Monday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[Dr. Ed 2]

Is there any validity to the allegations that California is going to be sentencing convicts on the basis of race? In other words, that Blacks and Latinos will be given shorter sentences as a form of "reparations."

And if this is true, how is this Constitutional?

[not guilty]

Who is making the allegations that you describe, that Blacks and Latinos will be given shorter sentences as a form of “reparations”?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Jeff Kuhner, Boston radio talk show host -- WRKO, AM 680.
(I heard it yesterday morning waiting for an update on the cryptic (and highly inaccurate) tornado warning.)

[David Nieporent]

Yes, there is obvious validity to something you claim you heard on talk radio, because that is a very reliable source of news.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Tends to be a different viewpoint from the NY-Times. Perhaps the same reliability though.

[Armchair Lawyer]

The Post on the other hand...

https://www.foxnews.com/media/wash-post-publishes-piece-debunked-claim-about-desantis-florida-despite-source-admitting-wrong

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

THE VOLOKH CONSPIRACY

This white, male, conservative
“legal” blog has operated for

TWO (2)

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

TWENTY (20)

different occasions (that’s 20 different
discussions, not 20 racial slurs; many of
those discussions featured multiple slurs)
during 2023 (so far).

This assessment does not address
the incessant stream of gay-bashing,
misogynist, antisemitic, Islamophobic,
and immigrant-hating slurs and other bigoted
content offered daily at this conservative
blog, which is operated by members of
the Federalist Society for Law
and Public Policy Studies.

Carry on, clingers.

[Frank Drackman]

Not kind or gentle

[Bwaaah]

Please see my response to your response on prior VC post.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

If right-wingers don't like it when I mention the level of bigoted content at the Volokh Conspiracy, preferring their conservative polemics unleavened by the occasional bit of mainstream content, they should ask the management to censor me.

Until that occurs, however, I invite the Volokh Conspiracy's conservative fans to line up in alphabetical order and kiss my ass.

Bigots have rights, too, but not any entitlement to avoid being identified as bigots.

Another idea: This white, male blog could dial down its old-timey bigotry a bit.

[Frank Drackman]

Coach Sandusky, not being kind or gentle, and ordering his victims to “Line up” (in “Alphabetical Order”!!! I’ve been calling him “Coach” as a goof, but maybe he really is “Coach” Sandusky?) and commit sexual acts on him, Bit of a “Role Reversal”, “Coach” Coach is right about one thang (Coach knows his Thangs) The Conspiracy does seem to be a bit of a Sausage-Fest, a Sword Fight, a Penis Procession, a Fag, I mean Stag-Party, C’mon Man, Where da White Woman at?!?!?!?!?

Frank

[Bwaaah]

Wouldn't want to be a bigot, would you, Rev?

Name, name, name, name.

[bernard11]

OTOH, the Post published a correction.

[Bwaaah]

Yes. The WaPo got rid of the false statement that Florida has had a 600,000+ *outflow* of people, even though it actually had an *inflow* of that number. However, the rest of the article, which explains all the reasons why there has been an outflow, remains unchanged.

So that's a "correction" to you? That looks like only a very *partial correction* to me.

[Armchair Lawyer]

For such a blatant mistake which eliminates the entire article, a mere "correction" is insufficient.

[Gandydancer]

A correction would be fine if it admitted what the "misstatement" says about Rubin.

[Gandydancer]

MSN: “A previous version of this article misstated Floridians’ state-to-state migration in 2021,” the Post correction reads. “According to the Census Bureau, more people moved into Florida than any other state that year. This version has been corrected.”

How do you “correct” a piece you’ve published about how the Earth is flat after you’re forced to admit that it is round? The premise was egregiously and idiotically wrong, not merely a “misstatement”. The latter makes it sound like a typo when it was actually Rubin believing that DeSantis was lying without bothering to check AT ALL.

[bernard11]

Why do you go out of your way to proclaim what an idiot you are?

[Gandydancer]

^^^^ A good question to ask yourself while looking in the mirror, pal.

[Ed Grinberg]

Yes, there is obvious validity to something you claim you heard on talk radio, because that is a very reliable source of news.

It is a fact that the “mainstream media” refuses to report certain stories, and outright lies about others. I’ve listened to conservative talk radio for years, and haven’t found its ratio of “fake news” to be higher than that of other media.

[David Nieporent]

How would you know?

[Armchair Lawyer]

Well, since you first insinuated that talk radio wasn't reliable, I think the real question is "what's your evidence" that it's not reliable.

[Nelson]

We can start with Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, and Joe Rogan and move on from there.

[Gandydancer]

But in this case what THAT host said agrees with MSN.com and reality.

Face it, Nopoint (and now you) have been proven here to be blowhard jackasses.

[Sarcastr0]

This explains a lot.

[Gandydancer]

Gaslightr0 is the kind who thinks men in dresses are women, so is in constant need of explanations for the mismatches between what is going on between his ears (not much, actually) and reality.

[Gandydancer]

Nopoint: "Yes, there is obvious validity to something you claim you heard on talk radio, because that is a very reliable source of news."

NB: After Ed ASKED "Is there any validity to the allegations that..." Nopoint demonstrates that he is a jackass by (a) responding as if Ed had personally vouched for the assertion made by the radio yakker and (b) not bothering to search for any info on the subject before asserting, in effect, that it is almost certainly a right-wing fantasy.

I did, and the bill under discussion has passed the CA Assembly and the connection to reparations was made by that notorious right-wing mouthpiece MSN.com (link downthread).

[John F. Carr]

I only read about a tornado watch yesterday. A tornado watch or warning means much less than other kinds of warnings. A hurricane warning means it is more likely than not that you will experience enough wind and rain to disrupt your daily routine. A tornado warning means there is a slight chance of a tornado somewhere in the county.

[Dr. Ed 2]

What I eventually found was:

A tornado warning has been issued for several areas of Northeastern Massachusetts while a tornado watch is in effect for much of the rest of the state.

The warning is in effect for West Central Essex County and Northeastern Middlesex County until 8:45 a.m.

“A severe thunderstorm capable of producing a tornado was located over Maynard, or 9 miles northeast of Marlborough, moving Northeast at 30 mph,” the National Weather Service reported. The radar indicated cloud rotation, the service said.

https://www.masslive.com/weather/2023/07/tornado-warning-issued-for-parts-of-massachusetts.html

That is helpful -- “tornado in your area” is not!

[John F. Carr]

What is called a "tornado warning" should more accurately be called a "tornado watch" to be consistent with other alerts.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Your cell phone shrieking "take cover" definitely isn't!

There really was a tornado, it just didn't touch down and 30 years ago no one would have known about it unless an airline pilot happened to see it. There aren't more tornadoes, we just have much better radar.

And there was a F-0 (80 MPH wind) that touched down in East Brookfield (beyond Worcester) that took down some trees.

But this isn't Kansas!

[Nige]

Well done, Captain Hindsight.

[OtisAH]

And 30 years ago more people would die from late night tornadoes than will today because of the warning system. But I do have some sympathy that you’re now less well-rested for your day job of posting stupid and/or vile nonsense on the VC seven days a week. Maybe start your nap a little early today?

[Dr. Ed 2]

OTISAH, I don't know what background, if any, you have in emergency management or even public administration, but there is a very serious problem with false alarms.

Putting it in simple enough terms for you to understand, people won't pay attention when there is a REAL alarm!

This includes volunteer fire departments and the University of Maine at Machias lost its library because they had *so* many false alarms that no one took the real one seriously. Most of the guys didn't get out of bed until someone told them it was a *real* fire and then it was too late.

The same thing WILL happen with the larger population with weather warnings. There is a serious concern that hurricanes have been over-hyped for so long that no one will pay attention for a really serious one, and the NWS understands that on this. For example, what told me that they were serious about Hurricane Bob in the '90s is when they gave a marine forecast not to the Hague Line (the US/Canada fishing boundary) but all the way to the Canadian coast *and* announced the frequencies that the Canadian Weather folk broadcast on.

The Hurricane Watch and then Warning would come later as they didn't want to say the "H" word until they were sure.

Same thing with tornadoes -- this is Massachusetts, we've had two serious tornado outbreaks (F-4/5) in 70 years -- the Worcester tornado in the 1950s and the Springfield tornadoes 60 years later.

Yes, cell phones screaming "take cover" got our attention this time and might the next time, but there is response fatague. Remember the school shooting in Udaldie(?) Texas? Part of the problem was that they had *so many* lockdowns that people didn't take them seriously and that's why the teacher opened the door that let the perp into the building.

Yes, it should have locked when it closed, but she never would have opened it if she thought the scare was real....

You don't want to cry wolf -- and you DO want to give accurate info.
I have no problem waking people up -- to give them *specific* instructions. Creating a hysteria is ineffective and irresponsible.

[Nige]

You keep saying the new civil war's about to start you're in no position.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Nige, I am not sending out messages for people to lock & load....

[Nige]

No? Trump is.

[John F. Carr]

I suspect there was an F0 a quarter mile away from me two or three years ago. On a stormy day when another tiny tornado hit to the west there was a line of damage of the sort that the official tornado certifiers look for when they officially certify a tornado. I do not have a tornado certifying license so I can only point out the possibility.

There was no visible damage to houses. I didn't know anything happened until I went for a walk and saw the snapped tree tops down the street. Some toppled trees the next street over. More in the woods nearly in a straight line from the other two damaged spots. Individual broken trees pointing in different directions, indicating a rotating rather than straight line wind.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Possible -- in MA statistically more likely a microburst.

[Kazinski]

Well it isn't much crazier than this decision by the Washington Supreme Court:
"Judges must presume that racial bias was a factor in a jury's decision in a civil suit when one litigant makes that claim, according to a Washington Supreme Court ruling, placing the burden of proof on the opposing party to show that racial bias did [not] affect the outcome."

https://www.thecentersquare.com/washington/article_fad52928-5a21-11ed-90e2-0361e69cec4f.html

The US Supreme Court didn't grant cert when the ruling was appealed to them.

[Sarcastr0]

The decision found a prima facie case for racial bias. You interpreted even your biased source incorrectly.

[Brett Bellmore]

Prima facia case based on nothing but a naked assertion? What black litigant isn't going to make that naked assertion going forward, if they don't have to prove it, the other side has to prove the negative?

[Krychek_2]

Since when do they not have to prove it? For the most part, the problem has been on the other side -- there have been cases in which black defendants brought forth reams of statistical evidence creating an inference of racial bias, only to be told it was irrelevant and they had to prove bias in their specific case.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Since this judges ruling.

[Krychek_2]

I see you didn't read the actual decision:

“Counsel’s comments during cross-examination and closing arguments that drew on racial stereotypes, along with the jury’s astonishingly small award and the request to remove Henderson from the courtroom, support the conclusion that appeals to racial bias affected the verdict.”

Oh wait, SarcastrO already beat me to it.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Hey did you see what the "racial stereotypes" were?

Also, since when are small awards racist?

They just cobbled together some nonsense.

[Krychek_2]

That "nonsense" doesn't prove the case; it simply opens the door for the opportunity to try to prove the case. It's the minimum you have to show in order to even get it heard. Most likely challenges based on allegations of racism will almost never succeed.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"That “nonsense” doesn’t prove the case; it simply opens the door for the opportunity to try to prove the case. "

Well, no, it shifts the burden to the other party. So if one party raises that nonsense, the other party must prove that the verdict was untainted by bias to get the verdict upheld.

Sounds like you didn't read the actual case either.

[Ed Grinberg]

it shifts the burden to the other party. So if one party raises that nonsense, the other party must prove that the verdict was untainted by bias

As they say in Russia: Go and try to prove you're not a camel.

[Krychek_2]

And it sounds like you're not familiar with the concept of prima facie case. There's a helpful discussion of it in McDonnell Douglas v. Green, 411 US 792.

First, the side claiming the verdict was tainted has to make out a prima facie case, at which point the burden shifts to the other side. The other side must present some evidence (not beyond a reasonable doubt or even preponderance), which the first side may then attack as pretextual.

Bottom line, it's still going to be pretty tough to prove racial bias.

[TwelveInchPianist]

There's plenty of discussion in this decision. You don't have to make a prima facie showing of bias.

“[t]he ultimate question for the court is whether an objective observer (one who is aware that implicit, institutional, and unconscious biases, in addition to purposeful discrimination, have influenced jury verdicts in Washington State) could view race as a factor in the verdict.”

In other words, if you can't exclude bias as an element in the verdict, you lose. And unconscious bias and the like could be an element in any verdict.

[Kazinski]

I'd have no problem with the case if they threw out the juries verdict based on the fact they asked to remove the plaintiff from the courtroom, but because some of the statements may have invoked racial stereotypes is ridiculous, if the plaintiff was combative, the lawyer should be able to point that out. Saying shiftless and lazy, that should get the case re-heard.

Here is Alito and Thomas's opinion concurring in the denial of cert.
The court found that these com￾ments played on stereotypes about the “‘angry Black
woman’” and the “victimhood” of white women. Id., at 436–
437, and n. 8, 518 P. 3d, at 1023–1024, and n. 8. The court
also cited defense counsel’s insinuation that Henderson was
motivated by a desire for a financial windfall, as well as her
suggestion that Henderson could not have suffered $3.5
million in damages since she had not even mentioned the
accident when she saw her doctor a short time thereafter.
Id. The court thought that this
argument “alluded to racist stereotypes”—that black
women are “lazy, deceptive, and greedy” and are “untrust￾worthy and motivated by the desire to acquire an unearned financial windfall.” [that's quite an admission by WASC, the defense didn't say that]. The court also faulted defense counsel for suggesting that Henderson’s lay witnesses, all of whom were black, had been prepared or coached because they all used the same
phrase—“‘life of the party’”—to describe Henderson’s personality before the accident. Ibid. The court viewed this tactic as inviting jurors to make decisions about these witnesses “as a group and . . . based on biases about race and truthfulness.” [wow the WASC really doesn't think.much about Black people].
Because of these comments by defense counsel, the court found that an objective observer “could conclude that rac￾ism was a factor in the verdict,” and it therefore held “that Henderson is entitled to an evidentiary hearing on her new trial motion.” The court added that “[a]t that hearing,the [trial] court must presume racism was a factor in the verdict and Thompson bears the burden of proving it was not.”

"In sum, the opinion below, taken at face value, appears to mean that in any case between a white party and a black party, the attorney for the white party must either operate under special, crippling rules or expect to face an evidentiary hearing at which racism will be presumed and the at￾torney will bear the burden of somehow proving his or her innocence. It is possible that the Washington Supreme Court will subsequently interpret its brand-new decision more narrowly, but the procedures it appears to set out would raise serious due-process concerns.
The Washington Supreme Court’s opinion is also on a collision course with the Equal Protection Clause, as our recent opinion in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College"

In sum, if they really mean what they said this case is going back to SCOTUS.

[Sarcastr0]

It wasn't a naked assertion, Brett. I take it you didn't read the link:

"Cited as evidence of racial bias were statements by the defendant’s lawyer that seemed to indicate racial stereotyping, including describing the defendant as “confrontational” and “combative,” her suggestion that the defendant was interested only in a financial windfall, and that the defendant’s witnesses, who were all black family members and friends, were “inherently biased” and seemed to have been coached to give identical testimony."

[BravoCharlieDelta]

"confrontational", "combative", "only interest in financial windfall", "coaching witnesses".

Those aren't racist observations or arguments.

This is a nonsense ruling where they started with the goal and worked backwards.

[TwelveInchPianist]

“Cited as evidence of racial bias were statements by the defendant’s lawyer that seemed to indicate racial stereotyping, including describing the defendant as “confrontational” and “combative,” her suggestion that the defendant was interested only in a financial windfall,

In other words, all the things that lawyers normally do (and have a right to do) to discredit a witness. So yeah, it's a naked assertion.

If you had read the decision, you'd understand that the Washington Supreme Court found that a party can make a prima facia case for racial bias by suggesting something that might be considered a racial stereotype (Here, that describing the witness as "combative" invoked an angry black woman stereotype), and the court must hold a hearing where the party wanting to uphold the verdict has the burden of showing that the verdict was untainted by bias. This will be overturned in federal court when it gets there.

[Ed Grinberg]

This will be overturned in federal court when it gets there.

Well, it certainly should be overturned. But if the case gets assigned to someone like Sonia Sotomayor, it probably won't be.

[hoppy025]

Hopefully she'll be too busy stuffing her fat ugly face when it comes time to vote and there's only an 8 member court.

[not guilty]

"This will be overturned in federal court when it gets there."

How will the case get to federal court? SCOTUS denied certiorari on June 30, 2023. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/22-823_m648.pdf

[TwelveInchPianist]

To save you the trouble of reading your link:

“ I concur in the denial of certiorari because this case is in an interlocutory posture, and it is not clear whether it pre- sents any “federal issue” that has been “finally decided by the” Washington Supreme Court. Cox Broadcasting Corp. v. Cohn, 420 U. S. 469, 480 (1975); see 28 U. S. C. §1257. But if the Washington courts understand the decision below to be as sweeping as it appears, review may eventually be required.”

But even if the case doesn’t get there, the holding will be challenged in a different case.

[Kazinski]

That seems pretty standard assertions for a case like this regardless of the race of the defendent.

As for racial stereotypes, some people do fit the stereotype. If the woman in this case was confrontational the lawyer can't say so? And the jury can't make up their own mind?

But the objectional part is that in cases going forward, when racial bias is alleged that the judge should presume bias unless it's rebutted.

If there is no evidence either way, the bias claim wins.

[Sarcastr0]

You can relitigate the case all you want. You're still utterly incorrect when you write: "Judges must presume that racial bias was a factor in a jury’s decision in a civil suit when one litigant makes that claim."

That is not what happened here.

[Michael P]

That is exactly what the state supreme court wrote. As quoted below: "At that [new trial] hearing, the party seeking to preserve the verdict bears the burden to prove that race was not a factor. If that burden is not met, the court must conclude that substantial justice has not been done and order a new trial."

[David Nieporent]

“Judges must presume that racial bias was a factor in a jury’s decision in a civil suit when one litigant makes that claim.”

That is not what happened here.

I'm sorry, Sarcastr0, but you're wrong. That's exactly what happened here. The litigant made the claim, presented nothing that even remotely looks like racial bias to any sane human being, and SCOWA said to the defendant, "You have to prove that racism didn't play a role in the verdict." Something that's inherently not possible to do.

[Sarcastr0]

You may decide the court is wrong, but you don't get to declare that they did nothing because you disagree with their finding.

Court made boneheaded decision may not play as well as court shifted the burden of proof, but that is the facts.

I'm not engaging on substance - no time today. Maybe the court is out to lunch.
But don't mischaracterize the procedure followed to make a better story. It only makes you look like you have an agenda.

[TwelveInchPianist]

“ Court made boneheaded decision may not play as well as court shifted the burden of proof, but that is the facts.”

No, that’s not the facts. The facts are what the people you’re insulting are claiming that they are. To wit, a party made a bare assertion of bias, the court accepted the assertion without any evidence of bias, just rank speculation about stereotypes, and now the winning party has to prove that the verdict was bias-free.

[gdanning]

You know, it is not that hard to find the opinion, which says, in relevant part:
"In this case, Janelle Henderson, a Black woman, and Alicia Thompson, a white woman, were involved in a motor vehicle collision. . . . During the trial, Thompson's defense team attacked the credibility of Henderson and her counsel—also a Black woman—in language that called on racist tropes and suggested impropriety between Henderson and her Black witnesses. The jury returned a verdict of only $9,200 for Henderson. Henderson moved for a new trial or additur on the ground that the repeated appeals to racial bias affected the verdict, yet the trial court did not even grant an evidentiary hearing on that motion. The court instead stated it could not "require attorneys to refrain from using language that is tied to the evidence in the case, even if in some contexts the language has racial overtones." 1 Clerk's Papers (CP) at 180-81.

That reasoning gets it exactly backward. In ruling on a motion for a new civil trial, "[t]he ultimate question for the court is whether an objective observer (one who is aware that implicit, institutional, and unconscious biases, in addition to purposeful discrimination, have influenced jury verdicts in Washington State) could view race as a factor in the verdict." State v. Berhe, 193 Wash.2d 647, 665, 444 P.3d 1172 (2019). A trial court must hold a hearing on a new trial motion when the proponent makes a prima facie showing that this objective observer could view race as a factor in the verdict, regardless of whether intentional misconduct has been shown or the court believes there is another explanation. At that hearing, the party seeking to preserve the verdict bears the burden to prove that race was not a factor. If that burden is not met, the court must conclude that substantial justice has not been done and order a new trial. "

[Gandydancer]

Why don't you link to it, then?

The decisive word in your quote is "could".

There is no way that the defendant's attorney could prove that race COULD NOT have been ANY factor in the jury's verdict, even an unconsious one.

[TwelveInchPianist]

The decision found a prima facie case for racial bias. You interpreted even your biased source incorrectly.

No, the court found a prima facie case that an objective observer could view race as a factor in the verdict, including believing that the verdict could have been influenced by unconscious bias and the like.

You're the one interpreting things incorrectly.

And of course, any verdict might be tainted by unconscious bias.

[David Nieporent]

The decision found a prima facie case for racial bias. You interpreted even your biased source incorrectly.

The only basis for thinking there was racial bias was disagreement with the jury's decision. Which is not a basis at all. The things that they claimed looked like "racial bias" reflect racial bias only to the sort of people who look at a raincloud and think "racism."

The court literally found that the defendant attacking the credibility of opposing witnesses was inherently racist because they're black. (But left open the nonexistent, nonsensical, impossible possibility that the defense could refute that.)

[Gandydancer]

Everuyone is getting it wrong except Gaslightr0:

What's new about the Henderson decision?
Before this ruling, Washington court rules maintained that it was the responsibility of the
accusing party to prove that racial bias influenced civil court proceedings or jury verdicts. By
contrast, the Henderson decision concludes that when a party to a civil litigation proceeding
accuses another party of bias, it is the responsibility of the accused party to prove that there
was no such bias. This is a significant change because it shifts the burden from “prove the result
was racially motivated” to “prove it wasn’t”.

https://glpattorneys.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Legal-Update-Implications-of-the-Henderson-Ruling-November-2022-v2-1.pdf

[jb]

Seems more helpful to quote the actual case, no?

"In a hearing based on prima facie evidence that racial bias possibly affected the verdict, the court must presume that it did and the party seeking to uphold the verdict must prove how it did not."

As Sarcastr0 points out, you do in fact need to bring evidence of bias first despite the misleading summary in the article.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Saying a witness is "confrontational" or "combative" or "only interested in financial windfall" isn't evidence of racial bias.

