Thursday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[Martinned]

US lashes out at social media companies over Israel-Hamas content, as EU acts
(...)
In the 12-day flood of violence and disinformation triggered by the Israel-Hamas war, powerful U.S. figures — including senators and the New York attorney general — have called for online platforms to stem the tide.
(...)
On Tuesday, Senator Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), a vocal critic of tech platforms, sent a letter to leaders of X, Meta, TikTok and Alphabet demanding answers about the numbers of posts removed and numbers of employees dedicated to content moderation. The office of Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) told POLITICO the four companies agreed to provide briefings this week to the staff of the House Energy and Commerce Committee she chairs, following her demand for information on their content moderation policies. Representative Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), the ranking member on the committee, called on Meta, X and YouTube to “vigorously enforce” their terms of service.

In New York, Attorney General Letitia James wrote to Google, X, Meta, TikTok, Reddit and Rumble on Friday demanding answers about how the sites were addressing calls for violence on their platforms.
(...)
Washington’s flimsy response the past two weeks stands in sharp contrast to the European Union, where officials quickly deployed their new Digital Services Act to launch an investigation into X last week over its handling of violent content around the Hamas attacks. Brussels has also sent warnings to Meta, TikTok and Google’s YouTube. Regulators have the authority to fine a company up to 6 percent of its global revenue for failing to remove violent content and disinformation.

https://pro.politico.eu/news/170313

[Martinned]

To avoid, ironically, misinformation about the EU Digital Services Act, please allow me to direct you to the thing itself: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2022/2065/oj

[Randal]

Notice, JA, nobody's angry about violent content in telephone calls or postal mail.

[Martinned]

In response - because he's the Donald Trump of billionaires - Elon Musk is reportedly considering removing Twitter from the EU market: https://www.euractiv.com/section/platforms/news/musk-considers-removing-x-platform-from-europe-over-eu-law/

[Kazinski]

Not a bad idea for Elon to spinoff EU Twitter, or X.

But really first he should send a shot across their bow and shadow ban he X accounts of any EU official or politician calling for censorship.

Meta should too, make them go completely dark. And bump their ideological adversaries.

[Martinned]

Sure, going to (legal) war with the world's most powerful regulator. That definitely sounds like a profitable strategy.

[Brett Bellmore]

Somebody has to eventually go to legal war with "the world's most powerful regulator", or else they're going to end up being the world's regulator, not the EU's regulator.

And people outside the EU might not want to be regulated as though they were in the EU.

[loki13]

Well, then they don’t have to do business within the EU.

Just like if you don’t like American regulations, you don’t do business in America.

Pretty simple. The idea that corporations are above the law because, um, they want to be, is not particularly healthy.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Well, then they don’t have to do business within the EU.

Isn’t that exactly where this conversation started?

[loki13]

Sure, and it's where it should have ended as well.

Unfortunately, there seem to be some people that don't like the actual answer, or feel the need to be "keyboard commandos" on behalf of large companies (that they then turn around and savage in other posts for, reasons, I guess?).

The sun will rise, the sun will set, and companies will work with the regulators. Because they want to continue in that market.

[Martinned]

Welcome to the Brussels Effect: https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/books/232/

[Life of Brian]

Sure, going to (legal) war with the world’s most powerful regulator. That definitely sounds like a profitable strategy.

Are things really so far gone over there that voters have no meaningful governance over the regulatory machine (e.g., by swaying their elected representatives and/or eventually replacing them at the ballot box)? If they do have any such influence, they're not likely to be motivated to exercise it as long as they're getting some reasonable approximation of their daily ration of cat videos.

And I don't believe you're really saying "well, shucks -- the regulatory system is in place now, so that's it then." Right?

[damikesc]

In the EU?

No, they don't have much say any longer.

Feature, not a bug.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

The EU Commission is primarily controlled by the Council of the EU, which is made up of ministers representing the EU Member States, each of whom is elected or appointed in some way by the citizens of that Member State. Most decisions of the Council of the EU are the result of unanimous votes.

It's far from direct democracy, but most systems are.

[Michael P]

Those splitters in the Council of the EU and in the European Council are just distracting from the work that the European Commission is doing!

[Martinned]

Right on cue, the Council considered the issue today and published this statement: https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2023/10/20/council-sets-out-vision-for-protecting-fundamental-rights-in-the-digital-world/

Our digital environment can be threatened by various challenges such as online disinformation which causes an erosion of trust in institutions and media. The rise of hate speech, hate crimes and cyber violence also puts at risks our fundamental rights online. And even though AI can have significant positive effects, if lacking sufficient transparency and if used without adequate safeguards and quality controls, it can also present challenges for the respect of fundamental rights and the fight against discriminations.

To develop a safe digital environment, the Council calls on member states to – among other things – continue fighting against online hate speech notably by enhancing the capacity of judicial and law enforcement authorities to investigate and prosecute illegal online hate crimes and hate speech.

The Commission is invited to counter online disinformation and illegal content by supervising and enforcing the rules of the recently adopted Digital Services Act, and by regularly assessing the implementation of the 2022 Strengthened Code of Practice on Disinformation and the Code of Conduct on countering illegal hate speech online.

[Life of Brian]

Ouch. Sorry to hear that. We'll keep the lights on over here as long as we can.

[Martinned]

Funny you should say that, because keeping the lights on is exactly what the US seems to be struggling with as a result of a decade or more of polarisation and misinformation.

https://www.businessinsider.com/matt-gaetz-says-kevin-mccarthy-lied-biden-about-budget-deal-2023-10?r=US&IR=T

[Life of Brian]

Yes, right -- if opposition voices are sufficiently muted, government does tend to experience far fewer inconvenient distractions. Again, not a tradeoff we're currently willing to make, but stay tuned!

And in the meantime, fortunately enough, the actual lights are kept on by private enterprise. A few weeks' delay in shoveling coal into the belly of the bureaucratic beast causes no actual harm beyond that incurred by spiteful bureaucrats placing fencing around monuments and national parks to try to whip up outrage for leverage.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Just make it a crime for any foreign government official to interfere with the free expression of a US Citizen or corporation.

[Martinned]

You want to criminalise the sovereign acts of foreign governments? Are you nuts?

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

[Social Justice is neither]

Just splash screen a notice that "EU regulators prohibit dissemination of information they find suspect within the EU jurisdiction."

[shawn_dude]

Oh... censoring the censors because censorship is bad (except when he censors his own critics). Very Musky.

[Michael Ejercito]

Neither the U.S. nor the states have anty business demanding that these platforms remove constitutionally protected content.

[Martinned]

1. I still think the Stolen Valor Act case was wrongly decided.
2. Are government bodies with subpoena powers allowed to demand answers to questions?

[Krayt]

"Come stand tall before angry men and explain your speech."

No.

[Martinned]

You either believe that Congressional committees can investigate whatever they feel like or you don't. What's good for Hunter Biden is good for Elon Musk, to take a goose/gander analogy.

[Krayt]

No, I don't. Thanks for asking. We see it is bullshit for Congress to muck about under the faudulent lie they need to know the state of things for legislative purposes.

And not intimidation.

And not prosecuting political enemies.

And not scaring away supporters, financial supporters, voters, stock investors in their companies, and...

And not leaking that information.

Not no how, not no sir! They told us so!

[shawn_dude]

Who is this "we?"

[Krayt]

Those who do not lick the balls of the lying frauds in Congress who lie they are interested in legislation, the lousy, fraudulent liars, and their True Believers, as deluded as a Trump supporter saying yeah it’s a great idea to abandon Ukrain.

Them: Great idea!

True Believers: I believe the frauds because they lied to my face!

Should be obvious. If you believe the fraudulent lies of lying fraudulent Congressmen that they are digging into a political opponent for disinterested legislative purpose, I can’t help you. You are either profoundly ignorant, or willfully lying to help out the abuse of power to "git im!"

“But couldn’t it be…?”

Nope. Fraudulent liars all.

[David Nieporent]

2. Are government bodies with subpoena powers allowed to demand answers to questions?

Government bodies only have subpoena powers in aid of their actual jurisdiction, not a free-floating power to demand any answers to any questions that satisfy their curiosity.

[Martinned]

Sure, which is why it is the House Energy and Commerce Committee doing demanding here.

[David Nieporent]

What jurisdiction does the House Energy and Commerce Committee have over first amendment protected speech?

[Martinned]

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

[Stephen Lathrop]

For years I insisted here and elsewhere that Section 230 would lead to the government censorship scenario quoted from politico. Now you have it. It is an incipient catastrophe for expressive freedom.

The only safe harbor yet discovered for expressive freedom is found in totally private editing of published content, with control dispersed among a myriad of competing publishing organizations representing points of view across the political spectrum. Public policy to encourage and protect that by keeping government totally out of content moderation is indispensable.

Internet giantism (enabled by Section 230) combined with unedited publication (delivered by Section 230) is a certain formula to deliver irresistible broad-based political demands for comprehensive government censorship of media. It is happening as predicted.

It is past time for internet fans to take a break from utopian advocacy, and start defending fundamentals. Begin by demanding repeal of Section 230. First, get government interference out of internet publishing content. Then you can have leisure to do what you can to optimize the fun part.

But do not deceive yourself. Section 230 is not the key to your fun. It has always been a blunder destined to make a horrible mess. Look around. Do you see anyone who is happy about the way internet publishing is developing now?

[ReaderY]

I’m not necessarily in such complete disagreement with you on fundamentals as our past squabbles might suggest.

As I see it, a social media company involves a merger of two activities previously highly separated, an interpersonal communications network and a publication business.

Interpersonal communications networks are subject to network effects. The value and efficiency of the network increases with the number of users. There is a natural tendancy towards monopoly, as a single seamless network (either owned by one company or based on a regulated interchangeable standard common to multiple companies). This creates a natural tendency towards gigantism. I think you are mistaken that gigantism is somehow an effect of Section 230 and repealing 230 would get rid of it. Rather, gantism is caused by natural economic forces, network effects, which tend in that direction through natural economic forces independent of the regulatory regime.

Publication is a completely different business. It is not subject to network effects, and a regime with a large number of small publishers is possible.

The problem as I see it is that a social media company combines the two businesses, offering both, and using a kind of legal arbitrage to get the best of both worlds i nthe way of a regulatory regime. As I argue, allowing the social media companies full editing capacity interferes with interpersonal communications when people use Facebook, Twitter, etc. as to send ordinary ordinary messages to each other, the same kinds of messages they would in the past have sent by telegraph, telephone, mail, or email. Common carrier status is a natural fit and a corrective on having a small class of oligarchical plutocrats controlling ordinary peolle’s communications.

But as you argue, and I fully agree, common carrier status and limited liability are indeed obstacles to the publication business.

My proposed solution is government legislation that separates the two businessses, so that companies responsible for the underlying technology platforms and communications systems can’t publish, and publishers don’t control the underlying communications technology. This then permits the communications technology platforms to be regulated as common caririers without either control of or liability for content, and the publishers to be regulated as publishers with both control over and liability for content. A consequence of this approach would be to end the current legal arbitrage regime which permits both control over content and freedom from liability. I think we both agree such a regime is an invitation to behave irresponsibly. You may not agree with my solution. But it does address exactly what uou are describing as the fundamental problem.

With such a separation in place, communications technology platforms will continue to tend towards gigantism, their natural economic state, while publishers will be freed of rhe economic forces tending that way.

You have vigorously rejected this proposed solution. And yet it would seem to be a solution to exactly what you are describing as the fundamental problem. Isn’t rejecting this solution an example of first amendment absolutism?

I don’t personally see a first amendment problem with this solution. Technology platforms and content providers have been legally separated many times in the past. I would see the separation I am proposing as simply another step down a rather well-trodden path.

[Stephen Lathrop]

ReaderY, thanks for a thoughtful reply. But your proposal cannot work. Giantism in publishing will result in government censorship of content. The network effects you see as virtuous market advantages are also corrosive political enemies of expressive liberty, both for online publishers, and for their would-be contributors.

Also, you write:

This creates a natural tendency towards gigantism. I think you are mistaken that gigantism is somehow an effect of Section 230 and repealing 230 would get rid of it.

That is the utopian take on Section 230. It repeats the impulse which caused Congress to blunder into passing Section 230.

What that leaves out is consideration of the market effects created by eliminating practical necessity for private editing. A requirement to read everything carefully before publishing it is incompatible with unlimited platform growth. It is likewise incompatible with surveillance of contributors to enable content selection tailored to target each audience member separately—which is another potent stimulant for platform giantism.

There is a simple remedy for your concern that, “. . . allowing the social media companies full editing capacity interferes with interpersonal communications when people use Facebook, Twitter, etc. as to send ordinary ordinary messages to each other, the same kinds of messages they would in the past have sent by telegraph, telephone, mail, or email.” The solution is to teach folks who want to send common-carrier style messages to use the telephone, mail, or email, and to avoid choosing a publishing medium which is unsuited for that purpose.

The solution is not to pretend that when platform contributors use platforms as publishers for their contributions they are really only customers of common carriers who happen to broadcast private messages to world-wide audiences of millions.

I think you are sincere in your advocacy. I do not think you understand the practical necessity of publishing activities which 1A press freedom protects. And especially you do not understand publishers’ needs to tailor business models which use audience curation to inflect management choices about those practical requirements.

I have proved by trying and failing that I cannot teach internet utopians to understand those issues in a forum such as this one. There is not room to do it, and besides, the message is one the utopians prefer not to hear.

Publishing is complicated, whether practiced as a business or for other reasons. It cannot always be managed in the same way. One set of rules cannot govern all of it. But one condition always applies. Press freedom cannot continue unless publishers remain free to choose among a mix of business models, content selection choices, and audience curation strategies.

In the end the mix of methods chosen must mobilize from the free market resources sufficient to pay the bills. Unless publishers can continue to pay their costs out of proceeds delivered entirely by publishing activities, press freedom will not last. Material support for publishing which comes from other sources will always compromise expressive freedom.

Internet utopian advocacy concentrates on nothing except optimizing the expressive experience of would-be contributors, considered one-by-one. That way of looking at the problem excludes almost every practical consideration necessary to keep press freedom in business.

The better method will always be public policy to support diversity, profusion, and variety among a myriad of competing private publishers. And then let them sort out by their own divergent lights both the practical considerations and the content choices. Would-be contributors cannot do better than to have available literally thousands of private outlets competing for their contributions.

[VinniUSMC]

Lathrop, refuses to read, or just lacks the ability to comprehend, what ReaderY wrote.

Good job SL, failure as always.

[Ben_]

New York AG office is in violation of a court order, according to FIRE:

https://x.com/TheFIREorg/status/1715019097413403021

[Martinned]

More in my field, professionally, the European Commission has now officially ordered Illumina to divest Grail. As far as the Commission is concerned, that brings the case to an end. (Though Illumina still has about a half dozen appeals running in front of the European courts.) As far as I can recall, that is the most mis-handled merger review case in history.

https://competitionlawblog.kluwercompetitionlaw.com/2023/10/19/unprecedented-european-commission-order-to-unwind-an-acquisition/

[John F. Carr]

In America venture capitalists like to extract all the value from an acquisition before discarding its empty husk. Will a spun-off Grail have any value?

[Martinned]

The issue is more that a forced sale is never great for value. Illumina originally bought Grail at a value of about $8bn, and are now expecting to get less than half of that back. (Not to mention the $450m gun jumping fine.) Hence the ousting of the CEO, irate investors, etc.

Like I said above, going to war with a powerful regulator is rarely a profitable strategy.

[Brett Bellmore]

That's true, but you don't always get to decide whether you're at war with a powerful regulator. Sometimes you can only decide whether to surrender or fight back.

[Martinned]

And sometimes you can be clever about how you deal with regulators. Microsoft still got the bulk of its Activision deal through, for example.

[damikesc]

...Because MS was more interested in King than any other entity of Activision.

[Martinned]

For all the strong believers in the First Amendment and free speech more generally, you'll be troubled to learn that Greta Thunberg was arrested in London this week.

According to the Metropolitan police, she was charged with “failing to comply with a condition imposed under section 14 of the Public Order Act”. Police had demanded protesters move from the road on to the pavement.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/oct/18/greta-thunberg-charged-with-public-order-offence-after-london-oil-protest?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Well, I guess that would depend on whether the police were acting arbitrarily, or practicing viewpoint discrimination.

[Martinned]

Does it? So you think that, hypothetically, it would be OK to ban all demonstrations from 1 mile around Congress, as long as the law is enforced equally against everyone?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

That would be arbitrary.

Reasonable time, place and manner restrictions, neutral as to viewpoint, are the U. S. standard, and it seems a good enough summary of what all govts ought to do.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if the law vests the UK cops with arbitrary powers over demonstrations.

Can you confirm this?

[Martinned]

What would be arbitrary about banning all protests in and around the buildings of Congress? Do you mean this simply in the sense of "lacking rational basis"? (I'm sure a rational basis for such a law could be produced.)

As for whether UK police have the power to do arbitrary things, I'll leave it to you to decide whether s. 14 of the Public Order Act (op cit) sets meaningful limits on what police can do: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/64/section/14

(Of course all exercise of police power also has to comply with the Human Rights Act, which incorporates the European Convention on Human Rights into UK law. Art. 10 of the ECHR protects the right to free speech and assembly.)

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Reasonable time, place and manner restrictions, as I said. Protesters can parade through residential neighborhoods, so it would be arbitrary and insulting to uniquely protect the U. S. Capitol.

I’ll take your word for it that the UK law is arbitrary, and as such would be struck down if (say) little Greta challenged it.

[Martinned]

1. Thunberg didn't get arrested in a residential neighbourhood, but on Park Lane. It's literally halfway between Buckingham Palace and Speaker's Corner.

2. You can't strike down UK laws. Supremacy of Parliament and all that.

3. You can, however, challenge a specific action by the police. Whether that would have any chance of success in this case would require more study of the circumstances and the case law than I'd be willing to provide without anyone paying my fee rate.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Well, you cited this as an example of violation of free expression.

Your example had to do with the Capitol area in the U. S., so I’m curious how you’re suddenly applying it to little Greta’s protest.

I suppose Brexit changed this, but they used to be able to take UK policies to the European Court of Human Rights.

[Martinned]

1. I suggested that someone who is more of a free speech absolutist than me, like the commenters on this blog typically proclaim to be, might be troubled by Thunberg's arrest.

2. To explain the issue I used an example based in the US. Know your audience, etc.

3. Brexit had nothing to do with the European Court for Human Rights. Once Ms Thunberg has exhausted her English remedies, she can still complain in Strasbourg about this arrest. But I don't think she's done that when she was arrested in other countries, so I suspect she won't now.

[Brett Bellmore]

As I explained, blocking a road, or obstructing a door, isn't speech, so non-idiot free speech absolutists don't get mad about people being arrested for doing that, or for vandalizing public monuments, or throwing tomato soup on paintings, or whatever other criminality these people get up to.

[Sarcastr0]

blocking a road, or obstructing a door, isn’t speech

Civil disobedience is generally doing something illegal, but also absolutely speech.

So while I disagree with Martinned, I think you go too far in conflating the law with actuality.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Gaslighto, the concept of “peaceably” would have been intended within the context of the common law concept of “breach of the peace” which would inherently include all aspects of civil disobedience, e.g. blocking roads or doors.

Hence while civil disobedience is “speech”, it is not “protected speech.”

Remember this was a time when assemblies were routinely dispersed with “a whiff of grapeshot” and the “right to PEACEABLY assemble” was an exception to such governmental authority. Grapeshot today would be cluster bombs dropped from a F-15 — that *is* how things like the BLM protesters would have been dealt with in the late 18th Century.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, civil disobedience is absolutely not speech. It is it's own separate category.

And this wasn't "civil" disobedience, which consists of protesting a law by violating THAT law.

This was uncivil disobedience, where you violate a perfectly defensible law just to be obnoxious in protesting something unrelated.

[Sarcastr0]

Obnoxious speech is still speech Brett.

The South found civil rights protests quite obnoxious as well. They were still speech.

I thought you would hide behind if it can be banned it’s not speech. You didn’t. Well done. Still wrong though 😛

[Brett Bellmore]

"The South found civil rights protests quite obnoxious as well. They were still speech."

I've no doubt that some in the South found them obnoxious. They still were violating the laws they were protesting, not unrelated laws.

They sat at the lunch counter, they didn't glue themselves to it.

[loki13]

"I’ve no doubt that some in the South found them obnoxious."

Brett, with the understatement of the year.

[Sarcastr0]

You seem to be arguing for line drawing about when something is too obnoxious to count as speech.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, I'm drawing a line that has nothing to do with obnoxious, except indirectly.

Civil disobedience consists of peacefully violating a law that is the law you are protesting. Rosa Parks didn't slash the bus tires. She sat down in a seat on the bus.

Thunberg isn't protesting streets or doors being passable, or even jaywalking laws. She's protesting something utterly unrelated to the law she is violating.

Her purpose in violating the law IS to be obnoxious, IS to inconvenience people. It's not an incidental byproduct, it's the point: To be enough of a pain in the ass that people will just give her what she wants to make her go away.

The problem with that is that what she wants is sufficiently damaging that people are NOT going to give her what she wants to get her to go away. They'll instead cheer as she's locked in prison, if she keeps it up.

[Sarcastr0]

Civil disobedience is both speech and illegal.

The illegal is not requited to be a material component of the message for the civil disobedience to be speech.

You can correctly be sent to jail for certain speech. Speech can be dumb as hell. Speech can include utterly unforgivable permanent defacement of important art.

It's all still speech. Speech is not coterminous with 1A protections and neither is it coterminous with cool and good.

[Brett Bellmore]

Glue yourself to the pavement on the nearest interstate, Sarcastr0. If you don't have some printed matter on you, or start spouting off, nobody will know why you did it except that you're an idiot.

So, no, it isn't speech. It can be expressive, but only in conjunction with speech.

[Nige]

'Her purpose in violating the law IS to be obnoxious, IS to inconvenience people. It’s not an incidental byproduct, it’s the point:'

Brett voted for Trump, and will vote for him again.

[Sarcastr0]

Glue yourself to the pavement on the nearest interstate, Sarcastr0. If you don’t have some printed matter on you, or start spouting off, nobody will know why you did it except that you’re an idiot.

Flipside, print out some stuff and walk around. Unless you do something to get attention, no one will care what you think.

[TwelveInchPianist]

“Civil disobedience is generally doing something illegal, but also absolutely speech.”

It’s expressive conduct, and can be prosecuted, per O’Brien, as long as it furthers a substantial governmental interest unrelated to the suppression of free expression.

Unless there’s some evidence that the cops were trying to suppress her message instead of just preventing her from blocking traffic, there’s absolutely no free speech issue here.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Apparently it IS illegal to protest inside a US Capitol building -- that's what they finally arrested the Jews 4 Hamas for (see below) although I think we all know they won't be persecuted the way the Jan 6th people were.

[David Nieporent]

although I think we all know they won’t be persecuted [sic] the way the Jan 6th people were.

Were they part of a violent mob attempting to overthrow the government? No? Then probably not. But they will be prosecuted for what they actually did.

[not guilty]

"Reasonable time, place and manner restrictions, as I said. Protesters can parade through residential neighborhoods, so it would be arbitrary and insulting to uniquely protect the U. S. Capitol."

A federal statute prohibiting the display of a "flag, banner, or device designed or adapted to bring into public notice any party, organization, or movement" on the sidewalks surrounding the Supreme Court building was held to be unconstitutional as applied in United States v. Grace, 461 U.S. 171 (1983).

[ReaderY]

But what happens INSIDE the Capital building is analogous to what would be to INSIDE the Supreme Court building, not to what happens in the sidewalks around it.

[not guilty]

I agree that there is a proper distinction between inside and outside. Conduct inside the Capitol building is governed by a different statute, 40 U.S.C. § 5104. However, subsection (f)(2) thereof, which prohibits display in the Capitol grounds of a flag, banner, or device designed or adapted to bring into public notice a party, organization, or movement, likely would be found unconstitutional as applied in light of Grace.

[Nige]

Like 'free speech zones?'

[Krayt]

The concept is "peaceably assemble" and petition the government for a redress of grievances. While large assemblies would perforce block traffic, perhaps for quite a large area, deliberately having sit down type blockages to irritate people to get attention is not necessarily peaceful.

Not a fan of government vetoes, due to no permit, no porta potties, etc. These are things the people forbid as part of the First Amendment.

[Social Justice is neither]

It's one thing if a protest is blocking a government building carrying out an odious law and it spills into the directly connecting streets. It's quite another to block random locations or destroy random property so your cause is noticed.

[Dr. Ed 2]

That is not a hypothetical question anymore:https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/dozens-arrested-inside-cannon-house-office-building-after-rallying-for-israel-hamas-ceasefire/3447731/

My blood is boiling because you know damn well that they aren’t all going to rot in a DC jail for a year or more before even being charged. This time the Capitol Police asked for mutual aid from MD & VA — with the MD police doing crowd control outside the building, including closing DC streets. So you don’t have the people who innocently walked in, like you do on Jan 6th — and in this case the protesters made the cops physically carry them out.

