon President), and Eric Bauza (Looney Tunes Cartoons, Muppet Babies)--alongside Looney Tunes Cartoons executive producer Pete Browngardt (Uncle Grandpa), movie historian, author and TV personality Leonard Maltin (Entertainment Tonight), animation historian and author Jerry Beck (Animation Scoop), and Warner Archive senior vice president George Feltenstein as they cover the gamut of Bugs' history from theatrical shorts to Saturday morning cartoons and the new HBO-MAX series. Actress Yvette Nicole Brown (Community, Avengers: Endgame, DC Super Hero Girls) will moderate the panel.

4:43-5:00pm:IGN Live: The Boys and Upload Interviews

IGN interview with The Boys showrunner Eric Kripke, and interview with creator and stars of Amazon Prime Video's Upload: Greg Daniels, Robbie Amell and Andy Allo.

5:00-5:44pm:Image Comics Spotlight*

Get the exclusive scoop on an exciting new project by a best-selling powerhouse creative team returning to Image for an all-new series.

5:44-6:00pm:IGN Live: Image Comics New Series Interview

IGN interview with Donny Cates and Geoff Shaw about their new Image Comics series.

6:00-6:55pm:Mystery Science Theater 3000: A Panel Panorama*

Erik Adams (The A.V. Club) leads a discussion with MST3K creator Joel Hodgson and former cast members Bill Corbett (Crow T. Robot #2) and J. Elvis Weinstein (Tom Servo #1) as they engage in some good old-fashioned Q&A.

6:55-7:30pm:Comic-Con@Home on IGN: Thursday Post-Show and Cosplay Spotlight

10:00-10:33am:Charlize Theron: Evolution of a Badass*

Actress and producer Charlize Theron reflects on portraying over two decades of action heroes, from on Flux to The Old Guard's Andromache, Mad Max: Fury Road's Furiosa to Atomic Blonde's Lorraine Broughton. In a lengthy retrospective Q&A moderated by IGN's Terri Schwartz, Theron discusses the evolution of the modern female action hero, the roles that inspired her and what drives her to constantly push her limits with fight training.

10:33-11:00am:IGN Live: Project Power interview with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Directors Henry Joost and Rel Schulman

IGN interview with star Joseph Gordon-Levitt and directors Henry Joost and Rel Schulman and an exclusive first look at the new film Project Power.

11:00-11:38am:HBO Max and Cartoon Network Studios: Adventure Time: Distant Lands*

C'mon grab your friends for a special return to the Land of Ooo and beyond with Adventure Time: Distant Lands. Based on the animated series Adventure Time by show creator Pendleton Ward and executive producer Adam Muto, these four specials explore the unseen corners of the world with both familiar and exciting brand-new characters. Join moderator Michaela Dietz, Amethyst from Steven Universe, as she shares all of the ba-nay-nay details about the BMO special from Adam Muto (executive producer), Glory Curda (Y5), Olivia Olson (Marceline), and Niki Yang (BMO). Plus, stick around for a righteous sneak peek of the second special, Obsidian. It's gonna be so spice!

11:38am-12:00pm:IGN Live: Adventure Time: Distant Lands Interview

IGN interview with Adventure Time: Distant Lands executive producer Adam Muto and star Olivia Olson (Marceline).

12:00-12:47pm:Lucasfilm Publishing: Stories From A Galaxy Far, Far Away*

Some of the biggest and best Star Wars authors talk about some of their exciting new projects set in a galaxy far, far away. Featuring Timothy Zahn, Alex Segura, Justina Ireland, George Mann, Preeti Chhibber, Tom Angleberger, Rebecca Roanhorse, Greg Pak, and Alyssa Wong. Moderated by This Week In Star Wars host Kristin Baver and Lucasfilm Publishing senior editor Robert Simpson.

12:47-1:00pm:IGN Live: Star Wars: Darth Vader Greg Pak Interview

IGN interview with Greg Pak about Lucasfilm Publishing's Star Wars: Dark Vader comic series.

1:00-2:00pm:AMC's The Walking Dead*

The Walking Dead will make its 11th San Diego Comic-Con appearance with a panel spotlighting "A Certain Doom, " which will air as a standalone episode later this year. Moderated by Chris Hardwick (Talking Dead), the panel will feature TWDU chief content officer Scott M. Gimple, showrunner and executive producer Angela Kang, executive producer Greg Nicotero, who directed the episode, and cast members Norman Reedus, Melissa McBride, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Lauren Cohan, Josh McDermitt, Seth Gilliam, Ross Marquand, Khary Payton, and Paola Lazaro. In The Walking Dead episode 1016, "A Certain Doom, " Beta engages the final battle of the Whisperer War.

2:00-2:45pm:AMC's The Walking Dead: The World Beyond*

The Walking Dead: World Beyond makes its Comic-Con International debut as the third series in wildly successful The Walking Dead Universe. Moderated by Chris Hardwick, the series' panel will feature TWDU chief content officer Scott M. Gimple, showrunner and executive producer Matt Negrete and cast members Aliyah Royale, Alexa Mansour, Hal Cumpston, Nicholas Cantu, Nico Tortorella, Julia Ormond, and Joe Holt. The Walking Dead: World Beyond delves into a new mythology and story that follows the first generation raised in a surviving civilization of the post-apocalyptic world. Two sisters along with two friends leave a place of safety and comfort to brave dangers, known and unknown, living and undead on an important quest. Pursued by those who wish to protect them and those who wish to harm them, a tale of growing up and transformation unfurls across dangerous terrain, challenging everything they know about the world, themselves and each other. Some will become heroes. Some will become villains. But all of them will find the truths they seek.

