Thursday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[Mr. Bumble]

Can the Rev. Kirkland be kinder and gentler?

[BadLib]

If one uses the 'Mute User' button, this becomes a "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" type of question.

If Reason would include the option to hide all descendant replies, the solution would be complete.

[Mr. Bumble]

"descendant "?

[Michael P]

I know, that word is so loaded with biological-parent privilege that we might as well declare anyone who uses it a white supremacist!

(It means the comment and all its replies, sur-replies, sur-sur-replies, and so forth. Even past the seventh generation.)

[John F. Carr]

Please God, if you are up there listening to me, add a "collapse thread" button.

[Mr. Bumble]

"God"? You superstitious clinger.

[Frank Drackman]

Lots of superstitious Klingers always asking Got to Damn this, Bless That, probably the cause of any increase in Hurricanes (quick! how many Hurricanes hit the Gulf Coast in 1491??) Surpreme Being's irritated with all the damn/bless requests

[BadLib]

I pray to the FSM for implementation of a "collapse thread" feature as well.

In fact, I regularly sacrifice jars of Rao's spaghetti sauce in support of that feature. Unfortunately my sacrifices appear to have been futile with the only visible result, so far, having been on my waistline.

[Life of Brian]

If Reason would include the option to hide all descendant replies, the solution would be complete.

That seems like a mixed bag -- there are times where the troll eventually leaves a subthread for greener pastures and a cogent discussion breaks out amongst others. Fairly easy for my eyes to skim over the post/muted/post/muted pattern until I hit the next meaty section.

[BadLib]

I agree I do see that occasionally and, since I'm adverse to wasting too much time on threads which consist mostly of people insulting each other, I'm sure it happens more often than I notice.

However I assume, perhaps naively, that much of the more meaty content would instead appear under other threads once the attention seekers are effectively shunned.

[shawn_dude]

When I see a thread filled to the brim with grey mute boxes, I scroll to the next thread. It's not as nice as a collapse feature, but it at least flags the thread as not worth my time.

[Frank Drackman]

What are you gonna do? put him in prison? he's already there.

[Kazinski]

He's a harmless crank.

But even harmless cranks can be annoying too, so use the mute button.

[not guilty]

Judge Aileen Loose Cannon has issued a scheduling order putting the criminal prosecution of Donald Trump and Walt Nauta on a fast track, with a trial date of August 14, 2023. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.648652/gov.uscourts.flsd.648652.28.0_1.pdf I surmise that the DOJ could be prepared to try the case at that time, but I expect the defense to seek to delay the trial. (The Speedy Trial Act at 18 U.S.C. § 3161(c)(1) requires commencement of the trial within seventy days of arraignment, although that deadline may be extended.)

As Shakespeare observed in The Tempest, Act 2, Scene I, what´s past is prologue. In light of Judge Cannon´s (unsuccessful) attempts to stymie the investigation of this case, I can foresee that she will make boneheaded, lawless rulings on pretrial matters which will call for review by the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals at an interlocutory stage.

[Mr. Bumble]

Speedy trial. Wouldn't that be unique. If it happens who benefits most?

[not guilty]

The pre-indictment investigation in this case was pretty comprehensive. I would expect that the DOJ could be ready for trial quickly. Trump would likely benefit from delay.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Trump would benefit less from delay if he were in custody awaiting trial, as he ought to be.

[BadLib]

He’s not a flight risk. The Secret Service knows where he is and it’s hard to campaign for President while on the run.

He’s not a danger to others.

On what basis should he be held pending trial?

Certainly Hunter should be in prison also -- the judge MIGHT ignore the plea bargain deal and sentence him to prison so he might flee when he realizes that's possible.

[Stephen Lathrop]

BadLib, probable cause has been produced and judicially accepted that Trump is a danger to national security.

[not guilty]

The standard is not probable cause; it is clear and convincing evidence that no release conditions "will reasonably assure . . . the safety of any other person and the community."

[Gandydancer]

"..probable cause has been produced and judicially accepted that Trump is a danger to national security.

Lathrop wants to start punishing him now, trial later. Why let a little thing like presumption of innocence get in the way when it's been "judicially accepted" that he's probably guilty (as SL understands it).

[Stephen Lathrop]

Thank you for the legal correction.

Do you see clear and convincing evidence that Trump is not a danger to national security?

Or, to re-put the question no one seems to want to answer, in what other analogous case has the arrested person not been taken into custody to await trial?

[David Nieporent]

There is no other analogous case.

[not guilty]

At this point I haven´t seen clear and convincing evidence that Trump is not a danger to national security, because no litigant has offered such evidence. It is not Trump´s burden to show that he is release eligible pending trial; it is the government´s burden to show that he is not.

[Drewski]

He's not exactly in a position to reoffend, so no. He's not getting new classified stuff. He's not a danger to the community in any sense that matters for bond. I don't think he's a flight risk, but if he absconds then I, for one, will breathe a sigh of relief.

[BadLib]

Good idea – perhaps Trump should be encouraged to flee the country. Biden wouldn’t like that of course as Trump is about the only candidate he can likely beat. However Trump fleeing would insure that we are not saddled with four more years of Trump which would be a great benefit.

[Gandydancer]

* ensure

Trump's not going anywhere. Some TDS judge might order him jailed, but Judge Cannon isn't that.

[Don Nico]

SL,
It is not up to the accused to prove the ...NOT...

[Stephen Lathrop]

Nico, given that Trump already confessed in public to the substance of a publicly dangerous crime, in his case your assertion amounts to empty formalism.

[Kleppe]

"Do you see clear and convincing evidence that Trump is not a danger to national security?"

This question is a perfect example of why leftists should never be in charge of matters involving criminal justice. Their worldviews are so bent they can't even articulate who bears the burden of evidence correctly.

[Sarcastr0]

Lathrop is not representative.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Sarcastr0, thank you. In this crowd, the alternative would be discouraging.

By the way, when I comment, I am looking for critiques. Feel free.

[Gandydancer]

You may be looking for them (I doubt it, though) but you can't seem to take them in.

You've just exhibited another example of this broken-brainedness:
Kleppe "This... is... why LEFTISTS should never be in charge..."
Gaslightr0 "Lathrop is not representative [of LEFTISTS]".
Stephen Lathrop : In THIS CROWD [no longer "leftists"], the alternative would be discouraging."

Did you lose the thread or do you imagine you are fooling "this crowd" with a clever debating tactic? Perhaps you are used to posting in some degraded fora where that works?

@Gaslightr0: SL is absolutely representative, and not remotely the worst. daveLiardave was briefly the worst, but he seems to have moved on. Now it's Nige. But there are many more broken-brained Leftys posting here who can't maintain the thread from one sentence to the next or restrain themselves from pulling ludicrous lies directly from their butts.

[Jerry B.]

"Do you see clear and convincing evidence that Trump is not a danger to national security?"

Wrong question. It should be...

"Do you see clear and convincing evidence that Trump IS a danger to national security?"

If you can't produce that, you have no reason to hold him.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Jerry B., you mean other than the fact that Trump attempted a coup in plain sight? But leave that aside.

I offer commonplace practice in analogous cases as evidence for what should happen in this case. Do you know of any case where someone was found concealing his unauthorized possession of compartmented information, and was not taken into custody to await trial? Feel free to include cases involving people who held clearances to view compartmented information in their government jobs. There are a fair number of such cases. I know of no exceptions. Perhaps you do. Or perhaps you just think Trump should get treated as an exception.

I have asked the question repeatedly. No one has answered it. The best reply I got came from Not Guilty. He cited a presumed impracticality, noting that the judges to whom an appeal would be directed are probably in the tank for Trump. That sounds like an adequate explanation for what is happening, no matter how far short of justification it falls.

I can't argue against it, except to suggest that maybe it would be better to make judge-in-the-tank as obvious as possible, from the earliest moments in the prosecution. The alternative to hang around respectfully, and then pretend to be surprised when the prosecution is finally sabotaged seems comparatively unwise to me.

[Brett Bellmore]

If he attempted a coup in plain site, you should be able to produce the evidence of his ordering an attack on the Capitol, or something of that nature. "Coup" has a meaning, and it's not "Continuing election challenges past the point of reason." or even "Pursuing off the wall theories." It means a forcible takeover of government.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore, forcible takeover of government by Trump would be treason. Any illegitimate attempt to take over government, forcible or not, is a coup.

Perhaps I misspoke when I said, "in plain sight." I referred to watching the capitol takeover in real time on television. Quibblers will argue Trump had nothing to do with that. Evidence to the contrary is overwhelming, but much of it wasn't in plain sight until disclosed publicly by congress, or by investigative reporting.

Anyway, the coup attempt is now beyond doubt. Expect an extremely convincing timeline from Jack Smith, if Trump's in-the-tank judges do not sabotage the prosecution.

[Sarcastr0]

There is a ton of evidence Trump tried a coup.

-Strongarming governors for made up votes
-pushing false electors
-pushing state legislatures to not certify
-Laughable lawsuits asking laughable remedies hoping for laughable judges
-Get Pence to decertify
-Encourage a violent protest on Jan 06

You deny and defend this clear, established, and truly anti-American behavior.

[Gandydancer]

SL: "Jerry B., you mean other than the fact that Trump attempted a coup in plain sight?"
SL "corrects" this to saying that what was in plain sight was not "Trump attempted" but the "coup" itself. This kind of determined production of garbage-brained distinction-destroying bullshit is absolutely "representative" of the output of Nige, Randal, Queenie... etc.,. etc.

SL: "I offer commonplace practice in analogous cases as evidence for what should happen in this case."
No, you have pointed to no "analogous cases" whatsoever. You've waved your arms and bloviated conclusory nonsense about unidentified cases that you assert exist and prove your point without identifying any.

BB: "If he attempted a coup in plain site, you should be able to produce the evidence of his ordering an attack on the Capitol, or something of that nature. “Coup” has a meaning, and it’s not “Continuing election challenges past the point of reason.” or even “Pursuing off the wall theories.”
SL: "Bellmore, forcible takeover of government by Trump would be treason. Any illegitimate attempt to take over government, forcible or not, is a coup."
^^^ SL slithers away from his assertion without actually admitting that there is no evidence that Trump ordered any attack on the Capitol.

SL: "Do you know of any case where someone was found concealing his unauthorized possession of compartmented information, and was not taken into custody to await trial?... I have asked the question repeatedly. No one has answered it."

Of course we have. Hillary concealed "compartmented information" on her personal servers in several ways. First she oversaw the destruction of a number of classified documents by a crew of lawyer minions (pretending that they were "personal"), thus concealing that she had had personal possession of them.. Then she arranged the wiping of the remaining classified documents on her server, concealing that she had retained them after turning in the printed-out copies.

[Randal]

Nooooooo! Don't lump me in with Lathrop, that's by far the meanest thing you've ever said!

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Do you see clear and convincing evidence that Trump is not a danger to national security?

Are you the one who gave Nancy Pelosi that, "He'll have the opportunity to prove his innocence" line?

[Gandydancer]

Proving once again that, contra Gaslightr0, SL is absolutely “representative” of a huge chunk of the DemoTotalitarians. Not only Nige, daveLiardave, Randal, etc., etc. But aklso Nancy Pelosi/ And Adam Shiff. And.... they are legion.

[John F. Carr]

Endangering national security is not an element of a crime Trump has been charged with. He is principally charged with illegal possession of national defense information. The crime is the same if the information is stored securely or insecurely.

The part of the indictment alleging that Trump stored classified documents insecurely is there for public relations. Trump's supporters are not going to worry that Trump had access to classified information. Some of them are concerned that he left it where it might be stolen.

[Gandydancer]

You mean someone might steal the executive overview of Milley's plans to invade Iran four or five years ago? The plans we can't anyway execute now because we've shipped so many artillery shells to Ukraine?

Strangely none of the people obsessing about that gave a damn about Hillary's leaky server being mined for daily updates in real time about what the State Department was up to,.

[Stephen Lathrop]

How are Trump's predicted actions, or his pattern of conduct, in any way affected by what his supporters think?

Do you know of any other analogous case where the arrested person has not been taken into custody to await trial?

[Don Nico]

SL,
ng, answered your question. you don't like the answer. Too bad. Quit your harangue.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Nico, Not Guilty's answer was that the judge is in the tank, so trying to put Trump in custody would be futile. He did not say other people who did what Trump did get released before trial.

My preference for the Trump prosecution is that he get the same treatment you would get, or I would get, if the same evidence had been found against us. To give Trump special deference undermines the prosecution, and encourages jury nullification.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

"not guilty" did not say any such thing.

You were told numerous times that since Trump is not a flight risk, or a threat to public safety, he is not required to remain detained before trial.

I hate that motherfucker (Trump) and hope he dies painfully and slowly.

But he isn't a flight risk unless he can murder all of his Secret Service agents, and he is not a physical threat to public safety. He stays out of prison for now.

[Gandydancer]

"David Nieporent 17 hours ago
Flag Comment Mute User
There is no other analogous case."

SL still acts like his claim is unanswered.
By Nopoint, of all people.
And even Gaslightr0!
But at least Nancy Pelosi agrees with him.
What's the dividing line here?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Cavanaugh, Not Guilty said this:

Detaining Donald Trump prior to trial would have required a showing by clear and convincing evidence that he is a flight risk or that no release conditions “will reasonably assure . . . the safety of any other person and the community.” Any determination by the magistrate judge would be immediately appealable to a district judge who is in the tank for Trump.

I thought that was the best response I got to the still unanswered question, does anyone know of any defendant except Trump who has been left at liberty after being charged with unauthorized possession of compartmented information. Seems to me that the nature of the crime charged has in other cases been taken as sufficient proof to show dangerousness. Do you know of a case to show otherwise?

[John F. Carr]

To extend "the crime is the same":

Some noise has been made this week about a Trump interview where he makes arguably incriminating statements about wanting to sort out his belongings from stuff the government wanted. If the prosecution's legal theory of the case is right, such an admission if of very little importance and perhaps none at all.

The prosecution charges that by 12:01 PM on January 20, 2021 Trump had already committed felony unauthorized possession of dozens of documents with national defense information. Trump's recent statements concern events that happened long after the crime was complete. Refusing to return criminally possessed classified documents is not an additional crime. It's part of the same crime.

If Trump had been charged with willful refusal to return legally possessed national defense information on demand (as I think he should have been) then the statements would be relevant. Perhaps they are relevant to the obstruction-type charges, but those are minor in comparison. Under the sentencing guidelines crimes related to top secret information are much more serious than obstruction and perjury.

[Gandydancer]

I take it that Trump is for once telling the truth and decamped from Washington with a large amount of boxes containing mixed possessions that the never got around to sorting through.

Were laws broken. Maybe. Maybe not. But it's all a nothingburger.

The Dems think this will help them win the election. We'll see.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Not yet. That charge may be prosecuted elsewhere, perhaps New Jersey, New York, or D.C.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Trump is a danger to national security like the FBI raiding those people in Florida to recover Ashley Biden's diary was for national security.

"National Security" = "Washington Grift, Wealth and Corruption"

[Frank Drackman]

Not kind or gentle.
How come I'm the only one being kinder/gentler
Put "45" in the same Prison Ted Kennedy served in for (you know the rest)
Ahhh, that felt better

Frank

[David Nieporent]

Trump would likely benefit from delay.

Of course. Trump would like delay until November 2024 — or better yet, until 1/20/25. His strategy is to either get elected and pardon himself, or to try to bully any other GOPer who gets elected into pardoning him. (Or to just drop the prosecution.)

[not guilty]

The prosecution is proceeding apace. Special Counsel has filed the government´s initial response to the Court´s standing discovery order. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.648653/gov.uscourts.flsd.648653.30.0_1.pdf

This document indicates that much discovery material has already been provided to the defense. The prosecution will be providing Jencks statements of prospective witnesses, even though it is not required to do so prior to trial.

[Armchair Lawyer]

"If it happens who benefits most?"
DeSantis.

This is a political move by Biden and his DoJ. The indictment helps Trump in the primary (Gets him lots of press, makes him look like the victim), and slightly hurts him (especially if convicted) in the general. Biden likes that.

A fast trial, means it moves the indictment out of the public eye before the primaries. Put DeSantis versus Trump, one on one, without outside interference, and it becomes clear who is better suited.

[Sarcastr0]

Biden, close friends with Judge Cannon, is responsible for this!

You're dumb as hell.

[Frank Drackman]

Armchair can learn and not be as dumb, you'll still be U-G-L-Y
Ooops, that wasn't too kind or gentle

[Armchair Lawyer]

"This (is a political move)" refers to the indictment, not the decision to have a fast trial.

If you didn't have your strawmen to fight against, you'd have nothing.

[Sarcastr0]

So you replied to something about the trial talking about the indictment, and didn't note your change of subject.

Not dumb as hell, but still pretty dumb!

[Armchair Lawyer]

All you have are strawmen and insults. Nothing meaningful.

[Sarcastr0]

Naw, dude - you fucked up. That's not name calling, that's an analysis of what you wrote.

Now you're trying to pretend you didn't.

It's a sad show; have the guts to own up.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Then you're the idiot for changing the subject without telling anyone.

Don't use pronouns if you're too stupid to announce that you are talking about something different than everyone else.

[Gandydancer]

You and Gasligtr0 are a pair of idiots for pretending that AL changed the subject.when he didn't.

[Gandydancer]

"Biden, close friends with Judge Cannon, is responsible for this! / You’re dumb as hell."

The DOJ is certainly trying to get a quick trial. But AL nowhere suggested that Biden was influencing Cannon to get that result, The voices in Gaslightr0's head are shouting loudly, but no one hears them except him.

[bernard11]

Who benefits?

An innocent defendant would be my guess.

[Gandydancer]

Bullshit.

[darkknight9]

State or Fed level "speedy trials" are a fantasy. Its an imaginary thought like unicorns, honest politicians, and transparency.

I mean, dreams do occasionally come true but to pretend speedy trials exist for all is a lie so foul it turns the stomach thinking about it.

Okay, that has little to do with Orange Julius Caesar but it hit a note with me. Pet peeves and all that. Apologies.

[Noscitur a sociis]

The federal Speedy Trial Act can pretty reliably guarantee defendants a trial within 70 days if they want it. Most don’t, of course, but it can. That’s how Ted Stevens got a trial before his next election, for instance (to his detriment).

[Mr. Bumble]

His detriment was a trial by corrupt federal prosecutors.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Andrew Weissman was also part of that crew.

[ducksalad]

Local lawyer here told me defendants who are out on bail often don’t get a trial or even an indictment for 10 years. (I posted bail for someone a year ago and asked the lawyer if and when I’d get the money back.)

He said people actually in detention typically get an indictment within three months, though, then the various motions and whatevers start. Still could be some years.

[John F. Carr]

Time spent considering pretrial motions by the defense is generally not counted for purposes of the Speedy Trial Act.

[Stephen Lathrop]

If no one is above the law, why isn't Trump held in custody awaiting trial? Consider other defendants charged with identically egregious unauthorized possession of documents critical to national security. Which among them has not been in custody from the moment of arrest until they are tried?

The issue is not whether Trump will show up for trial. The issue is that he has seen, and may still possess, information which cannot be disclosed to anyone without endangering national security. He cannot be trusted not to divulge that information. In fact, there is nothing Trump can be trusted not to divulge, if he thinks it will advantage him to do it. What in his conduct so far shows anything trustworthy about his handling of national security related documents? Nothing. That is the reason to hold him in custody.

More generally, if the Justice Department is convinced that Trump deserves to be tried for the felonies it has charged him with, doesn't it undermine the prosecution to treat him with special deference not extended to anyone else?

[Mr. Bumble]

Stephen Lanthrop, still crazy after all these years.

[Martinned]

You think he's going to go out and get more classified documents to illegally possess?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Martinned, what gives you any confidence the government got them all back? Did government agents search every shed on every one of Trump's golf courses?

Perhaps more to the point, Trump has not been arrested because he had access to secrets. Every ex-president undoubtedly has in his head critical national security information which should not be revealed. Trump was arrested because there is probable cause to show that he will handle unreliably any national security information he knows about.

But then, post-arrest, Trump gets treated as if he has become reliable. That puts the nation at risk, and it seriously undermines the prosecution. Once again, who else in similar circumstances has not been taken into custody to await trial?

[Gandydancer]

"rump was arrested because there is probable cause to show that he will handle unreliably any national security information he knows about."

Maybe Lathriop is thinking of THIS warrant:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/07/world/iraq-arrest-warrant-trump-al-muhandis-intl/index.html

[Brett Bellmore]

What gives you any confidence either Pence or Biden gave them all back? It's not like THEY were subjected to a hostile, independent search.

[not guilty]

Pence and Biden were not subjected to a hostile, independent search because each promptly agreed to a voluntary search of the premises upon discovery of the materials. That is an object lesson as to how Trump should have comported himself.

[Brett Bellmore]

Ah, so Trump should have just said, "Here's everything I found", and given them everything but what he wanted to retain? Or, heck, just photocopied it all and sent back all the originals? (That he didn't do exactly this is pretty conclusive evidence he hasn't put enough thought into this to have actually intended anything nefarious.)

I repeat: Trump was subject to a hostile, independent search, which gives us at least SOME basis for thinking he no longer has any of the relevant documents. The same cannot be said of either Pence or Biden, who could have retained whatever they felt like, because they or their agents were in charge of the searches. The National Archives had no idea what Biden had, (And how the hell did THAT happen? Not without systematic violations of the rules!) so they have no way of knowing he turned everything in.

I mean, I'll grant that Pence likely didn't retain anything, because he's such a straight arrow they probably should store him at the National Standards Bureau. But Biden? Even when he was of a sound mind he and the truth only had an accidental acquaintance.

[not guilty]

Uh, Pence and Biden or their agents were not in charge of the searches to which Pence and Biden had agreed. The FBI was.

And in fact Trump did say “Here’s everything I found”, and gave them everything but what he wanted to retain. Problem is, he lied.

[SRG]

Every single Trumpsucker has used the same defence - "Biden and Pence did the same and they're not being charged" - despite the fact that the cases are clearly very different. And when this is pointed out, the Trumpsuckers either respond by saying, "yes, because Trump as president had the right, etc etc" or that offences such as obstruction, lying, etc. are merely "process crimes", hardly worse than ordering white wine with steak.

Brett - you're not stupid. You know perfectly well that Trump was engaged in obstructing and lying about his document retention and that neither Biden nor Pence did. You also know perfectly well that the rest of us also know this.

So why the fuck are you lying about this?

[bernard11]

The trouble is, he doesn't know it, because he can't bring himself to believe it. He's in too deep.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Trumpsucker"

Classy

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

At a site that incessantly launches racial slurs, homophobic slurs, antisemitic slurs, xenophobic slurs, Islamophobic slurs, misogynistic slurs, and an unrelenting stream of diffuse bigotry, you genuinely want or expect anything that is classy?

[darkknight9]

Maybe its a new thing, maybe its an old thing. I mean consider another defendant charged with identically egregious unauthorized possession of a firearm where keeping it out of their hands is critical to public safety. Prior records and lying to the Fed gov seem to no longer matter for certain folks. Unless you're James Clapper. Its never mattered whenever he's lied to the government.

Not to be a broken record but remember two things, 1) if you're white your chances of fighting charges from home instead of the clinker are much greater than people of color. 2) Money talks, bullshit runs the marathon. Without some green in your pocket, you'd better enjoy wearing jumpsuit orange until you have to change for court appearances.

Damn I'm grumpy this morning.

[Gandydancer]

Nighty has a distinct memory of Trump having a past record selling military secrets to.... Russia, was it? Yeah, it must have been Putin. That's why Valenskaya delivered to him all those bundles of cash in FusionGPS wrappers, amIrite?

[SRG]

He didn't sell them. He gave them away.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia/trump-revealed-intelligence-secrets-to-russians-in-oval-office-officials-idUSKCN18B2MX

[Frank Drackman]

Sometimes nations help their "Allies" to some Classified Info, Israel comes too mind. And why the reflexive hate towards Roosh-a?? they didn't kill a million Amuricans with a manufactured Virus. They invade smaller weaker nations?? so do we. I'd vote for Pooty Poot if I was a Roosh-un.
OK, sometimes part of being "Kind" is being truthful

Frank

[not guilty]

Detaining Donald Trump prior to trial would have required a showing by clear and convincing evidence that he is a flight risk or that no release conditions "will reasonably assure . . . the safety of any other person and the community." Any determination by the magistrate judge would be immediately appealable to a district judge who is in the tank for Trump.

Perhaps DOJ was not ready to show its hand at the arraignment stage.

[ReaderY]

The answer is very simple. He is a former President who hasn’t actually been convicted of anything.

As a former President, he gets treated differently from others.

[Frank Drackman]

No Kidding?? so he's not paying for all those submachinegun toting body guards???

[Noscitur a sociis]

Stephen Lathrop,

I once again implore you: please stop trying to help.

[ducksalad]

“Identically egregious”

Are you comparing to cases where the unauthorized documents had already been delivered to a foreign government, either directly or by posting on Wikileaks or giving them to journalist? Those aren’t identically egregious.

Are you comparing to cases where the person never, at any point in their life, had authority to possess the documents? Those aren’t identically egregious.