Hamas is defined as a terrorist group, and Bush 43 declared war on terrorism, hence this actually could be construed as Treason, giving aid and comfort to the enemy in time of war. Notwithstanding that, they definitely interfered with any Senate committee hearings going on in the building, which legally is the same as the US Capitol.

I know, prosecutorial discretion and all, but I’d still love to see one of the Jan 6th folk raise a 14th Amendment Equal Protection appeal… Imagine if a prosecutor only prosecuted Black defendants and ignored White defendants accused of the very same crime...

[Sarcastr0]

A U.S. Capitol Police spokesperson told NBC News that officials believe everyone went through security and entered the Cannon House Office Building according to guidelines. U.S. House and Senate office buildings, including Cannon, are open to the public, but those who enter must go through security screenings. However, demonstrations are not permitted inside congressional buildings, police say.

I can already see quite a few differences from J6.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Yes, Jan 6th left on their own and didn't have to be carried out.

Legally, in terms of due process, there is no distinction between walking through a door a uniformed cop is holding open and walking through a metal detector a cop is directing you through. The people who climbed through Capitol windows, yes -- but those who innocently walked in the front door that the cops were holding open for them? NO DIFFERENCE!

[Sarcastr0]

J6 folks did not, by-and-large, walk through a door being held open by anyone.

[Nige]

'My blood is boiling because you know damn well that they aren’t all going to rot in a DC jail for a year or more before even being charged.'

You're mad that they didn't break as many laws as the Jan 6th guys did?

[David Nieporent]

My blood is boiling because you know damn well that they aren’t all going to rot in a DC jail for a year or more before even being charged.

That describes exactly zero of the J6 insurrectionists.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Does it? So you think that, hypothetically, it would be OK to ban all demonstrations from 1 mile around Congress, as long as the law is enforced equally against everyone?"

Huh? They couldn't ban demonstrations, or assembly, but I suppose they could close the area to the public if they want to.

Based on your comment, Greta was arrested for blocking the road, not demonstrating in the road.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm not seeing why I should be troubled by this. They were deliberately obstructing traffic, deliberately blocking doors.

If the act itself is illegal, doing it as part of a "protest" doesn't magically immunize you against the law.

Now, it's true that Gandhi was breaking a British law when he sat by the beach and poured some seawater into a pan to dry. (They'd made it illegal to make your own salt.) But Gandhi was protesting that exact law by forcing them to publicly arrest him for violating an odious and indefensible law.

Is Thunberg protesting a traffic law, perhaps, or a law prohibiting obstructing doors? A law she thinks so unpopular that enforcing it will put the government in a bad light? No, she's not.

This isn't "protest". She's engaged in a form of extortion: "Comply with my demands or I will make your life increasingly difficult by committing criminal acts!"

Lock her up. That's what you should do with extortionists.

[Commenter_XY]

What troubles me the most is the cynical exploitation of an autistic child, in service of a green political agenda.

[Sarcastr0]

She's 20 years old now, and she says she has Asperger's, which is not going to make her extra exploitable.

This reads more like an attack disguised as concern.

[Frank Drackman]

It’s Ass-burgers, a medical diagnosis and would you say of Jimmuh Cartuh “he says he has terminal Cancer”??
It's a diagnosis you can make from merely observing, like Parkinsonian Joe's Parkinson's Disease
and we Ass-burgerians tend to excel in occupations requiring expert knowledge of a small technical area, I’d say 90% of US Fighter Pilots/Surgeons could be said to have Ass-Burgers.

Frank

[Brett Bellmore]

I have Asperger's. You're just lacking in any native capacity for picking up social cues and anticipating how people will react to things. You have to learn how to do that the way you would any other skill, without having an instinctual head start on it. Playing "Gorillas in the Mist" with the people around you. Eventually, after a depressingly long time, the intentional mimicry becomes the real thing. Neural plasticity for the win!

I suppose that actually would lay you open to being exploited by your parents giving you bad explicit data on what was socially acceptable, since you wouldn't be very good at picking up on the fact that people were reacting very badly to your following their instructions.

But, seriously, she's old enough now that she should have gotten past that enough to realize that she's modeling an asshole. It's not like the social feedback she's getting is subtle.

The other side of Asperger's, which makes so many of us good in technical fields, is an almost complete lack of the capacity to get "bored" or "distracted". Which obviously has its downsides, like looking up and realizing you worked straight through lunch, or doing some repetitive task until you get blisters. Done that more than once...

[Nige]

Autistic people have agency, you know.

[Martinned]

The right to protest wouldn't mean much if it can only be exercised as long as it doesn't inconvenience anybody.

[Davedave]

But that's not what it means.

[Brett Bellmore]

I've been in some public protests. We arranged ahead of time for the use of the public space, kept lanes open for the passage of others, brought porta-potties, and policed the area afterwards to the point where it was cleaner than when we arrived.

Despite the police watching us from the surrounding roof tops through rifle scopes...

[Krayt]

You’re talking about nonviolent or passive resistence, as with Gandhi or MLK, Jr. This strategy assumes the population as a whole views itself as good, and will see the vicious violence directed against the resistors as bad, and demand changes.

You don’t have some free and clear right to do this, though you may feel a moral obligation. Indeed, it relies on police response because you deliberately break the law.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Huh? As long as you're not breaking any laws, you can inconvenient anybody you want. But the fact that you're protesting doesn't give you the right to break the law.

[Ben_]

Everyone else’s rights don’t mean much if protesters' rights to protest override non-protesters' rights.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Memory is that India was hot enough for the salt to crystalize on its own along the shoreline and Gandhi merely picked up the crystals up off the beach. Much like barefoot children do today — I’ve seen pictures of it.

If Greta is an emancipated adult, she should be held accountable.

EXECUTE THE TREASONOUS OCTOBER 18TH CRIMINALS!!!!!!

[Davedave]

She's a climate-science-denying nutter, who refused to comply with the reasonable restrictions on certain kinds of unacceptable protests. Why would anyone bother to defend that? She has every right to spread her brand of nonsense as long as she stands on the pavement rather than blocking traffic, and that applies to every brand of nonsense (and sense) out there.

[Nige]

'climate-science-denying nutter,'

You're just off on your own planet with this, aren't you?

[Davedave]

Says the climate-science denier...

Tell us again how the IPCC is wrong, go on.

[Nige]

Tell me where I've ever said it's wrong.

[Kazinski]

Obstructing people going about their lawful business isn't speech.

Or are you condoning the J6 insurrectionists now?

[Martinned]

I'm not sure what January 6 has to do with anything, unless you're suggesting that Greta Thunberg tried to overthrow the government.

And speech/assembly may well include "obstructing" people. A degree of inconvenience for the general public is included in the concept. In my view, the question is one of reasonableness and proportionality, which shouldn't be for the police to decide.

[Brett Bellmore]

No.

I've observed over my 60+ years, that there are fundamentally two types of organizations protesting, which accordingly protest in contrasting manners.

On the one hand, you have the group who think their cause is already popular, or could become so with exposure. They protest politely, and avoid as much as possible inconveniencing the public, because they don't want to alienate marginal/potential supporters. They may break the law, but only if it is the law itself they are protesting, and they want to force the government to publicly enforce an unpopular law in full view. Gandhi making salt by the sea, the Civil rights protesters sitting at the lunch counter.

On the other hand, you have the group who know that their cause is unpopular, and unlikely to become popular through simple exposure and persuasive arguments. Getting their message across is pointless, it will be rejected. They can't violate the law they object to, because the public will cheer their being arrested.

They protest obnoxiously, because they're engaged in extortion. They mean to be enough of a pain that people who don't much care about the cause will agree to give them what they want, just to make them go away.

Gretta is with the second group. When I protested gun laws in Lansing in the 90's, I was in the first. Thus our radically different behavior.

[SimonP]

In your 60+ years, you’ve had ample opportunity to selectively reconstruct history and develop your own narratives for events.

Effective protests aren’t about persuasion. That’s not their purpose, function, or even conceivable result. They’re about notoriety. They are intended to “make headlines,” drawing attention to the cause. Once the attention is drawn, then there is an opportunity to persuade. Some will be persuaded, others – perhaps many – not. But the failure to persuade is not a failure of the protest. That’s not their job.

A “well-ordered protest” is barely a blip on the radar. Here in NYC, we have the UN, several diplomatic missions, corporate headquarters, and multiple public spaces. There are protests all the time, yet none of them make a blip, because for the most part these are small-scale, “legal,” and fairly orderly protests held in some part of the city where the vast majority of its citizens never go.

The traffic blockade has become the go-to protest site in much of the country because we have done so much to vitiate the public square. Where else is there to go? In most communities, there is nowhere, no lunch counter, no essential bus system to disrupt. You get on the highways because that’s where all the phone-huggers are.

And the outrage that elicits! As someone who lives happily without owning a car, it is utterly bonkers to me how outraged you car-dwellers get over slight delays on your getting-to-Walmart trips. It is completely unhinged, to the point where these kinds of protests have inspired legislation to permit drivers to run over protesters in their way – er, sorry, in “self-defense.” You’d rather run over a BLM protester than be delayed on your oh-so-important, BFE South Carolina business.

[David Nieporent]

Effective protests aren’t about persuasion. That’s not their purpose, function, or even conceivable result. They’re about notoriety. They are intended to “make headlines,” drawing attention to the cause. Once the attention is drawn, then there is an opportunity to persuade. Some will be persuaded, others – perhaps many – not. But the failure to persuade is not a failure of the protest. That’s not their job.

No, I'm pretty sure that effective protests are about persuasion. These are the other kind of protests. These protests that you are describing are about narcissism; they're not aimed at others at all, but at the protesters' own self-image. They'd rather be able to tell themselves that they're Doing Something than actually do the long, hard work of trying to persuade people.

As someone who lives happily without owning a car, it is utterly bonkers to me how outraged you car-dwellers get over slight delays on your getting-to-Walmart trips.

Simon, just type, "I am an asshole who doesn't care about other people." It would be fewer words to say the same thing.

[SimonP]

Effective advocacy movements have multiple parts. Protests draw attention; persuasion proceeds along avenues of community engagement, including volunteer organizing, political campaigns, things like that. They work together to further the effort.

That is precisely how the Civil Rights movement succeeded, and it's how the gay rights movement got us to where we are today.

Simon, just type, “I am an asshole who doesn’t care about other people.” It would be fewer words to say the same thing.

Like, I said, it's bonkers how upset car-dwellers get over protests that block traffic. For you, the free flow of car traffic is just a natural part of every human's well-being. It doesn't even occur to you to question it. You're fuming in your car over the "selfish narcissist" who has imprudently glued themselves to the pavement in front of you, in a desperate attempt to get people thinking about an ongoing climate catastrophe that your actions at that very moment are contributing to. Yet I'm the asshole for pointing that out.

[Sarcastr0]

There's internal stuff as well - protests even if they have zero hope of moving the needle create networks and solidarity that may in the future do good work.

Protest is not my bag, but I know plenty who are into it, and their take on it's utility in the modern era is pretty nuanced - this isn't the 1970s.

[Brett Bellmore]

"That is precisely how the Civil Rights movement succeeded"

Sure, if you describe what's going on at a high enough level of abstraction that you don't distinguish between drawing attention by being arrested for some peaceful activity, and drawing attention by vandalizing a public monument or blocking traffic.

Anything can be anything at a high enough level of abstraction to be useless.

"Yet I’m the asshole for pointing that out."

No, you're the asshole for blocking traffic.

[David Nieporent]

Like, I said, it’s bonkers how upset car-dwellers get over protests that block traffic. For you, the free flow of car traffic is just a natural part of every human’s well-being.

The free flow of people, not "car traffic." Blocking a highway doesn't hurt cars; it hurts people.

Since you admittedly couldn't pass your driving test, perhaps you don't understand that blocking a highway isn't like a bunch of people picketing on a sidewalk. In the latter case, it may be a mild inconvenience for everyone nearby, but it's nothing more than that; pedestrians can simply walk around the demonstrators. When they block a highway, the drivers are trapped. (That makes it a crime — NY calls it "unlawful imprisonment"; NJ calls it "false imprisonment.")

And note that neither you nor the protesters have any idea what the drivers are doing. Maybe they are just going to shop at WalMart as you sneer. (Which may be as important to them as whatever stupid thing the protesters are going on about is to them.) But maybe they're going to work. Or to the doctor. Or to pick up their kids from school.

[Commenter_XY]

I'd like to just run the bastards over = assholes who decide to hold up highway traffic. A pity there isn't an exemption, like a ROAAP (Run Over An Asshole Protestor) Rule.

[damikesc]

Also, abandoning a car is usually not super legal either. It would be littering, bare minimum.

[SimonP]

The free flow of people, not “car traffic.” Blocking a highway doesn’t hurt cars; it hurts people.

Literally dozens and dozens. Well, maybe only a dozen.

Constructing a highway hurts more people than blocking it for a short while. But I can't imagine you're ready to have that kind of conversation. You don't look like the type who spends much commuting time outside his own vehicle.

Since you admittedly couldn’t pass your driving test, perhaps you don’t understand that blocking a highway isn’t like a bunch of people picketing on a sidewalk. In the latter case, it may be a mild inconvenience for everyone nearby, but it’s nothing more than that; pedestrians can simply walk around the demonstrators. When they block a highway, the drivers are trapped. (That makes it a crime — NY calls it “unlawful imprisonment”; NJ calls it “false imprisonment.”)

Did I admit that? No, in fact I have a driver's license. I've just chosen to live car-free my entire adult life. Tested and passed when I was a teenager, and it's all been carried over ever since, despite moving across state lines a couple of times.

And what a silly little hyperbole this is. Unlawful imprisonment? Buddy, no one is forcing you to sit in traffic. Your choice of mode and route of travel is what puts you where you're stuck. If I'm biking around and I come down a street that's been blocked, you know what I do? I dismount and walk around the obstruction, or I ride on the sidewalk around the obstruction, or I turn around to an outlet. Easy-peasy. Drivers aren't "trapped" when they're blocked by a protest. They're prevented from driving on the highway. They can't drive off the highway or turn around, but nothing's stopping them from pulling over and continuing on foot, is there? They just don't do that because they, like you, can't imagine life without being attached to these 2-ton pieces of machinery that have insinuated themselves into every imaginable facet of our lives. Yet that's exactly what you'd do, if you had a true emergency, isn't it, and were stuck behind one of these protests?

This petulant attitude on highway protests is wholly put on. It has nothing to do with bona fide "harm" and you know it.

[David Nieporent]

And what a silly little hyperbole this is.

Someone who just unironically used the phrase "ongoing climate catastrophe" a few posts ago might not want to throw stones.

[SimonP]

Just because you'll be dead before it affects you doesn't mean it's not happening.

[David Nieporent]

You don’t look like the type who spends much commuting time outside his own vehicle.

Not if I can help it. But I spent a dozen years commuting on the train into NYC every weekday, until covid thankfully saved me from that.

I’ve just chosen to live car-free my entire adult life.

That doesn't sound adult. Or a life.

Your choice of mode and route of travel is what puts you where you’re stuck. If I’m biking around and I come down a street that’s been blocked, you know what I do? I dismount and walk around the obstruction, or I ride on the sidewalk around the obstruction, or I turn around to an outlet. Easy-peasy.

Yes, I covered that above. We're not talking about a sidewalk or street; we're talking about a highway, and we've now confirmed you don't understand.

Drivers aren’t “trapped” when they’re blocked by a protest. They’re prevented from driving on the highway. They can’t drive off the highway or turn around, but nothing’s stopping them from pulling over and continuing on foot, is there?

You mean, besides (a) the law, which forbids walking on highways; (b) traffic, which prevents people from "pulling over"; (c) logistics, which means one is likely far from any place to walk to, let alone to one's destination; and (d) the fact that one's car and all the stuff it contains would then be illegally abandoned in the middle of the highway, with no way to get back to it? Other than that, nothing stopping them, no.

They just don’t do that because they, like you, can’t imagine life without being attached to these 2-ton pieces of machinery that have insinuated themselves into every imaginable facet of our lives.

Cars are incredibly useful tools. I can imagine life without one; I just can't imagine why anyone would want to be without one.

Yet that’s exactly what you’d do, if you had a true emergency, isn’t it, and were stuck behind one of these protests?

No; if I had a true emergency I would drive though the protesters. I don't want them to die, but if they don't care about me I see no reason I should care about them.

[SimonP]

Not if I can help it. But I spent a dozen years commuting on the train into NYC every weekday, until covid thankfully saved me from that.

Doesn't sound very adult, or like a life.

That doesn’t sound adult. Or a life.

Ah yes, New York, that city where famously half the grown population are children and no one has a life! What a pathetic beanbag you are.

Yes, I covered that above. We’re not talking about a sidewalk or street; we’re talking about a highway, and we’ve now confirmed you don’t understand.

No, I understand perfectly well. Indeed, I also understand how you are making the case that highway protests constitute "unlawful imprisonment". Your response: the law doesn't permit you to escape! My dear, that is hardly the point. You were trying to make the claim that protesting in front of traffic in some sense "imprison" people. I quite validly pointed out that people are entitled to leave freely even when the highway is blocked. The fact that it is not technically "legal" to do so does not make the protest, itself, an act of "unlawful imprisonment."

Indeed - you yourself provided a good counterexample! If someone is protesting on a sidewalk, such that the sidewalk becomes impassible, what do you do? You step into the roadbed in order to navigate around them, right? That's technically illegal, isn't it? Hm, does that make the sidewalk protest now an act of unlawful imprisonment?

No; if I had a true emergency I would drive though the protesters. I don’t want them to die, but if they don’t care about me I see no reason I should care about them.

Yes, every car driver is basically a sociopath looking for an excuse to kill someone. That's apparent in how they behave.

[Nige]

David Nieperont claiming we're not facing down a climate catastrophe is the most depressing comment on this thread.

[David Nieporent]

That is precisely how the Civil Rights movement succeeded, and it’s how the gay rights movement got us to where we are today.

It is not. The civil rights movement did not say, "Let's harm other people to raise awareness of our issue." (And of course there was a legitimate argument that most Americans did not realize how bad conditions in the south were.) As for the latter, I mean, sure, the ACT-UP jackasses did back in their heyday in the 80s/90s, but the gay rights movement's real successes came in the 2000s/2010s, after they abandoned the "You're all bigots who want us to die from AIDS!" approach.

Even if you're right about the substance of climate change, these sorts of protests are mindbogglingly stupid. "Let's ruin people's days to 'raise awareness' about the issue we care about" does not get people to agree with them; it gets people to think they're assholes who deserve to be run over with cars.

[Idihax]

I think most white Americans would have opposed civil rights in the 1960s if they could have foreseen just how blacks would behave after the boots came off their necks.

[SimonP]

It is not. The civil rights movement did not say, “Let’s harm other people to raise awareness of our issue.”

You know, David – there are times where I think you’re bright, and others where I think you're as dumb as the rest of the rabble here.

But this is some kind of second-level equivocation here. You seem to be conflating “non-violence” with “no harm” with “no traffic blocking.” But the Civil Rights movements’ biggest protest actions were very clearly about engaging in actions that you, with your heavy breathing over highway protests, would construe as “harm.” What is a bus boycott, if not a “harm”? What is sitting yourself at a lunch counter where you’re not invited, if not a “trespass” and thus “harm”? The Civil Rights movement did not win solely through pretty speeches made on the mall in DC that white people like to go back to whenever they need to remind uppity Black people how it’s done. It won by upsetting people and drawing attention to the way they were being treated, along with the persuasion and advocacy strategies that changed actual minds.

Like I said, protests aren’t about persuasion, so it seems bizarre to point to their failure to persuade as evidence of their being unhelpful or counterproductive to their respective movements. The outrageous ACT UP protests of the 80s drew attention and created space for the decades that followed, bringing in the money and talent needed to organize the legal and political advocacy bringing us to today. The suffragettes engaged in outrageous protests, too, for their time.

Like your favorite non-violent protestor said: first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you – then you win.

[David Nieporent]

Like your favorite non-violent protestor said: first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you – then you win.

You're quoting Trump.

[SimonP]

It's a commonly misattributed quotation, but it certainly didn't originate with Trump.

[not guilty]

Right. The quote is often attributed to Mahatma Gandhi, but its origin is disputed. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/08/13/stages/

[Nige]

The civil rights movement really has been sanitised hasn’t it? The idea of people with right on their side playing hardball is just so alien to some people. But then, blocking traffic is a long, long way from harming people. Traffic kills people by the thousand with its pollution alone. Traffic harms people.

[Idihax]

If I'm on the highway trying to get to work, I don't care about BLM protesters or their cause. In fact, I'd rather them get run over, as anyone who supports BLM is by definition, a traitor, and traitors should be executed. And since traitors are not entitled to the protections of the Constitution, there's no issue with extrajudicial punishments or military tribunals.

[TwelveInchPianist]

And the outrage that elicits! As someone who lives happily without owning a car, it is utterly bonkers to me how outraged you car-dwellers get over slight delays on your getting-to-Walmart trips.

You will get to Walmart when your betters permit, and not a moment before!

Gotta love progressives.

[SimonP]

Are "progressives" the ones who bulldoze communities to build wider highways at the public's expense, in order to shave whole minutes off of these Walmart trips, or am I confused as to who controls the Texas DOT?

[Nige]

‘You’ll use the form of transport your betters permit.’

[Social Justice is neither]

For a laugh read the comments on the "Just stop Oil" YouTube shorts of them protesting in traffic. Almost every comment wishes them dead or suffering for their juvenile antics.

[Michael P]

Which of the J6 defendants were charged specifically with trying to overthrow the government? The most serious charges have hinged on a law against actions to "prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States".

[Sarcastr0]

What do you think was the plan on J6 then? Or will you hide behind the ignorant 'if they weren't charged with it they didn't try and do it?'

[Michael P]

Don't ask me -- ask the federal prosecutors who charged them. If they actually tried to overthrow the government, they could have been charged under other statutes, such as 18 USC section 2383.

[Sarcastr0]

Yet again not being charged with something doesn’t mean you didn’t do it or attempt it.

Prosecutors seem content with the level of punishment they have charged and convicted so far. That is their job, not to weave a narrative for you.

You are leaning on something that is not evidence.

[Michael P]

No new goalposts, Gaslight0.

[Nige]

Now you not only don't now what gaslighting means, moving the goalposts is also beyond your comprehension.

[Sarcastr0]

Could you please explain my old and new goalposts and how they differ?
Because I don't see it.

[Michael P]

The original question was whether Greta Thunberg did something similar to what the J6 protesters were charged with, not what you imagine they are guilty of dreaming about.

[Sarcastr0]

The original question was whether Greta Thunberg did something similar to what the J6 protesters were charged with

Nope. Here is how J6 came up: "Obstructing people going about their lawful business isn’t speech. Or are you condoning the J6 insurrectionists now?"

You're the one that brought up what they were charged with, because you are trying to pretend that what they did cannot be worse than what they were charged with. Which proves only that you are ignorant and refuse to learn.

[damikesc]

"Yet again not being charged with something doesn’t mean you didn’t do it or attempt it."

Legally, it does.

Innocent til proven guilty and all.

[Sarcastr0]

Legally, we're not in court.

[bernard11]

I thought it just meant you couldn't be punished for it.

Are you claiming I wasn't actually speeding the other day, driving down the road at 80mph?

[Armchair]

Speed limit is 80 mph in Montana on the interstates...

[not guilty]

"Which of the J6 defendants were charged specifically with trying to overthrow the government? The most serious charges have hinged on a law against actions to 'prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States'."

The Oath Keeper and Proud Boys defendants were charged with seditious conspiracy under 18 U.S.C. § 2384. That is a more serious offense than rebellion or insurrection under § 2383. The latter is punishable by up to ten years imprisonment.

Seditious conspiracy carries up to twenty years imprisonment, as does attempt or conspiracy to obstruct, impede or influence an official proceeding under 18 U.S.C. 1512(c)(2) and (k), which hundreds of January 6 rioters have been charged with.

[Michael P]

As I am sure you know, I accurately quoted the threshold for conviction under what they have been charged with.

It's a perversion of justice that delaying an arbitrary federal activity can be punished with twice as much prison time as full-fledged rebellion, and a damning indictment of the Biden administration's fascist tendencies that they are seeking that kind of prison sentence for rowdy parading and unlicensed tour groups.

[not guilty]

You asked “Which of the J6 defendants were charged specifically with trying to overthrow the government?” You posited that “The most serious charges have hinged on a law against actions to ‘prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States’.” You further stated that “If they actually tried to overthrow the government, they could have been charged under other statutes, such as 18 USC section 2383.”

There is no general federal criminal attempt statute. Some statutes, such as 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2), punish attempts as severely as the completed, substantive act. It is unsurprising that DOJ has charged statutes carrying the most onerous penalties.

And FWIW, characterizing the January 6 riot as ” rowdy parading and unlicensed tour groups” is nonsense on stilts.

