Monday Open Thread

Comments

[AmosArch]

So…

People pissed and moaned about how the Church is stodgy and strict mean and unaccepting

The Church hears this and though it mostly maintains its public opposition to homosexuality lightens up a bit privately and allows some LGDFKLDLOFJLDFK men into the priesthood as a haven for them.

A few of these LFDKJFDLDFKKLDFLKKLDF men take advantage of this generosity

The Church still relentlessly attacked for its strictness and uncompromising views doesn’t bring the hammer down like they should and their doctrine insists instead giving the LGDKFLKDFJMLDLFJLDFite offenders additional chances in the spirit of enlightened forgiveness and tolerance.

The nineties arrive and everybody is suddenly hyperaware and cares about child sex abuse

The Church is now a villain for tolerating and giving chances to these LLDFKDJFDLKFVKLDJMLKFLKFLD men. Lectured by the same group zeitgeist that was whipping the hides off their children and allowing child nudie mags to freely circulate just a couple decades prior.

People are offered sizeable amounts of money to make an accusation and of course there are tons. With public sentiment as it is there is no way to fight it so they largely settle which of course automatically means in the public’s eye that all the accusations are true.

Its all the Church’s fault. But at the same time they’re still evil for not accepting LGDFDKFDLFDL people, which they just got into trouble for accepting.

While the Church’s rep took a nosedive for this the LFDFDKLFKILDFJDFLDKLFDF community rep is somehow completely unaffected. Not only unaffected it has seemingly exploded upward. In this LGDFKLDLFKDKLFLKFD Church scandal It becomes an unspoken rule that nobody thinks too much about the LGDFKFLDLFD part and focuses entirely on the Church parrt.

Nobody questions too closely why its overwhelmingly LDFDFKLDLFJDLFLKDF men involved and how the cynical philosophy among the LFDFDFKLFDkFLKF community at the time may have been played a role. If it does come up its usually waved away with a pat answer like ‘Evil homophobic society’ somehow did it. Even the rampant child sex abuse that has nothing to do with the Church in the LFDKLDFKIDKLFKLDLFKLF community like Milk’s paramour and the fact that peds were once literally an official part of the LKFDLKDLFKLKDFDL community until they became politically inconvenient is completely papered over and forgotten by the crowd that cries ‘ACCOUNTABILITY FOR EVERYTHING NO EXCEPTIONS’ for others.

They’re all blameless heroes. Its all good! In fact we should expose more children to LFDKDLFKLDLFDLFLDF in an overtly sexual context because it went so well the first time!

Funny world

[Krychek_2]

The Catholic clergy has always been disproportionately gay, and official acceptance has nothing to do with it. There's an old joke that the world's oldest and most prestigious organization of gay Christians is the College of Cardinals. And if you spend a few minutes thinking through why that is, the answer is obvious: If you are going to require celibacy as part of the job description, you're going to get people who aren't interested in traditional marital relationships. In an era in which not getting married was considered suspicious, it's the perfect place for gay people to not have to explain why they're still single at age 50.

And if you look at other denominations, you find that child sexual abuse has been just as problematic there. The Southern Baptists are currently the defendants in multiple lawsuits over it. The difference is that with the Baptists, who have married clergy, it's primarily heterosexual child sexual abuse. A Baptist pastor in Iowa was just sent to prison for giving a sexually transmitted disease to a four year old girl.

The problem isn't the sexual orientations of the people involved. The problem is that sexual predators of either orientation are going to be drawn to places where they have access to children. Since that's a given, there need to be checks in place that make it more difficult for sexual abuse to take place.

The Boy Scouts now have a policy that a scout leader may not have any one-on-one interactions with boys. There must be a second adult present at all times. Some schools are now requiring teachers leave the door open when they are talking to individual students. The Catholic church has implemented similar procedures in which a single adult is not going to have private, individual contact with a child. Will that stop it 100%? Of course not. But it will do more to reduce the problem than idiotic posts here claiming that the problem is church acceptance of homosexuality.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Not all the denominations -- Protestants range from the top-down authoritarian model of the Catholics (and the Anglicans essentially *are* Catholic) to the Puritan model of the minister serving at the pleasure of his congregation which votes each year to keep or fire him.

There is very little sexual abuse in the Puritan model because (a) the minister isn't given the deference of a Priest and hence doesn't have the opportunity and (b) there is no one inclined to cover up his misdeeds. No, we fire the SOB and as the entire congregation voted to do so, it knows why he was fired. I know of a case where the minister was having an affair with the choir director -- both were married but not to each other -- we fired him and that was the end of him being a minister, he went on to sell life insurance.

[Nige]

‘lightens up a bit privately and allows’

Horseshit. There’s no test for homosexuality upon entering the priesthood. Repressed homosexual men took the one route open to them to reconcile their sin with a life of piety through serving God. The whole thing turns out to be corrupt and rotten to the core, they turned rotten with it and abused and exploited the trust and the power they had. Straight priests did the same. The LGTBQ community had nothing to do with any of it.

‘Its all the Church’s fault’

Yes. It’s not even debatable. Wrtiting a screed in a tone of pure whining whingery changes nothing. You’re basically mad that the abuse scandals aren’t being put to their proper use: as ammunition for homophobes. The usual first concern for the ‘protectors of children.’

[Allutz]

" And if you spend a few minutes thinking through why that is, the answer is obvious: If you are going to require celibacy as part of the job description, you’re going to get people who aren’t interested in traditional marital relationships."

Weird how public school teachers blow priests out of the water in the pedophile department despite being allowed to marry.

[Kazinski]

Interesting story about Canada's Catholic Churches after claims that mass graves were found at several church schools for indigenous children like this BBC report:
"An indigenous nation in Canada says it has found 751 unmarked graves at the site of a former residential school in Saskatchewan.

The Cowessess First Nation said the discovery was "the most significantly substantial to date in Canada".

It comes weeks after the remains of 215 children were found at a similar residential school in British Columbia.

"This is not a mass grave site. These are unmarked graves," said Cowessess Chief Cadmus Delorme.

The Marieval Indian Residential School was operated by the Roman Catholic Church from 1899 to the 1980s, when the First Nation took over operations, in the area where Cowessess is now located in southeastern Saskatchewan. It is not yet clear if all of the remains are linked to the school."

Despite claiming actual bodies were found, it was lidar scans and nobody actually looked before making the wild claims.

When they actually dug up the ground no bodies were found. Just rocks.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12466913/mass-grave-indigenous-children-Canada-excavation-dig-catholic.html

In the meantime 68 churches were burned down in apparent retaliation, and encouraged by a BC "human rights" commissioner:
"Harsha Walia, the executive director of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association responded to reports of fires at indigenous Catholic parishes with a tweet on June 30 that read "burn it all down". Some members of the First Nations community criticized her but the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs expressed support for her without mentioning the controversial tweet.[28] She resigned as executive director of the BC Civil Liberties Association over the issue on July 16, 2021". (From Wikipedia)

[Magister]

The idea that there was pressure on the Catholic Church to be more tolerant of gays and that it actually had effect, all before the 1990s, is crazy enough to enter Dr. Ed 2 territory. I had initially assumed you were talking about Pope Francis and his more tolerant comments on gays, but those only date back ten years.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Bullshyte -- look at St. John's Seminary, Class of 1960.

NAMBLA was in both the Catholic Churches and the Boy Scouts in the 1970s -- and the Scouts didn't have the political power to cover it up. The Catholic Church did -- and did so on the best of Christian intent, hate the sin, love the sinner.

[Sarcastr0]

Nambla was not like a powerful organization. What is meant by it was *in* the Boy Scouts?

Getting QAnon vibes.

[Nige]

'and did so on the best of Christian intent'

In absolutely no fucking way whatsoever was that the intent.

[Magister]

What are you calling "bullshyte"? You agree that there were gays in the Catholic Church many decades ago, before there was any pressure to be more tolerant of gays.

If you're just offended that the original poster's crazy made up claim about history was attributed to you, it's because you post crazy claims about made up history all the time, not because you did or would post this particular one. If it makes you feel better, I will stipulate that Dr. Ed 2's crazy made up history is entirely different from AmosArch's crazy made up history.

[Dr. Ed 2]

There is the less (or more) politically charged example of former Mass Senate President Stan Rothman's Boytoy "Husband" who was sexually assaulting large numbers of aides and such with impunity because they were terrified of being accused of homophobia.

[Magister]

Maybe you didn’t notice before, but I had suggested that you actually Google things before you post them.

This one would have been made a little difficult, since the Senate President in question was Stan Rosenberg, not Rothman (or is it iceberg, Rosenberg, what’s the difference?). But the four men assaulted were less terrified of being accused of homophobia, and more in fear of his influence through Rosenberg, the usual story with sexual predators.

All of the men said they felt powerless to report the incidents because they feared alienating Rosenberg, with whom they believe Hefner has tremendous influence. Reporting Hefner’s behavior to Rosenberg or the authorities was a career-threatening prospect, they said.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/11/30/four-men-allege-sexual-misconduct-senate-president-husband/40ABgRdciNITE1kAYrWsUN/story.html

One victim does mention a concern about being seen as homophobic, but it seems minor compared to not wanting to harm Rosenberg or lose his effectiveness as a lobbyist.

[Dr. Ed 2]

So I scrambled his last name -- I've actually met the man. He reminded me of a rooster.

And you do understand that not all the details make it to Google. There were more than four victims.

[Magister]

The impunity came from Rosenberg's clout; you really believe that if Hefner and his husband were nobodies, that he would have gotten away with it because people would be afraid of being thought homophobic?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Bigotry (such as gay-bashing) cloaked in old-timey superstition is nothing different or better than old-fashioned bigotry, and the gullible losers who wallow in that disgusting mix are just deplorable, obsolete bigots.

Other than that, though, great comment!

[Drewski]

You know you're not supposed to comment if you aren't at least 13 years old, which is also the age when it stops feeling clever to smash random keys. I realize yesterday was Labor Day but I do hope you spend more time paying attention in class instead of pretending to be an adult online.

[santamonica811]

Put aside the legal arguments for or against disqualifying Trump from a state's ballot. (Interesting subject, but that's for [many?] other thread[s].)

I'm interested, here, only, in what the timing would or should be. In other words, regardless of if you're a pro-Trump supporter with TDS who believes that he's always the victim here, or, if you're an anti-Trump zealot who thinks he's totally corrupt, all the time, what would be the best timing for these DQ suits to be brought and to be decided? Only asking about the pluses and minuses of the different timing options . . . I DON'T CARE (in this thread) if you think doing it is a terrible, or a bad, or an uncertain, or a great, idea.

Some possibilities:
a. As quickly as possible. Advantage: Voters would know in advance of each state's primary if Trump is a viable candidate. Disadvantage: Possible big problem with standing. And, maybe, even if Trump can legally be DQ'd from becoming president, he can still be on all the ballots in the Rep primaries. And maybe even on all the state ballots in the general.

b. Only after Trump gets the official nomination at the Rep. Convention. Advantage: No wasted legal effort to DQ someone who (theoretically) would not have won his party's nomination. Disadvantage: You've deprived voters of critically-important information in all the primaries.

c. Only after Trump has won enough delegates in primaries to sew up the nomination, which would obviously be well ahead of the actual Convention.
Advantage: Enough time for the Republican party to nominate someone else at the convention, if it turns out that Trump would be DQ's from enough states' ballots so that he could not realistically become president. Disadvantage: Again, all the voters in the early primaries are disenfranchised, to at least some large extent.

d. After the election, but before Congress meets to certify the election: Advantage: I don't see one. Disadvantage: Almost too many to list. Completely disenfranchisement of all Trump voters. Large likelihood of civil unrest. Massive distrust, from Dem's and Rep's, of the political system.

e. Only when Congress meets to certify. Advantage: Again, I don't see any, other than the possibility that this is the only time/place that would pass Constitutional muster. Disadvantage: Even more outrage than with "D."

f. Some other timing???

[Kazinski]

Well here's the thing about d and e, assuming Trump wins which he's got a great shot at*, that means the election goes to the House and they vote by state.

But you also don't cover maybe the biggest question, by what mechanism does Congress disqualify Trump, I doubt its going to get 50% of the vote in the House and the Senate might flip too.

If Trump wins the presidential election there is virtually no scenario he doesn't take office.

* This weeks YouGov poll has it 43-42 Trump. But that's not the most interesting thing, they also ask:
Do you want Biden to run again: 63-22 No
Do you want Trump to run again 57-31 No

So the vast majority of voters don't want either candidate running.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Trump voters will write him in.
Denying him then would start a civil war.

[Magister]

There won't be a civil war, but it is telling that Dr. Ed 2 doesn't specify Trump actually winning more votes as a condition for the imagined civil war.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Look, just have a special federal court to decide Sec. 3 claims. Two judges, one appointed by the Pres, the other by the Supreme Court.

Let any citizen challenge a politician’s qualifications under Sec. 3. To provide standing, give the plaintiff an informer’s fee if his case succeeds (and make him pay a loser-pays fee if his case fails).

Make this the exclusive method of deciding Sec. 3 issues.

When they’re not doing Sec. 3 cases, put the judges on regular judge-ey duty, with regular cases. Don’t let them sit idle and pick up their salaries.

Must I think of *everything*?

[Mr. Bumble]

So who breaks the tie in what would 100% split decisions?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Defendant wins.

[Dr. Ed 2]

One of the two judges picked by the opposing candidate and this is supposed to be fair?

[Kazinski]

Could be done that way, if and only if Congress uses its section 5 powers to do so.

But they haven't. They passed a criminal statute that requires conviction before disqualification.

Then of course the next thing to be decided is whether section 3 if properly invoked actually disqualifies an insurrectionist from the presidency.

It is curious that Section 3 itself uses two different terms to describe what officers can be disqualified and what office they can be disqualified from:
"SECTION 3
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold
any office, civil or military, UNDER the United States, or
under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a
member of Congress, or as an officer OF the United States..."

I can't guess what the Supreme Court would do, but there is an awfully good argument that first specifying a list of specific offices which are the only federal elective offices except President and VP is a good indication they are not included.

Then using the term "OR hold any office under the United States" as an additional excluded set of offices, in the same paragraph as listing the people who could be excluded as swearing an oath as an officer OF the United States."

I can't believe the choice of different words in tis meaningless, especially combined with the very noticeable lack of including VP and President in the otherwise complete list of Federal elective offices.

A textualist court will use a lot more words arguing that issue than I can muster.

[not guilty]

As I have stated before, insurrection or rebellion under the applicable criminal statute (18 U.S.C. § 2383) and under the Fourteenth Amendment, § 3 are different animals. The statute is one of general applicability and 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 imposed pursuant to § 2383. Conviction under the statute requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt; the Fourteenth Amendment is silent as to the applicable standard of proof.

A person charged with violating § 2383 is entitled to the full panoply of procedural safeguards afforded to criminal defendants. The Fourteenth Amendment, § 3 does not guarantee such rights as finding of an indictment or presentment by a grand jury, trial by jury, and venue in the state and district where the offending conduct occurred. Disqualification under § 3 would not bar a subsequent criminal prosecution by reason of double jeopardy.

Pursuant to the Fourteenth Amendment, § 5, Congress could require a criminal conviction as a prerequisite to disqualification under § 3, but to date it has not done so.

[Kazinski]

I’ve asked for some authority on that, since it seems to be your standard of proof.

