Monday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[Kazinski]

I’ve been reading through some of the briefs Josh posted the other day, and I became aware of clear unambiguous evidence that Congress passed legislation to enforce section 3 of the 14th Amendment in the Enforcement Act of 1870, and such enforcement was both civil and criminal:

“Sec. 14. And be it further enacted, That whenever any person shall hold office, except as a member of Congress or of some State legislature, contrary to the provisions of the third section of the fourteenth article of amendment of the Constitution of the United States, it shall be the duty of the district attorney of the United States for the district in which such person shall hold office, as aforesaid, to proceed against such person, by writ of quo warranto, returnable to the circuit or district court of the United States in such district, and to prosecute the same to the removal of such person from office; and any writ of quo warranto so brought, as aforesaid, shall take precedence of all other cases on the docket of the court to which it is made returnable, and shall not be continued unless for cause proved to the satisfaction of the court.

Sec. 15. And be it further enacted, That any person who shall hereafter knowingly accept or hold any office under the United States, or any State to which he is ineligible under the third section of the fourteenth article of amendment of the Constitution of the United States, or who shall attempt to hold or exercise the duties of any such office, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor against the United States, and, upon conviction thereof before the circuit or district court of the United States, shall be imprisoned not more than one year, or fined not exceeding one thousand dollars, or both, at the discretion of the court.” https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Enforcement_Act_of_1870

Which raises the question: why isn’t this act front and center in the self-execution debate over Section 3 and Section 5? Well its because Congress repealed Sec. 14 and 15, June 25, 1948, in the very same act that enacted the Insurrection Statute:

“A year after In re Griffin, Congress passed an act that provided for and required the enforcement of Section 3 (“the Enforcement Act”). Act of May 31, 1870, ch. 114, §§ 14–15, 16 Stat. 140, 143–44 (codified at Rev. Stat. §§ 1786–87 (1874) and 5 U.S.C. § 14a (1925) (repealed)). But the Enforcement Act’s quo warranto provisions have since been repealed. Act of June 25, 1948, ch. 646, § 39, 62 Stat. 869, 993; see also Act of June 25, 1948, ch. 645, § 2383, 62 Stat. 683, 808.”

https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmborj/vol30/iss1/5/ (pg 206)

To refresh your memories here is the text of Act of June 25, 1948, ch. 645, § 2383 which replaced Sections 14 and 15 of The Enforcement Act of 1870:

“Rebellion or insurrection

Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.”

I don’t think there is any doubt that Congress exercised its Section 5 enforcement authority with the Enforcement Act of 1870, which provides no private right of action, or authorizes the Secretary of States of Colorado and Maine to enforce Section 3. There is also no doubt that Congress replaced sections 14 and 15 of that act with the current Insurrection Statute which is the congressionally mandated enforcement of section 3.

[Randal]

Nobody is saying 14/5 doesn't exist. Naturally, Congress's power to pass the Enforcement Act arose from 14/5. That's why 14/5 is there -- to make it clear that Congress has the power to legislate on the subject.

That does't say anything about which parts of the 14th Amendment are self-executing. Section 3 can be self-executing and Congress is empowered to legislate on the subject.

[Kazinski]

But In Re Griffen did say that Section 3 is not self executing.

And Congress accepted that judgment, here is the timeline:
Here is the timeline:

- 14th Amendment ratified July 9, 1868

-In re Griffin May 1869 (declaring Section 3 not self-executing)

-Enforcement Act of 1870, May 30th (enforcement of the 14th amendment and explicitly enforcing Section 3),

Act of June 25, 1948 repeals Section 14, 15 of Enforcement act of 1870 and enacts Insurrection Statute.

[Mr. Bumble]

Can't wait for ng's response.

[Kazinski]

We already know it:
What's your authority?
I'm waiting.

But I guess it will be interesting, if he provides an honest response, since he kept insisting Congress never enacted any Section 5 legislation, and that it was civil not criminal.

[Randal]

On the alleged "criminal" element...

the Enforcement Act of 1870, and such enforcement was both civil and criminal

That's misleading as hell. The Enforcement Act didn't require a criminal conviction for disqualification. In fact it didn'r require any process, not even civil! It expects people like Trump to self-disqualify, no questions asked.

Then it gives some procedures, including criminal penalties, to use against candidates who fail to do so.

That is, disqualification isn't the penalty for conviction. Failure to self-disqualify is the crime, and the penalty is prison.

[Kazinski]

Misleading as hell?

How could I mislead when I put both sections in black and white above with their complete text?

Section 14 is civil, section 15 is criminal. And both are enforcement provisions. Its even called an enforcement act.

What part was misleading, the part where you had to read it?

[Randal]

I just explained it to you. Why don't you try reading the post before responding?

[Kazinski]

Well, I will need more help to understand my transgression.

I said the Act’s enforcement of Section 3 “was both civil and criminal”.

Was Section 14 of the Act civil enforcement of Section 3?

Was Section 15 of the Act criminal enforcement of Section 3?

My answer to both of those questions is yes.

What’s your answer?

And why am I wrong?

[Randal]

You were comparing your claim that the Enforcement Act includes both civil and criminal enforcement provisions to ng's claim that "Congress has the authority under the Fourteenth Amendment, § 5 to make criminal conviction a prerequisite to disqualification under § 3" but that it hasn't done so, making disqualification a civil question.

But I guess it will be interesting, if [ng] provides an honest response, since he kept insisting Congress never enacted any Section 5 legislation, and that it was civil not criminal.

That's a misleading comparison because neither the civil nor criminal provisions of the Enforcement Act are prerequisites to disqualification under § 3.

In other words, disqualification under § 3 has never required a criminal conviction. Not when originally passed and used against Civil War officers, not when the Enforcement Act was in effect, and not now (since the Insurrection Act isn't an enforcement act). So it's not relevant to ng's point. It's about as stupid as if I were to say that "as a Civil War, participants are held to civil liability only; it would take a Criminal War for a criminal conviction to become necessary."

[not guilty]

I slept in this morning, but I won't disappoint. As I have said before, Congress has the authority under the Fourteenth Amendment, § 5 to make criminal conviction a prerequisite to disqualification under § 3. None of the authorities described by Kazinski makes criminal conviction such a condition precedent.

As I have written several times before, there are multiple material differences between disqualification imposed as a criminal penalty under federal statutes such as 18 U.S.C. §§ 2071(b), 2381 and 2383 and disqualification imposed as a civil disability under the Fourteenth Amendment, § 3. To reiterate:

Federal criminal statutes apply to all persons who violate them, not merely to those persons who have previously taken an oath to support the Constitution.

Disqualification imposed pursuant to the judgment of an Article III court for violation of a federal criminal statute cannot be removed by Congress. Only the President can do so, by issuing a pardon. OTOH, Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove a disability imposed under the Fourteenth Amendment, § 3.

Disqualification under federal criminal statutes applies only to holding federal offices. Disqualification under § 3 applies to both state and federal offices.

Perhaps the most salient indicator that disqualification under § 3 is a civil disability is the purpose of adopting § 3 to begin with. The amendment was adopted to disqualify ex-Confederates for participating in the Civil War. If such disqualification were a criminal penalty, it could not have been applied ex post facto to punish conduct occurring prior to 1868. Calder v. Bull, 3 U.S. (3 Dall.) 386, 390-392 (1798) (opinion of Chase, J.); id., at 396 (opinion of Paterson, J.); id., at 400 (opinion of Iredell, J.), was settled law long before the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted.

I have raised the point about prohibition of ex post facto criminal application of § 3 numerous times on these threads. No one in the Trump cult has even attempted to respond.

[David Nieporent]

If such disqualification were a criminal penalty, it could not have been applied ex post facto to punish conduct occurring prior to 1868.

You keep saying this, but it's not correct, since the 14th amendment is, you know, an amendment, not a statute. It can and would supersede the ex post facto clause to the extent necessary, even if it were a criminal penalty.

(I agree with the rest of your analysis.)

