Thursday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[not guilty]

In a concurring opinion in United States v. Valleo Madero, ___ U.S. ___ (April 21, 2022), Justice Clarence Thomas questioned whether the Supreme Court in Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U. S. 497 (1954) (finding segregated public schools in the District of Columbia to be unconstitutional), correctly determined that the Fifth Amendment Due Process clause includes an equal protection guaranty applicable to the federal government. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-303_6khn.pdf

What's next? Will Justice Thomas ask the Chief Justice to order installation of separate water fountains for whites and coloreds in the Supreme Court building?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Is anyone prepared to pay Justice Thomas’s wife to push for installation of such a set of fountains?

If not, I believe the progressive fountains are safe.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

This doesn't make sense to me. Why would the people, people like you, who create coloreds-only graduations, coloreds-only dorms, coloreds-only meeting spaces and coloreds-only cities be opposed to coloreds-only fountains?

Why would the people, people like Thomas, who are opposed to coloreds-only graduations, colored-only dorms, coloreds-only meeting spaces, coloreds-only cities want coloreds-only fountains?

I mean, I get it that I myself am a counter-example, e.g. I totally support coloreds-only graduations, dorms, meeting spaces, cities and I even donated so much to Planned Parenthood for their coloreds-only abortions that they named a clinic after me. But I'm an atypical conservative. I'm anti-Democrat for most things, but I am totally onboard with their segregation policies.

[Queen Amalthea]

Well, of course given your stated beliefs on this kind of thing it doesn't make sense to you.

And I doubt you're that atypical of a conservative, so there's that!

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Most conservatives don't support Planned Parenthood and their Black Baby Genocide.

While I appreciate Planned Parenthood and the Democrats successful efforts at keeping the colored population from growing.

They say that the most dangerous place for a black man in America today in the womb. Cha-ching, I just gave another $50 to PP!

[Queen Amalthea]

Lol, aren't you cute?

[John F. Carr]

He'd still have to share the colored fountain with a liberal.

[Michael D]

Your inflammatory reading of his opinion aside, I found his historical analysis and opinion to be quite logical. And you seem to ignore when he writes in the very first paragraph of the opinion that the 14th gives firmer ground to support the due process claims.

You alway have a knack for extrapolating the worst possible reading of anything involving anyone with whom you politically disagree. This is one more example.

[Ed Grinberg]

I don't think he was "extrapolating." It seems pretty obvious to me that he was intentionally misrepresenting Justice Thomas's views. "Liberals" regularly do this to those with whom they politically disagree. (It's easier than have to refute their opponents actual positions.)

[not guilty]

Do you dispute that Justice Thomas opined that segregated public schools are not a deprivation of liberty? This is part of Thomas's idiosyncratic war on substantive due process, expressed in a particularly ugly context.

[David Nieporent]

You're being unfair. He's not arguing against equal protection. He's arguing that it should be found in a different clause of the constitution.

[Brett Bellmore]

He's waging war on substantive due process, not rights or equality before the law.

"Substantive" due process is a bastard notion, an oxymoron the Court invented to avoid just straightforwardly overturning the Slaughterhouse cases and assorted outrages the Court committed against the 14th amendment. Our rights were to be protected by the Privileges and Immunities clause, due process was just exactly that: A right to proper procedure in what the government does, but not to WHAT it can do if that procedure is followed.

[Bwaaah]

Follow the logic:
All conservatives are white supremacists.
Clarence Thomas is a conservative.
Clarence Thomas is a white supremacist.
Nothing but malevolence can be inferred to be the intents of all of such ilk.

[Queen Amalthea]

Oh come on, are you eliding that the case in question has long been considered an important one in the civil rights movement out of ignorance or 'malevolence?'

[Noscitur a sociis]

The malevolence isn't in recognizing the historical importance or salutory effects of the decision, it's in imputing bad faith motivated by racism to anyone who questions the logic of the holding.

(For what it's worth, I think the constitution should require the federal government to apply a 14th amendment-style equal protection, but I share Justice Thomas's skepticism that, as written, the due process clause actually do so. I would also note that it's left-oriented policy goals that are getting frustrated by the holding, like federal affirmative action programs or the minority-preference set asides in some of the COVID stimulus payments.)

[swood1000]

The 5th Amendment says:

nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law

The 14th Amendment says:

nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Is the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment superfluous?

[not guilty]

No, it is not superfluous. When the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted, the Bill of Rights was construed as binding only the federal government. The Fourteenth Amendment made equal protection applicable to the states.

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

The Due Process clauses only restrict what governments may do. Same with the Equal Protection clause. None of them say anything about what free individuals such as a woman and her health-care providers may or may not do.

[not guilty]

Several substantive due process rights have been recognized as being of constitutional magnitude, though not specifically mentioned in the consttutional text. These include the right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children, the right to marry, the right to sexual coupling and the right to decide whether or not to bear or beget children. To this point, no individual fundamental right, having been initially recognized, has subsequently been unrecognized (although that may be on the cusp of change). How many fundamental rights would you delist?

[Brett Bellmore]

More specifically, the due process clause restricts, not what governments may do, but how they may go about doing it. The P&I clause restricts what they may do regardless of how they go about it.

[Bob from Ohio]

" Will Justice Thomas ask the Chief Justice to order installation of separate water fountains for whites and coloreds in the Supreme Court building?"

Yeah, he's an Uncle Tom, we know the left's view of him.

He's just saying that while the decision in Bolling was right, the reasoning was faulty:

"Firmer ground for prohibiting the Federal Government from discriminating on the basis of race, at least with respect to civil rights, may well be found in the Fourteenth Amendment’s Citizenship Clause."

[not guilty]

The right to equal treatment vis-a-vis the federal government is not limited to citizens.

[Brett Bellmore]

To be clear, Privileges and Immunities are limited to citizens, while due process and equal protection extend to people generally.

Which is why it's a huge deal that the Court gutted the P&I clause with the Slaugherhouse cases, and then in the modern era half assed undid the damage by inventing "substantive due process"; It took rights that were reserved to citizens, and gave them to every warm body that happened to be inside our borders.

But it's not a right to equal "treatment", it's a right to equal "protection"; The government is perfectly entitled to treat people differently on the basis of whether or not they're citizens, but non-citizens just as much as citizens are entitled to be protected by the law.

Equal protection means that there's no such thing as outlawry in the US, nobody is outside the law's protection.

This doesn't specify the extent or nature of that protection, just that everybody is equally entitled to it.

[not guilty]

Rudy Giuliani is reportedly expected to appear next month before the House January 6 investigating committee. https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/27/politics/rudy-giuliani-january-6-committee-next-month/index.html

I hope that he is questioned in detail about his efforts to encourage the filing with the National Archives of bogus slates of electors from seven states. Those false filings were the linchpin of the corrupt effort to importune Mike Pence to unilaterally reject valid slates of electors contrary to the Electoral Count Act.

[santamonica811]

You'd think that Congressional Republicans would be champing at the bit...nay, *demanding*...for the right to be put under oath and testify in public. Alas, no. Most seem to be cowardly sacks of shit. (Trademark pending)

Of course, Dems are just as cowardly, but in a different way. If Dems had courage and integrity, they'd offer a polite invitation to testify. And, when rebuffed, they'd have a subpoena sent later that same day. Allowing Republicans to avoid telling the truth is gutless, and I don't give a tinker's cuss that Dems are using the excuse of comity to avoid making (politically-hard, but morally-easy) decisions. Other than Ravkin and Liz Cheney; I struggle to think of too many others who have acted with dignity, courage, and integrity in this sordid mess.

(But it was heartwarming to see that the Trump moron wing happily has welcomed back and embraced Kevin McCarthy with open arms, since KMC was willing to whore his honor and ethics . . . which, I guess, is the sine qua non for getting the cherished Trump endorsement.)

[not guilty]

Trumpworld seems to regard compliance with subpoenas as optional, and the Department of Justice has unfortunately brought only one criminal contempt action so far.

[Sebastian Cremmington]

Electoral College means anything is acceptable because it is so asinine…Bush successfully stole the 2000 election and would have attempted to steal the 2004 election along the same lines as Trump in 2020.

[Don Nico]

SC,
We've seen you on this hobby-horse so many times. Give the poor "animal" a rest or we'll report you to PETA

[Armchair Lawyer]

Santa,

There's nothing there. It's a PR stunt. If there was something real there, there would be a DoJ investigation of some sort. They're far better equipped for this sort of thing. You know, if you actually wanted to make a case and figure out what happened.

But the DoJ can't selectively release choice pieces of information as easily as Congress can. In terms of PR, it's much better for Congress to do it. Then you can "selectively" leak thousands of texts, or pieces of testimony as you want.

[Martinned]

If there was something real there, there would be a DoJ investigation of some sort.

Clearly, because a criminal investigation of one's political opponents has no chance of backfiring.

[Armchair Lawyer]

So....your logic here is that Trump is somehow guilty of "inciting a insurrection/coup"...but you couldn't possibly do a criminal investigation because it might backfire? Despite having a long running criminal investigation for the the first 2-3 years of the Trump Presidency?

That logic is baffling.

[Martinned]

The political fallout of putting Trump on trial would be massive. It would completely hijack the President's political agenda even if the prosecution is successful, would cost the Democratic party votes regardless of the outcome, would risk an acquittal in the same way that those guys who wanted to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer got off, because there were too many conservatives on the jury, and would ultimately risk an even bigger electoral hit if there's no conviction at the end.

There's simply not enough upside to make that risk remotely worth it, hence the instruction from the White House and/or Garland to prosecute anyone but Trump.

The political calculation simply isn't the same at state level in a blue state like New York.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

They spied on his campaign and his Presidency and there hasn't been any fallout.

The oppressed conservative organizations at the IRS, and there hasn't been any fallout.

They spied on sitting Senators, and there hasn't been any fallout.

They killed vets by putting them on secret waitlists and there wasn't any fallout.

The Federal Class can do whatever it wants to whomever it wants and there will not be any fallout.

[Martinned]

Are you kidding me? Fox News hasn't stopped talking about any of these things for years, and for good reason: they are Republican vote winners.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

That's what you think accountability is? Not any sort of justice, just some idiotic Fox News trope?

[Queen Amalthea]

"They spied on his campaign and his Presidency"

Law enforcement conducted surveillance on his campaign and with good (and later found to be justified) reason.

"The Federal Class "

A nonsense term from a nonsense person.

[Bwaaah]

"Law enforcement conducted surveillance on his campaign and with good (and later found to be justified) reason."

Ahh, yes. The pee tapes.

[Queen Amalthea]

You wish. The appointment of Manafort alone could legitimately trigger such an investigation.

[Don Nico]

"The political fallout of putting Trump on trial would be massive."
I have to agree with you. The cynics who control such matters have that firmly in their minds

[not guilty]

What would be the fallout of not putting Trump on trial? The message would be that flagrant abuse of power doesn't matter when committed by an evil demagogue.

[Don Nico]

Ng,
You failure to understand shows why you are not in the WH inner circle.
If you don't see it nothing anyone writes here is going to convince you.

[Armchair Lawyer]

"Not enough upside"

I'm sorry....Putting Trump in prison and preventing him from ever being president isn't "enough upside" for you???

"The political calculation"....

So...just to review. This is an individual you "KNOW" has conspired with enemy powers to steal one election, tried to start an insurrection to steal a second election, who may become president again, yet you won't investigate him....because it might hurt your political chances? Is that accurate?

There's a word for this....

[Martinned]

I'm not sure what your problem is. In recent decades, the problem with Democrats has been that they don't play dirty nearly as much as Republicans do. So it's refreshing to see a leadership who understands (and pays attention to) the politics of what they're up to.

[Armchair Lawyer]

"I'm not sure what your problem is."

Ethics? A duty to defend the country against all enemies foreign and domestic?

If the Democratic party is willing to literally betray the country for political gain, it should be dismantled. If Democrats believe and know that Trump is a domestic enemy who is a major threat to the United States, and they don't investigate him for "political gain"...they deserve to be thrown in jail themselves.

[Martinned]

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

[bevis the lumberjack]

Right now the Dems and their many allies in the press are throwing a shit fit because speech might get a little more free on Twitter. Fuck the Dems. They somehow manage to continually be worse than Trump.

And before someone brings it up, fuck DeSantis too. We keep electing tyrants who give zero shits about the principle of liberty and then look in slack jawed amazement at what’s happening to us.

[Martinned]

If Twitter is more important than anything else that's going on in the world, you have a pretty peculiar set of priorities.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Twitter isn’t, but the principle is. None of our so-called elites are interested in our liberty. They’d sell it down the road in a heartbeat to enhance their own political power.

[Martinned]

And the solution is to overthrow the rule of law and democracy?

[bevis the lumberjack]

Where did I say that?

The solution is to get out toss these mf’s out of office and replace them with people who take their oaths seriously.

And I have no solution for the media. Tear down the journalism schools and start over?

[Ed Grinberg]

And I have no solution for the media. Tear down the journalism schools and start over?

There's no need to try to find a "solution." The traditional ("mainstream") media is dying. People have figured out that they're squarely on the side of "our so-called elites [that] are[n't] interested in our liberty [and would] sell it down the road in a heartbeat to enhance their own political power" and will suppress news stories and outright lie on their behalf. That's why Democrats are now talking about government "bailouts" for the (traditional / "mainstream") media.

[Martinned]

True, you didn't say that. I just took a logical leap from your general support for Trumpism across many comments on this blog.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

And the solution is to overthrow the rule of law and democracy?

Hey, now. Braindead straw man arguments are Sarastr0's schtick. Get your own.

[Queen Amalthea]

I know right, having the VP decide an election he's part of is totally down with the rule of law and democracy!

[Queen Amalthea]

I mean, the VP in question is on record saying Trump told him to 'overturn the election,' something he had 'no right to' do.

[Michael D]

Why would anyone “be chomping at the bit” to go before a witch hunt with a predetermined outcome? Who in their right minds wants to come before a kangaroo court?

I am sorry but your comment defies the intelligence I often see from you in other discussions.

[santamonica811]

Michael, I (obviously) have no idea of your age, so there is no way for me to know how long you've been following politics. Let me give an example of what I see as political courage (re testifying vs trying to avoid testifying). Google "Hillary Clinton + Benghazi + testimony" and you'll quickly get an idea of what a politician with courage and integrity looks like.

Dreadful attack in Benghazi, in which multiple Americans died. Huge story, and conservatives and Fox News first tried to say that Sec. of State Hillary Clinton *deliberately* did nothing, in order to allow the Ambassador to die. Seriously, that was the narrative. Unfortunately for the idiot-wing; it quickly came out that HC and Amb. Stevens were deep and longstanding friends. So, that story had to be abandoned. Later, Clinton was called to testify in front of a congressional committee. WHICH SHE DID. She testified for hours. And hours and hours. For a hearing that was widely seen as a witch hunt, intended solely to damage her politically (everyone on the right and the left and the center understood she'd be running for president in the next election). Didn't matter to her. She had the stones to testify. And she did not use the cowardly sack-of-shit tactic of taking the Fifth. She answered all the questions. The softball questions. The hard questions. The dumb 'gotcha' questions . . . she answered them all. The result of that public testimony? She looked rock-solid and honest; and many of the Republicans on the committed looked like idiots.

What does it say about the Republican politicians in 2022 that they are more cowardly than Hillary Clinton was? That they think that testifying publicly (where the public gets to hear every syllable of every question and every response) will hurt them in any way?

(I guess I could have been briefer, and merely written, "I don't think it's a witch hunt. But even if it were, they should be eager to testify, since it will be done in public, and the only ones hurt in an actual public witch hunt will be the hunters.")

[Jmaie]

Fully agree the hearings were a complete waste of time held only for grandstanding purposes, but I don't really see this as courage on Sec. State Clinton's part. So curious why you do?

[santamonica811]

J,
I did not see it as courageous at the time. A politician doing the obviously correct thing (ie, come in front of Congress and answer all questions). And doing the obviously correct thing should not = "courage."

But now, seeing the craven, lickspittle, and cowardly way the Trump-associated politicians (and confederates) have acted, they've lowered the bar considerably. Hillary didn't refuse to show up. Courage. She didn't run to court to delay the process of showing up. Courage. She sat and answered the questions, and didn't take the Fifth a single time. Courage.

I'd love to see that same courage (or whatever word you suggest in its place) from the Republicans. Just come to testify and tell the truth. It's what innocent people do. It's what people who care about this country do . . . remember, most of the people were saying, in the immediate aftermath of the Jan 6th incident, how horrible it was, how any repeat needs to be prevented, etc etc. One would think that they'd be eager to chime in, and help all Americans avoid another debacle after the next presidential election. (Obviously, I'm speaking tongue-in-cheek about the last sentence . . . I don't think that 2/3rd of House Republicans give a solitary shit about preserving American democracy. They care about getting reelected and about maximizing the chances of getting Trump reelected. Full stop.)

[Longtobefree]

"Most seem to be cowardly sacks of shit. (Trademark pending)"

Sorry, tons of prior use - - - - - -

[santamonica811]

Heh.

Okay, that's a fair point.

[wreckinball]

Versus the present bogus set of electors who are representing a fraudulent election.
Versus the pink hat crowd that was trying to coerce electors to be unfaithful and burn down the white house.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

That's different. Those are Democrats.

[Queen Amalthea]

"the present bogus set of electors who are representing a fraudulent election"

The Tears of a Clown.

[John F. Carr]

Pleading attorney-client privilege and/or the Fifth Amendment seems like a wise choice. Is Giuliani wise these days? I used to consider him evil incarnate in competent form. Now he's more of a clown.

[not guilty]

Giuliani pleading the Fifth Amendment makes sense. Asserting attorney-client privilege didn't work so well for John Eastman, though. There is no reason to think Giuliani would be more successful.

[Dan Schiavetta]

I finally saw “The Hunt for Red October” this week. I’d never seen any Tom Clancy stuff. According to his Wikipedia entry, his fiction is known for its “technical accuracy”.

The big plot point in the movie is, of course, when they first hear undersea evidence of the sub. The technician takes a sound thought to be movement of subterranean magma (or something like that) and speeds it up 10 times, and it sounds like a sub engine. What? That shouldn’t mean anything. If you speed up the sound of my dog barking 10 times he will sound like an insect. That doesn’t mean he’s an insect.

That is technical accuracy? Will someone explain this to me?

[santamonica811]

For what it's worth; my brother-in-law, who did something similar while in the service, did say that "Hunt" was a pretty accurate movie in his experience . . . although I never specifically asked him about your particular factual question.

But, accuracy aside, I enjoyed the movie quite a bit. I hope you did as well. [Hearing James Bond and Frank-N-Furter speak with Russian accents is itself worth the price of admission.]

[Dan Schiavetta]

Well done, but when a movie makes a wrong turn like that it deflates everything that happens afterward.

[Commenter_XY]

Good movie...but the book was much better. 🙂

[IAdmitIAmCrazy]

You could be a little bit more forgiving lest you might lose quite few good stories- After all, aren't there a lot of stories too good to be true?

[Dan Schiavetta]

For a film that seems to pride itself on being tech savvy, this big a tech fumble on a major plot point is hard to forgive.

[JSinAZ]

The book was the object being lauded for technical accuracy and not (for example) the chrome and bad lighting of the Red October. The movie mostly stinks.

[Krayt]

National Geographic once included a (floppy) record you could play. On it were whale songs, then sped up, and they sounded exactly like bird chirping.

