Thursday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[not guilty]

Peter Navarro, a senior aide to Donald Trump, has filed a pro se lawsuit seeking to avoid compliance with a subpoena to testify before the House January 6 investigating committee and a more recent subpoena to appear before a grand jury in the District of Columbia. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22043832-0-navarro-v-pelosi-et-al-6-1-22-final The House has referred Navarro to the Department of Justice for criminal contempt proceedings, and the averments of this complaint, wherein he admits to consciously and willfully disregarding the House committee subpoena, will be admissible against him if he is prosecuted. He has a fool for a client, indeed.

Nowhere in the 88 page complaint does he plead facts which are alleged to show the invalidity of the grand jury subpoena. The date Navarro was directed to appear before the grand jury is today, so perhaps DOJ will seek civil contempt sanctions and jail him until he appears.

What is it about service in the Trump administration that leads its minions to think compliance with subpoenas is optional?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Before you conclude compliance is compulsory, wait to see how long it takes DOJ to do anything. If the aim is to run out the clock, grab political power, and use it to wipe the slate clean, then DOJ better pick up the pace, or compliance will prove optional in fact.

[Noscitur a sociis]

There doesn't generally seem to be much institutional interest in enforcing compliance with congressional subpoenas (either in terms of requiring attendance, or in forcing the witnesses who do show up to actually answer the questions that are asked). But DOJ definitely takes grand jury subpoenas seriously, and defying one of them typically leads to real consequences.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Noscitur — You got that one right!

[not guilty]

Navarro has now been indicted for contempt of Congress for stiffing the January 6 committee. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/06/03/navarro-indicted-for-contempt-of-congress-after-defying-jan-6-committee-subpoena-00037069

The averments of his pro se civil complaint should be admissible against him in the contempt prosecution. Filing that lawsuit was unwise in the extreme.

[not guilty]

Now that Navarro has thoroughly incriminated himself regarding criminal contempt, perhaps he should consider cooperating with
DOJ in an investigation of the Green Bay Sweep (for which Navarro may have considerable exposure).

[not guilty]

Navarro was appointed a public defender at his initial appearance today. He would do well to take his attorney's advice.

[bevis the lumberjack]

I dunno. What is it about being around Hillary Clinton that leads people to think that compliance with subpoenas is optional? Or Clinton herself?

https://www.google.com/search?as_q=clinton+ignore+subpoena&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&lr=&cr=&as_qdr=all&as_sitesearch=&as_occt=any&safe=images&as_filetype=&tbs=

I mean, it's almost as if our sleazy unethical political class invariably tries to ignore consequences for their slease regardless of the color of their team jersey.

[Moderation4ever]

I seem to remember that Secretary Clinton sat and answered Congress's question many times.

[wreckinball]

I guess she just gets to decide when its over? I'd like to try that with the IRS. You audited me. I answered questions. Now no further questions and go away.

Think it would work?

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

But how good do you look in a pink pants-suit?

[bevis the lumberjack]

Perhaps she did sometimes. Not sure how that invalidates my point. The links show lots of examples of her and her people trying to dodge subpoenas. She testified regarding government business but tried to avoid doing so regarding her personal stuff.

It’s pretty normal for political operatives to try to avoid testifying about potentially embarrassing topics. The guy that started this thread in his weekly Trump diatribe used the attempt by a Trumper to do so to be indicative of Trump’s guilt. Maybe, but it ain’t necessarily so. And even if so we should be applying the same scrutiny to all of these people. He’s not capable of doing that.

[Moderation4ever]

The fact is that Secretary Clinton and her people have appeared and testified far more than the former President or his associates. I don't think we are talking equivalency.

I would also add that in the case of Secretary Clinton many of the subpoenas were just thrown out willy nilly, more as performance art then as an investigative tool. In the case of the former President's associates the subpoenas were more well defined.

[bevis the lumberjack]

So…..it’s up to the receiver of the subpoena to decide whether it’s serious or performance art? There’s zero component of performance art in the work of the 1/6 committee? Hell, Schiff’s earlier committee was 100% performance art.

I make no defense of Trump and his people. I think his actions after losing the election - all of them, not just on one day - render him unfit to be president again. But the trumper in this case is challenging the subpoena in court as Clinton’s people did in some cases. That’s the same thing. To infer guilt of a third party from this guy’s decisions is not reasonable. That was my point.

[Yatusabes]

moral relativism is a thing now for at least 20 years. Try to keep up

Today, having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labeled as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself be "tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine", seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times. We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one's own ego and desires.

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger on the eve before being elected Pope Benedict XVI
18 April 2005

https://www.vatican.va/gpII/documents/homily-pro-eligendo-pontifice_20050418_en.html

[not guilty]

Navarro's complaint pleads no facts averring the invalidity of the grand jury subpoena. He claims only that it is "fruit of the poisonous tree" without supporting authority.

[wreckinball]

Double standards. These folks have no other kind.

[Bob from Ohio]

Looks like they got Peter Navarro! Peter Navarro! Peter!

Take that Drumpf.

[OtisAH]

His pro se suit was filed against a DOJ criminal grand jury subpoena. Nothing* to do with the 1/6 committee.

*Or very little. The judge who tossed his suit for multiple defects didn’t seem quite sure what it was about.

[not guilty]

His federal complaint kvetches long and loudly about the House committee subpoena. He seeks relief from the grand jury subpoena as well, but conspicuously fails to include facts showing any arguable invalidity of that subpoena.

[AmosArch]

Its funny how Musk was lauded as a techJesus for years and all of a sudden over the past few months I'm suddenly tripping over documentaries, and deconstructions, and exposes flooding out of every orifice revealing him to be a demonic evil racist sexually abusive robber baron whose ideas are simultaneously all stolen from real talent and completely worthless and selfserving.

[Sarcastr0]

Yes, someone being lauded and then falling from grace and having the media help tear them down new thing that has never happened before.

[AmosArch]

Where did you get the idea I was implying this sort of thing never happens? No the timing is whats funny but not unprecedented.

[Michael P]

The only reason the left thinks he is falling from grace is because he believes in free speech for normal people.

[Armchair Lawyer]

indeed

[Sarcastr0]

Eh, I've thought he sucked for a long time.

But he's also a troll, not very good at impulse control, and recently being more public with these things.

Not everything is partisan.

[Michael P]

So your argument is that because you've never liked him much, and because his previous poor impulse control (run-ins with with the SEC or the "Not A Flamethrower" stunt or smashing the Cybertruck windows) did not really register with you, he's not actually "falling from grace" now?

That's quite the walk-back of your previous position.

[bevis the lumberjack]

I never cared for Musk either, but to the guy’s credit he’s standing up for the principle of free speech. And putting a lot of money where his mouth is.

We should appreciate things like that even in people we aren’t fond of, particularly in a world where high level people like Biden and DeSantis are doing the opposite.

[Sarcastr0]

Merely yelling 'liberty!' is not actually something I give much credit for.

He's shooting his mouth off about free speech, but he's not really thinking very hard. Lack of moderation does not have good outcomes. And an open algorithm is a spammer's dream.

I don't much care if he buys Twitter, but he's not really a crusader for much that I see other than government subsidies.

[Brett Bellmore]

He's not advocating lack of "moderation". He's advocating lack of political censorship.

[Sarcastr0]

Terrorism counts as a viewpoint by his facile statements. He's not a big thinker on the implications.

[Gandydancer]

Neither are you.

[Sarcastr0]

Trenchant comeback.

[Gandydancer]

Why should I work on a response to empty jackassery?

[bevis the lumberjack]

Fuck moderation. If you want to live in a land of moderated speech move to China.

We all know that “speech moderation” as used by the Biden administration and Twitter senior management and the American Pravda that is our current MSM means “shut down speech I don’t like”. If you can’t observe that flagrantly obvious fact, you’re really not trying.

[Sarcastr0]

We don't all know that - that's a pretty conservative take. Conservatives, for all their caterwauling, seem to be doing gangbusters on both Facebook and twitter.

The unmoderated competitors to twitter either end up becoming a haven for spam, Nazis and/or porn or worse, or they start moderating a lot more than twitter.

Just as market failure occurs pretty quickly in an unmoderated market, so too with an unmoderated forum. For an actual free exchange of ideas, you need a surrounding set of rules to create such an environment.

[bevis the lumberjack]

I’m not conservative and it’s plainly obvious that exactly that has been happening. I swear you’re just turning devil’s advocate.

Question - Just to pick one let’s take Joe Biden’s claim that the BBB would have “zero cost”. We’d that accurate or was it disinformation? Clearly the latter. Did any platform remove it, or add a qualifying statement?

The current administration and the bulk of the American media are now hostile to free speech. And you don’t care.

[Sarcastr0]

'Plainly obvious'
'clearly'
'you just don't care'

You are appealing to your own certainty here, not to anything fact-based.

I don't know how they figure out disinformation. But it's telling you think you know, without any sources.

[StellaLink_the dog]

"Question - Just to pick one let’s take Joe Biden’s claim that the BBB would have “zero cost”. We’d that accurate or was it disinformation? Clearly the latter. Did any platform remove it, or add a qualifying statement?"

Clearly disinformation?

I don't know who these people are and I don't know how well-considered their opinions are, but they appear to be economists and economists are almost always wrong (nobody who constantly makes predictions can likely always be wrong) but:

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says about BBB:

"Over the first decade, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the legislation is very nearly paid for — and more than paid for if one uses the Treasury Department’s reasonable estimate of the savings generated by BBB’s IRS enforcement provisions rather than CBO’s estimate.

"The CBO estimates of BBB show that it would cost a modest $158 billion over the next ten years (representing 0.1 percent of gross domestic product, or GDP, over that period), with costs turning to savings by 2027. We project that these savings would continue into the second decade, with second-decade savings totaling $1.8 trillion (0.4 percent of GDP)."

[David Nieporent]

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says about BBB:

"Over the first decade, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the legislation is very nearly paid for — and more than paid for if one uses the Treasury Department’s reasonable estimate of the savings generated by BBB’s IRS enforcement provisions rather than CBO’s estimate.

I mean, "paid for" and "zero cost" are entirely different concepts.

[shawn_dude]

His "zero cost" quote has been taken out of context. He said the government would "pay for what it spends" in relation to BBB. He clearly recognizes there would be expenditures and that those expenditures would be offset.

My assumption is that most of the people taking issue with "zero cost" aren't being intentionally pedantic.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Holy shit. “Zero cost”. Was the BBB going to be free? Simple yes or no. You’ll meeley mouth your way around an answer.

Stella “paid for” and “free” are not the same thing. My car is paid for, but it sure the hell wasn’t free.

All of y’all that were fine with the suppression of a newspaper’s reporting of a true story related to the President’s son but will defend flagrant falsehoods from the President are the problem with our politics.

[Michael P]

Stella thinks CBO saying BBB is "nearly paid for" means it would be zero cost. Stella has never learned gross vs net, or that close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.

[NOVA Lawyer]

My assumption is that most of the people taking issue with "zero cost" aren't being intentionally pedantic.

It is unfortunate, but, as subsequent commenters have proven, you were wrong about this. They are being intentionally pedantic. And proud of it.

[David Welker]

You are pretty clearly wrong about this. I have seen certain commenters who are conservative, they will tweet something. And the perfectly civil replies of all of their followers will be "below the fold."

Twitter definitely discriminates. It discriminates against conservatives, but even more so, it discriminates against non-blue checkmark accounts.

I don't want or need Twitter to moderate for me. But I can't turn it off.

[Sarcastr0]

I don't know what this below the fold thing is. I see plenty of engagement on non-verified accounts.

I don't see what's so clearly correct about what you're saying. Maybe you're going from 'A' to 'D' because it seems so clear to you, but it looks a lot like anecdote and supposition to me.

[shawn_dude]

"But I can't turn if off."

By which I suppose you mean the moderation and not Twitter. If Twitter is mean to conservatives, why don't conservatives create their own social media that will represent their Truth? I never understood the draw of Twitter but I understand the "I can't quit you!" whine even less. Just delete the app. Problem solved.

P.S. You won't find me on Facebook, either. It's amazing how easy it was to just swipe that app icon and delete that cesspool of misinformation and manipulation.

[bernard11]

We all know that “speech moderation” as used by the Biden administration and Twitter senior management and the American Pravda that is our current MSM means “shut down speech I don’t like”.

No. We don't all know that. Let's see some evidence - not just "Twitter banned Trump," or other anecdotes.

Because you know, conservatives are really good at yelling about some nonsense so loudly that if you pay attention you might think it was true.

[bevis the lumberjack]

The Hunter Biden laptop story. All of the anti vaxers who were deplatformed by Twitter.

Bernard and Sarcastro are enemies of free speech. They’re cool with half of the country being muzzled. Hypocrites.

[Sarcastr0]

Thanks for the condemnation. But
1) Corporations get to speak as well. That is also freedom of speech
2) There are plenty of boards with your preferred moderation policies. They're all full of Nazis and spambots
3) The things you cite as being censored were either illegally gained info or are outright lies

I'm no fan of big businesses like twitter and facebook, but I fear your sources about twitter are leading you astray.

[Gandydancer]

It's an outright lie that the info on the Biden laptop was illegally gained, not by the computer shop and certainly not by the Post.

[Sarcastr0]

You call anything you don't want to believe a lie, it seems.

You don't add much to conversations, really. Just unsourced yelling and calling other people liars.

Tiresome.

[Michael P]

Sarcastr0, you were the one who just accused a large body of materials of being "either illegally gained info or are outright lies" -- when even your lamestream media heroes have admitted that things like Hunter's laptop were legally obtained and true. The "anti vaxxers" were often right about rate but serious side effects and lack of efficacy; the establishment story of Covid vaccines stopping the spread is now obviously wrong.

Stop projecting onto others your own tendency to wrongly identify lies.

[David Nieporent]

even your lamestream media heroes have admitted that things like Hunter's laptop were legally obtained and true.

Absolutely nobody has "admitted" any such thing.

Here's what was relatively recently reported: some of the material purportedly from a laptop purportedly owned by Hunter Biden can be authenticated. Much of it can't be. Nobody knows where the authenticated material came from or how it was obtained.

[bernard11]

This time my "fuck off" is directed at you.

You believe all that Hunter Biden BS?

I thought you set yourself above the partisan crowd. Guess not.

[Aunt Teefah]

"And putting a lot of money where his mouth is."

Legitimately how is it possible that people believe this? Are there really people credulous enough to think that he is buying Twitter as a public service? To promote the free exchange of ideas? Good grief.

All of his wealth is tied up in $TSLA, which is insanely overpriced. Buying Twitter is an attempt to get a big chunk of that money somewhere safe, with an excuse plausible enough to keep the market from getting spooked and the $TSLA price from cratering. Simple as that.

[bevis the lumberjack]

If he’s going to stop Twitter’s habit of censoring political speech, I don’t give a shit what his motive is.

[Aunt Teefah]

It isn't. He might let Trump back on, but that's about it. To actually change the moderation policy would cost Twitter money, which means it won't happen.

And it's a moot point regardless. Musk is trying to wiggle out of the deal, now that the stock price has gone down. He most likely will not own Twitter in the end.

[Brett Bellmore]

I don't see why changing the moderation policy would have to cost Twitter money. It might actually increase Twitter's revenue.

[bernard11]

It might actually increase Twitter's revenue.

Ah. So the people running Twitter are idiots.

I know, Brett. They're not in it for the money, but as part of some leftist plot.

[Gandydancer]

No, bernard they're idiots.

Also crooks, as Musk has chosen to expose.

[David Nieporent]

I don't see why changing the moderation policy would have to cost Twitter money.

For the trillionth time: because a Nazi site is not a viable business model.

[Brett Bellmore]

Bernard: "I know, Brett. They're not in it for the money, but as part of some leftist plot."

Well, yeah. They could boost their pay and spend the money on their private causes, but then they'd have to pay taxes on the money. Or they could violate their fiduciary responsibilities to the stockholders to advance their private causes, and THEY don't have to report that as income, the stockholders get to report it as losses.

This sort of malfeasance is endemic in corporations today, (See supposedly profit oriented corporations making donations to charity.) but the social media companies are the worst about it.

David: For the trillionth time, disagreeing with Democrats doesn't make you a NAZI.

[Sarcastr0]

Brett, the unmoderated sites are not filled with people disagreeing with Democrats, they are filled with literal Jew-hating Nazis.

And as usual you are turning your own certainty into proof of a conspiracy. Twitter thinks they can make more money with a moderated website. You disagree, and are SO SURE you accuse them of breaching their fiduciary duty. And a lot of other corporations.

There are court cases about the business case for donating to charity. Plus, of course, taxes.

You really need some humility. Maybe, just maybe, someone other than you knows what they're doing, and you're wrong.

[David Nieporent]

David: For the trillionth time, disagreeing with Democrats doesn't make you a NAZI.

For the trillion and first time: under a "no moderation" rule — and that's what we're discussing¹ — actual Nazis are free to post Nazi stuff. And when Nazis are free to post Nazi stuff, then Nazis will post Nazi stuff. And when there's Nazi stuff around, non-Nazis generally don't want to be around.

¹ We're discussing Musk's professed intentions, and he expressly said that all legal speech should be allowed.

[David Nieporent]

What you seem to want/envision is a rule that says that stuff that Brett Bellmore agrees is terrible should be bannable, but stuff that Brett Bellmore thinks is okay shouldn't be. But that's not a workable policy, unless Brett Bellmore owns the site.

[bernard11]

They could boost their pay and spend the money on their private causes, but then they'd have to pay taxes on the money. Or they could violate their fiduciary responsibilities to the stockholders to advance their private causes, and THEY don't have to report that as income, the stockholders get to report it as losses.

Oh stop it, Brett.

Your paranoia is eating your brain.

Have you ever in your life thought that someone who did something you didn't like was acting in good faith? My guess is you haven't.

[Gandydancer]

In Teefa's mind (i use the term with undue generosity) going Woke is an effective profit strategy.

[Bob from Ohio]

"big chunk of that money somewhere safe,"

A social media company?

MySpace investors just had flashbacks.

[Aunt Teefah]

Well, *safer* than in the stock for a boutique car company whose market cap is higher than all the real car companies combined, and whose jerry-rigged cars can't stop catching on fire and driving people into concrete barriers.

Plus, owning a social media company could have its perks, particularly for a pump-and-dump artist like Elon.

[bernard11]

I'm with Bob here that this is not where you go looking for safety.

Most likely it's just a giant ego trip by Musk.

[Gandydancer]

Tesla makes money off government subsidies and he's made a bid to get a base of political support. Whether it will in the end work for him I cannot predict, but it seems like a rational bet rather than mere egomania.

[Bob from Ohio]

"just a giant ego trip by Musk"

"he's made a bid to get a base of political support"

Both are possibilities. "Safe" investing is not. Twitter stock has declined a lot too.

[Gandydancer]

Owning Tesla isn't a safe investment anyway, obviously. So that's not even a consideration.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Tesla makes money off government subsidies and he's made a bid to get a base of political support."

I think that's a large part of it. And SpaceX, too, though that's not subsidies, they're HIGHLY dependent on regulators playing ball, and the FAA has been slow walking them since roughly Jan 20th, 2021.

Microsoft learned this lesson, too, you may recall. They'd had a policy of just staying out of politics, until they discovered that politics would punish them for staying out of politics.

Musk has learned that lesson, that he, for defensive reasons, can't afford to lack political influence. He needs a megaphone of his own. Twitter looked available.

[bevis the lumberjack]

It’s mostly not his money. He’s got a group of investors lined up to fund the purchase.

[shawn_dude]

That's the story he's telling, certainly. But he's an infamous troll so I wouldn't put much stock in it.

[Armchair Lawyer]

"Eh, I've thought he sucked for a long time."

Let's see.... Multiple successful businesses, succeeding where other people failed, the first new major US car manufacturer in more than 50 years (and electric too!), the driving force behind returning the space industry to the US...

But sure, if you think success sucks...you must be a liberal.

[Sarcastr0]

Your metric for success is pretty pinched.

Dude was born on a diamond mine, and has learned how to milk the government teat.

[Armchair Lawyer]

You sound petty at best... Probably some envy in there too.

[Brett Bellmore]

See, Sarcastr0, this is the problem with normalizing believing your own trash talk, as you did with Trump. Now you're doing it with everybody you dislike.

You're literally dismissing the business chops of the (on some days) wealthiest man in the world, who got that way by developing bleeding edge industries.

[Sarcastr0]

I'm not dismissing his business chops, Brett, I'm saying he sucks.

[Michael P]

What is "Dude was born on a diamond mine, and has learned how to milk the government teat" if not "dismissing his business chops"?

What happened to your brain, S_0?

[Sarcastr0]

He's smart enough to go where the government subsidies are and use publicity to get on the government's radar.

That's smart business. It also sucks.

I hope this helps!

[Aunt Teefah]

Lmao anyone who thinks Musk cares about "free speech" (or anything else other than his own wealth and aggrandizement) is an absolute moron. Try talking about forming a union at one of his factories and see how free your speech is. The guy is a carnival barker trying to sell people on his shitty car company so that the stock price doesn't collapse - nothing more.

[Gandydancer]

His declared opponents are enemies of free speech. What have you got to show he is doing anything illegal to would-be unionizers?

[Aunt Teefah]

"The National Labor Relations Board on Thursday upheld a 2019 ruling that Tesla had illegally fired a worker involved in union organizing and that the company’s chief executive, Elon Musk, had illegally threatened workers with the loss of stock options if they unionized."

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/25/business/musk-labor-board.html

[Aunt Teefah]

And here's what your free speech savior does to workers who speak out about Tesla's shady activities:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-13/when-elon-musk-tried-to-destroy-tesla-whistleblower-martin-tripp

https://progressive.org/latest/tesla-history-silencing-whistleblowers-cords-220115/

[Gandydancer]

Saying that unionized workers will lose their stock options if they unionize may be true or false, but it's (I assume it refers to future benefits... or maybe even just future stock value increases) a "threat" instead of a prediction only in Bizarro world.

And I see nothing relevant in the last two articles. This Tripp guy certainly seems to have earned his firing.

But you do have the one firing in the NYT article. I won't go behind the paywall, since that involves giving money to my enemies, but maybe I can look into it further when I am less tired. Presumably it was covered elsewhere. But you really need more than the one case several years ago to back up a sweeping accusation.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

I suppose his deliberate violation of the law regarding stock purchases isn’t part of your genius analysis.

Idiot.

[Gandydancer]

So you say. But you are regularly full of shit.

