Monday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[Krychek_2]

I am going to make a prediction that Putin, Prigozhin, or both, will be dead within the week. If I turn out to be right, how shall we celebrate?

And I don’t see how Putin continues to prosecute the war in Ukraine. He needs lots of warm bodies from Wagner to serve as cannon fodder but he can’t trust Wagner at this point and doesn’t dare give them that much power. His own army obviously isn’t up to the task. So what does he do at this point?

Meanwhile, my favorite satire columnist is reporting that NATO is dropping tons of popcorn into the Ukraine so the Ukrainians can better watch the show.

[Martinned]

I'd take that bet. This sort of mess goes in stops and starts.

[Tom for equal rights]

Putin needs to go ( or get dead).

though the Putin's replacement will likely emerge to be much worse.
Just like Sadamn and Ghadafi needed to go, yet their replacements turned out to be worse

[ducksalad]

"If I turn out to be right, how shall we celebrate?"

If it's Putin dead, you might celebrate by checking that your go-bag is up to date and maybe popping a couple potassium iodides. Just until things settle down.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I would stock up on Iodine pills.
I wouldn't put it past either side to lob a nuke or two....

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Russia is a deplorable country and a stain on our world but the unraveling of its political system would involve a wide range of outcome.

[not guilty]

What's with the italics??

[Kazinski]

Monday is italics day.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Someone forgot to close a tag.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Josh put italics in his title and forgot to close the tag.

"Will Massachusetts v. EPA get the Lemon v. Kurtzman quiet interment?"

He didn't close the italics after Kurtzman.

F'n Josh man.

[Kazinski]

Well step up and take one for the team and close the tag for us.

[John F. Carr]

Blackman wrote <i> instead of </i> after "Lemon v. Kurtzman" so any page which contains his post title is misformatted.

[Kazinski]

I doubt that. His post is below ours in the page, and most pages limit the scope of tags to frames..

Edit: I left a bold tag open above to see what would happen, the commenting software closed it for me, at the end of my comment.

[ducksalad]

We'll blame Blackman anyway.

[Brett Bellmore]

Which, ironically, stops any of the commenters in the thread following his post from fixing the problem themselves...

[not guilty]

With the attention being paid to the prosecution of Donald Trump in Florida for his mishandling of documents at Mar-a-Lago, I am encouraged to see that the investigation of the scheme to overturn the 2020 election result is not being neglected by the Special Counsel.

CNN reports that some fake electors have been granted use immunity and are being compelled to testify before a grand jury in Washington. https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/23/politics/special-counsel-fake-electors-immunity-testimony-jan-6/index.html The bogus elector scheme was the linchpin of Trump's and John Eastman's importuning Mike Pence to unilaterally reject legitimate slates of electors.

Under 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2), any attempt to corruptly obstruct, influence, or impede any official proceeding of Congress is criminalized to the same extent as a successful endeavor to do so. Subsection (k) of that statute criminalizes conspiracy to accomplish that objective.

Trump and Eastman are toast.

[John F. Carr]

There are toast if they can be proved to have been criminally responsible for the fake electors. What I have seen of Eastman's correspondence shows a conspiracy to lobby Pence to throw out enough votes to eliminate a electoral college majority. The mention of "alternate" electors comes quite late as a report on something that had already happened, not something that Trump and Eastman would cause to happen.

That said, the fake electors did not spring up spontaneously and somebody higher up is going to prison over this. I have doubts it's Trump or Eastman.

[not guilty]

That the bogus electors had submitted fraudulent slates -- which Trump and Eastman knew to be fraudulent when they entreated Pence to unilaterally disregard legitimate slates contrary to 3 U.S.C. § 15 -- goes a long way toward proving that Trump and Eastman acted "corruptly" for purposes of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2). They knew that their proposed course of action entailed resort to extralegal, fraudulent means, for the purpose of securing to Trump a benefit to which he was not entitled -- a second term in office.

Mens rea matters.

[Commenter_XY]

Ok, so not guilty, you know I am going to ask. You're a criminal defense lawyer. Pretend for a moment, POTUS Trump called you and said: not guilty, you're the lawyer for me! I've read your analysis at Volokh Conspiracy, and you're the guy. Name your price to defend me.

(and pretend you agree for millions of dollars in fees upfront - not taxed)

What's your argument (strategy) to get him acquitted, or a verdict of 'not guilty'? 🙂

[not guilty]

Perhaps Donald Trump’s best hope is for Judge Loose Cannon to rule in favor of the prosecution on all pretrial matters of significance (so as not to give rise to any interlocutory appeal), only to exclude much of the prosecution’s proffered evidence at trial (after jeopardy attached with the swearing of the jury), then at the close of the government’s proof at trial, to grant a defense motion under Fed.R.Crim.P. 29(a) for judgment of acquittal. The granting of such a motion at that stage would be unreviewable.

This trial judge is perhaps the only member of the federal judiciary so unprincipled and lawless as to act in that manner.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

If Judge Cannon were so inclined -- I hope and tend to doubt she is, and sense she should be provided an opportunity to rehabilitate her reputation, although she has generated ample cause for concern -- I figure the prosecutors would be ready with a mandamus petition (or something similar) designed to get her off the case during the trial. Nothing so dramatic as the jury switch in the Untouchables, but perhaps something just as effective.

[not guilty]

It's not exactly on point, but the Eleventh Circuit has opined in dictum that a trial judge's sua sponte recusal after jeopardy has attached, when properly exercised according to any of the requirements of 28 U.S.C. § 455, constitutes "manifest necessity" for declaring a mistrial, such that double jeopardy would not bar a retrial. United States v. Kelly, 888 F.2d 732, 746 n.24 (11th Cir. 1989).

I would think the same would be true if the Court of Appeals, pursuant to a writ of mandamus during trial, ordered reassignment to a different trial judge upon remand.

The Eleventh Circuit has previously ordered reassignment to a different district judge in the case of multiple reversals of a trial judge in the same case. United States v. Gupta, 572 F.3d 878, 892 (11th Cir. 2009); United States v. Martin, 455 F.3d 1227, 1242 (11th Cir. 2006); United States v. Torkington, 874 F.2d 1441, 1447 (11th Cir. 1989) (per curiam). The Court of Appeals has twice reversed Judge Cannon's rulings interfering with the pre-indictment investigation of the Trump case.

[not guilty]

That having been said, mandamus remains a significant obstacle to surmount. The writ is a “drastic and extraordinary” remedy “reserved for really extraordinary causes.” Cheney v. United States District Court for the District of Columbia, 542 U.S. 367, 380 (2004), quoting Ex parte Fahey, 332 U.S. 258, 259–260 (1947). Three conditions must be satisfied before it may issue. First, the party seeking issuance of the writ must have no other adequate means to attain the relief he desires. the party seeking issuance of the writ must have no other adequate means to attain the relief he desires. Third, even if the first two prerequisites have been met, the issuing court, in the exercise of its discretion, must be satisfied that the writ is appropriate under the circumstances. Cheney, 542 U.S. 380-381.

[Bwaaah]

Yes yes. Judges should craft their decisions to "rehabilitate [their] reputations." Nothing wrong there. Maybe we should publish a Reputation Score for judges so they can see how they're doing and know when to shift course?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

After getting embarrassed more than once by the circuit court of appeals' derisive reversals, and justly excoriated by informed observers who predicted her humiliation, a relatively green judge might reasonably seek rehabilitation of reputation.

If you wish to try to demonstrate soundness of her dumpy Trumpy decisions, please publish your work.

[not guilty]

Judge Loose Cannon was reversed twice by the Eleventh Circuit -- first for refusing to grant a partial stay of her order prohibiting the DOJ from using documents in its criminal investigation and then on the merits of having wrongfully exercised jurisdiction of the lawsuit at all. Not only were all six members of the two panels appointed by Republican presidents, four were Trump appointees.

[not guilty]

Judge Cannon's prior rulings in Trump's favor were all the more egregious in that Trump was never required to submit any evidence whatsoever. His pleadings were unverified. He never submitted any declaration or affidavit in any way, shape or form in support of his claims of entitlement to relief on the merits. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/64911367/trump-v-united-states/?page=2

[Dr. Ed 2]

Am I correct that switching juries, even back then, was not permitted?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I hope and tend to doubt she is

That should be "hope not."

[hoppy025]

Judge Cannon is 100 times the judge that Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Ketanji Jackson are.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Get an education, clinger. Start with standard English, focusing on tense.

[Dr. Ed 2]

And we can do the same thing with the biased judges in DC.

[Kleppe]

"This trial judge is perhaps the only member of the federal judiciary so unprincipled and lawless as to act in that manner."

Emmet Sullivan is a person who still exists.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The defense arguments (well, remotely persuasive arguments) available to Eastman and perhaps Trump could resemble those available to Robert Bowers.

Leniency at sentencing. Pardon. Hope for a Rapture. That could be about it.

If the evidence and presentation are anything like the prosecutor's work with respect to the documents case, the toast will be burnt.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

John Roberts and Kavanaugh most likely discussed all of these issues with Eastman in 2004 as Bush was fully prepared to steal that election like he stole the 2000 election.

[Krayt]

He didn’t steal it. You can’t change the counting rules after the election, to make your guy win. That is stealing an election.

That one county screwed up, and some 18,000 excess people curiously voted for Pat Robertson instead of Gore, due to that alignment confusion. This is unfortunate, and points to an error, but that, too, cannot be reversed or re-voted, to make your guy win.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

No, had Florida just used common sense to conduct a statewide recount then Gore would have won. It’s actually inconsequential who won that election in 2000 because all of the major liberal policies Gore advocated ended up the law of the land. So the only consequences of Bush winning were $5 trillion and 7000 Gold Star from the GWOT…so Bush’s unnecessary debt increase hasn’t really impacted America yet…although obviously I would rather it not be on the books.

[not guilty]

"It’s actually inconsequential who won that election in 2000 because all of the major liberal policies Gore advocated ended up the law of the land. So the only consequences of Bush winning were $5 trillion and 7000 Gold Star from the GWOT"

Hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis would disagree. Gore would never have invaded Iraq because of daddy issues.

There were also a couple of consequences of Bush II winning named John Roberts and Samuel Alito. Granted, they were nominated in the second Bush term, but there would have been no second term if not for the 2000 result.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Muslims love killing other Muslims and so that brought joy to their world. I only care about $$$ and Gold Stars but in 2002 the military overwhelmingly supported Bush and so I’m moving forward with my life.

[not guilty]

Pat Robertson? Did you mean Pat Buchanan?

[not guilty]

[duplicate comment deleted]

[Magister]

Rather than let Florida determine what the rules for counting were, the conservatives at SCOTUS jumped in to prevent that. In some counts subsequently done, Gore won.

The Republicans instituted a riot in 200 ("the Brooks Brothers riot") to prevent counting votes, and an insurrection in 2021 to try to prevent counting votes. It's like they don't actually like counting votes, unless they get to choose which votes to count.

[Brett Bellmore]

That's kind of comprehensively misleading.

1) The Florida Supreme court actually refused to set rules for counting, leading to wide variations in how ballots were counted, even in the same counting location. This was the EP violation that the federal Court agreed on, 7-2.

2) It was later determined by the media group analyzing the ballots that Gore might barely have won if the ballots had been counted in a way nobody proposed at the time.

3) The Brooks Brothers riot wasn't to prevent counting votes, it was to prevent the vote count from being moved out of the view of elections observers. Then the Palm Beach authorities decided that if they had to count with people watching, there wasn't really any point in continuing.

4) The FBI organized a riot in 2021 to roll up the Proud Boys. (Half the leadership were FBI plants!) Republicans certainly didn't want a riot, the optics were so bad that Trump had to give up on his election challenges.

[Magister]

Florida never got a chance to determine how the counting should go.

Your claim in #4 indicates that you should seek medical treatment for your delusional state. Donald Trump desperately wanted his insurrection; Republicans who reject it get ejected from the party.

[Kazinski]

One of the big points of contention in the Hunter Biden wrist slap is Merrick Garland's assertion that there were no constraints on US Attorney David Weiss' charging decisions including what jurisdiction to file charges.

IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley has provided contemporaneous evidence to back his statement that Weiss was very clear that he did not have charging authority. The email is from October 7, 2022:

“Weiss stated that he is not the deciding person on whether charges are filed. I believe this to be a huge problem–inconsistent with DOJ position and Merrick Garland testimony.”

The email was copied to Shapley's boss, the IRS special agent in charge of the Washington Field Office, who also attended the meeting and confirmed that the account of the meeting where Weiss made the statement was accurate.

You can see the emails here:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/06/on-merrick-garland-a-smoking-gun.php

You can see why Shapley, hearing Merrick Garland saying one thing to Congress, and hearing something completely different from the US Attorney in private meetings would feel the need to become a whistleblower.

Of course there are a couple of explanations that would absolve Garland from lying to Congress: 1) Weiss was lying to IRS investigators and he had no intention of charging Hunter, and was trying to put them off. 2) Garland's Deputy AG's told Garland that Weiss had charging authority, but told Weiss he didn't, but of course that means Weiss was in on the cover-up because he knew what Garland said to Congress.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

So Garland perjured himself in front of Congress, which just a few years ago WAS THE GREATEST THREAT TO OUR SACRED DEMOCRACY THE US EVER FACED, and now, apparently, has gone back to being a huge massive nothingburger that any ol' Democrat can do whenever they wish.

[Michael P]

Under 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2), any attempt to corruptly obstruct, influence, or impede any official proceeding of Congress is criminalized to the same extent as a successful endeavor to do so. Subsection (k) of that statute criminalizes conspiracy to accomplish that objective.

Garland and his toadies are toast.

[not guilty]

How so? To what official proceeding of Congress do you refer? ("An 'official proceeding' under § 1512(c)(2) does not include any and all series of actions before Congress; rather, the proceeding must be akin to a formal hearing." https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21153549-us-v-sandlin-motion-to-dismiss-opinion-and-order p. 7.) What facts do you claim evince anyone having acted "corruptly"? Who, if anyone, do you surmise conspired with Merrick Garland?

Please respond with specifics as to each element. Ipse dixit doesn't feed the bulldog.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Is your argument really that when Garland lied to Congress it was an "official proceeding" and therefore he didn't commit perjury?

Aren't you just a paralegal and not a practicing, licensed attorney?

[Michael P]

Its argument seems to be that, somehow, Congress taking testimony from a federal officer regarding USG activity is *not* "akin to a formal hearing". It's not a serious argument.

[not guilty]

I haven”t argued anything here. I have challenged Michael P to put meat on the bones of his facile allegations. So far he has not done so. (Why am I unsurprised?)

I practiced law for 28 years prior to retiring. In the process I learned a bit about the Socratic method.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

28 years of practicing law and the only thing I've seen with regards to your argumentation & rhetoric skills is how much you like to rely on describing an argument, instead of actually making them.

[Mr. Bumble]

Are you implying he needs more practice?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

I'm implying my degree of shock at finding out he was an actual, practicing attorney, given his argumentation, rhetoric, and reasoning skills demonstrated so frequently on this blog.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, we're not paying him...

[not guilty]

BravoCharlieDelta, one of us knows how to parse a criminal statute and apply law to facts.

It isn't you.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

And the other one of us knows argumentation.

[not guilty]

Au contraire. Hyperbole and ipse dixit assertions do not constitute argumentation.

When have you supported your blather with actual legal authorities? I can't recall such an occasion.

[not guilty]

BravoCharlieDelta seems to subscribe to the BMW theory of argument -- bigotry, moaning and whining.

[not guilty]

Still waiting, Michael P.

If you can't run with the big dogs, stay on the porch.

[Michael P]

I have better things to do than engage with a yapping Chihuahua.

[Sarcastr0]

You throw out 'Garland and his toadies are toast' and then retreat when called out, yapping all the way.

[not guilty]

Michael P, you have alleged that Merrick Garland and possibly (unnamed) others have violated 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2). When I challenged you to provide supporting facts, you ran away like Usain Bolt in a 40 yard dash.

Why can't you admit that you are full of shit?

[jb]

Weiss himself has said that he had complete charging authority in his letter to Jim Jordan just a few weeks ago, so if you think Garland is lying to Congress you need to believe Weiss is in on it too somehow.

Most likely explanation rather than either of your hypotheses: Shapley misunderstood something Weiss said.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Also possible: Shapley is attempting to conduct a partisan crusade.

Maybe a disaffected clinger?

[Theendoftheleft]

More probable: your officials are a corrupt mafia.

Keep showing the world you're a banana republic now, AIDS!

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Shapley is reported to be a registered Republican. If true, that is not nearly dispositive, but it was predictable and is a worthy precipitate of additional inquiry.

[Theendoftheleft]

Did I fucking distinguish between your red and blue teamers, AIDS?