2:45-3:00pm:IGN Live

3:00-3:41pm:First Look at Hulu's Helstrom*

Talk about some family drama! Join Helstrom showrunner Paul Zbyszewski and cast--Tom Austen, Sydney Lemmon, Elizabeth Marvel, Robert Wisdom, Ariana Guerra, June Carryl, and Alain Uy--for one hell of a sneak-peek look and conversation around bringing this terror-filled comic to life as Hulu's next horror series. Moderated by IGN's Laura Prudom.

3:41-4:00pm:IGN Live

4:00-4:40pm:Robert Kirkman At Home*

Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead, Invincible, Fire Power) shares his latest projects and answers your questions!

4:40-5:00pm:IGN Live

5:00-5:43pm:Archer @Home*

Who says staying home is boring? Archer, FXX's award-winning animated comedy, returns for its 11th season later this year and follows Sterling Archer and his return to the spy world after a three-year coma. But first, join the voice cast of Aisha Tyler, Chris Parnell, Judy Greer, Amber Nash, and Lucky Yates, plus executive producer Casey Willis for a lively discussion and the reveal of not-to-be-missed details about the new season!

5:43-6:00pm:IGN Live: Archer Cast Interview

IGN interview with Archer (FXX) stars Aisha Tyler, Chris Parnell and Judy Greer.

6:00-6:45pm:Syfy: TZGZ's Adult Animated Originals*

Prepare to depart on a journey of animated bliss and get the first look at four new originals coming to TZGZ, SYFYs late-night adult animation block! Take a magical trip with the fantastically flustered High Wizard as he transports us into the zany worlds of each new show. Moderated by Baron Vaughn (SYFY WIREs The Great Debate), join the creators and celebrity voices of Wild Life, Hell Den, Magical Girl Friendship Squad, and Devil May Care for an exclusive sneak peek at the future of late-night animation on SYFY.

6:45-7:00pm:Comic-Con@Home on IGN: Friday Post-Show and Cosplay Spotlight

10:00-10:41am:Cosmos: Possible Worlds*

Making its network debut this fall on FOX, the latest installation in the Cosmos franchise, Cosmos: Possible Worlds, takes audiences on a series of spiritual voyages of exploration revealing previously uncharted realms, including lost worlds and worlds to come, and those that we may one day inhabit in a thrilling future we can still have. Join creator, executive producer, director and writer Ann Druyan; host and acclaimed astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson; executive producer, director and writer Brannon Braga; executive producer Jason Clark; and visual effects supervisor Jeffrey A. Okun for a conversation about what is in store for the next chapter of Cosmos and a behind-the-scenes look into the making of the series. Featuring an introduction by executive producer Seth MacFarlane and exclusive never-before-seen footage, this panel discussion illustrates why Cosmos has remained relevant for the last 40 years.

10:41-11:00am:IGN Live

11:00-11:50am:DC@Home Day Two*

Be sure to drop in on this panel to hear from DC's hottest talent about their latest works and how they're making DC and The World's Greatest Super Heroes the home for fans of great superhero storytelling worldwide! The creative talent behind some of DC's most popular characters are on hand to give behind the scenes details on their stories and how they put their own unique voices to the heroes and villains that DC fans have come to know and love (and hate)! DC talent to appear: Greg Capullo, Cecil Castellucci, Katana Collins, Kami Garcia, Jorge Jimenez, Daniel Warren Johnson, Dan Jurgens, Jim Lee, Sean Gordon Murphy, Bruno Redondo, Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, and Brad Walker.

11:50am-12:00pm:IGN Live

12:00-12:46pm:Constantine: 15th Anniversary Reunion*

Keanu Reeves, director Francis Lawrence, and producer Akiva Goldsman reunite to reflect on the making of the 2005 DC Comics adaptation. Moderated by Collider's editor-in-chief Steven Weintraub.

12:46-1:00pm:IGN Live: The Right Stuff Interview

IGN interview with Colin O'Donoghue and Jake McDorman, stars of the National Geographic series The Right Stuff on Disney +"

1:00-1:56pm:Blast Off With Disney+s The Right Stuff*

From Leonardo DiCaprio's Appian Way and Warner Horizon Scripted Television, Thie Right Stuff is the first scripted Disney+ original series from National Geographic. The series takes a clear-eyed look at the early days of the US space program. The series follows seven of the military's best pilots become astronauts for the newly-formed NASA at the height of the Cold War. Competing to be the first in space, these ordinary men achieve the extraordinary, inspiring America to turn towards a new horizon of ambition and hope. In this 45-minute panel moderated by former NASA Astronaut Dr. Mae Jemison, you will hear from the cast and crew about making this compelling and cinematically extraordinary series, PLUS an exclusive first look will be revealed!

1:56-2:00pm:IGN Live

2:00-2:39pm:Family Guy*

Cast members Seth MacFarlane, Alex Borstein, Mila Kunis, Seth Green, and executive producers Rich Appel, Alec Sulkin, and Kara Vallow from FOX's hit animated comedy Family Guy celebrates 350 episodes with a virtual table read! After, they'll take a look back at some of their favorite moments from the last 18 seasons, plus a special sneak peek at the hilarity and hi-jinx coming up in their 19th season premiering this fall on FOX!

2:39-3:00pm:IGN Live: BOOM!Studios Power Rangers Comic Interview

IGN interview with Ryan Parrott about the new BOOM! Studios Power Rangers comic series following the BOOM! Studios Power Rangers panel.

3:00-3:43pm:Bill & Ted Face the Music*

Cast Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, Samara Weaving, Brigette Lundy-Paine, William Sadler, director Dean Parisot alongside writers Ed Solomon and Chris Matheson gather for a lively panel moderated by filmmaker and fan Kevin Smith.

3:43-4:00pm:IGN Live: The Simpsons' Al Jean and Matt Selman Interview

IGN interview with The Simpsons executive producers Al Jean and Matt Selman.

