Thursday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[Noscitur a sociis]

In one of these threads a few weeks back, I suggested that Aileen Cannon might be a good judge.

Sorry.

[nekit2010g]

If the left's judges employ a "by whatever means necessary," why shouldn't the right's?

[shawn_dude]

"The left's judges" and "the right's judges" are both strawmen. There are simply individual judges, most of whom do their jobs ethically. Aileen Cannon is not one of those.

[not guilty]

Judge Loose Cannon has gone beyond the pale. Her requiring evidence from the government while excusing the lack of evidence from Trump, in context of her declaration of a preliminary intent to grant relief to Trump in the absence of even a responsive pleading, is enough to warrant her recusal under 28 U.S.C. 455(a), in that any reasonable person would question her impartiality.

[Mr. Bumble]

So what's your take on PBJ after Tuesday's performance?

[Noscitur a sociis]

Who or what is PBJ?

[Mr. Bumble]

Surprised you can't figure it out given the context. Also a jab at acronyms in general being assigned to political figures.

[Paladin_44]

Mine (Skippy's) made an excellent sandwich with cherry preserves.

[Mr. Bumble]

Definitely Skippy even without the J.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

I like how she just dropped in anti-racist nonsense into our Founding Father's minds.

She's a danger and threat to our freedom and democracy.

[OtisAH]

The last founding father, James Madison, died in 1836. The 14th amendment was ratified in 1868. You complete and utter dipshit.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Tell that to that moron on the Supreme Court.

She said Founders.

[Sarcastr0]

When talking about the 14A she said framers:

“I don’t think we can assume that, just because race is taken into account, that that necessarily creates an equal protection problem.
Because I understood that we looked at the history and traditions of the Constitution and what the framers and founders thought about, and when I drilled down to that level of analysis, it became clear to me that the framers themselves adopted the equal protection clause, the 14th Amendment, the 15th Amendment in a race-conscious way.
I looked at the report that was submitted by the Joint Committee on Reconstruction which drafted the 14th Amendment, and that report says that the entire point of the amendment was to secure rights of the freed former slaves."

Try and look stuff up.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

“Because I understood that we looked at the history and traditions of the Constitution and what the framers and founders thought about, and when I drilled down to that level of analysis, it became clear to me that the framers themselves adopted the equal protection clause, the 14th Amendment, the 15th Amendment in a race-conscious way.”

You gaslighting liar. Furthermore:

https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/founding-fathers

Framers of the Constitution is a synonym for Founders.

[Sarcastr0]

The part where she says founders is not the part that's talking about the 14A, it is rather where she talks about the practice of Constitutional historical research generally.

I could go with your ipse dixit that Framers and Founders are the same, or I could go with her pretty clear switch from Framers and Founders to just Framers when talking about the 14A specifically.

Hmm....who should I trust on this one?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

The “framers themselves”, you think, was an awkward reference to the authors of the 14th and 15th amendments? Even though it’s in the same sentence where she has framers referring to the Founding Fathers?

Even though no one, and I mean that’s probably literally true, uses “framers” to describe anyone other than the framers of the Constitution and she’s using “framers” in the same sentence where used “framers” as a reference to the Founding Fathers?

But then again I gave you proof that “Framers” and “Founders” are used interchangeably, that’s what that link was. It was proof of my claim and you came right out and said it was an unsupported assertion of mine. There are countless references to framers as the Founding Fathers, in the limited amount of time I was willing to invest I couldn’t find a single use of “framers” to refer to the authors of a particular amendment. Can you?

lol man, dude you got some real problems. I mean, heart to heart, e-friend to e-friend, you have some real mental issues. It doesn’t seem physically possible for you to not bootlick your hierarchical higher-ups.

I mean look, she refers to the Equal Protection Clause and the 14th Amendment as if one wasn't a part of the other!

[Davedave]

So, what's the spread on when Trump will start inhabiting a cell? (As in, in custody and denied bail, or convicted and jailed.) Over/under on January, anyone?

[Kazinski]

January 2023 is the earliest time he could legally become President again.

[santamonica811]

Kaz,
Did you intend to respond to Dave? It seems like you are answering someone else's question, yes?

Dave,
I think the chances of Trump being even charged before the election is approaching zero percent. Let's say, 1 out of 150,000. And, given the normal delay in starting an actual trial after anyone is charged, the chances of him being charged AND tried/convicted by end of Jan 2023? About 1 out of 150 billion. (Given that Trump's likely charges will be for non-capital offenses--but not, ironically, not non-Capitol offenses...RIMSHOT!!!--there is essentially zero chance again that he'd be denied bail. Odd of this? About 1 out of 255 million.)

If he does wind up being charged, I expect that it would be some time in 2023. Well before the Rep nomination cycle is close to starting. My own question is: If Trump is charged mid-2023; would he want to do his usual delaying tactics? This would push his trial into the primary season. Not sure if he would get martyr brownie points from the dumber side of my Republican party primary voters? Or, would he want to actually move for a quicker trial, in order to get it over and done with before New Hampshire and Iowa (et al)?

[Davedave]

Criminals engaged in ongoing conspiracies don’t get bail. Criminals likely to continue to offend don’t get bail. Criminals considered a flight risk don’t get bail.

Trump won’t be bailed, any more than Epstein was.

When Trump is charged, he will obviously try to claim immunity, but once that’s rejected is there any chance he won’t try to cut a plea deal given the overwhelming evidence of guilt? He isn’t mad enough to go to jail for longer because he denied the obvious - that's for the kool aid drinkers, not the insurrectionist in chief.

[ThePublius]

"Criminals engaged in ongoing conspiracies don’t get bail. Criminals likely to continue to offend don’t get bail. Criminals considered a flight risk don’t get bail."

First of all, all of those statements above are false. Take the big liberal cities, for example, with their so-called bail reform.

But, for all this talk of convicting and jailing Trump - what's the charge? What's the crime you believe he has committed?

[Krychek_2]

Bail reform only applies to petty crimes.

[Brett Bellmore]

While resulting in serious crimes.

"Hernandez became a cause celebre for bail reform after spending a year behind bars because he couldn’t make bail on a 2015 shooting charge. Bail was initially set at $250,000 and was reduced to $100,000. He was freed when the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights charity paid his bond."

Shooting someone is a petty crime?

[Nige]

Charging people who *claim* they were protesting peacefully means the US is a police state, but keeping someone in prison for a year with no charge because they're poor doesn't?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Since when did you start caring about the J6 political prisoners?

[not guilty]

I'm missing something. Who is being kept in prison (jail?) for a year with no charge, whether they’re poor or not?

[Krychek_2]

Brett, years ago I represented someone who had killed someone during a robbery. In my opinion, you don't get much more dangerous to society than that. Nevertheless, he had the financial resources to make bail, so he remained free pending trial.

If someone is dangerous, they should be held regardless of financial ability. If someone is not dangerous, they should not be held regardless of financial ability. And that's the point of bail reform. If someone really isn't dangerous, they should not sit in jail because they can't make bail.

[Brett Bellmore]

But in the case I linked to, the bail reformers were specifically trying to get out on bail somebody who had shot somebody. (And who's now up on murder charges.) Hell, forget "trying", they succeeded.

So I think the evidence is that, no, "bail reform" isn't just about petty crimes, unless maybe you're "no true Scotsman"ing it.

[bernard11]

But in the case I linked to, the bail reformers were specifically trying to get out on bail somebody who had shot somebody.

Brett, you make no sense. You yourself tell us that bail was originally set at $250K. So if the guy could put that up he would have been out with no help from anyone. No bail reformers or anyone else.

This exactly illustrates the point made by Krychek - that whether he was out or not depended on how money he had, not whether he was a danger.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, bail was set at a quarter million. And the 'bail reformers' were COMPLAINING about that. They were using the case as an example of excessive bail.

I agree that abolishing monetary bail in favor of just holding people thought to be flight risks could be considered to be bail reform. In much the same way as instituting universal firearms training in high school could be considered "gun control".

But that's not what the 'bail reformers' in question wanted. They wanted the flight risks released without the bail, not bail replaced by holding cells.

[David Nieporent]

But in the case I linked to, the bail reformers were specifically trying to get out on bail somebody who had shot somebody.

There you go again. You mean someone accused of shooting somebody.

[Shamie Ervin iv]

He shot into a red Mercedes in a dispute. He got ripped off in a 3-card Monte scam.

[CFred]

NY & Illinois have entered the chat:

[PaoliBulldog]

Davedave,

"Criminals engaged in ongoing conspiracies don’t get bail. Criminals likely to continue to offend don’t get bail. Criminals considered a flight risk don’t get bail."

Citations, please.

[Krayt]

Kamala could resign, he is appointed vp, Biden resigns, presto. President tomorrow. Nay, this afternoon.

[Moderation4ever]

The man is 75 years old and any crime he will be charged with is nonviolent. He will never see a jail cell, even if convicted.

[MoreCurious]

Agreed, but for different reasons. Former presidents are entitled to Secret Service protection. To properly protect one who is sentenced jail, would it ever be safe to house him with the general population, or would he need to be placed in isolation? And where would the Secret Service agents be posted?

[shawn_dude]

Is secret service protection required or just a courtesy? And if he's in federal, white-collar prison, does he really need the secret service?

[Bob from Ohio]

18 U.S. Code § 3056 "authorizes" protection.

[Davedave]

Insurrection is nonviolent? OK. As for the rest of it, being old doesn't protect you from going to jail for serious crimes. He ain't getting house arrest for the stuff he's done since his attempted coup either.

[Moderation4ever]

I doubt he will be convicted of insurrection. Best bet is some white collar crime like election fraud or mishandling documents.

[John F. Carr]

Trump is not likely to be held without bail. On the federal side, I'm leaning towards no criminal charges at all based on the public evidence and my assessment of the political calculations in the Biden administration. I think an indictment could be had if Biden wanted one. In New York, it looks like prosecutors have decided against criminal charges.

Question for the federal criminal folks here: When would Trump be formally notified that he is the target of a grand jury investigation? I gather white collar criminals get advance notice and low class criminals do not, but it can't be that simple.

[Krayt]

As the goal is political, it all evaporates if he loses or doesn't run. They will backburner it, wait some time so as to not expose themselves as complete hacks, then announce no charges.

[bernard11]

Do you see any possibility that Trump has done something worth charging in this whole document business?

I understand that you don't think anything so far meets that standard. But what about something new?

Obstruction? What if it develops that he has still withheld documents?

What if he revealed the contents of classified documents, or used them for personal gain in some way?

[Michael P]

If Trump did anything that merits charges, almost every major politician in Washington should also be charged for some federal crime or another.

It is severely corrosive to the rule of law and to the political culture when rules are so unevenly enforced as they have been under the Biden administration.

[not guilty]

Is tu quoque all you've got?

[Michael P]

Is hypocrisy all you've got?

[not guilty]

I am a proudly partisan, Yellow Dog Democrat, but what facts underlie your accusation of hypocrisy? What suggests to you that I am insincere in my beliefs?

And thank you for confirming that tu quoque is indeed all you've got, save for the occasional ad hominem.

[Michael P]

You dismissed the idea of applying equal standards with a fallacious bullshit argument. You flaunted your hypocrisy.

[Sarcastr0]

He is saying Trump did stuff others did not. You just waive you hands and yell ‘but Dems!’

Do you think he’s the one coming off badly here?

[not guilty]

"You dismissed the idea of applying equal standards with a fallacious bullshit argument. You flaunted your hypocrisy."

I did nothing of the sort.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, that's basically my view. It's quite possible that Trump has done something that's technically illegal but that "no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case" for somebody not Trump or connected to him. Politicians, especially high level ones, routinely get away with conduct that would put ordinary people in prison. Even their crack head sons do. Trump is being stripped of that protection, for conduct he did while he would have reasonably thought he was still immune.

When Berra said that if you gave him the man, he'd give you the crime, it wasn't that he was promising to make up a fictional crime. It's that the law criminalized so many things that you could always find SOMETHING to prosecute somebody for, if you were determined to. That goes double when you've got laws that are routinely left unenforced against "important" people.

[Sarcastr0]

Brett finds yet another area of expertise; what the reasonable exercise of prosecutorial discretion looks like, based on facts he doesn't have!

[Don Nico]

Do you actually think that? or is it the usua contra Brett back and forth?

[Sarcastr0]

I think that I have neither the facts nor experience to render a judgement on what a reasonable prosecutor would do.

[bernard11]

You mean if he killed someone every other politician should be jailed?

[nekit2010g]

The DOJ knows that if they bring charges against him, they'll have a civil war on their hands. Whether or not you think such a move would be justified, there are enough people on his side, thinking he's being persecuted, who are angry and armed to the teeth.

[Nige]

Let justice be done though the MAGAs bawl.

[Davedave]

Good to see you agree he's guilty of treason. Death penalty it is.

[not guilty]

"The DOJ knows that if they bring charges against him, they’ll have a civil war on their hands. Whether or not you think such a move would be justified, there are enough people on his side, thinking he’s being persecuted, who are angry and armed to the teeth."

The actual Civil War achieved beneficial results -- the preservation of the union and the adoption of worthwhile constitutional amendments -- albeit at terrible cost. If Donald Trump's cult is fool enough to tangle with the United States armed forces, perhaps they deserve their predictable, mortal fate. American society would be better off without them.

[nekit2010g]

The adoption of the 14th and 15th Amendments were not worthwhile. And you fail to realize that most of the military is on the right's side.

[Sarcastr0]

I thought the military was bad and woke now?

[not guilty]

Nekit2010g, are you suggesting that "most of the military" would refuse to fight against an armed rebellion? If so, that unfairly impugns their patriotism and devotion to duty.

[Sarcastr0]

I think it's all bluster, but the same action is correct with bullies or wannabe bullies.

No, we won't do what you want based on threats.

[Randal]

I mean, go for it. You'll get crushed. At least the confederacy had a purpose. You guys are just whining. You're like the four-year-old shouting "I hate you America!" when you don't get your way. What, exactly, would your civil war even be about? What principle would you be fighting for?

[nekit2010g]

Crushed by whom? You fairies with your Impossible Burgers and vibrating butt plugs?

[Randal]

Hahaha yes, which will be the fun part. I like how your answer to what you're fighting against is gays, vegetarians, and sex toys. Do you really think that's a winning cause? Lol what an asstard!

[NOVA Lawyer]

By the vast majority of military men and women who take their oath to the Constitution seriously and who won't throw a tantrum because some obviously defective individual is being held to account for illegal acts, even if personally they might have voted for the guy or think the prosecution is overzealous.

There is a wide gulf between I disagree with how officials of the government are exercising their constitutional discretion and armed rebellion against the U.S. government. Most military people aren't stupid enough, as it would appear you are, to be unable to grasp that distinction.

[Jimmy the Dane]

My prediction that if Trump is indicted it will be paired with a Presidential pardon. He will probably be given 24 to 48 hours before the indictment is unsealed to informally accept the pardon and given current case law it would appear he would have the option to turn it down. But that comes with the peril and expense of facing numerous federal charges, with the likelihood one will eventually stick.

This would be the ultimate gamesmanship move that the Dems could make, put Trump in one hell of a pickle forcing him to either accept the fate of the judicial system or accept some form of responsibility but no real threat to his liberty, and probably be the only way the Dems won’t appear (to at least center and left-center) as authoritarian power grabbers using the DOJ for purely political prosecution.

[Krayt]

Iirc he wouldn't have to accept but just not decline. If he does nothing it applies.

[John F. Carr]

The only way I see a pardon as plausible, and even then not likely, is if it could have a condition that Trump not run for or accept political office. I don't know if the courts would uphold such a condition.

[not guilty]

Why on earth would President Biden offer a pardon to Trump? The man deserves to be indicted, tried, convicted and denied bail pending appeal. If he dies outside of a prison cell, he will have gotten away with serious crimes.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I don't think that's good enough. Trump should be tried by a Nuremberg-style tribunal for crimes against democracy. Judges from democracies like Cuba, China, Myanmar, Russia, etc. should evaluate the evidence impartially and send Trump to prison. This would not only teach Trump a lesson, it would send an unmistakable message to voters that they must not vote for any such undemocratic outcome in the future.

[Davedave]

Whut? LOL. ROFL. You are beyond lunacy.

Why would Biden pardon a man who is going to spend the whole of his life behind bars? Trump has two choices, plead guilty and spend the rest of his natural span in jail, or not-guilty, death sentence, execution. It's not like acquittal is on the table when someone is caught red-handed.

Have you missed the idiots in this thread openly confirming that Trump is _currently_ engaged in a violent conspiracy to overthrow the US government?

[Don Nico]

"death sentence, execution."
Wow!. Truly a wingnut opinion.

[David Nieporent]

So, what’s the spread on when Trump will start inhabiting a cell? (As in, in custody and denied bail, or convicted and jailed.) Over/under on January, anyone?

There is zero chance Trump will ever be incarcerated. I think the odds of him being prosecuted are significant and increasing, but he will never spend a day in jail. If he were prosecuted and convicted, he would be sentenced at worst to house arrest.

[Ben_]

It will be any minute now. The walls are closing in.

[Sarcastr0]

Who cares about right and wrong, all that matters is if you get away with it? Well, that'll certainly change a lot of your opinions about liberals if you apply it equally!

[Bob from Ohio]

He's mocking 6 years of "this will finally get Trump" wishcasting.

The people lusting here for his trial don't care about "right and wrong", they just want Trump.

[Nige]

No, the people who don't care about right and wrong are the people who voted for him.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

"The people lusting here for his trial don’t care about “right and wrong”, they just want Trump."

We can add you to the list of people for whom the facts don't actually matter.

[Sarcastr0]

To be fair to Bob, neither does right and wrong.

[Bob from Ohio]

"We can add you to the list of people for whom the facts don’t actually matter."

The glee about every rumor of a Trump charge is palatable. Its unhinged.

[Sarcastr0]

Like a Lock Him Up vibe, but with a bit more trial and due process than the original flavor?

Sounds awful!

[Jason Cavanaugh]

We're just repeating ourselves now and pretending that counts for an argument? Ok.

You're a partisan clown who doesn't care that the facts of the situation show Trump clearly and deliberately violated the law multiple times, with an extra-special dose of attempted obstruction in trying to get a former attorney (Alex Cannon) to lie for him, and successfully getting Christina Bobb to lie on his behalf to the DOJ.

The stupidity in every comment you make is palatable. Its [sic] unhinged.

[Ben_]

There’s always another story about something Trump supposedly did that supposedly breaks some rule that supposedly exists and is not entirely made up.

[Sarcastr0]

They write down laws now. You can look them up and see that they are real, if you want.

[Ben_]

And yet you continue to habitually make things up…

[Ben_]

What story are you talking about now? Some technical rule about document storage isn’t "right and wrong".

[iowatwo]

Dave, do you have a crime, or, Just like Garland, you'll find one after the sentencing.?

[Archibald Tuttle]

So many people fail to understand the Rope-A-Dope strategy that Trump is using. All publicity is good publicity. Any legal actions against Trump will increase the number of votes he gets. Even more so for conviction and imprisonment. Imprisonment could guarantee his reelection; then he pardons himself after inauguration.

On the other hand. Ignoring Trump and his legal problems in the news is the best way to assure his defeat. No matter what, don't mention Trump in any news.

Mayor Curly of Boston, was reelected by a landslide while serving time in jail for stealing the city's money.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Don't forget his associates, Aldermen Larry and Moe.

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

Congratulations to Carolyn R. Bertozzi, for getting the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (shared with two others), a choice which surprised absolutely no one in the entire world of chemistry. You can look up "click chemistry", for which the prize was awarded, but Bertozzi's work is not limited to that. She also developed "bio-orthogonal chemistry", which means, pairs of reagents (or chemical moieties) which react with each other and not with any other compound or chemical found in mammalian bodies. So you can make two molecules combine - do synthetic chemistry - in your bloodstream or tissues without affecting any of the stuff already there.

As if that weren't enough, she is also a big player in glyco-chemistry - chemistry of complex carbohydrates, including, the role they play on the surfaces of cells, especially cancer-cells.

One of the other two recipients is K. Barry Sharpless, who already has a Nobel Prize in chemistry, from 2001. So far, no one has every one three Nobel Prizes in any of the sciences. Stay tuned.

[Armchair Lawyer]

I don't think Sharpless has a third Nobel in his resume.

[Don Nico]

Amen, three cheers for Prof. Bertozzi.

[Kazinski]

I’m glad to see the NY Times is aggressively covering extremists promoting election conspiracy theories.

First the Times covered baseless allegations about Konnech and its CEO: “In his original report, Thompson characterized the accusations against Yu and Konnech as a “conspiracy theory,” writing that “the attacks on Konnech demonstrate how far-right election deniers are also giving more attention to new and more secondary companies and groups.”

A day later the same NY Times reporter said that: “Yu had been arrested…” and “as part of an investigation into the possible theft of personal identifying information” of Los Angeles County poll worker…” and “information was stored on servers in the People’s Republic of China,” a breach of the county’s contract with Konnech.”

“Data breaches are an ongoing threat to our digital way of life. When we entrust a company to hold our confidential data, they must be willing and able to protect our personal identifying information from theft. Otherwise, we are all victims”

Of course these are just allegations and an ideologically motivated prosecutor can file charges on the flimsiest of allegations.

But still its amusing that a day after the NYT stands up for an election technology company against election deniers is founder and CEO gets indicted.

Election Firm CEO Arrested for Storing Data in China One Day after NYT Reporter Dismissed Allegations as ‘Conspiracy Theory’

[Armchair Lawyer]

Sigh.... Reminds me of the Hunter Biden laptop story.

The NYT and company....aren't news organizations anymore. They are "influence" organizations, designed to push a viewpoint

[Brett Bellmore]

But it is hilarious that he got charged with it the very next day.

[David Nieporent]

Sigh…. Reminds me of the Hunter Biden laptop story.

As in, there's absolutely nothing to it?

[Commenter_XY]

David, can you really say that there is nothing there = Hunter Biden's laptop

[Brett Bellmore]

Envision him waving his hand Jedi style as he says that.

[Sarcastr0]

At some point, when nothing appears after every right-wing hack has a go, one needs to acknowledge there is no there there.

But nothing ever dies on the right, from the Clinton Murder List, to birtherism, both of which I've seen on this blog in past weeks. And Brett never lets utter lack of evidence keep him from speculating on and on!

[Ridgeway]

AFAICT, Hunter's laptop contains mounds of evidence demonstrating that Hunter Biden is a good-for-nothing, lowlife loser, with serious substance abuse and interpersonal issues.

However, it contained nothing incriminating against Joe Biden, other than that he sired and raised Hunter.

IIRC, even the stuff about "10% to the Big Guy" came from an email produced by one of Hunter's sleazy business partners, not from Hunter's laptop.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

IIRC, even the stuff about “10% to the Big Guy” came from an email produced by one of Hunter’s sleazy business partners, not from Hunter’s laptop.

Uh...where to you think that e-mail (among many other things) was found? That's right, on Hunter Biden's laptop.

[Ridgeway]

I think you are right. I was thinking of the confirmation that came from Hunter's sleazy business partner.

