Thursday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[William Cheswick]

Most of the speculations I have seen on the source of the Supreme Court leak have failed to mention what I consider to be quite likely: a computer security problem.

I have heard that the Supreme Court has two network layers. This sort of perimeter defense is common but can have leaks, official or unknown bridges between the two layers, or even access from the outside. While I’m sure the Supreme Court has taken measures, it is easy to have undetected flaws. And I bet many use Windows.

I understand some 70 people have access to these opinions as they are discussed. This is a large group of people, and a lot of machines, and a hack from inside or outside is feasible, and they certainly don’t check for thumb drives. Heck, even the OPM got this wrong.

I am sure the marshal is checking all this. The need expert forensics help.

[Sebastian Cremmington]

You don’t have to print out the internet—Chief Justice Roberts should be prosecuted for not having secure email!! Let’s put Comey on the case!!

[Brett Bellmore]

"Heck, even the OPM got this wrong."

I'm kind of hoping the Supreme court doesn't hire remote IT people operating out of China, like the OPM did. (The OPM knew they were getting it wrong at the time, there were massive internal complaints, all quashed.) But I suppose one never knows.

Yes, I think it's a plausible theory: Hack in, get a copy, print it, and photograph it to make it look like you got a paper copy.

Hm... Think the opinions are write protected?

[AtR]

The sources of the breaches are always "obvious" after the fact ... every large enough company has all sorts of minor breaches and problems every day. That is the normal course of business ... and it's hard to tell the signal from the noise.

If there are structural problems in the computer security of the Supreme Court, people should be fired.

[Brett Bellmore]

In the OPM case they were obvious before the fact. People in the OPM were complaining that it was insane to have Chinese IT professionals in China doing maintenance on secure databases. Their complaints were being ignored.

[gVOR08]

My theory, which is supported by just as much evidence as anyone else's, is that one of Alito's clerks leaked it. He saw it was an embarrassingly badly written opinion, but didn't have the guts to say so, so he let the world tell Alito what's wrong with it. At a minimum, I expect the witch guy will disappear from the final draft.

[William Cheswick]

It looked like standard, fine Alito workmanship to me, and other better-informed people seem to agree. Nothing embarrassing here.

But comparison of this avowed-original draft with the final result may reveal some fascinating entrails of SCOTUS negotiation details.

[not guilty]

The apparent arson of Wisconsin Family Action deserves hearty condemnation from abortion rights supporters. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/10/abortion-arson-attack-wisconsin-pro-choice-janes-revenge Fomenting (and implicitly excusing) arson, bombing and assassination is the province of abortion opponents, and such tactics are unworthy of emulation.

OTOH, peaceful demonstrations near the homes of Supreme Court justices may be an appropriate case of civil disobedience. There is a federal statute prohibiting that conduct, 18 U.S.C. 1507, but the cause is righteous, the misdemeanor penalties are relatively light, and it takes only one juror willing to practice nullification to avoid a conviction. Moreover, application of the statute to public fora such as neighborhood streets, Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U.S. 474 (1988), and public sidewalks, United States v. Grace, 461 U.S. 171 (1983), is constitutionally suspect on First Amendment grounds.

What´s that you say? Such demonstrations are an invasion of the justices´ privacy and intrusive upon their family lives? Well, cry me a river.

[Brett Bellmore]

I have serious doubts that the law is constitutional in regards to quiet, respectful protesting. I also have serious doubts after the last few years' "fiery but peaceful" protest coverage that I can actually trust media reports that the protests have been quiet and respectful.

The problem here is that protesting at somebody's home is clearly, unambiguously meant to deliver a message: We know where you live.

It's a threat, and there's no point in denying that.

[Sarcastr0]

You need to seriously recalibrate your sense of what constitutes a threat. Pelosi's house has had protests outside of it for years. Schumer's as well. Also of course the White House.

Suddenly you find the mere fact of protesting outside a residence to be threatening, and worthy of regulation? That's a pretty big restriction on the 1A you suddenly decided is needed.

If there are any indicators of violence? We can talk, but I'd want some bright lines on what that looks like. And of course there are the regular restrictions on protest that already exist.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

A march of tiki torches in front of KJB's house will have you singing the opposite tune.

[Sarcastr0]

Telling change to the fact pattern there. Or a burning cross, maybe?

Actually, whadya know there's caselaw on point about that being protected speech!

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Telling change to the fact pattern there. Or a burning cross, maybe?"

What's the change in fact pattern?

[Sarcastr0]

The tiki torches.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Tiki torches are comparable to burning crosses?

[Sarcastr0]

Not the comparison my comment was making, TiP. Like, quite clearly not the comparison.

They are different from 'mere fact of protesting outside a residence.'

Why do you think BCD saw fit to add those torches? Funny, that.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Because you people demonize anything that isn't your side and try to make it "off limits".

Burning down cities and Molotov cocktails, totes peaceful.

Tiki torches, OMG OMG IT'S THE NAZIs EVERYONE OMG OMG THATS ILLEGAL!

[NOVA Lawyer]

Are you aware that you are constructing and burning down straw men? If so, are you aware that isn't really convincing to anyone? If not, get help.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Why else do you think Sarcastr0 claimed "tiki torches" were a change of fact pattern, unless he ascribed some special meaning to them?

What's your theory behind Sarcastr0's reaction to tiki torches?

[shawn_dude]

He considers an open flame a direct threat to a wooden home filled with family members. Why isn't that obvious?

[gVOR08]

I suppose its pointless to note that BLM protesters who violated the law are being routinely prosecuted and Dems are OK with it.

[Brett Bellmore]

Nothing sudden about it, I wouldn't protest outside ANYBODY'S home. The White House, of course, is a special case, in that it's also a government building, with huge security, so there's no special threat implied there.

[Sarcastr0]

You can advocate for a big change from current 1A jurisprudence.

But expanding what's a threat requires something to be generally seen as threatening. And you haven't established that, only that you, who sees leftist threats everywhere, continue to jump at shadows.

[Brett Bellmore]

"You can advocate for a big change from current 1A jurisprudence."

You've got a problem grasping the difference between, "I wouldn't make X illegal." and "I wouldn't do X.", I think.

I think a quiet, non-threatening protest in front of somebody's house, at a respectable distance, is likely protected under the 1st amendment, so long as the threat is only implicit. Just like incitement has to be immediate... But the element of threat is pretty much always there, outside of special cases like the White House. If you JUST want to communicate opposition to a policy, you protest at the Supreme court building, not in front of a Justice's home. Taking it to their home IS meant to communicate a threat. The threat may be just, "We're going to make your home life a miserable hassle.", it may be something more, but it's there.

[Sarcastr0]

A protest that is quiet and respectful isn't much of a protest.

What is your line for 'fiery but peaceful' that you want to ban?

Protest is not just about communication, it is about pressure. Which is also protected.

[Brett Bellmore]

"A protest that is quiet and respectful isn't much of a protest."

Gah. The left's view of protest, in a nutshell. Suffice to say that I do NOT agree that the right to protest is the right to be obnoxious and disruptive.

"What is your line for 'fiery but peaceful' that you want to ban?"

Somewhat this side of arson, (The "fiery" in "fiery but peaceful".) obviously. I think that as soon as you've obstructed passage of people, or are creating enough noise to disrupt a peaceful home life, you've crossed the line.

"Protest is not just about communication, it is about pressure. Which is also protected."

Again, gah. No, not if you mean anything more than the 'pressure' of being informed that people disagree with you. The 'pressure' of intimidation and threat? Right out.

[Sarcastr0]

I do NOT agree that the right to protest is the right to be obnoxious and disruptive.
How do you think that'd work for MLK? Letting the government decide if a protest's manner is appropriate is a great way to neuter a lot of protests.

I think that as soon as you've obstructed passage of people
The current law - as can be seen re: abortion clinics.

or are creating enough noise to disrupt a peaceful home life
Also a fine Constitutional restriction.

Both pretty good and oftentimes legally codified already bright lines about what constitutes a legal protest.

Somewhat this side of arson
Not a great bright line.

Pretty sure most folks getting protests are aware people disagree with them, Brett. Protests needs to be about more than that if it's going to be useful at all. Historically, it's absolutely been about more than that almost every time it's mattered.

[Absaroka]

"How do you think that'd work for MLK?"

I think it worked really well for him. Kids in their Sunday best quietly sitting at a lunch counter was exactly the right message. Screaming the same message would have been very counterproductive, IMHO.

I remember a little advice about yelling (and being obnoxious in general) from my father that went something like "Son, there are two kinds of people - people who have to do what you want whether you yell or not (e.g. subordinates) and people who don't (e.g. store clerks, neighbors, relatives, and in fact most of the rest of the world). You don't have to yell at the former, and yelling at the latter is counterproductive".

This is still true for political protests. The in-your-face stuff[1] may feel good to the screamers, but it does bupkis to convince the other side, or the people in the middle who actually decide things.

[1]and going to people's houses qualifies. Protest at their office.

[Sarcastr0]

Those lawbreakers sound pretty disruptive to a lot of racists!

That’s the issue here, a subjective test allows an exception that can easily swallow the 1A protection.

I’m not super into protest personally, but I don’t think protests are a let us reason together situation.

[David Welker]

Your assumption that protesting outside someone’s house could only be motivated by an implicit threat is wrong. A different reason is to get attention. As in, someone protesting outside of the Supreme Court is less likely to have their particular message heard.

[ThePublius]

It doesn't have to be a threat. These demonstrations are illegal.

"At issue is a statute enacted in 1950: Title 18, Section 1507, of the U.S. Code. The law states that it is illegal, “with the intent of influencing any judge,” to:

- picket or parade “in or near a building or residence occupied or used by such judge, juror, witness, or court officer”
- “or with such intent,” to resort “to any other demonstration in or near any such building or residence”"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/11/protest-justice-home-illegal/

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah we are debating whether this law runs afoul of the 1A

[ThePublius]

Gotcha. From the same WaPo piece, FWIW:

"Tabatha Abu El-Haj, an expert on protest rights at Drexel University’s law school, said that the current protests at justices’ homes qualify under the statute and that the statute, if tested, would probably be found constitutional.

“The statute would seem to apply both because … they appear to be picketing and parading with the relevant intent and at the relevant locations,” Abu El-Haj said, “but also because the statute has a catchall ‘resorts to any other demonstration in or near any such building or residence.’ ”

Timothy Zick of the College of William & Mary, who is writing a book on the subject called, “Managed Dissent: The Law of Public Protest,” agreed."

[Krayt]

I question "would probably be found constitutional".

The purpose of peceable assembly is to petition the government AKA have such an influence on officials.

Is this not applicable because of facetious claims judges are judging on merits presented in court, severed from politics?

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Yeah we are debating whether this law runs afoul of the 1A"

As Prof V. pointed out the other day, a similar statute in LA was found constitutional.

[not guilty]

First Amendment law on speech in a traditional public forum has been further developed since Cox v. Louisiana was decided. Frisby v. Schultz recognized a distinction between targeting a particular home (which may be proscibed) and marching on neighborhood streets generally (which is protected). United States v. Grace reversed a conviction for leafleting on the sidewalk adjacent to the Supreme Court building.

In any event, assuming the validity of the statute, this may be an appropriate occasion for civil disobedience.

[TwelveInchPianist]

These protestors are targeting particular homes, and no one is talking about punishing anybody for leafleting on the sidewalk adjacent to the Supreme Court building.

If these protestors want to accept criminal punishment to demonstrate their conviction to the cause of being able to extra-judicially influence judges, so be it, but I haven't seen any evidence of such willingness.

[not guilty]

Properly engaging in civil disobedience presupposes a willingness to accept the consequences. Here the penalty is not especially onerous, and the prosecution in a jury trial risks having a juror willing to practice nullification where the stakes are important. (And they are here.)

[TwelveInchPianist]

Yes, but there no evidence that these protesters are properly engaged in civil disobedience.

[Sarcastr0]

Properly engaged in civil disobedience?? Is there a rulebook?

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Properly engaged in civil disobedience?? Is there a rulebook?"

Ask NG. It's his claim.

[not guilty]

There is not a rulebook to my knowledge. But acceptance of consequences is the sine qua non of civil disobedience.

I included the word properly to separate from the grifting cake bakers and florists who want to hate on LGBT folks without consequences.

[Randal]

What does that even mean? Awareness? Other than awareness (which seems wrong to me), I'm not sure how these protests would look different if the protesters did vs did not "accept the consequences."

[Sarcastr0]

It is a thing for people to protest illegally (or break the law in protest - same diff) and then insist 'it's civil disobedience!' and so they don't need to deal with having broken the law.

It's a bipartisan issue, but I've seen it on this very blog from some of the more...reflexive righties here.

[Randal]

You mean, there are people who think that saying "civil disobedience" is an affirmative defense? Ok yeah that's dumb.

[Armchair Lawyer]

"Suddenly you find the mere fact of protesting outside a residence to be threatening, "

Well, there's a reason that they suddenly decided to expand police protection to all the Justices families...

[Sarcastr0]

Sure, AL, there are always risks. But don't conflate that with a particularized threat. (And no, there is no evidence Alito has been moved to a secure location)
Do you think it's a sign of the violent right that Pelosi and Schumer need a lot of security?

Protests outside the White House are both common and create security risks. But it's important we keep that open. Even if Trump did try and stop that for a while with a barricade.

[Bob from Ohio]

The Schumer protests are intramural. Leftists complaining he's not left wing enough.

[Sarcastr0]

You know what doesn't matter?

That.

[Armchair Lawyer]

"Sure, AL, there are always risks."

And yet.... Just now, they've sought fit to elevate police protection to the rest of the Justices' families.

There may not be a singular identified threat from an individual, but it's accurate to say that there are substantially "increased" risks currently, due to the current protests and invective.

[Don Nico]

"You need to seriously recalibrate your sense of what constitutes a threat. "
S_0,
I am frequently amused by your obsessive impulse to fight with Brett at every possible chance.
I'd intervene that what many not be a direct threat would nonetheless be seen as threatening by most people. Constitutional? Yes. Threatening? Yes.

What would you say about small demonstration four guys with no neck in a car and taking turns walking ) in front a each juror's house during the trial of an accused Mafioso. Let's even posit that their sign says "Try to have a nice day."
As a juror, would you feel threatened?
And why is a judge different to a juror?

[Sarcastr0]

Brett's not arguing merely threatening, he's arguing that speech can be suppressed because it is threatening.

Jurors are not legislators or Justices. If you need to make that change for your hypo to pop, consider why that's needed.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Brett's not arguing merely threatening, he's arguing that speech can be suppressed because it is threatening."

Trivially, yeah. "True threats" can be suppressed, though they're speech.

I'm saying that protesting at somebody's house is basically always intended as a threat, but threats are generally but not always legally protected speech.

The "but not always" is something you care to dispute?

[Sarcastr0]

I have serious doubts that the law is constitutional in regards to quiet, respectful protesting. I also have serious doubts after the last few years' "fiery but peaceful" protest coverage that I can actually trust media reports that the protests have been quiet and respectful.

This is where I take issue - this looks to me like you want to ban the current protests outside the Justice's houses with not particular factual predicate other than not believing the media.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Brett's not arguing merely threatening, he's arguing that speech can be suppressed because it is threatening."

Not sure why he has to go that far. Residential picketing can be banned because the subject unwilling listeners to unwanted speech, as well as, in this case, they seek to corruptly influence the judicial process.

[Sarcastr0]

Corruptly? Come on.

[Don Nico]

Indeed, speech that is perceived by the listener as threatening is ipso facto corrupting.

As for you distinguishing jurors from a presiding judge in a Mafia trial. what really are you thinking? My uncle was a prosecutor in such a trial and had police protection outside his house for weeks.
Then you twist my words to suggest that the protest can be banned. I explicitly said that they could not.
You get too wrapped up in your arguments with Brett during your working hours.

[Sarcastr0]

Federal employees are not the same as jurors. They're fundamentally not the same when it comes to the public pressure they may expect to get.

And no, a protest is not corruptly influencing the thing it's protesting for. Even if its chalk on the sidewalk and a bit scarey to a Senator.

My issue is clearly with Brett's comments being censorious; my issue with yours is your arguments about what's threatening. You're being a bit quick on the trigger here.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Corruptly? Come on."

They're trying to influence the judicial process through means other than what's before the court. Judges certainly aren't supposed to take protests into consideration.

[TwelveInchPianist]

As many have pointed out, jury tampering laws are based on the same premise.

[Sarcastr0]

And if you need to jump from a judge to a jury to make your point, that's a tell.

Why don't we have judge tampering laws of the same scale as we do for juries? Because they are different.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"And if you need to jump from a judge to a jury to make your point, that's a tell."

Making a comparison is a tell? That's the desperation talkin', Sarcastro.

"Why don't we have judge tampering laws of the same scale as we do for juries? Because they are different."

Yeah, we have judge tampering laws on a different scale. So what? They're comparable for 1A purposes, and courts, including SCOTUS, have upheld those laws.

