Thursday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[Cal Cetín]

Better mention this before one of the Conspirators covers it.

OK, so the Woodward Report, issued in 1975, is the Magna Carta of academic freedom at Yale - and therefore at colleges and universities that want to imitate Yale (which is a lot of colleges and universities).

Like the Magna Carta, the Woodward Report has not always been honored. But the report's legal status was never formally repudiated.

Until now.

"In response to [former psychiatry professor bandy] Lee’s lawsuit [claiming violation of her academic freedom], Yale’s lawyers went out of their way to disavow the renowned 'Woodward report'...calling it a 'statement of principles, not a set of contractual promises,' even though [University President Peter] Salovey said in 2014 that 'Yale’s policies are quite explicit; they are based on a report authored by the late C. Vann Woodward.'"

https://www.thefire.org/court-filing-yales-lawyers-make-surprising-claims-about-the-schools-academic-freedom-promises/

So...what rough policy, its hour come round at last, slouches toward the committee room to be born?

[Gandydancer]

The lawyers are right. Anything in the report not explicitly repeated as policy in statements of policy is clearly unenforcable.

[Cal Cetín]

What would be the practical difference, if Yale's policy is "quite explicit" and "based on" the report?

FIRE provides the details - anyway, Yale's previous statements ruled out the possibility of any daylight between the report and University policy, so whether the report is enforceable of its own force or by dint of implementing regulations, it ought to be enforceable.

[Cal Cetín]

Oh, and to reiterate: In the specific context of Yale, William F. Buckley said academic freedom was an idea full of superstitions. He wanted the Trustees fulfilling their trust by declaring that free market capitalism and Christianity* would be taught at Yale, and complaints about that policy would be superstitious.

So in a sense it's superstitious for FIRE and the rest to complain that Yale's *left* wing orthodoxy is being taught and enforced by the University authorities.

The thing is that Yale has marketed itself as dedicated to academic freedom, declaring the Woodward report to be basically a "constitutional" document for the university. They've codified superstition into policy.

To the extent they're dialing back the "academic freedom" and becoming more open about having values and enforcing them, maybe that's a victory against muddle-headedness and confusion.

But FIRE is still entitled to complain to the extent Yale tries to have it both ways, marketing itself as a bastion of academic freedom on Mondays Wednesdays while reversing course on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. If Yale just fessed up about abandoning obsolete ideas about academic freedom, I suppose FIRE would award them a blue-light "warning" rating (like West Point) for openly prioritizing other values than academic freedom.

*Of course there's a bit of conflict between "pure" market capitalism and Christianity, a point on which Buckley's magazine frequently showed awareness. There's also a bit of conflict between socialism and Christianity, but I am aware that this is a controversial proposition.

[Cal Cetín]

PS - It's probably a bit late in the day to expect Trustees of universities to be conservative. The association between conservatism and business may well be a historic relic (if it ever *was* true), nowadays going to a business leader and expecting conservatism would probably turn out like this:

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

[Gandydancer]

"Conservatism" is just about as uninformative a label as "Liberalism". There is no actual identifiable conservatism on offer from any plausible contender for office and power.

Yes, I read "God and Man at Yale" almost half a century ago, and remember when NR was the second most interesting widely available political 'zine behind Commentary (now both tedious beyond the power of words to express). But what WFB thought of Yale is of purely acheological interest now.

And, yes, FIRE provides their details, which is exactly why I am so unconvinced by their claim. Yale's claims about the document are bombastic and lucidcrous, but it's NOT a constitutional document. As I've already observed, certain passages have been repeated as policy to its customers and can provide the basis for non-performance claims. The rest means nothing.

[Cal Cetín]

"And, yes, FIRE provides their details, which is exactly why I am so unconvinced by their claim."

Well, then Yale has helped "clear the air" - clarify that, formally speaking, the Report is not part of university policy - it didn't became the University policy when it was issued, nor was it later "incorporated" (to coin a phrase).

Now the public affairs office can issue a clarification to FIRE and the general public - "we prioritize things besides academic freedom - Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, for instance - and in case of conflict DEI wins out. Please do us a favor and give us a blue warning light like West Point has, so we don't get the disruptive type of student who insists on hir academic freedom. Re-educating such students is a hassle, and why bother when we could always admit someone woker instead?"

As for Buckley, he had some great ideas back in the day. His key bad idea was white supremacy, which he seems to have dropped after the 50s (unless we adopt the dogma that only Democrats, like Fulbright, get to drop their 50s white supremacy).

But many of his good ideas - and they would have been good even if someone else said them or if someone were to say them today - were expressed in God and Man At Yale. I wouldn't call them totally good, but good compared to the nonsense that gets uttered on behalf of academic freedom, which we now know was a transitional tactic for universities to fend off the risk that they might revert to conservatism. That threat, however real it was, has vanished and evaporated, but there's still a need to purge the remaining conservatives, so academic freedom gets tossed into the dustbin of herstory (HIStory is bunk).

As to the definition of conservatism, it's a broad umbrella, but it doesn't cover everyone. I'm more confident saying what's *not* conservative than giving a formal definition of what *is.* Yale University (and you can check with Kirkland on this) is an example of an institution that's *not* conservative.

[Cal Cetín]

Also, the case where Yale disavowed the Woodward Report is one of those cases (which do happen) where the "victim" is woker than Yale itself. She called Alan Dershowitz a psycho - attacking from the left since Dershowitz was Trump's lawyer. It turns out that even wokeness doesn't give a pass for an untenured professor to attack such an influential alumnus. As to whether she's an actual victim of an academic-freedom violation I don't know - the claim is she violated psychiatric norms, which is presumably an exception to academic freedom if true, but I don't know if it's true because I'm not really an expert on psychiatric norms.

[Gandydancer]

It is unquestionably a violation of explicit psychiatric ethics codes to diagnose someone who is not a patient of yours, and that certainly seems sufficient grounds to delare someone unsuitable to teach the subject. I'm not aware that Dershowitz was in Trump's employ when he raised this point, but it seems anyway a sound one. Or he might not have cared to be called a psycho, but that doesn't detract from the point either.

[Gandydancer]

Here is Dershowitz' accusation: " "[I]t is unethical for a psychiatrist to offer a professional opinion unless he or she has conducted an examination and has been granted proper authorization for such a statement." — Principles of Medical Ethics, American Psychiatric Association." https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17227/bandy-lee-alan-dershowitz

[Nelson]

I can see the conflict between Christianity, with its themes of caring for the poor and sick and outcast as well as the way rich people are portrayed, and free market capitalism. But the conflict between socialism and Christianity isn't as clear. What do you see as evidence for that?

[Bill Poser]

I'm wondering what the legal basis is for the governor of Texas to prohibit private employers from requiring vaccination against Covid-19. It doesn't seem to fall under the usual police powers or regulation of business. He presumably has some powers related to public health, which might enable him to require masks or vaccination or other such measures, but would they extend to PROHIBITING the application of public health measures he doesn't like?

[Michael P]

Why wouldn't it fall under the general police power?

A better question is why the President can impose costly new regulations on federal contractors without equitable adjustments to their contractual schedules and reimbursements.

[Brett Bellmore]

I think that falls under the, "I'm altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it further." doctrine.

[Don Nico]

To answer the question, you'd have to read the contract language which the government usually stipulates must be accepted without comment as a condition for the contract proposal to be compliant with the solicitation.

[Michael P]

It's presented as binding on all federal contractors, and extending to even employees who work exclusively from home, so there must be some astoundingly uniform and bulletproof language behind it. What is that language?

[Don Nico]

I'd have to look at a prime contract typically Terms and Conditions are tens of pages long. I was the capture manager for one of these very large contracts, so I have a few examples on my computer. I'll try to find and have a look.

[Don Nico]

Michael,
Remember the following clause was a non-negotiable condition of the US Government. The contract is with the Un. of California of M&O of the DOE's Berkeley Laboratory

Section H.35:
WORKER HEALTH AND SAFETY
The Contractor must follow the variance to 10 CFR part 851, Worker Safety and Health Program, approved by DOE in August of 2019. The approved variance allows the Contractor to follow applicable California Department of Labor Codes such as California Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (Cal-OSHA) safety and health regulations in Title 8, including an Injury and Illness Prevention Program (IIPP), in lieu of specified provisions in 10 CFR part 851, Subparts B and C, and Appendix A. DOE retains enforcement authority per 10 CFR part 851, subpart A. The contractor shall incorporate the substance of this clause in subcontracts,

[David Nieporent]

Why wouldn’t it fall under the general police power?

Because governors don't have a general police power?

[Armchair Lawyer]

They can probably fall under antidiscrimination measures. I'm sure if you were motivated, a statement of finding could be made to be something like.

1. The State of Texas understanding that there is a history of racial discrimination in the state...
2. Furthermore understands that there is a significant racial difference in the COVID-19 vaccination rates.
3. And furthermore understands that a business mandate which demanded COVID-19 vaccination of its employers would have significant racially disparate impact
4. Endeavors to prevent this disparate racial impact by banning the institution of COVID-19 vaccination mandates.

[Sarcastr0]

You understand neither civil rights law, or Texas law, and yet you thought to comment as though you did.

[LawTalkingGuy]

TBF he does warn us in his username.

[Sarcastr0]

It is kinda funny how many people misunderstand that username.

[Gandydancer]

It's kinda funny how you imagine anyone would take your empty insults as anything other than a waste of time to read.

[Armchair Lawyer]

This is a good example of a Level 1 type argument, the second weakest type of argument. Although it may fall into the Level 0 type argument.

[Sarcastr0]

You invoke disparate impact not understanding how hard a case that is to make.
And wouldn't apply to vaccine disparities. Especially ones that have shrunk since last you checked, I think.
https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/latest-data-on-covid-19-vaccinations-by-race-ethnicity/

And then you state Texas law has a civil rights authority about like the federal CRA? Because that's just on it's face untrue. I'd be mighty surprised if Texas had a disparate impact doctrine under state law.

And yet you just say all this stuff. No, it's not worth much of an argument. Because you're just being reckless with the truth. Because it's the Internet and you don't care.

[Armchair Lawyer]

1) "You invoke disparate impact not understanding how hard a case that is to make."
Luckily, it's not a case before a judge. It's an executive order.
2) And there's still a significant disparity.
3) Texas has pretty clear racial discrimination laws, in regards to employment.
4) Since Texas is also subject to disparate impact laws at a national level, one can't blame the governor if he looks to head off any potential disparate impact claims in regards to employment and firing and hiring.

Again, you don't agree with any of it, because it doesn't favor your beliefs. But you honestly think the Governor of Texas can't make any executive orders, in regards to employment decisions that have a potentially racially disparate impact? Really?

If you had an industry in Texas where the employers were passing a mandate that would fire 50% of the black workers, but none of the white workers, and it was neutral on it's face, the Governor of Texas could not legally step in with an EO to halt it? Instead, it would need to go all the way to the federal system for a court case to over turn it? Or ditto for a very clear housing disparate impact case?

That's really your view?

[Sarcastr0]

Wow. I mean, court cases are how you know the extent of executive authority. This is pretty fundamental.

And do Texas racial discrimination laws empower the governor to do stuff?

Your playing with hypothetical numbers, when the real ones are right there, rather shows you don't care about making a reality-based case.

[Armchair Lawyer]

1) "court cases are how you know the extent of executive authority. This is pretty fundamental."

They provide a absolute bounds. But there's a lot of grey area between what an executive MUST do and what he must NOT do.

2) "And do Texas racial discrimination laws empower the governor to do stuff?"

Besides....uphold the laws? I mean, you've twisted yourself into a knot arguing that the Texas Governor can't act to uphold racial discrimination laws....

3) "Your playing with hypothetical numbers, when the real ones are right there, rather shows you don’t care about making a reality-based case"

You've made an absolute argument....that the Governor of Texas does not have the authority to make executive orders regarding employment issues with racially disparate effects. I've simply highlighted it. If you avoid the question, it's clear that you have a losing argument.

[Sarcastr0]

1) The question in the OP is *can*. Your framing is way off.

2) Uphold the laws does not generally mean via sweeping executive order. You can only get away with that if you have an administrative state.
And if it did mean that, you'd expect a cite of the enabling law.

3) My contention is thus: Texas, so far as I know ('I’d be mighty surprised') does not have a disparate impact doctrine in it's state law.
Also, in the case here, the impact is not very disparate, and growing less daily.

[Armchair Lawyer]

1) The OP gives a lot more leeway. There is substantially more room between what an executive CAN order versus what must be reversed. This, given previous precedence, falls in that area.

2) If the laws are in place, execute orders to uphold them are appropriate in many situations.

3) You seem to be under this mistaken apprehension that Governors cannot adjust their EOs to account for federal law. I'm not sure why....

[Sarcastr0]

You are making shit up.

All three of your statements are just full-on wrong.

[Gandydancer]

Unilateral modifications to conditions of employment, probably in violation of the TX constitution, are beyond the reach of the police power? In what universe?

[David Bremer]

"...probably in violation of the TX constitution..." Yeah, gonna need to see some basis for such a claim.

I'm not a Texas lawyer, but this does seem like something that would require legislative action first. Of course, legislators legislating is so passe these days, so here we go.

[Gandydancer]

...gonna need to see some basis for such a claim.

Of course. That's why I said "probably". But the TX Constitution almost certainly declares its protection of freedoms sufficient to prevent employers from inflicting factually experimental medicines on their employees as a condition of employment.

[jb]

Does Texas suddenly not have at-will employment anymore?

[M L]

This would just be another item in a long list of prohibited reasons for firing, which exist along with "at-will" employment.

[jb]

Sure, but the at-will doctrine was created by the legislature.

[Gandydancer]

It's just been pointed out to you that "at-will doctrine" has considerably less scope than you apparently imagine, yet you remain obstinate in asserting the power of your imagination over reality.

[jb]

Hey, thanks for the content-free intervention. Whereas M L actually made a reasonable point (which I responded to by differentiated between legislative and executive powers), I'm not sure what you think you're trying to convey. But it's probably not very persuasive to anyone who doesn't already agree with you, whatever it is.

[ducksalad]

It's kind of late in the day to start asking where governors and presidents get their authority to issue emergency regulations.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with you that Abbott has overstepped his authority. Six months ago Abbott himself would have said an order like this would be overreach into the private sector. And the governor doesn't have "police powers" to make law, that belongs to the legislature.

What happened here is that Abbott (and other conservative governors) saw their more authoritarian or left-leaning counterparts going hog-wild with their COVID "powers" for a year and a half, and decided that "turnabout is fair play" and "two wrongs make a right". That's flawed ethics, but it's also human nature.

It's now unfortunately "established" that emergency regulations don't have to be firmly grounded in a wide scientific/medical consensus, and that it's OK to regulate based on imagined or distant second-order effects (example: requiring masks as a symbol of commitment, eviction moratoriums, differentiating parades and protests based on whether their speech content promotes health and justice).

Abbott could say with a straight face that:
1. Overreaction to COVID causes stress and is thus a public health problem.
2. That firing people will lead them to go from place to place job seeking, which is exactly as dangerous as evicting them from their apartments.
3. That his ban on mandates will free up vaccine supplies for people who really need them.

These are bullshit, of course, but they are no worse than the bullshit excuses used by the safetyist side in this controversy.

Your attempt at distinguishing between compulsion and prohibition went out the window last year also. In Spring 2020 my county judge banned mask wearing back (when Fauci said masks were not helpful) and then less than two weeks later mandated mask wearing (when the narrative changed).

So like I said, too late in the day. Y'all broke some norms in the name of emergency and now they're broken and you have to live with that.

[IPLawyer]

It's not turnabout. They are in different states. Cuomo's use of executive power has no bearing on Texas.

[ducksalad]

I didn't say it made sense.
Turnabout never does when it comes to politics because ordinary people are affected far more than the other politician that's being targeted. In this case Abbott probably imagines he's teaching Joe Biden a lesson, but of course Joe Biden isn't going to be the one fined.

When one part of government is making something compulsory and the other is making it prohibited, the conclusion to draw is that there is way too much government.

[IPLawyer]

If it doesn't make sense as turnabout, maybe it's not turnabout and maybe it's just the governors doing the same thing for the same reasons... or different reasons. Sheesh

[ducksalad]

Perhaps you're in the school of thought that turnabout *is* fair play, and therefore anxious to not have it tainted with bad examples. Fine, it's not an important point. We can call what Abbott did something else.

[IPLawyer]

I don't care about turnabout, I'm pointing out that you are making a stupid rationalization that is completely devoid of evidence and only serves to tickle and confirm your political preferences.

[ducksalad]

Relax, IP dude. I am not going to steal you or your client's invention. You're not the only lawyer here who has trained so hard in reading between the lines, trying to differentiate your stuff from the opponents' stuff, that you are now having difficulty reading ordinary text from someone who agrees with you.

Whose actions did I rationalize? I said Abbott is wrong, and implied that governors like Cuomo were also wrong. Is your opinion different?

[M L]

"It doesn’t seem to fall under the usual police powers or regulation of business."

Um, what? Why would you think that?

[Bill Poser]

Well, for one thing, policing and regulation of business are generally based on legislation which the governor is merely enforcing. The governor doesn't just decide that he doesn't like auto theft - rather, he enforces a law that the legislature has passed. The same for, e.g., false advertising. So one part of the question is whether the governor can claim to be enforcing a statute.

Then there is the fact that police powers in general pertain to maintaining public order. It is a stretch to characterize a ban on private health measures as maintenance of public order.

[M L]

Well I agree that it seems like a legislative matter, although that would be a question of Texas law.

But as far as it being a police power, or a business regulation, or generally within the power of a State to do (perhaps specifically as far as the federal Constitution is concerned which seems to be what you are suggesting), I can't think of any coherent notion to the contrary.

"Police powers" is just a broad, general term for referring to many (most?all?) of the powers that the federal government is NOT supposed to have, and which are referred to in the 10th amendment, and which further are supposed to constitute the vast majority of conceivable powers that any government could have.

[Josh R]

In the executive order, Abbot claimed the authority as part of his disaster declaration and his belief that proscribing vaccine mandates is the best course in protecting the health and safety of Texans during the disaster. That strikes me as crazy reasoning, but I have no idea how it would hold up under Texas law. At least, it ought to shut up those on the right who have complained about how blue-state governors have overreached.

[Bill Poser]

Ah, interesting. Yes, the reasoning is crazy but as you say it is conceivable that it would hold up.

[cmcc_aus]

I agree that it's "interesting" reasoning, but at this point in time it's also consistent with the governor's executive order which forbids local governmental bodies (including school boards) from requiring masking. That question is out in the court system: there are a number of school boards around the state which are requiring masks, in defiance of the gov's order, and I think there are cases out in the appellate circuits to test the challenges, but I haven't jeard any news recently.