The only authorities I have is In Re Griffen, where chief Justice Chase, riding circuit, ruled that Section 3 was not self executing, and required a conviction to be exercised.

And the case citing Griffen by the Arizona Supreme court 2 years ago in Gosar, et, al, and the court concluded a federal conviction was required citing 18 U.S.C. § 2383, but declaring they weren’t reaching a decision on whether there were any other federal criminal statutes where conviction would also trigger disqualification.

What do you got that’s contrary to those published decisions?

In any case, as I said above, I think the SC would rule based on a close but fairly plain reading of Section 3 that even were Trump convicted of a qualifying offense he would be barred from running for Congress, being a cabinet official, elector, but could not be disqualified as President or VP.

[Sarcastr0]

I mean, Prof. Baude did a whole article laying out the proof you claim to need. I haven't managed to read all of it, but dude goes through some lengthy history.

[Mr. Bumble]

An article is not proof of anything, just Baude's opinion.

[Sarcastr0]

It actually has a bunch of facts and research in it.

Might still be wrong but you will need to read it and deal with its factual claims before you dismiss it.

But you are lazy.

[Kazinski]

Right, you have a law review article on your side, that's hardly a published decision, its at most a potential amicus brief.

I just have a contemporaneous decision by the Chief Justice of the United States and a recent decision by the Arizona Supreme court.

[not guilty]

"I just have a contemporaneous decision by the Chief Justice of the United States and a recent decision by the Arizona Supreme court."

As I have just explained, you have jack shit.

[Sarcastr0]

I'm not an originalist, so this is not my problem.

But that massive article provides a shitload of originalist evidence that for any genuine originalist needs to be carefully looked at, not discarded in favor of a judicial opinion.

Using originalism as a sword but not a shield means you're not an originalist, just a shitty legal realist, but cowardly about it.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Also, Griffen was not a Supreme Court decision, it was CJ Chase deciding in circuit, if that matters. And as has been mentioned, Baude and Paulsen deal with that opinion in very great depth. You might want to read it, instead of just dismissing it out of hand.

[not guilty]

Kazinski, when discussing legal authorities, it is simple good manners to provide citations therefor.

Let me ask a yes or no question. Have you actually read In re Griffin, 11 F. Cas. 7 (C.C.D.Va. 1869)? (Not Griffen, BTW.) That decision nowhere discusses whether a criminal conviction is a prerequisite to disqualification under the Fourteenth Amendment, § 3. https://law.resource.org/pub/us/case/reporter/F.Cas/0011.f.cas/0011.f.cas.0007.pdf

Caesar Griffin was tried by a jury in Rock Bridge County, Virginia, convicted of assault with intent to kill and sentenced to imprisonment. He sued in federal court for a writ of habeas corpus, claiming that at the time of his trial, the state court judge Hugh W. Sheffey was disqualified from holding office by the Fourteenth Amendment, § 3. There was no dispute that Judge Sheffey was a state officer, nor that he was one of the persons to
whom the prohibition to hold office pronounced by the amendment applied. Most of the argument of counsel focused on whether Judge Sheffey was acting as a de facto judge, such that Griffin's conviction was valid. Justice Chase, sitting as circuit judge, decided the case on other grounds. He opined:

The question to be considered, therefore, is whether upon a sound construction of the amendment, it must be regarded as operating directly, without any intermediate proceeding whatever, upon all persons within the category of prohibition, and as depriving them at once, and absolutely, of all official authority and power.
* * *
The proposition maintained in behalf of the petitioner, is, that this prohibition, instantly, on the day of its promulgation, vacated all offices held by persons within the category of prohibition, and made all official acts, performed by them, since that day, null and void.
* * *
The object of the amendment is to exclude from certain offices a certain class of persons. Now, it is obviously impossible to do this by a simple declaration, whether in the constitution or in an act of congress, that all persons included within a particular description shall not hold office. For, in the very nature of things, it must be ascertained what particular individuals are embraced by the definition, before any sentence of exclusion can be made to operate. To accomplish this ascertainment and ensure effective results, proceedings, evidence, decisions, and enforcements of
decisions, more or less formal, are indispensable; and these can only be provided for by congress.

Justice Chase concluded that Judge Sheffey had not been removed from the office of judge at the time of Griffin's trial and sentence of the petitioner and that the sentence of the circuit court of Rock Bridge County was lawful, such that it was unnecessary to decide whether he had acted as a de facto judge.

Likewise, Hansen v. Finchem, CV-22-0099-AP/EL (Ariz. May. 9, 2022), did not consider whether a criminal conviction is a prerequisite to disqualification under the § 3. There the Supreme Court of Arizona affirmed the trial court's dismissal of a civil suit seeking to disqualify Arizona Representative Mark Finchem, U.S. Representative Paul Gosar, and U.S. Representative Andy Biggs based on § 3. The Supreme Court agreed with the trial court's determination that: 1) Congress has not created a civil practice right of action to enforce the Disqualification Clause, and the criminal statute prohibiting rebellion or insurrection, 18 U.S.C. § 2382, does not authorize the challenge by a private citizen; 2) A.R.S. § 16-351 does not provide a private right of action to argue a candidate is proscribed by law from holding office; 3) it is unnecessary to decide if the Amnesty Act of 1872 is applicable because no private right of action exists under the United States Constitution or Arizona law; 4) the Constitution reserves the determination of the qualifications of members of Congress exclusively to the U.S. House of Representatives; 5) the doctrine of laches is not applicable at this time; 6) Plaintiffs do not satisfy the legal standards for injunctive relief; and 7) there is no need for an advisory trial. The Court did observe:

We note that Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment appears to expressly delegate to Congress the authority to devise the method to enforce the Disqualification Clause ("The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article"), which suggests that A.R.S. § 16-351(B) does not provide a private right of action to invoke the Disqualification Clause against the Candidates. We further recognize that the Qualifications Clause, Article 1, Section 5 of the United States Constitution, which provides that "[e]ach House shall be the Judge of the . . . Qualifications of its own Members," appears to vest Congress with exclusive authority to determine whether to enforce the Disqualification Clause against its prospective members.

The Court then made clear that its observations as to these matters are obiter dictum:

However, we need not decide these issues because we hold that A.R.S. § 16-351(B), which authorizes an elector to challenge a candidate "for any reason relating to qualifications for the office sought as prescribed by law, including age, residency, professional requirements or failure to fully pay fines . . .," is not the proper proceeding to initiate a Disqualification Clause challenge. By its terms, the statute's scope is limited to challenges based upon "qualifications . . . as prescribed by law," and does not include the Disqualification Clause, a legal proscription from holding office.

[not guilty]

Kazinski, what language from In re Griffin,</i< 11 F. Cas. 7 (C.C.D.Va. 1869), do you claim requires a criminal conviction as a prerequisite to disqualification from holding federal office under the Fourteenth Amendment, § 3?

Ahat language from Hansen v. Finchem, CV-22-0099-AP/EL (Ariz. May. 9, 2022), do you claim requires a criminal conviction as such a prerequisite?

[Kazinski]

See paragraph 16 of in re Griffin:

"16. A provision which at once without trial deprives a whole class of persons of offices held by them, for cause, however grave, is inconsistent with this spirit and general purpose, and therefore no such construction can be given the third clause of the fourteenth amendment."

[not guilty]

That says nothing whatsoever l about requiring a criminal conviction.

Once again, did you actually read In re Griffin, 11 F. Cas. 7 (C.C.D.Va. 1869), before citing it? You have dodged that simple question multiple times now.

[Kazinski]

Actually I see I was quoting from the Superior court decision findings, which of course was upheld by the Arizona Supreme Court:

"IT IS ORDERED affirming the superior court’s judgment. The Candidates are not disqualified from appearing on the ballot for the 2022 primary election."

From the Superior Court ruling:
THE COURT FINDS as follows:

9. In Griffin, squarely at issue before the court was the construction of the Disqualification Clause. The court concluded that “[t]he object of the amendment is to exclude from certain offices a certain class of persons. Now it is obviously impossible to do this by a simple declaration, whether in the constitution or in an act of congress, that all persons included within a particular description shall not hold office. For, in the very nature of things, it must be ascertained what particular individuals are embraced by the definition, before any sentence of exclusion can be made to operate. To accomplish this ascertainment and ensure effective results, proceedings, evidence decisions, and enforcement of decisions, more or less formal, are indispensable; and these can only be provided for by congress.” Id. at 26 (emphasis added).
10. The court in Griffin went on to emphasize that it was imperative upon the United States
Congress to pass legislation to enforce the Disqualification Clause, stating: “Now, the
necessity of this is recognized by the [Fourteenth] amendment itself, in its fifth and final section, which declares that ‘congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provision[s] of this article.’

18. Congress has enacted a criminal statute prohibiting rebellion or insurrection (18 U.S.C.§ 2383). Although the Court declines to express whether this is the exclusive criminal offense Congress has enacted to enforce the Disqualification Clause, the fact that the
statute is a criminal one demonstrates an intention that only the government, and not private citizens, must be the party initiating the action.
19. None of the Candidates has been charged with or convicted of any state or federal crime
that relates to insurrection or rebellion."

DATED: April 21, 2022
Christopher A. Coury
Superior Court Judge

[not guilty]

Uh, a state trial court decision is not binding precedent on any other court.

The Arizona Supreme Court did not discuss 18 U.S.C. § 2383, (it did note the trial court's finding that § 2382 [a different statute prohibiting misprison of treason, BTW] does not authorize the challenge by a private citizen). The findings of the trial court noted by the Supreme Court did not include any finding that criminal conviction is a prerequisite to § 3 disqualification.

The Arizona Supreme Court there made clear that it need not decide every issue determined by the trial court. Are you familiar with the meaning of obiter dictum?

Don't forget the First Rule of Holes: STOP DIGGING!

[not guilty]

Two recent decisions interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment, § 3 have permitted challenges to Congressional candidates based on applicable state statutory schemes.

In Cawthorn v. Amalfi, 35 F.4th 245 (4th Cir. 2022), the Court observed that North Carolina law allows "[a]ny qualified voter registered in the same district as the office for which [a] candidate has filed or petitioned" to file a challenge with the state board of elections asserting "that the candidate does not meet the constitutional or statutory qualifications for the office." N.C. Gen. Stat. §§ 163-127.1, -127.2. In January 2022, shortly after the North Carolina state legislature redrew its congressional districts, a group of voters in Representative Madison Cawthorn's district filed such a challenge based on the Fourteenth Amendment, § 3. Seeking to stop the challenge process from going forward, Representative Cawthorn sued the members of the state board of elections in federal district court. The voters who filed the January challenge with the state board of elections sought leave to intervene as defendants, which request was denied. 35 F.4th at 249.

The district court announced it was granting a preliminary injunction with a written opinion to follow. In its oral ruling, the court emphasized that the basis for its injunction was "very narrow" and rested exclusively on the court's "statutory determination" that the 1872 Amnesty Act applied to Representative Cawthorn. The challengers filed a notice of appeal of both the order denying their motion to intervene and the district court's grant of a preliminary injunction. The members of the state board of elections did not appeal.

The Fourth Circuit determined that the challengers had standing to appeal. Id., at 252-53. The Court of Appeals reversed the district court's denial of intervention as to one of the challegers and proceeded to the merits of the appeal. Id., at 255.

On de novo review, the Fourth Circuit concluded that the district court erred in construing the 1872 Amnesty Act as a sweeping removal of all future Fourteenth Amendment disabilities and vacated the permanent injunction. Id., at 257, 261.

The Fourt Circuit declined to consider whether Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution reserves § 3 disqualification determinations exclusively to the House of Representatives or whether States may play any role in regulating ballot access based on constitutional qualifications under the Time, Place, and Manner Clause of Article I, Section 4. The Court of Appeals remanded to the district court for further proceedings. Id., at 261.

In Greene v. Raffensperger, 599 F. Supp. 3d 1283 (N.D. Ga. 2022), the Plaintiff Marjorie Taylor Greene challenged the constitutionality of Georgia's "Challenge Statute" as applied to Plaintiff as well as facially. The Challenge Statute allows voters to challenge whether individual candidates in their districts meet the requisite legal qualifications to run for their prospective positions via an administrative proceeding before Georgia's Office of State Administrative Hearings ("OSAH"). Under the Challenge Statute, an OSAH administrative law judge ("ALJ") recommends factual and legal findings, which are then submitted to the Georgia Secretary of State for review and final ruling. That decision in turn may be appealed to the Superior Court of Fulton County, Georgia as well as to the Georgia Court of Appeals or Supreme Court. 599 F.Supp.3d at 1297.

The District Court denied preliminary injunctive relief, finding that the Plaintiff had not shown a strong likelihood of success on the legal merits. The state administrative proceedings under the Challenge Statute were accordingly allowed to proceed. Id., at 1288. The state proceedings were resolved in Rep. Greene's favor and on November 3, 2022, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals remanded the federal case with instructions to dismiss for mootness. https://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-courts/ca11/22-11299/22-11299-2022-11-03.pdf?ts=1667491276

In neither of the cases described here did the Plaintiff members of Congress make any claim that a criminal conviction is required in order to disqualify a candidate under § 3. If, as Kazinski dubiously contends, that were indeed the law, such a claim would have been dispositive of Rep. Cawthon's and Rep. Greene's cases.

[Kazinski]

So in other words you can't find any contrary case, you only found two cases which were ultimately decided the same way but on different grounds because those issues weren't raised.

[not guilty]

Uh, if there were any caselaw in support of your position Rep. Cawthorn and Rep. Greene would surely have raised it. (They were represented by the same, able attorney.) If a requirement of a criminal conviction as prerequisite to application of § 3 existed, and in that neither plaintiff had been convicted, the district courts would have been obliged to rule in the plaintiffs' favor sua sponte. Instead, the state administrative proceedings were allowed to continue in both cases.

I have shown upthread that the cases you refer to do not stand for the proposition that you advance. You proffer no argument contrary to my analysis of those decisions. I ask again, have you actually read In re Griffin, 11 F. Cas. 7 (C.C.D.Va. 1869)? That is a simple yes or no question.

[Brett Bellmore]

The advantage of "E" is that it's the one with ALL of precedent to support it. Literally, Section 3 has never been applied in any other manner. Another advantage is not having to do anything if Trump doesn't win. (Though, technically you could just drop the sorry exercise right now, I suppose that's psychologically impossible at this point.)

The downside is that it's the most politically provocative approach: Wait until he's won, and then deny the voters their choice. But, isn't that really what this is about: A temper tantrum premised on the voters not being ALLOWED to elect Donald Trump?

It's not like the case for him being guilty is so iron clad, or else he'd have been criminally charged with insurrection by now. It's really just a temper tantrum.

[Sarcastr0]

Brett you have always argued the constitution says what it says and precedent does not matter.

Until this.

[Don Nico]

Ideally the matter gets adjudicated as soon as practical. E has the greater political danger that Jan. 6 2021

[jb]

Although there's the argument for precedent around (e), that's with regards to seating members of Congress which the Constitution makes clear is up to Congress. On the other hand, there's no clear statement in the Constitution is that Congress should decide on the qualifications of the President at the time of the counting of the electoral ballots.

More problematically, the Electoral Count Reform Act says that the only basis for rejecting electoral votes on January 6th is that they weren't properly certified, and it seems like a stretch to claim that candidate qualifications are an attribute of the certification.

