Thursday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[Stephen Lathrop]

Where is the nation headed? Do the right wing commenters on the VC speak for American conservatives generally, or are they the wacko element of a more-restrained tendency?

Trump appears to be on the verge of arrest, perhaps shortly after the mid-terms. If he is arrested, will he be held justifiably without bail—as a flight risk; as a dangerous and still-active insurrectionist; as a still-active perpetrator of espionage offenses?

Any or all of those look like supportable grounds as a matter of fact. I will let the lawyers say whether the notion to hold Trump without bail is too fantastic. I suppose Trump's obstruction offenses would not be a factor in a bail decision, unless there were evidence he is actively obstructing still, and won't stop unless held behind bars. Which may be.

How many think if Trump is arrested and held without bail, there will be a general uprising, amounting to redoubled insurrection? How many think that is nonsense?

One suggestion for the right-wingers here before answering. Be sure before answering that you are familiar with the allegations reported yesterday about Trump's post-subpoena personal involvement in apparently-continuing efforts to defy a lawful demand for return of the government's documents.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Do the right wing commenters on the VC speak for American conservatives generally, or are they the wacko element of a more-restrained tendency?

As with most discourse on the internet, the latter (fortunately).

Trump appears to be on the verge of arrest, perhaps shortly after the mid-terms. If he is arrested, will he be held justifiably without bail—as a flight risk; as a dangerous and still-active insurrectionist; as a still-active perpetrator of espionage offenses?

It appears somewhat more likely than it ever has been that Trump will be criminally prosecuted, but it still seems very unlikely. If he should be

1. He almost certainly won't be arrested
2. If he is, the government almost certainly won't ask for detention.
3. A judicial officer almost certainly won't detain him.

[Brett Bellmore]

1. 50-50 he'll be arrested, as a purely performative matter. This is an administration that sends dozens of heavily armed men to arrest a pastor over an allegation he shoved somebody a year earlier.

2. If they arrest him, they WILL ask for detention, to humiliate him before his enemies.

3. Depends on how good they are at judge shopping and making up lurid stories.

They'll do this, if they do, not in spite of 5 years of failed investigations and 2 failed impeachments, but because of them. Because the only thing they're capable of doing with Trump is doubling down.

[nekit2010g]

I would love to see them arrest him, because it’ll cause the next Fort Sumter. Real Americans are angry and tired, and there are enough people without families who don't feel like they have anything to lose that will not be restrained. You can only push some of these people so far.

[Davedave]

It's astonishing so many of the Trump traitors are so stupid they don't realise their statements are further incrimination of their gang leader.

You've just confessed to committing treason at Trump's behest. That's hardly asserting his innocence!

[nekit2010g]

I haven't committed anything. I'm only pointing out that if you keep poking the bear, eventually you'll get bitten.

[Nige]

I'm not threatening you, I'm just saying here's a threat I'm aiming at you.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Government institutions that do not fear accountability or the populace always descend into tyranny.

Our governing institutions are currently unafraid of accountability because they know there is none, so they need to fear the populace.

Angry patriots are the last bulwark against the burgeoning Democrat tyranny.

[Sarcastr0]

Government Accountability does not come at the point of a right wing gun. You’re just fantasizing.

[nekit2010g]

So what does it come at the point of? A court system rigged against white men? Your scenario ignores the fact that a system can break down to the point where accountability can ONLY come at the point of a gun.

[Sarcastr0]

It hasn’t. It isn’t.

You just suck a lot and blame every group you can for it.

Your civil war 2 won’t come to pass, and you will die with your powder dry and your violent hopes frustrated.

[nekit2010g]

When silly women like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Eunice Lee wield power over white men, that means the system has failed.

[Nige]

Oh, THAT system.

[Reallynotbob]

Am I going to regret asking Nekit what kind of woman he could stomach exerting power over a white man?

[nekit2010g]

Reallynotbob, the type of woman who George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson Davis, or Robert E. Lee would have thought should have power over men.

[LawTalkingGuy]

"You just suck a lot and blame every group you can for it."

Yep. Notably, he does not deny that he in fact sucks a great deal.

[Nige]

You're blustering that if Trump is held accountable, you'll resort to violence. That is tyranny.

[RENATA the rational]

Well if you use words correctly, they are "asserting' nothing !!
You don't have to like or even care what happens to Trump to see that if that can be done to him then anything -- anything at all -- can be done to you.
You missed the whole point of the person you were responding to.

[Nige]

You mean if he's alleged to have broken the law he can be investigated with due process and legal representation?

[Jason Cavanaugh]

People who unlawfully steal a plethora of the nation's most sensitive information, and attempt to use such secrets to extort the government into handing over other sensitive information, while ordering aides to obstruct justice on his behalf and attempt to stymie lawful search warrants because they mistakenly believe they are above accountability can indeed have what happened to Trump, happen to them too.

It's pretty easy to tell the Trump idiots from those who have actually read the briefings and evidence presented thus far.

The extraordinarily sad part is that the briefs are available for you idiots to read and cleanse yourself of the delusions about Trump's victim complex, and yet you choose not to.

That means you're deliberately choosing to be cultist morons, and deserve to be treated as nothing more.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

You’ve just confessed to committing treason at Trump’s behest.

Another genius who doesn't understand what "treason" means...or "confessed to committing", for that matter.

[Nelson]

"it’ll cause the next Fort Sumter"

So civil war is the only response to a criminal prosecution? That's an awfully extreme response without workkng through the legal process first.

"Real Americans are angry and tired"

Claiming there are "real" and "fake" (?) Americans is a bright, clear indication that the speaker only recognizes one specific ideology or belief system as valid for Americans to hold. Ironically, that betrays the freedom America offers to its citizens.

"You can only push some of these people so far"

Surrendering American ideals because fringe groups threaten violence is cowardice.

[nekit2010g]

More like I don't consider the 50 million worthless third world immigrants who have come to our shores since 1965 to be real Americans.

[MoreCurious]

Most people try to hide their bigotry and ignorance. You seem proud of yours.

[nekit2010g]

It's indisputable that America's leftward trajectory is because of worthless immigrants post 1965. Look at the polls. Whites NEVER vote for the Democrat. Ever. The Democrats win by getting some whites and nearly all non-whites.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

" More like I don’t consider the 50 million worthless third world immigrants who have come to our shores since 1965 to be real Americans. "

I concede that it does not appear Prof. Volokh learned much from any citizenship courses he took before or after arrival, but I do not claim he is not a "real American."

Carry on, clingers.

[nekit2010g]

Did Professor Volokh come from the third world?

You equate white immigrants from Europe with semi-retarded mongrels from Africa and South America. Apples and oranges.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The Volokh Conspirators thank you for your contributions to this blog, and for being their target audience.

Here is some food for thought along a similar line.

[Roman Moroni]

The Soviet Union that Professor Volokh's family emigrated from was 2nd world, tops.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Hey, Mr. Moroni, it is wonderful to see a common patriotic citizen, such as yourself. Thank you very much.

How's Sweden these days? Do you feel like you belong there yet?

[Nelson]

They were, by definition, a second world country. THE second world country.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_World

[not guilty]

¨I would love to see them arrest him, because it’ll cause the next Fort Sumter.¨

Uh, the first Fort Sumter didn´t work out too well for the aggressors. If the Trump cult is foolish enough to tangle with the United States armed forces, we´re probably better off without them when many of them meet an inevitable demise.

[nekit2010g]

Do you really think the left's base can fight? I mean maybe they can fight over who gets to go first when running a train at the local bathhouse, but that's about it.

[Sarcastr0]

Haven’t you heard? The military is woke now.

But more seriously, Jan 06 was as close as you lot could get. Organized, top cover, limited victory condition.

And you failed. That was the high water mark. I’m not worried.

[nekit2010g]

Jan 6 was organized? LOL!!

None of them even intended to do harm. That's why you "won."

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

We win because we are just better people.

Right-wingers tend to be poorly educated, gullible, obsolete, bigotry-shackled, superstition-addled, backwater losers.

[not guilty]

¨Do you really think the left’s base can fight?¨

The Fort Sumter metaphor contemplates an armed attack on a federal military installation. As I said, the first Fort Sumter attack didn´t work out well for the attackers (in the long run).

The U. S. armed forces may not be ¨the left’s base¨, but they make up a quite formidable fighting force.

[nekit2010g]

That was metamorphical. Any modern day civil conflict is more likely to be guerilla style.

[Nelson]

FYI, violence instigated for ideological reasons against innocent civilians is called terrorism, not guerrilla warfare.

[John F. Carr]

Under federal law, violence against the government in an attempt to influence or retaliate against the government is also terrorism. Once you cross the threshold of federal criminal jurisdiction, say by using a "destructive device", the sentencing guidelines call for very long sentences. There is a perverse incentive here for the few potential patriots/rebels/terrorists who know about the guidelines. The sentence is not much different for using a small pipe bomb or a nuclear bomb. In for a penny, in for a pound. You have but one life to give for your cause.

[Nelson]

True, but that life would be given awfully quickly. The wingnuts advocating for civil war are under the delusion that the military would turn their backs on their oaths and join the rebellion.

Like Ashli Babbitt, they will quickly find out that they signed on for a third eye in the middle of their forehead, courtesy of those who take their oath to "defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic" seriously.

Hopefully if the lunatic fringe decides to start killing Americans, the military won't be as restrained as those defending the Capitol were on January 6th.

[nekit2010g]

Nelson, you're an idiot. The cop who shot Babbitt was not a soldier. He was a semi-retarded (listen to him speak, he sounds like a 5th grade dropout) affirmative action hire.

[Nelson]

The guy who shot Ashli Babbitt was a hero. Full stop.

[not guilty]

I suspect that those who yap and yammer about an imminent civil war are indulging Walter Mitty style fantasies. An actual organized attempt at insurrection would likely be met with overwhelming force -- something the fantasy driven don´t want to contemplate.

[Kazinski]

Its not going to cause another Fort Sumpter.

It will be a terrible decision, and it might be the deciding factor to make Trump run again which I hope he won't.

If Trump feels that they're going to try to put him in jail he may decide running for President is the best way to stay out of jail.

Then it might make him do the biggest single thing he could do to insure a MAGA-wing president in 2024, not run and to heartily endorse Ron DeSantis. Which I think would also guarantee he doesn't go to jail.

[LawTalkingGuy]

As odious and morally noxious as it was, fighting to defend and expand the institution of slavery is at least tied to material conditions of the population.

Starting a war over the personal fortunes of Donald Trump specifically is so fucking pathetic that's hard to imagine being that much of a loser.

[nekit2010g]

Don't you see that it's not about Donald Trump? Every attack on Donald Trump by the left is a veiled attack on traditional America, conservativism, and the white West, in general. Trump is just the proxy.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Sad and pathetic.

[nekit2010g]

No, what's pathetic are whites trying to destroy themselves.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Lol

[Kazinski]

Well if you have so much respect for traditional institutions then let the fantasy indictment play out before you overreact.

If he's indicted it won't be the first time blatantly political indictments were handed down, such as Kay Bailey Hutchison, Tom Delay, and Rick Perry in Texas, and while it took a personal toll the net result was a big downstep for the power and prestige of the Travis county DA.

When your opponents are making a colossal error, let them.

[David Nieporent]

No, Brett. They will not ask for detention. They will not do so to try to humiliate him. And a judge will not order him detained. Try to be sane for once in your life.

[Kazinski]

I mostly agree with you, but there are a few judges out there that are so Trump-deranged it could happen.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Nieporent, is it your opinion that it is unwise to listen to legal commentary from Laurence Tribe? I ask that in all sincerity, because Tribe is getting old, and I have never known what to make of him anyway—and because he was on television last night saying that news which broke yesterday convinces him there is beyond-reasonable-doubt evidence (subject to presumption of innocence, of course) to convict Trump of three criminal violations, each of which carries a potential 20-year sentence. So what do you think of Tribe? Would he say something like that irresponsibly?

If Tribe is right, do you expect either prosecutors or judges to give Trump kid-gloves treatment, much more lenient than anyone else facing like charges would receive?

[David Nieporent]

Tribe has beclowned himself several times in the Trump era by acting like a pundit rather than a lawyer, but I am not quarreling with what you represent that he's saying.

I think it's very reasonable at this point to suggest that Trump will be prosecuted and convicted. What I'm saying to Brett is that they will not try to hold him without bail pending trial (and the court would never approve that if they sought it.) And even if he is convicted, I do not see him ever serving any time in prison. The worst that could foreseeably happen to him — as I've said consistently over the past year — is home confinement.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Nieporent, assume the Justice Department produces evidence that convicted Trump still retains stolen compartmented information, which he denies. Still home confinement?

Under home confinement does Trump get unlimited visitors? Can he communicate more freely than he could in prison? If there are restrictions, and Trump defies them, maybe only sometimes, does he go to prison then?

I am having trouble imagining Trump partly constrained. Maybe you are having trouble imagining Trump in prison. Would it be plausible to suppose such issues will get attention at the Justice Department? How do you suppose the debate would be framed?

[not guilty]

Pretrial detention is over the top, but if Donald Trump dies outside of a prison cell, he will have effectively gotten away with some of the most serious crimes in the history of the presidency.

[santamonica811]

Brett,
In your mind, two impeachments attempts and two SUCCESSFUL impeachments = "failed" in your mind. I actually agree with you about the performative nature of those impeachments, although I think the symbolic message of "No one is above the law" is FAR more important than if Congress had done what you seem to think is preferable: "We know Senate Republicans are moral whores, and will not vote to convict, in spite of overwhelming evidence . . . therefore, no impeachment should be instituted, since no real chance of post-impeachment conviction."

I respectfully disagree with your premise.

What seems delusional about your post is that you ascribe to Democrats exactly what President Trump did. Judge-shopping? Exactly what Trump did, to find the one federal judge in America who was so corrupt and/or incompetent that she ruled for Trump, regardless of what the facts and law said. And you accuse Trump opponents of doubling-down?!?!??? My God; that is Page One of Trump's playbook, which he has followed assiduously for *Fifty f&cking years*???

Projection much?

[gVOR08]

I agree it’s unlikely TFG would be arrested if indicted. But I sure like the idea he might flee the country Tough for him to campaign in ‘24 if he’s subject to arrest if he returns for a rally. On the other hand, Trumpfest in Budapest has a certain ring to it.

[Roman Moroni]

That's actually a strategic point, for the Democrats, that I hadn't considered. Why wouldn't they want to give him every opportunity to flee the country? Isn't that more likely to achieve their actual goal than detaining him and risk him somehow emerging as more of a martyr and more likely to successfully run again?

[not guilty]

When Trump is indicted, he will probably be afforded the opportunity to voluntarily surrender to be taken into custody. His hubris may be such that he refuses that opportunity, in which case he would be arrested and brought before a federal magistrate for an initial appearance.

[Reallynotbob]

I kinda think he would prefer to force the arrest and gesture at martyrdom. If it's a felony charge, I predict arrest, release, mandatory surrender of passport, and ankle monitor or similar type of modified home confinement because he clearly presents a flight risk.

[Kazinski]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say even if it has to go to the Supreme Court they will allow him to campaign.

It just chills the first amendment way too much to keep a former president from running for office again based on a non-violent indictment.

Even the risk of flight pales before the risk that an untried allegation can keep a major public figure from running for office.

[not guilty]

Indictment, or even incarceration, would not keep Trump from seeking another term as president. Except for underlying conduct amounting to insurrection under the Fourteenth Amendment, section 3, a criminal conviction would not disqualify him from serving if elected.

Criminal prosecution would of course impair the efficacy of campaigning.

[Reallynotbob]

Kazinski, nothing about being indicted or even convicted prevents him from running from home/prison. (Except 14As3 as NotGuilty notes.) So is your concern that "successfully prosecuting laws should not apply to politicians?" You surely don't mean laws can't be enforced against people who file to run in elections...

Or is this a Trump-specific rule you advocate?

[Darth Buckeye]

If the FBI goes in to arrest Trump, I assume they will coordinate this with the Secret Service. Of course, if the FBI loves arresting people with SWAT style tactics. What could possibly go wrong?

[Kazinski]

Ok, I’ll bite, is your handle a tribute to the legendary freeper Buckeye, or is you he?

Or are you just from Ohio?

[Kazinski]

Wild speculation until he’s charged.

Honestly how many times in the last 6 years has there been speculation about charging him for treason, emoluments, campaign finance violations with Stormy, egging on violence at his rallys, collusion, quid pro quos, insurrections, etc. And sure there were 2 doomed impeachments, the more serious of the two after he left office, when he could have been charged if there was a real case, but that's all evaporated into thin air.

And now what you got is basically a dispute about overdue library books with the archivist.

[AmosArch]

You can look back and probably find no less than a dozen separate incidents where progs insisted Drumpf was going to be locked up and yet they are calling other people crazy and delusional. In the end I doubt papergate will amount to any serious longterm legal punishment. Stacks of paper in a box in an attic aren’t anything exciting or sexy compared to breathy rape accusers, rioting mobs and all the other stuff thats been tried against him. Imagine trying to stay awake reading through this ‘scandal’ if it was for a Democrat and the media wasn’t dressing it up for an audience.

The progs will move on to the next lawfare target they currently know and care nothing about, and try to gaslight everybody that its the most important thing in the world.

[Brett Bellmore]

They'll keep after Trump until he dies, and then experiment with posthumous prosecutions.

The dynamic here is that they decide to target somebody, and claim they're awful. Then they do things they know are questionable in going after them, and fail.

At that point they can't accept that the target is actually innocent, because that would mean they were in the wrong for doing the questionable things. So they escalate instead.

Rinse and repeat, with each cycle they elevate how much of a threat they claim the guy is, in order to justify worse tactics in going after him. And Trump is, what, 4-5 cycles into this? At this point they're calling him a world-historic monster on the scale of Hitler or Stalin, and backing down is psychologically impossible.

[dwb68]

The dynamic here is that by keeping the spotlight on Trump, they hope to distract from the economy.

[Brett Bellmore]

It started long before they tanked the economy, though.

[Nige]

It started even before Trump University.

[Brett Bellmore]

I've pointed out before that people were literally discussing impeaching Trump before he secured the nomination, and a majority of Democrats polled favored impeaching him within mere weeks of his taking office, before any possible charges could be identified.

It was very much a case of identifying the defendant first, and then spending years looking for a crime.

[Nige]

Yeah and the right were muttering that Obama was the antichrist and buying up all the guns before he was elected. While Obama was neither an obvious antichrist nor much of a gungrabber, Trump was always obviously a crook.

[nekit2010g]

Obama was a disgusting savage antichrist. At least half of him was anyway.

[Nige]

See?

[nekit2010g]

Truth hurt?

[Brett Bellmore]

You must have me confused with somebody else.

[Nige]

No-one could confuse you with the truth these days.

[Roman Moroni]

Which half, nekit?

Not sure why I'm curious about this, but according to the prevailing racist hierarchy of people to hate most, aren't race-traitor whites even worse than black people?

I mean if he's half black Muslim, that side considers Jesus to be a prophet, so it's more like Christ adjacent rather than ANTI-Christ. Or am I doing white, Christian racism wrong?

[Jason Cavanaugh]

“ And now what you got is basically a dispute about overdue library books with the archivist.”

You really are as ignorant and stupid as anyone could possibly be on this issue and have no business speaking about Trump’s crimes at all, let alone pretending like you can adequately and accurately summarize what he’s done.

[Kazinski]

I appreciate you recognizing my ignorance and stupidity, its been a long tortuous process to develop it.

But, I'm deeply sorry I hit a nerve.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Here's one way you stand a chance of correcting your deficiency:

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/64911367/trump-v-united-states/

Maybe instead of spouting bullshit because you're too ignorant to know better, you can address your ignorance.

Having seen your behavior for many years now, I'm quite certain that you have no interest in the truth. I'm also certain that you have never set foot in a fucking library or you might realize that they don't stock the nation's most closely guarded secrets, and don't generally attempt to circumvent lawful subpoenas and search warrants.

Good luck with your journey on becoming informed enough to not run your mouth like a fool about that which you don't understand.

[Kazinski]

"Good luck with your journey on becoming informed enough to not run your mouth like a fool about that which you don’t understand."

Oh come on, everyone needs a hobby, don't try to educate me and ruin all my fun.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

It speaks volumes about your character that, given the chance to actually understand what's going on and not have your opinion make you look the fool, you've chosen to ignore the facts in favor of blissful, pitiful ignorance.

Typical right-wing behavior these days. Pathetic, but typical.

[AmosArch]

I'm part of the 'wacko far right'. I believe in less than 20 genders as opposed to the 32 regular rightwingers believe in and the 43 and 75 center right and mainstream folks espouse respectively.

[santamonica811]

Yes, Amos,
We all know and acknowledge that you're part of the wacko far right. There was never any dispute or confusion about this. I mean; I'm glad you're aware of it (so many delusional or mentally ill people think they're actually sane, which makes it much more difficult), so I am pleased to read that you do have a sense of self-awareness.

(Sounds snarky, but it's not . . . if more people with mental health issues were aware of their limitations, the world would be a far better place.)

[AmosArch]

The Left is very big on declaring some arbitrary position or belief the 'correct' or 'default' or 'mainstream' one and argue entirely based on that with little or no other evidence or argument attached. Its the intellectual descendant of the 'one true faith' aspect of many of the religious/cult systems they constantly bash (the communist religion included but they would not be as disturbed by such comparisons) Thanks for confirming how proud they are of this.

[Nige]

Was trying to work out what the hell you were on about, until I realised that you're talking about principles. The left still aspires to have principles, something the right has pretty much abandoned altogether.

[Nelson]

"The Left is very big on declaring some arbitrary position or belief the ‘correct’ or ‘default’ or ‘mainstream’ one"

"Correct" is like "normal", it is entirely dependent on the beliefs of the speaker.

Mainstream is easy to identify. If, like most conservative culture war issues, the majority of people (usually the vast majority) disagree or oppose the cultural conservative position, that is the definition of mainstream.

Since it encompasses both liberal and moderate (and sometimes, like with legal abortion, conservatives), it is not "the Left" that is deciding. It is most Americans. It is the average person. It is the mainstream. It is the normal person.

One of the challenges of cultural conservatism is that, in the long run, it is doomed to fail. There may be flare-ups of outrage or despair, but they never last.

At the end of the day, cultural conservatives are fighting the tide. Shaking their fists at the stars. Shouting angrily that people these days don't understand, weren't raised right, have been misled, or have been brainwashed by evil forces. That ignores the simplest, most obvious, and (for them) most disheartening thing:

People understand what cultural conservatives believe, they just don't find it convincing, compelling, or substantive.

At the end of the day, doing (or believing) somethong because that's how it was in the past is an intellectually empty dead end. Traditionalism isn't a beneficial ethos for a society. It leads to stagnation. It is a death sentence for a nation's culture.

[AmosArch]

If we're going for majoritarianism even now most people in the world are probably closer to the 'far right' than the leftwingers that are categorizing them. If you doubt me go ahead and look for sympathy for your pronouns among a group of Chinese coal miners or Afghani villagers, or even an American tech bro once he's knocked back a few to remove his inhibitions. As for the rest I've never really bought the 'arc of history' eschatology of progs. An honest reading of history reveals the evidence isn't there and never was unless you are one of the pseudointellectuals who conflates rightwing with 'unchanging' and leftwing with 'change'. Instead of some fantasy eternal march to progressive infinity most likely the value systems and ideological battles of the future will have transformed into some exotic axis disconnected from todays politics.

[Nelson]

"most people in the world are probably closer to the ‘far right’ than the leftwingers that are categorizing them. If you doubt me go ahead and look for sympathy for your pronouns among a group of Chinese coal miners or Afghani villagers, or even an American tech bro once he’s knocked back a few to remove his inhibitions"

So your counter to my assessment of the futility and inevitable defeat of American cultural conservatism is that other countries and the working world's version of douchebag frat boys agree with you?

While that's irrelevant to a discussion of American culture, I'm glad to know that when cultural conservatism is finally expunged, you can emigrate to countries that share your values like China and Afghanistan, to the drunken cheers of the Martin Shkrelis if the world.

"As for the rest I’ve never really bought the ‘arc of history’ eschatology of progs."

Me either.

"most likely the value systems and ideological battles of the future will have transformed into some exotic axis disconnected from todays politics"

Sure, if you go far enough into the future. But the inevitable elimination (outside of a niche group, much like the Amish of today) of ideas like the inherent goodness of religious people, the superiority of a heterosexual nuclear family, the gold standard, government intrusion into personal medical decisions, the existence of an absolute moral code, immigrants being bad for America, governmental punishment for public opposition, life beginning at conception, etc., etc. is a good thing for America. And it will occur in my lifetime (I'm about to turn 52).

[AmosArch]

Even if 'conservatism' whatever that means, is 'eliminated' from America, which it won't be. I'm not exactly questioning my core beliefs over racism and sexism being about as rampant as ever, reintroduction of segregation and race and sex based discrimination by the left, the continuing erasure of cultures in favor of an amorphous postmodern 'multicultural' western one, and progs generally continuing to prove 'rightwing' ie common sense views built over millennia of experience and empirical evidence right by assuming their natural and inevitable place as the latest iteration of bigots ( those who accept natural fundamental differences between groups and philosophies) identical in every important way to their forebears. Actually its kinda cute how even if you 'win' you're proving us right.

[Nelson]

Most of the things you listed are either complete fantasies or something like this: "common sense views built over millennia of experience and empirical evidence", which largely ignores the knowledge collected since the end of WWII, most of which exposes traditionalist beliefs as narrow, limiting, and detrimental to society.

If you believe that things people knew 2000 years ago have any relevance today, you are fooling yourself. We have literally gathered more knowledge since I was born almost 52 years ago than the entire rest of human history combined. Most of what you seem to embrace was outdated when I was born, never mind today.

Leave the past in the past or you will be irrelevant to the future. I can't remember who said that, but it is sage advice.

[Gandydancer]

The "wacko element" here is you, Lathrop.

[Ed Grinberg]

Really. Leftists never seem to have the self-awareness to grasp how crazy they appear to normal people.

[Nelson]

Define "normal".

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Heterosexual patriotic American citizens.

[Sarcastr0]

Hey, that’s me!

[BravoCharlieDelta]

I'd be surprised if you were 1 out of 3.

[Sarcastr0]

Sorry, does my being a straight white natural born American male who disagrees with you blow your tiny little mind?

[Nelson]

Me, too!

[RENATA the rational]

Nelson, that is a psycho reply.
You are assuming that he is worth talking with and tarring yourself in the process.
I agree with Ed, and your reply is part of my evidence. You don't say "you are wrong" or "I agree" or "I disagree" you just say "Define normal" --- why not stipulate like you are in a court and say something like "Without agreeing or disagreeing with the characterization of Leftists I admit that if such a person said such a thing I as a normal person would find it crazy"

[Reallynotbob]

You're fun at parties, I bet.

[Nelson]

It was a sarcastic comment highlighting Ed's skewed view of where the political and moral center of America lies. But tone is, admittedly, hard to convey in text.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I really don’t care about any particular shady politicians – I presume Trump could well be a crook because he was, after all, a New York City real-estate developer with ties to the Democratic establishment. That's quite a criminogenic environment.

If, however, the campaign against Trump is a thinly-veiled attempt to dismiss and banish from society the concerns of those who voted for him, I hope that won’t work.

[santamonica811]

Or, you could assume he's a crook because he has been sued for fraud in his various business dealings (not just re real estate) by literally thousands of people, across half a century. And because of his fraudulent Trump University. And you might be informed by his decades history of cheating on every single wife or girlfriend he has ever had. Or by his long history of raping and/or sexually molesting young women (and older women). God knows how many women--we only know of the 20-30 women (Republicans, Democrats, Independents, non-affiliated) who were willing to come forward publicly, with the vast majority of them having made contemporaneous reporting to friends, family, etc of these assaults and abuse.
(I'm ignoring the decades of racist actions he took as a property owner, since being a racist douche bag is not illegal.)

I mean, if thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of criminal and bad acts only convinces you that Trump "could well be" a bad dude . . . man, Trump definitely wants you on his jury!

[The Margrave of Azilia]

You’re not going to take yes for an answer, are you? I have to join your two-minute hate, or I’m pro-Trump.

Or maybe I am not that fixated on the menace of Emmanuel Trumpstein, focusing instead on current issues.

(Also, I said could well be a *crook,* the bad dude part is a given considering his being in politics)

[The Margrave of Azilia]

If Trump wants me on his jury, he better hope the evidence doesn't show him guilty of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt, because in that case I'd convict him.

Perhaps you'd make a better juror, since you already know whether Trump is guilty of any given offense.

[santamonica811]

I am one of the countless lawyers who has successfully sued* Donald Trump for fraud over these past many decades. So, we all presume that I’d never make it onto any jury…be it for criminal or civil charges.

*"successfully" being defined as settling out of court, for more money than we'd initially demanded.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Congratulations to santamonica811 for his victory in this case.

[santamonica811]

I had a minor role (was helping a buddy from law school, who needed the extra help to counter the mountain of attorneys Trump threw at him). Did several depositions...sadly, I did not get to do the one of Trump himself. Took 18 months. Total waste of time (Trump was clearly in the wrong and his team cheerfully admitted that each time they delayed things). But, eventually, we got to the right result. 95% due to my friend's efforts. But I did help with that last 5%. 🙂

[The Margrave of Azilia]

That’s fine, although fairness requires I acknowledge the agenda behind my congratulations - I was making fun of EV’s habit of praising lawyers’ winning work regardless of substantive outcome.

Still, based on what little I know about Trump, I would assume he was up to something and the client was probably in the right.

[Nige]

At least some of the rw Volokh commenters like to pretend the real bad and scary weirdness is background fringe stuff and will keep saying that as it completely takes over the Republican Party and then shrug and say so what, so long as they're passing rw legislation, 50% of which will be giving taxpayers money to billionaires, and 50% making poor people suffer, and if that means Black History Month has been outlawed, well it's a small price to pay and you know, they have a point, it IS racist.

[Brett Bellmore]

This as trans-mania takes over the Democratic party... LOL!

[Nige]

What, you mean as the Republicans set out to make being trans virtually illegal and deny them health-care and create a new satanic-panic about them being pedophiles and groomers (even as yet more Republican officals get caught for child abuse and posessing child p0rn, no less), the Democratic Party actually steps up to protect them from the hate and the violence? You would see that as the mania, yeah.

[Martinned]

Don't take the bait. The right is trying to make trans issues the next culture war for a reason.