[Aunt Teefah]

The Musk dickriding really is out of control. His violations of securities laws is a well-established matter of public record. This is not something that the above commenter is asserting from nothing.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Here you go, dumbass:

https://www.npr.org/2022/05/31/1102097113/as-elon-musk-prepares-to-take-over-twitter-the-sec-closely-monitors

Fact: "When Elon Musk started buying up Twitter stock, by law, he was supposed to file a disclosure with the SEC, announcing he owned more than 5% of the company's shares. Musk did submit that paperwork but 11 days late."

From another source: "Investors who cross that line are required to file a form with the SEC revealing their stake within 10 days. Mr. Musk’s holdings topped 5% on March 14, securities filings show, meaning he should have disclosed his stake by March 24 under SEC rules.

After March 24, Mr. Musk purchased roughly $513 million of stock at prices between $38.20 and $40.31 a share, according to a regulatory filing. The total buying spree made him Twitter’s largest individual shareholder with 9.2% of its shares.

Based on Twitter’s closing price of $49.97 on April 4, the day Mr. Musk disclosed his stake, he likely saved more than $143 million on those trades, Dr. Taylor estimated."

You, Gandydancer, are the one who is full of shit.

[Gandydancer]

LOL! That's your "deliberate violation of the law regarding stock purchases"? The guy is practically Al Capone!

You full of shit dumbass.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

It's difficult to imagine someone stupid enough to have the facts shown directly to them, and yet still be so willfully, deliberately retarded as to deny everything.

Thankfully we have you to provide a live illustration of what that looks like.

I gave you a chance you didn't deserve and un-muted you. You're still the ignorant fuckwit as before. I won't make the mistake again.

[Sarcastr0]

No new goalposts. No one said he was Al Capone.

Dude, you suck.

You never provide sources, and then just outright openly ignore sources provided when you don't like them.

And add a bunch of insults on top.

Why are you here? It doesn't seem to be to learn, nor is it to test your mettle against those who disagree with you.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

No new goalposts. No one said he was Al Capone.

LOL! So soon on the heels of your own straw man (I mean, the most recent of the tens of thousands you've spewed) in this very sub-thread? Is someone paying you by the exercise in hypocrisy? For instance...

And add a bunch of insults on top.

...after...

Dude, you suck.

If he sucks, you're a warehouse full of Dyson vacuum cleaners.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Are you trying to compete with Gandy to see which of you is dumber?

How is Sarcastr0's remark a strawman when idiot #1 literally said "The guy is practically Al Capone!"

You may have been young once upon a time, but I highly doubt you were ever useful or intelligent.

[wreckinball]

And he's African American too.

[Commenter_XY]

My question to the VC law professors (and lawyers).

Is jury nullification legal?
And, have you ever personally witnessed jury nullification in a case you were involved in?

[Estragon]

I’m so glad you commented on this because it gives me an opportunity to remind you how wrong you were months back.

“Commenter XY
April.14.2022 at 10:01 am
Flag Comment Mute User
Sussman will breakdown and squeal if there is an
absolute certainty of jail time. The weak ones always do
Durham knows this and has built his case accordingly.
This will go on for some time. And others will be on the
docket, soon enough”

I had a lot of fun trying to imagine how you were gonna explain this away, and some sort of tainted jury argle bargle was the top of my list! So thanks.

Seriously, if you really believe in this nothin burger (remember, it was only a single false statement charge) the object of your ire should be Durham and his team and not the jury. Three years and nothing to show for it! Botched investigative steps, sketchy motion practice, complete reliance on the changing story of Jim Baker etc etc.

Finally, I humbly suggest that whatever legal “analysis” that you were consuming which led you to making the above, categorically wrong, statement might not be trustworthy. In light of being so publicly and spectacularly wrong you might want to re evaluate putting so much faith in the opinion writers of the New York Post when it comes to legal issues. My .02. Have a blessed day!

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm not sure how he was wrong; He did state it conditionally, "if there is an absolute certainty of jail time". The condition wasn't satisfied.

[Commenter_XY]

Estragon...Was there an absolute certainty of jail time? That was the predicate.

But my question for today is: Regarding jury nullification, is this legal?

If you're a lawyer, tell me if it is legal or not?

[Brett Bellmore]

Of course it's legal. Unfortunately, the Supreme court permits judges to lie to you about that.

Jury nullification is actually a large part of the point of having juries. Look back at the big cases that are considered triumphs of the jury system, such as the William Penn trial, and they're almost always cases of jury nullification.

But letting somebody without a law degree have any actual authority in a courtroom upsets lawyers, so they labor mightily to reduce the power of juries, and lying to them about their right to nullify is part of that.

[SRG]

I'm a British expat, now US citizen. I was very surprised to find the judicial hostility here to jury nullification, given how supposedly freer the US is than Britain. In Britain, it's well-understood, particularly wrt legislation dealing with obscenity or official secrets, that the defence asks the jury to vote to acquit because of the political consequences, fairness, etc. - and this permits, too, defendants to mount a defence of justification under circumstances where the law apparently permits none. See a famous case referred to here: Clive Ponting

I was also surprised to find that the very mention of nullification in court will give judges the vapours.

[Michael P]

Yes, your claim that Durham had "complete reliance on the changing story of Jim Baker etc etc" shows that you haven't been paying attention.

[Michael P]

Argh. This comment system moved my response.

[Estragon]

Baker was Durham’s star witness!

In any event, my prediction has been vindicated and yours, well, is still argle bargle.

[Bob from Ohio]

"my prediction has been vindicated"

You must be proud!

[Gandydancer]

No one can force you to vote "guilty" just because he is guilty and you know he's guilty, so of course it is.

[NOVA Lawyer]

That's not how paragraphs work. It is true that the statement about Sussman was conditional. However, the statement about Durham and future others being on the docket were not conditional, they were based on Durham being as sure of your conditional as you are.

Durham didn't build his case accordingly. He failed. Spectacularly. (And how stupid to bring a he-said/he-said case where your witness has given conflicting testimony before Congress and elsewhere....automatic reasonable doubt to any sentient juror).

And that others would be on the docket soon is, so far, false. Do you want to double down on that?

[Bob from Ohio]

"opportunity to remind you how wrong you were months back"

Amazing to me that multiple libs here keep track of random comments from months ago.

[Estragon]

Don’t worry Bob, I’ve got a bunch of your gems saved too! Ready to roll out, all in good time.

[Bob from Ohio]

Everybody should have a hobby, no matter how lame.

[Hank Ferrous]

I suspect pathetically immature is more apt than lame.

[Estragon]

Long time, prolific and generally low-substance VC commenter drags other comments as a “lame hobby.”

Irony and self-awareness could not be reached for comment. Could both be dead.

[Bob from Ohio]

Its not commenting that's lame, its storing/bookmarking comments from others to spring "gotchas" later that's lame.

Most of the comments here are inconsequential and trifling.

Proving you were right about a random prediction, such an accomplishment!

[Estragon]

I’ll remember you said that 🙂

[Gandydancer]

Especially a random "prediction" for which there is no evidence that it took place.

He saved it, but that only shows it to have been a hope, not a prediction.

There are a lot of us on the right (dissident right, particularly) who have been contemptuous of the plaudits for Durham. So what?

[NOVA Lawyer]

Bob is afraid of having his words remembered. And so why should anyone care what you say now, Bob?

It's not a gotcha to point out you said things with certainty that later were shown to be untrue. Or that you switched principles when power switched parties. It's actually a public service when people keep track of predictions and prior position statements.

[Sarcastr0]

Not my style, but bookmarking is like two clicks.

[Gandydancer]

Useless without the determined indexing that seems to have taken place. It's telling that he says of Bob "Long time, prolific and generally low-substance VC commenter drags other comments as a “lame hobby.”", but hasn't produced any telling examples of Bob embarrassing himself.

Now -I- thought (and wrote that) the fuss over the TX abortion law gormless since I didn't think SCOTUS would trash Casey. I was wrong. So what?

[Estragon]

If you don’t think Bob is long-time, prolific, and generally low content I don’t what to tell you. Maybe you haven’t been here long.

[Gandydancer]

Long enough to recognize the pot calling the supposed kettle "black".

Really, how many bookmarks of trivial posts are you indexing?

[Gandydancer]

"...complete reliance on the changing story of Jim Baker..."

Did Sussmann even deny saying he wasn't working for Clinton when in fact he was billing her for his time?

[David Nieporent]

You mean, when the expense records that Durham tried to conceal showed that he wasn't billing his expenses to her campaign?

[Gandydancer]

No, I didn't mean that. Thanks for playing, though. Try a link (not behind a prog paywall) next time. Otherwise I'll assume that you are lying as usual.

[Sarcastr0]

You never link anything. Should we assume you're a liar?

I don't - I just think you're not very bright and try to make up for it with endless spite.

[David Nieporent]

Oh, I know you didn't actually mean that, because you're not familiar with the case. Here are the records:

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22040252-dx-436

You can see that he billed this expense to "Business Development" — a generic firm expense — rather than the Clinton campaign.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Ouch.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Yes, it's legal.

I'm reminded of it in the current Sussmann trial.

What is it the Jury Foreman said?

""I don't think it should have been prosecuted," "There are bigger things that affect the nation than a possible lie to the FBI.""

Of course, when your daughter is on the same sports team as one of the jurors's kids...

[bernard11]

Wow.

Lots of tinfoil hats being worn today.

[Gandydancer]

Just like yours?

[Armchair Lawyer]

What's the conspiracy?

A bunch of Clinton donors vote the Clinton lawyer not guilty.

There's a "surprise"....

[Gandydancer]

And Flynn was dumb enough to pay his swampish lawyers gobs of money for bad advice to plead guilty when they had an obvious conflict of interest and were totally ready to throw a somewhat Trumpish guy under the bus. Totally dumb as a rock.

[David Nieporent]

Flynn's highly competent lawyers negotiated a sweetheart deal for him, that his loony replacement lawyer blew up, costing him roughly another year of time and legal expense.

[Sarcastr0]

Sorry your latest shield to ignore the Russia election meddling for Trump went away, AL, but 'the entire jury was biased!!' is pretty weak.

[Gandydancer]

"Russia election meddling for Trump".

See comment about tinfoil hats immediately above.

[Sarcastr0]

I mean, if you want to call the Mueller report a pack of lies, I can't stop you. But I don't think many will listen to you.

[Gandydancer]

The "Mueller" report (supposedly run by a guy who, it turned out, made Biden look all there) included all sorts of nonsense, but inadvertently disproved any consequential Russian "meddling".

[Gandydancer]

...and there you go again denying the existence of "many". Got any polls on who believes the Hoax? Truly, I don't know, but I can assert "not many" in the same meaningless way you do when appropriate.

[David Nieporent]

What the jury forewoman said was that the jury unanimously agreed that Durham hadn't met his burden. It's hardly unreasonable for someone who wasted weeks of time on a fruitless prosecution to express the view that the case should never have been brought.

Of course, when your daughter is on the same sports team as one of the jurors's kids...

Sigh. Tucker Carlson talking points remain stupid. Their daughters aren't the same age. Not only aren't they friends, but they've never even met. (I mean, Sussmann and the juror, not their respective kids.)

[Armchair Lawyer]

What the jury foreman SAID is what I quoted. Not whatever interpretation you have.

[David Nieporent]

No. You only quoted — as hacks are wont to do — part of what she said.

[Armchair Lawyer]

So, why don't you go and provide the entire quote......

Go on. I'll wait.

[David Nieporent]

"It was the government’s job to prove it and they succeeded in some ways and not in others. We broke it down and it did not pan out in the government’s favor."

Source for that:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/may/31/michael-sussmann-clinton-campaign-lawyer-found-not/

[Armchair Lawyer]

What a surprise. You didn't actually provide the entire quote.

What a joke you are. Accusing others of "You only quoted — as hacks are wont to do — part of what she said."

And then when asked to provide the entire quote...you failed to do so, and only quoted part of what was said.
Perhaps you should be less of a "hack" as according to your own definition.

[David Nieporent]

What a surprise: I provided a link so that you could see the facts for yourself because you were ignorant, and instead of saying "Thanks for educating me because I was too lazy to do so for myself," you try to argue that providing information via a link is somehow not providing it.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Armchair Lawyer doubling down on stupidity so we take his comments even less seriously in the future. David provided the quote.

AL,
Just stop digging once you've been exposed as a selective quoter.

[bernard11]

That doesn't sound like what you are implying.

The foreman is talking about the decision to prosecute a "possible lie." That doesn't mean he thinks it was an actual material lie.

Durham owes Sussman an apology, at the least, not that he'll pay up.

[Kazinski]

Perhaps it is jury nullification and I approve.

When Gen. Flynn and Papadopoulos were charged with lying to the FBI I said at the time I would be hard pressed as a juror to ever find someone guilty of lying to the FBI. And I still feel that way.

Sussmann's attorney argued that Sussmann's lie wasn't material because the FBI knew all along who Sussmann was working for, they weren't being conned, they were part of the con.

The lower level FBI agents testified that they knew immediately the Alfa Bank IP address wasn't evidence of any Trump-Russia back channel, but their FBI superiors told them that the tip came from an FBI internal source and to investigate anyway.

[Commenter_XY]

But is jury nullification actually legal?

Could a judge sanction an empaneled jury if zhe believes the jury deliberately disregarded evidence?

If jury nullification is legal, why do we not see more of it?

[Moderation4ever]

I don't think this was jury nullification, this was a failure to provide evidence.

Jury nullification happens but I would suggest it is rare.

[Commenter_XY]

M4e...I did not mention the Sussman case (deliberately). It would lead to endless political bickering. But the jury nullification thing, that is a little different, in my mind. I too have heard that bandied about in the media, but truthfully, I do not know if jury nullification happened in the Sussman case. How do you really prove that?

My questions for the lawyers and law professors:

Is jury nullification actually legal?
Have you ever seen it in a case you were involved in?

People will come to their own conclusions about the Sussman case. But I think the question of jury nullification will come up more over time. So I figure I will ask about it, because I have never really had to do a deep dive on it; so I am unsure where an American legal system with more jury nullification leads.

The only reason I even knew the concept: Years ago I was called for jury duty. As I headed into the courtroom, I was approached by someone with a pamphlet on jury nullification (I actually think it was a John Birch Society member). Thought nothing of it.

Now, I wonder about it. How does it happen? Is it a distinct legal strategy (e.g. could a lawyer ask the jury to nullify?).

I really don't want an endless rehash of Sussman and all that crap. But I would like to understand more about jury nullification from the people best able to speak to it.

[SRG]

See Bushel's Case.

[Commenter_XY]

Wow....Sir John Vaughan is someone I will research more about.

Thx for that cite. Fascinating that came about in 1670.

[Estragon]

One hint that this wasn’t jury nullification as you seem to understand it is the questions the jury sent back to the judge during deliberations about the elements of the charge.

[John F. Carr]

Jury nullification is legal because there is no way to punish a juror for voting the wrong way. Jury nullification advocacy can get you in trouble.

[Commenter_XY]

Can you explain more = Jury nullification advocacy can get you in trouble.

I am not being a smartass, I want to learn. Is that advocacy illegal?

[Brett Bellmore]

I vaguely recall cases where those guys out there with the pamphlets were accused of jury tampering. And mentioning it in court can get an attorney sanctioned by the judge.

[Commenter_XY]

The jury nullification thing is veering into politics, but my question is more concerned about a 'system perspective'. What do I mean?

What are the implications of a legal system where jury nullification (for whatever reason) is practiced more frequently than today. Maybe nullification happens 0.001% of the time. What if that became 10%? This is where I am headed, ultimately.

[Brett Bellmore]

I suppose one implication is that prosecutors might stop wasting their time prosecuting cases that the local community are likely to consider unwarranted.

I have long thought that juries should have more options than guilty and not proven. Allow them a "unwarranted/malicious prosecution" option, and if a prosecutor accumulates more than a couple such verdicts, fire them.

[bernard11]

Allow them a "unwarranted/malicious prosecution" option, and if a prosecutor accumulates more than a couple such verdicts, fire them.

Good idea. Really.

[Armchair Lawyer]

"What if that became 10%? This is where I am headed, ultimately."

That requires a more detailed explanation, and a few questions.

Let's assume, as you pose, that jury nullification is 10%. In 10% of court cases, the jury unanimously says "we don't believe in this law, so we're not going to convict anyone on it". There's a discontinuity though. And it's that we're a democracy.

What that means, is that the people make the laws (ultimately). And the people ALSO serve on the jury to execute/convict on those laws. So....why would the people be making laws that they are unwilling to convict people on. It doesn't make any sense. Especially because you would need at most a supermajority to change the laws...but unanimous votes to continuously engage in jury nullification on those laws.

The primary situation where that could occur is when you have a much larger geographic area making the laws, while a very small (but homogenous) geographic area is in the jury

[Brett Bellmore]

That (ultimately) is doing a lot of work there, you know.

When I vote, I have maybe a dozen bits available to communicate my policy preferences, and they're not even in some optimized code. The bandwidth just isn't there for the voters to control the government in detail.

The most we've got the capacity to do is to throw the bastards out if they get awful enough, and often, we have to tolerate them being bastards because the opposing party put up bigger bastards.

Ultimately, I think rigging the system to suppress 3rd parties, as happened in the 80's and 90's, broke democracy in America. As a practical matter it eliminated any possibility of either of the incumbent parties being replaced, so they're in a competition only to seem less awful than the other, with "not awful" not on the menu, and going off menu or walking out of the restaurant not an option.

[Estragon]

Start by not taking what NY Post op-Ed writers say as gospel. That’s a good place to start.

[Armchair Lawyer]

What you going to do instead? Trust the NY Times?

[Gandydancer]

Can judges punish advocates for making arguments to juries that they forbid? Is that a serious question?

[Armchair Lawyer]

1. Yes, it's legal.
2. Simply "believes"...no. Has evidence that a juror has disregarded the Judge's instructions...yes, you can see jurors removed.
3. A few reasons.
a. It's one of the reasons that often can get you removed from a jury. Obviously prosecutors don't like it.
b. Most people when on a jury do what they're told.
c. Most people are reasonably law abiding and support their laws.
d. Since you need a unanimous vote, a single (or even 2 or 3) Jury "nullifiers" need to be extremely firm in their views to swing the jury.

[bernard11]

Could a judge sanction an empaneled jury if zhe believes the jury deliberately disregarded evidence?

I hope not.

I don't want jurors fearing they will be sanctioned by the judge if they don't decide the case the way the judge likes.

[Brett Bellmore]

Relax, judges can't sanction jurors in that manner. The worst they can do is declare a mistrial.

[not guilty]

Admissible evidence of nullification would be hard to come by. Rule 606(b) of the Federal Rules of Evidence provides:

(1) Prohibited Testimony or Other Evidence. During an inquiry into the validity of a verdict or indictment, a juror may not testify about any statement made or incident that occurred during the jury’s deliberations; the effect of anything on that juror’s or another juror’s vote; or any juror’s mental processes concerning the verdict or indictment. The court may not receive a juror’s affidavit or evidence of a juror’s statement on these matters.

(2) Exceptions. A juror may testify about whether:

(A) extraneous prejudicial information was improperly brought to the jury’s attention;
(B) an outside influence was improperly brought to bear on any juror; or
(C) a mistake was made in entering the verdict on the verdict form.

[Commenter_XY]

not guilty....This was very helpful information. Thank you.

So technically, jury nullification violates Rule 606(b) if the case is in federal court? That is how I read what you cited. Example, exception 2(A) or 2(B). A juror testifies that there was extraneous prejudicial info or an outside influence that was improper. The judge can legally act on that.

The judge could then do what? Declare a mistrial? Dismiss the juror? Sanction a juror?

Do you have a sense (your gut intuition) for how often jury nullification actually happens in criminal trials? I mean, is it 1 in a million cases? 1 in 10,000 cases? 1 in a 1,000 cases?

[not guilty]

The kind of inquiry contemplated by Fed.R.Evid. 606(b) typically happens posttrial. If extraneous prejudicial information was improperly brought to the jury’s attention or an outside influence was improperly brought to bear on any juror, the remedy would be a new trial.

[Gandydancer]

"Could a judge sanction an empaneled jury if zhe believes the jury deliberately disregarded evidence?"

Juries are perfectly entitled to disregard evidence.

Not for corrupt reasons, of course. And jury verdicts are routinely thrown out for juror misbehavior.

But acquitting Sussmann because the prosecution was thought uncalled for even if he was thought guilty is not that.

[David Nieporent]

Sussmann's attorney argued that Sussmann's lie wasn't material because the FBI knew all along who Sussmann was working for, they weren't being conned, they were part of the con.

No; that's not the definition of materiality, so if he argued that I assume it would have been objected to by Durham as a misstatement of the law and he would have been reprimanded by the court.

There's a good argument that a lie that doesn't fool the government shouldn't be prosecutable, but that's not what materiality means. Materiality is evaluated based on whether it had the natural tendency to influence, or was capable of influencing, the body to whom it was directed if it was believed. So, for instance, if he lied to the FBI about what he had for breakfast, that could not be relevant to their inquiry whether they believed him or not. The question here (assuming he did lie!) is not whether the FBI knew he was lying — in most § 1001 prosecutions, the FBI already knew the defendant was lying — but whether they'd have done anything meaningfully different. And the answer here seems — well, we don't know what the jury decided — probably not. The FBI had to investigate the Alfa bank allegations whether Sussmann was bringing them in as a Good Samaritan or as an agent of the Clinton campaign.

[Armchair Lawyer]

The Jury decided....Trump is really really bad. And a little fib to the FBI to try to get Trump? We're not going to convict anyone on that.

[Sarcastr0]

DMN takes you to school, and you fall back on just pounding the table and making up secret agendas.

Pretty sad show, there.

[Armchair Lawyer]

DMN is a "hack", as according to his own criteria for being a "hack", in the responses to this original post.

In this response, he only guesses at the jury's motives.

[BrotherMovesOn]

Well, he is only an "armchair lawyer"...

[NOVA Lawyer]

This case was a loser from jump, no matter who is in the dock. The prosecution had one person's recollection of a conversation versus another person's recollection of that conversation. On top of that, the prosecution's witness admitted on the stand that he had given conflicting testimony in prior proceedings. How do you get beyond reasonable doubt with him as your star (and only direct) witness? That's game set match, or should be, where the government has to prove the content of a conversation involving only two people.

But leave it to authoritarians to conclude that a law enforcement agent must always be believed vis a vis a private citizen.

[Moderation4ever]

Let me suggest that jury nullification is a subjective term. I would define jury nullification as a case where the prosecution provides evidence, but the jury chooses not to convict. This is different from cases where the prosecution fails to provide sufficient evidence.

A lot of comments here have been made that about the Sussman case. I think this is clearly a case where the prosecution failed to provide and evidence of a crime.

[Moderation4ever]

Sorry, Should be "provide any evidence of a crime".

[Michael P]

Isn't a prosecution always required to provide evidence? So it seems to me that your definition is too broad.

