Thursday Open Thread

Please feel free to write comments on this post on whatever topic you like! (As usual, please avoid personal insults of each other, vulgarities aimed at each other or at third parties, or other things that are likely to poison the discussion.)

Comments

[Commenter_XY]

Question for VC conspirators. What percentage merit raise are you budgeting for line staff in 2021? We're in the final stages of our budgets, and the consensus seems to be coalescing at 2%. Employee profile: white collar professional in the information industry (not programming!).

I am curious on what 'the going rate' is, considering covid craziness.

[ducksalad]

IANAVC. However, since there are commenters here already outraged that university professors get paid at all, given that we spend all day teaching critical race theory in thermodynamics class, let me assure them:

My university is taking a budget cut from the state, furthermore, we're giving various cash-back programs to students impacted by Covid. There is no talk of any raises at all, and other institutions are considering asking professors to take a temporary pay cut.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The days of wine & roses are over for higher ed -- probably forever.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Sigh. We know that you are not teaching critical race theory in thermodynamics class.

But all the evidence indicates that you are being taught critical race theory in thermodynamics class, by your students and administrators. And why should we pay you for that?

[ducksalad]

Twelve, it is literally true that the admin is trying to teach me some CRT (although not during lecture time). There are enough good outrage stories out there so no need for me to contribute my rather tame ones.

But as far as the students, no. I'm very fortunate to teach at a minority-serving institution in the engineering college. Somehow that stuff hasn't got to our students.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Twelve, it is literally true that the admin is trying to teach me some CRT..."

Sorry to hear that. Unless you teach at an explicitly religious school, the admin has no business engaging in religious proselytizing.

[EscherEnigma]

Unless you teach at an explicitly religious school, the admin has no business engaging in religious proselytizing.

Sports programs hardest hit.

[Don Nico]

" Somehow that stuff hasn’t got to our students."
Because they understand that if you don't master engineering subjects, you won't get a decent engineering job.

[KenveeB]

I work for the government. Raises? What's that?

[Hank Ferrous]

I work purely in a barter economy, for hunting and fishing permissions, food, ammunition, the occasional bottle of whisky, sometimes fuel. Difficult to budget. I do occasionally take on cash work in IT, but my inability to deal with ignorance makes it difficult.

[James Pollock]

The people who still have jobs should be happy enough to have kept them to not complain about anything or demand merit raises.

[AtR]

I don't think that's how America works. If you're not happy with your current job, look for another. If you don't have marketable skills, only then do you have no choice.

[James Pollock]

"I don’t think that’s how America works. If you’re not happy with your current job, look for another. "

If there is another one that's better, you can walk out and take that other one. If there isn't another better job out there, you shut up and take whatever crap comes with the one you're holding onto. That's the way America (and the rest of reality) works.

[EscherEnigma]

Gee, with an attitude like that, why aren't you an ex-pat already?

[Life of Brian]

The people who still have jobs should be happy enough to have kept them to not complain about anything or demand merit raises.

Best example of Poe's Law I've seen in a while. Well done.

[AtR]

Ah, you have one-upped James, have you not 🙂

[AtR]

We've seen no raise this last year and expect none the upcoming year. We also had the good fortune of seeing retirement benefits cut to 0.

It's a good time to be hiring university professors.

[James Pollock]

See? Told you so.

[De Oppresso Liber]

2.3% would be the high side of an inflation/cost of living raise. That's to say, on average, a 2.3% raise in the US will keep you even. Anything more is a raise. Anything less is a pay cut.

[Commenter_XY]

DOL...Yeah, 2.5% was our standard. I figure with covid craziness, that gets chopped to 2%.

[De Oppresso Liber]

The covid stimulus will or already is leading to a little extra inflation.

[bernard11]

Cite? Given the unemployment situation I don't see a lot of wage pressure.

The Fed wants inflation at 2%, and is committed to keeping rates near-zero even when that is met. It's been below that over the past year.

[Don Nico]

In DOE research labs the salary package has been 2% or less for years. Some years under the past admin, the package was zero.
The package must account for the total growth in labor costs. It is NOT the average raise.

[NToJ]

4%.

[EscherEnigma]

At my place, we've got no flat-raise or cost-of-living adjustment like we get most years, but we've got a fickle boss, and sometimes they change their mind really late.

Average merit raise is, I believe, about 2%.

[apedad]

Do you think you know geography?

Try this...

Write down as many countries as you can and group them alphabetically - not strict alphabetically, just group the As, Bs, Cs, etc. (this is so you're not just going across continents listing counties).

There are approx. 195 countries.

How many can you get?

Obviously no cheating!

[Sarcastr0]

I do not think I know geography. At all. I learned the continents, and the oceans, and that's where my formal schooling in the area stopped.

Am I missing out?

[apedad]

No, just a mind game.

I just got 130.

[James Pollock]

Do the ones who changed names count? Burma was still Burma the last time I took a geography class, and Yugoslavia was still one country.

[StellaLink]

East and West Pakistan, North and South Yemen, Upper Volta, Czechoslovakia, USSR, East and West Germany, Republic of Texas. Lots of political entities have split/merged/renamed, most I couldn't name. There are sites which claim to list countries that no longer exist, but neither of the ones I looked at included the merger of two independent Yemens nor the split of the Pakistans.

[Absaroka]

"Am I missing out?"

Well, I saw a headline last week, something vaguely like "The First Water War: Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, and Eritrea". You need some geography to make sense of that. Could be a nasty proxy war if China and the US back opposing sides. But with some knowledge of the area demographics, the Nile, and where Egypt's water comes from ... nasty situation, and one where the geography makes a diplomatic solution pretty hard.

So lots of geopolitics doesn't make sense without knowledge of the geography, lust like a lot of physics doesn't make sense without quantum physics (heck, physics doesn't make sense even with quantum physics, because quantum effects don't make sense 🙂 ).

[Sarcastr0]

If you think you understand quantum mechanics, then you don't!

[Stephen Lathrop]

Sarcast0, south of Boston there is a town, Squantum, which might contain an auto repair shop. If it does, you could find there Squantum mechanics. I expect they would prove incomprehensible.

[StellaLink]

Biologist J.B.S. Haldane wrote in 1927:
"Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. "

Haldane was, no doubt, one of the great geniuses and also quite eccentric.

[Don Nico]

S0,
That is a bit of an exaggeration.

[Sarcastr0]

It's an apocryphal Feynman quote.

[Illocust]

The question is do you need to know that geography ahead of time, or is the geographical information you need to know to make sense of the conflict simple enough that it makes more sense to just learn it as it becomes relevant.

To make since of the issue, you really just need to be told that Egypt is down river and thus dependent on other countries to let water flow freely.

[Absaroka]

Sure, once someone tells you 'hey, Egypt/Sudan get all their water from the Nile, and that the GERD Dam will block it, then sure you can verify that. But if you just hear Ethiopia is building a dam and don't know the geography, it's a lot less obvious.

For example, when you saw the headline 'Conflict heats up in the Tigray region', was your first reaction 'Ohhhh .... cover for Egypt to settle Ethiopia's hash over the GERD Dam'?

Or when GWB started talking about deposing Saddam and nation building in Iraq, was your immediate take 'unlikely to work ... Iraq is approx equal parts Kurd/Sunni/Shia, who won't particularly want to share a nation, and Iran will meddle with the Shia faction, destabilizing the region because you won't have Iraq and Iran as the opposing major powers in the region'? Because that was my immediate reaction.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Illocust, far better to learn your geography in historical context. That way, when someone tells you to get all outraged that Russia is invading Ukraine (meaning Crimea), you stand a chance to nuance your reaction appropriately.

[Krychek_2]

A geography teacher once asked a student where is the Red Sea, and the student responded, at the top of my last geography test. (For those who didn't immediately get it, the student heard "Red C" rather than "Red Sea".)

[Rat on a train]

Where is the Brown Sea. Everyone else gets one.

[ah....Clem]

A (possibly) faster/easier geography quiz:

Name the seven US states that are missing in the diagram:

https://xkcd.com/2394/

[MoreCurious]

I got six right away. It took a couple of seconds to realize the one I was missing is the state I lived in for 69 years.

[James Pollock]

I only got 4 but picked them out right away. KS, NE, and 2x Dakotas. This got me off on a tangent, as noticing the Dakotas missing reminded me of an old Dave Barry column where he suggested that we don't really need 2 Dakotas and might consider selling one. New Mexico took longer for me to notice.

[StellaLink]

It was sort of cheating because I saw this a couple days ago and had alread identified five. The remaining two were New Mexico and Delaware. Delware was the last which is sort of symmetry, or something.

[Queen Amalthea]

STOP THE STEAL! The Lame Stream sports media is pushing the SCAM that the Sacramento Kings won the game against the Golden State Warriors this week even though the video clearly shows a MASSIVE POINTS DUMP allowed AFTER TIME HAD RUN OUT! See the VIDEO linked! ILLEGITIMATE! OVERTURN! COURAGE AND WISDOM!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjgMBrk2jNw

[Queen Amalthea]

Studies of bellewhether NBA players and games show that the odds of a short white guy making such a game winning shot are quadrillion to one! 92% of Warriors fans agree game is ILLEGITIMATE!

[James Pollock]

Why would I care about basketball when there are still football games being played?

[Don Nico]

Because football is a brutal waste of time

[bernard11]

Not to mention, it turns the players' brains into scrambled eggs.

In all seriousness, it's fine with me if grown men want to play football, assuming they know the consequences, but I don't think universities ought to be sponsoring, encouraging, celebrating, football teams.

Just me, of course.

[Queen Amalthea]

The SCAM is even bigger than thought (largest in HISTORY!). Kyle Guy, who ILLEGITIMATELY dumped three points AFTER the clock ran out is REGISTERED FOR TWO TEAMS (the Sacramento Kings and Stockton Kings)! ILLEGAL!

[Don Nico]

The ball was in the air when the clock hit 0.0

[VinniUSMC]

0/10

[Bob from Ohio]

Charitable.

[Sarcastr0]

I just moved, and as part of my new set-up I got a treadmill desk. Been doing as much of my workday as possible from the desk. Probably averages out to around 6, not counting meetings and collaborative writing exercizes.
It's been pretty good so far - some sore days starting up to be sure, but now it seems a pretty efficient way to exercise. I recommend it.

I'd been thinking of getting a treadmill desk since shortly after graduating law school, and I'm kicking myself for not realizing this lockdown means I can do that for a while.

It can make my home office a bit funky at times though!

[ThePublius]

We do video meetings all day, as we did before the pandemic. I have one colleague who has a standing desk with treadmill, and it's very distracting to me during meetings, to see him in constant motion and coming toward me. I wish our conferencing software had a way to blank a participant's video from my view, but it doesn't.

[Sarcastr0]

Oh yeah, no way I'd do that on camera - that sounds legit awful.

[ah....Clem]

That's what Jeffrey Toobin said...

[bernard11]

Why not ask him to turn off his video unless he has to actually show the group something?

[James Pollock]

Open a window of some other application, and position it over your videoconferencing application's window.

[Dr. Ed 2]

" I wish our conferencing software had a way to blank a participant’s video from my view, but it doesn’t."

Two Words: Duct Tape. (Or if you don't want to damage your screen, a sticky note.)

[James Pollock]

Or use a digital sticky note.

[Gasman]

post-it notes

[Don Nico]

Your colleague as certainly being disrepectful of everyone if his camera is on.

[Commenter_XY]

Sarcastr0....Can you give some specifics on the desk? Brand name, model, cost, where you can get? How many computer monitors are you using simultaneously?

I am toying with getting one as well. Or a standing desk.

The remote worker trend is here to stay, even after we get Covid herd immunity. I have a dedicated home office, and it is time to really make it what I want.

[Sarcastr0]

I could, but I don't know if I'd recommend the products I got. It's not as foldable as claimed (need to partially deconstruct), so my office is a bit overcrowded. The desk also lacks for writing space - I'm working on ways to get some flanking desks at standing height.

My government computer is locked down, so no extra monitors for working at home on that one :-(.

[James Pollock]

Monitors are cheap, and used flat-panel monitors can be found even cheaper. I got an extra HP display from the Habitat REStore nearby for under $20, just last week.

[Sarcastr0]

No peripherals allowed at all, or so I was told back in March. Might want to check that again, actually...

[Life of Brian]

I doubt they disabled the video port itself, but installing custom drivers likely would be the barrier. Should be ok if the monitor works with a generic driver that's already installed. Plug and pray....

[Sarcastr0]

The did disable the cameras in some unrecoverable hardware way.

A colleague in my office 2 years ago plugged in a blank flash drive and her system locked up till she went to tech support and pled forgiveness, so I'm a bit gun shy.

[James Pollock]

flash drives are a security matter, but plugging in a monitor generally isn't (although it make take administrative privilege to extend the desktop to the second screen instead of the default mirroring).

[jb]

Depends on the monitor interface, though. Modern Mac laptops, for example, use Thunderbolt interfaces to drive monitors and all of these allow for two-way communication. My current laptop only has USB-C interfaces, so there's no difference between the port you'd plug your monitor into vs. where you'd plug in a flash drive.

Old school VGA interfaces are pretty safe, though.

[jb]

You generally don't need custom drivers for monitors. Those interfaces are pretty standardized.

Mac OS definitely supports screen casting via AirPlay. This lets you add extra monitors without needing to plug in the hardware. I assume there's something comparable for Windows, but haven't used a Windows machine in more than a decade so that's mostly speculation on my part.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"My government computer is locked down, so no extra monitors for working at home on that one..."

The IT motto: If you're doing your job, we're not doing ours.

[Leo Marvin]

Lol. Sad. Both. Neither. Discuss.

[AmosArch]

Exclusive sneak peek audio of Harris/Biden rough draft Inaugural Address

https://youtu.be/Aeg_svbtgmE?t=6

[Dr. Ed 2]

Except that in Red America, "there is a rifle behind every blade of grass."

[AmosArch]

Aside from seniors, who don't use it very much anyway, is there any victim more frequently and ruthlessly exploited on the Internet these days than the pathetic lonely horny middle aged man?

Forget the largely fictional teenybopper lured into the car of a computer predator. The real Internet sexual exploitation is happening online everyday openly facilitated by megacorps in the camwhore dens (of which Twitch is the largest although it refuses to admit it) to the wallets of legions of these miserable creatures desperately clawing for any scrap of attention and affection. Or emptying their pocketbooks to predatory apps which basically build a business model around bashing them and proclaiming on social media how horrible men are.

Wretched curs living in shoeboxes and spending their last dollar. The thotiverse the findomverse, and online romance scams...basically the online male suckerverse is an entire fascinating and simultaneously revolting universe in and of itself to explore story and story. And we're not talking some two bit subculture. This is huge phenomenon with probably millions of people at least tangentially connected.

The other day one of them actually proudly showed me that he was subscribed to a few thots, while living hand to mouth in a shitty roach infested apartment of course. The way his glazed eyes lit up when after sending another donation the thot graced him with a few seconds of attention. I almost busted out laughing.

The most pitiable and hilarious thing is, most of these creatures don't even get the satisfaction of knowing they are victims having been heavily brainwashed otherwise. As the propaganda usually paints the thot raking in millions of dollars as somehow being a victim and constantly bashes them and holds them in disdain as somehow oppressing said thot by their mere existence. Not that I have much sympathy as these paypigs all too often stubbornly cling to and ultimately deserve to be where they are.

[Sarcastr0]

More incel stuff from AA.

Horny dudes is not a cause.

Wretched curs living in shoeboxes and spending their last dollar. The thotiverse the findomverse, and online romance scams…basically the online male suckerverse
Adding sex does not make it different from the Nigerian prince scams.

