Thursday Open Thread

What's on Your Mind?

Comments

[Jonathan Affleck]

Justice Thomas Wants Section 230 to Be Challenged on the Basis of US Law That Bans Discrimination either in Common Carriage or in Public Accommodation

Not Only Thomas but are at least three other Justices want to see such a challenge. Only one more Justice, and every racist US social medium platform can be nailed and bankrupted!
In Petition II for Writ of Certiorari, I go above and beyond Justice Thomas’ specification.
1. I give SCOTUS Originalism in spades.
2. I explain that the Internet is a state-sponsored place of public accommodation within the meaning of Title II of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
3. I demonstrate that a 2022 Social Medium Platform does not meet the Section 230 definition of an Interactive Computer System (ICS).
4. I correctly apply State Action Doctrine to a 2022 Social Medium Platform.

I am the only Section 230 litigation plaintiff that understands the technology of a social medium platform. I would not mind some help in covering the costs (estimates have ranged from $4K to $10K†), which are associated with petitioning SCOTUS.
9th Amendment Challenge to Social Medium Abuse, organized by Joachim Martillo (https://www.gofundme.com/f/9th-amendment-challenge-to-social-medium-abuse)

Even more I want to find an attorney,
* who is admitted to practice before SCOTUS and
* who can file the case electronically.

While success with such a petition is unlikely, I have provided expert technology consulting to AT&T, McDermott, and Proskauer. My clients have always prevailed in a case in which I was involved. I can provide the same preparation to an attorney that represents me in *Martillo v. Twitter*.

Notes

†The main expense comes from retyping court documents. I have used PDF conversion software to lower this expense.

[not guilty]

If you can´t afford the costs of filing a cert petition, how do you expect to afford the services of an attorney (especially if certiorari were granted)? Have you considered filing pro se and in forma pauperis?

[Jonathan Affleck]

It's called mobilization, nitwit. I can afford the cost of the petition, but the depraved racism of a social medium platform like Facebook (Meta), Twitter, or LinkedIn affects many. I am giving groups, which have suffered discrimination by these racist organizations, the opportunity to participate in public action against these twisted malefactors. Many people are angry at the racism and depravity of a social medium platform. I raised over $2000 in the first few days of the fundraiser.

[The case will return to federal district court in a class action lawsuit, which I can't afford on my own. Because the stakes are many billions of dollars in compensation for torts and even more in statutory penalties for denial of common carriage , I expect we will be able to find an attorney or team of attorneys to take the case on contingency.]

Accommodation, Forum, Proxy (Question: 8)

The concepts of public accommodation and public forum are related while the issue of state action often relates to a public forum even if a public forum does not play a role in Burton v. Wilmington Pkg. Auth, 365 U.S. 715, 81 S. Ct. 856 (1961). A lot of time would probably not have been wasted on litigation if State Action Doctrine had been named State Proxy Doctrine or State Proxying Doctrine.

Public Accommodation

The social medium platform-related caselaw, which denies a social medium platform is a place of public accommodation, is confused and consists of a plethora of cartoon litigation.

The Memorandum Opinion of the Noah[1] Court was correct in denying that the virtual forum[2] (chat room) was a place in the sense of the CRA. Plaintiff Noah’s error in presenting his case was metaphorically equivalent to confusing a movie (not a place) with the movie theater (a place), where the movie is exhibited. If Plaintiff Noah had focused on AOL’s temporarily assembled place of public accommodation[3] for exhibition and for entertainment, he might have had a good argument that AOL was violating § 2000a by allowing other users to create an environment hostile to Muslims, who constitute a protected class under § 2000a.

Lewis v. Google LLC, No. 20-16073 (9th Cir. Apr. 15, 2021) is vicariously embarrassing to read and only has the virtue of non-precedential status. In this decision, the audience is confused with the movie theater.[4]

The Internet is a state-supported establishment that has a definite identifiable structure that can be mapped to locations all over the planet. The Internet has premises that have buildings with grounds or appurtenances throughout the United States of America. The premises of the Internet may temporarily include premises of a user, whose device connects to the Internet. Since the 1960s the Internet, which has evolved from the ARPANET, was intended to become a place of accommodation for resource sharing. Now it is public. The US government has established and supports[5] the Internet as a place of public accommodation within the definition that 42 U.S. Code § 2000a provides. The operative phrase in the statute is “Establishments affecting interstate commerce or supported in their activities by State action as places of public accommodation.” Such a phrase is a SIMILE.[6] A state-supported establishment need only be (functionally) like a place. For example, § 2000a desegregated a state-established state-supported public drinking fountain even though it does not fit into the example list that § 2000a contains.

Because every social medium platform is and functions within the Internet, every social medium platform comes under 42 U.S. Code § 2000a(b)(4):

"any establishment (A)(i) which is physically located within the premises of any establishment otherwise covered by this subsection, or (ii) within the premises of which is physically located any such covered establishment, and (B) which holds itself out as serving patrons of such covered establishment."

A social medium platform may not discriminate against the groups, which § 2000a specifies, and Facebook (Meta) has already made a legal admission of such discrimination.[7]

NOTES

[1] Noah v. AOL Time Warner Inc., 261 F. Supp. 2d 532 (E.D. Va. 2003).

[2] The virtual forum (virtual conference room or virtual meeting room) interaction abstraction is an elementary instance of a virtual reality.

[3] Plaintiff Noah entered the temporarily assembled “movie theater” by means of his program-executing device. Because Plaintiff Noah’s computing device is part of the “movie theater”, Noah enters the movie theater by using his computing device, which is within the Internet.

[4] A Court, which considers Clegg v. Cult Awareness Network, 18 F.3d 752 (9th Cir. 1994), to be relevant to a § 230 litigation, can only believe (according to the most generous inference) that the Internet operates by magic.

[5] Here is an example of US government support: “Internet for All” at https://www.internetforall.gov/.

[6] See Richards v. United States, 369 US 1, 9 (1962), quoted in Welsh v. Boy Scouts of America, 993 F.2d 1267 (7th Cir. 1993) at 1269 ("[W]e must always be cognizant of the fact that 'the legislative purpose is expressed by the ordinary meaning of the words used.'").

[7] Human Rights Due Diligence of Meta’s Impacts in Israel and Palestine, https://www.bsr.org/en/our-insights/report-view/meta-human-rights-israel-palestine.

[Jonathan Affleck]

Public Forum

A public forum like a public park can easily be a place of public accommodation if the public forum contains
1. a facility principally engaged in selling food for consumption on the premises or
2. a place of exhibition or entertainment.

Since the earliest days of the Arpanet, the leadership of DARPA has asserted that the Arpanet and the Internet, into which the Arpanet evolved were and are facilities for academic research, discussions, and communication. Sometimes such a description has appeared in litigation, e.g., Loving v. Boren, 956 F. Supp. 953 (W.D. Okla. 1997). Anyone can be an independent academic researcher and participate in an academic discussion or in academic communication. The US government seems to have been calling the Arpanet or the Internet a public forum since the early 70s. A declaration from an inferior officer or lower official of the US government hardly seems dispositive, but the following gloss of the 47 U.S.C. § 230 (a & b) argues that the US government has designated the Internet a public forum.
---------------------------------------
(a) Findings

The Congress finds the following:

(1) The rapidly developing array of Internet and other interactive computer services available to individual Americans [members of the public] represent an extraordinary advance in the availability of educational and informational resources [creates a public forum] to our citizens [the public].
(2) These services offer users a great degree of control over the information that they receive, as well as the potential for even greater control in the future as technology develops.
(3) The Internet and other interactive computer services [Internet On-Ramps] offer a forum for a true diversity of political discourse, unique opportunities for cultural development, and myriad avenues for intellectual activity. [Statement of Public Forum]
(4) The Internet and other interactive computer services have flourished, to the benefit of all Americans [the Public], with a minimum of government regulation.
(5) Increasingly Americans are relying on interactive media for a variety of political, educational, cultural, and entertainment services [to create a public forum].
(b) Policy
It is the policy of the United States—
(1) to promote the continued development of the Internet and other interactive computer services [Internet On-Ramps] and other interactive media;
(2) to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the Internet and other interactive computer services [Internet On-Ramps], unfettered by Federal or State regulation;
(3) to encourage the development of technologies which maximize user control [not control by private hi-tech mega corporations] over what information is received by individuals, families, and schools who use the Internet and other interactive computer services [Internet On-Ramps];
(4) to remove disincentives for the development and utilization of blocking and filtering technologies that empower parents to restrict their children’s access to objectionable or inappropriate online material; and
(5) to ensure vigorous enforcement of Federal criminal laws to deter and punish trafficking in obscenity, stalking, and harassment by means of computer.
---------------------------------------
Since the enactment of § 230, the Internet has been partially privatized, but it hardly seems to change the status of a forum if functions, which a private entity can do more efficiently than the government, are put under the control of a private entity.[1] The larger part (maybe most) of the Internet consists of government-owned, supported, or subsidized (often public) networks, links, equipment (including end-user equipment), servers, other miscellaneous devices facilities, and premises. Many Internet Services Providers (ISPs) in the US are run by the government while the government runs or foots the bill for many if not most the Internet Access Providers (IAPs) and Network Service Providers (NSPs).

Partial privatization of small elements or areas of public forum does not change its public forum status. A US park can contain a private restaurant, a private hotel, or a private shop and remain a public forum.

If the government withdrew all of its technology and support for the Internet from the Internet, the US Internet would consist of a bunch of mostly useless disconnected networks.

A social medium platform does not own the entire network infrastructure down to the Customer Premises Equipment (CPE). It is hard to understand how a social medium platform has the right to discriminate against groups of the public in a network infrastructure that does not belong to the social medium platform and that seems to be owned or to be funded largely by the government. Those parts of the US Internet not owned or funded by the US government mostly belong not to a social medium platform but to others. A social medium platform owns very little of the US Internet.

In the pre-Breakup days, AT&T was always careful to own its whole network down to every piece of CPE precisely so that it did not run afoul of such an issue.

NOTE
[1] In United States v. American Library Assn., Inc., 539 U.S. 194, 123 S. Ct. 2297 (2003) seems to have been careful not to implicate the public forum status of the Internet and only refers to Internet access.

[Jonathan Affleck]

State Action (Proxying)

The action (proxying) of a non-government actor (proxy) becomes inextricably linked with the government
1. if the action of the non-government actor can only be considered unequivocally an expression of government policy,
2. if the non-government actor is supported by the government, or
3. if the non-government actor supports the government within a government facility or establishment.

Items [2] and [3] become problematic when the proxy action, which the non-government proxy{1} undertakes, could not constitutionally or legally be undertaken by the government.
Jawboning comes under item [1] and does not create a situation of state action.{2}
1. when the non-government actor has strong means to pushback or
2. when the non-government actor can show that it undertook the action in question before the government started jawboning.
Eagle Coffee Shop of Burton{3} came under item [3] because it paid rent to the government and in effect made the state government complicit in violation of Amendment XIV.

Suppose Delaware had allowed the Eagle Coffee Shop to use government space for free. Then the issue would have come under list item [2].

The Supreme Court points out in Perry{4} that the school email system is not, by tradition or by government designation, a forum for public communication.

In contrast, the government created the Internet to be a forum for public communication, and partial privatization does not change that designation.

A social medium platform discriminates in government supported networks and systems
1. like a state college, library, or public school network,
2. like a state ISP to wit NYSERNET,
3. like a community ISP to wit Chattanooga EBP, and
4. like a federally funded broadband link.

[The government funds a tremendous number of Internet end host devices. In pre-breakup days AT&T always defended itself against the possibility of becoming a state actor by making sure to own its entire network including customer premises equipment.]

The government cannot
1. participate in an action,
2. benefit from an action,
3. support an action, or
4. compel an action
by a non-government actor (really proxy) if the action is unconstitutional or illegal if the government undertakes the action.
Every social medium platform is forbidden by state action doctrine from
1. abridging user Amendment I rights,
2. public accommodation discrimination,
3. civil rights discrimination (Amendment XIV violation), and
4. common carriage discrimination (Amendment IX violation{5}).

While a private entity can host an open forum for discussion in its private space and abridge the speech of visitors to its forum, a private entity cannot host an open forum for discussion within the public square of the Internet6 and abridge the freedom of speech of visitors without committing an action
1. that is inextricably intertwined with the state and
2. that thus violates Amendment I rights of the visitors.

The situation, which obtains in Hudgens v. Nat'l Labor Relations Bd., 424 U.S. 507, 96 S. Ct. 1029 (1976), is vastly different.

NOTES

{1} Actor suggests agent and some sort of official relationship status. Proxy implies far less.

{2} Plaintiff Prager made a weak argument for State Action in Prager Univ. v. Google LLC. Prager Univ. v. Google LLC, 951 F.3d 991 (9th Cir. 2020) cites Manhattan Community Access Corp. v. Halleck, 139 S. Ct. 1921 (2019) despite the lack of similarity between the two cases have little similarity. The Halleck precedent is irrelevant to the violations that every social medium platform is committing. While MCA/MNN is a cable caster, which specializes in a narrow range of content and which operates in a private network, a social medium platform provides a racist highly exclusionary open forum in a state-created, state-supported, and probably mostly state-owned or state-supported public network. In many cases, the US and state governments make extensive use of the exclusionary open private forum that a racist and antisemitic social medium platform like Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn have created within the designated public forum of the Internet. See Mat Ford, “Why Isn’t the Supreme Court on Twitter?”, The New Republic, June 25, 2020, URI: https://newrepublic.com/article/158288/supreme-court-twitter.

{3} Burton v. Wilmington Pkg. Auth, 365 U.S. 715, 81 S. Ct. 856 (1961).

{4} Perry Local Educators' Ass'n v. Hohlt, 652 F.2d 1286 (7th Cir. 1981)

{5} A diehard supporter of discrimination by a social medium platform may argue for limiting Amendment IX to a transportation means that existed in the late 18th century. Amendment II is not limited to 18th century weaponry and firearms.

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

The ending of Black Sunday is the greatest chase-sequence ever filmed.

[Jonathan Affleck]

Thomas Harris, who is author of Black Sunday and The Silence of the Lambs, writes a book that is easily brought to the screen.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I suggest you look into the origin of domains and the distinction between edu and com domains.

[Jonathan Affleck]

What is Dr. Ed 2 suggesting?

I was part of the MIT group that first set up the Domain Name System. The DNS is a tiny part of the management of the Internet. I have noticed that a Court has a predilection to refer to DNS in an opinion because no one before the Court has a clue about the operation of the Internet, but the Court and the parties sometimes have some minimal often confused understanding of DNS.

It is worthwhile to compare and to contrast the pre-Breakup AT&T (the situation today is too complex for a short comment) with a depraved and racist social medium platform like Twitter.

Pre-Breakup AT&T owned its whole network right down to Customer premises equipment. Pre-Breakup AT&T had clear interworking settlement agreements with the other US telephone network providers.

Twitter probably owns most of its corporate network and pays an ISP, which does not own the Internet, for Internet access.

It is inequitable for a depraved racist Social Medium Platform like Twitter to practice racism and racist exclusion in a network
1. that it does not own and
2. that belongs almost entirely to the US government and to the public (including me -- I have a small corporate Intranet, which is part of the Internet).

[Jonathan Affleck]

Twitter and the other depraved racist social medium platforms hold out an open forum in the government-designated public forum of the Internet.

Twitter and the other depraved racist social medium platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and LinkedIn become state proxies by holding out open forums in a public forum.

Under State Action Doctrine, Twitter and the other depraved racist social medium platforms violate the First Amendment by abridging the freedom of speech of the public.

[darkknight9]

Man, these work from home bots are getting really creative lately.

[Jonathan Affleck]

When an ignorant dummy like darknight9 has no response to an argument, he responds with an ad hominem attack.

[SoSoCoCoMoFo]

It was more amusing than your effort.

[darkknight9]

Humor normally is my main motivation 🙂

[darkknight9]

[darkknight9]

You law types do have the wordiest, lengthiest copypastas I've ever seen. Thank the maker for the edit button. *whew*.

[Jonathan Affleck]

It's almost all copypasta from my draft petition.

You can read the whole petition through the fundraiser.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/9th-amendment-challenge-to-social-medium-abuse

The comment filter software seems to filter out a comment that contains a GoogleDrive URI.

[David Nieporent]

I am the only Section 230 litigation plaintiff that understands the technology of a social medium platform.

It's not clear whether you understand the technology less than you understand the law, or whether you understand the law less than you understand the technology, or whether it's possible to go below absolute zero in the understanding of either, but you manage.

Ah, I see from googling that you're a longstanding Internet kook.

[SoSoCoCoMoFo]

Which one is he? There seem to be quite a number of them with the same name.

(Although, I suppose they could all be the same guy...)

[David Nieporent]

It's the other way around: he uses a bunch of different names and personas online. (His wife uses at least two.) All the ones of recent vintage are anti-semitic, though. And all are kooks.

[Jonathan Affleck]

I can also look up fun allegations about David Nieporent on the Web.

Just search for Nieporent.

https://www.classaction.org/media/gonzalez-v-samuel-and-stein-et-al.pdf

I prefer to reply to a clearly stated argument.

[Noscitur a sociis]

You did indeed show that David M. Nieporent was named in a complaint that was voluntarily dismissed almost immediately , before any substantive response from the defense.

Is there any conclusion in particular you think we should be drawing from this?

[Jonathan Affleck]

Is there any valid conclusion that can be drawn when white racial supremacist genocidal Zionists and their racist supporters gang-defame a Jew online because

1. he is critical of Zionism,

2. the genocide of Palestinians, and

3. the theft of Palestine from its native population?

Here is the valid conclusion.

Zionism is a vicious racist genocidal antisemitic ideology while Zionists and their supporters are some of the most vile antisemites on the planet.

42. Zionist ideology considers the Jewish diaspora to be a waste and something to be negated.[1] Zionists have especially scorned those Diaspora Jews
• that can participate in the intellectual heritage of Rabbinic Judaism and
• that consider Zionism to result from increasing Jewish illiteracy in Rabbinic Jewish scholarship.
43. Such illiteracy has created a political movement based on misunderstood fairy tales derived from confused misinterpretation of the Hebrew Bible, which is only the backstory to the main Rabbinic Jewish scripture, which is the Babylonian (Mesopotamian) Talmud.[2] Zionist attitudes toward a Diaspora Jew, who rejects Zionist ideology, consist of pure bigotry and hate. Such Zionist attitudes constitute antisemitism under the IHRA working definition of antisemitism. Zionists undertake coordinated efforts to make sure a social medium discriminates against such a Diaspora Jew and excludes him from the social medium’s place of exhibition or of entertainment.

NOTES

[1] This Zionist ideological theme is called Negation of the Diaspora (שלילת הגלות or שלילת הגולה).

[2] For Christians, the Old Testament is only the backstory to the revelation of the New Testament.

[SRG]

He is Spartacus

[Jonathan Affleck]

Section 230 is where
1. comprehension of basic logic,
2. technological expertise, and
3. understanding of English
go to die.

A white racist dummy like David Nieporent tries to assign the label "kook" to anyone that objects to the genocide of Palestinians and to the theft of Palestine by vicious bloodthirsty white racial supremacist European Zionist invaders.

I built my first computer in the 1970s which I was in high school. I was an architect/designer of MAS/MANS, which the petition discusses in association with the Dial-A-Porn litigation.

A depraved genocidal Zionist objects to me in particular because since the Second Aliyah my relatives have been leaders of the white racial supremacist Zionist colonial settler invaders, interlopers, thieves, and impostors.