[myself]

Even if "the big guy" was Joe Biden all it means is that they tried to involve him in something and he refused.

We don't even know if it was presented to Joe Biden as something fishy or if they tried to frame it as a legitimate above-board business deal.

[David Nieporent]

Yes. That does not mean, of course, that Hunter Biden didn't do things wrong. I'm talking purely about the laptop here.

Or, I should say, so-called laptop, because nobody has seen it. What the news outlets like the New York Post that have supposedly seen it have actually been given access to is a disk image that purports to be the contents of a laptop. And while the Washington Post and NYT have authenticated some of the files on that image, they have been unable to authenticate many others, and have specifically reported that some of the files showed editing dates long after the alleged laptop would've left Hunter's hands. (Note that a competent disinformation campaign would do exactly what that suggests: mix genuine documents with fake ones.) Also note that there were rumors of such a laptop floating around Ukraine for many months before this repairperson supposedly got hold of it. (Could be a complete coincidence, but could indicate fabrication.)

In any case, though, the reason I say that there's nothing there is that… there's been no reporting of anything there. The NYP broke the story in mid-October 2020. But there wasn't much of anything to the story; the existence of the laptop was the big news. There were something like two emails of mild interest: one that Joe Biden shook hands with one of Hunter's business associates, and one that someone asked whether "the Big Guy" would get 10% of a proposed deal (that never happened, while Joe was retired). And then within a day or two, the meta-story — how the NYP got it, how even the NYP reporters credited with the story were backing away from it, and, of course, above all else, how Twitter was suppressing the story — became the headline. And then… the NYP stopped publishing stories about it.

You'd expect a laptop with hundreds of thousands of files, emails, etc., on it would lead to many many stories. (The hacked DNC emails certainly did after they were leaked.) It didn't. Conclusion: it was a nothingburger. No documents showing Hunter (or Joe) laundering money for Ukrainian oligarchs, nothing about them taking bribes to alter U.S. policy, nothing about them being blackmailed by Xi, etc. Hell, not even any corrupt domestic dealings.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

And then… the NYP stopped publishing stories about it.

Somebody better the NYP that they haven't been doing what they've actually been doing, as recently as...today.

https://nypost.com/2022/10/06/federal-agents-have-evidence-to-charge-hunter-biden-report/

[David Nieporent]

You're very bad at this. Did you see the first paragraph, where I said, "That does not mean, of course, that Hunter Biden didn’t do things wrong. I’m talking purely about the laptop here."?

And so you respond with an article that is about Hunter Biden maybe doing things wrong, but isn't about the laptop.

[Nige]

They do like to wheel out a story about Hunter if they think Trump's in trouble. Is Trump in trouble today, particularly?

[bernard11]

Here's another thing that puzzles me here.

If I know your email address I can send you an email. So getting an email from someone really doesn't prove much. I'm really not involved in a Nigerian plot to claim an abandoned $125 million brokerage account, even though I did get some emails about participating in such a plot.

Further, if I have your laptop in my possession, I can send all the emails I want. It doesn't prove they came from you.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Oy. Someone's in denial.

[Sarcastr0]

That’s the best you got?

[Commenter_XY]

David, you may be right about the whole thing, and there is zippo. Who knows. That said, I do think it is the 'laptop from hell'. I mean, I saw some of the shit from the laptop reported out from foreign press (Taiwanese) and it was not good (explicit sex and drug horseshit). Was it true? Maybe.

Let's see what develops in DE (there is an AG investigating).

I agree about the relative lack of stories = You’d expect a laptop with hundreds of thousands of files, emails, etc., on it would lead to many many stories. (The hacked DNC emails certainly did after they were leaked.) It didn’t. but I am not so sure about your conclusion. Too soon to tell.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

As in, there’s absolutely nothing to it?

– “There is no laptop! That’s just Russian disinformation!”

– “OK, maybe there is a laptop, but it isn’t Hunter Biden’s. That’s just Russian disinformation!”

– “OK, it’s Hunter Biden’s laptop, but there are no e-mails or anything else on it pertaining to any alleged foreign business dealing (and certainly not in Ukraine or China), nor any mention of Joe Biden relating to any of it (that doesn’t exist anyway). That’s just Russian disinformation!”

– “OK, so there are a bunch of verified e-mails and other stuff on that laptop pertaining to Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings, but the claim that mentions of “the big guy” refer to Joe Biden is just Russian disinformation!”

– “OK, so it seems that “the big guy” is indeed Joe Biden. But any of this being in any way indicative of anything meaningful is just Russian disinformation!”

Which one of these levels of denial/propaganda are you currently at…or have you created a whole new one of your own?

[Nige]

The only part of any of that that's been factually established is that some emails of Hunter Biden's were found on a laptop. The emails themselves were completely anodyne and any reference to his father is purely conjectural.

[Bob from Ohio]

"The Washington Post@washingtonpost
1h
Exclusive: Federal agents see enough evidence to charge Hunter Biden with tax and gun-purchase crimes, people familiar with the case say "

[bernard11]

And this involves his father how?

[Kazinski]

There’s ample evidence Joe and Hunter were commingling funds.

There’s also over 100 suspicious bank transaction reports that Congress is going to crack open after the election.

[Sarcastr0]

Big Durham investigation energy here.

[bernard11]

There’s ample evidence Joe and Hunter were commingling funds.

There’s also over 100 suspicious bank transaction reports that Congress is going to crack open after the election.

Cite?

[Bob from Ohio]

"And this involves his father how?"

Did I mention his father?

[bernard11]

No. You didn't. So his father is not involved in any of this.

[not guilty]

If Hunter Biden is to be prosecuted, so be it. He seems to be a bit of a scoundrel. President Biden left in place the Trump-appointed U. S. Attorney for Delaware. Let the chips fall where they may.

[David Nieporent]

I'd have said screwup or ne'er do well rather than scoundrel, but I guess it depends what DOJ comes up with.

[nekit2010g]

Just like their split personalities on immigration.

"Baseless conspiracy theories from Republicans about a great replacement of the white population due to immigration"

The next day:

"Changing demographics, which are inevitable and you can't stop, mean that the Democrats are destined to take permanent control as the country becomes less white."

[Nige]

Or to put it another way, the Republicans, unable to deal with demographic change, embrace white supremacy and a related racist conspiracy theory to explain why they are being victimised by demographic change.

[nekit2010g]

The "demographic change" is being done intentionally, through acts of government. It's not some force of nature like the weather.

Since government is intentionally causing it, the people have the right to oppose it.

[Nige]

No it isn't.

[jb]

Well, yes. It's being done intentionally in that our birth rate is below replacement so if we don't have immigration the population will start shrinking and we'll have an economy entirely devoted to taking care of old people.

But no, not being done intentionally in the racist way you probably think.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, our birthrate is well below replacement, now. Wasn't until recently.

In response to that, the government could either pursue pro-natal policies, (Like child tax credits that were actually large enough to make up for having a stay at home parent.) or blow that off and import people from third world countries.

The choice to do the latter rather than the former was certainly intentional.

[Sarcastr0]

Can't imagine why the government giving people a full ride for having a kid may make some folks uncomfortable on the right, Brett?

Besides, child tax credits are not a ratchet; we can have both good immigration and childcare support.

[Nige]

It's more to do with the startling discovery that women aren't brood mares.

[David Nieporent]

Other countries like France have tried "pro-natal policies." Hasn't turned around a declining birth rate. Turns out that nobody has kids in order to get child tax credits.

[Armchair Lawyer]

What actually occurs in general is people have a kid, then look at their finances, deciding whether to have another or a third child.

The money does make a difference, especially at the margins. Raising a child is expensive...extraordinarily so. Just to have an infant in daycare costs on the order of $12,000 to $18,000 a year. Truly pro-natalist policies would account for that.

[Sarcastr0]

I challenge your take on what occurs in general.
I tend to agree that marginal financial incentives do effect behavior, but

1) DMN has an example you did not address
2) no one I know that has a kid did anything like the calculus you describe.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Well, perhaps you don't know anyone. I do know people who have said "we can't afford to have another kid right now". They figure out they can't afford another one in daycare.

[jb]

Hmm. I seem to recall Biden proposing to extend the child tax credit. Remind me again how many anti-immigrant senators supported that?

[nekit2010g]

Biden wanted to extend the child tax credit for EVERYBODY under a certain income. Limit it to married couples with both parents having IQs above 100, and that would be one thing. But to give 85 IQ Shaniqua a credit for popping out another illegitimate child with one of her baby daddies? Nope.

[jb]

Ah, good point. It's not that the people opposed to both the child tax credit and immigration don't have any plan for the future of the American economy, it's that they're racists.

[PaoliBulldog]

Or consider that Democrat politicians, desperately seeking votes, encourage illegal immigration (so long as the Republican states have to deal with illegal immigrants), while simultaneously turning back record numbers of attempted crossers at the Mexican border.

[Sarcastr0]

What is the grand scheme in encouraging and turning away a bunch of people who couldn't vote anyway?

[Brett Bellmore]

Apportionment. Remember how nuts they went over the proposed citizenship question on the Census? They didn't want to expose how much of the population in 'blue' states consists of non-voting illegal aliens.

And it's not like the turn back numbers are a result of a valiant effort to enforce the border. They're just up because the number of people attempting to cross is up enormously. The fraction who get stopped is actually dropping.

[David Nieporent]

Apportionment. Remember how nuts they went over the proposed citizenship question on the Census? They didn’t want to expose how much of the population in ‘blue’ states consists of non-voting illegal aliens.

Gotta get your talking points straight, Brett. Blue states are hypocrites who support illegal immigrants because they burden red states, but oppose it when illegal immigrants come to their homes, remember?

[Nige]

That's byzantine.

[Kazinski]

I doubt that's it, illegal aliens like jobs, so red or purple states are just as likely to be destinations as Blue states.

Besides the found a lot more effective way to cheat on reapportionment, stealing 3 congressional seats from Texas and Florida:

"As a result of these errors, Florida did not receive two additional congressional seats, Texas lost out on an additional seat, Minnesota and Rhode Island each retained a congressional seat that should have been lost, and Colorado gained a new seat to which it had no right."

STATE OVERCOUNT (+)/UNDERCOUNT (-) RATES
Hawaii + 6.79%
Delaware + 5.45%
Rhode Island + 5.05%
Minnesota + 3.84%
New York + 3.44%
Utah + 2.59%
Massachusetts + 2.24%
Ohio + 1.49%
Texas - 1.92%
Illinois - 1.97%
Florida - 3.48%
Mississippi - 4.11%
Tennessee - 4.78%
Arkansas - 5.04%
https://thearp.org/blog/apportionment/2020-census-count-errors/

[bernard11]

Besides the found a lot more effective way to cheat on reapportionment, stealing 3 congressional seats from Texas and Florida:

So you are accusing the Census Bureau of deliberately over and undercounting certain states? Surely an individual with the integrity and competence of Wilbur Ross wouldn't have let that happen.

It's interesting that five of the undercount states seem to be places where lots of people profess to hate the federal government, except when they want something.

[Sarcastr0]

Brett, I thought they were coming to red states, though?

And the Census Constitutionally doesn't care about voting non-voting so I don't know what your beef is.

[bernard11]

Remember how nuts they went over the proposed citizenship question on the Census? They didn’t want to expose how much of the population in ‘blue’ states consists of non-voting illegal aliens.

Remember how much Ross lied to try to get the question included. Fortunately, John Roberts, much as he would have liked to have the question included, decided he couldn't stand the embarrassment of swallowing such blatant BS, put forward in the interest of making the count inaccurate.

Yes, Brett. That's what it was all about. Ross wnated the question to scare off respondents who weren't citizens.

[Randal]

Hahaha this is the silliest of your conspiracies yet, Brett. I need to introduce you to my uncle. You'll keep each other entertained for days!

Apportionment. Oh my god. Must be why Martha's Vineyard is so eager to "exile" DeSantis's trafficked humans.

[M L]

Amnesty and citizenship???

[Nige]

Illegal immigrants can't vote. Border states have to deal with immigration legal and illegal by viture of being border states.

[nekit2010g]

If the federal government correctly sealed the border, they wouldn't have to deal with any. There's no reason that white conservatives should have to tolerate their country being overrun by worthless immigrants from Guatemala.

[shawn_dude]

Four states border Mexico and only two of them are Republican. Thank you for recognizing that Democratic administrations have turned back record numbers of undocumented immigrants at the border. This should put to rest the whole “open borders” silliness.

[Krayt]

But they don't embrace white supremacy. That's a lie pushed by the left for political purposes.

[Sarcastr0]

nekit2010g sure does embrace white supremacy, based on his comments here!

[Nige]

The Republican Party made up a non-existent version of CRT that's supposedly taught in schools that makes white people feel bad about slavery and passed laws against it.

[shawn_dude]

Because white dudes in polo shirts holding tiki torches shouting "you will not replace us" or Tucker Carlson advancing the same theory night after night is not white supremacy? Or Trump attacking non-white migrants as an invasion? Or the near hysteria on the right regarding Black American protests against police abuse?

The right has embraced White Christian Nationalism like Trump embraces the US flag at his rallies.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Or the near hysteria on the right regarding Black American protests against police abuse?

Ah, yes...the "mostly peaceful protests" that resulted in....remind us how many billions of dollars in damage, not to mention several murders of black Americans?

[Sarcastr0]

Still having trouble telling between a protest and a riot later that night, eh?

What would you say if I said everyone who came to Washington DC on Jan 06 was to blame for the events that day?

[Bob from Ohio]

"a protest and a riot later that night"

Totally unrelated!

Everybody in the protest went home and a completely new set of people rioted.

FYI, genius, there was violence during the day too.

[Nige]

Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. Maybe it's the sort of thing that hapens when the police are seen to brazenly kill and rob instead of protect and serve and the social contract breaks down and a few people wonder why bother with laws when the people sworn to uphold them are so obviously corrupt and evil.

[Sarcastr0]

Maybe some did protest and then riot.

But I don't see how that has anything to do with the protests.

Except for the ooga booga, as shawn_dude noted.

[Nige]

Police murdering people and getting away with it seems like the sort of thing brave upstanding freedom-loving tyranny-hating Americans would go out and be willing to stand up to state power over, not stay inside and tut about the nasty icky violence.

[iowatwo]

Or to put it another way, the Republicans, unable to deal with demographic change, embrace white supremacy

Hispanics are white. Hispanics are family and church centered, work hard, start their own businesses like they get their teeth cleaned, often and with success. Naturalized Hispanics hate the illegals invading the country that has lifted them out of poverty.
In short. Hispanics are Republicans, as defined by their own culture and actions.

[shawn_dude]

Mexicans and Salvadorians are Hispanic. So you're saying that Latin American Mexicans and Salvadorians are white?! and Republican?!

[Stephen Lathrop]

I have previously said it would be outlandish to charge Trump with treason. It may still be. But consider.

The opening statements in the trial of Oath Keepers militia leaders seem to push their offenses much closer to literal war against the United States. There seems to be irrefutable evidence, and a lot of it. The commitment to armed violence was apparently more extreme than the public had previously learned on any reliable basis.

The serious intent of the plot has become unambiguous. Whatever else others were doing on January 6, the Oath Keepers at the Capitol were intent on an armed coup, with the murder of at least Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence figuring into the plan.

Apparently legal experts think the Oath Keepers' defense will be an argument that they were indeed doing those things, but expected to do them legally, pursuant to an invocation by Trump of the so-called Insurrection Act. Their defense counsel have been reported to say Oath Keepers leaders expected Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act to proclaim them a nationalized militia, and thus make legal their violent plot to kill national leaders who were engaged in the legal and customary transfer of power to President Biden.

Assume for the sake of argument that all that plays out as described above, and the factual case is dramatic and air tight. And assume for the sake of argument what has not been even alleged, let alone proved, that some unambiguous connection to Trump can show he was aware of the plot, and wanted it to happen as described.

Would that justify a charge of treason against Trump? If it does justify it legally, would it be wise or unwise to bring such a charge? Would it be better to charge some lesser crime, or not charge at all? On what reasoning would you choose among those various alternatives?

[Brett Bellmore]

That's a whole lot of assumptions.

Why not assume instead that Biden starts rambling over a live mike about taking orders from Chinese intelligence?

You know, for the sake of argument? [/sarc]

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore — I have understated what has been reported. Nothing prior to, "Assume for the sake of argument," can any longer be regarded as pure assumption. Although some of it might be rebutted later, it has all been reported from the trial. Of course I will suspend judgment awaiting rebuttals, but I do not think that means we cannot ask hypotheticals, to help anticipate what might be at stake. What do you think might be at stake?

[Brett Bellmore]

Nothing prior to "assume for the sake of argument" has any legal significance, either. You might as well go after Bernie Sanders over the House baseball shooting, or Chuck Schumer over that kid who abortively tried to assassinate a Justice. This is just the Son of Sam defense, and you don't think the dog ordered all those murders, do you?

Somebody committing a crime in the expectation that you're going to do something criminal doesn't implicate you AT ALL absent evidence that you'd told them that you were going to do it. You can't get sucked into a conspiracy by somebody's assumptions, baring proof you were in actual communication with them. Which is why you asked we assume that for the sake of argument. But there's no reason to assume it.

If they could prove that, they WOULD have proven it, long since. Trump would already be up on charges. Because that's not the sort of thing they'd sit on, either the Proud Boys' defense, or the prosecution.

What's likely going on here is that the Proud Boys defense has gotten the idea that the government will go light on them in sentencing if they make an effort to implicate Trump. If they confess to Trump being guilty of something. But that carries no legal weight without evidence.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore, the legal significance is that conduct has been alleged in court that arguably amounts to making war against the United States. That for the first time puts a plausible, constitutionally justifiable treason charge for Trump in play. Previous speculations of that sort were nonsense, because they were based on ignorance of the constitutional definition of treason. This one may be different.

But of course, I expect to get a lot of replies from people like you, who want to fight the hypothetical.

[Brett Bellmore]

You genuinely don't understand the difference between an allegation and evidence? Or that Treason requires two witnesses to the same overt act, constitutionally?

Trump is in no legal jeopardy at all until allegations are supplemented with evidence.

I notice you haven't addressed my own hypothetical. Sometimes hypotheticals are so stupid all you can do is beat them up.

[Nige]

An allegation is when you or Trump claim that the FBI planted documents during the search of Mar A Lago.

Evidence is what completely fails to turn up in any legal filings.

[iowatwo]

Exactly like the evidence showing Trump was commanding the Oathkeepers.
According to reporting on msnbc, so about .02% accurate, Stone has been known to talk to oathkeepers, and Stone has been known to talk to Trump. Understand msnbc never said either actually happened.

[Nige]

Poor ol' Oathkeepers getting thrown under the bus.

[David Nieporent]

The Proud Boy are a different alt-right group that Trump was in bed with; that’s the one that, asked to condemn them at the presidential debate, he actually told them to "Stand by" instead.

These are the Oath Keepers [sic].

[Michael P]

Trump told the Proud Boys to "stand back and stand by". Leaving out the first half gives a rather different sense of what he said.

Which is not surprising, coming from you.

[shawn_dude]

It does?

"Stand back" = don't get involved right now
"Stand by" = you'll get your turn

How is that different?

[Michael P]

Neither of those rewordings are accurate. Again, no surprise.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

The Proud Boy are a different alt-right group that Trump was in bed with; that’s the one that, asked to condemn them at the presidential debate, he actually told them to “Stand by” instead.

So now you're just Sarcatr0 light.

"Hands up, don't shoot!"

[not guilty]

Did Bernie Sanders encourage anyone to go to the baseball diamond and fight like hell?

[iowatwo]

I've had multiple coaches tell us to fight like hell. Nobody on any of the teams ever hunted down and attempted to assassinate people.

Fight like hell is a very benign statement.

[Life of Brian]

Fight like hell is a very benign statement.

And run-of-the-mill political rhetoric.

[Davy C]

Being aware of a plot, or even wanting it to happen, isn't treason. Did he actually invoke the Insurrection Act? No? Then I don't see the case. You need an overt act.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Supposing Trump's clear knowledge of the plot were proved, would withholding security, or failing to call for law enforcement support—to let the Oath Keepers get on with it—qualify as an overt act?

[Brett Bellmore]

No, and trivially so. First, not doing something isn't an act, let alone an overt act. The Constitution explicitly and deliberately requires you to have affirmatively acted to be charged with treason, just standing there doesn't cut it.

Second, two witnesses to him "overtly" not acting? How do you witness something like that? You find two people who were in the room with him for the same five minutes, to testify that he refrained from doing something for that five minutes, right before their eyes?

I understand this isn't just any hypothetical to you, and you desperately want him charged with treason, but try to show some sense here.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore, I posed the hypotheticals because I cannot figure out what Trump ought to be charged with.

By the way, you know how I would go about proving Trump's negligence on January 6? I would show the jury the entire TV broadcast of the ballot certification process, just as I saw it while watching live TV. By 90 minutes into the broadcast, everyone on the jury would be doing just what I was doing, screaming at the monitor, "Where the fuck is Trump?" "Why isn't there any police mobilization?" Where is the national guard?"

After that, the jury can watch for hours, while Trump lets the situation deteriorate more. Then they can decide for themselves whether Trump was, "overtly," not acting. It was painfully, "overt," to me at the time. I'm betting a jury would get that too.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Bellmore, I posed the hypotheticals because I cannot figure out what Trump ought to be charged with."

The fact that in order to figure out a charge you have to assume evidence which isn't on display might suggest to you that the answer is "nothing", that, much as you dislike it, he's not criminally implicated in anything.

Yes, you can produce reams of evidence of his not doing things you thought he ought to do, where "not doing things" isn't criminal.

[apedad]

"Not doing things" or omission (or failure to act), can in certain cases be criminal.

Failing to pay taxes, child support, and alimony are a few recognizable examples of omission as actus reus.

Contractual obligation, verbal agreement, or even basic involvement can potentially lead to criminal liability for omission.

https://www.upcounsel.com/lectl-omission-as-actus-reus-criminal-liability-basics

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, but this isn't one of those circumstances.

And this is a bit problematic, too.

They basically waited until it was too late to change their minds about the troops.

[bernard11]

Why should they have worried about a bunch of tourists looking at paintings?

Oh. You mean the threat was a lot more than that? And what is the significance of the Capitol Police misjudgment? That the insurrectionists are not to blame, because the police didn't stop them?

[not guilty]

A prosecutor should not let his indictment write checks that his admissible evidence cannot cash. Treason is over the top, especially when there are other offenses that give rise to slam dunk prosecutions.

[Stephen Lathrop]

not guilty — Thank you for the serious consideration you give to these issues. Your critique once again gives me pause, as I reconsider what to make of unprecedented occurrences. I have one question to ask you, to help me get better insight into your thinking. Here it is:

It might prove possible to show that Trump, in league with many of his closest associates, had indeed plotted a coup, to be accomplished without any implication of warfare, but purely by concerted, pre-planned efforts to organize their own legitimate or imaginary government powers, and thus to frustrate and overthrow the constitutional transfer of power. Could that be counted as treason? It seems to me that absent violence that conduct might not be a good fit for insurrection. If it is neither treason nor insurrection, what is it? Just politics?

