Civil Commotion

This question of attorney-client privilege turns on niceties, and I don’t know all the details, but I think this is generally correct. The client needs to be able to speak frankly with the lawyer, but communications in furtherance of a crime are not protected. The distinction can sometimes be subtle, but it’s important. As I heard some talking head or another explain it last night, you can tell your lawyer confidentially that you committed a murder, but the privilege evaporates when you try to enlist your lawyer’s help hiding the body.

To put it a bit differently — and, again, I’m a smart guy but not an expert — the privilege obtains for events in the past, but does not cover the contemplation of future unlawful conduct. So if Trump discussed past unlawful acts with Cohen, those conversations are protected. If Trump enlisted Cohen’s help committing unlawful acts, or merely informed him that he intended to commit an unlawful act, it’s not protected.

Sheesh, this is all getting Godfather-ish.

Albert The Pious is unhappy today because Paul Krugman acknowledged a few days ago that the anti-intellectual Right has finally succeeded in creating a movement without any intellectuals.

Golly. Ya think?

Now, you have a man of the Left, who also has a very influential media platform and voice in society, who’s saying to media outlets, “Just give up. Don’t even look for credible intellectual Conservatives because they don’t exist. They are as non-existent as unicorns.” Just in case we missed his point, he concludes by writing, “The Left has genuine public intellectuals with actual ideas and at least some real influence. The Right does not. News organizations,” wrote Krugman, “don’t seem to have figured out how to deal with this reality, except by pretending that it doesn’t exist. And that,” says Krugman, “is why we keep having these debacles,” speaking of the hiring and firing of Kevin Williamson.

Unhappily, Krugman is correct. The contemporary Right is deeply anti-intellectual, and has purged itself of properly functioning minds. If it were otherwise, the Republican Party would have done the obvious thing and refused to nominate incurious halfwits like Donald Trump and Sarah Palin.

The Republican Party I grew up in valued education and achievement, and politely ignored fools like Albert Mohler — and that party has ceased to exist.

As everybody knows, churches almost invariably rally to an abusive pastor and drive-off his victims. In Australia, the cult succeeded in destroying the police officer who tried to help the victims, too.

A former Victorian police officer who was drummed out of the force for trying to bring a notorious paedophile priest to justice is living a meagre existence and struggling to make ends meet, supporters calling for him to be compensated say.

Denis Ryan, 86, lives in a rented flat in Mildura and, despite clocking up about 20 years of service with Victoria Police, is not on a police pension.

This story is the sad truth about Christianity. Think how casually they destroyed this man’s career and discarded him into penury, to protect a man who rapes children — and think about how common stories like this are. Forget the marketing lies about morality, et cetera, et cetera. ‘Christianity’ is the name of a sickness.

Absolutely, positively, the best smackdown of religious stupidity that I’ve seen in a long, long, time.