[Sarcastr0]

One has a law about it, the other does not.

Before advocating they be the same under the law, consider why this is the case.

This is like Burke 101.

[not guilty]

The federal picketing or parading statute at issue here applies to judges and jurors alike. Of course, other statutes apply to jury tampering. I suspect the rationale is that judges should be made of sterner stuff.

[TwelveInchPianist]

“One has a law about it, the other does not.”

There was a post just the other day about picketing judges and jurors. And SCOTUS precedent supports its constitutionality.

[not guilty]

In Cox v. Louisiana SCOTUS upheld the facial validity of the challenged statute, but nevertheless reversed the conviction because the statute was unconstitutionally applied to the appellant. The facts of each case matter.

[not guilty]

I am not at all sure that a peaceful protest, ¨near¨ to a judge´s home but confined to sidewalks and neighborhood streets, would be unprotected under the as applied reasoning of Cox and the more recent precedents of Grace and Frisby. The matter is at least not free of doubt.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Someone needs to produce a list of where Federal Class Bureaucrats live so we can "peacefully protest" them.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

" The problem here is that protesting at somebody's home is clearly, unambiguously meant to deliver a message: We know where you live. It's a threat, and there's no point in denying that."

You do not process information in the normal manner, Mr. Bellmore. You should consider that before you publish silly statements and brand yourself an antisocial misfit.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Yeah, look how well that's worked for Arthur!

[wreckinball]

You're right. There is no constitutional right to privacy. Hahahahahaha

What are they protesting again? Cry me a river!

[Sarcastr0]

Weird you focused on viewpoint, and not on methods.

If your standards are based on how much you agree with the viewpoint, you're not good at liberty.

[Armchair Lawyer]

The "apparent" arson. I love the weasel words.

When do we start arresting the politicians who advocated for violence on Twitter in regards to abortion?

[Longtobefree]

I suppose you could take the position that a molotov cocktail is an attack, different from 'actual' arson.
But your point is wonderful.
A fact with pictures and multiple official sources on record is "apparent", but medical realities about the Communist Chinese Virus are disinformation. False reporting has gotten so rampant we now need a new federal bureaucracy to be sure the correct 'disinformation' gets out.

[not guilty]

The Molotov cocktail was unsuccessful. Someone started another fire, for which a fringe group is claiming responsibility.

[Ed Grinberg]

peaceful demonstrations near the homes of Supreme Court justices may be an appropriate case of civil disobedience. There is a federal statute prohibiting that conduct, 18 U.S.C. 1507, but the cause is righteous, the misdemeanor penalties are relatively light, and it takes only one juror willing to practice nullification to avoid a conviction. Moreover, application of the statute to public fora such as neighborhood streets, Frisby v. Schultz, 487 U.S. 474 (1988), and public sidewalks, United States v. Grace, 461 U.S. 171 (1983), is constitutionally suspect on First Amendment grounds.
What´s that you say? Such demonstrations are an invasion of the justices´ privacy and intrusive upon their family lives? Well, cry me a river.

Way ahead of you:
https://reason.com/volokh/2022/05/06/federal-statute-bans-picketing-judges-residences-with-the-intent-of-influencing-the-judge/?comments=true#comment-9482246

[not guilty]

I acknowledge the statute. That is why I identified civil disobedience as an option.

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

The arson in Wisconsin looks like a false-flag operation to me. Did you see the photograph of the graffiti? That is professional-quality workmanship - the even thickness of the paint, the near absence of drips or blots, the consistent shape and proportions of letters which occur more than once, the indentation of the second line so that the ends of the two lines line up with each other - this sure does not look like a graffito sprayed in anger by a furtive arsonist about to commit a serious crime. It looks like part of a TV scenery-set from the early 1990s when the gritty smell-the-garbage urban scenery we had previously seen on 1970s shows like "Kojak" and "McCloud", was replaced by appealing, clean sets, and even ghetto-scenes with junkies and low-grade prostitutes in the stories looked sanitized. Shows like "Baywatch", "Murder, She Wrote", the revived "Columbo" and "Perry Mason", "MacGyver", and so on. Compare with the arson itself: based on the descriptions in the story, it was amateurish and unprepared. The news said that the molotov cocktail failed to detonate, and the arsonist had to go light the incendiary liquid by hand. It's not consistent with the artistry and preparation the perp put into the graffito.

I'm not a law-enforcement expert, and I have no direct personal experience with arson, or molotov cocktails, or commercial spray-painting, but this looks like a phony crime.

[Brett Bellmore]

LOL! "Must be fake, the arsonist had good handwriting!" Are you for real?

[David Nieporent]

This coming from the guy who thinks "Really, the GOP didn't support Trump because they once didn't pass a bill he didn't do anything to try to get passed."

[not guilty]

As I observed on another thread, Justice Alito´s draft opinion in Dobbs brings to mind a thorny question. Should the courts recognize the substantive due process right of a husband to rape his wife?

The right at issue is of ancient pedigree. As Sir Matthew Hale (cited with approval by Alito) wrote in the seventeenth century, “The husband cannot be guilty of a rape committed by himself upon his lawful wife, for by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wife hath given up herself in this kind unto her husband, which she cannot retract.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/09/alito-roe-sir-matthew-hale-misogynist/ Marital rape has been prosecuted for only the past fifty years or so. It was not a crime when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted in 1868. Marital rape is "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition," Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 721 (1997).

One may ask, what of the wife´s rights to bodily integrity and personal autonomy? Those rights are inapposite, seeing as how Justice Alito does not discuss them in Dobbs. Such rights are apparently not of constitutional magnitude to at least five black robed misogynists. And in any event, intrusion of an unwanted penis for up to several minutes pales in comparison to the burden on bodily integrity incident to occupation of a woman´s body for nine months by an unwanted fetus.

[John F. Carr]

Domestic relations and rape are questions of state law, in my opinion. Some states may choose the obviously correct policy and others may choose the obviously wrong policy.

[wreckinball]

Should you stop posting? I mean you're second sentence is ridiculous.

The nine robed folks in 1973 invented a right. Just like none robed folks invented the notion that a black man counts as 2/3 a person and that sperate but equal does not violate 14A

All wrong.

[Randal]

What are you talking about? You clearly went to a school in a red state that banned learning about the racial aspects of US history.

[Brett Bellmore]

The courts shouldn't recognize substantive due process, period. It's a bastard oxymoron the Court created to avoid forthrightly overruling the Slaugherhouse cases.

What Carr says. There's no originalist right to not be subject to marital rape, but likewise none to permit it. States aren't actually constitutionally required to have rape laws AT ALL. They ARE required to provide equal protection of the law to the extent they do provide protection in the first place.

I think there's an argument that requires marital rape be treated the same as extra-marital rape, but it has clear shortcomings from an originalist standpoint.

Regardless, this is another Loving style scaremongering argument. Nobody is going to relegalize marital rape at this point. A presumption of consent? Sure. Actual rape-rape? Nope, not happening.

[Randal]

Substantive due process is just a legal term. I agree, I don't like the term. But it's just a name, nothing more. No cases come out differently if you stop saying "substantive due process."

Just like "striking down" laws.

[Brett Bellmore]

Nah, there's a big difference: The 14th amendment's due process clause applies to "people", the P&I clause, that the Slaughterhouse Court killed off, applies to citizens.

So if you incorporate P&I via substantive due process, people get the rights who weren't supposed to.

[Randal]

1. That's what you're worried about? Seems presumptively racist.

2. Incorporation doesn't require substantive due process. It works with any kind of due process.

3. P&I hasn't been incorporated thru due process, that makes no sense. P&I appears explicitly in the 14th amendment, alongside due process. Obviously one was not intended to incorporate the other.

4. Even if P&I were incorporated via due process, its limitation to citizens would get incorporated along with it.

So... wtf are you on about? Are you trying to say that you prefer the view where federal rights are incorporated against the states via P&I, over the prevailing view that has them generally being incorporated thru due process? I lean towards the P&I take myself, although it doesn't have much practical impact.

And again, none of this has anything to do with substantive due process.

[Longtobefree]

One may ask, what of the wife´s rights to bodily integrity and personal autonomy?

" . . . by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wife hath given up herself in this kind unto her husband, which she cannot retract."

Your question is answered in your quote. Do you not even read your own posts?

[not guilty]

Challenged in your ability to recognize sarcasm, are we?

[TwelveInchPianist]

"As I observed on another thread, Justice Alito´s draft opinion in Dobbs brings to mind a thorny question. Should the courts recognize the substantive due process right of a husband to rape his wife?"

How does Alito's opinion make that more thorny than it was with a pre-Dobbs view of SDP?

And how would it extend to awoman's right to rape any man, whether her husband or not?

[not guilty]

Uh, I was pointing out how shamefully misogynistic Alito's draft opinion is.

[Randal]

Is it shamefully misogynistic or shamelessly misogynistic?

Anyway, it's Alito. I thought the misogyny was uncharacteristically casual. Typically he finds reasons to ratchet up the fascist rhetoric... usually out of defensiveness. Maybe that will come along with the drafts that include rebuttals to the dissents.

[Sarcastr0]

Random things I learned from eps 3-7 of Will Baude's Dissenting Opinion's podcast series on Critical Race Theory.

Implicit bias is controversial. On the one hand, it is a real and proven psychological phenomenon. But it ignores structural issues and is an easy thing for management to do and call it a day. And implicit bias testing is not proven to alleviate implicit bias. Khiara is pretty ambivalent about it. But of course there is a relationship between systemic issues and implicit bias - the police being quicker to arrest blacks make those who observe that from police to people generally including blacks tend to begin to make implicit individual connections based on that systemic bias.

Law profs are actually not very well positioned to critique the legal system, as it's generally been pretty good to them. But speaking to those with less voice and finding ways for the voice of the streets to interface with the system. Thence comes the rise in hostility to prisons as our go-to solution to many social problems. Also coming bottom up like this is noticing how health is tied to location and health institution, which together mean some pretty stark inequalities. [But also defund the police, one of the worst slogans of the modern era - Sarc]

Intersectionality include poverty...and whiteness. And explicitly requires rejecting any kind of oppression Olympics - according to it, there is no oppressor race or oppressed race; the key effort is noting difference. For instance, white women are generally coerced to have more kids, black women the opposite. Or whiteness with arrest for opiates. In the end, it's actually a lot about adding as much individualism to the necessarily heuristic and demographically-based social analysis as you can. Intersectionality has been especially adopted by scholars outside the US.

CRT is not hostile to school desegregation, but it wasn't the end of the issue. Schools are now as segregated as they were in the 1960s in a lot of places. Even more so with the observed disparities in honors tracks and race within schools.

Nowhere is systemic issues more true than how class benefits the merit examined for school admissions. The experiences they like in essays, the being well-rounded, and of course standardized tests. Of course intersectionality means this doesn't mean race isn't a thing independently as well (see class versus generational wealthy, and standardized test scores)
And school name matters way too much. Most folks are working on ways to lower the barrier to these specific schools that are the paths to power. But fewer try and address this elite credentials at its core. Like Justice ACB going to Notre Dame.

Khiara ends on this note: this is our society. We have the power to change it. And constant inquiry about society is part of how you make society better.

My note is to look at all the things many on this blog are concerned about – the lack of school diversity in our Justices, individualism in our social understanding, whiteness and opiates…plenty of overlap here!

[Commenter_XY]

Morning, Sarcastr0.

Khiara ends on this note: this is our society. We have the power to change it. And constant inquiry about society is part of how you make society better. - I completely agree with this.

Implicit bias is controversial. On the one hand, it is a real and proven psychological phenomenon. - Yes, it is controversial. No, I do not think it is 'real and proven' like a physical law, or something. It is more accurate to say: Observed behavior, and here is how I interpret that behavior. The issue I see is imprecision of speech (not your writing, the authors writing).

I don't want to start yet another debate on CRT, so I'll leave that alone.

[Sarcastr0]

Equating bias to behavior is not required for unconscious bias to be a thing.

Khiara actually agrees with your concern here, I'd say, given her skepticism of the utility of implicitly bias training as a solution to much of anything.

There is absolutely a phenomenon of unconscious associations related to race. Study after study has proven this.

But yes, the functional upshot is still in question.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Humans tend to be expert pattern recognizers. Our individual biases, unconscious or not, are the empirical result of this pattern recognition ability.

Stereotypes and biases are neurological efficiency mechanisms that save us the countless calories and hours that would be required consciously analyzing every new context we encounter.

There is only one practical solution to unconscious bias:

If you don't want people thinking Asians excel at math, Asians should stop exceling at math.

If you don't want people thinking blacks are criminals, blacks should stop committing so many crimes.

If you don't want people thinking homosexuals are gross and child molesters, homosexuals should stop spreading so many STDs and grooming our children.

Easy.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Every Volokh Conspirator has known for some time that the content of this white, male, movement conservative blog attracts a remarkable concentration of ugly bigots.

If anything, however, this blog has moved more toward the dark side.

The natural conclusion is that the Volokh Conspirators are comfortable with this.

They should not wonder why they are outcasts, misfits, and malcontents at strong, mainstream academic institutions.

[Brett Bellmore]

Stereotype accuracy is actually one of the strongest results in social science: Popular stereotypes are generally empirically valid as statistical generalizations, and most people abandon using them as soon as they have individualized information about a specific person.

So, yes, if you really dislike a stereotype, your only hope of it going away is for it to stop being true.

[Sarcastr0]

Surely you are not endorsing conflating statistical averages with any kind of individualized understanding.

Because that's what a stereotype is. And that's why it's tempting but wrong to indulge in.

[Brett Bellmore]

Not only am I not, I was explicitly not.

"Because that's what a stereotype is. "

Nope. Stereotypes are statistical generalizations, which social science has rigorously, for levels of rigor seldom attained in social science, established are usually accurate, and are abandoned once a person has individualized information.

You're confusing stereotypes and predjudicies. They're not the same thing.

[Sarcastr0]

Using stereotypes to apply to individuals even if you don't know them yet is still bad, Brett.

[TwelveInchPianist]

How should you make inferences about individuals about whom you have very little information, if it is necessary to make such inferences?

[Sarcastr0]

Coming out for prejudice, TiP?

I reject the premise that there's any kind of commonly occurring need to prejudge individuals, particularly negatively.

[TwelveInchPianist]

I need to communicate with someone quickly. The only thing I know about him is that he's French.

What language do I speak?

I'm in a position where I would be more comfortable sitting with the soles of my feet exposed, but I know the person I'm with is from a culture that finds that offensive. Should I avoid exposing the soles of my feet?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Sarcastr0 is of the sort that genuinely believes we should ask everyone we meet what their pronouns are and how they identify and not rely on our five senses.

[Sarcastr0]

You think it's a stereotype that Frenchmen speak French? Or that people from a culture have the taboos' of that culture?

That's not prejudice. Or stereotyping. It's not even heuristics - it's just knowledge.

[Sarcastr0]

We call that 'prejudice' because you're prejudging an individual when you should not.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

" So, yes, if you really dislike a stereotype, your only hope of it going away is for it to stop being true. "

Should autistic misfits start working on this point, in your judgment?

[Don Nico]

I have to agree with C_XY.
If implicit bias is real, it exists in the mind of the person making the complaint. The "implicit bias training" that I been exposed to is a pathetic attempt of guilting at beast and brainwashing at worst.

[Sarcastr0]

Khiara agrees with you - she believes that while implicit bias is clearly a thing, she's not sure implicit bias training does anything, and is sure it helps management do something that lets them declare they've done something without actually doing anything.

[Brett Bellmore]

So far the research says that "without doing anything" is actually the best case outcome for such training. It can actually make things WORSE. (Note, this is Scientific American, so somewhat of an admission against interest.)

"Even worse, there is consistent evidence that bias training done the “wrong way” (think lukewarm diversity training) can actually have the opposite impact, inducing anger and frustration among white employees. What this all means is that, despite the widespread calls for implicit bias training, it will likely be ineffective at best; at worst, it’s a poor use of limited resources that could cause more damage and exacerbate the very issues it is trying to solve."

[Sarcastr0]

That is just about exactly Khiara's take, though not the 'anger and frustration' bit, which is speculative and seems more about bad communication than anything inherent in the training.

But the bad use of resources something she talked about a lot. It's an easy out for management, and thus more tempting than more effective reforms.

[Don Nico]

"helps management do something that lets them declare they've done something without actually doing anything."
Absolutely correct!

[Randal]

I'm sure there is really bad unconscious bias training out there.

But that doesn't mean unconscious bias isn't a thing. It sort of obviously is. No need to feel guilty about it.

BTW what's with "implicit bias?" That's a horrible misuse of the word "implicit" if it's supposed to be the same thing as unconscious bias. My husband's having a heart attack! Is he conscious? No, he's completely implicit.

[Ben_]

"Implicit bias is controversial."

The special people have an absolute right not to feel bad about bias they believe exists but can’t show concrete examples of.