[Sebastian Cremmington]

Natural immunity is superior to vaxxed immunity and so a population with higher natural immunity is safer than a population with higher vaxxed immunity. Furthermore in order to get super immunity one needs to acquire natural immunity first and then get the vax. So Americans risking their health for natural immunity are helping out the already vaxxed.

[rsteinmetz]

I'd be interested in a credible citation on that proposition.

Then there is the question of whether natural immunity can be scientifically verified. That is is there reliable laboratory test?

[ducksalad]

Congress, legislatures, and executives often preface their stuff with "findings of facts".

When making such findings they decide which experts (if any) they want to listen to. The findings are often the result of motivated reasoning and political considerations.

Greg Abbott can find facts as well as the rest of them. If necessary I'm sure he can find someone with an MD or DO after their name to back him up, but he's not even required to do that.

Scientists don't get to make laws, as least not the kind enforced by the police. Tough s**t even if they have truth on their side.

[Sebastian Cremmington]

Conclusions This study demonstrated that natural immunity confers longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization caused by the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, compared to the BNT162b2 two-dose vaccine-induced immunity. Individuals who were both previously infected with SARS-CoV-2 and given a single dose of the vaccine gained additional protection against the Delta variant.

Google “medrxiv natural immunity” and the study will be the first link.

[BadLib]

"Americans risking their health for natural immunity" are not to be glorified.

The fact that unvaccinated survivors of COVID-19 may be less susceptible to breakthrough infections says nothing about those that won't survive said infection or may suffer possibly lifelong health problems from "long COVID" due to getting infected rather than vaccinated.

More importantly, those that acquire immunity through infection rather than vaccination are more likely to spread the disease to others, even those who have been vaccinated and those who are unable to get vaccinated or whose immune system prevents the vaccine from being very effective.

If the anti-vaxers really want to provide the alleged great public service of "gaining better immunity via natural infection" that you speak of, they should create communities in the middle of nowhere. Residents would remain within the confines of such communities until they were infected with SARS-CoV-2 and were diagnosed with COVID-19. They would eschew all insurance paid or government paid medical care for both treating their case of COVID-19 or the possible lifelong health ramifications of "long COVID". They would also eschew all private and public benefits (including pensions, Social Security, SNAP, etc) for themselves and their beneficiaries arising from their death or disability due to COVID-19 or "long COVID". Finally, they would only leave their community after testing "clean" post infection during 14 days in quarantine.

Perhaps misters spraying the SARS-CoV-2 virus in public spaces throughout these communities could accelerate the process. Rather like the anti-vaxers who hold "measles parties" for their children - but without putting the rest of us at increased and unnecessary risk.

[Sebastian Cremmington]

You information is from pre-Delta Covid that the vax was designed from. With Delta breakthroughs are clearly happening and the science right now says that breakthroughs spread. So going by the science right now (which is what we have always done) the vaxxed should want people risking their health for natural immunity.

It’s very simple—100% natural immunity population is safer than a 100% vaxxed immunity population especially when the natural immunity population has the opportunity to get super immunity with a jab. 100% vaxxed immunity population would have more spread than natural immunity population and that means more opportunity for a new more dangerous variant to develop.

[cmcc_aus]

FWIW, today the governor is adding an item to the legislature's agenda to make his executive order into law. The legislature is already in town, in special session, to this is easy to do, and they probably have the votes to pass it.

[Sarcastr0]

Dissenting Opinions: Fractured Opinions (with Nina Varsava)

In this, my final post based on this really fun and smart podcast, a discussion of how to make sense of fractured Supreme Court opinions in light of Marks v. United States, why this is not really very helpful, and an attempt to apply the standard to the recent jury-trial decision of Ramos v. Louisiana.

[Sarcastr0]

1. Marks v. US (1977)
The substantive question was about obscenity. But more importantly discussed the precedential effects of plurality decisions, as part of the analyses of the precedents being relied upon.

The Court says plurality decisions do have precedential value, and the precedent set is the concurrence that concurred on the narrowest grounds: "“when a fragmented Court decides a case and no single rationale explaining the result enjoys the assent of five Justices, ‘the holding of the Court may be viewed as that position taken by those Members who concurred in the judgments on the narrowest grounds.’”

[Sarcastr0]

2. This is not a very useful standard for lower courts. Or even the Supreme Court itself!
Can we trust justices to explicitly sign onto opinions they agree with? Because sometimes they don't even if by the language of their concurrence they do agree with important parts of the other opinion.
Or what about the reverse? Kennedy was infamous with signing onto a 5-4, and in his concurrence say 'I completely agree with the majority, and add these thoughts' when the thoughts seemed opposed to the majority opinion.

What does narrowest ground?
Lower court's general Interpretation of 'narrow' 1) the opinion that would reach the outcome in the case in the fewest subsequent cases. This is a quite common way to get a 4-1-4 decision with a single controlling opinion. e.g. Bakke - affirmative action is not always allowed, but is allowed in some limited circumstances, not always.
This also often results in the most complicated opinion being the controlling one. E.g. Freeman v. US - the question of whether a judge has discretion within the sentencing guidelines in guilty pleas. The plurality says yes, but Sotomayor's more complex approach carries the day.
In Grutter the Supreme Court says it's not necessary to follow Marks to the fullest as doing that has confused lower courts for years. Which is a weird thing to say about your own holding, especially when you can do overrule or clarify or narrow Marks as much as you want if you think it's not being used right. But the Court went nebulous.

Also McDonald. Majority says 2A is incorporated against the States. 4 justices us SDP. Thomas says P&I. Lower Courts were not sure which was more narrow. P&I is a narrower clause. But also Thomas' opinion was the most radical, but a *lot*.

Some Justices say Marks isn't really binding - it's more a suggestion. During oral argument, in Hugh vs. US in 2018 (a case that included a question presented clarifying Marks), Breyer declared there is no algorithm on how to follow precedent - that's part of what you learn in law school; it's part art and part science. Ultimately, the Court skipped ruling on that question.

[Commenter_XY]

Sarcastr0, I'm not following your characterization of 'narrow ground'. Is 'narrow ground' the only points where there was agreement among justices in a concurring opinion?

Example: Hypothetical concurring opinion has 7 elements, but only 3 elements are jointly agreed upon by all in the concurrence...are those three the 'narrow ground'? Or is it something different?

[Sarcastr0]

Well yeah, that's the issue, and why Marks leaves lower courts wanting .
SCOTUS has adopted (without saying it's correct) that it it the opinion that would apply to the fewest fact patterns.

Hence how you get overcomplicated opinions endorsed by a single justice controlling in a few cases.

[Sarcastr0]

3. Other approaches to clean the mess of a plurality decision beyond Marks' unclear and complicating narrowest grounds.

As a case study, lets look at how to handle Apodaca - 4 think fed and state must both be unanimous. 4 think fed and state don't have to be unanimous. And Powell says Feds yes, states no.

Marks says follow Powell.

In Ramos (2020), a case relying on Apodaca, Gorsuch, Breyer and Ginsberg said the plurality decision at issue in that case wasn't precedential at all, pointing to single justice controlling opinions from Marks as a novel view (it's not). 3 Justices in dissent asked WTF. But clearly a fractured court on this procedural issue.
But if we take this approach, why even decide the case - plurality decisions must have some precedential value.

Varsava, following Dworkin, suggests a reconstruction approach - what principles are held in common? Marks is sometimes a good tool to get there, but not always. For Apodaca there is no shared legal principle, so there is no precedent, and we should revisit with a later court. Which means you lose some consistency - you will get unequal treatment between 2 Supreme Court appellants in the same situation. And it's a bit odd for the Court to labor to produce an opinion with no value.

Baude suggests a legal realist approach - if the Court *as currently constituted* had the same case right now, how would it find? Lower Courts should perhaps make that their inquiry.

[Sarcastr0]

4. Other precedent-based questions.
So once you've decided there is a precedent, and it should be overruled, another question suggested in this precedential arena is retroactivity.
Once the Court figures out what it needs to do, that's the law going forward- the 'right' outcome, so it shouldn't it be applied to as many people as possible. Retroactively give the latest and greatest rights to the most people.
Ramos was not applied retroactively to Apodaca -based findings below.

Should Justices follow past precedents that they previously wrote against? Kagan says yes - Justices should take cases as they come and decide them the best you can based on current precedent. Baude suggests Gorsuch would agree. No intra-personal stare decisis - the Court is an institution, not a collection of individuals.

Lower courts publish non-precedential decisions under the theory that some cases are straightforward applications of existing law, and so needn't be cited. 60-70% of federal appeals decisions are unpublished. And state appeals courts are into it as well.
But should a panel decide how much to weigh their opinion, or would the lower court decide what counts as precedent?
Varsava says this shouldn’t be a thing. If we care about treating people the same, you should have every case include the requirement that future litigants are treated the same.
There is a 2007 opinion that courts of appeals cannot prevent the citation of decisions in briefs (though they can ignore them)

OTOH, you get more workflow if you let courts take a more ministerial, and not full and burly role in some cases. In this view, it's less a forbiddance but more a signal to read this with care, it's not our best work.
Baude relays some hearsay that back when the Supreme Court handled 200 cases a year, there was an unwritten practitioners rule to avoid relying on footnotes in opinions decided late in the term, because it was possible not every justice had reviewed it.

[Sarcastr0]

5. Horizontal precedent the Court as Institution.
So in a Marks situation, to what extent should a Justice sign onto something he doesn't quite agree with to allow clarity by forming a majority?
Varsava thinks that this is okay only if you agree with the justification you're signing onto, even if you don't think it's the best one that could be offered. But signing onto something you disagree with for institutional reasons smacks of lying.
Witness the absurd result of Justices signing onto Powell's wacky dual-track incorporation view (which he admitted was not in keeping with the current precedents on incorporation), even if none of them agreed with it at all.

[Sarcastr0]

6. Digression on judicial rhetoric
Varsava has written a bit about judicial rhetoric. Flowery, vitriolic, sweeping...She doesn't like it. Kagan dinged Gorsuch for his soaring rhetoric in Ramos (not that she completely refrains herself). She's mostly not a fan of the vitriol - it's distracting and embarrassing, which outweighs the entertainment value.
This is not the same as being candid. That's not the job of an opinion.
Kagan has been praised for her readability and colloquial language, especially in her dissents. 'check, check, check' or 'no, scratch that' or 'the majority opinion does not fly' Varsava says this is somewhat offensive, but also less problematic when not in a majority opinion. Baude suggests this is just an attempt to make the dissent more persuasive for future readers, though later he agrees with Varsava - better to lose on the force of your own arguments than win for the wrong reasons.

Kavanagh is guilty of majority opinions that go directly after other justices, particularly Kagan.

One would hope everyone draws the line of what rhetoric is proper at some point...

[Cal Cetín]

A judge can get far with good rhetoric. Even achieve bad results with it.

"We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Jacobson v. Massachusetts....Three generations of imbeciles are enough."

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/274/200

"For the legislature absolutely or conditionally to forbid public speaking in a highway or public park is no more an infringement of the rights of a member of the public than for the owner of a private house to forbid it in his house. When no proprietary rights interfere, the legislature may end the right of the public to enter upon the public place by putting an end to the dedication to public uses. So it may take the less step of limiting the public use to certain purposes."

Same dude, as a state justice, cited by the U. S. Supreme Court

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/167/43

[Cal Cetín]

"if [free blacks] were...entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens, it would exempt them from the operation of the special laws and from the police regulations which they considered to be necessary for their own safety. It would give to persons of the negro race, who were recognised as citizens in any one State of the Union, the right to enter every other State whenever they pleased, singly or in companies, without pass or passport, and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law for which a white man would be punished; and it would give them the full liberty of speech in public and in private upon all subjects upon which its own citizens might speak; to hold public meetings upon political affairs, and to keep and carry arms wherever they went. And all of this would be done in the face of the subject race of the same color, both free and slaves, and inevitably producing discontent and insubordination among them, and endangering the peace and safety of the State."

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/60/393

[Gandydancer]

"More especially, it cannot be believed that the large slaveholding States regarded them as included in the word citizens, or would have consented to a Constitution which might compel them to receive them in that character from another State."

Taney sounds right on this, to me.

[Brett Bellmore]

The only problem with Taney's position is that free blacks clearly WERE accorded citizenship in some states. It has to be remembered that, while slavery was an issue at the founding, it had become a much bigger issue by the time Taney decided Dred Scott.

At the founding, the slave states were still willing to compromise. 3/5th's clause, for instance, or Congress able to ban import of slaves after a specific date. They didn't get everything their way, much as they'd have liked to.

And slavery wasn't exclusively racial at that time, so the idea of black citizens would not have been as threatening. There were both white slaves, and black slave owners, about the time that the Constitution was adopted.

It's a mistake to think that Civil war era slavery was representative of the founding era; One of the reasons that the Constitution kicked this particular can down the road, is that people really thought slavery was on its way out. And it was, until the cotton gin suddenly reinvigorated it.

[rsteinmetz]

The Civil War is all Eli Whitney's fault.

In fact I agree that slavery had been abolished in several states and was greatly diminished in others until the advent of wide spread cotton cultivation, spurred on the the Industrial revolution in spinning, weaving and the cotton gin. That made the production of cotton much more economical.

[Cal Cetín]

Eli Whitney's invention fed the lust for illicit gain which Southern leaders might have otherwise suppressed in their hearts.

"Hmmm...OK, I see how slavery contradicts the ideals of our Revolution, maybe it's time to get rid of it...you can make *how much* money off of slaves picking cotton? I suddenly realized that this whole issue of abolishing slavery is more complicated than I thought...wow, that's a lot of money...you know, maybe slavery is actually a positive good..."

[Cal Cetín]

I should probably include some Northern leaders, too.

"OMG look at those Southerners trafficking in human flesh...and profiting from it enough to make a good market for us...you know, I too think maybe slavery is more nuanced that I had initially believed, and needs further study...come to think of it, skip the studies, and let's just study how much money we can make off of slavery."

[Gandydancer]

The only problem with Taney’s position is that free blacks clearly WERE accorded citizenship in some states.

If that's the "only problem" then you've lost your argumernt. The position of the South on "the African race" was clearly and explicitly that they were unqualified for citizenship, and that some Yankees were doing crazy things cannot be used to impute to them that they were required to do crazy things too, even if you make some argument in logic that they ought to realize an implication. I take Taney's point that it's nuts to think that they were agreeing to this, and that the contract should be read on the basis of the actual meeting of minds on its provisions. If you can find some actual contemporaneous discussion of this implication I will reconsider.

As to white slaves, if any, I see no reason to think the South would object to their becoming citizens. The objection to Scott having standing to sue was not that he was arguably still a slave but that he was black. A white slave could presumably claim that he was now free, though the actual mechanism is dubious, looking to me very like a taking without either compensation or due process. But the Court never reached such a merits argument.

The point of the original quote eluded me, btw. I took it to be an illustration that SCOTUS can get things egregiously wrong. But I think that a case of reasoning back from the desired result, and retconning.

Interesting tidbit: There was a ship called the "Taney" which was present at Pearl Harbor and fought the entire war under that name. It is still afloat as a museum ship... but the name was removed, relatively recently. Because, hey, we've always, always been at war with EastAsia.

[Cal Cetín]

So where can we visit the USS Rihanna?

[Gandydancer]

Sorry, not getting the joke.

The former USCGC Taney is a Coast Guard cutter, named after Taney b/c he was a Secretary of the Treasury. It's in Baltimore.

" In 2020, Historic Ships in Baltimore and the Living Classrooms Foundation announced that they will remove the name Taney from the ship, in recognition of her namesake's historical acts of racial injustice, instead identifying her as simply WHEC-37."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USCGC_Taney_(WHEC-37)

[Gandydancer]

Nothing says the 2020s like having a Historic Ships Foundation that retcons history.

[Cal Cetín]

I was alluding to the practice of renaming problematic ships, buildings, parks, etc. after people of color. It was not a tasteful joke, but in fact I wouldn't mind naming something after her:

http://www.rihannanow.com/photos/

[Gandydancer]

She was before my time, but I'd go for naming a USS Ava Gardner any day. She even did a movie (Show Boat) in which she was black (hough not very -- she was passing, iirc).

[David Nieporent]

And slavery wasn’t exclusively racial at that time, so the idea of black citizens would not have been as threatening. There were both white slaves, and black slave owners, about the time that the Constitution was adopted.

There were in fact no white slaves. There has never been white slavery in the U.S. This is a combination of Marxist and Neo-Confederate apologias.

[Gandydancer]

That was my impression. Except for indentured servitude and white slaves held by the Cherokees (etc?). But I let it ride.

[Commenter_XY]

Isn't 'judicial rhetoric' in the eye of the beholder, Sarcastr0? In my view, we should leave it to the justices' discretion how they choose to express their legal reasoning.

Varsava and Baude are making subjective judgments.

[Sarcastr0]

It's not like you can stop Justices from saying what they want, but I don't think it's hard to spot showboating when you see it. There's always going to be some arbitrary linedrawing, but the analysis of propriety that Prof. Varsava is making seems to be looking at particularly broad and obvious cases.

[Sarcastr0]

7. Conclusion
So back to Marks and fracture opinions, there is no real one answer. Varsava leaves a lot of this to lower courts - they should do their best to follow what the Court did, but also add some of their own principles in areas where precedent is ambiguous. This is part of the job of a precedent-bound court - to analyze a ruling, understand what's dicta, what’s nonbinding, and what is binding on you.

[Commenter_XY]

As a part of the 'reconciliation' bill currently under debate, there is a proposal to let the IRS spy on your financial accounts at will. No reason required. The IRS have at will access to the records of all financial transactions over 600 bucks.

Seriously, is this even legal? Letting the IRS just root through your financial accounts at will to look for 'financial crimes'? I mean, why doesn't the 4th amendment prohibit that? First it was the idiotic (and ironically named) Patriot Act; and as a result, all our communications are routinely monitored by three letter federal agencies looking for 'terrorism'. First, speech; now, money.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

When I read that text, I interpret it as saying the government has to have something specific, has to make their case before a judge to search for the evidence, and it can look only for those things they specify. Basically, no fishing expeditions allowed.

Does the proposal to let the IRS track all financial transactions over 600 bucks to look for 'financial crimes' sound consistent with the limits of the 4th amendment? Can VC Conspirators weigh in on why the 4th amendment does not apparently apply here?

[Brett Bellmore]

"Seriously, is this even legal? Letting the IRS just root through your financial accounts at will to look for ‘financial crimes’? I mean, why doesn’t the 4th amendment prohibit that?"

I assume it's an application of third party doctrine. The IRS isn't rooting around in YOUR financial accounts, they'd say. It's rooting around in the bank's financial accounts, that just happen to be about you.

And since the data is already shared with you, it's not private, so the government doesn't need a warrant to demand it.

