Thursday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[Mr. Bumble]

After his performance at the Senate hearing yesterday, does anyone still think that the current AG would have been a fine choice for the SC?

[Moderation4ever]

Yes

[Sarcastr0]

An appeal to incredulity won't cut it.

What in particular did you see that made you believe he would have made a bad Justice?

[Bob from Ohio]

“Those who are attacking the pregnancy resource centers, which is a horrid thing to do, are doing this at night, in the dark,” Garland added"

Can't prosecute because its in the dark! FBI might lose sleep

[Mr. Bumble]

Too busy looking for who planted the "bombs" on the night of January 5, 2021.

[Dr. Ed 2]

It’s scary that we still don’t know who did that — scary because it’s either (a) DC isn’t anywhere near as secure as we are told it is, (b) law enforcement is no where near as competent as we are told they are, or (c) law enforcement was involved in planting them -- or is protecting the person who did.

None of these are good answers.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

The answer is C.

We know now beyond doubt that the DOJ and intelligence community are domestic terror operations aimed at normal Americans.

They are the most evil of them all since they exploit the special sanction we grant them to abuse and oppress us.

There is a special place in hell for the Democrat DOJ and Democrat IC. History will rank them with the Stasi, the KGB, and the CCP.

[Frank Drackman]

Ah c'mon (man!) the Stasi weren't nearly that bad.

[YepThatGuy]

"An appeal to incredulity won’t cut it. What in particular did you see that made you believe he would have made a bad Justice?"

Props. That's really well phrased.

[Mr. Bumble]

Well phrased, maybe but it did not answer the question I asked in my comment.

[BrotherMovesOn]

He gave you a well phrased brush-off, which is all an effeminate, annoying little troll deserves. Feel better?

[Life of Brian]

effeminate

Wow, this is still allowed? What in the world is it even supposed to mean in this enlightened day and age?

[Kazinski]

I don’t know about how good of a justice he’d have been, probably not the worst grading on a curve with Sotomayor on it, but I'm very happy with Goresuch in that seat, so thanks Mitch.

But honestly I’d never seen a cabinet official abused this badly as Garland is here:

https://twitter.com/townhallcom/status/1630981569165787158

[Dr. Ed 2]

He wasn't being abused -- he was lying!
He reminded me of the Nazis in the dock at Nuremburg.
And as a Justice -- Abe Fortas...

[Sarcastr0]

Did you just equate Abe Fortas to Nazis at Nuremberg?!

[Davedave]

Not a surprise to see the talking horse is a Holocaust denier.

[David Bremer]

Thank you for reminding me just how much I hate blowhard attorneys who are more interested in getting clicks, retweets, and appearances on whatever websites rallies their base than being adults governing.

I don't know the circumstances of this case enough to know whether the DOJ did the right thing. But I do know that Hawley is an unserious, political blowhard who comes across like prissy baby in the exchange.

[TwelveInchPianist]

I know, right? The most politicized AG in recent memory.

[SRG]

Yes, if by "recent" you mean "the last two years". You must have forgotten Barr, Ashcroft, Gonzales, etc.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Nope. None of them went after parents attending school board meetings, for example.

[Nige]

Were teachers and school board members being subjected to threats and abuse associated with the cranks turning up at school board meetings while they were AG?

[TwelveInchPianist]

No.

[Nige]

That explains that, then.

[Dr. Ed 2]

CRIMINAL threats and abuse, no. CONSTITUTIONALLY-PROTECTED threats and abuse, aka citizens petitioning for redress of grievances, yes.

And 10, 20, 30 years ago, it was the gay activists who were showing up — except that was OK, because it was somehow different.

There was BAMN who liked to throw chairs at meetings -- and that *is* criminal -- but was ignored.

There were actual gang members -- criminals -- showing up and threatening people -- but that was ignored.

In fact, much of the stuff that parents are objecting to today was enacted by others employing far more violent versions of the tactics they are using -- and no one cared.

[Nige]

Threats and abuse aren't constitutionally protected, and the treats and abuse being investiagted motly happened outside of the meetings.

I've seen your usage of 'ignored' and what it usually means is that white religious cranks should be able to expect an exemption from any investigation of their potentially unlawful behaviour.

[Sarcastr0]

I mean, some threats and abuse *are* constitutionally protected.

The FBI sent out a memo noting some of the threats crossed the line, and to be aware. The right lost their shit and cried persecution, conflating the protected and the actually illegal like they do.

[Nige]

So noted.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Sigh. The national school boards association, in collusion with the White House, sent a letter characterizing lots of protected activity as threats. They later retracted the letter and acknowledged that it was inappropriate.

Garland responded to the inappropriate letter by sending a memo siccing the FBI on the parents that were trying to communicate with their school boards.

[Sarcastr0]

In *collusion* with the White House? Don't be a dipshit.

The FBI letter was about violent threats. Those *are* illegal. Great example of conflation of protected and unprotected speech by the right.

[Nige]

That letter makes a pretty clear distinction between the propaganda and the threats of violence and acts of intimidation.

[Bob from Ohio]

“Although the Letter was the progeny of Mr. Slaven with active assistance from his staff and some of his NSBA colleagues, the White House, namely White House Senior Advisor to the President Mary C. Wall (“Ms. Wall”), had advance knowledge of the planned Letter and its specific contents and interacted with Mr. Slaven regarding the Letter during its drafting. In addition, evidence indicates that White House officials discussed the existence of the Letter, its requests, and the contents of the Letter with Department of Justice officials more than a week before the Letter was finalized and sent to President Biden.” FINAL REPORT ON THE EVENTS SURROUNDING THE NATIONAL SCHOOL BOARDS ASSOCIATION’S SEPTEMBER 29, 2021, LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT

Take your own advice dipshit.

[David Nieporent]

The national school boards association,

You know, it's been a number of years since I studied the alphabet, but I think that would be abbreviated NSBA, not FBI.

in collusion with the White House,

Another lie.

Garland responded to the inappropriate letter by sending a memo siccing the FBI on the parents that were trying to communicate with their school boards.

Fabrication. You either haven't read the letter, or are deliberately lying about it, or you're stupid. Which is it? (More than one of these may be true.)

[Bob from Ohio]

"in collusion with the White House,
Another lie. "

Yes, you are lying

The NSBA's own internal report said that the letter was discussed with a White House assistant and the White House further discussed it with DOJ a week before it was sent.

Carrying that Dem water must be tiring.

[Sarcastr0]

Bob, cooperation is not the same as collusion.

[Bob from Ohio]

"cooperation is not the same as collusion"

collusion
noun
secret agreement or cooperation especially for an illegal or deceitful purpose [Merriam Webster]

[Nige]

So, not secret, and not illegal.

[Bob from Ohio]

"not secret"

It was at the time.

It was also for a "deceitful purpose", pretending that the association's concerns were completely organic.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

I'm used to seeing Sarcastr0 get owned, but never this bad.

[Nige]

You didn't know about it, which is not the same as secret, and the association's concerns remain the association's concerns.

[TwelveInchPianist]

“You didn’t know about it, which is not the same as secret,”

We didn’t know about it because they didn’t tell us about it, presumably because they didn’t want us to know.

[TwelveInchPianist]

“You either haven’t read the letter, or are deliberately lying about it, or you’re stupid. Which is it? (More than one of these may be true.)”

Don’t you have a Bayesian analysis to write?

[NOVA Lawyer]

Bob,

Explain how your own quote:

"the Letter was the progeny of Mr. Slaven with active assistance from his staff and some of his NSBA colleagues"

Doesn't refute your own point:

"pretending that the association’s concerns were completely organic."

The letter was the "progeny" of NSBA people, i.e., its origins were completely organic.

Then they tried to get political actors on board and collaborated in editing it so they could get the political support they sought. *clutching pearls*

[Dr. Ed 2]

Nige, Are you defending throwing chairs at people?!?

[Nige]

That's a bit random.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

These are the Volokh Conspiracy's fans.

And the reason strong law schools should no longer be interested in hiring polemical movement conservatives for faculty positions.

[Jerry B.]

Whereas Left-Liberals and Progressives just have to show up to be hired. They can even get positions if they just identify as law professors, regardless of their actual c.v.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

You figure it a comparison of faculties and institutional quality (for example, top ten conservative-controlled schools vs. top ten liberal-libertarian mainstream schools) would benefit the conservative cause?

I think the Volokh Conspirators, the Republican Party, the Federalist Society, and all sentient right-wingers would prefer to avoid that subject.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Oddly enough, parents who simply attended school board meetings are still not being 'gone after.'

Maybe there's an issue with your perception of reality.

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

None of them went after parents attending school-board meetings, because parents issuing criminal threats of violence at school-board meetings is a new phenomenon! Parents didn't do that (with very few exceptions) until around 2016.

[David Nieporent]

Nope. None of them went after parents attending school board meetings, for example.

Still lying about this, I see. This never happened, in any way, shape, or form.

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

On my mind:

Why do so many non-scientists think they know enough for their opinions on the origin of the virus to be worth reading?

We don’t do this with other subjects, do we. I mean, if someone were to ask you to serve as referee in a professional boxing match, or to evaluate a design for a new racing car, what would you say? You’d say “I’m sorry, but I don’t know anything about boxing, or about auto-mechanics, so you’ll have to ask someone who does!” and that would end the discussion. But when the subject is virology or epidemiology or immunology or medicine, which are much more complicated subjects than boxing or auto-mechanics, people think they can understand enough, just by reading a few web-sites, to have an opinion worth reading.

I used to approve of popular-science articles, and lectures, and books, but now all I see them doing is creating the illusion that you know enough to form a conclusion based on the Department of Energy’s press releases. You probably don’t even know what they mean by “low confidence”.

[Frank Drackman]

you must have forgotten Eric (Obama's Balls) Holder, https://www.politico.com/story/2012/06/holder-held-in-contempt-of-congress-077988
funny, can't find any record of his impeachment anywhere

Frank

[Dr. Ed 2]

He reminds me of John Mitchell who engaged in similar tactics.

[Frank Drackman]

Got hold of some Gray-Market Na-menda??
you must have forgotten Eric (Obama’s Balls) Holder, https://www.politico.com/story/2012/06/holder-held-in-contempt-of-congress-077988
funny, can’t find any record of his impeachment anywhere

Frank

[not guilty]

"He reminds me of John Mitchell who engaged in similar tactics."

How so? Or is this a dispatch from Bizarro World?

[David Nieporent]

A trucker told him.

[Mr. Bumble]

Joe Biden? He drove 18 wheelers don't you know.

[Frank Drackman]

When he wasn't taking handoffs from Roger Staubach at the Naval Academy

[not guilty]

Still waiting, Dr. Ed 2.

[Dr. Ed 2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_N._Mitchell#Political_career

[not guilty]

Linking without comment to a Wikipedia article is meaningless. What do you claim are similarities between Merrick Garland's performance and the infamous tenure of John Mitchell? Please be specific.

[not guilty]

Still waiting, Dr. Ed 2.

[Longtobefree]

Every democrat ever.

[Frank Drackman]

At least he can tell a Cock from a Pussy, unlike Ka-Grungie Jackson Browne.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

You’re fortunate, Frank, that Prof. Volokh censors one of the words you used solely when a liberal uses that word. He issues a pass to a fellow clinger.

If you believe my comment is mistaken, Prof. Volokh, please provide your version of what has occurred.

[Frank Drackman]

What a Dirty Mind, you Dirty Old Man!

[Ben_]

"After his performance at the Senate hearing yesterday, does anyone still think that the current AG would have been a fine choice for the SC?"

People who want to use government against Americans approve of Garland.

[Frank Drackman]

Loving the new MLB rules, Pitch Clock/Pick Off Limitations (my best pitch was stepping off the rubber) not as happy with the shift limitations, if the hitters can't adjust too bad, bigger bases even if only 3 inches (would love 3 more inches) won't help as much as moving the rubber back 3 inches (it's math) . Now if they'd only alternate the direction of base running every inning, to make playing the infield more "Inclusive" (find me a Lefty playing Catcher/3b/SS/2b) it'd be perfect.

Frank

[Kleppe]

Never heard of changing the direction of base running. I'm intrigued.

[John F. Carr]

I didn't watch the political show. I will quote from the rules of baseball. A runner is out if "the runner runs the bases in reverse order for the purpose of confusing the defense or making a travesty of the game". This is like the warnings about bizarre misuses of a consumer product. You'd think it didn't need to be said, but somebody did it.

[Commenter_XY]

That is so true, John F Carr = This is like the warnings about bizarre misuses of a consumer product. You’d think it didn’t need to be said, but somebody did it.

Imagine the poor lawyer having to draft that warning.

[Frank Drackman]

OK, I'm a lefty so we (literally) think backwards from the Majority, but to be clear, MLB hasn't changed the direction of running bases, but if they did, (like how they change sides in Tennis/Basketball/Football/Hockey/ don't watch much Soccer, do they change sides of the field, I mean "Pitch" in Soccer?)
you'd have some lefties playing third, SS, second.
Plus it'd be funny when inevitably a player forgets which way he's supposed to run, like happens occasionally now when players forget how many outs there are and a run scores.

Frank "Let my people play shortstop!"

[Mr. Bumble]

The lack of diversity and equity is appalling.

[Longtobefree]

Not to mention the effect on RH .vs LH batters!

[Frank Drackman]

True, and while the current set up gives lefties a 3-4 foot headstart to first, it decreases incentive for lefties to switch hit, which is a huge Resume' enhancer for "the Show" I tried hitting righty in BP as a goof, "WTF you doing Drackman, Lefties don't switch hit!"

Frank

[Mr. Bumble]

"Lefties don’t switch hit!”"

At least on the field.

[Frank Drackman]

Hi-Yo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks Ed,
even funnier than when I first heard Johnny Carson tell it,
what next? Margo the Kissing Bandit makes an appearance?

[Mr. Bumble]

Would prefer Art Fern and Carol Wayne. Well really just Carol Wayne.

[Bob from Ohio]

"alternate the direction of base running every inning"

Don't give Manfred ideas!

Only commissioner who hates his sport.

[Frank Drackman]

Man-Friend won't do it, unless he can find a racial angle, Lefthanders (who can be of any race) also aren't covered in any of the Civil Rights, ADA laws. Just want to see his sorry ass show up at a Marietta Braves game this year.

[Illocust]

Is interesting that all the agencies are coming out to endorse the lab leak theory now. It seems like a lot of scandals are being shown right now. Maybe the hope is that if it all comes out at once and comes out far enough from an election that the impact will be mitigated?

[Nige]

Isn't it just one agency, the Department of Energy, saying that there is low confidence that it's the most likely explanation? I feel like 'Hah, the lab leak theory has been proved after everyone with any credibility being skeptical about it due to the lack of actual evidence and dismissing all the associated conspiracy theories' is a cycle we've been through at least four or five times by now.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Sigh. They're saying it is the most likely explanation, but it's not highly likely or certain.

And the FBI also says it's the most likely explanation.

That's a big step up from the deranged conspiracy theory that the MSM tried to label the theory as.

[Nige]

Really? The FBI said that?

The deranged conspiracy theories were that Anthony Fauci released covid from the lab in conjunction with the Chinese and global elites to put the world in permanent lockdown and also masks and the cashless society and eating insects and forcing everyone to take poison vaccinations to cull the population, and variations thereof.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Who said that? Here's what Tom Cotton said, that was labeled as a conspiracy theory:

"We don’t know where it originated, and we have to get to the bottom of that,” Cotton said. “We also know that just a few miles away from that food market is China’s only biosafety level 4 super laboratory that researches human infectious diseases."

[Nige]

That's not 'most likely' that's just 'a possibility.'

[NOVA Lawyer]

As you undoubtedly know, if you read the article you linked, Cotton's statement wasn't labeled a conspiracy theory. The idea that the virus was man-made.

In response to Cotton’s remarks, as well as in previous interviews with The Washington Post, numerous experts dismissed the possibility the coronavirus may be man-made.

And Cotton intentionally gave oxygen to that conspiracy theory which still has no evidence to support it. Cotton cleaned up his statements later.

After this story published, Cotton as part of a series of tweets made a distinction between the possibility the coronavirus is a man-made result of biological weapons research — which experts say should be dismissed — and other possibilities such as a lab accident. He also continued to list the engineered virus as a “hypothesis.”

Ebright, in a tweet to Cotton, said he was “pleased to hear you now distinguish” between those ideas.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Really? The FBI said that?"

Really.

[Nige]

Gottalink?

[TwelveInchPianist]

Here

[Nige]

Ta.

[SimonP]

It was a deranged conspiracy theory when you lot were trumpeting it, based on zero evidence.

These agencies have studied the intelligence and are each weighing in with their take. The White House will be responsible for taking in that input and coming to a conclusion and policy position based on it.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Lol. It's a deranged conspiracy theory when the right says it, but when y'all finally catch up to the evidence, it becomes reasonable?

From the Wapo:

CORRECTION
Earlier versions of this story and its headline inaccurately characterized comments by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) regarding the origins of the coronavirus. The term “debunked” and The Post’s use of “conspiracy theory” have been removed because, then as now, there was no determination about the origins of the virus.

There's a lot of these floating around.

[SimonP]

Epistemology has a convenient way of defining "knowledge": we "know" something when we have a justified, true belief that it's the case. The definition is imperfect, but the basic framework is suitable for present purposes.

What it means is that, in order to truly "know" something, you have to (i) believe it to be the case; (ii) have that belief be true; and (iii) be justified in that belief. It's not enough, in other words, to believe something that just happens to be true - say, you've reached that belief randomly, or through the application of superstition, or based on false evidence, etc. You might believe it, and you might be right about that belief, but you don't truly "know" it, because your belief is not justified.

That's how I would characterize where you and Trump were, closer to the outbreak, and where we seem to be heading, now. Back then, neither you nor Trump had any particular reason to believe that the virus came from a lab leak. You had some half-digested stuff about Fauci, a few cases in Wuhan, a president eager to shift blame for a rapidly progressing pandemic under his watch, and a compliant outrage-driven, right-wing media that is on record as lying to its audience, when convenient for their own narrow commercial purposes. You didn't have any meaningful intelligence, and none of us had the benefit of agencies doing a thorough review of available evidence and coming to their own expert opinions. You just had a gut-feel.

So, yes - it was a conspiracy then. Other commenters are helpfully re-heating those fever dreams, so that we can all recall - remember "gain of function research"? Remember "Lock [Fauci] up"? We don't have any reason whatsoever to believe that the DoE, FBI, or anyone else have come out the way they have because of that stuff. Yet you lot are treating it as though the entire original conspiracy theory has been confirmed by more recent disclosures (which, it might be noted, could themselves be shaded by current geopolitical tensions with China, so maybe shouldn't be taken at face value either).

[TwelveInchPianist]

Lol. Here's some analysis you might find interesting.

Not to get in the way of your revisionism, but let me remind you of the original positioning:

Folks on the right claimed that the virus may have come from a lab leak.

Folks on the left claimed that the lab leak theory had been conclusively debunked, so much so that merely voicing the possibility justified being called out as a conspiracy monger.

Subsequent events showed that the right was correct, and the left was not.

[Nige]

'folks on the right claimed that the virus may have come from a lab leak.'

A deliberate lab leak, of a deliberately manufactured virus, somehow involving Fauci, and covered up by China and the CDC and the Deep State, etc. Don't sell the folk on the right short by leaving out some of the most notable parts of their theories.

'Folks on the left claimed that the lab leak theory had been conclusively debunked'

Folks on the left and lots of other places routinely debunked claims that the lab leak theory had been proven, over and over again, and again now.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Who are you talking about? I linked you to an article where Tom Cotton said it was possible. Nothing about Fauci, or deliberate manufacturing. Please try to read a little better.

[Sarcastr0]

Cotton is a smart guy. Here’s what he said: “We don’t have evidence that this disease originated there,” the senator said, “but because of China’s duplicity and dishonesty from the beginning, we need to at least ask the question to see what the evidence says, and China right now is not giving evidence on that question at all.”

Ask the questions...how to do that, he did not specify.

That’s….not the state of debate about the lab leak hypothesis right now. Right now it is a bioweapon created with gain-of-function funding from Fauci in service of the Great Reset.

You’re just wrong if you think possibility is what the right has been pushing for the past 2 years.

[Nige]

I'm talking about all the people who said those things.

[Mr. Bumble]

Which people?

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Ask the questions…how to do that, he did not specify."

And merely asking the question was what the left was claiming was a conspiracy theory. The original headline for the article (that the Wapo had to correct) was "Tom Cotton keeps repeating a coronavirus conspiracy theory that was already debunked."

Now that the conspiracy theory appears likely to be true, you guys are moving the goalposts and claiming all sorts of things, but the original claim was that any reference to a lab leak was a debunked conspiracy theory.

[Sarcastr0]

Well, boo on the WaPo.

But your playing field is suspect - the lab leak conspiracy theory is a thing, it's pretty wide on the right, and some old WaPo correction is not nearly as current an issue.

[Nige]

'Now that the conspiracy theory appears likely to be true,'

Literally nothing has changed. If any evidence has been found, it hasn't been released, and a couple of agencies measureing out gradations of likelihood does not suggest that anything conclusive has emerged.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Well, boo on the WaPo."

And NPR, and MSNBC, and CNN, and pretty much all of the left wing media.

[Sarcastr0]

You are both deflecting and hand-waiving now, TiP.

Quit defending conspiracy theorists by yelling how oppressed these other people were in a story since retracted (which is better than most right wing rags do).

[TwelveInchPianist]

What conspiracy theorists am I defending?

As I said in my original comment, the lab leak being found more likely than not is "a big step up from the deranged conspiracy theory that the MSM tried to label the theory as."

Why don't you just admit that that's correct?

[NOVA Lawyer]

You keep conflating the possibility that a natural virus escaped from the Wuhan lab with the conspiracy theory that a virus was created in that lab as a bioweapon and was released for all sorts of world domination reasons, with Fauci involved to boot. The WaPo story to which you linked explicitly talked about that theory when discussing Cotton's comments. All the experts quoted addressed whether it was a man-made or engineered virus and how there was no evidence for that and, in fact, lots of evidence against it.

And then Cotton tweeted:

Fact: China lied about virus starting in Wuhan food market.

It wasn't a known fact then and still is not now. It's a possibility which some, but not most, agencies think is the most likely of many possibilities.

And, importantly, that tweet was in response to this statement:

conspiracy theories pushed by @SenTomCotton that it's being used as biological warfare as "absolutely crazy."

Cotton didn't reject the idea that he was pushing that the virus was "being used as biological warfare", but instead claimed things were facts that are still not known to be facts.

Cotton was reckless and irresponsible. And here you are carrying his water. Next, let's hear you do Clinton and the definition of "is."

[SimonP]

A comedic bit clearly parodying the stupidity of the conspiracy mongers, alongside a skeptical counterpoint to the effect of, "Sure, we ought to research that possibility," which is what subsequently happened?

That's the best you can do, for an "analysis"?

Why do I even bother with you lunkheads?

[TwelveInchPianist]

"A comedic bit clearly parodying the stupidity of the conspiracy mongers, alongside a skeptical counterpoint to the effect of, “Sure, we ought to research that possibility,”"

Your side was claiming that the folks saying, "Sure, we ought to research that possibility," were the conspiracy mongers, remember?

[SimonP]

Your clip seems to rebut this assertion.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Here's an article about the reaction Jon Stewart got from the left.

[Sarcastr0]

TiP, did you happen to read the Illocust post that started out this OP?

It's a conspiracy theory!!

[SimonP]

So what you seem to be saying is that Twitter got upset about it? Yes, Twitter does that.

Try as I might, I follow your links, but I can't find a single leftist commentator dismissing the lab leak theory as a racist conspiracy theory not even worth looking into.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Try as I might, I follow your links, but I can’t find a single leftist commentator dismissing the lab leak theory as a racist conspiracy theory not even worth looking into."

Really? Here's a thread with a whole bunch of clips.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"TiP, did you happen to read the Illocust post that started out this OP?"

Yes. Did you read the conversation as it flowed from there?

[Sarcastr0]

The flow of the conversation is you continually trying to pull this conversation to a bunch of grievances, and everyone else talking about the lunacy that is the lab leak hypothesis as actually going on right now.

[TwelveInchPianist]

No, the flow of conversation is that you are continually trying to deflect from the fact that the MSM tried to label the lab leak theory as a deranged conspiracy theory, and now it looks like it's probably correct.

[Sarcastr0]

This thread started with a conspiracy theorist. After that, it's been you and a bunch of people telling you to stay on topic.

Pretty rich to call me the one deflecting.

[Nige]

'the MSM tried to label the lab leak theory as a deranged conspiracy theory'

I think you'll find it was the deranged conspiracy theorists that did that.

[Nige]

YES. When there's evidence, it's reasonable. When there's no evidence, or made-up evidence, it's a conspiracy theory. That is literally the difference between 'reasonable' and 'conspiracy theory.'

[Brett Bellmore]

The very fact that it first showed up that close to a lab researching viruses was, itself, evidence. Not conclusive evidence, sure, but certainly circumstantial evidence. It was utterly irrational to deny that.

[Nige]

It’s utterly irrational to build an entire theory around it involving bioweapons and Fauci etc and then get mad when people point out the evidence is thin at best.

[bevis the lumberjack]

"Based on zero evidence"

The bullshit about it being a Chinese bioweapon was crazy conspiracy bullshit. The fact that the lab was a possible source for the release was always obvious to me.

Move it to America with this set of facts. Ground water in an area becomes polluted with benzene. There's a plant within a mile of the contamination area that uses benzene in their manufacturing process and stores it in tanks on their site. You're going to accept a claim that the source of the benzene couldn't possibly be that plant? Of course you aren't.

[Nige]

‘The bullshit about it being a Chinese bioweapon was crazy conspiracy bullshit. The fact that the lab was a possible source for the release was always obvious to me.’

Pat tourself on the back, that’s the basic reasonable view.

‘You’re going to accept a claim that the source of the benzene couldn’t possibly be that plant?’

Are you conflating an identified chemical that does not occur in nature in this specific form near a location where the chemical is produced in this specific form with the appearance of a new virus which could have come from any number of natural sources and precisely one possible non-natural source?

[SimonP]

Or move it to Turkey, with this set of facts: a seismic research lab is located near the epicenter of the recent catastrophic quakes. Right-wing conspiracists spin the theory that the research lab had something to do with the quakes. Is that nuts, or worth considering seriously?

The lab leak theory isn't implausible, but pointing to the mere coincidence of the lab with the apparent geographic center of the outbreak - and remember that China hasn't been fully transparent on either front - is meaningless without some background understanding of the chances of a natural outbreak occurring. When you look at the emergence of novel viruses like HIV and Ebola, you find environments where humans and animals were in closer contact than in previous centuries. That's also what we're seeing with these bird flu cases and other coronavirus outbreaks. And what do you know, Wuhan satisfies some of those background conditions! There's a reason why much of the scientific community finds a natural source to be likely.