The ECRA does provide a mechanism for expedited judicial review of election results, though. I think that's the right mechanism from a legal perspective, but agree with the disadvantages from the original post. Politically and pragmatically it would be a lot better to resolve the question as quickly as possible.

[SimonP]

Well, obviously, the best time to disqualify a presidential candidate is as soon as possible, so that voters can review their alternatives and choose with as much freedom as possible.

The standing question isn't as salient as evaluating the incentives for bringing suit. Because the only people with a particularized enough interest to sue are going to be a candidate's opponents - they would have a shot at standing. But we can see the problem, with Trump: Biden can't sue without looking like he's trying to win by unfair, antidemocratic means, and Trump's opponents can't sue without outraging his base, which they all feel they need to win the nomination. None of the political incentives really work. And it's hard to see how they could work, with a theoretically disqualified candidate with less popular support.

It points to a more fundamental problem - we're talking here specifically about a candidate's being disqualified due to their putatively participating in an "insurrection," but the issue would be the same if we were talking about other constitutional requirements for being elected president. Who can, and would, sue to get a non-natural born citizen, or someone who isn't old enough, off the ballot, if a party didn't take the initiative to bar ballot access? It seems like any sufficiently-popular non-citizen could put us in exactly the same spot, if they have the backing of a party.

[David Nieporent]

The standing question isn’t as salient as evaluating the incentives for bringing suit. Because the only people with a particularized enough interest to sue are going to be a candidate’s opponents – they would have a shot at standing. But we can see the problem, with Trump: Biden can’t sue without looking like he’s trying to win by unfair, antidemocratic means, and Trump’s opponents can’t sue without outraging his base, which they all feel they need to win the nomination. None of the political incentives really work. And it’s hard to see how they could work, with a theoretically disqualified candidate with less popular support.

Which is why a state official declaring him ineligible and excluding him is the safest procedurally; then Trump would indisputably have standing to sue.

[John F. Carr]

In the general election one is voting for electors. The plaintiffs would need an injunction ordering the electors not to vote for Trump. If the judge merely orders changes to the ballot the legislature of a red state can cancel the election and vote for pro-Trump electors. The legislature of a purple state could hold an advisory election in October then meet on election day to ratify the vote.

[Kleppe]

"regardless of if you’re a pro-Trump supporter with TDS who believes that he’s always the victim here, or, if you’re an anti-Trump zealot who thinks he’s totally corrupt [...]"

That's... not what TDS is.

[David Nieporent]

It's not what Trump supporters want it to be, but it's absolutely what it is.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

A related question. Suppose some Board of Elections somewhere decides to take Baude & Paulsen's advice and find Trump disqualified. Then, when Trump challenged this decision in court, would the district court's hands be tied by the precedent of the Griffin decision? Would the circuit then be able to overrule Griffin, which was a circuit decision?

[not guilty]

United States Courts of Appeals were established in the Judiciary Act of 1891. I don't think that any court so created would be bound by the decision of a circuit riding predecessor.

In any event, as I have explained upthread, Griffin was a habeas corpus action brought by a plaintiff who had been sentenced in state court. The holding was that the state court judge had not been removed from the office of judge at the time of the trial and sentence of the petitioner, and that the sentence of the circuit court of Rock Bridge County was lawful. Any discussion of whether action by Congress was required to effect disqualification is dictum,

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Roger, thanks for the response. It will be interesting if such a case arises.

[santamonica811]

I posted this back on Thursday, but--as expected--it was buried low down in the thread.

I've been getting a huge number of popup ads on this site. This is new...just in the past week. Before, one ad would appear, and after a few seconds, I could "x" it out, and could read an entire thread in peace. Now, every few seconds, the same freakin' ad appears. X'ing it out only solves the problem for a few seconds. Or sometimes 30 seconds.

For those of you who are not experiencing this, what did you do to avoid it? Or, even better, for those of you who encountered the same issue but managed to solve it; what did you do?

I've always had the default Firefox adblocker (under Tools) enabled. Obviously, this is not helping at all with the current annoyance. Any suggestions?

[AmosArch]

I got some nudie ads on here.Not that I'm complaining.

[Kazinski]

How do I opt in?

[Absaroka]

There are ads here? Who knew!

I run NoScript (and firefox). I only allow scripts from reason.com and d2eehagpk5cl65.cloudfront.net. The 'd2eehagpk5cl65' changes occasionally. Maybe you can configure noscript to allow *.cloudfront.net. I just click allow for reason and the cloudfront server du jour.

[Mr. Bumble]

"For those of you who are not experiencing this, what did you do to avoid it? "
How would they know if they're not experiencing it?
Several people answered your post and mentioned possibilities.
Did you consider their comments and or advice.

[Longtobefree]

Chrome and adblock plus (on a real computer; not a phone/tablet)

[Brett Bellmore]

Brave with shields up on my desktop. On my phone and tablet, which display the mobile site? Haven't found a way.

I purely hate mobile site versions of web pages...

[Life of Brian]

On my phone and tablet, which display the mobile site? Haven’t found a way.

Between the Kiwi browser with its internal "block ads" functionality and RethinkDNS (basically a local instance of Pi-hole on your phone), most sites including this one run relatively clean on my phone.

[Life of Brian]

Firefox with the uBlock Origin plugin. Smooth sailing out of the box on most sites.

[Kazinski]

Did everyone get back from Burning Man okay?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Who's gonna pay to abate all the environmental damage?

[Kazinski]

There is no environment to speak of there.

"The Black Rock Playa in northwestern Nevada is one of the largest, flattest, surfaces on Earth, covering approximately 200 square miles. Standing on the playa taking in the 360-degree view is an experience you won’t soon forget."
https://blackrockdesert.org/about-the-black-rock-desert-playa/

[Dr. Ed 2]

It ain't flat now-- it will have deep ruts in it.

[Bwaaah]

"It will have deep ruts in it."

If you're an ant, yes, although it's still immaterial. Your definition of "deep" sounds like it comes from "Humans: Bad" school of thought.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Isn't that the EPA's definition?

[Zarniwoop]

It’s a seasonal lake bed. It normally gets flooded every spring and ruts disappear pretty quickly. Locals have been making ruts every year since way before burning man.

[Nige]

Deserts are ecosystems too.

[Kazinski]

Well I live in half the year in Arizona where there is a robust desert ecosystem. Quail, roadrunners, rabbits, coyotes, cactus and wildflowers.

But I don't think you understand the difference between that and a 200sq mile completely flat dry lake bed made up of alkali silt with no vegetation or features of any kind.

If there was any kind of actual ecosystem there they wouldn't allow 80,000 people to congregate there every year and debauch for a week or two.

Death Valley has much more to offer in terms of a desert ecosystem with vulnerable features that need protection than the Black Rock Playa.

[Nige]

Fair enough, in which case it sounds like they picked a good spot.

[Martinned]

Well, they all got brainwashed on climate change. So I guess not.

https://twitter.com/MeidasTouch/status/1698504986022363639

[Mr. Bumble]

Assumes they had a brain to "wash".

[Nige]

'(Marjorie Taylor Greene) claimed that what is happening at Burning Man with people trapped by flood is a plot by the Deep State to force 75,000 people into one place to brainwash them on climate change.'

'She also said tornadoes and flooding were sent by God to punish them for the mock sacrifice they supposedly performed.'

The Republican Party.

[Mr. Bumble]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hank-johnson-worries-guam-could-capsize-after-marine-buildup/

The Democrat party.

[Nige]

Nothing more recent? In the time it took you to type that Greene said six more stupid things. Good thing she’s not on any important committees.

[bernard11]

Thirteen years ago.

[Absaroka]

And he is still in congress...

[Kazinski]

Its actually a clear illustration of Blair's law:
"the ongoing process by which the world's multiple idiocies are becoming one giant, useless force."

In March 2018 you had a DC city councillor and Nation of Islam member saying this:
"D.C. lawmaker says recent snowfall caused by ‘Rothschilds controlling the climate’"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/dc-lawmaker-says-recent-snowfall-caused-byrothschilds-controlling-the-climate/2018/03/18/daeb0eae-2ae0-11e8-911f-ca7f68bff0fc_story.html

Then summer of 2018 had Marjorie chimed in: "Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene took to social media to share her suspicions that the California wildfires were started by ‘space solar generators’ which were funded by powerful, mysterious backers. Instantly, thousands of people rallied around her, blaming the fires on “Jewish space lasers” and ultimately, the Rothschild family."

[Dr. Ed 2]

There is an aspect of Christian theology that believes that there are forces in this world which we do not understand and which we can spring loose by doing certain things. I'm not saying she was right but I *can* see her logic in believing that the pagan/satanic worship events caused the tornadoes and flooding -- it's really no less illogical that believing that a slight increase of CO2 in the atmosphere caused it.

Don't mock her religious beliefs unless you wish to have your own religious beliefs about CO2 mocked as well...

[Nige]

'I’m not saying she was right but I *can* see her logic'

God has never been proven to send a single tornado anywhere; the increase in CO2 is scientifically proven to cause extreme weather events.

From Greene's point of view, God's about to have a busy century.

[Kazinski]

A minor thunderstorm in the desert is hardly an extreme weather event.

I'm about 100 miles away from burning man and summer thunderstorms over the Sierras while not occurring every year are hardly unusual or extreme.

And occasionally they drift out over the desert to the east. The odds of it happening right when Burning Man is going on are probably about 50-1, but it probably happens in that area sometime during the summer every 5 years or so, in fact this is the second occurrence this summer.

Its neither an act of god, nor a symptom of a burning planet.

[Nige]

When a planet is burning, everything is a potential symptom. Past a certain point there's no distinction to be made. We're probably not there yet, but the argument is becoming increasingly redundant.

[Martinned]

Don’t mock her religious beliefs unless you wish to have your own religious beliefs about CO2 mocked as well…

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[Mr. Bumble]

Feel better?
Nothing like a good laugh.

[Martinned]

Exactly. That's why I shared that tweet in the first place. Because it made me laugh. And laughing seems like the only appropriate response. Good for your physical and mental health too.

[Kazinski]

They were brainwashed before they got there.

But of course Marjorie and Alex Jones should be familiar with the symptoms.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Question: will all the novel legal attacks on Trump have unforeseen consequences and come back to bite the very people championing them?

For example, the Alabama AG is talking about prosecuting conspiring to assist a woman to obtain an out-of-state abortion with language that is remarkedly similar to the language that the Atlanta DA is using to justify the RICO charges against Team Trump.

While I don't know exactly what Georgia law says about abortion, there are counties in Georgia where it isn't exactly popular and what is preventing that county's DA from using the same RICO statute against the local women's center?

In pursuing the evil Orangeman, have legal precedents been set that the left really isn't going to like to have to live with?

[Magister]

Prosecuting people for entirely out-of-state crimes is something that anti-abortionists want to test out. I don't see that it has much to do with Trump's indictments in Georgia, since the crime conspired toward was in Georgia where it was illegal. Some of the actions supporting the conspiracy took place outside Georgia, but they're not the crime charged (or illegal by themselves).

[Martinned]

[not guilty]

Dr. Ed 2, what acts of racketeering activity do you surmise that a Georgia prosecutor would allege against the local women’s center? https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/2010/title-16/chapter-14/16-14-3/ Please be specific.

[Dr. Ed 2]

See: https://reason.com/2023/09/01/alabama-says-helping-with-out-of-state-abortions-is-criminal-conspiracy/

If EV is quoted accurately in the above, ask him...

[not guilty]

The article you link has absolutely nothing to do with acts of racketeering activity. I provided you the applicable Georgia statute. Now answer my question.

[Magister]

I read the EV quote as implying that Alabama is wrong, although it's a comment on a Texas case. A state can't forbid speech about abortion (like how to get abortions in a state where it's legal) and it can't pass a law making abortion illegal in a different state or ban fundraising for a legal cause (abortions in a state where it's legal).

[John F. Carr]

This should be the court case in the context of which the statement was made: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67649369/yellowhammer-fund-v-marshall-lead/

I do not see a brief filed by the Attorney General.

My feeling is the plaintiffs lack standing. When abortion was a federal constitutional right courts were generous granting standing. Now it's no more a right than picking your nose in public.

If the plaintiffs have standing, the federal court should certify a question on extraterritorial application of the abortion ban to the Alabama Supreme Court.

[Jonathan Affleck]

I posed the following questions to Francesca Albanese but have not yet received an answer.

These question are directed both to the foundations of international anti-genocide law and also to the integrity of international law.

On Apr 27, 2023, Arutz Sheva Israel National News disclosed that Francesca Albanese stated that she is going to look into whether Israel is committing genocide.

Every discussion of jus cogens asserts that the ban on genocide is jus cogens.

“[A] treaty is void if, at the time of its conclusion, it conflicts with a peremptory norm [jus cogens] of general international law.”

On Dec 11, 1946 the UN GA unanimously banned genocide in A/RES/96. Because the UN GA vote was unanimous, no SC resolution was necessary for A/RES/96 to have force of international law.

Does A/RES/96 create the international legal ban on genocide and make this ban jus cogens? [Question 1]

With this resolution, the international community seems to have voided a clause of an international instrument if the clause legalizes genocide, enables genocide, or otherwise circumvents the ban on genocide.

How the crime of genocide was defined on Dec 11, 1946

The International Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) did not enter into force until January 12, 1951.

A/RES/96 was a response to the conclusion of the Nuremberg International Tribunal on October 1, 1946.

Count Three of the Nuremberg International Tribunal Indictment provides on Dec 11, 1946 the first and at the time the only definition of genocide in international law.

Listed item (A) “MURDER AND ILL-TREATMENT OF CIVILIAN POPULATIONS OF OR IN OCCUPIED TERRITORY AND ON THE HIGH SEAS” uses the term genocide.

Each following listed item elaborates and narrows the definition of genocide by focusing on a specific aspect of genocide. None of the listed items conflict with the definition of genocide in the CPPCG, and each listed item falls within the definition of genocide within the CPPCG.

The listed items of Count Three were used as the definitions of crimes in the RuSHA Subsequent Nuremberg Tribunal (United States of America vs. Ulrich Greifelt, et al, July 7, 1947 – March 10, 1948).

From Nov 30, 1947 – Jul 20, 1949, European Zionist colonial settlers perpetrated the following listed items against the native civilian Palestinian population:

(D) KILLING OF HOSTAGES

(E) PLUNDER OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE PROPERTY

(F) THE EXACTION OF COLLECTIVE PENALTIES

(G) WANTON DESTRUCTION OF CITIES, TOWNS, AND VILLAGES AND DEVASTATION NOT JUSTIFIED BY MILITARY NECESSITY

(J) GERMANIZATION OF OCCUPIED TERRITORIES.

Germanization in the Nuremberg Tribunal context is replacement genocide in the Palestinian context. Germanization does not become any less a crime or any less genocide by renaming Germanization to Judaization.

After the 1967 War

The evacuated civilian Palestinian population was never permitted to return to its homes, its property, its villages, or its territories from which it was evacuated even after the Zionist state occupied Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank in 1967. This action seems to provide evidence of dolus indirectus of genocide.

Has the Zionist state been founded by means of genocide in direct violation of customary international law of genocide and in violation of jus cogens? [Question 2]

The genocide against the evacuated civilian Palestinian population, much of which resides in refugee camps in the Palestinian Occupied Territories, will have continued until this population returns to its homes, property, villages, and locations from which it has been evacuated.

Final Questions

After January 12, 1951, the ongoing genocide became a violation of conventional international law of genocide.