[Armchair Lawyer]

So, if you read the full testimony from both whistleblowers, this wasn't a "one off" comment. It's pretty clear Weiss did not have full authority over the investigation, based on the actions and comments within.

https://justthenews.com/sites/default/files/2023-06/Whistleblower%201%20Transcript_Redacted.pdf

Given there are two whistleblowers here, with similar stories, and details that can be very well checked and verified, it's unlikely to be "entirely made up."

I think the best argument you can make is that Weiss was very temporarily given "full authority" to make charging decisions. Perhaps just after the Whiteblowers were reavealed.

Let me know when you read the entire transcript for a more valuable discussion.

[bernard11]

This is mostly evidence that Shapley thinks he heard something.

From the Powerline article:

1) Is the evidence against Joe Biden piling up so fast that he may be unable to finish his term, as the Democrats have planned?

2) Is there now enough evidence to begin impeachment proceedings against Merrick Garland?

What a bunch of RW jackasses.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Read this Bernard.

https://justthenews.com/sites/default/files/2023-06/Whistleblower%201%20Transcript_Redacted.pdf

[bernard11]

When you have a link to a site not run by a serial fabricator, let me know.

Meanwhile, I decline to give John Solomon any clicks.

[David Nieporent]

It's just a link to a congressional transcript; it has none of Solomon's content.

[Nige]

Jim Jordan whistleblowers really are a special bunch. This is theatre for the sorts of Republicans who bought the Big Lie about the election. Now they're convinced a whole rake of things have been proven with evidence, when it's the same quality of evidence that was used in the Kraken court cases.

[Sarcastr0]

It's a helluva thing - the stories aren't being picked up anywhere but the right-wing fever swamps so there isn't even any debunking.

Which will make the usual suspects pick up and latch onto these purestrain partisan alternate facts, but no one else.

And so the gap between the right and reality grows further.

[jb]

There's been pretty extensive coverage of the whistleblower story, including documenting Garland's statements on the topic.

The problem is that the right wing media bubble just blindly assumes that whatever is Shapley is asserting must be correct and ergo both Garland and Weiss must be lying and spin the entire narrative in that direction.

I do find that sometimes the "conservative" commentariat on the site raises "news stories" that don't seem to be carried by any mainstream outlet and these are almost universally dumb when you apply even the slightest scrutiny to them, but I don't think this particular story falls into that category.

[Sarcastr0]

Sorry yeah - I'm not counting stenography, I should have specified analysis.

[Kazinski]

Well you know what they say dating back at least to the Clinton administration: if you want a robust press to investigate wrongdoing, and keep an administration in line then you should vote Republican, because the pres is going to be sitting on its hands all 4 years of a democratic administration.

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, you never see the press printing negative stuff on Obama or Biden or Hillary!

The right has been working the refs for ages; that's all that means.

[Voize]

Garland reiterated to the Senate Judiciary Oversight committee in March that Weiss had "full authority to make those kind of referrals you're (Grassley) talking about or to bring cases in other jurisdictions if he feels it's necessary". Weiss confirmed in his June 7 letter to House Judiciary that "I have been granted ultimate authority over this matter, including responsibility for deciding where, when, and whether to file charges".

Yet Shapley claims that last October "Weiss stated that he is not the deciding person on whether charges are filed".

It may be a mistake in there somewhere rather than a lie. If Weiss had authority to either make a referral to another US Attorney or to override them and bring charges on his own initiative, it would be up to his discretion how to proceed. If he then chose the referral option he would indeed not be the "deciding person", but it would be because he chose to leave that decision to another office and not because his hands were tied.

Garland has said he will support Weiss testifying to Congress on this after the matter is settled so with a little patience we may get the full story.

[Armchair Lawyer]

I think the question is, when was Weiss granted full authority?

Also, did Weiss have full authority over the investigation?

[darkknight9]

I find the lack of non italics disturbing.

[Stephen Lathrop]

[Kazinski]

I posted this link to a video earlier showing a group of right wing rally participants ejecting, assaulting and demasking a group of uniformed masked "Patriot Front" posers that tried to attend the rally.

https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1672981094902185986?s=20

Of course there is a lot of speculation that the patriot front and its clones, are feds or astroturfed paid demonstrators trying to decredit real conservatives. The first time I am aware a like this showed up they were trying to sabotage Glenn Younkin's gubernatorial campaign, and were paid by the Lincoln Project.

But now two of the demasked "patriot front" attendees have been tentatively identified. I'm not going to name their names or post any links, its not hard to find if you want to do your own research.

One has been identified as a former member of the proud boys, and a of the patriot front.

The other tentatively identified participant has a decidedly different background, he's a California University.student majoring in political science, and is a member of a Jewish fraternity.

So to pose a question, what do you think of the tactic of demasking and exposing people who show up masked and part of an organized group at demonstrations, both left right?

I know its illegal, but I can't say I disapprove. I certainly support peoples right to anonymous speech, but when they are using masks to either get away with violent activity or espouse racist and Nazi views and intentionally try to project those views on others that don't share them its hard to be too upset about it.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

That young White Supremacist Jew also aspired to a future working with the government.

You can't get anymore Federal than that.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

What state was this in?

[Kazinski]

Portland autonomous zone.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I see that Oregon no longer *requires* people to wear masks.

Maybe now they can *forbid* it.

[Kazinski]

I ain't talking about legal niceties.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I am - it's a legal blog.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

It was fun watching those Federals getting their shit kicked in by MAGA Patriots.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Just as much fun as watching better Americans kick the everlasting, bigoted, half-educated shit out of right-wingers in the modern American culture war for the most recent half-century of American progress?

That has inflicted damage the Volokh Conspirators and their fans are still whining and whimpering about every day.

[Theendoftheleft]

Silly, stupid AIDS. Your side doesn't breed. Yours is an evolutionarily inferior meme and all your values are going to die.

What's the point of regurgitating the word 'bigot' when it's been repeatedly shown that you are one yourself? Granted that you're a moron, are you also brain damaged?

You're here EVERY day. You're the blog's biggest fan, AIDS. You're like the gimp in Pulp Fiction.

[Randal]

You think the kids of rednecks grow up wanting to be rednecks? We'll replenish our ranks with your kids.

[Theendoftheleft]

I don’t live in your garbage can of a country, Randal.

You’re fundamentally dependent upon outsiders to immigrate precisely because they don’t believe what you believe, which demonstrates why your value system is inferior and unsustainable. You’re also going to lose this cold war and people aren’t going to want to move to your country as much any more -- especially as it gets poorer, more fragmented, and more violent.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

It's called bright flight.

The smart, ambitious young people with character depart the can't-keep-up backwaters at high school graduation, seeking the education, opportunity, prosperity, and modernity that must be found elsewhere. In general, they never return, leaving behind a concentrating pool of ignorance, resentment, bigotry, superstition, indolence, addiction, dysfunction, and economical inadequacy.

The result is a population that sticks with declining towns and dying industries against all evidence; has children before being ready to fund or lead a family; sends those children to backwater religious schools; and perceives street pills, racism, lottery tickets gay-bashing, faith healers, tobacco, xenophobia, guns, misogyny, Islamophobia, televangelists, sketchy disability claims, cheap 30-packs, Donald J. Trump, and Fox News as solutions to their largely self-inflicted problems.

[Theendoftheleft]

They move to you and then almost all replicate your area’s norms about breeding. It’s an inferior strategy. Thus, your ‘brain drained’ areas depopulate (urbanization is what now, around 80% in the USA?), but your urban centres cannot meet their own needs, and so still depend on importation of foreigners with fundamentally different norms about breeding and rearing children. If you didn’t have people coming in from outside the USA, you’d be fucked. Your value system is inferior and unsustainable, AIDS. Wake up.

And don’t give me your bullshit American rationalisations. Your neoliberal politics gutted the middle class and made the poor poorer. In addition to millions of red teamers growing disillusioned with, and alienated by, the party’s professed ideology (seeing how it never implemented core things that it promised when it promised), two-time Obama voting union folks also voted for Trump because they realized they’re a captured vote and that the blue team (just like the mainstream red team) are wholly committed to dumping millions of unskilled illiterates into the USA whilst continuing the policy of outsourcing. Clinton is a neo-liberal stooge and the American people, on the left and right, woke up to it. It's clear what Biden is as well.

Faith in your political parties is dying, thankfully. People can see them for what they really are: veneers for oligarchy and theatrics for the masses.

More importantly, your own superstition-grounded-and-driven multicult bullshit is dying, globally. In the face of the obviously inequality and incongruency of various cultures, Europeans CAN’T believe it anymore. Indeed, it’s so OBVIOUSLY false that you yourself don’t believe it about the values and culture of half your own countrymen — as noted in your very post above. (Keep espousing your bullshit though, AIDS, and pretend that people can’t see right through you.)

Fortunately, you’re going to lose this new cold war, your country is shrinking in power, and all your liberal-progressive values will fade from the world.

[Randal]

Oh please. Europeans never believed in American multiculturalism. Which is why they're so fucked up and keep wanting to revert back into warring kingdoms. France can't figure out why its oppressed Muslims are so pissed off. The UK would rather Brexit than share a political identity with the mainlanders. Ireland seems to just enjoy being tribal. And that's just western Europe, wait till you see the ethnic bullshit rivalries going on in the east!

America's the only place where the English, Irish, Italians, Germans, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Ukrainians, Scandinavians, Greeks and Hungarians actually get along.

But not the fuckin' French! They're all holed up in Montreal.

[Theendoftheleft]

That’s because you re-labelled them as ‘white’ and gave them the illusion of equality within one tier of your overall racial caste system. Of course, it was a complete farce at first, since they were themselves systematically excluded from the bourgeois professions and positions of power.

Why, moreover, would Europeans believe in multiculturalism? The various cultures and norms are obviously and demonstrably unequal. (Just look, too, at the way American blue teamers talk about the American South, about American religious culture, flyover state culture, etc; their multicult egalitarian rhetoric is so OBVIOUSLY stupid and false that they don’t believe its implications themselves when it comes to groups they openly despise. The former accuse people of being 'ignorant' for disbelieving what they themselves DON'T really believe.) Western Europeans also basically all think that American culture is inferior. And with good reason: it’s crass, materialistic, superficial, lowest common denominator trash.

And where and when, pray tell, did Americans develop the — empirically grounded and tested — knowledge and skill set to craft this superior multicult? Hint: it didn’t. As I keep telling Rev. Arthur (aka AIDS), y’all are the Elizabeth Holmes of social engineering. Charlatans selling the world nothing but snakeoil.

More importantly, people can now plainly see that the claims of multiculting were a mere veneer. The real aim was to socially engineer a new culture, a new people, a New American Man (just as the Jacobins, Soviets, and socialist Zionists had aspired to do). You DON’T respect the various CULTURES; you aim to subvert and destroy them, to make something new with knowledge and skills you don’t possess. So you can CALL yourselves ‘liberal’, ‘tolerant’, ‘progressive’, etc, all you want. The mask is off now, and people can see both your totalitarianism and your global imperialistic ambitions clearly.

[Randal]

Blah blah blah. The point is, none of this is remotely new, it's the same thing y'all've been saying about America for centuries. And for centuries we've been saying "yeah, well, at least we're trying." Not just sitting around watching our castles and cathedrals fall apart.

So don't pretend like this is some new critique of America you've just figured out. It's got nothing to do with Biden or Trump or Democrats or Republicans, it's just the same old flummoxed jealousy you Europeans have always had towards America.

[Theendoftheleft]

Blah. Blah. Blah. You’re mindless, hypocritical frauds, and always have been. Now your empire and country are falling apart. You’ve rendered yourselves into global villains. Good work. (But keep running around calling people 'ignorant' and 'bigots' for disbelieving things you yourself don't believe; it doesn't make you look like anti-democratic, totalitarian twits AT ALL.)

No one is jealous of you; Europeans, as always, look down on you.

Quelle surprise, the obnoxious American knows nothing about the real world.

[Nige]

‘More importantly, your own superstition-grounded-and-driven multicult bullshit is dying, globally. In the face of the obviously inequality and incongruency of various cultures, Europeans CAN’T believe it anymore.’

Are you actually European or are you one of those Europeans in the orbit of organisations and groups funded by Putin, his oligarchs and Christian Nationalists? Europeans ‘look down’ on America because of the horrible health care system, the appalling gun culture, the influence of Christian nationalism, the wild corrosive weirdness of the right and the rampant consumerism. That’s fine, there are plenty of reasons to look down on Europe, too – the recent drownings in the Med should be a stain that never washes off – but get it right.

[Sarcastr0]

2 violent right-wing groups hitting each other seems quite part for the course. The false flag speculation is just a sign you're in deep with some storytellers who implore you to turn off your critical thinking.

Demasking? Someone does a crime, they're not protesting anymore. That easy. Just make sure you have an individualized reason, and demask away.

But: "using masks to espouse racist and Nazi views" is not a crime. Just because you suck bad doesn't mean you give up the 1A.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Are you pretending you didn't read the part where one of the unmasked "violent right-wingers" was a young liberal NY Jew who aspires to work for the government?

[Drewski]

No, brcause I don't share your hallucinations. The word "liberal" came only from your voices.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

... my hallucinations and his social media profiles.

Those too. Don't forget those. His own social media profiles.

Good one Drewski, you really nailed me on that one.

[Drewski]

You're a bad liar.

[Nige]

They go for quantity not quality.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Depends on the state. I don't know about Oregon, but some states forbid wearing masks in such situations. They reversed course during COVID, but AFAIK the anti-mask laws in those states are back in force.

Not all 1A challenges to these laws have been successful, either.

[Brett Bellmore]

" I certainly support peoples right to anonymous speech, but when they are using masks to either get away with violent activity "

The Klan acts would apply, I was rather disappointed that Trump's DOJ didn't enforce them against Antifa. I don't expect Biden's to enforce them against left-wingers and government agents play acting at being right-wing extremists.

[Sarcastr0]

The lack of enforcement is explained by the fact that the widespread organized, unprosecuted, and media protected Antifa terrorists of your mind are not real.

[Kazinski]

They are definitely real in Portland.

[Sarcastr0]

In as much as some violent dumbasses call themselves Antifa, sure.

[Michael P]

No. The only difference is that Oregon doesn't have strong anti-KKK laws like Virginia's, which strongly discourages wearing a mask outside of limited circumstances.

[Brett Bellmore]

There are federal anti-Klan acts, of course.

[Michael P]

They exist, but they are relatively narrow in text and application. Some clauses (like section 1983) only apply to government agents, some are purely civil, some only apply to terrorism based on factors like race or previous condition of servitude.

[not guilty]

42 U.S.C. § 1985(3) authorizes a civil damages action against those who conspire or go in disguise on the highway or on the premises of another to violate equal protection based on race, among other things.

18 U.S.C. § 241 criminalizes conspiracy to violate civil rights.

Neither provision requires governmental action as an element.

[Michael P]

Yes, and section 1985 only allows civil charges by the victim. It clearly doesn't support the kind of charges that were mentioned in this thread. Similarly, section 241 is only charged for hate crimes and law enforcement defendants -- not in other contexts, like anarchists or Marxists running amok.

Go back to your kennel, Chihuahua.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm not talking about what IS charged, but about what the statute would permit to be charged, if the DOJ cared to enforce it. IF.

Antifa are practically the Platonic ideal of what 42 U.S.C. § 1985(3) is about: People who go masked so that they can't be identified while using violence to violate people's rights, with the support of local governments. They're just a photographic negative of the Klan, legally indistinguishable.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Section 1985 isn't a criminal statute you doofus.

[Theendoftheleft]

Tankie, no one in more civilized countries believes you.

Do you masturbate to the idea of trying to gaslight others? Is that your thing?

[Kleppe]

In the summer of 2020, I would sit on my back porch smoking cigars and watching live-feeds of black bloc-wearing Antifa laying siege to the federal building in Portland for hours (mostly to watch the police beat the shit out of them). But I suppose you don't want me to believe my lying eyes?

[Sarcastr0]

No you didn’t. I saw enough clips to know there was no uniform black bloc or otherwise.

And I also know you don’t have Antifa radar so your scenarios is pretty hard to figure.

[Kleppe]

Your gaslighting won't work here.
The federal building in Portland was under siege every night for literally weeks. It was set on fire. There were multiple livestreams available of the nightly chaos.

[Sarcastr0]

I don't deny there was plenty of violence in Portland.

But that's not what you said: "black bloc-wearing Antifa laying siege to the federal building."

Don't change your thesis now, fucko.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, there was plenty of violence in Portland, and part of it was black block Antifa laying siege to a federal building.

[Sarcastr0]

Since Kleppe seems to have left, I turn to you - do you have Antifa-dar? I mean, maybe there was some kind of social media evidence I wasn't tracking, but I saw nothing like that, just angry protesters, and shitty rioters.

How do you know Antifa was there?
I do not recall seeing anything other than brief bouts of group action among the various protesters outside the federal building; certainly there weren't uniforms evident on the protester side.

