If you’re the sort of person who prays for others when they’re facing the Reflector Heads, please do so for Fritz, who blogs at A View For The Beach. He has been rendered humorless.
We started the week going 2-1 against Pete’s Brewers and ended it losing two out of three to the Royals, who have a tough rotation. So we’re still in second place in our division at 63-67, seven games behind the Twins and five ahead of the Brewers. I can’t remember offhand how Pete has the playoff brackets set up, but since there are two teams in the other division with better records, there’s a chance I’ll miss the playoffs – but I’ll have plenty of keepers for next year and some early draft picks to mend the holes in our pitching. Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt. FMJRA 2.0: Holding Our Own A View From The Beach EBL 357 Magnum
De mortuis nil nisi bonum is always wise policy, which Democrats never follow whenever one of their enemies die. Democrats hate without apology, but become indignant if Republicans return the favor.
Readers might notice that the headline of this obituary is perhaps not a model of journalistic objectivity, but that’s the whole point. You see, I spent a decade at the Washington Times, which gave me a chance to study how our liberal competitor, the Washington Post, always slanted everything, including obituaries. Liberal journalists find ways to sneak in tendentious words and phrases like controversial and scandal-plagued when writing about their chosen enemies, and I think this is as good an occasion as any to repay the favor in the case of Bob Mueller.
It is worth pointing out that, prior to 2017, few liberals would have thought of Mueller as a hero. He had a long career as a federal prosecutor before becoming Assistant Attorney General in the first Bush administration, and was subsequent chosen in 2001 by Bush the Younger to be FBI Director. His reputation was as a conservative Republican, and he remained in the job until 2013, when Obama named James Comey as his successor. Four years later, after Trump had fired Comey (after learning that the FBI had illegally spied on his campaign), Attorney General Bill Barr recused himself from the case and appointed Mueller as special counsel, tasked with investigating the whole matter of “Russian collusion.” Mueller was 73 years old at the time and appears to have functioned as a figurehead for a witch-hunt conducted by his underlings.
For nearly two years, the Mueller investigation dragged on, ruining the lives of various Trump allies entangled in the case, as the witch-hunters tried to bring pressure on them to implicate Trump in something — anything — illegal. All that while, the talking heads on MSNBC were gleefully cheerleading Mueller, telling their Trump-hating audiences that “the walls are closing in” on the Bad Orange Man. Ultimately, however, these sadistic fantasies were disappointed: Mueller’s final report failed to find any evidence of “collusion” between the Russians and the Trump campaign. It was all a hoax from start to finish. And when Mueller was called to testify before Congress, it became apparent that he was well down the path to becoming completely senile.
? ? Watch John Ratcliffe expose Robert Mueller’s “Russia Investigation” from 2019.
“It was not the special counsels job to conclusively determine Donald Trump’s innocence or to exonerate him. Because the bedrock principle of our justice system is the presumption of innocence.… pic.twitter.com/r2S2V6QVnU
It is an objective fact that Mueller was disgraced by his participation in the “Russian collusion” witch-hunt. However, because his phony investigation was useful to Democrats — it disrupted Trump’s first term and arguably helped Democrats win control of Congress in the 2018 midterm elections — all the usual suspects in journalism are now obligated to praise him as a hero. They get paid to lie.
As bad as the “Russian collusion” witch-hunt was, however, it perhaps wasn’t the worst stain on Mueller’s record. As FBI director, Mueller authorized the Bureau to use informants to organize neo-Nazi rallies:
In 2007, Orlando residents were furious to discover that an FBI informant had organized a neo-Nazi rally through one of the city’s mostly black neighborhoods a year earlier.
“To come into a predominantly black community, which could have resulted in great harm to the black community? I would hate to be part of a game,” Orlando City Councilwoman Daisy Lynum said at the time, calling for a “full-scale investigation” into the matter.
However, an FBI agent testified that his informant participated in the event, but didn’t organize it. The city’s uproar passed without a public investigation, full-scale or otherwise — until now.
Thanks to a trove of previously unpublicized law enforcement records and interviews with several players involved, Headline USA can reveal that the Orlando neo-Nazi rally was indeed organized by the FBI. The Orlando event also seems to have been part of a larger program to hold Nazi rallies across the country. And according to FBI records, the bureau sponsored those events despite knowing they led to an increase in the number of card-carrying Nazis in America. . . .