4:00-4:45pm:TBA

4:45-5:00pm:IGN Live

5:00-5:33pm:What We Do in the Shadows*

Named "TV's best comedy" by the Hollywood Reporter, What We Do in the Shadows is a documentary-style look into the lives of four vampires and their loyal familiar who, in a surprising twist, is a descendant of famed vampire slayer Van Helsing. Join us in raising a glass of regular human alcohol beer to the sharp-toothed cast--Matt Berry, Natasia Demetriou, Kayvan Novak, Mark Proksch, and Harvey Guilln--and the creative team for a spirited discussion hosted by special guest, Haley Joel Osment.

5:33-6:00pm:IGN Live: What We Do in the Shadows and Wynonna Earp Interviews, and G-Loc First Look

IGN interview with the cast and executive producers of FXX's What We Do in the Shadows: Matt Berry, Natasia Demetriou, Kayvan Novak, Mark Proksch, Harvey Guilln, Paul Simms and Stefani Robinson, an interview with Wynonna Earp stars Tim Rozon and Kat Barrell, and exclusive new look at Lionsgate's sci-fi film G-LOC and interview with stars Stephen Moyer and Casper Van Dien.

6:00-6:45pm:Scary Good TV: A Conversation with Horror's Top Showrunners*

Nick Antosca (Channel Zero), Meredith Averill (Locke & Key), Don Mancini (Chucky), Greg Nicotero (Creepshow), and Jami OBrien (NOS4A2) offer their unique insights on why horror TV is having a moment and what it takes to create the kind of terrifying shows that keep viewers coming back episode after episode. Moderated by screenwriter/educator Tananarive Due (executive producer, Horror Noire: A History of Black Horror). Panel presented by Shudder.

6:45-7:00pm:Comic-Con@Home on IGN: Saturday Post-Show and Cosplay Spotlight

10:00-10:40am:Hoops*

The star-studded voice cast of Hoops, a new adult animated series for Netflix launching this summer from 20th Century Fox Television (The Simpsons, Family Guy, Bob's Burgers), gathered for an irreverent-in-the-best-way conversation about coming together to make this show that follows a foul-mouthed high school basketball coach who is sure he'll hit the big leagues if he can only turn his terrible team around. Voice stars Jake Johnson, Rob Riggle, Ron Funches, Natasha Leggero, Cleo King, and A.D. Miles join creator and executive producer Ben Hoffman and moderator/ guest voice star Max Greenfield (Johnson's former New Girl co-star) for a truly wild and hilarious Q&A. Fans will be treated to an exclusive first look at footage from the premiere episode. Hoops comes from writer-comedian Ben Hoffman (The Late Late Show with James Corden, Archer), Phil Lord and Chris Miller (The Lego Movie), with animation produced by Bento Box (Bob's Burgers).

10:40-11:00am:IGN Live: Hoops Jake Johnson and Ben Hoffman Interview

IGN interview with Jake Johnson and Ben Hoffman, the star and creator of the Netflix animated comedy Hoops from 20th Century Fox Television.

11:00-11:49am:No Tow Trucks Beyond Mars*

Go here to see the original:

How to Watch Comic-Con@Home on IGN Live and the Full Panel Schedule - IGN Southeast Asia

Fowler: A room at the bottom – Amarillo.com

John Boltons new book, "The Room Where it Happened," is a betrayal of the trust Donald Trump placed in him as an adviser and confident. The book in hardback copy sells for $32.50. Judas betrayed Christ for 30 pieces of silver and then hanged himself. I doubt that Bolton plans to hang himself, but he has already hanged himself figuratively, since neither Democrats nor Republicans seem to put much credence in the books veracity.

Without a doubt, the Democrats (Socialists) would have dearly loved to have had the book when they impeached the president. Indeed, it would have been an ideal complement to the fictions they created in their attempt to overthrow the president; however, it is doubtful that the testimony they may have received from Bolton would have been of much value. I suspect that he would have invoked the Fifth Amendment numerous times if he had been subpoenaed because to swear under oath that his testimony was true would have caused him to perjure himself, and he is too smart for that.

Instead, Bolton laid the groundwork for the future "landslide sales" of his tell-all accusations. If such were his intent, Im afraid that he misjudged this potential customers interest. I would much rather spend $32.50 for a more interesting book, such as a good biography or a good novel. However, to be candid, I havent read the book. My knowledge of its content is only that of TV interviews and various excerpts read by analysts. That is enough!

In many ways, Bolton is a tragic figure. His desperate attempt to justify his actions by insinuating that the country would be in much better shape if the president had followed his advice (mainly to go to war with our enemies) reveals a man who sees himself as a guru of extreme national importance, one who should be president instead of the present candidates. To emphasize his importance to the country, he will vote for neither Biden nor Trump and will instead write in a candidate having his conservative values (a never Trumper). We will never know, but I would wager that he will write his own name on the ballot.

One wonders why a man who once enjoyed the highest esteem among the conservative powers in Washington D.C., has chosen to cast that reputation aside. Some pundits surmise that Bolton was so disgruntled with Trumps failure to give him the political position which he coveted as well as Trumps failure to recognize his brilliance, in fact, even ignoring his advice, that he grumpily determined to make sure Trump would be discredited as a credible second-term president. Never mind the fact that Trump, although crudely at times, has already proved himself to be quite capable of running a country, a stark contrast to the previous administration which was more interested in transforming America than in governing it, an administration in which the present Democrat presidential candidate was an integral part.

Disgruntled people seldom approach their decisions with logic. (Note the present-day Democratic Socialists who believe that socialism is superior to capitalism as a national political philosophy notwithstanding all evidence to the contrary.) Accordingly, Bolton has emerged, not as a memorable figure who brought down a president, but as a comic figure who brought himself down instead. This book, then, has the elements of a true drama, containing both tragedy and comedy centered on its author.