[Commenter_XY]

Oh, another antisemite. Are you related to Rob Misek? Sure sounds that way.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Would you be surprised to find an antisemite at a right-wing blog?

[Jonathan Affleck]

Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland is obviously a depraved antisemitic Zionist, who uses a fake name.

I excuse Palestinians for conflating Zionist with Jew because the depraved and evil racial supremacist Zionist colonial settlers, invaders, thieves, and impostors continually insist that every Jew is a Zionist.

In the USA, it is a sure sign of the depraved antisemitism of a Zionist or of a supporter of Zionism when he conflates a Jew with a Zionist.

I have

1. worked in Gaza,
2. never concealed either my Jewish heritage or abomination of Zionism, and
3. never had a problem.

I was everybody's cousin from America, and it was not unusual for a friend to want me to marry his daughter.

[David Nieporent]

I built my first computer in the 1970s which I was in high school. I was an architect/designer of MAS/MANS, which the petition discusses in association with the Dial-A-Porn litigation.

Sure you did. And yet your life is spent begging for money online to support yourself.

[David Nieporent]

Section 230, the statute that you decided to rewrite in your own head? That one?

[Jonathan Affleck]

It is probably useless to attempt to explain basic logic to a white racist dummy like David Nieporent. The three clowns, who presided over the Zeran Court of Appeals, rewrote Section 230 — I did not. It is interesting that District Court Judge Ellis,

1. who is perhaps my least favorite federal district court judge and
2. who presided over the Zeran district court trial,

wrote a Memorandum Opinion, which was materially different from the opinion of the Zeran Appellate Court. Judge Ellis appears to understand a logical fallacy when it runs up and bites him on the ankle.

LOGICAL FALLACY

The simple statement of the inverse fallacy is the following.

(p → q)
∴ (q → p)

The above form is sometimes called affirmation of the consequent.

The Zeran-Court of Appeals applied the inverse fallacy in contrapositive form.

(p → q)
∴ (¬p → ¬q)

In this form the inverse fallacy is sometimes called denial of the antecedent.

In the Zeran appellate decision,

1. p represents “a social medium platform is accused of defamation or of a similar act”,
2. ¬p represents “a social medium platform is not accused of defamation or of a similar act”,
3. q represents “a social medium platform is not a publisher”, and
4. ¬q represents “a social medium platform is a publisher”.

The decision assumes the following principles with respect to publisher liability and editorial discretion.

1. A non-publisher has no liability and no unfettered editorial discretion.
2. A publisher has liability and unfettered editorial discretion.

The Zeran decision combines the inverse fallacy with 47 U.S. Code § 230 (c)(1) to yield the following.

1. If a social medium platform is accused of defamation or of a similar act, the social medium platform has no publisher’s liability [for libel or slander, which is present in third party content].
2. If a social medium platform is not accused of defamation or of a similar act, the social medium platform has a publisher’s unfettered editorial discretion [to remove a user or his content].

The above fallacious interpretation of a clause within a statute is not judicial but is ideological and seems to be a covert possibly unconscious attempt unjustifiably to inject net neutrality into the federal statute even though Congress never legislated net neutrality into this statute. If the federal judiciary interprets the law on the basis of the inverse fallacy, the federal judiciary violates the U.S. Constitution Article I Section I by legislating and teaches the public that the inverse fallacy is a reasonable basis of law.

[Jonathan Affleck]

The above analysis probably contains too many words for David Nieporent.

In effect, the Zeran Court of Appeals used the following logic.

If Tom lives in Cambridge MA, he lives in Massachusetts.
If Tom does not live in Cambridge MA, he does not live in Massachusetts.

[David Nieporent]

Yes, I've read your stupid brief. Which the court already rejected. The problem is, Zeran doesn't say anything like what you claim, and there is no inverse fallacy there. (And §230 doesn't say anything like what you claim either.)

Here's what § 230 says: ICSs [which include, but are not limited to, social media companies] do not have publisher liability for third party content. Period. It's not conditional on anything but the defendant being an ICS. That's § 230(c)(1).

Here's what Zeran says: Pursuant to § 230, ICSs do not have publisher liability for third party content.

Of course they also have unfettered editorial discretion, but that comes from the First Amendment, not from § 230. (I mean, § 230 does reiterate that, in (c)(2)(A), but it would be true even if § 230 had never been enacted.)

[Jonathan Affleck]

I petitioned SCOTUS for writ of certiorari before judgment. Such a writ is hardly ever granted without an obvious companion case. Also, the original case was filtered without prejudice. I can take the case back to district court whenever I wish.

Now there are two obvious companion cases and maybe one or two in the pipeline.

I understand that the basics of common carriage are beyond an obviously ignorant clown like David Nieporent. A social medium platform is a message common carrier of digital personal literary property like a telegraph, which has been considered a common carrier as far back as the 1850s (1840s for Massachusetts). The service develops a niftier interface, and suddenly a tech dope like David Nieporent believes the service does not have to obey common carriage anti-discrimination law.

And no, a message common carrier does not have editorial discretion (nowhere mentioned in Section 230) to deny carriage service or two throw away personal digital literary property (digital version of a letter) on its way to a destination.

A member of the public has a Ninth Amendment right to non-discriminatory common carriage. Hosting is speech only to an ignoramus or dummy like David Nieporent. Hosting is bailment comparable to the storage of letters in a satchel at a USPS sorting office, but bailment is too difficult a concept for a dumb white racist like David Nieporent. With regard to the parking of digital personal literary property in a backend database, a social medium platform is akin to a parking lot own. A parking lot owner is not speaking or publishing in offering or providing bailment to a car in the parking lot. These are really basic and simple concepts that are clearly well beyond a dumb white racist like David Nieporent.

An American has a Ninth Amendment right to sue for libel. While a message common carrier is not a publisher or speaker, once a social medium platform curates or moderates, it exposes itself to a charge of distributor libel and loses any no-knowledge defense.

Section 230 says nothing about message common carriage or about distributor libel.

1) If a social medium platform does not want the obligations of common carriage law, it need only stop monetizing eyes-on-a-page (work for common carriage).

2) If it wants to limit legal exposure to a charge of distributor libel, it need only stop moderating or curating.

3) If a social medium platform does not want to proxy state action, it need only build its own Internet and get out of the public Internet, which it does not own as AT&T owns its long distance network.

Please learn something about the relevant technology or common carriage law. It is vicariously embarrassing to read the ignorant nonsense

1) that an idiot like David Nieporent distributes and

2) that constitutes keyboard diarrhea.

[David Nieporent]

"Message common carrier" is a term you made up. "Digital personal literary property" is a term you made up. Hosting is not a bailment. The Ninth Amendment says nothing at all about common carrier laws. A car is not speech, so holding a car is also not speech. But a tweet is speech, so hosting it is speech. A social media company is not a common carrier. The Internet is not a place of public accommodation, and using the Internet does not make anyone a state actor (or a "proxy state actor" — another term you made up in this context).

Even if you were right about "distributor libel" — which you're not — it would be irrelevant to your case, since you're not suing them for libel. You're suing for discrimination and violation of an inapplicable, preempted state law.

You don't seem to have read (c)(2)(A) of the CDA.

Other than that, your arguments were okay.

As for "idiot," I think your success in court speaks for itself.

[Jonathan Affleck]

Service has not yet taken place in Martillo v. Twitter. I can and will rewrite the Complaint for refiling the case. My attorney worked out how we could go almost directly to SCOTUS (not once but twice) without even serving the Complaint on the Defendants. He died, but I am still following his plan.

Message common carrier is a standard term of the caselaw, and most famously appears in the 1956 Consent Decree. Does David Nieporent even know what the 1956 Consent Decree is?

The concept of literary property is a starting point for copyright law. See Estate of Hemingway v. Random House, 53 Misc. 2d 462, 279 N.Y.S.2d 51 (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 1967). The concept continues to exist when the literary property is found in a digital substrate because Congress modified Title 17 to recognize new technology. See 17 U.S. Code § 102 - Subject matter of copyright: In general.

At AT&T, before the FCC, and in Article III court, we addressed MAS/MANS and enhanced services like voice messaging in terms of bailment. Temporarily storing digital personal literary property in a databse on a backend server of a social medium platform differs in no way from similar storage (bailment) of a message or a narrative by AT&T.

David Nieporent must have slept through the Constitutional Law, Intellectual Property, and common carriage law classes when he was in law school. I have worked in this legal area for over 40 years. Even if he went back to law school to address his educational deficiencies, he would not achieve even 5% of the knowledge I possess.

Even though the First Amendment guarantees that the freedom of speech may not be abridged, a member of the public has the right to sue for libel because the right to sue for libel was well established at the time of the framing of the US Constitution. Amendment IX confirms the right to sue for libel. An American cannot be stripped of this right without a Constitutional Amendment. A statute, which denies an American the right to sue for libel, is patently unconstitutional under Amendment IX.

Likewise the right of the public to non-discriminatory common carriage was well-established at the time of the framing of the US Constitution and confirmed by the Amendment IX.

I have read 47 U.S. Code § 230(c)(2)(A), but I understand this clause and the technology while David Nieporent does not.

A 2022 social medium platform is not a 1996 Interactive computer service

I explain all the issues in draft petition II, which can be read through the following URI -- David Nieporent needs a refresher on some basics of US law.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/9th-amendment-challenge-to-social-medium-abuse

[Jonathan Affleck]

It’s interesting that white racist dummy David Nieporent read the petition,
1. which I have not yet filed and
2. which SCOTUS has already REJECTED.
One can reach the yet to be filed petition through the fundraiser link.https://www.gofundme.com/f/9th-amendment-challenge-to-social-medium-abuse This website seems to filter out a comment
1. that I add and
2. that has a GoogleDrive link.

[Hank Ferrous]

Oof, but accurate, that first paragraph.

[jb]

This is pretty clearly a "don't feed the trolls" situation.

[David Nieporent]

He's a loon, not a troll. And I wouldn't do it if it were hijacking a real thread, but this is Thursday Open Thread.

[Kazinski]

i mute loons too, probably even quicker than trolls.

[Randal]

Since the Democrats operate in bad faith, they can't be trusted, and therefore we must assume they operate in bad faith.

[SoSoCoCoMoFo]

Stripped of the naïve partisanship, I agree completely.

[Krayt]

Our prime constitutional design principle is assuming politicians are rotten folk out to enrich themselves using the law to get in the way.

[AmosArch]

Your body your choice....

Except when it comes to sticking you with a vaxx. Even if you are in a position by yourself without contact with other people and the stage when the vaxx would make much of a difference is long past. And no taking that body outside for a disease which doesn't spread outdoors unless you are going to riot in favor of BLM then its okay to break every pandemic precaution in the book.

And except for choosing who you work for and with.

and when it comes to defending yourself

And how you have sex because the party against 'sticking its nose in the bedroom' wants to craft 'affirmative consent' laws so draconian people are going to be forced to engage in sex in a specific defined way in order to be reasonably free of the threat of serious legal trouble.

And when it comes to paying for a child that isn't yours for 18 years because private paternity tests 'disrupt the harmony' of the family

And big sugary sodas...don't forget those...and using plastic straws too, banning those are also more important than bodily autonomy.

And a billion+ other things too lengthy to mention...

But other than that

Your body your choice no matter what.

[apedad]

It must suck to be you having to live in this world at this time.

[Michael P]

It sucks for almost everyone who values freedom or efficient government. More so if they value both.

[David Bremer]

You really can't find any distinguishing factors between getting vaccinated for a deadly communicable disease and an abortion? Or between policies (not criminal laws) that ensure consent and regulating what people do when both are consenting?

Not any? Not any at all?

Look, I don't agree with various polices on the left. And I think there are ways to respond to many of their arguments. But when you anti-abortion, anti-vax people go about it with these childishly simplistic characterizations, you make it absolutely impossible to have a nuanced debate. You're just acting like spoiled brats trying to convince other spoiled brats. And then can't figure out why sane people roll their eyes at you.

[not guilty]

Donald Trump has now disclaimed reliance on attorney-client and work product privileges regarding the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago which were segregated by the Privilege Review Team. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763.158.1_1.pdf That leaves claims that some documents are personal items or protected by executive privilege. (These claims are inconsistent with one another, but arguing in the alternative is permissible.)

Trump´s filings to this point have not addressed the issuance of a District of Columbia grand jury subpoena for records in May 2022 and the judicial finding of probable cause on August 5, 2022 to believe that the materials located at Mar-a-Lago were evidence of crimes. Trump made no effort to challenge the grand jury subpoena based on the existence of any privilege. Trump merely stiffed federal agents by incomplete compliance, accompanied by a fraudulent certification that all documents subject to the subpoena were being produced. Trump could then have asserted privilege and litigated the issue before the chief judge of the U. S. District Court in D.C. Does this constitute waiver?

SCOTUS opined in United States v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683, 713 (1974), that an assertion of executive privilege "based only on the generalized interest in confidentiality . . . . must yield to the demonstrated, specific need for evidence in a pending criminal trial." Trump´s filings in the Mar-a-Lago litigation have run like Derrick Henry from discussing this limitation on executive privilege.

[Brett Bellmore]

"That leaves claims that some documents are personal items or protected by executive privilege. (These claims are inconsistent with one another, but arguing in the alternative is permissible.)"

Personal items AND protected by executive privilege would be inconsistent, but OR would merely require that the FBI had retained both sorts.

[not guilty]

The special master ordered that the claims be broken down as to individual documents. As to some documents, Trump is making the inconsistent claims that they are personal records and also are subject to executive privilege. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763/gov.uscourts.flsd.618763.150.0_1.pdf

The presidential communications component of executive privilege is an incident of the constitutional separation of powers. Despite having the burden of persuasion, Team Trump has submitted no authority that any claim of executive privilege lies against an agency of the executive branch itself. That omission speaks loudly.

[SoSoCoCoMoFo]

Your Derrick Henry reference is inapt. His speciality is running *at and through* defenders, not running from them.

Perhaps Josh Hawley would have been more appropriate?

[not guilty]

Henry is also adept at running away from defenders when he reaches the open field.

[David Nieporent]

I mean, I guess, but I don't think that metaphor works very well. "Run like Derrick Henry" connotes running successfully towards a goal, not running away and hiding.

[not guilty]

My go-to simile is running like a scalded dog, but I don't want to overdo that one.

[SRG]

I prefer Brave Sir Robin

[shawn_dude]

Aaaannnddd... now I have an ear worm.

[darkknight9]

Its not ritzy or glamorous. Its not steeped in huge intellectual or philosophical tones. I just wanted to say somewhere that if we can set up and use older laws to change laws in current situations, why can we never seem to do it for the simpler laws?
If we can use the Heroes act to forgive loans isn't there some type of emergency contingency or laws we can use to feed folks in need and NOT arrest those folks trying to help? When I was a kid good Samaritan laws were hot topic in the midwest and Alaska made not assisting in certain situations crimes. Is this purely a nimby thing? Are people arrested for giving $ to folks down on their luck also?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Stupid things the Statist Bootlickers believe, Part 1:

If you or I spend $1 our decision making is so poor it only impacts the economy as $0.70.

However, if they take that $1 from you and they decide how it's spent, it impacts the economy as over $2.

[Brett Bellmore]

I think they might be right about that, they've just got the sign on the impact backwards.

[Sarcastr0]

Brett, did you consider reading something before going off on what your gut tells you?

[Brett Bellmore]

Did you ever consider that the only real reason for assuming that government spending has a high and positive "multiplier" is that politicians want excuses to spend money? And that our nation's economic performance over the last few decades suggests that it's total bullshit, and much government spending, rather than being a positive, is at best a dead loss to the economy?

[Sarcastr0]

I mean, I considered it. Then a read the empirical demonstrations. You seem to have read nothing.

Did you know the BEA has a pay service to estimate local multipliers for businesses?
https://www.bea.gov/help/glossary/rims-ii-multipliers

Plenty of businesses sure are dumber than Brett!

[BravoCharlieDelta]

How much Bootlicking Bang for the Buck do you think the CA economy is getting with that $112B highspeed rail to nowhere?

2x? 3x?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Woah, the bureaucrats have a database, that must mean it's real!

[Sarcastr0]

It’s not the database, it’s that businesses pay to use this analytical service.

Are they all deluded before your incredible economic insights?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

In what contexts would a business need these multipliers and do you think the BEA is profitable on this revenue stream?

Regulatory compliance? Government contract compliance?

[Sarcastr0]

Under what scenario would understanding the multiplayer for a proposed expenditure be required for compliance? You can’t just make stuff up and declare it true.

I have no idea what the income from that service is, not why that would matter.
but the BEA has an appropriation line still.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Where some agency requires it as part of their reporting? Not so different from requiring ephemeral impact studies on the climate. Or some estimates on impact in particularly defined "economic impact zones". Or some other racist political garbage.

I can't think of a single scenario where a private business would pay for research on what their industry's regional multiplier might be on their own accord.

So I asked you.

Your argument's implication was that since there are paying customers (which you don't know, you only know it's offered for a fee), the analysis must be factual.

I'm just exploring the validity of your argument's warrants.

In a free market, a service offered at an operating loss would be considered "good" or would it be considered "bad"?

[Sarcastr0]

I’m quite sure they businesses do not have required reporting wherein they must subscribe to a government service to do so.
That would make headlines.

You are not exploring validity, you are making stuff up that lets you ignore facts you don’t care for.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

You're creating an argument I didn't make.

An agency can require a certain of reporting without mandating where you get the data from.

Now address the rest of my arguments, or kindly bugger off.

[Sarcastr0]

You are asking that I prove that a reporting requirement you don't know exists doesn't exist.

How do you expect me to prove this, exactly?

What other arguments do you have? I see ipse dixit "I can’t think of a single scenario where a private business would pay for research on what their industry’s regional multiplier might be on their own accord" and that's about it.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

I’m asking you to come up with a moderately plausible scenario, one that demonstrates at least a basic understanding of business practices.

Further, your wild assertion that because it exists as a fee based service, that there are paying, commercial customers and because of this the data is grounded in fact has yet to be supported. Only asserted.

Both parts of those are your, to steal your favorite phrase, ipse dixit.

[Sarcastr0]

I’m asking you to come up with a moderately plausible scenario, one that demonstrates at least a basic understanding of business practices.

I do not claim authority in the motives behind business decisions, but my thought would be that moving into an area where my business plans to employ lots of people, I want to know if the effect of paying to move into the area will in and of itself price a lot of people out of my target salary range.

You are appealing hard to your own authority regarding business decisions. That's not going to support anything. I guess it can convince you to disregard the behavior of a bunch of businesses, but it is less argument than ipse dixit.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

" my thought would be that moving into an area where my business plans to employ lots of people, I want to know if the effect of paying to move into the area will in and of itself price a lot of people out of my target salary range."

How does knowing the economic multiplier of your industry in the region do that?

Also, you're completing ignoring the rest of my argument.

Which is par for the course.

[Sarcastr0]

I don't see much other argument than that you don't see a good business reason so therefore there cannot be one. Which is a fallacy, not an argument.

As to what the local multiplier has to do with the economic effect of moving into a locale...Read what I just wrote regarding your question and try again is all I have to offer.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

And your argument was that because economic multiplier research offered as a fee from the BEA that therefore the government multiplier being higher than private sector must be valid, because otherwise people wouldn’t be paying for access to economic multiplier database (an assumption that you made because it’s offered for a fee).

[Sarcastr0]

That is one of my arguments, yes, that businesses seem interested in this thing so it has some validity outside of government circles.

I also point to it being bedrock economics since 1930 or so.

