The Alabama Supreme Court tried to treat Mike Hubbard with kid gloves, but it ultimately upheld six convictions, meaning the ex-speaker's road to prison started with grotesque financial incompetence

Mike Hubbard (The New Republic)

After siting on the case for roughly two years, the Alabama Supreme Court on Friday announced it had upheld six convictions against former House Speaker Mike Hubbard (R-Auburn), while reversing on five counts. That chops the total convictions from 12 that a Lee County Jury imposed almost four years ago, and it comes two years (August 2018) after the Alabama Court of Court of Criminal Appeals upheld all but one of the original 12 convictions. In all, the Supreme Court's findings come almost six years after Hubbard was indicted for alleged violations of the state ethics law.

The extended legal drama leaves a number of compelling questions:

(1) Q. Hubbard has yet to spend a moment behind bars, but with six felony convictions now firmly imposed against him, will he finally don an orange jumpsuit?

A: it's hard to see how he will escape prison time now. Hubbard's original sentence was four years, and given the five overturned counts, that could be reduced -- and we certainly can expect more stalling tactics from his attorneys. But time as a jailbird certainly appears to be in Hubbard's future. In fact, al.com reports the following:

Jenny Carroll, a professor at the University of Alabama Law School, said today the Court of Criminal Appeals has the option of reconsidering the five charges that were reversed by the Supreme Court or sending the case back to the trial court.

Carroll said the trial judge could re-sentence Hubbard now that six of the 12 charges he was initially found guilty of have been reversed.

The Court of Criminal Appeals or the trial court could revoke Hubbard’s appeal bond, which would require him to report to jail by a specific date, according to Carroll.

The former speaker has the option of filing a federal court appeal because he has raised constitutional issues, Carroll said.

(2) Q. Why did the Supreme Court wait so long on issuing the Hubbard opinion?

A:  From here, it looks like the court was stalling to come up with some way to let Hubbard skate. Ultimately, it appears, the case against Hubbard was so strong that they could find no way to let him off completely.

Josh Moon, of Alabama Political Reporter's (APR), writing last November about criminal charges against Limestone County Sheriff Mike Blakely (along with insights from Blakely's attorney, Robert Tuten), blasted the high court's handling of the Hubbard matter:

Cases like Blakely’s remind everyone that what’s happened in Hubbard’s appeal — the obviously political delays and phony hand-wringing — is shameful.

It has left judges and prosecutors and attorneys all over the state questioning what’s legal and what’s not. And as Tuten noted, it truly has put a number of verdicts in jeopardy.

All to protect a stone cold crook.

Look, we can debate a bunch of things in this state, but the fact that Mike Hubbard was 100 percent guilty of using his office for personal gain just isn’t one of them. The guy took a lucrative “consulting” contract with a pharmaceutical company, then instructed the House budget chairman to insert language into the budget that gave that company an exclusive deal, and then he voted to approve that budget.

If you look up “using your office for personal gain,” that’s the definition.

In other words, there was no legitimate reason for the delay, so the Supremes spparently were trying to grant Hubbard  a gigantic favor -- in the form of a "Get Out of Jail Free Card."

(3) Q: If the Supremes wanted to let Hubbard off the hook, why didn't they do it?

A:  I can only speculate on this for the moment, but this much we know: Alabama is a GOP-dominated state, but that dominance has hit shaky ground in recent years. In addition to Hubbard's ignominious exit from public office, former Gov. Robert Bentley and former Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore were forced out amid allegations of corruption. Right-wing Birmingham law firm Balch Bingham and its corporate benefactor, Alabama Power, are under intense scrutiny from the North Birmingham Superfund scandal and other apparent misdeeds. Former Business Council of Alabama (BCA) chief Bill Canary, a longtime chum of GOP power brokers Karl Rove and Tom Donohue, was shown the door. Has the environment in Alabama, at least behind the scenes, changed to the extent that the Supremes felt it was too risky to let Hubbard off the hook altogether?

Here is a take on this question from APR's Bill Britt, writing last July:

From the beginning, Hubbard’s case was fraught with political intrigue as wealthy donors, political operatives, radio talk-show hosts, media-types and lawmakers worked to upend indictments brought by the Attorney General’s Special Prosecution Division.

Even now, many of those same forces seek to overturn Hubbard’s conviction.

In the last election cycle, some of Hubbard’s most ardent supporters gave heavily to the campaigns of the justices who are now charged with ruling on his appeal.

Legitimate media, however, over the course of Hubbard’s trial turned from tacit skeptics to hardened critics of Hubbard’s dubious deeds while leading the Republican House supermajority. Most lawmakers who paid blind obedience to Hubbard while speaker have now abandoned him and pray privately for a speedy end to the matter.

(4) Q. How did Hubbard get into such trouble in the first place? Isn't he smart enough not to run afoul of the very ethics laws he had championed?

A: This might be the most fascinating question of all. Published reports indicate the Hubbard case, at its heart, is a story of white entitlement, of a so-called businessman who couldn't even keep his family finances in order. He felt entitled to all kinds of extravagances that he couldn't afford. When Hubbard's personal balance sheet started looking grim, he turned to wealthy GOP supporters, in desperation, for help -- and that led to his ethics problems. In short, Hubbard touts his "pro business" credentials, but he's a bad businessman -- one who probably should not be entrusted with his own checkbook, much less the people's business.  Consider this from The New Republic's Joe Miller, in a 2016 article titled "Beyond Mike Hubbard: How Deep Does Corruption in Alabama Go?'" Miller focuses heavily on the relationship between Hubbard and Bill Canary:

And throughout the five years Hubbard held this power, Canary enjoyed a standing weekly meeting with him in the speaker’s office during legislative sessions, where they shaped the agenda for the entire state.

But they also talked about personal matters—especially the speaker’s financial woes. When he formally assumed the speakership in January 2011, Hubbard lost his private-sector job and was left with a handful of struggling businesses in Auburn, one of which was in arrears on its payroll taxes and on the brink of bankruptcy. He was drawing $60,000 a year from the state for his part-time legislator job—though that is almost 50 percent more than the average household earns annually in Alabama—and his wife Susan brought in about $150,000 from Auburn University, where she is a dean. In bank documents, the Hubbards reported a net worth of $8.8 million, with large holdings of stocks, several commercial properties, a large home in Auburn, a lake house, a vacation farm, and a beach condo in the Florida Panhandle, known by locals as the Redneck Riviera. But it wasn’t enough.