Are you comparing to cases where the accusation was being an agent of a foreign intelligence service? Those are not comparable.

If those aren’t the cases you had in mind, it would be helpful to give some examples you are thinking of.

And also…even though Chelsea Manning isn’t comparable for the reasons listed above, quite a few Democrats think her pre-trial treatment was overly harsh. And any right think person thinks Wen Ho Lee was treated unfairly, even though the accusations were much more serious than those against Trump.

[phattyboombatty]

Your comment caused me to think of another possibility. If Trump is convicted and sentenced to a long prison term, what motivation, if any, does Trump have to keep quiet about the rest of the nation's secrets? If the worst that can happen is jail (which is where he'd already be) I can see him spilling the beans about everything just out of spite.

[ducksalad]

Lathrop might have some fantasy about some kind of eternal incommunicado imprisonment for Trump that would protect the precious secrets forever.

Perhaps he also wants to sequester the jury for life. After all, one out of the twelve might secretly be a Republican who escaped detection during the jury selection.

[Tom for equal rights]

Stephen Lathrop 11 hours ago
Flag Comment Mute User
If no one is above the law, why isn’t Trump held in custody awaiting trial?

You keep asking that stupid question

You are supposed to be a history expert - Quess how many others have been held in custody awaiting trial for a similar crime -

[Kazinski]

Well now we have another “conspiracy theory” that has become all but confirmed fact:

“After years of official pronouncements to the contrary, significant new evidence has emerged that strengthens the case that the SARS-CoV-2 virus accidentally escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV).

According to multiple U.S. government officials interviewed as part of a lengthy investigation by Public and Racket, the first people infected by the virus, “patients zero,” included Ben Hu, a researcher who led the WIV’s “gain-of-function” research on SARS-like coronaviruses, which increases the infectiousness of viruses."

“Ben Hu is essentially the next Shi Zhengli,” said Alina Chan, a molecular biologist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and coauthor with Matt Ridley of Viral: The Search for the Origin of Covid19. Shi is known as “the bat woman of China,” and led the gain-of-function research at the WIV. “He was her star pupil. He had been making chimeric SARS-like viruses and testing these in humanized mice. If I had to guess who would be doing this risky virus research and most at risk of getting accidentally infected, it would be him.”
In March 2018, the WIV, the EcoHealth Alliance, and the University of North Carolina applied for a $14 million grant from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Project Agency DARPA to engineer “furin cleavage sites” into SARS-like coronaviruses to study how this affected their ability to grow and cause disease.

Scientists say the key piece of the COVID-19 virus, which made it so transmissible compared to its closest relatives, was its unique furin cleavage site.

DARPA rejected the grant, but it now appears the WIV went forward with the research anyway. The Times of London reported that US collaborators of the WIV had come forward and said the Wuhan scientists had put furin cleavage sites into SARS-like viruses in 2019."

https://public.substack.com/p/first-people-sickened-by-covid-19

However Ben Hu was listed as a researcher on the NIH funded Eco health grant that was eventually given to the Wuhan lab, that Fauci first denied did gain of function research, and the NIH had to eventually admit it did.

Covid: developed with your tax dollars in a Chinese government lab.

Anyone who doesn't admit by now that that's the far most likely scenario is just in denial.

[Mr. Bumble]

Unfortunately Ben Hu is no longer with us, having "fallen" from the roof of the Wuhan Institute.

[AmosArch]

Its funny how the Left constantly prattles on about rationality and science yet they still cling to the BatBurger hypothesis just because its more politically expedient for them.

[Nige]

It's funny how the conspiracy guys fix on a narrative first then wait for evidence, any evidence, real or fake. How many times has the lab-leak hypothesis been declared proven fact, then the evidence sort of dissolves? So many times.

[AmosArch]

How is lab leak ‘a conspiracy theory’? What evidence has ‘dissolved’? The major framework of the lab leak has remained despite numerous efforts to debunk it and of the major theories provides the most specific and detailed explanation. More than the batburger theory, where all the evidence is 'the lableak theory is wrong trust me bro, maybe its this instead'. Let’s face it. You only oppose lableak because of politics. If Wuhan was renamed the Trump Institute of Virology you’d be all for it.

[Gandydancer]

“How many times has the lab-leak hypothesis been declared proven fact, then the evidence sort of dissolves?”

Zero.

Nige just makes shit up. Don’t we all know that by now?

https://reason.com/2023/06/16/covid-19-patients-zero-wuhan-lab-leak-shellenberger

https://public.substack.com/p/first-people-sickened-by-covid-19?r=58hqy&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post

[Nige]

'May Have Been'

Hmm.

'According to multiple U.S. government officials interviewed as part of a lengthy investigation by Public and Racket,'

I look forward to seeing the results of this investigation. Til then...

(I suppose the up side of a lab leak would be all the covid truthers suddenty getting furious about the senseless loss of life due to the virus they spent so long asserting was 'fake' or a 'bad cold.' Ths is unlikely to translate to support for pandemic preparedness, though.)

[Nige]

Any actual evidence that it was a lab leak keeps dissolving. *Believing* it was a lab leak absent evidence is the conspiracy theory. Constantly claiming it has been definitively proved when it hasn't, is conspiracy theorying.

[Kazinski]

Now when has the evidence dissolved?

I do remember that when the theory was first floated, that Fauci organized a cadre of scientists to write papers to debunk it, but it turns out even they didn't believe that it wasn't possible or even likely, they were just covering Fauci's ass, as became apparent when the email chain was FOIA'd.

Then I remember the angry hearing when Faux I told Rand Paul that the NIH grant to WIV was not describing gain of function, and the virus being examined couldn't have been.the source of Covid, but then the NIH had to admit the grant was describing gain of function, and of course its self evident that those particular viruses being described were not the only ones being researched.

And of course sometimes cover ups can be effective at dissolving evidence, as both WIV and NIH certainly had motivation to make the theory disappear.

[Nige]

Any actual evidence has remained elusive. We'll see about these claims. I suppose lack of evidence always indicates a cover-up, always a useful fall-back.

[Sarcastr0]

Fauci organized a cadre of scientists to write papers

That's an interesting take on why and how papers are written.

[Don Nico]

You deny that bureaucrats do that sometimes.
"write papers" is obviously shorthand for do some looking into and report in writing

[Sarcastr0]

I've never seen anything like ordering a bunch of papers be written with a particular point of view.

I’d like evidence it happened, as well as how it happened and how it was funded.

[Tom for equal rights]

You would know that if you didnt reside in a left wing echo chamber.

Emails from fauci obtained under FOIA show that fauci was strongly aware of the lab leak in Jan 2020 , subsequently was involved in being part of the group that claimed the lab leak was near impossible.

Other emails in Oct / Nov 2020 showed that both Fauci and Walensky were aware that the vaccines were not going to be very effective in stopping the spread or infection rates of covid.

Stay in your left wing echo chamber so that you can remain as ill informed as you are

[Sarcastr0]

Strongly aware...Involved with the group?

I'm sorry, you're not making sense.

"Oct / Nov 2020...Fauci and Walensky were aware that the vaccines were not going to be very effective in stopping the spread or infection rates of covid."

Now this is is just someone lying, or you misunderstanding.

[Tom for equal rights]

Sacastro you keep demonstrating you live in an echo chamber

Kaz has provided links to the emails obtained via the foia

[Sarcastr0]

If that's what you were relying on...that's not great.

[Tom for equal rights]

Sacastro you have been residing in the left wing echo chamber resulting on being easily fooled.

[Sarcastr0]

I post on the VC, so your echo chamber argument is wrong from the outset.

Kaz's quotes below establish nothing. He wants to believe, so he's drawing connections whithout bothering to establish them.

You, though, have made a number of patently fallacious arguments, and lean hard on personal attacks. I'll bet you've read very little of the primary sources - only what gatewaypundit feeds you.

[Tom for equal rights]

Sarcastr0 2 hours ago
Flag Comment Mute User
I post on the VC, so your echo chamber argument is wrong from the outset.

Contraire - you repetitively show ignorance of well known of well known facts demonstrating your allegience to those left wing echo chambers

[Sarcastr0]

Allegiance?

You are a strange one!

[Kazinski]

"The day before the call, Scripps Research infectious disease expert Kristian Andersen had warned Fauci that the virus may have been engineered in a lab, noting that he and several other high-profile scientists “all find the genome inconsistent with expectations from evolutionary theory.” The scientists agreed to have a conference call the next day. “It was a very productive back-and-forth conversation where some on the call felt it could possibly be an engineered virus,” Fauci told Alison Young, writing for USA Today, in June 2021.

Not long after the call, Andersen was the lead author on a paper in Nature Medicine titled “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2.” The paper proposed “two scenarios that can plausibly explain the origin of SARS-CoV-2: (i) natural selection in an animal host before zoonotic transfer; and (ii) natural selection in humans following zoonotic transfer.” For the scientists and pundits who sought to discount the emerging lab-leak hypothesis, it offered the authoritative proof they needed. The paper has since been accessed more than 5.6 million times, with over 2,000 citations.

The authors acknowledged a third scenario, “selection during passage,” but they discussed it briefly and presented it as by far the least plausible. The newly released notes from the call, however, suggest that the scientists Fauci consulted initially considered that possibility to be much more serious than the paper let on."

https://theintercept.com/2022/01/12/covid-origins-fauci-redacted-emails/

[Sarcastr0]

So what you have is scientists initial thinking changed when came time to publish, and somewhere in there some of them talked to Fauci.

That's...nothing. That's cork-board and string.

And "Fauci organized a cadre of scientists to write papers" is nothing like this story.

[TwelveInchPianist]

It’s funny how the conspiracy guys fix on a narrative first then wait for evidence, any evidence, real or fake. How many times has the lab-leak hypothesis been declared proven fact, then the evidence sort of dissolves? So many times.

You have it backwards. Here's a quote from the Wapo:

Yet Cotton acknowledged there is no evidence that the disease originated at the lab. Instead, he suggested it’s necessary to ask Chinese authorities about the possibility, fanning the embers of a theory that has been repeatedly disputed by experts.

This type of thing was repeatedly published by the MSM, you can find plenty of examples. And this is the corrected version. They said, "The term “debunked” and The Post’s use of “conspiracy theory” have been removed because, then as now, there was no determination about the origins of the virus."

And there was some evidence of the lab leak, the origin of the pandemic so close to the facility certainly suggests that it may have come from there.

[jb]

I've seen plenty of people who were originally skeptical of the lab leak theory acknowledging that it was the likelier explanation for at least a year now.

I know you guys can't imagine the idea of getting new information and changing your mind, but that's actually how rationality and science work.

[Nige]

It's the 'new information' bit.

[SRG]

Yeah - I thought the wet market a more likely source than a lab leak, but more recently it was evident that the lab leak is more likely. Updating probabilities is easy enough.

[Bwaaah]

For true believers, "rationality" and "science" are now just two more words strategically redefined and positioned within the political lexicon. For some, they are euphemisms for all the traditional institutions that are now hostages of the Morally Superior people. For others, they are citational bludgeons used to assert answers to questions that Morally Superior people shouldn't/wouldn't ask. Anyway, Morally Superior people don't change their minds, because, well, how could they? Why would they? (Can you not tell the difference between Right and Wrong?)

[Sarcastr0]

Ain't no experts, ain't no truth; there is only persecution of Bwaaah by The Elites.

Tail as old as time.

[Bwaaah]

Interesting. I never felt persecuted, nor do I even believe in the notion of the "elites." I was talking about Morally Superior people, peers really, who have that special kind of certainty about their righteousness that only a non-critical thinker could have. (You may be familiar with it.) I very much believe there are experts and important notions of truth, although the essence of both tends to evaporate by the time anything shows up in front of a journalist's camera. Still, expertise and truth can be widely found in journals and vibrant arguments all over the place. (No, the Whitehouse is not a reliable source of truth and expertise; it must answer to greater passions.)

But thanks for your conclusory, if hollow, remarks.

[Sarcastr0]

So this comment is reasonable.

But also hard to square with your above comment: "traditional institutions that are now hostages;" "“rationality” and “science” are now just two more words strategically redefined and positioned within the political lexicon;"

Either you're just saying there are assholes well distributed throughout all things, which isn't news, or you've moderated your position. Which, good on ya.

[Bwaaah]

I have a rather traditional view of rationality and science. I was speaking of the more politically motivated, manipulative views of science and rationality. I suspect you are confused because I didn't state whose side I'm on.

Anyway, what position did I moderate? Are you sure you didn't misunderstand my position?

(Hint: I don't have a side. And for you, I suspect that's a priori evidence of a deficiency in my grasp of essential matters; my lack of moral clarity.)

[Sarcastr0]

Nah, I don't much care about sides, even if I consider myself to be on one. Plenty of conservatives on here I respect.

Your inconsistency in the above is 1) who is holding the institutions hostage if not elites? 2) you think the existence of overconfident jerks is some new thing or something?

Invoking science in a shallow, talismanic manner is utterly orthogonal from thinking you have a monopoly on virtue - it's more a rhetorical method than an ideology.

I do note your libertarian consistency below on trans treatments and parental consent. I may not fully agree, but points for consistency there.

I still think you came in hot with condemning a population that seems more common in your first post than the mere 'these crappy people exist.'

[Bwaaah]

"For some, they are euphemisms for all the traditional institutions that are now hostages of the Morally Superior people."

I didn't say that I thought institutions were being held hostage. I merely referred to the notion held by some [many] that "science," as an institution, has been significantly corrupted by a minority of its practitioners who, in furtherance of their personally held beliefs, successfully limit the practice of open query by employing techniques of shaming, silencing, punishing and ostracization, so successfully that about 90% of hard science practitioners say, in private, that this is a MAJOR problem in the practice of science today. And those same people will tell you it is FEAR OF PROFESSIONAL RETRIBUTION that keeps them silent about it at work, and KEEPS THEM IN THEIR LANES (whatever the hell that means...its a construction of Morally Superior people who define Gates and position themselves as Gatekeepers).

There are no elites. There are just a bunch of individual people spread out among us...nasty, vindictive, self-righteous people who not only punish their peers (us), but in the case of science-focused institutions, undermine the most essential spirit of the mission of the institution they purport to serve.

But carry on. Nothing to look at here.

[jb]

LOL. Pretty funny for the retort to "I've seen a bunch of people change their minds on this topic" to simply double down on your existing point of view that inconveniently doesn't match the new information.

Just as a point of reference, here's an article from fully two years ago showing a shift from dismissing the lab leak to taking it fairly seriously:

https://www.vox.com/22453571/lab-leak-covid-19-coronavirus-hypothesis-wuhan-virology-china

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Its funny how the Left constantly prattles on about rationality and science yet they still cling to the BatBurger hypothesis just because its more politically expedient for them."

Scientism: The irrational belief that all your personal biases are somehow backed by science. It's the new religion of the left.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Kazinski, grant the truth of what you say as a premise, and show how that diminishes even slightly the probability of a natural origin for the pandemic. You are not speculating about the future. You are talking about something which already happened. Whatever likelihood of natural origin existed at the moment the pandemic began will remain unchanged until someone shows irrefutable evidence that something else happened.

Speculation by government officials that Ben Hu, or anyone else, was patient zero must be based on evidence sufficient to rule out that someone else, still unknown, was patient zero. To assert the contrary is to assume your conclusion.

The likelihood that the very first human to get Covid was identified accurately before Covid was even known to exist seems very small. If Covid was already circulating unnoticed among people in Wuhan, the fact that a virus researcher who lived in Wuhan might catch it is unremarkable.

[AmosArch]

If there was an absence of evidence, (which there is not, there is evidence in favor of lab leak) the default theory would be 'we don't know' not your 'natural' batburger theory.

[Sarcastr0]

was -> is.

Did you even notice?

[Don Nico]

As in all matters of faith,
for those who do not want to believe, no evidence is sufficient; for those who believe no evidence is necessary,

[Sarcastr0]

Don’t exclude the middle. I started skeptical, and am becoming less skeptical. I’m not saying it’s a slam dunk by any stretch, but it’s become a legit possibility as other possibilities have been ruled out.

I’m still unsure about this new evidence on initial patients, but in the coming weeks I suspect it’ll be either corroborated or debunked.

There are plenty on the liberal side in that same boat. jb above.

Probably some on the right as well, but they seem quieter as their compatriots yell about China bioweapons with Fauci helping etc. etc.

[Don Nico]

Do you deny that Fauci's institute funded research at WIV?
Why does the origin of SARS-CoV-2 have anything to do with one's economic, political, cultural ideology?
Why does the wet market theory preclude the virus being engineered by humans/
You talk about the middle. But when you ask the correct question there is no middle. Was SARS-CoV-2 engineered by humans or is it a naturally occurring mutation? If the latter was has no credible example or credible precursor ever been found in nature despite extensive searches?

[Sarcastr0]

By 'Fauci’s institute' do you mean the freaking' National Institution of Health?!!

Why does the origin of SARS-CoV-2 have anything to do with one’s economic, political, cultural ideology
Because the right has decided some anti-Chinese nationalism is just the ticket.

Why does the wet market theory preclude the virus being engineered by humans
No one said it did. Because there isn't really a 'wet market theory'

So you are embracing the 'for those who believe no evidence is necessary' side? Because this is pretty out there.

[Kazinski]

Yeah, I guess that's plausible: a researcher at the Wuhan Lab, who (or Hu, heh) "co-authored multiple papers on coronavirus research, including a 2017 paper on chimeric bat coronaviruses with Peter Daszak, the head of EcoHealth Alliance" and was part of a group that in 2018 applied for a grant "to engineer “furin cleavage sites” into SARS-like coronaviruses to study how this affected their ability to grow and cause disease", then in 2019 gets the munchies and goes to the Wuhan wet market and gets some bad pangolin, and catches a novel SARS-like coronavirus with a furrin cleaveage site.

Me? I think if someone lays out a plan to engineer a bat coronavirus, with a furrin cleavage site 2 years before it shows up, then it shows up in his immediate neighborhood, whether he's one of the first patients or not, and he was, then I'm going to be pretty damn sure that's where it came from.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Kazinski, I did not doubt that you would be pretty damn sure. I was questioning your reasoning.

You have a fundamental reasoning problem of which you seem unaware. When something has already happened it is history. It is pure foolishness to posit counterfactuals about history.

Reserve probabilistic thinking for questions about the future. For questions about the past, probabilities have already been resolved into occurrences. We may not know what happened, or we may know. High probability events may have happened. Low probability events may have happened. Either way, what actually happened is not subject to adjustment now. What you need is more convincing evidence from then and there, about what happened then and there. You have cast your net too wide, and caught too much of the present in it.

[David Nieporent]

You have a fundamental reasoning problem of which you seem unaware. When something has already happened it is history. It is pure foolishness to posit counterfactuals about history.

Wrong. You have all the intellectual humility of Josh Blackman, with all the reasoning skills of Josh Blackman.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Nieporent, you think historical counterfactuals can be examples of valid reasoning? If so, I am not surprised. A lot of folks think that. It is one of the characteristic errors in historical reasoning which beginning historians have to be trained out of. Historical reasoning is full of pitfalls which do not occur elsewhere, except maybe in science fiction about time travel.

[David Nieporent]

First, I once again beg you to stop pretending you are a spokesperson for the profession of historian. Second, we're not talking about the profession of historian, so your blather about what historians do is irrelevant to the discussion. Third, nothing Kazinski wrote was a counterfactual.

[VinniUSMC]

Kazinski, I did not doubt that you would be pretty damn sure. I was questioning your reasoning.

SL desperately needs a mirror. You are wrong, you were wrong. Quit deflecting.

[Don Nico]

SL,
You remain in denial.
A likely patient zero has been identified.
NO evidence of naturally occurring SARS-CoV-2 has been found in any animal species despite the search.
Thanks to NIH, research illegal in the US, was funded at a Chinese bioweapons lab with inadequate biosecurity measures (no BL-$) facility.
Blah-blah all you like about your concept of probability theory

[Stephen Lathrop]

A likely patient zero has been identified.

Or misidentified. Prove which it is. You can't even prove one hypothesis is any more likely than the other. You are attempting to substitute plausibility for reason. It is unwise to do that when you are talking about things which have already happened.

[Don Nico]

SL,
I don't have to prove it. I said likely. When you say "prove" what do you mean? to a metaphysical certainty? Nope no one ever does that.
Can one say something about the relative likelihood of hypotheses? Yes. NO one has named an earlier patient definitely diagnosed with COVID-19. That make is much more likely than not that Mr Hu was at least immediately contemporaneous with any out afflictee.
You just don't like that answer. Too bad.
But I fail to see why, unless your political masters forbid it.
You actually betray gross ignorance about observational science and what the likelihood of any measurement is.
There are not syllogisms in observational science. Learn something about inductive reasoning.

[bernard11]

Don,

A possible patient zero has, maybe, been identified.

Matt Taibbi is kind of a sensation-seeker, so maybe it's worth waiting to see if the reports pan out.

Unlike so many of the commenters, I know almost nothing about virology, so have no particular opinion about the origin of the virus.

[Don Nico]

bernard, a patient zero or one or five would be interesting. It would shed some light on the origin of the virus. But the crucial question is whether it is a naturally occurring mutation or a product of bio-engineering? That is partially a question of virology and also of the search for a naturally occurring mutation. People who want to deny the bio-engineering hypothesis seem to dismiss all circumstantial evidence, without any evidence supporting an alternative. The question is not from whence it spread most rapidly throughout Wuhan, but how the virus was created. Unfortunately, many folks think this question with the political question of whether any particular government’s response was good public policy.

[Stephen Lathrop]

It would shed some light on the origin of the virus.

Nico, yes, sort of. If you had a provable early-generation patient near the point of origin. But you don't have any such proof. You instead assume Wuhan as the point of origin, and do your reasoning backward, to make the earliest victims you know of in Wuhan qualify as early-generation patients. For all you or I know, the very first Covid victim was a Chinese student attending a private school in the Boston area—perhaps even near a bio lab in Boston—who took Covid back to Wuhan on a school vacation trip.

Even taking your backward conjecture as true for the sake of argument does remarkably little to establish the lab leak hypothesis over the natural origin hypothesis. If you could know for certain that the very first person afflicted with Covid was a lab employee who lived in Wuhan, where would that leave you?

You assume without evidence that the lab employee is more susceptible to infection from a lab leak than to infection from natural occurrence, even if the lab employee lives near the site of a natural occurrence. You, remember, have assumed Wuhan as the site of the outbreak, however it was caused.

Assume instead for the sake of argument what experience seems to show—that lab leaks which cause global pandemics have been vanishingly rare, while natural occurrences have been commonplace. Given that experience, and the task to distinguish impartially between a lab leak in Wuhan, and a natural occurrence in Wuhan, why on that basis alone would anyone choose the lab leak, even if it was a Wuhan lab employee who was the first known patient?

No reasonable person would do that, without strong evidence implicating the lab. There is, of course, a reasonable answer that it was the lab which caused the infection of its employee, but it is an answer which requires evidence in detail which to this point neither you nor anyone else has shown. You have to be able to identify a specific leaky event, reliably recorded when it happened, with further reliable evidence that public contagion provably attributable to that leak followed. Nothing like that is in sight.

Like almost every other advocate for the lab leak hypothesis, you seem to assume that each non-conclusive bit which can be added in support somehow diminishes the likelihood that natural occurrence was the actual cause. But we ought to consider that the relationship between lab risk and natural risk is additive, not mutually exclusive. Building the bio-research lab in Wuhan did nothing to reduce the likelihood of a natural outbreak there. Thus, arguments which amount to, "See! They've got a bio lab, and it does the things they do in bio labs," do not as their advocates seem to suppose, stand at all as points against a natural occurrence.

You comment as if you were a political zealot, while lashing out against me and my presumed, "political masters." Readers here familiar with my commentary can come to their own conclusions about what that shows of your powers of inference.

I have no stake in the outcome of this stupid controversy, nor even much interest in it. That is because no matter what eventually becomes the accepted explanation (or perpetually contested explanation), I cannot imagine any consequent policy or action which would make any difference.

As I said before, I do have a preference that public health policy be kept free from political zealotry. I have been mildly surprised to watch your shift toward the zealots' side. My advice to you is, stop worrying about folks you suppose have, "political masters." It might help you think more clearly.

[Gandydancer]

"Whatever likelihood of natural origin existed at the moment the pandemic began will remain unchanged until someone shows irrefutable evidence that something else happened."

Putting aside for the moment any particular theory about the origin of the China virus, just consider the pure ignorance and lunacy embodied in this assertion: The likelihood of one theory is unaffected by evidence in favor of other theories until the evidence for another theory becomes "irrefutable".

[David Nieporent]

Whatever likelihood of natural origin existed at the moment the pandemic began will remain unchanged until someone shows irrefutable evidence that something else happened.

Once again, Lathrop does not understand the concept of Bayesian reasoning.

(Though he is correct that the claim that this guy was Patient Zero is something people are making up.)

[Armchair Lawyer]

Still in denial that COVID escaped from a Chinese lab, eh?