[not guilty]

Like statutes, constitutional provisions should be read in harmony with one another, such that no provision is rendered superfluous. For example, a federal office holder who is facing disqualification under the Fourteenth Amendment, § 3 would be entitled to due process of law under the Fifth Amendment as to proceedings for removal/disqualification. (The Fourteenth Amendment Due Process clause binds only the states.)

The Fourteenth Amendment, § 3 should be read in pari materia with the remainder of the Constitution. If the drafters had intended to supersede pre-existing ex post facto prohibitions, they would have said so explicitly or used language such as “notwithstanding any other provision.”

[David Nieporent]

There is a difference between saying, "We can interpret this in such a way that there's no conflict, and therefore we should" (fair enough) and what you said, which is that we can't interpret it the other way because that would be prohibited. Implied repeals are deprecated, but they do exist.

[not guilty]

Implied repeals are indeed disfavored. The drafters of the Fourteenth Amendment must be presumed to have been aware of Calder v. Bull and its progeny. There is nothing here that would support the theory that § 3 was intended to modify pre-existing constitutional law more that it expressly declares, whether that be with regard to Fifth Amendment Due Process guaranties, ex post facto prohibitions or any other provision.

[Brett Bellmore]

I don't go so far as Baude et all in endorsing the idea that the 14th amendment overrides any provision of the constitution that so much as inconveniences its application. But it clearly was intended to apply to the Confederates, retroactively.

Though it's worth remembering that the Union was NOT being obsessive about following the Constitution at the time, in any case, so you can't just assume anything they did must have been constitutional.

[Randal]

Exactly. In 1948, Congress repealed the Enforcement Act — an act which is so explicitly about enforcing 14/3 that it’s in the name — and replaced it with the Insurrection Act.

Kazinski thinks that means the Insurrection Act is the new enforcement act. But it obviously isn’t — it’s way too divorced from 14/3 to work, as ng notes for the umpteenth time.

So what’s going on? I think a better interpretation is that Congress realized that 14/3 had served its purpose. No more Civil War era politicians to worry about. So might as well chuck the now useless Enforcement Act.

But wait, what about insurrection generally? If 14/3 is past its prime, maybe we need a new way of dealing with insurrection. Voila, the Insurrection Act. It doesn’t enforce 14/3, it supplants it.

So if you want to use this timeline as an argument to help Trump, I think it works best as evidence that Congress — at least in 1948 — felt that 14/3 was confined to the Civil War and is basically a dead letter today.

I don’t think it’s a great argument, but it’s the argument you can make.

[Brett Bellmore]

But, in fact, the Insurrection Act DOES rely on the 14th amendment for authority, because Congress otherwise lacks any power to add qualifications to hold federal office, and the insurrection act presumes to disqualify people on conviction from holding all sorts of offices, even STATE offices. Which the federal government would have no authority over at all, absent the 14th amendment.

So it is, unavoidably, 14th amendment enabling legislation, or at least in significant part unconstitutional.

[Randal]

the insurrection act presumes to disqualify people on conviction from holding all sorts of offices, even STATE offices

No, the Insurrect Act doesn’t even purport to disqualify people from holding state office. That’s one way in which it’s incompatible with 14/3.

So yes, it’s unconstitutional with respect to President and Vice President. That's just two offices out of… thousands? I don’t think that’s particularly problematic.

[Armchair]

It clearly does, as seen below.

[Randal]

We're talking about the Insurrection Act, not the Enforcement Act.

But, in fact, the Insurrection Act DOES rely on the 14th amendment for authority, because Congress otherwise lacks any power to add qualifications to hold federal office, and the insurrection act presumes to disqualify people on conviction from holding all sorts of offices, even STATE offices.

[Noscitur a sociis]

.

the insurrection act presumes to disqualify people on conviction from holding all sorts of offices, even STATE offices.

Are you sure about that?

[Voize]

So it is, unavoidably, 14th amendment enabling legislation

You spend a paragraph explaining that the 14th amendment enables the statute, then inexplicably announce in conclusion that the statute enables the amendment.

[not guilty]

No, Brett, 18 U.S.C. § 2383 does not disqualify anyone sentenced thereunder from holding state office. The full test of the statute reads:

Whoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the laws thereof, or gives aid or comfort thereto, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.

[Armchair]

You need to read the act, not the US code.

[not guilty]

Are you positing that the Act is inaccurately codified?

[David Nieporent]

and the insurrection act presumes to disqualify people on conviction from holding all sorts of offices, even STATE offices.

No. It. Doesn't. You've never even read the statute that you're pinning all your arguments on.

[Armchair]

The enforcement act of 1870, section 14, reads as follows.

""And be it further enacted that whenever any person shall hold office, except as a member of Congress or of some State legislature, contrary to the provisions of the third section of the fourteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States, it shall be the duty of the district attorney of the United States for the district in which such person shall hold office, as aforesaid, to proceed against such person by writ of quo warranto, returnable to the circuit or district court of the United States in such district, and to prosecute the same to removal of such person from office; and any writ of quo warranto so brought aforesaid, shall take precedence of all other cases on the docket of the court to which it is made returnable, and shall not be continued unless for cause proved to the satisfaction of the court.

Section 15 reads as follows. "And be it further enacted that any person who shall hereafter knowingly accept or hold any office under the United States or of any State of which he is ineligible under the third section of the fourteenth article of amendment amendment of the Constitution of the United States or who shall attempt to hold or exercise the duties of any such office shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor against the United States and, upon conviction thereof before the circuit or district court of the United States shall be imprisoned not more than one year, or fined not exceeding one thousand dollars, or both, at the discretion of the court. "

Clearly, the act in question SPECIFICALLY disqualifies people from state office.

[David Nieporent]

Brett — and I, and everyone else here except the armchair guy — is talking about the Insurrection Act, enacted in 1948, not the Enforcement Act enacted in 1870.

[Kazinski]

Sorry that is pretty disappointing, had you had your coffee yet?

You don't even address the Enforcement Act of 1870, which was both criminal and civil, and was not ex post facto because the criminal penalties attached to assuming an office one was disqualified for.

Nor would the 1948 Insurrection Statute, which replaced the Enforcement Act, be ex post facto since it only covers prospective conduct.

I don't know whether you, Dave, or Baude are correct about the ex post facto argument because its a counterfactual hypothetical.

Baude and Paulson go on at length starting at page 102 citing successful prosecutions and disqualifications under the 1870 act:

Consider first a notable criminal prosecution under the 1870 Act. In North Carolina again, this time in federal court, the government brought criminal charges against Amos Powell, for accepting an appointment as county sheriff despite being covered by Section Three.

[not guilty]

The ex post facto question I have raised is not whether implementing legislation, if any, is civil or criminal. The question is whether disqualification under the Fourteenth Amendment, § 3 itself is or is not a criminal penalty. If so, there is a conflict with pre-existing constitutional ex post facto prohibitions.

The Constitution should be interpreted as a whole and its provisions interpreted in pari materia. If there are provisions which are arguably inconsistent with one another, a construction which will give effect to each is called for, so that one provision does not render any other provision inoperative.

Construing disqualification under § 3 as a civil disability -- the amendment itself uses the word "disability" and not "punishment" -- avoids any conflict with pre-existing prohibitions on ex post facto application of criminal penalties.

[Kazinski]

Again the 1870 act was written so it had no possibility of being construed as ex post facto.

The 1948 act could not be applied post facto because even if their were any living insurrectionists at the time they were pardoned in 1872.

Chase in Griffin said that Section 3 was not self executing, Congress passed enforcing legislation, so any speculation about legal arguments if Griffin was decided differently, or Congress didn't pass the Enforcement Act have no bearing on any legal question. Especially because you are trying to apply your counterfactual hypothetical to facts that are not at issue in Trump v Anderson.

[not guilty]

Do you have a clue as to what ex post facto means, Kazinski? Prior to adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Constitution did not call for disqualification from holding state or federal office for engaging in rebellion or insurrection. Upon ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, the Constitution did authorize such disqualification. The raison d’être of § 3 of the amendment was to prevent ex-Confederates from holding office, based on their conduct during the Civil War.