Mike and Susan Hubbard were worth $8.8 million, but they could not balance the books while living in east Alabama, where real-estate prices hardly are like those in Manhattan? Is it possible they could not afford a lake house, a vacation farm, and a beach condo -- to go with their large primary residence in Auburn -- but as white power brokers running in high-flying circles, they felt entitled to have such possessions?

Bottom line: Mike Hubbard now officially is a felon, and that will not go away: his case certainly is about criminality, but it started with financial stupidity and incompetence on a massive scale.

As Donald Trump's business takes a pounding from coronavirus, $350 million in loans from Deutsche Bank are coming due, setting up a huge conflict of interest over a bank that is target of a DOJ probe

Trump Tower Chicago

Donald Trump has a habit of hanging nicknames on his adversaries, such as "Sleepy" Joe Biden and "Shifty" Adam Schiff. Now it appears Trump is about to earn a nickname of his own -- and it's none too flattering. We will call him "The King of Conflicts." That's because Trump could wind up in the middle of perhaps the most gross conflict of interest in U.S. presidential history. A report from HuffPost and Yahoo! News explains:

In another tangled ethics situation for Donald Trump, the president’s Trump Organization is reportedly asking to postpone its loan payments to Deutsche Bank — which is being investigated by the Department of Justice to determine if it complied with anti-money laundering regulations.

The situation highlights the unique power of Trump as president to maneuver a deal for his business hurt by the COVID-19 crisis, particularly with a bank under investigation by his own administration.

Trump did not divest from his businesses when he moved into the White House as other presidents have done to avoid conflicts of interest. The current scenario is the “absolute nightmare that someone (ahem) warned about” when Trump took office, tweeted Walter Shaub, the former head of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics under both Barack Obama and Trump.

The loan issue looms as Trump plans to oust seven innspectors general, who serve as government watchdogs. That group includes Glen Fine, who had been designated to oversee distribution of funds from the $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief package. Is Trump removing the IGs so he can pilfer taxpayer funds to help deal with his personal business issues?

How tangled could this get? The outstanding loans from Deutsche Bank reportedly total about $350 million. And that's the same financial institution Trump's own Department of Justice (DOJ) is investigating. Could Trump be tempted to engage in a quid pro quo, encouraging the DOJ to go soft on Deutsche Bank in exchange for favorable handling of loans to his company -- at a time when Trump properties are taking a financial hit because of the coronavirus outbreak ?

Most Americans, of course, understand that the DOJ, led by Trump lackey William Barr, is part of the executive branch but is to operate independently of the White House, without interference from the president. Trump, however, has proven in the Roger Stone case that he does not let such niceties stand in his way. How tightly aligned is Trump with Deutsche Bank? Here is some perspective, from HuffPost/Yahoo!

The Trump Organization has been hit hard amid the coronavirus pandemic as consumers slash their stays in hotels and trips to golf resorts. The company has laid off or furloughed some 1,500 employees in several hotels, The Washington Post reported. As of Friday, 17 of the Trump Organization’s hotels and clubs were closed, according to the Post. The shuttered operations amounted to some $650,000 a day in lost revenue, the newspaper reported. Loans from Deutsche Bank, the Trump Organization’s biggest creditor, have reportedly been used for Trump’s Chicago Tower, the Trump National Doral Miami golf resort — which is now shuttered — and his Washington, D.C., hotel, which has closed its bar and restaurant, The New York Times reported. The loans are backed by a personal guarantee from Trump himself, according toThe Times. Deutsche Bank has loaned the Trump Organization some $2 billion since 1998, and there are currently an estimated $350 million in loans outstanding, the newspaper reported. Trump Organization representatives reached out to Deutsche Bank’s private banking unit in New York last month for preliminary talks to discuss new loan arrangements, according to The Times. Company officials are also talking to Palm Beach County about delaying payments of rent owed on land leased from the county, The Post reported.

Deutsche Bank executives have been worried for years that such a scenario might develop, reports David Enrich, who recently wrote a book about the bank called Dark Towers:

David Enrich, a Times business reporter who recently authored a book on Deutsche Bank, Dark Towers, told NPR that the bank has been “worried” about a situation like this.

Bank officials are now “forced to choose between doing what seems like it’s financially right for the bank and for its regulators, versus doing what’s right to protect the relationship with someone who has the ability to inflict enormous damage on the institution if he is so inclined,” Enrich explained.

This “highlights for ... the umpteenth time here, the perils of having someone in the Oval Office who ... owns huge swaths of businesses and has refused to divest” from them, Enrich noted. “It a very tricky, messy situation.”

Deutsche Bank is currently being investigated by the Justice Department over whether it failed to report suspicious activity that may have been linked to money laundering, The Times and Reuters have reported. A bank whistleblower said that she flagged transactions involving Jared Kushner’s family business and Trump’s former charitable foundation — since closed amid an ethics investigation — for suspicious activity in 2016 and 2017. But the whistleblower said the bank never reported her suspicions to authorities. Trump and a representative of Kushner Cos. have denied any wrongdoing.

The bank, which was linked to a massive $20 billion money-laundering operation headquartered in Russia, paid millions of dollars in fines last year to the U.S. and Germany for other corruption and compliance violations. It’s also at the center of a court battle as the House of Representatives seeks to obtain its records on Trump’s loans.

Neither the Trump Organization nor Trump have commented on his business problems and possible debt rearrangement. But son Eric Trump, who helps manage the Trump Organization, told the Times: “These days everybody is working together. Tenants are working with landlords, landlords are working with banks. The whole world is working together as we fight through this pandemic.”

Is Trump pushing hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19 because he and several associates have financial interests tied to the French drugmaker?

Sanofi, the French maker of hydroxychloroquine

Why does Donald Trump keep pushing an anti-malaria drug as a treatment for coronavirus patients, even though it has not been approved for such use? The answer apparently involves -- surprise, surprise -- money. That's because Trump and several associates have financial interests tied to hydroxychloroquine, according to a report at HuffPost/Yahoo! News. The drug has not been proven safe or effective for treatment of COVID-19, but that doesn't seem to matter to a president whose biggest concern might be his personal bottom line. From the HuffPost/Yahoo! report:

President Donald Trump reportedly owns a stake in a company that produces hydroxychloroquine, the anti-malaria drug he has repeatedly touted as a coronavirus treatment even though his experts say there’s no strong evidence it works.

Trump “has a small personal financial interest” in Sanofi, the French drugmaker that makes Plaquenil, the brand-name version of hydroxychloroquine, The New York Times reported Monday.