[Dan Schiavetta]

"If you play that Beatles record backward at half speed, you hear the voice of John saying, 'You're playing this backward at half speed!'" -- George Carlin

[Stephen Lathrop]

Presumably a Lithuanian-inflected Russian accent. Even better.

[bevis the lumberjack]

I’m scarred for life from watching Goldfinger as a kid and seeing Bond say to Goldfinger’s chief pilot “yesh, pusshy”. Maybe it was the first time I’d ever heard a Scotsman or something, and I was too young to get the double entendres of her name.

[Krayt]

Imho Pussy Galore was clever. Octopussy was stupid.

[Krayt]

Which seems about the correct ratio for Ian Flemming from the one half of a 007 book I read 30 years ago.

[SRG]

FWIW having read most if not all the books, I think that the films are generally better.

[Brett Bellmore]

You can speed up or slow down sounds without raising the frequency, it's a fairly simple technique I learned back in the 80's, using a ADC, circular buffer, and DAC. A simple variant of the technique allows you to frequency shift without altering rate, too. Both ways you tend to get artifacts in the output, though. I'm sure they have more sophisticated techniques these days.

However, that's not what Jonsey was doing. What you're missing is that if you take a source that consists mostly of infra-sound, (Sound below the range of human hearing.) and speed it up the simple way, by just playing it faster, you shift the infra-sound into the audible range.

[Dan Schiavetta]

It still makes it sound like something else.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, if you're trying to hear something that's inaudible, it had better make it sound like something else, or you're not going to hear it.

Night vision gear makes everything look different, too: Not pitch black!

[Dan Schiavetta]

But Jonesy did hear the original sound. He played Mancuso both the original and the version that he speeded up 10 times.

[Brett Bellmore]

To illustrate that it really did sound like something mechanical.

[Michael P]

And? You're making a big deal over the idea that speeding something up makes it sound different when the book and movie say the very same thing. The Red October's engine is supposed to not sound like a normal sub's engine (at normal speeds). It's an imaginary engine, so why shouldn't its imaginary sound be similar to a slowed-down submarine engine or prop?

[John F. Carr]

It was a very good book and a good movie, overall. Given current events _Red Storm Rising_ is a more likely candidate for a reread.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Yeah, the only downside (from my perspective) of the fall of the USSR was that it happened before special effects technologies (CGI et al) made a really good film adaptation of RSR possible.

[Bob from Ohio]

"I finally saw “The Hunt for Red October” this week. "

Not something you should admit. Its shameful it took so long.

[Don Nico]

I would guess - and it is only a guess - that it is the amplitude of the vibrations in the housing of the magnetohydro drive that increase not the frequency as the frequency of the vibrations is set by physical dimensions of the drive components not by the velocity of the fluid.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Not sure what you’re saying, but if water slows down sound frequency, that would explain why speeding up what is heard re-constitutes the original sound. I don’t know if that’s true or not (and if it is, the script should have explained it) but with that explanation I will sleep easy again.

[Brett Bellmore]

Water doesn't do anything to frequency, it does stretch out the wavelength. (Because the speed of sound is much higher in water than air.)

My assumption would be just that the tube was resonating as it started up, but really low like a pipe organ.

[Don Nico]

What I am saying is that structures have their own natural frequencies that are excited by motion of an exciting medium or object. When you bang a drum the frequency does not depend on the speed at which the strum stick hits, but the magnitude of the sound does.
Is that more clear?

[Kazinski]

Axios has an interesting story about the Jan 6 committee starting to worry about the televised hearings in June being a big dud:
"The Jan. 6 committee's intentional effort to build suspense for its blockbuster hearings is being undercut by a deluge of unauthorized media leaks.

Why it matters: The public now has an incomplete picture of the committee's closed-door work through a combination of court filings and leaks of thousands of documents and private conversations.

They undercut what Axios has learned was a committee goal: building drama, mystery — and widespread public interest — ahead of hearings slated for June and the release of its report later this summer."

[Brett Bellmore]

Maybe you recall the earlier Adam Schiff committee making public statements about what was going down in the secret sessions, and when the testimony got declassified, it turned out he'd been lying? That the intelligence people in the secret sessions had been saying they had squat on Trump?

The problem with public sessions is that people don't have to take your word for what the witnesses said, so it becomes hard to get away with lying about it.

[Sebastian Cremmington]

Everything alleged in the first Trump impeachment was proved when Trump released the transcript of the call.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Yep.

This sort of Congressional investigation is just a PR stunt. Especially when the same party controls the administration.

[Longtobefree]

Especially with Twitter leaving the propaganda business - - - - - - - -

[Moderation4ever]

The problem here is that most people have made up their minds long before the hearings. This is a problem with our nation being so politically divided. There is nothing going to come out that will change people minds. If something comes out that doesn't fit your narrative, you will rationalize it away. So, the hearings will be a dude by definition.

All that said I don't think supporter of the former President gained anything from January 6th. I think they lost support among the American people. Their core is stronger but smaller.

[SRG]

"most people have made up their minds long before the hearings"

Probably true. I wonder, though, whether GOP supporters are split between those who think that nothing really happened, and those who think that something really did happen but as they were in favour of it, they're opposed to criminal charges.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, obviously something happened. There's bupkis in the way of evidence that Trump had any legally relevant responsibility for it happening, but there's clear evidence of coordinated, premeditated actions. Planting those (Apparently fake?) bombs the night before, so they could be reported at the right moment to distract Capitol police, for instance.

But, since the Jan. 6th committee is a purely partisan political exercise, with the goal of pinning all blame on one Donald Trump, it will not be trying to get to the bottom of things. They will actually be avoiding learning anything about some topics, such as the extent to which the FBI had advance notice, and might have been involved in instigating events, similar to the Whitmer kidnapping plot they organized.

[David Nieporent]

What's even better than condemning people for what they do is condemning them for what they "will" do, according to someone who assumes everyone who disagrees with him only acts in bad faith!

[Moderation4ever]

While you may see this as partisan, the fact is that many people on both sides say the former President as responsible. That includes the Republican leaders of both the House and Senate. The fact is that these leaders were looking for Democrats to do the work of removing Trump and leaving their hands clean.

[Brett Bellmore]

There's a reason I said "legally relevant responsibility". Sure, he can be said to be "responsible" in a legally irrelevant sense, in as much as it wouldn't have happened if he'd stopped contesting the election at a reasonable point. It's just that there's no evidence of responsibility in a legal sense.

"The fact is that these leaders were looking for Democrats to do the work of removing Trump and leaving their hands clean."

Absolutely true! The Republican leadership have been Trump's enemies all along, they just couldn't afford to say so anywhere the voters might hear it.

They do, however, have mixed motives when it comes to the January 6th committee; As much as they'd like to see Trump's head on a pike, (So long as nobody noticed they'd helped put it there.) they know quite well the Democrats mean to stack more heads than that on that pike, and they don't want that riot to be used as an excuse to go after the GOP in general, as the Democrats would like to use it.

[not guilty]

I have long advocated that Trump's greatest area of culpability is not vicarious liability for the actions of the January 6 mob; it is the corrupt entreaty to Mike Pence on January 4-6 to unilaterally reject valid slates of State-certified electors. An attempt to corruptly obstruct, influence or impede an official proceeding of Congress is just as criminal as a completed endeavor. The entreaty to Pence was unlawful, irrespective of whether the mob stormed the Capitol or not.

I am wary of giving five or six members of the current Supreme Court an opportunity to opine that Trump's ginning up the angry crowd on the Ellipse is protected speech under Brandenburg v. Ohio. It's not, but three justices were part of Team Bush in 2000, and three more are rank partisans.

[Bob from Ohio]

"entreaty to Pence was unlawful"

President asking his Vice President to do a particular political act is probably not "unlawful". You have case law that says it is? Because this is a Bob McConnell situation.

"protected speech under Brandenburg v. Ohio"

Its at least 7-2, maybe even 9-0 that it is.

[not guilty]

If I cite case law, would you actually read it? The paucity of decisional law is no doubt due to no one prior to Donald Trump having the brass to propose what he asked Pence to do. (A lawsuit filed by Rep. Louis Gohmert against Pence was dismissed for lack of standing on January 1, 2021 by a Trump appointed U. S. District Judge, and the Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit, affirmed that dismissal on January 2.)

As a matter of fact, there is Judge David Carter's well-reasoned opinion that Trump and John Eastman more likely than not violated 18 U.S.C. 371 and 1512(c)(2), such that most of Eastman's emails of January 4-7, 2021 are not privileged. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.841840/gov.uscourts.cacd.841840.260.0.pdf This is not a Bob McDonnell situation, in that it deals with different statutes.

Statutes matter, too. There is no lawful authority for what Trump asked Mike Pence to do. The duties of the President of the Senate are spelled out in the Electoral Count Act at 3 U.S.C. 15. The part relevant to entertaining and resolving challenges to states' slates of electors states:

Upon such reading of any such certificate or paper, the President of the Senate shall call for objections, if any. Every objection shall be made in writing, and shall state clearly and concisely, and without argument, the ground thereof, and shall be signed by at least one Senator and one Member of the House of Representatives before the same shall be received. When all objections so made to any vote or paper from a State shall have been received and read, the Senate shall thereupon withdraw, and such objections shall be submitted to the Senate for its decision; and the Speaker of the House of Representatives shall, in like manner, submit such objections to the House of Representatives for its decision; and no electoral vote or votes from any State which shall have been regularly given by electors whose appointment has been lawfully certified to according to section 6 of this title from which but one return has been received shall be rejected, but the two Houses concurrently may reject the vote or votes when they agree that such vote or votes have not been so regularly given by electors whose appointment has been so certified. If more than one return or paper purporting to be a return from a State shall have been received by the President of the Senate, those votes, and those only, shall be counted which shall have been regularly given by the electors who are shown by the determination mentioned in section 5 of this title to have been appointed, if the determination in said section provided for shall have been made, or by such successors or substitutes, in case of a vacancy in the board of electors so ascertained, as have been appointed to fill such vacancy in the mode provided by the laws of the State; but in case there shall arise the question which of two or more of such State authorities determining what electors have been appointed, as mentioned in section 5 of this title, is the lawful tribunal of such State, the votes regularly given of those electors, and those only, of such State shall be counted whose title as electors the two Houses, acting separately, shall concurrently decide is supported by the decision of such State so authorized by its law; and in such case of more than one return or paper purporting to be a return from a State, if there shall have been no such determination of the question in the State aforesaid, then those votes, and those only, shall be counted which the two Houses shall concurrently decide were cast by lawful electors appointed in accordance with the laws of the State, unless the two Houses, acting separately, shall concurrently decide such votes not to be the lawful votes of the legally appointed electors of such State. But if the two Houses shall disagree in respect of the counting of such votes, then, and in that case, the votes of the electors whose appointment shall have been certified by the executive of the State, under the seal thereof, shall be counted. When the two Houses have voted, they shall immediately again meet, and the presiding officer shall then announce the decision of the questions submitted. No votes or papers from any other State shall be acted upon until the objections previously made to the votes or papers from any State shall have been finally disposed of.

Nothing therein authorizes the President of the Senate to unilaterally reject any slate of electors. The maxim, expressio unius est exclusio alterius, holds that the expression of one thing is the exclusion of other things. That is the case with 3 U.S.C. 15.

[not guilty]

The only judicial analysis of whether Trump's January 6 speech was protected under Brandenburg that I am aware of is District Judge Amit Mehta's opinion in a civil action wherein several members of Congress had sued Trump and several other defendants for damages. https://casetext.com/case/thompson-v-trump-3 The judge opined that, considered in full and taken in context, Trump's speech was an incitement to imminent violence unprotected by Brandenburg.

The date of the opinion is February 18, 2022. The judge determined that Trump was not entitled to absolute immunity from suit for damages, so an interlocutory appeal from that denial of immunity should have been available under the collateral order doctrine (limited to the question of immunity). I don't know whether Trump has appealed that order or not.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

I wonder, though, whether GOP supporters are split between those who think that nothing really happened, and those who think that something really did happen but as they were in favour of it

That those are the only two possibilities (or even the most likely ones) that you can think of speaks volumes about you.

[David Nieporent]

True, there's also, "Yeah, something bad happened, but it was all an Antifa false flag operation."

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

True, there's also, "Yeah, something bad happened, but it was all an Antifa false flag operation."

Demonstrating the same stupidity that the previous poster did isn't the "gotcha'" you seem to think it is.

[Brett Bellmore]

I think it's more likely to be an FBI entrapment operation (Like the Whitmer kidnapping.) gone wrong, than Antifa false flag. Not enough people hurt for it to be Antifa, and the FBI had intelligence on key participants with absurd speed. As well, we've learned since that the head of the Proud Boys was an FBI informant.

And did you notice that it took most of a year before the FBI asked for public help in identifying who had left those 'bombs'?

[not guilty]

Still making shit up, Brett? Where is the evidence of FBI entrapment on January 6? Please be specific.

[not guilty]

Still waiting, Brett.

[bernard11]

It's all documented on RightWingBullshit.com.

[SRG]

Those are not the only possibilities *I* can think of Those are the two (main) possibilities I attribute to GOP supporters.

That you could not understand the difference speaks volumes about you.

[Bob from Ohio]

"committee goal: building drama, mystery — and widespread public interest — ahead of hearings slated for June and the release of its report later this summer.""

Ha Ha The public doesn't care. Committee hearings, good lord, just the idea is boring. Maybe they should just subpoena Ivanka and Kayleigh and Kimberly Guilfoyle. The Fawn Hall gambit

Everybody thinks they are Sam Ervin. That involved a sitting president, this doesn't. Also, 4 channels back then, hundreds of news and entertainment options now.

[Life of Brian]

a committee goal: building drama, mystery — and widespread public interest

Well, sure. What's a show trial without a show?

The only particularly interesting thing is how candid they are about it.

[Kazinski]

Not to mention they scheduled the televised hearings for June, when they were hoping for maximum effect on the November elections.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Retired Judge J. Michael Luttig's Op-Ed, published yesterday by CNN, copied and pasted here by me:

Nearly a year and a half later, surprisingly few understand what January 6 was all about.

Fewer still understand why former President Donald Trump and Republicans persist in their long-disproven claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Much less why they are obsessed about making the 2024 race a referendum on the "stolen" election of 2020, which even they know was not stolen.

January 6 was never about a stolen election or even about actual voting fraud. It was always and only about an election that Trump lost fair and square, under legislatively promulgated election rules in a handful of swing states that he and other Republicans contend were unlawfully changed by state election officials and state courts to expand the right and opportunity to vote, largely in response to the Covid pandemic.

The Republicans' mystifying claim to this day that Trump did, or would have, received more votes than Joe Biden in 2020 were it not for actual voting fraud, is but the shiny object that Republicans have tauntingly and disingenuously dangled before the American public for almost a year and a half now to distract attention from their far more ambitious objective.

That objective is not somehow to rescind the 2020 election, as they would have us believe. That's constitutionally impossible. Trump's and the Republicans' far more ambitious objective is to execute successfully in 2024 the very same plan they failed in executing in 2020 and to overturn the 2024 election if Trump or his anointed successor loses again in the next quadrennial contest.

The last presidential election was a dry run for the next.
From long before Election Day 2020, Trump and Republicans planned to overturn the presidential election by exploiting the Electors and Elections Clauses of the Constitution, the Electoral College, the Electoral Count Act of 1877, and the 12th Amendment, if Trump lost the popular and Electoral College vote.
The cornerstone of the plan was to have the Supreme Court embrace the little known "independent state legislature" doctrine, which, in turn, would pave the way for exploitation of the Electoral College process and the Electoral Count Act, and finally for Vice President Mike Pence to reject enough swing state electoral votes to overturn the election using Pence's ceremonial power under the 12th Amendment and award the presidency to Donald Trump.

The independent state legislature doctrine says that, under the Elections and the Electors Clauses of the Constitution, state legislatures possess plenary and exclusive power over the conduct of federal presidential elections and the selection of state presidential electors. Not even a state supreme court, let alone other state elections officials, can alter the legislatively written election rules or interfere with the appointment of state electors by the legislatures, under this theory.

The Supreme Court has never decided whether to embrace the independent state legislature doctrine. But then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist, and Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas in separate concurring opinions said they would embrace that doctrine in Bush v. Gore, 20 years earlier, and Republicans had every reason to believe there were at least five votes on the Supreme Court for the doctrine in November 2020, with Amy Coney Barrett having just been confirmed in the eleventh hour before the election.

Trump and the Republicans began executing this first stage of their plan months before November 3, by challenging as violative of the independent state legislature doctrine election rules relating to early- and late-voting, extensions of voting days and times, mail-in ballots, and other election law changes that Republicans contended had been unlawfully altered by state officials and state courts in swing states such as Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Michigan.

These cases eventually wound their way to the Supreme Court in the fall of 2020, and by December, the Supreme Court had decided all of these cases, but only by orders, either disallowing federal court intervention to change an election rule that had been promulgated by a state legislature, allowing legislatively promulgated rules to be changed by state officials and state courts, or deadlocking 4-4, because Justice Barrett was not sworn in until after those cases were briefed and ready for decision by the Court. In none of these cases did the Supreme Court decide the all-important independent state legislature doctrine.
Thwarted by the Supreme Court's indecision on that doctrine, Trump and the Republicans turned their efforts to the second stage of their plan, exploitation of the Electoral College and the Electoral Count Act.

The Electoral College is the process by which Americans choose their presidents, a process that can lead to the election as president of a candidate who does not receive a majority of votes cast by the American voters. Republicans have grown increasingly wary of the Electoral College with the new census and political demographics of the nation's shifting population.

The Electoral Count Act empowers Congress to decide the presidency in a host of circumstances where Congress determines that state electoral votes were not "regularly given" by electors who were "lawfully certified," terms that are undefined and ambiguous. In this second stage of the plan, the Republicans needed to generate state-certified alternative slates of electors from swing states where Biden won the popular vote who would cast their electoral votes for Trump instead. Congress would then count the votes of these alternative electoral slates on January 6, rather than the votes of the certified electoral slates for Biden, and Trump would be declared the reelected president.

The Republicans' plan failed at this stage when they were unable to secure a single legitimate, alternative slate of electors from any state because the various state officials refused to officially certify these Trump-urged slates.

Thwarted by the Supreme Court in the first stage, foiled by their inability to come up with alternative state electoral slates in the second stage, and with time running out, Trump and the Republicans began executing the final option in their plan, which was to scare up illegitimate alternative electoral slates in various swing states to be transmitted to Congress. Whereupon, on January 6, Vice President Pence would count only the votes of the illegitimate electors from the swing states, and not the votes of the legitimate, certified electors that were cast for Biden, and declare Donald Trump's reelection as President of the United States.
Opinion: This trend imperils the future of liberalism, democracy and capitalism.

The entire house of cards collapsed at noon on January 6, when Pence refused to go along with the ill-conceived plan, correctly concluding that under the 12th Amendment he had no power to reject the votes that had been cast by the duly certified electors or to delay the count to give Republicans even more time to whip up alternative electoral slates.

Pence declared Joe Biden the 46th President of the United States at 3:40 a.m. on Thursday, January 7, roughly 14 hours after rioters stormed the US Capitol, disrupting the Joint Session and preventing Congress from counting the Electoral College votes for president until late that night and into the following day, after the statutorily designated day for counting those votes.