I've always thought third party doctrine more than a little dodgy, especially that last bit. But the courts love it.

We're getting close to the point where the government tries to abolish physical currency, so that it can monitor all financial transactions of any size in real time. In fact, if Harris gets a second term, (I doubt Biden will still be President by 2024.) I expect them to go for it.

[Krayt]

Combined with social leaning on financial transaction companies (read: credit and debit cards) to cut off disfavored but otherwise legal businesses or business models, it's a brave new world of loss of freedom.

I reiterate my calls for Congress to pass a law that any company making a market in transactions be forbidden from restricting legal ones, for the same reason phone companies cannot cut off people for the same reason.

Otherwise it is fraud. You are not being "as good as cash".

Both this and the IRS spying issue are about eviscerating benefits of cash: anonymity and legal transactions. Oh, and the 4th Amendment.

More power to the idea that We The People should not have to give up our rights as the cost of participating in modern conveniences.

Our papers move online. So do our rights.

[Brett Bellmore]

It occurs to me that this might actually be one of the reasons they didn't mind causing high inflation. At zero inflation, who needs banks? Mattresses pay as good of interest on deposits. But as inflation heats up, holding cash gets pretty expensive.

[dwb68]

I dont think they are that clever. "Modern Monetary Theory" has taken over leftist economics. It used to be a heterodox fringe theory widely criticized as conflating accounting identities with real economics. Now its mainstream on the left. Among other things, MMTrs are government-spending-causes-inflation deniers.

[Sarcastr0]

No, MMT has not taken over leftist economics. It's certainly not mainstream.

Where do you get your info?

[David Nieporent]

It occurs to me that this might actually be one of the reasons they didn’t mind causing high inflation.

After one of these notions popped into your head, have you ever stopped and thought to yourself, "No, wait, that's a stupid conspiracy theory. There is no secret ulterior motive for why people do things. If they support policy X, it's because they think policy X is a good idea" Ever?

[Kevin Smith]

You could have gone with another Star Wars quote and called it the "I will make it legal" doctrine

[Sarcastr0]

That's if you like the bad movies.

[Kevin Smith]

We all thought the prequels were bad, then the sequels showed us how wrong we were

[Sarcastr0]

I didn't like the Last Jedi for many reasons, but I respected the swing it took.

Didn't see 3. 1 was JJ Abrams' trash.

[Sarcastr0]

the 4A has an exception for administrative, vs. criminal functions.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, they've created such exceptions, anyway. But in this case, yeah, they absolutely will use records obtained this way for criminal prosecutions. Such use is actually going to be the point of collecting them.

[Krayt]

Just like government doesn't get to define speech as action, and therefore thinks itself clever for a "workaround" for the First Amendment, so too it doesn't get to relabel examining your papers without a warrant as "administrative action" in the context of jailing you if it finds criminality.

Whatever benefit for examining meat procesing plants, this would not extend to the general purpose case of monitoring all actions.

Upcoming, this will not be a good world: drones recording high res pictures over a city every 1 second, all your modern electronic transactions being recorded and poured over, all your phone calls, both callee and content, being recorded.

It is every dictator's wet dream.

I am so sick and tires of modern politicians who have not taken to heart the core design principle of the Constitution: do not build the tools of tyrrany. Or, if absolutely necessary, as with criminal investigations, gate it behind warrant requirements.

Stop, fools. Every one of these things "done for safety", is already being misused in dictatorships to keep the demons in power.

[Sarcastr0]

Actually, the government can and has done these things you say it doesn't get to do.

Neither you nor I get to substitute what we thing the law ought to be with what the law is. We can talk like it, but that's about it.

[Brett Bellmore]

I agree with you in principle, but the government totally is getting away with doing exactly that.

[Commenter_XY]

Where? I don't see that in the text = the 4A has an exception for administrative, vs. criminal functions

[Sarcastr0]

I'm describing the law, as interpreted by the Supreme Court. What's reasonable is pretty ambiguous, as it turns out!

The most important category of exception is that of administrative searches justified by special needs beyond the normal need for law enforcement. Under this general rubric the Court has upheld warrantless searches by administrative authorities in public schools, government offices, and prisons, and has upheld drug testing of public and transportation employees

[Commenter_XY]

Unreal Sarcastr0. You see the same problem I do, right?

[Sarcastr0]

I think we agree - the 4A has been all stretched way out of shape since the drug war.

Though I would note that the administrative exception is more closely scrutinized for being pretextual than most government action.

[apedad]

Snopes has a good write up and clarifies some issues.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/biden-banks-600-dollar-irs/

[apedad]

I like this part, “Only the prior year’s total inflow and total outflow would be reported on annual forms. No one would say that the IRS 'monitors' you on your job because it receives a W-2 from your employer with your total wages every January.”

[Brett Bellmore]

I'd expect some clause about structuring, which would result in the banks having to notify the government if certain things happened.

Snopes is useful to have around, to read the Democratic party's rebuttal, but I never assume that they're giving you the straight story on things, I've caught them with a heavy thumb on the scale too many times. Often they implication check when the fact check doesn't go the way they like.

[jb]

Can you give an example?

[Brett Bellmore]

Joe Rogan (Not a Doctor) Spreads Anti-Vaccine Misinformation

"Young, healthy people don't need to "worry" about getting the COVID-19 vaccine.

FALSE

Context

Whether or not someone should worry is a subjective decision, but any implication that young people are at no risk of serious COVID-19 complications is a fiction. So far, young, healthy people have been less likely to develop serious complications from COVID-19, however, low risk is not the same as no risk, especially as variants spread. Also, getting vaccinated decreases transmission of the disease, which can benefit young people's friends, families, and community members who may be at a higher risk."

They admit this is an opinion, an implication, and declare it false. How can an opinion be "false"?

[NOVA Lawyer]

I'm not bowled over. You didn't "catch them", they told you precisely what they were doing. Whether you or I think answering the question they did is time well spent is beside the point. They were transparent. I think it's illogical to discount the accuracy or truthfulness of what they say because they were transparent. That would actually seem to weigh in favor of judging Snopes an honest broker.

[Gandydancer]

"Speaking of being bowled over, your attempt to portray Snopes as an "honest broker" doesn't cut it.

You say "they told you precisely what they were doing", but what WAS that?

Ah, yes. At the top of the page: "Fact Checks - Medical"

Then the smear in the headline: "Joe Rogan (Not a Doctor) Spreads Anti-Vaccine Misinformation".

What was that "Misinformation"?

Again, the comment they are supposedly "fact checking":
"Young, healthy people don't need to 'worry' about getting the COVID-19 vaccine."

It's a verbal comment, so Snopes is supplying the scare quotes around "worry".

They begin, "Whether or not someone should worry is a subjective decision..."

So, not eligible for a FACT check, you would think. But that doesn't stop Snopes. They've got an agenda to push.

"...low risk is not the same as no risk..."

But Rogan didn't say "no risk". There's a chance you'll die in an auto accident on the way to the supermarket. But should you WORRY about driving to the supermarket. Say "no" and that apparently ought to earn you a big red stop sign marked FALSE!

Snopes then proceeds to beat various strawmen to death in the name of (its words) " fighting an “infodemic” of rumors and misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic". Hey, it doing good works! Why limit itself to doing what it claims to be doing?

[Brett Bellmore]

Or, Is Columbia University Planning Graduation Ceremonies Based on Race, Background?

"In late April 2021, Columbia University "brought back segregation" by scheduling graduation ceremonies for students based on race, ethnicity, gender or sexual identity, and socioeconomic status.

MIXTURE

What's False

Contrary to what some have claimed, the events were not designed to "segregate" students by race or other factors, or eliminate diversity at the main graduation ceremonies hosted by the university's schools. Rather, they aimed to provide a space for students of historically disenfranchised groups to celebrate their academic success with their identity or background in the forefront."

Were they segregated, or weren't they? Why, yes, they were segregated. But Snopes didn't think this was true, because they had good motives, apparently.

[jb]

Reading this page, it seems like their "MIXTURE" is exactly correct. There were some (voluntarily) segregated ceremonies, but the main graduation was not segregated.

By the way, the voluntary thing is a big deal: in the days of segregation, you didn't get to choose "I'd rather just hang with the other folks that look like me" you got forcibly removed if you tried to participate in a mixed context. So the overall claim is more wrong than right.

[Ben_]

Some races get to choose and some don't. For equality!

[jb]

I'm sure you think you're making a point, but I have no idea what it is.

[Ben_]

Do the white students get the choice to have their own white ceremony? No. Do other races get a choice? Yes.

It’s the same as old time segregation with the races reversed. Some races get to choose their company, some races don’t.

Do you understand this time? It may not be possible to make the point any clearer, but I can keep trying if you still don’t understand.

[Gandydancer]

Claim
In late April 2021, Columbia University "brought back segregation" by scheduling graduation ceremonies for students based on race, ethnicity, gender or sexual identity, and socioeconomic status.

Graduating Seniors
Register
Graduates must register by Sunday, March 21, in order to secure your ceremony-specific multicultural graduation gift (e.g. stole, tassel, pin, or other gift.)

Ceremony Details
Native Graduation
Sunday, April 25, 2021, 4 p.m. ET

Lavender Graduation (LGBTQ Graduation)
Monday, April 26, 4 p.m. ET

Asian Graduation
Tuesday, April 27, 2021, 10 a.m. ET

FLI Graduation (First-Generation and/or Low Income Graduation)
Tuesday, April 27, 2021, 7 p.m. ET

Latinx Graduation
Thursday, April 29, 2021, 6 p.m. ET

Black Graduation
Friday, April 30, 2021, 4 p.m. ET

jb:

Reading this page, it seems like their “MIXTURE” is exactly correct. There were some (voluntarily) segregated ceremonies, but the main graduation was not segregated...“I’d rather just hang with the other folks that look like me” ... got [you] forcibly removed if you tried to participate in a mixed context. So the overall claim is more wrong than right.

Really? If I want to play Elizabeth Warren I can choose to show up at the Native Graduation and collect the appropriate doo-dad to make my self-identification as an American Aboriginal more plausible in job interviews?

[Brett Bellmore]

Did a ‘Convicted Terrorist’ Sit on the Board of a BLM Funding Body?

"
Claim
Susan Rosenberg is a convicted terrorist who has sat on the board of directors of Thousand Currents, an organization which handles fundraising for the Black Lives Matter Global Network.

MIXTURE

What's Undetermined

In the absence of a single, universally-agreed definition of "terrorism," it is a matter of subjective determination as to whether the actions for which Rosenberg was convicted and imprisoned — possession of weapons and hundreds of pounds of explosives — should be described as acts of "domestic terrorism.""

Seriously, Snopes?

These were just a few easily found examples.

Snopes, (And other 'fact checkers'!) routinely finds nuance where they don't want to admit a claim they dislike is true, or that one they like is false. And often by checking opinions or inferences, not sticking to mere facts.

Mind, they're not the worst offender in this regard. That would probably be the Washington Post.

[jb]

FWIW, I agree this one is bad. The assertion is pretty clearly true. As with all things that humans due, there's some potential for bias, but I usually find Snopes pretty good and they definitely provide the full context so it's easy for you to make your own decision about how to feel about the topic regardless of what the headline judgment is.

[Gandydancer]

Among other things, what fact check sites routinely do is strawman the subject they purport to address by their choice of which claims made in the subject area they choose to debunk. The "context" is in such cases determinedly misleading.

[IPLawyer]

Jeez, Brett. Just show up to your local democratic party meeting and you can edit all the snopes articles that you want to!

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

"Does the proposal to let the IRS track all financial transactions over 600 bucks to look for ‘financial crimes’ sound consistent with the limits of the 4th amendment? "

My preliminary, not-a-tax-lawyer question: How would this differ from the longstanding system of reporting involving forms 1099, W-2, and probably others?

[David Bremer]

First, thanks for the substantive, rational comment. Makes me think you forgot to log into your other account before hitting submit.

I also tend to have the same reaction. I'm not saying the government should to this. But the reaction to it tends to misrepresent what is actually being proposed. I can also see how it would help ensure people who have side businesses (think the person who sells stuff on Etsy) pays taxes on all of their income.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I have but a single account.

(I can not remember how Artie Ray Lee Wayne Jim-Bob Kirkland handled login, but maybe there was a way to switch between screennames using a single account? And everyone knew precisely the provenance of the late, great Artie Ray Lee Wayne Jim-Bob. That is why -- and how -- he was censored into martyrdom.)

[BadLib]

Wow, they made a relevant comment!? For a moment I was tempted to unmute them. Then I remembered that their signal to noise ratio was so low and their volume so high that it wasn't worth wading through mostly noise to find a signal.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

If BadLib mutes me and sticks with a purified Volokh-Blackman diet, BadLib will be destined to be as surprised as BadLib is bothered by the next few decades of American progress (diminished racism, misogyny, xenophobia, and gay-bashing; less superstition in American society and law; less voter suppression; less abusive policing; more economic fairness; better environmental protections; enlarged Supreme Court; no filibuster; a few new states, etc.)

[Gandydancer]

That Christmas globe you use to read the future will drop snow on the raindeer if you turn it over first. Did you know that?

[Commenter_XY]

One is a fishing expedition looking for a crime (IRS spying); the other is not (W-2, 1099).

I think intent and motivation matters here Arthur, don't you? You asked a great question, though.

[Ridgeway]

The main difference is that W-2s and 1099s report financial information that definitely constitutes "income" within the meaning of the IRC. There are, however, many banking transactions that do not involve "income" as such.

You could also ask about the already existing requirement for banks to file SARs for various transactions, like cash $10,000+ cash transaction. The distinction there would be that those reports go to the Comptroller of the Currency (I think), not the IRS, but it is still the Federal govt.

[Ridgeway]

ack

"like $10,000+ cash transactions"

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

" The main difference is that W-2s and 1099s report financial information that definitely constitutes “income” within the meaning of the IRC. "

Mostly, but not entirely, as I understand it. If a client reimburses expenses and includes the amount of reimbursement on a 1099 (as often occurs), that doesn't cause the reimbursement to constitute income (within my imperfect understanding).

[Ridgeway]

I am not a tax lawyer either, but I think the reimbursement is income. However, it is offset by the expense, so the net effect on taxable income is zero.

[BadLib]

Indeed. For example I have an account that I pay a lot of things out of via electronic transfers. It is used only for electronic transfers and for no auto deposits. I keep the "balance when everything clears" near zero in this account as it exists solely to somewhat insulate me from errors or fraud on the part of those entities that I've authorized to do electronic transfers.

I regularly transfer money from other accounts to that "e-transfer" account to keep it "stocked". Therefore, across my accounts, I will probably consistently show transfers well in excess of income which seems likely to raise the IRS computer's flag to audit me for no legitimate reason at all. That of course will be a waste of IRS resources as I pay every penny I owe.

The IRS's effort would be better devoted to cracking down on those taking massive "advance credit" ACA subsidies year after year yet never filing a tax return to substantiate those subsides. I know at least two people who have done this every year since the ACA was enacted. They have virtually no income (a tiny amount of interest on many their parent(s) give to them) and are in their 60's but have lived at home with parent(s) supporting them all those years and each probably has worked less than a year in their 40+ years of adult life. When signing up on the exchange they claim income just above the Medicaid limit so they get super low out of pocket cost (due to the subsidy) "Cadillac" PPO plans (I wish I felt I could afford that level of coverage).

Yet, they haven't heard a peep from the IRS about this easily detectable fraud. Given the IRS database schema, I could probably write the program to identify all such blatant ACA cheats in a few hours (and if it the data was extracted into an RDBMS, the query would probably take me a few minutes to write as I wouldn't have to navigate some obscenely obsolete network or hierarchical database).

[M L]

They just want total control and surveillance powers, period. That's all.

It's quaint to pretend that silly old things like Constitutional rights still hold sway or objective meaning.

For a special hoot, check out the latest utterance by one of the prominent mouthpieces of evil, Janet Yellen. She said this $600 rule is about cracking down on billionaires' taxes. LOL!

[Life of Brian]

The IRS have at will access to the records of all financial transactions over 600 bucks.

I agree the proposal is yet another outrageous overreach, but the above description was an early misinterpretation that unfortunately spread like wildfire. It's actually just(!) annual gross inflows/outflows over $600. The actual proposal says thus (page 88):

This proposal would create a comprehensive financial account information reporting regime. Financial institutions would report data on financial accounts in an information return. The annual return will report gross inflows and outflows with a breakdown for physical cash, transactions with a foreign account, and transfers to and from another account with the same owner. This requirement would apply to all business and personal accounts from financial institutions, including bank, loan, and investment accounts, with the exception of accounts below a low de minimis gross flow threshold of $600 or fair market value of $600.

[AmosArch]

given the erratic posting patterns we can fairly safely dismiss the hypothesis others have raised that Eugene posts these through an automatic bot. So that means he really is up at all these bizarre times like 3AM or he's regularly in different time zones. Assuming the former Its quite difficult to maintain a 'normal' 9-5 schedule with sleep patterns like these. If so he likely has fashionably late workdays quite often if not the rule. Good thing he's at the point in his career where he doesn't have a boss who will whip him over this. I'm envious. Achieving freedom like this is one of my life goals yet it seems so far away if not unreachable.

[Brett Bellmore]

The key to it comes in two parts:

1) You need a job where the work needs to get done, but not at any specific hour of the day.

and,

2) You need to be good enough at it that your boss doesn't care to annoy you with unnecessary demands.

Well, also 2a) You need to make sure you've got a boss (If any) who wouldn't do it anyway.

[apedad]

3) If the time posted is Eastern Daylight Time, then it would be midnight on the left coast which is not unreasonable.

4) He could ask a grad student or an assistant to open the thread.

[Krayt]

It should be trivial to robot it, for that matter, and schedule it the way you can posts on twitter or facebook (at least I think you can.)

Even better, a teeny script to fill in the date and autopost at 3:27 AM every Thursday.

[Nelson]

He is at UCLA, which puts his posts at or a little after midnight, local time. That seems pretty reasonable, especially for a guy who has been around long enough to avoid having 8 AM lectures.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"given the erratic posting patterns we can fairly safely dismiss the hypothesis others have raised that Eugene posts these through an automatic bot."

Revised hypotheses: A flakey automatic bot, or some sort of imperfect semi-automated system.

[Brett Bellmore]

It would actually be substantially more difficult to automate this, and introduce this sort of variation, as you'd have to deliberately code the variation in.

[apedad]

Trump Tells Republicans Not to Vote in 2022 or 2024

“If we don’t solve the Presidential Election Fraud of 2020 (which we have thoroughly and conclusively documented), Republicans will not be voting in ’22 or ’24,” Trump declared. “It is the single most important thing for Republicans to do.”

I don't often agree with Trump but sure...Republicans don't vote in '22 or '24.