Meanwhile you must feel bad for whatever non-specific thing you’re being backhandedly accused of. Because you’re not one of the special people.

[Sarcastr0]

Implicit bias is something you can concretely demonstrate. It is not non-specific, and it's not supposed to make people feel bad.

This is some pretty impressive ignorance. Words make you feel bad so you go off based on just what you made up about what it must mean.

[Don Nico]

"Implicit bias is something you can concretely demonstrate. It is not non-specific, and it's not supposed to make people feel bad."
Have you ever been subjected to the "training?" If so what was the result.
It's more like the attempt of an ineffective dominant to train hir (=his/her) submissive.

[Sarcastr0]

I did it when I started doing HBCU stuff. I think it does get at something, but I also am not sure it *addresses* that thing in any constructive way.

But the important thing is don't conflate the phenomenon with the training.

[Don Nico]

I don't make that confusion. What I did say is that implicit bias exists in the head of the complainer. With respect to the other party, I's worry more about acting on known explicit biases.

[Sarcastr0]

Huh.

I actually think that explicit bias tends to be disfavored these days, which is why we're seeing more of a turn to systemic and individual but implicit issues.

My personal feeling on implicit bias is I'm satisfied there's a clinical effect, but not sure about how it translates to real-world decisions. Basically, more study is needed, and operationalizing it in the office environment is pretty ridiculous, and points to the easy way out Khiara and you both noted.

[Don Nico]

What's with the "huh." Of course it is discouraged. That does not mean that it is not actively involved every day in behavior.
When the bias is explicit to the person, they can actively squash it.

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, the DoD has a big push to avoid explicit bias, right?

But in general, I don't think that's the top of the racial issues list these days. Which is good! Shows how far we've come in a short time.

[Ben_]

The point is that one group's feelings matter and the people in the other group are intentionally made to suffer, regardless of whether they’re individually guilty of anything, mostly because you disfavor them based on their skin color or other immutable characteristics.

No one should go along with treating people that way.

If some individual is guilty of something specific, state the offense, along with the particulars. No innuendo. No hints. State the facts. And stop treating everyone else with a similar skin color or immutable characteristic as if they’re guilty by association. (Guilty of what? We still haven’t heard.)

[Michael D]

I was awakened an hour ago by the cat and now I cannot fall back to sleep. This is frustrating.

On top of this, I have an appointment this morning with a urologist because of a high PSA and I am concerned because all treatments so far have been ineffective at reducing my PSA and there are related problems that indicate the PSA number is not a fluke or something to be ignored.

That is what is on my mind.

[Commenter_XY]

Good luck - seriously. May you be healed, and receive tranquility of spirit.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Are you proposing resort to superstition or a course of treatment from the reality-based, scientific, reasoning world?

[Commenter_XY]

No Arthur, I propose to augment the reality-based, scientific treatment path, with prayer to help bring healing of body and spirit.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

That sounds good. Relatively little harm done. Good intentions.

[Commenter_XY]

🙂

[Sebastian Cremmington]

Meow!

[Don Nico]

Michael,
Your urologist has probably told you that the PSA can be highly misleading especially if there are not other indications of prostate cancer. If you are extremely worried an ultra-sound or even a PET-CT might be in order. The latter procedure is not cheap but it is pretty definitive.
Good luck.

[Brett Bellmore]

Best of luck with that. I had an elevated PSA, nothing particularly special, (About 5, actually.) and no enlargement, but as I also had severely deficient testosterone, I had to get a biopsy done to get a prescription.

Turned out I did have the prostate cancer.

Now, as it happens, I opted for the surgery, and as a result of that my B cell lymphoma was discovered, and my life saved. (Though chemo immediately after prostate surgery is not conducive to a good surgical outcome!) But this was a fairly unusual chain of events.

If I had the same diagnosis today, I'd probably have opted for the 'watchful waiting', or at least something short of total removal, as prostate cancer is very slow growing, and the treatment is rapidly advancing lately. And, frankly, while the immediate prognosis of prostate removal isn't so bad, the long term results tend to be no fun, if you catch my drift.

[Michael D]

Oh wow! I hate to hear that about you.

From what he told me today, I should not be terribly concerned. He definitely put my worst fears to rest.

[Jimmy the Dane]

You should obviously follow the advice of your doctor, but do some research on PSA. I keep on hearing that they are not a good indicator of cancer and can have a lot of other root causes including a good old fashion bacterial infection that can be cleared with antibiotics. Also, especially if you are on the younger side for prostate cancer, I've heard plenty of stories it being cleared by the immune system.

There are also some drugs in the pipeline that would make surgery obsolete. Might want to ask your doctor about the viability of those and if you should wait.

[Brett Bellmore]

PSA, "prostate specific antigen", is a substance naturally in the prostate, it tends to escape into the bloodstream when something or other is irritating the prostate or disrupting it's structure. Can be an infection, cancer, the wrong bicycle seat, lots of things. Just means there's something out of the ordinary going on down there.

[Doug Huffman]

Between Heaven and Russia: Religious Conversion and Political Apostasy in Appalachia by Sarah Riccardi-Swartz

https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0823299503/reasonmagazinea-20/

[shawn_dude]

Russia as the new symbol of white power.
At some point, you'd think the Russians and people supporting them would be asking themselves Are we the Baddies?!

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

It's not the Russians. It's their tyrannical government.

[not guilty]

The State Bar of Texas Commission on Lawyer Discipline has sued seeking professional discipline of Brent Edward Webster, a top assistant to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, for misconduct in the December 2020 filing of State of Texas v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, State of Georgia, State of Michigan, and State of Wisconsin, an original jurisdiction action in the United States Supreme Court. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21904469-webster-petition The petition recites the following as grounds for discipline:

espondent’s pleadings requesting this extraordinary relief misrepresented to the United States Supreme Court that an “outcome-determinative” number of votes in each Defendant State supported Respondent’s pleadings and injunction requests. Respondent made representations in his pleadings that: 1) an outcome determinative number of votes were tied to unregistered voters; 2) votes were switched by a glitch with Dominion voting machines; 3) state actors “unconstitutionally revised their state’s election statutes;” and 4) “illegal votes” had been cast that affected the outcome of the election.

Respondent’s representations were dishonest. His allegations were not supported by any charge, indictment, judicial finding, and/or credible or admissible evidence, and failed to disclose to the Court that some of his representations and allegations had already been adjudicated and/or dismissed in a court of law.

In addition, Respondent misrepresented that the State of Texas had “uncovered substantial evidence… that raises serious doubts as to the integrity of the election process in Defendant States,” and had standing to bring these claims before the United States Supreme Court.

Attorney General Paxton has reportedly said that he expects to be named in a similar lawsuit.

It´s about time.

[Sebastian Cremmington]

US Attorney Patrick is involved in something very similar to Sussman….

[John F. Carr]

When a lawyer has allegedly been dishonest in an out of state court, is it customary to give the foreign jurisdiction a chance to investigate or rule before starting disipline in the lawyer's home state?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

This is just lawfare and punishment of people for apostasy.

[not guilty]

The jurisdiction that licenses the lawyer has principal responsibility.

[Commenter_XY]

Professor Volokh, state legislative processes and voting on moral questions are on my mind.

caveat: We don't have a Dobbs decision!

My question for the public sector (state, not federal) VC Conspirators. If Dobbs returns the question of abortion regulation to the states, how does your states process work in addressing cases like this (abortion regulations will be drafted in 50 states). Is it legislation? Referendum? Special question? Executive order? (I would love to know the state you are talking about). I am curious about the diversity of legislative processes in the country.

A more general question for VC Conspirators. From a 'systems' orientation, is it better for our republican 'system' to diffuse controversial questions (e.g. abortion regulation) to 50 separate state legislatures, or one Congress? I have a vague recollection of a Federalist paper discussing this (cannot remember it, for the life of me).

[Stephen Lathrop]

Maybe Federalist 10? Madison strongly makes a case that the remedy for faction is to increase the geographic scope for decision making. That points to a solution in congress, not in the sates.

On the other hand, the thrust of Alito's draft seems to be, "We want faction." However, I am skeptical that if Alito expected congress to deliver a national law against abortion, that he would stand on principle and oppose it.

[wreckinball]

Or just follow 10A. You know the actual constitution.

[Brett Bellmore]

Madison, historically, proved to be wrong in a lot of his expectations.

[Ed Grinberg]

is it better for our republican 'system' to diffuse controversial questions (e.g. abortion regulation) to 50 separate state legislatures, or one Congress?

The idea of the federal government passing laws "on moral questions" (e.g. abortion) would've been anathema to the Founders.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Grinberg, here is a tip for you, on history. Every time someone who knows how to do historical research sees the phrase, "would have," he laughs at you. Unless you want to confess up front that you are speculating, do not let yourself write, "would have," about history.

[apedad]

Two Owners of Tony Luke’s Philadelphia Cheesesteak Restaurant Plead Guilty to Tax Conspiracy

Two owners of a popular South Philadelphia cheesesteak restaurant pleaded guilty today to conspiring to defraud the IRS.

According to court documents and statements made in court, Anthony Lucidonio Sr., 82, and his son, Nicholas Lucidonio, 55, both of New Jersey, owned and operated Tony Luke’s, a cheesesteak and sandwich restaurant located in South Philadelphia. In an indictment returned on July 24, 2020, both were charged with a 10-year conspiracy to defraud the IRS by concealing more than $8 million in business receipts from the IRS, providing incomplete information to their accountant and causing their accountant to file false tax returns with the IRS that understated business receipts and income as well by engaging in a payroll tax scheme.

As part of their plea, the Lucidonios admitted to conspiring to evade employment taxes by paying employees a portion of their salaries “off the books” in cash. Anthony and Nicholas also admitted they caused their accountant to prepare and file with the IRS fraudulent quarterly employment tax returns that understated the actual wages paid to their employees and the taxes due.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/two-owners-tony-luke-s-philadelphia-cheesesteak-restaurant-plead-guilty-tax-conspiracy

Now I need a philly cheesesteak.

[Commenter_XY]

apedad, I was always partial to Jim's on South Street. Damned good.

I don't recommend going to Philly. Too many car-jackings.

If the sentence guideline calls for 5 years, they should get that.

[John F. Carr]

The government hates cash businesses. I saw some recent press about the Massachusetts law requiring businesses to accept cash. I could imagine the federal government overruling such laws.

[BrianL.]

On what basis? Federal reserve notes are legal tender. If anything, it could be argued that it's illegal NOT to accept cash.

[Longtobefree]

Hit the web.
There is a difference between "tender" and actual payment.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's illegal not to accept cash for debts. But it's perfectly legal to refuse to loan absent an agreement to pay in some other form than cash.

So, if you get the service or product, then pay, and they don't have a sign up saying "no cash", they have to take it. Not otherwise.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Philly cheesesteak always sounds good. I hypothesize that somewhere there must be served a Philly cheesesteak which is good. I have never been there.

[gormadoc]

Strange, isn't it?

[Commenter_XY]

lathrop, if you ain't in Philly on South Street, it don't count = a Philly Cheesesteak. Trust me on this one. Get it with fried onion.

Next time you are in Philly, try Jim's. It kicks ass. There are always lines out the door and down the block.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Thanks for that. I look forward to giving it a try. I like fried onion.

[Commenter_XY]

It really is amazingly good. No joke. You'll love it.

[John F. Carr]

Worst cheesesteak I ever had was in Philly. I stayed too close to the convention center.

[ah....Clem]

I grew up in Wilmington, and the things they called cheesesteaks you got in Philly were mediocre at best, and often terrible. (Cheese Whiz? Are you fucking kidding me?)

Find a Capriotti's. They make the real thing.

[John F. Carr]

A friend bought medicine at CVS. Something struck me as odd about the box. After a minute I noticed the label "homeopathic" in one corner and the footnote saying it was not intended to treat or cure any disease. My friend is a scientist and perfectly capable of understanding the difference between real and fake medicine, but did not know "medicine" boxes had to be inspected closely to tell the difference. I didn't know either. I did know that pharmacies stock some products that are fake but profitable. My old pharmacy had a homeopathic section. Run by humans instead of a large corporation it did not disguise the homeopathic section as anything else.

A loophole in the FDA regulations? As I see it, the FDA has left us complacent. Better to have a well advertised FDA seal of approval, like for USDA organic, USDA grade non-GMO, hippie farmer grade non-GMO, and kosher. Sell drugs by the expensive process, you have a logo and immunity from most tort liability. Sell Cheerios or a COVID test without approval and you have no logo and the same liability as the seller of any product.

(Cheerios as an unapproved drug: https://www.thefdalawblog.com/2009/05/fda-says-cheerios-cereal-is-a-drug/)

[apedad]

Not very libertarian of you wanting the govt to take care of us.

[John F. Carr]

I want less care from the government than it currently offers. I think the government has a role because it is very difficult to police drug making compared to children's toys and chairs. If people want to play with lawn darts or incline their children more than 10 degrees, let them. It is very hard to determine, especially years later, that a drug was not manufactured properly. It is often impossible to determine based on a single event whether a drug was designed badly or the plaintiff landed on the 10% side of 90% effectiveness.

[Yatusabes]

Or you could just read the label of the product before purchasing it. CVS is a slick profitable operation that sells many items unrelated to FDA approved products. e.g. Most Vitamins are bunk yet pharmacies are stocked to the ceiling with gobs of vitamins and make oodles of money selling these unnecessary items. Eating a nutritious diet provides all the vitamins we need. While I am loathe to defend CVS (they are our pharmacy benefits manager), no one should be of the gullible mindset today that big chain retail pharmacies are focused on “enhancing and extending life”. Just their cash flow

[David Nieporent]

My friend is a scientist and perfectly capable of understanding the difference between real and fake medicine, but did not know "medicine" boxes had to be inspected closely to tell the difference.

How closely do you think you have to inspect it? All you have to do is see what the product is. Presumably this wasn't a name brand product, because Pfizer doesn't make homeopathic stuff. So if you pick a random box from a company one has never heard of off a shelf, wouldn't one look to see what it is? Even if one isn't thinking about whether it's homeopathic, one would want to know what drug one was buying.

[Armchair Lawyer]

So, the first problem is your assumption about Pfizer. Pfizer doesn't really make non-prescription meds. So, anything the friend bought off the shelf wouldn't be marked "Pfizer" period.

I'm guessing that this was a cough syrup or cough drop, or some other type of OTC remedy. Those can be misleading, and are often CVS branded, or other types of brands that are simply marked "cough drop" or "cough syrup" or "earache treatment".

The second problem is that some "drugs" (notably phenylephrine) are close to useless, and may as well be homeopathic.

[David Nieporent]

Pfizer is the manufacturer of rare and obscure drugs like Advil.

[Don Nico]

which is a real drug and in 800mg tablets is only available by prescription.

[Brett Bellmore]

Which means precisely nothing when you can buy 4 200mg tablets over the counter.

[Don Nico]

Brett,
So what.
My comment was a response to David's snark that Pfizer makes Advil.

[David Nieporent]

Eh? I wasn't snarking about Advil. I was snarking about Armchair Lawyer's claim that Pfizer "doesn't really make non-prescription meds."

[Armchair Lawyer]

Your "snark" is amusing. It's also amusing that it's wrong.

Perhaps you should have inspected more closely like you thought the scientist friend should have. Because Pfizer doesn't actually manufacture Advil anymore (or most other OTC drugs). That division was spun out and sold a majority share to GSK.

The lesson here is something about stones and glass houses....

[David Nieporent]

That division was spun out and sold a majority share to GSK

It's a joint venture between Pfizer and GSK. GSK owns 2/3, and Pfizer owns 1/3. I'm not sure how you think the fact that Pfizer owns a minority share means that it's wrong to say that Pfizer makes it.

(All of which was tangential to my underlying point. If you see the name Pfizer — or GSK, or Johnson & Johnson, or Merck, or any other major consumer drug manufacturer — on the product, you may not look too closely. If you see some random brand, you would likely look to see what you were buying.)

[Armchair Lawyer]

Uh huh... your "snark" is dead wrong, because Pfizer doesn't make Advil. Look at the label. Which apparently you can't do.

You know what else GSK markets? Emergen-C. Which was basically a psuedo-homeopathic remedy.

But sure.....continue your snark. Even though Pfizer doesn't actually control the company which makes Advil. Then laugh it up some more while chugging down your Emergen-C for the flu.

Or just admit you're wrong. If you can do that.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Now, as for owning a minority share of a company... That's like saying I personally make Advil because I own a minority share of GSK. And so do millions of other people and companies. Did you know Harvard actually makes Advil, because they own a minority share of GSK? That's absurd. That's how we can say that.

It's the company or people who have CONTROL over the company who make the product. That's why the manufacturer on the label is listed as...GSK. Not Pfizer.

[David Nieporent]

because Pfizer doesn't make Advil. Look at the label. Which apparently you can't do.

