Thursday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[not guilty]

Mark Meadows has reportedly testified that he took an extremely wide-ranging view of his responsibilities as Donald Trump's chief of staff and saw that role as encompassing nearly all his actions prosecutors say amounted to corrupt pressure on Georgia officials. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/28/meadows-testimony-georgia-hearing-00113215 IOW, Meadows was just. following. orders.

Meadows's problem is that he involved himself in aiding Trump's activities which were wholly outside the purview of the Executive Branch of government. In determining that Trump is suable for damages for conduct not within the outer perimeter of his presidential duties, District Judge Amit Mehta opined:

President Trump cites no constitutional provision or federal statute that grants or vests in the President (or the Executive Branch) any power or duty with respect to the Certification of the Electoral College vote, at least in the manner in which he conceives it. That is because there is none. The Constitution spells out the respective responsibilities of various actors in the election of the President. The Constitution provides that States are to select Electors who will cast votes for President and Vice President, and the Electors transmit a tally of those votes to the President of the Senate. U.S. Const. art. II, § 1, cl. 3 ; id. amend. XII. The President of the Senate "in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives" shall "open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted." Id. amend. XII. A sitting President is prescribed no role.

Thompson v. Trump, 590 F.Supp.3d 46, 77 (D.D.C. 2022).

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

I (still) have confidence in the rule of law.

Let's see how this plays out.

[Commenter_XY]

not guilty, I have a question for you about that hearing. I understand Meadows testified for hours. Is that typical for this kind of hearing? Meaning, isn't there a great danger to testifying...or was this a procedural-type hearing where guilt or innocence was not at stake and Meadows had nothing to lose by testifying?

[not guilty]

It is extremely risky for the accused to testify in a hearing such as this. Regardless of whether the case is remanded to state court or remains in federal court, Meadows's hearing testimony will be admissible against him at trial.

[David Nieporent]

Observers were surprised that he decided to testify. He's throwing a Hail Mary here, hoping to get the case tossed entirely after the federal court agrees to keep it.

[Commenter_XY]

Does it make sense to you, from a legal strategy perspective? = testify for hours like that

[Commenter_XY]

Meadows must've been very confident in his ability to testify, take that risk, and not screw himself in the process. I was curious about that aspect, it seemed unusual to me.

[Moderation4ever]

I would suggest that Mark Meadows is a disciplined person who could testify with minimal negative impact. This is not true for every person and that is why lawyers generally avoid having clients testify.

[Voize]

Very confident, or very desperate.

[gVOR08]

Kinda sounds like he couldn't find anyone else who could, or was willing, to testify to his claims.

[Kazinski]

It would clearly be in the Chief of Staffs responsibility to ascertain whether there was any possibility he would still be the chief of staff in a month and plan accordingly, at least half the cabinet officers would need to replace and there are always pressing matters of the countries business that need attention with different outcomes depending who is sworn in 3rd week of January.

It would also be his business to keep an eye on what Trump is doing and make sure he doesn't go completely off the rails.

[JasonT20]

It would clearly be in the Chief of Staffs responsibility to ascertain whether there was any possibility he would still be the chief of staff in a month and plan accordingly, at least half the cabinet officers would need to replace and there are always pressing matters of the countries business that need attention with different outcomes depending who is sworn in 3rd week of January.

When the Electors cast their votes on Dec. 14, 2020, that settled that question. Only desperation and lies kept any doubt alive at that point. There was no dispute over who the electors were that were chosen and certified according to laws of each state. Congress unconstitutionally usurps the role of the states in choosing its electors if refuses to accept them on its own, so Jan. 6 should have been entirely ceremonial.

[Kazinski]

That's certainly not final.

In 1960, the governor of Hawaii certified the election for Nixon.

"Nixon’s Hawaii electors met and cast their three votes in an official ceremony. But nearby, Kennedy’s three elector nominees gathered and signed their own certificates, delivering them to Washington as though Kennedy had won the state."

Guess who's votes counted, not the 3 Official Electors that cast their votes on Dec. 19th.

It was the 3 Democratic electors that signed certificates saying they were the electors who's votes were ultimately counted.

According to Politicos investigation:
"Until now, it’s been unclear whether the 1960 case of the Kennedy electors was truly analogous to 2020 Trump electors. But the unofficial Democratic certificates, obtained by POLITICO from the non-digitized files of the National Archives, show the three Kennedy electors signed documents that are remarkably similar to the false Trump-elector certificates."

And as one more point, John Paul Stevens in his Bush v Gore dissent, that was also joined by Souter, RBG and Breyer, suggested the best way to handle the mid Dec. deadline for the casting of electoral votes was for the Democrats to empanel an alternative set of unofficial electors, then let the count proceed, and if further events changed the outcome recognize the unofficial electors, and thus meet the statutory Dec 14th deadline.
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/07/1960-electoral-college-certificates-false-trump-electors-00006186

There is actually a lot of authority and one actual precedent for handling a disputed election using the Kennedy-Trump alternative elector method to extend the deadline.

[not guilty]

There is no authority for rejecting a state's electors who have been certified by the governor pursuant to 3 U.S.C. § 6 in favor of pretenders who have not been so certified.

At the January 6, 1961 meeting of Congress to certify the electoral count, then-Vice-President Nixon asked for and received unanimous consent that the votes of the Democratic electors from Hawaii would count. https://rollcall.com/2020/10/26/we-the-people-what-happens-when-a-state-cant-decide-on-its-electors/ What with the matter not having been litigated, that established no precedent.

[Kazinski]

Well, that's not true. Why does congress have procedures for a senator and a congressman to object and then have each chamber vote on accepting the tally?

What if a recount is still in progress, and in doubt on Jan 6th?

What would happen if a recount changed the outcome and the governor or secretary of state refused to certify the changed result?

From Wikipedia:
"On January 6, 2005, Senator Barbara Boxer of California joined Representative Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio in filing a congressional objection to the certification of Ohio's Electoral College votes due to alleged irregularities including disqualification of provisional ballots, alleged misallocation of voting machines, and disproportionally long waits in poor and predominantly African-American communities. The Senate voted the objection down 1–74; the House voted the objection down 31–267. It was only the second congressional objection to an entire state's electoral delegation in U.S. history; the first instance was in 1877, when all the electors from Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina, and one from Oregon—twenty in all—were challenged."

Obviously there is authority. Congress thinks it has the authority. Otherwise what was Congress voting on?

[not guilty]

There was a procedure in the Electoral Count Act as it existed on January 6, 2021 for resolving objections to electors. (3 U.S.C. §§ 15, 17.) Bases for objection included that the vote was not “regularly given” by an elector, and/or that the elector was not “lawfully certified” according to state statutory procedures. There were procedures applicable when more than one slate of electors, each certified by an appropriate state official, was received. There was no provision, however, for counting the vote of any putative elector(s) who had not been certified by an appropriate state official. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/RL/RL32717/12

Hawaii in 1960 was an extraordinary circumstance where, while a recount was then underway, the then-governor certified the Republican slate of electors. The recount showed that Senator Kennedy had in fact received the highest vote total, and the successor governor thereupon certified the slate of Democratic electors. The question was resolved by unanimous consent of Congress on January 6, 1961.

[David Nieporent]

And there were two key differences:

1) Hawaii's electoral votes didn't matter. Nobody was trying to change who won the 1960 election. So it was a low-stakes dispute.

2) There was a genuine, bona fide dispute about who had won, and there was a lawful recount going on according to official procedures (as opposed to someone phoning up after the official recount was complete and threatening a state official if he didn't find some extra votes somewhere.)

[Armchair Lawyer]

There was a lawful recount in Georgia as well, as well as a legal dispute that was not finished by the safe harbor deadline.

[not guilty]

There were multiple lawful recounts in Georgia -- all concluded before the electors met on December 14, 2020. https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-joe-biden-donald-trump-georgia-elections-4eeea3b24f10de886bcdeab6c26b680a

[David Nieporent]

There was a lawful recount in Georgia, yes. And it had already been completed, and confirmed Biden's victory. (Not surprising; there has never been a recount in history that flipped 11,000 votes. Recounts rarely change a result by more than double digits.) There was no legal dispute. The election had been certified.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Kazinski:
"Why does congress have procedures for a senator and a congressman to object and then have each chamber vote on accepting the tally?"

That was set up by the Electoral Count Act of 1887, which has now been superseded by the 2022 reform law. But the new law still has the same flaw, where Congress gives itself the power to reject electoral votes. If they ever actually reject electoral votes, I hope that candidate goes to court, and gets a decision declaring the process unconstitutional. If the framers and ratifiers wanted Congress to decide who gets to be President (other than one limited circumstance), that's what they would've written. They considered it in the convention, and rejected it.

[not guilty]

Electioneering is outside the scope of the chief of staff's duties. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.gand.319225/gov.uscourts.gand.319225.27.4.pdf

[ducksalad]

Now we know why Mitch McConnell froze up yesterday. He was absolutely fine, he was just gobsmacked by the sheer impropriety of a reporter asking him to talk about his personal plans for the next election while on the job, giving an official news conference about legislative business using a government microphone.

Seriously, you are of course right about the electioneering law. But the lines are harder to draw than you might admit.

One time I got sent with a bunch of other state employees and some students to talk with congressional staff about a federal funding program. The students gave testimonials about how the program had helped them. We gave lengthy presentations about the great things we'd done with the money, and how it had massively boosted retention stats. We handed out glossy "reports" that were 100% about how wonderfully successful it had been. The staffers were very positive and congratulated all the speakers. Went on for hours, party atmosphere.

Then, in side conversation, I accidentally said we hoped we'd be able to do it again next year. The staffer went silent and looked incredibly grave. You see, lobbying by a state employee is a criminal offense. Fortunately she didn't report me and I avoided prison.

Anyway, the point is, some of these lines are fairly silly. It's kind of understood that the press secretary is going to make statements that come very close to advocating for people to re-elect the president. She just can't outright say "vote for Biden".

[not guilty]

The shenanigans in Georgia described in the indictment do not present a close question. Per Thompson v. Trump, 590 F.Supp.3d 46, 82-83 (D.D.C. 2022):

The Office of the President has no preference for who occupies it. Article II of the Constitution, which defines the powers and duties of the President, is agnostic as to whether a sitting President is elected to a new term. So, too, is federal statutory law. A function of the presidency therefore is not to secure or perpetuate incumbency. Plaintiffs’ allegations against President Trump accuse him of doing just that: devoting his last weeks in office to continuing his term as President of the United States through the Electoral College vote and certification process, even though he did not prevail in the general election.

Among his first alleged acts following the general election were tweets criticizing state officials for not doing enough to enable him to prevail in their states. Swalwell Compl. ¶ 36 (criticizing the governors of Arizona and Georgia and saying, "If they were with us, we would have already won both"). The President also directly contacted local election officials and state legislators in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia to allegedly pressure them to overturn their election results. Id. ¶¶ 37–54. These efforts included urging local Michigan officials to reverse their certification of election results, id. ¶ 38, and saying to Georgia's Secretary of State, "I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have," id. ¶ 53. He would later call that Georgia state official an "enemy of the people." Thompson Compl. ¶ 47. President Trump also filed multiple lawsuits in jurisdictions in which he did not prevail. Id. ¶ 36. Those suits plainly were directed at securing incumbency. They, like his tweets and direct outreach to state election officials, were not official acts.

[David Nieporent]

She just can’t outright say “vote for Biden”.

Or, more to the point: "Please find us 11,700 more votes for Trump."

[Ridgeway]

Most of that is because Trump is a moron.

A non-moron would have said something like this: “Look — I am not asking you to do anything improper or illegal, but we have information that there are tens of thousands of valid but uncounted Trump votes out there. We just want you to find enough of them to get us over the top.”

That may be manifestly delusional, but it seems perfectly legal.

But Trump being Trump, didn’t do that, and his coterie of boobs and yes-men didn’t have the sense to say, “What the President is asking is [insert stay-out-of-jail language here.]”

[Brett Bellmore]

Look, what Trump actually asked for is not remotely as bad as what he's routinely paraphrased as asking for. I think people tend to evaluate that call on the basis of all the stupid reports that only quote the word "find", and make up everything else.

[Sarcastr0]

People have posted the transcript to you, including the unsubtle threats and exact asks to find votes.

This is not *other people* having factual issues.

It's hard to say if you generally lack any ability to pick up on subtext, or if you're just this so hard to the paint for Trump you turn it off. But this is very much a you problem, not a people problem.

[David Nieporent]

It’s hard to say if you generally lack any ability to pick up on subtext

He does not have such a lack; indeed, Brett manages to pick up 500% of the subtext that's actually there. Except when we're talking about Trump.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

(unthreaded response deleted)

[Kazinski]

Interesting AP poll out this week that looks like it has very solid conclusions:
"Americans actually agree on something in this time of raw discord: Joe Biden is too old to be an effective president in a second term. Only a few years his junior, Donald Trump raises strikingly less concern about his age.

But they have plenty of other problems with Trump, who at least for now far outdistances his rivals for the Republican nomination despite his multiple criminal indictments. Never mind his advanced years — if anything, some say, the 77-year-old ought to grow up."

Percent who say the candidate is too old to effectively serve another 4-year term as president:
U.S. adults
Biden 77%
Trump 51%

Splits Biden first line Trump 2nd:
Democrats
69%
71%
Independents
74%
48%
Republicans
89%
28%
Results are based on interviews with 1,165 U.S. adults conducted Aug. 10-14, 2023.
https://apnews.com/article/biden-age-poll-trump-2024-620e0a5cfa0039a6448f607c17c7f23e

Of course the real eye opener is 69% of Democrats think Biden is too old. But the most significant, as always is 74% of independents think Biden is too old, because independents decide elections.

For the record I think both Trump and Biden are too old, besides the fact Trump can't lose gracefully, and Biden can't win gracefully and he's a crook.

Rasmussen reports also has a recent poll showing that 36% of Democrats want Newsome to primary Biden. That's a pretty large percentage for an incumbent in their own party, but certainly the age thing explains that. Probably the reason it isn't higher is because of the Kamala problem: White man < Minority Woman.

[Commenter_XY]

Governor Newsome comes off as a male version of Marie Antoinette, a 'let them eat cake' type. That impression is based upon his observed behavior during the initial Covid pandemic.

[Kazinski]

He seems to be as popular as any nationally known politician is, he's only underwater by -6. Trump(-16.5) and Biden(-12.5) would kill for that.

"Per a Rasmussen poll published on August 28, 37% of likely United States voters view Newsom favorably, which includes 15% hold a very favorable opinion of the California governor. 43% hold a negative view of Newsom, which includes 32% with a very unfavorable impression of the California governor."

Of the politicians 538 is tracking the only politicians with positive favorability in order of most popular are RFK Jr. +11.5, Ramaswamy +6.5, and Tim Scott +3.5.

Chris Christie and Mike Pence are by far the most unpopular. Mike Pence deserves much better, I view him very favorably but of course that doesn't mean I think he should be president.

[loki13]

First, I can't believe that we are possibly entertaining a race between two people who will be octogenarians in office. Just to remind y'all... Ronald Reagan was 69 when we was first elected, and only 73 when he elected a second time. That ... didn't go so great in retrospect, did it?

The only reason I would possibly think of voting for Biden is because I don't want Trump in office again.

As for those numbers ... I mean ... if RFK Jr. somehow got the nomination, I dunno .... I might have to look at Trump.

What kind of hellscape do we live in?

[Magister]

Based on American exceptionalism, the most hellish of all possible hellscapes, superior to all foreign heckscapes.

[Bob from Ohio]

"superior to all foreign heckscapes"

Darn right.

It might also show how really unimportant the president is for people's daily lives.

[Nige]

One where Democrats are meh, okay about a middle of the road politician and the Republicans are in righteous fury and willing to martyr themselves for a fraudster, sex predator and multiple indictee who tried to overturn an election.

[Don Nico]

Loki,
It is not a good landscape that is for sure. For a country of 330,000,000 people we are facing a crappy choice.

[myself]

The only reason I would possibly think of voting for Biden is because I don’t want Trump in office again.

That's an excellent reason.

Weirdly, the other reason might be the reason that many GOPers voter for Trump in the first place, mental competency is overrated.

Realistically, what does a president do? Given some speeches and chair meetings. Most of the work of the administration is carried out by appointees chosen by the staff to carry out the platform.

Certainly an erratic President can screw things up, as seen with Trump, but a President losing a few marbles? Everyone knows the brand and the platform, it might not make much difference.

That's not to say competency doesn't matter at all, there's some need for personal diplomacy, both in swaying legislators and foreign dignitaries. And if they're too addled it creates a bit of a power vacuum that causes disorder.

But still, even if you think Biden is slipping you can still think he's better than another candidate (even a Democratic one) if you prefer the platform and brand that he brings.

[Nige]

Appoint justices to the Supreme Court.

[Kazinski]

I never thought I'd see you making arguments to re-elect Trump.

[Nige]

In fairness to the argument above, Trump was a passive conduit for the Federal Society.

[myself]

As for those numbers … I mean … if RFK Jr. somehow got the nomination, I dunno …. I might have to look at Trump.

In a contest of Trump vs RFK Jr. Trump's age is a big selling point. Being so much older (and in terrible shape) Trump is much more likely to die or become completely incapacitated while in office.

[loki13]

I've long thought about how terrible a candidate would have to be to make me vote for Trump. I didn't think such a candidate existed.

RFK Jr. enters the chat.

[shawn_dude]

Ah, but does he become completely incapacitated before or after dismantling key aspects of our democracy to ensure his third presidential term?

[David Nieporent]

First, I can’t believe that we are possibly entertaining a race between two people who will be octogenarians in office. Just to remind y’all… Ronald Reagan was 69 when we was first elected, and only 73 when he elected a second time. That … didn’t go so great in retrospect, did it?

…

As for those numbers … I mean … if RFK Jr. somehow got the nomination, I dunno …. I might have to look at Trump.

Combining those two thoughts, by the way, RFK Jr. would be 71 on Inauguration Day.

[Nige]

Young whippersnapper.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Why, in a few more years he’ll be old enough to be president!

[Don Nico]

C_XY,
While I am no fan of Newsome, I listened to him evert day during the early months of the pandemic. My impression is that he did pretty well. If Trump had done as well as Newsome, I think that he would have been unbeatable.

[Commenter_XY]

Le Quartiere Francese 🙂

[Michael P]

How could we not re-elect the man who literally convinced Strom Thurmond to vote for the Civil Rights Act before he died?

https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1696288948274802877

[Kazinski]

Storm Thurmond right before he died isn't a bad comp for Joe.

[Michael P]

On the other hand, Thurmond voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964 before Biden became a Senator, never voted for it, and died nearly four decades after voting against it.

[David Nieporent]

There were other Civil Rights Acts, like the 1991 one.

[Sarcastr0]

Arguing Biden is more racist than Storm Thurmond is just not a serious take.
There are smarter ways to help your side than unthinking pattern matching.

[Mr. Bumble]

Joe Biden has long ago surpassed Jimmy Carter as the worst modern day President and wins the congenital liar award hands down.

[Nige]

This is so stupid on so many levels, not least because the worst president and most egregious liar is the guy whose administration faked intelligence to justify invading Iraq, and also the torture and corruption.

[Nelson]

Andrew Jackson says, "Hold my beer.".

