Monday Open Thread

Monday is the new Thursday (but Thursday remains the old Thursday).

Comments

[Dr. Ed 2]

Why no national noise on Rachel Rollins?

[Michael P]

That's a rhetorical question, right?

Are we supposed to hold our breaths waiting for federal charges against her?

[Dr. Ed 2]

No, a serious question. Why only a local story?

[Noscitur a sociis]

It’s not?

Do you notice how people here—most of whose don’t live in Massachusetts or consume Boston-area news media—understood exactly what you were talking about as soon as you mentioned Rachael Rollins? How do you think that happened?

[Armchair Lawyer]

From one of the articles.

The most stunning allegation in the inspector general’s report — and another by the Office of Special Counsel — was that Rollins leaked information to the media last year in the hopes of sabotaging the campaign of her successor as Suffolk County district attorney, Kevin Hayden.

“Investigators said Rollins tried to meddle in the district attorney race by providing information to the media that suggested Hayden was possibly under federal investigation. After Hayden beat the-candidate Rollins was supporting in the primary — Ricardo Arroyo — she leaked to The Boston Herald a memo detailing her office’s recusal from any possible investigation into Hayden, investigators found.”

One of the issues with the Democrat-political complex, is that it’s become commonplace to use these sorts of semi-illegal tactics.

[Michael P]

Violating the Hatch Act isn't just semi-illegal.

The violations are “among the most egregious transgressions of the Act that [the Office of Special Counsel] has ever investigated,” the special counsel report says.

But usually meddling in US elections is approved by people a lot higher up the food chain than a US Attorney, so practically nobody is willing to investigate them, much less prosecute.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Yes, that's the Hatch act.

But I was more speaking about the selective leaking of information...especially classified or non-public information...to damage political rivals. To manipulate a friendly media.

[iowatwo]

Obama bought the leaked smear to the forfront of Democrat election strategies
His Opponet during his run for Senate, somehow found his sealed divorce papers in the local newspapers.
Those records were under seal, but as The New York Times noted: “The Tribune reporter who wrote the original piece later acknowledged in print that the Obama camp had ‘worked aggressively behind the scenes’ to push the story.” Many people said Axelrod had “an even more significant role — that he leaked the initial story.
Lets not be too shocked that Obama launched spies and secret communications warrants against Trump.

[NOVA Lawyer]

People in Obama's campaign pushed a true, but unfavorable, story about an opponent? Very serious stuff. I remember when you were so upset that Trump was making stuff up about Ted Cruz's father and (through his son, son-in-law, and campaign manager) eagerly accepting a Russian agent's offer of dirt on Hillary. I'm glad you are so consistently outraged by candidates for office pushing negative stories about their opponents.

(Also, maybe you should use an AI chatbot to write your posts, because they are barely comprehensible: "His Opponet during his run for Senate, somehow found his...." Gibberish.)

(You only have "some people" who think, but have no evidence, that someone on Obama's campaign may have been involved in the actual release of the material. Weak sauce on that.)

[Gandydancer]

"People in Obama’s campaign pushed a true, but unfavorable, story about an opponent?"

No, Axelrod et al procured a leak of sealed court records, committing a crime. This is fucking Chicago, and Obama was the Democrat and his opponent was a Republican. No one with the slightest bit of a clue has much doubt about what happened.

[not guilty]

“Axelrod et al procured a leak of sealed court records, committing a crime. ”

The alleged crime violated what statute(s)? Please be specific, including citation(s).

[not guilty]

Still waiting, Gandydancer. The alleged crime violated what statute(s)?

[David Nieporent]

The fact that they have no idea how the information got out, and therefore do not know what crime — if any — was committed is only half of the problem. The other half is that they have no evidence that Axelrod (et al) committed any crime that might have been committed.

[David Nieporent]

No one with the slightest bit of a clue

…a group that excludes you.

[Frank Drackman]

Because she's not a man pretending to be a woman who had his photo put on a beer can that's not even available to the pubic, and resulted in decreased sales (or did it? wasn't there a "Mad Men" episode about no such thing as bad publicity?)

Frank

[BravoCharlieDelta]

They have been interfering in our elections since Nixon, at least.

Now they are more brazen and in your face about it since it’s just out in the open that the Administrative State is our real Emperor and the Empire doesn’t police itself.

But man does it sure have a huge army of bootlickers and worshippers. Many of them here.

[Noscitur a sociis]

A quick google search shows stories in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN, Politico, Newsweek, PBS, NPR, etc. What else needs to happen you count as “national noise”?

[John F. Carr]

Noise would be accompanying editorials about choosing a clearly unqualified person based on race and politics.

[John F. Carr]

The only commentary I saw – I didn't look hard – was an opinion piece by Yvonne Abraham in the Boston globe which ended by complaining that Rollins would have survived if she had been a Republican. While Rollins' extremism and ethical failings would not have been out of place in the Trump administration as a whole, in the context of U.S. Attorneys I think she compares unfavorably to Trump's choices.

[Gandydancer]

In other words the reason for "no noise" is that she's a corrupt black Democrat.

[Bob from Ohio]

"shows stories "

How many? Placement of the articles?

Did it get multiple slots on prime time cable?

Having an article or 2 and spending 3 minutes on it at 2 am is not "noise".

[Ben_]

"Why no national noise on Rachel Rollins?"

Everyone expects Democrat lawlessness, so when it happens it's just another day ending in Y.

[Dr. Ed 2]

A Papal peace in Ukraine? Except theyre ortodox.

[Frank Drackman]

Fuck the Pope, somebody once said.

[Dr. Ed 2]

My point is that neither side is going to win, both sides know that, and a neutral both respect could end it. Thats what the UN was supposed to be for.

[Martinned]

Really?

Article 1
The Purposes of the United Nations are:

1. To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;

2. To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;

3. To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and

4. To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.

[Bob from Ohio]

Well, it failed then. Best to dissolve it.

[NOVA Lawyer]

So you're for defunding the police because they often fail to stop crime or, ex post, bring criminals to justice? Stupid logic.

[Gandydancer]

The UN is not the police.

[Gandydancer]

Ukraine is not going to win. I'm not so sure about Russia. Why are you?

[John F. Carr]

I remember the regular ritual of John Paul II calling for peace here and there. His heart was in the right place. There was never much chance he would influence the warring parties.

[Krayt]

If peace means submitting to a boot on your neck, forever, so some foreigners can sleep peacefully and safely in their free countries, fuck that.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Looks like Ukraine's taking a page from Russia's playbook.

A group of anti-Putin Russian nationals – who are aligned with the Ukrainian army – has claimed responsibility for an attack in Russian’s southwestern region of Belgorod, as Moscow said it was fighting a group of saboteurs there...
[A Ukrainian official] said the units were “part of defense and security forces” when they were in Ukraine, but were independent from Kyiv when they were not: “In Russia they are acting as independent entities.”

[NOVA Lawyer]

One wonders why you are making an equivalence between Russia using proxies to start a war in Ukraine and Ukraine (in your implied formulation) using proxies to fight back against Russia after Russia invaded Ukraine thereby starting a war.

The whole “don’t attack Russia proper” is a pragmatic line drawn by Ukraine’s allies, not a moral or ethical lapse. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (first through proxies, then through it’s regular army) was a violation of international law, immoral, and unethical. The fact that you pretend they are the same thing says a lot about you, nothing about Ukraine.

[Gandydancer]

I can’t really see why this relates in any way to a “Russian playbook”. There are no units on the Russian side pretending to be independent nationalist Ukrainians when attacking pro-Kyiv towns.

Also, this is claptrap: “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (first through proxies, then through it’s regular army) was a violation of international law, immoral, and unethical.” The Kyiv regime, following the 2014 coup, had no claim to rule Crimea or the Donbas that anyone ought to have taken any notice of, and the populations of those areas quite rightly didn’t.

[David Nieporent]

There was no "2014 coup," and the government of Ukraine — duly elected — has 100% legal claim to Crimea and the Donbas. Even if one assumes there is a right to secession in international law, that was not this; this was just invasion — real invasion, not people from Guatemala looking for work — by Russia and then annexation.

[Gandydancer]

"International law" as regards borders and such is claptrap of no normative value, and I don't give a damn whether there is a right to secession under "international law". It's clear that there is and has been considerable resistance to the idea of being ruled from Kyiv in Crimea and the Donbas and, aided by Ruissia, these areas have in considerable part NOT been ruled from Kyiv since the 2014 coup.

Russia did of course invade the remaining rump of the former Ukrainian SSR in 2022. That's the way borders are determined in the real world -- by force. E.g., it's the way that SSR obtained its western border expansion after WW2. and the way the US took Texas, etc., from Mexico. Deal with it.

[TwelveInchPianist]

One wonders why you are making an equivalence...

I didn't make an equivalence. Read better.

[NOVA Lawyer]

You well know the connotation of your statement.

In what way is this taking from Russia's playbook given Russia's playbook involves arming and instigating purported separatists (many of whom, such as in Crimea, were not actually Ukrainians) to grab land from a peaceful neighbor through military force?

These are Russians, not Ukrainians pretending to be Russians. They are fighting against Russia, the country who started the war, in order to protect the sovereignty of an independent nation.

By claiming they are "from the same playbook", you have to make an equivalence of some sort. What is that equivalence?

[TwelveInchPianist]

Sigh. Now it's "an equivalence of some sort", or more correctly, a comparison.

Anyone who's not mind-numbing stupid understands that you can claim that things are similar without declaring them morally equivalent, ethically equivalent, or equivalent in terms of international law.

And yes, they're comparable in the sense that they're using proxies to be able to claim a bullshit plausible deniably.

It's correct that Russia was using it to violate international law, and Ukraine is using it to placate a bunch of pussies in the west who would stop supporting them if they exercised their right to defend themselves by attacking Russia where they need to. But come on, you gotta love the irony.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Your original statement was, to anyone not mind numbingly stupid, open to multiple interpretations, most of which, and the most natural of which, involve some level of moral or ethical equivalence. Including because, as a I note, the facts between the two are actually significantly different.

Write more clearly if it’s a hassle to later clarify obvious ambiguities.

[AmosArch]

So how’s that MASSIVE Twitter exodus that progs cackled about, ran wall to wall headlines as the biggest thing since Gangnam style, and swore up and down would leave Twitter desolated and utterly destroy Musk by now going? Haven't heard about it in awhile.

[Gandydancer]

And Tucker Carlson's career was supposed to be over, as he was merely the beneficiary of Fox's 8pm slot.

It's almost as if Lefty doesn't have a clue.

[Martinned]

You seriously think that Tucker Carlson's new show on Twitter will help him stay relevant??? In that case, I have a nice bridge you might like to buy.

Meanwhile, Glenn Beck and Alex Jones are still out there being relevant in their own way.

[Gandydancer]

Yeah, I'm sure Twitter tripled his salary because they thought he was spiraling into irrelevance.

Oh, wait. That's what's already happened to Fox with Tucker gone: Followed CNN, CNBC, etc. into the shadows of obscurity where they all together don't get the views earned by Joe Rogan.

Please try to catch up, Lefty.

[David Nieporent]

Twitter didn't triple his salary. What are you talking about? He doesn't work for Twitter. He gets $0 from Twitter.

[Gandydancer]

Your ignorance is showing. I won’t bother looking for the Viva Frei/Robert Barnes video on Rumble I saw that discussed this in some detail, but a quick duckduckgo turns up: “Carlson has also received lucrative offers from several parties, including Newsmax and Rumble. Both have offered to pay him far more than the $20 million he is now receiving.” (13 days ago)
https://rumble.com/v2msx5i-elon-musk-and-tucker-carlson-allied.html

If you want more details pull your head out of your ass and do your own research.

[hobie]

Duckduckgo? What other doomsday products did they sucker you into? Gold? Supplements? Lifelock? Prepper chow?

Pantophobia is a helluva way to live

[Gandydancer]

So, you're a Google knob licker? Why?

Duckduckgo is simply an alternative search engine, not a "doomsday product". Presumably if we start a nuclear exchange it will go down right along with Google.

I switched to it when Google fired James Damore back in 2017 because I decided to not support Google by using its products, as much as possible, and my mind has not changed on that point.

[David Nieporent]

I know that reading and thinking aren't your specialties, but I responded to the claim, "Twitter tripled his salary," not "Newsmax tripled his salary."

[Gandydancer]

As I said, your ignorance is no defense for your ignorance. Twitter outbid both Newsmax and Rumble and my quote, found so easily, shows that the money needed to do that was already a salary increase for Tucker two weeks ago. The nember I heard is north of $100M, but that's for a year and not merely the remaining term on his Fox contract. Meanwhile you're stuck at the "[Tucker] doesn’t work for Twitter. He gets $0 from Twitter." level of determined stupidity and ostrich-imitation.

[David Nieporent]

Note that you cite precisely nothing to show that Twitter bid one penny, let alone that it outbid Newsmax or Rumble. The number I heard was $100, but that's for the rest of his life, not merely the remaining term on his Fox contract.

[Gandydancer]

AS I said, NoPoint, I am uninterested in trying to educate a determined Lefty ignoramus. Let it come as a surprise to you when Tucker Carlson continues to be very well paid -- Why should I care that you continue to foul your diapers?

[shawn_dude]

Who? Glenn Beck ... that name is vaguely familiar.

[Gandydancer]

Your ignorance is showing. Carlson is not Glen Beck. Or Hannity. Or anyone else who's ever been of Fox. Different demographics and different cultural significance, E.g., more DEMOCRATS watched Carlson on Fox than watched any competitor on any platform. And his audience skewed way younger than the rest of the Fox audience.

But stay stupid and ignorant. Why break the typecasting now?

[Nige]

The main result has been lots of people with more than one social media account, but remaining on Twitter because Musk's deterioration towards redpilled Qanon enthusiast is extraordinary.

[Gandydancer]

That doesn't even make any sense.

[Nige]

Well you're not very quick on the uptake.

[Gandydancer]

You just don't know how to write anything intelligible. Or true.
E.g., you were last seen writing ~"Trump is a convicted sex offender".

[Nige]

Well, he is. Or is it not a 'conviction' in civil court? 'Proven,' then.

[Gandydancer]

No, it’s not “conviction” in a civil court, and your deliberate indifference to the fact that you are saying something that you obviously know is a falsehood demonstrates precisely my point.

As to “proven”, that doesn’t happen in kangaroo courts of either variety. As here: What “proof”?

[Nige]

The proof that found him guilty.

[Gandydancer]

You're back to gibberish, I see.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

So how’s that MASSIVE Twitter exodus that progs cackled about

Maybe they were addressing Twitter’s market capitalization?

Maybe they were referring to Twitter's advertisers and revenue?

Maybe people figure Twitter will survive Musk’s incompetence and low-grade partisanship?

[Frank Drackman]

I don't like Mondays

[Mr. Bumble]

Is EV having a Mamas and Papas moment?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6JJrtHRDwk

[Michael P]

Who knew that in the United States it's forbidden for governments to deny people the equal protection of the law?

https://www.theepochtimes.com/court-rules-that-california-race-law-is-unconstitutional-on-its-face_5279389.html

[Brett Bellmore]

And California adds to their list of judges who have to go up against the wall, come the revolution…

The people demanding discriminatory policies are hardening their attitudes, and becoming bolder. It’s becoming a moral crusade on their part.

It kind of reminds me of the South’s views of slavery hardening in the lead up to the Civil war.

Not just discrimination, of course. The same thing is going on with gun control, among the same people.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Honestly, it feels a bit like communism or some of the more middle-age religious sects. The thought process behind the actions of the people for communism or those sects.

It's an adherence to a political philosophy, even at the cost of logic, productivity, ethics, rationality, and more. It's necessary to "show" you are righteous person. Regardless if the policy actually is righteous.

[Ben_]

"It’s an adherence to a political philosophy, even at the cost of logic, productivity, ethics, rationality, and more."

Even when it is obviously illegal.

[Sarcastr0]

You gotta up your raging at the libs game.

Brett's out there talking about murder and your carping about lawbreaking.

[Ben_]

Explicitly illegal:

https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/05/non-whites-only-u-minnesota-summer-research-program-challenged-by-equal-protection-project/

[Sarcastr0]

Challenged does not mean illegal.

But this is nothing compared to all the dead judges Brett's talking about, or the Civil War Ed's pushing.

You're 'This white resentment org is going to court to argue that U. Minnesota's program isn't in compliance' is just...bland in comparison.

No jail, no blood, you've gotta get flashier if you want to hang.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Challenged does not mean illegal."

The law that Brett was referring to was struck down. As was its predecessor involving gender.

And Brett's comment about judges was clearly sarcastic.

[Gandydancer]

In this case what was challenged was indeed illegal, as you know perfectly well.

The hoops of excitement that you are setting up for others to jump through are entirely imaginary. It's time to stop smoking your own supply.

[hoppy025]

Same thing meaning they're disregarding the Constitution and making rulings in bad faith?

[Brett Bellmore]

They've been doing that for decades. What I'm talking about is that they're giving up on pretending that they're doing anything else, because they don't think they need to pretend.

In the lead up to the Civil war, slavers made a transition from accepting that slavery was something they actually had to defend, to regarding it as a noble thing to be celebrated. Went from just asking to be permitted to continue engaging in it, to demanding its expansion.

They're doing the same thing today on multiple fronts.

Went from "Women only get abortions because they need them!", "Nobody gets a late term abortion unless they're forced into it by necessity!" to "Shout your abortion!" and "Elective abortion for all 9 months is a human right!" Now they're looking to smuggle minor children out of states where they don't like the laws, to get abortions without parental consent or knowledge.

They've gone from feeling they need to justify discriminatory policies with claims that they're remedial, and will be abandoned as soon as the remediation is done, to there being nothing wrong with them.

Gone from claiming the 2nd amendment permits gun control, to claiming that if it doesn't, they're entitled to violate it.

I see their positions hardening on multiple fronts, and they haven't a lot of room left to get more extreme without resorting to terrorist violence. I mean, "Trans day of Vengeance"? Who calls an event something like that, if they just want the right to be left alone? That's where you go if you figure you're entitled to lord it over people and punish the ones who won't submit.

I see both a hardening of attitudes and an increasing willingness to resort to violence when they don't get their way. Like the lead up to the Civil war.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

*fingers crossed*

[hoppy025]

Thank you for the explanation. I agree with that. Another example is that they no longer claim that immigrants are necessary because of labor shortages, but that we have a moral imperative to allow them in because it'll be better for them, irrespective of the negative effects on us.

They feel like, probably correctly, that the influx of third world immigrants means permanent electoral control by 2028, or at the very most, 2032. Until then, they just need to hold us off until they can start herding conservatives into the showers.

[Brett Bellmore]

I do agree that the window for stopping them is going to close soon. The right started fighting back way too late, let the left capture too much of the high ground.

For instance, given their level of dominance in the law schools, in a couple decades it's going to be really hard to find enough conservative judicial candidates to fill all available slots, even if Republicans end up in a position to make nominations.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

"I see their positions hardening on multiple fronts, and they haven’t a lot of room left to get more extreme without resorting to terrorist violence. I mean, “Trans day of Vengeance”? Who calls an event something like that, if they just want the right to be left alone? "

I'm glad you brought that up. It was never a legitimate concern, as the entire thing was imagined into existence by right-wing fucks who should contribute to society by hanging themselves from the nearest trees, so that bigoted assholes such as yourself would have reason to 'fear' transgendered people.

You might recall that NOTHING HAPPENED ON THAT DAY. No vengeance, no murders, no arsons, no riots, because it was all bullshit.

Fuck you Brett.

[Gandydancer]

Maybe the six murders three days before were enough vengeance to satisfy them for a while.
Has that manifesto been released yet?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Gone from claiming the 2nd amendment permits gun control, to claiming that if it doesn’t, they’re entitled to violate it.

I will speak for myself. The 2A—with the militia clause read out of it—was a right-wing policy coup engineered via the SCOTUS. There was no reason for anyone to legitimize that judicial miscarriage by complying with it. But to comply with it was easier, and arguably Heller’s more-constrained power grab was without horrific implications. Personal self-defense, however unprotected by the 2A, was not a notion which bothered many people for its own sake.

Bruen is another kettle of fish. The pretense in Bruen is bad enough that to arrive at outlandish conclusions the Court could invent a new kind of historical reasoning. The demand in Bruen that nothing be done to critique Bruen unless it follows that same malignant and novel pattern of reasoning amounts to insanity. It rules out legitimacy, and purports to outlaw attempts to get back to it.

Meanwhile, gun advocates marching under the banner of Bruen continue to push for expanded gun rights interpretations. They want a new gun regime, with zero basis in the 2A, or in American history, or in reason. They demand to legitimize unconstitutional armed intimidation in politics—they demand unconstitutional legal support for armed insurrection—they demand to normalize unconstitutional armed vigilantism—they demand ceaseless, heartless determination to ignore mass murders of random innocents. Gun advocates aim to fasten minority rule on this nation, under threat of private arms. And Bruen’s prescribed limitations on arguments to the contrary open the way to make all of that newly constitutional.

Faced with illegitimate demands like those, coupled with vociferous advocacy that policies of that sort be forced on every state, yeah, my attitudes have hardened. My sense that my own choices enjoy nationwide majority support, while minority political rule tyrannizes that majority, infuses new resolve into that hardened attitude.

I would rather live in a different nation than one that looks like Bruen’s America. My hope is that defiance coupled with an insistence on reason can bring irrationality up short.

If that is not practical, I want a serious review of more drastic alternatives. I have little doubt that at least two geographically compact blocs of resistance to Breun-style lunacy exist in this nation—in the Northeast and along the West Coast. Either or both would find only advantages if they broke away, and proceeded to rule themselves by the policies they have always wanted and continue to prefer. They could have gun policies that make sense to them. They could practice social norms they prefer. They could practice secular government. They could thrive economically, and support that by insistence on educational norms they choose for themselves. They could enjoy the best health care available anywhere in the world, at far less cost than they now pay. They could shed a substantial share of the oversized costs of too-expensive militarization, while maintaining security on the basis of world-leading command of technical excellence. They could prosper in peace and harmony, and enjoy a respected place among other highly developed nations throughout the world.

Political union of blue-state America to its truculent and unappeasable red-state rump has proved asymmetrically costly to the blue states. The drain of wealth and and policy advantage which resulted did much to disguise the relative strengths and weaknesses of those contrasting societies. The wonder is that such an irrational setup has been permitted to endure so long. A contributor to that delay has been the illusion that red-state America enjoys greater inherent power than it actually has. Left on its own, it would barely have power to save itself. It would not have power to prevent being left.

I expect any blue-state movement to break away would attract a larger following than just the usual blue state suspects. Faced with the prospect of being caged up under the corrupt and illegitimate rule of institutions such as today’s SCOTUS, the rigged electioneering which put it in office, and the plutocracy which red-state America has always preferred, I suspect many states in addition to obvious blue candidates would assess accurately the relative economic and social prospects of the two separating blocs, and choose to exit with the blues. The fate of the red-state remnant left behind would not be pretty, but it would leave them to enjoy in peace what they seem to want.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Thank you for living down to the stereotypes of Brett Bellmore and Dr. Ed.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Noscitur, try to notice, Bellmore and Dr. Ed like to threaten civil war. In the face of that, and after long and patient effort to ignore threats so extreme they seemed farcical, I looked around. I noticed disquieting evidence accumulating that the threat is realistic. I noticed continuing, widespread, and ineffectively resisted efforts to advance that threat with policy. What I had not expected is what I think most Americans are still reluctant to accept—that today's threats against American constitutionalism get institutional backing, both overt in government, and covert from corporate interests.