Having a low award also isn't evidence of racial bias.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Seems more helpful to quote the actual case, no?"
Sure:

A trial court must hold a hearing on a new trial motion when the proponent makes a prima facie showing that [an] objective observer could view race as a factor in the verdict, regardless of whether intentional misconduct has been shown or the court believes there is another explanation. At that hearing, the party seeking to preserve the verdict bears the burden to prove that race was not a factor.

An objective observer can always view race as a factor in the decision, so the summary isn't far off.

[David Nieporent]

As Sarcastr0 points out, you do in fact need to bring evidence of bias first despite the misleading summary in the article.

Nope. We know that's not true in practice because the plaintiff in this case didn't bring any evidence of racial bias and yet SCOWA ordered the court to hold such a hearing.

[Sarcastr0]

There was evidence, you just think it's manifestly insufficient. But manifestly insufficient is not the same as absent.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Wrong again, Sarcastro. You didn't read the decision, did you?

There was no evidence of bias, the court didn't find that there was evidence of bias, and the court didn't make a finding that there was bias.

Other than that, great comment.

[Gandydancer]

Alito summarized the "evidence":

In a remarkable decision, the Washington Supreme Court reversed due to the possibility[!] that the jury’s award was tainted by prejudice, and it remanded for a hearing that appears to have no precedent in American law. In support of its decision, the court cited several statements made by defense counsel in her closing argument. It pointed to defense counsel’s description of Henderson as “quite combative” on the witness stand and her description of Thompson as “intimidated and emotional about the process.” Id., at 425, 518 P. 3d, at 1018 (internal quotation marks omitted; emphasis in original). The court found that these comments played on stereotypes about the “ ‘angry Black woman’ ” and the “victimhood” of white women. Id., at 436–437, and n. 8, 518 P. 3d, at 1023–1024, and n. 8. The court also cited defense counsel’s insinuation that Henderson was motivated by a desire for a financial windfall, as well as her suggestion that Henderson could not have suffered $3.5 million in damages since she had not even mentioned the accident when she saw her doctor a short time thereafter. Id., at 425, 518 P. 3d, at 1018. The court thought that this argument “alluded to racist stereotypes”—that black women are “lazy, deceptive, and greedy” and are “untrustworthy and motivated by the desire to acquire an unearned financial windfall.” Id., at 437, 518 P. 3d, at 1024. The court also faulted defense counsel for suggesting that Henderson’s lay witnesses, all of whom were black, had been prepared or coached because they all used the same phrase—“ ‘life of the party’ ”—to describe Henderson’s personality before the accident. Ibid. The court viewed this tactic as inviting jurors to make decisions about these witnesses “as a group and . . . based on biases about race and truthfulness.” Id., at 438, 518 P. 3d, at 1024.

 Because of these comments by defense counsel, the court found that an objective observer “could conclude that racism was a factor in the verdict,” and it therefore held “that Henderson is entitled to an evidentiary hearing on her new trial motion.” Id., at 429, 439, 518 P. 3d, at 1020, 1025 (emphasis in original). The court added that “[a]t that hearing, the [trial] court must presume racism was a factor in the verdict and Thompson bears the burden of proving it was not.” Id., at 429, 518 P. 3d, at 1020

The Washington Supreme Court’s decision raises serious and troubling issues of due process and equal protection. In some cases, it will have the practical effect of inhibiting an attorney from engaging in standard and long-accepted trial practices: attempting to undermine the credibility of adverse witnesses, seeking to bolster the credibility of the attorney’s client, raising the possibility of a counterparty’s pecuniary motives, and suggesting that witnesses may have been coached or coordinated their stories.

In other words, the "evidence" for racism is bullshit.

[Gandydancer]

I wrote about this case back in May, iirc, albeit on an open thread already two or three days old, iirc.

Alito and Thomas "concur[ed] in the denial of certiorari because [the] case is in an interlocutory posture, and it is not clear whether it presents any “federal issue” that has been “finally decided by the” Washington Supreme Court." Bot on the merits they certainly sound ready to grant cert and overturn when it IS final.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/22-823

[BravoCharlieDelta]

removed duplicate

[Gandydancer]

“Who is making the allegations that you describe, that Blacks and Latinos will be given shorter sentences as a form of “reparations”?”

MSN (Left enough for you?) makes the linkage between CA Assembly Bill 852 (passed by the California Assembly in May and now being considered in the state Senate) and reparations:https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/california-bill-sparks-controversy-sentencing-based-on-race-proposed/ar-AA1dITif

[Brett Bellmore]

California bill would require racial bias in prison sentencing

"Bill Text
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:

SECTION 1. Section 17.3 is added to the Penal Code, to read:
17.3. (a) It is the intent of the Legislature to rectify the racial bias that has historically permeated our criminal justice system as documented by the California Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans.
(b) Whenever the court has discretion to determine the appropriate sentence according to relevant statutes and the sentencing rules of the Judicial Council, the court presiding over a criminal matter shall consider the disparate impact on historically disenfranchised and system-impacted populations."

Seems accurate enough to say that it mandates racial discrimination in sentencing, in as much as "the disparate impact on historically disenfranchised and system-impacted populations." has diddly squat to do with the defendant before the court, and they're sure not going to reduce a white guy's sentence just because black guys are historically over-represented in prison populations.

[Frank Drackman]

Well yeah, but that's just the text of the Bill, where's your documentation?!?!?!? Disparate impact??? I'm guessing Governor Loathsome doesn't mean the disproportion of Black on White vs White on Black murders??

[John F. Carr]

It's affirmative action for prisons. Put more white people in prison to make up for their historical underrepresentation. Like the Harvard admissions process, it is not narrowly tailored to remedy individual injustices. (Also like the Harvard admissions process, important people get preferential treatment in criminal justice.)

I think our current Supreme Court would overturn this in a case where the facts suggested a black defendant would have gotten less time. Developing such facts is hard.

[Michael Ejercito]

The same people pushing for this are the same people pushing for stricter gun control laws.

[gdanning]

It is difficult to understand from the text of the law what it even means; the court must consider "“the disparate impact on historically disenfranchised and system-impacted populations.” The disparate impact of what? This one guy's sentence?

The preamble to the bill perhaps adds some clarity: Under existing law, a conviction or sentence is unlawfully imposed on the basis of race, ethnicity, or national origin if the defendant proves, among other things, that the defendant was charged or convicted of a more serious offense than defendants of other races, ethnicities, or national origins, or received a longer or more severe sentence, and the evidence establishes that the prosecution more frequently sought or obtained convictions for more serious offenses against people who share the defendant’s race, ethnicity, or national origin, as specified, or if a longer or more severe sentence was more frequently imposed on defendants of a particular race, ethnicity, or national origin, as specified.
This bill would state the intent of the Legislature to rectify racial bias, as specified."

FYI, CA law currently allows a court to strike a sentencing enhancement where "Application of the enhancement would result in a discriminatory racial impact as described in paragraph (4) of subdivision (a) of Section 745." That section says: "(A) A longer or more severe sentence was imposed on the defendant than was imposed on other similarly situated individuals convicted of the same offense, and longer or more severe sentences were more frequently imposed for that offense on people that share the defendant’s race, ethnicity, or national origin than on defendants of other races, ethnicities, or national origins in the county where the sentence was imposed. (B) A longer or more severe sentence was imposed on the defendant than was imposed on other similarly situated individuals convicted of the same offense, and longer or more severe sentences were more frequently imposed for the same offense on defendants in cases with victims of one race, ethnicity, or national origin than in cases with victims of other races, ethnicities, or national origins, in the county where the sentence was imposed."

[Gandydancer]

It's not all all difficult to understand. As you note, if blacks are getting longer sentences for the same crimes that's already addressed. The “disparate impact on historically disenfranchised and system-impacted populations” isn't going to be from THAT, it's going to have to be from a disproportionate NUMBER of convictions of members of “historically disenfranchised and system-impacted populations”, otherwise the bill is of no new effect. And if that disproportionate number is due to disproportionate criminality the courts will still mandated to "correct" it.

[Frank Drackman]

A Democrat-backed bill making its way through the California Legislature would require judges in the state to consider a convicted criminal's race when determining how long to sentence them to prison.

Assembly Member Reggie Jones-Sawyer, the Democratic chair of the California Assembly's Public Safety Committee, quietly introduced Bill 852 in February. The Assembly went on to pass the little-known legislation in May, and the measure is currently being considered in the state Senate.

The bill would add a section to the Penal Code of California requiring courts, whenever they have the authority to determine a prison sentence, to "rectify" alleged racial bias in the criminal justice system by taking into account how historically persecuted minorities are affected differently than others.

[not guilty]

Donald Trump has filed a Hail Mary Petition for Writs of Mandamus and Prohibition in the Supreme Court of Georgia against the District Attorney for Fulton County and a Judge of the Superior Court for the Atlanta Judicial Circuit, asking the Supreme Court to:

Direct the quashal ofthe special purpose grand jury’s report and barring its or its contents’ use in any future proceedings, civil or criminal;

Forbid the District Attorney from introducing any evidence obtained via the special purpose grand jury process to a regular grand jury; and

Compel the District Attorney’s disqualification as a party representative in any proceeding involving Trump.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23875859-petition

This maneuver is completely off the wall. In Georgia, the right to extraordinary aid of mandamus exists only where the applicant has a clear legal right to the relief sought and there is no other adequate remedy. See, GA Code § 9-6-20 (2020) and annotations thereto.

Georgia law forecloses the relief that Trump seeks here. In State v. Lampl, 296 Ga. 892, 770 S.E.2d 629 (Ga. 2015), the Supreme Court found that where a special purpose grand jury had exceeded the scope of its investigating authority, dismissal of an indictment found by an independent, properly constituted regular grand jury is not an available remedy:

Even if, as Lampl contends, some of the evidence presented to the regular grand jury emanated from the unlawful investigation by the special purpose grand jury, this in itself is of no moment, for grand juries, unlike petit juries, are authorized to consider evidence without regard to its eventual admissibility at trial. See Mitchell v. State, 239 Ga. 456, 459(3), 238 S.E.2d 100 (1977) (“ ‘[t]he evidence which the grand jury receives in finding a true bill is not subject to inquiry’ ”); accordAnderson v. State, 258 Ga. 70(11), 365 S.E.2d 421 (1988); see also United States v. Calandra, 414 U.S. 338, 343(II), 94 S.Ct. 613, 38 L.Ed.2d 561 (1974) (grand jury’s “ operation generally is unrestrained by the technical procedural and evidentiary rules governing the conduct of criminal trials”).

770 S.E.2d at 634.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Look, everyone knows that this is a political show trial anyway, why not make it interesting?

It's not like any of this is legal, or really serves any concept of justice.

So lets sell more popcorn...

[Sarcastr0]

Ed speaking for everyone, as he does.

Pulse on the heart of the populous, he has.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

He seems representative of the Volokh Conspiracy's target audience (disaffected, roundly bigoted, conservative, resentful, archaic, enjoys forecasting violence that would smite the modern American mainstream).

[Frank Drackman]

Neurofibrillary Tangle caught in your teeth "Coach"???
you forgot, so I'll supply your catch phrase
"Carry on, Klinger!!!"

Frank

[ReaderY]

Criminal defendants file off-the-wall petitions all the time, and some of them stick. And Trump has a long history of filing off-the-wall petitions in various legal cases he’a been involved him. Even when they didn’t stick, they often delayed things and increased his opponents’ costs. Sometimes that alone resulted in a de facto win, notwithstanding a de jure loss. Trump’s whole career in dealing with courts has focused on de facto outcomes, not de jure ones. De jure outcomes, and de jure considerations, don’t really matter to him.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, he's just throwing shit against the wall, to see if it will stick. People do that all the time, and sometimes it does stick. A lot of modern jurisprudence arrived in just that way.

And, who knows, maybe the horse will learn to sing.

[Sarcastr0]

He also has bad lawyers because he is a bad client and doesn’t pay them.

You don’t need to defend even Trump’s lawyers, good lord.

[Brett Bellmore]

He has bad lawyers because there's actually a lefty organization out there threatening to destroy the career of any lawyer who dares to take him as a client. Only bad lawyers think that chance is worth taking.

[Krychek_2]

Why should any lefty organization need to destroy the careers of any lawyer taking Trump on as a client when Trump's lawyers do such a thorough job of it themselves?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Because Leftists, at their heart are evil vile fascists.

https://the65project.com/

[Krychek_2]

I didn't see anything in your link saying or proving that "Leftists" are evil vile fascists. But again, assuming that to be true, Trump's lawyers are doing such a bang-up great job of ruining their own careers that there's no reason for "Leftists" to do anything other than get out of their way.

[Gandydancer]

Maybe they don't have any "reason" o do this, but they did, which is evil, vile and fascistic. That you are oblivious to that fact suggests that you are the same.
https://the65project.com/ethics-complaint-against-kurt-b-olsen/

[Moderation4ever]

The 65 Project is not addressing Trump's lawyers but rather lawyers who knowingly sought to steal election and deprive people of their vote.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

That's their advertised claim, not their actions. Their actions are solely going after Trump lawyers in all realms.

" lawyers who knowingly sought to steal election and deprive people of their vote."

Further, that's an absurd premise put forth to mask their heinous, undemocratic actions.

[Moderation4ever]

No, it is not an absurd premise as a number of lawyers essentially pursued litigation with no evidence. These lawyers have come back to say they should not be held accountable because no reasonable person would have believed their claims.

[Gandydancer]

You are full of shit, starting with your handle.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Project65 lawyers are now defending Ray Epps.

That's weird.

[Frank Drackman]

Don't forget they're Jews

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Look Frank. If the Jews didn't want to be labeled as bad people then they should stop doing so much bad shit.

It's that simple.

[Frank Drackman]

Still waiting for what your military service was, and why you're not living in Saudi Arabia or Ear-Ron if Jews bother you so much

[Krychek_2]

BCD, I finally figured out why you don't like Jews. It's because they tend to not suffer fools gladly.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Hey Krychek, with respect to gamete production, how many classes of humans are there?

Two? Three? Or an infinite spectrum?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Look Frank. If the Jews didn’t want to be labeled as bad people then they should stop doing so much bad shit.

I expect Prof. Bernstein to give you a pass on that one. Federalist Society courtesy.

[Krychek_2]

BCD, you just cannot stick to a subject, can you?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

I'm just rubbing your nose in your own dissonance just like I would a bad puppy who pissed on the floor.

[Krychek_2]

Oh, is that what you think you're doing? You're funny.

[Sarcastr0]

He has bad lawyers because he is a bad client and doesn't pay his lawyers.

You have in the past admitted that is true. But I guess the lure of yet another liberal conspiracy was too much for you.

[OtisAH]

I am now convinced that Brett writes stupid shit like this, and only stupid shit like this, because it’s the only way he can get people to talk to him.

[Gandydancer]

He doesn't, but you do. Your blovations are what is called confession through projection.

[OtisAH]

I love when you try to use big words and concepts you’re aware of but can’t define, use, or apply correctly. It adds a veneer of intellectualism to your posts that is certain to impress people dumber than you.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

He has bad lawyers because there’s actually a lefty organization out there threatening to destroy the career of any lawyer who dares to take him as a client.

Former Pres. Trump had bad lawyers -- laughably bad, in many cases -- long before any accountability issues developed.

After the 2020 election, Trump had some credible lawyers (able, experienced Republican election lawyers) for a short period. Those competent lawyers began to extricate themselves, however, soon after the failures and follies of Trump Election Litigation: Elite Strike Force began to emerge.

[ReaderY]

[gVOR08]

Hey, Trump feels like he did something and the lawyers got paid. Or at least they got paid if they demanded the money up front. This is a legal blog. You got something against lawyers getting paid for wasting everyone’s time?

[John F. Carr]

The petition was denied on the independent grounds that (1) the court customarily declines to exercise its original jurisdiction in such cases, and (2) Trump has not shown an entitlement to having the special purpose grand jury report suppressed or the prosecutor disqualified. The court was not impressed with the petitioner's need to run for president without "irremediable reputational harm" from being unjustly prosecuted.

https://docket.gasupreme.us/viewFiling?filingId=c5a2c4da-56bb-4989-89a8-0f987bab6d9b

[not guilty]

Thank you for the link. While the Georgia Supreme Court ruled that Donald Trump's petition was procedurally inapposite, the Court opined at page 4 that Trump has not shown that he would be entitled to the relief he seeks. Even absent the procedural deficiencies, Trump would not be entitled to relief on the merits.

[David Nieporent]

The court was not impressed with the petitioner’s need to run for president without “irremediable reputational harm” from being unjustly prosecuted.

Although Trump's lickspittles (and just plain ignorant people like Brett Bellmore) whine about "Trumplaw" — that courts are making up special anti-Trump rules — the actual truth is the opposite: Trump and his various goons have been demanding special treatment from the judicial system.

The J6 people, Michael Flynn, Trump's petition to Aileen Cannon regarding the original search warrant, and many others: they're all premised on the idea that the same procedures applied to everyone else caught up in the judicial system every day should not apply to Trump and his circle. And courts have nearly uniformly rejected the idea that these guys are entitled to special treatment just because they're rich, white, and/or politically connected.

And we will likely (if Cannon sticks to judging) see the same result with Trump's attempt to indefinitely postpone the trial (but at least until after the election) on the grounds that it will interfere with his presidential campaign: a quick rejection of that absurd notion.

[Kazinski]

Andrew Weissmann, Mueller's former chief deputy when asked about the Secret Service investigation of the Whitehouse Cocaine on MSNBC said : “To me, the Secret Service here looks like they can’t find a dead cow in a closet."
The Secret Service “should do more than just say, there were no fingerprints or DNA on the evidence. And we looked at surveillance logs, and we didn't see somebody actually leaving it there. Which it seems highly unlikely.”

“It's such bad law enforcement, You interview people. But you know what you don't do before you interview people? Publicly say that there's no DNA evidence and no fingerprints. Like why would you let the whole world know that if you’re then going to interview people?”

"To me, this is really one where—just do more. I mean you are handing the Republicans an issue and legitimately,”

Now being a libertarian, and as someone that was an adult in the 70's and 80's in California, I'm not that shocked about cocaine in the Whitehouse. But this obviously purposely botched investigation, right on the heels of Hunters sweetheart plea bargain where the AG apparently lied to Congress trying to pretend impartial justice was being meted, indeed just raises more concerns. Legitimately as Weissmann says, and you've got to give him credit for his honesty.

[Dr. Ed 2]

What scares me is that this could have been Anthrax. Or possibly something even worse.

I despise Team Brandon, but I don't want to see any harm come to them. The USSS is supposed to be ensuring the security of that building. How did this get by them?!?

[Kazinski]

The Anthrax concern is absurd.

Why would Hunter be snorting Anthrax?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Someone really did send Anthrax to Tom Dashel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks

[Gandydancer]

But THIS white powder almost certainly got in because a protected person carried it in. (And we know who that most likely is.) Bongino (who has reason to know) has told us that cocaine or anthrax would have been detected on anyone checked, i.e. anyone else. (Because of the most advanced, sensitive, chemical sniffer systems and the like, I gather.) So what someone sent to Dashiell (and others) is neither here nor there.

Besides, the only reason to care about Biden dying of anthrax is Kamela.

[John F. Carr]

I remember a scene from the only House of Cards that exists in my mind, the 1990 BBC series. Urquhart disposes of an unreliable aide by putting rat poison in his cocaine.

[David Nieporent]

What does a tiny amount of cocaine have to do with the security of the building?

[Frank Drackman]

If you had more than a tiny amount of your brain left you'd know.

[Armchair Lawyer]

If you can get cocaine in, and not be able to identify the person involved, you can get all sorts of more dangerous items in.

[Nige]

What level of strip-search do you think appropriate for White House tourists?

[Armchair Lawyer]

How about just accurately identifying who puts what things in what cubbies?

[Nige]

So a security guard for each cubby?

[TwelveInchPianist]

Or a camera pointing in the direction of the cubbies?

[Nige]

Surely mutiple cameras and armed guards – got to protect the cubby from tiny bags with tiny amounts of coke in them.

[Gandydancer]

You added the “armed guards” (which of course are already numerous, though not one per cubby) back in. And you pretend that cocaine is the most dangerous powder. Did you think no one would notice that you did this?

You are a moron.

[Nige]

'Did you think no one would notice that you did this?'

I generally expect people who read comments here to have basic reading skills, yes. Call me an optimist.

[Bwaaah]

So you're saying that murdering you is the only way to get you to come up with a plausible solution to the problem?

[Nige]

No, I'm saying that it's only a problem because idiots are trying to tie the tiny bag of coke in the White House vicitor cubby to Hunter Biden.

[Bwaaah]

I don't think that's the "only" problem. There could also be legitimate security concerns, such as how much of the publicly accessible space in the White House is not reliably covered by recorded video surveillance? (No need for "strip searches" or minders to get more data.)

But, yes, for some people, it could only be a Hunter Biden story, and for others, it couldn't possibly indicate a problem in the White House.

[Nige]

They don't give a shit about whatever real concerns this raises, it started out as a Hunter Biden joke, now it's a joke right-wing outrage.

[Gandydancer]

^^^^^ I " don’t give a shit about whatever real concerns this raises". /s/ Nige

[Nige]

‘I ” don’t give a shit about whatever real concerns this raises”’ about Hunter Biden bringing coke in through the visitors’ entrance at the White House and dropping a tiny baggie in the visitors’ cubby area. No, I really, really don’t.

[Gandydancer]

How about some cameras, genius?

[Frank Drackman]

about the same as I get going through TSA

[Nige]

edgebot has to get dismantled every time

[Frank Drackman]

Nige-bot didn't get the "Package" package.....
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA It's true,
"this "Man" has no dick!"

Frank

[Nige]

edgebot's package confiscated by TSA

[Gandydancer]

^^^^ "Tiny" Nige projects his experiences onto others.

[Nige]

Gandy learned a new word - 'project.'

[Brett Bellmore]

But if you can get cocaine in, and they're not willing to identify the person involved on account of having a darned good idea who he is, that in no way implies that you could get all sorts of more dangerous items in.

I mean, unless Hunter switches to fentynal and somebody gives him an uncut kilo for giggles. I suppose that could get ugly.

[Nige]

‘having a darned good idea who he is’

You have such wildly varying and entirely situational standards of evidence.

[Gandydancer]

(1) Protected persons (i.e., family) get in without inspection.
(2) No one else does.
(3) Cocaine on inspected persons would be detected.