Um, I just went and looked at the label at the bottle in my medicine cabinet. It very clearly says "Pfizer, Madison, NJ 07940 USA" on it. (I was about to take a picture and post it, but I realized you can't do that here unfortunately. Oh, wait: try here: https://www.drugs.com/otc/1568959/acetaminophen-03.jpg)

You know what else GSK markets? Emergen-C. Which was basically a psuedo-homeopathic remedy.

Um, no. I don't think you know what "homeopathic" means. It doesn't mean "dietary supplement of questionable medicinal value." That's Emergen-C. It's got legitimate vitamins and minerals in it. (It's really just vitamin C with some other stuff thrown in.)

Homeopathic stuff, in contrast, is essentially just water.

[David Nieporent]

That's like saying I personally make Advil because I own a minority share of GSK.

No, owning a share of stock in a publicly traded company is not "like" owning 1/3 of a joint venture.

It's the company or people who have CONTROL over the company who make the product. That's why the manufacturer on the label is listed as...GSK. Not Pfizer.

Like I said above: you're not even right about the label.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Poor David.... Using stuff dated 2020 to try to prove items about a manufacturer today.

I've linked to the modern website that actually sells Advil with the manugacturer listed. He's got an old dated image from 2020 and has already admitted. Poor David thinks that Vitamin C actually helps cure the Flu too.

Sad when he can't admit he's wrong.

He probably thinks he makes Advil himself personally too because he owns a share of GSK...

[Armchair Lawyer]

Just for funsies...

Here's a more updated Advil Label, from the NIH. Scroll down to see the actual label. See that manufacturer with the date on the copyright?

C 2021 GSK.

https://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov/dailymed/fda/fdaDrugXsl.cfm?setid=772360bd-8631-4d24-b4db-5a7e6e1d9a13&type=display

I enjoy how David was deceptive enough to go dig out an image of Advil's label from years ago, so he can "prove" it was currently manufacturered by Pfizer.

Snark indeed.

[Estragon]

Uh, just take 4 at once. Anything under 4 at once doesn’t do anything for me anyways, liver be damned

[Don Nico]

Take four at once, if you need the anti-inflammatory benefit. It that is your goal better to use a prescription NSAID other than ibuprofen.

Otherwise for fever control, etc. taking 2 at twice the frequency is generally more effective.

However your individual mileage may vary

[Kazinski]

If it's for pain, take 2 acetomemephen, along with 2 ibuprofen. That's probably going to be both safer and more effective.

Taking double doses of ibuprofen isn't going to affect your liver, it'll cause stomach bleeding and could cause heart problems. High doses of acetomemephen will affect your liver, but it's safer than ibuprofen at standard dosages.

I think codeine is safer and more effective at standard dosages than either ibuprofen or acetaminophen, but they don't sell it over the counter here.

[Brett Bellmore]

More effective for some people, anyway. Opiates just give me insomnia with hallucinations.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Sorry David.... your "snark" aside, Pfizer doesn't make Advil anymore.

You're thinking of a different company, "Pfizer Consumer Healthcare," which used to handle Pfizer's OTC medications. Pfizer spun that company out, and sold a majority share in it to GSK a few years back.

Take a look at the manufacturer... GlaxoSmithKline.

https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B004ZCT1M2/reasonmagazinea-20/

[John F. Carr]

When you are talking about FDA-regulated medicines the brand name matters little. Usually the no-name product has the same active ingredients in the same quantities.

There are some exceptions. Let me recommend again Katherine Eban's _Bottle of Lies_ about the Asian generic drug industry.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Maybe your scientist friend has heard of the placebo effect and understands they can be 50% as effective as a real drug and chose his own level of risk w.r.t. side effects of pharmaceuticals?

[Brett Bellmore]

Doesn't being aware of the placebo effect and knowing something is a placebo just make the placebo effect go away?

[Don Nico]

No, not if you still BELIEVE

[BravoCharlieDelta]

If people can genuinely be healed, for some things, by the power of belief alone, doesn't it make sense to at least try that where the circumstances allow?

No costs other than a little bit of time, no side effects, but healed. Sure seems worth a shot to me.

[gormadoc]

Being a scientist doesn't matter much. I've known plenty of scientists who believed in stupid stuff, like cupping or "traditional Chinese medicine."

[Longtobefree]

Not to mention "scientists" who think cloth masks are effective, or that the experimental stuff mandated by the feds is actually a vaccine.

[Don Nico]

Thanks for the daily dose of bullshit, Long

[Ben_]

If your friend buys medicine without paying attention, maybe you should be happy it’s homeopathic instead of something with genuine effects.

You think he pays more attention to the dosage instructions than what medicine it is?

[apedad]

Henry Kissinger Predicts Point at Which Putin Will Have To End Ukraine War

https://www.newsweek.com/henry-kissinger-predicts-vladimir-putin-end-russia-ukraine-war-1705194

Holy Crap!

I didn't even know Kissinger was still alive.

He's going to be 99 in two weeks.

[Dan Schiavetta]

A vastly overrated man.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

A comprehensively lousy person.

[Ed Grinberg]

As opposed to you?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I represent America's great progress and liberal-libertarian future.

Henry Kissinger was an important part of some of the largest stains on our nation's history and reputation.

[Gasman]

He thought he was smart being on the board of Theranos.
He was bamboozled by a huckster in a turtle neck shirt with a fake baritone voice.

[Bob from Ohio]

He trusted George Shultz. Shultz was the recruiter for her.

His director fee checks likely cleared as well.

[John F. Carr]

I will make an effort to finish his book Diplomacy before he dies. I bought it in the 1990s and it got lost in a pile when I was halfway through.

More realistic goal: I will make an effort to find my copy of Diplomacy before he dies.

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

Henry Kissinger, Jimmy Carter, and Tithonus all have something in common....

[John F. Carr]

Out of state defendant subject to permanent injunction in defamation case in Massachusetts because "the plaintiffs' injuries occurred in the Commonwealth, and that the defendant knowingly directed her actions against residents of the Commonwealth."

https://128archive.com/Disposition/DownloadDisposition/18491?dispositionId=18505

[dwb68]

Hello to all my peeps who told me last year that inflation was a figment of my right wing mind. Shout out to everyone who thinks it will just all blow away by November.

The federal reserve is behind the curve, for them to quench inflation interest rates need to be higher than inflation. that is real interest rates need to be negative. We are nowhere near that point.

I am sticking to my Jimmy Carter 2.0 forecast, that Biden will be the last democratic president for 12 years

[John F. Carr]

Have you accounted for the chance that Trump will win in 2024 and the race in 2028 will not have an incumbent? I doubt that the memory of these times will still drag Democrats down in six years.

[dwb68]

I also forecast trump will be the nominee in 2024

[dwb68]

** Won't be**

Voice to text error

[Moderation4ever]

Trump is a loser. He couldn't beat Biden in 2020 and will not beat him in 2024. Republicans are not going to let a chance at the Presidency slip to appease Trump vanity. Trump will not be the nominee.

[Brett Bellmore]

It took a world-wide pandemic and multiple states acting to crash their own economies for Trump to lose, and it was still a close thing, 43K votes changed in 3 states and he would have won.

And that was an Trump with a collection of fake scandals, vs an imaginary Joe Biden affirmatively protected from real scandals by a compliant media.

NOW he'd be running against a known to be corrupt AND incompetent real Joe Biden, with real scandals the media aren't so determined to hide.

Except I don't think Biden will be the nominee in 2024.

[Don Nico]

Brett,
Trump lost because he made a positive effort to do so.
As for Old, White Joe, I suspect that he will not be running in 2024.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'd say the "white" has nothing to do with it, except that the Democratic party is racist enough that it probably does.

My expectation is that neither Joe nor Kamala will be the Democratic nominee in 2024. No idea who WILL be, but both those choices would be political suicide.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I doubt the Democratic Party is interested in pointers on race or anything else from bigoted, conspiracy-addled, autistic right-wing misfits.

[Moderation4ever]

Trump lost the popular vote in both 2016 and 2020. He won in 2016 was only by 3 states and by a slim margin in those states.

In 2016 his message was "What have you got to lose", in 2020 people took him up on that and voted him out. In a year when Republicans won, Trump lost because even a percentage of his own party dislikes him.

The only way he gets the nomination in 2024 is if the Republicans cancel state primary voting. If he runs in 2024 look for that to be his strategy.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Trump lost the popular vote in both 2016 and 2020."

You know what they call losing the popular vote, and getting more EC votes?

"Winning".

" In a year when Republicans won, Trump lost because even a percentage of his own party dislikes him."

In fact, Trump's popularity among Republicans was very high, the NeverTrump faction of the party is noisy but small, and Trump managed to lose in 2020 with over 18M more votes than he got winning in 2016. He lost due to enhanced turnout among Democrats, particularly in key states, (Zuck bucks, IOW.) not due to losing Republican support.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

And the fact that Biden got 81M votes from 70M voters.

[Don Nico]

I don't know about the future, agreeing with Yogi Berra, bur Trump is certainly a LOSER

[Bob from Ohio]

Cleveland is a loser. He couldn't beat Harrison in 1888 and will not beat him in 1892.

You never know what can happen.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Trump is a loser. He couldn't beat Biden in 2020 and will not beat him in 2024.

This is probably true.

Republicans are not going to let a chance at the Presidency slip to appease Trump vanity.

This seems to have a lot less evidentiary support.

[Stephen Lathrop]

dwb68, I wish you and I could get together to exchange a bet. I expect a startling switch in national politics during that interval, probably sooner than later, maybe even in 2024. It is already past time for millennials to take over national political leadership from boomers. But millennials seem to be foot draggers, afflicted with political avoidance. So that could make a bet interesting.

[David Nieporent]

As always, Gen Xers get ignored.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

It's the conservative bigots and superstitious clingers who will be increasingly ignored as America's electorate improves and its liberal-libertarian progress continues.

Right-wingers will continue to lord over desolate rural and southern stretches a bit longer, though, misleading some Republicans concerning the failure of their preferences at modern America's marketplace of ideas.

[Commenter_XY]

We are the sandwich generation, David (I am Gen X). And the latch-key kids.

[Moderation4ever]

Inflation is a worldwide phenomena and there is no direct action that can change the outcome. So what is the Republican case to made?

[Brett Bellmore]

That it's worse here than elsewhere? And might have been better here instead if not for some stupid mistakes we made?

[Longtobefree]

Those stupid things were not mistakes, they are democrat party policy.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

" I am sticking to my Jimmy Carter 2.0 forecast, that Biden will be the last democratic president for 12 years "

How are Republicans going to produce enough half-educated racists, superstitious gay-haters, conservative misogynists, vote-suppressing bigots, disaffected clingers, right-wing xenophobes, and backwater Muslim-haters to win the national elections you have in mind?

[Ben_]

Dems should try calling inflation racist. Or proclaiming it a conspiracy theory and banning talk about it from Facebook and Twitter.

Do they have any other tools in their toolbox?

[Ed Grinberg]

Dems should try...proclaiming [inflation] a conspiracy theory and banning talk about it from Facebook and Twitter.

It's been done:
https://www.businessinsider.com/argentina-inflation-number-prosectutions-2013-1

[Bob from Ohio]

"Biden will be the last democratic president for 12 years"

Only happened once since FDR/Truman. 3 wins in a row is hard.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Especially if your preferences are confirmed losers at the marketplace of ideas.

Electorally, clingers are running on fumes but are too stupid to recognize it.

[Sarcastr0]

Funny timing to double down. The inflation rate fell from 8.5% in March to 8.2% in April. The core inflation rate fell from 6.4% to 6.1%.

I am sticking to my Jimmy Carter 2.0 forecast, that Biden will be the last democratic president for 12 years
Didn't you up that to 20 2 weeks ago?

You should stop couching your opinions as predictions; there is too much wishcasting in you.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

"Core" inflation that excludes food and energy.

Sad propagandistic mythology of the Federal Class. Like that hilarious "Government Spending Multiplier". You see, when you or I choose to spend a $1 it's only impacts the economy as $0.70. But when the Federal class takes a $1 from us and chooses who to give it to it impacts the economy as if it were $2.

Science!

[Bob from Ohio]

"The inflation rate fell from 8.5% in March to 8.2% in April. "

Its a transitory decrease.

[Sarcastr0]

Maybe! I'm not out there declaring inflation licked.

Which is the converse of those declaring they know what will happen with inflation, and what caused it.

[Don Nico]

S_0,
The EU is seeing very high inflation China has increased supply chain difficulties.
Even if the "core" rate excluding food and rent increase drops to 5%, the working class will see a decrease in real wages. As the Fed increases the prime, mortgages will quickly follow driving up housing (including rents) even more.
If you tried the little NYT calculator a couple of days ago, you'd see that even excluding food prices most renters are seeing inflation at 8.5% or more.

[Sarcastr0]

Actually, mortgage rate increases are way outstripping inflation rate increases. Whatever is the cause there, it's not inflation alone.

https://www.freddiemac.com/pmms

[Brett Bellmore]

They're rising faster than inflation is rising, but they're a long way from catching up to inflation. Which indicates either an expectation that inflation WILL be transitory, expectation of a[nother] bailout, or serious downward regulatory pressure. Maybe all three at once.

I see another real estate crash coming, and the banks again loaded down with underwater loans. It's so stupid watching this happen again in real time. Hope I can time things better this time; Last time my house went on the market the week it crashed.

[Sarcastr0]

Or, maybe there is something else going on. Either instead of, or in addition to inflation.

Like something about housing supply. Or single-family-housing zoning overuse.

I'm not super sanguine about the real estate market either, but don't tend to trust fringy folks about when a crash is coming - they always think a crash is coming.

[Brett Bellmore]

Look, rising prices can explain why people will ask for larger mortgages. In fact, there's a fairly predictable inverse relationship between mortgage rates and housing prices, because at lower rates people can afford to pay more.

Rising prices can't explain why a mortgage company will loan money at 4% interest when inflation is 8%. They only have a security interest in the house to the remaining amount of the loan, just because the housing market doubles in price during the life of the loan doesn't mean the amount of money they're entitled to doubles. It only benefits them if the purchaser walks away instead of selling the house, which people only typically do if the market is BELOW the loan balance.

People don't like to leave money on the table, unlike debt.

It boils down to,

1) They expect inflation to drop again, and be below 4% on average over the duration of the loan.
2) They expect to have their losses compensated.
3) They are being threatened into issuing the loans.
or, I suppose
4) They don't care if they lose money.

There might be some of #4 going on, I suppose, given management that don't have a stake in the mortgage company's long term health, just the cash flow until they scoot.

[Ridgeway]

Brett -- you are misunderstanding how mortgage lending works.

The lenders don't have a pot of their own money that they lend out. They borrow that money. So if they can borrow at 3% and lend at 4%, they make money regardless of inflation.

[Brett Bellmore]

But saying they can borrow at 3% only pushes the insanity back one step: Why can they borrow at 3% in the first place when inflation is over 8%?

And the answer to that is also the answer to why we have inflation at over 8%...

Basically, free money is being thrown at the banks, and they can only hold onto part of it if they loan out the rest. So they end up bidding the mortgage rate down below inflation just to make enough mortgages to handle the cash flow.

The artificial availability of negative real interest rate mortgages bids up the price of homes, which is why housing costs are skyrocketing.

Thus the reason I expect another real estate crash: As soon as the free money spigot closes, (And it must, or inflation will just keep climbing.) and the mortgage rates are forced to exceed the rate of inflation, housing prices will adjust downwards to maintain a fixed cost of carrying the mortgage.

And then a huge number of mortgages will be underwater.

[Sarcastr0]

Why can they borrow at 3% in the first place when inflation is over 8%?
Really, Brett?

[Absaroka]

"Really, Brett?"

Well, the standard answer for e.g. negative rates on t-bills is 'institutional investors, like an insurance company, need a safe place to park $zillions, and getting -1% on a government bond/bill is cheaper than building a commercial Ft. Knox and piling up pallets of greenbacks'.

But note the 'is cheaper'. If interest rates are negative enough for long enough, creating your own Ft. Knox will become attractive.

(For people who can stay below the FDIC limits, there is no reason to buy bills/bonds at negative rates over a 0% checking account or whatever small interest you can get from a CD.)

(I may be misunderstanding the thrust of 'Really, Brett'; it's hard to be sure what that is intended to mean)

[Don Nico]

Simple.
Mortgage rates are typically a multiple of the prime rate and therefore when the prime rises, the mortgage rates run away from the prime.
Likewise with rents. As inflation increases, each middleman in the cost change moves to increase hir profit margin. As their are typically so many middlemen that drive rents, rent increases also tend to outstrip inflation.
The people who are safest (and borne out by the NYT test" are those who own their homes outright and who don't drive very far each week.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Which is the converse of those declaring they know what will happen with inflation, and what caused it."

Sigh. Increasing the money supply in the face of supply constraints caused it.

[Sarcastr0]

Simplistic and aligns with your priors.

Always a sign you needn't try harder!