Ex post facto prohibitions apply to criminal penalties; they do not apply to civil disabilities. For example, imprisoning someone for conduct which had occurred prior to enactment of the statute making the conduct in question a criminal offense would violate ex post facto prohibitions. So would increasing the severity of punishment retroactively so as to apply to conduct occurring prior to enactment of the harsher penalty.

Punishing ex-Confederates under an amendment ratified in 1868 for conduct occurring during the Civil War (that is, occurring between 1861 and 1865) was ex post facto. That was constitutionally permissible for a civil disability but not for a criminal penalty. Construing § 3 as authorizing a civil disability accordingly avoids conflict with pre-existing ex post facto prohibitions.

I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you.

[Kazinski]

"Ex post facto prohibitions apply to criminal penalties; they do not apply to civil disabilities."

Which is true, but Congress never did such a thing, so your argument is nonsensical.

What they did was impose a criminal penalty for holding an office one was disqualified from holding:

"That any person who shall hereafter knowingly accept or hold any office"

[not guilty]

Doofus, I am talking about the substance of the Fourteenth Amendment, § 3 itself -- not any enabling or implementing statute. The amendment itself imposes a disability based upon conduct occurring prior to ratification of the amendment.

If that disability imposed by § 3 is civil in nature, there is no conflict with pre-existing ex post facto prohibitions. If that disability imposed by § 3 is criminal in nature, that raises thorny questions about whether the Fourteenth Amendment, § 3 sub silentio repeals or creates an exception to pre-existing constitutional provisions such as ex post facto prohibitions, Fifth Amendment procedural due process guaranties, and the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendment rights afforded to persons accused of crimes. By every canon of construction, the latter is to be avoided.

If § 3 creates an exception to these pre-existing guaranties, a federal office holder could be summarily removed from office, imprisoned without notice of the nature of misconduct, without a trial or hearing of any kind, without benefit of counsel, confrontation and cross-examination of accusers, based on illegally obtained evidence.

[Kazinski]

Don't be ridiculous NG, the 14th amendment is silent on the question of whether any of its terms are criminal or civil, and left it to Congress to decide in Section 3.

Over the years Congress has used both civil and criminal means under its section 5 powers.

If Congress decides that it requires a convict beyond a reasonable doubt to disqualify someone from office then that is up to Congress, not to you.

[not guilty]

I have never disputed that § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment authorizes Congress, if it chooses to do so, could require criminal conviction as a prerequisite to disqualification under § 3. No enactment of Congress, however, has in fact done so.

Whether § 3 creates an exception to pre-existing constitutional guaranties such as ex post facto prohibitions and Fifth Amendment due process requirements, however, is a question for the judiciary, not for Congress.

[Martinned]

I will ask for the 1 millionth time: How do you get from the existence of section 5 to section 3 not being self-executing, without the 13th Amendment, section 1 of the 14th Amendment, and the 15th Amendment similarly being not self-executing?

[Michael P]

Ask the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, who found in Griffin's Case -- and claimed that the Supreme Court agreed with him -- that:

12. Legislation by congress was necessary to give effect to the prohibition [in Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment] by providing for such removal.

This was true at the level of county officials who were appointed to their positions by the Confederate government, and a fortiori would be true of a president elected under ordinary process.

[Martinned]

I would like to, but he's been dead for a while. And that precedent is binding on pretty much nobody, given that it's not, in fact, a judgment of the Supreme Court of the United States. It also answers a different question than the question posed. The question of whether Trump automatically lost his job on 6 January 2021 is mostly of academic interest, and separate from the question of whether he is automatically barred from running again.

11. Persons in office by lawful appointment or election before the promulgation of this amendment, were not removed there from, by the direct and immediate effect of the prohibition to hold office contained in the third section.
12. Legislation by congress was necessary to give effect to the prohibition by providing for such removal.
13. The exercise of their several functions by these officers until removed in pursuance of such legislation is not unlawful.

[Kazinski]

So you say, but what was Congress' response to his ruling?

Legislation to implement section 3.

[Martinned]

Sure, why not? Legislation implementing section 3 doesn't do any harm. Just the other day I saw one of the Conspirators calling for legislation implementing the 25th Amendment. (Which is also quite self-executing even without Congressional action.)

[Kazinski]

Here is what Baude and Paulson said implicitly acknowledging that Congress deferred to Chase's ruling:

“shortly after Chief Justice Chase’s unsound and unfortunate decision in Griffin’s Case had held that Section Three required congressional legislation in order to be put into operation – Congress enacted federal procedures to directly enforce Section Three in federal court. The 1870 Enforcement Act, also known as the First Ku Klux Klan Act, authorized attorneys of the United States to bring quo warranto actions to remove officials holding office “contrary to the provisions of the third section of the fourteenth article of amendment of the Constitution” and to bring criminal prosecutions against person who “shall hereafter knowingly accept or hold” office in violation of Section Three.

[Martinned]

Congress deferring to Chase still doesn't mean that Chase was right, or that his ruling is is somehow binding precedent on today's courts.

[David Nieporent]

"Deferred" is an odd word choice there. "Conceded that the decision had been issued" is more accurate.

[Randal]

Exactly. This makes it seem like Congress thought 14/3 was self-executing, and only legislated when Griffin's Case forced their hands.

[Kazinski]

"Exactly. This makes it seem like Congress thought 14/3 was self-executing, and only legislated when Griffin’s Case forced their hands."

Huh, a competent court ruled, and Congress then passed legislation to conform to that ruling to execute Section 3?

Seems to me that that means Congress deferred to Chase's decision.

How would you read it?

[Randal]

The question is whether 14/3 is self-executing. You found one guy who thought it wasn't. Congress clearly thought it was, but why argue when they're the ones with the power to pass enabling legislation anyway?

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Kazinski, if you weren't so damned partisan and insistent that only your view is correct, you might consider the following rationale:

"A Judge said we can't do this. We know we can do it, so let's pass a statute expressly stating we can do this and the Judge's argument no longer matters."

I'm sure if you were defending the behavior of a Republican congress circumventing a Democratic Judge's ruling, you wouldn't be so quick to declare that Congress must've thought the Judge was right.

BTW, I never saw you respond to the proof of your lies last Thursday regarding Chutkan's ruling. What's with you people and running off like a hit dog whenever you get called out on lying?

[Kazinski]

I didn't even see your post, but I went back and looked, you even refuted yourself using Chutkan's own words:

“Chutkan said she hadn’t previously“unambiguously forbid” the prosecutors from making filings while the case is paused."

When a judge says she didn't “unambiguously forbid” something so she won't order sanctions, but will now “unambiguously forbid” it, then I'd say my reading is correct.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Excuse me Kazinski, but are you seriously going to come and lie about it a second time?

You alleged that "She previously ordered the pause but Smith violated it..."

That is a bald-faced lie, which I will refute a second time right here so everyone can see what a piece of shit you are in trying to repeat it after being proven wrong.

Chutkan said she hadn’t previously “unambiguously forbid” the prosecutors from making filings while the case is paused. Her order on Thursday “does not reflect a determination that the Government has violated any of its clear and unambiguous terms or acted in bad faith,” the judge added.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/18/politics/special-counsel-trump-contempt

You are a liar.

[Voize]

Prof. Baude has said Chase was just plain wrong, but even if he weren't the "such removal" he was talking about was the removal of someone who was already in office. Chase felt that section 3 by itself wouldn't create that effect without further legislation.

[tylertusta]

The same way that Section 3's lifting of the disqualification isn't self executing.

[Martinned]

I would call Trump University and try to get some of my tuition back if I was you.

[tylertusta]

Best you got, eh? Can't provide a substantive reply, so you go straight to insults?

I guess Congress didn't mean what it said when it wrote the word 'Congress' in the 14th Amendment.

[Martinned]

What you're saying is a classic case of "not even wrong". At least Kazinski's comments are intelligible.

[tylertusta]

Having trouble understanding me?

I suggest you reread section 3. Pay attention to the last sentence. Then come back to me when you have something to contribute.

[Martinned]

Muted

[Mr. Bumble]

What a wanker.

[VinniUSMC]

Lol, poor nazi boy martin can't handle a simple rebuttal.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Well he's not a disgraced ex-Marine like you, so at least he's got that going for him!