I do not comment to respond to fools like Bellmore and Dr. Ed. My intent is response to that other evidence. And my response is not to tyrannize anyone, and still less to incite violence.

My intent is just to join with other peaceable and reasonable people, and walk away. If you want to put a less drastic construction on it, perhaps you ought to read it as my assessment (and warning) that it could happen that way. If it did, would-be tyrannizers would find themselves powerless to do anything except live with the mess they made. For them, I urge the wisdom to consider that their targets are not captives.

[David Nieporent]

Blah, blah, blah. Once again Lathrop uses 1,000 words to say what he could have said in 10: "I am not a lawyer, and I don't like guns."

[Gandydancer]

TLDR

I gather, though, that you want to secede because you don't like Bruen. Well, feel the burn, baby.

[Sarcastr0]

Brett, what issue is going to pop-off the civil war? Pronouns? Affirmative Action?

You joining the Ed and BCD inchoate Civil War wanker brigade says a lot about your political trajectory, not a lot about the actual political situation.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Ed is merely warning, not advocating! But this 14th amd stuff is starting to scare me. Where does it authorize POTUS to allocate money?

[Sarcastr0]

Your eagerness fairly drips from your incessant predictions. You're not fooling anyone.

[Magister]

The swinging from a lamppost statement went far beyond prediction.

[Sarcastr0]

The mask slips more and more regularly these days.

[Gandydancer]

Gaslightr0 declared that my mask hiding my slavish support of Trump was slipping, too.

I pointed out that I'd been criticizing Trump for nearly seven years for finking out on his anti-Invasion promises, but Gaslightr0 wasn't having any of it.

Then he offered up his admission that the Biden admin firing the IRS Biden laptop whistleblower "looked bad" as evidence that he wasn't just licking Biden's balls.

Haven't heard anything more from him about THAT, though.

LOL!

[David Nieporent]

Gandydancer: "I'm not a fan of Trump because he's not enough of a fascist lunatic for me."

[Gandydancer]

Way to miss the point, NoPoint.

The subject is Gaslightr0's gaslighting, not your opinion of my politics, about which no one cares.

[wreckinball]

I think you win the entire thread with Gaslightro

[Theendoftheleft]

Indeed. AS the rest of the world can see clearly, you American liberals and progressives are nakedly totalitarian, and your global imperialist ambitions will get millions killed.

We in the rest of the West, across the political spectrum, will not follow you into doom. You are on your own, and you will lose -- not just because your values are garbage and your demographics doomed, but because almost the entire world despises you. Far from being progress, the future, etc, you are incompetent.

[Martinned]

Could you do me a favour and knock it off with this "we in the rest of the West" crap? You only speak for yourself, and certainly not for the rest of "the West", however defined.

[Theendoftheleft]

No. Fuck off.

Go read, for example, what Macron has said about the USA of late. My elected leaders (in a country which ‘progressive’ Americans fetishize) in turn think you’re insane. This is regularly to be found in the press in mine and other civilized countries.

But, please, continue to ironically refer to yourself as the 'leader' of the free world, even though none of us voted for you (indeed, there was no vote whatsoever) and most of us despise what you do.

[Ben_]

“Where does it authorize POTUS to allocate money?”

Assuming this refers to the debt ceiling….

There’s very obviously no authority. They probably won’t do it because it’s a losing move when you game it out.

As dumb as it sounds, platinum coins are probably the bast move that doesn’t involve letting the Republican half of the country influence US government.

[Brett Bellmore]

Nah, more likely to go with the consol bonds, obscure enough that too many people won't point and laugh, and there is that inconvenient point about the statute they'd appeal to for the $1T coin only authorizing numismatic coins, not coins to be used as currency.

Probably a loser in court, but at this point they don't care, they just want to kick the can a bit further down the road waiting for a few RINOs to cave.

[Ben_]

There’s no Congressional appropriation to pay off any unauthorized debt. No one will buy unauthorized bonds — because they’ll never get any principal back or any interest payments from the Treasury.

[bernard11]

the statute they’d appeal to for the $1T coin only authorizing numismatic coins, not coins to be used as currency.

Bellmore Law.

The Secretary may mint and issue platinum bullion coins and proof platinum coins in accordance with such specifications, designs, varieties, quantities, denominations, and inscriptions as the Secretary, in the Secretary’s discretion, may prescribe from time to time.

[Gandydancer]

As if striking a "$1T" coin and putting it in the safe reduces the debt. Tell me another.

[Ben_]

It doesn’t change the debt at all.

It gives them $1T cash on hand to pay bills if the Federal Reserve honors it as legal tender.

It also signals to debt holders that the value of their bonds is in danger. It’s obviously inflationary. It’s obviously a stunt and a gimmick, showing Biden and the rest of the people in his administration as clowns.

It’s a super dumb option. But it’s not obviously illegal and futile like the other stuff people are talking about.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, it is obviously illegal, because the statute authorizing the mint to strike a platinum coin is one that only authorizes striking numismatic coins, not currency.

So, sure, they can strike a coin that says “$1T” on the face, but it wouldn’t be legal currency.

If they pull that, or any of several other ploys being suggested, it will signal that they don't really care about even pretending to behave lawfully anymore.

[David Nieporent]

No, it is obviously illegal, because the statute authorizing the mint to strike a platinum coin is one that only authorizes striking numismatic coins, not currency.

Brett, let's make a deal: I won't tell you how to make up insane conspiracy theories, and you won't try to tell me what you think the law is. The statute authorizing the minting of platinum coins is 31 U.S.C. § 5112(k). Please point to the words "numismatic coins, not currency" there.

[bernard11]

Brett,

I just quoted the statute. Did you read it? Aren't you a thoroughgoing textualist, or only when it suits you? I do not see any such restriction, nor have I herd anyone else make your claim.

Where is it?

[Ben_]

The name-calling means Sarcastr0 has no arguments.

[Brett Bellmore]

It’s not so much the issue itself, but what they do in response to it. Democrats keep ramping up their efforts to delegitimize the judiciary not ruling in their favor, and they’ve got some really violent followers.

If I were writing a political thriller, the flash point would be somebody assassinating a big chunk of the Court to give a Democratic President a chance to remake the Supreme court, or in a lower key novel, Democrats putting together enough votes in Congress, (Possibly by arranging a flash vote with a large number of members absent.) to enact a quick bill packing the Court.

That would be followed by a swift overturn of rulings such as Heller/McDonald/Bruen, Dobbs, and whatever we’re going to call the ruling coming up that finally declares the obvious: That racial discrimination is illegal regardless of the excuse given for engaging in it.

Then the Democrats impose at the federal level all the crap they’ve been doing in a minority of states; Elective abortion right up to birth, banning popular models of guns, racial quotas.

And then, like in the 90’s, the feds commit some atrocities in their efforts at enforcement, and it’s on.

Though an earlier opportunity for a flash point would be the current drive to keep Trump off the ballot on the basis of his supposedly being disqualified for the office due to January 6th. If that were done in a state that Trump might actually carry, and decided the election in favor of the Democrat, yeah, it would get ugly fast.

[bernard11]

You're losing it, Brett.

"Violent followers." Fucking joke coming from a right-winger. I guess you don't consider people violent if they are on your side.

[Sarcastr0]

He thinks Antifa is the paramilitary wing of the Democratic Party, akin to how the KKK was. His evidence is that some prosecutions were dropped in the Portland protests (no Antifa connection evident in any of the cases, natch)

[Nige]

When was the last time antifa even did anything that managed to spark outrage from even the self-sparking right-wing outrage machine?

[Gandydancer]

"Some" is how many?

I see 31 of 90 here: https://www.kgw.com/article/news/investigations/portland-protest-cases-dismissed-feds/283-002f01d2-3217-4b12-8725-3fda2cad119f

And, nah, there's no evidence anyone involved in the Antifa riots in Portland were Antifa.... especially if you don't look. Just rando Portlanders who decided to beat up Andy Ngo and firebomb the Federal Building: Nothing to see here, folks!

[SimonP]

I'm sure you have a perfectly benign, non-threatening interpretation of South Carolina's Governor's remarks in re: hunting Democrats with dogs.

I'll wait.

[Gandydancer]

Hunting Democrats with dogs sounds like a benign attempt at pest removal to me.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

So did slaves have a RKBA?? Because the 2A was an individual right unlike the 1A did it protect slave’s RKBA??

[David Nieporent]

That was one of Taney's arguments against black people being citizens — that if they were, they would have the RKBA.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

So free Blacks had the RKBA but the 4 million slaves didn’t have the RKBA?? Or maybe slaves had 3/5th of the RKBA?? So the right to keep arms but not bear them??

[Gandydancer]

You keep sounding dumber and dumber. The "So [followed by utter nonsense]" formulation is so Nige.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

I can’t believe the Framers gave slaves the RKBA and apparently failed to inform them?? Slaves had the right to kill their slave masters the whole time…how progressive!

[Gandydancer]

The voices in your head are telling you the strangest things. Maybe you should go back on your meds.

[Gandydancer]

The 2A didn't protect any right to keep and bear arms, it merely said the Federal government couldn't abridge it. States could, however. And Dred Scott was uncontradicted good law between the passage of the 14th and 15th Amendments. So... buy a clue.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Nope, Heller says the RKBA is an individual right derived from the 2A. Incorporation was unnecessary because how can an individual right only restrict the federal government?? Unless the 2A was drafted specifically to protect citizens in DC and federal territories?? Such a head scratcher. 😉

[not guilty]

"Incorporation was unnecessary because how can an individual right only restrict the federal government??"

That the Bill of Rights bound only the federal government and not the states was the prevailing view until the early twentieth century. See, Barron v. Mayor & City Council of Baltimore, 32 U.S. 243 (1833). The Supreme Court opined in United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, 553 (1875), that the Second Amendment "is one of the amendments that has no other effect than to restrict the powers of the national government[.]" SCOTUS in Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652, 666 (1925), "assume[d] that freedom of speech and of the press which are protected by the First Amendment from abridgment by Congress are among the fundamental personal rights and 'liberties' protected by the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment from impairment by the States."

Since that time the incorporation doctrine has considered the Bill of Rights piecemeal regarding whether a particular guaranty is incorporated against the states, most recently in Timbs v. Indiana, 586 U.S. ___, 139 S.Ct. 682 (2019) (Eighth Amendment excessive fines clause). The Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms was held to be incorporated against the states in 2010. McDonald v. City of Chicago, 561 U.S. 742 (2010).

[Gandydancer]

” Such a head scratcher.”

Only for a determinedly ignorant moron. The 2A recognized the existence of the natural right, but didn’t make the Federal government the guardian of it.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Here's another link.

https://apnews.com/article/business-los-angeles-california-race-and-ethnicity-racial-injustice-0c697c355c0224b13dc17ee18062b06f

[Gandydancer]

Well, it's not. You just still have you call your quotas "goals and timetables" and California forgot to engage in that kabuki.

[Kazinski]

Righteous decision, but it’s from last year.

[Michael P]

Having been caught trying to establish a federal board to run disinformation efforts, the Biden administration put that push on ice. But only temporarily: now the Chinese asset is creating centers to spread foreign malign influence.

https://dailycaller.com/2023/05/20/szabo-bidens-ministry-of-truth-is-back-but-with-new-branding/

[BravoCharlieDelta]

I love how Biden recently said the US won't decouple from China.

Of course he won't, how else could his son fly a $55k private jet to tell a judge in Arkansas he was too broke to take care of his kid?

[David Nieporent]

Having been caught trying to establish a federal board to run disinformation efforts,

Having been caught lying, Michael P just kept on lying, because the single most defining element of MAGA is the complete and utter lack of conscience or shame.

[Gandydancer]

Except that what you quote is true. So your angry frothing looks REALLY silly.

[Michael P]

Why do you drag yourself down to S_0 levels with comments that do nothing but call names and deny reality in the face of easily verified claims?

... Oh, right. It's leftist projection again.

[David Nieporent]

1) Biden was not "caught" doing anything. It's a common trick of dishonest people to say that anything that is reported is someone being "caught" doing that thing. There was nothing secret about this. It was announced.

2) I knew what you were referring to. And, as your own link shows, you were lying. The proposed Disinformation Governance Board was not "a federal board to run disinformation efforts." It was a federal board to provide advice about countering disinformation efforts.

3) Also, you half-wit lunatic, I'm not a leftist.

[Brett Bellmore]

" The proposed Disinformation Governance Board was not “a federal board to run disinformation efforts.” It was a federal board to provide advice about countering disinformation efforts."

I think you're unaware of the original Soviet concept of disinformation: The disinformation effort consists of declaring the truth to be disinformation, and then countering the truth.

You know, like pretending Hunter's laptop was a Russian plant, then suppressing it on that basis? Or censoring people saying that Covid originated at the Wuhan lab?

[David Nieporent]

"People say what they actually say, not the subtext you attribute to them."

[Nige]

'pretending Hunter’s laptop was a Russian plant, then suppressing it on that basis? Or censoring people saying that Covid originated at the Wuhan lab?'

Ironically, all this is disinformation.

[Gandydancer]

There's nothing "ironic" about your lies. You repeat them with apparent seriousness, which is "pathetic and disgusting".

[Nige]

Cry harder.

[bernard11]

I think you’re unaware of the original Soviet concept of disinformation: The disinformation effort consists of declaring the truth to be disinformation, and then countering the truth.

Whatever. That has zero to do with your claims.

"The Soviets did this. Therefore Biden is doing it too." Are you really that stupid? Almost makes me doubt your claimed climate change expertise.

[Theendoftheleft]

The single most defining element of MAGA is the rejection of neoliberalism. It’s why, for example, two time Obama voting union members voted for Trump in blue states.

You can’t admit that because you lack the courage to face the twilight of your ideology (and, perhaps, of your country).

[Michael P]

What causes such a high rate of mental illness among leftist activists?

https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2023/05/20/watch-nebraska-dem-flips-out-during-trans-debate-as-activists-throw-tampons-assault-police-n749005

[Brett Bellmore]

Are you sure you don't have the causation backwards?

[Michael P]

I observe a correlation, and have not proposed a direction of causation.

[Sarcastr0]

Don’t call people you disagree with mentally Ill Brett.

[Nige]

The serious concern about mental illness associated with mass shootings really does dissolve quite quickly, doesn't it.

[Gandydancer]

Nah, I’m still concerned about the failure to treat trannys properly or lock them in asylums when they don’t get better.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

This bigoted clinger was boasting about his libertarianism earlier today.

He's about as libertarian as the Volokh Conspiracy is.

Carry on, clingers. Your betters will continue to let you know how far and how long that will be.

[Theendoftheleft]

‘Carry on, clingers. Your betters will continue to let you know how far and how long that will be’.

Twice in this same thread you betray your fascist tendencies, AIDS.

Don’t worry, though, in a decade’s time there will be hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of these folks in your country:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/05/13/jack-teixeira-discord-leaked-documents/

Basically, AIDS, you are already the walking dead — and not just because you are a disease. You have no future.

If, however, you seek to flee to other parts of the West, you will not find sanctuary here. Suffice it to say that people have long anticipated such things…

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The liberal-libertarian mainstream will continue to shape our national progress and establish the laws with which Americans will comply. The culture war's losers -- conservatives, especially the bigoted and superstitious right-wingers -- will continue to comply with the preferences of better Americans.

None of this should be controversial in modern, improving America.

[Theendoftheleft]

Your delusions are pathetic, AIDS.

For one thing, your youth are abandoning liberalism. Your entire culture will never recover. So have you, mind you: you don’t want a dialogical, inclusive, tolerant, live-and-let-live approach to social and political discourse; as you just admitted, you want and expect the conservatives to just adhere to your diktats.

Nor can anyone in the rest of the West, let alone the world, take seriously your claims about constituting national progress in the face of your country’s obvious fragmentation and decline, let alone disregard for the rule of law.

Back to your conservatives, they won’t comply with your authoritarianism and cultural genocide of the country. They will continue to be alienated by your culture war putsch and destruction of the republican form of government. Your country’s liberals and progressives regularly disregard basic rule of law requirements, in addition to basic constitutional and statutory requirements for guiding and structuring your government’s action. The whole world, upon very good grounds, thinks that the CIA and FBI are mafias. (You, AIDS, never reply when I point out how no other country would adopt your recent election law policies precisely because the UNDERMINE election integrity and basic rule of law requirements.) As you only offer the promise of an incessant propaganda war stemming from your corporate media and winning-at-all-costs approach to elections and lawmaking, the conservatives will also abandon rule of law compliance. You don’t follow the rules, so why should they? In a few years the USA will have hundreds of thousands of Teixeira folks. You are fucked.

Choose reason, AIDS. Stop cloaking yourself in delusions and face reality with open eyes for once in your life.

[Nige]

Inprisoning people you don't like using 'mental health' as a pretext - Brett Bellmore won't like that!

[Gandydancer]

Insane asylums aren't prisons, and confining lunatics who are dangerous to themselves and others to them is more humane "treatment" than the castration and chemical injuries whose infliction YOU usually mis-describe using that word.

[Nige]

Republican insane asylums would be worse than prisons. It'd be back to the old days of Bedlam, and packed with their political enemies and hated minorities.

[Nige]

A political party is targeting a minority group with oppressive laws, and smearing them with relentless hateful propaganda. That should upset anybody.

[Gandydancer]

It is to be expected that deranged people who believe that nonsense will get upset, but why do you lie so much too?

[Nige]

Weird that you'd deny it, you were gloating about locking them up a few short comments ago.

[Gandydancer]

Dangerous lunatics aren't a "minority group" and treating them is not "oppression".

[Nige]

That's how you do it!

[Theendoftheleft]

The whites aren't a minority yet.

[Nige]

They’re barely hanging on at 79%.

[Gandydancer]

You lie like a rodent pees and shits - all the time. The claimed percentage of Whites in the US is maybe around 57%... and that number is from the people who are still claiming there are only 11 million invaders.

[David Nieporent]

Not sure which neo-Nazi group — or more likely, groups — you're getting your information from, but the white population of the U.S. is 75%.

[Life of Brian]

the white population of the U.S. is 75%

When you too-cleverly count Hispanics/Latinos as "white," that is. Factoring those out gives you Gandy's number.

But I'm sure you already knew that.

[David Nieporent]

I don't count "Hispanics" as white; I count white Hispanics as white.

[Life of Brian]

I count white Hispanics as white.

Reminds me of the old riddle: if you call a dog's tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have? Answer: 4. Calling a dog's tail a leg doesn't make it one.

But even accepting this avant-garde made-up classification, that only gets you to about 63%. 75% is whites plus all Hispanic/Latino.

[Nige]

Damn, knew I should have double-checked.

[Ben_]

In unappealing, middle-aged white women? I think decades of rejecting and fighting against nature takes its toll. Pretending is easy at first, but it gets harder as the years pass, so they have to pretend harder and harder. They eventually cross the line from intense denial to insane delusions, because the alternative is facing the reality that they've spent their lives in pursuits that only leave them lonely and sad.

[Michael P]

The demand for racism in this country greatly exceeds the supply: https://www.mediaite.com/tv/attorney-for-pregnant-nurse-in-viral-bike-incident-plans-to-sue-media-who-defamed-her-says-race-had-nothing-to-do-with-it/

[Gandydancer]

Of course it did. If the bike thieves hadn’t been black no one would have given their grift the slightest credence. And get a load of the finale!

“Marino said Comrie’s employer appeared to accept the media reports of racism at face value and put Comrie on leave pending review.

‘As a health system we are committed to providing an environment for our patients and our staff that is free of discrimination of any kind,’ her hospital said in a statement.

Marino said, ‘Race had nothing to do with it.’ … Marino added, ‘We have no ill will towards these young men. And in fact, we wish them the best.’”

Best of luck to you! Maybe next time she won't have receipts and you guys can mug her in peace.

[Michael P]

When the US Department of State added "randomly assigned" pronouns to the "From" line of every email sent by employees, it was "unintentional". (Some genius was testing in the production environment, a violation of both best engineering practice and security rules.) They still had to offer counseling for anyone who felt they had been misgendered by the Department.

https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/05/ap-reporter-roasts-state-dept-over-pronouns-in-emails-this-is-not-an-optional-thing/

[DaveM]

In that case, my pronouns would be "Secretary/Secretary's". Problem solved.

[Armchair Lawyer]

I'm somewhat amused that the typical actors aren't here. It's like they only show up on Thursdays, right when the open thread normally releases. But don't regularly read the forum/blog.

Just thinking out loud, mind you.

[Frank Drackman]

Sounds like someones got a case of the Moon-days!

[Michael P]

They finally show up, belatedly, with an unimaginative and undisguised ad hominem troll. Sad, really.

[Krychek_2]

Since you asked . . .

I only rarely comment on open threads because of the speed with which they tend to degenerate into partisan sniping, name calling, and crack-pottery. (Look at this one, for example.) Sure, other threads sometimes do that too, but the speed with which it happens in the open threads is truly remarkable. So at least in my case, the day of the week has nothing to do with it.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Nah, you're fine. We have different views on politics, and that's OK.

[Bob from Ohio]

"’somewhat amused that the typical actors aren’t here."

What time did you post your comment?

[Armchair Lawyer]

You know, wake up, get some coffee, screw around on the internet for a few minutes while waking up and eating breakfast before work.

Usually by this time on Thursdays, ng would have at least 5 posts up, 3 paragraphs long, denoting whatever tiny little minutae of Trump was around.

[John F. Carr]

Border Patrol was setting up "immigration" roadblocks in central New Hampshire with the real aim of searching for drugs. The ACLU sued and won a settlement: this year and next the agency will not set up roadblocks in the town of Woodstock, New Hampshire. They will have to move one town to the north or south.

https://apnews.com/article/border-immigration-checkpoints-new-hampshire-9d35423a69e7ab5ee5908d5f61a41ebd

The roadblock that prompted the lawsuit was several years ago. It was timed to coincide with a marijuana festival that would give the drug logs lots of scents. Local police were on hand to take any minor possession cases not worth the U.S. Attorney's time. In a surprise move, state courts refused to accept the evidence from a search that violated state law.

Local members of Congress grumbled about the law that allowed immigration searches up to 100 miles from the border, a distance that includes most of the area of New Hampshire and Vermont. Just like the executive was able to defuse the anger over warrantless wiretapping of a large fraction of phone calls, it was able to calm down Congress enough to prevent reform.

[Dr. Ed 2]

In the 80s, there were lots of night plane landindings on lakes in remote northern maine and drugs driven down I95.

[John F. Carr]

The typo "drug logs" reminded me of an article somebody wrote about mailing odd things around the country. A brick arrived in tiny pieces having been searched for illegal contents.

[Brett Bellmore]

Friends had a game going where they'd mail fake bombs back and forth between them, the challenge being to 'defuse" them without triggering the buzzer. As you might imagine, when the post office looked into one of the boxes there was a bit of a fuss.

It being a saner era when this happened, they ended up providing the bomb squad with practice bombs, rather than getting in legal trouble.