[bevis the lumberjack]

I don’t say it’s conclusive. But to say it’s impossible is wrong. To call anyone who suggested it racist is appalling.

[SimonP]

Well, when many of them are racist, and are relying on racist sentiments in an expected audience to bolster the plausibility of the specious claims they're making...

Again. Trump didn't blame a lab leak because he had classified intelligence suggesting that's what happened, or because he had a team of advisers come together and provide their own reasoned opinions. He blamed a lab leak because he consumes right-wing media, his initial approach to the pandemic was haphazard and his first priority was shifting any blame for the US outbreak from himself. The outrage media helpfully boomeranged that around to Fauci and we were off to the races.

[Nige]

He also said climate change is a Chinese hoax, it’s a theme with him. Although covid was a Democrat hoax there for a while.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Sure, because anyone who says the same thing trump says must think exactly like trump. All of those fucking racists saying things like “good morning” just like trump does.

Nobody was able to independently notice that a lab that handles the pandemic virus was located next door to the epicenter and think “hmmmm, maybe the virus came from there…”.

[Nige]

Lots of people were able to do that. It's what they did next that was either rational or irrational, and they'd rather complain about how their irrationality was treated than focus on the the fact that the lab leak theory: still not proven. They do that a lot. They complain about how the 'Russia hoax' was covered rather than focus on what the investigations ended up finding, they'd rather focus on the coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop than the fact that there's fuck-all on the laptop (so far.) It's a nice little sleight of hand, especially if they pretend that they were all being in some way entirely calm and reasonable at the time and not frothing at the mouth.

[grb]

Illocust : Is interesting that all the agencies are coming out to endorse the lab leak theory now?"

Factually wrong. Here's the rundown :

1. National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Disease: Natural
2. Centers for Disease Control: Natural
3. Intelligence Community: Divided
4. Department of Energy: Lab
5. FBI: Lab
6. CIA: Undecided
7. National Intelligence Council: Natural

In addition, the last non-governmental scientific studies have all said a natural origin was probable. There's been no sudden turn to the lab theory, which is still less likely by consensus.

[Kazinski]

Well of course the CDC is going to say that it's natural. It was their grant that paid the Chinese to engineer COVID-19 in the Wuhan lab.

[Nige]

Look, everyone, there's the conspiracy theory.

[David Nieporent]

Note that the "lab leak" theory is not actually the same as the "bioengineered virus" theory, as Kazinski appears to think it is. Even the agencies that think the lab leak theory is plausible do not suggest that the virus was man made. Just that it was being studied there and poor safety measures let it escape.

[Armchair Lawyer]

"Even the agencies that think the lab leak theory is plausible do not suggest that the virus was man made. Just that it was being studied there and poor safety measures let it escape."

Do you have any evidence for this assertion? Because I don't see any.

[grb]

Biden asked for a report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence on the origin of COVID. A link to the unclassified summary is below. Some quotes:

1. “After examining all available intelligence reporting and other information, though, the IC remains divided on the most likely origin of COVID-19” (note: the vote was (4) for natural origin, (1) for lab origin, and (3) undecided)

2. “We judge the virus was not developed as a biological weapon. Most agencies also assess with low confidence that SARS-CoV-2 probably was not genetically engineered; however, two agencies believe there was not sufficient evidence to make an assessment either way.”

3. “Finally, the IC assesses China’s officials did not have foreknowledge of the virus before the initial outbreak of COVID-19 emerged.”

https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Unclassified-Summary-of-Assessment-on-COVID-19-Origins.pdf

[Armchair Lawyer]

Compare and contrast.

1. “Even the agencies that think the lab leak theory is plausible do not suggest that the virus was man made. Just that it was being studied there and poor safety measures let it escape"

2. "however, two agencies believe there was not sufficient evidence to make an assessment either way" (genetically engineered or not).

Those aren't the same statement. Those 2 agencies did not propose with certainty that the virus was "Just being studied there and poor safety measures let it escape."

In fact, to "not have sufficient evidence either way" would surely suggest that a genetically (or naturally) engineered virus was a possibility in addition to a naturally occurring virus being a possibility.

[grb]

Review things a little more carefully and you see the picture is even more complicated. More agencies were agnostic on whether the virus was “engineered” than thought it from a lab leak. But obviously the first is a subset of the second. That suggests the agnostic position on engineering had a pro-forma element to it: Reviewers whose position was they didn’t know what they didn’t know.

Meanwhile, I invite you to look up the last non-governmental studies on the issue, which almost all support the origin as a zoonotic jump from an animal to humans. Below is a ink to one from October.

https://www.science.org/content/article/evidence-suggests-pandemic-came-nature-not-lab-panel-says

[Armchair Lawyer]

You're moving the question. The question wasn't about "More" agencies. The question wasn't about "non-government studies." These comments don't answer the question.

The question was specifically about the agencies that believed the lab leak was plausible, and whether those agencies believed that even if it was a lab leak, it was "Just that it was being studied there and poor safety measures let it escape" and that it was not even suggested that the virus was man-made as a possibility.

And that's inaccurate, as your summary report demonstrates.

Stick to the question at hand. Don't bring in other studies.

[Nige]

At this point you're just scrabbling around looking for purchase for some 'lab leak theory of engineered virus deemed LIKELY' statements when the fact of the matter is there's no evidence, just a bunch of eggheads playing around with probabilities.

[Kazinski]

I wish I were creative enough to come up with a conspiracy theory that imaginative. I’ll even admit I was surprised the NIH and Fauci could be that stupid.

But there it is:In Major Shift, NIH Admits Funding Risky Virus Research in Wuhan

So NIH admits funding gain of function Covid research in Wuhan, then a "novel coronavirus" crops up in Wuhan and spreads around the world.

It's not absolute proof that's what happened, their is no surveillance cameras showing the virus escaping from the lab.

But it clinches it for me, and it's not a conspiracy theory, the NIH admits it.

You all can stick your fingers in your ears and shout "I can't hear you all you want", but everyone knows what happened.

[Nige]

'It’s not absolute proof'

It's not proof at all.

[Kazinski]

It’s certainly not a conspiracy theory.

You have to have blinders on not to see it's at least a solid probability, with a solid basis to support it.

Let's review what the facts are:
- Overwhelming evidence that Covid came from bats.

- Dr. Shi doing live bat viral research at Wuhan. "is a Chinese virologist who researches SARS-like coronaviruses of bat origin. "
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shi_Zhengli

- NIH funding through Eco-health gain of function research in Wuhan lab (see Vanity Fair link above).

And to tie it all together the virus emerges in Wuhan in close proximity both timewise and geographicly of the Wuhan labs bat coronavirus research.

So you got the who,what, where,and when. The only thing missing is why.

[Sarcastr0]

This is a corkboard and string, my dude.

[Life of Brian]

Hell, it's infinitely tighter than the pangolin hopscotch theory we were supposed to believe at the time.

[Sarcastr0]

First, you're pointing elsewhere as a defense. Shows you've got nothing, as usual.

Second, no one asked you to believe pangolins were the vector - you're mixing up 'here's the latest thinking' with 'science has found the answer' which is on you.

[Nige]

Proximity isn't evidence. You don't really have anything.

[Nige]

Coronavirus research lab in proximity to where coronaviruses emerge shocker.

'So you got the who,what, where,and when'

Sure you do. The only thing you don't have is any actual evidence, and that's what makes it a conspiracy theory. Actually, be fair, you've elided the more baroque accretions, drop the 'conspiracy.' You got a theory. That's fine. But without evidence, it's just going to stay a theory.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The FBI, which has been led by Republicans since inception? Th FBI, currently directed by a Trump pick, lifelong Republican, Federalist Society member, and experienced political partisan? The FBI, which ran interference for Donald Trump -- against its established grain -- with respect to the investigation and recovery of classified documents at a country club and public event place?

The FBI, one of the two government agencies that has circulated a "low confidence" assessment that superficially flatters the right-wing "plandemic" kooks.

[John F. Carr]

Natural origin has always been on the table because it has happened before with related viruses that caused SARS and MERS.

[Dr. Ed 2]

OR……

The CCP has been working on bioweapons, and probably aren't the only ones.

[Nige]

Which is a free-floating notion that doesn't connect to anything relevant.

[John F. Carr]

Lab leaks are less common than zoonosis.

[Mr. Bumble]

Define "lab leak". A leak from the facility to the outside or a leak within the facility infecting a technician.

[John F. Carr]

The case I had in mind was the leak of tularemia from a BU lab. Technicians were infected in the lab. The disease doesn't spread well from person to person so there was no outbreak. If they had been infected with a respiratory virus they probably would have passed on the disease.

An open window emitting a puff of infected air spreading disease over the land is an unlikely scenario. Infected clothes are a possible route. I heard about a study of people who wore scrubs outside the hospital. They carried infectious particles around. But they got to show crowds how important they were, dressed like medical professionals, possibly even doctors.

[David Nieporent]

Based on my extensive Hollywood research, I believe the most likely explanation is that an animal rights group broke into the lab and freed an infected monkey.

[Mr. Bumble]

Or it could have been a lab created virus that would eliminate cancer but wound up turning everyone into zombies. (I Am Legend)

[Nige]

Richard Matheson doesn't know what you're talking about.

[Dr. Ed 2]

China is SO corrupt that lab animals sold as food would not surprise me.

[Kazinski]

That I think takes it too far.

I don’t think it was deliberate bioweapons research, I think it was incompetent disease research.

Watch this Australian news report using official Chinese documentary footage from the Wuhan lab with an interview of Dr. Shi, the “Bat Lady of Wuhan”, you won’t have any doubt what happened.

https://youtu.be/ANRs4DojOek

[SKofNJ]

I think the point is that the lab theory was labeled as a crackpot theory and it wasn't, not that everyone now agrees as to the origin of the disease.

[Nige]

That's because it's mostly associated with crackpots, and their various additions and embellishments.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

That's a bingo!

After birtherism, QAnon, election denial, Pizzagate, Sandy Hook, creationism, Alex Jones, Gateway Pundit, adrenochome harvesting, Tucker Carlson, Italian satellites, plandemic, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Paul Pelosi's gay bar crawl, Jewish space lasers, crisis actors, and Donald Trump, some people neither possess nor deserve credibility.

(Where some people = right-wingers, conservatives, and Republicans.)

[grb]

SKofNJ : “I think the point is that the lab theory was labeled as a crackpot theory”

I think:

1. A nature origin was assumed because it was the most likely choice. As John F. Carr notes above, that was the recent experience with SARS and MERS.

2. Besides being less likely, the lab origin was being promoted at the time for exclusively political reasons. This was obvious, unsubtle, virulent and crude.

3. A natural origin is still the choice of overall consensus, but the debate has tightened. The reason for this is simple: Scientists haven’t been able to document a natural path of transmission. Of course it’s taken years of study to do that with other diseases, so that’s not unexpected. But the longer it takes to conclusively prove a natural path, the more credible a lab origin appears.

[Mr. Bumble]

Unless and until the CCP is more forthcoming (which will not happen) we will never know for sure (if it's possible to know anything for sure).

[grb]

Yep

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I wish the Chinese would be more forthcoming.

I also sense Americans wouldn't provide similar access.

[Brett Bellmore]

2. It was being dismissed at the time for exclusively political reasons. There was never evidence to rule out that possibility, and the proximity to the lab, by itself, was circumstantial evidence in favor of it.

[grb]

No, Brett, it was dismissed because that’s what William of Ockham would have done. The world has been thru this several times in recent decades and it has always been a zoonotic jump from animal to human. Not that long ago we had SARS – a respiratory coronavirus originating in China from natural means.

And guess what? The obvious answer of natural transmission remains the likely answer, both by overall consensus from all these government agencies (w/ their alphabet soup) and overwhelming consensus by non-governmental scientists.

But ya got one thing partial right: The Lab Origin adherents were one-hundred percent political back then, with crude & obvious motives and even cruder & more obvious rhetoric.

You had scientists saying this is how it happened before and a natural transmission was the more likely answer. And you had Trump saying “kung flu”. It doesn’t take one of your stock conspiracy theories to see how that became an unequal contest.

[Life of Brian]

The world has been thru this several times in recent decades and it has always been a zoonotic jump from animal to human.

If you're going to pull Ockham into this, I'd imagine he might just ever-so-gently observe that in not a single one of those several times had the first noticeable outbreak of a given infectious agent occurred within a few hundred yards of a facility where a remarkably similar version of that infectious agent was under active research.

As always, if you're aware of facts to the contrary I'm happy to read them. Otherwise I fear your appeal to authority boomeranged on you.

[Sarcastr0]

Wait, this isn't Ockham's razor, this is bullshit!

Can you think of any other reason why a lab studying these viruses might be near where animal versions of them could jump species? Way to put the cart before the horse.

Reminds me of when the VC posted a laughable 'Bayesian analysis' claiming they'd proven it was a lab leak.

your appeal to authority
OK, this is also very dumb. Ockham's razor isn't an authority.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Can you think of any other reason why a lab studying these viruses might be near where animal versions of them could jump species?"

Any evidence that the lab is located somewhere where animal versions of the viruses could jump species?

[Sarcastr0]

You're baseline is wrong, but even if it were right your associated conspiracy theory (that we've always known and covered it up) is way out there.

Why would they release the info they've been so successfully covering up so far at all? And LOL if you think such a widespread continuing investigation would be a leakless coverup.

[Procyon Mustelid]

Why does it matter whether there was a lab leak or not? It exists and it does what it does how it does regardless of its origins, why should I care where it came from?

[Mr. Bumble]

"why should I care where it came from?"

To prevent a similar event from occurring?

[Frank Drackman]

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/how-dare-i-jon-stewart-reflects-on-lab-leak-theory-blowback/
Jon Stewart had it right
“Oh my god, there’s a novel respiratory coronavirus overtaking Wuhan, China, what do we do? Oh, you know who we could ask? The Wuhan novel respiratory coronavirus lab. The disease is the same name as the lab. That’s just a little too weird!”
Then, when they asked the scientists who worked in that lab how the pandemic might have started, he joked that their response was, “Uhh, a pangolin kissed a turtle?” or “Maybe a bat flew into the cloaca of a turkey and then it sneezed into my chili and now we all have coronavirus?”

As an analogy, he added, “There’s been an outbreak of chocolatey goodness near Hershey, Pennsylvania, what do you think happened? I don’t know, maybe a steam shovel made it with a cocoa bean. Or it’s the fucking chocolate factory!”

Frank

[David Nieporent]

Is interesting that all the agencies are coming out to endorse the lab leak theory now.

Another thing that didn't happen, but that people who are stupid enough to watch Tucker Carlson think happened.

[FivebySixThree]

the balloons are being floated so that the Administration can take actions which otherwise might be barred to it. This could include putting troops in Taiwan to help protect it.

[Ed Grinberg]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-calls-u-s-media-racist-over-dilbert-comic-strip-backlash-f5029553

Mr. Adams made his comments…in response to a Rasmussen Poll that [asked responders whether they] agreed with the statement “It’s OK to be white.”
The poll [results showed] that 53% of Black Americans agreed with the statement, [while] 26% disagreed and 21% weren’t sure.
“If nearly half of all Blacks are not OK with white people…that’s a hate group,” Mr. Adams said at one point in an online video. “I don’t want to have anything to do with them. And I would say, based on the current way things are going, the best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from Black people…because there is no fixing this.”

Mr. Musk, as usual, speaks common sense (as does Mr. Adams).
(If someone says they "aren't sure" whether being Jewish is OK, or outright says that it isn't OK, would anyone dispute that we're dealing with an antisemite?)
(By the way, this is the first WSJ article I've seen where the comment feature has been disabled. How odd…)

[Nige]

'“It’s OK to be white.”'

Truly, the use of this phrase suggests that the poll is definitely a rock-solid foundation for telling people never to go anywhere near a black person ever again.

[TwelveInchPianist]

The poll indicates a disturbing level of racism among African Americans. But that doesn't mean that black people are a hate group, or that black people who didn't respond that way to the poll are racist.

[Sarcastr0]

No, TiP. Doesn't the wording of that question strike you as odd?

'It's okay to be white' is a white supremacist shibboleth, and black people seem to know that. White people by and large can be blissfully unaware.

Don't be a rube.

[Dr. Ed 2]

OK, let's take one from the 1970's -- "White is Beautiful."

If Black can be, but White not, we have a problem.

[Sarcastr0]

"Lets use a phrase specifically to attack a phrase black people use and then anyone who calls us on it is the real racist." The right sure does love to pretend that's clever. No one's buying except them.

Noticing that the meaning and purpose of such bullshit comes elsewhere than just the words is a pretty normal thing to do, especially in race relations.

[Kazinski]

No it's not a White Supremacists shibboleth. The WaPo:
"The phrase "it's okay to be White" was popularized in 2017 as a trolling campaign meant to provoke liberals into condemning the statement and thus, the theory went, proving their own racism."

Looks like it worked too:
https://medium.com/@lauramquainoo/no-its-actually-not-okay-to-be-white-and-here-are-3-reasons-why-3a597aa6db45

[Nige]

That sounds exactly like a white supremacist shibboleth.

[BrianL.]

Did you read the article you linked to? Look at the 2nd reason: "2. ‘It’s Okay to Be White’ Is an Alt-Right Slogan"

[Kazinski]

Did you read what the Washington Post said?

It was 4chan trolling, and it worked, same as with the OK sign panic.

[Nige]

'It worked' in what sense? Repulsive, shitty people satisfied themselves they got a gotcha?

[Sarcastr0]

Everyone else saw a phrase awful people used, and said 'only awful people use that term, so if you use it I'm going to take it as a sign that you're awful'

[TwelveInchPianist]

"It’s okay to be white’ is a white supremacist shibboleth,"

Shibboleth? It's one we all should be able to agree with white supremacists on! Sadly, many do not.

Just because white supremacists think it's OK to be white doesn't mean that others get a pass thinking it's not OK.

[Kazinski]

Well, I think it's OK to be White, I don't have any choice, but I don't spend a lot of time thinking about (other than thinking about how much sun I'm going to be getting outdoors when I go out) it or making my self identity revolve around it.

I think it's okay to be Asian, Black or Brown too.

[TwelveInchPianist]

So if asked on a poll, you'd have no problem agreeing with the sentiment that it's OK to be white, or black, or Asian? Like most sane people, I suppose.

[Nige]

I'd still find it difficult to take the odd phrasing seriously.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Presumably it comes from "It's OK to be gay." Nobody thought that was a gay supremacist shibboleth.

[Nige]

That's because gay supremacism isn't a thing.

[EscherEnigma]

It's almost like people are familiar with associations and connotations.

It's like "straight pride" and "supporting traditional marriage". At face value, barely anyone has a problem with those. Some of my best friends are straight! My parents are straight, and their traditional marriage is great!

But when you go past face value, and look at the people who organize "straight pride" and "supporting traditional marriage" things, what you find out is that it's not actually about celebrating straight people and traditional marriages, it's about denigrating gay people and insulting/demeaning gay marriages.

So while, at face value, "straight pride" and "I support traditional marriage" are entirely un-objectionable, almost everyone whose been paying attention int he last three decades knows that these are actually phrases used not to celebrate straight folk, but to denigrate gay ones.

And that's the problem with "white power", "it's okay to be white", "association for the promotion of white people" and so-on: the political history means that if you take the statements at face value, you're missing the story.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Nobody's talking about organizing white pride rallies. It's a straightforward question.

Many people don't agree with all the positions of the Black Lives Matter movement.

But if you say that you don't agree with the statement "Black lives matter", you're a racist. Same thing here.

[Sarcastr0]

“the political history means that if you take the statements at face value, you’re missing the story.”

Respond to that part.

[TwelveInchPianist]

OK. What's the "story" that is being missed here? All I've seen is a bunch of handwaving, with no plausible alternative meaning of the phrase.

[TwelveInchPianist]

I mean, whatever baggage the phrase has, it's not that it's inaccurate. It's used as a troll precisely because any sane person believes that it is accurate.

[Sarcastr0]

A number of people told you they story behind ‘it’s okay to be white’ a bunch of times. And how that context changes it’s meaning from the bare words.

You know how to communicate, and thus know that the meanings of a phrase often departs from it’s word-by-word definition.

So at this point, I can only assume bad faith. In service of a race-baiting thesis.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"A number of people told you they story behind ‘it’s okay to be white’ a bunch of times. And how that context changes it’s meaning from the bare words."

I'm familiar with the story behind it. But nobody has been able to say how that context changes the meaning from something you would agree with to something you would not agree with. You just stomp your feet and insist that the meaning has changed.

[Dr. Ed 2]

White supremacists think eating breakfast is OK -- so you don't?

[Kazinski]

No I don't, and I'm not going to start.

[Nige]

White supremacists just make everything shit.

[Mr. Bumble]

Says the expert on "making things shit".

[Nige]

I do get to see a lot of it here, but that hardly makes me an expert.

[Nelson]

I have a really high metabolism and I love to cook. So I'm not just an expert on making things shit, I'm an expert at making great things shit.

[SimonP]

We should also all be able to agree that the prime factorization of 1488 is 2^4 * 3 * 31. What's controversial about saying that?

[TwelveInchPianist]

To be clear, you agree with the fact that that is the prime factorization of 1488, no? You wouldn't be compelled to say that it's not, cuz Nazis?

[SimonP]

Isn't that what I said? The point seems to be lost on you, though that isn't surprising.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Yes, that's what you said. And the point's not lost on me, I made it like three posts up.

[SimonP]

Let me see if I can make it plain:

Imagine 4chan or 8chan or whatever they're up to now get their panties in a twist and deluge the Reason front page with a bunch of comments:

1488 = 2^4 * 3 * 31

Just comment after comment to this effect. Then, at some point, one of the few non-white supremacists who dwells on Reason's front page pipes up to say, "Knock it off with your Nazi crap."

You're the guy saying, "What? Isn't that just accurate?" in response.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Then, at some point, one of the few non-white supremacists who dwells on Reason’s front page pipes up to say, “Knock it off with your Nazi crap.”

You’re the guy saying, “What? Isn’t that just accurate?” in response."

Poor analogy. The poll respondents were saying that the claim was inaccurate.

[Sarcastr0]

And it's been explained to you why they would say it's inaccurate, TiP. You continue to focus on the words and deny the context.

At this point, it's on you - you have a narrative you want to push. And we all get to look at how hard you're working to insist black people are pretty racist, based on irrelevant evidence.

[SimonP]

At this point, it’s on you – you have a narrative you want to push. And we all get to look at how hard you’re working to insist black people are pretty racist, based on irrelevant evidence.

You may have clocked this, but the poll where Black respondents were asked whether they agreed or disagreed with "It's OK to be white" also asked those respondents whether Black people could be racist.

[OtisAH]

Yes, black people can be racist against whites. Thing is, we collectively and correctly tend to regard the racism of the powerful as a far more serious area of concern than any in-kind racism reflected back at the powerful from the powerless. Because the racism of the powerful is far more significant in terms of wrongs than is the racism of the powerless.

That black people may hold distrust and dislike towards whites should surprise no one. They’ve earned their enmity. Whites have yet to earn the right to be offended by it. Particularly since so many whites work so very hard to deny the issues. Call it “the privilege of the powerless.”

[TwelveInchPianist]

"And it’s been explained to you why they would say it’s inaccurate, TiP. You continue to focus on the words and deny the context."

The context is a poll where people were asked if they agreed with the phrase, "It's OK to be white." Nothing about the context changes the ordinary meaning of the phrase.

"At this point, it’s on you – you have a narrative you want to push. And we all get to look at how hard you’re working to insist black people are pretty racist, based on irrelevant evidence."

Huh? All I did was read a poll where a significant number of black people said it wasn't OK to be white. You're the one that's working here, with these spurious and unsupported claims about how the words don't really mean what they say.

Everybody else on the comment thread understood the question, why do you think black people are unable to understand a simple question?

[Sarcastr0]

The context is a poll where people were asked if they agreed with the phrase, “It’s OK to be white.”

Willful blindness it is, then.

All I did was read a poll where a significant number of black people said it wasn’t OK to be white.
You're just playing games now.

Did you take Sartre's "Anti-Semite and Jew" as an instruction book? Quit pretending phrases spring up without any past baggage.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Willful blindness it is, then."

Sorry if you don't like facts. Whatever baggage the phrase has, you have yet to identify any baggage that actually changes the meaning.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"That black people may hold distrust and dislike towards whites should surprise no one. They’ve earned their enmity. Whites have yet to earn the right to be offended by it. "

1. It sounds like you agree that most respondents understood that the phrase means what it says.

2. You're a racist.

[Nige]

'2. You’re a racist.'

4chan voice: lol gotcha!

[TwelveInchPianist]

What gotcha? The dude was saying racist things.

[Nige]

By 4chan standards.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"And it’s been explained to you why they would say it’s inaccurate, TiP."

No, it really hasn't. Why would people say that the phrase is inaccurate, as opposed to saying that it's an alt-right troll, and that it's a troll based on the fact that any reasonable person knows that the phrase is in fact accurate?

[TwelveInchPianist]

"By 4chan standards."

OtisAH said that white people have earned the enmity of black people. That's racist by any sane standard.

[OtisAH]

I also said you’ve earned no right to be offended by it.

[Nige]

Nah, just 4chan white supremacist standard.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Wow. Talk about a bubble.

[Nige]

A favourite white supremacist phrase provoking a negative reaction and providing fuel for racists isn't the basis for anything other than white racist triumphalism.

[SRG]

Man pretends to put cotton wool in his ears so he can claim not to hear the dog whistles.

Meanwhile

[SRG]

This

[CocoN8]

Some us honestly don't know the dog whistle phrases. I just learned this morning, in this thread, that "it's okay to be white" is a white supremacist phrase. I honestly didn't know that until a few minutes ago.

Which means that those of us with the least knowledge of and connection to white supremacist dog whistles often don't exhibit the visceral reaction to it that we should, and thus we get tarred as being sympathetic to white supremacists. It's ironic, really.

[SRG]

It’s ironic, really.

Yes, and I genuinely sympathise.

[EscherEnigma]

What are you talking about?

No one is saying that there's a problem with people who agreed with "it's okay to be white".

What people are saying is "it's understandable that people might not be comfortable with that phrase".

[Kazinski]

If you can't hear the dog whistle then you aren't the dog they are whistling for.

Let me explain "dog whistling" to you, the left is desperate to paint the right as racist, but the right isn't racist, so they have to make shit up to try to paint the right as racist.

One of the things they made up is the "dog whistle".

[SRG]

Nope. The right overall isn't racist, but there are enough right-wing racists that for pols and activists, it's worth appealing to them. And being a right-wing racist isn't a disqualifying characteristic - as indeed, for a different target of racism, it's not disqualifying on the left.