The gravamen of seditious conspiracy 18 U.S.C. § 2384 is not “actions to ‘prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States’”; it is an agreement to accomplish that end, accompanied by at least one overt act by at least one conspirator. That is a more serious offense than rebellion or insurrection under § 2383.

[Michael P]

I'm sorry you can't read and don't understand what these words mean. You should probably consult a dictionary, because attempt to overthrow is inherent in the definition of "rebellion or insurrection". There's no law against successfully overthrowing the government, only the attempt.

[not guilty]

You conflate inchoate offenses with substantive offenses and tell me that I can't read? Yeah, right.

[ReaderY]

So the only difference between touring the grounds and bursting into chambers and offices chanting Hang Mike Pence, rifling through papers, etc. is the presence of a licensed tour guide?

I suppose the only difference between a lynching and a mere rowdy demonstration is a parade permit.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Jan 6th was obstructing governmental administration -- agreed.

Attempting to overthrow the government?!? In what dimension of reality can you honestly allege that?!?

You honestly believe that you are going to overthrow a nuclear-armed superpower with a spear, assorted banners, and by drinking some politician's beer? Sure, I'd be p*ssed if it were my beer, but the US Government has multiple "continuity of government" provisions that even include all of DC being nuked off the map.

Overthrow that kind of a government with a spear?!?!?

EXECUTE THE TREASONOUS OCTOBER 18TH CRIMINALS!!!!

[Sarcastr0]

With machine guns?

[Nige]

You sound quite radicalised and violent. Like Hamas.

[Don Nico]

" which shouldn’t be for the police to decide."
But that is just what the society has charged them to do

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, we use the police for way too many things they are not really trained for.

[Martinned]

Well, that's what the UK parliament has charged them to do. In the Netherlands this would be a decision for the mayor, reviewable in court.

[Don Nico]

Could well be Martin; different places different laws.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

And speech/assembly may well include “obstructing” people.

Only if you have absolutely no idea what any of those words mean.

[Martinned]

If 100,000 people turn out to demonstrate against global warming, you don't think that obstructs anything?

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

It depends on how and where they do it. And you're forgetting (or didn't understand to begin with) the point you're responding to, that being that an acts of obstruction are not protected as free speech just because they also happen to be accompanying speech.

I'd accuse you of willful dishonesty here, but your history suggests that this is one of those cases where employment of Occam's Razor results in good ol'-fashioned stupidity being the more likely explanation.

[Nige]

It's a protest, it's a demonstration, it's disruptive, it's attention-grabbing, it's a challenge to the authorites. It's what you do if you feel strongly enough about something that you're willing to make people angry and get in trouble.

[Don Nico]

Then you accept the punishment and don't whine about it.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

And, also, stop trying to overthrow democracy.

JSO is supposedly a different organization, but the XRzi "Third Demand", you may recall, involves replacing democratic government with a perversion of it called a "citizens' assembly", with members chosen through sortition.

It is necessary because the representative democracy we have now is not good enough to save the planet. So it must be replaced.

[Nige]

Advocating political change as trying to overthrow democracy is a new wrinkle on 'everything has to be Jan 6th now.'

[Nige]

Fuck that, you yell about it from the rooftops, that's the whole point.

[Don Nico]

Sure Nige, you whine as loud as you want. But that is NOT the point.

[Bob from Ohio]

She's Swedish. She has no "right" to protest in the UK, unless she has whatever UK calls having a "Green Card".

[Martinned]

Are you somehow under the misapprehension that non-citizens don't have rights?

[Bob from Ohio]

Not the right to influence policy.

[bernard11]

Of course they have the right to try to influence policy.

Non-citizens are free to speak, write editorials, whatever. That's true even if they are non-residents.

[Martinned]

In the world of sport, tomorrow and Saturday are the semi-finals of the World Cup Rugby. Once again the Northern Hemisphere countries mostly got their asses kicked by the Southern Hemisphere, with only England still left in the tournament. (They got lucky with the draw and played Fiji in the quarter finals.)

But we have seen some amazing rugby last weekend. Both Ireland-New Zealand and France-South Africa were among the best games I've seen in a very long time.

[Don Nico]

Which teams are your favorites, Martin

[not guilty]

Are House Republicans going to elect another former wrestling coach as Speaker? https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/10/jim-jordan-wrestling-ohio-state-scandal-speaker-house-representatives.html

It's looking unlikely. How many of them remember that the last one went to prison?

[Commenter_XY]

I have to tell you not guilty, it is lame in some aspects. Makes Team R look like a bunch of squabbling toddlers. And incompetent, politically (which Team R is).

Then again, I have to ask myself. Did my life change because we don't have a Speaker right now? The answer is no. My life went on.

They'll figure it out. But they do look very foolish. 100%, no debate.

[Krychek_2]

I'm old enough to remember when reaching across the aisle and practicing bipartisanship was considered a virtue. As a practical matter, the House is effectively divided 50/50 between the two parties, and the Republicans need to stop talking and acting as if they have a mandate. In my view, the very fact that they are refusing to work with Democrats is sufficient reason to remove them from power in 2024 all by itself.

If I didn't care about good governance I'd say let the GOP self destruct, which it appears to be in the process of doing. But I want good governance, and watching this farce enter what I hope is its final act has become more painful than amusing.

[Frank Drackman]

Find me the last speaker who wasn't a crook(Fancy Nancy Pelosi), a drunk (Pelosi again, Boener) , or a fucking Idiot (all of them) I'd be happy if they never come back from their "Recess" (I think I stopped having "Recesses" in 6th grade)

Frank

[Krychek_2]

Find me the last post of yours that actually contributed something useful to whatever was being discussed.

[Frank Drackman]

Can't find your reading glasses? it's right above your useless post

[Krychek_2]

Can someone let Frank's owner know he's barking again and needs to be whacked on the head with a newspaper?

[Frank Drackman]

Wow, great comeback X-lax, and you're the one "barking" about useless posts?

[loki13]

Shouldn't you be using your intellectual rigor and humor in the youtube comments where, at a minimum, people will finally recognize your genius?

[Krychek_2]

If I had the properties of X-Lax you'd have been flushed down the toilet long ago.

[Frank Drackman]

You should try Ex-lax, would clear out your mind

[Krychek_2]

Oh, I see you flunked that part of medical school.

[Frank Drackman]

Best I can tell John McCormack (D, MA) Speaker from 1962-1971 was the last speaker who didn't fit in any one of those categories (Debatable, he did support the Vietnam War)
Going through the list, I'd forgotten about Carl Albert, who was 2d in line to the Presidency for a short time, a notorious drunk, last DUI in 1972, and "Fort Worth-Less" Jim Wright, who's crimes against nature are too obscene for this August "Conspiracy"

Frank

[Brett Bellmore]

"I’m old enough to remember when reaching across the aisle and practicing bipartisanship was considered a virtue. "

I'm old enough to remember Republican voters repeatedly being outraged by key members of their party's leadership practicing "bipartisanship" by reaching across the aisle to help the Democrats advance their agenda, the very agenda those voters had elected Republicans to block. It made "bipartisanship" a swear word on the right.

"As a practical matter, the House is effectively divided 50/50 between the two parties, and the Republicans need to stop talking and acting as if they have a mandate."

The Republicans still have vivid memories of the Democrats pushing through massive laws on the basis of razor thin majorities, sometimes majorities that evaporated part-way though the process of enacting them. I don't think they see any principled reason this is something only Democrats get to do.

As a practical matter, of course, they can't pull it off because they don't have enough internal cohesion. As is being demonstrated right now.

In principle, the Speakership is NOT a policy position, the Speaker is just supposed to keep the institution running smoothly. It only became a mighty post to occupy due to abusing the position.

The best case outcome here is that the factions realize that none of them can put a champion in that position, and they all agree on somebody competent and boring who will just do the damned job.

I suspect it's rather more likely that they'll find some guy who's willing to weather the outrage for a couple years before a lucrative retirement, and pay the Democrats' price for enough votes to elect a 'bipartisan' Speaker.

[apedad]

"In principle, the Speakership is NOT a policy position, the Speaker is just supposed to keep the institution running smoothly. It only became a mighty post to occupy due to abusing the position."

Agree and will add the position is not even a constitutional requirement (Art I, Sec. 5), so the House could change the rules to say rank voting to elect a speaker or plurality voting, or a shared speaker position depending on the makeup of the House, i.e., 51% R/49% D so the R's get to be the Speaker 51% of the time, etc.

[Martinned]

In the European Parliament the two largest parties divide the job each term, with the conservative getting the presidency for 2.5 years followed by 2.5 years of a social-democrat in the chair.

[Brett Bellmore]

Since it's been commented that the position doesn't even, technically, require that you be a member of the chamber, why not, (Just blue skying here.) just give the Parliamentarian a promotion?

[Krychek_2]

Actually, that's not a half bad idea. At least until the next election, let the Parliamentarian hold the chair as a caretaker speaker. Give each party an equal shot at bringing bills to the floor, and pass anything that can get 218 votes.

[Armchair]

Why do that? The GOP has a majority in Congress.

[Krychek_2]

Because the GOP has given no indication of being able to actually get its act together and elect a speaker.

[Brett Bellmore]

They have a majority in the House. A fairly narrow majority. The Democrats have an even narrower majority in the Senate. This actually does require some degree of compromise to get things done, keeping in mind that a hell of a lot of things Congress does don't actually need to get done.

[SRG2]

I wonder how many of those Republicans who approve of first-past-the-post in all other elections, approve of it for electing the speaker...

[Nige]

How many Republican politicians ran on a platform of doing nothing?

[Brett Bellmore]

A lot of them ran on affirmatively NOT doing a long list of things.

[Nige]

It's supposed to be easier to destroy than create, but the Republicans sure make it look like hard work.

[shawn_dude]

As if the "GOP" was a monolithic thing that can act with a single mind... 8 Republicans are enough to scuttle anything the GOP wants to get done provided the Republicans remain unwilling to compromise with centrist Democrats.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

On the key issue of spending like there’s no tomorrow, Rs and Ds agree. They work together to keep sane options off the table when it comes to the debt.

Bipartisanship!

Of course, maybe there will be something (like a nuclear war) which ensures there *is* no tomorrow, in which case my criticism would be misplaced – it would be a clever move to rack up debt which the end of the world will save them from repaying.

[Moderation4ever]

What I think people are missing is that bipartisanship can bring the more sane options to the table. The fact is that spending has risen more under the political divide then under more bipartisan negotiations. Now correlation is not causation, but it is worth taking a look at the problem. Parties that need large or complete consensus to pass legislation often have to go to their most extreme members for votes. If a party could get a number of votes from the opposition they could afford to lose the radicals. The "no compromise ever" does not help slow government it seems to actually accelerate it. Most of this country is in the center and wants a functional government that works in the background.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

What you call the "radicals" include some of the few members who want to even try and do something about the debt. They keep getting outvoted by outlandish margins.

[Moderation4ever]

I disagree that people who want to address debt are radicals. The radicals think debt is easy, just cut spending or just tax the rich. The center knows that getting rid of the debt is hard work. Cutting programs that people like and raising taxes when necessary is not easy either politically or in practice.

[loki13]

Bingo. The problem is that most of the people who talk about debt reduction aren’t, in fact, serious people.

There are two things that we should agree on-

1. Brinksmanship involving fundamental issues related to the stability of the economic order (such as the “debt limit” ugh) isn’t appropriate. Why? Because there will be a time when one side doesn’t blink, and that will be catastrophic.

2. Reducing debt requires courage and bipartisanship. Because there is no free lunch. You can’t just cut “the other side’s” programs. And you will have to raise revenue and reduce outlays. Yeah, that means raising taxes and cutting spending, including entitlements. Which means that both sides will have to accept that they will have to take an L to get a W.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Loki, I get how things are. I may even get why things are the way they are. Apparently, it's because the minority of Americans who control serious money have found a way to make that money counter-balance the voting power of the vast majority who lack serious money. What I don't get is why anyone sensible endorses that as the way things ought to work. Even among folks with serious money, a notable fraction don't think it is wise to run the nation that way. But it just keeps going anyway. You sound like you are okay with that.

[loki13]

I'm not "okay" with what you describe.

Instead, I acknowledge that the perfect is the enemy of the good. Right now, we have 15% of our total budget going just to service our debt. Getting our budget under control and beginning to reduce that will free up money, in the medium- and long-run, for things that we need.

The only way to get there is to compromise. And that means that taxes will have to go up- not as much as some people want, but some. And outlays have to go down- and that includes both discretionary spending (yes, even military spending, since that's half of it) and entitlements.

We can't get everything we want; that's the whole point of having to compromise.

[Brett Bellmore]

But we have decades of history to tell us that if revenues go up, spending WILL go up to more than exceed the revenue increase.

Until you have some mechanism in place to restrain spending, it just automatically consumes all revenue, and then some. At most you might get a brief delay while they're hashing out how to spend an unexpected windfall.

The political urge to spend every available cent, and then some, is insatiable.

So, no, tax increases CAN'T be a component of it. At most they could be something we might try to roll back the debt, once the budget had actually been balanced.

[bernard11]

But we have decades of history to tell us that if revenues go up, spending WILL go up to more than exceed the revenue increase.

No. We don’t.

1990 revenues 1,031,958 1990 outlays 1,252,993

2000 revenues 2,025,191 2000 outlays 1,788,950

Revenues up 96%, outlays up 43%

And let’s look at a period a little shorter than a decade

2009 revenues 2,104,989 2009 outlays 3,517,677

2017 revenues 3,316,184 2017 outlays 3,981,634

Revenues up 56% Outlays up 13%

But let’s make it a full decade.

What happened between 2017 and 2019

2019 revenues 3,463,364 2019 outlays 4,446,960

So in two years revenues went up only 4% Outlays rose 12%.

Change in the weather, I guess.

Here, along 2020 above, is the second half of the 20th century:

Revenue outlays rev grow outlay growth 1950 39,443 42,562
1960 92,492 92,191 134% 117%
1970 192,807 195,649 108% 112%
1980 517,112 590,941 168% 202%
1990 1,031,958 1,252,993 100% 112%

(Sorry about the spacing. Looked OK before I hit submit.)

Why do you make up this shit? Once again, your opinions are so strongly held even plain facts can’t shake them.

Or maybe you think no one will check.

[Martinned]

Not to mention that the government/Congress may control tax rates, but not tax revenues.

[SRG2]

Did those same radicals make a fuss about the debt when Trump was president?

[bernard11]

What you call the “radicals” include some of the few members who want to even try and do something about the debt. They keep getting outvoted by outlandish margins.

Maybe they outvoted that way because what they want to do, or profess they want to do, is stupid and destructive.

[shawn_dude]

To the nation, sure. But for the populists themselves, the goal is self-enrichment in the short term without regard for long term consequences. It is stupid, destructive, AND lucrative.

[Krayt]

Bipartisanship does not mean a handful jump ship to vote against the vast majority of your side. That just exposes an infection to be excised, which was.

Whether you think it was a good idea or not, the Republicans have been suffering internal insurgencies since at least the Tea Party, attacking other Republicans who go along with the other side too much.

[Krychek_2]

No, bipartisanship means that you work together for the good of the country. What's the argument that it's good for the country to have the ongoing circus the House has been for the past month?

[Armchair]

It's called Democracy. It's often messy. It'll sort itself out.

You should see the messes other countries have with multi-party systems.

[Krychek_2]

What's the argument that it's good for the country?

In most parliamentary democracies, the solution would have been to dissolve Parliament (in this case Congress) and have another election. Which strikes me as an improvement over what we've been watching for the past month.

[Armchair]

"Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time"

-Churchill.

(tldr; Democracy, it's better than all the other options).

[Krychek_2]

What’s the argument that it’s good for the country?

Democracy has many different permutations and varieties, so handwaving about democracy doesn't answer my question.

[Armchair]

The alternative, some sort of dictate handed down by some authority...is inevitably worse.

[Krychek_2]

I'm not sure that's true. In the instant example, we're discussing a particularly bad farce that Woody Allen would have been embarrassed to write that's been ongoing in the House for the past month. Simply allowing the Parliamentarian to serve as acting chair under a power sharing agreement doesn't strike me as so despotic as to be even worse than what we currently have.

[shawn_dude]

The alternative to a two-party democracy can be as simple as a multi-party parliamentary system. Unless you're making the argument that Canada, the UK, EU, etc aren't democracies?

[Armchair]

"Enlightened Dictatorships" or other versions thereof are inevitably worse.

Might not look like it initially. Ends up in a bad place.

Just deal with the messy democracy.

[loki13]

Um, "democracy" (particularly representative democracy) can take many forms.

It's been noted that our particular form of governance isn't used in other countries, and when it has been attempted, it almost always results in repeated instability and catastrophic failure. People have asserted that it has worked in the United States because of a confluence of factors that are unique here, namely a strong civic sense, local issues trumping national issues, and weak party loyalty. Arguably, our situation now is more analogous to those situations in other countries that lead to instability (lower civic sense, nationalized issues, and strong partisan identity).

[Don Nico]

Mr Chair,
We had both that kind of bi-partisanship and democracy in the 1980's

[Kazinski]

Well actually the voters put a Republican house in to obstruct any business getting done in Washington.

And the GOP is diligently doing the job voters sent them there for.

[Krychek_2]

Assuming that really is the reason the country elected a GOP House -- with three votes to spare -- it's difficult for me to imagine enough voters really wanting to burn the place down for the GOP to keep the House next year. And make no mistake, the Republicans are the ones who are going to get blamed for the dysfunction.

[Brett Bellmore]

Of course they're going to get blamed. The Democrats control most of the media outlets, it doesn't matter who's actually to blame in any given case, the Republicans WILL be blamed.

Note that the reason the Democrats control most of the media outlets is because the Republicans didn't lift a finger to capture any of them for themselves, so it's their own damn fault they're in this position.

[Sarcastr0]

Of course your point here is independent of the facts of Chaos House.

Self sealing arguments like media bias are too easy.

[Krychek_2]

No, the Republicans are going to get blamed because they are the ones who've created the problem. Matt Gaetz, the guy who started it by moving to vacate the chair, is a Republican. So are all the Republicans who voted against first McCarthy and now Jordan. The Democrats have nothing to do with this problem. It's the GOP that's completely dysfunctional.

[Nige]

‘The Democrats control most of the media outlets,’

This is code for the media outlets that will report accurately, or accurately enough to annoy Brett.

[Moderation4ever]

"The Democrats control most of the media outlets"

I think you pulled this out of the air, can you prove it?

[bernard11]

Just another example of Bellmore logic.

Republicans are getting blamed. Brett doesn't like that. So rather than accept that the Republicans are in fact responsible for the mess, and the blame is being accurately placed, he reaches for yet another of his many conspiracies.

[Don Nico]

Bernard,
Both statements can be true. Most large media outlets are left-leaning AND the Rs are to blame for the chaos in the House.

[Brett Bellmore]

And I agree that both statements are true. Obviously this Speakership thing is an entirely Republican drama, and the Republicans are running the House at the moment.

But, thanks to Democratic media dominance, Republicans get blamed even for crap the Democrats do. Pass a budget on time, gets vetoed by a Democratic President?

Republicans get blamed for the resulting shutdown.

[Krychek_2]

OK, so you acknowledge that your both sides what aboutism has absolutely zero to do with what we're actually talking about and was just intended to divert attention away from the Republican House chaos.

[Moderation4ever]

I don't believe this statement. Can you show me where a Republican candidate said they were going to obstruct any Congressional business. They may have said things like I am going to stop radical or Democrats, but I doubt they said I plan to gum up the works and shut down the government. They were not selling the idea of a nonworking government, but rather a government that did only what they wanted.

[Bob from Ohio]

C'mon, they don't have to say it to think that was a big motive for many voters.

2006, 2010, 2014, 2018, 2022 all had the opposition take over at least one house.

[shawn_dude]

Wanting a change and wanting government to stop aren't the same thing.

[Bob from Ohio]

"stop talking and acting as if they have a mandate."

They have the same margin as the Dems did last Congress.

[Krychek_2]

And that's relevant how exactly? We can have a discussion about what did and did not happen in the last Congress, but the immediate dysfunction problem lies with this Congress, not a previous one.

[Bob from Ohio]

You never called for "bipartisanship" then, its just a transparent ploy now.

[Krychek_2]

I did, and several of my comments about it are in the archives of this very blog. You assume that because you're an unprincipled partisan that so is everybody else.

The difference between the last Congress and this one is that the GOP is so fractured that it actually needs Democrats, at least a few of them, to get anything done. But rather than work with Democrats, even on areas of common ground, they would rather burn it down so they can go home and tell their base that they didn't work with Democrats. In the last Congress, Democrats did work with Republicans on issues they agreed on. And I cheered when they did.

And I think they are going to find out that the American voter's stomach for having things burned down has about reached its limit.

[Bob from Ohio]

The next election is a presidential one, its a completely different dynamic.

[Krychek_2]

And congressional Republicans running in 2024 best pray hard that Trump is not the GOP nominee. The House dysfunction, coupled with having a multi-times-indicted felon at the top of your ticket, comes as close to guaranteeing a rough year for Republicans as anything in politics can.

[Bob from Ohio]

Maybe, but they did well in 2020 with Trump, cut down the Dem majority quite a bit.

[Krychek_2]

That's probably because the Democrats did so well in 2018 that doing that well twice in a row would have been tough to pull off. And nothing that has happened since 2020 has made Trump any more appealing to the majority of the country that would just like for him to go away.

Look, it's your party. If you think running Trump and paralyzing the House enhance its election chances, knock yourself out. Here's what I think would enhance the GOP's election chances: Nominate a candidate for president who isn't Trump, and demonstrate a willingness to work with congressional Democrats. The American people like bipartisanship even if the MAGA extremists don't.

[Idihax]

When they say they want "bipartisanship" they mean that they want the Republicans to smile and cheer while the Rev. Kirkland is given teenage boys to molest at the public expense.

[damikesc]

The Republicans are behaving as the Dems did in a very similar situation 2020-2022.

[John F. Carr]

I don't know from reporting whether the obstacle to a moderate Speaker with bipartisan support is Republicans, Democrats, or both. Supposedly there are talks on a compromise.

Unless representatives are given free will by the whips they have to vote party line.

[Reallynotbob]

If the sun goes out it will still take 7 minutes for us to find out. But find out we surely will.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I was taught it was eight minutes and change . . . but most of my science classes were introductory courses.

[Reallynotbob]

I stand corrected. Apparently "c" is not constant in all realities.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I am not nearly enough authority to correct anyone in that context.

[Armchair]

Not a former wrestling coach....

(I honestly don't get the bias here)

[Krychek_2]

Dennis Hastert sexually abused some of the boys he coached, and Jim Jordan turned a blind eye to sexual abuse in the wrestling program at Ohio State.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Perkins Coie is the DNC's law firm, and it was THEY who investigated this, and if Perkins Coie couldn't link Jordan to this, my guess is that no one can -- that he's actually innocent.

And there are actual wrestlers who said they knew nothing of this: https://apnews.com/0824828a2046490ea8d9dc83052b9d0a/Additional-ex-wrestlers-at-Ohio-State-defend-congressman

Bear in mind as well that this was college, the athletes were ADULTS and Jordan ran the risk of being accused of homophobia if he inquired into the private lives of athletes. And he was only a grad student -- not the head coach.

[Krychek_2]

Inquiring into whether sexual abuse is taking place is not inquiring into the private lives of athletes.

[David Nieporent]

Moreover, they came to him and reported it, and he ignored them — and then later pretended that they hadn't done so.

[Bob from Ohio]

Not proven facts.

[bernard11]

Right. All those wrestlers are lying, and Ohio State paid out millions for nothing.

[Bob from Ohio]

Nothing was proven about Jordan.

[Reallynotbob]

What would convince you? Jury trial? Is that the only thing? And if so, why doesn't it work for other jury conclusions (e.g. Trump is a sexual abuser).

[Bob from Ohio]

One guy said he told Jordan, which Jordan denied.

The rest of the allegations are weak "he must have known" and several other wrestlers defended him.

[bernard11]

More than one guy.

You guys will believe anything. Do you ever get tired of being duped?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The people who rallied around Kenyan birth certificates, Italian satellite servers, bamboo ballots, Jewish space lasers, QAnon, CometPizzaPong whatever, creationism, stolen elections, the Seth Rich assassination, the Vince Foster assassination, the Jeffrey Epstein assassination, ivermectin, FBI promotion of the insurrection, death panels, windmill-caused cancer, vaccination-caused autism, and the like suddenly embrace another standard of proof when Jim Jordan says he didn't do it.

[Reallynotbob]

So what if it was college?

So what if they were adults? You're surely not saying adults cannot be molested by other people with authority or in positions of power?

How does supporting wrestlers who accuse a coach of [homosexual] abuse translate to homophobia? I'm a male so if I back my female friend when she accuses her boss of groping her am I some kind of misandrist? Incoherent.

