<[Event "Pillsbury Memorial"] [Site "Watertown Mass"]
[Date "1987.12.05"]
[EventDate "1987"]
[Round "1.1"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Gurevich, Ilya"]
[Black "Dlaykan, Fernando"]
[ECO "B33"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<[Event "53rd New England Open"] [Site "Lowell Mass"]
[Date "1993.09.04"]
[EventDate "1993"]
[Round "2"]
[Result "0-1"]
[White "Vatnikov, Iosif"]
[Black "Tapper, Larry"]
[ECO "C47"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<Any conversation currently happening around legal accountability for Donald Trump is quickly caught up in the riptide of a very different sort of conversation about electoral strategy: Should states be allowed to remove Donald Trump from the ballot, as the plain meaning of the 14th Amendment suggests that it was designed to do? Or will that drive his supporters to commit further acts of vigilante justice in response to being disenfranchised? Should we run our democracy based on such potential threats, and more abstractly: Should judges presiding over the myriad Trump trials that the former president uses to incite stochastic terror and demean the judicial system allow him to speak freely? Or should they make every effort to limit his use of their courtrooms as campaign stops and hate rallies? Should prosecutors in these cases make every effort to have them done and dusted before the presidential election? Or is there something unseemly in the haste to bring about accountability timed to some external political event? Should the judicial system proceed at its own pace, or should it find a way to move faster, with the recognition that it might (only might) be able to do what the other branches of government have chosen not to do, in glacial legal units of time?

The biggest brains in both the legal and political spheres are currently engaged in a near-daily exploration of questions that posit law and the rule of law not so much as ends in themselves, but as tactics—often Hail Mary, last-ditch, desperate-times-call-for-desperate-measures tactics in a presidential contest. We are in an existential battle to save democracy from the single most profound threat it has faced since at least the Civil War. And Americans who have become all too familiar with opening arguments and jury selection and civil fraud and conspiracy law have somehow convinced themselves that the justice system alone can somehow be deployed—or, in the parlance of the insurrectionists, “weaponized”—into becoming the shiny entity that could preserve democracy as we know it. Principally, because nothing else seems positioned to do the trick.

The asymmetry here is that of course the American legal system is not a tactic, or a strategy, or a party trick, although, sure, any one trial is built on tactical decisions. The American legal system, indeed any legal system, is a search for truth, facticity, conclusion, and resolution. When legal systems are working, they are largely backward-looking excavations of what happened and why. One of the reasons Donald J. Trump has managed to evade legal accountability throughout his lifetime is that this is not his objective: He doesn’t allow the legal system to look backward at facts—indeed, he disputes facts literally as they are happening, and even adjudicated facts, including his sexual abuse of E. Jean Carroll, are perpetually reopened for public appeal. His objective is to use the mechanisms of the legal process as tactics toward a larger end—to make himself richer or more famous, or to vanquish his opponents. And we all know that should he get himself elected as president in 10 months, he will use the law to prosecute Joe Biden, stay in office indefinitely, strip non-Americans of their rights, and do almost anything he wishes to remain in power. For Trump, law isn’t the endgame—it’s just the ladder that gets him somewhere better.

Here is the problem: When we engage in tactical intramural debates about about how best to deploy the American legal system to stop Trump, we are in a sense engaging in a mirror image of that same Trumpist project. We say we want accountability and findings of fact and conclusions of law and injunctions and gag orders and, ultimately, convictions. But above all, what we want is for him to go away, to stop, to unravel all the harm he has done to the myriad institutions and principles upon which the rule of law once relied. The purists among us argue that in so doing, we will at least have given it a shot. The worriers fret that in so doing, we further rip the country asunder because, uh, what if it doesn’t work out the way the purists had hoped?

For my part, I worry that we have imported far too much force into the idea that the law itself and law alone will curb Trump’s lawlessness, because no amount of gag orders and conclusions of law and even criminal convictions can stop someone hellbent on using those things as tactics on a tear toward fascism. As Jeff Sharlet put it on last week’s Amicus podcast, “The one thing Trump has made clear is we don’t know yet how to stop Trumpism.” The rule of law may be a component in the war against Trumpism, but if it isn’t plain by now, I will say it here: The rule of law exists not to stop Trumpism. It exists to promote the rule of law.....>

<....This is by no means a call to abandon the pursuit of legal accountability for Trump and his supporters in every single forum possible. Of course the law should attempt to impose every last consequence this man deserves, and of course the fact that this makes his cultists angry is never a reason to stop. It is simply a caution to those who have convinced themselves that the law exists to keep Trump from winning the 2024 election. Because the law alone may not suffice.