[SRG]

That is the most likely explanation. It isn't confirmed beyond all reasonable doubt. Further, just because the lab leak is the most likely doesn't mean that the US was aware that the Chinese were actually conducting gain of function research - though it is often enough claimed by the same people now trumpeting that they were (accidentally) right over the lab leak.

I say "accidentally", because if someone picked Man City to win the Champion's League because they saw a pale blue butterfly in their back garden, their being correct isn't due to any great =reasoning power or information they had.

[Life of Brian]

(accidentally) right over the lab leak

Occam wept.

I say “accidentally”, because if someone picked Man City to win the Champion’s League because they saw a pale blue butterfly in their back garden

Is this supposed to be analogous to picking as the origin of this never-before-seen, weirdly constructed virus the biolab in the same city where the virus was first detected because it was actively engaged in research on the very same family of viruses?

[SRG]

Occam wept.

The wet-market hypothesis required fewer assumptions. Try again.

You’re assuming that many of the people who seized onto the lab leak hypothesis did so on scientific grounds.

If it were so clear cut ab initio that Covid was an unusually weird virus, and that a virus is unlikely to be spread from a wet market, most virologists would have adopted the lab leak hypothesis. They didn’t.

[Life of Brian]

The wet-market hypothesis required fewer assumptions. Try again.

I'd be very interested in hearing how the bat->pangolin->wet market crazy train somehow has fewer assumptions (much less higher overall probability of those assumptions all falling into place in the sequence and timing needed) than "research lab trying to breed more efficient coronaviruses has accident and virus infects people who then go on about their normal lives and spread it to others."

If it were so clear cut ab initio that Covid was an unusually weird virus, and that a virus is unlikely to be spread from a wet market, most virologists would have adopted the lab leak hypothesis. They didn’t.

The immediate mass groupthink toward the wet market cover story was centered on don't-offend-China politics coupled with CYA by the scientists involved in GoF research, not science.

[SRG]

Viruses mutate, Chinese wet markets are known as a source for viral contamination, coronaviruses are known to jump from animals to humans.

You're conflating how scientists react with how the masses and media react.

[Sarcastr0]

bat->pangolin->wet market is also taking one of a number of zoonotic theories and pretending it's all of them.

[Life of Brian]

Viruses mutate, Chinese wet markets are known as a source for viral contamination, coronaviruses are known to jump from animals to humans.

You just repeated the high-level points in the constellation -- we're all quite familiar with those by now. But that doesn't even begin to address why such a triple-rifle-shot theory would be even close to as likely as a nearby lab leak, much less the mostly likely.

[Life of Brian]

one of a number of zoonotic theories

The one I outlined was certainly the frontrunner, and I've never heard one that didn't involve bats which, once again, are not native to the area.

And even if someone did dream up some additional distant candidates, you're still just weighing a few individual miniscule probabilities against the head-smacking probability of an accident in the lab down the road that designs this stuff for a living.

If the goalposts are now moving to "could have been," then I agree small numbers are greater than zero. But the discussion you landed in was about relative likelihoods.

[Sarcastr0]

"The one I outlined was certainly the frontrunner"

It wasn't, then it was, then it wasn't.

You're smushing 3 years of research together and pretending it's a snapshot true from the beginning to now.

[Life of Brian]

You’re smushing 3 years of research together

Exactly the opposite. The question in this thread (feel free to reread) is what was the most likely explanation from the beginning.

[Sarcastr0]

Well, the initial zoonotic theory was not bat->pangolin->wet market, it was just bats.

So seems like you should keep track of what your timeline is.

Or, more like, when it comes to making a point, have one you want to make first.

[Life of Brian]

Well, the initial zoonotic theory was not bat->pangolin->wet market, it was just bats.

At a quick glance to verify my memory, the pangolin theory was advanced no later than January 2020. If you have to zoom in to day-by-day resolution to make your definition of "initial" work, maybe you should just take the L.

[Sarcastr0]

Now you're just lying. Pangolins as a single source were in the mix early.

Bat->Pangolin->was put forth only after bats and pangolins were each explored singly.

Don't retcon your thesis, dude.

[Life of Brian]

A quick glance (all your increasingly desperate flailing is worth at this point) yields this bat->pangolin paper published Feb. 14, with this lead-in:

Soon after the release of the SARS-CoV-2 genome, a scientist released a full genome of a
coronavirus, Bat-CoV-RaTG13, from the bat species Rhinolophus affinis, which was colonized in Yunan province, nearly 2,000 km away from Wuhan. Bat-CoV-RaTG13 was 96% identical at the whole genome level to the SARS-CoV-2, suggesting the SARS-CoV-2 could be of bat origin [1]. However, because direct human-bat contact is rare, it seems to be more likely that the spillover of SARS-CoV-2 to humans from an intermediate host rather than directly from bats, as was the cases with both SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV.

The goal of this study was to determine the genetic relationship between a coronavirus from two groups of sick pangolins and SARS-CoV-2, and to assess whether pangolins could be potential intermediate hosts of SARS-CoV-2.

In short, you're gaslighting again. And that's the last time the rattle is going back on the highchair today.

[Sarcastr0]

A single paper?

Dude, no new goalposts. That was not the zoonotic theory people were talking about in Feb 2020 and you actually managed to prove it just now.

Do you care about the truth of your argument, or just love making fallacious arguments on the Internet?

[Life of Brian]

No more rattles. You've cited absolutely nothing to contradict the observation in mine that aby only was never a viable hypothesis - put up or shut up.

If you happen to scrape one up, congrats! You can then get back to my original point, which is that a leak from a bioreseach lab down the road was always far more probable than a bat cave 1000 miles away.

[Sarcastr0]

I called you out for characterizing the zoonotic hypothesis as bat->pangolin->wet market.

Burden is on you. A single Feb 2020 paper does not prove what you claimed.

[Life of Brian]

Nope -- enough distractions, trollio. You think your supposed basket of whatever-to-whatever-through-whatever-across-1000-miles theories you refuse to quantify is more likely than a straightforward leak, burden's on you to explain what and why.

You won't, because you can't. That's why you keep deflecting.

[Sarcastr0]

Ah, a whole new thesis now. About what I believe.

Well, that’s as much an admission of defeat as you do.

[Life of Brian]

Ah, a whole new thesis now. About what I believe.

Ah, if only you had the intestinal fortitude to actually state what you believe, rather than just cowering behind your little rhetorical games criticizing the beliefs of others.

[Sarcastr0]

Still rolling off topic, eh?

Yeah, not rising to the bait. LOL.

[Life of Brian]

Yup, barge into a thread that OP wouldn't even defend, prance around carefully avoiding actually taking a position yourself, and then declare victory like the proverbial chess-playing pigeon. Your games are pointless to all but your own apparently fragile sense of self.

[Sarcastr0]

Utter abandonment of your the bat->pangolin->wet market characterization of the zoonotic theory is still happening. Now with extra whining.

OK, this has run it's course. TTYL.

[Michael P]

US government employees would make something up? I am shocked, shocked!

Public knowledge of that “patient zero” claim originated at the story linked by Kazinski at the start of this comment chain.

[Nige]

There is no public knowledge. There is a report that someone did an investigation. No link to the actual investigation, as of yet.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Nieporent, we have been through this before. I know I do not understand Bayesian reasoning. I also know you don't understand it.

One small thing I do understand about Bayesian reasoning is that it cannot unscramble an egg, even if it has power to reassemble scrambled bits to look like an egg. When a Bayesian algorithm in Photoshop sharpens an image to look as if it contains more information than was actually recorded by the camera, I am not stupid enough to suppose a miracle has occurred, and I can then drill down to the pixel level to retrieve accurate information as if I had a microscope.

I do not think Bayesian reasoning is the right choice for problems for which there is only one discrete solution. If someone with better math chops than I have, or Nieporent has, wants to correct me, I am all ears.

Then please explain why it is not possible to reconstruct even a trivial problem in history with a Bayesian analysis based on subsequent evidence. Has that capacity been hanging around unused because all the world's historians are bad at math?

[Noscitur a sociis]

P(A|B)=P(B|A)*P(A)/P(B) is just a fact. In real life, defining actual values for the probabilities is often somewhat speculative, which makes it unhelpful to explicitly go through the calculations. But I find it impossible to believe that sensible historians aren’t at least engaging in this kind of reasoning on a conceptual level.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Noscitur, what insight can the equation add about instances where the probability of a specific outcome is 1? One premise of historical activity is that things happened in the past, and scholars may be able with careful techniques to infer what happened.

There is no premise that this, or that, or the other thing may have happened, and historical techniques ought to be applied to assigning relative probabilities to each of them.

Or, less trivially, but still pretty far out, how can the equation illuminate insight into a past premised on facts, not choices among alternative probabilities? In professional historical practice the latter activity is called, "Making stuff up."

Historians prefer to resolve ambiguities by saying, "We don't know." That seems better to them, because it concedes something specific did happen, without making anything up. Perhaps evidence to confirm a specific occurrence will turn up later.

Doing it that way is better, for instance, than deciding on the basis of no more than plausibility (or arbitrarily selected probabilities) that half the Mayflower Pilgrims starved during their first winter. Do that, and you might discover after a lapse of more than a century—during which the starvation premise affected vast troves of other historical discourse—that the historical record proved the starvation premise unsupportable.

[bernard11]

Doing it that way is better, for instance, than deciding on the basis of no more than plausibility (or arbitrarily selected probabilities) that half the Mayflower Pilgrims starved during their first winter.

Stephen,

Suppose there are records, of climate say, that suggest that the pilgrims' crops were likely to be very poor that first year. How would that affect your estimate of the likelihood that half of them starved?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bernard, thanks for asking, but I do not understand your question. How would adverse predictions about crops not yet planted affect mortality during the previous winter and spring? And why would we even consider such a thing if there is no mention of it in contemporaneous records? The Mayflower arrived at future Plymouth in December, 1620, and stayed the winter, by the way.

[TwelveInchPianist]

You are not speculating about the future. You are talking about something which already happened. Whatever likelihood of natural origin existed at the moment the pandemic began will remain unchanged until someone shows irrefutable evidence that something else happened.

Sigh. Let's say that someone deals a card randomly from a full deck face down on the table. What are the odds that the card is a diamond?

Remember, we're talking about something that already happened. The odds are 25%.

Now, say you take a quick peek at the card and you can't see the suit, but you can see that it's red. Now what are the odds that it's a diamond? 50%.

Get it?

[Stephen Lathrop]

TwelveInch, I get that you are foolishly insisting on a premise which you are not entitled to presume—which is that you got an honest deal from an unstacked deck. As in games of chance, some of the most urgent historical questions require careful focus on possibilities such as stacked decks. Are you confident to assert that none of the interests affected by the Wuhan imbroglio would have done anything to stack that deck?

[TwelveInchPianist]

"TwelveInch, I get that you are foolishly insisting on a premise which you are not entitled to presume—which is that you got an honest deal from an unstacked deck."

Um, no. No such premise. But you can assume that you have no information about the deck.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Of course I can assume I have no information about the deck. But if I do that, and the deck is stacked, then I am the answer to the question, "Who is the sucker this time?"

Let's get back to the actual subject, the Wuhan lab leak theory. Why does it matter so much to right wingers? Because they think it provides cover for Trump's blundering at the outset of the pandemic? That is an apparently desperate non sequitur.

Can you think of any other purpose the controversy serves? What else makes it important to you? Can you imagine any possible policy or action the U.S. could undertake better if the American public had knowledge that a Wuhan lab leak caused the Covid pandemic?

Why would that even tend to diminish Trump's responsibility to manage better the public health threat in the U.S.? It wouldn't. Trump's record of catastrophic management of the pandemic has nothing to do with what caused the pandemic to start. It has to do with dissembling, inaction, shirked responsibility for a national public health policy, overt indifference to the well-being of people sickened and dying in the worst-affected blue states, and crazy talk about pseudo-remedies. The question whether the pandemic started with a lab leak, or by natural occurrence, has nothing to do with any of that.

But that seems to be why you resist the idea of a natural origin. You seem to think it competes with the Wuhan lab theory, and thus takes away from right wingers an opportunity to ask, "What about China?"

Guess what? The two theories are not even in competition. Until the controversy is resolved conclusively by irrefutable evidence of what happened—which will probably be never—the two posited causes remain completely independent variables. There is some chance it was a lab leak. There is some chance it was a natural occurrence. There is even some chance it happened by some other cause as yet unconsidered. We don't know the relative chances, but experience teaches that lab leaks which cause pandemics are not commonplace, but natural occurrences are comparatively more commonplace.

When you find additional evidence you think supports the lab leak theory, does that mean the likelihood of a natural occurrence has diminished? No, it does not. The likelihood of a natural occurrence is what it is, and remains unaffected by lab leaks. It only means the likelihood of a pandemic was higher than you thought before, because combined risks from two potential causes turned out to be higher than you supposed.

I am completely open to proof that it was a lab leak that caused the pandemic, but I do not expect to see it. If that kind of proof were supplied, it would rule out natural occurrence. But to supply it would require a causative occurrence documented—or at least reliably witnessed in real time—with additional proof of contemporaneous insight that contagion among the public resulted from it. That seems like a tall order.

If a lab leak like that had happened even in the U.S., I wonder if any irrefutable record would get made, because amidst the confusion of novel occurrences, accurate real-time documentation rarely happens. To make documentation happen in an organized way usually requires prior expectation of something to document, which novel occurrences tend to frustrate. A lot of history's big surprises remain cloaked in uncertainty because of that.

I expect the origins of the Covid pandemic to join on the list of enduring public health mysteries the origins of the Black Death, the post-Columbian depopulation of the New World, and the Spanish Flu. All of them were diffuse phenomena, with uncertain initial time lines, and uncertain points of origin.

[VinniUSMC]

Let’s get back to the actual subject, the Wuhan lab leak theory. Why does it matter so much to right wingers? Because they think it provides cover for Trump’s blundering at the outset of the pandemic? That is an apparently desperate non sequitur.

"Why does the truth matter? At this point, what difference does it make?"

SL, always good for a laugh.

[David Nieporent]

Get it?

He doesn't, because he also doesn't understand analogies.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Nieporent, you are correct. I am a skeptic of analogies.

Perhaps that is because I wonder why anyone would purport to settle any consequential question solely on the basis of an analogy. If an analogy brings a strong argument to a new case, why not leave the analogy out of it, and decide the new case on the basis of the argument alone? Too often, the answer is that it wouldn't work, because the analogy is actually flawed.

I understand the explanatory power of analogies to introduce an argument. I insist that at the conclusion of a consequential argument, the reasoning must withstand critique without reference to the analogy. I also get that insistence of that sort annoys lawyers for various reasons, some better than others.

[David Nieporent]

Perhaps that is because I wonder why anyone would purport to settle any consequential question solely on the basis of an analogy.

No, you have the causal arrow backwards. You wonder why because you don't understand analogies.

[Randal]

Well now we have another “conspiracy theory” that has become all but confirmed fact

How is this even a conspiracy theory, terrorist-boy? Are you suggesting the leak was intentional?

[bevis the lumberjack]

If you contort yourself any further to dodge the point you’ll probably tear something.

[Nige]

Yeah, you wouldn't want to be associated with the sort of people who think it was intentionally leaked to create the New World Order or whatever, that way the people who call those things conspiracy theories might look correct!

[SRG]

Don't you know? Soros flew into Wuhan in a black helicopter to leak the virus personally

[Nige]

I nwver understood why they used the vaccine to murder millions when they could have just made the virus a few orders of magnitude more lethal. Seems over-complicated.

[Brett Bellmore]

Because it was more in the nature of negligent homicide than murder. They weren't trying to kill people, they just weren't trying their very best to not kill them.

Essentially, they came up with a perfectly reasonable vaccine, made reasonable decisions in its design, and then got stubborn instead of responding to new information, and prioritized bureaucratic convenience over medical science.

An example of that latter was refusing to take natural immunity into account, by demanding that people who'd already had Covid be treated as though they were immunologically naive. Why? Because they had a good tracking system for the shots, and not for the test results, so it was easier for them to just pretend only the vaccine could give anybody immunity.

And never mind that the robust immune response having had Covid generated would result in a higher rate of severe side effects if you went ahead and vaccinated them as though you were starting from scratch.

But I think the worst problem was actually the change in injection protocol that was pushed through just prior to Covid, and we'd have seen problems with any large scale vaccination program after that change: They stopped recommending the step in injection where you pull back on the plunger to see if you've hit a vein.

If you skip that, and accidentally inject into a vein the vaccine that was going to cause a localized inflammation reaction, you instead get an inflammation reaction distributed along the linings of your blood vessels and heart. This is probably why Covid vaccination is associated with a higher rate of myocardial side effects than prior vaccines; Nothing to do with the vaccine itself, but instead the simplified injection protocol.

[Sarcastr0]

We have no idea about any of this though.

Like, even if it did leak from a lab, you're writing a whole thing here.

[Nige]

'An example of that latter was refusing to take natural immunity into account'

This remains as stupid as your Juneteenth bollocks. Take your two shots, you're not special. A hit of covid is more likely to weaken your immune system than strengthen it.

[Brett Bellmore]

See, and doubling down on the stupidity, too.

[Sarcastr0]

No Brett. This has been explained to you many times.

Studies seem to indicate that for some populations getting Covid acts similarly to getting the vaccine re: symptoms and transmissibility. But that science is hardly confirmed at this early date, the specifics of the population is unclear, and then there is symptoms versus transmissibility..

The vaccine risks are established as pretty low.

So taking into account the uncertainties, you have a risk-discounted cost-benefit that's pretty clearly on the vaccine side.

Add in the logistics difficulty of establishing who has legit had Covid across the population, and the public health policy of everyone gets vaxxed is not hard to see.

Your narrative started wrong, and has gotten wronger. But I've never yet seen you change your mind, because you're pretty fact immune once your unearned confidence thing kicks in, so not holding out a lot of hope.

[Nige]

Brett when people get sick does it weaken their immune systems?

[Sarcastr0]

bevis, it's about the definition of conspiracy.

[Randal]

If you contort yourself any further to dodge the point you’ll probably tear something.

I mean, isn’t this exactly terrorist-boy’s point?

Well now we have another “conspiracy theory” that has become all but confirmed fact

No actual “conspiracy theory” has ever become confirmed fact in the history of the world.

But lots of things once thought unlikely have turned out to be true.

They’re two very different situations.

For example, if someone early on says “I think ivermectin works on covid,” they could be right or wrong. When the studies come in and say it’s ineffective, hopefully that person will just admit they were wrong. But there’s no “conspiracy theory” involved.

If that person instead doubles down into “ivermectin works, the scientists are just all lying, as are the doctors, journalists, politicians, and all their staff, friends, and families, with 100% adherence to the lie so there are no leaks or whistleblowers,” that’s no longer just an incorrect belief, it’s a full-on paranoid retardioid psychotic conspiacy theory.

Take flat-earthers. What makes that a conspiracy theory instead of just an incorrect belief is that it again requires not just for the earth to be flat but for all scientists, airplane pilots and passengers, and hordes more people to all be “in on it.” Whenever thousands or millions of people have to be conspiring to lie, it’s a conspiracy theory.

There is no chance the earth is flat. No conspiracy theory is or has ever been “proven true.”

The lab leak theory has always been a valid theory. There’s nothing conspiratorial about it. If it turns out to be true, great! A lot of people will have to admit they were wrong, but that happens all the time in science and factfinding. You make a hypothesis and a lot of the time it turns out to be false.

It’s ok to be wrong about stuff. But it’s not ok to peddle conspiracy theories. Terrorist-boy is trying to use this example of people being (potentially) wrong to excuse conspiratorial thinking generally, and that’s stupid and dangerous.

[Kazinski]

Was what intentional?

I think they intentionally engineered the virus doing gain of function research, using US funds to do it, even though that research was banned because it was to dangerous, but the NIH funded it anyway because Fauci was a big fan of gain of function research.

But I don't think they intentionally caught the virus and let it get out on purpose. They were just incompetent hacks, in a substandard lab, that we never should have been funding but we did anyway to get around the ban on doing dangerous research like that in the US or with US funds.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Yep.

What's more problematic is that Fauci knew that such research had been halted, and simply "went around" the proscriptions against it.

Which is why you saw the massive cover up.

[Sarcastr0]

You think a lot of things that are not made more likely by the evidence you've put forth.

[Don Nico]

That is called "connecting the dots."
Is the WIV a Chinese govt facility? yes
Does the WIV do classified bioweapons research? yes
Does it do research on bat coronaviruses? yes
Does the WIV do gain of function research? yes
Does the WIV do research funded by the US NIAiD? yes
Was that research contemporaneous with the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak? yes
Does the WIV have a BL-4 facility? no
Has any naturally occurring instance of SARS-CoV-2 been found in any animal species prior to the spread of SARS-CoV-2? No
The remainder is an exercise for the student

[Nige]

Or to put it another way, lab does researsh on diseases in location where diseases emerge. A disease emerges. Diseases emerging naturally are what disease have always done. Lab leaks also occur, but so far no actual evidence of such a leak has emerged. One can speculate, but that's all it is.

[Don Nico]

It is far from speculation when the disease has characteristics that are novel.
You are in denial with NO evidence to the contrary hypothesis

[Nige]

Unless you're saying viruses with novel characteristics do not arise in nature, then, no, it's not really evidence.

[Sarcastr0]

You are smarter than this Don.

Anything outside the possibility of arising naturally we don’t have anything like the tech to create.

You yourself council above not being 100% sure on this, and yet here you are.

[Don Nico]

Don’t patronize me. I did not say I am 100% sure. I did say that the dots connect to the conclusion of a bio-engineered virus. And no other hypothesis as nearly as good circumstantial evidence. Your statement that such is beyond present biotechnology is simply wrong. It is only what you want to believe. Clearly the Chinese Government is NOT going to open its records to all work that has been done at WIV.
In any case I am going to a workshop of Virologists discussing the topic in August. I will be interested in the range of opinions.

[Sarcastr0]

You don’t say it but you act like it. And say things that are incorrect on support of it.

Read what I said again because you already got it wrong. I didn’t say it couldn’t have been bioengineered. I don’t know that.

[Frank Drackman]

Researsh??
Drinking early I see

[Nige]

Rewhsawhch iwhntwho twhwhe Whuwhawhn lwhawhb lewhawhk theowhry iwhs owhngowhinwhg.

[Tom for equal rights]

Nige - NPR ran a week long expose in March of 2020 on the impossibility of a lab leak.

You, Sacastro and Lathrop are basically regurgitating NPR's discredited expose.

Get out of your left wing echo chamber and become familiar with real science.

[Sarcastr0]

Tom, 2020 is not 2023.

I hope this helps.

[Tom for equal rights]

The NPR week long expose on the impossibility of the lab leak was run during late March 2020.

Again left wing echo chamber filters out a lot of facts from reaching you.

[Sarcastr0]

2020 not 2023. Thus, the lay of the land in 2020 is not the same as the lay in the land in 2023.

You're acting like hindsight is true and has always been true.

[Tom for equal rights]

No I was pointing out that NPR was pushing the fake "It wasnt a lab leak" expose as part of the orchestrated Fauci directed campaign to discredit those who knew better.

[Nige]

How can it have been fake if there was no actual evidence for a lab leak?

[Nige]

So in March 2020 the evidence presented to prove a lab leak theory was rubbish. In June 2023 it doesn't seem much better. Something may emerge to prove it. It hasn't yet. I don't know why anyone would be so utterly invested in it being true until that occurs.

[shawn_dude]

Was the lab located in Wuhan because it was identified as a place where a lot of different types of animals that can transmit diseases to humans are available? If so, then the very reason the lab is there would also imply an increased opportunity for naturally occurring viruses like SARS variants.

Which came first, the animal market or the lab?

[Gandydancer]

“How is this even a conspiracy theory, terrorist-boy? Are you suggesting the leak was intentional?”

This in response to, Kazinski : “Well now we have another “conspiracy theory” that has become all but confirmed fact:…”

That whooshing sound you hear is the wind going in one of Randal’s ears and out the other. I mean… what’s another appropriate theory behind his sentence making no sense whatsoever?

Anyway — Wikipedia: “The idea that the virus was released from a laboratory (accidentally or deliberately) appeared early in the pandemic.[28][29] It gained popularity in the United States through promotion by conservative personalities in early 2020,[30] fomenting tensions between the U.S. and China.[31] Scientists and media outlets widely dismissed it as a CONSPIRAY THEORY.[32][33]”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_lab_leak_theory

Also:https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/political_commentary/commentary_by_brian_joondeph/covid_19_lab_leak_another_conspiracy_theory_come_true

[Randal]

Nice research, Gandynancy! But ultimately unpersuasive. Neither the wikipedia article nor the BBC article it references refer to the lab leak theory as a conspiracy theory, they just claim that other people did so, without evidence. Probably some people did, who knows. If they did they were wrong.

(The scientific paper cited by wikipedia doesn't call the lab leak theory a conspiracy theory, but it does call the intentional ["voluntary"] lab leak theory a conspiracy theory, so maybe that's part of the confusion.)

The Rasmussen thing is just using the same bad-faith rhetoric that terrorist-boy is using.