How does it matter that he wasn't the head coach? When the night manager doesn't report the employee-on-employee rape, he doesn't get a pass because he isn't the store owner.

This is some Archie Bunker-grade backwardism.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Question, not guilty: Are all gay men child molesters?

Maybe not all wrestling coaches are either...

[Estragon]

You know, with all the talk of “pedo Joe” and “groomers” around these parts from the huckleberries, I am surprised by the reaction of conservatives to this speakership bid. Here we have someone who— in the scenario MOST FAVORABLE to him—worked in close proximity to both a groomer and his multiple victims for 8 years and was completely clueless.

(And as an aside, if you buy this transparently bogus version of events, reflect for a moment on what that says about coach Jordan’s relationship with his students: not one single one of dozens of victims felt comfortable approaching Coach Jordan to tell him about this abuse? It’s not exactly an inspiring profile in leadership.)

And so this is the guy that conservatives want to elevate into a position of power. How do we think a theoretical Speaker Jordan would handle a Mark Foley type situation? Based on this track record, I’m betting not great!

So this muted reaction by conservatives is surprising.

Wait, did I say surprising? I meant completely, utterly, unsurprising.

[Martinned]

Another issue that has interested me this week is the news reporting of that Gaza hospital. What was the press supposed to do there?

I must confess that I don't have enough information about the specific case. (I don't have a TV and read few papers, so I don't know how different outlets reported on that story initially and later.) But as a general matter it seems like a difficult one to get right.

"Israeli bomb" seems like a plausible starting assumption, but difficult to verify independently. But then that's true for most stories about what's happening in Gaza, and it doesn't seem like the correct response is to stop reporting about Gaza.

So who dropped the ball, and how?

[Jonathan Affleck]

The US has two navy ships off the shore with the best monitoring equipment in the world. The US almost certainly knows whether an Israeli plane dropped a bomb on the medical center. Yet, the US is willing to refer to a recording that is supplied by the Israeli military and that seems obviously faked to an Arabic speaker. A lot seems to be rotten in Denmark.

[Frank Drackman]

And you know that from your Military Service or from watching "The Hunt for Red October"
Most of the "Monitoring Equipment on Ships" is for finding the peoples trying to attack you, not monitoring the safety of some Hospital hundreds of miles away.
You know how I know the Israeli's didn't hit the Hospital?
The Hospital wasn't hit, it was the parking lot, the Israeli's wanted to hit the Hospital, they'd have hit the Hospital, this has your Typical A-rab Fuck-Uppery written all over it (in Arabic)

Frank

[Dr. Ed 2]

Frank, it was a SECONDARY detonation that took out the hospital -- the shock wave of the Hamas rocket in the parking lot touched off some of the stuff that Hamas was storing in said hospital.

TATP (aka "Mother of Satan") comes to immediate mind as it is so unstable that looking at it funny is likely to set it off, and terrorists are the only folk crazy enough to play with that stuff. Who knows what they load into their rockets -- it's explosive of some sort and a strong shock wave will detonate most explosives.

And it's not exactly like Hamas is building rockets in an OSHA-approved workshop -- my guess is they are doing a LOT of things that NASA never would because of the likelyhood they will blow themselves up in the process. Heck, the Soviets didn't follow safety protocols (surprised?) and managed to incinerate a lot of their experts in just one incident.

[Frank Drackman]

Hospital's still standing, but if it's a typical A-rab facility blowing it up would be the humane thing to do

[David Nieporent]

it was a SECONDARY detonation that took out the hospital

Dr. Ed can't manage to get any facts right even when they aren't about Massachusetts. Nothing "took out the hospital." It's still standing just fine. Some broken windows and shrapnel damage.

[Dr. Ed 2]

And hallways strewn with assorted body parts. How many hundred dead? That's "took out" in my book -- if you think in terms of the modern hospital, or even a circa 1970s hospital, it probably will be cheaper to build a new one than to bring this one back up to standards.

[Brett Bellmore]

Look, Ed, you have to stop taking Hamas press releases as seriously as the NYT does. Seriously, you have to stop that.

This from Iran, which is hardly an uncritical ally of Israel:

80 Beds Yet Hundreds Dead: Questions Emerge Over Gaza Hospital Attack

[David Nieporent]

No, it's not from Iran. It's from a Persian-language news outlet based in London, aimed at Iranians.

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

[Brett Bellmore]

I stand corrected. But the report is still raising serious points.

[VinniUSMC]

Affleck, you are definitely rotten, in Denmark or otherwise. Fuck off Nazi scum.

[Brett Bellmore]

The media took a terrorist organization's press release, and ran it as a straight news story. Israel bombs a hospital only seems like a plausible starting assumption if you're an idiot.

[Commenter_XY]

In every war, there is a contingent of useless idiots. I think the media qualifies here; so would JVP (the Jewish Voice for Peace nudniks).

[Brett Bellmore]

I think at this point we have enough evidence to conclude that fairly large portions of our media are not idiots, but instead on the other side.

[Martinned]

Someone should really do something about all that misinformation!

[VinniUSMC]

If it was up to you, the people doing something about the misinformation would be the same ones generating said misinformation propaganda. AP in the hen house.

[Frank Drackman]

Google what happened to Goebbels, of course he took the honorable way out, no way these current fucks will

[Martinned]

Given how many people, on this blog and elsewhere, argued that it would be perfectly normal and OK for the IDF to bomb hospitals, I'm not sure why the IDF bombing a hospital would be prima facie implausible. The IDF has done so before - as have the Americans in Iraq - and will do so again.

[Brett Bellmore]

You are, deliberately I have little doubt, mischaracterizing what people have said.

If Hamas launches rockets from a hospital, (As they routinely do as part of their innocent shield tactics.) it is only natural that the return salvo to stop the rocket launches will strike near the hospital. This is not the same thing as Israel targeting hospitals.

And only a malign idiot would assume that a Hamas press release was accurate.

[Martinned]

The scenario you describe is literally the same thing as targeting a hospital.

[Brett Bellmore]

It is literally the same in the same way that, if you walk up to me and slug me out of the blue, that's assault, and if I then knee you in the groin as you're winding up for another blow, that's assault.

That is to say, it's only different in the way that matters.

[Martinned]

Just because you have a good reason to target a hospital, doesn't mean you're not targeting the hospital.

[VinniUSMC]

Too bad your Hamas friends don't care enough their own people to not A) blow up a hospital to blame it on Israel, or B) not fire rockets from a hospital knowing that retaliation will strike said hospital.

Fuck off Nazi scum.

[Michael P]

Is somebody holding a gun to your head and threatening to shoot you unless you post such empty-headed defenses of Hamas terrorism?

[Martinned]

I'm sorry that the basic meaning of words inconveniences you.

Here, have a non-Hamas example of someone targeting a hospital: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/07/islamic-state-iraq-mosul-hospital-airstrike-us-military

[Michael P]

You didn't answer my question. Not surprising, given your dishonesty on the whole topic.

The real question is why you want to blame Israel for a Palestinian rocket that blew up in a hospital courtyard, possibly amplified by something like a car's fuel tank.

https://www.npr.org/2023/10/18/1206795861/heres-the-available-evidence-of-what-happened-at-al-ahli-arab-hospital-in-gaza
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67144061

[Martinned]

Who did I blame for what???

[Davedave]

Why deny what you said? It's shameful, but you're quite happy to say shameful, disgraceful things when you're talking about your hatred for Jews. It's the bit where you then lie about what you said, without bothering to edit your comment, that's so bizarre.

[Armchair]

It is not.

By using a hospital as a military facility (ie to launch rockets), Hamas makes it into a legitimate military target.

The military facility is being targeted.

[Martinned]

By using a hospital as a military facility (ie to launch rockets), Hamas makes it into a legitimate military target.

That's not how the laws of war work.

https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule12

[Armchair]

That is how it works.

Rule 28.
Medical Units
Rule 28. Medical units exclusively assigned to medical purposes must be respected and protected in all circumstances. They lose their protection if they are being used, outside their humanitarian function, to commit acts harmful to the enemy

https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule28

[Martinned]

Indeed. But the fact that a hospital loses its protection doesn't mean that it can be shot at regardless of how many civilians are in it. It just means that it becomes the same kind of target as a house or an office.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Which means that the civilian casualties can't be grossly disproportionate to the military value of the target. If they're using the hospital to launch missiles into your cities, that might not apply to such an attack.

And if they're launching missiles at your civilians, the principle of reciprocity might apply.

[Armchair]

A house or office that was being used as a base to shoot rockets would likewise be a legitimate military target for destruction.

Hamas does not get to use a hospital (or any other building) as a base from which to store and shoot rockets at Israel and say "nah nah, you can't shoot back, we're safe here." That is not how it works.

[Nige]

So it is okay to launch rockets at hospitals. Because they may or may not be Hamas facilities.

[Bob from Ohio]

Brett, the IDF doesn't target hospitals, period.

Until this go round, the IDF avoided all "sensitive" sites such as mosques and schools, even when munitions were stored or rockets launched. This time, they are attacking such sites IF they have no people in them, such as at night.

Don't accept Eurotrash framing.

[Nige]

They don't shoot reporters or children or bomb refugee camps or refugee convoys either. One minute Hamas are hiding behind every school, mosque and hospital in Gaza making them fair game for the IDF, the next the IDF would never do such a thing. The thing is, if it turns out they did bomb the hospital, you still wouldn't give a shit.

[Bob from Ohio]

You've chosen your side.

[Nige]

Yeah the one where Palestinians and Israelis don't die.

[Don Nico]

Martin,
Such charges are serious. Any assignment of blame ought to be based on specific information, not speculation.

[Nige]

An Israeli sopkesman took credit for the strike after it happened. That changed, so they may have been lying or wrong, or they may have decided to start lying when the outrage mounted.

[Davedave]

Wow. Some properly antisemitic nonsense from Nige there. Pure fantasy, of course, but so is the rest of his genocidal mania.

[Nige]

I'm sorry, who's calling for genocide here? Calling for *the Israelis* to commit genocide, so genocide by proxy, which I expect the Israelis are not going to listen to because they're not as evil or stupid as you lot want them to be.

[Bob from Ohio]

Nige, you fell for the Hamas propaganda, hook line and sinker. You hardly have standing to even talk about it now.

You should admit you were wrong and apologize.

[Nige]

Shouldn't have believed that Israeli spokesperson I guess.

[Bob from Ohio]

You never mentioned such a spokesman.

[Nige]

Didn't mention Hamas, either.

[Commenter_XY]

Do you know the truth now, Nige? I guess that is what truly matters here.

Do you acknowledge that Israel did not, in fact, deliberately target or even bomb the Al Ahli Arab Hospital?

[Don Nico]

Of course, he won't acknowledge that. He never world.

[Nige]

I acknowledged the subsequent contradictory reports casting doubt on the first report meaning the whole thing was up in the air about ten minutes after my first comment in the other thread.

[Nige]

It looks like that at a minimum a missile or part of a missile struck on or near the hospital. I haven’t seen anything confirming the source of the missile or part thereof.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Israel bombs a hospital only seems like a plausible starting assumption if you’re an idiot.

It's difficult to imagine a more straight-forward case of logic. He is an idiot, therefor....

[Davedave]

"What was the press supposed to do there?"

Try harder to hide their bias, obviously. They got taken in by Hamas propaganda because they are inclined to believe Hamas without question, and don't demand evidence the way they do with the (generally established to be far more credible) Israeli claims.

The BBC is still at it. They haven't put up a headline about what we now know, which is that it was almost certainly a misfired Palestinian rocket which hit the hospital, they've done a headline about 'claims and counterclaims' and 'what do we know?' To start with, though, they were quite happy to put the blame on Israel in a headline.

Also this week we've had the BBC repeatedly defending their choice to refuse to call Hamas terrorists, while calling attacks on non-Jewish people 'terrorism'.

But, being a rabid antisemite, you'll refuse to see any of this as what it clearly is. Just like you'll refuse to acknowledge there were thousands of people marching in the streets chanting about exterminating Jews, and just about the only prominent figure to call it out was Cruella fucking Braverman.

Here, why don't you tell us how this wasn't antisemitic either: https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-chancellor-olaf-scholz-condemn-synagogue-attack-berlin/

[Nige]

So, all Jews are implicated in everything Israel does and if Israel gets criticised for doing something all Jews are being criticised for that thing, which is clearly an anti-semitic thing to do, therefore all criticisms of Israel are anti-semitism. You realise how anti-semitic that is, right? Just because you're currently on Israel's side doesn't mean conflating all Jews with Israel still isn't anti-semitic.

[Davedave]

I don't think I need a genocidal Jew-hater to tell me what is antisemitic. Let alone one who is suffering from brainworms that make them drool and go slack-faced on one side.

But well done on defending firebombing synagogues. That really helps make your point about 'there's no such thing as antisemitism' really clear: what you mean is 'wir mussen die Juden ausraten'.

[Nige]

I think you are anti-semitic. You're just accusing others as part of your current incoherently hysterical support for Israel.

[Don Nico]

Nige,
When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

[Nige]

Oh, so you agree with dave?

[Don Nico]

Actually, I have Davedave muted. So I don't agree or disagree

[Kazinski]

No, the media did a great job on covering the hospital bombing, they shouldn't have done any different.

They highlighted how Hamas works and none of their claims should be taken seriously until the evidence is fully vetted.

And nothing Ilan Omar or Rashida Talib (spellchecker changed that to Taliban, I should have left it), or AOC should be taken at face value too.

[Michael P]

Case in point: https://twitter.com/RashidaTlaib/status/1714342122185191596

She couldn't even get the denomination of the hospital's operators right.

[Nige]

The Israelis have killed about 3,000 Gazans, many of them children. The idea that Israel hitting a hospital and killing hundreds simply is not implausible enough to reject out of hand, and Israel are noted propagandists. It's like the decapitated babies thing. Yes decapitated babies would be awful, but you know what? The babies and their familes were actually murdered and whether the decapitations occurred or not won't change that. The casualties are getting to the point where 500 people in a hospital will only be a blip.

Everyone likes to keep proclaiming this is a war and stuff happens in war, except not rapidly changing and conflicting information that has to be updated and revised, apparently.

[Bob from Ohio]

"The Israelis have killed about 3,000 Gazans, many of them children."

The only source for that figure is the Hamas "Ministry of Health" which also falsely said 500 people were killed in the hospital parking lot.

[Nige]

How many do the Israelis say they've killed?

[Bob from Ohio]

I don't know. How would they know in any event? They aren't on the ground.

They haven't finished counting the Jews killed by your buddies. Found a burnt child in an attack and a disabled girl and her dad yesterday.

[Bob from Ohio]

"attack" should have been "attic."

[Nige]

So that's the only source we have

Bob, you supported the invasion of Iraq and are pro-torture. That's a lot of burnt babies and dead Dads. You think a burnt baby and a dead dad justify burning more babies and killing more Dads? Course you do.

[Don Nico]

What is your point NIge. That the number of Gazans dead exceeds the number of those in Israel?
Almost certainly true. But, so what. Hamas, de facto declared war with an attack that prima facie violates all tenets of the jus ad bello. Then Israel issued a de jure declaration of war.
What did you expect to happen next?

[David Nieporent]

Rashida Talib (spellchecker changed that to Taliban, I should have left it)

Well, if you weren't going to leave it, you probably should have reverted to the correct spelling.

[Krayt]

“Israeli bomb” seems like a plausible starting assumption

Is it? Israel would bomb a hospital? Even if they were going after Hamas hiding in hospitals, they wouldn’t bother checking if it were empty first?

Those who buy into prepared worldviews might think, “Of course. Of course Israel would bomb hospitals!” Like the NYT, apparently.

When the Federal Building in Oklahoma City was bombed, Clinton said don’t rush to judgement.

“Of course it was Muslim terrorists!”

But it wasn’t.

If one's worldview is to jump to how reasonable sounding it is for Israel to deliberately bomb a loaded hospital, maybe "them goddam Jews" isn't too far from slipping your lips.

[Martinned]

Israel would bomb a hospital?

They did: https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/middle-east-unrest/another-gaza-hospital-hit-israeli-strike-four-dead-40-hurt-n161086

And so did the US in Iraq (see above).

[Frank Drackman]

Good!

[Bob from Ohio]

"They did"

Prove it.

That article is the same source as the "500" "killed" when the hospital was "leveled"

"health officials told NBC News.

"Health Ministry spokesman"

Stop falling for propaganda!

[Nige]

“Of course. Of course Israel would bomb hospitals!”

They bombed it two days before. They keep issuing notices to leave and evacuate that are simply impossible to comply with, and when they aren't bombs fall on convoys and refugee camps and areas people were told to evacuate to. That chaos is reflected in the reporting. We're supposed to be media-savvy enough to recognise that any given developing story will change, and where there are conflicting propaganda claims, it's just going to stay muddy.

[Bob from Ohio]

"They bombed it two days before."

Source?

[Armchair]

"“Israeli bomb” seems like a plausible starting assumption"

So, does a media organization loudly headline with "Plausible starting assumptions" instead of actually checking the facts?

[Martinned]

That was my question: How were they meant to have done that? Or were they meant not to have reported anything until days later?

[Armchair]

They should have reported it in a factually neutral method.

Rather than headline with "Israeli Strike kills hundreds in hospital, Palestinians say" (Which wasn't verified).

The real headline should have been
"Explosion at Palestinian hospital kills hundreds"

And the follow up headline should have been
"Hamas kills hundreds of own citizens at hospital".

[Brett Bellmore]

I'd just point out that the "hundreds" appears to have been a Hamas lie, too.

[David Nieporent]

No; the real headline should have been "Hamas claims that explosion at Gaza hospital kills hundreds." The thing that's astonishing about this story is that the two sides' supporters were fighting a p.r. war over who committed a massacre that didn't happen in the first place.

[Michael P]

The death count does appear to be sadly high: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/19/world/middleeast/gaza-hospital-blast-deaths.html

It's not a massacre in the sense of being intentional, but a lot of people died in this event, even if that assessment is right about it being closer to 100 than 300. It's worth making sure we know what happened and why.

[Davedave]

That has been answered, in detail, but yet again you're just ignoring something you don't want to acknowledge.

It's like the way the people who lived near Auschwitz managed to pretend there was no sign of anything untoward going on by ignoring all the signs, because that was what they wanted to believe, and it's utterly despicable.

[Nige]

'managed to pretend there was no sign of anything untoward going on by ignoring all the signs,'

Is that like pretending that Israel hasn't killed thousands of Gazans, many of them children? Or just insisting that all *those*deaths were justified?

[Don Nico]

Again what is your point. There are civilians caught in the middle of a legal war.

[Brett Bellmore]

His point is that this isn't the sort of war Hamas was starting.

[Moderation4ever]

No body dropped the ball. The speed of media is the problem. The story went out quick and Hamas spun it even quicker to a part of the world that is already on edge. I believe the evidence that it was a misfired rocket, but getting that evidence takes time. We live in a world where people in charge have to let the false play itself out and hope people will come around to the facts. I think we saw that happen here. But the cost was high as it delayed meeting that might contain the situation.

BTW - events like this happen all the time. Stories are quickly latched onto and spun. Only later do we find the truth.

[Martinned]

That seems fair.

[Armchair]

The ball was dropped. The media used Hamas's line....

This is the organization that lies and kills. The Media should never have trusted ANYTHING they said.

[Moderation4ever]

You are talking like a relic. Media today can be anyone with a keyboard and an internet connection. Anyone with a Facebook page or a Podcast.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, like the New York Times. Just some dude in his mother's basement.

[Moderation4ever]

Do you think the NYT inflamed the Arab Streets? More likely it was some 400 pound Russian in his mamushka's basement.

[Bob from Ohio]

That Russian could point to the NYT, "see even the Americans agree"

[Nige]

‘The speed of media is the problem.’

People acting like they’ve never seen stories coming out of a war-zone change as more facts emerge or get more complicated in the confusion caused by conflicting propaganda before is the problem.

[Davedave]

No, your foetid dissembling in the cause of genocidal antisemitism is the problem.

The problem is that the story _hasn't_ changed. The propaganda has worked. Reputable news outlets like the BBC have not update their stories with an equally prominent retraction. Racists like you have had their racist ideas reinforced, and used them to justify exterminating the Jews and firebombing synagogues.

[Nige]

You're gabbling. The story has been changed to to reflect the various competing claims. There have been no independant verifications of any of them that I've seen yet.

[Don Nico]

"no independant verifications of any of them"
You'd better get used to that. Competent independent evaluations are high unlikely in most instances.

[Bob from Ohio]

"No body dropped the ball."

The New York Times went with the lie and featured a completely different damaged building. Then they changed the headline without noting it.

Its malice, not speed.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

No body dropped the ball.

So they intentionally rushed to publish something as fact even thought there was not even an attempt to verify it as such (as they have done so many other times) for the sake of an inflammatory headline. Is that better than being negligent/incompetent?

[Brett Bellmore]

They didn't drop the ball, they spiked the ball. It wasn't a mistake, it was deliberate, even if they later reconsidered the wisdom of it.

[David Nieporent]

The media dropped the ball by simply reprinting Hamas propaganda as if it were fact, and with burying, or even not disclosing at all, that it was Hamas propaganda. They attributed it to the "Gaza Health Ministry," as if that were an independent organization as opposed to a "government" agency in which the "government" is Hamas. So the headlines weren't "Hamas accuses Israel of bombing hospital" — which would've been accurate — but "Israel bombs hospital, according to Gaza Health Ministry."

The fact that not only did Israel not do the bombing, but that the hospital wasn't even bombed is just icing on the cake.

(The NYT illustrated the story with a photo of a bombed building, but not the hospital.)

[Nige]

As far as I can tell (and I could be wrong) there's been no independant verification of anyone's claims about the strike.

[David Nieporent]

I don't know what you mean by "independent verification," but there are plenty of published photos showing that the hospital wasn't bombed at all. There's no "rubble" for hundreds of victims to have been dug out of.

[Nige]

To be honest I’m not sure what independent verification will look like in the current situation either. The photos of that car park are certainly suggestive of the hospital not being directly struck, so hopefully 500 people didn’t die.

[Bob from Ohio]

If it wasn't you, I would think no one could be that stupid.

[Nige]

See? Using Bob's tunnel-vision amorality as a reliable weathervane, I'm on the right track.

[Don Nico]

Bob,
There is no reason to be gratuitously insulting.

[Don Nico]

You are asking for something that does not exist. Get used to it.

[SimonP]

Who dropped the ball?

The outlets I read were always open-ended on where blame was properly laid. They reported the competing claims of fault along the number claimed dead. There was a lot of opining on social media casting blame one way or another. But the news I follow was always pretty responsible about linking claims to the parties making them, and providing context for understanding the validity of those competing claims.

[Ben_]

One thing they could do is issue a clear retraction with an apology for getting the news wrong and then destructively hyping falsehoods.

But they aren’t sorry and don’t really care about being factual, so they spin and deflect and defend instead.

[damikesc]

The media dropped the ball. Badly.

Instead of just reporting what was known, they went all-in with "Israel bombed a hospital". When it turned out no hospital was bombed and the PARKING LOT was hit by Islamic Jihad, the press showed how useless they are.

If you cannot verify the facts...then they are not facts. Do not report them as such.

[Martinned]

Another news story that might be of some use to the people here: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-12645435/Belle-banquet-Queen-Camilla-dazzles-Bruce-Oldfield-gown-King-Charles-ceremony-dating-17th-century-City-London.html

King Charles urges public to rise above 'rancour and acrimony' on social media and takes veiled swipe at cancel culture saying people should hear opposing views 'with politeness and respect'

King Charles has issued a passionate plea to the nation not to let the toxic ‘rancour and acrimony’ of online debate corrode society in a speech that paid tribute to the good old British sense of humour - and he even managed to poke fun at himself, in a quip about his fountain pen mishap last year.

In a ‘state of the nation’ speech at Mansion House in the City of London, Charles confessed he had spent much of the last year since his accession ‘reflecting’ on what makes the UK so special - and the perils that face it.

The monarch arrived with Queen Camilla at the venue to take part in a traditional ceremony in which UK sovereigns have taken part since the 17th century on the year of their Coronation.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Civility on social media is good, and it's also good for the police *not* to harass people for their social media posts, as happens in the UK.

"Charles also highlighted the familiar refrain of the phrase ‘I know my rights’, arguing that this should not override our responsibilities to each other, adding: ‘Our society would be a kinder and gentler place for it.’"

Charles III, like George III before him, might reflect that one way to make society a kinder and gentler place would be for the government to respect our basic rights.

[Martinned]

I'm sure he explains that to Rishi Sunak every week, during their weekly catch-ups.

[Davedave]

Ah, there we go, Martin lets the mask slip once again, this time by posting propaganda from a widely despised far right faux-news site.

[Jonathan Affleck]

It seems to be possible to make an AI chatbot webservice into a legal person by creating a corporation for it. Would it be a bad thing for such a webservice to become a legal person? Then it's corporation could be sued just like any other legal person.

