Thursday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[AmosArch]

One day the authorities will decide that substitutes are good enough and outlawing of meat consumption will become a thing I reckon.

[Doug Huffman]

Meanwhile I have taken up learning sous vide low temperature immersion cooking to make cheap meat as tender and tasty as expensive cuts. Doing quite well I might add.

I’m old and will probably die before ersatz ‘meat’ is common.

[Brett Bellmore]

I've gotten a temperature controller for my slow cooker, to give that a try, but so far the only thing I've attempted was soft-boiled eggs. Result was kind of uneven, I need better water circulation.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

I've been cooking using sous vide for several years now, and while it is an excellent technique for a great many things, there are many others that are touted as good candidates for it when in fact they're really just a "because you can" thing. Soft boiled eggs are one of them. They're so quick and easy to make...reliably well, once you get the hang of it...conventionally that there's just no real benefit to going through the time and trouble of SVing them.

[Brett Bellmore]

I suppose that depends on how you like your eggs. The time window for hitting "cooked white but gummy yolk" is pretty narrow. I'm a 150 degree guy.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

After a little trial and error (you need to get used to the variables that your cooktop and cookware introduce) I've actually gotten to where I can get what I want...including various levels of yolk doneness...pretty reliably. For instance, boiling the water before introducing the eggs, leaving them in for precisely 7 minutes and then immediately removing them from the heat and filling the pot with cold tap water gives me perfect ajitsuke tamago eggs (if you're into real Ramen you'll know what those are) every time.

[Allutz]

Same. But the key is learning your particular pot. I have a heavy glazed Le Creseut which retains so much heat you can do 18 eggs without it losing the boil. 6.5minutes in the boil, out to an icebath = eggs ready for a 5 Star ramen shop.

[Brett Bellmore]

Think I'd rather have an appliance to do that for me. Something I could put a few eggs in before going to bed.

Anyway, my eggs aren't all that standardized in size, doesn't seem to matter how often I tell the chickens to shape up. They are, at least, fresh.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Think I'd rather have an appliance to do that for me. Something I could put a few eggs in before going to bed.

That's a mighty long time to cook a soft-boiled egg, which only takes 45 minutes even with SV.

Anyway, my eggs aren't all that standardized in size, doesn't seem to matter how often I tell the chickens to shape up. They are, at least, fresh.

Mine are all over the size chart as well, for the same reason (as well as the shells being a mix of white, olive green and at least 3 different shades of brown...every day is Easter). On that note, my small backyard flock (1 rooster and 7 hens) has really kicked into overdrive on production lately. In spite of my wife and I eating eggs nearly every day and giving them away by the dozens to family and friends, we're currently up to 102 on hand, and I haven't even been out to check the laying boxes yet this afternoon.

[Brett Bellmore]

A proper appliance could maintain the eggs at ambient temperature, or even refrigerated, then lower them on schedule into the water. I mean, heck, my coffee maker and bread machine are smart enough for tricks like that.

Our six Easter-eggers are approaching retirement, one of them recently produced the cutest little marble sized egg then stopped laying entirely. Time to refresh the flock with some new purchases and have a few stewed chicken dinners. (No rooster, I live in a suburb.)

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

A proper appliance could maintain the eggs at ambient temperature, or even refrigerated, then lower them on schedule into the water. I mean, heck, my coffee maker and bread machine are smart enough for tricks like that.

Yeah, but one that worked reliably for a reasonable amount of time would likely be so expensive that it would only have a niche market at most.

Our six Easter-eggers are approaching retirement, one of them recently produced the cutest little marble sized egg then stopped laying entirely.

The green eggs come from my lone hen who is the spitting image of an Ameraucana, but whose eggs suggest the more vague "Easter Egger". Nonetheless, she's easily my favorite of the flock, being the most laid-back and "friendly" (I quote that because I know I'm anthropomorphizing a behavior that is really something else entirely), and makes a soft clucking sound that I find oddly relaxing.

Time to refresh the flock with some new purchases and have a few stewed chicken dinners. (No rooster, I live in a suburb.)

We lived in a Dallas 'burb until 6 months ago, when we finally got the opportunity to change that. After Covid hit I was eventually able to convince senior management at my North Dallas-based company to switch to 100% work-from-home, and then last year my wife retired from her teaching career. That and us having been empty-nesters for a while now made it possible for us to live wherever we wanted, assuming reliable internet service was available. Since our kids, grandchild and my wife's sister live in the D/FW mid-cities we wanted to stay in the Metroplex. And although our timing was terrible wrt the housing market, we started looking at properties with a little outdoor elbow room to them. My goal was to be able to keep a modest number of smaller utilitarian animals (poultry, goats...maybe a donkey or two for security) and raise a much larger version of the vegetable garden I'd always had at our 1/4 acre suburban home. We finally bought a place on 2.5 acres just outside the western limits of Ft. Worth, with a fully fenced-in backyard for our dogs and a cattle-fenced pasture taking up the remaining 1.5 acres. It also came with a large steel barn, a small 4-stall stable (used by the previous owners' 2 donkeys and 2 Hereford cows), 2 large storage sheds, a detached garage that was finished out into a man-cave...and the aforementioned flock of 7 hens with 2 modest coops and a run between them. I added the rooster later when one of our new neighbors needed to rehome theirs. After that my wife gave me an egg incubator for Christmas, the combination of which has so far resulted in a single White Leghorn x Buf Orpington cross who is now 6.5 weeks old. Cute little bugger. Adding any more to the flock will first require replacing the 2 becoming-rundown coops with a bigger and better one as they're now at capacity.

Anyway...that's a long way of saying that I managed to escape the 'burbs recently and have taken up residency in a little slice of heaven in what I've come to call the sub-rurals, because although it's still a nice, well-kept neighborhood it's in an unincorporated part of the county (with none of the restrictions that come with life in most municipalities) and the lots run from 1 to 3 acres in size, and most of my neighbors have animals of their own, including (but not limited to) chickens, donkeys, cattle, turkey, goats, etc. I even convinced my wife that I needed a subcompact tractor with a front-end loader and a bunch of implements to work the place (yes, I hum the theme to "Green Acres" every time I use it). Who knew mowing the grass could be so fun?

[Brett Bellmore]

My family had moved to the country when I was in Jr High, and I grew up, bought my family's property, built my own house, and married, out in the country. With a stocked fishing pond, woods for hunting in, an orchard and garden. My idea of the perfect life.

Then my wife gets pregnant and a few months later I lose my job, and had to move down South, with my place in the country being unsellable for years. Maybe I'll move back to the country in a few years when I retire. I hope. Right now I'm stuck in the 'burbs, and barely have room for a half dozen hens and a modest garden.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Right now I'm stuck in the 'burbs, and barely have room for a half dozen hens and a modest garden.

It could be worse. At our old place we were restricted by city ordinance to 2 hens and no rooster, so I never even bothered.

[Brett Bellmore]

Locally they don't enforce that sort of thing unless a neighbor complains, and we make sure not to annoy the neighbors.

[bernard11]

I have a Joule sous-vide machine and it's OK, but I don't use it for lots of things.

My advice, if you buy one, is to avoid the Joule. It works OK, but can only be controlled from your phone, and I find the software kind of fiddly. I'd go for one that has manual controls along with any phone stuff.

[Commenter_XY]

Doug, can you share a little more about what you have learned. I mess around in the kitchen myself, and have been eyeing getting a sous-vide unit.

What is it like using it?
What is different?
Is it ultimately worth the cost?
What besides tough meat do you cook in it?

[Michael P]

I love my vertical smoker, but also my sous vide kit. I made some chile colorado that came out quite well with less effort and much less watching than other cooking methods.

I don't use the sous vide all that much -- my wife does more of the cooking, and she does not like "coooking in plastic" because of the plasticizers -- but I find it convenient and consistent. Steaks are famously matched for sous vide, because you can hear them all the way through at your target temperature, and hold them precisely there long enough to pasteurize them. You can do the same with chicken or other poultry, but the texture is very(!) different.

For tougher cuts, a long cooking time is important, and there is helpful to have some kind of cover to limit evaporation. Otherwise you need to add water during the cook, and that will disturb the thermal equilibrium a bit. Depending on the vessel that holds the water, plastic wrap or aluminum foil can work well (and also limit convection that cools the water). More frequent users sometimes adopt more custom measures, like putting the sous vide tub inside an insulated cooler with a cut-out for the immersion heating unit.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

I love my vertical smoker, but also my sous vide kit.

Wait until you try combining the two (assuming you haven't already). One of my favorite combo techniques is sous vide cooking my home-cured whole USDA prime brisket (which results in corned beef) for 36 hours at 155°F, chilling it in an ice bath for 30 minutes to bring down the internal temperature and then smoking it at as low a temperature as I can get my smoker to maintain (usually somewhere around 150°F) for about 4 hours or so until the IT returns to 155°F. Voila! Better-than-a-deli homemade pastrami at a fraction of the cost.

[BillyG]

I remember seeing sous vide kits in a cooking movie (Burnt, 2015) once. High end restaurants use them. I didn't realize you could get them for home usage. I'll have to try this. Thanks!

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

I remember seeing sous vide kits in a cooking movie (Burnt, 2015) once. High end restaurants use them. I didn't realize you could get them for home usage. I'll have to try this. Thanks!

Although they've been available for at least a decade now, I suppose practical and affordable sous vide cookers are a relatively recent...as cooking tools go...addition to the home chef's repertoire. Now the market is positively littered with them.

[Jmaie]

"Steaks are famously matched for sous vide"

^^^^This

I like rare to medium rare so I typically set the temp at 118F. They can soak for an hour or four, so they're ready to finish at my convenience, after all other dishes are ready. Dry and season the meat, and throw them into a searing hot skillet. Rotate every 30 seconds until they're the right shade of brown and serve - no resting necessary. Interior is consistently whatever doneness you like to within an eight of an inch of the surface.

Brett - definitely need circulation, they make wands with thermostats and impellers for not that much money.

[shawn_dude]

You can purchase steaks in bulk from places like Costco, divide them up into seal-a-meal bags (with seasonings, butter, herbs, etc) and bung them in your freezer. Then, when you're ready to eat them, just toss them, frozen, into your sou vide vessel and cook them up. Add extra time for them to thaw in the bath. A NY strip frozen takes about 2 hours.

The sou vide vessel doesn't need to be anywhere near a stove. So it can save space if you have a lot of cooking to do, say during Thanksgiving.

You can bring a whole bunch of steaks up to 130 degrees and hold them there for a few hours if needed. This is especially great if you're having a bunch of people over for a BBQ and aren't sure when you'll be eating. The steaks are fully cooked an only need to be tossed on the grill to sear for a couple minutes before serving.

Line up a bunch of chicken tenders in your seal-a-meal bag and then freeze them. When you want to meal prep for a week of salads, just sou vide the pack of tenders and toss them in the fridge when done. They're perfect to chop up as needed for a salad. I find breasts being crazy soft and tender this way.

But most importantly, it takes a lot of the guesswork out of cooking a steak to the perfect doneness. Meat is expensive and this tool increases the odds of getting it right.

[Ridgeway]

You overcook your steaks 🙂

[Jmaie]

Heh. My first thought as well...

[Commenter_XY]

I'm convinced. I am going to look into getting one. I've read about it a little. Time to do a deep dive. The holiday cooking thing is big. I have a double range and a microwave, and am amazed how I run out of 'oven'.

[Stephen Lathrop]

AmosArch, that strikes me as a typically right-wing stupid, own-the-libs, pointless comment. But of course I may have it wrong, and you may not be serious. Are you serious?

[Brett Bellmore]

Eh, I don't think banning meat consumption is any further out there today, than mandating the legality of SSM was 50 years ago.

[Dan Schiavetta]

"mandating the legality"

That's an odd phrase.

The First Amendment "mandated the legality of free speech".

It also "mandated the legality of Jews going to synagogue without being arrested for it".

Griswold "mandated the legality of married couples being able to buy contraceptives".

etc.

[John F. Carr]

I read a science fiction novel where a possibly dying humanity launched into space genetic codes, blueprints, and cultural information so an advanced civilization could reconstruct humanity. The race that found it refused to reconstitute human food sources because eating life was immoral.

[MatthewSlyfield]

"The race that found it refused to reconstitute human food sources because eating life was immoral."

And what did those aliens eat? Short of something like a Star Trek Replicator, or some exceedingly strange biology, eating non-life is generally not an option for any living organism.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Short of something like a Star Trek Replicator, or some exceedingly strange biology, eating non-life is generally not an option for any living organism.

That might be true for complex living organisms (though who knows when it comes to potential alien biologies), but there are plenty of unicellular organisms that feed on non-living compounds.

[Stephen Lathrop]

I confess I do not fully understand how photosynthesis works, but isn't it sort of like eating sunlight, in that photosynthesizers do directly with sunlight what other living organisms do indirectly with food energy?

[Brett Bellmore]

Sort of. Plants run a 'normal' metabolism, consuming oxygen and burning carbohydrates for energy, but when sunlight is available, they can manufacture sugars from CO2 and water, and giving off oxygen as a waste product. Given proper sun exposure, they make more than they consume, and we profit off it.

Then there are bacteria that have membrane proteins that convert incoming sunlight into electricity, and use the electricity to power their metabolisms. (These proteins are related to the ones we use in our eyes to detect light!)

There are chemosynthetic organisms which derive the energy to do that from chemical sources, such as hydrogen gas, or other 'inorganic' compounds. You'll find them mostly sub-sea and underground, but they can actually be seen in hot springs in places like Yellowstone. Some of these are actually responsible for the creation of hydrothermal minerals.

There are even a few organisms that can derive energy from ionizing radiation. Typically found in areas where there are radioactive minerals.

[MatthewSlyfield]

They need other nutrients besides what they get from photosynthesis. Nutrients that they take up from the soil and which mostly come from the decay of dead organisms.

[Sarcastr0]

I thought your synopsis would go another way - where that info is used to reconstitute human meat which the aliens thought was delicious and paid us a visit.

[Queen Amalthea]

Most sources of meat have more sentience, rationality, etc., than the zygotes your party is so hell bent on protecting.

[Bob from Ohio]

Most sources of meat have more sentience, rationality, etc., than you do but we don't want to kill you either.

The zygote stage lasts 4 days. Your snark is silly.

[David Nieporent]

"I just don't want to eat an animal that's standing there inviting me to. It's heartless."

[Armchair Lawyer]

Well, it's heartless once you consume it's heart at least.

[shawn_dude]

The restaurant at the end of the universe!

[David Nieporent]

+1.

[not guilty]

Professor Laurence Tribe and Dennis Aftergut, a former federal prosecutor, have written a Washington Post op-ed calling for appointment of a special counsel to investigate Donald Trump. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/09/garland-special-counsel-trump/

Who knows. Perhaps that is what is needed to get Merrick Garland off dead center.

[AmosArch]

*SNORE* This is what? The 4th-5th open thread in a row that you've posted about the exact same topic? What kind of dude thinks about another fat old dude so much? Even if you're gay its kinda weird being so thoroughly obsessed in this way. You want to date Trump or something?

[Queen Amalthea]

"What kind of dude thinks about another fat old dude so much? "

Uh, almost all the dudes in your party? He's the most popular GOP pol going today. This is an especially pathetic move GOPers make 'why are you so fixated on our cult leader?'

[Bob from Ohio]

"You want to date Trump or something?"

Old retired men need a hobby.

[Brett Bellmore]

Let's be real: Tribe was calling for Trump to be impeached in early 2017. As in, within two weeks of his taking office!

On the basis of the emoluments clause, a justification so crazy that even the House Democratic caucus blew it off as a basis for impeachment, and kept looking for a few years.

There's never been a time when Tribe didn't think Trump should be impeached. He literally started thinking about impeaching Trump before the election!

[Dan Schiavetta]

Impeachment was proper because, within two weeks of taking office, Trump admitted to an offense worse than what drove Nixon from office.

[Queen Amalthea]

Heck, during the campaign he urged Russia to interfere in our elections.

[Brett Bellmore]

In order to highlight the fact that Clinton's email security was so bad that basically every one of our adversaries would have been reading her emails in real time, he suggested that we could ask Russia for copies of all the emails under subpoena that she'd had erased.

The point was so damaging that Democrats immediately originated a talking point that he had actually requested that the Russians hack her email. On a server which had been taken down and wiped clean the previous year!

As partisan talking points went, it was pretty stupid, but that didn't stop partisans from parroting it.

[David Nieporent]

In order to highlight the fact

No. Stop it. That was not his motive.

[Brett Bellmore]

No. Stop it. That was precisely his motive. It was a pointed joke.

"TRUMP: Why do I have to (ph) get involved with Putin? I have nothing to do with Putin. I've never spoken to him. I don't know anything about him other than he will respect me. He doesn't respect our president. And if it is Russia -- which it's probably not, nobody knows who it is -- but if it is Russia, it's really bad for a different reason, because it shows how little respect they have for our country, when they would hack into a major party and get everything. But it would be interesting to see -- I will tell you this -- Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Let's see if that happens. That'll be next. "

The remark was specifically addressed to the emails that Hillary had deleted from her server. The server that was offline and wiped at the time he made the remark.

The only place they'd have found the emails was in their archived copy from reading them while the server was active.

Yeah, it's just a talking point, and an especially stupid one.

[bernard11]

Tell us, Brett, what do you think of Trump's handling of classified material?

(This ought to be good!)

[Armchair Lawyer]

It was better than Hillary's.

[Sarcastr0]

LOL, really? Keeping a few classies in Florida is no biggie?

Do you even know what Hillary was accused of doing compared to this?

[Armchair Lawyer]

Well, on one hand we maybe have a few documents, hard copy, in a room in Florida. That story seems to have dropped in interest quickly, likely the documents were nothing of note.

On the other hand, we have every single e-mail, including confidential e-mails, sent to a non-secure server, which is kept online, so the Chinese and Russians can read at will.

So...Yes, in terms of national security, what Hillary did was quite a bit worse.

[Sarcastr0]

...Where did you get your facts on what Hillary did?

[Armchair Lawyer]

"...Where did you get your facts on what Hillary did?"

So this is a typical SarcastrO sidestep. Rather than directly discuss with facts about the direct issues at hand, he sidesteps the issue with a question or related topic.

In this case, rather than say any particular item didn't happen, he can insinuate it all. Then when confronted, he'll complain "I didn't say that".

[David Nieporent]

Nobody thought it was a joke.

[Brett Bellmore]

Nobody in the Democratic party admitted to it being a joke, which is NOT the same thing.

[David Nieporent]

Nobody thought it was a joke.

[Brett Bellmore]

I DID say you're not admitting it was a joke, didn't I?

Explain, please, how you seriously ask somebody to hack a server that's long since been unplugged and wiped. The 30K missing emails were emails from her server that she didn't turn over, but instead erased, remember?

[Sarcastr0]

Brett, DMN is saying you're revising history - that no one at the time thought it was a joke. No one reported or commented on it as a joke at the time.

Russia's had been hacking on behalf of Trump, and tryin to work with the campaign, this reaction in fact made sense and not your revisionist one.

[Michael P]

Just like Spinal Tap's appeal, their memory has become much more selective.

[David Nieporent]

Brett, DMN is saying you're revising history - that no one at the time thought it was a joke. No one reported or commented on it as a joke at the time.

Right, and Trump had multiple opportunities to say it was a joke, and he did not. (Reporters repeatedly asked him, "Do you really mean this?")

And, of course, within hours of Trump saying that, Russia tried to hack into Clinton and campaign emails.

Not only that, but Brett's reasoning is based on the notion that the emails were gone and thus Russia couldn't get them, and therefore Trump must not have meant it. But (a) that was Trump's whole point, that Russia might be able to recover them even though they had ostensibly been deleted; and (b) that argument relies on the notion that Trump was rational and intelligent. Trump tried to blackmail the government of Ukraine (by withholding things that they're now using to defend themselves) based on the loony notion that there was a DNC server that had been hidden in the Ukraine that would prove that Ukraine rather than Russia had been behind the DNC hack, and that Ukraine and the DNC had conspired to frame Russia. Setting aside the underlying conspiracy theory, and the misunderstanding of technology, why the hell would the DNC hide such an incriminating server in the Ukraine rather than destroying it? Why on earth would Trump think that?

Although Brett will probably tell us that Trump was joking on this secret call to Zelensky, too.

[Michael P]

The whole background of the comment was that Clinton had the server erased, and everybody knew that was why funding the emails was hard. And his comment about Russians being "greatly rewarded" by American media? He was, quite obviously, satirically mocking them for being in the tank for Biden.

It was always obvious that it was a joke, in large part because the only way the Russians could deliver was if they had hacked the server before it was erased.

As usual, you stooges are trying to airbrush history while protecting that intention onto others.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Trump admitted to an offense worse than what drove Nixon from office."

Yeah, yeah, want to state what offense he admitted to? Actual quote where he admitted to an offense, mind you. Not where he admitted to doing something perfectly legal you construe to have been an offense thanks to his having an evil motive.

[Kazinski]

Doesn't there need to be credible allegation a crime occurred to launch a special counsel investigation?

Last time they launched a special counsel investigation without any credible allegation of a crime it convinced half the country it was a deep state coup attempt.

[not guilty]

I surmise that you haven't been paying attention. Take a look at the Just Security memorandum linked downthread. It describes overwhelming evidence of criminal activity.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Perhaps that is what is needed to get Merrick Garland off dead center."

For an ex-defense attorney, you sure take ex-prosecutor as gospel.

[not guilty]

I am thoroughly unimpressed with Garland's fortitude. Trump belongs in prison, but Garland is slow walking things.

[Bob from Ohio]

Because Garland is smarter than you and knows the political ramifications are unpredictable and potentially dangerous. He likely doesn't want to cross that Rubicon.

Putting Trump in jail would solve multiple political problems for the GOP. Its still not a good idea.

[not guilty]

That's not smarts. That's timidity.

[Krayt]

Watch and see if it evaporats if he doesn't run again, or does and loses. That will let us know if it is a purely political prosecution.

Inquiring minds want to know!