Genocide is an international crime (a) whose maximum penalty is death and (b) that has no statute of limitations.

Does the mere existence of the Zionist state negate the international anti-genocide legal regime and undermine international law? [Question 3]

By the principles of jus cogens, is any international agreement void if it leaves the Zionist state intact? [Question 4]

[Zarniwoop]

I posed the following questions to Francesca Albanese

Who?

but have not yet received an answer.

That’s nice.

[a whole bunch of TL,DR]

Have you taken your meds today?

[Jonathan Affleck]

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

A supporter of Zionist genocide against Palestinians invariably makes an accusation of mental defect when he is confronted with facts of ongoing Zionist crime.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

He didn't make "an accusation of mental defect," he just asked whether you took your meds. Your answer was non-responsive.

[Drewski]

"have not yet received an answer"

Gosh, I wonder why.

[Jonathan Affleck]

Albanese is a lawyer and is thoroughly studying the evidence before providing an opinion.

When does engineering a demographic majority turn into an intention to perpetrate physical destruction (genocide)?

From the just released new UN report, which is linked below.

P. 12 of the report.

Third, there is currently a mounting body of recognition that Israel is carrying out discriminatory apartheid policies and practices against Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line.41 Notably, Israel confers rights on Israeli Jews and systematically discriminates against Palestinians. The Land Acquisition Law, 5713-1953, for example, facilitates the alienation of confiscated Palestinian lands to various Israeli State institutions, including the Development Authority. Parastatal organizations, such as the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Organization, are chartered to carry out material discrimination, including through the allocation of confiscated Palestinian lands to Israeli Jews.42 At the same time, Israeli Jews can pursue ownership claims to Palestinian residential properties in occupied East Jerusalem under the Legal and Administrative Matters Law (1970).43 The quest to engineer a Jewish majority demographic and reduce and remove Palestinians has been advanced by successive governments. Under Israel’s Law of Return (1950), “every Jew has the right to come to this country as an oleh” and Israeli citizenship is “granted to every Jew who has expressed his desire to settle in Israel”.44 At the same time, some seven million Palestinian refugees are denied their right of return, including 450,000 Palestinians displaced as refugees during the Naksa arising from the 1967 Six Day War.45 Such practices inter alia indicate that Israel is administering the Occupied Palestinian Territory under a regime of systematic racial discrimination and apartheid.

https://www.un.org/unispal/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Study-on-the-Legality-of-the-Israeli-occupation-of-the-OPT-including-East-Jerusalem.pdf

[Drewski]

"Albanese is a lawyer and is thoroughly studying the evidence before providing an opinion."

Of course, of course. I myself take complete silence from academics as a sign they're working very hard on my problem. I'm sure she'll get back to you any day now.

[not guilty]

Adam Unikowski has written an interesting article about whether the Supreme Court will hold, prior to the 2024 election, that Trump is constitutionally ineligible to serve as President under § 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. He estimates the chances of that actually happening at 10% (which, he observes, is way higher than Trump’s odds were in his many lawsuits challenging the 2020 election). https://adamunikowsky.substack.com/p/is-the-supreme-court-seriously-going

[Magister]

The article is interesting, but the odds are not at all convincing; if it gets to the Supreme Court, the decision will be justified based on whatever argument is convenient, but it will really be what each Justice thinks is for the best (with whatever weight they put on various X in "best for X"). Unless Unikowsky is taking bets based on those odds, of course.

[Sarcastr0]

Smith v. United States
Topic: Criminal procedure
Background: Timothy Smith was charged with theft of trade secrets. The trade secrets were on servers located in the Middle District of Florida, and the Smith’s conduct occurred at his home in Alabama. The case was tried in the Northern District of Florida, which the 11th Circuit later found to be improper. The question was the remedy - vacate the conviction, or full-on acquittal?
Losing side: Smith argued that the purpose of those clauses was to prevent undue hardship to a defendant tried in a distant and improper place
Winning side: Article III and the 6A do apply to this venue being improper, but the usual remedy for such rights being violated is a new trial, not acquittal.
Upshot: Affirm 11th Circuit's vacate of conviction.
Court's reasoning: Vacate the conviction is the usual - only exception is the right to a speedy trial. There, delaying trial to remedy delaying trial makes no sense. Here there is no such issue. <Though note that double jeopardy means acquittal upon an appellate finding of insufficient evidence)

So how did this get to the Court but end up not being a close question: Smith's argument as to the proper remedy seems incredibly weak. I'm not sure why the Court granted cert when the lower court had it right, it's analysis ended up a boring 'the default applies here as in most places,' and there was no circuit split.
How to handle the factual but procedural question of venue seems a can of worms, but the court isn't opening that can here.

[David Welker]

There must be a reason that cert was granted. It takes 4 justices... I assume they aren't crazy...

Not a priority for me to find out right now, but interesting case.

[Noscitur a sociis]

There was a circuit split. See pp. 14-22 of the petition for certiorari.

[Sarcastr0]

Ah. My sources are the SCOTUSblog previews and summaries and I probably didn’t read carefully enough.

[Voize]

The Texas Supreme Court can grant, deny, or refuse a petition for review. Refusal acts like grant-and-affirm in a single step and the opinion of the court of appeal becomes precedential statewide.

[John F. Carr]

If I were free to make up a rule without regard for precedent, I would say a retrial in the proper venue is conditional on the government paying the defendant's legal fees. For a case with a public defender from the start this already happens. A middle class defendant might be able to afford one lawyer and be out of luck for the second.

[Noscitur a sociis]

A middle class defendant might be able to afford one lawyer and be out of luck for the second.

… in which case the government is already obligated to fund counsel.

[John F. Carr]

The government ought to reimburse for the first private counsel so the defendant can afford a lawyer for the second trial. Otherwise the defendant gets the worst of both worlds: bankrupted by legal fees and forced to rely on a public defender.

[Harvey Mosley]

I would propose a rule that requires the DA's office to pay the defendant's legal fees in an amount equal to what the state spends prosecuting the defendant. That would include law enforcement, prosecutor, medical examiner, and all other expert witnesses. If the defendant is found not guilty the DA's office has to pay all of the defendant's legal fees.

[Noscitur a sociis]

I would propose a rule that requires the DA’s office to pay the defendant’s legal fees in an amount equal to what the state spends prosecuting the defendant. That would include law enforcement, prosecutor, medical examiner, and all other expert witnesses.

It’s rarely possible (if ever) to apportion those expenditures among cases like that.

If the defendant is found not guilty the DA’s office has to pay all of the defendant’s legal fees.

In the overwhelming majority of cases, the government already pays all of a defendant’s legal fees.

[John F. Carr]

In the rare civil case where the government is awarded attorney's fees the court has to figure out how to calculate the fee earned by attorneys who are on salary and do not account for quarters or tenths of billable hours. I think one of the 2020 election cases, Wisconsin or Michigan, involved such an award. The dollar value ended up quite low by attorney's fee standards.

[Moderation4ever]

Last week I complemented Gov. Ron DeSantis for his briefing on the upcoming storm, Hurricane Idalia. I thought he showed competency and leadership. I think he set himself back last weekend by failing to meet with President Biden. DeSantis lost another opportunity to show competent leadership and an ability to rise above partisan politics in a crisis. I would also add that he met the President in the after math of Hurricane Ian in 2022 and so his refusal to meet in 2023 look political and hollow. Those who would dock him in 2023 have already done so for 2022.

In 2020, the American people demonstrated the wanted an end to division and wanted competency. Ron DeSantis would be smarter to move in this direction.

[Martinned]

That makes sense. Famously if there's one thing GOP primary voters want it's an end to partisanship.

[gVOR08]

What the “American people” want is not what Republican primary voters want. DeUseless has to get through the GOP primaries first. He can pivot to the center later. He’d have to lie a lot, but that doesn’t seem to be a problem for him.

[SimonP]

Meatball was pro-COVID shutdowns before he was against them, pro-vaccine before he started playing footsie with the microchip-hoaxers, ginned up the whole culture war schtick and special legislative sessions to build a platform for his presidential run, and on and on. He talks and acts like a politician whose every move is calculated - badly - to cater to a terminally-online MAGA base that he barely understands. There's no "pivoting" away from that.

It's been telling how his once-boosters in the comments here have stopped mentioning him. Even more interesting to me is how they haven't moved on to the next heir apparent, Vivek the Fake, approved by big-money establishment types but a more appealing face for the same fascistic slop that the MAGA pigs love to roll around in. I actually thought the white supremacists here would find common cause with a Brahmin-caste monotheistic Hindu, and would glop down his brand of uncanny-valley doublespeak, but evidently they need the real thing, the uncut original, that real high they get from fapping to DJT outrage porn.

[Moderation4ever]

I have my eye on Nikki Haley. DeSantis and Vivek are playing to groups already taken. Their only hope is that the front runner is bounced off the ballot, an unlikely event. Nikki is working for some real issues. Is she perfect no but she leading among those talking real issues.

[SimonP]

That's noble of you. She's not as unliked as Christie, so that gives her an advantage. But people would actually have to vote for her, at some point. I'm not seeing much evidence that will happen.

[Kazinski]

Honestly what good is a meeting between DeSantis and Biden other than a photo Op?

What good does any President actually do going to a disaster zone?

Any meaningful communication is going to be at a lower level, Governors obviously need to be a lot more hands on than presidents dealing with state level natural disasters.

A President's only real contribution would be calling up his FEMA director and telling him "Don't make me look bad."

[Martinned]

What good does any President actually do going to a disaster zone?

The President is the head of state as well as the head of government. Going to a disaster zone is more of the former: a symbolic showing of support on behalf of the country.

[David Nieporent]

I would also add that he met the President in the after math of Hurricane Ian in 2022 and so his refusal to meet in 2023 look political and hollow.

Chris Christie met cordially with Barack Obama after Hurricane Sandy, and the partisan right never let him forget it. So no way was DeSantis going to make that "mistake" again.

[DaveM]

“Labor Day” is just an excuse for a seasonal holiday. Ostensibly, it was created to celebrate labor unions, but the vast majority of workers don’t belong to a union — nor even want to.

My particular bone to pick is with public sector labor unions. The whole point of a union is to provide labor with leverage against owners. But there are no owners of the public sector. The people themselves are “management” by virtue of the ballot box. I’d be happy to completely outlaw public sector unions. They're an anti-pattern.

[Mr. Bumble]

No one less than Saint FDR agreed with you that there shouldn't be public sector unions.

[Dr. Ed 2]

George Meaney as well -- he (Mr. AFL-CIO) was vehemently opposed because he felt that workers organizing against the public was not only unpatriotic but downright subversive.

[Sarcastr0]

The right continues to think they own the left to point out their luminaries are flawed - MLK had affairs, FDR interned the Japanese, Ted Kennedy had Chappaquiddick.

I think this says more about the brittleness of the right's reliance on perfect mythic figures than anything about the left.

Hint: I don't need to agree with everything FDR says. Or Biden. Can you say the same about, say Reagan? Or Trump?

[Sarcastr0]

It’s not union day it’s Labor Day.

And the federal government does a pretty dang good job of acting like an employer, actually. The way the incentives are currently set up, by Congress, the government is in the market for labor like anyone else, looking for the lowest total price they can pay. Check out the trend in federal benefits since 1980.

In general I’ve seen unions that were pretty crappy in practice, and some that were pretty good. But the principle of unions is a good one, and right wing attacks on them rarely reach that point.
History tell is that labor as a purely free market turns out to be a nightmare. Our country works better when workers get a voice; trickle down is nonsense.

Union support is pretty high among younger generations. I’m optimistic.

[Longtobefree]

The way to make public sector union act like real unions, you know, dealing with the owners, is to require all contracts be ratified by the taxpayers.

[Mr. Bumble]

Better just to get rid of them.

[John F. Carr]

There is a move in Massachusetts to repeal the law requiring the school board's funding request to be approved by voters.

[Mr. Bumble]

Of course there is. What do the people who pay the bills know?

[Nige]

Not much about running schools and teaching kids, in aggregate.

[Martinned]

" The whole point of a union is to provide labor with leverage against owners."

You wrote "employers" wrong. And there are definitely employers in the public sector.

[SimonP]

I will believe the Republican rhetoric about public sector unions when they apply the same logic to the police and firefighters’ unions.

Until then, it’s just more anti-teacher and anti-Black bullshit.

[jb]

Eh, I agree that public sector labor unions make a lot less sense than private sector ones (and this DEFINITELY applies to police unions, which are probably the most problematic of all).

The country would be a lot better off with many more private sector unions and many fewer public sector ones.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

What is your opinion concerning tenure, the only thing that stands between most of the right-wing law professors at the Volokh Conspirators and involuntary expansion of their employment horizons?

[Harvey Mosley]

Okay. If I could only pick one type of public sector unions to ban it would be police/correctional unions. What do I win?

[SimonP]

A passing acknowledgment that your views pass the basic requirement of self-consistency? A cookie?

[Harvey Mosley]

Chocolate chip, please.

[Sarcastr0]

😀

[John F. Carr]

A holiday except for many politicians for whom it is a day of obligatory pro-union appearances.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Very often public sector unions are prohibited by law from negotiating about wages. That applies to all federal worker unions. However, public sector unions provide the very important service of giving input into methods and procedures to the workers who actually perform the job. Otherwise, methods and procedures would be dictated by the administrative bureaucracy, and government competency would be even lower than it currently is.

[Martinned]

Israel's attorney-general has petitioned the Supreme Court to strike down the recent amendment to the Basic Law.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/attorney-general-asks-court-to-strike-down-law-curtailing-oversight-of-government

[John F. Carr]

I have no clue who is legally right or wrong here, and there may not even be an answer other than "whatever the judges feel like".

[John F. Carr]

AP looks at South Africa almost 30 years after the end of Apartheid:

The warning signs for Johannesburg began in the late 1990s as the big companies left downtown for the new financial district of Sandton, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) to the north. Johannesburg still has more millionaires than any other city on the continent, according to this year’s World’s Wealthiest Cities Report. But the chasm between the silver high-rises of Sandton and the old heart of Johannesburg underlines why South Africa is one of the most unequal countries in the world.

Meet the new boss...

I read that an anti-ANC coalition is forming, much like the anti-Erdogan coalition in this year's election in Turkey.

https://apnews.com/article/johannesburg-fire-south-africa-urban-decay-e0c0791bf90f25bd40d4fb357c368616

[Martinned]

What are you talking about? The Democratic Alliance has been a major force in South African politics for ages. They've run Western Cape since 2009, for example. And the EFF isn't exactly new either.

[John F. Carr]

The article recognizes a local loss by the ANC: "Johannesburg voters have turned away from the ruling ANC recently". But Johannesburg's problems largely derive from the country's problems, and the ANC still runs the country.

I don't really consider a democracy functional until the ruling party loses power, or maybe until a fair election is so close that it was obvious the party could lose. For example, Mexico's PRI started losing elections in the past two decades.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

THE VOLOKH CONSPIRACY

This white, male, misfit
conservative blog has
operated for no more than

SEVENTEEN (17)

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
culture war casualties from
the Federalist Society for
Law and Public Policy Studies.

Amid this ugly right-wing intolerance and stale conservative thinking, here is something worthwhile.

That might be a fill-in on the drums.

(This one is good, too, especially today.)