As the propaganda usually paints the thot raking in millions of dollars as somehow being a victim
Ah. There it is.

You got some issues, yo.

[AmosArch]

Not sure what you're disagreeing about. The above post literally has zero overall thesis.

[Sarcastr0]

Aside from seniors, who don’t use it very much anyway, is there any victim more frequently and ruthlessly exploited on the Internet these days than the pathetic lonely horny middle aged man?

Pretty clear thesis, IMO.

[Don Nico]

S0,
I have been wondering; would you do me a favor and please explain what is with this "incel" nonsense that I see in the VC comments section?

[Sarcastr0]

Incel stands for 'involuntary celibate.' It's a bunch of guys, generally young, that have found each other on the Internet and sit around blaming women and society for their inability to get laid.

Sometimes they shoot people.

[StellaLink]

"Sometimes they shoot people."
!

[Sarcastr0]

Wikipedia has a whole timeline of incel shootings.

It's not great.

[apedad]

I guess I'm supposed to be outraged at something here but I'm not sure what.

And what is the solution to the "what?"

[AmosArch]

Outrage? This is just a random observation post like many other posts in this thread. Even though we're bombarded by stories all the time about how unsafe the net is for little kids or college women having their images deepfaked the lowest most victimized demographic is someone else entirely.

[bernard11]

What is this about?

What is a "thot?"

[James Pollock]

Horny MILFS in your area are waiting to hear from you. Yes, YOU! click here.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Of course now there is a media black out on the questions of Ms. Biden's actual academic work. Appears to be of extremely poor quality and seems like she was given the degree more as a political favor. But why cover that when there is a rumor from an undisclosed source who read on an internet forum that a brother of a Secret Service agent overheard Trump saying he was not going to move out of the White House...

[Queen Amalthea]

"Appears to be of extremely poor quality and seems like she was given the degree more as a political favor."

According to OAN?

I mean, doubtless she doesn't have the academic work up to the levels of Melania...

[Jimmy the Dane]

There is that funny double standard. It is OK to trash certain women, but don't dare question the questionable titling of other women.

[Queen Amalthea]

Lol, you have to love this pathetic attempt at feminist judo. Note: to use one's effort against them effectively you have to have some idea of what the effort involves.

[Jimmy the Dane]

No judo necessary. You hauled in the comparison of another woman when there was no need to do so. All I did was raise the question of Ms. Biden's academic qualifications. You decided to pull in your own straw-woman here because, well, you did for some reason...

[Queen Amalthea]

You complained about the lack of media coverage into the 'quality' of Biden's academic work. This is like complaining that people that cover SCOTUS don't more closely examine Byron White's yards per rush stats, and if I pointed out to you that his was greater than Taft's you'd be quite silly to try to argue 'why are you saying it's ok to trash the man Taft but not White?'

You're like a dog standing on its back legs trying to dance.

[Jimmy the Dane]

This comment makes you look like a dog who is licking its own ass.

[Queen Amalthea]

Of course there's a substance free reply, my point was you can't understand the substance here. Thanks for helping me make it!

[Jimmy the Dane]

Yup got it. Just to review here is the series of event.

1. Lots of questions about academic qualification of Ms. Biden, no coverage.
2. Ha - let's compare her to Melania (because I guess you can't talk objectively about one woman without comparing them to another).
3. That is a nasty double standard you just introduced.
4. You dance like a dog!
5. That makes you look like a dog doing something else.
6. Ha, look at that substance free post!

Yeah, no further commentary needed.

[Queen Amalthea]

"You complained about the lack of media coverage into the ‘quality’ of Biden’s academic work. This is like complaining that people that cover SCOTUS don’t more closely examine Byron White’s yards per rush stats, and if I pointed out to you that his was greater than Taft’s you’d be quite silly to try to argue ‘why are you saying it’s ok to trash the man Taft but not White?’"

Try again bro..

Like I said, to one who has never taken a judo class they might foolishly think it's an easy thing to misdirect another's efforts.

[bernard11]

Lots of questions about academic qualification of Ms. Biden, no coverage.

If there's "no coverage" how come you know about it?

Who is raising these questions? Sean Hannity? Look, if Jill Biden had gotten a Nobel in physics the right-wing nut jobs would be questioning the quality of her work, and you'd be parroting the BS, because you're a gullible fool.

[James Pollock]

Funny that you should have that image in your head.

[James Pollock]

" All I did was raise the question of Ms. Biden’s academic qualifications."
Without being in any way qualified to do so.

[StellaLink]

And besides, who cares about the quality of her academic work? It's like questioning the quality of Melania's plastic surgery.

[Bob from Ohio]

Not a math paper certainly.

"Three quarters of the class will be Caucasian; one quarter of the class will be African American; one seat will hold a Latino; and the remaining seats will be filled with students of Asian descent or non-resident aliens."

How many "remaining seats" after one has accounted for 4/4?

[Jimmy the Dane]

Maybe through the magic of diversity Latinos take up less space in a racial diverse classroom. Who knows? Can't get Covid at a social justice riot so why not other strange and magical happenings?

[James Pollock]

Poor Bob's never heard of a "rounding error".

[Sarcastr0]

Of course, National Review judging dissertations is some pathetic politics.

And you know Jimmy is on board.

[Jimmy the Dane]

But when NR published an entire anti-Trump edition you were all for them.

[Sarcastr0]

Were they reading Trump's dissertation?

[James Pollock]

Trump claimed to be running a university which I am sure you will be shocked to learn turned out to be a scam.

[bernard11]

Not everything was a scam. A friend resoled some shoes with Trump steaks he bought.

They've held up well.

[Queen Amalthea]

That's mild for a Qanoner

"
Jimmy the Dane
December.15.2020 at 9:38 pm

“Will European Privacy Law Protect American Child Molesters?”

The DNC sure hopes so!

[Sarcastr0]

He's not even that, he's just a troll who lies to own the libs.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Sarc is right about one thing. I have not once ever posted anything by Q.

[Queen Amalthea]

Lol, the pedantism is awesome.

[De Oppresso Liber]

Every. time.

"Clip?! Ha, you fucking moron, it's a magazine!"

[Jimmy the Dane]

So answer my question - who orders "pizza" via email?

[Sarcastr0]

I do it all the time when I'm running late to my D&D group, or maybe its proof of secret satanists who are eating children.

[Jimmy the Dane]

How do you like your pizza Sarc?

[Queen Amalthea]

With extra child parts, of course Jimmy! There's only one conclusion.

[VinniUSMC]

"I do it all the time when I’m running late to my D&D group"

Serious questions need to be answered here. Where do you order from that you can email your order, and are they also located in West Michigan? Does your D&D group have room for 1 more (also, can they be relocated to West Michigan, or Ann Arbor when school goes live again)? (I will bring beer, and no politics).

[Sarcastr0]

Hah. It's in the DC Metro Area, though we do stuff over Zoom these days so not even any pizza.

Alas, I'm all full up with 6 PCs. Running them through a heavily modified first 3 books of Strange Aeons.

I also play in a Friday game where I think I'm one of the 2 only liberals, so I get the no politics.

[bernard11]

Huh? I order pizza online, not through email. I suppose some places take email orders. What's the big fucking deal if they do?

[Brett Bellmore]

Generally I do it by ap. But I suppose if I had a flunky, I might email the flunky to use the ap for me.

[bernard11]

What are your toppings of choice, Brett?

I'm largely a traditionalist, I suppose - pepperoni, onions, mushrooms, peppers, Italian sausage, maybe spinach if I'm feeling wild, all according to my mood when ordering.

[Sarcastr0]

I love pineapples.

Thinking of grabbing Dominos on Sunday after they did right by their workers.

[bernard11]

Sorry, I'm in the anti-pineapple camp.

[Sarcastr0]

More for me!

[bernard11]

I'll happily give you my share of pizza pineapple. What do I get in return? Cheese? A pepperoni slice?

[Sarcastr0]

Peperoni never did it for me unless paired with pineapple, so all yours!

[Commenter_XY]

bernard11...I am very much like you = largely a traditionalist

I'd encourage you to try a spinach and garlic white pie. A local restaurant in my town makes this and it is surprisingly good. The spinach and garlic balance out each other just right. If you can get it, try it. Unless you have already. 🙂

I 'discovered' it by accident. Tomato sauce is really acidic; it bothers my wife's stomach. But she loves pizza. I just happened to see it and said, "Hey, lets try that". We've been getting it ever since (has to be 5-6 years now). Not every time we order from them, but a lot.

[James Pollock]

"So answer my question – who orders 'pizza' via email?"

Somebody who wants a pizza and has someone who will produce some pizza in response to an email.

[bernard11]

That sounds right.

Still not getting what this is about.

[apedad]

"Of course now there is a media black out on the questions of Ms. Biden’s actual academic work."

Maybe because NOBODY FUCKING CARES.

[Bob from Ohio]

"NOBODY FUCKING CARES."

Not on twitter I see.

Every "blue check" journalist sprung to her defense, they cared so much.

[Jimmy the Dane]

National media seemed to care because it was "sexist" or something...

Lots of coverage about "sexism" and "no man would ever be questioned!!!!" Then comes some reviews of her academic work and the crickets start...

[Queen Amalthea]

See, here's where you don't know what you're talking about (or do, and are now lying).

The furor was over an article by a B.A. holder attacking the use of the title Dr. by someone with...a doctorate.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Oh yeah I forgot that the "credentialist" crowd really does get upset when you dare question their credentials.

[Queen Amalthea]

Credentials generally reflect effort and accomplishment. Not perfectly, of course, nothing is perfect.

How many non-MDs would you hire for, as an example, your wife's critical surgery?

[Jimmy the Dane]

Credentials have no direct correlation to success. It mainly just indicates someone who is over educated, wasted years of their life in the anti-intellectual gulags, and now wants the taxpayer to bear the costs of those follies through student loan foregiveness.

[Queen Amalthea]

So people with bachelors degrees don't do better than those without? Those with masters don't do better than without?

Let me guess, you did disappointedly in academe?

[James Pollock]

"Credentials have no direct correlation to success."

You know what does? Inherited money. Very high correlation.

[Queen Amalthea]

Of course, youre reply is also a total dodge. I'll just repost mine so you can have an honest attempt to address it:

"The furor was over an article by a B.A. holder attacking the use of the title Dr. by someone with…a doctorate."

You really don't get what's going on there, do you? Dog dancing on his hind legs...

[Bob from Ohio]

lèse-majesté in action Jimmy

The Queen was insulted, all must rush to her defense.

A mere B.A. at that! The cad.

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, big cult of personality around Jill Biden.

I'm ticked off because it's sexist political nonsense.

[Bob from Ohio]

Nothing sexist about it. We will pick on Mr. Harris if his wife ever gets to be president.

[Sarcastr0]

Not the choice of target, the method of attack.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Maybe because NOBODY FUCKING CARES."

Wait, I thought it was sexist not to care about her academic work.

Aren't we supposed to care enough to call her Doctor, even though most people have no idea how much academic goes into getting a doctorate in Education?

[James Pollock]

"Of course now there is a media black out on the questions of Ms. Biden’s actual academic work. Appears to be of extremely poor quality"

If anyone is an expert on extremely poor quality academic work, it would be you. What's your tip-off?

[Sidney r finkel]

In North Carolina where I live a Republican State Senator has called on Trump to invoke the insurrection act and declare martial law and declare martial law in order to stay in office.

When pressed the man said

“All the liberals are just going nuts today,” he said Wednesday. “Somebody has got to stand up and risk being ridiculed, laughed at and scorned, And right now that’s me.”

So what does it say about today's conservatives that this cretin thinks they would be okay with this and that only liberals would be upset. Although no a liberal I would be proud to be one of them going nuts. As for conservatives, the hypocrisy of their position on the election is amply illustrated by this individual who thinks this is what conservatives support. So hey Tom Cotton, among others, clean up your own house before you talk about how dirty your neighbors are.

[Queen Amalthea]

Flynn, Lin Wood and Virginia State Senator Amanda Chase have done the same.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Yeah those darn conservatives and their crazy ideas. Can you believe they are declaring autonomous zones in major cities, tearing down monuments to MLK, and engaging in riotous behavior demanding states defund the federal government?

[Sarcastr0]

Martial law, Jimmy? What's going on right now that needs martial law now?

[Jimmy the Dane]

You want to conduct this debate without owning your own extremists. That is fair because those on the left are whackier than the right. Just like nothing that has gone on cried for super spreader protests, destruction of public property, reducing law enforcement spiking crime rates, riots, and other distractions in the middle of a damn pandemic.

Show me more then just rhetoric, like troops assembling in the streets, and I'll get back to you on any "merits" to a guy shooting off his mouth.

[Sarcastr0]

When your nutpicking is the President's legal team and a pardoned former member of his candidate...it's a lot harder to argue it's the fringe.

Glad you're not arguing for Trump to declare martial law.

[Jimmy the Dane]

If the media were to equally cover the nut brigade on the Left you would be absolutely embarrassed to call yourself a liberal. The tactic for the media in covering the right has always been to give the extreme elements preference as the talking heads while at the same time finding the "normal" Dems to be the spokesperson for that side.

[Queen Amalthea]

Flynn is a former NSA head, right? Chase and the NC fellow are state senators. You keep dodging that.

[Sarcastr0]

When your nutpicking is the President’s legal team and a pardoned former member of his candidate…it’s a lot harder to argue it’s the fringe.

Engage with what I said, don't just repeat yourself.

[Jimmy the Dane]

I did to point out that you want to talk about the subject using a tired old double standard.

[Sarcastr0]

When your nutpicking is the President’s legal team and a pardoned former member of his candidate…it’s a lot harder to argue it’s the fringe.

Do you have similar people in the Dems you're like to point to, or will you stick with handwaiving?

[James Pollock]

" The tactic for the media in covering the right has always been to give the extreme elements preference as the talking heads"

That's what you get for letting them speak for you. Call the extreme right-wingers on their BS and laugh them off the stage when they claim they represent any kind of majority.

[StellaLink]

Do you know who Stephen Miller is, what job he has, who he has confidential discussions with most every day?

[bernard11]

You've got a President who actually wants to imprison a the GOP governor and SoS of GA because he didn't carry the state.

It doesn't get much whackier than that. Yet not a peep from the likes of you, or the others who shout "Rule of Law" about the election.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Yeah the left lost the whole "rule of law" card when it endorsed the lawlessness of BLM and was silent for 8 years when Obama abused his powers.

[Queen Amalthea]

"You’ve got a President who actually wants to imprison a the GOP governor and SoS of GA because he didn’t carry the state. "

Notice he can't cite when the bad Obama man did that to him...

[James Pollock]

"Notice he can’t cite when the bad Obama man did that to him…"

Can't seem to point to anything lawless about BLM, either.

[Bob from Ohio]

Published: Jul. 20, 2020 at 8:05 PM EDT

MINNEAPOLIS, Wis. (AP) - Authorities found a body Monday in the ruins of a Minneapolis pawn shop that burned during the unrest following the death of George Floyd.

[James Pollock]

"That is fair because those on the left are whackier than the right."

Sure. Nothing wackadoodle happening on the right, like denying election results or anything.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Funny how you won't address anything until your whataboutism has been satisfied.

I doubt you'd even bother condemning the remark afterwards.

Do you support sedition? It's that fucking simple.

[NToJ]

Do you think conservative elected officials calling for insurrection are wrong, or do you think they are right because people you disagree with politically engaged in conduct you think is just as bad?