You should continue complain about gays, the media, higher education (any science-based education actually), attacks on religion, and commies infiltration though.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm not sure why anybody is credulous about the Democratic/Never-Trump (Like there's still a difference!) take on what Trump's statements mean. It sounds to me less like a command than a prediction.

[Sarcastr0]

Sounds like you are taking into account the messenger when analyzing the message. I hear that's ad hominem.

[LawTalkingGuy]

It’s very frustrating how in politics generally, but with Trump in particular, people abandon all their priors about interacting with other humans in society. It’s like everyone forgot the concept that we can make inferences based on other words in the statement, (“the single most important thing for Republicans to do”), the identity of the speaker and his known personality, and the context the statement is given in, etc etc etc. We do this literally all the time in our daily lives. Like if a parent says to their family “we won’t be going to the beach next year, it’s the most important thing we can do to save money for a new car” it’s not phrased as a command…but we all know that the parent made a directive about not going to the beach.

Or a better example, of someone with a looser command over people: If a pastor, said, “Christians will be not be putting other Gods before Jesus. It is the single most important thing for Christians to do.” You know he is telling the congregation not to engage in idolatry, without all the semantic parsing about what is and isn’t a command.

[Sarcastr0]

I this case, it doesn't much matter what Trump meant to say, or even how Brett hears it.

What matters is how his voters are taking it. Should be interesting to watch, at the very least.

[LawTalkingGuy]

“What matters is how his voters are taking it.”

Yep. Another aspect of human existence we forget. What you think someone said isn’t what everyone else understood the person to mean.

[Commenter_XY]

LTG....Alan Greenspan had an infamous comment much in a similar vein = What you think someone said isn’t what everyone else understood the person to mean

[LawTalkingGuy]

I don't doubt it. I don't know the full context for how it is infamous, but I don't think that's an unreasonable concept.

[Kevin Smith]

But is the "single most important thing" not voting, or solving the fraud? Seems like he could easily be referring to either one

[LawTalkingGuy]

Or both. But, since it comes directly after saying “Republicans won’t be voting,” it’s a very reasonable inference that he is directing people to not vote as part of this larger project of “solving” the “fraud.”

[Gandydancer]

Nio, it isn't remotely reasaonable to determinedly assert that Trump said something unreasonable when a perfectly reasonable interpretation of what he said (that solving the election fraud problem is most important) is perfectly consistent with what he said. Since he hasn't stopped endorsing people it's deranged to assert that he is simultaneously telling people to not vote.

But then you DO have a bad case of TDS.

[LawTalkingGuy]

What you call TDS, I call using something called “context clues” which we learned about in elementary school.

[santamonica811]

Gandydancer has TDS. Sadly, his derangement is to reflexively support everything re Trump...as opposed to the other side of the same coin--those with TDS that automatically think the worst of Trump.

Both are equally pathetic.

[Gandydancer]

YOU are pathetic. I actually think quite poorly of Trump. He only shines in contrast to the truly execrable like of you and yours.

[Gandydancer]

You are a loon who is determinedly ignoring the context, which includes that a voluble Trump is nowhere else arguing for the proposition that you want to extract from the sentences quoted precisely by removing actual context. Such as that Trump is in fact traveling about asking people to vote for candidates endorsed by him. Your understanding of "context clues" has obviously not advanced beyond the elementary school level where the only context is the text in the printed example. So sad for you to be that mentally deficient,

[David Nieporent]

I like how Trump is so insane that the "reasonable" interpretation of what he said is that a completely imaginary thing must be solved.

And all one has to do is ignore his actual words to get to that interpretation!

[Gandydancer]

You're lying, of course, a couple levels deep. Team Stupid gets a great thrill from playing this game, but it's just masturbation.

[David Nieporent]

I will defer to your expertise on masturbation. But the fact that you're bad at interpreting the English language does not mean I'm "lying."

[Gandydancer]

Thsat you actually suck at that is obvious from your attempt to twist what Trump said into somethng that no one believes he said. Except, maybe, Team Stupid.

[David Nieporent]

The Trumpkin dance:

1. Trump: Something stupid and/or awful.
2. Sane people: Trump said something stupid and/or awful.
3. Trumpkins: No, no, he didn't mean that. He obviously meant something different than his actual words, something not quite so stupid and/or awful.
4. Trump: No, I meant the stupid and/or awful thing.

We're only in stage 3 on this one, but we'll inevitably get to stage 4.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, I'm taking into account grammar, and the meaning of words. The quote is literally a prediction that Republicans won't vote if Trump's concerns aren't paid attention to, (He's wrong about that.) with the prediction given as a reason why it's important to pay attention to them.

[LawTalkingGuy]

What's the next sentence Brett.

[jb]

It's had to parse Trump's speaking for grammar because he doesn't really speak in a way that lends itself to sentence diagrams, although this isn't that uncommon for extemporaneous speaking (think of the ways that sports broadcasters have to torture sentence construction at times to insert timely information while remaining comprehensible).

My guess is that Trump intends to convey that getting to the bottom of all the "fraud" is the most important thing for people to do, but whether the "Republicans will not be voting in 2022 and 2024" is also a command or a prediction, it seems likely that some folks will take it as a statement that it's at least less important to vote. That seems like a pure gift to the Democrats, so regardless of what you think he was actually trying to convey, it seems pretty stupid. (Then again, you just need to see what happened in Georgia to understand how helpful Trump's fixation on the Big Lie is for other Republicans.)

[Gandydancer]

Dunno much about Georgia, but Michigan looks very much like a steal.

[David Nieporent]

It’s had to parse Trump’s speaking for grammar because he doesn’t really speak in a way that lends itself to sentence diagrams, although this isn’t that uncommon for extemporaneous speaking (think of the ways that sports broadcasters have to torture sentence construction at times to insert timely information while remaining comprehensible).

I mean, that's true, except that this also happens when Trump writes things as well as when he says them. Like, for instance, the quote we're discussing:

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/news/news-myd46vjuhf868

[Aunt Teefah]

"Republicans will not be voting in ’22 or ’24” may be a prediction, but “it is the single most important thing for Republicans to do” is pretty obviously a command.

[Brett Bellmore]

More of a statement than a command.

"This is the single most important thing you could do!" statement
"This is the single most important thing you could do, so get to it!" command.

[Aunt Teefah]

If a boss says to his employees "responding to a customer communication within an hour is the single most important thing an employee could do", has he not commanded his employees to respond within an hour? Really?? In normal usage, lots of statements can be commands without expressly stating "I command it" or other similar magic words.

[Gandydancer]

The question, dimwit, is WHAT he is "commanding". It's obviously more sensible to read the second sentence as a "command" to pay attention to how the (D) inflated their vote in 2020.

I remember when Reagan was accused of thinking you could recall missiles when he emitted a sentence that obviously referred to the bombers and not the missiles in the preceding sentence. You are engaging in a similar bad faith misinterpretation.

But the excitement in this little gaggle of Team Stupid members over the possibility that Trump will command those imagined to be Trumpkins not to vote is perhaps illuminating. Maybe it's beginning to sink in just how badly you are performing in office, and you are desperate for straws to grasp at or at least promote.

[VinniUSMC]

Loud mouth says "Republicans will not be voting..."
Stupid says "Loud mouth tells Republicans not to vote."

Any wonder why people don't take you seriously apedad?

[LawTalkingGuy]

You know, just because you don’t like someone is no reason to abandon reasonable inferences from the things people say.

[Gandydancer]

You've got that assbackwards. Just b/c YOU don't like someone is no reason for you to make an ass of yourself by pretending that he's said something that no non-deranged person would think he said.

[Gandydancer]

* backasswards

[LawTalkingGuy]

“Deranged” and “ass”are pretty overwrought insults for what’s a fairly reasonable inference based on 1) the actual words he said and the order in which they appear in the statement 2) the identity of the speaker and his role in the Party and 3) the knowledge that people in the recent past have understood his “ it’s rigged” lies as a reason not to vote, such as in the GA run-off senate elections.

If anyone is deranged it’s you because you’re abandoning normal principles of assessing human statements and behavior to defend an absolute moron who is actively harming your ability to achieve your preferred political goals!

[Brett Bellmore]

The problem is that you're engaging in inference instead of grammatical analysis.

[LawTalkingGuy]

1. I am engaging in grammatical analysis because I read the second sentence after the prediction. I also know that instructions to do something don't necessarily need to be in the imperative mood. While this isn't strictly a subjunctive sentence, the entire subjunctive mood is based on the concept that you can tell people to do things without explicitly commanding them to do things. This is something we know about language. There's a word for it: implication. We use it all the time.

2. Of course I am engaging in inference, that is my entire point! That's how humans operate, we make inferences based on context literally everyday. Both in small ways and extremely important ways: there is a whole section of jury instructions dealing with making reasonable inferences from circumstantial evidence.

What I am criticizing is abandoning something we do every single day to get by in countless circumstances, from the mundane to the most important decisions of our lives, just to defend Trump. A person who is not only a moron, but again, is a moron actively harming conservative electoral prospects by trying to make it less likely for conservatives to vote.

[Gandydancer]

Your inference is stupid, deranged, and gormlessly hopeful in the teeth of the evidence. If you don't want it to be called out for being what it is, stop doing it.

I won't repeat here the demolition of your nonsense that I've already conducted upthread.

[LawTalkingGuy]

“I won’t repeat here the demolition of your nonsense that I’ve already conducted upthread.”

Good. It would be tedious and wrong and would be a waste of time.

I’ll add another inference: based on your comments, you are a mean-spirited dick.

[Gandydancer]

Says the fuckhead emitting mean-spirited lies about Trump. I don't even like the guy, but Team Stupid is a congeries of assholes. And I'm well past putting up with it.

[LawTalkingGuy]

I don't like Trump, but I'm sure going to:

Defend every single thing he says and does now and forever, be overly credulous and give him the benefit of the doubt on every single thing he says, engage in increasingly unhinged and vulgar insults of people who criticize him, glorify him until my last dying breath.

[Gandydancer]

You're not criticizing him. You're just pretending he said something he didn't say, but that you desperately wish he would say.

[VinniUSMC]

You know, just because you don’t like someone is no reason to abandon reasonable inferences from the things people say.

You should have looked in the mirror and said this before commenting.

When it comes to Trump, reasonable inference is a strategy that was tossed out the window with the baby and the bath water.

[apedad]

Texas Man Sentenced for Hate Crime and Other Charges After Using Dating App to Target Gay Men for Violent Crimes

According to documents filed in connection with this case, the defendant (Daniel Jenkins, 22, of Dallas), admitted that he conspired to and then targeted nine men in and around Dallas for violent crimes, including kidnapping, carjacking and hate crimes, because of his perception of the victims’ sexual orientation, that is, because he believed the victims were gay men. Beginning on or around Dec. 6, 2017, members of the conspiracy used Grindr, a social media dating platform used primarily by gay men, to lure men to an apartment complex in Dallas. When the men arrived, the conspirators held the men at gunpoint and forced them to drive to local ATMs to withdraw cash from their accounts.

Jenkins was the last of four defendants to plead guilty in this case. Jenkins pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit hate crimes, kidnapping, and carjacking; one hate crime count; and one count of use of a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence. Under the plea agreement, Jenkins faced a maximum sentence of 26 years in prison.

Um, Texas-style entrepreneurship?

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/texas-man-sentenced-hate-crime-and-other-charges-after-using-dating-app-target-gay-men

[David Nieporent]

because of his perception of the victims’ sexual orientation, that is, because he believed the victims were gay men.

Does it really take Sherlock Holmes to figure out that men on a gay dating site are gay men?

[VinniUSMC]

It takes Sherlock Holmes to figure out if a person with a penis is male or female, so it doesn't seem too far off base.

[Michael P]

When will we finally admit that it is long past time for common sense bow-and-arrow regulations? Why do courts insist on allowing the free publication of dangerous information about fletchery?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-58906165

[Sarcastr0]

Crossbows are regulated though.

[DaveM]

The purpose of "No Time To Die" was to bury the Bond franchise forever by killing off every male combatant. Kill all the men: message received.

Friends, Brits, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Bond, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Bond, James Bond...

- With apologies to the Bard

[Krayt]

Or they're just sick of him playing the game a previous Bond did, to get more money, and this is just a convenient way. Time to move on.

You shine on the woke crowd, let it flop financially, then get back to business. Or maybe it won't, who knows?

[Sarcastr0]

If Bond movies are giving you messages to kill, that might be a you problem.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Wait 'til this guy learns that Superman is one of them homosexuals.

[Gandydancer]

That Superman is dead.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Dead, or dead to you?

(Blood, Sweat And Tears-Earth Wind And Fire would have been one hell of a tour.)

[Gandydancer]

Kook, if only you could overcome your other nuttiness like you have your delusion that Reason was limiting you to one music video per post you might achieve some semblance of mental health, but I'm not holding my breath.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Reason.com imposed a one-link limit for a substantial period of time. That has become a two-link limit. I missed the timing and, if there was one, the announcement of this welcome advancement in faux libertarian technology. I apprehended the change when I noticed a comment bearing two links.

Open wider, clinger.

[Gandydancer]

So, you're only slow on the uptake, according to you.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Huh...

So, one of the interesting things that's come up lately is organ transplants and COVID-19 vaccination status. Doctors and hospitals have been requiring organ transplant recipients to have been vaccinated. OK...I'm not a huge fan, but the difference in outcomes may justify it.

But now, apparently hospitals are requiring the DONORS to be vaccinated, or else they will reject the organ transplant.

What on earth ethically could justify this?

[Michael P]

Everything I have heard from Democrats lately is underlain by the message "the end justifies the means".

[IPLawyer]

Michael, you should really come to one of our secret meetings of the Jewish Cabal of bankers and newsmen. Message me if you are ever in NY.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Lately"?

[Krayt]

Take a tiny risk of covid with an organ from someone who died in the brief interstice between catching it and it being detectable, or definitly die without it.

Now if the immune supressants used to prevent rejection make death from covid significantly likely, that might be another story. Even then, death would have to be more likely than another few weeks of waiting.

[Armchair Lawyer]

More to the point, the recipient needs to be vaccinated anyway. And vaccination only reduces, doesn't eliminate the chance of infection on the part of the donor.

[Commenter_XY]

Sounds like the beginnings of 'medical treatment apartheid' to me.

[Sarcastr0]

I'm not a doctor nor a medical health professional, but I would ask one at least before I started speculating my way into preemptive victimhood.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

That's a bingo!

(Another take)

[Gandydancer]

Ask one what?

Refusing donors who aren't sick is deranged.

[Commenter_XY]

Funny you say that, Sarcastr0. I did. You know what the doctor said? It is a betrayal of the Hippocratic Oath, for starters. And that it is completely immoral to predicate medical treatment of the sick based on vax status.

The medical treatment apartheid label is ugly, but fits.

[Armchair Lawyer]

But it's OK, because the unvaccinated are "the wrong sort of people".

[Sarcastr0]

Your speculative telepathy says more about what you want to be true than anything else.

[Armchair Lawyer]

I don't want it to be true in the least. It's simply an observation I have from the discourse of many people on the left.

The unvaccinated are the "wrong sort of people" and deserve to be denied care for their decisions.

Frankly, it reminds me of the AIDS epidemic in the 80's, and how there was a sense that those people who had AIDS didn't deserve medical care, because of their decisions.

Perhaps you think differently. Do people who haven't been vaccinated deserve the same exact standard of care we give every other patient? Or not? Please let us know your stance.

[Sarcastr0]

Discourse with many on the left who called the unvaccinated the wrong type of people.

My favorite discourse is extremely convenient discourse!

[Armchair Lawyer]

I'll repeat....

"Perhaps you think differently. Do people who haven’t been vaccinated deserve the same exact standard of care we give every other patient? Or not? Please let us know your stance."

Which is it....

[Sarcastr0]

That's not the standard we use for organ transplants.

That's not the standard we use for other types of infectious diseases.

So maybe your individualized framing is actually a complete misapprehension of medical policy.

Or maybe not. I am not an expert. Nor do I have a bunch of liberals to tell me how bigoted they are in their thoughts.

[Armchair Lawyer]

And I'll repeat AGAIN....

“Perhaps you think differently. Do people who haven’t been vaccinated deserve the same exact standard of care we give every other patient? Or not? Please let us know your stance.”

Which is it….

I'm not asking for the expert's opinion. I'm asking for your PERSONAL opinion.

What is it? Do we treat people who have been vaccinated with the same ?standard of care we treat unvaccinated people? Or do we treat them differently?

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

I think what you are trying to say with your ridiculous rhetorical question is that it would be immoral to refuse to treat patients who have not been vaccinated. But an unvaccinated patient would certainly be treated differently, or his treatment would be predicated on his non-vaccinated status. Just like any other bit of pertinent medical history would affect treatment decisions.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Alpheus,

I didn't say the same "treatment." I said the same standard of care.

And it's not a "rhetorical question". It's a very real question that's coming up every day, right now.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Armchair,

I'll bite. The standard of care necessarily depends on comorbidities and other risk factors. You might be a perfectly good candidate for surgery X. Maybe I have pneumonia, so I am not a good candidate for surgery X. The same standard of care results in different treatment for each of us. The only interesting question here is whether being unvaccinated (either donor or recipient) is correlated with a higher rate of failure of organ transplant.

As to donors, I think it is almost certain that it makes no sense to categorically refuse such donations. It might make a difference in who you give the organ too if there is some greater chance it is infected and the chance is significant enough that it changes the cost-benefit for some recipients. That seems highly unlikely. But that's question for medical science, not my opinion.

As to recipients, again the issue is whether unvaccinated recipients are significantly more likely to die or otherwise suffer a negative result than vaccinated recipients. If vaccinated recipients are 10 times more likely to survive, then we should give the limited number of organs to the vaccinated, ceteris paribus. It seems more likely, but still unlikely, that anyone knows to a reasonable degree of medical certainty that there is such a significant difference that differentiation based on vaccination status is medically warranted. But, again, that's a question for medical science as to what the standard of care should be, not whether it should be different for different people.

There are all sorts of factors that bump people up or down the recipient list, including plenty of legal but medically unwise behaviors like smoking, excessive drinking, and being really old.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Is it? Are there documented examples of non-vaccinated patients receiving a lower standard of care? Not asking a rhetorical question. Of course "standard of care" can be a somewhat vague and subjective concept. As someone else pointed out, patients needing organ transplants are certainly given varying "standards of care" based on voluntary choices and behaviors they have made.

[Gandydancer]

@NOVA Lawyer: What you say seems quite reasonable, but the alleged situation is

...now, apparently hospitals are requiring the DONORS to be vaccinated, or else they will reject the organ transplant.

Please address the asserted situation, and not your hypothetical individuated analysys.