The conflicts do not end there for Trump and his GOP money men:

In addition, Sanofi’s largest shareholders include a mutual fund company run by major Republican donor Ken Fisher, the paper said. Trump’s three family trusts, as of last year, each had investments in a mutual fund whose largest holding was Sanofi, according to The Times. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross also had ties to the drugmaker, The Times reported.

Trump’s “assertiveness” in promoting the drug contrary to the recommendation of top health experts “has raised questions about his motives,” The Times noted.

The financial news site MarketWatch and The Washington Post later estimated Trump’s stake to be worth between about $100 and $1,500, though The Post noted his trusts may have amassed other investments since his most recent disclosure. “He does look to have more than that modest sum invested in Sanofi, because, unmentioned in The Times report, his trusts also hold broader European stock-market index funds,” MarketWatch pointed out.

Is anyone in Trump's inner circle concerned about the possible repercussions of using a drug for a purpose beyond which it has been approved? It does not seem like it:

A chorus of Trump supporters with no medical expertise have backed the president’s urging of doctors to treat COVID-19 patients with the drug, including his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and Fox News host Sean Hannity.

In the face of warnings from top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci that the drug’s safety and effectiveness are uncertain in treating COVID-19, Trump has continued to laud its supposed benefits.

“What do you have to lose?” he asked at a press briefing this week urging those sick with the virus to take the drug.

Turns out plenty.

“There could be deaths,” American Medical Association President Dr. Patrice Harris said. “This is a new virus, and so we should not be promoting any medication or drug for any disease that has not been proven and approved by the FDA.”

For those close to Trump, the smell of greenbacks seems to drown out concerns about drug toxicity:

Generic drugmakers also are gearing up to produce hydroxychloroquine pills. One of those companies was co-founded by Trump golfing buddy Chirag Patel, according to the Times.

The White House didn’t immediately answer HuffPost’s request for comment.

John Dillard, a spokesperson for Fisher Investments, called The Times article a “false report” and said Sanofi “is neither a material holding of Fisher Investments nor of Ken Fisher personally.” He also took issue with the characterization of his boss as a Republican donor, saying Fisher also had contributed to Democrats in the past.

Jared Kushner sparks outrage with his bogus statements about the Strategic National Stockpile, but he isn't the only con artist operating under the federal banner -- U.S. courts are filled with reptilian types

Jared Kushner

The liberal wing of the social-media world lit up with aparks of outrage over the weekend after presidential son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner stated late last week that the Strategic National Stockpile of medical supplies was "our stockpile," meaning it was for the federal government and not for states to use during a a public-health crisis, such as the current coronavirus outbreak.

Was Kushner's statement correct? Not even close. Per The Washington Post, here is the actual language that describes the stockpile's purpose:

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the role of the Strategic National Stockpile" is to supplement state and local supplies during public health emergencies.”

So, faced with an obviously false statement from Jared Kushner, what did the Trump administration do? It had HHS change its online stockpile language to more or less fit what Kushner had said. That set off a new round of liberal outrage on social media, perhaps because those who were angry figured this was an unusual example of such chicanery from the federal government. They were right to be angry, but they were wrong about such chicanery from the feds being unusual.

In essence, the Trump administration changed the rules in the middle of the game, to better suit its purposes. I've seen this kind of corruption in federal courts over and over, during a span of roughly 12 years -- where federal judges ignore black-letter precedent and create law of their own to produce a desired result.

The most recent example comes in "The Jail Case," a federal lawsuit Mrs. Schnauzer and I filed after Alabama deputies broke into our home, beat me up in our garage, and hauled me for a five-month stay in the Shelby County Jail -- all for blogging accurately about matters GOP thugs found politically distasteful.

Virginia Emerson Hopkins

 U.S. Judge Virginia Emerson Hopkins (Northern District of Alabama) "pulled  a Kushner" by dismissing our case based on wildly incorrect assertions of the law. Hopkins' hatchet job focused on two primary issues -- the statute of limitations and state immunity, where Hopkins found the deputies enjoyed immunity to break into our home and beat me up -- all with no sign of a warrant -- over a 100 percent civil matter, alleged defamation. Let's take a look at how Hopkins "pulled a Kushner. (Note: Hopkins memorandum opinion dismissing the case, and our appellate brief in response to it, are embedded at the end of this post):

Statute of Limitations (SOL)

With a judge who has any integrity -- and takes her oath to uphold the law seriously -- this should be a simple, straightforward issue that is hard to get wrong -- we either filed our lawsuit on time or we didn't. But that's not how it works with Hopkins, who essentially bought a seat on the federal bench via campaign donations to George W. Bush and U.S. Sens. Richard Shelby (R-AL) and Jeff Sessions (R-AL) Here is how we described her actions on the SOL issue in our ppellate brief:

Judge Virginia Emerson Hopkins, in the U.S. district court, erred by dismissing the Shulers’ federal claims (Counts 1-6) as time barred by Alabama’s two-year SOL for personal-injury cases, which governs most Sec. 1983 cases in the state. But Hopkins overlooks the fact that accrual of the SOL is governed by federal law (Holland v. Georgia, 11th Cir., 2016), which points to exceptions in cases, such as the Shulers’, involving allegations of false arrest and imprisonment. The statute of limitations for a Sec. 1983 case alleging false arrest and false imprisonment is governed by the following federal standard -- Wallace v. Kato, 549 US 384 (2007). In Kato, the nation’s highest court held: “The statute of limitations in a § 1983 suit is that provided by the State for personal-injury torts, e.g., Owens v. Okure, 488 U.S. 235, 249-250, 109 S.Ct. 573, 102 L.Ed.2d 594 . . . For false imprisonment and its subspecies false arrest, "[t]he... cause[s] of action ... provid[ing] the closest analogy to claims of the type considered here," Heck v. Humphrey, 512 U.S. 477, 484, 114 S.Ct. 2364, 129 L.Ed.2d 383, the statute of limitations begins to run when the alleged false imprisonment ends, see, e.g., 4 Restatement (Second) of Torts § 899.” This principle already has been correctly applied in the Northern District of Alabama – holding the SOL begins to run when the false imprisonment ends, which in the Shulers’ case was March 26, 2014, with their complaint timely filed on March 26, 2016. In James v. City of Birmingham (ND of AL, 2012), the court held: “As to Count Two, alleging false imprisonment, the running of the statute of limitations on false imprisonment is subject to a distinctive rule--dictated, perhaps, by the reality that the victim may not be able to sue while he is still imprisoned: ‘Limitations begin to run against an action for false imprisonment when the alleged false imprisonment ends.’” Wallace, 549 U.S. at 389 (quoting 2 H. Wood, Limitation of Actions § 187d (4), p. 878 (rev. 4th ed. 1916). The record is clear that Hopkins is out of touch with her own colleagues.