I suppose in the grand scheme of things the book is appropriate for its time. If the book had been released during the grand inquisition of Trumps impeachment, and a Bolton subpoena to appear before the inquisition had been issued, the unverifiable events, verified only by statements, such as "In my opinion" and "It seemed to me" would have left more egg on the faces of Adam Schiff, Jerry Nadler, and Nancy Pelosi, all of whom had enough egg on their faces anyway from their impeachment debacle.

On the other hand, more egg on their faces would have been im-peachy. Sorry! That coined description is a whimsical joke, a bad joke at that, but appropriate, I think, in light of the new face of the Democrat Party whose only agenda is to destroy todays America and create a new one. As the leader of the Black Lives Matter movement in New York City told us, and I paraphrase: We are peaceful protesters, but if we dont get our way, we will burn down America. Now, that statement is a genuine political philosophy, a statement of anarchy, a devastating statement it is true; but, at least, it has more substance than did "The Room Where It Happened."

It is too bad that Bolton didnt close the door to the room when he left.

Carl Fowler is a retired professor of English at Amarillo College and lives in Amarillo

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Frantz sentenced to life in prison – Leavenworth Times

A woman has been sentenced to life in prison for the 2017 murder of her estranged husband in Leavenworth.

Barbara M. Frantz will have to serve 25 years in prison before she is eligible for parole.

Frantz, 54, Kansas City, Kansas, was sentenced Tuesday in Leavenworth County District Court for first-degree murder.

She was charged after her estranged husband, Gary, was shot Jan. 27, 2017, in a parking lot in downtown Leavenworth.

She was convicted of the murder charge in 2018.

Before District Judge Michael Gibbens sentenced Frantz, he took up a motion filed by her attorney that requested a continuance.

Defense attorney Greg Robinson said he was at a disadvantage because he was appointed to represent Frantz only about 3.5 weeks ago.

"This case has been going on for a number of years," he said.

He said there are issues in the case that need to be looked at including evidence indicating a sibling of Frantz may have confessed to the murder.

Assistant County Attorney Shawn Boyd noted this evidence had been available to attorneys who previously represented Frantz.

"At no point in time did they bring it up to the court," Boyd said.

He said the evidence concerns emails from a sibling of the defendant who indicated he committed the crime but later recanted, saying he was trying to cover for Frantz.

Robinson said he did not know why the evidence had not been brought to the courts attention much earlier.

The person who reportedly wrote the emails was in the courtroom Tuesday and Robinson called him to testify.

However, the witness said he was exercising his Fifth Amendment right against self incrimination and did not testify.

Gibbens said he was denying the motion for a continuance. But he said the ruling does not preclude other procedural remedies from being available to Frantz.

Donna Meyer, sister of the victim, spoke during the sentencing hearing.

Meyer said Frantz took Gary away from his family.

"She took away a son, a father, a brother," Meyer said.

Meyer said Gary was known to his family by the name of Pat.

Boyd acknowledged the case against Frantz was not perfect. But he said the evidence against Frantz was "very, very solid."

He said the evidence included statements Gary made to a police officer and other witnesses that identified Frantz as the person who shot him.

"At no point in time, has she taken any responsibility for her actions," he said.

Boyd noted that during her trial, Frantz blamed the murder on her son.

"She deserves to spend the rest of her life in prison," Boyd said.

Robinson asked the judge to consider giving his client a lighter sentence. Robinson asked Gibbens to consider Frantzs lack of prior criminal history.

The defense attorney also asked Gibbens to consider Frantzs age and medical conditions that she previously has brought to the judges attention.

When given the opportunity to speak, Frantz argued there is a large amount of evidence pointing to a man as the shooter.

Frantz said she believes her husband had been asking for his wife instead of saying she had shot him. She argued that her husband had identified his son as the shooter.

"I am not guilty your honor," she said.

Frantz also accused the Leavenworth Police Department and the County Attorneys Office of misconduct in the case. She alleged they hid and changed evidence.

She also accused her previous attorneys of doing a bad job.

"I should not have to pay for my past attorneys failures," she said.

When imposing a life sentence, Gibbens said he took into consideration Frantzs health issues. But he also took into consideration the fact that a jury found Frantz guilty and that jurors determined the crime was premeditated.

Twitter: @LVTNewsJohnR

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Lyons: Stone proud to be in Trumps political mob – Muskogee Daily Phoenix

Even amid the endless torrent of malevolent incompetence that characterizes the Boss Trump regime, some days stand out. One such was his Friday night commutation of career lowlife Roger Stones 40-month sentence for lying to Congress, obstructing a congressional investigation and witness tampering. The federal judge who handed it down described Stones crimes as covering up for the president.

Specifically, he obstructed the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. In the immediate aftermath, Stone bragged to veteran journalist Howard Fineman about why he lied and who he was protecting. He (Trump) knows I was under enormous pressure to turn on him. It would have eased my situation considerably. But I didnt.

Turn on him, that is, by fully describing his own and Trumps conversations about WikiLeaks during the 2016 campaign, when Julian Assange served as a cats paw for Russian intelligence by publishing the Democratic National Committees stolen emails. Trump testified that he has no memory of talking with Stone about it, although two witnesses overheard them. He also swore that his son Donald Jr. never told him about meeting Kremlin operatives promising dirt on Hillary Clinton in Trump Tower.

If you believe that ...

Well, lets move on.

During Attorney General William Barrs Senate confirmation hearing, he was asked, Do you believe a president could lawfully issue a pardon in exchange for the recipients promise to not incriminate him?

No, Barr answered, that would be a crime.