[AmosArch]

Poll time. How long do you think patent and copyright terms should be?

[Brett Bellmore]

Perhaps 10-15 years, non-renewable.

[Armchair Lawyer]

For Patents, that's not long enough.

If it takes 10 years to bring a drug to market (which it does under normal circumstances), you basically eliminate the ability to make money off drugs.

[Brett Bellmore]

You need to have the clock start at a different point for markets like that, then. Maybe when regulatory approval is gained.

Most markets are not like that, you can move from patent to application very rapidly. Well, except for the really stupid patents you're starting to see now that the Patent office no longer requires any demonstration that the invention works. Some of the patents I've seen in the last few years read like synopsis for bad SF novels, clearly do NOT provide enough information for a practitioner in the field to make it work.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Uuug... Tell me about it with the poor patents. Half the patent applications I see are just utter crap, where there is the bare minimum (or zero) reduction to practice. They just pop down an idea, say "an expert in the field can reduce this to practice," never follow up, and never do any work on it.

It's getting to the point where it's actually detrimental to R+D. These sorts of patents just block off research space. The "inventors" have no intention of following up on them with any reduction to practice. In the meantime if someone is actually interested in the area and willing to put in the time and resources to reduce to practice and get results out, it's often not worth it to them.

[MatthewSlyfield]

Then there are the [some process that has been around for hundreds or even thousands of years] on a computer patents.

[Krayt]

And related some process been done for decades, now done on the Internet, cleverly called any rando network patents.

[bernard11]

My company got victimized by a patent troll on one of those some years ago. The claim was absurd - someone had a patent on addition or something - but of course the troll was asking for an amount that, while significant, was less than it would have cost us to defend the suit.

Yes, we caved.

[Brett Bellmore]

My prior job was in the R&D department of a small company, and we never went for a patent until we had the invention working in house.

The company went under because a big competitor then went out and secured a patent on one of our inventions overseas, and then came to us and told us to sell them the rights or they'd sue us into oblivion.

"But you'd lose. Obviously so!"

"Sure, but our lawyers are on retainer. You'll go broke winning."

The revenue from that invention would have saved us later when we hit some hard times.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Yet, somehow, Big Pharma survives, quite well in fact.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Current patent lengths are 20 years. That gives them 10 years to make profits off something that takes them 10 years to develop.

[Martinned]

...and sometimes somehow longer: https://www.gov.uk/cma-cases/hydrocortisone-tablets-alleged-excessive-and-unfair-pricing-anti-competitive-agreements-and-abusive-conduct-50277

[Armchair Lawyer]

Problem with that is.... Hydrocortisone is off patent. And has been forever (or more than 50 years). Your problem isn't with patents, it's with companies who are marketing stuff off patent.

[Martinned]

O yes, I wasn't disagreeing with you on that. Just pointing out that pharma companies seem to be able to make money regardless of whether there's a patent.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Yet, somehow, Big Pharma survives, quite well in fact.

Yes...with a patent term that is twice as long as what was proposed.

Do you EVER think before posting?

[Commenter_XY]

That is old thinking = If it takes 10 years to bring a drug to market (which it does under normal circumstances)

Better cut down your timeline by roughly half. The 20-year horizon is a little too long (and rich). I cannot conceive going past 15 years; even that is lengthy considering recent advances in computing power (e.g. Google correctly modeling protein folding).

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

That is old thinking

No it isn't. It still takes roughly a decade...on average...to take a new drug from idea to market.

Better cut down your timeline by roughly half. The 20-year horizon is a little too long (and rich). I cannot conceive going past 15 years; even that is lengthy considering recent advances in computing power (e.g. Google correctly modeling protein folding).

What does that have to do with the issue? You seem to think that the time required to bring a drug to market consists mostly of development. You would be wrong.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Indeed. Get back to us when Google models a potential drug as being safe and efficacious in humans, without the need for clinical trials...and takes on the legal risk for doing so...

[Michael P]

Patents seem about right for most fields, but I would whack 8 or 10 years off for software.

Copyrights should be 30 years with increasingly options to extend in up to two 15-year terms.

[Armchair Lawyer]

For Copyrights, you also need a lifetime clause.

[Michael P]

I disagree. It's a copyright, not a pension. 30 years, with the option of increasing it up to 15 or 30 more years, should be plenty of time for that work of authorship to work for its author.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Disagree. If you make a creative work, you should be able to benefit from it for life. It's your work.

[defaultdotxbe]

That's partly the thinking that led copyright law to be a ridiculous as it is now. If an individual gets to enjoy a copyright for 70+ years, a corporate work should get at least the same term.

I think the suggestion of 30 years plus renewal for another 30 is more than fair, and close enough to a lifetime term without being ambiguous

[Brett Bellmore]

Hm, yeah, that should provide enough time for the last copy of out of print books to be lost because nobody can legally reprint them.

[John F. Carr]

For software, make patent and copyright exclusive. Software patent applications must include usable source code, which is protected only by patent and not by copyright.

[Stephen Lathrop]

For copyright:

For corporations: 30 years.

For natural persons: the lifetime of the longest-surviving offspring (and that may prove too short). The reason for such a long interval is that a major motivation to do copyrightable art and literature is to provide for offspring, some of whom may not otherwise get a chance at a decent standard of subsistence.

Our society offers almost zero support for adult disabled people. For artistic parents, that is a terrific goad to creativity. Problem is, literature, and especially art, have a tendency to appreciate slowly in value during the life of the creator.

After death may be the first time a successful creative career really takes off. Arlo Guthrie was interviewed about his success in releasing for the first time many items from his father Woody Guthrie's song archive. The interviewer asked Arlo, "If you had any advice for your father, what would it be." Arlo did not hesitate, "Stay dead, it's working," he said.

As the Guthrie example shows, an artist can achieve modest success and recognition in his lifetime, while creating more artistic inventory than one lifetime can generate demand to buy. That possibility of a notable legacy for offspring can propel personal sacrifice, in the hope of future realized value, but the law has to support that, or it will not happen.

[Brett Bellmore]

The problem is that there are a huge number of works out there that are stuck in copyright limbo: In copyright, thanks to the Disney amendments, but nobody has the least interest in publishing them, it's often not even clear who currently holds the copyright.

For an amendment whose explicit purpose was to advance publishing, that's a very contradictory result.

I'd suggest that the copyright survive only so long as the work is being published, plus some reasonable interval. Perhaps ten years.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore, you are not addressing the Guthrie archive problem.

My solution to the limbo problem would be do what you can to find out who owns copyright, and if you can't find out go ahead and publish. Change the law to accommodate that. If someone steps up to claim copyright, then the would-be publisher can keep enough to cover costs, plus a percentage, and rights otherwise stay with the copyright holder.

What I do not favor is, "Let's figure out how to negate copyright, so we can steal everything and make money on it on the internet." That is not a method to encourage creation of arts and literature.

[rsteinmetz]

Ad you are not addressing the real problem with shaky copyrights like the "Happy Birthday " scam or famous and popular works like Sherlock Holmes asserting copyright on original work derived from expired copyrights. Then there is the entire problem of orphaned works where there is a copyright but no clear owner.

[bernard11]

At a minimum there needs to be a registry of some sort, funded by fees from the copyright holders. If your copyrighted work is not in the registry then it's not copyrighted any more.

If you are not willing to pay, just guessing, a $100/year fee, then how can you claim damages when someone else uses the material?

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm not proposing to negate copyright, just to put the teeth back into "for limited times".

[John F. Carr]

One option is to expand existing copyright law which allows libraries open to the public to copy works which "cannot be obtained at a fair price". (17 USC 108) I think "fair price" needs to be made a little clearer if random Internet users and copyright owners are to have the same understanding of what it means.

Another option is to limit lawsuits over old copyrights to actual damages only. No statutory damages and generally no attorney's fees.

[bernard11]

How would you calculate actual damages?

Suppose I find a forgotten, out-of-print, book, publish it, and make a lot of money. What is the damage to the copyright holder?

[John F. Carr]

Two ways to approach that

1. Your gain is (by definition) the copyright owner's loss. (And what if the book is a success because of the cover blurb "With a new introduction by Donald Trump!"? Split the money, I guess.)

2. The copyright owner must prove loss of business, which might well be impossible for an out of print book.

[bernard11]

#1 seems just wrong.

Suppose you start a hardware store and close it, for some reason. I come along and open a new hardware store in the same location and am successful, you can't claim a share of my profits.

I could see, as a matter of courtesy or something, a small fixed fee in the copyright issue, but that's all.

[Ridgeway]

More like you come along and re-start the hardware business (without my permission) in the building owned but not used by me.

Some sort of profit split would make a lot of economic sense there.

[Brett Bellmore]

That's a horrible analogy. A building is actual physical property, inherently under the control of a particular entity, because if someone else takes it, the first person loses it. Not so IP; It is information, if I get it, you don't lose it.

IP is only 'property' by government granted privilege. A privilege expressly granted, not for the benefit of the putative owner, put societal benefit, to encourage productive acts.

The privilege has been expanded hugely beyond any real societal interest.

[bernard11]

I think it's more like I lease the space you vacated and start my hardware store. Have I stolen the IP that consists of "I think a hardware store in this location would be successful."

Anyway, I wouldn't object to a fixed fee deal at some level, but a profit split seems out of bounds. It's the new guy who is taking the risk - getting the book printed, promoting it, distributing it, etc. so he should make out if it works.

Of course, I guess the new guy could offer a split if he preferred.

[Michael P]

Bernard is right that #1 makes no sense. Whatever part of the newcomer's gain is due to virtues inherent to the work, the incumbent forewent those gains by not continuing to exploit the work commercially. A fortiori, gains due to new insights or efforts by the newcomer are not losses to the incumbent.

[bernard11]

I agree here.

[Noscitur a sociis]

You think that if the law had changed such that Woody Guthrie's son wouldn't have been able to make as much money off his back catalogue after he died, he would have stopped recording?

I'm anything but an expert on the man, but based on what I do know that doesn't seem very likely.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Noscitur, that is not what I said. I said Woody Guthrie wrote more songs than he could record or publish during his lifetime, a lot more. At least partly because of the reputation he made during his lifetime, and partly because he is dead and not writing anymore, that unpublished (and publicly mostly unknown) archive has increased notably in value today. That turns out to benefit his talented son, Arlo. More generally, it could benefit even the disabled offspring of other creative people. You can expect that knowledge to motivate choices made by creative people.

I do not need to speculate about Woody Guthrie to answer from my own experience. I have been a professional photographer during my entire adult life, and a somewhat successful photographic artist for more than 20 years. Signed limited edition prints made from my digital images sell in galleries for prices that are pocket change only for rich people.

I have sold prints made from many images, to clients all over the U.S., in Canada, in Europe, in the Middle East, and in Japan. I have a good record judging which images will sell, and which will not. Despite that history, I cannot today claim to have a major reputation as a photographic artist.

Over the years, sales have grown steadily. But there has not been time, or gallery exhibit space, to keep sales up to the pace of my production. I have a digital inventory of first class images no one has ever seen.

Usually, digital fine art images need to be printed and signed before they can be sold. They cannot be reliably archived digitally for anywhere near the multi-century interval which the best archival printing can achieve. Nor can typically available digital display devices show some images, especially the largest ones, at their best.

There is little likelihood that a digitally archived image—even if its data did survive for decades or more into the future—could be accurately reproduced on whatever equipment would then be in use. The software controlling the process to transform digital data into a hard copy must be adapted specifically to the display parameters of specific viewing devices, and to the printing parameters of currently available printing devices, and to the receiving parameters of currently available imaging media. All that changes constantly. You buy your equipment, tune your software to match your viewing device and your printer's output on the chosen media, and have at it for as many years as that system lasts, adjusting for slight changes as you go. Neither today's software, nor today's printing devices, will long continue in use.

Thus, at age 75, I face a question whether to print and sign limited editions of the best images I created. To do that would occasion expense. Or I could just forget about it and consign those images to time's dustbin. From a purely personal standpoint, it makes little financial sense to spend money to produce and store physical prints which there will not be time for me to sell.

From a legacy standpoint, simple arithmetic suggests that an archive of printed and signed limited edition prints, sold for prices already well established for my work—and assuming no price increase after my death—would be notably the largest asset I have to bequeath. So that is a dilemma I must resolve.

There is already plenty of uncertainty built into any such expectation about the future. I do not think anyone would be wise to undertake that kind of speculative expense, except if the prospective payoff were many multiples of the investment—which might prove true in my case.

With all that to worry about, the last thing I need is uncertainty about whether copyright would continue to apply to my work. If I knew it would not, the expense of creation would stop right there. No matter how much I might be inclined to invest to indulge creative impulses, I am not rich. I have financial responsibilities to others.

[bernard11]

Stephen, I don't quite understand.

The items you are talking about are physical objects - signed prints, sheet music.

Say you print and sign a lot of prints and leave them to your heirs. Where does copyright come into it? Are you suggesting that unsigned copies would appear, diminishing the value of your bequest?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bernard, I am not suggesting it. I know it for a fact. I have been victimized that way without yet making any bequest. As a result, I began years ago a policy of extremely tight control over my digital originals. I do not promote my work online, and try to discourage galleries from doing so on my behalf.

A problem is that the exclusivity of a limited edition contributes notably to the value of each print. Unsigned prints do not share in that value—they remain nearly worthless—but their existence can and does diminish or eliminate buyer interest for the signed prints.

For a time about 20 years ago I practiced a successful stage photography business, photographing community theater productions, and selling prints to cast members and their families. It worked until folks discovered they could pirate my online sales interface, to get lower-quality prints for free. (Some just took photographs of my work as it appeared on their computer screens.) In that case most of the images had relatively little monetary value, not enough to make defending copyright economically sensible. So I got out of the business.

A fine art limited edition can be different—with an aggregate value large enough to make legal defense of copyright a viable choice.

[defaultdotxbe]

Something like the performance license for music might be a good model to expand to other copyright areas.

For music, if you want to cover another artist's song you may do so, you just have to pay a royalty to the copyright holder. The license is compulsory and the royalty amount is set by statute. In other words the copyright holder can never deny a license, or hold out for more money. You cover the song, you mail them a check. Done and done.

This would eliminate copyright squatters, trolls, and other silly litigation like pediatricians getting sued for putting Disney characters on the walls. It would force open a market for certain things and probably get more exporsure for works because a lot of times people don't even bother trying to get licenses because they know it's going to be a ton of work. It would probably allow smaller creators to get more money too, since publishers and distributors would be able to just publish and mail the check

I can think of a few tweaks, like maybe a shorter exclusive period of 10 or 15 years before it goes to compulsory licensing. Perhaps a tier system where maybe a Disney movie is a tier 1 with a higher royalty than a tier 4 indie artist

[Stephen Lathrop]

defaultdotxbe, your suggestion is flawed. The cost of creation for an artwork must remain the choice of the artist, and must be kept within his means.

I am not rich. My images of necessity cannot involve a lot of image-specific expense to make.

A photographic competitor of mine has more resources, which enable world-wide travel, and costly underwater setups in remote locations. In exchange for that investment, he gets to make an astonishing, life-sized print of a baby sperm whale, naturally illuminated, in its element. Those prints sell for more than mine do, or he could not break even.

Your mandatory royalty scheme would too much burden creative choices on the financial side of the picture making business.

[Bob from Ohio]

Copyright, 14 years with one 14 year renewal
Patent, 14 years

These were the original 1790 terms. Good enough for George Washington to sign, good enough for me,

[not guilty]

I want to see Trump and his confederates sent to prison. The sooner the better. I don't understand the DOJ hesitation.

[Cal Cetín]

You're not ambitious enough. Dig up Ruther*fraud* B. Hayes and prosecute him for stealing the 1876 election.

Organize an annual pissing-on-Wilson's-grave competition - whoever can demonstrate the strongest stream, and the best aim from the longest distance, wins a prize.

[Queen Amalthea]

Nobody tell Cal about Trump's use of Bad Words.

[AmosArch]

Maybe because even though they're also raging leftists being that they are the DOJ they understand what is needed to send someone to jail better than you.

[not guilty]

Prior to retiring I spent decades as a criminal defense lawyer. I can recognize when misconduct is indefensible. There is no defense to Trump's and John Eastman's importuning Mike Pence to unilaterally reject lawful slates of electors.

Here is a useful summary from a few weeks ago of the uncontroverted evidence against Trump and his cohorts. https://www.justsecurity.org/80308/united-states-v-donald-trump-model-prosecution-memo/

[Brett Bellmore]

"I can recognize when misconduct is indefensible."

What is needed here is the ability to recognize when misconduct is illegal, though. Not "indefensible".

[not guilty]

Still haven't gotten around to parsing 18 U.S.C. 1512, subsections (c)(2) and (k)?

[Brett Bellmore]

Actually, I have.

"(c)Whoever corruptly—
(2)otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
...
(k)Whoever conspires to commit any offense under this section shall be subject to the same penalties as those prescribed for the offense the commission of which was the object of the conspiracy."

I simply don't believe that openly advancing a bad legal theory qualifies as "corruptly". If just having a bad legal theory qualified as "corruptly", that law would get applied a hell of a lot more often.

Now, if you could demonstrate that Trump actually arranged for the attack on the Capitol, THEN you'd have him dead to rights. But nobody has demonstrated that.

[not guilty]

Brett once again resorts to the Through the Looking Glass theory of statutory interpretation: “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.”

Justice Scalia, concurring in part and dissenting in part, opined in United States v. Aguilar, 515 U.S. 593 (1995):

[T]he term "corruptly" in criminal laws has a longstanding and well-accepted meaning. It denotes "an act done with an intent to give some advantage inconsistent with official duty and the rights of others .... It includes bribery but is more comprehensive; because an act may be corruptly done though the advantage to be derived from it be not offered by another." United States v. Ogle, 613 F.2d 233, 238 (CAlO) (internal quotation marks omitted), cert. denied, 449 U. S. 825 (1980). See also Ballentine's Law Dictionary 276 (3d ed. 1969); Black's Law Dictionary 345 (6th ed. 1990). As the District Court here instructed the jury:

"An act is done corruptly if it's done voluntarily and intentionally to bring about either an unlawful result or a lawful result by some unlawful method, with a hope or expectation of either financial gain or other benefit to oneself or a benefit of another person."

515 U.S. at 616-17. (Interpreting 18 U.S.C. 1503.)

No one of consequence to determining Donald Trump's fate cares one whit what Brett believes about the meaning of words.

[Brett Bellmore]

"An act is done corruptly if it's done voluntarily and intentionally to bring about either an unlawful result or a lawful result by some unlawful method, with a hope or expectation of either financial gain or other benefit to oneself or a benefit of another person."

Precisely. Either the means or the result must be unlawful.

And if advancing a losing legal argument qualified as "unlawful means", you'd have to jail every prosecutor after an acquittal, every defense attorney after a conviction.

Like claiming that Trump was violating the emoluments clause simply by running a business that foreign government employees might buy from, (Tribe's excuse for impeachment!) the argument is hugely, insanely over-inclusive. And meant to only be used in Trump's case, then never again.

[not guilty]

Uh, flouting the Electoral Count Act is unlawful means. The underlying factual premise was palpably false. The objective was to obtain a benefit to which Trump was not lawfully entitled.

I can explain it to you; I can't understand it for you.

[Brett Bellmore]

Every effort by a guilty defendant to obtain an acquittal is an effort to obtain a benefit they're not lawfully entitled to. We simply do not sanction failing legal arguments.

[not guilty]

Unclear on the presumption of innocence and burden of proof? Physical liberty is a right of every defendant unless and until overcome by proof beyond a reasonable doubt. That liberty is not a benefit to which he is not entitled. Unlike election laws, there is no such thing as a frivolous criminal defense.

Your confirmation bias leads you to proffer ludicrous analogies.

[Kazinski]

Now how can publicly advocating Pence take an action he had no authority to perform, and have Pence publicly reject the request he do so, and publicly reject the theory he had the authority, be considered corruptly?

He would have to offer Pence a corrupt inducement to satisfy to the statute.

Merely speculating, even spectacularly wrongly, can he do that? would he do that? Just does not amount to a criminal act, no matter how much you hate Trump

[not guilty]

What was public about the January 4 attempt by Trump and Eastman to persuade Pence to unilaterally reject lawful slates of electors?

[MatthewSlyfield]

Yes, the argument that the VP has the lawful authority to unilaterally reject slates of electors is fairly stupid. However, as I understand it, that argument as been out there from long before Trump.

Public or not, the argument that Trump's effort to convince Pence of this were unlawful seems rather weak.

[not guilty]

There is no authority for that contention. Eastman was making things up as he went along.

[Moderation4ever]

"as I understand it, that argument as been out there from long before Trump."

Can you offer a citation here? I have never heard this before. Most people probably did not even know the VP had any role in counting the EC votes.

[Kazinski]

The argument is based on this passage in the 12th amendment:

"which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;--The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;"

And it's based on whether the "shall" makes the task purely ministerial, or gives the VP some discretion.

And of course whether congress can enhance the procedures through legislation, which the amendment doesn't explicitly authorize.

It's not a great argument, but a lot worse constitutional arguments have been made, and it doesn't seem much worse than claiming the speaker of the House can be 3rd in line to the presidency.

[MatthewSlyfield]

Not easily, but I recall it coming up in 2000 in the Bush V Gore mess before SCOTUS put an end to the re-counts in Florida.

[bernard11]

I didn't think "shall" meant, "can if he feels like it."

[Moderation4ever]

I think the word "shall" in the 12th Amendment is irrelevant. The fact is that giving the power to VP to accept state votes would be the equivalent to letting the pitcher balls and strikes. I don't think anyone would reasonably assume the VP has the power to reject votes or that a pitcher can call his own pitches.

While they have been symbolic votes by members of the Senate and the House to not accept votes, I know of no instance before the 2020 election when it was suggested the VP could reject votes. That include the 2000 election. If it can be shown different please offer a citation, not a guess.

[Kazinski]

The 12th amendment argument is a novel constitutional question, that's never been ruled upon, so there is no precedent.