And empirical academic studies also supporting it existing at the national and local scale (and being greater than 1)

[Michael P]

Businesses pay for it .. to what end? As part of proposals for why governments should buy from them? What else do they do with the data?

[Sarcastr0]

They use it to make business decisions regarding potential capital expenditures presumably.

As a hypo (no idea if they use this service) if I’m Amazon and planning to build a new warehouse, I’d like to know knock-on local economic effects as I figure out the local labor pool.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

And this is how you know these Federals have never ever ever ran a business.

[Sarcastr0]

Because knowing economics is bad business?

The multiplier is like one of the 3 economic principles we can empirically demonstrate. It’s in elementary economic textbooks. Even the hardest Hayekian believes it.

Maybe it’s wrong! That’s science for ya. But you just declaring so doesn’t really meet that burden.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Why do you make up facts?

https://mises.org/library/keynesian-multiplier-real-thing

[Sarcastr0]

Did you notice how your link is long on theory and short on empiricism? I sure did!

But I will admit, I should not have underestimated the possibility that there were folks well beyond Hayek on this, even these days.
I did a quick spin through empirical literature on the fiscal multiplier. Lotsa evidence in the response to the 2009 downturn.
I liked this survey: https://d-nb.info/1027784216/34

The multiplier absolutely exists; the exact numbers are not exactly known. But there is a service that helps get you in the ballpark, using localized data.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Are you arguing about the concept of an economic multiplier, or that the people in government's multiplier is somehow 2-3x greater than private citizens?

Which argument do you think I'm trying to refute?

You seem to be arguing about the concept of a multiplier.

[Sarcastr0]

Are you arguing about the concept of an economic multiplier, or that the people in government’s multiplier is somehow 2-3x greater than private citizens?

Well, since I didn't say or cite anything to the 2-3x effect (nor does the BEA), I would say I'm arguing that it exists (i.e. is over 1.)

Thanks for the strawman, though!

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Are you sundowning like Joe, or Fetter-person-with-a-penis'ing me?

My argument was the quantification of the multiplier was absurdly distributed, with government spending a big bonus and private spending being harmful.

That was my argument, not yours. You then proceeded to try and argue about the concept of the multiplier itself. Which wasn't an argument I was making.

[Sarcastr0]

My argument was the quantification of the multiplier was absurdly distributed, with government spending a big bonus and private spending being harmful.

The multiplier does not indicate that private spending is harmful, only that it is marginally less impactful when it comes to the specific function of increasing the GDP.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

What a stupid parse.

And again, we've come full circle. That somehow the people in government are so wise and wonderful that their spending decisions are much more magnificent than a regular person, whose spending results in a net loss.

[Randal]

Charlie, you did put "multiplier" in scare quotes early on, implying you don't believe in it or its usefulness. Then when Sarc pointed to concrete evidence of its usefulness, you argued against it for a long time.

Now you've conceded that it exists and is useful, just that some estimates of the coefficient are overblown? You've beaten quite a retreat.

Victory: Sarcastr0

[Sarcastr0]

See below for my discussion of how wisdom has nothing to do with it.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

@Randal aka Sacastr0’s sock puppet

Scroll the way up to the very beginning. It’s plain as day that my argument was the absurdity of the superiority of government spending.

Which is obviously absurd on its face since we can look around and see the wastefulness, inefficiency, and corruptness that pervades everything the government does.

Bootlickers had to strawman my argument because the cognitive dissonance between reality and what their religion makes them believe is too difficult to reconcile.

[Randal]

Nice revisionist history. Fortunately the historical record is readily available.

[Sarcastr0]

Amused by your accusation of sock puppetry.

I think the fundamental issue is that you are equating 'make GDP go up more' with 'is a superior funding position.'

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Virtually all of our recent growth in GDP is directly from government spending, since (you guessed it) government spending is a component of GDP.

[Sarcastr0]

US GDP is ~70% from private consumption.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

That's incredibly false. Government spending at all levels is nearly $10T. Our GDP is estimated to be $25T.

Where do you bootlickers get your facts from?

[Sarcastr0]

Are you including transfer payments? Not sure where you are getting your numbers.

https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/united-states/private-consumption--of-nominal-gdp

[BravoCharlieDelta]

https://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_per_capita_spending.html

[Sarcastr0]

BEA disagrees with your sites ‘guesstimated’ numbers:

https://apps.bea.gov/national/pdf/SNTables.pdf

[BravoCharlieDelta]

You expect me to hunt through 100 pages to find your argument?

[Sarcastr0]

Page 5, chief.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Page 5 says the total of all government spending, on net, at all levels, is $4.4T for 2022.

Do you believe that to be true?

[Sarcastr0]

So you have two numbers that disagree with one another. How do you deconflict?
Perhaps they are not the same number. Or one is a subset of the other. Or any number of things could be going on.

Or you could decide the federal statistical agencies are lying.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

The BEA says non-defense, non-transfer payments are $704B in 2022.

USASpending.gov says $694B will be spent on interest payments leaving only $20B to fund the entire rest of the non-defense government.

Which agency do you think is lying?

[Sarcastr0]

Answered below.

This is why I find value in arguing with idiots on the Internet. No, I don't think I'm going to convince or educate BCD of much. But nevertheless I learned a decent amount just following up on his foundational issues.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Interest payments are not “transfer payments”.

Your entire argument needs them to be. I figured you would’ve figured that out from my last comment, but you can’t seem to.

You genuinely need to believe $5.2T a year is transfers because you can’t fathom funny numbers coming from a government that comes up with funny numbers all the time to support whatever policies are needed.

Just look at how they redefined “inflation” to obfuscate reality. Or “recession”. They aren’t being truthful with any of those. Yet, because they proclaim new realities, you just move from the old reality to the new one and can somehow forget the old one ever existed.

There never was any other definition of inflation, or recession, or woman, or vaccine.

[Sarcastr0]

OK, I seem to have really knotted you up in using the term transfer payments. Yes, servicing the debt is not a transfer payment but also seems not included in the GDP calculation.

If you think about it, I think it's not hard to see why this also isn't part of the GDP calculation, which is about final goods and services.

This isn't government lying, it's how GDP is defined.

[bernard11]

Excuse me for interrupting, but the BEA figure shows govt consumption and gross investment, not all spending. The federal portion is $3.3 trillion.

The USG site shows total federal spending of $7.76 trillion. Of that about $4 trillion is interest, Medicare, SS, and "Income security" - various types of welfare and retirement payments. That leaves $3.76 trillion. Given the crudeness of the figures, and the not entirely clear classification of some expenditures, that isn't some giant discrepancy.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Further get this:

"So far this year, the federal government plans to spend $7.76 Trillion including" from https://www.usaspending.gov/

If only the federal government is spending $7.76T and our GDP is $25T, how can private consumption be 70% of our GDP on Earth?

Do other levels of government not spend? Is cost fo compliance really "private consumer spending".

[Sarcastr0]

I think that the disparity you see is transfer payments like social security and Medicare and the like.

I dimly recall that because they are not government paying for goods and services they are not part of GDP.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Even with transfer payments, your math doesn't work.

[Sarcastr0]

What math?

I am citing the BEA data.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Page 5 of your BEA report says the total of all government spending, on net, at all levels, is $4.4T for 2022.

Do you believe that to be true?

[Sarcastr0]

Yes, I believe the BEA data to be true.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

So you believe that the federal government non-transfer payment spending in 2022 to be $2.5T (pg 5, BEA pdf) and transfer payments to be $5.2T?

Given that I’ve showed you a topline number from another .gov site. And this makes sense to you?

And it makes sense to you that defense spending alone is 60% of all non-transfer spending?

[Sarcastr0]

Yes, I don’t think there is a conflict here.

https://www.usaspending.gov/explorer/object_class seems to line up well with the BEA numbers.

Transfer payments are big!

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Unfortunately for you:

"Grants and Fixed Charges" is not a synonym for "transfer payments".

[Sarcastr0]

I can't keep walking you through this.

That category is largely transfer payments. If you cared to click through and filter by gov. account you would see this. The rest is like research grants, which are also not considered part of GDP because they are not government participating in the economy as a purchaser of goods and services.

To be fair, there are some 1% buckets regarding tax credit refunds I'm not super clear on, but I'd wager most of those are EITC stuff and thus also transfer payments.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

$700B being interest payments, which is part of that number, makes that number not be "largely transfer payments."

Further, every single penny of it MUST be transfer payments to make the BEA's numbers be truthful.

This is math + common sense.

I'm sorry this is such a struggle for you.

[Randal]

I’m sorry this is such a struggle for you.

You seem to be the one struggling, Charlie.

[Sarcastr0]

You seem to understand why transfer payments are not counted in the GDP calculation.

Why would servicing the debt be included? It is also not government paying for goods or services.

No, I can't tell you 100% of this is not part of GDP calculation, but to first order this seems to explain the disparity you are concerned about between BEA and usaspend.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

"Why would servicing the debt be included? It is also not government paying for goods or services."

hashtag oh em gee

[Sarcastr0]

Same word, but utterly different meanings.

To be clear - are you arguing that paying down government debt should be or is part of GDP?

[bernard11]

I'm not sure what your OMG is intended to say but this certainly answers the question.

From the BEA

Payments such as transfer payments and interest payments are excluded from the calculation of GDP because these payments do not represent purchases of goods and services, though income from transfer and interest payments may fund consumption expenditures or investment in other sectors of the economy.

[Krayt]

Government (well, used to anyway) keeps borrowing proportional not to need but to GDP. In short they inhale the benefits of prodictivity increases.

[Sarcastr0]

Via what method does government borrowing effect private productivity?

[bernard11]

I don't think that follows.

[bernard11]

Did you ever consider that the only real reason for assuming that government spending has a high and positive “multiplier” is that politicians want excuses to spend money?

Did you ever consider actually studying economics rather than just letting your uninformed conspiracy-addled brain run amok?

Your comment is idiotic not least because there are plenty of "real" reasons for think there is a multiplier. You might disagree, but your disagreement is not based on anything substantive.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Are you arguing about the existence of a multiplier or the degree to which it's quantified among different sectors?

Which topic are you referring to?

[Sarcastr0]

YOU seemed to be arguing against the existence of the multiplier above.

Have you moderated your position?

I would note that Brett posited that the multiplier is negative. Which makes no sense mathematically, though I think he just means less than 1.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

"If you or I spend $1 our decision making is so poor it only impacts the economy as $0.70.

However, if they take that $1 from you and they decide how it’s spent, it impacts the economy as over $2."

You think that hypothetical is opposed to the concept of a multiplier, and not how it's being quantified with respect to government and private sector?

If that were true, why would I contrast the 0.7 and the 2.0 multiplier and not just reject it directly?

[Sarcastr0]

Appealing to incredulity and ignorance of economics is how we started this conversation.

First issue is the idea that wise spending means maximum multiplier. Why would that be?

[Brett Bellmore]

Um, maybe because we don't want spending to make everybody poorer?

[Sarcastr0]

...I'm not sure you know what the multiplier even is, at this point.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

We're talking about government spending, not wise spending.

WTF. Why do you keep arguing about things no one else is saying?

[Sarcastr0]

BCD, this is you: "If you or I spend $1 our decision making is so poor it only impacts the economy as $0.70"

That seems to be talking about unwise spending, no? That is where I picked up regarding wisdom and spending.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Me going to the store to buy groceries. Unwise spending.

Politicians spending $112B on a highspeed rail which was initially budgeted at $10B. Wise spending.

Sincerely,
Sarcastr0

[Sarcastr0]

The difference I’m not sure you’re tracking is the fixed nature of private consumption and income, compared to government fiscal policy which acts more like a one-time income enhancement (and thus local stimulus).

Your demand for groceries is already priced in. A new contract to build high-speed rail is not.

Nothing to do with poor decisions or wise ones at all.

[Michael P]

What law or bill was Joe Biden referring to when he said on Sunday that "my legislation says there can be no more than eight bullets in a round"?

[Jerry B.]

The same legislation that passed by two or three votes which allows college loan debt forgiveness, perhaps?

[not me]

It's a law of mathematics. Specifically a corollary of the identity theorem. This particular corollary states that 1 is not greater than 8.

[shawn_dude]

It's inverse to the law of required toilet flushes.

[Michael P]

Why doesn't California keep people on parole for manslaughter from possessing multiple firearms? And how can a "short barreled AR-15 pistol" be an assault rifle? https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/man-arrested-for-murder-a-fourth-time-police/

[SoSoCoCoMoFo]

They're probably using the "assault weapon" definition, which is a legislative creation which means exactly what they choose it to mean—neither more nor less.

[Martinned]

If bees can be fish...

[Krayt]

I'm not so sure about the "nothing more" part.

[apedad]

Attorney General Garland Announces Revised Justice Department News Media Policy

Attorney General Merrick B. Garland today announced significant revisions to the Justice Department’s regulations regarding obtaining information from, or records of, members of the news media.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/attorney-general-garland-announces-revised-justice-department-news-media-policy

There's a link to the new policy in this announcement and it mainly shows when agents have to get approval and who the approval authority is.

Two noteworthy items:

To seek a search warrant for the premises of a news media entity requires authorization by the Attorney General.

When there is a close or novel question as to whether the member of the news media is acting within the scope of newsgathering, the determination of such status must be approved by the Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division. When the Assistant Attorney General finds that there is genuine uncertainty as to whether the member of the news media is acting within the scope of newsgathering, the determination of such status must be approved by the Attorney General.

[SoSoCoCoMoFo]

Special rules for special businesses...

[Bob from Ohio]

One Democrat helping other Democrats.

[jb]

Yeah, the specific type of business called out in the First Amendment...

It's pretty funny to see the same people whining about FBI overreach lately to suddenly be upset when they seem to be putting some self-imposed limits on their behavior. Almost as if they don't care about FBI overreach as a general principle at all, and just care about who they happen to be paying attention to at any given moment.

[SRG]

Verily, if they didn't have double standards, they wouldn't have any standards.

[SoSoCoCoMoFo]

That is a good point, but the Justice Department regulations mentioned above do not appear to reference it.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Bureaucratic juggling isn't the same as "special rules," from the excerpts it seems to be more like the AG saying "I need to be kept in the loop about these sorts of activities."

[Brett Bellmore]

Testing.

Curious; Reason isn't letting me post comments with even one link right now. Maybe they don't like the link?

Made Dublin coddle for dinner yesterday, came out great, except for being a bit over-cooked after 9 hours. Anybody know of a good refrigerated crock pot that can hold meat at a safe temperature then turn on at a specified time?

[Brett Bellmore]

OK, the link to the recipe caused the comment not to post.

Unrelated link. (Sadly, out of stock.)

OK, Reason just didn't like the recipe link, I guess. Maybe they're homophobic. (It was to "feed a loon".)

[Brett Bellmore]

More detail on the recipe. (Which I inexplicably am not permitted to link to.)

2 medium potatoes, sliced
2 medium carrots, thick slices. (We all agreed more carrots would have been better.)
6 "bangers"; Used Conecuh smoked sausage, instead.
2 medium onions, coarsely sliced.
salt and pepper to taste.
4 thick slices smokey bacon
1 bottle Guinness stout
Added several fresh bay leaves towards the end of cooking.

Fry the bacon and reserve. Fry the sausage to brown, in the bacon grease, and reserve. Then fry the onions until they're somewhat caramelized.

Layer the ingredients in the crock pot, half the potatoes and and carrots on the bottom, then half the onions, then the sausage and bacon, then repeat with the rest of the veggies. I stuffed the bay leaves in on the sides.

Deglaze the pan with the Guinness, and pour over. Then 4-5 hours on low.

Be sure to have a sop on hand, the gravy is delicious but on the thin side. We used jalapeno corn bread.

[Commenter_XY]

Oooooooh. Sounds good. I will make it.

Instant Pot is your friend = Anybody know of a good refrigerated crock pot that can hold meat at a safe temperature then turn on at a specified time?

Jalapeno cornbread recipe? 🙂

[DaveM]

Your comments are filtered by reason.com to help prevent hacking. It may be that your URL link contains an illegal character which is why it is being ignored.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, I've looked the url over and there's nothing wrong with it. It appears that Reason has that particular site blacklisted.

[DaveM]

Interesting. Yeah, I guess I could see them using a URL blacklist service. Comment boards are so open. I know Google has a free service, I presume they also sell one for backend use.

[OtisAH]

The woke liberals at woke Reason clearly don’t want the people to know the info you’re trying to share. You’ve been shadowbanned, possibly cancelled. Too early to know for sure. What is clear is that you’re being censored with a combination of Dem Party perfidy and a personal vendetta Reason has against you.

[Brett Bellmore]

Nah, it's just that site. Like I said, maybe they're homophobic.

[ragebot]

I switched from my InstaPot and a crock pot to sous vide and then searing with a Su-Vgun. Gotta say the results with sous vide are superior to anything I have ever seen. This is an old vid and they are now for sale.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brQj3aTgunA&t=318s

[Brett Bellmore]

Oh, I've had a searing torch for like forever. My wife won't let me use it, claims it makes things taste funny. So I sear over charcoal, which is why my hands are hairless. 😉

Hm, sous vide; I guess there are sous vide units out there that do refrigeration, too. (I use an Inky Bird controller with my slow cooker.) Though sous vide seems like overkill for Dublin coddle.

[Sarcastr0]

After the discussions legitimacy here I have been listening to the Yale Open Course ‘The Foundations of Moral Philosophy.’

After hitting Bentham and Mill, Prof. Ian Shapiro now absolutely going off on Marx in session 11. Labor theory of value being quite flawed, misapprehension of R&D in society, superabundance being impossible in a society where death exists…

So far each class has addresses issues pretty relevant to many of the discussions we have here,

[Sarcastr0]

Communism: needs no state policymakers - the state has withered away to mere administration of to each according to their need and from each according to their ability.

Socialism: workers receive the full value of their labor without capitalists exploiting them.

Both quite demonstrably wrong in the current day. (See especially feminist critiques of socialism).

Importantly, neither has anything to do with a social safety net or state assistance with subsistence.

Indeed, Ralph Millibramd said that entitlements was the Capitalists best friend. Marx just didn’t realize what governments could do to address worker discontent.

[Michael P]

For somebody who was complaining about people using words inconsistently and unreasonably yesterday, you sure piled a lot of straw men onto that flame.

How do you divorce the state enforcing "to each according to his need" from "state assistance with subsistence"?

[Sarcastr0]

So these are Marx’s definitions. Kind of amazing to call them strawmen.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Speaking of Marx's definitions, how do you think he would define "woman"? And have you heard what he wrote about the blacks?

[Sarcastr0]

not really Marx’s bag, but he did neglect homemaking as having any labor value. It is actually a pretty existential flaw in his theory.

[Brett Bellmore]

That's hardly the only problem with the labor theory of value, though. Really, as economic theories go it was terrible, and in ways that should have been blatantly obvious to him.

[Sarcastr0]

It is a bad theory, but the idea that Marx should have known better is not something I can speak to.

No one else had any kind of theory of value at all at the time.

[Michael P]

When did he proffer those definitions?

I don't think he ever clearly distinguished those two words. Towards the end of his life, in Critique of the Gotha Programme, he theorized two phases of post-capitalist communism that almost tracks those definitions, but his followers were the ones who tied that to a socialism/communism distinction.

[Sarcastr0]

The quotes Prof. Shapiro cites largely come from the Communist Manifesto, but some from earlier works.

You are not wrong that Marx changed his opinions about the implications of his labor theory of value.

Check out episode 11 of the course - it’s about 50 mins and pretty eye opening!

[Sarcastr0]

Now on to social contract theory - Rawls and Nozick!