Former NSM member and prison inmate Bill White describes how law enforcement failed to keep the Nazi demonstrators separate from the counterprotestors at an FBI-sponsored 2005 Toledo rally
One of my sons is a lawyer, and the youngest is currently a first-year law student, and the stories they tell me about the use of AI (artificial intelligence) by both law students and practicing lawyers are disturbing. You may think “fake news” is bad, but fake law is much worse. Last year, I wrote about Stanford Professor Jeff Hancock who calls himself a “misinformation expert,” who was enlisted as an expert witness by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison in a case about so-called “deep fake” videos. Hancock was disqualified after his AI fakery was discovered:
Attorney General Ellison concedes that Professor Hancock included citations to two non-existent academic articles and incorrectly cited the authors of a third article. Professor Hancock admits that he used GPT-4o to assist him in drafting his declaration but, in reviewing the declaration, failed to discern that GPT-4o generated fake citations to academic articles.
The irony. Professor Hancock, a credentialed expert on the dangers of AI and misinformation, has fallen victim to the siren call of relying too heavily on AI — in a case that revolves around the dangers of AI, no less.
What happens, of course, is that people get lazy, relying on computer programs to do their work for them. And this is causing all kind of problems in education, as well as in the actual practice of law. If you’re a lawyer using AI to help write your briefs, it’s important to double-check the results because AI programs are known to “hallucinate” fictitious cases sometimes — and it’s a disaster if you get caught using those:
There was turmoil in a Georgia courtroom on Wednesday as AI-generated deficiencies in the state’s legal filings threatened to upend proceedings in an appeal lodged by a woman convicted of murdering an older man in a citizen’s arrest gone horribly wrong.
In December 2023, Hannah Payne, 25, was convicted on two counts of felony murder, three counts of possession of a weapon during a crime, and one count each of malice murder, aggravated assault, and false imprisonment over the May 2019 death of Kenneth Herring, 62.
The defendant was subsequently sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after serving at least 43 years behind bars. . . .
Permit me to interrupt the narrative here to explain to anyone unfamiliar with Georgia: Clayton County is a Southside suburb of Atlanta. The population is 69% black and only 9% white. Needless to say, Clayton County is heavily Democratic. In 2024, Kamala Harris got 84% of the vote in the county, which is home to the Atlanta airport. And, in regard to this case, it is important to note that Hannah Payne is white, while the man she was convicted of murdering is black. Back to the narrative:
Payne quickly appealed her sentence and conviction citing ineffective assistance of counsel. After losing her motion for a new trial in late summer 2025, the appellate effort made its way before the Georgia Supreme Court this week.
During oral arguments, one of the justices noted that certain components of legal filings from the lower court did not appear to have legal justification.
“In reviewing the trial court’s order denying the motion for new trial, there are at least five citations to cases that don’t exist, and there’s at least five more citations to cases that do not support the proposition for which they’re cited, including three quotations that don’t exist,” Chief Justice Nels S.D. Peterson said.
An attorney for the state denied knowledge of the fabricated citations.
“I did prepare an order, that order was revised,” Deborah Leslie, representing the Clayton County District Attorney’s Office, said.
This answer received a quick riposte.
“Those nonexistent cases were cited in your initial brief opposing the motion for new trial,” the justice told the prosecutor.
To which Leslie replied: “Your Honor, I’m not aware of that, but I would be glad to research and provide the court with a supplement.”
WOW, what a public, national-level embarrassment! Some lawyers still do NOT get that AI cannot do law.
March 18, during oral argument, a Georgia S.ct Justice confronts the prosecutor about her legal writing. She fumbles through her papers trying to come up with a response. pic.twitter.com/zJqRSJVLBB
Keep in mind that this is a high-profile murder case in Georgia, a case with an obvious racial angle in a state with a long history of difficult race relations, being argued in front of the state supreme court, and the D.A.’s office has just been caught using fake citations in its motion, and the prosecutor’s response is, “Your Honor, I’m not aware of that.” Good Lord!
Everybody on X immediately started shouting “DEI!” Far be it from me to accuse others of racism — “RAAAAACISM!” — but just because the lawyer is black doesn’t mean she’s a DEI hire, and plenty of white lawyers have similarly been caught using fake citations generated by AI.