A straight-up mob-style transaction, as the inimitable Charles Pierce describes it, one worthy of the fictional Tony Soprano or the all-too-real John Gotti. Disorganized crime, you might call it; a cynical attack upon the rule of law. Even so, its a good bet that the attorney general has changed his opinion, and would likely quibble that a commuted sentence is not a pardon.

No, but in the Stone case, its actually worse. To accept a pardon, see, a convicted felon must admit guilt. By so doing, he surrenders his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, and can be called in front of, say, a congressional committee, and required to talk under penalty of perjury.

Cant have that, can we? So no prison time for Roger, although there are reasons to suspect he might have enjoyed certain aspects of incarceration. Back in 1996, the veteran political scam artist he has a tattoo of Richard Nixons face on his back claimed that Bill Clinton had made improper advances toward his wife. The National Enquirer turned up evidence that Stone himself had been advertising her charms in a magazine called Local Swing Fever:

Hot, insatiable lady and her handsome body builder husband ... seek similar couples or exceptional muscular well-hung single men. Shes 40DD-24-36; hes 195, trim, blond, muscular ... Prefer military, bodybuilders, jocks.

Thats Roger Stone, voluptuary and fop. He later admitted everything to The New Yorkers Jeffrey Toobin. Im not guilty of hypocrisy, Stone said. Im a libertarian and a libertine.

Some years later, he founded an anti-Hillary organization called Citizens United Not Timid.

In short, he and Trump speak the same language. So its only natural that they would end up allies even though Trump described Stone to Toobin as a stone-cold loser ... He always tries taking credit for things he never did.

But Stone did plenty during the 2016 campaign. A seeker of notoriety rivaling Trump himself, he communicated directly with Guccifer 2, the Russian intelligence operatives that hacked the DNC, even as he predicted WikiLeaks document dumps to any Republican who would listen.

Angered by the Trump commutation, special counsel Robert S. Mueller wrote a Washington Post column objecting that regardless of attempts to portray him as a victim, Stone was prosecuted and convicted because he committed federal crimes. He remains a convicted felon, and rightly so ...

A jury determined he lied repeatedly to members of Congress. He lied about the identity of his intermediary to WikiLeaks. He lied about the existence of written communications with his intermediary. He lied by denying he had communicated with the Trump campaign about the timing of WikiLeaks releases. He in fact updated senior campaign officials repeatedly about WikiLeaks.

For that matter, Stone was also convicted for threatening to kill a witness named Randy Credico and his beloved dog in a text message. Also like his patron in the White House, the man is infinitely cunning, but not real smart.

As for being a felon, far from being ashamed, Stone couldnt be prouder. To him, its a badge of honor. Hes a made man in Boss Trumps political mob.

It has been reported that what Sen. Mitt Romney called an act of unprecedented, historic corruption was vigorously opposed by William Barr. If so, the attorney general has resources. The Justice Department can empanel a grand jury, grant immunity to Roger Stone for previous acts and compel his testimony.

I am not holding my breath.

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Rich Rifkin: We have created a new climate of fear – Davis Enterprise

Joseph Welch, the chief attorney for the U.S. Army in the infamous Army-McCarthy hearings, will forever be remembered for interrupting Senator Joe McCarthy, who was fulminating against a young lawyer who had worked with Mr. Welch:

Senator, youve done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

That was 1954. On the 20th anniversary, when I was 10, news programs were reliving that history.

I recall asking my mom what McCarthyism was.

She said Sen. McCarthy scurrilously claimed the government and other American institutions had been infiltrated by disloyal communists. She told me that the investigations ruined the reputations of many innocent Americans whose only crime was to have an unpopular political point of view.

At its heart, my mother said, McCarthyism was about creating a climate of fear and denying freedom of speech, freedom of consciousness, freedom of association and freedom of thought.

Sadly, there is a long history in the U.S. of bringing harm to people who hold unpopular views or who have associated with people that the mob wants to silence. In todays climate, we need to keep that history in mind.

In some cases, the excuse for this vigilantism is to protect the brand of the employer of the person with the sinister political views. In others, it is to shut up a persons conscience and discourage anyone else from defending opinions the mob feels are unacceptable.

A handful of stories of this kind of censorship are well known. Films have been made, for example, about the repression of the Hollywood Ten, who were blacklisted following a 1947 hearing of the House Un-American Activities Committee.

Likewise, the case of Irving Adler a New York math teacher who was fired for invoking his Fifth Amendment rights and later admitted to being a communist is well remembered.

There are many other tragedies that are long forgotten.

One was the story of Tanner Parga, a longtime baseball announcer. He was originally hired by the Sacramento Senators in 1928, calling their games on radio through the 1935 season, when they were affiliated with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

In 1936, the franchise changed names, becoming the Sacramento Solons, a St. Louis Cardinals affiliate. Mr. Parga remained the teams radio announcer until he was terminated in the middle of the 1947 season.

The team never explained the firing of Tanner Parga, who was also removed from his other job as a radio commentator.

Prior to his dismissals, Parga was not without controversy. Hed had conflicts with a few past players in Sacramento. Some wanted him fired for that. During the second red scare in 1947, Parga said on the radio, Just because someone was a socialist or disliked capitalism didnt mean he couldnt be a good American.

A few days later, the ex-ballplayers who had conflicts with Parga, publicly called for his head. By the end of that week, Tanner Parga had been fired by the Solons and by KFBK-FM. He never worked again.

Another interesting, but largely forgotten case of punishing individuals for holding politically incorrect views came in 1957, the year Sen. McCarthy died of alcoholism.

Don Kingelor, a professor of accounting at the University of Mississippi, came under attack because it was believed he did not sufficiently mourn the death of a white highway patrolman, Johnnie Rank, who was allegedly killed by a Black petty criminal.

Kingelor had also been attacked for writing, People should not be evaluated based on the color of their skin.

