Dumb Move

Politico has a piece about the Donald Trump liars and their now tell-all book sales.

Former chief of staff Mark Meadows has sold 21,569 books.

Covid advisor Deborah Birx, fewer than 6,000.

Quack doc Scott Atlas, 27,013.

Dr. Ben Carson, 21,786.

Now Trump rat Stephanie Grisham, 38,249.

Kellyanne Conway, 42,273.

Former defense secretary Mark Esper, 20,900.

Former AG Bill Barr, 64,103.

I am thinking none of these books will be made into a serious movie.

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Commentary mentioned going to jury duty a few weeks ago. Nobody in their right mind wants to be there.

Check out this Chron story on a real dumbarse move by the Harris County District Clerk:

Harris County District Clerk Marilyn Burgess wanted to convey the county’s gratitude for its citizens exercising their civic duty. Instead, her “Jury Appreciation Week” ended with a mistrial in a grisly murder case.

Burgess on Tuesday tweeted a minute-long video of ABC13’s Ted Oberg — one of the guest speakers at the four-day jury appreciation event — speaking to jurors about the importance of fulfilling their civic duty.

In the short segment, Oberg recalled the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic and Hurricane Harvey have had on the county’s criminal justice system; he urged the jurors not to think of the jury service as a tiresome bureaucratic chore, but to put themselves in the shoes of families in the courtrooms who’d waited for years for their day in court. a slowdown that has caused the court backlog to skyrocket.

“We’ve talked to dozens of families who are dependent on you to do your job,” Oberg said in the video. “Either families of the accused, or the families of victims, who need you to be here to make this process move faster … The tears we’ve shed with families are real, the service you are going to give them is real.”

Defense attorney Sean Buckley saw the clip Wednesday, as a lengthy trial of a man he was defending neared conclusion. His client, Itani Losangel Milleni, is accused of beating his estranged wife to death at her Chinatown beauty school in 2015.

Though Oberg’s speech mentioned families of both defendants and victims, Buckley characterized it as focusing on victims and described it as “one of the most egregious and corrupt instances of jury attempted tampering I’ve seen.”

He said that “the unambiguous tone of this event was to rile up jury pools so they would go into jury service with the directive to get justice for victims’ families, regardless of whether the defendant was guilty or innocent.”

Buckley took the concerns to the judge overseeing his trial, 339th District Court Judge Te’iva Bell, who declared a mistrial in Milleni’s murder trial.

The news quickly rocketed around the Harris County Criminal Courthouse.

Murray Newman, president-elect of the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Association, criticized Burgess’ event as “unnecessary” and “an attempt to ingratiate herself with jurors.”

Commentary knows Ted Oberg. He is a very good investigative reporter and a nice guy.  I don’t want to listen to Ted when I go to jury service.

I like Chron Opinion page editor Lisa Falkenberg. I like Miya Shay from Channel 13 news.  I don’t want to listen to Lisa and Miya when I go to jury service.

If the district clerk wants to grab the mic and thanks us for showing up, that is ok.

That was very dumb move having Oberg shoe up.

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We took two from the Mets. I don’t consider it a sweep. A sweep is winning all three or more games of a series. Not two.

The much anticipated four game series at Yankee Stadium starts this evening.