While I was not able to locate background information on Deborah Leslie, I was able to find an organizational chart for the Clayton County District Attorney’s office, which shows that Leslie’s boss is Chief Assistant District Attorney Zina Pitts. who has been a lawyer in Georgia for the past 25 years. The fact that Pitts and Leslie are both black women, as is District Attorney Tasha Mosley, is not the result of “DEI” policy, it just reflects the demographics (and political leanings) of Clayton County.
Tasha Mosley was appointed DA of Clayton County in 2019 by Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. She is an alumna of SMU, got her law degree at John Marshall Law School in Atlanta, and has been practicing in Georgia for 30 years. She has been reelected to the office since her appointment seven years ago, and while I have no interest in praising her, this current brouhaha is the first time the Clayton County DA’s office has bungled anything so badly as to attract nationwide attention.
On May 7, 2019, Payne and a semi-truck had a green light when Herring breezed through a red light in his Dodge Dakota pickup truck, causing a minor crash with the semi-truck. Testimony at an earlier hearing suggested that Herring stayed at the scene of the crash for roughly 15 to 20 minutes before ultimately getting back in his truck and driving away. Payne, who was not involved in the initial crash, pulled over and called 911, she testified on Monday.
A witness — a state corrections officer with medic training — also saw the crash and came up to speak to Herring, a detective previously testified. Based on his training, the witness suggested Herring was having a medical emergency — a diabetic shock or something of that nature. For example, Herring was disoriented, displayed red-orange eyes, and had walked around his truck several times.
But Payne thought Herring was drunk — toxicology tests would later show Herring had no drugs or alcohol in his system.
“He’s OK, but he’s definitely inebriated,” the officer said at one point, according to Payne. This alleged claim prompted her and the semi-truck driver to ask at the same time: “Do you mean he’s drunk?”
After Herring left the initial crash site, however, Payne had settled on the idea that he was drunk. She got back into her Jeep and pursued Herring despite being told at least once by 911 not to do so.
“I saw him stopped in the turning lane, so I turned as well,” Payne testified. “When I stopped, I was under the impression, with having 911 on the phone, that I could be a messenger.”
Payne said she initially only intended to get the driver’s license plate information, which she said the 911 dispatcher had asked of her.
Prosecutors argued the audio from the 911 call shows the dispatcher was adamant that Payne not pursue Herring. The audio is also clear the defendant was adamant she was going to go after him. “He is drunk. I’m not,” Payne told the dispatcher before the fatal confrontation. “I’m sorry, but I’m here to tell you I’m not not going to follow him because he is going to cause an accident.”
After the two shouted at one another for a few moments, Herring reached out of his truck and grabbed her, Payne testified on Monday. She claimed he ripped her shirt with the grab and eventually “mashed the gas,” briefly dragging her forward with his car.
Payne said she never stopped trying to pull away from Herring and eventually announced that she had a gun to try and get her alleged assailant to let her go. That’s when Payne admittedly drew the gun.
“I pulled it out and immediately started trying to just continue to push against the door with it — like push it away from him” she testified. Then, she said: “He grabbed my hand with the gun in it.”
All the while, the defendant said, she screamed for Herring to stop.
“As he’s pulling it is when it — the trigger went off,” she testified. “After it went off, my entire body kind of fell backwards.”
The state, on the other hand, proved during the trial, relying on witness testimony and recordings, that Payne actually cut Herring off with her car, then jumped out and “very aggressively” ran up to Herring’s car, cursed at him, immediately started punching the confused man through his window, took out her gun, threatened to shoot him twice, and “immediately” shot him.
The facts are disputed, but what is clear is that Payne believed that Herring, who ran a red light causing an accident and then left the scene of the accident, was a danger to other motorists. She claims she fired in self-defense during a struggle over the gun. But even if the jury didn’t buy that explanation, Georgia law still recognizes the right to use deadly violence in defense of others. Payne’s appeal argues that her defense attorney failed to get the court to instruct the jury properly on that, as well as on Georgia’s “citizen’s arrest” statute, which was still in effect in 2019, although it was repealed in 2021 after the Ahmaud Arbery case.
Did Hannah Payne receive a fair trial? Considering the basic demographic and political facts about Clayton County, is it possible that any white defendant in such a situation — claiming self-defense in an interaction with a black person — could receive a fair trial?