Here's what wikipedia itself has to say about the lab leak theory:

The COVID-19 lab leak theory, or lab leak hypothesis, is the idea that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic, is the result of a laboratory leak. The theory is highly controversial... However, there is no scientific consensus that rules out a lab leak, with multiple scientists saying that both theories are credible and should be investigated.

[TwelveInchPianist]

“Neither the wikipedia article nor the BBC article it references refer to the lab leak theory as a conspiracy theory, they just claim that other people did so, without evidence. Probably some people did, who knows. If they did they were wrong.”

Here’s an NYT piece describing how Fauci dismissed the lab leak as a conspiracy theory. Good enough?

“There’s a sort of urban legend,” Mr. Gingrich prodded Dr. Fauci, “that there’s a biological warfare center in Wuhan and that the coronavirus escaped from that.”

“I’ve heard these conspiracy theories,” Dr. Fauci replied. “And like all conspiracy theories, Newt, they’re just conspiracy theories.” He added that while he could not say that scenario was impossible, “the things you’re hearing are still in the realm of conspiracy theories without any scientific basis.”

[Randal]

Like I said above, that’s a mistake on his part. Not nearly as big of one as Gingrich’s “biological warfare center,” although he seems to agree it's a made-up "urban legend" so this is an odd exchange. (Some of the theories were conspiracy theories, such as said biological warfare center and the purposeful leak theory, so there’s a way to look at Fauci’s statement as being not about the currently-accepted lab leak theory specifically but rather the larger “realm” which includes the actual conspiracy theory Gingrich mentioned.)

[Randal]

See look: Gandy's Rasmussen piece is doing explicitly what terrorist-boy is doing by implication:

Just as they did with masks, distancing, vaccines, off-label therapeutics, and many other aspects of COVID-19 policy that while called “conspiracy theories” are turning out to be true.

There's nothing about masks, distancing, vaccines, or off-label therapeutics, nor any other bona fide right-wing conspiracy theory out there, that's "turning out to be true."

So it's fine if you want to rub the left's noses in not giving enough creedence to the lab leak theory originally. Even Fauci has acknowledged that mistake.

But don't take it as evidence that conspiracy theories can turn out to be true. It was never a conspiracy theory.

[Mr. Bumble]

Conspiracy theory is the label the left gave to anything but the Fauci approved explanation.

[Randal]

I don't think that's true. I'm sure it got lumped in with other, actual conspiracies from time to time, but in general the left treated the lab-leak theory (early on) as misinformation, sure, but not a conspiracy theory.

[Nige]

It was the label given to the people who decided there was a lab leak based on the idea of a lab leak and attached whatever spun-out notions they had in their head to it.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"How is this even a conspiracy theory, terrorist-boy?"

Note that "consipracy theory" was in quotes. Who was he quoting? Perhaps the Wapo, Dr. Fauci and others who claimed that the lab leak was a conspiracy theory.

[Randal]

Hey, if terrorist-boy's point is that some people on the left overused the phrase "conspiracy theory" in this case and others, then I'm curious what the others were, but anyway we're totally in agreement! They should've just called it "misinformation" or "wild speculation."

But I don't think that's what he's doing. He's going after the left for being (potentially) wrong about the facts.

[Mr. Bumble]

Good news! China claims to have discovered two new corona viruses in bats.
China lies, people die.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12215231/Chinese-scientists-NEW-virus-bats-claim-mutation-proves-Covid-wasnt-lab.html

[Martinned]

If I'm not mistaken, Coronaviruses are not that uncommon, and bats are virus magnets somehow.

[Nige]

No, bats don't have viruses, only labs have viruses.

[Gandydancer]

Nige: “…bats don’t have viruses, only labs have viruses.”

You actually think that’s clever.

No one doubts that bats have lots of viruses. Probably something to do with nesting in all that dripping bat guano. And labs study bat viruses, But bat viruses with unexpected gain-of-function modifications are another thing altogether.

Actually, NIGE is a virus, with an IQ to match.

[Nige]

No, I think it's dumb, and you guys are pushing heavily on the lab leak thing, but I expect this evidence will turn out to be smoke and mirrors, too, and yet still be added to the long list of 'facts' that prove a lab leak.

[Theendoftheleft]

Smoke and mirrors because some definitive evidence for an alternative source will eventually be released, or because some definitive evidence for the lab leak theory's falsity will be released?

Seems a lot like the faith that a smoking gun is forthcoming when the last of the JFK files gets unclassified.

Best regards,
The second gunman on the grassy knoll

[Nige]

Either evidence for one or the other or for something else will emerge, or it will not. Learn to live with uncertainty, otherwise you'll lose your grip.

[Theendoftheleft]

Happy to live with uncertainty.

Happy to also never trust governments to tell us the truth, let alone keep and relay documentary evidence of it.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Disaffected, anti-government cranks and worthless right-wing misfits are among my favorite culture war casualties.

And the target audience of a faux libertarian, bigot-hugging blog.

[Theendoftheleft]

Your family will be my favourite American and global culture war casualty, AIDS.

[Nige]

You don't seem very happy, but ok. If you're happy with the uncertainty why do you keep combatively engaging with people who point out that it is still in a state of uncertainty?

[Theendoftheleft]

Are you referring to me? Those things aren’t actually in tension, and don't touch upon the real reason why I engage.

[Theendoftheleft]

.

[Don Nico]

Martin,
You are correct that this class of viruses is not uncommon. what is uncommon it these viruses with the characteristics that made it so infectious and so virulent.
Naturally occurring instances were hunted for. None were found.
The most likely conclusion is that the Wuhan variant was human engineered in a lab with sub-standard bio-safety equipment.

[Nige]

'The most likely conclusion'

I don't think that's true, for the rather obvious reason that it should be EASIER to prove there was a lab leak than to find one bat in the wilds of Wuhan. Of course it's also easy to claim a cover-up, but that leaves us no closer to the truth than before.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Naturally occurring instances were hunted for. None were found.
The most likely conclusion is that the Wuhan variant was human engineered in a lab with sub-standard bio-safety equipment.

That's crazy. It insists tacitly that the search was exhaustive. The undoubted reality is that the scope of the search, compared to the scope of possibilities being searched, made the search little better than a shot in the dark.

[Don Nico]

SL,
It was wide spread. It was obviously not exhaustive in the sense that every bat in China was examined.
Your defense of being in denial and wanting to believe in Santa Claus is pathetic.

[Nige]

'in the sense that every bat in China was examined.'

Oh well, then.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Nico, what stake do you think I have in this controversy? I don't have any stake in a particular outcome. I do confess an interest against lunatic attacks on public health policy generally—like those Trump cheerled when he was president.

[Drewski]

"as part of a lengthy investigation by Public and Racket"

Oh, well, if some guy's Substack blog says it's true, that's good enough for me.

[OtisAH]

“…has become all but confirmed fact”

So, still a conspiracy theory. Weird flex.

[AmosArch]

Is there any evil advanced alien army dumber than the humans from Avatar? They for all intents and purposes have tech so advanced its basically magic and they constantly get their asses kicked in by a bunch of smurfs.

its even more embarrassing in the second where they go from getting repeatedly beaten by the smurfs to getting beaten by smurf children.

Off the top of my head I can't really think of any advanced alien adversary quite as incompetent. Even the ones in V and Independence day as easy as they were to kill got a few more licks in.

Even stormtroopers aren't as incompetent...the supposedly grizzled PMCs have worse aim then the army famous for bad aim. Its like the Ewok fight in Return of the Jedi but a whole two movies and 4 or 5 more planned of elite special forces getting their butts handed to them by Ewoks.

And somebody fix those stupid cockpits already. Every other scene in both movies is some dude getting killed by an arrow that somehow pierces through a cockpit and these humans that can literally travel FTL and transfer consciousness can't find a fix for this?

[Martinned]

There are (at least) three more movies coming...

[darkknight9]

Clearly the smurfs are all graduates of the Wicket W. Warrick correspondence school of small unit tactics. 🙂

[John F. Carr]

"Off the top of my head I can’t really think of any advanced alien adversary quite as incompetent."

The SF novel Footfall had aliens with super alien technology who aren't really smart enough to use it. The "B Ark" team of alien invaders.

I haven't seen Avatar and I haven't seen anything that would make me want to see it. Your description reminds me of Star Wars' Stormtroopers.

I wish the Ewoks had lost.

[Brett Bellmore]

To be fair, the aliens in Footfall had super-advanced technology because OTHER aliens had given it to them as a gift. They hadn't developed it themselves. They weren't really up to coming up with anything original. Footfall would make an absolutely incredible movie, except that any studio making it today would probably be looking for a way to make humans the bad guys... And then leave out the fanfave line, "Eat hot gamma rays, alien scum!".

Spoilers ahead!

I find the Avatar movies incredibly frustrating; The world-building is amazing. You can just look at the scenery and say, "Yeah, this planet obviously has a mineral that's a room temperature super-conductor." It just jumps out at you. The arches of rock following flux lines, the floating boulders pinned in the air after erosion undercut them. Anybody with a physics background would instantly know there was a superconducting mineral present.

And the interstellar craft were perfectly realistic, too. And the native biology doesn't look crazy, either.

Then you turn around and have this hideous idiot plot to justify making the humans awful, so that you'll cheer at them being killed. OK, maybe the room temperature superconductor is dependent on some exotic stable particle that just happens to not be present in the solar system, at least you knew it was there.
But, they can cross interstellar space at relativistic speeds, but they don't remember how to do horizontal drilling? And how the hell did they discover that this tiny gland inside an intelligent whale contained a life extending compound? And having discovered it, with that biotech they can't create genetically engineered cell lines to manufacture a biological product? It goes on and on, hardly five minutes goes by without something so stupid your head hurts.

And all to justify humans being the bad guys.

[Gandydancer]

“Unobtanium”. Enough said.

Before there were Stormtroopers*, there were Orcs.

LotR has room for intensive world building…. but the plot is SO repetitive. The Enemy is always coming with more and more undefeatable forces from offstage… and then lands with a plop. Whenever I see a movie where the bad guys can’t shoot straight I think, “Orcs”

I liked “The Hobbitt” much better. Only one letdown battle, no repeats. (No Orcs yet, only gremlins.)

* Remember in the first Star Wars how O-W.Kenobi says the attack, on Skywalker’s parents I think, had to have been by Stormtroopers because their shooting had been so accurate? LOL!

[Brett Bellmore]

Why do people think Stormtroopers are bad shots? It's so stupid!

Look, in the scene where they're escaping, a tracking device has been planted on their ship, so the Empire actually WANTS them to reach the ship alive! So the Stormtroopers are under orders to miss. How do so many people miss that plot element?

It's also well established that anybody with Force powers is hard to shoot because they can deflect your shots and/or know exactly when and where to dodge.

So the fact that the Stormtroopers don't have a good hit ratio going after the protagonists doesn't indicate that they're bad shots.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Except that they don’t seem to be doing much better in the other scenes where they are trying to hit their opponents (who usually don’t have Force powers).

[Bob from Ohio]

"(No Orcs yet, only gremlins.)"

Goblins, not gremlins.

The Hobbit uses "goblins" but they are in fact "orcs". Tolkien just re-named them for LOTR and other things.

[Armchair Lawyer]

The plot issues do make it very problematic.

[Krayt]

In Footfall, the launch of the archangel Michael was one of only two moments in novels I felt like standing up and cheering, the other being dumping the ring into lava and "All hail the ringbearers!" (A feeling which was not translated into the movie.)

Both had done a superb job of building ultimate despair for destruction of your species.

My god, launching a giant ship using nuke putt putt pushing, with four shuttles attached, and 16 battleship guns turned into mini space fighters?

[Martinned]

That's going well

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) called Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) a “little bitch” to her face on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.

The angry exchange came as the two lawmakers have been swiping at each other over their competing resolutions to impeach President Joe Biden. But tensions came to a head on Wednesday after Boebert leveraged a procedural tool to force a vote on her own impeachment resolution within days—undercutting Greene, who had offered her own resolution, but not with the procedural advantages of forcing a vote.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-calls-boebert-a-little-bitch-on-the-house-floor

[John F. Carr]

I received an email supposedly from Marjorie Taylor Greene with the subject "I’m the reason why President Trump was INDICTED". Liberals should be sending her a thank-you note. I get a lot of angry emails from Republicans and a smaller number of text messages from Democrats. They all want the same thing. They all want me to click a link to show I pay attention to them and can be moved from the list of prospects to the list of suckers. They might want a token donation now. The real squeeze will come later.

[Kazinski]

Well at least they finally got it together and passed a censure resolution against Adam Schiff for lying to Congress and the American people.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/adam-schiff-censure-resolution-vote-house/

[Martinned]

I wonder when they'll get around to George Santos...

[Kazinski]

They censured Schiff because as chairman of the House Intelligence committee he had a special obligation not to lie about non-existent evidence supposedly proving Trump colluded with Russia, evidence we now know never existed.

Santos’ lies on the other hand don’t seem markedly different than Sen. Blumenthal lying about serving as a Marine in Vietnam. Or Joe Biden claiming he was at the top of his class in law school when he was at the bottom, or that he went to South Africa to try to see Mandela in prison but was arrested by the authorities to stop him.

Let the voters handle more routine lies like that.

But it does deserve a reprise, its pretty spectacular:
"Biden: 'Mandela thanked me'
Mr Biden - at the time a senator for Delaware - said he had been visiting the country with a delegation of American officials, and had planned to visit Mandela in prison.

But during the trip, Mr Biden said he had "had the great honour of being arrested with our UN ambassador on the streets of Soweto" while trying to reach the civil rights leader on Robben Island. The town of Soweto is more than 760 miles (1,223km) from Robben Island.

At a black history awards brunch in Las Vegas last week, he also said Mandela had thanked him for his efforts.

"He threw his arms around me and said, 'I want to say thank you,'" Mr Biden told onlookers. "I said, 'What are you thanking me for, Mr President?' He said: 'You tried to see me. You got arrested trying to see me.'"

Mr Biden's account of what happened has been rebuffed by Andrew Young, the US ambassador to the UN at the time, who says he travelled with Mr Biden to South Africa.

Local media have also failed to find any evidence of an arrest being made.

Fact-checkers at the Washington Post called the claim "ridiculous" on Tuesday as they awarded it four Pinocchios."

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51648166

[Gandydancer]

That only normalizes Santos' fabulism, not his unemployment benefits.

But, yeah, as long as the GOP needs his vote they should keep him around. This is war, not patty-cake.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The war is over except for a few dead cat bounces from our vestigial clingers. The good guys — better Americans, the educated, reasoning, liberal-libertarian mainstream — have been winning for more than a half-century and are positioned to continue to drive bigoted conservatives into intensifying irrelevance in modern America.

[Sarcastr0]

We went over this. There absolutely is evidence Trump's people colluded with Russia, and Santos *fabricated his entire identity* including some fraudy-looking stuff.

Your deep cut Biden stuff may be something you wanna dwell on, but it didn't moving the needle because it's not the same as Santos.

You're double standards are incredible.

[Kazinski]

What was the evidence produced that Trump colluded?

I already asked for it, the only thing you produced was Mueller's statement that collusion isn't a legal term, that's a rather banal observation and certainly not evidence.

[Nige]

It's banal because it's true.

[Sarcastr0]

I can't quote it all, but check out the rest of the Mueller Report about all the outreach Russia did, the timing coordination with Trump campaign folks, the eagerness of Trump folks to meet with Russians regarding the oppo "research" they did.

[Nelson]

"What was the evidence produced that Trump colluded?"

Don't move the goalposts. The accusation was that the Trump campaign colluded with Russia. And his one-time campaign manager was convicted (before he was pardoned by Trump, which seems totally kosher). Paul Manafort was deep in the Russians' pocket.

But you want everyone to ignore that. Why?

[Kazinski]

Paul Manafort was convicted for his actions related to his 2014 work in Ukraine, from Wikipedia “Manafort and his business associate Rick Gates were indicted in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on multiple charges arising from his consulting work for the pro-Russian government of Viktor Yanukovych in Ukraine before Yanukovych’s overthrow in 2014.”.

Nothing to do with his time in Trumps campaign where he was only the campaign manager for 2 months: On August 17, 2016, Trump received his first security briefing. The same day, August 17, Trump shook up his campaign organization in a way that appeared to minimize Manafort’s role. It was reported that members of Trump’s family, particularly Kushner, who had originally been a strong backer of Manafort, had become uneasy about his Russian connections and suspected that he had not been forthright about them. Manafort stated in an internal staff memorandum that he would “remain the campaign chairman and chief strategist, providing the big-picture, long-range campaign vision”. However, two days later, Trump announced his acceptance of Manafort’s resignation from the campaign after Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway took on senior leadership roles within that campaign.”

Within 2 days of when Trump got his first security briefing informing him that the FBI had concerns about Manafort he was out. Less than 2 months from when he took over as campaign manager.

That’s absolutely no evidence of collusion by the Trump campaign, it fact its evidence to the contrary.

[Nelson]

Please. Paul Manafort was known to be in the bag for the Russians for years. You really want to claim that the Trump campaign had no idea he was compromised? That requires a level of abject stupidity and ignorance that isn’t believable.

They aren’t stupid people. They knew what they were doing and who they were doing it with. Did Jared Kushner want him out because he wanted his friends in China to have influence, not Manafort’s friends in Russia? I have no idea. But claiming they didn’t know they were bringing on a Russian puppet strains credulity, even for you.

[Kazinski]

Its still no evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.

Now maybe if Trump had left Manafort in as campaign manager their would have been some collusion, but Trump fired him after the FBI warned him about Manafort.

I asked for evidence of collusion not speculation.

[Frank Drackman]

There's a long line of liars in Congress, it'd be easier to name the ones who don't. Lets see, Rand Paul, Tommy Tuberville....
You've got "Danang Dick" Claiming to be a Vietnam* Veteran, Poke-a-Hontas claiming to be an Injun, Hillary Rodman taking incoming in Bosnia (I know she's not in the Senate now, but they never stop calling them "Senator")

* he meant to say he was a "Vietnam Error" Veteran

Frank

[Brett Bellmore]

Now, if only being censured for provably lying hadn't made Schiff a Democratic hero who got cheers from the other Democrats. (And half the coverage can't be bothered to mention why he was censured...)

This censure isn't going to discourage future repeats by other Democrats, it's more likely to have them thinking, "Yeah, I want a piece of that for myself!"

[Sarcastr0]

"provably lying"

It was a party line vote, and not even every GOP member voted for it.

Not hard to see what's going on. The already convinced will feel vindicated, that's about it.

[Kazinski]

A censure is a censure whatever the vote.

John Rattclife made sure all the intelligence presented to the House committee was declassified so Schiff couldn't hide behind that excuse for not producing the evidence he claimed he had personally seen, he never produced it.

Unless you have a cite? You certainly haven't produced one.

[Sarcastr0]

"A censure is a censure whatever the vote." Ah yes, hide behind formality because functionally this is partisan bullshit to everyone except people with as distorted a set of evidentiary standards as you.

My cite for the collusion is the Mueller Report. As we discussed and I quoted last week.

[Frank Drackman]

Mueller? Mueller?? that's so 2019, like Common-Law Harris bee-otch Slapping Senescent Joe for opposing school bussing in the 1970's

[Kazinski]

So you admit there was no collusion. Because Mueller didn’t cite any in his report.

As for the censure a vote of the House is the verdict of the House if it carries a majority. The courts don't give a law more or less weight depending on its margin of victory.

[Randal]

He cited a ton of collusion. What report did you read?

[Mr. Bumble]

Honestly, did you read the report?
A ton of collusion by whom?

[Randal]

The Trump campaign and its orbitals!

[Kenneth Almquist]

As far as I can tell, Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna (who introduced the resolution that passed the House, as well as several earlier resolutions which did not), has not even tried to substantiate her accusations against Adam Schiff. Her House website includes three postings about her censure resolutions, none of which contain anything more than unsubstantiated allegations.

My guess is that Luna doesn't know or care whether her accusations are true; all she knows is that the censure resolution will win her praise from right wing media organizations like Fox News.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

You think Schiff was truthful when he was put on the news saying he had seen hard evidence of Trumps collusion with Russia?

Are you for real? You think this is a witch hunt against Schiff?

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm telling you, the Democrats are going to treat this as a badge of honor, it isn't going to hurt Schiff at all.

[Sarcastr0]

Do you think that's improper? Because seems like you were into exactly that re: Trump's impeachment and Gozar's censure.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, it's improper, because your automatic denial aside, there actually isn't any question that he outright lied to the public about evidence of Trump colluding with the Russians having been presented in the secret sessions of his committee. He was telling people that it existed even as intelligence people were telling him they had squat.

[Sarcastr0]

"there actually isn’t any question that he outright lied"

Your double standard on the facts is why you have a double standard on when censure and impeachment matter.

Well, your moral opprobrium will have the weight appropriate to the reasoning you attach to it. Just as the GOP's censure will.

[Randal]

That really is pretty lame, Brett.

[Kazinski]

Well according to the Mueller report it's self, page 2:
"the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities."

[Randal]

“Conspired” and “coordinated” are legal terms. Mueller found no illegal conduct in that regard, as we all know.

But we’re talking about collusion here! Mueller found loads of that.

[Don Nico]

Schiff was already hurt when Newsom did not name him Senator to fill Harris' set.

[Kenneth Almquist]

A serious case that Schiff had lied would quote the allegedly false statements, with citations so that the quotes can be verified. It would then show that the statements were in fact false. And it would present evidence demonstrating that Schiff knew the statements were likely false when he made them. Rep. Luna doesn’t come close to doing this.

Your first question assumes facts not in evidence. The House Resolution doesn’t claim that Schiff said he had “hard evidence,” much less identify a quote where he says that. The only time where the Resolution comes close to identifying a specific statements made by Schiff is when it refers to Schiff’s characterization of the telephone call between Trump and Zelensky which led to the first impeachment, linked here:

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4823946/user-clip-excerpt-remarks-rep-adam-schiff-09262019-house-intel-comm-hearing-whistleblower

Schiff characterizes “what the President was trying to communicate” in that call. The Resolution claims that “Representative Schiff misled the public by reading a false retelling” of the call. That assumes that Schiff was wrong about the President’s intent, which, given the contents of the phone call and the evidence of the first impeachment seems like gaslighting.

The resolution ends by saying that the Ethics Committee should investigate. So it’s censure first, and investigate later. Yes, I think this is a witch hunt against Schiff. You seem to be suggesting that this resolution would be justified if it later turned out that Schiff had in fact done something wrong. Sorry, no. Just as a stopped clock is right twice a day, it’s possible that if you convict someone without examining the evidence first, you may occasionally convict a guilty man. That doesn’t mean that that’s a good way to proceed.

[Randal]

This censure isn’t going to discourage future repeats by other Democrats, it’s more likely to have them thinking, “Yeah, I want a piece of that for myself!”

Well, obviously. The Republicans overreached, as they are wont to do. They're so in thrall to their base that they're blind to the big picture. It's just like with the Clinton impeachment.

Why in the world would they want to censure Schiff now? Do they think re-litigating Trump's Russia fixation is a good idea, or his attempt to withhold Ukrainian military aid? They're in a war if you haven't noticed, one Maga is on the wrong side of!

[Mr. Bumble]

“Why in the world would they want to censure Schiff now? ” When if ever would it have been possible when Dems controlled the House?
The one who threatened to withhold aid (and bragged about it) was Biden.

[Randal]

So then let it go! "We're in power now and all we can think about is inflicting retribution for long-ago slights" is also not a broadly-appealing message.

[Mr. Bumble]

It’s what the Dems have been doing to Trump for six years.

Did Biden threaten to withhold aid to Ukraine?

[Randal]

Whataboutism is also not selling. Better to stick with culture war stuff... which itself is pretty pathetic. But at least it's getting some traction.

[Mr. Bumble]

You mentioned Ukraine aid so don't talk about whataboutism.

[Randal]

What? That was directly related to the topic of censuring Schiff. Do you even know what whataboutism is?

[not guilty]

Catfight!!

[Frank Drackman]

Merowwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!
My money's on MTG, she's got the reach.

[SRG]

I don't care how much they promote it, I'm still not going to pay $49.95 for their PPV mud-wrestling cage match.

[Martinned]

I'd be curious about people's views about dark patterns generally, and the FTC's case against Amazon in particular. It's a very interesting topic, but it flies in the face of libertarian ideology, because libertarians must unavoidably believe that people are at least decent at making decisions.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/21/23768372/ftc-amazon-lawsuit-prime-dark-patterns-subscriptions

[Mr. Bumble]

"Much of Wednesday’s complaint is still redacted,"
Talk about "dark patterns".

[Martinned]

Fortunately there is abundant literature on dark patterns generally. (The specific Amazon case interests me less.) Here's an FTC report from last year: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/09/ftc-report-shows-rise-sophisticated-dark-patterns-designed-trick-trap-consumers

[Mr. Bumble]

"I’d be curious about people’s views about dark patterns generally, and the FTC’s case against Amazon in particular. "

"Fortunately there is abundant literature on dark patterns generally. (The specific Amazon case interests me less.) "

That seems a bit contradictory.