[ducksalad]

Alternate theory: every single person there, on both sides, except one, was a fed or an informant.

Evidence: lots of blows intended to look harsh on camera but not actually hurt anyone. The unmasking was lifted straight out of Mexican pro-wrestling.

The one “real” person was some weak-minded wannabe the feds were trying to entrap into doing something arrestable. They told him feds in masks would be showing up, and if he hit one he'd be guilty of knowingly assaulting a federal officer. Probably the attempt failed and he’s one of the ones hanging back looking confused and afraid.

[Nige]

Sooner or later the only non-Fed-informant Republicans will be isolated singletons wrapped in paranoia, even more scared of their fellow Republicans than they are of pronouns.

[John F. Carr]

I've seen a science fiction story where everybody at Hitler's rallies was a time traveler and he was only famous in the 1930s because he was famous in the future.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Was that Norman Spinrad, maybe? Rings a faint bell.

[Nige]

No, that's The Iron Dream where he becomes a pulp sc-fi writer. That reminds me of the story about all the time travellers crowding in to the theatre to see Lincoln getting shot. Connie Willis, I think?

[Randal]

Maybe they're all feds, even the police officers and bystanders, and this was all done on a soundstage at Quantico in order to drum up fear and distrust of the hard right in the general population! Of course!

[ducksalad]

Or maybe they were all right wingers from the same group, on a soundstage in a remote part of Kentucky, creating an event so obviously fake that people would assume it was feds, thereby drumming up fear and distrust of the DoJ in the general population.

Q1: Generalize this by induction to false_flag^n where n odd is feds and n even is alt-right.

Q2: Show that the series never converges.

[Randal]

The feds are infiltrating themselves! I love it.

[Nige]

Too little too late, and still the reflexive 'false flag' cop-out.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

The events of last week:

CIA reports to Congress Wagner is ready to mutiny.
Pentagon "discovers" $6B accounting mistake and pledges it to Ukraine.
Wagner PMC marches on Moscow.
The Biden Hagiographers and Sycophants turn it up to 1000% (Reddit & Twitter were sickening)
Wagner turns around and returns to Ukraine.
The entire thing gets memory-holed.

My guess? Putin/Wagner played the shit out of the Affirmative Action Pentagon CIA to the tune of $6B.

lmao get fucked you stupid woke morons

[Kazinski]

That’s hardly credible.

Here’s what happened:

The CIA unleashed a nefarious secret weapon on the Wagner troops and Prigozhin himself that causes temporary insanity. Wagner marches on Moscow to get out of range of the worst effects of the weapon, it loses its effectiveness when they get out of its immediate range, and they come to their senses, and negotiate a cease fire with Putin and a face saving exile for Prigozhin.

Details of the secret weapon leaked last week here:https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12210451/Russia-accuses-preparing-target-troops-drones-carrying-malaria-bearing-mosquitoes.html

Full disclosure I myself have been victimized by CIA testing of the weapon at a remote lake, and barely escaped after losing several quarts of blood, and I can attest it can cause at least temporary madness, including hallucinations that everything is in italics.

[santamonica811]

Ending paragraph is funniest VC comment this year, IMO.

[Bwaaah]

Agreed. He nailed it.

[NOVA Lawyer]

"I can attest it can cause at least temporary madness, including hallucinations that everything is in italics." Hilarious.

Well played, Kazinski.

[Sarcastr0]

I can't wait to paste this in later threads as being posted utterly unironically.

[Nige]

'(Reddit & Twitter were sickening)'

Pro-Putinists were remarkably quiet until it was safe to proclaim that Putin was stronger than ever and a crackpot conspiracy theory was concocted.

[jb]

LOL. If you have any doubts that BCD is a Russian troll, this is a great post to help clarify things.

[Brett Bellmore]

test Test

[Bwaaah]

Wait. What did you do? Why am I in italics?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

NYC Drag Activists Chant “We’re here, we’re queer, we’re coming for your children”

https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/06/nyc-drag-activists-chant-were-here-were-queer-were-coming-for-your-children/

Hmm, I wonder what they meant by that?

[SimonP]

It means that the LGBT community knows how to push your buttons, and you're a bunch of morons.

I'm a New Yorker, queer, and attended this weekend's Pride events. Walking around, I was amused by how tame the reality actually is, as compared to the way it's all filtered through your right-wing outrage media. The lithe man in a jockstrap-to-dumpy lesbian in shorts and a baggy t-shirt ratio was something like 1:100.

"We're not going shopping," by the way, is an oblique criticism of the corporatization of Pride by banks, law firms, retail outlets, etc. The "main" Pride march is preceded by a couple of days of events by people running independent events. There's a dyke march, and then the drag march.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Haha yeah, a bunch pedo homo's chanting how they're coming for my children makes me a moron!

Very good, logical reasoning on your part. Like when that gay SF chior wrote that whole song, recorded it, published it about coming for my children made me a moron too! hahaha yeah! I'm the moron because the homo's are coming for my children!!

Good one.

[Krychek_2]

No, BCD, you were a moron long before they chanted it.

[Brett Bellmore]

Apparently the bottom line here is that you're not allowed to infer that they're coming for our children when they don't come out and say they are, but you're also not allowed to believe them when they DO say they are.

I'm not sure why anybody should agree to such terms of debate.

[Krychek_2]

It's not terms of a debate. It's the drag queens using sarcasm to mock their opponents. If they really were coming for your children, do you think they'd publicly advertise it?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Yes. Because look at how much support they have when they do come for our children.

Homo's and drag queens have a tremendous amount of political and institutional power. And, by previous scientifically validated definitions, they are mentally ill.

Mentally ill people who like to prey on children and have a tremendous amount of political and institutional power will brag about preying on your children. Because they think there is nothing you can do to stop them.

[Sarcastr0]

Motivated failure to understand context or sarcasm may keep the fires burning, but the cost is no one externally taking you at all seriously.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Class Sacastr0, a bunch of homosexuals chanting their coming for you children is being taken out of context by the evil vile homophobes!

Or the evil vile homophobes just don't understand the clever sarcasm by the homosexuals when they chant they're coming for their children!

[Nige]

You believed it before the chant, you think the chant is actual evidence of a belief you already had, nothing has changed, you're still an evil creep.

[SimonP]

The level of self-parody here reminds me of Monty Python.

No, Brett, the LGBT community is not "coming for your kids." The people interested in grooming and sexualizing your kids are, predominantly, other straight people. The LGBT community is concerned only about queer kids, kids who don't feel like they fit in, and are routinely traumatized by parents like you, who care more about their own "gender ideology" and preserving some social status quo that they've never thought about carefully.

Part of the problem of ensconcing yourself in an information bubble, Brett, is that you have difficulty comprehending that there is a broader social discourse in which you are not participating. The ridiculous fear-mongering on the right is perfectly patent for all to see. And it is perfectly on-brand for the drag community to seize on that absurdity and reflect it right back in your face.

More seriously - you're a sociopath. You have to understand this, at some point, since you can't traffic in the kinds of lies and mischaracterizations you do without understanding that they are lies and mischaracterizations. You oppose a more liberal understanding of gender identity and sexual orientation. You oppose normalizing different ways of performing gender and different kinds of intimate sexual relationships among adults. And you oppose teaching kids that there are these different, valid options for their own lives.

So you conflate that with "grooming," try to insinuate that it's all somehow part of an pedophilic agenda, and seize on whatever shreds of evidence you can - so much of it, linked here, to be found on NewsMax - to paint that picture. But you know it's a lie. You know that's not an accurate portrayal of the movement you oppose. But you also understand that you won't "win" your reactionary fight against the LGBT community if you play fair or honest.

[not guilty]

Consider the source. Brett voluntarily affiliates with the Roman Catholic Church Man-Boy Lust Association -- the most prominent enabler of child sexual abuse in the history of the world. That vile organization has paid out billions of dollars in damages and settlements because it was/is unwilling to stop its personnel from coming after parishioners' children.

Anything Brett says about "they’re coming for our children" should be considered in that context.

[SimonP]

I'm sure he just blames the Church's "tolerance" of the gays, for that.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Are you guys sure Brett Bellmore still associates with the Catholic Church?

That is a severe accusation. I would like to think even Brett Bellmore has better judgment and character than that.

[SimonP]

He made sure to specify that he's a Roman Catholic, which suggests to me that he has Latinate, schismatic sympathies. Probably hates Francis.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

In modern America, that is as bad as being a Republican, a Penn State fan, or a Baylor fan.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

More seriously – you’re a sociopath.

My assessment of this guy (awkward, antisocial, disaffected, delusional misfit and an easily frightened, autistic, right-wing hayseed who is a stunningly poor debater) differs to at least some degree.

[Nige]

'Apparently the bottom line here is that you’re not allowed to infer that they’re coming for our children when they don’t come out and say they are'

This supposed prohibition has had remarkably little effect in preventing homophobes lying about it anyway. Not saying they're coming for your children didn't stop anyone accusing them of coming for children, so why can't they get to be sarcastic about it?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

I know, I admit it. I was a moron and became a childhood victim to a homosexual.

Now I'm not a moron and I don't let my kids anywhere near homosexuals.

[Krychek_2]

Here's the tragic story of a four year old girl who was given a sexually transmitted disease by her own father:

https://julieroys.com/former-missionary-webb-sentenced-for-sexual-abuse-four-year-old-who-got-std/

So I guess by your logic children need to be kept away from heterosexuals as well, especially their own fathers.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

What do the data say about pedophilic proclivities and how are the cultural histories and values aligned with pedophilia?

I mean, do heterosexuals have terms like "chickenhawk" that describes an older homosexual who likes young boys?

Do heterosexuals celebrate "egg cracking" where as young boys they had their first homosexual encounter with an older homosexual? Famous homosexuals like that Star Trek guy even bragged about it on Twitter.

Are 1 in 6 boys gay molested by heterosexuals or by homosexuals?

Did NAMBLA form out of a heterosexual movement or a homosexual one?

Was pedophilia normal in heterosexual culture like it was until the 90s in homosexual culture when the gays moved from tolerance demands to acceptance demands? NAMBLA used to march in Pride Parades until the 90s.

Just curious as to what supporting evidence you're using to draw your conclusions? I know the evidence I'm using to draw mine.

[Krychek_2]

The data say that the lion's share of sexual abuse takes place within the family, so if you're really concerned about protecting children you should remove them from their families. (And since you seem not to understand the concept, that was sarcasm and mockery; I'm not seriously suggesting that it would be good policy to remove all children from their families.)

When a little girl is sexually abused by her father, uncle or brother, everyone understands that the problem is that particular father, uncle or brother and not heterosexual males in general. All I'm saying is that the same principle should be extended to gay males. Most gay males don't abuse children. I'm a gay male who generally finds children annoying and the idea of having sex with one of them is so far removed from my interests or desires that you could equally as well try to interest me in eating dog poop.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

How common is it for a gay male to have their first homosexual experience under 13? How common is it for that 2nd party in that experience to be older than the age of 13?

Would you say that’s super rare or kinda common?

And I’ve never seen a single parade where a bunch of Uncles were chanting “We’re coming for our own nieces!”. The “We’re coming for your children” only seems to be “sarcasm” from queers aimed at normal people.

I guess on one level, it makes some sense since the only children homosexuals can go after are other people’s kids.

And who started NAMBLA? Was it a heterosexual activist or a homosexual one?

[Krychek_2]

There would be no reason for uncles to chant "we're coming for your nieces," sarcastically or otherwise, because nobody seriously thinks that all uncles pose a risk to their nieces. It's only when you slander whole groups of people en masse that some of them respond in kind. And I don't know the age at which the average gay male has his first sexual experience, but then again neither do you, and I'm not going to guess. I did know a gay kid once who was kicked out of the house by his parents at age 14 for being gay, and turned to prostitution because it was the only way he knew to support himself. But I would lay the blame for that on his parents.

At its peak, I doubt NAMBLA ever had more than a couple dozen members. I met a couple of them over the years and they struck me as cases of arrested development; they simply never grew up. Be that as it may, painting all gays with the NAMBLA brush is like painting all Germans with the Nazi brush.

[Michael P]

Good grief, Krychek, your logic is awful. The hypothetical uncles would be saying "we are coming for our nieces". And what does "lion's share" mean in this context -- an example of base rate fallacy?

[Krychek_2]

If I had said "we are coming for our nieces" rather than "your nieces", would it have made any difference whatsoever to my underlying point?

I just looked it up. 82% of victims of child sexual abuse are female, indicating that sexual abuse is disproportionately a heterosexual problem. 5% of boys are sexually abused; 11% of girls are sexually abused. 34% of abusers are family members.
https://www.rainn.org/statistics/children-and-teens

[BravoCharlieDelta]

A 2005 study conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, on San Diego Kaiser Permanente HMO members, reported that 16% of males were sexually abused by the age of 18.1 A 2003 national study of U.S. adults reported that 14.2% of men were sexually abused before the age of 18.2 A 1998 study reviewing research on male childhood sexual abuse concluded that the problems is “common, under-reported, under-recognized, and under-treated.”3 A 1996 study of male university students in the Boston area reported that 18% of men were sexually abused before the age of 16.4 A 1990 national study of U.S. adults reported that 16% of men were sexually abused before the age of 18.5

https://1in6.org/statistic/

14-18% of all men were sexual abused as a child.

Meanwhile, up until the current groomed generation, only 1-2% of men were homosexual.

1-2% of adult males were sexually abusing 15% of all boys.

NAMBLA was part of the International Gay and Lesbian Association until 1993.

The first homosexual encounter is 12, typically. The first heterosexual encounter is 15. Typically.

“Chickenhawk” is not heterosexual parlance. It’s homosexual parlance. Why don’t you share with everyone what that means?

That data do not support your claims, or your beliefs.

[Krychek_2]

Do you have data to support 700% increase in the sexual abuse of boys? (Yes, I know, you cited some but I actually reviewed it and it doesn't support your conclusions. Can you show me some *actual* data that supports that increase?) That much of an increase strikes me as absurd on its face. Also, what percentage of gay men abuse boys? That's the relevant number; not how many boys were abused.

OK, so NAMBLA has not been a member of ILGA for 25 years. Why are you still harping on something that ended 25 years ago? Even if it were still a member, it's an organization with a very small number of people. It no more reflects gays than Naziism reflects Germans.

Chickenhawk is the gay equivalent of cougar. A chickenhawk is a man who prefers younger male sex partners; a cougar is a woman who prefers younger male sex partners.

Finally, you've cited no data whatsoever for the age at which most homosexual males have their first sexual encounter. Neither have you provided data for how many of those encounters are peer to peer. I would hope even you would recognize that two 12-year-olds experimenting on each other is not the same as a 50 year old and a 12 year old. So, even if you raw number is accurate, how much of those encounters are peer to peer?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Do you have data to support 700% increase in the sexual abuse of boys? (Yes, I know, you cited some but I actually reviewed it and it doesn’t support your conclusions. Can you show me some *actual* data that supports that increase?)

The 1in6.org website I linked in my comment had all the sources from my statement. I just copy and pasted from their website.

Further, they go on to say these 15% numbers are probably UNDERCOUNTS and explain why.

Also, what percentage of gay men abuse boys?

I can’t give you an exact number, but as I said, 1-2% of the adult male population is gay molesting 15% (at least) of the young male population. It’s more reasonable to conclude a prevalence of homosexual pedophilia, especially given the other supporting facts, than it is to conclude that there are a handful of homosexual super predators gay molesting tens of thousands of kids each year.

I provided this already to you, you just refuse to grok it.

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Mean-Age-at-First-Sex-by-Homosexual-Experience-and-Heterosexual-Experience-Young-Men-in_fig1_38036135

That is where I got the data regarding homosexual and heterosexual first experiences.

OK, so NAMBLA has not been a member of ILGA for 25 years. Why are you still harping on something that ended 25 years ago?

Because it supports my argument of tradition of “man-boy love” in homosexual culture. NAMBLA marched in pride parades and was a member of IGLA longer than they haven’t been a member. NAMBLA being part of the Gay movement wasn't controversial until the gays started demanding acceptance. NAMBLA wasn't a big deal until IGLA got booted in 1993 for having them. NAMBLA was a normal gay thing until 1993.

All these facts being true suggests my take on a bunch of queers chanting “We’re coming for your children” is more likely than your take.

[Nige]

'Because it supports my argument of tradition of “man-boy love” in homosexual culture.'

It's as much a tradition as older men going after young girls, which is to say it was vaguely acceptable at one point, or rather a blind eye was largely turned, but thanks to feminism, consent has become a predominant feature of relationshsips, non-adults cannot give consent by definition, and older individuals preying on younger is becoming less and less acceptable.

By all accounts, older generations of gay men grew up so isolated and surrounded by hate and forced into secrecy and left ignorant about themselves, that they longed for older men to take them in hand and guide them. This is sad and potentially horrible for them, but thanks to the lgtbq community being visible and relevant informative books being available, it's almost certainly a vanished trend. So, when you fuckers talk about pushing lgtbq people back in the closet and taking those books from the shelves, you're pushing young people back into a state of vulnerability that leaves them seeking out older men, or responsive to older men who seek them. Thanks, idiots.