[Nige]

If we don't stand up for whatever chosen victim the right puts in its spotlight of hate, what good are we?

[Martinned]

People who have power to make laws that protect the victims of the right.

[Nige]

You can't justify bringing in laws like that if you've been carefully ignoring the victimisation.

[Martinned]

Sure you can. Also, just because you're not arguing about it on the internet with people you'll never convince doesn't mean you're "ignoring" it.

[Stephen Lathrop]

In politics you can. And sometimes that is the best way to practice politics.

[Nige]

That's a fair point, Martinned, but online is how a lot of the worse stuff disseminates. One out-of-context video led to bomb threats at a children's hospital.

[Seamus]

But I guess actual vandalism and arson at pro-life crisis pregnancy centers is just the spontaneous response of an outraged populace at the Supreme Court's undemocratic (where "undemocratic"=leaving public policy decisions to the people's elected representatives) ruling in Dobbs.

[Nige]

I'm sorry, is there a reason you're trying to change the subject?

[Brett Bellmore]

It already is the next culture war. We don't get to decide that, only if we fight or surrender.

[Nige]

Oh, so brave! Brett regrets that he has only one life to give to make life as hellish as possible for a small vulnerable section of the population!

[TwelveInchPianist]

Children are a vulnerable section of the population, and you guys are cutting their nuts out and slicing their breasts off.

That's what most people are against. If an adult wants to mutilate themselves, that's their business.

[Nige]

See? Pure stanic-panic, gleefully describing the graphic mutilation of children to demonise and terrorise a small subset of the population, a tactic which certainly does not suggest any actual concern for the welfare of children, only using them to forward a hateful agenda.

[TwelveInchPianist]

gleefully?

OK, why don't you guys put an end to my glee by banning the barbaric practices for children and limiting them to adults? That would show me.

[Nige]

I've a better idea - you and your shit can be utterly excluded from and all health care decisions made by individuals and the medical professionals treating them.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"I’ve a better idea..."

That's not better, you still end up mutilating children. Why do you want to mutilate children so bad?

[Nelson]

"That’s not better"

Parents making informed decisions about their children's medical care, in consultation with medical professionals, is absolutely better than strangers making uninformed medical decisions, without consulting medical professionals, about someone else's children.

The fact that you think it isn't says a lot about you and nothing about anyone else.

[Nige]

'That’s not better,'

Oh it's better in every possible way. You're not medically qualified and you're a massive liar.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Parents making informed decisions about their children’s medical care..."

You never felt that way when brown people were "circumcising" little girls.

It's one thing to allow a grown, sexually mature man or woman to decide that they want to alter themselves. They know everything they need to know and are capable of making that decision. And that's where most of the data about satisfaction comes from.

It's quite another thing to take a little kid who has no idea what adulthood is like, stunt their development, and then cut their organs off so they never truly develop sexually and can never have a true sexual experience, not to mention permanently ending their fertility.

No one can consent to something like that.

[Nige]

'You never felt that way when brown people were “circumcising” little girls.'

Because there's no medical reason or benefit from it, it only causes harm.

'It’s quite another thing to take a little kid'

Nobody takes little kids and does anything like that to them, not because they're trans anyway. It just doesn't happen. Anyone who tells you it does is lying to you.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Nobody takes little kids and does anything like that to them..."

That's exactly what they do. "Puberty blockers" are given to kids who about to start puberty. Little kids.

[Nige]

Puberty blockers are used on children for quite a few reasons, good thing they're not relying on you for a diagnosis, though you obviously feel entitled to stick your pig-ignorant nose in.

[Seamus]

I've noticed that progs haven't been talking recently about how barbaric female genital mutilation or male circumcision is, given that they now want much more radical mutilation normalized as "health care."

[Nige]

Health care for trans people is normal. We wouldn't have to defend it if it weren't under attack.

[not guilty]

¨I’ve noticed that progs haven’t been talking recently about how barbaric female genital mutilation or male circumcision is, given that they now want much more radical mutilation normalized as ´health care.´”

What´s to discuss? Genital mutilation of female children is prohibited by law, and there is no serious move to repeal such laws. Male circumcision of minors is permitted by law, being within the rubric of parental decision making. The practice has some critics, although that doesn´t break down along ideological lines.

[Nelson]

"It’s one thing to allow a grown, sexually mature man or woman to decide that they want to alter themselves."

I see. And since the parents are included in the decision, can I assume that you would consider two grown (even more than any 18-year-old) adults significantly more capable of understanding the ramifications? Add in a medical doctor and a psychologists/psychiatrist and, given your reverence for the ability to understand things, I assume you would think it was even better than just two parents, right?

One person under 18 < one person at least 18 < two people well over 18 < two people well over 18 working with two experienced professionals. That seems reasonable, right?

Unless you just want to demonize and marginalize people who make decisions you don't agree with.

Plus, of course, you would have to make wildly, knowingly, and intentionally inaccurate accusations (like, say, making inferences that surgery is performed on all of the children in this situation).

And you would have to characterize those parents as so fanatical about gender-affirming surgery that they would completely disregard the needs of their child.

And you would have to lump in the medical and psyciatric doctors in this lust for surgery that overpowers their duty to their patients.

But claiming such an unlikely (and completely hypothetical) scenario is common would make the person claiming it seem like a buffoon. So you would never do such a thing.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I assume all of you right-wing jackasses make an exception for circumcision in your anti-child-mutilation outrage, because silly fucking childish superstition is trump in your bigoted, backward, poorly educated, ignorant minds.

[Seamus]

I assume all of you right-wing jackasses make an exception for circumcision in your anti-child-mutilation outrage, because silly fucking childish superstition is trump in your bigoted, backward, poorly educated, ignorant minds.

I see. People who object to cutting off boys’ dicks should also object to cutting off their foreskins. Just as, I suppose, that those who object to imposing the death penalty for jaywalking should also object to imposing it for genocide. This seems ridiculous, but maybe would could at least agree that those who object to cutting off boys’ foreskins should also object to cutting off their entire dicks?

[Nige]

Well, one happens quite a lot the other happens never, so there's that.

[Nelson]

"Children are a vulnerable section of the population"

Yes, and it's a parent's responsibility to protect them and care for them. One of the things they need to protect them from is moral-panic ideologues.

"you guys are cutting their nuts out and slicing their breasts off"

Who is? I don't have children.

"That’s what most people are against"

No, that's what the moral panic crowd is against. It is a tiny group, made even smaller by those who don't agree with gender reassignment surgery, but believe that parents should make the decisions about their children's medical care, not the state (or random, self-righteous, ignorant fools).

[Bob from Ohio]

"I don’t have children."

That's good to hear.

[Nige]

Because all of the scaremongering around trans kids is as real as Nelson's kids.

[Nelson]

"That’s good to hear."

Thanks, asshole. My partner and I can't have kids. Way to be a total dick.

[Reallynotbob]

But you *are* for torturing children, ya? My parents slapped braces on me for about 6 years. I didn't get a say in that. It hurt!

Hang on, let me guess.... you're okay that my parents got to do that to me because they and my dentist were able to determine what was going to be best for me in my adult life?

[TwelveInchPianist]

Well, be happy that they decided you needed braces and not that you were a girl.

[Nelson]

It's not something that the parents decide. No parent, ever, has unilaterally decided that their kid is trans.

This is example #6,280 that you don't have a clue what you are talking about.

[Nelson]

"It already is the next culture war. We don’t get to decide that, only if we fight or surrender."

Surrender to what, exactly? Acknowledging that trans people exist (and that they deserve to exist)? Recognizing that if someone wants to identify as a woman (or a man or a rutabaga or a '57 Chevy) it only impacts them so it isn't your concern? Accepting that people working with medical and psychological professionals have a firmer grasp of a situation than an uninformed moral-panic ideologue?

By fighting what someone else chooses to believe about themselves or do to themselves based on your uninformed personal beliefs, you are acting like it's OK for you to impose your personal beliefs on someone who isn't hurting anyone. It's not OK. And it isn't something that justifies "fighting".

[not guilty]

When it became less socially acceptable to bash gays and lesbians, some culture warriors turned their hatred to transgendered persons, a smaller segment of the population whose members are less lkely to be out and organized.

[RENATA the rational]

NO, that is wrong factually.
Just 10 hours ago I saw the site DETRANS UNITED
Former Trans Teen Launches Organization to Support Detransitioners
Virginia Allen / @Virginia_Allen5 / Brenda Hafera / October 13, 2022
and it is by a LEFTIE by all accounts. Your dream is over
"Chloe Cole began taking puberty blockers at 13. She was 15 when she had her breasts surgically removed. At 16, she detransitioned. Now, at the age of 18, she has become an activist and leading voice against children and youth “transitioning” to the opposite sex. "

[Nige]

The insane transphobia unites portions of the left with the right, and involves oceans of disinformation, so I'd double and even triple check that before assuming it's true, if I were you.

[Nelson]

Transition surgery before 18 is so vanishingly rare it approches zero, statistically. Regret about transitioning is extremely rare. Detransitioning is even more rare.

Taking the experiences of such a miniscule number of trans people and trying to use them to justify the government intruding into parental decision-making isn't surprising, given cultural conservatives' love of government intrusion in general.

[Armchair Lawyer]

"Where is Nation headed?" then "Trump Trump Trump Trump"

Trump is not the Nation.

[Moderation4ever]

I have to agree with this comment. I am guessing that the former President doesn't occupy the attention of that many people. The problem is that the people who have opinions make more noise.

[DaveM]

"Where is the nation headed? ... How many think if Trump is arrested and held without bail, there will be a general uprising, amounting to redoubled insurrection? How many think that is nonsense?"

Why do you equivocate "the nation" with "Trump"? That's what interests me. Clearly the left is desperate to keep Trump front and center. That is especially true of the media. Just compare the profits of places like CNN before, during and after his time in office. Trump made them piles and piles of money and made them the absolute center of attention.

The real story on the right is the emergence of an extremely broad and much younger cohort of new politicians. They aren't in the future, they're in the present. The one person, in fact, who is not presently in office is Trump.

Trump is yesterday's news, I think. His fate is definitely not the fate of the nation, that's crazy talk.

[Nige]

You elected Trump, and now Trump's Big Lie about the election is defining the Republican Party. If Trump doesn't run again, the fight will be for the candidates to capture his base, along with everything they believe. Quit whining because people are paying attention to this.

[DaveM]

If Trump doesn’t run again — something I personally have been advocating for since 2020, just ask all my annoyed Trumper friends — I very much doubt there will be a “fight”. For example, take someone like Youngkin in Virginia. He won quite handily, and had the support from all sides of his party, almost all of the independents, and even a fairly sizable chunk of the Democrats.

[Nelson]

If Youngkin had all that support, how did he only win by 1.7%?.

In a related issue, you obviously have a unique definition of “handily”. Most people would call a 1.7% margin “razor thin”, “slight”, or “tiny”.

[RENATA the rational]

Pollsters look at the Turnout, not the margin.
"Virginia election sees highest turnout in recent history, fueling Glenn Youngkin’s victory"
And the Democrat turnout was HUGE. You would expect razor thin but the overall numbers suggest that was a decisive win.

[Nelson]

It was 1.7%. That's not "decisive" by any reasonable definition of the word.

I would expect someone who calls themselves "the rational" to realize that.

[DaveM]

Yep, 1.7% these days is "decisive" in Virginia. One of our House races two cycles back was decided by a single vote, and one was a tie! That was decided by random drawing. Interesting, no?

[Kazinski]

Well lets say I accept your theses that Trumps big lie defines the Republican party, what’s next after the Republicans sweep the midterms?

It certainly pretty much kills it as a campaign issue, at least against almost anyone but Trump.

[Nige]

We already know that any election won by a Republican is by definition not fraud. It's all the Democrat victories that are obviously and by definition fraud that will have to be overturned.

[Reallynotbob]

Well, when everyone you know votes Republican it's just math. /s

[Kazinski]

Pauline Kael was a well known Republican.

[Darth Buckeye]

There won't be a general uprising. There will be a lot of hyperventilating and excited rhetoric on MSM both from Trump haters and Trump supporters. Ratings will go ballistic...as will right-wing turnout on election day.

[Moderation4ever]

I think it unlikely that the former President will be arrested, even if he is charged. He is in his seventies and any charges would be for non-violent crimes.

An interesting question is what country would he flee to escape American justice? Most western European countries would extradite him quickly. Leaving the eastern Europe or maybe the middle east.

As I have noted before I am up for a "go fund me" pledge to buy him tickets for the flight. Economy plus, of course, because he is tall and need the leg room.

[Armchair Lawyer]

I can see Trump winning the 2024 election (or getting close right before the election), then Biden pulling the trigger on arresting him

[Martinned]

That says more about you than about Trump or Biden.

[Armchair Lawyer]

If Biden is having the FBI arrest people for "crimes" that occurred more than a year ago, that the local police already dismissed....

It seems clear he's willing to use it as a political tool to intimidate and make political points. If he thought arresting Trump would be beneficial to him politically, he would order it.

[Nige]

Except he's not doing that.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Yes he is. 30-40 armed FBI agents are raiding families of Christians for standing in hallways of abortion clinics and singing hymns.

Years ago.

[Sarcastr0]

Years ago!

[BravoCharlieDelta]

How long ago were they then?

[Nige]

Are you sure it's not because of the allegations of assault? And has nothing to do with Biden?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

The allegations that local DA's investigated and refused to press charges on?

Those?

[Nige]

Oh, now local DAs are paragons of justice and probity! (If true.)

[not guilty]

¨The allegations that local DA’s investigated and refused to press charges on?¨

Are you so dense as not to realize the difference between local misdemeanor criminal trespass prosecutions and federal prosecution for violation of a statute which requires force, threat of force, physical obstruction of another person or intentional property damage?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

You think the crimes were so severe, requiring 20-30 armed FBI agents to make the arrest, that the local DA didn't bother and the FBI waited over a year?

Get real man. This is more Democrat political oppression.

[Nige]

Just sounds like standard over-policing to me. You're just trying to make an - excuse me - federal case out of it becuase you're desperate to turn any nasty piece of work who's on the right and has a run-in with the law into a martyr.

[RENATA the rational]

I lived in Missouri where the Biden-Obama folks regularly came in to overthrow local decisions Eric Holder came in to make Ferguson worse after it was dying down. and after the Ferguson election which he didn't approve of, there was a protest that a white had been legally elected.
And Biden is still at it !!!
DOJ Sues Missouri Over Gun Law
DOJ sues Missouri over its law restricting enforcement of federal gun laws : NPR. DOJ sues Missouri over its law restricting enforcement of federal gun laws The Justice Department is suing Missouri over that state's firearm law, arguing it makes crime fighting more difficult and tramples on federal supremacy.Feb 17, 2022

FEDERAL SUPREMACY, be very scared

[Brett Bellmore]

Oh, come on, "I can imagine Trump doing X, which proves he's awful" is a whole genre in the comments here.

[Nige]

For the guy who can imagine the FBI planting evidence at Mar A Lago therefore it's true.

[Sarcastr0]

I agree, hypotheticals masquerading as truth is silly. So AL is also playing the clown here.

[Armchair Lawyer]

This entire thread is a hypothetical "I can imagine Trump doing X"...yet you only seem to find a hypothetical comment about Biden as "silly"

[Sarcastr0]

They are both silly, as I said in my comment, you silly man.

[Drewski]

Literally three hours after confidently claiming that democrats will try to posthumously convict Trump - which isn't even the least realistic of your imaginary accusations in this comment section alone.

[Davedave]

Trump won't be eligible for election by 2024, don't be silly.

[Moderation4ever]

Trump will not even get the nomination in 2024. Republicans have a shot in 2024 and they will not waste it on a loser.

[santamonica811]

Who do you think will beat Trump in the Rep. primaries? Genuine question...I can't think of anyone. I struggle to think of any Republican with (a) a national profile AND (b) the integrity to say to primary voters, "Trump was wrong. Wrong about the 2020 election, wrong to promote his big lie, and wrong about our Republican party."

Liz Chaney is the only one who comes to mind. But since a vast majority of Rep primary voters now hate her, due to her courage and integrity, it's literally impossible for me to imagine any of those particular voters going her way in a primary. Can't think of anyone else who's currently on the chessboard.

[Moderation4ever]

I think there are a number of Republicans that will come forward after the 2020 midterms. Mike Pence, Governors like DeSantis, Abbott, Christy, Hogan, and more. Any number of Senators. None will directly attack Trump but rather suggest say his time has passed and the party needs to move forward. Republican voters even if they like Trump will see he has too much baggage.

I suspect that the former President knows this, doesn't like it, but knows it or his people know it. Look for him to suck in as much money as he can and then drop out.

[santamonica811]

DeSantis will never have the integrity to confront Trump on all his lies. But Christy . . . hmmm . . . maybe. And maybe Pence too, although I suspect that Trump's fevered supporters will NEVER forgive Pence. Again, for showing character and integrity. I'd love to be wrong about that. I could see myself supporting Christy, Jeb Bush, someone like that.

[Moderation4ever]

No needs to confront Trump, they just need to talk about the future and in doing so imply that Trump is the past.

[Nelson]

Ron DeSantis. He has spent the last 2-3 years aggressively positioning himself for a run in 2024.

Trump won't be able to help himself. He will run, especially if people start to tell him that he shouldn't. And after going all-in on the Big Lie, he won't be willing to show "weakness" by letting someone else drive the MAGA Bus he built.

Both of them are the bastard stepchildren of Karl Rove, gleefully embracing divisiveness and governing for the people who support them at the expense of those who don't. Both use government power as a weapon to punish those who publicly disagree with them.

There are a lot of very good Republican candidates who will never get heard because they take their job and their responsibilities seriously. Reasonable, competent, pro-business Republicans won't be able to cut through the bluster and bullshit of DeSantis and Trump. Unless Hillary Clinton or Satan runs, there couldn't be two people less deserving of the Oval Office.

That said, their clash will be epic. I expect it to come down to those two. They both have massive egos, no shame, and no sense of decency. It will be a mudslinging slugfest worthy of the golden age of muckraking.

Grab some popcorn, because the only thing that is certain is that, in the GOP primary, evil will flourish because the good Republicans will do nothing.

[Moderation4ever]

"That said, their clash will be epic. I expect it to come down to those two."

This is usually where the third candidate wins the nomination. While the alpha bulls fight, others gain ground.

[Nelson]

I don't think this will be a typical primary. Usually your scenario comes to pass, but I can see both of them blasting anyone who is within spitting distance of them to drive them out of the race. They are both interested in securing the GOP for their brand of politics for the forseeable future.

Today's GOP is on the edge of surrendering to the MAGA right. Trump got it most of the way there on his own, but DeSantis is way smarter than Trump. He can see the advantages to uniting with Trump to decimate any moderate voices in the party. DeSantis will make sure party-level opposition is dead with a stake through its heart before he concentrates on Trump. It's the smart play and DeSantis is smart. Trump isn't, but he is arrogant, angry, and sees the MAGA movement as his possession. He will defend it against the moderate Republicans because he cannot imagine being incapable of whipping DeSantis.

Ultimately I think DeSantis will win. He has managed to stiff-arm Trump in his most recent race (showing that he doesn't need Trump to win) without alienating him. That's a tough balance. And he's playing the culture-war stunts perfectly to appeal to their shared base. I think Trump will be astonished when he discovers that DeSantis has stolen his base while he wasn't paying attention.

[Davedave]

"He is in his seventies and any charges would be for non-violent crimes."

What absurd nonsense. He's facing charges of treason. Of course he'll be held in close confinement until he pleads guilty in exchange for not pursuing the death penalty.

"An interesting question is what country would he flee to escape American justice?"

Russia, of course. This isn't even a question.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Oh yeah, the Russians with whom the FBI/DOJ colluded with to try and frame Trump for colluding with Russia.

Good one. Has anyone ever called you "Einstein" or "Genuis"? I would be shocked.

[not guilty]

It would be unwise to charge Donald Trump with treason, which is a wartime offense. There are other state and federal offenses, carrying potential sentences severe enough to keep Trump incarcerated for the rest of his life, that are more easily proven.

[Moderation4ever]

I agree that charging with treason is ridiculous. If the former President is charged it will likely be with a technical crime that will likely bring a sentence of probation. He is not going to prison.

[not guilty]

The most easily proven offenses, attempt to obstruct an official proceeding of Congress and concealment of documents to impede an investigation, each carry potential sentences of 20 years confinement. (Although the sentences actually imposed would in all likelihood be significantly less.) Consecutive sentencing for these and other offenses is possible.

[Davedave]

The easiest offences to prove are the seditious conspiracy ones, given his co-conspirators/minions have now confessed. And they're going to be whole of life sentences.

[Davedave]

"treason, which is a wartime offense"

People keep repeating this nonsense. It's still nonsense, however many times people repeat it, though.

"Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason"

The 'or adheres to their enemies' part has been held to relate to wartime. The 'levies war against' part obviously includes creating a war. Trump's incompetent attempted coup was a military action against the United States of America, without a shadow of a doubt.

"and shall suffer death"

And there's no doubt it's a capital crime.

[not guilty]

Trump´s conduct regarding January 6 was reprehensible and plainly criminal, but it was not ¨a military action against the United States of America.¨ I yield to no one in disapproval of Donald Trump and his minions, but hyperbole is not helpful.

[David Nieporent]

Exactly. "War" in the treason clause is not a metaphor. It means an actual war. 1/6 may have been a coup attempt, but it was not a war.

[MoreCurious]

Saudi Arabia. Apparently they have a couple of pretty nice golf courses.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

He’s facing charges of treason.

{Inigo Montoya}
You keep using that word...
{/Inigo Montoya}

[David Nieporent]

He’s facing charges of treason.

He isn't, you loon.

[Davedave]

How loony do you have to be to deny that Trump waged war on the United States?

[Reallynotbob]

Seems he's welcome in Saudi. For $1 million you can buy a citizenship in the Seychelle Islands where they have no extradition treaties. I bet Putin would welcome him. Probably Kim Jong Un too.

[Davedave]

It's always amusing watching the clingers here trying to defend Trump at the same time as inadvertently admitting they're all engaged in a treasonous conspiracy.

Obviously once Trump is actually arrested he won't be bailed. The only question is how many minions they need to deal with before they have all the ducks in a row to make the most serious charges slam dunks.

Whilst Trump's past behaviour has been to attempt to delay and obfuscate, I would have thought the prosecutors will be prepared for that and make clear that if he tries obfuscation and delay, there will be no plea bargain. Given that, Trump is incredibly unlikely to risk delaying tactics, and will likely do whatever it takes to arrange a plea deal that keeps him out of the chair - which will mean pleading guilty to capital crimes, but with a promise of life in jail rather than the death penalty.

So really bail will be a moot point. The day they have the case ready, Trump will know the jig is up. He'll either flee before they can arrest him, or accept that he's spending every day of the rest of his life in solitary confinement.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Trump's prosecution should be prioritized right behind Epstein's clients, IMHO.

[Reallynotbob]

Boy, have I got a deal for you....

[Seamus]

Progs accuse right-wingers of being paranoid for claiming that progs want to criminalize political opposition, and yet here’s Davedave openly accusing those who disagree with him of treason, which last time I checked was a criminal offense punishable by death or imprisonment.

(But maybe Davedave was exaggerating, and would really only wants those who disagree with him to be prosecuted for seditious conspiracy or for advocating the overthrow of the U.S. government, which are only punishable for imprisonment for no more than 20 years (see 18 U.S.C. §§ 2384, 2385). That would make me feel a lot more comfortable.)

[Davedave]

"Davedave openly accusing those who disagree with him of treason,"

No, I'm pointing out that treason is treason. We have treasonous statements made in this thread. Trump supporters are traitors who hate everything America stands for, but not all of them actually committed the crime of treason. Many of them did, and Trump himself unquestionably did.

[John F. Carr]

In Biden's position I might be pleased if Trump fled the country after being released on bail. I earn points from potential Democratic voters for indicting him and I don't have the risk of real or claimed exoneration.

[Davedave]

Even Trump fleeing to his buddies in Russia wouldn't be enough to convince the Trump traitors. Better he spends the rest of his life in solitary and/or goes to the chair. There is not the slightest chance of him being exonerated. None whatsoever. The man was caught red-handed attempting a very incompetent coup. His co-conspirators have confessed and incriminated him. Treason, so straight to the chair without a plea bargain.

[Ben_]

The walls are closing in on Trump!

[RENATA the rational]

You don't follow the news much, do you?

Trump was elected by people who didn't like him but who ended up HATING and LOATHING Hillary.

has anyone ever made the case better than Christopher Hitchens!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE8PG2mpo58

[BravoCharlieDelta]

" If he is arrested, will he be held justifiably without bail—as a flight risk; as a dangerous and still-active insurrectionist; as a still-active perpetrator of espionage offenses?"

There is no reconciliation with fascists who genuinely believe nonsense like this. You people are too far gone.

[Reallynotbob]

That he'd present a flight risk? That one's pretty obvious.

[M L]

Stephen, Trump has "appeared" to be under threat of criminal investigations and prosecution since he started running for President.

That's because the political establishment doesn't like dangerous (to them) ideas such as: let's not have open borders with millions of illegals flowing in. Or let's not have so many foreign wars that provide trillions of dollars in grift for D.C. So they pull a soft coup and use lawfare to thwart democracy. As always, they then accuse others of doing the things they are doing. Like paying millions of dollars to Russian informants for "political dirt." Things like that. They do it, then they accuse the people they did it to of doing it to them.

So that's why we've had for some 6 years now, criminal investigations with blatant double standards applied against Trump, along with all kinds of nutty blather and false insinuations from the leftist media. They are always suggesting a big smoking gun will be found any day now, the walls are closing in, etc and generally indulging in wild, baseless conspiracy theorizing.

The number of people falling for these media hysterics is smaller and smaller, and dumber and more delusional every day. I am sorry to say you are in that group. Maybe in 2016-2017 it was more understandable. But this is how you begin to make a clown of yourself by calling a mostly peaceful protest an "insurrection," when riots and "insurrections" on the left were 10,000 times more violent and destructive all that year, with countless murders and property destruction, things like setting a church on fire across from the White House. Of course Democrat politicians supported, encouraged, downplayed, and defended all of it all along.

Where is our nation headed? Well, it appears we are at the point where the executive begins jailing and persecuting political opponents specifically for their political beliefs and speech. Parents who go to school board meetings to voice their opinions, such as objecting to their daughter being raped in the bathroom by boys who are now allowed in. Pro-life activists. Peaceful protesters who didn't engaged in any violence and didn't enter the Capitol. Anyone who speaks out will get attention from the 90,000 new armed IRS agents. And of course, chief political opponents up to and including a former President. So we are headed nowhere good, it seems.

[not guilty]

¨I will let the lawyers say whether the notion to hold Trump without bail is too fantastic. I suppose Trump’s obstruction offenses would not be a factor in a bail decision, unless there were evidence he is actively obstructing still, and won’t stop unless held behind bars.¨

If violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1591 is charged, that is a factor to be considered in the pretrial release determination under 18 U.S.C. § 3142(g)(1). The nature and circumstances of the offense(s) charged, as well as the weight of the evidence against the accused are also factors.

I would be surprised if the government were to seek, or if a judicial officer were to order, pretrial detention of Donald Trump. In the event of conviction, bail pending appeal is a different matter.

[not guilty]

Excuse me. I misread section 1591, which is not germane to the Trump matter, in place of section 1519, which is one of the statutes likely to be charged against Trump.

[Kazinski]

.Will Baude has a good article out about the Independent State legislature case in Moore v Harper. I pretty much agree with his reasoning with a few caveats:

"But the claim that state courts may hold state legislatures to state constitutional limits does not mean that they can replace the legislature. The federal Constitution’s text explicitly empowers one of these branches to regulate federal elections, not the other.... State legislatures must act according to their state’s constitutional constraints. But it must still be the state legislatures that act."

Now I do think the State Legislatures can establish independent redistricting committee, but I think they have to have their work ratified the legislature.

But I certainly think just as it's proper for a governor to veto the redistricting and tell the legislature to try again as DeSantis did, a state court can tell the legislature to do it over again if it violates the state or federal constitution.

But what they can't do, neither the courts or the governor, is tell the legislature: "you had your shot at it, now it's our turn to do it for you."

[Kazinski]

Here's the whole article:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/the-supreme-court-has-a-perfectly-good-option-in-its-most-divisive-case/ar-AA12PncN?ocid=EMMX&cvid=b36d0d2b876949b1b8e04883ecce82da

[Dan Schiavetta]

It's also in The Atlantic

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/10/supreme-court-independent-state-legislature-doctrine/671695/

[JasonT20]

The Supreme Court Has a Perfectly Good Option in Its Most Divisive Case

I read Baude's article once fairly quickly, but I seem to have missed the part where he explains how a Supreme Court ruling that he wants would actually resolve the conflict. Or how it would determine what map to use or hold the state legislature accountable for not producing a map consistent with the state constitution.

In reality, it seemed like his proposal would give the NC legislature the result it wants (not allowing the court ordered map), but without endorsing the independent legislature theory, and otherwise just kicking the can down the road.

[defaultdotxbe]

I think he's saying the state court should be able to reject a map as being inconsistent with the state constitution, but doesn't have the power to replace it with their own map, just to send it back to the legislature to try again.

[Gandydancer]

That’s what he’s saying. But Jason is exactly right that that doesn’t resolve anything. (As I said below, repetitively, having forgotten what Jason had said by the time I came back from reading the article.)

[Gandydancer]

Not seeing what's supposed to happen if the State Supreme Court can veto the State Legislature's map but the State Legislature declines to give he State Supreme Court the map it wants. Cancel the election?

[Brett Bellmore]

"State legislatures must act according to their state’s constitutional constraints. But it must still be the state legislatures that act."

I think he's got a point, but it's understated. It's not just that they have to act according to the state constitution. Because claiming that they're just enforcing the state constitution is HOW the judiciary displace the legislature. And of course, when the courts think the executive should be calling the shots, they'll always say that the state constitution demands it.

Normally state court decisions about state constitutional matters are final. For this purpose, they need to be reviewable in federal court, to distinguish actual from pretextual state constitution enforcement. Or else the state courts are back in charge.

[Randal]

I'm pretty sure that same logic could be used to get every state court decision into federal court.

Good idea or bad idea?

[Martinned]

How can state courts hold state legislatures to account if they can't tell the legislature what to do? Just say "naughty boy"?

[Michael P]

Accountable for what? Tell them to do what?

There's a separation of powers for a reason. Courts don't get to order everyone to do arbitrary things. The first sentence from Baude that Kazinski quoted answers the incorrect assumption that underlies your question.