[John F. Carr]

You may recall that the European GDPR caused web sites to offer cookie choice for American visitors too. A typical menu allowed you to enable or disable each of marketing, performance, and analytics. Essential cookies were still mandatory. It looked like they were extending European rules to American users. Then I saw the list of "essential" cookies of one web site included marketing trackers for all the major ad networks. I wonder if they offer the same deceptive choice to Europeans.

[John F. Carr]

(posting in paragraphs to find out which part is considered an "unsafe" operation by the web police)

It's a variant on the tragedy of the commons. If I use marketing cookies and you don't I am at a competitive advantage. If we all do, customers are alienated.

[shawn_dude]

Meta (Facebook) just found itself with a $1.3B fine from the EU for violating the GDPR. The GDPR covers a LOT more than cookies.

[John F. Carr]

The Wordfence plugin has blocked one paragraph I wanted to write. No big deal. I am curious what I did to offend it. Was it "They have poisoned the well."

[John F. Carr]

No, it must have been a random hypothetical I made up about nice tracking collecting correlations among large groups, compared to naughty tracking collecting personal information.

[Krayt]

Never heard of that plugin. Is it “please stop me from accidentally typing something that might get me canceled”?

In either case, it should report why it is blocking something.

[John F. Carr]

They don't want to give feedback to spammers and scammers.

It might be the phrase "are also interested in".

[shawn_dude]

There's all this wee beasty: https://oag.ca.gov/privacy/ccpa

I've noticed lots of "for California residents" popups providing me more opt-out options. The GDPR is an "opt-in" law while the CCPA is an "opt-out" law so there may end up being a few more shenanigans with cookies.

[Michael P]

Unimaginative, undisguised trolls may be surprised when they find out how much of the Medicare and Medicaid budgets goes to the people who actually do the work. Perhaps even moreso than after discovering how much goes to overhead and administrators. But they still won't expect government to cut back on those wealth transfer and jobs programs.

[shawn_dude]

Speaking of undisguised trolls, do you think that grandma's health insurance is really just a "wealth transfer and jobs" program? If you cut it, you'll just create a "wealth transfer and jobs" program for morticians and massively cut the Florida, Nevada, and Arizona budgets.

[Michael P]

Do you think providing equipment for the Department of Defense is really just a “wealth transfer and jobs” program?

Good grief, you people act like you can't even think before commenting.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Why do the Left want the people in government to control their all of their healthcare and not just the 70% or so they do now? An empiricist can essily infer, the system will get worse; more people will get harmed, quality will go down, costs will skyrocket and they'll be left begging unaccountable bureaucrats and corrupt politicians for ever more relief from the problems caused by those very same unaccountable bureaucrats and corrupt politicians?

Is it a religious belief and not a rational one?

[Nige]

'An empiricist can essily infer, the system will get worse'

Only if they refuse to look at how public health is handled anywhere else at all.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Nige,

Our public spending per capita is greater than just about every one of those countries but one.

The amount of control over the sector is on par with those countries too.

Besides, you act is if public healthcare is done the same way everywhere.

[Nige]

Doesn't matter how much is spent on it if people can't access it without incurring enormous costs. In fact, the more that's spent on it the dumber that situation is.

[Ben_]

Leftist elites are rich and will have the best healthcare money can buy, regardless of the rules they make for everyone else.

[Martinned]

You've figured it out! The Left hates the poor and wants to torture them, while the Right loves the poor and wants to help them by not letting them have healthcare!

[Ben_]

The poor aren’t losing because they already have free Medicaid and the new schemes aren’t different. Middle class working people — the vast majority of the population — people who have good health insurance right now — are the ones who lose.

(It won’t actually happen because it’s far too expensive unless doctors and nurses take about a 50% pay cut.)

[Sarcastr0]

The poor aren’t losing because they already have free Medicaid

Medicaid sucks, Ben.

[Ben_]

Government schemes are like that. Trading one scheme for another scheme of exactly the same type is unlikely to make any difference.

[Sarcastr0]

Stay consistent with your boring resentment.

Is medicare something that makes the poor all lucky duckies getting free stuff, or does it suck?

[Ben_]

If your point is that Medicare is better that Medicaid, good for you.

That tends to confirm what I said "the poor aren’t losing".

[Sarcastr0]

My point (perhaps occluded by typing Medicare when I was only talking about Medicaid) is that you are saying Medicaid is bad becaused it is government run, and also bad because it gives poor people free stuff.

It's the old 'The food is terrible and the portions so small' overdetermined bullshit.
But you are not joking. You are driven more by venting than argument.

It's why you're not changing with the times and going grimdark.

[Gandydancer]

"Medicaid sucks...."

But a universal government-suppliced medical system will be great.

Because reasons.

[Nige]

Depends how much the Republicans are allowed to sabotage it.

[Gandydancer]

I see. New allegation: Medicaid sucks, but only because the Republicans have sabotaged it. In a world without the evil GOP you could go to the Post Office or DMV or IRS and see only smiley rather than surly faces and you would get great service too!

[Nige]

Yes.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Medicaid

medicare

Stay consistent

[Sarcastr0]

X-P

Oy.

[Michael P]

Who did NOT see this coming?

https://fortune.com/2023/05/18/china-belt-road-loans-pakistan-sri-lanka-africa-collapse-economic-instability/

[Sarcastr0]

This is actually a pretty important and not particularly partisan issue (for the non shitposting crowd)

I don’t know too much about China’s plan here. They are many things, many of them antagonistic to the US, but an agent of chaos has not been one of them in the past.

[Mr. Bumble]

"...but an agent of chaos has not been one of them in the past."

You haven't been paying attention.

[Michael P]

It seems to me that China is very rigidly expecting strict adherence to its terms, just like they have in Xinjiang, just like they did in Tianenmen Square, just like they did in the Great Leap Forward.

But yes, S_0 doesn't pay attention to much.

[Bob from Ohio]

"It seems to me that China is very rigidly expecting strict adherence to its terms"

Like US banks, they are going to find that default is the norm with these loans. They were never going to be paid back and the CCP has no way to collect.

[Sarcastr0]

China likes things predictable, especially economically.

Perhaps you want to elaborate on their agent of chaos policies? Or are you mixing them up with Russia?

[Brett Bellmore]

But pushing your debtors into default is hardly making things predictable, unless it was your intention that they default.

I mean, it's possible that they just wanted immediate access to the escrow funds, but if that's so, they must be really hard up for cash.

[Sarcastr0]

Yes, Brett, that is my question - given China's general track record, does anyone have any thoughts on this seeming departure from their general preferences?

I do hear they're in a budget crunch, but this seems a juice-not-worth-the-squeeze issue.

[Brett Bellmore]

They're in a lot of crunches right now. Remember, their effort to undo the effects of the One Child policy failed, they joined the birth dearth prematurely, and are looking at a really nasty demographic collapse in a few years; Their biggest age group are past the child bearing years and headed towards retirement.

Then the whole "Making sure the rest of the world was hosed by Covid, too." thing kinda ticked off the rest of the world. As well as kicking off supply chain disruptions which, together with the Ukraine war, have resulted in the West reassessing how clever it is to be economically dependent on resources and manufacturing from a hostile totalitarian state.

So, dangerously, I think their planning horizon is VERY short these days. They've got a very narrow window during which it's even vaguely possible to pull off some of Xi's ambitions, and then it's all over. A very dangerous time for the world.

[Sarcastr0]

This is the kind of discussion I was hoping to engender.

That would indeed be dangerous - China's long-term thinking rational actor nature has been a reason why things have been stable for a while.

Lets hope this is not them becoming desperate.

[Mr. Bumble]

Or seeking to take control of the projects they helped to fund.

[Sarcastr0]

Callin in loans is not how you do that.

[Mr. Bumble]

Sure it is if it's part of the contract.
I thought you muted me.

[Bob from Ohio]

"part of the contract"

How are they going to enforce it? Send their fleet?

[Sarcastr0]

Who says muting is permanent. I have a rotating cast of shitposters. One goes on, another comes off.

You should be off, though - I presume I got curious and forgot to turn you back off.

It's a shame - you are clearly made for better than what you choose to be.

[Mr. Bumble]

Faint praise from an ass wipe.

[Gandydancer]

If you owe the bank a lot of money then you run the bank rather than they run you.

Two defaults already. China is in trouble, right?

[Frank Drackman]

You can’t make this shit up… https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12099661/Ex-Biden-administration-nuclear-official-Sam-Brinton-arrested-fugitive-justice.html Samuel Otis Brinton (born 1986/1987) is an American nuclear engineer and LGBTQ activist. They served as the deputy assistant secretary of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition in the Office of Nuclear Energy from June to December 2022. Brinton is no longer employed by the Office of Nuclear Energy after being charged with luggage theft three times. Brinton was the first openly genderfluid individual in federal government leadership, and uses singular they pronouns.

[Michael P]

and uses singular they pronouns.

I gather this is supposedly better than using (multiple personality disorder) plural they pronouns, but is it even accurate? Do people write "they eats lunch" when referring to Britton?

[Brett Bellmore]

I'd assume no, because that would be other people using the pronouns, not Brinton.

How does Brinton even use "they" refering to himself, anyway? Some variant on the royal "we"?

[Gandydancer]

I first encountered this in reference to a Wikipedia admin a half dozen or so years ago. He banned me because I suggested that Neil DeGrasse Tyson had been a beneficiary of "affirmative action" when he washed out of UT Austin's Doctoral Astrophysics program and was immediately admitted to Cornell's Doctoral Astronomy program and given money to hire other grad students to compile a catalog by way of a doctoral thesis. But I digress. Yeah, "they" was used in reference to this guy, but he didn't seem to use it himself.

[Sarcastr0]

Anyone else notice that after the Trump verdict the right wing shitposters around here seem more manic and bloodthirsty?

[Krychek_2]

There's a verse in the Bible that says that Satan rages because he knows his time is short. The same principle applies to the Trumpist shit posters here.

[Frank Drackman]

"Time is Short" ? you're talking about "46" and don't sick the FBI on me, nothing Ill-legal, no Assassination/Insurrection/, just what normally happens to Octogenarians with Parkinson's (one fall is a trip hazard, 2 is bad luck, 37 is a Parkinson's patient) doesn't take an M.D. to spot a dying man. Can "45" beat Biden (again)?? hypothetical, because the DemoKKKrat nominee's gonna be Common-Law Harris or former San-Fran-Sissy-co Mayor Calvin Loathsome

Frank

[Krychek_2]

Frank, that's not what people who see the President every day are reporting, but suppose your wish comes true and he drops dead of something or other. There is a difference between leaving the stage because your health wore out, versus being dragged off the stage by one scandal after another, one criminal investigation after another, one transparent attempt to market the presidency after another. You may not like Biden's policies, but having a president who actually acts presidential after four years of Trump is the reason Trump has no prayer of ever returning to the White House.

[Frank Drackman]

Didn't realize "Acting Presidential" included being creepy as fuck around children, I see where Hunter gets his creepiness from .

[Krychek_2]

Oh, I see you're one of the gullible loons who takes claims made by extremist media seriously.

[Frank Drackman]

I watch most of Senescent Joe's Prat-falls on CSPAN, not really an "Extremist" media source, wait, actually you're right, my bad.

[Krychek_2]

For someone who calls someone else senescent, it's amazing how much trouble you have following a simple thread.

[grb]

Frank Drackman : Didn’t realize “Acting Presidential” included being creepy as fuck around children

Uh huh. Does that include daughter Ivanka? If so, we have a long long list of creepy stuff to review. And - guess what - their all out in the public record, not fantasy stories from the Right's fever swamp..

[Frank Drackman]

My daughters used to give me Neck massages after a tough tennis workout (tough for me, easy for them) does that make me creepy? Just shows the pre-versions in your own head if you think it does.

Frank

[Krychek_2]

Did you ever say that your daughter was a fine piece of ass (or whatever it is that Trump said about Ivanka)?

[Gandydancer]

"...or whatever it is that Trump said ..."

Ignorance is never any bar to you opening your mouth and pumping out slurs, I see.

[Krychek_2]

Do you dispute that while not a word for word quote, it accurately reflects the substance of what Trump said about his daughter?

[Gandydancer]

The “substance” of what he said is that he thought Ivanka was physically attractive. The rest is your dirty mind and mouth.

[David Nieporent]

The “substance” of what he said is that he thought Ivanka was physically attractive. The rest is your dirty mind and mouth.

No, he said that she was sexually attractive.

To be sure, the "piece of ass" line was merely a phrase he endorsed, not one he actually said. Howard Stern actually said the words; Trump merely approved of them. If you think that's an important defense of Trump, you can rest on that.

[Gandydancer]

Physically attractive IS sexually attractive to the opposite sex (or homoperverts), but like the "piece of ass" pseudo-quote I suspect that he didn't SAY that either.

[Michael P]

Speaking of manic and bloodthirsty commenters and selective notice: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/05/21/loudoun-county-facebook-group-threats/

[BravoCharlieDelta]

This is delusional.

[OtisAH]

On this we agree. You idiots are just as manic and bloodthirsty after the ruling as you were before. Sarcastr0 has a need to see the better in people no matter how many times they prove they’re no good in the slightest. So he thinks there’s been a change in quality and tone but you and I know better.

[Estragon]

The fantasies do seem to be a bit more florid these days, hard to say why except for the obvious- these people are losing their minds.

“And California adds to their list of judges who have to go up against the wall, come the revolution”. Really? Every single judge, Brett?

It just kind of boggles the mind that there are actually people out there who not only think this but are willing to post it on the internet for all to see. Brett- you’ve told us you have kids. Would you say this in front of them?

[Michael P]

Is every single judge on California's list of judges who must go up against the wall?

If so, what's the point of keeping a special list for them?

[Estragon]

Here’s a better question: why are you posting about murdering judges on the internet?

[Michael P]

I talk about that because I am worried that other leftists will try to do what the nascent Kavanaugh assassin wanted to do.

Why are you pretending those people don't exist?

[Krychek_2]

Why are you pretending that this is a problem specific to leftists?

[Michael P]

The original question was about left-wing California's list of judges to murder.

[Estragon]

The original question was: why is Brett bellmore posting about murdering judges on a Monday morning? And would he say the same things in front of his kid(s)?

[Brett Bellmore]

The reason is obvious: Because the left has gotten so hysterical at this point in their opposition to enforcement of the Constitution on various fronts, that there's not a lot of room left for them to escalate without starting to kill judges.

And, why wouldn't I? My son isn't a 5 year old, he's studied Civil war history, he reads news accounts of things like a guy setting out to kill some Supreme court justices to wing the vote on Dobbs.

[Nige]

Yeah, the left's threats against judges are so overwhelmingly terrifying, you have to make them on their behalf.

[Magister]

Instead of killing judges, they could just expand the Supreme Court: it's legal, and probably only a few Senators and a handful of Representatives needed.

[Brett Bellmore]

I didn't threaten any judges. I observed that the left can't get much worse in their response to losing important court cases without actually starting to kill judges. Which some of them are already attempting, in case you hadn't noticed.

[bernard11]

You are absolutely deranged.

[Estragon]

Lurid and deranged

[Magister]

The left is more likely to expand the Supreme Court. The right is more likely to respond to that with assassination, given that lately they have trouble winning enough elections or passing actual legislation when they do have a majority.

[bernard11]

their opposition to enforcement of the Constitution on various fronts,

Impossible for Brett to concede that there are those who legitimately think the rulings he is talking about were plain wrong and harmful.

Because no one understands the Constitution, or climate change, or economics, or the motivations of liberals, better than Brett.

Get over yourself Brett. Maybe you were one of the smart kids in high school. Well, so were a lot of other people, most of whom grow out of the syndrome as adults.

[Bob from Ohio]

"why is Brett bellmore posting about murdering judges on a Monday morning? "

He's posting that that your side will do the murdering.

[NOVA Lawyer]

That's not the defense you think it is.

[Michael P]

No, the original question was "every single judge, Brett?"

But you realized you grossly misread his comment, and decided to rewrite history rather than admit it.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Read the comment again: the judge ruled the way Brett Bellmore wanted. He’s not saying that he wants the judge to be murdered after the revolution, he’s saying that his left wing opponents in California will now want to murder the judge after their revolution. It’s silly and delusional (what else would you expect from a Brett Bellmore comment?) but it’s not a threat.

[Nige]

Understandable mistake, he's spoken approvingly of hanging judges on at least one previous occasion.

[Estragon]

Lurid and deranged. Just like I said.

[Gandydancer]

"“And California adds to their list of judges who have to go up against the wall, come the revolution”. Really? Every single judge, Brett?"

If it were "Every single judge" there would be no ongoing additions to the list, so your comment is brain-dead.

And there are certainly California judges who DESERVE to be shot. It's not worth it to me to do it under current conditions, but "come the revolution"? In a shooting war you shoot the enemy until you win.

[Ben_]

Did anyone notice that Sarcastr0 has given up on debate and mostly just engages in name-calling and childish taunting now?

[Armchair Lawyer]

What verdict?

[Estragon]

My prediction is that the indictment against Airman Teixiera gets superseded to include alleged violations of 18 usc 794.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.255930/gov.uscourts.mad.255930.34.0_1.pdf

I haven’t heard from marge recently on this— can one of you denizens let me know: is the huckleberry line on this still that he is a Christian gentleman martyr who did nothing wrong?

[Gandydancer]

18 U.S. Code § 794 - Gathering or delivering defense information to aid foreign government.

What foreign government? He did it to talk politics with a bunch of mostly juvenile gamers, as I understand it.

[Estragon]

“As I understand it”

Heh. Well. That says it all, doesn’t it?

[Gandydancer]

No, the answer to the “What foreign government?” bit is still “unsaid”, because you haven’t got an answer and are too stupid to not highlight the fact that you are dumb and ignorant.

[Mr. Bumble]

So how has that "temporary" inflation been treating you? I keep reading that inflation has been coming down, but have yet to see it when shopping or gassing up.
Can anyone point to a real world reduction?

[hoppy025]

Outside of eggs, milk, and gas, all of which are down from their peak (but still up substantially from the pre-plandemic prices), nope.

Maybe printing $5 trillion and handing it out for votes wasn't such a great idea after all.

[Brett Bellmore]

A lot of the increase in prices is due to ever increasing regulatory burden, not just classic increases in the money supply. For instance, deliberately driving up the cost of energy, which figures into the cost of everything else.

[hobie]

"deliberately driving up the cost of energy". Oh? Did Biden do that too? I work in the energy industry and I'll tell you exactly why prices shot up.

You remember when oil hit negative value? Wells were capped worldwide and drill ships worldwide were sold for scrap. All the shale and gas permits across the United States remain(ed) perfectly open for exploration, but it takes years to come back from what happened in 2020. The energy industry is bigger than any government and it operates under its own schedule

[SRG]

If prices stay at prior high levels, inflation will be zero...

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Real estate portfolio doubled in value in 2 years…inflation is awesome!!

[Ridgeway]

I’d love to hear from some knowledgeable people about the recent Warhol SCT decision. As a non-IP guy, it seems intuitively correct, but if Kagan disagrees (on a non-political case), it does give me pause.

Her thought experiment seems wrong though. Even assuming that Warhol’s version is better and more appealing aesthetically, doesn’t that favor the plaintiff’s claim as to the “effect on the value in the marketplace” prong of the Fair Use Test?

If I take a Harry Potter manuscript, and illustrate it with beautiful illustrations such that my version is more appealing and popular than the original unillustrated version, I am pretty sure JK Rowling will eat my lunch when I try to start selling my version.

[Brett Bellmore]

The killer point here is that Warhol had actually paid the original photographer for one time use rights, which means that he had already conceded that the use was NOT fair use, but had to be compensated.

[Ridgeway]

I don't think that is true. Wasn't it Vanity Fair that paid the fee? Then they (VF) retained Warhol to do the illustration, using the photo, for a separate fee.

[Kazinski]

Doesn’t that make the point even clearer, VF licensed the photo for one time use then commissioned Warhol to transform the photo for them.

Warhol couldn’t have seen the the commission as Carte Blanche for unlimited use, and to his credit he never asserted it during his lifetime.

[Life of Brian]

If I take a Harry Potter manuscript, and illustrate it with beautiful illustrations such that my version is more appealing and popular than the original unillustrated version, I am pretty sure JK Rowling will eat my lunch when I try to start selling my version.

No doubt. But there I presume you're just cutting and pasting the words to the story verbatim, which in itself is a clear infringement of Rowling's copyright on the text regardless of whatever other adornments you hang on your version. Simply adding some illustrations to hundreds of pages of text wouldn't be a sufficiently transformative act to constitute fair use.

The facts here seem a lot muddier to me -- Warhol's classic technique was literally to transform an original image into a series of new ones using variations on color, focus, etc. I haven't had time to read the decision here yet, but it does seem at tension with where I understood the line to be.

[Ridgeway]

A less charitable view would be that Warhol took the photo and made it into a paint-by-numbers with only one number.

The argument about creating a series would be more compelling to me if the images were only sold and presented as a single series, but I dont think that is the case. My understanding is that they are each treated as individual works.

[Life of Brian]

The argument about creating a series would be more compelling to me if the images were only sold and presented as a single series, but I dont think that is the case. My understanding is that they are each treated as individual works.

I took it that they were all presented as a single work in matrix form, as Warhol often did (e.g., with Marilyn Monroe). If they were intended to be sold/displayed separately, I agree that tends to cut more against fair use -- to me the matrix of variations is a large part of what makes it transformative.

[DaveM]

THOUGHT EXPERIMENT:

Imagine going into an actual, physical marketplace and discovering that it follows the same rules of behavior as the marketplace of ideas one finds on most comment boards.

My immediate reaction is: the marketplace would sell only about a dozen things, and there would be food fights every hour of the day.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Bostons haymarket - green groceries in the 1970s was like that.

[John F. Carr]

No soup for you!

[EscherEnigma]

I think you need to go to better forums and comment sections. Places that moderate can remain civil and on-topic.

[Mr. Bumble]

Then why are you here? Go!

[EscherEnigma]

I've said many times why I'm here: to avoid an ideological echo chamber. That I don't agree with the bloggers or the commentators it he point.

[Gandydancer]

Don't let the door hit you on your ass.

[Ed Grinberg]

In my experience, "places that moderate" will often censor perfectly civil, on-topic comments that go against moderators' ideological preferences. After a while you give up and go looking for a more free / open / honest forum. Like this one.

[Michael P]

Andrew Sullivan has a thoughtful new piece up on how similar pushing children towards "gender affirming care" is to gay-conversion therapy: https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/the-queers-versus-the-homosexuals-cfd

[DaveM]

The great social skill of the left is how they somehow manage to find euphemisms that are the exact, polar opposites of whatever crazy &$%! it is they insist society absolutely must affirm this week.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Andrew Sullivan has a thoughtful"

First time for everything!

Has he discovered who Trig Palin's real mom is yet?

[Ben_]

Andrew Sullivan has alway been mostly thoughtful. That's why the Palin stuff stands out.

[Ridgeway]

The Iraq War broke AS's brain. It was a vivid precursor to what Trump has done to so many on the Left and Right.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

I liked it when we slaughtered hundreds of thousands of innocent Muslims and tortured a few innocent Muslims too…good times!

[Gandydancer]

Nothing but innocents, eh?

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

You do realize Bristol Palin was pregnant at the time…so was it defamatory to allege a teenager had a baby when a teenager was pregnant??