[Sarcastr0]

I will admit, it strikes me as the wrong cost-benefit as well. But I'm not going to get histrionic about stuff I have zero expertise in. I stayed far away from med stuff when going to school.

[Gandydancer]

Armchair Lawyer:

I’ll repeat….

“Perhaps you think differently. Do people who haven’t been vaccinated deserve the same exact standard of care we give every other patient? Or not? Please let us know your stance.”

Which is it….

I'm not seeing what problem youy might be having in simply saying "yes" unless you really do favor medical apartheid.

We can then go on to discuss whether refusing all organ donation from or to the unvaxxed is consistent with the stated principle (and the case that brought this to attention was that of an unvaxxed would-be donor that wants to donate an organ to someone she knows well and is willing to receive it, iirc) but your repeated refusal to clearly accept or reject baseline propositions is not a good look.

[Sarcastr0]

Pretty sure the comments in reply to that (including my own) take that hypo to the cleaners.

But you have shown here you read what you want to see, and it appears you want to see me as a villain.

You and AL have a definition of 'medical apartheid' is ill-defined, except for being some vague sense of fairness whose basis is partisanship and not medicine.

[Gandydancer]

The comparison to apartheid is clear. The unvaxxed are the blacks and coloreds in this analogy. That you claim to not understand this is absurd.

You ARE a villain, and dishonest to the core.

Armchair Lawyer to you:

“Perhaps you think differently. Do people who haven’t been vaccinated deserve the same exact standard of care we give every other patient? Or not? Please let us know your stance.”

I'm guessing the truth to you is like water to the witches of Oz.

[jb]

If you read Cleveland Clinic's statement on the topic, they assert that the goal is minimizing risk to the donor during the process.

I'm not a doctor so I have no idea whether that's a good reason or not, but that's what they say is the rationale behind the policy.

[Gandydancer]

I’ll repeat….

“Perhaps you think differently. Do people who haven’t been vaccinated deserve the same exact standard of care we give every other patient? Or not? Please let us know your stance.”

Which is it….

If the donor already has COVID that's one thing, but if they want to inflict the Jab on the theory that the donor would be at greater risk of succumbing to COVID post-surgery then I want to see their work. It looks way too much like they're virtue signalling at the potential recipient's expense, and ignoring informed consent to that risk.

[Gandydancer]

I have no idea why Reason's execrable comment software left that part of my already-posted reply to someone else in the buffer or extracted it from my xcopy-and-paste cache. Has the magazine's Libertarianism no access to competent programmers? That's hard to believe.

[M L]

Posted this earlier in a thread where it was largely off-topic.

Loudoun County Schools Tried To Conceal Sexual Assault Against Daughter In Bathroom, Father Says

Father in viral video of school board arrest says his daughter was raped in school bathroom.

On June 22, Scott Smith was arrested at a Loudoun County, Virginia, school board meeting, a meeting that was ultimately deemed an “unlawful assembly” after many attendees vocally opposed a policy on transgender students.

What people did not know is that weeks prior on May 28, Smith says, a boy allegedly wearing a skirt entered a girls’ bathroom at nearby Stone Bridge High School, where he sexually assaulted Smith’s ninth-grade daughter.

Juvenile records are sealed, but Smith’s attorney Elizabeth Lancaster told The Daily Wire that a boy was charged with two counts of forcible sodomy, one count of anal sodomy, and one count of forcible fellatio, related to an incident that day at that school.

As a result of the viral video showing his arrest, Smith became the poster child for what the National School Boards Association has since suggested could be a form of “domestic terrorism”: a white blue-collar male who showed up to harangue obscure public servants on his local school board.

“If someone would have sat and listened for thirty seconds to what Scott had to say, they would have been mortified and heartbroken,” Lancaster said.

Minutes before Smith’s arrest at the school board meeting, the Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) superintendent lectured the public that concerns about the transgender policy were misplaced because the school system had no record of any assault occurring in any school bathroom.

Then a woman wearing a rainbow heart shirt – a left-wing community activist – told Smith she did not believe his daughter, he says. His rage reached a boil and he had a heated exchange of words with the woman. A police officer, there to keep the peace in the meeting, pulled on his arm. Smith yanked it away. Before he knew it, Smith says, he was hit in the face, handcuffed and dragged across the floor, with his pants pulled down. Images of the incident were splashed on televisions and newspapers across the world.

Buta Biberaj, the county’s progressive, top elected prosecutor, who has close ties to the school board’s most liberal members, appeared in court to personally prosecute Smith for disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. Biberaj ran on a platform of ending “mass incarceration,” but she wanted to put Smith in jail for the misdemeanors.

As prosecutor, Biberaj would have known about the case involving Smith’s daughter. The suspect, juvenile court prosecutors assured Smith, was being held responsible: He was on house arrest, confined to his mother’s townhouse. According to Lancaster, a conviction was expected on October 14, likely in the form of a guilty plea to a lesser sexual assault charge.
But on October 6, according to the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office, a 15-year-old was charged with sexual battery and abduction after police said he forced a girl into an empty classroom, held her against her will, and touched her inappropriately.

Lancaster says the suspect is the same boy that allegedly attacked Smith’s daughter.

What follows, based on extensive, exclusive reporting from Loudoun County, is part of the developing story involving the Smiths and the school system.

https://archive.is/LhU4W

[Sarcastr0]

Guy doing civil disobedience is treated like people who do civil disobedience.

This is the intended result. It is the price paid since MLK. It is independent of the merit of the message.

Don't pretend this is persecution.

[M L]

What in the world are you talking about?

[Sarcastr0]

He was arrested because he planned to be, it looks like. For the attention.

Which is fine and a big part of American tradition. But pretending he wasn't doing anything and the police just arrested him for not being woke enough is ridiculous.

No evidence of a coverup of course, but...Daily Caller. The story of boy who wears skirt is accused of sexual assault doesn't hit quite right so why not punch it up a bit?

[Armchair Lawyer]

Do you have no empathy at all?

The guy's daughter was forcibly sodomized in a school bathroom. And the school board says "No assault have happened in school bathrooms..."

Meanwhile a lefty activist says "She doesn't believe" the guy's daughter that she was violated. What the hell happened to "Me too" and "Believe women"?

So he gets into an argument with the woman (I don't blame him), and is then arrested?

[IPLawyer]

"Do you have no empathy at all?"

pot. kettle. black

[Armchair Lawyer]

I've got plenty of empathy here.

Can you imagine being this guy?

Your daughter was just forcibly sodomized in a school bathroom, and the school board is up there saying "Not one assault" has occurred in a school bathroom. And then you've got a liberal activist telling you in person that she "doesn't believe" your daughter was telling the truth?

I'd be furious. I hope you would be too in his shoes.

[IPLawyer]

I can but I can also imagine all the other victims of horrible circumstances that the crew here just laugh away at every day in the comments section.

[Armchair Lawyer]

There are many horrible circumstances...but to accuse someone of "bloody flag waving" as opposed to acknowledging the horrible circumstance....

I've never done that.

[Sarcastr0]

Not believing your bloody shirt waiving is in good faith. Seems less like you care about this guy and his daughter and more that you want a partisan cudgel.

Not buying it, AL.

[TwelveInchPianist]

And your civil disobedience crap is in good faith? It sounds like the guy lost his temper when someone suggested his daughter was not being truthful.

And the event was handled perfectly well by the local authorities, if a bit excessively.

But I guess if you're defending Garland's siccing the FBI on parents for objecting to the rape of their daughters in public schools, there's no way to do that in good faith.

[Sarcastr0]

And then went right to the press? Don't be a rube.

And the FBI doesn't seem to be involved, so what the fuck are you talking about?

[TwelveInchPianist]

"And then went right to the press? Don’t be a rube."

WTF? He went to the press after the National Association of School Boards sent a letter to DoJ accusing him of being a domestic terrorist. And Garland responded by asking the FBI to investigate.

I mean, you were right here in this comments section gaslighting us about how the FBI involvement was justified.

You linked to the fucking letter.

[M L]

"And then went right to the press? "

His daughter was allegedly raped in the mouth and anus in a government school on May 28.

The school attempted to cover up the event without involving the police.

On June 22, he planned to calmly mention this fact in a pertinent school board meeting context. At that meeting, the administrators lied about the assault. And the guy ended up getting in an argument and getting arrested before he could speak.

Only now in October has he finally gone public with this.

"Smith said nothing as his likeness traveled around the world, the avatar of ignorant bigotry. Advisors told him it would be better to let the process against his daughter’s assailant play out. He did not want to risk interfering.

“It has been so hard to keep my mouth shut and wait this out. It has been the most powerless thing I’ve ever been through,” he said. “I don’t care if he’s homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, transsexual. He’s a sexual predator.”

The culprit was expected to plead guilty on October 14, following the negotiation of a plea agreement. But on October 6, the Sheriff’s Office put out a press release that led Smith to believe that the process was not working."

[Sarcastr0]

There is no evidence of a coverup.

[Toranth]

No evidence of a coverup?
The school is required to report the assault to the police, but did not do so. Instead, the father did so over the objections of the school.
On multiple occasions, the school/board responded to queries about sexual assaults by saying that none had taken place - explicitly stating "Zero".
The school reported to the father that the rapist was banned from school, when in fact he had been transferred to a different school - the one where he committed his second sexual assault.

If it isn't a coverup when you try to conceal an event and lie about it having occurred, then what is it?

[Gandydancer]

It's inconvenient to Sarcastr0's narrative that a cover-up be called a cover-up.

But we know the acting Superintendant lied, denying that what happened happened:

Minutes before Smith’s arrest at the June 22 board meeting, Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) Superintendent Scott Ziegler declared that "the predator transgender student or person simply does not exist," and that to his knowledge, "we don’t have any record of assaults occurring in our restrooms," The Daily Wire reported.

Even if school rapes are so common that Ziegler could truthfully say that he wouldn't hear of any such incident, how do you square that with he affirmative declaration that no such thing had happened?

And the crime DID happen.

...Smith says... that his behavior at the June 22 meeting stemmed from an incident weeks earlier at his ninth-grade daughter’s school, Stone Bridge High School in Ashburn, in which he said a boy wearing a skirt entered the girls’ bathroom and assaulted his daughter on May 28.

"We can confirm a May 28, 2021 case that involved a thorough 2-month-long investigation that was conducted to determine the facts of the case prior to arrest," the sheriff’s office told Fox News. ...

All juvenile records are sealed, but Smith’s attorney Elizabeth Lancaster told The Daily Wire that the boy was subsequently charged with two counts of forcible sodomy, one count of anal sodomy, and one count of forcible fellatio.

In response to a public records request... the Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that a May 28 report with "Offense: Forcible Sodomy [and] Sexual Battery" at Stone Bridge High School does exist.

The suspect was arrested two months later following an investigation by the sheriff's office.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/loudoun-county-father-school-cover-up-bathroom-assault-daughter

[Sarcastr0]

What a coverup!

Y'all are idiots pushing the latest talking point on the right that's probably too tendentious to make it into anything mainstream.

Which you will just take as more proof of a coverup and also oppression of your speech for being such rebel freedom fighters.

[Gandydancer]

Don't like "cover-uop"? Tell us what you want to call the School Board's/Ziegler's lying attempts at hiding the rapes. Come on, you're clever enough to come up with a nice euphemism for it, Wormtongue.

[Toranth]

And once again, when confronted with facts, Sarcastro has retreated to the bastion of insults and name calling.

If you can, please point out where the events that several posters have described are false, and tell us what really happened.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Y’all are idiots pushing the latest talking point on the right that’s probably too tendentious to make it into anything mainstream."

What part of the story is 'tendentious', Sarcastro? The only detail not confirmed by authorities is that the boy was wearing a skirt, and that tangential to the main point.

And the story has been covered in mainstream outlets including the Wapo.

So you're gaslighting again.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Wow...

Guess that's a no on the empathy front.

[Sarcastr0]

Wow...I guess fuck you.

[Gandydancer]

Heh. I like it when assholes like you drop the mask.

[M L]

Are you just making things up?

There's a video of the incident. The guy planned to share this pertinent story as part of the discussion of the policy of allowing boys into girls' bathrooms. When he got up to do so, an activist who apparently had inside knowledge of the allegations, which were not public, said "I think your daughter is lying" or something along those lines. This caused a shouting match between the two, whereupon the police seized him. He yanked his arm away from the officer who had approached him from the side, while still focusing on the other person he was arguing with. Then officers promptly began pummeling him in the face, and shortly he was on the ground with his pants down bleeding from the mouth.

So I ask again, what exactly are you talking about? If you're saying that he was "disobeying" when he yanked his arm away and struggled with police officers -- OK. But that was clearly not premeditated. And the position of "well just obey the police if you don't want to get beat up and arrested and charged!" is an interesting take coming from you, would you apply that similarly across contexts?

Also, there doesn't appear to have been any "orders" issued by the police anyway. They just seized him because an argument was happening. What was their justification for seizing him? Unpleasant discussions occurring?

Anyway, he was charged with disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. That's probably fine, as far as I know. What's remarkable is that you are pretending this is actually the point of the story, or even anywhere close to being among the most salient points and events here.

The school administrators lied at the meeting, saying there had never been any kind of assault. They "reasoned" that the absence of such an assault (which was again, a lie) somehow disproved the concerns of those who did not favor a policy of letting boys into girls' bathrooms. This is among the salient points of the story.

The charges are one thing. How they were prosecuted is another. Read:

"Lancaster, the Smith family’s attorney, was sure the charges would be dropped. Instead, Biberaj – the top law enforcement officer in a county of 400,000 residents – showed up to personally try the misdemeanor case.

“It is incredibly unusual for a disorderly conduct case to even go forward. The idea that they would actually be seeking jail time, I’d guess in my 15 years the number of times I’ve seen that happen would be zero,” Lancaster told The Daily Wire. “It would be completely unheard of for the prosecutor to handle a misdemeanor.”
. . .
“I’m a bleeding heart liberal,” Lancaster, a former public defender, said. But “I don’t get where the vitriol comes from…that if you don’t believe what I believe, you’re a monster.”

“I’ve known Buta for years. We’ve been colleagues for years,” she said. “When you’re a public defender you get to recognize the humanity of every single person, no matter what they look like or talk like. She used to do that, and I guess it’s gone. And that’s sad to me.”

The charges against Smith were so minor that there was no option to have a jury trial, which Smith believes he would have won. That option is available only through an appeal, which will cost him more than the thousands of dollars he has already spent on legal fees.

On August 11, the school board voted to approve the transgender policy. Smith could not sign up to speak so that policymakers could make their decision with knowledge of the Stone Bridge incident: Days before it, he received a letter informing him he is banned from the school board building. "

The original incident, which resulted in "two counts of forcible sodomy, one count of anal sodomy, and one count of forcible fellatio" is of course a salient point of the story.

And then? A second sexual assault at a different school, after the school officials tried to hush hush the whole event WITHOUT involving the police, and quietly transferred the predator elswhere.

At the end of the day, "Two girls, allegedly sexually assaulted in school, four months apart, by the same person. And so far, the only person to be convicted of a crime is the victim’s father.

A school policy passed following what appear to be false statements from the superintendent – a policy whose passage would have been politically impossible had Smith’s story seen the light of day."

So I ask again, what are you talking about? Your flailing attempts at arguing in defense of demented leftism are becoming more and more pathetic.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Actually, what is pathetic is you taking this father's version of the 'forcible sodomy" as true with no evidence because it fits in with your narrative of "demented leftism." No one here really has any idea what actually happened in these incidents. We only have allegations.

[Gandydancer]

Brainwater:

No one here really has any idea what actually happened in these incidents.

A simple search turns up:

In an Oct. 12 article by ABC affiliate 7News, the outlet reported that the attacker had offended again, “The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office confirmed that the same juvenile suspect was charged with a second sexual assault at another Loudoun County school after the May 28 incident.”

7News said the LCPS told them they “cannot comment on…what exactly happened in the first incident that didn’t cause the discipline to rise to the level of immediate expulsion.”

According to Fox5, local police did not even charge the boy for the May 28 rape until July 8, stating, “The Loudoun County Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office says the case was pushed back after DNA evidence didn’t arrive in time.”

“At that point, they discussed the matter with the victim’s family and recommended that the suspect wear and [sic] ankle monitor, and return to the classroom at a different school.”

Fox5 gave details on the second assault, “Then, on Oct. 6 at Broad Run High School in Ashburn, the same boy, now 15, allegedly forced a victim into an empty classroom, where he touched her inappropriately.”

The Sheriff’s office explained to Fox5 their reasoning for delaying charges in the original case, “The October 6, 2021 incident at Broad Run High School did not involve complex circumstances, the arrest was immediate, and the arrest was reported to the community as information released was unlikely to disclose the identity of the victim.”

“However, the May 28, 2021 investigation was different in that the suspect and victim were familiar with each other, the investigation was complex, and a public announcement had the potential to identify a juvenile victim.”

It's not all that hard to not be totally ignorant while bloviating like you do.

[Gandydancer]

The Wire paraphrased Smith as stating that on May 28 “a boy allegedly wearing a skirt entered a girls’ bathroom at nearby Stone Bridge High School, where he sexually assaulted Smith’s ninth-grade daughter,” and paraphrased attorney Elizabeth Lancaster, who represents Smith, as stating “that a boy was charged with two counts of forcible sodomy, one count of anal sodomy, and one count of forcible fellatio, related to an incident that day at that school.”

As far as I can tell, no one has denied this (not counting the likes of determinedly ignorant Team Stupid members like you). That is in fact not nothing.

[Gandydancer]

He was arrested because he planned to be, it looks like. For the attention.

Nonsense. My understanduing is that someone on the Board and in a position to know better claimed that there had been no assaults and he understandably was berating her for that lie when someone grabbed his arm in an attempt to get him to stop. He tore his arm away and that individual -- who turned out to be security -- then struck him, knocked him down, and arrested him. Those circumstances make the "planning" you've imagined out of nothing rather unlikely, quite apart from the use of excessive force.

[Brett Bellmore]

He was told to STFU, and didn't. During the public discussion period of a public meeting. I gather that Sarcastro considers that 'civil disobedience'.

According to the accounts I've seen, the school board started shutting down every parent who tried to talk about anything the board didn't want to discuss, which was essentially all the parents, and then moved on to shutting down parents who talked about agenda items but didn't agree with the board. And then just called the parents rioters, and ended the meeting, then sicced the police on parents who wouldn't leave.

[Sarcastr0]

Until we get actual facts and not breathless editorializing from one of the more agenda-driven outlets out there, I'm not going to decide what has happened.

You're making a *lot* of assumptions as you weave your story. To be fair, the Daily Caller is inviting that.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Until we get actual facts and not breathless editorializing from one of the more agenda-driven outlets out there, I’m not going to decide what has happened."

You were pretty quick to decide that there was a wave of violence and threats against teachers, without any evidence.