[VinniUSMC]

Bellmore, I posed the hypotheticals because I cannot figure out what Trump ought to be charged with.

"I don't care if Trump is guilty or not. He should be in jail because he's icky!"

[Nige]

Maybe Trump was reading My Pet Goat.

[Kazinski]

First of all Trump did not withhold security, the national guard troops were offered to the Capitol police, and the DC Mayor about a week before Jan. 6th, and Trump signed off on it.

The only official who took them up on it was DC Mayor Browser who requested, and got Nat Guard troops to patrol the subway, in fact those were the troops that were the first to arrive to reinforce the Capitol police.

And when the troops were offered, and partially accepted, the DOD was clear that if circumstances made additional troops needed it would take 3 hours to notify and deploy them. Which was about what it took.

https://media.defense.gov/2021/Nov/19/2002896088/-1/-1/1/DODIG-2022-039%2520V2%2520508.PDF

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Supposing Trump’s clear knowledge of the plot were proved, would withholding security, or failing to call for law enforcement support

When your line of inquiry calls for assuming things happened in a way that is the opposite of the way they actually did happen it's pretty much useless...like most all of your ramblings.

[iowatwo]

would withholding security, or failing to call for law enforcement support

The President has nothing to do with security in DC or commanding Capitol Law enforcement.
You need to talk to Pelosi. She is in charge.

[defaultdotxbe]

Oath Keepers thinking Trump was going to do something, and Trump actually doing something, are two *very* different things. It seems clear to me they are just trying to deflect to Trump to reduce their own guilt.

It would be no different than if someone started murdering Trump supporters, claiming he thought he was doing so legally because Biden declared them enemies of democracy.

[shawn_dude]

If the reason they thought Trump would do something was because he made them think he'd do something, then they aren't "very" different at all. As was mentioned above, we now know that Trump "did something" insofar as he didn't use his authority to increase police presence or call in the national guard during the attack on the capitol. He also "did something" when he tweeted his disappointment in his Vice President which started the crowd chanting "hang Mike Pence." What's missing is evidence that he communicated, directly or indirectly, with the Oath Keepers. The Oath Keepers might offer that as part of their defense, if it exists.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

we now know that Trump “did something” insofar as he didn’t use his authority to increase police presence or call in the national guard during the attack on the capitol

That was offered to, and rejected by, the Capitol Police. You are, as always, completely full of shit.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

You are, as always, completely illiterate.

during the attack on the capitol

How embarrassing for you.

[not guilty]

I yield to no one in my disapproval of Donald Trump's conduct, but treason is a wartime offense. There are numerous other offenses for which to prosecute Trump, which should be pursued vigorously.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

So we can add "treason" the ever-growing list of things you don't know the meaning of.

[Kazinski]

Well first figure out what treason actually means, it’s not even close to insurrection.

[Armchair Lawyer]

So, the Ukraine war is still ongoing.

I'd predicted months ago that it would likely be over by October, as Russian forces ran out of steam, morale, and ammo, and the steady supply of Western arms to the high morale Ukrainian forces turned the tide, as Ukraine took back its land.

That prediction appears to be incorrect, October will likely be slightly too soon for the war to end. Still...where will this war go from here? Ukraine is rapidly retaking land in the northeast Kharkov, and starting to take major chunks on the Kherson front. Russia has just called up a draft, and is needing to import weapons from North Korea and Iran. And Russia still has the threat of nukes in order to save face... Meanwhile, Ukraine sees no reason to back down.

My guess? Ukraine gets Russia to withdraw to the 2013 borders, with the exception of Crimea, which has de-facto Russian control. Possibly, just Sevestapol, and Russia offers "compensation" for that.

[John F. Carr]

I think Ukraine can win back Russia's 2022 gains. Going back to 2013 will be difficult. The pre-2022 contact line in the Donbas is well fortified. Russia has time to prepare to defend Crimea, which has only a narrow connection to the mainland.

[Brett Bellmore]

I think recapturing the older losses is going to require Russia to basically collapse. That's not implausible, though.

[bernard11]

Not implausible at all.

The thing is, when these things happen, they happen more quickly than anyone expects. Think of the Soviet Union.

I wonder what the generals and the KGB - whatever it's called now - are thinking these days.

[iowatwo]

Winter is fast approaching. Putin will want a cease fire. Hoping to stall all fighting over the winter months and allowing him to rebuild his troop strength, and re-assert himself on the captured areas, come spring.

[John F. Carr]

Think of Germany in 1918.

[OtisAH]

Ftr, of all the things Russia’s use of nukes could/would cause, “saving face” would not be one.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Well, depends.

Personally, I could see a situation where Ukraine knocks Russia out of all the territory its taken, except Crimea. And as Ukraine starts driving on Crimea, Russia decides to explode a small nuke off the Black Sea. Just to make its point clear.

And at that point, Ukraine would say...it's not worth the potential risk. And Putin can say "We took Crimea".

[OtisAH]

Russia has controlled Crimea since 2014.

[TwelveInchPianist]

No way Ukraine settles for an end result where Russia is still an existential threat. Ukraine will take all it's original territory this year or next. Then it's just a question of how big a buffer zone it needs to protect itself in the future. They should certainly occupy Belgorod, for example.

Taking back the Kuban region might be nice.

[Armchair Lawyer]

As long as Russia has nukes, it will be a threat. Taking actual Russian soil like Belgorod...Russia would likely use nukes.

It's too stark a line to cross

[John F. Carr]

Russia's stated policy allows use of nuclear weapons to protect the existence of the state. Loss of Belgorod does not meet that threshold.

What Putin would order, and whether his generals would obey, I can't say.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Russia's stated policy also guaranteed Ukraine's territorial integrity in the Budapest Memorandum.

We can see how far that got.

[Commenter_XY]

AL, we will be talking about this war, this time next year. Russia isn't going anywhere. Ukraine is being 'Grozny-ied' as I said it would be back in March, when Professor Post made (and lost) his wager.

Russia will not back down. They will have to be pushed out. Or there will have to be an internal collapse within Russia, of some kind. I don't see that happening anytime soon.

We do not want Ukraine in NATO. It is ludicrous to even consider their application.

[Brett Bellmore]

Russia IS going somewhere, they're being pushed out of substantial amounts of territory. Are they going to be pushed out of ALL of the territory they've invaded? That's questionable, but can't be ruled out at this point. Though it probably would require either Putin being deposed, or Russia collapsing. (Hard to see the latter without the former...)

[TwelveInchPianist]

Russia is collapsing was we speak.

[John F. Carr]

Is NATO considering their application? I can't imagine Biden sending an accession treaty to Congress. I can imagine NATO pretending to consider the application to give Ukraine something to negotiate away in a peace treaty.

[iowatwo]

Russia will not back down. They will have to be pushed out

Exactly who is going to do the fighting? Sounds like he has conscripted 200K, and reports are 3X that number have fled the country. Add in the already dead soldiers, and Russia doesn't have many able bodied men left. The ones they do have, don't have any fight in them.

[Armchair Lawyer]

"Ukraine is being ‘Grozny-ied"

Ukraine isn't Grozny. Grozny was a small city that could be surrounded from all sides and pounded with arty. Ukraine is a massive country the size of France, with 40 million people. Russia is literally running out of arty shells, and turning to North Korea for more supplies.

Russia is being pushed out.

[John F. Carr]

Ukraine may also be running out of shells. The industry of the West is designed for peacetime show of force and occasional stomping on weaklings. Production of consumables needs to increase 10 to 100 times to support a real war.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Yes...and no.

Ironically, Ukraine was running out of shells, because it was using Soviet era equipment and NATO didn't make shells that fit that equipment.

Now that Ukraine is getting Western major arms systems, there's plenty of western-provided shells for those.

The US can supply "quite" a large number of arms.

[shawn_dude]

When the area freezes over in Winter, much of the fighting will stop. Maybe we'll see some sabotage and small engagements as the Ukrainian forces try to weaken Russian supply lines during a brutal Winter. But for the most part, this conflict will go on "pause" during the Winter and thaw out with the ice in Spring.

I'm wondering if the Western countries supporting Ukraine will keep that support going through the Winter when the fighting drops out of the headlines and their Winter heating bills start to cut deeply into their economies. The Saudi's have aligned with Russian interests here, which is bad news for anyone that relies on oil-based energy.

[Bob from Ohio]

Ukraine isn't located near Stalingrad.

Putting "average Ukraine temperature in winter" in Google brings up:
"Mean winter (December to March) temperatures in Ukraine range from -4.8°С to 2°C." [-4.8 is 27 Fahrenheit, 2 is 35]
and
"The cold season lasts for 3.8 months, from November 18 to March 12, with an average daily high temperature below 39°F. The coldest month of the year in Kiev is January, with an average low of 21°F and high of 30°F."

You can fight in those temperatures.

[Commenter_XY]

I am enjoying the posts from all of the armchair generals. ????

People are just delusional if they think Russia is leaving Ukraine. I don’t see Russia leaving, period; unless Putin is deposed, and his successors aren’t nuts enough to escalate, and if Ukraine’s army can sustain their momentum (whatever that actually is). I would love for Russia to get a kick in the balls and limp home defeated, but that doesn’t seem to be in the cards.

Once Ukraine is completely ‘Groznyied’ in the next year or two, Russia will declare victory and keep what they annexed (which may be the only part of Ukraine not ‘Groznyied’).

The only good I see out of this is that Ukraine might have destroyed enough tanks and artillery to forestall a Russian move on a NATO country.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"I am enjoying the posts from all of the armchair generals. ????"

??? As opposed to your own posts, General?

This ends with Russia out of all of Ukraine, and Putin out of power.

Before the end of next year.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Oh man, I hope you're right!

[Commenter_XY]

TIP...I want you to be right and me to be wrong.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

It's easy enough to tell when someone hasn't bothered to pay attention to the developments in the war.

Maybe you should get caught up on the last 3 months or so before pretending that you can see the future of a conflict about which you are clearly not up to date with current events.

[shawn_dude]

The problem with calling random people "armchair generals," is that you never know who has actually served and who hasn't.

[Armchair Lawyer]

"People are just delusional if they think Russia is leaving Ukraine."

Russia isn't being given a choice. Look at the maps.

[Commenter_XY]

I am looking at the maps, AL. What do you see? Because I see Russia has annexed 4 regions of Ukraine since February. Do you see something different? Look, I want Russia out of Ukraine...but I also know that I don't want Ukraine in NATO, they are corrupt AF, Ukraine did in fact align themselves with Nazis in WW2, and Ukraine ain't our fight.

You have aspiration and hope (Russia leaves Ukraine...somehow), and I have reality (Russia is there now and will stay unless they get forcibly pushed out or a new government radically changes course).

[Armchair Lawyer]

Did Russia make significant gains in its initial semi-surprise invasion? Sure. Since then Ukraine has retaken ~40% of the territory. And that is accelerating.

Russia rushed through 4 Annexations of regions that it didn't even entirely occupy because it was being pushed out of them...

https://liveuamap.com/

[Commenter_XY]

AL...Would you like to make a wager?

Professor Post did. He lost. You can join him. 🙂

[Armchair Lawyer]

Oh sure, let's make a wager.

What do you propose for terms and conditions?

[Squirrelloid]

Wait, you looked at "maps" recently, and the thing you paid attention to was Russia's claim to annex 4 territories, and not the state of actual control of the ground or the outcome of recent military engagements?

:Facepalm:

[Jmaie]

"The only good I see out of this is that Ukraine might have destroyed enough tanks and artillery to forestall a Russian move on a NATO country."

I really don't understand his. A few folks I've talked to since the invasion have worried about Russia rolling through Ukraine to Moldava to...where, exactly? Seems to me that people are remembering the USSR's military capability and assuming Russia's is similar. Which it's not, by an order of magnitude. Ukrainian forces are pushing the Russians back by dint of their own forces plus a few tens of billions of dollars worth of donated weaponry. Should Russia attack a NATO country they would see the opposing forces increase ten-fold. Lots of speculation floating around about Putin's sanity, but I just don't think that such an attack is in the cards.

[Commenter_XY]

I am much more concerned about the Baltics, Jmaie.

Agree....NATO would absolutely devastate Russia in a straight up conventional war. The problem is a Russia/NATO direct military conflict introduces the prospect of a nuclear exchange, after NATO kicks the living shit out of the Russian army and Russia has no other options.

[David Nieporent]

The Baltics are NATO members.

[Armchair Lawyer]

FYI Stalingrad (Volvograd) isn’t that much colder than Kharkiv. ~5 degrees F. It’s on (roughly) the same latitude as Kiev.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

When the area freezes over in Winter, much of the fighting will stop. Maybe we’ll see some sabotage and small engagements as the Ukrainian forces try to weaken Russian supply lines during a brutal Winter. But for the most part, this conflict will go on “pause” during the Winter and thaw out with the ice in Spring.

Your ignorance regarding the history of winter-time warfare in that region is breathtaking.

https://www.history.com/.image/t_share/MTU3ODc4NjA0MzIyNTE0NjU1/gettyimages-615312972-2.jpg

[shawn_dude]

Mobilizing armies in below-freezing temperatures is far more difficult. Ask the Nazis what that did to them in WWII in the same part of the world. I've mobilized in frozen temperatures. There's a ton of little things that add up to slowing things down and increasing costs. Your supply lines have to move with you and they'll have to include means to keep soldiers and those supplies from freezing, keep engines running, treating frostbite, etc. How do you move a HIMARS into a snow drift or avoid pitfalls covered by snow? Sweep for mines? Dig trenches? Rapid mobilization of heavy equipment gets a lot more difficult. Human labor gets more difficult.

But sure, dudes on skis. That'll totally win Kherson!

[Armchair Lawyer]

So...with the caveat that Russia/Ukraine is cold in the winter....It's not THAT cold. Kherson has an average high of 34 F in January (the coldest month) and average low of 22 F). It's not Moscow (roughly 10 degrees colder), but closer to Warsaw or Cleveland. Chicago gets colder on average.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Inflation continues to devastate the American people...

From August 2021 to August 2022, real average hourly earnings decreased 2.4 percent, seasonally adjusted. The change in real average hourly earnings combined with a 0.9-percent decrease in the average workweek resulted in a 3.2-percent decrease in real average weekly earnings over this period. (Bureau of Labor Statistics).

That just hurts.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Way more than 3.2 percent of that decrease is accounted for by corporate price gouging (oh, excuse me, higher profits, of course!).

[Brett Bellmore]

Hoarders and looters! Maybe some Kulaks around, too.

[Nige]

I don't think the extremely wealthy people you're ridiculously defending as modern kulaks are the ones who'll be suffering hardship and privation, but I'm sure they apreciate the gesture.

[Brett Bellmore]

Actually, "Kulaks" are small businessmen, not the extremely wealthy. That's what they were in Russia, after all.

The government is causing inflation, and shockingly, doesn't want to admit that it's the guilty party, so it pretends that prices are going up because of a conspiracy among businesses to raise prices.

It's a stupid excuse, but that doesn't stop them from making it.

[Nige]

I don't know why you think it's this government causing inflation when it was the previous government that introduced all the massive tax cuts and Putin's invasion of Russia that's causing the global fossil fuel crisis, but corporations aren't small businesses and their profits aren't shrinking while prices are rising.

[Mr. Bumble]

? Have you been drinking already?

[Nige]

Nowhere near enough to mimic your wavering haze of moral bankruptcy.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"I don’t know why you think it’s this government causing inflation when it was the previous government that introduced all the massive tax cuts..."

The timing makes it hard to blame the inflation on tax cuts, but the increase in spending by both the last admin and this one certainly caused the inflation.

[Nige]

There was also the whole covid thing. Hard to cover the costs of any kind of spending when you've been giving the richest people massive tax cuts.

[Brett Bellmore]

That kind of flips things, actually. When they were just doing handouts to the wealthy, it wasn't terribly inflationary, (Horrible thing to do, just not terribly inflationary.) because the added money was just being socked away; The wealthy don't typically spend all their income, and money banked at negligible rates of interest doesn't cause inflation.

When they started sending out big checks to average people, THAT was inflationary, because it didn't get saved, it got spent.

It might seem unfair that throwing money at the poor has worse economic effects than throwing it at the wealthy, but it's still the case. There's a reason economics is sometimes called "the dismal science", it has a lot of things to say people really don't like to hear.

[Nige]

All those handouts to poor people helped things stabilise and recover quite quickly when lockdown ended - the problems were caused by strain on supply chains, not by keeping poor people fed and small businesses afloat. Meanwhile the corporations continued to reap massive inflation-driving profits!

[TwelveInchPianist]

"All those handouts to poor people helped things stabilise and recover quite quickly when lockdown ended..."

The handouts were to alot more than poor people.

You don't help poor people actually consume more by injecting a bunch of currency into a supply-constrained economy. The supply constraints are real. If you want to give currency to poor people so that they can consume more and not have inflation, you have to take currency away from other people.

[Nige]

Oh yes, many of them were to Jared Kushner's crooked friends.

Republicans: You have to take money away from poor people.

[Kazinski]

The hand waving doesn't much matter, a month from now it will be very clear who the voters have decided is at fault.

[Nige]

It's the trans and the CRT and whoever's putting fentanyl in Halloween candy.

[Kazinski]

But our gas prices were already up 40% before Putin invaded in Feb to 3.61 from 2.42 when Biden was inaugurated, for Sep 2022 they averaged 3.817.

So gas prices are up 60% in Biden's term, and 49% of that increase happened before Putin invaded Ukraine.

[Nige]

Yes, the supply chain had already been under strain by the time Putin invaded.

[Kazinski]

By supply chain you mean pipelines stopped, drilling permits pulled, lease auctions canceled, right?

[Nige]

Nah, none of those would have effected supply for years.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

He might have been talking about the pandemic, or perhaps you've forgotten about the effects that had on supply and demand across the global economy?

[ThePublius]

"Way more than 3.2 percent of that decrease is accounted for by corporate price gouging (oh, excuse me, higher profits, of course!)."

Based on what, Stephen? This is a far left, progressive talking point, particularly from Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and the like. But there is no evidence, and no economic basis for this at all. Don't you understand how inflation occurs?

I'm interested in hearing your substantiation of this claim, I recognize that you're an intelligent and articulate commenter her. But I just don't get this.

Take the price of gasoline, as an example, or butter. How does a corporation control the end consumer price of these basic commodities?

[Nige]

How do the corporations that sell consumer goods control the end prices? Really?

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, really. If they had the power to control prices like that, why did they wait until a huge increase in deficit spending to do it? Why weren't they doing it all along?

Only people who flunked or forgot Econ 101 think non-monoplies can control prices.

[Nige]

Prices are going up, corporate profits are going up, someone who's good at money explain this to me people are starving.

[shawn_dude]

Yeah, this is false. Price collusion is also a thing. Economists say that collusion is only temporary as one competitor is eventually going to chase increased volume by dropping their prices. Gas station owners, OTOH, have a long history of proving those predictions wrong.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Price collusion is also a thing. "

Inflation has been low for a decade or more. They didn't collude for the last decade but now are?

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Economists say that collusion is only temporary as one competitor is eventually going to chase increased volume by dropping their prices. Gas station owners, OTOH, have a long history of proving those predictions wrong.

Yes, that's why the national average price at the pump never fluctuations and only goes in one direction (up), and is still at/over $5/gal like it was in July. Oh, wait....

[bevis the lumberjack]

Sure, man, gas station owners collude by openly posing their prices such that they’re visible from the street.

This is simple supply/demand inflation exacerbated by Biden on energy and all that stimulus.

[Stephen Lathrop]

ThePublius — I haven't written systematic studies myself. Others have published stories I read, based on corporate earnings reports. They sounded plausible to me, and squared with my personal experience—which happens to have been a good deal more involved and inquisitive than typical.

But the main reason I conclude price gouging goes on is because I am not innumerate, I can read trade association press releases, and because I learned long ago how customary it is to do it. It helps to have been in the media business; you can easily recognize when ostensible news stories are in fact trade association press releases.

By the way, almost every news story about upcoming prices will be from industry press releases. News media do not somehow track future prices and write those stories on their own initiative. When NPR business journalists cheerfully report that gas prices are about to go up, they got a press release. They just report uncritically whatever showed up in email. They almost never research price issues on their own. Give some thought to what that means, in terms of opportunity for ostensible industry competitors to use trade organizations to synchronize price changes.

Another thing to notice about price-related press releases is that they go very light on underlying math. And to the extent there are mathematical clues, they tend to be internally inconsistent, and to contradict many narrative claims. Business journalists seem not to notice. They seem pretty confident you will count them as business sophisticates if they insist on supply and demand.

For instance, if I read a report that price increases at the local fast food joint have been justified by huge wage increases for their workers, I compare the reported size of the wage increases with the (unreported) size of the price increases I know I experience. At fast food joints I am a creature of habit—about one breakfast meal a week, and always the same items, but at numerous different stores. That makes it easy to notice and quantify the price changes on the items I buy.

I take note that wages and benefits are far from the only costs the fast food joint has. An X percent increase in the wage line item does not need to translate into an X percent increase in prices, unless all the other overhead line items go up X percent too. If that has not happened, price increases could be notably smaller than wage increases to keep everything running as before. But of course we must keep in mind that times of change are times when a lot of people do not know what to expect, and that can create opportunity.

Lately, in the local fast food joints, there has been little reason to suppose that other overhead items increased as much as labor costs. The mathematical inference is that percentage price increases do not need to be nearly as large as labor cost increases to fully offset them. But the opposite has been true, the price increases have been notably larger than the wage and benefit increases.

Thus, if the press release says labor costs are up 40%, and I notice the prices I pay are up 60% over the last 6 months, which was preceded by a 30% price increase in the year previous, the trade association seems full of beans to attribute the higher price I pay just to labor costs. Then I look at skyrocketing profits reports, and, "Voila!"

Or, consider my price for heating oil. I live in New England, and need to heat with oil, which happens to be equivalent to diesel fuel, except that diesel gets taxes added for being an over-the-road fuel. Heating oil escapes those taxes.

So why in the autumn as the weather gets cooler is there always a, "shortage," of heating oil, which is said to justify a price-per-gallon for the untaxed heating oil (which, remember, actually is diesel) far above the taxed price of diesel for vehicle fuel? The industry knows when the weather changes, and plans accordingly. Supply and demand cannot account for that anomaly. But year after year, the press releases say supply and demand does account for it.

Or, consider another numerical indicator from the petroleum markets. Suppose some region suffers a reduction of refining capacity, based as they say on regularly scheduled maintenance—which always seems to occur at a moment of price stress from other causes as well. Make it point to notice, when news reports say refinery problems account for price increases, they always cite some other complicating cause in addition.

Then the reports go on to attribute the local price increases to expenses of transporting replacement oil or gasoline, or whatever, to make up the local refinery shortage. They never detail customary transportation costs, or compare them to transportation costs to remedy a shortage. As a matter of fact, when you are talking about coastal regions like mine, which get their petroleum-related supplies mainly by sea, those transportation costs per barrel are remarkable low, almost trivial. So that transportation excuse never plausibly scales to match the autumn price increase—which is thus left without a coherent explanation, but stays fully equipped with plausible-sounding explanations from the grab-bag of economic nostrums.