Plus there are 192 instances of "Shall" in the constitution. Some clearly allow discretion,others are clearly nonjusticiable. Like for instance "The House of Representatives shall chuse their Speaker and other Officers" what's the enforcement mechanism if the house doesn't chuse a speaker. If the house majority leader argues to that they don't have to really chuse a speaker is he corruptly obstructing an official proceeding?

Did Roberts "corruptly" obstruct an official proceeding when he decided not to preside over the second impeachment?
"When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside"

[Brett Bellmore]

"I didn't think "shall" meant, "can if he feels like it.""

I think you're going to have to take that up with the elected branches, which routinely read it that way.

After all, what's prosecutorial discretion, if not treating "shall" as "can if he feels like it"? How else do you square Biden's immigration policy with the take care clause?

Every ministerial role eventually gets turned into discretionary in our government, if the courts permit it, and they often do.

[David Nieporent]

After all, what's prosecutorial discretion, if not treating "shall" as "can if he feels like it"?

What are you talking about, Brett? There is no statute saying that a prosecutor shall prosecute all people who break a law.

[Kazinski]

What was the illegal inducement offered?

Trump and his minions had been floating their theory for weeks, in fact Rep. Louis Gohmert sued Pence in Federal court based on the flawed 12th amendment theory:

"Under the Twelfth Amendment, Defendant Pence alone has the exclusive authority and sole discretion to open and permit the counting of the electoral votes for a given state, and where there are competing slates of electors, or where there is objection to any single slate of electors, to determine which electors' votes, or whether none, shall be counted," the suit argues."

Pence's lawyers opposed the suit, and rewrote his speech for Jan 6. to make clear his view of the law.

Trump allies filing forlorn lawsuits to compel Pence to accept their theory shows how baseless any allegations of a conspiracy are.

[not guilty]

The statute does not require an illegal inducement. The effort to flout the Electoral Count Act was itself illegal, founded upon the false premises that Trump had in fact won several states that he lost and that there were valid submissions of slates of Trump electors. (The submission of these bogus electoral slates -- coordinated by Rudy Giuliani on behalf of the Trump campaign -- was criminal according to 18 U.S.C. 1001(a)(3).) The objective of the attempt/conspiracy to influence the certification of the electoral vote was to obtain for Trump a benefit to which he was not lawfully entitled -- a second term of office.

That is corruption, topside to bottom.

[AmosArch]

And you clearly don't know how your job works then. In most contexts including this one, pushing an opinion or move. Even the 'wrong' one is not illegal as long as you do it within the bounds of the system. If I was a school official theres a difference between me within the bounds of my power trying to institute the teaching that birdpeople once ruled the earth and embezzling funds from the district. Similarly Trump and Co has the right just like other presidents before him to openly shop a cockamamie theory of how the constitution works around to see if the government will buy it. Thats not the same thing as declaring the us government overthrown and seizing power. The Dems are trying to make people forget the distinction.

[Brett Bellmore]

Half of existing Supreme court precedent, and most of the precedent the modern leviathan state rests upon, consists of cockamamie legal theories that were clearly batshit crazy, but managed to win anyway.

To mangle an old bon mot: "Why do crazy constitutional theories never prevail? Because if they prevail, they're not 'crazy'."

Trump had a significant chance of legally prevailing with his constitutional theory, and I agree it was a crazy theory. Just not any crazier than a lot of theories that our present government relies on every day.

[not guilty]

"Trump had a significant chance of legally prevailing with his constitutional theory"?? Maybe in Bizarro World.

Do you have even a scintilla of authority supporting that proposition? It's time to quit singing it and start bringing it.

[Brett Bellmore]

By significant, I don't mean better than 50-50. I just mean that it was high enough for somebody who had no moral objection to legal BS to consider it worth trying. Not that it wasn't BS. A lot of current precedent is BS.

The key step, of course, was Pence agreeing to play along. Then you get enough EC votes challenged that nobody got a majority, and it goes to the House to vote by state.

But Pence, quite admirably, did not play along. I consider it a serious tragedy that Pence has no chance, going forward, of ever becoming President. He'd obviously have been a very principled one.

[not guilty]

So no legal authority? Why am I unsurprised?

[not guilty]

Having "no moral objection to legal BS" is not befitting the executive who is sworn to take care that the laws be faithfully executed.

[Brett Bellmore]

Right, then impeach them all.

The site, Take Care, Ensuring the President “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed”" was created to advance the argument that Trump was violating this clause.

And surely, he was at times. It's a clause that's inconsistent with the common practice of discretionary enforcement of the law.

Notice that they stopped updating the site after Trump left office? Because they don't care if another President, Biden, say, violates that duty. It was just an excuse to go after Trump.

Indeed, if you dive deeper, often their complaints about Trump boiled down to the fact that he WAS enforcing laws, immigration laws, that they didn't like!

No, in the end, complaints about the take care clause were just an excuse, just like the emoluments arguments. The same reasoning never to be applied to anybody they liked.

[Illocust]

So you are against president biden? Considering that he knowingly used legal BS to try and mandate that people recieve an unnecessary medical treatment against their will? Or is this just a standard you hold people you don't like to.

[Queen Amalthea]

Unnecessary? Vaccinated folks are much less likely to be hospitalized over Covid.

[not guilty]

Some of Biden's efforts regarding vaccination were unsuccessful, but there was nothing frivolous about them.

Trump's and Eastman's attempt to corrupt Pence was cut completely from whole cloth to unlawfully secure a second term to which Trump was not entitled.

[Kazinski]

I hope you were a better lawyer before senility set in.

I can see you advising clients to plead guilty over every bullshit legal theory a prosecutor can come up with.

How many clients you still have in jail for surfing the internet at work who you convinced to plead guilty for honest services fraud?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Leviathan state? Bellmore, read Hobbes, for pity's sake, and stop making yourself look politically illiterate by misusing his term on purpose.

[Brett Bellmore]

Calling our current state a Leviathan is no more absurd than the left-wing practice of referring to a government that respected the originally understood limits of federal power as "anarchy". It's just mild hyperbole.

[Stephen Lathrop]

No, Bellmore. It is resolutely stupid conflation. It invokes one of political theory's most potent labels, which has a specific meaning, and attaches it to an approximately opposite meaning, while creating nothing but an increase in confusion.

[Queen Amalthea]

"I'm no less crazy than the crazies on the other side" is a mantra Brett seems to live by.

[not guilty]

Did you read the Barbara McQuade memorandum that I linked to? The evidence of criminality is overwhelming.

It is a criminal offense under 18 U.S.C. 1512(c)(2) to corruptly attempt to obstruct, influence or impede an official proceeding of Congress. Certification of the electoral count is an official proceeding. Trump and Eastman importuned Pence to violate the Electoral Count Act -- to exercise authority which he did not have -- based on the rank falsehood that Trump won the election, in order to obtain a benefit to which Trump was not entitled -- a second term in office. That is corrupt no matter how thin you slice the baloney.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Similarly Trump and Co has the right just like other presidents before him to openly shop a cockamamie theory of how the constitution works around to see if the government will buy it. Thats not the same thing as declaring the us government overthrown and seizing power.

Well sure, when the cockamamie theory is some legitimate policy question. When the cockamamie theory is, "I lost the election, and now it's your job, Vice President Pence, to overthrow the constitution and make me president anyway," not so much. Why can't you see the difference?

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, one clear difference is that Trump never said the words you put inside that quote.

[Stephen Lathrop]

No clear difference there, Bellmore. Not anymore.

A jury can decide whether that is an accurate summary of what Trump said, publicly and privately, to citizens, to Pence, to government officials, to co-conspirators, over and over, in so many ways. Whatever a jury says, nobody can reasonably doubt that the verdict of history will be, "Insurrection and Attempted Coup." Persistence of a pathetic cadre of lying sycophants to say otherwise will get a bemused historical footnote.

[Brett Bellmore]

If you need to imagine somebody you dislike confessing their guilty to bolster the case even in your own imagination, it's not that great a case.

"Whatever a jury says, nobody can reasonably doubt that the verdict of history will be, "Insurrection and Attempted Coup.""

Well, looking at the partisan affiliation of your average history faculty, I have a hard time disputing THAT.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore, I do not for a moment imagine Trump confessing. Taking the Fifth Amendment all the way. Then conviction, if the AG is not too timid to bring the case.

The evidence revealed to the public is already overwhelming. Yet more will come out. Anything available—and a lot of stuff completely made up—which could exonerate Trump has long since been trumpeted publicly. There is no more of that coming.

There is plenty more against Trump on the way. Trump's legal position is destined to get worse and worse as time goes on, right down through decades to come.

Looking forward to your footnote are you?

[Moderation4ever]

The former President has a number of civil and criminal issues hounding him. I suggest that these be allowed to play out before we push DOJ for more. The former President will never do jail time, but I think the hits to his ego and pocketbook will be punishment enough.

Sadly, if he were young, poor and a minority he would likely be imprisoned but that just the way things work. Money always helps you in the legal system.

[John F. Carr]

I understand the hesitation without considering burdens of proof and all that. Ex-president Trump is less dangerous than martyr Trump.

[Ben_]

Obsessed haters always want someone to be hurt. Guess the DOJ isn’t as obsessed as you.

[LawTalkingGuy]

You know you’re describing the Trumpist movement to a T, right?

[Ben_]

I don’t think you know many of the people you’re complaining about.

Lots of Obama voters became Trump voters after seeing government run exclusively for leftist elites for 8 years. Or they just didn’t want Hillary. Or they got tired of news media lies and corruption.

[Michael P]

The same thing happened here in Virginia last year, and looks like it will happen across the country later this year.

[Ben_]

LTG will say they’re all white supremacists or something. Just like the Asian parents who voted to recall the San Francisco school board were called.

[Don Nico]

The hesitation is a political consideration.
The alleged crime would have to be seen as obvious to 70% of the US population. We're not there yet.

[not guilty]

Resolving questions like Trump's criminal culpability is one reason that we have built courthouses. Trump's supporters are impervious to reason, as these comment threads indicate.

[Don Nico]

Your reply did not respond to my observation.
Courthouses do not resolve politically sensitive issues such as jailing past heads of government.
Does the Orange Clown belong in jail? Sure.
Is that best for America? Far from clear.

[not guilty]

To decline to prosecute Trump for his refusal to transfer power in accordance with the law and Constitution would reward his bad behavior. That is not good for the rule of law. He shouldn't be allowed to get away with that kind of perfidy.

[Michael P]

Take it up with the Democrats who set that precedent for both Clintons.

[PaulS]

I agree - And no 2 term limit for Joe Biden!

[Cal Cetín]

I'm hoping that there may actually be legal experts on this blog to clarify a couple questions raised by previous posts:

1) Is it legal - in the U. S., Canada, etc. - to impose a requirement on employees of one nationality, race, religion, etc. to repudiate some Bad Thing associated with their nationality, etc., when people of other nationalities, etc. aren't subject to similar requirements. Say, for example, Jews but not Gentiles are required to disavow "Israeli crimes against the Palestinians," or Russians but non non-Russians are required to disavow the Ukraine war?

2) What's the law regarding Russian POWS? Can they be given asylum, give up their right to be supported by the power which captured them, and automatically be excused from any policy of exchange?

[Illocust]

I'm not a lawyer, but the way you phrases number 1 soars to go against current anti discrimination laws. I don't think those laws will be enforced in this case though.

[not guilty]

National origin is a protected class. Supporters of war crimes is not.

[Michael P]

It's illegal to demand that women (but not men) wear a dress or makeup or whatever. The argument is that it should be similarly illegal to demand that Russians (but not everyone else) publicly denounce Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

[Queen Amalthea]

Jews to Israel is not analogous to Russians to Russia (most Jews do not live in Israel and many non-Jews are Israeli citizens).

[Ed Grinberg]

?
1. There are plenty of Russians who live outside of Russia.
2. There're plenty of Russian citizens who are not ethnically Russian.

[Queen Amalthea]

Most Jews are not Israeli citizens.

[John F. Carr]

Aside from the usual discrimination laws, some states have laws limiting political discrimination. I think Eugene Volokh has posted about them here. In some states you could demand all employees support the denazification of Ukraine, in others you could not.

[Kazinski]

I wasn't planning to get a covid booster but I went ahead and did it anyway yesterday. I got the AstraZeneca, I'm in Cambodia now, that an the Sinovac are the only ones available, and I don't do Chinese vaccines.

Why did I go ahead and get boosted even though I don't think it will do any good? Because I'm flying to Athens on Saturday and large parts of Europe have scrapped testing requirements if you are vaccinated within 9 months or vaxxed and boosted anytime. So it was a lot easier to get boosted on Wednesday, than tested and collect the results on Friday, and free to boot.

The Sun is reporting that there are currently 54 countries Brits can travel to without being tested, but not all those apply to Americans too.

[Queen Amalthea]

Not do any good? https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-data/covidview/past-reports/02112022.html

[Ed Grinberg]

How's this for an open-thread topic:
Has there ever been another moment in history when a certain political ideology so precisely correlated with a belief in the efficacy of a certain medical treatment?
Discuss.

[Queen Amalthea]

It is interesting to see one ideology reject the scientific consensus on a medical treatment so thoroughly. But, again, this is the ideology that rejects things live evolution too (see below).

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, it was pretty crazy watching a whole political party reject the idea that natural immunity actually was a real thing, and demand that people who had already had a disease go out and get vaccinated anyway.

[DaveM]

If you truly believed in evolution, you'd recognize natural immunity. But you don't. So maybe you should look to your own failings before casting stones.

[Kazinski]

Yeah, I should probably mention, that besides my original double vaccine, I also had covid around NY's when I was in Turkey.

The booster was not going to provide me any medical benefit, under any theory.

[not guilty]

Are we talking about a non-governmental employer in an employment at will jurisdiction?

[not guilty]

That was intended to reply to Cal.

[apedad]

Walter Hutchins Was Fatally Shot By Bounty Hunters. Now His Family Is Demanding Justice.

"Walter Matthew Hutchins was shot and killed by bounty hunters on Feb. 23, 2022. Now, his family is asking that the bounty hunters who fatally shot him be held responsible. According to KHOU, the Houston Police Department said the bounty hunters told them they were executing a warrant for Hutchins’ arrest when he fired at them. The two bounty hunters reportedly shot back at Hutchins, hitting him in the head. But Hutchins’ family said they believe the story is deeper than the police’s story."

So, what's the consensus on bounty hunters?

I think there's a healthy criticism among us VC commenters about govt law enforcement's use of violence.

I'm always skeptical when private citizens take on a govt role - and especially in this case where violence (or at least the threat of violence) is almost guaranteed.

https://blavity.com/walter-hutchins-was-fatally-shot-by-bounty-hunters-now-his-family-is-demanding-justice?category1=news&category2=social-justice

[Frank Drackman]

might be a good idea to show up for your Court appearances

[apedad]

It's a better idea not to be executed simply for not showing up for your Court appearances.

[rsteinmetz]

It's also a good idea not to shoot at people, whether police, bounty hunters or others.

[Allutz]

All laws are, eventually, capital offenses, if the defendant resists their enforcement strongly enough.

[Sarcastr0]

By that definition, all sorts of social expectations are also laws.

[not guilty]

"All laws are, eventually, capital offenses, if the defendant resists their enforcement strongly enough."

Uh, no.

[Brett Bellmore]

Uh, yeah. I suggest you not test your belief to the contrary too vigorously.

[Queen Amalthea]

Fascist Frank doesn't disappoint!

[Stephen Lathrop]

I was probably in my mid teens before I heard about bounty hunters. I remember thinking something like, "Wow, is that really a thing?" Since then, I have rarely given it a thought. Now that you mention it, I don't think my reaction has changed.

[Brett Bellmore]

As I recall, the original theory of "police" was that they were just government employees doing full time what the citizenry had every right to do in the first place.

From that perspective, bounty hunters aren't taking a government role, they're just reclaiming from the government a private role.

On a less theoretical basis, police get unqualified immunity, and bounty hunters don't. Police get prosecutorial discretion up the wazoo, and bounty hunters don't.

So, I'd really prefer more bounty hunting and less police, because the bounty hunters actually have to worry about making mistakes.

[Michael P]

As long as bounty hunters are required to wear body cameras and have training on legal processes, I'd be okay with that.

In this case, the statements of the family's attorney suggest that the bounty hunters might not have been so wrong. The attorney said, "in less than five seconds from when they stop those SUVs, shots are fired". Does he not have a theory on who fired those shots? Or does he know and just want to avoid identifying the shooter?

[BillyG]

Bounty hunters are required to be licensed & insured. It's not some random person off the street deciding they're going to arrest a person with a wanted poster.

Body cameras are a new thing, probably be a good way for the bounty hunters to defend themselves in court.

The family claims this was like an ambush. If what the bounty hunters claim is true, should be easy to disprove the family. Produce the gun & bullet holes from the guy they were trying to arrest.

[Michael P]

A license doesn't necessarily mean much. Insurance might -- insurers are usually pretty good about understanding the risks they onsite against, and requiring the insured party to take reasonable precautions against it. I would argue that's just one way to reach the more specific goals I suggested, although having professional insurance is a good thing in itself.

[apedad]

"So, I'd really prefer more bounty hunting and less police, because the bounty hunters actually have to worry about making mistakes."

It's fun watching you guys wish we were living 3-400 years ago.

It just confirms your loser (and losing!) status.

[Michael P]

Who voted for the Resident who is buttering up to the nuclear mullahs, gave Russia a green light for a "minor incursion", and pushed Saudi towards the Chinese (with designs to dethrone the dollar for international trade), all in the span of a few weeks?

Talk about losers and losing!

[BillyG]

You forgot Venezuela.

If any part of your national strategy for success involves "Venezuela saves us," you might want to get yourself some new leaders. - Scott Adams

[Brett Bellmore]

Sir Robert Peel, "the father of modern police", established the London police department in 1829. Less than 200 years ago. And his principles have been abandoned in the US much more recently than that.

[ThePublius]

Thank you, that is illuminating.

I have seen just in my short lifetime the police go from a shadow of Peel's principles to a paramilitary force in opposition to, and antagonistic to, the public. You can't talk to a cop without him suspecting you, or even without suspicion, starting to build a case or narrative for your detention or arrest. They are trained for this, indoctrinated into this way of thinking and acting. Conventional police culture has become fundamentally corrupt.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's a consequence of the spread of victimless crime laws.

Peal's principles really only work for enforcing laws against crimes that produce victims, they're critically dependent on people who know something about the crime wanting it prosecuted.

Once the government starts prosecuting in a serious way crimes where nobody involved wants the crime stopped, that cooperation drops to negligible levels, and the police must behave more like an occupying army faced with a hostile population.

Victimless crime laws really are toxic in that regard.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Good point, if there's a society known for libertarian principles and avoiding victimless crimes, it's 1830s England.

[Krychek_2]

I'm hard pressed to think of a worse idea than giving every angry man with a grudge and a gun police powers.

[ThePublius]

As opposed to giving a gun and police powers to legions of numbskulls with mental or personality defects?

I'd prefer an armed populace with no police to an unarmed populace with armed police, any day.

(That's not to say I'd forgo many of the ancillary services police perform; I would just want that to be more aligned with service to the public than 'policing' the public.)

[Krychek_2]

My argument is not that the current policing system is perfect. Rather, my argument is that giving *every* angry man with a gun and a grudge police powers would make an already bad situation even worse.

Didn't we just have a trial about that in Georgia in which three angry men with grudges and guns thought they were making a citizens arrest and ended up killing an innocent man? I think they were convicted.

[ThePublius]

Once can produce an anecdote to support any position.

There are many, many cases every year of armed citizens preventing crime, stopping crime, protecting others, and apprehending criminals; this is not popular stuff in the mainstream media so it is generally unknown or dismissed out of hand by folks who are thus informed.

Cases of abuse are small in comparison.

An armed society is a polite society.

[Krychek_2]

It's not generally unknown or dismissed out of hand; it's wrong on the facts. Yes, there are cases in which armed citizens have stopped crime, but there are far more cases in which guns made an already bad situation even worse. As you say, one can find anecdotes to support pretty much anything, but if one looks at actual data, it does not support your position:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/more-guns-do-not-stop-more-crimes-evidence-shows/

[Michael P]

Let's outlaw the Democrat party. You can find the rare case where they had a good idea, but "there are far more cases in which [Democrats] made an already bad situation even worse. As you say, one can find anecdotes to support pretty much anything, but if one looks at actual data, it does not support your position".

[Krychek_2]

Michael, you wouldn't know data if you stepped in it.

[ThePublius]

Scientific American became a politically-driven institution in the 1970's, I wouldn't trust them as far as I can toss their printing press.

I'm not saying there's no data, but I reject the assertion that "but there are far more cases in which guns made an already bad situation even worse." If you are talking about gang bangers, drug dealers, et.al., yes, of course. But if you are talking about generally law abiding citizens carrying or keeping for protection of self and others, I vehemently disagree. Note, that a lot of these incidents are likely not reported, as many savvy citizens know it's a mistake to talk to the police. (If I confront a mugger with my handgun and he runs away, do you think I'm going to call the police and tell them about it? It's likely they would view me as a target, take me in, require me to get a lawyer (as I won't talk to them without a lawyer), pressure me and harass me and detain me for "not cooperating," and even charge me for brandishing, based on my having contacted them and telling them.)

[Krychek_2]

Publius, before I did my previous response, I googled "do guns make us safer" and literally hundreds of hits popped up, almost all of them pointing in the direction that guns don't make us safer. So if you don't like Scientific American, fine, but a simple google search shows that the data does not support your position.

It's not even a matter of distinguishing law abiding citizens from gang bangers. It's that guns frequently result in more crimes turning violent than they otherwise would have.

[Queen Amalthea]

I do think there's a point to be made that any data using official or news reports is going to miss many cases where citizens used arms in their defense. You'd need a survey to kind of gauge that.

[Bwaaah]

Interesting research technique...gets you a quick answer. Did you try googling, "Are GMOs toxic?" (I'm actually impressed not with your research technique, but that you would put it out there as part of an attempt at a credible analysis.)