[bevis the lumberjack]

“Fell”. LOL.

Energy slipped a bit because energy is volatile. Inflation is still raging in all other areas.

Biden fucked up. It’s true that if Trump had won the election he would have fucked up about the same, but he didn’t so Biden gets to wear it. It would build a little confidence if Biden and his people could recognize the cause and quit trying to make it worse, but I guess it’s easier politically (and oh so dishonest) to blame Putin and greedy corporations.

[Yatusabes]

…. blame Putin and greedy corporations.

While Hunter and Joe Biden swim in ill-gotten earnings from foreign (hostile) countries and greedy foreign corporations expanding Biden’s wealth.

[bevis the lumberjack]

That doesn’t have anything to do with the mess that’s been made of the economy.

[Sarcastr0]

I don't think we can say any policies caused or would have prevented the inflation we've seen, nor when it will end.

I do agree it's going to be a headwind to the Democrats, whether they deserve it or not.

[bevis the lumberjack]

You can’t be serious. In early 2021 we printed 2 trillion unnecessary dollars and dumped them into an economy that was suffering from supply shortages. Starting in 2021 we began to do whatever we could to reduce domestic energy supply to satisfy our progressive climate panickers.

Those things made a difference. This stuff didn’t just happen on its own.

[Sarcastr0]

Other stuff was happening in 2021 as well. Stuff that made inflation go up worldwide.

If I've learned one thing about macroeconomics, it's that but-for cause is not something they've licked, except proooobably stimulative government spending. But even that has it's naysayers.

It's like quantum mechanics - if anyone thinks they are certain of something, they don't understand the issue.

[Don Nico]

"It's like quantum mechanics - if anyone thinks they are certain of something, they don't understand the issue."
Cute, but betraying a deep misunderstanding.

[Sarcastr0]

I'd like to hear more before you just dismiss counseling scientific humility as a deep misunderstanding.

[Don Nico]

Again you twist my words in the service of polemic.
I said NOTHING about scientific humility.
Only that your quip indicates a deep misunderstanding of quantum mechanic

[Sarcastr0]

It's a Richard Feynman quote, you yutz.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Well, what did he know about about quantum mechanics?

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

I think Feynman meant that if anyone thinks they understand WHY the world is quantum mechanical, they are wrong. OR, he might have meant that because of quantum mechanics, all predictions are only probabilistic, not deterministic.

I'm quite sure he didn't mean the line to be taken as a call for scientific humility the way you used it.

On the other hand, who cares? There's no need to quote Feynman in an originalistic way.

[Sarcastr0]

"If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics."

Seems pretty clear to me.

[Absaroka]

Completely off topic, but since Wed was Feynman's birthday....

[Absaroka]

"I don't think we can say any policies caused or would have prevented the inflation we've seen,..."

That's correct in the sense of 'we can't say whether Joe's bacon-only diet caused his heart attack'. We all know of the whisky drinking chain smoker who lives to a great age, and the exercise freak vegan who dies young.

At the same time, massive deficit spending is surely a *risk factor* for inflation. When a heavy smoker gets lung cancer, saying 'there is no way to know if smoking caused this' is A)true and B)a little silly.

[Sarcastr0]

I don't think your analogy is right - medical science is actually a lot more advanced in it's ability to make clinical predictions than macroecnomics at the current moment.

I don't disagree with spending being a risk, but I think your certainty that the current inflation is that risk being made manifest is way too sure.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Sorry but no. The cause of extraordinary inflationary periods is usually quite obvious. In the 70s, for example it was the two oil shocks - the embargo early and the collapse of Iran late.

You keep talking about “other things” without actually naming any. Because there aren’t any. Inflation might have ticked up a hair anyway due to pandemic related shortages, but all of the stimulus (including the 2nd batch under Trump) and the energy policies have aggravated it catastrophically. Biden doesn’t want to take blame and for some reason you don’t want to direct it at him, but his policies are the largest driver. Doesn’t fit the narrative I know but facts don’t care about the narrative.

[Sarcastr0]

Other stuff like supply chain issues, the sudden spike in demand earlier in the year as things openned up some, our just-in-time style supply line, knock-on effects from Trump's dumbass trade war policies, and of course the current shiny new war going on? I'm sure there are also others. Maybe some of them aren't really important; it's hard to say in situ.

I know you're close to the energy policies and their effects but don't essentialize those either.

[bevis the lumberjack]

The “rise in demand going on”was entirely predictable because it was a recovery from self inflicted lockdowns. I knew it was going to happen - I was absolutely certain it would happen with the only question being timing. Surely the smart better than me geniuses in the administration saw that as well, right?

Yet they stimulated again anyway. Why? And not just a little but $2 trillion. And not targeted but shotgun spread. And they wanted to stimulate (print) another $3.5 TRILLION but thankfully the Senate stopped them or we’d be Zimbabwe.

And they don’t really care about the struggle out here to pay for energy or else they’d do something useful instead of babbling about bullshit like electric cars, which are no solution at all today.

The incompetence is awe inspiring. Why do you excuse it?

[Sarcastr0]

You do a lot of appeal to incredulity here. Which is fine, but not going to convince those who don't agree with you.

Like, there is no objective agreement on what's 'useful' energy policy. That's part of the issue here. You need to do more than yell that your own opinion is not being followed.

And you continue to assume a causality that I just said is not really clear yet, except among those who dislike all government spending to begin with, and thus may be a bit outcome oriented here.

I'm not going to say the Democrats have been a model of competence and getting things done, but I'm not seeing anything here other than your policy opinions and the Dems disagree.

[Don Nico]

Just pick one of bevis' issues, energy policy.
The D policy of subsidizing some renewables, while providing NO support for large scale energy storage, without which wind and solar produce the highly unstable German energy market, is a demonstrated failure in the EU.
And now, all of a sudden to support his proxy war against Russia, Biden wants to increase gas production for export, not so long after he cancelled the Keystone pipeline. The Administration does not have (nor did its predecessor) a coherent and comprehensive energy policy. Until it does we'll go on floundering.

[Sarcastr0]

I was actually with you until 'proxy war against Russia' which I think overstates US involvement considerably.
I don't love our energy policy either (mostly I want more nuclear).

What administration has had a coherent energy policy? Drill baby drill is not exactly a policy. It's always been herding cats.

[bevis the lumberjack]

8.5% says you’re wrong. There is no other viable explanation. You brought up the war. Yeah, sure, except it started 10 months after the inflation did.

You can’t explain it but you’ll ignore basic supply and demand to excuse Biden’s abject incompetence.

And my preferred energy policy? What is going to reduce energy prices other than more supply? Do you have any understanding of the history of energy supply, demand, and pricing at all? Or are you again just ignoring basic things to avoid criticizing Biden?

You say I’m wrong but you don’t even try to say what’s right. Just don’t blame Biden. He did stuff but no responsibility for him and his people. The jackass wants to be president but don’t expect him to be blamed for any of his actions that went wrong.

This is tiresome and I’m done with it. If you want to coddle poor old Joe I’m not gonna convince you otherwise so I’m not gonna try.

[Sarcastr0]

8.5% says you’re wrong. There is no other viable explanation.

Appeal to incredulity again.

I seem to care more about some externalities than you. So does Biden. Maybe we're wrong. But I don't think we're stupid.

[Commenter_XY]

Sarcastr0, I truly hope that inflation declines rapidly, for the good of the country. People are hurting, especially those at or below median national income. My reading of economic history leads me to the conclusion that inflation is way more persistent than we think. I cannot think of a single instance after 1928 where rapidly rising inflation (>7%) took less than 10 years to abate.

Once the inflation horse is out of the barn, it is very, very difficult to get it back in. And it takes pain to do it.

I really hope this time it is different.

[Sarcastr0]

My point is less that inflation has been licked, and more that we can't predict what it's gonna do, or why it's here or how long it'll be around.

Macroecon is complicated. I've been talking to economists lately and the big current project is to take long-held principles and attempting to rationalize them into something mathematical.

[Bob from Ohio]

"I've been talking to economists lately "

You sure do a lot of different things.

[Sarcastr0]

Bob, don't call me a liar without any evidence. Your appeal to incredulity is bunk - I do basic research policy for the government. I talk to principle investigators across all sorts of disciplines.

I know you think honesty is for chumps, but not everyone is like you.

[Bob from Ohio]

Just pointing out that you talk to students and young professors and economists and others I can't recall.

[Sarcastr0]

Almost as though I do basic research policy?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Bob spends his days in can't-keep-up Ohio, proofreading downscale residential deeds, waiting for someone to pump a daily ration of sunshine into the desolate backwater he calls home. It seems understandable that he would be skeptical about claims that one converses regularly with educated, accomplished, modern people.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Or are just a bullshirt artist, which is what I and pretty much everyone else assume you are around here...

[Sarcastr0]

So you don't like I say so you believe I'm lying about my job.

You're really not one for thinking before you lash out, are you?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Bullshit artists?

At a blog consisting mostly of polemical opinions from fringe professors and legal analysis from disaffected readers who have no education, training, or experience in the law?

Really?

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

PRINCIPAL investigators.

[Sarcastr0]

This exact typo - and capitol/capital, have become a nemisis of mine. I really need to find some good mnemonics.

[Sarcastr0]

Nemeses.

[Kazinski]

Sarcastro you are falling for wishful talking points rather than the reality. The reason there was a slight downtrend in inflation was because energy prices dropped, but they are already back up in May, higher than they were in March.

A deeper dive by CNBC:

”The overall year-over-year price of consumer goods and services is now 8.3%, a 0.2% drop from March’s 40-year high, as measured by the consumer price index (CPI). That’s a slightly slower deceleration than some observers expected: Ahead of the Labor Department’s data release, 52 economists surveyed by Bloomberg projected an median estimated inflation rate of 8.1%.

The slowdown is partially driven by energy prices, which declined 2.7% in April after rising 11% percent in March. Gasoline prices fell 6.1%, as did used vehicles and clothing, which dropped 0.4% and 0.8%, respectively.

Meanwhile, core inflation — which excludes typically volatile food and gas prices — doubled last month, going from 0.3% in March to 0.6% in April. The cost of shelter, food, airline fares, and new vehicles were the largest contributors to the all-items increase, according to the Labor Department."

So to recap, inflation was down because energy prices were down, but they're already back up, but the rate of core inflation doubled, especially shelter and food.

You can spin those numbers for a month, but the next month is likely going to look a lot worse.

[Sarcastr0]

I posted core inflation - I don't know where you're getting your numbers from.

[Kazinski]

Here are my numbers. Which CNBC got from the Dept. Of Labor.

[dwb68]

sigh. The same people celebrating the 0.2% drop in inflation are the same people who last year told me inflation was a transitory figment of my right wing imagination.

0.2% is noise.

I repeat: inflation will not abate until the Federal reserve meaningfully sets rates above the inflation rate. That is, the yield on the 1 year bill needs to be roughly 9%, at least.

Well, Congress *could* also cancel spending and withdraw the trillions that they spent. But Congress cutting spending isnt happening in anyones lifetime.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

If having the Federal Class lord and rule over us works, why isn't it working?

[wreckinball]

Don't believe what you see. ALL IS WELL!

[apedad]

We're the strongest and wealthiest country in the world.

We have to longest, unbroken form of govt.

What exactly is not working?

Sure, we're not perfect but we're better than everyone else, and have been for a long time.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

You look around and think our economy is working?

[Yatusabes]

I dont know anyone who thinks our govt is working. My family in Cuba visited Miami recently and stayed with relatives. They could not return to Cuba due to COVID for 2 years. During the time period I continually had to explain how we have freedom of speech, right to bear arms, etc, as contrasted to life in Cuba. Still they asked me why Biden rigged the 2020 election with the news media censoring unfavorable stories, suppressing free speech on social media, the duplicitous judicial system vis a vis FBI, DOJ, Trump Russian “hoax”, peddling propaganda by news media, et al. My response: “welcome to America”

[David Nieporent]

This is certainly a thing that did not happen.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

" I dont know anyone who thinks our govt is working. "

That's because you spend your time with uneducated, knuckle-dragging, grievance-consumed losers in bigoted, can't-keep-up communities.

[SRG]

"uneducated, knuckle-dragging, grievance-consumed losers in bigoted, can't-keep-up communities."

Who nonetheless rely on government handouts.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

That's what half-educated, resentful, disaffected, unskilled parasites do.

That, and vote Republican.

Maybe an occasional trip to the rattlesnake-juggling exhibition.

[apedad]

Um...yes.

I see hundreds of millions employed people spending trillions of dollars each year.

All systems (financial/banking, transportation, communications, agriculture, energy, etc.), are up and running.

Sure there are hiccups from time to time and we're always either in a recession or inflation period.

But we're certainly not failing (and some folks are actually increasing their wealth), and - as noted above - we still the best.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

The best at what? Wealth inequality? Student loan debt? Highest healthcare spending per capita? Housing prices? Highest Federal debt per household? Highest per capita education spending with worst outcomes?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Disaffected, delusional, can't-keep-up misfits are among my favorite culture war casualties.

Modern, educated, successful America will continue to progress as these losers whine, whimper, mutter, sputter, rail, and flail.

Maybe you should pray on it a spell, BravoCharlieDelta.

[apedad]

Whoda thunk that BCD would be blasting out Dem talking points.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

It's just so weird to see you Federal Class dummies speak out of both sides of your mouths.

You guys constantly fear monger about how terrible everything is and how you need more of our wealth and more control over everyone's lives to fix it, and then when you ask them why nothing's fixed they tell you your eyes are lying and we are living in a centrally planned Star Trek utopia.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

You look around and think "$40B to Ukraine makes sense, even though babies are starving because we, as a country, have no baby formula" is working?

[Don Nico]

"What exactly is not working?"
Apedad,
K_2 tells us all those things very frequently.

For myself, I tend to agree with your comment

[Kazinski]

I'm glad you think so, but just because things haven't deteriorated so badly as they could, we've still had a drop of almost 3% in our standard of living in the last year (nominal wages 5.4% - 8.3% inflation = -2.9%). There's a lot of ruin in an economy.

That's why the Democrats are going to lose 20-40 seats in the House and 2-3 in the Senate.

There isn't enough lipstick on this pig of an economy to convince voters to give the Democrats another whirl.

[Brett Bellmore]

Who said it was supposed to work for us? It works for them, doesn't it?

[Ed Grinberg]

USSR, "the workers' and peasants' state," was run for the benefit of the Party, with "workers and peasants" providing the slave labor. Here's what happened when the workers attempted a strike:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Novocherkassk_massacre

[Ben_]

It’s working. 9 of the 20 wealthiest counties in the US are in the DC area: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7806605/amp/Nine-20-richest-counties-Washington-DC-suburbs.html

The overlords have big houses and important titles. How is that not working? They’re important and wealthy and deplorables like you … who cares?

[apedad]

Judge nixes Jan. 6 plea deal after right-wing streamer 'Baked Alaska' declares himself 'innocent'

But the deal went out the window at a hearing Wednesday after Judge Emmet G. Sullivan asked Gionet whether he was pleading guilty because he was, in fact, guilty.

"I wanted to go to trial, but the prosecutors if I [went] to trial, they would put a felony on me, so I think this is probably the better route," Gionet said. "I believe I'm innocent ... but they're saying if I go to trial they're going to hit me with a felony."

So Sullivan said he'd set a trial date for March 2023.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/judge-nixes-jan-6-plea-right-wing-streamer-baked-alaska-declares-innoc-rcna28245

March 2023?!?

Why the ten month wait?

Also, be careful what you ask for boys and girls because you might just get it.

[wreckinball]

Sullivan is the one who persecuted Flynn. The guy who wanted to still charge him after his charges were dropped by the prosecution.

Yea great role model. Are you pointing out another instance of mistreatment by this commie judge?

Or are you cheering it on?

[apedad]

No, definitely questioning why the long wait.

The story doesn't mention if Gionet's attorney's requested (or agreed), with the long delay.

[Don Nico]

Maybe because neither the defendant nor the prosecutor want it any earlier.
Despite all the talk about "justice delayed is justice denied" mostly the parties do not want that

[TwelveInchPianist]

" mostly the parties do not want that"

The parties want it. The lawyers don't.

[Estragon]

I listened to the hearing. Baked’s attorney waived his speedy trial objection.

[David Nieporent]

Nobody persecuted Flynn. Sullivan did not want to charge him — he had already been charged — and charges were not dropped by the prosecution because the prosecution had no authority to drop charges at that point.

Note the MAGA idiot: first complaining that Flynn was coerced into pleading guilty and then complaining that Sullivan wouldn't let Gionet be coerced into pleading guilty.

[wreckinball]

Yes they did. The charges were dropped. You know just repeating dumb lies makes you look dumb.

[David Nieporent]

No. The charges were not dropped. They could not have been; the prosecution had no authority to do so. See Fed. R. Crim. Pro 48. The prosecution filed a motion for permission to drop the charges.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Your comments are those of an uninformed, delusional, poorly educated, right-wing bigot, wreckinball . . .