[Nige]

Wasn't it literally made up by some guy on the right? The 'you can't say the n-word so you say something else' guy?

[swood1000]

If you listen to the Scott Adams interview on the Hotep Jesus podcast he explains that he’s now 65 and that he always planned to end the Dilbert strip by blowing it up. Adams has a net wealth of $75 million. He’s ready to retire. He blew up Dilbert on purpose. This did nothing to reduce his speaking fees.

Unfortunately, it’s not easy to tell how many of the blacks who didn’t express an opinion did so because of the connection that has been asserted between the phrase “It’s OK to be white” and white nationalists, so it can’t be assumed that they all question the proposition.

But if it were true that nearly 50% of blacks felt that it’s not OK to be white, how should a white person respond to this? If he avoids black people as a result should that be treated as an act of racism originating in him?

[Sarcastr0]

He seems miserable. Helluva way to retire. Not very believable, even.

[Ed Grinberg]

it’s not easy to tell how many of the blacks who didn’t express an opinion did so because of the connection that has been asserted between the phrase “It’s OK to be white” and white nationalists

Why do I have the feeling that you'd have no trouble whatsoever condemning me if I said I have a problem with the phrase "Black lives matter" because of its connection to criminal scum who burned a good chunk of Minneapolis (and other places)?

[OtisAH]

Considering the depth and breadth of ignorance in that single sentence you should be condemned for it.

[EscherEnigma]

Oh hey, Volokh Conspiracy readers defending "Blacks are a hate group".

Shocking.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Mr. Musk, as usual, speaks common sense

That may be the perspective of disaffected misfits who figure impulsive, unreliable, autistic, reckless, antisocial, rules-flouting, lying jerks have all the answers.

Scott Adams danced the white grievance obsolete bigot dance a bit too long and too enthusiastically. He deserves all the scorn and shunning such conduct precipitates.

[Nelson]

It's a Rasmussen poll. The margin of error on a Rasmussen poll is +/- 100%.

[not guilty]

One of Donald Trump's lawyers has suggested that public comments by the foreperson of the Fulton County Special Purpose Grand Jury will render any ensuing indictments faulty. Try as I might, I can't follow that reasoning. The charging decisions will be made by a regular grand jury, separate from and independent of any commentary by Emily Kohrs.

The Circuit Court judge overseeing the case has observed that grand jurors in Georgia can talk about witness testimony and things that prosecutors told them, so long as they do not discuss their deliberations. https://abc30.com/judge-overseeing-trump-grand-jury-speaks-after-forepersons-controv/12890322/ He indicated that the oath of secrecy taken by grand jurors is less extensive than that taken by federal grand jurors.

[Mr. Bumble]

How much faith could you have in any recommendations made by a "special" grand jury composed of people who elected Ms. Emily (Littela?) Kohrs as foreperson?

[John F. Carr]

I have no faith in her recommendations. The facts in the report will be interesting to read. The prosecutor, I hope, has better judgment and is likely to pass on any really far out charges. There are several charges that might be made against Trump and company that will get past a grand jury but may be hard to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

In the future the saying might become, a grand jury would indict a well done steak.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Tainting the jury pool?

And God help us if Trump is actually convicted of anything -- it will be like when the LAPD was acquitted in the Rodney King beating.

[Krayt]

Oh those suckers in Venezuela, where the government prosecutes opposition. And Russia. And Turkey, now.

Haha those fools. Sucks to be them.

[Sarcastr0]

Dr. Ed thinks if Trump's convicted, MAGA will fuck around.

Again.

I’m not sure he recalls what happens after the fucking around.

[Life of Brian]

I’m not sure he recalls what happens after the fucking around.

Well, the LA riots ultimately got us to the era of CRT and DEI. Rational actors might well take note.

[not guilty]

What in particular has Emily Kohrs reportedly said that would taint a prospective juror, Dr. Ed 2? I would think jurors, like ambition, should be made of sterner stuff. How do the woman's remarks evince any defect in an indictment subsequently found by a separate charging body?

Why do you suppose we have voir dire, challenges for cause and peremptory challenges?

[apedad]

'Greater Idaho' movement to absorb conservative rural counties from liberal Oregon gains momentum

Idaho legislature pushing bill to open talks about moving border between western states

Former Oregon House Speaker Mark Simmons penned an op-ed in the Idaho Statesman, a daily newspaper, over the weekend to explain why he supports the so-called Greater Idaho movement, which seeks to incorporate about 13 Oregon counties, or 63% of the state's landmass and 9% of its population, within Idaho's borders.

"Idaho would have the satisfaction of freeing rural, conservative communities from progressive blue-state law," wrote Simmons. "We are dismayed by the manner in which Oregon government has marginalized our values and villainized our resource-based livelihoods. This is why our counties voted 75% Republican last year (Idaho voted 67% Republican)."

"These counties would help maintain rural values in the Idaho Legislature, values of faith, family, and self-reliance," he argued. "All of eastern Oregon voted against marijuana legalization and the decriminalization of hard drugs."

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/greater-idaho-movement-absorb-counties-oregon-gains-momentum

Is secession the ONLY option cons can come up with?!?

Losers gonna lose.

[Nige]

It's a new and more ambitious form of gerrymandering, I'll give them that.

[Moderation4ever]

Let’s start by removing the border between north and south Dakota and making them a single state.

[Procyon Mustelid]

I've always thought that whatever the merits of the north/south split originally, these days splitting them as East Dakota and West Dakota along the Central/Mountain time zone boundary would make more sense.

[Stephen Lathrop]

I have always thought each of them should split 9 ways, so you could have state names like North-east South Dakota, and South Central North Dakota.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople

[John F. Carr]

Dakistan.

Years ago the military was having an exercise in the reason and referred to it in their internal communications as Dakistan. This provided opportunity for attention-seekers to declare themselves offended.

[John F. Carr]

In the reason? Should read in the area. I don't use autocorrect so it's probably my own sluggish neurons doing that.

[Mr. Bumble]

"When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,..."

Maybe they take the Declaration seriously?

[apedad]

They certainly can try - and will lose.

[Mr. Bumble]

Yes, they will lose because Oregon and the Congress would never agree to it.

[Sarcastr0]

We had a discussion about that bit of the Declaration. It became heated, but we reached a quite solid conclusion.

Such disloyal sour grapes fuckery is trying to reopen a done and dusted debate, and will forever be nothing more than being unable to deal with living in a republic.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The main point is that these losers have lost the culture war, are increasingly inconsequential and rejected in modern America, and will be replaced by better Americans in that natural course.

They get to whine about it as much as they like, of course, until replacement (and the Volokh Conspiracy will do much of that whining).

[Frank Drackman]

Good Point Jerry! don't think I've heard you say that before. Funny how the Klingers in ID, ND, SD, NE, and Utah have 5 times as many Senators as California (Oh wait, Jack & Diane Not-so-Fine-Stein's Brain Dead, make that 10)

Frank

[TwelveInchPianist]

"We had a discussion about that bit of the Declaration. It became heated, but we reached a quite solid conclusion."

About a piece of Oregon joining Idaho with the consent of the legislatures involved, and Congress? I must have missed it.

[Sarcastr0]

About secessionist bullshit of all kinds, actually.

[Mr. Bumble]

Is that why there is a West Virginia?

[Frank Drackman]

some types of Secession are more acceptable than other types, like with Segregation, "All Black Dorms Good!!!" "All White Dorms Race-Ist!!!!!!!!!"

[TwelveInchPianist]

"About secessionist bullshit of all kinds, actually."

All kinds? You really think the kind of secession at issue in your reference is the same kind that's being talked about with respect to Oregon and Idaho.

[Sarcastr0]

I do think it is of the same kind - a group of malcontents that don't like being outvoted want to mess around with our states.

I'm pretty unimpressed.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Malcontents who want to mess around with their states via a vote of the state legislatures concerned and Congress, vs. firing on a US fort? You really don't see the difference?

[Sarcastr0]

If you want to argue that the southern secessionists only became worse than these yahoos upon firing upon Fort Sumpter, I'll concur with you on that faint praise.

[Mr. Bumble]

So it was "yahoos" who created West Virginia, Vermont and Maine from existing states?

[TwelveInchPianist]

You're not going to convince me that you don't understand the difference between supporting a perfectly legal interstate compact, undertaken with the consent of Congress, and succeeding from the US.

I know you're not that stupid, despite your efforts to convince us of the contrary.

[OtisAH]

A piece? It’s almost two-thirds of Oregon’s land.

[Mr. Bumble]

How much of MA's land became ME?

[Dr. Ed 2]

And then it will become Ireland...

[Frank Drackman]

You say that like it's a bad thang, so since you Opine about areas you have no experience with, I'm sure the closest you've been to Ireland is a "Bennigan's" (remember them? great Corned Beed) Irland (and I've only been to the Republic, not the Occupied northern counties) is a loverly place especially since the IRA stopped blowing up bombs everywhere, I'm 1/2 Jew, 1/2 Irish, I get drunk and want to beat somebody up, but I feel guilty about it the next day.

Frank O' Drackman

[Mr. Bumble]

1/2 Kike and 1/2 Mic and he became a doctor. What a country.

[Frank Drackman]

and I'm a "Silent Partner" in a Pawn Shop/Irish Pub (the "Pub"s really just my bottle of Jameson behind the counter)

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

1/2 Kike and 1/2 Mic and he became a doctor.

The daily bigotry at this blog is quite inconvenient for the Volokh Conspiracy fans who try to defend the Volokh Conspirators by claiming these right-wing law professors don't cultivate an audience of old-timey bigots.

[Mr. Bumble]

Doesn't seem Frank was insulted and understood how it was intended. If there is bigotry on this site it is more likely to be coming from you.
For the most part humans are a bunch of mutts and nowhere more so than in the USA (see Angela Davis ancestry).
Feel free to carry one while I throw back a Jameson's to salute Dr. Drackman.

[Kazinski]

Well except that the rest of Oregon doesn't much care. I think all it would really take is for a Republican governor or Senator to be elected with the help of the 9% of Oregonians that live in those counties and they'd support it enthusiasticly.

I'd also bet that a majority of Oregonians have never even been to eastern Oregon, with the exception of possibly driving on I84.

[Frank Drackman]

Got you beat, Majority of Georgians have never been to Atlanta.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Oregon may be happy to get rid of them -- and they may make Oregon happy to get rid of them.

Would there even be a Congressional district involved here?

[OtisAH]

Inasmuch as I’d love to say “go for it” and let them all suffer the consequences we will all, as usual, save them from that. The answer remains “no.” If eastern Oregonians are so put out by the tyranny of their “blue state” they can move to Idaho, which has more than enough space already. But hey, while these goofballs are wasting everybody’s time on this they’re not wasting everybody’s time on something else. Silver linings!

[bernard11]

Actually, someone in Montana has introduced a bill making it illegal for anyone vaccinated for Covid to donate blood.

Proponents included Rep. Lola Sheldon-Galloway, vice-chairwoman of the House Human Services Committee, which heard the bill on Friday. She repeated claims made in the film “Died Suddenly” that were debunked prior to its release. She said the vaccine caused issues with blood flow, citing her brother, a mortician.

Morons.

TBF, the bill seems to have been killed.

[OtisAH]

This is what I’m saying. There’s a lot of schadenfreude reasons to want to sign on to this plan. Butt! Schadenfreude is a short-term endorphin rush, we don’t live in a vacuum, and any idea that these mooks would finally be content once they established their miserable little fiefdom shitholes is laughable on its face.

[EscherEnigma]

Personally I'm in favor of an amendment that requires redrawing state-lines every 50 years similar to how we re-draw congressional districts, but that's got about as much a chance of happening as this.

That said, I do wish there was an amendment that codified the formal process and procedure for how parts of states could leave one state for another (or form their own) and so-on. It's a common-enough theme that it should be looked at seriously, and have agreed-upon consequences (relating to state property and assets, grace periods for shifting from one state's laws to another, licenses and so-on). And, most importantly, by having a codified procedure, when folks like this say "this is what we want" instead of others saying "it'll never happen!" that answer will be "okay, fill out these forms, we'll see you on the campaign trail. If there's actually enough popular support (across two presidential elections, because we do want to ensure this isn't a passing passion)"

As-is, folks talking about seceding from one state to another know it'll never happen. So they don't need to seriously talk about it. They can just rant and rave. If we had the numbered steps they have to follow, it would take a lot of wind out of the sails of folk who aren't serious (i.e., most of 'em) and leave the topic to people that were serious about it.

Yeah, such an amendment is never gonna happen. But it should.

[Procyon Mustelid]

I've thought it would be good to have a mechanism for the people in all the other states to kick one out of the country.

[Estragon]

“villainized our resource-based livelihoods”

As unbelievable as it is, some of these people are still sore about the listing of the spotted owl under the endangered species act decades ago. The idea that they were prevented from cutting down the last 5% of old growth left in the state was just such a travesty to these types that they want to huff off to Idaho. But the demographics of boise continue as they have these sore losers might not be decamping to the huckleberry paradise they are anticipating!

Also, a lot of those eastern oregon counties changed their tune on marijuana pretty darn quick when they realized what the tax revenues were going to look like.

Pretty typical eastern oregon conservative whining. It’s a beautiful part of the state however.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Yes, Spotted Owls nesting in Big K Kmart signs.
And no one thought of putting those in the woods...

[Ben_]

There was a time when governments, like the government of Oregon in this case, didn’t go out of their way to make life worse for the people they were duty-bound to serve. Sadly, that time has passed. Now government works extra hard to make things worse. It should not be a surprise that the victims want to escape.

[ReaderY]

One of the things the argument in Gonzalez v. Google and the recent opinions have made clear is that considerations of legislative intent in statutory interpretation have not gone away. Indeed, the embrace of Gorsuchian textualism may have been a one-off for purposes of Bostock alone.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Things that were articles of faith for the Misinformation Police during the pandemic:

1. The vaccine protects you from the disease and if you don’t get a shot you should loose your career
2. Actually having the disease does not provide much immunity. You must get the shot anyway or suffer the penalty in #1 if you don’t
3. It’s impossible that the source of the virus was a lab leak, and if you suggest it might have been you’re a racist piece of shit.
4. Masks substantially diminish spread of the virus.

And as we sit here today all of these things have either been proven true or have enough truth in them that serious, unbiased people consider them to be true. The Misinformation Morons were suppressing factual things while spreading misinformation themselves. Ironic, huh? Turns out that politically motivated narrative spreaders are not dependable in identifying truth and falsehood because that’s not their motive.

Of course nobody in the media, or the administration, or the political left is going to notice this and do mea culpas and learn the lesson.

Sarcastro and Nige will be here soon calling this right-wing propaganda or whining that the science changed. Of course the fucking science was going to change. This was a brand new situation against an unknown disease - there was no real information to use to generate any reliable science. Didn’t keep the Misinformation Idiots from acting inviolate and stomping hard on anyone who questioned anything. Their actions actually had the effect of slowing the progress of knowledge.

This is why all of this War on Misinformation bullshit should be ridiculed and discouraged. The people behind it are doing more harm than the actual purveyors of information.

[apedad]

I saw this on Reddit!

[bevis the lumberjack]

Whatever the fuck that has to do with anything. I'm 65 years old and don't know anything about reddit.

But I guess that response is easier than saying something of substance.........

[Ed Grinberg]

He doesn't like the message, but can't think of a good response, so he attacks the messenger. Pathetic.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

I'm enjoying "...have enough truth in them that serious, unbiased people consider them to be true."

[grb]

1. The vaccines did protect people from getting the disease and also gave substantial protection against the worst degree of Covid, hospitalization and death. A reminder: Thousands of people needlessly died because the Right went anti-vaxx for hack politics. You can blame them for listening to their political handlers, but their deaths were still pointless.

2. No one said getting the disease conferred no immunity. On the other hand, studies showed the vaccines with natural immunity offered advanced protection. Too bad the Right’s zombie hive mind decided to go freakishly anti-vaxx, huh?

3. No one said a lab origin was impossible. However, scientific consensus still holds it unlikely as I note above.

4. Masks do limit the spread of the disease. You are welcome to a victory over the term “substantially”

Seems like most of the misinformation here is yours. So who’s the “moron”? One day there will be a serious detailed statistical study to determine how many tens of thousands died because of the Right’s anti-vaxx propaganda campaign. Get back to me on “misinformation” when that painful data comes out.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

You can blame them for listening to their political handlers, but their deaths were still pointless.

Replacement is not pointless.

[Frank Drackman]

Only "Replacement" I see happening is Senescent Joe, everytime he gets on Air Force 1 it's Chevy Chase 1975, hasn't the Secret Service heard of "Jet Bridges"?? Is a broken hip (and I'd tell you what the survival of 80 year olds with broken hips is but then I'd have to kill you) worth the cheap photo op, that only ends up being set to the Benny Hill theme??

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Are you referring to the Joe who visited a country at war recently?

Replacement happens every day, thank goodness, as obsolete old conservatives take their disgusting thinking to the grave and are replaced in our electorate and society by better, younger, less bigoted, less superstitious Americans.

This replacement is not only the natural course and important but indeed has become the American way.

[Frank Drackman]

and LBJ visited South Veet/nam, didn't keep them from losing. And the idiotic "Experts" who think You-Crane's gonna win (now they're worried You-Crane might invade Roosh-a) are the same ones who pushed Afghanistan (You remember Barry Who-Sane (replaced, thank god) called Afghanistan the "Good War") on us for the last 20 years , "Heck of a job Brownie!"

Frank "Replace me already"

[bevis the lumberjack]

Just can't accept it can you?

You're wrong on 1 & 2, except yes the vax did substantially reduce symptoms in a lot of sick people. And it's true that the anti-vaxxers on the right were every bit as awful and purveyors of bad information as the Misinformation Morons were.

On #4, you're completely ignoring the Cochrane study because you don't like the conclusion.

But your most glaring miss is on #3. Anybody who suggested that the lab be looked at was shouted down. Called racist. People like you didn't want to admit it was possible, for reasons I can't understand. Maybe because you thought it would help Trump somehow?

You and yours actually damped our progress toward figuring things out to protect your precious narrative, and are still doing so today.

[Ben_]

“People like you didn’t want to admit it was possible, for reasons I can’t understand.”

Because it was heresy. In the religion of The Good People, zeal for The True Words of The Leaders keeps you and others from dying of Covid.

They’ll say anything. And they’ll try to force you to say it. And tomorrow they’ll say the exact opposite and name-call you for still saying what they said yesterday.

[Nige]

'And it’s true that the anti-vaxxers on the right were every bit as awful and purveyors of bad information as the Misinformation Morons were.'

So, the vaccine does protect people from the diesease, and that's AS BAD AS saying the vaccine is designed to poison and kill.

'On #4, you’re completely ignoring the Cochrane study because you don’t like the conclusion.'

Even the conclusion of the Cochrane study doesn't conclude what you claim it concludes.

'Anybody who suggested that the lab be looked at was shouted down.'

That's weird, because it seems they have, in fact, been looking at the lab.

'Called racist.'

Asian people were attacked because racists were so fond of it.

[grb]

bevis the lumberjack : Just can’t accept it can you?

No; the problem is yours. You can say vaccines don’t provide 100% protection against Covid and that would be true. But to claim they offer no protection is a grotesque lie; refuted by all science. Deal with it. Your political masters decided there was a few percentage points of polling gain in going full anti-vaxx. People needlessly got sick as a result. People needlessly suffered hospitalization and pointlessly, uselessly, meaninglessly died.

For a few percentage points of political gain.

So spare me your claptrap and bullshit. You don’t have the facts on your side. Before Covid, the anti-vaxx crowd was a tiny fringe group spread evenly across the ideological spectrum. It took a concentrated agitprop campaign of lies and misinformation to remake the Right into anti-vaxx. Now vaccination rates across the board are down. That’s the result of your new political play toy.

[bevis the lumberjack]

No, I'm not saying they provide no protection. Not at all. I'm saying they don't inhibit transmission. And don't be throwing the anti-vax conspiracy thing at me. I'm fully vaxxed - four total shots (an original pair plus two boosters). I'm not a MAGA anti-vaxxer and your attempt to put me in that box is stupid. I've never once said that people shouldn't get vaccinated.

But you're on the side of narrative over facts. Anyone who looked at a viral outbreak within a mile of a lab that works with the virus and immediately dismissed the leak out of hand was either stupid or maliciously dishonest. Anybody who called people who thought it possible a racist was being an anti-science asshole. Guess that's you, huh?

[grb]

bevis the lumberjack : “No, I’m not saying they provide no protection.”

You do realize your words are visible just a brief scroll above? You listed “The vaccine protects you from the disease” as misinformation. Now I’ll be generous over this incoherence: You were so eager to trumpet the anti-vaxx line that your words got a little bit out of hand. After all, that’s what I saw during the pandemic. Every right-wing culture warrior was required to say something – anything – even contradictory things – as long as it was proudly anti-vaxx. It was a new & exciting way to own the Libs.

I remember one of the regular right-types in this forum ran out of anti-vaxx memes in a long thread. He was reduced to saying someone vaccinated here might deprive a more needy person in Gambia from getting the shot. Reading this, I was gobsmacked. I guarantee that person had never given a f**k about Gambian healthcare before and wouldn’t ever again. But he was a mighty Culture Warrior bravely doing his part in the trenches for the cause. Just like the Ukrainians – only small, petty, deceitful, and pretty damn loathsome.

[bevis the lumberjack]

If I said that I meant transmission. The vaccine does not slow down transmission.

I’m fully aware that the vaccine mitigates symptoms. A lot.

That’s why I got vaxxed.

[NOVA Lawyer]

“If I said that I meant transmission. The vaccine does not slow down transmission.”

Still wrong.

Vaccination and boosting, especially when recent, helped to limit the spread of COVID-19 in California prisons during the first Omicron wave, according to an analysis by researchers at UC San Francisco that examined transmission between people living in the same cell.

The study demonstrates the benefits of vaccination and boosting, even in settings where many people are still getting infected, in reducing transmission. And it shows the cumulative effects from boosting and the additional protection that vaccination gives to those who were previously infected. The likelihood of transmission fell by 11% for each additional dose.

from: https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2022/12/424546/covid-19-vaccines-prior-infection-reduce-transmission-omicron

[Sarcastr0]

Just can’t accept it can you?

Amazing arguing bevis. Truly you have the right in this situation, based on all your personal attacks and emotionalism.

[Stephen Lathrop]

bevis, most women who are killed by a spouse or domestic partner have previously been physically abused by that partner.

OJ is known to have abused Nicole Brown Simpson.

Do you think that fact by itself shows it is likely that OJ killed Nicole? Not proof beyond a reasonable doubt, maybe, but just more likely than not?

I will bet you are smart enough to know it does not mean that. Because only a tiny fraction of men who physically abuse their partners go on to kill them. So knowing that Simpson abused Nicole has almost zero probative value to show that he killed her.

Are you smart enough to understand that the same kind of reasoning applies to the lab release theory? A tiny percentage of secure bio-labs leak dangerous viruses. The vast majority have never done so. The fact that a pandemic began near the lab in Wuhan does nothing to change the release probability for that lab. That is a variable which could respond to a lot of management parameters that relate to the lab. Without some kind of extraordinary evidence to explain why, it should not be taken as a variable responsive to the occurrence of a local outbreak. That evidence is nowhere in sight.

However, the lab in Wuhan did work on virus types similar to the one that caused the pandemic. That made it almost certain that the Wuhan lab would be one of the first places the cause of the local outbreak would be recognized. In the public mind, that would plainly associate the lab with the outbreak near the moment of its inception—without in any way increasing the probability that the lab was in fact a cause of the outbreak.

My mind remains open about what caused the pandemic. So far, I have seen zero provable information that suggests the line of reasoning above should not guide where I place my bets. Also, I do not take unexplained changes in others' opinions as evidence that I ought to adjust mine.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"I will bet you are smart enough to know it does not mean that. Because only a tiny fraction of men who physically abuse their partners go on to kill them. So knowing that Simpson abused Nicole has almost zero probative value to show that he killed her."

Oh FFS. Many of us are smart enough to understand that this is completely wrong. Not you, alas.

[Frank Drackman]

and he said he didn't do it!!!!!!!

[TwelveInchPianist]

I thought about putting a more substantive critique in my comment, but decided not to, because I knew what would happen.

[David Nieporent]

I will bet you are smart enough to know it does not mean that. Because only a tiny fraction of men who physically abuse their partners go on to kill them. So knowing that Simpson abused Nicole has almost zero probative value to show that he killed her.

Are you smart enough to understand that the same kind of reasoning applies to the lab release theory? A tiny percentage of secure bio-labs leak dangerous viruses. The vast majority have never done so. The fact that a pandemic began near the lab in Wuhan does nothing to change the release probability for that lab.

You're very bad at Bayesian analysis.

[Stephen Lathrop]

You’re very bad at Bayesian analysis.

True that, Nieporent. I am betting that you are very bad at Bayesian analysis too.

Which is why I framed the problems the way I did, to exclude some of the bad-at-Bayesian methods someone might choose, to reach conclusions I am trying to critique. It is possible, though, that I am so bad at Bayesian methods that my framing did not achieve its purpose. So let me try you out with a hypothetical:

There is in principle some unknown but discrete probability that Nicole was killed by someone other than OJ on that very night. Use Bayesian methods to calculate solely on the basis of the certainty that OJ had abused Nicole previously, and adding nothing else, how that probability that someone else did it is reduced to near-zero. Which is a conclusion you must reach to overcome reasonable doubt.

Remember, I am not for the sake of this discussion interested in the question whether OJ did it, based on all the evidence. I am interested only in the usefulness of one particular bit of statistical insight to prove that question by itself.

Or if you prefer, do the same for the lab-release theory, based solely on the likelihood of a release from the Wuhan lab in that very time frame, as that likelihood could be calculated prior to the start of the pandemic.

Feel free to consult someone more expert than yourself, and have that person educate us both.

Also, I will be keen to hear from an expert on what basis those problems are distinguishable, which for all I know, they may be.

Or if you want to, go ahead and pose as your own expert, but if you do, I hope to get an opportunity to meet you someday across a poker table.

And by the way, I think a lot of folks might be interested to hear an expert discussion of the use of Bayesian methods to determine reasonable doubt. I have not looked to see if that discussion has already occurred, but since this is the Thursday open thread, I propose that as a topic.

[bernard11]

The part you are missing, Stephen, is that Nicole Simpson was killed.

Your logic deals with situations where there has been no killing. An abusive husband is not, as you say, very likely to kill his wife. But the murdered wife of an abusive husband is highly likely to have been killed by him.

[Stephen Lathrop]

bernard11 — I did not overlook that. I thought about it, and dismissed it as less relevant to a different point that I wanted to focus on instead.

As I mentioned in my reply to Nieporent above, there is a discrete but unknown probability that someone else killed Nicole that night. If that were not true, there would be no point in a trial. Which means one challenge before the jurors must be to decide by all the evidence that the probability that someone else did it is near-zero.