I could go on in this vein. As an ex-newspaperman I still cultivate a habit of interviewing people informally, including—for stuff like my conclusions about oil prices—people who manage oil terminals, heating oil distribution businesses, and even some speculators I find among the former groups. They tend to agree with what I am telling you.

Those interviews remind me of what I used to learn as a journalist while interviewing farmers, executives of big agricultural corporations, food distribution companies, supermarket chains, and other such regional economic influencers. The long and short of it is that commonplace supply-and-demand economic pieties have to be taken with a grain of salt. They are always part of the mix. They are usually not the complete story. If you can imagine any plausible-sounding way to game prices, you can almost always discover that people who stand to profit are already doing it.

[Krayt]

It's not price gouging. The prices will not come back down. It's good old inflation.

Politicians are scared for the next election, but in the long run it means they can borrow even more because the debt has less value. So they are happy.

[Krayt]

My local greasy spoon has exactly one lunch item left that's less than $10.

One.

Thanks, politicians, you traitorous, self-serving bastards.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Get a job. Quit whining.

[Kazinski]

No, I don’t think inflation makes politicians happy.

Because the current pain of high interest rates puts too much strain on current budgets.

[ThePublius]

Thanks for the detailed reply, Stephen. But I don't think you "have it." Here's an example. You say:

"Or, consider my price for heating oil. I live in New England, and need to heat with oil, which happens to be equivalent to diesel fuel, except that diesel gets taxes added for being an over-the-road fuel. Heating oil escapes those taxes.

So why in the autumn as the weather gets cooler is there always a, “shortage,” of heating oil, which is said to justify a price-per-gallon for the untaxed heating oil (which, remember, actually is diesel) far above the taxed price of diesel for vehicle fuel? The industry knows when the weather changes, and plans accordingly. Supply and demand cannot account for that anomaly. But year after year, the press releases say supply and demand does account for it."

Yes, I live in New England, too, and until just recently heated with oil. I also happen to know a couple of people in the residential oil delivery business. What happens in the Fall is that oil delivery companies start topping off people's tanks, in anticipation of the cooler weather. this puts increased demand on their supply chain, driving prices up. Simple. It's not price gouging, it's the commodity market in action. You might be better off if they topped you off in the Spring.

Please don't assume that your inferences based on your admittedly anecdotal inputs are what really drives markets, and then ascribe the price increases to greed or gouging.

[bernard11]

This is pretty much correct, IMO.

More simply, in the fall, demand increases. Hence prices rise.

Of course, supply decreases - Ukraine, OPEC - also cause prices to rise. So yes, it is supply and demand.

[Brett Bellmore]

Inflation, for that matter, is just supply and demand. The supply of currency rises, demand for products stays where it is, so the value of currency vs products drops, and the prices of the products denominated in the currency rises. It really is pretty simple, except that government, being the usual cause of inflation, prefers people not understand they caused it, and so puts a lot of work into confusing people.

[bernard11]

It really is pretty simple, except that government, being the usual cause of inflation, prefers people not understand they caused it, and so puts a lot of work into confusing people.

It's not that simple. Nor does the government try to confuse people, though plenty of politicians do.

Among other things, supply shocks really do affect prices, whether the money supply increases or not. Inflation expectations matter as well.

[Squirrelloid]

Technically, it's not inflation if it's caused by a supply shock. (Our measurements of inflation are imprecise to the extent they can confuse one for another - but this is a reason why you can't just look at one commodity and make a conclusion about inflation).

[Stephen Lathrop]

bernard11 — Given that diesel is a perfectly usable substitute for fuel oil, how is it that the perfectly functioning free market does not make the substitution when fuel oil is priced 75 cents a gallon more than diesel? My fuel oil guy has access to diesel in whatever quantity he pleases. He puts it in his truck to bring me my more-expensive fuel oil.

[David Nieporent]

That's sort of a puzzling question. "The market" doesn't actually make decisions; individual actors in the market do. Why didn't you tell him to bring you diesel instead of fuel oil?

[Stephen Lathrop]

ThePublius — An unanswered implicit question or two:

1. Within normal statistical limits, fuel oil dealers can accurately gauge seasonal demand. By use of recorded customer experience, and weather data, they make automatic deliveries to customers who agree to let them do it. That is common practice, and works well. At least for autumn seasons that are not statistical outliers for cold weather—which means for most years—that kind of calculation ought to enable supply anticipation to offset the, “topping off,” season you hypothesize. In a well-functioning free market, a dealer who did anticipate would gain business from others who did not. It would be such a strong selling point that it would enable an enterprising free-market-alert dealer to capture entire accounts on a permanent basis, and put competitors out of business. Seasonal demand thus produced would be factored into refinery production schedules, in the same way that their accustomed production planning enables them to anticipate other seasonal needs. That does not appear to be happening. Why not?

2. Potatoes are a commodity product. In Idaho, spuds, as they are called locally, store astonishingly well in enormous so-called potato barns, half buried in the earth to keep them at ideal storage temperatures and humidity levels with minimal energy investment. Thus stored, the crop is so rugged that operators can and do manage it by driving front-end loaders right across the potatoes. Many of the potatoes you buy in the market are thus a year old or older, although most probably range in age from recently-dug to about one-year old. When I lived in Idaho, and worked as a newspaper reporter, it occurred to me to wonder why with a produce product which does not quickly go bad, the farmers were getting a price-per-hundredweight that was about ten percent of the price I paid per-pound at the supermarket. So I looked into it by interviewing corporate produce managers. Most could barely keep a straight face while answering. One laughed outright, and confessed that potato prices and potato storability made them by far the most profitable produce item he handled. He then did mumble a bit about, “Of course, transportation and handling add cost.” So I looked into those. That enabled a story with a picture of an Idaho supermarket juxtaposed with a picture of a nearby potato field. That market charged the 10x potato markup, just like the others. And like the others, part of the explanation turned out to be that the crop out of the local field was shipped—mostly by rail—en masse to Los Angeles, there to be put in grocery sacks, and then shipped back to that pictured market for massively-marked-up sale to Idahoans—who ironically could pick the same product up for free during the harvest season, as potatoes cascaded off high-heaped open harvest trucks, and rolled pell-mell through the town’s streets. Those trucks were carting that market’s spuds from nearly-adjacent fields to the shipping depots, at the start of their round-trip journey to Los Angeles and back. But even that economically extravagant exercise had too slight an effect to stop the produce manager from grinning about the markup he was getting.

There is so much obvious economic irrationality in American commercial practice that the notion that supply and demand governs all—with no influence for strategy, gamesmanship, and connivance—is outright nonsense. To think even for a moment about peculiar everyday occurrences in the marketplace is to understand that ideological reiterations of free-market determinism come from naive and indoctrinated commenters. Free markets are part of how American commerce works, but very far from the whole story.

More generally, the caution that anecdotes are not data is always wise. But unwise assertions that this or that practice is uniform, and utterly reliable, are properly and effectively critiqued by anecdotes to the contrary. When you insist on uniformity, individual exceptions are disproof. I think economic ideologues understand that, but avoid any public show of skepticism, lest that catch on among the masses, and make them restless about impositions which maximal profits may require.

[Squirrelloid]

1/ none of that changes the fact that more people want it in winter, and the supply is basically constant per day, so the price should increase.

(Oil markets fluctuate over the course of a day, much less over longer timescales. If someone wants to buy oil today, the cost they can purchase it at will depend on how much oil there is *today* and how much demand there is *today*. It doesn't matter that businesses can plan longterm, they need to treat the oil as if it has the value it actually has! Otherwise it would be more profitable to sell it back on the oil market in winter than deliver it to their customers! Meanwhile, if they buy more oil than they need when its cheaper (we'll assume its always possible to guess correctly), now they have to invest in more storage to hold that oil for months - which costs money.)

(And while my home is heated with natural gas and not oil, i can, in fact, choose to have my price averaged over the year - but that means I'm paying more in summer than i would otherwise, and less in winter.)

2/ Yes, agricultural markets are a disaster. Distribution is not competitive (there's very few of them globally). This isn't actually a market failure, it's a government failure. The whole agriculture industry has so many government regulations, subsidies, etc... that to pretend there's a competitive market that's working anywhere in it is laughable.

[Armchair Lawyer]

I don't know what to tell you Lathrop....

The financial statements of these corporations are publically available. The earnings per share are public. They're not suddenly spiking. All of their inputs cost more. To use your fast food restaurant, labor costs are up sure. But so is the cost of the raw food stuffs. And the energy bills.

[Squirrelloid]

“I take note that wages and benefits are far from the only costs the fast food joint has. An X percent increase in the wage line item does not need to translate into an X percent increase in prices, unless all the other overhead line items go up X percent too.”

This is so incredibly backwards.

The owner’s primary concern is turning a profit, because that’s where they make the money they live on. They’re constrained by competition with other restaurants.

Let’s imagine all their costs are covered by Labor + Product + Capital (equipment, the building, etc…).

So, by supposition, their labor costs go up by X%. L + P + C -> (1.X)L + P + C, which is less than an X% increase overall, sure. But you’re forgetting about Sales, which may respond to a change in price. Let’s approximate Sales as price * Volume (p*V).

Profit = p*V – (L + P + C). If L -> 1.X L, the owner wants to increase price. But because volume sold is not independent of price (ie, increasing p should cause a decrease in V), the increase in price is going to need to be higher (as a percentage of the original price) than the increase in labor costs as a fraction of the total costs. And this change in volume isn’t going to necessarily be predictable – setting your prediction on volume too high could drive you out of business if that doesn’t materialize. Businesses are, after all, guessing what consumer response to price changes will be.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Squirrelloid — Take a quick look at your comment. Just look at it, without reading it. Can you see anything there to suggest that your advocacy comes more from ideology than from experience?

[Squirrelloid]

Are you saying math is ideological? Are you for real?

You realize your anecdote and conclusion on what the price increase should be implied a mathematical model. Just because you didn't formally write it out doesn't mean it wasn't there.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Mathematics is not ideological. But it provides a model for ideologues. Like geometers, ideologues presume axioms, and suppose they can reason from those to discover facts. More generally, the notion that mathematics can be usefully applied to economics remains an essentially ideological hypothesis. Ideological exactly because it discounts experience in favor of axiomatic reasoning about economic activity among people who are left free to do as they please. Experience provides far more proof that does not work than proof that it does.

[Squirrelloid]

So how much experience do you have as a restauranteur? Because that would be the only relevant experience here.

Putting aside all you have is anecdote, you're using a model (that can be rendered in math) of restauranteur behavior (that you have no experience of). Seems pretty ideological to me.

I mean, the math is pretty obvious here. I could write it out in English and describe my model in words, but it wouldn't change the math or the model. To pretend that math = ideology is just dumb. Your statements were just as much a model of what is going on, and they were a *worse model*.

But I can see you'd rather dismiss the substance of my critique, since you have no answer for it.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Way more than 3.2 percent of that decrease is accounted for by corporate price gouging..."

So what? Would you prefer shortages?

I mean, sure. If you print a bunch of money in the face of supply constraints, you're going to have more money than goods, so sellers are going to have to either raise prices or ration some other way, leaving consumers with money but nothing to buy.

[Nige]

How about a tax on windfall profits, then? If they aren't profiteering, it won't hit hard at all.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Not much incentive to increase production, in that case.

ISTM the likely response would be to sell fewer units at higher cost, no?

The best way out of inflation is probably a middle-class tax increase, but that would be politically unpopular.

[Nige]

Why? It wouldn't prevent them from making a profit, only on making excessive profits by keeping prices high.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Sure. But they can make just as much profit by producing fewer units at high prices. If there's not enough production, you want to incentivize it, not disincentivize it.

As they say, the cure for inflation is high prices.

[Nige]

If they're going to fuck around with production and prices, might as well tax the shit out of them anyway.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Well, sure, then they won't fuck around with production any more. That'll show 'em.

[Nige]

Someone else will.

[Squirrelloid]

Who Nige?

[Nige]

You're right nobody will, it'll all come to a complete stop.

[Squirrelloid]

If you take away all the incentives to do it, then yes, no one will do it.

Economies work because entrepreneurs see opportunity to make money and invest their capital, time, and effort into doing it. If there's no possibility to make money, no one will do it.

Maybe check out how well the Soviet factory 5-year plans worked out, and the nonsense factory managers did to keep expectations as low as possible.

[Brett Bellmore]

How about a government class spending cut, instead?

[Nige]

What do you want to cut? Social security? Medicaid? Military spending? I'd be all for that one.

[Bob from Ohio]

You can start with everything in the misnamed "Inflation Reduction Act".

[Nige]

Nah, I'd prefer cutting military spending. And law enforcement budgets.

[Squirrelloid]

There isn't enough military spending to cut to make enough difference. Defense is only ~10% of the federal budget. The feds spend more on education (~12%) or welfare programs (~12%) than defense.

Ultimately, Social Security, Medicare, and welfare will need to receive cuts - either intentionally, or unintentionally when the government can no longer fund them. They're too big a fraction of the federal government's spending to avoid it. (Those three categories together account for almost 50% of government spending).

But sure, I'd agree to starting with DEA and DHS. We could go back to the 90s airport security level - the increased airport security is empirically useless. And the DEA could just be eliminated entirely. (Ending the war on drugs could probably also justify personnel reductions in several other federal agencies).

That's not going to be enough. But it's a start.

[Stephen Lathrop]

TIP — Nah. The best way out of inflation would be to figure out a way to tax inflation itself. Which is sort of what a windfall profits tax attempts to do. But wouldn't it be more effective if someone could figure out a way to define inflationary pricing behavior, and put corporations which practice it on notice in advance that there is a tax policy to assure that it will not work for them? I bet some smart economist could do that—do the figuring out part, not the implementation part, of course. Implementation would never happen. Political system would not permit it.

[Squirrelloid]

What windfall profits? Inflation explains most of the increase in profits.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Would you prefer shortages?

TIP — That is a question worth more thought than you seem to want me to give to it. Arguably, price gouging empowers the class of price gougers, and also the class of folks who can afford to pay without difficulty the gougers' prices. Comparatively, folks without money to pay gougers' prices are no worse off. Either way, they will not be receiving goods.

My preliminary answer to your question is thus, yes, I prefer shortages, for two reasons. First, I do not want richer classes to enjoy an advantage to use wealth to compete while I cannot. Second, if richer classes too suffer shortages, then I expect we can more likely act in concert to address with policy whatever conditions or activities created the shortages.

On those bases, shortages seem notably less threatening to me than price gouging.

[Squirrelloid]

What evidence do you have for higher corporate profits? I can't find data more recent than 2021, and after tax profits (across the entire S+P 500) are nearly flat for the last decade.

[Squirrelloid]

Okay, I found the FRED data, apparently profits spike in mid-late 2021 in absolute terms. But of course we had inflation at that point, so absolute amounts are a poor measure.

Also, the real increase in profits (inflation won’t explain all of it – it’s about a 15% change relative to GDP, which means with ~8% inflation that it’s a mere 7% increase in corporate profits) is probably a correction to the decade of nearly flat corporate profits (in absolute terms). Considering the disconnect between corporate profits and the change in value of the stock exchange, that’s the appropriate frame to view this through. (And that's just using the annual inflation rate as of August. So that's an underestimate of how much of it is inflation).

(So yes, to some extent businesses are using inflation to justify price increases – but they’d foregone those price increases for about 10 years before that!)

[Stephen Lathrop]

Before the profits spiked, were they making profits during those previous 10 years?

[Stephen Lathrop]

So yes, to some extent businesses are using inflation to justify price increases – but they’d foregone those price increases for about 10 years before that!

In the face of a critique that price gouging is driving inflation, your reply seems to assert that inflation preexists, and thus diminishes price gouging—which you nevertheless acknowledge is happening. The choice to blame price increases on inflation, given that price increases ARE inflation, seems like ideologically-driven sleight of hand.

When consumers suffer price increases, no one says, "Sure, but they aren't as bad as they look because there has been inflation."

[Squirrelloid]

First, it's not price gouging.

Second, even one year of inflation literally explains half the profit increases. Inflation has been going on for longer than that.

(Actually, for the sake of argument, I just checked an inflation calculator so i could look at a timescale longer than annual inflation. From 2020 to 2022, inflation is about 14%. Profits are up about 15% since 2020. Those track pretty closely! And that means those profits are worth about the same in real terms as the through 2020 profits that were basically flat for a decade.)

Third, price increases are inflation, but *profit* increases are not the same as price increases. Confusing the two leads to error.

Fourth, businesses need to pay for inputs. If the company's costs increase (because of inflation), they have to pass those costs on, so prices increase. It's not like businesses are magically not experiencing inflation.

And my argument was that any residual profit increases that aren't explained by inflation are because companies had foregone raising prices in the past because they didn't feel they could do so and compete in the marketplace, even though the underlying corporate fundamentals ideally wanted slight price increases. (It's frequently not worth making small price adjustments, both in terms of customer relations and in terms of whatever costs there are in doing so). Apparently those residuals are smaller than I first thought.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Squirrelloid — If I say, "Price gouging is causing inflation," and you reply, "Inflation justifies price increases," what reasoning makes you think your answer is responsive, instead of a mere denial of my assertion? Why not just stop after your first sentence?

[Squirrelloid]

Price gouging causing inflation requires some vast conspiracy of business owners to act together to raise prices. Have any evidence for such a thing?

Do you even have a definition for “price gouging” that isn’t question-begging?

Meanwhile, inflation causing prices to go up is obvious. Business’s costs go up, it has to raise its prices.

Also, if this was some vast business conspiracy to create more wealth for themselves, it failed absolutely. ~15% higher profits over the same period of time we had ~14% (14.4%) inflation is a wash. They’re basically making the same profits they did in 2020, measured in purchasing power.

Also, you're talking about an increase in profits. That's not price gouging nor even evidence of price gouging. (Increased efficiency -> increased real profits, even with constant prices). You're committing error here by assuming changes in profit margins are evidence of or caused by price-related changes. Connecting the two requires evidence.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Squirrelloid — Mathematics tells us how people would behave if people were numbers. High on your list of tacit ideological premises is a notion that people do indeed behave like numbers.

That is not true. Number behavior—constrained as it is by mathematical rules—is remarkably consistent. Economically, people remain free to do what they want. What they want they revise from moment to moment, within an unbounded and ever-changing context. That is why mathematics has turned out so poorly as a predictor of the economic future. The consistency of numbers has proved an incompetent match for the irregularity of people.

Also? Not even physicists think what you apparently do, that mathematics can enable reasoning from axioms to discover facts. The question whether an instance of inflation has a cause rooted in policy (or any other pre-existent cause), which results in a general price increase, or results instead from specific decisions to increase prices, however motivated, cannot be answered computationally. To answer it requires reference to experience of particular cases. Answers could go either way, depending on circumstances. Those must be found empirically; they cannot be discovered deductively.

History presents examples of both phenomena. To suppose from the outset that it is always one way, or always the other, is thus a mistaken ideological choice; it is not announcement of an empirical fact.

[Squirrelloid]

"that mathematics can enable reasoning from axioms to discover facts."

I'd love for you to point out where I've done this. Because I haven't. Mathematics allows us to create models. We can also do that with English, but mathematics allows us to see things more clearly in a lot of cases. I could render the same models in pure English, or convert a model in pure English to mathematics.

Models are not 'axioms'. And your models are just as mathematical, even if you express them in language rather than numbers.

[Jimmy the Dane]

At least around my metro area, real costs are up 30-40% for most staples that sustain a household. Some are up as high as 50-70%. The thought inflation is JUST 10% is now sort of a joke resigned to some economist formula that does not represent reality.

The price of gas coming down a little and seeing more sales on consumer goods has provided a little relief for many, but that is going to end soon here with gas prices shooting back up.

Wages on the other hand are completely stagnant, as they usually are in this kind of inflationary scenario. At least the job market in most areas is holding so we don't have people dealing with the double whammy of unemployment and inflation.

[Brett Bellmore]

The problem is that wages are sticky. Maybe you get a yearly COLA, you get a wage jump if you take a new job, but between those events inflation is a dead loss.

But, of course, that's the point of inflation: The government 'prints' money, gets to be the first one spending it, so inflation transfers to the government a fraction of the value of everything denominated in the inflating currency. Everybody gets poorer, except the government. It's a particularly destructive form of covert tax.

Us getting poorer is just the flip side of the government getting richer, we're all the eggs the government is breaking to make its omelette.

[Nige]

'Everybody gets poorer, except the government.'

And the billionaires and corporations. They are not getting poorer. They're rolling in it.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, the people running the government have to launder all that money through SOMEBODY, don't they?

The people running the government 'print' a bunch of money. The most efficient thing would be for them to just directly take possession of it themselves, except that doing so openly might result in them being hung from the nearest lamp post. So they give it to somebody else, in return for some of it finding its way back to them personally, rather than the government.

You give the loot to the poor, you get their votes, but you can't spend votes, so you can't do that with all the money.

You give it to the middle class, they tend to be ungrateful wretches, and spend it on themselves. A total waste giving any of it to them.

You give it to the rich. In return they cleverly find all sorts of ways to make sure some of it finds its way back to you. Your wife gets hired for a job created just for her, that gets abolished when she leaves it. Your daughter is put on a board of directors, no need to actually show up for work. Your ne'er do well son keeps getting crazy paying gigs nominally doing things he knows nothing about. People donate to your foundation that pays your travel expenses, you get stock tips, you magically become a day trading genius.

It's all terribly inefficient, you get back pennies on the dollar if you're lucky. So what, it didn't cost YOU anything to print the money. What matters at the end is some it ends up in your pocket, and it's all deniable enough you don't get lynched.

The government doesn't give the wealthy all that loot for the sake of the wealthy, any more than a burglar gives the fence jewelry to court her. They do it as a way of laundering the funds.

[Sarcastr0]

Well, the people running the government have to launder all that money through SOMEBODY, don’t they?

Yes, this is why we keep rich people around. For secret laundering purposes.
Good lord, man. The worldview you explicate here is an amazing feat of speculative fiction, but your evidence appears to come from the same place your evidence usually does.

When I look at modernity, I see example after example of conflicts between economic and political power, and economic power wins 9 times out of 10.

The people who see government as the omni-powerful villain spend a lot of time explaining that away.

[Nige]

It'd be borderline Swiftian satire if it wasn't obviously an effort at political spin.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Richest counties in America...

1. Loudon County, VA
2. Santa Clara, CA
3. Fairfax, VA
4. Howard, MD
5. San Mateo, CA

Odd how three of the richest counties in America are the DC Suburbs. The other two are Silicon Valley.

https://cnsnews.com/commentary/terence-p-jeffrey/dc-suburbs-and-silicon-valley-compete-be-richest-place-usa

[Nige]

This is fucking amazing. Governments corrupt and suborn pure and honest corporations, not the other way around.