[VinniUSMC]

Oh no, did I hurt your feelings Jason? Go cry in the corner while you search for your last 2 brain cells.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Bottom line is that if Trump is disqualified, it will be the end of the American Republic as we know it. We'll become like the Soviet Union where palace intrigue selects the one candidate on the ballot.

[Martinned]

As opposed to the marvel of democracy that is everything between the Iowa caucuses and the electoral college?

[Sarcastr0]

At least no machine guns this time.

[SimonP]

If Trump is disqualified, then the Republicans will have ample opportunity to demonstrate their respect for the rule of law by nominating a different candidate, who will then compete with Biden for the presidency. People will vote in a free and fair election, those votes will be tallied, and whoever wins - which could very easily be the Republican candidate - will be inaugurated as president.

If you don't like it - well, maybe you shouldn't have supported the guy who would pull an insurrection in order to try to keep his hold on power, after having lost an election.

(The same would go if, say, Biden were to suddenly pull out of the election or die. Democrats would likely try to game for more time to get their candidate out there and in front of voters. The system likely wouldn't let them. Republicans will say - that's your fault for going all-in on the old guy! And it would, unfortunately for us, be true.)

[VinniUSMC]

Simple Simon, if Leftist shits like you aren't going to respect the rule of law, why should Republicans who support Trump, or anyone else for that matter?

supported the guy who would pull an insurrection

Yadda yadda, says the lefty shit while supporting banana republic kangaroo courts, and authoritarian Leftist Democraps.

[SimonP]

I'm willing to abide by however the majority-conservative Supreme Court rules on Trump's disqualification. If he's permitted to run, so be it. And I would expect most Democratic politicians to act similarly.

I, and they, respect the rule of law.

It's Trump and his supporters here promising chaos if he doesn't get his way, even before a Court he stacked in his favor. He, they, and you, don't give a shit about the rule of law, and probably don't have a concrete sense of what it means.

[Sarcastr0]

A lot of the left is pretty pissed off to this day about Bush v. Gore.

Not a lot of threats of violence before or after that ruling, though.

Notable distinction, that.

[Randal]

Anyway, do your worst, Vinni. We'll just keep on following the law and putting more and more of you in jail.

[VinniUSMC]

What worst? Why would I go to jail? For denying that an insurrection happened and calling out your authoritarian tendencies? Seems rather... authoritarian of you.

[Randal]

Why should Republicans who support Trump respect the rule of law?

That worst. Lawbreakers gonna pay!

[Life of Brian]

Oh, great! Since you’re sooooo concerned about the rule of law, that must mean you’ll first be jailing all the lefties Vinni mentioned. Can’t wait!

[Sarcastr0]

LoB so concerned about the rule of law he forgot due process.

[Life of Brian]

You'll have to ask Randal about his vision for that. I'm just looking forward to getting some even-handed law and order back in this country. It'll be such a breath of fresh air!

[David Nieporent]

Congress wrote the word 'Congress' in A14S3, but only with respect to reinstatement. What does that have to do with disqualification requiring Congressional action?

[not guilty]

As I understand the argument, it is that § 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment requires Congressional action in order to make § 3 operative.

That argument would get more traction if § 5 read, the Congress shall have the exclusive power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article. Of course it doesn't say that.

When the drafters of the Constitution intended to divest states of power to act, they knew what language to employ. Take a look at Article I, § 10, where every paragraph begins with the language "No state shall . . ."

[Brett Bellmore]

It's been argued in these threads that when a non-exclusive power is granted congress, congress is granted "power to", but in the 14th amendment it is granted "the power to". Treating said power as a unitary object rather than a mass noun.

Grammatically, it does normally work that way.

Let's say you have a wad of bills in your hand. You're told to "give him money". You could just peel one off and be good.

If you're told to "give him the money", it's the whole roll of bills being referred to.

[bernard11]

"Brett Bellmore has the power to go to the grocery store and buy food for his barbecue."

Could your wife go instead?

A wad of bills can be subdivided, but there's no such thing as "a tenth of the power," (unless you are talking about physics.)

[David Nieporent]

It’s been argued in these threads

…by Kazinski, who is not a lawyer and cited no authority whatsoever for his claim, and had to immediately backtrack when people pointed out the 16th amendment violates his notion.

[Kazinski]

Don't be obtuse Dave, Section 5 says "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article."

[Kazinski]

No Dave I did not Backtrack, I merely pointed out that the 16th Amendment only grants the power to tax incomes to Congress.

The States get their power to tax incomes independently from their own constitutions, not from the US Constitution.

If you don't understand that concept, look up dual sovereignty.

[Randal]

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors

Is it your contention that 14/5 imposed a new constraint on the Electors Appointment Clause? And that Congress can undo that constraint with appropriate legislation?

[OtisAH]

That’s it, I’m convinced this is all part of a humiliation fetish.

[Randal]

Ha. That explains Bellmore too, better than any other explanation I've heard.

[not guilty]

Well, don't discount the Dunning-Kruger effect.

[Kazinski]

So much so that I will predict here and now, that when the Supreme Court rules that they will rule Trump must be placed on the ballot and will rule on Section 5 grounds.

Although its possible that they will also rule on the officers question, this court will likely want to leave an opening for Congress to weigh in, as unlikely as Congressional action is.

Go ahead Otis, get your freak on and make your own prediction, we will know who was right in about a month.

[Randal]

Wait wait wait. You're cheating.

Will you bet that they'll rule specifically that the Insurrection Act is enabling legislation requiring a criminal conviction to effect 14/3 disqualification?

(I too think they might rule on Section 5 grounds... and that there is no enabling legislation.)

[Kazinski]

No I won’t bet that they will specifically rule on the insurrection act requiring a conviction. You should be aware the Roberts court likes to rule on grounds as narrowly as possible. And I have no idea who will write the decision, will it be the Chief, Goresuch with a purely textual argument based on the officer question, Thomas making a Section 5 argument, Alito saying Jan. 6th wasn’t an insurrection, Kavenaugh saying while it might have been an insurrection Trump was acquitted by the Senate, a per curium decision, a 3 vote decision on Section 5 questions, Alito concurring on the judgement but not oining the opinion and writing separately, and Thomas doing the same on other grounds.

Its like betting on Baltimore by a touchdown and my bookie claiming I lost the bet by not calling for Jackson running it in from the 6 on 2nd down in the 4th qtr.

They might just rule that Section 3 is not self enforcing, and leave it that and vacate the decision without further reasoning, but I think that would also be a win for my argument.

[OtisAH]

I also think he’ll be on the ballot. That changes nothing wrt you or your humiliation fetish.

[santamonica811]

For those of us who follow the VC and who are also sports fans. Really competitive playoff game on Sunday. But, with apologies for stealing from Whittier:

For of all sad words of tongue or pen, For Buffalo, it’s: “Wide Right. Again!!!”

[Kazinski]

Which is why they should have gone for it, even on 4th and 9.

Tying the game and giving Mahomes the ball back with 1:47 left is hardly a winning strategy when he only needs a field goal to win.

[Josh R]

Does anyone have the win probabilities of kicking the field goal versus going for it?

[Kazinski]

According to ESPN, the win probability for KC was about 70% before the FG attempt, and 99% after the miss.

I'm guessing even if Buffalo tied the game with the FG that KC would have about a 65% chance to win. After all they'd have the ball, 1:47 on the clock, KC was averaging 9yds per pass attempt, 6 yards per rush, and they still had a few timeouts, needed only a FG to win, and if they don't get it they go into overtime with a 50% chance.

[Josh R]

That sounds about right. Bass was 26/30 from that distance before this attempt. With that probability of making, KC would have a win probability of about 65% after a successful FG (26/30*65% + 4/30*99%) = about 70%.

But, what is the win probability if Buffalo goes for it. It was 4th and 9 and I suspect the probability of making the first down isn't too good. And then, you have to score after that to at least tie the game.

In fact, given the above win probability calculation worked, it seems like ESPN's 70% figure assumed the FG attempt was the right call.

[Commenter_XY]

The FG attempt was the right call. Better odds of making the kick than making 4th and 9.