The Wapo and other sources are reporting that the commonwealth attorney says that a student was arrested and charged with raping another student on May 28. The same student was arrested for groping another student at another school a few weeks later. But it seems like the "agenda-driven" outlets are scooping the MSM pretty badly, much like the Wi-Spa story.

[M L]

The video went viral months ago and prompted many discussions about, Gosh can you believe the behavior at these school board meetings, it's just a mask, just have your kids wear the mask.

All the while, nobody knew anything about the guy or what was happening, until now.

[Gandydancer]

All the while, nobody knew anything about the guy or what was happening, until now.

That's of course evidence of media bias. What you are offering that fact as proof of I find difficult to understand.

The reason it has reappeared in the news is because of Garland's lunatic decision to sic the FBI on parents at school board meetings at a time when lack of resources is being used as an excuse to not prosecute actual violations of Federal law. I'm not sure, but my impression is that this exact incident was used by the Nationnal School Board Association (or whatever that pressure group is called) in its appeal for him to do so.

[M L]

Watch the video, Sarcastro.

It was the one that actually went viral months ago. The video that was used by leftist hacks to bemoan the supposedly violent MAGA parents who were showing up at school board meetings across the country with their uninformed views. The press cycle that culminated in FBI/DOJ branding said parents "domestic terrorists" and threatening to investigate and treat them as terrorists.

[M L]

By the way, this raises a tangential question. Exactly how do we treat those accused of being involved in terrorism?

Supreme Court Hearings On Palestinian Man Anally Raped and Hung from Hooks By CIA Causes Biden Administration to Tremble

After years of having his case hung up in federal courts, Abu Zubaydah could finally be given the opportunity to tell his story.

The Supreme Court is currently hearing the cause of United States v. Abu Zubaydah, which deals with the largely known details of a Palestinian man who was captured in Pakistan by the CIA and tortured in a barbaric fashion.

In 2002, Zubaydah, a veteran who previously fought the Soviets in Afghanistan, was shot and transferred to the CIA. It is believed that he was transported to CIA black sites, referred to colloquially as “dungeons,” in Poland, Thailand, and other countries, where he was subjected to crimes against humanity.

Zubaydah, who the CIA has admitted played no role in Al Qaeda, has been held in a secret facility within the Guantanomo Bay prison camp. The federal government has admitted that they cannot prosecute the man for any crimes, yet he has been held and cut off from the outside world (with the exception of his lawyers) as an “enemy combatant,” which many suspect is due to fear that he may go public with his story.

According to a brief filed with the Supreme Court, Zubaydah was waterboarded at least 83 separate times in one month, had his head repeatedly smashed against the wall, and was sleep deprived for 11 consecutive days.

Additionally, he was stripped naked and hung from hooks and stuffed into a small box for hours. The disturbing practice of “rectal hydration,” where prisoners are essentially sodomized, was also utilized.

In a 2014 Senate investigation regarding the practice, CIA torturers were exposed as using “rectal feeding” — which experts have held has no medical or physiological use — as a means to sadistically rape men by grinding up food from their lunch trays and forcing it up their rectums.

Zubaydah lost his left eye and received brain damage during his brutalization at the hands of the CIA.

[Sarcastr0]

What the fuck is wrong with you?

[M L]

?
The talk about terrorists reminded me of this other story going on.
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-10-06/scotus-state-secret-guantanamo-bay-terrorism-suspect

[Gandydancer]

The connection between these allegations and the assault by School Boards on their citics eludes me.

Keeping enemy combatantis in Guantanimo is of course not a police matter, though SCOTUS has gotten this wrong.

I suppose it's possible that "rectal feeding" is a thing, but fake atrocity stories are also a thing.

[Michael P]

Those parents were probably wearing short skirts, too. They knew what they were asking for.

[jb]

Seems like he went and disrupted a meeting to call attention to a situation he feels was unjust. That's a fine form of activism, but fairly commonly results in the person disrupting the event getting arrested.

[M L]

Being arrested is fairly common. Being charged isn't, and those charges being fully prosecuted is even less common, and seeking jail time is even less common, as is the top prosecutor showing up personally on a misdemeanor charge. See my post above.

[Sarcastr0]

Some of the nonviolent BLM protestors would like a word.

[Life of Brian]

Some of the nonviolent BLM protestors would like a word.

Which ones? Please be specific.

[Gandydancer]

What's happening to the 1/6 protesters is the new normal, and so none of us should complain about being assaulted by School Board thugs at their public meetings. Got it.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Guy doing civil disobedience is treated like people who do civil disobedience.

This is the intended result. It is the price paid since MLK."

Yup. For his civil disobedience, MLK was arrested and convicted of disorderly conduct by local authorities. And the FBI improperly investigated him to try to dig up dirt to shut him up.

Just like you guys are trying to do to these parents. But in MLK's case, at least they tried to hide the FBI's role.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Sounds bad . . . from the cherry-picked perspective of bigoted, convicted criminal and his disaffected, partisan pals.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Sounds bad . . . from the cherry-picked perspective of bigoted, convicted criminal and his disaffected, partisan pals."

Clearly a girl being raped in a girls bathroom by a boy wearing a skirt doesn't sound bad from your perspective, Arthur. It's the sweet smell of culture-war victory, amirite?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The source of that assertion has not distinguished himself as a reasonable, credible, non-partisan, effective source of anything.

If he or is daughter has been wronged, however, I hope justice develops swiftly and effectively (even if he seems to act in antisocial, hysterical, counterproductive, even criminal manner -- inept losers have rights, too).

[TwelveInchPianist]

"If he or is daughter has been wronged, however, I hope justice develops swiftly and effectively..."

Well, the Sherriff has confirmed that a student was arrested for sexually assaulting another student at the school on May 28, so it sounds like you might get your wish.

"even if he seems to act in antisocial, hysterical, counterproductive, even criminal manner — inept losers have rights, too"

I am certain that you would be quite calm if your daughter were raped in a school bathroom, Arthur.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

If that man or his daughter was wronged, I hope those who wronged him are investigated, identified, and strenuously held to account (perhaps including prosecution or civil liability).

His reported conduct does little to nothing to advance his case, though.

[Armchair Lawyer]

RAK...
The word you're looking for is raped. Not "wronged". Raped.
And his reported conduct may be the reason the school board couldn't hide it under the proverbial carpet.

Have we really gotten to the point where liberals are defending and downplaying raping children in bathrooms?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The father doesn't claim to have been raped. He claims to have been wronged.

'By the libs.'

Has the daughter asserted a rape claim (other than through the father's activity)?

[Armchair Lawyer]

Jesus Rev.... Listen to yourself...

You don't get charges like this without the daughter testifying.. And the rapist was out again...and did it again. And you're still downplaying the charges....

Is this your "new world"...where liberals like you defend rapists?

https://wtop.com/loudoun-county/2021/10/teen-charged-in-loudoun-co-school-groping-was-on-electronic-monitoring-for-earlier-charges/

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Has someone been charged for raping the man's daughter . . . or was a person charged in connection with another (later, if I recall correctly) crime?

When did the daughter report a crime? Is the allegation that authorities mishandled such a report?

This guy's behavior and partisan motivations make him a sketchy witness. That doesn't dismiss the prospect that someone -- the man, his daughter, both -- was wronged.

If this man has a solid grievance to advance, for himself or on behalf of his daughter, he has done a lousy job of it. I hope the truth emerges and prevails. I will assuredly look beyond questionable reports involving stridently partisan sources.

If this level of comments is the best a right-wing legal blog can generate, the modern American mainstream can take its foot off the pedal in the culture war.

[Gandydancer]

The father doesn’t claim to have been raped. He claims to have been wronged.

No, he weas assaulted. His daughter (and another man's daughter, subsequently) was raped. By the same pervert, after he was released.

Your pretense that this didn't happen only proves you a shit. But we knew that.

[Gandydancer]

@Kookland: "On June 22, Smith publicly confronted the LCPS about his daughter’s rape. The article says, “Minutes before Smith’s arrest, the Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) superintendent lectured the public that concerns about the transgender policy were misplaced because the school system had no record of any assault occurring in any school bathroom.”"

@Kookland: Is your search engins so broken that you can't run down the truth of this assertion? Really? I call bullshit on that.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Have we really gotten to the point where liberals are defending and downplaying raping children in bathrooms?"

Looks like the answer's yes.

And Arthur, who reported what to who, to the extent available, has been covered in local media, right-wing media, and legacy media.

“Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office was contacted within minutes of receiving the initial report on May 28,” LCPS officials wrote, referring to the alleged incident at Stone Bridge. “Once a matter has been reported to law enforcement, LCPS does not begin its investigation until law enforcement advises LCPS that it has completed the criminal investigation.”

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I have no idea of the source of your quotation or the meanings of LCPS.

That's the fault of the person advancing an argument or assertion.

And if law enforcement had been alerted promptly, and he knew it, why was he flipping out at school directors at a public meeting concerning a criminal investigation (as I recall)?

[Armchair Lawyer]

"And if law enforcement had been alerted promptly, and he knew it, why was he flipping out at school directors at a public meeting concerning a criminal investigation (as I recall)?"

Perhaps because they denied any assault occurred?

But please, keep defending raping teenage girls in bathrooms to the best of your ability. For the "new world" you live in....

[TwelveInchPianist]

"I have no idea of the source of your quotation or the meanings of LCPS."

You have no idea about a lot of things, Arthur. And it's your own fault.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

You guys need to get better at this or . . . well, the culture war will continue along the trajectory it has taken for more than a half-century.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

"You have no idea about a lot of things, Arthur. And it’s your own fault."

This is where being a lawyer would probably make you competent.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Lol. It’s cute that you think you’re competent.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Whether I am competent is not much relevant to the point that you have been demonstrably incompetent with respect to citation to authority.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Says the guy whose citations are all irrelevant youtube videos.

Facts are facts, Arthur, whether I link to the article or make you google the quote.

You'd think the head of the church of exalted reason would understand that.

[IPLawyer]

So to be clear, his daughter was assaulted by a straight man in the women's bathroom and this is being brought up in the context of trans bathroom usage because??????

[TwelveInchPianist]

The claim is that the daughter was assaulted in the girl's room by a boy wearing a skirt. That particular detail has not been confirmed by authorities.

[M L]

He intended to bring it up as an illustration of why maybe it's not a good school policy to allow boys in the girls' bathroom.

But that's not even the point of the story, as you know.

[IPLawyer]

Ah right... I know that if I ever put a skirt on and went into a women's bathroom I couldn't help myself from raping someone either...

[DaveM]

A very ugly deflection. You should be ashamed of aiding criminals. You know very well that the objection is to a school policy that in fact made it easier for a predator to get at his prey. And you're helping him.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

You have no idea whether the school policy had anything to do with the alleged incident. Or even if the incident actually occurred as you are describing it.

[Gandydancer]

Actually, he does. Your determined ignorance as to why we know this is quite the spectacle. Since I still have it in my buffer and was unclear on this earlier I will add this:

On June 22, Smith publicly confronted the LCPS about his daughter’s rape. The article says, “Minutes before Smith’s arrest, the Loudoun County Public Schools (LCPS) superintendent lectured the public that concerns about the transgender policy were misplaced because the school system had no record of any assault occurring in any school bathroom.”

[Gandydancer]

...So he was lying even if the perp wasn't wearing a skirt.

And why the father was mad is self-evident.

And that he wasn't planning to be lied to is rather obvious, contradicting an earlier claim by Team Stupid.

[IPLawyer]

Wasn't the school's hearing about whether or not they should implement such a policy, to which this man offered this theory about his child's rape? So wouldn't that mean that the rape happened BEFORE the school had that policy?

[Gandydancer]

That wasn't the subject of the meeting.

[M L]

More run-of-the-mill corruption by those who run the country at our expense.

The Dallas Fed Board Is Now Complicit in the Robert Kaplan Saga

Last Wednesday, the Editorial Board of the Financial Times of London penned an editorial under a headline that read: “The Fed’s Trading Scandal Undermines Public Trust.” The editorial noted that the President of the Dallas Fed, Robert Kaplan, “held stakes over $1m each in 27 investments, and moved in and out of S&P 500 futures. The precise dates of his transactions are unknown as his form declaring financial interests merely gives ‘multiple’ as the timeframe.”

Last Friday, this headline appeared at the Wall Street Journal: “Boston, Dallas Fed Banks Pledge Cooperation With Stock-Trading Probe.” But then the article revealed this:

“The Dallas Fed has declined multiple requests to fully disclose Mr. Kaplan’s extensive trading activity. For example, Mr. Kaplan’s disclosures list ‘multiple’ for trades in stocks and other investments without specifying the dates of the transactions.” . .

Two of the most widely read financial newspapers in the world have now called attention to the Dallas Fed’s failure to turn over the dates of Kaplan’s trades. . .

In our overnight letter to Falk, we also called attention to a materially false statement that the Dallas Fed Board had issued in an apparent attempt to whitewash Kaplan’s conduct. We wrote as follows to Falk:

“On Monday, September 27, under your name and that of the Chair, Greg Armstrong, the Board of Directors of the Dallas Fed released a statement to the press that included this sentence:

‘Upon joining the Bank, Rob systematically sold all of his personal holdings related to financial institutions over which the Federal Reserve had regulatory oversight or were otherwise restricted.’

“This was a materially false statement since Mr. Kaplan’s financial disclosure forms indicate that he owned four proprietary products from Goldman Sachs long after he joined the Dallas Fed on September 8, 2015. (Goldman Sachs has been supervised by the Federal Reserve since September 21, 2008.) . . .

Critical to this latest debate about the public’s right to demand and receive transparency about the activities of the central bank of the United States is the fact that both Bloomberg News and Fox News Network were forced to engage in a federal court battle with the Federal Reserve Board of Governors for more than two years in order to obtain the names of the banks and the amounts the Fed had funneled to these teetering trading houses under its emergency lending programs during and after the financial crash of 2008.

The Fed knew the sums were astronomical and an embarrassment to the Fed so it thought it could simply stomp on the public’s right to know. Fortunately for America, the Second Circuit Appellate Court decided in favor of both Bloomberg News and Fox News Network. (See here and here.)

But then the very banks that the Fed was bailing out, including Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, and Citigroup, formed a consortium called The Clearinghouse Association LLC and filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court to stop the release of the data. The Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal and the Fed was finally forced to release the data.

The details were worse than any financial news reporter could have imagined, with a cumulative tab of over $29 trillion to shore up a financial system that the Fed itself was supposed to be supervising prior to the crash. . .

We strongly suspect that the details of Kaplan’s trading are going to equally shock the conscience. Otherwise, why would there be such stonewalling of media requests to release them? . ."

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2021/10/the-dallas-fed-board-is-now-complicit-in-the-robert-kaplan-saga/

[M L]

Report: Biden and Son Shared Bank Account

President Joe Biden and his son Hunter shared a bank account and paid each other’s bills out of it, the Daily Mail reported citing emails it says could ensnare the U.S. chief executive in an FBI investigation into possible money laundering by the younger Biden.

The publication says the emails were obtained from a laptop abandoned by Hunter Biden and were between himself and Eric Schwerin, his business partner at consultancy Rosemont Seneca.

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/hunter-joe-biden-laptop/2021/10/13/id/1040385/

[Gandydancer]

Before the presidential election, many outlets ignored the laptop revelation as reported by the New York Post. That included NPR, which declared it didn’t want to “waste our time on satires that are not really stories."

Sounds just like Team Stupid here in the comment section commenting on the school bathroom rape. Until WaPo/NYT/NPR admit it it just didn't happen.

[M L]

What do the esteemed commenters think of CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) ?

Edward Snowden recently opined, "I will tell you what a CBDC is NOT—it is NOT, as Wikipedia might tell you, a digital dollar. After all, most dollars are already digital, existing not as something folded in your wallet, but as an entry in a bank’s database, faithfully requested and rendered beneath the glass of your phone.

Neither is a Central Bank Digital Currency a State-level embrace of cryptocurrency—at least not of cryptocurrency as pretty much everyone in the world who uses it currently understands it.

Instead, a CBDC is something closer to being a perversion of cryptocurrency, or at least of the founding principles and protocols of cryptocurrency—a cryptofascist currency, an evil twin entered into the ledgers on Opposite Day, expressly designed to deny its users the basic ownership of their money and to install the State at the mediating center of every transaction."

https://edwardsnowden.substack.com/p/cbdcs

Your thoughts?

[jb]

AIUI, Retail CDBCs are designed to let consumers hold "digital dollars" without needing to use a bank as an intermediary. Depending on implementation, that does mean that it's possible that the issuer (Fed/goverment) would be involved in each transaction, but it seems like you could also use Blockchain-ish technologies to allow transferring the currency without needing to identify the transactions to the issuer.

Since the term covers LOTS of possible implementations, specific details matter a lot.

[M L]

No. I believe you are thinking of "stablecoins" (like USDC for example) which exist now, and are cryptocurrencies designed to be pegged to the value of a fiat currency. They exist for the purpose of allowing consumers to more easily complete transactions that resemble cryptofiat transactions, which is what you were saying I think.

CBDCs will be completely, fundamentally different. They are not cryptocurrencies. They don't even exist yet. But central banks, the Fed, and similar groups like "the G7" are loudly and quickly making moves to implement them.

[jb]

No, I'm talking about CBDCs. I agree with you that they don't exist yet, which means it's silly to talk about exact implementation details. I agree that most of the proposals I've seen are for a central database of transactions, but this isn't an inherent property of CBDCs--the term just refers to a digital currency that's actually treated as currency by the reserve bank, which distinguishes them from Stablecoins (in which some other entity is keeping the value stable).

[M L]

I suppose it's possible that a central bank/government could set up a CBDC that is decentralized somehow, but there is no reason to expect that, since all proposals are for just the opposite, and all the reasons given for the attractiveness of the idea hinge on centralization, and it's really just a no-brainer that this is what governments and central banks would want to do, just look at all of human history.

But setting that aside, do you think a centralized CBDC as it's typically conceived of is a good or bad idea? Support or oppose?

[jb]

Caveat: I haven't spent a lot of time thinking or reading about this topic. I'm sure I have blind spots, so would be happy to learn more. Having said that...

Let's lay out my priors, which are probably different than yours:
- I don't have a very strong inherent distrust of government
- I am pretty skeptical of the value of our modern banking/finance industry
- I dislike features of our economy/society that reinforce advantages and disadvantages

Given all of that, a CBDC that allows people to engage in modern forms of electronic commerce without needing to intermediate through a bank seems like a pretty good idea. The banks aren't adding a ton of value and are generally skimming off a fairly large amount of money in the process, and being unbanked in our current society is a pretty big disadvantage.