In the US criminal law system, the jury is considered the finder of fact, and their role is uncontroversial if they decide that the prosecution failed to prove the factual predicates of a crime, beyond a reasonable doubt. Jury nullification usually means that they went beyond that time, and acquitted the defendant for some other reason. Possible reasons include that they disagree that the law is generally just, that it would be justly applied to this defendant, or about some definition of an element of the crime (in this case, "material" is the most debatable). Jury nullification is going beyond the usual role of finder-of-fact.

That being said, yes, jury nullification is legal -- even though judges discourage it and it was wrong in this case.

The proper solution is to remove jurisdiction over federal crimes in DC from its local district courts. Make them accountable to people who are not Swamp creatures.

[Michael P]

I'm sorry to see that QA is still worth muting.

[Estragon]

As I said above- your ire is better directed at John Durham and the farcical job he and his team did here.

[Moderation4ever]

Agreed.

[Gandydancer]

I didn't just start deriding Durham this week but that doesn't change the fact that Sussmann was guilty.

[Noscitur a sociis]

The proper solution is to remove jurisdiction over federal crimes in DC from its local district courts. Make them accountable to people who are not Swamp creatures.

How would you envision that complying with the Sixth Amendment?

[Brett Bellmore]

I suppose move the nominal seat of government to someplace else?

[Michael P]

DC isn't a state, so criminal trials in DC already don't comply with the Sixth Amendment.

[David Nieporent]

The proper solution is to remove jurisdiction over federal crimes in DC from its local district courts. Make them accountable to people who are not Swamp creatures.

So you want to repeal the Sixth Amendment?

[Armchair Lawyer]

Perhaps some small piece of it....Or make an appropriate edit in it for trials of national political significance.

Alternatively, break up the FBI, and move the pieces around the country, and outside of such a highly partisan jury pool.

[Sarcastr0]

In law school I was taught jury nul was safe, legal, and rare.

State nul was bad medicine, though.

[Commenter_XY]

LOL....touche.

[Bored Lawyer]

It's extra-legal. The jury technically is not doing their duty, but there is nothing the court can do about it.
Sort of like a pardon.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's not extra legal, it's the POINT of having citizen juries, a safeguard against prosecutions that violate the conscience of the community.

Naturally the people running the legal system don't like it, because it represents power in the court room that isn't exercised by them.

[DaveM]

No, the point of a citizen jury is INDEPENDENCE, not nullification. You cannot have an honest audit without independent auditors. If those auditors just up and decide not to even do the audit, it's no "safeguard", it's just declining to do one's duty.

[Brett Bellmore]

Take the William Penn trial, long considered a triumph of the jury system. Penn was guilty. No question at all of it, preaching Quakerism was illegal, and he HAD been doing it.

He was acquitted because the jury refused to convict a man the court had proven guilty, out of disapproval of the law.

They're not there as auditors, they're there to exercise independent judgement as to whether the offense charged should be punished.

[Randal]

We should teach jury nullification in public school.

[DaveM]

OK, call them "umpires" then, instead of "auditors" if that makes a better analogy for you. The point is they are there to exercise a power, not to abandon it.

The law doesn't need any "help" in the form of nullification. All nullification does is throw sand in the gears, a kind of extralegal lynching of the rule of law.

[Randal]

One of the powers the jury can exercise is to rebuke the prosecutor for bringing a case he shouldn't have brought even if the defendant is technically guilty.

I think there are other legit forms of jury nullification but that one is the simplest to understand.

[not guilty]

Jury nullification is legal, but the jury cannot be informed of that. To argue expressly for nullification is improper conduct.

In United States v. Ogle, 613 F.2d 233 (10th Cir. 1980), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 825, the Court of Appeals upheld a conviction for jury tampering for the defendant's (unsuccessful) attempt to have jury nullification literature delivered to a juror in a pending case.

[Commenter_XY]

This was really helpful too. Thank you!

[apedad]

SCOTUS Rejects Texas Republicans’ Efforts to Avoid Questioning Under Oath About Alleged Discrimination in Redistricting Lawsuit

Three Republican state legislators are set to be subpoenaed in a redistricting lawsuit after the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday denied their emergency request to stay a series of depositions ordered by a district court in West Texas earlier this year.

In sum, while white people in Texas now make up less than 40 percent of the population, they now control over 60 percent of the state’s federal congressional districts outright, the lawsuits assert. The plaintiffs allege that white voters will be able to easily elect the candidate of their choice in such districts and likely many more. Conversely, they allege, non-white voters have had their communities both broken apart and stacked on top of one another in order to frustrate their own “cohesive” voting trends and overall sap non-white voting strength across the state.

The Texas Tribune explained the upshot of the new redistricting plans: “People of color accounted for 95% of the state’s growth over the last decade, but in the new map there’s one less Hispanic majority district and zero districts with a Black majority.”

https://lawandcrime.com/voting-rights/scotus-rejects-texas-republicans-efforts-to-avoid-questioning-under-oath-about-alleged-discrimination-in-redistricting-lawsuit/

Remember when everybody was saying how great Texas is and everybody was moving there.

Ooops…I guess they forgot to mention exactly who was moving there.

[Kazinski]

I predict in the next redistricting the GOP will try to create as many Hispanic majority districts as possible, and the Democrats will fight it tooth and nail.

[Brett Bellmore]

"“People of color accounted for 95% of the state’s growth over the last decade, but in the new map there’s one less Hispanic majority district and zero districts with a Black majority.”

According to World Population Review, Texas demographics are as follows:
White: 73.97%
Black or African American: 12.13%
Other race: 5.82%
Asian: 4.80%

This is more or less in agreement with Census results. Apparently most Texas Hispanics regard themselves as being white, and only incidentally Hispanic.

This being the case, and depending on how the people are actually distributed, you might have to commit some pretty egregious gerrymandering to produce a district with a black majority, and it would hardly be shocking if most of the districts were majority white.

As you are maybe aware, the Voting Rights Act doesn't actually mandate gerrymandering to produce minority majority districts. That's something the judiciary read into it.

I think maybe the Supreme court is coming around to deciding to correct that mistake.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Here is a question almost no publisher ever asks, "How do I optimize the expressive experience for all would-be contributors?" That is not a publisher-type question. Thus, it is both striking and concerning that it appears to be essentially the only question under discussion in debates over creating revised roles and identities for internet platforms.

Publishers do not ask that question because it has no answers which do not interfere with publishers' ability to continue in business. It is critical to press freedom, and to expressive freedom, that publishers remain capable to defray their costs of operation by free market business activities. Every other potential source of sustenance for publishing activity comes with built-in burdens on freedom to publish, and freedom to express.

Consider:

— Publishers need to attract an audience. Audiences are attracted variously, by high-quality expressive materials, or by interesting expressive materials, or by outrageous expressive materials, or by merely useful materials, etc. Materials choices must thus be purposeful and limited by practicality.

Optimal expressive satisfaction for all would-be contributors implies too much discordant expressive material to accomplish purposeful audience attracting with.

— Publishers need to curate an audience. That means picking and choosing among would-be contributions, to select just the ones likely most useful for attracting audience members who share particularized commercial characteristics—characteristics that curation seeks to impart to the audience, with an eye to an advertising sales purpose built around a particular business model.

Would-be contributors hate the picking and choosing, and demand that it not be practiced.

— Publishers need to sell advertising, to defray the costs of publishing, to pay money to chosen contributors, and to make a profit.

Would-be contributors resent advertising, wish it would go away, but would still like to get paid.

— Publishers need to bar some content, sometimes simply to stay within the law—but also, and more salient most of the time—to prevent hindrance of advertising sales. That would happen with publication of content repugnant to would-be advertisers.

Would-be contributors insist that whatever content is barred, it must be content offered by someone else.

—To establish and institutionalize a usefully recognizable public identity, publishers need to do two things:

First, to define business models which include service to particular marketing niches, and which avoid service to other marketing niches. Distinction among niches is necessary to price advertising efficiently. Particular advertisers do not want to pay a nickel extra to reach audience members who are not candidates to buy their products.

Second, to establish an abiding expressive identity, built around a recognizable style of subject matter, opinion, and advocacy.

Would-be contributors want publishers to accept content appropriate to every marketing niche, and every expressive purpose, defeating the publisher's goals to become abidingly unique in the public eye, to make plain its marketing goals, and to associate itself with identifiable reporting, opinion, and advocacy.

Thus, both business-critical goals, and content-critical goals, which publishers typically use to remain viable and continue in business, are put at risk by attempts legally to prioritize expressive demands of would-be contributors. The notion of press freedom necessarily implies an enduring means to support the publisher's choice of interests and opinions, and a fiscal means to create and operate either a real press, or a metaphorical one.

Legal pressure to optimize the expressive demands of would-be contributors is, at best, oblivious to those necessary requirements, and recklessly threatens them as a matter of practice. Because that legal pressure at once undermines expressive models, and business models, which its goals must actually rely upon, it amounts to a utopian demand under color of law.

By that kind of legal utopianism, press freedom is threatened. Wise policy about internet platforms will not happen until policy makers adjust their thinking, to concede that so-called, "platforms," are not legal inventions new to the world. Instead, they are in practice publishers, endowed with press freedom rights which all publishers have heretofore enjoyed.

Experience has taught that no safe harbor for press freedom has yet been found, except public policy to promote profusion and diversity among private publishers. Forthright acknowledgement of that as the only proper goal of the debate over the legal status of so-called internet platforms would be a useful step. To do that would broaden the debate, clarify it, and point it in a better direction.

[Commenter_XY]

lathrop, you started out ok with 'expressive experience' and then just lost it about 600 words in. I will respond to the 'expressive experience' portion.

To improve expressive experience is not complicated, but it is very tough to operationalize. It really comes down to engagement - intellectually, mentally, and most important - emotionally. The rational mind engages with content, but it is the emotional 'mind' that creates engagement, and the impetus to act.

'Game-ification' is a tried and tested approach that can work. The trick is to 'game-ify' to engage the maximum number of people. Very, very difficult to operationalize.

All the other stuff (press freedom, etc)....someone else can respond. But the expressive experience of content creators and consumers is tangentially related to my work.

[Brett Bellmore]

The problem with gamification is that some forms of it can be "gamed" by a small group of commenters to censor comments.

[Gandydancer]

Twitter didn't ban Trump in order to increase its revenue.

Is there something in that wall of text after I stopped reading it (most iof it) that acknowledges this fact?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Gandydancer — Your comment seems under-considered. Twitter banned Trump for two reasons. First, that it did not want to publish Trump anymore, and the constitution makes that a power Twitter gets to exercise at pleasure.

Second, before Twitter worries about making money, it needs to worry about staying in business. Twitter seems to have concluded that tweets by Trump were so wild, and so detrimental to public safety, that advertisers would pull advertising before permitting it to be associated with the Big Election Lie, or seditious conspiracy, or some quack remedy for Covid.

After a publisher concludes would-be content is toxic, nothing requires the publisher to keep swallowing the poison. You may resent that characterization of Trump, and want to defend him, but you are not the publisher. That's press freedom in action.

[Doug Huffman]

Fuel prices impact on remote rural health care. My nearest Class I hospital is 100 miles away.

[Frank Drackman]

So? it's only 10 hours away by bicycle like Pete Booty-Judge does.

[Kazinski]

You should buy an electric car if you need to go to the doctor.

[Brett Bellmore]

Mine was 50 miles away when I shattered my leg, but I still had to wait several hours to be looked at; It was in Detroit, and the gunshot victims got priority.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

" My nearest Class I hospital is 100 miles away. "

Why not move to a modern, civilized, educated, successful community? I have a handful of Level 1 trauma centers (one a pediatric provider) within 15 miles of my house (and some very good feeder hospitals even closer).

[AJ_Liberty]

Clearly none with good psychiatric care though

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

A top 10 (last time I looked) psychiatric care hospital is located near me.

You figure I should seek treatment for lack of adult-onset superstition, or perhaps for ditching political correctness and calling bigots bigots?

[Gandydancer]

We think it would be good if you drowned yourself instead.

But if the booby hatch doesn't provide internet access committing yourself would work for us too.

[Frank Drackman]

Ha! ooh what a burn!

[Frank Drackman]

Oh, Like Atlanta? Dallas, Birmingham, Tampa, Jacksonville, Miami, Raleigh, Charlotte, Memphis, You really need to get out of your Pneumonia hole a little more "Reverend"

[Gandydancer]

Moving anywhere near you is no doubt an unpleasant experience for anyone, which is a good reason to not do it.

[Randal]

Good. The government subsidizes the fuck out of rural America, and then they complain about taxes and government. Time to cut off the welfare rednecks.

Do you think you have some kind of right to affordable, convenient healthcare? You are the undue burden... on the rest of us.

[NOVA Lawyer]

It is rich, someone against affordable health care for all whining that their choice to live in a rural area should be subsidized because "think of our access to health care!"

[dwb68]

The job market is brutal for employers if you have any sort of quant skills. Computer science, economics, physics, statistics, quant finance... Applicants have a lot of leverage, they can almost name their price and perk package.

This is where the teachers union has failed kids. Rather than worrying about what gender 4 year old Aglie is, they should be worrying how to teach more kids math and science.

[apedad]

"This is where the teachers union has failed kids."

Since when do teachers unions direct curriculum?

[Michael P]

They are powerful political lobbyists, have privileged access to school district administrators, and are not afraid to tell teachers what to do.

[jimc5499]

Since they started buying School Boards. I used to date a teacher, who was a Union Rep. One time she asked if I could get a Friday off so we could go someplace. The "someplace" was a local resort. She had to go to a meeting Friday morning after that the rest of the weekend was ours, with everything paid for.
After the Friday meeting we met with some of the others at the meeting. I sat there for over two hours while they discussed how the Union was going to sabotage "No Child Left Behind", for political gain. I've been against Teacher's Unions ever since. My Cousin's Granddaughter just graduated college. Her degree is in Elementary Education. One of her advisors told her that if she wanted to get a good job, she had to get onboard with the Union's agenda.

[wreckinball]

Since forever where I live. The union and the board are basically the same thing

[Commenter_XY]

dwb68, I second this comment (I hire and fire) = The job market is brutal for employers if you have any sort of quant skills. Computer science, economics, physics, statistics, quant finance... Applicants have a lot of leverage, they can almost name their price and perk package.

I cannot begin to tell you how f'ing hard it is right now to land a competent data scientist, with a decade of experience. Heck, I can't even get newbie college grads because the starting pay is escalating much faster than our corporate salary bands.

This is going to be a real problem for small and medium companies.

I am going to leave the teachers union comment alone. I hear you, and understand what you're saying and why. What I would say is I put the onus on parents, more than teachers.

[bernard11]

This is going to be a real problem for small and medium companies.

It already is.

[Commenter_XY]

Yeah, my shul buddies (small business owners, and some not so small) are screaming, bernard11. It is not a crisis (yet), but it is heading in that direction and accelerating. It is just really hard to on-board them.

On one hand, I was happy to see strong wage growth in the lowest two quintiles, pre-pandemic. This was good, and I think most of the country would want these people who work hard at unsung jobs to make real gains. And they did. OTOH, post-pandemic, the labor market for knowledge workers is atrocious for employers. New hires (post signing offer letters) bail before day 1, or 'ghost' (never show). It is happening with much greater frequency.

It is the reality of today's business world for now.

[dwb68]

you are right about parents.

However teachers unions shut down school choice. in many school districts your "choice" is a failing school , an unattainable lottery, or $30,000 a year private school.

[Gandydancer]

That your salary bands are nor realistic isn't a crisis.

Free up cash by firing your diversity drones.

[Stephen Lathrop]

dwb68 — The nation's incipient political collapse is brutal for everyone. Quants offer approximately bupkis to address problems like that. Mostly they make them worse, by systematizing political sabotage. Any notion that there is some moral advantage to technical studies is mistaken. Even the notion that there is practical advantage is mostly just inadequate policy in action.

If this nation cared about its political future, it would right now be signing up outstanding BAs, and those would the ones naming their prices.

[Commenter_XY]

lathrop, I did not see a moral judgment regarding quants from dwb68 (teachers union comment, different story). What dwb68 stated about the job market for quants is objectively true. It is very, very tough to get them on-board. The competition for quants is intense and brutal.

I'll be honest. In my field, if you don't have STEM, I don't bother with you and will probably never interview you. I just tell HR recruitment to keep looking. Other parts of my corporation might need BA's with basket weaving and Sumerian literature concentrations, but in my experience, they wash out. There is a place for them, but not where I am.

(note: I have a STEM BS, and a BA; MA in ESL education [never really used it, left education decades ago]). Of my degrees, my STEM degree has helped me the most, career-wise.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Commenter_XY — I do not doubt what you say. I do deplore it. It is wrong—not morally wrong, but wrong as a matter of practical policy—that the job market has become malignantly skewed against liberal arts education.

Primacy for STEM training, and for generalized business management taught as a science, has put people unqualified to make thoughtful policy decisions into positions of authority where they take down or damage successful purposeful enterprises. They do it with heedless, STEM-inspired blunders, coupled with a trained-in arrogance impossible to justify, and impervious to explanation.

Whatever virtues STEM training may impart, it seems too often to exclude the critical faculty to recognize ongoing excellence and leave it alone. Generalized training does better, to recognize excellence, culture it, and nudge it cautiously toward improvement. An early signal of trouble to come arrived when STEM-trained leaders began announcing disruption as a virtue.

More broadly trained leaders, looking at the same evidence, could recognize disruption sometimes created opportunities for virtuous change, but quite often delivered mere disruption. Even that has its uses of course, as a heron understands, when it serves its sharp-eyed predatory needs by disrupting a lake bottom with its feet.

Heedless disruption happened in for-profit and in not-for-profit enterprises. Conspicuous examples I watched first-hand in the former category included Hewlett-Packard, and the Morrison-Knudson Company. The former is become a shadow of its extraordinary previous self, consequent to one business-trained leader who was incapacitated by training to recognize the basis of the company's successful culture. The latter was put right out of business likewise, in an astonishingly short period of time, after many decades of outstanding specialized performance on a world-wide scale.

Those companies were similar in that each featured an idiosyncratic, culturally cherished, basis for success. At HP, it was a beyond-standard commitment to engineering excellence, pursued as if excellence were an end in itself. At M-K it was a culture to rely on practical, almost farm-boy-bred resourcefulness at dealing with unique challenges created by construction projects undertaken internationally on a gigantic scale. Probably no company in America offered better upward mobility to workers with minimal formal education, if their work proved practical skills and unusual resourcefulness. And at M-K it worked spectacularly for many decades, until they put STEM-trained management in charge.

In the non-profit world the plague of STEM-centered management has struck mindlessly almost everywhere. The library and archival professions have been nearly gutted by it. National medical leaders as important as Partners Healthcare (Mass General Hospital; Brigham and Women's Hospital; Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, etc.) have suffered grievous loss of medical science innovators, policy leaders, and Harvard Medical School Faculty grade physicians, due to ham-handed, STEM-based, policy blunders.

Note that in a case like Partners, it is quite often STEM-based activity which suffers disruption by STEM-trained management. That fault is endemic and widespread. Generalist leaders did less of that. Their training inculcated better capacity to respect and cherish abilities other than their own.

I watch with dismay similar botches in national policy making, especially regarding almost everything economic. Politicians (Obama!) seem incapable to understand that to put economists in charge of policy is folly. Absolutely as bad as it would be to let climate scientists grab the levers of power, instead of using them to advise generalists with broader training.

Amazingly to me, the STEM revolution has by its characteristic leadership failures even cast comparatively favorable light on military education. Well-trained military leaders seem to me to be among the nation's last class of fashionably acceptable trained generalists. So they still get to bring generalist skills to management tasks which need them, and often it works.

STEM training has its uses, and its virtues. Wise societal leadership does not seem to figure among those.

[shawn_dude]

As someone that hires/fires software developers, technical business analysts, and related fields, I just want to underscore your comment here. I can get lots of predictable solutions out of a STEM graduate, but the more elegant solutions with a superior fit for the customer often come from people who have significant liberal arts training.

[Commenter_XY]

lathrop, there is definitely a place for liberal arts that are lean in STEM in today's job market...but not in some fields. There is a place for 'soft' liberal art degrees in other areas of my company (client side), but STEM proficiency is a requirement. If you are not strong in STEM, it doesn't matter how imaginative, creative you are. You will not be hired. That is not a moral judgment, nor is it a deep philosophical question, lathrop. That is an objective assessment of the skills a job requires versus the skills an applicant possesses. They meet the reqs, or they do not. There are a whole lot of nerdy STEM grads that are imaginative and creative 'enough'.

The STEM grads just cost more money. STEM grads are getting priced out of the reach of small and medium sized businesses.

[Stephen Lathrop]

That is an objective assessment of the skills a job requires versus the skills an applicant possesses.

How about your job? Are you too low on the totem pole to profit by generalist skills? If so, your objection is, in a manner of speaking, that I am selling my product to the wrong demographic. Maybe your boss needs the generalist skills which your job leaves you free to disregard.

[John F. Carr]

I'm not blaming the unions here. Where I live the winning candidate in the last election for school board said shortly before the election that math is upsetting and schools should teach less of it and it will all be irrelevant in a couple decades anyway. The guy who worried about test scores lost by a wide margin.

[dwb68]

Math is useless. Maybe the 1st thing the candidate should throw out is all those climate change models based on math. lmao

[Brett Bellmore]

Math is very useful indeed, one of mankind's greatest inventions, right up there with writing and agriculture.

It's just that, just as not everyone needs to be a farmer, not everyone needs to be a mathematician.

[bernard11]

Long way from being a mathematician to understanding mathematical concepts.

[Brett Bellmore]

There are a hell of a lot of "mathematical concepts" out there. You don't need to be a farmer to be able to keep a house plant alive, you don't need to be a mathematician to balance a check book.

In both fields, the average person only needs a nodding acquaintance with a body of knowledge that's really too vast for one person to know.

[Sarcastr0]

Not against what you said, but a related and really interesting take on the utility and disutility of math in a world ruled by science, not math.

https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0465094252/reasonmagazinea-20/

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, I wouldn't argue with that, I've had my own complaints in that direction. Physics has gotten caught up in some pathological notions that way, I think.

[Gandydancer]

Bogus climate change models are not bogus because of math.

if you don't have math you are unlikely to have insight into much of anything.

[Sarcastr0]

Now you're just carping about teaching policy. Math is still getting taught, just not with the same choices you want.

[Stephen Lathrop]

If you don't have math you are unlikely to have insight into much of anything.