I realise you have no interest in any of this, you're an irredeemable little monster, but I thought I'd put it out there.

[Krychek_2]

I happen to know a little about NAMBLA's involvement in American gay organizations because I was involved in getting them kicked out. NAMBLA marched in a single gay pride parade under threat of a lawsuit if they weren't allowed to march. The following year they were told go ahead and sue us if you like, we ain't letting you march. Since then, the relationship between NAMBLA and the gay rights movement has been one of unrelenting hostility and doing everything that can be done to make NAMBLA aware that they are not welcome. And it's not merely political; most gay men have the same revulsion toward pedophilia that you do.

And having personally spent a significant amount of time and money making sure NAMBLA was excluded from the gay rights movement, when someone like you comes along and tries to make the claim "NAMBLA was a normal gay thing", all it does is tell me you don't know very much about it, and call into question your other alleged "facts". I mean, if you are that misinformed about the raw hatred with which the American gay movement greeted NAMBLA, the raw fury that American gays had at the suggestion that NAMBLA should be included, and the enormous amount of time and effort made to ensure NAMBLA knew that it was not welcome, than what else do you not know what you're talking about?

Your posts remind me of the sorts of things Goebbels said about the Jews, and he, too, claimed to have science backing him up. No, the fact it you're just a bigot, trying to dress up your bigotry. Had you been born a little earlier you'd be telling us that Jews kidnap and murder Christian babies.

[Brett Bellmore]

This doesn't exactly help the case that they're not coming for our kids:

Academics: Allowing kids to opt out of drag storytime is a ‘dangerous setback’ for gay rights

At least some of them quite clearly ARE coming for our kids.

[Nige]

Coming to... read them nice stories while wearing glam dresses?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

You're an expert on NAMBLA and the gay rights movement, you lied about the number of it's members?

NAMBLA marched in a single gay pride parade under threat of a lawsuit if they weren’t allowed to march.

That is a complete un utter lie.

Harry Hay proudly wore a shirt with the slogan on it "NAMBLA walks with me" in the 1986 gay pride march.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Man/Boy_Love_Association

Clearly reading the opposition section, my characterization as them being uncontroversial members until 1993 was inaccurate. Strife was apparently brewing the decade prior. Leading the famous gay activist Harry Hay to proudly wear the shirt "NAMBLA walks with me" in a 1986 pride march.

However, that doesn't excuse your utter and complete fabrications about the member numbers, about their participation in marches, and about your personal involvement.

What else are you lying about? My guess? Your supposed lack of attraction to children.

[Krychek_2]

Harry Hay wore that shirt because NAMBLA had been kicked out of the parade. And Harry Hay was not the entirety of the gay rights movement.

And, how many members do you think NAMBLA had at its peak?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

You said there was only one parade, and they sued to walk in it. You further said you know this as a fact because you spent money and time stopping them.

That is a clear fabrication. And the Wiki link provides numbers for for membership and some of their lower numbers are two orders of magnitudes greater your claim which you just to suggest came from some position of authority.

You are a liar.

[Randal]

Wow, BCD, you're even stupider than I thought.

Even if this data is true, which I doubt, all it shows is that the vast majority of child abuse is perpetrated by men. Which... I feel like we knew?

So yeah, if you're the father of boys and you're worried about abuse, you should be mainly worried about them being abused by men, especially Catholic men. If you're the father of girls, you should be way way way more concerned about them being abused by men. Way more. Simply because there are way more straight men than gay men.

Then, way down on your list of priorities, you can worry about your sons being abused by women or your daughters being abused by lesbians.

How is that surprising to anyone?

[Randal]

Oh Brett, it's 100% true that the left is coming for your kids in terms of normalizing trannies and gays so that they don't turn out to be bigots. Just like your generation got exposed to minorities via integration and other civil rights initiatives, normalizing racial differences and preventing you from becoming racists like your parents were.

That, of course, has nothing to do with "grooming" and sexual abuse, which is almost entirely a heterosexual enterprise. You and your's attempts to conflate the two are a gross form of bigotry, exactly the same thing as someone in the 60's saying "keep books with Black characters out of the schools, I don't want my kids being indoctrinated with savage ideas of witchcraft and hedonism."

[Krychek_2]

No, I said there was one parade and they threatened to sue; I don't believe there was an actual lawsuit. And I said I doubted there were more than a couple dozen active members; that the police found a mailing list with 1100 names on it does not translate to active members. Your bad reading comprehension does not translate to me being a liar.

[Dr. Ed 2]

NAMBLA destroyed the Boy Scouts.

[Nige]

They turned you into a newt.

[Sarcastr0]

Brett: "A pair of academics affiliated with York University believe that allowing parents to opt out their children from drag storytime events is a “dangerous setback for 2SLGBTQ+ human rights education."

This is unutterably lame as evidence. 'affiliated with.' Plus nutpicking.

[Michael P]

Thank goodness the tone police are here to write citations for alleged nutpicking!

[Sarcastr0]

I'm not sure you know what tone policing is.

I was criticizing the weakness of evidence being offered.

[Brett Bellmore]

It was an existence proof; A single example suffices for that.

[Sarcastr0]

'they aren't coming for our kids' is not a superlative. An existence proof is nonresponsive.

What it is, is nutpicking - it looks a lot more like you're trying to generalize from those two. Don't do that.

[Nige]

Yeah, the less proof you have the more enormous weight you have to give it.

[EscherEnigma]

The Boyscouts were ruined because they spent decades covering up sex abuse and it turns out that people are more willing to forgive religious leaders then glorified babysitters.

[SimonP]

I was a moron and became a childhood victim to a homosexual.

Bullshit.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Hashtag BelieveAllVictims
Hashtag UnlessItsAboutHomosexualMolestation

[SimonP]

No, I specifically don't believe you, because you are a longstanding troll and obvious liar. I 100% believe you would fabricate a claim that you were molested a child, just to serve your rhetorical purposes here.

That's on you.

[Nige]

The cyncism behind their pretexts of protecting children is horrifying. Never forget that Qanon went hog wild calling anyone they hated Satanic pedophiles, yet when an actual 'elite' abuser being protected was exposed, it was the MSM that did it, and the guy that gave him the sweetheart deal was working for Trump.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

It's because you're a confessed homosexual and you do not wish to reconcile your chosen lifestyle with the history of it.

So you rewrite your reality to make it easier on your emotional being.

[SimonP]

I don’t feel any particular need to “reconcile” anything. I don’t diddle kids, so I don’t see that there’s anything to “reconcile.”

You’re just trying to avoid taking responsibility for the way you conduct yourself here. There are people here I’d believe. You, no.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

I take full responsibility for the way I conduct myself.

It also isn't my responsibility to behave in a way that satisfies your definitions.

If I wanted to fit in with many of the Left around here I'd have to get a lobotomy and ingest human feces accidentally or on purpose during sex acts.

[SimonP]

It also isn’t my responsibility to behave in a way that satisfies your definitions.

What "definitions?"

No, you can conduct yourself however you like. But when you're a liar and a troll, you can't expect to be believed when you toss out, "I was a childhood victim of a homosexual." Especially given how equivocal that statement itself is.

[not guilty]

I recall graffiti appearing on the men's room wall at Vanderbilt Law School decades ago.

Someone wrote "My mother made me a homosexual."

Immediately thereunder, someone else wrote "If I supply the yarn, will she make me one, too?"

[Randal]

Maybe he meant to say "Mormon."

[John F. Carr]

That filter does not belong only to outraged right wingers. The Boston Globe, quite liberal and quite friendly to gays since before the alphabet soup era, used to have photo galleries of Pride events making them all look like a bunch of freaks.

[Mr. Bumble]

So nobody in a three piece suit?

[EscherEnigma]

Hey, the Mattachine Society tried. For playing into respectability politics, they were rewarded with utter ineffectiveness.

[SimonP]

"Freaks," according to whom?

The other day, someone posted a video from a drag brunch, purportedly showing a number of "inappropriate for kids" scenes. One example, I could understand. The others, less so. It was only by understanding the context and intended meaning that I could infer that people were presumably upset about drag queens allowing themselves to be "tipped" by stuffing dollar bills into fake breastplates.

So, you call them, "freaks," but I have to surmise that your meaning of the term extends much more broadly than I would draw it. I don't take your Y'all Qaeda moralizing very seriously.

And I'm setting aside for now the fact that the mainstream media is not necessarily a friendly outlet for queer expression that it deems unacceptable. Just as the mainstream media purports to dictate decency norms for political discourse, it's not always a friend to the queer community.

[ducksalad]

John, let’s be fair. A newspaper story, especially a pictorial, is going to be about something unusual and eye catching.

A bunch of clean-cut people marching in business casual with a banner that says "We support Senate Bill 478" isn’t going to sell as many papers.

[Ben_]

“It means that the LGBT community knows how to push your buttons…”

Provocation isn’t friendly or innocent. Hostility isn’t going to work out well for them.

But the free campaign ad footage will be super helpful.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Hostility isn’t going to work out well for them.

Right-wingers have been getting the bigoted shit kicked out of them in the modern American culture war for so long as most of us have been alive. You figure conservatives are going to slow, stop, or even reverse that tide?

Better Americans are positioned to shape our national progress against the efforts and hopes of right-wingers throughout the foreseeable future. Bigots hardest hit.

[Theendoftheleft]

Your so-called 'better' Americans not only fail to meet replacement rate, but they've also driven your country off a cliff.

They've also come out of the closet as authoritarians advancing a social re-engineering project that would give even the Jacobins and Soviets pause.

Carry on, AIDS. Your cold war will turn hot. Your family will die, as will your hopes and dreams for America.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Congratulations, theendoftheleft, for demonstrating that there is something worse than an American right-winger -- a right-winger from another country.

Even our right-wingers -- bigoted, superstitious, ignorant losers that they often are -- are better! USA! USA!

[Theendoftheleft]

Silly, stupid, ignorant, childish AIDS, showing that he doesn't even understand what 'demonstrating' means. This is the best you can do now? You're the bottom of the barrel.

Carry on, AIDS. Demonstrate to the world how pathetic and useless you are by continuing to troll this site, daily, for another decade or so, with vacuous, hypocritical, self-defeating comments. That is, till your American betters Breivik you.

[Nige]

'Hostility isn’t going to work out well for them.'

This chant's a bit late in the day in terms of the hostility directed at them. Not standing up for themselves is going to work out worse.

[SimonP]

Hostility isn’t going to work out well for them.

Instance #1205 of a VC commenter enthusing over political violence. Gosh, you sure do love freedom around here.

[Ben_]

No one believes in "freedom" to molest or to threaten to molest children.

[SimonP]

You don't really believe that's what the drag marchers were doing. In addition, even if they were vaguely "threatening to molest children," that would likely be constitutionally-protected speech. Finally, even if it were criminal and constitutionally unprotected, a bit of armed violence in response is not how we deal with those kinds of threats.

You want mob violence.

[EscherEnigma]

Thanks for the reminder of why schools should teach queer history. If you'd had even the most cursory education on the topic, you'd know that it wasn't until gay rights groups got "provocative" that things got "better".

Playing into respectability politics, of trying to be "nice and normal" never worked out.

[Theendoftheleft]

You should DEFINITELY keep pushing their buttons!

Are y'all not expecting any blowback from your strategy? Do you not think it'll push some American rightists over the edge? How many Pride parades, for example, do you think they'll attack next year?

[Ben_]

"Are y’all not expecting any blowback from your strategy?"

How happy are asian, latino, and black voters to be associated with this stuff?

[Theendoftheleft]

This just seems like American red team's gambit/hope: that those folks will turn against the blue team, let alone for good.

Doubtful.

[Ben_]

It only takes a few percent switching or not showing up to vote. It happens in some states and localities sometimes.

[SimonP]

No meaningful progress in civil rights has been made without "pushing buttons."

Anyway, I might as well ask the same about the rightwing fearmongers. You know, the ones lying about the LGBT "coming for the kids." Do you think a majority of voters is as disinterested in reality as you are? Do you suppose that their extremism is helping their cause?

The people you're trying to legislate out of existence shouldn't answer to your insistence that they resist oppression only decently. You're all fucking fascists. You can choke on a dick, for all I care.

[Ben_]

"The people you’re trying to legislate out of existence..."

Threatening others' children tends to lead to such in civilized societies. In less civilized societies, individuals take a more direct approach to eliminating threats to their children.

Lesson: don't threaten children. It's wise to learn that lesson without resorting to trial and error.

[Nige]

Isn't that why the Nazis went after the Jews? Because of the blood scarifice of children? Those silly Jews shouldn't have threatened precious Nazi children.

[David Nieporent]

No meaningful progress in civil rights has been made without “pushing buttons.”

I don't remember MLK Jr. going around saying, "Yeah, and after the schools are integrated we're going to start pushing for interracial dating in those schools."

There's a difference between asserting a principle that some don't like and going out of one's way to offend.

[Nige]

Which just shows how some people take it for granted that the behaviour of certain groups is rightfully limited and the behaviour of others is rightfully tolerated and allowed. It isn't as if the same people feigning offence and outrage don't go out of ther own way to be offensive to lgtbq people. They routinely smear them as groomers, for goodness' sake. If some civil rights activists had made jokes about interracial dating, so what? If racists had said 'Look that proves they're coming for our women!' would they have somehow, magically have been in the right?

[SimonP]

MLK led illegal protests, campaigned against war and poverty, and castigated so-called "allies" for advising him to move more slowly.

The fact that his radicalism was directed in a different direction than you can imagine does not mean that he's some kind of model of "decency politics." If LGBT activists were to follow his model, people would lose their shit entirely.

[David Nieporent]

I am by no means suggesting MLK was a shrinking violet. He was confrontational where he needed to be. But he wasn't trying to be transgressive for the sake of being transgressive. Look at the Montgomery bus boycott: King and the other movement leaders rejected Claudette Colvin as the symbol of their grievance before Rosa Parks because Colvin wasn't as respectable as Parks.

The goal was to win specific concessions, not to preen.

[Sarcastr0]

We can absolutely discuss the specifics of which tactics are effective; reasonable people can differ on this and I don't have a specific strategy in mind I'd stand behind.

But seems trivial in a thread so full of bullshit and intimations of violence as this.

[Nige]

I would suggest that discussing one random group of people making a supposed chant does not in any way constitute a discussion of 'tactics,' it's just a discusson of what one small group of people reportedly chanted. Nothing else.

[Sarcastr0]

Concur, but DMN's issue seems to be with what it suggests about the tactics of the queer rights movement more generally, and I don't think that group is that much of an outlier.

I think I've discussed this before, but the downside of 'pushing buttons' is attenuated, given how so many of the opposition area already at full pedophile insanity. And gay rights parades, scary as they are to the squares, have been going on as gay marriage got legalized, etc.

I'm still working through it; I'm not sure how much to analogize to the civil rights movement, with it's MLK and Malcolm X, or whether this is a new time that calls for new tactics. Luckily smarter people than me seem to be getting some results for the struggle.

[Nige]

Activist and political groups have tactics. An entire community of people does not. They simply cannot be policed, even if anyone other than horrible lying rightwingers wanted to. Some people will be provocative. It’s literally their right. Why is more weight being put on one incident like this over endless examples of homophobes smearing an entire group of people as groomers? Where’s the concern about provocation and pushing buttons there? Oh wait, that’s being woke, which they also love to demonise! They’re trying to stack decks left right and centre. A provocative chant is nothing in the face of that.

[Sarcastr0]

That is a pretty important distinction you are making between a movement and a community that I was absolutely eliding in my analysis.

A community does all sorts of things that's not quite what a political movement might want, but that's just how people work; conflating the two means you criticize people who are just around for not acting with political tactics in mind, as though representation is the responsibility of every member of a group.

However, unless I've lost the thread, the chanting folks are sure acting like advocates. I do think it is proper to analyze them with political upshots in mind.

[Nige]

The chanting folk seem elusive, so it's arbitrary to treat as anything other than random members of the community.

[EscherEnigma]

I don’t remember MLK Jr. going around saying, “Yeah, and after the schools are integrated we’re going to start pushing for interracial dating in those schools.”

Well no. He was assassinated first.

The only reason he's so beloved is that he died young. If he'd lived as long as his life, have no doubt, he would have been reviled to modern day.

[Ben_]

“Hmm, I wonder what they meant by that?”

What it doesn’t mean: they’re regular, normal people just trying to live their lives in their community.

Whichever LGB people are upstanding normal citizens -- they are going to need to publicly split from the crazies and the molesters.

[Sarcastr0]

So the default for you is that homosexuals are all crazies and molesters.

Cry more about dividing the country, you hateful bigot.