[Armchair Lawyer]

So, that debate for US Senator from Pennsylvania certainly...happened.

I'll be honest here. Fetterman is not capable of being a US senator anymore than a blind person is capable of driving. Sure, you can put a blind person behind the wheel of a car, and tell them when to push the accelerator, when to stop, and when to turn. But the second they are on their own, it will be a literal wreck. That's the state Fetterman apparently in, given the debate. He simply does not have the means to effectively communicate.

The question is, why did the Democrats run him? He should have withdrawn. They had capable other candidates in the primary.

The other question is...this dishonesty on the true state of Fetterman's health reflects poorly on the Democrats, and poorly on the media. The liberal media seems to cover for him. And it's a problem if you actually want the truth of things.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

They ran him because they know the elections in PA aren't real, like in most of the country that has a large Democrat urban center.

[Sarcastr0]

I got what he was saying. His cognition is fine. I wish his recovery had gone faster, it by all accounts it is continuing.

Maybe don’t be a partisan about it for one moment.

Weird dishonesty in allowing a debate. Almost like not dishonesty at all unless you have already decided to use this as a partisan cudgel because you are a tool.

[Michael P]

What makes you think his cognition is fine? Being able to stumble through the act of repeating soundbites? The time limits on the debate answers discouraged any kind of complex argument or expression, and his difficulties with both input and output further hampered his performance.

[Sarcastr0]

He’s got a bunch of doctors to certify so. I take it you haven’t been paying too much attention.

If you decide there is a conspiracy to hide his health from the public, nothing will convince you otherwise. Same as fools that said Hillary or Trump would drop dead any moment now.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Don't believe what you can see and hear, a politician hired some doctors to certify him safe for work and you should trust them!

Wow dude. That's a pathetic argument for even a bootlicker.

[Sarcastr0]

What do you see and hear that indicates anything about his mental state?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

What? Did you not watch any clips from that debate?

lol wow what a profound state of ignorance.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's not ignorance, precisely. They've worked themselves into a corner where the very fact that their opponents assert something is taken as proof it's false. Once Republicans noticed that Fetterman was compromised, Democrats could no longer admit it was true.

Just like it was impossible for Democrats to take into account Hillary being famously corrupt, because Republicans talked about it. Just like Biden has to be all there mentally, so far as Democrats are concerned, precisely because Republicans are saying he's visibly losing it.

Just having Republicans say something is true makes it impossible for them to admit it's true.

[bernard11]

Three issues, Brett.

One, whether you like it or not, when Republicans say anything it's a fair bet that it's a lie.

Two, even if what they say has some kernel of truth, they exaggerate so much that the total claim contains more falsity than truth.

Three, they absolutely will say anything, with utter disregard for the truth. Consider, for example, the widespread acceptance of Trump's lies about 2020.

[Brett Bellmore]

Thanks for the prompt confirmation, Bernard. I appreciate it.

[bernard11]

You get all the confirmation you need from inside your head, Brett.

[Sarcastr0]

Brett once again not bothering to back up his assertion; just declaring that those asking him to back it up are motivated by their biases and don't count.

[not me]

Well, Brett hardly needs to back up his assertion when Bernard (above) and Nige (below) promptly confirm his claim.

If you are referring to anything other than his claim that "Just having Republicans say something is true makes it impossible for them to admit it’s true" then you are either on the wrong thread or mixing up the commenters.

[Sarcastr0]

Brett asserting something and then saying 'Dems will all contradict me, and it'll only be because they can't help but contradict Republicans!' does not actually establish anything about anyone who contradicts him.

[bernard11]

His claim is false. It's not at all impossible.

What I am saying is a that the falsity is a reasonable presumption, for the reasons I give. If someone is known to lie say, 70% of the time it makes sense to be skeptical of anything they say. At a minimum anything they say should be checked carefully. The presumption can sometimes be rebutted.

[Nige]

Have you tried actually telling the truth?

[OtisAH]

One problem with you believing what you see and hear is you have no capacity to analyze those things you hear and see.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

So when a guy gets on stage and opens with "Goodbye", I can't determine that's odd behavior and instead should rely upon a paid campaign doctor to tell me that's perfectly normal cognitive behavior for a stroke victim?

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, it IS perfectly normal for a stroke victim. As opposed to perfectly normal for a healthy person... And it's perfectly normal for a stroke victim to be incapable of performing a lot of jobs.

[Randal]

Have you ever known any stroke victims? Aphasia is a super-common symptom, and it has nothing to do with cognitive ability otherwise.

There are two arguments going on, one about whether his "cognition is fine," driven by noted illuminaries Charlie and Pichael. They're obviously ignorant.

There's a separate question about how aphasia itself affects job performance. My experience is that it can in two ways.

First, as a disability, it's actually worse than deafness or muteness, because certain words are just unavailable to the person entirely, in any medium. In a one-on-one conversation, both parties can fish around for replacement words as needed, but that won't work for reading things.

Secondly, it's just distracting. Even though his mind is likely otherwise fine, a lot of his thought process will be occupied by trying to compensate for his aphasia.

The good news is that both of these impacts diminish with time as the victim relearns the missing words and names.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, actually I have known stroke victims.

One recovered quite promptly, and then retired on the advice of his doctor that he should enjoy his retirement because his long term prognosis wasn't that great, and he really didn't need to maximize his retirement savings.

The other was my Dad, who died within the week, of further strokes.

You don't seem to be disagreeing with me, really. It's quite possible that he can think clearly, and just can't put it into words. Which sucks, because his job requires him to put it into words.

And, yeah, assuming he doesn't have more strokes, he should eventually recover some function. Relearn words, and his brain will even rewire around the damage to an extent. Exactly how many terms do you expect him to serve in the Senate while we're waiting on that? Maybe Pennsylvania wants a Senator who can start the job immediately, not a decade from now?

[Michael P]

Are you talking about his campaign donor doctor who also certified that Fetterman's speech is "normal"? I take it you are being your usual dishonest self.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"He’s got a bunch of doctors to certify so."

CNN's medical analyst seems to think the Fetterman campaign has understated his impairment:

"Fetterman’s residual neurological injury is substantial,” Reiner said. “Much greater than his campaign has led the public to believe. It’s more than just processing hearing. It’s incredibly sad to watch."

[Bob from Ohio]

"He’s got a bunch of doctors to certify so."

He got one doctor, a campaign donor to say so in a letter. No medical records.

You laughed at Trump when he did the same, now its proof beyond debate.

[Jerry B.]

Oh, come on. His cognition is just as good as the President's.

[TwelveInchPianist]

And you have to have good cognition to get a student loan forgiveness bill through Congress, even if it's only by a couple of votes.

[Bob from Ohio]

"His cognition is just as good as the President’s."

Maybe better!

BIDEN: "The most common price of gas in America is $3.39. Down from over $5 when I took office."

[Don Nico]

Wow, That is a low bar.

[Brett Bellmore]

They delayed the debate until early voting had already been going on for over a month. I'd say his campaign staff knew he couldn't get away without debating at least once, but thought if they pushed the debate off until just before the election he might already have his victory banked before people saw what a mess he was.

His cognition may be fine, in the sense that he's still fully capable of non-verbal reasoning, and even some degree of verbal reasoning. And that would be enough for a lot of jobs. But he's running for a job that requires the use of language, and six months after his stroke he's still suffering from serious aphasia, which means he's probably still going to be suffering from it six years from now, too. Assurances from a doctor who's also a campaign donor don't cut it.

Armchair Lawyer's hypothetical blind driver would have fine cognition, too, but it wouldn't mean they were able to drive.

You know what Democrats were thinking? That it was too late to change candidates, and they could just have his staff do the actual job, with Fetterman as a front. Like they're doing with Biden.

[Commenter_XY]

Sarcastr0, what are the job requirements for a US Senator? I mean, the ability to speak and debate coherently in an extemporaneous fashion is certainly a requirement. The ability to speak with foreign leaders with nuanced verbal communication is certainly a must.

Would you care to make the case that Mr. Fetterman is qualified for the job, given his inability to respond extemporaneously in a coherent fashion to verbal speech? We don't talk with teleprompters, and we don't have closed-captioning wherever we go.

This man is being exploited, and it is shameful. I want Mr. Fetterman to fully recover from his stroke. He is a human being, for Pete's sake. At a time when Fetterman needs intensive therapy and a low stress environment to facilitate his complete recovery, the man is out running for Senate, which is a physically and mentally demanding endeavor.

I saw the lowlights of this debate. When you start your comments by saying "Good Night" instead of "Good Evening" and goes downhill from there - there is a problem. It was humiliating to Mr. Fetterman and that is wrong. You cannot mock the poor (meaning, one cannot mock another because of a circumstance they cannot control); what is happening here is precisely that....Mr. Fetterman is being mocked.

How corrosive to our spirit to watch this 'real time'. I feel genuine pity for this man.

[Sarcastr0]

Speak and debate? I’m not sure you’ve been paying attention to the modern Senate.

I will absolutely make the case that being a Senator is based on judgement and cognition, and that most things can be accomplished by one’s staff or in writing.

This man is being exploited, and it is shameful.

Fuck off with this conflation of mental and physical disability. Pity the poor man?! Do you hear what you sound like with this partisan take?

[Commenter_XY]

Sarcastr0, there is nothing partisan about my objection. He is a human being created in the image of our living God. Do you see what is being said by people who are truly mocking Mr. Fetterman for something he cannot control? That is so wrong, at a moral level. And our society treats this like some entertaining blood sport. Shame on us.

This man is recovering from a stroke. That is tremendously difficult; I have had family members who had strokes, and watched them come back in varying degrees. The mental, physical, emotional and spiritual challenges during recovery are immense. I feel pity, precisely because I have had family members who've had strokes, and watched them recover (or not). Do you think for one moment I would ever want to see any human being degraded like this? No, this is very bad.

Josh R had this right, from a political perspective, IMO. I would have been fine with Team D substituting a party candidate in an extraordinary circumstance. Why not? Shit, we did it in the People's Republic of NJ. So it is not like it is unheard of.

To watch what is happening here, this is corrosive to all of us.

That is separate and apart from the question of whether I believe he is qualified for the job, simply on medical grounds (nevermind the politics). His speech is impaired, and the ability to verbally communicate is critical to being a Senator.

[Josh R]

One other political point: from what I have heard, part of Fetterman's appeal is he comes across as an "everyman" who appeals to blue collar people who feel abandoned by "elites" (a constituency that has been fertile ground for Trump, but god knows not Oz). Perhaps the stroke has robbed Fetterman from displaying that talent.

[Nige]

How many ordinary people get treated as mentally impaired or no longer fit for anything because of a physical disability? Watching the Republicans go to town on a recovering stroke victim in support of a fraudulent quack is... quite the spectacle.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Why not? Shit, we did it in the People’s Republic of NJ. So it is not like it is unheard of."

Yeah, crimes aren't unheard of. And what they did with Torricelli was illegal.

[Commenter_XY]

Yes, what the NJSC did with Torricelli (e.g. replacing him on the ballot post primary) was certainly "extra-constitutional" wrt the NJ state constitution.

Need I remind you that I live in the Peoples Republic of NJ? 🙂

[Bob from Ohio]

"He is a human being created in the image of our living God. "

Or by a doctor in Transylvania? Is it Mr. Fetterman or is that the name of his creator?

[Commenter_XY]

Bob from Ohio...I do not care for Fetterman's politics. I don't live in PA, either. From a utilitarian standpoint, Fetterman losing election stymies bad federal policy. I get that. Based on what I am seeing, it is even money now. Ok, that is the political dimension.

What I am seeing here is just wrong. I watched the lowlights. It was humiliating to Mr. Fetterman, and it was painful to watch him struggle, as he did, to find the words to say. And he failed to choose the right words multiple times. The part that really bothers me is the people around him have known for months. No one can make the case to me that running for US Senate is somehow therapeutic to a stroke survivor trying to recover; it is lunacy.

I just don't like to see anyone humiliated like that.

[Brett Bellmore]

"and that most things can be accomplished by one’s staff or in writing."

IOW, you expect him to be a PR face for his staff, who will actually be the Senator.

[Randal]

Well, that would be the typical DC model, but no. The opposite. He's expecting the staff to be the PR face for the Senator.

[Nige]

No, YOU expect somone who is recovering from a stroke to be reduced to the state of some sort of human puppet, no longer a real human being.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, we expect somebody who's largely recovered as much as he's going to, and still isn't up to the job, to be reduced to some sort of human puppet. Because that's the only way the job would actually get done, if you gave it to Fetterman.

[Nige]

Except that is something that you've completely made up. I refer you back to comments above about how you lie all the time - these are lies.

[Sarcastr0]

Where did I say he wouldn't be making decisions, Brett?

I actually like the idea of it being a workhorse more than a showhorse. Too few of those these days.

[Brett Bellmore]

Pretty much where you said we could rely on his staff.

[Sarcastr0]

"being a Senator is based on judgement and cognition, and that most things can be accomplished by one’s staff or in writing."

I suppose I should have put an 'other' after most, but I don't see how you can read other than that I was saying being a Senator includes using judgement and cognition, not leaving that to your staff.

[Don Nico]

but when the fellow cannot speak coherently, you have no way of knowing how good his judgement or cognition are.
Moreover if the D party want to replace the fellow with hs chief of staff let it do so

[Sarcastr0]

Um, that’s not true. Not speaking clearly is easily distinguishable from not thinking clearly.

At this point you are making stuff up to crap on someone who had a stroke for a partisan narrative.

[Bob from Ohio]

"I actually like the idea of it being a workhorse"

What in his career makes you think Fetterman is "a workhorse"?

No real job ever, supported by his rich parents even now, former part time mayor of a small town and holds a do nothing political job.

[Don Nico]

S_0,
It is pretty sad how thick and sight constricting your blinders are.
C_XY made a perfectly sympathetic statement about the make and you launch back an insulting trirade.

[not guilty]

The job requirements to be a U.S. Senator are a minimum age requirement of age 30, at least nine years' U.S. citizenship, and being an inhabitant of the state for which he is chosen.

If the ability to speak and debate coherently in an extemporaneous fashion were a requirement, Herschel Walker would be disqualified.

[David Nieporent]

It is very similar to the Walker situation (though Walker has a lot of issues besides the cognitive problems); the main difference is that people expect Fetterman to improve with continued therapy, while nobody expects Walker to recover from his CTE.

[Brett Bellmore]

"the main difference is that people expect Fetterman to improve with continued therapy,"

It's been six months since his stroke. Anybody who expects him to improve a lot in under a decade at this point is wildly over-optimistic. He might learn coping strategies for dealing with the deficit, (Don't debate or hold press conferences, for instance.) but the deficit is not going away any time soon.

[David Nieporent]

It's been five months, but who's counting? And anybody who thinks he knows what Fetterman's prospects are based on nothing more than seeing him in one debate (or, more likely, clips of him in one debate; I doubt that everyone here who's opining sat through the whole thing) is wildly foolish.

[Randal]

Fetterman's case may have specific aspects to it that no one here knows.

But it is generally true that neurological recovery from a stroke slows way down after the first three months or so.

[bernard11]

Not what the neurologist-in-chief at Tufts, and former former director of its Comprehensive Stroke Center says. (see above.)

[Randal]

No, it's exactly consistent, and exactly what I've heard before.

then there is significant improvement in the first few weeks and months afterward

He's past the phase of "significant improvement."

Then there is continued, but much slower improvement, until the first anniversary. Then after that, there's no more neurological recovery that can be expected, it's all just relearning things and honing your coping mechanisms.

[OtisAH]

To restate for the record, Herschel Walker may be/likely is afflicted with CTE. But he is definitely afflicted with Dissociative Identity Disorder, which is an *actual psychosis* that is better known as Multiple Personality Disorder.

[Commenter_XY]

not guilty, if the public record (like the debate he had with Senator Warnock) supports your contention that Mr. Walker cannot speak extemporaneously in a coherent fashion because of a medical issue, then you're right. Do you recall seeing a lot of stories post-debate about that? Meaning that Walker had 'processing problems' and could not speak coherently when speaking extemporaneously. I do not. I recall a lot of discussion about political disagreement, and whether Mr. Walker is being hypocritical about his stance on abortion (assuming the stories are true about his paying for an abortion for an ex-girlfriend). But not so much on....Walker cannot speak coherently because of a medical issue.

GA voters will ultimately make the judgment on Mr. Walker. That is fine. The lens I am looking at Fetterman is not a 'partisan political' lens. I am greatly troubled by what I am seeing = the mocking of Fetterman over something he had no control of.

[not guilty]

Herschel Walker reminds me of Ron White's classic line: you can't fix stupid.

Of course, the fact that he is such a liar as would make Bill Clinton blush compounds the problem.

[Commenter_XY]

Yeah listen, I get all that = rough and tumble of politics; hypocritical politicians; and even stupid politicians. Really not guilty, I do.

I am very greatly troubled by the moral dimension here; the behavior that it is somehow 'Ok' or 'fair game' to mock one for a condition beyond their control. Today, it is Fetterman (and perhaps Walker). I don't want to see this kind of behavior because it coarsens our national spirit.

[bernard11]

Much of what Walker says makes so little sense it doesn't actually matter whether it's a medical issue or just general stupidity.

[Don Nico]

Ah yes, someday you will learn the difference between minimum requirements and qualifications.

[Josh R]

I don't think being able to debate is a requirement for a Senator. I also think Fetterman's cognition is likely fine. He's qualified in my opinion.

That being said, as a matter of politics, he should have withdrawn either right after the stroke or during the summer when it was clear his recovery was going very slowly.

[bernard11]

Sorry, XY, but I find conservative concerns for Fetterman, and claims that he really can't do the job, etc., wildly cynical.

These are people who support any number of incompetents and con men, who said last week that they supported Mastriano, so spare me.

[Brett Bellmore]

I've actually said that Fetterman's aphasia might improve him as a Senator, given how awful he would be on policy. You WANT people who will be trying to do the wrong thing to be bad at it.

Still doesn't explain Democrats seeming to think it's ok to run brain damaged candidates. My explanation would be they just expect him to be a front for his staff, who functionally will be the real "Senator Fetterman".

Like Biden. No need for the candidate to be capable of doing the job if they're just the pr face for a team of reliable drones.

[Nige]

Why do you think it’s okay to lie about someone being brain damaged?

[Brett Bellmore]

I don't. Why do you want to pretend that somebody who's had a stroke and is exhibiting serious aphasia isn't brain damaged? That's the real question here.

What do you think strokes to to brains, anyway? I assure you, nothing pretty.

[Nige]

Because someone recovering from a stroke exhibiting aphasia isn't indicative of permanent serious brain damage and it's a lie to claim that it is.

[Mr. Bumble]

Nige, MD!?

[Nige]

Did you just copy another comment? From the same thread?

[Don Nico]

The man never said permanent "serious brain damage"
But he obviously has brain damage now, and no one knows just how permanently debilitating it will be.

[Nige]

It's a cynical, opportunistic attack on Fetterman, whatever the pretext.

[bernard11]

Brett,

Please read the Globe article I linked above. An actual expert disagrees with you.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, the expert does not disagree with me.

I keep saying that it's quite possible Fetterman still has his wits about him. But he's suffered brain damage in an area of the brain devoted to language, and Senators have a job that relies a lot on language.

He's enjoyed most of his recovery at this point, so what you see is what you're going to get, more or less: A guy who may, for all I know, be quite smart, (Aphasia makes it much harder to tell.) but the engine isn't connected to the drive train anymore, as it were.