Assorted Religious Figures
Plato
Aristotle
Julius Caesar
Shakespeare
John Donne
Anne Hutchinson
Hobbes
Locke
Spinoza
Cotton Mather
Rembrandt
Samuel Johnson
Mozart
Benjamin Franklin
Hume
Gibbon
Thomas Paine
Beethoven
James Madison
Tocqueville
Goethe
Napoleon
Champollion
Mary Shelley
Frédéric Chopin
George Eliot
Darwin
Emily Dickinson
Thoreau
Emerson
Bismark
Abraham Lincoln
Clara Barton
Monet
John Stuart Mill
Mark Twain
Frederick Law Olmsted
Gustav Klimt
Kate Chopin
William James
John Muir
T.S. Eliot
Y.B. Yeats
Robert Frost
Wallace Stevens
Michael Oakeshott
Picasso
Jean-Paul Sartre
Hannah Arendt
John Kennedy
Edmund Morgan
Jackson Pollock
Scott Joplin
Duke Ellington
Billie Holiday
Ella Fitzgerald
Stravinsky
David Oistrakh
Buddy Holly
Elvis Presley
Malcolm X
M.L. King
Yogi Berra
Muhammad Ali
Jackie Robinson
Bob Dylan
Dolly Parton
The Beatles
Janice Joplin
The Grateful Dead

Among tens of thousands of comparable others. I do not say there was no mathematical insight among them. They were picked, however, as examples well known for non-mathematical insights. Gandydancer, to improve your own insight, pick any name on the list; learn 1% – 5% of their non-mathematical insight.

[Gandydancer]

You are greatly impressed with many more individuals than I am.

I take it that you have no math to speak of.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Gandydancer — Who among Monet, Mark Twain, Frederick Law Olmsted, Edmund Morgan, or David Oistrakh impresses you least?

But you are right about the math. Except maybe for Euclidean geometry, at which I was a minor prodigy, for some reason. I could do any proof in the book on day 3 of the course.

Otherwise, my 1960s math SAT put me disappointingly in the 98th percentile, so no math skills which would satisfy anyone accustomed to professional use of math.

By the way, did you notice that your confession above refuted your assertion which gave rise to that little list?

Just by way of anecdote, let me tell you about an experience I had which did involve math. It was one of the most impressive (and inexplicable) demonstrations of mathematical skill I ever witnessed.

I was for a time a professional typographer. There was a problem in typography widely regarded as intractable. It had to do with irregularities in perception of type spacing which became manifest after type samples were scaled larger. The typographer's trade spent countless hours hand-kerning larger type samples to correct perceived irregularities in letter spacing, which as a purely mathematical matter, did not exist. But they were plainly and consistently specific to each font size chosen, in each type style. That suggested a need for subtler mathematics than linear scaling, which would have to be related in some way to specific visual perceptions of all possible character pairs, in all type designs.

I had my one-and-only interesting mathematical insight, about a mathematically-related cause of that perception. The insight resulted in a computerized method to mathematically remove the perceived irregularities for all letter pairs, at any size, without need of hand kerning. It worked so well that its results passed muster at the highest levels of professional typographic practice, for the most aesthetically demanding work.

Naturally, I sought to patent my method, and did. That is where the impressive demonstration came in.

The patent attorney I took my invention to specialized in high tech patents. His explanation of his job went something like this: "It is my job to explain to a jury of postal clerks why an invention relying on quantum mechanics is so novel that it would surprise someone expert in that field." For him, my little project was small potatoes, but he wanted some typography from me, to story-board a jury presentation, so he took me on.

Problem was, all I had to give him was my work product to develop proof the method worked. To do it, I had for convenience used a combination of Microsoft Excel macro language, which fed data to a specialized font development program used by type designers. That work is what I gave the patent attorney, thinking he would send me away to work up something better. Instead, he went into a trance, studying those utterly unfamiliar materials for about 40 minutes. At which point he emerged grinning, and announced: "I think there is less here than meets the eye."

As soon as I heard that, I knew I had found the right guy. He proceeded to render the heart of the method into a few equations, which he had to explain to me. The patent sailed through without a hitch. I have no idea what arcane skills he brought to bear to reach that insight.

Naturally, I became fabulously wealthy on the basis of that patent, and am now retired amidst ease and luxury. Well, that didn't happen, but that is another story.

[wreckinball]

Was just saying when did we get all the extra school time to teach crap that doesn't need taught? I'm betting one reason we are graduating illiterates kids is because we're wasting time on stuff that doesn't need taught.
Sexual identity is natural. All month we'll here "I was born that way".
Then it doesn't need taught. We didn't even have sex ed in school and EVERYONE knew the birds and the bees. They don't need taught.
I learned about the civil war, Jim Crow in my late 60's history class. That was good enough.
It left time for things that do need taught the R's and science.

[Sarcastr0]

300K for quant folks with a TS.

Your STEMlord stuff is still bullshit. The purpose of school in the US is not to optimize students to serve employers. Maybe 2 generations ago, but these days doing what you like is a legit goal, not some collectivist nonsense.

[Brett Bellmore]

Actually, it really does need to be at least ONE of the purposes, if you want a functional economy, and you want your students to come out employable.

[Sarcastr0]

I'm not really worried our population is suddenly going to lack people with interest in math.

I'd rather have them come to it naturally, than be pressured by some collectivist 'society needs quant!' push.

[Brett Bellmore]

There are a lot of things that you'll never be good at unless you're exposed to them at an early age. Math is one, I think. You're not going to get enough people "coming to it naturally" if you don't go out of your way to expose them to it.

[Sarcastr0]

?
You don't think elementary kids are taking math class?

Do you think it's all CRT nowadays?

[Gandydancer]

See the quote from "Winner" above in favor of crippling those capable of math by sticking them in classes with the math-incapable.

[Sarcastr0]

Now you're just carping about teaching policy. Math is still getting taught, just not with the same choices you want.

[Gandydancer]

All "teaching policy" is not equal. Some is stupid and counterproductive. I just gave an example, but it bounced off your skull.

[Sarcastr0]

Looks like you had some trouble following the conversation here.

You're not going to get enough people "coming to it naturally" if you don't go out of your way to expose them to it is not about your opinions on optimal math teaching.

Quit spouting insults about stuff you don't quiiiite understand.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore, employability is a matter of fashion, with relatively little necessary connection to what subject matter gets taught during formal education. Today's fashion is STEM. That tells you nothing about inherent wisdom in hiring or not hiring STEM graduates.

If you want multi-faceted genius, you can start anywhere, but centuries of experience have taught that generalist education has advanced that objective as well or better than anything else. None among Franklin, Hamilton, Madison, or Jefferson was a STEM graduate.

[wreckinball]

Mostly you don’t do what you like K-12. You learn what you need to learn.
At least you should.
And time should be productive. Do the dumb CRT or sexual identity trading on your own time.
Not necessary and education is measurably worse today than 50 years ago despite the technology advantage.

STEM lord nonstop dumb dude.

[BrotherMovesOn]

Or, "lump"...

[Doug Huffman]

Watch the 2007 *The Singing Revolution* to understand the intent of The Great Replacement.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Is Biden losing it even more?

At the graduation for the Naval Academy, Biden spun a story about how he was appointed to the Naval Academy in 1965.... No one seems to remember any of this, while the dates just don't make any sense at all.

I mean, there's exaggerations...then there's this, which is just insulting to anyone who knows reality.

https://nypost.com/2022/05/27/joe-biden-says-he-applied-to-naval-academy-dates-dont-add-up/

[Kazinski]

Why's this a story?

Elderly men are well known for telling outrageous lies about their youth.

[Brett Bellmore]

And elderly men with dementia tend to not recall that they're lies.

[bevis the lumberjack]

I dunno. Because the President who badly wants to start the War on Misinformation completely fabricated a life experience?

Or because it suggests (again) that his brain is toast?

Would it be a story if he was giving a speech to the NAACP and said “at the time I graduated from Delaware I was black”? Roughly the equivalent of what he did here.

[Brett Bellmore]

The guy IS 79. While at the age of 63 I can laugh at his obvious cognitive deficits, the truth is I'll be lucky if I have as much whit as he does remaining, at his age. Few men reach that age without mental problems.

We really need an amendment to put an upper age limit on public office. I'd say requiring cognitive testing would be better, but it would inevitably be gamed.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Every male related to me, including in-laws, reached that age with hardly any decline in mental function. They made it to their 80s, some to their 90s (including one alive today at 93) with no signs of dementia.

Saying that “few men” achieve that isn’t accurate.

[Brett Bellmore]

You do realize that the majority of men actually DIE before they get as old as Biden, right? If you make it into your 80's or 90's, you're already atypical. 100, you're a freak of nature.

People who make it to advanced ages are different from most people.

[bevis the lumberjack]

I think you may have just contradicted yourself.

You said men at his age almost always have dementia problems. I said no they don't. You said most men don't make it to his age. Obviously "men at his age" only includes the subset that live that long. Most of which don't have dementia, even partially.

[wreckinball]

A lot do. But the error wasn't a lack of of age limit or his decline.It's the ignorance of the electorate.

It was obvious he was compromised before being elected.

[Gandydancer]

The number of men who die before they get as old as Biden is irrelevant to the claim, "Few men reach that age without mental problems."

[Mr. Bumble]

Should that Standard apply to professionals (doctors, lawyers) as well?

[Brett Bellmore]

I think in the case of professionals you could safely go with the cognitive test, but, yeah.

The ugly reality is that people tend to start losing it as they get old, everyone knows that.

[Mr. Bumble]

"everyone knows that."
You lose me with that comment. We all age differently in physical ability, appearance and mental ability.

[Brett Bellmore]

So, you're in denial, then?

[Gandydancer]

It's a story if he shows signs of dementia because he's the US President.

You know this already, of course.

But in Biden's case he's been lying in this way for most of his life. That his father was a coal miner, etc., etc. It's really for other reasons that we can strongly suspect brain rot.

[Bored Lawyer]

Problem is that Biden was a liar throughout his political career. So hard to tell where the general liar ends and the dementia starts.

[AJ_Liberty]

In the spirit of Mark Twain, I would rather think he was a spinner of tall tales. Certainly self promoting and, at times, weird, but generally harmless. Yeah I like my politician to be more of a straight shooter and a sharper tack, but his goal is to connect with people and be interesting....not really to pull one over on you on something important.

[Gandydancer]

But Mark Twain WAS as sharp as a tack. Biden's lies are embarrassingly transparent and not funny.

[Bob from Ohio]

"No one seems to remember any of this"

Its a pathetic attempt to deflect the fact that he [like Trump] faked an illness/disability to dodge the draft.

Of course it backfired. He should have claimed something totally unverifiable, like being rejected for the Marines after graduation from Yale Law school.

[Gandydancer]

Nothing wrong with dodging the draft. I didn't, but I ought to have. (I lucked out and my number was good enough.)

[Sarcastr0]

Love watching the right trying to make fetch happen here.
Getting dates wrong?! Zounds!

Meanwhile y'all have Trump who you constantly apologize for outright lying and saying nonsense vastly worse than this.

Do we have a gerentocracy problem? Yes. But you know how to not address it? Making it into a partisan cudgel based on the same outcome-oriented close reading once used to show Obama was a secret Muslim.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Getting dates wrong?!"

He completely lied about it, not just the date.

No way he passes up a free education at Annapolis for U of Delaware at 18. Viet Nam War had not really started in 1961/62 so that would not have been the reason either.

His dementia has nothing to do with this lie. Biden has lied about every facet of his education for decades. Not on full scholarship, didn't get multiple degrees, not in top half of his law school.

He's a dollar store Trump.

[Sarcastr0]

Your telepathy is impressive.

I also like how you're playing both the dementia and liar cards, even though they are self-contradictory explanations.

But of course consistency is for suckers who believe the truth matters in politics.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Your telepathy is impressive. "

Deductive reasoning. No telepathy needed..

Joe has lied his whole career about his education [and many, many other things]. People don't apply to Annapolis and turn it down after acceptance to go to second rate state schools on half scholarship. No one applies to Annapolis after graduating from another college.

You sure defend habitual liars a lot for a sucker who "believes the truth matters in politics".

"self-contradictory explanations"

Not at all. It was a written speech. Joe can still read those, like that speech describing his father's rough life as a coal miner. His dementia manifests in his off the cuff remarks and his thousand yard stares.

[Sarcastr0]

Deductive reasoning. No telepathy needed..

Joe has lied his whole career...

LOL. 'Reasoning.' Your partisanship bootstrapping you into more partisanship isn't deductive anything, it's a positive reinforcement cycle that you should probably not lean into.

You are arguing Biden's speech writers are the real liars I guess?

[Bob from Ohio]

"Joe has lied his whole career..."

Yes, a fact. Beyond dispute. No different than Trump

"partisanship bootstrapping you into more partisanship"

You'd know about that.

[Sarcastr0]

Beyond dispute!

[Bob from Ohio]

Yes, Mr. Truth Matters.

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, I know that’s not you, which is why just asserting things seems good enough to you.

[Gandydancer]

"You are arguing Biden's speech writers are the real liars I guess?"

Only if the speech goes, stumblingly, from teleprompter to Biden's lips without any processing by what's left of his brain.

[Gandydancer]

Bob's "dementia has nothing to do with this lie" means that your claim that he's offering it as an "explanation" is remarkably dishonest, even for you.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Wow. Three logical fallacies in a single post. And throwing in whataboutism.

But sure... I'm sure you believe Joe. He would NEVER lie...

[Sarcastr0]

Not what I said.

[StellaLink_the dog]

Obviously Biden was claiming to have had an opportunity to attend the Naval Academy in the class of 65 entering in 1961. It's possible and, as far as I know, very hard to substantiate one way or another.

[Gandydancer]

"It's possible...":

Wikipedia: "At Archmere Academy in Claymont,[21] Biden... Though a poor student, he was class president in his junior and senior years.[23][24] He graduated in 1961.[23]"

So, no. Impossible. Poor students don't get accepted by Annapolis.

[StellaLink_the dog]

If a prospective midshipman received a congressional nomination that man's qualifications would have been evaluated and if the candidate was judged to be minimally qualified he would have been offered an appointment. So, it is in fact true that many poor students have been accepted by the service academies over the years.

[Frank Drackman]

Was that before or after he strangled "Corn Pop" with a Bicycle Chain? And didn't AlGore say he was the inspiration for "Love Story" (True in that his women prefer Leukemia to his KungFu Lips)
John Kerry and his Veet'nam stories? Hilary Rodman dodging from Sniper Fire (would have been believable if she'd said it was in DC instead of Bosnia (any Bosnian sniper worth his salt wouldn't have missed) seeing a pattern here...

[John F. Carr]

Ukrainian war crimes prosecutors remind me of American prosecutors trying drug cases. They put three easily replaced low ranking soliders, equivalents of street corner drug dealers, in prison for long sentences while the masterminds are still free.

With luck one day they will get some colonels, generals, maybe a Putin. Otherwise, there's not much of a deterrent effect.

[apedad]

Seems like Putin is doing a pretty good job of punishing his generals without us.

[Commenter_XY]

Or the Ukrainians are.... 🙂

[Gandydancer]

You still haven't woken to the fact that the Russians are winning?

[Sarcastr0]

Maybe, but they're also going through generals like it's going out of style.

[Commenter_XY]

Gandydancer, I personally won a wager with Professor Post on the Russia invasion of Ukraine. He predicted a quick Russian withdrawal. I wagered the exact opposite. FTR, I maintain Ukraine is being 'Grozny-ed' and that Ukraine is not an American interest.

I do plan to contact Professor Post to collect my winnings, share a few glasses of good red wine, and have a great conversation with a law professor. I have never done that before, so it is something I really do look forward to.

[apedad]

Brittney Griner, WNBA Legend: Prisoner Swap with Russia for 'Merchant of Death'?

Should the United States government play politics in return with a “prisoner” exchange involving the release of the so-called “Merchant of Death”?

https://www.si.com/nba/mavericks/news/brittney-griner-wnba-prison-russia-merchant-of-death-baylor-biden#gid=ci02a2b601d000245d&pid=brittney-griner_viktor-bout_getty

Tough call but if I was the President I think I would make this swap at this time - but only because of the timing of the Ukraine war.

Who knows how long it'll go on and Ms. Griner has to sit there indefinitely.

If the Ukraine war wasn't an issue, then I wouldn't make the swap - and it's even debatable if the Russians would have detained her anyway.

[Commenter_XY]

apedad, I tend to agree, if:

1) Bout is banished from the USA, and never returns
2) Bout is eligible for parole (served 15 years of 25 year sentence)

I would do the deal. I would not be thrilled about it, but I could live with it.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Bout is eligible for parole (served 15 years of 25 year sentence)

There is no parole in the federal system.

[Frank Drackman]

Jeez, I thought this was a "Law Blog"

Under the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984, Congress eliminated parole for defendants convicted of federal crimes committed after November 1, 1987.

that's how Jeffrey MacDonald (M.D.) comes up for it every so often,

You know, the "Green Beret" Army Doctor framed when the East Coast Branch of the Manson family murdered his wife/daughters,

[Commenter_XY]

Nas...Wow, I never knew that. No parole in the federal system. You see? I learn really arcane stuff every day here.

[Bob from Ohio]

You get more of what you encourage.

Better response to Griner is to arrest another Russian [or two] for something. Trade him.

[Commenter_XY]

Shit, you drive a hard bargain, Bob from Ohio. 🙂

[Gandydancer]

Is there any particular reason to believe Griner isn't guilty? A BB player getting caught with drugs isn't particularly rare.

[JoeGoins]

Not being from the United States, why do you not have a "not proven" verdict? It simply states that the prosecution failed to convince the jury of guilt. "Not guilty" is often used as an equivocation for being innocent. I believe that the structure of the American legal system enables people to say: "See! I am not guilty. They should not have charged me in the first place."

One example of this would be Donald Trump colluding with the Russians. Granted he wasn't charged with a crime, but the mechanism works the same. "See! They said that they can't get a conviction. Therefore, I am not guilty of ANY wrongdoing. That makes me COMPLETELY innocent. They shouldn't have investigated the alleged crime as there was no crime. It was a great big witch hunt."

[Estragon]

America doesn’t do nuance particularly well

[Brett Bellmore]

We start from a presumption of innocence, which the prosecution has an obligation to disprove. If they fail, you retain it, and must be treated as innocent, at least by the government.

Nobody else is obligated to regard them as actually innocent, though you might be risking libel if you called them guilty after an acquittal.

Trump wasn't charged with a crime because they never found enough evidence to base a prosecution on. If he was colluding with the Russians, he was very successful at hiding it.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Dude where have you been? That entire thing was a Clinton/FBI/Deep State hoax.

It was actual sedition and since the enforcers of our laws were conspirators, nothing will ever happen.

It’s genuinely disgusting.

[JoeGoins]

You are proving a corollary of my point. "Because I am not guilty [read: innocent], someone must be guilty of something!" In this case, the investigators and my political opponent.

*** Note: I am not debating the merits of possible collusion or if/how the investigation of it was flawed. ***

[Kazinski]

Well he was completely innocent, so there is that.

[Noscitur a sociis]

It simply states that the prosecution failed to convince the jury of guilt.

We already have a verdict that means that. We call it "not guilty".

[SRG]

In Scotland, where a verdict of "not proven" is available, the joke is that "not proven" means "not guilty, but don't do it again".

[Gandydancer]

Trump was in fact not guilty of any illegal conspiracy with Putin. You're still in denial about this?

Getting there from advocacy of a "not proven" verdict indicates a real mania.

[James Alp]

If a “well regulated Militia” is “necessary to the security of a free state” (U. S. Const., Amdt. 2), what would an unregulated militia be necessary for? Some say it is to defend against tyranny; but when tyranny’s purported foes say things like, ”[Y]ou’ll learn why the Second Amendment was written in the first place,” a comment targeted at the President of the United States, it is understandably seen as a threat, even if not to the president’s life, at least a threat to the constitutional order, not a defense of it. Other examples abound (“Second Amendment people,” August 2016, for example). Clearly, what is being defended as a personal “right” is what is described in the Constitution itself as “Insurrection[]” (Art. I, § 8, cl. 15), “Rebellion” (Art. I, § 9, cl. 2), or “domestic Violence” (Art. IV, § 4); or what present-day commentary has dubbed “stochastic terrorism” (see https://www.wired.com/story/jargon-watch-rising-danger-stochastic-terrorism/).
A “free state” (i.e., a republic) cannot long exist when mob rule is elevated over the rule of law. To this end, I think the consensus view — that the only mandatory language contained in the Second Amendment is the phrase, “shall not be infringed” — deserves to be reappraised. The word “necessary,” in the amendment’s introductory clause, might also fairly be read as having mandatory effect. In this view, the Article I powers involved with regulating the citizen militia, which are denied to the Congress except during wartime, and thereby reserved to the states, were elevated and made an obligation of the states by the ratification of the Second Amendment. This is not about “gun control”; to treat regulation of the militia as a state duty is the only reasonable way to address the “danger” that troubled Joseph Story two centuries ago (see 3 Commentaries § 1890), which has nothing to do with the controlling of guns and everything to do with the forming of citizens. Our Constitution requires every state government to enforce Article I regulations of its entire armed citizenry (not just the “select militia”) by appointing officers, requiring training, and enforcing a legal obligation of every gun-owning resident to answer the call of duty, to obey the lawful orders of their local militia commander, to recognize the state’s governor as their commander in chief during peacetime service, and to recognize the President of the United States as the commander in chief of the militia when called into service of the United States. Any person who resists that duty on account of the political party affiliation of the president or the governor, has no business owning a firearm in the United States. No state’s elected office holders should be coddling insurrectionist sentiment when their duty under the Constitution is to provide the means for suppression of insurrection. A state with an unregulated citizen militia is a state that is not providing for its security as a free state and is therefore a state without “a Republican Form of Government.” A state government that refuses to enforce Article I regulations of its armed citizenry can be met with Congressional invocation of its power under the Guarantee Clause of Article IV, and that means at least refusing to seat that state’s congressional delegation until the state meets its constitutional obligations under the Second Amendment.
This would preserve the individual rights interpretation of the Second Amendment while linking the exercise of that right to republican duties, the enforcement of which, cannot be held to be an infringement of the right to keep and bear arms.

[wreckinball]

The militia clause is not exclusive. In 1790 we had in recent history revolted and won independence against a centralized foreign power. The United STATES emphasis intended was to keep individual and State freedoms form being violated by a powerful centralized federal government.

Can anyone seriously contend that 2A is the one Bill of Right that restricts the citizens ownership of firearms? They wouldn't need amendment explicitly stating that.

And that in 1790 there would be a snowball's chance in hell that the government would restrict/confiscate people's weapons dependent of whether they were a member of a standing militia. There would have been another revolution.

It's just a ridiculous take and Heller confirms that its an individual right.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

I promise you that if China or Russia invaded DC took the Federal Class prisoners, I wouldn’t grab any of my AR15s and definitely wouldn’t rally to their defense.