It is undisputed my incarceration ended on March 26, 2014 -- meaning the SOL accrued on that date --,and we filed our lawsuit on March 26, 2016, inside the two-year statute of  limitations. Hopkins ruled contrary to precedent from the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. Eleventh Circuit, and the Northern District of Alabama. That is quite a feat, one even Jared kushner probably could not imagine attempting.

On top of that, Hopkins' ruling runs contrary to the Restatement of Torts, which is a compendium of the U.S. common law, as we point out in our appellate brief:

Does other authority show that Hopkins erred on the SOL issue in Shuler? The answer is yes. The Restatement of Torts, Second is a treatise issued by the American Law Institute, and it summarizes the general principles of U.S. common law. The volumes covering torts are part of the Second Restatement of the Law series. The Restatement has been cited as controlling law in hundreds (thousands?) of Alabama cases. [See Wilson v. Birmingham Post Co., 482 So. 2d 1209 (Ala. Sup. Ct., 1986); American Road Service Co. v. Inmon, 394 So.2d 361 (Ala. Sup. Ct., 1980); DeStafney v. University of Alabama, 413 So.2d 391 (Ala. Sup. Ct., 1981); and Harper v. Regency Development Co., 399 So.2d 248 (1981), plus many others.]

The Restatement is clear that cases involving false arrest and false imprisonment accrue when the imprisonment ends. New Mexico courts, like their sister courts (federal and state) in Alabama rely on Restatement of Torts, with an example being a case styled Gose v. Board of McKinley County Commissioners, 727 F. Supp. 2d 1256 (D.N.M. 2010). From Gose: “For false imprisonment, the statute [of limitations] begins to run only when the imprisonment ends, since the period of imprisonment is treated as a unit." Restatement (Second) of Torts § 899, (1979). See Wallace v. Kato, 549 U.S. at 389, 127 S. Ct. 1091 ("The running of the statute of limitations on [common-law] false imprisonment is subject to a distinctive rule—dictated, perhaps, by the reality that the victim may not be able to sue while he is still imprisoned."). The Restatement (Second) of Torts does not state when an action for false arrest accrues. The Restatement, however, appears to treat false arrest as a part of false imprisonment. See Restatement (Second) of Torts Index at 530 ("False Arrest: See False Imprisonment").According to the Restatement (Second) of Torts: "If there is nothing more than the false arrest and the accused is released without any further proceeding, his remedy is an action for false imprisonment." Restatement (Second) of Torts § 654. Because the Restatement’s finding is based on “the reality that a victim [of false imprisonment/arrest] may not be able to sue while still imprisoned,” the Shulers’ related federal claims (and state claims, for that matter) accrue when Roger Shuler’s incarceration ended, which was on March 26, 2014, and this complaint was timely filed on March 26, 2016.

The Gose court cites other authorities on the issue of accrual in federal cases involving false imprisonment/arrest: “M.C. Dransfield, When Statute of Limitations Begins to Run Against Action for False Imprisonment or False Arrest, 49 A.L.R. 2d 922 (2010) (citing cases). See Stafford v. Muster, 582 S.W.2d at 680 (stating that, for "false imprisonment in particular, the authorities overwhelmingly hold that a cause of action for false imprisonment accrues on the discharge from imprisonment"). Again, Roger Shuler was discharged from imprisonment on March 26, 2014, and the Shulers’ complaint was filed on March 26, 2016, meeting the two-year statute of limitations.

It's hard to imagine any judge screwing up the SOL issue more than Hopkins did here. But that was not her only major blunder in "The Jail Case."


State Immunity

Hopkins hatchet job on immunity rivals that on the SOL issue, as we explain in our appellate brief:

Hopkins butchery of the state-immunity issues regarding law-enforcement officers is staggering. First, she errs regarding the burden of proving a defendant is entitled to state immunity, especially immunity based on claims of working within the line and scope of employment. Hopkins puts the burden on the Shulers, writing: “Plaintiffs do not dispute that the defendants (Sheriff Curry, Deputy Sheriff Blevins, and Deputy Sheriff Valenti) were acting in the course and scope of their employment when the complained-of touching allegedly occurred.” The Alabama Supreme Court, however, has adopted a burden-shifting framework for establishing a right to immunity, per Ex parte Estate of Reynolds, 946 So. 2d 450 (Ala., 2006): “A defendant initially bears the burden of demonstrating that he was acting in a function that would entitle him to immunity.” In this case, the defendants hold the burden of proving they were acting within the line and scope of their employment, and they have not come close to doing that, making dismissal on this issue improper. In fact, the Alabama Supreme Court has held that a determination on immunity for deputies cannot be made without discovery, so again, dismissal is improper and outside the law. From Ex parte Haralson, 853 So. 2d 928 (Ala., 2009): “The Court cannot conclude, at this early stage of the proceedings, without evidence showing that at the time of the accident, [the deputy] was acting within the line and scope of his employment, that [the deputy] is entitled to immunity.” No such evidence has been produced in the instant case, so the Shelby County sheriff officials are not entitled to a finding in their favor on immunity.

How many different ways did the deputies violate the law in the course of my arrest? The answer is "many," but the most important might have been this, as we addressed in our brief:

Speaking of warrants, the U.S. Supreme Court’s finding in Payton v. New York, 455 U.S. 537 (1980) “prohibits the police from making a warrantless and nonconsensual entry into a suspect's home in order to make a routine felony arrest." The deputies’ entry into the Shulers’ home was warrantless and nonconsensual and did not involve a criminal arrest, much less a felony arrest.” Bottom line: The Shelby County deputies violated at least two rulings of the nation’s highest court – rulings that invoked the First and Fourth Amendments – and the force used (for an unlawful arrest) was illegal, per Jackson v. Sauls, 206 F. 3d 1156 (11th Cir., 2000). (" . . . if a stop or arrest is illegal, then there is no basis for any threat or any use of force, and an excessive force claim would always arise but only collaterally from the illegal stop or arrest claim.") The deputies, in essence, acted like terrorists, violating one law after another – both state and federal. They have not, and cannot, show that it is within the line and scope of their employment to break the law and trample constitutional rights.

Hopkins essentially found that sheriff's deputies enjoy immunity, even when they violate laws with impunity. Both state and federal courts say she is wrong:

Further, the Alabama Supreme Court held in Phillips v. Thomas, 555 So. 2d 81 (Ala., 1989): “This Court has recognized that a state officer or employee may not escape individual tort liability by ‘arguing that his mere status as a state official cloaks him with the state's constitutional immunity. . . .’ Clearly, a state officer or employee is not protected by § 14 when he acts willfully, maliciously, illegally, fraudulently, in bad faith, beyond his authority, or under a mistaken interpretation of the law.”