[Krychek_2]

Why would I google "Are GMOs toxic" when we're not discussing GMOs? But it says a great deal about you that you somehow think they are.

[Michael P]

Google results are terrible. They bake in tremendous partisan bias. Try a better search engine.

[Krychek_2]

Michael, or you could try not pontificating on results you haven't reviewed.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Why would I google "Are GMOs toxic" when we're not discussing GMOs? But it says a great deal about you that you somehow think they are.

Weren't you just crowing about how someone who made it through law school (like you, allegedly) is obviously too smart to say anything as stupid as what you said above?

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Publius, before I did my previous response, I googled "do guns make us safer" and literally hundreds of hits popped up, almost all of them pointing in the direction that guns don't make us safer.

So you did a Google search using a phrase strongly biased toward gun control advocating sources and you got a bunch of hits on sources that conclude that guns are bad? That's a mighty compelling argument.

[Michael P]

Krychek, if you don't know better than to link to anything in the last decade by Scientific American, especially on a political topic, then your idea of data or good science is laughably bad. I don't have to review it when the title makes it clear that they're conflating correlation and causation.

Look! Having guns make your neighbors invade you, especially if Russia is one of them! DAYTAH proves it!

[Kazinski]

I’m certainly open to the proposition that owning and carrying guns may cause me some added risk.

Probably on the same order of risk of owning and driving a car, but probably less than owning and driving a motorcycle.

Big deal. I like to do all of them and my life will never revolve around absolute risk minimization.

And I got an absolute constitutional right to keep and bear arms so you are just wasting your time doing internet searches on the extremely marginal risk of gun ownership in this country.

[Brett Bellmore]

SciAm became terminally political decades ago.

Typically gun control studies studiously avoid distinguishing between cause and effect; Somebody gets a gun because they're in dangerous circumstances, then gets killed, you blame their death on the gun, not the gun on their being likely to be attacked.

You buy a gun because you're suicidal? The gun made you commit suicide.

They don't even bother asking, if somebody who keeps a gun in the home got shot, whether or not they were shot with THAT gun, or by an intruder who brought his own.

They don't bother trying to figure out how much they're underestimating the prevalence of guns in houses where the police wouldn't have verified gun ownership because nothing happened.

They don't bother with any of the controls they'd use if they were really trying to get at the truth, because they already know what the truth is, and just need to prove it.

[Krychek_2]

"You buy a gun because you're suicidal? The gun made you commit suicide."

No, that gun made it easier for you to commit suicide. People who want to kill themselves, or hold up a convenience store, will find a way if they want to do it badly enough, but that's a separate question from how easy society should make it for them.

(And no, I'm not advocating to ban guns; I've already said here multiple times that I support private gun ownership. I'm simply responding to Brett's usual false alternative argument.)

[Brett Bellmore]

Ah, but if that were what was the cause of the correlation they're reporting, simply owning a gun would correlate with a sustained higher rate of (successful) suicide for your entire life.

First-Time Gun Owners at Risk for Suicide, Major Study Confirms

"The decision to buy a handgun for the first time is typically motivated by self-protection. But it also raises the purchasers’ risk of deliberately shooting themselves by ninefold on average, with the danger most acute in the weeks after purchase, scientists reported on Wednesday. The risk remains elevated for years, they said."

Looking up the study itself, I find that the hazard ratio peaked at about 100 times higher between the end of the 10 day waiting period, and the first month.

In the second and third months it was down to 17.
For the balance of the first year, down to 12.
4-6 years later, 1.6.

A perfect signature for some fraction of people who bought their first gun having bought it specifically FOR committing suicide. The study actually acknowledges this, before casually dismissing it on the basis that the risk continued for some years.

As though suicidal people always either kill themselves or get over it in a short space of time...

The simplest explanation is the one they dismiss: Guns don't cause suicide, suicidal impulses cause gun purchases. If it were the guns causing the suicides, you'd be looking at a sustained high rate.

[Krychek_2]

Brett, assuming you're right, does it really make a difference to the bottom line analysis? A desire to off one's mother in law causes cyanide purchases, rather than the other way around. True, but so what?

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Brett, assuming you're right, does it really make a difference to the bottom line analysis? A desire to off one's mother in law causes cyanide purchases, rather than the other way around. True, but so what?

Let me help you out with that, Simple Simon. If you're making a causal argument about the availability of cyanide and the murdering of MILs (an analog to the "more guns lead to more suicides" argument) then which thing causes the other makes a huge difference, especially if one is debating public policy on the availability of cyanide.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, suppose cyanide was a commonly used cleaning agent, and 99.99% of people who owned it did nothing with it but clean clothes?

Remember, the percentage of lawful firearms owners who do anything wrong with a gun is actually very, very low.

Or better, suppose cyanide was the only form of ink we had, and without it freedom of the press would be an illusion?

Are we supposed to deprive the vast majority of a civil right because the small minority misuse it?

For that matter, suicide isn't a crime, so why are we talking about laws to reduce it?

[Krychek_2]

But the point is that less availability of cyanide results in making it more difficult to kill one's MIL because it's one fewer tool in the murderer's tool kit. And if your goal is to give the murderer one less tool, then it doesn't matter whether the chicken or the egg came first.

I get that that's not the only consideration.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

But the point is that less availability of cyanide results in making it more difficult to kill one's MIL because it's one fewer tool in the murderer's tool kit.

Not if there are enough other tools available to make the unavailability of one a non-issue.

[Brett Bellmore]

"But the point is that less availability of cyanide results in making it more difficult to kill one's MIL because it's one fewer tool in the murderer's tool kit."

And what you're ignoring is that the people who are serious about killing themselves pick guns, because they reliably work, and if denied guns are capable of finding other ways of killing themselves. Just like murderers can find other weapons.

The study I linked to above focused like a laser on suicides in the home, in an effort to avoid picking up this substitution effect; Many substitute suicide means take place outside the home. And by looking exclusively at people who'd just bought guns, they could exclude anybody who'd already chosen a different means of suicide, too.

And, my original point: Though the data perfectly fit the hypothesis that the correlation between suicide and first time gun purchases, (There's none for subsequent gun purchase, mind you.) is due to suicidal intent driving a fraction of gun purchases, the study insists on asserting that they've shown that guns CAUSE suicides. Insists on reversing the causality, to imply that a non-suicidal person buying a gun is placing themselves at risk.

Gun "studies" are rife with causality reversal/misattribution. The gun you bought because you live in a bad neighborhood caused the burglar to shoot you. The gun you bought to defend yourself from an abusive ex caused your abuser to shoot you. (In both cases, with their own gun, but yours caused it!)

They're typically textbook examples of how NOT to do studies, because the conclusions are pre-determined.

[Queen Amalthea]

There's lots of cases of accidental shootings too, but there's no media hunting them down and putting them out there for folks like you, so “¯\_(ツ)_/¯“

[ThePublius]

That's baloney, accidental shootings get tons of press.

And define "lots," and where this is all happening.

[Queen Amalthea]

They get reported on page 9 of the newspaper and then left there, stories of gun friendly events get picked up by rabid gun fan organizations and outlets and churned like good butter.

[bernard11]

An armed society is a polite society.

I have no idea why this is so often quoted, often pretentiously, with an air of settling all arguments.

It's idiotic. The implication is that if I behave rudely I risk being shot. First, who thinks rudeness should be punished by being shot?

Then, there is also the problem that what is and is not polite or rude varies from person to person, and depends on upbringing, cultural practice, individual personality, etc. In fact, it endangers anyone who doesn't follow dominant norms of behavior.

Finally, it offers an excuse for various armed hotheads. We have enough of that crap already.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

I'm hard pressed to think

We know.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

I'm hard pressed to think of a worse idea than giving every angry man with a grudge and a gun police powers.

Well, given that nobody said anything about doing that I'm not sure what your point is...except for the bit about you being hard pressed to think.

[Krychek_2]

Wuz, I'm talking to the grown ups; please be a dear and sit quietly.

[Krychek_2]

You obviously missed Brett's initial comment, to which I was responding:

"As I recall, the original theory of "police" was that they were just government employees doing full time what the citizenry had every right to do in the first place."

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

You obviously missed Brett's initial comment, to which I was responding:

"As I recall, the original theory of "police" was that they were just government employees doing full time what the citizenry had every right to do in the first place."

You obviously failed every reading class you took after the 2nd grade. That says nothing at all about "giving every angry man with a grudge and a gun" anything, let alone giving them police powers. He's talking about rights non-LEO citizens already have (and had).

[Brett Bellmore]

And the powers that non-LEO citizens never had, that the government eventually granted to its minions.

As I said, the reason I favor bounty hunters is that, unlike police, they have accountability. They actually have to worry about making mistakes.

[Krychek_2]

You're half right. It doesn't say anything about "giving" them the powers because it assumes they already had them. No need to give them what they've already got.

None of which responds to my point, however, that it's a really bad idea for every angry man with a grudge and a gun to have police powers, whether or not such powers are being given or were already there.

You're becoming famous for regurgitating something that is almost, but not quite, what someone actually said.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

You're half right.

No, I'm 100% correct. You pitiful attempt at a back-peddling song-and-dance is, however, 100% bullshit.

You're becoming famous for regurgitating something that is almost, but not quite, what someone actually said.

I quoted what you said verbatim, you pea-brained, lying sack of shit.

[Krychek_2]

It's not a back pedal when your quotation wasn't actually what I said. Your repeated emotional outbursts and name calling indicate that you know I'm right about that.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

It's not a back pedal when your quotation wasn't actually what I said.

Holy crap! So now you're trying to argue that quoting what you posted...verbatim, in its entirety and with NO alterations of any kind (save for the standard use of an italics font to make it clear that is in fact a quotation)...is somehow quoting something that isn't actually what you said? Here's the entire content of your post that I quoted:

"I'm hard pressed to think of a worse idea than giving every angry man with a grudge and a gun police powers."

Here's the quotation of it that appeared in my response:

I'm hard pressed to think of a worse idea than giving every angry man with a grudge and a gun police powers.

The stupidity that routinely comes out of your virtual mouth would embarrass a lobotomized baboon.

[Krychek_2]

It's your interpretation that's at issue, not the words I actually used. Just because you apply an interpretation that isn't the intended meaning doesn't change the intended meaning.

Here's a practice tip for you: Anyone smart enough to get through law school (as I did) is probably not going to say things with the ridiculous meanings you continue to ascribe. So maybe the problem isn't with what I'm saying, so much as how you're interpreting it. And if there are multiple possible interpretations, chance are good that the idiotic one isn't the one that was intended.

[Krychek_2]

And by the way, Wuz, you are the only person here for whom that seems to be an issue. I consistently have conversations here with people who completely disagree with me, but who also understand perfectly clearly what I'm saying and don't ascribe clearly unintended interpretations to them. Not sure if its intentional on your part or just sloppy reading -- or maybe confirmation bias; you've already decided I'm an idiot so that's how you read my stuff -- but at any rate, no one else here seems to share your inability or unwillingness to engage what I actually say.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

It's your interpretation that's at issue, not the words I actually used. Just because you apply an interpretation that isn't the intended meaning doesn't change the intended meaning.

Ah, so now you're changing your claim from "what I actually said" to "what I now want to claim that I meant, even though that is quite different from what I actually said". Make up what little there is of your mind.

Anyone smart enough to get through law school (as I did)

LOL! Your self-delusion knows no bounds. The fact that you made it through law school (if in fact that's even true) isn't the compelling evidence of intelligence you think it is. If you were even half as smart as you think you are you wouldn't keep making these asinine arguments that require you to later do these song-and-dance routines, pretending that what you clearly said was not at all what you meant...and even lying about what it was that you actually said.

So maybe the problem isn't with what I'm saying, so much as how you're interpreting it.

Yes, clearly the problem here is my interpreting...

"I'm hard pressed to think of a worse idea than giving every angry man with a grudge and a gun police powers."

...to mean that what you think would be a bad idea is "giving every angry man with a grudge and a gun police powers". Obviously I just made that part up.

And if there are multiple possible interpretations, chance are good that the idiotic one isn't the one that was intended.

Your history says otherwise.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Wait, it gets better. You then responded to ThePublius with (bolding mine)....

Rather, my argument is that giving *every* angry man with a gun and a grudge police powers would make an already bad situation even worse.

So are you still claiming that what you said...multiple times...is not actually what you said/mean?

[Krychek_2]

Wuz, when you literally are the only person here who consistently misconstrues what I said, maybe the problem is you. And if you had an ounce of self awareness you'd have figured that out without me having to tell you.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Wuz, when you literally are the only person here who consistently misconstrues what I said, maybe the problem is you. And if you had an ounce of self awareness you'd have figured that out without me having to tell you.

I have I not misconstrued anything you've said, you lying sack of shit. Again, I've quoted you verbatim saying the exact same thing, twice, with the clear, inescapable interpretation of what you said in your own words. Others here have done the same. And yet here you are, still trying to sell a revision that is such transparent bullshit that it's a stretch even for you...and this from an alleged lawyer who thinks that a fetus would be liable for trespass against the person if it were legally a "person".

[BillyG]

I'm hard pressed to think of a worse idea than giving every angry man with a grudge and a gun police powers.

I agree. Fortunately, that has nothing to do with this case. Bounty hunters are regulated, licensed, and bonded.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

I agree. Fortunately, that has nothing to do with this case. Bounty hunters are regulated, licensed, and bonded.

Even though you quoted his exact words verbatim, and responded to the clear meaning thereof, Krychek will now explain to you that what he actually said is not at all what he actually said, and that you're just too dumb to interpret those words correctly, and that he's far too smart to have said something as stupid as what his post actually said.

[BillyG]

Hah! We'll see. That's a good portion of dumb arguments everywhere.

[Queen Amalthea]

Uh, no. The original modern police force, the London Metropolitan Police, was based in very large part on the idea of professional standards. I get from past conversations with you that you don't get the whole occupational standards thing but that is their history.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Police get prosecutorial discretion up the wazoo, and bounty hunters don't.

In what possible sense do bounty hunters lack prosecutorial discretion?

[BillyG]

Bounty hunters can only go after people with arrest warrants. They can't go after just anyone.

[Noscitur a sociis]

What is it that you mean by "prosecutorial discretion"?

[BillyG]

Ability to charge/arrest an arbitrary person for something they may have done.

What do you mean when you imply bounty hunters have proprietorial discretion?

[Noscitur a sociis]

The term generally means the discretion not to prosecute someone—which indeed appears to be how Brett Bellmore was using it.

[Brett Bellmore]

In the sense that bounty hunters don't benefit from prosecutorial discretion. They wrongfully shoot somebody, they get prosecuted for it, they don't get a prosecutor deciding that they probably just had a bad day.

[John F. Carr]

Massachusetts abolished bounty hunters a long time ago by insourcing the job. To be released on bail you pay a 10% refundable deposit to the court. If you don't show up a warrant is issued. Only police officers and those assisting them are allowed to use deadly force to make an arrest.

[Commenter_XY]

I don't have a problem with bounty hunters, we need more of them. What I would add is that video bodycam recording of the apprehension is a must. No video, no pay.

What I do not want: Vigilantes going hog wild under the banner of 'I'm a bounty hunter!"

What I do want: The hunted to never have a moment of peace until they are apprehended. I want them to feel fear, anxiety, and a sense of foreboding. And turn themselves in. Mostly, I want them to know that 'Justice' might visit them like a lightning bolt.

[Ed Grinberg]

I think there's a healthy criticism among us VC commenters about govt law enforcement's use of violence.

Not being a leftist, I don't have a problem with "law enforcement's use of violence" against criminals. (Care to tell us why the police were after Mr. Hutchins?)
As for bounty hunters, I don't think they're exempt from generally-applicable laws. So, if they broke the law, they should answer accordingly. (I actually followed your link and then a couple more links. He opened fire on them!)

[Queen Amalthea]

"I don't have a problem with "law enforcement's use of violence" against criminals. "

Heck, he likely masturbates at the thought!

[apedad]

"He opened fire on them!"

But they (bounty hunters) initiated the confrontation.

You can't claim self-defense if you're the one who started it.

[Bob from Ohio]

"You can't claim self-defense if you're the one who started it."

They had a legal right to "start it".

The person who "starts it" can in fact claim self defense if the other party unlawfully escalates it. [I start yelling and you hit me, I can defend myself. I hit you and you shoot at me when you are not in danger of death or great bodily harm, I can shoot you]

Haven't you read any of the self defense posts here?

[Krayt]

Didn't the perp initiate things by going on the lam, thus activating his bounty hunted status per his bail agreement?

[Noscitur a sociis]

You can't claim self-defense if you're the one who started it.

I would be fascinated to see your authority for that proposition.

[Michael P]

It's from the famous legal maxim, "Don't start nuthin', won't be nuthin'." Justice Willard Carroll Smith Jr, in Edgar v. Jay (1997).

[apedad]

‘I Do Believe He’s Remorseful’: Judge Sentences Army Vet Who Cited ‘Restored’ Faith in U.S. Government to Probation for Capitol Breach

In speaking on his own behalf, Loftus said that, perhaps ironically, his prosecution for participating in the Jan. 6 attack changed his view on the government.

“Jan. 6 for a lot of people was [because] we had lost belief in the system,” Loftus said. “If you really look at the reasons why people showed up in D.C. it’s because we lost belief in the system.”

“Through this whole process, up until I read Mr. Cole’s words, I have told everybody just how legitimate the system has treated me in this case,” Loftus continued. “[A]t every turn of the road, you folks cared about my rights. You made sure all of my rights were protected. And so in that I would like to say that my faith in the system has been restored through this case.”

So much for the stupid argument that the 1/6 rioters' rights are being trampled.

I love it when stupid people doing stupid things and then Reality suddenly smacks them in the face.

https://lawandcrime.com/u-s-capitol-breach/i-do-believe-hes-remorseful-judge-sentences-army-vet-who-cited-restored-faith-in-u-s-government-to-probation-for-capitol-breach/

[Stephen Lathrop]

apedad, arguably Reality could have smacked him in the face a lot harder. I worry that a light smack like that one might not prove memorable. It will certainly prove the opposite of exemplary.

The best you can say for it is that accountability for stupidity may sometimes prove less palatable than mercy.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, he underwent his reeducation camp, and got through his struggle session, and the government actually kept its end of the deal. So, yay.

"So much for the stupid argument that the 1/6 rioters' rights are being trampled."

<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/14/feds-admit-breaking-law-with-delay-in-case-against-alleged-jan-6-rioter-00017003Feds admit breaking law with delay in case against alleged Jan. 6 rioter

"Federal prosecutors admitted Monday to losing track of one jailed defendant in the storming of the Capitol and conceded that the indictment against him should be dismissed, but they urged a judge to permit the charges to be refiled because of the seriousness of his alleged attack on police during the Jan. 6 riot."

Incidentally, refiling the charges would result in his... being tried even later!

[not guilty]

I am working from memory here, but if I remember correctly, that Defendant has offered to plead guilty to the belated single count indictment to foreclose the possibility of additional charges. I think the judge asked for additional briefing.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, that's correct: The defense attorney believed that the government was going to come back with an expanded list of charges on refiling, as a face saving measure, ('Sure, we wronged him, but this is one seriously bad dude, so it's OK in the end.') and wanted to foreclose that possibility.

As the judge pointed out to him, the defendant could be sentenced on the basis of anything the government accused him of, even if he wasn't charged with it, once he plead guilty. (I view this practice as an outrage, by the way.) So the guilty plea wasn't guaranteed to help him in that regard.

[OtisAH]

“Well, he underwent his reeducation camp, and got through his struggle session…”

You are such a drama queen.

[Michael P]

Roger Brooke Taney's birthday thread is not accepting comments, so I will remark here that he would be a walk-on as the Head of Slytherin House.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Every so often, you feel like there are two systems of justice in this country.

In recent news, a Denver DA dropped second degree murder charges against a man for shooting another man in the chest and killing him at a protest. Notably the protestor who was shot and killed was on the "right", while the murderer was on the "left".

Why do I feel that if the political positions were reversed, this would've been brought to trial?

https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/03/did-denver-shooter-of-right-wing-protestor-just-get-away-with-murder/

[Michael P]

Keltner probably spent the day trying to provoke armed men to fight him, led a gang to chase Dolloff, threw a bag of stuff at him, threatened him, sucker-punched him from behind, tried to brain him with a skateboard and/or approached him with a gun drawn, right? Surely something like that happened before Dolloff shot Keltner?

Oh, Keltner didn't do any of those things? Huh. It is a mystery!

[SimonP]

Keltner was antagonizing counter-protestors. In the seconds before he was shot, he attacked a journalist who was recording one of his confrontations. Dolloff, who was acting as a security guard, attempted to intervene and got hit in the face. Dolloff drew his weapon and shot Keltner when Keltner started spraying him with bear spray.

A "righteous shot," in the parlance of most conservatives, when the dead person is a Black kid.

[Brett Bellmore]

The disconnect being pointed out here isn't that it wasn't a legitimate shooting. It's that it being a legitimate shooting doesn't matter if it's some black guy that the left has decided to make into a poster boy.

You STILL have idiots who think Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Ma'Khia Bryant, were murdered.

[Krychek_2]

"Why do I feel that if the political positions were reversed, this would've been brought to trial?"

Because you have a massive chip on your shoulder and see everything through the lens of your side is horribly persecuted, whether or not the facts support that?

You did ask . . .

[Armchair Lawyer]

So Krychek....

How do you feel about the murder charges being dropped in this case?

[Krychek_2]

I'm not going to assume that one lone news report provides enough information for me to form an opinion one way or the other. It's possible that you're right and this was political. It's also possible that the DA did what the evidence showed.

[Bwaaah]

Since you're not sure, why not just google, "Is it ok to kill conservatives" and see what comes up? (That is one of your informative research techniques, no?)

[Krychek_2]

Because whether it's OK to kill conservatives was not at issue in this case. But it says a great deal about you that you think it was.