Paradoxically, to the extent the law can be usefully deployed as a tactic, the 14th Amendment itself is a tactical enterprise that exists to protect us from tyranny. But we tie ourselves in knots deploring how slow and technical and mincing legal accountability can be. (Consider emoluments! It took eight years to get those numbers reported out! But there is still no accountability!) The challenge isn’t exclusively that law takes too long. The challenge is that, unfortunately for all current citizens of America and quite frankly the world, the law can’t be boiled down to a distillate, reconstituted as a vitamin, then chugged down with a Gatorade to save us from an authoritarian strongman.

Donald Trump is nothing but an amalgam of tactics with hair. Purposive lying is a tactic, distraction is a tactic, bullying is a tactic, threats of violence is a tactic, running out the clock is a tactic, all with the incredibly simple objective of amassing power. And Trump’s promise to use the law to terrorize and jail political adversaries, to further immiserate those he dislikes, to suppress speech and protest? All of this is about using the law to further an authoritarian agenda.

Ensuring that Trump is driven from public life requires tactical thinking and execution that involves so much more than the tactical use of legal remedies. It involves structural election reform, expanded voting rights, democracy building, rethinking the way the media covers elections, and a thousand other tactics that protect constitutional democracy and free and fair elections. Law can be weaponized to do all of these things, by the way. But this would require the work of millions of people for thousands of days, pushing every lever. It cannot be readily swapped out for a single victory in a civil fraud trial, as important as such victories may be toward the greater end.

If the rise of authoritarian strongmen around the planet in recent years proves anything, it’s that the law alone was not designed to restrain authoritarian strongmen. What we grouse about as the slowness of the law is in fact the absence of the fast fix to fascism.

The relevant legal question in the coming months cannot be limited to How do we best use the law to hold Donald Trump to account? Even holding Donald Trump to account will not necessarily save us from electing Donald Trump the dictator—it could be too slow, or too unpersuasive, or totally steamrolled by his own destruction tactics. The relevant question is: Whether we realize in time that the law alone cannot save us, are we directing all our efforts, right now, to doing everything and anything else that will?>

These posts a problem, <doe174>? Choke on it!!!

<At least 40 million acres of US farmland, pastures and forests are owned by foreign investors, which officials warn ‘may have consequences for national security.’

A new watchdog report found that foreign ownership of US land - including buyers from adversarial nations like China, Russia and Iran - has increased by 40 percent since 2016, with some plots near sensitive military facilities.

As well as espionage concerns, there is growing alarm about the integrity of America's food supply chains.

But the estimates could be the tip of the iceberg because the Government Accountability Office (GAO), which did the report, told DailyMail.com that US officials are not 'reliably' tracking data on land owners.

The new Congressional analysis has caused fury among Democrats and Republicans, who demanded the Biden Administration clamp down on purchases ‘from adversaries' to shore up America's defenses.

Democratic Senator Jon Tester said: ‘While we learn more about the specifics around this unfolding situation, it highlights the need for Congress to do more to protect American agricultural security and prevent our foreign adversaries from controlling our country’s food supply while also gaining access to land near sensitive military sites.’

Republican Representative Dan Newhouse also shared his outrage after GAO released its findings.

'This report confirms one of our worst fears: that not only is the e United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) unable to answer the question of who owns what land and where, but that there is no plan by the department to internally reverse this dangerous flaw that affects our supply chain and economy,' Newhouse said.

'Food security is national security, and we cannot allow foreign adversaries to influence our food supply while we stick our heads in the sand.'

The GAO's findings revealed the USDA collects the required data on paper forms and noted the agency 'does not share timely data on foreign investments in agricultural land collected under the Agricultural Foreign Investment Disclosure Act of 1978, as amended (AFIDA).'

AFIDA requires foreign persons acquiring or transferring agricultural land to report information about the transaction to USDA.

'USDA also does not sufficiently verify and conduct quality reviews to track the accuracy and completeness of its collected data,' the report reads.

'Without improving its internal processes, USDA cannot report reliable information to Congress or the public about where and how much U.S. agricultural land is held by foreign persons.'

While 40 million acres only makes up a small amount of the 1.3 billion acres of private land in the US, the GAO report warned the data was sparse and unreliable.

For example, the GAO pointed out that Chinese billionaire Chen Tianqiao's $85 million purchase of Oregon timberland is missing from government records.

Kimberly Gianopoulos, director of GAO, told DailyMail.com: 'Recent reporting about Chen Tianqiao holding 200,000 acres of agricultural land does not appear to be accounted for in USDA’s data.'

Tianqiao has held executive roles in organizations affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

China-based investors and companies own croplands in 28 states, equating to a total of 186,823 acres, according to a report from the USDA that includes data up to 2022 - the latest available.

The firms own more than $2 billion worth of US farmland, up from just $162 million a decade ago, according to the latest USDA figures.

Most of the land claims are in Texas with 192,000 acres, followed by 49,000 acres in North Carolina and Missouri and Utah with 34,000.