Trump and his allies and supporters in Congress and the states began readying their failed 2020 plan to overturn the 2024 presidential election later that very same day and they have been unabashedly readying that plan ever since, in plain view to the American public. Today, they are already a long way toward recapturing the White House in 2024, whether Trump or another Republican candidate wins the election or not.

Trump and Republicans are preparing to return to the Supreme Court, where this time they will likely win the independent state legislature doctrine, now that Amy Coney Barrett is on the Court and ready to vote. Barrett has not addressed the issue, but this turns on an originalist interpretation of the Constitution, and Barrett is firmly aligned on that method of constitutional interpretation with Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch, all three of whom have written that they believe the doctrine is correct.

Only last month, in a case from North Carolina the Court declined to hear, Moore v. Harper, four Justices (Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh) said that the independent state legislature question is of exceptional importance to our national elections, the issue will continue to recur and the Court should decide the issue sooner rather than later before the next presidential election. This case involved congressional redistricting, but the independent state legislature doctrine is as applicable to redistricting as it is to presidential elections.

The Republicans are also in the throes of electing Trump-endorsed candidates to state legislative offices in key swing states, installing into office their favored state election officials who deny that Biden won the 2020 election, such as secretaries of state, electing sympathetic state court judges onto the state benches and grooming their preferred potential electors for ultimate selection by the party, all so they will be positioned to generate and transmit alternative electoral slates to Congress, if need be.

Finally, they are furiously politicking to elect Trump supporters to the Senate and House, so they can overturn the election in Congress, as a last resort. Trump and the Republicans can only be stopped from stealing the 2024 election at this point if the Supreme Court rejects the independent state legislature doctrine (thus allowing state court enforcement of state constitutional limitations on legislatively enacted election rules and elector appointments) and Congress amends the Electoral Count Act to constrain Congress' own power to reject state electoral votes and decide the presidency.

Although the Vice President will be a Democrat in 2024, both parties also need to enact federal legislation that expressly limits the vice president's power to be coextensive with the power accorded the vice president in the 12th Amendment and confirm that it is largely ceremonial, as Pence construed it to be on January 6.

Vice President Kamala Harris would preside over the Joint Session in 2024. Neither Democrats nor Republicans have any idea who will be presiding after that, however. Thus, both parties have the incentive to clarify the vice president's ceremonial role now.
As it stands today, Trump, or his anointed successor, and the Republicans are poised, in their word, to "steal" from Democrats the presidential election in 2024 that they falsely claim the Democrats stole from them in 2020. But there is a difference between the falsely claimed "stolen" election of 2020 and what would be the stolen election of 2024. Unlike the Democrats' theft claimed by Republicans, the Republicans' theft would be in open defiance of the popular vote and thus the will of the American people: poetic, though tragic, irony for America's democracy.

[Stephen Lathrop]

I had to edit the paragraph breaks, and some extraneous material which came along for the ride when I copied. I missed a paragraph break at the end, just before, "As it stands today."

[Sebastian Cremmington]

Meh, George W Bush successfully stole the 2000 election and then lied us into an asinine war all the while selling us out to China.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Oh my that's an attack on muh sacred Democracy! That speech should be criminalized!!

Oh, nevermind, it's totes legal when Democrats do it, it's only illegal when non-Democrats do it.

[David Nieporent]

Um, you moron, Sebastian is a Republican. He's just one who has a mental illness about Bush.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Yeah, good call, I'm the moron for not keeping a dossier on internet rando's.

Good one, lmao

[Nelson]

Bush didn't steal the 2000 election, Obama didn't steal 2008, Trump didn't steal 2016, and Biden didn't steal 2020.

Why is it that the lunatic fringes are incapable of accepting reality? Trump's claims about 2020 are the most insane because there were more investigations and recounts due to his unrelenting unwillingness to admit things he doesn't like, his absolute immunity to decency, and his use of the bully pulpit as the leader of the GOP.

But that is just a matter of scale and shamelessness, not irrationality. Hillary Clinton and the Dems from 2016 are just as wrong.

Stop pretending an election was stolen when your candidate loses. Figure out how to appeal to more voters next time.

[Michael Ejercito]

Clinton was aided and abeyted by the network broadcast and orint medua in her claims.

[Don Nico]

What BS.
Give it a rest. Of course, you like everyone else is welcome to your delusions.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

2000 Mules should put this Big Lie to rest.

2020 was stolen. We saw it with our very own eyes. No one who could did anything about it because they all despise anyone who actually fights for the people.

[Queen Amalthea]

" We saw it with our very own eyes."

Yeah, just like people you to see with their own eyes the Sun moving round the Earth.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

There are people on video stuffing ballot boxes.

[SRG]

There are videos that have misrepresented or edited what was seen. Nothing stood up in court. You're a sucker.

[Nelson]

The technical phrase is "useful idiot".

[BravoCharlieDelta]

There is no amount of evidence that could ever dissuade a True Believer.

https://2000mules.com/

None. Zero. You people live in a false reality.

[SRG]

Where are the winning lawsuits?

You just eat this bullshit up and think it's prime rib. Dinesh D'Souza? GMAFB.

[Queen Amalthea]

"There is no amount of evidence that could ever dissuade a True Believer."

Every accusation is a confession!

[David Nieporent]

Wait, a movie by convicted felon Dinesh D'Souza is supposed to prove that videos that don't exist show ballot box stuffing that didn't exist?

[Noscitur a sociis]

Pardoned felon!

[Queen Amalthea]

As said below, you're a sucker.

[David Nieporent]

There are no such videos. None. Zero. Zilch.

[Brett Bellmore]

The Newsweek account confirms the existence of the video, at least.

Film Claims It Has Video of "Mules" Stuffing Ballot Boxes in 2020 Election

"Officials in Fulton County, Georgia, told Newsweek that True the Vote paid $2,330.08 for two batches of video, one picked up in May last year and the other a month later. In Arizona, officials in Yuma County did not supply video, but Maricopa County officials did."

Despite a great deal of refusal to cooperate, they have apparently collected a lot of data of the nature claimed.

[Nelson]

Since every single investigation and recount came to the same conclusion, that Biden won and there was no widespread viter fraud, can you just give it a rest? Even the CyberNinjas, who desperately wanted to find fraud in Arizona, came to that conclusion.

Trump lost because he was a terrible President, a terrible leader, and a terrible person.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Biden won because he was a great Senator, great Vice President, great leader, and a great person!

Actual facts of him being a cognitively impaired, corrupt, incestuous child-sniffing pedophile don't really matter to The Democrats.

[Queen Amalthea]

People voted against your guy in higher numbers than they voted against the other guy. Get over it Francis.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Correct. Atleast 2000 people, called "mules", voted in significantly higher numbers than everyone else who only voted once.

People only voted once for President Trump, because us Normal's are piece of shit traitors who desperately need severe justice.

[Nelson]

Funny. The Villages alone have accounted for a sizable number of confimed voter fraud cases, all for Trump. I would be astonished if the number of intentionally fraudent votes (a small percentage of the roughly 10,000 total fraudulent ballots) for Biden end up outnumbering those for Trump.

The fact that you believe that a conspiracy of, at minimum, 2000 people would maintain secrecy shows how delusional you are on this subject. A conspiracy of two has a chance of betrayal. Three and the chance becomes common. Five makes it almlst certain. 2000 people and no one has testified? No one has cut a deal? No one has been tried, let alone convicted?

That is so unlikely the chance rounds to zero.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

That didn't happen. There were zero fraudulent ballots from The Villages.

>2000 people and no one has testified? No one has cut a deal? No one has been tried, let alone convicted?

Why do you think it has to be a single coordinated conspiracy?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

There was a video released of ballot buying and harvesting in MN and no one did a single thing.

The people who govern us don't care because they buy votes too.

[David Nieporent]

cognitively impaired, corrupt, incestuous child-sniffing pedophile

You've literally described Trump.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

WTF is wrong with you?

[David Nieporent]

I have a very low tolerance for dishonesty.

[Armchair Lawyer]

But apparently no problem with self-hypocrisy

[Bob from Ohio]

cognitively impaired - Biden

corrupt - biden

incestuous - Hunter Biden

child-sniffing - Biden also sniffs adult women

[Krychek_2]

This is only possible because we have an electoral college in the first place.

[Don Nico]

It is only possible because every electoral system has flaws and significant errors in measuring the will of the electorate

[Krychek_2]

I will grant that other electoral systems might have other problems, but the specific problem we are discussing could not have happened without the electoral college.

[Don Nico]

But others would have. Such as Hitler becoming Chancellor in Germany or Dragghi being PM of Italy without the public voting for either.

[Krychek_2]

But since neither of those are likely under what I’m advocating maybe you should stop trying to create distractions by changing the subject. And if you want to invoke Hitler, Trump’s attempts to overturn a democratic election are far closer to fascism than anything abolishing the EC is likely to accomplish.

[Don Nico]

K_2,
These ate the typical BS assertions that your ilk make when confronted by the flaws in the election systems mostsimilar to what you think you are advocating.
Your comments are simply dishonest. Admit it for a change. You think you want direct democracy despite all the obvious injustices that would bring.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Nico, pretty sure Krychek_2 wants representative democracy. You know you can have that without the electoral college, right?

[Don Nico]

It is always easy to make a simple statement. Let's see the details. France, Italy, the UK all have representative democracies– all with major lacunae.

[Martinned]

So do around another 100 countries in the world. Why pick out those three? Why not start with Canada? What are their lacunae?

[Krychek_2]

What exactly is BS about the assertion that Trump's attempts to over the 2020 election results and the January 6 riots that followed, and his machinations to pre-empt democracy in 2024, can only happen because we have the electoral college? Explain how that's wrong.

[Martinned]

Without it, the result of the election would never have been in doubt, because the gap between the candidates was more than 7 million votes.

More generally, with a national popular vote the probability that the result will be within, say, 100,000 votes is extremely small.

Also, without the electoral college there is nothing election-related for the Senate to do on 6 January.

[Don Nico]

So what?
The only relevant point is what Matinned writes next: the difference in vote count was far greater than the error in the measurement.
As I said, the US system is not changing any time soon. If you dislike it so much, get off your hobby horse and move elsewhere.
What's wrong with that?

[Queen Amalthea]

A link and excerpt would have been more appropriate.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Yeah, but I couldn't make a link works for some reason.

[Queen Amalthea]

Fair enough.

[bevis the lumberjack]

I dunno man. I agree that Trump lost the election. His whining about it is not appealing.

But yesterday another prominent Democrat (Robert Reich) complained about the Electoral College, once again calling it illegitimate. So, we’ve never in our history had a legitimate administration. Why worry about what Trump did or is doing? It all adds up to nothing anyhow.

[Queen Amalthea]

I think there's a difference between saying an NFL coach saying 'we should change the pass interference rules' and one saying 'we lost that game because the refs and the league conspired to steal it from us using bad calls.' Most leagues would fine a coach for the latter.

[ah....Clem]

For most of our history the winner of the EC was also the winner of the popular vote. There's a good argument to be made that those administrations were legitimate.

A president who lost the popular vote and only gained office through the EC is problematic, especially if said president acts as if he won in a landslide and has a mandate to govern accordingly.

If we keep "electing" presidents with a minority of the popular vote, we do have a legitimacy problem. With one historical exception, it's a recent phenomena and one that should be addressed.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Addressed…..how? Let NYC and California pick the president and the rest of us can pound sand? No thanks.

[Queen Amalthea]

" Let NYC and California pick the president and the rest of us can pound sand? No thanks."

You mean let majorities pick the president regardless of what states they live in? Yeah, how terrible.

[Krychek_2]

Bevis, what you're really saying is that the votes of people you disagree with should be diluted, if we even have to count them at all.

[Krychek_2]

And anyway, other than that you like the result, what makes smaller states any more competent at picking a president than New York and California?

[bevis the lumberjack]

I’m not saying that they should be dismissed. I’m saying that the guys who designed this thought that in a union of individual states every state should get some say in their federal government.

Remember, I’m in Texas, so my vote is also being “diluted” if that’s how you want to look at it.

Looking at how well California and New York are at choosing their own leadership I’ll take my chances with the smaller states. You can make the same statement about my home state and I won’t contest it.

[Krychek_2]

Having a say is one thing. Having what has largely turned into a near-absolute veto is another.

I've lived in small states (Nebraska, Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts) and I've lived in big ones (Illinois, California), and my perception is that conservative memes about big blue states being disasters is grossly exaggerated. Plus, it's not that tough to find red states that are every bit as disastrous (West Virginia, anyone?). So if you're looking to argue that big states/small states, or red states/blue states are better at governance, what you're likely to end up with is a lot of confirmation bias and cherry picked data.

So let's look, instead, at the subject we're actually discussing. For most of our history, the electoral college and the popular vote have been the same, so for more of our history it's been generally useless. The disasters have been to the process in the last two elections in which it did make a difference. The 2000 litigation would not have happened without the EC. The Florida butterfly ballot spectacle would not have happened without the EC. Trump's brazen attempts to actually overturn the election would not have happened without the EC, and January 6 would not have happened without the EC. We wouldn't be having this conversation about what shenanigans will Trump try in 2024. In 2000 and 2020, it would have been obvious within a day of the polls closing who had won the popular vote and that would have been the end of it. The losers would have said better luck next time rather than start a riot.

So, other than you like the result that it kept Gore and Hillary out of the White House (a result most of your fellow citizens disagreed with), please explain how any of this is good for the country?

[Don Nico]

" is grossly exaggerated."
Looking a CA today with the highest tax rates in the country, the highest gas tax, with blue collar workers driving more than 100 to 150 miles per day, with gross wildfire dangers, and yet the one-party government having a nearly $100B surplus is a failure of government to protect the working class.

[Krychek_2]

Oh, so you had no response to my main point so you decided to pick some cherries instead.

[Don Nico]

Again, your usual BS response. I piucked no cherries when I tell you the most glaring problems of your manipulative form of direct democracy that encompasses 15% of the US population. Such dishonesty is pitifully transparent.
If you don't like our political system, move elsewhere; ie, to where you imagine that it is better, because our system is not changing any time soon and not without a constitutional convention. If you think that a convention is desirable with the vast can of worms that it would open, then you are delusional or the most dangerous kind of rdical.

[Krychek_2]

Who said anything about supporting direct democracy?

The reason California is a one-party state is that the GOP has spent the last 25 years doing everything it can to piss off California, secure in the knowledge that there will be no political consequences for doing so. That our system makes it possible for a major political party to not have to care about our most populous state tells you everything you need to know about why a revamp is needed.

[Nelson]

I know. Can you believe that people actually prefer to live in states with large cities, high-paying jobs in widely varied fields, diverse economies, a wide array of goods and services, and cultural experiences like California, New York, Texas, Illinois, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Colorado, and Florida instead of places like Kansas, Oklahoma, Alabama, West Virginia, Idaho, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Mississippi? What is wrong with people?

[Don Nico]

What is wrong is that the working class is trapped. You nicely talk about advantages to the top 5% of wage earners and blithely pawn off the idea that they apply to the working class.

[David Nieporent]

Well, maybe the rest of you should spend time in math class, instead? California and NYC do not make up a majority of the electorate.

[Don Nico]

They are close to 25%.

[David Nieporent]

Well, no. NYC (3 million) + California (17.5 million) = 20.5 million

Total votes cast: 155.5 million

That's about 13%.

[Don Nico]

David try counting the total populations and you get a different number (15%) because NY is population poor compared to CA which is 12% of the US population. They number is smaller than what I said off the top of my head, but the point remains valid.

[Don Nico]

They are not problematic except to a polemicist. They are the result of following the rule.

[Krychek_2]

"Following the rules" and "problematic" are not mutually exclusive.

[Don Nico]

Just be honest K_2.
Your opinion is driven by your not liking the result. I get that.

[Krychek_2]

The result that the majority is deprived of self governance? You’re right, I don’t like it.

My side lost the popular vote in 2004. That’s life. But at least we lost fair and square that year.

[Don Nico]

"majority is deprived of self governance"
By your definition of self-governance. Classic begging the question.

[Krychek_2]

And how is it self governance to deprive the majority of its preferred president?

[David Nieporent]

And? If a rule leads to bad outcomes, those outcomes don't become good just because they're the result of a rule.

[not guilty]

Judge Luttig, who advised Mike Pence not to go along with the Trump/Eastman scam, could be an important witness if Trump and Eastman are tried for attempting to corruptly obstruct, influence or impede an official proceeding of Congress.

[Stephen Lathrop]

I found the Luttig OP-ED particularly strong in its explanation of the salience of the, "independent state legislature doctrine." I do not think it is too strong to summarize that Luttig posits the, "independent state legislature doctrine," as the lynchpin of one failed coup attempt by Republicans, and the likely foundation of another coup—being planned now in public—to be executed in the event Republicans do not win the presidency in 2024.

[Brett Bellmore]

I found it kind of weak in his description of the goal: "Whereupon, on January 6, Vice President Pence would count only the votes of the illegitimate electors from the swing states, and not the votes of the legitimate, certified electors that were cast for Biden, and declare Donald Trump's reelection as President of the United States."

No, actually the goal was to force an investigation into their allegations of election irregularities, which they thought would result in the certified outcomes in several states being overturned. Or as a secondary option, disqualify enough electors that nobody had a majority, and the winner would be chosen by the House voting state by state, where Republicans had a majority of the majority of state Representatives.

Both plans were stupid enough, it was all over weeks before when the electors had cast their votes, but they're not quite as outrageous as he makes it out to be.

[David Nieporent]

No, actually the goal was to force an investigation into their allegations of election irregularities,

Nope. Eastman wrote out two memos, a short version and a long one. The short version didn't mention investigations; it just told Pence to throw out the votes of seven states. The longer version presented several possibilities, but only one of them — and not the one he advocated — involved investigations (or, more accurately, "investigations.") Eastman's argument was that Pence should just declare Trump the winner regardless of the outcome.

[Don Nico]

"one failed coup attempt by Republicans"
The coup attempt could not fail because there was no coup attempt. It was a pathetic riot led by know-nothings

[Nelson]

I've mentioned it a couple times before, but this is my hard sell for The Munk Debates (https://munkdebates.com/). Based in Toronto, they expanded from their Mainstage Debates as Covid restrictions shut down live events in Canada. During the shutdown they added less-formal debates on significant issues, a Dialog series with hour-long in-depth discussion with a series of compelling (and often controversial) people with a seasonal focus (their winter series is on reason and rationality), and a weekly podcast addressing three important current world events each Friday.

Their purpose is civil and substantive debate and they manage both incredibly well. But they aren't afraid of controversial subjects or people. Steve Bannon, Laura Ingraham, Robert Reich, Niall Ferguson, Katrina vanden Heuvel, David Frum, Christopher Hitchens, just to name a few, are debaters.

Podcast debates include "The Federal Reserve needs to agressively fight inflation or risk its own credibility" (which was an amazing debate), "NATO is partly responsible for Russian aggression in Ukraine", "Covid-19 is everywhere; it's time to lift all restrictions for good", "Modern universities are a threat to democratic freedoms", "America is on the brink of civil war", and "Legalize all drugs" They also do more intellectual debates like "Humans have free will", "Let's engineer a better human", "Athens, not Rome, had a bigger impact on Western civilization", and "To realize humanity's full potential requires settling worlds beyond our own".

They have a free membership that gives you full access to all of their content. The people they bring in to debate are highly informed (even if not all are known names). It is absolutely brain-stretching and most presenters have well-formed arguments that make you think.