[Martinned]

True

[David Nieporent]

The problem is that "dark patterns" doesn't have a well-defined meaning. It's just a pejorative term for things the speaker doesn't like. Elizabeth Nolan Brown doesn't think there's much to it in the case of Amazon:

https://reason.com/2023/06/22/the-federal-trade-commissions-latest-frivolous-antitrust-suit-takes-aim-at-amazon/

[Martinned]

Well, it has a reasonably well-defined meaning in the literature, it just doesn't have a legally defined meaning yet. But the way to solve that problem is for the FTC to take someone to court, propose a definition, and see which definition the court ends up with.

[John F. Carr]

In traditional commerce if you bought a carrot and it was rotten you were out the price of a carrot. In modern commerce if you buy a carrot you have bought a carrot a day for the rest of your life unless you find out how to quit, and you have waived your right to sue over being deceived or defrauded. The stakes are higher and the case for government regulation is better.

I decline to buy many goods and services online because I would not just be buying one thing, I would be at the mercy of a monster too big to fight.

[David Nieporent]

Not only is that not true, but you probably bought a carrot with cash, whereas if you buy a carrot a day you probably bought them with a credit card, and you can always dispute the charges or cancel the card if it's actually fraud.

[shawn_dude]

You must be very young? (I didn’t think you were, but…)

Remember Sunset Magazine subscriptions? Book Clubs? Music Clubs?

Cancel ANY TIME!*

[in tiny writing]Must cancel in writing on official DMV letterhead mailed on an odd numbered day except in even number years and while the moon is waxing. Letters written in blue ink not accepted. Letters received in even numbered years will be returned unopened. [/in tiny writing.]

[Brett Bellmore]

My favorite, that I've noticed lately, is popup ads with fake dismissal buttons that actually take you to the product, and the real "X" inconspicuously hidden somewhere one shade different from the background color. I mean, how little do you need to care about pissing off potential customers to do something like that?

Well, your business model is dependent on the cost of advertising being approximately zero, so that the effectiveness just has to be non-zero to be worth it, the space for the popup was sublet 3 levels deep so that the site it's on had no veto, and you're probably selling a product that's so crappy there aren't any repeat sales anyway, and nobody you meet on the street is going to know you're the guy who did it, so why not?

[Dr. Ed 2]

You can piss off the public with impunity if you aren't accountable to the public. In an earlier era, they would be mailbombed. I always got pissed when it was my undergrads doing this, and each time I made jet amother promise not to do it again, but it was a form of o ""Cowboy Justice."

[DaveM]

More make-work for government drones. I'd love to see the citation from our Constitution that authorizes the expenditure of public monies on this, but then I remember that the entire administrative state wouldn't pass muster either, so what's the point at this point?

[jb]

This seems like a fairly clear example of regulating interstate commerce, no? There's expansive interpretations of the Commerce Clause that you can have a reasonable debate about, but this is not one of them.

[BadLib]

I'm not a Libertarian or, even, a strong libertarian and haven't looked at the Amazon case specifically.

However limits on "dark patterns" seems to fall well within existing scope of consumer law and regulation - such as requiring disclosure of nutritional information on packaged food or limiting the quantity of insect fragments and rodent feces in a box of Raisin Bran.

Since very few web sites restrict their sales only to consumers in one state, such regulation certainly falls within the Interstate Commerce power of Congress.

Did Congress delegate (and are they even allowed to do so) such power to the FTC, I've no idea. However, there seems to be little question that Congress could place statutory restrictions on "dark patterns" on any web site that sells to out of state consumers.

[Kazinski]

This story is just anecdotal and has nothing to do with the transgender issue in general or any real or imagined drag time story hour:

"Four children in squalid conditions while being hidden from first responders were found in an apartment filled with “alcohol, drugs, sex toys” and a dead man, according to an incident report and outraged officials.
“This is sickening,” said At-Large City Councilor Michael Flaherty. “I was informed by people at the scene that there were drugs, alcohol, sex toys all around the apartment as well as a dead body on the floor.”
That address is the Mary Ellen McCormack Housing complex run by the city.
“The apartment was in extremely unsanitary conditions. Approximately 6 adults, who appeared to be males, were seen in the apartment,” they wrote, saying they subsequently found “four children in the back bedroom being hidden by an adult male from first responders.”
According to the incident report the children ranged from ages 5 to 10.
“All of the adult parties were being uncooperative and did not provide helpful information. All adults present denied having children inside the apartment,” they wrote.

The fire crews, according to the incident report, performed CPR on the person in cardiac arrest, who apparently died. The Boston Police Department is investigating. A fire department spokesman confirmed a call came in for that address.
“At about 11:11 AM, on Saturday, June 17th, officers responded to the area of 381 Old Colony Avenue for a death investigation. District Detectives handling, not suspicious, no further information,” a BPD spokesperson told the Herald.
It is unclear whether the children were relatives of the people the fire department described as “appearing to be male” or if they lived in the apartment.

Multiple sources tell the Herald some of the adults were dressed as women when first responders arrived at the scene."

https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/06/19/four-kids-found-hidden-in-filthy-south-boston-apartment-where-a-man-died/?fbclid=IwAR27BSFy8Q5TZoXrc51eLS7uCXRezUP6waf-6HOST

I posted this because I'm outraged that something like this could happen in public housing.

[Nige]

I'm just glad you've finally found a story of child abuse you're willing to be publicly outraged by.

[Frank Drackman]

Well it is Pubic housing

[Ben_]

That’s a Pride Month celebration. Target sells decorations and themed merchandise for events like that.

[Nige]

So if that one corner of Target is celebrating this, does the rest of target celebrate the abuse of children by straight people? You're so weird.

[Frank Drackman]

It's like being a "Little Bit Pregnant"

[Nige]

Is it. Well. There you go.

[not guilty]

You are right. The story is just anecdotal and has nothing to do with the transgender issue in general or any real or imagined drag time story hour.

The facts are horrific in and of themselves.

[Gandydancer]

By "just anecdotal" you mean what?

[Michael P]

He means the facts are inconvenient to his narrative, so he wants to dissuade people from mentioning them.

[Randal]

Wrong again!

[not guilty]

I was agreeing with Kazinski, mirroring the language he used above.

[OtisAH]

If you don’t know what a word means get a dictionary, which is book that compiles the definitions of words listed in alphabetical order (i.e. A, B, C, D, etc.). Then you don’t have to come here and boast about how dumb you are.

[not guilty]

A United States District Court in the Eastern District of Arkansas has permanently enjoined enforcement an Act which prohibits a physician or other healthcare professional from providing “gender transition procedures” to any individual under eighteen years of age and from referring any individual under eighteen years of age to any healthcare professional for “gender transition procedures.” of following a full blown trial. https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/bba3e597-4f39-4420-bd43-b974466a98a4.pdf

A clear victory for liberty.

[Mr. Bumble]

Life, liberty and the pursuit of transitioning.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

How can you have a constitutional right to "gender affirming care" but not a constitutional right to "sexual orientation affirming care"?

How can a state ban helping a little gay kid who doesn't want to be gay, not be gay, but NOT ban a little boy who's mom says he's really a girl?

[not guilty]

Read the district court´s findings of fact and conclusions of law. The constitutional rights at issue are equal protection of law, the substantive due process right of parents to direct the upbringing of children, and the First Amendment right of medical providers (to refer patients for treatment).

[Gandydancer]

There's no right for parents to direct the upbringing of children by enabling/encouraging them to obtain female circumcision (a/k/a female genital mutilation (traditional)), why?

[not guilty]

Actually, there is a liberty interest in parents regarding female circumcision. But the prohibition thereof would in all likelihood survive a substantive due process challenge, even if the court applied strict scrutiny.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

That doesn't explain why. That explains the how.

Also include the why on how can a State ban "conversion" therapy.

[not guilty]

As much as I am disinclined to cast pearls before swine, for the law applicable to a state ban on so-called ¨conversion therapy," see Tingley v. Ferguson, 47 F.4th 1055 (9th Cir. 2022).

[BravoCharlieDelta]

The 11th Circuit came to a different conclusion.

That's weird.

[not guilty]

You are correct. Otto v. City of Boca Raton, 981 F.3d 854 (11th Cir. 2020). The Ninth Circuit considered and disagreed with Otto. I regard the dissenting judge´s opinion in Otto as better reasoned and more persuasive.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Of course you did. That's your preferred policy outcome.

[Bwaaah]

There is, and should be, very limited powers of government to intervene in the rights of parents to pursue the medical interests of their children as they see them. Public policy (and broad internet discussion) can not address the particularized health needs of *actual* cases. Concerned about the "administrative state," but not when it shows up at someone's doctor visit? (No matter what your excuse, don't send anybody to get between me and my children.)

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Why can a state forbid you from seeking compassionate "conversion" therapy for your child?

[Bwaaah]

In my view, the state should not be able to forbid such a therapy. In *any* particular case, the burden should fall upon the state to prove, to a court, that the treatment is: 1) not commonly accepted; 2) of imminent danger to the child; and 3) without any significant likelihood of plausible benefit. (I might want more, but that's a start.)

When you advocate to address a child's medical care through government-imposed treatment rules, I think you're operating with extremely low expectations.

[Nelson]

"compassionate “conversion” therapy"

That's an oxymoron.

But let's assume you are correct and there are kind and gentle ways to convince gay people that they aren't gay. Such a therapy should be available to parents who can't accept their children as they are. Full stop.

Can you agree that sleep deprivation, physical abuse, psychological abuse, and other violent, threatening, or coercive methods of "curing" a child of homosexual attraction should be illegal?

[DaveM]

The findings that laws preventing underage alcohol drinking, tobacco smoking, tattooing, signing of contracts, getting married and driving a car are also unconstitutional are soon to follow, I’m sure.

[Nige]

Or rather, any medical treatment or procedure forbidden to anyone under 18 would have followed this prohibition.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/washington-lgbtq-conversion-therapy-ban-upheld-by-ninth-circuit

[Nige]

Oh, some good news.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

That's a year old, you ignoramus.

[Nige]

Good news is good news.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

What's funny is that there are over a billion of you rice-eating cockroaches and not a single one of you is as smart as the dumbest White person.

[Nige]

Now there's a self-refuting statement.

[Kazinski]

Its the ninth circuit.

That's bad news if you want it to be upheld.

But as a thought experiment what is the difference between banning professional speech like conversion therapy which probably had not shown any efficacy and banning transgender hormone treatments which has been abandoned by Johns Hopkins, Britains National Health Service, Sweden and Norway because it hasn't shown any medical efficacy?

[Nige]

The difference is that conversion therapy is not only quackery, it is abusive, while gender affirming care has been proven as medically effective. I can't speak to the failings of the health services you mention, assuming you're even being accurate. Trans healthcare is under massive political and cultural assault, and none of that animus is medically-derived. It's entirely malicious.

[not guilty]

The petition for writ of certiorari remains pending. https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/22-942.html In that there is a split between the Ninth and Eleventh Circuits, where the respective Courts of Appeals applied different standards of review, this case has a better chance than some of cert being granted.

I would think that psychotherapy combines speech and nonspeech elements, such that review under United States v. O´Brien, 391 U.S. 367, 377 (1968), is appropriate, whereby ¨a government regulation is sufficiently justified if it is within the constitutional power of the Government; if it furthers an important or substantial governmental interest; if the governmental interest is unrelated to the suppression of free expression, and if the incidental restriction on alleged First Amendment freedoms is no greater than is essential to the furtherance of that interest.¨

The state certainly has an important or substantial interest, unrelated to the suppression of free expression, in the well-being of minors.

[not guilty]

These comment threads have seen a great deal of blather about Donald Trump being the victim of ¨selective prosecution¨ in federal court. For the reasons I have set forth previously, that claim is a nonstarter.

It might be more fruitful for the defense to assert a claim of vindictive prosecution -- that Trump is being charged in retaliation for exercise of his First Amendment right to run for another term as president. While selective prosecution offends Equal Protection, vindictive prosecution may be a Due Process violation. The latter does not inquire into the conduct of others who are/were not prosecuted, thus avoiding the obstacle of who is ¨similarly situated.¨

A recent Washington Post article suggests that the Department of Justice dragged its feet on investigating Trump´s culpability for the events of January 6, 2021. https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/06/19/fbi-resisted-opening-probe-into-trumps-role-jan-6-more-than-year/ The investigation did not gather steam until appointment of Jack Smith as Special Counsel. That appointment was triggered by Trump´s formal announcement of his candidacy for president.

I have no doubt that DOJ is able to offer nonvindictive justifications for the prosecution, but the facts and circumstances might at least call for a pretrial evidentiary hearing.

[Krayt]

"Nobody is above the law" is a subset of "Everybody is equal before the law".

But we must keep in mind the reason for things like the 4th and 5th Amendments are not really to protect the common yokel, but to stop the powerful from turning the investigative power of government against political enemies.

This applies even if the enemy did something illegal. And I don't mean don't investigate if there is evidence. I mean a giant fishing expidition to look for illegality, which, for the rich and powerful, pretty much means them all.

Tyrant kings knew this, and would hassle opponents while facetiously claiming they weren't, it's just an investigation, man. I am concerned! I didn't just throw him in the Tower of London because he turned his ass to me when I held court.

So when government, prior to an election, and against a large swath of opposition (meaning very little buy in from that party, meaning you haven't convinved them, only your own singing choir) then there might very well be abuse of the type this was supposed to stop.

Now throw in can openering lawyer client privilege to use a question to a lawyer against him, and it suggests it has more than just one foot in the divine right of kings to use government to attack opponents.

Again, the point of these rules is to protect the powerful from governmental investigation attacks by political opponents, not the common man in the street.

From that viewpoint, this has been one long failure of constitutional design.

[shawn_dude]

This is the craziest, most anti-democratic attempt I've read to explain why Trump is a victim for being able to golf while he's under indictment for violating the espionage act.

[apedad]

Former FBI Analyst Sentenced for Retaining Classified Documents

Kendra Kingsbury, 50, of Garden City, Kansas, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Stephen R. Bough to 46 months in federal prison followed by three years of supervised release. Kingsbury pleaded guilty on Oct. 13, 2022, to two counts of unlawfully retaining documents related to the national defense.

According to court documents, Kingsbury was an intelligence analyst for the FBI for more than 12 years, from 2004 to Dec. 15, 2017. Kingsbury was assigned to a sequence of different FBI squads, each of which had a particular focus, such as illegal drug trafficking, violent crime, violent gangs and counterintelligence. Kingsbury held a TOP SECRET/SCI security clearance and had access to national defense and classified information. Training presentations and materials specifically warned Kingsbury that she was prohibited from retaining classified information at her personal residence. Such information could only be stored in an approved facility and container.

The national defense information that Kingsbury unlawfully retained included numerous documents classified at the SECRET level from the FBI that describe intelligence sources and methods related to U.S. government efforts related to counterterrorism, counterintelligence and defending against cyber threats.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-fbi-analyst-sentenced-retaining-classified-documents

“Her crimes mirror 31 of the 37 counts that former president Donald Trump faces in respect to the classified documents case.” (Newsweek)

Looks she only took SECRET level info.

Trump (allegedly!) had TOP SECRET info.

[Michael P]

Clearly, Donald Trump should have instead sent TOP SECRET information via email on an easily compromised server. Then not only would the FBI whitewash what happened and insulate him from prosecution, his underlings would almost all get immunity agreements.

[jb]

Probably he just should have given them back when asked and not lied about having more of them.

Comey laid out the reasons Clinton wasn't being prosecuted at the time, and essentially all of the aggravating factors that he mentioned that would lead to prosecution are present in the Trump case.

[Michael P]

The aggravating factors were present in Clinton's case, just studiously whitewashed by the FBI. That's why they used so many immunity agreements.

[jb]

Why would they need to use an immunity agreement with a third party to hide something that Clinton herself did?

[not guilty]

A grant of immunity is a prosecutor´s tool to gather information from someone who may have some criminal exposure, but is believed to have information regarding a higher value target. Absent immunity, such person could invoke the privilege against self-incrimination and could not be compelled to answer. An immunized witness before a grand jury can testify or immediately go to jail for refusing.

[Nelson]

"Clearly, Donald Trump should have instead sent TOP SECRET information via email on an easily compromised server. Then not only would the FBI whitewash what happened and insulate him from prosecution, his underlings would almost all get immunity agreements."

Whatabout! Whatabout! Whatabout!

[David Nieporent]

Clearly, Donald Trump should have instead sent TOP SECRET information via email on an easily compromised server.

Who did that? Hint: not Hillary.

[Armchair Lawyer]

"Trump (allegedly!) had TOP SECRET info."

Usually these details seem to leak. The fact there hasn't been such a leak, makes me suspicious on the actual Top Secret level info.

[Michael P]

The DOJ famously published pictures showing TOP SECRET cover sheets in their raid, and listed particular classification lines, for example discussed at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/nov/14/donald-trump-handled-records-marked-classified-after-presidency-court-filing-alleges

[Noscitur a sociis]

The indictment very clearly alleges that several of the documents at issue were top secret.

[Armchair Lawyer]

But doesn't actual state what they were.

I believe if it was actually something serious, it would've leaked already.

[Sarcastr0]

What the fuck do you think allege means?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

All armchair. No lawyer. Not even particularly literate.

Typical Volokh Conspiracy fan.

[Noscitur a sociis]

You don't think it's possible that law enforcement is treating the classified material that they recovered as classified?

[John F. Carr]

The recommended sentence for unauthorized retention of classified material, under circumstances not amounting to espionage, is 5 years if the information is not top secret and 8 years if it is. There is a discount for pleading guilty and extra time for obstructing the investigation.

In cases of espionage, or more specifically "Gathering or Transmitting National Defense Information to Aid a Foreign Government", the recommended sentence increases to 20 or 30 years.

[Don Nico]

"Looks she only took SECRET level info. Trump (allegedly!) had TOP SECRET info."
Of course, that does not matter. Both she and DJT willfully violated the law. And DJT doubled down on that. May he gets what he deserves.

[Kazinski]

Well I for one hope I never get what I deserve.

"Deserve has nothing to do with it."

Clint Eastwood
Unforgiven 1992

[shawn_dude]

Although we did not find clear evidence that Secretary Clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.

-- James Comey

Comey goes on to say that "only a very small number of the e-mails...bore markings indicating the presence of classified information." And those markings weren't big red letters on an external sleeve as in Trump's case.

You make a willful false equivalence between Hillary's carelessness and Trump's direct actions to take and then hold onto classified information as a civilian.

[Michael P]

So, how about that sweetheart plea bargain for Hunter Biden? At what point do residents of a banana republic admit the country's true nature?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

They're going to argue that the DOJ went SUPER HARD on Hunter and it was totes equal and fair.

[Frank Drackman]

Actually if they do legitimate drug/alcohol testing he'll be in prison within a week, of course I just answered my own question, the testing will be about as legitimate as Danang Dicks Vietnam service.

[Moderation4ever]

Is this a sweetheart deal or pretty much what was expected? This is a tax case and few of those convicted end up in prison. The same with the firearm violation, which again is often just leverage to submit to a plea bargain.

The case was handled by a Trump DOJ appointed prosecutor and will be heard by a Trump appointed judge. If have some real evidence of a sweetheart deal put it up.

[Michael P]

Is this a sweetheart deal or pretty much what was expected?

Both, of course, because you and the DOJ pretend that the three charges (only two with guilty pleas, the most serious with a deferred prosecution agreement) is all there is to it.

It's also a foreign corrupt practices case, an unregistered foreign agent case, a bribery case, a conspiracy case with regards to the previous, a drug abuse case, felon in possession of a firearm, and probably a few others that slip my mind. How often do all of those get ignored in a charging instrument, especially when there is hard evidence and there are so many witnesses?

[jb]

Seems likely that the evidence for those other changes is less good than you think it is.

[Brett Bellmore]

The unregistered foreign agent one is kind of open and shut. He's publicly confessed to using illegal drugs, too.

As Hunter has no felony record, "felon in possession" is a nonstarter. But they absolutely could have gone after him on a half dozen more charges, some of them trivially easy to prove.

[Sarcastr0]

Hey Brett, I saved Noscitur's comment from above because it's actually someone who knows, not just speculating and being overly confident:

https://reason.com/volokh/2023/06/22/thursday-open-thread-142/?comments=true#comment-10121535

[David Nieporent]

Um, publicly confessing to using illegal drugs is not a crime. Nobody in history has ever been prosecuted for having stated that he or she used illegal drugs in the past.

And what "unregistered foreign agent" one? What activities do you think Hunter Biden engaged in that required him to register?

[Michael P]

"It's not illegal to admit to (recently) breaking the law" is not the clever defense against prosecution that it sounded like inside your head.

[Michael P]

Prior felony conviction is only one of several conditions that make it illegal for a person to possess our receive firearms or ammunition under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g). Addiction to, or unlawful use of, any controlled substance is another disqualifying condition. It's all the same statute, commonly called the felon-in-possession law.

https://www.atf.gov/firearms/identify-prohibited-persons

[Sarcastr0]

Per an actual federal criminal practitioner:

"Most people who committed these crimes don’t come to the attention of the U.S. Attorney’s office, and Hunter Biden probably only did because of his father."

[Michael P]

"Lots of people get away with this" is not the clever excuse for not prosecuting that you apparently think it is.

[Sarcastr0]

So it's a failing of our system that not every criminal law is charged as often as it applies?

[shawn_dude]

"Lots of people get away with this" undercuts your claim that this is a "sweetheart plea bargain." Further, the quote provided is evidence that this is the opposite of a sweetheart plea bargain as his crimes are minor enough that the US Attorney's office wouldn't even bother with them otherwise.

The only "sweetheart deal" here are all the right-wing pundits and politicos spinning up this case of a dumb druggie into a business opportunity for their blog/Tick Tock fame dreams--at your expense.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Why do you take care to mention the source of appointments?

[Moderation4ever]

I think it is important to release that President Biden did nothing to stop the prosecutor, appointed by his predecessor, from investigating his son. He simply let the case develop and conclude on its own. Contrast this with former President Trump who fired James Comey to stop the Russia investigation. Quite a different in style. The fact is that Biden knew there were no short cuts and Trump thought he could shot cut the process.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Wait, so you actually, genuinely believe the actions of the DOJ towards people like Trump and Hunter and Hillary and Flynn are sincere judgments based upon apolitical assessments of the facts and not influenced by personal politics, political appointees, or political interference from outside the DOJ?

Is that really where you're starting point is on this? You accept all these things on their face?

[Moderation4ever]

These are all cases involving high profile individuals and I believe they present challenges for the staff of DOJ. The cases are often pushed forward by the politics of moment and the staff have to accommodate this as best they can. These same pressures occur when dealing with rich or non-political high-profile cases. In many ways the easiest cases are likely the poor defendants who have no public standing and have cheap lawyers.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

" The cases are often pushed forward by the politics of moment and the staff have to accommodate this as best they can."

What does this even mean, can you unpack this and how this would influence behavior?

"These same pressures occur when dealing with rich or non-political high-profile cases."

What is this pressure? How does it look? Where does it come from? How does it get applied?

You're just making a specious, nonsense argument so you can continue to pretend the DOJ isn't filled with political actors making political decisions.

I mean what does "politics of the moment" look like, and why would anyone have to accommodate it? What would happen if they didn't?

[Moderation4ever]

Our legal system is among the fairest in the world. Having said that I will not try to say it is perfect. It is influenced by money and publicity. Expensive lawyers can do things for a defendant that cheap lawyers, if there is such a thing, can never do for their client. If Hunter Biden was not the President's son, he would have had a regular prosecutor the case would have been settled quickly with not much difference in outcome. The gun charge would never had been made as it was a result of Hunters own admission of drug use.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

But since he was the President’s son, they sat on it for five years hoping no one would notice and when people started noticing, then they did least possible thing they could do as quickly as they could to get it out of the news cycle before the next election.

Meanwhile we get reports of some famous black rappers who are sitting in jail for the same crime.

It’s so funny, in one breath you people will talk about how our justice system is institutionally racist, in the other breath it’s the fairest in the world. Except if you’re rich, or well-connected, then it’s the super mega ultra-fairest in the world!

[jb]

Uhh, you know that Trump (not Biden) was President for most of those five years, right?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

How would that change things?

[jb]

If your theory is that the feds were sitting on the case because he was the President's son, the fact he wasn't the President's son most of the time seems to undercut the theory pretty badly.

[Sarcastr0]

"Mentally preparing for the quick transition from "Biden is corrupt because his DOJ hasn't charged his son with a a crime" Twitter to "Biden is corrupt because his DOJ, which had to charge his son with a crime, took a misdemeanor plea" Twitter." - Orin Kerr.

You have no idea what's a sweetheart deal. Won't stop you from posting about it, though!

[Michael P]

Whine harder, Gaslight0. Kerr should shtick to his usual rationalizing of government stomping on 4A rights (but curiously only when a Democrat is in the White House).

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah...not really sure that's a fair characterization of Prof. Kerr you offer in service of your ad hominem.

The main point is you turned on a dime, as predicted, and don't know enough to back it up.

[Michael P]

Kerr's snipe is a stupidly false dichotomy, as you would know if you were not so devoted to your gaslighting efforts. His inability to come up with a better defense of Biden's corruption is why he should stick to his usual apologia.