[James Pollock]

"In North Carolina where I live a Republican State Senator has called on Trump to invoke the insurrection act and declare martial law and declare martial law in order to stay in office."

Also in NC, Trump called on his supporters to all try to vote twice.

[EscherEnigma]

We've just had six weeks of Trump attempting a coup through a wide variety of means, and the Republican leadership has mostly stood quietly to the side, letting him try.

So yeah, why would this guy think he's going to have problems for this?

[Queen Amalthea]

"declaring autonomous zones in major cities, tearing down monuments to MLK, and engaging in riotous behavior "

1. You don't see any difference between these and a *federal declaration of the Insurrection Act?*

2. How many state senators or heads of the NSA were involved in what you're talking about there?

[VinniUSMC]

Has there been a federal declaration of the Insurrection Act? Man, I'm so out of the loop that I missed it.

Sure, there is no difference between a thing that someone said, and actual things that actual people actually did. Yup, same same.

[VinniUSMC]

To clarify:

there is no difference between a thing that someone, a state senator with no federal power, said

[NToJ]

I'll agree that nobody involved in organizing or supporting Portland's autonomous zone should hold local, state, or federal offices, ever, if you'll agree that state representatives invoking the Insurrection Act also deserve to lose their current jobs. Can we at least agree on that

[James Pollock]

Oops. It was Seattle that had an autonomous zone, not Portland.

[James Pollock]

Turns out the people in both places think they're two different places, and object to being lumped together. Seattle's the one that has a baseball team and a football team, plus Microsoft and Boeing, whereas Portland is the one with a basketball team and Nike.
Both have soccer teams, as if anybody would care about that.

[NToJ]

Seattle's CHAZ was cleared in July. Portland's Red House was cleared a few days ago. I just picked the more recent, but I would apply the same to anybody supporting Seattle's CHAZ.

[VinniUSMC]

Again, you're trying to equivocate actual people involved in the commission of crimes with political bluster (really stupid political bluster, which would just end up fulfilling the left's prophecies of "Trump's coup", but isn't a crime).

[NToJ]

I’m also comparing actual elected officials to almost entirely not elected officials.

[Krayt]

There's a company which just launched a satellite with Synthetic Aperture Radar that can see inside some buildings. It sells to whoever wants to know, apparently. The resolution isn't so great, but it's the thought that counts.

Wouldn't this fall under the SC ruling that the government can't use new tech to see inside private buildings without a warrant? And that was passive reception, as by IR leak. This is active vs. passive scanners, for those of you who watch Star Trek.

Obviously spy agencies have this stuff in mobiles already, so can get much better resolution (and probably have wavelength detectors for such active radar penetration for sensitive buildings.

[Brett Bellmore]

It would likely be used for parallel construction. Go around looking inside buildings, then use what you see to construct excuses to go after the evidence you already know exists.

And by plumbers, of course.

[James Pollock]

"Wouldn’t this fall under the SC ruling that the government can’t use new tech to see inside private buildings without a warrant? "

Shall we just skip over your assumption that anyone's using this without a warrant?

[De Oppresso Liber]

"It sells to whoever wants to know, apparently."

[NToJ]

The government engages in warrantless surveillance all the time. The lack of a warrant may prevent the use of that surveillance in court. But the 4A isn't a magic parchment that prevents the government from doing things.

[James Pollock]

"The lack of a warrant may prevent the use of that surveillance in court. But the 4A isn’t a magic parchment that prevents the government from doing things."

It's supposed to be.

[Sarcastr0]

Pretty sure it's not supposed to be magic.

[ducksalad]

Might sound a little extreme, but it's a serious question:

Are the benefits of a secret ballot worth the costs?

Going to non-secret voting with a roster of votes posted publicly on the net would simultaneously make it much harder to cheat, and much harder for sore losers to allege that there was cheating.

And maybe some people would give their choice a little more thought.

The traditional rationale given is protection from retaliation and discrimination. But (a) people can already figure out a lot in states with partisan primaries, (b) we've already got laws covering outright violence, and (c) if it's non-violent, the full-up libertarian position is that freedom of association includes deciding who to work or do business with.

[Jimmy the Dane]

There is a good book on the history of the secret ballot is Western elections. Up until the 20th century the practice was rarely used in the United States. Your ballot was public information.

[Bob from Ohio]

"people can already figure out a lot in states with partisan primaries"

The solution to that is to make voting records confidential. Stop selling lists at least.

There is no need for the public to know if X is Dem or GOP or when they last voted.

[ducksalad]

You're saying solution but I'm not sure there's a problem.

I agree that I have no strong "need" to know, but don't really see a strong "need" to keep it secret either. Iowa and other caucus states have non-secret voting and they don't seem to have a problem with factional violence, mass firings for backing the wrong person, etc.

Let me ask a different question. No one seems to doubt that a legislature with 435 members should have roll call voting. There are proposals out there to expand the House of Representatives to 1000 or more members. Still roll call voting, one assumes How about 100,000? How about 150,000,000 members and we just call them voters? What's your cutoff?

[bernard11]

My cutoff is whether the people doing the voting are elected or not.

If you are elected to represent others then your votes should be public, so the electorate can decide if it wants to keep you in the job.

But individual voters are a different story. There may not be problems with the Iowa caucuses, but so what? Probably, most participants make no secret of their views anyway. But that proves nothing about the secret ballot, or voters, in general.

Not only would there be a danger of intimidation, retaliation, firing or whatnot, if voting weren't secret, there would also be the danger of bribery. It's hard to bribe a voter because you have no way to check on how they voted. If the ballot isn't secret that changes.

Bad idea, IMO.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

If there isn't a legitimate need for the Government to make a private citizen's behavior public, then it shouldn't be permitted.

[ducksalad]

The rational basis, if you want to call it that, would be to put to rest concerns about election misconduct. And that goes both ways. You could be sure your vote was counted, because it's posted, and it would be fairly easy to not only detect but remedy improper voting.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Eh, no.

I know that my ballot was counted without my particular votes being public. The State knows that I voted. There's no reason that anyone else needs to have what I did or did not vote for divulged to them by the State.

That is my business, and has nothing at all to do with improper voting. That's not even a stretch - it's just fantasy. Nothing about what you said is required in any way to remedy such a thing.

[James Pollock]

"There is no need for the public to know if X is Dem or GOP or when they last voted."

Back in the days when I lived in Oregon they had universal mail-in ballots that could be returned to the elections office before election day (by mail or by hand delivery). It was possible for the parties to buy lists of people who were of that party who had not yet returned a ballot. This let the parties focus "get out the vote" efforts on people who had not yet voted, and avoided wasting time and effort calling people who'd already turned in a ballot. This, in turn, provided an incentive to get that ballot turned in, if you didn't want another robocall from party HQ. (nonpartisans could expect multiple calls from multiple party HQs) This increased the likelihood that when they opened all the ballots they had on hand and started counting them at 8am on election day they could tell you who won at 8pm on election day.

[Bob from Ohio]

"if you didn’t want another robocall from party HQ"

Harassment is not something we should encourage.

[James Pollock]

No shit, Bob. Which is why you want them to know not to bother calling you.

[Bob from Ohio]

If they can't access the list, they can't call anyone based on it.

People should not have to get repeated calls just because they haven't voted. Maybe they don't want to vote which is the more rational choice after all.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Your response to someone behaving in a harassing manner is to blame the victim?

That is completely ass backwards. The harassment shouldn't happen, and it shouldn't be incumbent upon the victim to try and get it to stop.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Interesting. I guess you could couple that with laws designed to deter retaliation by employers and landlords. But idk if those would survive a first amendment challenge?

[bernard11]

Those laws would be hard to enforce, and employees probably wouldn't believe they were protected anyway.

Besides, there's lots of ways to retaliate that you're not going to be bale to prove, even if you're willing to get a lawyer and try.

The guy who voted for the candidate the boss liked got a bigger raise, or a better assignment, or a nicer office, or who knows.

[EscherEnigma]

Several states do have non-discrimination laws that include political action and affiliation. They are difficult to enforce for the same reason all non-discrimination laws are hard to enforce: once people interested in discrimination know such discrimination is illegal, they find legal pretenses to cover-up what they're doing.

But yes, such non-discrimination laws have survived First Amendment challenges. Once you get past the first line, even the Masterpiece Cakeshop decision refused to say that Colorado's non-discrimination law violated the Constitution, they instead said that one official was just too mean.

[Bored Lawyer]

Whatever one may think of Jill Biden's doctorate, Ben Carson has certainly earned the title Dr. more than she has.

And yet the NY Times refers to Carson as "Mr." and Biden as "Dr."

Were I of a different political persuasion, I would say that the Times just wants to tear down accomplished black men.

As it is, I chalk it up to their mendacious political bias. Walter Duranty would be proud.

[Jimmy the Dane]

The NYT has made it abundantly clear they have a strong dislike for any conservative of color. But, that is "acceptable" bigotry so it goes unmentioned.

[Sarcastr0]

NY Times refers to Carson as “Mr.”

Well, they shouldn't do that.

Doesn't make these sexist bullshit attacks any less sexist bullshit.

[Bored Lawyer]

No, but it does highlight the fact that much of the outrage about the supposed "sexist bullshit attack" is feigned and disingenuous. (Or lying and two-faced in plain English.)

[Sarcastr0]

I don't think it shows that at all.

[Bored Lawyer]

Of course you don't.

[James Pollock]

I think the argument here is that, like election fraud, it's only obvious to people who desperately WANT to believe in it. When Mr. Carson is being discussed in a role of treating patients, he is Dr. Carson. When he's being discussed in his role in politics, he goes back to being Secretary Carson. Mrs. Biden isn't involved in politics, except for being married to a politician. If you're talking about her in her professional role, she's Dr. Biden. Soon enough, she'll be Dr. FLOTUS, in discussing that role, the "Dr." is silent.

[jb]

I guess I'm missing the Op Ed piece where someone wrote that Dr. Carson shouldn't call himself that.

[NToJ]

"...it does highlight the fact that much of the outrage about the supposed “sexist bullshit attack” is feigned and disingenuous."

The statement is anodyne to the point of silliness. In a world of 6B people, "much of the outrage about" anything is "feigned and disingenuous". That's true even about the outrage regarding a certain WSJ editorial. That doesn't mean all of the outrage--or criticism for that matter--was "feigned and disingenuous". It was a stupid fucking article.

[StellaLink]

It was worse than fucking stupid. It was intentionally insulting and demeaning.

[James Pollock]

But that was the POINT.

[StellaLink]

exactly. I don't understand why a publicatiion which seems to make a claim of relevance would publish something like this which is intended to be nothing but a gratuitious insult.

[Bob from Ohio]

"sexist bullshit attacks any less sexist bullshit"

All criticism of Dem women are "attacks" and also sexist, this is known.

Don't you ever get tired of playing the race and gender cards to deflect legitimate criticism?

[Sarcastr0]

Plenty of attacks on conservative women are sexist as well, don't you fear.

Ask yourself if this would have been brought up if Dr. Biden was a guy.

[Bored Lawyer]

Well Biden is a "guy" and his tall tales have been attacked plenty.

[Bored Lawyer]

I meant Joe Biden, of course.

[Sarcastr0]

I figured it out, Bored.
Of course, what you're talking about is not quite the same as digging into his dissertation.

Only one President I can think of for whom that was a recent issue, and that was the only black guy.

[Bored Lawyer]

"Not quite the same"

What a great deflection.

[Sarcastr0]

No, it's an actual distinction.

Biden tells tall stories is not the same as Biden's scholarship is fake.

[ThePublius]

Have you read any of her doctoral dissertation? Holy cow. Borderline literate in English, totally illiterate in math.

Jill Biden’s Doctorate Is Garbage Because Her Dissertation Is Garbage

[James Pollock]

"Have you read any of her doctoral dissertation?"

I don't have an Ed.D., which leaves me in poor position to criticize someone who does, or the work they did to earn it.
This is why universities have panels of qualified people to check up on this sort of thing before issuing credentials.

[Bored Lawyer]

This review is even worse:

https://libertyunyielding.com/2020/12/17/dr-jill-bidens-dissertation-was-unbelievably-awful/

Take this excerpt:

For example, Mrs. Biden’s paper shows that she doesn’t understand fractions, or basic arithmetic, unlike most schoolchildren and adults. In it, she mistakenly wrote that three-quarters plus one-quarter does not add up to one: “Three quarters of the class will be Caucasian; one quarter of the class will be African American…the remaining seats will be filled with students of Asian descent or non-resident aliens.” What remaining seats?

You don't need a degree in education to understand that Biden made a mistake my ten year old would be embarassed to make.

[Bored Lawyer]

"totally illiterate in math"

I think the term is "innumerate."

Which is not unique to Jill Biden. But not something to brag about, either.

[James Pollock]

"You don’t need a degree in education to understand that Biden made a mistake my ten year old would be embarassed to make."

apparently, you DO need a degree in education to understand what a "rounding error" is and how it works.

This reminds me of the newspaper editor who wanted to lecture Robert Goddard on rocketry, patiently explaining why a rocket doesn't work in space.

[Bored Lawyer]

"apparently, you DO need a degree in education to understand what a “rounding error” is and how it works."

You have no clue what you are talking about. I know what a rounding error is, and that has no application to her dissertation, which you can read in full here:

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/20407226/bidens-dissertation.pdf

Let me repeat, I don't care that Jill Biden, like a lot of people, wants to have a title, so she got a flimsy degree to justify it. But let's not pretend that there is some outrage in questioning it.

[Bored Lawyer]

My first boss (who happens to have been Donald Trump's brother-in-law) had a mouth like a truck driver, but was a very smart and wise lawyer, who was very generous in sharing his wisdom with young lawyers.

One of the the things he often said was, one of lawyers' biggest problems is that after a while they start to believe their own bullshit.

Not every distinction makes a difference. (Which is one of the problems with current Qualified-Immunity jurisprudence, but I digress.)

Jill Biden wants to be called "Dr." So she has caught flack for that. Same as her husbands penchant for invention. The fact that they are not exactly the same does not mean that both are not subject to criticism, both fair and unfair.

[Sarcastr0]

Jill Biden wants to be called “Dr.” So she has caught flack for that.

No, everyone generally calls her Dr. and the right has turned it into a whole uppity woman thing.

[Bob from Ohio]

"that was the only black guy."

Race card again.

How soon we forget the "scandal" over Trump supposedly paying somebody to take the SAT.

Of course "Bush is stupid" despite two Ivy degrees and the same undergrad grades as super genius John Kerry.

People make fun of Biden for poor grades in college and law school. Is that racism or sexism? Not sure.

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, someone said that about Trump and it was covered and it died.

Unlike the the right, sua sponte, digging into Obama's dissertation to find it is radical and secret and also bad.

Did anyone dig up Bush's schoolwork?

[Jimmy the Dane]

Yes and they made a big deal over his transcript (less than stellar), but I take it you forgot that?

[Sarcastr0]

No, I don't. I was pretty young at the time.

But also not the same thing as random partisan journalists pretending to be experts in dissertation review.

[Bob from Ohio]

"right, sua sponte"

Oh noes, political opponents brought an issue up!

"Did anyone dig up Bush’s schoolwork?"

Someone leaked records to WaPo on Bush and Gore

http://insidepolitics.org/heard/heard32300.html

[Sarcastr0]

OK, I stand corrected. I was not paying attention to politics at the time.

1) That was pretty lame, no doubt.
2) this is worse,
a) pettier (don't call her Dr!),
b) a deeper dive (transcripts versus dissertation)
c) less sexist (not a curious man versus doesn't deserve her professional accolades)

[bernard11]

When did Obama write a dissertation?