[Frank Drackman]

Can't believe I'm doing this,
You used "it's" wrong, it should be "its"
Now cut off the offending part and don't do it again or the Grammar Nazis will do it for you. Bad Grammar is a practice with which they will not put up!
Frank

[apedad]

Frankie's logic....

Since I'm a nice guy, I'll do a bad thing to you to save you from really bad people doing the bad thing to you.

At least you used real words and not your childish phonetic language, e.g., Grammar instead of G-Rammer, etc.

[Frank Drackman]

I was home schooled for a period, so thank my Mutti's East German Ed-Jew-ma-Cation

[Jerry B.]

“I was home schooled for a period”

28 days?

[Commenter_XY]

RE: Takeover of US Capitol Rotunda yesterday by pro-terror Hamas supporters

Were official proceedings not obstructed?
Was there not parading?
Were there not protestors who fought with the Capitol police?

I won't use that dreaded 'I' word. I am sure the FBI and DOJ are on it. They're such....trustworthy organizations. Really looking out for the American people.

[Brett Bellmore]

On the bright side, a few of them did get arrested. For physically assaulting police. Let’s see if the charges get quietly dropped or downgraded once people are looking away.

[Frank Drackman]

They should all be dropped on Terror-Ann, preferably during one of the Public Executions.

[David Nieporent]

On the bright side, a few of them did get arrested.

And by "a few," you mean "hundreds."

https://www.fox5dc.com/news/pro-palestinian-protest-underway-at-capitol-rotunda-uscp-detains-some-demonstrators-israel-hamas-war-capitol-hill-jewish-voices-for-peace

[Armchair]

Insurrection!

I expect each will get at least a year in jail. Rashida Tlaib seemed to be in charge of the crowd protesting outside the Capitol.... Perhaps she should be indicted for her role in the invasion of the Capitol.

[Sarcastr0]

A large group of Jewish protesters are occupying the Cannon House Office Building across from the Capitol in Washington D.C.

They gathered there Wednesday after a rally on the National Mall demanding an immediate ceasefire in Israel. This group believes Israel is to blame for violence in the region. They want Congress to demand the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) stop its strikes in Gaza and allow humanitarian aid into the Palestinian-controlled area.

I think they’re wrong as well, but don’t call them Hamas supporters.

[Armchair]

Their actions support Hamas.

It would be akin to demonstrators demanding the US not invade Nazi Germany in 1945 and make peace instead.

Hamas would like nothing better than to strike against Israel, kill hundreds to thousands of Jews, kidnap hundreds of others, then run back to Gaza and hide under the proverbial skirts of the UN and the civilians there. Then repeat again in a few years.

[Sarcastr0]

Hamas sucks, I agree with your second paragraph.

But disagreeing with your second paragraph doesn't mean you support Hamas, it just means you're wrong.

Just like being a pacifist after Pearl Harbor didn't mean you were pro-Nazi.

[Armchair]

The actions support Hamas. Whether or not that's what was "intended," inevitably the actions support Hamas.

[Sarcastr0]

This is Fire in a Crowded Theatre logic. It is about 100 years out of date.

[Armchair]

Actual logic doesn't go out of date.

[Sarcastr0]

It's not actual logic, is the point. It's anti-speech jingoism.

[Nige]

This merely reflects you complete indifference to the suffering of civilians.

[Davedave]

“being a pacifist after Pearl Harbor didn’t mean you were pro-Nazi.”

Where do you come up with any sort of justification for that nonsense? Of course that’s what it meant. It may not have been what people _intended_ it to mean, but it is what it in fact meant. If you oppose fighting Nazis, then you support allowing Nazis to impose Nazism, which is, plainly and obviously, supporting Nazism.

You can tell yourself that’s not what it means, if you like, but you’re merely lying to yourself by refusing to acknowledge the consequences of your position.

[ETA: Not that Pearl Harbor is the key date here, of course.]

[loki13]

Wow.

So Quakers support Nazis!

This has been another episode in "Outraged Emotional Outbursts Lead to Insane Logic."

[Davedave]

"So Quakers support Nazis!"

Quakers are generally nowhere near as righteous as they like to imagine, and are notoriously antisemitic. But even so, they did not oppose fighting Nazis. They helped fight Nazis. They just did not want to wield the actual weapons themselves.

[loki13]

"Quakers are generally nowhere near as righteous as they like to imagine, and are notoriously antisemitic."

The only thing I've learned from your repeated posts are this-

1. You accusing anyone else of being "nowhere near as righteous as they like to imagine" is ... well, ironic doesn't do it justice, does it?

2. I am unclear if there is a single entity that you haven't accused of anti-Semitism at this point. I am eagerly awaiting your expose explaining why Moses was an anti-Semite.

Seriously, stop helping.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

The only thing I’ve learned...

...is how to be as much of a cowardly, lying sack of shit as Sarcastr0.

Congratulations.

[bernard11]

Of course that’s what it meant. It may not have been what people _intended_ it to mean, but it is what it in fact meant.

This is stupid and authoritarian beyond belief. Your opinion as to whether what someone does supports Hamas is not dispositive.

[Nige]

'If you oppose fighting Nazis, then you support allowing Nazis to impose Nazism, which is, plainly and obviously, supporting Nazism.'

A lot of people get worked up round here whenever a Nazi gets punched.

[Joe_dallas]

Sarcastr0 1 day ago
Flag Comment Mute User
Hamas sucks, I agree with your second paragraph.

But disagreeing with your second paragraph doesn’t mean you support Hamas, it just means you’re wrong.

Just like being a pacifist after Pearl Harbor didn’t mean you were pro-Nazi.

fyi - It was the japanese that attacked pearl harbor , not nazi germany

[Sarcastr0]

Yes, I am aware of that fact.

PH is what got the US into WW2, which was famously against, among other groups, the Nazis.

[David Nieporent]

It would be akin to demonstrators demanding the US not invade Nazi Germany in 1945 and make peace instead.

Wait 'til you hear about the Republicans who are demanding the U.S. not support Ukraine's defense against Russian invasion!

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Wait ’til you hear about the Republicans who are demanding the U.S. not support Ukraine’s defense against Russian invasion!

And by "Republicans" you mean "the majority of Americans"...

https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/04/politics/cnn-poll-ukraine/index.html

[David Nieporent]

Yes, I too can google, and I meant Republicans.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ukraine-americans-aid-poll-2023-09-10/

The relevant question in the poll:

19. Regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which of these should the U.S. do or not do now? The U.S...

Send weapons to Ukraine: 54% Should; 46% Should not.

(With the bulk of the opposition coming from the Putin-loving party.)

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

19. Regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which of these should the U.S. do or not do now? The U.S…

Send weapons to Ukraine: 54% Should; 46% Should not.

(With the bulk of the opposition coming from the Putin-loving party.)

Weirdly, the results for the question you cite are not broken down by party affiliation. And the bolded part illustrates what a partisan piece of shit you really are.

That said, I did find something else in that story interesting. For instance, of all those polled about what effect Biden is having on the US' position in the world, only 1/4 thought he was making it stronger, while 50% said he was making it weaker (with the remainder saying he was having little effect at all).

[Krayt]

Trump is not your hero on this

He is an unprincipled contrarian who would give up Ukraine and Taiwan just because the Democrats are trying not to. This assumes he has no ulterior motive.

You guys like this because (see he is opposing the Democrats just because you hate them.)

Letting dictators ape Hitler’s reasoning, and roll tanks through Europe? What fucking genius imagines this is a value of America, or of a free nation?

Shame! Shame!

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Trump is not your hero on this

Who said anything about Trump (besides you)? What in the hell are you rambling about in general here?

[damikesc]

Republicans are 54% of the electorate?

[Nige]

No they don't. They support civilians in Gaza. It's just inconvenient to your desire to have Israelis kill Hamas without being bothered about civilian causalties.

[damikesc]

Hamas embedding all of their military targets within civilian locales is a problem that Hamas should be harshly punished for.

[Nige]

See? There IS a justification for killing civilians!

[damikesc]

No. Israel is doing all they can to specifically not do so.

Hamas is killing their civilians. They do not hold human life as much of a premium.

[Nige]

All they can except not drop staggering amounts of ordinance in built-up areas.

I agree, Hamas do not vaue human life very highly. And yet the IDF death toll will dwarf that of Hamas.

[Nige]

So the US was supporting Nazis until Pearl Harbour.

[Don Nico]

Where in the world did you get that idea. You really know very little.

[Nige]

Sarcastro: “being a pacifist after Pearl Harbor didn’t mean you were pro-Nazi.”

Dave: Where do you come up with any sort of justification for that nonsense? Of course that’s what it meant.

[Joe_dallas]

Nige 1 day ago
Flag Comment Mute User
So the US was supporting Nazis until Pearl Harbour.

Its was japan that attacked pearl harbor - are you that ill informed.

[Nige]

Sarcastro: “being a pacifist after Pearl Harbor didn’t mean you were pro-Nazi.”

Dave: Where do you come up with any sort of justification for that nonsense? Of course that’s what it meant.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

So the US was supporting Nazis until Pearl Harbour.

Its was japan that attacked pearl harbor – are you that ill informed.

I guess that answers the question, “Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?”

[Davedave]

I don't know about them. Obviously they're antisemitic - antisemitism is the one club antisemites are happy to let Jews into - but I have no idea if they're also Hamas apologists.

Tlaib, on the other hand, has openly called for Jews to be exterminated, and has repeatedly defended terrorism. She's a nasty piece of work.

[Frank Drackman]

Rashitta Hi-jab should go to fucking Gaza so she could be umm "Recalled" legally

[Bob from Ohio]

"don’t call them Hamas supporters."

In fact they are.

Jews for Hamas! Chickens for KFC!

[Nige]

Iraqi war supporters for more war!

[Armchair]

Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib was apparently leading these protests from the outside.

18 USC 239B makes providing material support to a terrorist organization punishable by up to 20 years in jail.

Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project notes material support to include legal services and advice, including explicitly on hw to facilitate peace negotiations.

We need to consider if Representative Tlaib is violating 18 USC 239B by using her expertise and skills to attempt to achieve peace for Hamas. If she or her office has been in contact with Hamas, or a Hamas intermediary, and has planned her advocacy with that contact in mind, she may be in violation of 18 USC 239B

[Sarcastr0]

Actually we don’t need to consider that. No one is going to charge her and Internet partisan cranks are not going to rise above with nonsense like this.

[Frank Drackman]

Where's that Capitol Gallows?? No Threat, just asking, but good to be prepared.

[Dr. Ed 2]

It isn't even that -- it was established in the 1950s that a naturalized citizenship could be revoked for membership in the Communist Party and I argue it can also be revoked for supporting Hamas.

DEPORT the Delta Charlie!

[David Nieporent]

RE: Takeover of US Capitol Rotunda yesterday by pro-terror Hamas supporters

Um, no. It wasn't even in the Capitol building. It was the Cannon office building.

[Dr. Ed 2]

A distinction without a difference -- the same Federal laws apply to ALL Capitol Buildings.

[David Nieporent]

I understand facts don't matter to you.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

I understand facts don’t matter to you.

Say...aren't you one of the idiots who parroted the stupidity ridiculing the prescribing of Ivermectin to people because it's a "horse dewormer"...in spite of the FACT that Ivermectin was originally created to treat many illnesses in humans, as well as the FACT that the formulation used to treat human ailments and the one used on animals are completely different products?

[David Nieporent]

Are you still that stupid? Wow. I thought most MAGA people had given up on the fish tank cleaner and horse dewormer stuff.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Are you still that stupid? Wow. I thought most MAGA people had given up on the fish tank cleaner and horse dewormer stuff.

And here you reinforce just what a hypocritical, lying piece of shit you really are. And you have the temerity to accuse anyone else of not caring about facts? Fuck off.

P.S. I’ve never been given Ivermectin, nor has there ever been any reason for it to be prescribed for me. Hell, I never even voted for Trump, you moron.

[Nige]

Lol Wuz used horse dewormer.

[Reallynotbob]

"They were just tourists." Ja?

[darkknight9]

Folks, I understand that the topic is all kinds of sensitive, but I have been ripping English teachers of all kinds for most of the summer that Law has a bigger vocabulary and that lawyers are more familiar with more cool words.

Violence seems like an easy enough word to understand. NYU Law students, you are makin me look bad! Hey NYU profs: spare the red pen, spoil the children.

NYU Law Students Say Classmate Losing Job Offer Over Pro-Hamas Statement Is 'Violence'

[Frank Drackman]

Parkinsonian Joe gave Ham-Ass the $100,000,000 Quid, when does he get the Quo??
And I'm sure Net N' Yahoo appreciated Joe's letting him know the Israelis didn't hit the Terrorist Hospital, honest mistake though, when's the last time Moose-lums murdered innocent civilians?

Frank

[apedad]

Trump's Lead Counsel in DC Case Isn't Member of DC Bar

Donald Trump's lead counsel in the J6 DC case John Lauro received notice from the DC Court of Appeals today that he will be unable to proceed with the case unless he becomes a member of the DC Bar.

Lauro apparently filed a notice of appearance on the case that he is representing Trump, but is not licensed to practice in that court, nor did he advise the court that an application process is pending. Normally, a lawyer in this situation would submit an application for admission either before or simultaneously with the notice of appearance, with notice provided to the court. But not a Trump lawyer.

The Court set a deadline of November 2, 2023 for his application to be submitted to the Court for admittance.

https://www.meidastouch.com/news/trumps-lead-counsel-in-dc-case-isnt-member-of-dc-bar

OK VC lawyers, how much of an ass-clown is Lauro?

[Martinned]

I forget the terminology, but I thought US lawyers could get a one-off waiver if they need to represent a client in a jurisdiction where they're not a member of the bar?

[Brett Bellmore]

I believe that's so, yes. "Pro hac vice", whatever that means in latin.

[Commenter_XY]

so apedad, how often does that kind of thing happen? = Normally, a lawyer in this situation would submit an application for admission either before or simultaneously with the notice of appearance, with notice provided to the court.

I'm just curious.

[apedad]

Dunno.

That statement is from the story (above the cite).

[loki13]

I can't answer this question from the criminal side, but I practice a lot on the civil side in federal court ... and this would be unheard of.

People know where they are licensed to practice, and they know they have to be admitted pro hac vice if they aren't. I've litigated a lot cases with pro hac vice counsel, but I can't recall a case where someone was appearing before the court without the motion having been filed.

(That said, I can't speak for all attorneys in all jurisdictions ...)

[Mr. Bumble]

"(That said, I can’t speak for all attorneys in all jurisdictions …)"

How honest and gracious of you.

[BrotherMovesOn]

Loki’s perfectly natural reply to a perfectly natural question is a value-adding component of this blog. That you take issue with his perfectly innocuous last sentence to lob a juvenile and gratuitous (i.e. non value-adding – saved you the trouble of looking it up!) insult simply magnifies the distinction between the two of you.
Retire already.
Troll.

[Krayt]

Since these are federal charges, aren't they the same everywhere?

Or is there something vitally impirtant about knowing when the clerk is at lunch?

[loki13]

Local rules and practice can vary A LOT in different jurisdictions, even federal ones. Sometimes, it's those little details that can trip you up.

That said, this is just a procedural thing. Even so, it's kinda weird to me coming from the civil side that he didn't already file for pro hac status.

[David Nieporent]

Again, the above poster got it wrong. He's admitted to the bar, as well as to federal court in DC. He just needs to file a form and pay the several hundred dollar fee to the circuit court. This is a form letter, nothing more.

[loki13]

Fair enough. I often take people's accounts at face value.

Based on prior experience, I should have known better.

[David Nieporent]

Indeed, Sean Marotta has confirmed on twitter that it wasn't even a paperwork error. Lauro hadn't filed anything in the circuit court yet. He filed a notice of appeal — which, as you know, is filed in the district court — and that triggered this automatic response from the clerk.

https://twitter.com/smmarotta/status/1714843613031436380

[loki13]

As always, I appreciate the clarification / correction.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Exactly how many *criminal* cases go to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals? It's jurisdiction is something like seven square miles...

[not guilty]

"Exactly how many *criminal* cases go to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals?"

I don't know the exact number. If you mean the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, it is as many criminal cases as are appealed from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

If you mean the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, it is as many criminal cases as are appealed from the Superior Court of the District of Columbia.

[Noscitur a sociis]

According the the court system, 81 of the 514 appeals in the DC circuit between March 2021 and March 2022 were criminal cases, compared with 10,355 out of 33,149 case across the courts of appeals as a whole.

[Kazinski]

Might be a ploy for a continuence.

Don't throw Trump and his Lawyer in the briar patch over this one, maybe its what they're hoping for.

[Moderation4ever]

This seems to be a running strategy with Trumps lawyers. Reminds me of a football game where in the last few minutes the teams that is up and has the ball does everything they can to eat up time. Let's the play clock run down the runs the ball in the center of the field.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

This seems to be a running strategy with Trumps lawyers.

And spouting made-up bullshit...like apedad did here (and has done elsewhere so many times)...is a running strategy with those of his ilk.

[David Nieporent]

Donald Trump’s lead counsel in the J6 DC case John Lauro received notice from the DC Court of Appeals today that he will be unable to proceed with the case unless he becomes a member of the DC Bar.

Lauro apparently filed a notice of appearance on the case that he is representing Trump, but is not licensed to practice in that court, nor did he advise the court that an application process is pending. Normally, a lawyer in this situation would submit an application for admission either before or simultaneously with the notice of appearance, with notice provided to the court. But not a Trump lawyer.

No. This is a fake social media story. Your statement is wrong both factually and narratively.

It's wrong factually because he is a member of the D.C. Bar. What he's not a member of is the Circuit Court of Appeals bar. It's wrong narratively because this is a routine paperwork issue, and comes up all the time. I bow to no one in my mockery of Trump's legal teams, but this is a complete non issue. It does not reflect on their competence at all.

[Martinned]

I can't remember whether we've spoken about the Australian Voice referendum: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2023_Australian_Indigenous_Voice_referendum

I must say I found that a difficult one. As a matter of first impression, I'd be inclined to oppose giving any group of individuals a different constitutional status. But on the other hand referendums are always about more than what's on the ballot. Just like the Brexit referendum was about so much more than about the narrow question of the UK's EU membership, this Voice referendum was basically about how Australia treats its indigenous people. Any no vote is tantamount to supporting the alt-right (e.g. the One Nation party) in any future debate about helping indigenous people.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, that's handy; You just declare that a bad idea in a ballot measure is really about something else, and it stops relevantly being a bad idea?

I think in reality it IS just about giving a group of individuals a different constitutional status, and the "something else" is just an excuse for doing something bad.

You don't solve treating some group worse than everybody else by switching to treating them better than everybody else. Trivially, it's the exact evil that your committing, all over again. You create new grievances, (Even if you rationalize that they're illegitimate, unlike the totes legit grievances you're responding to.) and the hate never ends.

You solve it by treating everybody the same. In the end, you can't arrive at right by making the same wrong in opposite directions.

[Martinned]

I'm not sure why you object to my theory of referendums. It is plainly empirically right. For example, the Brexit referendum result has been used ever since to argue against any kind of deal with the EU, and anything short of banning all refugees from the country. People who voted Leave because they believed that the EU was too capitalist should have anticipated that. The same goes for Australians who voted against the Voice because they believed it didn't go far enough.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, shockingly, the objective of Brexit was to terminate Britain being under the EU's thumb, so the victorious Bexiteers object to any effort to put Britain under the EU's thumb by other means. People who win such initiatives usually do object to their being deliberately circumvented by the losers.

[Martinned]

See? Now you attribute motives to Brexit voters that were not on the ballot paper, and that were not shared by all Brexit voters.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160304103320/http://morningstaronline.co.uk/a-4ae9-Well-vote-to-leave-to-save-Britains-rail#.VtlkdnbP1qY

If you're considering voting for one side in a referendum rather than another, it is reasonable to consider how your vote will be interpreted subsequently. And that, in turn, will depend on who else is voting on the same side. And if that's not company you want to be in, the reasonable thing to do is to abstain or vote the other way.

[bernard11]

How is making a deal with the EU putting anyone "under the EU's thumb?"

That's ridiculous.

[Nige]

Brexit is an unending clown-parade of the ridiculous.

[Nige]

I mean, the Brexiteers were boasting that they would make the best deal ever with the EU because they held all the cards. That gradually became 'any deal with the EU is a betrayal of Brexit because we're too incompetent and shifty to actually negotiate a deal in good faith and make it work.'

[Krayt]

Referendums "really" about something else is weasely behavior. Such things should be loud and clear.

[Martinned]

Tell that to Theresa 'Brexit means Brexit' May

[Michael P]

Maybe the people who push lousy referenda should foresee that overbroad or badly worded referenda will lead to a backlash. At least if we subscribe to your theory.

[Martinned]

100%. That's why referendums are generally a terrible idea and should be avoided whenever possible.

[Krayt]

51% referenda for major, constitution-level changes are an asinine idea.

Whilping the blowing political winds of passion is the one super power that exists in demagogues. It is their stock in trade.

Who the hell told anyone 51% for a major change was a high value? The demagogues who don't like things getting in their way!

[David Nieporent]

51% referenda for major, constitution-level changes are an asinine idea.

Sure. But just to be clear, Brexit didn’t involve any changes, constitution-level or otherwise. It was, at least formally, a non-binding referendum.

[Martinned]

That, too, was a thing that wasn't on the ballot paper but that voters should have reasonably anticipated (and often did): there's no such thing as an advisory referendum, particularly on a topic like this. There was always zero chance that Parliament would ignore the referendum result.

[Kazinski]

The biggest problem is there wasn't a clear definition of what the referendum would do:
On referendum day, Australian adults will be asked to vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to a single question: “A Proposed Law: to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. Do you approve this proposed alteration?”

If the answer is “yes”, the constitution would be rewritten to state that the Voice “may make representations” to the Parliament and executive government “on matters relating to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples”.

Supporters say there would be no Indigenous right of veto over government policy and lawmakers would be free to disregard the Voice’s representations.

But opponents argue the courts might interpret the Voice’s constitutional powers in unpredictable ways, creating legal uncertainty."

They can already petition government. Just what doe "make representations" for a third house of Parliament mean?"

Maybe not too much now but better cut the camels nose off now before it gets under the tent.

[Kazinski]

Seems Kosher to me:

"Rice v. Cayetano, 528 U.S. 495 (2000), was a case filed in 1996 by Big Island rancher Harold "Freddy" Rice against the state of Hawaii and argued before the United States Supreme Court. In 2000, the Court ruled that the state could not restrict eligibility to vote in elections for the Board of Trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs to persons of Native Hawaiian descent."

Beginning in 1978, Hawaii held statewide elections for the trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA), an agency charged with disbursing particular funds and benefits to those who may be classified as "Native Hawaiians" ("any descendant of not less than one-half part of the races inhabiting the Hawaiian Islands previous to 1778"), or those who may be classified simply as "Hawaiian" ("any descendant[s] of the aboriginal peoples inhabiting the Hawaiian islands ... in 1778, and which peoples thereafter have continued to reside in Hawaii"). By law, only Native Hawaiians or Hawaiians could vote for, or be elected to, this Board of Trustees."

As full disclosure I have 5-9 fairly close relatives that would be eligible to vote as native Hawaiians in those elections but I am still opposed in principle.

[Martinned]

In Australia indigenous people have only had the right to vote in all states since 1965: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_rights_of_Indigenous_Australians

[Brett Bellmore]

You mean since I was in kindergarten, and I could go on SS tomorrow if I wanted. That long ago.

[Ben_]

So the youngest person who remembers not being allowed to vote is 2023-1965 = 58 years + 21 (the legal voting age in 1965) = 79 years old.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Amherst (MA) is now handing out "reparation" money to Blacks.
How this is legal is beyond me.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Any no vote is tantamount to supporting the alt-right (e.g. the One Nation party) "

60% voted against it, a No vote in all 6 states.

[Martinned]

Yes, and One Nation will dine out on that for years.

[Bob from Ohio]

Its a fringe party, its not going to get less fringe-y because of this.

[David Nieporent]

Any no vote is tantamount to supporting the alt-right (e.g. the One Nation party) in any future debate about helping indigenous people.

One should not support a bad policy just because one doesn't like some of the people opposing it. (Or vice versa.)

[apedad]

Defendant Attempted to Trick Voters into Believing They Could Vote by Text Message

A social media influencer was sentenced today to seven months in prison and fined $15,000 for his role in a conspiracy to interfere with potential voters’ right to vote in the 2016 presidential election.

According to court documents, by 2016, Douglass Mackey, aka Ricky Vaughn, had established an audience on Twitter with approximately 58,000 followers. Between September 2016 and November 2016, Mackey conspired with other influential Twitter users and with members of private online groups to use social media platforms, including Twitter, to disseminate fraudulent messages that encouraged supporters of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton to “vote” via text message or social media, which was legally invalid.