[Ben_]

They should stop saying they're molesters.

[Sarcastr0]

You trying hard not to understand how you are being mocked is not going to end with people agreeing with you; it's going to end with you continuing to be mocked.

The rise of performative squareness is my new favorite thing about the GOP culture warriors.

[Ben_]

Listening to what people plainly say is not "trying hard".

Threatening children is not some hilarious joke.

[Sarcastr0]

Sarcasm is a thing. It exists. You are working hard to not pick up obvious sarcasm.
Except you kind of are, since above you complain about 'provocation' so you know it's facetious.

So you're inconsistent and bigoted.

[Bob from Ohio]

"obvious sarcasm"

Its only sarcasm if its not true.

[Sarcastr0]

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaank.

[Jmaie]

This will likely elicit angry denunciations but I'm going to posit that the "We're coming for your children" was as serious as Trump's "Russia, if you’re listening — I hope you are able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing."

[Ben_]

You can pretend it’s sarcasm or facetious if you want. No reason for anyone else to pretend along with you.

Protecting children from predators is obviously the good choice. You’re siding with evil again, as usual.

[Nige]

You can pretend it isn't, it will change nothing, exept perhaps, demonstrate the paucity of any underlying evidence for all of your homophobic claims - you have to latch on to one group making one facetious chant as a rare thing that actually happened and pretend to believe that they mean it.

[Nige]

Assuming it actually happened, considering the source.

[Theendoftheleft]

'I laughed so hard at that joke that I grabbed my AR-15 and shot up the entire Pride parade'.

Cletus Jones. NYC. 2024.

[SimonP]

Hey, buddy, who's worse - the drag queens mocking the incendiary rhetoric of the right, or the rightwing commenters taking advantage of pseudonymity on an unmoderated blog to fantasize about killing people marching in a parade?

[Theendoftheleft]

I'm not fantasizing. I'm predicting.

It's also helpful to show American morons, such as yourself, that they have reason to pause and reflect upon the imprudence of their chosen strategies. For example, all you need is a tiny fraction of the recipients of their incendiary rhetoric to be pushed over the edge in order for this to happen. Don't be at all surprised when it does.

[SimonP]

Why would anyone be "surprised"? There are plenty of people, like you, who are eagerly awaiting someone else to take the first shot.

No one's going to be surprised when some lunatic, hopped up on right-wing outrage media, decides to attack peaceful protestors or marchers or simple bar-goers. It has, in fact, happened before. What is maybe a bit surprising is to encounter people on a libertarian-leaning website who think that kind of violence is excusable.

[Theendoftheleft]

I’m not eagerly awaiting that. Instead, I’m eagerly awaiting for obnoxious American shits trying to emigrate to more civilized Western countries, expecting that they will actually be welcomed here. They are in for a surprise.

I’m no libertarian, and I don’t need your American ‘outrage media’ to see the rampant abuses of power and the Orwellian, totalitarian tactics being employed by so-called ‘liberals’ and ‘progressives’ in the USA. You’re discrediting your country, making it more and more into a banana republic each day.

Did I excuse the violence, or predict the violence? Did I point out the folly of a tactic or not? Can you Americans do ANYTHING other than lie these days? (Even so, is it not more surprising to see Americans like yourself trying to rationalize abuses of power and Orwellian tactics openly?)

Stop using a sanctimonious tone with me. In all our engagements in this comments section, you have openly lied tried to misrepresent what I said, refused to answer perfectly fair questions (about why people feel silenced), and tried to change the subject too. It's more than a bit odd to find a totalitarian fuckwit like yourself on such a blog.

[Theendoftheleft]

And YOUR LOT should keep trying to dictate to the rest of the world how to think, speak, and conduct itself, Tankie.

See how THAT’s going for you?

[SimonP]

No one's "dictating" anything. The left isn't passing laws requiring anyone to be woke, imposing "woke" agendas on universities, banning books for being insufficiently "woke," etc. That's all the stuff that the right is doing.

What you are objecting to is feeling socially ostracized by a growing segment of the population for not abiding by emerging social norms. It's okay to feel threatened by that - I myself find some of the wokism to be going too far and am reluctant to "out" myself with that opinion. But don't exaggerate it into something more than it is, as a way to justify extremism in the response. Your boss making you sit through a DEI video that you can mostly tune out of is not the same thing as firing college faculty because they write about CRT.

[Theendoftheleft]

How the fuck is what you wrote supposed to be a cogent response? I was talking about America’s imperialistic efforts internationally (‘the rest of the world’), not domestic developments in the USA.

Even so, it most certainly is a form of dictation WITHIN your country too. Are you that retarded and blind, or just a run-of-the-mill American, ie, pathological liar? It’s about policing the preferred words, concepts, and values, not engaging in dialogue about them, let alone trying to get them to win in some ‘marketplace of ideas’. Not just laws, but institutional and regulatory policies in universities and elsewhere. You can PRETEND that things like MANDATORY DEI training are either just the implementation of basic norms of civility, or innocuous blather, rather than the implementation of partisan political preferences with (dubious) partisan conceptions, all you want. But that’s just be self-delusion. It’s a concerted effort to trying to police political, social, and academic discourse, and to control policy. Get your head out of your ass.

The political right, certainly outside the USA, isn’t trying to control pronouns. The right doesn’t try to police use of the terms ‘illegal alien’ and ‘undocumented worker’. The right doesn’t label credible criticisms of Islam as ‘Islamophobia’ whilst at the same time render accusations of ‘misogyny’ and ‘homophobia’ when Islamic cultural and religious norms clash with ‘liberal-progressive’ ones. the right hasn’t co-opted ALL media and entertainment (and infotainment) for consistent ideological messaging.

The whole world can see how the American left has adopted Orwellian tactics to try to control speech and thought. That’s horrifying, not a feeling of social ostracism. We’ve seen this all before, in 1793 and in the 1930s Soviet Union. Plus ca change… avec la gauche.

[Theendoftheleft]

Look at your OWN statement about reluctance to ‘out’ your true opinion. WHY do you feel that way?

Why do most American academics and students feel that way today? (The empirical evidence shows that they do.)

What is the panopticon?????? What is canceling?

[SimonP]

Not just laws, ...

No, "not just laws." That's my point. None of the shit you're complaining about is the product of laws or regulations. It's just social pressure. Annoying, sometimes overbearing social pressure. You're overexaggerating the "threat" in order to justify extremism as a response.

[Theendoftheleft]

Are you joking? These are widely being codified in universities and other institutions. Anyone can easily verify that. Go look up the regs for basically any big university right now.

(And by the way, they’re unquestionably being implemented into law in certain other Western countries. Ask me how I know…)

I’m not exaggerating anything. It’s you who is downplaying totalitarianism by dismissing its not being implemented via legal norms in the United States yet, but instead just predominantly being done via control and abuse of social and institutional norms. What the fuck is wrong with you? There is NO credible justification for this Orwellian behaviour. It is ITSELF extreme. It’s anti-liberal. It’s anti-democratic. It’s anti-freedom. It’s anti-pluralism. It’s about completely abusing systems of power, to discipline and punish non-belief and to compel conformity with 'preferred' concepts and speech.

And you won’t answer the questions about why you, and most people in universities today, are too afraid to speak out. Quelle surprise…

[Nige]

It means that some children will grow up to be queer and they will do their best to make sure they know it's ok.

[Gasman]

"I'd always thought gays were regular people, just like you and me, and that the stereotype of homosexuals as hedonistic, sex-crazed deviants was just a destructive myth," said mother of four Hannah Jarrett, 41, mortified at the sight of 17 tanned and oiled boys cavorting in jock straps to a throbbing techno beat on a float shaped like an enormous phallus. "Boy, oh, boy, was I wrong."

Brought to you by the Onion. Where satire is often less strange than the real world.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Zelensky has banned opposition political parties, shut down churches, banned non-state media, and has now canceled the next presidential election.

Is that why the Democrats love this guy so much?

[Sarcastr0]

From Putin's propaganda shops straight to BCD's posting.

Be interested to see what'll happen if Putin stops paying his folks, what BCD will do to fill up his anti-America brain.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

So you think it’s Pro-American to support a dictator if he’s a gay Jew?

lmao you must work for the FBI.

Edit:

On second thought, if I'm using Russian propaganda to undermine American Democracy I must be the one working for the FBI. Do you think I can come up with a Zelensky Dossier from Russian sources, give it to the FBI to help out my political campaign, then have the FBI leak it to the WAPO, then use those newspaper articles to illegally spy on my political opponents too and terrorize a sitting President for three years an obvious hoax? Then in when the next election comes, collude with the CIA to call a verified fact a "Russian Hoax", get 51 current and former Intel officials to declare it a "Russian Hoax" and coordinate with social media companies to censor political opponent supporters during an election to alter the outcome?

Then I would be as Pro-American as you Sarcastr0!

[Brett Bellmore]

Historically, countries in the midst of an existential war, fighting off an invader on their own territory, are not the freest of places. I'm not sure how you hold a presidential election in the middle of a war, and have a valid result; Might be some ballot custody issues for the ones from Russian occupied territory...

Not saying that what he's doing is great, and probably at least some of it is unjustified, but it's well within precedent for countries in Ukraine's situation.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

If I point out America never has, Sarcastr0 will accuse me of being an anti-American Putin shill.

So I won’t.

[apedad]

America never has . . . what?

Never restricted constitutional protections during a war?!?

History books dude!

[BravoCharlieDelta]

How can you not figure out the "what" from the words used in the conversation?

[jb]

Seems like he did figure it out. There's tons of obvious examples of the US limiting freedoms during wartime.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

How many canceled presidential elections? Or opposition parties banned? Or churches dissolved?

[JasonT20]

When was the last time the U.S. fought a war on its own soil? Or hell, even in the same hemisphere?

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : "Historically, countries in the midst of an existential war, fighting off an invader on their own territory, are not the freest of places"

True. And it’s a fact I always keep in mind when the subject of Lincoln comes up. Personally, I’m amazed at the degree civil liberties were preserved by him during wartime – with rebel troops sometimes on the doorstep of the DC, a sizable number of southern sympathizers in his citizenry, and states with dubious loyalty in his rear. “Lincoln as Tyrant” is even weaker than most Lost Cause memes.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, but the Civil war wasn't an existential threat to the North, was it? Just for the South.

But, yeah, I'll give Lincoln some slack for civil liberties violations in actual war zones.

[Sarcastr0]

Well, but the Civil war wasn’t an existential threat to the North, was it? Just for the South.
It was an existential threat to the *Union*. Don't accept the Confederate scope.

[M L]

Much like Ukraine's secession and independence was an existential threat to the USSR.

[Nige]

Who the hell believes that?

[Bwaaah]

Most Russians, I think.

[Nige]

What's ML's excuse?

[OtisAH]

Shitheads.

[M L]

Does the USSR exist today? What did its fall consist of, if not the independence of its constituent political entities?

[Nige]

Are you referring to the sattelite states the USSR kept subjugated and ruled by puppets as buffers against the west? Their independence, whatever independence they actually got, wasn’t the cause of the fall of the USSR.

[bernard11]

Gee. I thought the USSR wasn't around any more.

How can there be an existential threat to something that doesn't exist?

Paradox.

[M L]

They're not around any more . . . exactly.

[jb]

The secession of Ukraine was more a recognition that the Soviet Union was already defunct than a cause thereof. The failure of the August 1991 coup and Yeltsin's rise to primacy within Russia had a lot more to do with the Soviet Union breaking up than Ukraine and Belarus seceding.

[M L]

That seems right, but still it's axiomatic that for a "union" defined as ruling over certain numerous political subsidiaries (or an empire, etc), the loss of all or a significant portion of those members is by definition threatening to its existence. Perhaps that is an understatement- it is defeating to its existence. That's why of course the USSR would have prevented such secession by force if it had the ability to do so, and the only reason it happened is because they didn't.

[Sarcastr0]

That seems right. So you were wrong.

Arguing something is true axiomatically after conceding the functional point is not a good look.

[JasonT20]

Sure. If the USSR wanted to take that kind of stance, it could have started a war over Ukraine's declaration of independence. But, then it would have had to do so when Lithuania, Moldova, Estonia, Latvia, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, and Georgia declared their independence before Ukraine did.

The fact was that the Soviet Union was always held together by force centered in Moscow. The United States was freely created by 13 individual states. Oh, and don't forget which side actually started the fighting in the U.S. Civil War.

[Brett Bellmore]

The first belligerent act was actually investing a partially completed but vacant fort that was in a position to control Charleston harbor. Fort Sumter was just an empty construction site at the time SC seceded.

Look, the Confederacy seceded for the absolute worst of reasons, to preserve slavery. But Lincoln's reasons for going to war with them, to establish that the Federation was a roach motel, (States check in, they can't check out!) weren't much better.

[Sarcastr0]

For fuck's sake Brett, read your Nozick again.

Not even he shared your deeply unamerican views about how much leash to give to independent actors within your state.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm just recounting objective historical facts here, Sarcastr0. The Union invested that fort AFTER SC seceded, a classic casus belli.

That the Confederacy was a moral horror show doesn't change that.

I've stated before that they should have let the Confederacy go, accepted that they weren't part of the US anymore, and then declared war on them in the normal way over slavery, without the distortions of pretending that they were still part of the US for some purposes, but not for others.

[Sarcastr0]

The Union invested that fort AFTER SC seceded, a classic casus belli.

It was a Union fort, Brett. Yes, if you accept the Confederate scope, you can make it look like they were innocent. But that's just question begging.

I'm sorry history didn't obey the procedural formalities that would make you feel like the Union is legitimate. Wait, no I'm not - that's a ridiculous requirement.

Secession is an existential threat to the Union - to the United States. You're for it, which is dumb and bad.
And wrong - it's been established through war and law, that secession is not a legitimate act.

You want to change that, do a war about it and win. Good luck without a particular cause other than making the formal rules line up with your moral priors.
And I wouldn't guess a state with voluntary dissolution baked in will last very long.

[David Nieporent]

I’m just recounting objective historical facts here, Sarcastr0. The Union invested that fort AFTER SC seceded, a classic casus belli.

Editor's note: that is not a casus belli.

Even if we pretend that SC's secession was actually operative, which it wasn't, that gave SC no rights with respect to the fort. We have a perfect example in modern times: Gitmo. Nobody denies that Cuba is a sovereign government (and enemy of the U.S.), but that gives Cuba no right to demand that we turn the base over to them, no right to blockade it, and no right to seize it.

(And Cuba has a stronger case in that the U.S. merely leases Gitmo, whereas it owned Sumter.)

[David Nieporent]

I mean, which is why the USSR ceased to exist 30 years ago.

[Dr. Ed 2]

No trains went through Baltimore, (they had to change trains) and then look at basic geography -- i.e. where DC is and what surrounds it.

[not guilty]

The purported secession of eleven states was an existential threat to the Union. Do you claim otherwise?

[M L]

It seems the distinction Brett was trying to point out is the distinction between a “civil war” as traditionally defined, being a conflict between two factions for control of the same government and the same territory, versus a conflict where one region is trying to secede or declare independence from the rule of the other.

The degree to which such circumstances may present an “existential threat” to one or both sides may be somewhat in the eye of the beholder, but the distinction is quite glaring in any event.

[Nige]

How can Putin have invaded Ukraine in 2023 (third time lucky) to stop it declaring indepence in 1991 and prevent the fall of the USSR, which no longer exists?

[Commenter_XY]

Does 1864 ring a bell, Brett? 🙂

Lincoln won.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Case in point, the US during WW-I.

[Theendoftheleft]

2023: Russia
2026: China.

I can’t WAIT till ‘liberals’ and ‘progressives’ become more open and brazen about China being America’s enemy #1. The deliciousness of the irony, and the cognitive dissonance, of these morons talking about how we need to be tolerant, diverse, inclusive, etc, whilst simultaneously demonizing Chinese people, Chinese students, and not just the Chinese government, over the next 5-10 years is going to be great to see.

Chinese Americans will have to wear big American flags on their clothes, and overcompensate with their political rhetoric. Other Asian Americans will have to start EVERY conversation about how they're 'Vietnamese-American, or 'Korean-American' to signal that they're not Chinese.

It’ll certainly help to unravel the liberal-progressive cult.

[Randal]

What are you smoking? Nobody’s “demonizing” regular Russians or Russian-Americans. Quite the opposite! We’re like, hey! Now’s our chance to get all the competent Russians out of broken Russia and into the US.

Are you one of the incompetent Russians stuck behind in Russia, or what’s wrong with you exactly?

[Theendoftheleft]

‘We’, or just Somin the Tankie?

Are you fucked in the head? Go talk to Russian people throughout the West and how they’re being treated differently now. Read this very blog and its statements about Russians and Russian spies. The Russians are the new Jews: a vilified people. (Today it's the Russians. In a few years it will be the Chinese.)

I’m neither Russian nor pro-Putin, by the way.