[Gandydancer]

That doesn't follow, for any number of reasons.

[bevis the lumberjack]

More scientific persuasion from the climate panic crowd:

https://apnews.com/video/activism-climate-change-italy-government-protests-and-demonstrations-environment-ce13b7d226654b74a9fa9d86bd351792

This stuff left the realm of science about a decade ago and now has just become pure humanist religion.

[SRG]

This doesn’t mean that climate change isn’t happening, of course. And while there are nutters like this, and people who overstate the seriousness, there are also plenty of people who go against the science by flatly denying climate change, or conceding that it is happening but attributing it to “natural causes”. Of the two, the denialist group are more dangerous.

BTW are you able to lay out the scientific grounds for advancing the climate change hypothesis in the first place?

[Life of Brian]

BTW are you able to lay out the scientific grounds for advancing the climate change hypothesis in the first place?

Sure: Test-tube science coupled with primitive mathematical models, all wrapped in a quadruple layer of hubris.

How would you put it?

[SRG]

So you're simply wantonly ignorant.

This is the basis for the hypothesis.

1. CO2 is a greenhouse gas
2. Atmospheric levels of CO2 have risen since the Industrial Revolution
3. This increase is due to human activity.
4. Therefore one may hypothesise that temperatures at the surface will rise and that hence climate overall will change.

What parts of this do you disagree with?

Now subsequent discussion may be on whether the hypothesis has been demonstrated, the extent of the warming change if so, and what steps can one take to mitigate this - if mitigation is necessary.

But the base hypothesis is all I asked for and as everyone can see, you failed to state it.

It is obvious that anyone who cannot even formulate the simple scientific rationale for the hypothesis cannot be expected to provide informed comment in any climate discussion.

[Brett Bellmore]

Almost all of the actual dispute is not over whether warming is happening, but the actual extent and consequences.

The issues I have with global warming orthodoxy are, in no particular order,

1) The models almost all run hot. That's kind of pathological at this point, isn't it? It suggests that for some reason they're not being properly altered to reflect data.
1a) And it doesn't help that the hotter models tend to get all the publicity. Even the IPCC is starting to complain about that.

2) Quality of a lot of temperature stations is terrible, due to environmental changes around them. Warming at the stations that are still ideally situated is a lot lower, but the official adjustments seem to be bringing the good stations into agreement with the bad, not the other way around.

3) The cost of adjusting to the actually likely changes is hugely exaggerated. We're generally talking about changes that are tiny compared to seasonal or day/night variations, and well within the normal range of random year to year variation.

4) And it's mostly about the lows getting higher, not the highs. As would be expected by anybody who understood thermodynamics.

5) The "If they think there's an emergency, why don't they act like it?" factor. Like, shutting down working nuclear plants which don't put out CO2, and being forced to burn fossil fuels to avoid people freezing in the dark. Admittedly, there's starting to be a little movement on this in Europe, perhaps because the prospect of freezing in the dark clarifies one's thinking.

6) Generally, the maniacal opposition to geoengineering experiments like iron fertilization. This is the sort of tool we need in our pocket if the hysterical predictions turn out to be right!

[Sarcastr0]

Almost all of the actual dispute is not over whether warming is happening, but the actual extent and consequences.

Only after years and years of denying it was a thing, talking about global cooling, etc. This is a fallback position when the initial denial could no longer be denied.

The new position is temp increases are maybe fine, and slower, and we shouldn't bother addressing it because we can't stop it.

Same policy upshot, muddier thesis. Almost as though that upshot is the real output the GOP is oriented around!

[Bob from Ohio]

Brett is an outier then. Most on the right still think nothing unusual is happening, climate changes because climate always changes.

[Nige]

Derp.

[Gandydancer]

Nige: Derp, derp, lie, dertp, lie, derp, derp, lie.

[Nige]

Or for brevity's sake, just derp.

[Gandydancer]

Your derping is endless, so anything brief would misrepresent it.

[Nige]

Feel free to replace every comment you write with 'derp,' it would save your blood pressure.

[Brett Bellmore]

Of course I'm an outlier. I'm a professional engineer; How many people on EITHER side of this argument know enough about thermodynamics or radiative heat transfer to actually have an informed opinion, rather than just taking it on faith that they're getting the truth from somebody else? How many of you have done a computer model of a physical system, and then tried to figure out why it diverged from measurements? Personally calculated the blackbody temperature of the Earth at this distance from the Sun?

Of course you've got people who think nothing is happening. You've got people on the other side who genuinely believe the ocean is going to boil! Do they discredit global warming? No? Then people who don't think it's warming at all, don't discredit the side that claims there isn't a big freaking emergency.

"Most on the right still think nothing unusual is happening, climate changes because climate always changes."

Joke's on you, that's 50% of the truth, at least. The planet's been generally warming since we came out of the last period of glaciation, and thank goodness! Human released CO2 might have goosed the process a bit, but things would be warming if nobody had ever burnt an ounce of coal.

The real question, again, isn't whether there's warming. It's how much, and what the consequences are, and if they're determined to be net negative, what to do about it.

And maybe we can have a rational discussion once the doom mongers using it as an excuse to shut down industrial civilization in an attempt to create a pastoral utopia that that just happens to require 99% of the population dying off can be pushed aside?

[Jason Cavanaugh]

"And maybe we can have a rational discussion once the doom mongers using it as an excuse to shut down industrial civilization in an attempt to create a pastoral utopia that that just happens to require 99% of the population dying off can be pushed aside?"

It's people like you, making delusional claims like this, that prevent any kind of rational discussion on the topic.

PS: Your "professional engineer" status means nothing.

[Bob from Ohio]

See Brett, you can't engage with the "doom mongers". Its a weird religion with them, like Scientology.

[Armchair Lawyer]

If you can't face the reality of what you demand, then...

[Jason Cavanaugh]

If you think the people who allegedly are requesting measures that are going to kill off 99% of humans are the ones you should be having discussions with, then you're just as much of an idiot as you've been branded.

Truth is: it's an easy strawman for dipshits like you to latch onto, and you are in fact that dumb.

[Sarcastr0]

No, Brett you don’t get to say being an engineer makes you an expert outside your field.

Engineers love to be imperious like this for some reason.

Plus you made a statement about the actual dispute, correcting srg posting how the right denies it exists. Which Bob kindly proved you wrong and srg right.

[Gandydancer]

SRG was right to say that some people concede that climate change exists but that it's from natural causes. E.g., Bob. But YOU lie about what Bob's existence proves in saying that Bob proves that "the right denies it exists", which Bob doesn't say. And of course BB is right that the real question is how much and whether mitigation is worth it. My own answer is "some" and "no, since we're just going to keep emitting CO2 as long as we can and need to do so we just need to adapt to that reality".

[Brett Bellmore]

"The right" says global warming isn't happening, in exactly the same way "the left" says that the oceans are going to boil. For some reason you think demonstrating that somebody on the right is wrong about something discredits the entire right, but demonstrating that somebody on the left is wrong about something doesn't discredit the entire left.

Well, if you didn't have double standards, you wouldn't have any standards at all, so that's hardly shocking.

I'm in about the same place Bjørn Lomborg is: Warming is real, but not something to freak out about, and the dominant response is deeply irrational.

Not really irrational, though, if you just assume it's being used as an excuse to do things people wanted to do anyway...

[Nige]

'climate change exists but that it’s from natural causes.'

Since 'climate change' is a term used to refer to the effects of humans on the climate, that's just more denial, or yet another exaple pf people not knowing what climate change is when they're arguing against it.

'“The right” says global warming isn’t happening, in exactly the same way “the left” says that the oceans are going to boil.'

Have you checked global oceanic temperatures lately? I mean this very year? You can claim someone somewhere said the oceans would literally 'boil' if you like, but that's not what 'the left' claims. Or the scientists who all study the oceans. Whereas the right is utterly lockstep in denial, for all that the denial takes various forms, including yours.

[Gandydancer]

“Since ‘climate change’ is a term used to refer to the effects of humans on the climate…”

Nige lies shamelessly again. No, you don’t get to hijack the English language without rebuke or rebuttal this time, either.

[Nige]

Those are a few more words you don't know the meaning of.

[Nige]

'that just happens to require 99% of the population dying off'

Lol he called other people doom mongers.

[Gandydancer]

There’s lunatic doom mongers (you, Greta Thunberg) and people who realize that nothing is forever (Brett). Things which are different are not the same.

[Nige]

No, one is warning that something bad will happen if we don't do something about it, the other says meh, let it happen. Only one is a doom-monger.

[Gandydancer]

You’re only a chicken little like you are if the sky isn’t falling but you say it is.

Pointing out that you are demanding emission levels that can occur only if 99% of humans cease to exist is merely a factual observation not a hysterical prediction.

Nige is of course incapable of making the distinction.

Of course he is.

He is incapable of making any inconvenient distinctions.

[Nige]

'that can occur only if 99% of humans cease to exist'

Oh no! 99% of humanity will go extinct if the super-rich can't have yachts and private jets!

[bernard11]

And maybe we can have a rational discussion once the doom mongers using it as an excuse to shut down industrial civilization in an attempt to create a pastoral utopia that that just happens to require 99% of the population dying off can be pushed aside?

Your attitude towards those who disagree makes that impossible. Your basic position is:

"We can discuss it once everyone agrees that I'm right."

[Gandydancer]

That guy you seen in the mirror isn't Brett.

[Nige]

'Almost all of the actual dispute'

This is not what the disputes are about -- the disputes are a wide variety of stunningly stupid stuff sprayed like chaff in an effort to delay doing something about an impending crisis.

All your points are bullshit.

[Armchair Lawyer]

See, his points are legitimate.

Perhaps the elephant in the room is China. Any discussion about global warming that doesn't find a way to control that is ultimately pointless.

[Nige]

Trying to have it both ways - climate change is a serious impending threat but let's not bother doing anything about it because China, but also it's all fake.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

So it’s kind of like Covid?? A Chinese bioweapon…but it isn’t dangerous. Oh, and the vaccine is ineffective…but it is dangerous. Btw, I heard someone say that conspiracy theorists just want to keep asking questions and will simply ignore any answers because they just want to ask questions.

[Gandydancer]

Maybe AL thinks "climate change is a serious impending threat", but he hasn't said so so you are once again a liar to say he is saying both that and that we ought not bother doing anything about it. You just can't help yourself, eh?

[Nige]

If you had half a brain cell you'd be dangerous.

[Gandydancer]

If you had the slightest capacity to persuade anyone of anything you'd be dangerous. But you're transparently a joke.

[Nige]

You're repetitive.

[Gandydancer]

"impending crisis"

When, liar?

[Nige]

Let's see how much of the world burns this summer - it's already started! - and then have a think about how impending it all is.

[Brett Bellmore]

I expect no more of the world will burn this summer than ordinarily burns, fire having been a natural event on this planet for several billion years.

[Nige]

Everything flattens if you broaden the timescale enough. Of course as actual people with finite lives and a severe biodiversity problem, we don't actually have that luxury.

https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/IF10244.pdf
'The number of acres affected annually,
while also variable, generally has increased (see Figure 1).
Since 2000, an annual average of 70,025 wildfires have
burned an annual average of 7.0 million acres. The acreage
figure is more than double the average annual acreage
burned in the 1990s (3.3 million acres), although a greater
number of fires occurred annually in the 1990s on average'

https://www.statista.com/chart/22743/global-wildfire-spread/

'the global fire season increased in length by an average of 19 percent from 1979 to 2013.'

Now I know the problem here is that you just don't care, but let's not be under any illusions.

[Gandydancer]

Reading the smaller print, "... a greater number of fires occurred annually in the 1990s on average."

How did you let that fact slip out?

[Nige]

It really isn't that hard to follow the implications, Gandy, give it a try.

[SRG]

Almost all of the actual dispute is not over whether warming is happening, but the actual extent and consequences.

I disagree. Some people flatly dismiss that anything is happening, and others claim that it's natural variation - though seldom providing a mechanism for this variation. Together, they amount to somewhat more than the difference between all and almost all.

Re: #2 - do you know this or are you just repeating what you've heard from non-science sources? You should read what Richard Muller at BEST found. Here's his article in the WSJL: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970204422404576594872796327348

I note that as Muller was considered to be somewhat sceptical, before he published his findings, Watts from Wattsupwiththat said that he would go along with whatever Muller found. Afterwards, Watts changed his tune.

[bernard11]

Almost all of the actual dispute is not over whether warming is happening, but the actual extent and consequences.

No it’s not.

Why I recall someone you admire greatly calling it a Chinese hoax.

[Life of Brian]

1. CO2 is a greenhouse gas
2. Atmospheric levels of CO2 have risen since the Industrial Revolution
3. This increase is due to human activity.
4. Therefore one may hypothesise that temperatures at the surface will rise and that hence climate overall will change.

What parts of this do you disagree with?

Not much when you soften #4 as you did. But since the hypothesis has consistently failed to deliver anywhere close to the predicted magnitude of results in the real world (even playing along with the hubris-drenched notion that "global temperature" can be accurately measured and tracked), it can be safely added to the large pile of failed hypotheses in the dustbin of history. At that point, #1-3 are interesting but irrelevant to how we actually live our lives.

[Nige]

Except global temperatures have been steadily rising. Ocean temperatures have also been rising. Ice sheets are diminishing. Extreme weather events are occuring more frequently. And we haven't actually breached the serious thresholds yet. Apart from that.

[Bob from Ohio]

"hubris-drenched notion that “global temperature” can be accurately measured"

[Sarcastr0]

Taking an average is just playing God.

[Bob from Ohio]

Average of how many thermometers? Where are they located? Who checks them for accuracy?

[Sarcastr0]

So there's a cool thing about averaging a continuous function, you can estimate uncertainty.

Your war on global temperature is good stuff though - keep at it!

[SRG]

Addressed by Richard Muller and his team at BEST

[Gandydancer]

"So there’s a cool thing about averaging a continuous function, you can estimate uncertainty."

Arrays of temperatures measured in various places under changing conditions are not a continuous function. Bret has of course already addressed this, but your skull is impervious to reason.

[Nige]

Brett, the global temperature expert.

[Gandydancer]

Gladwell said that if you spend 10,000 hours doing something you'll become really good at it, but like the guy who tried that with golf Nige has disproved that with lying. He's still a joke.

[Nige]

Gandy, who has nothing to say, and says it at length.

[Nige]

That's LoB for you.

[Frank Drackman]

Even if we could now (we can't) they couldn't 250 years ago (what was the temperature in Philadelphia on July 4, 1776?) In Gettysburg July 3, 1863? In San Salvador 1492? At Hastings in 1066? Calvary in circa 30 A.D.?
and even then, I thought the Earth was billions of years old? What does a few thousand years matter? What was the Temperature in May 2,000,000,000 B.C.???
and even if I accept the Earth's getting a little warmer, Good! I like it warm.

Frank

[SRG]

since the hypothesis has consistently failed to deliver anywhere close to the predicted magnitude of results in the real world (even playing along with the hubris-drenched notion that “global temperature” can be accurately measured and tracked), it can be safely added to the large pile of failed hypotheses in the dustbin of history. At that point, #1-3 are interesting but irrelevant to how we actually live our lives.

I didn't mention anything about preduction of magnitudes. Plus as you were ignorant of the hypothesis, I do not trust anything you claim to the contrary now. You're evidently ignorant of the state of the science overall.

[Gandydancer]

Nobody gives a damn about your hubristic demand that others produce your version of "the" hypothesis or who the fuck you "trust". Without a prediction of magnitude it is anyway meaningless, as Life of Brian has already pointed out.

[SRG]

First, that's not what "hubristic" means, neither now nor in ancient times.

Second, the point of my question was to establish whether this denialist knew the basic idea underlying the hypothesis - and, as we all saw, he didn't. You don't necessarily need to predict the magnitude - you look to see whether there's any initial evidence supporting the hypothesis, and then develop the predictions.

[Life of Brian]

You don’t necessarily need to predict the magnitude

Well, that's sure a bulletproof way of never having to deal with your predictions being staggeringly wrong, innit?

Apparently you Chicken Littles are catching on to the fact that your constant stream of doom and gloom messages just never quite come into being, and are refining your game.

[Nige]

That's because there's still time to prevent the worst of it. 'doom and gloom messages just never quite come into being' just reflects the scale of the effort that's gone in to ignoring the warnings.

[Gandydancer]

"...‘doom and gloom messages just never quite come into being’ just reflects the scale of the effort that’s gone in to ignoring the warnings."

If the fact that the oceans have nether boiled nor frozen is a product of our magical powers to ignore the warnings that they will have done that by now we should obviously keep it up!

[Nige]

Nobody said the oceans would boil or freeze. They said the oceans would get hotter. They are.

[Life of Brian]

I didn’t mention anything about preduction of magnitudes. Plus as you were ignorant of the hypothesis, I do not trust anything you claim to the contrary now. You’re evidently ignorant of the state of the science overall.

Oh, got it -- I'm "ignorant" because I didn't bark the correct words on demand like a trained puppy.

Get back to your preplanned monologue.

[SRG]

No. you're ignorant because your answer to my original simple request was incorrect.

[Life of Brian]

Again, I'm not your puppet. It's unfortunate that your brain is so inflexible that it's incapable of processing my plainly saucy response for what it was, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it.

I'm acutely aware of the three-Crayola anthropogenic warming theory -- I simply disagree that outside the lab and endless stream of grant-induced research papers it has a material real-world impact that we need to turn our lives upside-down over.

(I know you don't want to talk about magnitude since it sort of puts a real-world twist in your theoretical knickers, but the eco-screamers are asking for gargantuan real-world changes so unfortunately for you that's where any adult discussion must lie.)

[Gandydancer]

Almost no one "denies climate change". And of course it has always happened because of natural causes and continues to do so. YOU are a science denier if you deny this.

[Nige]

You are literally denying climate change.

[Gandydancer]

Nige: "...‘climate change’ is a term used to refer to the effects of humans on the climate..."

I am literally denying that the effects of what Nige lyingly misappropriates the English language to mean in this case is anything approaching catastrophic. Go fuck an egg.

[Nige]

Yes, you are a climate change denier, bog standard.

[Nige]

People are demonstrating to push their government to take action, what's the problem.

[Gandydancer]

Their ignorance and unreasonableness. Your kind of people are a pestilence.

[Nige]

No covid was a pestilance, climate change is one of the other horsemen.

[Gandydancer]

Nige: “…‘climate change’ is a term used to refer to the effects of humans on the climate…”

People who try to misappropriate the English language in this lying way (illegal aliens are “undocumented”, etc.) are an Orwellian pestilence, full stop.

[Nige]

People who get mad because they don't want a commonly understood phrase to mean what it means are just so fucking boring.

[Martinned]

Best to quote the original, to avoid misinformation and misunderstanding.

Statement follows.

Monday 22 May, 2023

The Data Protection Commission (“the DPC”) has today announced the conclusion of its inquiry into Meta Platforms Ireland Limited (“Meta Ireland”), examining the basis upon which Meta Ireland transfers personal data from the EU/EEA to the US in connection with the delivery of its Facebook service.

The DPC adopted its final decision in this inquiry on 12 May 2023. The decision records that Meta Ireland infringed Article 46(1) GDPR when it continued to transfer personal data from the EU/EEA to the USA following the delivery of the CJEU’s judgment in Data Protection Commissioner v Facebook Ireland Limited and Maximillian Schrems. While Meta Ireland effected those transfers on the basis of the updated Standard Contractual Clauses (“SCCs”) that were adopted by the European Commission in 2021 in conjunction with additional supplementary measures that were implemented by Meta Ireland, the DPC found that these arrangements did not address the risks to the fundamental rights and freedoms of data subjects that were identified by the CJEU in its judgment.

The inquiry was initially commenced in August 2020, and was subsequently stayed by Order of the High Court of Ireland, pending the resolution of a series of legal proceedings, until 20 May 2021. Following a comprehensive investigation, the DPC prepared a draft decision dated 6 July 2022. Notably, it found that:

1. the data transfers in question were being carried out in breach of Article 46(1) GDPR; and

2. in these circumstances, the data transfers should be suspended.

Under a cooperation procedure mandated by the GDPR (Article 60), the draft decision prepared by the DPC was submitted to its peer regulators in the EU/EEA, also known as Concerned Supervisory Authorities (“CSAs”). The nature of the processing under examination by the inquiry was such that all other EU/EEA Supervisory Authorities were engaged as CSAs for the purpose of the cooperation procedure.

On the question of Meta Ireland’s non-compliance with the GDPR, and the DPC’s proposal to make an order to suspend the data transfers, the CSAs agreed with the DPC’s decision.

A small number (4) of the 47 CSAs raised objections in relation to the corrective power that the DPC proposed to exercise by way of the draft decision. Within this subset of CSAs, all four CSAs took the view that Meta Ireland should be subject to an administrative fine for the infringement that was found to have occurred. Two of those CSAs also took the view that Meta Ireland should be ordered to take action to address the personal data that had already been unlawfully transferred to the US, i.e. the data transferred from July 2020 to the present.

The DPC disagreed, reflecting its view that the exercise of additional corrective powers, beyond the proposed suspension order, would exceed the extent of powers that could be described as being “appropriate, proportionate and necessary” to address the infringement of Article 46(1) GDPR.

Following an informal consultation process, it became clear that consensus could not be reached. Consistent with its obligations under the GDPR, the DPC referred the objections to the European Data Protection Board (“the EDPB”) for determination pursuant to the Article 65 dispute resolution mechanism.

The EDPB adopted its decision on 13 April 2023. Consistent with its obligations to adopt its final decision “on the basis of” the EDPB’s decision, the DPC’s decision of 12 May 2023 records the exercise of the following corrective powers by the DPC:

1. an order, made pursuant to Article 58(2)(j) GDPR, requiring Meta Ireland to suspend any future transfer of personal data to the US within the period of five months from the date of notification of the DPC’s decision to Meta Ireland;

2. an administrative fine in the amount of €1.2 billion (reflecting the EDPB’s determination that an administrative fine ought to be imposed, to sanction the infringement that was found to have occurred. The DPC determined the amount of the fine to be imposed by reference to the assessments and determinations that were included in the EDPB’s decision); and

3. an order, made pursuant to Article 58(2)(d) GDPR, requiring Meta Ireland to bring its processing operations into compliance with Chapter V of the GDPR, by ceasing the unlawful processing, including storage, in the US of personal data of EEA users transferred in violation of the GDPR, within 6 months following the date of notification of the DPC’s decision to Meta Ireland.

[Bob from Ohio]

Nobody cares.

[Martinned]

You don’t think that €1.2bn is a lot of money?

Also, to quote the Politico headline in my inbox just now: "A record Meta fine ups the pressure on Biden to fix global tech problem"

[Bob from Ohio]

Meta had revenue of $28.65 billion for just the first quarter.

Not sure how much "€" is in real [$] money though.

[Martinned]

I don't think revenue is very important when you're trying to work out whether a fine is large.

But, since I'm procrastinating, I did your homework for you and looked up Meta's 2022 net income (aka profit). It was $23.2bn.

Exchange rates, on the other hand, are left as an exercise for the reader. Even a lawyer must be capable of a minimum level of financial numeracy.

[Martinned]

By the way, I don’t think that a country where people are arguing unironically about the merits of coining a $1trn coin should be talking trash about other people’s currencies.