[Brett Bellmore]

Huh, no. Corruption is everywhere. The difference is that government is corruption with an army. The corrupt corporations need to do SOMETHING productive to get money, which limits their corruption. The corrupt government gets its money by refraining from shooting you, (It's just a protection racket.) it doesn't have to be productive, so it's free to be a lot more corrupt.

[Nige]

Ah yes, it was only the other day Biden sent in the Marines against a corporation that was behind on its graft.

[Ben_]

Leftist elites living in gated neighborhoods can afford it.

You deplorable Americans have it coming for not being the right kind of people.

[Kazinski]

Gas prices coming down is last months news.

In Reno gas prices have gone from 4.85 to 5.50 in the last 3 weeks.

I got to make a trip down to SF next week, I'm scrambling trying to line up an emergency line of credit to buy 2 tanks of gas to get there and back.

[Armchair Lawyer]

What on earth is going on with the FBI?

They're arresting and charging more peaceful protestors for violating the "FACE" act... months after the fact.

OK, let's be honest here. You can be pro-abortion. You can be anti-abortion. But going after peaceful protestors MONTHS after the protest with arrests violates all sorts of norms about political protests and such in America. It's scary.

“The FBI isn’t even performing the investigations,” said Hurley. “The DOJ is doing their own investigations and using the FBI as their arm of that organization… Normally the FBI does an investigation, and if they find someone guilty of federal crimes, they issue warrants.” Instead, he says, “the DOJ is… sending local branches of the FBI with arrest warrants to be their strong arm.”

Hurley added, “This is a new tactic the DOJ has been throwing at pro-lifers to see if the charges stick.”

However, the DOJ press release claims, “This case was investigated by the FBI and is being prosecuted by the Civil Rights Coordinator of the U.S. Attorney’s Office and trial Attorneys of the Department’s Civil Rights Division,” adding, “An indictment is merely an accusation. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.”

These FBI arrests are the most recent in a line of targeted attacks against pro-life individuals who peacefully participate in activities at or outside abortion facilities in the United States. One of the most notable was the recent FBI raid on the home of Philadelphia sidewalk counselor Mark Houck, whose home was visited in late September by approximately 15-20 agents in tactical gear, with guns drawn, in the presence of Houck’s wife and seven young children.

https://www.liveaction.org/news/fbi-charges-multiple-individuals-peaceful-protests-abortion/

[Brett Bellmore]

What's going on is that the US is not so gradually becoming a police state.

[apedad]

Well we are the leaders in imprisoning folks.

"The United States leads the world in total number of people incarcerated, with more than 2 million prisoners nationwide (per data released in October 2021 by World Prison Brief). This number is equivalent to roughly 25% of the world's total prison population and leads to an incarceration rate of 629 people per 100,000—the highest rate in the world."

https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/incarceration-rates-by-country

[Brett Bellmore]

It's my understanding that our ratio of prison population to criminal offenders isn't all that high, the high rate of imprisonment is actually due to having a high crime rate.

Mind you, I think too many things are crimes to begin with.

[Krayt]

Isn't it supposed to be coming down with the legalization of marijuana?

[Brett Bellmore]

I think it's been long enough since the federal government was jailing a lot of people over pot, that legalization can't really have that much impact at the federal level. And they've kept enough drugs illegal to preserve the black market that drives so much of our crime.

That's the worst case: Legal enough to get the downsides of use, and still illegal enough to keep the black market running.

[apedad]

A federal grand jury returned the indictment so apparently the allegations met some threshold - and it's not just the FBI involved.

Eleven Defendants Indicted for Obstructing a Reproductive Health Services Facility in Tennessee

The indictment further alleges that on March 5, 2021, the 11 individuals, aided and abetted by one another, used force and physical obstruction to injure, intimidate and interfere with employees of the clinic and a patient who was seeking reproductive health services.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/eleven-defendants-indicted-obstructing-reproductive-health-services-facility-tennessee

I do agree it seems like a long time between the alleged criminal activity and the indictment, so it would be interesting to see why that is.

[Brett Bellmore]

The "injure, intimidate and interfere" seems to be just a recitation of the statute; If I'm reading the press release correctly they're only being charged with obstruction and intimidation. Which, of course, could range from chaining the door shut and screaming threats in people's faces, to not much more than being present on the sidewalk.

Given the claim that it was live-streamed, and the allegations, it will either be a slam dunk, or a joke. If a slam dunk you have to ask why it took this long to bring charges. Better timing for the mid-terms?

[Nige]

'Better timing for the mid-terms?'

There's an allegation with no evidence. You're passionately arguing against doing that just above...

[Brett Bellmore]

Allegation: "a claim or assertion that someone has done something illegal or wrong, typically one made without proof."

Speculation: "the forming of a theory or conjecture without firm evidence"

They both have in common a lack of evidence, but only one involves actually claiming something happened. I was speculating, not alleging.

[Nige]

I stand corrected. You were speculating: wildly, baselessly, even maliciously and with intent to flood the zone a bit. That's okay then.

[John F. Carr]

In my state an indictment is sufficient if it recites the words of the statute, or words defined by statute to be sufficient for an indictment. "Assault and beat" covers all forms of assault, for example.

A few months ago Biden or Garland told the DoJ to do something to fight back against the vast right-wing conspiracy against abortion. The charges could be fallout from that policy decision.

[not guilty]

"I do agree it seems like a long time between the alleged criminal activity and the indictment, so it would be interesting to see why that is."

There is no right to be arrested. Federal crimes are ordinarily investigated at some length before being charged, in that an accused person can insist on being tried within months of being arrested. The government needs to be prepared to try the case promptly upon bringing the accusation. (If the prosecution is shown to have unduly delayed bringing charges in order to gain a tactical advantage, due process concerns can come into play.)

FWIW, I am a lifelong resident of the Nashville area, and I didn't know that there is or was an abortion facility in Mount Juliet (a Nashville suburb).

[Krayt]

Let's see people intimidating other people in restaurants go to jail.

[David Nieporent]

Well, there's no federal Freedom of Access to Nachos Act.

[Bored Lawyer]

There should be! Didn't one of the Founding Fathers say, "Give me Nachos or Give Me Death!"

[Brett Bellmore]

If they'd known our local Mexican restaurant, they'd have said, "Give me Nachos AND give me death. In a bottle."

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

A federal grand jury returned the indictment so apparently the allegations met some threshold

The Ham Sandwich threshold?

[Ben_]

Good enough for Dems. It’s dangerous out there when Dems see you as people who are not like us.

[Bored Lawyer]

"so apparently the allegations met some threshold"

The ham sandwich threshhold?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Peaceful protest:

According to court documents, the defendant is alleged to have twice assaulted a man because he was a volunteer reproductive health care clinic escort. The charges stem from two separate incidents both on October 13, 2021, which occurred at the Planned Parenthood Elizabeth Blackwell Health Center on Locust Street in Philadelphia, where Houck allegedly assaulted the victim, a 72-year-old man, identified in the Indictment as “B.L.,” because B.L. was a volunteer escort at the reproductive health care clinic. In the first incident, B.L. was attempting to escort two patients exiting the clinic, when the defendant forcefully shoved B.L. to the ground. In the second incident, the defendant verbally confronted B.L. and forcefully shoved B.L. to the ground in front of the Planned Parenthood center, causing injuries to B.L. that required medical attention.

Armchair Lawyer, nobody thinks self-interested commentary from people involved in a story amounts to news reporting. Your meaningless invocation of, "said Hurley," isn't the validator you think it is, if no one knows who Hurley is, or who he was saying it to.

Of course it turns out Hurley is an apologist for the allegedly violent clinic demonstrators under investigation. Your own sources for this are pro-life web sites. You may suppose that reporting stuff that way puts you on the same footing as someone quoting a professional news source. It doesn't. Why is this so hard to get right wingers to understand?

[apedad]

Two of the women indicted are named Eva....which reminds me of this Seinfeld scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIjW-u3q45A

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Did the state authorities bring charges?

If they did, then it wouldn't be double jeopardy according to the Supreme Court, though the common sense of the people might indicate that it is.

If the state authorities did *not* bring charges, why not? What special insight do the feds have which the state doesn't?

Here is the justification which Congress claims for the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act:

"Pursuant to the affirmative power of Congress to enact this legislation under section 8 of article I of the Constitution, as well as under section 5 of the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution, it is the purpose of this Act to protect and promote the public safety and health and activities affecting interstate commerce by establishing Federal criminal penalties and civil remedies for certain violent, threatening, obstructive and destructive conduct that is intended to injure, intimidate or interfere with persons seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services." [also interfering with places of religious worship, though this isn't mentioned here]

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/248

So it's good old interstate commerce, plus the enforcement of the 14th Amendment's right to abortion and free exercise of religion. The first of these rights has been officially abolished, so...oops.

[Brett Bellmore]

Eh, you wouldn't have to ground it in a civil right to abortion. You could probably make a case for a civil right to do basically anything lawful without being attacked. That's shading pretty close to the general police power, though.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

OK, here's the link to the preamble, sorry:

https://www.congress.gov/103/statute/STATUTE-108/STATUTE-108-Pg694.pdf

[Jimmy the Dane]

I would believe more of this story if there was not evidence that those escorts are TRAINED by Planned Parenthood to fake and make false claims in order to coerce the police into taking action against peaceful protesters. It is a known pro-abortion tactic.

[David Nieporent]

And by "if there was not evidence," Jimmy means "There is no such evidence."

[Jimmy the Dane]

There is a mountain of evidence and it is known by all that this is the SOP of leftist agitators.

[Sarcastr0]

Incredible and telling response to an accusation you have no evidence.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Welcome to the Banana Republic of North America.

[Ed Grinberg]

Pretty much.

• BLM / Antifa run amok, setting fire to police stations and federal courthouses -- FBI is nowhere to be seen.
• Pro-life Christians hold peaceful prayer vigils outside abortion clinics -- FBI is on the case!

In a banana republic, the function of the police isn't to fight crime as such, but rather to enforce the will of el Presidente. (If el Presidente doesn't like you, you're a criminal. If he likes you, you can do no wrong.)

[shawn_dude]

Shoving a 72-yo man to the ground more than once such that it requires medical attention is the "Pro-life Christian" definition of a "peaceful prayer vigil?"

[M L]

Where's the evidence of this "assault"? It is most likely just a lie by the abortionists and political persecution by their collaborators in DOJ. If so they should all be jailed.

While they are doing these things, the media is silent about actual violence and the FBI hasn't made any arrests:

https://news.yahoo.com/pro-abortion-terrorists-firebomb-buffalo-162838322.html

[M L]

Death threats too!

Pro-abortion group Jane’s Revenge, which has developed a reputation for resorting to violence, claimed responsibility for the attack, which left glass shattered and much of the interior of the CompassCare office burned and destroyed, CBN News reported.

The arsonists left graffiti on a wall that read, “Jane Was Here.” The organization has committed multiple such incidents in the last few months, including one in which it firebombed the headquarters of Wisconsin Family Action (WFA), a pro-life group in Madison, Wis. last month. There, the terrorists left the message, “If abortions aren’t safe, then you aren’t either.”

[not guilty]

Organized terrorist groups, whether in support of or opposed to abortion rights, should be prosecuted vigorously. Multiple acts of arson can be predicate felonies for a federal RICO prosecution.

[Noscitur a sociis]

The DOJ is doing their own investigations and using the FBI as their arm of that organization

What is this supposed to mean? The FBI is an arm of DOJ.

[M L]

See the reference to local branches. I read this as saying that, whereas normally the local field office would investigate based on a tip from D.C., in this case people in D.C. are doing their own investigations, and then simply ordering the field office to conduct a raid.

The suggestion is that since these are bare thug tactics, politically motivated persecutions that don't match norms, the thugs in D.C. have to shepherd them because the field office isn't entirely staffed with thugs.

[Noscitur a sociis]

I'm not sure 1. why you would read it that way, since that's not all what it says; 2. how AJ Hurley would know that, if it were what happened, or 3. why there would be anything nefarious about the FBI in Washington taking lead on an investigation.

[M L]

I mean, it seems obvious that's what he's alleging/implying. "Hurley added, “This is a new tactic the DOJ has been throwing at pro-lifers to see if the charges stick.”"

Whether it's true or how we would know, I don't know.

"FBI in Washington"

He does also seem to claim that it is non-FBI DOJ people heading up the investigation, which he claims is unusual.

[Noscitur a sociis]

He does also seem to claim that it is non-FBI DOJ people heading up the investigation, which he claims is unusual.

Thereby decisively resolving the question of whether he has the slightest idea what he's talking about.

[Armchair Lawyer]

"What is this supposed to mean? The FBI is an arm of DOJ."

Yes...and no.

In general parlance, the DoJ is comprised of several divisions. Civil Rights, Criminal, Antitrust, etc. They're all headed up by AAGs. When people specify the DoJ in particular, they're typically talking about the people in these divisions.

There are also several law enforcement agencies that are more self contained. These include the FBI, ATF, US Marshals, etc. These agencies aren't "under" the divisions of the DoJ. Rather, they answer to the Attorney General. For administrative purposes, they are part of the DoJ, but in terms of common parlance, they are typically referred to by their agency name. In many respects these agencies are self-contained enough that they could be moved to a different department (such as Homeland Security) without any real issues. (Like the Coast Guard was moved from the DoD to Homeland Security)

What this seems to imply is that lawyers at one of the DoJ divisions referenced above did the actual "investigation" based on the video that was seen, and ordered the FBI agents make the arrest.

What's really odd here is this was 18 months after the supposed crime. They'd already been arrested by local police (18 months ago) and let go on misdemeanor trespassing charges. This seems extraordinarily politically motivated.

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/doj-charges-eleven-pro-life-activists-for-blocking-abortion-clinic-fbi-reportedly-raids-home-of-protest-leader/

[Randal]

I thought that according to the right, you’re supposed to just shut up and do what the police say so that you don’t get shot. Then after being in jail for a while since bail is also stacked against you, you get your day in court to vindicate your rights.

Seems like it applies just as well to pro-lifers as it does to black people.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Funny story. They WERE arrested...18 months ago...by local police on trespassing charges for the supposed crime. And let go on misdemeanor charges. Which sure, is appropriate.

Having the Feds go back, 18 months later, to get them for some bogus extra crime...sounds super-political motivated.

[Ben_]

Note how no Democrats are even remotely interested in any sort of fairness in this instance or for any non-Democrats in any other situation generally. Using the DOJ and FBI to railroad nonviolent protesters is completely fine with them.

[Randal]

Oh Benj, how wrong you are. All the Democrats, myself included, are sympathetic. No one should be treated this way. I’m glad you’re finally on board and are going to start advocating against the unfair treatment of black people and BLM protesters at the hands of law enforcement!

[Ben_]

I was always on board with the police and justice system being forced to treat people fairly and humanely. The only way the public benefits is by keeping predatory criminals away from victims. Being mean to criminals adds no additional benefit to the public. Police meanness towards non-criminals directly hurts the public.

But I don’t believe you care about it at all. Dems just want to hurt people who are not like them whenever they can get away with it.

[Randal]

Really? Which party do you think has done more for criminal justice reform?

[Ben_]

That’s a complete change of subject.

But in Texas it’s been Republicans. At the Federal level Trump had the First Step Act. Versus Biden’s history of talking about "super predators" and voting for the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. Biden voted all those anti-crime bills you guys pretend to care about.

Also Dems keep pushing to put innocent gun owners in prison. Dems support criminalizing speech funding for elections too. I could go on.

[Randal]

I agree with you on Biden. Ugh.

[pro bonobo]

Hominini Lives Matter

[Moderation4ever]

Where is the bottom? President Ronald Reagan's 11th commandment was to never say a bad word about fellow Republicans. Former President Trump insults not just fellow Republicans but also fellow Republican's wives. Republicans say they are prolife but pay for the abortion of their own children. I guessing Walkers not alone here. Is there a bottom line that these people will not accept? Any guesses on what that might be?

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

When they feel they have a chance of taking back either or both houses of Congress, they will literally support anyone with a shot at winning. And by "they" I mean both major political parties.

[not guilty]

Has any prominent Republican condemned Herschel Walker's situational ethics regarding abortion, his non-involvement in the lives of his children whom he sired with multiple women, his history of domestic violence and his habitual lying? Has anyone who blathers about being "pro-life"? Any "Christian" culture warriors?

The answer is no. Tribal politics is all that matters to that crowd, no matter how much a scoundrel their champion useful idiot is.

[Krayt]

Tribal politics is all anyone cares about.

To quote Matthew Broderick at the end of Wargames, "Learn, dammit! Learn"

[Bob from Ohio]

"Tribal politics is all that matters to that crowd, no matter how much a scoundrel their champion useful idiot is."

Please, the Democrats are no better. Bill Clinton was not abandoned for his many sexual transgressions. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam stayed in office, so dos his lt. gov., accused of rape.

The only one abandoned are the ones no longer considered useful. Cuomo, for instance, because his national usefulness was ruined and his successor was going to be a democrat anyway.

[not guilty]

Whenever I get a tu quoque reply, I know I have struck an exposed nerve. The hit dog hollers.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Ok. No tu quoque reply, but it is simple to say that all anyone cares about is tribal politics.

Whenever someone dodges the main point and just dismisses the other guy using broad terms, you know you’ve struck a nerve.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Whenever I get a tu quoque reply, I know I have struck an exposed nerve. The hit dog hollers."

Oh BS. You made an objectively false statement, I was just correcting you.

"My side good, your side bad" is always BS.

[not guilty]

How is "Please, the Democrats are no better. Bill Clinton was not abandoned for his many sexual transgressions. Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam stayed in office, so dos his lt. gov., accused of rape" anything other than a tu quoque reply?

[bevis the lumberjack]

Where did I say anything about Democrats or republicans? Zealots care about team power and above all else. There is other principle. None.

You have yet to dispute that at all. Simply calling names is not substance.

[LawTalkingGuy]

I’ve seen liberals say that this demonstrates that Republicans don’t really believe abortion is like murder. That’s a charitable explanation. The less charitable and possibly more accurate explanation is that they still think it’s murder, but murder is just not a deal-breaker for them.

[Brett Bellmore]

Conservatives don't tend to look on politics as a positive thing, and don't tend to expect politicians to be very admirable, so tend to view their being scum as par for the course. If the scum does some good stuff on the job instead of trashing the joint, that's the best you can expect of scum.

The politicians you'd actually view as admirable without grading on a "that's a politician" curve, are pretty rare.

[Nige]

Republicans: we vote for scum!

[Kazinski]

Absolutely.

Just being a firm no vote for any additional federal spending is far more of a service to the country than any of his perceived shortcomings as a Christian or a father are.

[not guilty]

The New York Times reports that Herschel Walker encouraged the same woman to have a second abortion, but she chose to bear the child. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/07/us/politics/herschel-walker-abortion.html She says that Mr. Walker has been only minimally involved in the child's life.

[Ben_]

Congrats on finding yet another principle to pretend to believe in so you can point fingers at others for not upholding it to your pretend standards.

[Moderation4ever]

I am surprised that all the responses are about Walker. What about a person who insults your wife? Didn't Alexander Hamilton die in duel over an insults to his wife? Do we not care anymore about family?

[David Nieporent]

No; I think you're conflating Alexander Hamilton and Andrew Jackson.

[not guilty]

Andrew Jackson didn't die in a duel. He was wounded by, and killed, a duelist who had insulted his wife.

[David Nieporent]

I know Jackson didn't die in a duel. That's why I said that Moderation4ever was conflating them, not mixing them up. Jackson was involved in a duel over his wife's honor. Hamilton died in a duel that had nothing to do with his wife. Conflate them, and you get Hamilton dying in a duel about his wife's honor.

[John F. Carr]

Andy Borowitz in the New Yorker: Donald J. Trump has angrily withdrawn his support from the U.S. Senate candidate Herschel Walker because, in the former President’s words, “only a loser pays his bills.”

[Krychek_2]

Trump's public relations problem is that that sounds like something he would say, whether or not he actually did.

[John F. Carr]

I quoted it because it's good satire. It's grounded in reality and it goes off in an unexpected direction from current events.

[Brett Bellmore]

It sounds like something he'd say, to people who think he'd say something like that. Kind of circular, actually.

[Krychek_2]

Brett, Trump has the reputation that he has for a reason. Actually for a long list of reasons.

[Michael P]

Yes, and Biden has a reputation of whoring himself out to the Chinese and Russians for a reason. Actually for a long list of reasons. For each of Joe and Hunter.

[Krychek_2]

I'm sorry, what does that have to do with Trump?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

How long until officials in Parma, Ohio (or some other Ohio backwater) advance criminal charges against this Borowitz?

[MoreCurious]

Makes me wonder: who has paid for more abortions -- Donald Trump or Herschel Walker?

[Bob from Ohio]

Bill Clinton

[shawn_dude]

Bizarre response.

Democrats support the right to an abortion. "Who has paid more" is a measure of hypocrisy. A democrat getting an abortion is not hypocritical.

[not guilty]

Herschel Walker threatened to sue The Daily Beast on the next morning after he issued his threat. https://www.thedailybeast.com/pro-life-herschel-walker-paid-for-girlfriends-abortion-georgia-senate?ref=scroll He apparently hasn't done so yet.

No competent lawyer would file such a suit. There is ample evidence in the story itself rebutting any suggestion of actual malice. The maxim, I've got receipts on that, is literally true of Walker's accuser in this case.

[MoreCurious]

When did competency become a standard? There have been dozens of Trump lawyers whom I wouldn't trust to handle a parking ticket.

[shawn_dude]

Borowitz is a genius. He often satirizes people in ways that pull together multiple threads into an "aha!" moment.

[Mr. Bumble]

Welcome to Open Thread Thursday, brought to you by Stephan Lathrop, Brett Bellmore and Armchair Lawyer. With special appearances by apedad and Nige.
Apparently the Rev Costco is sleeping in this morning.

[apedad]

WHEN DO I GET PAID?!?

The only concrete benefit I get here is some good recipes from Commenter-XY sometimes.

Although I have amassed quite a few credits towards my University of Volokh Conspiracy degree.

[Mr. Bumble]

How's that brisket?

[Brett Bellmore]

We're trying the brisket this weekend, I think. Today I'm just grilling cheeseburgers.

[Mr. Bumble]

Propane or charcoal?

[Brett Bellmore]

Charcoal. Propane doesn't get hot enough, IMO, for a proper sear.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

It does if you administer the propane with the correct tool(s). I have a propane weed torch that puts out 500,000 BTUs at full-throttle, and properly adjusted (so that you get a blue flame instead of a yellow one at the muzzle) it works incredibly well as a right-damned-now searing solution. In fact I've used it for that very purpose in the dead of winter when it was too cold outside to futz around with getting a cast iron skillet up to temp on the grill just for a couple of sous vide steaks. Instead I pulled one of the grates out of the grill, dropped it in my outdoor fire pit and unleashed the fires of hell on it from the torch. The result was a perfect sear on both in well under 1 minute, with no perceptible additional cooking of the interior of the already perfectly medium-rare interior. Here's someone (not me, just an example I found on YT) doing the same sort of thing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6DZ_jYocRQ

{Insert Tim Allen grunting here.} Bonus points for him doing it so close to and in the direction of the ass-end (where the fuel tank is) of his vehicle.