I am asking this question: Setting all the other evidence aside, and considering only the knowledge that OJ abused Nicole previously, what contribution does that knowledge make to reducing the probability that someone else did it almost to zero? As a corollary, if before Nicole's death the probability that he would kill her was low, and if there was a discrete probability that someone else might kill her, what except prejudice would lead a juror to conclude that her death had shifted the balance of those probabilities? Of course the answer would have to be, other evidence. And in the OJ case, other evidence existed.

My interest in this discussion is not to determine OJs guilt or innocence, of course. My interest is to critique certain kinds of reasoning to which I think a lot of folks give excessive weight—and to which they especially give excessive weight in the absence of other evidence pointing in the same direction.

Thus, the reference to OJ was not intended to shift the focus from the lab release theory. It was an attempt to illuminate what I take to be mis-weighted reliance on a particular method of reasoning, as we have seen in discussions of the lab release theory.

I am a bit of a skeptic of the analytical capabilities jurors bring to, "totality of the evidence," responsibilities. I think analyzing each bit of evidence on its own ought always to be part of the process, to illuminate possibilities of prejudice which creep in otherwise.

In a case like the lab release hypothesis, the existence of the pandemic is at best a circular argument on behalf of lab release. Where other evidence is all but non-existent, when folks advocate with confidence it was a lab release, what but prejudice are we to conclude?

[Jason Cavanaugh]

"So knowing that Simpson abused Nicole has almost zero probative value to show that he killed her."

Goalposts seem to be shifting here...

"Setting all the other evidence aside, and considering only the knowledge that OJ abused Nicole previously, what contribution does that knowledge make to reducing the probability that someone else did it almost to zero?"

I'm not a Bayesian expert, but those aren't the same questions.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Cavanaugh, as framed, they are flip sides of the same question. The initial presumption, because of the law, is that someone else did it. Presumption of innocence. As a strictly formal matter, that makes the pre-trial probability that OJ did it zero.

One way to look at the point of the trial is that it becomes a process to make the bet-the-field probability successively smaller, to see if a result can be reached that OJ almost certainly did it. The method to do that is to pile up evidence against OJ, and possibly even to diminish directly the probability that someone else did it, although that would usually be much harder to accomplish, because there are so many someone-elses.

But all of that is merely framing for the different question which was my initial point. That was to direct attention to the power, or lack of power, of a specific single evidence factor to prove a case like the lab release case, when other evidence is lacking.

Lack of power especially after you reject as circular reasoning that the onset of the pandemic demonstrates a likelihood of a lab release. You cannot assume a particular result predicts its own cause unless you have proof that no other explanation is likely capable to deliver that result. Which is conspicuously not true in the Wuhan case.

[Stephen Lathrop]

But the murdered wife of an abusive husband is highly likely to have been killed by him.

Bernard11, suppose for the sake of argument that the probability is 1% that an abusive husband will go on to later kill his wife. I doubt it is that high, but use that anyway.

The wife is found murdered. That proves 100% that someone murdered her. It says nothing at all about who did the killing. What about that situation makes it any more likely than an extra 1% that the husband did the murder?

You seem to assume that there is data to show that when the wife of a violent husband has been killed, it becomes overwhelmingly likely that the husband killed her. I am not aware of any such data, but would welcome correction if you know otherwise.

But even if such data exist, I do not see how they could be introduced in a particular murder case without being ruled prejudicial. Who is to say the husband is not among the exceptions? Isn’t the point of a trial to identify the culprit by proofs which apply specifically to him, not by generalizations that encompass everyone?

Also, I suggest it is trivial to show that a dead wife of a previously violent husband is evidence to show both that the husband is more likely than previously to have killed her, and that parties unknown are more likely than previously to have killed her. Do you suppose it would be easy to construct a mathematical principle to say for all times, places, and cultures, which side of that comparison increases more after the discovery of a fatality?

As a hypothetical, consider a wife found mysteriously dead on the street at sunrise, with evidence she died of a blow to the head, with the couple living in London, during the winter of 1941—which is to say, during the Blitz? In that circumstance, it seems a probability that the husband might have ended her life must be reckoned greater than before. But wouldn’t it also be true that the probability that unidentified others had killed her had increased too, and maybe by a much greater amount? And if you concede that as an exception, what other exceptions involving every vicissitude imaginable must you not also concede?

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Bernard11, suppose for the sake of argument that the probability is 1% that an abusive husband will go on to later kill his wife. I doubt it is that high, but use that anyway.

The wife is found murdered. That proves 100% that someone murdered her. It says nothing at all about who did the killing. What about that situation makes it any more likely than an extra 1% that the husband did the murder?"

I'll probably regret this, but here goes:

Let's add an assumption. Let's say that, prior to the killing, the probability that the woman will be murdered by someone else is also 1%. So the distribution is 1% murdered by husband, 1% murdered by someone else, and 98% not murdered.

Once the woman is killed, that 98% is eliminated, so you still have an equal probability that she was murdered by someone else, but now it's 50% likely the husband did it, and 50% likely someone else did it.

[Commenter_XY]

grb, I would say this. I don't think we really know very much, really. I am not saying that to be obtuse. It is objectively true, we don't know much. We still do not have a solid understanding of the specific biochemical processes and interactions with our immune system [or endocrine system, etc] that a) the virus had, and b) the mRNA vaccine had.

How did it start? We don't know very much, really. I am not certain that the Chinese even know. But given the Chinese track record with SARS, a lab leak re: Covid is a plausible explanation. My personal opinion FWIW, Redfield called it. He had (has) the chops to make that call.

The whole lockdown thing....Oy. We are going to be dealing with the aftereffects for a generation, at the very least.

POTUS Trump made one observation that I think rings true: We have learned a LOT from the pandemic, and have much more to learn. I think that is true. I am reading more papers that more precisely detail the biologic interactions (we are learning). Now we know children have learning deficits (we'll find new ways to speed educational progress). We have so much learn; about the virus, and more importantly, about ourselves, and each other.

Last point...I am not bashing either you or bevis; I think you are both right in some ways. I also think we (as a people) need to have a good faith conversation about the traumatic experience we have all just gone through.

[grb]

Commenter_XY : How did it start? We don’t know very much, really.

It’s possible – maybe even likely – that we never will. If the Chinese had been open and upfront maybe we’d had a better chance. But that alone proves nothing. Dictatorial regimes tend to be pointlessly secretive even when there’s nothing at stake.

I think people’s certainty Covid had a natural origin has lessened slightly since the outbreak, for the simple reason scientists haven’t been able to close the loop on a natural path of transmission. But that also isn’t conclusive; other diseases (less politically fraught) have taken years of study to nail-down the development path.

One thing is certain: At the time of the outbreak, a natural origin was easily the more likely path, because that’s been the sum experience of previous diseases – including the recent SARS epidemic had jumped from nature to humans in – yes – China. And if a natural origin had Ockham on its side, the lab crowd was clearly selling a political message. That was crude and obvious.

[Ben_]

1. Now people are dying because they got the shot, because they either believed the lies or were forced to get it.
2. Now people are dying because they got the shot, because you guys lied about natural immunity being worse than the shot.
3. Leftist totalitarians censored and name-called and cancelled people for saying it was probably from the lab. Be less dishonest.
4. Masks didn’t stop Covid in Korea where they had 99+% mask compliance indoors and outdoors. Masks are ineffective on populations of people and mostly ineffective in individual use. Be less dishonest.

[bevis the lumberjack]

No, people aren't dying because they got the shot. Act like a conspiracy goofball then wonder why people refer to you as a conspiracy goofball.

There's a substantial subset of conservative America that appears to have no relationship with reality.

[Ben_]

"No, people aren’t dying because they got the shot."

It’s the first medical procedure in history with no substantial negative outcomes! Amazing!

You could just look at the VAERS records: https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/ensuringsafety/monitoring/vaers/index.html

It’s not a huge number, but deaths have occurred.

[Nige]

How many have been confirmed?

[TwelveInchPianist]

At least one.

[Nige]

A slow start by the global elites.

[David Nieporent]

You could just look at the VAERS records:

No, you can't. That's not how VAERS works or what it can be used for.

[Commenter_XY]

Ben, the VAERS database tracks adverse events wrt vaccines. The data do not lie. There is plenty of grist for the mill in the VAERS database.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9012513/

This paper, in particular, drove home the point to me about how little we actually know, just from a biology standpoint.

There is a lot of justifiable anger and resentment resulting from the pandemic. The country has been through a traumatic experience. We have to be able to talk to each other, in the aftermath - if anything, to not repeat the mistakes for the next time.

[Nige]

Wow, there's an oldie. VAERS is raw, unverified data. Hard to talk to people who keep deliberately lying and misleading.

[Krayt]

Did it kill more than it saved?

[Ben_]

That’s a good question if you wanted to ask it about young people getting the shot. Young people were always at very low risk from Covid, and that risk got less and less over time.

Requiring young people to take a risk on a Covid vaccination is malpractice. It’s not recommended most places, only here where the government and institutions have contempt for the people they should be serving.

[SRG]

Ben, the VAERS database tracks adverse events wrt vaccines. The data do not lie.

The VAERS database tracks adverse events after the vaccine, not wrt the vaccine. Post hoc ergo propter hoc...

[David Nieporent]

1. Now people are dying because they got the shot, because they either believed the lies or were forced to get it.

Nobody is dying because they got the shot. Unless they got in a car accident on the way home from the clinic.

As always, I don't know whether people like this are liars, loons, or just incredibly gullible. I'm not sure there's enough of a supply of naiveté on the planet to make the last possibility plausible, though.

[Armchair Lawyer]

"Nobody is dying"...

You can argue it's low. You can argue it's rare. But you can't say "no one". But that's what happens when supposed lawyers start confidently asserting things outside their field of expertise.

"Continued monitoring has identified nine deaths causally associated with J&J/Janssen COVID-19 vaccination. CDC and FDA continue to review reports of death following COVID-19 vaccination and update information as it becomes available"

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/adverse-events.html#:~:text=Anaphylaxis%20after%20COVID%2D19%20vaccination,and%20immediately%20treat%20the%20reaction.

[Ben_]

You can argue it’s low. You can argue it’s rare. But you can’t say “no one”.

Unless you’re as dishonest and hateful as David Nieporent. Then you can say anything.

[Sarcastr0]

You're both being pedantic, and know what he meant by nobody's dying.

[Ben_]

"know what he meant"

The usual leftist bullshit where you make up new meanings for words and pretend your feelings are facts?

[Nelson]

Over 260 million people got the vaccine. AL referenced nine deaths from J&J. Let's assume that Pfizer and Moderna had similar numbers. We're up to 27 deaths.

27 deaths out of 260 million shots is statistically indistinguishable from zero. The inference of "no one is dying" is closer to the truth than the inference of "people are dying".

[Ben_]

Young people were never at high risk from Covid.

If you’re 95 years old or 400 pounds, getting the vaccine is a different risk than if you’re 14 and in good health.

There are non-lethal injuries from the vaccine as well. It’s not a good risk for young people.

[David Nieporent]

There are non-lethal injuries from the vaccine as well. It’s not a good risk for young people.

Fortunately, there are no non-lethal injuries from getting COVID!

[Nige]

I guess claims about waves of people dropping dead because of the vaccines have been scaled back a bit, at least on a forum like this where people call out such bullshit.

[Nige]

Nine people out of how many millions of doses?

[Nelson]

260 million people in the US have been vaccinated. So at least 260 million.

[Nige]

1-4 - what an incoherent set of straw persons from someone who claims to be focused on facts and nuance.

'Sarcastro and Nige will be here soon calling this right-wing propaganda or whining that the science changed'

In fairness, leftwing loo-lahs love them, too. And the science hasn't changed as such, the distortions that are supposed to represent 'the science' are just dumb.

'and stomping hard on anyone who questioned anything.'

Is this because the lab leak theory still actually hasn't been proved and you're mad that people point out that it hasn't been proved? You know that mask study didn't prove that masks don't work either, right?

[Sarcastr0]

Misinformation is not questioning, it's saying wrong things as though they were right things.

Move on from your strawman-fest, and give specifics of who got stomped and for what.

[Kazinski]

Well by that definition the CDC was spewing misinformation.

[Sarcastr0]

The CDC was not perfect in passing along the actual state of the science, but it was not making shit up or Dunning-Krugering.

[Kazinski]

No, the CDC was making stuff up. They no evidence that masks, 6 ft spacing, lockdowns, surface cleaning had any scientific basis.

[Sarcastr0]

All of that had evidence. Some of it Covid-based, some of it general virology.

[Ben_]

There were zero studies on the 6 ft spacing. Zero.

[Nige]

How many studies do you actually need to tell you that spacing would reduce spread of an airborne virus?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The "racist piece of shit" part stands.

[apedad]

New York Man Pleads Guilty to Violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act

Jay Smith, 32, of Freeport, New York, pleaded guilty today to a criminal information charging him with a felony violation of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act in connection with the Oct. 22, 2020, invasion of a reproductive health care clinic in Washington, D.C.

Smith was indicted with nine others (Lauren Handy, Jonathan Darnel, Paulette Harlow, Jean Marshall, John Hinshaw, Heather Idoni, William Goodman, Herb Geraghty and Joan Bell), all of whom were charged with conspiracy against rights and FACE Act offenses in creating a blockade at a reproductive health care clinic to prevent it from providing, and patients from receiving, reproductive health services. Smith pleaded guilty to a charge that he used force and physical obstruction to intentionally injure, intimidate, and interfere with a nurse and other employees of the reproductive health clinic because of the services being offered. The charge further alleges that Smith’s conduct resulted in bodily injury to the clinic nurse.

A felony violation of the FACE Act carries a statutory maximum sentence of 10 years in prison, a fine of up to $250,000, and up to three years of supervised release. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors. U.S. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly scheduled a sentencing hearing for August 2.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/new-york-man-pleads-guilty-violating-freedom-access-clinic-entrances-face-act

Not sure, but this looks like a separate case from the Mark Houck incident.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/sen-hawley-grills-ag-garland-anti-catholic-bias-fbi-raid-pro-life-family-give-answer

[John F. Carr]

This is an earlier press release about the same incident: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/pennsylvania-man-indicted-freedom-access-clinic-entrances-act-and-conspiracy-against-rights

The incident was in D.C., where Congress has authority whether or not abortion is a constitutional right.

[not guilty]

Applicability of the FACE Act does not depend on the location of the clinic. Neither does it depend on whether abortion is or is not a constitutional right.

Also, per 18 U.S.C. § 248(e)(5), "reproductive health services" is broader than pregnancy termination, so the Act may apply with equal force in states where abortion is not legal.

[Brett Bellmore]

"The incident was in D.C., where Congress has authority whether or not abortion is a constitutional right."

Where Congress has authority whether or not abortion is a statutory right.

[not guilty]

Charging by a criminal information often results from a plea agreement. I suspect there is an agreement with DOJ for Mr. Smith to testify against co-conspirators.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Colleen Kollar-Kotelly "

Ms. abortion ban is slavery! He's screwed.

[OtisAH]

Taxation-is-Theft Guy has entered the chat.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Maybe not for long. Those $29,600 residential deeds in Left Behind, Ohio aren't going to proofread themselves.

[hoppy025]

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/01/politics/antonio-lamotta-joshua-macias-sentenced/index.html

All these people did was carry concealed weapons when Pennsylvania didn't honor their Virginia permit (which was a relatively recent change). This gorilla judge decided to mouth off about them owning guns anywhere. Is she as adamant about punishing crime when the defendants are her "brothers?"

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

This gorilla judge

Why would someone contribute that comment at an ostensibly academic, legal blog?

Could the answer involve the proprietor's habitual use of vile racial slurs and this blog's decision that bigoted (racist, gay-bashing, misogynistic, antisemitic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, etc.) comments are entirely compliant with the Volokh Conspiracy's civility standards?

Does any Volokh Conspiracy possess the courage and character to address this point?

[hoppy025]

There's nothing racist about that. Gorilla is commonly used to refer to a thug, which this judge is.

[Commenter_XY]

hoppy025....double entendre is a thing. That ain't right = calling Court of Common Pleas Judge Lucretia Clemons (a black woman) a 'gorilla judge'. C'mon. It is 2023. That is bullshit.

If it is a problem, file a complaint with the PA Bar.

[hoppy025]

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/gorilla

Read numbers 2 and 3.

[Commenter_XY]

hoppy025, I did read #2 and #3. I don't think it changes my point.

[David Nieporent]

That ain’t right ... That is bullshit.

Dude, hoppy is the latest username for the neonazi who's been posting here for a year or so, mostly focused on gay sex when it isn't spewing racial epithets and antisemitism. You're not going to shame him into not being a p.o.s. troll.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

hoppy025 isn't the only bigot at this blog. Far from it. Not even the only bigot in this thread. This is an everyday problem. And not one of the Volokh Conspirators will address it (beyond cultivating it). Cowards.

[Frank Drackman]

Really? I thought they were being replaced by "Bettors"??

[hoppy025]

Wah wah, racist, anti-semite.

Don't you people have anything more original?

[Krayt]

You might (mayyyyyybe) have a point if he didn't have a follow up sentence of "her brothers".

[hoppy025]

Two separate points. Gorilla was used to describe her as a thug, and the reference to her "brothers" refers to the fact that she's a anti-white black supremacist racist.

[Dr. Ed 2]

“Pennsylvania didn’t honor their Virginia permit (which was a relatively recent change)”

Isn’t there a due process requirement to tell Virginia permit holders this?

[bernard11]

Huh?

PA is supposed to notify everyone who has a permit from a different state that it is not valid in PA?

[hoppy025]

Yes, when states end reciprocity for BS reasons, they should not get the benefit of the doubt. Would you be okay with another state deciding one day they wouldn't honor you and your "husband's" marriage license?

[Dr. Ed 2]

A better example: A state bans smoking in public -- it still has to post signs saying that.

[hoppy025]

In any case, this was a minor technical violation, with no criminal intent proved or even alleged.

Exactly why one should never need government permission to carry a firearm any more than Kirkland should need government permission to let his "husband" erupt inside him.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Isn’t it about time for one of your “civility standards” lectures, Prof. Volokh?

You know, the explanation of how you have been compelled to censor (liberal and libertarian) commenters at this blog to police incivility.

Let’s hear it again, professor! I love the sound of disingenuous conservative whining in the morning.

[Dr. Ed 2]

They could put up signs on the state border...

[John F. Carr]

(comment moved to be a reply above)

[apedad]

‘He became a family annihilator’: Prosecution delivers long-drawn-out closing statement against accused killer Alex Murdaugh

“He’s the kind of person for which shame is an extraordinary provocation,” lead prosecutor Creighton Waters said of accused double murderer Alex Murdaugh – using the line once and twice. “His ego couldn’t stand that. And he became a family annihilator.”

Hewing to essentially the same trajectory as the trial itself, Waters spent considerable time re-litigating Alex Murdaugh’s numerous admitted financial crimes – a series of under-oath admissions that could result in hundreds of years behind bars on their own.

“Husbands have been killing wives, unfortunately, for years,” the prosecutor continued, returning to more of his favorite narrative devices. “And husbands killing sons goes back as far as King Herod. Probably further. And those pressures mount. And someone becomes a family annihilator.”

https://lawandcrime.com/live-trials/live-trials-current/alex-murdaugh/he-became-a-family-annihilator-prosecution-delivers-long-drawn-out-closing-statement-against-accused-killer-alex-murdaugh/

Still not sure if Murdaugh will be found guilty for this but as noted, he's going to jail for the rest of his life.

What a waste.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

What a waste.

Alex Murdaugh, a century of Murdaugh justice, or South Carolina?

Spoiler: It's all three.

[hoppy025]

How many times have you let your husband peg you?

[Frank Drackman]

Hey (man!) he's the Reverend Jerry Sandusky, he does all The Bu-fu-ing in his house, er, I mean Cell.

[Krychek_2]

I am currently traveling in South America(just got off a ferry from Buenos Aires to Montevideo). I love to travel and have been lucky enough to see more than 60 countries.

Consistently, the Americans I meet abroad tend to be politically liberal. I occasionally meet a Republican on foreign soil but not often. And I have a theory as to why that’s the case.

I think people who are curious about the world, like meeting other people and experiencing other cultures, and having their own horizons broadened, as well as being exposed to new ideas, tend to be liberal. I think that’s also why many journalists tend to be liberal. I never come back from a new place without a deeper appreciation of the diversity of humanity. So those are the values I tend to vote for.

[John F. Carr]

One of the way people slice up personalities has a number of axes including two called openness and conscientiousness. Open people want to see new things. They are liberal, on average. Conscientious people get things done. They are conservative, on average. Since these are independent axes you have have people who are both or neither.

[hoppy025]

Amazing what conclusions you can draw when you determine those conclusions first. You're an idiot.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Amazing what conclusions you can draw when you determine those conclusions first. "

People I like are great, people I hate suck! Really funny thing is that he thinks its profound.

[bevis the lumberjack]

I used to take a lot of business trips to South America - Bolivia, Peru, Argentina, Chile - and loved every minute I was down there. Everyone I met there was great, except for one old lady who ran a shop in Mendoza and was pretty cranky.

My wife and I have traveled to Europe extensively and always been fascinated by the sights and have always found people there to be friendly and helpful. Even the supposedly snooty French.

And you think I'm a fire breathing MAGA guy. Maybe you're stereotyping just a bit............

[hoppy025]

I also have a rabid right wingers, and I have traveled extensively throughout the world. South America, Asia, all throughout Europe, Northern Africa, the Middle East, and so on.

I think he'd find (if he approached with a modicum of good faith) that international travel is not a province of the left or right, but a province of the upper middle class and above. To the extent that upper incomes are correlated with political liberalism, that might explain what he claims to have "discovered."

I bet you don't find many international travelers among the predominantly Democrat Party voters in the inner cities.

[Krychek_2]

Hoppy the name of the logical fallacy you just engaged in is affirming the consequent. Just because a dog has four legs doesn’t mean everything with four legs is a dog. Likewise just because people who travel tend Democrat (in my experience) doesn’t mean all Democrats travel.

Does your local community college offer classes in logic?

[hoppy025]

It's not a fallacy, you fucking moron. It's a demonstration of why "People who travel overseas are more curious. Everyone I meet overseas is liberal. Liberals are more adventurous and curious" is fallacious.

[Krychek_2]

I don’t think I’ve ever said you’re a fire breathing MAGA guy. I do think you tend to be less critical of the GOP than you are the Democrats, but then again I probably don’t see everything you write.

[Ed Grinberg]

Yeah, those mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging conservatives... We "liberals" are so superior!
hoppy025 is right: you’re an idiot.

[ducksalad]

A more plausible explanation is that while abroad you select activities and things to see, and you are seeing people with similar tastes.

Furthermore, your comment implies you know the political inclinations of the Americans you casually meet, which in turn indicates your conversations tend to turn political. Are you surprised that people who are on vacation and sense a disagreement coming might change the subject without you even noticing?

Sometimes at a B&B I'll share a table with someone like you. We're all there to have a good time so I politely nod at any political comments, refrain from revealing that I voted for Gary Johnson, and allow you count me as one of your own.

[Krychek_2]

I almost never initiate political conversations. I engage when engaged and overhear a lot.

[ducksalad]

There are people I've worked and talked with daily for 20 years and still have no idea how they vote.

I still have to conclude that either (a) you're looking at the very small subgroup of people who talk loudly about their political opinions while taking snapshots of Mount Blanc, or (b) while on vacation you've been hanging out at poetry slams in absinthe bars in Prague.

Not that there's anything wrong with either activity but neither is a good sample of Americans abroad.

[Krychek_2]

Actually neither of those are how I reached my conclusion and if you think people in tour groups don’t talk politics you haven’t been on many.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Krychek,

Here's an interesting statistic for you (link below). African Americans tend to be much less widely traveled than white Americans. Would your hypothesis also apply there? Would you say that "I think people who are curious about the world, like meeting other people and experiencing other cultures tend to be white". Because African Americans statistically travel internationally much less.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/08/12/most-americans-have-traveled-abroad-although-differences-among-demographic-groups-are-large/

So....I'm going to guess you wouldn't make that particular argument in regards to African Americans.

Here's an alternative hypothesis that fits both African Americans and Republicans. International travel is expensive. It requires having a large disposable income. In addition, having a limited or zero number of dependents helps tremendously.

Liberals tend to have a "U" shape in their income distribution...they tend to be very poor or very rich. The very rich ones can travel. In addition, statistically, liberals tend to have fewer children than Republicans. Kids sharply decrease disposable income. It's also more difficult to travel with them, given that it will double the travel costs (or more, for more kids). In addition, schooling and other items make it more difficult to just go internationally with kids at all times.

Due to this, Republicans and African Americans will end up travelling less internationally than liberals or whites. Not due to any concepts about "openness" but due to lower levels of disposable income and higher numbers of dependents on average

But, I suppose you could try to divide up the logic, and say this argument only applies to African Americans, but not Republicans. It's not logical, given the similarities, but, well....

[wolfefan]

A couple of weeks ago Josh Blackman posted a piece on ChatGPT lawyers and threats that one such, Josh Browder's DoNotPay, had received re: potential UPL. Many of the comments here lambasted some alleged lawyer cartel as simply trying to keep their business model intact. You might want to head over to Twitter and check out Kathryn Tewson's lawsuit against Josh and his company, and the entertaining saga of how she demonstrated both the AI's vast failures at even simple tasks and Josh's dishonesty. FWIW Kathryn stipulated that Josh could use his AI lawyer in court if he wished, but Josh chose not to do so.

[Jerry B.]

The D.C. area is once again going nuts about the impending bloom of the cherry trees around the Tidal Basin. All the news stations show the stages of blossom development daily. They are...

Stage one: green round buds
Stage two: florets visible
Stage three: extension of florets
Stage four: peduncle elongation
Stage five: fluffy white petals
Stage six: peak bloom

I have to say I have a problem with Stage four. It sounds like something I imagine being discussed at a NAMBLA convention.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

It sounds like something I imagine being discussed at a NAMBLA convention.

Or in the private areas of a CPAC convention.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Kirkland’s not wrong — CPAC has a strong NAMBLA influence now.

It's why I don't go anymore....

[Frank Drackman]

You don't go to NAMBLA conventions any more? Good for you!

[Frank Drackman]

"Imagine"?? you're their alltime most famous "Member" (get it? "Member"??)

[OtisAH]

Stage seven: Petals dry and turn to cement on your vehicle.

[Mr. Bumble]

...and cover the ground with pink and white snow.

[Dr. Ed 2]

And seriously screw up traction on railroad tracks, as do wet leaves in the fall.

[Procyon Mustelid]

I remember on the pre-Washington Post version of the Volkh Conspiracy there was a way to load the page filtering out all of a particular writer's posts. I wish there was a way to do that still.