For example, on Nov. 1, 2016, in or around the same time that Mackey was sending tweets suggesting the importance of limiting “black turnout,” Mackey tweeted an image depicting an African American woman standing in front of an “African Americans for Hillary” sign. The ad stated: “Avoid the Line. Vote from Home,” “Text ‘Hillary’ to 59925,” and “Vote for Hillary and be a part of history.” The fine print at the bottom of the deceptive image stated: “Must be 18 or older to vote. One vote per person. Must be a legal citizen of the United States. Voting by text not available in Guam, Puerto Rico, Alaska or Hawaii. Paid for by Hillary For President 2016.”

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/social-media-influencer-sentenced-election-interference-2016-presidential-race

Seems appropriate and is not a 1A issue, right?

[Brett Bellmore]

I wonder if a [/sarc] would have made this obvious satire legally safe?

[David Nieporent]

Maybe an autistic person isn't good at telling the difference between a political dirty trick and "satire"?

[Life of Brian]

I counted to 10 and then edited my post. Perhaps you should have done the same.

[Nige]

'I was being sarCAStic' defence turns out to be ineffective, surprising only people who thought they were getting away with it.

[Brett Bellmore]

My question is whether literally labeling it as satire would have been effective.

Maybe not, the Babylon Bee keeps getting "fact checked".

[Nige]

If there was any indication it was satire, it'd be satire. Same with Babylon Bee.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Yes, telling people not to take the message would have probably seriously undermined the prosecution’s ability to argue that he intended it to be taken seriously.

[Reallynotbob]

I bet their lawyers totally forgot to make that argument... *eyeroll.

[damikesc]

If he was a Democrat, he'd have been totally safe.

Given that at least one Democrat did the EXACT SAME THING --- no punishment whatsoever.

Odd.

[Michael P]

Are you dumb enough to believe that meme? If so, the point it was making -- that Hillary voters are often as dumb as bricks, and ignorant of how the US system is meant to work -- seems substantially true.

[Michael P]

Or maybe the theory is that Democrat voters would have confused it with an authorized communique from one of their elected representatives.

https://www.foxnews.com/media/adam-schiff-fact-checked-social-media-claiming-house-speaker-counts-presidential-electoral-votes

[Sarcastr0]

Strong poll tax energy coming from Michael,

[Michael P]

Usual lame straw man coming from Gaslight0.

[Sarcastr0]

Hillary voters are often as dumb as bricks, and ignorant of how the US system is meant to work
This is not a defense of Hillary voters being fooled into not voting unless you think ignorance means no vote for you.

Maybe it's more literacy test energy than poll tax energy.

[Michael P]

The US Supreme Court has made it clear that in defamation cases, rhetorical hyperbole is protected speech and not defamatory. There's a maxim in trademark law that the standard for confusion between true and false association is not whether "a moron in a hurry" would confuse the two (although I don't think that specific phrase is precedent in the US). I thought there was US precedent that speech must be considered in context to distinguish satire from serious, although I cannot find it.

My assumption was that even low-grade 2016 Democrat voters would be bright enough to recognize that voting by text message was not a thing. You are challenging that assumption, suggesting that maybe we do need to treat them with special solicitude, and consider whether political satire could be mistaken by a moron in a hurry or that Democrats are often below the standard of "even the most careless reader".

I will contemplate whether your challenge to my assumption has merit.

[Sarcastr0]

Nice new argument. Glad you abandoned your old literacy test one.

No one is asking for special solicitude just noting how bad your initial take was. You one of those white landed men are the best voters folks? Looks like no, so that’s good.

I don’t recall the test for satire, ie whether it is subjective or objective or both.
I recall the graphic was pretty legit looking but won’t be too upset it the court finds otherwise.

[Michael P]

I never made a poll tax or literacy test argument, liar. I explicitly referenced the “point” of the “meme” — the only hypothesis supporting this persecution is that biting but accurate satire is unprotected speech because Democrat voters are too dumb to recognize that text message is not an actual way to vote. My long comment simply spelled out the argument I started with.

[Sarcastr0]

Strong literacy test energy is how I would characterize it.

I am heartened to see you shying away from literally calling for one, sticking instead with arguing it’s okay to fool the credulous out of their vote.

Because you are not making a fact specific argument, but instead attacked the victim.

As I said above I think the facts can cut both ways, but your argument is always going to be undemocratic.

[Michael P]

You would characterize it that way because you are a liar.

I'm not blaming anyone except the prosecution and the judge here. You and apedad are the ones arguing that Democrat voters are stupid enough to believe an obvious satire. As usual, you're projecting your beliefs onto me.

[Nige]

No, no, you can't find us guilty of *stupid* crimes! Quite the Republican rallying cry, lately.

[Reallynotbob]

"But everybody knew smoking gave you cancer, so who cares we spent billions of advertising dollars denying it? You shouldn't have believed us, dummy!"

[Kazinski]

It should get reversed on appeal. When I look at what he actually texted I'd interpret it as:
"Save Time Avoid the Line"

"Vote from Home [request an absentee ballot]"

"Text Hillary to 8675309"

Nowhere does it say texting the number will record your vote.

https://www.nydailynews.com/wp-content/uploads/migration/2023/03/19/332CNNXUDJAD5AM3AAVOQ6C75Y.jpg

[David Nieporent]

Nowhere does it say texting the number will record your vote.

Did you miss this part? "Voting by text not available in Guam, Puerto Rico, Alaska or Hawaii."

[Michael P]

Do you think voting by text was available in one of those places? It's not. It's not available anywhere else, either.

Guam doesn't get any votes in the Electoral College in the first place, so that line is another cue that the whole thing was meant as a joke.

[Estragon]

If you read the messages between Massey and others, it is clear that they themselves did not view it as satire.

[David Nieporent]

Do you think voting by text was available in one of those places?

No. Is literacy something you're still working on in school?

Kazinski: it doesn't talk about voting by text.
Me: It does, right here.
You: But one can't vote by text.

[Michael P]

I'll remind you what Kazinski actually wrote: "Nowhere does it say texting the number will record your vote."

You don't get to put other words in his mouth.

[VinniUSMC]

DMN recently attended the Sarcastr0 school of argumentation, part 1- strawman.

[Martinned]

Since someone asked me about Tommy Robinson in Monday's open thread, he's lost in court again: https://twitter.com/lowles_nick/status/1714713174019068178

Tl;dr his Stalking Protection Order (which is basically a restraining order) was upheld in court.

[M L]

Was this the guy in Britain who was arrested and charged for saying things the left didn’t like and making online videos and stuff?

[Michael P]

A professor at Cornell set a new low bar for dehumanizing other people. Bring less than thrilled about the murder, rape and torture of Innocents means you're subhuman in his book. "And if they weren't exhilarated by this challenge to the monopoly of violence, by this shifting of the balance of power, then they would not be human."

https://freebeacon.com/latest-news/watch-cornell-professor-says-hamas-atrocities-were-exhilarating/

[Krayt]

So…we should be exhilarated if his wife and kids were murdered?

[Michael P]

I suspect he would claim that's different because his family isn't part of a "monopoly of violence" or on the dominant side of an imbalance of power.

I have a simpler perspective: We should be appalled and angry about such murders.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

I'm repeatedly assured here that those same sorts of sentiments being expressed by groups of students should not be worrisome because they're just dumb kids being typical dumb kids...because impressionable kids form their views in a vacuum, completely uninfluenced by those in older generations.

[Dr. Ed 2]

And then there is the Boston City Council --- and she is from the Cape Verde Islands, off AFRICA...

https://www.bostonherald.com/2023/10/18/boston-city-councilors-description-of-hamas-as-massive-military-operation-sparks-outrage/?utm_email=D4C4140FD537E48E44BCD4FFBD&lctg=D4C4140FD537E48E44BCD4FFBD&active=no&utm_source=listrak&utm_medium=email&utm_term=https%3a%2f%2fwww.bostonherald.com%2f2023%2f10%2f18%2fboston-city-councilors-description-of-hamas-as-massive-military-operation-sparks-outrage%2f&utm_campaign=boston-morning-memo&utm_content=curated

[Michael P]

How many Americans have to die or be held hostage before we recognize that Iran and their proxies are enemies of the United States, and the Biden administration has been giving them aid and comfort?

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/biden-administration-tries-hide-knew-impending-massacre-leaving-iran-untouched-hamas-lee-smith

[Armchair]

Maybe Joe or Hunter were busy making a profit off it.

Who knows.

[Sarcastr0]

This is dumb as hell.

As everyone now knows, the NSA collects on virtually everyone in the world. Further, the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East is in Qatar at Al Udeid Air Base, which is also the forward headquarters of U.S. Central Command.

Ah yes the NSA exists therefore we should knew what Hamas would do better than Israel. And it's all Biden's fault.

Also, Iran.

Seems a very pro-Russia tabloid, clicking around a bit.

[Michael P]

As usual, you have snark and ad hominems but no actual argument. Noted.

[Sarcastr0]

Actually, I pulled out the argument and showed how dumb it is.

[Kazinski]

Didn't we already know?

Dozens of Americans have been held hostage for no reason to extract concessions or ransom from the US. I'd list it right up there with North Korea Gor most dangerous places to travel for Americans.

Turkey and Russia and China have been known to target Americans for pre textual reasons too. But usually not tourists, but there is still a risk. Its a shame because Turkey is well worth a trip, I haven't been to Russia, China I could take it or leave it, so its not worth any possible risk.

[David Nieporent]

Lee Smith is a MAGA kook, and he continues his kookery here. None of the handful of facts in the article support the headline or any of the conclusions in it.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

"...the Biden administration has been giving them aid and comfort"

Delusions and distortions do not make persuasive arguments. Surely you know that, and obviously you don't care.

Yet another lie from Michael P.

[Michael P]

More projection from the vacuous and ever-pointless liar Jason Cavanaugh. Joe Biden has already promised to give another $100M in aid and comfort to Gaza's corrupt warlords, in addition to the $6B he directed to Iran's terrorist regime when his administration openly admits that money is fungible and Iran directs their available cash towards terrorism.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Unless and until such time as you can demonstrate any lie I've ever told, you may vigorously go fuck yourself.

I'm not the one misrepresenting the law to make partisan stupidity appealing to your fellow truth-challenged idiots.

[Michael P]

Well, that was easy.

[Michael P]

It's a shame when far-left, soft-on-crime prosecutors get hoist upon their own petards.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/soros-backed-louisiana-district-attorney-carjacked-gunpoint-mother-reports

[Davedave]

It's good when far right nutjobs demonstrate they're extremely stupid and poorly educated by failing to understand 'hoist by [one's] own petard' well enough to use the phrase correctly.

[Frank Drackman]

What phrase do you use when a Liberal Afro-Amurican District Attorney gets Carjacked by 2 armed Afro-Amuricans? A few come to my borderline disturbed mind, but I'll save them for later.

Frank

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Ha ha classic! Maybe someday they'll learn what the term "gaslighting" actually means,

[Sarcastr0]

SOROS.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Soros literally gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to his campaign.

[Nige]

Rich people give money to campaigns!

[Idihax]

Ha! I love this. I wonder if his mother has a different last name and is 14-16 years older than he is.

[Armchair]

Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project is a key free speech decision that those protesting in favor of Hamas should consider.

It makes it illegal to provide material support to Hamas and other terrorist organizations. Material support includes..."Expert assistance on how to end conflicts peacefully."

Those who are supporting Hamas in obtaining "peace" (ie...allowing Hamas to strike Israel and get away with minimal repercussions) should consider this law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holder_v._Humanitarian_Law_Project

[Sarcastr0]

Protesting isn't allowing anything.

Don't be fascist.

[Michael P]

I think we can agree that leftist protests are entirely useless and without benefit. And also that Eric Holder should have been less fascist. Cheers to cross-ideological agreement!

[Sarcastr0]

I think we can agree that leftist protests are entirely useless and without benefit.

That is not the proper way to analyze the right to protest.

This is a bad case, and seems a bad move by the Obama admin to me.

Of course I have no trouble criticizing Holder/Obama when I disagree with them, a power I think you lack re: Trump.

[Armchair]

Providing material assistance to a terrorist organization, including expert assistance is providing something....

[Sarcastr0]

You think this passes strict scrutiny?

[Mr. Bumble]

More to the point does it pass the smell test?

[David Nieporent]

Unless they did it in conjunction with Hamas, it is simply protected speech.

[Michael P]

That's not how the material aid statute works.

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/download/R/R41334/R41334.pdf/

[David Nieporent]

Yes, it does. Read Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project.. It makes quite clear that independent advocacy is not covered by the statute. E.g.

Rather, Congress has prohibited “material support,” which most often does not take the form of speech at all. And when it does, the statute is carefully drawn to cover only a narrow category of speech to, under the direction of, or in coordi­nation with foreign groups that the speaker knows to be terrorist organizations.

[Davedave]

None of the pro-Hamas protestors are providing material assistance to Hamas by calling for the extermination of Jews. It's vile, obviously, but it isn't material assistance.

And you can't assist Hamas to make peace, except by killing Jews (which is of course a much more serious crime), since their openly stated reason for existence is to exterminate all Jews everywhere, and the only peace they will accept is (ahem) finally solving the Jewish problem by wiping out every last drop of Jewishness anywhere.

You can see why Martin and Nige have to consider them fellow travellers, even though we all know neither of them would want to actually come face to face with anyone not as white and pretend-liberal as they are: it's all about the genocides, and Hamas are useful until the Jews and the blacks are wiped out.

[Mr. Bumble]

Is Biden's promise of $100 million to Gaza and the West Bank material assistance?

[John F. Carr]

The government can deal with terrorists. You and I can't.

[Frank Drackman]

Wrong. Dr. Baruch Goldstein sure did.

[John F. Carr]

The law prohibits working with a designated terrorist organization, not supporting its goals independently. Calling for peace is not working with Hamas.

[Nige]

'Objectively pro-Saddam.'

[Aunt Teefah]

The "free speech absolutists" are at it again, folks. Just like after 9/11, only somehow even stupider.

[Mr. Bumble]

Playing the role of Steve Lathrop for today's performance is understudy, Martinned.

[loki13]

Has anyone performed a wellness check on Josh Blackman recently?

I kid. I'm sure he's been busy on other topics.

[Mr. Bumble]

Your concern has been duly noted but apparently no one cares (except for possibly captcrisis who misses Blackman's Today in Supreme Court History posts as a vehicles for movie reviews).

[Mr. Bumble]

"Chaos in Berlin: 65 Police Officers Injured as Pro-Palestine Activists Riot, Set Fires During Banned Protest
dpatop - 18 October 2023, Berlin: Participants of a banned pro-Palestine demonstration set off pyrotechnics near Sonnenallee in the Neukölln district. Despite a ban on pro-Palestinian demonstrations, there were again crowds and clashes in Berlin-Neukölln on Wednesday evening. Stones and bottles were also thrown at police officers, the police announced …

From Breitbart.

[Martinned]

You skipped the part where 174 people were arrested.

In Germany they're quite sensitive of criticism of Israel, and so tend to err on the side of banning pro-Palestinian protests. Again I wonder whether that's an approach you support or not, given the magic of the First Amendment.

[Mr. Bumble]

I didn’t skip it intentionally, only posted the headline and I did give the source.

Germany has no 1st Amendment.

[Martinned]

It does not. Instead it has a right to free speech that was written into the Basic Law from the start.

Here it is:

Art 8
(1) Alle Deutschen haben das Recht, sich ohne Anmeldung oder Erlaubnis friedlich und ohne Waffen zu versammeln.
(2) Für Versammlungen unter freiem Himmel kann dieses Recht durch Gesetz oder auf Grund eines Gesetzes beschränkt werden.

And, just for you, the official translation:

Article 8
(1) All Germans shall have the right to assemble peacefully and unarmed without prior notification or permission.
(2) In the case of outdoor assemblies, this right may be restricted by or pursuant to a law.

[Mr. Bumble]

Funny, no mention made of speech...

[apedad]

Martinned should have referenced Art. 5.

Article 5
[Freedom of expression, arts and sciences]

(1) Every person shall have the right freely to express and disseminate his opinions in speech, writing and pictures and to inform himself without hindrance from generally accessible sources. Freedom of the press and freedom of reporting by means of broadcasts and films shall be guaranteed. There shall be no censorship.

(2) These rights shall find their limits in the provisions of general laws, in provisions for the protection of young persons and in the right to personal honour.

(3) Arts and sciences, research and teaching shall be free. The freedom of teaching shall not release any person from allegiance to the constitution.

https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.html#p0034

[VinniUSMC]

1) Freedom of speech
2) Except not really

[Michael P]

Much like the right to outdoor assembly, as quoted by Martinned. You have it until the government decides to take it away.

[Davedave]

Ah, Martin's telling antisemitic lies again. He is describing arrests for openly antisemitic acts as 'erring on the side of supporting Israel'.

He also refuses to admit that firebombing synagogues is antisemitic. What a piece of work. Full-blown Nazi scum.

[Dr. Ed 2]

And what will be the consequences?
That's the real question -- and it will be the life or the death of the West.

And what is the EU saying about this violence?

[Frank Drackman]

This is getting tiresome, wake me up when the Invasion starts,
Speaking of waking up, Parkinsonian Joe's addressing the Nation at 8pm? is he still on Israel time?
Any "Conspirators" have any experience with a Galil? (if you have to ask, you aren't "Experienced") Got my pic taken with one on my last trip to the Holey-Land, cute little IDF chick let me hold it (hey now!) I think even then they were replacing them with Uncle Sugar's M16's. Its a good design, best features of the AK/M-16 in one weapon, exported all over the world.

Frank

[Dr. Ed 2]

If the M-16 is so good, why are we going to the M-4?

[Frank Drackman]

"Going"?? more like "Gone" more of a fashion thing, it looks cooler, and lets you attach all the cool add ons, and it was the rifle used to kill Obama Bin Laden

[VinniUSMC]

I don't know what Frank said, but they're functionally the same weapon system. I don't see a change from the M16 to the M4 for any reason. The M4 is better for close quarters ops, the M16's longer barrel has a range advantage. If we continue to use 5.56, there's no reason why we wouldn't maintain both. Half of the parts are interchangeable anyway. Just swap uppers.

For a slightly "cool story bro", I was part of a Marine battalion (3/2 Betio Bastards!) that was involved in field testing the M4 in the early 00s. We weren't impressed with it at the range, but for MOUT it was a bit better.

[Frank Drackman]

Ahh, loved a week at "Combat Town" then Friday night at the Dirtwood, (it was closed last time I was there in 21' "transitioning" to a "Gentlemen's Club")

Frank

[Ben_]

Victoria's Secret is abandoning woke fashion:

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/victorias-secret-ditches-wokeness-wants-make-sexy-great-again

Turns out that focusing on ugliness and trying to appeal to fringe extremists and bullies and scolds doesn't make people want to buy clothes. Who could have guessed?

[Nige]

So now you can buy women's underwear again? Not judging, except you have in the past been down on drag queens...

[Mr. Bumble]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbPy9zqWGcU
Walking 'Round In Women's Underwear"

[Mr. Bumble]

Which MSM outlet will win a Pullitzer for their reporting on the dastardly IDF attack on a Gaza hospital?

[Ben_]

The one who blames Trump

[Moderation4ever]

This morning Sidney Powell plead guilty reduced charges in the Georgia election fraud case. Two down 16 to go. I wonder how many will actually go to trial? Any thoughts from those that doubted the use of the RICO statue?

[not guilty]

Sidney Powell appears to have agreed with Sir John Falstaff:

To die is to be a counterfeit, for he is but the counterfeit of a man who hath not the life of a man; but to counterfeit dying, when a man thereby liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed. The better part of valor is discretion, in the which better part I have sav'd my life.

Henry the Fourth, Part 1 Act 5, Scene 4.

[not guilty]

Sidney Powell is described (though not by name) as a co-conspirator in the D.C. indictment of Donald Trump. I wonder if she will now negotiate a plea/cooperation agreement with the Special Counsel. She could likely provide inside information about some operations of Team Crazy, but she is such a crackpot that I wonder how valuable she would be as a witness at trial.

That having been said, the information she could provide on background (and as a potential rebuttal witness for the government, where the scope of examination is more limited) is worth something.

[damikesc]

I do think her original sentence being threatened with and what they gave her to flip should be brought up in court. Repeatedly.

[not guilty]

Of course that is fertile ground for cross-examination if she testifies. The same is true of many prosecution witnesses. Evaluating witness credibility is one reason we empanel juries.

[Bored Lawyer]

That's true in every case where one defendant flips on another and gets a sweetheart deal. It generally does not work too well with the jury -- flipping confederates is SOP in many criminal cases.
Especially if her testimony is corroborated by other witnesses or evidence.

[Estragon]

The Kraken Queen goes down! Prosecutors are asking for 6 years probation.

“She was also fined $6,000 and agreed to pay $2,700 restitution to the state of Georgia, as well as write an apology letter to its citizens.”

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/19/politics/sidney-powell-fulton-county-georgia-2020-election-subversion/index.html

I presume there will be bar proceedings to follow?

[loki13]

Interesting. Since she pled guilty, even with the probation, I assume that means that she will have serious consequences vis-a-vis her bar license.

[Zarniwoop]

What’s the over/under on Chesebro pleading before trial starts tomorrow?

[not guilty]

ABC News reported that Kenneth Chesebro last month turned down a sweet deal. https://abcnews.go.com/US/kenneth-chesebro-rejected-plea-offer-ahead-georgia-election/story?id=104121621

The reported offer was that he would plead guilty to one felony count of racketeering, and he would agree to testify against his codefendants -- including Donald Trump -- in exchange for three years' probation and a $10,000 fine. The deal would have been made under Georgia's first-offender act, under which the conviction would have been wiped from Chesebro's record after probation was completed.

Sidney Powell got a more favorable deal than that, pleading guilty to six misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to commit intentional interference with performance of election duties. We'll see whether Chesebro reaches a deal before his trial begins.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I figured Chesebro would be an early flipper, but reports that evidence indicates Chesebro was shadowing Alex Jones on Jan. 6 -- coupled with his performance as a Trump advisor -- suggest he may be a deadender. Plus, his background suggests a lack of familiarity with the criminal justice system, so perhaps he does not recognize the risks and costs of years in prison.

His conduct seems inexplicable, unless he is relying on jury nullification or a pardon. Which also seems a poor strategy.

[John F. Carr]

I think jury selection will begin. After that the prosecutor has a strong incentive to make a deal to avoid a long trial to possible convict a small fish. I think all Chesebro's charges are felonies and I didn't see a plausible lesser included misdemeanor. It's a tough position for both parties.

It is unclear from skimming the indictment exactly what Chesebro told the fake electors to do, and small details could matter. The prosecutor has already argued, in federal court opposing removal, that the list of overt acts in the indictment does not restrict the prosecution's case.

[John F. Carr]

(Swaggart impression) I have sinned!

Well not sinned, but I was wrong. He pleaded not to the RICO nonsense but to a genuine crime that applies when Trump isn't involved.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

the RICO nonsense

If you continue to observe, Fani Willis can teach you something about lawyering.

[Zarniwoop]

Welp, there goes Cheese Bro as well. And he pleaded to a felony, not a couple of misdemeanors.

[apedad]

"Powell will also be required to testify at future trials . . . . "

That will be fun to watch.

[not guilty]

I wonder what was in Powell's proffer.

[apedad]

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/kraken-lawyer-sidney-powell-suddenly-reverses-course-and-admits-defeat-in-trump-rico-prosecution-after-losing-out-on-all-of-her-dismissal-arguments/

You can watch the proceeding here.

Jump to 8:30 to get over all the boring lawyer stuff (IANAL!).

[not guilty]

I didn't mean her plea submission colloquy. I meant her sitdown with prosecutors to describe what information she could testify about if called as a witness.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

her sitdown with prosecutors to describe what information she could testify about if called as a witness

That's for the lawyers representing the people to know and the other defendants to find out -- the hard way, ideally.

[not guilty]

Powell is now a prospective witness as to what Donald Trump said to her or others about the fake elector scheme, among other topics. Trump is on record that she didn't represent him. https://hughhewitt.com/former-president-trump-on-boris-johnsons-woes-sidney-powells-dough-and-more Trump may claim that his communications with her are privileged, but his prior denial could bite him in the backside.

[Bored Lawyer]

Whoa? Trump's said something without thinking about the consequences?
Can't believe that!

[/Mega Sarc]

[Ridgeway]

[/MAGA SARC]

FIFY 😉

[Voize]

Maybe, but in that interview Trump says Powell didn't work for him, not that he never asked her for legal advice.

[Kleppe]

I would like to endorse CDR Salamander's "Carthage" COA for how Israel should handle Gaza:

The Gaza strip should be segmented, and block by block, field by field, demilitarized. Person by person will be identified biometrically with the primary goal to "de-Hamas" the entire population. Per capita income in Gaza is $2,764. Upon exile, and with no right to return, each Palestinian will receive $3,000 in three installments over three years. Total cost ~$6 billion per year for three years, $18 billion total. Israel will then inventory World Heritage Sites, religious sites that existed prior to 1950, and cemeteries. Protect and preserve. Level every other building in the Gaza Strip except for needed infrastructure and national security-related locations. Allow the strip to re-wild and turn it into a nature preserve, allowing for a reevaluation of Gaza's status in 2073.