The U.S. Eleventh Circuit has held in Grider v. City of Auburn, 618 F. 3d 1240 (11th Cir., 2010) that Alabama recognizes two kinds of state immunity – state-agent immunity and discretionary-function immunity, which applies to law-enforcement officers. The Grider court shows that immunity for law-enforcement officers can be pierced by a test set out in Ex parte Cranman, 792 So. 2d 392 (Ala., 2000). From Grider: “Cranman's test for state-agent immunity also governs whether law enforcement officers are entitled to statutory, discretionary-function immunity. This includes the Reynolds burden-shifting framework, first requiring the defendant law enforcement officer to show that he was acting within the ambit of his discretionary functions and then shifting the burden to the plaintiff to show "bad intent" — that the officer acted willfully, maliciously, fraudulently, in bad faith, or beyond his or her authority — in order to defeat the officer's discretionary-function immunity.”

My point here is not to defend Jared Kushner; I find him to be a despicable child of privilege who is arrogant enough to think he can take on tasks for which he is wholly unqualified. The point is that Kuhner hardly is the only con artist operating under the federal flag; U.S. courts are filled with them, at both the trial and appellate levels.

Speaking of appeals, our case has gone to the Eleventh Circuit (Alabama, Georgia, Florida). How did that august body handle the issues noted above? Long-time readers probably can make educated guesses about that one. We will provide details in an upcoming post.

The South is about to take a crushing blow from COVID-19, with Alabama set to have the nation's highest per-capita death rate, passing New York

A deserted street corner in New Orleans (Bloomberg)

The South, already the most unhealthy region of the country, is set to take a pummeling from the coronavirus, according to a report at Bloomberg and Yahoo! News. As if to help drive home the point, al.com followed with a report showing that Alabama is projected to have the nation's highest death rate from COVID-19, based on a new epidemiological model.

What makes the South particularly vulnerable to a deadly viral outbreak? Bloomberg reporters Margaret Newkirk and Michelle Cortez spell it out, in a piece titled "The South, Sickest Part of a Sick America, Falls Prey to Virus":

A virus that is particularly lethal for people with underlying health conditions is now spreading into the unhealthiest part of the U.S.: the South.

For decades,­ people in the 11 states that seceded during the Civil War -- America’s poorest region -- have suffered from a scourge of obesity and hypertension, which intensify the danger of the coronavirus and the Covid-19 respiratory disease that it causes. Four of the five states with the highest diabetes rates are in the South. And eight didn’t expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, leaving thousands of families without access to routine care, even as financially troubled rural hospitals wither away.

Those factors give the South a special vulnerability, as did the haphazard response from some governors as the disease began to course through the country. Without clear direction from the Trump administration, they were loath to mandate stay-at-home orders. Beaches were open in Florida, churches held services in rural Tennessee and Mardi Gras went on in Louisiana.

Now Covid-19 has infected 47 long-term care centers in Georgia, overwhelmed hospitals in New Orleans, spread into at least six Alabama nursing homes, forced the evacuation of scores of elderly residents from a Tennessee rehabilitation center and killed a country music star in Nashville.

Public-health experts see grim weeks and months ahead throughout Dixie. Perhaps worst of all, the college football season, which drives the region's social scene throughout the late summer and fall, is likely to be curtailed or canceled altogether:

“Covid-19 is going to be a disaster in the Southeast,” said Aaron Milstone, a Tennessee pulmonologist. “We’ll see higher morbidity, which is getting sick from the virus, and higher mortality, which is dying from the virus.”

That prediction is already playing out in Louisiana, which saw Covid-19 infections and deaths soar in New Orleans after weeks of Carnival celebrations ended last month. Of the 239 Covid-19 fatalities there, 40% had diabetes, 25% were obese and 21% had heart problems, according to state figures.

“We, in general, have a sicker population, and we are concerned that our outcomes in the Covid-19 pandemic are going to be worse because of that,” said Joseph Kanter, an assistant state health officer.

The South is the sickest part of a sick country: The U.S. is unhealthier on average than other developed nations.

Underlying health conditions are a major concern with the coronavirus, and they tend to be more prevalent in the South than in any other region:

Among American Covid-19 patients, diabetes, lung or heart disease accounted for 78% of those who developed severe respiratory infections and needed critical care, according to a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report issued Tuesday.

Diabetics were at greatest risk, said the report, which was based on data from 7,162 early U.S. patients. Diabetes mellitus, tied to excess weight and poor fitness, is at epidemic levels in the U.S., where nearly 40% of the population is obese and another 30% overweight.

Those conditions run rampant in the South, according to the nonprofit United Health Foundation. For example, Mississippians are 85% more likely to die of cardiovascular disease than Minnesotans, and 41.9% of Arkansans have high blood pressure, compared with 24.5% in Utah, according to the organization’s America’s Health Rankings report. The region also has a large African-American population, which is disproportionately prone to the underlying conditions.

“We have a higher than usual rate of underlying, chronic conditions like diabetes, obesity, asthma and hypertension,” said L. Faye Grimsley, head of the Public Health Sciences department at Xavier University in New Orleans. “We're at the bottom of the rankings when it comes to heart attacks, strokes, infant mortality and maternal mortality.”

It hasn't helped that the region's white majorities have tended to elect Republican leaders, many of whom take a suspicious view of science:

The South’s white majorities have supported Republican presidential candidates for most of the past 40 years, and state parties there recently have marched in lockstep with President Donald Trump. As the president slowly came to grasp the gravity of the crisis, the region’s nine Republican governors mirrored his response.

Only the Democratic governors of Louisiana and North Carolina had issued stay-at-home orders for their entire states until Tuesday, when Republican Greg Abbott of Texas told residents to remain behind closed doors except for essential errands. Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida, did so Wednesday after resisting such a move for weeks. So did the governor of Mississippi, Tate Reeves. Georgia’s Brian Kemp said he would issue rules Thursday. (Note: Alabama's Kay Ivey followed suit on Friday, weeks after she had been urged to take such action.)

Speaking of Kay Ivey, her virus-related problems likely will get worse before they get better. Reports al.com's Ramsey Archibald:

No one knows what will happen in the coming weeks and months of the coronavirus pandemic. Alabama has already seen more than 1,500 confirmed cases of the virus and 26 confirmed deaths.