Even though I'm probably less skeptical of the government than you, there's obviously still privacy concerns with this approach. But I'm actually not sure that they're worse. If you look at the other discussion about the government going on fishing expeditions through banking records and potential reliance on third party doctrine to do so, maybe we actually get better Constitutional privacy protection by having the central bank hold the records rather than the banks. Would be interesting to see some legal analysis on this point.

Having said all of that, when I look at a country like New Zealand with ubiquitous, cheap electronic payments it seems like there's probably ways for the private sector to do better as well, although I think that's an example where there's a fairly heavy dose of government regulation leading to what looks like a good outcome and it may be that disadvantaged groups still have trouble accessing banking services. Once again, I only have passing familiarity with the topic.

[M L]

"without needing to intermediate through a bank"

How does this follow? You would still need to intermediate through a bank, only it would be just the one centralized government bank.

If you think banking is bad now, wait until there's truly zero market or competition. Oh, and the bank monopolist also happens to be that massive entity defined chiefly by its characteristic of being able to kill and imprison you, i.e. its monopoly on the supposedly legitimate use of force. Yes, this is getting into our differing priors.

I'm open to the possibility that "banks aren’t adding a ton of value and are generally skimming off a fairly large amount of money in the process." I'm all for looking at such problems.

First, there is a little thing called usury. It's as old as the Bible! Usury laws have deep roots and a long history in the culture and legal tradition on which America is based, and really other cultures around the world too. This does not need to be complicated. Set a maximum legal interest rate of 15%. Why are credit cards exempt from usury laws? Just because they wanted to be. There's no good reason for it IMO. We're just a nation whose laws and policies are controlled by special interests to a large degree, while the people are distracted by gross consumerism and greed, fervently promoted vice and licentiousness, manufactured political theater, controversies calculated for maximum divisiveness, and critically, an ever-centralizing imperialistic power that draws all things to itself by nature, inherently perpetuating such circumstances.

Second, a lesser issue, but apart from interest and interest-like charges is the monopolization of payment processing. I suspect that a handful of payment processors skimming 3% off of every retail transaction -- and also having the market power to occasionally ban political dissidents from engaging in commerce -- is not reflective of value added and is not a result of market competition. The credit card processors do things like banning retailers from passing the charges on to consumers, or put another way, offering a discount for paying by cash or debit. Things like that should be regulated, and to encourage more free market competition you can address anti-competitive practices through avenues like antitrust law. The Obama admin did have some kind of antitrust settlement along these lines, which I think sounded like the right idea, but I think it was narrow enough that it didn't impact things much.

[dwb68]

Everyone who 4 months ago told me inflation was transitory and stagflation would never happen, tell me again about that.

Bidens Chief of Staff's retweet illustrates exactly why inflation will come back: ppl forgot how bad it is for the middle class, because its been 40 years.

Also tell me again how spending trillions raising demand is good for inflation lol.

[Sarcastr0]

I seem to recall you saying inflation was here and not transitory a couple of months ago.

Now your goalposts are very different.

[Bob from Ohio]

"I seem to recall you saying inflation was here and not transitory a couple of months ago."

He was right.

[Sarcastr0]

No, structural inflation has gone down in the sectors he was caterwauling about before.
Now there is a different supply chain squeeze, and different sectors.

Maybe his dire predictions will end up being right, but neither he nor I nor you know that.

[dwb68]

lol wut? structural inflation in the housing market and auto market has "dissipated"? Can i have what you are smoking?

[Sarcastr0]

Kevin Drum brings the numbers, even if I'm not so sure as he is about his predictions.

https://jabberwocking.com/inflation-in-august-continued-to-soften/

[dwb68]

lol. Notice the bold text. "Note that Owners' Equivalent Rent and Rent of Primary Residence account for almost 1/3 of median CPI, and these measures were up 5.1% annualized in September"

https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2021/10/cleveland-fed-median-cpi-and-trimmed.html

[Sarcastr0]

Looking at the absolute number and not the delta? You're smarter than that.

[dwb68]

The point of the quote is that owners equivalent rent is 1/3 of the price index and house prices have gone parabolic.

[Sarcastr0]

Which would seem to be a sector-based explanation for your doom and gloom that you said was economy-wide.

I again think this is just an attempt to smuggle in austerity. But you're clothing it in some really dodgy math.

With a certainty that remains as bullshit as when you started talking about it. I figure you'll be yelling about stagflation just around the corner in 2034...if there's a Dem in the WH.

[Gandydancer]

And you'll be denying the obvious as long as theres a (D) in the WH, which, given the mess the current admin is making of tPulling $trillions out of thin air necessarily hings, thankfully won't be long.

Injecting $trillions pulled out of thin air necessarily devalues the current supply. Mass curves space, creating the effect known as gravity. Deny whichever one you want, the effect on your credibility for anyone not on Team Stupid is much the same.

[Sarcastr0]

Comparing the accuracy of economics to physics is a sign you don't know what you're talking about.

[Gandydancer]

Economics doesn't need to be as accurate as physics to know that it is true that injecting $trillions pulled out of thin air necessarily devalues the current supply.

Evading by upping the level of generality is not going to work, Wormtongue.

[Sarcastr0]

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm
2021 Used cars and trucks....
Mar .5
Apr 10.0
May 7.3
Jun 10.5
Jul .2
Aug -1.5
Sep -.7

[dwb68]

"The index for used cars and trucks increased 24.4 percent over the
[the past 12 months]. The index for new vehicles rose 8.7 percent, the largest 12-month increase since the period ending September 1980."

Guess what else happened in 1980? That's right, 12 years of Reagan/Bush because Jimmy Carter dismissed inflation concerns.

Please tell me again how we need trillions in spending to fuel demand.

[Sarcastr0]

Make up your mind which timeline you're aggregating. It's not a very good trick to just roll everything up to include some bad months so you can call everything bad.

[jb]

LOL. Sarcrastr0 says auto inflation has subsided recently and shows data supporting this. You then do a 12 month aggregation that is entirely consistent with the data he posted and since the headline number is scary think everyone is suddenly going to be stupid and not notice the trend since June?

[dwb68]

Jimmy Carter learned the hard way, people dont need statistics to know whats [not] in their wallet.

ppl can go to the car dealer ship and see the prices, and they can see the rent increases, and the unaffordable housing. They can see the gas prices at the pump. Milk, chicken, beef at the store. When they have to rent a car and drive through the desert because their Southwest flight was canceled due to mandates. lol.

Now take that and add trillions in demand because the Dems are spending money like a Venezuelan Dictatorship.

[Bob from Ohio]

Of course auto inflation has subsided a bit. It was red hot, double digit for a prolonged period.

At a certain point even Wiemer inflation subsided.

[Gandydancer]

At a certain point even Wiemer[Weimar] inflation subsided.

Only after the value of old marks went down to, effectively, nothing.

Eventually we'll be able to start up a New Dollar. So?

[Armchair Lawyer]

Indeed. The best example of this is looking at the current Social Security COLA increase...the largest since the early 1980's, in more than 40 years, at 5.9%.

[Sarcastr0]

Think of why this may be an anomalous year when it comes to the economy...

[Armchair Lawyer]

Massive inflation due to government borrowing and spending, coupled with the highest deficits in generations....

But sure, let's spend more.

[Sarcastr0]

You are just going to ignore Covid and the lockdown, you partisan tool.

[Gandydancer]

When you step off a cliff the downward acceleration is anomalous. But not compared with your near future.

[Nelson]

Stagflation is high inflation and high unemployment. Right now we have high inflation and low unemployment. So I'm a little confused about your claim.

[Bob from Ohio]

Yesterday: CBS News -- "Inflation accelerated in September, with consumer price pressures across America showing no sign of easing ahead of the all-important holiday shopping season."

Today: WASHINGTON (AP) — "Inflation at the wholesale level rose 8.6% in September compared to a year ago, the largest advance since the 12-month change was first calculated in 2010."

Also today: Yahoo News -- "Footwear Prices Are Skyrocketing at the Fastest Inflation Rate in 20 Years"

Its transitory!!!!

[Sarcastr0]

Tell me about the inflation rate last month, Bob.

Oh, you didn't hear about it? Wonder why?

Yeah, we should pay attention after this month's numbers. But your gloom and doom are as premature as they are predicable.

[Bob from Ohio]

It was .1 lower than July. A transitory decrease in the year to year trend.

Keep spinning. We need some energy to bring those prices down.

[Sarcastr0]

The headline CPI index in August clocked in 0.27% higher than the previous month, an annualized rate of 3.3%. This is quite a bit lower than the 9%, 7%, 10%, and 5% rates of April through July.

Core CPI, which excludes food and energy, came in at 1.2%.
https://jabberwocking.com/inflation-in-august-continued-to-soften/

You really wish for collective misery if it'll own the libs, don't you?

[Brett Bellmore]

Core CPI? You mean, the CPI with most of what people spend money on eliminated?

[Sarcastr0]

As I understand it, food and energy are commodities, and thus too volatile due to speculation to be as useful as a predictive metric.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Sarcastro,

The Social Security COLA increase was 5.9% this year. The largest increase 40 years....

It's bad.

Dumping another 3.5 Trillion in borrowed money on this is a horrible, horrible idea.

[Sarcastr0]

What happened last year to explain that, I wonder?

I'm not even an inflation dove, but y'all are pulling doom and gloom out of your ass.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Massive government borrowing and spending, which continues today, but at a proposed accelerated pace?

[jb]

It's actually not at a proposed accelerated pace. A huge amount of spending in both 2020 and 2021 was short term stimulus.

Even if the Dems managed to pass the $3.5T infrastructure bill, that's over 10 years. (Also, unlike Republicans the Democrats are actually trying to pay for their ambition. The TCJA is set to increase debt by ~$2T over 10 years, which is more than the deficits that would be generated by both infrastructure bills combined.)

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

"The Social Security COLA increase was 5.9% this year. The largest increase 40 years….

It’s bad."

Why would a cost-of-living adjustment be necessarily bad (or good)? Would a negative adjustment to necessarily good (or bad), similarly?

This seems a blizzard of half-informed partisan mud-flinging by people chronically losing a broader argument.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Sigh...well, you're trying at least.

"It's bad" refers to the rate of inflation.

The COLA increase is correlated to the rate of inflation. Very generally, if inflation is high, the COLA increase is high. If inflation is low, the COLA increase is low.

The reason why a high rate of inflation is bad, is that it acts as an effective drop on wages, which is especially detrimental to the poor and working classes. People's wages generally don't decrease in absolute terms (they're sticky). But wages that don't keep up with the rate of inflation decrease in real terms.

It sounds pretty good if you're getting a pay hike from $15 to $16 an hour. It's a 6.2% raise. But if inflation is at 5.9%, in real terms you're only getting a 0.3% raise...or about 4.5 cents an hour. Inflation ate the other 95 cents an hour. And if you didn't get a pay hike this year, then you're making 88 cents less an hour...

It a particularly insidious form of "tax".

[Bob from Ohio]

"You mean, the CPI with most of what people spend money on eliminated?"

Food and energy. Who needs those things, really.

[Sarcastr0]

Jesus, Bob, I explained the uses of both numbers. They give both numbers.

[Bob from Ohio]

So? August was a fluke in food and energy prices.

That's ok, according to Biden's first minister, only rich people care about inflation. Its all good.

[Bob from Ohio]

Your side wants to spend hundreds of billions more than the trillions already pumped into the economy.

You are not wishing for misery, you are creating it.

[Sarcastr0]

We don't know a damn thing about what will happen over any kind of term over about 6 months.

And yet suddenly all these conservative here have a crystal ball. And also have become very bad and inconsistent about statistics.

When you don't have enough information, and make a cocksure prediction anyway, you're choosing an outcome to advocate for.

It's not hard to see what all of you are rooting for, predicting doom when that predictability does not exist in the science.

[Bob from Ohio]

Predicting is not rooting.

[Sarcastr0]

When you're working from not a lot of info, with claiming certainty models do not, your prediction says something about your priors and not a lot about reality.

[Bob from Ohio]

"US government said Wednesday it expects households to see their heating bills jump as much as 54% compared with last winter." The Guardian

Are "my priors" affecting the US Energy Information Administration too?

[Gandydancer]

According to Sarcastr0 the Science doesn't tell you anything about the effect of creating and spending fiat money in massive amounts, so we might as well do it and see what happens.

What could go wrong?

[M L]

"It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning."

[dwb68]

The only thing transitory at this point is Democats feeble control of Congress.

I put 50-50 odds one of Manchin/Sinema stop caucusing with the Dems before Dec debt limit is hit.

[rsteinmetz]

I seriously doubt that unless they get expelled.
Right now they have more power than any 2 other Senators.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Those two might get cranky if the Democrats (1) no longer need their votes and (2) elect to impose consequences for recent conduct. At which point . . . good riddance!

[dwb68]

I agreed with you right up to the point bullies were following Sinema into the bathroom. At some point they are both going to stand up for themselves and say fuck the leftist bullies.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Why would you expect either to be ready to swallow the bigot pill required to join the Republican caucus?

[Gandydancer]

There is of course no "bigot pill", but loons like you threatening them with "consequences" might easily convince them that they need a better class of "friends".

[LawTalkingGuy]

No one has an obligation to write about things they aren't interested in. But when people who write a lot about some very niche subjects straight up ignore an important event involving the things they like to talk about it is rather telling. So I find it interesting and telling but utterly unsurprising that no one at the VC has anything to say about Judge Bill Pryor hiring a mediocre law student and extremely partisan political activist most famous for saying " i hate black people. Like fuck them all ... I hate blacks. End of story," as his law clerk.

And then more damningly, Pryor refuses to respond to questions about this, and doesn't appear to care that this makes him look really really bad. So where is the criticism? Or even the defense? Not even from Blackman who never misses an opportunity to wade into the minutiae of federal court intrigue or criticize liberals as virtue signaling.

I guess it's so appalling and reflects so poorly on one of their favorite judges that they don't want to draw attention to it at all. Or perhaps, they're being deferential to Bernstein because that's a student at his school (I don't expect him to comment on this for that reason). Maybe they'll comment if/when their are recusal motions or judicial conference complaints.

I suppose that they could take the Orin-view that you really shouldn't look into law students that much even if they are slotted to become some of the most powerful people in the country. But we know this doesn't apply to many conspirators, particularly, Blackman, who post about law student behavior they disagree with regularly.

So yeah. Telling but utterly unsurprising.

[LawTalkingGuy]

*there. Ugh just saw it.

[Commenter_XY]

LTG...I'd like to read more about this. Seriously.

[LawTalkingGuy]

https://www.al.com/news/2021/10/whitmire-what-have-you-done-bill-pryor.html

This is from his local paper, basically gives a good outline of the issue from a local source, although it is an opinion piece. It has relevant links.

Google Crystal Clanton, for more. Or on twitter. Law professors are talking about this too.

[loki13]

The answer is pretty simple-

"Not long after her departure from Turning Point, Clanton went to work for Ginni Thomas, wife of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas."

Don't lie to yourself and think there is a meritocracy. There isn't.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Yes well that too.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Are you guys trying to get censored or banned by the Volokh Conspiracy?

[Commenter_XY]

Thanks for passing the link along. Interesting reading. Whoa.

[Life of Brian]

The gall of a federal judge not immediately buying into a campaign headed by the bastions of journalism New Yorker and Above the Law, based on supposed screenshots of Snapchats that we don't get to see! Truly unbelievable.

[LawTalkingGuy]

She didn't deny it. Indeed, she basically confirmed it to the New Yorker, because she asked not to be judged for statements "as a teenager." If they were fake, TPUSA would have backed her up and accused the liberal media of smearing a conservative, or sued them for defamation. But they didn't. So we can reasonably assume their accuracy.

If Bill Pryor thinks they were fake screenshots or believes she didn't say them or that if she did she is truly remorseful, he needs to say so. Immediately.

He has an obligation to the public and the litigants before him to assure them he isn't hiring an anti-black racist to work on cases and that he is not an anti-black racist himself. How are black litigants supposed to feel confident that their cases are being judged fairly? They can't.

And make no mistake, he will need to respond. Whether by ruling on a motion to recuse or when the Judicial Conference gets judicial conduct complaints.

She will need to respond too. Character and fitness are a thing if she intends to be admitted to the bar, and the one thing you can't do is lie in response to questions about this.

[TwelveInchPianist]

I assume that Bill Pryor thinks she's qualified despite a few intemperate tweets made several years ago. Why does there have to be more to the story than that?

Sometime people think bad thoughts. And sometimes they express them.

[TwelveInchPianist]

The same rational that the NYT had when it hired Sarah Jeong, I suppose.

[LawTalkingGuy]

The New York Times does not exercise judicial power.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

If right-wing bigots don't develop better lines of argument, they may be extinct (outside certain desolate <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7PUPNxsRQ0&quot;.Jurassic Park-like clinger preserves) relatively soon.

[LawTalkingGuy]

"I assume that Bill Pryor thinks she’s qualified despite a few intemperate tweets made several years ago. Why does there have to be more to the story than that?"

1.) Because she lacks most of the traditional criteria federal judges use when picking their clerks. No T-14, No law review, not even a journal.

2) Because she never apologized for an incredibly vile statement. I've said some things I'm not proud of but I've never said I hated an entire race before, let alone too the time to text it out.

Again if he thinks it doesn't matter. He needs to say so. He owes it to the public who pays him, to the lawyers and litigants appearing before him, hell he owes it to his colleagues on the bench too to assure everyone their court is a forum not tainted by explicit racism.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Again if he thinks it doesn’t matter. He needs to say so."

Actions speak louder than words. I don't think it matters that she made dumb tweets or thought bad thoughts as a teenager. You're entitled to your opinion, of course.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Well she's not much older than a teenager, 25, so this is what she gets judged on.

And you're right actions DO speak louder than words. And Bill Pryor took an action to pick this person, the one with the horrible racist statement she never apologized for, as his clerk over everyone else with much better traditional qualifications.

He also is choosing not to explain this to anyone. This calls into question his own ability to judge cases fairly and whether he is a capable as a chief judge because he is bringing negative attention to the court he now leads.

So yeah. His actions speak loud. Very loud.

[IPLawyer]

What a weird argument to make when people are actively debating whether he doesn't care that she's racist, or if he thinks its something she moved past.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"What a weird argument to make when people are actively debating whether he doesn’t care that she’s racist..."

Nowadays they say that everybody's a racist. But given the fact that there's no evidence of current racism, and she's denied hating black people, I'd say it's something he thinks she's moved past.

But the idea that a judge needs to pontificate on every every one of his clerks' past tweets is truly bizarre.

[LawTalkingGuy]

What was the text?

[IPLawyer]

I don't think the idea is that a judge needs to pontificate on every every one of his clerks' past tweets. Just the ones that are exceptionally shocking and would lead people to believe that the judge and his staff hold beliefs that would prevent them from conducting fair trials. What a moronic rebuttal from you.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

"I don’t think it matters that she made dumb tweets or thought bad thoughts as a teenager."