I'm sure there are all sorts of jobs out there a smart guy who no longer can use language very well can do. Senator isn't one of them.

The counter argument seems to boil down to, "Who cares? His staff will do all the actual work."

Fine, then: Put his staff on the ballot.

[Bob from Ohio]

"His cognition is fine."

Thanks Dr. Sarcasto!

[Sarcastr0]

I have some authorities. You just have spiteful wishes.

[John F. Carr]

I remember a guy in some forum long ago telling a story about how he was gradually going blind but still had an unexpired license even though he couldn't see. He was the only sober person in his party, so into the driver's seat he got. There is no law saying you have to be able to see to drive. To get a license, yes, but not to drive.

[Nige]

The true state of Fetterman's health is that you can't tell the difference between a physical and a mental impairment, or have decided for the purposes of this specific election that people with physical impairments are unfit for office.

[SoSoCoCoMoFo]

Surely, he should have declined to "debate" Oz if it was likely to make him appear incompetent. He had a valid excuse, ffs.

[David Nieporent]

"The Democrats" did not "run him." Why do people look for conspiracy where the answer is mundane? First, he was chosen in a public primary, not by "the Democrats." (To be clear, I'm not saying that Republicans picked him. I'm saying that it was the result of him getting more votes from Democratic primary voters, rather than a decision by the Democratic Party.) Second, his stroke occurred just a couple of days before the primary, with no time for people to find out what his condition was.

Also, there is the expectation that his condition will improve. ("Madam, the difference is that in the morning, I will be sober. You will still be ugly.")

[Ben_]

He’s going to lose because he is obviously not able.

Had Democrats understood his condition, they might have been able to replace him. But now it’s probably too late. (Probably. They’ve done illegal last minute switches before.)

What would have helped Democrats learn this in time? A functioning news media might have brought this to light for them. They populated the news media with cheerleaders and propagandists and partisan operatives eager to hide unpleasant facts. Those unpleasant facts were hidden, and Democrats found out too late.

Another thing that might have helped Democrats is a desire to have a government that works and serves the public. They’d be sure to choose an able Senator if they cared about that. But they don’t. So any globalist tool who will fill the seat and do what he is told is good enough for them. No brain function needed, so they didn’t make it a priority.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

If he's elected, I'd rather he not be at full capacity.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Stupid things the Statist Bootlickers believe, Part 2:

Sin taxes influence spending behavior. Income taxes do not similarly influence earning behavior.

[Sarcastr0]

Do you work less hard because your income is taxed?

[OtisAH]

He’s unemployed.

Edit: “unemployable.” Stupid spellcheck.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Do you think my income generating behavior changes based upon changes in tax law?

Or that my earning behavior operates in a vacuum with respect to taxes?

[Sarcastr0]

I don't know anything about your motives and behaviors offline, so I don't know why you're asking me.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Have you ever heard of “Theory of Mind”? Most humans begin to acquire this ability around 5ish years old.

[Sarcastr0]

Um, thanks for the namecalling, but seems to me you are the one best situated to tell me your behaviors and motives.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

And you can't possibly fathom behaviorial changes based upon tax requirements for any other human.

I guess that makes sense, since negative impact from any government action is beyond your realm of acceptance and understanding. It just doesn't exist in your universe.

[Sarcastr0]

I'm not asking about any human - I'm asking about you.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Now I'm not even human?

Gross. This is why I say Federals are evil, vile subhumans.

[OtisAH]

Wow, you capture the entire conservative Victimized Bully routine in only 16 words? Brilliant! I’m making this my new NFT.

[Randal]

I think Charlie might not be human! It makes much more sense as an AI being trained to "own the libs." It seems to be learning how best to troll Sarcastr0 specifically. But there's no human intelligence behind its utterances.

[OtisAH]

For the last frikkin’ time, cashing social welfare checks is NOT “generating income.”

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Well since it's the government giving me the money that SS check is worth 3x to the economy through the government multiplier effect!

It's an infinite money tree. The government can take $1 from me, give it to a politician's favored donor and it becomes $2. That donor then gives $1 back to the politician who in turns gives it to another client and it becomes $2, rinse and repeat and you have "Smart Government" and "Fiscal Responsiblity" all from $1!

[Sarcastr0]

The multiplier is about fiscal policy, not transfer payments.

[jb]

Stupid things that rednecks apparently believe:

That behavior in response to all taxes is identical regardless of the level of taxation, and that people's behavior with regards to income and spending are the same.

Of course both sin taxes and income taxes influence behavior. Theres's reasonably good economic literature on both. Certainly something like a 70% marginal income tax rate would likely disincentivize a reasonable amount of income-generation, just as very high cigarette taxes dramatically reduce cigarette consumption. But does raising the top marginal rate from 33% to 37% significantly effect people's incentive to work and produce income? Not very much, and I think that's consistent with what research has found.

[Ben_]

"Stupid things that rednecks apparently believe"

We know Democrats are prone to casually use skin-color-based slurs. We know not to take Democrats seriously whenever they pretend to care about such things.

[jb]

You know its about something that happens to your skin after you're born, not an inherent condition right?

[Armchair Lawyer]

So, apparently there was a massive ballot harvesting scheme going on in Florida.

"Harris, who has worked as an election poll worker in the past, said her biggest concern in coming forward is that ballots collected by third parties have no chain of custody, making it easier to commit fraud such as destroying a ballot or altering it.

"You know, it's just utterly ridiculous that people don't understand that once that ballot leaves your hand and it's not placed in the mailbox, or it's not directly given to the supervisor of elections, you don't know where it goes," she said. "It's possible that they throw them away. We've seen evidence of that.

"You see them steam open the ballots and then they mismark them so that if it's not for their candidate, then that ballot is spoiled. So when people think that the numbers are low, it's really not low, it's just that someone has intercepted before it gets to the proper authorities."

Harris alleged that the Orange County supervisor of elections, who has held the office for 26 years, has turned a blind eye to ballot harvesting in her community.

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/florida-opens-criminal-probe-democrat-whistleblowers-evidence-ballot

[Michael P]

On the one hand, she has an obvious incentive to be vindictive towards the elected officials. On the other, if she has video and the script a harvester used? That's powerful evidence as to why Democrats push mail-in voting so hard while rejecting integrity measures.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

There are videos of this behavior in MN with Ilhan.

That didn't change anyone's minds. They still say it's a conspiracy.

[Randal]

Because of how dumb the allegation is. This sort of fraud would be easily detected if applied to more than a handful of ballots. And a handful of ballots isn't enough to impact an election. So there's no incentive to do it.

I mean, an infinitely more efficient way of stealing an election is to... can you guess? Campaign for the candidate you want to win! You can potentially "change" lots of votes that way. And it's even legal!

[DaveM]

“You know, it’s just utterly ridiculous that people don’t understand that once that ballot leaves your hand and it’s not placed in the mailbox, or it’s not directly given to the supervisor of elections, you don’t know where it goes…”

Whoa, hold on there, friend. Putting your ballot into a mailbox is not in any way preserving the chain of custody.

1. The mail gets mixed in with all the other mail within the box. 2
. There it sits, locked but unobserved for X hours before pick up.
3. The mail from all boxes on a route gets picked up and carried to a processing center.
4. The ballots get sorted in the center, bundled for distribution, and shipped. That could happen several times, depending on how far it has to travel.
5. On the other end, it gets unbundled, resorted for carrier delivery.
6. Transported again
7. Sorted into a post office box
8. Picked up by election officials
9. Transported again back to the office.
10. Sorted again for processing by volunteers.

In many of the steps along that journey, your signed and sealed ballot is vulnerable to attack. It can be lost, mangled, swapped, and misdirected.

Now contrast that with in-person voting:

1. They hand you a blank ballot
2. You fill it in private
3. You put your ballot into the counting machine

Mail-in voting should be everyone’s last resort, when they literally cannot vote any other way. And now with the advent of early in-person voting, there is literally not a single good reason to not vote in person.

I just voted early in-person in my city, and it took me all of 5 minutes.

[Michael P]

The USPS is fairly careful about mail custody. There's a supervision problem if the ballot sits in a normal residential mailbox, where anyone could open it and add or remove mail (although doing so is a serious federal crime). But once a letter or ballot mailee gets picked up, or even put into a USPS mailbox, the USPS has custody of it. There might not be a chain of custody that is traced to an individual, but it's more than what we can reliably get from ballot harvesters.

[Sarcastr0]

You do have some carefully tuned institutional skepticism!

[Kazinski]

s a former postal worker I can attest to Michael's observation.

While I got out of the post office many years ago, my brother who spent 35 years with the post office and is now a county election supervisor, and Bernie supporter would also totally agree.

Mail is safe, poll workers are safe, family members are also probably safe to handle your ballot, but no one else should.

You have to sign and date your ballot, any one else who handles your ballot other than the exceptions above, should also have to sign, date, and show id to prove proper chain of custody.

[DaveM]

Sorry, but the USPS is not a guaranteed delivery service, nor have they ever billed themselves as such. Routine audits of lost/misdirected mail run into high single-digit percentages.

I work as an Officer of Election, and we are constantly drilled on the importance of not only a chain of custody, but a verifiable, open chain with multiple, independent observers. It is so strange how incredibly hard we are drilled on not losing account of one, single ballot — empty or filled! — and yet here people are just tossing all those security measures basically to the wind by putting ballots into unsecured mailboxes.

I don’t get it.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, seriously, mail in ballots need to be reserved for special circumstances like overseas voters, or genuine shutins. The vast expansion of mail voting is really breaking the balance between security/reliability and convenience.

We are a terrible outlier, as a nation, in terms of ballot security. Most democracies take it a LOT more seriously.

[jb]

Have we? It's remarkable how little we end up talking about or seeing evidence of fraud in states that have been doing universal mail-in voting for a while. Is Utah a hotbed of vote fraud and we're just not hearing about it for some reason?

[Jason Cavanaugh]

My State does mail-in voting as default, and it works just fucking fine.

Once again you're complaining about imaginary problems.

[Mr. Bumble]

"My State does mail-in voting as default, and it works just fucking fine." ...until Democrats lose an election.

[jb]

Yes yes, please tell me about all those big Democratic wins in Utah. It's like you guys don't have the intellectual curiosity to even wonder about which states are already using mail-in balloting as a default.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

One of your numerous deficiencies is thinking that everyone is just as partisan as you are.

Unlike you, I don't vote based on party affiliation, because I don't have one and consider political parties to be the bane of America.

A prime example would be...you. Your bullshit is a result of political party affiliation. You might actually be a decent person if you pulled your head out of your ass and realized that the GOP is not your friend, and Democrats are therefore not your enemy.

Neither of them give a flying fuck about you.

[SoSoCoCoMoFo]

It's the politics-as-sports thing.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

"Mail-in voting should be everyone’s last resort, when they literally cannot vote any other way. And now with the advent of early in-person voting, there is literally not a single good reason to not vote in person."

Your entitled to your opinion, despite it being completely wrong.

Mail-in voting works just fine. How do I know? My State does it by default, and has been for quite a while.

[SoSoCoCoMoFo]

The allegations are certainly worth investigating.

And I think we should all thank Cynthia Harris for courageously coming forward about this serous issue so soon after she lost the county commissioner election.

[bernard11]

I'm betting she is full of shit.

[David Nieporent]

I know she's full of shit, because disgraced ex-journalist John Solomon is reporting on this. He's a good anti-news source. (Note that nothing in the article — nothing — explains how she would know any of this. Nothing in the article even explores that question, despite its obviousness.)

[bernard11]

Ah.

I didn't notice Solomon's name on the article.

I like my odds.

[SoSoCoCoMoFo]

He does get around. I noticed his association with at least one other topic I had commented on earlier today (Trump’s Ukraine impeachment).

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Britian's NHS just came out and said most children who think they're trans are going through a phase and they should not be encouraged to change names or take puberty blocking sterilization drugs.

I wonder what science they're trusting and why no one in the US has seen it.

[Nige]

They did not, in fact, say any of this.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/23/children-who-think-transgender-just-going-phase-says-nhs/

TUL.

[TwelveInchPianist]

From the article you linked to:
"Most children who believe that they are transgender are just going through a “phase”, the NHS has said, as it warns that doctors should not encourage them to change their names and pronouns."

The Times has similar coverage:

"Most children identifying as transgender are simply going through a “transient phase”, new NHS guidance states."

The actual guidance doesn't seem to be online though.

[Nige]

Yes, they're both lying. 'May be a phase' is not 'most are going through a phase.'

[TwelveInchPianist]

Who's claiming that it is?

[Nige]

The Times and the Telegraph and BravoHateMungus up there.

[TwelveInchPianist]

No they're not.

[Nige]

Yes, they are.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Sigh. Your internet rando is lying.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Lying. The source she provides has a similar statement, but she falsely claims that the MSM quotes were solely relying on a different part of the article.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Read your article, and what it links to.

[Nige]

'Your internet rando is lying.'

You keep saying this, but fail to show it.

[Nige]

Not the mainstream media! Show me in the actual report where it says that.

[Armchair Lawyer]

If Biden tries to get a secret deal with Saudi Arabia in order for gas/oil prices to be lowered...in exchange for military aid...just until after the midterm elections....so Democrats can politically benefit.

Is that evidence of a "quid pro quo" that deserves impeachment?

How is that different morally from asking a different government to investigate some potentially sketchy behavior from the son of a politician?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

They don’t care about hypocrisy. Appeals to it won’t change any attitudes.

They only care about the power hierarchy and preserving it. Their sick and inverted euphemism for their authoritarian power pyramid is “Sacred Democracy”.

[Michael P]

There's at least an arguable difference in kind because an investigation might not go the way that the requester wants. The existence of the investigation would be an adverse effect (because presumably it would be leaked), which counters that argument to some extent. There's another difference in terms benefit to the public vs harm to a politician's relative, and yet another in terms of how much people are helped or hurt by the respective foreign actions.

I'm sure that some people will disagree on how much the general public is helped by anti-corruption investigations versus a marginal change in the supply of a fungible but environmentally damaging good. They probably will agree that the other side is being hypocritical, but may disagree whether the relevant hypocrisy is about family members getting money from shady business deals with foreign entities, or about whether we should be pumping more carbon from the ground and discharging it into the atmosphere right now.

[Sarcastr0]

Wow you are historically ignorant.

[bevis the lumberjack]

It’s different because Biden in his inconsistent, poorly conceived energy begging is at least theoretically asking for something that will benefit the people of the US, if only temporarily.

The other guy is using foreign policy to benefit only himself.

[Brett Bellmore]

But law enforcement is conventionally considered to be for the benefit of the people of the US, so asking a country (we actually have a law enforcement cooperation agreement with) to investigate an apparent case of public corruption isn't really different in that regard.

Sure, it benefits the politician asking. In both cases.

[bernard11]

He didn't ask for an investigation. He asked for an announcement of an investigation.

And he threatened to withhold committed military aid if no such announcement was made.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, he actually asked for an investigation.

"The· President: I would like you to do us a favor though
because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a
lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with
this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike... I guess
you have one of your wealthy people... The server, they say
Ukraine has it There are a lot. of things that went on, the whole situation ..I think you're surrounding yourself with some
of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General
call you or your people and I would like you two get to the
bottom of it. As you said yesterday, that whole nonsense ended
with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an
incompetent performance , but they say a lot of it started with
Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it's very important that you do it
if that's possible."

[bevis the lumberjack]

C’mon Brett. Are you actually going to say that if the target hadn’t been the son of his current chief political rival that Trump would have given two shits about it. In how many other cases of foreign corruption by a US citizen did he call a foreign leader and ask for help?

Not defending Hunter Biden, he’s corrupt as can be. But crime fighting clearly wasn’t Trump’s motivation here.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, and helping the American people, rather than improving Democrats’ election prospects, wasn’t Biden’s motivation here. I’m saying there’s no particular difference, they both did things that would benefit themselves, but which could be argued to have public benefits, too.

Democracy works on the theory that you set things up so that doing what’s in the public interest is in the political interest of office holders. So saying that “doing that would help him politically” isn’t as damning as you seem to think.

Anyway, I think I adequately established that Bernard's "he didn't ask for an investigation, just an announcement" bit was objectively wrong.

[Nige]

One is crafting foreign trade policy, one is threatening to withold aid if they don’t help him smear a politcial opponent. I realise that Republican intellectualism has been reduced to finding ways to make everything equivalent – remember when moral relativism was a Republican shibboleth? Gone now, like ‘family values’ and ‘law and order’ – because it's the only way they have to defend the indefensible, but please have some self-respect.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's not a smear if Biden's son really was raking in graft, and passing some on to "the big guy".

I know it's inconvenient as hell, but the evidence has been piling up for several years now: Biden's as dirty as it gets.

[Nige]

It is a smear if he wasn't, and evidence hasn't been piling up, except in the same way evidence of massive voter fraud in 2020 was and is piling up, which is to say, Republicans claim it's real but it always evaporates before it reaches anything requiring the slightest rigour.

[SoSoCoCoMoFo]

Yes, that is what he said in July. But by September…

“As described in Taylor’s testimony, following his call with Morrison, Taylor sent a text message to Sondland:

Very concerned, on that same day—September 1—I sent Ambassador Sondland a text message asking if “we [are] now saying that security assistance and [a] WH meeting are conditioned on investigations?”

Ambassador Sondland responded asking me to call him, which I did. During that phone call, Ambassador Sondland told me that President Trump had told him that he wants President Zelenskyy to state publicly that Ukraine will investigate Burisma and alleged Ukrainian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. (Taylor Opening Statement, Oct. 22, 2019, at 11)”

In November Sondland revised his testimony to confirm the existence of the "quid pro quo" he had denied earlier:

“I now recall speaking individually with Mr. (Andriy) Yermak, where I said resumption of U.S. aid would likely not occur until Ukraine provided the public anti-corruption statement that we had been discussing for many weeks,” Sondland said.

But you knew that, right?

[Brett Bellmore]

So, you're claiming that by then he no longer wanted an actual investigation? Have you considered that a public announcement was just a commitment mechanism?

[SoSoCoCoMoFo]

Not at all. I'm claiming he never wanted an actual investigation. The notion that Trump, who is on record calling for the FCPA to be scrapped, was the least bit concerned about "corruption" is absurd.

...and a few days later he unblocked the funds anyway--"corruption" and all!

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, you're claiming he never "wanted" an actual investigation. Maybe you're right, perhaps your mind reading skills are better than mine.

But Bernard claimed he never "asked for" an investigation, and that claim was easily proven a lie.

[bernard11]

Brett,

Up to your usual bullshit, I see.

The investigation he is talking about is the whole Crowdstrike nonsense. Nothing to do with Hunter Biden.

For Biden he only wants an announcement.

[Ben_]

You know it was all play-acting when they impeached Trump, right? No one actually cared or was actually outraged. The curtain rises and partisans play their roles.

They like it when Biden does it because it might benefit their side. There’s zero intention by anyone involved to be ethical or enforce ethical behavior. Those ideas are for attacking opponents only.

[jb]

How is it different to try to make energy prices lower for all Americans than to try to get a foreign country to do an investigation of the family member of your political opponent? Is this a serious question?

[SoSoCoCoMoFo]

It depends on how “October Surprise” his request actually was.

The Biden Admin wanted a month’s delay of the October 4th OPEC+ meeting, which would not have been enough to delay the decision until after the midterm elections (on November 8th). The bone-cutters rejected this request, just as they had (mostly) snubbed Biden’s production increase request over the summer.