[Bob from Ohio]

Ha, I'm not "a country". Talking trash about Europe is always appropriate.

[SRG]

Not sure how much “€” is in real [$] money though.

€1 = $1.08

Happy to help. If you've rarely used the internet to find out things you don't know about, like exchange rates, let me recommend this excellent site: https://www.google.com

[Bob from Ohio]

Not worth my time. Its a regional currency.

[SRG]

Fine, it's a regional currency. Would you rather have $1mm or €2mm?

[Gandydancer]

Who cares? No one is offering me either.

If Facebook wants to operate in Europe it will have to pay European taxes, including those that come in the form of "fines". Why should anyone who doesn't own stock in Google care?

Google is evil, so mostly I use duckduckgo. Rumble is narrower, but I substitute it for YouTube as much as I can. Hopefully it will go the way of other nasty excuses for companies.

[Estragon]

DC police lieutenant charged by a grand jury with obstruction and false statements. This person was in contact with convicted seditionist Enrique Tarrio and lied about it, among other things.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23816948-lamonds-indictment

[Dr. Ed 2]

How many other people was the cop in contact with? Maybe he forgot - its why we have written records.

[Estragon]

How many other convicted seditionists was this cop in contact with? Great question!

[Gandydancer]

Another Orwellian shows his ugly mug.

In order to be a "convicted seditionist" someone would first need to be a seditionist.

In order to be "convicted of sedition" someone mere;y needs to be convicted of sedition.

Lying Lefty routinely fails to make this distinction when convenient to him.

[Noscitur a sociis]

You may want to try actually reading the allegations before concocting a frivolous defense to them.

[SRG]

Yes, but that might require him to acquire facts. Remember, there was no Jan 6 riot, but the rioters were justified.

[Gandydancer]

"convicted seditionist"

LOL!

[Estragon]

I bet Tarrio isn’t LOLing right now.

[Gandydancer]

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn didn't have any cause to laugh while in the Gulag Archipelago. What's your point?

[Moderation4ever]

For those who still believe the Russia Investigations were hoaxes, the latest list of American's sanctioned by Russia reads list a Trump's enemy's list including, but not limited to Letitia James, Jack Smith, and Brad Raffensperger. If there is no connection between Trump and Putin, why do they have the same enemies.

[Mr. Bumble]

You left out Obama.

[Moderation4ever]

I did say "not limited to". I can understand Putin sanctioning current and former Presidents. I don't understand his reason for sanctions on a Georgia AG or SOS.

[Estragon]

I found this piece to be enlightening on this subject:

https://www.emptywheel.net/2023/05/21/peter-baker-discovers-that-russia-sows-partisan-antagonism-and-then-helps-them-do-so/

[Martinned]

I'm not sure that that's evidence of Trump and Putin having the same enemies. These people presumably have no connections to Russia, so putting them on the list costs them nothing and costs Russia nothing.

My first thought was that Putin was losing the plot a bit, but that seems like a risky assumption to make. So suggestions welcome.

[Nige]

Putin's major strategy for winning in Ukraine is for Trump to get elected. This might not help that, but it certainly flatters him.

[Martinned]

That sounds plausible. None of this affects the odds of Trump winning, but it might help if he does win.

[SRG]

It's Putin stirring the pot again. One can hypothesise that Putin wanted Trump elected before and now, not because Trump had asked him to, or because he approves of Trump as president in policy terms, but because he thinks that messing around with the US system and getting Trump re-elected is bad for the US hence good for мать Россия.

[Life of Brian]

If there is no connection between Trump and Putin, why do they have the same enemies.

John Venn wept.

[Nige]

You kind of have to wonder why Putin feels threatened by the guy who shot Ashli Babbitt.

[Bob from Ohio]

Putin is unarmed like her so maybe that's it.

[Nige]

Cops shoot unarmed people all the time. He must be afraid of all them too.

[Mr. Bumble]

Sure they do, it's part of their training, right?

[Nige]

How to get away with it appears to be.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Why do you think Lindsey Graham has endorsed Trump?? Because he supports Biden’s foreign and he knows Trump will lose. Graham also doesn’t think anything of consequence will be done domestically in a Biden second term and he got more than he ever imagined in Trump’s first term.

[Ben_]

"If there is no connection between Trump and Putin, why do they have the same enemies."

This super amazingly convincing, especially now that the question has been exhaustively investigated and a contrary conclusion reached.

[Moderation4ever]

What contrary conclusion? The Mueller Report and the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Russian Interference are still the reports of record on this subject.

[Ben_]

"What contrary conclusion?"

No collaboration. Just a bunch of people like you making up stories.

[Sarcastr0]

Ah yes, the 'have you considered instead countless people are lying in a way that all makes sense together?' hypothesis.

[Ben_]

They were individually counted and their lies detailed in the Durham report.

[Nige]

You are making shit up.

[Moderation4ever]

The fact is we know the Russians were trying to influence the election and that Trump people were talking to the Russians. Paul Manafort wrote about working with the Russians in his book. Mueller did not see conspiracy but did see communication and collaboration. The Durham report was weak. It did criticize process but saw nothing illegal and did not contradict the conclusions two reports of record.

[Ben_]

And you’re posting on a Russian conspiracy web site. You’re more guilty than the Trump campaign.

[Gandydancer]

"If there is no connection between Trump and Putin, why do they have the same enemies[?]"

Everyone involved in the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax is by definition an enemy of both Trump and Putin. Duh.

[Nige]

'See your identity pieced together from stolen data'

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-05-18/data-breaches-your-identity-interactive/102175688

[Ben_]

Biden regime pretends it’s a civil right to have sexually explicit books in school library:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/05/22/book-bans-georgia-hostile-environment/

[not guilty]

The Department of Education Office for Civil Rights letter focuses on Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/investigations/more/04221281-a.pdf It does not address the First Amendment issues posed by removal of previously acquired books from school libraries.

The First Amendment imposes limitations upon a local school board's exercise of its discretion to remove books from high school and junior high school libraries. Island Trees Sch. Dist. v. Pico by Pico, 457 U.S. 853, 863-72 (1982) (plurality opinion). Our Constitution does not permit the official suppression of ideas. Thus, whether school officials' removal of books from their school libraries denied respondents their First Amendment rights depends upon the motivation behind their actions. If officials intended by their removal decision to deny students access to ideas with which the officials disagreed, and if this intent is the decisive factor in that decision, that exercise of discretion violates the Constitution. Id., at 871. Local school boards may not remove books from school library shelves simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books and seek by their removal to "prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion." Id., at 872, quoting West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 642 (1943).

[Bob from Ohio]

(plurality opinion)

[not guilty]

Plurality opinions can be precedential. “When a fragmented Court decides a case and no single rationale explaining the result enjoys the assent of five Justices, the holding of the Court may be viewed as that position taken by those Members who concurred in the judgments on the narrowest grounds.” Marks v. United States, 430 U.S. 188, 193 (1977) (internal quotation marks omitted).

In Pico, Justice Brennan announced the judgment of the Court and delivered an opinion, in which Justices Marshall and Stevens joined and in all but Part II-A(1) of which Justice Blackmun joined. Justice White concurred in judgment but engaged in no First Amendment analysis. To the extent of any inconsistency between the plurality opinion and Blackmun, the latter is the holding of the Court. The language that I have cited is from Part II-A(2) of the plurality opinion, which Blackmun joined.

Your attempt to throw shade falls flat. Why am I unsurprised?

[TwelveInchPianist]

Gotta love the left. It's a civil rights violation to have "sexually explicit" materials in the workplace, and a civil rights violation to remove those same materials from school.

[Nige]

Gotta love the right. Massive fucking liars to justify book bans and the oppression of a minority group.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Is it a book ban when the same books are banned from the workplace?

[Nige]

It'sa book ban when a bunch of people go out and about trying and succeeding to get books banned.

[TwelveInchPianist]

I dunno. Banning books from private workplaces seems worse than government libraries deciding what books to carry and what not to. YMMV.

[Nige]

Are you complaining that you can't watch porn at work?

[shawn_dude]

How is a school not also a workplace?

[Mr. Bumble]

Cite the lie.

[Nige]

Everything Ben and TiP said.

[Mr. Bumble]

You are as big an ass wipe as SarcastrO.
In fact you could be twins.

[Nige]

I'm sure you're lovely.

[Sarcastr0]

Historically speaking, if you’re banning books you are absolutely without a doubt on the wrong side of history. If you’re pro book banning, you are the bad people.

If you need to control what people think or read perhaps it’s your ideas that are fucked up.

[Ben_]

"If you need to control what people think or read perhaps it’s your ideas that are fucked up."

Like Democrats do on YouTube and Google search and Facebook and Patreon and dozens of other internet platforms.

[Nige]

Like you *imagine* they do.

[TwelveInchPianist]

These guys aren't banning book, they're choosing the books that are available that the library. It's your side that banned sexually explicit material, including books, from private workplaces. So congrats on being the bad guys.

[Nige]

If you support book bannings why are you complaining that you can't show your female co-workers whatever porn mag it is you've been reading at work?

[not guilty]

The Guardian is reporting that federal prosecutors have evidence Donald Trump was put on notice that he could not retain any classified documents after he was subpoenaed for their return last year. Trump attorney Evan Corcoran reportedly provided roughly 50 pages of dictated notes which were furnished after courts ruled that the crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege applies here. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/22/trump-warning-classified-documents-mar-a-lago

[Brett Bellmore]

So, that's it, then. Biden's going to prison...

[Nige]

When was Biden supoenaed?

[not guilty]

Supporting facts, Brett? Please be specific.

[not guilty]

Still waiting, Brett.

[Brett Bellmore]

What supporting document do you want? Biden was found to have taken classified documents home and left them lying around in boxes, his whole career. He's been doing it since he was a Senator, and the documents clearly date from times he didn't have declassification authority.

Literally had them in a box in the garage, in a house rented by a drug addict. Among other places. Not a locked room in the basement of a building guarded by the Secret Service.

You think he wasn't on notice that this wasn't legal to do? Nobody gets to handle classified documents without being on notice!

You think the "I didn't know there were classified documents in that box!" excuse works? You're SUPPOSED to know!

Sure, he wasn't subpoena'd for them. Nobody had any reason to go after him, after all, he didn't have a target painted on his back. He enjoyed the same 'special' status every high ranking politician the system hasn't decided to destroy benefits from, they wouldn't go after him for breaking the law, wouldn't even try to find out if he had.

So, yeah, the only relevant difference here is that they're not out to destroy Biden. He's as guilty as Trump, otherwise.

[Nige]

‘the only relevant difference here is’

that Trump is at best a massive fuck-up and you have to contort reality to draw equivalences.

'Nobody had any reason to go after him'

You're mad that Biden didn't actually fuck up the finding and returning of the documents the way Trump fucked up with the documents he took and think it's unfair that because of that Trump blundered into serious legal jeopardy and Biden didn't.

[Brett Bellmore]

Oh, you actually think Biden and his people didn't know he had classified documents? Of course they did, and they didn't think anything of it, until they went after Trump for it, and then after a while somebody had an "oh, shit" moment, and they rushed to do something about it.

[Sarcastr0]

Of course and no evidence is not going to convince anyone.

[Brett Bellmore]

You want evidence? The classified documents weren't just found at his house, they were also found at an office he'd moved to only AFTER he'd left the White House. And those documents were a small subset of the total.

So they'd been selected to go to his new office, and how was that done without noticing the classification marks on them?

[Sarcastr0]

Your evidence is appeal to incredulity and not believing fuckups can happen.

By all evidence this was a mistake. Biden notified the archive folks ffs.

What is your speculative motive here, even?

[Nige]

Mind-reading, supposition, and speculation.

[not guilty]

Brett, you made the assertion that Biden is going to prison. Nothing that you have said supports a conclusion that Biden violated any of the criminal statutes that Trump violated.

Trump concealed documents that he was required to produce in response to a federal grand jury subpoena, thus impeding or obstructing the grand jury investigation contrary to 18 U.S.C. § 1519. Trump retained the documents and failed to deliver them, first to the National Archives and then to the Department of Justice pursuant to subpoena, contrary to 18 U.S.C. § 793. Trump combined and conspired with other persons to commit these offenses, contrary to 18 U.S.C. § 371.

Biden did none of that.

[Sarcastr0]

It's been explained to you so many times why Trump is different. The intent, the moving, the hiding, the lying.

You either have a serious memory problem, or are just trolling on this and don't care about the truth.

[Ben_]

The main difference:

Trump, as President had the power to effortlessly declassify any documents. So any documents in Trump's possession could arguably be said to be declassified — as Trump has indeed said. So no need to return them in that case.

Biden, as VP, did not.

[not guilty]

"Trump, as President had the power to effortlessly declassify any documents. So any documents in Trump’s possession could arguably be said to be declassified — as Trump has indeed said."

Cavilling about whether the documents Trump took to Mar-a-Lago were declassified is a red herring. None of the criminal statutes cited in the search warrant -- 18 U.S.C. §§ 793, 1519 and 2071 -- distinguishes between classified documents and unclassified documents. The classification status of the documents is not an element of any of these offenses which the prosecution is required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

Whether a particular document bore classification markings is relevant to establishing an offender's culpable mental state. For instance, the grand jury subpoena issued on May 11, 2022 called for production of "Any and all documents or writings in the custody or control of Donald J. Trump and/or the Office of Donald J. Trump bearing classification markings . . ." https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/just-security-mar-a-lago-grand-jury-subpoena.pdf Trump's flouting of this subpoena shows his intent to impede, obstruct, or influence the grand jury investigation.

[Nige]

'So any documents in Trump’s possession could arguably be said to be declassified'

Without some sort of record? No way. Why would you even want that to be a thing? Just to protect Trump?

[Armchair Lawyer]

I've been reading about the retaliation against whistleblowers from the FBI....and it's actually pretty stunning from the report how...evil...the FBI management is here.

So, you have 3 whistleblowers from the FBI. And rather than fire them (which is difficult to do to federal workers), the FBI instead suspended their security clearance.

OK...fair enough. Sometimes you need to suspend a security clearance to check people out.

But here's where it starts to get evil. The security clearance just stayed suspended...for weeks...for months...for a year. And during that time, the FBI whistleblowers weren't allowed to report to work. OK, fair enough. They also weren't paid....they were on unpaid leave. Not quite right, but OK...

Now, where it gets really evil is that the FBI Whistleblowers said "well, we still need to get by. Can we get another job while we're on leave." But since they were FBI employees, they needed to get permission from the FBI to have a second job. And the FBI just sat on or denied the applications.

So, for a year, they are sitting, without pay, and unable to actually get another job. Unless of course they resign from the FBI (which is exactly what the management want). And that....that is kinda evil. And it's an "object lesson" to others who might bring the abuses present in the FBI up. You'll be put on unpaid leave, unable to get another job, until you resign. And that's not right.

[Noscitur a sociis]

I’ve been reading about the retaliation against whistleblowers from the FBI

Where?

[Mr. Bumble]

Not that you'll accept it but:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2023/05/18/fbi_whistleblower_i_was_retaliated_against_for_providing_information_that_questioned_official_narrative_of_january_6.html

As usual most of the legacy media won't cover it, so it's not happening, right?

[Sarcastr0]

I presume it's some right-wing rag on this story:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/gop-witnesses-undermined-jan-6-cases-conspiracy-theories-fbi-says-rcna85095

Friend also "participated in multiple, unapproved media interviews, including an interview with a Russian government news agency," and made a "surreptitious recording of a meeting with FBI management" that "may have violated Florida state law," the letter said. (Friend said at the hearing he believed Florida's two-party consent law had an exception for law enforcement.)

Allen, Dunham wrote, "espoused alternative theories" about Jan. 6 to co-workers "verbally and in emails and instant messages sent on the FBI systems, in apparent attempts to hinder investigative activity." Allen was admonished about sending the materials but "violated those instructions and continued to make such statements to his coworkers," according to the letter, including when he sent an email to multiple colleagues that "urged recipients to ‘exercise extreme caution and discretion in pursuit of any investigative inquiries or leads pertaining to the events of January 6.”

[Armchair Lawyer]

And so of course, the proper response is to not only suspend his security clearance, but ALSO make sure he can't take any other work on...for the FBI or anyone else....forcing him to resign or else go bankrupt?

[Sarcastr0]

urged recipients to ‘exercise extreme caution and discretion in pursuit of any investigative inquiries or leads pertaining to the events of January 6

Yeah, dude.

It's pretty reasonable to find someone defending an insurrection, spouting falsities about it, and urging people to not do their jobs regarding it a security threat.

[Armchair Lawyer]

So, rather than actually get the information needed to fire the individual, instead force them to resign by suspending them without pay while simultaneously deny them any ability to work for anyone else at the same time?

That’s what you believe is a good thing?

[Sarcastr0]

Yes, the threshold for revoking a security clearance is lower than firing a civil servant.

That's how it is designed, for obvious reasons.

[TwelveInchPianist]

What's the threshhold for denying them permission to work elsewhere while things get straightened out?

[Armchair Lawyer]

Watch as Sarcastro continues to avoid that inconvenient fact.

[Sarcastr0]

That is not something I am willing to trust AL on.

[Gandydancer]

"...spouting falsities about it..."

Such as?

[David Nieporent]

AL is of course misrepresenting the supposed whistleblower's¹ testimony, even if it's credible. Allen's testimony was that he first applied for permission to seek outside employment this past month:

And he relayed to me to go ahead and submit the outside employment form, the 331B, to the chief security officer at the Charlotte Field Office, . . . , which I did. I reached out to her. I submitted it, and she said she put it within the [Enterprise Process Automation System]. That employment approval—there’s a 15 business day response time, and that 15 day response time has been expired for several days, and I’ve received no correspondence back from the Bureau in its regard.

(Emphasis added.) No, the Bureau didn't keep him from working for a year, forcing him to resign or go bankrupt; they kept him from working for a few days.

¹ They're not whistleblowers; that's just a bad faith label given to them by MAGA people who are still having a hissy fit over an actual whistleblower revealing Trump's crimes with respect to Ukraine. To be an actual whistleblower one must reveal potential wrongdoing, not just disagree with agency decisions.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Here you go.

The full pdf report is linked to within.

https://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/new-whistleblower-report-details-government-abuse-misallocation-resources-and

[Armchair Lawyer]

There are more interesting stories about the retaliation that occurred.

In one case, the FBI agent was ordered to transfer from Kansas to Virginia with his new child. OK, fair enough. And of course, the FBI is handling the moving expenses and items.

But then, the FBI agent has his security clearance suspended. So, now they are on leave without pay. And all the items the FBI is moving are still in FBI custody...all the kids clothes, all the kitchenware, everything. And they won't ship anything. No, they say (after a month). You need to come back and get it yourself, and pay the $10,000 worth of shipping expenses.

Keep in mind, he was transferred on the FBI's request....

[Sarcastr0]

You don't have the right to a job with a clearance, and may well lose your clearance if you're a fucking loon.

The timeline laid out by the FBI seems to well predate any supposed whistleblowing. Even as it rather refutes any baseless allegations by these conspiracy theory people.

It does say something about how we need to do better initial vetting of cleared employees to avoid these kinds of nutters.

[Armchair Lawyer]

The timelines are interesting, almost designed to punish the individuals.

"Here, move to Virginia. By the way, once you're partway through, we'll suspend your clearance, and hold up all your belongings."

[Sarcastr0]

The timelines are interesting, almost designed to punish the individuals.

Yes, the information that explodes your conspiracy theory is only proof of how well designed the conspiracy is.

[Gandydancer]

The information that explodes the "conspiracy theory" is what?

[Ben_]

"And that’s not right."

Note how Sarcastr0 isn’t at all interested in what’s right.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Indeed. What you’re seeing from Sarcatr0 is deliberate obfuscation and avoidance.

I’ve already posited that suspending the security clearance is acceptable under some conditions. What I’d said is the combination of the long term security clearance suspension PLUS the denial of any allowed outside work is pretty evil. It’s designed to impoverish the agents who dared to be whistleblowers. Because they literally can’t make a living.

Note, Sarcastr0 never responds to the second part, the combination. He only ever responds to the security clearance bit. He never responds to the denial of outside work.

This is because Sarcastr0 does not believe these individuals deserve the proper protection of the law. They are “loons” and “nutters” who do not deserve real protection. These individuals deserve to be made impoverished, deserve to be denigrated, for daring bring up potentially issues. They are to be made object lessons of, for daring to question the investigative techniques and practices of the FBI.

It would be simple for the FBI to allow these individuals to seek outside employment while their suspension is looked at. There would be no security risk, no cost to the government. They’d work as a security guard at some local business. But allowing them to do this would relieve the financial pressure. Not only must they be suspended from the FBI, they must also be made poor, their financial well-being imperiled. They can’t be allowed to get a “job” while their security clearance investigation is in progress.

It would make it so other whistleblowers might come forward, if they saw issues in investigations, in potential abuses. It would reduce the “object lesson”.

But Sarcastr0 ignores all that. Because he want the object lesson made. He doesn’t want whistleblowers. He wants these people who would dare speak up to SUFFER. Because he’s a partisan nutter.

[Sarcastr0]

he want the object lesson made. He doesn’t want whistleblowers. He wants these people who would dare speak up to SUFFER

Dude, stop writing my villain monologues. It's weird.

You're reading some nonsense and I'm pointing out it's nonsense.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Your bootlicking is pretty impressive. Even for a bottom teir Federal.

[Estragon]

“Your bootlicking is pretty impressive. Even for a bottom teir Federal.“

Yikes. This was the EDITED version??

[Armchair Lawyer]

Well, you're doing a pretty good job of the villain monologues yourself.

Seriously, you defend impoverishing federal whistleblowers, while calling them "loons" and "nutters".

[Sarcastr0]

Offering an alternative version of events from J6 and urging people not to do their job is indeed crazy times.

I don’t want such people to suffer, but I don’t think they should have access to secret materials either.

I also think you have maybe half the facts and are filling in the rest with righteous rage.

[Ben_]

The I in FBI is for Investigation.

When did you decide narrative enforcement matters and doing “what’s right” doesn’t matter?

[Sarcastr0]

I wouldn’t give anyone who thinks J6 was a conspiracy a clearance. Or any number of crazy conspiracies.

Left or right, but lots lots more on the right these days.

It’s not narrative enforcement, at some point ya gotta say no, this is not staying in touch with reality.

[Mr. Bumble]

And in other news:
To all VC commenters who identify as Black, African-American, Negro, Colored, POC or whatever the choice du jur is;
NAACP (they still use Colored) has issued a warning that you should avoid travel to Florida because something, something Ron DeSantis.
The chairman of the organization (a Florida resident) has not indicated when he will be moving out.
Meanwhile, Bob Iger is reminding people the Mickey and Minnie identify as Black.

[Ben_]

Did Iger really say that?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

THE VOLOKH CONSPIRACY

This white, male, right-wing
blog has operated for

ZERO (0) DAYS

without publishing a vile racial
slur and has published a vile
racial slur on at least

FOURTEEN (14)

distinct occasions during 2023
(many involving multiple uses
of that vile racial slur).

The dates on which this conservative blog
has published during 2023 have included

January 3
January 11
January 25
March 19
March 30
April 9
April 11
April 14
April 15
April 18
May 2
May 13
May 17
May 22

[MoreCurious]

Maybe tomorrow will be the day that Volokh and his comrades put a stop to the bigotry. Or maybe not.