[Mr. Bumble]

Doesn't "mute" do that?

[Procyon Mustelid]

Muting works for commenters, yes, and I've done it. But this was a way to have the Volokh Conspiracy load without, for example, any posts by Eugene Volokh. And I don't think mute does that. Does it?

[Mr. Bumble]

Sorry, I misconstrued your comment.

[wolfefan]

My IANAL opinion of the VC is that every iteration of it is worse than the one before. Not just commenters, which happens to most blogs, but the content itself. To compare the current VC to the pre-WaPo version saddens me. There are benefits of course to a wider reach, but I think the actual quality of the blogging itself is a lot worse, and there are far too few active bloggers compared to the old days.

[David Nieporent]

I think that just has a lot to do with the blogging industry itself. Blogging was huge 10-20 years ago; Twitter largely eliminated it.

[MoreCurious]

I think it would be interesting to know how the Volokhs and the others feel about their blog being hijacked by foul-mouthed, racist, homophobic, misogynistic morons like Frank, Hoppy, etc. Does this grand exercise in free speech make them proud? Do they brag about it to their family, friends, and colleagues? Do they mention it on their CVs? Or do they stick their heads in the sand and pretend they're making a valuable contribution to legal knowledge and civil discourse? (Orin Kerr: where are you at this time when adult intervention might be helpful?)

[Frank Drackman]

Fowl-Mouthed?? Yes, I did major in Poultry Science, and have you been around the "Woke" Generation? Gunnery Sergeant Hartman would need a fainting couch with their non-stop profanity, I try to save it for appropriate occasions (Usually Surgeon's mistakes), Race-ist? Fuck that shit, I treat Niggers, Spicks, Chinks, Hebes the same, Homo-fobic? Only the Fags, love me some Lesbians, Misogynistic? Only male I've lived in the same household with is my dad, if anything I'm Wilma Mankiller (who never killed any men)
Moron? I was only a point away from making MENSA (I cheated) it's been measured!!!!!!!

Frank

[Frank Drackman]

Love replying to myself,
and I get no money for recruiting, but great field (especially if you like Chicken)
https://agriculture.auburn.edu/research/poul/

Frank "Of course it tastes like chicken, it's chicken"

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

No hijacking has occurred. The Volokh Conspirators court this audience. They flatter it. They defend it. These antisocial, delusional, downscale bigots are their ideological allies and their cultural cohort.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Sooner rather than later we are going to have to rewrite the Federal K-12 laws regarding SPED and ELL laws because -- while well intended -- we can not afford to spend half our education budgets on just 10% of our children.

50 years ago, we had special state schools for the retarded -- they were abusive and downright evil and we closed them, but now we have children who simply do not belong in the regular school and we are now lowering our curriculum to their level.

[John F. Carr]

I think a pendulum is swinging in education. It still has a long way to go to the left in my area. Elections elsewhere, notably in Florida, show it is starting to come back to the right. If Trump isn't on the ballot in 2024 then we could see big changes in 2025.

[Sarcastr0]

I actually don't think a pendulum swing is coming. It was coming, since that's pretty regular in most areas of group human endeavor, but educational policy has now been partisanized.
A change of policy is now a pollical win/loss for a national party.

No better way to calcify policy - check out immigration reform.

[Bob from Ohio]

"educational policy has now been partisanized"

Left wing control of education policy is natural and non-partisan, conservative attempts to re-assert some input is partisan.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

You have a straw man construction reflex that is absolutely amazing.

[John F. Carr]

There is a middle group who wants kids educated and reacts badly when a candidate says "I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach." They can swing elections in Virginia and Florida, if not in Massachusetts and Oklahoma.

[Nige]

The right wing approach to education, aside from stripping library shelves bare and having it micromanaged by political officers, is to spend most of the the money where it’s needed least. I would also say the US CAN afford to spend a lot more on ALL children.

[SimonP]

“We should re-institutionalize developmentally-disabled children, preferably in special privately-run schools, which – yes – are likely to re-adopt the abusive and evil practices of the past, both due to lack of meaningful oversight by captured state agencies and the schools’ own bottom line. Not that I want to say so explicitly.

While we’re at it, we should probably dispense with the constitutional principle that we can’t discriminate against foreign-born or non-English-speaking students in our public schools. Put them to work in the fields and factories where they belong. Oops, looks like decades of politically-calculated dysfunction in our immigration system has already achieved that.”

[Frank Drackman]

You seen any of the miscreants in todays Pubic Screw-els? They couldn't get into a Retard class if you spotted them the "Re" and the "Tard". And I'm disgusted you still use the "R" word, it's "Special", you Retard.

[Dr. Ed 2]

For the record, the institutions were called "Schools for the Retarded" which was an improvement over what they initially had been called when built -- "Schools for the Feeble Minded."

They are now called "exceptional children" -- Orwell would be proud.

[Krayt]

It's long been pointed out the benefits the nation would receive devoting a fraction of the money spent ensuring every last kid can count out change, to advanced classes for the gifted, is great bang for the buck, as they drive progress forward.

But that's elitist. Don't blame politicians for abusing that sentiment. Look in the mirror for buying into it.

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, it is elitist. It's also dumb as hell.

We are *awful* at sussing out who is gifted and who is not. Picking winners and losers early on will make us even worse at that.

We don't lack for ways to engage the talented and well supported.

The only proven way to find and develop talent is to engage the less well supported and see who rises to the top there.

And that still assumes a quality in our meritocracy that is manifestly not there these days.

[hoppy025]

We're actually very good at sussing out who is gifted and who is not. It's just that the majority of those who are gifted don't have names like Jamal or Shaniqua, which offends leftists who refuse to follow the science.

[SRG]

IMO the concern would be that too many gifted kids would end up competing for the plum positions in commerce or the professions against the "legacy" kids who, and whose parents, think that they're entitled to.

[Sarcastr0]

Thing is, SRG, legacy kids often perform better on standard meritocratic analysis due to their support system, expectations, expensive outside tutors, etc.

The argument I've heard is that they'll therefore perform better in research and high-level positions. I don't think that's established. I also think talent is not the same as training, and we're fools to leave vast swaths of untrained talent on the table, or drive them away.

[hoppy025]

No, they perform better because they have the same inherent genetics that led their parents to be successful.

[David Nieporent]

We are *awful* at sussing out who is gifted and who is not.

Come on; no, we're not. I'll wager that anyone at a school can identify the top academic 10% (or whatever) of the student body with no difficulty whatsoever.

[Sarcastr0]

1) Gifted is not the same as top academic. Grades are a piss-poor predictor, they're just the best we have.

2) But yeah, there are those who stand out among the standard cohorts that go hard into education. And it's not like we're neglecting those folks right now.

If we just go with who stands out as gifted we 1) ignore huge groups of our population that contain talented but untrained and unsupported people, and 2) fail to inject a large reservoir of new blood with fresh insights and ideas into our intellectual workforce.

Plenty of examples in our history where we shut out a group, or didn't engage them, or downgraded in our analysis, and ended up doing centuries of thinking with one lobe tied behind our backs.

[David Nieporent]

1) Gifted is not the same as top academic. Grades are a piss-poor predictor, they’re just the best we have.

I didn't say grades.

[Sarcastr0]

The academic top 10% becomes a rather nebulous term.

But I'll accept that there's something there, which just gets us to the latter part of my comment about gifted programs already having pretty strong support, and the utility in raising up cohorts that don't show up on our radar right yet.

[David Nieporent]

I was using the phrase generically, not as a specific metric. I guarantee that people in a school — students and teachers alike — can identify the academically gifted quite reliably. Not perfectly, I'm sure.

And I do think we neglect them. They don't cause trouble, and don't have any legal rights (as a gifted person, I mean), so a school district can shrug and say "oh well, that's great for them but we don't have anything to offer."

[Sarcastr0]

Unless you have a different definition than I do, there are a ton of gifted and talented scholarships, internship, engagement opportunities, mentorship opportunities, all on the federal level. Locally you have gifted and talented programs and even dedicated schools

I’m not saying lets rest on our laurels and not try and improve our opportunities for superstars, but I think focusing our efforts on growing the pool of high-level talent is the issue, not our development pipeline for the talent we’ve identified.

Underserved locales, and first-time college are both good cohorts to look at that aren’t your standard color and gender stuff.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Well, you did have gifted and talented programs. Luckily California liberals are trying to eliminate that.

https://reason.com/2021/05/04/california-math-framework-woke-equity-calculus/

[Dr. Ed 2]

"And it’s not like we’re neglecting those folks right now."

Actually, we are -- SPED & ELL is taking such a chunk of the budget that we are neglecting these folk.

[Dr. Ed 2]

We are neglecting the middle.

[ducksalad]

"Picking winners and losers early on will make us even worse at that....The only proven way to find and develop talent is to engage the less well supported and see who rises to the top there."

Fair enough, but when do we transition from the not-picking stage to the see-who-actually-rose stage? I'm fine with not picking at all in 3rd grade. But one meets educators doing admissions to graduate programs who seem to feel that 16+ years of demonstrated academic performance (or non-performance) in formal education is still too soon to be picking winners and losers.

[Sarcastr0]

You are absolutely right.
The grad school to workforce pipeline is pretty good. At least for talented STEM folks. It's a vastly narrowed group, which helps a lot. By that point anyone we've left behind can't catch up anyhow.

Advanced classes for the gifted are less of a thing in grad school, so far as I know. So what do you mean by selected as a winner at that point?

[Armchair Lawyer]

Graduate school is already for the gifted and talented. (Mostly).

[Frank Drackman]

Man, what the (redacted, don't want to offend anyone) are you smoking???
as my favorite Actor from Uvalde said in "Dazed & Confused"
"But I'd just as soon keep workin', though, keep a little change in my pocket. Better than listenin' to some dipshit, doesn't know what the hell he's talkin' about, anyway"

Frank

[ducksalad]

So yeah, grad school was sort of an extreme example.

But having some track options in high school is fine, and having some mild admission requirements for those options is also fine. I guess I would not support absolutely forcing any student into a track that precludes any chance of admission to a university, (like some versions of the old German system). But I’m OK with restricting AP classes, for example, to students with a better than average record. And I’m OK with informing a 16 year old student with 9 total on a practice ACT about the percent of students with a grade of 9 who succeed in college before letting them make a choice on whether to take trig vs diesel shop.

[Sarcastr0]

We are still in accord - I'm not saying eliminate the existing opportunities.
I'm not even saying don't create new options for top performers.

I'm saying a higher priority right now is growing the pool.

[Frank Drackman]

Growing a pool? how do you do that? Have a hard enough time keeping mine clean, and just try finding someone who isn't named Manuel/Juan/Jose/Hey-Zeuss to clean it for you, not that I have anything against Manuel/Juan/Jose/Hey-Zeuss, it's just that they laugh and habla the Espanol when I just immediately accept their price

[Armchair Lawyer]

Many others are saying "eliminate the G&T programs" for "equity".

[Sarcastr0]

I am aware my opinion is not universally held, thanks AL.

[IAdmitIAmCrazy]

Amarillo, TX District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk is expected to ban nationwide the sale of the abortion pill Mifepristone on the basis of the FDA underestimating the risks involved when approving the drug in 2000.
The question whether a single Federal Judge may exercise nationwide jurisprudence — important as it is — is not my concern here. What I am interested in is whether it is possible to construct a solid legal case on the merit of such a ban.
As so often — not only as regards abortion — political outcome seems to trump legal analysis. What is the possibly strongest legal argument to be made to counter the Food and Drug Administration's decision regarding Mifepristone? Is the possibility the drug may "abused" in states where abortion rights are curtailed sufficient to justify denial of access to the drug in states where no such extensive legal restriction exist?
I still harbour the quaint notion that what is politically desirable may not be what the law says.
Any ideas?

[John F. Carr]

The judge was chosen by the plaintiffs as their best shot to ban the drug. It's a big step from there to "is expected to".

As of now he has done nothing of substance in the case. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/65768749/alliance-for-hippocratic-medicine-v-us-food-and-drug-administration/

In my opinion, this is likely to be a case where nobody has standing to sue. Women who don't want the pill don't have to take it. Doctors don't have to prescribe it. If Texas granted presumptive fathers rights over their unborn children then there would be a plaintiff. It would be a Roe-like case where the pregnancy was over long before the courts decided what to do with it. If Massachusetts said doctors had to prescribe it on demand or face discipline, maybe doctors would have a legally recognized case.

[IAdmitIAmCrazy]

Mea culpa! I admit that the judge hasn't done anything yet, and "is expected" violates my own rules to not name the subjects who do something. Bureaucratese is quite contagious ... In this case, some liberal venues I read do.
Your providing the link to the court documents was more than helpful, thank you very much indeed!.
I am very much aware that much of litigation about government actions in the US (recently?) has mainly boiled down to matters of standing.
Do I read you right that your position is: don't fret too much on the substance because the issue will fail on standing?

[not guilty]

A federal court has an obligation to determine its jurisdiction, including whether any party has standing to litigate. Even where no party raises an objection to standing, this must be done sua sponte. See e.g., FW/PBS v. City of Dallas, 493 U.S. 215, 230-31 (1990).

Judge Kacsmaryk should have already bounced this lawsuit for lack of standing by the plaintiffs.

[John F. Carr]

The judge has no need to question standing sua sponte because the defendants have already done so. Briefs on standing were filed last month. As long as there is no preliminary injunction the court doesn't need to rush.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Doesn't the State of Texas have a police power to protect its citizens? And if Texas can prove that the FDA didn't follow its own rules, either deliberately or accidentially, then wouldn't Texas have standing?

An example that comes to mind is the gasoline additive MBTE, which the EPA neglected to realize was (unlike gasoline) water soluble -- or the EPA neglected the consequences of that. And it's a known carcinogen.

Very quickly it started contaminating wells used for drinking water, and states (eg Maine) just outright banned it -- didn't even bother going to court, just declared a public health emergency and banned the chemical that the EPA was requiring be added to gasoline in some states.

If Texas can show an unreasonable risk to Texas women, doesn't it have standing on that?

[David Nieporent]

No.

[not guilty]

"Doesn’t the State of Texas have a police power to protect its citizens? And if Texas can prove that the FDA didn’t follow its own rules, either deliberately or accidentially, [sic] then wouldn’t Texas have standing?"

Uh, the State of Texas is not a party to this litigation.

[SRG]

whether it is possible to construct a solid legal case on the merit of such a ban.

Let's face it, it's not about the legal case...

[Krayt]

It’s only about the legal case. Politicians and lawyers live in this bizarre world where they can use police to order you to obey the stuff that flies out of their mouth, as if it's super-reality, atoms and physics of a sterner type.

[ReaderY]

I think this particular lawsuit is very weak. The plaintiffs’ standing claim is more or less that these doctors, maybe, some day, might meet and treat a woman suffering from side effects of mifeprestone and if it should someday happen it would divert them from things they’d rather be doing. Just to say it is to see how weak it is. And on the merits, the lawsuit argues the FDA got the science wrong in the 1990s and mifeprestone is actually too dangerous to pregnant women to be approvable. That strikes me as an overall loser. The Supreme Court is not going to sanction having judges review matters specifically committed to agency expert judgment by unequivocal statutory text.

There are several other cases where better standing and merits legal arguments could be made. For example, the manufacturer of mifeprestone is suing Wisconsin claiming its laws interfere with its ability to mail mifeprestone into Wisconsin to help women there have abortions. I think Wisconsin’s standing is unquestionable in that case. That would be a more suitable case to evaluate whether federal law is really as favorable to abortifacinients as proponents of abortion currently imagine it to be.

There are also lawsuits against West Virginia and North Carolina that could also be vehicles for this sort of counterclaim.

[Dr. Ed 2]

"The Supreme Court is not going to sanction having judges review matters specifically committed to agency expert judgment by unequivocal statutory text."

It will if the agency didn't follow its own rules...

[Nelson]

"If" is doing all the work in that sentence. Unless something new has come to light recently, the anti-abortion argument that the FDA didn't follow it's own guidelines is pure speculation. There are probably more FOIA requests in the system, but as of now there is zero evidence the FDA did anything unusual or wrong in granting the approval.

And, of course, anti-abortionists are notoriously loose with their use of words like "fact", "illegal", "murder", "person" and "baby", so giving them the benefit of the doubt that this is a good-faith lawsuit is probably a bad call.

[David Nieporent]

Amarillo, TX District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk is expected

He is? By whom?

[Jonathan Affleck]

Yesterday, in A group autopsy of the Supreme Court's oral argument on section 230 David Nieporent rejected the ordinary meaning of "interactive computer" and disputes when I correctly state that an Internet Service Provider (ISP) is not an Interactive Computer Service (ICS) according to Section 230. I have been programming computers since the 60s. I have more experience with batch-mode non-interactive computer systems than I care to remember.

Tomorrow, I meet with a federal government official to discuss my complaint against social medium platforms, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the USA. In the complaint I address the meaning of ICS in detail.

Everyone except a fanatic supporter of discrimination by a social medium platform keeps the controlling caselaw in mind.

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.'”).

Before the 1960s a computer operated in non-interactive batch mode. In ordinary English, the need to turn on or to plug in a computer does not make it interactive. It was necessary to plug in or to turn on a batch computer. Yet, a batch computer was not interactive. ARPA, which is a US government agency, developed interactive computing. The phrases “interactive computer”, “interactive computer system”, and “interactive program” are all well-defined in ordinary English usage.

Interactive computing

In computer science, interactive computing refers to software which accepts input from the user as it runs.

Interactive software includes commonly used programs, such as word processors or spreadsheet applications. By comparison, non-interactive programs operate without user intervention; examples of these include compilers and batch processing applications that are pre-programmed to run independently.

Interactive computing focuses on real-time interaction ("dialog") between the computer and the operator, and the technologies that enable them.

If the response of the computer system is complex enough, it is said that the system is conducting social interaction; some systems try to achieve this through the implementation of social interfaces.
The nature of interactive computing as well as its impact on users, are studied extensively in the field of computer interaction.

History of interactive computing systems

Ivan Sutherland is considered the father of interactive computing for his work on Sketchpad, the interactive display graphics program he developed in 1963. He later worked at the ARPA Information Processing Techniques Office under the direction of J. C. R. Licklider.

There he facilitated ARPA's research grant to Douglas Engelbart for developing the NLS system at SRI, based on his visionary manifesto published in a 1962 report, in which Engelbart envisioned interactive computing as a vehicle for user interaction with computers, with each other, and with their knowledge, all in a vast virtual information space.

In a 1965 report, Engelbart published his early experiments with pointing devices, including the computer mouse, for composing and editing on interactive display workstations. Engelbart's work on interactive computing at SRI migrated directly to Xerox PARC, from there to Apple, and out into the mainstream. Thus, the tree of evolution for interactive computing generally traces back to Engelbart's lab at SRI.

In December 2008, on the 40th anniversary of his 1968 demo, SRI sponsored a public commemorative event in his honor.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Has the Supreme Court scheduled oral arguments in your case yet?

[Jonathan Affleck]

When I hear Brown-Jackson or Kagan pose questions that are taken almost word for word from my filings to SCOTUS, the latest petition did what I wanted. I created a super amicus brief and did not have to train or to pay an attorney to write it.

Now comes the real start of the litigation

I note that the fanatic supporter of discrimination by a social medium platform did not make a substantive reply to my comment.

[Noscitur a sociis]

There is a zero percent chance that any justice read your brief.

[Jonathan Affleck]

I spoke with Kagan about Zeran while she was Dean of Harvard Law School. The conversation was in the context of a lunchtime seminar, which addressed among other things the role of logical fallacy in the US legal system and my personal favorite bête noire: res ipsa loquitur. Yet, Kagan did not address this topic at all. She hit the specific topics in my petition.

[David Nieporent]

Noscitur a sociis overestimated the probability.

And, no, she did not do any such thing.

[bernard11]

Tomorrow, I meet with a federal government official

One of the less capable interns in the office, no doubt.

[Jonathan Affleck]

The official is two or three levels down from a principal officer of the US government Do you know what a principal officer is? Maybe next meeting for a principal officer.

Let's see how much law bernard11 knows. Why would I meet with a senior official about filing a complaint?

I note that the fanatic supporter of discrimination by a social medium platform did not make a substantive reply to my comment.

[David Nieporent]

Tomorrow, I meet with a federal government official

That's one way to describe the Secret Service showing up at your place to see if you're a threat.

[Nelson]

ROFLOL

[David Nieporent]

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.’”).

This is a mistake common to non-lawyers: they think that you can pluck a phrase from one place and apply it somewhere else without understanding context. (You also mis-cited this; you were quoting Welsh but you wrote it as if you were quoting Richards.) The first place you look is at the statute itself to see if it defines a particular word. If so, you use that, not "the ordinary meaning" of the word.

Nobody cares what "interactive computing" means to computer scientists (which is not "the ordinary meaning" anyway). What matters is how "interactive computer service" is defined in the statute. That’s' § 230(f)(2), not a computer science textbook.

[Jonathan Affleck]

Why specific to computer scientists?

Even in 1996 a substantial part (maybe a majority) of the public had an interactive computer/computer system sitting on his desk at home or in the office. Everyone knew what an interactive computer/computer system was. It was not the modem that he might have been using to access AOL's interactive computer service. The set-top box (a simple turnkey computer system), with which he accessed his cable provider, was not an interactive computer system. His cable provider was not an interactive computer service. His videorecorder/player was not an interactive computer system even if it was a turnkey system.

The meaning of "Interactive Computer" and "Interactive Computing" are all over government documents starting in the 1960s, often submitted to Congress. An interactive computer/computer system is often a defined phrase in an appeal to the Court of Appeals to the DC Circuit. Section 230 is a statute within Title 47, and unless the statute specifically states otherwise, the caselaw and terminology, which is associated with Title 47, cannot be ignored.

BTW, by 1996 every auto hacker knew what an embedded computer or computer system was. One did not have to be a PHOSITA of computer science to know this terminology.

[David Nieporent]

Why specific to computer scientists?

You're the one who talked about "computer science."

Section 230 is a statute within Title 47, and unless the statute specifically states otherwise, the caselaw and terminology, which is associated with Title 47, cannot be ignored.

The statute specifically states otherwise.

[Jonathan Affleck]

The statute assumes one knows the meaning of interactive when one uses a computer. Usage of interactive personal computers was already wildly common in 1996.

Computer science terminology has been creeping into standard ordinary English since the 50s.

[Noscitur a sociis]

The statute assumes one knows the meaning of interactive when one uses a computer.

It most assuredly and unequivocally does not: on the contrary, it says,

The term “interactive computer service” means any information service, system, or access software provider that provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server, including specifically a service or system that provides access to the Internet and such systems operated or services offered by libraries or educational institutions.

[David Nieporent]

And just to forestall the next round of lunacy (not that it will work), the terms "information service," and "access software provider" are also expressly defined by statute.

[Jonathan Affleck]

Why even include "interactive computer" in the statute if the ordinary meaning of interactive computer is not intended?

The statute could have used "access service" instead of "interactive computer service" to include both a non-interactive access provider and also an interactive access provider.

"Access service" was fairly common terminology in 1996.

Do you remember 1996? AOL, Prodigy, and Compuserve use to provide Access Software on diskettes and CD-ROMS in computer and non-computer journals. They were access software providers. There were other access software providers that served schools and libraries. Hence the reference in the statute to schools and libraries. Access software providers of this type don't exist anymore.

Because Google provides Chrome, which is used to access a web or cloud service, I suppose Google might be an Access Software Provider but the definition of ICS contains "...including specifically a service or system that provides access to the Internet..."

I don't access the Internet through Chrome. Chrome works when there is already Internet service. Google is not my Internet Access Service, which provides access to the Internet.

Xfinity is the Internet access service that I use. Xfinity supplies a cable modem, which is a non-interactive turnkey computer brick, in order to provide with access to the Internet. And guess what! An ISP like Xfinity must supply nondiscriminatory service.

If Twitter and Xfinity are both ICSs, why can Twitter discriminate while Xfinity cannot?

I have read one delusional decision that tried to hold Salesforce to be an access software provider, which is one type of ICS as long as it meets the qualification in § 230(f)(2). How can such a holding make any sense?

[David Nieporent]

And just to forestall the next round of lunacy (not that it will work),

Gee, I was right: it didn't work.

Read. The. Statute.

Stop trying to guess what you think words could mean in other contexts. Stop looking at what things fit those words in 1996. Read the actual definitions.

Hint: the statute doesn't use the phrase ISP. It doesn't say that something must provide access to the Internet to qualify. An interactive computer service must provide access to a computer server. Any one. At all.

1) Does Salesforce provide software? Yes.
2) Does that software filter, screen, allow, disallow, pick, choose, analyze, digest, transmit, receive, display, forward, cache, search, subset, organize, reorganize, or translate content? Yes.
3) Does it enable access, a) by multiple users, b) to a computer server? Yes, and yes.

Which part of that are you having trouble with?

Also, I don't know why you think Xfinity isn't protected by § 230. (If you were right about Xfinity, the whole net neutrality debate would've been moot.)

[Jonathan Affleck]

The issue is simple -- the statute says: "including specifically a service or system that provides access to the Internet and such systems operated or services offered by libraries or educational institutions."

Providing access to the Internet is not optional because Internet access is specifically identified. It's like a criminal statute that requires dolus specialis -- specific treacherous purpose. (Specialis in Latin differs slightly in nuance from special in English.)

If a perpetrator does have specific treacherous purpose, he may be committing a crime but not the one in the statute.

Please read the statute.

"...any information service, system, or access software provider that provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server, including specifically a service or system that provides access to the Internet and such systems operated or services offered by libraries or educational institutions."

Do you truly believe the relative phrase "that..." only refers to access software provider and system is not restricted in any way? How does that construction make any sense at all?

If system and access software provider are restricted by the relative clause, information service must be similarly restricted.

Then we need only apply some semantic reasoning to understand the somewhat obscure syntax.

The comma before "including" tells us that "including" does not refer to the noun that immediately precedes "including". The computer server is being accessed. It's not providing the access. The "including specifically" phrase is narrowing the type of access in the phrase "that provides or enables computer access". Whatever types of access are provided, Internet access must be among them.

Feel free to provide an alternate construction of the statute.

I would be interested in an insightful new way to parse limitations -- especially if it helps with patent litigation. (Note that I did not write "specifically if it helps with patent litigation".)

[Jonathan Affleck]

The FCC alternates between enforcing and abandoning net neutrality. At present net neutrality is not required, but it will probably be reinstituted before the end of the year.

I mildly support net neutrality because a lack of net neutrality might delay emergency services.

Net neutrality is more an public utility or public franchise regulation issue than a common carriage issue. A common carrier was always allowed to establish multiple tiers of service.

[Jonathan Affleck]

If Xfinity began to remove Black users as Twitter removes pro-Palestine users, we would soon learn how much protection § 230 gives the "editorial discretion" of Xfinity. How about if Xfinity began to remove users that had Jewish-sounding names?