[jb]

Even if all Biden cared about was the election outcome and not actually doing the right thing for the American people, there's still a huge difference in what he was trying to get the Saudis to do (basically benefit the American populace at large) versus what Trump was trying to do (a targeted attack at a political enemy). These things are not meaningfully comparable in any way other than that voters might react to them.

I mean, just imagine if politicians consistently did things that made the lives of Americans better just to get elected! That seems like the system working as intended, not something to be unhappy about.

[Brett Bellmore]

Anyone here do slip casting of porcelain? I've got a Christmas gift planned for my wife, but it's going to be kind of tricky. I want to make her this, and while I could 3d print it, maybe even in something food safe, slip casting in porcelain would be best.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5541766/files

I can pretty straightforwardly print a positive version in an elastomer, with a low infill rate, and then create a plaster mold for the slip. The problem is likely to be that this piece doesn't look like the mold could be removed without breaking it into a LOT of pieces.

So I'm thinking of calcining the plaster mold in my oven with the slip still in it. Sound feasible?

[not guilty]

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has reportedly said that if the GOP wins a majority in Congress, it will investigate companies that stopped donating to them after the Capitol riot. https://www.yahoo.com/news/marjorie-taylor-greene-says-gop-103731242.html

What's to investigate? Donors, including corporate donors, are certainly free to choose how to distribute their largesse. If a company chooses not to subsidize criminal activity, can Congress legislate to remove their ability to choose? The First Amendment says no.

[John F. Carr]

Congress can investigate whether corporations have too much influence in American politics. The investigation could lead to campaign finance reform, disclosure requirements, or changes to the tax code. Trump couldn't escape investigations because the committees might have been out to get him. Communists couldn't escape McCarthy. Big business can't escape the dreaded MTG.

But… as the article notes, Rep. Greene lost her committee assignments and has less individual power than any random Democrat in a Republican house. I do not take her threat seriously.

[Nige]

You think any Republican-initiated investigation will lead to campaign finance reform? Are you having a laugh? They'll make it illegal not to donate to Republicans because wokism and the transgenders mean it's discrimination if they don't.

[John F. Carr]

The investigation does not have to lead to anything productive. For the courts to uphold subpoenas the investigation must have the potential to lead to something productive, in an idealized world where the parties are acting for the good of the country.

[not guilty]

Rep. Greene has told a reporter that she is in discussions with Donald Trump about being his running mate if he runs for president in 2024. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/marjorie-taylor-greene-trump-running-mate-discussions_n_6355cc19e4b04cf8f384d602

Heaven help us!

[Bob from Ohio]

Its going to be Kari Lake.

Greene says a lot of things, Trump is not as dumb as you think.

[not guilty]

There are few things that Donald Trump could do to lower my opinion of him. Placing Marjorie Taylor Greene in high office is one of them.

[Mr. Bumble]

Why? After Kamala the bar isn't set very high.

Also, be sure to get Kamala's new book, "How to Reed and Spel Gud "with a foreword by John Fetterman.

[MoreCurious]

Actually, Bob, after watching Trump stumble through speeches, reading about his pre-presidential and presidential life, and watching his insane behavior since he lost the 2020 election, there is no doubt that Trump is every bit as dumb as I think.

[John F. Carr]

I'm torn. I don't want her in the line of succession. But oh the wonderful entertainment if she wins. The sweet taste of liberal tears. Do you think this time they might really move to Canada?

She is unlikely to be chosen and even less likely to win. Pence and Cheney offered some appeal to people who had doubts about Trump and Bush without being firmly opposed. Greene does not complement Trump. She is going to make the undecideds see Trump/Greene as the worse of two evils.

[shawn_dude]

Very few people have doubts about Trump now. That’s why he lost the last election. But if enough people have doubts about Biden (assuming he runs) to keep people from voting at all, then the die-hard Trump Christian Nationalists are going to rule the day.

And yes, if that happens, I’m 100% certain that some Americans will leave the country for safe havens, especially those that are favorite GOP targets. To be honest, if I thought the country was moving in the same direction as Hungary, for example, I’d start getting some of my affairs in order to make a move easier. If this country ceases to be a functioning democracy, I’ll “vote with my feet” to a democratic county. Trump already attempted one coup and it looks like he’s got his eye on a second one.

[John F. Carr]

There are a few percent who can be swayed, and those few percent can swing the election. Trump lost in 2020 because the Democrats ran somebody who wasn't scary. If you want a generic Washington insider, vote Biden.

[Bob from Ohio]

Greene will be a second term backbencher, she's not going to have control over any investigation.

But its a good idea to have the existing Capitol Riot committee re-purposed with different members.

[Sarcastr0]

Really interesting that Bob is minimizing MTG.

[Bob from Ohio]

Not interesting at all. Every party has its loonies, so long as she votes right on most things, who cares, she's just 1 of 435.

Trump likes people who are good on TV. Lake is a long time former TV anchor. He picked a governor last time too.

[Sarcastr0]

You've gone to the mattresses to say loonies are cool and good before.

Dunno if you're a bellwether or anything, but I found it notable.

[Bob from Ohio]

Loonie she is but harmless and drives libs nuts, good enough for Congress.

[Nige]

Which makes her the very model of the Republican politician.

[SoSoCoCoMoFo]

They don't all resemble horses, though.

[bernard11]

So Charles Koch is pressuring universities to fire professors who don't share his views.

Comments from conspirators and other opponents of cancel culture welcome.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Everybody’s doin’ it, doin’ it, doin’ it.

Once businesses and schools opened the door by firing someone in response to an internet lynch mob, a whole bunch of people decided “hey, I can do that too!”

That’s why it’s bad to negotiate with terrorists.

[Sarcastr0]

How many schools do you think fired people due to Internet pushback?
Because you seem to be making a general statement based on a pretty small confirmed data set.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Enough that it’s a thing.

Not just employees, students have been kicked out as well.

I gotta know – who is inserting that noise in sonograms?I have a pregnant daughter and I want her to be safe.

[Sarcastr0]

That's a lot of uncertainty to accept and morally absolve Charles Koch.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Uncertainty? Just like you to ignore stuff that's regularly in the news because it embarrasses your side.

If only Charles Koch were a liberal so you could defend him.

I didn't "morally absolve" Koch at all. Just pointed out why he may have thought, "hey why not try". Him doing it ain't any better than anyone else. Unlike you, I don't have to deflect and hedge and ignore one side. Anybody who tries to pull this crap, and anybody that gives in, is an asshole.

[Sarcastr0]

Oh, I think there are issues with the left silencing people on campus, and with hiring not being sufficiently ideologically diverse.

But the moment I push back on the idea that Diversity and Inclusion offices across the nation are secretly making their policies intentionally tailored to intimidate conservatives, I'm a partisan zealot.

No, bevis - I just want you to prove the things you assert with more than anecdotes.

[bevis the lumberjack]

You put that secretly coordinating stuff in the conversation. I never thought it, much less said it.

The most likely explanation is that they all come from the same thought and education and political orientation pool. People that are going to be, say, engineers aren't going to be interested in working in DEI.

[Sarcastr0]

The secret is pretty well implied since it's not what they say they're doing. And the coordinated is implied when you said it was nation-wide.

Listen, we all get narritivist. I do as well! But that is not going to stop me from pointing out how you've doubled down on the indignation when I ask you to back up your narrative on what's broadly going on at college campuses.

[bevis the lumberjack]

I linked you to a poll about people being afraid to speak, which you ignored.

[Sarcastr0]

No, I said that points to a problem, albeit an old one with wandering partisan valiance through the decades. But not to your specific theory of cause. (Intentional policies by diversity offices).

[bevis the lumberjack]

What do you want me to do? Kidnap some and torture the truth out of them?They obviously aren’t going to say “we’re punishing people because of their political views”. The fact that it’s always one direction says a lot.

Did anybody in the group that famously interrupted the speakers at YLS in the same time period get called in and have their job prospects threatened like the trap house guy did? No? Wonder why?

[Sarcastr0]

You have it correct - I do not think you *can* support what you believe. Which makes sense to me, because I think it is factually untrue; a far overstatement based on some anecdotes and filled in liberally with supposition.

The claim is that there is a general effort across academic administrators to make conservative students feel unwelcome. It's an extraordinary claim, and requires extraordinary evidence. And you have zero actual evidence to make such a general claim.

So yes, I really think you should stop believing this until you find evidence to support said belief beyond appealing to incredulity. I don't think that's particularly partisan or zealous of me, to ask for general evidence for a general claim.

You can maybe talk about specific schools, though IIRC you already had a somewhat unsupported take on what it's like to be a conservative at Yale.

[bevis the lumberjack]

What a joke you are. I can observe what is happening and make a judgement. Most of my info on YLS came from David Lat, a gay, liberal YLS grad.

And lecturing me on stuff like this after having defended Abram’s sonogram lunacy shows a total lack os shame or self-awareness. Astounding beyond words.

[Sarcastr0]

Yes, I stand by that collateral argument, but don't want to change subjects.

You went well beyond Lat, IRRC.

YOU aren't observing anything. You are taking anecdotes and opinions (which is fine; we don't need direct experience for everything believe), and then expanding them to be much more common than indicated, or even true across schools generally with no such indication.

Support your statements, is what I want. And don't posit plots against conservatives without evidence.

[bevis the lumberjack]

You decline to support yours, including your defense of Abrams stupidity which is, you know, an accusation of a plot with no evidence. Perhaps the most stupid conspiracy accusation this year, admittedly it’s a crowded field. Yet you enthusiastically defend that. You’re in no position to lecture me on anything, you arrogant twat.

You recall incorrectly. I’m not beyond Lat at all. He’s about all I trust on this.

[bernard11]

Nonsense, Bevis.

The right is trying to clean house of anyone who says anything they don't like - see Florida.

[bevis the lumberjack]

I agree bernard. So is the left. Don’t know why you’re arguing when we basically agree. When I said “everyone’s doin’ it”, well, everyone literally means everyone.

As to Florida, DeSantis is on my “never vote for” list because of his speech antics. You don’t have to tell me nothing.

[Ed Grinberg]

"Emporia State University is a public university in Emporia, Kansas, United States."
Government should not be running colleges & universities. I'd shut the place down. Problem solved!
(And this poor professor could then find a private college where his views would be welcome.)

[gormadoc]

It is interesting that the article doesn't actually say Charles Koch is doing that. The closest it gets is trying to tie a change in policy after hiring a former Koch-executive as Emporia's president to the firing of a professor and claiming it was because the professor criticized Koch four years before. No indication that the thirty-two other employees were fired for criticizing Koch. They do cast aspersions that Hush was hired only because of his job at a Koch subsidiary and that he wasn't qualified because he doesn't hold an "advanced" degree, but ignore the fact that he's actually from Emporia, graduated from there, and that hiring locals seems to be in vogue right now.

[Michael P]

Yeah, it's sad but not surprising how readily the left falls for post hoc ergo propter hoc.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Republican/conservative antisemitism is becoming a PR problem for right-wingers, so it's likely about time for the Volokh Conspiracy to respond to events involving Kanye West, Robert Bowers, Donald Trump, Doug Mastriano, Kari Lake, Andrew Torba, and other fans of Unite the Right chanters . . . by posting yet another installment complaining about a strong liberal-libertarian campus that does not embrace Israel's immoral right-wing belligerence.

Carry on, clingers.

[SoSoCoCoMoFo]

Are you seriously suggesting that the Nat-Cs might be anti-jewish?

[Ed Grinberg]

From two years ago:
https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/kosher-stores-synagogues-vandalized-and-looted-in-ongoing-la-protests-629895
A criminal dies from a drug overdose while resisting arrest in Minneapolis -- synagogues are vandalized in LA. Of course.
Talk about acting like Nazis...

[SoSoCoCoMoFo]

Sounds like death con 3!

(No, I have no idea what Ye West was actually trying to say with that comment.)

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

It was not difficult to apprehend his message, at least not for most Americans. Some Europeans seemed to have little difficulty following his meaning, too.

[SoSoCoCoMoFo]

Well then, it should be very easy to explain, given "most Americans" (and "some Europeans") have no doubt about his meaning!

As far as I can tell, it was gibberish. The only way to assign meaning to it is to try to discern its meaning from the other things he said at the time, but none of this explains what the fuck "death con 3" actually means.

[Shamie Ervin iv]

Where is that shining beacon on a hill? I saw it when I was a boy in the fifties, just after the war. I don't see it now. But maybe my vision is blurred. Tell me it's still there.

[shawn_dude]

Ah, the golden 50s (and 60s) when Whites could sit at a lunch counter and in the front of a bus.

[Ben_]

It’s been another big week for Democrat criminality:
- a Marco Rubio operative in Florida was beaten half to death for being a Republican.
- Dem hackers broke into the NY Post and are busy posting Dem propaganda
- New Jersey Democrat Senator Bob Menendez is under Federal investigation again. Maybe he’ll be convicted this time.
- confidential Air Force records about the sexual assault of Jennifer-Ruth Green were given to a Democrat opposition research firm and then published by Democrats at Politico. Politico lied about how they got the information.
- in NY at a candidate debate, the sitting NY governor wonders about jailing criminals, saying "I don’t know why that’s so important to you".

[LawTalkingGuy]

"Marco Rubio operative in Florida was beaten half to death for being a Republican."

This is actually false according to mom and the police.

https://www.local10.com/news/local/2022/10/24/man-accused-of-attacking-rubio-staffer-but-police-account-differs-from-senators/

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/article267844042.html

[Brett Bellmore]

I can't speak to the paywalled miami herald report, but the local10 report is very much a non-denial denial, hardly to be construed as "this was actually false".

[David Nieporent]

It was one guy, not a group of guys, and there was no evidence whatsoever of it being political. In fact, the victim — whose identity itself is rather important — changed his story to the police to claim that after Rubio made the allegation.

[not guilty]

A second man has now been arrested. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/second-man-arrested-in-attack-on-rubio-supporter-in-hialeah-police/ar-AA13nfnf

[Brett Bellmore]

No, it was two guys, as the local10 report makes clear.

The victim had the crap beaten out of him. You don't think maybe he was initially a little out of it?

[Sarcastr0]

Now THAT is a charitable reading of events!

[Brett Bellmore]

So, you're saying that somebody who gets beaten so badly they need facial reconstructive surgery isn't initially going to be a bit out of it?

[Sarcastr0]

I’m sayin that when there is a convenient change of story to align with what someone else started saying after, there are other more likely explanations.

The police, the background of the suspect, the local take to the media, all point one way. you strain to point another.

Of course stories can change, but you aren’t withholding judgement. You are speculating yourself into what you want to believe again,

And of course the political violence story you want to believe is kinda fucked up, dude.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Too bad the FBI is too busy trying to drone strike MAGA Granny Gogo instead of pursuing any of those.

[Nige]

Hasn't everyone involved in all of those been caught, identified, is under investigation or hasn't actually broken any laws?

[Sarcastr0]

Oh dear, Ben, you fell for another one!

[Ben_]

Shouldn’t you be out there gluing yourself to the floor or vandalizing historic artwork for your Earth religion?

[Sarcastr0]

Who says I'm not glued to the floor right now?

The lesson here is to Google a story before you post it, and take like 1 minute to see what other sources are saying.

And if there are no other sources, they maybe wait a bit.

[Mr. Bumble]

Who says I’m not glued to the floor right now?

Did you bring a pot to relieve yourself?

[Sarcastr0]

As a super dooper communist, I believe this to be the state’s responsibility.

[Mr. Bumble]

Hope you're wearing your Depends.

[not guilty]

The federal judge in Maryland presiding over the case in which Nicholas John Roske is accused of attempting to assassinate Brett Kavanaugh has said that there is a “very high likelihood” he will order a mental evaluation of the defendant to determine whether he is fit to assist his defense, enter a possible guilty plea or stand trial. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/judge-mulls-mental-evaluation-in-kavanaugh-threat-case/2022/10/26/b5fb2392-5568-11ed-ac8b-08bbfab1c5a5_story.html

This is peculiar, in that defense counsel told the judge that the defense doesn’t have any present concerns about Roske’s mental competency.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

It's a DC Democrat judge who will make sure this Democrat would-be assassin gets in as little trouble as possible.

[not guilty]

Peter Messitte is a senior judge for the District of Maryland, not D.C.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

TIL there are no DC suburbs in Maryland.

Thanks for clarifying that.

[OtisAH]

What’s peculiar about wanting a mental eval of a man who wanted to kill a Supreme Court Justice and who drove to the justice’s house but sat in his vehicle outside crying before calling 911 on himself? As for his defense, perhaps the client doesn’t want the lawyer saying he’s mentally unwell even if he is?

[not guilty]

A competency evaluation doesn't look to mental state at the time of the alleged offense; it measures present ability to understand the nature of the proceedings and to assist in defense of the charges. Those issues are ordinarily raised by defense counsel, not by the trial court sua sponte.

[OtisAH]

So in most cases of a person charged with attempting or planning to murder a Supreme Court Justice it’s the defense who asks for the mental eval? Guess this guy must be different from all the others somehow.

[not guilty]

Questions of competency of a defendant to stand trial are ordinarily raised by the defense, no matter what the charged offense is. Competency entails the ability to understand the nature of the proceedings and to assist in defense of the charges.

[OtisAH]

Oh, hey, I get it. Don’t have to tell me twice. You might want to mention it to David, though. Doesn’t seem like he understands at all.

[David Nieporent]

This is peculiar, in that defense counsel told the judge that the defense doesn’t have any present concerns about Roske’s mental competency.

It's not peculiar at all. The judge doesn't want to risk conducting a trial and then having to do it over because the guy successfully argues ineffective assistance of counsel for failing to ask for a competency assessment.

[not guilty]

Under 18 U.S.C. § 4241(a):

At any time after the commencement of a prosecution for an offense and prior to the sentencing of the defendant, or at any time after the commencement of probation or supervised release and prior to the completion of the sentence, the defendant or the attorney for the Government may file a motion for a hearing to determine the mental competency of the defendant. The court shall grant the motion, or shall order such a hearing on its own motion, if there is reasonable cause to believe that the defendant may presently be suffering from a mental disease or defect rendering him mentally incompetent to the extent that he is unable to understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings against him or to assist properly in his defense.

I am quite curious as to what such reasonable cause to believe is here.

[Brett Bellmore]

I should think, just given the pubic reporting, you'd be able to justify such an examination. It's cheap insurance against the court's time being wasted.

[not guilty]

What public reporting are you referring to? Competency to stand trial is a low threshold. A finding of incompetency would result in commitment of the defendant to the Attorney General and hospitalization for treatment, with subsequent evaluation at regular intervals to determine whether competency has been restored. That would result in greater imposition of the court's time than proceeding to trial.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm not suggesting that the public accounts establish that he's incompetent to stand trial. Not remotely.

Just that they're sufficient to justify checking.

[not guilty]

You concede that the public accounts do not remotely establish incompetency. (Your words, not mine.) Where, then, is the reasonable cause to believe a mental disease or defect renders Mr. Roske mentally incompetent? Even ordering a hearing requires a threshold showing of reasonable cause. Please identify the supporting facts with particularity. In the alternative, please admit that you are talking out of your ass.

[Brett Bellmore]

At times I get tired of dealing with people who apparently live in a cave, and want me to provide the news accounts they avoid getting on their own.

‘I Need Psychiatric Help’: California Man Charged with Targeting Brett Kavanaugh Told 911 Dispatcher He’d Previously ‘Been Hospitalized Multiple Times’

It's my position that a criminal who announces he has psychiatric problems in the very 911 call where he turns himself in has passed the bar for at least getting a psychiatric exam.

You disagree?