[James Pollock]

"Well Biden is a 'guy' and his tall tales have been attacked plenty."

gosh, I guess everybody who called criticism of him "sexist" is wrong, then, aren't they?

[Bored Lawyer]

No, people who have called criticism of Jill Biden sexist are wrong.

Really, are you guys stupid or just willfully ignorant?

[StellaLink]

Exactly why is Jill Biden being criticized? I don't get it. She claims to have a doctorate in education and calls herself Dr, like a plethora of other people with the same degree. Who gives a shit about her dissertation? Why are people, like that knob Carlson, reading it? I can think of very little less interesting than the dissertaion of some ed.D.

As for the criticism of her dissertation, it's clear that she made a mistake that should have been caught by her and should have been caught by the people reviewing her work. But in context, it's not really a big deal. She's describing the diversity of a "typical" community college class and how that diversity affects retention. So, the numbers don't add up -- who cares? Her point, I believe, remains.

For all those on the right spending time reading her dissertation I would suggest doing something more productive, like researching the prevalence of porn on the interwebs.

[Sarcastr0]

No one has really disputed that it's pretty normal for Ed.D's to be called doctor, but not J.D.'s. I think because of the existence of LLMs and JDs's.

They just think she's dumb for some reason.

[James Pollock]

"Exactly why is Jill Biden being criticized?"

Because she's married to Joe, and the conservatives are all butthurt that they lost the election.

[StellaLink]

These people are going to give serial wanking a bad name. Just stay away from the cereal. Maybe they think Cheerios is a command or something.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Who gives a shit about her dissertation?"

Huh? Michelle Obama says that people who don't give a shit about her dissertation are misogynist.

[StellaLink]

I did a brief search to find out what M Obama had to say and all I found was a quoted instagram post. I found her criticism of the Epstein editorial to be apt but didn't find what you suggest. Can you direct me to her claiming that it is misogynistic to not care about Biden's dissertation or are you just blowing smoke?

[TwelveInchPianist]

"And right now, we’re all seeing what also happens to so many professional women, whether their titles are Dr., Ms., Mrs., or even First Lady: All too often, our accomplishments are met with skepticism, even derision."

[StellaLink]

As I suspected, you were lying.

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, TiP, what the hell was that?

Do better.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Yeah, TiP, what the hell was that?"

What the hell was what? Some lady write a paper showing that she doesn't know how many quarters there are and y'all cry sexism when that's met with scorn and derision? You guys do better.

[Sarcastr0]

Nice attempt to change the subject.

But you said "Michelle Obama says that people who don’t give a shit about her dissertation are misogynist."

This turns out to have been you doing some bullshitting.

Again, do better.

[TwelveInchPianist]

?? "Nice attempt to change the subject."

That was the subject. You're the one that's bullshitting. As I pointed out, Michelle Obama is one of the people crying sexism in response to criticism of Biden's shitty paper.

You do better, Gaslightro.

[Sarcastr0]

That's not what your quote says, at all.

You are just blowing smoke, as Stella noted.

[bernard11]

Michelle Obama says that people who don’t give a shit about her dissertation are misogynist.

This is a lie.

[James Pollock]

"Really, are you guys stupid or just willfully ignorant?"

How long have you had this problem of projecting your own failings onto others?

[Bob from Ohio]

"Ask yourself if this would have been brought up if Dr. Biden was a guy."

People bring up Joe's cheating and his poor grades in law school.

As I said, Trump's SAT testing was brought up. Bush's grades.

[StellaLink]

In Trump's case and in Joe Biden's there is good reason. Both these guys have lied about their academic performance and both of them have presented themselves as being qualified to occupy postions of public trust. Dr. Biden, on the other hand, has presented herself as having an ed.D, which she does, and is not holding herself out to have any qualification for her pending positiion other than that she is married to the president elect.

[James Pollock]

What these guys should be doing is kicking themselves for not developing policies and running the government in such a way that a majority of voters would want their guy to KEEP running the government. since they can't bring themselves to admit that they were wrong, the alternative is to get snippy with anyone and anything that reminds them that they lost.

[James Pollock]

"All criticism of Dem women are 'attacks' and also sexist, this is known."

Admitting you have a problem is the first step towards solving it.

[Don Nico]

S0,
You should know that anyone not an MD who calls him/her self Doctor is a bore. Mr or MS is fine. Tovarish is even better.

[Sarcastr0]

Easy for someone in academia to say.

Where I work, it's used to assert respect and delineate roles - I'm not just a paper pusher, I also know science! More important with women than men.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Where I work, it’s used to assert respect and delineate roles..."

Where I work, respect is based on whether or not the shit you make works. I have a co-worker with a phd. He doesn't use "Dr." but whenever I ask him something, I do what he says and I get the result that I want.

[Sarcastr0]

Unless you never professionally meet strangers who don't know your work, that does not seem practical.

But you know what I was saying, you just chose to misinterpret it.

[grb]

(typing with a happy smile) : Isn't it great to be back worrying about stuff like mustard on burgers, Obama's tan suit, and Jill's doctorate? Sure, Trump will probably leave fingernail scratches on the pavement as he's dragged by the feet from the White House, but normalcy seems closer every day......

Soon we'll actually have a adult human being back in the presidency!

[Bored Lawyer]

Since you mention it, I saw a quote the other day from Abrham Lincoln I had never heard before, but impressed me. It was about the Know-Nothing party, a prejudiced and anti-immigrant party in the 1850s:

I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor of degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we begin by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes." When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read "all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics." When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty-to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy.

This encapuslates some of my feelings for Trump. He makes no pretence of respecting Constitutional law or norms. The other side trashes them as much, and then engages in the "base alloy of hypocracy." So I don't view the return to so-called "normalcy" as such a good.

[grb]

Interesting response. First you create as stark a contrast as possible between Lincoln & the Know-Nothing Party, but then whataboutism rushes in last-second to save you from making an actual distinction.

If making actual distinctions is painful to you (some sort of exotic disease or such), then I understand & sympathize. Otherwise? Not so much.

[Bored Lawyer]

I don't know what you are babbling about. Lincoln's point (or one of them) is that he would rather have open disdain for liberty, than disdain for liberty hidden by hypocrisy. Which is appliable to our current situation.

[De Oppresso Liber]

You do realize that Trump is basically cut whole cloth from the same political "philosophy" as the know-nothing's, right? I mean, that alone confuses most of us as to what point you are trying to make with this little fable.

I am pretty sure that Lincoln's last sentence was not his point, but a bit of hyperbole to illustrate his point. His point was that the country was moving toward equality, not more nativism.

[James Pollock]

Can't we just be happy about the imminent removal of a pouting toddler from national office before we rush to imagine sins the new guy might bring with him?

[Ridgeway]

Is that a legit quote? It doesn't sound like Lincoln.

[Ridgeway]

I see it is from an 1855 letter

[NToJ]

"Were I of a different political persuasion, I would say that the Times just wants to tear down accomplished black men."

Or you could just read the Times style guide to find out why they use the word Dr. sometimes but not others. Try here. Dr. is typically reserved for "physicians and dentists whose practice is their primary current occupation". Dr. Ben Carson retired from neurosurgery in 2013.

The NY Times and its authors frequently violate this rule. Jill Biden shouldn't be called Dr. even under the NY Times's rule. (Nor should she be called "kiddo".) And the NY Times has frequently called Ben Carson "Dr." even after he retired from medicine. Google "NY Times With Ben Carson, the Doctor and the Politician Can Vary Sharply." The article was from November 22, 2015.

[Voize of Reazon]

The New York TImes Manual of Style and Usage has offered the same guidance for at least 10 years:

Dr. should be used in all references for physicians and dentists whose practice is their primary current occupation, or who work in a closely related field, like medical writing, research or pharmaceutical manufacturing: Dr. Alex E. Baranek; Dr. Baranek; the doctor. (Those who practice only incidentally, or not at all, should be called Mr., Ms., Miss or Mrs.)

Anyone else with an earned doctorate, like a Ph.D. degree, may request the title, but only if it is germane to the holder’s primary current occupation (academic, for example, or laboratory research). For a Ph.D., the title should appear only in second and later references. The holder of a Ph.D. or equivalent degree may also choose not to use the title.

Do not use the title for someone whose doctorate is honorary.

Applying those rules would explain Ben Carson - he retired from practice some years ago. It likely accounts for Rand Paul too, whether he reamins an active ophthalmologist it can't be considered his primary occupation.
What about Jill Biden? She has an "earned doctorate", though not "like a Ph.D." She refers to herself as Dr. Biden on Twitter, which I would say counts as requesting the title. Her degree is relevant to her community college faculty position, and I'm not prepared to argue that being somebody's wife is her real primary occupation, so she checks that box too. Maybe the NYT staff aren't neutrally applying their usage rules, but there is at least a colorable argument that they are.

[Don Nico]

Jill is a bore. She is not even a PhD. At reall universities (not community colleges) that rates a Ms.
Carson is a distinguished MD.
The Times is now run by hack. On their front page CA is never shown among the states to watch. Oh, they have an excuse. They only look at cases per 1M, conveniently taking their favored blue states off the list.
Meanwhile there is a covid explosion in CA

[bernard11]

Cases per M seems like a lot better metric than total cases.

Per <a href="https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/"Worldometer, CA had 251 deaths today, while ND had only 21.

So hooray for ND? Not quite. CA has 52 times the population and only 12 times the deaths. Indeed, today's CA death rate is lower than the national rate. Here are some rates for today, per M

CA 6
ND 27
MS 11
SD 32
TN 17
AL 8
NY 6
PA 18
FL 5 (probably lying)

So why criticize CA?

[Bob from Ohio]

"I’m not prepared to argue that being somebody’s wife is her real primary occupation"

Its the sole and exclusive reason she is ever in the news or anyone outside of her family and friends knows her name.

How many other community college faculty can you list?

[Voize of Reazon]

It is the reason for her notoriety but it isn't her occupation, never mind a primary one.
Jack Kevorkian was more famous for killing people than healing them, but the New York Times still called him "Doctor".

[Queen Amalthea]

Do you think any source that does not refer to Rand Paul as Dr. Rand Paul is proof of something ?

[Bored Lawyer]

Try re-reading what I said. Any source that insists on referring to Jill Biden as Dr. but Ben Carson as Mr. is engaged in politically biased mendacity.

As for Rand Paul, he is also a Senator, which is both more important, and in his case more recent, than his acting as a medical doctor.

Nice try, though. Maybe I will give you honorable mention in this year's Walter Duranty prize. (Which I am thinking of establishing. There used to be a Senator who gave out a yearly prize for the most wasteful bureaucratic mistake. It was Sen. William Proxmire, and the name was the Golden Fleece award. )

[Queen Amalthea]

Really? I mean, Paul has a literal MD. But you want to handwave the fact that no one refers to him as Dr. Paul?

[Bored Lawyer]

Really, you want to continue your deflection and BS?

Personally, I couldn't care less if Jill Biden wants to call herself the Supreme Goddess of Education and Other Worthless Academic Pursuits. I am more concerned about her half-senile husband, whose administration is going to enact policies that are harmful to the country.

But if you are going to get worked up about her title, then you had better be able to explain why Dr. Ben Carson, both and MD and highly accomplished neurosurgeon, gets referred to in the Paper of Record as "Mr."

[Queen Amalthea]

But if you are going to get worked up about her title, then you had better be able to explain why you don't get worked up when Dr. Rand Paul, gets referred to in the Paper of Record as “Mr.”

[James Pollock]

If you just start by assuming the point of the kerfuffle is to disrespect Dr. Biden for being married to a Democrat (which is the real complaint about her, make no mistake.) then everything makes sense. Secretary Carson and Senator Paul are entirely tangential.

complaints about "senile" Biden are humorous coming from Republicans, in the sense that they positively adored St. Ronnie, who actually WAS suffering from Alzheimer's while in office.

[StellaLink]

"positively adored St. Ronnie"

and more recently the guy who talks about herd mentality and hydro-sonic missiles and two Corinthians. And who thinks it takes a math genius to count down from 100 by sevens.

[James Pollock]

The thing is, somebody was actually worried enough about Trump that they made him take a cognitive test. Which he claims was difficult to pass, but really isn't. They want to know if you know who you are and why you're in the hospital, not if you're currently qualified to appear on Jeopardy.

[Don Nico]

James the ral point is that at a real university, she is Ms.
She is NOT a real Doctor (certainly not to MDs)

[James Pollock]

I don't believe you have any idea what things are like at a "real University". Animal House was fictional.

[bernard11]

But if you are going to get worked up about her title, then you had better be able to explain why Dr. Ben Carson, both and MD and highly accomplished neurosurgeon, gets referred to in the Paper of Record as “Mr.”

It's been explained, twice. Here's the NYT style guide quote, for the third time:

Dr. should be used in all references for physicians and dentists whose practice is their primary current occupation, or who work in a closely related field, like medical writing, research or pharmaceutical manufacturing: Dr. Alex E. Baranek; Dr. Baranek; the doctor. (Those who practice only incidentally, or not at all, should be called Mr., Ms., Miss or Mrs.)

Do you understand now?

[bernard11]

Any source that insists on referring to Jill Biden as Dr. but Ben Carson as Mr. is engaged in politically biased mendacity.

The NYT actually doesn't insist "on referring to Jill Biden as Dr. "

[Jimmy the Dane]

When something goes against a liberal they want proof solid and nothing but a "perfect" example will prove your point. But when they advocate something no proof is necessary. In fact, we should just work off baseless assumptions like "no man...." or "society is racist..." or "if that guy was white..."

[Sarcastr0]

Bluster when you get owned.

[Jimmy the Dane]

No just pointing out hypocrisy that was unfolding above.

[loki13]

Hey, it's Jimmy the Squirrel!

[Jimmy the Dane]

You trying to win the award for biggest jerk in the open thread again this week?

[Sarcastr0]

bernard11 pointed out your were wrong. You didn't even go with 'well, nevertheless' you went with 'my wrongness is just proof you've got a double standard.'

I think you're getting worse at trolling.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Bernard11 didn't say anything about what I have been saying this entire time. His comment was responded to Bored Lawyer. He tried to make some point about me knowing about it so "AHAH since you know about it there must be coverage" which so obviously a logical fallacy it does not need to be pointed.

You are getting really bad at this. I know you want to pretend that there is not a blatant double standard, but defending against it, especially when it is pointed out, must be really difficult.

[James Pollock]

"He tried to make some point about me knowing about it so “AHAH since you know about it there must be coverage” which so obviously a logical fallacy it does not need to be pointed."

That's not a fallacy. It's a simple disproof of your claim.

[StellaLink]

No chance of that. mad sadsack seems to be a lock on the jerking award.

[James Pollock]

"You trying to win the award for biggest jerk in the open thread again this week?"

You don't like it when somebody comes after something that's yours, do you?

[Stephen Lathrop]

All you guys wrapped up in what titles people get tagged with by the press, maybe I can help. With the NYT, or any other big media organization, that stuff is not some random, on the fly choice an editor makes. They have protocols, and they try to keep them consistent.

Long ago, I had occasion to ask then-Secretary of the Interior Cecil Andrus why he was referred to as, "Governor Andrus." He explained that the protocol was to refer to a person in politics by the highest office he had ever been elected to. So his former elected position as Governor of Idaho took precedence over his appointed position as Secretary of the Interior.

I'm not up on all the details as they are applied now, but I'll bet if someone asks the NYT what the deal is, they will be happy to explain. And you will probably discover that they have thought it through, come up with rules that at least seem to make sense to them, and try to stick to those rules.