[Martinned]

Tell them to comply with the law. And not in some unspecified "next time try harder" sort of way, but in a "this is what a lawful plan would look like" sort of way.

[DaveM]

Well, I'd go along with a statement of where the law contravenes the Constitution, but not with a Court suggesting what the new law should be. That'd be like a baseball umpire walking up to the pitcher's mound, taking the ball, and showing the pitcher how to throw a strike.

[Martinned]

No, it would be like a baseball umpire walking up to the pitcher's mound and explaining to him where the strike zone is.

[DaveM]

That’s certainly an odd place to divide a hair, but OK. One would think that an umpire doesn’t need to “explain” where the strike zone is to someone who is literally trying to throw a ball exactly inside it already.

[Martinned]

That is exactly the point: Why would you assume that the legislature is trying to hit the strike zone? Just like a baseball pitcher they'd much rather pitch far away from it, if they thought they could get away with it.

[DaveM]

Wait, what? Why would I assume the legislature is trying to follow the law?

Um, because if they miss the "strike zone", it will get called as a ball, not a strike, and therefore their electoral map is null and void?

That seems too obvious to even state. I'm somehow missing your point, sorry. What is the nature of your objection, again?

[JasonT20]

Um, because if they miss the “strike zone”, it will get called as a ball, not a strike, and therefore their electoral map is null and void?

This is the problem with how these fights are going, if state supreme courts can only send things back to a legislature for a do over. It would be like a pitcher disagrees that the last pitch was a ball, so he just gets to keep throwing until the ump calls it a strike. If a state gained or lost a seat, then it can't even use the old map, so what then?

[Gandydancer]

Why would you assume that the State Justices are trying to correctly define the strike zone rather than coerce the Legislature for partisan advantage? Because putting on robes has magical effects?

We already have too much kritarchy.

[Randal]

Well, in elementary school, Americans learn about how we set the government up to have different branches with different roles. The legislature has a political role, and the judicial branch literally is there to “call balls and strikes” as Roberts put it.

That’s the reason to believe that the judicial branch is less political than the legislature, even in states. It’s how it’s set up to work, and there are structural supports to keep it that way.

If you think it’s not working anymore, that’s a bigger problem than just what to do with electoral maps. That means, back to the constitutional drawing board.

[Martinned]

I'm the first to agree that having "partisan" judges is a big problem. That's why "elected judge" is a contradiction in terms. No such animal. And judicial appointments processes should be set up to force consensus among political parties as much as possible, rathen than allowing judges to be appointed based on party-line votes.

[Randal]

Hm that's a better reform idea than most I've heard. Constitutionally define Senate "consent" to mean like an 80% approval threshold.

[Martinned]

@Randal: Such things exist in many countries, but it requires an answer to the question of how you are going to put pressure on the politicians to just avoid ending up with lots of empty seats. Solutions for that problem exist, but there are always trade-offs: https://verfassungsblog.de/how-to-prevent-blockage-of-judicial-appointments/

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Why would you assume that the legislature is trying to hit the strike zone? Just like a baseball pitcher they’d much rather pitch far away from it, if they thought they could get away with it.

So we can add baseball to the long list of things you're fundamentally ignorant of but insist on prattling on about anyway.

[JasonT20]

I think Martinned has it right there. A pitcher has no incentive to throw right down the middle of the plate. There is a reason why that is the middle of the strike zone - it is the location that would be the easiest for a hitter to make solid contact. That is the whole point of there being a strike zone and calling balls outside of it, with 4 balls resulting in the batter being given first base. When umpires call strikes in a wider area than the official rules call for the strike zone to be, that gives the pitcher an advantage and all the incentive in the world to throw just outside of the strike zone. The batter then has to try and hit those pitches, because they will get called strikes if he doesn't. But then he also is less likely to hit them or hit them well than pitches that would actually be in the strike zone.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's got to actually contravene contravene it. Not run contrary to some vague hortatory clause that the Court thinks could fit better with a different policy.

[Michael P]

Courts can do that. But they can't do the things that only the legislature can do, or direct exactly how or what the legislature does.

[kb]

I disagree. I think the Court should explain how the law wasn't within the constraints, but make no comment on the mitigation. It is not within the brief of the court to make suggestions.

[Gandydancer]

I think you want “remit”, not “brief”, though the latter is close.

Baude observes that Federal courts are already doing what you say courts should not do, of course.

His “solution” solves nothing. Either the court rules or the legislature rules. The Constitution – rightly, I think – says the latter.

[kb]

Thanks for your edit suggestion ( I'm not entirely convinced, but grateful for your input)! I find language fascinating to the the point I wonder how we can ever communicate at all with any precision.

[DaveM]

I like his phrasing that we need not an "independent-state-legislature doctrine, but a constitutional-state-legislature doctrine." Exactly so. Judicial review is the role of an umpire, not a player. The players can't just decide on their own which rules are the rules they must follow. Likewise, the umpire can't just run the play themselves the way they think it ought to be run. Each has their role. Each must stay in their lane in order to have a fair and open contest.

From the citizen-voter point of view, the authority for judicial review comes from the fact that constitutional language is explicitly put to the voters for their consent. When a judge reviews an act of the government, they are protecting that consent. But the most they must be able to do is to say, "try again" to a legislature.

[JasonT20]

Judicial review is the role of an umpire, not a player. The players can’t just decide on their own which rules are the rules they must follow. Likewise, the umpire can’t just run the play themselves the way they think it ought to be run.

Like in a reply above, the problem with the umpire analogy is that what we have with redistricting is a legislature (the pitcher) is making pitches well out of the strike zone, but then rather than it getting called a ball by the ump, the pitch just doesn't count. Because that is what's happening here if the state supreme court can only say that a map is not allowed, but can't do anything else. In practice, that allows the pitcher to indefinitely delay until the ump just gets tired of it and starts calling them strikes or a new ump comes in with a more generous strike zone.

There has to be a real consequence if a legislature just won't follow the state or federal constitutions or else the courts are just toothless.

[Brett Bellmore]

The problem is that sometimes the umpire is crooked. And you need to be able to deal with those situations in some way besides just letting the umpire dictate who wins.

[Sarcastr0]

Except your think every umpire whose calls you disagree with is crooked. People like you are why everyone doesn’t want some mechanism to check judges for ‘corruption’.

[TwelveInchPianist]

People like Brett? Haven't we been hearing a whole lot from the left about how the court has threatened its legitimacy by ruling in ways that the left doesn't like?

[Sarcastr0]

Sure. This is not specific to the right. It is kinda specific to Brett who has raised this policy solipsism to an art.

That only helps my point.

[Randal]

The rulings aren’t what threaten the court’s legitimacy. It’s the process. McConnell pulled a bunch of shady shit, and now the court stinks of poo.

Maybe the same is true in some states, I don’t know. But surely, a big part of the legitimacy of the court comes from its processes. If we need to fix the processes so that people have more faith in them, great, let’s.

Because in the end, courts have a lot of power. Just taking away their power and giving it to the legislature doesn’t help. That’s going to make elections more political and less trusted.

[Gandydancer]

People like Sarc just don’t want THEIR corrupt judges checked.

[Sarcastr0]

Which is why you see me calling for a mechanism to check conservative judges all the time.

What shitty telepathy.

[DaveM]

"There has to be a real consequence if a legislature just won’t follow the state or federal constitutions or else the courts are just toothless."

Yes, I agree. That's why we have elections. That's where real consequences are levied. A vote is the purest form of political power we have in our system. The more contentious the times, the smaller number of votes it takes to change direction. Is it a perfect solution? No. But it sure beats the pants off all the others.

[JasonT20]

Yes, I agree. That’s why we have elections.

You mean elections for legislative seats where the districts are gerrymandered to benefit the party currently in power? You saying that the legislature will only be held accountable if such an overwhelming majority of voters are upset by their gerrymandering that they can overcome the outcome of the gerrymandering to vote them out.

A vote is the purest form of political power we have in our system.

In an ideal world, sure. But how does a modest majority of voters (say, 51-60%) overcome something like gerrymandering or other manipulations of rules surrounding elections that give the 40-49% that like the party in power more weight to their votes?

Voting is the "purest political power" in the moral or ethical sense. But practical politics makes voters less powerful than they should be. I just don't accept that minority rule has to be accepted until a large enough majority that doesn't like the status quo can overwhelm the systematic advantages that a party can give itself.

[defaultdotxbe]

This is where the analogy somewhat falls apart. In politics there is no such thing as a ball, so there is no difference between a pitch being called a ball and a pitch not counting. So the pitcher (legislature) can keep throwing balls until the coach (voters) pull the pitcher and put in a new one.

That is how it works with normal legislation, if they pass an unconstitutional law the courts (generally) can't completely rewrite the law to accomplish what they think the legislatures goals were. They can strike down an unconstitutional law and if they legislature wants to try again they can. They legislature can pass as many unconstitutional laws as they want and the court can keep striking them down, but the court's role doesn't change.

You can argue that legislative districts are a time-sensitive, must-pass deal, and that changes the rules, but I'm not sure it justifies this. Someone can argue a lot of stuff is time-sensitive, must-pass, and effectively give the courts free reign to pass whatever "laws" they see fit.

[JasonT20]

This is where the analogy somewhat falls apart. In politics there is no such thing as a ball, so there is no difference between a pitch being called a ball and a pitch not counting. So the pitcher (legislature) can keep throwing balls until the coach (voters) pull the pitcher and put in a new one.

Yes, the analogy doesn't really fit that well, but I wasn't the first to use it here. Your attempt to use the pitcher/ump analogy doesn't work either, though. That is because the balls that the pitcher is throwing make it harder for the manager to pull him. It is like saying that as long as the pitcher is throwing balls just a little outside the strike zone, he gets to keep throwing indefinitely or until the hitter thinks it might be called a strike and swings at it. Only if the pitcher throws a wild pitch or hits the batter will the manager get upset enough to pull him.

[TwelveInchPianist]

It boils down to picking your poison. Do you want legislatures ultimately deciding who the electors are, or judges?

[DaveM]

Yes. And one of those systems can fairly be described as being a true representation of the consent of the governed, but the other cannot. That doesn't make the other option "eeevil", it just highlights the fact that it serves a different function.

[Randal]

Except, as Jason pointed out, it doesn't really work to have legislatures deciding the rules on which they themselves are being elected, with no constraints. You can see how there's a conflict of interest there, no?

[Nelson]

"Do you want legislatures ultimately deciding who the electors are, or judges?"

It may be an old fashioned notion, but how about neither? That's why we have voters.

[Moderation4ever]

I don't think most states are turning the redistricting process over to independent committee, but rather to private firms. These firms use computers to draw districts pleasing to the legislatures controlling party. The product is then approved, usually along party lines.

My concern with the process is the lack of transparency. The public has little knowledge of the process until the end. The public likely knows the firms, but not the contract details or the draft maps.

[JasonT20]

I don’t think most states are turning the redistricting process over to independent committee, but rather to private firms. These firms use computers to draw districts pleasing to the legislatures controlling party. The product is then approved, usually along party lines.

This right here is the best argument for making independent committees the only way to draw maps. Ideally, the people drawing the maps would only have basic census data to work with as they make the maps, and nothing on voter registration or voting patterns in previous elections. If they don't have the data necessary to gerrymander with the kind of accuracy that is possible now, then there is less chance of it happening.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'll repeat my proposal here:

1. Set objective criteria the map must meet, in terms of compactness, population, respecting existing boundaries.
2. Generate a huge number of maps from random seeds, that satisfy the criteria. This is fairly straightforward at this point, the software to do this is available.
3. Allow each of N ballot qualified parties to strike 1/(N+1) of the maps in a process similar to voir dire, without having to justify their choices.
4. Pick a map from among the ones remaining by publicly using a bingo cage or similar randomizing device.

This renders gerrymandering impossible, and strikes the maps each party has the most objections to.

Mind, since it does render gerrymandering impossible, it would require a reinterpretation of the VRA to eliminate the court imposed mandate for racial gerrymanders, "Majority-minority districts". That's been the problem for some time in fighting gerrymandering, it's hard to find a good way to prevent gerrymandering at the same time the courts are demanding it.

[DaveM]

In Virginia, we passed a new amendment to our state constitution that sets up a Commission to redraw these maps, and submit them to the state Assembly for approval. If the Commission is unable to come up with a map, or if they produce a map that is not approved by the Assembly, then the state Supreme Court is the backstop. And going all the way to the Supreme Court is exactly what happened the very first time they tried.

https://www.vacourts.gov/courts/scv/districting/redistricting_final.pdf

[Moderation4ever]

I could support this and in particular #1. The people need transparency and having defined parameters is a good start.

[Brett Bellmore]

That was what got the NY legislature in trouble during their redistricting: They did have constitutionally defined parameters, and they violated them.

But in general there will be a huge number of potential maps that satisfy all the objective criteria, and you can push the voting outcomes quite a bit one way or the other by which one you pick. Not as far as if you violate the criteria, of course, but still quite far. The academic literature on computerized redistricting is quite clear on that.

Which is why you need a process for eliminating outliers even though they satisfy the criteria. I thought that letting the stakeholders eliminate the ones they disliked the most would accomplish that nicely, without requiring any politically fraught decisions about the algorithm. Then picking one of the remaining maps by a public random process would put the final stake in the heart of gerrymandering.

[JasonT20]

The Florida legislature treats the state constitutional amendment passed a while back as a suggestion that they can ignore if they want to. And with 6 of 7 state supreme court justices appointed by Rick Scott or Ron DeSantis, the legislature is fairly certain that whatever map they approve will pass muster. Of course, the legislature has basically become Ron DeSantis' lapdog, since he vetoed the map that the state senate preferred that had passed, and called a special session to get the map he wanted passed instead.

[Randal]

The computer can take care of the VRA constraints.

[Davedave]

"But what they can’t do, neither the courts or the governor, is tell the legislature: “you had your shot at it, now it’s our turn to do it for you.”"

There comes a point where that is not only what they should do, but what they have to do in order to comply with the constitution. Legislatures cannot deny their electorates the right to vote them out by repeatedly bollocksing-up part of the process, obviously.

[Stephen Lathrop]

All the comments in reply seem to overlook the same point Will Baude overlooked, which are the first three extra-big words in the U.S. Constitution. American constitutionalism was designed by its founders according to a principle of popular sovereignty, not according to some principle of collective state-government sovereignty.

If you understand the outsized role that thinking played in the founders' deliberations, you cannot reasonably conclude the constitutional language empowering state legislatures in elections was ever meant to extend so far as to allow state legislatures to effectively become themselves the electors who would determine the outcome of a presidential election. The language in question is this:

Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector.

The electors shall meet in their respective states, and vote by ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves . . .

One must begin interpretation with the observation that, "in such manner," prescribes ministerial activity—which is to say activity without power to dispose of election questions substantively.

Second, note that the language connotes a state acting independent of its legislature. The state, whatever that means, follows the ministerial procedures the legislature supplies, but it is not the legislature. It is something else. What can it be?

In context of founding era thinking, "Each state shall appoint," cannot mean anything except collective action by the sovereign people of the state. To embody the state there are no other entities in sight, except the sovereign people of the state, or the legislature. It has to be one or the other. Language empowering the legislature to, "direct," another party would be beside the point, if the legislature itself were empowered to act in the capacity of the sovereign, to appoint the electors. Nor would the founders have supposed that if they did delegate such a power to appoint presidential electors to state legislatures, that it would ever have been exercised in any other way.

Of course, it is peculiar to suppose the founders, in the very act of establishing government subordinate to a popular sovereign, would have deliberately declared state governments collectively sovereign over the nation. Or that they would have done it in a document prefaced in enlarged calligraphy, "We the People." That absurdity did not happen.

What this has to do with election maps may be obscure to some. Nevertheless, it is vitally important that the Supreme Court accept no premise which paves the way for a more-expansive reading of the historically bogus independent state legislature doctrine. Baude's interpretation risks doing that. It more than risks it. It invites it.

Right wingers are angling toward empowering state legislatures to paradoxically overturn sovereign election decrees from their own political superiors. That is a bid to turn American constitutionalism on its head, in a manner never intended by founders who chose to enlarge so conspicuously the first 3 words in their sovereign founding decree.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

What did the Founders say about who should select a state's Senators?

Do you know?

[David Nieporent]

In context of founding era thinking, “Each state shall appoint,” cannot mean anything except collective action by the sovereign people of the state. To embody the state there are no other entities in sight, except the sovereign people of the state, or the legislature. It has to be one or the other. Language empowering the legislature to, “direct,” another party would be beside the point, if the legislature itself were empowered to act in the capacity of the sovereign, to appoint the electors. Nor would the founders have supposed that if they did delegate such a power to appoint presidential electors to state legislatures, that it would ever have been exercised in any other way.

What the ever living fuck are you talking about, Stephen? The founders did delegate the power to appoint presidential electors to state legislators, and the state legislators did in fact exercise that power for years. And then they all gave it up in exchange for "popular" election of electors. (I put that in quotes because of course the membership of the electorate was originally a rather circumscribed subset of the populace.) The last state to do so was South Carolina, which didn't have popular elections for president until after the Civil War.

[Stephen Lathrop]

I was unclear. If the right-wing advocacy had been that state legislatures should abolish popular voting for president, and be accountable for that decision, that would somewhat align with the wisely superseded historical practice you mention, however poorly it sorts with the founders' notions of popular sovereignty. That practice passed out of use partly because it was in tension with popular sovereignty, but also because it was flawed in ways Madison and others foresaw and objected to.

But whatever the history, that is not the right-wing advocacy of today. That instead asserts a power in a state legislature to reject popular voting results which legislators disagree with. That is mass disenfranchisement, practiced opportunistically. It has no place in American constitutionalism, historical or otherwise. As a lawyer, you can probably count the number of times the Supreme Court has already rejected such a notion.

[SimonP]

I agree. This seems like a good way to respect the constitutional language without throwing the whole process to the political whims of entrenched and self-interested legislators.

Here in NY, a judge imposed our map, and just about no one is happy about it.

[AmosArch]

I'm not the biggest fan of Alex Jones. But if he deserves to payout 1 billion for some wackadoodle theory about how shadow government reptilians faked shootings don't the rest of the 'authoritative' media that more seriously lie about people like Rittenhouse, Sandmann et al on a daily basis and are far more likely to be taken at face value also deserve to be bankrupted?

[Noscitur a sociis]

The distinguishing principle is that Jones (personally and through counsel) forfeited the opportunity to argue that his statements were protected speech, and then, for what of a better term, acted like a dick in front of the jury for the entire trial. I do agree that the verdict is probably excessive and will likely be reduced through further judicial action, unless he and his lawyers continue to fuck things up (e.g. by soliciting his listeners to assist him in committing bankruptcy fraud on his show).

[Davedave]

"I do agree that the verdict is probably excessive and will likely be reduced through further judicial action, unless he and his lawyers continue to fuck things up"

Rather gloriously, it does seem he's now facing criminal charges for his actions during a civil trial.

[not guilty]

What criminal charges? For what conduct?

[Davedave]

Read some of the articles covering the trial.

[not guilty]

¨Now facing criminal charges¨ suggests pending prosecution(s). I am unaware of any such charges. Have I overlooked something?

[Nige]

'that more seriously lie'

I love the idea that persuading thousands of people that a school shooting was fake and everyone involved were actors isn't a serious bit of lying. Arguing over the minutiae and interpretation of details of single incidents isn't 'serious lying,' even if you could prove deliberate misrepresentation, it doesn't compare. Coming up with something huge and ridiculous and then getting people to believe in it so much they go and harass grieving parents, now that's some top-notch lying. See also: pizzagate, Qanon, the election fraud, etc.

[AmosArch]

Whats more serious? Weekly world news posting an article claiming Bill Clinton is an evil intergalactic space lord bent on galactic domination or all the major news networks secretly colluding to put out believable but subtly false and misleading information on political opponents to systematically destroy the opposition? If you can't tell or you think serial killers shouldn't be punished financially as much as the former you might be a prog.

[Nige]

If enough people believe the Bill Clinton lie, that would be the more serious lie, as the followers of Jones amply demonstrated. You can call out subtly false and misleading information, you can’t persuade someone prepared and committed to believing the incredible.

'If you can’t tell or you think serial killers shouldn’t be punished financially as much as the former you might be a prog.'

What does this even mean? Serial killers belong in jail, what do you think, they should be subjected to fines?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Is it a crime to believe Sandy Hook was a hoax?

[Drewski]

It's a tort to publish accusations that the parents and responders were active participants in a hoax. If you have difficulty distinguishing between crimes and civil actions, and with understanding what issues are being decided, you may want to try reading some basic primers on law written for non-lawyers instead of sputtering weird hot takes at people who know better.

[Nige]

This was a civil action.

[not guilty]

¨Is it a crime to believe Sandy Hook was a hoax?¨

No, it is not. has anyone suggested that it is?

[MoreCurious]

The only crime here is your incessant inclination to ask stupid questions and make stupid comments on this blog.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Get your fascist Democrat masters to sick the Democrat FBI on me then.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

How many FBI directors -- since inception, a century or so ago -- have been Democrats?

Carry on, delusional clingers.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

And your implied argument is that since they are Republicans they won't do what?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

That they won't be part of a "Democrat FBI."

How does this ostensibly academic blog attract so many bigots and half-wits?

(Other than be design, I mean.)

[Randal]

It's still sort of a mystery why it's so effective. Like, why are you here, Charlie? Go to 4chan or one of the other numbers of chan, it's much more your speed. Nobody there knows the difference between a crime and a tort, so you can make shit up and still be the smartest one around just by knowing the vocabulary. They'll worship you, you'll love it!

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

For a certain segment of the population, this blog appears to offer an enticing blend of 4chan, RedState, the Washington Examiner, Stormfront, RealClearPolitics, Instapundit, and FreeRepublic, with a dash of something vaguely resembling the Legal Intelligencer and SCOTUSblog.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

A Washington DC Republican is a Democrat you retard.

[Davedave]

The difference is that Alex Jones lied, whereas no-one has lied about Rittenhouse, the white supremacist terrorist and Trump-traitor, nor about Sandmann, the white supremacist shithead who attacked a veteran in public, cried when he got caught, attempted to sue everyone who laughed at him, and lost spectacularly.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Those are all lies you evil subhuman piece of filth.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm beginning to think he's a particularly bad parody account.

[MoreCurious]

No, just stupid.

[not me]

It's our old friend AnyThreeWords

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

whereas no-one has lied about Rittenhouse, the white supremacist terrorist and Trump-traitor, nor about Sandmann, the white supremacist shithead who attacked a veteran in public, cried when he got caught, attempted to sue everyone who laughed at him, and lost spectacularly.

Kirkland sock puppet?

[Sarcastr0]

Hey Amos, what did you think of the Gawker lawsuit?

[TwelveInchPianist]

Poorly drafted Michigan Ballot Initiative, which on its face would allow children of any age to be sterilized without parental consent, abolish statutory rape laws, and probably many other terrible things.

"(1) Every individual has a fundamental right to reproductive freedom, which entails the right to make and effectuate decisions about all matters relating to pregnancy, including but not limited to prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, contraception, sterilization, abortion care, miscarriage management, and infertility care."

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm pretty sure it was drafted to do exactly what the drafters meant it to do. Poorly conceived, they actually DO want children of any age to be sterilized without parental consent, to abolish statutory rape laws, and many other terrible things.

The people who drafted it are just that extreme.

[Nige]

Yeah, everyone knows that child sterilization and rape are only not terrible if done with parental consent.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

You mean like transing kids and homosexual grooming in government schools?

[Nige]

Neither of those are real.

[Nelson]

More like signing your kid up for the Boy Scouts or letting them be an altar boy (or girl).

[TwelveInchPianist]

The proponents (framed as "legal experts" by the local media) are furiously spinning right now, claiming that it doesn't mean what it says, etc.

But the text of the initiate is what gets put in the constitution, not the gloss put on the language in order to sell the proposal.

[Krayt]

This is as opposed to government telling them what they can do.

I haven’t listened to right wing radio in a long time, even as a lark. I assume this is apoplectic hyperventillation the past few days.

[David Nieporent]

I'm pretty sure you're mentally ill.

[Commenter_XY]

TIP, it is utter insanity. The ultimate in nihilism and self-hatred. There is no other way I can describe it.

[DaveM]

Hey, this is great. According to this language, aborting a baby after just 11 weeks gestation would violate his or her “fundamental right to reproductive freedom” because that’s when genitalia starts to develop. Also, since this language only applies to “individuals”, there’s no need to even have the discussion about personhood. That a fetus is an “individual” is beyond question, and no one disputes that fact.

https://www.babycenter.com/pregnancy/your-baby/fetal-development-your-babys-genitals-and-urinary-system_40005752

Who knew that such a comprehensive and objective rationale for abortion restrictions would come from the left? /sarc

[JasonT20]

Hey, this is great. According to this language, aborting a baby after just 11 weeks gestation would violate his or her “fundamental right to reproductive freedom” because that’s when genitalia starts to develop.

If a fetus could make decisions, then you might have something there.

which entails the right to make and effectuate decisions about all matters relating to pregnancy

[Brett Bellmore]

A fetus can make decisions, you just have to give them a little time to get back to you. 😉

[Life of Brian]

If a fetus could make decisions, then you might have something there.

Conveniently, just this week we were informed they can decide their gender identity while still in the womb. All set!

[DaveM]

+1

[Nelson]

"That a fetus is an “individual” is beyond question, and no one disputes that fact."

Actually, anyone who can read a law knows that a fetus is NOT, by definition, an individual.

1 USC 8 (a) says, "In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the words “person”, “human being”, “child”, and “individual”, shall include every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development."

So you are 100% wrong.

Plus, reading a law whose plain language is clearly about reserving decisions about reproductive issues for the individual (not the government) as being about involuntary sterilization is pure insanity. Even for the anti-abortion wingnuts who misrepresent everything about protecting reproductive freedom.

[Davedave]

If you're reading that as a license to act on your paedo urges, you're stupid as well as a paedo.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Well, one couldn't act on one's urges unless there is a potential pregnancy, But based on the text of the proposal, once the act can involve a pregnancy, both parties have a fundamental right to make and effectuate decisions about the act.

Now, it's possible that judges will save the drafters from themselves, but you'd have to be pretty dumb to vote to put text like that into your constitution.

[not guilty]

¨Poorly drafted Michigan Ballot Initiative, which on its face would allow children of any age to be sterilized without parental consent, abolish statutory rape laws, and probably many other terrible things.¨

Uh, the phrase ¨on its face¨ doesn´t mean what you seem to think it means. The full text of the proposed amendment states:

(1) Every individual has a fundamental right to reproductive freedom, which entails the right to make and effectuate decisions about all matters relating to pregnancy, including but not limited to prenatal care, childbirth, postpartum care, contraception, sterilization, abortion care, miscarriage management, and infertility care.

An individual's right to reproductive freedom shall not be denied, burdened, nor infringed upon unless justified by a compelling state interest achieved by the least restrictive means.

Notwithstanding the above, the state may regulate the provision of abortion care after fetal viability, provided that in no circumstance shall the state prohibit an abortion that, in the professional judgment of an attending health care professional, is medically indicated to protect the life or physical or mental health of the pregnant individual.

(2) The state shall not discriminate in the protection or enforcement of this fundamental right.

(3) The state shall not penalize, prosecute, or otherwise take adverse action against an individual based on their actual, potential, perceived, or alleged pregnancy outcomes, including but not limited to miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion. Nor shall the state penalize, prosecute, or otherwise take adverse action against someone for aiding or assisting a pregnant individual in exercising their right to reproductive freedom with their voluntary consent.

(4) For the purposes of this section:

A state interest is "compelling" only if it is for the limited purpose of protecting the health of an individual seeking care, consistent with accepted clinical standards of practice and evidence-based medicine, and does not infringe on that individual's autonomous decision-making. "Fetal viability" means: the point in pregnancy when, in the professional judgment of an attending health care professional and based on the particular facts of the case, there is a significant likelihood of the fetus's sustained survival outside the uterus without the application of extraordinary medical measures.

(5) This section shall be self-executing. Any provision of this section held invalid shall be severable from the remaining portions of this section.

What word or group of words do you contend ¨would allow children of any age to be sterilized without parental consent [or] abolish statutory rape laws¨? Did you think that no one would click on the link and call out your dishonesty?

[TwelveInchPianist]

"What word or group of words do you contend ¨would allow children of any age to be sterilized without parental consent..."

Sigh.

Every individual has a fundamental right to reproductive freedom, which entails the right to make and effectuate decisions about about all matters relating to pregnancy, including ... sterilization.

Minors, and those who would impregnate minors, are individuals, and sexual intercourse certainly relates to pregnancy.

Now, one might hope that the strict scrutiny provision would allow the state to regulate some of those things, but...

A state interest is “compelling” only if it ... does not infringe on that individual’s autonomous decision-making.

So no dice.

Did you think that no one would click on the link and call out your dishonesty?

Um, I put the link in the comment so that people would click on it. But I was hoping that those people would be able to read.

[not guilty]

That is ridiculous. When and where did you learn to parse legal language? If it was at any educational institution, some accrediting agency may want to know.

[TwelveInchPianist]

No argument, eh?

I'm not a lawyer, so I'll defer to your superior knowledge of accrediting agencies and their standards.

[Sarcastr0]

For one thing, other fundamental rights are not inviolable when one is not an adult.

[TwelveInchPianist]

As I said above, courts might save the drafters from themselves. But the text here isn’t ambiguous, it says “every individual”. If the drafters wanted to exclude minors, they could have done so.

[Sarcastr0]

The text isn’t ambiguous, if you read it without any legal context because yiu have an outcome in mind.

[apedad]

Last Thursday, we started a discussion about Thanksgiving meals.
I posted on Friday about this but am posting again this week too in case folks didn’t see it.

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.

So kinda like chicken-n-waffles.

Wicked good.

I don’t have a recipe (plenty on line), but I do moisten the leftover stuffing with some broth to help make it stick together better in the waffle iron.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'll have to try that some time, but not Thanksgiving this year. My wife wants to roast a pig Philippine style in the backyard for Thanksgiving. Turkey stuffing in a lechon would be kind of strange.

I don't know, maybe it would work.

[Commenter_XY]

apedad....I am doing the Rum & Coffee brisket again....by family demand! 🙂 Put this 14-lb beast into the oven at 5am. It will be a 12-13 hour cook time, and then an overnight sit in the refrigerator.