. . . and precisely what a white, male, movement conservative blog is looking for.

[not guilty]

The charges against Flynn were not dropped until Trump pardoned him. Dismissal of charges against a defendant who has plead guilty requires leave of court, which DOJ sought but Judge Sullivan did not grant.

[Brett Bellmore]

Which is the point: The prosecutor wanted to drop the charges on account of prosecutorial misconduct: They had concealed exculpatory evidence from the defense. Sullivan didn't agree to it, basically didn't care that Flynn had been railroaded, and then coerced into a guilty plea.

[Sarcastr0]

That is not why prosecutors wanted to drop the charges. What exculpatory evidence are you even talking about?

This is why you need to do more than read one right-wing source and think you know what's going on. I don't read Jacobin and assume I've got the real facts.

[David Nieporent]

The prosecutor wanted to drop the charges on account of prosecutorial misconduct: They had concealed exculpatory evidence from the defense.

You keep saying this, and I keep telling you it's false. Read their motion to drop the charges. They do not claim that there was any prosecutorial misconduct. The loon Powell did, and her sycophants in the MAGA media parroted that, but that was not the DOJ's position. The DOJ's position was that they decided that they couldn't establish materiality, and therefore needed to drop the charges.

Sullivan didn't agree to it, basically didn't care that Flynn had been railroaded, and then coerced into a guilty plea.

Because none of that was true.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, they're persecuting Flynn.

[Sarcastr0]

Read other sources than a single right-wing spin rag.
Jesus, Brett, it'll make you look like less of a tool.

Here's another take: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/08/michael-flynn-ignored-official-warnings-receiving-foreign-payments

[Bob from Ohio]

Yeah Brett, read a single left-wing spin rag like the Guardian.

[Sarcastr0]

Hot take on the Guardian.

But the key is to read both.

[David Nieporent]

I like how Brett's Russian propagandist news source tries to defend him by saying, "The retired general 'turned over all contact information he obtained on his trip and provided all the information he was sensitized to look for during the initial meeting, including providing a thumb drive of pictures and other information,' the affidavit disclosed," carefully neglecting to address the fact that the issue was the money he obtained on his trip.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Sullivan set the 10 month wait to violate Gionet's rights to a speedy trial and purposefully make him suffer. I'm surprised that Sullivan didn't put Gionet in the Democrat/D.C. Gulag that the rest of the Innocents are in.

Sullivan is a corrupt Federal Class enforcer as we saw with Flynn.

He is evil and will rot in hell.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Baked Alaska fucked up or he wouldn’t need a trial date. All he had to do was answer “yes”.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

So he should've confessed to a crime he didn't believe he committed to spare him the punishment of the process?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

I hope the judge awards Baked Alaska the Clinger Jackpot.

Maybe you could visit him in prison, BravoCharlieDelta, and pass along some QAnon messages to cheer him up.

[bevis the lumberjack]

He was willing to plead guilty to get out from under whatever it was. He should have just done it. Judges can’t ethically accept guilty pleas from people who claim innocence and say they want a trial.

I have no idea what he’s accused of or if he did it, but if you get an easy plea deal and tell your lawyer you’ll take it then shut up and take it.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

He's accused of being let in the Capitol by the Capitol Police, taking a picture then walking back out.

Which of course is treasonous insurrection and should spend over year rotting in a Democrat Gulag.

[Estragon]

Um, no, he was originally set to plead to a misdemeanor that would have carried a max 6 months of jail time… most likely he Would have been sentenced to home confinement and probation. Hundreds of people have plead guilty to this misdemeanor, I am unaware of ANY who have received 6 months in jail.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Are you aware of any J6 political prisoners who spent longer in jail than that with equally trivial charges?

[Estragon]

He was on pre trial release! What are you moaning about? If you have a larger criticism about the criminal justice system writ large then out with it.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The more I learn about Baked Alaska, the more I hope he spends years in prison.

[Estragon]

Rotting in gulag? He’s on pretrial release FFS. Prosecutors are leaving this plea offer open for 60 days. I’ll bet you a fiver he ends up taking it.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

These bigoted misfits are just flailing. This white, male blog provides an opportunity for right-wing malcontents to huddle together for warmth, spout stale nonsense and delusion, and maybe try to feel somewhat normal for a few moments. It's like a Ron Paul campaign rally.

[not guilty]

It's not an ethics issue. Judges are permitted (but not required) to accept a plea of guilty from a defendant who denies his guilt, provided there is a factual basis for the plea. North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25 (1970).

[David Nieporent]

But an Alford plea still requires one to admit the existence of that factual basis.

[not guilty]

I am not sure that it does. A recitation of facts from the prosecutor, coupled with the defendant´s acknowledgement that that is what the government claims to be true, may suffice.

[Brett Bellmore]

Based on previous behavior, Sullivan would have treated that as perjury if he found out Baked Alaska was innocent.

[Sarcastr0]

Brett finds more bad faith in people he disagrees with!!

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

And undying love for un-American insurrectionists.

It's almost like something about Brett Bellmore inclines him to be belligerent, ignorant, disaffected, gullible, awkward, and antisocial.

[Brett Bellmore]

I SAID "based on previous behavior". You just want to ignore that he's done that before.

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, your telepathy citing past things you disagree with and misunderstandings of the law is the usual thing.

[Brett Bellmore]

What telepathy? He tried to do it to Flynn, that's public record.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Specifically the fact that you read right-wing blog vomit as your primary news sources, and then with the same lack of understanding of the law as the authors of those blogs, you come here and proclaim quite loudly how the law works.

A habit which overwhelmingly results in you being wrong about the law, and more often than you should be ok with, the facts as well.

[Sarcastr0]

As Jason noted, he followed the law re: Flynn. There was hinky stuff going down at the DoJ, and he did his due diligence.

[not guilty]

Perhaps General Flynn should have realized that, in a guilty plea submission hearing, the judge is entitled to take the defendant´s oath seriously.

[David Nieporent]

He didn't "try" to do it to Flynn. As Yoda explained, do or do not; there is no try. He raised it as a possible issue.

But the "it" there was not treating Flynn's guilty plea as perjury because he "found out Flynn was innocent." It was exploring whether to treat Flynn's sworn allocution as perjury because Flynn said he had lied under oath.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yoda's statement was amusing, and I suppose could have made sense in the context of The Force. But it's nonsense otherwise.

Yes, he tried. He tried very hard to do it.

"It was exploring whether to treat Flynn's sworn allocution as perjury because Flynn said he had lied under oath."

As will be the case every single time somebody tries to withdraw a coerced guilty plea.

[Estragon]

Based on previous behavior I am certain Hillary wrote vince Foster’s suicide note. I am not a crank.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

More likely, he set the trial date to provide time for this joker's lawyers -- who figured the case was settled -- to prepare, perhaps avoiding a repeated 'give us more time' dance. As I recall, the insurrectionists have regularly requested additional time for preparation.

How much experience with trials do you have?

[Estragon]

He waived his speedy trial objection in this same hearing.

[Illocust]

This seems messed up. Yes, I get that for legitimacy reasons we can't acknowledge in a court room that an innocent person is pleasing guilty because the state is threatening them, but literally everyone knows it happens and that for the innocent person, playing guilty can often lead to less harm befalling them.

At some point the court system has to acknowledge the emperor has no clothes and they're fine with that because the monarch can be a nudist if he wants to.

[Commenter_XY]

I am glad the man said what he said....pleading guilty because of prosecutorial coercion.

[Aemon McGarret]

This pretty much prosecutorial standard practice, isn't it? I ran into this in Texas in 2001. I had never been through a prosecution & took the plea, rather than the costlier less certain felony trail. My lawyer said that I would "probably win". In retrospect, I should have gone to trial.

[John F. Carr]

The court has hundreds of January 6 criminal cases to work through. It would not be possible to try everybody this year.

[Michael P]

In slightly different contexts, that's used as an argument for prosecutors to dismiss thousands of cases rather than prosecute them.

[Yatusabes]

As an immigrant from Communist Cuba, I see the US slouching towards Marxism. Just about all immigrants I know who fled authoritarian, politically oppressive countries, see the same trend in America. We are dumbfounded Americans truly believe what happened in our countries will never happen here.

Immigrants make the best US Citizens. We are proud to be in America, work hard on personal goals so as to realize the American Dream, and came to view America as that “ beacon on the hill”. Except now that beacon has been snuffed, there are two different sets of laws: one for those in power which are disregarded, and another set of laws for commoners who will face severe punishment if the former accuse the latter of infractions. Been there, done that, Americans should cherish and defend their foundational principles or succumb to what has fallen all empires

[David Nieporent]

As an immigrant from Communist Cuba,

As the quarterback for the Minnesota Vikings, I see [a whole bunch of talking points.]

[Don Nico]

I don't get your snide retort David.

[David Nieporent]

My point is that anonymous people popping in and saying, "As a ____," and then simply reciting the same talking points as everyone else of their persuasion, are usually full of it. There's no more reason to think he's a Cuban immigrant than that I'm an NFL QB, and even if he were, that wouldn't add any weight to the same thing everyone else on his side is saying.

[Kazinski]

It's not like Cuban immigrants are as rare as NFL QB's, or communist refugees either.

My wife was born under a communist regime, although they did drop their official Socialist outlook in 1991, they've never relinquished power and are just authoritarian kleptocrats now, not that there is a big difference.

[Yatusabes]

Immigrants are useful for the Left only when they support their talking points. Otherwise full throttled racist, xenophobic hate speech by the Left is not only allowed, but expected de rigueur

[gormadoc]

Many of the recently fallen empires got pretty sweet deals, honestly. Even the Axis powers are doing fine now.

[DaveM]

The only way to avoid becoming an authoritarian, politically oppressive country is for us to elect the right people. It's not a policy problem, it's a staffing problem. If we put the right people in power, good things will happen. If we vote for the wrong people, then bad things will happen.

There's always some mix of good and bad. At the moment, the balance is shifting towards more bad than good. Only voting will fix this.

[Brett Bellmore]

"It's not a policy problem, it's a staffing problem."

I think Milton Friedman had the better position on this:

"I have often said we shall not correct the state of affairs by electing the right people; we’ve tried that. The right people before they’re elected become the wrong people after they’re elected. The important thing is to make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. Unless it is politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing, the right people will not do the right thing either, or if they try, they will shortly be out of office.”

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Your assumption is that voting matters.

- No one elected the Administrative State.
- Our elected officials have re-election rates of 90% or greater, regardless of how well they express the will of their electorate.
- Voting in an insecure election, that is insecure by design, is an exercise in disenfranchisement even if the power elite could be held accountable by voting.

[Sarcastr0]

-Political appointees are a thing, and run the administrative state.
-Voting doesn't matter because voters...like their representatives?
-Our electoral system is not insecure by design. It's not 100% secure because there are tradeoffs. The right just likes delegitimizing institutions and you like to repeat their nonsense.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

- We saw with President Trump who runs the Administrative State. We saw first hand with Trump and now with Biden who the most powerful man in the world is. It's not the President. It's a bunch of faceless, unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats who don't get fired even when they literally kill people.

- You think 90%+ incumbency rates are because voters like the people they assign sub-20% approval ratings too and not because of any systemic or institutional biases written into the system? Or is the election/political system the one system in the Democrat universe that is free from any sort of systemic biases or corrupt influences?

- Banning IDs, signature verification, voter roll integrity checks, are to facilitate fraud. Unsecured mail-in ballots, print-at-home ballots, partisan ballot harvesting, insecure drop boxes, motor voter without citizen verification aren't for trade-offs, they're for fraud. We don't even have election days anymore but election seasons.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

" We don't even have election days anymore but election seasons. "

We have had election "seasons" for many decades.

For most of that time, the people favored by the extended voting opportunities -- absentee ballots (often abused), military ballots -- were generally those preferred by Republicans. When voting was made easier for average citizens, Republicans generally did not object -- until Trump-associated lies and delusion overcome their gullibility and they were lathered into especially stupid, partisan positions.

[Noscitur a sociis]

You certainly don't sound like you like America very much, nor do you seem very appreciative of us for letting you in.

[wreckinball]

Still dumb dude. Refute his points

But lets start with different justice based on political viewpoint. Can you do it

[wreckinball]

Instead he chose to tell the truth. Interesting that now equates to disregarding 6A.

Hint, you can believe you are innocent but realize that the J6 trials are kangaroo like and you have no chance for justice so therefore take a plea.

Sullivan just wants to persecute his political enemies. For all of the folks with Ukraine flags flying this attitude is definitely right up Putin's alley

[SRG]

I wonder the size of the intersection between all those law-and-order types who regularly argue that innocent people don't plead guilty and those people who are now arguing that innocent people are pleading guilty in the case of 1/6,

[Illocust]

I wonder if you actually believe that there is some huge contigent of people that don't believe innocent people ever plead guilty to avoid further damages, or if you just aren't capable of recognizing that someone believing someone is guilty in a specific case does not equate to them believing that an innocent person will never plead guilty.

[SRG]

Missing the point. I have no doubt that people plead guilty when they're innocent, for a variety of reasons. But to my observation, in general law-and-order types are unusually reluctant to concede that the innocent do plead guilty - yet seem peculiarly willing, in the exceptional case of the 1/6 rioters. to accept that it happens, nay, argue that it must have happened, and frequently.

Have any rioters offered Alford pleas, btw?

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm quite willing to believe that the innocent do plead guilty. I just doubt that most of the people pleading guilty are innocent.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Innocent people absolutely plead guilty. And confess. The DNA era has demonstrated that beyond any doubt.

[gormadoc]

It's not the gotcha you think. "Law-and-order" types believe that the system works pretty well and that, generally, the people who end up charged with crimes are actually guilty. I think most people believe that, to some extent. The fact that sometimes innocent people sometimes get caught up in these cases and then plead guilty for an easy out doesn't then implicate the general idea that most people are in court because they're guilty. Similar to the maxim "when pigs fly," even though pigs have been flying for many years now, the general idea still holds.

The reason some of those might believe it doesn't apply in these cases is that they also believe the cases are politically motivated. If a case is politically motivated then the system is breaking down (at least for that case) and the general rule (which assumes "law-and-order" motivations) fails.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

A whistleblower revealed that the Democrats at the FBI are targeting parents as domestic terrorists if they oppose CRT Jive Kampf and mask/vaxx mandates on their children.

Is there anything more evil than a Democrat with institutional power?

[Ed Grinberg]

Is there anything more evil than a Democrat with institutional power?

Antifa are pretty evil. They have no institutional power. (But they're certainly ideologically aligned with Democrats.)

[Ed Grinberg]

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/01/keith-ellison-endorses-antifa.php

[Ed Grinberg]

That's my state's AG.
As DaveM said above: "If we vote for the wrong people, then bad things will happen."

[David Nieporent]

WTF did you hear on OAN that you think proves whatever you're saying?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

This broke last night:

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/fbi-whistleblowers-claim-agents-investigated-parents-accused-of-threatening-school-boards-over-mask-policies/

[David Nieporent]

So if we suddenly decide that anonymous sources laundered through multiple levels of hearsay and politicians are okay, and we accept this story, it says that when someone reported threats to the FBI, the FBI talked to the person who submitted the report, and of course kept records of that, and used the term "EDUOFFICIALS" for tracking purposes.

What does that have to do with the claim that "Democrats at the FBI are targeting parents as domestic terrorists if they oppose CRT Jive Kampf and mask/vaxx mandates on their children."

1) I don't know which "Democrats" you think are at the FBI, or how you could possibly know the political affiliation of random FBI agents.
2) Nothing in that article say that they "are" doing anything. It talks about events in the past.
3) Even if "targeting" is a dysphemism for "investigating," nothing in that article says that they are "targeting" anyone other than specific people about whom they received reports.
4) "Targeting as domestic terrorists" is just a nonsense phrase, and nothing in the article says anything of the kind. The only mention of "terrorism" is that the descriptive filing tag that they used — "EDUOFFICIALS" — was first used by the counterterrorism and criminal divisions.
5) Of course, they were investigated if there were reports of threats, not "if they oppose CRT and mask/vaxx mandates." (If it had been the latter, they'd have had to investigate millions of parents, not the two mentioned in the letter.)

[Sarcastr0]

This was a fun post, DMN. I should take some lessons in your 'I clicked through to your nonsense' style.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

The Democrats at the FBI investigated a Republican politician because a Democrat claimed opposing vaccine mandates in schools "incited violence". And you believe that's not absurd on it's face?

The Democrats at the FBI investigated a mother because she belonged to a "right-wing moms group">

The Democrats at the FBI investigated a father because "he fit the profile of an insurrectionist".

These investigations were opened under counter-terrorism laws. AG Garland perjured himself before Congress when he claimed this was not happening and was not going to happen.

Where is the DOJ SWAT teams, CNN camera crews, or Democrat Prosecutors at SDNY?