[Brett Bellmore]

Admittedly the grate in my charcoal grill is a little warped and melted in one or two places; You can get that bed of coals pretty darned hot with a leaf blower supplying forced air.

As I have an essentially unlimited supply of firewood, and the charcoal grill can run on it, I'm unlikely to spring for a gas grill. Though I do have a high output propane burner I use for canning.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Though I do have a high output propane burner I use for canning.

That could work as well on a smaller cut (like a steak), but likely not so well on a large one (like a whole packer brisket, which you should be finishing in the smoker anyway). I have one of those as well (a 270,000 BTU burner) that I use primarily for putting the spurs to my 82 qt stock pot during crawfish boils when that season is upon us. I might toss a grate directly over the burner on that thing and give it a try on a ribeye or two, just as an experiment....though the torch is a lot more fun.

[Jmaie]

"In fact I’ve used it for that very purpose in the dead of winter when it was too cold outside to futz around with getting a cast iron skillet up to temp on the grill just for a couple of sous vide steaks. "

Have to ask, why would you bother with heating a skillet on an outdoor grill when searing sous-vide steaks. The stove top is more than adequate for that task, and it's not like the meat will pick up any flavor...

[Commenter_XY]

The rum & coffee brisket, Brett?

[Brett Bellmore]

I'd meant to, but my wife took exception, insisted I cook it like last time: Rub the brisket with garlic salt and brown it in the oven, and then slow cook it with roasted garlic done at the same time, on a bed of carrots and onions, with some beef stock mixed with Lipton Onion soup mix and fire roasted tomatoes.

Once she finds something she likes, she doesn't want to experiment with it, I guess.

[Mr. Bumble]

Like pig heart and liver sausage? When will you be doing haggis?

[Brett Bellmore]

No, actually she's eating the liverwurst. Though she fries it.

Sorry, I can't stomach haggis.

[Mr. Bumble]

...an unintended pun?

[Jmaie]

My wife hates it when I change recipes for dishes she likes. I'm always trying to improve, so...

She also hates it when she wants to cook something I've made before, asks me for the recipe and I say, "there isn't one..."

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, I probably should write down some of my recipes, really.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Mr. Bumble — Modesty requires I omit comment on my own contribution. Any of the others I will take ahead of Josh Blackman. Even you.

[Commenter_XY]

apedad, I do have a veggie dish (roasted beet, green bean and pistachio salad) that I did for Rosh Hashana as well. I was quite pleased with the result. DW just loves beets, so I did this one for her.

(I figure I'll be helpful, and give you something you can actually use)

https://toriavey.com/green-bean-beet-and-pistachio-salad/

[Mr. Bumble]

OK, Thanksgiving is coming so start submitting your stuffing recipes?

[Commenter_XY]

LOL, ok Mr. Bumble. I can scrounge around.

[Mr. Bumble]

Well, I admit that suggestion was sort of tongue in cheek because of the comments above,

I love Thanksgiving and think it's probably my favorite holiday because of fond association with family gatherings over many years. Given that most people probably have traditional menus with recipes passed down from Mothers and Grandmothers there might not be much interest in something new.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

I completely agree, Thanksgiving is the best for exactly the reason you cite, and the traditional food is perfect just the way it is.

[Commenter_XY]

Yeah, I completely understand. In many ways, I am a traditionalist. I do pretty standard fare for Thanksgiving. Although....every year I do add one 'new & different' thing to the table.

One year, I blew it. I made a cornbread/cranberry stuffing that just....bombed. It has gone down in Family lore. Every year, I am reminded not to make that mistake again. Profoundly humbling. 🙂

[Mr. Bumble]

If it didn't contain meat, that was your problem, besides, cranberries are meant to be a side. You should have tried a cornbread/sausage stuffing.

[Brett Bellmore]

We make a stuffing with "craisans" and wild rice that's pretty good. But this year my wife wants to roast a lechon in the backyard. Sounds fun!

[apedad]

I'll post this next week too in case folks don't see this but here's a T-day idea....

Leftover stuffing waffles!!!

I saw it on Triple D once and made it - delish.

We used gravy as the sauce and added some sliced turkey on top, with homemade cranberry sauce of course.

Wicked good.

[Mr. Bumble]

Lucky you. I've been making a cornbread/sausage stuffing for 26 years now (some years when parents and in-laws were alive, as many as four batches and three turkeys) and never had enough leftover except as a small side with the dark meat that got passed over.

By the way, Monday is Canadian Thanksgiving.

[Nige]

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

[DaveM]

"Rev Costco". That's brilliant.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

A very reliable -- although not infallible -- rule is that if Costco sells something and you want it you should buy it from Costco, an exceptionally good store in nearly every respect.

[Mr. Bumble]

Unlike your posts and opinions.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Quit whining. Clients pay $10 a minute and more for my opinions. You get them for free.

[Mr. Bumble]

You realize that something that is free has no value?

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

This blog is a strange place to make that claim.

[Mr. Bumble]

Why? How much would you pay for the comments posted here?

[bevis the lumberjack]

Biden continues to flail related to energy. OPEC and friends told him to pound sand, so now he’s going back to pulling down the strategic reserve again. It’s getting pretty damn low, hope we don’t stumble into a war any time soon. Our military won’t run on unicorn dust like he expects our grid to do.

This is easily fixable. Simply take his boot of the neck of the domestic e&p business. We could be back at energy independent in a year or so. But that would piss off progressive Twitter, so instead we’ll expose the country to risk.

[Brett Bellmore]

They're deliberately driving up the cost of energy, on the theory that if fossil fuels become expensive enough, people will be forced to use 'renewable' energy. They just hadn't intended to drive the cost up quite this high, right before an election...

As a friend of mine remarked yesterday, maybe they can't make windmills cheaper, but they can make them look cheaper by raising the price of the reliable energy they're being compared to.

The thing is, prices aren't arbitrary, they're a signal as to how much work has to be expended to supply something. And the entire economy runs on energy. Require us to expend more work to supply energy, and we have less work to expend on everything else, we all become poorer.

Even the windmills become much more expensive, if you have to use windmill energy to manufacture them! So there's a positive feedback from increasing the cost of energy, increase the cost of it enough and you'll get a runaway decline in our entire standard of living.

Not a big concern for people wealthy enough to take a 50% hit on their income and not have to change their own standard of living, of course. And that's where our rulers are: Most of them are so stinking rich that they can comfortably ride out even a depression.

So they don't have to care that they're crashing the economy. Until the peasants figure out who destroyed civilization, and come after them, anyway.

[Nige]

'They’re deliberately driving up the cost of energy, on the theory that if fossil fuels become expensive enough, people will be forced to use ‘renewable’ energy.'

Allegation? Or speculation? Bullshit, either way.

'Most of them are so stinking rich that they can comfortably ride out even a depression.'

Kulaks! Hoarders! Of course the actuality is that most of them are stinking rich and think that insulates them against the effects of the environmental destruction caused by their profits.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Hey, let’s do a thinking exercise. Say oil had never been discovered, so we had to continue to depend on coal and wood and animal dung for energy and heat.

Where would we be today economically and environmentally after 100 years in that alternate scenario?

[Nige]

I'm not sure I get the premise of the question. I could spin out a number of fun alt-history scenarios, some dystopian some utopian, and they might even teach us something about human nature and energy dependency, but none of them would be 'correct' in any meaningful sense.

[bevis the lumberjack]

The point is that a century of cheap, reliable energy has contributed mightily to our wealth and the economic condition of our citizens. Arguably it was even better for the environment.

You might think about that when you go off on one of your screeds. You benefited from it too.

[Nige]

So in your imaginary scenario the environmental apocalypse would have occured a few years sooner, and that counts as 'better' for the environment. Of course it's just as possible that in your scenario alternative clean renewable sources of energy were adopted decades ago because the smell of dung fires and the stink and poison of coal became intolerable and no amount of PR by Big Coal and Big Dung could hide it.

[bernard11]

a century of cheap, reliable energy has contributed mightily to our wealth and the economic condition of our citizens.

And so? Not to argue with the general point, but a few qualifications are worth considering.

One such is the fact that the cost of that energy is not fully reflected in the price of it. The various environmental problems, health issues, etc. are not priced in, and were even less priced in in the past. So in thinking about the future we really should factor in environmental costs – yes, including climate change.

Another is the geopolitical consequences, as world dependence on fossil fuels enriches some pretty unsavory regimes.

So, yes, it was cheap, for some people.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Shit. By your definition there’s no product or commodity for which the true cost is fully reflected.

Ok Bernard, same question. What would we look like economically and if we’d have relied on coal, wood and dung instead for the last century?

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

What's brown and sounds like a bell?

[Nige]

I swear, Bevis just wishes he was roaming the steppes on horseback with his yurt.

[Brett Bellmore]

Have you looked at how stinking rich members of Congress are?

Biden, during his debate with Bernie:

""Number one, no more subsidies for fossil fuel industry. No more drilling on federal lands. No more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period, ends, number one."

Back in May:

“[When] it comes to the gas prices, we’re going through an incredible transition that is taking place that, God willing, when it’s over, we’ll be stronger and the world will be stronger and less reliant on fossil fuels when this is over,”

I understand that you don't want to connect the dots, but a this point they're so close together they're already a line.

[Nige]

Yes, it’s important to transition away from fossil fuels because of the environmental destruction they’re causing, something massively opposed by the obscenely wealthy fossil fuel industry.

The dots you seem to be connecting are that Biden’s one of the evil global protocols-of-zion-style filthy rich elite out to destroy and subjugate humanity, and the oil industry is the entirely beneficial even filthily richer global elite who are also the neo-kulaks being victimiced because some people don’t like them making massive profits at a time of massive price rises and mounting climate chaos caused directly by their actions oh and who also get massive government subsidies and, incidentally, loads and loads of existing oil leases they’re just letting sit idle.

[Brett Bellmore]

The administration has a stated goal of getting people to stop using fossil fuels, talks about how high energy costs will accomplish that, pursues policies that assure high energy costs.

But don't dare say they're doing it deliberately, it's just a sweet coincidence.

[Sarcastr0]

It would be irresponsible not to speculate!

[Nige]

That's not what your quote said, and Biden doesn't control gas prices anyway. If prices are being raised deliberately it's by the fossil fuel industry to keep their profits high while people are still overwhelmingly dependant on them. Maybe it's a fire sale cash grab to wring every last drop of blood out of the world before either energy transition or complete climate collapse.

[OtisAH]

This is the Brett content I most adore because it’s so mostly adorable. Up top Brett has a real problem with Lathrop using new information and evidence learned in real life to proffer a hypothetical that is at least somewhat supported by the new evidence/info. Several posts later Brett offers us that OPEC is deliberately raising oil prices to force people into using renewable energy, which is not only entirely unsupported but which also makes no sense whatsoever.

Stay tuned for more on “That’s Our Brett!”

[Ben_]

Note: OtisAH has nothing to say himself. Only barking at stuff others say.

[Voize]

Imagine that, commenting in the comments section!

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The boss move would be to tell Putin he can have parts of Ukraine and that we are taking Saudi Arabia.

Ridding the world of the Saudi royal family should be one of America's most important goals.

[bevis the lumberjack]

And an update. He’s going to go crawling back to Maduro again. “Hey, you know that mass of asylum seekers that have overwhelmed our border? Let’s enrich the guy that oppressed them!”

Because Venezuelan hydrocarbons don’t contain carbon. In reality, Venezuelan crude is about the worst their is, short of the tar sands.

The Biden administration is truly an embarrassment.

[shawn_dude]

Biden's first year of granting drilling permits was 34% higher than Trump's.

Since when is granting so many new permits a "boot on the neck of ...e&p?"

[bevis the lumberjack]

What would you call “you’ll be extinct in five years”?

I understand energy several orders of magnitude better than you Shaun. And Earth Science as well. I’ve mostly given up wasting my time on this board, because people like you just want to throw political zingers. You don’t actually don’t want to know anything.

[Nige]

Overly ambitious. The work on alternatives has been deliberately hindered and slowed and nowhere near where it needs to be.

[Ben_]

Dems think they can fool people, and they like to congratulate themselves for lying and deception when it works.

Will anyone besides Dems be fooled into thinking energy companies will invest in oil production when those same companies are being told their business will be destroyed in a few years? Is anyone that dumb? Energy company executives aren’t.

Maybe some Dems are working on corrupt bargains where energy companies bribe Dems to be allowed to operate without being destroyed…?

[Nige]

You're right, we should just get on with destroying them the way they're destroying the planet.

[Ben_]

Your beliefs are cartoonish.

The planet doesn’t care about or notice anything anyone does.

[Brett Bellmore]

Actually, drilling permits started going up in 2016, continued going up through the Trump administration, (With only a small covid dip in 2019.) and peaked 3 months into the Biden administration, before dropping like a stone.

It just took a few months for him to shut things down, that's all. The permits that got approved in the first few months of the Biden administration were already in process from the Trump administration.

It's an interesting graph. Permitting climbed all through the Bush administration, (What a shocker, he was an oil guy.) fell during the Obama administration, went back up under Trump, dropped when Biden took office... You almost get the impression that Democrats are hostile to drilling, and Republicans not.

[Nige]

That's because Democrats know climate change is real and Republicans know money from fossil fuel corporations is real.

[dwb68]

biden admin: ceases oil leasing in usa. punishes us oil and gas production.

also biden admin: lets remove sanctions from a Venezuelan dictator to allow chevron to produce oil and gas.

smh.

[dwb68]

I majored in biochemistry.
Organic chemistry is hard.
I'm gonna put this out there regarding the NYU scandal: Organic chemistry is completely unnecessary, unless you're going into research. Not once has my wife's orthopedist asked her opinion on the Fisher-tropsch reaction.

Surviving organic chemistry,and biochemistry,had nothing to do with intelligence. It had to do with your tolerance for caffeine and lack of sleep. one test we took around to the department professors , and many of them couldn't answer half the questions.

So on the one hand I don't think 350 students should be able to bully NYU into firing a professor.

On the other hand,fuck organic chemistry. Doctors do not need to know how to esterify the fifth hydrogen on a long chain fatty acid. Unless you are going into pharmaceutical research.

Organic chemistry is just a weed out class designed to keep doctors salaries high. So I think these students do have a point.

[John F. Carr]

A survey of one gene hacker and high throughput sequencer informs me that she didn't like organic chemistry and I should not ask her questions about it. Protein structure, Sanger vs. NGS, enzymes, all these worlds are yours. Organic chemistry, attempt no landing here.

[dwb68]

i once had to memorize a protien structure for an exam... which turned out to be completely wrong! What this teach me, except to be extremely skeptical of "science" facts, including climate change lmao.

[John F. Carr]

Last January a woman was hit and killed by a train in Wilmington, Mass. when the gates didn't go down at a crossing. Last spring a car in Lincoln was nearly hit. The report on the latter incident was just released. Some workers went to "calibrate" the train detection system that lowers gates across the road. They checked the commuter rail schedule and found there was no train scheduled. The calibration process failed because there was a train approaching 9 minutes behind schedule. The calibration process also disables the gates. More or less by chance the train passed between two cars.

Lincoln and other rich towns have paid for more expensive grade crossing designs (four quadrant gates and median barriers) to be exempted from the requirement that trains blow whistles before all road crossings. A whistle would have alerted drivers and railroad workers. Visibility is poor because the tracks to the east curve and the tracks are lined with trees.

The feds got really angry with Boston transit authorities after these incidents. They are paying to support a lot of union jobs by moving nearly empty trains back and forth and the least Massachusetts could do is not kill anybody in the process.

[bernard11]

The feds got really angry with Boston transit authorities after these incidents.

The feds are in a long line of angry people. The Boston transit authorities are not exactly famous for their efficiency or the quality of the service.

[Jacob Grimes]

I’ve read commentators (both left and right) going on about Justice Jackson’s remarks in oral argument about the 14th Amendment the other day and how they reflected originalism in pursuit of progressive ends. I read the oral argument transcript, and the basic premise of her position was that the 14th Amendment didn’t necessarily require racial colorblindness. She cited the overall purpose of the 14th Amendment and language from a legislative report in support.

Not to say that Justice Jackson was mistaken, and acknowledging that oral argument isn’t the same as a written opinion, but I don’t see how her remarks are originalist. Originalism, as I understand it, strongly discourages interpretations that rely upon the purpose of a statute or amendment and especially frowns upon deriving meaning from legislative history.

So what exactly about her remarks was originalist? That she discussed contemporary history?

[apedad]

There are many flavors of Originalsim.

Framework Originalism
Intrinsicist Originalism
Instrumental Originalism
Liquidated Originalism
Original Intent
Original Meaning
Original Methods Originalism
Original Public Meaning
Semantic Originalism
Structuralism
Textualism

So it depends on which flavor she was using.

(Note: These are true designations of Originalism but I'm mocking it because of the many different types that people have developed in order to say they're "Originalists.")

[M L]

People have disagreements about what the Constitution means exactly. And academics like to come up with new terms for what and how they think about it. Is that supposed to be surprising?

Take "originalism" itself. There's no reason such a word would always be necessary, in theory.

The common point of all "originalism," though, is that the meaning of the Constitution does not change, except by amendment. Do you agree with that or not?

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

I do not agree with that. The meaning of ambiguous phrases like "cruel and unusual punishment" absolutely can and should change over time. Nor do I agree with your characterization of the common point of all originalism. Taking a deliberately ambiguous phrase and interpreting it as unambiguous, as originalism does, is itself a change in Constitutional meaning.

[SRG]

You've missed Ray's Famous Originalism

[Brett Bellmore]

That she wanted the claim to be taken seriously by people who weren't living constitutionalists. Same reason Stephens pretended he was doing originalism in his Heller dissent.

Originalism starts with textualism, and goes from there. And her position was doomed just as a matter of textualism, though it was bad originalism on historical grounds, too.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

I've read your comment a couple times now, and I believe that every bit of it is wrong. Pretty impressive.

Most of the explanation for Jackson's comments and Stephens's dissent is taking on a bad argument on its own terms.

[LawTalkingGuy]

The idea that Brett can say she's wrong on the history when its coming from THE expert on Reconstruction in America is pretty funny.

[Brett Bellmore]

Two t's, guy.

[LawTalkingGuy]

"though it was bad originalism on historical grounds, too."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Yeah. No. She was basically giving Foner's views on Reconstruction which are widely accepted by people who actually study Reconstruction, if not partisan lawyers with an interest in restricting the scope of the Reconstruction amendments.

Now Brett, you, and every single "originalist" from Blackman to Thomas do not know this history as well as Foner. And it would be extremely embarrassing for you to try and refute him. Unless you are prepared to identify every single primary and secondary source you have read regarding Reconstruction and synthesize it into a monograph that would pass peer review.

[Sarcastr0]

Brett: "My concern is not whether I am on the Founders' side, because I'm sure the Founders are on my side."

[bernard11]

Is the Brett lecturing us on textualism the same one who reads "Indians not taxed" to mean "illegal immigrants," who are, in general, non-Indians who pay taxes.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Well when you're dealing with legislation pursued pursuant to Section 2 of the Fifteenth Amendment, you are trying to determine what legislation is "appropriate" for congress to pass to enforce the amendment. So how would an "originalist" determine what the "original public meaning" of appropriate is? If you looked at a contemporary dictionary, it would undoubtedly be less than illuminating into what the public would generally understand what is appropriate for congress to do under the 15th. It would just be a generalized definition of the word appropriate. Most of which would likely refer to means that fit the surrounding circumstances.

So to illuminate that, you'd have to look at the wider context, which obviously would include what Congress thought it was doing or trying to do around the time.

[Jacob Grimes]

But that sounds to me like the same type of analysis that would be done under any normal theory of interpretation. Wouldn't a non-originalist end up looking beyond the text itself to determine what "appropriate" meant anyway because its meaning is too broad and generic?

I don't know what the alternative interpretation would be. Deference to Congress' enactment of the law itself as proof that it was "appropriate?"

[Brett Bellmore]

"Wouldn’t a non-originalist end up looking beyond the text itself to determine what “appropriate” meant anyway because its meaning is too broad and generic?"

Sure. The difference is the originalist looks beyond the text to historical evidence, to see what it "did" mean, and the non-originalist looks beyond the text to contemporary evidence, to see what it "ought to" mean.

[loki13]

"Originalism, as I understand it, strongly discourages interpretations that rely upon the purpose of a statute or amendment and especially frowns upon deriving meaning from legislative history."

So you are mixing up two very different things- call this the "Scalia conflation," since he is associated with both ideas.

The first is (mostly modern) statutory interpretation. Let's say you are a court interpreting a statute. For the most part, these were written fairly recently, so you don't have to worry too much about linguistic drift, difference in what punctuation means, etc. Now, it used to be very common for judges to interpret statutes by also reading the legislative history, staff reports, and so on, in order to understand what the intent of the statute (ordinance, law, etc.) was. Scalia's theory was that this shouldn't be done- only the actual text of the statute should be used. This pure textualism has some strong adherents, but it's pretty hit-or-miss in terms of actual practice in front of a court. As it is, you're best going to the actual text, and using legislative history, etc., as additional support.

Analyzing provisions of the Constitution under originalism necessitates going to the history- whether it's the so-called "intent" or the "public meaning." In order to ascertain that, you want corroborating historical evidence; that's why Notes of Debates in the Federal Convention and the Federalist Papers are so important to originalists- what did people think that this meant at the time?

Of course, it's mostly bunk as a principled theory, to be discarded by ideologues when it's inconvenient (as you always see with the Reconstruction Amendments).

[LawTalkingGuy]

I'd also posit that with modern statutes, it's easier to make well-reasoned textual arguments and decisions because there simply is more text to deal with. Legislatures from Congress to a city council produce more detailed codes with definitions, cross-references, similar statutes on other subjects, etc. Like you said, it's hit or miss, but textualism is not a crazy theory with this in mind.

The Constitution by contrast is short and has undefined terms for broad concepts like "cruel" "liberty" "equal protection" "appropriate legislation." If you're going to interpret those, no matter what interpretive theory you subscribe to, it is entirely appropriate to consider all manner of material.

[M L]

Originalism just means judges don’t get to change the meaning of the Constitution. It can only be changed by amendment. The government doesn’t get to ignore the Constitution or change it unilaterally, any more than you can ignore the laws that govern you or change them unilaterally. There is a process to change laws and there is a process to change the Constitution.

Of course, this theory largely doesn’t hold, the government can and does change and ignore the meaning of the Constitution, without going through the amendment process. There's really nothing stopping this but the whims and fancies of a small judicial oligarchy. By original design, the people were supposed to put a stop to this in large part by nullifying and ignoring such actions, acting through their state governments which were supposed to be the primary means of keeping the federal government in check.

“Originalism, as I understand it, strongly discourages interpretations that rely upon the purpose of a statute or amendment and especially frowns upon deriving meaning from legislative history.”

No, it’s just that those things are only relevant insofar as they shed light on the meaning of the actual text. If those things are contrary to the text, they are irrelevant. Statutory interpretation is a different issue and a very different context in modern times (with legislators figuring they can spout off whatever nonsense into the “legislative history” record) but the same logic applies.