[Josh R]

That's not sufficient to establish the FG is better because if you make the first down, you can score a touchdown. That being said, I think it very likely the FG try was the right call.

[Commenter_XY]

Dude, it's math. Probability and stats? Remember way back when? 🙂

[Josh R]

Kazinksi and I have presented the math.

[Kazinski]

Its not a question of just making the kick or making the first down, obviously the kick was the higher probability.

But it's not impossible to roughly figure out the full scenario percentages.

4th and 9 first down percentage chances is 29.6
Buffalo redzone TD% is 63%, since a first down gets them to the 17 that sounds about right.
And if they score a TD, I'd estimate a 95% of winning giving them a total chance of 18% to win by going for it.

Kicking the FG is 70%
Keeping KC from scoring a FG or TD with 1:47 left is hard to figure, but lets give it 50% and that is generous
Then they get to OT and have a 50% chance of winning.

Which computes out to 17.5%, and if you give KC a higher chance of scoring with that much time left, the odds go down further.

[Josh R]

Kicking a FG is not 70% (Bass makes that FG about 85% of the time). The 70% figure was KC's win probability before the decision to kick or not (Buffalo had a 30% chance to win, which only makes sense if they try the FG).

[Kazinski]

Actually Bass was 4-6 this season from 40-49, if you use that then Its ~16%, if you use 80% its 20% chance of winning. But the biggest uncertainty is the odds of keeping KC from scoring.

[Josh R]

How do you think ESPN came up with 70%? There is no way KC's number could be that low if Buffalo goes for it. You can only get there if they try the FG and succeed 85% of the time (Bass's career mark).

[Stella Link the dog]

[Kazinski]

One other brief I read in Trump v Anderson that had something I hadn't seen before in the now tiresome "officer of the United States" controversy is that the Supreme Court has already ruled on that Subject in 1880 in US v Smith:

"An officer of the United States can only be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, or by a court of law or the head of a department. A person in the service of the government who does not derive his position from one of these sources is not an officer of the United States in the sense of the Constitution. "
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/124/525/

That's pretty notable because its a ruling of the Supreme Court, the two sentences are pretty plain in their meaning. And its relatively recently after the enactment of the 14th Amendment.

I'd prefer SCOTUS rule on Section 5 grounds, but they can put 2 nails in the coffin.

[Martinned]

For the avoidance of doubt, the issue in that case was whether clerks of the collector of customs for the collection district of the City of New York, appointed by the collector of customs, with the approbation of the Secretary of the Treasury were "public officers" in the sense of § 3639 of the Revised Statutes as it existed at the time. So I'd venture that that hardly settles anything about the President and the constitution.

[Kazinski]

Well we know the current court would rule on the question as narrowly as possible.

But the court in 1880 did not, they made a broad pronouncement of the rule, then applied that rule to the specific facts in front of them. And that broad rule isn't dicta because it provides the basis for deciding the question.

[Martinned]

It isn't obiter dicta, it's distinguishable.

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

[John F. Carr]

A doctor has sued everybody in sight alleging that selling pulse oximeters in California is an unfair business practice. This follows a well timed 2020 paper claiming that results depend on skin color. Manufacturers shouldn't have sold the devices in California without warning people not to use them.

At first this struck me as frivolous. If the FDA says the labeling must warn that the Moon is made of green cheese, then nobody can sue claiming that the cheese is really grey. Turns out there might be a loophole big enough for a lawyer to fit through.

A Nature article (below) notes that medical devices subject to fast track 510(k) approval may not have as much legal protection as devices that have been evaluated by the FDA for safety and efficacy. Under the fast track process you don't need to prove your drug or device works. You only need to prove that your new drug or device works as well as a drug or device already on the market. For example, aspirin, phenylephrine, and x-ray machines were on the market before the FDA got authority to regulate them. In fact aspirin is bad for you, phenylephrine doesn't work, and x-ray machines give you cancer. But they are all grandfathered. When I worked for a medical device company the total cost of our project was less than it would have cost just to get our device approved under business as usual rules.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00089-6

The state court complaint is linked from the article.

[Mr. Bumble]

"In fact aspirin is bad for you, phenylephrine doesn’t work, and x-ray machines give you cancer."

Excessive use of aspirin may be harmful (true of many things) but it works just fine, as intended for most people. Yes, phenylephrine doesn't work as a decongestant when taken orally but has other uses. How many x-rays would be needed to cause cancer? Would it be better if doctors worked blind?

[John F. Carr]

New drug applications propose not only chemical compounds but also use and labeling. Aspirin and phenylephrine probably could not be approved in their commonly encountered package.
Aspirin can harm the stomach and thin blood and these side effects might require it to be available by prescription only.
Phenylephrine doesn't work in the pill form you buy it today. It is said to work as a spray.

There was a form of x-ray guided thoracic surgery with a real chance of a life-threatening dose of radiation if the surgery took too long. I say "was" because I hope modern technology is better. I heard about it in the 1990s.

[Brett Bellmore]

Back in 2010 I underwent a CT guided biopsy of a tumor sitting in my aortic arch. Stuck a needle into my chest, took a CT scan to confirm how it was pointed, drove it in a bit further, rinse and repeat until it was in the tumor. Got enough CT scans in one day to significantly increase my lifetime risk of cancer. About a dozen, all told.

But since it helped cure a bad lymphoma, and missing by as much as an inch might have killed me, the tradeoff was worth it.

So, yeah, the modern technology isn't that much better, they still have to irradiate you half to death for some procedures.

[Dr. Ed 2]

They are lowering the dosages on the equipment.
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20130531/Mayo-Clinic-experts-provide-some-insight-about-radiation-dose-from-CT-imaging.aspx

[Davedave]

FFS. Every medical procedure carries an element of risk. The only question doctors have to deal with (in this context) is whether the chances of the patient benefiting outweigh the risks. Obviously x-ray-guided surgery - or some other such very-high-risk procedure - would only be contemplated in cases where the alternative is even higher risk.

[Michael P]

Does either that Nature article or the complaint explain why fast-track approval should affect the preemption argument (that state law cannot supercede the FDA's approval and requirements within the scope of the latter)?

[John F. Carr]

The article cites Medtronic, Inc. v. Lohr, 518 U.S. 470 (1996) and Riegel v. Medtronic, Inc., 552 U.S. 312 (2008). I have not yet studied those cases.

"Two federal cases brought before the US Supreme Court — both against Medtronic, one in 1996 and one in 2007 — ended with rulings suggesting that devices approved through the 510(k) pathway are not as well protected as some might think, [Harvard professor Carmel] Shachar says."

[John F. Carr]

Every time I read the Eugene Volokh's query "What's on your mind?" I think of Dan Quayle. "What a waste it is to lose one's mind, or not to have a mind." Dan Quayle turns 77 in 2 weeks.

[Mr. Bumble]

See link for classic SNL:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shkJfRpktGc

[Randal]

I like how one of the Senators was a Senator.

[Bwaaah]

The popular line in a bunch of commercials for the United Negro College Fund ended with, "A mind is a terrible thing to waste."

Dan Quayle, in a failed attempt to grok the line, mangled it.

"What a waste it is to lose one's mind. Or not to have a mind is being very wasteful. How true that is."

[Frank Drackman]

"A Mind is a terrible thing, too wasted" (HT Cheech Marini)

[Bwaaah]

It can be a worse thing, if not at all wasted.

[Reallynotbob]

You're saying Quayle is younger than both of the (likely) current presidential candidates?

[Nelson]

Damn. That really drives it home, doesn't it?

[Martinned]

This is an interesting issue that I wouldn't necessarily know how to answer in other countries:

The Spanish Supreme Court has established that the views expressed by UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies in individual complaints are binding on the State.

https://www.ejiltalk.org/spains-supreme-court-is-at-it-again-un-treaty-body-decisions-are-binding/

In Van Parys v. Belgisch Interventie- en Restitutiebureau (2005), the Grand Chamber of the ECJ held that decisions by the WTO's Dispute Settlement Mechanism did not have direct effect in the EU legal order. I always thought that the reasoning in that case was not very strong. (The court basically said that giving WTO rulings direct effect would weaken the EU's bargaining position within the WTO, which may or may not be right, but hardly settles the legal question.)