But some estimates predict a more dire situation here, as a recent epidemiological model shows Alabama could have the highest per capita death rate in the country, and the fourth highest total death count.

If the worst were to happen - if Alabamians refuse to follow social distancing measures, the state’s intensive care units become overfull with the most ill coronavirus patients, or even if people here are unlucky - nearly 10,000 Alabamians could die from COVID-19 by the middle of next month.

That’s according to projections released earlier this week from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. IHME released projections for every U.S. state on April 1, and will continue to update them.

The projections show Alabama could suffer anywhere from 849 deaths to 9,624 by as early as May 16. Those are the state’s low and high projections, according to the data. The mean, or average, projection, shows the state could see 5,516 deaths by May 16, when the projections say the death rate would flatten.

That number is the fourth highest in the country - ahead of much more populous states like California, Pennsylvania and Illinois.

Where does the news turn really grim for Alabama? Archibald explains:

Alabama’s estimated deaths per 10,000 people, based on the mean projection from IHME, is by far the highest in the country. The data suggests 11 in 10,000 Alabamians could die from coronavirus in the next few months. The next closest state, New York, has a projected death rate of eight in 10,000. . . .

The data shows Alabama could see anywhere from 15 to 500 deaths per day when the virus is projected to peak on April 19 - just a couple of weeks away. The mean projection predicts 300 Alabamians will die from the virus on that day.

Upheaval from coronavirus outbreak likely will be with us for at least a year, followed by clusters of mental-health problems for those who survived the virus itself

A coronavirus testing line at Elmhurst Hopsital in Queens, NY

The coronavirus pandemic is believed to have originated at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan, China. But how is it likely to end? Ed Young, a science writer at The Atlantic, provides deep insights into that question, but his projections are not likely to please many Americans.

After interviewing more than a dozen public-health experts and consulting a wealth of academic and governmental reports on the pandemic, Young reached these sobering bottom-line conclusions: The coronavirus outbreak probably will upend American life for at least a year, and it will be followed by clusters of mental-health problems for those who are fortunate enough to survive the virus itself.

First, our health-care system has weaknesses, which have been exacerbated by incompetence in the Trump White House. And if the president decides to abandon social-distancing measures, there is no telling how bad things might get. Writes Young:

With little room to surge during a crisis, America’s health-care system operates on the assumption that unaffected states can help beleaguered ones in an emergency. That ethic works for localized disasters such as hurricanes or wildfires, but not for a pandemic that is now in all 50 states. Cooperation has given way to competition; some worried hospitals have bought out large quantities of supplies, in the way that panicked consumers have bought out toilet paper.

Partly, that’s because the White House is a ghost town of scientific expertise. A pandemic-preparedness office that was part of the National Security Council was dissolved in 2018. On January 28, Luciana Borio, who was part of that team, urged the government to “act now to prevent an American epidemic,” and specifically to work with the private sector to develop fast, easy diagnostic tests. But with the office shuttered, those warnings were published in The Wall Street Journal, rather than spoken into the president’s ear. Instead of springing into action, America sat idle.

A recent analysis from the University of Pennsylvania estimated that even if social-distancing measures can reduce infection rates by 95 percent, 960,000 Americans will still need intensive care. There are only about 180,000 ventilators in the U.S. and, more pertinently, only enough respiratory therapists and critical-care staff to safely look after 100,000 ventilated patients. Abandoning social distancing would be foolish. Abandoning it now, when tests and protective equipment are still scarce, would be catastrophic.

If Trump stays the course, if Americans adhere to social distancing, if testing can be rolled out, and if enough masks can be produced, there is a chance that the country can still avert the worst predictions about COVID-19, and at least temporarily bring the pandemic under control. No one knows how long that will take, but it won’t be quick. “It could be anywhere from four to six weeks to up to three months,” Fauci said, “but I don’t have great confidence in that range.”

What are the country's options? Young spells them out and points to the best one:

Even a perfect response won’t end the pandemic. As long as the virus persists somewhere, there’s a chance that one infected traveler will reignite fresh sparks in countries that have already extinguished their fires. This is already happening in China, Singapore, and other Asian countries that briefly seemed to have the virus under control. Under these conditions, there are three possible endgames: one that’s very unlikely, one that’s very dangerous, and one that’s very long.

The first is that every nation manages to simultaneously bring the virus to heel, as with the original SARS in 2003. Given how widespread the coronavirus pandemic is, and how badly many countries are faring, the odds of worldwide synchronous control seem vanishingly small.

The second is that the virus does what past flu pandemics have done: It burns through the world and leaves behind enough immune survivors that it eventually struggles to find viable hosts. This “herd immunity” scenario would be quick, and thus tempting. But it would also come at a terrible cost: SARS-CoV-2 is more transmissible and fatal than the flu, and it would likely leave behind many millions of corpses and a trail of devastated health systems. The United Kingdom initially seemed to consider this herd-immunity strategy, before backtracking when models revealed the dire consequences. The U.S. now seems to be considering it too.

The third scenario is that the world plays a protracted game of whack-a-mole with the virus, stamping out outbreaks here and there until a vaccine can be produced. This is the best option, but also the longest and most complicated.

No. 3 might be the best option, but it comes with plenty of uncertainty and pain for everyday Americans. Here is how Young summarizes:

It’s likely, then, that the new coronavirus will be a lingering part of American life for at least a year, if not much longer. If the current round of social-distancing measures works, the pandemic may ebb enough for things to return to a semblance of normalcy. Offices could fill and bars could bustle. Schools could reopen and friends could reunite. But as the status quo returns, so too will the virus. This doesn’t mean that society must be on continuous lockdown until 2022. But “we need to be prepared to do multiple periods of social distancing,” says Stephen Kissler of Harvard.

The aftermath could be grim, too. Writes Young:

After infections begin ebbing, a secondary pandemic of mental-health problems will follow. At a moment of profound dread and uncertainty, people are being cut off from soothing human contact. Hugs, handshakes, and other social rituals are now tinged with danger. People with anxiety or obsessive-compulsive disorder are struggling. Elderly people, who are already excluded from much of public life, are being asked to distance themselves even further, deepening their loneliness. Asian people are suffering racist insults, fueled by a president who insists on labeling the new coronavirus the “Chinese virus.” Incidents of domestic violence and child abuse are likely to spike as people are forced to stay in unsafe homes. Children, whose bodies are mostly spared by the virus, may endure mental trauma that stays with them into adulthood.