SCOTUS explicitly wondered during the Gonzalez and Taamneh oral arguments whether Congress could possibly have intended to give the Chinese government substantial control of US public discussion by means of a major social medium platform that the Chinese government owned.

An ISP is currently an information service and not a telecommunications service. The argument for this classification is technological. Because I understand how a circuit-switched phone network and the Internet both work, I consider the reasoning pure hand-waving.

Arguendo, let's consider the reasoning solid. There is no reason that an information service cannot be a common carrier according to 47 U.S. Code § 153 Definitions (11) Common Carrier. The clause § 153(51) specifically addresses the narrower telecommunications common carrier, and the FCC has already ruled that an Information Service can be an Information Common Carrier without the status of a regulated telecommunications common carrier. This ruling has never been overturned by either the FCC, the Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit, or SCOTUS.

The lawyers for Xfinity are not stupid. They won't allow Xfinity to expose itself legally to penalty according to 47 U.S. Code § 202 - Discriminations and preferences.

[David Nieporent]

The issue is simple — the statute says: “including specifically a service or system that provides access to the Internet and such systems operated or services offered by libraries or educational institutions.”

The word you needed to pay attention to, and bold, was "including." You don't seem to grasp what it means. (Things after "including" are not words of limitation.)

Do you truly believe the relative phrase “that…” only refers to access software provider and system is not restricted in any way? How does that construction make any sense at all?

No, I don't believe that. I don't know how you could think I believe that from what I said.

The “including specifically” phrase is narrowing the type of access in the phrase “that provides or enables computer access”.

No, no, no, no, no. The term "including" does not "narrow." That's not how English works and it's not how law works.

Your interpretation reads "that provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server, including specifically a service or system" out of the statute entirely.

[David Nieporent]

SCOTUS explicitly wondered during the Gonzalez and Taamneh oral arguments whether Congress could possibly have intended to give the Chinese government substantial control of US public discussion by means of a major social medium platform that the Chinese government owned.

I have no idea what this refers to; SCOTUS did not explicitly do any such thing. In fact, pretty much none of those words (other than "platform") were uttered by anyone during the oral argument in either case. (Okay, "social media" was uttered a couple of times.)

[Brett Bellmore]

On a lark, I hunted down the oral argument transcripts for both of these.

In Gonzalez, neither "China" nor "Chinese" was uttered.

In Taamneh, "Chinese" was uttered, in a reference to take-out food.

Affleck, do you think people never check these claims?

[Jonathan Affleck]

Here is the case: Does v. Salesforce.com, No. A159566 (Cal. Ct. App. Dec. 30, 2021).

I would like to have attended the trial or the oral argument in the Court of Appeals. The opinion reads like "The Three Stooges Go To Law School." No one in the Court -- not the Plaintiff, not the Defendant, and not the Judge/Judges -- showed any evidence of understanding what an access software provider is.

1996 was only 27 years ago.

How can anyone forget something so recent?

I remember finding at least a dozen AOL CD ROMs a month in magazines or attached to the boxes of all sorts of products. I would go into a store, and diskettes or CD ROMs were given out at the cash register. Discarded CompuServe or Prodigy diskettes were everywhere.

[David Nieporent]

I would like to have attended the trial or the oral argument in the Court of Appeals. The opinion reads like “The Three Stooges Go To Law School.” No one in the Court — not the Plaintiff, not the Defendant, and not the Judge/Judges — showed any evidence of understanding what an access software provider is.

No, the judge certainly showed evidence of such knowledge: specifically, the judge went so far as to quote the definition of access software provider:

An "[a]ccess software provider" is a "provider of software (including client or server software) or enabling tools that do any one or more of the following: [¶] (A) filter, screen, allow, or disallow content; [¶] (B) pick, choose, analyze, or digest content; or [¶] (C) transmit, receive, display, forward, cache, search, subset, organize, reorganize, or translate content." (§ 230(f)(4).)

You, on the other hand, don't appear to know what an access software provider is. Why you keep fixating on those ubiquitous AOL disks is beyond me. While AOL could indeed fit within the definition of access software provider, you continue to make the logical error of thinking that "All A is B. C is not A. Therefore, C is not B." is a valid syllogism, when it is not.

[Jonathan Affleck]

The panel was clueless mostly because no party provided an expert or an expert report as one might provide in a Title 47 litigation before the FCC. (BTW, I am not arguing the panel's decision was wrong. I only argue that it made no sense.)

The operative phrase in 47 U.S. Code § 230 is "access software provider that provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server, including specifically a service or system that provides access to the Internet and such systems operated or services offered by libraries or educational institutions."

Salesforce does not provide access to the Internet. An ISP does.

[Jonathan Affleck]

While Salesforce provides a service over the Internet, this service cannot be shoehorned into the definition of an Interactive Computer Service according to 47 U.S. Code § 230 (f)(2).

[David Nieporent]

Salesforce does not provide access to the Internet. An ISP does.

That is true. That is why Salesforce is not an ISP. But since § 230 is not about ISPs, that’s irrelevant.

Once again: you are very very very bad at parsing both the English language and legal statutes. § 230 does not say that it covers things that provide access to the internet. It says that it covers things that provide access to a computer server.

While Salesforce provides a service over the Internet, this service cannot be shoehorned into the definition of an Interactive Computer Service according to 47 U.S. Code § 230 (f)(2).

You're mistaken. I already explained several times above how it matches that definition exactly. It meets each of the elements of an access software provider, and provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server.

[Jonathan Affleck]

In 1996 the main uses of a personal computer in addition to accessing an on-line service/Internet on-ramp like AOL, Prodigy, or CompuServe consisted of word processing, spreadsheets, accounting software, and games, which are all highly interactive computer programs that run on on an interactive computer.

By 1996 everyone including a Congressman knew what the phrase "interactive computer" means.

[David Nieporent]

Again: WGAF?

1) The phrase "interactive computer" isn't even the one the statute uses — it's "interactive computer service."
2) The term means what the statute defines it to mean, not what "everyone" thinks it means.
3) All computers are interactive. Well, all functioning ones, anyway.

[Jonathan Affleck]

The phrase "interactive computer" modifies service in interactive computer service just as fax modifies service in fax service, cable modifies service in cable service, telephone modifies service in telephone service, "voice telephone" modifies service in voice telephone service, and "dry cleaning" modifies service in dry cleaning service. The list is countably many, and new members of the list are frequently created: gaming service, video editing service, streaming video service, on-line library service, etc. ad infinitum.

[David Nieporent]

The phrase “interactive computer” modifies service in interactive computer service

Your ability to parse the English language is even worse than your non-existent legal ability. The term "interactive" modifies "computer service."

But, again, and I can't emphasize this enough: the statute defines the three-word term "interactive computer service," so there is no basis for breaking that term down into constituent parts and guessing what the term means by looking at the separate meanings of those parts.

[Jonathan Affleck]

AOL and similar services were providing their services to a user's interactive computer throughout the country. If you user did not have an interactive computer that could run the provided access software, he could not avail himself of AOL service, Prodigy service, or Compuserve service. Such terminology was well known and understood in 1996.

Of course, we parse interactive computer service as service for an interactive computer. We don't parse the phrase as computer service for interactive. I suppose you could try to argue computer service that is interactive -- except AOL, etc. does not offer a computer service but does offer a network service.

[David Nieporent]

You're mistaken. But, again, and I can’t emphasize this enough: the statute defines the three-word term “interactive computer service,” so there is no basis for breaking that term down into constituent parts and guessing what the term means by looking at the separate meanings of those parts.

[bevis the lumberjack]

A question regarding rulemaking by executive branch agencies. This is not a criticism of Biden specifically - it's become a problem with all presidents in the age of a sharply divided Congress.

I didn't see it at the time but apparently at some point during his presidency Trump's Labor Department wrote a rule prohibiting pension fund managers from specifically doing ESG investing. That was bullshit, as although I'm not a fan of ESG investing because I think it limits returns I also understand that those managers are fiduciaries and are supposed to invest in whatever manner they choose to generate maximum returns. The government shouldn't be influencing that effort. Trump was just doing a virtue signal to his base. Stupid and potentially harmful.

Now Biden's Labor Department has written a rule that cancels the Trump rule, which is fine, and apparently at least gently encourages managers in the direction of ESG investing, which isn't good. They're simply applying unnecessary influence in the other direction.

Since neither rule was included in any law passed by Congress, I don't think that either president had legal authority to enforce those rules. Obviously they were done due to the assumption by those administrations that Congress had deferred that authority to them.

But here's the rub this time. Congress (both houses) has passed a law prohibiting Biden from enacting his rule, effectively saying that Congress has not, in fact, deferred that power to the executive branch. Biden has said he'd veto the law which is fine I guess, but it's meaningless. His veto does not change the message from Congress, which has explicitly said that he doesn't have Congress' power to make law in this circumstance.

So by what right does the administration go forward with this new rule? Seems they're pissing on the separation of powers. No?

[Commenter_XY]

Related question: Does Congress taking that vote to rescind that rule make any APA challenge stronger?

[Sarcastr0]

It does! Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer has a concurrence that lays this out really well:

"Cases in which the President was acting with express or implied authority from Congress
Cases in which Congress had thus far been silent, referred to as a "zone of twilight"
Cases in which the President was defying congressional orders (the "third category")"

It's a great case, an uncommonly clearly laid out rule in the concurrence and has some great history to it.

[Commenter_XY]

I'll have to read those cases, and learn something new. Thx for the cite.

[Kazinski]

I would hope everyone either has read Youngstown, or will read it.

Jackson's concurrence is one of the great opinions of the 20th century.

[Commenter_XY]

I read it this morning....kind of wordy writing style, but I could follow along.

[Sarcastr0]

Since neither rule was included in any law passed by Congress, I don’t think that either president had legal authority to enforce those rules.

The government has the ability to make contracts. The legislature has granted the authority to make contracts to the executive agencies in service of their individual missions, with broad discretion.

The specifics of that authority have been tweaked by the executive for *ages.* Oftentimes to great and efficient effect. Teddy Roosevelt headed a civil service commission that used executive authority to root out patronage jobs, for instance.

Congress (both houses) has passed a law prohibiting Biden from enacting his rule, effectively saying that Congress has not, in fact, deferred that power to the executive branch. Congress alone cannot pass laws, unless it overrode a veto. Maybe you mean a joint resolution?

[ducksalad]

Yeah. The issue here is that it only takes 50%+1 in Congress to give away power to the president, but 2/3 to get it back. And at least 1/3 of Congress at any given time would rather have the problem of a runaway executive branch than the solution.

[Sarcastr0]

Filibusters being a thing, it takes 2/3 of the Senate at least to give away power to the President. Beyond that, Congress knows and uses it's power to sunset authorities all the time.

That being said, I generally agree that the executive has too much power.
My theory of the cause is that the executive branch has fewer incentives and veto-traps preventing action. So it can take power merely by acting and relying on partisan paralysis/the incentive for legislators to keep their heads down to get away with it.

But even more than that, there is *popular appetite* for the government to act. And if the legislature absents itself, that pressure needs an out, and the executive is right there.

It's a devilish institutional incentive failure, and won't be solved until Congress breaks it's gridlock and starts acting again. Which I'm optimistic will happen as the generational guard changes.

[Frank Drackman]

Yeah, right, the leading DemoKKKrat candidate for 0-2024 is 80 years old (but acts 90!) Only "Changing" Senescent J does is his diapers.

[David Nieporent]

Filibusters being a thing, it takes 2/3 of the Senate at least to give away power to the President.

*3/5.

[Sarcastr0]

Aye.

[Kazinski]

'3/5' sounds like a dog whistle to me.

[EscherEnigma]

That issue is an explicit feature, not a bug, in the system.

[ReaderY]

Congress can’t “say” things without acting. If Congress doesn’t act, it’s said nothing. And a Presidential signature or a veto override is a constitutional part of Congress acting. If one of those does not occur, Congress has not acted and has said nothing.

What’s the separation of powers issue with a bill to overturn executive action dying by Presidential veto? There’s no more separation of powers issue than there is when a bill dies in committee, gets filibustered, or dies by any of the innumerable other parliamentary maneuvers by which a bill with majority support can get killed in Congress.

[bevis the lumberjack]

What gives Biden the right to approve and enforce his ESG rule if congress doesn’t delegate him the authority to do so, which congress just said it didn’t. Veto or not on this particular bill, congress is saying that there’s no gray area - they never gave him the authority.

Where does the authority come from?

Same question would have applied to trump and his unilateral transfer of funds to the border wall. They’re acting against the express will of congress.

[EscherEnigma]

You're worried about enforcement?

By your own admission, the new EO "at least gently encourages managers in the direction of ESG investing".

Before you're worried about if that is enforced, you need to figure out how it would be enforced.

[bevis the lumberjack]

No, I’m worried about rogue presidents who completely ignore the will of congress when it comes to making law.

And you didn’t cite an authority under which this can be deemed to be law.

[EscherEnigma]

And you didn’t cite an authority under which this can be deemed to be law.

Why would I cite an authority for a claim I’m not bothering to debate?

My point was pretty simple. Both of the following statements are yours:

apparently [the new Biden rule] at least gently encourages managers in the direction of ESG investing

What gives Biden the right to approve and enforce his ESG rule […]

You’re the one that included “enforce” in there, but by your own characterization of the rule, there’s nothing to enforce.

It’s… odd.

[David Nieporent]

which congress just said it didn’t.

As ReaderY correctly explained to you, Congress didn't say that. The houses of Congress approving a bill that does not become law isn't saying anything.

[bevis the lumberjack]

They absolutely are saying something. Biden’s veto means that Congress didn’t make a statement?

No, it doesn’t mean that. It means that the congressional statement doesn’t become law.

I’ll ask the question again that everyone keeps ignoring. It’s a simple one. What gives the administration the legal basis to make this law?

[David Nieporent]

What gives the administration the legal basis to make this law?

29 U.S.C. § 1135.

[ducksalad]

Let’s remember this the next time someone complains that the SC is thwarting the will of Congress by overturning a federal law. Under our system, the overturned law is no longer the law. Therefore, Congress has not spoken, because they can only speak through laws. And thus, the SC can not possibly be thwarting their will, which existed prior to the judgment but vaporized the instant it was released.

I suppose there could be a metaphysical mathematical discussion of whether there was an instantaneous moment in time at which a thwarting occured.

[ErichAnd]

Thoughts on the topic of a TikTok ban and the concerns expressed about free speech? (Full disclosure - I work for TikTok)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/03/02/resistance-tiktok-ban-is-growing-washington/

[Bob from Ohio]

No 1A right to post on a site controlled by a foreign government.

Please don't say the parent is just a corporation, no Chinese company is outside CCP control.

[EscherEnigma]

Look, any popular app that tracks your location is going to be a problem for the US Government when it's owned by a hostile foreign country. That's true whether we're talking about TikTok or Grindr.

[Michael Ejercito]

In this answer on Quora, I explain the true motivations of the spokesholes of the anti-gun cult.

https://www.quora.com/Some-gun-control-supporters-seem-to-have-animus-against-all-non-cop-gun-owners-instead-of-just-muggers-and-carjackers-and-gang-members-Why-It-doesnt-make-sense/answer/Michael-Ejercito

This is an important question to answer, and what it boils down to are the motivations of the rank-and-file in contrast with the motivation of the spokesholes.

The rank-and-file fear muggers and carjackers and gang members, just like you wrote. Sadly and tragically, for too many of these people, these fears have a compelling basis in reality.

But for these spokesholes you write about, it is about their political identity.

And their political identity tells them that the White male conservative is the enemy.

What does this have to do with gun control laws?

These people associate private gun ownership with the White male conservative. As such, gun control, to them, is a tool to hurt the White male conservative.

This is why they have far more animus against Kyle Rittenhouse than the McMichaels, or Nikolas Cruz, or Tookie Williams, or Brian Mitchell, or Bernie Madoff. That is why they support decarceration and defunding the police. that is why they accuse cops of hunting down and gunning down unarmed Black men. That is why they accuse the criminal justice system of being systermically racist. Adn this is why they support gun control laws even though they would be enforced by these very same police in this very same system.

But what do the motivations of the spokesholes matter? Why would their animus against White male conservatives matter regarding whether or not gun control laws will help reduce and punish urban violence, protect us from the mugger and the carjacker and the gang member?

The answer is that the rank-and-file are not the group from whom most of the campaign contributions come from.

It is the spokesholes.

The people who administer and enforce the law will listen more to the spokeshoples, for their money talk much louder than the rank-and-file.

And as such, we can expect these people to target the White male conservative, instead of the mugger and the carjacker and the gang member. That is whom their donors have animus against.

[Sarcastr0]

The true motivations!

Incredibly, it turns out to be about oppressing you, personally.

Never woulda guessed.

[Michael Ejercito]

I deduced it.

These same spokeholes accuse cops of habitaully hunting down and gunning down unarmed Black men.

These same spokesholes claim that the criminal justice system in America is systemically racist.

Amnd they argue for stricter gun control laws which, if these claims are true, would be enforced by these very same cops in this very same system.

The words "street thug" "crook" 'carjacker" "mugger" "gang" or "gangbanger" are never uttered nor written by these spokesholes. It is like those words do not even exist in their vocabulary.

To be sure, the rank-and-file gun control supporters and sympathizers are like the tenants mentioned in this article.

https://archive.is/mgil3

But the mothers who put their kids in bathtubs for fear of their lives are not the ones donating to anti-gun politicians.

[Ed Grinberg]

Well put.
John Derbyshire talks about this phenomenon (not necessarily in the gun-control context):
https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&as_q=&as_epq=cold+civil+war&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&lr=&cr=&as_qdr=all&as_sitesearch=www.johnderbyshire.com&as_occt=any&safe=images&as_filetype=&tbs=#ip=1

[Frank Drackman]

John Derbyshire? didn't he get the Scott Adams treatment a few years back when he advised

(10a) Avoid concentrations of blacks not all known to you personally.

(10b) Stay out of heavily black neighborhoods.

(10c) If planning a trip to a beach or amusement park at some date, find out whether it is likely to be swamped with blacks on that date (neglect of that one got me the closest I have ever gotten to death by gunshot).

(10d) Do not attend events likely to draw a lot of blacks.

(10e) If you are at some public event at which the number of blacks suddenly swells, leave as quickly as possible.

(10f) Do not settle in a district or municipality run by black politicians.

Frank

[OtisAH]

Yes, John Derbyshire also fell victim to human decency. But I’m happy to report he landed on his feet and now writes for the white supremacist organization VDARE.

Take that, human decency!

[Frank Drackman]

All for recommending measures as common sense (not common, unfortunately) as "Eat a balanced diet, Exercise regularly, Don't Smoke"

[OtisAH]

Yeah, that’s all he did. Which is why he landed at VDARE, the famous lifestyle and fashion blog. Stupid twat.

[OtisAH]

“These people associate private gun ownership with the White male conservative. As such, gun control, to them, is a tool to hurt the White male conservative.”

The connection people draw between firearms and white male conservatives is due to the fact that white male conservatives are the main group of people blocking almost literally every attempt to address the gun problem in this country.

And the poor, white male conservative who is “victimized” by the people screaming about their dead friends and family and wanting something done about it? That has nothing to do with gun control proponents, either. That is also the fault of the white male conservative. And not just their fault. It’s their kink, too.

[Michael Ejercito]

It is definitely not the White male conservative who accuses the police of habitually hunting down and gunning down unarmed Black men, who accuse the criminal justice system in America of being systemically racist- and then turn around and say that we need stricter gun control laws which would be enforced by these very same police under this very same system.

And the poor, white male conservative who is “victimized” by the people screaming about their dead friends and family and wanting something done about it?

What something?

Defunding the police?

Decarceration?

White male conservatives are not the ones pushing for those somethings.

[OtisAH]

No, it’s the white male conservative who sees unarmed black men gunned down by police and scramble to figure out how their deaths are their own fault. It’s the white male conservative who denies the existence of systemic racism in our justice system. It’s the white male conservative that refuses even benign control measures like training and storage requirements. It’s the white male conservative who does all these things and then whines their efforts are unpopular because “War on Whites.”

I know the point you think you’re making wrt racism in policing, Gun control laws, and the police enforcing those laws. It’s a stupid point and you should feel stupid.

But you’re correct, white male conservatives are not pushing for any measures that address any issue. They are blocking all of them. Which I also said.

[Michael Ejercito]

It is not a stupid point at all. if you disagree, explain why.

[Sarcastr0]

Your logic is this:

'these people do a thing that pisses me off. The only possible conclusion is that they are targeting me, personally.'

[OtisAH]

Because it’s the same stupid argument that holds “Oh, if you think the cops are so bad because they’re trigger-happy (primarily) around blacks, then you’d better not call them when your store is robbed.” It’s childish thought. It ignores the fact that the police are enforcement, not executioners, and are the only people to call. And worst? It betrays thinking that holds “If you ever think you’ll need police protection then you’d better keep your mouth shut about police violence and make sure you proudly post your local PBA sticker on your car.”

[SimonP]

I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but gosh if it wouldn't be nice if the VC could feature some commentary/analysis on various efforts in red state legislatures to regulate free speech. We seem to be moving very quickly from measures that are at least defensible under existing First Amendment jurisprudence to laws and proposed laws that seem to fly in the face of longstanding case law.

Things like: drag queen bans; banning the teaching of Critical Race Theory and queer studies in public and private universities; and prohibitions on providing information on obtaining legal abortions. There have also been a number of measures taking aim at academic freedom more broadly, as Keith has (at least) helpfully been tracking, which one would have assumed would cause a lot of deep concern around here.

Beyond that, red state legislatures are bending over backwards to find new ways to regulate private medical decisions, by banning gender-affirming care and the administration of vaccines. There's a whole lot of effort being poured into restricting freedom, so it's strange not to have an ongoing legal commentary about it.

Much as I like reading about anonymous litigants and sealed court records.

[Nige]

There are rafts of red state legislation aimed at trans folk, it's appalling.

[swood1000]

The website of Britain’s National Health Service previously said: “The effects of treatment with GnRH analogues [puberty blockers] are considered to be fully reversible, so treatment can usually be stopped at any time.” But in 2020, the NHS changed this entry to say that “little is known about the long-term side effects of hormone or puberty blockers in children with gender dysphoria.” Nevertheless, full steam ahead on testing these drugs on 12-year old minors, followed shortly thereafter by clearly irreversible cross-sex hormones. The downfall of Tavistock was the harbinger of what is to come.

"Every single child who was truly blocked at Tanner stage 2 (9 - 11 years old) has never experienced orgasm." — Marci Bowers trans-identified male, President of WPATH.

[Nige]

This is all bullshit and not an excuse for the opresssion of trans folk.

Puberty blockers have been in use for decades - we know as much about their effects as of every pretty much other hormonal treatment.

“Every single child who was truly blocked at Tanner stage 2 (9 – 11 years old) has never experienced orgasm.” Citation non-existant.

[Frank Drackman]

Every single child who was truly blocked at Tanner stage 2 (9 – 11 years old) has never experienced orgasm.”
A-men! and I went out with every single one of them (when they were legal age of course)

[swood1000]

Puberty blockers have been in use for decades – we know as much about their effects as of every pretty much other hormonal treatment.

Not for gender dysphoria. Otherwise, why did NHS England recently say that there was “scarce and inconclusive evidence to support clinical decision making” for minors with gender dysphoria and that for most who present before puberty it will be a “transient phase,” requiring clinicians to focus on psychological support and to be “mindful” even of the risks of social transition?

Why did Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare determine last year that the risks of puberty blockers and treatment with hormones “currently outweigh the possible benefits” for minors?

Why did Finland’s Council for Choices in Health Care issue similar guidelines, calling for psychosocial support as the first line treatment?

All transphobic? Nothing to see here?

“Every single child who was truly blocked at Tanner stage 2 (9 – 11 years old) has never experienced orgasm.” Citation non-existant.

Try this.

[Nige]

Um, yes, for gender dysphoria and yes even longer for other things, which just reinforces the fact that their effects are mostly known.

'All transphobic?'

Yes. Haven't you noticed the massive rise in transphobia, scaremongering about the kids and leading to removal of already difficult-to-access healthcare?

Did you just cite a fucking youtube link?

[swood1000]

Um, yes, for gender dysphoria

Right, UK, Sweden, Finland, and everybody else who disagrees with you is motivated by transphobia. Good luck with that. How do you answer the fact that administration of puberty blockers for gender dysphoria is off-label (the on-label use being precocious puberty)? Where are the testing trials for use with gender dysphoria?

Did you just cite a fucking youtube link?

From the horse’s mouth. Try a Google search that includes the words: Marci Bowers puberty blockers orgasm. One of the results will be a statement by Marci Bowers that her comments “were limited to transfeminine persons, not transmasculine,” and that future data on long term sexual function may yet prove her wrong.

[Nige]

If red states in the US are all out in a transphobic rage, why not other countries?

A google search, now? Jesus.

[swood1000]

A google search, now? Jesus.

Something about your protestations doesn’t quite ring true. Let me make it easy. Here you go. Of course, someone who rejects a video of the person saying the quoted words is not likely to accept an acknowledgment by the person in written form.

[Nige]

Jesus Christ what the fuck is that supposed to be?

[Michael Ejercito]

They have been used in cases of precocious puberty, not because someone feels like the opposite sex.

[Nige]

So what? They've been used, that's the point. They're as understood as most other hormone treatments.

[Michael Ejercito]

Tylenol has been used.

I would be highly skeptical, to write the least, if someone claimed it was a treatment for liver cancer.

[Nige]

So what? Your skepticism is irrelevant. It's not online randos offering the treatment, it's the medical establishment.

[Michael Ejercito]

So if one doctor prescribed ivermectin to treat COVID-19, it is suddenly okay?

[Nige]

Doctors DID prescribe it: it was a scam. But that's not what happened here. It's a recognised medical treatment for gender dysphoria. Ivermectin has never been recognised as a treatment for covid 19 and its selection as a miracle cure and culture war shiboleth was arbitrary. All of whch is a distraction from the fact that puberty blockers have been used for decades and are as safe as any hormone treatment can be, and whatever the side effects, the patients seem happy to put up with them.

[EscherEnigma]

Use and research of hormone therapy for trans people goes back to the 60s/70s.

Why do y'all assume that just because you weren't aware of something that means it's new?

[David Nieporent]

Puberty blockers have been in use for decades – we know as much about their effects as of every pretty much other hormonal treatment.

Puberty blockers have been in use for a specific purpose to treat a physical condition. That provides no more assurance about a different use for a different purpose than telling us that ivermectin has been in use for a long time and therefore it's fine to treat covid with it.