[ThePublius]

Don't be a fool. Do a search on the Times' website. Biden is routinely referred to as "Dr. Biden." Ben Carson is almost never referred to as "Dr. Carson." (Only once that I could find, and it was an article talking about him being a doctor.) Why the double standard?

[James Pollock]

This isn't hard. Ben Carson is currently "secretary Carson", a non-practicing physician but Jill Biden is currently "Dr. Biden" a practicing educator.
There is approximately 0.0 reason to get lathered up over this, unless you have a habit of rejecting stupidity.

[Don Nico]

James,
Poor sophistry there. The use of Sec. Carson is okay because Sec. is interpreted as a higher honorific.
None of my faculty colleagues at a top 5 university call themselves Dr.

[Sarcastr0]

Presumably because they're called professor.

I work with a lot of PhD's, and you call them doctor for sure. Hell, I don't have one and I get called doctor sometimes just by association!

[Bored Lawyer]

Credentials by association. Sounds like a virus.

[Sarcastr0]

I talk all fancy and hang out with PhDs.

It's an easy mistake to make, nothing more.

It can get awkward to correct, though.

[James Pollock]

"None of my faculty colleagues at a top 5 university call themselves Dr."

Your faculty colleagues at a top 5 university aren't doctors? What are you top 5 in? Your Patriot Studies program?

[bernard11]

For Pete's sake.

The NYT style guide has now been cioted explaining this more than once.

[Brett Bellmore]

"and in his case more recent, than his acting as a medical doctor. "

Aside from the pro-bono medical work he's been doing while in the Senate.

[James Pollock]

Senator is a more respected title than "doctor", so he's "Senator Paul" rather than "Doctor Paul", unless the topic of discussion is Dr. Paul's surgical practice.

[Don Nico]

There I agree with you.

[James Pollock]

Oddly, you didn't above.

[EscherEnigma]

As far as I can tell, Paul doesn't want to be called "Dr. Paul".

If that changes, then I sincerely hope people use the appellation.

This really isn't complicated.

[James Pollock]

"As far as I can tell, Paul doesn’t want to be called 'Dr. Paul'."

He calls himself "Dr. Paul" in his biography on his own website. I'd be more than happy to start calling him "former Senator Paul" instead of "Senator Paul".

[EscherEnigma]

Huh.

Well, you learn something new every day. I'll try to refer to him as Dr. Paul from now on (when it's not more appropriate and relevant to refer to him as senator).

[James Pollock]

Stick with "guy who got a thrashing from his neighbor".

[grb]

From today's news :

"The former Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino is being dynamited on Jan. 29, and Atlantic City is auctioning off the chance to be the person who presses the button for the implosion. They hopes to raise more than $1 million with the auction, which will benefit the Boys & Girls Club of Atlantic City"

Who said Trump never accomplishes any good? Though as a good leftie, I think there should be a government program with subsidies that help poor people dynamite Trump-related things. Such a fundamental human right shouldn't be exclusively for the ultra-rich.

[Bored Lawyer]

" I think there should be a government program with subsidies that help poor people dynamite Trump-related things"

We have one. It's called an election.

[grb]

Touché

[Jimmy the Dane]

Atlantic City is a giant monument to how government intervention is a horrible urban renewal policy.

[loki13]

Atlantic City is a giant monument to how people who believe Trump always get the shaft.

[Commenter_XY]

loki13, I happen to live in the People's Republic of NJ, not too far from Atlantic City. Atlantic City today is a testament to how corruption destroys moral and monetary value.

As an aside, right now is a truly historic buying opportunity in AC. You can get a 1-bdrm condo for 60K, right on the boardwalk. The knottier issue are the HOA fees. For 75K, a 2-bdrm a block off the beach with ocean views. I have never seen that pricing in my life.

[loki13]

" is a testament to how corruption destroys moral and monetary value."

So you agree with me. You believe Trump, you get the shaft.

I am not so bold as to claim that Trump caused all of AC's problems. But he most certainly exploited them. It is possible to make money, and also create value. Trump fails to do that.

There is nothing that continues to amaze me more than how people who should know better, don't. Over and over and over again.

[Jimmy the Dane]

For those who don't know the history of AC, might want to check out the wikipedia article before opining.

Casinos were approved as a government attempt to save the town in the late 70's. It didn't work. It just created a very small casino district in what is otherwise a shanty town. The government creation was supposed to create a Las Vegas of the New Jersey shore. That never happened. It is just another of many examples of how government attempts at urban renewal failed miserably.

[grb]

The arc of Trump's career starts (of course) with his daddy gifting him tens of millions of dollars - which he quickly blew thru. So Fred set Trump up again with tens of millions more, and the result was a brief period when Trump's business career was more substance than branding. This was when Trump Tower was built.

But we're not talking about a competent or stable individual, are we? What followed was bungling, idiocy & egomania on a truly colossal scale. Trump bought airlines, football teams, and casinos in a gluttonous orgy of s**t-for-brains decision-making. Fred kept him on a pretty short lease after that, leading to the current era when branding, fronting, and selling his name constitutes the majority of DJT's business ventures (and political too, if you think about it)

In short, Atlantic City was only a small part of the ocean of imbecility from Trump during that era. It's hard to see him as victimized in AC, when he bungled everything he touched during that period too.

[StellaLink]

People make money in different ways. Some people create value and take profit as a reward for that creation. Some people figure out how to attach themselves to a cash flow and suck from it without actually creating anything of value. That's Trump form of rent seeking. The economic equivalent of what a classical physicist would call friction. Metaphorically, Trump is nothing but a sucking lamprey which is easy to figure as he bears a striking physical resemblance to one.

[bernard11]

I think it was actually $400M in total that he got from daddy.

I suspect that had he just kept his money in T-bills he would be much wealthier today than he actually is.

[StellaLink]

$400 million may be a low estimate, but who knows. Consider that $400 million combined with the $800 million in tax subsidies and it's surprising that he's worth so little. My favorite example of Trump's business acumen is his ability to turn a possibly viable sports league into a $3 plus interest joke. Not just anybody can do that.

[James Pollock]

He only got a small piece of the $3, at that. He didn't own the league, just the New Jersey team. He's STILL mad 40 years later, that the NFL owners blocked selling him an NFL team.

[James Pollock]

" Atlantic City today is a testament to how corruption destroys moral and monetary value."

They've been the prototype for the ultra-capitalist board game "Monopoly" for 8 decades.

"You can get a 1-bdrm condo for 60K, right on the boardwalk."

Buy four and then build the hotel.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Rand Paul decided to really lean into saying the quiet part out loud today on Fox about the Georgia runoffs:

“I’m very, very concerned that if you solicit votes from typically non-voters, that you will affect and change the outcome.”

Let’s consider this statement. Rand assumes that there is a predetermined “outcome” that getting people to vote will “affect” and “change.” Rand Paul, a US Senator who is in his office by virtue of an election, apparently thinks that there are natural winners of elections placed there by natural voters. It’s an entitlement and a right to rule. Any disruption of that status quo by other people voting is concerning to him and implicitly illegitimate.

So when Republicans like Rand claim there is voting fraud or illegal votes or whatever, remember that they also are often pretty explicitly in their real gripe: Democrats can convince people to vote for them and that disrupts their natural right to rule.

[NToJ]

Newt got caught up in this, too.

[EscherEnigma]

They've been complaining, all year long, that if more people vote, Republicans lose. They inevitably back track after someone points out how that sounds, and try for "I mean if you let illegal people vote, of course."

Sort of how the protestors outside of vote-counting locations were screaming "stop the count" on November 4th. A few days later they transitioned to "stop the steal".

And there was Trump saying "if we let people vote by mail, we'll lose!" He eventually tried to shore that up with "because it makes fraud easier!", but again, quiet part out loud, followed up by damage control, doesn't mean the quiet part wasn't loud already.

I suspect that in a few decades a young poly sci student is going to write their thesis about how how Republican's losing self control and saying the "quiet part" out loud so often in 2020 is what cost them the election.

[James Pollock]

"I suspect that in a few decades a young poly sci student is going to write their thesis about how how Republican’s losing self control and saying the 'quiet part' out loud so often in 2020 is what cost them the election."

what cost them the election was renominating the least effective President after not noticing how unpopular he was with people outside the country club. Since he couldn't run on his popularity, he was forced to run on his accomplishments, of which there aren't any so all he had was lies that were increasingly obvious because he can't seem to lie consistently.

[EscherEnigma]

Eh... he still got the second-highest vote total of any US presidential election (up till now), and while the swing states weren't as close as 2016, they were all still fairly close.

Which is to say, President Trump was only a few hundred thousand votes away from winning a second term while losing the popular vote (a second time!) by an even greater margin then he lost it in 2016.

Which is to say... this was only a landslide if you use President Trump's claims of 2016 being a "landslide" as your standard. By any other, it was a very close race. So you would be well-served by not over-selling President Trump's loss.

[Bob from Ohio]

It was about 42,000 votes to get a 269-269 tie. House delegations are at least 26-24 GOP so Trump would have won there.

[StellaLink]

Not so fast:

"Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members"

[James Pollock]

"Which is to say… this was only a landslide if you use President Trump’s claims of 2016 being a “landslide” as your standard. By any other, it was a very close race. So you would be well-served by not over-selling President Trump’s loss."

He was successful in getting people out to vote. Most of them voted for not-HIM. That's a substantial achievement, but not a good one.

[Sarcastr0]

So what are people hearing about this widespread hack, with the Russian government accused of being behind it?

I had some folks opining on it who would know, but everyone seems to have clammed up in the past couple of days.

[loki13]

From what I have gathered, and based on my knowledge base which is woefully out-of-date, it's really bad.

As in ... they don't know how bad it is yet, bad.

[James Pollock]

It's this bad. The Russians were able to gain control to anything the wanted, for almost a year. We know they got into all the top-tier targets, and we aren't sure how many of the lower-tiered targets they bothered with. could be all of them, could be none of them, and either way, we know they got into NSA and all 5 branches of the military, and that's scary enough without worrying about whether they got into the local DMV as well.

[Bob from Ohio]

The cyber security guy was too busy making election pronouncements to do, you know, cybersecurity.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

‘Only the best,’ you bigoted, backwater, right-wing loser.

[James Pollock]

The cyber security guy was not in charge of security at SolarWinds.

[apedad]

"So what are people hearing about this widespread hack, with the Russian government accused of being behind it?"

That's not a nice thing to say about Trump.

[De Oppresso Liber]

It's very, very bad. And Trump will not say a word about it, just like the bounties, just like the 2016 hacks.

Nothing to see here. Just (another) series of coincidences.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Trump will not say a word about it"

What did Obama say or do about the Chinese's Office of Personnel Management hack?

"just like the bounties"

They were imaginary.

[De Oppresso Liber]

the classic: "But what about Obama?"

[James Pollock]

He was imaginary.

[Bob from Ohio]

“But what about Obama?”

You expect Trump to do X but the prior president didn't do X under similar facts.

Its a proper comparison.

[James Pollock]

What, exactly DID Trump do? On any topic other than cheating at golf?

[NToJ]

Whenever I hear some new story about the wild incompetence of America's counterintelligence community, I'm comforted by the reminder that they've been wildly incompetent since their inception, and we're all still alive.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

More importantly, the last I heard, the Senate was bitching about imagined election fraud and hauling in Chris Krebs to complain about it.

A hack involving all five branches of the military, dozens of fortune 500 companies, and a few other top-level agencies of the Government?

They don't have the goddamn time to worry about that. The current GOP needs to be eradicated and replaced with conservatives who take their Oaths seriously and won't sell their souls for a couple of kneepads and some mouthwash.

[James Pollock]

The hack was accomplished because a private company got pwned, and this let the Russkies (allegedly) piggyback into other systems that relied on SolarWinds infrastructure.

This has nothing to do with the GOP, or the bureaucracy in general, and in theory can be addressed by suing the private company that mismanaged its own infrastructure for the damages caused by their negligence.

[David Matthews]

If you still consider yourselves a serious Constitutional Law blog, you must weigh in on this:
https://nypost.com/2020/12/17/joe-exotic-sues-justice-department-over-rejected-pardon/

[James Pollock]

If Joe Exotic wanted a pardon he should have used his state office to try to overthrow the 2020 election.

[ThePublius]

I don't trust our voting system in the U.S. I am not alone. I believe that elections have been manipulated and stolen since the beginning, or at least attempts have been made. Here is why I believe this:

First, it is ludicrous to believe that something with such high stakes as elections is somehow magically immune from corruption, This is what the Democratic party and the progressive movement, and the media outlets who support them, would have us believe, and they are constantly beating the drum touting this narrative: that voter fraud is so rare as to have no measurable impact on elections. This is nonsense. That they haven't detected it, if we are to believe they are sincere (which I don't) is a result of them not looking for it. Just because you don't detect something doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It stands to reason that with high stakes, people will attempt to affect election outcomes through corrupt practices. Stuffing ballot boxes is the most sure, and lowest cost method of doing this. "Stuffing" is used hear to encompass all of the illicit means of altering the vote count. The only way to guard against this is through bipartisan witness, verification, and auditing. These practices were broadly prevented in this last election, if we are to believe those who testified under oath to this case.

Second, Democrats oppose any measure that would make voting more secure. They vehemently oppose voter ID, and accuse proponents of wanting to suppress the votes of the poor, the black, and the elderly voters. They basically shout "racist!" if you propose this. But, virtually all other countries have voter ID requirements. Only fourteen US states do. Democrats spearheaded the mail-in vote thing for this past election, under the covid excuse, which opened things up for widespread, easy ballot box stuffing. They even went to far as to ignore late or absent postmarks and signature verification. Why? Why would anyone trust them?

Third, several battleground states illegally changed their voting rules.

Fourth, the voting machines. I am a computer science professional, and have managed a software security operation. I can tell you in no uncertain terms that modifying the software in the Dominion voting machines and tabulators is easily modified to produce whatever result you want, and that these mods can take place in the field, with physical access, and remotely if the machines are connected to the internet. I have no doubt that someone wanting to illicitly affect the voting results would seek to use these vulnerabilities to electronically stuff the ballot box. Without strict monitoring and chain of custody it would be difficult to detect.

I reject the efforts by the media and by some Conspirators, like David Post, to downplay, and even ridicule the statistical anomalies that point to a stolen election. This is a reliable way to detect that something is fishy and deserves investigation.

I am very disappointed in the SCOTUS in not taking the Texas case. I'm not a lawyer, but I know when something is obviously wrong. That the states involved, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Georgia violated their own election laws seems without question. That voters across the nation were injured by this seems without question. That the SCOTUS is Texas' only venue to sue seems without question. Denying to hear the case is an atrocious miscarriage of justice.

Most people in the U.S. believe there was fraud in the last election, by a narrow margin. A new McLaughlin & Associates poll found that all voters, by a 46%-45% margin, believed that there was fraud.

https://www.newsmax.com/mclaughlin/electors-voters/2020/12/15/id/1001650/

How can we fix the voting system so people trust it, and we get fair, truthful results? Who will do this, and how?

I feel that failing to fix the voting system in the U.S. could ultimately lead to revolution.

[Jimmy the Dane]

"Not trusting the vote" = You are a wild conspiracy theorist that hates democracy.

"(Minority) not trusting the vaccine" = reasonable position that we will give a lot of coverage to and talk about extensively in the media.

[Sarcastr0]

There's a history behind that distrust that Trump folks don't have.

That also doesn't mean anyone reporting on that vaccine stuff thinks it's awesome blacks and hispanics don't trust it.