[Bored Lawyer]

Last week, my mother took our family (those who were available) to a movie in a theatre. It's been years since I have seen a movie in a theater -- I generally prefer to have it streamed online. I have a large, although not giant, screen so it works fine for us. Big advantage is you can stop the movie to take bathroom breaks, or a snack, or come back tomorrow to see the rest if you're tired. None of that is possible in a theatre.
Not to mention the price, far higher than a Netflix subscription.

One thing that really bugged me this time is that there was almost 30 minutes of previews, that began at the announced start time. What a colossal waste of time. And the room where we were watching was only 10% full.

At this rate, I would be surprised if most theatres survived economically. Any thoughts on your preferences?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Live combat in the Coliseum.

/sarc

[Moderation4ever]

While have I liked the theater experience, it has changed in a way I find off putting. My biggest complaint now is that the theaters now have the lounge seating. If I want to sit in a lazy boy, I will do it at home. I want a good theater seat like they had before. Comfortable but not designed to put me to sleep.

[Magister]

Since the pandemic, I've mostly gone to movies that I couldn't see elsewhere until much later (like single showings of Sword Art Online movies) or movies that were supposed to be spectacularly good at a theater (Dune at an IMAX). Otherwise satisfied with my 50" TV at home.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Alama Drafthouse is the only way I prefer to actually go out and watch a movie.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, the previews piss me off, too. Look, I PAID to see the movie, don't subject me to a half hour of commercials, too!

Often the volume is absurdly high, too. And assigned seating in a 3/4 empty theater? It's absurd. They just adopted it to space people out for Covid reasons, and then couldn't bring themselves to end it.

Really, at this point the only reason I see movies in the theater on occasion is that it provides an excuse to eat a whole bucket of heavily salted popcorn while drinking a frozen cherry coke. My wife frowns if I try doing that at home on movie night.

[JasonT20]

Yeah, the previews piss me off, too.

I've always looked forward to previews. They do put up way too many nowadays, though. 4-5 Trailers that take ~10 minutes is about right, for my taste.

One thing I liked about previews is getting excited about movies I may not even have known were being made. And seeing the trailers on the big screen is much more effective at that than TV commercials.

But that experience is also different now, since the internet makes news about upcoming movies so pervasive, that it is virtually impossible to be surprised by a trailer in a theater. And it is also nearly impossible for the first time you see a trailer to be at the movies, even if you go often.

[JasonT20]

I have a large, although not giant, screen so it works fine for us. Big advantage is you can stop the movie to take bathroom breaks, or a snack, or come back tomorrow to see the rest if you’re tired. None of that is possible in a theatre. Not to mention the price, far higher than a Netflix subscription.

There are still a couple of things that only being in a theater can provide:

Mainly, the level of immersion - the darkened theater, the sound quality. It is impossible to match that at home, and you can't get close to it without spending enough money that the ticket price starts to seem reasonable again.

Also, though very few theaters project film anymore, 35mm film captures even more detail than 4K does, from what I've read. Digital projection in theaters uses a much higher bit rate with less compression than Blu-ray or streaming, so the visual quality will be higher, even if the theater is using 2K projectors.

Lastly, there is also something about making seeing a movie an event that you go to, rather than just another night at home with your TV.

[not guilty]

Matthew A. Seligman, a witness in the John Eastman disbarment proceeding, has produced an expert report demolishing Eastman's claim that the Vice President, in his capacity as President of the Senate, has unilateral authority to resolve disputes about electoral votes or to take other unilateral actions with respect to the electoral count. https://deliverypdf.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=572020111031081064031085094125014108006045091065063000028099096064102115089023084103045011120033106120053103126028003107109123047040027013023094066070125111115122026009081056094081025024115119094092006122095067092099083027017108119007115097065018009117&EXT=pdf&INDEX=TRUE

That analysis should also frustrate Kenneth Chesebro's defense in the Georgia RICO prosecution, and it is highly relevant to any claim by Donald Trump in the D.C. and Georgia prosecutions that he merely relied on advice of counsel.

Suppose a lawyer advises his client that, although the question has never been decided, the statutes criminalizing bank robbery are unconstitutional. Several more responsible lawyers advise that same client that the first lawyer's advice is flawed and unreliable. The client attempts to rob a bank and is prosecuted therefor. Should he be able to claim advice of counsel as a defense?

[Bored Lawyer]

He will not be able to, obviously.

But the analogy is inapt. Robbing a bank has been prosecuted many times, and if it were unconstitutional, or there was even a colorable argument to that effect, some clever lawyer would have made the argument. So this is kind of a duh argument -- like saying that murder statutes are unconstitutional.

Counting electoral votes has never been litigated, and the whole structure is arcane. So what exactly the VP's authority is is not at all a given.

While I think Eastman's position was, charitably, insane (and more likely a lawyer getting carried away by the moment), I am not comfortable with him being prosecuted merely for providing a legal opinion that someone thinks is frivolous. Let us not forget that, at one point in time, racial segregation was the established law of the land, supported by SCOTUS precedent, and the contrary view was "clearly" wrong in terms of precedent.

[Moderation4ever]

John Eastman is not being prosecuted solely for providing an unsound legal opinion. His opinion became wrapped in a plot to for the former President hold power. Based on his knowledge of his client he should have suspected that his client would not handle the opinion well and would resort to criminal activity. Unfortunately for Eastman he got sucked into that plot. He is not alone in getting caught up. If I was his lawyer, I would suggest he consider what he did and plead out.

[SimonP]

Try reading the indictment. Eastman isn't being prosecuted for "providing a legal opinion." His charges relate to the false elector scheme, which the indictment alleges he played a role in pushing forward.

It doesn't matter what opinion he happens to hold about the VP's authority to reject electoral votes. He's indicted for his actions in furtherance of sending a phony slate of electors to Congress.

[hoppy025]

What "scheme?"

[SimonP]

Eastman, et al., pressured Georgia senators (as well as legislators in other states) to select alternate slates of electors; got individual "Trump electors" to sign documents attesting to being the validly-elected electors for their respective states; and arranged to have those documents sent to Congress and other government officials responsible for recording the electoral votes.

Or are you pretending that's all just "providing an opinion on the validity of the election," like most of the MAGA retards?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I am not comfortable with him being prosecuted merely for merely for providing a legal opinion that someone thinks is frivolous

The disciplinary complaints advanced against John Eastman rely on far more than "providing a legal opinion," which makes this comment inexplicable, particularly if provided by a lawyer.

[hoppy025]

Yes, the same way Giuliani is being "disciplined."

Liberal state bars impose "discipline" for promulgating non-leftist ideas.

For example, if prior to Lawrence v. Texas, a lawyer advised you that you had a human and constitutional right to shoot off into the rears of your many "boyfriends," would any state bar disbar such a lawyer? No, of course not.

[SimonP]

Lawrence v. Texas built off a longer line of case law establishing a right to sexual privacy. It was a logical and colorable extension of then-existing law.

The Seligman report provides a compelling argument that Eastman had no such backing for his aggressive interpretation of the Vice President's powers to reject electoral votes or delay their counting.

[hoppy025]

There was no right to sodomy until that one decision. In fact, it had to overrule an existing one to get to its "rule."

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

a lawyer advised you that you had a human and constitutional right to shoot off into the rears of your many “boyfriends,”

Prof. Volokh may be too busy working on a defense of un-American dumbass and bigoted right-wing crackpot John Eastman today to favor us with some of his tone-policing or viewpoint-driven, hypocritical censorship.

[Bored Lawyer]

Focus on the indictment, which I was referring to when I said "prosecuted."

Enlighten us -- what did Eastman do more than provide a frivolous legal opinion (which the intended target, VP Pence, ignored and viewed as "crackpot.")?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The un-American crackpot was indicted on nine counts, few or none of which derive entirely from provision of legal advice. Participation in the filing of false documents (filed not by his clients), for example, or calling a public official (not his client) to solicit violation of duties and oaths do not constitute the provision of legal advice.

Your sympathy for these discredited, un-American assholes is noted and deplored.

[SimonP]

Focus on the indictment, which I was referring to when I said “prosecuted.”

Will someone tell Bored Lawyer that he needs to read the indictment, himself, as it answers precisely the question he is asking here? He seems to have muted me, the cuck.

[Nige]

How long have you been commenting on this, and still your stance is that of a person who has not nor will not read the indictment?

[Kenneth Almquist]

What Nige said. I'll add that the indictment is a searchable PDF file, so it's easy to find the acts that Eastman is accused of taking to further the conspiracy. I'd list them here if there weren't so many of them, eight of which would have been criminal even if they weren't done to further a criminal conspiracy.

[Kazinski]

Eastman's position of course is unsound, but he hardly originated it.

At least one previous proponent was Representative James Garfield, later President, in the election controversy of 1876-77:

"Toward the end of the debates, Morton returned to the idea of
necessity, observing that “this discussion has demonstrated the absolute necessity of the adoption of a law upon this subject. . . . The 4th of March [i.e., Inauguration Day in 1877] is close at hand. An utter
diversity of opinion exists as to where the power is.”
"And that intractable diversity precluded Congress from enacting legislation before the election. The resulting disputes made action imperative.
And the answer came in the form of ad hoc legislation: the Electoral
Commission Act of 1877.

The House debate over that ad hoc measure led to the fifth theory,
enunciated by Representative Garfield. In his view, the power lay in
the Vice President. But that power was subject to Congress’s final
review. Garfield’s position was that “he would accept the exposition of the venerable Chancellor Kent that in the absence of legislation on the subject it would be the duty of the President of the Senate to count the votes and declare the result.”

And the supporting footnote:
"475. Garfield had also expressed an opinion in a letter to Rutherford B. Hayes during the Hayes-Tilden electoral dispute. The Republicans controlled the Senate, and some Republican senators were of the view that the president pro tempore of the Senate had the authority to decide the electoral vote count. Their position gave way, however, in favor of the compromise that created the Electoral Commission. Garfield objected adamantly to the compromise.
He “was indignant about the Senate’s decision to back the Commission, writing to Rutherford B. Hayes that the Senate simply needed to ‘support its presiding officer in following the early precedents, which were made under the fresh impulses of the constitution.’” Colvin & Foley, supra note 342, at 1046 n.14 (citing 1 Theodore Clarke Smith, The Life and Letters of James Garfield 629 (1925)). "

https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi

Maybe they can posthumously disbar Garfield too, but I suppose that wouldn't be as bad as getting shot.

[JasonT20]

But that power was subject to Congress’s final review.

If that had been Eastman’s argument, then wouldn’t it have been moot, as there was no chance both chambers were going to go along with rejecting any of the state certified electoral votes? On the morning of Jan. 6, there were something like a dozen Senators and ~140 House members on record saying that they were going to vote to reject Arizona, Georgia, and/or Pennsylvania’s electoral votes, right?

And then there is this that you quoted:

Garfield’s position was that “he would accept the exposition of the venerable Chancellor Kent that in the absence of legislation on the subject it would be the duty of the President of the Senate to count the votes and declare the result.”

What votes was Pence supposed to count? Only one set of votes had the signature of a state official with any claim to the authority to declare which votes were his state’s official Electoral Votes. The ‘alternate’ electors had signed declarations, but those hadn’t been presented to or signed by anyone with actual authority to certify them from those states. Pence had no authority to do anything other than what he did under any theory. He noted the objections from at least 1 Senator and 1 Representative and sent everyone back to their respective chambers to vote on the objections.

Edit: This is exactly why the circumstances of 1876 or the Hawaii results of 1960 are not relevant to 2020. In both of those cases you had actual different electoral votes signed and certified by officials from those states at least claiming to have the authority to certify them. In 2020, only one set of electors and one set of electoral votes had any legitimate claim to be those states' votes.

For anyone in federal office to say that they have the authority to reject a state's electoral votes (including a majority of Congress) without there at least being a real dispute and choice between different certified votes ... I can't see how anyone that claims skepticism of federal power or "states' rights" would buy into that.

[Kazinski]

You are confused about Hawaii, at the time the two different slates of electors cast their votes only one slate was certified as official by the state.

Subsequent events, a completed recount, changed the vote tally, then the governor recertified the formally official electors and then appointed the previously "fraudulent" electors to take their place.

Exactly the process Trump's advisors hoped would happen.

I agree any ruling by the President of the Senate could be challenged and voted upon by the respective houses, but the point is that Eastman's assertion that the VP had more than a ceremonial role and could make decisions on his own volition was not original to Eastman and was shared by then Representative Garfield.

In fact that position, lets call it The independent President of the Senate theory, was used by the Republicans as leverage in their negotiations with the Democrats in creating the Republican dominated electoral commission that ultimately handed the election to Hayes, an election he probably lost.

[not guilty]

Au contraire, In 1960 the Republican slate of Hawaii electors were outgoing certified by the governor. At the time the electors met, there was a recount ongoing. That recount showed that Senator Kennedy received the most votes. Thereupon, the new governor certified the Democratic electors.

Neither slate of electors in Hawaii intended to deceive anyone -- unlike the Republican fake electors from six states in 2020. The more appropriate way would have been that chosen by Republican electors in New Mexico and Pennsylvania, who declared that they were claiming to be contingent electors, to be counted only if challenges to the official results were to succeed.

[JasonT20]

Exactly the process Trump’s advisors hoped would happen.

No, that is not at all what they hoped would happen. They hoped that Pence would declare those certified electoral votes to be not valid, period. Then, rather than both chambers making a vote on it that same day, the disputed state legislatures (enough of which had Republican majorities) would then "investigate" the fraud and vote to decertify the whole election for their states. That would mean no one would have 270 Electoral Votes and the House would decide, but on a one vote per state delegation basis, which Republicans could have won if they stuck together.

I'm not making any of this up. Peter Navarro laid this out explicitly.

"And basically these were the places where we believed that if the votes were sent back to those battleground states and looked at again that there would be enough concern amongst the legislatures that most or all of those states would decertify the election," Navarro said.

He continued: "That would throw the election to the House of Representatives. And I would say to you here, Ari, that all of this, again, was in the lanes legally. It was prescribed by the Constitution. There is a provision to go, rather than through the Electoral College, to the House of Representatives."

[Brett Bellmore]

"the disputed state legislatures (enough of which had Republican majorities) would then “investigate” the fraud "

What IS it with this belief that you can prove something fraudulent by putting "quotes" around a random word, like "find" or "investigate"?

[Drewski]

You do that all the time. I frequently mock you for it.

[JasonT20]

Look at what Navarro said. "...there would be enough concern amongst the legislatures..." He already believed, or said he believed, that there was enough evidence of fraud to change the results. And he was saying that the legislatures wouldn't be looking to prove fraud, but that there was enough "concern" to decertify their presidential votes. (Note that the quotation marks here are because those were Navarro's words.)

The use of scare quotes is nothing new. The term itself is even older than I am. It indicates skepticism, irony, or other non-standard use. I used it here because I have-well justified skepticism that any Republican efforts to investigate fraud in 2020 would be anything close to objective. I was right, given everything we've seen since the 2020 election, particularly in Arizona.

It's a rhetorical tactic to make a point. Just like the rhetorical tactic of completely ignoring everything I wrote, except for the one little thing you make a big deal about, in order to distract from the facts I had spoken.

[Brett Bellmore]

I realize it's a rhetorical technique, what I find strange is people who seem to think that it actually substitutes for making a case.

[JasonT20]

What I find strange is that you thought I was doing that. I don't find it strange that you didn't address anything else in my comment, though. That's typical for you.