[Nige]

The side-effects of ivermectin are well-understood from its actual use, as are the side-effects of hormonal treatments, since that was the scaremongering question. It wasn't a bunch of internet culture warriors that latched onto them as a treatment for trans kids, it was actual clinical practice. That they really do help trans kids seems undeniable, not that anyone seems to actually fucking care.

[grb]

Nige : “There are rafts of red state legislation aimed at trans folk, it’s appalling.”

Kevin Drum had a post on the Left’s reaction to the anti-trans jihad, but provided statistics (as Drum does) on the latter’s extent. Over the last three years, anti-trans legislation grew from 19 to 362 bills.

Of course this is what you see with today’s Right. They pick an issue that’s either tiny (the number of people identifying as trans) or non-existent altogether (CRT in public school systems). Then they stoke the zombie faithful into frenzied hysteria, shower the country with bills to confront a made-up problem, and try to reap political gain from the resulting chaos. They seem to prefer issues that aren’t real, the more unsubstantial the better. To my eye, it’s the same reason pro-wrestling is obviously fake. If you’re just trying to put on a rousing show, why bother with anything beyond cartoon theater?

Of course real people get caught in the crosshairs, but that doesn’t seem to bother the average right-type as he consumes his politics-cum-entertainment. Viewing pleasure always comes first.

https://jabberwocking.com/the-progressive-trans-war-is-reaching-a-fever-pitch/

[Nige]

It's what you do when you can't or don't want to fix anything real.

[ragebot]

There is a difference between banning teaching CRT/whatever and not spending tax dollars to have it taught. I am unaware of any ban on private universities (or other schools) being prohibited from teaching CRT/whatever. On the other hand this link shows what happens when a private school takes an unpopular stand.

https://notthebee.com/article/a-christian-school-in-missouri-is-closing-down-after-it-decided-to-fully-embrace-the-lgbt-rainbow-agenda/

[grb]

ragebot: “I am unaware of any ban on private universities (or other schools) being prohibited from teaching CRT/whatever.”

“The bill, which was passed by the Florida Legislature in March, bans educators from teaching students critical race theory, the concept that “one race, color, national origin, or sex are morally superior to members of another race, color, national origin, or sex” and that “a person, by virtue of his or her race, color, national origin, or sex is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.”

If you’ve got a strong stomach for semi-fascist stunts, follow the link. DeSantis has hoards of cute little kiddies holding up anti-CRT signs. Some dark-skinned children are included for that just-so contrast. Four points :

1. No one is teaching CRT in public schools; it’s a rarified university level theory. So “CRT” is a stand-in for any teaching on race the Right doesn’t like, which is all teaching on race.

2. CRT doesn’t teach that “one race, color, national origin, or sex are morally superior to members of another race, color, national origin, or sex” That’s just Right-wing masturbatory fantasy.

3. And what the hell does “a person, by virtue of his or her race, color, national origin, or sex is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.” mean? I doubt there’s a person on earth completely free of racial preconceptions, myself included. And no society has every been completely free of bias. Are those the facts DeSantis is banning? You tell me.

4. Florida also banned instruction from Florida schools that cause any individual to “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any form of psychological distress.” for actions “committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, sex or national origin.” Is that vague enough for you? Snowflake enough for you? Again, it’s just an open-ended mechanical to ensure right-wing control over any and all teaching that touches race. Which they don't want.

https://www.wptv.com/news/education/floridas-governor-to-sign-critical-race-theory-education-bill-into-law

[ducksalad]

You’ve omitted words from the bill and then used your misquote to claim it bans something it doesn’t.

The bill text is here: https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/7/BillText/er/PDF

For example, the law does not ban causing any individual to feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, etc. You made that up. What is does ban is making a belief that others should feel them, a condition of employment, certification, licensing, examination, etc.

Do you think such beliefs should be a condition for employment?

I suppose your next step is to say the text doesn’t matter, because the law is really written in secret racist code, and DAs will be secretly enforcing the secret version distributed to them secretly.
No doubt the law also takes away grandma's social security check.

[grb]

Did you even open up your own damn link? Go to Section 1, Item 7: There we find that no one can be “compelled” to:

“feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress because of actions, in which the individual played no part, committed in the past by other members of the same race, sex, or national origin”

Compelled, huh? And guess what: This snowflake heaven goes well beyond a “condition of employment” per your disingenuous weaseling. It also includes (Section 1) ” training, instruction, or any other required activity that espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels any of the following concepts…”

I quoted Number Seven just to prove you’re full of shit – but there are actually eight altogether, and every one is a snowflake beauty. Section 2 then repeats the entire litany for school kiddies, with the same proviso that they be spared from “guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress”

Somehow you missed that ENTIRE SECTION! I’m guessing the handler who tells you want to think left you misinformed. Thus I’ve provided you a corrective service.

You’re welcome.

[ducksalad]

This is great!

You know you're making stuff up, but doubling down in the knowledge that most people won't click through.

I was referring specifically and exactly to the Section you are intentionally misquoting. You are omitting the entire header that states specifically that the following is a list of beliefs that cannot be made a condition of employment.

Normally I'd say it was sloppy reading but after the double down it's clear you're just doing shameless gaslighting.

[grb]

Try reading comprehension, willya? As I noted above, the EXACT SAME wording on “guilt, anguish, etc” was recycled in it’s entirety for school instruction: Newsflash, Sherlock: School instruction doesn’t have dick to do with the “condition of employment” which you claimed was the sole focus of the bill. Indeed, it was the schools I referred to in my initial comment above. You claimed I was lying, which is a standard tactic habitual liars use.

Give it up. Everything you said above was wrong and you won’t change that no matter how frantically you weasel. All the stuff about “guilt and anguish” you said wasn’t in the bill is there in plain slight – in multiple locations, no less. The limited focus on “condition of employment” you claimed? Not even close to being true. I don’t like being accused of lying by a liar. Man-up and admit you were wrong.

[ducksalad]

I think you're having trouble reading both the bill, as well as my comments. I don't deny that words like "guilt" are there, just pointing out that you're utterly wrong about what the law bans.

You make plenty of civil and entertaining posts here. What happened to you on this issue?

[grb]

Sigh. In my defense, I still can’t determine what the hell your point is. I note the bill says students can’t have their feelings hurt. Your reply is (a) the bill doesn’t depend on feelings, and (b) the bill is about “condition(s) of employment, certification, licensing, examination, etc”

Your second point is 100% wrong, since you ignore that part of the bill which concerns education – which happens to be exactly what I referenced in the comment you responded to.

Your first point is 100% incoherent. Here’s you : “What it does ban is making a belief that others should feel them a condition of employment….” You seem to think that rhetorical workaround makes this about something other than people’s butthurt feelings. But unless there are companies demanding a signed pledge of guilt & anguish, no. You’re right back to the same ambiguous mess: Anybody that feels any official act is “hurtful” in any right-wing way must have address. Whenever the Left have proposed Snowflake Laws like this, they’ve been ridiculed and scorned. And those laws were nowhere near so clumsy as this fiasco.

And that’s limiting the debate to your ground of employment, not the much larger problem of education you refused to acknowledge or address.

[Brett Bellmore]

“I note the bill says students can’t have their feelings hurt.”

That’s precisely the problem. You keep ‘noting’ something that isn’t true.

It’s prohibited, among other things, to teach THAT

“7. An individual, by virtue of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin, bears personal responsibility for and must feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress because of actions, in which the individual played no part, committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, sex, or national origin.”

The bill does NOT say students can’t have their feelings hurt. It says they can’t be taught that their feelings SHOULD hurt. If you teach them about historical events they didn’t personally play any part in, and they’re stupid enough to feel bad about something somebody else did, that’s not on you. If you teach them that they SHOULD feel bad about something somebody else did, that IS on you.

This is such a basic point about the bill that it’s infuriating that you keep getting it wrong. If I teach some black kid about the role that African tribes played in the slave trade, and they end up feeling awful about it, under this law that’s their problem. If I teach them that they should personally feel awful about it, I’m violating this law.

It doesn’t hinge on how they end up feeling, it hinges on what you’re teaching them about what they SHOULD feel.

[Nige]

It’s so fucking stupid.

‘The bill does NOT say students can’t have their feelings hurt. It says they can’t be taught that their feelings SHOULD hurt.’

So you can teach them about bad things but you can’t teach them that they should feel that those things are bad. You're not allowed to teach them that they ought to feel sad about, say, the Holocaust.

This whole thing is built out of the gaping insecurity and resentment some white people feel about the fact that so much of US history involves white people being evil, usually, but not exclusively, to black people.

[Brett Bellmore]

"So you can teach them about bad things but you can’t teach them that they should feel that those things are bad. "

Do you really want to underscore that you can't understand written English like this? Is English maybe your second language, and you don't grasp the subtle difference between "thinking slavery was bad" and "feeling guilty about slavery"?

All sorts of evil crap has happened throughout history. I don't feel guilty about any of it, because I didn't do any of it.

If you were a Florida public school teacher, and during class you tried to convince me that slavery was evil? You're fine, have at it. If you try to convince me that slavery means I'm a bad person who should wallow in their guilt?

That latter would violate this law.

[ragebot]

“The bill, which was passed by the Florida Legislature in March, bans educators from teaching students..."

“The bill, which was passed by the Florida Legislature in March, bans educators PAID BY TAX PAYER DOLLARS FROM FLORIDA TAXPAYERS from teaching students..."

Hey fucktard fixed that for you.

[Nige]

Yeah, you think you've made it ok with a magic spell.

[ragebot]

You still don't get the point that taxpayers get pissed off when they see the government spend dollars on things they don't like. The bill does not say you can not teach CRT/other shit, it just says you can't do it on the tax payers dime.

[Sarcastr0]

First, this isn't taxpayers.

Second, even if this was like a referendum, you don't get to argue something is good policy just because taxpayers want it. That's a fallacy. Taxpayers can like bad shit.

The bill does not say you can not teach CRT/other shit, it just says you can’t do it on the tax payers dime.
Since all schools accept grants and what not, this is a distinction without a difference.

[Nige]

Banning something from public education is still a ban. This isn’t difficult.

And since CRT isn't even being taught in public schools, what's being banned will be anything that can be labeled CRT.

[OtisAH]

That’s quite useful when you have a specific goal in mind and you do not know or care what “CRT” actually is.

[swood1000]

And since CRT isn’t even being taught in public schools, what’s being banned will be anything that can be labeled CRT.

You must have missed New Business Item 39, passed at the 2021 annual meeting of the National Education Association:

The NEA will, with guidance on implementation from the NEA president and chairs of the Ethnic Minority Affairs Caucuses:

A. Share and publicize, through existing channels, information already available on critical race theory (CRT) -- what it is and what it is not; have a team of staffers for members who want to learn more and fight back against anti-CRT rhetoric; and share information with other NEA members as well as their community members. …

C. …The Association will further convey that in teaching these topics, it is reasonable and appropriate for curriculum to be informed by academic frameworks for understanding and interpreting the impact of the past on current society, including critical race theory.

[Sarcastr0]

Wonder why they used 'these topics' not, you know, 'CRT' or 'this theory.'

Oh, I see, it's hidden in your elipses:
"Publicly (through existing media) convey its support for the accurate and honest teaching of social studies topics, including truthful and age-appropriate accountings of unpleasant aspects of American history, such as slavery, and the oppression and discrimination of Indigenous, Black, Brown, and other peoples of color, as well as the continued impact this history has on our current society.
The Association will further convey that in teaching these topics...'

Not CRT, and basically a lie by omission on your part to imply that it was.
Badly done, Swood.

[David Nieporent]

More importantly, the NEA is not the government. It doesn't enact curriculums or have any say in what is taught.

[swood1000]

Not CRT, and basically a lie by omission on your part to imply that it was.
Badly done, Swood.

The Association will further convey that in teaching these topics, it is reasonable and appropriate for curriculum to be informed by academic frameworks for understanding and interpreting the impact of the past on current society, including critical race theory.

How do you get “not CRT” out of “including critical race theory”?

[swood1000]

More importantly, the NEA is not the government. It doesn’t enact curriculums or have any say in what is taught.

So, your position is that teachers have little to say about what is taught in the classroom?

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

No, his position is that the NEA doesn't. That's why he wrote "NEA", not "teachers."

[swood1000]

No, his position is that the NEA doesn’t. That’s why he wrote “NEA”, not “teachers.”

So, his position is that the activities and positions of the NEA have little to do with what teachers think should be taught in the classroom?

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

I don't know. But what he wrote was that "It doesn’t enact curriculums or have any say in what is taught."

[Nige]

What the fuck does the NEA have to do with anything?

[Ed Grinberg]

Let's take these seriatim:

"drag queen bans"
Cross-dressers gyrating in front small children is not what I'd call "free speech." (And if the Supreme Court says otherwise, shame on them!)

"banning the teaching of Critical Race Theory and queer studies in public and private universities"
The government ought to be able to decide what gets taught in its colleges & universities. (Though, for the record, I'd prefer to see such colleges & universities shut down. Running colleges & universities is not a proper function of government.)
As to private colleges & universities:
I guess with CRT the idea is that it encourages / incites violence against whites. So, a ban on teaching it would be akin to a ban on teaching the Nazi race theory. But I'm pretty sure either of such bans (anti-CRT or anti-Nazi) would be struck down. I (grudgingly) support the striking down of such laws. If we're going to have free speech, let's have free speech. Let them study Mein Kampf, and The Communist Manifesto, and whatever the "major texts" of CRT are.
I don't know why any Republican legislator would care about the teaching of "queer studies" in private colleges & universities. I say: let them! Consenting adults all around; no harm to anyone but the students' brains.

"prohibitions on providing information on obtaining legal abortions"
I guess the idea is: if we are going to make abortion a crime, we should also criminalize acts / speech that "facilitate" it. I know that in other contexts, crime-facilitating speech is criminalized. How far would I take this approach in this context? I am now sure.

"academic freedom more broadly"
https://reason.com/volokh/2023/02/28/what-is-at-stake-in-florida-higher-ed-reform-bill/?comments=true#comment-9945934

[Nige]

'Cross-dressers gyrating in front small children is not what I’d call “free speech.”'

And yet it's Republican politicians and Christian pastors who keep getting arrested for child abuse.

'I guess with CRT the idea is that it encourages / incites violence against whites.'

That's the Big Lie.

[Ed Grinberg]

Beyond that, red state legislatures are bending over backwards to find new ways to regulate private medical decisions, by banning gender-affirming care and the administration of vaccines. There’s a whole lot of effort being poured into restricting freedom, so it’s strange not to have an ongoing legal commentary about it.

1. If the person seeking "gender-affirming care" is an adult, I'd say: let them. But I suspect that the laws you're talking about are actually about minors. There are all kinds of things minors are prevented from doing to themselves (even if they think they really want to).
2. I must've missed you comments decrying laws passed in Democrat-controlled states that prohibit this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_therapy
Pretty freedom-restricting, no?

[Nige]

1. A minor being a minor is not grounds for refusing them healthcare - that's fucking stupid and barbaric.
2. Conversion therapy is child abuse; it's certainly not an actual medically recognised form of therapy, unlike gender-affirming care. It's up there with child marriage as a hallmark of conservative attitudes to children.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Helping a kid who does not wish to be not be gay with compassionate therapy = child abuse

Giving 8 year olds chemical castration drugs ans chopping off their tits = civilized and caring

You Chicoms are genuinely evil.

[Nige]

Pretty much, yeah.

Thing you've made up: fucking idiocy.

The Chinese are coming for your gonads, BCD.

[grb]

The real question is how mentally ill they are. The entire Right has worked itself into a spittle-spraying frenzy over the miniscule group of people who are trans. They can’t focus on any topic except trans people. Any discussion seems to veneer off into unhinged rants on trans people. Their brains are worm-ridden and chewed to bits at the very thought of trans people. I realize that’s what they’ve been told to think by handlers above who see them as fools, but how can anyone be that big a dupe? You can’t be manipulated into such a bizarre obsession without being twisted in the head first.

There are a tiny group of people who are trans. I see no reason not to treat them with the same courtesy & dignity I do anybody else. That just seems obvious to me. But I’m not a whack-job freak like BravoCharlieDelta. Or one-tenth so easy to manipulate…

[Nige]

It's a wedge - it'll be the rest of the LGTBQ next, BCD already has the script.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Or one-tenth so easy to manipulate…

says the NPC sheep who bleats out whatever narrative or trope the State wants him too.

lmao good grief.

[Nige]

This is your brain on right-wing memes.

[grb]

BravoCharlieDelta : “…good grief…”

Good grief, indeed. Not that far back you were hysterical about CRT in the public schools. Of course there is no CRT in the public schools, but that didn’t matter a bit. Your handler hooked a finger in your nose, dragged you to a certain spot, and instructed you to feel panic, fear and rage.

And – ever the obedient boy – you did. You shrieked & wailed over something that didn’t even exist. Now, your handler has hooked a finger in your nose, dragged you to a different spot, and told you to experience raging emotions over trans people. Over the tiny number of folk who are trans! And here we are; you're the same easily manipulated chump as always.

Don’t you ever get tired of being a bit player in a brainless mob? I would see that as the first step in recovering some self-respect.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

https://reason.com/2021/07/06/critical-race-theory-nea-taught-in-schools/

lmao the State forgot to update your NPC script

[Sarcastr0]

Read above - swood just got wrecked for trying to post about that utter nonsense.

[swood1000]

Things like: drag queen bans

There is an interesting paper on Drag Queen Story Hour (DQSH): Drag pedagogy: The playful practice of queer imagination in early childhood.

We propose that DQSH offers a particular kind of queer framework – what we call drag pedagogy – for teaching and learning that extends beyond traditional approaches to LGBT curricular inclusion. The themes within drag pedagogy, applicable beyond the context of drag itself, move away from vocabulary lessons and the token inclusion of LGBT heroes to begin to engage deeper understandings of queer cultures and envision new modes of being together. We emphasize that drag pedagogy resists didactic instruction and is not prescriptive. Instead, it artfully invites children into building communities that are more hospitable to queer knowledge and experience. …

Ultimately, we suggest that drag pedagogy offers one model for learning not simply about queer lives, but how to live queerly. …

Building in part from queer theory and trans studies, queer and trans pedagogies seek to actively destabilize the normative function of schooling through transformative education. …

Drag pedagogy brings a sense of queerness more robustly into the classroom, not merely by teaching about Harvey Milk or Sylvia Rivera, but through an embodied and affective process. …

This approach can support students in finding the unique or queer aspects of themselves – rather than attempting to understand what it’s like to be LGBT.

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

ON MY MIND: COVID TIMING

The Chinese government unleashed the virus on us in order to prevent the opera houses in Europe and USA and South America from staging Puccini’s last opera, Turandot (if you are familiar with the aria “Nessun dorma”, that’s from Turandot) because it is set in Peking (Pekino) and depicts the Chinese people as brutal savages ruled by a sadistic tyrant. Turandot had become trendy again (the opera world is very faddish) and numerous opera houses, great (La Scala, the Met, Chicago Lyric Opera, West Bay Opera in Palo Alto) and small (Regina Opera in Brooklyn) were getting ready to do it. The current government of China – Xi – couldn’t stand for that.

Now that the pandemic has more or less resolved (not just temporarily, we hope) the companies are doing operas by Puccini, but, notably, not Turandot. They’re doing La bohème and Il Trittico. So the Chinese strategy seems to have worked.

[not guilty]

Is the Republican sponsor of this Florida bill merely saying the quiet part out loud?

https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/1248/BillText/Filed/HTML

[SRG]

Performative bullshit.

I note that Ingoglia voted against removing a statue of a Confederate general.
https://mcimaps.com/a-trip-through-history-on-the-florida-republicans-who-voted-to-keep-a-confederate-general-statue-in-the-capital/

[Commenter_XY]

not guilty, I literally laughed out loud reading the text. The Ultimate Cancel Act? It has to be parody. I mean, yes it is a filed bill. But no, not constitutional (right??? Please tell me that there no way in hell this law could possibly be constitutional!) so no chance of becoming an enforceable law.

The debate would be hilarious. The bad news is that the cancelled political party would have to come up with a totally new name, that cannot resemble the old name in any way. The good news is whatever party gets cancelled, they have until July 1 to pick a new name. 🙂

That representative clearly has a lot of time on their hands. Constituents need help. Maybe spend less time drafting creative bills and more time directly helping constituents, is what I would tell the FL state senator.

[not guilty]

You are exactly right. There no way in hell this law could possibly be constitutional.

I don't know, however, whether that matters to the Florida legislature, and it damn sure doesn't matter to the governor.

[Commenter_XY]

I just want to say, it was hilarious (your cite of the bill); it was a rough day yesterday and I needed the laugh.

[ragebot]

In the US only Texas which is a much larger state has more counties than Georgia. As a rule local school systems are at the county level and in several places even more government services have been moved from the city to county level (Jacksonville is a good example). So what happens when a city like Atlanta has 29 counties in it's boundaries and a place like Buckhead which has maybe 25% of the population but provides 40% of the tax revenue wants to figuratively get out of Dodge. Back in the day the term 'white flight' was used to describe richer (and whiter) peeps moving outside the city limits to get away from darker (and poorer) peeps. It seems like Buckhead has been suffering from an increase in crime from citizens from the poorer areas of Atlanta intruding into this mostly white enclave and wants to jump ship. Last time around the legislature declined to advance a bill allowing this but it seems like this year the legislature will vote on it. While it would be easy to say the usual suspects are lined up for both sides it seems like Gov. Kemp is against it along with the dems in Atlanta. Time to break out the popcorn.

https://apnews.com/article/georgia-state-government-atlanta-0907302004968e1f77676dd4d810f46f

[Finbar Sheehy]

The NIH is reportedly conditioning employment offers on proof of viewpoint (see today's WSJ article by John Sailer). Viewpoint is not entirely irrelevant to the jobs in question.

Discuss, with particular reference to a) the First Amendment and b) standing.

[maleemi]

I see DOJ allowed a civil suit by Capitol Police against DJT to move forward. Why would a sitting POTUS not be entitled to qualified immunity?

QI is confusing and you guys are smart.

[not guilty]

It appears that Trump on appeal urged only absolute immunity from suit for damages, not qualified immunity. That does not preclude him from asserting qualified immunity at the summary judgment stage.

[EscherEnigma]

"I didn't know it was unconstitutional to incite a riot for the specific purpose of interrupting the electoral college!"

I mean, I know that'll sell well 'round these parts, but I'm not sure that's the winning line in the rest of America.

[not guilty]

I'm not so sure. Qualified immunity is an abomination, created from whole judicial cloth. Trump may ultimately skate in the damages suit.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, I think the winning line is that he simply did not, as an objective matter, incite a riot. For any purpose.

[Dan Schiavetta]

If, 10 years ago, a hypothetical was posed with fictitious names, as to what was said at that rally, and what was done afterward — once everyone got done laughing, because it would be a ridiculous scenario, given that it had never happened before and no one believed it would ever happen, but let’s just say that in 2013 such a hypo was presented — you would response that absolutely a riot was incited. So would every Republican in office today.

[Brett Bellmore]

Oh, absolutely a riot happened, and I suppose you could say, metaphorically, that it was "incited", but Trump did not, by any extant legal standard, incite that riot. The things he said that contributed to it were too far before it to qualify as incitement, and the things he said that day could not have incited it because it was pre-planned, and because it had begun well before he said them.

He is simply, by any legal standard, innocent of "incitement".

If you want to legally nail him for that riot, you need to prove, not incitement, but that he was part of a conspiracy, that he ordered it. I expect that if the Democrats had any evidence to that effect, they'd have long since produced it.

[Dan Schiavetta]

We still don't know what calls were made during that mysterious two-hour period that afternoon.

[Brett Bellmore]

You're still holding out hope for secret evidence that proves him guilty. But while WE don't know what calls were made, you can be pretty damn sure that if they had any evidence incriminating Trump, they'd have deployed it already. Ahab would not hesitate in throwing that harpoon if he had his white whale in range.

[not guilty]

"If you want to legally nail him for that riot, you need to prove, not incitement, but that he was part of a conspiracy, that he ordered it."

Uh, Brett, this is a civil conspiracy case.

The litigation before the D.C. Circuit is a collateral order appeal from Judge Mehta's order denying Donald Trump's motion to dismiss the complaint based on Trump's assertion of absolute immunity. That District Court order at page 4 summarized the Plaintiffs' theory of relief:

Plaintiffs all contend that they are victims of a conspiracy prohibited by § 1985(1). They claim that, before and on January 6th, Defendants conspired to prevent members of Congress, by force, intimidation, and threats, from discharging their duties in connection with the Certification of the Electoral College and to prevent President-elect Joseph R. Biden and Vice President–elect Kamala D. Harris from accepting or holding their offices. More specifically, they allege that, before January 6th, President Trump and his allies purposely sowed seeds of doubt about the validity of the presidential election and promoted or condoned acts of violence by the President’s followers, all as part of a scheme to overturn the November 2020 presidential election. Those efforts culminated on January 6th, when the President’s supporters, including organized militia groups and others, attacked the Capitol building while Congress was in a Joint Session to certify the Electoral College votes. Notably, Plaintiffs allege that President Trump’s January 6 Rally Speech incited his supporters to commit imminent acts of violence and lawlessness at the Capitol. Plaintiffs all claim that they were physically or emotionally injured, or both, by the acts of the conspirators.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21264723-66-ruling-2-18-22-thompson-v-trump-opinion

In order to prove Trump's liability for conspiracy, the plaintiffs need not show that Trump ordered the attack on the Capitol. Each conspirator is vicariously liable for the acts of other conspirators.

A civil conspiracy is defined as an agreement between two or more people to participate in an unlawful act or a lawful act in an unlawful manner. An express agreement among all conspirators is not necessary. A plaintiff need not prove that each participant in a conspiracy knew the exact limits of the illegal plan or the identity of all participants therein. The conspirators must share the general conspiratorial objective, but they need not know all the details of the plan or possess the same motives. Thus, to demonstrate the existence of a conspiratorial agreement, it simply must be shown that there was a single plan, the essential nature and general scope of which were known to each person who is to be held responsible for its consequences. To make the conspiracy actionable, there must also be an overt act in furtherance of the object of the conspiracy that injures plaintiff in his person or property. Hobson v. Wilson, 737 F.2d 1, 51-52 (D.C. Cir. 1984). Proof of a tacit, as opposed to explicit, understanding is sufficient to show agreement. Halberstam v. Welch, 705 F.2d 472 (D.C. Cir. 1983).

The instant conspiracy alleged is that the defendants agreed to prevent by force, intimidation or threat the Congressional plaintiffs from discharging their duties in certifying the results of the presidential election, and the President-elect and the Vice President-elect from accepting or holding their offices. (District Court opinion, p. 63.)

[Brett Bellmore]

You still need to prove that Trump was in cahoots with the people who conspired to break into the Capitol, which amounts to the same thing. And I'm saying that if any evidence of that existed, we'd have seen it by now.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Can DJT file a countersuit?