Obviously, as the blog post notes, judgments from the European Court for Human Rights have direct effect in all states that signed up to the Convention, and there is good reason to believe that a decision by, say, the UK to end this would violate art. 13 of the Convention (right to an effective remedy).

But the more the Treaty Body in question moves away from being a court, the less obvious it seems to give its decisions direct effect. So yes for the UNCLOS tribunal, but no for the Human Rights Council. But that's more of an intuition than something that is easy to reconcile with domestic constitutional provisions. (Other than the fairly circular "this body is so different from a proper court that the State can never have intended, when ratifying the treaty, for its decisions to have binding effects domestically".)

[John F. Carr]

There is an apparently official English translation of the constitution of Spain at https://www.boe.es/legislacion/documentos/ConstitucionINGLES.pdf.

The important provisions are articles 93 through 96. The court has construed these to place treaties above statutes, unlike in the United States where they are equal. Legislative approval is required for "treaties or agreements which imply financial liabilities for the Public Treasury". The court has determined there is a cause of action for money damages against the state based on a treaty.

The article notes that treaties such as the one applied in Spain have poor compliance rates, based on a doctoral student's research summarized at https://www.openglobalrights.org/compliance-UN-treaty-body-decisions/

[Stephen Lathrop]

In the U.S., is the Constitution above a statute, or equal to it?

[Bwaaah]

Interesting question for know-little me. It seems that the Constitution is superior to statutes, in the simple notion that no unconstitutional element of a statute can [theoretically] stand. But if I understand your implication: though treaties may be treated equal to statutes, they still remain subordinate to the Constitution.

Did I get any of that right?

[Krayt]

Or can treaties give the feds a new power to override state laws, when the Constitution doesn't specifically give them that power?

https://www.radiolab.org/podcast/sex-ducks-and-founding-feud

[Martinned]

The Constitution specifically gives Congress the power to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the Treaty Making Power.

[Kazinski]

But they treaties cannot expand Congress's powers under the Constitution.

Medellin vs Texas ruled that Congress signing a treaty doesn't override domestic law. And if Congress passes a law implementing a treaty it has to be within Congress delegated powers.

For instance Congress can't ratify a treaty outlawing civilian ownership of guns, then pass legislation enforcing the treaty.

[David Nieporent]

The Supreme Court disagrees with you. To be clear, treaties are subordinate to the constitution so they can't give powers to Congress that the constitution forbids to Congress. (That's your gun example.) But indeed treaties can expand the powers of Congress. See Missouri v. Holland.

[David Nieporent]

In the U.S., is the Constitution above a statute, or equal to it?

Above. Otherwise a statute couldn’t be struck down as unconstitutional.

EDIT: And yes, I know this is Blackmanbait, as he hates the "struck down" formulation.

[Martinned]

Sure, treaties go above statutes in the Netherlands too. But that doesn't answer the question of whether an interpretation given by some treaty body (or person) of that treaty has binding effect domestically. The UN has a lot of special rapporteurs whose interpretation of international law I'd definitely not want to give direct effect to.

[myself]

The court has construed these to place treaties above statutes, unlike in the United States where they are equal.

Seems like Spain has it right.

A treaty is the government agreeing to an action, and as long as the treaty isn't repealed the government has agreed to that course of action.

[Stephen Lathrop]

My impression is that public discussion has broadened and firmed a consensus that Trump's activity related to the 1/6 Capitol attack was a coup attempt. To prove the attack was violent would be trivial. If Trump were charged this week with treason for his coup plotting and support of violence, what delays would he have available to prevent conclusion of a trial before Election Day?

[John F. Carr]

Trump's team would not need to work to delay. There are four criminal cases already waiting in line. There is a real chance that none of the current federal charges and Georgia state charges will have a jury verdict by November.

[Armchair]

Well, your impression is wrong.

[Michael P]

These words do not mean what you think they mean: "consensus", "coup", "treason", "support". To answer your question, he wouldn't delay. He would seek, and rightfully get, a dismissal of the charge on the merits.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Michael P, suppose hypothetically that all the other charges against Trump were dropped, and replaced instead with a treason charge. You are confident Trump could win an immediate dismissal. I do not have legal knowledge sufficient to critique that claim. But I would prefer for its deterrent effect a treason charge—even a dismissed treason charge—to an increasingly-likely-looking scenario where all the other charges remain pending on Election Day.

Would you join me in that case, and demand an immediate treason charge for Trump? To get him off the hook, as you apparently see it?

[Brett Bellmore]

Treason is, famously, the only crime whose dimensions and standard of proof are constitutionally defined.

"Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."

He's not going to confess, we're not at war, and what overt act did you have in mind?

Treason is so hard to convict on, that they don't bring treason charges even when a soldier defects to the enemy on the battlefield. They're not going to bring treason charges against Trump.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Belmore, read your quote. The standard is not, “at war,” the standard is to, “levy war.” By standards set forth in precedents which I cited to you previously, and presume you did read, Trump did that.

You argue as if you disagree. I doubt whether your disagreement is fully forthcoming. Hence my question, if Trump could get all other charges dropped, and stand trial instead on a treason charge with a trial to end before Election Day, do you back that?

If you sincerely suppose that is a sure route to acquittal, there is no reason why you would not. I will await your reply.

Thus far, Carr, Armchair, Michael P, and VinniUSMC, have not answered the challenge to reply. If they continue without answer, I will take that to mean they worry that Trump could be convicted of treason. Given their partisanship, I think they are right to worry. I expect Trump would be convicted. How about you, Bellmore?

[Michael P]

Brett's explanation is entirely correct. Add "levy[ing] war" to the list of words you don't know the meaning of.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/article-3/section-3/clause-1/levying-war-as-treason

[Davedave]

Your source confirms that Trump's pathetic attempt at a coup was unquestionably treason.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Michael P, as DaveDave has already mentioned, the decision mentioned by your source (Ex parte Bollman) is the very one I relied upon. Unfortunately the Cornell source cited from that decision only a tiny bit of the voluminous definition Chief Justice Marshall set down. That bit left you perversely convinced that your uninformed conclusion had been reinforced. You will apparently have to read the entire decision to be disabused—which anyone who read it would be.

Or perhaps I am merely feeding a sea lion. I notice that despite pretending certainty, you have still declined to answer the question whether it would make sense to charge Trump with treason as a means to get him out of the trouble you insist he is not in.

[Michael P]

That's a lot of words to concede that your don't actually have a viable theory of treason in this case.

[Michael P]

And…

whether it would make sense to charge Trump with treason as a means to get him out of the trouble you insist he is not in.

Your theory is that somebody would charge Trump with treason on the theory that it would get him OUT of trouble? Pray tell, how do you think that would work? Who would be filing the charges, and what would be the theory that it supercedes any of the existing indictments? The teams that are already prosecuting him decided to bring the charges they did rather than treason charges, and some new team could not file charges that would replace those existing prosecutions.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Do you regard your comment as obfuscation, or as acknowledgment that Trump could well be convicted of treason if charged"

[Michael P]

No, I'm just pointing out that your theory is incoherent from soup to nuts.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Michael P, it is now 10 hours since I put the question to you, with multiple comments by you along the way. Still no answer to the question. I am putting you down as a right-winger who believes Trump would risk conviction for treason if he were tried for it—which means I give you credit for good judgment.

[Michael P]

Lathrop, I will remind you of your original question:

If Trump were charged this week with treason for his coup plotting and support of violence, what delays would he have available to prevent conclusion of a trial before Election Day?

It’s a thoroughly stupid question, especially compounded with your further speculation that perhaps “it would make sense to charge Trump with treason as a means to get him out of the trouble you insist he is not in.”

As even David Nieporent told you, and I mentioned above, there is no remotely plausible path for Trump to get new charges this week. No trial on such new charges would normally conclude before November, even absent efforts by a defendant to delay the trial. Those charges would not “get him out of” his other trials, or plausibly affect their schedules. And as both Brett and I told you, there's no way Trump would be convicted on treason charges. Your comments have been directly answered, but you’re too addled to understand.