[David Nieporent]

The Democrats at the FBI

Still not a thing.

investigated a Republican politician

Note that a Republican politician is not "parents." This was thrown into the Jordan letter because he couldn't even find more than two examples of the phenomenon that he was ostensibly talking about: "investigations into parents."

because a Democrat claimed opposing vaccine mandates in schools "incited violence". And you believe that's not absurd on it's face?

Note how exactly two words in that sentence are in quotation marks. (See that what we have here is you paraphrasing the Jordan letter, and the Jordan letter paraphrasing the report, so at this point we're several levels removed from the facts.) What did the report to the FBI actually say? I would indeed find it absurd if someone said, "He opposes vaccines; that constitutes inciting violence." I would not find it absurd if the report to the FBI said, "They're yelling that anyone who imposes a vaccine mandate is a Nazi who needs to be stopped. That's inciting violence."

The Democrats at the FBI

Nope. Still hasn't become a thing.

investigated a mother because she belonged to a "right-wing moms group">

And that's a lie. According to the letter, the FBI interviewed the woman because she told a school board, "We are coming for you." Which could certainly be a threat. So they interviewed her, and decided she wasn't.

The Democrats at the FBI

Please stop trying to make fetch happen.

investigated a father because "he fit the profile of an insurrectionist".

Nope. Lying again. They didn't investigate him; they talked to the person who reported him. And it was because he "rails against the government," "believes all conspiracy theories," and "has a lot of guns and threatens to use them." (I could see why this would hit close to home for you.)

These investigations were opened under counter-terrorism laws.

That isn't a thing. And isn't supported by the Jordan letter.

AG Garland perjured himself before Congress when he claimed this was not happening and was not going to happen.

You sound exactly like the liberals complaining that Kavanaugh/Gorsuch/Barrett "perjured themselves" because they said that Roe was precedent. That's not what the words mean.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

" I don't know which "Democrats" you think are at the FBI "

I believe it is still true that the FBI has never operated under a Democratic director for a single day since inception. Nothing but Republicans.

That won't get clingers out of their fever dreams, but it should indicate to reasoning, informed people that these delusions concerning 'Democratic FBI plots" are just low-grade paranoia by people who feel like losers in modern America, and deservedly so.

[Commenter_XY]

David...I learned a new word today: dysphemism = the substitution of a disagreeable, offensive, or disparaging expression for an agreeable or inoffensive one.

Always learn stuff from you. 🙂

[TwelveInchPianist]

You guys don't think getting interviewed by the FBI because you criticized a school board has a chilling effect on speech?

Umkay.

Not to mention that if one of these moms makes a mistake during the interview, she risks prosecution and jail.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

These guys have never heard of any of this until an hour ago and then magically transformed into subject matter experts.

[David Nieporent]

You guys don't think getting interviewed by the FBI because you criticized a school board has a chilling effect on speech?

It could. But — setting aside that the letter in question mentions a grand total of one person (other than those filing these tips) being interviewed by the FBI — that assumes its conclusion. If they're interviewed by the FBI because they "criticized" a school board, that's bad. If they're interviewed by the FBI because they threatened a school board, that's not bad. We yell at the FBI for failing to prevent the Parkland shooting because they didn't take reports of threats seriously.

[TwelveInchPianist]

There's no evidence that she threatened a school board. The article says that she was investigated because she said "We're coming for you" which, in the context of a constituent communicating with an elected official, means that the constituent will support someone else in the democratic process. And that's exactly what she told the FBI she meant.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

If we indeed have a baby formula shortage crisis, should the Federal Class horde existing inventory to give to illegals, or should the Federal Class release it's inventory for the country's citizens?

I'll let you guess what the Federal Class is doing.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

If the Federal Class has any sense and effectiveness, it will direct formula to educated, modern, accomplished, Democratic areas and deny the formula to ignorant, superstitious, worthless Republican areas.

But you already knew that, BravoCharlieDelta.

[TwelveInchPianist]

And you guys thought progressives weren't commies.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Remember, Kirkland claims to have been a Democratic elected official.

This is how Democratic elected officials think, folks.

When you vote blue, you vote for selective starvation.

[Stephen Lathrop]

A question on deeply rooted history and tradition, but with a note of caution. Are Alito's assertions with regard to American history and tradition on abortion dramatically at odds with his facts?

I have been trying (not too strenuously) to look into Alito's citations. Problem is, I'm no lawyer. I have trouble discerning whether some citations are colonial-era citations from North America, or citations from Britain. As a matter of history, I insist the difference matters.

And the conclusion I tentatively suggest is pretty startling. So I hope someone more expert in the law will double check.

Here it is:

For this purpose, I define an abortion case as a case where a woman sought an end to her own pregnancy, and either on her own, or with the help of another, attempted to make that happen, and then was at least chastised, if not more seriously punished by a court, or likewise for her helper(s).

The first question is, when does the first such case appear in Alito's record? Because of uncertainty about citations, I can't say exactly, but apparently it is not until after 1800. All his prior citations seem to me to be British, from Britain. Which if correct, would mean that for America's colonial past, and the early national period, for an interval of approximately 200 years (dating from the first arrival of women in Jamestown in 1608), Alito has not a single citation to support this, "deeply rooted," tradition he alleges. It may be a slightly longer interval dating all the way to 1824. And even then, Alitio's evidence does not seem to come from citations to court decisions, but instead to the texts of laws—which are historically a very different matter.

Then, following some sea-change in national moral philosophy, sometime around 1825, states began passing anti-abortion statutes, at a stately pace, which continued until well into the 20th century. But even during that time, Alito seems not to cite cases, just laws.

The most Alito-friendly interpretation I can put on what I see is that there have been three intervals of contrasting evidence on abortion in this nation's history and tradition. The middle one, from circa 1825 until the passage of Roe in 1973—an interval of 148 years—comprises support for Alito's assertion, by the appearance of statutes, but without supporting case citations.

The other two eras encompass more history than that. The first, a mostly colonial era from 1608 until 1800 or afterward, shows essentially zero evidence in support of Alito. The second, from passage of Roe in 1973 to the present lasted another 49 years. Thus, 148 years of history support Alito, and 249 years oppose him, with a couple of extra decades of uncertain interpretation in the early 1800s.

That seems striking already. But here is the challenge I want to make to abortion opponents who favor the history and tradition argument. Using my definition above of what an abortion case is, how many cases from Alito's draft can you find from North America in support of the Alito history and tradition argument. Here is the definition again:

For this purpose, I define an abortion case as a case where a woman sought an end to her own pregnancy, and either on her own, or with the help of another, attempted to make that happen, and then was at least chastised, if not more seriously punished by a court, or likewise for her helper(s).

Surely Alito must have at least some citations to match that challenge. How many, and when? How intense can Alito show was this deep history and tradition? How long do his own citations show that it really lasted? And when was it being enforced?

To get things started I will give you an easy target. For the sake of argument I will assert that except for statutes, there is not any proof of any such case in Alito's decision. Remember, Britain does not count. It is this nation's history and tradition we are talking about, and our share of the British tradition is our own colonial one. If that contrasts with the British one, that must be taken into account.

I surely must be wrong to say there is no evidence at all. So have it. Show me citations, when and where, to put support under Alito's sweeping assertions. Just how strong, and how long, has he shown this history and tradition to be?

He is the one making the argument, and I can't see it. You are his supporters. Help him out.

[David Nieporent]

Problem is, I'm no lawyer.

Admitting your problem is indeed the first step.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

He's no lawyer.

Alito is no legitimate, trustworthy historian.

Which is the problem here?

Carry on, clingers. But not for much longer. Not in modern, improving America.

[James Alp]

A few years ago, actor Michael Shannon said in an interview that there's one character he would never play: Donald Trump.
But in a certain sense, he may already have.
In William Friedkin's Bug (2006), Shannon does not of course actually play Donald Trump, but the Ashley Judd character, Agnes, represents the societal or demographic sources of Trump support in so many ways it's surprising it isn't commented on more often. She is white. Rural. Working class. Has a drug habit. Possibly has no fixed address, living in a motel room. Apparently food insecure. Marital breakdown. Family disintegration. Imprisoned ex-spouse. Victim of domestic violence. Most importantly, she feels that what was the emotional center of her life has been ripped away from her by mysterious forces beyond her understanding. And all these factors make her primed to believe a man who comes along who has a conspiratorial frame of mind, a ready explanation for everything that makes her unhappy, and a single solution for everything: his control over her. They quickly lock into a downward spiral that ends in a conflagration.
Is there any way these two characters could have been saved? Does answering that question give any insight into how U.S. politics could be restored to sanity?

[Aemon McGarret]

A somewhat simpler question. What happened to the pregnant woman? She is nowhere to be found in the draft or discussion. There is no mention that she has any rights, nor any attempt to balance them in the outcomes. Nor ANY consideration at all, that before anyone else, it is her pregnancy. The possibility of a baby gets full human rights. The religious conservatives in society position & beliefs seem to be far more important to the court than the woman & her beliefs. And the court is very concerned with it's need to articulate clear lines & precedent. But pregnant women are treated as mere vessels.
The relationship between a pregnant woman & her pregnancy, along with the possibility of a new human is utterly unlike any other human relationships. Those analogies cannot apply. The moral questions of what life is & when it begins are beyond human understanding. Lots of opinions, but no objective answers. God, or the fate of circumstance gave pregnancy to women. And all of the moral decisions should be hers to make. Not up to a vote of the community. Throughout human history men have claimed their children & the control of their women. Their main purpose for life was seen as bearing & raising children. For their men.
The state & the courts have NO place in this issue. Nearly all of the historical & legal precedent come from times & societies when women could not vote. And were prohibited from public life & independent agency by hard convention & law. To me, the serious question is, what right does the state have inserting itself into the decision? And running flat over the woman's personal beliefs & rights. And more grotesquely, forcing her by law, to give birth against her will. The belief that ending a pregnancy is murdering a baby is just an opinion about someone else's life & moral decisions. No matter how deeply & passionately or how widely it is held. The willingness of anti-abortion forces & judges to completely ignore the woman in this situation shows how intellectually dishonest and traditionally misogynistic it is.

[gormadoc]

"God, or the fate of circumstance gave pregnancy to women."
I'm going to go with evolution. Most likely due to incorporation of retrovirus DNA. Cool really.

[Aemon McGarret]

Pretty much the defining difference between male & female, is that women get pregnant. I'll go with evolution also. She still has the babies. No opinion can change that.

[Don Nico]

"The state & the courts have NO place in this issue. "
That is not the way societies work

[Aemon McGarret]

The claim that they have an interest that overrides the pregnant woman's relationship with her pregnancy & life, simply does not stand on anything much more than ancient tradition. It simply should not be anyone else's business. The saving babies narrative is bogus. It has always been about forced birth.

[Noscitur a sociis]

A somewhat simpler question. What happened to the pregnant woman? She is nowhere to be found in the draft or discussion.

So you're saying you didn't read the opinion?

[Longtobefree]

Pretty much my first reaction.
The ruling is on the US Constitution, and the process of law.
Women (whatever that is this week) have nothing to do with it.

[TwelveInchPianist]

According to the ACLU, abortion doesn't effect women.

[Kazinski]

Ruth Bader Ginsburg in the MY University Law review in Dec. 1992, before she was on the court explains at least part of the reason Roe was a lousy decision, and is finally being reversed:

"Doctrinal limbs too swiftly shaped, experience teaches, may prove unstable. The most prominent example in recent decades is Roe v. Wade . To illustrate my point, I have contrasted that breathtaking 1973 decision with the Court's more cautious dispositions, contemporaneous with Roe, in cases involving explicitly sex-based classifications, and will further develop that comparison here....
Suppose the Court had stopped there, rightly declaring unconstitutional the most extreme brand of law in the nation, and had not gone on, as the Court did in Roe, to fashion a regime blanketing the subject, a set of rules that displaced virtually every state law then in force. Would there have been the twenty-year controversy we have witnessed, reflected most recently in the Supreme Court's splintered decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey? A less encompassing Roe, one that merely struck down the extreme Texas law and went no further on that day, I believe and will summarize why, might have served to reduce rather than to fuel controversy."

So here she is 20 years after Roe calling it "unstable".

I'm sure if she were on the court still she'd be dissenting, but here she is in '92, 20 years after Roe saying a path not inconsistent with Alito's opinion would be both legally and politically a more sound approach.

[Moderation4ever]

Justice Harry Blackmum covered a lot of the history of abortion in the original 1973 Roe decision. Abortion and laws against abortion have been around since start of recorded history. What is worth remembering is that for most of history childbirth has a woman's thing and in all most all cases handled by woman's family members or midwife. This would include most gynecological procedures including births and terminations. While against the law it was likely not prosecuted other than to make an example of a problem individual.

The rise in antiabortion laws likely corresponds with advances in medicine and the establishment of the physician class. The physician class would seek to maintain a control over the medical procedure. I suspect that prosecutions of abortion providers was likely done to scare off the competition with doctors.

Justice Blackmum also noted that laws against abortion were based on the fact it was consider unsafe. Today an early termination of a pregnancy is safer than taking a pregnancy to term.

[RightofCenter]

I'm traveling through Oakland for the first time post mandate. I was not surprised to learn the county health board immediately instated a mask mandate that applies to the airport as well. It seems like their local action is having an interstate effect. I wonder if the parties behind the recent mandate victory would consider a federal suit challenging Alameda County's mask mandate for interstate travel. I'm also curious how they're justifying a continued mandate when I would imagine the data from the first few weeks doesn't show a negative impact from removing the mandate.

[Moderation4ever]

I was also recently traveling, including NYC which does still mandate masks for airport and public transit. I though usage of masks was mixed and I keep one and used it where I thought appropriate. Generally used the mask when in crowded areas and not when there were fewer people.

What did bother me was the lack of common sense. I traveled on an intercity bus to the Chicago airport and two seats ahead of me was a person with and obvious respiratory infection. He spent much of the 2.5 hour trip coughing and sniffling. I think a person with a cold, flu of whatever should wear a mask out of courtesy.

[Doctor Awesome]

At this point I equate most people wearing masks with people who stick their head in the ground to find security.

And somehow there's this expectation that no one should talk on a policy level about people who are sticking their heads in the ground.

Sure, I recognize that there are legitimate immunocompromised individuals out there, and I'm not here to tell people not to wear a mask who need to wear a mask. There were people who wore masks prior to the pandemic, mostly in big cities, mostly Asian. I just dismissed it as kind of alarmist but nonetheless benign.

But I certainly agree and want to highlight the conversation about the justification for a local mandate in Alameda County--what exactly were officials looking at when they decided they needed to create the mandate? Was it a jump in Covid cases? Was it an increased hospitalization rate? Was it an increased number of deaths?

And even assuming the answer to those questions was yes, aren't we approaching something like an 80% vaccination rate for individuals nationwide in the United States? Alameda County's vaccination rate currently stands at nearly 84%. What the fuck are people honestly concerned about?

I'm tired of people not being able to have full conversations about this. People are "safe" already. There's no basis for continuing to pretend like we have an emergency.

Seeing completely healthy, young people wearing masks *outdoors* at this point is reflective of a society that embraces ignorance as a virtue and pretends it's science.

I'm tired of this fucking hand-waiving bullshit where someone mentions

[Doctor Awesome]

*I'm tired of this fucking hand-waiving bullshit where someone mentions COVID and all discussions stops. That needs to stop.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Do you acknowledge that people who did not get vaccinated and engaged in tantrums concerning masks during the height of the pandemic are antisocial, ignorant dumbasses?

Do you also hope that general antisocial dumbassery stops?

[Doctor Awesome]

Lots of people engaged in tantrums concerning masks at the height of the pandemic, both "pro-mask" and "anti-mask," which is a completely unhelpful way of trying to talk about this issue, but that appears to be beside the point.

I'm not here to naively hope people will be better behaved. I do have a general hope that we can at least allow discussion of how to proceed without screaming at each other.

[Sarcastr0]

The important thing is to get really angry at other people doing something that doesn't effect you at all, except it might help a bit.

[Ben_]

We’ve just spent two years learning that public health authorities can do whatever they want as long as they can say there’s a study. Even a discredited study or where their study basically shows statistically insignificant effects. Or where other, better studies show the policy doesn’t work.

Courts don’t care. Any precautions, no matter how untargeted or symbolic, no matter how much they might remind you of a superstitious ritual like knocking wood, get a green light.

[Noscitur a sociis]

The federal government could almost certainly preempt state or local airport masking requirements, but until it actually does so I don't see how a lawsuit could achieve that. (Well, maybe if you found a 35 year old Trump appointee who had never tried a case before. But what are the odds of that?)

[Jimmy the Dane]

Funny of how it is cool to challenge the qualifications of any right wing judges, but don't go there for any left wing judge. Like the guy who decided the gay marriage case out of California who was so old he couldn't remember what happened yesterday and also gay.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Yes, if there's one throughline in my posts here, it's my constant water-carrying for left wing judges.

