Signs, Signs, Everywhere the Signs

As I continue moving the office toward reopening, it is becoming increasingly clear that the pandemic is as good for printers as for restructuring attorneys. To further comply with CDC "best practices," I needed to have the consultants calculate the safe occupancy for each meeting room.

Of course, the occupancy restrictions will also need to be enforced, which, in this instance, will be a task for Mảximo Moretti, my Chief of Security. Mảximo (or "Max," as we call him) is reasonably good at what he does, but cannot really be expected to hit the long ball when it comes to math or numbers. Hence, I have found it necessary to order additional signs for the office, so that I can post by the door of each meeting room the occupancy restriction for that room (the "Mảximo Limit").

Fortunately, the largest room in the building is the office library, which has a calculated occupancy restriction of only 8, so I think Max will be OK keeping this all sorted. The greatest practical difficulty may prove to be that the break room, which is the situs of our refrigerator, our microwave, and a large stock of pies, has an occupancy restriction of only 4.

B. McLeod in the Pie Pandemic

As I am sure is true for many of you, my office is in the process of slowly reintegrating staff who have been working at home during the early stages of the pandemic. Social distancing is, of course, a primary concern.

Trying to express the requirement in "feet" has the potential for confusion. All persons of Commonwealth heritage will be well familiar with the point that the standard "English rule" was developed because of the confusion wrought by people with feet of varying sizes. Additionally, in modern times, so many people (particularly those of non-Commonwealth origin) rely on the metric system that any use of social distancing requirements expressed merely in "feet" may be less than 100% effective.

For this reason, and to have a little bit of fun with the pandemic, I have decided that, in my office building, we will use 12-inch pies as a mechanism to help all staff achieve and preserve a ready command of the social distancing protocol. Thursday and Friday, we put down the floor-marking signs I had ordered. In addition to the large print direction for English-speakers, there is a Spanish legend asking staff to maintain an interpersonal distance of 6 pies. We are stocking the pies in over the weekend, so anyone who is uncertain will be able to measure and confirm any given spatial relationship in actual pies. To similar end, a large stock of pies will be available at the building entrance for our guests and invitees. To help cement familiarity with the spatial concept of the 12-inch pie, staff members will be allowed to consume pies of their choice at lunch and break times, and visitors will be allowed to join in during conferences (where seating will also be spaced at a distance of 6 pies).

The plan is not without collateral costs and burdens. It does present the necessity of defending our building against any large, semi-sapient, terrestrial life forms that might be inexorably drawn to drive overland to assault our facility, in an attempt to gain access to our pies. To address this concern, building maintenance and security staff have been surrounding our perimeter with a system of steel bollards and Czech hedgehogs, interconnected with electrified wire. All staff have been advised (for their own safety) not to attempt to take pies out to any large creature seen thundering and bellowing around outside the defensive obstacles. For cases of emergency, we will also have a small catapult installed on the roof, capable of hurling a dozen pies at a time, to a distance of 200 metres, should such become necessary to distract and divert an attacking creature. All roads exiting the Chicago area are being monitored, to provide an early warning of anything that may be on the way.

Buddy Check

As we enter month 8 of the pandemic, wanted to check in to see how everyone is doing (personally and professionally).  I have not been back to Gotham since mid March.  I have it on good authority it went full The Warriors about the time toilet paper ran out.

Full Orwell

Consonant with the Atlantic piece I posted about that praised ChiCom totalitarianism, Slate legal commentator Dahlia Lithwick argues that only people who hate freedom want the government to stop taking away your freedom.

Protesters of state public safety measures readily locate in the Bill of Rights the varied and assorted freedom to not be masked, the freedom to have your toenails soaked and buffed, the freedom to open-carry weapons into the state capitol, the freedom to take your children to the polar bear cage, the freedom to worship even if it imperils public safety, and above all, the freedom to shoot the people who attempt to stop you from exercising such unenumerated but essential rights. Beyond a profound misunderstanding of the relationship between broad state police powers and federal constitutional rights in the midst of a deadly pandemic, this definition of freedom is perplexing, chiefly because it seems to assume not simply that other people should die for your individual liberties, but also that you have an affirmative right to harm, threaten, and even kill anyone who stands in the way of your exercising of the freedoms you demand.