This is the next recipe I plan to conquer, and adapt for quinoa. I really like saffron, and this just looked interesting. A lot of possibilities here.

https://toriavey.com/saffron-rice/

My question: What is your waffle recipe? Anything special?

[apedad]

The waffle recipe is just leftover stuffing (add some stock to help the stuffing stick together).

So just drop the leftover stuffing on the waffle iron.

The stuffing recipe is pretty basic.

How I jazz it up though is make it separately (not in the turkey and usually the night before), and put the gizzard/heart/lung/neck (the stuff in the little bag), on top so all that “turkeyness” bakes into the stuffing.

Then I drop those baked items into the pot when I’m making the gravy, so they give off their goodness twice (and remove them before serving the gravy).

[Brett Bellmore]

A key thing I always found with stuffing, (When single I was roasting a turkey once a month; Turkey was cheap, and I really like it!) was to make turkey stock from the carcass, and save the rendered fat. Then use the turkey stock and fat in making stuffing, instead of water and butter or whatever is called for. Really pushes up the turkey flavor another notch.

[Mr. Bumble]

I'm not sure where the idea of "stuffing" came about but I'm glad it did and of course it is not limited to turkey. Also, the variety of recipes could probably fill several volumes.
If you have a recipe you like just make up a batch, bake it for a while and store portions in your freezer to have on hand for turkey breast, chicken, duck or whatever (waffles?).
For something different try stuffing your turkey under the skin of the breast. Adds flavor and helps keep the white meat moist.

[Brett Bellmore]

I kind of miss when they were doing a competent job of slaughtering the turkeys, and you'd get it with the skin intact. It's much harder to close the body cavity when that flap of skin has been gouged out and discarded. And a neck filled with stuffing and roasted on the turkey was my favorite part!

I think I might ask my farmer friend if he'd be interested in raising some extra poultry for me, he's got the room for turkeys. I could slaughter them myself, then.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Do any of the Conspirators plan to look more fully into the classical legal tradition? That tradition is hot right now.

Also, the classical legal tradition wasn’t invented by Adrian Vermeule. Vermeule was the mailman who found this tradition in the lost-letter office and went through sleet and snow to re-deliver it to the public, but now it belongs to the public again and Vermeule, the postman, has no particular claim on it now that the public has it.

As Vermeule affirms, the classical tradition doesn’t envision the law as balancing individual interests against society, but it does see rights as some of the ingredients which go into making the common good. In the American context, those rights which have been found suitable to our conditions and which are either spelled out in the Constitution or retained by the people (eg., 9th Amendment, P&I clause), need zealous protection.

Likewise, as Vermeule also affirms, the classical tradition isn’t an excuse to throw a particular country’s positive laws out the window and make all decisions based directly on natural law. Ambiguous parts of the law are to be construed on the basis of their natural-law and law-of-nations background, but the text of the law can’t be cast aside in the guise of interpretation. Nor is interpretation a substitute for the Art. V amendment process.

Vermeule sometimes conflates the classical tradition with authoritarianism and the liberal administrative state (he teaches administrative law, after all). But again, he’s just the postman, and he annoyingly sticks around to lecture us on the meaning of the package he’s delivered.

Also, the classical legal tradition seems like a restrained version of (Lysander) Spoonerism – resolving ambiguities in favor of the great principles of law. One of the Conspirators (I forget which one) was a Spoonerist for a while. Would they accept a somewhat less-fanatical rendering of Spooneristic principles?

[John F. Carr]

Boston doesn't want people feeding homeless drug addicts at a popular gathering spot not far from a respectable business district. "The message is if you stay here you’re going to be able to eat, sleep and do whatever you want and everything is fine. That is not the right message."

https://www.bostonherald.com/2022/10/11/boston-tells-do-gooders-to-stop-bringing-food-to-mass-and-cass/

[Martinned]

Isn't capitalism great?

[Michael P]

Yes, it is. But persistently misguided charity undermining law enforcement efforts to disrupt drug abuse has nothing to do with capitalism.

[Martinned]

No, but businesses owning city government so that city government serves their needs rather than the needs of the population does.

[Michael P]

Capitalism Derangement Syndrome, huh?

[Martinned]

Not really. I'm a big fan of capitalism. But not of US-style crony capitalism, where democracy is for sale to the highest bidder.

[Michael P]

You’ve given zero reason to think that capitalism, whether “US-style” or otherwise, has anything at all to do with people feeding homeless drug addicts in this case.

[Martinned]

It doesn't. It has something to do with the city preferring to have homeless drug addicts starve rather than taking care of them.

[Mr. Bumble]

Yes, so unlike capitalism as practiced in the Netherlands.

[Martinned]

Basically.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Study - Why Dutch officials take bribes: a toxic mix of factors

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10611-020-09919-w

[BravoCharlieDelta]

How do you get the people in government to stop selling their power to the highest bidder?

What's your proposal?

[defaultdotxbe]

That has more to do with with US-style crony democracy than it does with capitalism.

[Krayt]

Business needs are American citizen needs.

Freedom from a lot of corruption is why our store shelves are stocked. That is the needs of the population.

If you want government to do additional things, speak up. But stop talking like some 1920s class warfare politician who wants to get in the way of things for mysterious reasons, but most certainly not related to the needs of the population.

[JasonT20]

Business needs are American citizen needs.

Interesting that you mention 1920s "class warfare politicians. This sounds like the famous quote from that time period (short version most often cited and usually paraphrased in bold)

After all, the chief business of the American people is business. They are profoundly concerned with producing, buying, selling, investing and prospering in the world. I am strongly of opinion that the great majority of people will always find these are moving impulses of our life. - President Calvin Coolidge

But in that same speech shortly after that, Coolidge said this:

Of course, the accumulation of wealth cannot be justified as the chief end of existence. But we are compelled to recognize it as a means to well-nigh every desirable achievement. So long as wealth is made the means and not the end, we need not greatly fear it...But it calls for additional effort to avoid even the appearance of the evil of selfishness. In every worthy profession, of course, there will always be a minority who will appeal to the baser instinct. There always have been, probably always will be, some who will feel that their own temporary interest may be furthered by betraying the interest of others.

"Greed is good" was not the message he was trying to send, quite the opposite. (The whole speech can be found here - It was primarily about the role of the Press, and he went into the nature of business because newspapers are businesses.)

Capitalism is good when it serves the general public. Innovation, efficiency, and so on. It is not so good when it serves the wealthy at the expense of everyone else. Believe in the positive value of capitalism as long as you also keep and eye on it and the capitalists for abuses, and always be willing to act to curb those abuses. At least, that is my thinking.

[DaveM]

I have had to support a disabled family member for many years, and were it not for my efforts, there's no question in my mind that he would be living on the street.

I refuse. I refuse to let him live on the street because it is cruel and inhumane. If he were able to support himself and he chose to live off the land, I would not interfere. This is different. He would be on the street not by choice, but because of his infirmity.

Those of us who have the power -- the power of a good job, steady housing, food, clothing, safety, skills, knowledge, tools -- have an obligation to care for those who are unable to care for themselves. It is not caring to enable someone who is addicted to drugs and therefore living on the street to stay on those streets. It is not caring to feed them once, and then return them back to a life that is a living hell. What is caring is to take them off the street when they cannot do so themselves, and work to return them to a stable, healthy life.

[JasonT20]

It is not caring to feed them once, and then return them back to a life that is a living hell. What is caring is to take them off the street when they cannot do so themselves, and work to return them to a stable, healthy life.

Sounds great. When there are enough people like you that are willing to directly support every homeless person unable to care for themselves or enough people willing to pay taxes or give to charities to support them indirectly, let me know. Perhaps what you should be saying is that the people feeding the homeless should get the resources necessary to address all of their needs, and not just their need for food.

[DaveM]

What I'm saying is that stop wasting your time and energy on band aids. You want to solve homelessness, then tackle the REAL issue head on. No more signalling! It's not caring, it's hypocrisy.

[John F. Carr]

The "Mass and Cass" area has room for homeless camps because it was cleared in the 1960s to make room for a highway that was never built. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstate_695_(Massachusetts)

You can play "what if?" What if the highway had been built? Would they be living under an overpass? Would they be dispersed around the city? Would the city have been pressured into improving treatment facilities?

Current policy is that treatment facilities need to be on an island in the harbor. The bridge to that island has been out for several years. And you can't very well put a rehab clinic close to a residence.

One of the homeless shelters in Cambridge was located in an industrial-looking area at the edge of the MIT campus. A grad student who worked on that street told me the women in her group were issued "rape whistles" just in case. I walked down that street many times and never saw any suspicious people hanging around. They were indoors.

[Commenter_XY]

Re: Dormant Commerce Clause (National Pork producers v Ross)

Theoretical question: Isn't a 'libertarian' solution here for pork producers to comply with the law and just not sell pork in CA?

CA represents 13% of the total market. Let's say producers stop selling to CA and elect to take the hit to their bottom line. Sooner or later, pork eating people in CA will get pissed off because they don't have pork, no? And they will vote to change that. Can you imagine a life without bacon? Seriously? I just can't. 🙂

Granted, that democratic process might take years to play out.

(PS: I am not saying I advocate the above....but I would like to hear the 'sometimes libertarian and often contrarian' viewpoints)

[TwelveInchPianist]

It's a solution. Why would it be a particularly 'libertarian' solution?

[Brett Bellmore]

It's not a particularly libertarian solution, because the libertarian would care about the rights of California citizens to buy whoever's pork they want.

A libertarian would be thinking more in terms of finding ways to circumvent this law, rather than complying with it, good and hard.

[JasonT20]

It’s not a particularly libertarian solution, because the libertarian would care about the rights of California citizens to buy whoever’s pork they want.

What if I want to buy pork from pigs that were deliberately treated cruelly? Do I have a right to that, as long as there is someone willing to sell it to me? What if I want to buy t-shirts made in a developing country with child labor? Or conflict diamonds?

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, you'd be pretty stupid, because that would adversely effect the taste. But that's a rather disparate collection of examples, from a libertarian standpoint.

The rights of animals are a matter of contention among libertarians, but generally not given a lot of weight.

Child labor? Whoo, that's a pretty vague concept, that includes everything from actual slave labor to just kids making pocket money.

And conflict diamonds are just diamonds from war zones. You'd really need more detail there, wouldn't you?

[JasonT20]

You’d really need more detail there, wouldn’t you?

In the case of conflict diamonds, the situation is pretty straightforward. My understanding is that diamonds mined legally are given identifying microscopic marks. Diamonds mined illegally in conflict zones in Africa do not have such marks (often remaining uncut as they are traded and sold). I'm sure that black markets still find ways around the certification schemes in place, but those efforts probably do considerably reduce the ability of warlords and rebels to use illegal diamonds to fund themselves. Thus, Americans that want diamonds can have high confidence that they aren't obtaining illegally mined conflict diamonds if they want that.

But my point is about the right to obtain a product, anyway. Governments have the power to regulate commerce. While a person can justly claim to have a right to obtain basic necessities, there is no fundamental right to obtain any product we might want. People don't have a fundamental right to buy pork, specifically. That is at all, not just to buy pork that is cheaper because the pigs are treated less humanely.

If there is a high demand for pork, then elected governments would be foolish to ban it entirely or to pass laws that make it prohibitively expensive for most of the people that would want it. But that is a political consideration, not a constitutional one.

My view of this dormant commerce clause topic is pretty simple. State and local governments have the power to regulate commerce that occurs within their jurisdictions, regardless of what indirect impacts those regulations would have outside of their jurisdictions. But Congress is given the explicit power to regulate interstate commerce, so it could, if it chooses, override state regulation of commerce that has impacts outside of that state. I don't see how this conflicts with libertarian ideals of federalism at all.

[Brett Bellmore]

Sorry, I thought we were discussing the "libertarian" view of these things, not the existing legal precedent.

[Nige]

'Child labor? Whoo, that’s a pretty vague concept'

No, it isn't. You're confusing the current default inanity of conservative intellectualism with how concepts are actually defined.

[Martinned]

The US needs a serious dose of dormant commerce clause medicine asap (what we in the EU call free movement of goods and services). There is a crazy amount of legislation on the statute books of the states that serves absolutely no purpose other than to protect companies from out-of-state competition. All of that is a much more obvious example of regulating interstate commerce than someone growing weed for personal consumption in their own back yard. (Or whatever the fact pattern in Gonzales v. Raich was.)

[JasonT20]

The US needs a serious dose of dormant commerce clause medicine asap (what we in the EU call free movement of goods and services).

Sounds to me like what you want isn't the "dormant" commerce clause, but for Congress to step in and use its authority under the actual Commerce Clause. I'd have no problem with that, as a legal and constitutional matter. The dormant commerce clause seems like a way for conservative judges to get that end result without having to pass legislation in Congress.

[Martinned]

No, this is way too much of a mess for Congress to police. These kinds of laws need to be shut down one case at a time, not with some kind of one-size-fits-all piece of federal legislation. After all, for every state law that is a blatant attempt to discriminate against out-of-state competitors there is another state law that makes life difficult for out-of-state competitors for very good reasons.

[Randal]

Congress isn't going to make a law about whether states can do this type of regulation. That's probably not even constitutional. The point of Congress making the law would be to set national pig standards.

[JasonT20]

These kinds of laws need to be shut down one case at a time, not with some kind of one-size-fits-all piece of federal legislation.

But the goal of those that advocate for the dormant commerce clause principle seems to be shut these laws down with a one-size-fits-all piece of Supreme Court precedent.

I think that the whole reason Congress was given the power to regulate interstate commerce is so that it could prevent states from engaging in protectionism against competition in other states, as you said. But it is up to Congress to distinguish between unjust protectionism and justified state regulation of products made outside of the state, not courts.

[Martinned]

Congress may well set out a framework, but you still need a court to say whether the specific law in state X is justified or not.

A good point of reference is the litigation about the Scottish minimum unit price for alcohol: https://www.bailii.org/uk/cases/UKSC/2017/76.html

Clearly a sensible objective (combating alcoholism), but it made life more difficult for (some) non-Scottish competitors because it will make it harder for them to take advantage of any scale economies by competing on price. The EU and Scottish courts considered the proportionality of the measure, and concluded that it was OK.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Commenter,

Just the "Rich" people would get specially imported bacon in CA. The poor people would be cut off.

[ThePublius]

They will get it, albeit inferior, black market pork. Perhaps poorly refrigerated. Think of a guy from Nevada with a trunk full of bacon to sell on the streets of CA.

Note that heroin, fentanyl, and all of those other abused drugs are illegal, but the"poor" apparently have no trouble getting them.

[defaultdotxbe]

More likely the owner of a small grocery store in LA driving to pick up bacon from a distributer in Nevada. But yeah, same concept, he's not buying a reefer truck to haul it across the desert.

[Commenter_XY]

AL, I think you are right about that = Just the “Rich” people would get specially imported bacon in CA. The poor people would be cut off.

[ThePublius]

If this remains, and pork distributors just stop shipping to CA, it will create a black market for pork in CA, and create a new market for organized crime. People will not give up pork, especially those to whom pork is culturally important, like Mexicans, Chinese, et.al. They will now get an unregulated product from organized criminals, with all of the health risks attendant. And the state will suffer through increased organized crime activity, including violence from turf wars, competition, stealing from each other, and so forth. And CA will have failed in its responsibility to protect its citizens. Again.

[JasonT20]

If this remains, and pork distributors just stop shipping to CA, it will create a black market for pork in CA, and create a new market for organized crime.

Haha, right. Because pork is just as addictive as heroin.

[ThePublius]

JasonT20 says "Haha, right. Because pork is just as addictive as heroin."

Ha, ha, that's a stupid comment, born of ignorance. You apparently have no idea of the extent of the black market. Common products include baby diapers, baby formula, illegal animal products, cigarettes, menthol cigarettes, laundry detergent, cell phones, counterfeit fashion products, sneakers, and on and on. Most of these are not physically addictive.

[defaultdotxbe]

I remember a story some years back about a warehouse full of counterfeit ketchup bottles that a New Jersey organized crime outfit was trying to sell.

The plan unraveled when the bottles began exploding because they didn't sterilize them when they filled them with the cheap ketchup.

[ThePublius]

That's funny. Made me think - this could create a market for counterfeit California-produced pork products. Also run by organized crime.

[JasonT20]

You apparently have no idea of the extent of the black market. Common products include baby diapers, baby formula, illegal animal products, cigarettes, menthol cigarettes, laundry detergent, cell phones, counterfeit fashion products, sneakers, and on and on. Most of these are not physically addictive.

That doesn't help your argument. That black markets exist for a wide variety of products would mean that limiting pork in CA to farms that treat pigs better, and thus raise prices, would not be likely to add significantly to existing criminal organizations. It would just add another product to their large list of things they already deal in. You are making it seem like making pork a little more expensive (still to be determined how much higher prices would go, as far as I can tell) would create whole new criminal empires. That seems greatly overwrought to me.

[ThePublius]

Maybe you don't realize the extent to which pork is a staple among some communities and businesses. I guess it's bigger than the cigarette market. Mexican families and restaurants, Chinese families and restaurants, and on and on.

Californians consume 13 percent of the nation's pork, but 99.9 percent of it produced beyond the state's borders. That's 13% of 27.7 billion pounds of pork, or 3.6 billion - with a "B" pounds. At today's retail price of pork, around $5/pound, that's an $18B market. Did you hear that? Eighteen billion dollar market.

[John F. Carr]

The libertarian solution is to label the pork and let consumers decide. "Cruelty-free pork" vs. cheaper "cruelty-full pork".

[Randal]

Well... you're close. The libertarian solution (notwithstanding Brett's even libertarianier, bordering-on-anarchy take) is that some pork producers will cater to California's market and some won't. It's up to the pork producer. And Californians will end up paying more, but that's the collective decision they made, so that's fine. Who, exactly, is even harmed? I guess the Californians who voted against, but that's nothing new.

[apedad]

FBI Releases 2021 Crime in the Nation Statistics

Today (10/5/22), the FBI released detailed data on over 11 million criminal offenses reported to the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) in 2021.

Overall, the analysis shows violent and property crime remained consistent between 2020 and 2021. While the aggregate estimated violent crime volume decreased 1% for the nation from 1,326,600 in 2020 to 1,313,200 in 2021, the estimated number of murders increased from 22,000 in 2020 to 22,900 in 2021. The increase of murders constitutes a 4.3% increase. The robbery rate decreased 8.9% from 2020 to 2021, which heavily contributed to the decrease in overall violent crime despite increases in murder and rape rates at the national level. It is important to note that these estimated trends are not considered statistically significant by NIBRS estimation methods. The nonsignificant nature of the observed trends is why, despite these described changes, the overall message is that crime remained consistent.

https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/press-releases/fbi-releases-2021-crime-in-the-nation-statistics

Um. . . at least we’re consistent?

[Commenter_XY]

apedad, how do those 2020-21 numbers compare to 2018-19, the years immediately before the pandemic?

That is the scary part to me. We are learning a lot about ourselves courtesy of the pandemic.

[apedad]

September 28, 2020
FBI Releases 2019 Crime Statistics

For the third consecutive year, the estimated number of violent crimes in the nation decreased when compared with the previous year’s statistics, according to FBI figures released today. In 2019, violent crime was down 0.5% from the 2018 number. Property crimes also dropped 4.1%, marking the 17th consecutive year the collective estimates for these offenses declined.

The 2019 statistics show the estimated rate of violent crime was 366.7 offenses per 100,000 inhabitants, and the estimated rate of property crime was 2,109.9 offenses per 100,000 inhabitants. The violent crime rate fell 1.0% when compared with the 2018 rate; the property crime rate declined 4.5%.

[Brett Bellmore]

FBI says U.S. violent crimes decreased in 2021, but data is missing

"By the numbers: Violent crime volume decreased by 1% in 2021, from 1,326,600 in 2020 to 1,313,200.

The estimated number of murders increased from 22,000 in 2020 to 22,900 in 2021, a 4.3% increase.

Rates of robberies decreased 8.9% from 2020 to 2021, contributing significantly to the decrease in overall violent crime.

Yes, but: Nearly 40% of law enforcement agencies nationwide, including the New York City Police Department and Los Angeles Police Department, failed to report their 2021 crime data to the FBI, according to data provided to Axios Local from a partnership with The Marshall Project."

I guess you can lower the crime rate by omitting the crimes taking place in big cities, but does it actually help anybody avoid getting mugged?

[Michael P]

https://www.themarshallproject.org/2022/06/14/what-did-fbi-data-say-about-crime-in-2021-it-s-too-unreliable-to-tell looks like the underlying summary. The charts there give a clearer picture of what happened over time than the Axios text, IMO.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore, except to elevate the status of the FBI there has never been any reason to take FBI crime statistics seriously. No standardized reporting requirements for local law enforcement agencies, and no mandatory reports, mean pure GIGO, and it always has. Not long ago a Tampa newspaper published a story showing that FBI crime statistics reported no Florida police killings of anyone for years.

There is indeed an urgent national need for reliable crime reporting, with a particular emphasis on gun crime. Of course you would oppose that.

[Krayt]

Police killings are notoriously unreliable. This comes out again and again when people ask the same question: what are the year over year trends?

For normal crime, they can track this no problem, and see it dropping steadily since the 80s. So what about police murders?

Whoa! Nobody tracks this at state levels, much less aggregated to federal. So there’s no way to see trends.

The desires of police departments to not look bad thus makes them look bad because they cannot prove downward trends, and so are easy pickings for the professional hot air crowd.

[apedad]

Former Leader of Proud Boys Pleads Guilty to Seditious Conspiracy for Efforts to Stop Transfer of Power Following 2020 Presidential Election

Jeremy Bertino, 43, pleaded guilty in the District of Columbia to seditious conspiracy in connection with the Capitol breach. He also pleaded guilty to a charge of unlawful possession of a firearm, stemming from a court-authorized search of his residence in March 2022. As part of the plea agreement, Bertino has agreed to cooperate with the government’s ongoing investigation.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-leader-proud-boys-pleads-guilty-seditious-conspiracy-efforts-stop-transfer-power

'Seditious Conspiracy' - that's a big one.

18 USC §2384. Seditious conspiracy

If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

It'll be interesting to see his sentencing and how much he's cooperating with the govt.

I'm guessing he's diming out everyone and the entire organization.

[John F. Carr]

Seditious conspiracy is an impressive name. Looking past the name, in context it means conspiracy to obstruct Congress. Several people have already been sentenced for obstruction and I think one for seditious conspiracy, treating it as obstruction.

[Stephen Lathrop]

John F. Carr, are you crazy enough to suppose that comment achieves the minimization you seem to be trying for? You have left out the violence, of course. Maybe you think that is a help. But everyone with a television set is free to choose any news channel other than Fox and see the violence for themselves.

[John F. Carr]

I am talking about how the law sees the situation, not how bad the situation was. As charged, the elements are conspiracy, force, and obstruction ("prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law"). Several people have already been convicted of illegal use of force, and several of obstruction. To that the "seditious conspiracy" charge mainly brings a scary name. It doesn't even have a higher statutory maximum sentence than 18 USC 1512(c), the obstruction charge used in other cases.

[Brett Bellmore]

I think they just want to hit a few people with that specific charge to have some semi-defensible excuse for invoking Section 3. I say 'semi-defensible' because they'd be invoking it against other people, not the people convicted.

[Davedave]

Seditious conspiracy is one step short of treason. It was bargained down from the treason charge, and the deal was the testimony from the minion to incriminate the master.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, the deal was testimony from the patsy to incriminate the real target, anyway.

[Davedave]

Yes, the Proud Boys are government patsies...

Get a grip. You're not even keeping up with the message you're supposed to push.

[not guilty]

Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding of Congress is a criminal offense. Conspiracy to do so by force is a separate and distinct offense.

[SRG]

To the Trumpsuckers, the conviction is evidence only for how much pressure the government is able to bring to bear on innocent patriots. Prior to this conviction, of course, when "sedition" was mentioned as one of the 1/6 crimes, the Trumpsucker response was, "show me the conviction".

[JasonT20]

To the Trumpsuckers, the conviction is evidence only for how much pressure the government is able to bring to bear on innocent patriots.

Oh, totally. I have a relative that I see at least weekly that always wants me to know the latest evils committed by Demoncrats. Every guilty plea is because these people would be bankrupted with legal fees otherwise, or the feds threaten to prosecute their kids or something.

That’s the thing about conspiracy thinking. Every piece of evidence that the conspiracy is false is simply proof that the conspiracy is that much more nefarious. A joke I have seen recently (with many variations, so I don’t know the original source):

A couple dies in a car crash and gets to Heaven.

God says, “You have lived a good life. I will give you a completely true and honest answer to any question you have.”

One of them asks, “Who really won the 2020 U.S. Presidential election?”

God replies, “Joe Biden.”

He turns to his partner, “This goes even higher than we thought.”

[Davedave]

It's notable that he plea-bargained away the treason charge - and the quid pro quo is that his testimony directly incriminates Trump with a capital offence (rather than just a capitol offence). It really is absurd that the Trump traitors here keep trying to deny that he faces the chair.

[ThePublius]

Which "he" are you saying faces the chair?

[Davedave]

Trump, obviously. Now the Trump traitors can't even understand plain English. Brains have melted and run out of their ears...

[VinniUSMC]

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha...

The delusional rantings are comic gold.

[Brett Bellmore]

They basically never charge anybody with treason, due to the constitutionally high threshold for conviction. (Two eye witnesses to the same overt act, which has to be an act of literally levying war against the US, or giving aid and comfort to an enemy in war.)

And the idea that you can convict somebody of a capital offense on the basis of somebody else's plea agreement, without any actual evidence, is insane.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

" Two eye witnesses to the same overt act, "

Did some of the conservative insurrectionists livestream their crimes? Perhaps someone recorded those streams, and every member of a jury could be an eyewitness.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Former Leader of Proud Boys Pleads Guilty to Seditious Conspiracy"

Congrats, you got the chief cosplayer.

[M L]

Just from reading the statute, this can apply to the Kavanaugh protesters, antifa's moves on federal courthouses, and plenty of other violent riots and/or protests.

[Sarcastr0]

Care to walk us through the elements? IIRC Prof.Volokh had a thread on this crime about a year ago, after I confused it with old time Sedition.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Any truth to the claims that the recent advance in Ukraine was hampered by Musk's tweaking starlink? He's already said they won't be able to use it in Crimea.

I wonder if the President, under the DPA, could compel SpaceX to provide starlink services.

[Brett Bellmore]

I usually like the fact that Musk treats getting humanity off Earth as an existential priority, because he's right about that: Either we become an interplanetary species, or sooner or later we go extinct. And we honestly do not know when "sooner or later" is going to arrive.

The downside is that he views resisting Russian aggression as enough less important that preventing nuclear war that he's willing to sacrifice Ukraine if that's what it takes.

The deal he proposes is a non-starter, of course, for the simple reason that Russia doesn't actually keep its end of deals; They already had agreed not to invade Ukraine, after all! So even if a bargain were struck, neither side would expect it to be kept, and it would be treated as nothing but a breather to reload.

And, why would the Ukrainians agree to that? Russia currently stands more in need of such a breather than they do. They might be more amenable to a temporary truce once they stop regaining territory, but not today.

[Nige]

Yes, the sooner we get off this lovely, green-and-blue hospitable and fertile planet and into the cold dead radiation-soaked vacuum of space, the sooner we'll be safe as a species!

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, that's exactly right. The sea was more comfortable to life than the cold, dry, harsh land, too. You either expand into new habitats, or you go extinct along with the habitat you've stayed restricted to.

[Nige]

You go extinct in the habitat you've evolved to inhabit if you fuck up the habitat.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Which we are doing, and which is further grist for Brett's mill.

[Nige]

‘Look, if we make this planet uninhabitable, maybe it’ll encourage people to go live on other, even more uninhabitable planets!’

I’m all for space exploration and Moon and Mars colonies and orbital habitats, but the way to ensure the future of the species is to stop destroying the place where the species lives.

Brett can’t abide people transitioning from one gender to another, yet he’s all excited about the genetic engineering and biological alterations that would be necessary for us to adapt to hostile biospheres? Genderfluidity will barely scratch the surface.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'd be fine with people transitioning from one gender to another if it were actually technically possible at this point. But, of course, it isn't. All you can do right now is chemically and surgically mutilate people to maybe pass for the opposite sex if not closely examined. They're still their original sex, just mutilated.

[Nige]

When they add gills to humans to transition them to mer-people so they can live on a water-planet they’ll still be people they won’t really be fish, but I still believe you can transition to being a decent human being Brett.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore, do you recall the various failed experiments with living in man-managed ecologies, under controlled circumstances, right here on earth? All they proved is that for the foreseeable future, our species can’t do that, let alone go to Mars and do it there. In fact, it proved to be a line of investigation which dead-ended, as a casualty of the evident insuperability of problems it highlighted.

Here is a test someone could do to establish when our capabilities are closer to ready: I give you a few ounces of insects, and using just those for raw materials, you build me from scratch a new species of swallow, capable to feed itself, migrate, adapt to changes in its environment, and deliver a few hundred generations of progeny. When you get that done, then I tell you to design your own insects.

If anyone could do that, all it would show is the most basic first-building-block level of bio-engineering capability. All the ecological-interaction problems which doomed those isolation experiments I mentioned would still lie ahead. Those will prove vastly more complex than building any new species from scratch.

But in fact, any attempt to pass the new-species test will fail without that infinitely more complex accomplishment as a prerequisite. Think about it. In your new species of swallow, how many species of new gut microorganisms will be required, and how can you master that one tiny ecological problem, to make that micro-community do its job in stable harmony?

That level of insight will take hundreds-to-thousands of years to master, if it ever can happen. Rushing out to engineer inter-planetary transportation as the first step toward successful migration off earth is pure idiocy. You cannot even guess how to specify what you would need to carry.

Until you can put a biological community including humans in isolation inside an enclosure on earth, and keep it going indefinitely, you haven’t begun to scratch the surface of a problem Musk’s foolish vanity ought to put first, but doesn’t. Human survival on earth will be long or short depending on happenstance, or more likely depending on learned ability to master threats delivered by our own folly.

Amazingly, that latter requirement is dirt-simple to master, compared to every other alternative. We just have to solve somehow, globally, the problem of collective self-restraint, learned with an eye to leaving other life alone. Thus far, we haven’t even a clue how to do that.

[Brett Bellmore]

Of course I recall the Biosphere project. Way too ambitious for a first step, trying to recreate an entire natural biosphere under glass. It would be much more realistic to use a combination of biological and artificial life support, with active regulation. Start from simple and add complexity, not starting from complex and trying to simplify.

