THE GOVERNMENT MOVES TO DISMISS

Update: Mr. Markus gave us a shoutout and now we return the favor. He has a fascinating post about a debate between inmates and college students about life in prison without parole that took place in a DC Courtroom. His post is here.  (Or you can always Google "law firm on top of a garage" to find him quickly). 

Words not frequently spoken in federal court are "the government moves to dismiss the charges". Our unofficial survey concludes that it is 9.8 million times more likely that the government files a superseding indictment than dismisses the case. *

However, on Monday Special Counsel Jack Smith moved the district court to dismiss the January 6 government interference charges against the president elect because of the Justice Department's long-standing policy against prosecuting a sitting president. 

The main reason for the president elect having run for office now being over- he can quit right? 

Perambulating through the suddenly and decidedly unfriendly confines of Washington DC this morning, having not gotten a White House invite to the pardoning of two turkeys from Minnesota (which is fine as there have been too many turkeys from Minnesota around the nation lately) we came upon this- which may brighten your day. 

The background is that this is one of the last speeches Frederick Douglass gave. He spoke at the Metropolitan African Episcopal Church in DC in 1894. He was depressed over the state of reconstruction and the violent rise of Jim Crow after Lincoln's death.

It may be of some use in this troubled and turbulent times. The speech was aptly entitled 

The Lessons Of the Hour. 

I have sometimes thought that the American people are too great to be small, too just and magnanimous to oppress the weak, too brave to yield up the right to the strong and too grateful for public services ever to forget them or fail to reward them. I have fondly hoped that this estimate of American character would soon cease to be contradicted or put in doubt. But the favor with which this cowardly proposition of disfranchisement has been received by public men, white and black, by Republicans as well as Democrats, has shaken my faith in the nobility of the nation. I hope and trust all will come out right in the end, but the immediate future looks dark and troubled. I cannot shut my eyes to the ugly facts before me. 

Strange things have happened of late and are still happening. Some of these tend to dim the luster of the American name and chill the hopes once entertained for the cause of American liberty. He is a wiser man than I am who can tell how low the moral sentiment of this republic may yet fall. When the moral sense of a nation begins to decline and the wheel of progress to roll backward, there is no telling how low the one will fall or where the other may stop. 

 Time and strength are not equal to the task before me. But could I be heard by this great nation, I would call to mind the sublime and glorious truths with which, at its birth, it saluted a listening world. Its voice then was as the trumpet of an archangel, summoning hoary forms of oppression and time-honored tyranny, to judgment. Crowned heads heard it and shrieked. Toiling millions heard it and clapped their hands for joy. It announced the advent of a nation, based upon human brotherhood and the self-evident truths of liberty and equality. Its mission was the redemption of the world from the bondage of ages.

Apply these sublime and glorious truths to the situation now before you. Put away your race prejudice. Banish the idea that one class must rule over another. Recognize the fact that the rights of the humblest citizen are as worthy of protection as are those of the highest, and your problem will be solved; and, whatever may be in store for it in the future, whether prosperity or adversity, whether it shall have foes without or foes within, whether there shall be peace or war, based upon the eternal principles of truth, justice and humanity and with no class having any cause of complaint or grievance, your Republic will stand and flourish forever. 

* This calculation is entirely unofficial and based on nothing more than writing a number on the spur of the moment.