[Gandydancer]

"bigotry"

Not in evidence.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

How many racial slurs does it take to engage your bigotometer?

The bigotry will be the main reason all or most of your right-wing preferences will be casualties of the modern American culture war. This couldn’t happen to a better bunch of gun nuts, anti-abortion absolutists, immigrant-haters, superstitious clingers, etc.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Dear Diary,

Today a mean girl said at bad word at Volokh. I wish someone would do something about my hurt feelings.

ttfn xoxo,
The Reverend

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Artie Ray said mean words about right-wingers, which hurt Prof. Volokh's feelings, so Prof. Volokh banished him.

Which he was entitled to do. And his bigoted, downscale fans are entitled to applaud that imposition of viewpoint-driven censorship.

Right-wing hypocrites have rights, too.

Carry on, clingers.

[Theendoftheleft]

Hey AIDS,

What do you think of Andrew Sullivan's claim that the gay rights movement was hijacked by the queer social justice activists? Is that just because he's a reactionary bigot?

https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/the-queers-versus-the-homosexuals-cfd

Does it even matter, given that they're all unequal evolutionary duds advancing an evolutionarily inferior meme anyway?

[Armchair Lawyer]

So, within the recent whistleblower report to the FBI, there are certain....curious items...that were brought to Congress's attention.

1. So the FBI moved to a more metric based promotion and bonus scale system. Not necessarily a bad idea....but one should be cautious of skewed priorities. The FBI is a law enforcement type organization. And if, for example, you gave local police/DAs a bonus if they hit certain metrics for numbers of murder indictments....you may see more murder indictments. Whether they are all warranted or not...that's a different question. With the FBI is was level 3 wiretaps. If the local office hit a certain number of level 3 wiretaps, the supervisor got a bonus. And so the supervisor would push for more of these wiretaps....whether they were needed...or not. If the FBI wanted to see more domestic terrorism cases, items that weren't really domestic terrorism could be reclassified as such. In one particular case, the agent was asked to arrest the 8 suspects in an investigation...but all on different days. You see, if they were all arrested on the same day, it would be a single arrest incident (according to the metrics). But if they were arrested on 8 different days, it would be 8 different arrest incidents. Better for the metrics And if one happened to get away, well 7 arrests incidents still look better than 1.

Again...items that should be brought to Congress's attention, how metrics can be skewed and ultimately lead to lower actual performance. Something that is important for whistleblowers.

https://judiciary.house.gov/media/press-releases/new-whistleblower-report-details-government-abuse-misallocation-resources-and

[Noscitur a sociis]

level 3 wiretaps

Oh boy.

[Gandydancer]

You sound dismissive of "level 3" wiretaps. Why?

[Armchair Lawyer]

Nos,

Do you see any problem with fiscally incentivizing having more wiretaps? Think about it....

What could go wrong? From a civil liberties perspective...

[Armchair Lawyer]

There are also other interesting bits from the FBI whistleblower report.

Typical procedure for the FBI is for the local field offices to handle the local investigations. And for January 6th, since many of the individuals who were being investigated were no longer in the DC area, it was appropriate for the local field offices to investigate.

But here where it gets odd. The local field offices were told to open the investigations, but then step back and let the DC office do all the investigative work and paper work. And we need to ask...why? Why have the local field offices act as "mock" cover for the investigations? Why not let them do the actual investigations. Or instead just have the DC office and FBI headquarters do the investigations, and not involve the field offices at all.

Now some agents had reservations about some of the investigations. That's fair, not everyone is going to feel exactly the same way. Diversity of opinion in an organization tends to be a good thing. When one of these agents brought up his concerns, he was order to "not show up to the office the next day, and you will be reported as absent without leave".

Now that triggers flags. Simultaneously ordered not to show up, but also will be noted as absent without leave? So, we've got to ask...what's going on?

[Bored Lawyer]

TikTok files lawsuit to overturn Montana’s 1st-in-nation ban on the video sharing app

https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-ban-montana-lawsuit-security-fd4a963efb1d13f909a5b80787de9e73

This ought to be interesting. I cannot find the Complaint, but from second hand reports, it sounds like it's a First Amendment argument. About which I am dubious, as the ban seems both content and viewpoint neutral.

[David Nieporent]

Content and viewpoint neutrality are necessary but not remotely sufficient.

There's also a decent dormant commerce clause argument, but post-National Pork Producers Council v. Ross that's a tougher row to hoe.

[Bored Lawyer]

OK, what are the First Amendment arguments against the law? The internet is still available in Montana. Just one site, which is strongly suspected of allowing private data to be shared with a foreign government, is banned. Given that the federal and numerous state governments have banned Tiktok from government computers, the concern is hardly fanciful.

As for Dormant Commerce Clause, yes it's harder. Although the Pork Producers case was a muddle, so who knows how it would come out. Certainly, under Gorsuch's opinion, there is no DMC challenge. As for the others, one can only speculate.

[Martinned]

OK, what are the First Amendment arguments against the law? The internet is still available in Montana.

That's like arguing that a ban on the New York Times would be constitutional because newspapers are still available. There is speech on Tiktok, and the legislature of Montana is trying to prevent residents from accessing it.

[Bored Lawyer]

Tiktok is not the same thing as the NY Times. It's a platform for thousands of individual speakers, who have other ways of getting their speech distributed. Unlike the NY Times, Tiktok does not have its own speech.

[Martinned]

Why does that make it better, from a 1A POV?

[Stephen Lathrop]

TikTok is not a publisher? It does not enjoy press freedom? Do ownership questions complicate the answers?

[Bored Lawyer]

This topic is probably worth its own post. With a link to the Complaint. (Actually, there are two complaints, one by Tiktok, the other by Tiktok users.)

Professor Volokh?

[Bored Lawyer]

Found a link to the Tiktok Complaint.

https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/tik-tok-inc-v/d58842081fc3acf4/full.pdf

[David Nieporent]

OK, what are the First Amendment arguments against the law? The internet is still available in Montana. Just one site, which is strongly suspected of allowing private data to be shared with a foreign government, is banned.

Even assuming that TikTok posts no content of its own — which I do not — and even assuming that it doesn't violate the 1A rights of TikTok users to ban TikTok — which I also do not — hosting is speech.

And while preventing the sharing of private user data with the Chinese government might be a legitimate government interest, is this law narrowly tailored towards preventing that? (Answer: no.)

[Stephen Lathrop]

Do foreign governments get press freedom rights to publish in the U.S.?

[David Nieporent]

I would doubt it, but I don't know what "foreign governments" you are referring to. TikTok is an American company.

[Mr. Bumble]

"TikTok is an American company."
Is it? I thought it was owned by ByteDance.

[David Nieporent]

TikTok the app is owned by TikTok Inc., an American company, incorporated in California. ByteDance is an owner of TikTok Inc. (And although many people assume the Chinese government controls ByteDance, on paper it does not have any ownership interest.)

[shawn_dude]

Facebook was just fined $1.3B in Europe for sharing private data with a foreign government in violation of the law. And then there was the Russian mining of Facebook data as well.

Why is Tik Tok the only one being banned?

[Ben_]

Emergency declared in North Carolina:

https://amp.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article275659111.html

Some poor and middle class parents are going to have more choices where their kids are educated. That’s the emergency.

[Nige]

No, efforts to destroy public education are the emergency, liar.

[Kazinski]

Pretty inconsiderate to post an an open thread on a Monday without any advance notice.

It’s like EV thinks we have nothing better to do.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

It's a troll trap and experiment to see if threads following are back to the old days of on topic and thoughtful legal discussion and debate.

That's my guess.

[Brett Bellmore]

Sounds plausible.

[Sarcastr0]

There was a Thursday is the new Monday post last week.

Turnabout seems fair play.

[Mr. Bumble]

"It’s like EV thinks we have nothing better to do."
Apparently we don't.

[Martinned]

Speaking of 'no way to run a country', this is getting increasingly embarrassing:

SCOOP: Treasury asks US agencies if payments can made at a later date as deadline nears

Internal memo obtained by WaPo shows Treasury putting agencies on alert

Biden aides search for new ways to prolong X Date beyond existing measures, sources say

If Biden aides can find just a few days’ worth of extra cash, it is possible they can make it to June 15

Critical here: If they make it to June 15, a whole bunch of new tax revenue comes in — & they may be able to punt the deadline to July

Unclear what WH will look at but *outside* experts say options *may* include:

— Slowing payments by agencies (not canceling)
— Using treasuries held by trust funds
— Selling US assets for cash?

& the most fun:

— Selling the billions of dollars worth of gold bars owned by US

https://twitter.com/JStein_WaPo/status/1660997287328317440

[Mr. Bumble]

That assumes that there is still gold in Fort Knox.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm sure there is some. Not much relative to the federal government's rate of spending, but some.

Too bad he can't sell off the rest of the Strategic Petroleum reserve. But he's got to save that to dump closer to the election next year.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Can anyone think of a reason why a debt ceiling crisis in June or July is preferable to one right now?

I suppose the political backdrop might change. Maybe by then Trump could be under indictment, or something. But that seems farfetched, and not necessarily helpful at all. Arguably that would make the Rs more intractable.

I can't understand why Biden and the Ds don't figure out what plan they want, and just do it. It would be a mistake to sacrifice anything which looked like a public good just to advance the date of crisis for no purpose. Does Biden think he might get some kind of leverage over particular Rs, if only given the time to do it?

By now, every D and every R has a personal bottom line for the minimum deal they will accept. You will not see what those are until they think the crisis comes tomorrow morning.

[Ben_]

Gives Biden time to concoct some new emergency for guys like you to emote about.

The new emergency can excuse [whatever] and force Biden to do [whatever]. With much regret, Biden will have to take emergency action to do what he wanted to do all along.

[Nige]

This, of course, will not happen, but you will somehow convince yourself it did, and that anyone who points out it didn't is a liar.

[EscherEnigma]

I can’t understand why Biden and the Ds don’t figure out what plan they want, and just do it.

Uh, they are?

C'mon, does anyone here seriously think that Biden was never going to negotiate on the debt ceiling? He was always going to cave on this. The only question is how much he caves on.

McCarthy isn't going to get everything he wants, but he's going to get his pound of flesh out of this. As long as he remembers that (and doesn't try to give the Freedom Caucus everything it's demanding) they'll get things through.

[Martinned]

Compromising is a question of political culture. The US and UK political systems select for politicians who are bad at it, and requires them to reject any suggestion of compromise even if they were willing lest they not get re-elected. It's not easy fostering bipartisan cooperation in a world like that, so you end up with this sort of nonsense.

[Mr. Bumble]

761 and counting: the thread that will not die.

[M L]

Netflix Comedy presents Deadly Earnest.

https://twitter.com/mazemoore/status/1659750674945523713?cxt=HHwWgoC-vb6cz4guAAAA

[BravoCharlieDelta]

No it's more grotesque, like getting on your knees and worshipping joggers, unskeptically doing whatever Big Pharma/CDC commands, transing your children, and welcoming and cheering on partisan crimes by the Administrative State.

[Bored Lawyer]

"Is this like wearing a flag pen, calling French fries freedom fries kind of thing"

Yes, the two are exactly alike. Other than the fact that (1) racial discrimination by states is expressly forbidden by the 14th Amendment and (2) flag pins and freedom fries are protected by the First Amendment. Other than that, exactly alike!

[Armchair Lawyer]

No, this is more like calling for the burning of a woman because she's a witch, or joining in on the persecution of a minority because it shows you have the "right" mindset.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Yes because that's an obvious sign of mental illness.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

They should cover how the federal budget is now nearly $7T and the Democrats are still begging for more.

[Frank Drackman]

60 Minutes?? (more like "42 Minutes" after commercials) is it still on? Haven't watched Sunday Nite Network TV since Ed Sullivan went off.

[Brett Bellmore]

60 Minutes is still a thing?

Were they the ones rigging cars to tip over or explode, or the fake memo people? I'm finding it hard to remember which news/drama show was doing which fraud.

[Krayt]

While government spending is a concern (see breezy dismissal of $6 trillion, borrowed) the US has a policy of the best equipment for the best trained soldiers. Let the other nations throw human waves against each other.

Nobody seems to mind this policy elsewhere in the world at the moment...

[Dr. Ed 2]

Blame Clinton. Manpower is so scarce that contractors do what soldiers used to -- kp, truckdriving, etc.

[John F. Carr]

In the short term we need to increase payments to defense contractors to pay for the war in Ukraine and prepare for a war around Taiwan. Billions and billions of dollars worth of consumables are needed.

I have been concerned for years that the military is outsourcing too much labor. We aren't ready for a war on the manpower side any more than we are on the consumables side.

[bernard11]

Are you talking about personnel doing military jobs, or the companies who make tanks, planes, etc?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

If you look at someone and can't figure out what pronouns to use in 99% of the cases, you are full blown retarded.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Seriously play that through your head.

A presidential candidate is colluding with the Russian government and they are waiting idly by for the "go word", an off the cuff direct request live on TV to began their hacking attack. And the instant the greenlight is given the hacks commence! They had been waiting at their terminals hands at the ready for months!

You people are so fucking dumb its mind blowing

[Bob from Ohio]

"Heck their Orange Prophet invited it!"

Your gal was so weak a few Facebook ads and some benign e-mails could beat her.

The Russian op removing Wisconsin from her US map did wonders!

[BravoCharlieDelta]

There are videos of you people on your knees for BLM.

You people spent years getting boosted and maxxed vaxxed and attacked anyone who wasn't.

You are actively transing children.

And the crimes of the State are right in front of our eyes.

None of these are conspiracy theories. But I get it, here is where your brains try to rewrite the past and reality for your own mental states.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

You get more honesty and efficiency from a government program?

lol are you for real? This is cultish.

[TwelveInchPianist]

How would you expect insurance companies to function well in an environment where insurance provided by employers is subsidized to the point where its prohibitively expensive to get healthcare elsewhere? The one insurance reform needed in this country is to remove these subsidies. The easiest way to do that would be to make all healthcare tax-deductible.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Haha yeah one can only spot a tranny by inspecting their genitals!

So Sayeth the State Dept., So Sayeth the Flock

[not guilty]

I have long found the fixation upon other people's genitalia perplexing. not to mention creepy as hell. To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, does what is inside another’s pants pick anyone else’s pocket or break anyone else’s leg?

[Sarcastr0]

Look it up, you do.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

You’ve never met your office mates?

Tell your Soros handlers to let you get some sun. You’re becoming more retarded.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Why do you think in the US just about every government program is inefficient, wasteful, extraordinarily expensive, even existing healthcare ones. BUT, if these same wasteful, inefficient, and expensive programs are expanded they will transform into efficient, and inexpensive ones?

What's your theory as to how that would happen?

[Mr. Bumble]

...and of course your links to PBS. Maybe call it a draw.

[Brett Bellmore]

The bestest part is that it was a command to hack a server that had previously been taken off line and bit bleached before having a hammer taken to the physical media.

Literally, all he actually said was that our adversaries would have had Clinton's missing emails, given how bad the security was on her server, so maybe we should ask them for the emails Clinton had erased.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

So you think that's a plausible scenario.

That's delusional.

[Sarcastr0]

Not gonna look it up are you?

[Michael P]

You're the one making a stupid assertion that is disproven by almost universal government practice. The burden is on you to provide evidence.

[Mr. Bumble]

"In the real world the Democratic President called out violent BLM protesters, ..."

Called out or called for them to come out?

[Bob from Ohio]

"Democratic President called out violent BLM protesters"

And the Democratic Vice-President bailed them out!

[Brett Bellmore]

Parental consent/notification laws do kind of make statutory rape hard to conceal, don't they?

[Michael P]

That’s not all he literally or actually said. He also got in a harshly sarcastic dig at our collusively uninterested media: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing, I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

But your core point is valid: his statement was a clear reference to government records that were already known to have been improperly erased, not to any current or future records. The people who pretend otherwise act in blatantly bad faith.

[Brett Bellmore]

The Russians didn't particularly care who won, but they didn't want the country united behind the winner.

That's why they were playing both sides, something Democrats don't like to talk about. They only want one side of the Russian efforts to get any publicity.

[Brett Bellmore]

That's why I didn't put it in quotes, it was a paraphrase.

The dig was so damaging the Democrats instantly issued a stupid talking point, that he'd asked Russia to hack her email. Which they dutifully picked up and ran with.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Senator Ron Johnson started all of the Russia nonsense by claiming Russia had her emails in May 2020. Both sides behaved stupidly but as usual Trump is an assclown whose fumbling and bumbling led to his own appointee appointing Mueller. So there was a coup attempt against Trump and it was orchestrated by Bush Republicans Trump/Obama foolishly appointed to important positions.

[Mr. Bumble]

They all report, I decide.
It;s the message, not the messenger.

[Mr. Bumble]

... as they are for many on the left.

[Gandydancer]

They're trained all right. To lie.

[Theendoftheleft]

Tell that to literally anyone on the real left, American airhead. Have a nice conversation or two about cultural hegemony, corporate American imperialist narratives, etc.

Then go kill yourself.

[Mr. Bumble]

Age is just a number. Equating it to competence is a false equivalence. Whatever you think of Trump you should admit that he is pretty vital for a man of his age.

[Gandydancer]

No one is imagining that Dementia Joe has Alzheimer's solely because of his birthdate. It's impossible to imagine him pulling off what Trump did to CNN, and you know it.

[Sarcastr0]

almost universal government practice

Your ass is not proof. The numbers on Medicare overhead is a simple Google away, if you cared to inform yourself.

Or you can stick to this axiomatic government inefficient bullshit.

[Michael P]

So you have nothing. As usual.

[Life of Brian]

The numbers on Medicare overhead is a simple Google away

Hoo boy -- so THAT'S where you were going with this.

Medicare (and Medicaid) generally pay claims first and ask questions later (if ever). That definitely cuts out a big swath of administrative overhead that private insurers have to deal with, but results in massive amounts of fraudulent payments, most of which aren't recovered. Do you think that's a good tradeoff? I don't.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

That shit was debunked a decade ago. I didn't look it up because I didn't realize you were relying on shit that's be debunked for ages.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2011/06/30/the-myth-of-medicares-low-administrative-costs/

[Sarcastr0]

Kinda damming if they tried both sides, and only one side took them up on it. Did you think this through?

[bevis the lumberjack]

Is this where I'm supposed to scream "whataboutism"?

Or are you just trying to deflect attention away from Rachel Rollins because she's a black progressive? Why can't you simply agree that she did bad things and wasn't worthy of office?

You keep yelling at me about bothsidesism but, frankly, it's better than you and your insistence on condemning one team while defending the other, no matter what each has done.

[Brett Bellmore]

It was a really cutting point: That our adversaries probably had the very emails she'd deleted to keep out of the hands of our own government, thanks to her atrocious security. So it's understandable Democrats wanted to blunt it by claiming he'd asked our adversaries to engage in further espionage.

The unanimity of the media in instantly picking up that stupid claim, though, that was quite remarkable.

[Brett Bellmore]

Only because they thought Trump was going to lose, and wanted as close to a tie as they could get. As soon as Trump actually won, they switched to mostly organizing anti-Trump rallies.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Intelligence reports from the agencies that were trying to interfere in the election?

Good one dude.

[Theendoftheleft]

Are you still hammering on about this?

You appreciate that the ENTIRE rest of the Globe no longer believes the American blue team narrative about what happened in the 2016 election, the collusion claims, etc, yeah? You've thoroughly discredited yourselves, and your country. You're evil AND you are universally seen to be evil.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, I did, too much to have adopted a stupid conclusion like that.

Why not say that Hillary took them up on it, by using Russian dis-intelligence in the dossier she paid for?

[Brett Bellmore]

Ok, media and random online commenters picking up that stupid claim.

[Gandydancer]

Ooooh! Making fun of Hilary's security failures and malfeasance is primarily encouragement of Russians to hack us? Yeah, that's the right take on it!

If you're a lamebrain Lefty with a ridiculous agenda to push and nothing but blanks in your six-shooter.

[Nige]

I must say, at best it was a FANTASTIC self-own.

[Mr. Bumble]

Full of life and vigor; energetic.
A vital personality.
Webster's New World

[Mr. Bumble]

With regard to energy a great many do.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, yeah. There's a lot of group think among Western government leaders, in case you hadn't noticed. They tend to make correlated mistakes. Because, being government leaders, they have the same general interest in aggrandizing their own power, raking in graft, benefiting cronies...

We used to be an outlier in that regard, which is one of the reasons we had considerably higher growth rates than Europe for many years. We're not an outlier anymore, we're making the same mistakes everybody else is making.

[Mr. Bumble]

If I said today was Monday you would probably disagree with me
arguing that it was Tuesday somewhere (Kiritimati Tue 3:45 am).
I don't think bike riding (exercising) Joe Biden would be described as vital by most people as compared to Trump.

[Frank Drackman]

It is true that a heart is only going to beat a certain number of times, and doing things that increases heart rate (fuck it, I'm still gonna jerk off) gets you closer to the end of the ride.

Frank

[Mr. Bumble]

Sure it will.

[Sarcastr0]

On this side, we have Hillary paying for opposition research, who among other sources talked to some Russian guys.

On this side, we have the Russian government reaching out, offering help, and both members of the campaign and the son of the candidate saying heck yeah.

You didn't think this through.

[Nige]

When did she use it? Certainly wasn't part of her campaign.

[Brett Bellmore]

She tried to use it, and it was so stinky the media refused to touch it, until Comey gave they a hook for the story by briefing Trump about the dossier.

[Nige]

So the media was against Trump but refused to use anti-Trump material and for some reason Clinton didn’t release it any other way, and they got McCain to give the dossier to the FBI and that McCain guy to leak it. After the election.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Hillary threw the Steele Dossier in the trash…McStain got it out of the trash and passed it along to his buddies in the FBI.

[Gandydancer]

No, she didn't.

And, no, Trump got no help from Veselnitskaya, though he (or, more exactly, Jr.) rightly would have welcomed it if she's produced anything. But she apparently didn't know anything about Hilary paying for the manufacture of bogus stories about Trump, which is where the help-the-candidate action was.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

McStain was a big Trump fan. Lol.

[NOVA Lawyer]

The beautiful thing about Brett's conspiracy theories is that they are internally inconsistent and, so, self-refuting.

[Nige]

'which is where the help-the-candidate action was.'

Pretty much every report on the issue says different, of course.

[Gandydancer]

"Pretty much every report on the issue says different, of course."

Still pretending that "[p]retty much every report" in the leugenpresse isn't from your pet and numerous corps of liars?

[Gandydancer]

"The beautiful thing about Brett’s conspiracy theories is that they are internally inconsistent and, so, self-refuting. beautiful thing about Brett’s conspiracy theories is that they are internally inconsistent and, so, self-refuting."

The sad thing is that you think that that claim is an adequate substitute fro YOU refuting anything when it merely makes you look like a determinedly ignorant lying jackass.

[Gandydancer]

"The beautiful thing about Brett’s conspiracy theories is that they are internally inconsistent and, so, self-refuting. beautiful thing about Brett’s conspiracy theories is that they are internally inconsistent and, so, self-refuting."