AFIDA data has shown 131,000 acres in Val Verde County, Texas is owned by a Chinese-based billionaire.

Local realtors told DailyMail.com in September that David Frankens, from Lufkin, East Texas, sold the land to Sun Guangxin, a former captain in the Chinese military, for an estimated $110 million between 2016 and 2018.

A report written by former CIA officials, seen by DailyMail.com, suggested the Chinese billionaire could be considered a national security risk by US authorities due to his extensive links to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Data from the USDA report, released last month, shows that investors from 99 countries have a claim on US land.

The list includes the Republic of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia and Venezuela.

Combined, investors of those adversarial nations own about 95,000 acres of agricultural land.

The are four Cuba-based investors who own 858 acres in the US across three states and Puerto Rico.

The Russian Federation consists of four investors who hold 73 acres in four states and North Korea includes a whopping 32 investors who bought 4,839 acres, according to the USDA report....>

<....A total of 22 investors based in Iran own 2,463 acres and Venezuela's 100 investors own 28,218 acres.

In 2022, China’s Chemical manufacturing company Fufeng Group purchased 300 acres of farmland in North Dakota - 20 minutes from Grand Forks Air Force Base that is home to sensitive military drone technology.

Air Force Major Jeremy Fox wrote a memo shortly after Fufeng Group bought the land for $2.6 million.

He argued that the Fufeng property is located at just the right location for the company to intercept communications coming from the Air Force base.

'Some of the most sensitive elements of Grand Forks exist with the digital uplinks and downlinks inherent with unmanned air systems and their interaction with space-based assets,' Fox wrote.

South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem recently shared a statement regarding foreign land purchasing, while throwing her support for 'Congressman Mike Gallagher’s preventing the Chinese Communist Party and other nations that hate America from owning American agricultural land.'

‘In the last decade, China's holdings of American ag land have increased by 5,300 percent,' Noem shared on X.

She also penned a letter to Gallagher, which reads: ‘The states and Congress must work together to defend our nation from the Chinese Communist Party, especially given the lack of sufficient action from the Biden Administration.’

The congressional USDA report determined that Canadian investors own the largest portion of foreign-held US agricultural land with 12.8 million acres.

Following the North American country are investors from the Netherlands (4.9 million acres), Italy (2.7 million acres), the UK (2.5 million acres) and Germany (2.3 million acres).

The total 40.8 million acres covers agricultural land and nonagricultural land.

Forestland accounted for 47 percent of all foreign-owned land, cropland accounted for 29 percent and pasture and other agricultural land for 22 percent. Nonagricultural land (such as homesteads and roads) accounted for two percent.>

<[Event "38th Colombian Championship"] [Site "Colombia"]
[Date "1990.??.??"]
[EventDate "1990"]
[Round "?"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Diaz Quejada, Ricardo"]
[Black "Dlaikan, Fernando"]
[ECO "B19"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<[Event "Bucaramanga"]
[Site "Bucaramanga COL"]
[Date "1992.??.??"]
[EventDate "1992"]
[Round "?"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Dlaikan, Fernando"]
[Black "Fernandes, Antonio"]
[ECO "B40"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<[Event "Framingham Open"] [Site "Framingham Mass"]
[Date "1984.09.29"]
[EventDate "1984"]
[Round "1.10"]
[Result "1/2-1/2"]
[White "Shaw, Alan"]
[Black "Landry, James R"]
[ECO "D91"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

<[Event "24th World Open"] [Site "Philadelphia PA"]
[Date "1996.??.??"]
[EventDate "1996"]
[Round "?"]
[Result "1-0"]
[White "Dunne, Alex"]
[Black "McHugh, Edward F"]
[ECO "B40"]
[WhiteElo "?"]
[BlackElo "?"]

1.Nf3 g6 2.g3 Bg7 3.Bg2 d6 4.c4 Nf6 5.Nc3 0-0 6.0-0 c5 7.a3 Nc6 8.Rb1 a5 9.d3 e6 10.Bg5 h6 11.Bf4 Ne8 12.Qd2 Kh7 13.Nb5 e5 14.Be3 Nc7 15.Qc2 Be6 16.Nd2 Qd7 17.Ne4 Nxb5 18.cxb5 Nd4 19.Qd2 f5 20.Bxd4 exd4 21.Nxd6 Qxd6 22.Bxb7 Rab8 23.Bc6 a4 24.Rbc1 Bb3 25.Qa5 Rf7 26.h4 h5 27.f4 Re7 28.Rf2 c4 29.dxc4 d3 30.c5 d2 31.cxd6 dxc1=Q+ 32.Kg2 Rd7 33.Bxd7 Bd5+ 34.Rf3 Bd4 0-1>

<House Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik has said she doesn't believe writer E. Jean Carroll's claim that Donald Trump sexually abused her in the dressing room of a Manhattan department store during the 1990s, despite a New York jury concluding he had in a civil case.