[apedad]

"Originalism just means judges don’t get to change the meaning of the Constitution."

Would you mind telling us the definition of "unreasonable searches and seizures?"

[Brett Bellmore]

Would you mind telling us the definition of "all" (6th amendment), or $20 (7th amendment)? It seems to me that the Court has trouble understanding even the most direct language, if they don't like it. That doesn't make the 6th amendment even slightly ambiguous, and while there are various ways to interpret "$20" in the 7th, (Adjust for inflation since ratification, current value of the specie in 20 dollar coins at the time of ratification, or just $20 in current inflated currency.) the Court chose none of them, but just pulled a value out of their asses.

[Sarcastr0]

The Constitution is a framework. It is not some careful, detailed, all-directive document.

Those originalists that pretend it is are the ones who are changing the meaning of the Constitution.

[M L]

Of course. There are plenty of things to disagree about. Originalism is just a starting premise that should be agreed on before bothering to talk about those things.

One that you agree with, it sounds like, based on your comment that you disagree with certain interpretations because they are changing the meaning of the Constitution.

[Sarcastr0]

Of course I do. Everyone has their own understanding of what the constitution says, and mine disagrees with the Supreme Court a bunch.

But I have the humility to realize that my take could be wrong. And in the end, the ones that matter is not my idiosyncratic take, but the experts we choose in the institution we charge to do this job.

At some point the judiciary become manifestly illegitimate, but that won't be from disagreeing with me; I'm not so full of pride as that.

Though I will disagree with folks here all the time - they're not the Supreme Court. And any originalist who decides original intent means going back to only the Constitution, and not consulting precedent? There's some scholarship I'd like them to read on originalism by a Conspirator here.
Yet somehow they never read it. Because the real point for many of originalism is ideological cover for the unpopular policies they want to push via the judiciary.

[Bob from Ohio]

"At some point the judiciary become manifestly illegitimate,"

1803, Marbury v. Madison

[M L]

As Jefferson put it, "You seem to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all constitutional questions; a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one which would place us under the despotism of an oligarchy. . .The Constitution has erected no such single tribunal"

[Sarcastr0]

Jefferson hating on Marbury is fun and all, but he proved pretty wrong on that point historically.

Without an ultimate arbiter of constitutional questions, we'd have fallen apart to internecine infighting long ago.

For you and Bob to come out against Marbury, well, it's your right to be a crank on the Internet.

[Bob from Ohio]

"he proved pretty wrong on that point historically"

Without an ultimate arbiter of constitutional questions we would have had bloody internecine infighting after the Dred Scott decision.

[Sarcastr0]

As opposed to a scenario wherein Congress and President each got to have their own separate takes on the constitutionality of slavery throughout the early 1800s?! What a calm time to have no way to resolve a dispute!

[Bob from Ohio]

Congress and the President had agreed on the "Missouri Compromise" which limited slavery. It was the "ultimate arbiter" which declared that unconstitutional. The resulting crisis led to internecine infighting you dope.

[Bob from Ohio]

Almost forgot, the ultimate arbiter then gutted the 14A and Civil Rights Acts and condemned blacks to 100 more years of repression.

[Sarcastr0]

You appear to be making an argument of correctness, whereas I'm making an argument of necessity.

If no one is the ultimate arbiter, nothing is ever decided.

Your defense of a Compromise that instantiated and perpetuated slavery as just the best is...unsurprising.

[M L]

“Our Constitution . . . intending to establish three departments, co-ordinate and independent that they might check and balance one another, it has given—according to this opinion to one of them alone the right to prescribe rules for the government of others; and to that one, too, which is unelected by and independent of the nation. . . . The Constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please.” (Jefferson, Letter to Judge Spencer Roane, Sept. 6, 1819)

[M L]

"That, in case of a deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by the said compact, the states, who are parties thereto, have the right, and are in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for maintaining, within their respective limits, the authorities, rights, and liberties, appertaining to them."

James Madison quoting approvingly the Virginia Resolutions

[M L]

James Madison:

It appears to your committee to be a plain principle, founded in common sense, illustrated by common practice, and essential to the nature of compacts, that, where resort can be had to no tribunal superior to the authority of the parties, the parties themselves must be the rightful judges, in the last resort, whether the bargain made has been pursued or violated. The Constitution of the United States was formed by the sanction of the states, given by each in its sovereign capacity. It adds to the stability and dignity, as well as to the authority, of the Constitution, that it rests on this legitimate and solid foundation. The states, then, being the parties to the constitutional compact, and in their sovereign capacity, it follows of necessity that there can be no tribunal, above their authority, to decide, in the last resort, whether the compact made by them be violated; and consequently, that, as the parties to it, they must themselves decide, in the last resort, such questions as may be of sufficient magnitude to require their interposition.

[Sarcastr0]

So now you are making an argument that judicial review was not part of original intent?

If not, they maybe should have said something in the Constitution. Not just Jefferson sending angry letters after a personal aggrievement to his petty ego.

And quoting Madison for something that was so wrong we needed a Civil War to realign it is a bold move.

[M L]

"Without an ultimate arbiter of constitutional questions, we’d have fallen apart to internecine infighting long ago."

Nah. In the long run having an ultimate arbiter, which is akin to a king or oligarchy, makes major conflict more likely, not less.

Also, define "fallen apart" and explain why this proves an ultimate arbiter is good or needed.

[Sarcastr0]

I like the union. I think it is good. I don't want it to fall apart.

Your mileage varies, I know.

As for your blithe assertion that having an ultimate arbiter is the same as having a king, well that'd be news to each of the other branches, who is the ultimate arbiter in their own domains. Is Congress passing a spending bill make it an oligarchy because no one else can tell it how to appropriate US dollars?

Your ipse dixit labeling of stuff as oligarchical reminds me of a leftist I knew who called everything imperialist.

[M L]

"I like the British Empire. I don't want it to fall apart." Said the man whose salary depended on it.

But ok - your claim is:

(a) unless absolute, plenary authority is vested in a high court, some territories or states might or will or would have separated from the union, and

(b) any territory or state separating from the union is such a horrific prospect that it must be avoided, and therefore it is necessary to vest absolute, plenary authority in a high court (apparently no matter the cost or downside).

I don't agree on either point, again (a) makes it more likely, not less that there will be significant political conflict and separation. If we could tolerate differences in self-government this would mean less conflict.

I don't advocate for anyone to separate from the union. I do find it interesting that the topic is so verboten. I wonder why the simple idea of political separation should necessarily give rise to murderous strife, rivers of blood, and people in the USA of all places killing each other in higher numbers than all US wars combined. I guess human nature really is that bad.

A lot of younger people I know think the "Constitution" is some old outdated thing and we need to move past it. Simple as that. I may not agree with them in many ways, but why shouldn't we be able to discuss and consider and reevaluate? Where there are myths and sacred cows there are issues. A few generations ago the founders decided to separate from England over nothing more than a disagreeably high tax rate, and they started a new polity, which you now apparently worship and revere. Though it has undergone major transformations. Your leftist friend is right that the US government is imperialist.

[Krayt]

I thought that was the exact point of originalism? What did the legislators intend to accomplish, which should be understood, at a minimum, before opening your yapper to proceed to textualism.

And the larger context is to disallow the power hungry from growing their own power at their own whim, outside of concious approval by the elected legislature, or the Constitution itself, which grants powers and no others.

[Brett Bellmore]

"What did the legislators intend to accomplish, which should be understood, at a minimum, before opening your yapper to proceed to textualism."

Ah, but "legislators" is plural, they may actually disagree about what they were intending to accomplish. But the text is objectively what they did enact, no matter what they meant.

[Bob from Ohio]

"proceed to textualism"

One starts at textualism, only if the language is unclear do you proceed to other things.

[apedad]

Crew Dragon launches safely, carrying first Russian from US soil in 20 years

(Cosmonaut Anna) Kikina's launch comes as relations between NASA and its Russian counterpart, Roscosmos, are stabilizing. There have been many difficult moments in this relationship after Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February. Tensions were exacerbated by the bombastic and nationalistic leader of Roscosmos, Dmitry Rogozin, who made critical statements about NASA and openly supported the war while seeking to curry favor with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Rogozin also repeatedly made threats about pulling Russia out of the International Space Station.

However, Rogozin was dismissed as the leader of Roscosmos in July and replaced by former Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov. The new leader of the Russian space agency has been far more level-headed than his predecessor and has indicated a willingness to continue to work with NASA on the International Space Station at least through 2024 and probably beyond. This arrangement is the preference of NASA, which says the station is intended to be operated jointly by its major partners, the United States and Russia.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/10/crew-dragon-launches-safely-carrying-first-russian-from-us-soil-in-20-years/

I know there's extensive planning for launches and it's probably impossible to make last minute changes but hopefully we throw out the Russians in future plans.

[Brett Bellmore]

The station was literally put in the orbit it was, so that Russia could participate. Their main launch site was too far North to safely achieve a less inclined orbit.

[Sarcastr0]

From Cold War precedent, I disagree. Joint space efforts as a diplomatic backchannel has proven pretty clutch in the past.

[Krayt]

I'm shocked and glad this continued as normal. Politicians be asses, and even mass murderers, but the people are happy to work together.

[Mr. Bumble]

...and now, ten years after Mr. Pen & Phone created it, the Fifth Circuit has declared DACA to be illegal.

[apedad]

You forgot the "but" as in but the 5th allowed the 600,000 DACA recipients to remain in the US.

Also, "Wednesday's ruling by three judges of the New Orleans-based 5th Circuit upholds the judge's initial finding (that the program was illegal. He found that the program had not been subjected to public notice and comment periods required under the federal Administrative Procedures Act.) . But it sends the case back to him for a look at a new version of the rule issued by the Biden administration in late August. The new rule takes effect Oct. 31."

So not yet declared "illegal."

[Mr. Bumble]

Picky, picky, picky. I think the bigger point is that 10 years on it is still being adjudicated.

[Sarcastr0]

Which proves what?

[Krayt]

I forget. Which side put in the administrative procedures act to hamper which other side?

[Commenter_XY]

Which proves what? = That it is still controversial, and APA is a sword wielded quite liberally these days. 🙂

[Mr. Bumble]

Thank you.

[Michael P]

The appeals court didn't order DACA null and void, only illegal. The trial court gets to try to reconcile it being illegal with how to handle all the people who were granted illegal benefits.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Make them pay it back.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Nah, I think we -- better Americans -- will provide citizenship to every one of them.

Bigoted Republicans will be entitled to whine about it as much as they like.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

I guarantee you if these were White Eastern Europeans you would be down there building the wall yourself.

Instead you welcome a brown underclass used to Socialist style inequality and rule because that's what you people want. A two class society, rich government and their direct clients, and poor, hungry starved masses. Like in every Democrat city, and every Leftist country.

You want a class of new brown slaves.

[Nige]

White Eastern Europeans aren't used to socialist inequality and rule?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Well Slavs is literally where the term "slave" came from (don't tell that to the blacks, lol).

[Nige]

No, I won't tell 'the blacks.'

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

"I guarantee you if these were White Eastern Europeans you would be down there building the wall yourself."

We had bigoted assholes who opposed white eastern Europeans. I lived among plenty of the eastern Europeans as a child, and among plenty of the worthless assholes who hated them.

Our nation has confronted successive waves of ignorance and intolerance, customarily associated with skin color, religion, nationality, or perceived economic pressure. Those targeted by our lesser elements have included the Irish, Blacks, Jews, Italians, gays, Catholics, Asians, women, Muslims, Hispanics, agnostics, eastern Europeans, other Asians, atheists, other Hispanics -- most of America, at one time or another.

The same type of immigrant-hating, white nationalist, conservative voices have been encountered many times before. What makes America great is that in America the bigots don't win, not over time.

And our latest batch of bigots seems nothing special, its reliance on the integrity, charms, and insights of Donald Trump, the Republican Party, and the Federalist Society notwithstanding.

[Reallynotbob]

Where was the outrage was about Florida's fascist mandatory evacuations leading up to Hurricane Ian?

1. This was a huge government intrusion into personal liberty.
2. Everyone knows hurricanes are just big storms.
3. Ian barely affected all-cause mortality in Florida at all. Many people who rode out the storm and died would have died this year anyway.
4. Most people who ride out hurricanes experience only minor consequences.
5. Riding out the storm allows people to rebuild faster. If more people stockpiled supplies and stayed, the community would regain strength faster.
6. Staying behind burdens emergency workers, but that's their job.

[ThePublius]

I'm not a fan of mandatory evacuations either, but how do you get fascist out of this?

People throw the term fascist around and have no idea what it really means - you, apparently, included!

[David Nieporent]

What's hilarious is that you didn't realize he was mocking the anti-vax loons.

[Ben_]

They don’t enforce "mandatory" evacuations. They are "mandatory" in name only.

[dwb68]

supreme court brief author takes parody seriously!

https://www.npr.org/2022/10/04/1126773469/onion-supreme-court-brief-author-interview

[not guilty]

Elmer Stewart Rhodes, and perhaps other defendants in the Oath Keepers trial, apparently plan to argue that they anticipated then-President Trump invoking the Insurrection Act in regard to Congress certifying the electoral count on January 6, 2021. https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-oath-keepers-radical-legal-defense-of-january-6th

The relevant portion of the Insurrection Act is 10 U.S.C. § 252, which states:

Whenever the President considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, he may call into Federal service such of the militia of any State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to enforce those laws or to suppress the rebellion.

It seems to me that in order to get a jury instruction based on the Insurrection Act, a defendant would need to adduce admissible evidence that he was part of "the militia of any State" or part of the armed forces. How does Rhodes or any of his codefendants propose to do that?

[apedad]

It's just bullshit and Trump never called into Federal service any forces anyway.

But wouldn't it be great theater if THEY called Trump to the stand to testify whether he actually called forces into service.

Must see TV right there.

Actually watching Trump in the witness box for anything would be shut-the-world-down and watch.

[not guilty]

As I understand it, the claim is not that Trump in fact invoked the Insurrection Act, but that Rhodes and his ragtag bunch had assembled in anticipation of Trump's doing so, awaiting word from Trump.

As I noted above, this purported defense founders unless the defendants were part of “the militia of any State” or part of the armed forces, as specified in 10 U.S.C. § 252.

[OtisAH]

The idea appears to be that Turnip would invoke the IA and then bring the OKs into the fold as an official militia.

[not guilty]

How would Rhodes or his codefendants adduce evidence of official status? Of which State does Rhodes claim to be a militia member?

Every state prohibits private militias by law, whether constitutional or statutory. https://www.law.georgetown.edu/icap/wp-content/uploads/sites/32/2018/04/Prohibiting-Private-Armies-at-Public-Rallies.pdf

[Ridgeway]

I doubt those "anti-militia" laws would survive a 1A challenge. On their face, they prohibit peaceable assembly for the purpose of exercising First and Second Amendment rights.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

There is always a chance even a guilty-as-hell defendant is not convicted, but the Oath Keepers seem destined for prison.

Let's hope they never get out, except in boxes.

[OtisAH]

I just explained what the theory was behind the Insurrection Act business. I’m not here to defend the theory.

[John F. Carr]

As a conspiracy charge, seditious conspiracy requires proof of intent. Could a good faith but mistaken belief that the ad hoc militia would be called out negate criminal intent for seditious conspiracy? Assume that Rhodes testifies credibly to such a belief and survives cross-examination unscathed, which I admit is unlikely.

[shawn_dude]

How does this matter, though, given that they essentially acted anyway, without Trump invoking the insurrection act?

Can you have a good faith belief that your prior illegal acts would become legal in the future and use that to evade responsibility for those illegal acts?

[John F. Carr]

Suppose they went to Washington with intent to serve their master Trump when he called out the militia. When they got there the call never came. So they're hanging around the Capitol with nothing better to do… let's go break stuff and scare Congress away! They are then in the same position as many others who were not charged with seditious conspiracy. Going by previous cases the conspiracy to obstruct Congress would stand, but I was wondering about seditious conspiracy in particular.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm not sure how that would clear them. They're not charged with holding themselves in readiness for such a call. They went ahead and acted, and it's objectively the case that Trump issued no such call.

At most it might be a defense for some of the preparations, which generally speaking were things that should be 2nd amendment protected anyway.

[Ridgeway]

Yeah. Unless they are hoping that the subsequent overt acts cannot be proven, they are basically hanging themselves with this line of defense.

It is like arguing that you drew your gun in self defense, because you thought the other guy was going to attack you (so far so good), but then you realized he was actually just a mime looking for donations, but shot him anyway for reasons (not so good).

[Brett Bellmore]

I think the only way this makes sense is if the defense thinks that their conviction is inevitable, and that they'll get a lighter sentence if they make the prosecution happy by implicating Trump.

[Ridgeway]

People looking for a lighter sentence don't opt for a trial

[Brett Bellmore]

Maybe they opted for the trial before understanding how strong the case was against them.

[not guilty]

"Could a good faith but mistaken belief that the ad hoc militia would be called out negate criminal intent for seditious conspiracy?"

A mistaken belief that the defendants were part of “the militia of any State” would be a mistake of law, which is not a defense.

[M L]

Sure are a lot of "FBI whistleblowers" lately.

5 Years After Las Vegas Concert Shooting, an FBI Whistleblower Reveals Probable Motive

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/victoria-taft/2022/10/04/5-years-after-las-vegas-concert-shooting-an-fbi-whistleblower-reveals-probable-motive-n1634216

Former FBI special agent John Guandolo told Turning Point USA in a recorded interview (below) that there’s a 90% certainty that the Las Vegas attack was a jihadi operation and Stephen Paddock was the conduit through which the terrorist organization attacked America.

In the interview, Guandolo said, “When you look at what actually transpired and put it together from a counter-espionage attack and counter-espionage look, the probability that was an ISIS attack is well over 90%.”

He said the special agent in charge of the Las Vegas FBI field office “got angry and dismissed it, and when presented with the information, FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., dismissed it out of hand.”

[Mr. Bumble]

"Sure are a lot of “FBI whistleblowers” lately."

Sure is a lot to blow the whistles on.

[Sarcastr0]

It's more that pushing 'FBI whistleblower' whenever you can is what sells to the right these days.

[Mr. Bumble]

You mean like that great Ukrainian "General" Vindman who peddled a bunch of BS because the President wouldn't follow his foriegn policy advice?

[Sarcastr0]

Stay on topic, chief.

[David Nieporent]

But that is on topic. Every single GOP argument over the last six years boils down to, "I know you are, but what am I?" There was a lot of talk about the whistleblower in the Ukrainegate scandal, so now the GOP is retaliatorily using the word "whistleblower" every chance they get.

Mr. Bumble, of course, is doubly confused, since (a) Vindman wasn't the actual whistleblower; and (b) Mr. Bumble cannot identify any "BS" that Vindman "peddled." Indeed, Trump voluntarily released the transcript of his "perfect" call to Zelensky that corroborated everything that people had said about Trump's actions.

[shawn_dude]

Have any serious news organization, the ones that verify stories and retract mistakes, picked up this story? Or is it limited to the MAGAsphere?

[Yogis_dad]

How many "serious" news organizations covered Tucker Carlson's interview with Hunter Biden's business partner?

Ignoring bad news is standard procedure for the "mainstream" media. Five years after the largest multi-victim shooting attack in American history, the absence of a publicly reported outcome of investigation should raise concern.

[Mr. Bumble]

You must have meant the one's that ignore storys so they don't have to bother to retract them.

[YepThatGuy]

I should go easy on the guy since he and I share an alma mater, but it's hard to imagine a statement more akin to "When you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail," than "“When you look at what actually transpired and put it together from a counter-espionage attack and counter-espionage look, the probability that was an ISIS attack is well over 90%.”

[Noscitur a sociis]

Guandolo said, “It’s more than that. I mean, there’s one of the key guys that’s a part of that [attack] claimed to be a gay Australian guy, and we said, ‘Well here’s where this guy is. He lied as to where his whereabouts, and when he said he was here, he was actually in a hotel in Las Vegas, and the only other people staying in the hotel are people from an area in Mexico where there’s high ISIS activity.'” He admits, “That’s not definitive. That’s just one data point.”

He said in the interview that the Australian man then “goes to New Mexico, and his phone pings in a cafe owned by a Turkish guy tied to ISIS. And he goes overseas — he flies from the United States to Australia — and he goes overseas.” Guandolo asks, “Who flies from the United States to Australia and stays only two days and comes back, with ties to Australian Antifa? And then he goes to Germany.”

Scandalous that the FBI didn't run this to ground.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

John Guandolo appears to be a disgraced, delusional, unethical, bigoted grifter . . . which means he will have plenty of fans at the Volokh Conspiracy.

[M L]

FBI hero paying the price for exposing unjust ‘persecution’ of conservative Americans

https://nypost.com/2022/09/21/fbi-hero-paying-the-price-for-exposing-unjust-persecution-of-conservative-americans/

Bombshell allegations by FBI Special Agent Steve Friend contained in a whistleblower complaint filed late Wednesday with the Department of Justice inspector general reveal a politicized Washington, DC, FBI field office cooking the books to exaggerate the threat of domestic terrorism, and ­using an “overzealous” January 6 ­investigation to harass conservative Americans and violate their constitutional rights.

Friend, 37, a respected 12-year veteran of the FBI and a SWAT team member, was suspended Monday, stripped of his gun and badge, and escorted out of the FBI field office in Daytona Beach, Fla., after complaining to his supervisors about the violations.

He was declared absent without leave last month for refusing to participate in SWAT raids that he believed violated FBI policy and were a use of excessive force against Jan. 6 ­subjects accused of misdemeanor ­offenses.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

They will kill him next. Just like they're going to start killing us soon.

[Sarcastr0]

Jeez, this everpresent fear and loathing must be miserable.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

I can tell you haven’t yet been on the receiving end of a good ol’ fashioned IRS rubdown.

Go donate to Trump and you’ll get some extra special treatment from the Democrats in the IRS. Even if it’s just a few hundo.

[Sarcastr0]

From they'll kill us to the IRS will audit all Trump supporters. (And I guess already is? OK, chief)

From death to taxes.

Quite the backpeddal! Not that consistency has ever been your strong suit.

[M L]

What do you think about someone who refuses an order to use unlawful excessive force against citizens for having the wrong politics?

[Sarcastr0]

I think your hypo sounds overdetermined.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

The IRS oppression of Granny Go Go just presaged the FBI raids of Street Pastor John, which just presages the upcoming Democrat-led genocide.

And they don't just do audits. They do stuff like delay tax returns, or "lose" payroll withholding information and put liens on your business accounts. They bury you with institutional power beyond just audits. They do this because Democrats are vile, and Democrats with power are evil and vile. No better than a rampaging pitbull, or a homosexual with political power.

[Sarcastr0]

Must be exhausting, spending all your time lapping up barely plausible nonsense because you are so addicted to paranoia and hate.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

What's more exhausting is sharing lived experiences with some dumbass bootlicker who can never ever ever find fault in his State Masters.