[Sarcastr0]

Walk me through the false dichotomy.

And while your at it, tell me what you mean by gaslighting.

[Michael P]

Pasting on a fig leaf doesn't mean the emperor is suddenly wearing the advertised robes. He's still unclothed, and his corruption is hanging out there for all to see -- as long as they acknowledge what their eyes tell them, rather than conform to pressure from liars who insist on fundamentally obvious falsehoods.

[Nige]

Wow. You just said literally nothing.

[Sarcastr0]

This is not a discussion of a false dichotomy or gaslighting.

I'm actually not sure what you are discussing at all, other than that you're super duper sure Biden is corrupt and think anyone who doesn't think that is lying.

[bernard11]

Michael P,

If you and Orin Kerr got into a stupidity contest, you would win by several miles.

[Noscitur a sociis]

For what it’s worth, as someone who does practice federal criminal law:

Most people who committed these crimes don’t come to the attention of the U.S. Attorney’s office, and Hunter Biden probably only did because of his father.

On the other hand, once the U.S. Attorney’s office decides to prosecute someone for these crimes, it is extremely unusual for them to agree to a misdemeanor plea, and I have never heard of a § 922(g) charge being granted pretrial diversion.

(Delaware is one of the many districts I have never appeared in, and if other practitioners have a different experience I would welcome their feedback.)

[jb]

The vast majority of 922(g) cases are felon-in-possession, no? I'm definitely not a practitioner, but my understanding of the pretrial diversion here is that it's predicated on the approach to drug-related offenses.

FWIW, this study indicates that pretrial diversion is becoming more common generally for 922(g), increasing from about 1% in 2000 to 11% in 2016:

https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/bjs/grants/254520.pdf

[David Nieporent]

Matt Gaetz had a tantrum yesterday and accused Durham of a coverup because Durham didn't prosecute everyone Trump hates. MAGA are not serious people.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

He said he didn't interview McCabe or Comey or Ohr or any of the other collusion hoaxers waw because they refused his request.

Wasn't that awful mean of them? What could a Special Prosecutor do if witnesses refuse their polite request to a sit-down chitchat? Oopsie case closed! All the witness declined the offer!

[David Nieporent]

What could a Special Prosecutor do if witnesses refuse their polite request to a sit-down chitchat?

Offer them immunity, which You People would also have had a tantrum about.

(Hint: just because Donald Trump likes to go on TV and confess to crimes doesn't mean a bunch of lawyers are that self-destructive.)

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

They’re serious.

Serious assholes.

And it is wrong to mention MAGA without QAnon.

[shawn_dude]

Can it still be "right-wing Twitter," or can we just admit the redundancy and just call it "Twitter?"

[Gandydancer]

"For a time, it appeared the investigation had broader scope, ranging across Hunter Biden's many international business dealings. But the source familiar with the terms of agreement with prosecutors said Hunter Biden's legal team is anticipating the deal will stipulate that those matters are now closed."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hunter-biden-guilty-plea-agreement-tax-investigation/

Did it? It's anyway not clear what that would mean. That they can't be reopened if more evidence turns up or the current evidence is evaluated differently?

[Kazinski]

There's some.awfully interesting testimony by the IRS whistleblowers in front of the House Ways and Means Committee.

This isn't going away:
"*The Hunter Biden probe was opened in November 2018 off the back of an investigation the IRS was conducting of a “foreign-based amateur online pornography platform,” according to whistleblower Gary Shapley.

*The first son was given the code name “Sportsman” by investigators.

*Delaware US Attorney David Weiss sought to bring federal charges against Hunter, 53, in the Central District of California and in Washington, DC, last year and was denied both times by Biden-appointed US attorneys Martin Estrada and Matthew Graves, respectively.

*According to the second whistleblower, who has remained anonymous, the investigation covered the years 2014 through 2019, during which Hunter and his “associates” received approximately $17.3 million from Ukraine, Romania and China — with the first son alone scooping $8.3 million."

Investigators pressed for felony charges against Hunter for ducking $2.2 million in tax payments — rather than misdemeanors announced Tuesday as part of a probation-only plea deal.

*Assistant US Attorney Lesley Wolf discouraged investigators from pursuing lines of questioning related to Joe Biden, saying at one point that there was “no specific criminality,” according to Shapley.

The revelation that Biden appointees blocked charges against his son is politically explosive because Attorney General Merrick Garland testified under oath to Congress earlier this year that Weiss was empowered to bring charges outside of Delaware. Intentionally misleading Congress is a crime."

https://nypost.com/2023/06/22/irs-whistleblowers-say-doj-covered-up-hunter-biden-tax-fraud/

[Life of Brian]

Yeah, looks like you're going to get pin-drop silence from the apologists on this one. Makes a lot more sense now why the whistleblowers were unceremoniously yanked from the case.

[Kazinski]

Like I said it's not going away, more from ways and means:

BREAKING: According to IRS whistleblowers, DOJ tipped off Hunter Biden about a search of his storage unit, prohibited investigators from executing a warrant on Joe Biden's guest house, and repeatedly prohibited charges from being brought against Hunter Biden.
https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/1671933079449903104?t=ZZE_zohwI_z2b9B147sJPw&s=19

Notice the tweet links directly to the ways and means testimony, if you don't like the particular reporter.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's not going away, and it's not going anywhere, because the MSM won't report on it, and the Democrats just don't care.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

If a little boy is gay and doesn’t want to be gay, a Federal judge in Arkansas says “fuck you little kid you’re born that way and fuck your parents if they want to help you not be gay.” However if that same little kid’s mom comes to that same Federal judge and says “my son thinks he’s a girl and the State won’t let me chemically castrate him and put make up on him” the judge says “Fuck you State, that mom has the constitutional right to chop that kids chemically castrate that little kid and chop his dick off. Love is love. Love wins”.

Courts are a joke.

[not guilty]

Where has any federal judge, in Arkansas or elsewhere, said “fuck you little kid you’re born that way and fuck your parents if they want to help you not be gay”?

Please give a specific citation.

[Gandydancer]

"Conversion therapy" bans don't exist in ng's world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._jurisdictions_banning_conversion_therapy

[not guilty]

BravoCharlieDelta attributed specific words to an unidentified federal judge in Arkansas. I challenged him to provide the relevant citation.

That has nothing to do with conversion therapy bans, which do indeed exist (for good reason).

[BravoCharlieDelta]

You think I was trying to assert those were literal quotes?

[Nige]

You were trying to obscure what the case was really about.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

The case was about liberals inventing rights to suit their policy preferences.

The inconsistency supports it

[Nige]

You still haevn't specified an actual case so it could be about fried chicken for all we know.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

You didn't hear about the federal judge in Arkansas striking down their protections for children the other day?

Man, i always forget how fucking ignorant you are of current events. Your brain tenders never tell you shit.

[Nige]

You could be talking about literally anything or nothing most of the time, who knows what specific event set it off and how it got mutated and transformed by the toxins in your brain.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

I was talking about trannies, court cases and Arkansas.

Low-information twits couldn't make the connection the recent court case. So, people like you.

[Nige]

So, huffing your own farts.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Haha yeah me talking about a major case decided this week that you weren't told about from your handlers is me "huffing farts"

Hahaha yeah that's so true!

[Nige]

You inventing an evil cackling monologue for the evil cackling judge kinda obscured whatever reality underlay it.

[not guilty]

That is ordinarily what quotation marks mean, BCD.

I called out your bullshit. Now man up and admit it.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

So you really believed I was trying to claim a judge actually said "fuck you" in a trial?

[not guilty]

Writing hundreds of appellate briefs during my career has sensitized me to the proper use of quotation marks. Deliberately misquoting a judge is serious misconduct in my experience.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

And so with all that experience writing briefs when you saw the quotes around “fuck you little kid you’re born that way and fuck your parents if they want to help you not be gay.” you were like "hey that looks like a real quote, I wonder which case BCD is citing"?

[Armchair Lawyer]

Poll the forum.

Would you support a Constitutional Amendment that read (approximately) as follows?

"There shall be a maximum of 9 Justices on the Supreme Court of the United States".

Why or why wouldn't you support such an amendment?

[Martinned]

Why a maximum without a minimum?

[Michael P]

Justices occasionally retire or pass away while on the bench, and the Senate occasionally refuses to confirm a nominee.

[Nelson]

I remember when Republicans left a seat vacant for a year for political reasons. I can't remember if such obstruction had happened before that, though.

[Armchair Lawyer]

What Michael said.

[Michael P]

But to his point, I would be happy with a clause that said the Court may have nine, or at least seven, justices to go along with the maximum of nine. I would not want legislation to artificially reduce the number of justices.

[Martinned]

Those are two different ways to approach the question of the minimum, indeed:
- Just say that there are nine seats on the Supreme court, which says nothing about how long those seats might be vacant, it just prevents Congress from passing legislation to reduce the number of seats.
- Add something to ensure that vacancies are filled with some urgency. E.g. "any nominee for the Supreme Court shall be voted on by the Senate within one month, not counting time when the Senate is not sitting".

[John F. Carr]

If a full Supreme Court is important designate a line of succession allowing lower court judges to fill in temporarily.

[Martinned]

That might be a good idea, but doesn't solve the problem I had in mind. (Which was situations like the Garland nomination where either the President or the Senate has an incentive to keep a seat vacant past the next election.)

[John F. Carr]

There is no realistic way to force the Senate to vote. The Constitution could say what happens to a nomination in the absence of a vote. If I apply for a permit and my local board refuses to vote, the law says my application is constructively approved or denied, depending on which state and which local board.

[bernard11]

You could say that after 30 days, or maybe 60, nay Senator has the right to demand a vote, and no other business can be done, or paychecks issued, until the vote happens.

[Brett Bellmore]

You could, and something like that is on my personal list of reforms if we ever have a constitutional convention.

[Kazinski]

Sure that would work, but probably not how you think, if a majority doesn't want a vote, then they'll just vote the nominee down.

And what do you do in the case as when Breyer or O'Connor resigned, pending the confirmation of their successor? There is no vacancy so no time clock.

[Martinned]

There is no realistic way to force the Senate to vote.

Why not? Because if the constitution says "there shall be a vote", it's difficult to see how you'd enforce that? Presumably whichever senators want a vote can just stand in the senate chamber and have a vote, and if anyone else wants to join them they can. No need for more enforcement than that.

[John F. Carr]

Without a quorum any member can object to having a vote. If no quorum is required the system can be gamed.

The constitution of Massachusetts requires the legislature to vote on certain proposals presented by voters. Several times the legislature has refused to vote. The Supreme Judicial Court has refused to make the legislature vote. Until the time to vote has passed there is no harm. After the time to vote has passed it is too late.

[Martinned]

A constitutional requirement to have a vote at a certain time would implicitly do away with any non-constitutional restrictions, such as quorum rules. (Which are authorised by the constitution but not set by the constitution.)

[Brett Bellmore]

On the contrary, the quorum requirement IS mandated by the Constitution.

"Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members, and a Majority of each shall constitute a Quorum to do Business; but a smaller Number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the Attendance of absent Members, in such Manner, and under such Penalties as each House may provide."

It may be often violated, but it's there.

[Gandydancer]

Why does the absence of a minimum affect your willingness to specify a maximum?

[Martinned]

I'm not sure that it does. I was just curious.

I'm OK with fixing the number of Supreme Court justices, and if you're going to do that you might as well do that properly. My only hesitation is that it might be desirable (now or at some point in the future) to have the Supreme Court work in an entirely different way, with panels consisting of a sub-set of all the justices. That way they could do more cases. Fixing the number of Justices in the Constitution would prevent that kind of reform.

[Mr. Bumble]

Maybe there would be fewer SC cases if the lower courts were more competent.

[Martinned]

That seems unlikely. Given the sheer number of Court of Appeals and State Supreme Court cases, there's always enough happening to keep the Supreme Court busy.

[Krayt]

I don't see a need for a minimum, given the political fights for control. With no max, history shows a willingness to pack the court.

But minimum? Any party in control wants to fill vacancies. So that leaves split government. Yet not filling with reasonable candidates leves open the possibility of disaster after the next election. You roll your dice. So back to historical negotiated status quo.

[Brett Bellmore]

Because if you're going to write an amendment to fix a problem, write it to comprehensively fix the problem, don't leave holes for obvious work-arounds.

[Armchair Lawyer]

What exactly is the workaround?

[Brett Bellmore]

For one, you reduce the size of the Court, to 7, and put the now surplus Justices on senior status. Since they're still being paid, no constitutional violation, but they're not taking cases anymore, and no clear constitutional language prohibits giving your President the power to dictate which of them gets that status. Or you could just retire the two oldest, you already know who they are. A 4-5 minority now is a 4-3 majority.

If that doesn't get you where you want to be, you restore the Court from 7 to 9 again, so that your 3-6 minority, having only been rendered a 3-4 minority, now becomes a 5-4 majority. The Justices you retired stay retired.

Took me about 10 seconds to come up with that.

[Krayt]

That doesn't seem right. For life isn't so they get paid, it's so they cannot be removed.

But even allowing for reduction to 7 via attrition, the party in power wants to replace with younger. And, in the course of history, the other party will gain power, and boom, expand back to 9 and two more choices!

A struggle for a short term advantage, downside reversals of that and loss of control for a generation.

[Brett Bellmore]

Primarily it's so that they can't be threatened with a pay cut if they rule in a way the people setting their pay don't like. But it doesn't say they can't be forcibly retired, it just says their compensation can't be varied. A bill requiring members over 55 years old to assume senior status at no cut in pay arguably wouldn't be unconstitutional.

Any kind of packing scheme invites tit for tat.

Which is why nobody is going to JUST pack the Court. If somebody packs the Court, they'll follow up with entrenchment legislation, of the sort you wouldn't be able to get an unpacked Court to agree was constitutional.

That's why I take threats of Court packing seriously. It's never going to be done for temporary advantage, if it happens it means somebody is making a move to make us a one party state.

[Kazinski]

Brett , you are absolutely wrong about that.

The Constitution says they "shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office."

They can't just be pensioned off, that's taking their office.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Senior status" is considered to be holding the office.

And just so you don't think that nobody else has thought of this dodge.

[Armchair Lawyer]

So, there's a problem with what your proposal is. It's Article III. Specifically the clause "The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour" That's different from the clause about reducing pay.

What that means is you can't forcibly retire a judge. You can't force them into senior status (which is a change in office). You need to actually impeach them. Which of course, they can do now.

If you reduce the size of the court, via law...the SCOTUS judges there stay there, due to Article III (until one passed away or voluntarily retired). The Constitution would trump the new law.

Importantly here, if one "could" forcibly retire or force a judge to senior status (without impeachment), you wouldn't need to reduce the size of the court to do it. You could judge directly do it.

[apedad]

No because that would take away from "the people" the right to change the court as they see fit.

I would suggest this though.

The process for amending the Constitution requires significant agreement across our nation; 2/3s of Congress or state legislatures agree to propose then 3/4s of state legislatures or conventions ratifying the proposal.

Since Supreme Court decisions act like mini-amendments, we should amend the Constitution to say SC decisions are effective upon 3/4s agreement of the Justices.

So with the current nine Justices, that would require seven Justices to agree with a decision in order for it to become effective otherwise status quo.

[Martinned]

No because that would take away from “the people” the right to change the court as they see fit.

That's just begging the question, because every constraint you put in the constitution has that effect. Why should "the people" have the right to vary the number of justices on the Supreme Court but not the right to pass an ex post facto law?

[Martinned]

Since Supreme Court decisions act like mini-amendments, we should amend the Constitution to say SC decisions are effective upon 3/4s agreement of the Justices.

Why not do it the other way around and allow a supermajority in Congress to overrule the Supreme Court?

[Bob from Ohio]

"Why not do it the other way around and allow a supermajority in Congress to overrule the Supreme Court?"

Is the world ending? I agree this would be a good idea.

[Martinned]

I'm not sure it would be a good idea, but I'm reasonably sure it's a harmless idea, given the low probability of a supermajority of Congress agreeing on anything remotely controversial.

More generally, I think it would be useful for the US to have something like France's organic laws, which are statutes that deal with constitutional matters and require a supermajority (but not the whole constitutional amendment process).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_law

[santamonica811]

[edited out]

[EscherEnigma]

In the vast majority of cases, congress already can overrule the SCOTUS just by amending a law, and with far less then a super-majority (unless by "super-majority" you mean "half+1 in the house, and enough to bypass a filibuster in the senate").

It's only in constitutional cases (which are a minority, remember) where they can't do that.

[Gandydancer]

“Since Supreme Court decisions act like mini-amendments, we should amend the Constitution to say SC decisions are effective upon 3/4s agreement of the Justices.”

Decisions are not currently SUPPOSED to be mini-amendments, except by Living Constitution crazies. SCOTUS is not SUPPOSED to legislate.

SCOTUS is supposed to judge cases and controversies.

One party or another must win its case, assuming no remand. I’m not really following what it is you are suggesting happen in a 5-4 decision.

Deciding a case gives an indication about how SCOTUS will decide a similar case, but they can’t in fact remove supposedly unconstitutional laws from the books, and the law may resume its effect if SCOTUS subsequently changes its mind.

[John F. Carr]

The decision of the Texas judge in the abortion pill case stands unless seven justices overturn it. The order by a second judge not to obey the Texas judge also stands unless seven justices overturn it.

[not guilty]

Uh, no. The district court opinion has been stayed. SCOTUS ruled on April 21, 2023:

Application (22A902) granted by the Court. The application for stay presented to Justice Alito and by him referred to the Court is granted. The April 7, 2023 order of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, case No. 2:22-cv-223, is stayed pending disposition of the appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari, if such a writ is timely sought. Should certiorari be denied, this stay shall terminate automatically. In the event certiorari is granted, the stay shall terminate upon the sending down of the judgment of this Court. Justice Thomas would deny the application for stay. Justice Alito dissents. (Detached Opinion)

https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/22a902.html

[John F. Carr]

I think there would have been a third vote not to stay the District Court order if the constitution required seven justices to agree on action by the Supreme Court.

[bernard11]

That sounds unreasonable to me.

Why should one litigant be placed at a huge disadvantage?

[OtisAH]

Why 9? Would you support one that said 25?

[Bob from Ohio]

"Why or why wouldn’t you support such an amendment?"

Only if it also overruled Marbury v. Madison.

[Moderation4ever]

I would support the amendment, but would want more. Term limits and a guarantee that a nominee get a Senate vote.

[Nelson]

"“There shall be a maximum of 9 Justices on the Supreme Court of the United States”.

Why or why wouldn’t you support such an amendment?"

I would support something that said, "Nine, no more and no less, with the replacement process for an open Justice seat beginning immediately". That would prevent the sort of politicking we saw with the last two Justices.

Court-packing is disgusting, but the actions of the Republicans with the last two Justices were just as bad. Language like mine would prevent both versions of assault on the Judicial branch by politicians. Politicians would be subject to the whims of fate and not able to manipulate the process.

[EscherEnigma]

I would not.

If we're going to do a constitutional amendment regarding the SCOTUS, I would make the following changes.

(1) Each presidential term gets two SCOTUS appointments. At the beginning of the second year of the term and the beginning of the fourth year of the term. Or some other division.
(2) The senate has one year from nomination to provide it's consent.
(3) If the year passes without the senate giving consent, the president can appoint without consent.

This gives incentive to play nice with the senate, because it gets your pick in earlier. That encourages cooperation. But it also removes the senate's veto. If a president really wants a specific person, they can wait out the clock. Checks and balances.

The main goal is to take some of the shenanigans of the last eight years off the table. "strategic retirements" too, since retiring will not open up a new seat.

I could be persuaded to change the appointment terms from "lifetime" to something in the range of 20-30 years, but that's not as important to me.

But restricting it to a specific size? No. I would seek to remove the ability to perform shenanigans, not reinforce them.

[BadLib]

Do you mean that the Senate must "give consent" within a year or that they must "give or explicitly deny consent" within one year or else the nominee is appointed?

If the former, it would result in Justices having the most extreme of philosophies which would result in an even less functional court and one with less public respect as there would be no system of checks and balances against extreme nominees.

[EscherEnigma]

The later. Basically, senate can stall the president for up to a year, but not forever.

That said...

as there would be no system of checks and balances against extreme nominees.

the current system of "checks and balances" doesn't screen for "extreme nominees", it just screens for "what can McConnell get away wiht", so I'm not terribly persuaded that my proposed scheme is any worse then the status quo.

That said, I have 0 expectation that my idea has any chance of ever being seriously considered, so if it offends you that much, who cares? It's just mental masturbation.

[ducksalad]

Yes, because it reduces one path for mischief, but it's not optimum. There should be a specific number, combined with a failsafe method to make sure vacancies get filled. For example, maybe temporarily fill any vacancy with a judge drawn by lot from lower court judges, until the president and senate come to an agreement on a permanent replacement. No agreement in one year and the temp becomes permanent.

[not guilty]

Politico reports that some plaintiffs are challenging state abortion restrictions based upon state Religious Freedom Restoration Acts. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/21/legal-strategy-that-could-topple-abortion-bans-00102468 That is interesting.

I am doubtful as to wide ranging challenges -- it would be difficult to show standing and ripeness -- but an individual pregnant woman may well have a cause of action. If a plaintiff plead that she is pregnant, that her sincerely held religious beliefs call for termination of pregnancy under certain circumstances, that such circumstances exist in her particular case and that the prohibition of abortion thereby substantially burdens her exercise of religion, the burden would shift to the state to show a compelling governmental interest in prevention of that particular abortion, which interest cannot be achieved by less restrictive means. The lawsuit would necessarily need to be litigated on a highly expedited schedule, lest the progression to term render the question moot.

[Gandydancer]

“Heartbeat” is the test for compelling government interest in a number of States. If it says anything Dobbs says SCOTUS will defer to that decision there.

Even if the individual pregger were SOL the question would not be moot. There’s the whole “capable of repetition” business to prevent that.

No one imagines that freedom of religion supplies a right to engage in human sacrifice.
You imagine a fetus only becomes a human at what point in the “progression to term”?

[Gandydancer]

I will clarify that ng's "interesting" doesn't really appear to be all that interesting. He wants another bite at the right-to-abortion apple, but can't justify one. For an anti-abortion law to be applicable to a particular pregnancy it must, under current circumstances, already represent an application of a "compelling governmental interest in prevention of that particular abortion". The religious imperative for abortion claim adds nothing to that burden of proof.

[not guilty]

It is interesting to see those who have weaponized RFRAs being hoist with their own petard. (Hamlet Act 3, Scene 4)

[ThePublius]

Is there a religion that requires an abortion under any circumstances?

You can't claim a sincerely held religious belief for a religion that exists only in your mind.

[not guilty]

¨You can’t claim a sincerely held religious belief for a religion that exists only in your mind.¨

Actually, you can. Religious beliefs are self-selected.

[not guilty]

¨Is there a religion that requires an abortion under any circumstances?¨

I haven´t researched that, but there is a diversity of religious views on abortion access. https://www.healthline.com/health-news/meet-the-religious-groups-fighting-to-save-abortion-access

[not guilty]

According to the National Council of Jewish Women, Jewish sources explicitly state that abortion is not only permitted but is required should the pregnancy endanger the life or health of the pregnant individual. Furthermore, “health” is commonly interpreted to encompass psychological health as well as physical health. https://www.ncjw.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Judaism-and-Abortion-FINAL.pdf

[not guilty]

Several religious organizations support abortion rights. https://politicalresearch.org/2020/09/28/annotated-directory-prochoice-religious-community-united-states#toc-roman-catholic I don´t know to what extent these groups support abortions, or if so, under what circumstances.

[EscherEnigma]

You can’t claim a sincerely held religious belief for a religion that exists only in your mind.

It's arguable that all religions exist only in the minds of the faithful, and that the religion would not meaningfully exist without them.

Which is to say, I think you are literally wrong.

[ThePublius]

What if my religion requires human sacrifice? Or not paying taxes? Or beating my wife?

[not guilty]

I have no doubt that any of your hypothetical examples of burdens upon religion would satisfy strict scrutiny analysis. If you sued under an RFRA asserting a substantial burden on religious exercise based on these examples, the burden of justification would shift to the state -- that´s the mischief of RFRAs -- but you might not avoid sanctions for filing a frivolous lawsuit.

[Gandydancer]

The "shift" you imagine is entirely imaginary. The burden on the state to apply a law prohibiting abortion is already that it has a compelling interest in doing so.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Speaking of imaginary . . . Superstition!

Childish nonsense. Fairy tales. Supernatural fiction. Religion.

[not guilty]

No, Gandydancer. It is evident that you don´t know how an RFRA works. When a plaintiff alleges that a governmental regulation works a substantial burden on the plaintiff´s religious exercise, based on the plaintiff´s sincerely held religious beliefs, the government must show that such regulation furthers a compelling governmental interest, which cannot be achieved by means less restrictive of religious liberty.

[EscherEnigma]

That you're an awful person following an awful religion does not make you any less sincere. Just awful.

[Krayt]

This is the same government that for decades claimed compelling interest against religious use of drugs, and won in court.

Is claiming an unborn life at least as compelling?

Note I don't support those laws.