[David Nieporent]

He would seek, but would rightfully not get, a dismissal of the charge on the merits. That's not how criminal prosecutions work. He would, however, seek dismissal of the charge on all sorts of procedural bullshit grounds like he's been doing with all the current prosecutions, and those — combined with, inter alia, CIPA — would take this beyond the election.

[Davedave]

I think you underestimate just how craven Trump is. When faced with the death penalty, he'll plead guilty to avoid it. Which is why the charges should have been brought a long time ago, and this farce ended.

[EscherEnigma]

... are you ignorant of the multiple on-going cases against him, where he has sought dismissal of chrages (often multiple times) and not gotten them, and has in fact sought multiple delays, over and over again?

Before he entered politics, Trump was notorious in New York for dragging out cases until his opponents could no longer afford to pay their lawyers, even in cases where he was obviously in the wrong (see the many cases of him stiffing contractors). Why would you conclude he forgot this tactic now, even though he never stopped using it while president, and has continuously used it in the four years since?

Why would you try to convince me he's that much of an idiot, and has forgotten one of his favorite legal strategies?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Consensus my arse -- the building would no longer be standing had that been a real coup attempt.

This is nothing more than a big lie oft repeated.

[Davedave]

Trump is nothing if not incompetent.

[VinniUSMC]

My impression is that public discussion has broadened and firmed a consensus that Trump’s activity related to the 1/6 Capitol attack was a coup attempt.

My impression is that your bubble is small and echoes a lot.

[David Nieporent]

Conclusion of a trial? There is no "charged this week," since no grand jury has even been convened. Such a hypothetical trial, with the prosecution starting from scratch, would not start before Election Day.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Nieporent, just curious. How can we know there is not a grand jury sitting continuously on this case? I realize I had assumed that, actually, but of course I do not know it, and could be mistaken.

[David Nieporent]

We can't "know" it unless we're working for Jack Smith, but there are no indications of its existence — nobody being called to testify, no subpoenas being issued, etc. — and also that's not the way federal prosecutions work. The documents case and the J6 case were two unrelated incidents, so they were charged in different places and their prosecutions are proceeding separately. But J6 and a hypothetical treason case would both be tried in DC, arising out of the same nucleus of facts, and would not be proceeding piecemeal. If Smith had intended to charge treason, he'd have done it. (Of course, sometimes new facts come to light which require a superseding indictment, but that's not the situation here; you're not suggesting he just suddenly learned facts that justified a treason charge.)

[Commenter_XY]

Wait....what if he did? = (Of course, sometimes new facts come to light which require a superseding indictment, but that’s not the situation here; you’re not suggesting he just suddenly learned facts that justified a treason charge.)

How does a superceding indictment work, in practice?

[David Nieporent]

Not sure what you're asking, so I can't answer it. An indictment is a legal document, formally issued by a grand jury, that sets forth what laws the defendant is alleged to have violated (sometimes very sparsely, setting forth little more than the elements of the offense, sometimes very verbosely — often called a "speaking indictment" — setting forth all sorts of supporting allegations). One can only be prosecuted for the offenses described in the indictment.

So a superseding indictment, exactly as the name implies, is a new document issued by a grand jury setting forth different or additional charges, replacing the original one. There was a superseding indictment in the Florida documents case; it added new charges and also a new defendant.

[SimonP]

It's amusing that so many usual suspects felt the need to chime in to rebut your "impression," when recent polling on this very question is so readily available.

Look it up, Trumptards. You're the ones in the bubble/echo chamber. A majority of Independents disagree with you. A small portion of Republicans disagree with you. And the vast majority of Democrats disagree with you.

[David Nieporent]

Um, look up the definition of 'consensus.' It does not mean 'majority.'

[SimonP]

To the extent that it is meaningful to describe a population of millions of people of having reached a "consensus," at all, then a survey of majority opinion suffices.

But I'm not going to debate the latest in the "David chimes in only to snipe unhelpfully" series. Go masturbate over someone else's image.

[David Nieporent]

The word consensus has a meaning. Majority is not it. Lathrop did not mean a mere majority when he said it.

[SimonP]

Not going to debate it, Chip. Splooge elsewhere.

[Martinned]

Preview of the next Stuart Baker post:

A group of Democratic senators on Thursday demanded that the Justice Department look at how police use facial recognition tools and whether it violates civil rights laws — part of a fresh wave of scrutiny in Washington to a technology that has triggered national concerns but has never come under federal regulations.
The letter, shared exclusively with POLITICO, calls for the Justice Department to explain how the agency’s policies and practices ensure that law enforcement agencies receiving federal funds for facial recognition technology comply with civil rights protections. Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) is the letter’s lead author, joined by Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and 15 other Democrats and one independent.

[Dr. Ed 2]

This will have a BIG impact on Jan 6th....

[Nelson]

Why?

[EscherEnigma]

Probably not.

Barring SCOTUS shenanigans, this will have no retroactive effect on people already identified.

The most favorable scenario would be that such identification cannot be used as evidence in court to place someone at a crime scene, but it can be used to direct an investigation towards likely suspects (meaning that a positive match tells the detective to look into you, but to get a conviction they'll have to use other evidence and can't bring it up).

Could the SCTOUS make it retroactive to help the J6 convicted? Sure. But even this court is hesitant to do things retroactively, and they haven't shown a great deal of sympathy to Trump's supporters.

[Armchair]

American University faces complaint for failure to protect Jewish Students from Antisemitism.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/jan/21/jewish-students-file-complaint-against-american-un/

[Commenter_XY]

I am sure the little pro-Hamas American U antisemitic darlings were busy this weekend at Reagan National, and the Balt-DC Parkway.

I don't think impeding traffic on a highway is protected 1A activity, is it?

[Dr. Ed 2]

A single double-winged snow plow would be quite effective.

The typical double wing plow is actually three plows in one -- a 12 foot plow in front that will clear the entire 12 foot lane, and then a wing plow mounted on each of the door pillars -- it can go down and out to clear an additional lane (12 feet) on each side.

Fill the truck with sand for weight and you can clear all three lanes of the beltway at the same time. And those schmucks are going to have to really want to die for Allah because it's shooting sparks and is quite impressive at night.

Yes, let's wing the body parts over the guardrails for the carrion eaters to enjoy. I don't think you'd have to do it twice.

[Magister]

Dr. Ed 2 introduces a new method of killing people he disagrees with, complete with creepy delight in the imagined details.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Not "disagrees with" but "attempting to overthrow his country."

They don't belong on the highway, they know it is deadly to be there, so firetruck them.

I'm licensed to drive a double wing plow and would gladly do it if so ordered by lawful authorities.

[Stella Link the dog]

"I’m licensed to drive a double wing plow and would gladly do it if so ordered by lawful authorities."

You're a liar -- probably doubly so.

[Magister]

Everybody Dr. Ed 2 disagrees with is trying to "overthrow his country". But he agrees with the people who most prominently did try to overthrow the government, so they get a pass. No authority that ordered anyone to run down protesters with snow plows could be lawful, but Dr. Ed 2's understanding of lawful authority is doubtless as flawed as everything else he advocates.

[Stella Link the dog]

"No authority that ordered anyone to run down protesters with snow plows could be lawful"

This should be obvious to anybody. An order to commit cold blooded murder can't possibly be lawful and not even Mr Ed would comply, Could I be wrong about that? Is Mr Ed, the talking horse's ass, really as cracked as, for example, David Berkowitz?

Perhaps I have been wrong about Mr Ed. Perhaps he is not the liar I assumed.

[Estragon]

“would gladly do it if”

So you’re just waiting for permission? You have to be the most pathetic depraved lunatic on the face of the earth. Don’t be a pussy you fuckin squish. You’re never going to be inducted into meal team 6 with that attitude. Do you think stewie Rhodes asked for permission?

[Michael P]

Reagan National Airport isn't on the Capitol Beltway, which is now mostly (maybe entirely?) 4+ lanes in each direction. It's on the George Washington Memorial Parkway, which is only two lanes in each direction. It's also close to I-395, which is five lanes going towards DC.