It’s also no surprise that a parochial American fuckwit like yourself would be oblivious to such shifts in social norms. Now, go back to espousing your superficial political ideology.

[Randal]

What are you talking about? Of course Russian spies are being vilified... as are the oligarchs and other Russian power-mongers.

But regular Russians living in America aren't. I suspect you can find anecdotes of Russians being harassed, but that's been (unfortunately) true since the 40s. Wake me up when a new James Bond revives the trope of the Russian villain.

I can't speak for Europe. Maybe you're treating Russians terribly over there. Probably.

[Theendoftheleft]

Since the 1940s???

Get fucked. You can't even speak for your own country, let alone the European experience. And you obviously don't understand the implications of your government's repeated, explicit statements that China is the USA's number 1 threat.

[Randal]

Yeah the 40s... I don't get how that's surprising? You do know what was going down in the 40s, right?

And you obviously don’t understand the implications of your government’s repeated, explicit statements that China is the USA’s number 1 threat.

It's not that Chinese Americans are going to get "vilified." You seem to have very little understanding of America. We love it when people come here to escape from their assoholic home countries. That's how all of us got here! We're hardly going to hold it against them. It's a point of pride, really. Just ask the Iranian-Americans!

[Theendoftheleft]

Jesus Christ, you're delusional..,

[David Nieporent]

…is what people would have said to the guy if he actually existed.

[Theendoftheleft]

Do you say that Muslim people’s faces? Are you an Islamophobe?

[Ben_]

"Is that why the Democrats love this guy so much?"

Democrats love that sweet Ukrainian bribery cash.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

This is becoming an un-American blog nearly as much as it is a polemically partisan, bigot-hugging blog.

[M L]

Don't step on the blue and yellow, amirite? Un-American! Gotta respect those borders. The ones on the other side of the globe that is, not the one to the South, no no no.

[Theendoftheleft]

That's because of all your posts, AIDS.

Are you going to do the socially considerate thing and euthanize your family, so that your American betters don't have to go do the work for you?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

https://notthebee.com/article/ethnicity-factor-surgery-waitlists-debate-new-zealand

"New Zealand has been using a "race-based" surgery waitlist since 2020, and people are only now finding out about it"

Healthcare Equity coming to an America near you! Welcomed and supported by the Federals and their bootlickers like Sarcastr0.

Could you imagine how much power the Federal class will have to create client groups when they remove all our healthcare freedom and dole it out based up their own political needs? Look at how the Federals smothered young Americans with their student loan "reform" and how they made all these people beg them and demand the Federals have more power by nationalizing student loans.

I'm sure they are drooling at how much power they will gain, and how much wealth they will generate for themselves and their families when they nationalize healthcare and institute "healthcare equity".

Of course, outcomes will get worse, but that's okay because the Federal Class will tell you they have good intentions, so reality, or disparate impact won't matter at all.

[Ben_]

Death panels plus woke racial preferences

[SRG]

More on Jones v Hendrix

"...the case is part of a disturbing pattern of Republican appointees overvaluing the finality of criminal convictions rather than the lawfulness of criminal convictions, and the related trend of the Republican appointees narrowing the availability of remedies to enforce people’s rights."

[Michael P]

Slate is still doing their “retarded leftist trolling for clicks” shtick, apparently. See also https://www.slowboring.com/p/slatepitch

[SRG]

And your opinion on Jones v Hendrix?

[Michael P]

I have no opinion, because I'm not going to try to guess at a proper cite for it, and I'm not going to follow a link to Slate.

[SRG]

Here you go - and there's a link to the SC decision: https://reason.com/volokh/2023/06/22/a-troubling-supreme-court-habeas-decision/

[Michael P]

My opinion is that you want more bites at the apple and had no good response to John F. Carr in that thread.

[SRG]

What the fuck are you talking about? And what does an interaction between two other posters have to do with your opinion on a case?

[Sarcastr0]

I often find Slate to be eyerollingly bad contrarian takes for hire, but if you're going to engage with their opinion writing, you should engage with it, not just yell about Slate Bad.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Weee woo weee woo weee woo

Captain Tone-Police is here to save the day!

[SRG]

Still, Jones is worse than Kelo. At least, after Kelo, you still get compensation. After Jones, you get no compensation and no redress and you remain in prison.

[apedad]

With several recent blogs about states' standings, I note that last Thursday was the 24th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Olmstead v. L.C., in which the Court ruled that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits the unnecessary segregation of people with disabilities.

Since Title II of the ADA applies to all State and local governments and all departments, agencies, special purpose districts, and other instrumentalities of State or local government, is there some sort of "standing" that the states could use - especially since they are required to adhere to this federal law?

https://www.ada.gov/resources/title-ii-primer/

[Moderation4ever]

Is it possible that part of the reason Hunter Biden got a good plea deal on the gun charge was to avoid a constitutional challenge to the law?

There has been speculation on this site and the Reason site that the law about lying about addiction on an ATF form is unconstitutional. That seem a reasonable argument as it almost always requires self-incrimination, as was the case with Hunter Biden. The law seems to be most useful as an enhancer to promote a suspect to accept a plea bargain. If the law were challenge and Hunter had the resources to challenge the law, it would be lost as an enhancer. I am not suggesting this is the only reason Hunter got no jail time, just speculating that it might have played a part in the decision.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"If the law were challenge and Hunter had the resources to challenge the law"

Maybe he could apply for legal aid in light of his poverty.

[not guilty]

I will stipulate that Hunter Biden is a scoundrel who has traded shamelessly on his family name.

That being said, I would not be surprised if he received special treatment from the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney in Delaware. How many people not named Biden has that office prosecuted for lying about drug use when purchasing a firearm?

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

I read somewhere - maybe Popehat? - that particular charge is only brought when trying to pile every charge possible against gang members, or when you have absolutely nothing else to bring against someone.

[Bored Lawyer]

I think the challenge would have been on 2d Amendment grounds, not 5th Amendment.
The latter seems weak to me for several reasons. One, no one is coercing you to apply for a gun permit. Two, being an addict is not a crime. So I am dubious that was the thinking.

[Frank Drackman]

Thought I'd overslept until September when I saw Florida leading LSU 24-3... (SEC dominating College Sports again, all SEC final)
My money's still on the Tigers, Gator players gotta be worn out running the bases so much.

Frank

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The SEC dominates college sports like the SEC states dominate the lowest portions of the ranking of states by educational attainment.

Carry on, clingers. So far as stale, ugly, ignorant thinking could carry anyone in modern, improving-against-your-wishes America, that is.

[Frank Drackman]

Unlike the Big-10 which can't even get how many members they have (none in the CWS)
Now I know you're Coach Sandusky, you still have that Big-10 (11? 12?) Inferiority Complex

Frank

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The Big 10's flouting of mathematics is nothing of which to be proud. Neither is its association with Penn State, which remains an objectionable institution with substandard fans.

None of that salvages the SEC, which represents the dumbest parts of America, where people prefer football to education, superstition to reason, and bigotry to modernity.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

THE VOLOKH CONSPIRACY

This white, male,
conservative blog
has operated for

FOUR (4)

days without using a vile racial slur and
has published vile racial slurs in at least

SEVENTEEN (17)

different contexts (that is 17 different discussions,
not 17 racial slurs — many of the relevant exchanges
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.)

This everyday display of habitual bigotry
is brought to you, in part, by the
Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies.

[Theendoftheleft]

It's also in part brought to you by the Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland, better known as AIDS. A man who is so useless, one is who is such an absolute waste of human life, that he keeps (fake) tabs of comments on a blog.

Really, the total instances of bigotry would drop considerably if you never posted here again.

[Frank Drackman]

He may have AIDS, but he's Coach Jerry Sandusky, and don't you forget it!!!!!!!

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Better Americans observe the quality of the Volokh Conspiracy's defenders, recognize 'this is the best our vestigial right-wingers can do, even in legal academia,' and smile, satisfied by the longstanding, predictable trajectory of the modern American culture war.

[Theendoftheleft]

THAT'S the best you can do, AIDS? It's no wonder your country's trajectory is straight down...

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

My country's trajectory is great, which obsolete right-wingers hate.

[Theendoftheleft]

Odd to characterize crashing and burning as ‘great’, but you do you AIDS.

Better still is that you constantly frame matters in terms of ‘betters’ and inferiors. Your own rhetoric belies your TRUE beliefs: in the inequality of ideas, the inequality of values, the inequality of cultures, and the inequality of peoples. Your surface ethico-political values of liberalism, tolerance, equality are such OBVIOUS lies that your yourself don’t really believe them and what they entail.

Equally lovely is your consistent rhetoric (backed up, of course, by what’s actually happening in the USA) of fighting a culture war and trying to win, not through dialogue, the use of reasoning, or through democratic means, but by any means necessary. Turn media propaganda into overdrive at the cost of their trustworthiness? No problem. Consolidate power in academic and media institutions and exclude divergent points of view whilst ramming a consistent propaganda message down people’s throats? No problem. Completely rape basic rule of law considerations when it comes to election laws, the running of your federal police and intelligence services, etc? No problem. Systematically violate labour and health laws in order to dump millions of unskilled labourers into the country in order to change the demographics and value set (let alone to exploit them)? No problem. OPENLY talk about 'replacement'??? No problem.

You’re a good little fascist, AIDS. Just wait till your culture war turns hot, though. (It most certainly will. And it doesn't matter if the right wins. What matters is how much damage you and they will cause in the interim. America will not recover from it.)

It’s also why your country’s discrediting itself. You can try to extract what you can from America’s client states, but no one else is going to volunteer to fight your imperialist wars in Asia or Europe. We have seen the high water mark of American power, AIDS. You’ve ruined yourselves and your country for wholly ignoble ends.

[bernard11]

So all the Republican concerns about deficits has evaporated.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Lol. There doesn’t appear to be anyone in our government that understands that a viable economic entity needs some reasonable relationship between money coming in and money going out.

Now, here come the Republicans who, having spent the last couple of years criticizing Biden over inflation, have now decided that they want to stimulate an inflationary economy too. Republican inflation is the good kind of inflation. Or something.

Actually, the small subset of Republicans that are sentient probably understand that this has zero chance of happening. Easier to just virtue signal to your base than to try governing seriously.

[John F. Carr]

Republican concerns about deficits evaporated 20 years ago.

[bernard11]

More like 40, John, with Reagan.

[John F. Carr]

Gingrich worked on the deficit. Bush threw away his work.

[JasonT20]

Funny how Republicans in Congress have only worked on the deficit when a Democrat is in the White House. Republican Presidents haven't cared about it at all since before Reagan, as bernard11 said.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Not just Bush, it was the whole of the Republican party talking about "we'll pay off the debt too fast, we absolutely must cut taxes on the wealthy".

[OtisAH]

Evaporated? It was all illusory to begin with.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Tweedledee and Tweedledum - they each say the other isn't serious about the debt, and each is right.

[Ben_]

The win for irresponsibility in 2012 was very decisive. Americans overwhelmingly chose spending like there’s no tomorrow.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"like there’s no tomorrow."

Hmm...maybe they know something we don't.

Could that be why we're risking a nuclear war? At the end of the world, our creditors will stop dunning us.

[Ben_]

Politicians will get rich either way. Regular people don’t know how things will go (because no one really does) but some politician told them they can have what they want right now.

[Gasman]

Taxes are like debt, no?
Let's just take the redux to the absurd and cancel taxes.
Nothing but spending all the way down.

[M L]

“mistakenly”

The Securities and Exchange Commission fined JPMorgan Chase $4 million for mistakenly deleting 47 million emails, many of which the regulator was trying to access as part of multiple probes.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/23/business/jpmorgan-chase-sec-emails/index.html

[Longtobefree]

Ah, the Clinton defense - - - - - - - -

[Nige]

That's more like George W Bush numbers of lost emails and documents.

[M L]

Reminds me of how by miraculous coincidence each and every member of Mueller Trump-Russia crack investigator squad forgot the passcodes to their phones, and then proceeded to enter incorrect passcodes so many times that the phones were wiped, then also destroyed and/or "lost" phones.

[Nige]

I'm sure it does, but what can be done to help you?

[John F. Carr]

I gather they don't have backups any more, only redundant copies of the corporate mail database. If they cared about record retention (and of course they don't) they would copy the database into read-only offline storage every once in a while.

[M L]

Too many emails relating to Epstein maybe.

[David Bremer]

As someone that has represented financial-services clients, I completely shrugged at this story. It's almost certainly not the grand conspiracy people think.

Financial institutions are required to archive an astounding number of emails and other electronic records. Sometimes they get deleted (usually for completely innocent reasons, such as when a vendor made a mistake in its coding leading to the loss of emails). Saying they were part of an "investigation" is also rather meaningless, as I've seen FINRA ask for several years of emails, with few parameters on what is excluded, as a part of industry-wide sweeps.

If there was any indication that JPM acted with intention or that these emails were likely to have material information, the fine would have been a whole lot bigger than $4 million. And it wouldn't have taken the SEC three years to institute the fine (since JPM voluntarily disclosed the deletion in 2020).

[M L]

I agree that an innocent mistake is the most likely explanation by preponderance of the evidence. However, backups these days should be quite trivial and reliable, regardless of how "astounding" you personally find the number of emails and documents.

[Sarcastr0]

I agree that an innocent mistake is the most likely explanation by preponderance of the evidence.

And yet you posted “mistakenly” in scare quotes above.

You pattern of coming in hot and then backpedaling continues.

I have no brief with JPMorgan Chase, I just want to make sure I live in reality.

[M L]

They probably have no direct evidence one way or the other whether it was a mistake, which is what you would expect. Nobody knows.

[Sarcastr0]

And here you crab walk back from your preponderance comment.

[Stephen Lathrop]

M L, backups the subject, vs. backups the electronic activity are two very different kettles. The subjects of what gets backed up, and when backed-up data get deleted, are complicated enough to be the basis of an entire learned profession—business archives management. All major corporations employ business archives managers—who get professional training comparable to academic archivists, with an added speciality curriculum pertaining to business needs and practices.

Deleting various business data on various rigidly predetermined schedules is routine, and adherence to that routine is essential to satisfy regulators that nothing sketchy is going on. Naturally, the professional objective is to serve the business need to be sure that when the cops come for the legally essential data, it is all there, safe and sound—and when the cops come for the merely incriminating data, there is nobody home. The law is fine with all of that.

[Bwaaah]

Meant to do a Ctrl-Alt-Del. Did a Ctrl-A Del instead.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

The mainstream media's hot takes from the Biden Corrupt Scandal are how the story is really about the undying love of a father for a fallen son.

Pravda. That's what these people are. State propaganda.

[Nige]

Poor Don Jnr.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Don Jr. . . . "poor?"

Damn those Saturday Night liberals!

[Bored Lawyer]

So the Special Counsel is seeking an adjournment to December of Trump’s trial date.https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-special-counsel-seeks-delay-start-trump-documents-trial-until-december-2023-06-23/

Smith, in the filing, said the Aug. 14 date “would deny counsel for the defendant or the attorney for the Government the reasonable time necessary for effective preparation.” . . . In the filing, Smith said the start of the trial should be delayed so Trump’s lawyers have time to get security clearances to review classified documents.

This will be the first legal skirmish. If I were Trump's lawyers, I would play hardball. He has the right to a speedy trial. Government has to get its ducks in a row in time. It’s not secret that the case involves sensitive documents. Let them do the security check quickly. The defendant should not have to choose between his right to a speedy trial and his right to effective assistance of counsel.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

“ The defendant should not have to choose between his right to a speedy trial and his right to effective assistance of counsel.”

That’s a false dichotomy.

A delay of a few months does not violate his right to a speedy trial. Rushing the security clearance process risks exposing classified information to people not authorized to view it, which is the basis of the trial in the first place.

A lot of defendants wait for far longer without cause before a trial. Trump can wait a few more months to ensure no further damage is done to national security because of his arrogance and stupidity.

[Dr. Ed 2]

What if Trump, or someone so charged, wished to go pro se?

While I sometimes wonder if K-Mart is handing out security clearances, in theory at least, the defendant ought not qualify for one. Yet one does have pro se rights....

[John F. Carr]

The government's manual on cases involving classified information notes "The requirement of security clearances does not extend to the judge or to the defendant (who would likely be ineligible, anyway)." The defendant would be subject to an order prohibiting disclosure of classified information.

https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-2054-synopsis-classified-information-procedures-act-cipa

[Bored Lawyer]

Yes, but that cannot override Constitutional rights. It would be an interesting question if a defendant in that position would insist on proceeding pro se. (It would be very foolish for other reasons.)

[Mr. Bumble]

Either of you learned gentlemen have any thoughts on the report that the government witness list is now at 84 and only wants to provide it under seal?

[John F. Carr]

If I were on the witness list I would not want Trump's supporters to have anywhere from 70 days to two years to harass me.

In cases with classified information the government may want some witnesses not to be identified for national security reasons.