[not guilty]

What tort(s) did the plaintiffs arguably commit against Donald Trump? Please be specific.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Massive defamation developments being discussed, but Prof. Volokh and the other Conspirators seem disinclined to find them interesting enough to blog about.

Carry on, clingers.

[not guilty]

The Department of Justice as amicus curiae has submitted a brief in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals urging that Donald Trump is not entitled to absolute immunity from suit for damages by several members of the House of Representatives and two Capitol police officers for his address to the crowd on January 6, 2021. The brief states at page 29:

Given the way the parties have framed their arguments in this Court, the United States respectfully submits that the Court could resolve this appeal by rejecting the former President’s categorical position and holding that a President’s speech on a matter of public concern is not protected by absolute immunity if it constitutes incitement to imminent private violence—as the parties have effectively assumed was true here for purposes of this appeal.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cadc.38510/gov.uscourts.cadc.38510.1218497852.0_3.pdf

Makes sense to me.

[Brett Bellmore]

Doesn't, of course, mean he's in any way guilty. Though I doubt he fancies his chances with a DC jury.

[ducksalad]

As a general principle, sure, no absolute immunity.

These particular people having a case for damages seems like a stretch.

[not guilty]

"These particular people having a case for damages seems like a stretch."

That's why we empanel juries.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

The Democrat Pentagon lists diversity and inclusion as a strategic objective and declares "climate change" to be of equal priority as the threats from China and Russia.

Is this what happened to Rome? The most incompetent and stupid people rose to control the levers pf power? I mean is there anything sadder amd more pathetic than the Democrat military? That can't win a war and they're reduced to recruiting queers, trannies, illegals, and fatties.

[Nige]

Yeah, in Rome there were probably plenty of people who denied that all the lead pipes were a problem.

[SRG]

The alternative lead hypothesis is that the Romans would boil soured wine in lead pans. The vinegar would react with the lead to form lead acetate, known as sugar of lead, because it's sweet, and so the wine was now drinkable. (There is an urban legend that the purpose of lead in lead crystal glasses was to react with wine to make a more drinkable product.)

FWIW according to Gibbon, the point at which Rome went into decline was when the Praetorian guard changed its large heavy shields for smaller and lighter shields.

[Dan Schiavetta]

I was under the impression that Gibbon blamed the rise of Christianity, which sapped Rome’s fighting spirit and diverted it into internecine conflicts over religious doctrine.

(Not that Gibbon holds much sway with modern scholars, who have better sources of information than he had.)

I highly recommend a short but very well written book called "The Myth of Rome's Fall", by Richard Masefield Haywood.

[SRG]

I don't think one should read Gibbon for the last word in historical reliability, certainly, but he's a damn good read, and much wittier than modern historians are inclined to be, IMO (admittedly, based on a relatively modest sample).

[Dr. Ed 2]

Nige, lead water pipes were used up through the 1970s — if you were building on swampy land (which you could back then) you used solid lead pipes because they would bend (instead of breaking ) as your development literally went up & down with the water table. Quality plumbing through much of the 20th Century involved lead-lined iron pipes, many of which are *still* in use.

Back before water conservation, when a toilet took 5-6 gallons to flush and showerheads weren’t restricted, this wasn’t an issue unless your water was particularly acidic. Brass had lead in it, as did the soder used to join copper tubing. It wasn't until we started conserving water that it remained in the pipes long enough for lead to be an issue.

What got the Romans was storing ACIDIC wine in lead containers, and then using lead acitate(?) as a sweetener. Remember that lead has a sweet taste, that’s why children eat paint chips.

[Nige]

Yeah, I know it's just one theory, and a minor one at that, it's just that if some Roman could produce evidence that drinking water from lead pipes causes people to get stupider, it would probably be rightly viewed as a fairly big crisis. Or perhaps it would be ignored, but that wouldn't make the problem go away.

[Brett Bellmore]

Drinking water from lead pipes is actually fairly safe so long as it's hard water; The lead doesn't dissolve, instead the pipes end up lined with mineral deposits.

What got Flint, Michigan is that when Flint joined a group of cities collaborating on a new water distribution system to avoid Detroit's notorious jacking up of rates, Detroit cut them off. So they activated a fallback system taking water direct from one of the Great Lakes. Which water was soft.

The unqualified people running the Flint system were unaware that they needed to activate a system to bring up the hardness to safe levels, so the soft water first dissolved that protective mineral layer, and then started dissolving the lead.

Didn't help one bit that, when the EPA figured out what was going on, they were in no hurry to warn people. But there was plenty of blame to go around.

[John F. Carr]

I have read that acidity is also important, and a water system might adjust the pH up to avoid dissolving lead out of lead pipes.

[Nige]

Not sure the Romans were aware of the distinction?

[Brett Bellmore]

No, actually I'm pretty sure they weren't.

[grb]

BravoCharlieDelta : Is this what happened to Rome?

Always an interesting question, but do you mean the Republic or the Empire? I don’t have strong opinions on the latter – lead pipes, orgies, or general enfeeblement – any one will do. My greater sense is it petered-out slowly after most of the power and wealth moved to Constantinople.

But the Republic! That’s an issue I’m really into. And there seems to be a division among historians in how to apportion blame between Caesar, Pompeius Magnus, and the Senate’s obstinate oligarchs.

I discount Pompey right off the bat, because his ham-fisted bungling was more reactive than anything else, though the poor dear obviously thought he was being clever every step of the way.

That leaves the real villains, the boni or “good men” in the Senate. Obviously, they didn’t think they were pulling the entire house of cards down around their head over their seething hatred of Caesar, but that was the result. Perhaps Caesar should get some blame for cuckolding so many of them, but he seemed to have lacked much self-control in that direction.

On things for certain: The most overrated figure in history? No contest: Cato the Younger. The man pretty much failed at everything, usually producing the exact opposite result of his intention. That included saving the Republic since he more than anyone destroyed it.

However he did invent Branding, 2-1/2 centuries before the first Kardashian, so there’s that.

[grb]

(Centuries? …. Yikes! I meant millennia. Can we add an extra ten minutes to the edit function?)

[Dan Schiavetta]

Rome’s conquests had grown so much that individual Senators had been corrupted by opportunities for plunder. And possibly no entity in those days so large could have been ruled democratically, given the immense time it took to travel from one place to another. A Senator presented with an issue would, if he represented Mesopotamia, have to spend a month getting to his constituents, a few weeks getting their sense of the issue, then a month getting back to Rome to vote.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Rome’s conquests had grown so much that individual Senators had been corrupted by opportunities for plunder."

So, not so different from the US, except that the plunder is internal in our case.

[Sarcastr0]

If you think the US Republic is about to crumble, you should be leaving. But you don't really, you're just sour about your ideas being unpopular, so you're pretending it's an existential crisis.

[grb]

One thing that doomed the Republic was the Senate’s egalitarianism. Granted, it was an egalitarianism of elite oligarchs, but it was enforced all the same. There was a pecking order of status or wealth, but no one was supposed to stand head-above the others. In exchange, you where permitted any degree of bungling or corruption in the provinces and your fellow Senators would have your back.

But the demands of a far-flung empire brought people to the fore who were a definite head-above the other crusty tradition-bound Senators. Their response to men like Marius, Sulla, Pompey and Caesar was almost perversely self-destructive. They tended to poke and harass them in ways both large and petty, determined to put them in their place. The result with all except Pompey was ruinous civil war. Magnus was the exception because he was an outsider who really wanted in the club.

Of course the Senators' contempt for the common people was a whole other factor. They would refuse to give up the slightest concession from pride alone until forced by violence. The ugly war over the Italian vote is a prime example of that.

[Frank Drackman]

they've been cutting off dicks/balls tits for several years now at Military Hospitals (Fort Bragg, Oh, I'm Sorry, Fort Floyd George, or whatever it's gonna be called, for one)
Let your typical Not John Murtha (didn't end up to well for him) or Stuttering John Fetterman Vet try to get treated at an Active Duty hospital, but they've got resources to cut off dicks/balls/tits

John Murtha was first hospitalized with gallbladder problems for a few days in December 2009 and had surgery on January 28, 2010, at Bethesda Naval Hospital. Longtime friend and fellow Pennsylvania Democratic representative Bob Brady said Murtha's large intestine was damaged during the normally routine laparoscopic surgery, causing an infection. Due to the complication, Murtha was again hospitalized two days later, and died on the afternoon of February 8, 2010, in the Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, Virginia, with his family by his side.
"Damaging the Large Intestine" during Gallbladder Surgery is what we call in the Medical field,
a "Fuck Up"
seriously, I wouldn't have my Pommeranian operated on at any Military Hospital, (well for one, they're not Veterinarians) and I trained at one. We used to play the "James Bond" Theme music for one of the Army Heart Surgeons (Duh, "Licensed to kill") he never got it, thought it was because he was "Cool" like James Bond,

Frank

[BravoCharlieDelta]

If we are months away from default, shouldn't Yellen be saving money instead of giving billions to Ukraine?

[SRG]

Nope. If the US is heading to default, it's because Congress doesn't want to pay its bills, not that it can't pay its bills.

[Frank Drackman]

Adding more to the credit card isn't "Paying it's Bills"

[SRG]

True, but the issue is about defaulting on the credit card, when the US is quite able to pay at least the minimum monthly.

[Dan Schiavetta]

don't feed the trolls

[BravoCharlieDelta]

It is nearly $900B a year in interest payments. That's nearly 25% of total revenues.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's nearly 25% of total revenues at artificially and historically low interest rates.

At normal interest rates appropriate for the current rate of inflation, it's more like 125% of total revenues.

[Sarcastr0]

Not the right metric; it's not a credit card.

Try debt/GDP ratio. As compared to other countries, we're doing fine.

[Brett Bellmore]

You keep saying "It's not a credit card", (Yes, those are sneer quotes.) as though you think that's some kind of profound point. But it's not.

[Sarcastr0]

No, you're just economically innumerate on this one point and it causes you to make utterly incoherent arguments.

No one is coming to break our legs. No one will force us into bankruptcy. We can print money. This debt is largely held by our own people.

Each of these along is sufficient to make an analogy between the US and someone with a credit card utterly fail.

The only 2 things that matter are our bond rating, which is not an issue, and our inflation rate, which is not currently driven by debt.

You don't understand that, because you are committed to not understanding that.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Who gets the $900B a year in interest payments?

[Sarcastr0]

As I said: This debt is largely held by our own people.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

If you compared debt/gdp historically, how do we fare?

[Sarcastr0]

Which is a shit metric to use as well. Why would that be relevant?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Ok, I'm open to your argument. Can you provide some authoritative sources that say the best way to use debt to GDP ratio is to compare it against other countries to determine fiscal health?

You seem to be arguing that debt/GDP compared to other countries is the way to measure fiscal health.

I've never heard that before. I couple cursory looks at top search results don't seem to support your idea either.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, it isn't about defaulting on the credit card, save in the sense that it's implied that, given a choice between reduced spending without default, and maintaining spending with default, we'd of course do the latter, because reducing spending is unthinkable.

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, that’s right. You and your retrograde vision for America are outvoted.

Not everything people votes for is correct. But you must make an argument based on facts, not just complain because America doesn't wanna do what you think it should.

Deal with it. We live in a Republic.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

We live in a Republic in name only.

https://act.represent.us/sign/problempoll-fba/

Congress does not represent us. Our votes don't really matter.

[Brett Bellmore]

The Constitution mandates that debt are higher priority than everything else. But if you're saying that in the real world they'd violate the Constitution rather than cut spending? Year, probably.

[grb]

BravoCharlieDelta : “…. instead of giving billions to Ukraine …”

Look on it as an investment, and a damn cheap one at that.

1. We deter further wars of conquest on the European continent. Just think if someone had had the brass to do that pre-Poland, 1939.

2. We degrade Putin’s military, prevent more Russian empire-building, and hobble his thug regime.

3. We deter China, who’s watching this unfold with interest as it mulls crossing the strait.

4. We support our closest allies in Europe.

5. We support the Ukrainians, who are bravely fighting for a future as a normal European state, not beaten-down vassal to a mafia-style kleptocracy.

But, hey, I understand: You’re into that whole appeasement thing.

[David Nieporent]

But, hey, I understand: You’re into that whole appeasement thing.

You insult Neville Chamberlain. Chamberlain was just a coward; he wasn't loyal to the other side, the way BCD is.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Chamberlain actually did the right thing. Britain was not ready to go to war in 1938. In fact Hitler believed that Chamberlain had put one over on him; he was rip roarin’ to invade the Sudetenland, but Chamberlain pulled the rug out from under him. A good account of the immediate post-Munich situation on the German side is given in John Toland’s biography. A good account of how buying two years benefited Britain immensely, such that they were very ready for the onslaught in 1940, is given by Churchill's private secretary, Anthony Montague Browne.

But . . . Chamberlain had a well-informed and nuanced view of his situation. BCD doesn’t even know the basics of the present one.

[Sarcastr0]

He did the right thing, but by contemporary accounts of him in public and private he also got snowed by Hitler.

[David Nieporent]

No; Britain didn't need to go to war in 1938, because Germany was not ready to go to war in 1938. It's true that Hitler wanted to — but the Wehrmacht was adamantly opposed.

It was Germany that was very weak in 1938 and that effectively used the year that Munich bought the country to strengthen its military. (Including by using materiel seized from Czechoslovakia as the result of Chamberlain's cowardice!)

[SRG]

Germany went to war in 1939, of course - though against an easy opponent.

[Brett Bellmore]

Why would we be months away from default? The federal government has plenty of revenue from which to make debt payments.

[swood1000]

And plenty of presses with which to print money.

[Brett Bellmore]

Which, if they over-do it, will conveniently force us to balance our budget on account of nobody being willing to lend to us anymore.

[Sarcastr0]

Which is a scenario *very* far from occurring, and hardly inevitable.

[ducksalad]

We're months away from default in the same way I'm six days away from starvation....if I decided not to go to the grocery store, stop by any restaurants, or ask anyone for help.

[OtisAH]

Will *this* be the thing that breaks the Conspirator silence on the goings-on in Florida…?

https://www.wfla.com/news/politics/florida-bill-would-require-bloggers-who-write-about-governor-to-register-with-the-state/

[ducksalad]

It’s a bad law.

Fortunately, even if it passes, we have Citizens United to protect us. The federal law that was overturned in that case outright banned making a movie about a candidate if money was involved; this new Florida proposal merely states that the money must be reported. However, the principle is the same and malign government intent is the same, so there’s a good chance courts will shut it down.

[OtisAH]

No, it doesn’t “merely state” money is owed if you write about Florida politics. it seeks to register anyone who writes about Florida politics with the government if you get paid for doing so. And it assigns fees based on how often you do so. The ultimate effect of which will be fewer people writing about Florida politics, which is almost certainly the point. We heard about the Mal da Lardo raid when we did by way of a Florida blogger.

[ducksalad]

Do we disagree on anything? I'm in entire agreement that it's an awful law. And I agree that the intent is discourage the blogging from being done at all. The loss of anonymity and being tracked is the main chilling mechanism.

I did look over the text. The fines are for failure to report blogging payments. You can still blog and get paid if you register. Which, to be clear, is unacceptably bad. And if you frame it that way it's essentially the same issue as in Citizens United. In that case, the feds said only FEC-reporting campaign committees could spend money to advocate for or against a political candidate, and they in turn were limited in how they acquired money.

The bullshit arguments made in favor of the federal BCRA could and probably will be made in favor of the Florida law: the payments to the blogger could be bribery! Too much money in politics! The public has a right to know who is paying for the advocacy! My point is that (fortunately) the SC has pointed out officially that these arguments don't cut it when they go up against the First Amendment.

[Brett Bellmore]

And rightly so, and that this law might (In a pig's eye) get enacted by people I'm a bit more in ideological alignment with than the BCRA makes no difference.

The censorious impulse is the same.

[SRG]

It's evidently unconstitutional, which probably means that Florida GOP legislators will want to pass it.

[Brett Bellmore]

Filed, so far, last week, no votes held.

As I read it, the law only applies to bloggers who are paid to write about elected officials in Florida. That is to say, it's essentially requiring paid PR flacks to report.

Still unconstitutional, though.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The likelihood these right-wing law professors are going to cross Ron DeSantis resembles the likelihood that their leader will stop publishing vile racial slurs and odd stories about lesbians, transgendered people, and persecuted white males.

[SRG]

I wonder whether DeSantis et al want Sullivan to remain as good precedent while Dominion's suit is still in progress, and only afterwards get it kicked out so that they can sue the press much more readily.

[Stephen Lathrop]

A few questions about criminal law, from a legal layman.

In a comment above, I got reproached for incompetence to use the method of Bayesian analysis—which I had not been trying to use. It had not occurred to me that Bayesian analysis had anything to do with my comment. So sure, the charge of Bayesian incompetence is self-evidently justified.

I hope that among the engineers and statisticians who read this blog, there will be some who can answer a few related questions about Bayesian methods and legal reasoning. One question is this:

The notion of proof beyond a reasonable doubt for crime can be read to require evidence to show that someone else was not the culprit. In cases where an accused on trial denies he is correctly identified as the culprit, what formal preconditions must be met to enable a Bayesian determination to an adequate degree of certainty (no reasonable doubt) that all others can be excluded as the actual criminal?

For the lawyers: are you aware of cases where guilt beyond a reasonable doubt has been established by Bayesian methods to establish that the accused is in fact the person who did the crime, and that someone else did not do it? More succinctly, do Bayesian methods get used in courts to decide criminal cases?

For anyone: a commonplace understanding of the notion of reasonable doubt contemplates piling up incriminating evidence, until jurors conclude that with so much against him, the accused must be the guy who did the crime. That idea has a less noted corollary, which might raise a question. Logically, to say without reasonable doubt that the accused did it, you have to be able to say to the same degree of certainty that no else did it instead.

It seems to me that to satisfy the second assertion is intuitively more demanding than to satisfy the first. Thus, does the law approve reasoning which convicts an accused with direct evidence against him, but direct evidence which remains insufficient to rule out beyond a reasonable doubt the possibility that among everyone else, not one of them did the crime instead?

[Brett Bellmore]

"The notion of proof beyond a reasonable doubt for crime can be read to require evidence to show that someone else was not the culprit."

Ah, no. It requires evidence that the accused IS the culprit. If you've got that, you do not have to compile proof that none of the other several billion people on Earth are guilty.

Proving a negative being notoriously difficult, proving a negative several billion times is rather more difficult...

Charitably, perhaps you meant, not "evidence that somebody else was not the culprit", but instead "a lack of evidence that somebody else WAS the culprit"?

Now, of course, if you lack direct evidence that somebody actually committed the deed, and only have evidence that they were in a position to, THEN you'd need to adduce evidence that nobody else would have been. Perhaps this is the situation you were talking about?

[apedad]

That's how DNA evidence works.

The lab techs always testify something like, "We analyzed the DNA from the defendant and there's only a 1 in 8 billion chance that it could have been someone else."

[ducksalad]

And if it was really 1 in 8 billion, that would come close to curing the Prosecutor's Fallacy. But if the real number is 1 in 1 million, it sounds convincing but really means there are about 350 people in the US alone who are equally likely to be the culprit, if there is no other evidence pointing to the particular person accused.

[ducksalad]

And of course it's all swamped by the probabilities that someone planted DNA evidence, or accidentally threw evidence from a crime scene into the same bin as evidence taken from a suspect elsewhere, or a lab tech was incompetent, or a lab tech simply lied about their findings.

When all that is included I don't think any DNA test could be said to have less than 1% false negatives even in a good system, and in a place with systematic corruption in their labs, DNA evidence is meaningless.

[Stephen Lathrop]

ducksalad — Yeah. After the trial testimony puts blood from OJ's arm at the scene of the crime, in the custody of a detective, the math gets doubtful.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Modern forensic DNA profiling rarely produces odds with a denominator in the billions. I can’t remember the last time I saw one below a quadrillion.

[SRG]

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutor%27s_fallacy

[David Nieporent]

Yep, and that specifically discusses the precise issue regarding the probability of OJ's guilt given that his wife was murdered that Lathrop misunderstood.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosecutor%27s_fallacy#Possible_examples_of_fallacious_defense_arguments

[SRG]

I think it was Alan Dershowitz who made the argument about number of men who beat their wives.

FWIW Gigerenzer is splendid - and one of the few people to go up against Kahnemann and Tversky and be right. 🙂

[Stephen Lathrop]

According to author Gerd Gigerenzer, the correct probability requires the context — that Simpson's wife had not only been subjected to domestic violence, but rather subjected to domestic violence (by Simpson) and killed (by someone) — to be taken into account. Gigerenzer writes "the chances that a batterer actually murdered his partner, given that she has been killed, is about 8 in 9 or approximately 90%".[11] While most cases of spousal abuse do not end in murder, most cases of murder where there is a history of spousal abuse were committed by the spouse.

Nieporent, it is trivially easy to critique that. The murdered woman had been married twice, and unfortunately both times to an abusive partner. Plus she had also entertained an abusive boyfriend whom she never married. Which one gets the 90%-probability booby prize?

Note also that life is complicated, and routinely serves up permutations and combinations of that kind of muddle. Each one is another reproach to offering that 90% conclusion.

That is before we get to the London Blitz—a hypothetical from which I tastefully withheld another supposition—that when his wife died the abusive husband was at sea on convoy duty. Didn't want to gild the lily by constructing an example featuring a zero percent probability that he did it.

All that is before we get to the slippery, "most cases." Are you content to decide a criminal verdict beyond a reasonable doubt on the basis of a general principle which allegedly encompasses everyone, but with exceptions?

Note also, because I used the OJ example to critique a different notion—the Wuhan Lab pandemic origin theory—I modified the hypothetical to match the point I was making. By use of my hypotheticalist's privilege, I stripped all the other incriminating evidence against OJ from the example, to let the questionable part of the assumption stand in higher relief. Thus, this linked discussion with its appropriate consideration of a range of evidence to match the real OJ case is not a match for my hypothetical.

Where Bayes is mentioned in the linked material, note emphasis on the various influences on conclusions which are delivered by entanglements with other evidence. I do not think you understood either my hypothetical, or the discussion to which you linked.

But don't worry, I'm still happy to own up to Bayesian incompetence. But sorting it out might require disentangling my mistakes from yours—an effort for which I would estimate a near-zero probability of success. I predict an unusably blurry picture.

By the way, break-downs in the interstices of probabilistic formalisms are what make poker such an interesting game. I am content to suppose that applies alike to economics, and to life generally. Like the blood from OJ's arm, which made it to the crime scene in the custody of a detective, life serves up surprises that can be hard to reckon with.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Nieporent, it is trivially easy to critique that."

It's a lot easier if you don't understand it.

[Stephen Lathrop]

TwelveInch — What's wrong with the critique in my first paragraph? Or don't you understand it?

[TwelveInchPianist]

Sigh. The problem is that when you add additional information, you update your model. So no one gets the "90% boobie prize".

[ragebot]

Looks like the shit eating Democratic Party in the Senate will be biting a big red donkey dick for a while.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fetterman-and-feinstein-absences-leave-senate-democrats-without-outright-majority/ar-AA188Sda?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531&cvid=d0ffaa8580414f21e4fe3b1ea25d4059&ei=60

[Brett Bellmore]

Apparently not, because Fetterman is, somehow continuing to "work" despite being hospitalized. Is there any reason Feinstein couldn't pull off a similar miracle?

Pa.’s Casey, Fetterman join bill aimed at preventing future train derailments

"U.S. Sens. Bob Casey and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania joined a bipartisan group of senators on Wednesday introducing new legislation aimed at preventing future freight train derailments like the one last month in East Palestine, Ohio. "

Fetterman checked into the hospital in the middle of February...

[Sarcastr0]

You're still being such an asshole by implying without evidence Fetterman isn't *really* working.
You understand neither the health issues nor how Congress works.

You're leaning on pretty invidious stereotypes to get to the conclusion you want.

[Commenter_XY]

Sarcastr0, it is a matter of public record that Senator Fetterman checked himself into a psychiatric ward because of severe depression. I mean, that is from his wife, who has sort of been an 'acting' Senator for a while now.

I don't see how you can really do the job of US Senator from a psych ward, do you? The last thing Senator Fetterman should be worrying about is his job; he needs to focus on himself and get well. The Senator needs help, and thankfully is getting it.

[David Nieporent]

I don’t see how you can really do the job of US Senator from a psych ward, do you?

There may be certain things one can't do, like attend hearings and question witnesses, but one can certainly read, write, and communicate

[Brett Bellmore]

But not, you know, anything that involves actually voting.

[Sarcastr0]

Which is a very small part of what a Senator needs to do.

Which I've told you a bunch of times. But which you keep deciding you know better based on your usual unearned certainty.

[ducksalad]

Maybe or maybe not under current rules. But in principle, couldn't the Senate create its own rules for voting by proxy, voting remotely, etc?

My understanding is they already have a system for "pairing" absent senators with cancelling votes by members present, and counting the paired members toward the quorum requirement. Seems like for anything contentious they could find a pair for Fetterman, and for anything non-contentious there's no roll call vote anyway.

[David Nieporent]

The senate does allow proxy voting in committee, though not, I believe, on the floor.

[Brett Bellmore]

"My understanding is they already have a system for “pairing” absent senators with cancelling votes by members present, and counting the paired members toward the quorum requirement."

Counting absent members toward the quorum requirement, which is all about how many members are NOT absent? The enrolled bill doctrine does shield a multitude of sins...

[Brett Bellmore]

What the hell do you mean, "Without evidence"? He's in the hospital! I suppose he can still communicate with his staff by email, ("Phoning it in" is off the table, medically speaking.) but his staff can only legally do so much, and VOTING isn't one of the things they're allowed to do.

[Sarcastr0]

You still don't know how the Senate works, eh? If they need him for a close vote, then we'll see. For now, they don't.

FFS.

[Brett Bellmore]

That's why I said legally, I'm quite aware that, given how the Senate works, they might not particularly care if it was legal for his staff to vote in his place.

[Sarcastr0]

His staff is not voting in his place.

[not guilty]

It is not uncommon for an ailing Senator to be brought into the chamber for a particularly important vote. https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/24/us/politics/24byrd.html

[apedad]

Let's see:

48 Dem Senators + 3 Independents (all who caucus with the Dems) = 51
49 Rep Senators

So 51 - 2 = 49 (but) + VP Harris = 50.

Not sure of the Senate rules whether a majority (51) or a plurality (50) is required.

What's up with you guys always referencing penises anyway?

[OtisAH]

The shame from their latent (and not-so-latent) gay urges keep them fired up in their battle against other homosexuals.

[Brett Bellmore]

The VP can only vote to break ties. But 49>48, so they have to lose one more Senator before there would be a tie.

As long as they have a quorum present, or can avoid a roll call vote that would expose the lack of one, all they need is a majority of those present.