Perhaps others are not concerned about this, and certainly I would not “play the race card” were it not for the fact that the NAACP already played it. Let the authorities in Clayton County reflect on what it might mean to their community if it were nationally regarded as a “no-go zone” for white people (as many locals already do). Now add to that the embarrassment of the District Attorney’s office using non-existent citations in an appeal of the case, and it’s not a good look for Clayton County. The state Supreme Court is not very happy.
Update: Today, the Georgia Supreme Court issued an order directing counsel for the state to file a sworn affidavit providing a “complete explanation” for the filings that included non-existent cases and other errors. https://t.co/ua7TMYvON3pic.twitter.com/7oahBUqxVn
Usual weekend deadlines for the usual weekend posts.
Wow, an entire week without skipped/compacted posts. Ceterum autem censeo Silicon Valley et Hamas delendam sunt.
You are an intelligent, responsible adult, which is why you’ve never heard of Taylor Frankie Paul. Until Thursday, I hadn’t heard of her either because — as an intelligent, responsible adult — I pay zero attention to “reality TV.” But before getting to her recent failed attempt to break out from that entertainment ghetto, let’s start at the beginning: By 2022, when she was 28, Taylor Frankie Paul had accumulated a massive following on TikTok. She was a married mother of three, and a lot of her content featured her and her husband, Tate Paul, doing silly stunts, sometimes with their two young children. Then in mid-2022, Taylor “went viral” with a video announcing that she would be getting divorced. Her “life was falling apart,” she said and then she dropped the bomb: The breakup was because she and her husband (and many of their friends in their Utah community, allegedly) were involved in “swinging.”
Don’t know who needs to hear this, but . . . BAD IDEA!
Because I am someone who can be trusted to keep a secret, I can’t tell you the stories about people I know who tried the so-called “polyamorous” lifestyle and thereby wrecked their lives, but I assure you that I have never once heard of anything good resulting from aforesaid lifestyle.
In general, every type of kinky behavior that could be characterized as sexual fantasy is a bad idea. We see people destroy their lives this way quite frequently, as for example, the tragic saga of Fred “Bubba” Copeland a/k/a “Brittni Summerlin.” Disapproval of such behavior is sometimes referred to as a “taboo,” which has overtones of superstition, as if the forbidden nature of certain sexual practices is the result of irrational prejudice. But if you study the situation with an eye to long-term happiness, these taboos are entirely rational.
Suppose that you’re a guy bored with marital monogamy, and your particular fantasy is a ménage à trois. So there’s a reasonably attractive and friendly young woman who lives in your trailer park, and you spring the idea on your wife: Y’all get together for some fun, just to “spice thing up” a bit. Congratulations — your wife is agreeable, so you do the threesome, and it’s so awesome that you begin doing it regularly. You, your wife and the good-looking trailer park neighbor, having a great time. And then one day, you get off work early and show up at your trailer to discover that your wife and the good-looking neighbor lady have decided they like the twosome better than the threesome, and your involvement is no longer necessary to the fun. You’re going to lose everything, including your trailer, because your soon-to-be-ex-wife is now a full-blown lesbian. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a true story, which I can share without violating my code because I did not personally know the people involved and heard this tale second-hand from a trusted source.
Whenever I tell that story, the listener will invariably tell me a very similar story involving people of their acquaintance. There are enough people out there doing stuff like this that the pattern becomes familiar to anyone who pays attention. When the “fantasy” comes true in real life, it’s never going to lead to a good place, which brings us back to the story of Taylor Frankie Paul, the TikTok star whose marriage got wrecked because of the “swinger” lifestyle. Her husband moved out and moved on with his life, but Taylor’s viral fame attracted the interest of Jeff Jenkins, an experienced reality-show producer who had worked on Keeping Up With the Kardashians and its various spinoffs. The result was a Hulu series, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, which made its debut in September 2024, and has been continued through a total of 40 episodes.
Knocked up: Dakota Mortensen and Taylor Frankie Paul in 2024.
Taylor and her circle of friends star in the show, with the usual “reality TV” drama, some of which is actually real. In the first season, Taylor learned that she was pregnant by her new boyfriend, a guy named Dakota Mortensen. The couple had a baby boy together, but they broke up in the second season. Season Three dropped late last year, and earlier this month the fourth season made its debut. Meanwhile, in September last year, ABC announced that Taylor Frankie Paul would star in the next season of The Bachelorette. Because you are an intelligent, responsible adult, you have never watched The Bachelorette. It’s a long-running spinoff of The Bachelor, which made a ratings splash when it debuted in 2002, with one guy choosing his prospective bride from a group of female contestants. The Bachelorette, which premiered in 2003, just reversed that format, with a group of guys vying to be chosen by a woman.