[not guilty]

Yes, I disagree. Mental state at the time of the offense and competence to stand trial months later are different inquiries; you seem to be conflating the two. The article you link to quotes the following dialogue during the 911 call:

DISPATCHER: “Are you thinking of hurting anyone, including yourself?”

ROSKE: “Yes.”

DISPATCHER: Do you have access to any weapons?

ROSKE: Yes. I — I – I – brought a firearm with me, but it’s unloaded and locked in a case.

DISPATCHER: Okay; where’s the firearm now?

ROSKE: It’s — it’s in a — in a suitcase. It’s a black suitcase. Um, it’s — I’m standing near it, but the suitcase is zip tied shut from — I just came from the airport.

DISPATCHER: I need to get your description, what (unintelligible).

ROSKE: I’m white. I have short, uh, short light brown hair. I’m wearing a gray shirt and black pants.

DISPATCHER: You mentioned a suitcase. Are you carrying a suitcase? Do you have any other items you’re carrying?

ROSKE: There’s a, um, there’s a, um, backpack, but the backpack just has jackets and random stuff in it. No weapons in there.

DISPATCHER: Have you been using alcohol or drugs today?

ROSKE: No.

DISPATCHER: Do you need medical attention?

ROSKE: I need — I need psychiatric help. But no, I’m not injured, if that’s what you’re asking.

Nothing there indicates inability to understand the nature and consequences of the subsequent proceedings against him or to assist properly in his defense. To the contrary, the dialogue with the dispatcher evinces self-awareness and an appreciation for consequences arising out of his criminal conduct. He clearly anticipates being arrested. Further discussion with the dispatcher ensued:

DISPATCHER: “And you said you came from California. Do you know someone down here?”

ROSKE: (Sigh.) “Brett Kavanaugh.”

DISPATCHER: You said Red, like the color?

ROSKE: Brett.

DISPATCHER: Brett?

ROSKE: The Supreme Court justice.

DISPATCHER: Okay. And you came (inaudible).

ROSKE: Correct.

DISPATCHER: Okay. And what were you, uh, coming to do? Just to hurt yourself and him, or what was going to happen?

ROSKE: Correct.

“'I didn’t think I could get away with it,' Roske explained when asked to describe his desire to hurt himself." That further evinces Mr. Roske's awareness of what he was doing, mindful that criminal consequences would follow.

[David Nieporent]

Mental state at the time of the offense and competence to stand trial months later are different inquiries;

Of course they're different inquiries, but they share a common element. "The defendant was incompetent then, but he's competent now," is a perfectly reasonable conclusion, but it's a bad assumption.

This is not a guy who was acting erratically at a shopping mall food court one day; this is a guy who was considering assassinating a Supreme Court justice. It's a high profile case. The judge is not going to take any shortcuts.

“’I didn’t think I could get away with it,’ Roske explained when asked to describe his desire to hurt himself.” That further evinces Mr. Roske’s awareness of what he was doing, mindful that criminal consequences would follow.

That's most certainly not how I interpret that statement. It's not about criminal consequences after the fact; it's about being able to complete the intended crime.

[not guilty]

Like Brett, you appear to be conflating a culpable mental state at the time of the offense with competency to stand trial months later. The latter inquiry focuses on whether the accused is unable, as a result of mental disease or defect existing at the time of the inquiry, to understand the nature and consequences of the proceedings against him or to assist properly in his defense.

The dialogue with the dispatcher suggests no such inability then, let alone at present. It does evince culpability for criminal conduct and knowledge thereof. Review of the district court docket sheet reveals no filing under Fed.R.Crim.P. 12.2 of notice of intent to rely on an insanity defense or to introduce expert evidence related to mental condition (in which a court-ordered examination would likely be appropriate). https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/63392380/united-states-v-roske/ As an aside, the dialogue with the dispatcher would strongly rebut any defense attempted to be raised under 18 U.S.C. § 17 (insanity as affirmative defense).

Judicial caution, speculation and conjecture, even in a high profile case, do not constitute reasonable cause for a competency examination.

[David Nieporent]

Like Brett, you appear to be conflating a culpable mental state at the time of the offense with competency to stand trial months later.

I am doing no such thing. If you can't figure out that incompetence at one point in time can rise to reasonable cause to investigate — not conclude — incompetence at a later point in time, I don't know how to help you.

The rest of your post just continues to make the same error identified above, which is to suggest that the only reason for investigating competence is if a defense lawyer asks for it. But of course defense lawyers have been known to be less than diligent from time to time.

Also, insanity and incompetence are not the same thing.

[Mr. Bumble]

What is the carbon footprint of open thread Thursday?

[M L]

As Covid Hit, Washington Officials Traded Stocks With Exquisite Timing

Federal officials working on the U.S. government response to Covid-19 made well-timed stock trades—both before the pandemic roiled markets and before a rescue plan was enacted, a WSJ investigation found

https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-washington-officials-stocks-trading-markets-stimulus-11666192404

[M L]

Just more malevolent destruction and theft, legal plunder.

[M L]

Anyone think there should be criminal investigations of this?

[John F. Carr]

My email address got a Republican solicitation promising a 1400% match for my donation. My phone got a Democratic solicitation in the form of a poll: click here if you support Biden and here if you oppose Biden, but links have the same URL. Either way they're fishing to find out if I'm a genuine supporter (put him on another list!).

I have quite a few desperate-sounding Republican solicitations. 1400% match! My ad got cancelled! I'm losing! Bye! Democrats sent me a text from Martin Sheen.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

If Kanye said “White people” instead of “the Jews”, he would have his own show on MSNBC by now.

Discuss.

[OtisAH]

I guess he shoulda done that then. Live and learn…

[Mr. Bumble]

...and in Jan. 6 committee news:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11358845/Liberal-Supreme-Court-Justice-BLOCKED-Jan-6-subpoena-phone-records-fake-Arizona-elector.html

[John F. Carr]

Docket number 22A350 if you want to follow along on the Supreme Court's web site.

[not guilty]

In this case, as well as that of Lindsey Graham, a stay was issued preliminarily by the Circuit Justice, pending further orders, and a response to the motion by the Appellee was ordered. Likelihood is that each matter will be referred to the full Court, where five votes are required for a stay.

[jb]

Graham at least has kind of a sensible argument that may be able to attract some votes.

Assuming that the Daily Mail article is summarizing Ward's argument correctly, it's absurd and offers no limiting principle that wouldn't allow every person ever issued with a subpoena to ignore it on the theory that being forced to turn over records or answer questions about their past speech would somehow limit their first amendment rights. I'm actually surprised Kagan bothered to refer it to the full court, but is probably doing so since the matter is so charged.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

THE VOLOKH CONSPIRACY

This white, male,
conservative blog
has operated for

TWO (2) DAYS

without publishing a
vile racial slur and for

THREE (3) YEARS

without imposing (new)
viewpoint-driven censorship.

[David Nieporent]

In other legal news, 3 men convicted of supporting plot to kidnap Gov. Whitmer, a case I was assured was made up by the FBI.

[Brett Bellmore]

Nobody's saying the plot was imaginary. Just that the FBI originated it and pushed it along. That doesn't mean people who took part in it can't end up convicted.

[Sarcastr0]

The entrapment defense didn't seem to fly, Brett.

Except with you. It took of with you pretty quick!

[Bob from Ohio]

Libs and Libertarians most days: Juries wrongfully convict people daily in the US.

Libs and Libertarians today: LOL Jury rejected you MAGA scum

[Sarcastr0]

Juries do wrongfully convict. But I tend to provide facts, not just declare they've done so because I like the crime.

[Brett Bellmore]

Entrapment is a pretty weak defense, and the worse the crime, the less effective it is even if true.

[Sarcastr0]

Glad you managed to catch it then!

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Medical schools unable to provide modern training in obstetrics and gynecology -- generally, those found in backward, uneducated, Republican states -- may lose accreditation.

Accreditation is among the best tools America's modern mainstream could use to address schools that teach nonsense, suppress science, and reject modernity. If Mississippi- or Oklahoma-trained doctors are unable to practice in modern, educated states and ineligible to participate in federal medical programs, it is difficult to see the downside.

Schools located in successful, reasoning, advanced states should refuse to assist the knuckle-dragging schools in this regard. If Mississippi wants to offer medical degrees that might as well have come from a Cracker Jack box, it should be free to wallow in ignorance, superstition, insularity, and backwardness.

[Jerry B.]

Lots of “may” and “if” in there.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I suppose the downscale jurisdictions could improve their conduct and avoid loss of accreditation. Otherwise, I endorse rigorous enforcement of modern accreditation standards.

[Mr. Bumble]

...and in Elon Musk news:

https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2022/10/elon-musk-confirms-plan-to-add-youtube-clone-to-twitter.html

[M L]

Bernanke wins Nobel Prize while investors suffer crisis he helped create

What became clear in the data last week is that central planners have been unable to tame the inflation they unleashed. Ironically, the same week former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke was given the Nobel Prize in economics.

The irony is that Bernanke created the wide array of new powers for the Fed which have been used to manipulate interest rates, bringing them down to multi-century lows, which created an enormous bubble in financial markets.

When asked on 60 Minutes whether the Fed would be able to withdraw that money so as to avoid inflation, Bernanke claimed it would. When asked how confident of that he was, he answered "100%." That is what the great Austrian economist, Hayek called "the fatal conceit," the excess intellectual pride which causes central planners to think that they know more than the rest of us combined, and therefore should have the privilege of overriding the financial decisions of billions of people through government decree.

https://www.christianpost.com/news/bernanke-wins-nobel-prize-investors-suffer-crisis-he-created.html

[jb]

I thought the inflation was caused by Biden's stimulus but definitely not Trump's?

[M L]

Many many years of Democrat and Republican fiscal suicide.

[Sarcastr0]

One of those very slow suicides that finally manifests as wordwide inflation that can apparently be solved with harsh monetary policy.

Quite the suicide method, Mr. melodrama!

[M L]

The only thing apparent is that monetary policy has emphatically failed to solve it, so far.

I suppose irresponsibility, grift, legal plunder, tyranny, and aggrandizement of centralized unaccountable government powers, are better descriptions of these actions than suicide, since the perpetrators only benefit.

[Sarcastr0]

Your link indicates otherwise.

[bernard11]

The only thing apparent is that monetary policy has emphatically failed to solve it, so far.

See Volcker, Paul.

[M L]

Today at Reason.com:

The 'Experts' Were Never Going To Fix Inflation

The idea that the Fed has the knowledge necessary to control the economy with perfectly calibrated policies was always an illusion. https://reason.com/2022/10/27/the-experts-were-never-going-to-fix-inflation/

[Sarcastr0]

Appealing to the authority of reason.com.

Really, dude?

[TwelveInchPianist]

What appeal to authority? The dude linked to an article that makes arguments that stand or fall on their own.

[bernard11]

Not sure what the point of that article is. She says fixing inflation was not going to be painless. Maybe. We'll see.

OTOH, contra the headline, she explicitly doesn't say the Fed can't fix it, pointing to Volcker as an example of when it did.

[Sarcastr0]

Dude won a the Prize for a paper on liquidity in the Great Depression he wrote in 1989.

I cannot speak to whether it was deserved, but this is trash.

Bernanke: Not Hayekian, and therefore responsible for badness, says Christianpost.com

Not even a good opinion, much less supportive of the headline.

[Nige]

Gas prices are rising and oil companies are enjoying record proftis. Wonder if there's a connection.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Bernanke wins Nobel Prize "

Its the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, not a "Nobel Prize"

[M L]

I don't get it? https://www.npr.org/2022/10/10/1127802958/ben-bernanke-nobel-prize-in-economics

[David Nieporent]

Bob is being pedantic. The thing often referred to as the Nobel Prize in Economics, unlike the other Nobel Prizes, was not created or endowed by Alfred Nobel; it's a prize created by the Swedish Bank decades later, and is the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics rather than the Nobel Prize. (Or, as Trump calls it, the Noble Prize.) But it's administered and awarded alongside the other prizes, so this is an unimportant distinction except maybe to Alfred Nobel himself, and he's dead.

[Sarcastr0]

Pedant.

[not me]

It's a bit much to blame Bernanke for "Transitory" Powell being asleep at the wheel.

[M L]

Economist Nouriel Roubini says Federal Reserve is going to “wimp out” on the inflation fight and that will lead to a dollar crash.

Roubini is the Professor Emeritus at the Stern School of Business, New York University. He recently appeared on Bloomberg Markets and Finance to talk about threats to the global economy...

Roubini pointed out the amount of debt in the global financial system. Debt to GDP has gone from 200% to 350% globally. In the US the debt to GDP ratio is higher than after the Great Depression and WWII. After the 2008 financial crisis and during the pandemic, Zombie households, corporations, banks and governments were bailed out by negative interest rates and quantitative easing.

"This time around is different because we have so much debt and central banks like the Fed have to increase interest rates to fight inflation so that zombie institutions are going to go bankrupt. That’s why not only are we going to have inflation and stagflation, but we’ll have a stagflationary debt crisis.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/roubini-warns-imminent-dollar-crash-fed-going-wimp-out-inflation-fight

[Sarcastr0]

Zero Hedge...they keep claiming the next crash will happen tomorrow, and eventually they'll be right!

[M L]

Roubini is the Professor Emeritus at the Stern School of Business, New York University.

You might not expect Roubini to talk like this. He served in the Clinton administration as a senior economist in the White House Council of Economic Advisers and then moved to the Treasury department as a senior adviser to Timothy Geithner who was undersecretary for international affairs at the time.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Vladimir Putin is auditioning for a position at the Volokh Conspiracy.

[Jimmy the Dane]

With all the gnashing of teeth about racism and affirmative action hitting news cycles, I just wanted to save everyone some time here.

Arguments FOR affirmative action = racial discrimination is cool as long as I can make up enough justifications (some based completely on myth) as to why it should apply to groups that I find favorable and thin they have a need for bias that includes one of their intangible characteristic(s).

[apedad]

You realize it's your side that's doing the gnashing, right?

[not guilty]

CNN reports that Donald Trump's lawyers in the Mar-a-Lago lawsuit are in federal court in D.C. along with Justice Department lawyers for a sealed proceeding before Judge Beryl Howell, chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The nature of the proceeding is unknown. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvpCp9733oA

The grand jury that in May issued a subpoena to Trump for documents in his possession sits in D.C., and issues arising out of that grand jury are litigated before Judge Howell. The Trump lawyers in the Mar-a-Lago documents lawsuit, Jim Trusty, Lindsey Halligan and Evan Corcoran, have not heretofore appeared in the D.C. federal courthouse.

This bears watching.

[not guilty]

I am speculating here, but I wonder if the sealed proceeding relates to the fraudulent certification on June 3 by Christina Bobb that all documents responsive to the subpoena had been produced. Ms. Bobb reportedly attributed authorship of that certification to Evan Corcoran. I wonder if Mr. Corcoran has been subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury in D.C.

[TwelveInchPianist]

It's not often that the progressive caucus gets something right (even though they retracted), but the US should definitely negotiate directly with Putin.

[David Nieporent]

Negotiate about what?

[SoSoCoCoMoFo]

I normally don't click on video links, either...

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Nobody should negotiate anything with Putin until he's removed all Russian soldiers from Ukraine, and returned the citizens and children he has kidnapped in his efforts to bring about genocide.

You are wrong. Presumably because, IIRC, you're also completely ignorant of what is actually happening over there.

[Brett Bellmore]

"and returned the citizens and children he has kidnapped in his efforts to bring about genocide."

I don't think that was an effort at genocide, exactly. More like an effort to counter Russia's demographic collapse at Ukraine's expense.

Agree about returning them, though fat chance he'll agree.

[Nige]

It's literally a form of genocide. Moving populations like that comes under the definition.

[John F. Carr]

It's useful to know that the fringes of both parties are not as supportive of Ukraine as the center.

What would a hypthetical deal look like? Biden cuts off military aid and in return Putin buys Hunter a new laptop? Biden cuts off aid and Putin promises to stop at the Romanian and Polish borders? I'm not seeing that happen while Congressional support remains strong. There is supermajority support to support Ukraine until the end.

This is not like the Lebanon-Israel maritime border where slight shifts in a line on the map can potentially bring about agreement. Or peace in Ireland or South Africa where the parties can incrementally adjust the amount of amnesty granted. If the remaining issue was Ukraine's EU or NATO membership, that might be negotiated. Nobody is going to sit down and talk about how much of Ukraine Russia gets to annex until the military outcome is clear or there is regime change.

[Noorondoor]

As I predicted, Eunice Lee stayed the 2nd Amendment TRO with no intention of having a 3 judge panel rule on it. Pure judicial bad faith. But coming from a negroid appointed by Biden, that isn't a big surprise.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

" But coming from a negroid appointed by Biden, that isn’t a big surprise. "

Why does an ostensibly academic legal blog attract such a remarkable concentration of bigoted comments and commenters?

Other than by design, I mean.

If it weren't for the racists, the gay-bashers, the immigrant-haters, the misogynists, and the Islamophobes, what would be left of this blog?

[Noorondoor]

Where's the bigoted comment? She is as much as a Negroid as I am a Caucasoid. It's a statement of fact.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Huh. I assumed you were Asian.

[Noorondoor]

No. I have a dong longer than 4 inches.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

These are your peeps, Conspirators.

And the reason you will never move past the disrespected right-wing fringe of legal academia.

(The clingers who are your fans will still love you, though!)

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Good riddance to you.

[apedad]

"No. I have a dong longer than 4 inches."

Sigh. . . .

That's. . . not a very aspiring humblebrag.

[darkknight9]

I snorted laughing at that. Thank you. I needed that.

[bernard11]

Is Tudor Dixon sane?

The Republican gubernatorial nominee in Michigan invoked a conspiracy that the Covid-19 pandemic and protests in the summer of 2020 after the killing of George Floyd were part of a decades-long plan by the Democratic Party to “topple” the United States as retaliation for losing the US Civil War, adding that the party wanted to enslave people “again.”

[Noorondoor]

Seems pretty accurate to me.

[shawn_dude]

That's one of the problem with Big Lies... you cannot stop at just one!

[AtR]

Strange is the silence on the New York sanitation workers decision ...

[bernard11]

Tourist unfairly sentenced to 7 1/2 years.

Amirite?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Unfortunately, this guy is likely to be eligible for a sentence reduction of a couple of years.

On the other hand, a bigot-hugging jerk who can't control himself might get to do some especially hard time in prison.

The coward had nothing to say at his sentencing. His fiance asked the judge for leniency, pointing toward their children. The judge seemed to ignore the begging. If those children are lucky, the father will lose custody while incarcerated.

[Noorondoor]

"One of our darkest days?" Give me a frigging break. The "judge" is a Jew married to a black, and in a place like the District of D.C., the jury pool is going to be exclusively made up of ghetto blacks and white shitlibs.

All of the 1/6 defendants should have been allowed to be tried in a district of their choice, as the District of D.C. is not legitimate in the first place. Give any of these patriots a jury of 12 white Protestants before a white Protestant judge, and you would have seen actual justice.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I sense this is the level of comment to be expected at a blog that launches a vile racial slur roughly every three weeks.

Carry on, clingers. So far as stale, ugly, conservative thinking could carry anyone in modern, improving, liberal-libertarian America, that is.

[not guilty]

"The 'judge' is a Jew married to a black, and in a place like the District of D.C., the jury pool is going to be exclusively made up of ghetto blacks and white shitlibs."

Uh, there was no jury trial here. The defendant pleaded guilty. And what does the judge being Jewish and married to a black man have to do with anything?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

" And what does the judge being Jewish and married to a black man have to do with anything? "

For the fans of a white, male, right-wing blog? Just about everything!