I’d probably pull a George Soros and help them finding any bureaucrats or other Democrats they missed.

[Brett Bellmore]

It was a common joke in the military back in the 70's that the USSR's strategic nuclear plan included NOT bombing DC, in order to slow down our recovery after the war.

[wreckinball]

Ha ha a “New Deal”

[Jerry B.]

If the Framers had wanted the 2nd Amendment to apply only to the well regulated militia, wouldn't the Amendment read...

"A well regulated militia, being necessary for the security of a free State, the right of the well regulated militia to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed"?

[James Alp]

If that were the text of the Amendment, the failure of a state to perform its duty to regulate the citizen militia would have the effect of nullifying its citizens' rights of firearms ownership (with your rewrite, if there's no well regulated militia, there's no right to infringe). With the Amendment as it exists, such a failure by a state is a fundamental departure from republican government.

[Ben_]

It you want an honest way to change the constitution, there’s an amendment process for that.

[James Alp]

What I wrote in this thread on Thursday was founded entirely on the text of Article I of the Constitution (ratified 1789) and the Second Amendment (ratified 1791). No amendment to the Constitution is necessary, nor does my writing suggest that I would support one.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

The difference in the treatments of Sussman and Flynn is quite striking.

I wonder if the FBI setting up a secure government system for Sussman to use at his leisure has anything to do with it.

[wreckinball]

Nothing new. Also BLM vs J6

[Sarcastr0]

Different cases with different facts were different. What a double standard you have uncovered! I'll bet this goes all the way to the top!!!

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Can you explain with supporting arguments why the disparate treatments were appropriate?

[Sarcastr0]

Flynn plead, and admitted that he lied.

Sussman did not.

[wreckinball]

Plea deals are never forced.

[Sarcastr0]

No new goalposts. Relitigate Flynn on your own time.

[wreckinball]

Oh thanks thread monitor. The comparison was between the two cases. You brought up plea bargains

What an empty suit

[Sarcastr0]

Can you explain with supporting arguments why the disparate treatments were appropriate?

You went off on how Flynn's plea deal was forced. Not relevant to the question I was responding to.

And also something we've gone over lots of times. Not interested in dealing with people ignorant of Federal process, and with a partisan incentive to maintain that ignorance.

[wreckinball]

Which would be you dude. You’re describing yourself

[Sarcastr0]

They always devolve into schoolyard nonsense in the end.

[Gandydancer]

Whereas you start with that right at the beginning.

[Moderation4ever]

Sussman knew the case was junk. How many of these cases are plead because the punishment is minimal, and the evidence is there for a conviction. Sussman and his lawyers knew there was no case and he took that to the jury. Everyone knew Flynn was guilty, including himself, so he took the plea. Remember that he was fired from the Trump administration for lying to VP Pence.

[wreckinball]

Sussman knew he was on the right political side.

The kangaroo court was in his favor

[Sarcastr0]

'This is the case that'll blow the Russia hoax wide open!'

A week later:
'It was a fake court!'

Both funny and sad.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

You haven't seen any of the news coming out of the case? No one believed there would be fair justice. It's the USA after all. We have two different justice systems.

[David Nieporent]

Yes, everyone knows that rich white Republicans are the real victims of our criminal justice system.

[bernard11]

Pathetic.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

This comment is why there will never will be, never can be reconciliation between Patriots and Democrats.

[Sarcastr0]

This is a particularly partisan moment, because of jackasses like you. Anyone saying that Democrats can't be patriots is part of the problem.

There can be reconciliation, but only when you quit being like you are.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

When you people quit being like you are you mean.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

So the crimes committed were the same, but since Flynn pled initially he got what he deserved (bankrupt), whereas since Sussman didn't plead he got what he deserved(nothing)?

[David Nieporent]

I don't think you understand how trials work. Sussmann didn't commit a crime. Flynn did.

[wreckinball]

So Flynn was convicted. I missed that part

[David Nieporent]

You missed the part where Flynn admitted under oath, repeatedly, that he was guilty, and actually pleaded guilty?

[Brett Bellmore]

And you missed the part where he was coerced into doing so, by the feds first bankrupting him, and then threatening to go after his family's assets, while concealing from his defense exculpatory evidence?

Do you really think coerced guilty pleas aren't a thing?

[Sarcastr0]

I mean, all that is stuff you speculated into existence. Flynn's guilty plea was not more coerced than any other such plea. And the facts he pled to are not really in dispute.

But somehow you find him special and worth defending.

[David Nieporent]

And you missed the part where he was coerced into doing so, by the feds first bankrupting him, and then threatening to go after his family's assets, while concealing from his defense exculpatory evidence?

All of this is made up — Flynn himself, of course, denied under oath that he had been coerced — but especially the completely fictional "exculpatory evidence."

Or maybe especially especially the completely fictional "bankruptcy" that never happened.

Do you really think coerced guilty pleas aren't a thing?

I really think high-level politically connected coerced guilty pleas to minor offenses by people represented by the highest powered lawyers around aren't a thing.

[wreckinball]

Those aligned with The Party are above the law. Those who are aligned with the opposing Party are below the law,

Very Putin Communist Party like. Substitute Democrat and Biden here.

[Sarcastr0]

These align with different facts being different more than whatever 1984 quotes you're pulling out of your ass.

[wreckinball]

Fact which can’t provide ever. You realize Flynn’s plea was tossed don’t you?

[Sarcastr0]

It was tossed by the order of political appointees. Not really probative about the underlying case. Maybe the case was bad, but Trump's cronies spiking it doesn't mean that.

[wreckinball]

The DOJ yea that’s who prosecuted and case was dismissed with prejudice on appeal.

Chalk up another L

[Sarcastr0]

You...have no idea what happened in the Flynn case, do you?

[David Nieporent]

Actually, although Barr's DOJ tried to take a dive, Flynn's plea was not in fact tossed. Instead, Flynn was preemptively pardoned.

[not guilty]

"You realize Flynn’s plea was tossed don’t you?"

Not true. Flynn sought leave to withdraw the plea prior to being sentenced, and DOJ sought to dismiss the underlying charge, but Judge Emmett Sullivan denied those motions. The plea was still in force when Trump issued Flynn a presidential pardon.

[wreckinball]

You forgot the appeals court part

[not guilty]

A three judge panel of the Court of Appeals ruled in Flynn's favor. The Court of Appeals sitting en banc reinstated the District Court's ruling by a vote of 8 to 2.

[wreckinball]

Facts which you can’t provide ever. You realize Flynn’s plea was tossed don’t you?

[Sarcastr0]

The bar here is are the facts different. It was a really easy ask, and I answered it.

Now you want to relitigate Flynn based on some pretty janky standards of proof. Not biting; I answered the question asked, and you crying about Flynn is just more right-wing cries that every institution is a vast conspiracy against them.

[wreckinball]

Nope just pointing out disparate treatment which is obvious but you’re either too dumb or partisan to recognize

[Sarcastr0]

OK. You clearly have no idea what happened in the Flynn case and are just fronting with insults.

We're done here.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Flynn had an non-material oopsie during a contrived and unnecessary FBI interview.

An interview where Comey admitted was a setup.

The Federal Class turned the screws on him for years.

Clinton's lawyer intentionally lied to the FBI and the Baker from the FBI even said he would not have opened the investigation had Sussman been truthful.

The Federal Class used jury nullification to wipe away the misdeeds.

[wreckinball]

So the appeals court tossed the case with prejudice and the DOJ dropped the charges.
Sullivan then was acting like he was going to just press charges himself somehow. Trump pardoned him.
So the plea wasn’t tossed out with the case dumbass

[not guilty]

"So the appeals court tossed the case with prejudice and the DOJ dropped the charges."

That is a rank falsehood. The Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, upheld the District Court's ruling. DOJ sought leave of court to dismiss the charges underlying the plea, but the District Court denied that motion. Flynn's guilty plea remained in force until Trump issued a presidential pardon.

[David Nieporent]

Nope just pointing out disparate treatment which is obvious but you’re either too dumb or partisan to recognize

This is hilarious, in a look at the sad things happening to the bad person sort of way. There was indeed disparate treatment, but it went in favor of Flynn.

Even though Flynn was guilty, and they had him so dead to rights that he admitted it, Trump's DOJ first tried to drop the charges, and then when that looked like it might not work, Trump pardoned him.

In contrast, Sussmann got no special favors; they prosecuted him vigorously despite having no case. He had to prevail at trial rather than getting the skids greased for him.

[David Nieporent]

Facts which you can’t provide ever. You realize Flynn’s plea was tossed don’t you?

It wasn't.

[wreckinball]

The whole case was tossed with prejudice by the appeals court

[not guilty]

The Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, upheld the District Court's refusal to grant leave to withdraw the plea, by an 8 to 2 vote. Are you deliberately lying, or merely ignorant?

[not guilty]

Read the en banc opinion. https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/777940F1C81FD47E852585D5005DADCB/$file/20-5143.pdf

[David Nieporent]

You live in a fantasy world in which people trying to overthrow the government are tourists, and an appeals court did something that never actually happened. Or, alternatively, you're a liar.

Although at one point Flynn got a temporary victory at the DC Circuit before that panel decision was voided by the en banc court, even that temporary victory did not involve the case being "tossed with prejudice." No such decision was ever reached or order was ever entered.

[Brett Bellmore]

You're living in a fantasy world where people with guns trying to overthrow the government don't bring those guns with them.

[Sarcastr0]

They didn't bring guns into the capital because they thought they had Trump on their side, and you don't need guns for a lynching.

[Ed Grinberg]

Here's how a fully-corrupt "justice system" works:

• If you're on the regime's good side, the "justice sytem" (and law enforcement) will let you get away with anyting.
• ***
• If you're on the regime's bad side, the "justice system" (and law enforcement) will come down hard on you every chance they get. At best, law enforcement will stand aside while non-governmental volunteers (Antifa) beat the crap out of you. (But if you resist, they'll promptly arrest you and deliver you to the "justice system" for severe punishment.)

[M L]

The Washington Post once allowed an opinion basically stating this.

"Cartwright’s greatest mistake was not talking to reporters or lying about it; he failed to play the Washington game skillfully enough to avoid becoming a scapegoat for a system in which senior officials skirt the rules and then fall back on their political power to save them."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/josh-rogin/wp/2016/10/18/general-cartwright-is-paying-the-price-for-hillary-clintons-sins/

[Sarcastr0]

Dang liberal media, eh?

[M L]

Even they had to admit it! 🙂

[Sarcastr0]

Of course. Nice self-sealing worldview you got there. The media is always liberal even when they're not, and opinions are always right except when they're not.

[M L]

Ok you win. The Washington Post is totally right wing.

[Sarcastr0]

You do love to exclude middles!

[M L]

Oh, right. The Washington Post is totally moderate, unbiased, objective, and nonpartisan. LOL!

[Sarcastr0]

You can't really stop yourself, I guess.

[David Nieporent]

What difference in the treatments?

[Gandydancer]

Sussmann vis Papadopoulos is the better comparison.

[not guilty]

How so? Papadopoulas admitted guilt and was sentenced; Sussman went to trial and was acquitted.

[apedad]

Former Congressional Candidate Pleads Guilty to Wire Fraud and Falsification of Records

A former Congressional candidate pleaded guilty today for using COVID-19 relief funds for personal expenditures and for falsifying records to conceal thousands of dollars of in-kind contributions by employees in a report to the Federal Elections Commission (FEC).

According to court documents, in 2020, Nicholas Jones, 36, of Boise, Idaho, a small business owner, applied for and received COVID-19 relief funds, including through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL), totaling $753,600. Despite certifying that these funds would only be used for business-related expenditures, Jones used a significant portion of the funds for personal expenses, including car payments, life insurance policies, and political advertisements.

In 2020, Jones ran as a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives. Jones told employees of his small business that they could continue to be paid their normal wages if they worked on his congressional campaign. Employees reported to work on behalf of Jones’s congressional campaign and were paid thousands of dollars in wages through Jones’s small business including, in part, with funds Jones had received as part of a PPP loan. After losing the primary election, Jones caused his campaign committee to file a campaign finance report with the FEC, which omitted any in-kind contributions from any entity or individual other than Jones, including the thousands of dollars of in-kind contributions to his campaign in the form of employee time and work.

Jones pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court of Idaho to wire fraud and falsification of records. Jones will be sentenced at a later date. Jones faces a maximum total penalty of 40 years in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-congressional-candidate-pleads-guilty-wire-fraud-and-falsification-records

40 years max?!?!?

Wow, that's a lot.

Even 20 years would seem like a lot.

[John F. Carr]

The sentencing guidelines will recommend much less than 20 years.

[Bob from Ohio]

Avenatti got 30 months for the Nike extortion, 4 years just today for a second conviction.

So this dude will be in that range, maybe less, assuming no priors and appropriate remorse [real or feigned]. Plus restitution.

Statutory maximum in the federal system is meaningless.

[Gandydancer]

He "ran against" Fulcher(R), so I guess that means he's a (D).

[David Nieporent]

Of course you do. You're not right, of course, but why bother with even 10 seconds with Google when you can just engage in partisan hackery instead?

https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/local/crime/article262068437.html

Additionally, after Jones lost the primary election in May 2020,

[Sarcastr0]

So you did a 3am rampage through the thread, and no answer to this comment, eh?

Sad.

[John F. Carr]

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has upheld a judge's denial of a defendant's request for a bench trial. She had previously agreed to a jury trial before a different judge and changed her mind on the day of trial. The judge thought her request created the appearance of judge shopping. The SJC still remembers a Boston Globe exposé over a decade ago which reported that many defendants were being acquitted in bench trials even though the charge was DUI (which as we all know is a serious charge deserving a guilty verdict).
https://www.mass.gov/files/documents/2022/06/02/j13203.pdf

[Brett Bellmore]

"which as we all know is a serious charge deserving a guilty verdict"

Shouldn't whether a guilty verdict is deserved hinge on the evidence of guilt, not how serious the charge is?

[Jimmy the Dane]

That is such an old school belief. Finding people responsible based upon "facts" and "evidence" was an invention of some white racist slave owners 300 years ago. Now we have a much better system where you just get tried and convicted based upon how a few people feel on social media. Much more just and fair.

[rsteinmetz]

Breaking News Avenatti gets 48 months to be served partially concurrently with his Nike sentence.

[Michael P]

Some people hoped the creepy porn lawyer would be spending four years in the White House. Instead he'll be spending four years in the big house.

[Sarcastr0]

Can't be a fall from grace. Sounds like a conspiracy to me!

Rigged jury! Corrupt judge!! No justice left in this country - America is dead!!!!1one!!!

[Michael P]

That's a hell of a dumb false equivalence even by your standards. Musk is being tried in the court of leftist media institutions. Aventatti was just sentenced for his second criminal conviction (with two trials to go!).

[Jimmy the Dane]

Na he was just a useful idiot whose purpose had passed. People "in the know" had knowledge of his past and that was a convenient way to make him go away when the time came.

Remember Cindy Sheehan? Same deal there (just no jail for her, just irrelevance).

[David Bremer]

At first, I thought this was a reference to Paul Hansmeier, but nobody wanted him to be president and was actually sentenced to 168 months for his actions.

[questioner7]

In what practical sense are countries with the 2nd Amendment "less free" as a result? (Beyond being less free to have weapons.) The "self-defense from criminals" rationale for 2A makes sense to me, but the old "defense from government tyranny" rationale doesn't, seeing the regular peaceful transitions of power in many places without 2A.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Every stay in one of the nicer neighborhoods in London? Residents there have outfitted their homes like a prison, bars on the window, alarms, cameras, even panic rooms. If you go out at night it is by car leaving directly from a garage. No one would seriously think about walking around except maybe during the day. Same deal in South Africa, too.

In places like France you have a criminal element that knows they can maintain a certain basal operational level because of all the potential victims walking around.

You will constantly hear from the leftist corporate media about "Europe this" or "Europe that" but if you talk to your average European who visits the United States they are astounded about how safe our city streets are compared to their home country.

What happens when you deny average private citizens the ability to defend their life and property is you get a criminal underbelly that knows it can operate with a certain level of impunity. It can victimize average citizens without fear and also has the knowledge the government is providing easy targets.

[David Nieporent]

To be clear, Jimmy made every bit of this up.

[Brett Bellmore]

See, for instance, the difference between "hot" burglary (Home invasions with the residents known to be present.) and 'cold' burglary, (Breaking into a home thought to be unoccupied.) in various countries.

In the UK and the Netherlands, the percentage of "hot" burglaries is about 3 times that in the US, 45% vs 13%. It's generally attributed to the fact that, because so many Americans own guns, breaking into an occupied house in America is extremely dangerous. While if you break into an occupied house in England, you don't need to search for valuables, you can force the occupants to turn them over.

[M L]

According to studies by the CDC and others, there are hundreds of thousands of defensive gun uses per year. So the capacity to defend yourself and others with arms prevents many thousands of instances of violence, rape, and murder. If defense of self and others from criminals makes sense to you, then it would seem you have answered your own question.

Beyond that, a basic survey of history shows that the biggest criminals and murderers and thugs of all, are those who manage to wield government power to such ends. That's the reality. It really doesn't matter that you can point to tiny blips in history where Christian-influenced cultures have managed periods of somewhat peaceful self-government and peaceful transitions of power. That's the exception that proves the rule, and even then I'm pretty sure some will say there is still tyranny (which, to some extent, is in the eye of the beholder, hence the reason for decentralized self-government). Even if you can point to some governments that haven't been tyrannical lately or that conducted peaceful transitions of power lately, this does not suggest that governments now can no longer be tyrannical as history shows is a repeating norm.

[Stephen Lathrop]

M L — I distrust the studies from, "others," because they have described the ludicrous methods by which they were conducted, and because the results they claim suggest I must be surrounded by almost-weekly examples of defensive gun use I never hear about. Can you link to the CDC study?

[M L]

Before the Trump/Russia thing, I assumed and believed that outfits such as the FBI and the CIA were the good guys doing good things. Trump/Russia was such a transparent political ruse from the start. In my mind things really kicked off publicly when Sessions was intimidated into recusing himself based on baloney.

The whole shocking saga caused me and millions of others to lose an awful lot of faith in federal agencies or what I now know is apparently called "the intelligence community." That's probably partly just because I was ignorant of the reality and history and just wasn't thinking about such things.

[AJ_Liberty]

If after all this time, you see nothing odd between Trump's positive rhetoric toward Putin, Russia's likely hacking of the DNC server, Trump's firing of Comey, citizen Trump's pursuit of a realestate deal in Moscow, Manafort et al's Kremlin ties, and Trump's unvetted business dealings, then a blog comment won't change that. I have no problem with the government doing some due diligence to give the electorate more confidence. Are you that trusting?

[M L]

Are you generally inclined toward wild conspiracy theories, or just in this particular case?

Never in the history of the world has anything been investigated more fully and intensely than "Trump-Russia." I can certainly understand people seeing the tens of thousands of mainstream headlines over the years declaring an illicit conspiracy between Trump and Russia, but are you suggesting that some deeper conspiracy remains uncovered even after everything?

Do you always think it's odd when a politician speaks favorably of another government or head of state? Like when Obama said the 80s called and want their foreign policy back?

Did you find it alarming when the Obama campaign had contacts with Hamas and Iran prior to taking office, or only when Flynn talked to a Russian? Or did you never hear of the former?

[AJ_Liberty]

"Are you generally inclined toward wild conspiracy theories"

No, not at all. I do want to understand if a rogue foreign competitor has influence over my president. It's surprising that you don't.

[M L]

If you are concerned about that, then are you also concerned about the fact that more than a dozen foreign countries were participating in the espionage against Donald Trump along with our own intelligence agencies?

Are you also concerned about the possibility of our own rogue bureaucratic state, or the fact that elected Presidents don't seem to have control over the executive branch like they are supposed to under the Constitution?

Try to imagine that Donald Trump Jr. sat on the board of a known corrupt energy company either in Ukraine or Russia and collected millions of dollars from them, and did millions of dollars of business in China and many other foreign entanglements. Wouldn't that have been roughly a thousand times more substance to these concerns than all of this hot air and innuendo?

[Sarcastr0]

You seem to think Breitbart is too good a source to check. And don't know that espionage means. Or what influence means.

The fact that we don't have a unitary executive does not mean our administrative state is rogue.
It remains at the beck and call of Congress and it's political appointees, as designed. There are guardrails to prevent a President from running amok, generally created by Congress and signed off by a President.

And then you do proof by counterfactual. Which, as always, says a lot more about you and your building a giant fictional edifice out of Hunter Biden to insulate you from Trump's wrongdoing than anything about reality.

[Bob from Ohio]

You are part of the administrative state, no surprise you like it.

[Sarcastr0]

I explained why it isn’t rogue. Got more than ad hom?

[Bob from Ohio]

"explained "

Assertions are not explanations. The carnival barker says a lot of things too.

[Sarcastr0]

So you don't think political appointees have any power, and that Congress's yearly appropriation includes yearly requirements of what an agency can or cannot do with their budget?

Are authorization bills likewise ignored?

I pointed to existing and material checks on administrative discretion from both the executive and legislative branches. You've got no response other than nonsense, it seems.

[Gandydancer]

"your building a giant fictional edifice out of Hunter Biden"

Nothing "fictional" about it.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Most people seem to be ignoring China's influence over Biden, good for you for bringing it up.

[Gandydancer]

"I do want to understand if a rogue foreign competitor has influence over my president."

But your immunity to disproof is invincible.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

There isn't a single institution that I have faith in. They're all rotten and filled with Democrats who are clearly evil vile people.

[Sarcastr0]

There isn't a single institution that I have faith in

Too many people have convinced themselves of this kind of facially ridiculous claim.

Where do you get your news? How do you get your food? What about your utilities? What kind of entertainment do you watch, and how?

You use institutions all the time.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

You are falling for the fallacy that I'm somehow like you and your Federal Class peers.

I'm not.

[Sarcastr0]

No, you are much more manly and independent.

In your own mind.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

I probably am much more manly and independent than you Low-T Federalistas. But lack of trust and faith doesn't equate to absence or cancellation. I do what I can.

That's what's different between us. My world isn't so black and white.

[Sarcastr0]

Lack of faith in institutions, but you trust every morsel of nonsense your right wing sources feed you. You're one of the least independent commenters around here.

It's not that you're nuanced in your 'lack of trust for institutions' it's that you're making it up.

[Bob from Ohio]

"You use institutions all the time."

So? He said he lacked faith in them, not that he didn't use them.

Food sources and utilities are not really "institutions" as that term is commonly used either.

[Sarcastr0]

Everyone trusts institutions. They are ubiquitous in the modern world. Unless you are a pre-modern hermit somehow posting to the internet this is just posturing,

[Bob from Ohio]

Again, use is not trust.