Of course not, in this context. How else would someone who embraces and appeases bigotry approach this?

[Life of Brian]

Because she lacks most of the traditional criteria federal judges use when picking their clerks. No T-14, No law review, not even a journal.

Maybe he actually looks at qualifications of candidates beyond the handful of myopic obsessions of the self-proclaimed elite. Just a thought.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Like being a racist or a partisan hack

[Bob from Ohio]

Pryor has a BA from Northeast Louisiana University and a law degree from Tulane.

I doubt he buys into the "T-14" stupidity.

This is just LTG's current hobby horse.

[LawTalkingGuy]

It’s my current hobby horse because it is an extremely bad look for Pryor and the courts and society in general. I know you don’t care about such things, but I am.

[LawTalkingGuy]

I do.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

"Pryor has a BA from Northeast Louisiana University and a law degree from Tulane. I doubt he buys into the “T-14” stupidity."

Law.com asked about the top schools from which Judge Pryor chose 11 clerks who later reached the Supreme Court.

Survey says:

Chicago 4
Yale 3
Duke 2
Harvard 1

Thanks for playing.

[Life of Brian]

she basically confirmed it because she asked not to be judged for statements “as a teenager.”

If she had actually said anything of the sort, you wouldn't have had to crop-quote three words.

Here's the full quote: "I have no recollection of these messages and they do not reflect what I believe or who I am and the same was true when I was a teenager."

If they were fake, TPUSA would have backed her up and accused the liberal media of smearing a conservative, or sued them for defamation. But they didn’t. So we can reasonably assume their accuracy.

Dear god, is that now the standard all of a sudden? I guess that officially confirms the authenticity of Hunter's laptop, among other things.

She will need to respond too. Character and fitness are a thing if she intends to be admitted to the bar, and the one thing you can’t do is lie in response to questions about this.

Unless she draws a frothing activist for C&F, I doubt it even comes up. This whole thing reeks of some sad excuse at a motivated journalist floating a breathless article about something they really wanted to be true, based solely on "a little birdie told me so." If you have some theory about why she would have to affirmatively disclose something like this to the C&F committee, I'd love to hear it.

[LawTalkingGuy]

I have said the full quote in other posts on this subject. It is damning. It is not a denial but a weasel deflection and a plea to void responsibility for harboring an abhorrent sentiment. Again. She was showed the screenshots. She did not deny them. She claimed no recollection but hedged by saying "don't judge me."

"Unless she draws a frothing activist for C&F, I doubt it even comes up."

You think being against explicit anti-black racism is "frothing activism." Thanks for telling on yourself. I appreciate it.

"This whole thing reeks of some sad excuse at a motivated journalist floating a breathless article about something they really wanted to be true, based solely on “a little birdie told me so.”"

Mayer had the screenshots and showed them to Clanton who demurred. The bending over backwards to defend this person is insanely telling about you and your character. Jesus.

"If you have some theory about why she would have to affirmatively disclose something like this to the C&F committee, I’d love to hear it."

It calls into question her fitness to practice law and ethically behave if she is a virulent anti-black racist.

Question: do you agree with the statement or not? Because I am not confident that you don't based on your position here.

[Life of Brian]

You think being against explicit anti-black racism is “frothing activism.”

After a number of exchanges with you like this, I'm officially convinced you just can't construct an argument without veering into over-the-top bad faith. What I think is that buying into a smear campaign based solely on hidden documents that have not been independently confirmed and in fact allege to be from a facially unlikely source (screenshots of Snapchat messages), strictly because you don't like the person and would love to believe this about them, is frothing activism.

The bending over backwards to defend this person is insanely telling about you and your character.

If it's "bending over backwards" to ask for more than "wow, you wouldn't BELIEVE these awesome screenshots I have that I'm not going to show you" from a couple of two-bit hack rags, count me in. But seriously, what's actually happening here is you're the one bending over backwards -- to vilify someone you don't like based on absolutely zero objective factual information because you're gunning for a judge you also don't like.

[LawTalkingGuy]

I assume bad faith because you appear to be a bad person. A noxious oaf and racist to boot.

[Life of Brian]

I assume bad faith because you appear to be a bad person.

Only when viewed through the lenses of your beer-swilling blind partisanship, friend. The core of your complaint is that I dare to not automatically assume the worst of someone who plays for the wrong "team." Hopefully you're able to expand your life perspective in healthy ways someday.

[LawTalkingGuy]

The core of my complaint is you are ignoring blatant racism to defend your team. That makes you a bad person deal with it.

[Life of Brian]

ignoring blatant racism

Sorry, Charlie, but it's not "blatant" when you can't show us any sign whatsoever that it exists outside a wanna-be journalist's wet dream. Deal with it.

[LawTalkingGuy]

I did. You choose to ignore it.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Also where are you getting Snapchat from? It said text messages. So you’re also a liar.

[Life of Brian]

Ackshully there are a number of stories that bitch about her Snapchat messages -- perhaps the threads of noxious hate are oozing together. But thanks for once again confirming my observation re you and bad faith.

[LawTalkingGuy]

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/a-conservative-nonprofit-that-seeks-to-transform-college-campuses-faces-allegations-of-racial-bias-and-illegal-campaign-activity

The racism in question was text based. Again I assume bad faith because you are clearly a bad person.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Bob,

You can’t respond because you know I’m right. I hit your weak spots. I point out what your view of the world means in real human terms to real people and you either disappear or sputter with an insult. You can’t face the shameful reality of what you claim to believe in.

I am neither pathetic, nor useless, nor a whiner. What’s pathetic is having no principles except winning and making fun of human suffering. What’s useless is being a lawyer but not believing in basic fairness. What’s whining is complaining that someone finally calls you on your utter moral bankruptcy.

[Bob from Ohio]

"you are clearly a bad person."

Oh dear, Brian, you too have disappointed my personal scold.

[Life of Brian]

I know, right? I may have to cry myself to sleep tonight.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Brian,

Bob happens to know I’m right about him, and I’ve cowed him several times. Don’t be too proud.

[Bob from Ohio]

"I’ve cowed him several times"

Not responding to your drivel all the time is not "cowed", you pathetic useless whiner.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Bob,

You can’t respond because you know I’m right. I hit your weak spots. I point out what your view of the world means in real human terms to real people and you either disappear or sputter with an insult. You can’t face the shameful reality of what you claim to believe in.

I am neither pathetic, nor useless, nor a whiner. What’s pathetic is having no principles except winning and making fun of human suffering. What’s useless is being a lawyer but not believing in basic fairness. What’s whining is complaining that someone finally calls you on your utter moral bankruptcy

[Bob from Ohio]

"I am neither pathetic, nor useless, nor a whiner. "

Only a pathetic, useless whiner would say that.

There, I have cowed you! Litterally destroyed you!

BTW, you complaining of "insults" is ironic, that is your main "argument" form.

[LawTalkingGuy]

You have not cowed me and you never ever will. And your retort is simple and non-substantive, as usual.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

" I guess it’s so appalling and reflects so poorly on one of their favorite judges that they don’t want to draw attention to it at all. "

This is known as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMSYv_Z4SI8&quot;.The Kozinski Postulate in these parts.

[Gandydancer]

No one thinks that the hire reflects badly on Pryor except Team Stupid, and your yelling doesn't make into a notable controversy something that isn't.

[LawTalkingGuy]

People who don’t think it reflects badly are people who apparently don’t think it matters if a federal circuit court judge seems to countenance explicit anti-black racism, which calls into question his ability to review cases fairly. If you don’t think it matters, particularly to minority litigants, that a judge reviewing their cases has an anti-black racist working on them and doesn’t care, I’d suggest that it is you who is extremely stupid.

[Gandydancer]

You can suggest all sorts of stupid things and routinely do.

Such as that Pyor has "countenance[d] explicit anti-black racism", which he hasn't.

The clerk in question said that the message didn't reflect her views, and I assume Pryor believes her. So your claim is crap.

[David Nieporent]

The clerk in question said that the message didn’t reflect her views,

And OJ Simpson said he wasn't guilty. But she posted the message, and the DNA evidence identified Simpson.

[M L]

New Poll Reveals Percentages Of Americans Who Want To Secede By Region

https://dailyvoice.com/new-york/whiteplains/politics/new-poll-reveals-percentages-of-americans-who-want-to-secede-by-region/812724/

[jb]

Maybe we should just let the South go this time.

[M L]

47% among west coast libs and 39% for NE libs, too.

[jb]

Sure, but it looks like the South is the only place where you'd see anything resembling overall majority support for the proposition.

Two perhaps slightly more interesting observations:

1) It generally supports the notion of majority rule, minority rights. You see a lot more support from people whose political ideas would become a lot more forceful, and less support from people who would be in the minority in the new country.

2) WTF is going on in the Midwest? The strongest support for secession is from Independents. Maybe this is just a reflection of the fact that the region is politically coherent and you have states like Illinois cancelling out the Dakotas so there ends up low support from both parties, but that doesn't explain why Independents are still 10 points more likely to bolt than from any region other than the South.

Alternative hypothesis: independents in the Midwest are just thinking "the two parties sure have screwed this country up, let's get out of here!" with more faith in state government than independents in most other regions.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The answer is a string of unincorporated territories along the southern border.

[M L]

BREAKING: The Biden administration has released at least 160,000 illegal immigrants into the country since March! And 70,000 just in the last two months!

The famous Mariel boatlift incident was only 150,000 over six months.

[M L]

And that's just those who were caught and released.
Imagine what the real numbers must be.

https://twitter.com/BillFOXLA/status/1448292943744446467

https://twitter.com/RealKyleMorris/status/1448299715372724226

[Gandydancer]

All is well. VP Harris is in charge and it will all be sorted soonest.
In the flush of that victory they can then relieve themselves of the task of changing Biden's Depends.
All good.

[Moderation4ever]

There has been a lot said in the last week about possible ways to game elections and particularly the Presidential election. The suggest is that state level individual could refuse to certify election results, there by leading to a alternate non-constitutional appointment of a President by Congress. While there scenarios are interesting on paper I wonder how real the ideas are? In 2020 we saw that individuals assigned to certify voting did so and many stated they were required to certify the voters choice. While it is easy to say you would not certify, I wonder if an individual could honestly carry out that action. Even assuming the individual is corrupt enough to try to not certify would they be forced into certification by court action? I also wonder if you could certify some results and not others? Therefore would state and Congressional candidates allow their own elections to be put into jeopardy to advance a Presidential candidate?

I wonder if those more in touch with the law would speculate are these real scenarios or merely academic exercises?

[Brett Bellmore]

I'd say real scenario at this point. There are active discussions in voting rights circles about declaring Trump in violation of Section 3 of the 14th amendment, in order to refuse to certify any electors for him.

[Moderation4ever]

You response get to my point. The former President has never been found guilty of insurrection. Therefore to refuse to certify his electors would be done solely on personal feeling, not on law. Would the courts then uphold that refusal to certify?

I don't think the former President is likely to face insurrection charges. I think he is most in jeopardy for election interference in Georgia and Arizona where he attempted to have vote total changed for his benefit. Even when convicted of these it would not preclude him from holding office, as does the insurrection charge.

[Gandydancer]

I think [Trump] is most in jeopardy for election interference in Georgia and Arizona where he attempted to have vote total changed for his benefit.

There is no such charge in relation to any action taken by Trump.

The suggest[ion] is that state level individual could refuse to certify election results, there by leading to a alternate non-constitutional appointment of a President by Congress.

Election by Congessional delegation is in the Constitution, so it's not "non-constitutional". And the requirement that election results be certified (by whom other than a "state level individual"?) necessarily implies that it might happen that the "results" sometimes ought not be certified.

[JasonT20]

I’d say real scenario at this point. There are active discussions in voting rights circles about declaring Trump in violation of Section 3 of the 14th amendment, in order to refuse to certify any electors for him.

The whole point of the objections by over 100 Republican Congressmen was a very real scenario to reject certified election results. The Eastman memo was a very real scenario arguing that the Vice President had the unilateral authority to reject a state's certified electoral votes. The Trump-endorsed candidate for Arizona governor says that she wouldn't have certified the results there in 2020. (She is hoping to replace the "RINO" that otherwise supported Trump whole-heartedly, but wouldn't go along with cries to not certify the results.) There was pressure on members of canvassing boards, and state legislators that met with Trump to be put under pressure to appoint electors for him rather than go with the certified vote count for Biden.

With all of that, you really think unspecified individuals in "voting rights circles" having "discussions" about the rebellion clause of the 14th Amendment is the real danger? Do any of these unspecified individuals have any actual authority to reject the votes of the people the way that we almost saw and very well could see in the future?

This is why it is appropriate to refer to what we are seeing from Trump and his allies as the Big Lie. They aren't trying to prove fraud in some objective fashion to a neutral body like what we do before putting someone in prison. They just want to declare an election to be void because they are convinced that there was massive fraud. (And that is an appropriate analogy given that voting fraud is a crime.)

We had a solid tradition going for a very long time of the losing side accepting election results. That is in serious jeopardy, and can we really say that the American Experiment in self-government is successful if it isn't restored?

[Gandydancer]

Dunno much about the rest, but I've seen what happened in Detroit, and that result ought not have been certified without a forensic examination of what went on. And this was blocked. If you're not addressing this then your appeal is just bad faith.

If you want a tradition of accepting election loss to be restored you're going to have to stop fraudulence-vulnerable election processes.

[JasonT20]

What’s the difference between a “forensic examination” and the normal certification procedures that occur after every election? And what state laws would have allowed certification to be delayed while that was done? And don’t forget the audits that they always do in the months after the certified winners take office to see if they need to improve procedures for the next election.

Elections are run according to the rules and laws in place before anyone casts a ballot. Challenges to procedures have to go through courts, and courts will be (or should be) very reluctant to rule to toss ballots of voters that were following what election officials were telling them they could do. They should also be reluctant to toss ballots cast legally but handled improperly by officials afterwards without specific evidence that those ballots can’t be trusted anymore. Basically, the bar should be high for anyone challenging specific ballots.

To repeat my main point here, the burden of proof that election results can’t be trusted needs to be at least nearly as high as that for conviction of a crime, since election fraud IS a crime. And the procedures for determining whether that burden is met need to be established well before the election is held, with those making the judgment as removed from partisan considerations as can be arranged.

It isn’t nearly enough for the voters and candidates on the losing side to believe that there was fraud that affected the outcome. Before you accuse me of bad faith in stating what should be non controversial, perhaps you can show us where neutral observers were claiming “fraud vulnerable” procedures had a significant chance of affecting the 2020 results. Otherwise, it just looks like you want biased “audits” to continue until they get the results you want.

[Gandydancer]

As I said, I saw what happened in Cobo Hall. At least one truckload of alleged "absentee ballots" was "discovered" and delivered to Cobo Hall at 3AM. The (D) Clerk claims that they were removed from their envilopes and "verified" in her office outside the view of election observers. They were then taken to the counting room and counted, who knows how many times, with no observers present since they had all been sent home on the basis of claims that the counting was finished. Voila, Trump went from 100k votes ahead to behind.

A forensic audit might involve verifying that there WERE as many ballots as were counted, that they were not mass produced on copy machines, that they didn't display suspicious patterns of votes (e.g., too many Biden-only ballots all in a row), and many other tests.

Without better procedures to detect and prevent fraud, and given the effort to prevent detection efforts, my point is clear: The results were not to be trusted. Indeed the local elections board was going to deny certification until they were intimidated into going along.

The rest of your arm-waving is irrelevant. There was a plea for us to accept elections. Excuses for why the results weren't properly examined don't cut it if that's the request.

[JasonT20]

As I said, I saw what happened in Cobo Hall. At least one truckload of alleged “absentee ballots” was “discovered” and delivered to Cobo Hall at 3AM.

Why should I believe that this is anything but conspiracy theory or other debunked misinformation? So many of the allegations about the election from the Trump side turned out to be completely false or completely misunderstood or otherwise turned into nothing once they were looked into. Many of those things still get repeated months after more reliable information about what happened has been available. Was this what you are talking about?

How about the vote flip in Antrim County that was supposed to be evidence of fraud. At least that was based on something real, but it was an error that was quickly corrected (machines that hadn't been updated properly), long before the county had to send its official results to the state. A full hand count later showed that the certified total was correct to within a few votes out of almost 15,000.

A forensic audit might involve verifying that there WERE as many ballots as were counted, that they were not mass produced on copy machines, that they didn’t display suspicious patterns of votes (e.g., too many Biden-only ballots all in a row), and many other tests.

How do you know that this kind of thing hasn't already been done? What do you actually know about election procedures and the audits that they routinely do? You aren't answering that question. It looks to me that you are just repeating the things that you see spread about on the right side of the internet.

Without better procedures to detect and prevent fraud, and given the effort to prevent detection efforts, my point is clear: The results were not to be trusted. Indeed the local elections board was going to deny certification until they were intimidated into going along.

Or maybe they resisted the intimidation coming from the "Stop the Steal" side and did their job objectively instead. You have clearly assumed that the election was stolen and will view everything through that lens.

[David Nieporent]

Why should I believe that this is anything but conspiracy theory or other debunked misinformation?

The phrase "conspiracy theory" implies the person believes it, rather than is just an outright liar. The people pushing these arguments are the latter.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/michigan-senate-no-election-fraud-2020/

[M L]

"The Presidency is filmed in front of a live studio audience . . ."

https://twitter.com/christamcevoy/status/1445817074933112833

[rsteinmetz]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Jon Gruden and his cancelling.

I haven't looked into it but I do wonder how so many thousands of email were released and I find it curious that in addition to "racist" and "homophobic" comments he is also accused of insulting President Obama, President Biden and Commissioner Goodell.

I'm pretty sure he can't have said worse things about Roger Goodell than I and many of my Saints fan friends.

[Moderation4ever]

Could be a 400 pound kid in his parents basement hacked them.

Some people never learn. I would never put anything in an email that I would not say publicly. It is as simple as that.

[jb]

The e-mails were collected as part of the investigation into improprieties at the Washington Football Team. I've heard some people theorize that they were leaked in order to distract from the results of the actual investigation.

[Jimmy the Dane]

This is your occasional reminder that despite all the hand wringing and gnashing of teeth about Trump being a nazi, there are ACTUAL literal Hitlers right now in the White House. They want to force medical treatment on people, subject them to a police state where you must show your papers, and if you disagree it is political imprisonment for you without bail.

In less than a year we went from a guy who they just called literal Hitler to literally having Hitler in office. Maybe that is "progress" thought to the AOC progressive crowd....

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Delusional, disaffected, deplorable, desperate, bigoted right-wingers are among my favorite culture war casualties.

. . . and the core audience of this White, male, movement conservative, faux libertarian blog.