The saddest part of all this: We knew it was coming. But the president who promised to "Make America Great Again" has proven to be anything but great in the face of a crisis:

A global pandemic of this scale was inevitable. In recent years, hundreds of health experts have written books, white papers, and op-eds warning of the possibility. Bill Gates has been telling anyone who would listen, including the 18 million viewers of his TED Talk. In 2018, I wrote a story for The Atlantic arguing that America was not ready for the pandemic that would eventually come. In October, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security war-gamed what might happen if a new coronavirus swept the globe. And then one did. Hypotheticals became reality. “What if?” became “Now what?”

Security concerns force U.S. agency to push for sale of Grindr, the gay-sex geosocial application that has been owned by a business with ties to Chinese government

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Pluto, a miniature schnauzer from Canada, becomes an Internet sensation by offering sage advice -- and much-needed hilarity -- on handling the coronavirus crisis

Pluto and her mom, Nancy Wight

A miniature schnauzer has become an Internet sensation by offering advice on handling the coronavirus crisis for "two-leggeds" (humans) from the perspective of a "four-legged" (dog).

Pluto, a 13-year-old female schnauzer, lives in Montreal with her mom, wildlife photographer Nancie Wight. Through the miracle of digital technology, Ms. Wight turned Pluto into a talking dog -- complete with adorable face, high-pitched voice, expressive eyes, and home-spun wisdom. They have created such a stir on the Web that NPR has published a feature story about them. (BTW, we think all schnauzers are adorable, hence the blog title Legal Schnauzer, which is in honor of Murphy Abigail Shuler, the wonderful mini who graced our lives for 11 years in Alabama -- see here and here.)

Pluto is "getting the feeling that there's a kind of crisis for the two-leggeds," and she seems to have a heart-felt desire to help, especially since the crisis has upended the two-legged world,  -- affecting their ability to get everything from snacks to toilet paper.

* Are you going stir crazy from being isolated and stuck inside? Well, "just relax, curl up, wander around, and play with a tennis ball," advises Pluto.

* Like many humans, Pluto is confused about the whole toilet paper thing. But she does offer this: "What my mom does for me is she cuts the hair on my bum really, really, really short, and the stuff just comes straight out -- no worries, it's all good."

* Are you out of snacks because the grocery-store shelves have been cleared out? Pluto says you can always go to a nearby school and sniff around to find snacks there. And if you go to the end of your street, you likely will find a curbside drain hole -- and Pluto knows from experience that runaway snacks almost always get stuck there.

Perhaps Pluto's best advice -- and it's the most hilarious -- is to be good to each other and observe social distancing. "You shouldn't sniff other people's legs, and you really shouldn't sniff their crotches until this is all over. That's social responsibility."

Here is part of what NPR had to say about the phenomenon of Pluto:

A "talking" dog, a wiry 13-year-old Schnauzer, has become a pandemic hero since the canine made her first appearance on Facebook last week. She's very funny.

Pluto and her human, Nancie Wight, have been churning out viral videos with advice on hair trims, how to do without toilet paper, how to find snacks and how to stay cheery at home.

The dog looks straight into the camera and her mouth seems to move (with the help of a video program) and a high voice appears to come out of it.

Wight created the Facebook page, PlutoLiving, for her friends, who urged her to offer it to a wider audience. She hit the public button last week.

"I did not expect that by the end of the second day we would have a million views and now it's over 4 million," she says from Montreal. Pluto.living has a growing following on Instagram, too.

We invite you to check out the original Pluto video below:

Here is the scene at the "wet markets" of China, where crowded, unsanitary conditions apparently helped launch the novel coronavirus pandemic that has upended life in the U.S. and led to "social distancing"

A wet market in China

How did the coronavirus pandemic get started? We do not have a definitive answer to that question, but scientists believe it can be traced to the "wet markets" of China. That raises this question: What is a wet market, why are they called that, and how did they prove to be an incubator for the worst public-health crisis of our lifetimes? Specifically, the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market in Wuhan might have been the launching point for the novel coronavirus; it was shut down on January 1.

Jason Beaubien, global health and development correspondent for NPR, traveled to China in early January and got a firsthand look at wet markets. His report -- "Why They Are Called 'Wet Markets' and What Health Risks They Might Hold" --could be the definitive account, so far, of the environment that apparently launched a global pandemic.

How did it happen? First, it's important to note differences between "wet markets" and "wildlife markets." Wet markets generally sell fish, poultry, meat -- staples of the Chinese diet. In a "wildlife market," wild animals (bats, snakes, crocodiles, pangolins) are introduced to the environment -- in cramped conditions, in densely populated areas. That appears to be a recipe for zoonotic diseases, which jump from animals to humans. Reports Christopher St. Cavish The Los Angeles Times:

The issue, according to numerous op-ed articles, is when wildlife is introduced into this system. Rightly, critics note that bringing stressed animals of different species, who are all shedding different diseases, into close proximity and without any supervision, is, let’s say, not good for hygiene. At worst, it may provide the breeding ground for COVID-19, SARS and the avian flu.

Chinese culture certainly includes a taste for exotic meat, as St. Cavish reports, but it is not limited to China:

The attention-grabbing koala and wolf cub price list touted in Western media is likely exaggerated, but the general point remains true: China has a taste for exotic meat. In my 15 years in China, I’ve been offered camel hump at a major Chinese chain, muntjac at a secret wild game restaurant in Pudong and legal peacock in Yunnan, have watched a bamboo rat butchered and cooked by a popular online chef and seen a crocodile, mouth tied shut, hidden under a bench at a downtown Shanghai seafood market. Snake is more than a delicacy; by one count, Shanghai has more than 800 shops serving water snakes, king snakes and more.

Yet a taste for the exotic is not the problem. Where I’m from, in South Florida, people now patrol backyards in search of iguanas for the dinner table; restaurants serve BBQ alligator ribs; and it’s possible to order overnight delivery of muskrat, bobcat and rattlesnake on the internet.

Beyond meat that tastes good, at least to someone, an interest in exotic meats is rooted in homology beliefs extending back to “The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classics,” which codified the medicinal philosophy more than 2,000 years ago; the idea that eating exotics confers wealth and status on the buyer; and the belief that certain wild animal parts have therapeutic effects (pangolin meat relieving rheumatism, for example). Weak legal controls push the sale of even the less exotic meats such as venison and pheasant into an unregulated and unsupervised gray area.

A more detailed account of the hygiene problems that can arise from wildlife markets can be found at "Bats Are Not To Blame for Coronavirus. Humans Are," at CNN. So, wildlife markets probably are the real problem, but they still get mixed up with wet markets, likely because both have open-air origins.  NPR's Beaubien describes what he saw in China, in an article posted February 8:

A "wet market" in Wuhan, China, is catching the blame as the probable source of the current coronavirus outbreak that's sweeping the globe.