Do people trust car dealers? Or rather buy a car from one because there is no other choice? Buying from an unknown individual is even less trustworthy.

Didn't we recently have months of protests against police? I don' think many of those protestors trust the police.

[Sarcastr0]

Do you not take Tylenol because you worry about the FDA's testing?
Where do you get your media from? I'll bet it's an institution!
Do you check your water's toxin levels before drinking it each day?

This is really dumb.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Whole house water filters, ever heard of them?

[Sarcastr0]

You trust Big Filter? You fool!

[Cal Cetín]

OK, would Supreme Court leaks be covered by the federal contempt statute, and if so in what circumstances? I ask because I haven't heard a bunch of discussion on the subject.

[apedad]

Cal, I don't know about current laws but here's what's being brought up now.
~~~~~~~~~~
House Republicans introduce legislation to imprison Supreme Court leakers

House Republicans introduced legislation that would make it a federal crime punishable by imprisonment to leak confidential documents from the Supreme Court.

Republicans backing the measure are seeking to punish any officer or employee of the high court who is "knowingly publishing, divulging, disclosing, or making known in any manner" confidential materials, including draft opinions, internal notes, and final opinions that were learned by employment at the Supreme Court.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/house-republicans-introduce-legislation-to-imprison-supreme-court-leakers

I wonder if Justices are included in the “officer” or “employee” category.

I’m guessing not so why can’t the bill be über-clear whether Justices are included (or not).

[Cal Cetín]

"House Republicans"

Aren't they a minority? No-one cases what bills they file.

[Gandydancer]

Why are you "guessing not"?

[David Nieporent]

From reading the text of the proposed bill, it does not appear that Justices would be included.

[Reallynotbob]

I have a 2A question for the commentariat:

If we were starting from scratch to adopt the Constitution today, and the only remaining point for discussion was whether to include the Second Amendment as drafted, should we adopt it all over again?

In other words, I'd like to hear the case for (or against) re-adopting the Second Amendment in today's times-- but without relying on its existence already.

[M L]

The case is the same now as it was then. And see my post above.

However keep in mind that the original 2A only prevented the federal government from infringing on the right. I would allow each state or locality to regulate guns however they wish, as terrible as that may be, decentralized self-government is the best way.

[Reallynotbob]

ML -- to your post above, how should we evaluate the success of defending against tyrannical governments? In other words, I get the notion of the noble armed resistance, but over the arc of history, aren't those instances vanishingly unsuccessful? Doesn't the difference in weaponry between civilians and police (let alone military) undermine that notion?

[M L]

A fair question and I know many folks who read much more history than I do could give better answers with historical examples. I would say this: the existence of an armed populace is a deterrent to extreme governmental tyranny just the same as it is a deterrent to crime in general. This is huge and obvious if you think about it. Secondly, as to the military and the police, how many of them do you think would be appalled at an order to carry out attacks against on their own country? If the US tried to impose a totalitarian system by military force, many members of the military would side with the civilians. Third, obviously the American revolutionaries were outgunned yet they succeeded. And in modern times, if it were not possible for armed citizens to defend themselves against the US military, then the US would not have been in the Middle East for decades. What is the longest war in the history of the US? Answer: Afghanistan. We just saw how that ended. The Bielski partisans were Jewish guerilla World War II fighters who were able to protect more than 1,200 Jews from dying at the hands of the Nazis. Other examples: America’s failure in Vietnam, and the 1989 overthrow of Romanian Communist Nicolae Ceausescu.

[Sarcastr0]

We are real bad on the guns as crime deterrent front, at least using a global baseline.

I think right to self-defense is all you need. 9A takes care of that, no matter what rights paradigm you use.
No militia clause confusion there!

[Jimmy the Dane]

This is just not true and you know it Sarc.

One thing we rarely have in the United States is home invasions. Why? Because the criminals know that the cost of breaking into a house in most areas of the country is a homeowner with a gun.

Go to any other country in the world, even Western Europe, and home invasions are a regularly reported crime.

The thing about the deterrent effect is it STOPS something from occurring. That is a difficult thing to study. What is the likelihood an event would have happened if it were not for (whatever fact).

[Sarcastr0]

Don't be daft; America's crime rates, both property and violent, are as commensurate or higher than Europe.

I have no idea if your claim on home invasions is correct. But the very fact you had to so narrowly tailor your claim shows how weak it is.

[Reallynotbob]

I'm not sure data supports the claim, "One thing we rarely have in the United States is home invasions," even compared to the rest of the world. My quick research on the topic suggests "home invasion" is a difficult to parse from international crime statistics, but nonetheless researchers have tried. Here is an infographic I found showing that the US is high in home invasions relative to the world:

https://www.budgetdirect.com.au/content/dam/budgetdirect/website-assets/2017/home/content/research/global-burglary-rates-1-world_map_HD.png

[wreckinball]

You’re easily confused. Don’t project

[Moderation4ever]

Lots of good examples, but being armed did not help American slave when better equipped US army troops put down their rebellions. Armed black American were not able to stop massacres by white militias. Nor did guns prevent native Americans having their lands being taken from them.

[Jimmy the Dane]

RE: Native Americans

Your comment about their ability to resist is pretty ignorant of actual history. The federal government, through the army, spent significant resources to disarm the various tribes that were still actively resisting in the late 1800's because those efforts had become so successful. The "Indian Wars" really didn't end until the early 1900's and most will attribute that to population shifts, technology, and other advancements in society, not some kind of military victory with firearms.

[Moderation4ever]

And how did they disarm the tribes that were resisting? Likely by having more and better weapons.

[wreckinball]

Well funny you mention that because the Bill if Rights has been extended to apply to the states. The old states can do anything they want, that is violate the Bill of Rights, was the excuse to allow slavery

[Jimmy the Dane]

A core tenant of a free society is for the private citizen to be able to protect their property and life with effective tools without the need to petition to government or rely upon government resources (call the cops) to do so. History, technology, and logic dictate that the most effective tool for this is and still is the modern firearm.

Although I don't think the 2nd Amendment was ever about hunting or sports, there is that aspect too. Especially in a country where private citizens take wildlife at a high rate and in some areas rely upon that to sustain their food supply. That would be a good secondary argument, but I don't think the first. A more "modern" 2A though might include a mention of the right to hunt and own a firearm for that purpose.

[M L]

Tenet, not tenant.

[Jimmy the Dane]

I really wish there was an edit button......Autocorrect likes to make changes like that....

[Reallynotbob]

Jimmy -- I think you are arguing that liberal access to guns is a prerequisite for a free society in modern times. Does that imply societies which recognize property rights and ensure liberal social freedoms are not, in your view, free societies?

I think "right to hunt" is an interesting concept.

As for protecting life, wouldn't a reduction in guns reduce the arms race between citizens and reduce lethality? I recognize there are instances of citizen gun owners preventing crimes and defending themselves, but (a) what do we know about the relative efficacy of guns vs. knives in defensive situations; and (b) what do we know about rates of accidents and gun-supported crimes that would be harder to pull off without them? I.e. how do we go about calculating the trade-off to human life and property?

[Jimmy the Dane]

As to effectiveness, nothing commonly available comes even close to the power equalizer of a modern firearm. As the majority observed in Heller, a pistol can turn an elderly man in a wheelchair into a real threat to a criminal more so then a knife, bat, or other weapon. So no I don't think there is a "perfect substitute" or even currently realistic substitute for the modern firearm as far as effectiveness goes.

"Right to hunt" is more of a modern concept, but has been incorporated into many state constitutions over the last 70 years. I think that is the proper level given our federal system for such a right, but I could see a push to have it included in a federal right if that is "incorporated" or just to reinforce the limits of gun regulation at that level as well.

For the free society part, it really depends on the characteristics of the society. I do think it is an integral part and a review of history suggests that if you want a people to remain free, they need to be armed. I won't go into the various reasons why, but the record is pretty clear. Disarmed people might be "free" at one point in time, but soon find themselves under the thumb of a foreign or domestic tyrant.

Can you, for a moment in time, have a society that appears to be free but strictly regulates firearms? Sure. Is it bound to stay free indefinitely without private firearm ownership? Probably not.

As a caveat, I think if you have a small, rather inclusive society, that resists immigration (or promotes heavy integration) they might be able to maintain their status as a free people for a long time without readily accessible private firearms. However, these societies in the modern world are becoming much harder to maintain. So, no not an absolute requirement, but one that I would say any framer of a governing document ought to be very concerned about putting in their if they want their people to remain free.

[Brett Bellmore]

""Right to hunt" is more of a modern concept, "

Not so much a modern concept, as an old one that didn't previously need to be formalized on account of not facing much attack.

[apedad]

We wouldn't have a 2A today.

We were just coming out of battling an oppressive govt back then.

And (contrary to mouth-breathers' beliefs), we're don't have an oppressive govt now.

[M L]

And we never will!

*drool running down chin*

[Jimmy the Dane]

"we're don't have an oppressive govt now."

Tell that to the political prisoners currently being held without trial or bail in DC.....

[not guilty]

Who is being held without trial or bail? Defendants in custody have priority as far as setting cases for trial. Those who have been denied bail have had fully adversarial hearings which resulted in findings of risk of flight and/or danger to the public if released.

What defendant is being confined without a trial setting? Please identify by name.

[Gandydancer]

"Fully adversarial hearings" which result in bogus findings of risk of flight and/or danger to the public are evidence of oppressive government, not evidence against oppressive government. The jihad against Jan 6 protesters is well known. (As well as the excused murder of Ashli Babbitt.) If you want a list of names do your own research.

[not guilty]

Jimmy the Dane made the claim that political prisoners are currently being held without trial or bail in DC. I am unsurprised he is not backing it up with real world examples when I challenged it.

[wreckinball]

No they haven’t. What utter bullshit

[not guilty]

Tell me who has been denied a bail hearing. Please be specific.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

https://www.patriotfreedomproject.com/connect-with

Every one of these people.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Nearly.

[not guilty]

Uh, nothing on the linked site evinces the denial of a bail hearing.

[David Nieporent]

Tell that to the political prisoners currently being held without trial or bail in DC.....

There are no such people. There are a small number of insurrectionists being kept in pretrial detention in DC.

And, of course, every time liberals suggest reform, MAGA loons scream "Soros" and have a tantrum at the idea that people shouldn't be held in jail just because they can't pay bail. (Look at the people who keep trying to whatabout Trump's incitement of the 1/6 insurrection by saying, "But Harris advocated for bail for George Floyd protesters.")

[Jimmy the Dane]

How many political prisoners are you OK with?

Should someone who just doesn't have a lot of money lose their right to bail? I thought cash bail was a worthless system built on racist oppression? Funny if you are now a fan of it in that you are implicitly endorsing a system of oppression then.

I'm not here to work the internet for you or conduct research because all you do is watch MSNBC. A simple search will reveal all the information you need to see how many political prisoners are sitting in DC jail, their allegations of abuse there, the dispositions of their cases, which 1.5 years later have still yet to go to trial, and all other relevant information.

[not guilty]

"A simple search will reveal all the information you need to see how many political prisoners are sitting in DC jail, their allegations of abuse there, the dispositions of their cases, which 1.5 years later have still yet to go to trial, and all other relevant information."

Is that why you ran away like a scalded dog from my question about what defendant is being confined without a trial setting?

[Jimmy the Dane]

All that was said in response is essentially what I said was not true. I'm not in the market to argue with idiots who have beliefs such as that. It is a worthless endeavor. I know I am right and if they care to do some research and maybe learn something, the internet is just one click away....

[not guilty]

IOW, you have made an assertion for which you have bupkis in supporting facts. Man up and admit it.

[David Nieporent]

How many political prisoners are you OK with?

Zero. How many 1/6 people are political prisoners, rather than criminals (or at least there's probable cause to conclude they are)? Also zero.

[Stephen Lathrop]

No, not as it is now. Pretty clearly, state-by-state constitutional protections would work better, because they could accommodate differing conditions. There is a strong historical argument that what I described is what actually happened, by the way.

[Gandydancer]

The whole Bill of Rights was a mistake, as many said at the time. Enumerated powers should have been even more clearly focused on.

And the drafting of the 2A is abysmal.

But if you are going to limit the Feds only in specified ways the right to possess guns ought to be explicitly in there somewhere. Your question denies me any alternative, so the 2A is it.

[M L]

For some reason this wasn't as big a story as Uvalde . . . .

Woman with Pistol Stops Man Firing at Graduation Party Crowd with AR-15

27 May 2022

An alleged attacker with an AR-15 was shot dead in Charleston, West Virginia, Wednesday night by a woman who was carrying a pistol for self-defense.

Dennis Butler was armed with an AR-15 and allegedly shot “at dozens of people attending a graduation party,” WCHSTV reported.

Police indicate a woman pulled a pistol and shot Butler, killing him.

Charleston Police Department Chief of Detectives Tony Hazelett said, “Instead of running from the threat, she engaged with the threat and saved several lives last night.”

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/05/27/alleged-attacker-with-an-ar-15-shot-dead-by-woman-with-pistol/

[Jimmy the Dane]

No dead kids to use as political props for leftist agitation purposes.

Remember the NYC subway shooter. That was supposed to be all of our main and major concern up until the media found videos of him having some pretty bigoted beliefs on things like race. Then it just sort of disappeared....

[Jerry B.]

Sorta like the guy who drove his SUV into the Christmas Parade in Waukesha.

[Jimmy the Dane]

That just became "SUV" did all these nasty things in the headlines once the whole leftist narrative didn't look like it was going to play out. Then it just got dropped.

[M L]

And there were no dead kids because a woman had the right to carry a pistol for self-defense.

Conclusion: Justin Trudeau wants more dead kids.

[jb]

Is this one of those defund the police suggestions? Because yes, it seems like private citizens may be better than the police at preventing mass shootings.

[M L]

Defund all of the rest of the government first and then, yes, glad to talk about defunding the most basic function of government, police.

[apedad]

Florida's red flag law, championed by Republicans, is taking guns from thousands of people

Since its creation (2018), Florida judges have acted more than 8,000 times to keep guns out of the hands of people authorities deemed a risk to themselves or others, according to data maintained by the Office of the State Courts Administrator.

Research suggests red flags have made a difference where they've been implemented. One analysis of Connecticut's red flag law, in place since 1999, found that for every 10 to 20 guns removed by a risk protection order led to one averted suicide. Another study found intimate partner homicides dropped in states where authorities can prohibit people convicted of "nonspecific violent misdemeanors" from possessing firearms.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/01/politics/florida-red-flag-law/index.html

So where are we with stronger red-flag laws?

I agree with Brett B (et al), that there should be a strong process for a person to fight the decision too.

[Commenter_XY]

apedad, I think the process has to play out before taking the gun; not take your property (gun) and then maybe give it back, after you expend considerable money fighting the confiscation.

If you 'take first, then litigate' I promise you, government will step all over your remaining individual liberties.

[Bob from Ohio]

"So where are we with stronger red-flag laws?"

"The Florida law is a good law, and it's a signal of what's possible," Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, one of the most vocal advocates in Congress for gun control, said Sunday on ABC's "This Week."

If Murphy likes it, its a bad law.

[Gandydancer]

"One analysis of Connecticut's red flag law, in place since 1999, found that for every 10 to 20 guns removed by a risk protection order led to one averted suicide. "

Gee, I bet that if we let the police tear out fingernails we could solve more than one crime per 20 police victims.

[Brett Bellmore]

So, for every justified gun removed, they removed 9-19 unjustifiably?

[M L]

From a social media post:

With the impending and inevitable recession the government could do one of two things-
Follow the lead of Warren Harding and cut regulations, cut spending, cut taxes, cease the creation of more fiat currency and basically let the market repair itself by getting government out of the way. The recession of 1920-21, caused by high levels of spending during and following WW I, was over in about 18 months due to Harding’s wise handling of the situation. See the book “The Jazz Age President”...
The second choice is to do as Franklin Roosevelt did- try to fix the situation by micro-managing the economy, applying government “solutions”, creating government “jobs” which produce nothing, ramping up spending to then unprecedented levels, paying farmers to destroy crops, and then getting us into a war on the idiotic idea that “war is good for the economy”. FDR’s “solutions” helped drag the depression out for sixteen years causing it to become “the GREAT depression.” It was caused, btw, as the result of Herbert Hoover REVERSING the policies of Harding, and was ended, not by WWII, but by ENDING WWII and getting mass numbers of people out of government employment and back to work in the private sector…..where real production is achieved.
Sadly, every president since FDR, yes, including Trump, has been to one extent or the other, and advocate of “New Deal” and Rooseveltian policies. That brings us to today.

[Sarcastr0]

Very few economists agree with this take.

[Brett Bellmore]

Most economists are paid either directly or indirectly by the government. What do you expect of a profession that literally specializes in knowing who pays them?

[Sarcastr0]

I expect them to be professionals, curious about the world and interested in knowing the truth. Like scientists are like in the real world, regardless of where their grants come from.

You really think an entire discipline is lying in unison? Or is it more that the idea that stimulus spending works and the New Deal saved capitalism just something you'd bend over backwards to avoid admitting?

[Brett Bellmore]

I expect them to know who pays them, it's kind of central to the whole profession.

No, I don't think an entire discipline is lying in unison. You do realize that a fair number of economists actually DO agree with that take? Not a majority, sure, but not a negligible number, either.

[Sarcastr0]

The school that believes the New Deal extended the Depression is quite small. It's often quoted by the GOP, so it has an outsized voice, but it's very much a rump that's more doctrine than phenomenology.

[Ben_]

Economist opinions don’t correlate well with economist opinions. They’re all over the place on most issues. On a few issues like price controls, they correlate better.

You don’t need an economist to tell you that adding bureaucratic red tape to a project delays the economic benefit of that project though.

And adding compliance costs to anything makes it more expensive — which is counterproductive when you’re trying to fight against inflation.

[Sarcastr0]

There are basically 2 things economists largely agree on:

-Simulative spending works.
-Monetary policy can address inflation, though not immediately.

[Gandydancer]

Lie. Many economists agree with this take. Many shill economists don't, but that doesn't support your claim.

[Sarcastr0]

Really? You think the 'New Deal actually prolonged the Great Depression' is something many economists believe?

[Moderation4ever]

Try selling the Harding solution to the public. In the midterms we are likely to hear a lot of blame for the inflation. Yet few will advocate for just letting the market resettle itself.

[M L]

You are 100% right. The truth has a tendency to be difficult and unpopular, especially among politicians.

It's hard to say what "the public" might "buy" since almost all politicians enjoy the ability to spend trillions of dollars and almost none would prefer a free market instead. Also, the media generally stays very far away from disseminating any remotely substantive or level-headed discussion of such topics. In my estimation, any politicians who might be interested in such "radical" solutions as free markets are pretty strongly disfavored, and don't tend to get near the higher levels of influence or power primarily because of entrenched institutions and political interests moreso than what the public buys or doesn't buy.

[Brett Bellmore]

For most problems, there's a solution that's simple, direct, and right. But unfortunately, unpleasant.

People don't want to hear that the answer to over-spending is under-spending, it's like being told that you have to eat less and exercise if you want to lose weight.

[Sarcastr0]

You've cracked it. Because you are clearly smarter than all those corrupt people who specialize in these questions!

[Jimmy the Dane]

The old "they are the experts" argument.....lame and predictable.

[Sarcastr0]

The old 'if you're going to declare the experts wrong, you should probably deal with their research and not just your own ipse dixit.'

[Gandydancer]

Again, you are asserting a unanimity of the knowledgeable that maybe you aren't deluded enough to even believe in yourself.

[OtisAH]

“Under-spending”

Brett Bellmore, ladies and gentlemen!

[Brett Bellmore]

Yup, that's me. You have any substantive disagreement here, or do you just think referring to the opposite of "over-spending" as "under-spending" is stupid?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Level-headed discussions like taking the economy back to specie?

[Michael P]

BREAKING NEWS: CNN promises to institute guidelines to curtail its overuse of "breaking news" banners.

[Jimmy the Dane]

The communist news network is a joke. Remember CNN+? They thought people were actually going to pay money for the propaganda. That is how delusional the leftist media has become.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I hope CNN can carry on despite the recognition that among some segments of the audience it just can't compete with Fox News, One America, the Volokh Conspiracy, RedState, Newsmax, Gateway Pundit, Stormfront, Instapundit, Hot Air, FreeRepublic, Breitbart, and The Crusader.

[Frank Drackman]

They need to run Mr. Potato Head Brian Smelt-her 24-7, like MTV does with "Ridiculousness" which isn't anyway near as "Ridiculous" as the standard CNN, PMS-NBC programming.

[Gandydancer]

Is the Crap News Network competitive in ANY segments of the audience? Which ones?

[BadLib]

A stupid lay person question... (I'll leave it to readers to opine on if "stupid" qualifies the word "person" or the word "question" or both).

WP is reporting that Avenatti was was sentenced to four years in prison for his federal conviction for defrauding "Stormy Daniels". He is currently serving a 30 month sentence in his Nike case.

However, the four year sentence runs concurrent with the 30 month sentence.

Why concurrent? They were two completely unrelated crimes committed at different times against different victims with completely different trials.

If his 30 month conviction were overturned for some technical reason, he would still serve (of course with parole possibilities) the four year term so the judge must think that that's an appropriate punishment for his conviction in the Stormy Daniels case alone.

Or, looked at another way, the remainder of his 30 month sentence (not less than 19 months as he was sentenced in early July 2021), is "cancelled".

What is the guiding principle here?

If I commit a federal crime and realize my crime is now almost certain to be discovered and that I'm almost certain to get at least a ten year sentence, am I then "free" (i.e., at little or no risk of additional prison time) to commit 100 distinct and unrelated federal crimes as long as I make sure that (1) none of those crimes have prison sentences over ten years and (2) that I can delay the "big crime" conviction/sentencing while fast tracking the other 100 crimes by just pleading guilty?

[Brett Bellmore]

"What is the guiding principle here?"

"He's important."

You haven't figured out that some animals are more equal than others, yet?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

We have two systems of justice in the USA.

[Noscitur a sociis]

he would still serve (of course with parole possibilities)

There is no parole in the federal system.

If I commit a federal crime and realize my crime is now almost certain to be discovered and that I'm almost certain to get at least a ten year sentence, am I then "free" (i.e., at little or no risk of additional prison time) to commit 100 distinct and unrelated federal crimes as long as I make sure that (1) none of those crimes have prison sentences over ten years and (2) that I can delay the "big crime" conviction/sentencing while fast tracking the other 100 crimes by just pleading guilty?

No, that would not be a reasonable expectation.