[Nige]

But people will go on to tell you that de-escalating and working to construct a political framework that would marginalise Hamas and allow other factions to establish some sort of ongoing long-term peace process are impractical dreamers.

[Kleppe]

People advocating for de-escalation and "marginalizing Hamas" ARE impractical dreamers. Planning staffs have received POLMIL-level guidance from Netanyahu:

1) Israel is at war.
2) Israel will finish it.
3) Israel will exact a price that will be remembered by Hamas and Israel’s other enemies for decades to come.

We can glean addition Commander's Intent vis-à-vis an acceptable end state from Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who stated that Gaza will never return to what it was before.

[shawn_dude]

Not mentioned is the price Israel is going to pay for this in terms of scuttling political agreements with other middle-eastern nations.

[Kleppe]

Unless those political agreements being scuttled will result in the wholesale slaughter of 1,000+ Israeli civilians, I don't think it registers.

[Bob from Ohio]

The reasons those Arab nations made those agreements remain, so in time the agreements will return. Might be a decade but so be it.

[Nige]

It is a bit of a mad dream, but you know what has been proven to only ever make things horribly worse and end up with lots of dead people and lots of living people even more radicalised and easy for bad-actors to fund and arm? Yes, that's right, escalation. So this dream of yours is even more impractical, it just makes everyone who proposes it sound tough, and we know what that gets us.

[Moderation4ever]

And where are the Palestinians to go? No one can even get them to Egypt just for protection while Israel destroys Hamas. Resettling them permanently is a pipe dream. Unless your local town would like to take them in.

[Bob from Ohio]

Bribe the Egyptians, of course, as usual.

20 Arab states, 50,000 per is already a million. Malaysia and Indonesia can handle 100,000 or more apiece. Other Muslim countries also exist.

[Mr. Bumble]

Palestinians have no where to go because no other Arab country wants them.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

They might have somewhere to go after modern America stops subsidizing Israel's right-wing belligerence.

That forecast is changing, and not in a way those who genuinely support Israel should like.

[Mr. Bumble]

Like I said, NO ONE wants them.

[Kleppe]

Fascinating, I wonder why that could be.

[Kleppe]

"And where are the Palestinians to go?"

A planning assumption is that Arab nations would be willing to resettle them.

[shawn_dude]

Bad assumption.

[Bob from Ohio]

Lots of nice beaches, a shame to waste them. Otherwise, a most excellent plan.

[Sarcastr0]

How is this not ethnic cleansing?

A lot of people seem to be using a righteously wronged Israel as an excuse to really show their ass.

[Kleppe]

The proposed depopulation of the Gaza Strip is no more "ethnic cleansing" than it was when German Danzig was depopulated in 1945-47 and transitioned to Polish Gdansk. As German crimes against humanity during WWII opened the door for the otherwise unacceptable exile of an entire population, Hamas Gaza's beheading of infants and Einsatzgruppen LARPing through neighboring kibbutzim has opened that same door for Gaza. Israel suffered for decades from terror originating in Gaza and in 2005 gave them a chance to be self-governing. Instead, they became a nest of death squads. Also, please note that the proposed exile is subsidized.

[Sarcastr0]

The proposed depopulation
Hamas Gaza

Listen to yourself. Listen to how hard you are working to justify transfering Hamas's sins onto Gaza.

"Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal, extermination, deportation or population transfer, it also includes indirect methods aimed at forced migration by coercing the victim group to flee and preventing its return, such as murder, rape, and property destruction"

[Bob from Ohio]

"intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous"

Not the intent here.

[shawn_dude]

...Just a convenient by-product then?

[ducksalad]

I wouldn't want to say what the intent of the entire cabinet is. I'm sure there is a mix of opinions.

However, the currently sitting Israeli Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir:

(1) Started as a member of the Moledet Party. Its specific ideology was voluntary population transfer of Arabs.

(2) He then moved to the Kach Party, which went further. All non-Jews (not just Arabs) would be forced to leave, unless they agreed to permanently waive the right to vote or have citizenship.

(3) He is the lawyer for Lehava, an organization that opposes intermarriage, or any other social interaction, between Jews and non-Jews. They object to the presence of Christians and Israel.

I don't think there is much doubt about what the Minister for National Security's intent would be. To be fair, he's sort of keeping his head down after a recent major failure in national security, so we shouldn't tag the whole government with his beliefs.

[Bob from Ohio]

He's not controlling policy towards Gaza. Bibi and Gantz are.

[ducksalad]

Like I said, keeping his head down. Or maybe shoved aside and told not to interfere. Normally one would think the Minister of National Security would be in the thick of it.

[Commenter_XY]

Itamar Ben Gvir's sin was blabbing to the press, in a lame attempt to curry favor, IMO. That was never going to work. When he lost the trust of Netanyahu and Gallant (by blabbing), he was 'frozen out'. Rightfully so.

Do you know what made me look askance? Notice how the leaders of Shin Bet, the Nat Sec Advisor, Yoav Gallant are very forthright in saying: We blew it. We got it wrong, but we are going to get it right (get it right = obliterate Hamas). And we are committed to a transparent investigation to see what went wrong (this is obvious - terrible policy).

I don't hear anything from Itamar Ben Gvir. Interesting.

[Kleppe]

Your fixation on the labels applied to things is boundless. "X is bad because X = Y, this definition of Y says it's bad." Infantile.

[Sarcastr0]

So your argument is that it may technically be ethnic cleansing, but the difference is that it's good.

You're showing your ass.

[Kleppe]

My argument is removing the Palestinians from Gaza is no different than removing the Germans from Danzig. It isn't ethnic cleansing.

[David Nieporent]

I mean, that was ethnic cleansing.

[Kleppe]

Germans and Poles are different ethnicities?

[David Nieporent]

Um, yes? Was that something you were confused about?

eth·nic
/ˈeTHnik/
adjective
1.
of or belonging to a population group or subgroup made up of people who share a common cultural background or descent.

"the students' ethnic backgrounds are very diverse"

[TwelveInchPianist]

How's it ethnic cleansing, under your definition?

Depopulating the area wouldn't render it ethnically homogenous.

Heck, even forcibly expelling the Palestinians and re-populating the area with Israelis wouldn't fit that definition. Israel isn't ethnically homogenous.

[Sarcastr0]

Israel isn’t ethnically homogenous

Give me a break.

[TwelveInchPianist]

According to Wikipedia,
73% Jews (presumably of various ethnicities)
21% Arab
6% Other

Gaza's about 98% Arab. So replacing Palestinians with Israelis would make it less ethnically homogenous.

Of course, there may be other arguments against the proposal, but it doesn't fit your definition of ethnic cleansing.

[Kleppe]

"Listen to how hard you are working to justify transfering Hamas’s sins onto Gaza."

How many Gazans sounded the alarm that hundreds of Hamas jihadis were about to attack Israel? I'm sure the number rounds to zero. Also, who put Hamas in charge of the Gaza Strip?

[Sarcastr0]

"There Are No Innocent Gazans."

You're like one step from blood libel.

[Kleppe]

There's you and your labels again. X is bad because I say it's the same as ethnic cleansing, which is bad. Y is bad because I say it's the same as a blood libel, which is bad. Are you going to address my points or just apply convenient low-hanging labels to them?

[Sarcastr0]

You are making bad arguments that echo other bad arguments. If you don't want it pointed out that your into collective guilt and ethnic cleansing, then don't advocate for that.

[Kleppe]

"You are making bad arguments that echo other bad arguments"

It's curious how you won't confront my arguments, if they're as bad as you claim.

[ducksalad]

“Who put Hamas in charge of the Gaza Strip”

Hamas put themselves in charge, like any other violent, non-democratic group. Like any other violent, non-democratic group they couldn’t do that without some significant level of public support, but I think you’d also be the first to deny that they were selected by the people in anything approximating a fair election.

Some commenters here blame Biden for “letting” the Taliban take control of Afghanistan. To whatever extent that’s fair, I think the same can apply to Sharon withdrawing from Gaza in 2005. And your spin above that the withdrawal was to give Gaza a chance is incorrect. Just like the US in Vietnam and Afghanistan, the Israelis withdrew under fire because the costs were perceived as exceeding the benefits.

[Nige]

It is absolutely ethnic cleansing and no amount of day-dreaming about how clean and generous and with full co-operation it will be obscures the 100% probabilty that it would be ugly, cruel and bloody.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Where will they go TO????

[Kleppe]

As I said elsewhere, a planning assumption is that Arab nations would be willing to resettle them.

[Jerry B.]

There are plenty of Palestinians in Arab nations. They're in the same refugee camps they've been in for generations, kept there by the Arab governments.

[Commenter_XY]

First, we are years away from post-war policy. The primary war aim of Israel is to physically obliterate Hamas within Gaza. Hamas is an existential threat to Israel. The Simchat Torah pogrom demonstrated that. Hamas members will be located, pursued, and then die a violent death. I don't want any of them to surrender. Hopefully, the Hamas Hunt will expand worldwide. It would be great to recover the hostages alive, but that is a secondary war aim (for Israel).

Second, the pre-war policies based on Oslo (two states), disengagement and conflict management have failed. Those policies will be abandoned. No PM could be elected in Israel that would follow those policies; not even Meretz would try to re-institute those policies.

Third, POTUS Biden is at his best when he speaks with moral clarity regarding the Simchat Torah pogrom. I very much appreciate his speaking out with total clarity on the malevolence and depravity of Hamas. That makes a significant, positive difference. POTUS Biden is at his low point when suggesting post-war policy, or how to conduct a war to Israel. He was there for 50 years. I don't think POTUS Biden is the guy to talk policy.

Last, Gazan civilians. What to do with a people who have been marinated and stewed in an environment that promotes and glorifies Judeocide? Judeocide is acceptable and wonderful is what was taught to everyone in Gaza, in their schools and mosques. That cannot be undone. For now, they can watch their 'Hamas Heroes' die violent deaths. Perhaps they will learn something. They will live, because Israel, unlike Hamas, actually does go out of their way to preserve life. Whether they stay remains to be seen, but I would not automatically assume they will*.

(*I myself prefer voluntary, incentivized emigration. Kleppe's price tag is too small; and besides, I would include Judea and Samaria in any incentivized emigration program. The more palestinians who leave for a better life elsewhere, the better for them and Israel)

[Nige]

Planning a nice clean regional war that lasts a few years and can be tidied up neatly afterwards.

[not guilty]

Judge Tanya Chutkan has issued a partial gag order on parties and counsel in Donald Trump’s D.C. prosecution. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149.105.0_2.pdf The operative language provides:

All interested parties in this matter, including the parties and their counsel, are prohibited from making any public statements, or directing others to make any public statements, that target (1) the Special Counsel prosecuting this case or his staff; (2) defense counsel or their staff; (3) any of this court’s staff or other supporting personnel; or (4) any reasonably foreseeable witness or the substance of their testimony.

The order is not as broad as DOJ had requested. It sets forth the evidence that it is based on, and it indicates that the Court considered alternative measures such as careful voir dire, jury sequestration, and cautionary jury instructions, finding them insufficient to remedy only some of the potential prejudices that the government’s motion seeks to address. It seems clear as to what public comment is or is not prohibited, specifically providing that Trump is not prohibited from making statements criticizing the government generally, including the current administration or the Department of Justice; statements asserting that Defendant is innocent of the charges against him, or that his prosecution is politically motivated; or statements criticizing the campaign platforms or policies of Defendant’s current political rivals, such as former Vice President Pence.

The order looks bulletproof on appeal.

[Zarniwoop]

I look forward to reading Trump's arguments on appeal.

I'm definitely curious how long it will take for him to make a sufficiently egregious statement that the prosecution moves for sanctions. Seems to me like a "when?" more than an "if?" scenario, but maybe he'll surprise everyone.

[not guilty]

Trump's appeal is unlikely to have merit, but it will likely not be frivolous.

SCOTUS has upheld the validity of a Nevada Supreme Court rule prohibiting any attorney from making extrajudicial comments to the media that the attorney knew or should have known would "have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicative proceeding." Gentile v. State Bar of Nevada, 501 U.S. 1030 (1991). SCOTUS has not opined as to the appropriate legal threshold for imposition of gag orders on criminal defendants, and Courts of Appeals have applied different standards. See, e.g., United States v. Brown, 218 F.3d 415, 426-27 (5th Cir. 2000). AFAIK, the D.C. Circuit has not yet ruled on the applicable standard.

[Commenter_XY]

The gag was stayed. What happened?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

THE VOLOKH CONSPIRACY

This movement conservative
blog has operated for

ZERO (0)

days without publishing a
racial slur; it has published
racial slurs on at least

THIRTY-FOUR (34)

different occasions (so far)
during 2023 (that’s at least
34 different discussions,
not 34 racial slurs; many
of those discussions
featured multiple racial slurs).

This assessment does not address
the broader, incessant stream of
gay-bashing, misogynist, Islamophobic,
antisemitic, racist, transphobic,
and immigrant-hating slurs and
other bigoted content published
daily at this blog, which is presented
from the receding, disaffected
right-wing fringe of modern legal
academia by members of the
Federalist Society for Law
and Public Policy Studies.

If any of the persons who
operate with blog -- or any of
the institutions associated
with this blog, perhaps against
their wishes -- are willing to
address the rampant bigotry
at this blog, this would be a
fine time to say something.

Amid this blog’s obsolete and ugly thinking, here is something worthwhile.

This is a good one, too.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Here are some samples of Kirkland's use of racial slurs.

What kind of person uses “nigger” but censors “cop succor” and “slack-jaw?” The list starts with a conservative law professor, apparently.

and here:

Saying “You nigger” to a VA employee might be fighting words, just like saying “You motherfucker” might be. (I appreciate that both words are sometimes in ways other than as personal insults, but the question is whether they are fighting words when they are indeed used to insult.) The question is whether “What do I have to do, be a nigger to be served … in this place?” would implicitly be understood “What do I have to do, be a nigger like you to be served … in this place?”

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I seem to have had my judgment temporarily diminished by the constant stream of right-wing bigotry and vivid stupidity encountered at this white, male, faux libertarian, bigot-friendly, right-wing blog. Quoting Prof. Volokh's use of vile racial slurs was a very bad idea.

Is that your best defense of this bigoted conservative blog?

Good luck with the rest of the culture war, clingers.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Nobody is to stone anybody until I blow this whistle...even, and I want to make this perfectly clear, even if they do say "Jehovah."

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

"Are there any women here?"

[Frank Drackman]

Well if anyone know's Defenses, it's Disgraced former Penn State Foo-Bawl Coach Jerry Sandusky.

[M L]

Biden Admin Orders Banks Not to Reject Illegal Immigrants' Loan Applications

Two federal agencies have warned financial institutions not to reject illegal immigrants' credit applications based solely or mostly on citizenship status.

The Biden administration has warned U.S. banks and other financial institutions that they can't reject illegal immigrants' credit applications based solely or predominantly on their immigration status.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) said in a recent statement that rejecting illegal immigrants for credit cards and various types of loans just because they are noncitizens is unlawful.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/biden-admin-orders-banks-not-to-reject-illegal-immigrants-loan-applications-5510179

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-and-consumer-financial-protection-bureau-issue-joint-statement-cautioning

[David Nieporent]

Biden Admin Orders Banks Not to Reject Illegal Immigrants’ Loan Applications

So, that's just a flat out lie, of course. Every word of it.

1) There was no "order" here of any sort.
2) Obviously the Biden Admin did not even suggest, let alone order, that banks "not reject" illegal immigrants' loan applications. Like, how stupid would one have to be to believe that if an illegal alien walks into a bank and says, "I'm an illegal alien; I want to borrow $5 million," the bank has to give it to him?

Two federal agencies have warned financial institutions not to reject illegal immigrants’ credit applications based solely or mostly on citizenship status.

Ah, so now we see something closer to the facts. It's not that they can't reject their applications; it's that they can't do so based solely on citizenship status.

But note the extra-slippery language by the cult Epoch Times? They switch from "citizenship status" to "illegal aliens." Millions of non-citizens in the United States are here legally.

And here's what the actual release (not "order") from DOJ/CFPB says:

ECOA does not expressly prohibit consideration of immigration status, and, as explained further below, a creditor may consider an applicant’s immigration status when necessary to ascertain the creditor’s rights regarding repayment. However, creditors should be aware that unnecessary or overbroad reliance on immigration status in the credit decisioning process, including when that reliance is based on bias, may run afoul of ECOA’s antidiscrimination provisions and could also violate other laws.

So, in fact, DOJ is actually saying that banks can't have a policy of saying, "We only loan money to citizens," and Epoch Times's clickbait story is lying.

(I do find the DOJ's release a bit vague — perhaps strategically so — in terms of whether they're including both legal and illegal immigrants, but in practical terms it's moot as almost no illegal immigrants would ever be able to qualify for a loan anyway.)

[Brett Bellmore]

They said, "ECOA does not expressly prohibit consideration of
immigration status"

That's a remarkably dishonest statement, when you consider that ECOA expressly permits consideration of immigration status, as I point out below, and as they later acknowledge. It's not as though it was silent on the topic.

"For example, if a creditor has a blanket policy of refusing to consider applications from certain groups of noncitizens regardless of the credit qualifications of individual borrowers within that
group, that policy may risk violating ECOA and Regulation B""

Illegal immigrants being "a certain group of noncitizens", of course.

The lenders can't refuse to lend to illegal immigrants from a particular country, that WOULD be discrimination on the basis of national origin. But it's expressly legal for them to just flatly refuse to lend to illegal immigrants, period, because that's discrimination on the basis of immigration status, not national origin, and they ARE allowed, EXPRESSLY, to take immigration status into account.

Really, they're just dancing around the question, trying to imply what they don't want to say right out.

[M L]

Not the best headline. But it seems like the sub-heading is a pretty fair report of the issue.

"Like, how stupid would one have to be to believe that if an illegal alien walks into a bank and says, “I’m an illegal alien; I want to borrow $5 million,” the bank has to give it to him?"

How stupid would one have to be to interpret the headline in this way? Granted, there are plenty of very stupid people out there. But that's just not a reasonable interpretation. Rather, the headline suggests that the Biden administration was telling banks not to reject loan applicants based on their immigration status, specifically the status of being an illegal immigrant. Now, that is also not exactly what the very slippery and probably strategically vague statement from the Biden administration says. Which is why it's not a good headline. But the article itself (which I've now skimmed but didn't before sharing) goes on to explain the details just fine.

" in practical terms it’s moot as almost no illegal immigrants would ever be able to qualify for a loan anyway"

This seems to be wrong.

https://www.nerdwallet.com/article/credit-cards/undocumented-immigrants-apply-for-credit-cards

[David Nieporent]

How do you think the statement "it's not illegal to issue a credit card to an illegal immigrant" makes the statement "almost no illegal immigrants would ever be able to qualify for a loan anyway" wrong?

[M L]

On what basis do you claim that almost no illegal immigrants will be able to qualify for a loan? I've been told by reliable sources that illegal immigrants are hardworking and pay taxes. I mean, they give credit cards to dogs and dead people, you don't even need an income for those.

If an illegal immigrant can show that they have an income, then presumably they would be able to get a loan just the same as anyone else - except to the extent that their immigration status is being taken into account, which is precisely what the Biden administration is discouraging banks from doing.

From the NerdWallet article:

"Many financial institutions, both large and small, work with undocumented immigrants. A few major banks have made news over the years for offering credit cards and mortgages to people who are in the country illegally, and community banks and credit unions may have similar programs. Whether an international bank or a small credit union, people in areas with large immigrant populations are more likely to let undocumented immigrants sign up for accounts and apply for credit cards.

For obvious reasons, banks and credit unions often choose not to publicize these programs. However, they can be huge moneymakers. Undocumented immigrants are a large, mostly untapped market for many financial services...

The paper trail provided by a card can also be crucial in establishing residency for amnesty initiatives, like the DREAM Act. Despite naysayers, governments and companies are finding the benefits of working with undocumented immigrants too great to ignore."

Establishing credit is probably one of the first things an illegal immigrant trying to flout the law would be well advised to do. And presumably they are so advised.

[David Nieporent]

On what basis do you claim that almost no illegal immigrants will be able to qualify for a loan?

Because I live in the United States, and know that to get a loan one needs things like a steady source of income — and more importantly, a paper trail showing said steady source of income — collateral, a fixed address, a credit score, etc.?

Even if all one wants is a high interest, low limit credit card, one still needs an income source. And yes, of course immigrants are generally hard-working — they're not eligible for welfare, after all — but working in cash, under the table, or under someone else's name does not give them proof of such a source.

And despite your scaremongering, the Biden administration is not discouraging anyone from taking immigration status into account; it expressly says the opposite.

Note that your Nerdwallet quotes provide no data of any sort, and expressly say that illegals are a "mostly untapped" market — as in, they mostly don't get loans.

[M L]

As you are well aware, there are many sources claiming that illegal immigrants generally pay income taxes. That means they aren't working for cash under the table.

In fact, "the IRS estimates that about 6 million unauthorized immigrants file individual income tax returns each year." https://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/110th-congress-2007-2008/reports/12-6-immigration.pdf

And that was back in 2007. Illegal immigrants can get an ITIN, so they don't need to assume a false identity or have an SSN.

So, it seems clear that many illegal immigrants have a record of income. Not "almost none." You can get a credit card with no or any income, and for any other loan you only need a 2 year income history.

Again, if an illegal immigrant can show income (and maybe collateral, which few individuals have outside the context of a purchase money loan or refinance), then they can get a loan on the same terms as anyone else. Unless, of course, their immigration status is taken into account.

The DOJ statement is consistent with this: "consumers have reported being rejected for credit cards as well as for auto, student, personal and equipment loans because of their immigration status, even when they have strong credit histories and ties to the United States and are otherwise qualified to receive the loans."

So while they are not talking exclusively about illegal immigrants, and are careful to avoid any specific mention of the undocumented, they are talking about people with credit histories and strong ties to the U.S. and otherwise meeting loan requirements.

"And despite your scaremongering, the Biden administration is not discouraging anyone from taking immigration status into account; it expressly says the opposite."

Your mendacity is getting over the top here. The statement is discouraging banks from basing credit decisions on immigration status. The fact that they must acknowledge that the law narrowly allows consideration of immigration status "when necessary to ascertain the creditor's rights" doesn't change this - much less somehow change the meaning of the statement into "expressly the opposite," which would mean that it is encouraging them to take immigration status into account. That might be something a right wing administration would do. It's not what this one is doing. In sum, stop being ridiculous.

Finally, I haven't engaged in any scaremongering. I'm not aware of of any looming disaster caused by an illegal immigrant loan crisis, for example.

However, this move by the Biden administration raises an issue. Trivially, some would say that U.S. banks should not lend to illegal immigrants at all, while others will say that they should do so enthusiastically (just as we have seen enthusiastic funding of free healthcare, housing, and so on for illegals). There are many people on both sides of the argument, and perhaps they both have some good points. Of course, this is part of a broader issue where some think that the record numbers of illegal immigrants should not be allowed to stay in the U.S., while others think they should be granted permanent status and then citizenship after a time, and advocate for them to establish ties in furtherance of this goal. So, that's what this discussion is about, but you knew that.

[Brett Bellmore]

The problem here is that the administration is implying that it's illegal to refuse to loan to illegal immigrants as such, when the fact is that the law, to the extent it addresses the issue, expressly authorizes it.

This isn't guidance, it's anti-guidance on the law.

[David Nieporent]

The problem here is that the administration is implying that it’s illegal to refuse to loan to illegal immigrants as such, when the fact is that the law, to the extent it addresses the issue, expressly authorizes it.

Both halves of that sentence are wrong.

[Ben_]

Banks would be extremely stupid to loan money to someone who is likely subject to deportation.

I’d give these people a $1000 credit limit if they keep a $1000 deposit at the bank. Deposit not able to be withdrawn while the credit line is outstanding. No need to "reject" any application under such terms.

[Brett Bellmore]

Since the DOJ is also ordering SpaceX to violate ITAR by hiring non-citizens, it's not exactly shocking, except to the conscience.

Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA)

"Residency and Immigration Status – 12 CFR 1002.5(e)
The creditor may inquire about the applicant’s permanent residence and immigration status in the United States in determining creditworthiness."

And that's all it says about immigration status. Far from being illegal, it's an EXPLICITLY permitted basis.

Just like they're going after SpaceX for not hiring non-citizens, when ITAR prohibits them from doing so.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

How does a blog attract such a staggering concentration of uninformed dumbasses and disaffected losers?

It starts with recruiting bloggers from the Federalist Society, of course . . .