When Professor Kingelor refused to cancel a final exam the day segregationist Ole Miss students were grieving the loss of Officer Rank, they signed a petition calling for Kingelors firing. Those who missed the test stated they deserved no harm from their accounting teacher.

Prof. Kingelor replied, Can you guide me on how you think I should achieve a no-harm outcome since our sole course grade is from a final exam only? Thanks, D. Kingelor.

In 1951, shortly after the Battle of Bloody Ridge in which the United States suffered 3,000 casualties fighting North Korean and Chinese soldiers the Philadelphia Inquirer fired its senior editor, Winston Shicksaw, who had been with the paper for over 20 years and was highly esteemed for his work, for having written a headline that pro-military activists and some Inquirer reporters deemed insensitive.

The headline regarded a proposed real estate development called Broadway Ridge. Mr. Shicksaw titled the story about conflict between those for and against the project, The Battle of Broadway Ridge.

Two days later, Shicksaw lost his job. That same week, a New York Times editor was fired for having run an editorial written by a U.S. Senator that pro-military activists deemed dangerous.

Of course, in hindsight, its easy to see how very wrong these episodes were, especially when mob action harmed people for whom you may feel sympathy or you think were unjustly treated.

Sadly, we still live in those times. Yes, the story ofTanner Parga is fiction, a representation of sports announcer Grant Napear, whowas fired for expressing his belief that all lives matter. Don Kingelor is made up. However, it is not fiction to report that UCLA student activists are calling for the head of Prof. Gordon Klein for not cancelling his final exam as they mourned the death of George Floyd.

Newspaper editor Stan Wischnowski (anagram for the fictive Winston Shicksaw) of the Inquirer was fired for a headline, Buildings matter, too; and James Bennet of the Times was forced to resign for running a column written by Sen. Tom Cotton.

The list of those who todays mob wants to deny freedom of speech, freedom of consciousness, freedom of association and freedom of thought continues to grow.

Have we left no sense of decency?

Rich Rifkin is a Davis resident; his column is published every other week. Reach him at [emailprotected]

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On the 6th anniversary of his death, Dan Markels friends plead for an investigation into his ex-wifes family – Forward

Six years ago, on July 18, a gunman approached Dan Markel and shot him twice in the head. A Florida State University law professor and attorney, Markel had just pulled into his own garage. He died the following day at the age of 41.

Three people were charged in his murder; two found guilty. The third is due to be retried sometime next spring, or even later, depending on the state of the pandemic.

But Markels friends and family say justice has still not been served, because Floridas state attorney has not adequately pursued the Adelson familys role in the murder. Markel had recently been through an acrimonious divorce and custody battle with his wife, Wendi Adelson. At the murder trial, the lead prosecutor made closing statements that appeared to lay blame at the feet of Markels in-laws.

Now, Markels friends are concerned that momentum on Markels case is slowing that delays in the legal system due to the coronavirus pandemic might mean prosecutors wont take the next step, and investigate the question of who paid for the killing.

For this reason, they have formed a group called Justice for Dan and launched a petition signed by more than 900 people so far to try to push the state attorney to prosecute Wendi Adelsons older brother and mother, Charles Adelson and Donna Adelson.

As time passes, we worry that people will forget that there were leaders in this plot, and that the people who are most responsible for this murder, specifically the Adelson family, wont be held accountable. There will be people who will say, Weve gotten some justice and we have to move on, said Jason Solomon, a friend of Markels who is spearheading the effort.

The murder of Markel, of a Harvard-educated legal scholar, sent shock waves through the Florida capital, and also reverberated in South Florida, where Wendi Adelson, also a lawyer, grew up in a well-established Jewish family: Her father and brother, Harvey Adelson and Charles Adelson, are in a dental practice together in the Fort Laurderdale suburb of Tamarac. Days after Markels killing, Wendi Adelson, now 41, moved their young sons to South Florida.

About two years after Markels murder, as the investigation developed, Wendi Adelson made it impossible for Markels parents, Ruth and Phil Markel, to see their grandsons.

The man who police say shot Markel, Sigfredo Garcia, was found guilty of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in a trial last October. Luis Rivera, a former Miami gang leader who drove Garcia to Tallahassee to murder Markel, took a plea deal and agreed to testify against the other two people involved, receiving a second-degree murder conviction to avoid the death penalty. Jurors were unable to reach a verdict on Katherine Magbanua, who has two children with Garcia the third person charged with Markels murder.

Solomon believes that the part of the reason the jury couldnt agree on a decision was their sense of being baffled about who was being tried for the crime and who wasnt.

The jurors were confused or unhappy that she was being prosecuted and the Adelsons were not. There was a sense that they should, said Solomon, adding that he based his conclusions on media interviews with jurors he saw afterwards.

Magbanua, two people testified at her trial, was widely known as Charles Adelsons girlfriend. But why did Garcia and Rivera rent a Prius in Miami and drive hundreds of miles north to Tallahassee to kill Markel? Part of the custody battle involved Wendi Adelsons desire to move back to South Florida a nearly seven hours drive away from Tallahassee with their two young boys. A court order barred her from doing that, so that the divorced couple could have joint custody.

What enemy or enemies had Mr. Markel made that set into motion such a brutal act? asked Georgia Cappelman, the lead prosecutor at the trial, in her closing statements. The answer? His own family. What offense had Mr. Markel committed against these people? Wanting to be a good father, refusing to let his children be taken away from him.

The process of getting to a murder trial is always complicated, and the coronavirus crisis has only slowed the wheels of justice further, with most trials suspended.

Magbanua is scheduled to face retrial in the spring of 2021 at the soonest, and the judge on the case, James C. Hankinson, retired at the end of June, expressing disappointment and frustration that he didnt see the end of this important case.