People smarter and more honest than Nige can work this out and would be able to state a conclusion from these three propositions.

[Nige]

No, smart people would realise they’re engaging in conjecture, speculation and motivated reasoning with evidence so scanty it wouldn't cover edgebot's package.

[David Nieporent]

Whether you can identify someone after the fact is irrelevant to whether someone can get a dangerous item in in the first place.

[Armchair Lawyer]

People tend to be risk adverse. Knowing they will be caught, identified, and potentially prosecuted makes most people less willing to take illegal actions.

On the other hand, being aware that one won't be caught decreases the apparent risk.

[Sarcastr0]

People trying to kill the President may not be a representative sample.

[David Nieporent]

1) The phrase is "risk averse," not "risk adverse." I wouldn't mention it except that it's such a common mistake that it really grates.

2) Terrorists tend not to be so risk averse.

[Armchair Lawyer]

1) Not everyone is a terrorist who wants to engage in illegal acts.

2) Even terrorists can be risk averse. A decent chunk is a cost-benefit analysis. If there's only a slight chance their action will result in the desired outcome, but they're sure they won't be caught...it's still often a chance worth taking. They can always just take a second shot later

On the other hand, if there's only a slight chance their action will result in the desired outcome, but they're sure to be caught, it's not worth taking the option.

But really, this is a pretty stupid argument. Even you must realize that it's a problem when white powders that make their way into the White House....just can't be identified for where they came from.

[Sarcastr0]

Yes, terrorists and as sasins are known for their cost-benefit analysis. Humans being the rational strategic thinkers that they are.

But really, this is a pretty stupid argument
Yes, it is.

[OtisAH]

Speaking of assassins and cost-benefit analysis, The Accountant is actually a pretty good film.

[David Nieporent]

Speaking of assassins and cost-benefit analysis, The Accountant is actually a pretty good film.

Anything with Anna Kendrick in it can't be all bad.

(But, yeah, actually it's pretty good.)

[Michael P]

It absolutely is relevant when some people can get in without security screening because they are trusted. The proper fix is different if one of them brought in contraband than if contraband made it past a security screening.

[Gandydancer]

If you identify how it was done you can, in fact, prevent someone from getting dangerous items in in the future using the same method.

If you don’t, you can’t.

What was your intended point, Nopoint?

[John F. Carr]

"In" where? I think it was xkcd that pointed out the overreaction to some government agency's public web site being hacked. The public reaction was like, "criminals broke into DHS". The reality was like, "vandals sprayed graffiti on the walls of the DHS building."

The drugs were not in the Oval Office. The drugs were not close enough to the Oval Office for a sarin release to get the president. The drugs were not close enough to the Oval Office for a kilogram of explosives to get the president.

[David Nieporent]

I think part of the problem is that the media has barely covered how much stuff we're talking about. We're not talking about a kilo of drugs. We're not even talking about a gram. According to the Secret Service, it was a fifth of a gram. A very very small amount. (I'm not an expert on the cocaine market, but a quick google tells me we're talking about $10-$20 worth.)

This is not someone smuggling in stuff. This is someone had a little bit in his/her pocket and it fell out when the person was checking his/her phone.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Or, perhaps, the person recognized, while reaching for a telephone to stow, that the cocaine was in a pocket and decided to ditch it rather than risk being caught with it?

Either way, this seems relatively minor.

[bevis the lumberjack]

This really doesn’t matter. It’s a virtual certainty that it is not the president’s cocaine. So who really cares that someone had done cocaine in the white house. I imagine there has been thousands of incidents of cocaine in the White House since the 70s.

That said, of course the media doesn’t have much to say. With Trump they were watchdogs. Now they’re lapdogs.

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah a real coverup going on here.

[Gandydancer]

Yes, one is. Otherwise why all the lying about where the cocaine was found and why isn't there security camera footage of it getting there?

Is the camera maintenance no better in the White House than in Jeffrey Epstein's cell block? Why not?

[Sarcastr0]

Truly the media blackout is all encompassing.

[OtisAH]

Imagine The Media having little to say on a story about which there is little to say? Can’t they just spend hours every day wildly speculating until some evidence suddenly appears or we find the next toy to play with like all responsible news sources do? If Gateway Pundit can devote much of its staff and reporting to this, why can’t CNBC?!

[David Nieporent]

It would be irresponsible not to speculate.

[Gandydancer]

"If you can get cocaine in... you can get all sorts of more dangerous items in."

Only if “you” are family.

[Brett Bellmore]

In theory, sure, if the SS were actually incompetent, rather than just in the tank. But this isn't due to incompetence, it IS due to their being in the tank.

[Nige]

'rather than just in the tank'

Devastating! But meaningless!

[Gandydancer]

You're confusing what he said with what you said.

[Nige]

You're just confused.

[David Nieporent]

Wait, Brett thinks something is a conspiracy? I'm shocked.

[Gandydancer]

Nopoint doesn't admit the obvious? I’m shocked.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Brett,

I really wish you could move past the dipshit, partisan conspiracy theories about everything.

Like you, it's beyond old and pathetic.

[Bwaaah]

Yes, yes. It’s clearly “conspiratorial thinking” to suggest that the President’s Secret Service detail coordinates and subordinates its actions to the will of the White House. If the Secret Service has information that the public wants, then they would obviously lean toward disclosure regardless of what the President wants.

Conspiracy theory? Gimme a break. It’s their job to not speak unless the President tells them to speak.

[Sarcastr0]

I could see a protocol where, to ensure needed access to the President, the Secret Service had a code of silence about things the President would want kept quiet.
Though I am unaware of any specific evidence this is the case.

1) I cannot see how it would apply here.
2) Even if the above is true, that is not the same as the Secret Service being 'in the tank' for the President, as Brett posits. With no evidence.

[Bwaaah]

I'll grant you that to describe them as "in the tank" adds a notably nefarious (and probably partisan) implication. But though I too am not aware of any code of silence, silent subordination would seem to be not just a good practice in White House SS staff, but an essential one. So I am of the belief that if an SS investigation led to a finding that would embarrass the President, no such finding would be released by the SS. (And I believe that would be good business, despite the lack of transparency.)

[Sarcastr0]

I would agree that subpoenaing someone on guard detail to testify about what they heard is extremely strong medicine. And this does not rise to that level.

Seems legit to assume they were never asked about it, but also that such does not constitute ineptitude nor a coverup without a lot more to the story.

[Bwaaah]

Agreed.

[Gandydancer]

Nonsense. In what way is it not a cover-up? PERHAPS justified (though anyone who does justify it is disqualified from saying "no one is above the law"), but it is absolutely a cover-up.

[David Nieporent]

Clearly. Obviously the Secret Service immediately identified the person who had brought the cocaine in, but then lied and said that they couldn't make that determination, because Joe Biden told them to.

No other possible explanation.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The USSS' primary job is keeping Hunter and Joe alive.

So if Hunter (or Joe) were to want to do Coke, would it be the USSS' job to ensure the purity of the cocaine, or possibly even supply it?

Knowing how often cocaine is contaminated with lethal things like fentanyl, if your job is keeping Hunter & Joe alive....

[Frank Drackman]

Time for another game of
"Who said that????"
"No, I haven't taken a test. Why the hell would I take a test?" Come on, man. That's like saying you, before you got on this program, you take a test where you're taking cocaine or not. What do you think? Huh? Are you a junkie?,"

Frank

[David Nieporent]

So if Hunter (or Joe) were to want to do Coke, would it be the USSS’ job to ensure the purity of the cocaine, or possibly even supply it?

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.

[Dr. Ed 2]

No it is not stupid -- it is a real ethical (and legal) question that I don't know the answer to.

But if your sworn duty is to protect a person's life at *all* costs -- to deliberately get hit by a bullet aimed at the person -- then it does make sense to be concerned about contamination of substances the person is ingesting.

COULD the government provide USP grade cocaine? Yes, because a small amount of it is still used by dentists. WOULD it -- IDK...

[David Nieporent]

He doubles down, folks!

[Dr. Ed 2]

What would YOU do, David?

[Gandydancer]

Niopoint doubles down on idiotic assertion, whithout responding to the logic of what he attempts to deride.

My own answer is that protecting HUNTER Biden, particularly from himself, isn't such an unlimited imperative. Yes to bullet blocking, no to ensuring that his drug does are safe.

The question would be harder if Joe had his nose in the blow.

[OtisAH]

He’s just asking questions, David. Deeply, deeply, deeply stupid questions, sure. But questions nonetheless.

[David Nieporent]

If Gandydancer — he's incredibly dishonest, but I don't need to resort to juvenile manglings of his name nonetheless — is too stupid to understand why "Does the Secret Service as part of its protective duties have to procure cocaine for Hunter and test it, too?" is insanely idiotic, I'm afraid nothing I say to try to explain it to him will help.

[Nige]

'Conspiracy theory?'

Completely groundless set of ridiculous accusations, if you prefer.

[Gandydancer]

Not remotely groundless. Family are the only parties who could get away with it. And Hunter is a known cocaine abuser. Logic and honesty are not your strong points, but the rest of us aren't so disqualified from admitting the obvious

[Nige]

Unsubstantiated claim ftw.

[Kazinski]

Well focus on what Andrew Weissmann, an experienced prosecutor, and hardly a right winger, said:
"“It’s such bad law enforcement, You interview people. But you know what you don’t do before you interview people? Publicly say that there’s no DNA evidence and no fingerprints. Like why would you let the whole world know that if you’re then going to interview people?”

Clearly if they had any intention of solving the crime, they would not release the fingerprint and DNA results and they would start interviewing the prime suspects, like say people who had access to the area and a documented history of drug abuse.

But we all know why they didn't, because Joe would have gone ballistic if they interviewed Hunter.

[Sarcastr0]

Clearly … we all know

No one aches to believe more than you do.

NY Post found a non dipshit to agree with them. This is proof so far as you are concerned, because you're already on board. And, of course, you jump to the next assumption they don't write down, just as they intended.

[Kazinski]

NYPost?

Weissmann is a paid commenter on MSNBC.

Here the video of him on MSNBC:

https://twitter.com/KevinTober94/status/1679695635547660289

[TwelveInchPianist]

And he's not a non-dipshit.

[David Nieporent]

By the way, the Secret Service already explained its position: there was no forensic evidence that would enable them to identify the source of the cocaine. So they couldn't narrow it down beyond the roughly 500 people who had been in the area, except by interviewing them. And they weren't going to waste the time and manpower to interview 500 people — with no individualized suspicion as to any of them — for something so trivial that it amounted to a misdemeanor.

[Gandydancer]

Weissmann is just admitting what is already obvious.

Notably, you obviously can’t find anything he said to argue with, because you haven’t.

[OtisAH]

Oh you’re “scared” about that are you? Or is this just more histrionics in another sad attempt to keep alive a story that has reached its end and has nowhere left to go? Y’know, like every other statement of “concern” about WH security here?

[Gandydancer]

You WISH it "has reached its end", but it isn't going away no matter how hard you close your eyes and stick your fingers in your ears or how loud you yell.

[Nige]

We know, you'll ride this story so deep into the ground you'll be scaring the kangaroos.

[OtisAH]

Hilarious. Where did I suggest it was going away? Far too many propagandists and stupid people like you think it’ll move the needle someday just like it moves your tiny peckers. Twelve months from now you idiots will still be talking about this. Nobody questions that. But to the wide-world of normal people the story is at its end.

[David Nieporent]

The AG did not, of course, apparently lie to Congress.

[Frank Drackman]

You're correct he didn't "apparently" (what? no "basically", "literally"?? I'm supposed to be the one molesting the Engrish Language on this blog) lie. He just lied.
And you Idiots wanted him to replace Scalia.

Frank

[David Nieporent]

There is no evidence he lied. The Trump-appointed USA backed him up. On the other side, you've got some IRS agent who thinks he heard something.

[Michael P]

Turn in your Internet GED in law. You don't know what "evidence" is.

[not guilty]

When and where did you get your legal training, if any, Michael P?

[not guilty]

Still waiting, Michael P.

[Michael P]

Grow up, asshole. I'm not at your beck and call, and your dumbass ad hominem doesn't cover the fact that DN is full of shit.

[loki13]

No, he isn’t.

DMN has likely forgotten more about the law than you will ever know. While most people who have been on this blog for any period of time are well-aware of his qualifications, anyone who has a basic level of legal training understands that he actually understands the legal issues that he is talking about, because it is evident in the way that he discusses legal issues.

In the same way that they can read your comments and understand that you lack the same training.

[Michael P]

Whether we use a legal definition or a colloquial definition, Nieporent's claim was and is absolutely preposterous.

If he had bothered to insert "admissible at trial" as a qualifier, he might have a remote basis for what he wrote, but he didn't.

[loki13]

To review, you don't seem to know much about evidence, and you accused DMN of having an "internet GED" in law- something that anyone with actual legal training knows to be a falsehood.

It's cute that you know how to google, but the first rule of holes is to stop digging.

[not guilty]

"Grow up, asshole. I’m not at your beck and call, and your dumbass ad hominem doesn’t cover the fact that DN is full of shit."

As we say down South, the hit dog hollers. What are your credentials to question David's legal acumen?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Some of these goobers spend half their time offering silly polemics and conspiracy theories as legal analysis and the rest of their time denying (1) that lawyers are qualified to offer legal analysis or (2) that lawyers are lawyers.

[Michael P]

It's not about credentials, asshole. It's about facts.

For example, whistleblower testimony, contemporaneous emails, and letters that implicitly dispute what AG Garland claimed are all evidence that he lied.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/fre/rule_401

[not guilty]

Invective, ad hominem and ipse dixit, conclusory assertions are all that you have?

How do you think your link to Fed.R.Evid. 401 helps you?

[Michael P]

FRE 401 makes it clear that those items are not merely evidence, they are relevant evidence.

Are you really that bad at reading, or are you just playing stupid?

[not guilty]

I know what Rule 401 is about. In order to be relevant a fact must be of consequence in determining the action. Here there is no "action" to be determined by any tribunal.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Congress is bound by Federal Rules of Evidence?
Antone ever told Congress that?

[Jason Cavanaugh]

"Grow up, asshole. I’m not at your beck and call, and your dumbass ad hominem doesn’t cover the fact that DN is full of shit."

Accuses someone of being a child. Proceeds to complain about ad hominem attacks in his own childish ad hominem remark.

Classic.

[Kazinski]

The Trump appointed US Attorney acknowledged in a letter to Congress he did not have charging authority outside his district,

Garland said he had full authority to charge him wherever he wanted.

There is obviously some tension in those two statements, Weiss tried to back up Garland but he had to revise his statement when pinned down.

Just hand waving isn't going to resolve this, but it's not a bad strategy to pass the time while it's being resolved.

[Randal]

What do you think “full authority” means?

Imagine that you, terrorist-boy, are a loan officer at a Bank of America in St. Louis and you have full authority to issue loans.

Do you think that means you have the authority to loan out all of Bank of America’s money? No. It means you have the authority to issue loans within your purview but without interference. That is, you don’t have to get your loan decisions approved by higher-ups… as long as they fall within your ambit.

Same here. Garland wasn’t saying that Weiss was somehow the new United States Attorney Maximus whose powers exceeded even Garland’s own and who could charge anyone anywhere at any time. He was saying that the charging decisions within Weiss’s power would not be reviewable by e.g. Biden or himself.

[not guilty]

The Trump appointed US Attorney acknowledged in a letter to Congress he did not have charging authority outside his district,

Garland said he had full authority to charge him wherever he wanted.

If "full authority" to charge Hunter Biden wherever Weiss wanted -- which incidentally were not the words Merrick Garland used -- means what you appear to claim it means, that would disregard the Fifth and Sixth Amendment requirements that a federal criminal charge be brought only by indictment or presentment of a grand jury of the district in which the crime is alleged to have occurred. It is entirely unreasonable to believe that that is what Garland was saying.

It is far more reasonable to construe Garland's statement as meaning that Weiss had full authority to charge, including the ability to seek authorization to present matters to a grand jury outside the District of Delaware pursuant to DOJ regulations, which authorization would be granted upon request.

[David Nieporent]

The Trump appointed US Attorney acknowledged in a letter to Congress he did not have charging authority outside his district,

And then he explained that Garland told him he could have had such authority simply by asking for it, but that he never did.

[Michael P]

Yes, but Garland said that Weiss actually had full authority. If Weiss never had such authority, Garland's claim was a lie. Weiss's recent letter stating only that he had never been denied such authority implies that he was never granted that authority.

[not guilty]

Michael P, your cavilling over fine distinctions would make Bill Clinton proud of you. (Remember "It all depends on what the meaning of 'is' is"?)

How does full authority not include latent authority, even if the latter is never invoked?

[Michael P]

Full authority includes the ability to present evidence to a grand jury, ask them to indict a suspect, and to do the various other activities empowered to a US Attorney of that district. A conditional promise to grant authority does not convey those abilities.

(That is, you have the question backwards. What you should be asking yourself is how “latent authority” implies “full authority”.)

[David Nieporent]

It was "conditioned" only on him asking for it. A condition that can be unilaterally satisfied by the person upon whom it is imposed is no condition at all.

[Michael P]

Which part of "conditional promise" did you confuse with "full authority"?

A promise to grant authority always has the additional implicit condition that the promise is kept.

[Randal]

Look, dorks, I found the transcript, and Garland never even says that Weiss has full authority to bring a case in any district. He's really clear that Garland "will" be granted such authority should he "need" it. And he has "full authority" to "make those kinds of referrals."

GRASSLEY: In April 2022, you testified to Senator Hagerty that the Hunter Biden investigation was insulated from political interference because it was assigned to, as you just now told me, to the Delaware attorney's office. However that could be misleading because without special counsel authority, he could need permission of another U.S. attorney in certain circumstances to bring charges outside the district of Delaware. I would like clarification from you with respect to these concerns.

GARLAND: The U.S. attorney in Delaware has been advised that he has full authority to make those kinds of referrals that you're talking about or to bring cases in other jurisdictions if he feels it's necessary. And I will assure that if he does, he will be able to do that.

GRASSLEY: Does the Delaware U.S. attorney lack independent charging authority over certain criminal allegations against the president's son outside of the district of Delaware?

GARLAND: He would have to bring -- if it's in another district, he would have to bring the case in another district. But as I said, I promise to ensure that he's able to carry out his investigation and that he be able to run it. And if he needs to bring it in another jurisdiction, he will have full authority to do that.

GRASSLEY: If you provided to Delaware U.S. attorney with special counsel authority, isn't it true that he would need permission of another U.S. attorney to bring charges?

GARLAND: That's kind of a complicated question. If -- under the regulations, that kind of act he would have to bring to me under -- to the attorney general under the regulations, those kind of charging decisions would have to be brought. I would then have to -- you know, authorize it and permit it to be brought in another jurisdiction. And that is exactly what I promise to do here already, that if he needs to do -- bring a case in another jurisdiction, he will have my full authority to do that.

GRASSLEY: Has the Delaware U.S. attorney sought permission from -- permission of another U.S. attorney's office such as in the district of Columbia and California to bring charges? If so, was it denied?

GARLAND: So, I don't know the answer to that. I do -- and I don't want to get into the internal elements of decision making by the U.S. attorney. But he has been advised that he is not to be denied anything that he needs. And if that were to happen, it should ascend through the department's ranks, and I have not heard anything from that office to suggest that they are not able to do everything that the U.S. attorney wants to do.

Ok so, there it is.

[Michael P]

Yes. According to you, full authority "to bring cases in other jurisdictions" does not include authority to bring cases in other jurisdictions.

And according to David Nieporent, an email documenting that said attorney was actually denied that authority is not evidence.

[David Nieporent]

And according to David Nieporent, an email documenting that said attorney was actually denied that authority is not evidence.

The email "documents" no such thing — nor could it, since the person who wrote the email had no independent knowledge of what happened.

[Michael P]

David, your cavilling over fine distinctions would make Bill Clinton proud of you.

Regardless of what we agree or disagree that the email documents, it is evidence that Garland lied about the authority that Weiss had, and about Garland's representations that Weiss was guaranteed cooperation and that such requests would be granted.

Likewise Weiss's recent letter, which I am sure you will agree was based on his direct knowledge of what authority he was or was not granted.

[Randal]

How are you still doubling down on retardation? Even accepting your offer of ridiculous levels of pedantry (which not guilty has already pointed out), Garland says Weiss has

full authority to make those kinds of referrals that you’re talking about or to bring cases in other jurisdictions if he feels it’s necessary.

That’s “or,” not “and.” It’s true as long as he has authority to make the referrals, even if he doesn’t have the authority to bring cases. So you lose… again.

But of course, that’s not what Garland meant anyway. His actual meaning comes through clearly in answer after answer: Weiss will be granted the authority if he needs it.

Let’s take a closer look at this specific answer.

The U.S. attorney in Delaware has been advised that he has full authority to make those kinds of referrals that you’re talking about or to bring cases in other jurisdictions if he feels it’s necessary. And I will assure that if he does, he will be able to do that.

Recalling this is a transcript of a live hearing, we should read it in that context. To me the “or” is best understood as “or rather,” in order to clarify the vague “referrals that you’re talking about” as “referrals to bring cases in other jurisdictions.” Like…

You: You can’t make me eat my peas, wah wah!
Me: I hate to force you in that way or… to eat your peas, if you don’t like them.

I’m not saying “I hate to force you that way or I hate to eat your peas.” That makes no sense, just like your reading of Garland’s statement makes no sense. (Why would Weiss need full authority to bring a referral if he also had full authority to bring a case?)

Garland’s next sentence further clarifies his meaning. Again, as transcribed live speech it’s a little awkward, but I don’t think there’s any other plausible reading.

And I will assure that if he does [make a referral], he will be able to do that [bring a case].

[Michael P]

Wow. Arguing that “he has authority to do X or Y” is trivially true because he has authority to do X is peak slime. The only reason to mention Y in that kind of situation is to mislead. QED.

Garland later held a news conference where he clarified that he wants us to believe exactly what I have argued that he wanted us to believe. See below.

[Randal]

As I said, I'm only mentioning it to out-slime you. I'm glad you admit that your slimy pedantry is misguided.

Please read the rest of my post for my actual opinion.

[Michael P]

Yes, as your last sentence makes clear, you argue that Garland really meant that Weiss had full authority to do X, and the mention of Y was mere surplusage.

[Sarcastr0]

No one else is parsing this like Michael P is.

At this point it more seems like cussedness than actual belief.