[Armchair Lawyer]

I'm amused at how how quickly you can confidently conclude the reason for my feelings from a single post, but suddenly when asked about the topic at hand, you can't possibly assume you have enough information to form an opinion one way or another.

[Sarcastr0]

Your post was not exactly a closed book as to how you feel. You use the word 'feel' twice in the freaking post, dude!

Withholding judgement is not cowardice; you should look into it more, actually.

[Armchair Lawyer]

And yet, you continually fail to withhold judgement...except when it's surprisingly convenient on a subject you'd like to avoid.

[Sarcastr0]

Thanks for the personal attacks. It adds nothing to the conversation; work on your self control there.

Like how this comment is taking issue with the comment I replied to and not some general sense of you're bad? Not too hard, you should try it.

[Armchair Lawyer]

In Sarcastro-Land, he and his comrades can dish out the personal attacks at will. But criticize Sarcastro in return, and he cries out "oh you made a personal attack!"

The double standards are the standard operating practice.

[Sarcastr0]

I just explained how my taking issue with your comment is not the same as your more generalized 'you're bad' but you seem like you didn't understand that distinction.

[SimonP]

Well, it doesn't take much work - I mean, at all - to dig up enough context for the events to show how selectively you're reading them.

Dolloff was providing security for journalists on the site. One of the journalists he was protecting was attacked by Keltner, and he got attacked by Keltner for trying to intervene. But here you are, trying to make it out like it's just one protestor versus another.

You're unhinged from reality.

[wreckinball]

He is what he accuses you of being. He's for politicized justice. Do Babbitt vs Floyd. Or lookup Ma'Khia Bryant. The officer that shot her as she was trying to stab someone was investigated. Cleared but investigated.

Michael Byrd nope!

[Krychek_2]

Actually I have not taken a position on any of those cases you cited. Apparently you have psychic powers that enable you to know my views even if I haven't stated them.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Pot...kettle....

[Krayt]

I would hope all police shootings are thoroughly investigated, no matter how obviously justified on the surface.

[shawn_dude]

Is there a "Stand your Ground" law there? It's apparently all you need to kill someone and not have it be "murder." If you can get off for killing a guy that threw a plastic bag of clothes at you, you can get off for just about anything.

[wreckinball]

You'd be right. Start with BLM vs J6 application of justice.

Volokh won't ever discuss it though.I t must be against the "Reason" code of conduct.

[Sarcastr0]

There is no information on any kind of double standard there except for the strong feelings of the right.

[rsteinmetz]

I wonder why on certain topics there seems to be so little information. It's kind of like the pres is ignoring some things.

The numbers of BLM arrests and the consequences of them.
The number of people injured or killed in BLM protests.
The actual details of the various "voter suppression" proposals compared to the actual voting laws of the various states.

I could probably think of more.

[wreckinball]

Actually here is a good comparison of J6 vs BLM riots

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2021/09/09/realclearinvestigations_jan_6-blm_comparison_database_791370.html

[Sarcastr0]

This is some pretty bad quantitative analysis of the actual criminal action.
And no attempt is made to compensate for comparing a summer to an afternoon.

It's not nothing, but it's also wildly biased in it's presentation.

[wreckinball]

There was no evidence on Hunter's laptop just either last year? Ha!

[Sarcastr0]

LOL. Do the Clinton Death List!

[LawTalkingGuy]

Jimmy legitimately thinks there are 100s on it. It sure is something.

[dwb68]

Branca is careful to say that there is enough probable cause to take the case to trial but its unclear if there is enough to win. Based on that video evidence I would say no. "reasonable doubt" is an extremely high bar. Taking a 50-50 case to trial risking a lot of expense and publicity, only to have the jury acquit, is a disaster.

There is no statute of limitations. If other evidence surfaces, the DA can file at any time.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Reasonable doubt can be a high bar. But taking a "50-50" case to trial...sounds like something a DA should do. Actually letting the jury decide the verdict, and not the DA. Seems that the entire purpose of our system.

[Brett Bellmore]

Technically, aren't they supposed to use a "preponderance of the evidence" standard? Which would actually rule out 50-50 cases?

[Ed Grinberg]

https://vdare.com/articles/derb-s-january-diary-14-items-race-realism-primer-the-four-ws-of-wokeism-remembering-kathy-shaidle-etc#07

[LawTalkingGuy]

https://mobile.twitter.com/dril/status/841892608788041732?lang=en

[Noscitur a sociis]

I obviously have no idea whether politics played a role in this decision. Based on the post you linked, however, it seems virtually impossible that a properly-instructed jury would find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and I am not going to criticize a prosecutor for declining to pursue charges in that situation. I certainly doubt that you agree that it's appropriate to bring everyone to trial if there's probable cause. I likewise find the suggestion that a lesser homicide charge would be appropriate, since the only real question is the applicability of the justification defense, not the defendant's intent.

[Armchair Lawyer]

"it seems virtually impossible that a properly-instructed jury would find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt,"

How so? There's no doubt the potential defendant killed the guy. The only question is self defense. And what we have is...

Defendant reaching to take the other guy's gun.
Other guy smacks him away (non-lethal)
Defendant then reaching for his gun (lethal)
Other guy reaches for bear spray (non-lethal)
Defendant shoots other guy dead

In the context of the situation, surrounded by a heavy police presence, the jury could reasonably conclude the Defendant's actions were objectively unreasonable, and constituted murder.

[Moderation4ever]

I have thinking about the issue of too much authority centered in the executive branch of the Federal Government. In Wisconsin, a number of the executive positions are not appointed by the governor but are instead elected positions. I wonder if this idea might be applied to the Federal government. With that in mind I like to throw out the following question for consideration.

Would it reasonable to change the Attorney General and Secretary of the Treasury from Presidential appointments to nationally elected positions? As elected officials these executive positions would be truly independent.

I have no doubt this will not happen, but it seems a sensible idea.

[dwb68]

The Chair of the Federal Reserve should be an elected position. ** (S)he holds the power to basically ruin everyone's lives with unemployment or inflation.

I think that changing AG or Secretary of the Treasury to an elected position would require constitutional amendments. There are arguments for an against an elected AG, I am not convinced its better. Statewide elected AGs IMO have not been effective at balancing power or rooting out corruption. It takes the Feds to root out corruption in many cities.

The AG often comes from the same party as the governor and is not truly independent (in reality the AG and Gov often run on the same ticket). Since an elected AG has the appearance of being independent, it can provide a fig leaf of legitimacy to otherwise corrupt political behavior.

**I am not convinced the Federal Reserve is constitutional. Can Congress really delegate the power to coin money and regulate its value (which is what they did when they set up the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee)? Probably not what the Framers intended. But now that its done and we've lived with it for one hundred and seven years, probably too late to get the Supreme Court to consider it.

[bernard11]

The Chair of the Federal Reserve should be an elected position. (S)he holds the power to basically ruin everyone's lives with unemployment or inflation.

That, IMO, would be an utter disaster even worse than Trump's failed nominees. And how would electing the Chair reduce the risk of having an incompetent hold the seat? I'd say it would increase it.

[dwb68]

The risk of an incompetent political appointee is quite high. People should decided for themselves what level of inflation and unemployment that they are willing to tolerate. Powell is not "incompetent" but failed to see how quickly inflation would ignite, and is behind the curve fighting it. The Fed has often been wrong about inflation predictions. As recently as a few years ago, some of them thought we were in a permanent liquidity trap and inflation would never be seen again.

Political appointment has not prevented incompetence. A 7 year term is too long. They should have 4 year terms and be democratically accountable.

[bernard11]

The risk of an incompetent political appointee is quite high. People should decided for themselves what level of inflation and unemployment that they are willing to tolerate.

Maybe, but the risk of an incompetent elected Chair is higher. How the hell are the voters going decide "for themselves what level of inflation and unemployment that they are willing to tolerate?"

Powell has done a fairly good job. Nobody in that position is going to be perfect, so pointing out that there have been some misjudgments is not really convincing.

Further, this is a technical job. No one cares if the Fed Chair is a charismatic figure. An econ nerd is just fine. Good luck getting one elected.

[Commenter_XY]

Absolutely not = Would it reasonable to change the Attorney General and Secretary of the Treasury from Presidential appointments to nationally elected positions?

They serve at the pleasure of the POTUS, period.

(good question, though)

[Brett Bellmore]

Seems to me it could suffer from the same issues that led to us quickly abandoning the original approach to VP selection.

Might be better if there was a requirement that Presidential candidates name their cabinets prior to the election, and run as a group.

[dwb68]

It does not "suffer from the same issues that led to us quickly abandoning the original approach to VP selection"

43 states elect their attorney general: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_attorney_general

and Treasurer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_treasurer

Historically, AGs were appointed or elected by the legislature. Around the 1850s, states introduced elections.

At this point statewide elections of Treasuers and AGs has stood the test of time.

[bernard11]

State Treasurers really are not comparable to the Secretary of the Treasury. It's usually largely an administrative post, often with little policy input.

The Secretary, on the other hand, is closely involved in tax and other fiscal matters. Having a Secretary who disagrees with the President, may even be of the opposite party, and can't be fired, is a recipe for dysfunctional government.

[dwb68]

" It's usually largely an administrative post, often with little policy input."

Depends on the state. Elected AGs and treasurers often insert themselves into policy matters.

[Moderation4ever]

I would suggest that in many ways the government is dysfunctional now.

I would not see the Sec. of Treasury as setting budgets or taxes that is the legislatures job. Rather it is administrative doling out funds and collecting taxes. As an independent agency, the Treasury could stop executive orders transferring money that is not allocated. It would also insulate the IRS from political accusations that the President is using it to punish people.

[bernard11]

I would not see the Sec. of Treasury as setting budgets or taxes that is the legislatures job.

You could say the same thing about the President. In fact the Treasury Secretary has strong input into the Administration's policy proposals.

[Bob from Ohio]

"At this point statewide elections of Treasuers and AGs has stood the test of time."

State AGs grandstand [see NY state or Texas currently] to seek higher office.

It was ok to elect when they just issued opinions to state agencies and represented the state in civil cases. But now they areal "activist" and hence too dangerous.

[shawn_dude]

This would end the "three equal branches of the government" and create additional but unequal branches.

[dwb68]

headline: Yale cancels free speech. With a video. From what i can tell, the protestors are mostly entitled and white lmao.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10622005/Police-called-deal-liberal-protesters-closed-Yale-Law-FREE-SPEECH-debate.html

A member of the Federalist Society, which hosted the panel, said they selected Waggoner and Miller to demonstrate how a conservative Christian and a liberal atheist could were able to find common ground on issues of free speech.

'It was pretty much the most innocuous thing you could talk about,' he alleged.

However, the nearly 120 demonstrators still managed to cause havoc amid the event, violating the university's free speech policies which prohibit any protest that 'interferes with speakers' ability to be heard and of community members to listen.'

When Stith reminded the protesters of the policy, she was met with chants and raised middle fingers, to which she replied: 'Grow up.'

Unfortunately I doubt any of these protestors will be punished. Not-so-secretly, the administration agrees and condones this.

I think that we need to draft all these people to fight in Ukraine so they understand what real oppression looks like.

[dwb68]

sigh. The block quote starts with "a member" and runs through "grow up."

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah is bad behavior, and if you look up the Yale article, lots of students using therapy-speak to excuse that bad behavior.

But it's been rare for schools to bring the hammer down on disruptive student protests for decades. Probably quite a bit longer than that. I think you can figure out why without resorting to a liberal administration conspiracy.

[wreckinball]

Name a liberal speaker who was shouted down or cancelled in the recent history say 5 years or so.

Conspiracies exist.

[OtisAH]

As do non-sequiturs.

[wreckinball]

You are using words you don't know he meaning of.

[OtisAH]

No, I’m using words you don’t know the meaning of.

[wreckinball]

OK Oats, what conclusion have I reached that is not from the previous argument? If the administrations always come down on conservative speakers but not liberal ones doesn't that call into the question the political viewpoint has nothing to do with it.

[Sarcastr0]

How many liberal speakers students shout down has nothing to do with a nationwide faculty conspiracy against conservative speakers.

[Sarcastr0]

I'm sure I could dig up a few, but yeah students are pretty liberal and they protest conservatives.

You've proven nothing about secret administration involvement.

Conspiracies exist is not proof this conspiracy exists.

[Commenter_XY]

Very well...dig them up.

[wreckinball]

He can't because there are none. But I'd start with places like Liberty University, still none,

[Queen Amalthea]

Liberty students don't have to shout down people because their regular policy is to create a right wing snowflake safe space.

[wreckinball]

So you have receipts on that or is it your usual hallucinations?

[Queen Amalthea]

It's Liberty's policy moron.

https://www.liberty.edu/media/1312/hr_formsmanager_forms/Signoff%20for%20Doctrine,%20Ethics,%20&%20Harassment-full%20version%20(01-2015).pdf

Unfortunately your right wing 'news' outlets don't talk about things like that so you don't know about it. That's a you problem.

[Sarcastr0]

He can't because there are none.

You're anger has made you hyperbolic and dumb.

https://www.thefire.org/hecklers-shout-down-california-attorney-general-assembly-majority-leader-at-whittier-college/

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

You're anger has made you hyperbolic and dumb.

That's rich, given that you obviously didn't watch the video from that piece. You think that group of MAGA hat-wearing, AARP card-carrying geezers are students (you know, the behavior of which...and tolerance of by administrators...is the subject of this thread)?

[Sarcastr0]

Oh noes, where will I Google another example?

https://wc.arizona.edu/papers/98/43/01_1.html

The decision comes days after Michael Moore's visit to campus, where about 100 protesters interrupted portions of his speech with chants of "four more years."

After I explicitly said this was beside the point, you all want to change the subject to this ticky tacky bullshit. Because this says nothing at all about whether there's an administration conspiracy at Yale to silence conservative speakers.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Oh noes, where will I Google another example?

That's a good question, except for the "another" part, given that you haven't even produced a single example yet. Let's revisit the challenge:

"Name a liberal speaker who was shouted down or cancelled in the recent history say 5 years or so."

You went over 17 years into the past for yet another failed attempt. Well done.

[Sarcastr0]

Oh dear, looks like your previous restriction that it had to be by students wasn't in the OP.

Because this is pedantic bullshit, and you know it. The argument that there is an anti-conservative speaker conspiracy at Yale remains paranoids bullshit, and no amount of your trying to make high school debate points will change that.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Oh dear, looks like your previous restriction that it had to be by students wasn't in the OP.

That student protests were the subject at hand was immediately (and repeatedly) acknowledge by....you:

"But it's been rare for schools to bring the hammer down on disruptive student protests for decades."

And the fact that he was talking about recent history (within the past 5 years or so) was quite explicit...because what's being discussed is what "is", not what "used to be". So why did you go back nearly 18 years for an example?

[Sarcastr0]

So I gave 2 responses - on responsive to my statement, the other to the OP.

You're switching between the 2 to try and claim both responses are wrong.

Because you love semantic games, since you can't win when it comes to actual debate.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

So I gave 2 responses - on responsive to my statement

Nobody challenged you to respond to your own statement, so I don't know what the hell you're babbling about here.

, the other to the OP.

Neither were responsive to a challenge to cite liberal speakers being shouted down on campus within the past 5 years, in the context of a discussion about campus administrations not clamping down on students (your own words as well) shouting down speakers on campus.

You're switching between the 2...

I haven't switched between anything, you lying sack of shit. I responded to them in the order in which they were presented.

Because you love semantic games, since you can't win when it comes to actual debate.

See, this is your problem (well, one of them...your problems are legion). You think in terms of "winning" something...and at all costs, which is one way in which you're able to rationalize your pathological dishonesty.

[wreckinball]

So what it, it's the administration's response

[Sarcastr0]

Which has been the common response by administrations for decades.

Is this a decadal national conspiracy? Or maybe there are other reasons why students don't get suspended or whatever for a disruptive protest.

(I'd also note that in some sources on this story, whether the protest was disruptive has been disputed).

[wreckinball]

And so its common and always one political viewpoint, got it.

[Queen Amalthea]

Like he said, students tend to be liberal so of course it's conservatives that are going to get protested. His point, soaring over your stooped head, is that there's no conspiracy needed to explain a lack of crack down on the students given that the fact that they pay the bills is an explanation just sitting there like a lazy elephant.

[Ed Grinberg]

students tend to be liberal

Yes, it was really liberal, what they did.

[Sarcastr0]

Take up your semantic nonsense with wreckinball - it's his thesis.

[wreckinball]

The thing that soars over your head is the completely obvious censorship of viewpoint at Universities. Just because the student body is liberal doesn't mean conservative speech gets censored.

Minority speech is the speech that requires protection.

[Sarcastr0]

Ah yes, the argument of 'completely obvious.'

Hard to argue against, because it's not an argument at all!

[Don Nico]

S_0,
"secret administration involvement."
When there is administration involvement, direct or indirect, it is no secret.

[Sarcastr0]

Eh, I don't deny there could be unwritten policies on stuff there shouldn't be a policy on. I just don't see any evidence of that here.

[Don Nico]

Administrations do not need policies to put their "thumbs" very heavily on the scales. My comment is that they make no secret about it.

[Sarcastr0]

Really? School admins openly say they're only going to punish conservatives for disruptive protesting?

[Queen Amalthea]

Sarcastro was saying it's no conspiracy necessary to divine why students (who pay the bills) aren't being cracked down on.

[LawTalkingGuy]

I feel like being at an Ivy League/T-14 law school these days would be an insufferable experience. (Probably past days too).

[Sarcastr0]

I honestly don't know. It is possible stuff is super political. But we really aren't being given a student's eye view from the reporting we get.

[LawTalkingGuy]

I think it's just because there are so many people there, both students and faculty and in the outside world, who recognize that those institutions are not necessarily there to create decent lawyers. They're creating future Justices, national politicians, nationally known policymakers, wealthy financiers and business leaders, lobbyists, think-tankers, influential academics, activists, thought leaders, journalists, pundits, and world changers etc. etc. who become very high profile. On all sides. So everything is loud and there's all this performative bullshit because that's how that world operates at the highest levels now.

Contrast that with my experience at a regular law school of people mostly wanting to have decent careers as lawyers in fields they're interested in or if they have big plans to change the world...they start being involved in local politics or grassroots local activism instead. Performative bullshit doesn't advance any of their goals so they mostly stay away from it.

[Sarcastr0]

That could be, you make a fine argument from theory. But I'm not sure that's at what scale that effect occurs - it could be a few assholes, it could be a whole bunch.

I have a friend that got an LLM at Yale in the early 2010s, and she didn't notice much political. But she is not one to notice much in general about the social situation around her.

[Queen Amalthea]

"Unfortunately I doubt any of these protestors will be punished"

How would you know? Your right wing media outlets won't report that.

[Ed Grinberg]

Speaking of the question of which media outlets report what, isn't it odd that we're finding out about this incident from a foreign media source? Did any U.S. "mainstream media" report on it? I doubt it somehow...

[Ed Grinberg]

If "wrongthinkers" have no right to speak, do they have a right to due process, or any other legal rights? I bet these law students don't think so.

[Sarcastr0]

This story is lots of places. dwb68 just reads the Daily Mail for his fix of right-wing outrages so that's what he quoted.

[John F. Carr]

A followup to a case that appeared in a blog post here some months ago. Last week in _Monsarrat v. Newman_ the First Circuit ruled that

1. Copying a discussion thread from one social media platform to another is protected from defamation claims by Section 230.

2. Copying a short post in the original thread demanding that defamatory posts be removed was fair use as a matter of law. (The poster had gone to the trouble of registering a copyright.) To avoid potential legal action I will only excerpt from the message: "I'll give everyone here until Monday at 12pm to remove your comments from this board." See the link below for the full copyrighted statement.

http://media.ca1.uscourts.gov/pdf.opinions/21-1146P-01A.pdf

[Krayt]

The purpose of copyright is to earn you money, not give you a club to forbid people you don't like from using your stuff, or not criticise you.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Krayt, I think you have that wrong. I think the purpose of copyright is to help you earn money, also to give you a club to forbid people you don't like from using your stuff, and to set forth standards to enable others to criticize your stuff. They are free to criticize you without regard for copyright.

[Queen Amalthea]

My daughter told me that her high school soccer team has been having coach led prayers throughout the season. Her boyfriend on another team says 'yeah that goes on all the time.' She doesn't want me to say anything about this so I won't, but this kind of unconstitutional terrible policy goes on regularly in our nation. But hey, some students at some college one day protested a speech so that's the real problem, amirite?

[wreckinball]

No pretty much never

[Sarcastr0]

IMO school prayer will be back on the menu within 4 years.

Note that as I've said before such predictions say as much about the predictor as reality.
So taking it for the nonquantitative nonsense that it is, I get the sense the right is angling for that issue and I think we have 5 votes on the SCOTUS willing to reverse that 1960s decision on it.

[Sarcastr0]

Plus everyone from the South told me it's happening anyhow.

I'm not too bent out of shape about it. I would prefer less of this Christian trappings than we have in this country - it's not welcoming to those of more diverse faiths, and Christian nationalism has morphed into some apocalyptic nonsense these days.
But even if good policy, a law that hasn't been enforced in wide swaths of the country for 50 years is probably doing more harm to lawgiving institutions than good to the country.

[LawTalkingGuy]

I disagree. Schools have been consistently violating Barnette for close to 80 years now (often with politicians support, like when Ken Paxton actually intervened to DEFEND a pledge related expulsion) and I think it would do grave damage to the country to ever backtrack on that decision simply because it’s not consistently followed.

[Sarcastr0]

What is the benefit of a government mandate that is ignored by everyone who doesn't like it?

[LawTalkingGuy]

If it's the correct statement of principle and is the right rule, that has a benefit. Might be a losing battle ultimately, but some are worth fighting on principle alone. And I think Barnette and Engle are very good principles.

[Sarcastr0]

I agree there is a benefit to government as teacher by example. And that Engle and Barnett are good principles.
But implementability matters - there is a cost to a government requirement being unenforceable and ignored.

[shawn_dude]

Because it can protect or find justice for the non-Christian who desides to pray openly among their Christian peers and is persecuted for it.