Sure, that's an awful lot of words, but they're all going into the same strawman around which Lithwick builds her argument. That is, the falsehood that everyone dissatisfied with permanent lockdown wants to harm anyone else. Favorably quoting critical-race Manichaeanist Ibram X. Kendi (who, it is not an ad hominem to point out, is famous for arguing that anyone who isn't an "anti-racist*" is a racist), Lithwick states that not only do such people want to harm others, but they also seek to enslave them by endangering the freedom "of the community." Exactly what freedoms "of the community," she doesn't get around to identifying, let alone explaining why they would necessarily subsume the personal freedoms enumerated in the Constitution. Perhaps she may be referring to the duty of the government to protect the general welfare, but as anyone who's taken Civics 101 knows, that duty is balanced in the Constitution by guarantees of certain personal liberties, and that these two things can and do co-exist. She doesn't seem to know or care. She just knows that if you don't agree with her, you're a racist. Or a gun-toting mass-murderer. Or something.

We now find ourselves on the precipice of a moment in which Americans must decide whether the price they are willing to pay for the “freedom” of armed protesters, those determined to block hospitals, and pundits who want to visit the zoo, is their own health and safety.

Here (as everywhere), Lithwick's argument is muddled in vagueness and hyperbole. Are these armed protesters, hospital blockers, and zoophile pundits arguing for freedoms that apply only to them? Or are there freedoms at issue that apply to everyone?

In the end, Lithwick obviates the urgency of her earlier warning with something much more theoretical.

A good rule of thumb for COVID-based discussions about “opening up” is that if someone is demanding it while threatening to hurt or kill you, you are probably not as “free” as they are, and that their project does nothing to increase freedom in America and everything to hoard a twisted idea of freedom for themselves.

Good advice, but I don't think anyone talking about relaxing the total shutdown of everyday life actually is threatening to kill me. In fairness to Lithwick, I'd go one further and say that in the unlikely event that someone threatens to kill you, not only should you not be having "COVID-based" discussions with them -- or indeed, discussions of any kind -- you should (a) call 911 and retreat to a secure building or, failing that, (b) exercise your right to self-defense pursuant to the Second Amendment.

*Meaning, you support, among other things, reparations for African-Americans, universal basic income, and "access and control of food, housing and land."

Another COVID death in the Palmetto State: Woman killed by gator in S.C. was doing homeowner’s nails

Some people never learn that failing to socially distance is dangerous! Especially when distancing from alligators. PROTIP: Whatever you think the safe distance from a gator is, triple it. And never, ever wade into a pond and touch one.

Is it just me, or does South Carolina seem to have an inordinate number of stupid people, especially when one takes into account the many Floridian's already injured through stupidity?

ABA Flips on Dems, Rates Walker "Well-Qualified"

This was interesting. As Democrats on Judiciary Committee try to think of every lame reason why a hearing should not be held at all, ABA crawdads out of its earlier "unqualified" rating and backs the judge for the higher court. Now he's not only "qualified," but "well-qualified."

Does an appellate judge somehow not need to understand how trials are supposed to work? I have to say I find the "explanation" proffered here to be little more than the thinly-disguised waste product from the north end of a southbound bull.

Most likely, the typically unprincipled ABA is simply striving to mend its political fences, for the day it may have to go hat in hand to beg the feds for a bailout.

https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/aba-gives-dc-circuit-nominee-well-qualified-rating-after-finding-him-not-qualified-for-trial-bench

ABA's "Subsequent Event" Disclosure

I noticed today the ABA's 2019 audited financials, finalized in February 2020, are online.  These shed some light on the probable significance of all the cancelled meetings and lost revenues, because the meeting fees in 2019 were in amount about 42% as great as the total dues revenues. So loss of meeting revenues, which will probably persist to the end of the fiscal year now, will leave a significant gap in ABA's budgeted income.

The financials also reflect ABA pulling several million from investment income in each of 2018 and 2019 to backstop losses in dues revenues from the New Membership Model. This reliance on investment income was part of the discussion in the Treasurer's Report at the Mid-Year Meeting. To the extent ABA ends up with no (or greatly reduced) investment earnings in the current fiscal year, lost dues revenues will be expressed instead as part of the negative change in net financial position on next year's statements.

The other thing of interest was Note L in the Notes to the Financial Statements, where the auditors were required to discuss particularly material changes occurring between the close of fiscal year 2019 (August 31, 2019) and the February 2020 issuance of the audit report.

Recall that ABA had a significant loan outstanding from a prior attempt to bolster its pension funding, and (as discussed in the Treasurer's Report at the Mid-Year Meeting) its unfunded pension liability also increased significantly in 2019 due chiefly to declining interest rates.