[OtisAH]

You don’t share any lived experiences with anyone. You’re a sad loser (okay, you share experiences with other sad losers, but that’s all). The internet gives you space to pretend otherwise but you always revert to type.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

I don't have to prove shit to you dumbass.

You literally just got through calling me an idiot for stating a claim as delivered by a sitting SCOTUS justice!

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Steve Friend sounds like a delusional, disaffected, worthless, right-wing misfit with a soft spot for insurrections (and. I would expect to find, Confederacy-huggers, white nationalists, and assorted other stains on our society).

I thank the people who enabled me and other taxpayers to stop paying this deplorable asswipe.

[M L]

The FBI is allegedly engaging in a "purge" of employees with conservative viewpoints and retaliating against whistleblowers who have made protected disclosures to Congress by revoking security clearances, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee Rep. Jim Jordan told Fox News Digital. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fbi-allegedly-engaging-purge-conservative-employees-retaliating-against-whistleblowers-jim-jordan

[Mr. Bumble]

Are you talking about America's premiere law enforcement agency; J. Edgar's FBI?

The same FBI that:

Took 17 years to track down the unibomber, but only after his brother pointed them in the right direction?

Killed Randy Weaver's wife and daughter ?

Never determined who mailed anthrax, but made Steven Hatfield's life miserable for years (eventually paying out $3 million or so) and closing the case when another possible subject committed suicide?

Played a huge role in saving those children at Waco?

Missed the info on the Boston Marathon bombers?

Missed the Ft. Hood shooter?

That FBI?

[Noscitur a sociis]

If you knew about misconduct and wanted to see something done about it, why would you tell Jim Jordan?

[M L]

Rimshot!

[M L]

But there's also Grassley.

https://www.grassley.senate.gov/news/news-releases/whistleblowers-reports-reveal-double-standard-in-pursuit-of-politically-charged-investigations-by-senior-fbi-doj-officials

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Who else could you tell? No establishment Republican will do anything. No Democrat will do anything. No mainstream media person will do anything.

What other choice is there if there is any chance to hold these treasonous monsters accountable?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

" If you knew about misconduct and wanted to see something done about it, why would you tell Jim Jordan? "

If what you wanted to be done was a coverup, Jordan would be an ideal candidate.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Republicans have run the FBI since its inception. I would have expected bigoted clingers and culture war losers, who can't stop whining about the FBI, would welcome any housecleaning there.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

And so your theory goes that since Republicans ran it, they would never go after Republicans because they are a partisan organization.

Right?

[jb]

More like your theory is that they're an evil partisan organization up to no good, yet somehow all of their leadership are Republicans. So hard to understand how the theory makes sense in the first place, assuming the complaint is that they're anti-conservative.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

You can look at their behavior and see what they are.

It's obvious to anyone whose eyes are open. And we can also see the lines aren't Democrat vs. Republican; the battle lines are Washington D.C. (The Federals) vs. everyone else (except their bootlickers/enablers).

[not guilty]

Donald Trump has now sued CNN in federal court in Florida for damages, claiming defamation. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.621239/gov.uscourts.flsd.621239.1.0.pdf Trump appears to be particularly exercised by the network's characterization of his claim to have won the 2020 presidential election as the "Big Lie."

This is unwise in the extreme -- the last thing a potential criminal defendant should want is to have his related conduct vetted in a civil suit where the full range of discovery is available. If Trump's screed survives an inevitable motion to dismiss at the pleading stage, discovery in this case should prove to be quite interesting.

For example, Rule 26(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure requires in relevant part:

(A) In General. Except as exempted by Rule 26(a)(1)(B) or as otherwise stipulated or ordered by the court, a party must, without awaiting a discovery request, provide to the other parties:

(i) the name and, if known, the address and telephone number of each individual likely to have discoverable information—along with the subjects of that information—that the disclosing party may use to support its claims or defenses, unless the use would be solely for impeachment;

(ii) a copy—or a description by category and location—of all documents, electronically stored information, and tangible things that the disclosing party has in its possession, custody, or control and may use to support its claims or defenses, unless the use would be solely for impeachment;

(iii) a computation of each category of damages claimed by the disclosing party—who must also make available for inspection and copying as under Rule 34 the documents or other evidentiary material, unless privileged or protected from disclosure, on which each computation is based, including materials bearing on the nature and extent of injuries suffered

Trump has shown himself to be notoriously unwilling to produce evidence in judicial proceedings. CNN would have every incentive to share this information with the Department of Justice. It would likely be admissible against Trump in a criminal proceeding -- it is non-hearsay according to Fed.R.Evid. 801(c)(2)(C) and (D).

In the unlikely event that this lawsuit should proceed to trial, CNN should ask the trial court to require the jury to render separate special verdicts as to truth, actual malice and injury. (When the trial court required such special verdicts in General William Westmoreland's suit against CBS, Westmoreland agreed to dismiss the case without payment, retraction or apology from CBS.)

[shawn_dude]

He's just victim-signaling to his marks. I predict* that he'll use this to fundraise until he reaches the point where discovery cannot be delayed any further and then he'll drop the suit.

*anyone should be able to predict this. It's like predicting a humid day in Florida.

[Ridgeway]

Can a corporation like CNN avail itself of Florida's Anti-SLAPP statute, or is it limited to natural persons?

[not guilty]

The statute applies to suits against another person or entity:

A person or governmental entity in this state may not file or cause to be filed, through its employees or agents, any lawsuit, cause of action, claim, cross-claim, or counterclaim against another person or entity without merit and primarily because such person or entity has exercised the constitutional right of free speech in connection with a public issue, or right to peacefully assemble, to instruct representatives of government, or to petition for redress of grievances before the various governmental entities of this state, as protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and s. 5, Art. I of the State Constitution.

http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&Search_String=&URL=0700-0799/0768/Sections/0768.295.html It does not appear to be limited to natural person defendants.

[Yogis_dad]

I read often that everywhere socialism has been tried, it has failed. Nothing could be less true. The actors who implement socialist schemes unfailingly prosper at the expense of those who remain productive, despite every incentive to surrender to the heavy hand of the socialists. In America today, hard workers receive, upon retirement, the same “benefits” from Social Security and Medicare as those who merely got by. Tenured professors enjoy large compensation, irrespective of their value to the children who attend their classes. Civil servants and federal office holders are well compensated for work that would never pass muster in a market economy. Looking across our borders, consider the health outcomes of the National Health Service in the UK or of its Canadian counterpart. And the true plutocrats swat away socialist taxation like so many flies. Regardless of his facile mind, how wealthy would Elon Musk be had he not capitalized on a government scheme to electrify transportation and to subsidize the development of batteries and vehicles.

Socialism works, but not to the benefit of the purported beneficiaries. The products of public schools and welfare-dependent, single-parent households are wretched, ill-taught, and often irreligious souls, easily manipulated, and bereft of real satisfaction or accomplishment.

And we who simply want to earn our keep and live freely pay for all this.

[Sarcastr0]

Tenured professors enjoy large compensation

This is socialism?

[jb]

Also:

https://www.salary.com/research/salary/posting/tenured-professor-salary

They make roughly 75th percentile income, and it looks like less than what the median salary is for people with PhDs, so actually it's a pretty bad deal for them.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

"The products of public schools and welfare-dependent, single-parent households are wretched, ill-taught, and often irreligious souls, easily manipulated, and bereft of real satisfaction or accomplishment."

Another superstitious, half-educated, worthless right-wing bigot heard from.

Open wider, loser.

[Ben_]

Elon would still be among the richest. SpaceX is arguably worth more than Tesla. It should still be important in the distant future, long after Tesla is forgotten about.

Also, except for [reality] isn’t much of an argument.

[bernard11]

Some news on the sedition front.

A lieutenant of longtime former Proud Boys chairman Henry “Enrique” Tarrio became the group’s first member to plead guilty to seditious conspiracy in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot on Thursday, deepening the government’s case against an organization accused of mobilizing violence to prevent the inauguration of Joe Biden.

Jeremy Bertino, 43, of Belmont, N.C., becomes a potential key witness for the Justice Department against Tarrio and four other Proud Boys leaders, some of whom had ties to influential supporters of President Donald Trump.

[Bob from Ohio]

Congrats, you will convict some cosplayers. The Republic is saved!

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Find any interesting typos in that stack of $37,000 residential deeds from Can't Keep Up, Ohio that landed on your desk today?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Henry was also an FBI informant and on his payroll.

Same thing is happening to the Russian collusion scapegoats. FBI paid informants get the good ol' shake & bake from the Democrats at the DOJ/FBI.

[qlangley]

Let us suppose Congress wishes to reform SCOTUS but there is no consensus for a Constitutional amendment.
So Congress passes a law for the appointment of a new justice every other year to an 18-year term. Since justices serve "during good behavior", Congress provides that after the 18-year term justices continue to "serve" but have a "senior status" in which they participate in discussions but can no longer vote.
What are the chances such a reform would survive constitutional review?
Unless the transitional arrangements grandfathered in current justices, who could even adjudicate this? All current justices would have a conflict of interest and would need to recuse themselves from the case.

[Brett Bellmore]

Somewhere between zip and zero, I expect, unless the Justices are persuaded that if they don't uphold it outright Court packing would follow. Even then they might decide it was better to be honest about the violation.

And it would be a violation, no way is senior status "serving".

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

No need to complicate this. Just add a few justices. Problems solved.

Clingers hardest hit.

[qlangley]

That should not affect their judgment of whether or not it is constitutional.
But since they would recuse themselves, that's not relevant. They would recuse, right?

[Brett Bellmore]

Supreme court justices aren't under the same recusal rule as other judges, because there's nobody to take their place if they recuse. So, no, it seems unlikely to me that they'd recuse, just because the constitutional violation was targeting them personally.

[SRG]

Biden pardons all Federal prisoners convicted of simple possession of marijuana

That has to be good news.

[LawTalkingGuy]

TRO filed by Ken Paxton in 3, 2, 1…

[LawTalkingGuy]

This was a joke, but the “brightest” minds on the legal right are already tweeting stuff like this:

https://twitter.com/josh_hammer/status/1578105573228175360?s=46&t=TRx4OEjseZXaeBPc-tGd0w

So I am for real not sure the fact that pardons are absolutely allowed under the constitution without constraint and that the CSA explicitly allows rescheduling of drugs by the AG/HHS is going to stop a lol-suit from Paxton and other idiot AGs.

[M L]

"Lost in all the B.S. "drug justice"/pro-marijuana propaganda is the reality that a huge percentage—all but assuredly an outright majority—of those technically in federal jail for drug possession are violent criminals or dealers/traffickers who pleaded down."

[LawTalkingGuy]

And that’s false according to federal criminal practitioners.

https://twitter.com/popehat/status/1578140481308921856?s=46&t=TRx4OEjseZXaeBPc-tGd0w

https://twitter.com/renato_mariotti/status/1578144102171803648?s=46&t=TRx4OEjseZXaeBPc-tGd0w

That’s why there are so few of them. This is mostly symbolic and to clear collateral consequences for the few people who do have the convictions.

And the scenario where the feds thought they had a violent criminal or major trafficker but could only prove simple possession is just highly unlikely. I can’t how there could be a major investigation by DEA or ATF or the FBI and they could only nab someone on simple possession. And even bother with a plea in that scenario.

The people with only that charge likely got busted with weed on federal property.

[Sarcastr0]

This is a direct quote from Josh Hammer’s twitter.

Maybe double check stuff like that from someone like that.

[Jmaie]

I have heard it said, for decades, that the overwhelming majority of those folks charged federally for possession were higher-level dealers that agreed to plea bargains. Is this incorrect?

I don't know who Josh Hammer is, FWIW.

[jb]

The overwhelming majority of folks charged federally are indeed higher-level dealers, but they're not charged just for simple possession. They're charged for other crimes. This is why Biden's move is mostly symbolic--the vast majority of people in prison for simple possession are there on state charges.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Not only is that not true—it doesn't appear that there's anyone currently in prison affected by these pardons.

[Commenter_XY]

Nas....I thought the commit to review the Schedule 2 listing for cannabis was significant. The pardon might be BS, but the schedule review is not.

This was a step in the right direction by POTUS Biden, and he deserves credit for acting.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

By idiot SGs, you mean Republicans and maybe even a few other authoritarian asswipes.

[LawTalkingGuy]

No need to repeat myself.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Josh Hammer sounds like a bitter, disaffected, right-wing misfit. Of course he and Josh Blackman are pals.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Another great element of progress from our liberal-libertarian mainstream, established against the wishes of authoritarian Republicans, obsolete conservatives, and faux libertarian prudes.

America gets better and better when better Americans are making the decisions.

[John F. Carr]

The pardon is within his power. It's even a good policy move. But it's a policy move for Congress to make, not the President unilaterally.

[M L]

I do agree with this. Biden finally did something right.

Where does the Constitution delegate power to the federal government to ban marijuana?

[not guilty]

Whether the appellant raises the issue or not, the Eleventh Circuit must consider as a threshold matter whether the district court had subject matter jurisdiction to entertain Donald Trump's lawsuit about the execution of the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago. As an essential component of Article III's requirement of a case or controversy, a federal plaintiff must plead facts showing his standing to seek relief. This analysis must be conducted separately as to each claim in the lawsuit.

The irreducible constitutional minimum of standing contains three elements. First, the plaintiff must have suffered an "injury in fact" -an invasion of a legally protected interest which is (a) concrete and particularized, and (b) actual or imminent, not "conjectural" or "hypothetical." Second, there must be a causal connection between the injury and the conduct complained of-the injury has to be fairly traceable to the challenged action of the defendant, and not the result of the independent action of some third party not before the court. Third, it must be "likely," as opposed to merely "speculative," that the injury will be redressed by a favorable decision. Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560-61 (1992).

As to any claim of executive privilege regarding the seized documents, Trump has failed to meet the first requirement of injury in fact. Parsing of the initial filing in this case shows that Trump failed to plead that he has or had asserted executive privilege. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763.1.0_15.pdf (When a grand jury subpoena for the records issued last spring, Trump had the opportunity to challenge the validity of the subpoena in federal district court in the District of Columbia where the subpoena originated. He did not do so.) Trump has failed to aver that he is properly situated to assert executive privilege against an agency of the executive branch. He has failed to aver that the holder of the privilege -- President Joe Biden -- has asserted it.

Moreover, it is apparent from the face of the pleading that the documents were seized during execution of a search warrant issued by a federal magistrate judge. That necessarily presupposes a finding of probable cause that a crime had been committed and that evidence thereof would be found as of August 5, 2022 at the premises to be searched. A generalized assertion of privilege must yield to the demonstrated, specific need for evidence in a pending criminal trial. United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 713 (1974). "[T]he [presidential communications] privilege disappears altogether when there is any reason to believe government misconduct occurred." In re Sealed Case (Espy), 121 F.3d 729, 746 (D.C. Cir. 1997) (grand jury subpoena).

Trump's pleadings do not aver facts showing any invalidity of the search warrant issued by Magistrate Judge Reinhart. The Court of Appeals should vacate the preliminary injunction and remand with instructions to dismiss Trump's claim of executive privilege failure to plead facts showing standing.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

You forgot to mention how, in attempting to shop for a specific, incompetent Judge to do Trump's bidding, that his legal team lied and claimed that their lawsuit was not related to any ongoing litigation.

Cannon should've never had the chance to impugn herself.

[DaveM]

Not much of an open thread Thursday, this time, I'm afraid. Too many of the same 'ol people making the same 'ol, same 'ol comments. If you have made 5 or more comments in this thread today, I suggest you volunteer to sit out next week's thread and see what happens. Who knows what we might see?

[M L]

If you type "FBI whistleblower" in Google, one of their automatic search suggestions is "FBI whistleblower found dead." Which brings you to this fun story.

https://www.lataco.com/fbi-whistleblower-dead-el-sereno/

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/reputed-federal-informant-whistleblower-found-dead-l-reported-missing-rcna26382

[Jaypd]

Will this blog cover judge counts' ruling that bans on felons possessing firearms survive Bruen? The theory seems off to me, basically instead of what historically happened to the right to bear arms the judge focuses on who could vote. Bit of a stretch.

[Martinned]

I assume that we’re about 12 hours away from people starting to make DACA-style arguments about President Biden’s marijuana pardon? That this use of the pardon power is unconstitutional because it usurps Congress’s lawmaking power somehow. After all, if that argument worked for prosecutorial discretion (see above), why not for the pardon power? They’re both equally part of the President’s original power under the constitution.

EDIT: Looks like my estimate was optimistic by about a day, because the above already happened 12 hours ago.

[JasonT20]

"I don’t care if Herschel Walker paid to abort endangered baby eagles. I want control of the Senate." – former NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch, on her radio program.

Tell us some more about how much pro-life politicians and pundits care about the unborn.

[Brett Bellmore]

Enough to cut some corners in denying the party of infanticide control of the government, I guess. We even allied with Stalin to fight Hitler, remember.

[JasonT20]

Enough to cut some corners in denying the party of infanticide control of the government...

You are leaning right into my point. Banning or severely restricting abortion is only a top issue in domestic politics for small portion of the voting population. The vast majority of voters have much higher priorities, but conservatives have spent the last 45 years convincing a chunk of their base that it should be above everything else. Why? Because a loyal minority that won't even consider voting for Democrats helps Republicans outperform their share of the electorate. If Republicans tried to compete only on the strength of every other aspect of their platform and not on culture war issues, I don't think they could win the House or Senate, even with the structural advantages they have. Why do you think that the Republican Party so rarely talks about anything else anymore? They didn't bother with a platform in 2020, and haven't put forth anything but platitudes and rhetoric for 2022.

The don't have a plan on what to do with power if they get it, other than to make sure that they can keep it.

[JasonT20]

A couple weeks ago, Gov. Ron DeSantis shared a video on Twitter of a speech he gave about U.S. History and how to teach it properly. In it, he said this:

It was the American Revolution that caused people to question slavery. No one had questioned it before we decided as Americans that we are endowed by our creator with unalienable rights.

It would be interesting to see how many people here recognize one of the biggest problems with his statement. I'll admit that it wasn't the first thing that came to my mind. Then I read someone else's take on what he said here.

[Martinned]

You mean the paradox of deciding you have unalienable God-given rights?

[JasonT20]

Nope. Not going to spoil it until at least a few others chime in.

[Sarcastr0]

Hey - fun one.

France abolished slavery way earlier than we did, right? Though they did have the nasty habit of backsliding.

[Martinned]

I assumed that JasonT20 didn't have the blazing historical inaccuracy of the statement in mind. (With a username like that, he must be aware of Somersett's case at a minimum.)

[JasonT20]

Correct. That the facts are clearly not on DeSantis’s side should be well known to anyone that passed a U.S. history class. (At least, one take outside of Florida.) I was struck by another response I read in this article. DeSantis specifically said “no one” questioned slavery prior to the Revolution, but I think it is important to note that the people being enslaved certainly questioned it.

Not only was DeSantis wrong that abolitionism didn’t exist in any significant way prior to the Declaration of Independence (especially given that the idea of natural rights predates the Revolution by quite a bit – see John Locke (1632-1704), for instance), he was viewing the moral question of slavery only from the perspective of free white people. DeSantis seemed to be saying that holding Black people as slaves was only considered morally wrong once white Americans started thinking it was wrong.

[JasonT20]

With a username like that, he must be aware of Somersett’s case at a minimum.

Side question, why would my username bring that to mind?

[John F. Carr]

I have more than one quarrel with that short statement. I don't recommending hiring him as a history teacher. Would I rather have DeSantis or a teacher who opened class with a land acknowledgement? That's a hard one. Maybe we could stop teaching history instead.

[F.D. Wolf]

You may have noticed our glorious Justice Department is declaring war on anti-abortion protesters. Eleven individuals were recently arrested for "blocking access" to an abortion clinic, including an 87-year-old woman. I can only imagine the fear she must have instilled in a woman seeking an abortion.

My query is now that abortion is no longer recognized as a constitutional right, what constitutional provision gives Congress the authority to criminalize blocking access to an abortion clinic? Perhaps this will be the test case on whether Congress has the authority to regulate abortion.

[JasonT20]

My query is now that abortion is no longer recognized as a constitutional right, what constitutional provision gives Congress the authority to criminalize blocking access to an abortion clinic? Perhaps this will be the test case on whether Congress has the authority to regulate abortion.

I could be wrong, but I don't think that the clinic access laws hinged on abortion being recognized as a constitutional right, but on the Commerce Clause. For instance, if Congress thought it important to commerce to make sure people could go into a plastic surgery clinic without being blocked by protesters, then it wouldn't matter whether getting a nose job was a constitutional right.

This might actually relate to whether Congress can regulate abortion, but under the Commerce Clause, then.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Wtf does that even have to do with interstate commerce?

[not guilty]

Is that a serious question? Congress has long regarded the provision of abortion care as affecting interstate commerce. See 18 U.S.C. § 1531 (criminalizing partial birth abortions in or affecting interstate commerce).

It is also worth noting that several of those recently charged with blocking access to an abortion facility outside of Nashville are from outside Tennessee. https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/crime/2022/10/05/11-charged-in-2021-reproductive-clinic-blockade-violating-freedom-of-access-to-clinic-entrances-act/69542977007/

[Brett Bellmore]

Congress regards the Sun and the Moon and the stars as affecting interstate commerce. It's just a ritual invocation at this point to excuse the exercise of the general police power the federal government deliberately wasn't given.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Notice how there are exactly zero heavily armed FBI raids on the people who firebomb pro-life clinics.

Zero.

These Democrat institutions are irredeemable.

[not guilty]

The firebomb attacks on "pro-life" facilities (it is probably inaccurate to call them clinics) are of relatively recent vintage. I agree that such crimes should be prosecuted, but perhaps authorities are still in the investigative stages.

[Brett Bellmore]

It might be fair to call them "clinics", in many cases, because even pregnant women who don't decide to abort need some medical care and referrals.

[JasonT20]

It might be fair to call them “clinics”, in many cases...

If they actually have a doctor at the facility and are thus licensed to provide health care at that facility, sure. If they are just "pregnancy crisis centers" that exist to try to talk women out of getting abortions, no.

[not guilty]

CNN is reporting that District Attorney Fani Willis in Georgia is expecting indictments as soon as December. https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/06/politics/fani-willis-georgia-prosecutor-trump-indictments-december

Prosecutors previously informed 16 pro-Trump electors who falsely claimed Trump won Georgia in a certificate sent to the National Archives that they could be targets in the probe. Rudy Giuliani was also told that he was a possible target. Here's hoping at least some of the bogus electors will elect to cooperate and implicate the higher ups who set the scheme in motion.

[not guilty]

The Department of Justice is reportedly concerned that Donald Trump has still not returned all the documents he took when he left the White House. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/07/justice-department-trump-additional-documents/

If that is the case, Trump needs to heed Molly Ivins' First Rule of Holes: stop digging!

[Jason Cavanaugh]

If this turns out to be true, and he has continued to obstruct justice despite being under investigation (and hopefully indictment) for the same, then he'd damn well better be lead away in handcuffs from wherever he's found when more documents are turned up.

Fuck this guy for pretending like he's above the law, and fuck the DOJ for treating him like a child emperor.