Laws designed to protect minorities from the tyrany of the majority are pretty much always going to fit into this category.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Plus everyone from the South told me

And you accuse others of hyperbolic stupidity?

[Sarcastr0]

I'm not using that to prove it's happening in every school in the south, only that it's no uncommon.

Don't just contradict, take a stand - do you believe school prayer in southern HS is uncommon these days?

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Don't just contradict, take a stand

Bite me. Pointing out your bullshit (like the above, you making a production out of claiming that you were muting me, etc, etc....ad infinitum) is taking a stand.

[Sarcastr0]

So...I said I had anecdotal evidence something was common in the South, and you don't disagree with my thesis, but don't like that I said I had anecdotal evidence?

And yeah, muting isn't forever. You should maybe calm down a bit.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

So...I said I had anecdotal evidence something was common in the South

No, you didn't. You engaged in idiotic hyperbole, something you routinely chide others for...because in addition to being a pathological liar, you're a shameless hypocrite.

And yeah, muting isn't forever.

And yet you made such a show of proclaiming that I was "the most toxic poster here" (more hyperbolic bullshit) and that you were going to mute me and not read my posts anymore.

You should maybe calm down a bit.

I'm quite calm. Are you under the impression that telling you how full of shit you are requires an elevated emotional state?

[bernard11]

I, OTOH, am bent out of shape about it.

I attended public schools in the South where prayer and Bible reading - usually explicitly Christian - were a daily affair, and when I made an objection, shortly after Engel, a school official threatened me with punishment if I didn't shut up.

The fact is it represents the Christian majority imposing its religion and approach to prayer on others. It is unconscionable. If you are that big on praying at the start of the day get your lazy ass out of bed a minute or two earlier and pray away - before school.

[Sarcastr0]

If you have an implementable idea to make that stop, I'm all ears. But I'm not a big fan of tilting at windmills for it's own sake.

[bernard11]

How about court orders to make it stop?

How about telling principals it's not allowed, and it's their responsibility to stop it? I mean, I know lots of principals have mixed records on discipline, but it is part of their job.

How about telling teachers and coaches to cut it out, or the will face disciplinary action?

[Bob from Ohio]

"more diverse faiths"

No faith is more diverse than Christianity.

Christians are male, female, "gay", "straight", black, white, brown, and Asian.

[Sarcastr0]

So why not make Jews and Muslims feel unwelcome?

Fuck off, Bob.

[Bob from Ohio]

Miss your meds today?

Jews and Muslims are not a "more diverse faith". Jews in the US are mainly whites whose ancestors came from Europe, for instance.

Not my fault you used sloppy language when you just meant "different faiths"..

[Sarcastr0]

No, I meant diversity of the whole superset of faiths, which I think you know.

You're parsing me into a different thesis than what I said and really smugging up that strawman. Because you're pretty boring.

[Bob from Ohio]

Write more clearly then.

[Sarcastr0]

I have been unclear in the past. I was quite clear enough here for anyone reading in good faith.

[SimonP]

Muslims are just as, if not more, diverse.

I realize that a lot of that diversity is in parts of the world you spend more time ignoring. But they're everywhere, too.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Sarcasto, I'm 75 years old and I still remember vividly the fear I felt the day they announced we would have to say, "under God," when reciting the pledge. There is some terrifying stuff tucked away in that old time religion. I had already suffered a nasty encounter with it. Believers then were none too scrupulous about trying to scare the crap out of young kids. I was probably a second-grader, but old enough to take that change in the pledge as evidence that the scary folks had won control of the schools. Which was not entirely wrong.

To this minute, I cannot share your sense of calm about abandoning formal separation of government and religion. You make a good point about cherishing the practical power of the law, but I think you underestimate how far many on the religious side will try to take an outright victory if they get one. Make them struggle against resistance, and maybe they cannot push it as far as it could go otherwise.

[Allutz]

Of course there is going to be upcoming school prayer controversies. There is a new religion making its way into schools with its own liturgical calendar. In such a situation either the new religion will have to be crushed to maintain equality, or classical religions will be allowed to return to their pre-1960s status as simply another part of the curriculum.

[Sarcastr0]

Don't mix up the political with the supernatural. It's a new thing on the right, and I kind of hate it.

Politics you think are wrong is not the same as a religion. Being wrong about the material world is not the same as deriving faith from the metaphysical world.

This is how you get nonsense like 'The trucker has become the scientist for America now .'

[Allutz]

The Patriarchy has all the scientific vigor that geocentric models of the universe did in 1400. There is no conflation.

Politics and religion are, of course, intertwined in most societies. The post-War attempts to change that are a historical aberration, even for our secular constitution.

[Sarcastr0]

Feminism is not a religion because you disagree with the observations it makes about this world.

Religion is about another world, it is not the same thing as ideology.

We are not a theocracy because people sometimes vote for reasons you think are wrong.

Don't throw an epistemological tantrum because you're too much of an ideologue to handle living in a pluralistic society.

[Allutz]

"Feminism is not a religion because you disagree with the observations it makes about this world."

Feminism posits a godlike entity guides the decision making of us all.

[Sarcastr0]

No it doesn't. You misunderstanding the difference between a system and an entity also does not make an ideology a religion.

[Allutz]

Does it pass the flying spaghetti monster test?

[Sarcastr0]

No it does not - systemic bias is not supernatural. And invoking the supernatural in a discussion about it is just another line of attack at the expense of furthering the politics of delegitimization and devaluing experts.

[Ben_]

Sarcastr0 has mastered the "No true Scotsman" defense.

He always knows what everything shouldn't be called and what everyone shouldn’t say.

[VinniUSMC]

IMO school prayer will be back on the menu within 4 years.

An anecdote from Queenie about the soccer coach equals prayer returning to school. Gosh, with intellect like that, it's amazing you manage to feed yourself.

[Sarcastr0]

Exactly what I said. Awesome reading.

What do you think of my assessment and logic in my comment? You know, if you read it all.

[ThePublius]

As long as there are math tests there will be prayer in school.

[bernard11]

And if a student recites a silent prayer when trying to remember the quadratic formula, that's fine.

But if he wants to recite the Lord's Prayer, and ask for Jesus' help on the exam aloud in front of the class, when the test is being handed out, the teacher needs to stop him.

No wonder there are complaints about the public schools, when it seems the faculty can't even understand the First Amendment.

[ThePublius]

How is a student reciting the Lord's Prayer out loud violating anyone's First Amendment rights?

How is reciting the Lord's Prayer out loud different than someone else saying "Black Lives Matter," or wearing BLM hats and shirts?

[Sarcastr0]

Read what bernard said again.

There is an important 'when the test is being handed out' there you may want to consider.

[ThePublius]

How does that matter?

[Sarcastr0]

That's disrupting class.

[Stephen Lathrop]

And if a student recites a silent prayer when trying to remember the quadratic formula, that's fine.

More than fine. Genius-level multi-tasking I'd say.

[Commenter_XY]

In no world is this acceptable, that an adult 'prevents' (how, physically?) a child from praying to God = But if he wants to recite the Lord's Prayer, and ask for Jesus' help on the exam aloud in front of the class, when the test is being handed out, the teacher needs to stop him.

How exactly does the teacher 'stop' them? Really....what are they going to do, duct tape the kids mouth?

There are times where 'doing nothing' is the best response. In your example, a child making a plea to the Almighty to do well on a test, is not something I would see as permanently detrimental to anyone. Just let them make their prayer and administer the damned test.

We don't need government paid prayer enforcers in the classroom.

[Sarcastr0]

How does a teach stop a kid from talking out of turn?

I don't think allowing performative prayer whenever a child wants to is a good policy. Not hard to see where that would go when kids are at a boundary-testing age.

[Commenter_XY]

Ok Sarcastr0....Pretend you're a 5th grade teacher. Now you 'stop' the performative prayer (your term) by a pupil in your classroom. Tell me what you will actually do to 'stop' the child from praying. Is that asking politely for them to stop? Issue noisemakers to drown out the sound of prayer? Put duct tape over their mouths? Threaten with suspension or expulsion?

Really...be specific. What actions are permissable to 'stop' prayer. What passes the Sarcastr0 test as acceptable?

[Absaroka]

I fear I'm not understanding your concern.

Teachers control many things in their classroom. Generally speaking, the kids are there to learn, in my wife's class, biology. So they are permitted to listen, use the microscope, ask relevant questions, discuss the lab at hand with their lab partner, etc.

They really aren't allowed to do anything unrelated to learning biology - they can't play games on their phone, read a comic book, talk about sports, or for that matter pray (out loud). Not because my wife has a thing about prayer, but because it isn't part of the job at hand, which is learning biology.

She enforces it just as she would if they were talking about sports or how dreamy the latest boy band is: she tells the to get back to work. That is sufficient, but is implicitly backed up by the various kinds of disciplinary escalations schools do.

[Moderation4ever]

Wonder what would happen if the coach quoted the Quaran, Buddha, or Confucius and asked the player to think on the quote for a minute?

[Krayt]

One opposing track school had the team gather around some Buddha statue and make strange prayings to it. And no they weren't Buddhists. They were trying to freak out the other team.

[Ed Grinberg]

this kind of unconstitutional terrible policy goes on regularly in our nation.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/prager-those-who-dont-fight-evil-fight-statues-dennis-prager

[OtisAH]

Creepy evangelicals being creepy…

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/former-wa-rep-matt-shea-accused-of-domestic-terrorism-working-to-secure-adoptions-for-ukrainian-children-in-poland/

[Queen Amalthea]

Trump approved GOP Senate candidate:

WALKER: Remember Adam was there. Remember, Adam came there and then Eve came. So, somebody had to start it out. So that means there had to be a God. It wasn’t just some bomb blew up and started it out. Then, I’ll tell you something else I heard. Now think about this, because at one time, science said that man came from apes. Did it not?

ALLEN: Every time I read or hear that, I think to myself, you just didn’t read the same Bible I did.

WALKER: Well, this is what’s interesting, though. If that is true, why are there still apes? Think about it.

ALLEN: Now you’re getting too smart for us, Herschel.

WALKER: No, no, think about this. We have evolution that is, we’ve gotten so intelligent that if that is true, why are there still apes?

[Queen Amalthea]

Denying evolution is, of course, mainstream GOP.

"For the first category, “Evolutionists,” Salon’s entire text contains only one word: “Nobody.” In the second, former Florida governor Jeb Bush stands as the single candidate who accepts evolution in a qualified way. Possible candidates labeled as ambiguous—category 3—are New Jersey governor Chris Christie, Texas senatorTed Cruz, Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal, Ohio governor John Kasich, Kentucky senator Rand Paul, Florida senator Marco Rubio, and Walker. In category 4—outright evolution deniers—Salon lists neurosurgeon Ben Carson, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, Texas governor Rick Perry, and former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum."

https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/pt.5.8101/full/

[Jimmy the Dane]

The actual theory of evolution is pretty poor. The only reason it has reached any type of god like status is the secularists embraced it as an explanation that doesn't involve a divine being. Then, they managed to get the Supreme Court to ban teaching other creation theories because those are "religion".

If you want a good description on the actual theory of evolution, just find the applicable South Park episode online.

[Brett Bellmore]

Speaking as a Catholic, a well educated one, the theory of evolution is right up there with the laws of thermodynamics, it's hardly possible to imagine a consistent universe where evolution wouldn't occur. We've actually watched it occur, in some cases.

This is distinct from the claim that a given species, (Humanity, perhaps.) might have had a divine 'thumb on the scale' during the process.

[Jimmy the Dane]

I think people confuse adaptation and evolution or conflate the two (most likely in a bad faith manner).

We can see adaptation and it happens pretty quickly in the wild. Sometimes even within one generation.

But what we haven't seen is a lizard turning into a bird. Or a monkey starting to walk and talk like a human. And although the historical record is far from complete, we have accounts of monkeys and apes from as far back as 5000 years ago. They read much like a monkey or ape acts today. But you would think if an ape could turn into a human we would have seen at least some progression toward that, somewhere, over the length of time. Still nothing.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

But what we haven't seen is a lizard turning into a bird. Or a monkey starting to walk and talk like a human.

This is a brilliant example of what I said in my other post about how stupid many religious conservatives sound when they attempt to comment on this subject.

[Jimmy the Dane]

You are like being a retarded kid who is calling other kids stupid without realizing he is an actual retard.

If the question is so simple and stupid, why is just about any evolutionist unwilling to directly answer it? I mean over 5000 years shouldn't we have seen something "evolve" from a monkey. Seems based upon all the evidence during that timeframe monkeys are still pretty much just like monkeys. Also, in the last 200 or so years we have yet to witness something walk out of the sea and start taking to dry land with two legs. Out of all the species in nature, you would think that might happen at least once and awhile every few hundred years. Right....?

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

You are like being a retarded kid who is calling other kids stupid without realizing he is an actual retard.

That comment is like an infinite regression of cluelessness. A sort of meta stupidity.

If the question is so simple and stupid, why is just about any evolutionist unwilling to directly answer it?

It has been...countless times, over the course of many decades. The idiocy of the question has been explained in ways that have been so dumbed down that even a slow 3rd grader should be able to understand them. And no matter how many times that's done, dolts like you still keep asking the same idiotic, "If we're descended from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?" questions. You're either a complete morons or just pathetically dishonest trolls, or both.

The remainder of your post makes me lean toward "troll" since, despite ample evidence to the contrary, I tend to resist believing that anyone could be that simple-minded and still remember to breathe.

[Jimmy the Dane]

You have further proven your tard-dom here. That is all. Well typed some words and then more tarding. But anyway...

I never said "if we are monkeys then why are there still monkeys...." I said why haven't we seen any kind of evolution out of any known species of monkey developing into a "higher" form of life? Absolutely none in 5000+ years. Nor do we see anything crawl out of the ocean. Just doesn't happen for whatever reason.

So I'll ask again - where are all the examples of inter-species evolution throughout known history? According to the "theory" we should be seeing it happen at least a few times every few hundred years. But, its all crickets here....

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Five thousand years is the blink of an evolutionary eye, my friend.

[Absaroka]

"Five thousand years is the blink of an evolutionary eye, my friend."

But the world is only 6026 years old, though.

(Fifty odd years ago the town library had a book sale. They had a 50 volume history of the world for sale for 50 cents or some such, published in 1900 give or take. I figured that was a lot of reading for the price and bought it. Volume 1, page 1 started with "On May 14, 4004 BC, at 6:32AM, God created heaven and earth"[1]. IIUC that was determined by adding up the 'begats' from the Bible. I'm not sure how they got that degree of precision.

Alas, in one of the many starving student moves I didn't have space and got rid of it. I really wish I had kept that first volume.)

[1]the date and time are guesses, but I remember the year

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

I think the Clarence Darrow based character in Inherit The Wind asked the WJ Bryan based character if that was daylight savings time, given that the sun wasn't created yet.

[Absaroka]

Nice! Never watched the movie, but here's the clip.

(Is the judge the Colonel from M.A.S.H.?)

(Googling 'Bishop Ussher 4004' will find some ... interesting ... links - one example:

"Ussher also argued that Day 1 of creation was October 23. On the surface, this does seem a bit extreme to suggest such a specific date—but when one studies what Ussher did, one quickly realizes he was a brilliant scholar who had very good reasons for his conclusions concerning the date of creation.")

[Krayt]

There are tons of examples traced through the fossil record. Unfortunately it is a game of whack-a-mole as there's always some other example with a gap as previously touted gaps are closed.

There are similar arguments in the Intelligent Design example set, where there are manh irreducibly complex mechanisms listed, slowly being explained one by one.

This suggests no real confidence any of these counter examples to evolution will retain their "unexplainable" status.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Creationists used to argue - and perhaps still do - that the fact that simpler organisms can be found lower in the strata is explained by the more complex organisms being able to more quickly run to higher ground during the Noachian flood.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, you haven't seen continental drift, either, at an inch a year, roughly, it's hard to notice. Well, unless you're fairly unlucky, and get caught in an earthquake.

But have you got any reason to believe that it can't amount to thousands of miles over millions of years? You haven't seen the plates folding under the strain, and pushing up into mountains, but I've hiked trails where you could see sedimentary rocks tilted in one direction on one side of a mountain, and the other on the other, and even see the fold line where a road cut went through the mountain. People have taken submarines down to spreading zones where you can see the rock pulling apart, and lava oozing up and forming new plate. Subduction zones tend not to be as spectacular.

You can't expect every natural phenomenon to take place at a rate that's humanly visible. Your life is literally a tick of that clock, and you expect to see with your own eyes the calendar pages being flipped?

[Michael P]

I like that continental drift analogy. I'll have to remember it.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Then, they managed to get the Supreme Court to ban teaching other creation theories because those are "religion".

If you want a good description on the actual theory of evolution, just find the applicable South Park episode online.

Few things make religious conservatives look stupid like their attempts to discuss things they are as fundamentally and stubbornly ignorant off like biological evolution. Cosmology runs a close 2nd (especially when the aforementioned group confuses the two).

[Jimmy the Dane]

Again, this is like a retarded kid making an argument. They think they are witty but in the end they are just retarded.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Let me guess: You think Ray Comfort's, "Look at how a banana perfectly fits in a chimpanzee's hand!" argument was a brilliant bit of insight.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Have you ever looked around and wondered how or why everything appears so orderly and symmetrical? Why all the elements of nature perfectly interlink with few "hiccups"? Marvel at the fact that the earth, if it were 1000 miles in either direction to or from the sun, probably wouldn't support human life as we know it? Was all this just chance?

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Have you ever looked around and wondered how or why everything appears so orderly and symmetrical?

No, because it isn't. Disorder and asymmetry abound. In fact disorder is the direction in which everything is headed over time.

Why all the elements of nature perfectly interlink with few "hiccups"?

I'd answer this except that it's meaningless gibberish.

Marvel at the fact that the earth, if it were 1000 miles in either direction to or from the sun, probably wouldn't support human life as we know it? Was all this just chance?

You really are a dumbass. Like all planetary orbits, Earth's orbit around the sun is an ellipse, and our distance from the sun varies by over 3 million (that's 6 zeros, Einstein) miles every year (~91.4 million miles at perihelion vs ~94.5 million miles at aphelion). And yet, here we are.

Do you have any other bullshit "facts" for us to marvel at...like how your skull resists imploding due to the near-perfect vacuum it contains?

[Jimmy the Dane]

Proof that when a tard is going to tard he is going to go full tard. Never go full tard.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

And my list of muted morons grows..

[Jimmy the Dane]

You are free to mute me. But you will always be tard.

[Bob from Ohio]

Denying evolution is, of course, mainstream American. Its the largest group and the second largest says God guided evolution.

You Darwinists are the minority.

[Sarcastr0]

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/08/210820111042.htm

But over the last decade, until 2019, the percentage of American adults who agreed with this statement increased from 40% to 54%.

[Bob from Ohio]

"WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Forty percent of U.S. adults ascribe to a strictly creationist view of human origins, believing that God created them in their present form within roughly the past 10,000 years. However, more Americans continue to think that humans evolved over millions of years -- either with God's guidance (33%) or, increasingly, without God's involvement at all (22%)." Gallup, 2019

[My link failed to post again.]

[Sarcastr0]

Oh, so your definition of Darwinist is not something Darwin himself believed.

And also, it sure seems like my more recent poll shows that 'denying evolution' entirely is not a plurality anymore.

[Bob from Ohio]

" my more recent poll "

The latest poll cited in that post was also 2019. The article was written in 2021.

Read more, post less.

[Sarcastr0]

2019 survey, fine. But I cited a 2021 meta-analysis. Yours is a single Gallup poll.

What is your thesis anyway - that creationism is popular and therefore correct?

[Bob from Ohio]

"Yours is a single Gallup poll."

Gallup has polls going back decades on the topic.

[bernard11]

You Darwinists are the minority.

And?

[Bob from Ohio]

So the GOP is not some weird outlier as Queen Amalthea implies but the mainstream itself.

[Sarcastr0]

If that's your position, watch out for the momentum in this country.

[Ben_]

A better point on this is that it really doesn’t matter if one group is a 55% majority or a 35% minority.

The 55% who aren’t like me can fuck off and be second class citizens isn’t a perspective that allows the continuation of a society. The same is true when you replace the 55% with 35%, or 20%. People communicating this attitude are just like the Klan or any other similar bigots throughout world history.

If they succeed and that 35% or 48% (or whatever two-digit percentage) actually are relegated to a significant second-class status, they’ll soon be lamenting that success.

[Sarcastr0]

You can think what you want; you don't get to dictate the educational policies you want out of some misplaced idea of what diversity means.

[Ben_]

If you won’t accept a level of inclusion that maintains a peaceful society, then you’re de facto arguing for civil war or civil cold war.

[Sarcastr0]

Creationism in the classroom or it's Civil War?

Cry more.

[Ben_]

Tolerance and inclusion or conflict and strife.

"Cry more."

You’re turning into Kirkland. You make more of an effort to pretend than the Rev does.

[bernard11]

Are you seriously arguing that creationism should be taught because (maybe) 55% of the country accepts it?

Really?

[OtisAH]

Herschel Walker is entirely unqualified to serve in the US Senate. But beyond the lack of qualifications is a far more concerning aspect, and one that nobody seems to pay any attention to. Walker is diagnosed with multi personality disorder, or Dissociative Identity Disorder, or whatever the official term is now.

We are (only) a couple decades since going to therapy was a career killer. And that’s a good thing. But DID is a “whole nother” kettle of fish. And I suspect high stakes political campaigns and seats in congress are not the sorts of high stress activities that are suitable for someone with it.

Similar to his promotion of Kanye’s “campaign,” but for slightly different reasons, Big Baby pushed Walker to this candidacy. And that’s likely because Walker is a black guy he knows, who has an affinity for him, and who has ties to Georgia. He most likely does not care one bit about Walker or his condition. But somebody must. And that somebody needs to put a stop to this nonsense before the campaign really heats up.

[Queen Amalthea]

The GOP is kind of built around a rejection of professionalism and qualifications as an elitist, Coastal conspiracy kind of thing, so Walker is par for the course as a candidate for them.