[Frank Drackman]

Parkinsonian Joe died???

[Mr. Bumble]

As bad as he is (and he is bad) the thought of a President Harris is terrifying.

[Martinned]

I can see how the prospect of a president who isn't a white man would terrify you. The last time the US had one of those, it reacted by electing a mobster next.

[Mr. Bumble]

Fuck off Dutchman. Obama got elected and re-elected. Harris is and has been the ultimate example of the Peter Principle (in more ways than one).

[Martinned]

Kamala Harris got elected to the US Senate 61.4%/38.4% and to the vice-presidency 306/232, so I'm not sure why you brought up elections.

[Mr. Bumble]

"...it reacted by electing a mobster next."
Harris got "elected" in California; a one party state for decades.
As for VP, no one votes for VP (although it might be interesting if the candidates ran separately).

[Bob from Ohio]

"it might be interesting if the candidates ran separately"

That would be interesting. Especially if they were not chosen by the party's pres nominee.

Harris, maybe. Pence, no. Biden, no. Cheney, big no. Gore, yes. Quayle, no. Bush, maybe.

[Kazinski]

Harris is pretty unpopular 51% disapproval to 39% approval.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/approval/kamala-harris/

Very few people think she is up to the job.

The idea of a non-white man doesn't scare me a bit. I'm starting to come around to Nickki Haley as a decent choice. She's not as conservative as I'd like but she might be the best candidate for lowering the temperature of the public debate. I'm probably more ideologically attuned to DeSantis, but Reaganesque he isn't. Reagan could disagree and say so, and still have decent relationships with people across the aisle, DeSantis doesn't seem to be able to.

[Martinned]

Very few people could name one thing they know about her, other than her name and what she looks like. Even I had to look up which state she's from, and I probably follow American politics more closely than most Americans do.

[Mr. Bumble]

"Very few people could name one thing they know about her,..."
That same statement could be made about most of the other primary candidates.

[Martinned]

But not about Mike Pence, the only Republican primary candidate who actually spent 4 years as vice-president.

[Mr. Bumble]

True, but I think he lost any chance at the Presidency when Trump was denied a second term.

[Martinned]

That's not really the point though. Harris is uniquely unknown compared to recent vice-presidents. Compared to Pence (at times), Biden, and definitely Cheney and Gore, she's quite low-profile. Which makes it all the more suss that so many people have strong negative opinions about her.

[Bob from Ohio]

"suss"

Oh, look at you with the kid's jargon.

[Nige]

Bob got that reference.

[ducksalad]

Wait: unlike most of us here, you didn’t even know Harris was a California politician, and somehow that means we’re the ones too ignorant to have an opinion on her?

[Kazinski]

No Harris is not uniquely unknown. She was Senator of a large state she gets fawning profiles from the media.

But don't take my word, over 90% have an opinion about her. 39.8-51.2.

When someone is relatively unknown, Nikki Haley as a example, only about 60% have an opinion 26.8-33.8, leaving 40% still to make up their minds.

Harris is almost as well known as Trump, only 4% don't have any opinion about him, and once people form an opinion its hard to change it.

[Martinned]

But don’t take my word, over 90% have an opinion about her. 39.8-51.2.

I don't doubt it. What I doubt is whether the people who have an opinion about her know anything about her.

[Ed Grinberg]

I can see how the prospect of a president who isn’t a white man would terrify you.

Martinned, you're full of shit, as usual. I voted for the McCain / Palin ticket, and I bet Mr. Bumble did too.

[Martinned]

Congratulations, you voted for a white guy to be president when he ran against a black guy. What's your point?

[Frank Drackman]

Barry Hussein Osama was 1/2 white

[Bob from Ohio]

"president who isn’t a white man"

the race card, don't leave home without it.

Dutch prime ministers have always been white men. Maybe have Zwarte Piet become PM as a start.

[Martinned]

The next one will be a Turkish woman. What does that have to do with American racism?

[Bob from Ohio]

"3] And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
[4] Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
[5] Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."

[Martinned]

I'm sorry, are you blaming me for the fact that my compatriots have form electing white guys? I didn't vote for them myself.

[Don Nico]

Mobster is way extreme. But I see and agree with your point.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, Trump is only a little less old than Biden, but I'm still not surprised by those numbers because, let's face it, Biden is a lot more evidently compromised. Which is not to say Trump isn't mentally compromised at his age. Just not to the point of having a hard time speaking coherently in public.

But they're both absurdly too old to be running for President; Biden was too old back in 2020, really. Maybe once the 2024 election is past, Democrats and Republicans can agree on an amendment to put an upper age limit on the Presidency, too?

[Martinned]

I'm not surprised either, because Biden's age and alleged senility have been the Republicans' number 1 talking point for the last four years now.

Basically Democrats argue that Trump is evil, and Republicans argue that Biden is old.

[Brett Bellmore]

True talking points ARE the best talking points, aren't they?

DC is collecting a LOT of people who are visibly too old for their jobs, on both sides of the aisle. Mitch McConnell, for instance. Even when his brain isn't locked up he's not exactly looking alert anymore.

[Nige]

'True talking points'

Remember how true they were at the debates?

[Kazinski]

Biden isn't unpopular because he's old, he is unpopular because he unleashed 9% inflation, 7.5% mortgage rates, and gas prices are still 60% higher than when Trump left office.

And Kamala isn't unpopular because people don't know her, she's unpopular because she can't speak coherently, and can only mouth meaningless platitudes.

[hoppy025]

And also because he thinks that the Rev. Kirkland has a Constitutional right to groom schoolchildren, and he has intentionally imported tens of millions of worthless migrants.

[Sarcastr0]

https://i.chzbgr.com/full/6201890048/h6E8623DA/levers-of-power

[Nige]

Holy shit actual policy points. If that’s true, why lean so heavily into the culture war crap and the dumb baseless accusations and fake conspiracies that make Republicans look like they think the electorate are complete fucking idiots? Either it isn’t as true as you claim or Republicans have over-committed wildly to being the party that doesn’t give a shit about real issues in favour of banning abortion, persecuting trans people, suppressing the study of black history in universities, getting mad about masks, and pretending climate change isn’t happening.

You assessment of Harris is just rote.

[apedad]

But Brett, isn't it up to voters to decide if a candidate is too old?

Too young?

Too left/right?

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, there's an argument that, if the voters want to elect a chipmunk President, let them. Now apply that to alleged insurrection...

No, I think it's perfectly appropriate for offices to have qualifications.

[Mr. Bumble]

Going to require a Constitutional amendment for federal office.
Good luck with that.

[Brett Bellmore]

I think that, at this point, a critical mass in both parties might just be sick and tired of gerontocracy, and have come around to the notion that, yeah, it really is possible to be too old for public office.

Once the 2024 election is past, such an amendment wouldn't effect any immediate contest, and so they'd be free to evaluate it apart from immediate political impact.

Given how old the leadership of Congress are now, it's probably a bridge too far to have such an amendment limit the age for being a member of Congress, unless everybody currently holding office was grandfathered in. But I see an amendment pointed at the Presidency alone as feasible.

Probably the biggest obstacle is actually the reluctance to amend the Constitution in ANY way, because doing so would raise questions about why Congress hasn't been originating any other popular amendments. There is a strong desire in Congress to pretend Article V doesn't exist...

[Sarcastr0]

You're treating a headwind like a step-function. Both parties kvetch about age, but in the end it is one consideration among many and the younger folks don't seem to be overcoming the other elements as of yet.

Interesting to think of why. This seems to comport with the Baby Boom population aging, and the general Gen-X gap in political leadership meaning not easy transition.

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : “Biden is a lot more evidently compromised”

Every time I see this bit of agitprop, I recall the 2020 debates. Biden wouldn’t even show up, we told by the Righties in this forum. There would be a last-minute excuse to keep him safety hidden. They were asked : Didn’t Biden just debate Sanders for hours a few months ago? They responded : He’s gotten much worse since then. On this, they were absolutely certain.

Well, Biden did show up & he trounced Trump. And the same thing will happen if the two run again.

What will happen to all your “dementia” talk then? I’m not sure it’s smart tactics to put all your eggs in the "senility" basket, despite the masturbatory pleasure you seem to derive from this talking point. After all, it will inevitably be tested on a very, very public stage,

[Moderation4ever]

A lot of politics is perception and the narrative created. Biden is seen as older than Trump while the two are in fact in the same age range and would have similar life expectancies. The fact is we have seen people Biden's age walking around leading vigorous lives for a long time. George Burns or Betty White for example. Look at Jimmy Carter who in his nineties and has been in hospice for 6 month or more. The idea that Joe Biden is near death is just not as believable as people may think. I like to have too younger candidates but I don't think that will happen.

[Brett Bellmore]

"The fact is we have seen people Biden’s age walking around leading vigorous lives for a long time."

We have, and they're very rare. We've also seen that most people Biden's age are either pushing up daisies or being fed mush in a senior center. The fact of the matter is that he can be senile AND uncommonly alert for his age, because most people his age are dead or mentally incapacitated.

[Mr. Bumble]

"We have, and they’re very rare. "
They are not that rare.
You're equating stupidity with age.

[Sarcastr0]

We have, and they’re very rare.

So is being President. You see the issue in the statistical argument?

[Kazinski]

I'm not making a statistical argument, its the eye test.

My mother, a former teacher and very liberal Democrat, who is literally old enough to be Biden's mother, thinks he's too old and too weird to be President, although she did vote for him in '20.

My mother is also a super-ager, she was bragging she has a current streak of solving wordle of 22 straight days. I'm unclear what wordle is other than a word game but I hear that it is hard.

[Sarcastr0]

I'm not replying to you, but 'I and my Mom have decided' is utterly unconvincing to anyone who knows your history. And that includes you.

Diagnosing people remotely by nonprofessional committed partisan is a stupid game to play.

[Kazinski]

Its the voters job to assess and “diagnose” the president.

I’m not s shrink filling out commitment papers.

And my mother and I haven’t decided anything, I assure you despite our rare agreement about Biden I can almost certainly guarantee we will be voting for different candidates next year.

And what history? Nobody calls me Gaslighto.

[Sarcastr0]

If you're saying Biden has lost your vote because you think he's senile, I do not believe you.

I also think laypeople diagnosing shit online is a great way to take inchoate bias and pretend it's coming from somewhere.

[Martinned]

The only people who believe that Biden is senile are people who weren't voting for him anyway.

[Mr. Bumble]

You honestly believe Biden still has a full deck?

[Martinned]

I couldn't tell you. I haven't seen footage of him speaking since the 2020 campaign.

But I'd note that my previous comment made no claim about who was right.

[Don Nico]

Biden does have problems being coherent. His "gaffes" sre far from that. They are an insight into his thinking. Talking about regime change in Russia is dangerous. The fact is that US-Russia relations are at their lowest ebb since the end of the Cold War. The same can be said of US-China relations. US policy toward China smacks of racism. But this Administration persist and has push the Russia into Chinese arms.
Mr Biden has showed no credible response to ward China's "soft power"initiatives in Africa, where 750,000,000 live without electricity.
We need someone who is awake and alert. That is not Biden and it is not Trump.

[Sarcastr0]

These are all policy differences you attribute to him being old.

[Don Nico]

S_0,

"These are all policy differences you attribute to him being old."
There you go again. I did not say that. You did.
Your attempt at gaslighting is boring at best. But you pull this debating stunt time and time again.

These policy difference are attributable to his being incompetent to govern. Now how about discussing this string of failures at governing.

[Sarcastr0]

"Talking about regime change in Russia is dangerous." Policy issue.

"The fact is that US-Russia relations are at their lowest ebb since the end of the Cold War." Not at all clear relations have changed since 2016. Unsupported causality

"The same can be said of US-China relations." Also of unclear truth, and blaming Biden as the cause and somehow not 'trade wars are easy' Trump.

"US policy toward China smacks of racism." What the fuck?

"This Administration persist and has push the Russia into Chinese arms." Unsupported opinion.

"Mr Biden has showed no credible response to ward China’s “soft power”initiatives in Africa, where 750,000,000 live without electricity." Nothing flashy, to be sure. But also true of Trump. And Obama. And China was playing in the area.

These policy difference are attributable to his being incompetent to govern.
Disagreeing with Biden (and most Dems...and a lot of Republicans) so you call him incompetents. Not how it works, dude. Not if you are trying to make an argument anyone buy yourself will buy.

[Joe_dallas]

Sacastro - you are misrepresenting what Nico is stating

Biden is suffering serious mental decline, as such he is unable to develop a coherent policy toward resolving the issues that arise.

That issue is entirely separate from policy differences btween various groups.

[Sarcastr0]

He's made no case for incoherence other than he doesn't like it.

Plenty disagree with him, here and abroad. So Biden not pleasing Don Nico doesn't really say shit about Biden's mental acuity.

[Joe_dallas]

Sacastro- you stich is getting old -
first you misrepresent what Nico stated
second you are fully aware of bidens cognitive decline
Third your response doesnt even attempt to address Nico's point

[not guilty]

Joe_dallas, what is your medical and/or mental health training? Where are you licensed to practice?

[Sarcastr0]

I explained twice what Don is saying.

you are fully aware of bidens cognitive decline

Has he lost a step since he was 40? Sure. Is he incompetent as you and Don think? No. And stop telling me I secretly agree with you. I don’t. And I would know that, not you; you are not a telepath.

[Joe_dallas]

not guilty 4 hours ago
Flag Comment Mute User
Joe_dallas, what is your medical and/or mental health training? Where are you licensed to practice?

Not guilty - dont embarrass yourself denying Bidens seriously mental cognitive decline.

[Joe_dallas]

Sarcastr0 3 hours ago (edited)
Flag Comment Mute User
I explained twice what Don is saying.

No you did not explain what don was saying. - you intentionally misrepresented what don stated.

[David Nieporent]

Joe_dallas, what is your medical and/or mental health training? Where are you licensed to practice?

He's a psychologist, a virologist, an immunologist, and a bunch of other specialities.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Biden is seen as older than Trump " because he is in fact three years older.

[Jmaie]

Biden is seen as older because he is frail and Trump is not.

[Nige]

Interesting that past a certain point being thin is seen as frail and being overweight (to a limit) is seen as strong. Inverts the norm, doesn't it?

[Martinned]

Just this week Trump shot a round of 67. I don't see Biden doing that!

https://twitter.com/GolfDigest/status/1696334350797660577

[MoreCurious]

I'll need better verification of that 67 -- I don't find it very convincing that Trump himself is reporting the score on Twitter. And I doubt that the Secret Service agents are keeping score when he's on the golf course.

[Mr. Bumble]

...but could Biden survive 18 holes?

[Nige]

That is a lot and it is a VERY boring game.

[Kazinski]

"A good walk spoiled", of course nobody really walks.it anymore except the pros.

[Nige]

Boring interminable game, boring interminable landscape, I'd have to be carted around half-asleep longing for the sweet release of death, too.

[OtisAH]

I don’t think Biden plays. But he stands a far better chance of surviving 18 holes of golf than Turnip has of surviving a bike ride or a Pilates class. The lazy fat fuck has to drive a cart to his ball on the green.

[Sarcastr0]

Biden is juggling multiple financial fraud conspiracies, turning America irredeemably communist, and also totally senile and unable to perform his duties.

Y'all keep fucking that age chicken, but it's at variance with all the other stuff you're trying, and I think that's part of why it never caught on. Well, that and all the bad faith 'Biden misspoke - proof he's a vegetable!' nonsense.

The bottom line is that the dude's lost a step, but is clearly effective. Perhaps just because he's been blessed with a shallow and fractured opposition, but until he McConnell locks up, the baseline thesis is manifestly disproven.

[Kazinski]

Jeez, I wasn't the one who ran the nationwide poll of over a thousand people and 3/4 said Biden as too old, including 69% of Democrats.

That was the Associated Press.

You can blame me for thinking you're obsessed with fucking chickens or perhaps a chicken fucking voyeur, but don't blame me for the poll, I just brought it up, and I'm not going to be the last one. Its going to be a continued topic, whether by me or others.

Here's another one in the form of a word game:

"What words come to mind when you think of Joe Biden or Donald Trump?
Survey of 1,165 U.S. adults, conducted August 10-14, 2023 A split bar chart showing what words come to mind for Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Respondents tend to use words like “Old” and “Slow” with Biden, while associating terms like “Liar” and “Corrupt” with Trump.

Joe Biden
Old, outdated, aging, elderly 26%
Slow, confused, bumbling 15%
Liar, dishonest, untrustworthy 2%
Corrupt, criminal, crooked 6%

Donald Trump
Old, outdated, aging, elderly 1%
Slow, confused, bumbling 3%
Liar, dishonest, untrustworthy 8%
Corrupt, criminal, crooked 15%

https://www.axios.com/2023/08/29/biden-trump-2024-age-legal-issues

41-4% is quite a disparity thinking Biden is Old, outdated, aging, elderly, Slow, confused, bumbling compared to Trump.

And only 8% think Biden is Liar, dishonest, untrustworthy, Corrupt, criminal, crooked compared to only 23% for Trump. That's a big surprise after a couple of hundred indictments.

Don't blame me for just pointing it out. And you might want to get some therapy about thinking about fucking chickens every time someone hits a nerve and you kind of get lost coming up with a coherent reply.

[Sarcastr0]

Too old and yet many will vote for him. So what is the exact upshot here?

We all know you're just trying to shit on Biden. But this is not even your usual justthenews conspiracy - it's 'people would prefer if Biden were younger. Therefore he should lose.'

[Jmaie]

Upshot is that we're too tribal as a polity.

[Nige]

I'm gona hazard 'old outdated aged and elderly' doesn't carry quite as much weight as 'corrupt criminal and crooked.'

[Jason Cavanaugh]

"For the record I think both Trump and Biden are too old, besides the fact Trump can’t lose gracefully, and Biden can’t win gracefully and he’s a crook."

Biden's a crook because James Comer keeps saying so, without evidence to prove it.

Trump on the other hand, has actually been indicted for 91? Felonies, with detailed accounting of his crimes, but you don't call him a crook.

Odd.

[Moderation4ever]

This is right on point. For Biden accusations are enough, but evidence is not enough for Trump supporters.

[Commenter_XY]

Yesterday, in another post, Bored Lawyer made the following observation: But the civil discovery process needs a major overhaul. It takes too long, it’s too expensive, and parties often exploit it to to get an unfair advantage in litigation unconnected to the merits of the case.

For practicing litigators: What would you change in this process?

(Sarcastr0, I made a mental note to ask about this too. I am curious)

[Martinned]

I'm not a practicing lawyer by any stretch, so not my area of expertise, but I do know that civil law countries take a very different approach: https://www.mondaq.com/civil-law/526638/how-civil-and-common-law-countries-treat-fact-finding#:~:text=In%20civil%20law%20countries%2C%20the%20discovery%20process%20involves%20a%20more,how%20a%20case%20should%20proceed.