[Bored Lawyer]

"In cases with classified information the government may want some witnesses not to be identified for national security reasons."

Hard to see how they can testify, then. We don't allow people to testify in camera.

The harassment is a different story, but not that easy for the Government to prove. Still, I assume that the defense counsel will get the names and can try to contact them, so hard to see the prejudice to the defendant.

[not guilty]

The government's motion represented that the witness list had been provided to defense counsel.

The request to file the witness list under seal has now been denied without prejudice. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67490070/united-states-v-trump/ (docket entry 41)

[Bored Lawyer]

And the judge gave the Defendants until July 6 to respond. So they are going to have to think quick on this one.

[Mr. Bumble]

That is to repsond to the government motion for continuance, although the original order says 7-7-23.

[David Nieporent]

Sure. You misunderstood the report. The list has already been provided to Trump's lawyers. The government is seeking to file it with the court under seal.

[Bored Lawyer]

A delay of a few months does not violate his right to a speedy trial.

Yes, it does. In fact, under the Speedy Trial Act, the maximum allowable delay is 100 days, with certain exceptions or if the defendant consents. Here the request is for a four month delay. That in practice many defense attorneys ask for longer delays is not germane to the question.

Rushing the security clearance process risks exposing classified information to people not authorized to view it, which is the basis of the trial in the first place.

Hogwash. If the Government wants, it can check out someone’s bona fides within two weeks or less. These are criminal defense lawyers we are talking about, not some real estate associate of Trump’s.

Sorry, that many despise Trump is not reason to trash the Constitution. The Government brought the case and has to prove it, all the while abiding by the Constitutional rights of the accused. It's no accident that about half the Bill of Rights concern criminal process in some manner.

[Noscitur a sociis]

In fact, under the Speedy Trial Act, the maximum allowable delay is 100 days, with certain exceptions or if the defendant consents.

The maximum allowable delay is 70 days, but (unlike the law in some states), the defendant's consent is neither necessary nor sufficient.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

The Speedy Trial Act is not the Constitution. Violating that law is therefore not the authoritative determination of whether someone's rights have been violated.

As for the security clearances: Are you aware that the government is not the only party which has responsibility and influence upon the timeline of checking whether someone is granted a clearance?

Do you think that you just fill out some forms, they get stamped 'approved' and that's it??

[Mr. Bumble]

"As for the security clearances: Are you aware that the government is not the only party which has responsibility and influence upon the timeline of checking whether someone is granted a clearance?"
So enlighten us Karnac. Who does?

[Jason Cavanaugh]

If you even had the slightest idea what the process for obtaining a security clearance involves, you wouldn't ask such a stupid question.

Have you ever checked a reference in your life? What did that involve doing, and if you think very, very carefully, what cooperation did that require outside of your involvement?

[Mr. Bumble]

You made the claim so support it.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

I literally gave you the answer in the form of a rhetorical question.

You're too fucking stupid to realize it.

[Mr. Bumble]

Yes I am stupid for trying to engage with a dohtard.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

"Have you ever checked a reference in your life? What did that involve doing, and if you think very, very carefully, what cooperation did that require outside of your involvement?"

Again, if you can't determine the answer to that question, you're just retarded.

This isn't an application to bag groceries. If references cannot be contacted, or questions come up which cannot be answered, the government doesn't just stamp the fucking papers and hand out the security clearance.

[Armchair Lawyer]

The Amendment in question is the 6th Amendment, right guarantees "the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed"

The Speedy Trial Act simply puts into law what the amendment guarantees, not unlike the equal rights act puts into law some of the provisions of the 14th Amendment.

Now, as with all rights, the accused can WAIVE the rights if they so choose. But here, the accused may choose not to waive such rights.

"Not liking Trump" is not an excuse to ignore Constitutional Rights.

[Mr. Bumble]

Don't confuse Jason with facts.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

I am well aware of the Constitutional clause.

The Speedy Trial Act is NOT the Constitution. You may make a claim that violating it is equivalent to violating the right under the Constitution, but until SCOTUS tells you that a trial which began on the 71st day is a violation of that Constitutional right, what you have is an opinion - not a fact.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Sigh....

As per the opinion in Barker v. Wingo, the SCOTUS would not make such a "rule" that 71 days was unacceptable. That would cause the courts to engage in administrative rulemaking, which they are not supposed to do. That's the job of the legislative branch. As per the decision

"But such a result would require this Court to engage in legislative or rulemaking activity, rather than in the adjudicative process to which we should confine our efforts. We do not establish procedural rules for the States, except when mandated by the Constitution." "The States, of course, are free to prescribe a reasonable period consistent with constitutional standards, "

So, when the states or federal government pass a law that denotes such a reasonable period, consistent with constitutional standards, violating that law implies violating the constitutional standards as well.

I used the 14th Amendment and Equal Rights Act (although for this case, I'll use the Voting Rights Act) as an example. Let's say, for example, you stopped a black man from voting in the 2024 US Presidential Election. Are you violating his Constitutional Rights? There's no explicit Constitutional Right for that black people to vote in the 2024 US Presidential Election. Those exact words "This black man can vote in the 2024 US presidential election" aren't there. The 14th amendment is more vague about it. Just like the speedy trial clause of the 6th amendment is.

What you have are the various laws which enshrine the rights of the 14th amendment. Like you have various laws which enshrine the rights of the 6th amendment. And when those laws, which enshrine the Constitutional Rights are broken, you're violating those Constitutional Rights.

[Sarcastr0]

The 14A has a clause empowering Congress to implement. Not so the 6A.

Consistent with Constitutional standards does not mean enshrining constitutional standards. It means not breaking them.

[Sarcastr0]

Congress implemented the Speedy Trial Act after the Court found that a wait of years was permissible.
It doesn't change the baseline Constitutional requirement.

[John F. Carr]

The obstruction counts might be provable this summer without classified information. So the prosecution replies with an offer to sever the two sets of charges, obstruction first and national security later. Trump is guilty or exonerated before the primaries.

[Bored Lawyer]

They might do that, but that increases his defense costs unnecessarily.

[Armchair Lawyer]

They might. The defense may choose to deny the prosecution's offer. I find that more likely.

The Biden Administration would likely prefer to drag out this trial through the primaries and into the general election.

[not guilty]

I suspect that the Biden administration would prefer a trial sooner rather than later, with bail pending appeal denied in the event of a conviction.

[Stephen Lathrop]

I suspect Jack Smith may hope to get this entire trial out of the way ASAP, and be willing to give up plenty in a plea bargain to do it. I base that on a guess that Smith already thinks he has a similarly powerful case against Trump for seditious conspiracy, which he can try in front of a different judge in a more favorable venue, with reasonable prospects for more severe punishment after a conviction.

It would be unfortunate for the prosecution, and for the nation, if what I posit turns out to be true, but Trump finds a way by endless delays abetted by the judge in the documents trial to postpone it too long. To avoid that, the beginning of the capitol/coup trial needs to come quite soon, and the trial needs to proceed expeditiously. It will already be too late by some reasonable assessments if the verdict in the capitol trial looks like it also decides an election campaign which is already well-developed, and looks like one Trump might win.

As a non-lawyer, I am uninformed about the prospects for complications or delays if two trials were ongoing simultaneously. I assume, perhaps mistakenly, that customary judicial procedure would disfavor doing that.

[not guilty]

I don't expect a charge of seditious conspiracy against Donald Trump. There is arguably a factual basis for such a charge, but there are other offenses with penalties just as severe which are more easily proven.

[OtisAH]

So you’re not so much a “bored” lawyer as you are a not very good one? I mean, don’t get me wrong, Turnip’s lawyers. Definitely play hardball. Insist on the August 14 trial date. That’ll show the government! And boy oh boy will the Libs be pwned. In fact, it’s probably malpractice if they don’t keep the August date. Scratch that. It is definitely malpractice if they do not go to trial in August.

[Bored Lawyer]

Wow, another substance-less post. You've earned Muting. Bye-bye.

[OtisAH]

If Poor Lawyer mutes me, do I still have to see his posts?

[jb]

I get the feeling Jack Smith is a lot smarter than Trump and possibly any attorney that is going to be willing to work for Trump at this point.

If Trump is dumb enough to fight for a faster trial just to do the opposite of what Smith is proposing here, it will be one of the greatest legal bamboozlings of all time. Smith clearly has a solid case put together, I agree the FBI can hurry the security clearances if they want, and Trump has a rag-tag defense team. A speedy trial would almost certainly be in the prosecution's interest here, so if Trump opposes this on principle he'll have played right into Smith's hands.

[Mr. Bumble]

Smarter or more devious? Not a good look when the SC threw out the McDonald conviction 8-0.

[Bored Lawyer]

Opposing the motion for spite is a dumb move, but forcing them to either speed the process or drop parts of their evidence could be advantageous.

And I don't see what the bamboozling is. The judge set the case down for trial in August. The Government didn't have to do anything to keep that date.

[jb]

If Trump was planning to delay the trial himself (which is his usual tactic and likely in his interest both politically and legally in this case), then filing for a delay yourself to get him to take the opposite position is a pretty big bamboozle.

As for Mr. Bumble's invocation of McDonald, the elements to prove crimes under the Espionage Act are pretty well defined, and it doesn't look like the prosecution is stretching to find evidence thereof. The case Bragg brought in New York is much more tenuous and probably a better analogy to McDonald.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Politically, delaying the trial works for Biden. It drags the case and the news through the primaries and into the general election.

A solid win here for Trump now puts him on top.

A loss just means he appeals.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Perhaps he will be enabled to conduct his appeal from Guantanamo (which would be a handy place to stash former Pres. Trump after conviction . . . a cell at Guantanamo would ease the Secret Service's job by providing a very secure setting).

[jb]

A trial in a Trump appointee's courtroom that results in a guilty verdict from a Florida jury is going to be more than a minor inconvenience for Trump's electoral prospects. While it's true that he can appeal and that for many people he could shoot someone in broad daylight on Fifth Avenue and it wouldn't change their opinion of him (one way or the other), there's a reasonable set of voters who will see a meaningful distinction between an indictment and a felony conviction.

[not guilty]

If Trump is convicted and appeals, a critical factor will be whether he is confined pending appeal. In the federal system release pending appeal is disfavored per 18 U.S.C. § 3143. In Georgia an appeal bond is discretionary for felony offenses except for certain specified felonies (which Trump is unlikely to be charged with) under O.C.G.A. § 17-6-1(g).

[Armchair Lawyer]

Sure, Jack Smith has a solid case, like the one he had against Bob McDonnell... Which was unanimously reversed by the SCOTUS.

But it did it's job, ruining a politician's career.

Seems that's the purpose again.

[Mr. Bumble]

He also lost in the John Edwards case and in the Robert Menendez case although he did win one against a CA Congressman whose name escapes me.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Smith won a conviction in all the lower courts. Seemed like a pretty solid case.

[Voize]

SCOTUS didn't reverse McDonnell, it vacated judgment because of a missing jury instruction that might have affected the outcome.

The trial court had failed to inform the jury that taking a meeting, instructing a subordinate to take a meeting, or attending or even hosting an event are not "official acts" so it is legal to take bribes for doing them. "Pay to play" accusers should take note.

[Estragon]

Here is the government’s proposed timeline.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23859204-sdfla_9_23-cr-80101-amc_34_3

[Estragon]

Here is Jay Bratt’s declaration regarding interim security clearances. Once the lawyers have their forms in, DOJ has committed to turning things around in 48 hours to give interim clearance, which I think is extremely fast.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23859206-sdfla_9_23-cr-80101-amc_34_1

[Bored Lawyer]

Yes, but they say that for some docs, that is not sufficient, they will need to give final approval, and that takes 45 to 60 days. And those docs include the ones Trump is charged with unauthorized retaining. See par. 5 of that declaration

So that is where the defense might be able to put the squeeze on the government.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The government will be the one who squeezes.

[Estragon]

I just want to point out here that there is not an actual claim of innocence or a substantive defense of the alleged conduct— just a theory about how to extinguish the claim procedurally. Cmon, Bored— defend the alleged conduct substantively!

[Brett Bellmore]

It's like the case where a cop goes out on a stretch of highway where everybody speeds, and waits for the Mayor's almost certain opponent in the next election to drive by, and tickets him, and only him, for speeding. He lets the Mayor off with a warning. Said opponent doesn't have actual innocence as a defense, because they WERE speeding, everybody was. It's got to be something procedural.

[jb]

It's kind of like that, except in this case the guy who got the ticket had taken off his license plates, was drunk, and was driving 20 mph faster than everyone else.

[Brett Bellmore]

If you add that the cop didn't bother pointing the radar gun at the Mayor, or requiring him to use the breathalyzer, so he could have been just as fast and drunk for all we know, sure.

Trump probably understood himself to be doing something previous Presidents had gotten away with, and he wasn't entirely wrong about that. But he was a fool to think, after all he'd been through, that he was going to get the same consideration any other former President would get. He walked right into it.

That's one of my complaints about Trump. He Just. Didn't. Learn. A sign of his age, I think.

[Sarcastr0]

Trump probably understood himself to be doing something previous Presidents had gotten away with,

You remain steadfast in ignoring how much of an outlier Trump was and is at this late date after all the facts have come out, and quotes from the man himself detailing him committing a crime in the moment.

Just incredible.

[Brett Bellmore]

Trump was an outlier primarily in terms of not having risen through the political establishment, and so being a threat to their continued hold on power. That put a target on his back, and caused everything he did to be minutely and hostilely examined, where people didn't just skip that and make shit up, which the media would then credulously report.

You could pick half the politicians in DC, subject them to the same treatment, and they'd come across as horror shows. Biden, say: A long record as a habitual fabulist, his family life is an R rated soap opera, his finances don't bear close examination, he's visibly sinking into dementia as everyone watches.

Lack of that establishment career experience made Trump an easy target, though, and he didn't learn from it. That's bad.

[Sarcastr0]

He was an outlier in his actions to stonewall and hide the documents.

Your yelling about bad faith double standards crumbles because *he did things no one else did*

You can't seem to grasp this no matter how many times it is shown to you. It is, as I said, incredible.

[Nige]

Or, Trump was given a chance to return the documents, and he didn’t. End of story.

‘That put a target on his back, and caused everything he did to be minutely and hostilely examined,’

How utterly clueless about how US politics operates do you have to be to claim Trump was somehow uniquely victimised this way? Remember that time you minutely and hostilely examind a single photo of Biden and claimed it was greenscreened? The hostile examination can be THAT dumb, trivial and relentless.

[Brett Bellmore]

You don't get as far as "stonewalling" if nobody goes after you in the first place, so I give Biden and Pence no credit on that score. Hillary, famously, wiped a server that was subject to a subpoena, after having people with no security clearance sort through it; Would you have been happier if he'd burned some of the boxes, and shipped the ashes to the National Archives, and called it good?

So, not as much of an outlier as you'd like to think.

[David Nieporent]

Hillary, famously, wiped a server that was subject to a subpoena,

False. You've never read the subpoena, have you?

Trump had a year and a half to give back the documents. He would never have been charged if he hadn't refused that entire time to do so, going so far as to have his minions lie in response to a grand jury subpoena. Of course other politicians have ended up in possession of classified documents after they left office. But none of them reacted as Trump did, so none were treated like Trump.

[Sarcastr0]

You don’t get as far as “stonewalling” if nobody goes after you in the first place

If no one goes after you, then there are no news stories of you giving back documents at all. But there was.

The difference is not that no one went after anyone but Trump, it's that *everyone else* cooperated.

Once again, it's not that Trump is being targeted, it's that his actions were unique.

Hillary, famously, wiped a server that was subject to a subpoena
You, famously, can't keep this timeline straight. She wiped it, per protocol, before the subpoena.

You are just amazing at forgetting stuff that's told to you when it goes against a story you're into.

[Nige]

'So, not as much of an outlier as you’d like to think'

The grunting and straining involved in trying to make butteremails fit Trump's actions is unhealthy, surely.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

As I observe Brett Bellmore's frantic attempts to defend former Pres. Trump, I enjoy recalling his longstanding pursuit of former Pres. Obama's Muslim Kenyan communist birth certificate.

Carry on, clingers. But only so far as better Americans permit.

[David Nieporent]

Trump was an outlier primarily in terms of not having risen through the political establishment, and so being a threat to their continued hold on power.

This is all just a made-up Just So story.

Trump was — is — an outlier in that he's a sociopath who doesn't care if the country burns as long as he's on top of the ashes. But that's purely about personal ambition; it's not about some challenge to the political establishment.

That put a target on his back, and caused everything he did to be minutely and hostilely examined, where people didn’t just skip that and make shit up, which the media would then credulously report.

No, Brett. Every president (and major party candidate) has a target on his back and gets minutely and hostilely examined. Trump isn't a victim. He's just a terrible person who did and does terrible things.

