Merrick Garland calls Trump’s bluff

 https://www.politico.com/news/2022/08/11/merrick-garland-trump-bluff-00051297

Though Trump has had the option to release the search warrant since Monday, it took a DOJ gambit to force the issue. Though the department typically closely guards search warrants, particularly in cases that have not yet yielded indictments, top DOJ officials said that the “public characterizations” of the FBI search by Trump and his attorneys effectively waived the need for secrecy. DOJ cited Bobb’s comments to the press, describing the focus of the search as “presidential records or any possibly classified material.”

Merrick Garland Has Outsmarted Donald Trump At Every Turn’

Trump Takes The 5th, Raising The Prospect Of His Own Criminal Conduct

Fox News On Hillary But Make The Footage Trump | The Daily Show

Alex Jones and the Lie Economy

 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/08/10/alex-jones-and-the-lie-economy-00050731

To describe Jones as a Lie Economy worker is not to declare false everything he says and broadcasts. Not even his imagination veers to that polar extreme. But a review of his greatest hits attest to the low truth-value of many of his comments. He has broadcasted warnings about a government weapon being used against Americans. In addition to calling the Sandy Hook massacre a staged event that employed actors, he called Robert Mueller a demon and pedophile, said John McCain was the real leader of the Democratic Party, accused the government of the 9/11 attacks, spread the bogus “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory, and claimed the Pentagon has devised perfumes that make men gay to prevent them from procreating.

An Informer Told the FBI What Docs Trump Was Hiding, and Where

 https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-informer-told-fbi-what-docs-trump-was-hiding-where-1732283

Both senior government officials say the raid was scheduled with no political motive, the FBI solely intent on recovering highly classified documents that were illegally removed from the White House. Preparations to conduct such an operation began weeks ago, but in planning the date and time, the FBI Miami Field Office and Washington headquarters were focused on the former president's scheduled return to Florida from his residences in New York and New Jersey.

"They were seeking to avoid any media circus," says the second source, a senior intelligence official who was briefed on the investigation and the operation. "So even though everything made sense bureaucratically and the FBI feared that the documents might be destroyed, they also created the very firestorm they sought to avoid, in ignoring the fallout."

‘Trump Knows What The FBI Found’ In Search Of FL Home

Why Hasn’t Trump Released The Mar-a-Lago Search Warrant?

Team Trump says it’ll keep Mar-a-Lago search warrant under wraps

 https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/team-trump-says-ll-keep-mar-lago-search-warrant-wraps-rcna42418

Remember, Republicans have spent the last couple of days working from a certain assumption: Federal law enforcement, they’ve claimed, “raided” the home of a former president as part of an outrageous abuse of power. Team Trump could theoretically bolster those assumptions by releasing the search warrant that was executed, shedding light on the investigation and its direction.

If the basis for the warrant were flimsy, disclosing it would prove Republicans right. If the rationale for the search lacked merit, releasing the warrant would help on this front, too.

It was against this backdrop that observers from the left and the right encouraged Team Trump to simply make the voluntary disclosure, bringing key facts into the light.

All of which led to, “No, we’re not releasing a copy of the warrant.”

It’s the sort of thing that should, at least in theory, give Republicans scrambling to defend the former president pause.

The Justice Department is in a no win situation as Trump's fury rages

 https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/11/politics/justice-department-trump-fury-analysis/index.html

And Trump, after all, could publish the search warrant himself if he wanted. The fact that he has failed to do so and the increasingly unhinged tone of his attacks on the Justice Department are only deepening the impression he has something to hide. As is the fact that he, and not the FBI or Justice Department, broke news of the search in a transparent attempt to set a media narrative that he had been unfairly treated.

Sefer Shaarei Aryeh

 

Determinism and Free Will - nonsense

 https://www.cardozoacademy.org/thoughtstoponder/determinism-and-free-will-ttp-258/

Those who study these narratives very carefully will realize, however, that the midrash was not obliged to give this interpretation. It could have allowed for an explanation which would be much more in line with the idea of free will and would be easier on God. But it did not. It took the difficult road, to emphasize the paradox of free will versus determinism, and it dared to accuse God of a deliberate and false accusation against man.

B. F. Skinner - Behavior Control, Freedom, and Morality (1972)

Freewill vs Determinism

 https://www.simplypsychology.org/freewill-determinism.html

Hard determinism sees free will as an illusion and believes that every event and action has a cause.

Behaviorists are strong believers in hard determinism. Their most forthright and articulate spokesman has been B. F. Skinner. Concepts like “free will” and “motivation” are dismissed as illusions that disguise the real causes of human behavior.

In Skinner’s scheme of things the person who commits a crime has no real choice. (S)he is propelled in this direction by environmental circumstances and a personal history, which makes breaking the law natural and inevitable.