[Martinned]

This law review article (albeit from 2002) seems like a pretty good summary of the comparative perspective: https://via.library.depaul.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1502&context=law-review&httpsredir=1&referer=

[Sarcastr0]

"After the pleadings in civil law countries, the judge decides what evidence he or she needs and proceeds to request documents and interrogate witnesses in person, summarizing the testimony in writing. The civil law judge's role is to decide the case on as limited an issue as necessary. "

"Professor Geoffrey Hazard compares discovery in the United States and civil law countries this way:
'[C]ivil-law litigation proceeds through a series of short hearing sessions-sometimes less than an hour each-focused on development of evidence. The products of this are then consigned to the case file until an eventual final stage of analysis and decision. In contrast, common-law litigation has one or more preliminary or pretrial stages, and then a trial at which all the evidence is received consecutively, including all "live" testimony. "

[Martinned]

Dutch courts certainly have form saying things like: "As [plaintiff] submitted, which wasn't - or wasn't sufficiently - disputed by [defendant], ..."

But at the same time they always taught us that civil trials (as opposed to criminal ones) were about "relative truth", i.e. the truth as it follows from the submissions made by the parties and the evidence produced by them, while a criminal trial is about "absolute truth", i.e. figuring out what actually happened. So the notion that a civil court in a civil law jurisdiction guides the fact finding seems off to me.

[not guilty]

An American jury trial is not a search for truth. It is a test of the government's evidence or absence of evidence.

[Ridgeway]

All my knowledge of the contemporary French criminal justice system comes from watching Engrenages (Spiral), which is like a French version of Law and Order.

It used to be on Netflix, but I think currently it is on Mhz.

I highly recommend it.

[Martinned]

French assizes courts might be a pretty good way to combine the best of jury trials and proper trials. Citizen involvement, but with someone to keep an eye on them to make sure they actually follow the law.

[Martinned]

We're talking civil cases here, not criminal.

[not guilty]

I was taking my cue from your assertion above that "a criminal trial is about 'absolute truth', i.e. figuring out what actually happened." A jury is not charged with figuring out what happened. If they are unable to do so, the accused is entitled to an acquittal.

[David Welker]

not guilty:

Evidence is about truth.

[Bored Lawyer]

I don’t have a fully worked out plan to overhaul civil discovery.

My very initial thoughts are as follows.

The Court should do a preliminary assessment of the case, and determine the likely outcome. There might need to be limited discovery at this stage, only by permission of the Court. The assessment would be similar to likelihood of success for a preliminary injunction motion, or perhaps what is done for anti-SLAPP motions. (One area that might need some discovery is damages. In some cases, the real dispute is not over liability but over how much damages the plaintiff is entitled to.)

Then, if the parties don’t settle, and the loser did not do better than the assessment, a loser-pays, or British-rule would kick in, such that the loser has to pay the winner’s fees. (Losing means doing worse than the assessment. If the preliminary assessment says plaintiff should get $ 100k, and he only gets $ 50k, then that is losing.)

Maybe such a system would be voluntary, at least at the beginning.

This is not even half-baked; at most I have mixed the batter in the bowl. But a suggestion.

Alternatively, the Offer of Judgment rule should be beefed up, such that if you do not do better than the offer, you have to pay all reasonable fees, not just costs.

[loki13]

Those are actually some intriguing ideas.

One of the best things I heard early in my career on the defense side is that to "win" you have to destroy the engine of litigation. Which is to say- you have to find a way to get make sure that the Plaintiff's attorney wouldn't recover their fees. Because, other than litigation between wealthy and sophisticated entities (businesses or individuals) or "special interest/advocacy" litigation to advance a cause, almost all litigation is attorney-driven.

When I was in law school, I accepted the whole, "The American Rule is what keeps the courthouse gates open to all litigants." But in practice, the calibration is off; it allows far too many unmeritorious suits through that largely line the pockets of attorneys. And a big part of that is the cost of discovery; it is practically a truism that many cases settle when there is an asymmetry between the litigants if a motion to dismiss isn't granted because the burden of discovery is just too high, and it isn't worth it to even get to summary judgment (let alone a trial on the merits ... HA! like you'll have a trial on a civil action).

Adjusting the cost/benefit of burdensome discovery might be a great way to handle that.

[Mr. Bumble]

To you and Bored:
Would changes like these have made a difference in the Guliani case posted about yesterday?

[loki13]

Nope. For whatever reason, he didn't want to turn anything over. And he repeatedly flouted the court's orders over a period of some time. And asked for extensions so he could continue not complying.

I know other people didn't bother reading the actual opinion, but it goes on for ... I think it was 70 pages. It's brutal. And then when he was given a final chance to comply, he wrote a stipulation basically saying, "Yeah, I'm just not doing this."

[Mr. Bumble]

But was the ordered discovery overbroad?

[loki13]

First, it's not ordered discovery, it was what was sought.

Second, if you read the full opinion, you'd understand that it couldn't have overbroad; he didn't given them anything (well, he did give them 184 documents, I think), and his associated companies gave them nothing, and came up with a number of non-credible excuses for not giving them information before finally saying, "Yeah, not giving you anything."

And IIRC, a lot of this was under the initial disclosures. Again, I can't put this any other way. This wasn't a discovery issue. This was a Giuliani issue.

[OtisAH]

So you admit Giuliani is being railroaded…

[not guilty]

Where do you get that loki13 is ¨admit[ting]¨ anything? Giuliani is not being railroaded. He is being appropriately sanctioned for misbehavior regarding discovery.

[loki13]

I assumed you were being ironic (Poe's Law and all), but I guess not?

No. I meant that this wasn't an issue caused by the rules of discovery. This was an issue caused by Giuliani's repeated and willful choices to not abide by even the most basic requirements of discovery, over a lengthy period of time, in defiance of multiple court orders, with a final written stipulation that no, he was not going to produce anything that he was required to. And that's before getting into the issue of his two associated companies, which never produced a single thing.

[David Nieporent]

Pro tip: if you're going to try to stipulate to facts to get out of certain discovery obligations, do so at the outset of the case (or outset of the discovery process anyway). Don't wait until the discovery demands have been served, you've failed to respond, your adversary has filed a motion to compel, and the court has granted that motion.

Giuliani… chose poorly.

[Michael P]

Competing alternative headlines: "That's not a knife, THIS is a knife" and "It's always too soon to talk about common-sense machete control laws".

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12457685/Moment-knife-thugs-armed-huge-machetes-brawl-street-crowds-revellers-Notting-Hill-carnival-final-day-marred-violence-eight-stabbed-police-officer-sexually-assaulted.html

[Martinned]

1. Knives are already fairly restricted in the UK.
2. The Daily Mail would never miss an opportunity to talk up violence in the context of a POC festival like Notting Hill.

[Michael P]

Restrictive laws about tools of violence don't in fact stop violence? Stop the presses!

[Sarcastr0]

You don’t know the counterfactual if there were more knives - this is an anecdote.

But the UK sure has a lot less gun violence for some reason!

[Martinned]

https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/compare/United-Kingdom/United-States/Crime/Violent-crime

[Mr. Bumble]

Tried your link and got 502 Bad Gateway message.

[Martinned]

You're not missing out, it's not a particularly impressive source. But it has a bunch of comparative stats. I'm sure you can google another website that does that.

[Mr. Bumble]

No such luck. Duck Duck Go search turned up your link at the top and most of the other entries did not match the search terms or were outdated.

[Michael P]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spurious_relationship

[Ed Grinberg]

https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2022-09-02.html#07

[not guilty]

In Mark Meadows's removal action, U. S. District Judge Steve C. Jones has requested the parties to brief the following issue:

Count 1 of the Indictment (pertaining to Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), O.C.G.A. § 16-14-4(c)) contains a number of overt acts attributed to Mr. Meadows. Would a finding that at least one (but not all) of the overt acts charged occurred under the color of Meadows's office, be sufficient for federal removal of a criminal prosecution under 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a)(1)?

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.gand.319225/gov.uscourts.gand.319225.63.0_2.pdf

Without having researched the matter exhaustively, I would say that the answer is no, that would not be sufficient. Two prerequisites must be met before an action may be removed under § 1442(a)(1): first, the case must be against any officer, agency, or agent of the United States for any act under color of such office; and second, the federal actor or agency being challenged must raise a colorable defense arising out of its duty to enforce federal law. Florida v. Cohen, 887 F.2d 1451, 1453-54 (11th Cir. 1989). Federal officer removal under § 1442(a) must be predicated upon averment of a federal defense. Mesa v. California, 489 U.S. 121, 139 (1989).

Establishing that a single overt act in support of the alleged RICO conspiracy occurred under the color of Meadows's office might or might not meet the first criterion. It would say nothing, however, as to whether Meadows has raised a colorable federal defense to the RICO conspiracy charge.

"Under our federal system, it goes without saying that preventing and dealing with crime is much more the business of the States than it is of the Federal Government. Because the regulation of crime is preeminently a matter for the States, we have identified a strong judicial policy against federal interference with state criminal proceedings." Mesa, 489 U.S. at 138; Arizona v. Manypenny, 451 U. S. 232, 243 (1981).

[loki13]

That's an interesting request.

While it is dangerous to read tea leaves, it would indicate that:

1. The Judge believes that at least one overt act was under the color of Meadow's office.

2. The Judge believes that not all of the overt acts were under the color of Meadow's office.

I would slightly disagree with your analysis. If all of the "overt acts" were under the color of his office, then I think that the conspiracy charge could be removed. Because the criminal charge would be predicated solely on acts under the color of his office. However, if some of the acts were not under the color of his office, then it should not removed.

That said, this is just by initial thought, and I don't know that there is caselaw on point.

[John F. Carr]

If the evidence of guilt includes official acts then he should be in federal court. The acts clearly outside of his federal government duties might not be proved, leaving him convicted on the basis of official acts only.

[loki13]

Try turning the analysis around.

Say that there are 30 overt acts (I am lazy, so I am not bothering to actually look it up). 1 of them was under the color of office.

If you removed that single overt act, would the other 29 be sufficient to prove the conspiracy? If the answer is yes, then I would argue that it shouldn't be removed. That they may not be proved is an issue for the jury. Not for removal.

In much the same way that otherwise legal conduct can be the basis for a conspiracy charge, the actual RICO conspiracy charge is regarding a state matter that has nothing to do with his office- so I'm struggling to understand how a finding that a single act in a litany of otherwise unprotected acts (again, as part of an otherwise unprotected conspiracy) would lead to removal.

[John F. Carr]

I would ask for a superseding indictment without the allegation of whatever conduct was considered an official act before ordering remand. At this stage none of the other 29 acts is proved. There is a legal possibility that the jury will convict on the basis of one act that is arguably within the proper scope of federal duties.

I don't know if this is procedurally proper, but one could imagine the judge striking the officially protected overt acts from the indictment and remanding the case to proceed without considering them. Federal judges have a similar power in civil cases that mix state and federal claims. They can (sometimes) dismiss the federal claims and let the state claims be tried in state court.

[not guilty]

I think that Judge Jones framed his inquiry in a peculiar manner. He asked whether a finding of a single overt act under color of office would be sufficient for federal removal of a criminal prosecution under 28 U.S.C. § 1442(a)(1). My intended point is that that finding, standing alone, cannot be sufficient, because the criteria for removal also require inquiry into whether the proponent of removal has a colorable federal defense.

Each element is a sine qua non of removal to federal court. If the judge had asked whether a single overt act is sufficient to meet the color of office criterion, that would be a different inquiry.

[not guilty]

The state´s brief is here. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.gand.319225/gov.uscourts.gand.319225.66.0.pdf

[not guilty]

The Meadows brief is here. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.gand.319225/gov.uscourts.gand.319225.67.0.pdf

[Jonathan Affleck]

SCOTUS may settle the Internet common carriage issue this session. The Solicitor General has recommended that SCOTUS rule on this issue, but SCOTUS does not always listen to the SG.

Only one poorly argued District Court case [Noah] addresses the CRA Title II issue of the Internet, and the Court of Appeals merely affirmed.

42 U.S. Code § 2000a should apply because the Internet belongs to the set of [§ 2000a (b)] “Establishments affecting interstate commerce or supported in their activities by State action as places of public accommodation.” The Internet is something established that affects interstate commerce. The Internet is supported by State action AS a place of public accommodation. The statute does not say supported in their activities by State action TO BE places of public accommodation. The statute says “AS places of public accommodation.” “AS” indicates a simile. The Establishment need only be metaphorically like or as a place of public accommodation.

We analyze the Internet as we analyze a public drinking fountain.

The public drinking fountain is not a place like a hotel or a restaurant, where a person sits at a table and is served. The public drinking fountain is a valve on a water pipe. The public drinking fountain is an establishment, a facility, or a device just as the Internet is.

The Internet is a metaphoric place of public accommodation for exhibition or entertainment.

The public drinking fountain is supported by State action AS a metaphoric place of public accommodation for drinking water -- something like a restaurant [eiusdem generis].

Thus, § 2000a applies to the Internet, and 42 U.S. Code § 2000a (b)(4) applies to every entity within the Internet.

Noah v. AOL Time Warner Inc., 261 F. Supp. 2d 532 (E.D. Va. 2003) was a ridiculous decision. Noah was a pro se litigant, who understood neither the law nor the technology of the Internet.

For good measure, I note that the declaratory sections of 47 U.S. Code § 230 seem to declare the Internet to be a public forum (something on which SCOTUS must rule).

In addition, § 230 (f)(1) tells us that the private and public networks within the Internet are inextricably intertwined. This inextricable intertwining means that a business, which like Facebook operates within the Internet, is inextricably intertwined with the government as “Eagle Coffee Shoppe” was in Burton v. Wilmington Pkg. Auth, 365 U.S. 715, 716 (1961). Thus state action doctrine applies.

[David Nieporent]

"Everything that guy just said is bullshit. Thank you." -- Vincent LaGuardia Gambini

[Jonathan Affleck]

Solicitor General's brief in 22-277, 22-393 and 22-555.

Who is providing useful information?

Who is ranting vacuous nonsense about technology about which he has not a clue?

[Mr. Bumble]

Now all we need is a judge like Fred Gwynne and an appearance by Mona Lisa Vito (because you can't get enough of Mona Lisa Vito).

[apedad]

"We analyze the Internet as we analyze a public drinking fountain."

That's not a good comparison.

The fountain is one, isolated thing with limited capability and usability, i.e. only one person can use it at a time.

The Internet is a borderless entity that can (theoretically), support trillions+ of transactions at the same time.

[Jonathan Affleck]

It a question of ordinary English.

The Internet is an establishment, facility, and device.

A public drinking fountain is an establishment, facility, and device.

Why shouldn't the same public accommodation law apply?

Common carriage law applies to vastly different services.

[David Nieporent]

The Internet is not an establishment, facility, or device, as multiple courts have explained, including directly to you. A drinking fountain is not an establishment or facility. (I suppose it might be a "device," but that word isn't in the statute so it doesn't matter if it is.)

[Jonathan Affleck]

Establishment is something established.

The Internet is a public establishment and public accommodation or facility for communications as the public phone network is.

A public toilet is a public establishment and public accommodation or facility for defecation. The toilet is hardly a place that one can enter.

We don't normally use them in the USA, but a French pissoir is a public establishment and public accommodation or facility for urination. It is hardly a place that one can enter.

A public drinking fountain is a public establishment and public accommodation or facility for drinking. It is hardly a place that one can enter.

I am only addressing ordinary English language.

Here is the Merriam-Webster definition of establishment.

establishment noun
es·​tab·​lish·​ment i-ˈsta-blish-mənt
Synonyms of establishment
1 : something established: such as
a : a settled arrangement
especially : a code of laws
b : ESTABLISHED CHURCH
c : a permanent civil or military organization
d : a place of business or residence with its furnishings and staff
e : a public or private institution
2 : an established order of society: such as
a often capitalized : a group of social, economic, and political leaders who form a ruling class (as of a nation)
b often capitalized : a controlling group
the literary establishment
3 a : the act of establishing
b : the state of being established

Clegg v. Cult Awareness Network, 18 F.3d 752, 755–56 (9th Cir. 1994) points out the use of "located" in § 2000a (b)(4) excludes a meaning of Establishment that is people-associated and not associated with a location (e.g. the military establishment). Harvard University is a place that has many locations throughout the world. I can draw a map of all the locations of the Internet.

[Nelson]

"I am only addressing ordinary English language"

I'm not a lawyer, but isn't the colloquial definition of a word differing from the legal definition irrelevant in court?

Said another way, if precedent/past cases have established (yes, that was intentional) a legal meaning for a word, isn't the fact that non-lawyers who aren't in court use it differently meaningless in a legal setting?

[Jonathan Affleck]

SCOTUS can provide guidance to a lower court on the meaning a word in a specific legal context. I referred to the main precedent (Clegg) for the meaning of establishment in Title II of the CRA of 1964.

[Nelson]

Are you a lawyer? I thought you posted something the other day about not being a lawyer, which surprised me.

You are constantly talking about your case (I think it's heading towards SCOTUS or something like that), so I always assumed you were a lawyer.

[Martinned]

That's literally the first thing they taught us when I studied law. A whole bunch of cases where "hour" was held to mean "45 mins", where "woman" was held to include men, etc.

[David Nieporent]

Establishment is something established.

No. For example, it is established that you neither understand law nor the Internet. But that doesn't make that fact an establishment.

[Krayt]

Is it too much to ask that Congress speak clearly on this before some regulator takes over a multi trillion dollar industry?

[Jonathan Affleck]

A present, Congress could hardly agree that water is wet.

[apedad]

Dear God,

Last week, I provided reasons why I thought humans should be considered failed prototypes.

As you know (since you’re All-Knowing), one of my fellow Volokh Conspiracy commenters (Mr. Bumble), added, “Your comments would appear to be common to all life on this planet,” which got me thinking . . . are all your experiments failures?

Besides the human limitations and frailties I listed last week, i.e., percentage of downtime, assembly line defects, limited peak performance time, etc., there’s also this matter of death – and not only human deaths but death of all biological entities.

Every Earthling "living" creature that you have or will create dies; monkeys, wheat, dung beetles, etc., all die.

But wait – not only do all living things die but non-living things die or are destroyed, too; oceans dry up, mountains crumble, continents smash into each other, etc.

And to go further, planets and suns explode, solar systems are destroyed (sometimes by a supernova), black holes can evaporate (according to Stephen Hawking anyway), etc.

But there’s more! Not only can tangible things like people and planets, etc., be destroyed but intangible things too like love, dreams, plans, etc., eventually disappear.

So . . . everything that you can conceivably create is eventually destroyed.

Does that mean there’s a HIGHER power picking off all your creations like Ozark boys shooting cans of Schlitz?

For the bajillion times you’ve come up to bat, you’ve struck out EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Sure, you’re exalted as THE CREATOR but if all of your creations die (and usually painfully or violently), then . . . maybe you’re not the super cool guy (almost) everyone thinks you are.

Gonna have to think about this.

Sincerely,

apedad

Ps.

Mr. Bumble (as far as I know), hasn't advocated shooting anyone so you can keep him on your Nice list.

a.

[Michael P]

Are you 15?

I think most of us weighed these questions as teenagers and came to our respective conclusions about how the observable universe stands in relation to a deity.

Maybe your time would be better spent trolling the comments of a Mark Tapscott post on Instapundit.

[Mr. Bumble]

Why so judgmental? Never re-thought anything and changed your mind?
Facing one's own mortality might cause one to think about the meaning of creation.

[Michael P]

I have, but I don't think writing "Dear God" comments on a random blog is a productive way to work through it. As I alluded to, people come to different answers about this, and it would be a lot more productive to find what they've written about those conclusions and see which ring true to the person.

Descartes, Aquinas, Aurelius, and many more are well worth reading and contemplating.