[Michael P]

Sarcastr0, the entire argument your buddies here are making is that when Merrick Garland claims a US Attorney has "full" or "complete" authority to bring charges in another district, and Garland says he has no idea how anyone could block that, he really means that he's made a conditional promise that other US Attorneys will cooperate and that as long as they go along then those charges could be brought in the districts where those others have the actual authority. It's not that he is being deceptive about authority that he has the power to assign, it's just that he is playing nineteen dimensional chess and everybody else thinks he is playing checkers.

[Randal]

Surplusage? Now you're just saying legalistic words that obviously don't apply.

What was it that someone said the other day about Zeno's Argument?

[not guilty]

Thank you for the original source material, Randal.

No one reading the colloquy between Merrick Garland and Senator Grassley could harbor any doubt about Garland's meaning. Or at least no intellectually honest person could.

[Michael P]

https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/23/politics/merrick-garland-hunter-biden/index.html

Indeed, anytime who claims that Garland meant something other than "Mr. Weiss had, in fact, more authority than a special counsel would have. He had and has complete authority, as I said, to bring a case anywhere he wants in his discretion." must be seriously intellectually dishonest. Anyone who argues that "complete authority" is contingent on the cooperation of a peer or a superior can only be judged a partisan hack.

[David Nieporent]

I can't tell if Michael P is being obtuse or really obtuse.

A U.S. Attorney can ordinarily bring cases only in his own district. If Weiss wanted someone prosecuted in, say, New Jersey, he could

A) Ask the USAO for the District of New Jersey "Hey, would you prosecute this case?"; or
B) Tell the AG, "Hey, I think that prosecuting this guy in New Jersey is appropriate, but the USAO there does not. Therefore, I need special authorization from you to bring the case there myself."

If Garland's response is "No, I won't give you that authority," then Garland's underlying claim was a lie. If Garland's response is, "Hey, whatever you need; I told you I'd grant you whatever authorization you required, and here it is," then Garland's underlying claim was not a lie.

In this situation, there is no evidence Garland ever said "No." Indeed, there's no evidence Weiss even ever asked him. Both Garland and Weiss — the two people with firsthand knowledge — agree on that.

[Gandydancer]

“there’s no evidence Weiss even ever asked him”

There are ways to lie by not telling the whole truth. Like Garland could give Weiss the authority to ask him for actual authority on the clear understanding that Weiss wouldn't use it.

The New York Times confirms that Weiss asked the California and Washington DC US Attorneys for prosecutions which were refused , so if he DIDN’T ask Garland then his operation was a Garland-arranged sham. If he did then Garland AND Weiss are lying, but my guess is that it was a sham they were both in on.https://jonathanturley.org/2023/06/28/was-garland-lying-new-york-times-confirms-weiss-was-blocked-from-bringing-additional-charges/ .

[Michael P]

Gandydancer, they won't admit that's evidence. Because reasons and suchforth and obviously Garland meant something other than what he said. And, in conclusion, authority doesn't mean the kind of authority that can actually be granted, it means something else. Garland clearly meant "more authority than a special counsel" to mean something other than the actual authorities and powers that normally distinguish a special counsel, because obtuse.

[Nige]

You guys just need to tie the coke into this and you'll really crack it wide open.

[David Nieporent]

Like Garland could give Weiss the authority to ask him for actual authority on the clear understanding that Weiss wouldn’t use it.

Sure, there could once again be a massive conspiracy, with a Trump-appointed US Attorney reaching a tacit agreement that he wouldn't do the job he specifically stayed on to do, and then committing perjury for some unexplained reason.

Or, we could apply Ockham's razor and figure that maybe Shapley (who as far as I can tell isn't even an attorney) just misunderstood something that Weiss said in a meeting, and then nobody lied about anything.

so if he DIDN’T ask Garland then his operation was a Garland-arranged sham.

Or, you know, it was a trivial thing, and while Weiss was perfectly willing to hand it off to someone else to run with it, he didn't think it was worth his time to pursue on his own.

But I certainly see how if one starts with the conclusion that Hunter Biden is an international criminal mastermind who deserves to be executed for his many crimes, then the failure to prosecute him for most of them can only be explained by the whole thing being a "sham."

[Voize]

Yes, but Garland said that Weiss actually had full authority. If Weiss never had such authority, Garland’s claim was a lie.

I tend to think Garland just hasn't explained the mechanism for authorizing Weiss to prosecute in other districts. Which is on him, I suppose.

By law, district attorneys ordinarily can prosecute only in their districts, and in fact have to reside there. Legal authority for the AG to authorize cross-district prosecutions is found in 28 U.S.C. §515(a) which reads [emphasis added]:

The Attorney General or any other officer of the Department of Justice, or any attorney specially appointed by the Attorney General under law, may, when specifically directed by the Attorney General, conduct any kind of legal proceeding, civil or criminal, including grand jury proceedings and proceedings before committing magistrate judges, which United States attorneys are authorized by law to conduct, whether or not he is a resident of the district in which the proceeding is brought.

"Specifically directed" means Garland couldn't grant an unbounded preauthorization to Weiss, it has to be specific, and so the fullest authority he could provide under law was an assurance that he would rubber stamp any request Weiss made. I think that is what he gave Weiss and what he meant by "full authority": The maximum authority the law permits.

[Gandydancer]

No, we have video of Merrick Garland saying that his hand-selected to continue in office Trump-appointed (but (D)elaware-Senator-approved) US Atty could bring a case against Hunter anywhere he wanted to, and there is good evidence that the Biden-appointed US Attys in multiple districts actually refused to let him do it anf Garland didn't override them, despite promising to. So Garland lied.

And what the whistleblower heard is backed up by an email exchange about that with his boss, which he has shown us and which has not been denied. Because it can't be or it would have been, to discredit him.

Grow up.

[David Nieporent]

No, we have video of Merrick Garland saying that his hand-selected to continue in office Trump-appointed (but (D)elaware-Senator-approved) US Atty could bring a case against Hunter anywhere he wanted to, and there is good evidence that the Biden-appointed US Attys in multiple districts actually refused to let him do it anf Garland didn’t override them, despite promising to. So Garland lied.

Nope. You're still too stupid to understand the issues, just like you couldn't understand the Clarence Thomas non-disclosure issues. The Biden-appointed US Attorneys did not "refuse to let him do it." They had no authority to "let him do it" in the first place. They refused to do it themselves. Garland did not "promise to override them." He promised to grant Weiss the authority to do it himself if Weiss asked for it.

These are two different things.

[Sarcastr0]

Is there no chicken you won’t keep fucking?

[darkknight9]

Not as long as they keep clucking!

...I'll show myself out. 🙂

[Bwaaah]

(applause)

[Kazinski]

Trans Chicken?

[Gandydancer]

Is that YOUR version of a geek show?

[Frank Drackman]

Why not just drug test everyone who works in the White House??
OK, I know, they might not the answer they want to get. (HT P. Green)
Pilots get drug tested, Doctors/Nurses, our Precious Military they're so eager to send to save You-Crane (after they get their "Gender Affirming Care/Abortion") so why not the WH Staff??

OK, don't test for the Marriage-a-Juan-a, anyone within a mile of KJP has a contact high.

Frank

[Gandydancer]

Secret Service agents get drug tested all the time. (h/t Dan Bongino).

I wouldn't be surprised if the contracted workers remodeling the White House Library (one of the several purported drug locations) get drug tested.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Let me first say that if he's convicted, after a fair trial with adequate counsel, I wouldn't have any problems with Rex Heuermann, the Long Island/Gilgo Beach murderer, dying in prison.

Amongst other things, he appears to be a creep -- his alleged Google searches are, well, "interesting." (Also stupid -- who still uses Google after it is well known that they track searches?)

And secondly, I realize this will be controversial, but I can't help but think that the victims got what they deserved. They were selling their bodies, and wound up selling a little more of their bodies than they intended -- that's why one ought not sell one's body in the first place...

I was struck by how one of the victim's friends (a fellow whore) described how the two of them were having the time of their lives, that "they were untouchable" -- and then her friend disappeared.

They were selling their bodies to rich men on Craig's List for a fast buck -- I see it as the same thing as guys who agree to smuggle a load of drugs ashore for a fast buck, and we don't feel sorry for them when that doesn't turn out well. I could have done the latter, I know all the unknown holes in the ledges that were used during Prohibition and could have set myself up for life with just a few successful runs -- I chose not to do it....

Just like there are lots of young women who chose not have sex with rich men for money.

And the larger thing is how the VAWA has colored the minds of Millennial women -- they think that they can play with fire and rely on the police to step in before they get burned. Reportedly there is a 911 recording of one victim being chased across a deserted beach and the Sheriff's Department not being able to get to her in time. I hope that tape comes out.

Reportedly, some of the victims were addicted to drugs. Well, how did the get addicted? What bad choice led to them becoming addicted?

Yes, I am cruel in saying they got what they deserved, but don't we say the same thing about the drunk driver who dies in an OUI wreck?

[David Nieporent]

And secondly, I realize this will be controversial, but I can’t help but think that the victims got what they deserved. They were selling their bodies, and wound up selling a little more of their bodies than they intended — that’s why one ought not sell one’s body in the first place…

Glad to see that Dr. Ed is only 95% of a sociopath here. He's not advocating for mass murder today; he's just celebrating it.

[Frank Drackman]

Mass Murder? like the over 500,000 babies aborted last year???

[Dr. Ed 2]

Not celebrating but schadenfreude -- these were call girls, enjoying money and the things it bought. They came from apparently stable middle-class families but they wanted the "bright lights, big city" experience and instead of earning it legitimately, they went the quick money route.

They sold their bodies, and wound up selling more of their bodies than they had intended to. Am I being moralistic here -- absolutely.

[Commenter_XY]

Dr. Ed 2....Perhaps you should re-read your post. Did you actually mean to write what you did? All I will say is expressing satisfaction with the deliberate murder of a human being simply because they chose sex work as an occupation is wrong. Those women? That was someone's daughter, someone's sister, someone's friend; they were human beings Dr. Ed 2. They did not deserve what they got = murdered.

It is not moralistic in the slightest to take satisfaction in their terrible death; it is depraved and amoral. Shame on you!

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

This blog attracts a remarkable concentration of antisocial losers, disaffected sociopaths, autistic misfits, and delusional malcontents.

[Nige]

'Am I being moralistic here — absolutely.'

There's no defensible moral position here. It's pure misogyny.

[David Nieporent]

Yes. It also features the usual Dr. Ed careful attention to detail. This: "call girls, enjoying money and the things it bought. They came from apparently stable middle-class families but they wanted the “bright lights, big city” experience and instead of earning it legitimately, they went the quick money route." describes pretty much zero of the suspected victims.

[bernard11]

Not celebrating but schadenfreude

You fucking moron. Do you even know what schadenfreude means?

It means "joy at the misfortune of another." So you take joy from the killing of these women, because they were prostitutes.

You're not just a moron, you're a psychopath. No wonder you got fired. Who wants a depraved idiot around?

[Kazinski]

Yeah terrible take.

I've traveled a lot in countries where prostitution is legalized and it isn't a problem. Hong Kong (pre CCP), outlaws pumps but not prostitution, British Columbia decriminalized it, Czechia, Greece, Turkey, Macedonia have all legalized and you really never see it unless your looking for it, well BC it can be pretty flagrant, ant least it was last time I was there about 10 years ago.

California decriminalized prostitution for minors, they can't be charged but god help the john, I wonder how that is working.

[ReaderY]

I have often posted on the rights of states to legislate morality if they want to. But this is outrageous. A crime that gets one 30 days in jail or something like that is absolutely not a license to be murdered. The former district attorney in the case had said more or less what you have, they’re only prostitutes, so killing them isn’t really any big deal, and “society” and people who matter are completely safe. That was outrageous.

Frankly, if there’s a case to be made for why states should legalize prostitution, you’ve just made it.

[ReaderY]

Let me ask a follow-up question here.

You’ve presented yourself as a conservative Christian. Have you forgotten Mary Magdalene’s reputed previous profession and what Jesus’ followers said about hanging around with her? The “cast the first stone” episode? Hate the sin but love the sinner? I could go on.

What the fuck are you doing here, dude? Your Christianity seems to be using Jesus as a kind of sword to attack people with, for your own purposes, not as someone to actually follow and pay attention to.

None of my business what your religion is, of course. Just wondering.

[not guilty]

To be fair, none of the gospels refers to Mary Magdalene as being or having been a prostitute.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Let alone a call girl advertising on Craig's List...

[ReaderY]

OK. Ignore the “reputed” caveat and just let my comment refer directly to the sinful woman in Luke. A woman who might well have advertised on Craigslist much if she were alive today. My comment stands.

[Krychek_2]

Dr. Ed, news flash: No little girl (or, for that matter, little boy) ever said, “When I grow up I want to be a sex worker.” If someone is a sex worker, it’s because something went catastrophically wrong in their life. There’s a back story behind how Mary Magdalene became Mary Magdalene. Perhaps you could exercise just a bit more compassion, at least unless you know more facts than you currently do.

[Sarcastr0]

Eh, I allow that some may choose sex work as something they enjoy and take pride in. Humanity contains multitudes.

[Krychek_2]

You may be right. My comment was drawn from years of experience as an attorney representing prostitutes who were uniformly drug addicted, impoverished, mentally ill, or some combination of the above, or who otherwise had no real options. I still recall the 14 year old doing sex work because her parents kicked her out of the house for being a lesbian. But then, any who were happy wouldn’t have come to see me.

[John F. Carr]

Prostitutes don't want to be what they are. Call girls, maybe.

[Bwaaah]

And what of escorts, ladies of the night, and whores? Do tell, labelmeister.

[John F. Carr]

Whores are classified with prostitutes and escorts with call girls.

[Mr. Bumble]

Does that classification also apply to politicians?

[Dr. Ed 2]

My comments were drawn from years of student affairs experience, observing college students (and 20-somethings) who had lots of options. One, the manager of an apartment complex (not the most lucrative of jobs, but stable & upwardly mobile) also danced at a strip club -- and gave an interview to the local paper about it....

[David Nieporent]

In other words, you fabricated the whole thing. (Also not clear what dancing at a strip club has to do with the topic.)

[bernard11]

My comments were drawn from years of student affairs experience, observing college students (and 20-somethings) who had lots of options. One, the manager of an apartment complex (not the most lucrative of jobs, but stable & upwardly mobile) also danced at a strip club — and gave an interview to the local paper about it….

Bullshit. You said you enjoyed the fact that people were murdered. That has fuck-all to do any of that, even making the long-shot assumption that this is true.

[Commenter_XY]

Only Fans is a thing = some may choose sex work as something they enjoy and take pride in

They harm no one.

[Frank Drackman]

I wish I what had it takes to be a Male Prostitute, like Rodney Dangerfield said
"Do I have a 8 X 10??? if I had a 8 X 10 I wouldn't have to work anymore!!!!"

Frank

[Dr. Ed 2]

I will never forget hearing the coed being coached to order "the most expensive item on the menu, even if it isn't something you like, because your boyfriend doesn't have a lot of money" and thinking that isn't how I would treat someone that I cared about.

[Sarcastr0]

Never forget!!

[OtisAH]

Here’s Ed breaking down a serial killer as if he’s watching videos on Reddit. Oh, and arguing that the serial killer’s victims got what they deserved. Because Ed is a grotesque, sad, lonely, and sad and lonely old man.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Frame it: we’ve got the Dr. Ed-est take there is. No notes, should have sent a poet, just sad to know that this will never be topped.

[loki13]

"we’ve got the Dr. Ed-est take there is."

....needs more references to Massachusetts or Maine. And something about his personal experience in, like, the 1970s.

Otherwise spot on.

[David Nieporent]

You missed his update. He added in the personal experience element: "My comments were drawn from years of student affairs experience, observing college students (and 20-somethings) who had lots of options. One, the manager of an apartment complex (not the most lucrative of jobs, but stable & upwardly mobile) also danced at a strip club — and gave an interview to the local paper about it…."

[loki13]

Oof. Yep, that's on-brand!

[Ridgeway]

I, for one, look forward to Dr. Ed's critical re-examination of Jack the Ripper, showing that far from being a sadistic mass-murderer, he was, in fact, a pioneer of urban renewal avant la lettre. I am sure Lathrop will dismiss that analysis because Ed's doctorate is in autoproctology, not history, but he is a crank.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I was awoken by my cell phone talking about a tornado -- yea, that got my attention. Open it up and the screen says:

TORNADO WARNING

THERE IS A TORNADO IN YOUR AREA

Wow! Go to the NWS forecast for my area -- nothing.
It appears that the warning was 40+ miles away, and going in the other direction. And it was just rotating clouds noticed on radar, it didn't even touch down.

And we're supposed to take this seriously?!?

Now maybe a warning like this would be appropriate for topography that is flat, but New England ain't. And I'm supposed to take the next one seriously???

[Nige]

If Dr Ed goes looking for available tornadoes in his area, does he deserve whatever happens to him?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Yes.
But that's not the issue here.

[Nige]

Guy mad that general warning of unpredictable event not specifcally tailored to him.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Guy mad at authorities crying "wolf!"

[Nige]

They warned of a high likelihood of wolf and hey presto, a wolf did appear and fortunately harmed no-one.

[Dr. Ed 2]

60 miles away?

[Nige]

Yeah?

[Dr. Ed 2]

And a wolf puppy as well...

[Nige]

You're mad that a tornado warning warned about a tornado and a tornado happened. Ridiculous man.

[Kazinski]

The 2022 Nobel prize winner in physics has made some comments about climate science:
According to Dr. Clauser, “The popular narrative about climate change reflects a dangerous corruption of science that threatens the world’s economy and the well-being of billions of people.

“Misguided climate science has metastasized into massive shock-journalistic pseudoscience. In turn, the pseudoscience has become a scapegoat for a wide variety of other unrelated ills. It has been promoted and extended by similarly misguided business marketing agents, politicians, journalists, government agencies, and environmentalists.”

“In my opinion, there is no real climate crisis. There is, however, a very real problem with providing a decent standard of living to the world’s expanding population, especially given an associated energy crisis. The latter is being unnecessarily exacerbated by what, in my opinion, is incorrect climate science,"

https://gript.ie/nobel-laureate-climate-science-has-metastasized-into-massive-shock-journalistic-pseudoscience/

[AmosArch]

The weather is getting warmer (slightly on average) and fossil fuels are probably contributing to this partially. Every prophecy beyond this is just unsupported overblown rhetoric. Humanity will probably be around a thousand years from now in much the same form it would have been if global warming didn’t exist bar some disaster other than the current ACC fearmongering like a huge asteroid impact.

[Stephen Lathrop]

When you say, "in much the same form," do you mean to imply, "in the same locations? If so, I suggest you have a lot to learn about conditions in the U.S. between the Sierras and the 100th meridian.

[Gandydancer]

Suggest all the crap you want, but global warming is a nothingburger.

[Sarcastr0]

Sweet Jesus the density of qualifications in this post is extreme.

How brave.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

I bet you spend time each day rereading your own posts and relishing in how clever you think you are.

That's probably your main reason for coming here, so you can read your own comments.

[grb]

BravoCharlieDelta : "I bet you spend time each day rereading your own posts and relishing in how clever you think you are"

I bet you spend time each day rereading your own posts and relishing in how crude, bigoted and ignorant you are.

[Frank Drackman]

Go play with your GI Joes

[BravoCharlieDelta]

I'm seem to really have hurt your feelings, Frank.

My apologies, I didn't want to upset your emotional state so much. I wish I could go back in time and scratch

"holocaust"

and instead replace the implication with a different, more softer and more sensitive to your feelings description.

[Bwaaah]

Without careful qualifications and caveats, you can't make a reasonably supported prognosis about climate change. (You also can't make a good news headline.)

You could, alternatively, make a brief but pointed statement...maybe something like, "WE'RE ALL GONNA BURN UP AND DIE!!!"

[Nige]

Yeah, lots of people said stuff like your comment about covid. Seven million dead and counting.

[Gandydancer]

^^^^ Bogus claim alert.

[Sarcastr0]

Don’t exclude the middle. AA said nothing he was so weasily.

that doesn’t mean the only other choice is doomsaying,

[Gandydancer]

Weaseling is your specialty, Gaslightr0.

There is no one "only other claim", of course.

[Nige]

'Every prophecy beyond this is just unsupported overblown rhetoric.'

Most of the 'prophecies' are scientific predictions. And they're beginning to think they were too conservative.

[Gandydancer]

Predictions think?

Well, that's one thing Nige never does.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Remember one thing -- there used to be a mile-high pile of ice over NY, and the glaciers are still receding. It's naturally getting warmer, and has been for a few thousand years.

[Nige]

And now it's unnaturally getting warmer. You're welcome.

[Gandydancer]

All the fossil fuel we can economically burn will get burned in far less than geologic time, but launch your spittle into the wind if you want You’re welcome.

[Stephen Lathrop]

The linked Dr. Clauser shared his 2022 Nobel prize with two others for quantum physics research they did ~ 50 years ago—work with no conceivable relevance to climate today, or in the foreseeable future. He apparently thinks global economic policy to accommodate unlimited population growth at high standards of living can be made workable, without adverse climate implications. He also offers vague assertions that something to do with clouds will deliver climate effects opposite those being measured now.

Persons disinclined to accept bad news about climate will of course suppose that means the measured evidence of what is happening is all bunk, or maybe conspiracy. My question is what motivates the people disinclined to accept bad news about climate.

In forums like this one we know them only by pseudonyms, and without clues to their personal particulars. Given this blog's purported libertarian slant, there is a suggestion that maybe ideology is behind it, but that seems such a weak basis to disregard evidence that it can scarcely be credited. Defense of private economic interest is worth considering. But economic interests of the vast majority seem to weigh more heavily on the side of avoiding climate disruption. How likely is it that so many who comment here count themselves among the tiny majority who actually benefit by promoting climate disregard? In most cases, anxious defense of long-accustomed group identity seems a more likely explanation.

[Frank Drackman]

So what was your Nobel Prize for? Idiocy??

[darkknight9]

"He also offers vague assertions that something to do with clouds will deliver climate effects opposite those being measured now."

He's correct about cloud reflection iff they are very white clouds and not gray or dark clouds. That being said, the amount of reflected/non absorbed EM radiation from our ice cap dwarfs cloud produced shielding. Until we don't have it anymore then heads in the clouds will be relevant to the discussion again.

Science has always had a disdain for the average reporter willing to sensationalize its work for the masses. Why he chose this particular thing to swing at I don't know.

I don't see how a person as deeply rooted in a time of nuclear power could possibly think that an energy crisis is going to sink us. If his name was Maximillian "Max" Shreck I suppose I could see it, but...