[Jimmy the Dane]

You are oblivious to the history of democrat party machines in urban areas fixing elections if you believe there is no history to election fraud.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Funny how nothing you say comes with evidence attached to it. Are you one of Trump's lawyers?

[Jimmy the Dane]

Funny how people who say things like "America is a racist society" and expect us to accept that as granted never do either...

[Jason Cavanaugh]

So as usual, you have no evidence for your assertions, even when asked.

[Jimmy the Dane]

I'm pretty sure you know how to work the internet and I don't need to do it for you.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

You made the claim. You back it up.

Basic philosophical standards. Can you meet that minimum bar? I doubt it.

[Sarcastr0]

Laughable. Tuskegee continued until 1972. And unequal medical treatment and informed consent has been an issue until like the last decade.

Meanwhile y'all reach back to LBJ when you're trying to pretend voter fraud is common.

[Jimmy the Dane]

You might be laughing but I don't find it funny. And if you think stating one word proves your point then you are delusional.

[grb]

Here's what I find funny : In today's Right, the handlers love to pretend there's a serious threat of voting fraud. The dupes and chumps then parrot what they're told, so this message of voting fraud danger rings out from the Right's hermetic bubble. This is utterly impervious to facts, because dupe-world is told to ignore any information coming from outsiders.

But what happens when a voting-fraud-fanatic president (Trump) appoints a voting-fraud-fanatic commission (Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity), stocks it with voting-fraud-fanatic members & heads it with a voting-fraud-fanatic chairman (Kris Kobach)? Surely the Right's fantasy voting fraud will finally be exposed?

Nope. The commission found the same few score fraud cases spread over a half-century that everyone else long noted. They found nothing else because finding something that doesn't exist is kinda difficult.

Now, you'd think the embarrassing failure of the Kobach Commission would be the one thing that could penetrate the dupish epistemological haze.

Nope. Turns out, dupes just gotta dupe.....

[James Pollock]

To Republicans, the threat to election security is that if everyone actually shows up to vote, they don't tend to win the elections. So the put a LOT of effort into making sure a lot of people don't vote. Back in 2008, a lot of voters turned up, and Obama was elected. In 2020, a lot of voters turned up and Trump was sent packing. MUST be fraud, because the alternative is admitting that Republicanism is unpopular and unAmerican.

[Sarcastr0]

I’m not a lawyer, but I know when something is obviously wrong. That the states involved, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Georgia violated their own election laws seems without question.
It very clearly is with question. Since the state court systems all directly contradict your feeling, and Thomas and Alito went out of their way to say the suit was nonsense (they've opined on original jurisdiction being mandatory before without adding 'would not grant other relief' to their opinion - that's a tell).

Now, if you want to talk about future election reforms, we can talk. But your very long windup is not about future policy solutions, it's about partisan delusional sour grapes a la Seth Rich or birtherism.

But, because hope springs eternal, how does this strike you:
Universal picture ID for all citizens, government funded, and required to vote.
Still a bit burdensome to take the time out to get it, but something I'd be willing to continence.

Whaddya think?

[Jimmy the Dane]

Anyone who thinks those states followed their election laws should read the actual state court decisions. They were simply NOT followed as written. Now there are lots of reasons for that, some more legit then others. But, as written, there were many areas of election law that were simply not followed.

[loki13]

"Anyone who thinks those states followed their election laws should read the actual state court decisions."

Spoken like someone who hasn't read the decisions, doesn't understand the law, doesn't understand election law, but has been fed a few lines that he continues to parrot.

At least Brett has the decency to quote the bits he doesn't understand and was given at other places. You can't even be bothered?

[Jimmy the Dane]

Are you really that bad at reading? Maybe you and Ms. Biden can attend literacy classes together.

There is the statute as it was written by the legislature. Then as the courts dealt with various lawsuits those statutes were flexed and bent. Some of that was more legit then others. For instance, in many cases the legislature gave the courts discretion to craft some of those interpretations. In others, the courts relied upon (dubious if you ask me) state constitutional grounds. And some were just good old statutory construction which I think reasonable minds could disagree about but that is what you get when you write ambiguous law.

The interesting question, which will go unanswered by the federal judiciary it seems, is how much can a state court go into interpreting election law when those seem to conflict with the rules pronounced by the legislature.

[loki13]

Even if someone were to accept the brand-new theory (and that is what it is) of legislative exceptionalism, and even if one were to precisely know exactly what the bounds of that theory were (even Gorsuch's maximalist hints doesn't seem to indicate that you can get rid of basic things like, oh, passing laws, which usually involve a governor ... or having courts read those laws) ... and even if this theory were maximally applied everywhere such that you have federal courts suddenly determining what state law really means in elections on a regular basis (yay, federalism?) ....

Then the outcome that you are asking for is that courts would have applied a brand-new standard to ex post toss some number of completely valid ballots (not fraudulent) because regular voters relied upon the law as it was, including their state election officials and judges.

BUT WAIT! Because if that's the standard, we'd have to go and check every jurisdiction, right? As was repeatedly pointed out, the other states, such as Texas, didn't have clean hands under this theory ... because it's a BS fantasy, with no real basis in the law as we know it.

[Jimmy the Dane]

The novel legal theory of the federal courts holding state courts in check only came about because those state courts engaged in some "interesting" interpretations of those election laws.

The correct result is most likely just calling it a form of political question and abstaining, but the PA Supreme Court extending the mail in ballot deadline was getting close to the line.

The answer for the time being though is that federal courts won't get involved and absent some extraordinary I think that is probably the correct standard.

[grb]

Yes, courts and election officials in many states adjusted procedures in response to the pandemic. I know this because of endless snowflake whinging from the Right. But here's what I want to know : What do you think all these adjustments amounted to anyway: vote-wise, quantitatively?

For instance, probably the shrillest butthurt wailing was over the Pennsylvania Supreme Court allowing postmarked ballots, just like twenty-plus states already do by law. That decision affected about nine thousand votes.

So, Jimmy, here's your assigned mission : Collect your whole thimble-full of issues, calculate their effect, and then agree Trump would have lost anyway - in every affected state. I'm sure you'll feel better once you do. Knowing your hysteria (valid or not) is irrelevant anyway should prove a comfort to you....

(you're welcome)

[ThePublius]

"Since the state court systems all directly contradict your feeling, and Thomas and Alito went out of their way to say the suit was nonsense (they’ve opined on original jurisdiction being mandatory before without adding ‘would not grant other relief’ to their opinion – that’s a tell)."

To my knowledge no court has ruled on the merits, or even given the merits a hearing. Is that not so?

[De Oppresso Liber]

It is not so.

“This court has allowed the plaintiff the chance to make his case,” Judge Ludwig wrote, “and he has lost on the merits.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/12/us/trump-election-lawsuit-wisconsin.html

[jb]

Those biased Trump judges, though...

[StellaLink]

Election security is a good thing, but any rule change enacted for election security purposes must insure that it doesn't make it unreasonably harder for people to vote and special attention must be paid to the disenfranchisement of people who have historically been targeted. So, if you want enhanced voter ID requirements, you have to insure that it is nearly painless for people who do not have the requisite ID to obtain it. You can't, as has been done, require people to have state issued ID and then close down the government facilities that make getting that ID possible, particularly in minority counties. Also, you need to account for people like college students who have every legal right to vote in the communities that they live in.

[James Pollock]

Republican fantasy: We need to secure the election against American voters who might choose to vote for non-Republicans. So we'll require state-issued identification to cast a ballot and then set the price of state-issued identification to limit the number of poor people who can get it. A perfect solution!

No, that's a poll tax, which the Constitution expressly forbids. To be actually effective at reducing theoretical vote fraud, every individual human person who is entitled to vote needs some way of establishing who they are, which requires a unique identifier. Very close to all American citizens already have a social-security number, but federal law precludes using a SSN for identification purposes. You'd have to build an entirely new infrastructure to provide every citizen with a secure identification, OR you'd have to stop charging people to get a US passport if you wanted to use it for voting identification. Both of these options would be fairly expensive and one of them has a significant potential impact on individual liberty.

[Don Nico]

"Universal picture ID for all citizens, government funded,"
So far I'm with you.
"... required to vote."
Not so fast, Tovarish

[StellaLink]

There's ambiguity there. Is the statement that everyone would be required to vote or that the government ID woud be a requirement for voting? I think the intent was the latter, but it is ambiguous.

[Sarcastr0]

My intent was absolutely the latter.

[jb]

"Fourth, the voting machines. I am a computer science professional, and have managed a software security operation. I can tell you in no uncertain terms that modifying the software in the Dominion voting machines and tabulators is easily modified to produce whatever result you want, and that these mods can take place in the field, with physical access, and remotely if the machines are connected to the internet. I have no doubt that someone wanting to illicitly affect the voting results would seek to use these vulnerabilities to electronically stuff the ballot box. Without strict monitoring and chain of custody it would be difficult to detect."

While this is all true, in all of the states we're talking about, there's paper trails that supplement (or in some cases are the source of truth for) the machine count. Georgia uses Dominion machines, but went back and did a manual count of the ballots. Similar auditing is possible in other states--I'm not sure to what extent it has been completed, but we don't need to rely on the integrity of the software to rely on the election result. (FWIW, the jurisdictions that do have machines without paper trails are almost universally run by Republicans--this distrust of voting machines is a very newfound religion on the right.)

"I reject the efforts by the media and by some Conspirators, like David Post, to downplay, and even ridicule the statistical anomalies that point to a stolen election. This is a reliable way to detect that something is fishy and deserves investigation."

It's not that statistical analysis can't be used to detect patterns that indicate fraud, it's that the attempts at statistical analysis to imply fraud in this election so far have been laughable. Are you really suggesting that we take Cicchetti's analysis of the election seriously? If not, can you point to an example of statistical analysis that demonstrates fraud that we should take seriously?

[jb]

Oh, look they did a manual recount in Antrim County in Michigan, and it changed the margin by...12 votes:

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/12/17/antrim-county-audit-shows-12-vote-gain-trump/3938988001/

So much for those dastardly voting machines throwing the election to Biden.

[StellaLink]

If we scale that 12 vote difference to the entire Michigan vote it comes to about 4100-4200 votes statewide. (TotalMIVote/AntrimCtyVote * 12) . Not enough to change the result, but we should see an expected error for the state on the order of hundreds, shouldn't we? Of course, Antrim County is a small county and highly Trumpian, but still, a single digit change for the county would be nicer.

[jb]

Sure, 12 votes is about .1%, so in a very very close election that sort of margin could matter. It's totally sensible to do recounts in close races to double check against this sort of error.

Having said that:

1) This is the county where the "forensic expert" asserted someone for sure had attempted to tamper with voting records and cover their trail. Seems very unlikely someone tried to do that to cover up a 12 vote discrepany.
2) More generally, the fact you can do a manual recount is why the assertions that the Dominion machines somehow threw the election to Biden are clearly baseless.
3) There's no reason to assume that all the errors would be in the same direction. In another country they may have made a 9 or 74 vote error in favor of Trump. Overall, you'd expect a lot of these errors to cancel each other out rather than just summing to a 40k discrepancy in the vote total.

[donojack]

While this is all true, in all of the states we’re talking about, there’s paper trails that supplement (or in some cases are the source of truth for) the machine count.

Even the old machines used in Georgia before the Dominion switch and without a paper backup were secure imo. They weren't tied to anything, they were just tabulators and each precinct maintained its poll tape. To commit fraud on a large scale hundreds of machines would have to be tampered with. I like the paper backup though.

[James Pollock]

"I am a computer science professional, and have managed a software security operation. I can tell you in no uncertain terms that modifying the software in the Dominion voting machines and tabulators is easily modified to produce whatever result you want, and that these mods can take place in the field, with physical access"

In general, if you lose physical security of any piece of computer equipment, you no longer own it and it should be considered compromised.
Conceding that a compromise is possible and proving that a compromise has been accomplished are radically different things, however.

[NToJ]

"First, it is ludicrous to believe that something with such high stakes as elections is somehow magically immune from corruption..."

This proves too much. If anything that is high stakes is therefore not immune from corruption, and if anything that is not immune from corruption has therefore actually been corrupted ("elections have been manipulated"), then everything that is high stakes has been corrupted. And if you believe that, what's the point of complaining? To whom would you complain, persuasively? If that person has the power to correct the issue, the stakes are high, and therefore that person is corrupted.

[ThePublius]

Syllogism much? You're misinterpreting what I stated, and not in good faith.

[NToJ]

nuh uh ur argument is in bad faith

[James Pollock]

a few years ago, Disney spent $4B to acquire the right to make Star Wars movies. since then, the revenue derived from Star Wars movies has plummeted. Who is behind this massive anti-Disney conspiracy?

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Thanks for your delusional rant.

I'll continue to believe in things which have evidence supporting said belief, regardless of how 'obviously wrong' it looks to people like you who believe what you want to believe without evidence.

Newsmax. Lol. You guys gave up on Fox because it wasn't insane enough and thought the best option was to go further into fringe nutjob territory.

[Gasman]

poll found that all voters, by a 46%-45% margin, believed that there was fraud.

Much depends on the question asked. if by fraud, a broad enough definition was used that encompasses anyone who voted on the loosing side, and that loosing sides have vote counts centered on about 45%, then yeah, all we have established is that "my candidate didn't win = fraud"

[EscherEnigma]

I love how all the people pointing to "people believe!" as if that's proof of fraud, and not proof of a successful propaganda campaign.

[James Pollock]

"Much depends on the question asked. if by fraud, a broad enough definition was used that encompasses anyone who voted on the loosing side"

Assuming the fraud came from the losers. In this case, it's at least as likely that Trump tried to compromise polling systems as it is that Democrats successfully did so.
One of the candidates publicly asked his supporters to vote twice for him, and it wasn't Mr. Biden.

[James Pollock]

" it is ludicrous to believe that something with such high stakes as elections is somehow magically immune from corruption"

It is possible for 3 people to have a successful conspiracy, if 2 of them are dead.

There was a giant secret conspiracy that stole the election from Trump but somehow didn't manage to also deliver the Senate to the D's? that sounds reasonable... Democrats love Mitch, after all.

[donojack]

I think that before the massive mail-in voting we had a very secure election system. I read something recently that criticized our in-person voting because it was decentralized and run by part-timers. That to me is the part that guaranteed security, at least security from organized election fraud. Thousands of people would have to be in on the conspiracy to rig an election.

Large-scale mail-in voting has changed that to centralized locations processing hundreds of thousands of votes. That and the poor security inherent in the structure of the mail-in ballot invite fraud.

I don't share your concern with the voting machines, though. Sure it's possible to tamper with them but any changes in the machines have to balance with the poll books: total voters signed in against total votes, and vote counts having to balance precinct by precinct.

[M L]

15 days to slow the spread.

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, we'll never know how that would have worked without unthinking yahoos like you, and now it's do your best to slow the spread till the vaccine.

Way to go, friend of liberty.

[M L]

What are you talking about?

[M L]

Seriously though - huh?

[Bob from Ohio]

"unthinking yahoos "

"please avoid personal insults of each other, vulgarities aimed at each other or at third parties, or other things that are likely to poison the discussion."

[Jimmy the Dane]

Insults are fine as long as they are directed against the "right" people...

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The record indicates that liberal-libertarian mainstreamers get censored repeatedly while conservative commenters get a pass at this blog.

[Jimmy the Dane]

AK how many times have you been censored? The only example you ever talk about is the one time literally ten years ago. But you are on here in every thread making fun of religion calling anyone you don't agree with a "clinger" and yet it does not appear you have been censored.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I was censored at least four times.