[Nelson]

So you don't like who he wrote to, what he wrote, where he wrote it, when (historically) he wrote it, or why he wrote it? If you had grammatical complaints (how he wrote it), you would be 6 for 6.

If all you're going to do is say you don't like his post or tell him how he should have posted, why bother?

[Bob from Ohio]

"Why so judgmental? "

Because the posts are in bad faith and made only as a troll.

[Nelson]

Bad faith, how? I think the format's a little contrived (and amusing), but the content seems to be substantive.

[apedad]

You live your life per the conclusions you came to as a teenager.

That does explain a lot about you.

[Michael P]

Your tendency to overgeneralize explains a lot about you.

[Mr. Bumble]

Thanks, I think.

[Krychek_2]

I once had the opportunity to attend a lecture by a world-famous physicist, and during question period I asked him the following: The universe is governed by forces like gravity, electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear force, and maybe some others we haven't discovered yet. If a master force that governs all the other forces were to be discovered, and if it had consciousness and free will, would we then be talking about God?

His response was that while possible, he doubted it because there is no evidence that the universe is governed by anything other than random chance. There is simply no evidence of any purpose or plan behind anything that happens.

[Michael P]

To riff on Good Omens: If we could clearly name the underlying plan, purpose, mechanism, etc then it wouldn't very well be ineffable, would it?

[Krychek_2]

Now there's a circular argument. It's ineffable because if we could identify it, it wouldn't be ineffable.

Furthermore, the same argument would apply with equal force to the invisible elf named Fred who is currently sitting on my shoulder. If I could show him to you, then he wouldn't be invisible, now would he?

[Michael P]

Gaiman and Pratchett may have conflated ineffable and inscrutable for comic purposes. And when millions of people believe in Fred, we can discuss his epistemological status.

But I think you and the physicist were largely talking past each other. You took him to be answering the final part of your question (“would we then be talking about God?”) but he was rebutting the second condition (“if it had consciousness and free will”). If we found a hammer, and it has consciousness and free will, would that mean it is human?

We could ask that question in a meaningful way about an artificially intelligent computer, but not a hammer. When physicists talk about a Grand Unified Theory or physics underlying the Standard Model, they are looking for something simpler and more fundamental, not something that requires extra complexity to describe. That makes it including with our concepts of consciousness and free will. Does a homogenous cloud of hydrogen have consciousness or free will? Such a cloud would be vastly more complex than what physicists expect that “master force” to be.

[Krychek_2]

Easy issue first: What "millions of people believe" is wholly irrelevant as millions of people can and have believed things that turned out to be wrong. Fred would not exist even if everyone believed in him. Taking a vote on whether God exists is no more probative.

The central point, though, is that there's no good evidence that anything other than random chance is required for the universe to exist in its current form, and no good evidence that there is any grand design behind it. Introducing God makes the system more complex than it needs to be, and therefore less likely. So unless and until someone finds actual evidence to the contrary, God is not a necessary hypothesis.

[Nige]

'Now there’s a circular argument. It’s ineffable because if we could identify it, it wouldn’t be ineffable.'

That was the joke, after all.

[Davedave]

The answer to your question depends on how you define god, and can be yes, no, or maybe for different definitions. It is purely and solely a semantic argument.

[DaveM]

If, after observing the entire universe in all its vast regularity and complexity, your intuition is that randomness is the best explanation for how it all came to be and how it all continues to work, then I doubt your powers of observation.

Whatever the universe is, random is the one thing it most obviously is not.

And please, no replies about the Uncertainty Principle. What's uncertain is our ability to measure without affecting the thing being measured. That has nothing to do with randomness vs regularity.

[Krychek_2]

It's random in the sense that there were any number of different ways things could have played out at and immediately after the big bang that would have produced a universe that looked very different from the one we got. Had inflation been a tad bit slower or faster, or had some of the physics constants worked out a little differently, or had recombination played out a little differently, it would be a different universe.

I agree with you that once the universe was on that path, regularity kicked in. But setting the universe on that path in the first place was random; there were other paths that could have played out.

[Don Nico]

"there were other paths that could have played out."
And except for a set of measure zero of them, we would not exist to have this discussion.

[Krychek_2]

That's exactly right. The universe would still exist but nobody would be around to notice.

[Brett Bellmore]

Somebody else might be around to notice, though.

[Don Nico]

"The universe would still exist"
Not exactly. Some universe far different than the one we see might exist. But no guarantees

[Martinned]

Just came across a pretty decisive argument: https://twitter.com/IanDunt/status/1697230914659504630

It's proof there's no god, really. If there was an all-loving all-powerful god, burgers would fill you with energy and help you lose weight. But they don't. So there isn't.

[DaveM]

The "their god is their belly" argument?

[Sarcastr0]

Today's 9-0 case:

Polselli v. IRS
Topic: Statutory Interpretation
Background: Searching for hidden assets, the IRS subpoenad a bunch of banks of Polselli and his wife. There was a circuit split about whether Polselli needed to be notified - 6th, 7, and 10 said no need. 9th said
Losing side: Follow the 9th that notice is excused only if there is 'legal interest' (i.e. actual $$) involved in the summons.
Winning side: The governing statutory provision, by its plain language, simply did not require the IRS to provide notice
Upshot: Affirm the 6th Cirtcuit and resolve the circuit split
So how did this get to the Court but end up not being a close question Noting that the statute excuses notice when issued “in aid of the collection of an assessment made or judgment rendered against the person with respect to whose liability the summons is issued,” the court simply pointed out that no “legal interest” requirement is articulated

So how did this get to the Court to fix: This seems pretty clear. Dunno what the 9th was thinking. But that split is what drove the Court having to get involved.

[not guilty]

Judge Scott McAfee in Atlanta has set a trial date of October 23, 2023 for the Defendant Kenneth Chesebro. That may be problematic, in that Chesebro did not move to sever his case from that of his 18 codefendants.

DA Fani Willis has moved the court for clarification of whether the Court’s intention was to sever Defendant Chesebro’s trial from the other Defendants. The State is seeking to try all defendants together or, in the alternative, to set Defendant Sidney Powell’s trial and that of any other defendant who may file a speedy trial demand on the same date as Defendant Chesebro’s. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23931368-23sc188947-motion-4

Oh, to have been a fly on the wall when Donald Trump's attorneys received that motion!

[Mr. Bumble]

This judge is in above his head.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Are you concerned this judge will be outsmarted by Trump Litigation: Elite Strike Force?

[OtisAH]

And here you are looking up at him.

[SRG2]

I presume you have no such thoughts about Aileen Cannon.

[David Nieporent]

Judge Scott McAfee in Atlanta has set a trial date of October 23, 2023 for the Defendant Kenneth Chesebro. That may be problematic, in that Chesebro did not move to sever his case from that of his 18 codefendants.

You're out of date. Chesebro moved to sever yesterday.

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23932455-23sc188947-motion-3-chesebro-sever

[not guilty]

Thank you. That filing was no doubt in response to the State's motion to clarify.

As I read Georgia Code § 17-8-4(a), the trial court has discretion to try all co-conspirators together or to sever one or more to be tried separately.

[Mr. Bumble]

Will Wallis oppose this? Can't imagine she'd want to risk losing.

[not guilty]

Per Fani Willis´s motion to clarify, the State´s position is that severance is improper at this juncture and that all Defendants should be tried together, but at an absolute minimum, the Court should set Defendant Powell’s trial and that of any other defendant who may file a speedy trial demand on the same date as Defendant Chesebro’s. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23931368-23sc188947-motion-4

[not guilty]

Since the DA is seeking to try all Defendants together, it will be interesting to see what responses the remaining Defendants file. Donald Trump in particular.

[not guilty]

I see that Donald Trump has filed a motion to sever his case from those of codefendants who demanded a statutory speedy trial. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23933074-23sc188947-motion-6 The motion is straightforward and, to my surprise, not whiny. Perhaps Trump´s new Atlanta lawyer has better sense than some of his other lawyers.

[not guilty]

Sidney Powell has filed an (unsworn) motion to sever in which she denies having represented Donald Trump or the Trump campaign. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23932460-23sc188947-motion-4-powell-sever I wait with bated breath to see what admissible evidence she will proffer in support of her motion.

[David Nieporent]

Given his track record, she can probably prove that he never paid her!

[Ridgeway]

Didn't Trump (through Rudy G, IIRC) put out a statement early on that Sidney P was acting on her own behalf and not on behalf of the Campaign? It was shortly before she released the Kraken.

[apedad]

Bloodied inmate convicted of raping stepdaughter captured with his wife and mom a year after brazen jet ski escape across Mississippi River

Here's the link: https://lawandcrime.com/crime/bloodied-inmate-convicted-of-raping-stepdaughter-captured-with-his-wife-and-mom-a-year-after-brazen-jet-ski-escape-across-mississippi-river/

Some people have all the fun.

[Martinned]

Lowering The Bar has a whole category for water escapes. Main lesson: they (almost) never work.

https://www.loweringthebar.net/category/criminal/water-escapes

[Davedave]

I sent him this one but he never wrote about it:

https://trinidadexpress.com/news/local/prisoner-jumps-from-ferry-in-escape-bid/article_32004ab2-5617-11e9-bfe8-b7e865dc6ec7.html

It’s spectacularly stupid, since a) the would-be escapee was handcuffed, b) the ferry port has nowhere he could possibly get out of the water without being caught, and c) the ferry route later on goes past some really good places to try an escape, where the ship isn’t too far from a bit of coast with really good chances of coming ashore unseen and escaping into the bush.

[Sarcastr0]

“ Union Public Schools, a district on the edge of Tulsa, said it has received bomb threats on six consecutive school days. The threats began last week after Walters shared a viral video that drew critical attention to one of the district’s librarians on social media.”

“ The threats began the same day that Walters retweeted a post from a day earlier on the conservative provocateur account Libs of TikTok, which featured a video of a librarian at Union Public Schools. The video shows the librarian walking next to a book shelf with the text “POV: teachers in your state are dropping like flies but you are still just not quite finished pushing your woke agenda at the public school.” That’s different from the caption that the librarian originally posted on her TikTok account, which Libs of TikTok removed: “My radical liberal agenda is teaching kids to love books and be kind — hbu??”

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/ryan-walters-oklahoma-schools-impeachment-investigation-democrats-rcna102407

[Nelson]

I was told that Libs of TikTok was unedited footage of mainstream liberals secretly admitting to their conspiracy to destroy America. Why would such an honest, unbiased channel temporarily and accidentally lose their unassailable integrity?

They must have been hacked!

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Julie Kelly provided the court transcripts the other day of the stunning comments by Judge Tanya.

She was suggesting that Trump lawyers didn’t need more time to process the 12,000,000 pieces of evidence because they should’ve known he was going to be indicted and they should’ve already been reviewing the evidence. She argues the defense should’ve been preparing for the indictments a year before being indicted.

https://twitter.com/julie_kelly2/status/1696336104062935204

Who is going to defend this outrageous behavior by this Democrat DC judge?

P.S. Except Krycheck_2, he was already defending it saying something along the lines of this making perfect sense because the Judge knows what’s good for the country and she gets to somehow decide peoples rights based upon her beliefs about the common good. He also said that since it was on twitter he didn't trust the reporting, even though it included the transcripts. Still not enough evidence for him to believe Judge Tanya made these statements.

[not guilty]

What you link to is not a transcript, BCD. Here is what appears to be a pretty good liveblog. https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/trump-has-jan.-6-trial-date-and-it-s-the-eve-of-super-tuesday

What do you claim is "outrageous behavior"?

Donald Trump surely could (and should) have anticipated being indicted. He could have hired competent defense counsel long ago.

[Mr. Bumble]

Entering Minority Report territory?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

So you think, after 29 years of practicing law, that Donald Trump should have assembled a team over a year ago and started preparing for some unknown future indictment.

How would they know what to prepare for when they hadn't seen the indictment?

[David Nieporent]

How would they know what to prepare for when they hadn’t seen the indictment?

How could Trump possibly have known? It was all a big mystery. When that indictment was handed down, it was totally a shock. Nobody expected Trump to be indicted — let alone about his attempts to steal the election.

[not guilty]

"How would they know what to prepare for when they hadn’t seen the indictment?"

Donald Trump knows what he did, as well as what he didn't do. Much of the documentary material that defense counsel is kvetching about came from Trump, so it has been accessible to him all along.

Competent defense counsel would have gathered the facts known to Trump and developed a theory of defense consistent with reasonable doubt, in context of the applicable facts and law. When the indictment was returned, the theory would be subject to appropriate tweaking, but nothing Trump is charged with should have come as a surprise.

[Mr. Bumble]

You are both being disingenuous to say the least.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Look at these fascists. They think the same things about all 1776 Americans

We know what we did, so we should prepare for when they bring the State against us.

[not guilty]

BCD, as the old maxim goes, those who fail to plan, plan to fail.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

How many future court cases are you preparing for right now?

[OtisAH]

“1776 Americans”

Could you be less of a loser so I can ask if you can be more of a loser, please?

[Nelson]

Now, Otis. If BCD wants to believe he is part of a group of immortals from 1776, we should let him have his fantasy.

It's not the only fantastic thing he believes by a long shot.

[not guilty]

Why do you say that I am being disingenuous, Mr. Bumble? A good criminal defense lawyer should not be caught flatfooted. Anyone whom Trump had hired, that was paying attention and knows his ass from a hole in the ground, would have realized that Trump was in for a donnybrook of a criminal trial.

Analyzing the government´s case, including its strengths and weaknesses, is an essential part of criminal defense work, as is preparing to counter that case. The appropriate time to begin doing so long precedes formal charges being brought.

[Mr. Bumble]

So should a Biden defense team be at work now?

[not guilty]

There is a special counsel investigating documents found at Joe Biden´s home and at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. https://www.justice.gov/d9/2023-01/Order.Appointment%20of%20Robert%20Hur.11223%20%28002%29.pdf

Biden´s legal team damn well should prepare for any contingencies.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

He already know his crimes for his corruption schemes and since he committed the crimes he has the evidence.

Why wait for the indictment, right?

[David Nieporent]

So should a Biden defense team be at work now?

It would be malpractice (in a colloquial sense, at least) if they weren't. They should be fully up to speed on Joe Biden's finances and anything about Hunter's finances that's available to them. They should have reviewed every non-classified document relating to Biden's dealings with Ukraine. And they should be familiar with all the testimony and documentary evidence that the House Retaliation-for-Inmpeaching-Trump Committee has gathered and made public.

[Krychek_2]

What's the argument that the common good is served by allowing this circus to drag on for two years?

[Sarcastr0]

Never mind him, it's all just voltage.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

There are links to what the court said.

Why are you such a thin skinned bitch all the time?

[OtisAH]

Loser.

Idiot.

[not guilty]

There are links to partial paragraphs including a minuscule part of what the court said.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

So?

[not guilty]

You claimed that that constitutes a transcript. It does not.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

So it's a partial transcription of the court proceedings.

So what?

[Krychek_2]

I mostly do ignore him but once in a while I can't help myself. It's like the corn dogs in my freezer; I know they're not good for me but once in a while I just can't resist.

[Sarcastr0]

Fair; shooting fash in a barrel is half of why I come here. BCD clearly kinda likes it, so I tend to engage other folks, but I absolutely get it.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Keep your violent federal fantasies to yourself.

It's gross and tacky.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Tanya's personal beliefs about what's good or not do not supercede peoples rights.

How on Earth do you not understand that?

[Krychek_2]

What’s the argument that the common good is served by allowing this circus to drag on for two years?

[BravoCharlieDelta]

The defendant has rights to a fair trial.

Your personal beliefs about what's good for everyone doesn't supercede other people's rights.

How on Earth is this even at question.

[Krychek_2]

And the judge apparently determined that the defendant could have a fair trial consistent with the public's interest in ringing the curtain down on this circus as quickly as possible. Your personal opinion of what is unfair does not control. She had to balance competing interests, and your view that she should have balanced them differently is irrelevant.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Well isn’t that nice of her! Looking out for the country and all and making her opinions about political needs of us citizens!

I wonder why she is even bothering with a trial, her sense of the common good is so real. Surely Trump should just go straight to prison.

Maybe a secret trial with only the DOJ? Imagine how bad it would be the common good if Trump was found not guilty!! No way she can risk that!

[Krychek_2]

Well, often things will be a judgment call that different people could reach different results on. Like in this case, in which the public's interest in a speedy trial and the defendant's interest in putting it off had to be balanced against each other. Any judge is just going to have to do his or her best to reach a decision that's fair, and the people who don't like the result will do what you're doing here.

I get it. You think anyone who disagrees with you or reaches a different conclusion than you did is a traitor, a fool, or some combination. Well, you're entitled to your opinion, which the judicial system is entitled to ignore.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

The publics interest in a speedy trial?

The judge was asked if there was a DC case that had gone from indictment to trial in 5 months. No examples could be found.

Satisfying her bloodlust is not in the public interest.

[Krychek_2]

Was there any showing that Trump couldn't be ready for trial in five months?

[OtisAH]

Seven months, idiot.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

12,000,000 pieces of evidence to review

[Krychek_2]

BCD, see Loki's comments below. I've tried complex cases and he's spot on.

[David Nieporent]

The judge was asked if there was a DC case that had gone from indictment to trial in 5 months. No examples could be found.

Which is why she didn't adopt the prosecution's 5 month proposal!

[David Nieporent]

Tanya’s personal beliefs about what’s good or not do not supercede peoples rights.

I’m familiar with the constitutional (and statutory) right to a speedy trial. I’m not familiar with the constitutional or statutory right to delay a trial for 3 years.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Whose right is it to a speedy trial?

The governments?

[Krychek_2]

The defendant has the "right" to a speedy trial, the government has an "interest" in a speedy trial.

[David Nieporent]

Whose right is it to a speedy trial?

Both the defendant's and the public's. Whose right is it to delay a trial for three years?

It was malpractice by his attorneys to ask for 2026. When one takes an absurd position, one doesn't get the benefit of the doubt. If they had asked for late 2024, maybe she'd have said, "Yeah, that's more reasonable than the government's position." But by picking something so unreasonable, they lost any credibility they had with the judge.

And, frankly, you should be thrilled; this gives Trump a potential avenue for appeal if he's convicted (which you've been insisting was inevitable in DC anyway, so what difference does the trial date make?)

[Mr. Bumble]

Now do right to effective counsel.

[loki13]

Did you counsel fall asleep repeatedly during a death penalty case?

Too bad. That was effective counsel.

See? I just did right to effective counsel! 🙂

[Mr. Bumble]

How many lawyers would be required and how long would be required to provide effective counsel in a case in which the government dropped 12.8 million documents on you and your team?

[loki13]

First, I am assuming you didn’t actually look into the actual analysis of what the document were. 12.8 million docs is the actual number but is not really an accurate reflection of what needs to be done.

Second, I would absolutely love for opposing counsel (like the DOJ did here) to provide a roadmap to all of the key documents that they expect to use at trial, and to provide them all in a format that was indexed and easily accessible as well as electronically searchable.

Third, I am gobsmacked that people are actually saying that TRUMP lacks resources to mount a credible criminal defense. Seriously. Wake me up when people show the same level of concern for any other criminal defendant. Arguing that Trump has ineffective assistance of counsel has to be the dumbest thing I have ever heard.