[Gandydancer]

"claiming"?

[Nelson]

Yes. It isn't a fact, it is a personal belief.

[ThePublius]

The Oceangate Titan submersible.

There's a massive search effort underway. Information about the safety of the vessel, and the cavalier attitude in that regard of the CEO, is surfacing.

The most likely failure scenario is that the hull failed and imploded, which would have happened remarkably quickly at depth; probably less than a second. Mercifully, the end for the occupants was quick; they probably didn't even know it happened, and if they did see signs the hull was failing, that realization didn't last long.

I find it remarkable that tourists with so much money could assume such extraordinary risk. I wonder if they knew, or had even research the history of this vessel? Its issues are in the public record. If they did research it, they chose to ignore it. I mean, the manufacturer of the view port wouldn't even certify the maximum depth of that part past 1300 meters. The Titanic is at just shy of 4000 meters.

God rest their souls, and bless their survivors.

[Martinned]

The death toll has risen to 82 after a boat carrying migrants capsized in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Greece last week.

Hundreds of people are estimated to have been on the boat, with reports of up to 750 people possibly occupying the vessel when it capsized. The number of people aboard the ship has not been confirmed or released.(…)

As of Tuesday, 82 people are reported dead, with hundreds more still unaccounted for after the capsizing.

Over 100 people have been rescued following the sinking of the ship. Greek authorities reported last week that none of the survivors were wearing life jackets when they were rescued.

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2023/06/21/greek-boat-capsize-fallout-focus-greece-government/70342879007/

[ThePublius]

Thank you, Captain Non Sequitur.

[Martinned]

I'm sorry, I reckoned I didn't need to spell out my point.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/06/21/titanic-submersible-greece-migrant-ship-pakistan/

[Bob from Ohio]

"I’m sorry, I reckoned I didn’t need to spell out my point."

Headline in 20 point: Typhoon in India kills American man
Sub-headline in 10 point: 10,000 Indians also killed

[Nige]

The coverage of such a horrific disaster has been notably muted compared to coverage of the sub story. The sub story is certainly full of wtf, though that doesn't mean the boat story should be treated as a non-headline item

[John F. Carr]

I was thinking about the same comparison before the media belatedly realized how different coverage of the two events was. Several months ago the Boston area media got all excited about a missing upper middle class white woman, only to be reminded weeks later that a poor brown woman was also missing and they had not aired the story.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I had no idea the "Boston area media" were so right wing.

[Dr. Ed 2]

What was boat rated for?

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, the stuff that's coming out about this sub is shocking. They have multiple backup mechanisms for returning to the surface, and then use a window that's only certified for a fraction of the depth they were going to? They're using an antique game controller to pilot it?

The fact that they're hearing banging noises is encouraging, it suggests the hull is intact. But then the fact that it hasn't floated back to the surface by now means it's stuck on something.

So they're probably down there knowing that they're eventually going to die when life support fails.

[ThePublius]

There's no reason to believe the banging noises are coming from Titan. I bet if you put that many sonobuoys in the water on any given day you'd detect banging noises.

[Krayt]

Fog of war, but supposedly the bangs are every half hour on the hour, suggesting deliberate timing via watch.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

"They’re using an antique game controller to pilot it?"

I presume you're not aware that the US Navy uses Xbox 360 controllers to control the periscope mast.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but historically speaking, you're unaware of a LOT of things that don't stop you from mouthing off like an expert.

[Moderation4ever]

A number of years ago a young girl was severely injured on an amusement park ride in the Wisconsin Dells area. She had researched the ride that allowed a person to freefall into a suspended net and wanted to experience the fall. When her turn came for the fall, the operator failed to have the net properly raised and the net failed to break her fall to the pavement.

All the research in the world doesn't help when things go wrong.

[ThePublius]

That's a silly analogy. The safety concerns of Titan were well known, and there was even a lawsuit in 2018 by a safety engineer who was fired for raising concerns.

[Moderation4ever]

My point was that the young victim had done her research, enough to get her parents to approve her going on the ride/experience.

[Michael P]

All the research in the world doesn’t help when things go wrong.

Not by itself, but diligent research can inform preparation to greatly reduce the likelihood of something going wrong. Look at graphs of the serious-accident or fatality rates per year (or passenger-mile or any other reasonable unit) for transport airplanes over the last six decades. The aviation safety community has iterated repeatedly on the kinds of failures that they protect against — from pilot errors and equipment failures to operational procedures and communications to organizational failures. The results are pretty astounding in terms of reducing unsafe outcomes.

(To ThePublius's point, the people familiar with that are often "50-year-old white guys" that Oceangate didn't want to hire.)

[Sarcastr0]

I find it remarkable that tourists with so much money could assume such extraordinary risk

Yeah; I'm trying to figure that out myself.

It is unfortunate though - stupid should not be a death sentence.

[ThePublius]

Yes, it's stunning. I mean, I have just done some cursory research on this since the sub was lost, and I uncovered lots of safety concerns. And I'm not spending $250k to take a trip on it! I would never get in that thing based on what I've read.

I wonder if the company has any assets.

I wonder if the US and Canadian Coast Guards will send them a bill.

I wonder if the families of those lost will sue.

I expect Oceangate to declare bankruptcy.

[OtisAH]

It’s easier to comprehend when you consider that Americans severely confuse immense wealth with intelligence and expertise. Throw around enough words like “innovative” and “outside the box” (whatever the modern equivalents are) with the confidence of a man who has nothing to worry about and many folks would climb in that thing if they could.

[OtisAH]

Since they believe they captured banging noises the more likely outcome is they lost power. At which point it would have gotten really cold really quickly.

Everything we “know” about their survival chances is based solely on averages and optimums. None more than how much oxygen they had available. The variables in play once the lights went out or whatever happened are astounding. They could’ve run out a day or more ago. The banging, if related, might’ve been from the last survivor living with 2-3 days of extra air. No way of knowing anything until they’re someday able to locate and raise her.

[Brett Bellmore]

The sad thing is, if they're just laying on the bottom without propulsion, and something went wrong with the (multiply redundant) ballast release mechanism, we actually have no way of retrieving them.

[BadLib]

Perhaps early on one occupant realized the dire straits they were in and murdered the other four occupants Sunday afternoon to extend the O2 supply and (hopefully) reduce the CO2 production figuring he would rather face a jury of 12 later than die this week.

Since it appears that the clever lone survivor may know the protocol of banging on the hull, I'd be betting on one of the experienced hands rather than one of the tourists being the clever one.

(Although I have no idea how much CO2 a corpse puts off due to decomposition in the early days at those temperatures.)

The rights to my screenplay are available but all transactions must be in Bitcoin.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The TYitanic is a 123-year-old rusting hulk of questionabe stability, and the submarine, like all vessels, has propellers to move.

I wouldn't be surprised if it knocked loose a wall of the chip that fell on them, pinning them down. A mistake made by the DEI crew caused all to DIE, a more experienced skipper would know about prop wash....

[Frank Drackman]

Dr. Ed 2, noted nautical expert

[Dr. Ed 2]

Lobster fisherman.

[John F. Carr]

If the sub imploded the military would know. The military knew where Titanic was before Ballard. Underwater surveillance is part of their job.

I saw an animation of a conventional submarine collapsing at crush depth. It happened on a time scale humans could observe. The conning tower started to descend into the hull a second or two before the rest of the hull collapsed. The animation did not include the high pressure jets of water that would start slicing up people near the point where the hull started to fail.

[Dr. Ed 2]

They might know if it imploded.

Ballard found the Titanic *for* the US Navy -- he had been searching for something else, found it early, and the USN had the time and gear allocated for a while longer and asked Ballard what he wanted to do and he said "let's go find the Titanic."

[Mr. Bumble]

"If the sub imploded the military would know. "
It's a big ocean and that was a small sub. I doubt that they would know.

[Brett Bellmore]

This just in: They found a debris field in the search zone.

I mean, sure, it could be from some other craft, but odds are, the sub imploded.

[OtisAH]

Seems they know it’s from the submersible. Whatever banging there was wasn’t from them. They turned to five fine mists instantaneously four days ago.

[Michael P]

There were very fine mists on both sides of the hull?

[John F. Carr]

Confirmed this morning, the military did know thanks to the sensor network installed for submarine warfare. The search team was informed but chose to keep quiet just in case.

[ThePublius]

"The most likely failure scenario is that the hull failed and imploded, which would have happened remarkably quickly at depth; probably less than a second. "

That's what happened.

[Gandydancer]

"they probably didn’t even know it happened"

Nope, they certainly did. Not for long, but human perception is faster than you are giving it credit for being. This differs from, say, the ammo in a tank blowing up with you inside by several orders of magnitude, time-wise.

[ThePublius]

I don't recall where I read it, but one expert was quoted as saying that the implosion would occur in milliseconds. Most human reaction times are on the order of hundreds of milliseconds.

[Martinned]

Critics Say Submersible Should’ve Been Tested With Poorer Passengers First

WASHINGTON—Analyzing the mistakes OceanGate made that led to the vessel’s disappearance, critics told reporters Thursday that the submersible should have been tested with poorer passengers first. “The company skipped the very crucial step of sending five lower-class people to the bottom of the ocean to make sure it was safe enough for the wealthy,” said Otto Scofield, a member of the Marine Technology Society, adding that no one with a net worth above $50,000 should have been in the submersible. “OceanGate made the mistake of not using minimum wage workers and unemployed people on government welfare programs to test the seaworthiness of the craft, which was not billionaire-ready. Running more trials with some homeless people would have made all the difference, and the deaths of several wealthy people could have been prevented.” Scofield continued that using children of color from impoverished families would have been ideal as more would have been able to fit inside the submersible.

https://www.theonion.com/critics-say-submersible-should-ve-been-tested-with-poor-1850566314

[Armchair Lawyer]

Good Ol' Hunter is back, and finally after a 5 year plus investigation, striking a plea deal for his blazingly obvious crimes.

Two Counts of tax evasion, for not paying taxes on over 1.5 Million in income....5 year maximum federal sentence each. Hunter gets... Misdemeanors, no jail time.

False Statement to enable purchase of a firearm? That's a 10 year maximum sentence. Hunter gets..."pretrial diversion".

Must be good to be the President's son. Especially without a special counsel to ensure independence in charging and investigation....

But, perhaps my favorite bit is that Hunter is still selling his "paintings" for tens of thousands of dollars. Not sure who is buying original artwork from a novice painter for such large sums. Sorry, what? They're not buying original artwork? They're just buying the PRINTS of Hunter's artwork for $75,000....

Can we just call this paying for access to Joe Biden, and call it a day? Seriously....buying a print....

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-intentionally-provocative-hunter-biden-plea-deal/

[Sarcastr0]

This incredible Hunter hate is just a sign y'all got nothing on Joe.

[ThePublius]

I think there's plenty of evidence against Joe, if we could just get the FBI to cough up "the letter;" but, in addition, there are recordings of calls, and bank records. I mean, why would an honest Senator and Vice President need "a web of more than 20 companies?"

"The Biden family and its business associates created a complicated web of more than 20 companies, according to bank records obtained by the House Oversight Committee — a system, GOP lawmakers say, that was meant to conceal money received from foreign nationals.

Sixteen of the companies were limited liability companies formed during Joe Biden’s tenure as vice president, the committee said in a press conference on Wednesday. The Biden family, their business associates, and their companies received more than $10 million from foreign nationals’ and their related companies, the records show. These payments occurred both while Biden was in office as vice president and after his time in office ended."

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/bidens-used-web-of-shell-companies-to-conceal-foreign-cash-bank-records-obtained-by-house-gop-reveal/#:~:text=Sixteen%20of%20the%20companies%20were,a%20press%20conference%20on%20Wednesday.

[OtisAH]

Except “the letter” compiles things a trusted informant heard someone else say. It is not evidence of anything. And that someone else cannot be found. He’s probably hiding out with all the tapes nobody has ever heard or even seen. But yeah, there’s plenty of “evidence” in “the letter.”

[VinniUSMC]

Standard CNN level of evidence then? Odd that you find it acceptable in all other circumstances.

Seems at least worthy of a proper investigation. What's good for the goose.

[David Nieporent]

The Barr DOJ did investigate. And decided there wasn't anything there.

[Kazinski]

Hunter is just Joe's bag man.

But you have to admit Hunter is a real piece of work, or are there any of his specific qualities you find admirable?

[Sarcastr0]

Yes, I am aware of the massive fan fiction you have about all Democrats being super evil and corrupt.

[Kazinski]

No I don't think all democrats are corrupt, but I certainly think Joe Biden is, in a cheap grasping sort of way, not as a overriding theme of his whole career.

He just has the attitude there should be something in it for him, beyond the salary and perks of a politicians salary.

[Gandydancer]

Gaslightr0 is here being such a caricature of himself. Hunter is an admitted crook, but noticing that and thinking he ought not escapr punishment for it for it is "Hunter Hate". And here we are talking about Hunter and Joe, so the strawman "You think all Democrats are evil" appears.

I dunno, were all Nazis evil? Some were just careerist and joined the Party for the bennies. But why is that relevant to a discussion of, say, Himmler and his closest enablers and bag men?

[David Nieporent]

I wonder if Gandydancer ever described disgraced ex-general Michael Flynn as an "admitted crook."

[Kazinski]

I don't know about the crook part but his coup friendly rhetoric after the election lost him any sympathy I ever had for him.

[Frank Drackman]

Takes a special kind of guy to fuck his dead brothers wife.
I like it!!!!!

[Dr. Ed 2]

Wasn't marrying your dead brother's wife a Jewish obligation?

[Mr. Bumble]

...and her sister, too.

[Moderation4ever]

You can almost smell the frustration coming from the BIden haters.

[Frank Drackman]

doesn't smell as much as the "45" haters, impeached him twice (never convicted) now running up every bullshit charge they can think of (How about "Bad Hair"??? ask a Black Woman, it's a real thang)

[Moderation4ever]

Like Trump was ever going to be convicted in an impeachment. The fact is he doesn't do as well with juries. Because juries are not afraid of his voters.

[Mr. Bumble]

No President has been convicted after impeachment.

[Magister]

Since the outcome of Senate impeachment of a President is all but certain, those who believe they will be removed resign first.

[grb]

Armchair Lawyer : “Must be good to be the President’s son”

Hunter got a good deal? Well, you can say that about Trump, thrice over. Years of fraud bilking students with his phony university? A fine, no criminal charges Years of egregious fraud with his faux charity: a small fine. And you act as if Trump hasn’t been caught cheating on his taxes multiple times. He has – and has never come close to facing the the harsh justice you expect for little Hunter Biden.

In truth, it’s not due to Daddy that Hunter got a good deal. The main reason is his lawyers don’t have a fool for a client. Trump’s attorneys pleaded with him to negotiate a resolution of the documents mess, but the brat-child former president refused.

[ThePublius]

What does Trump have to do with Hunter Biden?

[grb]

Duh:

1. Armchair Lawyer claims Hunter got a special deal because of Joe.
2. Hunter didn't get a special deal, and here are examples proving that.

Wanna come up with a hard question next time?

[ThePublius]

It still has nothing to do with Trump! I mean, really what's the connection?

This "yes, but what about Trump" stuff is tiring. Did the FBI raid Hunter's house? Was Hunter ever before indicted and tried (think Trump's impeachments)? Was Hunter subjected to a Clinton campaign orchestrated and FBI assisted smear campaign? Jeez.

The outrage is that plenty of "ordinary" citizens have done time or been severely fined for the things Hunter has done, including the gun charge and the failure to pay taxes.

Yes, Hunter received special treatment; I wonder why? Ha, ha.

[Sarcastr0]

I don’t think Trump is quite comparable myself; I also don’t see any evidence this deal was out of norm, especially considering the specific facts of the case are not particularly egregious.

I could even argue that were Hunter just some guy, he wouldn't have been charged at all. But I won't *because I don't know enough about federal criminal law policy to do that*

Amazing how that works, eh?

[Frank Drackman]

He's a rich celebrity, like Martha Stewart. She didn't go to jail, did she?

[Longtobefree]

From the Federalist:
In 2022, 94.2 percent of convicted federal firearm felons served jail time.

So not a special deal, almost 5% of the other crooks get away with it too.

[Sarcastr0]

Yes, that's a great scope to choose. Not lying with statistics at all.

[grb]

Longtobefree : “So not a special deal….”

If only you had stopped there! Or maybe you should have tried to match the actual Hunter offense with the average record of charges. But that would have been honest and you have no interest in honesty. Money quote from the below link:

“The odds of being charged for lying on the form are virtually nonexistent. In the 2019 fiscal year, when Hunter Biden purchased his gun, federal prosecutors received 478 referrals for lying on Form 4473 — and filed just 298 cases. The numbers were roughly similar for fiscal 2020”

https://www.ncja.org/crimeandjusticenews/few-prosecutions-for-lying-on-atf-gun-purchase-form

[Bob from Ohio]

"virtually nonexistent"

298 is 62% of 478

[grb]

Don't be obtuse Bob. The 478 number is the significant number in the quote - unless you think that was all the opportunities for prosecution, that is.....

[Bob from Ohio]

Not sure why a LEO failure to refer to DOJ matters.

Once things come to DOJ's attention, most get prosecuted.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Unless your last name is Biden.

The IRS whistleblower testimony really needs to be read to see the abuse going on here. It's at the bottom of the posts.

[Moderation4ever]

grb's comment was meant to show the benefits of listening to the lawyers you are paying to defend you. Former President Trump is one of the best examples of a person that does not listen to his lawyers. A pretty simple comparison.

[Nige]

'Must be good to be the President’s son'

Or daughter. Or son-in-law. Employed in Daddy's actual administration. Security issues notwithstanding, naturally.

[bernard11]

Hey. Trump needs a bagman.

$2B is a lot of cash.

[Nige]

Yeah, but 'big guy.'

[Gandydancer]

What $2B does he need a bagman for? Are you hallucinating again?

[Gandydancer]

I understand that he plea deal only covers failure to file in 2017 and 2018.
Do we know if this clown Weiss at least made it revocable if Hunter B. hasn't fully revealed his income for those years?
Here's Weiss' cover letter, but I haven run across the two informations yet.
https://www.scribd.com/document/654230512/gov-uscourts-ded-82797-1-0-1#

[Gandydancer]

Duplicating my comment upthread:
"For a time, it appeared the investigation had broader scope, ranging across Hunter Biden's many international business dealings. But the source familiar with the terms of agreement with prosecutors said Hunter Biden's legal team is anticipating the deal will stipulate that those matters are now closed."
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hunter-biden-guilty-plea-agreement-tax-investigation/

Did it? It's anyway not clear what that would mean. That they can't be reopened if more evidence turns up or the current evidence is evaluated differently?

[David Nieporent]

For the record, this isn't state court; the prosecutors don't decide on the sentence. They can make recommendations, but the judge decides what the sentence will be.

[Gandydancer]

For the record the corrupt kritarchy usually rubber stamps plea deals arranged by the corrupt prosecutors. Anybody seen a study on this? I would guess 99%+.

But in this case Hunter got a Trump-appointed judge and MAYBE that wasn’t a result similar to that achieved by Garland picking through Trump-appointed US Attorneys until he found one sufficiently careerist, anti-Trump or otherwise corrupt enough to play ball like Weiss did. But, e.g., it was no accident that California’s Proposition 8 went to a gay activist judge, so these things can be fixed if the stars — and Democrats — are lined up in the right way.

[not guilty]

Uh, Merrick Garland didn´t pick through Trump-appointed U.S. Attorneys. The Sixth Amendment requires that any prosecution be brought only in the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed. The Biden administration left in place the sitting U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware, whom Trump had appointed.

[hoppy025]

I can't find the ruling, but the 3rd Circuit, in bad faith, has allowed NJ's clearly unconstitutional gun law to go into effect.

When states like Indiana prohibit mutilating children, judges instantly enjoin the laws and keep it that way until the trial years down the road.

When states like New York or New Jersey basically thumb their nose at Bruen, judges allow the laws to go into effect, and the Supreme Court lets those rulings stand so that the cases can "percolate," which means that the Democrats get the delays they wanted all along. That's the whole point, and it's 100% in bad faith.

[not guilty]

The appellate court order is here. https://www.nj.gov/oag/newsreleases23/2023-0620_Dkt29-SPA-ORDER.pdf

The district court had temporarily enjoined enforcement of parts of the law. The Court of Appeals granted a partial stay pending appeal of the district court´s order and denied the stay in part.

[not guilty]

I haven´t read it, but the district court opinion is here. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23814242-nj_concealed_carry_injunction

[hoppy025]

Thank you. Huge shocker, 2-1, and the 2 who voted to stay the injunction are a female Jewish Obama judge, and a female Korean Biden judge.

[Gandydancer]

And the dissenter is a Trump-appointed judge:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_J._Porter_(judge)
Elections have consequences.

[Frank Drackman]

They certainly will

[The Margrave of Azilia]

The Democratic wing of the duopoly has gone to court to keep the No Labels party off the ballot in Arizona.

“The issue is whether the ten affidavits from people who represent the party should have been submitted only after the petition was completed or not....

"In the past, the ten affidavits, representing the leadership of the group that hopes to qualify, have always been accepted as early as the group wished. Precedents include several petitions filed by the Green Party, as well as the precedent set by Americans Elect in 2011, and by the Reform Party in 1996 and 2000."

https://ballot-access.org/2023/06/20/oral-argument-date-set-in-no-labels-arizona-ballot-access-case/

Also, they didn’t have enough copies of their TPS report.

[OtisAH]

Oh no, what if you’re deprived of voting for the RFK, Jr.- Sinema unity ticket? GRRRRR DUOPOLY! GRRRRRR!

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Don’t worry if the government deprives you of the right to vote – the candidates would have been bad, anyway.

And you don’t mind missing out on the chance to vote *against* bad candidates, because you rely on the benevolent state to tell you which candidates you can vote for (or against).

A good little sheep.

[OtisAH]

Here’s the part where I forego explaining the Democratic Party is not “the government” because attempting that would be pointless.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Nice straw man, but they're asking *the government* to use its authority to keep the Democrats' rivals off the ballot.

[OtisAH]

And here’s where I don’t explain what a “straw man” is.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Perhaps I can explain it in simple terms:

A "private" organization is asking *the government* to do something. You don't care if the government does that thing. You also use misdirection to say that this is simply about the "private" organization.

[Dr. Ed 2]

If you get lost in the NH White Mountains, the various search agencies that have to rescue you will then send you a bill.

A bleepload of money is being spent searching for the idiots who went looking for the Titanic in what appears to have been an unsafe sub.

why shouldn't we bill them?

[Jerry B.]

Or bill their estates if they don't make it. Various agencies are still spending lots of money, either way.

[John F. Carr]

New Hampshire enacted a law specifically providing for billing of rescue efforts caused by negligence of the rescued. Perhaps gross negligence. There is a court decision finding a hiker on Franconia Ridge to be sufficiently culpable. He had a bad hip, if I recall, and was in no shape to complete the hike.

If you don't pay the bill you lose your driver's license. Perhaps Congress could put some strings on federal funding or amend interstate compacts to prohibit suspension of licenses for non-driving acts.

[Mr. Bumble]

In the case of a failed rescue is the estate billed?

[John F. Carr]

I think billing the estate would be legal. I have not heard of it being done. The law is RSA 206:26-bb.

You can buy insurance against your own negligence. A $25 "hike safe" card, a hunting or fishing license, or an off road vehicle or vessel registration, protects you from being billed for rescue. Some revenue from each of these documents is paid into the rescue fund. If you act recklessly you may still be billed.

[Moderation4ever]

I think that you can expect numerous lawsuits for damages to develop from this case. How much money will actually change hands is questionable. Expect OceanGate Expeditions bankruptcy in the near future.

[bernard11]

Well, were they negligent if they accepted the assurances of Oceangate? (Obviously, they were in the common meaning, but does that apply here?)

And why isn't there mandatory insurance for this kind of thing? The idea of mandatory car insurance, as I understand it, is that when you drive there is a chance you will do more damage than you will be able to pay for. So at least some - maybe only a fraction, true - will be covered.

[OtisAH]

The automobile industry is regulated. The “billionaires build toys to do wild things” industry is not.

[Longtobefree]

They have insurance.
Interestingly enough, the 'passengers' are listed as 'crew members', reducing the premium.
All we know for sure is that lawyers will get rich.

[Mr. Bumble]

What type of insurance? Workman's comp?

[Bored Lawyer]

"And why isn’t there mandatory insurance for this kind of thing?"

Who would mandate it? Nemo the king of the ocean?

[Mr. Bumble]

...and who would write it?

[Brett Bellmore]

Back in Michigan, a regular spring event is ice fishermen having to be rescued when the ice breaks up. The Coast Guard issues a public warning that the ice is no longer considered safe, and anybody who needs rescue after that announcement is on the hook for the cost. Before the announcement, it's a regular public service.

[Krayt]

Billing is fine, but billionaires.

And they usually pay tons of taxes. Not including the taxes their employees and businesses pay, because the billionaire existed.

Are you being mean because they are rich? Or don’t like taxes being spent on it (without reimbursement)? A billionaire might look at you and say you don’t even pay real taxes. You pay for a gumball out of a gumball machine.