Stefanik, who has been tipped as a candidate to be Donald Trump's 2024 running mate if he secures the Republican nomination, was answering questions at a rally hosted by the GOP frontrunner in Concord, New Hampshire. One reporter asked Stefanik: "How do you grapple with standing by his side whilst a jury is debating how much to award E. Jean Carroll for being sexually abused by Donald Trump?"

The ongoing case is actually about whether Trump defamed Carroll a second time; a jury already concluded he sexually abused and defamed her during an earlier trial in May 2023, which saw the writer awarded $5 million in damages. Newsweek reached out to E. Jean Carroll and her attorney for comment on Saturday by email.

Stefanik replied to the journalist in New Hampshire: "There are witch hunts against Donald Trump."

The reporter interrupted, asking: "You don't believe E. Jean Carroll?"

The New York Republican pressed on with her answer to the first question, commenting: "Whether it's the bogus case from [New York Attorney General] Letitia James who is a radical prosecutor, they are all witch hunts against President Trump." In apparent reference to the second question, Stefanik then said: "No, of course, not."

Referring to the Carroll case, Stefanik later added: "They are all witch hunts against President Trump, and the reason why is he is polling ahead of Joe Biden, and Joe Biden is the weakest candidate we've ever seen. No, I don't believe that, and I support President Trump and you know what the media is so biased, this is just another example of the media being out of touch."

The journalist replied, "It's not me. It's not the media. It's a jury that found he sexually abused E. Jean Carroll," to which Stefanik said: "Again, the media is so out of touch with the American people; like 2016, you are going to see the American people speak out loudly and clearly with their vote."

A 1 minute, 15 second clip of the exchange, initially broadcast by conservative outlet Right Side Broadcasting Network, was posted on X, formerly Twitter, where it has received more than 1.8 million views.

Earlier this month, NBC News reported that Trump is considering Stefanik as his running made should he win the 2024 GOP nomination, having reportedly told advisers: "She's a killer."

Discussing Trump's possible running mates, Steve Bannon, who served as his chief White House strategist, replied: "Stefanik is at the top. If you're Trump, you want someone who's loyal above all else."

On Wednesday, Democratic Congressman Dan Goldman filed a motion to censure Stefanik, after she described Trump supporters imprisoned following the January 6, 2021 storming of Congress as "hostages."

On Thursday, Trump made 30 posts about either Carroll or her legal team, on his Truth Social website. Most were screenshots of posts that Carroll had previously made on X related to sex or sexuality. Newsweek contacted representatives of Trump by email asking why he was sharing these posts.

The day also saw Judge Lewis Kaplan order Alina Habba, Trump's attorney, to "sit down" in court during a fiery clash over whether the trial could be postponed the following day so the former president could attend his mother-in-law's funeral.>

<Donald Trump might not be the only one worrying about what happens when the Supreme Court weighs whether the former president has "engaged in insurrection" under the Constitution for the purpose of pondering his place on 2024 ballots in various states.

MSNBC opinion writer and editor Hayes Brown, who recently revealed how Special Counsel Jack Smith has Trump tied in knots, broached the issue in an essay Saturday. Brown points to a recent amicus (or friend of the court) brief filed on behalf of nearly 200 Republican members of Congress.

"While the GOP lawmakers’ amicus brief is better drafted than most of Trump’s filings, it can’t be ignored that there’s a deeply self-serving element to their arguments," the analyst writes. "That’s especially true for those members who, under the Colorado Supreme Court’s ruling, could also credibly be described as having 'engaged in insurrection' — and thus theoretically be disqualified from holding office."

Brown further points to one part of the brief that makes the lawmakers' true concerns jump out.

"The self-interested lawmakers give up the game with this line from the brief: 'Although not directly relevant to President Trump, the Colorado Supreme Court would give itself the power to judge the qualifications of those who would be elected to the House or Senate.' That would be especially troubling for Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio and Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs of Arizona," Brown writes. "The three of them were knee-deep in plotting to overturn the election, and, in a more just world, they would have faced expulsion for violating Section 3. It’s their inclusion as signatories on the amicus brief that makes this filing particularly odious."

Among the GOP lawmakers with a vested interest in this case's outcome is Sen. Ted Cruz, according to Brown.

"The members who directly aided Trump’s efforts are especially interested in this case, but the effort to file the brief was led in the House by Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., and in the Senate by Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas. Cruz’s participation is worth a side-eye given that he led the charge among Senate Republicans in challenging electoral votes in states where Trump called President-elect Joe Biden’s victory fraudulent," Brown says. "He also pitched a 10-day electoral commission to investigate the nonexistent fraud and potentially give state legislatures time to change their electoral slates as Trump would prefer. He never endorsed Trump’s wildest conspiracy theories, but he was caught on audio hoping Biden’s win would be reversed.">