[Jimmy the Dane]

I really wish the press would highlight some of the crazies that occupy the left wing. They also have their own special set of nutballs.

[Krayt]

Many pols squeeze through law school, their primary skill being able to lie convincingly. This is known to be related to not caring what others think about them.

Then earn money voting for stuff, or ag'in' it, and presto, their spouse mysteriously becomes an investment genius, who knew!

[Bob from Ohio]

"Herschel Walker is entirely unqualified to serve in the US Senate."

He is over 30 and a citizen.

Being a senator doesn't take any special knowledge or ability. Look at them for goodness sake.

[Sarcastr0]

The switch from functional to formal is a lame dodge, and you know it.

Everyone knows what Otis and QA meant by qualification, and you're here playing semantic games.

[Bob from Ohio]

They meant "I don't like him" and everyone knows that.

Its childish to believe that there are any objective qualifications for US Senate.

[Sarcastr0]

If followed with nothing more, you would be right. But both of them did not leave their comment at that.

You now veering into postmodernism. Actually, there is an objective good and bad, even if we disagree; not taking a stand is a lame copout.

[OtisAH]

This whole “anybody can do the job” nonsense is how we got to where we are. It’s how we allow a real estate developer and rabid self-promoter to con his way to the presidency. It’s how we get people who think they’re elected “to shake things up” and “pwn Libs” rather than serving their districts, states and nation. And worse, it’s how we get people to vote for those folks. “There are no objective qualifications to be senator” is a poison in our democracy that far too many people freely swill.

Never mind that Walker’s complete lack of qualifications isn’t even the point of my post.

[Krayt]

Oh come on, it was hillarious in its minimalist sarcasm on qualifications.

[Commenter_XY]

Ok, that was funny = Being a senator doesn't take any special knowledge or ability. Look at them for goodness sake.

[John F. Carr]

While I would prefer a scientifically literate candidate to a creationist, that's unlikely to be my top voting issue. If he wins put him on non-scientific committees. You could potentially impress me by finding a candidate with legitimate scientific research experience and management credentials. I think there is a handful or perhaps one finger's worth of them in Congress.

[bernard11]

That's too narrow a view, John.

First, his creationist views betray much worse than "scientific illiteracy." They suggest he is guided in his thinking by religious fanaticism, rather than making an effort at rational thought.

What makes you think he is going to approach any issue sensibly?

[Queen Amalthea]

Is this Gonzaga's year?

[OtisAH]

Every year for the last twenty is “Gonzaga’s year.”

[LawTalkingGuy]

That checks out.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Who enjoyed watching Biden get escorted away from the press after calling Putin a war criminal like he was grandpa who needed to take his next dose of meds...

[LawTalkingGuy]

He happened to be correct though.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Is Biden a war criminal for committing summary executions?

[LawTalkingGuy]

I assume you mean drone strikes (which Trump also did)? Or is there some other weirdo conspiracy thing that has happened in your head? But Putin and his army are definitely committing war crimes right now sooooo I don’t know why you’re going after Biden for pointing that out.

[Jimmy the Dane]

So it is cool when the US blows up stuff, but Russia can't. OK....

[LawTalkingGuy]

o it is cool when the US blows up stuff, but Russia can't. OK....

Where did I say that? You're doing it again.

Me: I like waffles.
You: SO YOU HATE PANCAKES

It's actually not okay when anyone blows anything up. I've never supported US drone policy, its invasion of Iraq or long-term occupation of Afghanistan. I don't support its support of the Saudis' war in Yemen.

I also think it's not okay for Russia to invade a country and commit a bunch of blatant war crimes like shelling residential areas or taking hospitals hostage or blowing up children's shelters.

[Jimmy the Dane]

So Biden is also a war criminal who should stand for his crimes in the Hague?

[LawTalkingGuy]

You'd get no complaint from me if every President (except Carter) went to the Hague for war crimes. Might rein us in a bit.

[Don Nico]

"I assume you mean drone strikes (which Trump also did)? "
And which Obama ramped up to a high level including US citizens as targets. In fact, he out-Chaneyed Chaney.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"He happened to be correct though."

His second answer was indeed correct.

[Ben_]

About two weeks ago Philadelphia police shot a 12-year-old boy in the back, killing him. You probably didn’t hear about this story because he wasn’t one of the people whose lives matter.

https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/12-year-old-boy-shot-in-the-back-and-killed-by-philadelphia-police-identified/3164017/?amp

If there was a way to use this to weaken and divide America then the national news media would have had nonstop coverage of this.

Details of the case are still coming out so it’s not clear whether the boy had a gun when he was shot. There’s no body camera video because the police were not in uniform. The Philadelphia police department seems to have a great many use-of-force problems.

Philadelphia has the same urban problems and bad schools as most big US cities. Those get little attention because, again, there’s no way to divide Americans by focusing on them. Americans are already being hurt there, so government and media focus is on hurting Americans in other places where some people are still doing ok.

[Sarcastr0]

You think every unarmed black kid who is shot by the cops makes national news?

Your white resentment may need a facts check.

Also, I absolutely heard about this story earlier this week on one of my more liberal discords.

[wreckinball]

Everyone who is shot by a white cop yes. There are not that many unarmed black kids shot by any cop.

But the ones who get the news are white cop black victim.

[Sarcastr0]

You have a problem with asserting stuff about double standards but not actually backing it up.

A moment of Google:
https://www.npr.org/2021/01/25/956177021/fatal-police-shootings-of-unarmed-black-people-reveal-troubling-patterns

Since 2015, police officers have fatally shot at least 135 unarmed Black men and women nationwide, an NPR investigation has found. NPR reviewed police, court and other records to examine the details of the cases. At least 75% of the officers were white.
So there've been 101 federal stories about cops shooting unarmed black men since 2015?
Or, maybe, you need to stop making stuff up to validate your white persecution complex.

[Michael P]

How many of those shooting victims were 12 years old? Tamir Rice's shooting certainly made national news, for quite a long time.

[Sarcastr0]

No new goalposts.

[Illocust]

He specified kids in his post Sarcast0. Publishing results on adults is moving the goal posts yourself.

[Sarcastr0]

he wasn’t one of the people whose lives matter.

[Ben_]

That’s info about his race and why the news media has no use for the story.

[LawTalkingGuy]

My favorite genre of conservative outrage is: THE LAMESTREAM MEDIA ISN'T REPORTING ON THIS! (links to mainstream media story)

[Ben_]

Local news reports are not national news reports.

[LawTalkingGuy]

But they are mainstream media. (And more often than not simply police stenographers)

[Ben_]

Congrats on naming them "mainstream media" then. Why do we care about your names for different media?

[Bob from Ohio]

"(links to mainstream media story)"

Some things get flood the zone coverage. Other things get 5 minutes at 2 am, page 12 and a couple of web posts.

[Ben_]

Share a link to a local news story where an unarmed black kid was shot in the back by police then.

[Sarcastr0]

I did you one better above.

[Ben_]

Not about a kid, not about the kid being shot in the back.

[Sarcastr0]

So to be clear your current thesis is that there is a double standard between police shootings of unarmed *kids* between if the police is white and the kid is black, versus any other racial permutation?

Because that's now ridiculous for it's specific tailoring, as well as it's complete lack of support.

[Sarcastr0]

And I see now you're quibbling about how broad the reporting needs to be.

My dude, you have a narrative and are fixing your question to ignore any countervailing information that's offered.

[Ben_]

Noting that national news media aren’t interested in these incidents unless they can divide Americans or push a political agenda or fundraise for leftist causes isn’t what I would call a "thesis". More of an observation.

You can argue that I don’t observe it if you want.

[Sarcastr0]

If you need to read 3 qualifications into your thesis to make it true, maybe this 'observation' about the mainstream media is more in your brain than reality.

[Ben_]

Seems like a 12-year-old getting shot in the back by police might be newsworthy. They might look into what’s going wrong in Philadelphia if they cared.

[Sarcastr0]

I'd be all for the media nationalizing more police misconduct. But unlike you, I don't think the fact that it hasn't yet happened in this case is proof of white lives not mattering.

[Ben_]

I don’t think the news media cares about black lives either. I think they care about dividing people and following a Dem marketing/media strategy to fundraise and divide Americans.

Their secondary goal is to stir up controversy for attention and ratings, like Jussie Smollett, or Kathy Griffin, or Al Sharpton at Freddy’s Fashion Mart.

[Sarcastr0]

You're the one dividing America with your partisan resentment and ginning up paranoid fantasies about our institutions.

[Ben_]

Just describing their behavior

[Jimmy the Dane]

The facts are exceptionally clear from a third party standpoint, but what the media is burying in its reporting is the KID HAD A GUN at some point and POINTED THE GUN AT COPS. I don't care if you are 80 or 12 a gun kills the same way once the trigger gets pulled. At some point it looks like the gun got dropped but that is where the stories start to conflict. There is no dispute though that the kid had a real live gun for at least some point in time during the police encounter and made threats with it.

[Ben_]

Police don’t get to decide to shoot people in the back after they drop a gun and are running away. If non-police did that, they’d get jail time.

Either he was a threat when they shot him or it's a murder. We don’t know which one yet.

[AtR]

I have seen the light and would like to apologize to the Reverend and the Queen for my extremist right-wing views, as expressed on this blog. Henceforth, I promise to toe the line, obey the narrative, and always follow the dream.

Happy Purim!

[M L]

Just woke up from a 1 year coma. Are Dems and neocons banging the war drums yet?

[Ben_]

Biden's plan to shut down the virus went as you’d expect. The virus became ubiquitous and Biden and the virus fighters surrendered. But kids are still masked in some of the schools where union politics is in 100% control. And there are still travel requirements to prevent the spread of Covid to places where Covid is already everywhere.

Environmentalists' plans to make Americans worse off are proceeding. We have $5-6 gasoline now and they’re trying to deflect blame while still working to shut down even more US production.

Inflation is at nearly 1979 levels by some measures. By other measures it's at a 40-year-high but not quite to 1979 levels yet. Dems still want to throw money at stuff.

Biden has restored America's standing in the world. America and the west have shown so little strength and fortitude that Russia decided to invade Ukraine. The Biden white house is holding events with Tik-Tok influencers and the US military is policing pronouns. They are also discharging career members for refusing a vaccine that doesn’t prevent the spread of a flu-like illness — an illness that's not dangerous to anyone fit enough for the military.

Leftists' latest cause in the last month or so is teaching sex-related lessons to 4-8 year olds in government schools and calling it "equality".

Republicans are expected to do well in the 2022 elections. Democrats' plans between now and then: name-calling, blame-shifting, and schemes to try to get candidates excluded from ballots.

[Krayt]

Yes, and in case you woke up from an 80 year coma, there are Americans being apologists for the foreign fascist demanding territory.

[wreckinball]

Funny how now the NYT says Hunters laptop does have real criminal evidence on it. Remember how just last year that was a baseless conspiracy theory and the NYP had to be censored.

[Sarcastr0]

Funny you didn't quote the article. Did you even read it, or something in Breitbart that made a claim about it?

"Hunter Biden Paid Tax Bill, but Broad Federal Investigation Continues
The Justice Department inquiry into the business dealings of the president’s son has remained active, with a grand jury seeking information about payments from around the world."
...
People familiar with the investigation said prosecutors had examined emails between Mr. Biden, Mr. Archer and others about Burisma and other foreign business activity. Those emails were obtained by The New York Times from a cache of files that appears to have come from a laptop abandoned by Mr. Biden in a Delaware repair shop. The email and others in the cache were authenticated by people familiar with them and with the investigation.

In some of the emails, Mr. Biden displayed a familiarity with FARA, and a desire to avoid triggering it.
...
In the same April 2014 email, Hunter Biden indicated that Burisma’s officials “need to know in no uncertain terms that we will not and cannot intervene directly with domestic policymakers, and that we need to abide by FARA and any other U.S. laws in the strictest sense across the board.”

Keep fucking that chicken, I guess.

[Michael P]

NYT quietly admits they lied about Hunter's laptop being Russian disinformation, and Sarcastr0's typically shitty take is that the important takeaway is that Republicans Fuck Chickens.

[Ridgeway]

I thought he was referring to this with the chicken comment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7XbukdoGmM

I have no idea why it relates to the Hunter Biden story however.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Are you still convinced it was a Russian op, Sarastro?

I recall you were insisting that when the story came out, despite the complete lack of evidence.

[Sarcastr0]

I think the provenance of the nonsense originally reported about what was on it remains very much in doubt.

Funny how those stories died, and instead there is this marginal tax nonsense that seems not really laptop based anymore anyhow.

If Hunter is guilty of this, throw the book at him. But don't pretend this is what the laptop was originally sold by the right wing media.

[Michael P]

One of Hunter's business partners authenticated one of the emails that was at the core of the original reporting. Have any of the contents been down to be fake? Is there any good-faith reason to still harbor doubts about the laptop's provenance or contents?

[Sarcastr0]

Have any of the contents been down to be fake?

It was presented as a smoking gun proof of Biden's corruption.

You have a long way to go before this becomes that.

[Brett Bellmore]

We've got a long ways to go before you accept that it was that.

[Sarcastr0]

Do you think the story I excerpted is anything like the smoking gun the right tried to sell to the public during the election?

Because 'broad investigation continues' is not a smoking gun.

If you think it is, I have really bad news for you about Trump!

[ThePublius]

Do you sincerely believe that there was no corruption on the part of Hunter Biden, no whoring, no drug use, and no payouts to his Dad?

Holy Cow.

[Sarcastr0]

If Hunter is guilty of this, throw the book at him.

But an appeal to incredulity won't get you there.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's an appeal to published evidence. You're the one who's appealing to incredulity about that evidence, on the basis that the NYT hasn't deigned to confirm all of it yet.

[Sarcastr0]

What published evidence?!

[David Nieporent]

More importantly, the story at the time was thin. "We have a laptop that nobody else has seen that we got in some incredibly bizarre way that we ourselves can't authenticate. But there are documents on the laptop, that if they are real, don't really say very much but we're going to keep saying the words smoking gun."

As evidence of how much of a nothingburger the story was, as soon as Twitter backtracked and said that the NYP could tweet about it, the NYP stopped reporting on it.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

that we got in some incredibly bizarre way

You characterize a commonly stoned whoring dipshit doing something stupid with his property as "incredibly bizarre"?

[Brett Bellmore]

As well as, hugely incriminating being "don't say much".

[David Nieporent]

There is nothing "incriminating" that has been released from the laptop. Not about Hunter, and certainly not about Joe.

[Commenter_XY]

David, I think the current federal grand juries (I understand there are multiple federal investigations happening now; DE, DC) will make that decision about the laptop contents = There is nothing "incriminating" that has been released from the laptop. Not about Hunter, and certainly not about Joe.

Let's see what happens.

[Sarcastr0]

This whole conversation is taking place in present tense - DMN is the one saying we don't know right now. It's the Trumpists are insisting they have been vindicated by all the nothing we know right now.

Though if there is an indictment, I do look forwards to all the Trumpists who in the past said indictments are meaningless to rush to judgement.

[David Nieporent]

I mean, sure, but in addition to what Sarcastr0 said in reply to you: the NYP claimed to have had access to the contents of the laptop. Are you contending that there's a smoking gun of a crime but that in a year and a half they chose not to publish a story about it? That doesn't seem very plausible to me.

I mean, I guess it's possible that there's a small text file somewhere in the drive contents, encrypted and carefully buried in a folder filled with cat pictures, which is just a list of two or three numbers that to the average person or NYP reporter is meaningless, but that to the forensic experts at the FBI is actually his Cayman Island bank account identifiers, and that account activity reveals all the details of his criming.

It's possible.

[Commenter_XY]

David (and Sarcastr0)...We will see. The grand juries have been empaneled; they are hearing evidence from federal attorneys general. On matters of this gravity (e.g. any impropriety surrounding the POTUS or his son) I would expect (and demand) the justice system to proceed very carefully, methodically and thoroughly. Any evidence used to press charges must be ironclad and unimpeachable (if it ever gets to that point, and I personally would rather not see it get to that point).

I agree: We don't know definitively right now about any impropriety on the part of POTUS Biden or his son because the grand juries are not done hearing the evidence they are being presented with. We do know from press reporting that some contents of the laptop have been presented to the grand jury.

The other outstanding issue to resolve is that we now know the NY Post reporting was correct, and the actions by big tech to actively suppress the story (which was objectively true) were wrong. I don't know what remedy there is for that.

[Sarcastr0]

we now know the NY Post reporting was correct,

No, we very much do not know this. The Post claimed a smoking gun; unless new evidence comes to light this is not that at all.

[David Nieporent]

I agree: We don't know definitively right now about any impropriety on the part of POTUS Biden or his son because the grand juries are not done hearing the evidence they are being presented with. We do know from press reporting that some contents of the laptop have been presented to the grand jury.

To be clear, I am not in any way prejudging whether Hunter Biden broke the law. The only issue I am addressing is whether evidence that he broke the law comes from the laptop. (And even more centrally, whether there's any evidence on the laptop that Joe broke the law.)

[David Nieporent]

I characterize the story of how the laptop ended up at the NYP to be unworthy of belief.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

I characterize the story of how the laptop ended up at the NYP to be unworthy of belief.

Confirmation bias is a bitch. You sure found "Hands up, don't shoot!" so believable that you continued to believe it long after it had been shown to be an utterly baseless narrative. And your "the NYP stopped reporting on it" comment is pretty odd given that we're talking about it now because the NYT is now reporting on it.

[Krayt]

"And in this email, make sure you include this lawyerly statement, exactly as we prepared it for you."

[Sarcastr0]

SCANDALOUS.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Funny how the NYT barely reported that the DA dropped the Trump inquiry because after a two year fish expedition they couldn't find anything....

[Brett Bellmore]

I have to admit that surprised me. Apparently Trump isn't a ham sandwich after all.

[bernard11]

they couldn't find anything....

Actually, they found a fair amount, just not enough that the DA is confident of getting a conviction. Big gap there.

[Brett Bellmore]

How would you know they found a fair amount? Grand juries are supposed to be secret, after all.

[David Nieporent]

Well, the DA has not dropped anything, but it seems as if he may decide not to proceed, which is sort of close to what you said, except it's not "couldn't find anything," but "couldn't prove intent." And by "barely reported" you mean made it a front page story.

So you had one sentence and made three errors in it.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, 'couldn't prove intent' is what you say when you "couldn't find anything", but really do not want to admit it. You just imply that you were almost there, and rely on grand jury secrecy to spare you having to prove it.

There's only indict, and diddly squat, just like there's convict, and innocent. This isn't horse shoes or hand grenades.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Don't they teach autistic bigots to be careful about trying to engage in personal interactions, particularly with respect to touchy subjects?

[David Nieporent]

Funny how now the NYT says Hunters laptop does have real criminal evidence on it. Remember how just last year that was a baseless conspiracy theory and the NYP had to be censored.

That's… not what the NYT says. The article doesn't say anything about any evidence of any crime.

[Ben_]

Do Dems ever get tired of the lies? The "Russian Disinformation" claim was always a complete lie. If the Dems are the good guys, why are so many lies so consistently needed?

Why not just stop supporting and defending lies? You don’t have to become a right-winger. Go back to actually being liberals. Go back to supporting justice instead of retribution for political enemies. Go back to wanting to help people instead of wanting to punish others for not helping. Go back to supporting free speech instead of blacklisting and deplatforming. Go back to promoting truth-telling instead of storytelling. Go back to good government and public service instead of self-serving union money grubbing and graft. Be more like the person you wanted to be.

[John F. Carr]

The local police log is usually dull. A turtle crossed the road. A car drove past my house last night. Railroad gates stuck down. Roadkill. Lost dog. Found wallet.

Recently, buried in the nuggets of mundane suburban life was the news that a notorious possessor of child pornography was arrested down the street from me. The police log did not mention the charges, but the defendant was as I wrote somewhat notorious. Even in a nice town that works hard to keep the lower classes out you can run across somebody thinking impure thoughts. I wonder if I ever met him. Maybe he looked at me, moved his eyes up and down my body, and thought "too old."

[apedad]

Would you happen to live in Nashua?

[John F. Carr]

No. Maybe this is a common event.

[Allutz]

Sadly, yes. Music teacher at a school I attended was recently arrested for similar charges.

[John F. Carr]

A few towns over police officers were just placed on leave based on unspecified "deeply disturbing allegations" related to teenagers. That description fits sexual exploitation or bad words.

[apedad]

Justice Department Announces Civil Settlement in Cases Arising from 2018 School Shooting in Parkland, Florida

"Today, the Department of Justice announced that it has settled the 40 civil cases arising out of the February 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

This settlement resolves all of the cases for $127.5 million. The settlement does not amount to an admission of fault by the United States. The parties have been in litigation since late 2018, when the survivors of the shooting, and the families of 16 people killed, sued the government for damages."
~~~~~~
About five weeks before the Feb. 14, 2018, shooting, an FBI tip line received a call saying a former Stoneman Douglas student, Nikolas Cruz, had bought guns and planned to “slip into a school and start shooting the place up.”

“I know he’s going to explode,” the caller told the FBI.

But that information was never forwarded to the FBI’s South Florida office and Cruz was never contacted.
~~~~

Between this and the Air Force not making the appropriate updates in a database, it seems like the Feds aren't doing a good job. (https://www.foxnews.com/us/air-force-didnt-report-texas-shooters-domestic-violence-conviction-to-federal-database-allowing-him-to-buy-guns)

As a retired federal agent, I can honestly say that the admin stuff is really tedious - BUT still no excuse and the Feds must do a better job.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-civil-settlement-cases-arising-2018-school-shooting-parkland

[John F. Carr]

I thought this case clearly fell into the third party action exception to the Tort Claims Act. The government has no duty to prevent torts by third parties unless the government _created_ the danger in the first place.

[Bob from Ohio]

Its a political settlement. Same reason Floyd's family got many times what they could have recovered at trial.