I can't recommend The Munk Debates highly enough for those who appreciate "civil and substantive" debate on significant issues. I have been equally impressed with their Dialog series and their weekly "current events" podcast.

[Queen Amalthea]

Civil and substantive debates from press hungry public intellectuals often on the fringe. Yeah, we don't have enough focus on that today!

[Nelson]

If there is a highly visible figure who is a proponent of a controversial position and can present a strong, reasoned argument, they don't shy away from that person.

Steve Bannon was one side of a debate on populism. I personally find him to be a loathsome person, but he isn't stupid and he was very relevant to the debate on that topic. Same thing for Chrostoher Hitchens debating whether religion is a force for good. I happen to disagree with Bannon and agree with Hitchens, but both debates were substantive and civil.

[Queen Amalthea]

I guess I think we already have a place for civil and substantive and *careful* debate, it's academe and the research world. I'd rather listen to a debate between, say, Robert George and Peter Singer than Steve Bannon and Christopher Hitchens, but YMMV.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, that would be a great place for civil and substantive debate, (Not at all certain what you mean by "careful".) if not for participants being shouted down or beaten with bicycle locks. Sadly, a lot of important debates can no longer be held in an academic context anymore, the administration will to allow it is just not there.

[Queen Amalthea]

"Not at all certain what you mean by "careful""

I won't argue with the idea that you don't know what careful might mean in terms of debate.

"if not for participants being shouted down or beaten with bicycle locks"

Your ability to generalize about institutions you have little to no familiarity with based on your selective media consumption is noted.

There are literally thousands of higher ed institutions teaching hundreds of classes each most days of the year. And when groups like FIRE surveyed the kinds of things you're talking about (and they were motivated to find them, their fundraising depends on it) they found like 400. You're like the person who knows no gun owners but thinks from reading news reports about accidental shootings that gun owners are generally a careless bunch of yahoos.

[Brett Bellmore]

I know that you may or may not be mobbed if you hold a debate at a university, but you certainly won't, and in any event the security will answer to you, not somebody potentially hostile to you, if you hold it at a private venue.

[Nelson]

I think academia has a lot of well-informed, knowledgeable people with deep knowledge of their subject matter. And The Mink Debates often have academics on one (or both) sides of their debates. They aren't mutually exclusive.

And although I think conservatives are hyperbolic about it and ignore the center to whine about the extremes, strong conservative voices are, in fact, less prevalent in academia. Is that because conservatives are more distainful of education? Because expressing conservative ideas makes employment less likely? Because consrevative ideas are weaker under rigorous scrutiny? All of those? None of them?

I don't know, but it does mean that there are a lot of smart, well-informed, substantive conservatives who make excellent advocates for their beliefs.

More importantly, there should be multiple venues for discussing serious issues. As long as there is an honest exchange of ideas in a forum with credibility and integrity, why should it be limited to academics?

[Nelson]

*The Munk Debats, not Mink

[Nelson]

*Debates

For the love of Christ, can we get an edit button, please!

[IAdmitIAmCrazy]

I am still scratching my head about the Florida/Disney controversy. Could it be that people are so mired in the legal minutiae of the case that they overlook the one issue that should be THE scandalon first and foremost: the cessation of government functions to a private enterprise. I doubt that even the most hard core libertarian whose fondness for privatisation wherever possible is in no doubt, could assent to the establishment and further existence of the Reedy Creek Improvement District. I do know that my rightist libertarian brethren object to anything smelling of gubinment, but gubinment by corporation hardly can be the alternative.
In the Improvement District, Disney appoints the Board of Supervisors and collects the taxes, decides about how to use them, etc. These are essentially sovereign functions not exercised by the sovereign, the (admittedly few) citizens, but by the Disney corporation. Note that in my argument the practical aspects (what costs more etc.) must play no role: you don't sell your sovereign rights to the highest bidder — err, some libertarians would, so let me rephrase: nothing entitles the Florida legislature to sell sovereign rights of its citizens to the highest bidder.
Why is that not THE scandal?

[Martinned]

the one issue that should be THE scandalon first and foremost: the cessation of government functions to a private enterprise

I'm not sure if Reason.com is the place to look for outrage on that one.

[IAdmitIAmCrazy]

It might indeed be. See my two responses to loki13's post, why.

[apedad]

No, the scandal is why is it a scandal NOW?

If Republicans thought it was a bad idea, why wasn't it a bad idea 10, 20, 30 years ago?

We all know this is about - and it has NOTHING do with whether Reedy Creek Improvement District exists or not.

[Queen Amalthea]

This, of course.

[wreckinball]

So your defense of the Jim Crow laws, i.e. unequal treatment under the law, would have been why are they a problem now after decades of being in place?

[Queen Amalthea]

It's motive/intent you dunce.

[Commenter_XY]

IAIAC....The site says 'Often Libertarian'. 🙂

Look, I am not sure there is even a discernable 'libertarian' argument to be made for creating special legislative districts. Maybe that private industry can do municipal functions more efficiently than state or local government, so delegate it and get the government out of that district? Kind of a stretch, though.

To me, it is a straightforward application of state authority. The FL Legislature created these districts 55 years ago. There was nothing in the legislation creating these special districts stating they would be special districts in perpetuity. A half-century has passed. The FL Legislature is dissolving the special districts (all of them) after 55 years. This is a valid exercise of state authority, and there is no 1A issue (Congress did nothing). Case closed.

Is the catalyst (CEO Chapak deliberately and intentionally inserting Disney Corporate into a matter of political controversy within FL) even legally relevant? That is a huge, tenuous 'maybe' based on what I've read this week here at VC.

I am still uneasy at how this all came about. I don't think the Board of Directors at Disney is very pleased with CEO Chapak. Talk about an 'own goal'. I'm sure institutional shareholders are unhappy....since the share price is down over the last year and then dropped 'bigly' this month after Chapak's ill-considered remarks. It would have been better for all involved for Disney to have refrained from commenting on matters of political controversy.

There are no 'winners' here. Only losers by degree.

[loki13]

Ugh. Disney. So a few corrections.

1. There are over 1800 special districts in Florida. If you think they are a good, or a bad, idea, that's fine. But clearly they have served a purpose for a long time- so maybe do a little research before making grand statements?

2. There are numerous issues with what the legislature did that have nothing to do with the First Amendment, which is why this is just political theater (most likely), and why Disney itself hasn't; said or done anything to date. That said, the simple fact that some people (mostly the usual crowd) are arguing about how awesome and legal it is, instead of being up in arms about someone using the power of the state to advance their political ends at the expense of others is ... despicable, it unexceptional today.

3. If you actually looked at the share price of Disney (instead of reiterating what you've hear cherrypicked) you would see that the use of "the last year" is highly misleading, given that Disney's stock peaked one year ago (3/8/21) after a prior coronavirus low (3/18/20) and began descending at that point; it's largest decline has been since 11/8/21 and has nothing to do with this. Instead, the vagaries of Disney stock (especially when you compare it to the S&P 500) are due to the twin factors of the pandemic and the theme parks/cruise ships on one hand (they had to take on debt for operating expenses) and the success of Disney+ as compared to expectations.

4. Yes, there is a lot of heat on Chapek, but that was prior to this comment. As was widely reported, the prior (and widely loved) CEO, Iger, was very much against the Florida legislation. Chapek's issue is that he doesn't have the trust of either Disney's fans or Disney's main creatives, and this is one of several missteps he has made. Chapek's issue wasn't that he made the comment, but that he was forced to go in such a public manner because he specifically chose NOT to say something before.

[Commenter_XY]

loki13, I'll wager you and I agree on this: Better that it should never have happened at all.

[IAdmitIAmCrazy]

Thank you for providing the information that this District is not the only one in Florida. My head scratching hasn't lessened — Reedy Creek Improvement District calls itself a "form of progressive government" (https://www.rcid.org). All good reasons to dig a little deeper. You never stop learning even at youthful age seventy-five ...

[IAdmitIAmCrazy]

I now know where the idea of "progressive" in the District's self description originates. FDR's administration urged the creation of special districts to avoid limits on local spending (https://newsofcanada.net/special-areas-are-kingdoms-with-unaccountable-power/ ). I was also quite flabbergasted to learn that there are not only more than 1,800 special districts in Florida but also more than 38,000 nationwide, spending more than $ 200 billion annually. As Judge Gluck in the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere put it: "Although some types of private areas have value, most are unnecessary, vague, and stressful. It is a means of escaping citizens’ constraints on government power and must be brought under the control of ordinary voters and local governments once again." (https://newsofcanada.net/special-areas-are-kingdoms-with-unaccountable-power/ ).

[Queen Amalthea]

Wtf is 'newsofcanada.net?' If I wanted to really learn something about anything I'm not sure why in the world I'd go there...

[Brett Bellmore]

They are a bit outrageous. I previously lived in a "tax increment" district, which is something vaguely similar. They're horribly undemocratic, a genuine case of taxation without representation once they're created; They need a public vote to create one, but once it exists it exercises unaccountable taxing authority.

[ThePublius]

"they overlook the one issue that should be THE scandalon first and foremost: the cessation of government functions to a private enterprise. "

Is it scandal or scandalon (trap)?

Is it cessation or concession?

[IAdmitIAmCrazy]

It is probably abuse by a non-native speaker to ask for a privatissimum on (American) English.
(1) I used the original Greek “scandalon” in the first instance since its meaning is that something morally repulsive has been made into a public issue. More often than not the English “scandal” means simply that something IS outrageous, public or not. The second time I thought I had explained why I thought it the more narrow “scandal”.
(2) Unfortunately, there is no edit function (or is there?). I wasn’t too happy about “cessation”, while the “concession” had too legitimate a flavor. So I am still searching for the third term, elusive so far.
But thanks for caring …

[Nelson]

I believe that they manage the district, but they don't collect taxes. That is the Florida Department of Revenue's job, not Disney's.

They are also subject to the same laws as the rest of Florida. They just have more control of infrastructure, zoning, and public services (law enforcement, energency services, and the like) within the district.

It's not a scandal because the situation isn't what you are claiming.

[IAdmitIAmCrazy]

"The District operates on a fiscal year, beginning on October 1st and ending on September 30th; and funds its operations, services, and capital improvements by assessing taxes and fees to the District’s landowners and lessees, and by issuing ad valorem and utility revenue bonds." This from the District's official website. (https://www.rcid.org). In the WaPo I read that the District themselves pay taxes to the counties. (https://www.washingtonpost.com/travel/2022/04/25/disney-special-tax-district-explained/ ).

Click

[Nelson]

Correct. I was under the impression that the "taxes" in the districts are mpre like HOA fees. They are not a replacement or an offset for taxes assessed by the state or federal government (like, for example, state income taxes being a deduction on federal income taxes).

[Brett Bellmore]

There IS the "one acre, one vote" bit, that's a bit scandalous.

[shawn_dude]

This isn't all that different from the way HOA's are run in Florida. I believe The Villages (of Republican infamy) is also one of these special districts.

The creation of this distruct dramatically reduced the cost of government in the two counties it overlaps and is a leading creator of jobs in the local economy. The fact that revoking the district may have an adverse impact on local taxpayers is evidence of this and if it goes through, we'll even be able to quantify it.

[IAdmitIAmCrazy]

After a little digging, very much helped by valuable comments here (thank y'all!) I still don't know of any comparable Special District among the 38,000+ in the US where a private enterprise has such a domineering role as Disney does in Reedy Creek. So, yes, maybe right wing libertarians might not be too concerned about Reedy Creek and Disney but they probably not too happy about others because "[p]rivate districts have increased spending faster than other types of government because voters do not know how to stop it." (https://newsofcanada.net/special-areas-are-kingdoms-with-unaccountable-power/ ). Judge Gluck shares my concern about wresting control of (some or many, as in the case of Reedy Creek) public functions from the citizens, some districts setting elections for the boards of supervisors deliberately in off-years so as to take advantage of lower voter participation.
If there is one issue that unites your Mom-and-Pop libertarian in the US with this socialist one, it is the conviction that government should be kept at a nimble minimum and under strict(er) control of the citizens they receive their mandate from.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Biden's unexplained income...$5.2 Million.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10728521/Financial-records-reveal-Joe-Biden-5-2million-unexplained-income.html

Seems there's a little discrepancy between the government transparency records and Biden's IRS tax returns.

In the meantime Joe Biden is apparently paying Hunter Biden's business bills. Makes you wonder what's going on.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

No one who can enforce the law cares.

[Stephen Lathrop]

The money quote from yet another Hunter Biden laptop story:

"No conclusive evidence has yet emerged that Joe profited from any of Hunter’s business deals."

In light of that, everything else—and what pile of, "else," it is—is pure froth.

That said, one disturbing note seems substantive. Apparently politicians—the Clintons, GW Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden—can somehow, legally, collect a startling number of millions of dollars in their private lives, by "speaking fees," and other such conduits. In a political world built principally on dark money interests, that ought to alarm everyone.

Maybe a cultural sense plays into it, that in a capitalist system, someone as important as a U.S. President ought somehow to be made rich. You find that kind of vague emolument-entitlement expectation going back at least to the Grant administration. Obviously, already-rich presidents did not need it, and at least Harry Truman seems to appear as an exception to the tendency. Nevertheless, it is not hard to imagine how that kind of thinking could provide cover for a lot of actual bribery.

[Brett Bellmore]

""No conclusive evidence has yet emerged that Joe profited from any of Hunter’s business deals.""

"Conclusive" is doing all the work here; Essentially the argument is that, since we don't have enough proof yet for an open and shut conviction, we shouldn't bother with investigating their finances to see if he DID profit from them.

[Queen Amalthea]

It's amazing how much conservatives want to talk about Biden Sr. and Jr. business dealings when their leader is Trump Sr. and Jr (and Jr in law). Some serious motes and beams going on here.

[John F. Carr]

The business dealings of Trump Senior and Junior-in-law are covered in depth by conventional news sources that have been more hesitant to go after one of their own.

[bernard11]

They seem of no concern whatsoever to all those who froth at the mouth at the mention of Hunter Biden.

What do you think of Saudi Arabia's $2 billion investment in Kushner's fund, bearing in mind that the investment advisory committee took a strongly negative view of the deal.

[John F. Carr]

Voters should consider it if Trump runs in 2024. It is more likely to influence Trump's decisions than foreigners renting rooms in his hotel.

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah that is really open bribery (or fee for service).

[bevis the lumberjack]

Why are we even discussing this insidious Russian misinformation campaign. Did I miss some news?

[Queen Amalthea]

What evidence is there that the reporting of Kushner's kushy (sorry, couldn't resist) with the Saudis is part of an 'insidious Russian misinformation campaign?'

[Queen Amalthea]

Hunter Biden is 'one of their own' for 'conventional news sources?' Is this some lazy, stupid 'they're all Democrats' or is Hunter Biden actually connected to 'conventional news sources' (itself a lazy, stupid term, there's hundreds of 'mainstream' outlets with thousands of reporters, editors, etc). You're smarter than this. Just say no to whatever silly outlets you heard these kinds of phrases/arguments on.

[Krayt]

More likely he'd have had to deal with innumeral Democratic waggling fingers for every large NY construction project.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Ah, whataboutism. When there's no real counterargument.

[Sarcastr0]

Seems a great question to put to Biden. And similarly for Trump. And generally everyone running for higher office.

A dad paying for his failsons bills is pretty normal, seems to me. The Hunter hunt is pretty scurrilous at this point, he’s not chosen to be a public figure, and his story is sad not outrageous.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Look, there’s only one plausible reason any foreign (or domestic) entity would pile tons of cash on a talentless loser like Hunter Biden. Everyone knows what that reason is. But let’s all just mealy mouth around the elephant in the room because yay team blue or something.

[Sarcastr0]

Companies hiring failsons is proof of a desire to get influence via explicit or implicit bribery. It is not proof of such.

It’s crappy but has always been the case with children of influence. It’s in the nature of power and family. We actually minimize it a lot compared to other countries and even our own history. I can’t get too heated up about it.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Even when it's foreign powers doing it, instead of companies?

Russia and China gots lots invested with Hunter...

[Sarcastr0]

No they don't.

[Armchair Lawyer]

More Whataboutism....

[Sarcastr0]

A dad paying for his failsons bills is pretty normal, seems to me.

This is not whattaboutism.

[apedad]

Florida gov vetoes bill that would end solar power credits

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis vetoed a bill on Wednesday that would have ended solar power subsidies for residential costumers. The Republican governor killed the anti-net metering bill that had been passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature by votes of 24-15 in the Senate and 83-31 in the House.

Supporters of the bill have argued that net metering unfairly pushes utility costs to non-solar customers. Critics have said the bill would effectively kill the residential solar industry in Florida.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/article260828257.html

Alright DeSantis!

There's not a lot to like about him but he got this one right.

"Founded on the idea of the 'cost shift,' the bills are pitched as a protection for non-solar customers from raised rates through cross-subsidizing solar customers. Studies completed by Lawrence Berkeley National Lab found that 40 of the 43 states and Washington D.C. with net metering programs have a negligible cost increase attributed to solar.

The Berkeley study found that cost pressures from net metering don’t start making a tangible effect until solar penetration reaches 10%. Florida is nowhere near this figure, with 0.86% of households currently topped with solar."

https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2022/03/08/anti-rooftop-solar-net-metering-bill-passes-in-florida/

[Armchair Lawyer]

While we're on a climate change bit...

Remember when New York shut down the Indian Point nuclear plant, and said it would be replaced with renewables?

https://i0.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2022/04/Screen-Shot-2022-04-21-at-10.27.26-AM.png?w=1200&ssl=1

Whoops.

[Commenter_XY]

I don't get it. The climate cultists are concerned about CO2 levels and the catastrophic effects on Earth....but refuse to embrace the most efficient way to generate power with zero CO2 emissions. \smh

[Armchair Lawyer]

It's not really about CO2 levels for them. It's about "control".

By diverting attention over to a different item, and controlling the view (and funding) of the different item, they can exert better control over the economy and levers of power.

[Armchair Lawyer]

You have to understand...the worst thing that can happen to a progressive movement is for it to SUCCEED.

If a progressive movement succeeds, if its stated goals are attained...there's no reason for the movement to exist anymore. These are people who have made their lives, their identities, their fiscal livelyhood off this movement. And if the movement works, there's no reason for it to exist, and all that support, that meaning for them is gone. All that's left is to go to something even more extreme. You got gay marriage! Yay. Now...work on getting men who claim to be women into women's sports! And it loses people and support.

So, for a progressive movement like "climate change"...they will self sabotage. They actually don't WANT to succeed. They need the movement, the support, the idealism. Actual success would eliminate that. And it would eliminate the opportunity to use "climate change" to beat their political opponents.

If you wanted to limit climate change, there are a series of simple options.
1) Increase the Nuclear Baseload in the US to 60% of energy generation through major capital investment. (Entirely feasible...see France...)
2) Reopen Yucca Mountain for long term waste disposal (Needed to support point 1).
3) Institute 100% tariffs on Chinese imports until they reduce their CO2 emissions. (China is a major CO2 emitter, and uses a lot of coal to power their industry)
4) Re-onshore heavy industry, including Steel production, to reduce CO2 from transport and dirty foreign energy.
5) Increase taxes on commercial air travel by 100% of fare price to reduce unnecessary travel. (Air travel is generally inefficient and a luxury)
6) Increase taxes on private jets and private jet fuel by 500% (Point 5, but far more potent)

[Longtobefree]

But 6 will impact billionaires and millionaires!
How will they be able to afford the democrat party donations?!