[David Nieporent]

Actually, there were several different paths proposed by Eastman. One was to pretend that the fake electoral votes were real, in which case Trump wins. Another was to declare the actual swing state electoral votes invalid, throw them out, and declare Trump the winner because he would have had an absolute majority of the valid votes cast. Another was to declare the actual swing state electoral votes invalid, throw them out, and then send the election to the House on the grounds that nobody had achieved a majority. And yet another was to declare that these states hadn't made a choice at all, and tell the states that the election was fraudulent and their legislatures needed to cast the states' electoral votes for Trump.

[JasonT20]

And all of those still hinge on Mike Pence being the one to make the declarations, right? No one else with any pretense of authority to make such a declaration was going to do so. Not any of the relevant state governors, secretaries of state, nor were any state legislatures as a body going to do that. By Jan. 6, all attempts from the Trump side to pressure those people to make such a declaration had failed. And there weren't nearly enough votes in Congress for that to happen either, thus Mike Pence was their last hope. (And no Yoda to say, "No. There is another.")

[David Nieporent]

Correct. Pretty much all of these required Pence to proclaim that the actual electoral votes from those swing states don't count for one reason or another. That's why there's such hatred of Pence on the MAGA right.

[Nelson]

Mike Pence is a frighteningly brutal culture warrior, but apparently an honest one. That's a big thing in his favor. When it came down to the country or his career, he chose the country.

[JasonT20]

After everything, I think people really should rethink the use of the word, "insurrection" for what Trump and Co. did in Jan. 2021. The term "self-coup" seems more appropriate. For those not familiar with the term, a self-coup is when a legally elected leader uses illegal means to stay in power. Thus, Trump attempted a self-coup. No amount of torturing the law and the Constitution works to justify what Trump and his people did. We can argue in circles all day, every day, but the facts don't change.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The Dems would have done it and we all know that...

[JasonT20]

We know all that, do we? If they didn't do anything but accept the transition of power in 2001 and 2017, then the Democrats are only as evil as you think they are in MAGA-world. In the world the rest of us live in, only Trump is that bad.

[Nelson]

"The Dems would have done it and we all know that…"

I thought baseless whataboutism was the most mendacious argument possible. As it turns out, Dr. Ed has found one worse: hypothetical whataboutism.

[John F. Carr]

Some doctors who were the subject of complaints for prescribing ivermectin sued government officials, claiming that the FDA's advice not to use ivermectin to treat COVID-19 was responsible for their misfortune. The Fifth Circuit ruled that treatment advice was ultra vires and the government could not rely on sovereign immunity to have the claim dismissed. The District Court will decide on remand whether the doctors have standing.

https://www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/22/22-40802-CV0.pdf

I think the Supreme Court would rule against the lawsuit, with perhaps some disagreement over whether to invoke standing or sovereign immunity.

[SimonP]

Reading Fifth Circuit opinions is a grim reminder of the stupid, stupid times we live in.

I think Americans would be surprised to learn that the agency charged with evaluating and approving drugs and medical devices for human use has no authority to make recommendations as to their use or even to pass on how they might be used, outside of those approvals. This extremely close reading of sub-regulatory guidance would have broad ramifications for much of what other administrative agencies do on a regular basis.

[TwelveInchPianist]

IIUC the court didn't address the merits of the ultra vires claims, just that the FDA wasn't protected by sovereign immunity.

On remand, the District Court will address the standing issue, and the merits of the ultra vires claims if necessary.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Terrible messaging by the FDA, in any event.

[Ridgeway]

I disagree.

The way I read the opinion, the court stated that the "FDA does not have express authority to recommend against off-label uses of drugs approved for human use." Accordingly, doing so is ultra vires.

I am not an expert on FDA-related law, but this seems highly dubious.

The court draws a brightline distinction between providing information (OK) and making recommendations (not OK), but does not (AFICT), provide any support for that position.

I'd be curious to hear from a practitioner about this one.

[JasonT20]

I guess this is a statutory issue rather than a constitutional one, but it still just seems really weird to say that a government agency can't express an expert opinion about something within its explicit purview. But, like others have said - 5th Circuit, ivermectin ... weird seems inevitable.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's not actually that complicated: The FDA's job is gate keeping reasonably safe drugs. They objectively do a terrible job at it, they're still living off their Thalidomide glory, but their record ever since has been delaying useful drugs in the US without anything to show for it.

But in principle it's a needed job, and it's not utterly inevitable that they be bad at it.

But that's a job that isn't patient facing.

And once it's been demonstrated to them that a drug is at least a little bit useful for one condition, and minimally safe, that's it. Proving that stuff to the FDA is so expensive nobody goes on to prove every condition it might be useful for; Of label applications REMAIN off label for financial reasons.

So, they have no relevant expertise or patient specific information, they're totally out of their depth when it comes to prescribing recommendations.

[JasonT20]

It’s not actually that complicated: The FDA’s job is gate keeping reasonably safe drugs. They objectively do a terrible job at it, they’re still living off their Thalidomide glory, but their record ever since has been delaying useful drugs in the US without anything to show for it.

This reminds me of RBG's response to CJ Robert's majority opinion in Shelby County. (paraphrasing) You don't put away your umbrella when it's raining just because you aren't getting wet. You seem to be taking the FDA to task as not having "anything to show for" its efforts regulating drugs and treatments. What we have to show for their work is how few new drugs are discovered to cause harm worse than their benefit years after thousands of patients have suffered from taking them.

There is always cause to scrutinize regulations to see if they are more of a burden than their benefits justify, but being all like: "Well, they haven't found another Thalidomide lately!" is really missing the point.

So, they have no relevant expertise or patient specific information, they’re totally out of their depth when it comes to prescribing recommendations.

That is a really bizarre claim. Evaluating drugs for safety and weighing benefit vs. side effects is their job, but they don't have any expertise when it comes to recommending whether to prescribe a particular drug for a particular condition? Doctor's decide whether to prescribe a drug for a patient after weighing the drug's benefits vs. possible side effects for that patient. The FDA also considers that as they decide whether to approve it in the first place. So how is that not within their expertise? Because of off label use? Baloney.

Ivermectin was evaluated and approved as safe for treating parasites. The benefit vs. potential harm was evaluated on that basis. If the FDA looks at the available published research and sees no statistically significant benefit to the broad general public in taking Ivermectin as a COVID treatment, then any possible harm from side effects would seem an unwarranted risk. Unlike what I keep hearing people on the right saying, though, I've never seen any evidence that any government agency actually prohibited Ivermectin from being prescribed off label for COVID.

So, some doctors got complaints because they prescribed it while the FDA recommended against using it that way. Each of those complaints would need to be evaluated based on the specifics of each case and patient. The FDA made its recommendation based on the whole population. A doctor may think that the patient in front of him might be distinct enough from the general population that he would be an outlier that might benefit. Fine. I don't see a problem with doctors making a professional judgement on that as long as they are giving their patients accurate information about the state of the research.

Again, any harm these doctors might be claiming based on the FDA's recommendation would really fall entirely on the process of these complaints they are getting. If someone is disciplining these doctors entirely because "the FDA said it was no good!", then the harm isn't being caused by what the FDA said but the morons that are misusing what the FDA did say.

[Brett Bellmore]

"What we have to show for their work is how few new drugs are discovered to cause harm worse than their benefit years after thousands of patients have suffered from taking them."

If only other countries had agencies comparable to the FDA, so that we could compare their track records in terms of time to market for useful drugs vs dangerous drugs intercepted. What a shame that the FDA is the only agency in the world of its sort, preventing such head to head comparisons...

"That is a really bizarre claim. Evaluating drugs for safety and weighing benefit vs. side effects is their job, but they don’t have any expertise when it comes to recommending whether to prescribe a particular drug for a particular condition?"

As I said, they do that evaluation based on submissions from drug companies, very expensive submissions. Since off label applications are legal once a drug is approved for one purpose, and going through the process again would be crazy expensive, the FDA typically never sees the evidence for off label applications. That doesn't mean the evidence doesn't exist.

[Sarcastr0]

How would such evidence exist such that the FDA does not see it but doctors do?

[Absaroka]

I think Brett is suggesting that AcmePharm spends $zillions getting Wonderzole approved for treating constipation, and docs prescribe it for that. And their constipated patients report 'wow doc, not only did it cure my constipation but Bam! my chronic toenail fungus is gone just like that!'. And docs spread the word, and publish that in JAMA ... but AcmePharm never spends the $zillions to get it approved for toenail fungus, because toenail fungus isn't common enough to ever justify the expenditure.

So the argument is that once the FDA determines that Wonderzole is not, in fact, the next Thalidomide, that it should let docs prescribe it as they see fit.

Moving away from the political valence of all things covid, suppose it's the early days of HIV. There are no, none, nada drugs available. Patients are dying. Some doc decides to try some random drug, and seems to get good results. Other docs report the same, but clinical trials are years away, if they ever make financial sense. How much do you want the FDA interfering with the decisions those docs and patients are making?

My sense of the matter is that it is ultimately the patient's body and life - my body, my choice! If people want to take aspirin/essential oils/ivermectin for their leukemia, the FDA's role ought to be limited to 'we don't think that's a good idea'.

[Ridgeway]

"My sense of the matter is that it is ultimately the patient’s body and life – my body, my choice! If people want to take aspirin/essential oils/ivermectin for their leukemia, the FDA’s role ought to be limited to ‘we don’t think that’s a good idea’."

But that is all they did, and the 5th Circuit still smacked them down. That is why the opinion seems so bizarre.

[Brett Bellmore]

That's exactly my argument, except that even IF foot fungus were widespread enough to cover the expenditure, it's not going to get done, because Wonderzole is already available for use on foot fungus, so why throw the money away?

It just doesn't happen. Once a drug is approved by the FDA, they're hardly ever going to see it again, no matter how many new uses show up.

The exception is actually a GRAS (Generally Regarded As Safe) drug or supplement, which turn out to have some utterly MASSIVE use that's worth advertising, because the FDA gets really pissy if you make medical claims they haven't signed off on, and you're advertising those, they're OTC.

So, say that somebody notices that folic acid almost totally eliminates the risk of neural tube defects. And a vitamin seller wants to advertise that use, because they're selling direct to women, not via doctor's prescriptions. THEN the FDA gets involved, in signing off on the claims on the label.

And you get a massive legal fight all the way up to the Supreme court, because the FDA turns out not to care if the claim is provably true...

[JasonT20]

How much do you want the FDA interfering with the decisions those docs and patients are making?

The FDA issuing a recommendation that has no force behind it doesn't stop any doctors from using their best professional judgement based on published research.

Your hypotheticals were pretty good, but the FDA didn't do anything to actually stand in the way here, as I see the summary of the facts. If the recommendation is nothing more than take-it-or-leave-it advice, then where is the harm to anyone that wanted to prescribe off label if they have a different view of the data?

[David Nieporent]

That’s exactly my argument, except that even IF foot fungus were widespread enough to cover the expenditure, it’s not going to get done, because Wonderzole is already available for use on foot fungus, so why throw the money away?

Because they can't put an ad on TV saying, "If you suffer from foot fungus, ask your doctor about Wonderzole" unless they put in the work to get Wonderzole approved for the treatment of foot fungus.

[VinniUSMC]

Because they can’t put an ad on TV saying, “If you suffer from foot fungus, ask your doctor about Wonderzole” unless they put in the work to get Wonderzole approved for the treatment of foot fungus.

Why would they bother with all of that when they can just schmooze doctors to recommend Wonderzole to patients for them?

[Nelson]

"What a shame that the FDA is the only agency in the world of its sort, preventing such head to head comparisons…"

OK, I'll bite. Which countries have a better record than the FDA in safety that also have a quicker time-to-market?

"the FDA typically never sees the evidence for off label applications."

But that isn't an argument for your belief that "they have no relevant expertise". Further, you have no idea what evidence they did or didn't see.

You understand that ivermectin turned out to be exactly as useless to treat COVID as the FDA said it was, right? It's great as a heartworm preventative for dogs, but useless for treating viral infections in humans.

[Michael P]

Imagine the DOJ told people to stop denying that Trump won the 2020 election because that's a seditious conspiracy. Does that help illustrate why the FDA was wrong?

[Nige]

It certainly illustrates the weird hall of mirrors you're living in.

[JasonT20]

A better analogy is if government agencies or officials with purview over elections have said that there is no evidence of systematic fraud that would have affected the results of the 2020 election. Therefore, we think people shouldn't continue to believe otherwise. And, hey, its harmful to continue to publicly make claims that aren't backed up by the facts or that are contradicted by easily verifiable facts. So we also think that people shouldn't do that.

If they leave it that, with neither explicit or implied threat of action toward people that continue to believe that the election was stolen from Trump and say so publicly, then I would say that they were doing their jobs. You should see how that scenario is a much closer analogy to the whole ivermectin thing than what you wrote.

But it seems that in MAGA-world, all of that would count as the government trying to suppress the Truth!

[MatthewSlyfield]

I do not like the big room with the blue ceiling.
The light fixture is too bright and the air conditioning doesn't work.

[Davy C]

The light will turn off in a few hours, and the air conditioning should kick in in a few months.

[MatthewSlyfield]

Yeah, right about when I'd want the heat to come on. 🙂

[Magister]

A lot of floor space and interesting furniture, though.

[Kazinski]

Where I was at this weekend the ceiling was grey and it leaked, and it didn't hit 60 until today.

Careful what you ask for.

[hoppy025]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/gun-owners-it-s-time-for-us-to-stand-up-against-the-second-amendment-death-culture/ar-AA1gcYIs

These are always my favorite examples of left wing bias in the media. Publishing this kind of crap which is basically "I'm a conservative, but."

[SimonP]

Ah, yes - "left-wing bias" manifests itself by publishing an op-ed by a longtime right-wing pundit that strays slightly outside the extremist orthodoxy of the MAGA goon squad.

[hoppy025]

He's not a longtime right-wing pundit, and his "proposals" are not "reasonable" and "common sense" but basically far left talking points of Everytown and March for our lives.

[SimonP]

You could at least google the guy, before you spout off like an idiot.

[Brett Bellmore]

Admittedly, I don't know Rich Logis from chopped liver, probably because I've never really watched Fox. Not that working for Fox is proof of conservativism, they really do bridge the political spectrum. That's why they get labeled right wing: Because they don't exclude right-wingers. But, sure, he was publicly a conservative at one time, google tells me that much.

But I do know typical anti-gunner talking points, and he was spouting them a mile a minute. "Stochastic terror", for instance.

Seriously, who rationally totally flips like this, abruptly swallows his former foes' entire program like that?

He sounds like a guy who held his nose and pretended to be a conservative for job reasons, as long as he could, and finally decided to stop pretending and let his freak flag fly.

[hoppy025]

Yes, exactly. Of his talking points, pasted below, the only ones that could remotely be described as “moderate” is the minimum age of 21, the no private sales, and the registry. The rest are stale and dishonest talking points. For example, “mandatory” permits under federal law for concealed carry? On what constitutional basis could one even pretend that Congress has that power? Same with a federal prohibition of open carry.

Another example is "30 bone-shattering rounds per magazine"

All bullets can shatter bones. That's the point. This is part of the left's crusade to pretend that there's something especially dangerous about 5.56 rounds that isn't true of any rifle round.