The sad thing is that you think that that claim is an adequate substitute fro YOU refuting anything when it merely makes you look like a determinedly ignorant lying jackass.se

[Nige]

'the leugenpresse'

Gandy doesn't know there were official reports he can actually read, if he wants.

[David Nieporent]

Still pretending that “[p]retty much every report” in the leugenpresse isn’t from your pet and numerous corps of liars?

Nothing like Nazis using Nazi terms!

[grb]

"The nearly 1,000-page report, the fifth and final one from the Republican-led Senate intelligence committee on the Russia investigation, details how Russia launched an aggressive effort to interfere in the election on Trump’s behalf. It says the Trump campaign chairman had regular contact with a Russian intelligence officer and says other Trump associates were eager to exploit the Kremlin’s aid, particularly by maximizing the impact of the disclosure of Democratic emails hacked by Russian intelligence officers"

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/senate-panel-finds-russia-interfered-in-the-2016-us-election

[Nige]

'Only because they thought Trump was going to lose'

This is something you have competely made up.

[Gandydancer]

When you start with the idiotic claim that Trump asked Russia to hack Clinton's emails you've already lost all credibility before you even start. Her server was offline and the emails already "lost" before his joke about Russia locating them for her.

[Frank Drackman]

Lets see 60 minutes did the hit piece on Audi's having "Unintended Acceleration" which was idiots not being able to tell the brake from the accelerator, 20/20 did the cutting edge investigative report that Professional Wrestling matches were scripted (except for John Stossel getting Be-otch slapped by Dave Schultz, that was real)
And Dan "Whats the frequency Kenneth?) Blather not realizing the "Smoking Gun" documents on "W"'s National Guard experience actually were a "Smoking Gun" of Dan's own Incompetence,

and who got the John Edwards story right? the National Enquirer,

Frank

[Frank Drackman]

I'll be ecstatic if I'm being accused of "Raping" women when I'm 76

[Bob from Ohio]

You are dismissing this one, so you are just as guilty of situational beliefs.

Hatch Act violations are trivial, here and always.

Isn't the significant thing is that she leaked confidential info?

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : “It was a really cutting point: That our adversaries probably had the very emails she’d deleted to keep out of the hands of our own government… (gibberish)”

Let’s unpack everything wrong in this little snippet:

(1) Russia didn’t have Clinton’s email. They would have released them if they did to help Trump. Remember, they stole email from Clinton’s friend John Podesta and sat on them six months. So when did they start releasing them? Per Mueller’s report, less than one hour after the Access Hollywood story first appeared sending the Trump campaign in a tailspin. Trump was their boy. He was in trouble. They hurried to assist their guy in his time of need.

(2) Their was never any indication Clinton’s server was ever hacked. But all the emails that were later upgraded to classified (except for a single handful) were sent to Clinton by other parties using normal State Department .gov email, which has been hack. And similar upgraded messages were sent by Powell and Rice’s State Department using private email that has been hacked. I don’t know whether that counts as thanks to her “atrocious” in Brett’s mind though.

(3) And of course Trump did asked for Russia help – and Russia responded. Per Mueller, Russian Intelligence attempted to hack Clinton’s home computer within five hours of their boy’s request.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

"So it’s understandable Democrats wanted to blunt it by claiming he’d asked our adversaries to engage in further espionage."

How else would Russia acquire emails allegedly belonging to the United States government?

Hacking is exactly what Russia would have been required to do in order to 'find' those emails.

Fuck you Brett.

[Theendoftheleft]

'The unanimity of the media in instantly picking up that stupid claim, though, that was quite remarkable'.

What does that tell you about the true nature of your mainstream/corporate media, and the true nature of your country?

[Brett Bellmore]

The issue isn’t that the guy is a nutcase. Nutcases happen.

The issue is that the administration went out of it’s way to hire an obvious nutcase for an important job, because they wanted a serious nutcase to show off their dedication to diversity, “sane” wasn’t diverse enough.

You wonder what kind of vetting they did, that they didn’t get past him being a perv to notice that he was also a kleptomaniac.

[Bob from Ohio]

"some shoplifting"

Not even that serious. More like throwing gum on the floor.

[Brett Bellmore]

The National Enquirer gets a lot of stories right, surprisingly, and not just the ones having to do with aliens.

Back when I was active in Cryonics, most of their reporting on that was accurate, too. I guess because the stories were lurid enough they didn't feel any need to embroider?

[Brett Bellmore]

"Their was never any indication Clinton’s server was ever hacked."

That's kind of a dodge; The security on it was bad enough that you could hack it without having done so leaving a trace, because her domain was hosted by a commercial service with notoriously bad security. The hacking would likely have been done at Network Solutions, not in her actual server, as happened to hundreds of their accounts while she was using them.

[bernard11]

Shorter Brett:

The very lack of evidence proves it.

[Nige]

'That’s kind of a dodge;'

Except it isn't. You keep trying to make things that didn't happen into the most appalling crimes.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Sure, I left the door open and unwatched, but you can't prove anybody walked in and looked around, because I also disabled the security cameras. So there!"

[Gandydancer]

THIS is what "nuts" looks like:

"(3) And of course Trump did asked for Russia help – and Russia responded. Per Mueller, Russian Intelligence attempted to hack Clinton’s home computer within five hours of their boy’s request."

[bernard11]

“Sure, I left the door open and unwatched, but you can’t prove anybody walked in and looked around, because I also disabled the security cameras. So there!”

This is a truly pathetic argument.

"It could have happened, so it must have."

I once forgot to lock my car. Amazingly enough, it didn't get stolen.

[Brett Bellmore]

You want the rapists of 10 year olds to not be caught, the products of the rape just quietly disposed of without the parents knowing.

[Theendoftheleft]

You Americans want to import millions of folks whose religion (which you desperately wish to normalize, in part by labeling all criticisms thereof as a form of ‘phobia’) drives sizable percentages of them to marry their uncles/nieces and/or their first cousins. The empirical evidence for that is overwhelming, by the way. Are you going to be so culturally incompetent as to try to override and prohibit their cultural practices?

Additionally, what percentage of your post-pullout Afghan refugees had child brides? Want to go out of your way and say that it’s wrong when they do it, but WASN’T when the main prophet of their religion did so?

Do you know how much better the world will be, and how much global justice will be improved, when the American Trumpians (or their successors) eradicate you blithering idiots?

[Nige]

Why is this person a nutcase but George Santos... isn't? I picked Santos because though his alleged crimes are more numerous, individually they have the same sort of pettiness to them. Let's not even start on all the sane straight criminals Trump had working for him. If they had a record of stealing luggage, yeah, that would be a bad slip, but I get the impression this came out of nowhere? Your homophobia clearly needs a vehicle, and I suppose this will do.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

That definitely cuts out a big swath of administrative overhead that private insurers have to deal

But that parts not even true either. It's administrative costs are distributed and still nominally higher. The only way they get this "efficiency" is as a %, but since all their healthcare costs are so much higher, of course as a % a large administrative cost is going to look lower. And that's not factoring in the distributed administrative costs that you don't get when comparing it to private insurance.

But even logically, every thing the government does is more expensive and more inefficient than the private sector. Everything except Medicare? What's so unique and special about Medicare that would make the government operate so efficiently?

There is nothing. It's illogical. There is no special attribute of healthcare that makes a bureaucracy all of sudden be efficient.

[Nige]

That's because governments are supposed to do lots of things that prioritise the delivery of services to the largest number of people rather than be inefficient and inexpensive. The US currently has a system where efficency and cost-cutting are based on denying people services and/or charging them massive fees.

[bernard11]

Do you think that’s a good tradeoff? I don’t.

And on what analysis do you base your opinion?

And do you think Medicare spends too much or too little on administration, because you seem to be claiming both.

[Life of Brian]

And on what analysis do you base your opinion?

Among other things, CMS's own estimates that as much as 20-25% of claims shouldn't have been paid.

And do you think Medicare spends too much or too little on administration, because you seem to be claiming both.

What words that I wrote seemed to say that? I can't see how to read what I said as anything other than that they're underspending on administrative resources that private insurance companies use to vet claims before paying them, rather than just paying everything and then doing limited audits/clawbacks down the road.

[Sarcastr0]

Clinton? That's a deep cut blame from 30 years ago.

Aren't civ and military position numbers and pay controlled by Congress?

[hobie]

Clinton decommissioned hundreds of useless military bases. Shouldn't that have left more soldiers with less to clean?

[Nige]

The work of lying.

[Gandydancer]

E.G.,

So many potentially gay children were being sent down the pathway to change gender, two of the clinicians said there was a dark joke among staff that “there would be no gay people left.” “It feels like conversion therapy for gay children,” one male clinician said. “I frequently had cases where people started identifying as trans after months of horrendous bullying for being gay,” he told The Times. “Young lesbians considered at the bottom of the heap suddenly found they were really popular when they said they were trans.”

[Noscitur a sociis]

Why is this person a nutcase but George Santos… isn’t?

Is anyone suggesting her George Santos isn’t a nutcase?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

worshipping joggers

The Volokh Conspirators, a group of right-wing law professors who still lack the courage and character needed to address the rampant bigotry -- racism and homophobia, especially -- that his blog attracts and flatters. These self-described scholars won't even acknowledge the bigotry, let alone address it.

How do the Volokh Conspirators expect to depart the disrespected fringe of modern legal academia if they can't even acknowledge that the audience of their white, male, right-wing blog involves a remarkable concentration of old-timey bigots?

Carry on, clingers. So far as your betters permit.

[Nige]

Police reporting is mandatory.

[Bob from Ohio]

Well I am. He's just a con dog who caught the car.

Other dude was stealing random women's luggage and wearing the clothes. Nutty on several levels.

[Nige]

Nobody is suggesting he is. Bog-standard crook, but that's ok, apparently. Three pieces of luggage - INSANE!

[Frank Drackman]

Let me know when he claims to me a Marine Corpse Vietnam Veteran like "Danang Dick" Blumenthal, or 1/1024th Cherokee like Poke-a-hontas, or Heterosexual, like Lindsay-Buckingham-Nicks-Graham or Corby Booker (wouldn't they make a great couple? much better looking than Howdy Doody and Pudgy Chaz)

Frank

[Nige]

Lots of stories killed, too, for, y'know, good friends.

[Frank Drackman]

It was the National Examiner that had the Alien stories, get it right!
The Enquirer focuses on celebrities, politicians, celebrity-politicians, and occasionally mentally handicapped freaks who staple their scrotums to a park bench (See, Senator John, Stuttering, (D, PA)

Frank

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, I didn't mention the 2% number. But if you read, you will also see no sign of massive overhead either.

Again, this is easily Googleable.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

So why wouldn’t Vermont and Massachusetts create a Medicare for All program for their state workers instead of outsourcing it to BCBS?? Vermont and Massachusetts currently run health care programs but their state workers aren’t in that program…such a head scratcher. 😉

[BravoCharlieDelta]

That article explains where the overhead costs are and why they aren't appearing up in many administrative cost calculations.

[Sarcastr0]

Which does not prove your thesis that the program is massively inefficient, does it?

Your proof is nonexistent. Because you live in a realm of emotion, not truth.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

So Medicare administrative costs being nominally higher AFTER much of their real administrative costs have been disbursed amongst other agencies AND their healthcare per capita costs being twice the private sector doesn’t support my belief that government healthcare services are inefficient?

Why wouldn’t it? I’m open to being convinced.

[Gandydancer]

@Gaslightr0: BCD's article explains why Medicare costs per patient are higher than private medical insurance. I would agree that that's not a perfect measure of efficiency either, but you simply want to ignore it. We're not going to oblige you. So what are the numbers? "Look it up", and report back.

[Nige]

Interfering with the election by investigating interference in the election.

[Gandydancer]

No, interfering with the election by leaking bogus claims about what was being found in the fake "investigation" of interference in the election.

[Nige]

How can you interfere in an election by leaking stuff after the election? Or by not leaking stuff, because Mueller's investigation was famously leak-free. The FBI leaked stuff about Clinton before the election, perhaps you were thinking of that? More interference on behalf of Trump.

[Gandydancer]

"Mueller’s investigation was famously leak-free."

ROFL!

[Nige]

Someone said 'Mueller's leaking like a sieve!' and Gandy still believes it.

[Brett Bellmore]

And everything that's mandatory always happens.

[Gandydancer]

So, these pregnant 10 year olds that Queenie is offering as an excuse for out-of-state abortion of minors without parental notification: Can you come up with one and did police notification occur? Link?

[Nige]

Yes laws are sometimes broken, hello are you new?

Having to go out of state might well complicate notification, well done pro-lifers.

[Sarcastr0]

Why have laws at all then, Brett?

What a weak ass response.

[Gandydancer]

Not paying the enemy to go behind any paywalls.

Burt let's be clear what we're talking about here: Obtaining abortions for 10 year olds without parental notification.

Exchange:
Queen almathea: "Yes people want to assist raped minor children who seek to avoid having to give forced birth to their attackers child. How radical!"
Brett Bellmore : "Parental consent/notification laws do kind of make statutory rape hard to conceal, don’t they?"
etc.

[Bored Lawyer]

Look, the bald-faced liar thinks he has something to say!

[Super Scary]

If you couldn't post something racist, you wouldn't be able to post at all.

[Brett Bellmore]

It was the Enquirer that reported K's reappearance when he retired; "Man Awakens from 35 Year Coma".

[Gandydancer]

"Hatch Act violations are trivial, here and always" is not a "feigned claim of the seriousness of Hatch Act violations". I would ask when your brain got broken but we all know it was at birth.

[Gandydancer]

I got the link just by highlighting the quote and searching for it:
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/01/magazine/01axelrod.t.html
How stupid are you?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

One Conspiracy fan calls me Jerry Sandusky.

Another says I have AIDS (conservatives have some bizarre fixations).

This guy says I am a liar.

The Conspiracy -- when it isn't focusing on lesbians, transgender restrooms, Muslims, transgender parenting, drag queens, bizarre racial tangents (or outright racial slurs), and transgender sorority drama -- bans my parody commenter for making fun of conservatives.

Is this really the best Federalist Society law professors and their Republican-conservative-faux libertarian audience can do?

[Mr. Bumble]

My original question was:
"So how has that “temporary” inflation been treating you? I keep reading that inflation has been coming down, but have yet to see it when shopping or gassing up.
Can anyone point to a real world reduction?"
Several answers, but none on point.

[Gandydancer]

Bail, preferably too high for them to afford to forfeit, is better than letting them out to attack again without consequences.

But of course the latter is what Kamala enabled.

[Gandydancer]

The social contract is not a suicide pact. Nothing in my libertarian tendencies impels me to ignore the necessity of disabling criminality. And, no, waiting until after conviction is often too late. Particularly with Lefty simply letting the criminals loose.

[Gandydancer]

Coming from someone who is all-in on the J6 persecutions (not to mention the murder of a protester) that is pretty rich.

[Gandydancer]

Nah, better would be if they banned you again, Mr. Contributes Nothing.

[Bored Lawyer]

No, I proved you were a liar in this thread:

https://reason.com/volokh/2023/05/19/short-circuit-a-roundup-of-recent-federal-court-decisions-211/?comments=true#comments

Sorry. Truth matters. Even for those who have an inferiority complex, like you.

[Theendoftheleft]

I do NOT say that you have AIDS, you illiterate imbecile. I call you AIDS. You are a fatal disease.

You also repeatedly espouse your bigotry on this blog. Your Islamophobia and classism is well documented.

Furthermore, you habitually write here about population ‘replacement’, and standardly use the line that this blog’s participants’ free speech and association will continue so long as their supposed betters ‘permit’. You’re a fascist moron, AIDS. You give your fellow Americans every reason to see you as an existential threat to their republic and constitution. People around the globe, by contrast, can see that your claims about your values don't track your real ones.

Moreover, when you are repeatedly shown to defy basic logic (literally, first-order logic) and reason, you just ignore it. (You also call people ‘clingers’, but you cling to this blog.) Why would readers here take your claims and complaints seriously when you’re clearly mentally retarded and your values are complete garbage?

[NOVA Lawyer]

Bored Lawyer:

Lol, what a joke.

“Still waiting for any citation for where “blessed” means affirmed dismissal of a civil claim. Guess you can’t find one.”

Read a dictionary: “(of God or some notional higher power) endow (someone) with a particular cherished thing or attribute.”

Obviously, the 6th Circuit “endowed” the officer with qualified immunity and a resultant dismissal which, undoubtedly, were cherished things from the officer’s perspective.

But you’re a native English speaker, you knew that by the time you realized blessed referred to the defendant (which was your original error). So you’re just dishonest, in a thread started with your claim you’d proven someone else’s dishonesty. That’s rich.

Be smarter and have more integrity, please.

[Gandydancer]

The open borders propaganda plaque was of course added by politicians after the statue was already up in order to steal its meaning from those who donated to construct and erect it. But it didn't work and the US passed and enforced sensible anti-invasion laws.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Play to win…remember when George W Bush invaded Iraq just so he would win a second term unlike his father??

[Gandydancer]

Lessee... some lawyer with terminal cancer decided to off a judge who wouldn't rule on his case... in 2020. Yeah, that really fits the paradigm of scads of followers talked into attacking the judiciary by Republicans.

In Queenie-brain land.

[Mr. Bumble]

Eggs and milk. Wowy zowy. Gasoline has come down from its high but is still higher than it was at the end of 2020 and shows no signs of dropping to that range any time soon.

What does "temporary" mean? Two years plus with no end in site doesn't sound very temporary unless you believed in two weeks to flatten the curve.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Inflation going down" doesn't mean prices return to what they were. That's "deflation", which government economists fear the way a vampire fears sunlight.

Inflation going down just means prices keep increasing, only more slowly.

[Mr. Bumble]

@ Brett:
To be clear it is the rate of inflation that has been going down not prices.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Using late 2020 as a benchmark shows you are being tribal and aren’t interested in a real discussion. Query—for GDP growth numbers for Trump do you include 2020 or leave it out?? Because if you include it Trump GDP growth was the worse since Hoover.

[Gandydancer]

“To be clear it is the rate of inflation that has been going down not prices.”

Wrong yet again, the actual sticker price for milk, eggs and gas has come down.

Is it really necessary to point out that even if "the actual sticker price for milk, eggs and gas has come down" it doesn't follow that "prices have come down"?

[Brett Bellmore]

If you find out, tell Sarcastr0.

[Gandydancer]

You will never have it, so don't bother your head about it pointlessly.

[Brett Bellmore]

I've met my office-mates. I'm pretty sure it never occurred to anybody in our corporation to test out a system for adding random pronouns to messages.

And if anybody here felt misgendered, they'd be told to go put a bandaid on their feelings.

[David Nieporent]

in order to steal its meaning from those who donated to construct and erect it.

The people of France?

To be fair, the French only paid to build it. To erect it, Americans had to raise funds to build the pedestal. Lazarus's poem was written as part of that fundraising effort. It was not written later to "steal meaning from" anything. That was the meaning.

So in addition to being a thoroughly anti-semitic, racist asshat, you are also a historical ignoramus.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Pregnant man gives birth…and now it is a fairly common occurrence.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Who was CEO of Halliburton when Clinton was president??? Hmmmmm

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Dresses are a lot more comfortable than pants…just ask Jesus.

[Frank Drackman]

Still does Queenie, Still does.....

[Stephen Lathrop]

Mr. Bumble, compared to the peak, gasoline is down almost a buck a gallon in my neighborhood. Beef is down notably. Poultry and eggs are up, but there is a shortage because of bird flu. Construction lumber is down by half, or more. I just bought a new set of Michelin tires at what would have seemed like a bargain price 5 years ago. My local 94-years in business ice cream stand seems to have lost its mind, and is now trying to get twice the prices I can pay for a better product a few miles farther away.

Anecdotes, of course. I haven't seen any decreases in fast food prices—they still seem headed up.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

You would have been happier had I described the decision as 'three clinger judges blessing one police officer's filming of a police-administered baptism of a person trying to get out of a ticket by submitting to a police-administered baptism?'

Carry on, clingers.

[NOVA Lawyer]

The truth does matter. You're being dishonest.

I followed the link.

The Reverend's statement: "The three judges who blessed the police baptism defendant were Republicans..."

Bored Lawyer's comment only involved defending the police officer who "witnessed" and filmed a baptism by one officer of a person he had stopped and then, via threat of arresting her, coerced her into a baptism.

Presumably, Bored Lawyer felt that the judges who dismissed a claim against the officer who filmed the baptism did not "bless the police baptism defendant". But they did find QI applied and, so, dismissed the claim against that defendant, which is fairly characterized (in common rhetoric) as "blessing" the defendant with a dismissal.

So, what then? That it is somehow dishonest to call the defendant (the one who filmed) a "police baptism defendant"? Seriously? The phrase identified the case to which the Reverend was referring and the defendant was, by all accounts, part of the baptism. If this is your big gotcha, you've got nothing. Incredibly lame. So lame, in fact, I'd say you were dishonest in claiming you "proved" anyone was a liar.

[Bored Lawyer]

Nice try, NOVA Lawyer. But you are full of it. Had you read the link, you would have seen that the second cop had no idea it was being coerced, and thought it was voluntary. And the dismissal was only of the second cop. The panel in no way "blessed" the baptism, they simply found that QI applied to the second cop who unwittingly filmed what he thought was a voluntary baptism.
I have never heard a dismissal characterized as "blessing." Please provide a link that does so, I doubt you can.
Nor did RAK say that they "blessed" the defendant with anything, he said they blessed the baptism. They did no such thing, and he, and you, are both liars.

[Bored Lawyer]

"You would have been happier had I described the decision as ‘three clinger judges blessing one police officer’s filming of a police-administered baptism of a person trying to get out of a ticket by submitting to a police-administered baptism?’"

Yet again, you persist in lying. The opinion made clear that the first cop was a part-time preacher, and the second cop had no idea that anything was coerced. He thought it was voluntary.

So, yes, you are now a twice-proven liar. That you throw around the word clinger with abandon does not change that proven fact.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Nor did RAK say that they “blessed” the defendant with anything, he said they blessed the baptism.

You are stating a falsehood, you belligerently ignorant right-wing bigot. I wrote: “The three judges who blessed the police baptism defendant were Republicans…”

Get an education. Start with standard English. (More important, though, is that you should try to overcome your bigotry. Your children will hate you for it if they have any character.)

[NOVA Lawyer]

As the Reverend has pointed out, Bored Lawyer, you are apparently illiterate.

He didn’t say they blessed the baptism. I pointed out already he said they “blessed” one of the defendants (the "police baptism defendant"). Which they did by upholding a dismissal on QI grounds for that defendant.

It’s absolutely irrelevant what you or I or the Reverend thinks about his participation in the baptism.

But it’s good to know your aspersions aren’t due to intentional character assassination, just stupidity. Before you accuse someone of dishonesty, you really should consult with someone who understands basic English grammar and sentence structure.

An apology to the Reverend would be appropriate here.

[Bored Lawyer]

Here is what RAK said:

The three judges who blessed the police baptism defendant were Republicans, in a circuit consisting of four states, not one of which is in the top half of the United States with respect to educational attainment (undergraduate degrees or advanced degrees).

So, yes, he used the noun, defendant. The entire statement implies that (a) the decision is wrong and (b) was done because the Republican, backward-state Circuit judges favored a Christian baptism. The use of the word “blessed” means approval. Notably, no one here has cited a single instance where “blessed” means “dismissed a civil claim against him.”