[Brett Bellmore]

I've really gotta point out to you that, barring massive forest fires generating clouds of soot, ALL clouds are white on the top. The only reason they look gray or dark from beneath is that they're blocking sunlight.

[darkknight9]

Not tellin me anything I don't already know.
"very white clouds and not gray or dark clouds."
Perhaps I should have phrased is differently. The doc seemed only interested in scattering power, not absorption. (shrug?)

No matter whether (weather? 🙂 ) he cared for the moisture content or its particle size dispersement in the cloud, the reflection of all clouds at any given time are still a drop in the bucket compared to polar ice.

[Brett Bellmore]

I think temperate zone snow is probably a bigger deal; Remember, polar ice is near the poles, which due to the orientation of the Sun to the Earth's axis, contributes a rather reduced fraction to Earth's effective albedo. In fact, half the time a given pole isn't doing anything in that regard, because it's facing away from the Sun. Can't absorb sunlight while you're in the dark, after all.

If it worries you, you should support banning asphalt in favor of concrete. Asphalt has an albedo of 0.05-0.1, concrete 0.4 and up.

I got a lot of grief suggesting this at a left wing site years ago, but it's actually a serious proposal.

[darkknight9]

Polar ice supports and sustains snow too. 🙂

Temperate areas are important... but I worry (perhaps unecessarily) that given the lower amounts of snow and higher temps locally (hunting season in MN never used to be tshirt weather 🙁 ) that things are coming about more rapidly than I'd like. Plenty of folks can go ga ga over polar bears but the fact that ice does other things is usually lost on folks.

I'm with you on concrete. I also was rebuffed when I suggested helping the environment by turning the front yard of my then abode into a cement slab.

My then spouse gave that a hard no and told me I wasn't getting out of mowing the lawn.

[Nige]

More environmentally friendly not to mow, or just to mow in May, then September.

[darkknight9]

At the time, I wanted to keep my household environment as friendly as possible. 🙂

[Nige]

It’s aesthetics, too, and aesthetically, neatly mown lawns are horrible.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore, why do you suppose that deserts and high-elevation terrain typically experience sharper night-time temperature drops than do cloudier regions?

[Nige]

'Until we don’t have it anymore then heads in the clouds will be relevant to the discussion again'

Yeah we just have to hold our breath till then.

[Kazinski]

When you say he doesn't understand climate science because he a quantum physicist then what you are saying is you really don’t understand the science of global warming in the least.

He’s a quantum physicist publishing groundbreaking research on photons. Climate change according to theory is caused by the absorption of photons of certain wavelengths by greenhouse gasses with 3 or more molecules, and the rotational vibrations and behaviors of the molecules after the absorption.

That’s straight up quantum physics, pioneered by Bohr when he studied photon absorption of the hydrogen atom and was able to explain the structure of the electron shell by absorption of photons of specific wavelengths.

[Nige]

And he's an expert on photons AND climate?

[Gandydancer]

You're neither.

[Sarcastr0]

Actual real-world photons being absorbed by molecules? That's not straight-up quantum physics, it's quantum field theory, and it's complex when dealing with like a single photon and a single electron. No one can use it to make predictive statements based on real world conditions.

These are utterly different regimes of science.

No, this guy does not have plenary understanding of heat and light because he does groundbreaking research on photons.

[Kazinski]

Bullshit Sarcastro, if you believe that you're just a poser and know nothing about science,

Now most climatologist do study the effects of warming, but not the actual physical causes of the warming itself. Its the physicists that study absorption and emulsions wavelengths of gas molecules, kinetic theory of gasses, the Stefan Boltzmann law.

What's the largest negative feedback to increasing CO2 cited by the IPCC in the AR6 technical summary? Planck feedback, named after the guy that originated quantum physics and saved the universe from the ultraviolet catastrophe.

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah dude. I’m the poser here.

[Gandydancer]

Always.

[Nige]

He probably thinks there is *no* climate crisis and there *is* a climate crisis until he opens the box, so until then both are correct.

[Gandydancer]

Nige "probably" imagines Schrödinger climate crises being in boxes because he's an idiot.

[Sarcastr0]

Next tell us what a Nobel Prize in literature thinks about our progress in fusion.

[Michael P]

This is more like asking a Nobel-winning fusion physicist to opine on literature, of course.

[Bwaaah]

And y'all are comparing knowledge of repeatable physical phenomena (like particle physics) to predication of the behavior of a complex interaction of phenomena that has never occurred before.

[Bwaaah]

"prediction" doh!

[Sarcastr0]

But tons of science is about putting together predictable sub-parts to predict a whole new complex thing.

That's how we got transistors and atomic bombs.

[Bwaaah]

Despite the complexity of the solutions to transistors and bombs, the mechanisms of the underlying phenomena (e.g. nuclear fission, or effects of doping on dielectrics) was narrow, observable and repeatable. Our "climate system" isn't a particular mechanism, but a very complex interaction of many mechanisms (e.g. hydrological, human effluents, atmospheric composition, gravity, surface geology, organic decomposition, plant respiration, and all the things that affect climate) that are each changing during "the experiment." So I dismiss, on the basis of underlying complexity and the lack of a fixed target, that those problems have any practical likeness to climate change in terms of testability, understandability, or solvability.

[Sarcastr0]

I'm not sure I agree with your characterization of climate. I understand your distinction - our atmosphere is chock full of chaotic phenomena.

But chaos does not mean you cannot make predictions about general system behavior, even an equation of state, you just can't parameterize the specific state as a function of time.

Now, I'm trained in cosmology not atmospheric science, so I can't speak to the number of unknown interactions, but I can generally say that cabining second-order interactions to a certain magnitude and subsuming them into error bars them is a pretty common practice.

I mean, folks said the earth was gonna get warmer decades ago, and how that would look, and that prediction largely came to pass. That helps my faith a good amount.

However: I think there is plenty of middle ground between 'this is not a predictive science' and 'those predicting immediate crisis may not have things nailed completely down.' I do note that the Republican position at the moment is outside of that entire space.

[Commenter_XY]

I have never understood why you are using the tools and models with their discrete assumptions based on those more narrow areas to evaluate the science behind transistors and bombs, and then try to overlay that model (and it's assumptions) over climate. Bwaaah summarized nicely, I thought.

We need a different level of thinking to address climate and what mankind can do on a planetary basis to alter it. For all we know, this could be a normal cycle of climate changes. I don't see much evidence of a different level of thinking.

[Sarcastr0]

It was an analogy, Commenter, not a model.

Both systems are extremely complex and contained in their time all sorts of unintuitive unknowns. And yet science is and was done.
I don't think you can just state that climate is more complex than nuclear physics therefore...

For all we know, this could be a normal cycle of climate changes.
No, the unknowns to not extend that far. Unless you get utterly epistemological about it. In which case: for all we know, JFK's head just did that.

[Bwaaah]

I see the conclusion that “the climate is warming” as being somewhat observable and supported by the evidence. I think the attribution of CO2 increases to human-driven emissions is also reasonably evidenced. The conclusion that CO2 is the main driver of the temperature change becomes less certain to me, but still reasonably likely (based on my non-expert attempts at deep dives into the technical material on the subject). And that’s how early, in my analysis, that uncertainty comes into play.

The dynamics of evaporation/water vapor/cloud cover are presumed to be very relevant and known to be poorly understood. So that’s a big variable that we know is at play. And I don’t want to harp on the problem of *everything else we don’t know*, but for me, there’s that too.

I agree that, “cabining second-order interactions to a certain magnitude and subsuming them into error bars them is a pretty common practice.” But I read that as meaning that junky “predictive science” rationalizes away errors and uncontrolled factors in order to come up with clear predictions despite hopelessly noisy underlying data and unavoidably confounding factors.

Much like the all-knowing Wall Street Expert who does the end-of-day market wrap-up with a compelling and accurate explanation of what happened today, he still can’t tell you what’s going to happen tomorrow despite a lot of good data. Much of “climate science,” particularly as popularized in the news media, should be expected to be as predictive as those market wrap-ups. (You might want to “cabin” the effects of Chinese and Indian developmental realities on your CO2 predications, and then your climate predictions.)

[Sarcastr0]

I agree that junky science can hide all sorts of sins in neglected second-order interactions. And that I don't know enough to catch that slight of hand myself.
But at some point one must have faith in the institutions at work.

Your first paragraph sticks to a general scope, and I think therefore comes to 90% of where I do.
In order to increase uncertainties to the point that skepticism is warranted, you change the scope from general trends and causality to specific numbers and causality.
And I still think you are right - I cannot disagree with your last paragraph, and concur that the popular media's individual stories are not where to find the facts here.

But the scope is the rub - the main concern is already sufficiently evident in the general trends. And that is still what the right is denying way more than reality allows.

[Nige]

'somewhat'

lol

Climate models have been broadly correct about the effects of climate change.

[Bwaaah]

In reading IPCC reports, I believe that climate models have been very hit or miss, and, for example, have not predicted the unexpected recent cooling trends. Most of the models are good at "simulating history," but have been consistently disappointing at prediction.

"Climate models have been broadly correct about the effects of climate change."

Yes, "broadly," they have been correct. But *specifically* they have not. (You don't suppose there might be any confirmation bias in there, do you?)

[Nige]

There have been lots of models and without beeing an exact match, they've tracked the existing trends. I'm not sure what 'predictions' youre talking about. The major prediction was that the climate would become more chaotic - and it is definitely headed that way.

'(You don’t suppose there might be any confirmation bias in there, do you?)'

I think you're looking for reasons to downplay it by ignoring what is known in favour of what isn't, ignoring what the models did in favour of what they supposedly didn't do.

[Kazinski]

If only they actually took a halfway decent approach like that.

Here’s what they actually do, they give grants to scientists to develop climate models, all the scientists come up with their model and then they either average the models together or take the most extreme ones for the scary press releases.

Here’s a real world example, there are 36 “official” climate.models used to craft US energy policy. The models all use a gridded approach they run the model for gridded area based on latitude and longitude. And because the satellite measurements also use a gridded approach its possible to compare the rwo.

In a 50 year average of US corn belt temperatures, the actual warming was ~0.13c per decade, the lowest model was ~.19, 45% higher than the actual temp. The highest was ~.92c per decade 7 times higher than actual temperatures.

And the mean which is what they are likely using to craft US energy policy is .5c/decade a mere 4 x what actual warming has been.

https://www.drroyspencer.com/2023/06/epic-fail-in-americas-heartland-climate-models-greatly-overestimate-corn-belt-warming/

Links to all the official data at Dr. Spencer’s site, Dr. Spencer is the NASA scientist that invented the Atmospheric Microwave Sounding Relay technology that NASA has deployed on multiple satellites to measure temperatures, and there might have been some physics involved: “AMSR-E The Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for EOS (AMSR-E) is a twelve-channel, six-frequency, total power passive-microwave radiometer system. It measures brightness temperatures at 6.925, 10.65, 18.7, 23.8, 36.5, and 89.0 GHz. Vertically and horizontally polarized measurements are taken at all channels. The Earth-emitted microwave radiation is collected by an offset parabolic reflector 1.6 meters in diameter that scans across the Earth along an imaginary conical surface, maintaining a constant Earth incidence angle of 55° and providing a swath width array of six feedhorns which then carry the radiation to radiometers for measurement. Calibration is accomplished with observations of cosmic background radiation and an on-board warm target. Spatial resolution of the individual measurements varies from 5.4 km at 89.0 GHz to 56 km at 6.9 GHz”https://aqua.nasa.gov/amsr-e

[Sarcastr0]

You really think being a scientist grants some broad skill at science.
That is not how it works.

Also who is averaging disparate climate models? That is not how longitudinal studies work.

You are really quite ignorant.

[Kazinski]

Well then you'll be shocked at how amateurish the IPCC is, all from the latest IPCC AR6 technical summary searching for the word ensembles ("group of items viewed as a whole rather than individually"):
Pg. 40 "consistent with ensembles of climate model simulations,"
Pg. 46 "Model uncertainties in (a) and (b) are 5–95% ranges of multi-model ensemble means;";"multi-method ensemble median"
Pg.48 "The CMIP6 historical simulations assessed in this report have an ensemble mean global surface temperature change within 0.2°C of the observations over most of the historical period, and observed warming is within the very likely range of the CMIP6 ensemble."
Pg.49. "The CMIP6 ensemble has broader ranges of ECS and TCR values than CMIP5"

And if you are wondering what CMIP6 refers to its "CMIP6 will consist of the “runs” from around 100 distinct climate models being produced across 49 different modelling groups."

So who is averaging disparate climate models? The IPCC is, its what their whole report is based on.

There are 54 instances of ensemble in the AR6 technical summary, that's the first 5 instances above, and all of them are referring to averaging (mean, median,etc) "the 100 distinct climate models being produced across 49" groups.

I guess we found something we agree on: averaging disparate models and relying on the results is bad science.

[Sarcastr0]

Ensembles of models are not at all the same as averaging results.

In general, using multiple models is either to double-check, or to address different regimes of scale in time or size.
There may be some other uses, but dumb average would be quite extraordinary.

[Kazinski]

But the earth was warming a 150 years ago too, and has continued warming. It's not hard to make a prediction that something that started happening more than a hundred years ago is going to keep happening.

I'll be a lot more impressed if they can explain why the climate started cooling at the end of the Medieval Warming period then why it started warming again in the 1800's as the Little Ice Age ended.

Since these couple a hundred year cycles have been repeating since the end of the last major ice age over 10000 years ago that seems to need attention.

In fact that's a major focus of uncertainty among climate scientists, how much of our current warming is natural and how much is due to rising greenhouse gasses.

[Sarcastr0]

the earth was warming a 150 years ago too, and has continued warming. It’s not hard to make a prediction that something that started happening more than a hundred years ago is going to keep happening.
And yet the GOP did exactly that for decades. Still is in some parts.

If you keep pulling back your argument to the next (barely) defensible position and claiming you always thought that, at some point it's just bad faith.

[Kazinski]

I’m not pulling back my argument at all.

Where do I pull back my argument?

My position is this: The earth has had a modest amount of warming, some of which is very likely due to increases in GH gasses. So far the benefits of higher CO2 have been more positive than negative, and there is nothing to indicate that won’t continue to be the case.

An aggressive Net Zero program has far greater risks to the worlds population, declining standards of living, grid failures, and even starvation if they get too aggressive restricting the use and production of nitrogen fertilizer (from natural gas).

But maybe my perspective is a little different, while I was writing this my wife called me outside to chase off a black bear that was lurking behind the well house. I’m not seeing a collapse of the natural order, I’m still the apex predator, while you are obsessed with chicken sex.

[Nige]

'I’m not seeing a collapse of the natural order'

About sums it up, really.

[Sarcastr0]

You refers to the GOP.

They claim to have always agreed that there was a warming trend, when if you look like 10 years ago they're talking about global cooling in order to scoff at the idea of any predictive temp models at all.

Always at war with Eastasia but for climate.

[Nige]

'But the earth was warming a 150 years ago too'

It wasn't. The medieval warming period was localised, not global.

'if they can explain'

Have you checked? Or is the problem that your assumptions are completely incorrect? I find that a lot about your comments on this subject.

'a major focus of uncertainty among climate scientists'

It really isn't.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Decades ago they said it was going to get COLDER....

[Nige]

Decades ago they said a lot of things. Its almost as if the valid theories persist.

[Nige]

They used to call this 'the god of the gaps' back when intelligent design was all the rage.

[Gandydancer]

What he's telling you is that the "climate crises" is religious literature and not Physics, so what your analogy tells us is a lot about YOU, Gaslightr0.

[bevis the lumberjack]

He’s right. A bill of goods is being sold to us by a ridiculously unsophisticated media and political elite and nobody cares. I keep hoping sense asserts itself before irreparable damage is done but slowly I’m losing that hope.

And it’s funny that these people think they’re on the side of the oppressed and marginalized, but the policies they are emotionally demanding hurt that group more than anyone else.

I imagine this post will draw a bunch of smug responses from the usual group that doesn’t understand any of it. Nobody will address the guy’s actual point.

[Nige]

If you listen to the actual scientists, you will find that the media and the political elite have been ignoring this for way too long and anly now are making hand-wavery gestures about it. I wonder how the oppressed and poor and marginalised are coping with the heatwaves and the floods and the air pollution.

‘Nobody will address the guy’s actual point.’

He doesn’t have a point.

[Gandydancer]

"The" "actual" scientists, says Nige. And Nige knows how to pick them out, he does. Nobel Prize winners in Physics? Nah. Not if they disagree with Nige.

[not guilty]

Just Security has published a comprehensive model prosecution memo regarding the 2020 election shenanigans of Donald Trump and his cohorts, written by Norman Eisen, Noah Bookbinder, Donald Ayer, Joshua Stanton, E. Danya Perry, Debra Perlin, and Kayvan Farchadi. It recommends prosecution of Trump and others for violations of 18 U.S.C. §§ 371 (conspiracy to commit an offense or defraud the United States), 1512 subsections (c)(2) (attempt to corruptly obstruct or impede an official proceeding) and (k) (conspiracy to corruptly obstruct or impede an official proceeding), and 2383 (insurrection). https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/model-prosecution-memo-january-6th-election-interference-just-security-july-2023.pdf

I find the memo to be much more persuasive as to §§ 371 and 1512 than as to insurrection under § 2383. That is unsurprising, in that insurrection prosecutions are brought very rarely, and there is accordingly a death of decisional law regarding the statute.

There likely is probable cause to indict Trump for giving aid and comfort to insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof. Here, however, I agree with Sir John Falstaff that the better part of valor is discretion. (Henry IV, Part One, Act V, Scene 4 (1596).) The other potential charges are more easily proven, and the penalties under § 1512 are more severe than under § 2383. I am wary of giving the clowns of SCOTUS an opportunity to rule that Trump's ginning up the mob on January 6, 2021 was speech protected by the First Amendment under Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444 (1969).

Perhaps more importantly, a conviction under § 2383 -- where issues are more uncertain -- is more likely to result in Trump being granted bail pending appeal pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3143(b). If Trump dies outside of custody, he will have gotten away with serious criminality.

[Commenter_XY]

not guilty, what exactly is a model prosecution memo? What purpose does it serve? Who typically writes them?

Have you ever drafted one?

[Frank Drackman]

Obviously a memo about prosecuting Models. And you’d think if Not Guilty was that smart he’d proofread his work first, “and there is accordingly a DEATH of decisional law regarding the statute.” that’s right, “Death” instead of “Dearth” I always wondered what happened to the kids who rode the “Short Bus” to school.

Frank

[not guilty]

Right. I meant to say dearth.

[Frank Drackman]

You left out "Duh........."

[Drewski]

What's funny here is that Drack has no idea how bad his own grammar and spelling are - and his mistakes aren't simple typos. Heck, the above comment has at least a dozen errors.p

[not guilty]

As I understand it, when the Department of Justice is considering charging someone, a prosecuting attorney will often write a memorandum outlining the reasons that prosecution is or is not warranted in a particular case -- explaining what facts the government can be expected to prove, anticipating what may be offered on behalf of the prospective defendant, and analyzing the applicable law (including potential defenses).

A "model prosecution memo" as that phrase is used here is a projection by other persons of what they believe someone in DOJ would write in this case, based on information that is publicly available. I have never written one.

[M L]

Like an amicus curiae brief for putting your political opponents behind bars.

"I have never written one."

Has anyone ever written one before Trump? Inquiring minds want to know.

[not guilty]

I don't know, but I would not be surprised if Bill Clinton's critics had done so back in the day.

[Gandydancer]

Dressing up partisan nonsense as a "prosecution memo" doesn't make it worth reading.

[OtisAH]

Imagine if there was one such memo you could read? Like, where they describe what it is, it’s strengths and weaknesses, that sort of thing. Oh well, maybe the technology just isn’t there yet?

https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/model-prosecution-memo-january-6th-election-interference-just-security-july-2023.pdf

[Gandydancer]

Is that where all your brain cells went to die?

[Stephen Lathrop]

not guilty, among the more sober-minded lawyers who comment here, you seem unique in supposing Trump will ever see custody. Though not a lawyer, I tend to agree that he will not. For that reason, I think prosecution policy for Trump should be guided by a need to maximize deterrence for others, while staying faithful to law—and thus I give little weight to what antics may follow in an obviously politicized Supreme Court.

I do not think there has yet been evidence shown to the public sufficient to charge Trump with treason, but I think it more than likely that the prosecution will show in due course that it has such evidence—and that it will go far beyond the public harangue you mention. If so, I hope the Justice Department will bring that charge, and let the chips fall where they may. If Trump were convicted of treason, it could be that the state of the nation would be best served by a presidential pardon, and I would not object to that. But I think it would be terrible for the nation—an actual threat to national survival—if the charge was legally and factually justified, but went unmade.

[Brett Bellmore]

Right now the prosecutions have no deterrence for anybody not named "Donald Trump", because there's a complete lack of any indication that anybody not named "Donald Trump" would be prosecuted in the same position. Trumplaw does not exhibit general deterrence.

To get to deterrence, they need to start prosecuting people who are similarly situated but who aren't named "Donald Trump". THAT would put a real scare into people.

[Nige]

Another 'Donald Trump is above the law' argument.

[Brett Bellmore]

More a matter of the law doing a belly crawl to get beneath him, actually.

You set up a speed trap and stop everybody doing 65 in the 55 zone, that deters speeding.

You set up a speed trap and stop only the mayor's political rival? People keep speeding.

[David Nieporent]

There's no speed trap, and Trump is the only one speeding.

[Gandydancer]

In his heart Nopoint knows he's right.

Out in the real world, not so much.

[Nige]

They’re prosecuting him for outrageous analogies.

[Dr. Ed 2]

No, Nige, it's showing that our justice system has devolved to Soviet levels. That does not breed respect for any law, by anyone.

[Nige]

That's when you daren't proscute the powerful, not when you can.

[Gandydancer]

Hmmm… Putin “prosecuted” all sorts of oligarchs who were powerful before he did that, proving that if you have a corrupt politically driven legal system the ones who control it can prosecute anyone who isn’t themselves.

It’s no surprise that you can effectively persecute Trump and not effectively prosecute Hunter.

[not guilty]

Brett, who do you claim is similarly situated to Donald Trump, but who has not been prosecuted? Please be specific, and show your work.