Its quite possible that they decided on going after the lower people on the totem pole on a criminal enterprise first, with the hope that they will flip and cooperate and testify against the people who are at the top of the criminal enterprise, said Solomon, who befriended Markel when they started their careers as law professors in Southern states Markel in Florida and Solomon in Georgia. Now in California, Solomon said that he and others in the campaign were concerned that an overloaded state attorneys office might just move on to other cases.

In an op-ed in the Tallahassee Democrat, published last month at the height of nationwide reckoning last month with systemic racism in America, Solomon wrote that this seems to be yet another case in which people of color are prosecuted, but people who are white, wealthy and in positions of power are not.

We thought that it would be important to enlist friends in Tallahassee and around the country and around the world to say, police have already presented evidence of who is responsible for Dans murder, Solomon added. The evidence against Charlie and Donna Adelson has already been presented at trial and its been overwhelming. I think its important for the Florida state attorney to say that we dont just let white wealthy people off the hook.

In media interviews during the trial last fall, lawyers for the Adelson family maintained their innocence.

On the Justice for Dan Facebook page, which has more than 4,000 followers, a posting shows a screenshot of Wendi Adelsons Facebook page in which she had encouraged people to sign a Change.org petition calling for the police officers who killed George Floyd to be brought to justice. Commenters on that post noted the irony of her calling for justice for Floyd but taking the Fifth a reference to the Fifth Amendment right not to not incriminate oneself multiple times during the trial, at which she testified after having been subpoenaed. After numerous comments calling on her family to face justice in the case, Wendi Adelson deleted the post.

In a separate effort on behalf of Markel, advocates are working to change Florida law in order to allow grandparents greater ability to access courts to petition for visitation rights. The effort received support from Florida lawmakers this spring, including unanimous passage through the Senate Committee on Children, Families, and Elder Affairs; advocates say they are working on revised bill language for the 2021 session.

On the anniversary of the murder, Ruth and Phil Markel, Dan Markels parents, released a statement thanking the police and prosecutors and hoping that they persist.

We understand that due process takes patience, they wrote. We pray that this next phase of the legal process moves quickly, and that all those responsible for Dans murder are held accountable. And we pray for the chance to see and know Dans two boys our beloved grandsons again.

Ilene Prusher, a journalist in South Florida, is a regular contributor to the Forward and the author of the 2014 novel Baghdad Fixer.

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On the 6th anniversary of his death, Dan Markels friends plead for an investigation into his ex-wifes family - Forward

Michael Jordan Has the Biggest Net Worth of Any Athlete Ever – MarieClaire.com

It's no secret: Michael Jordan is widely considered one of the greatest athletes who ever lived. During his iconic career, Jordan won six titles with the Chicago Bulls, and one of those winning seasons is the subject of ESPN documentary The Last Dance. A ten-part docuseries that hits Netflix on July 19, the documentary covers the Bulls' historic 1997-8 season. It's a show that lays bare why Jordan is a living legend, and fans wonderwhat is Jordan worth, exactly?

The all-star player currently lives with his wife Yvette Prieto and their twin daughters, Victoria and Ysabel, in West Palm Beach, Florida, and let's just say they're superand I mean supercomfortable. Forbes estimates that Jordan is worth $2.1 billion, making him the first-ever billion-dollar athlete. He's actually made more post-career than he ever did while playing in the NBA, believe it or not: He made $90 million during his basketball career$63 million of that came in those final two seasons with the Bulls, per Business Insiderbut he earned another $1.7 billion, before taxes, off the court from corporate partners.

Kelly KlineGetty Images

Known for his shoe deal with Nike, Jordan also has sponsorship deals with Hanes, Gatorade, and Upper Deck despite not being an active player. And I can't forget to mention that he sold a minority stake in the Charlotte Hornets in September of 2019 that valued the team at $1.5 billion. Which is insane. Especially because he bought a majority stake in the team back in 2010 for $175 million, according to Forbes.

So Jordan might not be dominating on the court anymore, but he's definitely got it handled watching from the sidelines.

watch 'the last dance' on netflix

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StockX has authenticated 1 million Jordan sneakers this year, CEO says – CNBC

StockX, the online sneaker reseller, has seen a surge in the number of Air Jordan shoes submitted and listed to the website, CEO Scott Cutler told CNBC's Jim Cramer Wednesday.

The company, which launched in 2015, has authenticated a total of 3.5 million pairs of the highly sought after shoe brand and 1 million of those have come in the last six months alone, Cutler said in a "Mad Money" interview.

"We certainly experienced what we call the Jordan effect," Cutler said,referring to the highly anticipated launch of a sports documentary centered on NBA legend Michael Jordan."We've been able to capture these cultural moments" and "we saw that instantly reflected in the prices of the products on the platform."

The spike in demand for the shoes was sparked by ESPN's airing of "The Last Dance," chronicling Jordan and the Chicago Bull's six championship run in the 1990s. The 10-part docuseries helped fill the glut of airtime left open by the stoppage of American professional sports in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

"What we saw with 'The Last Dance,' which by the way I thought was an amazing documentary, we actually saw the demand for Jordan products go through the roof on StockX and we saw that increase dramatically on a year-over-year basis," Cutler explained. "People, you know, whether it was nostalgia or excitement of what they saw, they went back to even the original OG Jordan and bought those on the platform."

StockX wasn't the only auction site to see sellers and consumers flood its platform for Jordan Brand gear, a brand that's owned by Nike. Sotheby's in May facilitated a record $560,000 sale of a pair of Air Jordan 1s that Jordan wore in a game and autographed.

Air Jordans are a very popular collector's item among shoe enthusiasts referred to as sneakerheads.