[Brett Bellmore]

1.5) Permit reprocessing of nuclear "waste", as most of it isn't waste in the first place, it's fuel that just needs some neutron poisons removed.

[Krayt]

This is not a joke. On NPR recently, a guest was waxing self-waxing about her Greenness. The glowing host asked how she and her daughter were being green to help climate change.

They launched into a discussion of how proud they were to be composting, a little thing they could do at home.

Except composting only has one environmental benefit: reduced landfill use. And that was leftover from 1970s when contemporaneous talking heads were drumming up business by feigning a problem with space, a lie based on innumeracy.

Otherwise you're releasing CO2 the same way rotting logs in the forest do, which hurts gw. It is the opposite of the concept of carbon sequestration.

This proves tenets of meme theory about treating as holy scripture stuff adopted for completely separate reasons, and the human mind fills in imagined importance.

[Aemon McGarret]

You used meme in it's original meaning! You have made my day.

[shawn_dude]

Landfills aren't composting. Landfills produce so much methane you can generate electricity off of them and methane is far, far worse than CO2. Home compost is used in the garden to enrich the soil and help plants grow--the same plants that will pull CO2 from the air and fix it in the form of trunks and stems.

Composing should be something every municipality does if for no other reason that to no waste two valuable resources: soil amendment and the various costs related to running a landfill.

[Martinned]

It's almost as if reducing CO2 levels isn't the only thing they're worried about. Odd, I know.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Making money, keeping power, and giving out political favors are far more important...

[Sarcastr0]

I think he meant nuclear waste.

[Armchair Lawyer]

If only there was a long term storage solution for nuclear waste that was scientifically proven safe...

Alas, someone illegally shut down that for purely political reasons.

[shawn_dude]

As someone who worked on the Yucca Mountain project, no, it wasn't "proven safe." And it was both started and shut down for politcal reasons. The politics also extended to all the varous states that would have to host the "proven safe" radiocative waste as it passed through their cities on railcars.

The project was looking into ways to make the waste safe for 10,000 years. How does one prove that it is actually safe for even 100 years? Safe from earthquakes (the ghost-dancer fault runs through the middle of the excavated repository)? Safe from water intrusion and erosion?

The science says that the transportation casks would be reasonably safe and unlikely to burst in a railway accident. But once it went into the ground, there were erosion, earthquake, and aquifer issues to worry about across a signifant amount of time.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Yucca mountain was safe.

In the words of the report "concluded that the design had the required multiple barriers, to assure long‐​term isolation of radioactive materials.” Storage is expected to be safe within the site for one million years."

https://www.cato.org/blog/report-concludes-yucca-mountain-safe

Importantly, critically, Yucca mountain was far more safe than the current "solution". Sites all across the country, in earthquake, hurricane, and other natural disaster areas, above ground, in cooling pools.

[Queen Amalthea]

You get it fine, just like you get that many environmentalists object to nuclear power too and would disagree with you the cost benefit analysis given their goals. So you're not even being too cute by half here, more like too cute by a quarter.

[wreckinball]

No its not about lowering CO2 its just about cronyism. Low CO2 does not equal ONLY wind and solar but thats the radical GN Dealers approach.

I guess then Denmark and Germany are the Green leaders?

Turns out we can monitor how much CO2 is being put in the air. Check thsi out . Tell me who is doing better in regards to low CO2, Germany, Denmark or France.

Also checkout Ontario vs California

https://app.electricitymap.org/map

[Queen Amalthea]

"No its not about lowering CO2 its just about cronyism."

I guess you read their minds to know their real thoughts, eh Professor X?

[Krayt]

Can't it be both? Politicians are both skilled and motivated enough to block, or over-burden industry to demand kickbacks to back off a little bit, for good reasons as well as bad!

[Krayt]

Naifs in West: You needa clamp down on industry in your own country!

Corrupt politicians at top of dictatorships, or atop nominal democracies struggling with massive corruption (Mexico, India, Brazil): (like Neo mainling kung fu) "Oh Hell yeah! Hell yeah!"

[Stephen Lathrop]

Commenter_XY, I can explain that for you. In fact I already have. But here it is again, for you and whoever else wants to ride that pro-nuclear hobby horse.

The nuclear industry is a dead duck. It will stay a dead duck at least until the baby boom generation passes on. That happened because from its inception onward, the nuclear industry—and the government nuclear establishment—lied about everything nuclear, all the time, to everyone. They lied about medical radiation hazards; they lied about fallout from bomb tests; they lied about reactor construction problems; they lied about the safety of reactor designs; they lied to soldiers about nuclear exposures; they lied about maintenance and degraded conditions at reactors; they lied about nuclear waste disposal; they lied about melt-downs, even while actual melt-downs were ongoing; they lied about the costs of reactors, and about the costs of nuclear electricity.

The one hope left for nuclear is that the decades-long interruption of nuclear development delivered by all that lying, has finally enabled time for new generations to grow up without being lied to so much. Maybe they will take over, and prove more nuclear-positive, after older lied-to generations pass away. If so, only time will tell whether a nuclear revival will just deliver the same lying crap all over again, or maybe something more forthright and better.

If you have faith in safety improvements delivered by progress in nuclear engineering, and you want to see those improvements implemented, here is a test of good faith that would help a lot. Solve the high-level nuclear waste storage problem. Engineer a safe place to put the waste, and put it there. Then show you can dismantle closed nuclear plants, and get them off the landscape.

If for political reasons you cannot make those things happen, then that tells the world in vivid terms that there is no sufficient political basis to hold a nuclear industry accountable. If you cannot provide that assurance, turn your attention to renewables.

[bevis the lumberjack]

If so, then the dream of a carbon free energy system is a dead duck, because renewables just can’t tote the load. We you ever admit this or do you prefer to simply destroy our grid because it makes you feel good about yourself? Because from the standpoint of physics and chemistry and geology it just doesn’t work.

[Commenter_XY]

And yet lathrop, nuclear power has reliably produced 20% of America's electricity with zero emissions for decades. I think we are well past the 'proof of concept' stage here. Nuclear power works.

I really want a solution that sounds better than: kill off the boomers.

[shawn_dude]

People keep saying "zero emissions" while ignoring all the emissions. Like solar and wind, once constructed, there are very low emissions--most related to employee commutes and operational activites like driving trucks around. Unlike solar, though, it has to be refueled and so there's some ongoing sourcing emissions there. The big, ugly emission that no one wants to deal with: spent fuel rods. That's an emission too.

But worse even still: the LCOE for nuclear is now higher than solar.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Commenter_XY, I gave you a better solution. One that would convert me wholeheartedly. Store the high level waste safely, and get the retired nuke plants off the landscape. (I forgot to mention, clean up the Hanford mess, before that inflicts a giant downstream price.)

Do those things and you've got my support. If politics cannot be mobilized to get that stuff done, I know for certain I can't trust anything else that gets proposed. A nuke industry without demonstrable political capacity to keep it under control is a formula for certain disaster.

[wreckinball]

So you're not for low CO2 I guess? You're saying a low CO2 grid is a dead duck?

There are 90+ operating plants in the US most of which could easily operate 40 more years. Construction costs are not an issue.

Wind/solar generate power based on weather. Power generation needs to be provided based on demand. Intermittency, big problem. Also that event called night presents a problem for solar

[apedad]

Although it looks like there are big strides being made in battery technology which helps mitigate the intermittency problem.

"In the near future, the scale of the batteries serving U.S. power grids is set to explode, increasing from about 1.5 gigawatts today to tens or hundreds of gigawatts by 2030. These batteries will play a vital role in shifting intermittent wind and solar power from when it’s produced to when it’s needed and serving broader grid services needs on an increasingly decarbonizing grid."

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/how-u.s-grid-operators-plan-to-tackle-energy-storage-at-gigawatt-scale

[bevis the lumberjack]

Mitigation is nothing. It either works 100% or it don’t. Right now it don’t. And the climate extremists, who are in charge right now. want to leave us with no plausible back up for the times it don’t.

Better tell grandma to buy a strong battery powered fan and a wood stove, else it’s gonna be hard on her.

I don’t have a political opinion on this, but I’m an engineer and want to see a plan that works. We’re headed down the road to the German disaster, except at our “oh, shit!” point we’ll have no Putin to buy nat gas from.

[shawn_dude]

This is a strange argument. Things work until they don't. That's the nature of things in general.

Fukushima worked until it didn't. Right now, it don't.

[bevis the lumberjack]

In terms of the ability to run the entire grid, renewables never have. They can’t even deliver 30% reliably.

[Brett Bellmore]

You can mitigate the intermittency problem with solar by storage and extensive over-building, and perhaps continent wide HVDC power lines, (At the expense of enabling continent wide blackouts!) because, while there are clouds, the Sun DOES at least come up each day. It requires having a LOT more capacity than is ideal, and spending on a lot of storage, and throwing away a lot of power if the storage fills up on a sunny day, so it's not as economical as just building baseline nukes and forgetting about storage and long distance, easily sabotaged power lines.

Mind, I distinguish between the inherent cost of nuclear power, and the artificially imposed costs its foes have succeeded in arranging. IF we did decide to go all in on nuclear, it wouldn't have to be crazy expensive, it's only crazy expensive because the regulators are controlled by people who want to kill the industry off.

You can't really mitigate the intermittency of wind completely, because it's much more random. You can't rule out being becalmed for even weeks at a time.

And both solar and wind have their own environmental costs, especially if you start building huge grid scale battery farms. Environmentally, nuclear power is remarkably benign relative to other power sources.

Now, we could successfully have a solar based society, but you'd want to go to solar power satellites if you were going to do that. The main advantage of the nukes over solar power satellites is that we can start building them tomorrow.

[shawn_dude]

You left out geothermal, which has the benefit of being able to use existing oil wells and also the existing oil-well infrastructure and skills. The earth is hot 24/7.

And there's also tidal, which is limited to coastal areas but the majority of our population lives in those areas so there's promise on that front as well.

The LCOE for solar is less than nuclear at this point. Solar requires more land but it is very good at co-existing with other land uses, unlike nuclear.

[M L]

"lied about everything nuclear, all the time, to everyone"

They lie about wind and solar too, but that's not a "dead duck"?

[Don Nico]

SL,
Your list of "reasons" is superfluous at best. In the US nuclear power is a "dead duck" because it is too expensive and kept that ways by the very long period of licensing that extends carrying costs of billions of dollars of capital.
Your claims of lying are at best 50 or 60 years out of date. All of your 'show-me's" have been done long ago.
You claim about renewables just does not hold water as they have not credibility to provide base-load power without massive building of energy storage facilities.
There is both room for and need for a broad array of energy sources. Unfortunately you cannot admit that with your blinders on.

[Stephen Lathrop]

All of your 'show-me's" have been done long ago.

No. None of them have been done. There remains no repository for high-level nuclear waste. It gets stored in canisters at power plant sites. There is no plan to clean up obsolete nuclear power plants. Corporations which own them will eventually be abandoned. Whatever unaccounted hazards the plant sites contain will become public charges.

The Hanford site is warily skirted as a cleanup problem so enormous no one wants to quantify it, perched on the banks of the Columbia. What could go wrong?

Those, by the way, are symptoms. The cause that keeps them salient—apparently forever—is a political system which refuses responsibility for anything nuclear. Until that gets corrected, it will remain obvious that politics cannot control or regulate anything nuclear. Knowing that brings back to the fore that culture of incessant lying, which the nuclear industry has never demonstrated it can get past.

If you want a nuclear industry comeback, you need a political fix on nuclear accountability. That is a more urgent need even than improved engineering solutions—not that you do not need those too.

By the way, how can anyone tell how out of date my claims of lying are? It would be remarkable if massive lying is not going on still. For instance, the interim manager of a closed nuclear power plant not far from me has announced plans to dump 1 million gallons of radioactive reactor water, and spent-fuel-pool water, into Cape Cod Bay. Leave aside that until the plan was announced, no one was ever told that could happen. Except for conceding the water is radioactive, the company has not disclosed what the water contains. So now everyone gets to fight, without anyone supplying information necessary to make a sensible decision. Lying by omission? Seems likely. But who knows?

That is the kind of thing which has to be fixed if the nuclear industry wants to be treated as a responsible part of any national policy solutions.

[Nelson]

It is an ongoing bafflement to me that nuclear isn't embraced as the ideal carbon-free power source. Sure, the waste is highly radioactive and dangerous for decades, but even with the huge costs associated with safely storing that waste, nuclear is a fantastic solution.

It is obvioisly an interim step, but it is vastly preferable to coal, oil, or even natural gas. I feel like this is the most obvious case of letting the "perfect bethe enemy of the good" I've ever seen.

[Queen Amalthea]

It's a very perfect be the enemy of the good from what I can tell. I don't think these people are being perfidious, they're probably just wrong. And fwiw a lot of people on the left think so to, there's more than a bit division on this issue.

[shawn_dude]

I think Stephen laid out the reasson quite clearly above. It's an issue of people no longer trusting the government after they lied repeatedly about nuclear power for decades. It's also an issue with people seeing disasters like Fukushima unfold. When solar goes wrong, what does that mean? A panel slides off the rigging and hits the ground and breaks? When nuclear goes wrong, entire zip codes are rendered toxic for generations. Ask the Russian soldiers that dug trenches around Chernobyl how that worked out for them.

And yet, we're still researching nuclear fusion, so I'd also say that people are able to distinguish one technology from the other and still have some element of hope for nuclear's future. And while it might be better than fossil fuels, it needs to be better than solar plus storage or its use cases are limited to places like the far northern or southern regions that don't get much sun for half the year, spacecraft, and other fringe scenarios.

[BillyG]

Fukushima is an old design. Generation 2 reactor I think. No gen 3 has had a problem and gen 4 are safer. Gen 4 will be able to use the spent fuel rods from gen3.

[BillyG]

Russia was funding environmental groups. Solar and wind are so shitty they increase demand for fossil fuels (see Germany). Nuclear would actually reduce demand.

https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/596304-investigate-russias-covert-funding-of-us-anti-fossil-fuel-groups/

[Brett Bellmore]

No, he got that one precisely wrong, the critics are correct. Net metering imposes on everybody else the cost of all the infrastructure necessary for that solar using customer to use the grid like their personal battery. It creates the illusion that the intermittency of solar isn't an economic issue.

It may not be a huge imposition yet, but why wait to do the right thing until it's urgent?

Besides, even at 10% you'd be forced to dump power from baseline plants in order to keep the grid voltage from climbing out of spec. Forcing the utilities to take power they don't need is very destabilizing.

[Nelson]

I'm trying to remember what happens when the supply of something remains the same, but the demand drops. Or, seen another way, when demand remains the same but supply rises.

Supply and demand is such a complex economic principle that I'm sure almost no one understands it.

[BillyG]

You're arguing economics. BB is arguing physics. Do you like your lights being on?

[Don Nico]

"you'd be forced to dump power from baseline plants in order to keep the grid voltage from climbing out of spec."
In fact that phenomenon is frequently seen in Germany and forces base-load power sources to be driven to a negative spot value cost of their energy supplies.

[shawn_dude]

First, the cost transference to non-solar customers is real and also a product of their billing methodology and not the technology or the net metering laws. Electricity, like many processes, has fixed and variable costs. The cost transfer is due to averaging out fixed costs across the variable costs and bundling them in. If the utilities instead charged everyone for the fixed costs regardless of whether or not they had solar on their roofs, there would be nothing to transfer because solar customers would be paying just as much for the wires as everyone else. Problem solved. (at least that problem.)

The issue will be that folks will start to realize our ancient grid system is expensive and there's been significant regulatory capture which has led to a very large transfer of cash from ratepayers to energy companies. At least with transparent billing practices, the ratepayers, who are also the voters, will be able to make more rational choices.

[Martinned]

Even though I'm reluctant to encourage the Reverend Kirkland, this is an interesting paper that was just published in the academic journal Electoral Studies: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379422000312.

Does university make you more liberal? Estimating the within-individual effects of higher education on political values
RalphScott

Abstract
An individual's level of education is increasingly significant in explaining their political attitudes and behaviour, with higher education proposed as a new political cleavage. However, there is limited evidence on the causal effect of university on political attitudes, due to self-selection into educational pathways. Addressing this gap, this article estimates the change in political values that occurs within individuals who graduate from university by applying longitudinal modelling techniques to data from the 1970 British Cohort Study, overcoming the selection problem by accounting for time-invariant confounding. It provides the first causal estimate of higher education specifically, finding that achieving a degree reduces authoritarianism and racial prejudice and increases economic right-wing attitudes. This has important implications for the study of politics: as populations become more highly educated on average, we should expect continuing aggregate value change towards lower levels of authoritarianism and racial prejudice, with significant consequences for political behaviour.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

" It provides the first causal estimate of higher education specifically, finding that achieving a degree reduces authoritarianism and racial prejudice and increases economic right-wing attitudes. "

Universities are actually pumping out conservatives! lmao, take that you commie professors!

[Martinned]

Well, they're pumping out people who are economically conservative and socially liberal.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Socially liberal means treating races differently and forcing others to live under your fucked up gender and sexual ideology.

So racism and authoritarianism. Not conservativism.

It's clearly just a meme for stupid people to say conservatives are racist and authoritarian when you can look with your own eyes around the current world and find the exact opposite.

[Ed Grinberg]

Right.
re: racism
Which party wants to keep Affirmative Action (presumably forever)? Which party talks about "racial equity" (i.e., legalized racism)?
re: authoritarianism
Which party wants to ban "hate speech" and "misinformation"? Which party wants to disarm the people?

[Nelson]

That definition of "socially liberal" is only recognized by the right fringe. Reasonable people define socially liberal very, very differently.

[Krayt]

Sounds libertarian.

[Queen Amalthea]

By 'right wing economic attitudes' do they just mean embrace of markets? Because I personally am glad to hear it if university education makes people less into the quasi-fascism of the Trumpers while also rejecting the solutions of the Bernies out there.

[wreckinball]

Studies papers, blah blah blah. How about just open your eyes and ears. Which political ideology thinks men can have babies? That masks work and if we just locked down harder we would have zero Covid.

That printing money doesn't cause inflation and that suppressing oil production and increasing the cost of production does not increase the cost of gas.

Which political side is that?

[SRG]

"How about you just open your eyes and ears"

You're assuming that this gives you an accurate picture, unbiased by media coverage, and sundry other observational issues.

The point of such papers is to get first hand evidence, and not rely on what people remember or think they've seen on TV.

Duh.

[John F. Carr]

Note that going on to grad school turns you back into a communist.

I am skeptical of their categories. For example, supporting capital punishment makes one an authoritarian. The definition and measurement of "racial prejudice" is unclear. What if campus speech codes teach students not to say what they are thinking without changing their true beliefs? I was in a jury pool when they basically asked us if we were racists. Of course nobody said yes. (Raised a numbered card to indicate yes.) The few black people in my education mostly came from backgrounds like mine. Which lesson do I take away: black people are the same as me, or well-off suburban black people count as humans too, unlike the street thugs in the cities?

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, in college you learn economics, which tends to make you a conservative. If that learning didn't take, grad school looks like a smart move. 😉

[shawn_dude]

I'm not a reviewer for this study so I cannot speak to its methodology directly. However, the commonly understood meaning of "racial" that you or I might hold to may not be exactly what is being measured here. The results of certain survey questions are themselves deeply studied and evaluated such that when you are looking for a question to ask it isn't random and you aren't using just any words that get to your point. You are crafting something with pre-existing statistical validation that's supposed to measure what you want to measure. So if they say "racial prejudice", the study is going to have a much more precise definition for that phrase than you or I might use in conversation.