Certain federal sentences are required by law to be imposed entirely consecutively to any other sentence; in other cases, the judge has discretion to determine whether or not the sentence will be entirely or partially consecutive, or entirely concurrent, with any other term of imprisonment. In a context like this, the advisory Sentencing Guideline, §5G1.3(d), directs courts to arrange the consecutive or concurrent nature of the sentence so as to "achieve a reasonable punishment for the instant offense." So a judge easily could (and in this circumstance, likely would) impose additional marginal penalties for your 100 additional crimes.

Note that Judge Furman only made this sentence partially concurrent: 30 months will be served consecutively.

[Michael P]

What's the practical difference between a 48-month sentence that is served entirely versus partially-for-30-months concurrently with a 30-month sentence? Is it simply called partially concurrent because the new sentence is longer? (As a layman, I would have said the two sentences are being served entirely concurrently, because one is entirely subsumed by the other.)

[Brett Bellmore]

No, the 48 month sentence is partially concurrent because only part of the sentence is at the same time as another sentence. The 30 month sentence would be wholly concurrent, because it is served entirely during another sentence. But wouldn't normally be referred to that way because it was the only sentence at the time he was sentenced to it.

For the record, I agree that it's BS, and as a practical matter he was only sentenced to 18 months for the second offense.

[not guilty]

Donald Trump has called on the Pulitzer Prize board to rescind the prizes awarded in 2018 to The New York Times and The Washington Post for coverage of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. https://hillreporter.com/donald-trump-cites-michael-sussman-trial-in-threatening-letter-to-pulitzer-board-see-you-in-court-132635 He makes a threat of legal action of an unspecified nature.

What is his purported legal theory?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Money raising. His purported legal theory is that any damn antics that put him in the news are grist for legally permitted money raising.

[Moderation4ever]

Agreed.

[David Nieporent]

The only thing notable about this letter is that — despite the fact that he has found the bottom feederiest of bottom feeders to represent him in many frivolous lawsuits, he couldn't find an actual lawyer willing to sign her name to this letter.

(It was obviously written by a lawyer; the odds that Trump could string that many words together in complete sentences are about the same as the odds of him winning the Boston Marathon. But no lawyer would sign it.)

[wreckinball]

Winning the prize for a hoax seems good enough

[Brett Bellmore]

It's a good enough reason to give it up, but establishing that anybody has standing to legally demand they give it up is the problem.

And there's basically no chance they're going to give it up just because the reporting was a hoax, the NYT still has a death grip on Duranty's Pulitzer for lying about famine in the USSR.

[wreckinball]

Agree its not a legal issue. These organizations lose legitimacy by playing politics with their awards, e.g. Oscars
Used to be a big deal. Now its a joke.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

If an institution, like our Justice System, can be institutionally racist, why can't it also be institutionally partisan?

[wreckinball]

It is most definitely both right now. But the racist part is exactly the opposite of what’s claimed

[Moderation4ever]

They are institutionally partisan. While each party has 50 Senators, each Republicans Senator represents less people that the Democratic Senator. Giving Republicans more power. Likewise the Electoral College gives Republicans an advantage. Gerrymandering also introduces bias.

[Ben_]

DeSantis to veto Tampa Bay Rays spending after Rays temporarily forget about sports to rant about their politics: https://www.breitbart.com/sports/2022/06/02/report-desantis-to-veto-35-million-for-tampa-bay-rays-facility-after-teams-anti-gun-rant/

I'm really looking forward to 8 years of President DeSantis.

[David Nieporent]

You will notice, of course, the complete lack of "rant" anywhere in the Rays' statement.

And you will note once again the authoritarian DeSantis deciding to run roughshod over the first amendment once again.

[Ben_]

Are you claiming that the First Amendment says that the governor of a state can’t veto a spending bill?

[wreckinball]

So the Rays have a constitutional right to the taxpayers money?

[Gandydancer]

He thinks Disney does, so why not the Rays?

[OtisAH]

No, and DN probably wouldn’t have mentioned 1A if the reason for the veto was practically anything except “Because they put out an anodyne corporate statement regarding sensible gun control.”

[wreckinball]

What was sensible about it? Honest question since I'm not hunting the statement down.

One thing that makes no sense though is what seems to be the urge to virtue signal constantly. If you're asking a political body for a handout maybe don't slap that hand? Maybe just sit it out?

Maybe stick to baseball.

[David Nieporent]

What I don't understand is the Trumpkin urge to vice signal constantly.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm moderately confident that the word "anodyne" did not appear anywhere in DeSantis' veto statement. "Sensible" was probably missing, too.

In fact, he seems to have been pretty hard on Republican pork, too, and was just generally saying, "Let's not spend money just because we have it."

[OtisAH]

Brett Bellmore, ladies and gentlemen!

[Jimmy the Dane]

Funny how leftists are all the sudden in bed with corporations taking public tax dollars.....

[ThePublius]

Biden, in the face of disastrous inflation, energy prices, Southern border, and infant formula shortage, pivots to gun control.

[Sarcastr0]

Wonder what happened to have him do that?

[Gandydancer]

A Dead Kids Opportunity,

[MoreCurious]

The families of nineteen dead children and two teachers hope you burn in hell for your callousness and inhuman disregard for their losses and the pain they will go through every day of their remaining lives. But at least you can hug and kiss your guns tonight before you go to bed.

[Jimmy the Dane]

I think the 10 million dead babies that never got into this world would like to talk to you over here....

[wreckinball]

Also there are some parents of dead kids in Waukesha who wonder why they don't deserve such presidential concern.

[MoreCurious]

Brilliant! What a masterful use of diversion! If someone decides to award a Pulitzer Prize for Whataboutism, you'll definitely be in the running!

[Sarcastr0]

Why are you choosing to be awful? This doesn't seem to make you happy, and yet you are being performatively an asshole.

You don't challenge anything because you don't come in with content, just bile.
Blocking you; should have done so long ago.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

They may not choose much. They could be antisocial, disaffected, on the spectrum, ignorant, and/or unpleasant by nature. Perhaps they can’t help themselves.

[Ben_]

Dems use dead kids as an opportunity for power grabs. If Dems don’t want to be called out for it, they should stop doing it.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Point is, and apparently you have to be very blunt these days to make people understand, the left does not care about kids. All they care about is their extreme agenda and power. If they cared about kids then it would show in any other action they take. It does not because they simply do not care. If that reality is a harsh one for you then maybe think about spending the weekend doing some introspection on your personal values.

[Ben_]

Biden decides children should go hungry in schools that don’t comply with Biden's LGBT agenda: https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/no-free-lunch-biden-admin-will-pull-meal-funding-for-schools-that-dont-comply-with-its-lgbt-agenda/

Leftists don’t tolerate differences.

[David Nieporent]

That's, of course, not what Biden did. (For one thing, Biden didn't write the law; Congress did.)

[F.D. Wolf]

Trailing Mehmet Oz by a little over 900 votes in the Pennsylvania GOP Senate primary, Dave McCormick is asking for hand recounts in 12 counties.

It seems to me that counting votes differently in different counties is precisely what the Supreme Court forbade in Bush v. Gore.

[Gandydancer]

That was in that instance partially stymied, but I don't think that that was what was forbidden.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Different counties use different voting methods or equipment. A recount requires a county to use of a different method or machine than was used originally. Difference is standard.

[wreckinball]

Not sure what you mean by counting votes differently. There were a lot of problems during election day with the R primary. The 12 counties may have had particular issues. Some places ran out of ballots. Not sure what they did to compensate.

But given all the counting after election day in 2020 and changing results I understand the skepticism.

[Brett Bellmore]

In Bush v Gore one of the issues was that the state supreme court declined to establish a uniform standard for counting ballots, it was basically a free for all. Hand recounts are reasonable if there are strict standards for how they're to be conducted.

Though McCormick may be pulling Gore's stunt: Hand recounts tend to yield a small fraction of votes that the machines could not read, but people can, usually in proportion to the machine counted votes. By selectively recounting only a few districts where he had done very well, Gore sought to enhance his vote count selectively, not correct any errors. McCormick could be up to that, too. You'd have to look at the existing vote counts in those 12 counties to tell; Were they places he did especially well, or especially badly? The former would be Gore's trick, the latter a legitimate effort to correct errors.

[Michael Ejercito]

The dirty little secret is that the street thug and the gangbanger use civil rights to facilitate their crimes.

They peaceably assemble to plan, plot, and prepare their robberies and drive-by shootings.

They peacefully bear arms to and from the scenes of robberies and drive-by shootings.

They use their freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures to conceal evidence that they committed, or are about to commit, a robbery or a drive-by shooting.

They use their right to a fair trial, their right to an attorney, their right to due process of law, to escape judgment for committing robberies and drive-by shootings.

They use their freedom from cruel and unusual punishment to avoid the punishment that they deserve for committing a robbery or a drive-by shooting, even if they are judged guilty consistently with their other rights.

Without the Constitution protecting these rights, the cops can judge street thugs and gangbangers guilty and give them the punishment that they deserve.

Of course, if we repeal our civil rights protections so that cops could do this, what would make us think the cops will only go after the street thug and the gangbanger?

What makes us think they will even go after the street thug and the gangbanger?

[Jimmy the Dane]

"What makes us think they will even go after the street thug and the gangbanger?"

The left thinks the cops are racist so do you really think they will give up an opportunity if permitted to go after gangbangers?

[AJ_Liberty]

No one wants an authoritarian police state and few want to categorically strip people of their right to use a gun for self defense. Most people just want fewer classrooms full of dead 9yr olds and question why an 18yr old needs, without question, 60 magazines and over 1500 rounds of ammo. That's some self defense.

[Brett Bellmore]

Oh, come off it. Authoritarian police states would be nonexistent if nobody wanted them, and plenty of people, even in politics, have openly admitted to wanting to categorically strip people of their right to use a gun for self defense, because they've openly admitted to wanting to strip people of their right to own guns, period. And how can you use a gun for self defense that you can't own?

Obama, for instance, is on record saying that he wants ALL guns banned. He was on the board of the Joyce foundation, which funds most of the gun control organizations in the country. Does he not count as a real politician, or was the office he was in too minor to count?

[Michael Ejercito]

It is none if your business if an 18 year old has 60 magazines and over 1500 rounds of ammo.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's unclear to me why anybody would care if somebody had 60 magazines. Loaded, it's dubious they could even carry that many, why does the number past what you could plausibly carry matter?

And 1500 round of ammo is a perfectly ordinary amount to have on hand. You can easily burn through that much in a weekend of target shooting.

[not guilty]

A "Stop the Steal" group has been ordered to pay monetary sanctions of $9,588.80, and its attorney has been ordered to pay $18,795.90 by the Supreme Court of Washington for filing an unsupported petition with the state Supreme Court that alleged Governor Jay Inslee and other officials sought to actively register non-citizens to vote. https://agportal-s3bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/uploadedfiles/Another/News/Press_Releases/029_Order_DeputyClerkRulingSetAttrnyFees.pdf

[not guilty]

The House of Representatives is likely to vote next week on a bill sponsored by Rep. Lucy McBath (D-Ga) that would authorize federal district courts to issue extreme risk protection orders regarding firearms on application of a law enforcement officer or family or household member of a respondent. https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/2377/text

The bill appears to provide a number of appropriate procedural safeguards. I hope it passes.

[David Nieporent]

I think that such laws may be appropriate at the state level, but are not appropriate at the federal level.

I think that such laws should not include risk of self-harm, but only harm to others, as a consideration.

And I think that the law should expressly provide that if the ex parte temporary order is not converted into a long term order after the hearing, that the ex parte order be expunged from the target's records and not be admissible in any future proceeding of any sort.

With those provisos, I could support such laws.

[Commenter_XY]

There is a lot for this layman to 'unpack' in your comment. I learn a lot.

[Brett Bellmore]

I think I might demand some provision for sanctioning fraudulent referrals, too. You're talking about temporarily depriving somebody of an enumerated civil liberty, and possibly involving them in some risk, too. Doing so frivolously or for harassment purposes should be costly.

Some mechanism for compensating the subject of such an ex parte order that isn't confirmed after adversarial process would be in order, too. The person has been temporarily deprived of a civil liberty, and put through a regulatory wringer, they need to be made whole.

[David Nieporent]

I think I might demand some provision for sanctioning fraudulent referrals, too.

So you think you might demand some provision that's already in the bill?

"(i) Penalty For False Reporting Or Frivolous Petitions.—An individual who knowingly submits materially false information to the court in a petition for an extreme risk protection order under this section, or who knowingly files such a petition that is frivolous, unreasonable, or without foundation, shall be fined not less than $1,000, in addition to any other penalty authorized by law, as the court deems necessary to deter such abuse of process."

Some mechanism for compensating the subject of such an ex parte order that isn't confirmed after adversarial process would be in order, too. The person has been temporarily deprived of a civil liberty, and put through a regulatory wringer, they need to be made whole.

I'm not sure why they deserve compensation any more than any other individual who the government goes after, but I don't have any objection in principle to that.

[Brett Bellmore]

I generally think that EVERYBODY the government puts through the wringer without ending in a conviction should be made whole.

The costs of the justice system are incurred for the general welfare, the general public should pay for them, not designated fall guys. The only exception I'd make are for the convicted.

[Brett Bellmore]

The problem with that provision is that it's at the discretion of the court. It should not be discretionary.

[letters2mary]

Next Monday, June 6, is the only day that the Supreme Court has calendared as an "opinion issuance day." The Court has a good bit of work left to do this term. Is this one day limit on opinion issuance strict or can the Court be flexible in what it chooses to release and when? Seems like a bit much to just roll out all the "big" cases on one day.

[wreckinball]

So the bomb will drop Monday?

[Brett Bellmore]

If the cases are already decided, I don't see any arbitrary limit to how many they could actually release in a given day.

[apedad]

And if the cases are already decided, why wait?

Press the "Send" button!

[Brett Bellmore]

So they can make their escape plans?

[wreckinball]

Not sure if this thing is going to keep going but watched some Disney Plus at the grandkids last night.

Cartoons are not as I remember that is funny shows. They are politicized propaganda. Oh this is some humor in there but they sneak in all kinds of propaganda and sexual/racial identity crap.

Its not subtle.

[apedad]

Ah yes...the ol' 'back in my day, things were much better' chestnut.

[Randal]

Ya, back when Disney's not-so-thinly-veiled messages were white supremacy and antisemitism. Now that was some quality children's programming!

[M L]

I canceled Disney Plus and Netflix. It's 99% garbage.

[Shamie Ervin iv]

Queen Amalthea, I'm leaning in your direction on this question. Attorney Richard Marks testifying for Johnny Depp suggested that the Brits have never forgiven us for 1776. Depp was handicapped by a hostile forum. Marks also pointed out that in his opinion THE SUN was a rag and the Brit judges love to open their rags and see naked breasts on the 3rd page. Depp should have had a UK jury.

I got a kick out of Marks's testimony. He is a fascinating character.

Practicing law beginning in 1973, I learned after a gutting by letting the judge find the facts not to never never ever let a judge find the facts in one of my cases, ever again. (double negs for emph)

They still did it, however, with post-trial orders setting aside verdicts after the jury had rendered a favorable verdict.

BTW, I admire Judge Penney Azcarate. She is a class act -- calm, courteous, knowledgeable, and a model of decorum. The parties couldn't have had a better judge. Now judge, leave that jury award alone.

[Frank Drackman]

Pretty much, as JB's been "replaced" largely by Moe-hammad Khomeni-Osama Bull. They don't like cartoons (or any Images) of the Prophet (Peace be upon Him) either.

[John F. Carr]

Court decision here: https://www.courts.michigan.gov/49b899/siteassets/case-documents/uploads/opinions/final/coa/20220601_c361564_32_361564.opn.pdf

"The Board deadlocked along partisan lines" when deciding what to do about the thousands of fraudulent signatures. Fortunately the legislature had anticipated this situation and allowed mass disqualification of signatures without checking each one. The law also allows a candidate to be disqualified if the candidate personally submitted fraudulent signatures.

[Brett Bellmore]

Fraud committed by the paid petition circulators. The real question was whether it was economically motivated fraud, or political sabotage.

Since the circulators are easily identified, it will be interesting to see if they benefit from prosecutor discretion. If so, political sabotage becomes the more likely explanation.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, I'm a bit of a math nerd, and an engineer, but I'd tend to agree that the great majority of students will probably never use algebra. It's mostly taught to identify those students who are good at it, so they can be tracked into STEM majors, which given the importance of STEM to the economy probably makes it economically rational.

But if there were a better way to identify students who were good at math without having to teach it to everyone, yeah, you could stop after you'd taught the big four, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, for most students.

[John F. Carr]

I went back to check and I misattributed the quotation. From local reporting:

[Winner] implied that the goals of AIDE are not well served by having children grouped by ability. “It really pains me when I hear a very young child say ‘I’m not good at math’,” she said. The schools need to “move away from content and more toward adaptability and teamwork skills… thinking on our feet.”

[Loser] echoed [Winner's] sentiment "What students specifically learn today will be irrelevant as a flip phone 20 years from now."

[apedad]

Isn't that too narrow thinking?

I had calculus in HS and sure have never needed trig, algebra, calc, irrational numbers, factorials, etc., in later life but at the same time, students are learning critical thinking skills and facing/beating mental challenges, and that has to count for something good in life.

[bernard11]

IMO the more advanced math that is most useful is probability and statistics. I think an educated person should have a decent grasp of basic concepts there, and I don't think you can acquire that without some algebra.

I'm something of a curmudgeon on knowing math. I think we are way too quick to let students get away with, "I'm just not good at math," as if it were just an irremediable failing. It's not.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Algebra is not taught for the purposes of tracking students into STEM majors, you dolt.

Did you skip all of your critical thinking courses in school?

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Algebra is not taught for the purposes of tracking students into STEM majors, you dolt.

Did you skip all of your critical thinking courses in school?

[Brett Bellmore]

Muslims have disproportionate influence over society on account of their disproportionate tendency to commit acts of terror if you upset them. Nobody wants to be the next Charlie Hedbo.

At 5% you really have to start being careful.

[Brett Bellmore]

I agree that teaching critical thinking would be a good idea, and if the mathematics that were never going to be used could be replaced with a course in practical logic, that would be great. I'm not suggesting that the time saved be spent with coloring books.

I should say that, in my engineering career I have never used about 80% of the mathematics I was taught in college, (Except to tutor my brother's kids when THEY went to college!) though it was occasionally handy to understand what somebody else who WAS using it meant. Algebra and trig seem to be about the limit of what I needed.

But I have noticed that you never seem to have a good grasp of one level of math until you've learned the next; I think it forces you to internalize the rules so that you can apply them automatically as part of the next level.

[Bob from Ohio]

"critical thinking skills and facing/beating mental challenges,"

You can get this from playing chess.

Unless you are going to be an engineer or certain kinds of science and similar areas, any math after primary school is a waste.

[David Bremer]

And there were plenty more, from his calling the one critic a pedophile, to his continuous fighting with the SEC, to his trying to have an attorney fired because he worked for the SEC. If you want to find stories critical of Musk, there are plenty before the whole Twitter fiasco.

[Hank Ferrous]

Business Insider is every bit a left-wing rag, assert what you will.

[Brett Bellmore]

And that's why I think Trump should not be the nominee in 2024.

In Biden's case you have somebody with a history of brain bleeds and surgery for the same. Dementia is certainly a plausible explanation for a lot of his odd behavior of late.

[Kazinski]

Which is one reason I won't be supporting Trump in the primaries.

But you do have to look at age on a case by case basis, my mother turns 94 in a few weeks, she has her credit card memorized because she doesn't trust her browser with it when she's making online purchases, still does all her own cooking, doesn't own a walker, although she has two canes. But almost all the females on her side of the family live that long, her youngest aunt died just last year, and two of her sisters lived into their early nineties.

[bernard11]

It's all a conspiracy.

[Moderation4ever]

Why would candidates use paid petition circulators? If you are doing this, you are taking big chances and you better have checks in place. Better to have people you trust for a task as important as signature collection. I have little sympathy for a person foolish enough to put their trust in people paid by the signature. I question why I would want a fool like this for an office holder.

[Gandydancer]

footnote 4: "Based on the record before this Court, it does not appear that any specific candidates or campaigns
were aware of the activities of the individuals that were determined to have provided fraudulent
signatures in connection with multiple nominating petition. Nor does it appear that any civil
actions or criminal charges have been brought against those individuals."

[Brett Bellmore]

As I've remarked before, once an area is about 90-95% of one party, as you find in DC and the nearby areas, taking it to 100% by judicious preemptory challenges isn't difficult.

[Mr. Bumble]

Biden is/was a congenital liar for his whole public life. Dementia only amplifies it.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's as stupid to pretend that conspiracies never happen, as to pretend that everything is a conspiracy. And in politics? Conspiracy is practically the fundamental particle of politics.

This is a crime, it had huge public consequences, the crime and the criminals are easily proven. Why would there NOT be a prosecution, if not because the prosecutor approves of the consequences of the crime?

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, like men, but not so pronounced.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, but before he moved to buy Twitter, you had to work to find them. Now they're thrown in your face.

And, "fiasco"? Isn't that a bit premature? Sure, the SEC has been sicced on him to try to stop it, but it's by no means certain they'll find a usable pretext.

[Sarcastr0]

You think maybe he's the one that got more public by doing very public things, not some left-wing conspiracy?

the SEC has been sicced on him to try to stop it
Jesus Christ, Brett, it's not a conspiracy, it's due diligence. He's bridling at some pretty normal asks.

[bernard11]

the SEC has been sicced on him

All a conspiracy.

[Sarcastr0]

Conspiracies are rare. You see a liberal conspiracy behind everything untoward that a conservative does.

[wreckinball]

The effort and desire/motive to form a conspiracy increases with the benefit of the conspiracy. Stealing elections is pretty beneficial especially these days when government has reached into every facet of life.

[Brett Bellmore]

Large, secret conspiracies are rare. Small conspiracies and open conspiracies are extremely common, and nowhere more than in politics.

[David Welker]

A conspiracy consists of two people agreeing to work together to commit an illegal act. Or, informally, an improper act.

Why would you think that is rare???

[Moderation4ever]

I like to see someone total the cost to taxpayers to smooth the ego of the former President.

[Gandydancer]

Trump, and the country, WAS the Russia hoax's victim.

The WaPoo also has a paywall, I believe. Not going there,

[Brett Bellmore]

Nah, I follow gerontology.

You can divide the population into three groups, roughly.

Group 1 lost the genetic lottery, they're screwed. They'll die early deaths, and healthy living won't much change that.

Group 2 got an average draw, they need to live a healthy life to make it to their 80's, and will still have problems at that age.

Group 3 won the genetic lottery, tend to live long lives without much problem, often in spite of bad lifestyles.