In the Eleventh Circuit, a defendant claiming selective prosecution faces a high hurdle. Any such defendant is required to prove his claim by "clear and convincing" evidence. United States v. Smith, 231 F.3d 800, 808 (11th Cir. 2000). In order to establish a selective prosecution claim, the accused is required to show that his prosecution had a discriminatory effect, i.e., that similarly situated individuals were not prosecuted, and he is also required to show that the difference in treatment, or selectivity of the prosecution, was motivated by a discriminatory purpose. Id., at 809.

The Eleventh Circuit defines a "similarly situated" person for selective prosecution purposes as one who engaged in the same type of conduct, which means that the comparator committed the same basic crime in substantially the same manner as the defendant — so that any prosecution of that individual would have the same deterrence value and would be related in the same way to the Government's enforcement priorities and enforcement plan — and against whom the evidence was as strong or stronger than that against the defendant. Id., at 810.

What about it, Brett?

[Brett Bellmore]

For wrongful possession of documents, we already know both Pence and Biden had them. Sure, neither of them can be nicked for failing to pull over when the cop lit up his flashing lights, but that's because the cop didn't TRY to pull them over.

For 'insurrection', how many Democrats do you suppose encouraged Antifa to the same extent Trump can be said to have encouraged the January 6th rioters?

Yeah, I know selective prosecution pleas hardly ever work. Doesn't mean that selective prosecution isn't a thing, just that the courts don't give a damn.

[Sarcastr0]

You missed the part about lying and hiding and moving the documents.

Why did you leave that part out, Brett?

[Brett Bellmore]

It's easy enough to hide lying and moving documents if the cops take your word for what you've done.

[Sarcastr0]

So to prove similarly situated, you have imagined additional secret documents that there is no evidence of.

This is really, really, pathetic.

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : It’s easy enough to hide lying and moving documents if….”

Now get to the part where Pence and Biden ignored a subpoena to hand over the documents in their possesion, instructed their lawyers to lie about the documents in a sworn statement, and moved the docs just before the authorities arrived.

If Trump had acted like Pence & Biden there would be no charges. Why do you pretend otherwise?

[Nige]

It's easy enough to say someone lied and moved documents with no evidence, the same way it's easy to claim the election was stolen with no evidence. As above, so below.

[Commenter_XY]

Brett, there is one aspect to this that I haver not heard a good rejoinder to. It is where my head is, quite honestly.

POTUS Trump could have pulled the plug on this anytime. He was busting balls (just like his balls were being busted). You know, POTUS Trump could have just taken a step back, taken a deep breath, and pulled the plug on the back and forth. That was the point AG Barr made, and I thought it was a fair one.

One can accept your premise this is selective prosecution and TrumpLaw, and maintain he brought some of this upon himself.

[not guilty]

Brett, what criminal statute(s) do you posit that Joe Biden violated? Same question as to Mike Pence? Please cite the applicable section numbers.

[Brett Bellmore]

Sheesh. You know damned well there wasn't any legal way for Biden to have classified documents in his garage. They're not going after him because they don't want to go after him, that's all.

I'm not going to humor your pretense of failing to understand that.

[Nige]

They're not going after him the same way they didn't go after Trump until he made the dumbest song-and-dance out of it.

[not guilty]

Uh, cavilling “you know damned well” is not citing a statute. If you are not up to my challenge, man up and admit that.

Donald Trump is charged in Florida with having violated 18 U.S.C.§§ 2, 793(e), 1001(a)(1), 1001(a)(2), 1512(b)(2)(A), 1512(c)(1), 1512(k) and 1519. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.648653/gov.uscourts.flsd.648653.3.0_12.pdf Do you claim that Joe Biden has violated any of these statutes? Yes or no? If so, based on what facts?

Even if you make such a claim, proving that Trump and Biden are “similarly situated” requires more. Suppose, for sake of argument, that Robert Hur’s investigation develops probable cause to believe that Biden violated any of the listed statutes. He would be constrained from bringing any prosecution while Biden remains in office. That is a material difference between Trump’s situation and Biden’s situation.

Moreover, the documents in Biden’s possession in all likelihood got there while he was still in office. His service in the Senate ended in January of 2009; his service as Vice-president ended in January of 2017. How would prosecution not be barred by 18 U.S.C. § 3282(a)?

[not guilty]

Brett, you made the ipse dixit assertion upthread that Donald Trump and Joe Biden (and Mike Pence, for that matter) are similarly situated: "To get to deterrence, they need to start prosecuting people who are similarly situated but who aren’t named 'Donald Trump'."

I cited legal authority as to what "similarly situated" means. When I challenged you to defend your assertion with law and facts, you ran away like a scalded dog.

Once more, do you claim that Joe Biden has violated 18 U.S.C. §§ 2, 793(e), 1001(a)(1), 1001(a)(2), 1512(b)(2)(A), 1512(c)(1), 1512(k) or 1519? If so, what facts support your claim?

It's time to belly up to the buzzsaw.

[not guilty]

Still waiting, Brett. Do you claim that Joe Biden has violated 18 U.S.C. §§ 2, 793(e), 1001(a)(1), 1001(a)(2), 1512(b)(2)(A), 1512(c)(1), 1512(k) or 1519?

[Randal]

Brett... ok I'm going to suspend disbelief for a moment and ask you a question as though you're a reasonable person.

They’re not going after him because they don’t want to go after him, that’s all.

If they filed charges against Biden or Pence, they'd lose the case, because there's not enough evidence of intent.

Are you saying they should file charges against Biden and Pence anyway, just to prove some sort of evenhandedness?

But then they'd be giving Biden and Pence "special treatment" in that the DoJ never files cases that they're expecting to lose.

[David Nieporent]

. You know damned well there wasn’t any legal way for Biden to have classified documents in his garage.

There are many legal ways for Biden to have classified documents in his garage. For instance, he could have declassified them in his mind. Or someone else, rather than Biden, could've broken the law.

But once again: Trump isn't being prosecuting for "having" classified documents; he's being prosecuted for refusing to return them and lying about it. (Strictly speaking, NDI rather than classified documents, but it's easier to go with the latter.)

[Randal]

Was Trump charged in connection with Jan 6 and I missed it?

Or are you (Brett) just rambling off your partisan fantasies (again)?

[David Nieporent]

For wrongful possession of documents,

Trump could be, but isn't being, prosecuted for "wrongful possession of documents." So whether Pence or Biden or Millard Fillmore did that is irrelevant to the selective prosecution issue.

For ‘insurrection’, how many Democrats do you suppose encouraged Antifa to the same extent Trump can be said to have encouraged the January 6th rioters?

Zero.

[Gandydancer]

TLDR.

Answer to first sentence: Hillary vs. Trump. The work has already been met with the Three Monkeys treatment by ng and his ilk.

[not guilty]

What, that you boast of having not read, are you responding to?

[Jason Cavanaugh]

You're one of the few people on the planet immune to getting smarter, Brett.

People can shove facts down your throat all day long and you retain NOTHING.

You belong in a nursing home.

[not guilty]

The Dunning-Kruger effect can be a bitch.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

That's not quite true Brett.

Like what they are doing to J6 political prisoners, they are signaling that any resistance to the Elites will be terrorized to the fullest ability of the Federal Government.

[SRG]

You're another one, like the white supremacist cracker on the main Reason site JesseAZ, who doesn't give a shit about conditions in US prisons until all of a sudden the J6 prisoners experience exactly the same crap routinely dished out to other prisoners in the US system, and all of a sudden they're concerned over prison conditions - for the J6 rioters only.

[Nige]

Is JesseAZ still around? Ah, what times were had on Volokh with that guy.

[SRG]

Yup. I hadn't realised he'd ever been on Volokh until I saw his comments on an old thread and it was obvious that he was completely out of his depth.

[Nige]

The BVD of his day.

[not guilty]

I believe there is a strong case for conviction of Trump in both the Mar-a-Lago documents case and in regard to attempting to overturn the 2020 election results. In federal court bail pending appeal is the exception rather than the rule. Under 18 U.S.C. § 3143(b):

(1) Except as provided in paragraph (2) [listing offenses not at issue here,] the judicial officer shall order that a person who has been found guilty of an offense and sentenced to a term of imprisonment, and who has filed an appeal or a petition for a writ of certiorari, be detained, unless the judicial officer finds—

(A) by clear and convincing evidence that the person is not likely to flee or pose a danger to the safety of any other person or the community if released under section 3142(b) or (c) of this title; and
(B) that the appeal is not for the purpose of delay and raises a substantial question of law or fact likely to result in—

(i) reversal,
(ii) an order for a new trial,
(iii) a sentence that does not include a term of imprisonment, or
(iv) a reduced sentence to a term of imprisonment less than the total of the time already served plus the expected duration of the appeal process.

I haven't done a guidelines analysis, but the potential charges here are not low level offenses where any alternative to incarceration would be appropriate.

As for the likely prosecution of Trump in Georgia, I want to wait to see what charges are brought there before weighing in.

[David Nieporent]

I believe there is a strong case for conviction of Trump in both the Mar-a-Lago documents case and in regard to attempting to overturn the 2020 election results. In federal court bail pending appeal is the exception rather than the rule. Under 18 U.S.C. § 3143(b):

Obviously, one never actually knows until the witnesses testify in court under oath, but based on publicly reported information the Mar-a-lago case is about as slam-dunk as it’s possible for a prosecution to be. Almost all of the evidence is undisputed, and Trump went on national TV and confessed (!).

The defenses that have been offered (“declassified in my mind”; “not everything in the boxes is stolen”; “the Presidential Records Act, which doesn’t apply to agency records like these and was designed specifically to codify the fact that presidential records don’t belong to the president, said I could do this”; “whatabout”) don’t even rise to the level of pathetic.

Trump’s only hope is juror nullification. (Or judge malfeasance.)

[Mr. Bumble]

Now do Biden's decades long possession of classified documents.
Wonder what Robert Hur has been doing.

[Krychek_2]

You mean the documents Biden didn't know were there, were immediately turned over when they were discovered, and then Biden invited the FBI to search his house? None of which is at all like Trump?

I've learned over the years that whenever you say "Now do . . ." you're about to offer something completely and totally dissimilar.

[not guilty]

Mr. Bumble, what criminal statute(s) do you posit that Joe Biden violated? Please cite by number.

[BrotherMovesOn]

Not Guilty, good luck with that request.
No response will be provided.
Bumble. LOL!

[Jason Cavanaugh]

More useless whataboutism, completely disconnected from facts and reality.

Seems to be a common and pathetic trend among the RWNJs here.

[Mr. Bumble]

To all above:
If Biden's possession of classified documents bears no comparison to Trump's, why did the DOJ appoint a special counsel to investigate it?

[Sarcastr0]

You think all things that have a special counsel appointed are the same?

[not guilty]

"If Biden’s possession of classified documents bears no comparison to Trump’s, why did the DOJ appoint a special counsel to investigate it?"

Because documents were found where they did not belong, and it is worthwhile to find out how that happened and who was responsible. The point of investigating is to determine whether any crime was committed and, if so, by whom.

That having been said, what is known of Joe Biden's conduct bears no resemblance to what is known of Donald Trump's conduct.

Now please answer my question as to what criminal statute(s) you posit that Joe Biden violated. (Or in the alternative, admit that you are just talking through your hat.)

[Mr. Bumble]

Given that there has been no information as to what documents Biden possessed it's tough to determine what if any criminal statutes were violated. However given the broad scope of 18 U.S. Code § 793 there might be a criminal violation to be found.

[Krychek_2]

There might be a criminal violation if it could be proven who put the documents there, and who knew they were there. See, Trump bragged into a microphone that he had classified documents, so in his case, proving he broke the law will be easy. With Biden, we don't know that Biden knew they were there, or how they got there, or who put them there, so it's a little more difficult. But just keep on with your totally off-point what abouting if it makes you feel better.

[Mr. Bumble]

So the dementia defense?

[Krychek_2]

No, the you-haven’t-even-shown-Biden-knew-they-were-there defense.

Those documents were 50 years old. After all this time, God knows how they got there.

[Sarcastr0]

No, Bumble. You don't get to move to Biden-land. You tried to equate Trump to Biden to defend Trump. You failed at this; you don't get to now spend your time speculating about Biden as though that was the topic.

The topic is Trump's established actions. No deflecting.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Those documents were 50 years old. After all this time, God knows how they got there."

Yeah, God knows how they ended up in Biden's garage, and an office Biden occupied only after having left the White House. Probably just the White House cleaning staff were running out of places to put stuff, so they went on a road trip and dumped them in the garages of random politicians. After that, let the person who doesn't have classified documents lying around their office cast the first stone.

I mean, it's not like Biden had any say in what showed up in his garage and offices.

[Krychek_2]

Brett, have you ever moved an office? Better still, have you ever tried to keep track of boxes that were first moved 50 years ago? Any idea how many times a box can get moved in 50 years with no one bothering to read what was inside? I've been looking for a family heirloom that disappeared during a move 20 years ago.

Granted, it was sloppy. If it can be proven who moved what when, it may even be criminal. But it doesn't begin to approach bragging about it into a microphone like Trump did.

[Mr. Bumble]

"Those documents were 50 years old."
Bullshit! 50 years ago Biden was a freshman senator.

[not guilty]

"Given that there has been no information as to what documents Biden possessed it’s tough to determine what if any criminal statutes were violated. However given the broad scope of 18 U.S. Code § 793 there might be a criminal violation to be found."

Uh, "there might be a criminal violation to be found" doesn't feed the bulldog.

[Krychek_2]

I seem to recall reading the documents dated from Biden's early days in the Senate, which would have been 50 years ago. However, even if it's only 10 years, that does not change my basic point that boxes get moved and moved again without their contents being checked.

But none of this makes up for the fact that you have, yet again, come up with a wildly inappropriate what aboutism that isn't even close to being analogous on the facts. The reason "Now do Biden" is a really bad argument is that Trump's and Biden's situations are nowhere near similar. Get back to us when Biden is caught bragging about stealing classified materials.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Bullshit! 50 years ago Biden was a freshman senator."

Yeah, he's been taking classified documents home since he was a freshman Senator.

[Nige]

Wait, I thought Biden was getting off scott free? WHICH IS IT?

[Dr. Ed 2]

"Declassified in my mind" -- what if the National Security Act is ruled an unconstitutional violation of Article I.

[David Nieporent]

What if huge alien spaceships appear over every major world city and say they're going to annihilate the human population unless Donald Trump is convicted?

[Krychek_2]

For one thing, I would wonder what kind of alien intelligence has no better use for its intelligence than thinking about Donald Trump, unless they have their own form of kabuki theater.

[OtisAH]

Few prosecutors would ever bring charges against a former POTUS without it being as airtight a case as is humanly possible.

[Mr. Bumble]

Like the prosecutors during Trumps second impeachment trial?
The one that occurred when he was a former POTUS.

[Sarcastr0]

Impeachment is not a criminal proceeding.

Wow, you really don't wanna stay on topic.

[Mr. Bumble]

It is a prosecution brought as the result of charges brought by the House.
Otis did not confine it to criminal prosecutions.

[OtisAH]

Idiot.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

The rest of us were smart enough to understand the context without pedantry.

Also, in impeachments, they are referred to as "Managers" or "Trial Managers."

So you're dumb either way.

[Krychek_2]

I go back and forth on whether he's dumb, or whether he is smart enough to recognize that the only way he gets Trump off the hook is by changing the subject. It may be one of those mysteries that never gets solved.

[M L]

"Few prosecutors would ever bring charges against a former POTUS without it being as airtight a case as is humanly possible."

Fortunately for those who would imprison political opponents, you don't need a nationwide consensus of prosecutors to bring charges.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

How's the view from inside your own asshole, ML?

[John F. Carr]

In practice, trial judges are rarely overruled. He's been saying nice things about the trial judge. She has ruled in his favor before. Fair chance he stays out pending appeal.

[OtisAH]

I don’t think they need to get to treason anyway.

[Michael P]

Make sure you ask AI to explain Kamala Harris, not vice versa. https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2023/07/13/kamala-harris-tries-to-explain-ai-and-much-hilarity-ensues-n1710366

On the other hand, this is equally stupid: https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/hunter-biden-cocaine-white-house -- apparently, Kamala Harris's name was one spotted in the same sentence as the word cocaine, so something something something.

[gdanning]

That cocaine article is something else; she is a likely source of the cocaine, because 1) when she was DA of SF, a crime lab tech stole coke and had other reliability issues, but the DA's office did not inform defendants; and 2) in the 1980s, several years before he dated her, Willie Brown acted as defense attorney for a coke dealer. And yet there are no doubt people who find that utterly convincing.

[Michael P]

I wonder if this guy has ever done a write-up of microdosing placebos: https://twitter.com/algekalipso/status/1678984209132847104

[Brett Bellmore]

Microdosing placebos is homeopathic: The tinier the dose, the more the non-drug has no real effects!

[Bwaaah]

"Homeopathy’s founder (Samuel Hahnemann, M.D.) himself realized there was virtually no chance that an original molecule would remain after extreme dilutions. But he declared that vigorous shaking ('succussion') or pulverizing between dilutions would leave behind a spirit-like essence that cures by reviving the body’s 'vital force.'"

(from QuackWatch)

[Armchair Lawyer]

And in other news, Joe Biden has been caught (checks notes) "nibbling on the shoulder of a strange 5-year old girl".

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-nibbles-frightened-young-girl-during-trip-finland-weirding-twitter-users

OK, is it really too much to ask for a President who doesn't do this sort of thing? At least not in public? When president? This is truly creepy behavior.

[Dr. Ed 2]

If he did that in my presence, I'd be required to file a 51A with child protective.

[David Nieporent]

No, you wouldn't, you sociopathic weirdo.

[grb]

Armchair Lawyer : “This is truly creepy behavior”

Strange comment from a Trump supporter, given his ugly history lusting after his own daughter. There was Trump on the Howard Stern Show agreeing she’s a “piece of ass” and discussing whether she had breast implants. In a Rolling Stone interview he offered this about Ivanka: “Yeah, she’s really something, and what a beauty, that one. If I weren’t happily married and, ya know, her father . . .”

On The View Trump offered this: “I’ve said if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.” Trump bragged on the Dr. Oz show that he kisses Ivanka “every chance he gets” (The comment was edited out of the final cut of the show).

In a February 2013 appearance on The Wendy Williams Show, the host asked father and daughter what they had in common. Poor Ivanka offered “Either real estate or golf”. Trump’s reply? “Well, I was going to say sex, but I can’t relate that to her.” This sexual fixation was even commonplace inside the Oval Office:

“While president, Donald Trump made sexual comments about his daughter Ivanka in front of his employees that were so lewd and disturbing that he was rebuked by his one-time chief of staff John Kelly, writes Miles Taylor, a former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security in his new book.

Aides said he talked about Ivanka Trump’s breasts, her backside, and what it might be like to have sex with her, remarks that prompted Kelly to remind the president that Ivanka was his daughter,”

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/trumps-lewd-talk-about-daughter-ivanka-in-front-of-white-house-staff-recalled-in-new-book/

[Nige]

Also he was found guilty of sexual assault.

[David Nieporent]

No. First, it was a civil case, so there's no "found guilty." He was found liable. Second, it was sexual abuse; he was found not liable for rape.

[Nige]

Sorry, yes, withdrawn and corrected. Found liable for sexual abuse. A sex offender.

[Frank Drackman]

Nige Bot resents that due to his multiple "Gender Reassignment" Procedures he has nothing left to abuse.

[Nige]

edgebot sad Trump's a sex offender

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

He lied in a deposition which is grounds for impeachment and removal according to Republicans.

[bevis the lumberjack]

Grb paraphrased “Trump’s creepy behavior excuses Biden’s creepy behavior”.

Lol.

[Nige]

Equivalence machine at full power.

[Armchair Lawyer]

Whataboutism!

A classic logical fallacy, when faced with a criticism of a specific action by an individual or group, instead of responding to the criticism or condemning it, the fallacy redirects to a different case.

Classically used by the Soviet Union whenever any criticism of its treatment of minorities or people was made, "Whatabout how the US treated its black people?"

Likewise, here grb repeats the logical fallacy in classic form. When faced with criticism of Biden's creepy actions, immediately he switches to "whatabout this seemingly similar situation from Trump".

Its a logical fallacy, in that it avoids the criticism.

[Sarcastr0]

You this one right, IMO.

[Frank Drackman]

It's almost as bad as sending Cluster Bombs to You-Cranw

[TwelveInchPianist]

Interesting Ethical poll on twitter:

A criminal defense attorney makes an agreement with the ADA. When the agreement is reduced to writing there is an obvious (to anyone who is party to the agreement) typographical error. It favors the Defendant. What is the defense Attorney's ethical obligation?
A) To Do Nothing
B) Alert the Judge/ADA

The results were about 50/50.

Seems like the pretty clear answer is that the lawyer should do whatever will benefit his client. If the hypo were clarified to indicated that the error makes it likely that his client will do less time, it would be clear that the lawyer should do nothing.

The counter argument was that, well, you agreed to the deal as negotiated, but that doesn't seem correct. You perhaps intended to recommend to your client to take the offer because you thought he would get a long sentence if he didn't, but if new information in the form of botched paperwork changes that calculus, the duty is to inform the client accordingly, not to fix the mistake.

[Armchair Lawyer]

The "stupid mistake" rule.

In an adversarial process, if one party makes a "stupid mistake" should the other party point out the stupid mistake and allow a take back? Or is it the responsibility of the first party to recognize their stupid mistake?

[ReaderY]

There’s a reason comtracts are construed against their maker. The maker of the contract is the one responsible for getting it right. We accept that criminal defendants get ghe benefit of technicalities, including mistakes by the prosecuting attorney.

[David Nieporent]

I mean, yes, but no. Yes, contracts are construed against the drafter. But that doctrine applies to ambiguities, not typos.

[Brett Bellmore]

Because there's nothing to construe with typos: Everybody can see what it says.

[Commenter_XY]

David, which side do you come down on. Do nothing? Or say something?

[David Nieporent]

It's too vague a question to answer. There are two main principles that guide the lawyer's duties here: (1) his obligation is to his client, not to the other lawyer or to good sportsmanship or to vague notions of the public good; (2) he can't lie.

But beyond that, I would need to know about the actual situation. Is this something that can readily be corrected anyway? Is this something that, if not caught by a certain point, will become binding and unremediable? Is it something that would require an affirmative misrepresentation?

[Michael P]

How is this hypothetical case distinguished from a scrivener's error?

[ReaderY]

Justice Roberts has said that Congress cannot impose a binding code of ethics on the Supreme Court.What does he mean by saying any code of ethics would be non-binding?

Is he arguing that Congress doesn’t have the power to impeach a Supreme Court Justice for a violation of the code?

If not, what can “non-binding” mean in this context?