In this case, I'd expect to find that specific questions relating to capital punishiment correlate with authoritarian beliefs. Does the study do that correctly? I have no clue since I'm not reviewing the paper. My point is that taking portions of the study out of the precise scientific context it was used in will make for great internet troll-fodder but won't have any real value other than LOLZ.

[Don Nico]

Thanks for the cite; I've download the paper.

[apedad]

Forgeries, misspellings and dead voters . . . in Michigan governor's race

Hmmm. . . maybe Republicans have been right all along about how the Dems stole the election.

Oh, wait a minute.....

"Three Republican candidates for Michigan governor could be disqualified from the ballot due to alleged fraud and forgery.

The state Democratic Party filed 250 pages of complaints Tuesday challenging the nomination petitions for James Craig, Tudor Dixon and Perry Johnson alleging that dead people signed the petitions, along with other alleged irregularities, reported MLive."

https://www.rawstory.com/michigan-governor-race/

Nevermind....

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Our elections are the most secure they have ever been. You are illegally harming our Democracy and should be cancelled and imprisoned.

Oh, you're a Democrat? nvm

[Nelson]

Apparently you don't understand the difference between a vote and a petition signature. Which explains why you believe things like "the 2020 election was stolen from Trump". Ignorance.

[Michael P]

You might want to check whether you are being stupidly partisan in taking Democrat accusations of fraud at face value but rejecting Republican accusations of fraud out of hand.

Maybe we need to just pause voting in Michigan until we can figure out what the hell is going on there: https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2020/08/21/michigan-election-officials-call-detroit-primary-voting-problems-alarming-appalling/3410790001/

[M L]

Really? Didn't you know our elections are more secure than ever? Especially since Zuckerberg poured billions into swing states to direct election systems.

The more millions of unsolicited mail ballots you send out, and the less identity verification you have, the more secure things get. The more opportunity you have for ballot harvesting, the more integrity an election will have.

You should be banned from the Internet for this.

[Sarcastr0]

Using anecdotes about local petition fraud committed by Republicans to push Republican narratives about a completely different kind of voter fraud is some impressive Chutzpah.

[M L]

There's no such thing as dead people voting, that's not even possible. Voter fraud and forgeries are not possible. And it's a right wing conspiracy theory to boot. Didn't you know this?

[David Nieporent]

You understand, don't you, that this story isn't about voting?

[M L]

Oh. I was going by apedad's post mentioning "dead voters."

[Nelson]

No one has ever claimed there is no voter fraud. There is voter fraud, both intentional and unintentional, in every election. The rate in 2020 was no different than the norm, with about 10,000 fraudulent votes and an 80/20 split between unintentional and intentional (which is also normal).

Trying to pretend that saying there was no WIDESPREAD fraud (which is true and what everyone who has actually looked into it has found) is the same as saying there was no fraud AT ALL (which no one has ever claimed) just shows how pathetic the Big Lie is and how irrational those who believe it are.

[M L]

Similarly, there's no evidence of most tax fraud/cheating that goes on either. But Democrat voter fraud in major cities has been described as a "time-honored tradition."

[Longtobefree]

Could backfire if they take those dead people off the voter rolls - - - - -

[Queen Amalthea]

The New York Mets keep getting hit by pitches.

"The reason for the Mets’ frustration is clear: First baseman Pete Alonso has been hit in the head twice — the second incident, which happened Tuesday, resulted in a broken helmet — and shortstop Francisco Lindor has also been hit in the head. Overall, the Mets have been plunked 19 times in 20 games, which is eight more than any other team had entering Wednesday’s action."

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/27/sports/baseball/mets-hit-by-pitch.html

[Stephen Lathrop]

Ornithologists note that some bird species adopt a tactic to sit still while under threat. At its extreme, as in some grouse, you can walk to within a few feet of one, throw a stick at it, miss by inches, and it won't move. They seem to conclude that the miss proves you don't know where they are. Perhaps that is what the Mets are doing.

[Commenter_XY]

Shades of Don Baylor...

[bernard11]

MLB seems to be unable to use a good, consistent, ball.

Last year they, incredibly, used two different balls without telling anyone. Then, outlawing sticky stuff on the ball not only hurt pitchers, it increased HBP's as control got worse.

Japanese baseball seems to have solved all this, with a consistent ball that has a mildly tacky surface. It's not clear why MLB can't do the same. (Of course some think that it is clear - that Manfred is an idiot.)

[Ridgeway]

Part of the problem is that there are so many variables in play, like humidity, temperature and elevation, that the same ball will behave very differently over the course of the season. Aren't all Japanese stadiums domes? That is a big difference right there.

Even the "sticky stuff" issue is strange. If it had been such an advantage for pitchers, you would think runs and batting average would be up since the banning, but they are both down significantly this year. Since it looks like the ball has been deadened a bit, maybe they would be down even more with the sticky stuff -- who knows.

[bernard11]

I don't know about the Japanese stadiums.

I did see a clip of Chris Bassitt claiming the ball was inconsistent in the course of the game - it felt different inning by inning. If that's true then those other variables don't matter so much.

Whatever, they need to quit screwing around with it.

[Ridgeway]

The Players Union thinks it is a conspiracy by the owners: deaden the ball in seasons where more high-end hitters are coming up for free agency, and juice it when there are more pitchers.

If the balls are really different inning-to-inning, I wonder if there is a genuine quality issue? Maybe they couldn't get shipments due to all the port issues, and had to dig into some dusty storage closets to find enough balls.

[bevis the lumberjack]

I don’t understand why that’s so hard either.

[Ridgeway]

That's baseball, Susan 😉

[Stephen Lathrop]

A good consistent ball? Do you know that before they can be used, major league baseballs must be washed at a secret location in Delaware River mud?

[Ridgeway]

I think the umpires rub them up with the mud in the stadium before the game. The exact location MLB gets the mud from is more of a secret.

[Queen Amalthea]

Regarding states like Virginia and Florida and Texas passing bills constraining what can be assigned or discussed in their public schools, perhaps a response would be that AP high school courses in impacted areas (Literature, History, etc.,) shouldn't be accepted for AP credit anymore? If the idea of AP courses is to provide a college level course then hopefully there aren't college level courses forbidden from assigning Toni Morrison's Beloved, for example?

[John F. Carr]

In the high school where I live now there are a bunch of small English classes that students can choose from each semester, unlike the high school I went to where there were basically two or three tracks. I think it is possible to avoid Morrison if parents want to.

I have read none of her work. She was not famous enough when I was in school to overcome the bias towards the usual gang of dead writers. I do count myself fortunate to have read _100 Years of Solitude_ (English translation) in class, which I think was an unconventional choice by the teacher.

The AP English course guide (https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-english-language-and-composition?course=ap-english-language-and-composition) does not expect students to have read any particular genre of fiction, much less a specific work. It is an English course, not a Literature course. You can learn reading and writing skills from dead white men like your fathers before you.

During one of the disputes over teaching evolution AP changed the biology test so students would fail it if their school didn't teach evolution, or touched on it superficially but did not teach students how to write essays about it.

When I took it AP History required some coverage of postwar American history, more about the Cold War than civil rights.

[shawn_dude]

Some universities provide more points/GPA for AP courses taken than for high-school level courses. These points impact your likelihood of getting an offer of admission and/or a scholarship. You don't need to have taken the AP exam. However, any out-of-state university that would do this as a result of the current swath of racist and anti-gay speech laws in conservative states would probably be in a state without those laws or the worldview that spawns them. In which case, I would advocate that those students would be better off at the school where they can learn all the stuff their racist and homophobic political leadership didn't want them exposed to.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

"During one of the disputes over teaching evolution AP changed the biology test so students would fail it if their school didn't teach evolution, or touched on it superficially but did not teach students how to write essays about it."

Great idea! This is what happens when smart, educated people make the decisions.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Accreditation of low-quality schools -- and especially nonsense-teaching, science-suppressing, superstition-flattering, dogma-enforcing schools -- seems a natural way for the liberal-libertarian mainstream to improve American education and society.

Clingers, of course, would be hardest hit.

A win-win situation for modern, progressive America!

[apedad]

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene just slammed the US Catholic Church's leadership in a 700-word statement, calling them 'monsters' who are 'controlled by Satan'

Georgia Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene slammed the US Roman Catholic Church's leaders on Wednesday, calling its bishops "criminals and abusers."

In a 700-word statement, Greene demanded an apology from Catholic League president Bill Donohue, who had earlier criticized her for saying that "Satan's controlling the Church." Greene had made the comment during an interview with the right-wing site Church Militant.

Donohue had also called Greene a "loose cannon" and a "disgrace," adding that she had slandered the entire Church and "needs to apologize to Catholics immediately."

However, Greene's official statement did just the opposite, with the congresswoman doubling down on her earlier comments instead. slammed the US Roman Catholic Church's leaders on Wednesday, calling its bishops "criminals and abusers."

In a 700-word statement, Greene demanded an apology from Catholic League president Bill Donohue, who had earlier criticized her for saying that "Satan's controlling the Church." Greene had made the comment during an interview with the right-wing site Church Militant.

Donohue had also called Greene a "loose cannon" and a "disgrace," adding that she had slandered the entire Church and "needs to apologize to Catholics immediately."

However, Greene's official statement did just the opposite, with the congresswoman doubling down on her earlier comments instead.

https://www.insider.com/controlled-by-satan-marjorie-taylor-greene-blasts-catholic-leaders-2022-4

Uh oh....

Do you Republicans thinks that, just maybe, Rep. Greene is losing her mind?

Worried about you guys.

[Queen Amalthea]

I've not seen any evidence she had one to lose.

[Ridgeway]

Or if she did, it was lost long ago. Like Gollum.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Not a Republican, but she’s a complete whack job. Did she ever say why she thought Satan was controlling the CC or is it just more of her “any attention is good attention” schtick?

I wouldn’t hire her to scoop the dog shit out of my yard, much less give her any position of power.

[Sarcastr0]

I find her kinda fascinating in a repulsed way, her fear of testifying means she knows she’s well ahead of her skis but she can’t seem to help herself, and yet at least locally that seems to be a political asset,

[Ridgeway]

We'll see about her political chops. Last I heard (which was several months ago), she had some serious primary challengers. I have not seen any recent polls or discussion however.

[shawn_dude]

Without a Trump-approved replacement, she'll get re-elected on her ability to speak her mind, even when it's full of jibberish.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Her district seems sufficiently stupid, bigoted, backward, and superstitious to re-elect her.

[John F. Carr]

"slammed the US Roman Catholic Church's leaders on Wednesday, calling its bishops 'criminals and abusers.'"

This much is a widely shared opinion, not a fringe Republican opinion. I am writing this near Boston, which had the first or one of the first sex big abuse scandals.

As for Satan, Martin Luther is alleged to have said "I feel much freer now that I am certain the Pope is the Antichrist." Luther lived during one of the low times of the Church. I personally wouldn't say that about recent Popes.

[Brett Bellmore]

I certainly wouldn't have said it about John Paul 2, the Popes since have been a real let-down by comparison.

[shawn_dude]

Wasn't he the dude in charge when most of the child-raping was going on?

[Ridgeway]

This story buries the lede: that Bill Donohue is still alive and kicking. He was in the same role when I was a kid, and I thought he was old then.

[Queen Amalthea]

I thought the same. Maybe he is as blessed as he likely thinks himself.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Equally likely: Satan thinks he's handy to keep around.

Equally likely as in equally silly bullshit no one older than 12 should fall for.

[Nelson]

I am a known critic of cultural conservatives. But pretending MTG speaks for all cultural conservatives, never mind all Republicans, is disingenuous. It is the liberal version of conservatives pretending AOC speaks for all progressives, never mind Democrats.

Finding a quote from the most unhinged fringe of a party and portraying them as typical is a bad-faith argument.

MTG, Gohmert, Boebert, and Cawthorn are no more the center of the House Republicans than AOC, Omar, and that idiot who thinks islands can capsize are the center of the House Democrats. The House has a high percentage of wingnuts and has been for over 200 years.

[apedad]

"Finding a quote from the most unhinged fringe of a party and portraying them as typical. . . "

Agreed and where did I do that?

[Nelson]

Fair point. In reading your post I was reacting to the "worried about you guys" snark line. I think that the GOP has bought so far into the culture wars that they look at majority American opinions and see them as "liberal", but I cannot believe that most Republicans think Greene is a serious person or even a normal person.

[shawn_dude]

Aren't all of the conservative Supreme Court justices catholic?!

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I sense they're far more conservative than Catholic . . . and that we are experiencing "peak Catholic" and "peak conservative," more improvement along each front relatively predictable.

[Nelson]

I don't think so. Alito and Barrett are, if I recall correctly.

[not guilty]

Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Sotomayor, Kavanaugh and Barrett are Catholic. Gorsuch is Episcopalian, but he was reared Catholic.
Breyer and Kagan are Jewish.

[Queen Amalthea]

Tennessee GOP lawmaker advocates good ol' fashioned book burning.

https://thehill.com/news/state-watch/3469350-tennessee-lawmaker-on-books-he-objects-to-i-would-burn-them/

[David Nieporent]

Meanwhile, the LibsofTikTok loon is now ranting that she has discovered a conspiracy in which libraries are giving out books for free.

[Krayt]

Yes, meanwhile the 99 of 100 stories recently of expurgation, or outright silencing, of newly-"problematic" books.

Hint: The problem isn't why this is done. The problem is that it is doene at all. The problem is ideas you get to know, but those other people are too damned dumb to handle it, so burn it before they are mislead!

[Yatusabes]

As we witness the collapse of America, Jesuit scholar John Courtney Murray’s classic, We Hold These Truths (published in 1960 by Sheed & Ward) comes to mind daily. Fr Murray argued that America was losing “consensus” as a body. He traced the beginnings of this loss to Earl Warren’s SCOTUS.

I would be surprised if you were unfamiliar with Murray, particularly this text. Your thoughts on his arguments and application to our current national public square, would be helpful. Here is an excerpt from his book; the full text is available online for free at Georgetown Univ.

We Hold These Truths
John Courtney Murray, SJ
Sheed & Ward, 1960
Reprinted in 2005
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0742549005
https://library.georgetown.edu/woodstock/Murray/whtt_index

Part One
The American Proposition
1. E PLURIBUS UNUM
The American Consensus

The first truth to which the American Proposition makes appeal is stated in that landmark of Western political theory, the Declaration of Independence. It is a truth that lies beyond politics; it imparts to politics a fundamental human meaning. I mean the sovereignty of God over nations as well as over individual men. This is the principle that radically distinguishes the conservative Christian tradition of America from the Jacobin laicist tradition of Continental Europe. The Jacobin tradition proclaimed the autonomous reason of man to be the first and the sole principle of political organization. In contrast, the first article of the American political faith is that the political community, as a form of free and ordered human life, looks to the sovereignty of God as to the first principle of its organization. In the Jacobin tradition religion is at best a purely private concern, a matter of personal devotion, quite irrelevant to public affairs. Society as such, and the state which gives it legal form, and the government which is its organ of action are by definition agnostic or atheist. The statesman as such cannot be a believer, and his actions as a statesman are immune from any imperative or judgment higher than the will of the people, in whom resides ultimate and total sovereignty (one must remember that in the Jacobin tradition "the people" means "the party"). This whole manner of thought is altogether alien to the authentic American tradition.

<emFrom the point of view of the problem of pluralism this radical distinction between the American and the Jacobin traditions is of cardinal importance. The United States has had, and still has, its share of agnostics and unbelievers. But it has never known organized militant atheism on the Jacobin, doctrinaire Socialist, or Communist model; it has rejected parties and theories which erect atheism into a political principle.

https://library.georgetown.edu/woodstock/murray/whtt_c1_1954d

[Martinned]

Yes, I would imagine that was much easier to achieve consensus when upwards of 60% of the population was prevented from participating in the conversation.

[Queen Amalthea]

It's plain goofy to think America is on the brink of some kind of collapse, whether this comes from the Right or the Left. We're lucky to live in the nation we do. We have a comparative fraction of corruption and authoritarianism and violence and poverty relative to other large, diverse nations. We've mostly overcome things like blatant racism, sexism, homophobia, government repression of speech (back in the day you couldn't get a copy of Ulysses or DH Lawrence's work because of obscenity laws, heck by comparison most of what we watch on tv or read today would be repressed), etc. We're a very prosperous nation, for the vast majority of our choices we can carry on with a relatively light burden from government, neighbors or thugs (unlike most of the world). Stop being so paranoid and misinformed by those who want to stoke the fevered fears of folks for profit or political gain.

[Ed Grinberg]

We have a comparative fraction of corruption and authoritarianism...

The corrupt-to-the-gills Joe Biden "won" presidential election by open fraud, and Democrats are now trying to criminalize their opposition as "insurrectionists." But other than that everything is hunky-dory!

[Martinned]

1. Don't be silly.
2. Look how JFK won in 1960.

[Don Nico]

your #2. Yes take a look at the massive fraud in the state of Illinois.

[David Nieporent]

Kennedy wins even if you give Illinois's electoral votes to Nixon.

[Martinned]

Because he also massively cooked the books in Texas (which he won by 46,000 votes) and in any number of other states.

[Don Nico]

Exactly. The party bosses were proud of their control of vote counts. I happen to applaud their concept of "one man, one vote.

[Queen Amalthea]

"The corrupt-to-the-gills Joe Biden "won" presidential election by open fraud"

Laughable.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

These bigoted clingers genuinely are this dumb.

Maybe that's why they have been getting crushed in the culture war.

[IAdmitIAmCrazy]

Having observed consciously US politics ever since Ike sent the 101st Airborne into Arkansas, I am not so sure about "goofy". Obviously, the US has had its recurrent attacks of zealotry in their history — in that respect, today is not unique. And elections have been stolen probably from the outset. I know of at least one later US president who had learnt the hard way what stealing of an election meant and did one-up in his second attempt at getting into the Senate: "Landslide" Lyndon. But in general live and let live has been the normal MOD of US politics. Can you imagine, uber-racist Jim Eastland offering liberal firebrand George McGovern support in his senate re-election bid by any means possible: "Do you want an endorsement or should I attack you publicly? Whatever serves you best, I am glad to help."
Obviously, too much of mutual back-scratching has its drawbacks (orovoking populist revulsion) but my impression is that the people and their elected representatives then had the notion that political strife and discord should not inhibit the possibility of at least peaceful co-existence in the country. That does not mean to discuss issues until there comes the kumbaya moment were we all happily agree and sink into each others' embrace. No, you agree to disagree and endure the fact that someone holds completely different political and even ethical beliefs; that you resolve some differences that need decisions by a political vote — and go on with your business. (Btw Jesuit John Courtney Murray, poster Yatusabes refers to, was wrong to invoke the absolute virtue of consensus; the Warren Court took decisions breaking the consensus that needed to be taken.) As Friedrich Hayek pointed out already in his 1961 "Why I Am Not a Conservative", conservatives lack this notion. The not so conservative US nationalists and 45 acolytes nowadays have even less stomach for such "weakness": They, and only they are "the people", and since "the people" all do think like they do, there cannot possibly be an electoral majority that would vote otherwise. Few dare to say so openly but since those with opposing views are not truly "Americans", disenfranchising them is more than justified.
It would be intellectually dishonest to claim that there are not too few, rather far too many people on the left whose thinking is comparable; but they do not come close in the numbers the vocal and hence dominating minority in the GOP does. It is frightening to see how these phenomena seem to grow not only in the US but throughout the world, and one must not ostrich-like bury one's head in the sand and maintain, it couldn't happen here.
As Donald Rumsfeld put it so neatly: stuff happens.
I have lived the (in-)famous year of 1968 in the US but for the first time I am concerned.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

" As we witness the collapse of America"

That's just the downscale thinking of the kind of people who endorse superstitious nonsense, fear progress, and wish to return to illusory good old days.