Who watches this garbage? Not me and not you, as we are intelligent, responsible adults, but many millions of viewers tune in habitually for The Bachelor and The Bachelorette, which is why this garbage has been on TV for more than 20 years. This same audience of tasteless dimwits, of course, are also the target audience for “reality” shows like The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, so it made perfect sense — from a marketing standpoint — for ABC to make Taylor Frankie Paul the star of the new season of The Bachelorette. From other perspectives, however, this choice made no sense at all. Like, how is this woman a “catch”?
Let’s not critique her looks, OK? But aside from her appearance — certainly no better than 6/10 — here is a 31-year-old single mother of three, and yet ABC expected their audience to buy into the idea that men were literally lining up to compete for the chance to make her their bride?
Is the dating scene for guys really that bad nowadays? Even if you presume your audience to be a bunch of dimwits (a safe assumption for “reality TV,” to be honest), this premise strains credulity. And yet ABC invested millions of dollars in this, the 22nd season of The Bachelorette, starring the rode-hard-and-put-up-wet Taylor Frankie Paul.
Taylor Frankie Paul repeatedly attacked Dakota Mortensen during the 2023 incident in which she pled guilty to aggravated assault, and the video shows that one of her children was struck during the fight.
TMZ has obtained the video — a copy of which was evidence in the case — and it’s hard to watch. Dakota struggles to record the altercation with his cellphone as Taylor puts him in a headlock. She backs off … but then charges and tries to kick him. The struggle turns violent as Taylor grabs a metal barstool and hurls it at Dakota. He screams at her — “your daughter is sitting right there” — but she persists, throwing 2 more stools at him. At that moment, you hear her child, who was curled up on the couch, begin crying.
The police report says the 5-year-old girl was hit and later had a “goose egg on her head.”
Police arrived on the scene that night after a neighbor called to complain about the noise, and in the video you hear the officer trying to separate them.
? EXCLUSIVE: Taylor Frankie Paul repeatedly attacked Dakota Mortensen during the 2023 incident in which she pled guilty to aggravated assault; video shows that one of her children was struck during the fight.
So, not only is she a 31-year-old single mom, but she’s also a dangerously violent lunatic. That was enough for ABC to cancel the whole season:
ABC has canceled Season 22 of The Bachelorette after a 2023 video of Taylor Frankie Paul — who was set to lead the new season — fighting her ex-boyfriend went viral.
The entire upcoming season of The Bachelorette was canceled on Thursday, just three days before it was set to premiere. . . .
“In light of the newly released video just surfaced today, we have made the decision to not move forward with the new season of The Bachelorette at this time, and our focus is on supporting the family,” a Disney Entertainment Television spokesperson toldPeople. . . .
Recently, a source told People that filming has apparently been halted for Season 5 of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives due to “some pretty serious stuff happening regarding [Paul’s] past.”
A spokesperson for the Draper City Police Department, meanwhile, told the magazine that there is an open “domestic assault investigation” involving Paul and Mortensen.
Wow! In addition to cancelling an entire season of The Bachelorette, it now appears the future of Taylor’s franchise The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives may be in jeopardy. And the tea keeps spilling.
Taylor was joking about getting arrested for throwing things at Dakota months before she even started filming The Bachelorette btw #slomwpic.twitter.com/1OsQFNloIP
EXCLUSIVE: Cast members from Hulu’s “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” told ABC executives at a meeting earlier this month they had concerns about continuing the show if “MomTok” founder Taylor Frankie Paul remained involved, according to audio obtained by NBC News.…
Because you are an intelligent and responsible adult, you will probably not be surprised to learn that the court has ordered Taylor Frankie Paul to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. What do you suppose this evaluation will reveal? That she is deranged and demented? Unhinged, wacko, daffy, non compos mentis and off her rocker? Nuttier than a Snickers bar, a few fries short of a Happy Meal and cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs?
Does it seem to you in hindsight that maybe there was some clue that this woman was in need of a straitjacket and a padded cell? Perhaps the fact that she wrecked her marriage because of the “swinger” lifestyle?
UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! It never ceases to amaze me how sometimes I spend hours working on a lengthy essay, and what gets quoted is a quick jibe that only took me 15 seconds.