[Brett Bellmore]

No, he's arguing that Congress can't do anything short of impeaching them. Can't fine them, can't remove them from their jobs, the only thing Congress can do to them is impeach them.

So, yeah, Congress can enact a code of ethics for the Supreme court. But they can't enforce it short of impeachment, so it's hardly going to be a binding code of ethics.

[apedad]

Agree but Congress also controls the SC's budget.

Oh, you want a pay raise?

I. Mandatory Adjustments to Base
The FY 2024 request includes $0.2 million for standard pay increases and changes in benefits for the Chief Justice and the Associate Justices.
II. Discretionary Adjustments to Base
The Supreme Court requests an $11.0 million increase for discretionary expenses for standard pay and benefits adjustments, other inflationary adjustments, one more compensable day, and other adjustments to maintain current services in FY 2024. These adjustments include:
1. Pay and benefits adjustments: $4.9 million
An increase of $4.9 million will provide for the annualization of the January 2023 pay adjustment, an assumed January 2024 pay adjustment, within-grade increases, changes in benefit
rates, and one more compensable day.

https://www.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/FY%202024%20Congressional%20Budget%20Summary.pdf#:~:text=The%20Judiciary%27s%20fiscal%20year%20(FY,enacted%20appropriation%20of%20%248.5%20billion

[Brett Bellmore]

"The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office."

Yeah, Congress can refuse to raise their pay, as a group. It can't lower their pay, or touch individual Justices short of impeachment.

And, if the issue comes up of whether failing to provide COLAs is diminishing their pay? Hmm, who would hear that case, again?

[Commenter_XY]

It is diminishment = withholding COLA (at least in PR of NJ)

I remember this issue coming up here in the People's Republic of NJ, think it was heard in district court.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm not saying Congress has no leverage, but, constitutionally, I don't think there's anything they can do to individual justices, short of impeachment, and what they can do to the Court as a whole is somewhat limited.

[Commenter_XY]

Impeachment is Congresses only tool, IMO.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, no, I think they could probably do something stupid, like relocate the Supreme Court to Nome, Alaska. And they could certainly set out on a jurisdiction stripping spree, though that might prompt the Court to deliver some clarity on that topic.

[Mr. Bumble]

Could Congress impose a "code of ethics" on the president?
If so how would they enforce it?

[Dr. Ed 2]

See Impeachment of Andrew Johnson.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

If COVID turns out to have disparately impacted certain races, is that proof that it’s makers, funders, and cover-up’ers were systemically racist, illegally so?

If they made COVID with improper animus, should its funders be charged?

[Dr. Ed 2]

It's known that the Chinese military is working on racially-specific bioweapons, so charges of treason could apply here.

[Sarcastr0]

My sources say the death penalty, for espionage, being considered for COVID. I am pro-life and take no pleasure in reporting this.

[David Nieporent]

"it's known" = "Dr. Ed is hallucinating again." One Chinese official mused about the possibility once, and loons think it's actually happening.

[jb]

LOL. If RFK, Jr. and Rand Paul had a baby, would anyone love it?

[Bwaaah]

Probably not, because when it would speak, you wouldn't be able to tell if it was a drawl or lung cancer.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32562416/

"The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has disproportionately affected racial and ethnic minority groups, with high rates of death in African American, Native American, and LatinX communities."

Now what are you going to do?

[grb]

BravoCharlieDelta : "Now what are you going to do?"

Maybe open up the damn link, where we find this :

"Minority groups are disproportionately affected by chronic medical conditions and lower access to healthcare that may portend worse COVID-19 outcomes. Furthermore, minority communities are more likely to experience living and working conditions that predispose them to worse outcomes."

You're such a clown! Did you think no one would bother looking? Also: No one thinks covid was engineered as a weapon. The majority of studies still concludes it was by natural origin, but a sizable minority view supports the lab leak theory. But no study, scientist, or government report finds any evidence of covid as a purposeful creation. Per what I've read, there is genetic evidence directly against that conclusion.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Do extenuating circumstances come into play in other disparate impact claims?

Like bank redlining?

Or only this case?

[grb]

1. You provided a link to promote your goofy conspiracy.

2. The link doesn't support your goofy conspiracy.

Those are the facts. Deal with it.

[Bored Lawyer]

You misunderstood his point. Badly. Try re-reading the threads.

[grb]

Oh, really? Just a few comments above we have BCD talking about covid's "makers, funders, and cover-up’ers". Granted, just about everything BravoCharlieDelta says is empty trolling, but that sure sounds like he's on RFKjr's Conspiracy Train.

The one think we know with absolute certainly is he doesn't give the slightest damn about structural inequities in the healthcare system or the effects of poverty on the impact of any disease, covid included. And that's the very point of the link he keeps posting.

So what does that leave for his "point"? Given you've appointed yourself to sieve and rarify his shit, have a go. Explain what BCD is trying to say. God knows he's incapable of doing so.

[Bored Lawyer]

Here's a hint: he is NOT advancing a goofy conspiracy theory. He is USING the goofiness of a conspiracy theory to attack something else. A legal doctrine, not a scientific one. (Further hint, the initials of that legal theory he is attacking are "D____ I_____")

And, the more goofy you claim his theory is, the more you reinforce his point. You are indirectly supporting his cause when you think you are attacking him.

I have given you enough hints. Let's see if you can figure it out.

[Commenter_XY]

Bored Lawyer....O/T (sort of). RFK is no anti-Semite. I read the comments of Rabbi Shmuel Boteach. If Rabbi Boteach says RFK Jr is not an anti-Semite, then he is not. To me, that case is closed.

Not sure if you see RFK Jr the same way.

[grb]

Attack how? Since you're the man's guardian angel, please explain the substance and logic of this "attack". Seems like structural problems in the healthcare system remains an issue even if BravoCharlieDelta puts on his tin-foil-hat and channels RFKjr's bullshit.

[Bored Lawyer]

I have not given much thought to whether RFK, Jr. is an anti-semite. He is a goofball who believes wacky conspiracy theories.

He is also making points that most of the mainstream of both parties are ignoring. So he is getting some resonance. Same as Trump -- he is a goofball (a different kind), who nevertheless resonates with many people who feel the standard politicians are not making their case.

[Commenter_XY]

Bored Lawyer, yes I totally agree with this = He is also making points that most of the mainstream of both parties are ignoring. So he is getting some resonance.

I am watching with genuine curiosity.

[Bored Lawyer]

grb
I understand that breathing in and out of a paper bag helps for hyperventialtion. You should try it.

Once you have recovered, let me spell it out for you. BCD is attacking the legal doctrine of Disparate Impact. He is showing that by the logic of DI, the disparate results of COVID prove the wacky conspiracy theory that RFK, Jr. has been promoting. Which is goofy non-sense. Your calling the conspiracy goofy nonsense only reinforces his point.

[grb]

Bored Lawyer : "He is also making points that most of the mainstream of both parties are ignoring"

True enuff:

1, Vaccines cause autism.
2. Weedkillers cause gays.
3. The CIA killed JFK.
4. The CIA was behind his father's death.
5. WiFi radiation damages the brain
6. Covid vaccines are part of a global conspiracy
7. Fauci experimented on black children who were buried in a mass grave.
8. 5G is a government ploy to “harvest our data and control our behavior.”
9. The Russians were acting “in good faith” in Ukraine.

And there's this : “The digitalized economy? We get rid of cash and coins. We give you a chip. We put all your money in your chip. If you refuse a vaccine, we turn off the chip and you starve!” I admit the mainstream of both parties are ignoring that issue....

[grb]

Bored Lawyer : BCD is attacking the legal doctrine of Disparate Impact.

One more time: How? You say : “He is showing that by the logic of DI, the disparate results of COVID prove the wacky conspiracy theory that RFK, Jr”

That makes zero sense. Disparate impact has been documented in multiple fields, healthcare included. It exists in covid, heart disease and childbirth mortality. You can argue over causes. You can argue over extent. You can argue over remedies – whether they are possible and what their extent might be. But BCD's clownish conspiracy mongering has nothing to do with any of that.

Since RFKjr is a joke, disparate impact can’t exist? Is that the argument you’re championing (for BCD)?

[Nige]

‘You are indirectly supporting his cause when you think you are attacking him’

You’re supposed to cut gordian knots, not tie yourself into one.

‘RFK is no anti-Semite.’

Those remarks were off the record!

‘He is also making points that most of the mainstream of both parties are ignoring.’

With good reason, every time it’s pointed out they’re dumb disinformation everyone screams ‘censorship!’ Or maybe that's a bad reason. Either way.

[David Nieporent]

Bored Lawyer….O/T (sort of). RFK is no anti-Semite. I read the comments of Rabbi Shmuel Boteach. If Rabbi Boteach says RFK Jr is not an anti-Semite, then he is not. To me, that case is closed.

RFKJ is a conspiracy theorist. In the end, conspiracy theories always end up involving the Jews. As it did here, where RFKJ graced us with the twin ideas that Ashkenazi Jews aren't Caucasian and that they conspired to get themselves excluded from the COVID target list.

[bernard11]

He is showing that by the logic of DI, the disparate results of COVID prove the wacky conspiracy theory that RFK, Jr. has been promoting.

He is showing nothing of the sort.

Exactly what policy does he claim is having a disparate impact?

[SRG]

Why is Schmuel B any more of an authority on anti-Semitism than any of the Jewish posters on this forum?

If someone comes up with an anti-Semitic conspiracy, they're anti-Semitic. It's hard to imagine how it could be otherwise!

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

His wife can kiss her career goodbye…because Hollywood is run by Jews!

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Believe it or not there is a science called “genetics” and Achkenazi Jews are bound by the rules of this strange science we call “genetics”. Btw, I’ve never typed out that word before but discussed it numerous times while discussing genetics…it has NAZI in it. 😉

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

I just looked it up—Ashkenazi Jews aren’t a genetically diverse group which everyone with an MD knows, but they also have good genes with respect to aging. So people are mistakenly thinking age is a big factor in an individual’s Covid death chances but it is actually health…and age and health obviously go together. So an 80 year old Ashkenazi Jew on average will be healthier than a 60 year old white trash Trump supporter and so they probably have the same risk of death from getting Covid.

[Nige]

Conspiracy theories used to seem fun and goofy. All credit to Umberto Eco who spotted right off their underlying links to fascism, and older forms of oppression.

[David Nieporent]

The majority of studies still concludes it was by natural origin, but a sizable minority view supports the lab leak theory.

For the sake of clarification, because lots of people conflate these things. "Lab leak" is not mutually exclusive from "natural origin." People who say "lab leak" seem to be insinuating that the virus was made in a lab, but that's not what the phrase actually means. If the virus arose naturally in a bat (or some other animal), was brought back to the lab to study it, and then inadequate safety measures allowed (e.g.) someone in the lab to get infected who then transmitted it to the general public when he left the lab, that would be a "lab leak" but would still be "natural origin."

Of course, if it was actually engineered in the lab, it could then have gotten out through either a leak as above or deliberate release. I don't think any sane person believes that it was deliberately released.

[Bwaaah]

I understand where he might have gotten the "disparate impact" on "blacks." He neglected to mention the "disparate impact" on "Latinx" [sic per article; uggh]. But how did he get the stats on "Ashkenazi Jews"? I just never saw a checkbox for that one on any of the forms. Maybe the gov'ment has a secret spreadsheet? Some Jewish doctor spilled the beans? How?

[Bored Lawyer]

It's all the Chinese food they eat on Christmas that gives them immunity. The Corona virus detects all that soy sauce and avoids them, same as the Chinese.

[Bwaaah]

lol. That certainly would explain why I never got COVID.
(with spare rib sauce dabbing the corner of my mouth)

[Paladin_44]

Hmm... Is that disproportionately "infected" or "affected"? The former is medical, the latter societal.

[Moderation4ever]

The things that race is not biological, it is sociological concept. If you look at the results of COVID you may see that it had disproportionate effects on different groups but those effects may be as much sociological as anything.

The last Bond film, No Time to Die, had DNA specific poisons, but like much in the Bond world it was enjoyable fiction, not reality. I will concede that No Time to Die as enjoyable is debatable.

[Frank Drackman]

You're right! just look at all the Swedes with the Sickle Cell!!!!!

[Commenter_XY]

Race is biological, M4e; race is genetic. Where did you go to school?

[Bored Lawyer]

Yes and no. There is a genetic component, but the categorization of races is not.

FD's example of sickle-cell anemia illustrates the point. That is no doubt genetic, and affects many Africans. But only certain groups of Africans, generally from the parts of Africa where most of the slaves were taken in the 16th to 18th centuries. But "black" is a broader category than that, and not all African groups have that genetic condition.

[Commenter_XY]

I know what you're saying BL (and Brett), and do not disagree. To your point; skin color is genetic based. So are epicanthic folds of the eyes. Racial characteristics are genetic; they are encoded in our genome. That is not a moral judgment, at all. What we say and how we act regarding those characteristics, well that is something different entirely...Professor Bernstein writes a lot about absurd racial distinctions. But it all starts with genetics.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, there's biology that correlates roughly to "race", but as one of the Conspirators likes pointing out, current racial classifications are pretty irrational.

[Nige]

Almost as if there's a reason for that to do with how race is more of a social construct than a genetic one.

[Moderation4ever]

The University of Wisconsin is my alma mater. If race is genetic then explain was a person from Spain is white European and a person from Puerto Rico is Hispanic.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Can you not simply look at people and realize that there are a common set of genetic distinctions between humans?

Is it not obvious just from looking around?

[Moderation4ever]

There are many genetically distinctive groups but these are not racial. We don't have a blue eyed race or a brown eyed race, a bald race. Race is social and it is sorting by visible genetic differences or in some cases by location. Imagine I took a native American with soft facial features and dress him in a traditional Japanese garb. Would you know his race? If I took a young middle-eastern woman and dressed her in clothes as a Mexican woman would you know the difference?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

What label to you use to describe these genetically distinct groups?

I agree with you and many others that the categories we currently use are definitely not reflecting much reality, but the notion of races itself clearly has merit.

We're just using it wrong.

[bernard11]

What label to you use to describe these genetically distinct groups?

We don't need a label to describe them, because all they are just people who share some characteristic. We generally describe them by the relevant trait - we call them red-headed people, or tall people, or blue-eyed people, or dark-skinned people.

[bernard11]

Exactly.

People have all kinds of varying genetic characteristics - skin color, eye color, hair color, height, susceptibility to certain diseases, etc. That doesn't mean there is a tall race and a short race, a cancer-prone race and a non-cancer-prone race.

The fact is that all humans share an enormous percentage of their genome - 99% or so. What the racialists are trying to do is pretend that the variation - actually only some of it - among the rest is somehow hugely important.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Tay-Sachs exists…I wish it didn’t but it does.

[SRG]

Often enough what we think of as race is sociological. But distinct groups can be identified from genetics. There's a reason that 23&Me can identify me as >99.5% Ashkenazi Jewish and it can't be because I have a cultural preference for bagels and lox, brisket, and arguing.

[Moderation4ever]

It is important to remember that that these DNA tests are not looking for a DNR profile but rather grouping a person with others with similar patterns. And while you are Jewish, that is not generally considered a race. If I understand correctly Ashkenazi Jews came from Europe and would generally be consider of the white race. Race is also fluid over time. Jews where considered a different race as were the Irish. In reality if you go back far enough, we are all African.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

MDs are supposed to be on the lookout for certain medical issues in Ashkenazi Jews…at least they were taught that prior to progressives forcing the medical community to pretend biology and sex at birth aren’t medically relevant.

[SRG]

We were considered "white" some of the time, but modern research (Hammer and other researchers) showed that genetically all Jewish groups around the world are more closely related to each other than the local non-Jewish groups they're living next to, and that we're more closely related to Kurds and Palestinians than any other group.

I think that "tribe" is probably the best description.

[David Nieporent]

We were considered “white” some of the time, but modern research (Hammer and other researchers) showed that genetically all Jewish groups around the world are more closely related to each other than the local non-Jewish groups they’re living next to, and that we’re more closely related to Kurds and Palestinians than any other group.

As Prof. Bernstein would be happy to explain, that in no way makes Jews not white. Arabs are also white!

(Most Jews; obviously, e.g., Ethiopian Jews are not white.)

[Michael P]

Did De-policing contribute to the 2020 homicide spikes?

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15614263.2023.2235056

Short answer: yes.

[Bwaaah]

Massive arbitrary releases of people from jails/prisons, and taking away judges’ abilities to put them back in, didn’t help neither.

And as the New York Times reported last week a significant drop in murders in NYC (over last year), they failed to mention that it's still up about 30% over 2019. They had nothing but good news about murder.

[jb]

I think the answer is probably yes, but I'm skeptical of this paper for two reasons:

1) It doesn't seem to attempt to deal with alternative hypotheses (e.g., Covid lockups, higher levels of gun ownership*, or even loss of trust in the police). There was a lot going on during that period and you probably want to at least make an attempt to compare those correlations to make sure they're not as strong or stronger.
2) If you actually look at the graphs it seems murder rate starts coming down by the end of 2020 even though police stops are still way down. This implies that either there's more going on here or that there's a way to do smarter police stops which might have its own set of lessons.

* Limiting the study to NYC probably makes this particular one less likely, admittedly.

[hoppy025]

https://www.opb.org/article/2023/07/14/oregon-measure-114-guns-federal-constitutionality-verdict/

Judges like this are evil traitors, and in a sane society, would be tried for treason and gassed.

[Ed Grinberg]

This was an awful decision, no doubt about it. (No, no one should be "gassed" for issuing awful decisions. But, at a certain point, you'd think impeachment would be an option.)
BTW, she is a Trump appointee!
"Of the judges appointed during Biden's first two years in office, 75% were women..." (source)
Maybe Biden knows something Trump didn't...

[hoppy025]

Gassing is an effective way of eliminating undesirables. Been that way forever.

And yes, women are stupid, vindicative and emotional. Pedo Joe's handlers know that, which is why 3/4 are women.

[John F. Carr]

A Boston city councilor crashed into a house recently while driving double the speed limit. She hadn't had a driver's license for a decade. Not because she habitually drives recklessly. Maybe she does, maybe she doesn't, but there's nothing bad on her record. She failed to pay a fine and missed a court date for a minor traffic offense. If you kill somebody and pay all your fines you can drive again. If you don't wear a seat belt and don't pay your fine you can never drive again. She blew off the system and drove with no license, registration, or insurance. I wonder if she got lucky avoiding notice or if city police knew not to mess with a VIP.

In response, city officials are considering only issuing City Hall parking passes to people with driver's licenses.

A columnist for the Globe observed that the City Council used to have good people but they all left for other jobs.

[Mr. Bumble]

Elective office has its privileges.

[apedad]

With the operative word being 'elective.'

If we the voters keep electing bad people, then shame on us.

[Mr. Bumble]

So we get the government we deserve? (Attributed in one form or another to various people).

[Frank Drackman]

Let me guess, She's African Amurican????

[The Margrave of Azilia]

It seems everything comes down to ballot access.

"See this story [link] for information about a preliminary step the U.S. House has taken to raise congressional pay [ignoring the 27th Amendment of course]. Every time congressional pay rises, filing fees rise in many states that set the amount of the fee as a percentage of the office’s salary."

https://ballot-access.org/2023/07/13/congress-steps-initial-steps-to-raise-its-pay/

So on the one hand, minor candidates are spoilers with no chance of winning. On the other hand they have to kick back to the state a portion of the salary they *might* make if elected, and the higher the salary, the higher the kickback.

So many things wrong with this scenario.

[OtisAH]

A major thing wrong with it is you don’t know the difference between filing fees and “kickbacks.”

[The Margrave of Azilia]

You can't defend these laws, but at least you can quibble over terminology.

[OtisAH]

I’m not sure where you got the impression my responsibility is to defend laws. But if I was, the first line of my defense would be dismissing ass-clowns who conflate easily understood and separate concepts like “filing fees” and “kickbacks.”

[The Margrave of Azilia]

You should be relieved it’s not your responsibility to defend those laws, because there’s no rational way you could do so. Nor have you offered even an *irrational* defense, which is well within your capability.

But at least we can agree that it’s not a kickback when the government does it. If, say, an elections official promised to help someone get on the ballot in exchange for an advance payment on the official salary of the office sought, that would be a kickback, but if the money goes into the government’s treasury, we can agree it’s fully innocent.

[ducksalad]

In Texas, the primary filing fees for Republicans and Democrats are collected by the state/county from the candidates, but then given back to their respective party’s state committees.

However, the filing fees to contest the nomination for Greens and Libertarians (same dollar amount) are deposited in the general state/county treasury.

The justification for collecting filing fees from R’s and D’s, and then giving it to the party, is that it helps offset the expense to the party of holding a primary.

The justification for collecting filing fees from L’s and G’s, and then giving the money to the treasury, is that there’s no primary and thus no expenses. Then why collect the fees if they aren’t paying for anything? FYTW.

[ducksalad]

Sorry, correction: R and D candidates make their checks direct to the party. L and G candidates make their checks to the state.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32562416/

“The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has disproportionately affected racial and ethnic minority groups, with high rates of death in African American, Native American, and LatinX communities.”

It's funny that this was a reason to give extra money to Democrat groups two years, but is now an illegal criminal conspiracy theory to even mention.

[grb]

Your link says this : “Minority groups are disproportionately affected by chronic medical conditions and lower access to healthcare that may portend worse COVID-19 outcomes. Furthermore, minority communities are more likely to experience living and working conditions that predispose them to worse outcomes.”

It doesn't claim the wack-job conspiracy you're trying to promote.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

I see you don't care very much about Healthcare Justice.

Convenient.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

https://www.frontpagemag.com/while-navy-pushes-dei-37-of-attack-subs-are-out-of-order/

lol the Democrat Pentagon is such a failure.

They spent 30 years getting their asses handed to them by a bunch of goat fucking pedophiles, now they’re letting the subs rot while they castrate sailors.

No wonder they keep "finding" billions of dollars to give to Ukraine to use US weapons. America's military trannies are too busy dilating to ever use our own gear.

[Ed Grinberg]

lol the Democrat Pentagon is such a failure.

Yes, they're definitely a failure. But, since it's the only military we've got, I don't feel like laughing. If our military is a failure, we're all sitting ducks for the various bad guys out there. Scary, not funny.
As someone said upthread, we get the government (and with it, the military) we deserve.

[Nige]

Dumb wars and corporate socialism takes a toll.

[bernard11]

So it seems Harlan Crow combines tax evasion with doing large scale favors for Supreme Court Justices.