At least twice, comments that included the term "c@p succ@r" were removed from the site by the proprietor, who responded to my inquiry concerning the deleted comments by indicating that that term would not be tolerated at this blog.

Later, Artie Ray Lee Wayne Jim-Bob Kirkland was banned for poking fun at conservatives a bit too effectively for the proprietor's taste.

Most recently, less than two years ago, I was warned expressly to discontinue use of the term "sl@ck-j@w" to refer to conservatives.

I have not been informed that I must discontinue use of "clinger," so far as I can recall, at least not yet.

[Sarcastr0]

Insults are fine as long as they are directed against the “right” people…

Are you arguing the VC is biased towards liberals?

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Are you arguing the VC is biased towards liberals?"

Well, they censored Artie Ray Lee Jim Bob but they let Kirkland comment.

[Jimmy the Dane]

The libs around these parts get away with a lot...

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Conservative commenters at the Volokh Conspiracy have proposed that liberal judges should be gassed, that liberals should be sent to Zyklon showers, that liberals should be shot in the face when opening front doors, that liberals should be placed face-down in landfills, and the like.

So far as I am aware, none of those comments has been removed and none of those commenters censored by the Volokh Conspiracy.

Artie Ray is still banned for making fun of conservatives.

Reasonable inferences are welcomed.

[James Pollock]

"Insults are fine as long as they are directed against the “right” people…"

Are you conceding that "unthinking yahoos" must refer to you?

[Sarcastr0]

What kind of rank hypocrisy is this?

[Jimmy the Dane]

You are the king of rank hypocrisy so you would know.

[Sarcastr0]

“please avoid personal insults of each other, vulgarities aimed at each other or at third parties, or other things that are likely to poison the discussion.”

You're not very good at this avoiding hypocrisy thing.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Constitutional text:

"The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like Manner chuse the President. But in chusing the President, the Votes shall be taken by States, the Representation from each State having one Vote; A quorum for this Purpose shall consist of a Member or Members from two thirds of the States, and a Majority of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice. In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall chuse from them by Ballot the Vice President."

I don't see the option for the House or Senate to 'object' to the vote count. The States have certified their results, and the Senate President's only job and authority is to count them.

What is the legal justification to think that they have the right to reject the results?

[EscherEnigma]

Because they really, really, really want to accept 'em.

[James Pollock]

No, you have a few American politicians willing to go on the record as being opposed to the guy with the most votes winning the election.

[Tabindu]

I think "the Votes shall then be counted" implies a power to figure out what the "Votes" actually are. If a state submits multiple slates of votes to Congress, *somebody* needs to decide which votes to count. This previously happened in 1876 (when it mattered) and in 1960 in Hawaii (when it didn't matter).

[StellaLink]

3 US Code section 15.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

While I appreciate that a law claims to allow it, the text of the Constitution makes no allowance for objecting to the certified votes.

The President of the Senate opens the certified results, and the votes are counted. Period. No objections. No motions. Nothing.

[TwelveInchPianist]

We're told that we should refer to people who've earned a MD, or phD, or EdD (but not a JD) as "Doctor" out of respect for what they've accomplished.

But as was apparent during the discussion about what it takes to get an EdD, most people quite reasonably have very little sense of what they've accomplished.

Are we really being told that we should signal respect for these degree holders simply because we are told to respect them?

[EscherEnigma]

Sure.

Just like if a man named "Jonathan" says "call me Jon" (or "call me Jonathan"), you should signal respect for him by calling him by the name he asks you to.

Or if a married woman asks you to call her by her maiden name. Or asks you to call her by her married name.

Or if a guy that shares a first name with his father asks you to call him by his middle name.

Or if someone without any of the afore-mentioned common cases asks you to call them by a nickname that doesn't appear to bear any relation to their name.

Someone else's name isn't about you, it's about them. Being asked to respect it isn't such a horrible burden, TwelveInchPianist.

[NToJ]

Jill Biden's name isn't "Doctor". That's a credential. If someone asks you to recognize a credential they don't have, it isn't disrespectful not to do so. If Jonathan asked me to call him "Your Majesty" is it your position that, out of respect, I have to do so? Or is it fair to wonder whether Jonathan is the asshole in that scenario?

[EscherEnigma]

Seeing as we aren't talking about unearned credentials, your scenario isn't relevant.

And seeing as the entire impetus of this newfound "debate" is a desire to be a disrespectful asshole, no, we don't need to wonder whether or not Dr. Biden is the asshole here.

[NToJ]

"Seeing as we aren’t talking about unearned credentials..."

Jill Biden is a Doctor of Education. By all accounts her credentials were earned. Whether that makes her "Dr. Biden" is debatable. I'm on the side that thinks it doesn't. I wouldn't call somebody with a Ph.D a doctor. (Nor a lawyer, for that matter.) If you met a jurisprudential doctor who asked that you call him Dr., you would rightfully say "That guy is an asshole."

I have a J.D. If I asked somebody to call me "Doctor of Education", just because I teach a law school class, that would be a matter of unearned credentials.

[EscherEnigma]

Jill Biden is a Doctor of Education. By all accounts her credentials were earned.

You could have stopped there, you know.

As far as lawyers being called "Dr" goes, that's a trick y'all played on yourselves. Don't blame the rest of the world 'cause y'all hate lawyers more then anyone else can.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"You could have stopped there, you know."

But you didn't stop there. You continue to make the unsupported assertion that anybody who declines to use an honorific that they don't believe the person earned is a disrespectful asshole. So yes, you're talking about unearned credentials.

[Sarcastr0]

People who don't know her per formatively going out and saying they don't think she earned her credentials is indeed being a disrespectful asshole.

[StellaLink]

And, as has been pointed out before in these comments, the origin in this little brouhaha (ha, ha) is a WSJ editorial written and published for the purpose of disrepectful asshattery. Or, maybe douchbaggery, sometimes it's hard to tell.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"People who don’t know her per formatively going out and saying they don’t think she earned her credentials is indeed being a disrespectful asshole."

What people were saying is that people who aren't medical doctors shouldn't used the title "Dr." That's a fair topic for debate. Yet again trying to get us to question reality, gaslightro.

But after having perused the dissertation, yeah, she hasn't earned squat.

[Sarcastr0]

Weird this 'debate' came up looking a lot like a pissant attack on the incoming First Lady.

Don't pretend this is in good faith.

But after having perused the dissertation, yeah, she hasn’t earned squat.
You're not qualified to make that judgment, asshole.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"You’re not qualified to make that judgment, asshole."

And there it is.

Why should I call her, or anybody else, "Doctor" if I'm not qualified to judge whether or not they've earned it?

Should I just open wide and accept the judgement of my betters?

You and Kirkland aren't so different, Sarcastro.

[Sarcastr0]

Because that's how credentials work - you don't need to see someone's dissertation to know whether to call them doctor or not.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Because that’s how credentials work..."

Reduced to question-begging, I see.

[bernard11]

Whether that makes her “Dr. Biden” is debatable.

What's debatable about it?

I wouldn’t call somebody with a Ph.D a doctor.

Well, OK, you're entitled to your opinion, but the world doesn't have to agree.

[James Pollock]

"Jill Biden’s name isn’t “Doctor”. That’s a credential. If someone asks you to recognize a credential they don’t have, it isn’t disrespectful not to do so."

Are you proceeding to claim that Dr. Biden hasn't earned a doctorate credential?

[NToJ]

So far as I can tell, the only person who is telling you what to call Jill Biden is some guy who wrote a WSJ article. Just because the NY Times calls her "Dr. Biden" doesn't mean you have to call her that. No PhD in my lifetime has ever demanded that I call them Doctor. I think I've probably met 2 doctors in my entire life who asked me to call them Doctor.

You have every right not to call Jill Biden doctor. If anyone is telling you otherwise, you should not listen to them.

[TwelveInchPianist]

The guy didn't write the article in a vacuum. The gist of the response to the WSJ article by many people, including Michele Obama, has been that if you don't respect women's accomplishments (in this case by calling Jill Biden "Dr. Biden"), then you're a misogynist.

My point is simply that most people have very little idea of what Jill Biden has accomplished.

[Sarcastr0]

Like you know what some MD or PhD accomplished, really?

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Like you know what some MD or PhD accomplished, really?"

Well, that's pretty much my point.

[Sarcastr0]

So you never call an MD you have not observed work 'Dr?'

That's pretty bizarre.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Not what I said, Gaslightro. You're like the Cathy Newman of blog commenters.

I said that: Given that people have very little sense of what is involved in getting a phD or edD, when they ask us to use the honorific as a sign of respect, what are they asking us to respect?

That applies to MD's as well, but most people have a better sense of what it takes to get an MD>

[Sarcastr0]

And yet you do not know what these MD's did for their degree. Seems like you're breaking your 'I only call people doctor if I know what they accomplished.'

That applies to MD’s as well, but most people have a better sense of what it takes to get an MD
And this is just nonsense you pulled out of your hat.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Seems like you’re breaking your ‘I only call people doctor if I know what they accomplished.’"

Well then I guess it's a good thing I don't have a "I only call people doctor if I know what they accomplished."

Read better, Sarcastro.

I'm just asking how people reconcile a fairly common refrain: "People should call folks who have earned a doctorate degree 'Dr.' as a sign of respect for what they've accomplished"
With the fact that most people quite reasonably don't have a good sense of what they've accomplished.

And since you have chosen not to engage in good faith, I'm going to assume that your answer is what I suspected: People should respect who they're told to respect.

[Sarcastr0]

I find your sudden skepticism of worldwide custom to be highly suspect.

Credentials are all about a shorthand about what someone accomplished. That you want people to drill down more and be skeptical of what they actually did accomplish is impractical and, frankly, ridiculous.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"I find your sudden skepticism of worldwide custom to be highly suspect."

Sudden skepticism of worldwide custom? This was a running gag on Friends. But when it comes up with the first lady, it's all about sexism.

[Sarcastr0]

Ah. You have mixed up social with professional.

Well, that's lame.

[James Pollock]

" I’m going to assume that your answer is what I suspected: People should respect who they’re told to respect."

People should respect people who've done something worth respecting.

[James Pollock]

"'Like you know what some MD or PhD accomplished, really?'
Well, that’s pretty much my point."

Well, if you're insistent about disrespecting somebody, your own stupidity seems like as good an excuse to make as any.

[Don Nico]

Dear 12"
"Comrade" is sufficient respect.

[Don Nico]

Changing a boring subject... what do people think of this from one of America's most outstanding scientists:
"I think it would be useful to state that a single dose of the Pfizer mRNA vaccine provides high protection after 14 days, but the administration of the second dose prevents our knowing how long this single-dose protection lasts. This is important information, because if high protection endures for 3-5 months, for instance, the time to herd immunity could be halved with a different second dose timing. One would need to determine whether the contribution of the second dose is diminished by the delay."

[EscherEnigma]

I think it's moot.

We may find out that one dose really is sufficient, but approval was given based on the research and analysis of two doses, so that's how it's going to be delivered.

We may find out later that two doses really aren't needed (perhaps in time for vaccination projects in other parts of the world), but America is very likely to be done with the bulk of our vaccinations by then.

To use an analogy... you may have data suggesting your four-wing airplane only needs two wings, but you're not going to act on that while you're in-flight.

[Don Nico]

EE,
I can't see why it is moot. And I have no idea where you are getting you numbers on the vaccination rate.
It will take at least 6 months to 9 months to do double dosing in America. You will not find out later if one dose is enough if people get two doses within 3 months.
Your analogy is irrelevant and in fact is foolish because we have not even taken off.

[EscherEnigma]

I can’t see why it is moot

It's easy.

(1) Take your assumption on "when we'll know" and set it to the side.
(2) Consider my assumption on "when we'll know", which is "six to nine months from now", and consider it.
(3) Look at the two-dose plan that --as you noted-- is expected to finish in six to nine months.
(4) Compare my assumption of when we'll know about single-dose efficacy to the two-dose timeline.

It readily becomes apparent why I think it's moot.

As to the rest of your post... well, I think your failure to do #1 explains all that.

Your analogy is irrelevant and in fact is foolish because we have not even taken off.

Federal and state plans, doses criss-crossing the country in big trucks, first vaccinations happened earlier this week...

Sorry mate, take-off already happened.

[Don Nico]

Sorry, buddy you'll know in 2 to 3 months.
You are not thinking straight. And you won't get a vaccine for 6 months at this rate. The plane is barely on the runway.

[Don Nico]

EE,
It is truly amazing how stupid you are. If you read my colleagues suggestion, you have realized we get to herd immunity by May rather than by next October. You get your vaccine in 3 months rather than 6 or 7.
You plane hasn't evne left the hangar.

[EscherEnigma]

... did you forget to swap to a sock before you showed up to bolster yourself?

[bernard11]

I don't understand.

Is the suggestion that we delay the second dose so we can find out how long the high protection of the first dose lasts?

First, that looks a lot like experimenting on vaccine recipients without their consent, with potentially fatal consequences.

Second, I'd like to know how the vaccination schedule was determined. Presumably there is some basis for giving the second dose in a matter of weeks, and I'd guess that an estimate of protection levels went into that decision.

[James Pollock]

"Is the suggestion that we delay the second dose so we can find out how long the high protection of the first dose lasts?"

And the argument is that starting vaccine testing over would be faster.

[grb]

A few threads back the subject of jazz arose and I had a book recommendation which I offer here again : The Bear Comes Home

It's about a talking saxophone-playing brown bear & his struggle as a jazz artist. The book isn't perfect : It can be a bit discursive at times and I didn't like the (human) female love interest (perhaps because she shares a name w/ my ex-wife).

Some people object to the carnal scenes, though I found them sweet. (though bear-human sex is apparently much more complicated than you'd guess). But the book can be hilariously funny and it gives a deep sense of jazz artistry to those whose technical music knowledge is limited.

https://www.amazon.com/Bear-Comes-Home-Novel/dp/039331863X/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=The+Bear+Comes+Home&qid=1608244241&sr=8-1&tag=reasonmagazinea-20

[Whistling Willie]

Question re incoming Congress. If the Dems win both Georgia Senate run-off elections, resulting in a 50-50 split, would Harris be able to cast the tie-breaking vote to eliminate the legislative filibuster?

For purposes of responding, assume that all Dems (including Manchin) vote as a block. It is unclear to me whether the VP can vote to change Senate rules (as contrasted to breaking tie votes on legislation).

Whistling Willie

[grb]

Whistling Willie : It is unclear to me whether the VP can vote to change Senate rules.

It's unclear to me why she couldn't - which would require some special distinction to that type of vote as opposed to others. However I admit to being non-lawyer by both knowledge & temperament, so I could be wrong.

However it's a wholly moot point, given so thin a margin. The Senate Democrats would never be able to hold their entire caucus together for a filibuster change. You properly note Manchin, but they'd easily have two or three defections more.

[James Pollock]

"For purposes of responding, assume that all Dems (including Manchin) vote as a block. It is unclear to me whether the VP can vote to change Senate rules (as contrasted to breaking tie votes on legislation)."

You've made a fundamental error. Harris IS a Senator, with an unexpired term. Harris WILL BE the VP, when the next Presidential term begins. Be careful to specify when the vote you contemplate will be made. Is it A) now, B) after the new Senate convenes on 1/4, or C) after Biden becomes President on 1/20? The answer to this subquery changes the answer to your other question.