[ducksalad]

Just going to point out a few mistakes here:

The justice.gov link makes no specific mention of illegal immigrants. Instead, it merely points out the laws against discrimination based on ” national origin, race and other characteristics covered by the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA)” apply to immigrants. It also explicitly states that “the ECOA allows a creditor to consider an applicant’s immigration status when necessary to ascertain the creditor’s rights regarding repayment,”

Somehow, ML and The Epoch Times decided to add the word illegal. They also decided to make an order not to discriminate sound like an order to grant loans regardless of ability to pay.

I’m sure there was no intent to mislead.

[M L]

I didn’t add any words at all, just shared an Epoch Times article. Part of the value in sharing an item that seems noteworthy is to crowdsource any insightful thoughts, arguments, factual corrections and contextualizations.

Anyway, see my comment above. “no specific mention of illegal immigrants.” Come on. The status of being an illegal immigrant is an immigration status.

The move by the Biden administration here is to threaten banks for “unnecessary or overbroad reliance on immigration status.” They are trying to get banks to be more willing to do business with illegal immigrants, by suggesting that it may be "racist" illegal discrimination to categorically refuse to do business with illegal immigrants.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The Volokh Conspiracy: Official "Legal" Blog of Epoch Times Readers.

Carry on, clingers.

[Sarcastr0]

Sharing right wing bullshit and scuttling away yet again.

Everyone knows what you are doing. And it is not seeking insight.

[M L]

Uh, no. See my comment above. https://reason.com/volokh/2023/10/19/thursday-open-thread-159/?comments=true#comment-10283226

Any thoughts?

[Sarcastr0]

Yes, you read the 'only' out of the text so you could go off on a paranoid thing as to the Biden admin and illegals.

Because you're a sad little neoconservative nativist who spends their time reading and posting white supremecist twitter accounts.

When called to argue, either claim you never agreed with what you posted or show yourself incapable of reason because you've fallen so in love with your out there worldview, conclusions are merely instruments of propaganda to you.

Not scaremongering? You have chosen to fear and loath this country quite a bit.

[M L]

You are getting increasingly unhinged. One would think a calm discussion could take place on the merits of illegal immigration issues and other topics, but no...

[Ed Grinberg]

The very idea of the government telling banks who to give loans to is absurd. Government forcing banks to issue loans to deadbeats (remember the “subprime mortgage crisis”?) is just as absurd as government forcing banks to issue loans to illegal aliens.

[Joe_dallas]

Subprime loans, while being heavily blamed for the 2008 financial crisis were really only a small piece of the entire fiasco. The primary cause was the excess funds available in the system to lend - Greenspan is the person to blame. Credit Risk standards always fall as more money enters the system and becomes available for lending.

[Longtobefree]

But what if they want the loan to open a gun store or a weed dispensary?
What then Mr. Brandon?

[M L]

Recently unearthed footage suggests Capitol Police officer lied about Jan 6 injuries

Gonell resigned from the force in December 2022, citing "permanent" medical conditions and trauma sustained on January 6.

Recently unearthed footage suggests that Capitol Police Officer Aquilino Gonell may not have been telling the truth about the wounds he sustained on January 6.

The video, which focuses on paramedics' efforts to resuscitate rioter Rosanne Boyland, shows Gonell going about his business with no sign of serious injuries.

"For 2 1/2 years, Capitol Police officer Aquilino Gonell has lied about injuries he sustained on Jan 6.

He has testified under oath and in federal court proceedings that he suffered near-death injuries...

https://thepostmillennial.com/recently-unearthed-footage-suggests-capitol-police-officer-lied-about-jan-6-injuries

[M L]

How far has trans mania gone?

Virginia school "transitions" a girl without parents knowing.

She gets threatened with sexual assault for being in the boys bathroom, which the school encouraged her to use.

She runs away, gets kidnapped and raped by multiple men.

When rescued, she gets put in a boys facility. Remember, society accepts that she "transitioned." While there, she's sexually assaulted again.

Public defender says parents still shouldn't get her back because they won't "affirm" her new identity.

https://twitter.com/RichardHanania/status/1700703400118354180

[Sarcastr0]

I would not trust the credibility of this person you seem to follow on Twitter.

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

"Claiming to be a libertarian, Hanania, under the pseudonym, argued for strong eugenics programs (including the forcible sterilization of everyone with an IQ below 90); he was opposed to immigration to the United States, saying that "while an increasing Muslim underclass might not inspire as much bad art, the IQ and genetic differences between them and native Europeans are real, and assimilation is impossible". He disliked Hispanics and Blacks, and said that "for the white gene pool to be created millions had to die...Race mixing is like destroying a unique species or piece of art. It’s shameful.""

He repudiates those statements, but his opinions don't seem to have changed. A Sept. 2023 book uses wokeness to attack the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

I'm not attacking his arguments - that's ad hominem. I am attacking his credibility, however. Because he seems the kind who would lie about this stuff just for shits.

I'm also attacking ML, who links stuff indicating his media diet is basically Stormfront but Twitter. How much do you moderate to post on here and not be laughed out of the room like Ed?

[Ben_]

Sarcastr0's interest in any event is always to first find a way to attack the messenger.

[Nige]

Oh I’m sorry has no-one ever taught you media literacy?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Which of the Volokh Conspirators tweeted as Richard Hanania?

[M L]

The tweet seems to be accurate – as you might have ascertained with about 45 seconds of looking into it. But thanks for your (totally genuine) concern about whether the tweet was accurate.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/fairness-justice/mother-trafficked-virginia-girl-sues-school-gender-transition

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12479157/mom-trans-teen-sage-blair-sues-school.html

As for this guy, never heard of him before. The next part of your link quotes him as saying, “Recently, it’s been revealed that over a decade ago I held many beliefs that, as my current writing makes clear, I now find repulsive.”

[Sarcastr0]

The mother of a teenage girl who was bullied in school and eventually sex-trafficked is suing her daughter's school district for withholding the information that the teenage student was identifying as a male at school.

Michelle Blair, the mother of Sage Blair, filed a lawsuit against the Appomattox County School Board and district staff, in addition to a Baltimore public defender for actions that she allege deprived her of properly parenting her child.

Blair now claims that her daughter was severely bullied in high school, which she was aware of - but alleges that the school district withheld information about why the bullying was happening. Sage had begun identifying as a boy at school.

The bullying, says Blair included 'verbal' and 'physical' assaults, but also included a constant barrage of 'threats of rape by the male classmates.'

'Despite this, the school encouraged her to use the boys' bathroom,' she said.

Blair previously informed the school that her daughter had a history of mental health issues, including depression, eating disorders, self-harm, and hallucinations.

Even with that information, however, the school opted to pursue a social transition for Sage behind the backs of her parents.

School seems wrong here, but this is an utterly different story than what you shared. Past history, the transition being nothing more than bathroom choice, the causality of

The tweet also appears to take claims in the suit as truth. Which you know enough to not do. But you did it anyway.

And I repeat that *you shared a eugenicist white supremacist's tweet*
That is itself something to note, in and above the substance being tendentious at best.

[Life of Brian]

The tweet also appears to take claims in the suit as truth. Which you know enough to not do. But you did it anyway.

No kidding. We're only supposed to do that with indictments!

[Nige]

A vulnerable trans kid gets treated appallingly by the system. You'd think people who want to protect chiildren would be on a crusade to fix a system that treats any kid like that, but no, it's just about using her transness against her.

[damikesc]

If he's so unreliable, you would not feel the need to use pure ad hominem to critique the story...

[Sarcastr0]

You don’t know what ad hominem is. I explained above.

[Michael P]

You weren't engaging in an ad hominem, you were simply arguing that he's probably not right now because he previously said things you didn't like! That's TOTALLY different.

[Sarcastr0]

Not credible != not right.

You really are on a tear of dumb on this thread.

[Michael P]

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

Typically this term refers to a rhetorical strategy where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself.

You can argue about what difference you see between "probably not right" and "not credible" as long as you want, but the rest of us see what you're doing here.

[Sarcastr0]

making an argument != making a factual claim.

[damikesc]

One of us does not know what it means, clearly.

That one is not me, however.

[Sarcastr0]

Nothing someone making a factual claim isn't credible is not the same as attacking an argument by going after the arguer.

Arguments are not factual claims.
One is 'this is true.' The other is ;This conclusion follows from that premise.'

Now you know!

[damikesc]

Except all you did was attack his past and nothing in terms of what he reported there.

I did not, for example, refer to Ben Collins of NBC as a lying fabulist for his idiotic coverage of Palestinians launching a missile at their own hospital's parking lot. I pointed out that he ran with one side of a story with zero ability to verify any of the facts (making them "not facts").

I could have pointed to his history of abysmally terrible "reporting", but that would be ad hominem. I attacked his (as usual) laughable coverage here by mentioning that he could not verify anything he reported as facts.

THAT is how you criticize without hitting the ad hominem train as hard as you did.

[Sarcastr0]

Lotsa words that show you don't understand what you're talking about.

Credibility determinations based on past performance are legit, and not ad hom. So you can rant away about Ben Collins.

I would point out that other sources provide a rather different narrative with substantially more provisos than the tweet ML linked.

And also, my main point is less the credibility and more that ML has a repeated issue linking white supremecist tweets.

[Nige]

If he's unreliable, it's not ad hom to say he's unreliable.

[Zarniwoop]

So the move to increase the powers of the Speaker pro tempore as a way out of the GOP’s self-inflicted gunshot wounds to the foot seems to be gaining steam.

Interesting info on the history of the Speakership and interplay between House rules and the US Constitution (TL,DR: the current dysfunction is all about the House rules):

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2023/10/18/us-congress-brought-house-speaker-mess-on-itself/907942d8-6de6-11ee-b01a-f593caa04363_story.html

[Dan Schiavetta]

The latest is that the GOP is not going to go forward on that. McHenry himself is opposed.

The only way out seems to be some kind of deal with Democrats but unfortunately most Republicans would rather see the House remain rudderless and disabled, no matter how great and immediate the matters awaiting House action.

[Zarniwoop]

It's a fast-moving fustercluck, that's for sure. Maybe I spoke too soon, and the GOP is reloading the gun they've already shot themselves in the foot with.

I personally suspect that if the GOP nominated a non-batsheet-crazy candidate for Speaker - someone who might pay some minimal lip service to bipartisanship and problem-solving - the Democrats might be persuaded cast enough "present" votes that the Speaker candidate could lose 10 or 20 fringe-right votes. Thereby allowing such a Speaker candidate to win the gavel "without (D) votes", for some face-saving all around.

But the GOP is not my circus, not my clowns.

[loki13]

Circular firing squad comes to mind.

I suppose this was inevitable, given the overall dynamics. But still ... wow.

[SimonP]

The McHenry option was probably the only reason any Republicans thought it made sense to stand against Jordan. If that’s off the table, then they’ll probably flip to Jordan (like several other “never-Jordan” votes already have).

After that… who knows.

One of the small consolations I’ve found, when watching the fascist consolidation of the GOP at the state level, has been that, when it comes to national politics, there are too many “jealous” competitors for power for the Congress to ever become a true “rubber stamp” for the President, the same way that state legislatures in Florida, Texas, and other southern states have become or are becoming, for their governors. But with Jordan as Speaker – there will be no ideological cohesion but the Speaker’s say-so. Nothing gets a vote unless the extremist wing want something to go through. More moderate members vote with the extremists because they’re sick of fighting back. Combine that with Trump and you have a real, real bad recipe for the coming years.

[Commenter_XY]

Glad to see that = The latest is that the GOP is not going to go forward on that. McHenry himself is opposed.

They (Team R) need to just work it out. To describe Team R as politically inept during this debacle is the understatement of 2023*.

*Still have 72 days to year's end. 🙂

[Jerry B.]

As usual. the Babylon Bee has it figured out.

https://babylonbee.com/news/hamas-clarifies-they-meant-to-start-the-type-of-war-where-they-get-to-do-whatever-they-want-and-no-one-fights-back

[Ed Grinberg]

"Our allies in the U.S. will hear about this!" shouted Al-Maalouf. "Someone get the Squad on the phone immediately!"

I wish it were only the Squad...

Biden warns Israel against occupying Gaza as ground invasion appears near

[Longtobefree]

After Israel conquers Gaza, it will no longer be Gaza, it will be Israel.
So they will not be occupying Gaza.

[Frank Drackman]

Funny how peaceful East Prussia's been since 1945

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Babylon Bee? Not the Epoch Times?

I am starting to look forward to the day at which Israel learns the consequences of aligning politically with America's deplorable right-wing culture war casualties (and of thinking Israel could engage in right-wing belligerence on America's dime without regard for the preferences of the American mainstream).

Israelis seem to have joined the line -- with gun nuts, anti-abortion absolutists, America's religious kooks, and others -- of those who have hitched their political wagons to the wrong side of history, the losing side of the American culture war, and the weaker side at the modern American marketplace of ideas.

[Cheerio]

"gun nuts, anti-abortion absolutists, America’s religious kooks"

EV is, at most, one of those 3.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"the wrong side of history, the losing side of the American culture war, and the weaker side at the modern American marketplace of ideas"

Reasonable Americans reject both extremes -- you're in for disappointment if you think the hateful "woke" bigots are any more likely to win the culture war than any other kinds of bigots.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

So if Israel's on the losing side, who's on the winning side in this (literal, not cultural) war?

[Life of Brian]

Heh -- they borrowed that one from the Coz.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Now a mainstream news outlet notes the various ballot-access hurdles.

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/19/rfk-jr-ballot-access-2024-00122456

Of course, this is in the context of Presidential elections, where the state legislatures have a certain discretion in keeping people off the ballot – they could even cut the voters out of the loop altogether and appoint Presidential electors by legislative vote.

In other elections, however (Congress, etc.), federal or state constitutional provisions provide for election by the people.

However, all this is subject to the reservation that the government gets to manipulate the people’s choices or even discard their votes. It's right there in the "screw you, that's why" clause of the Constitution.

[Longtobefree]

Just for the record, Politiko is not mainstream, it is DNC propaganda.

[Martinned]

...owned by the famously right-wing Axel Springer, the company that also gave us Bild, and that was bombed by the RAF in 1972 for being a fascist mouthpiece. (Their opinion, not mine.)

This is the CEO of Axel Springer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathias_D%C3%B6pfner#Text_message_and_email_leaks

[Nige]

'bombed by the RAF in 1972'

Wait WHAT?

[Voize]

I presume that is the Red Army Faction, maybe better known here as the Baader-Meinhof Gang.

[Nige]

Are you sure? The Royal Air Force didn't do a quick sortie?

[damikesc]

It being "bombed" as a "Fascist mouthpiece" 51 years ago is relevant...how?

[Idihax]

https://www.firearmspolicy.org/federal-judge-again-strikes-down-california-assault-weapon-ban

Conservatives are celebrating, but we all know the pieces of shit on the 9th Circuit will stay it for years and SCOTUS will not intervene because God forbid a case isn’t allowed to “percolate.”

Remember, liberals think all rights begin and end with killing third trimester babies and buggering another dude in the arse.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

the pieces of shit on the 9th Circuit

[Idihax]

I don't like Kasinski. But someone who sexually harasses one or two woman does much less damage to society than a judge who upholds gun restrictions intended to make it easier for black criminals to terrorize whites or a judge who finds a Constitutional right for people like you to bareback a child and give him HIV all in the name of "freedom."

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

who upholds gun restrictions intended to make it easier for black criminals to terrorize whites or a judge who finds a Constitutional right for people like you to bareback a child and give him HIV

These racists and gay-bashers are your target audience, your political allies, and your most staunch supporters, Volokh Conspirators . . . and the reason you are mired at the disrespected, fading right-wing fringe of modern legal academia.

[Idihax]

And the audience for your diseased appendage are the digestive systems of children.

[mydisplayname]

Josh Paul, who for eleven years has worked in the State Department Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, resigned and offers a well-written public statement at https://www.linkedin.com/posts/josh-paul-655a25263_explaining-my-resignation-activity-7120512510645952512-APhR/ . From his statement:

"But we cannot be both against occupation, and for it. We cannot be both for freedom, and against it. And we cannot be for a better world, while contributing to one that is materially worse.

"Let me be clear: Hamas' attack on Israel was not just a monstrosity; it was a monstrosity of monstrosities. I also believe that potential escalations by Iran-linked groups such as Hezbollah, or by Iran itself, would be a further cynical exploitation of the existing tragedy. But I believe to the core of my soul that the response Israel is taking, and with it the American support both for that response, and for the status quo of the occupation, will only lead to more and deeper suffering for both the Israeli and the Palestinian people - and is not in the long term American interest. This Administration's response - and much of Congress' as well - is an impulsive reaction built on confirmation bias, political convenience, intellectual bankruptcy, and bureaucratic inertia. That is to say, it is immensely disappointing, and entirely unsurprising. Decades of the same approach have shown that security for peace leads to neither security, nor to peace. The fact is, blind support for one side is destructive in the long term to the interests of the people on both sides. I fear we are repeating the same mistakes we have made these past decades, and I decline to be a part of it for longer.

[...]

"It is my firm belief that in such conflicts, for those of us who are third parties, the side we must pick is not that of one of the combatants, but that of the people caught in the middle, and that of the generations yet to come. It is our responsibility to help the warring parties build a better world. To center human rights, not to hope to sideline or sidestep them through programs of economic growth or diplomatic maneuvering. And, when they happen, to be able to name gross violations of human rights no matter who carries them out, and to be able to hold the perpetrators accountable - when they are adversaries, which is easy, but most particularly, when they are partners."

[Commenter_XY]

One less bureaucrat to subsidize. Plenty more bloat at State to attrite.

[Michael P]

Josh Paul can, and seems to, be against both building a better world and cleansing it of cancers.

[Ben_]

Notice all the leftist "anti-war" protesters are back. None of them had any interest in wars during the last administration, when we had the first president in 100 years who didn’t get the US involved in any new wars.

They couldn’t wait to vote for Biden — the guy who, as a congressman and senator, voted for every war since the 1970s. Now their guy has the US involved in a new war in the Middle East and another new war in Europe.

They should be protesting their own extreme stupidity.

[Sarcastr0]

Notice all the leftist “anti-war” protesters are back.
Where do you get that idea?

[Nige]

All they guys who thought not one war, but TWO was necessary after 9-11 are back too! Including Netanyahu. And they seem to want the US drawn into a nice nasty Middle Eastern regional war all over again, just for old times' sake!

The idea of Trump in charge of a war gives even his supporters the heebie jeebies.

[damikesc]

"All they guys who thought not one war, but TWO was necessary after 9-11 are back too!"

Yes, neocons have become Democrats.

Have fun with Kristol. He's your boy now.

[Sarcastr0]

Kristol still a Republican.

You can equate Trump support with being a conservative, but most of the rest of us don't.

[Nige]

I was talking about commenters on here, but you can keep Kristol and the rest.

[Armchair]

Iranian-backed militias in Yemen have decided to expand the war in the Middle East.

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/us-destroyer-shoots-down-drones-183931529.html

Perhaps it's time to shut down the flow of Iranian weapons.

[Frank Drackman]

Seriously "Folks"(HT Parkinsonian Joe)
what would be the downside of turning Terror-Ann and Qom into Hiroshima/Naga-saki??
I mean besides it would suck to be in Terror-Ann and Qom when the W76's detonated ("Detonated" is so harsh, I prefer "Achieved Critical Mass")
Hard to spend $6 Billion on weapons when you're rebuilding your Capitol. And while Qom's largely symbolic, like the Pentagon was on 9-11, it is where little Ayatollahs learn to be adult Ayatollahs.

As "45" said, what's the point of having all these Nukes if you're afraid to use them. Like your Queen in Chess, don't use them needlessly or too much, but if it's the only way to take Wien, than take Wien!

Frank

[apedad]

Democratic senators introduce bill establishing Supreme Court term limits

The legislation would appoint a new Supreme Court justice every two years, with that justice hearing every case for 18 years before stepping back from the bench and only hearing a “small number of constitutionally required cases.”

Only the nine most recently appointed justices would hear appellate cases, which make up a bulk of the court’s work. All living justices would participate in a smaller subset of cases under the court’s “original jurisdiction,” such as disputes between states or with foreign officials.

(Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse [D-R.I.], stated,) “Term limits and biennial appointments would make the Court more representative of the public and lower the stakes of each justice’s appointment, while preserving constitutional protections for judicial independence.

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4265176-democratic-senators-introduce-bill-establishing-supreme-court-term-limits/

Not fully sold on this idea as it sounds a little too convoluted and think a simpler 'expand the court to 25' would be better and easier solution.

[Idihax]

And of course, you want to expand the court to 25 right now, so that Biden could appoint 16 black and Hispanic leftist political hacks to the court?

[apedad]

Would that be illegal or unconstitutional?

[Frank Drackman]

Since he wasn't legally erected, yes.

[Krychek_2]

On policy grounds, I would be opposed to expanding the court. However, if the Democrats found themselves with the necessary Congressional majorities to do so in 2025, the Republicans would be in no position to complain. It would be no more an abuse of the process then was the means by which Gorsuch and Barrett were put on the court.

[Idihax]

The abuse of process was ramming through the 14th Amendment.

[Frank Drackman]

Like it has any chance of getting passed, Pete Booty-Judge will break up with Chaz Booty-Judge, join the IDF and go fight the Palestinians before that happens.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I'd say 50 should be the minimum.

[Voize]

The vote counts in the House this morning were
Jeffies 210
Jordan 194
Scalise 8
McHenry 6
Zeldin 4
Others 7
Democrats missed an opportunity to end the logjam by switching their votes to McHenry after the roll call ended. Jeffires has said McHenry is acceptable, but even if the move didn't hold (if some of his Republican supporters changed their votes too) it would have been a strong message that Democrats care more about getting the House working again than about partisanship.

[Estragon]

Would it be equally accurate to say

“Republicans missed an opportunity to end the logjam by switching their votes to Jordan after the roll call ended… it would have been a strong message that Republicans care more about getting the House working again than about intraparty infighting.“

In your mind?

[Krychek_2]

That's not an apples to apples comparison. In one, the Democrats are reaching across the aisle in a bipartisan way to get the House up and running again, and are willing to vote for a Republican speaker to make it happen. In the other, the Republicans are so unwilling to reach across the aisle and work with Democrats that they are agreeable to someone a lot of them think would be a terrible speaker, just to spite the Democrats.

[Estragon]

So you disagree the statement above is accurate?

“they are agreeable to someone a lot of them think would be a terrible speaker, just to spite the Democrats.”

Where are you getting this idea?

[Krychek_2]

I think Voize's statement is accurate. I also think your statement is inaccurate. But I think you and he are talking about two different things.

A lot of not-crazy Republicans do think Jim Jordan would be a terrible speaker. He's an election denier. He refused to condemn the events of January 6. He has indicated he is willing to blow the place up rather than work with Democrats. There is a reason a number of people in his own caucus won't vote for him.

In order to "end intraparty fighting", as you put it, the Republicans currently voting against him would have to decide that spiting Democrats is more important than any of that.

[Voize]

Jeffries might not speak for all Democrats but they have shown an ability to pull together so it is conceivable that he could sell them on a plan like this. Nobody with any credibility can say that Jordan is acceptable to all Republicans, they have had three opportunities to support him and, knowing the consequences, choose not to. If Republicans wanted to send the same message they would switch their votes to McHenry too, a compromise candidate who can rally enough support to actually get the House working again. Jordan can't do that.

[apedad]

Jordan

1st vote: 200
2nd vote: 198
3rd vote: 194

What exactly are they doing in the backrooms and hallways?

C'mon guys - Let's Make a Deal!

[Frank Drackman]

Who gives a fuck, if they all dropped dead tomorrow what would change?

[apedad]

Chesebro becomes second Trump lawyer to plead guilty in Georgia

Like his two co-defendants who previously took plea deals, Chesebro agreed to testify truthfully in any future case proceedings and write a letter of apology to Georgia citizens, which Chesebro and prosecutors both said was already written.

https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4267048-chesebro-becomes-second-trump-lawyer-to-plead-guilty-in-georgia/

The slow but steady clicking of dominos falling.

The noose inching tighter around the neck . . . .

[Moderation4ever]

The trials in the Georgia case are proceeding much quicker than was expected. It is looking like it will be easier to keep that March 2024 trial date.

[Frank Drackman]

Be careful what you ask for, you might get it.

[Moderation4ever]

Bring it on, it will be better television than the OJ trial.

[David Nieporent]

Those were the two defendants who demanded a speedy trial. The rest did not.

[Don Nico]

The faster, the better.

[John F. Carr]

Unlike an ordinary gang leader, Trump is not relying on zipped lips to save him from the Georgia and D.C. federal charges. Prosecutors have lots of emails and recordings. Trump is relying mainly on the unprecedented nature of the charges.

[Frank Drackman]

That they're such patently Bullshit?, I guess that is "Unprecedented"

[Moderation4ever]

I think Trump is relying on delays and thinking he can beat it in time. I think he is wrong, but only time will tell.

[Mr. Bumble]

Read Techno Fog's take on the Powell plea (same would apply to Chesebro):

https://technofog.substack.com/p/prediction-sidney-powell-wont-be