Choose reason. Every time. Be an adult.

Or, at least, please try.

[apedad]

Are Democrats or Republicans winning the issue war?

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/patriotism-unity/are-democrats-or-republicans-winning-the-issue-war

This story seems like a fair assessment of various issues.

From the story:

Economy - R
Inflation - R
National Security - R
Immigration - R
Climate change and the environment - D
Healthcare - D
Protecting Medicare and Social Security - D
Education - D

[BravoCharlieDelta]

I couldn't imagine that after seeing the sheer incompetence of the people in government with Covid, and their long history of waste, bloat, and fraud, that anyone with any functioning brain would want them in total control over their healthcare.

I guess to be a Democrat is to reject empiricism.

[SRG]

The GOP have a worse record than the Democrats when it comes to the economy - supported by actual statistics. As far as National Security is concerned, who was in charge fot 9/11?

So perhaps empiricism isn't for you either.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

We saw with President Trump that our elected officials are fairly powerless. The Federal Class that is made up of mostly the Administrative State have all the power and control.

The fact that you people can never find fault with them is so bizarre. It's as if you never heard of an independent agency and you see federal class bureaucrats routinely getting held to account for their misdeeds and failures.

[Sarcastr0]

Bwahahahaha.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Federal bureaucrats literally killed vets by denying them healthcare on secret waitlists so they could get bonuses.

They literally killed vets. They still got their bonuses, and they couldn't even be fired for literally killing vets.

[SRG]

Obviously this is not in response to anything I posted, but is the airing of a separate grievance. BTW as the GOP have consistently screwed up the VA, can we expect to see some outrage from you? Or do you reserve that for non-GOP types?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

How have the GOP screwed up the VA?

[M L]

When a double bad flu virus comes up, obviously as a matter of health care policy you need to shut down small businesses, print trillions of dollars, greatly increase the wealth of all billionaires, and impoverish the lower class with inflation.

Everyone knows this.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

You do realize how enormously stupid you look referring to COVID-19 as a 'bad flu virus' more than two years after everyone knows it has nothing to do with the flu, right?

Who printed the 'trillions of dollars' you're complaining about?

[M L]

It's a really bad flu, colloquially speaking. Three times as bad as the 2017-2018 flu on a seasonal basis. But for some reason the policy responses and media coverage weren't proportionally three times as great as that of the 17-18 flu season . . . hmm . . .

[Nelson]

It depends on the strain. Delta was 10x more deadly than the flu and spread almost as easily. Omicron spreads much easier than the flu, but is only 3x as deadly (still pretty bad, considering how many people the flu kills each year).

If you want to rail at the severity and longevity of Covid restrictions, have at it. They were too severe and lasted too long.

But if you pretend that Covid (easpecially Delta) wasn't a dangerous and dealy disease, you are damaging your own credibility.

And considering hiw quickly it mutates, we're lucky that Delta got less deadly while getting more infectious. It was just as likely to get worse in both aspects as it was to follow the Omicron path.

[M L]

Covid is a dangerous and deadly disease. So is the flu.

Covid has killed about 300,000 Americans each season, which is 3x as many as the 2017-2018 flu season that killed 100,000. If you wanted to get more precise you could adjust for age as the US population is aging rapidly.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

You. Are. A. Fucking. LIAR.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/past-seasons.html

Estimated deaths from the flu in 2017-2018: FIFTY TWO THOUSAND.

It was also an atypical year. If YOU wanted to be precise at all, you'd include the average annual flu deaths.

Do you think people aren't going to bother to fact-check you? At this point, everything you say can safely be assumed to be a lie.

[M L]

Your own link says 61,000, not 52,000. UI of 46,000 to 95,000. Do I accuse you of intentionally lying now? If I were like you, then I guess that's what I would do.

There are other, higher estimates. The CDC had previously estimated "at least" 80,000. My 100,000 figure was based on an estimated range of 80,000-120,000 - I can't find right now where I saw that.

Here's what the CDC said before. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/least-80-000-people-died-flu-last-winter-u-s-n913486

"At least 80,000 people died of flu last winter in U.S., CDC says . . . CDC officials do not have exact counts of how many people die from flu each year. Flu is so common that not all flu cases are reported, and flu is not always listed on death certificates. . . .CDC officials called the 80,000 figure preliminary, and it can be slightly revised. But they said it is not expected to go down."

And here's an archived CDC page: "CDC estimates that influenza was associated with more than 48.8 million illnesses, more than 22.7 million medical visits, 959,000 hospitalizations, and 79,400 deaths during the 2017–2018 influenza season. This burden was higher than any season since the 2009 pandemic and serves as a reminder of how severe seasonal influenza can be." https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2017-2018/archive.htm

So as far as the CDC is concerned, it appears they later revised their estimates downward, for whatever reason. I missed that, my mistake.

Let's assume the number is 61,000. So by this crude measure, COVID was not three times deadlier than the 17/18 flu season on a seasonal basis -- it was five times deadlier. If you adjusted for age it would be less. I was wrong on the number, but I don't think 3x vs 5x makes much of a difference to my general point, which is that we went from an event where virtually nobody cared, noticed, or discussed it, to an immeasurably greater catastrophic reaction that was largely driven by media hysterics, politics, and worse agendas. They permanently destroyed more than a third of all small businesses in the US. Big businesses raked in greatly increased record profits while laying off workers. The richest people doubled their wealth, billionaires added $5 trillion to their net worth, while most others suffered. More than 100 million people fell below the poverty line. Millions died from starvation worldwide, more than the COVID deaths, famine conditions increased 6-fold. Do you support this?

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Did you click on the final estimate link?

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2017-2018.htm

It was right there on the page I linked to. At the bottom of the chart which you didn't fully read, was an asterisk indicated that those values were preliminary. Naturally that also means your archived page is meaningless.

As to your assertion that 'virtually nobody cared, noticed or discussed' the flu season...laughable at best. Maybe you didn't bother to read anything about it or pay attention to any health authorities, but that's on you.

Naturally you don't bother to mention the flu deaths from any other year, which show that 2017-2018 was an outlier. In 2015-16 it was 23,000. 2016-17 it was 38,000. 2018-19 it was back down to 27,000.

You claim COVID has killed 'about' 300,000 each year. The data from Johns Hopkins says 2020 had 350,000 COVID deaths, and 2021 had 473,000.

So when we actually compare full years, the flu is less than 40,000 a year, compared to over 410,000 per year for COVID.

Imagine how bad it would've been without any mitigation efforts.

Those measures did not 'permanently destroyed more than a third of all small businesses in the US.' You know why not? Because the same niche those businesses filled will be filled again.

I flatly reject "More than 100 million people fell below the poverty line. Millions died from starvation worldwide, more than the COVID deaths, famine conditions increased 6-fold." I think you're full of shit.

You also want to argue about US deaths from the flu, but then want to include your (likely fictional) worldwide numbers as though that has anything to do with the US data or actions.

You seem to think that financial harm is somehow worse than ending up dead. You know who can't operate a small business? Dead people. 820,000+ just wasn't enough of a body count for you to care (currently up to 990,000+).

Shocking.

[Life of Brian]

So when we actually compare full years, the flu is less than 40,000 a year, compared to over 410,000 per year for COVID.

No it isn't, you empty vessel.

You're brazenly comparing apples (fluffy modeled estimates) with oranges (painstakingly keeping score, with scads of financial incentives to err on the side of overcounting). Had influenza (or shit, the common cold) EVER been subject to the same sui generis ruleset as COVID (tested positive for __ and then died within __ days), your little fainting couch exercise would look even more ridiculous than it already does.

You can crawl back into your echo chamber now.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Sorry Brian.

I'd un-mute you, but I'm already certain that whatever you had to say is vapid, partisan, and idiotic.

Just like every other comment you've made.

Cheers 🙂

[M L]

"So when we actually compare full years, the flu is less than 40,000 a year, compared to over 410,000 per year for COVID."

I was talking specifically about the 17/18 flu season, not to compare the viruses biologically, but to compare the social, political, and media reactions to these comparably deadly events. The flu killed 60-80,000 Americans that season, compared to COVID killing about 300,000 per season. Let's consider gobally too. Worldwide, the flu kills an average of 646,000 people each year, while COVID has killed 6 million globally for an average of 2 million per year so far. As Brian mentioned, if there was a large financial incentive to count every death as a flu death, then the flu numbers would be higher. (Just an anecdote for this, a family member who is a state trooper detective knew of a case where a guy was shot and killed, and the death certificate said COVID).

Regardless, to quibble with these numbers and say it's a little higher or lower is beside the point, and there are always varying estimates and a lot of uncertainty in such figures.

"Imagine how bad it would've been without any mitigation efforts."

It would have been the same without 99% of these "efforts." There's no reason to think shutting down small businesses and workplaces while everyone still went to the same big box stores and groceries, had any effect. Also consider that each new variant basically took the whole nation by storm in less than a month. In less than a month, each new major variant had penetrated every backwater in the nation, and wiped out the previous variant. The only possible benefit to mitigation efforts was to slow the spread enough to avoid overwhelming medical care capacity -- and the simple voluntary actions of people reacting to public health advisories were more than enough to achieve that. For the most part all of the field emergency hospitals that Trump set up were barely used, and many additional ones planned out were never executed.

"Those measures did not 'permanently destroyed more than a third of all small businesses in the US.' "

Yes they did. There are many sources, just Google it. Here's a quote from Kamala Harris: "Sadly during the course of the pandemic one-third of our small businesses have closed."

And here's a quote from a paper published on NIH's website, pertaining only to the first 3 months of Covid restrictions: "African‐American businesses were hit especially hard experiencing a 41% drop in business activity. Latinx business owner activity fell by 32%, and Asian business owner activity dropped by 26%."

"You know why not? Because the same niche those businesses filled will be filled again."

This is a non-sequitur in context of the point you're trying to make. But it's true those demands will be met -- by international megacorps rather than small businesses. That's the whole thing that has been happening for decades, which our leaders accelerated with their pandemic responses.

"I flatly reject "More than 100 million people fell below the poverty line. Millions died from starvation worldwide, more than the COVID deaths, famine conditions increased 6-fold." I think you're full of shit."

Well I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it's true. Being so ignorant and uninformed is no way to go through life, but to reject reality when you're informed of it because it conflicts with what you wish to be true, can be a real problem.

"The pandemic pushed nearly 100 million people in poverty. They're struggling to escape
The World Bank estimates that 97 million people across the globe fell into poverty due to the pandemic in 2020, living on less than $2 a day.
There has been little improvement since. "Globally, the increase in poverty that occurred in 2020 due to Covid still lingers, and the Covid-induced poor in 2021 continues to be 97 million people," economists at the World Bank said in a blog post earlier this year." -- CNN Business

" About 97 million more people are living on less than $1.90 a day because of the pandemic, increasing the global poverty rate from 7.8 to 9.1 percent; 163 million more are living on less than $5.50 a day. " - World Bank

"Six-fold increase in people suffering famine-like conditions since pandemic began" - Oxfam International

"COVID-19 Linked Hunger Could Cause More Deaths Than The Disease Itself, New Report Finds" - Time Magazine

"‘We would rather die from Covid-19 than from hunger’ - Exploring lockdown stringencies in five African countries" - Global Food Security Volume 31, December 2021

I hope you will take this information into thoughtful consideration. But if on the other hand you support all this, and you are just a mindless lowly attack peon for the political establishment, then go ahead and demonstrate it by quibbling at the margins and refusing to acknowledge reality.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

"I was talking specifically about the 17/18 flu season, not to compare the viruses biologically, but to compare the social, political, and media reactions to these comparably deadly events."

As I've repeatedly demonstrated, the two are NOT comparable. Perhaps math is just not your thing - evidenced by your continued inability to properly cite the numbers.

You provide no evidence of your assertion that the mitigation efforts did nothing. Naturally, the daily case numbers actually showed response to the measures which were put into place, so I understand why you'd pretend otherwise.

Your quotes about small businesses do not support your claim. You said they were permanently shuttered. That is false. You say they will only be replaced by megacorps. That is your opinion, and frankly not a credible statement. If megacorps could just do that on a whim, the other businesses wouldn't exist in the first place.

As to the rest of your numerical claims about 100 million this and poverty that and other nonsense, you need to decide if you want to argue about what the US did, or if you want to argue about the decisions of foreign countries, because I don't give a shit about arguing about the health policies of countries in which I don't live.

I'm glad you took the chance to expressly make it clear that you were both trying to complain about US policy, while at the same time citing numbers from around the entire globe as though the two arguments prove causality.

They do not.

[David Nieporent]

you are damaging your own credibility.

It's not possible to go lower than zero.

[Brett Bellmore]

Covid is more deadly than the flu because basically everyone has had the flu multiple times by the time they're an adult. Eventually this will be true of Covid, and it will be another flu.

[Don Nico]

"but is only 3x as deadly"
For all the many countries that I have examined in detail, the CFR of Omicron is somewhere between 0.01% and 0.3%. That is essentially equal to the CFR for H1N1 influenza. If we take as the number of case the estimates based on last week's estimates based on the number of people in he US with SARS-CoV-2 antibodies found in blood tests (half of the US population), The the CFR for onicron is very close to 0.1% – the typical value for most varieties of influenza.

[M L]

Thank you for that info.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

If Covid has nothing to do with the flu why was that first year or two of covid tests unable to distinguish between the two?

[SRG]

"If Covid has nothing to do with the flu why was that first year or two of covid tests unable to distinguish between the two?"

Evidence?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

https://californiaglobe.com/articles/cdc-pulls-pcr-tests-because-they-cant-differentiate-between-covid-and-flu-california-news-silent/

[SRG]

That is not evidence but a claim, scarcely better than you linking to another post where someone else is making the same claim. And it's not as if California Globe is such a reliable source either.

Furthermore, your claim was about Covid tests in general whereas this story was only about a single test.

So unsurprisingly you make a claim you can't back up. What's more, if you actually knew anything about Covid, you should have been sceptical - if the story had been that *one* of the tests couldn't distinguish between Covid and the common cold, that would be plausible.

Here's one debunking of oone f these idiot claims
https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2022/jan/03/instagram-posts/cdc-didnt-say-its-covid-19-tests-cant-differentiat/

[Don Nico]

There is no on-point evidence.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

" I guess to be a Democrat is to reject empiricism. "

You prefer Republicans who actually claim to believe that fairy tales are true -- and to believe superstition-based arguments and bigotry are a legitimate part of reasoned debate concerning public policy?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

The Federal Class has been trying to solve the raisin crisis for 100 years with their price control program.

Why can't these career bureaucrats figure out a solution for a problem they've been working on for 100 years?

Is it because they are some of the stupidest people with a paying job that exist on the planet?

[Bob from Ohio]

So GOP has the top 3 issues.

Welcome Speaker McCarthy and Majority Leader Mitch!

[Nelson]

I also believe that the Republicans will take both chambers in the midterms. Although given their complete lack of integrity, I hope the GOP kicks McCarthy and McConnell to the curb.

[Bob from Ohio]

Well Mitch ain't going anywhere but Elise Stefanik is the likely replacement for McCarthy and I don't think you will like her any better.

[Jimmy the Dane]

If McConnell says no more SCOTUS nominees until 2024, I don't care how much of a hack he is otherwise, he can keep his seat as majority leader.

[Ben_]

How about no more nominees for anything?

[Jimmy the Dane]

Works for me as well. Biden is an illegitimate geriatric who is incapable of logical decisionmaking. Limiting the amount of damaage he can do in the rest of his term is perhaps the most patriotic thing any American can do.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

If the people in government are such experts at resource allocation and management that they, and they alone, can solve our healthcare issues with Single Payer Healthcare, why aren't they also proposing Single Payer Food, or Single Payer Housing or Single Payer Jobs?

Surely food is of greater importance than healthcare? What good is getting a free physical if you haven't eaten in a week?

[Martinned]

Because out of all of those, only health care is a credence good and only health insurance is an experience good?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEC_classification_of_goods_and_services

[Moderation4ever]

Makes sense. Might feel differently about food if we bought it in a packed box and did not find what was in the box until we came home and unpacked the box.

[Martinned]

Which is something that is also subject to government regulation.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Car repairs are also a credence good. Are you able to take care of fixing your car, or do you think the people in government should do that for you?

Restaurants are an experience good, maybe we need Single Payer Dining since the fact of something being an experience good is what qualifies it for government control?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

In non-life threatening situations, a person can't evaluate a healthcare provider or healthcare insurance policy?

That seem to be able to for other credence goods and experience goods. Look at the examples on your wiki link.

I don't really think your argument stands up to even those most cursory scrutiny.

[Martinned]

Only doctors know what medical care you need, and even afterwards a patient who is not trained in medicine has no way of knowing whether the doctor carried out too many tests and/or prescribed too many or the wrong medications.

Health insurance is easier, because at least once you've been with an insurance company for a while you know whether their customer service is good, and whether their network meets your needs. That's why I described it as an experience good. But working that out ahead of time is very difficult, and not cost-effective for most people.

The combined effect of these two types of players being involved in providing what is ultimately the same product (health care) is that you end up with massive bureaucracy to allow the insurance companies to supervise the healthcare providers while at the same time padding out their own earnings. The only way to avoid that is to remove the unhelpful incentives created by the profit motive in one or more places. It may surprise you, but there is such a thing as incentives that are too strong.

Of course, all of this is only the beginning of what is wrong with the US healthcare industry. Don't even get me started about the lack of antitrust enforcement, for example. (Which, amongst other things, creates benefits from joint purchasing. Then again, the last time the US authorities tried that they ended up with just another layer of monopolised bureaucracy in between.)

Since this is a law blog and not an economics blog, let me just leave you with this gem from the recent ABA Antitrust Spring meeting:

US District Court Judge Gerald Pappert said his decision to allow Philadelphia-area hospitals Thomas Jefferson University and Albert Einstein Healthcare Network to merge over the objections of the US Federal Trade Commission rested on a lack of proof that the merger would harm consumers — not patients, but insurance companies.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

>Only doctors know what medical care you need, and even afterwards a patient who is not trained in medicine has no way of knowing whether the doctor carried out too many tests and/or prescribed too many or the wrong medications."

Now do the plumber, the electrician, the mechanic, the home inspector, the accountant, the lawyer, etc... How does your argument not directly apply to just about every professional service? No one is arguing that those should be the exclusive province of federal bureaucrats. As if these bureaucrats have a track record of success, instead of a litany of failures.

>But working that out ahead of time is very difficult, and not cost-effective for most people.

And being difficult and not cost-effective are the qualities that make something better handled by federal bureaucrats?

>The combined effect of these two types of players being involved in providing what is ultimately the same product (health care) is that you end up with massive bureaucracy to allow the insurance companies to supervise the healthcare providers while at the same time padding out their own earnings.