RAK’s insinuation that this was a biased decision is utter nonsense, given the facts of the case before them. The second cop had no idea that the baptism was coerced. The Sixth Circuit, applying Qualified Immunity law* found QI applied. Even without QI, it is hard to see how the second cop could possibly be liable for violating the woman’s civil rights, given he thought she was voluntarily engaged in a baptism.

Here is my challenge to RAK and NL: articulate some substantive legal reason why the Sixth Circuit decision is wrong. Something that a more educated, less clingery Circuit would rule.

If you can’t, then one must conclude that RAK is nothing but a political hack who lacks even minimal legal ability.

__________
*I concede the Supreme Court has botched up QI law royally, but can’t blame the Sixth Circuit for that. Much more egregious violations of civil rights have been excused under QI.

[Bored Lawyer]

"Which they did by upholding a dismissal on QI grounds for that defendant."

Still waiting for any citation for where "blessed" means affirmed dismissal of a civil claim. Guess you can't find one.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I used blessed in the sense of favored or approved.

You became confused. Then belligerent.

If you don't understand why it is wrong for an on-duty police officer to film a baptism being performed on a suspect by another on-duty police officer -- or why it would likely be three Republican judges who suffered from the same blind spot -- you likely are a deplorable and gullible culture war casualty.

Carry on, clinger -- but only so far and so long as people like me (the culture war's victors) permit guys like you (bigoted culture war casualties) to do anything in modern, improving America.

[David Nieporent]

If you don’t understand why it is wrong for an on-duty police officer to film a baptism being performed on a suspect by another on-duty police officer — or why it would likely be three Republican judges who suffered from the same blind spot — you likely are a deplorable and gullible culture war casualty.

If you don't understand why it is wrong to describe it as "a baptism being performed on a suspect" when the officer in question didn't know it was a suspect, then you're stupider than you pretend to be. Given the facts as established, no reasonable judge would have ruled any differently.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Setting aside that it is performing a baptism on a suspect regardless of whether Goforth knew it, from the opinion:

"Goforth learned, “right before [Wilkey] went to baptize” Riley, that Wilkey had issued her a citation earlier that night. Wilkey and Riley entered the water, and Wilkey baptized Riley, holding one hand on her back and the other on her front, and quickly submerging her in the lake. Goforth filmed the incident on his cellphone."

So, yeah, he did know that Wilkey was in uniform (and presumably on duty) and that the Wilkey had earlier issued her a citation. You, David, pretending the officer didn't know anything about the impropriety of this situation is unbecoming. The opinion itself also states:

"When Goforth arrived, he saw what appeared to be a consensual, if improper, situation."

He knew it was improper. But he filmed it anyway. I don't think it's unreasonable to say police officers shouldn't participate in improper on-duty baptisms of suspects/people who've received citations. You seem to disagree and appear to only think that is improper and judicially cognizable if the police officer also has actual knowledge of coercion (rather than reasonable suspicion, which is certainly raised by the fact Wilkey is on duty and had given the victim a citation early that night).

[David Nieporent]

He knew it was improper. But he filmed it anyway. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to say police officers shouldn’t participate in improper on-duty baptisms of suspects/people who’ve received citations. You seem to disagree

There is no evidence that Goforth was aware of any connection between an earlier citation and the baptism.

I do not know why you say I "seem to disagree," since I expressly said over in the Short Circuit thread discussing the case that it was obviously improper. But that has literally nothing to do with this lawsuit. You don't get to file a § 1983 claim against someone for being improper; you get to file a § 1983 claim against someone for violating your constitutional rights. And nothing in what Goforth knew (based on the record before the court) suggests he had any idea that this was anything other than a voluntary and non-coercive baptism, which is not a violation of her constitutional rights.

[NOVA Lawyer]

David,

“There is no evidence that Goforth was aware of any connection between an earlier citation and the baptism.”

Notwithstanding the inaccuracy of "no evidence" (the fact of an earlier citation, which Goforth knew before the baptism, and the in uniform baptism is pretty strong evidence of some connection), your claim was that Goforth didn't know the victim was a suspect. In fact, as I pointed out, he did know she had been cited earlier that evening. Having been given a citation, but not yet convicted, I think common parlance means she is a suspect and the baptizing officer is a witness to the earlier crime and the citing officer. And Goforth knew those facts, though he did not have specific knowledge of the explicit quid pro quo. But I didn't say he had that knowledge. Reading comprehension is fundamental.

“I do not know why you say I “seem to disagree,” since I expressly said over in the Short Circuit thread discussing the case that it was obviously improper.”

Forgive me, I didn’t read the entire thread.

“You don’t get to file a § 1983 claim against someone for being improper; you get to file a § 1983 claim against someone for violating your constitutional rights.”

Nobody said otherwise.

“And nothing in what Goforth knew (based on the record before the court) suggests he had any idea that this was anything other than a voluntary and non-coercive baptism, which is not a violation of her constitutional rights.”

This is what the 6th Circuit found, not what the district court judge found. Unless you are claiming the district court judge was unreasonable, you’re just stating opinion. And, as I pointed out, I think a uniformed police officer who had earlier given a citation at least suggests some amount of coercion might be involved. The 6th Circuit judges found, essentially, that other evidence positively indicated the lack of coercion. But, again, the bare facts of a uniformed police officer who had cited someone for a crime is, at bare minimum, a suggestion of possible, and I would say likely, coercion. Yes, the 6th Circuit opinion controls, but it’s still an opinion.

But your claim was that "nothing suggests he had any idea". Yes, the facts he witnessed upon arrival clearly suggest the idea to any reasonable person. The remaining evidence may not be enough to impose § 1983 liability, but since, apparently, you are interested in pedantic points, you are wrong.

What Goforth knew was that an in uniform police officer who had earlier given the victim a citation was baptizing the victim. The district court found testimony regarding certain statements made at the baptism further suggesting some level of coercion. It isn’t “no evidence”, though perhaps insufficient evidence, and certainly so in the view of the 6th Circuit judges.

But the only point I made, as you concede, is that the situation was improper and Goforth’s participation (and failure to report it later) was improper, even if not sufficient to overcome QI (which is a troublesome doctrine, to put it mildly).

(And to be precise, it is the only point I made other than the main point of this whole thread of pointing out that Bored Lawyer erroneously and stupidly claimed that the Reverend had lied. The whole basis of that claim was a misunderstanding of basic English such that he thought the claim was the judges blessed the baptism. Obviously, the claim was the judge’s blessed Goforth with a QI dismissal. Which is true.)

[Gandydancer]

"'The violations are “among the most egregious transgressions of the Act that [the Office of Special Counsel] has ever investigated,' the special counsel report says” is not an example of a “feigned claim of the seriousness of Hatch Act violations” either. Want to try for strike #3?

[Gandydancer]

You complained about no link being supplied. Changing it to a complaint that "But there are those in Chicago who believe that Axelrod had" was remembered as "Many people said Axelrod had“ doesn't exonerate you from my observation that you are both lazy and stupid.

[Gandydancer]

No.

His father lost his opportunity for a second term by saying "Read my lips, no new taxes" and then raising taxes. All Shrub had to do to not do that was not say that.

The US invaded Iraq a second time because his father didn't finish the job the first time and Saddam reacted to weakness by not obeying the conditions of his parole. Finishing the job was not the mistake. Not finishing it the first time was the mistake. SHRUB's mistake was listening to Colin Powell and thinking he had to fix what he'd broken when breaking it and leaving it broken was sufficient to make the point.

[Mr. Bumble]

Thanks for at least trying. Yes anecdotes all because this is a large country with many different markets subject to local conditions.

[Gandydancer]

"...a law to make corporate boards more diverse..."

Less deceptively, a law whereby the State imposes racial quotas.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

I like you people pretend thats the only way to spot a tranny.

It's really weird how other people can literally weave a new reality for you.

In your universe, 10 years ago trannies were just ugly men in dresses, now in your world their perfect, undetectable chameleons unrecognizable without a panty peek. And you people have completely rewritten your memories.

[Gandydancer]

Not seeing where hoppy claimed that being pro-invasion was something new for Lefty, though he did say that the justifications were getting crazier.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Do you think it's fair that people who can't have kids have to buy family planning insurance?

[Gandydancer]

Ask anyone with government insurance and you'll also get stories. Are they not worse stories? Can you prove it?

[Gandydancer]

If you want to see a dumb fuck just look in the mirror.

"... The open borders propaganda PLAQUE was of course added by politicians after the STATUE was already up in order to steal its meaning from those who donated to construct and erect it."

Every word of that is true.

nb: The STATUE was referred to, not the pedestal. And Lazarus' contribution towards the cost was anyway completely inadequate to justify stealing the meaning of the statue from those (yes, mostly French) who paid for it.

[Theendoftheleft]

Nieporent, do you think the 19th century French were pro-mass immigration and pro-open borders, you American fuckwit? You think that that’s why they donated the stupid monument?

[TwelveInchPianist]

We're talking about the government banning books from private workplaces. But you knew that.

[TwelveInchPianist]

You're claiming that they excluded the sexually explicit books because they were too diverse? Are you serious?

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Lol. Hopefully slaughtering innocent Muslims brought a little joy to your life.

[hobie]

Indeed.

[Gandydancer]

He wasn't talked into anything. He had personal experience with the judge, hated her, and had nothing to lose. IN 2020! No, you've got squat towards the proposition.

[Mr. Bumble]

...or maybe they aren't really journalists, but rather stenographers.

[Gandydancer]

How convenient an assumption that is for you.

It's testimony under oath and the DOJ is Biden's. If Mr. Allen is lying there are plenty of Democrats on the committee to initiate a referral. If he's lying why isn't he being charged with that?

[TwelveInchPianist]

Books that create a hostile environment based on sex, including sexually explicit books, and other sexually explicit first-amendment protected materials.

Also books that create a hostile environment based on race.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Um, yeah, the thread OP correctly claims that the Biden position is absurd. And your are endorsing that absurd position.

[TwelveInchPianist]

So go to the bookstore.

[Gandydancer]

“Hacking is exactly what Russia would have been required to do in order to ‘find’ those emails.”

Fuck YOU, shit-for-brains.

Russia couldn’t acquire the emails in question through hacking BECAUSE THE EMAILS HAD ALREADY BEEN DELETED by Clinton's minion, you moron.

[Nige]

According the Brett it had already been hacked. But Brett often says stuff that is real only in his head. But still, it would have been *hacking.*

[Gandydancer]

The claim was, "Hacking is exactly what Russia would have been required to do in order to ‘find’ those emails."

In Nige-world you can obey orders to hack something by going back in the past to do it.

[Nige]

Yes. That was the claim. It would have been hacking if it had been done at any point. Not sure why you're having such a hard time with this, aside from the obvious.

[Gandydancer]

Nothing "started" in May of 2020.

[Gandydancer]

Your gal was so weak that what you imagine did her in was throwing chewed gum on the floor, and it didn't even happen.

[Gandydancer]

Yours had none.

[Gandydancer]

...you vomit up stinks the place up.

[Gandydancer]

A guy who signs his emails "Queenie" IS not representative of much beyond the kind of distraction no one ought to employ in a position that involves sending emails.

[Gandydancer]

I really doubt if BCD is going to be interesting in looking under this guy's robes just because he is wearing makeup and high heels. We're not all queers like you.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Rosenstain appointed Mueller…apparently Hillary was manipulating him from behind the scenes. 😉

[Gandydancer]

No. I don't.

[Gandydancer]

You don't know anything about Jesus' itches.

[Gandydancer]

We all understand that Santos committed unemployment insurance fraud for money. $28k, iirc. All he had to do was file a form and rely on not getting caught. Which he normally wouldn't have been, because why would NY have FL income info? But why did the tranny steal women's luggage at airports? Did he think there were no security cameras? It's chump change, and what was the tranny's GS-level and salary? Damn right, INSANE! And only a complete fool like you would think to deny it.

[Gandydancer]

"more serious"

LOL!

[MoreCurious]

Your description fits pretty much every comment posted by our favorite illiterate, inarticulate middle-schoolers, who spend their days trying to pretend they're educated adults.

[Gandydancer]

What curse word?

[Gandydancer]

Oooh, the mob of morons mobs Drackman.

I don't want Dementia Joe to drop dead YET.

[Gandydancer]

When you start out talking about “lots” you don’t get to complain about someone else thinking “a great many” will explain that.

[Gandydancer]

Your determination to be stupid is impressive.

For the third time, Bumble’s question was: “So how has that “temporary” inflation been treating you? I keep reading that inflation has been coming down, but have yet to see it when shopping or gassing up. Can anyone point to a real world reduction [in inflation]?”

A reduction in three prices isn’t that, still less three of that.

[Gandydancer]

You don't seem to break a sweat when you do that.

[Gandydancer]

That you can't afford to buy enough your own pro-tranny propaganda as you want is no reason for the school library to stock it.

[Gandydancer]

Things like what?

[Gandydancer]

Why should they quit when they've done nothing wrong?

[Gandydancer]

And you are determinedly incurious. Why?

[Gandydancer]

Striiiiike Threee! Yer out!!! Whatever your dispute with the trivial variation in the quote from the article, that's between you and iowatwo, MY point about you is that your demand for a link was lazy and stupid, since all =I= had to do to find the link was highlight the quote, right click, and hit search. The reason you haven't located an excuse for your laziness and stupidity is that you can't because it obviously WAS lazy and stupid.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Whose permission does the President need to declassify something?

[Martinned]

No, they celebrated the monument as a celebration of liberty, following the civil war. And liberty, we know since 1789,

consiste à pouvoir faire tout ce qui ne nuit pas à autrui

[David Nieporent]

I think they were pro-liberty. And like most Europeans, were very happy with America's open borders, yes.

[Theendoftheleft]

Nieporent: cultural competency test failed. Historical accuracy test failed. Just imagine the French empire inviting its subjugated populations to come live in France in the 1880s-90s!

How pathetic of you to lie so baldly.

[David Nieporent]

I was talking about the people of France, not the French government. And it was during the Third Republic that they gave us the Statue; Napoleon III had been deposed as emperor.

[Theendoftheleft]

Neither of those points have any impact on your case. The 19th century French didn't want immigrants; it's the 19th French government that brought in some Poles, Italians, and Spaniards. Further, the change in the form of government has nothing to do with France's empire or its stance to the conquered people of Indochina, North Africa, etc. (Perhaps you think that, by even the mid 20th century, the pied noir wanted North Africans to come join them in the move to France?)

The judgments about cultural competency, historical accuracy, and your honesty still stand.

[Martinned]

You seem to be confused about who, in the US, is marrying their cousin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage_law_in_the_United_States

[David Nieporent]

Remember, Brett thinks that any liberal politician criticizing a company is always saying, "Nice business you've got there, shame if anything were to happen to it," but Trump calling for Russia to hack Hillary's emails isn't actually Trump calling for Russia to hack Hillary's emails."

[David Nieporent]

Mueller was appointed in 2017, not 2020.

[Brett Bellmore]

About the time the Catholic church gave up on "Error has no rights", the left picked it up and adopted it. And, when the state is controlled by the left, this implies that enemies of the state have no rights.

So, why should they be curious about what happens to internal enemies of the state? If you don't want to be treated that way, don't be an enemy of the state, how complicated is that?

So trying to get them to care about retaliation against whistleblowers when their allies are in power is hopeless. They don't care, and they won't be made to care. Until the right is back in power, whistleblowers are just snitches, and snitches get stitches.

Whistleblowers will go back to being heroic figures deserving of protection when the right resumes control of the government, of course.

[Brett Bellmore]

Trump literally did not call for Russia to hack Hillary's emails. People say what they actually say, not the subtext you attribute to them.

[Nige]

No, I have slightly higher standards for INSANE than you do. That was just dumb, and so is George Santos, except the luggage thief got fired, Santos is still there.

[Nige]

Only in your mind.

[Nige]

Luckily trans people go through an enormous battery of therapy and screening sessions before any treatment begins. Meanwhile, taken at face value, according to that, if you want fewer trans people, try being less of a homophobic bully.

[Mr. Bumble]

No need to look when it is part of your nature.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, that's the essence of "error has no rights": You know they're wrong, so no need to concern yourself with any formal protections they would be entitled to if you didn't know that. By being wrong, they deserve everything they get, even it it's not technically lawful.

That somebody else might know that YOUR whistleblowers are wrong is irrelevant, because only your opinion counts in this calculation.

[Mr. Bumble]

Glad to see you are getting by on milk and eggs.

[Theendoftheleft]

I wasn't talking about cousin marriage in the USA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage_in_the_Middle_East

[Brett Bellmore]

Nothing I hadn't already figured out. We're sliding into being a police state, and I wonder if it isn't too late to avoid at this point.

[Theendoftheleft]

I'm sincerely sorry to disagree, but this isn't a new development for your media or government. It's just the first time that people on the American right have picked up on this, as they are directly impacted.

[Brett Bellmore]

Santos had a reasonable expectation of not being caught. Brinton, not so much, especially when he continued doing it after people knew he'd done it before.

Both were acting immorally, Brinton was, additionally, acting irrationally.

[David Nieporent]

People say what they actually say, not the subtext you attribute to them.

Remember, Brett thinks that any liberal politician criticizing a company is always saying, “Nice business you’ve got there, shame if anything were to happen to it."

[Mr. Bumble]

No error unless the inflation market basket consists of only milk, eggs and gas.

[Theendoftheleft]

Queen: if you're going to pathetically goalpost shift, you can't retreat to territory you've already lost.

Unless you truly don't give a damn what you're saying at all, that is. Keep in mind, then, that bullshitting morons can't be taken seriously when invoking the notion of 'serious thought' -- especially if they're American fuckwits like yourself.

[Gandydancer]

You're pathetic, Queenie. YOU don't footnote every statement you make, by a long shot, and even if iowatwo ought to have footnoted this one (where, given how easy it was to locate the link from his post and that this is just a comment thread, I see no reason why he couldn't rely on his generally accurate memory) that would again be between you and him. MY point was that your bad-faith demand was dishonest, lazy and stupid, and you've further demonstrated all three of those qualities. Congratulations.

[Brett Bellmore]

It might not be clear that they've done nothing wrong, but there's a procedure for determining that they've done something wrong, and suspending them without pay while prohibiting them from working somewhere else is designed to bypass that procedure.

Why bypass it? Because it stands a good chance of finding that they hadn't done anything wrong!

It's actually illegal for the FBI to retaliate against whistleblowers, do you not care if the FBI acts illegally?

[Gandydancer]

Winning wars is what countries that survive do. And every one of them involve the deaths and injury of many both innocent and guilty and in between. Cry me a river if you want to pretend otherwise. I'll just laugh at your posing.

Why this obsession with Muzzies? It's not like they DIDN'T kill American and other innocents. Yet your repetitive posts never mention that. You're getting into Artie territory.

[Sarcastr0]

Hey Brett you don’t know shit about what this procedure is, and we aren’t privy to their internal works, so you can’t know it’s not being followed.

[Mr. Bumble]

Isn't that what the "I" in FBI stands for?

[Gandydancer]

Wait away. Do you imagine that I and my team of elves constantly patrol Reason's threads champing at the bit for the opportunity to reply to your Idiot Bombs? Nah, anywhere I dip in the supply of your bullshit far exceeds my capacity to relieve the stink by burying it.

"The alleged crime violated what statute(s)? Please be specific, including citation(s)."

Please fuck yourself. My observation, again, was: “Axelrod et al procured a leak of sealed court records, committing a crime." There isn't a single jurisdiction anywhere in the US where corruptly procuring and redistributing 7 of 9's court-sealed allegations wouldn't be a crime, and I feel no need to prove to you that up is not down.

[NOVA Lawyer]

You will both be waiting a long time, because they excel at taking a kernel of truth and fusing their own fevered conspiracy theories onto it, then pretend that's the unalloyed truth. Proof? That's for suckers, they apparently think.

[Gandydancer]

For you, very badly, on this evidence.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

These are your fans, Volokh Conspirators.

Ouch.

Very ouch.

[Gandydancer]

“[T]he police baptism defendant” is of course functionally illiterate since as it fails to be clear as to who is being referred to, using a locution best applied to the baptizer and not the cop who was protecting himself against misrepresentation of his part in the event by filming it on his phone.

It’s unlikely that the woman was coerced. She was being given a very good deal that admittedly ought not have been offered her. And she said on the video that it was voluntary.

The baptism did not, btw, lead to her getting on a better path: She died within a couple years of a fentanyl overdose.

[Theendoftheleft]

That's the best you can do as a reply, AIDS, because you cannot respond on the merits.

[Mr. Bumble]

Now do NYT and WAPO Russiagate Pulitzers.

[Brett Bellmore]

According to the FTC, "The WPA makes it unlawful for an employee’s (or applicant for employment) protected disclosure to influence the employer to “take or fail to take, or threaten to take or fail to take, a personnel action with respect to [the] employee or applicant for employment.” A personnel action is broadly defined to include ratings, details, promotions, demotions, termination, access to training, etc."

It is beyond plausible that you genuinely don't think the actions described qualify as "retaliation" under this standard. You just don't give a damn if they're retaliated against.

[Nige]

Santos was actually pretty brazen - his lies and dishonesty were inevitably going to lead to scrutiny, and he's still doing weird freaky stuff. And I stress, Brinton got fired.

[Gandydancer]

And, WE are stressing, Brinton was HIRED deliberately in order to put a nutcase in charge of nuclear waste disposal.

[Nige]

Yes, but you're feverishly paranoid and will say and believe anything.

[Sarcastr0]

Look at the timeline.

Under the facts you are discussing, this was not retributive.

Did you forget? These seem like you are smuggling in old goalposts.

[Gandydancer]

Huh? Who is arguing for burning women as witches? Your rando bullshit is getting out of hand. Maybe you need to get your Tourettes treated.

[Nige]

So, you stood four-square behind Edward Snowden?

[Mr. Bumble]

SarcastrO or Nige; which one is Fredo?

[Gandydancer]

And NoPoint thinks a suggestion that the Russians could provide Clinton's emails because her security had been so piss-poor that they probably already had them is " Trump calling for Russia to hack Hillary’s emails.” He can't not know that this is a ridiculous lie, but that fazes him not at all since he has no self-respect to lose.

[not guilty]

IOW, you have no idea whereof you speak, so you resort to invective. Why am I unsurprised?

[Gandydancer]

E.g.: "Theendoftheleft 14 hours ago
Flag Comment Mute User
The whites aren’t a minority yet.

Nige 13 hours ago (edited)
Flag Comment Mute User
They’re barely hanging on at 79%."

You only had to reach as far as your ass. No sweat.

[Gandydancer]

Yeah the Tavistock Clinic scandal in Britain didn't happen and it's MY fault.

[Nige]

Yes, they did good reporting and won a prize for it. No wonder you hate them.

[Nige]

Derp.

[Nige]

You're right, it's 50% and slipping.

[Gandydancer]

Yes I did. And I explained where I had gotten my information and why I couldn't be bothered to dig up a link to it in order to better inform a determined ignoramus. Definitive information on the value of Tucker's new deal is anyway not available, but it's clear that he will be doing just fine.

Count me not surprised that this went in one of your ears and out the other without registering on any of your nonexistent brain cells.

[Gandydancer]

What is this war you want to be ready for?