Let me repeat- this is nothing but dilatory tactics. Seven months is more than adequate time to prepare, especially given his resources. That said, I fully expect additional dilatory tactics and a motion to continue the trial.

So to answer you question- yeah, this is totally doable. Arguing IAC is stupid. But hey, it's good to get the suckers riled up. And, by the way, the judge rejected the government's request for a January trial date. If Trump's defense team had bothered to say, on the record, how much time it would take (which they wouldn't), then maybe that would have been taken into consideration. But these attorneys, so far, are not big into lying.

[Commenter_XY]

loki13, let's do some quick math here.

There are 123 business days between now and March 4, 2024. My math says that 12,800,000 documents/123 business days ~104,000 documents/business day (or about 13,000 documents reviewed per business hour).

I have to ask you, is this a realistic expectation that a lawyer (or even a legal team of 10 lawyers) can read, absorb, and do legal strategy while reviewing 104K pages of discovery every business day for the next 6 months?

Is that really reasonable? What am I missing? Somebody has to eyeball each document, no?

Shit, even Lt Commander Data would be hard-pressed. 🙂

[Jason Cavanaugh]

When you ask questions like that, you demonstrate just how ignorant you really are.

Lawyers do not read every single word of every single document.

[loki13]

Seriously? Is the word "gullible" not in the dictionary? You understand that there was an actual hearing, with attorneys, and this was discussed, right? Is it possible that you, as a person just repeating the, "12.8 million documents," might not know as much about the issues as the people involved in the case, and a Federal Judge who (1) has a background in criminal law, and (2) has previously run multiple criminal trials?

But sure. 12.8 million documents. But what was discussed at the lengthy hearing? First, discovery is now substantially complete. Second, 7.8 million of the pages are "publicly available information" (such as House Committee Reports and data collected by Trump consultants) that Trump already had access to. Of the remaining 5 million documents, Trump already had access to those as well. Many of the documents are duplicative.

How many actually important and relevant documents are we really talking about? 47,000 pages of key documents ... but only 300 documents that the government is planning to use at trial.

Further, all documents have already been reviewed for privilege. None of the documents are new to the Trump team.

The defense's argument boils down to this-
1. Sure, Trump's attorneys might have already reviewed everything, but he has new attorneys, hired a 90 days ago, and ... well, they didn't say they hadn't reviewed stuff, but something.

2. Trump's attorneys want time to organize and cross reference the documents.

But, and here's the killer, they refused to answer the question of how much time they needed to prepare.

So, sure, if you assume that Trump didn't have the documents (not true). And you assume that Trump's team didn't start preparing before the indictment (not true). And if you assume that there were actually 12.8 million relevant documents to the defense (as opposed to what was turned over). And if you assume that people with experience in this are lying to you, and you can do your own math to "out-law" them, sure. Make up what you want.

[David Nieporent]

Is that really reasonable? What am I missing? Somebody has to eyeball each document, no?

The answer to your third question is "no," and that's what you're missing.

Nobody, not even someone richer than Trump, pays lawyers hundreds of dollars per hour to read each and every document produced. Just as there are electronic tools to produce the documents, there are electronic tools to process them.

And by the very nature of ESI, many of the documents will be completely redundant. E.g., I send you an email saying, "Can we meet for lunch next week when I'm in New York?" and you respond, "Yes, sure. When did you have in mind?" And I respond, "How about Wednesday?" And you say, "Yes, I'm free that day?" And I say, "Do you have any restaurant preferences?" And you say, "What about such-and-such?" And I say, "No; I ate there last time I was in the city and the service was terrible." Etc. etc.

And — setting aside that there's no real need to read that anyway — the most recent email in that exchange comprises the entire back-and-forth exchange. But each and every single email in that discussion is counted in the 12 million figure.

[Commenter_XY]

DMN....Ok, that is what I am missing = You say not every document needs to be eyeballed.

Let me ask you this: If you were the client, would you expect your legal team to eyeball every document that might be used at trial? How big of team would you even need to review that much material?

(I think I get the email example; I can see how a lengthy email thread could count for 50-60 'documents' - each email response is technically a separate document, right? That was a very helpful example.)

Still though....that is A LOT of documents to plow through and figure out. Realistically, is 6 months enough to do a thorough and credible job? I am hard-pressed to say yes.

[loki13]

Well, two things.

First, insisting on a trial date in 2026 (!) was arguably legal malpractice.

Second, using ... Powell v. Alabama as you main case ... that is arguably legal malpractice as well. Seriously, you have to know your audience a little. Of all the cases they could have cited, not only is that case the worst one to use in terms of the facts, it was arguably the absolute worst one to use to persuade this judge.

The government asked for January 2024. They didn't get it. But the judge ended up at March 2024. Any argument that this is insufficient time will ... fall on deaf ears.

If the defense counsel had been remotely reasonable, or had even responded to the judge with an actual date (or a timeline of how long it would ACTUALLY take them to prepare during the hearing that wasn't a complete and total fabrication), they easily could have gotten a later date. Not a 2025 date, but a later one.

[Mr. Bumble]

"First, insisting on a trial date in 2026 (!) was arguably legal malpractice."
How is that malpractice? If advocating for the best possible terms for your client is "malpractice" we don't have a working legal system.

[not guilty]

How was insisting on a trial date in 2026 in any way persuasive?

It was not literally malpractice, in that it did not result in irreparable harm. But I would allow for some hyperbole here. It was not advocating for the best possible terms for the client by any stretch of the imagination.

[loki13]

I am using the term to mean terrible advocacy.

No competent trial court, in the history of ever, in a criminal proceeding, would have granted it. So by stating that as the date you wanted, you immediately announced that you were not serious and not credible. The one thing you don't want to do is have a Judge come into the case thinking that you're not credible- because that carries through the case.

I would assume that there was some (ahem) client influence on the decision. Which really hurt them when the judge asked during the hearing how long they actually needed to prepare, and they refused to answer. Well, they grandstanded and refused to give an answer ... because they knew that if they tried to say, "Three years," then there would be some follow-up questions. Which they didn't want to answer.

[Mr. Bumble]

Well come on then. You're a lawyer and should know that words and their meaning matter.

[loki13]

I do. Lawyers refer to things all the time colloquially as legal malpractice. For example, two days ago I won a hearing (stupid issue, state court) because opposing counsel didn't bother to file the required motion. Which I referred to as legal malpractrce.

That said, it wasn't "malpractice" in terms of a cause of action, which is incredibly hard to bring and has a high bar in every jurisdiction.

...because lawyers write the laws, that's why. 😉

[Mr. Bumble]

Yes, yes they do.
Have a good rest of the day.

[David Nieporent]

A lawyer is not supposed to advocate for the best possible terms for his client; he's supposed to advocate for the terms that will get the best possible results for his client. There's a difference.

To pick an extreme example to illustrate that difference: suppose you hire me, as your lawyer, to help broker the sale of your business (which has a FMV of $100 million). A potential buyer says, "How much?" I say, "$10 billion." Would that be awesome for you if I could get you that much? Yes, of course. But are you going to get that much? No; instead, the potential buyer is likely to just walk away, and you get zero. My advocacy for the higher number was utterly unhelpful to you. Malpractice, at least colloquially. If I had asked for a high but reasonable number, I might have been able to get you more than $100m.

I've said this several times already: some people who think they're clever, but aren't — and this sounds exactly like Trump! — think that because negotiations often involve splitting the difference between the parties' positions, that if they start with an absurdly unreasonable position, splitting the difference will work out more in their favor. After all, the difference between $100 and $200 is $150, but the difference between $100 and $5000 is $2550. But that only works if the other side is an idiot and can't see what you did. You should not assume that a federal judge is an idiot that won't see through you. The prosecution said January 2024. If Trump had said "No, January 2025," he might have gotten something closer to that position than to the prosecution's. But instead he said sometime in 2026, which is bananapantscrazy, and caused the judge to ignore his position entirely.

[not guilty]

¨Whose right is it to a speedy trial?¨

A criminal defendant´s right to a speedy trial is of constitutional magnitude. In order to implement that constitutional guaranty, Congress enacted the Speedy Trial Act of 1974, codified at 18 U.S.C. § 3161 et seq.

The Act was designed not just to benefit defendants but also to serve the public interest by, among other things, reducing defendants' opportunity to commit crimes while on pretrial release and preventing extended pretrial delay from impairing the deterrent effect of punishment. As noted in Senate Report accompanying the 1979 amendments to the Act, "[T]he Act seeks to protect and promote speedy trial interests that go beyond the rights of the defendant; although the Sixth Amendment recognizes a societal interest in prompt dispositions, it primarily safeguards the defendant's speedy trial right — which may or may not be in accord with society's." Zedner v. United States, 547 U.S. 489, 501 (2006).

But I suspect you knew that when you posed your rhetorical question.

[SRG2]

There's a hidden codicil to the US Constitution that is specifically about all the things that don't apply to Trump, or that apply uniquely to Trump, that only Trump supporters have access to.

[Don Nico]

K_2, There is no good to the people of the United States. The justice delayed is justice denied to them

[David Nieporent]

Julie Kelly provided the court transcripts the other day of the stunning comments by Judge Tanya.

You can't stop lying (neither can Julie Kelly, for that matter, but that's another story). That’s a couple of screenshots of excerpts of transcripts — not transcripts.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

You think they are fake?

[Krychek_2]

They're not complete. A snippet here and there can be twisted to say just about anything.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

There are 11,000 hours pf J6 footage missing.

Could those events have been twisted?

[Nelson]

Missing from where? Kevin McCarthy's office?

[David Nieporent]

If I thought they were fake, I'd have said that they were fake. I said that they're just excerpts.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Ok so what then

[apedad]

Wisconsin Supreme Court chief justice accuses liberal majority of staging a ‘coup’

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — (Chief Justice Annette Ziegler), the conservative chief justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Monday told the new liberal majority in a scathing email that they had staged a “coup” and conducted an “illegal experiment” when they voted to weaken her powers and fire the director of state courts.

Liberals gained a 4-3 majority on Aug. 1 when Justice Janet Protasiewicz began her 10-year term after winning election in April. Conservatives had held the majority for 15 years prior to that. The emails are the latest sign of broiling tensions on the court since liberals took control.

https://apnews.com/article/wisconsin-supreme-court-liberals-conservative-chief-justice-81d040f7a59c210c8ba2a4c8007834b5

Alternate title: Wisconsin Supreme Court chief justice learns about elections

[Martinned]

Americans are weird, referring to certain politicians as "judge".

Alternate title: Wisconsin politicians argue in the aftermath of elections

[Mr. Bumble]

So, back to a discussion that appeared on another thread. How do you divorce judicial selection from politics?

[Martinned]

By giving them lifetime appointments through a process with lots of veto points, or at least appointments for non-renewable terms.

[Brett Bellmore]

You can't. All you can do is decide whose politics will drive it.

Well, I take that back, you could institute some sort of random draft system, where judges were selected by lot from among everybody who met the qualifications. I don't know that it would work that great, but it would be hard to game.

[Martinned]

The US Federal Supreme Court is a complete sh*tshow. But at the same time it would be 1000% more of a sh*tshow if the justices had to run for re-election every four/six/ten years.

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

[Brett Bellmore]

I don't recall as I've ever advocated that the federal Supreme court be elected. Though I do think that "No man should nominate or confirm the judge in his own case" is as valid as "No man should BE the judge in his own case"; That federal judges are nominated and confirmed entirely by federal office holders is largely responsible for the way the Court has signed off on vast expansions of federal power.

Rather, I've proposed to transfer the Senate's power to confirm, which originally was a check on the federal judiciary because Senators were supposed to be appointed by state legislatures, to some new body, perhaps composed of the 50 state governors sitting for that purpose.

At the state level, there's a stronger case for an elected judiciary, because the people ARE the lower level of "government" below the state government.

Judges are going to be partial to whoever gets to pick them. We might as well have them partial the the people ourselves.

[Martinned]

Judges are going to be partial to whoever gets to pick them.

Well, they're definitely going to be partial to whoever gets to decide whether they keep their job. Whether they are partial towards the person who picks them is a decidedly open question, given the last few decades of GOP/Trump appointees.

We might as well have them partial the the people ourselves.

Given how commonly judges are supposed to fulfil a counter-majoritarian function, that seems like a terrible idea.

[Brett Bellmore]

They're supposed to fulfill an orthogonal to majoritarian function, not a counter to majoritarian function. They're not supposed to be opposed to the majority, they're supposed to enforce the actual letter of the law indifferent to what the majority would prefer.

That shouldn't be opposed to the majority except when the majority want to violate the letter of the law.

[Bob from Ohio]

"How do you divorce judicial selection from politics?"

You can't, annoying foreigners notwithstanding.

Voters can select, elected representatives can select and confirm, or a small un-elected, unaccountable group can apply their personal politics and appoint their buddies.

[Martinned]

Well, *you* can't, apparently. So much the worse for the United States.

[Don Nico]

You have it correct, Martin.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

This is what Democrats always do when they get into power. Corrupt it so they can stay in power.

[OtisAH]

“I have no idea what this story is about” would’ve saved you some typing. Not replying at all to a post about a story you know nothing about would’ve saved even more.

[grb]

BravoCharlieDelta : “This is what Democrats always do when they get into power. Corrupt it so they can stay in power”

Just more voltage. When the Right held a majority on Wisconsin Supreme Court, they changed the rules to maximize their power. When the Left gained a majority on the Court, they used the same rules to maximize their power. There’s no oppressors and oppressed here. It’s two sides using the same rules in the same way for the same reason.

Once again, BravoCharlieDelta plays the clown.

[Don Nico]

grb, you're correct about that.
It is just the usual game that has been played since the founding.

[Moderation4ever]

Those who live in Wisconsin know that there is little love lost between the two sides of the Wisconsin Supreme court. In one case a former justice got into a physical confrontation with another justice and had his hand on her throat. We take this all-in stride and understand that Chief Justice Annette Ziegler real complaint is that she is losing her grip on power.

[Magister]

Impeachment by the gerrymandered Senate would just rile up the voters who chose Protasiewicz, and the Democratic governor would presumably appoint someone equivalent. On the other hand, the conservatives would get another shot at the same election next year, since there's no other Wisconsin Supreme Court seat up for election in 2024 so that justice would be up for election for a ten year term.

[LawTalkingGuy]

It's also possible these games could push Hagedorn over the edge and make him go more firmly into the liberal camp on the legislative maps, which is what this is all about. And it doesn't help that Zeigler and especially Rebecca Bradley come off as genuinely mean-spirited and unhinged in addition to being so overtly partisan.

[Moderation4ever]

I am also interested in Hagedorn's vote on the redistricting. Bradley and Zeigler are partisan and will rubber stamp anything Republicans ask for. Hagedorn is a conservative and his votes show that fact.

[OtisAH]

Yes, when MAGA is in control it’s all “mandate” this and “elections have consequences” that. When out of power MAGA believes it has final say over all decisions made by the majority. Like how we only ever hear about the unitary executive under MAGA presidents. DeSantis is actually running on taking advantage of the alleged full powers of the “unitary” executive theory. Meanwhile, under dem presidents, affordable health insurance and student loan waivers are tyranny on the road to Stalinhitler.

[Sarcastr0]

It is a single example, albeit one that really aligns with a story I believe in - that the GOP is increasingly discarding democracy and embracing the idea that Democrats winning elections or exercising any kind of political authority is fundamentally illegitimate.

In the end, as Moderation4ever noted, this is a local story based on local partisan history. But yeesh Ziegler seems like she is unfit for a judgeship.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

This example of a Democrat insurrection I'd a dignity of increasing GOP abandonment of democracy?

No one takes you seriously, this reflexive gaslighting is why.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Insurrection?!

The liberals won a majority of the seats through state wide elections where they actually won a significant majority of the votes cast. The state constitution and the court rules give a majority of the court the ultimate authority over conducting the business of the court.

The fact that you think a democratically elected majority exercising power is an "insurrection" is an on-the-nose example of Sarc's point: there is a growing right-wing belief that exercise of power by liberals/democrats is in itself illegitimate and that if democratic elections give them power...then those elections cannot count for anything.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Are you familiar with any of the Chief Justice's complaints?

If what she says is accurate, then they are insurrecting.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Yes. I am familiar with how they are incorrect and contradicted by the plain language of the state constitution and court rules as Justice Dallet pointedly had to emphasize to her several times.

[Don Nico]

“there is a growing right-wing belief ” sounds like a conspiracy theory to me, to use one of S_0’s terms of dismissal.

BTW, I get emails almost every day, from DNC connected organizations that have exactly the same message with the parties flipped. Every election of a Republican is illegitimate and threatens American democracy.

Pure bullshit from both sides.

[SRG2]

embracing the idea that Democrats winning elections or exercising any kind of political authority is fundamentally illegitimate.

Very much this.

[Magister]

Ziegler has had an uneasy relationship with ethics throughout her career. As a Washington County circuit court judge, Ziegler repeatedly violated Wisconsin’s code of judicial ethics by presiding over eleven cases involving a financial institution where her husband served a paid member of the board of directors. In 2008, Ziegler was publicly reprimanded for these judicial ethics violations, the first and only time that the Wisconsin Supreme Court has formally, publicly reprimanded one of its own members.

She also supported special interests’ version of judicial recusal rules and subsequently opposed reforms urged by retired judges. In 2012, Ziegler voted to close the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s then-open administrative conferences to the public and in 2017, after a motion by disgraced former Justice Michael Gableman and seconded by two-time high court race loser Daniel Kelly, Ziegler voted to close the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s then-open rules conferences to the public.

https://www.wispolitics.com/2023/a-better-wisconsin-together-right-wing-justice-annette-ziegler-still-maga-mad-over-loss-of-court-majority/

[LawTalkingGuy]

Wisconsin is a particularly good example of this because the maps are designed for a continuous GOP supermajority in both chambers no matter what actually happens in an election. They make legislative districts that aren't even contiguous to achieve this result. Then this supermajority that doesn't reflect the actual partisan make-up makes sure statewide officials can't exercise power in any way they don't like. Now that there is a chance that they might lose a supermajority by having slightly fairer maps they're trying anything to hold on to power despite the clear message from voters in the state.

[Moderation4ever]

Thanks for this analysis. What many don't realize is that Republican are very likely to keep control of the legislature with nonpartisan maps. The question is not Republican control but rather how much control they have. For the Republican leaders the answer is "never enough."

[LawTalkingGuy]

The same was true in Ohio. All the maps that were proposed by the Democrats as consistent with the anti-gerrymandering amendment were still going to lead to Republican majorities. Maybe the Democrats could get a slim one in the House if there was a massive blue wave (which was unlikely). But the Republicans still couldn't accept that and ignored court orders to maintain their lopsided majorities instead of just having a regular one.

[Brett Bellmore]

To be fair, Wisconsin's distribution of party members is such that during the redistricting litigation a while back the Dems hired an expert to draw a map that met the legally mandated requirements of compactness and equal population, but was otherwise as favorable to them as possible. And even that map under-represented Democrats!

There's such a thing as just having your voters very inefficiently distributed on the ground, and there's only so much redistricting can do to fix that in a non-PR system.

[LawTalkingGuy]

And even that map under-represented Democrats!

Which further demonstrates the point that Wisconsin Republicans think any democratic political power is illegitimate. A majority isn't enough for them. They need a supermajority. And they can't allow any state-wide elected democrats to exercise any power either.