[M L]

"Governor Whitmer later said it wasn't COVID. She claimed it was a security threat. She first claimed COVID, but later it was a security threat... What security threat would allow Democrats to go in the building and Republicans not to go in the building?"

https://twitter.com/BreitbartNews/status/1339362258833596417

[Queen Amalthea]

Indeed. Once you're the head of a Satanic pedophile cult financed by Soros using those funds to hire the best mediums to commune with Hugo Chavez to orchestrate mass voter fraud in six (at least, amirite?!) states involving hundreds of different officials all while suffering from dementia then you think you can do anything!

[bernard11]

How is what Biden plans to do an example of what he has already gotten away with?

[Queen Amalthea]

"if he can get away with what he already has"

"Joe Biden plans"

Someone has a verb tense or time shift problem...

[NToJ]

How much have you donated to the President's legal fund or campaign?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Bur RGB is now ACB...

[Queen Amalthea]

It's a pretty mainstream 'extreme' for those that hold your position. Sorry, maybe you should take it up with them?

[apedad]

Fallacy of the extreme you say?

QAnon published these quack theories!

[Krychek_2]

Kalak, maybe you don't read the same conspiracy blogs that I do (strictly for entertainment) but the Queen's comment is only slightly exaggerated. Most of that tracks pretty closely to stuff the right wing has already put out.

[StellaLink]

"Of course he can, if he can get away with what he already has, who’s gonna stop him?"

You post stupid shit like that and then criticize someone for pointing out that you're barking mad?

[Chuck P. (The Artist formerly known as CTSP)]

that’s called the fallacy of the logical extreme

or argumentum ad absurdum

[Queen Amalthea]

These were common tropes trotted out at the recent Jericho March too.

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/what-i-saw-at-the-jericho-march/

[Queen Amalthea]

Beat me to it you rascal.

[Queen Amalthea]

Ahh, see, it was election denial all along after all! Good lord you're a mark.

That so many Republicans, like yourself, believe Trump's nonsense about election integrity says something about them and you. Be the party of personal responsibility dude.

I mean, Trump has been *ridiculous* on this issue. He said he would only lose if the election were rigged (in the last one he said the same, that if the election showed him losing it was rigged, if it showed him winning, not so much). He railed against mail voting then did so himself and praised it in Florida (tots diffferent!). He was fine election night until he started losing then he started with the ultra-nonsense: he indicated counting ballots after election day was somehow illegitimate, that networks calling elections based on analysis of returns was unprecedented (he literally invoked the same when he won!), he challenged states that had the same procedures as others that he didn't (because he won them!), etc.,. His team has put forth laughable efforts ('experts' mixing up Minnesota and Michigan districts, the Cicely Tyson Drunk Girl at the Party witness, Rudy's admission they are not arguing fraud, filing in the wrong court, the one in a quadrillion nonsense, etc.).

Yes, no one can prove 'transparency' to people like yourself (who was peddling the 'Biden likely has dementia' party line when it was fashionable) who are determined to swallow whatever crap the Trump team lazily tosses against the wall. That's not dispositive of much other than about yourself.

[bernard11]

let me put it to you in terms that just maybe will get through your partisan armor.

let me put it to you in terms that just maybe will get through your partisan armor.

What's going on is a big scam. Trumpists loudly and repeatedly proclaim the election was a fraud. Their partisans believe them, so now a large percentage of Republicans think the election was fraudulent, and the Trumpists start arguing that we need all kinds of investigations and so on "to restore public confidence," which they themselves destroyed.

Of course that's not what they want, as evidenced by their actions. They just want to push the theory further, publicize it, to get their base riled up.

It's despicable and destructive, and those like you who buy it and endorse it are hurting the country.

Oh, and you didn't answer the question about Biden's plans. Trying to slide by?

[Krychek_2]

kalak, Biden got 7 million more votes than Trump did, and your real complaint is that this time around, your side wasn't successful in again depriving the majority of its choice for president. But you know what? The minority can't have its way all the time. The majority gets to win at least once in a while.

[James Pollock]

" We just witnessed a shift from the burden being placed on government to show that that the election was secure, to the burden being placed on the general public to prove that it was."

In the sense that there was no shift at all. People who show up and claim fraud have always had the burden of proving that there was fraud by providing actual evidence of fraud.

[NToJ]

"We just witnessed a shift from the burden being placed on government to show that that the election was secure, to the burden being placed on the general public to prove that it was."

The burden is on the plaintiff to prove entitlement to relief requested. That's the rule since forever. Nothing has changed.

[EscherEnigma]

To be clear, you're saying that if a demagogue can confuse enough people about an election that we should just throw out all the results (even though they're valid by every metric we have) and award the election to the demagogue?

How is that not a "heckler's veto"?

[bernard11]

If Biden wanted to come out of this election, such that even 30% of Dems believe involved large scale fraud (according to Rasmussen), not to mention 92% of Republicans,

Really?

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 57% of Likely U.S. Voters think mail-in voting worked well for the most part. Thirty-nine percent (39%) disagree and say it led to unprecedented voter fraud in this election.

Forty-seven percent (47%) say it’s likely that Democrats stole voters or destroyed pro-Trump ballots in several states to ensure that Joe Biden would win. Forty-nine percent (49%) consider that unlikely. This includes 36% who say voter fraud was Very Likely and 39% who think it was Not At All Likely. These findings are little changed from mid-November.

Sixty-two percent (62%) of Republicans say it’s Very Likely the Democrats stole the election, a view shared by 17% of Democrats and 28% of voters not affiliated with either major party.

Making shit up?

[Queen Amalthea]

If you follow elections and election nights closely you know how silly Trump and the kalak Trumpista's claims are. They really are like the person who, not knowing much about how basketball works, cry foul when the Kings make a basket that goes through the hoop when the clock hits zero (it left his hand before the clock went zero), or when a person is 'registered' with more than one team (G-league players under two way contracts play both for the farm and main team), etc.,

Don't be mad at me, or 'Democrats/liberals,' be mad at the sources you imbibe that have put you in the position of making these ignorant, silly arguments.

[NToJ]

"He said he would only lose if the election were rigged..."

He said the same thing when he lost the Iowa primary to Ted Cruz. He's just a broken record. None of what the President does is surprising anymore. What's surprising is that he continues to dupe people like mad kalak.

[James Pollock]

When Trump said the 2020 election would be rigged, he wasn't making a prediction, he was making a promise. But he followed through on this one about as well as he did on all the others, which is why he's STILL trying to steal the election and not having much success.

[Queen Amalthea]

Oh my goodness this guy is illuminating himself today....

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, I saw Avenue Q, I've been well briefed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTJvdGcb7Fs

evangelizing the world with smut
The call of puritain busybodies since forever.

[StellaLink]

So, people (probably mostly men) are interested in pornography. It's almost as if interest in meaningless sexual gratification had some sort of bilogical/evolutionary importance.

Also note that smut peddlers being early and comitted users of new technology didn't originate with the internet. What the internet has done is make access to an almost infinite (probably as close to infinite as is possible) supply of porn available for almost no monetary cost to the consumer.

[Queen Amalthea]

Yeah, it's just your premise, not your wacky conclusion.

[NToJ]

No, by sincerely being concerned that someone, somewhere, is enjoying themselves. You're a loser.

[Hank Ferrous]

That would be, some of, or perhaps a fringe of, the right wing, yes? I am occasionally lazy for the sake of convenience and tar all left-leaning folks, or all progressives, but sociopolitical groups are not monolithic.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Krychek_2 -- Why did we bother with a Warren Commission?

Investigate the allegations and prove them unfounded -- if they are...

[Queen Amalthea]

Hmm, mad kalak asserts that Trump is pushing porn addiction expansion...I guess it's his dementia according to kalak's former assertions...

https://www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2020/10/30/trump-administration-invests-31-million-high-speed-broadband-rural

[Sarcastr0]

Make a substantive argument m_k.

Are Flynn, Lin Wood and these elected state politicians nobodies who we should never listen to?

[Bob from Ohio]

"That’s an actual quote?"

Yes. The paper is on line.

[James Pollock]

Why assume Biden will be President? Just pretend that a vast conspiracy of Democrats managed to run a huge fraud on the American people and stole the election from Trump, but (oops!) forgot to also grab the Senate while they were at it.

reality can be such a bummer sometimes.

[Sarcastr0]

they won’t breed as much.

Oy.

[StellaLink]

Puritan busybody or genocidal racist asshole. Who can decide?

[James Pollock]

The far-right fringe is allowed to speak for the moderates now, because there aren't enough moderates left to speak for themselves.

[Krychek_2]

Moderate Republicans have their own exhibit at the museum of natural history.

[Brett Bellmore]

Oh, I'm persuaded that Trump actually lost, but I'm an easy sell: I went into the election expecting him to lose. Even Nixon was getting better coverage after Watergate broke, than Trump got on good days, and when he produced the best October surprise I've seen in my life, Twitter deplatformed the only major daily willing to cover it. That's got to have an effect.

But that doesn't mean that the election was entirely on the up and up. Just that Trump could have lost, (And it was a matter of Trump losing, not Biden winning: Polls show a substantial percentage even of Democrats only voted for Biden to deny Trump a second term, not because they liked Biden.) even without massive and widespread election law violations.

But we had those violations anyway. And I'm very much afraid that the cowardice of the judiciary is going to result in that being a routine feature of our elections going forward.

[loki13]

Yeah, mad kalak has become unstuck in time.

He's going back to a time before everyone knew he was a mark.

[James Pollock]

“if he can get away with what he already has”

Mr. Biden won the election through the deceitful trickery of NOT being Donald Trump. I would hazard a guess that he intends to continue claiming to not be Donald Trump. And he'll get away with it, too.

[grb]

Your problem, mad_kalak? The people you disagree with above may be partisans, but they're not dupes like you. Trump spent months signaling he planned to claim "fraud" regardless of election procedures or results. Hell, he claimed fraud to the tune of millions of votes even after winning in 2016. He then created an official commission that proved incapable of finding any fraud to investigate. Kris Kobach's Commission on Election Integrity was one of the most embarrassing fiascos of recent political history, though the recent Trump legal team merits a close second.

Yet Trump says "fraud" and you're kneeling at his feet, paws up in the air, tongue-lolling, panting with eagerness. The man has spent his entire life scamming chumps and dupes, yet here you are, avid to be another easy mark. Have you contributed to his Election Defense Fund yet? I'd be disappointed if you haven't. There's almost a crystalline perfection to your gullibility.

Go check with Steve Irwin. A political dupe is much further down the evolutionary ladder than a partisan hack.....

[James Pollock]

I agree, you ARE a partisan hack, but I don't think you're dangerous, even in large herds. The more Republicans you put in a room, the stupider they get.

[bernard11]

Wow. Talk about non-responsive comments.

When challenged m_k simply resorts to flinging poo, like a monkey.

A Trumpist monkey.

[De Oppresso Liber]

With a stuffed McCain as the centerpiece.

[De Oppresso Liber]

m_k self awareness level 0.

[Krychek_2]

This. A thousand times this.

[VinniUSMC]

“103 Million pissed off Republicans. And not one city burned.”

They're saving their riots for when "insert sports team" loses or, hilariously enough, also for when "insert sports team" wins.

[NToJ]

Except if the judiciary had done what you apparently think is courageous, we wouldn't have anymore elections for you to worry about.

[StellaLink]

"And it was a matter of Trump losing, not Biden winning"

Before the election in 2016, I wasn't sure whether the Republicans had nominated the only candidate that would result in a Clinton victory or the Democrats had nominated the only candidate that could get Trump elected. The most hated woman in the history of the universe received almost 3 million more votes than the guy that Rex called a "fucking moron." So, it shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that someone with Biden's skill set could decisively win in a contest against DillDon.

[bernard11]

even without massive and widespread election law violations.

You keep saying that as if it were true.

For the zillionth time, that you disagree with court decisions doesn't make them wrong. Hard to believe, I know, but there it is.

[bernard11]

Administrative issues.

A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Georgia does not have to restore nearly 200,000 voters to the rolls for the runoff, though he admitted that there may be “discrepancies” in records used to show that those voters had moved out of the state.

Advocacy groups including the Black Voters Matter Fund brought the lawsuit against Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in early December.

Judge Steve Jones of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, an Obama appointee, found that the advocacy groups both lacked the standing necessary to sue, and that they failed to prove that the rolls were purged with a discriminatory aim.

“Plaintiffs have shown that Georgia’s list maintenance process may not be accurate in identifying voters who have actually moved,” he wrote. “But they have not shown, or even alleged, that the process is applied differently to any class of voters.”

KInd of cuts both ways.

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : "he produced the best October surprise I’ve seen in my life"

(1) Interesting choice of words. "He produced", eh? I forget Brett; did you show the "blind Trump-fanatic computer repairman" story the proper contempt it deserved? I don't want to unfairly accuse you of being dupe-ish if you did. Yes, he (Trump, Rudy, Andrii Derkach, etc) did "produce" this October surprise

(2) Now, I follow the "lamestream media", and was therefore deceived, right Brett? Here's the little the Deep State permitted me to know : There was a laptop (ludicrous cover story & all). Hunter may have gotten a handshake with daddy for a business associate. Hunter may have talked about cutting his daddy in on a deal after the latter left government service. The deal went nowhere anyway.

So what'd I miss, Brett? What other revelations were on the laptop, given Hannity never delivered on his "Amazing Shocking Developments to Come", and Rudy failed to produce the kiddy porn he promised everyone.

(3) Granted, you do have minor grounds for complaint. Sure, the media did a perfectly competent job describing all the substantive details on your kompromat laptop. But they did so dutifully, not approaching the job with all the breathless excitement of children opening a present on Christmas morning.

You know, like the media did with the hacked Podesta emails, day after day running right up to the 2016 election? You know, the last time the Russians engineered a diversion to help Trump get elected?

Like this time, but not quite. So Brett complains.....

[bernard11]

Oh. Where's that concession you promised was forthcoming as soon as the EC voted?

[StellaLink]

Anybody who was paying attention back in 2016 knew exactly what we were getting with Trump.

[Krychek_2]

Dr. Ed, there is no duty to prove the negative. It's the person claiming something is true who has the burden of proof.

I can't prove there wasn't election fraud, but then again I can't prove there aren't leprechauns living in my sock drawer either.

[James Pollock]

"Of course that’s not what they want, as evidenced by their actions. They just want to push the theory further, publicize it, to get their base riled up."

More specifically, they want people to SEND THEM MONEY.

[James Pollock]

A hearty laugh.

[James Pollock]

Which would be relevant, if Trump were asking for an abortion.

[James Pollock]

porn drove the adoption of VCRs into American homes, too.

Pick up a copy of Time Bandits, and skip to the end so you can watch Ultimate Evil's monologue. It all starts with an understanding of digital watches.

[StellaLink]

Which is not a fallacy at all, is it? If a false conclusion follows inexorably from the premises, is it a fallacy to point out that there must be something wrong with your premises? I think that we have discovered something else that Kal Madcap doesn't understand.

[StellaLink]

I don't know what the practical effect of this is. I've read that any of these people who have been wrongly struck off can cure the error and register for the runoff. Also, don't know if the reduction cuts for or against one party or the other.

[StellaLink]

Oh, members of a women's basketball team.

[bernard11]

There was a Dec. 7 deadline for reregistering.

I don't know which way this tilts either, but give that BLM was one of the plaintiffs I'd guess it cuts against the Democrats.

[bernard11]

Oh. Is that what he meant.

You know, as I understand it, the NYT wanted to give it more coverage, but insisted on examining the laptop, or at least the drive, and seeing the original emails.

Damn MSM, wanting to verify the facts of the story. But Rudy wouldn't let them. So the Trumpists insist the media don't do enough investigating, but when they try they get no cooperation.

[bernard11]

Make a substantive argument m_k.

kol koreh bamidbar.