Do you think a Single Payer system won't be a massive bureaucracy?

>The only way to avoid that is to remove the unhelpful incentives created by the profit motive in one or more places. It may surprise you, but there is such a thing as incentives that are too strong.

And replace it with zero incentives for unelected, unaccountable Federalistas who only care about their Friday's off and six-figure retirements? That's simply nonsense. You guys routinely trot out "profit" as some innate evil. If "profit" creates bad incentives that need remedy in healthcare, what does it do in food? Or housing?

>Of course, all of this is only the beginning of what is wrong with the US healthcare industry.

50% of our US healthcare industry is already directly controlled by the government as direct spending. A non-trivial portion of the remaining amount is heavily influenced by regulation. In this system, the government is the single largest influence upon it.

Systems Theory tells you that he most likely cause of any system failure is it's largest input. Yet for some reason, you and your tribe are completely oblivious to how much control the government already exerts on the system and assign zero culpability to the people who are most likely directly responsible for it's ills.

It's like some big Jedi mind trick. The people in government make you suffer from their failures, and then you people demand the people in government take more control and more power to alleviate your suffering. It's like some mass Stockholm Syndrome.

[Life of Brian]

Only doctors know what medical care you need

Oh dear. This, on a blog where lawyers and judges get second-guessed routinely. What's magical about doctors?

[Moderation4ever]

"In non-life threatening situations, a person can't evaluate a healthcare provider or healthcare insurance policy?"

This a lot harder than you may think. I have had experience doing this and it is not easy. I have a graduate degree and training in finding information. I know how to google, but also manual searches. I know how to read documents, cross check and other analytical techniques. I am guessing for people with less experience their hand will go up quickly and they will give up.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

And a decision being hard means it's something that should be taken away from the regular people because they're just too ignorant to be left to their own devices?

That's what I am taking from your argument. "Those poor dunces without a graduate degree are just too stupid to take care of themselves. Federal bureaucrats, however, are clearly better at making decisions for individual families so the "hard" decisions should be made by them."

I don't think having the people government act as your parent is a good way to live, but you people seem to demand it.

[Moderation4ever]

No, what I am saying is most people will require assistance with picking out health care. That assistance could be provided privately but would likely be government regulated like many other insurances. Or could be provided by a government marketplace like used in the ACA.

I personally don't support single payer healthcare, but recognize that reforms in the health care system are needed. I think the route for this is the ACA.

[Sarcastr0]

This is actually a good and interesting question, even if framed by a zealot.

The demand for healthcare is low until it isn’t. Food, shelter, and employment are not like that.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

You might have a good point if you were only talking about catastrophic events.

Your argument doesn't work for routine and trivial healthcare.

[David Bremer]

I'm generally opposed to single-payer healthcare, but there's a big difference between that and single-payer housing and jobs. That's because healthcare is generally not delivered by preference or degrees of taste.

If I have cancer, I want the treatment that gives me the best chance of going into remission. Sure, there will be different opinions and some doctors will be friendly than others. But we're trying to get the same thing. Sort of like firefighters and police - the government provides a service where everyone has the same goals in mind (i.e., extinguishing fires, public safety).

With food, housing, and jobs, there is a wide variance based on personal preference. I like steak; others are vegetarians. There is no single, scientifically established "best" for most or all people. So you can't treat everyone the same.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Now do non-catastrophic care.

[Absaroka]

"That's because healthcare is generally not delivered by preference or degrees of taste.
...
With food, housing, and jobs, there is a wide variance based on personal preference."

I think that is also true of health care. Suppose we have 3 tiers of health care, like Sears used to have grades of quality:

Good - this is state of the art for 20 years ago. You get appendectomies, broken bones set, MRIs only when really needed, and no transplants or $10K a month experimental drugs
Better - state of the art for 10 years ago, maybe a few transplants if there is a really good prognosis
Best - state of the art for now, no holds barred, genetic testing out the wazoo for personalized treatment, etc

Good costs $500 a month, better is $750, and best is $1000. Everyone gets a $1000/month credit. If you choose best you use up the whole credit. If you choose better you get $250 to spend on whatever you like, and $500 if you settle for good.

I think many people will opt for something other than Best. In fact, I'm sure of it, because I've had employers that had schemes like that, and relatively few people chose the top tier.

Now, if people are unlucky enough to get very sick and the doc is explaining sorry, you don't get the $1M treatment that might up your odds of survival by 5%, then they will wish they had picked the top tier. But that's like being in your Kia as a wreck unfolds, suddenly wishing you had bought the Volvo.

[Ed Grinberg]

If the people in government are such experts at resource allocation and management that they, and they alone, can solve our healthcare issues with Single Payer Healthcare, why aren't they also proposing Single Payer Food, or Single Payer Housing or Single Payer Jobs?

Give it time. I'm sure they'll get around to all of these. It'll be just like USSR -- free (government) healthcare, free (government) housing, everyone works for the government (because private enterprise is illegal). A "liberal's" paradise!

[Longtobefree]

"why aren't they also proposing Single Payer Food, or Single Payer Housing or Single Payer Jobs?"

You haven't been paying attention.

[Moderation4ever]

I read an interesting story about the latest Marquette College poll today in my local newspaper, Wisconsin State Journal. What was interesting was the conflicting data. People think Wisconsin is heading in the wrong direction, but the Governor's approval rating are better than his unfavorable ratings. Republicans controlling the Legislature have far worse ratings.

With regard to the questions about the 2020 elections and fraud most people say they don't have enough information. Polling on issues appears about the same as in past. People support gay marriage, support concealed carry but with a permit, etc.

Overall, I think we are are looking at midterm driven more by party loyalty than by issues. Interesting the poll report than interest in voting is similar in both parties. Suggesting the 2022 may produce more stasis than change.

[Bob from Ohio]

Hey not guilty, you missed some news. I got your back though.

"(CNN)A special grand jury seated to hear evidence in the Manhattan district attorney's investigation into the Trump Organization's finances is set to expire at the end of the week and will not be extended, people familiar with the investigation tell CNN."

[John F. Carr]

On the other hand the state Attorney General claims to have nearly finished a civil investigation.

[Bob from Ohio]

Oh, a civil investigation. Time for a classic:

"Well, I'd like to see ol Donny Trump wiggle his way out of THIS jam!

*Trump wiggles his way out of the jam easily*

Ah, Well. Nevertheless,"

[Commenter_XY]

LOL = got his back. Funny. 🙂

[John F. Carr]

10 Russian soldiers have been criminally charged by Ukraine for crimes against civilians in Boucha.

It was reported a few weeks ago that Ukraine was running pictures through a commercial facial recognition service that had scraped Russian social media accounts.

[Martinned]

There's a vote result you don't see everyday. Horseshoe theory in action...

417-8: House passed legislation urging President Biden to seize and sell sanctioned Russian oligarchs' assets to support Ukraine. 4 Democrats Bush, Ocasio-Cortez, Omar and Tlaib and 4 Republicans Cawthorn, Greene (GA), Massie and Roy voted No.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Without an EXTREMELY good reason to vote against that bill, those 8 people deserve nothing but contempt.

[Martinned]

I'm sure they were all concerned about the due process implications of the proposal.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Generally speaking and excluding any consideration of this specific bill those eight deserve nothing but contempt.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Why should a private citizen of Russia get punished just because he's wealthy?

What sort of craziness is this?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Ask someone educated and informed to try to explain it for you in terms you might understand. If you need to drive three or four towns over to find a properly educated and informed person, the effort will be worth it.

Good luck.

[David Nieporent]

Meanwhile, the House considered a bill to express rhetorical support for Moldova, Moldovan democracy, and good relations between the U.S. and Moldova. It was just a resolution, not an appropriation of money or anything.

The vote in favor was 409-17.

You'll not be shocked to learn that the 17 nos were the Asshole Caucus of the GOP. (Although, for whatever reason, not Jim Jordan.)

Biggs, Bishop, Boebert, Cawthorn, Cloud, Clyde, Gosar, MTG, Harris, Hice, Higgins, Massie, Nehls, Norman, Perry, Roy, Steube.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Is Asshole Caucus their official name?

[bevis the lumberjack]

It should be.

We should set up some sort of death match between this Asshole Caucus and the Progressive Caucus. PPV with the proceeds going to deficit reduction.

[David Nieporent]

They wear it with pride.

[M L]

Orin Kerr notes a very alarming decision from the 9th circuit:

https://twitter.com/OrinKerr/status/1519364096818249728

Holy crap: Although it was barely mentioned in the briefing, the CA9 just held in a single sentence, in a precedential opinion, that Internet content preservation isn't a seizure. And TOS eliminate all Internet privacy. ..So now, under 9th Circuit law, the government is free to order everyone's entire Internet account copied and held for it--with no cause at all. At any time, for no reason....This is basically the nightmare: There's a major issue, but it's raised in passing by counsel that has no idea what it has; and then federal court of appeals has no idea what it has; and in passing the court decides a major issue, perhaps having no idea of its importance.

[apedad]

Ok, first it wasn't the 9th (or any court) that authorized content preservation; it's existing fed law:

18 U.S.C. § 2703(f)

(f)Requirement To Preserve Evidence.—
(1)In general.—
A provider of wire or electronic communication services or a remote computing service, upon the request of a governmental entity, shall take all necessary steps to preserve records and other evidence in its possession pending the issuance of a court order or other process.

Seizure of the records still requires a warrant.

Second, it is NOT the person's "entire Internet account," it's on the particular ESP (Yahoo, Facebook, etc.),

And the, "(r)ecords referred to in paragraph (1) shall be retained for a period of 90 days, which shall be extended for an additional 90-day period upon a renewed request by the governmental entity."

So the duration of preservation is limited in time.

Not as bad as one might think.

[John F. Carr]

The court's decision reminds me of music pirates' claim that copyright infringement is not theft because the copyright owner still has the original.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Great news for you fans of content moderation! Biden is forming his own Ministry of Truth! Just like 1984! It’s going to be called the Misinformation Governance Board, and it looks as if the woman he’s picked to head it loves to engage in misinformation herself. Should be very helpful in suppressing dissent.

[Queen Amalthea]

Nice hyperbole. Isn't what's being talked about a part of our defense strategy to counter foreign disinformation campaigns? What, should we do nothing about this increasingly used weapon of foreign governments?

[Ed Grinberg]

from Orwell's 1984:
It need hardly be said that the subtlest practitioners of doublethink are those who invented doublethink and know that it is a vast system of mental cheating. In our society, those who have the best knowledge of what is happening are also those who are furthest from seeing the world as it is. In general, the greater the understanding, the greater the delusion; the more intelligent, the less sane. One clear illustration of this is the fact that war hysteria increases in intensity as one rises in the social scale.

[apedad]

Well it's a good thing you're here to give us all the facts.

[bevis the lumberjack]

So you're cool with this, right? As long as you think you're on the side that won't get shut down.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

These will be Democrats on this board, it will only get applied in one direction.

[David Nieporent]

What do you think there is to "apply"? All it can do is issue reports and things of that nature. It doesn't have any regulatory or enforcement power.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Yet. And the most common interpretation of 1A if the government simply leans on entities to suppress speech. Like, say, pressuring a newspaper to not run a story. Or a website to shut down access to a news organization.

The Ministry of Truth is going to be pressuring like crazy. They’ve been doing it already without a department and an officer dedicated to that and nothing else.

And since the majority of the media is this administration’s lapdog the suppression isn’t going to meet much resistance.

[ducksalad]

Which section of the Constitution empowers Congress to have "governance" over misinformation?

[Jimmy the Dane]

Leftists would say interstate commerce because in their view everything they want to regulate is interstate commerce.

[ducksalad]

Yup. But, I consider QA a notch above the average leftist, with some better thought out reasons. Not enough to convince me of course, but usually a bit more interesting.

[Martinned]

I'm as sceptical about most commerce clause arguments as you are, but if Twitter isn't interstate commerce, nothing is.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'd say that some of Twitter is interstate commerce, and some of it isn't. Depends on where the people engaged in a particular conversation happen to be.

One of the ugly distortions of commerce clause jurisprudence is treating intra-state transactions as interstate, just because they're in some commodity that is also traded across state lines.

[Martinned]

I'd wager dollars to doughnuts that anyone accessing Twitter from anywhere in the US ends up seeing content delivered to them from servers in at least one other state than where they're present within the first few seconds of scrolling.

[Jimmy the Dane]

I have a feeling that if the Trump White House rolled out something like this the left's reaction might be just a wee bit different....

[Jimmy the Dane]

I look forward to the day in which the government tells us everything we need to know. Will make living life so much easier.

[David Nieporent]

It’s going to be called the Misinformation Governance Board

Actually, that's misinformation; it's called the Disinformation Governance Board.

And it's just like 1984 except that it won't have any actual powers.

[Brett Bellmore]

In engineering, we say that, "You can't control what you don't measure."

The political corollary of that is, "If they measure it, they're planning on controlling it."

[ThePublius]

Excellent.

[ThePublius]

Biden's disinformation director referred to Hunter's laptop as a 'Trump campaign product'

[apedad]

Here's the info on the folks Biden pardoned or granted clemency this week:

https://www.justice.gov/pardon/clemency-recipients

Konstantin Yaroshenko (4/25, clemency), is the guy we did a prisoner swap for Trevor Reed.

Reed, 30, a former U.S. Marine who was serving nine years after being convicted in 2020 of assaulting two police officers, was swapped for Konstantin Yaroshenko, a pilot jailed in 2011 for 20 years for conspiracy to smuggle cocaine into the U.S. after he was seized in a sting operation in Liberia.

[Martinned]

I don't know anything about these individuals, but I'd be curious to know whether you think the President should only pardon innocent people.

The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Good but not enough. Makes Biden similar to all the presidents before him.

The federal sentencing guidelines for drug crimes for so long that there are plenty of over sentenced folks that could be granted some relief.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Given how Twitter employees are currently acting, how many people out there think that most tech companies are going to de facto shadow ban them from employment opportunities? My guess is probably around 75%. Who wants to employ someone who thinks their non-binary, transindental, pansexual status gives them license to sabotage your intellectual property and work product.

[Longtobefree]

Apple
Google
Facebook
Instagram
etc
etc

[Jimmy the Dane]

All of which have the same standard corporate line, but do you really think they are going to bring on engineers that are going to tamper/sabotage their internal work product?

[Voize of Reazon]

It was interesting to learn this week that, however briefly, Kevin McCarthy possessed a spine.

[M L]

In order to combat bot spam on Twitter, Elon Musk has said that Twitter should "authenticate all humans."

Commentary on this has equated the proposal with ending anonymity on Twitter, or at least creating an expanded "blue checkmark" tier of non-anonymous users.

But authenticating users is not the same thing as requiring them to use their real name on the platform or otherwise publicize their identity on the platform. Authenticated users would not be anonymous vis a vis Twitter the company, but that doesn't mean they wouldn't continue to use a pseudonym on the platform.

Anyone know what's going on here?

[David Nieporent]

No. I mean that literally: nobody knows what's going on. It's just a random phrase blurted out by Musk. I doubt Musk himself has thought it through beyond the words he used, but certainly nobody else has any idea. This whole situation is our current political debate in microcosm: Elon Musk has not even bought the company, and won't for months if he does at all, and yet people are getting either hysterical or orgasmic about what's going to happen based on nothing more than their guesses about what he will do.

(Even worse, many are getting hysterical or orgasmic about what has happened since the announcement, being convinced that any random patterns they see are the result of Musk's purchase, even though the purchase hasn't happened yet.)

[M L]

Right. I just wondered if anyone could offer a bit more insightful and detailed speculation about potential authentication polices than what I've seen.

Do we even know when the deal is supposed to close? I agree it's silly. Headlines declare "Musk bought Twitter," but he hasn't. It's like regular folks I know saying "I sold my house!" only to have a sob story 60 days later about how the sale fell through. It's not closed until it's closed.

I wouldn't want to be the Twitter GC's shoes right now though. Especially after this tweet (which, as an aside, is a pretty good tweet in my humble opinion): https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1519073003933515776

[BillyG]

One possibility: add a captcha that is easy for humans and hard for computers. E.g. a math word problem. It lets you authenticate the an account as run by a human.

[bevis the lumberjack]

And in another great step toward absolute control, the Biden administration is about to outlaw menthol cigarettes because blacks like them. You think I’m exaggerating on that reason but I’m not. They’re bragging that they’re helping a population that apparently isn’t capable of making their own decisions.

Biden and his people have the same attitude toward liberty as the Rwandans had toward the Tutsis. They want it to be wiped out.

[ThePublius]

This government overreach of regulating things we care to consume in the name of some greater societal good, when it reaches the flavors of things: sweetness, menthol, flavored cigars, flavored vape liquid - most off which are already banned in Massachusetts - is the harbinger of totalitarianism. No, wait - totalitarianism is here already! Can you imagine? Could you have imagined 20, 50 years ago? This is far beyond the theoretical powers the people granted to government in the social contract of the Constitution. I feel the same about forcing electric vehicles on people, legislating internal combustion engines out of existence, forcing coal mines and coal fired electrical generating plants out of business, welfare through the tax code, and so on. It has to end.

[Jimmy the Dane]

I feel like if the Trump FDA tried to ban menthol cigarettes we wouldn't hear the end about how "racist" and "fascist" it was....

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The Trump FDA wouldn't have done it for any reason other than racism.

[Jimmy the Dane]

So why do you think a Biden administration is doing it then?

[Ben_]

Micromanaging others' lives using police is what progressivism has been about for a century.

[Ben_]

Two news stories this week:
1. Unprecedented water emergency in Southern California.
2. Coastal commission to recommend vote against desalination plant in Huntington Beach

[Ben_]

Link for story #1:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/unprecedented-water-restrictions-ordered-millions-southern-california/story?id=84350274

[Ben_]

No crisis is too urgent to keep environmentalists from dragging their feet saying NO.

Final vote on desalination plant is still to come though, so it’s possible the plant might still be built.

[Ben_]

This might be why environmentalists are so gloomy and anxious all the time: because they know that if people like them are in charge it’s impossible to take any action to improve anything even during crisis times. Nothing can ever be built. Problems are all completely hopeless because the obvious solutions all have imperfect purity and holiness and so must be summarily rejected.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

If Elon Musk could have allegedly solved world hunger with that one-time expense of Twitter $40B, why can't the people in government solve it with the $4T+ they spend each year?

[Ben_]

Because a huge amount of that $4T goes to bureaucrat salaries. Another huge amount goes to fraud. Service providers take a cut.

And then you have to spend 1000-10000% more to get some sort of ethically-sourced, culturally-appropriate, nutritionist-blessed food. They can’t solve every problem beyond the possibility for some effete complaints, but they can waste all the time and money in the world in the attempt.

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

Some weeks ago, I posted a link to a fantastic children's fantasy-story in the tradition of the Narnia books, Harry Potter, and (some of) the Oz books - a novel about two ordinary children who get transported to a magic world and have adventures and magical conflicts with evil enemies - called THE CHILDREN'S COUNTRY. But the link didn't work. Now it does! This is recommended for anyone who likes gentle swords-and-sorcery fantasy involving young people from the "real" world.

https://kayburdekinthechildrenscountry.wordpress.com/2022/04/04/6/

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

THE VOLOKH CONSPIRACY

This white, male blog
has operated for

FIVE (5) DAYS

without gratuitous publication
of a vile racial slur and for

TWO (2) YEARS

without imposing hypocritical,
viewpoint-driven discrimination.