[Brett Bellmore]

I have no interest at all in defending Wisconsin Republicans on this issue. They absolutely were gerrymandering.

My only complaint is that Democrats, in litigating against gerrymandering, were not content to promote an impartial rule against the practice, but instead focused on trying to get the courts to adopt a tendentious definition of the practice that largely immunized Democratic gerrymanders against review.

Perhaps if they'd been less underhanded about that, the Court wouldn't have thrown up it's hands and just refused to do anything at all.

[Sarcastr0]

largely immunized Democratic gerrymanders against review.
How so?

[Brett Bellmore]

A fundamental fact of American politics is that the distribution of Democrats and Republicans are not symmetric. The Republican end of the distribution has a "skinny tail", the median Republican district is something like 55-60% Republican, it drops off rapidly after that. So Republicans waste relatively few votes.

The Democratic end of the distribution has a "fat tail", while the median Democratic district might be 60-65% Democratic, it drops off slowly after that, there are plenty of districts with 70, 80, even 90% Democrats. So Democrats waste a lot of votes "bouncing the rubble", electing people by huge, wasteful margins.

Democrats proposed "vote efficiency" as a measure of gerrymandering, they suggested that an ungerrymandered map would have equal Republican and Democratic efficiency, a zero "efficiency gap". A gerrymander was to be declared if the efficiency gap departed too far from zero in either direction.

But zero efficiency gaps to don't naturally occur in this country as a result of impartially drawn maps, because of that asymmetric distribution. The country has a natural pro-Republican efficiency gap, and it's substantial. As I mentioned, the Wisconsin Democrats hired an expert to draw the most pro-Democratic map possible, and it had a significant pro-Republican "efficiency gap.

As a consequence, an impartially drawn map would naturally be halfway to being declared a Republican gerrymander by their proposed metric, while it was virtually impossible for Democrats to gerrymander relentlessly enough to trigger their proposed criteria.

They'd immunized themselves against being guilty of gerrymandering by picking a criteria that really was only satisfied if you gerrymandered in favor of Democrats!

[David Nieporent]

A fundamental fact of American politics is that the distribution of Democrats and Republicans are not symmetric. The Republican end of the distribution has a “skinny tail”, the median Republican district is something like 55-60% Republican, it drops off rapidly after that. So Republicans waste relatively few votes.

The Democratic end of the distribution has a “fat tail”, while the median Democratic district might be 60-65% Democratic, it drops off slowly after that, there are plenty of districts with 70, 80, even 90% Democrats. So Democrats waste a lot of votes “bouncing the rubble”, electing people by huge, wasteful margins.

I like how you pretend that districts are naturally occurring phenomenon, rather than things drawn up by politicians. Hint: the distribution you describe is the result of choices by legislatures.

[Brett Bellmore]

You're just in denial, David These patterns of voter distribution are real, and usually extend over such large areas that it's impossible to negate them by drawing maps short of a crazy level of gerrymandering, like drawing long wedge shaped districts with their points in the middle of cities, and extending many miles into the countryside.

Studies have been done, using computer programs to randomly generate enormous numbers of maps that are compact and equal population, but are drawn utterly without reference to voting behavior. They generally demonstrate fairly narrow bands of possible maps. See, for instance, figure 3 in this paper by Chen and Cottrell.

Where the actual maps are outside of the zone of maps produced by impartial random processes, you can fairly say that a gerrymander is present. THAT is the criteria Democrats should have proposed, and it clearly identified Wisconsin as a Republican gerrymander. (It also identified states like Arizona and California as Democratic gerrymanders, which is the problem.)

In fact, the researchers who came up with the "efficiency gap" now warn that you could NOT, realistically, use a zero efficiency gap as the target. They recommend doing that sort of computer analysis, and using the average resulting efficiency gap as the baseline, instead. Which is, I think a great idea.

So, why didn't Democrats use this perfectly objective measure of gerrymandering, efficiency gap centered on the results of impartial computer redistricting? Simple: Because it also identifies Democratic gerrymanders! It IS impartial, and they didn't want impartial, they wanted an edge for themselves. So, no, they tried to insist that the baseline had to be zero, not the natural baseline in a state.

[Sarcastr0]

So your argument is:

1) the urban/rural distribution of Dem/GOP is all that these gerrymanders are reflecting.

2) The fact that you cannot perfectly account for distribution bias means there is no problem.

Brett, sometimes I cannot believe you're an engineer.

[Brett Bellmore]

"1) the urban/rural distribution of Dem/GOP is all that these gerrymanders are reflecting."

If they're reflecting the actual distribution of voters, then they're not gerrymanders.

Let's underscore what "gerrymandering" is: It's NOT any departure from duplicating the outcome of proportional representation! It's deliberately drawing maps, especially with odd shaped districts, to drive a particular election outcome. A compact, equal population map, drawn without regard to voting patterns, is NOT a "gerrymander", no matter how much you don't like the results.

"2) The fact that you cannot perfectly account for distribution bias means there is no problem."

It's distribution, not "distribution bias". The voters are where they are, and not having proportional representation isn't an outrage.

"Brett, sometimes I cannot believe you’re an engineer."

That's because you're not an engineer, and don't understand how engineers think. We don't rage at brute facts, we just adapt to them.

[Sarcastr0]

These red state districts are going way beyond reflecting actual distribution of voters, Brett. That's been proven in court.
And Dems do it as well, but not nearly so hard nor are they arguing for impugnity from judicial oversight.

You are the first person I've ever see to argue that these disparities are just due to geography. Which, I note, you have utterly failed to establish.

[Sarcastr0]

They may impeach this newly elected judge. Just because they can, since they have a supermajority. Thus allowing them to keep their gerrymandered supermajority, via their gerrymandered supermajority.

Not saying it's going to happen, but they're talking about it and could absolutely do it.

For all those arguing this is all tit-for-tat, that'd be a pretty new place to be, eh?

[Bob from Ohio]

"pretty new place to be, eh?"

Its about time GOP super-majorities use their power to put the courts in their place.

[Nelson]

Poe's law rears its head.

[Commenter_XY]

I predict they stop at the water's edge = Its about time GOP super-majorities use their power to put the courts in their place.

[Magister]

The Democratic governor would appoint a replacement, without legislative approval, so they wouldn't gain much with respect to this issue and would make themselves look bad (but with an election for that seat next year, which they might think is worth it).

[Jmaie]

Meh. Listen to Thom Hartmann for very long and you will quickly learn that *some* progressives believe Republicans can only win elections through voter suppression. Does the Democratic establishment also believe that?

[Sarcastr0]

...Are you using Thom Hartman as any kind of bellwether of the Democratic mainstream?

[Magister]

At least he's someone I've actually heard of. The "*some* progressives", probably not.

[Moderation4ever]

Yesterday morning I am watching the morning news which then cuts to a briefing on the hurricane. Gov. Ron DeSantis is leading the briefing, and I am impressed. He is speaking well and has command of the facts. He passes the briefing off to others and then comes back to close. Looking at the briefing it not hard to see him as President. So, what in the hell happened on August 24th, because his performance at the Republican debate was just sad. I can't help but think that DeSantis has the skill set to be President, but lacks the skill set to be elected President.

[Brett Bellmore]

They are radically different skill sets, that's for sure.

[jb]

Part of the problem is that the Republican primary process doesn't seem to care about ability to govern as a factor that would make you an attractive candidate. And DeSantis is trying to balance actually being good at his current job while also trying to audition to the Republican primary electorate which is making him kind of bad at both.

[Nige]

It’s depressing to consider that deep under all that culture war bullshit there might be some able administrators you wouldn’t necessarily mind losing an election to. As it is, the only circumstances when he’d make an able non-authoritarian-culture-war-bullshit President is if the US was about to be hit by a hurricane the size of the US. Which is probably a few years down the line even with the worst climate change forecasts.

[shawn_dude]

DeSantis appears to do better when his role is scripted. If he needs to speak off-the-cuff, he loses the veneer of competence. I would agree that he appears to be a competent administrator based on his successes at getting a lot of questionable but effective laws passed in his state targeting "undesirable" groups of his own citizenry.

[Nelson]

The GOP of today abandoned the Reagan-era expectation of competence in their candidates. Ron DeSantis could possibly have been a decent governor and potential President if he focused on good governance. But today's GOP requires culture warriors, even if the culture war undermines good governance.

Press conferences like this give a glimpse of what could have been, if the GOP hadn't embraced form over substance.

[David Nieporent]

The GOP of today has abandoned the Reagan-era expectation that politicians (and parties) should have actual ideas and policies. And there's no point in being competent if you don't actually want to do anything anyway.

[Nige]

Exactly. Their only competency is terrorising themselves about threats that aren't real and ignoring threats that are to justify authoriitarianism, which includes accusing people concerned with real threats of using them to justify authoritarianism.

[Nelson]

There are GOP candidates who believe in good governance. There are good GOP candidates. All conservatives haven't been subverted by the culture war hysteria. They are marginalized right now, but there are plenty of them out there.

[Don Nico]

From the point of view of a person who work for a leftist Dem US Senator for 6 years, I see that many Democrats has a similar attitude, preferring to push ideology over, cooperative problem solving and good governance. I agree that this attitude is more prevalent in the Republican party and especially that segment taken over by Mr Trump.
However, as the level of polarization has increase with nearly no overlap in political point of view between the parties, the culture wars and the meanness of political discourse has increased markedly.

[apedad]

Nigerian National Sentenced to Prison for International Scheme That Defrauded Elderly U.S. Victims

According to court documents, Iheanyichukwu Jonathan Abraham, 44, was part of a group of fraudsters that sent personalized letters to elderly victims in the United States, falsely claiming that the sender was a representative of a bank in Spain and that the recipient was entitled to receive a multi-million-dollar inheritance left for the recipient by a family member who had died years before in Portugal. Victims were told that before they could receive their purported inheritance, they were required to send money for delivery fees and taxes and were instructed to make other payments.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/nigerian-national-sentenced-prison-international-scheme-defrauded-elderly-us-victims

PLEASE talk with your family and friends - especially the elderly and/or vulnerable about online frauds.

[Michael P]

Or perhaps especially the young:
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/10/tech-savvy-teens-falling-prey-to-online-scams-faster-than-their-grandparents.html
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/data-visualizations/data-spotlight/2022/12/who-experiences-scams-story-all-ages

Both young and old have risks to watch out for that increase their vulnerability to scams. Cognitive problems are a serious hazard for the elderly, and friends and family that one interacts with often are good at catching cognitive issues. Emotional and social isolation are a similar hazard for the young, although it's harder to prescribe friends and family as a fix for isolation.

[Enrique]

Here is part 1 of my critique of Baude and Paulsen's "The Sweep and Force of Section Three": https://priorprobability.com/2023/08/31/disqualification-clause-update/

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm rather disturbed myself by their paper. For instance, look at their treatment of Victor Berger, the only case outside of the immediate aftermath of the Civil war where Section 3 was applied.

To say that they don't go into it in depth is an understatement! They largely relegate it to a couple of footnotes, and highly misleading footnotes, at that.

You'd never guess, reading the little they say about it, that Congress only refused to seat Berger AFTER he was convicted of a disqualifying offense in a criminal trial. And that he was later seated is treated as largely inexplicable, no mention of the fact that it was because the conviction was overturned.

The Berger case utterly contradicts their thesis. Now, they could have honestly explain what happened, and made arguments about why Berger was some sort of anomaly, or that Congress' treatment of him wasn't binding on us. That's what honest researchers would have done.

It's not what they did, though. They buried it behind a couple of misleading footnotes.

Seriously, this paper has drastically changed my opinion of Baude, who I used to be favorably disposed towards.

[Brett Bellmore]

Baude and Paulsen's 'self executing' approach licenses pretty much anybody in the whole election process to act against anybody they think is disqualified, with such due process as might be afforded to come only after the fact.

It's worth noting that the Austrian ballot, preprinted ballots provided by government, was not adopted in the US for another 20 years after the Civil war, and not immediately widespread. So "ballot access" was not even an issue in the minds of the authors of Section 3.

Confederates were permitted to run for office, voters were permitted to vote for them, those votes were counted, and they were considered the election winners if the counts favored them. Section 3 enforcement was limited to Congress exercising its constitutional power to judge the qualifications of its own members, refusing to seat the confederates.

So, if we were to follow the Civil war era precedent, Trump could run regardless of whether you think him an insurrectionist, all that could be done is Congress refusing to count his electors.

If you follow the later precedent of Victor Berger, Congress would not even act against Trump at that point, unless he had been criminally convicted of an offense that carried the consequence of disqualification.

Obviously Baude and Paulsen couldn't bear this conclusion, but it IS the relevant precedent.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Section 3 enforcement was limited to Congress exercising its constitutional power to judge the qualifications of its own members, refusing to seat the confederates."

Only done right after the war. Ex-CSA officers routinely served in Congress in the last half of the century.

Quick check shows the example of Alfred H. Colquitt who served two terms as U.S. Senator, serving from 1883 to 1894, Former US army officer [therefore covered by 14A restriction] who signed Georgia's Ordinance of Secession and was a CSA general. Many others also.

[David Nieporent]

Only done right after the war. Ex-CSA officers routinely served in Congress in the last half of the century.

Quick check shows the example of Alfred H. Colquitt who served two terms as U.S. Senator, serving from 1883 to 1894, Former US army officer [therefore covered by 14A restriction] who signed Georgia’s Ordinance of Secession and was a CSA general. Many others also.

Congress amnestied the ex-confederate traitors from the 14th amendment disability — as the 14th amendment expressly permits — in 1872.

[David Nieporent]

Confederates were permitted to run for office, voters were permitted to vote for them, those votes were counted, and they were considered the election winners if the counts favored them. Section 3 enforcement was limited to Congress exercising its constitutional power to judge the qualifications of its own members, refusing to seat the confederates.

Setting aside the minor typo in your comment — Australia, not Austria — your comment makes no sense. What does "permitted to run for office" even mean in the absence of printed ballots? That the police didn't arrest them for printing up "Vote for Al" fliers? Without having to qualify for a ballot, "running for office" is just… talking. And without having a printed ballot, what does "voters were permitted to vote for them" even mean? That the police didn't arrest a voter who wrote down the name of an ineligible person?

[OtisAH]

Other than aging and the entirely unsupported allegations of bribery, how has Biden not earned a second term?

[Mr. Bumble]

Because he never won the first one?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

John Eastman likes the way you think!

He might be in the market for a penpal soon.

[jb]

LOL. That's the thinking that's going to ensure he gets another one!

[Michael P]

Sniffing women and children? Creepy showering? Serial lying and plagiarism? Mismanagement of the economy? Installing a bunch of people who bring scandal and disrepute on their offices? Protecting Deep State and Swamp creatures? Very well-documented bribery?

How long should we go on?

[Jason Cavanaugh]

That entirely depends on how much of a partisan, gullible dipshit you'd like to again prove yourself to be.

By all means, continue.

[OtisAH]

You haven’t gone anywhere yet, dummy. You just spit out a lot of contradictory nonsense. Why don’t you pick one of those bits of nonsense and offer some support for it? If you can’t decide I’d love to hear more about Biden being a serial liar and plagiarist. Extra points if you can explain more broadly why you, a Turnip supporter, find “serial liar”to be disqualifying.

Oh, and skip the sniffing bit unless you can explain why that weird old person behavior is disqualifying.

[David Nieporent]

If you can’t decide I’d love to hear more about Biden being a serial liar and plagiarist.

Um, don't knee-jerk defend just because the other side knee-jerk attacks. Biden is famous for being a plagiarist. He plagiarized in law school, and then he plagiarized during the 1988 presidential primaries.

[David Nieporent]

(Obviously, these decades-old events have little relevance to anything now. But that doesn't mean that they didn't happen.)

[Mr. Bumble]

You don't believe "past is prologue"?

[OtisAH]

His 1988 plagiarism, whatever that is, has no relevance, in fact. Just like it had no relevance three years ago. But of it makes you happy I’ll concede “plagiarist” without caring to look it up.

[Brett Bellmore]

He's also notorious for just making shit up, like the recent story about Strom Thurmond, or his claim to have attended an historically black college.

I don't think you can actually call it lying at this point, he seems to simply be unaware that his confabulations aren't true.

[Mr. Bumble]

You could have stopped at "he simply seems to be unaware".

[Magister]

Thurmond and Biden both voted for the 1991 Civil Rights Act.

Biden got his "first start" at an historically black college.
https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-biden-delaware/fact-check-u-s-president-joe-biden-did-not-claim-that-he-attended-delaware-state-university-at-november-rally-in-florida-idUSL1N31Z1SV

Following claims by others that he shook hands with people who weren't there (he gestured toward audience members) and so many others. Right wing smoke machine in operation.

[Mr. Bumble]

Why would it have been necessary for Biden to convince Thurmond (then a Republican) to vote for an act that passed 93-5?

[Magister]

So that Thurmond wouldn't be the sixth against it? Because he influenced a larger group of Senators that might have filibustered it?

The White House says Biden misspoke, that it was about reauthorizing the Voting Rights Act.

Biden is able to work with Republicans in Congress, and puts forth his bipartisanship credentials to promote his current agenda with Congress and to promote his reelection.

[Mr. Bumble]

...and so concludes another episode of Fractured Fairytales.

[Magister]

How did Kevin McCarthy do with the debt limit ceiling?

[Nige]

Wow, tone out the policy wonkery, nerds!

[DaveM]

Why yes, we do want a mannequin who has to be pumped up with drugs, given cue cards with step by step instructions on who to talk to and what to say, all while being led by the hand to keep from wandering, and whose words must be "clarified" (contradicted) by his own staff every time he speaks.

Sounds perfect as the leader of the free world.

[Martinned]

Leader of *what now*?

[shawn_dude]

We don't, but luckily I don't think DeSantis has much of a chance.

[Don Nico]

How?
By making US foreign policy and foreign relations a disaster. By creating an international security environment the most dangerous in 30 years.
Look around you and forget about bullshit red-blue arguments

[Sarcastr0]

I actually blame Russia and China for the international environment. Diplomatic faffing about can mitigate some follow-on effects, but cannot prevent what those countries are doing.

Unless you wanted us to not support Ukraine, in which case you are wrong on both moral and realpolitik angles.

[Mr. Bumble]

Seems we had no problem not supporting Ukraine when Russia took over Crimea during Obama’s presidency and Biden’s first “support” was to offer to fly Zelensky out of the country.

[Nige]

And?

[Don Nico]

So you just swallow the Biden desire for regime change in Russia, As as for china, maybe you thing Asians should not have the same aspirations as the America government. You have been in the Fed, bubble too long.
I won't preach to you about morals if you refrain from judging my morals, about which you really have no idea.

[Commenter_XY]

Don Nico, that is the scary part = Look around you and forget about bullshit red-blue arguments

[Krayt]

Reason’s overlay ads are particularly irritating the past few days, little autoplay videos you cannot pause or close, at least for 5 to 10 seconds.

It has the feel of a scam web site, or my phone has been hacked.

[Mr. Bumble]

Heads up: We are beginning to phase in a number of changes to the commenting system at Reason.com. Registered users can now see an enhanced profile page - accessible from the link near the top right of any page - which allows you to manage your muted commenter list and to see a complete listing of comments. Also, commenters are now able to edit comments during the first 5 minutes after posting. These initial changes also include new registration and password recovery forms. Stay tuned for bigger and better changes coming soon! Please send any trouble reports to [e-mail] and submit any feedback through our site feedback form.
Other than the "edit" feature has anything changed?