A minimum age requirement of 21 to own any gun, long rifle and so on, with some reasonable exceptions, such as working in law enforcement, military service and inheritance exemptions (which would only cover certain types of guns, carefully stipulated by law); A national firearm registry, to assist law enforcement in criminal investigations; Mandatory record-keeping and reporting to federal databases by all states; All firearms sales include background checks performed by federally-licensed dealers; Background checks on ammunition sales; Annual Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives background checks, conducted by dealers; Reclassification of any firearm (handgun or rifle) that holds more than 10 rounds in a magazine; they will be subject to an excise tax at time of manufacture, with the funds collected from excise taxes used for gun violence studies and research and perhaps a federally-administered program of injury and liability insurance; Reduce magazine ammunition size on AR-15s and similar weapons from 30 rounds to 10 or fewer. Larger magazines should be regulated similar to the way fully automatic weapons are now, with buyers subject to lengthy, demanding (and entirely constitutional) background checks; Eliminate all “ghost gun” loopholes; Require mandatory permits for concealed carry in federal law; prohibit open carry.

[Ben_]

Here’s what happens when Democrat authorities are allowed to interact with kids:

https://nypost.com/2023/09/04/virginia-school-kept-teen-gender-transition-secret-suit/

Sex trafficking, rape, etc. But you could have guessed that.

[SimonP]

So, do you find it plausible that Sage fled their home, after being outed as trans to their grandmother, just because they were concerned that their in-school bullies would come to attack them at home? Is, "You've done your job, Jesus loves you" the sort of thing such a teenager, running away from home as part of a "psychotic break," would conceivably write to their adoptive parent?

Or is it perhaps more likely that the following events transpired: Sage concluded that they might be trans; sought to live as a boy while at school because they didn't feel safe coming out at home; was relentlessly bullied; was then outed at home when the counselors informed their grandmother of what was going on in school; faced immediate rejection and promises of "therapy" from their grandmother; and then chose to run away, leading to the awful events that followed?

The grandmother's lawsuit - and the Post's credulous recounting of it - is almost laughably self-aggrandizing. It's obviously fictitious, to anyone not already convinced of the ultimate righteousness of anti-trans ideology.

[JasonT20]

Forcing school officials to out students to their parents or guardians is problematic. There’s a youtuber that I follow that really put it in the most obvious way I can imagine. A viewer had written him with a question, “Wouldn’t you be upset if you found out that staff or teachers at school knew your child was LGBT and you didn’t?”

His response was, “Yeah, absolutely. I would be upset that my child was afraid to tell me. I would wonder what I had done wrong to make them think they couldn’t trust me with that.”

Edit: It really shows that the root of that position, that schools need to out kids to their parents, is entirely that being LGBT is wrong, thus parents need to know so that they can "fix" it.

[David Nieporent]

Forcing school officials to lie about students to their parents or guardians seems far more problematic to me.

[JasonT20]

I didn't say anything about lying. And I am not saying that school employees should do anything to encourage or discourage individual students on these matters.

I am just saying that school employees need to be mindful of an obvious fact that children don't tell their parents everything that happens at school, and that they might do so out of fear of how their parents will react. At a minimum, school officials should be able to give a heads up to a child before they inform parents of anything a child might have thought was confidential. And that they should be ready to deal with it if the child expresses fear for their safety if their parents find out.

[David Nieporent]

How could a school age child have thought that something s/he does openly in school is "confidential"?

I just think the idea that they're doing it to protect the child from abuse is both overbroad and woefully underbroad. If you think a child's parents are going to abuse that child, "Oh, I just won't tell them stuff about their kid that might upset them" seems terribly inadequate. But of course there are lots of things that might cause parents to abuse their kids, and schools don't conceal the vast majority of them from parents. If the kid is suspended for fighting or using cocaine at school, would the school say, "We won't tell the parents because they might harm the kid"? If the kid gets all Ds and Fs on his report card, would the school say that? Of course not. Everyone would agree that the parents have a right to know, and that if the parents react violently, then that's a reason to remove the kid from the home, not reason to lie to them.

[SimonP]

If a child tells their counselor that they’re being abused by one of their parents, but with the request that the counselor not immediately inform the other parent – the child may view the other parent as not “on their side” and likely to double down on the abuse, or as likely to inform the abusive parent of the child’s report at school, etc. – what, then, would you expect the counselor to do?

Teachers and counselors need to approach student confidences with a sensitivity and maturity, to be sure, and know when to involve the parents, and when not to. But the choice of rule is between counselors who are overly protective, but acting in the best interests of the child, and parents who are abusive, and not acting in the best interests of the child. Why would you choose the rule that favors the latter?

[JasonT20]

I don't know of a state where school personnel are not "mandatory reporters". That is, if we suspect child abuse or neglect, we must report it. This made me realize that I don't know the answer to the question and need to find out, but it is a question about whether we need to make the same kind of report if we suspect that abuse might be a result of a parent finding out something the child wants kept secret. I would think the answer would be yes, but I am not certain.

[Nige]

Well, no, it's basic child protection to respect their wishes about informing parents. Lying doesn't have to come into it at all.

[Kazinski]

Here is a similar case with a happier ending:
"The lawsuit alleged that teachers and administrators at Buena Vista Middle School “secretly convinced A.G.” that she was bisexual and, later, transgender.
The child started using a new name and pronouns, and the school began to change A.G.’s name on educational records, the lawsuit said. The student was also granted access to a teacher’s unisex bathroom.
A.G. suffered “profound mental stress” due to the action of school personnel, who encouraged the student not to inform her mother, according to the lawsuit.
On campus, teachers and staff would address the student under the new name, while reverting back to A.G. when communicating with Konen, the lawsuit said.
Teachers and staff began “instructing A.G. that she must not tell her mother about her new gender identity,” the lawsuit said."
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-09-02/school-district-settles-100-000-lawsuit-that-claimed-it-supported-secret-transitioning-of-student

[SimonP]

Hey, you know - I'd be a lot more likely to take bare allegations (from a lawsuit that's been settled without any admission of fault) more seriously, if transphobes like yourself weren't such brazen liars the rest of the time.

[Kazinski]

Yeah, $100000 check, but no admission of fault.

And the young girl is now in high school and a happy heterosexual.

[Nige]

‘The lawsuit alleged that teachers and administrators at Buena Vista Middle School “secretly convinced A.G that she was bisexual and, later, transgender.’

Sounds like bullshit.

'and a happy heterosexual.'

Until she's out of that house, anyway.

[hoppy025]

https://news4sanantonio.com/news/local/suspect-in-custody-for-fatal-shooting-of-texas-christian-university-student-crime-victim-suspect-investigation-tcu-students

Black criminal shoots white college student for no reason other than the color of his skin.

[Drewski]

Almost certainly a robbery, given Purdy's history. What is kind of morbidly amusing is the murder took place near a bar called Your Mom's House, which leads to awkward lines in the news as they trip over themselves trying to make it clear that nothing happened near your actual, personal mom's house. Sadly, a lot of readers would probably be upset and confused if they didn't.

[SRG2]

ProPublica review of Supreme Court threats to rights it had previously established.

Regardless of whether a right is recognised in the Constitution or is recognised by the courts later, where rights have been recognised by the SC earlier, any later withdrawal is an infringement on rights.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

The right to work employees longer than the maximum hours?

The right to pay women under the minimum wage?

[TwelveInchPianist]

"The right to pay women under the minimum wage?"

Are you referring to the Adkins v. Children's Hospital that said you couldn't have a higher minimum wage for women, thereby making it harder for women to find work?

[Kazinski]

So just what is the process under the constitution for the Supreme Court to create new rights?

Seems to me to be a very flawed view of the constitution and the Supreme Courts role in our democracy.

[Martinned]

The judicial power of the United states is vested in the Supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. That judicial power consists of the power to decide cases and controversies in the manner that the founding fathers were used to at the time of the revolution, in a history going back to Lord Coke and further.

Whether you want to describe the method used by the judiciary as "recognising" existing rights or creating/developing new one is a matter of preference.

[Ed Grinberg]

Regardless of whether a right is recognised in the Constitution or is recognised by the courts later, where rights have been recognised by the SC earlier, any later withdrawal is an infringement on rights.

Sorry, but there's a huge difference between "rights [spelled out] in the Constitution" and "rights recognised by the courts" that have no basis in the Constitution's text. The courts have no business "recognizing" (more like inventing) such rights. By doing so, they stray beyond their judicial role and usurp the legislature's functions.

[Nelson]

Read the Ninth Amendment and try to understand how your belief that unenumerated rights are different than enumerated rights is literally the opposite of what the Constitution says.

[NvEric]

Perversion of law continues by those least able to be civilized.
More law equals less responsibility.
More law, by way of its inherent conflicting bulk, creates false civil society, and works opposite of its implied intention.

A framework of mutualism in which common morals are held lends toward stability which is the reason for having political unity.

Remaking a country based on diverging ethos will invite instability. Welcome, in this case, are those who will remake the remake, thus enjoining to a more perfect union.

[apedad]

"Remaking a country based on diverging ethos will invite instability."

Or. . . within a proper political framework, e.g., federalism, and constitutional protections, diverging ethoses can actually invite long-term STABILITY.

It's inflexible, intolerant societies which are short-lived.

[Martinned]

Here's a legal issue that will probably make a lot of Americans' heads hurt:

- In 2017 the motorcycle gang Bandidos was banned as a criminal enterprise.
- In 2021, the defendant attended (as a visitor) a Bandidos-related trial wearing a Bandidos t-shirt and baseball cap.
- He gets prosecuted for continuing the activities of a banned organisation by wearing its clothes and accessories.
- Convicted at first instance, he gets acquitted on appeal.
- Today the advocate-general at the supreme court has recommended that the supreme court should overturn the acquittal. The Court of appeals had decided that the activities in question - wearing this clothing etc. - were too minimal to constitute "continuing the activities" of the Bandidos. The AG advised that, given the context (attending the trial), this is not right.
- The supreme court will decide in October. If it agrees with the AG it will refer the case back (to a different court of appeal) for a re-hearing of the appeal in light of its holdings. In other words, the defendant's previous acquittal on appeal might get overturned.

https://www.hogeraad.nl/actueel/nieuwsoverzicht/2023/september/advies-ag-hoge-raad-vrijspraak-dragen-kleding-accessoires-naam-logo/

[John F. Carr]

In the United States a judge may have to control the display of gang colors in court. Criminal contempt is an available sanction. Police uniforms fall within the penumbra of gang colors because they are recognizable insignia of tribal affiliation. There have been complaints that police showed up en masse in the courtroom to try to intimidate the jury in cases with police victims or defendants. The judge has discretion to make the army of clones dress in plain clothes.

Another analogy in U.S. law is the ban on providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization. The law permits conviction for acts that look to me to be free speech. You can't go to jail just for wearing an Al Qaeda t-shirt. You can go to jail for making pro-Al Qaeda videos if you cross an invisible line from blowing hot air to providing support.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, this is interesting: The very same grand jury that indicted Trump on Rico charges?

Just indicted a bunch of Antifa on Rico, too.

61 Indicted in Georgia on Racketeering Charges Linked to ‘Stop Cop City’

Mind you, in regards to much more conventional and violent criminality...

[Nelson]

You think the people who are protesting Cop City are Antifa? How credulous are you?

[Absaroka]

"A series of vandalizations, church arsons, and suspicious fires in June and July 2021 desecrated, damaged, or destroyed 68 Christian churches in Canada." wiki

So some were only damaged.

[Mr. Bumble]

Thank you Queen of the Obvious.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The queen needs to learn about variance.

The difference with Washington County is that a lot of rich retirees have bought shorefront property and retired to there -- enough for them to skew the mortality statistics. (Now if a few hard winters will drive them out is another issue...)

The other aspect of variance is "the airline" -- Maine Route 9 between I-95 in Bangor and Calais where it crosses the Canadian Border. Little more than a logging road in the '80s, it has become a major artery of international commerce over the past 30 years -- with all the advantages and disadvantages of that.

Perry County doesn't sit on the border with our largest trading partner...

[Absaroka]

The date range is listed as '21 June – 8 July 2021', so 58 incidents in a couple of weeks.

It could be that Canada normally sees 1500 church vandalisms/arsons/whatever a year, I have no idea. Maybe Canadians burn a lot of churches, and this was just a minor uptick that was sensationalized, a la 'Summer of the Shark'. But some Canadians - Justin Trudeau, for example (fn 24) - seem to think the timing, and the concurrent vandalism involving spray painted messages, indicate a link to the purported graves.

If you have numbers on the background rate that indicate this wasn't a big spike, I'm all ears. Or any hint that Trudeau et al. are wrong about the cause. Politicians and the media going off the deep end is certainly a thing, but it would be nice to see some evidence that is the case here.

The Summer of the Shark, for example, is pretty easily debunked simply because the number of shark attacks in 2001 wasn't an outlier. If you have information that Canada in fact routinely has 1500 church arson/vandalism incidents per year, that would neatly debunk this story.

[Mr. Bumble]

No, what I think is obvious is that people die and trying to assign a cause doesn’t help much without taking in all of the variables.

https://www.newsweek.com/50-us-neighborhoods-and-cities-lowest-life-expectancy-1131176

[Dr. Ed 2]

Ever been to Washington County?

Augusta's authority is stretched rather thin out there.

[Brett Bellmore]

"68 churches were burned over a fake mass grave scandal!"

What kind of person thinks they've scored a victory by proving that it was "just" 58, and they weren't all burned to the ground? And ignores that, yup, a bunch of churches got attacked over a ginned up fake scandal?

[Kazinski]

Actually I was a little lazy, I took the number from this sentence in Wikipedia:
"A series of vandalizations, church arsons, and suspicious fires in June and July 2021 desecrated, damaged, or destroyed 68 Christian churches in Canada."

I obviously should have visited all the churches personally and categorized them individually into desecrated, damaged and destroyed categories.

And of course taken geolocated photos of each and linked a publicly available Google photos folder with the evidence.

But really rather than the actual number what I found more telling was.that an actual BCHR commissioner would cheer lead the Parsons then receive public support from the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs.

That and of course outlets like the BBC would uncritically report 751 bodies were found when obviously it was just a wild ass guess based on what turned out to be a completely unreliable lidar survey.

[Mr. Bumble]

The queen of obfuscation and dissembling.

[Absaroka]

My apologies, the 58 was a (fairly obvious) typo.

[Bwaaah]

I think Queenie is just demonstrating that no facts will ever lead him/her to end up on the wrong side of an argument. This isn't about truth; it's about good people and bad people. (And you know what kind you must necessarily be in that zeitgeist.)

Bigotry takes many forms. Queenie models a common type these days.

[David Nieporent]

I'm old enough to remember — and I know Brett is, too, even if he conveniently forgets it — when there was a supposed racist epidemic of black church burnings in the U.S. in the mid-1990s. It became an issue in the 1996 presidential election campaign. Only it later turned out that there was no such epidemic; the number of black churches that caught fire in that time was not statistically unusual, and it was a mix of ordinary fires (faulty wiring, etc.) and non-politically motivated arsons (i.e., a disgruntled member of the church setting a fire).

[Sarcastr0]

It could be that Canada normally sees 1500 church vandalisms/arsons/whatever a year, I have no idea.
It would seem to me the burden is on the person making the causal claim, no?

Add in the conflation of burned down with vandalized, and this seems a questionable story. Which, since it's the dailymail, is not surprising.

[Absaroka]

"since it’s the dailymail"

You might want to check the footnotes in the linked article.