[JasonT20]

Either we become an interplanetary species, or sooner or later we go extinct. And we honestly do not know when “sooner or later” is going to arrive.

I don't see any plausible way to become an interplanetary species with anything short of virtually miraculous sci-fi level advances in technology. Even colonizing Mars or the Moon would require supplying the colonies from Earth rather than them being self-sustaining using any tech we can foresee obtaining within the next century.

Every danger to our existence (even just to our current level of civilization, rather than as a species) is on far shorter time scales than any need to leave Earth. Well, an asteroid strike is a long-odds, but not negligible danger on these time scales, but we are clearly starting to take that at least a little seriously and have some plausible hopes against it.

Anything short of an asteroid strike that would endanger the habitability of Earth entirely is on enormous time scales. It is billions of years for the Sun to become a red giant, for instance. I think that there is no reason to think that the Sun will change its output enough to threaten the existence of life on Earth for at least hundreds of thousands of years, if not many millions of years.

Trying to colonize Mars or the Moon is far lower priority than making sure we can live sustainably with the planet we have now. Cleaner energy production, better fresh water and waste management, and more stable geopolitics are the main priorities.

[Brett Bellmore]

I think you're both over-estimating the tech necessary to live on Mars, and underestimating the tech that is plausible in the next few decades.

On the one side, a habitat on Mars doesn't have to be much more than a large balloon; The radiation levels there are not horrific, 240-300 mSv per year. Granted, this is much higher than is average on Earth, but there are places on Earth, (Ramsar in Iran, for instance.) where the radiation levels are that high naturally, and people live there.

Further, very minor effort could reduce that a lot, such as just burying living quarters under some sandbags, so that people would only be exposed to it while working outdoors.

Manufacturing polyethylene from native resources on Mars, (CO2 and water) is a fairly straightforward thing, not particularly challenging. Lots of sand, too. So, no, it's not that bad.

I think it is entirely plausible that we could have self-reproducing factories within a few decades, too, even if we never got nanotech, just by throwing enough robots at conventional factories. At that point our capacity for industrial production would grow exponentially, allowing enormous expenditures of infrastructure per person.

So, no, it's actually a quite plausible goal. You don't need warp drives and replicators, just existing tech and robots not that much better than what we have now, intelligently deployed.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore, leave Mars out of it. Do you suppose anyone can live in some balloon here on earth, without need to draw on countless unaccounted ecological resources? Stuff like that has been tried repeatedly, and always failed quickly.

The biological stability you seem to take for granted here on earth was achieved over millions of years of mutually reinforcing natural selection among literally countless organisms, a great many of which have so far never even been noticed by humans. So far, nobody has ever mastered even a complete description of any particular part of it, let alone achieved insight into how it works, or, more outlandish, how to build such a thing from scratch on a different planet.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Tend to agree. Consider also that planetary danger from extreme volcanic activity is proved in the geologic record. It may occur with a frequency roughly comparable to those astronomical catastrophes.

[Ben_]

The nuclear scaremongering never seems to explain the strategy. Nuclear weapon usage is strategic. You don’t nuke a town to capture it. Ukraine isn’t going to surrender if Russia nukes one or two cities that they don’t want to capture. So what’s the strategy?

[Armchair Lawyer]

Looks like we found the real racists...
The LA City Council (all Democrats).

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/10/11/us/la-city-council-racist-remarks

But seriously, in a political party where everyone is defined by their ethnicity, this type of thing isn't surprising.

[Martinned]

Fortunately the GOP would never do that...

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/16pdf/15-1262_db8e.pdf

[Michael P]

If you're going to whatabout, you should at least cite something remotely similar.

[Martinned]

Is that not a case where people were defined by their ethnicity?

[Michael P]

In that case, the courts defined people by their race, maybe. Not their ethnicity. But even that is really not analogous to what was recorded in Los Angeles.

[Martinned]

Well, the GOP legislature in North Carolina defined voters that way. And I wasn't trying to be more analogous than that, because I was responding to the last line in AL's comment, not the rest.

[Michael P]

Yes, you were just knee-jerk responding to one sentence taken out of context. That was why I called out your comment.

[Armchair Lawyer]

indeed. It's like the entire context of the post is missed, and one line taken out of context to sidetrack the conversation.

[Michael P]

I mean, maybe you want to pick a case where the “political party where everyone is defined by their ethnicity” wasn't driving and writing the decision. Or where that same political party wasn’t responsible for approving the map that they later rejected.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Michael P and Armchair Lawyer, to criticize and condemn racism practiced by Democrats is a good thing. But it loses salience if that is all the racism you can see. It gets worse if you suppose that to point out Democratic Party racism becomes some kind of back door method to enable or excuse Republican anti-black racism. You understand that is what right wingers try to do all the time, right? Of course you do, because you guys are doing it now.

Get consistent. No more whataboutism. Become consistent and committed anti-racists now. I say what happened on the Democratic controlled Los Angeles City Council was reprehensible—at least up until the moment the perpetrator was forced to step down. Now let's see you condemn Republican attacks, judicial and otherwise, on the Voting Rights Act.

[Michael P]

If you're going to whatabout, you should at least cite some specific behavior instead of your usual fact-free bloviating.

[JasonT20]

How about this?

They're not soft on crime. They're pro-crime. They want crime. They want crime because they want to take over what you got. They want to control what you have. They want reparations because they think the people that do the crime are owed that. Bulls**t. They are not owed that.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, Alabama (R)

[Ed Grinberg]

What, is this supposed to be "racist"?
Fuck off. He's absolutely right.

[Michael P]

On the one hand, we have someone calling a Black child "changuito" (little monkey) and suggested he needs a beatdown. On the other, we have someone denying that criminals are owed reparations.

If you can't tell the difference, that says something about you, not about those speakers.

[David Nieporent]

On the other, we have someone denying that criminals are owed reparations.

Liar. What he said was "they want reparations because they think the people that do the crime are owed that."

But nobody wants reparations for "people that do the crime." They want reparations for black people. The only way to square that circle is to realize that for Tuberville, "people that do the crime" and "black people" are synonymous.

[Michael P]

You can't even understand what you quote. Sad.

[Sarcastr0]

Oh, we all get what he was laying down. Dunno if you do, don’t, or are trying hard not to.

Seems like the latter,since DMN walked through it for you, and your only response was bare unsupported denial.

[Michael P]

DMN's imagination rewrote what Tuberville said. As usual, leftist claims that other people are racist are pure projection.

[Sarcastr0]

Still no answer for DMNs logic, just another bare denial, eh? How simple.

[Armchair Lawyer]

"No more whataboutism."

Literally every liberal response to this has been whataboutism.

[Sarcastr0]

Or, maybe, not many are trying to defend these people.

Weird to not see a side circle the wagons regardless of how loathsome the news is, huh?

[apedad]

AL logic:

Some Democrats are stupid so ALL Democrats are stupid.
Some priests are pedophiles so ALL priests are pedophiles.
Some cops are murderers so ALL cops are murderers.
Some teachers rape their students so ALL teachers are rapists.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Some strawmen are made of straw, so all strawmen are made of straw

[John F. Carr]

https://xkcd.com/385/

[Ben_]

Says the guy who, among all the regular commenters here, is by far the most guilty of pointing fingers and generalizing based on isolated actions by a tiny number of individuals.

[Martinned]

OK, this is something I've been wondering about since Monday, in the vain hope that one of the Conspirators might actually blog about it. From the dissent from denial of cert in Thomas v. Lumpkin:

Petitioner Andre Thomas was sentenced to death for the murder of his estranged wife, their son, and her daughter from a previous relationship. Thomas is Black, his wife was white, and their son was biracial. Thomas was convicted and sentenced to death by an all-white jury, three of whom expressed firm opposition to interracial marriage and procreation in their written juror questionnaires. Among other reasons, these jurors opined that such relationships were against God’s will and that people should stay with [their] Blood Line.” App. to Pet. for Cert. 395a. Despite their declarations of bias, Thomas’ counsel not only failed to exercise peremptory strikes on these individuals or move to strike them for cause, but failed even to question two of the three jurors about their stated bias and whether it could affect their deliberations. Without objection from Thomas’ counsel or the state’s attorney, the three jurors were seated. Together with nine other white jurors, they convicted and sentenced Thomas to death.

Never mind ineffective assistance of counsel, there are so many human rights violations in this single paragraph that I don't even know where to start counting. (And it gets worse in the rest of the opinion.) Is this the kind of thing that you people just shrug about and move on??? I mean, I get that this is Texas, and nobody really expects the authorities in Texas to respect black people's human rights (or poor people's, for that matter), but shouldn't the rest of the country at least occasionally make an effort to secure that some sort of justice prevails in that state?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

" Is this the kind of thing that you people just shrug about and move on???"

“Here’s a news item you may not have heard of, but I know you don’t care about it. I am pre-emptively disgusted by you people and your indifference.”

Maybe this triple-murderer’s constitutional rights were violated, but I don’t see how you are going to persuade anyone on the fence with your kind of insults.

[Michael P]

Yeah -- the kind of guy who cuts out his own child's heart and removes his own eyeballs is not exactly a sympathetic defendant or an obvious poster child for overturning a death sentence. One might be suspicious of why some people want endless re-litigation of cases like this.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

It seems he already had a state-court hearing on these claims, lost, and then went to the federal district courts and appellate courts. These federal courts were only supposed to say whether the state court finding was objectively unreasonable. They said no.

Who knows why the Supreme Court denies certiorari? It could be because they don't care about racial injustice. It could be because they think seventeen years on death row with several collateral appeals is plenty. There's no decision on the merits.

Maybe they *could* have ruled on the merits, and spared the guy's life. Or made him take the chance of another jury, more sympathetic to interracial relationships - though such a jury might still take a dim view of *any* relationship which ends up in a triple murder.

[Martinned]

These federal courts were only supposed to say whether the state court finding was objectively unreasonable.

This may well be the most unreasonable court decision that I have ever seen.

[Brett Bellmore]

I don't see that. It's not objectively unreasonable to say that somebody who objects to interracial marriage might still be objective in a murder trial. I mean, what are you concerned about, that they'd have acquitted him because they were glad to see a woman who'd marry across race lines killed, and one less biracial kid in the world?

I think the legal system thinks this conviction was over-determined, so no harm, no foul. Especially since it's not like the defense was denied peremptory challenges, they just didn't use them.

[Martinned]

I mean, what are you concerned about, that they’d have acquitted him because they were glad to see a woman who’d marry across race lines killed, and one less biracial kid in the world?

No, what I'm concerned about is a bunch of racist jurors wanting to see the black defendant hang despite his obvious mental health problems. This is juridicised lynching, pure and simple.

[Brett Bellmore]

The guy didn't even dispute having done it. Remember, ALL the jurors voted to convict, not just the ones who objected to interracial marriage.

You're basically complaining that his lawyer didn't put in a top notch performance defending a guilty defendant who had confessed to committing an incredibly heinous crime.

I mean, I get it, some people object to the death penalty, and will grasp at any straw to spare even the worst guilty people execution, but don't expect folks who aren't fanatically opposed to the death penalty to shed tears over this guy.

[Bob from Ohio]

"ALL the jurors voted to convict"

All had to vote for death as well. The Parkland monster can explain that to our supercilious and smug Dutchman.

[Martinned]

I get it. If there's one thing that unites Americans from across the political spectrum it's that there should be less sympathy for criminals. They just disagree about which criminals get too much sympathy. But the fire & brimstone Old Testament attitude unites the country.

But that doesn't mean you shouldn't be ashamed of yourselves.

[Brett Bellmore]

Sympathy for criminals is lack of sympathy for their victims. If it's a real crime that actually HAS victims, anyway.

[Davedave]

"It seems he already had a state-court hearing on these claims, lost"

Yes, but the state court system is not fit for purpose. It is not allowed to consider claims on their merits in such cases.

The SC should definitely not have denied cert: it's plain that AEDPA is unconstitutional because it denies convicts due process and makes it impossible to overturn a conviction however overwhelming the evidence that the conviction was unsound, and even where it's incontrovertibly a deliberate and flagrant abuse by prosecutors.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

“it’s plain that AEDPA is unconstitutional’

The dissenters didn’t adopt that line of reasoning.

Maybe the traditional doctrine – that the power to create inferior federal courts implies the power to define their jurisdiction – is wrong in this context, but that needs to be argued.

And before you say “habeas corpus,” I think the guy *did* have a habeas corpus hearing …n a Texas court.

[David Nieporent]

it’s plain that AEDPA is unconstitutional

That's as sound as your argument that arresting people for marijuana possession is unconstitutional. You don't seem to know what the word means.

Hint: the Supreme Court has held repeatedly that there's no constitutional right to appeal in the first place.

[Davedave]

The constitution enshrines the right to due process. It is perfectly apparent that there is no due process in such cases.

If it is impossible for procedural reasons to overturn a conviction however overwhelming the evidence it is unsound, then there is obviously no due process and the conviction itself is obviously unconstitutional.

The SCOTUS really should deal with this.

[Martinned]

Really, this sounds like someone who should be executed? (Assuming that anyone ever should be.)

the State agreed that Thomas was psychotic at the time of his offense, it prevailed in arguing that “his psychosis was voluntarily induced just before the killings through ingestion of . . .
cough medicine.”

That must have been some pretty potent cough medicine...

[Life of Brian]

That must have been some pretty potent cough medicine…

Or, more likely, just a lot of it. A 10-second search unearthed this explanation from a drug rehab facility:

People who abuse cough syrup may take far higher doses than recommended. This can lead to dangerous side effects, including:

High blood pressure
Rapid heart rate
Dilated pupils
Nausea and vomiting
Loss of coordination
Slurred speech
Dizziness
Hallucinations
Seizures
Coma

[Noscitur a sociis]

Never mind ineffective assistance of counsel, there are so many human rights violations in this single paragraph that I don’t even know where to start counting.

Such as?

[Ridgeway]

Offending the sensibilities of supercilious and smug Dutchmen?

[Martinned]

- The death sentence full stop
- Having a jury decide whether he should hang, rather than putting that decision in the hands of a judge who has to follow the law
- Having a black man tried by an all-white jury
- Putting a mentally ill person on trial
- Not making sure he has adequate legal representation
- Not properly looking after him while he is incarcerated
- Not allowing him to get any of the above properly fixed on appeal

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I am not comfortable with that all-white jury. I wonder if in addition to randomized selection they could limit challenges so that they don’t “just happen” to keep black people off. I would even be open to the idea that peremptory challenges are so open to racist abuse that they should be abolished altogether.

I doubt the death penalty is administered fairly in the U. S. Was the appeal based on this?

Jurors deciding the death penalty don’t face losing election if they are too “soft.” Or, if this were a federal case, jurors wouldn’t have to think about whether taking a particular position in a case would earn them a promotion within the judicial system. Both jurors and judges have to follow the law – who has more of an incentive not to?

[Martinned]

Elected judges are/would be a separate violation of the defendant’s fair trial rights as far as I’m concerned.

But judges' decisions have to be explained in judgments and can be (and should be) reviewed on appeal. Whatever juries do is essentially unreviewable, unless it's completely unreasonable.

[Kazinski]

Well what in your opinion would have been a just outcome?

From the dissent: “The facts of Thomas’ offense were gruesome: Thomas attempted to remove the victims’ hearts because he believed that would “set them free from evil.” See 995 F. 3d 432, 438 (CA5 2021) (internal quotation marks omitted). Thomas also stabbed himself during the course of his offense; later that day, he turned himself in and confessed. Id., at 438–439. While Thomas was incarcerated awaiting trial, he removed one of his own eyeballs; years later, he removed the other one.”

The job of the Supreme Court isn’t to correct injustice, there is way too much injustice in this world for that, but their job is to say what the law is when its in doubt. There is nothing the court can do to make Thomas whole again (pun intended), nor is there any doubt that a retrial is going to get the same verdict. Do you think he got the death penalty for the interracial marriage, or might it have been for cutting a woman and young boys heart out.

I’m really trying to see what the upside for the justice system would be for the SC to hear this case. Surely if this sort of the thing is common in Texas, which I doubt, then they can find a more sympathetic defendant to vindicate the principal.

Really it happens all the time: someone suffers injustice, gets it to the Supreme Court, they turn down the cert petition thinking, ‘man he got screwed’, but his case has too many problems, I’ll have to find a better one to tackle that issue, and this case has a few problems.

[Martinned]

Well, for one thing to give him a trial with a proper jury.

And just because it isn't the Supreme Court's job to fix (this) injustice, doesn't mean the rest of us can't be outraged by it.

[SRG]

Yeah, basically the 6 justices by implication said, "as you're obviously a murderer and a nutcase, no appeals for you!"

That his arguments failed at lower courts is evidence not for the weakness of the arguments but of the consequentialist approach of the US justice system.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, I agree, that's essentially what they said, and it was a reasonable thing to say. The guy confessed, he objectively did the deed, a retrial is not going to acquit him, don't waste their time complaining of ineffective counsel in a case where Perry Mason couldn't have gotten the guy off.

[Martinned]

I think the defendant probably would prefer not to be executed.

[Brett Bellmore]

Oh, I'm sure. The time to effectuate that preference is when the knife is still in your hand, and the victims still living.

[Martinned]

And if he had been of sound mind at that point he may well have reasoned in that way.

[SRG]

Yes, but that makes justice situational - we're going to deny X his constitutional rights because he's a really bad man. (Thomas is wont to think like that as one can tell by his commonly reciting the gruesome details of a murder or assault in his dissents to successful appeals.)

It encourages prosecutors to see how far they can go to seat a fixed jury, IMO.

[David Nieporent]

They did not, of course, say, "No appeals for you." The guy has had multiple levels of court review on multiple occasions. He had direct appeals through the state courts as well as the habeas process through the state courts, as well as the habeas process in the federal courts.

[not guilty]

Federal habeas corpus review under AEDPA is woefully inadequate to redress violations of federal constitutional rights by state courts. Enactment thereof was a low point of the Clinton presidency. There doesn´t seem to be any inclination by Congress to enact a more protective scheme.

[Bob from Ohio]

"so many human rights violations in this single paragraph that I don’t even know where to start counting"

I'll help.

"murder of his estranged wife, their son, and her daughter "

That's 3 very big human rights violations. Your welcome.

[Martinned]

I'm sorry, do I need to explain the concept of human rights to you? Because something that one private citizen does to another private citizen is never a human rights violation, by definition.

[Bob from Ohio]

They were human, he violated them.

You only care about the murderer.

[Sarcastr0]

Due process is not about caring about the murderer, Bob. And the death penalty is a weird way to care about the victim.

[Bob from Ohio]

He got plenty of process. More than what is due.

"weird way to care about the victim"

Not at all.

The death penalty honors the human dignity of the victims. It shows we value their lives.

[LawTalkingGuy]

If I’m murdered I would consider it a deep deep insult to MY dignity and my value as a human to have someone killed purportedly on my behalf. Even more so if it was done as a result of a racially biased jury or an unscrupulous and dishonest prosecutor, or because of some dumb procedural hurdle.

[Commenter_XY]

Really LTG? To be honest, I'd fry whomever murdered you. Not because I want to insult your dignity; no. The blood of an innocent man murdered by another cries out to heaven for justice.

LTG, there is a thing called retribution. That is not the same as justice.

[Bob from Ohio]

Don't worry LTG, I'd make an exception for you.

[LawTalkingGuy]

On the one hand I should thank you for the courtesy.

On the other, this is a great example of your devotion to situational ethics.

Hmmmmmmmm

[Noscitur a sociis]

What do you think would have been an appropriate outcome in this case?

[LawTalkingGuy]

The one that was reached. The state’s job is to prove that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating factors beyond a reasonable doubt. From what I’ve read, the defense presented significant mitigation regarding the defendant’s history and background.

[Sarcastr0]

“ The death penalty honors the human dignity of the victims. It shows we value their lives.”

You can think that, but saying anyone who doesn’t think that loves the criminal more than the victim is just you being an asshole.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Poll for the forum.

Assume Biden was to leave office before 2024. Who would you rather have replace him? Harris or Pelosi?

[Martinned]

How would that choice ever come up?

[Michael P]

The question arises because they are #1 and #2 in the line of succession.

[Martinned]

Yes, in that order.

[Michael P]

The hypothetical already assumes one incumbent ceases to hold office. Why stop at one, especially given that Democrats just held two impeachments within the same term?

[Martinned]

Biden is old and a '20 president, so he might die. Not sure what your scenario is for removing Harris from the line of succession.

[Longtobefree]

25th amendment and self interest in the cabinet?

[Martinned]

You've watched too many episodes of 24.

[TwelveInchPianist]

25th amendment requires the VP to agree, and for that Harris would have to appoint a VP.

[Brett Bellmore]

Impeachment is actually easier than using the 25th amendment; The 25th amendment requires a 2/3 vote of both chambers within a fairly short time frame to override a President disputing its application, while impeachment only requires a majority vote in the House and a 2/3 vote of the Senate. And doesn't require cooperation from a VP.

[Michael P]

Impeachment would be the most obvious possibility. If Harris had any notable morals, resignation would be plausible, but let's be realistic: She has never let incompetence stop her before, so she won't change her behavior if she ends up in the highest office in the country.

[Martinned]

How would Harris (as VP or President) get impeached while Pelosi is Speaker of the House?

[Brett Bellmore]

I kind of assume that if it was going to put Pelosi in the Oval office, she wouldn't be fighting it very hard. I do wonder what the charge could be, though. Aggravated mopery? As far as I can see, she's just extremely feckless, not criminal.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Probably because Pelosi wanted Harris impeached.

[Kazinski]

Pelosi isn't going to be for much longer, it will probably be McCarthy.

[Armchair Lawyer]

I'm sure you can figure it out. If enough people decided that Harris was not right, then Pelosi would be next in line.

[Martinned]

Good luck with that.

[apedad]

"If enough people decided that Harris was not right, then Pelosi would be next in line."

(checks pocket Constitution...)

Yeah, no, that's not how it works.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Check Article II, Section 4

[Brett Bellmore]

As the law presently stands, if you removed Biden, Harris becomes President. If you then removed Harris before a new VP were approved, the Speaker of the House, (Presently Pelosi) would become President.

One presumes that "if enough people decided that Harris was not right" refers to Harris being removed via impeachment or the 25th amendment. Not a popularity poll.

[not guilty]

Apart from the Vice-president, the presidential line of succession is prescribed by act of Congress, not the Constitution.

[Moderation4ever]

The natural succession is to the VP so it should go that way. Kamala Harris has not step up, but maybe the office itself prevents this from happening. What she would do as President or how she would be received cannot be determined before it happens.

I believe that had the Republicans supported impeachment in Trumps first impeachment that Mike Pence would now be President and that the Republicans would control the Senate.

[Armchair Lawyer]

It is natural. But Harris has...not done well...as VP.

If the Democrats decided that having her as President was very undesirable, they could impeach her.

[John F. Carr]

Who has done well as VP? It's not the sort of job one does well in.

[Davedave]

"Who has done well as VP?"
Al Gore. Invented the internet, y'know...

[Martinned]

And won a Nobel Prize for promoting the fight against climate change.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Nobel Prize"

Snort. Gave Obama one too! Both for doing nothing.

[Brett Bellmore]

And if they'd both actually done nothing, they might have deserved it.

[John F. Carr]

I would rather have Pelosi, in part because she would be a weak caretaker president.

[Mr. Bumble]

You're assuming Democrats control the House after the election.
If not, no Speaker Pelosi.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm assuming we confront this choice during the lame duck session.

[Brett Bellmore]

Incompetence vs evil, a hard call. Especially when the incompetent is also evil, and the evil is somewhat incompetent.

I guess I'd go with Pelosi, because Harris would energetically do the wrong thing, while Pelosi would just be a drop in substitute for Biden, scarcely any different. And it would at least free the House of Pelosi.

[Sarcastr0]

So much evil in your world.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, it's a world where insider trading is rampant in government, for instance. You live in it, too, you're just in a bit of denial about how corrupt government has gotten in this country.

[Sarcastr0]

Insider trading sucks, and is indeed in dire need of better controls. (Though more in the legislature than the executive - Federal ethics rules and financial reporting are no joke!) but evil is quite the overdramatic word to uncork in that.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I’d rather have a drunken sailor, who would bring more fiscal responsibility into the federal government than it’s had so far.

[ducksalad]

Pelosi is a less risky, in the hypothetical situation that there was a choice. She’d do stuff I don’t like but likely to be within known bounds.

For those pointing out Harris is next in line, absolutely correct, and that’s what will happen if Biden can’t keep going. But there are ways around it:

(a) Harris might not want to be president after seeing it up close. Normal people don’t and she might have some residual normal in her. (b) If Republicans somehow came up with the votes they could impeach both Biden and Harris in the same process.

[Commenter_XY]

AL, to answer you directly: Pelosi, and it is not even close.

[Ben_]

They would both be terrible. Pelosi might be less likely to blunder into catastrophe, so Pelosi would probably be less bad.

Harris as President might be the end of the news media. They’d have to pretend she’s not an airhead even as it’s obvious to everyone, even young children, that she is.

I would pick a random person off the street ahead of either of them.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Will Hunter Biden be arrested and convicted on felony gun charges? Or will there suddenly be "prosecutorial discretion" that declines to press such charges?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hunter-biden-tax-gun-purchase-evidence-fbi-us-attorney/

If you're going to have harsh anti-gun laws, but only enforce them against poor people who don't have connections...what does that say?

[Martinned]

How would that be different from all other criminal statutes in the US? How do you think Trump has managed to stay out of prison all these years? (To take the admittedly obvious example.)

[Armchair Lawyer]

Whataboutism?

[Martinned]

You asked "what does that say?" and I answered: "that rich people don't have to worry about the criminal justice system". How is that not a direct answer to the question put?

[Armchair Lawyer]

The full question was

"If you’re going to have harsh anti-gun laws, but only enforce them against poor people who don’t have connections…what does that say?"

And you responded with "Whatabout all these other laws and other issues"

[Martinned]

Yes. There's nothing special about gun laws.

[Armchair Lawyer]

It's amusing all you have is whataboutism.

Usually this means that you don't want to answer the direct question, because it's inconvenient.

[Martinned]

I am guilty of whataboutism all the time, I admit. But this isn’t it, and I don’t see why you would think otherwise.

[Nige]

It's because the answer to your question is institutional, and that doesn't suit.

[Nige]

It's like you want to confine this massive institutional inequality to just one narrow case, rather than confront the whole shebang.

[apedad]

AL asks a Whataboutism question but doesn't like the Whataboutism answer.

Sheesh....

[Moderation4ever]

I would be curious to know how many people are charged and convicted on gun charges like that facing hunter Biden. It would seem to me that this is typically a throw away charge used by prosecutors to get plea deals.

But let's take the case where a prosecutor does pursue the case. Would this open the door to other groups maybe left leaning groups going after other people in the public eye. The fact is that drug and alcohol use are pretty common.

[Michael P]

Between half and two thirds of referrals lead to charges being filed. Presumably many of the cases where charges are not filed have less evidence than the purchaser's own memoir to establish the material falsity of the form.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Yep. DoJ statistics put it at 298 cases filed in 2019 on roughly 478 referrals for lying on form 4473.

So, it’s not the most common crime. But not unheard of either.

[nekit2010g]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abramski_v._United_States

Here's a particularly egregious example.

[Michael P]

That's a good example of how strictly the law is applied, but what makes it egregious? Presumably a former cop should know how seriously feds take Form 4473, and straw purchases specifically. He should have known he was relying on the thin blue line for legal protection, not constitutional, statutory or case law.

[nekit2010g]

Because the purpose of the law is to prevent someone from buying a gun and giving it privately to someone who can't pass an NICS check. Here, he transferred it to an FFL in his uncle's state, who conducted the required background check (and of course, the uncle passed).

The harm that was intended to be prevented with this law wasn't present here.

[Brett Bellmore]

Most of the false affidavit cases in gun purchases can't be prosecuted because you can't prove that the false statement was knowing, or, often, it was just an inadvertent mistake. So they don't get referred in the first place. That's not so in this case, it would be a real slam dunk for somebody who wasn't the son of an important politician.

I think they go forward with it, just because they seem to be resigning themselves to dumping Biden, so his magic aura of untouchability is fading. And he seems to genuinely care for his ne're do well son, they could probably trade dropping the charges for his resigning office on terms that had better PR than invoking the 25th amendment.

[Nige]

'they could probably trade dropping the charges for his resigning office on terms'

You're as much a fantasist as any pizzagater or Qanon.

[nekit2010g]

And the straw purchaser provisions can almost never be prosecuted because they have to prove that you were lying when you said you were the actual transferee, AT THE TIME YOU FILLED OUT THE FORM.

If you buy a gun, go to the range, decide you don't like it, and sell it the next day, you haven't violated the law.

[David Nieporent]

State of mind can be (and almost always is!) inferred from circumstantial evidence. If you buy a gun and sell it the next day, it's not going to be hard to convince a jury that you intended to do so at the time you bought it.

[nekit2010g]

If you sell it for a profit or to a known criminal, maybe. If you sell it for what you paid and tell the jury "Yeah, I just didn't like the way it felt in my hand or thought the slide was too hard to rack" it wouldn't be hard to establish reasonable doubt.

[Sarcastr0]

We don’t live in a political thriller.

And who is ‘they’?

[Brett Bellmore]

Actually, we do live in a political thriller. Only, as the classic bon mot puts it, the difference between truth and fiction is that fiction has to be plausible, the truth doesn't care.

[Sarcastr0]

Real politics has none of the thrilling plots you conjour.

[Nige]

I think it's more you don't care about the truth.

[Ed Grinberg]

If you’re going to have harsh anti-gun laws, but only enforce them against poor people who don’t have connections…

It isn't about how much money you've got. It's about what side you're on. Had it been Donald Trump Jr., you know he'd be in prison right now.

Who-whom-ism

[Kazinski]

Looks like the Igor Danchenko trial is on, and while I'm not holding out a lot of hope he will be convicted it does put the final nail in the coffin of people who have been claiming any material fact in the Steele Dossier was confirmed.

Here is trial transcript of the testimony of FBI supervisory intelligence analyst Brian Auten:

"Auten was asked about the FBI’s efforts to corroborate the Steele allegations just before the first FISA application was submitted. He stated they looked through “FBI systems to determine whether or not we could verify, corroborate, confirm, or disconfirm the information in those reports.”

Durham then asked about corroboration:

Q: And between September 19th of 2016 and October 21st, when the FBI submitted the FISA application, were you able to confirm or corroborate in any of the FBI system the very serious allegations that were contained in the dossier reports?