Look, I think Trump's judicial selections were, on the whole, quite excellent (particularly on the courts of appeals). But there were definitely some highly questionable picks in there as well, and pretending otherwise makes about as much sense as criticizing a judge for being gay.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

He should've recused, especially given his reasoning.

[not guilty]

Judge Vaughn Walker´s orientation was said to be an open secret at the time. The Defendant-Intervenors were represented by highly competent counsel. Why did they not seek recusal prior to trial?

Recusal is not an ace in the hole to be withheld until an adverse ruling comes down.

[Jimmy the Dane]

The fact that he also lived with his partner and publicly expressed his wishes to "marry" that individual but was prohibited by public policy from doing so has more to do with bias then his status. But, again, left wing judges don't get that type of scrutiny.

[David Nieporent]

publicly expressed his wishes to "marry" that individual

And now, of course, Jimmy is just in the making-shit-up phase of today's program.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Just put it into the google machine.....gees do I have to tell you how the internet works????

[David Nieporent]

1) He was not so old.

2) So what if he was gay? Are you seriously contending that only heterosexual white male judges can hear cases in the civil rights area because women or racial minorities or gay people are biased? (I mean, based on your track record I wouldn't be surprised if you thought only straight white males should be judges, but even for you I'm a bit surprised you'd say it.)

[TwelveInchPianist]

Looks like Blake Masters is getting hit by the MSM for correctly saying that there is no gender pay gap.

[John F. Carr]

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts went through a history of the felony murder doctrine. Interesting reading if you're wondering when you are criminally responsible for your accomplice getting shot. In Massachusetts you are not responsible for the victim shooting your accomplice, but the defendant in this case shot his accomplice while trying to shoot somebody else. Oops. Guilty of first degree murder. https://www.mass.gov/files/documents/2022/05/11/d12047.pdf

Massachusetts has a law that I think works well from my outside perspective. Killers sentenced to life without parole get a more generous standard of review on appeal. They can argue that the conviction or sentence is unjust under the circumstances, although technically consistent with the law. In return, denial of a second or subsequent motion for a new trial may not be appealed unless a single justice of the SJC grants what in federal practice would be called a certificate of appealability. If the single justice says no that is the final word.

[Ben_]

Pelosi has this new plan to create a gasoline shortage and bring back 1970s style gas lines:
https://twitchy.com/dougp-3137/2022/05/12/nancy-pelosi-says-dems-will-introduce-a-bill-that-would-allow-biden-to-stop-rising-gas-prices-hint-this-is-insane/

[Michael Ejercito]

Has anyone noticed that the Democratic leadership only cares about a woman's right to choose when it involves her womb?

When women were being forced by OSHA to take the COVID-19 vaccine on pain of job loss, they were nowhere to be found.

[Jimmy the Dane]

The Democrat party also threw women under the bus so they could let men in swimsuits compete in women's sports.

[Michael Ejercito]

If there is one, women can simply identify as men.

[Jimmy the Dane]

All that women need to do is identify as a man and magical things will happen. They will get an immediate pay raise, not have to worry about getting pregnant, serve longer jail sentences, and even die around 10 years earlier. I don't know why more aren't doing it.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Looks like the Ruskies are stealing hundreds of thousands of tons of grain from Ukraine.

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/12/europe/russia-ship-stolen-ukraine-grain-intl-cmd/index.html

[John F. Carr]

Turned away from some ports. Syria is happen to consume or launder the evidence. It's time to sanction a few more companies, and lean on Turkey to classify ships carrying war booty the same as warships. Under the Montreux Convention Turkey can and does block Russian warships from passing through the Bosporus.

[Jimmy the Dane]

The Left is still obsessed with the protests of January 6th, but won't say any darn thing about the terrorism that Supreme Court justices are being subjected to at their homes or the other arsons and violence. Why? We all know the real answer.

[Aunt Teefah]

"terrorism that Supreme Court justices are being subjected to at their homes"

Take the boot out of your mouth and get a grip. Protesting outside of someone's home is First Amendment-protected activity. The Supreme Court itself has said as much. If that sort of minor annoyance causes them "terror", they have no business wielding power.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Protesting outside of someone's home is First Amendment-protected activity. The Supreme Court itself has said as much."

The Supreme Court has held the opposite.

And as was discussed here the other day, SCOTUS has also held that laws against picketing judges and other judicial actors to influence the outcome of a case are constitutional.

[Aunt Teefah]

"The Supreme Court has held the opposite."

Not when the targets of the protests were abortion providers. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/512/753/

Regardless, picketing is plainly not "terrorism" in any serious sense.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Um, you get that that case didn't involve residential picketing, right?

Agree that it's not terrorism in any serious sense.

[Michael P]

It did, but not in a way that helps Antifa thugs: "The 300-foot buffer zone around staff residences sweeps more broadly than is necessary to protect the tranquility and privacy of the home. The record does not contain sufficient justification for so broad a ban on picketing; it appears that a limitation on the time, duration of picketing, and number of pickets outside a smaller zone could have accomplished the desired results. As to the use of sound amplification equipment within the zone, however, the government may demand that petitioners turn down the volume if the protests overwhelm the neighborhood."

[not guilty]

The decision linked by Aunt Teefah did indeed involve residential picketing. The Supreme Court ruled that a 300 foot buffer zone around the residences was unconstitutionally overbroad.

[Sarcastr0]

As was discussed the other day, that case is not really in keeping with the fact pattern here.

Good lord, just fuck the 1A if it's your guys being made uncomfortable, eh?

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Good lord, just fuck the 1A if it's your guys being made uncomfortable, eh?"

Fuck precedent if it doesn't support your guys?

That case held that the ordinance wasn't facially invalid. Are you making a different argument wrt the federal ordinance?

[Sarcastr0]

You are eliding the public officials aspect now?

Protests outside public officials' houses is not new. Suddenly, though, there's a compelling government interest to ban it.

[not guilty]

Terrorism?? What is your supporting evidence? Please be specific.

[David Nieporent]

the terrorism that Supreme Court justices are being subjected to at their homes or the other arsons and violence.

It's true; that chalk on the sidewalk outside Susan Collins' house might never come off… until it rains. Or someone comes along with a hose.

[M L]

One of the grandest lies ever foisted on the American people is that we are "one nation, indivisible". That statement was penned by a socialist in an effort to repudiate our real founding principles.

[Sarcastr0]

Seeing you transform into the worst of us over the years has been a trip.

[M L]

Don't you like to entertain contrarian ideas? C'mon man!

What's wrong about this?

[Sarcastr0]

Entertain does not require condoning. And yeah, I condemn anti-American fucklordery like your neo-Confederate nonsense.

[M L]

Calling the principles the US was founded on "anti-American." How ironic.

[M L]

Why the Pledge of Allegiance Is Un-American

The "one nation, indivisible" referred to in the pledge is not only unconstitutional, it's contrary to the entire idea of the America the Founders sought to create.

https://fee.org/articles/why-the-pledge-of-allegiance-is-un-american/

[LawTalkingGuy]

Imagine believing you’re pro-life and a good person and then putting out statements angry that baby formula is being given to feed babies being held in detention camps. Like you’d have to be an absolute monster to hold those to beliefs. Absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever. The nicest thing that could be said about you is that your preferred policy result of starving babies isn’t necessarily a deliberate plan for murder and genocide. The death of undesirable babies would just be a happy accident.

But somehow being that depraved is just another day in the life of the Governor of Texas.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

It may not be entirely his lack of character. He may rightly expect that such a depraved position would endear him to the ignorant, bigoted hypocrites who vote Republican in Texas.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Imagine believing you’re pro-life and a good person and then putting out statements angry that baby formula is being given to feed babies being held in detention camps."

I imagine the argument is that if we had a wall, we wouldn't have babies in detention camps.

[LawTalkingGuy]

And you’d be a monster for saying that policy should be to starve people in detention camps because we didn’t build a wall.

[Brett Bellmore]

I believe the argument would be that if there's a shortage of baby formula, our own government is obligated to prioritize citizens.

The counter-argument is that, by putting the women in detention, our government has made it impossible for them to solve the problem themselves, and thus is obligated to solve it for them. I find that persuasive.

[Hawk]

There have been many Republicans stating that even peaceful protests outside homes of the Justices are illegal. I would think there is a First Amendment argument against that. What is the opinion here?

[not guilty]

That has been discussed upthread. There is a federal statute prohibiting picketing or parading in or near to a federal judge's home or workplace with intent to influence the judge in the discharge of his duty. A Louisiana statute prohibiting picketing near a courthouse was upheld by SCOTUS in 1965. A more recent Supreme Court case reversed a conviction for leafleting on the sidewalk outside the Supreme Court building as contrary to the First Amendment. In a case involving the residential picketing of abortion doctors, SCOTUS distinguished between targeting a specific residence (which constitutionally may be proscribed) and marching on residential streets generally (which is First Amendment protected). (That was an O'Connor opinion in a section 1983 civil suit. She split the baby with a limiting construction of the local ordinance.)

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

October 2016: Donald J. Trump declares Hilary Clinton should be imprisonedfor mishandling government information.

May 2022: After Donald Trump's loss to Joe Biden by more than seven million votes and an Electoral College landslide, a federal grand jury is interviewing witnesses and issuing subpoenas in connection with investigation of Trump's mishandling of 15 boxes of government documents, some classified "top secret" national security information, which were unlawfully transported to Trump's home after he left office.

Lock him up!

(Because this site can't handle more than two links, you can call up Bobby Fuller's I Fought The Law to complement that last line.)

(Do prison commissaries sell orange hair dye, Diet Cokes, quarter-pounders, and KFC buckets?)

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Lock him up!"

Hey, fair's fair. Either they both go away, or neither.

[Ben_]

Here’s a story from a whistleblower about the news media and about how their false reporting and gatekeeping may have resulted in thousands of murders of black Americans:

https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/i-criticized-blm-then-i-was-fired?s=w

[David Welker]

A few observations.

Partisans love to talk about how the “other side” is being hypocritical. And usually, they are right. Tribal affiliation results in a sort of results-oriented thinking and discriminatory treatment towards the out-group. This may be why we need partisans though. They have an incentive to call the other side out. Kind of like the adversary system in law.

I do not believe that deontological thinking is real. Things aren’t right just because some authority said so. They are right because they lead to better outcomes. I think anyone who claims to be a deontologist ultimately has to justify their so-called deontological system and I don’t think “just because” could ever be a coherent answer. I think people sometimes mistake long-term utilitarian thinking for deontological thinking, which I believe doesn’t actually exist. So, I think hypocrisy is really best characterized as short-term utilitarian thinking. Hypocrisy is where one deviates from a rule that they believe has the best long-term consequences because they don’t want to pay the short-term cost. Often without even realizing it.

Maybe, as Scalia said, originalism is the lesser evil. But one must admit, framed in this manner, that is a utilitarian argument. But, that doesn’t mean it is wrong. Some utilitarian arguments are right and some are wrong. Ultimately though, even if originalism is the lesser evil, it isn’t completely sustainable. That is because originalism is ultimately downstream from politics. But my prediction is that even if originalism were to go out of fashion for a time, it would come back in fashion later. As a descriptive matter, I would predict an originalist/non-originalist cycle.

Some on the left are too obsessed with identity politics and they seem to combine this obsession with a sort of loathing for American history and reckless and inaccurate comparisons of America to countries like China and Russia. For me, this is a major turn off. I am sympathetic to ideas for the government to help ALL Americans regardless of identity, but not special solicitude for specific groups (often arbitrarily defined) based on victory in some sort of victimization Olympics and negative and often false stereotypes about so-called oppressor groups. Ultimately, life is unfair for everyone. We all face hardship and tragedy. Competing to be the biggest loser where the prize is social validation of one’s victim status is just no substitute for victory.

The more that the left attacks originalism from the perspective of identity politics, the more I am drawn to it. I find myself reasonably skeptical of American institutions. But when people compare America to someplace like Communist China or Putin’s Russia, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It makes me appreciate America more. And although our history is imperfect, I think it is something to be proud of. Often, the difference comes from what you are comparing America to. If you compare it to the imaginary utopia in your head, of course it is going to fall short. Take the Founding, for example. It was not perfectly democratic. But it was more democratic than anything else then in existence. If you are comparing it to the impossible utopia in your head, it will fall short. If you compare it to any other government then in existence, it was far superior.

America is still the shining city on a hill.

[Krayt]

In lieu of serious problems, pols beat the drums for lesser problems to take their place as of grave concern.

Anyway, originalism has value in that it helps slow politicians from increasing their power, at their own whim, outside the amendment process, which is to say getting a slow, reasoned pondering of the issue.

A quick look at history shows this process is not a bug, no matter how much a liberal issue wants rapid change.

It's also why I no longer care if judges find new rights for people. I do care if they find new powers, especially over business and regulation. The former is in keeping with the spirit of the constitution; the latter completely against it. Again it goes back to pols growing their power. How rare to decrease it by recognizing new rights.

[Brett Bellmore]

If all they were finding were negative rights, that would make sense. But new positive rights ARE new powers. Just powers exercised, sometimes only nominally, on behalf of somebody else.

[not guilty]

A federal grand jury is reportedly investigating Donald Trump´s removal of 15 boxes of documents to Mar-a-lago at the end of his term as president. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/12/us/politics/justice-department-trump-classified.html

18 U.S.C. 2071(b) states in relevant part:

(b) Whoever, having the custody of any such record, proceeding, map, book, document, paper, or other thing, willfully and unlawfully conceals, removes, mutilates, obliterates, falsifies, or destroys the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; and shall forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States.

I doubt that the disqualification can constitutionally be applied to holding office as president, per U. S. Term Limits, Inc. v. Thornton, 514 U.S. 779 (1995), but the grand jury investigation is nonetheless encouraging.

[Krayt]

Or any elected official, as that would be adding qualifications.

[not guilty]

Qualifications of the President, U. S. Senators and U. S. Representatives are specified in the Constitution. Only those offices would fall within the ambit of Thornton.

[John F. Carr]

Some are giddy over Donald Trump going to jail for this, but the leaks don't say the grand jury is targeting Trump. The NYT leads with the passive voice, "were mishandled."

Until noon on January 20 Trump was above the law as far as most classified information is concerned.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

" Until noon on January 20 Trump was above the law as far as most classified information is concerned. "

The gullibility, substandard character, and disaffectedness of people -- ostensible adults -- who arranged that circumstance is remarkable.

[not guilty]

Louisiana legislators have rejected a bill that would have defined personhood beginning from the moment of fertilization and treated abortion of an unborn child as homicide. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/12/us/louisiana-abortion-bill.html?action=click&algo=bandit-all-surfaces-shadow-lda-unique-time-cutoff-30&alpha=0.05&block=trending_recirc&fellback=false&imp_id=71421688&impression_id=8e0467b4-d276-11ec-a77a-dbe588dcd324&index=2&pgtype=Article&pool=pool%2F91fcf81c-4fb0-49ff-bd57-a24647c85ea1&region=footer&req_id=708939702&shadow_vec_sim=0.5690227017067111&surface=eos-most-popular-story&variant=1_bandit-eng30s-shadow-lda-unique-alpha-0.05

This helps to illustrate how fatuous claims that abortion is murder are in practice. If the proponents of that claim are serious, why not punish a woman who procures her own abortion and her provider as equally culpable parties to a premeditated murder?

[John F. Carr]

According to the article you link, there were objections to the bill because it was too broad and would criminalize procedures that even the most pro-life politicians thought should be allowed. A woman described her dead fetus not being expelled naturally, requiring medical intervention. Ectopic pregnancies also need to be considered.

[M L]

On the last point, treatment of an ectopic pregnancy is not an abortion, ever.

[M L]

And when the same people who ended slavery in the US continued to maintain segregation and racially discriminatory practices, it helped to illustrate how fatuous their claims that all people are created equal were. Yes or no?

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

For evolutionary biologists (and other opponents of creationism): would you ever expect to find a refutation of the "irreducible complexity" argument in ... Alexander Pope's Essay on Man? But here it is bolded for emphasis:

<blockquote<Respecting man, whatever wrong we call,
May, must be right, as relative to all.
In human works, though laboured on with pain,
A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain;
In God’s, one single can its end produce;
Yet serves to second too some other use.

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

Too many typos! I'll try again (I hate Parkinson's):

Respecting man, whatever wrong we call,
May, must be right, as relative to all.
In human works, though laboured on with pain,
A thousand movements scarce one purpose gain;
In God’s, one single can its end produce;
Yet serves to second too some other use.

[not guilty]

The Supreme Court of Texas today ruled that investigations of parents with transgender children for possible child abuse could continue, pending further proceedings in lower courts (except as to the plaintiffs who had brought suit). https://www.txcourts.gov/media/1454197/220229.pdf Remarkably absent from the opinion is any discussion of the due process based fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children. See, e.g., Troxel v. Granville, 530 U.S. 57 (2000).