[Martinned]

Do people not have adblockers installed? I have never seen an ad on Reason.

[Brett Bellmore]

The overlay ads give me a bit of trouble on my phone, which of course loads the mobile site, and my old Ipad, which also annoyingly loads mobile sites. They're no trouble on a desktop, even if I'm not running an add blocker, but on the phone in particular, they cover up so much of the site as to render it all but unusable.

[John F. Carr]

I noticed that yesterday. That kind of obnoxious ad is capable of driving me away from a web site. I usually read with JavaScript disabled for a non-animated experience. JS is needed for some commenting features – replies and posting links. And the "flag comment" placebo button.

[jb]

Yes, the ads are suddenly much more annoying.

[shawn_dude]

The overlay ads came after it gained "the feel of a scam web site." The Volokh corner is but a tiny portion of the larger site and I don't think it redeems it much. But, as I have in the past, I'll note that the discourse in the comments coarsened dramatically after relocating to Reason from WaPo, largely as a result of adding the pre-existing Reason readership.

[santamonica811]

I was going to poast about this, but thought it would get buried in the Open thread. It is incredibly annoying. I used Firefox, on my home and work desktop PCs. And have ad blocker always enabled. [Tools>Settings>Privacy>Block Pop Ups]. Until a day or three ago, when I would open up a new VC thread, an ad would pop up, I'd wait a few seconds, "X" it out, and then the thread could be read at my leisure. Yesterday, THE SAME FUCKING AD would pop up over and over and over and over. About every 5-10 seconds. And it covered so much of my screen, it was too much bother to try and scroll the 2 visible lines that I could see without closing down the ad.

Seems to be much less awful today. Had it been a virus? Malfunction of the site??? Hopefully, whatever problem it was; it's gone for good. It made the website essentially unusable for me.

[gVOR08]

Cancel culture strikes again. "(G)lobal law firm" Latham & Watkins
is working for a non-profit suing the city over alleged violations of the rights of homeless people. Elon Musk is calling for tech companies to boycott the law firm.
https://sfstandard.com/2023/08/28/elon-musk-calls-for-boycott-of-law-firm-involved-in-homelessness-lawsuit/

[OtisAH]

Yeah, that’s just the reason he’s giving. There’s a real reason under that. My guesses are it’s something to do with his ex-/one of his baby mamas or they’re trying to collect money he owes them or one of their clients that he doesn’t feel like paying.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Burying the lede:

“U.S. Magistrate Judge Donna Ryu’s December injunction prohibited the city from enforcing specific laws and ordinances related to sitting, sleeping or lying on public property, sparking an outcry from city officials who alleged it would hamper the city’s progress on the issue.

“City Attorney David Chiu’s office appealed the ruling, arguing that it put the city in an “impossible situation” and that it conflicted with a previous ruling that required the city to clear encampments in the Tenderloin.”

San Francisco’s own officials think this homeless stuff is going too far.

And what a local newspaper distills from this is – “Musk Pounces!”

[shawn_dude]

The SF Standard is a rag. The city's paper of record is the Chronicle. Musk's only connection to the city appears to be "X" and only insofar as he hasn't finished driving it into the ground.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Musk's exhortation could cost Latham & Watkins some clients.

How many people who can afford Latham & Watkins rates are in the market for pointers from lying, reckless, autistic, bigot-hugging, hypocritical, vainglorious, company-wrecking, impulsive, antisocial boorish misfits?

[Magister]

Sadly, that's not an entirely rhetorical question.

[grb]

A while back we heard Florida had rejected the Advanced Placement African American studies course. Some specific objections have now been released and they’re what you would expect from the DeSantis administration. Examples:

1. According to the internal state comments, reviewers believed the A.P. course’s depiction of chattel slavery did not promote both sides of history. One lesson on how Europeans benefited from trading enslaved people “may lead to a viewpoint of an ‘oppressor vs. oppressed’ based solely on race or ethnicity.”

2. Florida officials repeatedly objected to the lack of “opposing viewpoints” on slavery. “There is no other perspective on slavery other than it was brutal. It was exploitative, it dehumanized Black people, it expropriated their labor and wealth for generations to come.”

3. In another case, reviewers said a unit about abolitionists that worked to free slaves was not “factually inclusive or balanced.” The curriculum should use the word “owners” rather than “enslavers”.

4. The document repeatedly noted the course should include perspectives from “the other side,” but provided no detail what that meant.

[Moderation4ever]

I wonder if the AP World History course has to show both sides of the Nazi's or of Pol Pot's rule in Cambodia?

[LawTalkingGuy]

If there is one thing I got plenty of from studying the Holocaust in college, it is the Nazi perspective. We studied their writings, their laws, the things they built, the things they did, and the things they themselves recorded demonstrating their deeds.

When we talk about doing both-sides in history education what we're really talking about is moral judgments or trying to pretend one side didn't actually say, believe, or do the things the historical record demonstrates that they said, believed, and did.

In a good history course you do get "both sides." It's just that the evidence from one side often demonstrates on its face how much that side sucked. I mean you could probably come to that conclusion about the Nazis only by studying Nazi sources.

The same is true about slavery and the Civil War in the US. Sure there are contemporary sources where someone tries to put a positive spin on the system or pretend that the war was over something else. But...there are plenty more sources that indicate how horrible it was and what led to the war. And indeed, even though we have narratives from the enslaved, we also could get the same information from only studying the sources produced by the enslavers themselves. "They're not confessing, they're bragging."

[John F. Carr]

I read Mussolini's autobiography without reading other histories of inter-war Italy. I knew enough general history to think the March on Rome wasn't as great as he thought. I wonder if a naive reader would side with Mussolini or the majority view of history?

[Don Nico]

LTG,
Clearly you did not go to university that was a "safe space." The result is that you are actually able to think about issues.
Today's students should be hungering for the same opportunity not the contrary.

[SRG2]

Effectively duplicated M4E's post...

[The Margrave of Azilia]

No link, but this is probably the article in question:

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/education/article278582149.html

The article includes this too-good-to-check talking point:

“,,,the Republican-led Legislature approved a new law, known as the “Stop W.O.K.E. Act,” which prohibited instruction that could prompt students to feel discomfort about a historical event because of their race, ethnicity, sex or national origin.”

No, the law doesn’t stop any students from feeling as guilty as she wants about slavery, Jim Crow, etc., and in fact requires that such topics be taught.

What the law actually says is:

“It shall constitute discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, or sex under this section to subject any student or employee to training or instruction that espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels such student or employee to believe any of the following concepts:…

“A person, by virtue of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin, bears personal responsibility for and must feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress because of actions, in which the person played no part, committed in the past by other members of the same race, color, national origin, or sex.”

https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/7/BillText/er/PDF

It forbids something already illegal under federal law: bullying students on the basis of their race, etc. by telling them to feel bad about stuff they didn’t do, on the grounds that the culprit was someone who looked like them.

So you can teach about crime, but the teacher can’t single out the black students and say, “look at all the crimes you people commit, you should be ashamed!”

And you can teach sex education, but you can't turn to the female students and say they should feel guilty for the whole thing about Eve and the apple.

It makes no difference whether the student actually *does* feel shame, etc., the important thing is the *intent* of the teacher to foment shame in innocent students for stuff they didn’t do.

[grb]

When DeSantis got his "Don't Say Gay" bill passed by a servile legislature, many on the Right objected to that appellation. Mere mention of the word wasn't being outlawed they insisted. Well a new case in neighboring Georgia shows how these anti-speech laws are applied.

An author, Marc Tyler Nobleman, wrote a book on the co-creator of Batman (Bill Finger). He's given a talk in schools across the country on the development of the character and history behind the scenes as the comic book's popularity grew.

Finger got little credit for his part in creating Batman and it was later thought there was no legal avenue establish his role. People believed no heir was left since Finger's only child had been gay and died in 1990. However there had been a brief marriage and a daughter. That was a small part of the story.

Nobleman mentioned these facts speaking to a group of fifth-graders and all hell broke loose. The principle passed him a hastily scrawled note demanding he cease and desist. He was later told he must drop the mention of the word "gay" and its part in the legal drama. The popular talks were then canceled. A letter went out from the school apologizing for the use of the word.

Sigh. Right-wingers are such sicko freaks.

https://ustoday.news/georgia-school-district-canceled-authors-batman-talks-after-he-said-gay/

[The Margrave of Azilia]

This is truly astonishing news: DeSantis' laws are having extraterritorial effect in Georgia.

DeSantis has grown mad with power. He's worse than the Joker, Catwoman and the Green Goblin put together.

[Bob from Ohio]

"new case in neighboring Georgia shows how" Florida laws operate.

Dumb even for you, grb.

[grb]

Bob from Ohio : “new case in neighboring Georgia shows how” Florida laws operate.

Except that’s not what I said. Quote :

“Well a new case in neighboring Georgia shows how these anti-speech laws are applied”

I started with a well-known specific from Florida and then made an observation about this general type of law. Given how clearly that’s stated, I have to wonder whether your point is based on stupidity or dishonesty. Given your obvious weaseling in trimming the quote, the latter is more likely.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

“Well a new case in neighboring Georgia shows how these anti-speech laws are applied”

From your article:

"Republicans in Georgia have introduced bills banning teaching and discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in the classroom, similar to a Florida law that was recently expanded to ban discussion of these topics for all grade levels. Efforts to pass such sweeping legislation, dubbed by critics “don’t say gay,” have so far been unsuccessful in Georgia."

[Nige]

'both sides of history'

This means there's a 'side' they want portrayed sympathetically.

[Frank Drackman]

Well it did get the Slaves out of those Shit-Hole African Countries.

[Brett Bellmore]

“There is no other perspective on slavery other than it was brutal. It was exploitative, it dehumanized Black people, it expropriated their labor and wealth for generations to come.”

Nobody comes off good if, instead of actually looking at what they said, you instead attribute to them what their opponents characterize them as having said. I'd like to see what the state's actual complaints were, not an interview with somebody opposed to the state's action.

[grb]

I think it pretty telling the DeSantis reviewer preferred the term "owner" to "enslaver". Who'd have ever guessed that?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Terminological changes are fairly rapid, it’s hard to keep up.

Now, of course, we know it would be offensive to talk about the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave *owners* sitting together at the table of brotherhood. But it’s hard to tell with the rapidly-changing usage.

[Moderation4ever]

I would point out that "owner" implies property and that many support property rights. This has been an issue since emancipation and rich southerners felt they had their property taken.

[Brett Bellmore]

I think that's a fair terminological point, actually: An "enslaver" would be somebody who "enslaves", which is to say, takes people who weren't already slaves and renders them slaves.

The "owner" isn't going around enslaving people, he 'just' owns people who are already slaves.

Yeah, I know that actually insisting on using accurate terminology is offensive, somehow. My request remains: What did the state actually say about the course? Their own words, not the interpretation of people defending the course.

[Martinned]

I agree, but I think the woke view is that slaves were constantly enslaved, i.e. that it's an ongoing process rather than a one-off.

[Nige]

But anyone who is a slave would not be a slave if someone wasn’t keeping them enslaved. ‘Slaver’ is the usual term for anyone who captures people and sells them as slaves. We talk of people being 'enslaved from birth' in a chattel system.

[Brett Bellmore]

I hate seeing the complexity of language crushed to a thin film of no distinctions, just to serve an ideological point. “Enslave”, by the normal rules of English, means to make somebody a slave, not to maintain that status.

And I can’t even see the context in which this arose, because essentially all the coverage here just regurgitates the AP course’ defenders position.

For instance, I find the Tampa Bay report, “Documents detail Florida’s objections to African American Studies course“; Naively, you’d expect to find out from reading it what the state’s objections were.

No such luck. The long article is full of references to “the documents”, the paper has them, the paper isn’t letting its readers see them. All you learn is how they’re characterized by people defending the course. If you want to read the state’s own words, you’re out of luck.

This CNN report is no better. They HAVE the objections, but won’t share them. We do get some tidbits, though, which is better than nothing:

“For example, the state objects to the inclusion of writing by Robin D.G. Kelley, a professor of American history at UCLA, who “warns that simply establishing safe spaces and renaming campus buildings does nothing to overthrow capitalism,” according to the document.”

Yeah, maybe the state doesn't think that overthrowing capitalism should be the objective of any of the classes in its schools?

Or,

“The state also said the course framework for the study of reparations – the argument to compensate Black Americans for slavery and other historical atrocities and oppressive acts – includes “no critical perspective or balancing opinion in this lesson.” ”

So, the lack of balancing opinion referenced above wasn’t in regards to the heinousness of slavery, but instead, to the desirability of reparations!

****

Now, it’s not unusual for news reports to carefully avoid letting readers see primary sources, but that’s not to say that it’s actually a good practice to follow. Actually, if you’re going to fill a news report full of links, why SHOULDN’T at least one of them lead to the primary sources?

Well, I suppose if you want to mislead people it might be a bad idea…

[Mr. Bumble]

Alien life forms like Nige still haven't mastered language.

[Sarcastr0]

Brett once again not picking up on subtext.

And then doing a TON of sweaty work to try and take issue with the list in the OP, without actually finding anything contradicting the eyepopping stuff in the OP.

[Don Nico]

It is amazing how you jump to the bit, whenever Brett posts and respond with an ad hominem rather than engaging even his most mild suggestions. What really did you find objectionable in that post, aside from its author?

See Nelson's post below, in which he addresses each of Bellmore's claims.

[Nige]

'by the normal rules of English,'

It is also used in reference to people who own slaves because they are, by the process of keeping them as slaves, enslaving them, or keeping them enslaved. There is nothing ideological about this, by the way, I don't care what term they use, you're just being wrong.

[Voize]

The long article is full of references to “the documents”, the paper has them, the paper isn’t letting its readers see them.

Not lazy readers anyway.

The Tampa Bay Times article says they got the material from American Oversight, and if you look on their site you can find the material (all 1858 pages) here.

[David Nieporent]

People have been complaining for years on non-ideological grounds that newspapers suck in not linking to original sources — they report on a lawsuit without providing a link to the complaint; they report on a study without providing a link to the study; they report on a poll without providing a link to the poll. This is some combination of (a) inertia — the media never did it, so why start now?; (b) laziness; and (c) the business judgment that the media doesn't want to send web surfers away from their own websites, but wants to keep them there as long as possible.

But as always, to Nutty Brett, it's a conspiracy in which they're trying to hide things from the public.

[Nelson]

“I hate seeing the complexity of language crushed to a thin film of no distinctions”

No you don’t. You actively engage in it. Hence “those who enslave others” aren’t “enslavers” because they only keep people as slaves, they don’t make free people into slaves (except for the children of their slaves, but that doesn’t count because … reasons).

“Yeah, maybe the state doesn’t think that overthrowing capitalism should be the objective of any of the classes in its schools?”

Except there is nothing that indicates that his opinions on capitalism are included in the course. In fact, it’s highly unlikely that they are. But if you have proof otherwise, let us know. Otherwise it’s just the FDOE objecting to other, unrelated opinions expressed by an author.

Dismissing information from knowledgeable people because the State objects to other, unrelated beliefs is the definition of totalitarianism (with disturbing parallels to communism in general and the Soviet Union specifically).

“So, the lack of balancing opinion referenced above wasn’t in regards to the heinousness of slavery, but instead, to the desirability of reparations!”

That’s wishful thinking on your part. There’s no evidence that your take is true, but there are literally quotes where they dislike framing slavery as an ‘oppressor vs. oppressed’ system based on race or ethnicity. Which is what slavery was.

They object to a lack of “balancing opinions” when they don’t like what’s being discussed. That’s the one commonality that runs through all of their objections.

“Well, I suppose if you want to mislead people it might be a bad idea…”

If you read the Tampa Bay Times article, you would have read about how the FDOE board demands primary sources when they disagree with what the lesson says, but oppose primary sources when they disagree with what the primary sources say. That seems … intentional.

[Nelson]

"An “enslaver” would be somebody who “enslaves”, which is to say, takes people who weren’t already slaves and renders them slaves."

An argument that requires limiting the definition of "enslaver" to apply exclusively to the person who initially placed another person into slavery, as opposed to anyone who continued that enslavement, is completely indefensible both morally and linguistically.

It's not like after they bought another human, that human had the option of not being a slave any more. Never mind the children of slaves who, by your definition, were enslaved by the slaveholder.

Apologism for slavery (as well of the Confederacy) is morally deficient.

"Yeah, I know that actually insisting on using accurate terminology is offensive, somehow."

Except you aren't insisting on accurate terminology. A person who holds another in slavery is an enslaver. Claiming otherwise is disingenuous at best.

"What did the state actually say about the course? Their own words, not the interpretation of people defending the course."

From The Tampa Bay Times:

"The state objected to the content, saying the instructional approach “may lead to a viewpoint of an ‘oppressor vs. oppressed’ based solely on race or ethnicity.”"

Teaching the historical reality of American slavery as 'oppressor vs. oppressed' based solely on race or ethnicity is called education.

If slavery in America isn't the definition of "'oppressor vs. oppressed' based solely on race or ethnicity", nothing is.

Claiming that it "might lead to a historical viewpoint of 'opressor vs. oppressed'" is vocalizing a concern that people might recognize that slavery in America was awful, that white people benefitted, and that black people suffered. Who would complain about such a lesson?

Bigots. And, apparently, Ron DeSantis' Department of Education. And possibly Brett. But mostly bigots.

[John F. Carr]

The world will be just fine without an African American studies AP course.

[Sarcastr0]

What a low bar.

The world would be fine without America in it as well. Keep on spinnin', etc.

If you don't think black history is worth studying in America, say so.

[Krayt]

That may be going a bit far. Russia and China on the march, skipping other periods in the last 100+ years since the US was big enough to matter on the world stage.

[Sarcastr0]

What do you think is the purpose of scholarship?

[Michael P]

Otter: Germans?
Boon: Forget it, he's rolling.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The world will be better as old conservatives continue to take their stale, ugly thinking to the grave and are replaced in the natural course and in our society and electorate by better, younger, more diverse Americans.

Right-wingers get to continue to whine and whimper about all of this progress as much as you like, of course, so long as they continue to comply with the rules established by better Americans.

[Frank Drackman]

Coach Sandusky again with the "Compliance" "Bettors" "Replacement", can you just go fuck a young boy up the ass or something? I know you're "Indisposed" at
https://www.cor.pa.gov/Facilities/StatePrisons/Pages/Greene.aspx
but there's gotta be some young dude you can rock out with your cock out with,

Frank

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Coach Sandusky again with the “Compliance” “Bettors” “Replacement”, can you just go fuck a young boy up the ass or something? I know you’re “Indisposed” at
https://www.cor.pa.gov/Facilities/StatePrisons/Pages/Greene.aspx
but there’s gotta be some young dude you can rock out with your cock out with,

Frank

These are your fans and your defenders, Prof. Volokh . . . and the reason Federalist Society members will continue to operate from the disrespected, disaffected, doomed fringe of modern American legal academia.