Patients who came down with disease at the end of December all had connections to the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan China. The complex of stalls selling live fish, meat and wild animals is known in the region as a "wet market." Researchers believe the new virus probably mutated from a coronavirus common in animals and jumped over to humans in the Wuhan bazaar.

What is the scene like in a Chinese wet market? Beaubien describes it:

I visited the Tai Po wet market in Hong Kong, and it's quite obvious why the term "wet" is used. Live fish in open tubs splash water all over the floor. The countertops of the stalls are red with blood as fish are gutted and filleted right in front of the customers' eyes. Live turtles and crustaceans climb over each other in boxes. Melting ice adds to the slush on the floor. There's lots of water, blood, fish scales and chicken guts. Things are wet.

At the Tai Po market, a woman who runs a shellfish stall — she only wants to give her name as Mrs. Wong — says people blame wet markets for spreading disease. But she says that's not fair. Like just about everyone else in the market. Wong is wearing a surgical face mask because of the coronavirus outbreak. She's heard about the links between the wet market in Wuhan, China, and the coronavirus but doesn't think something like that would happen in Hong Kong.

"It's much cleaner in the Hong Kong markets. It's so different from what's happening in mainland China," she says. "When I go to mainland China and I'm trying to eat something, I'm concerned about what's in the food."

Wet markets and wildlife markets hardly are found only in China, reports Beaubien:

Meanwhile, this kind of market is not just an Asian phenomenon. There are similar markets all over the world — places where fish, poultry and other animals are slaughtered and butchered right on the premises.

But researchers of zoonotic diseases — diseases that jump from animals to humans – pinpoint the wet markets in mainland China as particularly problematic for several reasons. First, these markets often have many different kinds of animals – some wild, some domesticated but not necessarily native to that part of Asia. The stress of captivity in these chaotic markets weakens the animals' immune systems and creates an environment where viruses from different species can mingle, swap bits of their genetic code and spread from one species to another, according to biologist Kevin Olival, vice president for research at the EcoHealth Alliance. When that happens, occasionally a new strain of an animal virus gets a foothold in humans and an outbreak like this current coronavirus erupts.

As for the market in Hong Kong, its offerings are tame compared to those found in Mainland China:

The Tai Po market in Hong Kong does have some live animals besides the seafood but the selection is rather boring compared to the exotic assortment of snakes, mammals and birds on offer in some markets in mainland China. They're known to sell animals such as Himalayan palm civets, raccoon dogs, wild boars and cobras.

The only live birds in Tai Po are chickens, which are kept behind the butchered pork section of the market.

Chicken is becoming increasingly popular at the Hong Kong market:

Chan Shu Chung has been selling chicken here for more than 10 years. He says business is really good right now because the price of pork — his main competition — is through the roof. Pork is in short supply due to trade tensions between China and the U.S. and a recent bout of swine flu.

So people are buying more chicken. Customers can select a live bird from Chung's cages. Chung pulls them out by their feet, holds them upside down to show off their plump breasts. If the customer is happy with the bird, Chung puts a plastic tag with a number on the chicken's foot. He gives the customer a matching tag, sort of like a coat check. Fifteen minutes later the shopper can come back and pick up the chicken meat.

Chung says he and his colleagues do their best to keep the area clean. They wash down the stalls regularly and disinfect the countertops to stop germs from spreading.

Chung, however, is one of the few people in the market who is not wearing a face mask. Face masks have become so common in Hong Kong since the coronavirus outbreak started that pharmacies across the city are sold out of them.

Chung says he isn't afraid of this new coronavirus. He always gets his annual flu shot so he believes he's protected against this new disease, even though scientists say the flu shot will not protect people against this new coronavirus.

Chung adds confidently that he's even immune to SARS — for which there also is no commercially available vaccine.

But he does keep his chicken stalls incredibly clean, which public health officials say is one important step in stopping the spread of diseases. So maybe he's on to something.

Music legends John Fogerty, Brian Wilson, and others hook up with Rolling Stone to present "In My Room" series as a form of emotional relief from coronavirus

If you could use something besides news related to the coronavirus -- and who couldn't these days -- how about a musical interlude from an American treasure?

We are talking about John Fogerty, who has been turning out classic tunes since 1967, when he was the creative force -- singer, songwriter, lead guitarist, producer -- for Creedence Clearwater Revival. Fogerty recently hooked up with Rolling Stone (RS) to play three CCR classics -- "Have You Ever Seen the Rain," "Bad Moon Rising, and "Long As I Can See the Light" --  as part of the magazine's "In my Room" series, which is dedicated to helping Americans survive the most dangerous public-health threat of our lifetimes. (See video at the top of this post.)

At age 74, Fogerty sounds just as good as he did when these songs were recorded in 1969-70. "Long As I can See the Light" is the least known of the three songs on the clip, but it features an all-time great vocal performance, on top of a haunting piano progression.

Speaking of American treasures, Brian Wilson is at the heart of the "In My Room" series, and it is named for one of his most beloved Beach Boys tunes. Wilson was featured in the first series clip, and we invite you to savor his performance below.

What about origins of the "In My Room" series. Here are details from RS:

With the coronavirus crisis rapidly unfolding, artists and venues around the globe are coming up with innovative ways to keep the lights on and the music playing — without leaving the house.

Today, with that in mind, Rolling Stone is launching a new IGTV series titled “In My Room.” The first episode kicks off with a very special performance by Beach Boys legend Brian Wilson. Sitting at the piano in his California home, Wilson begins with a short instrumental performance of “In My Room,” the Beach Boys’ early classic from 1963. From there, Wilson goes to a bright, upbeat solo piano version of the group’s 1968 comeback hit, “Do It Again,” followed by a heartfelt take on his 1988 solo single “Love and Mercy.”

“I was sitting in my room and the news came on TV/A lot of people out there hurting and it really scared me,” Wilson sings, California sunshine streaming in through his window. “Love and mercy, that’s what you need tonight/Love and mercy to you and your friends tonight.”

We’ll be releasing episodes every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 3 p.m. ET on Rolling Stone’s Instagram — with legacy artists and newer names; with artists across genres and across the globe. It will be an intimate, unforgettable experience that you won’t want to miss.

We’re all experiencing this pandemic in different ways — and we’re all in this together. Artists need our support, and they can also help get us through troubled times. We’re looking forward to giving fans a glimpse into the many ways music can help and heal.