A: No.

Q: And what can you tell the jurors about whether or not any of the intelligence agencies that the FBI contacted for corroborative information produced any corroborative information?

A: We did receive information back from a number of different agencies.

Q: Then, as to the information that you received back from the agencies, did they corroborate the specificity of specific allegations that were contained in the dossier reports?

A: Not corroborating the specific allegations, no.

Auten was also present for the FBI’s interview of Steele in October 2016, just weeks before the first FISA application was submitted.

Q: When you and Mr. Varacalli, and Mr. Gaeta, and Mr. Guessford met with Christopher Steele in early October of 2016, did Christopher Steele provide any corroborative information for the information that was contained in his reports, in the dossier reports?

A: Not for the allegations, no."

Well there you have it, neither the FBI nor any other agencies they contacted could find any collaboration for any of the allegations in the dossier.

[Davedave]

Lying as usual, and signed into the wrong sock puppet too? You're not getting the rubles for this one, comrade.

"Well there you have it, neither the FBI nor any other agencies they contacted could find any collaboration for any of the allegations in the dossier."

There you have it, a flat-out, flagrant lie. Even the cherrypicked bit you quoted doesn't begin to support that claim.

[Brett Bellmore]

He said "nothing material", so no lie.

Word is, they even offered Steele a cool million dollars if he could provide proof of any of it, and he had squat.

[Davedave]

Which sockpuppet are you using here? You've got them mixed up again.

[Michael P]

If by "word" you mean more of Auten's sworn testimony in court, sure: https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/11/politics/steele-dossier-fbi-durham-danchenko/index.html

[Davedave]

Take a deep breath, stop the fist-typing, and concentrate on logging into the same account you used before...

Auten's testimony does not say what you claim. But it does say:

"Auten confirmed what has been known for many years: the probe was launched after the US government got intelligence from a friendly country that a Trump campaign aide had bragged to one of its diplomats that the Russians had offered to help Trump beat Hillary Clinton."

You're really not doing a good job earning those rubles.

[Brett Bellmore]

So, basically, you're just pounding the table in the hope that people will believe your denials instead of the sworn testimony?

[Nige]

I think that's what Durham is trying to do, but the table keeps hitting him back.

[David Nieporent]

Word is, they even offered Steele a cool million dollars if he could provide proof of any of it, and he had squat.

Trumpkins are crowing over this, but I'm not sure why. Steele wasn't a member of law enforcement or a government official; he had no investigatory powers. All he could do, all he did do, and all he purported to do was compile what people were telling him. Once he did that, creating the dossier, it's not surprising he wouldn't have additional information on the subject. I'm sure he'd love to have gotten corroboration — if for no other reason than that it would have made him look good and perhaps gotten him some money — but it's not some damning revelation that he couldn't.

[Kazinski]

I knew I shouldn’t have tried to mess with Davedave, he’s too sharp for me, I’ve been sock puppeting here for years and nobody figured it out until Davedave did.

I’m Sacastr0’s sock puppet, or actually we are both DavidBehar’s sock puppet.

But alas even sock puppets have a mute button.

But I can’t think of a better way for a newbie to come to a site and beclown themselves, so I will give you that.

[David Nieporent]

Interesting that your focus isn't on the fact that the prosecution is going as badly as Durham's other case did:

https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/12/politics/durham-fbi-russia-probe-witness

Durham rebukes his own witness and slams FBI’s Russia probe after trial setbacks

The final expected trial of special counsel John Durham’s probe took an unexpected turn Wednesday, with Durham grilling and rebuking his own witness after the witness seemed to bolster the defense of Igor Danchenko, a key Steele dossier source.

The dynamic was surprising because it was Durham’s first witness. And at times, while Durham personally questioned the witness, he strayed from the narrow case against Danchenko and focused more on the FBI’s mistakes in 2016 as it investigated then-candidate Donald Trump.

[Moderation4ever]

First, I am confused about what needed to be collaborated, because much of what has been reported about the Steele dossier was that it was mostly a condensation of publicly know information. That Trump had extensive business connections with Russians. Something the former President and his family have not denied.

Second there were other sources such as the staffer telling bar room stories about having access to information the Russians hacked. Would this not be supporting.

The FBI was not taking a case to court they were looking for a FISA warrant. It has been documented that FISA courts are pretty lenient in giving warrants.

[Moderation4ever]

I accept that charges are filed, but what is the conviction rate? Again, is this just a throw away charge for a plea deal?

[Michael P]

This comment was meant to be here.

[Michael P]

"Would this not be supporting."

That would not support a FISA warrant targeting Trump's campaign, no.

[Michael P]

Why is that relevant? Perhaps the modal (most frequent, even if not a majority) case is a straws purchase, where someone with a clean record buys a firearm for someone who is not eligible. In that case, the only other likely charge would be illegal transfer of the firearm. But those cases don't resemble the Hunter Biden case at all.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/lying-to-atf-on-gun-purchase-form-yields-few-prosecutions-data-shows/ar-AAYfipD discusses a few if the challenges in prosecuting someone for lying about drug use -- but again, the typical case there is not like Hunter Biden and his memoir.

[Michael P]

Argh. It's way too easy to move one's response in this commenting system.

[Brett Bellmore]

The difficulty in straw purchase cases is often that it's not a straw purchase if you bought the gun to give as a gift. Or if you bought the gun, and decided afterwards to sell it. You need to literally prove that the person bought the gun on behalf of somebody else who was actually the one paying.

That can be a very difficult thing to prove. You generally need surveillance footage from the gun shop showing the person who got the gun pointing out what he wanted, and then proof money changed hands afterwards.

[David Nieporent]

There was no FISA warrant targeting Trump's campaign, of course.

[apedad]

Nebraska man gets prison for threatening Colorado election official

A Lincoln man was sentenced Thursday to 18 months in prison for making threatening posts on an Instagram page concerning Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold.

Among the posts made by 42-year-old Travis Ford were ones that said, “Do you feel safe? You shouldn’t.” And “Your security detail is far too thin and incompetent to protect you. This world is unpredictable these days.…anything can happen to anyone.”

According to federal court documents, Ford also posted similar threats associated with the president of the United States and another public figure.

The Associated Press reported that U.S. District Judge John M. Gerrard rejected pleas by Ford’s attorney for a lighter sentence.

Gerrard said there’s “nothing special” about being steadily employed, noting that Ford made 18 serious threats over three months. The judge called arguments over vaccine mandates “complete nonsense,” according to the AP.

https://nebraskaexaminer.com/briefs/nebraska-man-gets-prison-for-threatening-colorado-election-official/

At least the 1/6ers actually did something.

This mouth-breather is getting the big hammer for making threats (FYI, he pled guilty so deserves his sentence).

[John F. Carr]

Press release: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/man-sentenced-prison-threatening-election-official

[nekit2010g]

Yeah it's only okay for Letitia James to threaten NRA-affiliated insurance companies with the power of the state. Little guys can't do it.

[Davedave]

So you think it's OK for men to openly threaten violence against women? Her position in government is irrelevant, the man's an abuser and needs to spend a long time in jail.

[apedad]

Agree! And that's why I added he deserves his sentence.

[nekit2010g]

If women are uppity and don't know their place, of course it's OK for men to threaten them. Society was a better place when white men were unabashedly on top, and everyone else knew to shut up or get smacked in the face.

[not guilty]

Poe´s Law?

[Brett Bellmore]

Seems like a fair cop.

[Michael P]

Joe Biden claimed that Beau Biden died in Iraq.

I wish this was more notable, but it's merely example #978 (approximately) in "Joe Biden says trivially false thing to shine up a story".

[Davedave]

It's not false. He has repeatedly (and plausibly) linked his son's cancer to exposure to harmful substances in Iraq.

"Biden said in a 2019 speech that he believes Beau's "exposure to burn pits" in Iraq "in my view, I can’t prove it yet, he came back with stage four glioblastoma. Eighteen months he lived, knowing he was going to die.""

One has to wonder what kind of scumbag you are to try and create political capital by lying about something a grieving father said about his dead son. Well, one doesn't actually have to wonder, we know what kind of scumbag you are from your other posts: a white-supremacist traitor working for Putin.

[bevis the lumberjack]

What kind of scumbag is the father to regularly use his dead son as political capital when there’s zero evidence that his son’s death had any connection to Iraq? I sympathize with any parent who has lost a child, but he needs to quit harping on the Iraq part. It just looks callous.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

You stick with Trump (who belittled soldiers and Gold Star families), white nationalists, Republicans, Oath Keepers, Republicans, insurrectionists, bigots, and conservatives, bevis -- it suits you. And keep whining about Biden's reflections on his dead son. That suits you, too.

I await your replacement, clinger.

[Nige]

The right are weirdly pro-toxic burn-pit.

[M L]

Davedave is a troll. Do not feed the troll.

[Sarcastr0]

He seems pretty sincere to me.

Not that I agree with him.

[Michael P]

You're not quoting the relevant bit: "I say this as a father of a man and won the Bronze Star, the conspicuous service medal, and lost his life in Iraq."

There's a difference between being exposed to carcinogens and losing one's life.

[Davedave]

So you think the servicemen exposed to Agent Orange don't deserve their disability benefits?

Yet again the traitors show their true colours: you hate everything America stands for.

[nekit2010g]

If they can prove by a preponderance of the evidence the exposure caused their medical issues, of course. But most are full of shit.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Did those soldiers who got Agent Orange "lose their life in Vietnam"?

Or back at home?

[ThePublius]

Davedave, you are quite the troll. First, what Biden said, that his son lost his life in Iraq, is objectively false. Full stop. Metaphorically, perhaps, but not literally. And Biden's talk, in context, was meant to be taken literally. He is well know for his counter-factual embellishment in his talks.

Second, no one said that servicemen exposed to Agent Orange don’t deserve their disability benefits except you! Michael P didn't say that.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Agent Orange? WTF?

What does that have to do with Biden?

[Nige]

Being exposed to carcinogens and shortly thereafter losing one's life to cancer seem quite profoundly connected.

[Ridgeway]

Nobody says that someone who died from cancer after Agent Orange exposure was "killed in Vietnam".

Nobody says that someone who died from respiratory disease stemming from being exposed to the toxic air at Ground Zero was "killed on 9/11."

Nobody says that someone who commits suicide as a result of severe PTSD after returning from deployment to Afghanistan was "killed in Afghanistan."

It takes nothing away from their sacrifice to describe the circumstances of their deaths accurately.

[loki13]

"Nobody says that someone who died from respiratory disease stemming from being exposed to the toxic air at Ground Zero was “killed on 9/11.”"

I wouldn't say they were killed on 9/11 (because ... dates) but I know a lot of families of first responders who later died who say that their loved ones died because of, or due to, or other variations related to 9/11 ("from 9/11").

I think it's a fair statement to make. If you don't, you're welcome to tell them your view yourself.

[Ridgeway]

And I have no issue with what they are saying, because is is accurate.

[Nige]

Given that the Iraqi burn pits likely caused his death, it seems like an extraordinarily shitty thing to get pernickety about.

[Ridgeway]

I'd argue that it is significantly shittier to exaggerate or even falsify the circumstances of one's loved ones' death for personal political gain.

The "Beau died in Iraq" statement is hardly the first example of this. Far shittier was falsely accusing the driver of the truck that killed his first wife and son of having "drunk his lunch" before the accident.

[Nige]

It's neither exaggeration nor falsification, you're just being shitty.

I'd say the driver killing his wife was a far, far shittier thing to do.

[David Nieporent]

It takes nothing away from their sacrifice to describe the circumstances of their deaths accurately.

Unless the context is one in which the specific location matters — let's say, there's a benefit only available to families of people who died in country — I don't think it adds a whole lot to say, "Actually, even though he died because of what happened to him in Iraq,¹ he didn't die until he came back." I mean, if I'm writing a biography I want to be precise. But in just talking? Who cares? This isn't like the recent congressional candidate who claimed to have served in combat but never made it within 500 miles of Iraq.

​
​
¹N.B. I have no idea whether this is correct.

[Bob from Ohio]

"won the Bronze Star, the conspicuous service medal"

He was a JAG. Medals given for being a good boy [and son of Senator/VP]

[Bob from Ohio]

"he believes "

Biden "believes" a lot of things, is there any actual evidence for this?

[Sarcastr0]

It’s not a stretch I would make, but it’s hardly some out of the norm falsehood.

Amazing to see those who did not care about Trumps implausible, numerous, and often not even useful lies suddenly become inquisitors of political truth.

[Michael P]

Today I learned that there are men on OnlyFans. And also that, in Singapore, you can be jailed for violating a police order but might only get a (small-ish) fine for distributing obscene material. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-63238232

[John F. Carr]

I never thought about it, but if there male prostitutes (for male clients) it makes sense that there are male performers (presumably also for male clients).

[dwb68]

Don't look now, massive government spending still causing inflation.

[Sarcastr0]

As usual you may want to like elsewhere in the world before you are so certain of the single causal factor in America.

Have any of your many out on a limb predictions come true, btw?

[M L]

They don't have massive government spending anywhere else?

[Sarcastr0]

Not time correlated with inflation.

[M L]

Incorrect. Other developed nations have out of control spending, too.

It turns out the temptation to steal trillions of dollars in legal plunder is universal.

[Sarcastr0]

By your definition everyone has had out of control spending for a very long time. And yet inflation showed up about when energy markets and supply chain crunches did.

Weird.

[M L]

More specifically, deficit spending, money printing and increasing the money supply is inflationary and is devaluing of the currency, by definition.

On the other side of the equation, when it comes to "inflation" is the global demand for US dollars, and of course factors affecting the supply and demand of goods that the dollar is typically measured against in order to define "inflation."

I would focus on the money supply itself. Bitcoin famously has a hard cap on supply, a maximum amount of Bitcoin that can exist, which obviously is key to its perceived value. Now suppose there were a person or entity that could create trillions of Bitcoins out of thin air. First, that would be a good person to be, or to be friends with. But second, creating additional Bitcoin would devalue Bitcoin, obviously.

Same goes for stock in a corporation. Let's say the corporation owns assets worth $100 and has 100 shares of stock. Each share of stock is worth around 1 dollar. But now let's say that the corporation issues another 100 shares to you for free. Yay for you! But, the other shareholders are not going to be too happy since they just lost half their money. Now extend the analogy further. Typically you would not receive shares of stock for free, right? No, you have to pay for them or maybe contribute valuable services or goods. A publicly held corporation might justify issuing new shares for example because they need liquidity and they apparently believe the price they can get for equity is quite high for what it is.

By analogy when the government spends money it does not have, or creates money that did not previously exist so they can spend it, they try to claim that the benefits of this are worth it. But of course, anyone with a brain can see that government spending is extremely wasteful. Most of it goes to bureaucrats sitting around doing nothing.

[Sarcastr0]

By your logic we should have had high inflation since Reagan. We have not.

And your analogy between sovereign debt and corporate stock is hilariously inapt.

There is a reason microeconomics is not the same as macroeconomics.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"By your definition everyone has had out of control spending for a very long time. And yet inflation showed up about when energy markets and supply chain crunches did."

Well, yes. Guess what happens when you print a shitload of money in the face of supply constraints? You might get away with some overspending if real output can adjust, but we jacked up spending hugely when we knew the supply of goods and services was going to be constrained. To avoid inflation, you need to reign in the money supply if the supply of goods is constrained.

Different conditions require different approaches. You can't just say, well, gee, my approach worked fine in other conditions, so it must be the conditions that are at fault, not my policies.

[Sarcastr0]

Inflation is happening worldwide, even to countries that didn’t do anything new monetarily, and who did only modest fiscal policy.

I mean being cocksure about causality in macroeconomics already means you have an agenda, but not you are ignoring data.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Yeah? Where is inflation happening where they didn't increase the money supply, or contracted the money supply? Put up or shut up.

[Sarcastr0]

The European bank has not made any policies recently to increase the money supply,

More importantly, if that’s your economically ignorant goalpost, we’ve been doing quantitative easing for decades without inflation. So maybe wrong goalpost, eh?

[Martinned]

In the US: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FEDFUNDS

[TwelveInchPianist]

I don't know what European bank did or didn't do, but the money supply increased.

[Sarcastr0]

Of course it did! Money supply naturally increases, that’s why the gold standard is so dumb!

I’m no great shakes economist but you seem way out of your depth.

[TwelveInchPianist]

“Money supply naturally increases,”

Lolwut?

“I’m no great shakes economist ”

Well, one way you can improve would be to learn how to read a graph, so you can read the one I linked to and see what happened to the Euro supply during the pandemic.

“you seem way out of your depth.”

At least I can read a graph.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"if that’s your economically ignorant goalpost, we’ve been doing quantitative easing for decades without inflation."

Well, no, we've been doing it with low inflation. And now we're doing much higher increases in the money supply, in much different circumstances, and it's causing massive inflation.

I mean, talk about out of your depth.

[dwb68]

I've been warning about runaway inflation due to trillions in spending since late 2020. Right here in the comments section (check). **

Massive government spending in the face of supply shortages causes inflation. Period. So. Obviously the cure for massive inflation is to spend more money lmao, pump 500 billion into the economy with student load writedowns.

** stagflation is coming too, when interest rates get high enough we will have high unemployment and high inflation.

Welcome to the new 70s, same as the old 70s.

[Sarcastr0]

You’ve been using inflation to attack government spending, pretending you have superior insights into the cause.

It’s not very impressive how shallow yet prideful your unearned certainty continues to be.

[ThePublius]

Sarcastr0, for a very intelligent guy, you sound so dumb when you say things to protect your partisan position.

There are, at the top level, typically seven factors that drive inflation. Of those, the ones that most people surmise are driving our current inflation are:
- the expansion of the economy since the contraction caused by covid (demand-pull inflation);
- the increase in the money supply due to all of the stimulus dollars the govt. sent out to people, long beyond when it was necessary or prudent (demand-pull inflation);
- government regulation - the changes since Biden assumed office, in particular, in the energy sector, which made it more expensive for energy producers to operate, and lowered the value of their investments and resulted in canceled plans that would have increased supply (cost-push inflation).

Virtually all of this occurred because of or was ignored by Biden.

Remember, too, that core-CPI, which is at historic highs, doesn't include energy or food anymore!

(BTW, despite use being in a recession according to the standard definition (two consecutive down-GDP quarters) Biden keeps insisting we are not yet in a recession.)

[Sarcastr0]

You left off expectations. And supply chain issues, and energy.

In other words, you aren’t talking sense, just partisan politics like usual.

Maybe it is something Biden could have avoided. But that is as of yet far from clear.

[ThePublius]

I did address energy, re-read my post.

[Sarcastr0]

You addressed regulation as then sole cause of energy prices rising, Which is…really dumb.

[ThePublius]

No it's not! I said the top causes, not all the causes. Why don't you volunteer some content instead of just sniping at others' comments? Don't you have anything intelligent to add? (I think not.)

[ThePublius]

So, let me ask. What is the cause of energy prices rising since the moment Biden assumed office?

[Ben_]

Hoarders and wreckers. And unliquidated kulaks.

Also it’s Americans’ fault for not centering our lives around the climate religion. If you and everyone else had just moved into a tiny flat, sold your car, and started biking to work like a good Amish person or climate religion zealot, then you wouldn’t be buying up artificially restricted, artificially expensive energy.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"You left off expectations. And supply chain issues, and energy."

The accident wasn't caused by the fact that I turned the wheel to the right, it was caused by the fact that the road went to the left!

[Ben_]

Note how Sarcastr0 just responds with evasion, double-talk, taunts, and ad hominems.

Biden, and Obama before him, and all Democrats in responsible government positions, are always complete bystanders, victimized by the world, with nothing they can possibly do to alter anything to avoid any of these problems. But keep electing them for some reason.

[Sarcastr0]

How extremely shallow a take. It’s all the other sides fault, and anyone pointing to facts saying otherwise is a liar.

In reality both sides are flawed in plenty of ways, and sometimes fault is either unclear or maybe not attributable.

Your world is much smoother and childlike. Think for a moment which might be right - your simplistic black and white partisan world, or the more challenging one of nuance and uncertainty.

[Ben_]

You post isn’t about anything I said. Were you talking to one of the voices in your head?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Why does the Volokh Conspiracy advertise itself as libertarian rather than conservative?

A representative of another disingenuous right-wing mouthpiece explains:

“Being branded as neutral but actually having the people who know, know that you’re actually conservative puts us in a unique position.”

And why has the Volokh Conspiracy refrained from using a vile racial slur for nearly two months (after using a disgusting racial slur at an every-three-weeks pace for nearly two years?

Was it a sudden improvement of character?

Irritation at being called out for this boorish conduct?

Mere happenstance?

Had I missed a few slurs here and there?

Concern that somebody’s employer might take action?

This puzzled me until I remembered: an election approaches.

Carry on, clingers.

[apedad]

Texas family of 5 sentenced in Jan. 6 case

Five members of a Texas family were sentenced Wednesday for their roles in the U.S. Capitol breach on Jan. 6, 2021.

(Note: All pled Guilty.)

District of Columbia Chief District Judge Beryl Howell sentenced Dawn and Thomas Munn to 14-day prison sentences, three months home confinement and three years of probation for their roles leading four of their eight children into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. Three of their adult children were sentenced to probation, with the oldest child, Kristi, also receiving a brief period of home confinement.

Prosecutors alleged that Dawn Munn, a nurse; Thomas, 55, a U.S. Army veteran; son, Joshua, 25, a janitor; and daughters Kristi, 30 and Kayli climbed into the Capitol through broken windows in a Senate wing door.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/texas-family-of-5-sentenced-in-jan-6-case/

Here's the kicker, "In court filings ahead of the sentencing hearing, Dawn Munn (the mother) indicated a federal stimulus check helped pay for the trip."

[Bob from Ohio]

"climbed into the Capitol through broken windows in a Senate wing door."

"acknowledging they spent nearly an hour inside the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, including time in a private Senate conference room"

"Howell also said some of the family members had made social media posts that "contributed to the misinformation about Jan. 6." "

A modern Manson family.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Not really. Likely just a bunch of downwardly mobile, disaffected, delusional, worthless right-wingers.

[Brett Bellmore]

Not terribly serious conduct, but nobody climbs into a government building through a broken window thinking they're being law abiding. So my sympathy is somewhat limited.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Hey, do you think they'll ever charge the FBI agents and Antifa agitators that broke those windows that family climbed through?

[apedad]

(Shhhhhhhhh BCD! Armchair Lawyer, Jimmy the Dane, etc., disapprove of us doing Whataboutism.)

[John F. Carr]

Out of four charges, the deal had them plead guilty only to "parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building". They did admit knowing they were not allowed in the building. They did not plead guilty to illegal entry or disorderly conduct.

I'm curious how the prosecution and defense approach the decision of what charges to keep and what charges to throw out in a case like this.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Core US Inflation Rises to 40-Year High, Securing Big Fed Hike
Prices excluding food and energy increased 6.6% from year ago
Shelter, food and medical care contribute most to broad rise" Bloomberg

I'm sure its transitory.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

If a six or seven percent change in anything is a genuine problem for you, get a job, get an education, develop some marketable skills, and/or improve your work ethic.

Maybe start by moving to successful, modern, productive, educated community.

[Bored Lawyer]

Hopefully, the Democratic party candidates will all adopt the same condescending indifference you do. It's a winning strategy.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The jobs reports continue to be strong.

But yeah, I figure most of the bigoted dopes still living in the depleted backwaters don't deserve much sympathy for their self-inflicted circumstances.

[Bored Lawyer]

"As a dog returns to his vomit, so a fool repeats his folly"
Proverbs 26:11

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

"I tawt I taw a putty tat."
Elmer Fudd

"Beep" Beep!"
Roadrunner

"Choose reason. Especially over silly, childish, low-grade superstition."
Timeless observation

[Life of Brian]

“I tawt I taw a putty tat.”
Elmer Fudd

Tweety wept.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Tweety also said it.

I tend to think of Elmer Fudd when reading comments from Volokh Conspiracy fans.

[Commenter_XY]

1977-79, all over again; except the bond market is significantly worse. And Bob from Ohio, inflation will not be transitory; I am certain of that. We are years away from 2% inflation.

The elderly who rely mostly on fixed income (i.e. social security) are the worst off in this inflationary environment. It's bad.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Transitory" is what Biden's regime called it when it first kicked up

[Bob from Ohio]

"Wholesale prices rose 0.4% in September, more than expected as inflation persists" CNBC

I’m sure its transitory.

[Bob from Ohio]

"US mortgage rates hit 14-year high as inflation soars" BBC 10/15

I’m sure its transitory.

[Brett Bellmore]

Everything is transitory in a long enough perspective...

[BravoCharlieDelta]

What's a better model for you to purchase insurance for your family?

1. Your employer defining what plans you select from, whether or not they meet your needs based upon the businesses goals and objectives and your price dictated by them to meet their cost/benefit standards?
2. Some federal committee defining what plans you select from, whether or not they meet your needs, based upon racial equity, corrupt influence schemes, budgetary concerns, and the dignity of favored groups like homosexuals and setting the price not based upon your risk to the pool, but upon the shared healthcare costs of your zip code?
3. You selecting from an open marketplace of a large variety of plans based upon your needs and risk tolerance whose price is determined by the risk you pose to the pool?

[Michael P]

The problem is that #3 would normally mean prices depend very much on medical history, in a way that the US public broadly opposes. And it's really hard to regulate how to balance that with sustainable prices that still have some accountability for personal choices.

[Moderation4ever]

Agree here.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

You didn't have to get a checkup when you got life insurance?

[Michael P]

Is that kind of life insurance affordable for 65- or 70-year-olds?

[DaveM]

4. You, as a member of a very large group of insureds such as “everyone associated with your industry”, select from an open marketplace of industry-specific plans based upon the collective needs and risk tolerance of your group, whose price is determined by the collective risk of your group, and whose continuation is not based on employment, just on your membership in the group and your paying of your premiums, co-pays, and deductible.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Why would your risk be associated with your industry?

That makes no sense.

[Josh R]

I’m getting a colonoscopy tomorrow and the recent NEJM article is on my mind.

I think it is the first-ever (or at least one of this large size) randomized trial of the benefits of strictly preventative (no symptoms) colonoscopies. I found it strange the media reports, including in those reports the comments from the authors, focused on the overall result that those in the treatment group (intended to get a colonoscopy) experienced no better mortality than those in the control group (intended not to get a colonoscopy). But since over half of those in the treatment group did not get a colonoscopy, and those that did had a 50% risk reduction in death, it seems to me the focus in the media reports were misguided.

[Brett Bellmore]

Mine's scheduled for next Tuesday. It's a pain, (Though the prostate biopsy I got when my PSA came in too high was a thousand times worse.) but the last decade's peace of mind was worth it.

I feel for you tonight. The prep for this procedure is much worse than the procedure itself.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Most of these preventive diagnostic tests are being proven time and time again to not lead to the intended results. There are a bunch of answers why - false negatives, diagnostic errors, etc.

PSA counts are no longer thought of to be diagnostic unless you have a contributing factor.

Pap smears are only done every few years because those were producing more harm than good.

Colonoscopies are now up on the table. They have various side effects, short term and long term too that you don't hear much about.

Instead of these mechanical diagnostic tests you might just be better off waiting the few years for the blood test versions to get perfected. Those seem to have a higher predictive value.

[Moderation4ever]

I have had three colonoscopies, and they get easier each time. I can swallow the go-lytely with little trouble.

What I find interesting and to your point is that we have noninvasive test for colon cancer. I asked about these nonivasive tests when my doctor and I discussed my upcoming colonoscopy. What my doctor told me was the colonoscopy was considered preventive and so covered by my healthcare insurance. If I chose the noninvasive test and its negative no problem. If I take the noninvasive test and its positive, then a colonoscopy must be performed, it is now diagnostic, and I will have to pay for the test. This is a great example of how the fee structure is forcing the more expensive and invasive procedures.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

You should inquire with your doctor about using Suprep instead of golytely. It is MUCH easier and more pleasant. Much less liquid to drink, and just as effective. Take it from someone who's had about 25 colonoscopies in his life (ulcerative colitis since 18).

[Josh R]

It looks like you bought into the media reports even though the data suggest colonoscopies do a good job.

[Commenter_XY]

The prep is worse than the deed itself, Josh R. Hope everything works out for you!

[ducksalad]

Probably too late for this advice, but start the prep drinks absolutely as soon as the instructions permit the previous night, and get them down as soon as possible,

I picked the later times in the allowed window and took my time drinking the awful stuff. The result was that the effects were still ongoing while driving to the clinic, filling out the forms, and waiting in the lobby.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Pfizer just confessed in a trial that the vaccine was never tested against stopping the spread of the infection.

Why did the people in government lie to us? And who will hold them accountable for the harm and damage they caused with their lies?

[Josh R]

Citation?

[Brett Bellmore]

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2022/10/pfizer-director-admits-no-testing-of-stopping-covid-transmission-before-introduction.html#more-177829

[Josh R]

1) The “admission” was not in a trial. 2) The “admission” was in highly edited video that might be out of context. And 3), assuming we can take the “admission” at face value, all it does is acknowledge testing for effectiveness against transmission was not completed before emergency use authorization. The testing was completed afterwards and showed good results (that would turn out not to be so good for later variants).

If BravoCharlieDelta is basing his post on this citation, it’s Bull Shit. And yet, all of the responses are from like-minded people who buy into conspiracist Bull Shit.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

The testing showed good results that the vaccine stops the spread of the infections?

There is no way you really believe that. Seriously.

[Josh R]

Seriously

[BravoCharlieDelta]

What's the CDC and Pfizers position on the vaccine stopping the spread?

[Josh R]

I don't know.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

You should've read your link, you dumbass.

Some choice quotes:

The fact that vaccines are good at preventing serious infection, but less good at preventing transmission makes policymaking difficult.

Again, first generation covid vaccines were evaluated against reducing hospital admissions and death in the challenging first year of the pandemic. They wouldn’t have been expected to generate sterilising immunity and block transmission.

“They’re recognising that vaccines aren’t preventing transmission, and you’ve got too many people having to isolate,” says Bauld. “Policymakers have decided that the game’s up on transmission, but that you need a different approach.”

"The main point of vaccines is not to do with preventing transmission,”

lol man you're stupid.

[Josh R]

Of course the vaccines are less good at preventing transmission than disease and death. And of course they don’t block transmission. But, they did reduce by between 40% and 50% the likelihood of transmitting the alpha variant.