[Michael P]

Even Trevor Noah seems to be jonesing for Donald J. Trump: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/trevor-noah-rips-biden-over-saudi-uae-phone-snub-report-would-have-never-happened-to-donald-trump/ar-AAV3nqc

More recently, Noah ripped into NYC's vaccination rules, specifically in the context of a professional basketball player who was allowed to watch his team from the stands but not play.

[Frank Drackman]

"There was a network of dozens of laboratories in Ukraine, where military biological programmes were conducted under the guidance and with the financial support of the Pentagon, including experiments with coronavirus strains, anthrax, cholera, African swine fever and other deadly diseases. Frantic attempts are being made to conceal traces of these secret programmes. However, we have grounds to assume that components of biological weapons were being created in direct proximity to Russia on the territory of Ukraine."

Is this true?

[David Nieporent]

No.

[Sarcastr0]

"BTRP supports many collaborative research projects through which Ukrainian and American scientists work together.  A few recent examples are:

 “Risk Assessment of Selected Avian EDPs Potentially Carried by Migratory Birds over Ukraine”
“Prevalence of Crimean Congo hemorrhagic fever virus and hantaviruses in Ukraine and the potential requirement for differential diagnosis of suspect leptospirosis patients”
  “The Spread of African Swine Fever Virus (ASFV) in Domestic Pigs and Wild Boars in Ukraine – Building Capacityfor Insight into the Transmission of ASFV through Characterization of Virus Isolates by Genome Sequencing and Phylogenetic Analysis”
“ASFBiosurveillanceand ASF Regional Risk Assessment: A Field to Plate Survey”

Not really the most sinister thing, as it turns out.

Stop swallowing Russian propaganda.

[bernard11]

No. It is a Kremlin lie being spread by some Putin shills.

[Brett Bellmore]

Still doesn't explain Victoria Nuland's remarks.

Victoria Nuland on Bio Labs

“uh, Ukraine has, uh, biological research facilities” and “we are now in fact quite concerned that Russian troops, Russian forces, may be seeking to, uh, gain control of [those labs], so we are working with the Ukrainians on how they can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces should they approach.”

You have to ask why we would have any particular concerns about ordinary biological research materials falling into the hands of Russian forces. I mean, more than any other Ukrainian resources, of course. I really did not take the allegations at all seriously until I heard her remarks. And given the denials then walk-backs about US funded research in Wuhan, really, why SHOULD we believe current denials?

Of course, the Russians would casually lie about something like this. So would our own government.

[Sarcastr0]

Disease research may have examples of the disease. Probably don't want soldiers smashing around with those.

There is zero evidence of weaponization research.

I really did not take the allegations at all seriously until I heard her remarks.
Oh, FFS. The cry of the conspiracy theorist. 'I didn't believe until I misinterpreted this thing.'

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore, is it your impression that America maintains biological warfare labs in every nation across the globe?

[VinniUSMC]

Plausible deniability. Why not?

[Brett Bellmore]

It's my impression that the medical bureaucracy pays to have research done in other countries that they're forbidden to have done here, to make it harder for anybody who'd object to find out about it.

Realistically, there's no good reason we should have been paying for any sort of research in Wuhan at all. And yet we were, apparently research that Congress had prohibited.

[BillyG]

Biggest concern is inflation. 7.9% & gas at $4.30. Food and fuel is eating into the family budget. Driving the minimum already.

Fed should have started raising rates at the previous meeting, I'm glad they raised it now. Expecting a continuous rate rise every meeting until inflation starts to come down. Hoping inflation stops increasing this year.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Yeah, nothing like choosing the least efficient, most economically destructive means available to deal with inflation. This nation is so obviously poised to enjoy patiently a prolonged recession, featuring minimal price suppression, and maximal losses to assets which support economic security for ordinary Americans, such as home values.

High interest rate policies are weapons by which the rich wage economic war against everyone else, and those wars do not end quickly. The rich measure success by the sum of the damage. The sums they require take a while to accumulate.

Billy G, my guess is that you aren't even rich. Do you buy into that ideology because you think it sounds plausible, and dirt-simple, plausible-sounding ideology for you is easier than looking around? Are you just too young to know better? What is going on with you?

[BillyG]

Yeah, nothing like choosing the least efficient, most economically destructive means available to deal with inflation.

What do you think the Federal Reserve should do instead?

Billy G, my guess is that you aren't even rich.

How do you define rich? By my definition, I'm well off. I've got ~10x my annual income in assets. Still have many years to go before retirement. I'm on track to retire with 50x my annual income in assets.

Do you buy into that ideology because you think it sounds plausible, and dirt-simple, plausible-sounding ideology for you is easier than looking around? Are you just too young to know better? What is going on with you?

What ideology are you talking about? I'm middle aged. Your comments are so vague, I don't know what you're saying other than you don't like what I'm saying. Could you be more specific and propose your alternatives?

[bernard11]

Stephen,

What alternatives do you propose? I think the issue here is simply how aggressive or not the Fed should be, not whether interest rates are the weapon of choice.

If you are suggesting that we resort to price controls then let me say that would be a bad idea, for many reasons.

[Brett Bellmore]

"High interest rate policies are weapons by which the rich wage economic war against everyone else"

Inflation is the weapon by which the governmentwages economic war against everyone else. The value of all assets denominated in that government's currency diminishes, and the difference is enjoyed by the government when it spends the new currency.

High interest rates in time of inflation are just a recognition that people who loan money expect to be paid back at least the same value, not a nominal some that's worth less than what they loaned out.

[bernard11]

Is it valid to criticize a judicial nominee who at one time worked as a public defender because she defended murderers, rapists, and general scumbags?

[Jimmy the Dane]

Democrat - no, they were just doing their job. Republican - yes, they are evil for protecting criminals from the justice system.

[Brett Bellmore]

IMO, no. I'm not particularly troubled by that. What I am troubled by, her ideological priors, would have been found in any Biden nominee, so I have no particular objections to this one.

As I said at the time she was nominated, with this administration it could have been a LOT worse. She is at least sane, and that by itself is puts her ahead of many Biden nominees.

[bernard11]

So you think Hawley, Cruz, etc. are out of line?

[bevis the lumberjack]

Yes they’re out of line. Whatever impact they’re having on the criminal justice system isn’t positive.

[Brett Bellmore]

To the extent they're making a fuss about a defense attorney defending scumbags, sure. If they find something problematic about how she defended them, that's different.

[John F. Carr]

The usual job of a public defender is to negotiate a guilty plea. Not much of a paper trail.

[Michael P]

Do you think that? If so, why?

This article quotes Hawley criticizing Jackson based on law school writings, judicial rulings, and her time as commissioner of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, without a mention of her work as a public defender.

[John F. Carr]

Hawley is upset that simple possession of child porn doesn't always get a long federal prison sentence. Based on his complaint, without having read Jackson's writing, I'm going to side with Jackson on this issue.

In my local elections, sometimes the endorsements of candidates convince me to vote against them. Same principle here.

[bernard11]

Yes. They are out of line.

Senator Josh Hawley had a pointed question earlier this month for a federal appeals court nominee who, as a public defender, helped get a Pennsylvania man off death row despite his conviction for two brutal murders.

“Do you regret trying to prevent this individual who committed these heinous crimes from having justice served upon him?” asked Mr. Hawley, Republican of Missouri, as he grilled Arianna Freeman, President Biden’s pick for a seat on the Philadelphia-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

Last month, Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, asked Nina Morrison, a nominee for a Federal District Court seat in New York, whether she was “proud that you encourage such defiance in convicted murderers” when a man she represented declared to the prison warden that he would not be executed. Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, told Ms. Freeman she had “devoted your entire professional career to representing murderers, to representing rapists, representing child molesters.”

And Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, the former public defender whose confirmation hearing for a seat on the Supreme Court begins next Monday, has been sharply questioned by Republicans for her work representing detainees at the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay. In a background paper on her nomination for the high court, the Republican National Committee referred to Judge Jackson’s “advocacy for these terrorists” as “going beyond just giving them a competent defense.”

In fact, they are total assholes, in all sorts of ways. Note that the RNC is all for providing counsel for Guantanamo detainees, as long as they don't try to do a good job.

[Ben_]

After Kavanaugh, why should anyone care about any opinions about what criticism is "valid"? How does it even merit discussion?

Is it as bad as Kavanaugh was treated? No. Therefore it must be valid. (Until the treatment of Kavanaugh is completely repudiated and the people who did it and used it are gone or have apologized.)

[Stephen Lathrop]

Remarkable that people posting about Covid are today down to low single digits—out of more than 500 comments. That as it becomes evident that national Covid deaths are certain to pass 1 million.

With daily deaths still around 1,000, hotspots active in both the West and the East of the nation, vaccination rates for even the initial series (let alone with boosters), far too low, European Covid rates once again on the rise, and wastewater measurements in the U.S. once again ticking upward, the nation is objectively more vulnerable now than it was in late March of 2020, when the Covid catastrophe was just getting started. There is still plenty of unburned fuel for the pandemic. Tens of millions, at least, are still at major risk.

And nobody is talking about it. Covid fatigue has given way to Covid triumphalism, with no triumph in sight.

More than 7 million immune compromised Americans—a population greater than in any of the 35 less-populated states—have essentially been thrown to the wolves. For them, the entire sum of remaining public health effort amounts to one admonition: "Talk to your doctor." When the immune compromised do that, they discover their doctors are in despair—especially the doctors who are immune compromised themselves, and understand better than anyone that national public health policy has abandoned them.

Even promised prophylactic medicines—used rhetorically to justify relaxed social distancing and masking only a month or so ago—are now reportedly going unfunded as the Biden administration moves on to other priorities. In short, the nation is teed up for another wave of Covid catastrophe, maybe bigger than any yet seen.

Every day the NYT publishes on its website front page a series of updated county-by-county maps of the U.S., detailing Covid data. For me now, the most striking of those maps is the one showing per-capita death rates by county. For anyone capable of imagining the political layout of the nation—and able to remember which regions got hit soonest, to make mental adjustments for that—it is easy to see a consistent pattern, evident beyond any reasonable doubt—Republican-dominated areas have suffered notably higher death rates per capita than Democratic-dominated areas. Moreover, that pattern continues to worsen.

We know that politics became a proxy for public health policy compliance, with blue regions more compliant. Comparative per-capita death rates show now that masking and vaccination have worked to suppress the pandemic where they have been best practiced, and that flaunting those measures means more death in regions where that has become customary.

Contrary to intuition, and contrary to political convenience, the most effective time to practice anti-pandemic public health measures is not when the virus is surging, but when it is at low ebb. That is when every prevented case represents the highest-possible fraction of potential remaining contagion.

If President Biden and Congress were to act now, to legislate and enforce a mandatory, nationwide campaign of N-95 masking, vaccination, and social distancing counter-measures—perhaps lasting as little as 8 weeks, but uniformly applied across the nation—it would not only have potential to save lives possibly numbered in the millions—especially among those now-abandoned immune compromised individuals—but also would be the best possible means to promote quicker economic recovery. Red states would be the biggest beneficiaries.

Against that stand political cowardice, cynical political opportunism, and a population misinformed to the point of mass stupidity. In 1904 William James had this to say:

Reason assumes to settle things by weighing them against one another without prejudice, partiality, or excitement; but what affairs in the concrete are settled by is and always will be just prejudices, partialities, cupidities, and excitements.

James knew what he was talking about.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Remarkable that people posting about Covid are today down to low single digits—out of more than 500 comments. That as it becomes evident that national Covid deaths are certain to pass 1 million."

Well, it's not as though, as the pandemic fades, people will start rising from the dead. So, of course the cumulative death toll is going to keep going up. That doesn't mean that passing some arbitrary mile marker means things have gotten worse.

"Even promised prophylactic medicines—used rhetorically to justify relaxed social distancing and masking only a month or so ago—are now reportedly going unfunded as the Biden administration moves on to other priorities."

Yeah, well maybe the administration shouldn't have devoted the finite pool of available anti-Covid resources to so many things that had no real connection to Covid, but instead were just political payouts to allies. And they'd have had some left now.

All that's happening here is that the moral panic is burning out. People are getting tired of insane over-reactions, and refusing to play along anymore. And politicians are reacting to that. Fun time is over, "Covid!" is ceasing to be a cry that justifies everything you feel like doing.

So, "If President Biden and Congress were to act now, to legislate and enforce a mandatory, nationwide campaign of N-95 masking, vaccination, and social distancing counter-measures—perhaps lasting as little as 8 weeks, but uniformly applied across the nation", the response would be a collective "Screw you!". Which is a big part of why they're not going to do it: Politicians, too, understand that power is largely an illusion, and that issuing orders that won't be obeyed shatters the illusion.

Stephen, we're not going to be eradicating Covid. It's going to be with us going forward, just like Influenza, another seasonal respiratory virus. (Hopefully continuing its evolution towards being another common cold strain.) There are a lot of things we could do to mitigate it, just like influenza.

1) Stop telling people to take umpteen doses of a vaccine designed around a strain that's been gone for years, and start releasing updated vaccines, just like we do for the flu. Being easily updated is one of the virtues of mRNA vaccines, why have we thrown it away?

2) HVAC improvements to increase air changes and sterilize air. More use of self-sterilizing surfaces. Imagine if we'd done that instead of crashing the economy with lockdowns.

3) Maybe update RDAs to reflect optimum nutritional levels, instead of the levels necessary to avert deficiency diseases like rickets and scurvy.

But doubling down on measures people are done with? Stupid.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore, what is stupid is announcing you are done with measures proven effective, without regard to future need.

I do not know any better than anyone else what the future of Covid will bring. Your longed-for scenario is inviting, and may come true. It may not. For now, the virus is as implacable as a mathematical equation. Give it conditions to surge, and it will surge.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Give it conditions to surge, and it will surge."

Indeed, and the seasonal variation has been relentless regardless of efforts made to impede it.

Which, I will remind you, were originally sold as just "flattening the curve", not intended to reduce the total number of cases, but only to keep hospitals from being swamped. A goal that was lost sight of when the moral panic kicked in.

I am quite in favor of vaccination, and you'll notice my complaint there is just that they are mindlessly pushing an obsolete vaccine, instead of updating to new strains.

One of the greatest things about mRNA vaccines is that they can be very rapidly updated to reflect the current strain, much more rapidly than conventional vaccines. We had the current mRNA vaccines designed within weeks of sequencing the original strain of Covid, all the delay was building production capacity, and getting regulatory approval.

Unfortunately, last January 20th we switched from "warp speed" to "impulse power", and they're still hawking the old vaccines, even though the updated ones were designed, and could be rolled out at any time.

The evidence for the other measures you're promoting is much less persuasive.

But, persuasive or not, the public is tired of medical theater, and will not cooperate with new impositions. And so the administration will not attempt them, and have its demands publicly ignored.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Check county-by-county per-capita fatality rates. That statistic strips the question to its fundamentals, putting the worst outcomes in a numerator, over the entire base as a denominator. The numbers show you are mistaken. The seasonal surge, as you call it, has been impeded in the Northeast, for instance, and along the Pacific Coast. Check red America to find the opposite.

Evidence for masks and social distancing is persuasive. Counties which practiced those efficiently did notably better than counties which flouted them (taking red-state politics as a proxy for flouting). Because the flouting impulse also tends to apply to vaccinations, a confounding factor remains to be clarified. But about the costs of flouting public health policy there can be no doubt. It is not a close distinction, and the consequences for red America have been grave.

Taking social distancing and N-95 masking separately, it is easy to show social distancing, taken to the extreme of quarantine, delivers near-perfect protection. It is likewise easy to show N-95 masking works efficiently. Nurses and doctors who use N-95s at Mass General Hospital, for instance, report protection (doubtless with exceptions) during two years of daily exposure to patients hospitalized with severe covid. Before vaccination, that could not happen if the masks were not working. During surges, Mass General bore one of the heavier covid treatment loads nationally, but reports few cases now.

Bellmore, look carefully at the per-capita deaths map in today's NYT. You are plenty alert enough to understand what you will find, as you click on red counties and blue counties, to compare the numbers. Even the Northeast, which bore the brunt of the initial surge, has by now improved its statistics so much that it is less affected than a typical county in Appalachia, where the initial surge came late, was brief, and lightly felt. Experience there since has been more dire, because residents flouted public health policy.

[Absaroka]

"It is likewise easy to show N-95 masking works efficiently. Nurses and doctors who use N-95s at Mass General Hospital, for instance, report protection (doubtless with exceptions) during two years of daily exposure to patients hospitalized with severe covid. Before vaccination, that could not happen if the masks were not working."

I agree that N95 (N100, ...) masks work very well (when carefully used). I don't think that helps the argument for society wide restrictions, though. To the contrary, it argues that people who want to wear effective masks should do so, and undercuts the argument for mask mandates and other restrictions.

My mother had COPD, and routinely wore masks in flu season long before covid. Likewise for my wife when she was undergoing chemo. They didn't try to compel everyone else to mask, though.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Absaroka, you think it is wise (or moral) public health policy to say to 7 million immune compromised Americans: "Screw you. With temporary inconvenience, we could notably reduce the risk and isolation being forced on you, but the majority doesn't want to be bothered. Go die."

Get back to me about flu season when we get back-to-back flu seasons which kill a half-million each.

[Brett Bellmore]

Stephen, people who are immune compromised are NORMALLY at great risk. They have to worry about things that we DON'T call 'pandemics'! We don't institute a medical dictatorship over influenza, and THAT can kill you if you're immune compromised.

Just accept that we're not giving public health authorities dictatorial powers, and move on. If people formerly trusted the authorities enough to risk that, they've had their gullibility lifted over the last couple of years.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore, my advocacy was for legislation, not for dictatorial power.

As for, "we're not giving public health authorities dictatorial powers," you speak for you, not for some imaginary force-multiplier majority which monopolizes the public interest, and excludes targeted groups from any share of it.

Your simplistic reasoning to justify a policy to shirk public health responsibility is typical of extremist right wing idiots. You are smarter than that.

With regard to other political disputes, you are quick to assert protections for political minorities. Here you turn it around—and you do that when the stakes are actually at least tens of thousands of human lives, and possibly far more.

Even more perplexing, the majority of those lives which stand to be saved are not the lives of the immune-compromised people you regard as a public inconvenience. They are instead the lives of your red state compatriots, who for their various reasons and non-reasons have proven themselves too ignorant to understand, and too feckless to cope. Those people should be saved too, even if it must happen against their will.

What are you thinking?

[Absaroka]

No. I'm just pointing out that you are arguing against yourself. To the extent that masks work well, you can solve the problem by masks for the vulnerable. And then you don't have to mask everyone else.

To put it another way, if masks can protect the nurse who is spending 40 hours a week in a covid ward, why can't they protect granny in a brief trip to the grocery store?

I don't mind you advocating for mask mandates, but you are doing a bad job of it when your arguments contradict themselves.

[Ben_]

Can someone explain the idea that burdening everyone for the sake of a small percentage of people is good but telling those with specific needs to take the necessary steps to protect themselves is bad? How did you decide which concerns matter and which concerns can be hand- waved off? What is this moral framework? Is it just that you, personally benefit in this case?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Absaroka, also, when you say, "compel everyone else," you improperly divide the nation into two hypothesized groups—"others," who threaten the public interest, and, "everyone else," who own the public interest. The situation affords no basis for your imputation. Your attempt to withdraw from the, "others," any share in the public interest is not only unwarranted, but morally challenged. It is unworthy of you.

The public interest is, of course, to reduce contagion and fatalities among the entire population, including among mask objectors and red-state opponents of the Biden administration.

[Absaroka]

If you read more carefully, the 'everyone else' divides the country between my wife and my mother and, well, everyone who is not my wife or mother. I.e. the people they weren't trying to make wear masks.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Nice try. But you don't get it both ways. You offer an analogy to illustrate a general point. You get criticized for the general point, you turn around and say take it literally.

Here again is the general point:

The public interest is, of course, to reduce contagion and fatalities among the entire population, including among mask objectors and red-state opponents of the Biden administration.

[Absaroka]

You are having a debate with the voices in your head, not with what I wrote.

[Ben_]

Here’s a story about a new Covid disease vector: hamsters.

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3170196/coronavirus-hong-kong-university-study-finds

Do I believe hamsters spread Covid? Maybe, maybe not. But if pets spread Covid, then everyone has to admit that Covid control measures could never possibly ultimately succeed.

Google searches will reveal that zoo animals and wild deer were also found to have Covid.

Let’s all acknowledge that Covid can never be stopped and anything that delays it just prolongs the harm from countermeasures. China is seeing this now, as they slowly lose the battle against Covid, one lockdown at a time.

[Michael P]

Jen Psaki is now pushing election trutherism: "They [Russians], you know, of course, hacked our election here." The supposed election results were wrong! Donald Trump won!

Wait, no, she was taking about 2016. Like Hillary, Jen thinks that there were election improprieties. And also that people should be expelled from polite society for saying so.

[David Nieporent]

I like how you cleverly added stuff outside of the quotation marks that she didn't say.

[Ben_]

It’s ok though, because pretending to dislike election-tampering talk was only useful in 2020-2021. In 2022 the Dems are expecting to lose so they’re setting the table to claim elections were stolen.

Wait for the gaslighting about how "no one ever said" the topic was off limits from the same mouths who were calling it "treason" in 2021.

[Michael P]

Politico interviews retiring Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-Fla.) on what she achieved in three terms and how the Democrat party have already left her behind in their stampede leftward. Politico's headline: "How Democrats alienated the woman who helped them win the House".

[apedad]

Yup, she totally bashes the Dems.

"Instead of purely focusing on their issue area, they bleed into just advocating for whatever Democratic leadership wants. And it’s true on the Republican side, too."

"The Republican Party is starting to feel more like a cult of personality than it is a political party. Where are the Reagan conservatives? I don’t want to hand this country and the agenda over to a party that’s trying to dismantle democracy."

"If you look at some of the other moderates, last year, in an off year, they had kind of on-year October types of spending done against them, both from the Republican and the Democratic side."

And (if you had read the article and not just the headline), she's not talking about the issues - she's talking about the process.