[Sarcastr0]

Won't someone please think of the billionaires? Really?

For one thing, they can absorb the bill more easily than others.

the taxes their employees and businesses pay, because the billionaire existed.
Because the billionaire existed? That's rather overstating things.

[Theendoftheleft]

Who's going to flip the bill for the Titanic seekers?

[ReaderY]

I will bring up an issue I linked to last week, a lesbian Jewish comedian who claimed that she was acheduled to perform at kosher restaurants in New York, but they canceled her act because the kosher supervisers threatened to pull their supervision certificate if they didn’t cancel.

Whose rights should prevail? She is neither a customer nor an employee.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna946256

[John F. Carr]

I think the restaurant should have the right not to hire her. What New York law says I have no clue.

[Nige]

Presumably they have a right to not hire her, she has a right to complain and question the reasons why the booking was pulled.

[hoppy025]

As much as I hate the Orthodox Jewish mafia, I love to see infighting between Jewish groups.

[Ed Grinberg]

Whose rights should prevail?

As a legal matter -- no idea.
As a matter of right & wrong: The lesbian Jewish comedian has no "right" to perform in someone else's restaurant. Similarly, the restaurants in question have no "right" to the "supervision certificate." From this, it follows that:
1. If "the kosher supervisors" don't want to give their "supervision certificate" to restaurants that allow a lesbian comedian to perform, they should be free to do so.
2. If the restaurants (not wanting to lose their "supervision certificate") no longer want her to perform, they should be free to cancel the booking. (I suppose they may owe her contractual damages.)

[bernard11]

If “the kosher supervisors” don’t want to give their “supervision certificate” to restaurants that allow a lesbian comedian to perform, they should be free to do so.

Wait a minute. I don't agree at all.

The supervisors are supposed to assure that the restaurant is in compliance with the dietary laws, not that it is not doing something unrelated that the supervisors dislike.

If you can show that having a lesbian entertainer somehow made the food trayf, then OK. But if not, then it's none of their business.

Could they withhold supervision if the restaurant put a sign in its window that they disapproved of?

[SRG]

It might be tortious interference.

[ReaderY]

Who determines what the kosher supervisors “are supposed” to do? The state? You? Someone else? Whose job is it?

[Ed Grinberg]

I think I remember a post by Prof. Volokh talking about this general issue. I think I remember him saying that a problem arises when the government (or the courts) try to declare what is and is not "proper" religious doctrine. Now, I am not sure whether he was saying this as a matter of his personal views, or as a matter of established constitutional law.

[Krychek_2]

I think the same issue arose in Israel some years back when Orthodox rabbis were withholding kosher certificates from various establishments that they objected to on moral grounds. If I recall correctly, the Supreme Court of Israel ruled that kosher referred to food only, and if the food was kosher, the rabbis had to issue the certificate. Israel, of course, does not have a First Amendment so I doubt that would be the ruling here.

I wonder if the restaurants might have a defamation claim against the "kosher supervisors" -- by withholding the certificate, you are falsely saying our premises are not kosher, and if our premises are indeed kosher, then you have defamed us. In order to have standing, the restaurants would have to first lose their certification and then sue, which they probably would not want to do.

[John F. Carr]

American courts can not decide if the restaurant is in fact kosher. The described defamation claim would be a loser.

[Krychek_2]

Well, they could cite the Israeli decision as persuasive precedent. The highest court of the Jewish state has determined that kosher applies only to the food.

[hoppy025]

It doesn't matter. Kosher is not a factual thing like whether or not a restaurant has passed a health inspection. Kosher is a matter of faith, and while most Jewish scholars would agree that it is about food only, some might decide it's about general observance of halakha, and the 1st Amendment prohibits American courts from opining on it way or the other.

[SRG]

Not quite true. As a matter of definitional fact, some animals are unambiguously kosher and some are unambiguously not kosher, and some food preparation is likewise. No-one thinks that a pig might be kosher, nor that cows might not be. It's when there is ambiguity or differences that problems arise. For example, according to some rabbis, locusts aren't kosher regardless of the Torah permitting some species, yet according to others, they are. Sturgeon is excluded because it has the wrong kind of scales, according to some rabbis; according to others, scales are not further defined in the Talmud, so any kind of scale is fine, hence sturgeon is kosher. A giraffe should be a kosher animal but some rabbis deem that as it's not mentioned in the Torah, we can't know and so avoid it.

I think a restaurant could legitimately advertise itself as kosher if it complied with some particular set of Jewish laws even if the local Beth Din refused a certificate., but could not if it sold pork. But IANAL and IANAR (though I know somewhat more than the average lay Jew.)

[hoppy025]

I hear what you're saying, but unless something changes last time I researched this, it isn't legally the case. What you're describing is the range of opinions among mainstream Jews.

However, the courts see it as an entirely religious matter outside of judicial review. That means that, if a rabbinical group advertised as kosher a pork product, there couldn't be any court action based on that because the court, by definition, would have to review what "kosher" means, and it would require entangling itself in religion, in contravention of the Establishment Clause.

So, unlike "organic," which is legally regulated in many places, "kosher" cannot be, at least in the United States.

[David Nieporent]

For example, according to some rabbis, locusts aren’t kosher regardless of the Torah permitting some species, yet according to others, they are.

That's not quite right. "Locusts" aren't kosher; that's an English word obviously not used in the Torah. The Torah refers to specific species using Biblical Hebrew, but nobody knows which ones those are. (Well, almost nobody; Yemenite Jews have a historical tradition which they accept as definitively identifying the proper species.) Thus, all rabbis accept that there exist certain species of locusts that are kosher, but all hold that we can't eat any because we can't reliably figure out which ones.

[SRG]

Yes, the Yemenites have the tradition that a species of locust with a black mark on its back looking like a chet is kosher, and according to the - incorrect but traditional (and hence self-reflective) - minhag makes din (custom makes law - a principle both ungrounded and refuted in Yoma) the Yemenis can consume them, but not other Jewish groups who lack the tradition. This of course makes no sense.

As far as "they're ok if we could identify which three species they're talking about", the rabbinic principle of making a fence around the Torah leads to an actual rabbinical prohibition - not merely guidance - on eating any species of locust, and hence in modern parlance they're not kosher.

I wonder how the shechina can descend on an internet convo 🙂

[Bob from Ohio]

"Supreme Court of Israel ruled that kosher referred to food only"

So? Its not the Supreme Court of Jews.

Its just another secular court sticking its nose where it doesn't belong.

[SRG]

We're Jews. We do that, particularly in Jewish matters. Have you never seen Curb Your Enthusiasm?

[Bored Lawyer]

Almost all of the kosher supervising agencies have a provision in their contract that they may refuse or withdraw supervision from an establishment if it engages in some kind of activity the agency considers immoral or contrary to the Torah. It would be an understandable embarrassment if a strip club, say, were to receive a kosher certification, on the theory that, hey, the food is kosher.

About a year ago, the owner/operator of a kosher restaurant in Teaneck, NJ was found to have been sexually harassing his waitresses. The certifying agency (a group of local rabbis) told him that they would pull the certification unless he sold the restaurant (which he did, I know the new owner.)

So, yes, the kosher certifying agencies are within their rights to put that in the contract, and determine for themselves what is or is not moral, same as they determine what is or is not kosher, which at the margins can be debatable.

[Krychek_2]

And just to be clear, my suggestion of a possible defamation action notwithstanding, this is ultimately about whether totally irrational religionists nevertheless have the right to practice their religion. Answer: Yes. The restaurant owners opened their business explicitly catering to the Orthodox Jewish and knowing that the rabbis would therefore have a certain amount of say in how their businesses would be run. They are getting what they bargained for. Legally, that's probably the end of it. That they, and I, think the rabbis are out of their minds, is irrelevant. The only question is whether the restaurant owners might be able to shop around and find a less homophobic rabbi who would give them a certificate.

[David Nieporent]

The only question is whether the restaurant owners might be able to shop around and find a less homophobic rabbi who would give them a certificate.

It doesn't work that way. Yes, the restaurant owners could do that, but the communities in question don't just automatically accept a kosher certification just because someone says, "Yeah, we've got one." It's not just a box to check off, the way it would be if it were a government situation; vendors have to use a hechsher that the community accepts as legitimate, or it's the same as not having one.

[Longtobefree]

Which is not kosher; being a comic, or being a lesbian?

[Theendoftheleft]

Leviticus, as far as I can recall, talks about homosexual men, not lesbians.

[EscherEnigma]

Off the cuff (and as a non-lawyer), this doesn't sound like a question of "rights", just "what's in the contracts?"

Does the comedian's contract specify penalties for cancellation? Does the rabbis' contract specify valid grounds for refusing certification? I can imagine contracts where one party of another violated them and is going to have to pay up. I can also imagine contracts where there's no recourse for anyone.

All that said, the article doesn't make any mention of lawsuits or rights, or any of that. So I suspect this is not being pursued as a matter of rights and laws, but rites and morals. I.E, she is speaking out to change the culture, not suing to win concessions.

[hoppy025]

I'm sure contract with the rabbinical group has language that states that the rabbis, and the rabbis alone, will decide what's kosher, without regard to any third-party standard.

Otherwise, what would be the point?

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Whose rights should prevail?

What specific "rights" are you asserting are in conflict in this case?

[SRG]

Just started scoring SC justices for the 2022 term ending shortly. For each case, 1 point for being in the majority on the outcome (so if you agree with the decision on different grounds, still get 1 point), 1/2 point for agreeing in part and dissenting in part (not going any more granular or specific than that) and 0 for a dissent.

After the first 20 cases, the leaderboard:

1 KBJ 97.5%
2= SS 95.0%
2= EK 95.0%
4= JR 92.5%
4= BK 92.5%
6 ACB 90.0%
7 NG 82.5%
8= CT 75.0%
8= SA 75.0%

Lots can happen over the 2nd half, so keep watching. And now a word from our sponsors.

[Moderation4ever]

Not surprising for most court watchers. The court is agreement more often than not and we tend to pay attention to the public interest cases when the majority of cases are just routine work.

[Mr. Bumble]

"Lots can happen over the 2nd half, so keep watching. "
And watching and watching and watching.

Are they saving all of the remaining decisions for a July 4th weekend dump?

[SRG]

No they're up to #41. I just did the first 20 yesterday. I will do the rest today.

[Mr. Bumble]

I was referring to the remaining decisions.

[Frank Drackman]

Looking like an all SEC final in the College Baseball World's Serious

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

SEC ACADEMIC RANKINGS

Alabama 137
Arkansas 176
Auburn 97
Florida 29
Georgia 49
Kentucky 137
Louisiana State 176
Mississippi 151
Mississippi State 194
Missouri 121
South Carolina 115
Tennessee 115
Texas A&M 67
Vanderbilt 13

Three in the top 50, five in the top 100.

To be kind and gentle, I will spare southerners the humiliation of publication of the rankings of SEC states by educational attainment.

Carry on, clingers. Enjoy the football games, baseball games, and ignorance.

[Cheerio]

Education is a great thing. So is (actual) kindness.

[Randal]

Consider it constructive criticism.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Ignoring (appeasing) ignorance, bigotry, and superstition (advanced at the expense of reason) is not kind.

[Frank Drackman]

So I went to Auburn, where did you go, you fuck?
Ooops, Unkinder/Ungentler Frank there.
So where did you major in Physical Ed-jew-ma-cation "Coach"??
I'll take a non-response as permission to find the most Bitterer/Klingerer (Klinger? Univeristy of Toledo??, probably a little too high-brow for "Coach")

Frank

[Frank Drackman]

How many of the SEC schools had a Coach convicted of eight counts of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, seven counts of indecent assault, one count of criminal intent to commit indecent assault, nine counts of unlawful contact with minors, 10 counts of corruption of minors and 10 counts of endangering the welfare of children.

[SRG]

Jones v Hendrix

Jones is convicted of a firearm offence. Years later, it's decided the law under which he's convicted required more to gain a conviction than was present in his case. Jones goes to court, but AEDPA apparently requires that he fuck off. Supremes also tell Jones to fuck off, because he may be legally innocent but them's the breaks. Good lengthy dissent from KJB.

[EscherEnigma]

Yes, the court being more concerned with paperwork then innocence is a bit of a trend.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I’ve had something of a look at this issue, and I would be willing to venture the following:

-The point of habeas corpus, for all the technical terminology, is to get a prompt judicial hearing where the prisoner can challenge the *legal* (maybe factual, but probably not) basis of his imprisonment – issues like whether the “crime” for which he’s being held isn’t inherently a crime at all.

-If he’s already had a judicial hearing, habeas corpus would (with exceptions here irrelevant) be redundant and this great writ shouldn’t be a vehicle to try the same issues twice.

-BUT if the first hearing is hampered by a bad legal precedent from some higher court, declaring something to be a crime which isn’t inherently so, then, after the bad precedent is acknowledged on high, the prisoner should have a hearing which isn’t hampered by the bad precedent. And if habeas corpus is the only way to get such a hearing, then use habeas corpus.

-These rights are based on the Constitution, and while the precedents go every which-a way, I’d award the tie to the pro-liberty view.

-So Congress can't limit this right.

[SRG]

Prof Somin has just posted an article here on this, Note the hypothetical leading to the bizarre result that this case favours someone who didn't file a timely petition earlier.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The liberal-libertarian mainstream can hope this decision is reconsidered (and likely reversed) after the Court is enlarged, which would diminish the influence of faux libertarian conservatives.

[hoppy025]

Yeah, KJB is only concerned with unfair firearms convictions when it's a fellow black whose ox is gored. She doesn't seem concerned with the 2nd Amendment rights of law abiding whites.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Ketanji is the Beyoncé of the Supreme Court…all of the others are Destiny’s Children!

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

THE VOLOKH CONSPIRACY

This white, male, conservative
blog has operated for

ZERO (0)

days without using a vile racial slur and
has published vile racial slurs in at least

SEVENTEEN (17)

different contexts (that is 17 different contexts,
not 17 racial slurs -- many of the discussions
featured multiple racial slurs) during 2023 (so far).

(This assessment does not address the number
of homophobic, antisemitic, misogynistic,
xenophobic, and Islamophobic slurs, and other
incessant expressions of bigotry, that constitute
a signature element of the Volokh Conspiracy.)

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

ON MY MIND: The great Wagner-soprano Gabriele Schnaut has died at the age of 72. She had an exceptional gift for playing villains:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgLxr0HUjh0&t=918s

[Armchair Lawyer]

Just got done reading the testimony of the IRS whistleblower before Congress. This needs to be read.

https://justthenews.com/sites/default/files/2023-06/Whistleblower%201%20Transcript_Redacted.pdf

A few notes.

1. This case desperately needs a special counsel, like few others. The political protection going on is legendary.
2. Weiss, the US attorney has repeatedly requested Special Counsel status....he's been denied it.
3. Because of that, many of the tax evasion and failure to pay taxes charges needed to be filed in the District of Columbia, or Central District of California....Which is where the IRS criminal investigators sent their recommended charges
4. But those had recently Biden-appointed US attorneys...both of whom, unsurprisingly, declined to press charges.
5. Simple search warrants for documents by the IRS, which met the probable cause standards were blocked by Federal Prosecutors.
6. Hunter Biden STILL OWES hundreds of thousands in unpaid US taxes, which will likely not be recovered. Basically stealing from the US.

The entire thing does need to be read by people. It's stunning.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Don't forget that part where the AUSA told Hunters lawyers of an impending warrant to search his storage unit.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Hunter Biden has my eternal gratitude for conning a billion dollars out of China…Trump is a big flappy pusssy that didn’t even take any action against China when they unleashed a bioweapon into America!?!

[Frank Drackman]

You're a big flappy pussy

[David Nieporent]

Because of that, many of the tax evasion and failure to pay taxes charges needed to be filed in the District of Columbia, or Central District of California

No. Because of the Constitution. Whether the guy was a special counsel does not determine where charges are brought.

[SRG]

OK, and welcome back to the second half of SC rankings! Lots of excitement, and a shocker or two! Let's have a look how they stand after 45 cases.

1 BK 96.7%
2 JR 94.4%
3 ACB 93.3%
4 KBJ 92.2%
5 SS 91.1%
6 EK 88.9%
7 NG 78.9%
8= CT 77.8%
8= SA 77.8%

Brett K has zoomed up to the top and is now the central justice of the court! Roberts is not far behind him, followed by Amy CB. Not too far behind are the three liberals. Bringing up the rear - well behind, and now obviously the fringe of the Court, are Gorsuch and Thomalito.

So far,
9-0 25
8-1 5
7-2 5
6-3 6
5-4 4
(counting concurring in part/dissenting in part as 1/2, so on no occasion did only one justice concur in part).

Well, we're not done yet, so tune in for the last few decisions for 2022! And now far too many words from our sponsor about a drug you don't need for a disease you've never heard of..

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Kavanaugh only cares about one drug—Rehnquist’s stash of quaaluds that getting on the Supreme Court gives one access to.

[SRG]

He likes beer as well.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Trump seriously considered pulling his nomination after that performance…George W Bush called up Republican senators and got him confirmed. Trump got outplayed by Bush…what a moron.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Hey did you see how your namesake got all his charges dropped by the Democrat DOJ?

Must be nice to be a Democrat Jew.

[Frank Drackman]

it's "Quaaludes" you sad excuse for a wrinkled Scrotum (OK, Frank way not Kindler/Gentler here) and it's been a "Schedule 1" controlled substance since 1985 (you know, right up there with Methamphetamine, Heroin, and Marriage-a-Juan-a)
Willy Rehnquist was into the Ethchlorvynol, a GABA-ergic sedative and hypnotic/soporific medication first developed by Pfizer in the 1950s. Went off the market in 1999 (being replaced by the "non Addictive" Xanax, but it's still only Schedule IV, so if you can find someone to make it for you, your doctor can prescribe it.
Maybe just get a ACD and give yourself a few shocks across the temples

Frank

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Have you ever taken Ambien?? I took it once and I had forgotten to take out the dog and so I did and the world started spinning but I didn’t get nauseous…that must have been what ludes were like which is why Disco balls would enhance the effects.

[VinniUSMC]

How dare everyone on the high court not agree with each other 100% of the time!? Dissent is verboten!

[Sarcastr0]

...the fuck?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Why hasn't anything been done about the Census "error" that disenfranched millions of people and unjustly awarded Democrats 5 additional House seats?

[SRG]

Link?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

https://www.newsweek.com/outrageous-republic-distorting-census-error-youve-heard-nothing-about-opinion-1748178

[SRG]

Possibly you've not heard anything because between Hans Spakovsky and Real Clear Investigations, no-one took the report seriously, not even the GOP. Or possibly the GOP didn't want to bring it up because that would expose their own efforts to manipulate the outcomes.

Where are the GOP lawsuits?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

What was the source document used by RCI?

[SRG]

They link to Pew Research, which said

There was a record undercount of Hispanics. The census count of more than 62 million Hispanics still missed one-in-twenty of them. That is more than 3 million Hispanics, or about four times the number missed in 2010. The historic pattern of high undercount rates also continued in 2020 for the Black population, American Indians and Alaska Natives on reservations, and people who identified as “Some other race,” the vast majority of whom are Hispanic.

The non-Hispanic White population also was overcounted in 2020, as it was in 2010. In 2020, the overcount of White Americans was about 3.1 million, out of a total population of about 192 million.

Americans younger than 50, especially young children, were undercounted. Americans ages 50 and older – a group that includes a disproportionate number of White adults – were overcounted.

So if GOP states were adversely affected, unless they gerrymandered districts further, nonetheless they would have had to create more Democratic districts.

Presumably you regard Weingarten as a Court Jew, so you tolerate him.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

“While the Bureau, in conducting its Post-Enumeration Survey, only found a relatively small net undercount in the total U.S. population of 0.24%—or approximately 780,000 people—it also found major overcount/undercount errors when it comes to the 50 states.”

Weird you missed them citing the Bureau’s own report.

So so weird. And you have me completely wrong. Like homo's, trannies, and darkies, I don't tolerate any Jews.

[Nige]

But if I call him homophobic, transphobic, racist and anti-semitic I'm the bad guy.

[ducksalad]

It's a minor point, but in Texas Hispanic majority districts aren't necessarily safe Democratic. It's entirely possible our legislature could have drawn the extra seat Republican.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Imagine how proud of themselves and inspired those Oceangate tourists felt when they saw that Diverse Sub Pilot! Diversity is Great! Hashtag WomansPower

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Do any of you Wokesters think that hashtag DiversityIsOurStrength will ever be stronger than a hull?

[Nige]

Amazing. Do you think hashtag wokemindvirus would have done any better?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

In an unbelievably coincidental coincidence, the same US Attorney laying the hammer on the J6 tourists spent 2014 and 2015 blocking action on Hunter.

It's like the more partisan and evil you are, the higher up the ranks of government you climb.

See Andrew Weisman

[BravoCharlieDelta]

"In October 2019, the FBI became aware that a repair shop had a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden and that the laptop might contain evidence of a crime. The FBI verified its authenticity in November of 2019 by matching the device number against Hunter Biden’s Apple iCloud ID"

So the FBI and CIA knew Hunter's laptop wasn't Russian disinfo but they interfered in our election anyways.

How is it tolerable that the Democrats in the FBI and CIA can intentionally manipulate domestic elections? Out in the open?

[David Nieporent]

1) The FBI is not the CIA.

2) Once again, you’re too stupid to understand the issues. Whether there was a device out there that had belonged to Hunter Biden was utterly irrelevant to the point. The New York Post did not have that device. The New York Post had an image of a hard drive that purported to be from that device. Whether that image was an accurate copy of the laptop’s hard drive (as well as whether the hard drive itself contained only authentic content) was in no way answered by saying, “This laptop’s serial number shows that it was Hunter Biden’s.”

3) Once again, you're too stupid to understand the issues. Nothing that happened was the FBI or CIA "interfering" in the election. You're just doing the idiot I Know You Are But What Am I?, as you're doing with the term "whistleblower," because those terms tripped up Trump.

[M L]

History will record the most important fact about ME TOO is that Aziz Ansari lost his career over an awkward date, and no one lost a thing for going to epstein island.

https://twitter.com/FromKulak/status/1671908866668343296

[Nige]

METOO was about individual women's experiences - the individual women who were victims of Epstein Island can hardly be held responsible for the lack of investigations into his guests. Always a new way to blame the victims.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Turns out the Navy knew the sub imploded four days ago but the Biden admin sat on it to wipe away the news from today.

What genuinely evil vile monsters the Federal government is.

[ducksalad]

Hate to be like this, but do you have a source for that motive?

Assuming they did know, there could be good motives to sit on it: If they were only 90% sure about the implosion they wouldn’t want to risk a mistaken announcement, but after 96 hours everyone knows the crew is dead anyway.

[Michael P]

Yeah, the delay in that doesn't sound good. The listening system is reportedly top secret. I sure hope revealing this level of performance doesn't compromise the national security by giving hints about the capabilities of national defense platforms.

[Voize]

I suspect there was serious discussion about whether to go public at all, and expose something about the capability of that monitoring system, given that it wouldn't have any effect on the outcome.

[mydisplayname]

Where would America be without Honest Abe and Honest Hillary?

More specifically, did the actions of either liar advance or hinder the causes of liberty? Lincoln is directly responsible for the American Vichy Amendments and Clinton is directly responsible for the wrongful impeachment of a leader selected by the people: is it in the interest of liberty for the will of the people and prevailing law to be confounded?

[santamonica811]

Clinton responsible for Trump's impeachment? Wow . . . started the crack-smoking a bit early in the week, methinks.

[Nige]

It’s worded so that it could be taken that Bill Clinton was responsible for his own impeachment, which is the only way it makes sense anyway.

[David Nieporent]

No; read the first sentence of the comment: it's about Hillary, not Bill.

[Nige]

Ixnay on the Ilaryhay.

[David Nieporent]

https://twitter.com/tedfrank/status/1672045826518941700?s=20

[Nige]

Can't believe that leaked. Murder everyone involved immediately!

[Martinned]

Yesterday the European Court for Human Rights gave judgment in R.K. v. Hungary.

76. The Court finds that the circumstances of the present case reveal legislative gaps and serious deficiencies that left the applicant in a situation of distressing uncertainty vis-à-vis his private life and the recognition of his identity. As stated above, this situation, for which the national authorities bore sole responsibility, is having long-term negative consequences for the applicant’s mental health. The foregoing considerations are sufficient to enable the Court to conclude that the legal framework in force at the material time in the respondent State did not provide “quick, transparent and accessible procedures” for the examination of a request to change the registered sex of transgender people on birth certificates (see paragraph 57 above, with reference to X v. the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, cited above, § 70).

77. In the light of the above considerations, the Court (...) concludes that there has been a violation of Article 8 of the Convention on account of the lack of a regulatory framework ensuring the right to respect for the applicant’s private life.

https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-225330

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, looks like it's now possible Ukraine might win. Wagner Group and the regular Russian military are now fighting each other. And I don't see it ending easily, as they say, "If you strike at the King, you must kill him."

Apparently the the mercenary group got tired of being used as expendable shock troops, and maybe the checks had started bouncing.