[M L]

A similar question is how can anyone trust or take medical institutions seriously when those institutions say a man can get pregnant? And when they have irreparably damaged the bodies of countless people, including children below the age of consent, through barbaric Frankenstein surgeries and permanently disfiguring chemical castration hormones?

[Ben_]

As professions become more political, professional individuals will increasingly be (dis)trusted the way politicians are (dis)trusted.

For doctors and medical professionals, this will inevitably lead to deaths and other bad health outcomes.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Nah. Smart, educated, reasoning, accomplished people will still be guided by credentialed, educated practitioners associated with strong mainstream institutions (research centers, reputable firms, etc.).

Dopes will still be attracted to faith healers, Dr. Oz-type quacks, online legal providers, "miracle cures," "magic pills," South Texas law graduates, holistic healers, some paralegal from church, and the like.

[Michael P]

I can understand not testing specifically to see if it prevented transmission -- the big concern was death or severe illness.

I do not understand, as you allude to, why government officials asserted, or even just acted like, the vaccines would prevent transmission. We have enough experience with other respiratory diseases to know that our immune system works very differently in our airways than in the rest of our bodies. At best, this kind of vaccine would plausibly reduce the transmission window -- not close it.

[Ben_]

They lie because they think it will accomplish their goals. They think explaining the truth to people is beneath them and that you can’t be trusted to know the truth about their plans for your life and health.

Then they wonder why people won’t cooperate with them the next time. They genuinely think we should be ok with being lied to.

[DaveM]

It is surely a sign of just how jaded we've become that this draws almost no attention. Speaking for myself, I concluded by early 2020 that we were not being given reliable information. I believe my specific turning point was when I learned that the causes of death were not being segregated into dying "with" COVID vs. dying "from" COVID. It was obvious that our public health system had been radically co-opted.

So: no trust, no interest in knowing that they lied. Sad, really. And dangerous.

[Nige]

'I believe my specific turning point was when I learned that the causes of death were not being segregated into dying “with” COVID vs. dying “from” COVID.'

You're an idiot. You believed whatever bad-faith conspiracy-mongering sinister explanation for this was circulating rather than went looking for whatever the actual reason was? No wonder elementary things that don't come as a suprise to anyone shock you at how nobody's surprised at them.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Sadly for your untethered from reality worldview he is exactly correct.

[Nige]

He's mush.

[Nige]

Not a confession. This was public knowledge all the time.

[Jimmy the Dane]

Here is some brazen media malpractice.

"Guy sitting in his car simply eating a hamburger got shot by police" articles.

Now I have watched the bodycam footage and do not think there was enough to justify the use of deadly force. Or at least there is enough to put that to a jury.

However, you just can't ignore the fact that these stories have generally left out or completely buried a few details.
1. The guy was suspected of running from the cops the night before and was wanted.
2. The officer thought he recognized the car while on another call and hence the confrontation. He was not just harassing random people in a parking lot.
3. Because it was presumably a felony stop at least he ordered the guy out of the car at gun point.
4. Upon immediately seeing it was law enforcement, hamburger guy put his car into gear in an attempt to speed away with his door still hanging wide open.
5. Hamburger guy hit the gas when the first bullet was fired so it is hard to tell his ultimate intention but he did manage to pull out quickly and if it were not for multiple gun shot wounds probably would have run again as he was found a few blocks away bleeding out.
6. A reasonable take from the video could have left someone with the impression he waited to hit the gas in hopes that the open car door hit the cop.

Did the cop have enough to think hamburger guy was going to ram him with his car? Hard to tell from biased articles and the bodycam clip. But, I'm sure there is MUCH more to this story. White washing over the details isn't helping with the current confidence problem the public has with the press.

Finally, before the usual peanut gallery jumps on here, I am not defending this cop. There are problems with the policing system, but those have just gotten worse since "defund the police" and the media decided every story was going to be "look at this innocent person who was killed by police for no reason!" This is more about media malpractice and bias then a commentary on law enforcement. I have no problem with the cop standing trial for his actions and that appears, from the evidence available at the point, to be the right direction to take the case.

[dwb68]

No. No. No.

“The guy” was NOT suspected of running from the cops the night before and was wanted. A car similar to his was suspected and the officer never ran simple plate check. Nor did he wait for backup. Plus the shots themselves violated department policy. The cop did a whole lot wrong and that kid is going to die.

Donutoperator (youtube), a former police officer and San Antonio resident has a pretty good breakdown (https://youtu.be/X8xZBsQIwtM). Bad shoot, and the officer should go to jail for a long time.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

San Antonio police have indicated the victim was not driving a stolen car.

The police officer was an uninformed, trigger-happy jerk with deplorable judgment. He claimed the vehicle was stolen and that it was a vehicle that had evaded him earlier. He was wrong. He was wrong again. He compounded his authoritarian stupidity by firing repeatedly at a vehicle moving away from him, like a scared 10-year-old.

Let's hope the charges are enhanced to attempted murder (or murder, if the victim dies), with federal supervision imposed if the locals seem unwilling to prosecute properly, and this former police officer spends decades in prison, where he belongs.

Anybody who sees (or claims to see) both sides of this one likely is seeing nothing beyond the point that the driver was not white enough for the observer's taste.

[Michael Ejercito]

Your side trusts these same cops to enforce gun control laws.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

My side is the better side. The right side of history. The winning side of the culture war.

This seems to bother the losers.

[Kazinski]

I have to agree it was a terrible shoot.

I've proposed before that when a cop shoots his gun for any purpose other than on the range then he should no longer be allowed to carry as an officer, put them on desk duty, community policing, meter maid, whatever. No punishment just reclassification.

Officer shootings are relatively rare, cause stress and PTSD, so it doesn't seem like it would be too disruptive to police operations. And it would help underscore to cops just how deadly serious use of deadly force is.

[David Nieporent]

1) Is false.
2) Might be true, but just shows how incompetent a cop he was.
3) Also false.
4) Also false.
5) I think it's pretty easy to guess that his intention when a crazed thug assaulted and started shooting at him was to try to get away.
6) That's not "reasonable" except to people who are cop bootlickers — the same people, of course, who think that even polite requests from the FBI to Trump and his cronies are abusive.

[Jimmy the Dane]

You should watch the video before posting like a clown. It is clear hamburger guy is reaching to put the car in gear and drive away as he is being ordered out of the car. His intention was to drive away. That was not simply a response for shots fired.

Also you completely misread "the (hamburger) guy was SUSPECTED...." no that he WAS. Just the cop saw the same model/color car and decided to conduct a felony stop.

Perhaps the cop should have conducted any number of additional investigations than going with his gut reaction of "look it must be the same car." I'll let the courts and a jury figure that out. My point was the media is playing fast and loose with the facts and in an obvious way to make it fit into the narrative that cops are going around shooting innocent people like predators without any cause.

[Nige]

If you think it's ok to shoot someone dead just for driving away, you are a predator who thinks you can kill who you want.

[Jimmy the Dane]

A car is a deadly weapon and there is plenty of examples of it being used a such by violent criminals.

[Nige]

Eveything's a deadly weapon in the hands of the innocent if you're a predator who can kill people with impunity at the slightest of pretexts.

[David Nieporent]

I have watched the video. It does not support your characterization. What you claim is "clear" is not "clear" at all, but also is different than what you said above. Compare:

"hamburger guy put his car into gear in an attempt to speed away"

with

"is reaching to put the car in gear and drive away"

He does appear to be reaching for the shift, yes. But that would also be consistent with him trying to put the car into park, or checking to see if the parking brake was on. What is clear is that the car rolls slowly backwards until after the cop pulls out his gun and starts shooting.

“the (hamburger) guy was SUSPECTED….” no that he WAS. Just the cop saw the same model/color car and decided to conduct a felony stop.

At the time this cop started his path to unemployment, he had no knowledge whatsoever of who was in the car, then or the previous day (even if it had been the right car, which it wasn't!); he couldn't have suspected the driver of anything. At most, he suspected the car — but that suspicion was entirely unreasonable — not the driver.

in an obvious way to make it fit into the narrative that cops are going around shooting innocent people like predators without any cause.

That's because it does fit the narrative! Look, if you want to claim — as the chief did — that this was an aberration, that's one thing. But don't pretend that something that was illegitimate and unreasonable on every level actually wasn't.

Here, a cop saw a red car across a parking lot, said, "A red car evaded me yesterday; this must be the same one; I certainly don't need to check the license plate or anything," went over to the car without any backup, yanked the car door open without any legal basis, barked orders at the driver, and then started shooting when those orders weren't instantly obeyed.

He had no authority. No legal justification. He also violated department policy. And, yes, he shot an innocent person like a predator, without cause.

[Jimmy the Dane]

You don't have to be a maven of Fourth Amendment law to know that matching the color and description of a vehicle IS certainly reasonable suspicion. Plenty of case law upholding traffic stops based upon just that information, so here it is probably at least from a legal analysis perspective (the one on which police are usually trained) is correct. Is it "reasonable" from an armchair commenter perspective? You can debate that, but don't pretend that seeing the car accused of various felonies just the night before is not some kind of reasonable suspicion to go ask questions.

The rest is clearly contradicted by the video and I don't need to address. People can watch it for themselves. Hamburger guy's intention was to drive away. Whether or not that justified use of lethal force is really a question for a jury at the time. Just don't pretend the facts are not as they happened. Lying doesn't help anyone including the guy seeking justice.

[David Nieporent]

I guess the sort of person who says, "Well, the report says that a black male assaulted the victim, and that guy's a black male, so it's reasonable to stop him" might also think that "I saw a red car do something wrong yesterday, and this is a red car, so I can stop it" is a valid argument. But, no, there are no cases saying that seeing a car of a certain color in a different place on a different day creates "reasonable suspicion" to stop that car.

Of course, the circumstances matter; maybe there's some hypothetical situation where there's something so unique about the car that makes it reasonable to think that. (Maybe the car is Day-Glo Pink or something.) But we can see this car in the video. It's an ordinary car, nothing unique about it.

We're not talking about a situation where people were seen fleeing from the scene of a crime in a certain make/model/color of car and then a car of that sort was stopped four blocks away, five minutes later. We're talking about a guy who saw a red car get away from him yesterday, and then a day later, somewhere else entirely, he saw a red car. Even Edith Jones would toss that stop.

[John F. Carr]

I expect standard procedure is to do a pretext stop for a traffic violation. If a suspicious silver Toyota zipped past you in the morning commute you can pull over a silver Toyota in the evening commute for doing 56 in a 55 and work from there.

Sometimes police fail to go to the effort to think up a pretext. Then reasonable suspicion or probable cause matters.

[nekit2010g]

What's on my mind? Today's decision in Broward confirms why women should not be allowed to vote or to serve on juries or anything else of import.

And no, I don't have proof that it was one of the 5 women on the jury that voted to feel bad for a monster and held out. It's as obvious as the sky being blue.

[Sarcastr0]

The conservatives on here don’t want what you’re selling. You are alone.

[nekit2010g]

Don't really care.

[LawTalkingGuy]

And it’s attitudes like that which will keep you forming meaningful personal and professional relationships with women and others, much to your detriment.

[nekit2010g]

I'm married to a woman. A traditional one, that agrees that abortion is a moral evil and that women should not vote. She merely asks me how to fill out the ballot each election.

[LawTalkingGuy]

"She merely asks me how to fill out the ballot each election."

If this is true, it is just straight up sad and pathetic, dude. You're posting your Ls right now and you don't even realize it.

If its not true...what a pathetic life to imagine for yourself.

[nekit2010g]

What is an "L?"

[LawTalkingGuy]

An “L” is a shorthand for “loss.” It is used to describe people who have posted something that is loser-like.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Your wife sounds like a low-grade dumbass.

Mail order bride from Incels R Us?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

If you think this guy is the only bigot among this blog's carefully cultivated audience, you must be new here. Welcome!

[nekit2010g]

You're a bigot. You hate whites.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Lol. HTF do you make it in the world with attitudes like this? I assume you don’t have any close personal relationships with women, or that you constantly lie about who you are to them. But, surely you have to deal with women professionally?

[nekit2010g]

I avoid having to work for women. I can work with women. Not for them, as they tend to turn into monsters with any authority.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Dude. This is pathetic as fuck.

[nekit2010g]

Looking in the mirror?

[LawTalkingGuy]

Good one. Except when I look in the mirror I see a normal person who can have normal interactions with other humans and not some weirdo who can’t deal with half the population unless they are slavishly devoted to them.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Standard issue Volokh Conspiracy fan.

Clingers rant more about gays, Blacks, and immigrants these days, but the misogyny has barely receded. Lots of downscale males who fear being emasculated by having a female boss.

[David Nieporent]

DNFTT.

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, I’ve had my fun,

Muted, and everyone else should do the same,

[M L]

I watched the movie, "What is a Woman?" only because my wife happened to come across it and was interested.

It was a lot better than I expected. Pretty good, actually.

[M L]

FBI offered Christopher Steele $1 million to prove dossier claims, senior FBI analyst testifies (CNN)

[DaveM]

And yet they still got their FISA warrants AND all those renewals. Liars gonna lie. The FBI's reputation is in tatters. Deservedly so.

[Nige]

Have you just discovered that the FBI pays its CIs? Bless.

[M L]

Biden threatens to withhold aid from Saudi Arabia if they don't wait until after midterm elections to raise oil prices.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Better idea: Cut Saudi Arabia's royal family loose without delay.

Then, give the Israelis one chance to make amends, and cut them loose, too, if not satisfied.

[Bored Lawyer]

"amends" means "die Jew, just don't get the rug dirty."

Sorry, the Jews of Israel are not going to satisfy your psychological needs.

And as for America, it supports what is in its interests.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The Israelis should stop abusing people in the occupied territories, diminish the role of bigoted superstition in their government, and stop cuddling with America's right-wing losers while playing favorites in our politics. They also must make amends for the Trump-Netanyahu bullshit before they will deserve to continue to be supported by better Americans.

Otherwise, they can see how they might favor without the political, economic, and military skirts I fund and they hide behind.

No free swings, clingers.

[nekit2010g]

Your argument starts from the assumption that the Palestinians are people.

I was thinking more like dogs.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

You're just sucking up to Prof. Bernstein now.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Which is understandable, given the way he sucks up to bigoted clingers like you.

[M L]

Threatening to withhold aid . . . . this sounds familiar for some reason . . . .

[Michael P]

He must have forgotten that the Saudis don't need his approval for a billion-dollar loan.

[M L]

"Man can live and satisfy his wants only by ceaseless labor; by the ceaseless application of his faculties to natural resources. This process is the origin of property.

But it is also true that a man may live and satisfy his wants by seizing and consuming the products of the labor of others. This process is the origin of plunder.

Now since man is naturally inclined to avoid pain—and since labor is pain in itself—it follows that men will resort to plunder whenever plunder is easier than work. History shows this quite clearly. And under these conditions, neither religion nor morality can stop it.

When, then, does plunder stop? It stops when it becomes more painful and more dangerous than labor.

It is evident, then, that the proper purpose of law is to use the power of its collective force to stop this fatal tendency to plunder instead of to work....

When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.....

If everyone enjoyed the unrestricted use of his faculties and the free disposition of the fruits of his labor, social progress would be ceaseless, uninterrupted, and unfailing."

Frederic Bastiat

[not guilty]

Christina Bobb has reportedly met with Justice Department officials and implicated Trump attorney Evan Corcoran as the author of the June 3 certification signed by Ms. Bobb fraudulently representing that all documents responsive to the May 11 grand jury subpoena had been produced. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-lawyer-christina-bobb-speaks-federal-investigators-mar-lago-case-rcna51459

That fraudulent certification may be the linchpin of a prosecution for violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1519, concealing records with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the grand jury investigation of Donald Trump. Perhaps it would be appropriate for DOJ to immunize Mr. Corcoran from criminal prosecution (so as to avoid assertion of his privilege against self-incrimination) and call him before the grand jury in D.C. If he was acting at the behest of Donald Trump, the crime-fraud exception to the attorney-client privilege would apply. If such privilege were asserted, that matter would be litigated before Chief Judge Beryl Howell in the District Court for D.C.

[loki13]

A few things-

1. Let this be a lesson to all attorneys out there- don't just sign things. Please.

2. "Instead, Trump’s lead lawyer in the case at the time, Evan Corcoran, drafted it and told her to sign it, Bobb told investigators according to the sources." That's pretty damning, if true.

3. Even more damning is she had to repeatedly insist on a disclaimer.

Generally, there is a fine line between advocating fiercely on behalf of a client ... and going over that line. These facts (which would show consciousness of the intent to deceive on the part of Corcoran) would cross that line.

[Bored Lawyer]

"Let this be a lesson to all attorneys out there- don’t just sign things. Please."

Unfortunately, attorneys are often their own worst clients. When I was a junior associate in a smallish firm, the three name partners had a falling out, and two forced the third out. Litigaiton ensued, and I was asked to help out on some of it. Turns out the partners did not have a partnership agreement, they just winged it when it came to splitting the profits. Naturally, the third partner was not happy with the results. The judge forced them to split things evenly (which is the default law in NY for partnerships).

I made a comment to one of the remaining partners about the shoemaker's children having no shoes. It was met with a frown.

[David Nieporent]

1. Let this be a lesson to all attorneys out there- don’t just sign things. Please.

We had a discussion about this here a few weeks ago, when I think you weren't around. That was my position: it takes incredible lack of basic common sense as a lawyer to sign an affidavit (especially one drafted by someone else) attesting to facts of one does not have firsthand knowledge. If Bobb were an actual lawyer rather than an OANN host cosplaying as one, she never would have done that; she'd have insisted that the person(s) who actually conducted the search be the one to sign it.

[not guilty]

More bad news for Donald Trump: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/10/12/maralago-witness-trump-boxes-moved/

The people familiar with the investigation said agents have gathered witness accounts indicating that, after Trump advisers received a subpoena in May for any classified documents that remained at Mar-a-Lago, Trump told people to move boxes to his residence at the property. That description of events was corroborated by the security-camera footage, which showed people moving the boxes, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation.

Will we finally have an obstruction of justice indictment following the November elections?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I think Republicans are figuring that if they take the House in the November election the House Republicans will protect Trump by instructing the Department of Justice to . . . oh, wait, that sounds like something Jeffrey Clark, John Eastman, or the Blackman-Tillman Project would come up with.

[M L]

It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong. -Thomas Sowell

[Sarcastr0]

Professionalism….it does not exist, I guess?

I’m all for aligning incentives, but it’s quite a box you out yourself in if you insist on doing so for everything,

I do research grants for the government. Should I be in the hook if we fund a loser? No, that’s how you get boring risk averse incremental research.

The idea that I’m not trying my best because my ass isn’t on the line is insulting.

[not guilty]

Will the January 6 investigating committee subpoena Donald Trump? https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/10/13/us/jan-6-hearing-trump

A lot rides on Democrats maintaining control of the House of Representatives in next month´s elections.

[Bob from Ohio]

"lot rides on Democrats maintaining control"

Then you are screwed.

[not guilty]

The committee has voted to issue the subpoena for Trump. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/10/13/us/jan-6-hearing-trump If litigation ensues, I hope that the courts adjudicate the matter expeditiously.

Since Trump bears the burden of proof, and since he seems to be allergic to presenting evidence, the courts should make short work of any challenge to the validity of the subpoena.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The House is not the only entity with subpoena power.

The Senate has subpoena power.

The Department of Justice has subpoena power.

Republicans figuring a House majority would immunize Trump from subpoenas have probably been reading too many Blackman-Tillman articles, or listening to the likes of Eastman, Clark, and Cruz.

[Bob from Ohio]

"courts should make short work "

Keep hope alive.

[not guilty]

What evidentiary showing do you anticipate that Trump would make? His lawyers seem to be seriously averse to offering evidence, as the Southern District of Florida lawsuit illustrates.

[John F. Carr]

It's probably just a pointless political exercise in making him take the Fifth on camera.

Unless they grant him use immunity. Then we have a genuine spectacle on our hands. Under D.C. Circuit precedent (U.S. v. North and Kastigar) the prosecution in any following criminal case would have to convince a judge that testimony was not affected by the hearing. I think they could do that with election-related testimony because DoJ should have memorialized witness statements already.

[Bored Lawyer]

Kastigar was a SCOTUS decision.
What you say is correct, but only as to a prosecution against Trump, not against others. As to that, any testimony he gives is fair game.

[not guilty]

Donald Trump has issued a 14 page kvetch addressed to the chairman of the House January 6 committee. https://cdn.nucleusfiles.com/27/27b7896f-01c5-4609-93c7-742e5cb22e96/830-am-final-january-6th-committee-letter14446.pdf?utm_medium=email_hf&utm_source=ncl__&utm_campaign=20221014___sa&utm_content=__6167&_nlid=fGCD7XzbpG&_nhids=8p9MFWNdEm No discussion of the subpoena or whether he will comply with it.

I suspect that Trump will simply ignore the subpoena and risk contempt proceedings.

[David Nieporent]

Trump's frivolous Supreme Court appeal relating to the classified document review denied.

[Bored Lawyer]

Quelle surprise.

[not guilty]

The denial of the application to vacate the Eleventh Circuit stay was without noted dissents, and the order was entered less than 48 hours after the government´s response was filed. I surmise that the petition for writ of certiorari remains pending, but the ketchup is on the wall.

[John F. Carr]

Thomas referred the application to the full court, which denied it the same day.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Ooh, look!! Trump’s toadie justices bailing his ass out of the fire, exactly like those in the left predicted.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

So far we have observed just one Trump toadie judge involved in this charade . . . although she tried to do the work of a toadie army.

[Sarcastr0]

Who said that? Name names.

[Sarcastr0]

Good job in taking the same line as freaking AmosArch. This is not a good trajectory.

[John F. Carr]

A police officer in Massachusetts is on leave while Internal Affairs investigates accusations that he was involved in planning the Charlottesville "Unite the Right" rally. If he was involved the police chief will ask Massachusetts to revoke his law enforcement certification. Under new laws state certification is required to work as a police officer. Cities in Massachusetts contract away the right to fire bad cops by agreeing to arbitration that overrules attempts at discipline. Now the state can intervene.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/10/13/metro/woburn-cop-placed-leave-allegedly-attending-helping-plan-deadly-2021-charlottesville-va-rally/

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Mississippi, Oklahoma, Idaho, Alabama, or another Republican state would welcome such a bigoted clinger.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Dems finally admitting that they're in the pocket of Big Pharma.

[M L]

Lmao. Reminds me of this.

Really though, makes me wonder about her underlying positions supposedly standing up to big pharma.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Lol. Bush's was worse.

[Michael Ejercito]

https://www.quora.com/Are-you-MAGA-folks-so-uneducated-you-dont-really-know-the-racist-States-Rights-Party-was-kicked-out-of-the-Democratic-Party-and-joined-the-Republicans-in-1946/answer/Michael-Ejercito

Which side supports defunding the police?

Which side accused the people of habitually hunting down and gunning down unarmed Black men?

Which side accuses the criminal justice system of being systemically racist?

Which side supports stricter gun control laws which will be enforced by these very same cops in this very same system?

[Nige]

People getting gunned down or terrorised at traffic stops and you're whining about gun laws. I thought YOU trusted the cops implicitly?

[M L]

Great video of AOC getting called out by some of her constituents.

https://twitter.com/HeidiBriones/status/1580387222993670144

[Martinned]

That's odd. I was told by a reliable source that AOC never "actually spends time with her constituents". https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1580693459895099393

[Sarcastr0]

If all you got is political stunts, I guess that’s what you pretend is super fun and impressive.

[nekit2010g]

It's been released, I was right. The jury vote for death was 11-1, with a woman as the holdout.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

"The jury vote for death was 11-1, with a woman as the holdout."

Is that from InfoWars? Breitbart? South Texas Law Reports?

Several legitimate journalists are reporting the foreman indicates three jurors rejected the death penalty.

[nekit2010g]

Only after 1 said she wouldn't vote for death no matter what. The other 2 then changed their votes.

[M L]

School board meeting cut short as protests over LGBTQ books grow unruly (WAPO)

Roxanne McDonald banged her gavel repeatedly during Monday night’s school board meeting in Dearborn, Mich., where hundreds denouncing books with LGBTQ content packed into the Dearborn Public Schools administration building.

Protesters, upset about books in school libraries that they consider too sexually explicit for students, carried signs that read, “Keep your porno books to yourself,” “If democracy matters, we’re the majority” and “Protect the children,” the last one written out in five languages.

Twist: They're Muslims.

Turns out, not wanting government child camps to teach your kids about "fisting" and show them pornographic pictures isn't just a Christian thing.

[nekit2010g]

That's why the Democrats are doomed to implode. They are a collection of cultural, social, and economic misfits that only band together against whitey. They don't actually like each other.

[NOVA Lawyer]

not wanting government child camps to teach your kids about “fisting” and show them pornographic pictures isn’t just a Christian thing

But misrepresenting the facts and leaning into baseless moral panic apparently is a right wing thing.

The books temporarily banned include "The Lovely Bones" which doesn't teach about fisting or include pornographic pictures. Ditto for the others on the list that were mentioned in the article. Instead, they all simply include an LGBTQ character which, for superstitious parents, is unacceptable. They, it would seem, would rather their children remain unaware that there are LGBTQ people in the world.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"The books temporarily banned include “The Lovely Bones” which doesn’t teach about fisting or include pornographic pictures."

Technically correct is the best kind of correct.

From Wikipedia's plot summary:

"On December 6, 1973, 14-year-old Susie Salmon takes her usual shortcut home from her school through a cornfield in Norristown, Pennsylvania. George Harvey, her 36-year-old neighbor, a bachelor who builds doll houses for a living, persuades her to look at an underground kid's hideout he constructed in the field. Once she climbs into the hideout, he rapes and murders her, then dismembers her body and puts her remains in a safe that he dumps in a sinkhole, along with throwing her charm bracelet into a pond. Susie's spirit flees toward her personal Heaven, and in doing so, rushes past her classmate, social outcast Ruth Connors, who can see Susie's ghostly spirit.

"The Salmon family initially refuses to believe that Susie is dead, until a neighbor's dog finds Susie's elbow." [etc.]

[Sarcastr0]

You seem to think it self evident that this book is something kids can’t handle?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

No.

I’m sure there are parents who wouldn’t mind.

But…perhaps these particular parents *do* mind.

Cultural differences and diversity, I suppose.

Justs explain patiently to them that the book isn't pornographic, it simply starts with a rape-murder.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Here’s a non-paywalled account from the Detroit Free Press.

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/wayne/2022/10/11/dearborn-school-board-meeting-protestors-lgbtq-books/69554361007/

The school has pulled 6 books for review and may require parental permission for kids to check them out or view them online.

Also, CAIR takes the side of the protesters. Maybe CAIR is as bad as the right-wingers are always claiming!

The article, while otherwise thorough, doesn’t describe with any specificity what was in the books which was objectionable to the protesters.

Perhaps, while these books are fine for kids, they are inappropriate for adults such as the readers of the Free Press.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

OK, I haven’t had the privilege of reading the six contested books, but here are the titles:

“Push” by Sapphire; “The Lovely Bones” by Alice Sebold; “Eleanor and Park” by Rainbow Rowell; “Red, White and Royal Blue” by Casey McQuiston; “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George M. Johnson; and “This Book is Gay” by Juno Dawson.

https://www.clickondetroit.com/news/local/2022/10/13/these-are-the-6-library-books-being-reviewed-by-dearborn-public-schools/

I already found that The Lovely Bones starts out with a 14-year-old girl being raped and murdered by a neighbor. Then the girl observes subsequent events from the afterlife.

Now with the magic of Prof. Wik E. Pedia, I’ll see about those other books:

“Push,” like The Lovely Bones, was made into a movie ("Precious"). “In 1987, 16-year-old Claireece “Precious” Jones lives in New York City’s Harlem neighborhood with her unemployed mother, Mary, who has long subjected her to physical and verbal abuse. Precious has also been raped by her now-absent father, Carl, resulting in two pregnancies. The family resides in a Section 8 tenement and survives on welfare. Precious’s first child, a daughter named “Mongo” (short for Mongoloid), has Down syndrome and is being cared for by Precious’s grandmother. However, Mary forces the family to pretend that Mongo lives with her and Precious so she can receive extra money from the government. When Precious’s second pregnancy is discovered, her junior high principal arranges for her to attend an alternative school, where she hopes Precious can change her life’s direction. Precious finds a way out of her traumatic daily life by escaping into daydreams in which she is loved and appreciated.”

“Eleanor and Park” doesn’t seem to be gay, it is about a charming romance between two teenagers: the white Eleanor (a girl) and the Korean-American Park (a boy). Eleanor’s father is of course an abusive alcoholic who keeps his family in dire poverty. The Wikipedia article says the book was accused of racism for its treatment of Asians.

“Red, White and Royal Blue” – Finally we get to the gay content. “Alex Claremont-Diaz is the son of America’s first female president, who is getting ready to run for re-election in 2020. After an incident at a royal wedding, Alex has to pretend to be friends with Britain’s Prince Henry, to prevent it becoming a full-blown diplomatic and media crisis that would distract from his mother’s election bid. While the effort is initially to control the damage, the two actually do become friends. They eventually become romantically involved when Henry reveals he is gay and Alex realizes he is bisexual. They have to reconcile this with their positions on the world stage, while trying not to endanger his mother’s re-election.”

“All Boys Aren’t Blue” – The author writers about being a gay youth. “The book discusses consent, agency, and sexual abuse, alongside various other topics. It also describes two sexual encounters and statutory rape.”

“This Book is Gay” – Not much of a summary on Wikipedia. So I’ll go with what’s on the back cover: “There’s a long-running joke that, after coming out as a lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or intersex person, you should receive a membership card and instruction manual. This is that instruction manual. You’re welcome. Inside this revised and updated edition, you’ll find the answers to all the questions you ever wanted to ask: from sex to politics, hooking up to stereotypes, coming out and more. This candid, funny, and uncensored exploration of sexuality and what it’s like to grow up LGBTQIA+ also includes real stories from people across the gender and sexual spectrums, not to mention hilarious illustrations”

[The Margrave of Azilia]

The stuff on the back cover is available on the Internet but the book itself isn't, so I can't tell whether "hooking up" is meant in the strictly Platonic sense or not.

[Nige]

So, no fisting or pornography, just moral panic, infantilising teenagers and homophobia.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

The guy at the top of the thread did, indeed, mention fisting, and fortunately, the plot summaries I found don't mention such a thing.

You're welcome!