You know, the claim sounded a little out there to me. And so I did a quick search, and lo and behold, there is a wiki article that says that, inter alia, the Beeb and the prime minister think there is something to the story. 'But there is no proof!' seems like a pretty weak debunking. Maybe find us an article that disagrees, for example?

[Don Nico]

Why not? It is the governance model of many Calvinist denominations.

[Brett Bellmore]

Conspiracy law IS pretty shitty, though. Not quite civil forfeiture bad, but approaching it.

[Nige]

'‘But there is no proof!’ seems like a pretty weak debunking'

It's pretty basic debunking, actually.

[Sarcastr0]

You make a claim and your evidence is insufficient, you have not met your burden and I will not believe the claim.

Absolutely investigate crimes against churches - if there is a retaliation against places of worship that’s a real issue. But so far it does not seem to be a real issue.

[Nige]

'I think is obvious is that people die'

No shit Sherlock.

[SRG2]

I am sure that had QA merely posted, without a link, the same facts, you would have flatly denied them, but now, they're "obvious".

[Absaroka]

"FWIW churches are common targets of vandalism at any time period"

'Common' can cover a pretty large range. In the limited time I'm willing to spend, I found a source called "christainpost.com" that says "At least 420 acts of hostility against churches occurred in the United States over the past five years".

The date range further down is more like 4.5ish years; 420/4.5 is 93 incidents per year. The US population is roughly 10 times Canada's population, so if Canada had the same per capita rate that would be 9 per year. 9 is a lot smaller number than 1500.

You're going to have to bring more to the table to make 'it's just the normal church burning/vandalism here, nothing to see' plausible.

You could find other periods in Canada where 68 incidents occur in two weeks. Maybe 'christainpost.com' has grossly undercounted. You could find an article with another explanation ('despite the spray painted messages, it wasn't about purported graves, it was just a tiktok challenge gone bad!'). Or something.

That something disagrees with your priors isn't evidence.

[Nige]

'You’re going to have to bring more to the table to make ‘it’s just the normal church burning/vandalism here, nothing to see’ plausible.'

Think it might be the other way round. That strong claim turned weak pretty quickly.

[Absaroka]

"Among other things, where is 1500 coming from?"

From my typo; 58 in two weeks is 1500 a year. From above: "The date range is listed as ’21 June – 8 July 2021′, so 58 incidents in a couple of weeks. It could be that Canada normally sees 1500 church vandalisms/arsons/whatever a year, ..."

The actual number is 68, so 1700 per year. Just to spell it out, the question is how large the spike is relative to the base rate. As posted above, if Canada has a similar base rate to the US, then the expected rate is 9 per year, or 0.34 in any given two week period. The observed rate was 68, not 0.34. That's a 200 fold increase.

That's a big change to explain away as just a statistical blip. And on top of that, some of the incidents involved painted messages. The text of those messages isn't reported. Perhaps the messages indicate some other motive, and the Canadian police just left that out of the prime minister's briefing, and the BBC reporters didn't think to ask what the messages said. Oooookay.

There's nothing the matter with being a skeptic. Just be consistent: when President Biden condemns a 200 fold increase
in attacks as 'unacceptable MAGA inspired hate crimes', and the NYT reports the same, your line is "just a blip, and for all we know the spray painted messages were 'Save the Whales', nothing to see here".

[Krayt]

The idea a school became an abbatoir for hundreds of kids and nobody said shit or noticed, is inherently ridiculous.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Brett -- one other possibility is that conspiracy law gets changed -- either via a SCOTUS ruling in the Trump case, or by state legislatures facing populist pressure as happened in response to the Kelo case.

I may not be the brightest bulb, and I definitely am not a member of the Georgia Bar, but I still can't see what it was that Trump did that warrants a criminal charge in Georgia. Being impolite, uncouth and downright nasty to public officials is not a crime, and Stacey Abrahams has made a career out of claiming an election (now two) was stolen from her.

The other thing -- all the defendants were in DC, how does GA get jurisdiction?

[Nige]

Everywhere the Catholic Church ran institutions which had the care of children, there are stories of abuse, neglect, exploitation and above-average mortality. It's entirely plausible.

[Drewski]

Not so ridiculous in light of scandals such as the Irish mother-and-baby homes, where 35,000 children died in the care of nuns and nobody noticed.

[Nige]

Who were effectively kidnapped.

[David Welker]

Sarcastr0:

I don't have any deep passion about this particular issue. But I wanted to raise an issue with your thinking.

So, courts have to make decisions based on the evidence before them. Like, have to. And the decision is binary. Either the plaintiff wins or the defendant wins.

The same isn't true of you. You could think that today that X is 30% likely to be true but then tomorrow that X is 35% likely to be true without deciding.

In other words, talking about who has the burden of proof is irrelevant. If you encounter more evidence, from whatever source, you update your probabilities. If you don't encounter more evidence, from whatever source, you don't update them. As you get more evidence, you feel more certain in your probabilities. That is, the probability that your probabilities are correct goes up.

From this perspective, I would say that an argument that if X things happening this week was normal, then X * 52 things happening in a year seems kind of high is actually a "good argument" that should get you tentatively update your mental model.

Is it actually worth the effort to get the numbers? Maybe. That depends on how much effort it takes. Do you actually care?

Talking about how someone else has the burden of proof doesn't make much sense. Are they in court? Are you a judge? Are they asking for you to issue a judgment in their favor?

When we are talking about searching for the truth outside the context of where an immediate decision must be made, burdens of proof make less sense. Either it is a priority or it is not. If it is a priority, maybe we put effort into researching. If it isn't (and for me, this issue is a naw dawg in terms of being a priority), then we don't put an effort into researching.

Anyway, just a thought. I think applying concepts from the law to everyday thinking may not make complete sense. You aren't a judge. You don't actually have to decide what you think in the near future.

[Kazinski]

Well of course my mistake was resting on the opinions of Canadians like the PM, Premier of Alberta, multiple first nations leaders, and of course the abhorrent cheerleading of the arsons by a human rights commissioner who all are taking the link to be readily apparent and well established.

I should have checked the temperature here before falling for such claims. Because obviously the fact free claims of "that can't be true" are so much more convincing.

[Nige]

'the abhorrent cheerleading of the arsons by a human rights commissioner'

Which, let's face it, didn't really happen.

[Sarcastr0]

the opinions of Canadians like the PM, Premier of Alberta, multiple first nations leaders

Appeal to authority is a fallacy. And a fallback when your supportive facts proved insufficient.

Falling back to a fallacy is a sign you'd rather win on the Internet than actually deal in truth and falsity.

[Kazinski]

Nige, the only evidence I have about the Human Rights commissioner cheerleading the arson is the article cited in the Wikipedia footnote:
"B.C. Civil Liberties Association leader resigns after controversial social media post

Harsha Walia criticized for tweeting 'Burn it all down' after suspicious church fires"

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bccla-leader-resignation-1.6106796

Of course the source is the notoriously right wing Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Sarcastro, deferring to the opinion of the PM of Canada is hardly what "appeal to authority" means.
First of all we aren't even having an argument, because "that can't be true" is not an argument. If you have any contrary facts I'd love to hear them.

I'm relying on their opinion as being much more reliable than your opinion.

Am I wrong?

[Nige]

'Am I wrong?'

Yes. Is there one iota of proof that it wasn't anything other than a commonly used expression of anger at institutional injustice that happened to coincide with some churches burning - a not uncommon occurence? No.

[Magister]

I may not be the brightest bulb

Dr. Ed 2 hedges on a single true statement after unwavering certainty about endless fabrications he's uttered.

[not guilty]

"The other thing — all the defendants were in DC, how does GA get jurisdiction?"

Implementation of the bogus elector scheme occurred in Fulton County, Georgia. Georgia's RICO Act provides at O.C.G.A. § 16-14-11 that in any criminal proceeding brought pursuant to this chapter, the crime shall be considered to have been committed in any county in which an incident of racketeering occurred or in which an interest or control of an enterprise or real or personal property is acquired or maintained.

[Kazinski]

Well actually if they do eventually find some bodies, which they haven’t, there are reasonable explanations, like the 1919-21 Spanish flu epidemic. When I went and Checked.out my grandfather’s grave in a WW1 veterans cemetery in Tucson I was struck by far the number of headstones where the death was 1920-21 was by far the majority of the graves. All of those deaths were presumably Spanish flu, because the war was over by then, and they were still young men. And the cemetery was still in use for many years after so it was not just a biased sample.

It certainly hit Canada too, and younger people were most at risk.

[Kazinski]

But once again, no reports of the missing, and no actual bodies, just wild.speculation "well, it could have happened".

[Kazinski]

Yes sounds horrific today.

But consider before antibiotics and modern medicine child mortality rates were routinely up to 50% depending on what was going around at the time.

For instance the child mortality rates in Belgium were 40% from 1800-1900.
https://ourworldindata.org/child-mortality-in-the-past

In a Catholic country like Ireland rife with poverty where large families were the norm I can easily see nobody "noticing" 35,000 children dying, because it was life as they knew it, and everyone did the best they could for the children.

[Voize]

If a pregnant woman travels out of state she will have to leave her uterus behind.

[Dr. Ed 2]

That's NOT what he's arguing.

[Nige]

So, you made up the retaliation aspect, and the BBC reported that someone made a claim.

[Nige]

Yes, it could have happened. These people are demanding investigations and accountability.

[Nige]

I'm so glad you've already decided what the explanation for the as-yet-undiscovered bodies is.

[Nige]

'I can easily see nobody “noticing” 35,000 children dying, because it was life as they knew it'

These would have occurred post-independence, from the 1920s and 30s on. Mortality rates were higher than in other equivalent institutions. It's easy enough when the church and the state are hand in pocket and cover it all up, and they also had a steady line in selling babies for adoption to rich Americans, and illegal medcial experiments. And that's what Irish Catholic clergy did to Irish children. I don't suppose poor native kids stood much of a chance.

[Kazinski]

How would you interpret this:

“Harsha Walia, the executive director of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association responded to reports of fires at indigenous Catholic parishes with a tweet on June 30 that read “burn it all down”. Some members of the First Nations community criticized her but the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs expressed support for her without mentioning the controversial tweet.[28] She resigned as executive director of the BC Civil Liberties Association over the issue on July 16, 2021″. (From Wikipedia)

No, I don't think I am making up the "apparent retaliation" claim.

There is this too:
"Jenn Allan-Riley, a Sixties Scoop survivor and daughter of a residential school survivor, stated that "Burning down churches is not in solidarity with us Indigenous people" and "we do not destroy other people's places of worship"."

I think you made up the claim that I made up the retaliation.

[Nige]

I woud say the statement has nothing to connect it to any act of actual vandalism.

[Kazinski]

I'm not seeing any debunking, I mean other than the debunking the wild claims of hundreds of bodies in mass graves in the church schools.

Are you saying all these First Nations leaders quoted in the article, and Fraud say (ok, he may be a dupe) condemning the arsons are dupes?

"Condemnation:

Chief Greg Gabriel of the Penticton Indian Band expressed "anger" at the fires, stating that any act of arson was "unacceptable."[6] Grand Chief Stewart Philip of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs and Chief Clarence Louie of the Osoyoos Indian Band denounced the fires. Louie declared the fires "a criminal act" and "arson."[6][20] Grand Chief Arthur Noskey of the Treaty 8 First Nations of Alberta and Loon River First Nation said the churches needed protecting as "potential evidence sites" and that sites of former residential schools need to be protected.[21] Chief Keith Crow of the Lower Similkameen Indian Band (location of the Chopaka church) stated "I'm angry ... I don't see any positive coming from this and it's going to be tough."[22]

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney declared on June 30 that the Morinville fire "appears to have been a criminal act of hate inspired violence."[23] On July 2, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the vandalism and arson attacks targeting Canadian churches "wrong and unacceptable",[24] while later adding that the anger directed towards the church was "fully understandable".[25]

Former chief Chastity Daniels of the Gitwangak First Nation condemned the July 1 fire at St. Paul's Anglican Church saying "it wasn't a Catholic church, it was an Anglican church and there's nothing but good memories in that church for our community."[11] A group of residential school survivors called for people to stop burning and defacing churches. Jenn Allan-Riley, a Sixties Scoop survivor and daughter of a residential school survivor, stated that "Burning down churches is not in solidarity with us Indigenous people" and "we do not destroy other people's places of worship".

The only debunking I've seen is just assertions like:
"Things I don't want to believe can't be true."

[Nige]

But there's no actual proof that the fires were retaliation. That statement isn't really evidence of anything except a desire not to be associated with any vandalism.

[Kazinski]

No, there is no actual proof.

I am just relying on the judgement of the Prime Minister of Canada, and the Premier of Alberta, and the Chief of the Penticton Indian Band, and the Grand Chief of the Union of BC Indian Chiefs and the Chief of the Osoyoos Indian Band.

All of whom condemned the fires as unjustified retaliation for the unproven claim of hundreds of unmarked graves.

[Nige]

'All of whom condemned the fires as unjustified retaliation for the unproven claim of hundreds of unmarked graves.'

Generic distancing.

[Davy C]

Catholic equals Republican? Remind me who the current President is, again.

[Absaroka]

I remember that as well, and of course the classic Summer of the Shark. But as far as "the number of black churches that caught fire in that time was not statistically unusual", in this case it seems the number of church incidents is wildly unusual.

I mean, I'm stitching together slim inferences here, assuming that Canada and the US have similar rates, for example. But a 200 fold increase...that ought to at least raise an eyebrow.

[Tom for equal rights]

Nige 2 hours ago Flag Comment Mute User “It’s easy enough when the church and the state are hand in pocket and cover it all up, and they also had a steady line in selling babies for adoption to rich Americans, and illegal medcial experiments.”

Nige – great job making s… up. you should be commended for creativity

[DonP]

That will certainly be news to Nancy Pelosi as well as the Kennedy family.

[Nige]

All on the record if you'd bothered to check.

https://www.thejournal.ie/forced-adoption-mother-and-baby-homes-report-5323872-Jan2021/

https://www.rte.ie/news/2021/0117/1190074-mother-and-baby-homes-vaccine-trials/

[Absaroka]

Who cares?

The model of representative government is that Farmer Bob has a day job and can't delve in the minutiae of every bill that comes along. And he thinks that Judge Smith is a pretty bright guy, with good judgement, so he sends Judge Smith off to do that detail work for him.

That doesn't work if we elect morons like Johnson or Greene or any of the other obvious dimwits we are sending to congress. The people in Johnson's or Greene's district should elect someone whose politics they like. But they shouldn't send morons. People who think islands capsize (or pick any similar idiocy from either side of the aisle) just aren't qualified to be making complex decisions about pandemic policy or defense policy or, well, anything else. Would you give Hank Johnson (or if you were on the other side of the aisle, Greene) power of attorney to manage your affairs? Because that's what you're doing when you send him to congress.

Elect someone with simpatico politics, who *also* has median or above intelligence.

[NOVA Lawyer]

No, Queen, but many Puritans were Calvinist.

Yes, Wikipedia, but it's easy to find: "Puritans adopted a covenant theology, and in that sense they were Calvinists."

[Nelson]

He's arguing that providing financial aid to help a woman get to a state where abortion is legal is a criminal conspiracy.

So yes, that's exactly what he's arguing.

Or, if you prefer, he wants to prosecute people who pay for others to legally travel to another state for the purpose of having a legal medical procedure.

And cultural conservatives wonder why they are viewed with skepticism by centrists.