[Frank Drackman]

Na und?
that's German, if you didn't have a Second Rate/Back Water/Pubic Screw-el/Appalachian Ed-jew-ma-cation you'd know that.
Must have been nice when the big ish-yew was whether to run a 4-3 or 3-4 (more Lineman! Good Pash Rush! Fewer Linebackers! worse Pass Defense! Fewer Lineman! Worser Pass Rush! More Linebackers! Gooderer Pass Defense!)

Frank

[The Margrave of Azilia]

The only time in recent years when I heard someone give an empathetic, both-sides perspective on slavery was when the Disney corporation did a series about a witch who enslaved the inhabitants of an entire town – but the witch is still a somewhat sympathetic character because she’s mourning the death of her mechanical husband. One of the black women she enslaves keeps speaking up for the witch’s good intentions even after being liberated. Don’t blame me – *I* didn’t make up this plot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WandaVision

[Frank Drackman]

Wow, how did I miss that one? Sounds great!

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Finally, we have the material to put the nail in DeSatan’s coffin! We have a stake to run through the heart of his political career!

All that we need to do is put up these incriminating, proslavery documents on the Internet, so that citizens can read them and be shocked by them.

If I had any criticism to make of the Miami Herald, CNN, etc., it’s that they’re too *soft* on DeSatan by failing to provide these original documents in all their horror.

I mean, why rely on summaries when you can exhibit, for the world to see, the horrid spectacle of Florida officials saying slavery wasn’t so bad? Such sentiments are unacceptable outside the context of doing business with China.

Why conceal the original documents?

[Nelson]

You mean these?

https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23931110/fl-doe-23-0158-a-processed-clean.pdf

[The Margrave of Azilia]

There they are! Thank you, let me see what they have to say. I am willing to accept the possibility of Florida Republicans saying really dumb stuff, so if they do I won't be surprised. But I'm not going to rely on summaries.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I'm going through this lengthy document - can you point me to the juicy parts where they say slavery wasn't so bad?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Well, I read a decent chunk of it, including many parts which the Miami Herald mischaracterized. So far, nothing about slavery being not so bad. Feel free to offer other excerpts of a more chilling nature.

[apedad]

Jury Finds Defendants Blocked Access to Clinic in Northwest D.C

According to evidence presented at trial, Lauren Handy, 28, of Alexandria, Virginia; John Hinshaw, 67, of Levittown, New York; Heather Idoni, 61, of Linden, Michigan; William Goodman, 52, of Bronx, New York; and Herb Geraghty, 25, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; and others, engaged in a conspiracy to blockade the reproductive health care clinic to prevent it from providing and patients from receiving, reproductive health services.

The defendants each face up to a maximum penalty of 11 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $350,000.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/five-defendants-convicted-federal-civil-rights-conspiracy-and-freedom-access-clinic

In the hallway outside the courtroom (after the verdict), the defendants were allowed to briefly mingle with their supporters, several of whom were in tears.

In the hallway, Handy called out the name of the abortion doctor at the Northwest Washington clinic and said the doctor was “committing infanticide.”

Based on the convictions, she ordered Handy and the other co-defendants jailed until sentencing later this year. The defendants face up to 11 years in prison and a fine of up to $350,000. (Wapo)

Ouch....that "committing infanticide" post-verdict comment is NOT going to do Handy any favors.

[Brett Bellmore]

I have to say that, having seen some news photos of what they were doing, that it appears they actually WERE blocking the entrance. Which, yeah, should be a crime.

The shocking thing about this is not that they got convicted. it's the enormous magnitude of the sentence. Serious violent crimes often result in shorter sentences! People commit arson and violent assault, and get relative wrist slaps, if they do it in a more approved political cause.

[Sarcastr0]

Are you comparing maximum sentence allowed to actual sentences?

[Brett Bellmore]

Fair enough, at this point it's only possible they'll get more than the wrist slap.

So, how's the manhunt for the Jane's Revenge people going?

[not guilty]

Have these defendants even been sentenced, Brett?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The work of Martin A. Cannon, lawyer for the criminals, deserves recognition.

[Bob from Ohio]

"that “committing infanticide” post-verdict comment is NOT going to do Handy any favors."

The Clinton judge sent these dangerous criminals to jail immediately, they are getting hammered in any event.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Did they exhibit any evidence they could be trusted not to offend again if not jailed?

[Frank Drackman]

I don't think anyone's gonna trust you not to "Offend again" Coach.
At least not without undergoing umm,
some "Gender Reassignment Treatment"
and I wouldn't even trust you then.

Frank

[Frank Drackman]

blockade the "Reproductive Health Care Clinic"
OK, I guess it sounds better than "Abortatorium"

Frank "Arbeit Macht Frei!!!!!!"

[John F. Carr]

Under the sentencing guidelines a FACE conviction is included under “offenses involving individual rights”. Sentencing starts at 10-16 months “if the offense involved two or more participants.” The prosecution may well find enhancements.

[John F. Carr]

If Republicans are in charge of the Justice Department in 2025, I'm looking forward to prosecutions of all the people who conspired to violate civil rights by attempting to remove Trump from the ballot on the false grounds of "insurrection". Now that asking officials to do something they shouldn't is prosecutable.

The conspirators could go into the cell next to Trump. Raise money with a pay-to-view livestream of the interaction:

"Political prosecution!"
"Political persecution!"
"Witch hunt!"
"Partisan politics!"
"Nobody ever went to jail for this before!"
"Nobody ever went to jail for this before!"

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

As of this morning, I no longer can state that the disaffected right-wing content published at this blog is the biggest load of bull I have ever seen.

(I had forgotten this show was from Kokomo.)

[Moderation4ever]

I for one would not want to use the 14th amendment to remove Trump from the ballot. On the other hand, a test case would answer the question if the 14th amendment can really be used to keep a candidate off the ballot and would also likely determine if the January 6th event was an insurrection or something less.

[Magister]

What have they done, and why do you think it's illegal? Trump could legally bring court challenges, and did; they failed to affect the election outcome in 2020, so he went the insurrection route. If there are people who lose court challenges to Trump being on the ballot and then try to use fraud or violence to alter the ballot, then they should be prosecuted.

That Trump and other Republicans plan to use any power they are granted for retribution is a good reason not to vote for Republicans.

[Brett Bellmore]

"so he went the insurrection route."

Why, then, has he never been charged with insurrection, to this day? Is the DOJ trying to spare his feelings, maybe?

I think it's easy, particularly if you don't like Trump, to just assume that he's guilty of insurrection. It's a LOT harder to make a legal case that he is.

[Sarcastr0]

You keep hiding behind the criminal standard of proof in normal conversations about what Trump did.

That's a transparent dodge.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, you keep evading the criminal standard of proof, while accusing him of being guilty of something which is, after all, a crime. A crime which statutorily carries the penalty of disqualification from office, neatly acting as enabling legislation for Section 3.

If you want to impose upon him the legal consequences of committing a crime, you can damned well try him for it, and convict him. Or bugger off.

[Nige]

'No, you keep evading the criminal standard of proof'

Tell us more about the Biden Crime Family.

[Sarcastr0]

You can call someone a thief, and be right, even if they have not been convicted for larceny.

So yeah, your hiding behind the lack of criminal charges is nonsense.

[Don Nico]

C'mon.
If you want to apply the criminal penalties, then it would be reasonable to expect at least a charge being filed by a competent authority.
So, your hiding behind what individuals want to call Trump is nonsense.

[not guilty]

Insurrection or rebellion under the applicable criminal statute (18 U.S.C. § 2383) and under the Fourteenth Amendment, § 3 are different critters. The statute does not require that the accused have previously taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States. Congress can remove the Fourteenth Amendment disability, but not the criminal penalties. Conviction under the statute requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt; the Fourteenth Amendment is silent as to the applicable standard of proof. Indictment under the statute can only be by indictment or presentment of a grand jury. No such prerequisite as to a charging instrument attends § 3. Trial by jury is available under the statute, but not necessarily under § 3.

Don´t conflate the two.

[Nige]

'to just assume that he’s guilty of insurrection'

Yes, because he tried to overturn the election, which makes him an anti-democratic, authoritarian crook. 'Insurrectionist' actually vaguely romanticises what he tried to do.

[Magister]

Al Capone - murdered people, but only convicted of tax evasion. I'm OK calling Capone a murderer. It's a lot harder to make a legal case, especially in the presence of witness intimidation, jury tampering, crime family loyalty and such.

Whether a legal case would be easy, the evidence is abundant that Trump went the insurrection route. I'll also call Trump a rapist, although the jury for the E. Jean Carroll case didn't conclude that he committed what New York Penal Law calls rape but what they did find, other states and most people would call rape.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

14A section 3 clearly adds a qualification for office that all election officials in this country are required to uphold. You really can't see a distinction between advocating for election officials to uphold the constitution, and what Trump and his minions did? I think you are being disingenuous.

[Brett Bellmore]

Except that "all election officials in this country" have never before upheld it that way, not in the case of the Confederates, not in the case of Victor Berger.

People got to run for office, voters got to vote for them, the votes got counted, if they got the most votes they won. Only at the point where Congress was considering seating somebody, was Section 3 ever applied.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

"Only at the point where Congress was considering seating somebody, was Section 3 ever applied."

Let's presume for a moment that, for once, you're actually telling the whole truth of something:

So what? That isn't the appropriate time to be deciding whether someone allegedly elected President should or should not be disqualified.

Would you be making this argument about a 13-year old who wanted to be President? No, you fucking would not.

[John F. Carr]

We've been talking about people running for president from prison. Political prisoner and villain Igor Strelkov is running for president against the overly kind, gullible Putin. He argues that he has more military experience than Putin and he is not afraid to upset the oligarchs by moving to a war economy.

As tempting as it is to say "let them fight" or "whoever wins, we all lose," I would rather have Putin than Strelkov or the late Prigozhin in charge of Russia's nuclear weapons.

[shawn_dude]

The Russian oligarchs are largely just distributed bank accounts for Putin. Harming the oligarchs' bank accounts harms Putin, so that's not gonna happen if he can help it. Rather, Strelkov is doing Putin a favor by making him seem more reasonable. Evidence: he's still alive. He hasn't fallen out of a hotel window or the sky yet.

[Jerry B.]

“We’ve been talking about people running for president from prison.”

Eugene Debs comes to mind

[Jmaie]

"U.S. says Russia has made 'shameful' moves toward new North Korea arms deals"

https://www.npr.org/2023/08/30/1196835209/russia-north-korea-arms-deal-us-intelligence

I'm curious who the target audience is for this type of statement. Seems unlikely either Russia or the North Koreans care about our opinion on such things...

[Don Nico]

The audience for the propaganda is the US public that the Administration wants to support continuing a proxy war with Russia.
The arguments of the US about North Korean nukes and delivery vehicles are irrelevant to what will happen between Mr Kim and Mr Putin and Mr Kim and Mr Xi.
The Korean peninsular will not be denuclearized any time in the foreseeable future. Any US official who actually thinks that is not competent to hold office.
More importantly, many in South Korea are actively in favor of South Korea having its own nuclear weapon.

[Sarcastr0]

Ukrane is not a proxy war; quit with the RT talking points.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

A proxy war is an armed conflict between two states or non-state actors, one or both of which act at the instigation or on behalf of other parties that are not directly involved in the hostilities.[1] In order for a conflict to be considered a proxy war, there must be a direct, long-term relationship between external actors and the belligerents involved.[2] The aforementioned relationship usually takes the form of funding, military training, arms, or other forms of material assistance which assist a belligerent party in sustaining its war effort.[2]

lol moron

[Nige]

It's a poxy war, and that pox.... is Putin.

[Don Nico]

It has every aspect of a proxy war fueld by Biden's desire for regime change in Russia.. Every person I spoke with at a large international meeting in Europe last week sees it that way.
You blindness does not change that fact.

[Sarcastr0]

Appeal to unnamed authority. For a position you hold. One that has the US lying to it's people. A position that is *identical* to Russia state media propaganda. Fuck yeah.

I don't believe you. I think you are lying. For some reason.

No sign before the invasion Biden wanted regime change in Russia.

Europe agreed the invasion of Ukraine deserved international pushback; the world does not revolve around the US.

You support Russia's success in a horrible thing that Russia is doing. That is an immoral position.

[Sarcastr0]

You may not be lying; you may be deceived. But you want to believe that Russia is a victim and the US is at fault. Which is naked Russian propaganda to anyone with a bot of critical thinking.

[Frank Drackman]

Roosh-a's merely trying to bring back a "Rebellious Republic"
like our own Country did, with resulting Death, Destruction, and umm the other one (HT R. Perry)
Tell me in one sentence (less than average Amurican Attention Span actually) why I should give a shit (or an Amurican Life or 1$) about Fucking You-Crane

Frank

[Don Nico]

I did not say Russia is a victim.
I did say it has an understandable grievance, which you might understand if you actually tried.

[Nige]

It is nothing remotely like a proxy war. It renders the term meaningless to apply it here.

[Don Nico]

I did not appeal top an authority-your typical bad faith argument technique. I cited a week of conversation that I had in Europe; you've had no such.
You accuse me of lying: you are wrong. I accused you of political blindness and bad faith.
No sign? except that he said it publicly and then his handlers had to "walk back" the "gaffe."
Where do you get that I support Russia? Again your typical bad-faith reductionism.
I unlike you try to understand where and how all parties are motivated. That is what mature adults and competent politicians should do. Instead we have Mr. Biden pushing the conflict ever closer to catastrophe.

[David Nieporent]

It has every aspect of a proxy war fueld by Biden’s desire for regime change in Russia.

It has no aspect of a proxy war, and you have your causality backwards: Biden's desire for regime change in Russia — shared by the rest of the West — is caused by Russia's military aggression.

Every person I spoke with at a large international meeting in Europe last week sees it that way.

Well, with that scientific approach, how can it be wrong?

[Commenter_XY]

Open your eyes! = Ukraine is not a proxy war; quit with the RT talking points.

[Mr. Bumble]

How is that temporary inflation treating you?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12465913/PCE-price-index-inflation-July.html

[BravoCharlieDelta]

https://amgreatness.com/2023/08/31/report-hunter-bidens-firm-and-vice-president-bidens-office-exchanged-over-1000-emails/

Report: Hunter Biden’s Firm and Vice President Biden’s Office Exchanged Over 1,000 Emails

1000 emails? That's a lot of recipes!

[David Nieporent]

Some people — unlike Trump — love their children! And communicate with them!

[BravoCharlieDelta]

I get it that you pathologically carry water and bootlick, but the article said "Hunter Biden's Firm" and not "Hunter Biden".

What does Federal Boot taste like? Dog shit and leather? Or just dog shit?

[David Nieporent]

Um, SkyNet hasn’t become self-aware yet; people, not “firms,” send and receive emails.

I do like how the sole example that your link cites of this nefarious conduct is that someone wanted to go on a free, public tour of the White House. With that kind of corruption,¹ I don’t know how they don’t just send Biden to jail right now.

¹Note that the article doesn’t even say that the person got the tickets! He just asked for them! And this was the worst thing they could find!

(EDIT: The underlying NYPost story says that he did get the tour tickets.)

[David Nieporent]

So, going to the underlying NYPost story — American Greatness, like most right-wing media, doesn't even pretend to do journalism; it just plagiarizes other sources — they do provide a few more examples:

One email contains an invitation forwarded to the White House for then-Vice President Joe Biden to attend an event at the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations, and another invites then-second lady Jill Biden to participate in a World Food Program campaign.

Oh. My. God. Jill Biden was invited to appear at a charitable event! This is Watergate all over again!

[Frank Drackman]

How dare you!
She's "Dr" ("" intended)
Jill Biden, World Renowned Expert in, umm nothing, unless you consider Swooping in to catch a Pre-Parkinsonian Joe on the Rebound....
and I realize he was in mourning for his Cat, his Kitchen, his first wife he murdered, I mean, umm, mourned, but you'd think he'd have found something a little umm, more
"Upscale"

Frank

[Frank Drackman]

Most don’t actually, I mean, I love my successful daughters, both with engineering degrees from Ga Tech, Military Pilots, but not like I “communicate” with them that much, I mean I get a text on my birthday, or if they’re in the area, not like I’m discussing their personal (encouraged them to go the Gay-Way without success) day to day goings-ons..

Frank “Clay Kershaw?? Decent Dude! I’d go out with him!”*

* before he got married (not to my daughter (dammit!)

[Davedave]

It's not the zinger you think that your children don't want to talk to you.

[J.L.Michelson]

There has been much ado, both above and on this site generally, about Section 3 of the 14th Amendment insofar as it could disqualify Donald Trump from the presidency. After reading the article that launched 1,000 ships ("The Sweep and Force of Section 3" by William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen), however, I strongly suspect that the authors are playing coy and baiting certain constituencies with anti-Trump catnip. Are we 100% sure that Baude and Paulsen aren't pulling one over on the anti-Trump intelligentsia?

[Voize]

The only thing I am 100% sure of is that I'm not 100% sure of anything.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Captain Kirk once destroyed a computer with that paradox.

[Frank Drackman]

Star Trek TOS reference! Well Played!
but wait, wasn't episode like that?
of course they weren't, so I'm guessing you mean
The Return of the Archons" is the twenty-first episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek. Written by Boris Sobelman (based on a story by Gene Roddenberry), and directed by Joseph Pevney, it first aired on February 9, 1967.
In the episode, the crew of the Enterprise visit a seemingly peaceful planet whose inhabitants are "of the Body", controlled by an unseen ruler, and enjoy a night of violence during "Festival".

[Sarcastr0]

For the second month in a row, PCE inflation stayed below 3%:

Both core and headline PCE came in at 2.6% on a month-over-month basis. On a year-over-year basis, headline PCE was 3.3% and core inflation was 4.2%.

Core PCE, which is the Fed's favored measure, shows every sign of being well under 3% on a steady basis. It's at 2.9% over the past three months. If this holds up, the Fed's inflation fighting job is done.

[Frank Drackman]

Wow! Bidenomics is really doing well!
and they didn't have to raise Interest rates!!!!! (did they? I don't pay Interest, there is this Invention called "Cash") and those Hawaiian Yahoos got what? an extra $700?? Decent
Bucks!
And the Veteran's maimed in Barry Hussein Osama/Parkinsonian Joes's Wars Disability Pensions go up! Yay!!!!
Seriously, if Fidel was still alive, he'd have you executed for insulting his name,

Frank "Sar-Castro? Fuck-Castro!"

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

THE VOLOKH CONSPIRACY

This white, male,
conservative blog
has operated for
no more than

THIRTEEN (13)

days without publishing
a vile racial slur; it has
published racial slurs
on at least

TWENTY-SEVEN (27)

different occasions (so far)
during 2023 (that’s at least
27 different discussions,
not 27 racial slurs; many
of those discussions
featured multiple racial slurs).

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

Amid this ugly right-wing intolerance and stale conservative thinking, here is something worthwhile.

(This one is good, too.)

[Frank Drackman]

Do your balls get tired typing that same post over and over??

[Michael P]

Why is the left always so totalitarian?

https://legalinsurrection.com/2023/08/iranian-immigrant-law-student-encounters-americas-own-revolutionary-guard/

[David Nieporent]

Why is the right so gullible? Here's what happened: some nitwit law student said some stupid, uninformed stuff on Fox in support of Trump. Some nitwit liberal tweeted some stupid stuff back.

This non-story did not deserve 15 seconds of discussion.

[Nige]

Voltage!

(It's contagious.)