[Noorondoor]

He pleaded guilty to avoid the jury pool I described above. And leftist reform Jews are already disloyal to America, which is why they're at the forefront of promoting mass immigration and other nation destroying tactics. Marrying outside the race just proves a further level of disloyalty.

[not guilty]

Disloyalty to what or to whom?

[Jimmy the Dane]

Authoritarianism is cool as long it is used against the right people. Amirite????!!!!????

[Nige]

That's certainly the message you guys express when you get outraged at people like this being found guilty for their crimes.

[M L]

Pfizer's CDC is adding COVID shots to the regular immunization schedule for children, causing the COVID shot to become mandatory for children across the nation in order to attend school.

At the same time, Pfizer is raising the prices of the shot and plans to sell it at a 10,000% markup in 2023.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/pfizer-plans-to-sell-its-covid-vaccine-at-a-10-000-markup-in-2023/ar-AA13flvS

This is despite the fact that COVID presents a relatively low risk to children.

On the other hand the risks of the COVID vaccine to children are not negligible. Studies have shown that the severity and risk of myocarditis from the vaccines is greater than that from COVID itself. Many European nations have responded for example by banning the Moderna vaccine, not only from use in children but all individuals under the age of 30 or 40.

[David Nieporent]

What is "Pfizer's CDC"?

[M L]

That's me being snarky. But really CDC, FDA and big pharma are best friends since elementary school.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Disaffected, science-disdaining, antisocial, right-wing, anti-government cranks are among my favorite culture war casualties.

And the target audience of a white, male, conservative blog at the doomed fringe of modern American academia.

[M L]

Federal Officials Trade Stock in Companies Their Agencies Oversee

Hidden records show thousands of senior executive branch employees owned shares of companies whose fates were directly affected by their employers’ actions, a Wall Street Journal investigation found

https://www.wsj.com/articles/government-officials-invest-in-companies-their-agencies-oversee-11665489653

More looting.

The people who run our federal government are the same as those mobs of people looting the local 'hood Wal-Mart. They are just a lot better at it.

[SoSoCoCoMoFo]

Why do you say these public records were "hidden"? Just because they're not available online? Entitled, much? The WSJ was able to obtain 31,000 financial disclosure forms, simply by following normal document request procedures.

It is idiotic to compare people dutifully complying with their legal obligation to report securities transactions with looters at Walmart.

[not guilty]

R.I.P. Jerry Lee Lewis.

Who could have predicted that he would be the last living Sun Records personality?

[John F. Carr]

Also dead this month, Loretta Lynn. Among other hits, she sang "The Pill" about the impact of Griswold v. Connecticut.

[Brett Bellmore]

Does it matter if something like normal thought processes are still going on inside his head, if he can't understand you talking to him, and you can't understand him talking to you, and the job requires doing both?

I'm sure there are plenty of jobs somebody with aphasia could do just fine. Being a legislator just happens not to be one of them.

[Sarcastr0]

he can’t understand you talking to him, and you can’t understand him talking to you,

Except this is not established at all. Not having full speech capacity back yet is about the limit of what we can say.

You WANT it to be true, so I'm sure you're by now certain it is.

[Josh R]

It sounds like you believe being deaf and mute is disqualifying.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, Josh, Fetterman's problem isn't that he can't hear or speak. It's that he can't communicate. Broca aphasia also interferes with your ability to read lips or braille, sign, type, read, and write. His ability to language is what's been damaged, not his hearing, or his control over his tongue.

Oh, and all things being equal, I'd say that, no, you shouldn't elect deaf mutes to the Senate. If they're otherwise the best qualified guy around, sure, maybe that makes up for it. But if your chief qualification is knowing how to point a shotgun at an innocent jogger? Find somebody who can do that AND talk clearly.

[Nige]

Fetterman could only communicate at the debate by blinking in morse code, like that guy in that book, whch everyone agrees is quite a feat but he kept misspelling 'Dr Oz' as 'Zord.'

[Josh R]

It has not been established that Fetterman cannot communicate in writing.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, Josh, it hasn't. And why is that?

Because they've been deliberately concealing how badly compromised their candidate was, and STILL ARE concealing it.

If they wanted to, they could sit him down at a typewriter today, and prove that he can communicate in writing.

But they're not going to, because that's not how aphasia works, and, no, he almost certainly can't communicate in writing any better.

[Josh R]

I have little doubt he can't communicate quickly. But, I suspect he can communicate in writing given plenty of time. That's sufficient to be a senator.

[bevis the lumberjack]

You should try it sometime. Of course, you're going to have to find some intellectual honesty somewhere, because you surely don't have any as is.

[OtisAH]

That’s how you can be sure he’s a truly Free-Thinking Self-Researcher who is unburdened by all partisan impulse. When you post up atop the fence like ol’ Bevis, you have reached Total and Absolute Independence. So don’t believe anyone who says he has no convictions of his own. Bevis holds ALL the convictions.

[Both Sides]

Hey now!

[Brett Bellmore]

Kinda depends on whether there's a good case for bringing the charges, doesn't it?

[Brett Bellmore]

And I've advocated exactly that: That we replace absentee ballots with mobile voting sites.

[TwelveInchPianist]

A rando on medium behind a paywall?

[bernard11]

And of course there was no basis here, but you won't admit that.

[bernard11]

The so-called "rando" quotes the actual NHS statement:

“The clinical management approach should be open to exploring all developmentally appropriate options for children and young people who are experiencing gender incongruence, being mindful that this may be a transient phase, particularly for pre-pubertal children, and that there will be a range of pathways to support these children and young people and a range of outcomes.”

[Sarcastr0]

This is some high-quality content, and may have made my morning.

[Mr. Bumble]

Guess like everything else it depends on who you were, where you lived and how old you were.

[M L]

"obscenity laws banning most of the entertainment of the kind we now enjoy"

Are you saying most movies and TV shows today would have been banned back then because of all the gratuitous shit they usually add in for no apparent reason?

[TwelveInchPianist]

The Times is a rightwing outlet?

And who says that's the "NHS Statement" being referred to?

The Telegraph article says,

The proposals say that the new clinical approach will for younger children “reflect evidence that in most cases gender incongruence does not persist into adolescence”

The document your medium article says something similar, but the Telegraph is clearly quoting a different document. In addition, the Telegraph and Times both claim the document discusses pronouns, and the doc your medium article links to doesn't. But it certainly would be easier if the Times and Telegraph would provide the document they're working from.

So no, your medium rando hasn't established an "outright lie". Nice try though.

[Mr. Bumble]

Not what I said or meant.

[Mr. Bumble]

Apples and oranges. The largest European democracies pale in size to the US.

[Mr. Bumble]

Yes, naked titties are so important to the story line.

[Mr. Bumble]

Really? Who is the "They" oppressing everyone? Were you being oppressed during the 50's?

[Shamie Ervin iv]

I was a kid then. I'm pushing eighty now. You'll forgive me for being naive. But I see things and experience blight and evil in this country now that make my blood boil. And it did not boil in those days. I'll bet Amalthea did not exist in the fifties. Or even in the sixties and probably not even in the seventies or eighties.

[Mr. Bumble]

The Queen of dissembling and obfuscation. ML was talking about movies and television shows almost none of which could in anyway be described as "great works of art".

[Bob from Ohio]

"censoring ... James Joyce"

Doing God's work there.

[Shamie Ervin iv]

Oh, baloney. I read Ulysses, Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn, Quiet Days in Clichy, Sexus, Nexus, Plexus, Fanny Hill, Lady Chatterley's Lover, and saw lots of porn when I was a teenager in the fifties and sixties. Hell, you can get your sex education from the King James Bible. I did. And I got laid on my 15th birthday, thanks to an older friend who lined me up with his fave squeeze in Asheville. She was 15 too.

[Mr. Bumble]

So governments at all levels were oppressing everyone in the 1950's? Point me to the US history that claims that.

[Mr. Bumble]

Isn't naked titties just objectifying women?

[Both Sides]

The possibility of having made your morning genuinely makes my (checks watch) afternoon.

[Mr. Bumble]

Mail in voting is not the norm in the majority of EU countries and where it is allowed ther are strict limitations and ID requirements.

[jb]

There's a serious survivorship bias problem when people think about current culture vs. the past.

Is the art we have left from the Renaissance mostly good? Yeah, sure. Does that mean that all art created during the Renaissance was amazing? No, but all the crappy stuff got disregarded, thrown away, painted over, etc. during the intervening 500 years. Similarly, a lot of art being created today is not great, but some of it will endure through time and people will look back and think it was pretty awesome. And some of that will involve swears and titties and those components will be essential to the work of art. But if you censor nudity generally you won't get those works of art, and you wouldn't have gotten the Sistine Chapel either.

[Nige]

What you said the report said:

‘most children who think they’re trans are going through a phase’

What the quotation pulled from a statement says:

‘being mindful that this may be a transient phase,’

The other thing they were supposed to have said:

‘and they should not be encouraged to change names or take puberty blocking sterilization drugs.’

And from that pull quote:

‘there will be a range of pathways to support these children and young people and a range of outcomes.”

[Sarcastr0]

The screen name is a good gimmick. Keep it, and anything you type comes out already offending a lot of people!

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Where’d you get that “outright lie” stuff from? "

Did you read the article you linked to?

[TwelveInchPianist]

And no, your medium rando didn't show that the mainstream reporting was false, either.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Yeah, I didn’t claim a lie was shown, just that contrary reports and the lack of source for Chuck’s source made it..."

You linked to an article that claimed a lie was shown.
And the "contrary report" was a random medium post. The reports we were citing were in mainstream English publications.

And I found the source.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Where’d you get that “outright lie” stuff from?

The title of the article you linked to is “‘Most trans children are just going through a phase, advises NHS’ is an outright lie”.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"The rando and contrary report (same) sourced the NHS saying something, as you concede, different than the initial claim."

The rando made the argument that because the NHS said something different that the initial claim, the NHS didn't say what was initially claimed. That's clearly wrong, but I guess a couple of suckers fell for it.

[Nige]

The 'rando' has the actual words of the NHS, the articles do not.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"What you said the report said:"

Uh, that's what the Telegraph and the Times say that the NHS said. Frustratingly, they're not providing sources or source documents.

Your medium rando has produced that document from the NHS that doesn't say those things. But that's a far cry from showing that the NHS didn't say the things that the Times and the Telegraph are reporting.

[Nige]

Yes, they lie in their reporting about trans people a lot, so I would expect the actual report to say something entirely different.

The 'rando' went and used atcual NHS sources but the two reports you're relying on didn't, therefore the 'rando' is the less reliable of the three?

[M L]

I don't care for censorship other than things like zoning pornography shops away from elementary schools, a concept which should probably be adapted to online spaces as well.

My point though was that a lot of our media producers today are jerkoff morons who insert gratuitous (key word) over the top things that add nothing and only detract. And that is generally their right if it's not on public airwaves or whatever. Why they do it I don't know, maybe some sort of propaganda motive?

[Brett Bellmore]

I won't admit it because it's not true.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Turns out the rando is lying about the "Actual NHS Sources", which include three documents.

Including "the clinical approach in regard to pre-pubertal children will reflect evidence that in most cases gender incongruence does not persist into adolescence".

So not most children, but most pre-pubescent children desist. That's a big finding, and quite different from what we've been led to believe.

[Nige]

That is not a link. You're just repeating your previous unsourced quote.

[TwelveInchPianist]

sigh. https://www.engage.england.nhs.uk/specialised-commissioning/gender-dysphoria-services/

[Brett Bellmore]

” That’s a big finding, and quite different from what we’ve been led to believe.”

I’m actually pretty sure the research has said that all along from the start.

Do trans- kids stay trans- when they grow up?

" Following the closure of the CAMH Gender Identity Clinic for children, I have been receiving requests for what the science says. Do kids grow out of wanting to change sex, or does it continue when they are adults?

In total, there have been three large scale follow-up studies and a handful of smaller ones. I have listed all of them below, together with their results. (In the table, “cis-” means non-transsexual.) Despite the differences in country, culture, decade, and follow-up length and method, all the studies have come to a remarkably similar conclusion: Only very few trans- kids still want to transition by the time they are adults. Instead, they generally turn out to be regular gay or lesbian folks. The exact number varies by study, but roughly 60–90% of trans- kids turn out no longer to be trans by adulthood."

[Nige]

Twelve - I'm sorry, what, specifically are you linking to?

Brett - the NHS does not seem to be in agreement with this.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Twelve – I’m sorry, what, specifically are you linking to?"

The NHS guidance. There's three documents.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"And do you want to argue that..."

Well, "children" isn't the same as "pre-pubescent children", but other than that, yes, they're saying the same thing.

"Or is the latter “a bit more complicated” than the former?"

The words are longer, but other than that, it's not more complicated.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Well, gee, it wasn't you, and it wasn't the medium rando.

[Nige]

'The NHS guidance. There’s three documents.'

And?

[SoSoCoCoMoFo]

POC Privilege.

[jb]

Right, and my point is that there was a lot of jerkoff morons in the 1500s making terrible "art" too, we just don't see any of it because the garbage doesn't stand the test of time. The fact that the average unit of art/culture being produced today doesn't compare favorably to the tiny fraction of culture that has survived for centuries from the past doesn't should never be surprising.

For example, when we manage to get a whole preserved set of artifacts from an old civilization rather than just what has been carefully passed down through the years, we end up realizing that, e.g., most of the art in Pompeii was actually dirty drawings on walls.

[M L]

Ok, yeah. Your point is fair, but let's not pretend that the quality and value of artistic output, or its proportionate mix of some attributes, is somehow static or linear over time. It's not, there's lots of ups and downs and rarities. Also, today's multimedia production industry and technology isn't the same situation as cave drawings or any other time, there are factors that tend to put control over huge amounts of content in the hands of relatively few people. But even without today's technology, in history the choices and values held by a small number of individuals can have an outsized impact on culture and human events. Cultural norms and values matter and they change and vary.

[M L]

Pay attention, the comparison was to the 1500s and back to cave art in Pompeii, as opposed to today's (1950s to present) electronic visual media.

[Brett Bellmore]

I think you are grossly underestimating the amount of medical information a person can accumulate in a lifetime of reading, even if they never get an MD.

Well, if they have any curiosity, anyway.

[Mr. Bumble]

Sounds like a great premise for a TV show. Change the name to Wellmore, and he and his nurse/receptionist give people good medical care and accurate medical advice.

[Shamie Ervin iv]

Yawn. The best way to handle you is to ignore you.

[Mr. Bumble]

You're ignorant now. What's your excuse?

[Mr. Bumble]

More like your MO, since you know everything about everything.

[bernard11]

It's A.L.'s go-to source for trollish comments here.

[Commenter_XY]

QA, I am mad at anyone who 'mocks the poor' (traditionally understood to mean you cannot mock a person for things they cannot change, like Fetterman and his stroke; or mocking a child for having parents who are impoverished) and the party label is irrelevant to that. It is degrading to Mr. Fetterman, and it is wrong.

It is wrong for American society to treat that behavior (e.g. mocking the poor) as an entertaining blood sport. It corrodes our spirit, QA.

[M L]

I came to this blurb via FEE. https://fee.org/ Not familiar with the Christian Post but I was excited to see what sorts of derision it would get!

[not guilty]

"I think you are grossly underestimating the amount of medical information a person can accumulate in a lifetime of reading, even if they never get an MD."

Brett Bellmore and Darrell Brooks each remind me of words of wisdom often attributed to Mark Twain: “It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.”

[bernard11]

Here are the views of an actual neurologist - not a graduate of the Bellmore School of Medicine.

How common is it for people coming off a stroke to have issues processing language but still have perfectly fine cognitive functions?

Oh, it’s completely normal. I see people with aphasia, that’s the sort of general term for language disorder, all the time. And that might be all they have. The areas of the brain that are devoted to language are pretty big, so it’s not an uncommon area to be affected when a stroke does occur.

No automatic cognitive decline.

Was there anything you could glean Tuesday in terms of where Fetterman might be in his recovery?

Most people, when they have their stroke, they’re worst at the beginning, and then there is significant improvement in the first few weeks and months afterward. And then the improvement can continue for quite a long time, maybe up to a year or so, which is generally what I tell my patients. And then once they get out to a year, if they still have any deficit, they’re probably pretty much stuck where they are.

A year. Not five months.

For voters who are potentially concerned about Fetterman’s recovery, is there anything you would recommend keeping an eye out for?

Let’s say there’s no recovery, and he stays exactly the way he is right now. Does that mean his decision-making capacity or judgment are affected in any way? I would say, probably not.

[Jimmy the Dane]

You mean squabble squabble "legacy of slavery!" and "1619 Project!" are not coherent reasons to justify racism?

[Jason Cavanaugh]

It is, in fact, true. You won't admit it because your entire identity is wrapped up in "GOP good. Democrats bad."

That and whatever you imagine the conspiracy of the day to be.

[Commenter_XY]

Yes QA, I am mad at Team R people who mock Mr. Fetterman. They are wrong. The principle I am using to make that determination is rooted in my religious tradition: You cannot mock the poor (see above for my comments on how I apply this principle to this situation).

Commenters speak for themselves, QA. I have.

[Brett Bellmore]

Look, I'm actually rather sympathetic towards Fetterman. Nobody deserves a stroke, and it's quite possible he's in denial about his not being medically qualified for the job anymore. He's got a long road to recovery ahead of him, and it doesn't lead all the way back to healthy, either.

I'm rather less sympathetic towards the people around him who didn't argue him out of continuing to run, but instead worked hard to conceal how compromised he is.

[Nige]

In other words you're 'sympathetic' in the most patronising way possible.

[Brett Bellmore]

How exactly are you failing to notice that I'm NOT asserting he has any cognitive decline, in a general sense? Maybe he does, maybe he doesn't, the aphasia itself would make it hard to tell, since most cognitive tests rely on language.

I'm just asserting that the job he's running for requires the ability to use language at, at the least, a normal level. You could do it deaf or blind, you could be mute, and be a successful Senator, because you could still communicate via some other route.

But he's not deaf, blind, or mute. There's no alternate path to use language for him, it's exactly his capacity to use language that's been damaged, a damage that applies across ALL modes of communication.

And YOU NEED LANGUAGE TO DO THE JOB OF BEING A SENATOR. He needs to be able to read and understand legislation, and not on a "See Spot run!" level, either, because legislation is fairly complex. AND HE CAN'T DO THIS.

Yes, it's not a formal constitutional qualification for the office. Not being in a persistent vegetative state isn't a formal qualification, either, but I hope you wouldn't argue that somebody in a coma was qualified for the job.

There are probably lots of jobs he's still qualified for. Not this one, though.

[bernard11]

He needs to be able to read and understand legislation, and not on a “See Spot run!” level, either, because legislation is fairly complex.

If you think Oz is going to spend his time studying the nuances of proposed legislation and making careful judgments, you're nuts.

The blunt fact, which we dance around, is that the Senate does not function in accord with civics class fantasies. It's not a bunch of wise elders making independent judgments. Votes are largely party line. (Of course this applies to the House also, but its members aren't expected to be so judicious.)

[Sarcastr0]

And even when it is about working the rules and committees and amendment language, that's not going to require immediate on-the-spot wit and rhetoric!

Come on, Brett, this is silly. You think you have a decent line of attack, but you really don't; and no amount of capitalizing words will change that.

[Nige]

Specifically, you get mad at stories about liberals supposedly supressing free speech and you both-sides stories about conservatives actually supressing free speech.

[Nige]

Not attending any civil rights marches, then.