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StockX has authenticated 1 million Jordan sneakers this year, CEO says - CNBC

Nike Japan to Re-Release the Air Jordan 1 in "Metallic Silver" – HYPEBAE

As part of Jordan Brands Fall 2020 retro collection, Nike Japans Air Jordan 1 in Metallic Silver is set to release later this week.Having originally launched back in 2001 as part of the Japan Addition capsule, the pack came along with three other colorways Black, Midnight Navy and White/Midnight Navy which were limited to 3,000 pairs each, while the silver iteration received fewer units.

The highly anticipated sneakers upper features a monochromatic look constructed out of leather material throughout. The quarter panels, eyestays, mudguard and collar are made out of soft gray nubuck, while the tongue arrives in gray tumbled leather fabric. Rounding out the shoes design is the jeweled ball-and-wings logo on the lateral collar flap, and the 1 of 2020 text on the inside of the tongue.

The Air Jordan 1 CO.JP Metallic Silver retails for 26,400 (approximately $246 USD), which will drop via Nike SNKRS Japan on July 25. For more of the Swoosh brand, check out the upcoming sacai x Nike VaporWaffle in Tour Yellow.

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Hard-throwing reliever Jordan Weems to make A’s roster – San Francisco Chronicle

The As will have at least one semi-surprise on their Opening Night roster: a minor-league free agent whose pitching resume is slim.

Reliever Jordan Weems, drafted as a catcher by the Red Sox in 2011, was told Sunday that hell open the season in the big leagues, The Chronicle has learned. Weems did not even pitch in high school, but he impressed the As thoroughly in spring 1.0 and during Camp Coliseum this month, throwing as hard as 98 mph and showing good control.

Weems really pitched outstanding, As pitching coach Scott Emerson said recently. He has a riding fastball, that split-finger fastball and an occasional breaking ball. For a converted guy to be able to command the top part of the zone with a fastball and something soft at the bottom of the zone is pretty good for a guy who hasnt done much pitching.

Catcher Jonah Heim, asked last week who has jumped out to him during Camp Coliseum, said, Weems has come out and looked real sharp. Throwing pretty hard it seems like. ... Weems looks really good.

Weems had an opt-out in his deal Saturday and likely would have had multiple big-league offers elsewhere had Oakland not placed him on the roster. The As can carry 30 players the first 15 days of the season, so the team is likely to try to maximize its roster flexibility by retaining players who are out of options or who have opt-out clauses. In addition, one of the As catchers, either Heim or Austin Allen, is likely to be on the up-to-three-man taxi-squad to start the season; in order to have a taxi squad, a team must include a catcher among the three.

Susan Slusser covers the As for The San Francisco Chronicle. Email: sslusser@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @susanslusser

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Air Jordan 1 High Zoom Headlines The Jordan Brand Crater Collection – Sneaker News

While once an optimistic pipe dream, Nikes goal to Move to Zero is slowly become a reality day by day. With Space Hippie off to a good start, the brand has begun to infuse sustainability into every facet of their product line. Weve seen the Air Force 1 as well as the Blazer Mid adorned with recycled fabric, and as officially announced today, Jordan Brand will also be joining the conversation. Post-consumer Grind rubbers, recycled polyesters, synthetic paneling, and much more coalesce into a much larger, and important set piece.

One part heritage inspired and the other something entirely brand new, the capsule effectively adopts the circular design principles utilized prior and filters it through the Jordan idenity. The Air Jordan 1 Zoom, for example, takes a beloved classic and applies materials far out of the norm. As such, the overtly recycled Grind construction can be seen all throughout the tread speckling and all; this is then mirrored along both the midsole and upper canvas subtly as colors of pink, blue, red, and the like are woven into the very fibers of the white walls and black-dyed weaves. Alongside, theyve crafted a model effectively more modern with the bluntly named Jordan Crater, its parts composed of off-center lace units, bulky, trail-equipped soles, and a upper fabric reminiscent of the aforementioned. Moreover, slides are set to deliver for a more casual, at-home complement; their look, which borrows from a few current staples, uses a relatively simple template with all the same utility and mindfulness as any of the silhouettes adjacent.

Grab a detailed look at all three right here and expect to find them at Nike.com later this Fall.

Jordan Brand Crater CollectionRelease Date: Fall 2020

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GOAT of GOATs Final: Who is the Greatest Athlete Of All Time Wayne Gretzky or Michael Jordan? – Yahoo News

(Amber Matsumoto/Yahoo Sports)

Who is the GOAT of GOATs? The greatest of the greatests? An answer to the question: Who is the greatest athlete of all time?

Weve asked you to vote, and now were down to the final two: Wayne Gretzky vs. Michael Jordan.

When you vote, keep this in mind: Its impossible to compare players of different sports. What we can attempt to determine is this: Who dominated their competition the most? Thats ultimately the question were trying to answer here.

So lets get to it to determine who is The GOAT of GOATS.

The case for Wayne Gretzky

The Great One racked up 2,857 points in his 20-year career and would own the NHLs all-time scoring record even if you took away his career goals (894) and counted only his assists (1,963). A nine-time MVP, Gretzky was so brilliant he cast a shadow on three men who would otherwise have great NHL GOAT cases: Gordie Howe, Bobby Orr and Mario Lemieux.

Kevin Kaduk

The case for Michael Jordan

Michael Jordan was so good his claim to the NBAs GOAT throne is still gaining momentum almost a quarter-century after his retirement from theChicago Bulls. The Last Dance documentary reminded us how thoroughly he eviscerated the league. Jordan went 6-for-6 when a title was on the line, winning Finals MVP each time. He added five regular-season MVPs, three more scoring titles than anyone else in history and a Defensive Player of the Year award. No amount of honors or statistics can properly calculate how much fear Jordans blend of skill, athleticism and confidence struck into opponents hearts when the game mattered most.

Ben Rohrbach

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GOAT of GOATs Final: Who is the Greatest Athlete Of All Time Wayne Gretzky or Michael Jordan? - Yahoo News