[Michael P]

If you are a gullible tool, maybe it seems that way. If you are familiar with Pro Publica's past partisan hack jobs, that article stinks to heaven.

They rely on a quote from Weasel Wyden that was probably made under the Speech and Debate clause, plus their incompetence ("ProPublica reporters could find no evidence"), to tell a story.

[bernard11]

Actually, the article is quite accurate with respect to the tax considerations involved, you idiot.

[Michael P]

On which specific facts do they base their imputation that Crow cheated on taxes with that yacht?

Nothing more than what Ron Wyden said, which would be actionably libelous anywhere but the floor of Congress, and their own admission that they couldn't find evidence. I found such evidence in less than five minutes of searching (trademark registrations to the leasing company that owns the yacht, for marks related to the yacht). Now, that is very weak evidence, but they either excluded that -- meaning they lied -- or they could not find it. You can decide which conclusion about them is more likely.

[bernard11]

You are absolutely full of shit, and a damned liar.

The article contains plenty of evidence. For example:

ProPublica interviewed around a dozen former crew members of the Michaela Rose, some of whom spent years aboard the ship, and none said they were aware of the boat ever being chartered. ProPublica also reviewed cruising schedules for three different years. According to the former staff and the schedules, use of the vessel appears to have been limited to Crow’s family, friends and executives of Crow’s company, along with their guests.

Read the fucking thing, you asshole.

[David Nieporent]

I found such evidence in less than five minutes of searching (trademark registrations to the leasing company that owns the yacht, for marks related to the yacht). Now, that is very weak evidence, but they either excluded that — meaning they lied — or they could not find it.

Um, what? They discussed that extensively in the article.

[bevis the lumberjack]

I don’t care much about this but it’s a stretch to call that article full of “signs up” and questions raised by a hyper partisan member of congress.

And of course someone at the IRS committed a crime alllowing ProPubkica to build their rich guy tax data base. Of course that crime went uninvestigated under the both the Treat Fellow Government Employee like a Brother-in-Law Rule and the Who Did the Release Harm Principle.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Bevis, you're really a smart guy once you're away from the insidious influence of that no-good friend of yours. Huh-huh.

[Jerry B.]

A masterpiece of spin from the Washington Post.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/17/here-we-go-again-an-explosive-hunter-biden-laptop-email-needs-context/

[grb]

Jerry B. : "A masterpiece of spin from the Washington Post"

A masterpiece of ignorance from you. For the umpteenth time: That prosecutor Shokin must be fired was the position of the White House, the State Department, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, a bipartisan group of Senators, the EU, the IMF, the World Bank, the European Bank of Reconstruction & Development, all our major western allies, and every anti-corruption group in Ukraine itself. There were street protest in Ukraine against Shokin alone. When he was finally ousted, the Kyiv Post called him the most hated man in the country.

You'll never be able to get around those facts. Biden pressuring Ukraine on Shokin was following the directive of the President, State Department, and this country's allies.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

The State Department, the country's allies, and the President also wanted Hunter to be included on the discussions.

lol good one

[grb]

Absolute. Total. Bullshit. Lying.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

You poor, low information dupe.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/jul/3/obama-white-house-looped-in-hunter-biden-in-email-/

[jb]

Ah, surely you have the receipts for VP Biden advocating for Hunter to be part of the discussions about Shokin's status? Or are you just making shit up?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2023/jul/3/obama-white-house-looped-in-hunter-biden-in-email-/

A White House scheduling email sent to then-Vice President Joseph R. Biden ahead of a call with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko was also sent to his son Hunter who was serving on the board of a Ukrainian energy firm looking to escape a corruption probe.

In the call, the elder Mr. Biden urged Mr. Poroshenko to continue reforming Ukraine’s prosecutor general office. It’s unclear whether Hunter Biden was involved in the call outside of getting an email alert about it.

"VP Biden advocating for Hunter to be part of the discussions about Shokin’s status?"

I don't think that's the claim I was making. grb was stating Joe's actions were a request from these other stakeholders. I was snarkily mentioning that Hunter was included and his inclusion surely was not at the behest of those other stakeholders.

[jb]

Ah, so by "included on the discussions" you meant "aware the discussions were happening"?

If this is your smoking gun to show that VP Biden was acting on Hunter's behalf rather than at the direction of Obama and following the well-established position of the US and basically all of our allies in Europe, you'll note two problems: 1) it does no such thing, and 2) especially because this call was two months AFTER Shokin had already been ousted.

Sucks how facts keep getting in the way of your cool theory.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Any ideas as to why Hunter was cc'd on the email?

[jb]

Nope. Neither does the author of your article (as it notes at the bottom). That's a reasonable question. Of course, there's many innocent answers like "Hunter and Joe were planning to meet in Rhode Island later in the day". Importantly, just because we don't know the answer doesn't mean that it automatically becomes evidence that something improper is happening.

[Jerry B.]

“Importantly, just because we don’t know the answer doesn’t mean that it automatically becomes evidence that something improper is happening.”

No. That only applies to Democrats.

Republicans are always guilty by default. and you have to look closely at Independents.

[Nige]

With the whole 'Hunter Biden's baggie was found in the WH and the SS are covering it up' nonsense, this is such a funny thing to say.

[Jerry B.]

Yeah. Let’s deflect.

[Nige]

You lot usually do.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12306381/Millions-military-emails-accidentally-directed-Mali.html

Millions of military emails have accidentally been directed to Mali exposing highly sensitive information because of a 'typo' despite repeated warnings for the last decade

Diversity and Affirmative Action is important to our National Security, guys, just trust the Defense Experts who email military secrets to Mali.

[jb]

Yeah, I'm sure it's only the liberal folks sending to .mil addresses that accidentally type .ml.

It's an interesting story, but trying to put a political valence on it just shows how broken your brain is at this point.

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

Happy Yellow-Pig's Day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Barry wrote an open letter to America's librarians today arguing for them to keep putting gay child porn in libraries. He opened it with this:

"In any democracy, the free exchange of ideas is an important part of making sure that citizens are informed, engaged, and feel like their perspectives matter."

Is that not the most ridiculous thing ever written by a Democrat? The free exchange of ideas? The ideology he leads is actively using government institutions to censor and suppress numerous ideas.

People like him and his minions in government are laughing at us as they censor us, oppress us, take from us, make us poorer, while making themselves wealthy.

[not guilty]

Do you have a link to the letter you reference?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Here it is with appropriate context.
https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1681007346015690753

[not guilty]

Thank you for the link.

The letter says not one word about putting gay porn in libraries.

You flat out lied.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

What’s the context you pedantic austist? Why don't you go make up more lies about Trump's legal defenses?

[not guilty]

Donald Trump has no legal defenses, other than hoping for jury nullification.

Every tub sits on its own bottom. The Obama letter stands alone. There is no "context."

You lied. Own up to it.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

So when you said that about Trump's legal defense being he, as ex-President had declassification authority, what were you talking about?

Also, the Obama letter does not stand on it's own. You're a lying idiot to try and argue as such. He even refers to the current controversy of gay child porn in libraries.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

These are your fans, Prof. Volokh. The audience of bigoted, poorly educated, disaffected, antisocial, right-wing misfits you have cultivated.

And the reason nearly every employer and colleague of most Volokh Conspirators (two or three excepted, tops) wish the Volokh Conspirators would stop associating mainstream institutions -- whose only crime was a hiring movement conservative or two -- with this flaming clustermuck of a bigot-hugging blog.

Carry on, clingers. So far as your betters permit.

[David Nieporent]

He even refers to the current controversy of gay child porn in libraries.

Words missing from Obama's letter: "gay" "child" and "porn."

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Gay child porn is what's being removed from these school libraries.

wtf, do you not read the news?

[David Nieporent]

Not if by "the news" you mean Julie Kelly and Paul Sperry and Donald Trump's TruthSocial feed.

Hint: no "gay child porn" is in school libraries. (Also, Obama's letter isn't even about school libraries, though he does mention schools once at the end of the letter.)

[not guilty]

I never characterized that as Trump having a legal defense. It is not. None of the statutes that Trump is charged with makes reference to classification status of any document, let alone requires the prosecution to prove classification status as an element of the offense. (18 U.S.C. § 793(e) refers to documents or information relating to the national defense, but does not distinguish between classified and unclassified documents.)

Obama's letter nowhere refers to gay child porn. The letter states:

Today, some of the books that shaped my life—and the lives of so many others—are being challenged by people who disagree with certain ideas or perspectives. It's no coincidence that these "banned books" are often written by or feature people of color, indigenous people, and members of the LGBTQ+ community . . .

No reference to gay child porn. Is the impulse to lie irresistible to you, BCD?

[David Nieporent]

The thing is, bigots like BCD think any mention or depiction of gay people is inherently sexual.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

What did you characterize it as when you were defending the leak of the tape by Jack Smith? You were asserting that Trump and others were defending Trump because they were claiming he had declassification authority as ex--President.

I said that was a whole cloth invention by you.

No reference to gay child porn. Is the impulse to lie irresistible to you, BCD?

Wtf? What books do you think he was referring to when he said "banned books"?

[David Nieporent]

What leak of a tape by Jack Smith? No tape was leaked by Jack Smith.

[not guilty]

I am not one to conflate or confuse claims and criminal defenses. The latter precludes or negates criminal liability. The classified or unclassified status of the documents Trump is accused of mishandling is not germane to his guilt or absence of guilt.

OTOH, that a document bore classified markings is relevant and admissible as bearing on Trump's culpable mental state, as well as whether it was within the ambit of what agents were authorized to seize under the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

You invented the "Trump can declassify as ex-President" defense and then you assigned it to Trump and his defenders.

You used that invention to explain some of the behaviors of Smith.

[not guilty]

Again, BCD, declassification is not a defense, and I have never referred to it as such. Why do you continue to double down on stupid?

We are still waiting for you to acknowledge that you lied about the content of Barack Obama's letter.

[Bwaaah]

From https://www.ala.org/news/press-releases/2023/07/president-obama-extends-support-american-librarians-open-letter

Obama didn't talk about banned books, just "banned books" (quotes are his, not mine). That's consistent with my understanding that no books have been banned (and I can't say I've seen any significant constituency calling for the banning of books).

Obama's really just invoking the old trope of the ignorant Christian book banner, a.k.a. the Christian Right, a.k.a. Republicans, a.k.a. Conservatives, a.k.a. the Right Wing, a.k.a. "Clingers" (that slur's for you, Rev). Remember Obama's remark way back when? "They get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them." He wrote in his letter to librarians:

"Ironically, it is Christian and other religious texts—the sacred texts that some calling for book bannings in this country claim to want to defend—that have often been the first target of censorship and book banning efforts in authoritarian countries."

Sounds like an age old problem with Christians, not book banning, eh Barack?

Anyway, there's no material problem of book banning. There is, however, a widespread problem of censorship that the government, and Democrats, are very actively and openly supporting under the guise of countering "disinformation." Their initiatives care little about disinformation from the Left, but proudly counter disinformation from the right, with broad strokes; opinions and truths are easily caught in their nets. Their expressed concerns about over-censoring? NONE. (silence)

Here's a bold, pernicious false statement: "For high-risk Black newborns, having a Black physician more than doubles the likelihood that the baby will live, and not die." That's from our newest Supreme Court Justice, published to all of America in a Supreme Court opinion, and you don't hear a peep from the disinformation police.

And almost all of them, on the Left, have silent blank faces when you recount these ugly facts. Because no truth can deter or undermine religious matters of faith, such as the nonsense pseudo-religion of the current American political Left.

(Regrettably, in my mind, some very local authorities, like school boards, have weighed in on removal or relocation of books in school libraries. But that's a long way off from a ban.)

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

You sound like a fan of childish superstition and old-timey bigotry.

Carry on, clinger. Until replacement. By your betters.

[Bwaaah]

Example of my superstition? Example of my bigotry?

Name, name, name, name, name.

[Nige]

'Obama’s really just invoking the old trope of the ignorant Christian book banner, a.k.a. the Christian Right, a.k.a. Republicans, a.k.a. Conservatives, a.k.a. the Right Wing', a.k.a. “

He's right, though.

'But that’s a long way off from a ban.'

On the contrary, it's getting uncomfortably close.

[Nige]

'make us poorer, while making themselves wealthy.'

Someone just noticed he lives in America.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

I've noticed a long time ago how rich the Federal Class was getting off our backs.

My favorite statistics are from the 2000 and 2010 censuses that show the extraordinary wealth migration from the rest of America to the Federal Zone surrounding DC. It's gotten worse since then.

[Nige]

Well you are a lying racist idiot, so, why not?

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Thanks George W Bush!!

[BravoCharlieDelta]

That's right, and thanks to the Patriot Act, and thanks to a long history of Federal abuses that have gone unaccounted for.

Now it's metastasized into a cancer. A freedom-eating, wealth swallowing corrupt evil cancer. It's the greatest threat to human freedom and flourishing the world has ever seen.

[Bwaaah]

I was for the Patriot Act, despite the warnings that if it could be abused, it would be; that the history of law enforcement supports that concern.

They added a “sunset” provision to the Act in recognition of the fact that we’d probably want to re-examine its function to determine if the benefits outweigh the risks.

The abuses, as especially (to my knowledge) the excesses of FISA court use, the opaqueness of FISA accountability, and NSA collected data snooping for domestic surveillance purposes, have been a significant problem as predicted. Still, I’m hoping that Congressional oversight has been adequate; each re-authorization of the Act has come with various changes intended to mitigate at least some of the abuses.

I think the Act was useful, and still is. And it has been abused, and still is. I think the facilities the Act provides are invaluable to national defense. But the culture of the FBI, and the way Presidents lean into it to drive partisan ends, presents the opportunities for abuse of those facilities, and it provides the people who abuse it. So I say, keep the Patriot Act, keep tightening it up, but reform the FBI.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I was for the Patriot Act,

Most authoritarian, easily frightened, faux libertarian right-wingers were.

[Bwaaah]

As I remember it, the Left was on board with the Patriot Act just as much as the Right. As a matter of fact, it was an unusual time characterized by feelings of unity, due to a perceived shared threat. Those feelings of unity actually extended beyond our borders, as many people perceived the existential threat as being to so-called “Western values,” and not just the U.S.

Were you grumpy then too?

Name, name, name, name, name.

[Nige]

Democrats didn’t dare object for fear of being crucified. Plenty on the left did and pointed out that the idea of an existential threat was illusory at best, a flagrant lie at worst. Literally had barnies right here on this blog about it.

[David Nieporent]

Did you ever consider taking personal responsibility and admitting that the reason that you're poorer is your own inadequacies and poor life choices rather than a conspiracy to oppress you?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Would you be saying that if I were a black man? Or would you be blaming every White person except the White people in government?

[David Nieporent]

if I were a black man?

I think they made a Twilight Zone episode about that very notion. No, wait, I think it was a segment of the movie.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

I'm just curious as to why you think a White man should accept personal responsibility for his state of being, but not a black man?

Is it because you think black men are inferior? Sure sounds like it.

[Nige]

So in refusing to take responsibility you argue that you're inferior?

[SRG]

BoorishCrackerDeviant writes:

The ideology he leads is actively using government institutions to censor and suppress numerous ideas.

Obama was evidently a pragmatist as president - and in one of the most conspicuous examples of non-socialism when he was president, the US treasury sold its holding of Citi when Citi recovered. But when Obama stood up and spoke, the crackers experienced a short-circuit in their planarian brains and so imagined all manner of stuff he never said, meant or thought.

To adapt a quote from one of the great moral fables to come out of Hollywood, thus BCD: "No-one likes me, I lost my privilege and my status, and it was all because of this terrible, awful Negro!"

[BravoCharlieDelta]

I really appreciate when I say Obama and ideology and censorship, the first thing that you connected that with is socialism.

lol

[SRG]

(You didn't say initially say Obama, you said Barry.)

But we know where you're coming from, and putting "lol" after a post doesn't make it less disingenuous.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Barry, as in Barry Soetoro, is Obama you ignorant moron.

[Nige]

Yeah, SRG, keep up with the now-obscure conspiracy/racist Obama abuse!

[not guilty]

Judge Loose Cannon today entered a paperless order (Docket Entry 81) in regard to tomorrow afternoon's pretrial conference providing:

The parties shall be prepared to discuss the Government's Motion for Continuance and Proposed Revised Scheduling Order 34 at the CIPA Section 2 pretrial conference scheduled for July 18, 2023, including the proposed deadlines contained therein [34-2] and particularized objections thereto, in light of 18 U.S.C. § 3161, the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, and the CIPA. Signed by Judge Aileen M. Cannon on 7/17/2023. (kts) (Entered: 07/17/2023)

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67490070/united-states-v-trump/

This is encouraging. Nothing in 18 U.S.C. § 3161 authorizes a trial court to indefinitely continue a trial date as Donald Trump and Walt Nauta have requested.

[hoppy025]

https://thehill.com/homenews/education/4102178-scotus-republicans-to-blame-for-lack-of-debt-forgiveness-students-say-in-poll/

Exactly why net "takers" should not be allowed to vote. The founders limited voting to white male landowners. America was a great country then. The cause and effect could not be clearer.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

net “takers” should not be allowed to vote

Even West Virginia, Kentucky, Wyoming, Mississippi, South Carolina, Montana, Louisiana, North Dakota, Alabama, Indiana, South Dakota and a bunch of other poorly educated, economically inadequate, parasitic, can't-keep-up conservative states probably are smart enough not to like that idea.

[Jerry B.]

Individuals, Rev.

I know you like to stereotype people by where they live or the color of their skin, but, really.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

https://twitter.com/simonateba/status/1680894676096696320

Biden is spending very little money on his reelection campaign. Why should he? He doesn't need to, the election is predetermined by the Norm Eisen's of the world and all that money he's raised can be passed around his family and they can stop whoring themselves to the CCP for a few years off of it.

[Brett Bellmore]

Alternatively, he already knows he's not running next year, and simply hasn't announced it.

If he were going to hold onto the campaign funds, he'd be raising them like mad...

[Nige]

Alternatively the election is still a year and a half away.

[David Nieporent]

…and Donald Trump is doing all the campaigning necessary for Biden anyway, just as in 2020.

[not guilty]

What does Norm Eisen have to do with determining a yet to be held presidential election? That makes no sense.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Norm Eisen was the creator of the Color Revolution playbook as well as led the “election fortification” aka Color Revolution of 2020.

Of course you don’t know these things because the State Department didn’t want you to know them since they are harmful to the Nation's Cognitive Infrastructure which is heavily managed by multiple government agencies.

[not guilty]

"Norm Eisen was the creator of the Color Revolution playbook as well as led the “election fortification” aka Color Revolution of 2020."

And that means zilch to determining next year's election.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

False, it means he's a key architect in deciding our election outcomes.

Past and future.

[not guilty]

Still doubling down on stupid?

[hoppy025]

Why should he raise money? The Democrats will cheat, just like they did in 2020 and 2022.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Which of the faux libertarian right-wingers who operate the Volokh Conspiracy are involved in this?

[David Nieporent]

The Great Venmo Scandal of 2023 may have unraveled:

Well, David Lat has done some digging and talked to one of the former clerks named in the story, and I hope you’re sitting down. It was $20:

Former Thomas clerk Patrick Strawbridge of Consovoy McCarthy confirmed for me: “It is common for clerks to cover their share of the cost of an event like a chambers Christmas party. In this case, I paid $20 to cover my share of the expenses for a lunch buffet consisting of hot dogs, hamburgers, and chicken tenders. At no time have I (or anyone else I know) ever discussed with Justice Thomas matters that are pending or likely to come before the Court. I do recall visiting with him for a few minutes about how my wife and children were doing.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/twenty-dollars/

[bevis the lumberjack]

Lol. Not_guilty loses another chance to get rid of that house negro.

[not guilty]

I despise Clarence Thomas, but I haven't written a single word about that Christmas party. I regard the controversy, to the extent there is one, to be overblown.

[bevis the lumberjack]

You despise Clarence Thomas like JB Stoner despised MLK.

[Frank Drackman]

Well played with the JB Stoner reference, but you should have added the (D, GA) as he always ran as a DemoKKKrat

[Randal]

I did some digging on this one as well... other ex-clerks of other justices confirm that this is a thing (getting together and splitting the bill). It's de minimis corruption. The story serves only to distract from the other, actual corruption.

[not guilty]

Donald Trump has reportedly acknowledged receiving a target letter offering him the opportunity to speak to the grand jury investigating his attempt to thwart the transfer of power following the 2020 election. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/07/18/trump-says-hes-received-a-target-letter-from-special-counsel-jack-smiths-jan-6-investigators-00106776

This likely means that an indictment is imminent.

[John F. Carr]

He appears to have escaped charges in Michigan. The fake electors, but not Trump, have each been charged with forgery, forgery, uttering and publishing, election law forgery, election law forgery, and conspiracy to commit each class of crime. It makes a serious subject look silly, to claim essentially one wrongful act is eight distinct crimes. I know, it has become the American Way to charge that way.

I have not seen the charging document. The press release is at
https://www.michigan.gov/ag/news/press-releases/2023/07/18/michigan-attorney-general-dana-nessel-charges-16-false-electors

[not guilty]

I haven't looked up Michigan law, but SCOTUS has opined that "The applicable rule is that, where the same act or transaction constitutes a violation of two distinct statutory provisions, the test to be applied to determine whether there are two offenses or only one is whether each provision requires proof of an additional fact which the other does not." Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 304 (1932).

Conspiracy to commit a criminal offense and commission of the offense which is the object of the conspiracy are distinct offenses. Conspiracy requires an agreement between two or more persons, while the substantive offense does not. The substantive offense requires completion of the crime, while conspiracy does not.

The same act or course of conduct may simultaneously violate more than one criminal statute. Forgery and uttering a forged instrument are separate and distinct offenses, prohibited by different statutes.

[David Nieporent]

He appears to have escaped charges in Michigan.

He appears to have escaped state charges in Michigan. That does not mean that he would not be charged in federal court in connection with those shenanigans.

[not guilty]

That is true. But I would expect the federal charge(s) to be brought in a venue other than Michigan, perhaps with Michigan actors charged as co-conspirators. Or possibly Trump would be charged under 18 U.S.C. § 2 with criminal responsibility for acts committed in Michigan by other persons.

[David Nieporent]

Yeah, I didn't mean the prosecution would take place there — I just meant that it would relate to the activities there. Given that this happened in multiple states, I assume they'd prosecute it as a conspiracy sited in D.C. (or perhaps Florida where his campaign headquarters were? But I think D.C. is more likely.)

[Mr. Bumble]

now 667.