[Bored Lawyer]

I am not Trump's lawyer. He's probably guilty. "Probably guilty" does not cut it, though. The Govt. has to prove it. The defense just has to make the Govt.'s job hard.

I was discussing the latest procedural issue. There will be plenty of time to discuss the substance.

[Randal]

It's a trap. Trump's defiant instinct will lead him to reject the request and demand a "speedy trial." That'll deprive him down the road of being able to blame his losses on having too little time to prepare a defense.

[not guilty]

"This will be the first legal skirmish. If I were Trump’s lawyers, I would play hardball. He has the right to a speedy trial. Government has to get its ducks in a row in time. It’s not secret that the case involves sensitive documents. Let them do the security check quickly. The defendant should not have to choose between his right to a speedy trial and his right to effective assistance of counsel."

With Jack Smith playing the role of Br'er Rabbit begging not to be thrown into the briar patch?

[Bored Lawyer]

Yes, that theory was asserted above. Sounds too convoluted to me.

But then again, this is Trump, so we are in an alternative universe anyway.

[Zarniwoop]

Between Jack Smith and Trump playing 4-D Chess, I'll bet on Jack Smith.

[jb]

FWIW, I don't think Smith is actually trying to trick Trump into demanding a speedy trial. My point above was just that if Trump did so, it would be really dumb.

Rather, I think Smith is anticipating that Trump will try to delay the trial for much more than a couple of months and is trying to anchor on a schedule that allows Trump for reasonable preparation without pushing the trial deep into 2024 or beyond.

[David Nieporent]

This will be the first legal skirmish. If I were Trump’s lawyers, I would play hardball. He has the right to a speedy trial.

No, you absolutely would not. Trump's only viable strategy is to delay, and pray that the 2024 election comes out in his favor.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Trump’s only viable strategy is to delay, and pray that the 2024 election comes out in his favor.

Highly probable, with respect to federal prosecutions (Jan. 6, Espionage Act in Florida, national security misconduct in New Jersey); not necessarily, with respect to state prosecutions (election misconduct in Georgia, business fraud in New York, who can predict what else?).

[Dr. Ed 2]

Titanic Sinking Part Deux....

Assume for the sake of argument that it was gross negligence, which it appears it might have been. Which country will the civil suits be filed in?

Remember that this is International Water.

While the boat carrying the submersible has to be registered somewhere, the submersible does not because it never is in territorial waters. Does the USCG have jurisdiction? How?

OK, let's say they BUILD it out there, then what?

[M L]

The civil lawsuit will be filed in whichever jurisdiction they exclusively consented to in their contract.

[David Nieporent]

Assume for the sake of argument that it was gross negligence, which it appears it might have been. Which country will the civil suits be filed in?

Remember that this is International Water.

While the boat carrying the submersible has to be registered somewhere, the submersible does not because it never is in territorial waters. Does the USCG have jurisdiction? How?

OK, let’s say they BUILD it out there, then what?

What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

Literally none of what you said is relevant to anything, and I don't know what "jurisdiction" you think the USCG would have over a lawsuit, anyway. The suit will be filed wherever they can get personal jurisdiction over Oceangate.

[Dr. Ed 2]

While a ship that puts into port is required to be registered *somewhere*, is there any requirement that a ship that remains on the high seas be registered? The US, Canada, Britain & France are all "investigating", all will likely write new laws for their flagged subs, the IMO writes recommendations but has no legal authority.

[M L]

National debt has increased $700 billion since the debt ceiling was suspended a couple weeks ago:

https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/debt-to-the-penny/debt-to-the-penny

[jb]

That's because the debt was being kept artificially low for a while in order to avoid defaulting for as long as possible. Steady state deficit is about $30B per week for 2023 as a whole, although obviously a bit bursty.

[M L]

Just interesting to see the grift and graft in real time.

[John F. Carr]

The Texas Senate has decided that Ken Paxton's wife, who is a state senator, will not vote on his impeachment. She will count as present. Two thirds of members present must vote to convict. In effect she will be given an automatic "no" vote.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Only if she is present. My guess is that the vote will be overwhelming enough to be moot.

[ducksalad]

Overwhelming which way, do you think?

Based on the lack of explicit support from Abbot and Patrick, I’m assuming Republican senators feel they have “permission” to vote their conscience, which would normally mean he’s a goner.

However, if Paxton manages to spin this as Trump vs Never Trump he might get 11 senators to support him. I think it’ll be a close call and even closer if his wife counts as 1 of the 11.

[Voize]

I assume she won't count as present if she absents herself.

[Estragon]

Daniel “DJ” Rodriguez gets 151 months. This individual tased a cop.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/california-man-sentenced-prison-felony-charges-including-conspiracy-and-assaulting-police

[John F. Carr]

The victim suffered injury, not just an "ouch!"

[Estragon]

I have been assured it was all grannies taking pictures who were welcomed in by the police

[hoppy025]

Biden and Merrick Garfinkel's DOJ is harshly enforcing the law against 1/6 protesters, no matter how minor their offenses, because they dared to challenge the leftist order.

[Estragon]

How minor is tasing a cop, in your estimation?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

More minor that banging the underage daughter of your dead brother and having her nudes on your laptop in the FBI's possession.

hbu?

[Estragon]

“banging the underage daughter of your dead brother”

Why is it always so lurid with you? Where are you getting this?

So, what is the appropriate sentence for tasing a cop at the capitol? Wrong answers only— as you’ve said you’re not good at citations but rather “argumentation”

[Brett Bellmore]

To be fair, he's talking about a case that actually IS lurid. The first family IS something of a soap opera.

Tasing somebody wrongfully is assault and battery. Pretty serious, too, because tasers can kill people, and do occasionally.

[Nige]

The opposition hysteria around them is lurid. They’re kind of tame in terms of dysfunction, if in nothing else in comparison to the wildly over the top attacks on them. They’re the same people who firmly believe that the Clintons either are elite assassinations or have elite assassins on call. This is normal for you. It’s funny to hear you complain about Hunter’s slap on the wrist when you also believe there are videos of him committing the most appalling crimes on the laptop in the posession of the FBI. The contrast is absurd.

Cops kill a bunch of people every year with tasers. They're no joke.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Seems like I also remember a case where a cop shot and killed someone who was trying to get hold of his taser. The cop was acquitted on the argument that if the guy got the taser, he could disable the cop with it, take his gun and kill the cop with it.

[hoppy025]

Perhaps, but the police were following immoral and illegal orders, and therefore, using force against them was justified.

[hoppy025]

Pretty minor, if there are no actual injuries.

[Randal]

challenge the leftist order

Hm... I see by "leftist order" you mean "American democracy." I guess that makes you un-American and fascist. Which, we already knew, but it's nice to know you're aware of your own shortcomings.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

The esteemed and incorruptible Jack Smith and the DOJ accidentally leaked a tape of Trump talking to CNN.

Why can they get away with manipulating the jury pool like that?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Perhaps CNN obtained it from the source from which the Department of Justice obtained it.

[David Nieporent]

Or from Trump's legal team. (This is the one time that Trumpkins reject the false flag possibility.)

[jb]

Yeah, coincidentally right after Smith provides discovery to Trump, then the tape leaks. And now his people are saying that the recording provides context showing that he didn't do anything wrong.
But it must be Smith that did it, right?

[Bored Lawyer]

I don't understand what you're saying. Trump is talking on a tape. Unless it's an imitator, it's his own words. False flag is not going to work on that one. The Trump fanatics have other answers.

[David Nieporent]

We're not talking about the incident on the recording; we're talking about the 'leak' of the recording. MAGA have convinced themselves (or have decided to pretend to be convinced) that the government leaked the tape in order to make Trump look bad, perhaps to influence the jury pool. (See BCD's comment that sparked this subthread.)

Given that there's no actual evidence that the government did so, they've resorted to "Who else could've done it?" And Kirkland correctly pointed out that other people have copies of the recording — Meadows' ghostwriter/publisher/etc. — and could've done it. And I added that Trump himself (I mean, not personally, but someone on his team) could've done it. They could've done it for the same reason everyone gives stuff to the media, or because Trump is delusional enough to think the tape helps him, or they could've done it precisely so they could complain that the government had done it. (If you don't think anyone would be brazen enough to try the latter, google Troy Ellerman.)

(Note that I put 'leak' in quotes because unless the government did it, it isn't a leak. It's just a private citizen supplying information to the media.)

[Bored Lawyer]

I got all that, but this was a tape of Trump talking to CNN, right? So it's in the public domain. Even if the government did it, I don't see what the leak is. CNN could run it any time they want. Or put a snippet on Youtube, where all the stupid talking heads could analyze it ad nauseam.

It's like the prosecutor "leaking" that Trump lives at Mar-a-Lago. My reaction to any outrage on that would be (1) Duh and (2) get a life.

[David Nieporent]

I got all that, but this was a tape of Trump talking to CNN, right?

No. It was a recording of Trump talking to Meadows' ghostwriter (with knowledge that it was being recorded!), that CNN got a copy of and published.

[Voize]

No, it's Trump talking to a ghostwriter and publisher who were working on a Mark Meadows memoir about his presidency. Scuttlebutt is that Smith subpoenaed the tape from Margo Martin, one of Trump's aides at the meeting, after she mentioned it in her grand jury testimony. Maybe CNN got it from the same source.

[Bored Lawyer]

"because Trump is delusional enough to think the tape helps him"

He has in fact made that very claim. https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4069253-trump-claims-new-documents-recording-exonerates-him/

We are Through the Looking Glass now. (With apologies to Lewis Carroll).

[Mr. Bumble]

It seems that we have been through the looking glass and down the rabbit hole for quite some time.

[Bored Lawyer]

It's not like they bugged his office and then released the tape of that. CNN is the part of the national press. If CNN had it, CNN was in a position to leak it. I hardly see what the complaint is. You talk to the press, on the record (it was videotaped) it will come out.

This is one of Trump's biggest weaknesses. He thinks he can BS his way out of anything. When you make a statement on videotape, it will come out.

[not guilty]

“The esteemed and incorruptible Jack Smith and the DOJ accidentally leaked a tape of Trump talking to CNN.”

BravoCharlieDelta, what facts support your claim that Jack Smith and the DOJ leaked anything? Did you get that (like much of your information) from Otto Yourazz?

[not guilty]

Still waiting, BCD.

[Frank Drackman]

With LSU's beat down of the Gators last night, SEC's won 5 of the last 6 College World Series (OK, would have been the same if Florida had won) and 5 of the last 6 College Football Playoffs.
Might be more entertaining to go to the old "College All Star Game" format where the SEC Champion plays the best of the rest of the country.

Frank

[Bored Lawyer]

Three SCOTUS decisions today:

(1) Moore v. Harper — rejected the Independent Legislature theory of redistricting. Legislature redistricting plans are still subject to court review in state courts (although the NC Supreme Court later held that certain claims are not justiciable, but that did not moot the case, so holds SCOTUS). (Thomas, Gorsuch and Alito dissented, arguing the case was moot.)

(2) Counterman v. Colorado — discusses true threats exception to the First Amendment. “The State must prove in true-threats cases that the defendant had some subjective understanding of his statements’ threatening nature, but the First Amendment requires no more demanding a showing than recklessness.” I expect our host to blog on this one.

(3) MALLORY v. NORFOLK SOUTHERN R. CO. — Pennsylvania requires companies who qualify to do business in the state to consent to its courts’ general jurisdiction. The PI suit involved injuries to a mechanic who worked for the railroad in Virginia and Ohio, and only moved to PA after retirement. SCOTUS upheld the legal requirement to consent to jurisdiction, and that such does not violate the Due Process Clause. I expect that other states may follow PA’s example. Interestingly, the lineup was not the usual ideological one. GORSUCH, THOMAS, ALITO, SOTOMAYOR, and JACKSON all held for the plaintiff mechanic. BARRETT, ROBERTS, KAGAN and KAVANAUGH all would hold for the defendant RR company.

[David Nieporent]

(Thomas, Gorsuch and Alito dissented, arguing the case was moot.)

But Thomas and Gorsuch went on to say that they disagreed with the majority. Alito did not.

[Sarcastr0]

Alito didn't take the opportunity to throw in with the GOP's latest electoral mischief-making? Huh.

[Bored Lawyer]

True enough. Although I don't see how they can opine on something they insist is moot. Its obiter dictum.

[Voize]

If judges never engaged in dicta we wouldn't have a name for it.

[Bored Lawyer]

Not the same thing. You can be discussing an issue, and mention a different fact situation as a contrast, and what the law would be in that case. That's proper dictum.

Here, Thomas wrote:

This Court sits “to resolve not questions and issues but
‘Cases’ or ‘Controversies.’” Arizona Christian School Tuition Organization v. Winn, 563 U. S. 125, 132 (2011); see
U. S. Const., Art. III, §1. As a corollary of that basic constitutional principle, the Court “is without power to decide
moot questions or to give advisory opinions which cannot
affect the rights of the litigants in the case before it.” St.
Pierre v. United States, 319 U. S. 41, 42 (1943) (per curiam).
To do so would be to violate “the oldest and most consistent
thread in the federal law of justiciability.” Flast v. Cohen,
392 U. S. 83, 96 (1968) (internal quotation marks omitted).

The opinion that the Court releases today breaks that
thread. It “affirms” an interlocutory state-court judgment
that has since been overruled and supplanted by a final
judgment resolving all claims in petitioners’ favor. The issue on which it opines—a federal defense to claims already
dismissed on other grounds—can no longer affect the judgment in this litigation in any way. As such, the question is
indisputably moot, and today’s majority opinion is plainly
advisory. Because the writ of certiorari should be dismissed, I respectfully dissent.

After that, there should be nothing more to say.

[NOVA Lawyer]

I think Thomas is wrong about everything on this one, but, given he lost the mootness argument, he absolutely has cause to also discuss the merits if he disagrees with the majority (for idiosyncratically stupid reasons, no doubt, but still, that's what dissents are for).

[Randal]

It is odd to see Alito being the restrained one.

But anyway, Thomas and Gorsuch have nothing on Kavanaugh... even in this case! He did another "concurrence" which is really just a "yes and," wherein he goes on to decide whatever future cases he can imagine arising in the wake of the decision.

[EscherEnigma]

Isn't Kavanaugh the one who once ruled that a truck driver should have frozen to death rather then keep himself alive?

That guy just does not like workers, does he?

[not guilty]

I think the frozen truck driver case was then-Judge Gorsuch.

[David Nieporent]

Correct. And it was the same textualism that led him to rule for the employees in Bostick that led him to rule against the driver in the trucking case.

[EscherEnigma]

Ah. I knew it was one of them.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

I'm sorry, but what?!

Would it be possible for you to either say more on that case, or link to the opinion please?

[NOVA Lawyer]

https://www.cnn.com/2017/03/21/opinions/judge-gorsuch-the-frozen-truck-driver-opinion-callan/

[NOVA Lawyer]

Just an absurd level application of textualism to a situation where a truck driver was in danger of freezing to death. He could either stay with the trailer and potentially die, thereby keeping his job, or he could use the last of his gas to get to warmth and (in Gorsuch's world) be justifiably fired, because following your employer's orders is more important than preserving your own life in the face of an unusual, dangerous situation.

Between Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch (at minimum)......

[David Nieporent]

The truck driver, of course, was not in any danger, insofar as that by the time Gorusch dissented, the events were seven years in the past. The only issue that confronted the 10th circuit was whether the company owed the driver a job and/or money.

I would assume that preserving one’s own life is more important to the vast majority of people than following one’s employer’s orders. But it’s not clear what that has to do with the issue the court was deciding. There are lots of things I think more important than my employer’s orders (well, before I was self-employed), but that doesn’t mean I have a right to do them and keep my job.

EDITED TO ADD: To be clear, Gorsuch does not say that the driver was "justifiably" fired. He said that it was legal, the only issue he was asked to decide.

It might be fair to ask whether TransAm's decision was a wise or kind one. But it's not our job to answer questions like that. Our only task is to decide whether the decision was an illegal one.

https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=16072968594944118219&q=Maddin,+v+Trans+Am+Trucking&hl=en&as_sdt=6,33

[Brett Bellmore]

So, the Supreme court can't rule that a corporate policy is contrary to public policy?

[not guilty]

Walt Nauta was scheduled for arraignment in Florida, but he didn't show (air travel difficulty). He reportedly has not yet employed defense counsel licensed in Florida. I'm speculating here, but could that be because Save America PAC is unwilling to fund someone who may go off the reservation?

Conflict-free counsel might advise Nauta to reach a plea/cooperation agreement and testify against Donald Trump. If the Court does not require bulletproof, on-the-record waiver of potential conflicts, I can foresee a collateral attack on any conviction of Nauta because the principal defense lawyer is being paid by a Trump affiliated entity.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Surprised that Moore v. Harper gets such a bypass here. Congratulations to MSNBC's legal analyst (and former Acting U.S. Solicitor General) Neal Katyal on his victory in the case.