But as I suspected, these books were analogous to R movies from the days of movie theaters. Some parents wouldn't mind their kids reading them, some parents *would* mind. That's what diversity and multiculturalism are all about.

[Nige]

They're welcome to tell their kids not to read them, not to ban them from the shelves of school libraries. It's funny, that used to be the sort of principle conservatives, liberals and libertarians could always agree on here at volokh dot com. Some story (not sure if any of them were actually true, there was a lot of 'PC gone mad' fakery doing the rounds) would surface about someone trying to ban Huckleberry Finn from schools because of the n-word, and agreement would be pretty much unanimous that this was a Bad Thing. Not so much any more.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"ban them from the shelves of school libraries"

I compared them to R movies. Kids could see them with a parent or guardian.

[Nige]

If you propose a stupid and unwieldy and unworkable ratings system for books, they'll just end up being effectively banned to avoid the complications.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

You realize that they're trying to meet the Muslim parents halfway and give them a voice in their kids' education?

Why is multiculturalism wrong?

[Nige]

I wouldn't restrict general acces to books to meet the demands of any particular religion. You know, like when Christians wanted Harry Potter banned because it promoted witchcraft.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

It’s not conservative Christians who want the author of Harry Potter to be cancelled nowadays. The author is a transphobe, haven't you heard?

[Nige]

The author's having a massively nasty online beef, but I never heard of any calls for her books to be banned, not since the Christians.

[Sarcastr0]

Call me when they get Harry Potter pulled from library shelves.

Because they haven’t. Showing by your own bad choice of analogy the partisan difference here.

[Sarcastr0]

You seem to be approving of this Puritanism.

As is your right, and I can call you a sad moral scold who wants kids to be sheltered to the point of infantilization, and is into using state power to do so.

Finding sin everywhere is a recipe for a miserable life. I hope you learn more respect for America and American children and stop trying to drag us back to the 1950s.

And if you wonder why no one engages in your quest for a public good constitutionalism, this stuff you want is a goodly part of why.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

You may recall that in the days of movie theaters there were different ratings based on whether kids could see them. With some movies, kids needed the company of an adult. So either Mom, Dad or some other hopefully responsible adult would have to accompany the child to the movie, and it would be up to the adults to decide which movies were suitable.

It seems the Dearborn school libraries are on the way to having such a policy with books – certain content means the book can only be checked out with parental consent.

You want to call it public good constitutionalism, or sad, or what have you. You talk as if you want schools to make this material available to kids without the consent of their parents, and anything less is puritanism.

Seems to me that that implies a lot of scolding of the parents – “it’s none of your business what your kids read, we know best!”

I suspected, of course, that the content of the books would be borderline, since opponents were tiptoeing around the content, as if the content was OK to share with kids but not with parents.

I'm genuinely curious - do you think kids should have parental approval before checking such books out of the school library? If you do, you're making quite a fuss over a point where we agree. But if you want this stuff available without parental consent, yes, you are a moral scold who wants to use the power of the state to impose these books on children regardless of parental wishes.

[Nige]

Library books are already shelved by age and reading-level, further classifications would be redundant.

I think the number of parents who want to micro-manage their kids reading to that extent is quite small, and frankly, not the school librarian's problem. If a parent wants to prohibit their kid from reading a book, that's between them and their kids. Making 'access to books' an issue of danger to kids is incredibly regressive, and if you're claiming that books being available to kids is the same as imposing them on anyone, then you're being disingenuous at best. Smacks of the whole 'cultural marxism' thing. Nasty stuff.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I beg your pardon - imposed on the parents, not on the kids.

"If a parent wants to prohibit their kid from reading a book, that’s between them and their kids."

Giving borderline material to kids against the parents' wishes is not merely between the parents and the kids. It's very much the business of parents who want to know why the schools are going behind their backs.

Why can't school libraries observe the same precautions as movie theater managers had to observe in the days of movies? Because theater managers were icky entertainers reeking of profits, and school librarians are licensed professionals?

[David Nieporent]

You know that movie ratings weren't legally enforceable, right? Parents couldn't prevent theaters from letting their kids in regardless of the film's rating. It was just a business decision.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Well, the movie theaters weren’t owned by the government. Public schools are.

The MPAA rating system was adopted by the movie business to stave off government regulation. You can say the government shouldn’t be threatening regulation, OK, but in the case of government-run schools there’s regulation either way.

In the case of government-run schools, distributing borderline literature to children without parental consent is as much of a governmental policy as not doing so. The only question is which of the two government policies is preferable.

[Nige]

You're putting the responsibility for restricting very specific materials from specific kids based on the wishes of their parents on people who should be in no way responsible for that. That's the parents responsibility, and the kids, who also have autonomy in this - as in a lot of things, kids will choose to either obey or disobey their parents wishes, and it's nobody else's responsibility of they do.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"the kids, who also have autonomy in this – as in a lot of things, kids will choose to either obey or disobey their parents wishes, and it’s nobody else’s responsibility [if] they do"

It's the responsibility of those who give kids borderline material without parental approval.

[Nige]

Nope, librarians are not mindreaders and cannot deduce the arbitrary point at which a parent will declare something 'borderline.' The books are already catalogued by age and reading level, anything else about suitability can be gleaned from the kid making their queries who will no doubt be aware of their own parent's wishes.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

We have different premises about the right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children.

Parental instructions aren't simply options which the kid can circumvent with the connivance of a government official.

[Nige]

The child doesn't have to connive with anyone to borrow a book.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

They do if they're going behind their parents' back.

[Nige]

Parents are not generally present in school libraries when books are being borrowed, it always happens 'behind the parent's back.' So does every class and every lesson and every interaction in and around the school.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

“stop trying to drag us back to the 1950s.”

The thing is, I wasn’t suggesting we return to that decade of horrors. Quite the contrary, I was suggesting an analogy to a policy from the *sixties* which specifically *repudiated* the policy of the 1950s.

The MPAA rating system was designed in the sixties to replace the stricter movie-censorship regime which prevailed in the 1950s. And I was suggesting something similar for school libraries with borderline books – let the kids get parental permission to see the content.

So basically you’ve got the wrong decade. I suppose "stop trying to drag us back to the 1960s" wouldn't have the same rhetorical punch.

[Nige]

Are you looking for… trigger warnings?

They best way for a kid to find out if a book is suitable for them and accords with their parent's wishes is to just discuss it with the librarian or teacher or bookseller. There's no need to impose a useless MPAA equivalent on books.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"They best way for a kid to find out if a book is suitable for them and accords with their parent’s wishes is to just discuss it with the librarian or teacher or bookseller."

The best way for a kid to find out if a book accords with their parent's wishes is to discuss it with their parent.

[Nige]

Presumably at the point where they're looking at the books their parents will have made their wishes clear to the kids.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

We’ve already discovered that we operate from different premises.

Some parents are strict enough that they don’t want their minor children to be reading about the rape and murder of 14 year olds, or the adventures of Freddie Krueger. Other parents are more with-it and lenient. Both sets of parents have the right to direct their kids’ upbringing.

It’s by denying this premise, and taking it upon itself to usurp parents’ childrearing decisions, that the government is able to arrest parents who let their kids play in the park (as documented by Lenore Skenazy at Reason).

Once the government can displace the parents, all sorts of policies are permissible.

[Nige]

I'm not denying them any rights, I'm denying them the power to restrict access to books for other children because of their disapproval. It's THEIR responsibility to ensure their kids know what reading they approve or disapprove of, and doesn't that sound fun for the kids. If they don't trust their kids to respect those wishes, that's nobody's problem but theirs.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"I’m denying them the power to restrict access to books for other children"

I'm not denying the right of parents to give children access to these books, even at a school library. That's your assumption about the behavior of librarians - you think they'll say "well, if we can't give these books out against parental wishes, we won't give them out even *with* parental wishes!"

Where do you get your poor opinion of librarians?

[Nige]

No, you're demanding an unreasonable standard of knowledge of and compliance with the wishes of individual parents on the part of the librarian. The librarian is there to serve the needs of the children, it's up to the children to keep their own parent's wishes in mind.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

This whole idea of casually separating the needs of children from the child-rearing decisions of parents is *exactly* what leads to parents being arrested or interrogated by cops for playing outside. Another manifestation of the same principle.

[Nige]

Yeah, someone's going to call the cops on some parents because they won't let them read the latest Stephen King.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

My point seems to be just a bit beyond your grasp.

Substituting governmental judgment for parental judgment is the common factor here. Whether it be superseding parents’ wishes on the age-appropriateness of books in school libraries, or superseding parents’ wishes on whether their kids should stay huddled up inside or go out and play.

[Nige]

You can tell you kids to go out and play, you can tell your kids there's books they're not allowed to read, you don't have to involve anyone else in any of it. A school library has to cater to an entire school full of children the same way a park has to cater for an entire neighbourhood of children. You can tell them not to play on the swings, but you can't expect the swings to be removed or chained up just because you don't like them.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"You can tell you kids to go out and play"

Have you even *read* Reason's coverage of this issue? The government second-guesses parents on that very point in many cases, because people like you have established that the government may displace routine parenting decisions.

[Nige]

Demanding the removal of children's/teenager's books from children's/teenager's library shelves because you in particular do not want your kids in particular to read those books is not a routine parenting decision, it's an imposition on every other parent, child, teenager, librarian and teacher. Making as many children's/teenagers books as possible available to as many children/teenagers as possible is only displacing lack of access to reading materials, nothing else.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"Demanding the removal of children’s/teenager’s books from children’s/teenager’s library shelves"

A very vague way to put it - deliberately vague?

How about parents deciding on their own how to bring up their children, with the schools assisting them in this task, but not displacing them.

If the government can tell you that your children *should* read such-and-such a book whether you like it or not, then they can with equal authority tell you that your children *should not* read such-and such a book, even if you want to give it to them.

If the government can get between you and your child so they read *This Book is Gay* against your wishes, they can get between you and your child so they *can't* read Samuel Eliot Morison's *Christopher Columbus* (racist and genocidal) or the Communist Manifesto (subversive and genocidal), or what have you.

[Nige]

No, quite specific.

The government tells all children who go to public schools what to read - that's what textbooks and set texts are. Same things happens in every academic course ever. What it doesn't do is force the kids to read any of the books stocked in the library, instead it provides a wide a range of books catering to a wide range of tastes and interests in the hopes of encouraging and enabling children to read more. It's a rare parent indeed who doesn't approve of this in principle, but nobody is forced or obliged to read any of those books and any parent can instruct their child not to read particular books.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

“any parent can instruct their child not to read particular books”

Not only do I agree, but go the next logical step.

“Ubi jus ibi remedium” – which as I understand it means that for every right there is a remedy.

So parents have the right to instruct their children not to read particular books – and they are entitled to a remedy to effectuate that right.

Which means instructing their school library that This Book is Gay or When Harry Became Sally are only to be made available to children with parental permission.

(I’m assuming that, in the name of free expression, When Harry Became Sally is available in the school library despite the objections of some parents)

[Nige]

I disagree. One set of parents doesn't have the right to restrict other peoples' kids' access to books. It hardly matters anyway, the parents in question want the books banned.

[Sarcastr0]

Awesome, you want to be more regressive than the 50s.

Good lord you are on an awful crusade to bubble wrap the world.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

“more regressive than the 50s.”

You might want to elaborate on that assertion and provide some proof. Unless you want to wear bubble wrap to protect yourself from the evidence.

Remember when kids needed parental approval to see R movies, but could play outside without the parents being arrested?

[Nige]

You want to remove/restrict books written for teenagers because they're gay. That was a regressive attitude in lots of decades.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Half of the six books on that list aren’t “gay” at all, as I documented. And one of the “gay” books boasted of its “uncensored exploration of sexuality” and its discussion of “hooking up.” That book actually branded itself as an “instruction manual” on gayness.

But the book where the black girl on welfare got impregnated twice by her father wasn't a gay book.

[Nige]

Okay, also because of racism, if you insist.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Why would you want kids accessing such racially-inflammatory content without parental permmission?

The book is meant to be uplifting, but maybe the parent worries that their kid would focus too much on the association of blackness with welfare and incest. Maybe the parent thinks that peddling such stereotypes, even for benevolent ends, might be too much for someone at their child’s stage of development?

The movie version of the book came in from a bit of criticism, particularly because at least in the film the do-gooder characters were more light-skinned than the dark, stereotypical characters.

https://www.npr.org/2009/11/18/120531978/critics-speak-out-on-the-movie-precious

[Nige]

You're completely inventing a bunch of fairly racist concerns about a book you haven't read - literally any book a kid reads could bring up issues that bother the kid - helping them deal with those issues, explaining, contextualising, comforting - those are the parent's actual job, unless you've been so strict about their reading material they're too scared of your disapproval to talk about it with you, which is bad parenting.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Yes, we’ve established (to your satisfaction) that the government should supply children with borderline or age-inappropriate material against parents’ wishes and that it’s the parents’ job to deal with the consequences afterwards.

And if the parents simply want to do their job and take responsibility for their kids’ moral and literary education, that means they’re bad parents.

We’ve also established (to your satisfaction) that it’s racist to worry about the age-appropriateness of racially-inflammatory material.

That latter point was the real issue in the Huckleberry Finn blowup - not that the book wasn't a classic, but that some kids were lacking in the maturity to handle it. After all, the use/mention distinction for "[n-word]" may not be crystal clear to some children.

[Nige]

You haven’t really defined borderline or age-inappropriate, except in a highly arbitrary way based on descriptions of books, not the books themselves. Those books were written for and published for a particular age group, and they’ve been pretty succesful and found their audiences in those age groups. There are already age categories in libraries, and they’re pretty clear.

You also claim a book, which you haven’t read, about a black girl growing up is racially inflammatory, though presumably a similar book about a white girl growing up in poverty and experiencing abuse would not be? ‘I don’t want my kids to read books that humanise black girls and makes my kid empathise with them’ is pretty racist.

'After all, the use/mention distinction for “[n-word]” may not be crystal clear to some children.'

If it's being used a set text it's literally something the kids are being educated about.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"‘I don’t want my kids to read books that humanise black girls and makes my kid empathise with them’ is pretty racist."

So it is, so I guess it's just as well that I didn't say the thing you put in quotation marks.

[Nige]

No, no, those were my words about a book I haven’t read, they were intended as a counterpoint to your words about a book you haven’t read, apologies if you thought I was putting them in your mouth, not my intention.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

[repetitive comment deleted]

[M L]

I was speaking generally, not to this specific instance. I didn't look into the particular books these parents are objecting to in Dearborn, but apparently they consider them "porno books" and that is their right.

The lessons on "fisting" (and related important topics that are very important for children to learn) were from one of last week's discoveries on the joys of sex education materials being pushed by wacko groomers and the largest teacher union in the US. Each week brings new stories.

Why Does The NEA Want Kids To Learn Butthole-Licking?

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/why-does-the-nea-want-kids-to-learn-butthole-licking/

There are hundreds of these stories, just FYI, far more than I've followed or read. I don't regularly read twitter. For example you could read Libs of TikTok and Chris Rufo tweets going back a few months/years.

[Sarcastr0]

You read liars like that awful doxxing LibsofTikTik asshole and then appeal to your own personal awful lack of critical thinking and lots of badly sourced anecdotes.

Grooming is not a thing. Sex Ed is good. You are a sad man trying to drag us into Victorian morality and 1850s statesmanship.

[M L]

You are flailing so hard right now. A little while ago when Libs of TikTok made a buzz, all they were doing is just reposting and bringing attention to stuff that some other people posted themselves publicly, but which turned out to be not very popular and generally disliked.

My position is that parents should be allowed to decide whether they want their kids to be taught about fisting or taught completely false gender ideology as fact by some freaks in a government institution. I don't see why that's so hard for you to accept or hard for you to even perceive or admit as being what my position is.

But I guess that's how it is, considering your side wants to lock people up and brand them domestic terrorists for taking this position at school board meetings.

[Nige]

All you want is to promote your reactionary ideology through ignorance, fear and deception. Some days Artie Kirkland really has a point.

[Sarcastr0]

Your position has nothing to do with parental rights and everything to do with trying to lie in the hopes of getting a wedge issue out if it,

On old playbook, and a really shameful display of not caring about the truth.

[M L]

This topic really strikes a nerve and scrambles your brain, apparently. Interesting.

[Nige]

This is lurid scaremongering and homophobia.

‘Sex education materials’ are not ‘books in libraries,’ you’re deceitfully conflating the two. Sex education is going to involve the description of sexual acts, otherwise it’s not much good as education. Sorry if that upsets/titillates you.

[M L]

A good sex education should teach children about fisting, says Nige, who probably has no kids.

Some parents disagree.

I just say to each their own. It should be up to parents and local school boards.

[Nige]

All things being equal I’d rather they learn about those sorts of things from a health-oriented booklet and a qualified teacher than porn, how about you? However there’s absolutely no evidence that it’s being taught in any schools at all, let alone standard, other than your fake hysteria.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, unless they happen to take the form of books, located in libraries. Are you going to categorically claim that books in libraries are never educational materials?

[Nige]

Oooh, how sneaky. Don't tell the book-burners that educational materials can be snuck into libraries disguised as books.

[Nige]

Book-burners all.

[Sarcastr0]

O hey this story was a hoax. Weird how ML falls for and posts more false stories than anyone else here.

[M L]

Really? Better send an email to WaPo and let them know. The story is still up, they haven't posted a retraction or correction or "update" or anything.

[Sarcastr0]

https://myfox8.com/news/politics/ted-cruz-retweets-fake-atlantic-article-beyond-parody/

[M L]

Lol! I saw that Atlantic parody headline, too. Pretty funny and well done, since it seems outrageous but also seems like it could be real. But, I pretty quickly determined it was a parody, and I didn't post a parody meme as if it was fact as apparently Ted Cruz or his social media intern did.

Anyway, this has nothing to do with what we're talking about here. The WaPo article I quoted is easy enough to find. You saw some tangentially related story about Ted Cruz falling for a parody, and you thought this meant that real related events and stories were hoaxes. Pretty pathetic and embarrassing that you can't seem to figure out what you're even talking about.

[dwb68]

Irony or satire? Person declares victory in the culture wars… in an internet comment box.

LMAO.

I dont think victory means what you think it means.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

From the Constitution, Art. II(2):

“The President…may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices…”

From Biden’s dope announcement:

“I am asking the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Attorney General to initiate the administrative process to review expeditiously how marijuana is scheduled under federal law.”

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/10/06/statement-from-president-biden-on-marijuana-reform/

I understand that it’s up to HHS (which contains the FDA) and Justice to decide scheduling issues.

What if Biden phrases his request to the AG and the Secretary of HHS in constitutional terms – requiring their written opinion on how marijuana is to be scheduled?

If there’s a positive written opinion from both, then constitutionally, wouldn’t that mean each department is then committed to the position set out by its chief, thus bypassing any review by subordinate officials?

[Martinned]

So we're against the unitary executive principle now?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I thought this *was* a unitary executive - getting the heads of departments to make prompt decisions on matters within their purview, not shunting issues aside to a delayed bureaucratic process among subordinates in the department.

[Sarcastr0]

You thought wrong. Turns out internal controls and external, legislative checks in executive power are a thing.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Right or wrong, it's a unitary executive all right.

[Sarcastr0]

No, it’s not. Congress can make positions only dismissable with cause in some cases, and as Trump learned the DoJ isn’t available as attack dogs at the President’s behest,

Plenty don’t want these checks to exist, mostly in the right, but so far they still do.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

This is like Godwin's law, but with Donald Trump instead of Hitler.

The theory of the "unitary executive" exists. It may be wrong, but it exists and influential people hold it.

I'm not going to the same extremes as Yoo, but the idea that an executive head is the boss of his own subordinates sounds like a perfectly plausible inference from the text of the Constitution.

[Sarcastr0]

The theory exists, but that doesn’t mean ‘it’s a unitary executive, all right.’

You can believe what you want, but make it clear what is opinion and what yiu assert as fact.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

It’s too bad that you kept up your misunderstanding after I explained my point.

I was trying to indicate that having department heads be the boss of their subordinates was part of the unitary executive theory.

Next up, I explained that I didn't swallow all of the more extreme proponents' ideas of that theory.

And I even left open the possibility that I was wrong even about the watered-down version of the theory I propounded.

Any remaining misunderstanding, or references to Donald Trump, are unreasonable.

[John F. Carr]

That clause allows the president to ask for advice. It does not require the president to listen to that advice or for future actions by the cabinet member to be consistent with that advice.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Indeed, but it wouldn't seem too far-fetched to say that subordinate officials in the department would be bound until the policy changed.

So assuming (as I presume is the case) that the President and the relevant Cabinet secretary are on the same page, the President could get a prompt decision ratifying the President and Cabinet's policy preference, and subordinate officials (FDA in the case of HHS) would have to salute and comply.

I could always be wrong, of course, such things have happened. It would be interesting to know if there's been any analysis of this question.

In these days of exaggerated Presidential prerogatives, this seems to be a fair implication from an explicit power granted the President by the constitutional text.

[Sarcastr0]

What is this binding mechanism? That does not seem to be in the text.

And you seem to think it bad policy, so I don’t know why you are defending it.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"That does not seem to be in the text."

Neither is executive privilege, or Presidents starting wars, or Presidents authorizing torture contrary to Congressional statutes.

My extratextual suggestions seem minor in comparison.

[Sarcastr0]

Agreed, but you hate your suggestion, it seems like.

Plus, notice and comment and interagency coordination is just good practice.

[apedad]

I don't understand this part, ". . . the President could get a prompt decision ratifying the President and Cabinet’s policy preference. . . ."

Who ratifies a President's decision (outside of the constitutional requirements, e.g. treaties, judge nominations, etc.)?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"Should marijuana be rescheduled?"

"Yes."

"It's hereby rescheduled."

Isn't that quicker than starting off with interminable FDA hearings?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Hmmm...it seems to have gotten to the point where my remarks are suspect even when I offer an expeditious method for reducing the federal penalties for marijuana.

[Sarcastr0]

I may not agree with your politics at all, but you are engaged and courteous,Micmac bit wordy at times.

Don’t let my spicey comments put you off - I do appreciate having you around lately!

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The Volokh Conspirators are conspicuously and tellingly silent about the insurrection hearings and the insurrection trial.

What a paltry bunch of partisan, un-American hacks. All of them stains on the reputations of the institutions with which they are associated, often protected by tenure.

[F.D. Wolf]

Reports are, after Saudi Arabia rejected Biden's pleas not to cut oil production, Biden requested Saudi Arabia delay its announcement until after the midterm elections.

If true, that sure sounds like soliciting foreign interference to influence an American election, which, in 2019, constituted an impeachable offense.

[JasonT20]

If true, that sure sounds like soliciting foreign interference to influence an American election, which, in 2019, constituted an impeachable offense.

If all Trump had done was ask the government of Ukraine to investigate the Bidens, then you would have a point (assuming that these reports you mention, but don't link, are true, whereas Trump famously released the sort-of transcript of his "perfect" phone call to Zelensky). But Trump was also accused of pressuring them by withholding aid that had been appropriated by Congress, as well as a visit by VP Pence to signal U.S. support for Ukraine, widely seen as needed to deter Putin.

[Michael P]

Yes, and Biden has threatened "consequences" for the Saudis not doing what he demanded. One of Biden's pet senators immediately demanded that the US halt all cooperation with the Saudi government. Others chimed in with similar demands, including amending US law to declare OPEC a cartel. (Query: Is that effectively a bill of attainder?) So ... you agree that Biden has impeachably solicited foreign influence in an American election.

[apedad]

"One of Biden’s pet senators. . . . "

***chuckle***

Yeah, sure.

[Sarcastr0]

So it’s a sekret coordinated conspiracy of the libs.

Again.

Some folks would get embarrassed the 10th time they went to that well. Not Michael!

Liberal conspiracies everywhere, all the time, explaining away every fact he doesn’t like.

[JasonT20]

There's still a lot of differences between the situations.

First, this is happening entirely in the open. Biden administration officials, members of Congress, and the Saudis are all having these discussions in public statements and interviews as well as whatever is occurring in direct communications between them. It is also a something that is clearly official policy, not just Biden. It also isn't Biden directly asking MBS to do him a "favor" in a phone call, but something that was discussed via officials.

Second, the reasoning from Biden administration officials is quite logical. They claim that their economic analysis doesn't back up the Saudi claim that economic conditions justify the production cut. They say that more than one OPEC country has privately expressed that they disagreed with the Saudi's reasons but felt coerced into going along. It also clearly benefits Russia to have higher oil prices, at a time when Russia is severely dependent on oil and natural gas revenue to keep their government afloat during the war. The production cuts aren't just a decision of OPEC, but OPEC+, which includes Russia, btw.

In the Trump-Ukraine case, the fact that Trump had even made that request at all only surfaced over a month later due to a whistleblower complaint that was filed and that the complaint had been filed was leaked to the press. This was all something that was happening in secret and involved people trying to get this going that weren't even employed by the U.S. government.

Add to that how national security officials (not just Vindman), disagreed with the underlying act. I won't go into the details here, but you can refresh your memory on all of that of find out if you didn't know. What was being asked of Ukraine was to target specific, individual U.S. citizens for investigation, one of whom just so happened to be a potential opponent of the President in the 2020 election. It wasn't about a policy question that would benefit the U.S. and its allies generally.

And that, to me, is the key difference. Are there any Republicans that will come out and say that OPEC is right to cut production of oil at this time? Hardly. Any Republicans that might think that it is a good thing for oil prices to go up now, so that it would negatively affect Democrats prospects in the midterms, would be absolutely stupid to say that out loud. I think it would be bad for them to even criticize Biden's administration publicly along the lines you are by suggesting that this is a political thing. That opens them up to charges of cheering for Americans to suffer higher gas prices just so that they can do better at the polls.

All of the claims from Trump and his allies that Biden deserved to be investigated for his and Hunter's roles and actions regarding Ukraine were never based on what was important to the U.S. Neither Hunter nor Joe were ever accused in all of that of actions contrary to U.S. interests. They were trying to tie Hunter to the corrupt leader of Burisma for things that occurred at least two year before he joined its board. Joe Biden's efforts to get Ukraine to fire Shokin were completely in line with what the EU wanted, since Shokin was widely seen as slow-walking anti-corruption efforts, including within the prosecutor's office itself. As far as I've ever been able to find, the claims that Ukraine's prosecutor's office was actively investigating Burisma at the time of Shokin's firing came only from Shokin himself. The whole supposed corrupt motive for Joe Biden to want him fired is extremely suspect.

But, don't let any of that get in the way of you believing that Joe Biden is more corrupt than Trump. I'm obviously just suffering from TDS, right?

[Sarcastr0]

There are tons of examples of Presidents including elections in their requests from foreign powers. Johnson, Nixon, Obama…

This is not some outrage, it’s normal foreign policy.

Unlike, say, attempted strong arming of a country into a false investigation announcement to help you in your election. That’s not the same thing, and you defending it with shitty whattabiutism really shows how little you actually care about corrupting Americas policy to help your side win elections.

[M L]

The two situations are pretty different.

The left wants higher gas prices to reduce oil consumption, as they've said loudly. Biden only wanted to juice gas prices a little bit for the elections, so it's a purely political motivation. Holding foreign aid, billions of dollars, and American geopolitical policy hostage, commandeering it for his own personal, political gain.

On the other hand Trump was genuinely concerned about serious corruption by certain people who it was very much in the interest of the American public to know about.

Also, Trump was very open and public about calling for investigations into the very corrupt Ukraine situation and others. Whereas Biden was privately asking Saudi Arabia/OPEC to delay things until after the election.

[Sarcastr0]

They’ve said so loudly? Only to your partisan cherry picking ears.

Trump didn’t even ask for an investigation, but for one to be announced!

You keep posting stuff that isn’t true,

[Paladin_44]

",,, Trump was genuinely concerned ,,,"
Trump has been genuinely concerned over only one thing: Trump. And yet he seems to rely on such ineffectual hangers-on to try to defend or bail him out.
What a loser!

[JasonT20]

In gun control news, a federal judge ruled that a law prohibiting possession of firearms with serial numbers altered or removed is unconstitutional because flintlocks in 1791 weren’t considered more dangerous or unusual if they didn’t have a serial number or other identification on them.

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/3687788-judge-rules-federal-law-banning-guns-with-serial-numbers-removed-is-unconstitutional/

If that is really how originalism is supposed to work, then the usual facetious gun control response that anything but flintlocks can be banned would actually be logical.

[Martinned]

Isn't stare decisis great?

Anyway, that judgment was dicussed by prof. Volokh here: https://reason.com/volokh/2022/10/13/requirement-of-serial-numbers-on-guns-violates-second-amendment/

[JasonT20]

I just read Prof. Volokh's comments on the case. His breakdown makes it clear that the judge was an idiot or hack or both, though Prof. Volokh was careful to say otherwise himself.

I appreciate the court's careful analysis, and I'm glad it takes Second Amendment rights seriously.

Perhaps it was due to the government's lawyers not being smart enough to make the right arguments and analysis that Eugene did, but the judge's decision just looks stupid in comparison to what Eugene wrote in a blog post a day after the judge's ruling came out.

[Brett Bellmore]

He's not a hack, he just takes the 2nd amendment more seriously than Eugene himself does.

Unfortunately, probably more seriously than the Supreme court majority is likely to, too.

[JasonT20]

He’s not a hack, he just takes the 2nd amendment more seriously than Eugene himself does.

Did you read Eugene's post about it and the main parts of the ruling that he quoted, at least, if not the whole of the judge's ruling?

[M L]

JPMorgan Chase closed Kanye West's bank accounts . . . but never Jeffrey Epstein's. Huh.

[apedad]

You got that off of Reddit!

[Bored Lawyer]

And? Is it true or not? Why does the source matter?

(Answer: in more rational times, it would not.)

[M L]

All over Twitter, actually! And yes, it's true.

JPMorgan Kept Jeffrey Epstein as a Client Despite Internal Warnings
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/08/business/jeffrey-epstein-jpmorgan.html

[Martinned]

Hang on, you're still mad that Twitter kicked out Trump, but you want banks to stop doing business with everyone convicted of a crime? What's the general principle here?

[ReaderY]

As evidence that even unwanted negative publicity can still be better than no publicity, even really dispataging negative publicity, the Kazakhstan Ministry of Tourism has adopted the slogan “Kazakhstan: Very Nice!”

Taken right from Borat.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eRGXq4t9wY4

[Brett Bellmore]

Nothing to see here, perfectly honest election.

[David Nieporent]

Yes.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Look at the political demographics of Schuyler County lol.