Note L (in which, I believe the figures are stated in thousands) shows us that in October of 2019, ABA borrowed $48,000,000 at a fixed rate of 3.22% with a maturity of September 30, 2026. The proceeds were used, in part, to pay off the $28,000,000 balance of the existing loan, and the rest were used to fund a contribution of $19,951,000 to the pension plan.

Genius. As to this pension contribution, the effect was to convert a pension underfunding which was not subject to interest or debt covenants to a fixed debt obligation which is subject to both. Maybe not the best financial planning for these reasons alone. However, if ABA could play its cards right, the leveraged contribution could help address its underfunding problems in the pension plan. All ABA had to do was make sure that the return on the investment of the borrowed proceeds substantially exceeded the 3.22% interest owed on those proceeds, and additionally, make sure that it would not accidentally piss away a substantial portion of the invested debt proceeds (in, for example, a catastrophically pandemic-driven bear market).

Oh.

I'm going to say that part didn't go very well at all.

This illustrates how the leveraged risk play of pension borrowing can come to fruition in spades. When a huge chunk of the borrowed proceeds becomes lost in the investment markets, the borrower is still obligated to repay the loan with the stated interest. The pension plan remains underfunded, and the borrower's financial problems are multiplied (because it now has both the funding deficit and the loan repayment to contend with).

I look forward to the Treasurer's Report at the Annual Meeting. If, for any reason, ABA decides not to share that one for public access, I hope any colleague who might be posing as an ABA member for purposes of participation in the Annual Meeting will share the highlights with us here. For now, the 2019 Audited Financials can be reviewed and analyzed at the following link:

https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/aba/aba_financials/fy19-audited-financial-statement.pdf

Outcome of Rapier Contest in Doubt

Still six months from the election, the polls show a presidential race too close to call.  Despite the constant, shrill screaming of Democrats, and despite their presumption that anyone they nominated could defeat Trump.

Now, in spite of all the investigations and the impeachment, and in spite of Trump's susceptibility to the occasional, embarrassing faux pas (somehow, in spite of everything), it is looking like Creepy Joe might actually still manage to somehow blow the tin, ushering Trump into a second term of office. Indeed, Biden is in worse trouble than was Crone, six months prior to her own, ignominious Trumping in 2016.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/elections-2020/bidens-edge-evaporates-as-trump-seen-as-better-suited-for-economy-coronavirus-response-poll-shows/ar-BB13EiZ6

Clearly, at this point, Biden cannot count on any blunder(s) by Trump being sufficient to ring the bell. Biden is going to have to actually do something to improve his margin in the polls, if he is capable. At this juncture, it seems to me that it is absolutely imperative for Biden that he must somehow: 1) overcome the issues of his own alleged rapeyness; and, 2) hit an absolute home run with his choice of a running mate.

Six months, no second chances. Can he do it? He is not inspiring much confidence at this moment.

Drifting ABA Wreck Resorts to "Virtual" Annual Meeting

Amid the investment losses and revenue losses from meeting cancellations (and of course, continuing dues problems) the COVID-19 pandemic has wrought yet another major hull breach in the listing hulk sometimes jocularly referred to as "the American Bar Association."

The "ABA Annual Meeting," that spectacle of insufferably sanctimonious assholes bound up in their drunken annual festival of competitive virtue signalling, will be "held online" this year. So, no writing off the usual travel or drinking or debauchery, and only stunted opportunities to establish who is the most fanatically "progressive"among the participants this year. Also, no revenues will be generated, as the "online meeting" will be free for all ABA members.

Comical. It would have made more sense, and would have been more dignified, simply to admit the annual moronity has been effectively cancelled. With no wining, dining, partying or entertainment, very few "members" (even the numerous "free" ones) are likely to waste much time on the Internet with this excrutiating, multi-day mockery. At best, the Ship of Fools. . . uh, I mean, the "House of Delegates" will have  an enhanced opportunity to pass another battery of fanatical, leftist "resolutions" as the tumbleweeds blow through. And of course, they will.

Rawles will not even get to leave the office to "report" on this "meeting." There will be no pie, nor even the chance to hook a few free beers or hors d'oeuvres at a "reception." It is simply splendid. Splendidly splendid. Best of all possible worlds!

https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/ABA-Annual-Meeting-will-be-held-online-Board-of-Governors-decides-american-bar-association-chicago

Please re-read the job description Kayleigh

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany in her first formal briefing said Friday that she would never lie to the press.

“I will never lie to you. You have my word on that,” McEnany said when asked by a reporter if she would pledge to never lie to the White House press corps from the podium.

 

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/495701-new-white-house-press-secretary-vows-never-to-lie-at-inaugural