Biden is currently nearing the upper end of life expectancy for group 2, and looks to be midway between group 2 and 3; He's still walking at 79, that's good, but he's clearly losing coordination and starting to act weird. I doubt anybody will still think him healthy enough to run for a second term by 2024.

[Life of Brian]

pretty normal asks

People who don't need weasel words, don't use weasel words.

What about them are you conceding is not normal?

[Brett Bellmore]

Trump and Biden are both liars.

Trump is mostly given to braggadocio, but is fairly reliable on substance.

Biden is the common sort of political liar, coupled with a tendency to falsify his personal history. Though at this point I'm not sure he knows he's falsifying it.

[bernard11]

Gee.

You'd think that the candidates and their staffs had no obligation whatsoever to make sure they got honest signatures.

I guess they were in on it too.

[bernard11]

Apparently, there were 36 signature gatherers involved.

It is beyond belief that that many people could have been involved in the kind of conspiracy you and Brett are positing, and kept it quiet.

[bernard11]

To you, Brett, they are universal.

Let a conservative do something wrong, and it's immediately a "false flag," which is pretty much your claim here.

I mean, what is more likely - that the signature gatherers were part of some plot to keep some GOP candidates out of the race, or that they were lazy and dishonest and thought no one would really check the phony signatures?

My money is on "lazy and dishonest."

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Bigoted, antisocial clingers like Life of Brian seem to adore Elon Musk, bristling at standard regulatory enforcement precipitated by Musk's misconduct and downplaying Musk's ugly, immature actions (using juvenile names against a guy who actually was helping rescue some children while Musk was role-playing).

Why do on-the-spectrum, disaffected culture war losers identify so closely with Elon Musk?

[Brett Bellmore]

Michigan can require a LOT of signatures, with at least 100 from each of half the districts in the state, collected in a limited period of time. Not every candidate has a pool of enthusiastic campaign workers eager to wear their shoes out collecting signatures for you.

I agree that it's a serious risk, and you're better off having people you trust doing it, and always need to collect a large excess of signatures to account for disqualified ones. Use of paid gatherers is typical of a candidate with more money than support, and Johnson apparently didn't have enough of either, because he didn't go for the statutory maximum number of submitted signatures.

[Gandydancer]

You probably do.

Paid gathers is how it's normally done. And... what was the ideological appeal of this guy? He was apparently running as "bring business efficiency to politics" candidate. Was the (R) incumbent in dutch with someone? More probably it was a vanity run.

[David Nieporent]

Why would candidates use paid petition circulators?

Because it takes a lot of time and effort to gather the necessary signatures. Everyone uses paid people. Ballot initiatives, candidates, everyone.

[Brett Bellmore]

If the appropriate law/constitutional amendment were enacted, they could still be fired for cause.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's a policy I advocate, I'm well aware that it would take legal changes, possibly constitutional amendments, to put in place.

I think our legal system is far from ideal, and a LOT of the reforms needed would require changes to laws or constitutional amendments.

[wreckinball]

The teachers union puts up a slate of candidates. Since board elections are in off years the union gets enough supporters to win mainly because of general disinterest.

The two walk as one, You have no idea about just about anything

[wreckinball]

You’re dumb. Make a substantive comment

[wreckinball]

You’re dumb make a substantive comment

[bernard11]

But I have noticed that you never seem to have a good grasp of one level of math until you've learned the next; I think it forces you to internalize the rules so that you can apply them automatically as part of the next level.

I agree, but this refutes your previous comment about only needing to learn arithmetic, which I also strongly disagree with.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Right, one was Sussman deliberately lying to the FBI to trigger a fraudulent investigation and the other was a trivial process crime during an interview specifically designed to entrap by seditious Democrat FBI agents.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

If they invaded Washington DC I would cheer them on.

The Federal Class and its worshippers are the biggest threat to our freedom, liberty and society this country has ever faced.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

lol you still believe Russian collusion? lol wtf

[apedad]

Can you explain with supporting arguments why the Federal Class is the biggest threat to our country - especially since we're the richest, strongest, and stablest country among all nations and have been for close to a century?

[Brett Bellmore]

The court referenced above found coordinated action among the petition circulators who defrauded him; They'd gotten together to sign each others' petitions so all the signatures on a given petition would look different from each other. That IS "conspiracy", straight up.

The question is whether it was a conspiracy for financial gain, or a conspiracy for political gain. That it was "conspiracy" is already established.

[Moderation4ever]

I really wish people would be more open to using electronic signatures. I think they could be checked quicker and better than physical signatures. There would need to be safeguards but I think it could be a far better system.

[Brett Bellmore]

We're blue skying here, aren't we? It's not like I've put work into a "stop teaching algebra in HS!" manifesto. In fact, I've said that teaching it in HS is our current way of identifying students who are good enough at math to go into a STEM track, and we could only discontinue it for other students IF we found some alternate approach to identifying them.

[Brett Bellmore]

I think we're in agreement there, statistics should be taught in HS, and you can't learn even cook book statistics without algebra.

I'd also like to see some teaching of practical logic and identifying fallacies, and distinguishing between fallacies and heuristics.

I went through K-12 while the education system was still at Defcon 1 over Sputnik, and I'm horrified at how relaxed about teaching math my son's charter school is.

[Moderation4ever]

Yes, because all we have to go on is the report of the Special Prosecutor and a report by the Republican lead Senate. That in addition to many private reports.

[Sarcastr0]

Yes, Brett, it's the 'liberals are weaving a complex web - this isn't what it looks like!' that is the part where people think you're nuts.

In reality, things are generally what they look like. Conspiracy theory is the shorthand, and it's about a lot more than 'illegal coordination is a thing.'

You think that people in business, schools, the media, the Democratic Party, the Republican Party, the judiciary, every administrative agency, are all quite happy to risk their jobs to help Dems get over.

That's not how humans in real life work. It makes me worry about how you work, though. And what compromises you would make to get your side over.

[Brett Bellmore]

Literally, the court concluded that at least some of them had gotten together to commit the crime. What do you think conspiracy IS, if not that?

"These petition sheets tended to display at least one of the following patterns:
...
"Sheets that appeared to be “round-tabled” a practice in which a group of individuals passes around sheets with each individual signing one line on each sheet with handwriting different from the circulator’s handwriting, in an attempt to make handwriting and signatures appear authentic and received from actual voters."

Literally, you're disputing the court's characterization of what actually happened, on the basis of your conviction that people never get together to cooperate in breaking the law.

Further,

"The point of contention in this matter is the 6,983 signatures that were invalidated because they were on sheets submitted by individuals that the Board determined to be fraudulent-petition circulators.4 "

(4) ... Nor does it appear that any civil actions or criminal charges have been brought against those individuals"

The campaign has been majorly altered by criminal action, and nobody seems to be prosecuting the criminals, even though their identities are known. Got any good reason for that?

[Sarcastr0]

I'm making a distinction between your semantic 'technically it's a conspiracy' and the broad, 'based on patterns and experience' liberal schemes that creep into every defense of a conservative you offer.

[bernard11]

You're crawfishing, Brett, as usual, backing away from your own claims with BS.

You've clearly been pushing the idea that this is a political conspiracy aimed at keeping the candidates off the ballot, rather than just a way to get paid for not doing much.

[Gandydancer]

What Brett actually said was "Since the circulators are easily identified, it will be interesting to see if they benefit from prosecutor discretion. If so, political sabotage becomes the more likely explanation."

And it turns out that the canvassers are not being prosecuted. Which indeed makes a political conspiracy more likely. Not very likely, I think, but THAT and not your straw man, is what Brett actually said.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

So you believe the Special Prosecutor discovered actual, verifiable, meaningful Trump Russia collusion while somehow not finding Sussman's fraudulent origins to Alpha Bank, the completely debunked sources to the Steele Dossier, the special FBI workspace in Sussman's office, and completely missed the meta data spying on Presidential network traffic?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Flynn lied about being a foreign agent? FARA violations are what you think the Flynn case is about?

Have you noticed how FARA is no longer a huge deal given Hunter's clear violations?

[bernard11]

fairly reliable on substance.

Laughable.

Magic marker, anyone?

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Speaking about dementia...have you been screened lately?

[Gandydancer]

Brett is exactly right.

[AJ_Liberty]

Teenagers may not have a good grasp of what career to pursue, so schools shouldn't innecessarily close any doors. Sure math aptitude is a thing, but let's not exaggerate it. Like anything, you have to focus and practice.

[Moderation4ever]

I believe reports clearly written that detail facts and support those facts with evidence. Those alleging a Russian Hoax have yet to provide evidence. They merely suggest conspiracy as you have in that rambling comment.

Why not address the origin of the Russia probe, a drunken Trump staffer bragging to a member of a foreign embassy in a bar.

[Sarcastr0]

A conspiracy theory is about more than just conspiracies exist.

Also, consider Brett's 'sabotage' supposition. That is unsupported nonsense.

[StellaLink_the dog]

Criminal conspiracies might not be rare, but look at what our Resident Stable Genius is alleging:

Paid signature gatherers got together and conspired to forge a bunch of signatures for the purpose of getting caught (!) and thereby disqualifying one or more candidates. Pottery wise, that is crack.

Stable Genius indeed. To the extent that a stable is where you will likely find a horse's ass.

[Randal]

Please try to understand the difference between a "criminal conspiracy" and a "conspiracy theory" in the future.

[Brett Bellmore]

The only use teaching algebra to the average K-12 student has IS tracking students into STEM majors. Nobody but a STEM major ever uses it after leaving HS.

[Brett Bellmore]

You're maybe unfamiliar with Republicans pushing to create excess black majority districts, under the pretext of the Voting Rights Act, because it effectively packs excess Democrats, so that Democratic votes get wasted electing somebody by 95%?

And then they laugh because the Democrats don't dare try to disassemble those districts, they'd piss off the black caucus.

[Krayt]

I keep waiting for Trump to produce evidence of fraud under oath. Nothing.

I keep waiting for Russian collusion charges. Nothing.

Keep beating your respecrive drums of glorious damage to your enemies.

Another 2000 or so years, and you'll catch up to promises of Jesus coming back. That's the goal for stringing rubes along supporting you in wealth.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

You mean that honeypot setup by the CIA and UK intelligence agents?

lol come on dude

[Brett Bellmore]

I think you'd have to have massive safeguards, in as much as the purpose would relate to selecting the people who ran the government, and the government would likely be in charge of the system.

One thing you can say for hand written signatures, at least, is that forging them can't be automated, it doesn't scale. Get access to the database for a digital signature system, OTOH, and you could automate mass forgery.

I think that technical issue could be overcome, but would enough people understand the way it had been overcome to rationally trust it, and know for sure they weren't being lied to about it being secure?

[bernard11]

How would you do that, M4e?

Have people sign some sort of electronic thing, like when you sign for a UPS package, or a credit card charge? My signature there is a random scrawl that is very different each time.

I don't see how you would check it if that's the idea.

[bernard11]

Couldn't possibly be a legitimate verdict?

When is Mark Meadows going to trial for his more numerous falsehoods?

[Gandydancer]

You do?

[Jason Cavanaugh]

That's your assertion, yes. It is not correct. Repeating yourself does not make it any closer to being correct.

Since you've also decided to support your nonsense with absolute statements, I can prove you wrong myself: I've used algebra since leaving HS, and I do not have a STEM degree. I've also used trigonometry, though I do not believe I've needed calculus.

[Gandydancer]

That sentence is not only illiterate, it has no discernable meaning.

[Gandydancer]

No, it couldn't possibly be a legitimate verdict.

George Papadopoulos did prison time, why?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Cavanaugh — I studied mainly history, never worked in a STEM field, and have needed professionally algebra, trigonometry, geometry, statistics, and calculus. The latter is the only one I never used, because I do not know calculus. I had to invent workarounds on problems (involving typography!) where I suppose calculus would have delivered solutions quicker and better.

Also a note on behalf of statistics and critical thinking. Some of the best practical training I got on combining them I got at the poker table. I question Bellmore's insight into critical thinking, but do suppose he might be a fun poker companion.

[Gandydancer]

It is only necessary that one of 12 be a swamp creature to prevent conviction.

In DC it is most unlikely to get a jury that is free of swamp creature infestation.

[Gandydancer]

You've already been told. Swamp creature thinking plus go-along herd mentality and tribalism.

[David Nieporent]

Apparently you don't know the difference between a hung jury (which only requires one of 12) and an acquittal (which takes all 12). Or, more likely, you do know but are trying to mislead.

[Gandydancer]

That is not what Kazinski said. And he is wrong. Creating as many Hispanic majority districts as possible is not in fact the preferred technique to minimize the number of Democrats elected. Making a Hispanic Democrat majority as dominant as possible in as few Hispanic Democrat majority districts as can't be avoided is such a technique.

[David Nieporent]

Sussmann did not lie to the FBI, the investigation was not "fraudulent," and whether he was acting as an agent of the campaign or not was irrelevant to whether the FBI had to investigate.

[David Nieporent]

Have you noticed how you say the stupidest MAGA shit without the slightest evidence behind it?

[Moderation4ever]

People do many things electronically. We don't understand all the security measures use but we still use are phone to make purchases and bank electronically. What is important is that mechanism used is transparent so those with questions can get answers. Getting answers may take work but if you want answers, you must be willing to work for those answers.

[Gandydancer]

That explains their increased failure not at all.

[Gandydancer]

Self-discrediting non-response, Queenie. Squared.

[Armchair Lawyer]

A hung jury would prevent conviction.

[Gandydancer]

"[Winner] implied that the goals of AIDE are not well served by having children grouped by ability. “

The goals of the more able chidren will of course be served that way, however. Keep this Winner person away from any input into policy.

[David Nieporent]

A hung jury would allow retrial, and thus not "prevent" conviction. Only an acquittal prevents it.

[Gandydancer]

That Biden has always lied about his biography is a fact, not an accusation. Even Wikipedia probably covers this.

And the brain rot is obvious to everyone except those in determined denial.

Probably even you, though. You're probably just lying rather than delusional in this case.

[Armchair Lawyer]

A hung trial would prevent conviction in that trial, and would require a retrial. Assuming the prosecutor would do a new trial. Trials after a hung jury have a quite low conviction rate (<30%)....

[Longtobefree]

Well, I am sure it was not WIDESPREAD fraud. Just enough to get the win.
Sort of historical, as well. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you that great democrat, LBJ!
The runoff vote count, handled by the Democratic State Central Committee, took a week. Johnson was announced the winner by 87 votes out of 988,295, an extremely narrow margin of victory. However, Johnson's victory was based on 200 "patently fraudulent"  ballots reported six days after the election from Box 13 in Jim Wells County, in an area dominated by political boss George Parr. The added names were in alphabetical order and written with the same pen and handwriting, following at the end of the list of voters.

Today, people use computers.

[Gandydancer]

The one has nothing to do with the other.

[Gandydancer]

No, I notice you doing that.

[Gandydancer]

Sussmann Truth: "I'm not working for Hillary, just billing her for this time I'm spending with you."

[Sarcastr0]

You eat pieces of shit for breakfast?

[Moderation4ever]

When you sign nominating petitions you are typically asked for a signature, a printed name, and address. You could ask for people to do the same thing on-line. Like many systems today when you sign the petition you are sent a verification code that you must enter to confirm your identity. A person could enter multiple names but the data could be scanned to see if verification codes were sent to the same phone or the same e-mail. In doing so it would catch duplicate entries made by mistake or by fraud.

[Brett Bellmore]

I've occasionally thought we might adopt some sort of digital hanko system, a reasonably standardized device that used biometrics to confirm that the person using it was the owner, and would function as a password vault and one time pad for really secure transactions.

It would be technically possible to make secure, but proving to people who weren't computer science professionals specializing in encryption that it was secure would be kind of hard, and if it had political uses some of the players would have motives to compromise that security. (It's not for nothing we've got electronic voting machines all over the place despite their giving IT AND election security people the fantods. )

[not guilty]

Uh, because he pled guilty to a felony false statement charge?

He served a total of twelve days. Not an onerous sentence.

[Gandydancer]

You mean like the conspiracy theory that Trump conspired with Putin to win the 2016 election.

I see that quite a lot on these pages, and none of you "anti-conspiracy" types say boo.

[Gandydancer]

Your complaint would be stronger if you could quote him actually putting it that way.

Or if you could come up with an explanation of your own for why the canvassers who provided fake sigs haven't been prosecuted or interrogated about how their conspiracy came into existence. I greatly doubt if it went up to the DNC, b ut it could easily be a dirty trick, Maybe by the incumbent (R) if this guy was really a threat. Or by someone on his staff just for the hell of it.

[Gandydancer]

The (rich) candidate hires a consultant who hires people who offer to gather sigs. Yeah, if the consultant were competent he would look as closely at the sigs as the election commission will. But grifter campaign consultants are common as dirt, and all this candidate brought to the run was money. He didn't want to have bought fake sigs and he could afford real ones. So, he got jobbed.

[Gandydancer]

The interesting question, again, is why no prosecutions (and no crim investigation?). It's actually the incumbent (R) who is probably the best answer to "qui bono?", though he was probably a lock. But who knows what he has on his staff?

[Gandydancer]

It doesn't have to be quiet to get ignored. If you refuse to look you won't find anything even if they're blabbing all over town. If the blabbing nonetheless comes to your attention you can always ignore it if motivated to do so.

Corrupt politics is real. And has been for hundreds of years. Are you in denial about this?

[Gandydancer]

You mean that unlike Sussmann he didn't have the money to brazen it out, nor was he as confident (rightly) of a friendly jury from a friendly pool of jurors.

I'll repeat my question: What WAS that "felony false statement"? Do you know?

[Gandydancer]

...and there is accordingly a quite low retrial rate.

I stand by my implicit observation that a hung jury prevents conviction. That a future trial might have a different result carries quibbling to a ridiculous level.

Nut Nieporent is routinely ridiculous, so no surprise there.

[Brett Bellmore]

I think it actually IS more likely the Republican incumbent, or the party establishment defending him. This would explain the lack of official GOP outrage.

[David Nieporent]

Note how the Gandydancer/MAGA propaganda machine works. We went from Brett's "it will be interesting to see if they benefit from prosecutor discretion," which is just paranoid delusion, to Gandydancer's "it turns out that they are not being prosecuted," which is the dishonesty we've come to know and love from him.

Of course, it does not "turn out" any such thing.

Or if you could come up with an explanation of your own for why the canvassers who provided fake sigs haven't been prosecuted

Because it's only been a week since the board ruled that the signatures were fraudulent, you ridiculous hack. Why the %^*&#$ would you think that law enforcement would rush to prosecute a non-violent crime in a week's time?

Particularly because while the consequences of their actions may be politically significant, as a matter of law this is probably a low-level misdemeanor. Unless there's a specific state statute (I have no idea) making this a felony, the only crime these people committed is likely defrauding the campaigns that hired them. And what was their gain from this fraud? However much they were paid. Signature gathering is not — to say the least — a high paying profession.

Moreover, the rank dishonesty by Gandydancer is even higher, because if this really were a political conspiracy as he and Brett think, then we would expect a deep investigation that would take an even more extended period of time. A grand jury would be empaneled to investigate who was involved; they wouldn't rush to prosecute the low level mooks at the bottom of the conspiracy.

[Brett Bellmore]

Sure, we bank electronically, and the banks treat a background level of fraud as a cost of doing business. And, why not? It's not like it matters to the bank if Bob's account is slightly higher than John's, or visa versa. And there's no such thing as the secret bank balance, so on discovering fraud, the banks can put things back the way they're supposed to be.

Relative position matters incredibly in elections. And ballot secrecy and deadlines mean that fraud, even if detected, often can't be undone.

So the background level of fraud needs to be really low. REALLY low.

[Michael P]

Yes, siccing the SEC on somebody usually involves a conspiracy that includes government employees.

[Commenter_XY]

Bridge is a better 'window' into how a person thinks, IMO.

[David Nieporent]

That's because you're certifiably insane. There is precisely 0.00000000001% chance that this was a political conspiracy.

[David Nieporent]

It has a discernible (if you're going to mock someone's typo, you probably shouldn't post misspelled words) meaning to anyone who isn't trying to be an ass.

He would [see, he left out that word, but it's quite obvious that it was intended to be there] like to see someone total [i.e., add up] the cost to taxpayers of these efforts to smooth Trump's ego [i.e., these absurd investigations of the investigations, which have no legitimate purpose and exist only because Trump ranted and raved about the unfairness of him being held accountable for once in his life].

[David Nieporent]

There was no "Russia hoax."

[Sarcastr0]

Got any proof of your allegation?

[David Nieporent]

Yes. There were multiple false statements to the FBI.

First, he changed the timeline of his interactions with one Russian assert, falsely claiming that they took place before he joined the Trump campaign, thus making it look like they were unrelated. This wasn't an inadvertent misstatement, as if he said it took place on March 12, but it turned out to be on March 22; he expressly and falsely told the FBI that the communication happened before he joined the Trump campaign.

Second, he claimed that this asset was a nobody (and thus that the interactions were meaningless), even though he himself believed that this guy had Kremlin connections.

Third, he did those same two things with respect to another Russian asset he interacted with.

Fourth, he claimed he wasn't talking to any Russians during the campaign, when in fact the first asset had introduced him to a Russian government official and he undertook extensive efforts to try to arrange a meeting between that official and Trump.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Commenter_XY — Bridge is a very good game. I had a college roommate who excelled at memory and systematic thinking, and who was a master-class bridge player of some sort. He could literally tell you years later where every card in the deck was held in some of his more-interesting bridge hands. As he said, he had a steel trap memory. I found myself unable to partner with him without frustrating him beyond endurance. He found my bidding okay, but too often I blundered the play. Probably, my cognition would have been grist for your bridge-diagnosis mill. But maybe not his.

He also got to the final table one year at the World Series of Poker. I guarantee you that you would not have found his bridge play a better window into his thought than his poker play. But that was paradoxically because he could do things at the poker table which were almost impossible to comprehend. His poker opponents found themselves practicing betting patterns unfamiliar to them, because he intended it. Turns out, the very best way to know whether your opponent is bluffing is to make them bluff when you want them to. If there is a bridge counterpart for that kind of skill, I am unaware of it. Does bridge offer enough freedom to even try something like that?

[Randal]

As David said, the answer for why no prosecutions is that you're retarded. But I'm happy for you to be slinging your conspiracy web within the GOP. It was only a matter of time before the real patriots figured out that both parties are in on the deep state child prostitution and baby eating cabal. Why else do you think Trump's so fat?

[Randal]

Who is the "you" in this comment?

Get a clue. Here's one: if your theory of events involves an ambiguous "you" with an unmotivated desire to suppress information, and which upon examination includes just about everyone except for the true believers -- law enforcement, media, bureaucrats, political opponents, staff, bystanders, internet commenters -- then it may be a conspiracy theory.