[Commenter_XY]

Yeah, I know. I drive it on occasion at odd hours.

[Michael P]

Yes, my criticism was focused on Dr. Ed's assertion that "you can clear all three lanes of the beltway at the same time".

[Dr. Ed 2]

You don't have to deploy both plows -- and often don't on busy muli-lane highways.

The NH DOT only has 18 miles of I-95 (four lanes wide) and most everything else is two or one so they never bought left hand plows. Instead they have a conga line of each plow dumping into the path of the plow just behind it. The only time they'll use a wing plow is for the breakdown lane or to push the banks further back for drainage.

Maine just plows a lane -- either one -- and cars drive in that one.

You're talking details -- I'm talking ability.

[Estragon]

“Fill the truck with sand for weight and you can clear all three lanes of the beltway at the same time. And those schmucks are going to have to really want to die for Allah because it’s shooting sparks and is quite impressive at night.

Yes, let’s wing the body parts over the guardrails for the carrion eaters to enjoy. I don’t think you’d have to do it twice.”

I keep thinking at some point the depravity will no longer shock… not yet. What on earth compels you to post stuff like this?

[Bwaaah]

“I don’t think impeding traffic on a highway is protected 1A activity, is it?”

That depends. Since such protests typically occur in cities, they are typically subject to unwritten Democratic rules. The applicable rule seems to be: if the protestors are advancing an opinion that the Democratic party is advancing, then 1A protection applies. Otherwise, it does not.

[Sarcastr0]

Wank.

[Bwaaah]

Black Live Matter protests in the streets: 1A protected.
Anti-Isreal protests in the streets: not 1A protected.

(at least for NYC)

[Bob from Ohio]

"Otherwise, it does not."

True for a while. FACE Act passed in 1994.

[hobie]

I note that gas prices peaked at $5.02 in June of 2022. All Brandon’s fault. But as of December 2023 they had fallen to $3.26. Down 35%. Again all Brandon’s fault. Rejoice!

[Martinned]

You should fill up your tank here. UK petrol is only £1.40 or so: https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/advice/fuel-watch/

[Mr. Bumble]

Per liter?

[hobie]

Yes, per liter. Martinned is confused

[Martinned]

Of course. What other metric would anyone use to measure volumes of a liquid?

[Mr. Bumble]

An Imperial gallon?

[Martinned]

I would pay good money to see you try to find someone on an average British street who can explain the difference between an Imperial Gallon and a US Gallon in enough detail that they mention which one is bigger.

[Mr. Bumble]

Are they really that math challenged?

[Martinned]

Definitely, even for maths problems that actually matter.

[bernard11]

What does knowing the definition of Imperial and US gallons have to do with being good at math?

[Stella Link the dog]

If a British pint is 20 oz (which it is) and an American pint is 16 oz (which it is, sometimes), what is the difference in volume between an American pint and British pint expressed in ozs to 3 significant digits?

Even more fun: which is larger, a US pint or a US pint?

[Voize]

And the few who know that the Imperial gallon is larger than the American probably don't also know that the US fluid ounce is bigger than the Imperial one.

It's too bad the US stuck with Queen Anne's wine gallon. The Imperial gallon has a useful quality, cribbed from the metric system, that a gallon of water weighs 10 pounds instead of 8.326

[Stella Link the dog]

I just looked it up. An imperial gallon “is defined as exactly 4.54609 dm3 (4.54609 litres)”. 10 pounds weighs 4.5359237 kg. So, an imperial gallon of water does not weigh 10 pounds. The difference is due to the difference in the density of water at 4 C and 16.7 C.

[Voize]

Stella, the imperial gallon was indeed defined in 1824 as 10 pounds of water at 62 degrees Fahrenheit. They copied the idea from the metric system, not the temperature.

Of course they ruined it all in 1963 with "fine tuning" that introduced a discrepancy of almost one part in a thousand. Such a travesty.

[Stella Link the dog]

" Such a travesty."
Innit.

[Bob from Ohio]

"What other metric would anyone use to measure volumes of a liquid?"

Two types of countries, those that have had men walk on the moon and those who use the metric system for everything.

[Davedave]

NASA, of course, used the metric system to put men on the moon. But hey, at least you aren't claiming it was a hoax.

[Stella Link the dog]

Even NASA can screw up because of US units.

"The Mars Climate Orbiter[...] The navigation team at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) used the metric system of millimeters and meters in its calculations, while Lockheed Martin Astronautics in Denver, Colorado, which designed and built the spacecraft, provided crucial acceleration data in the English system of inches, feet, and pounds. JPL engineers did not take into consideration that the units had been converted ..."

[Davedave]

NASA didn't screw up there. Their contractor did.

[Stella Link the dog]

“NASA didn’t screw up there. Their contractor did.”

Sure, the buck stops with the contractor.

Those who approved the contract had the responsibility to specify how the ” crucial acceleration data” would be presented.

Those who implemented the information provided by Lockheed had the repsponsibility to verify that the data met contract specifications.

NASA fucked up.

Note that providing data in "English" units is not the only way something like this can get fucked up. It is common among people using the "metric" system to use kilograms as a unit of force and, therefore, kg/m2 as a unit of pressure. Shit like this needs to be watched out for.

[Bob from Ohio]

"NASA, of course, used the metric system"

Our Germans needed it

[Stella Link the dog]

Damn, you made a joke. How did that happen?

[bernard11]

OK, Bob. That's a good one.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Of course you're contrarian about the metric system too.

[Bob from Ohio]

I am completely within the US mainstream on the metric system.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Well except for the places measuring things actually matter like science, medicine, engineering, and fine spirits.

[Stella Link the dog]

How about aviation?

[Noscitur a sociis]

Bob did go out of his way to say “use the metric system for everything.” That is at least consistent with the actual American mainstream (which is also objectively correct take): use the metric system in technical or scientific fields, where it’s best suited, and use customary units for everyday purposes, where they’re best.

[LawTalkingGuy]

“use customary units for everyday purposes, where they’re best”

They’re only best for us because of familiarity and tradition. It’s actually very silly to learn metric and U.S. customary and if we were raised with just metric we’d think it’s just fine.

[Stella Link the dog]

[David Nieporent]

They’re only best for us because of familiarity and tradition. It’s actually very silly to learn metric and U.S. customary and if we were raised with just metric we’d think it’s just fine.

Metric is better for some purposes, but Fahrenheit makes a lot more sense than Celsius for everyday use.

[Stella Link the dog]

"Metric is better for some purposes, but Fahrenheit makes a lot more sense than Celsius for everyday use."

I like Fahrenheit as much as the next guy and all that, but the rest of the world seems to get by with the everyday use of Celsius. It can't be that bad.

One of my favorite unit fubars: in aviation, altitude is measered in ft and temperature is often (particulary outside the US) given in Celsius. This results in lapse rate charts in degrees C vs altitude in ft.

[Voize]

In Russian aviation they used to use feet for high altitudes ("flight levels") and meters for low ones, but about 10 years ago switched to feet in all cases.

[hobie]

So you are basically paying $7.00 for the same amount of gas, we're paying $3.25 for. But the real question, Martinned, is this: Did Brandon cause your ridiculously high gas prices? Because he apparently controls global energy prices

[Martinned]

I'm sorry, I was talking about petrol. Only very few people in the UK put LPG in their cars. And the petrol prices are way down compared to where they were a year or so ago.

https://www.racfoundation.org/data/uk-pump-prices-over-time

[VinniUSMC]

LPG? Are you that dense?

1.4 per liter of "petrol".
3.25 per gallon of gasoline.

There are 3.74 liters per gallon. 1.4 x 3.74 = 5.236 per gallon.
Or, there are 4.55 liters per imperial gallon. 1.4 x 4.55 = 6.37 per imperial gallon.

It's not that hard.

[Stella Link the dog]

"It’s not that hard."
No, it's not that hard. "Only very few people in the UK put [gas] in their cars."

[VinniUSMC]

Why are you here to try to explain martin's dumb joke? Is martin going to give you treats?

[Stella Link the dog]

Obviously I'm explaining it to you for your benefit as your specific gravity is obviously too high for you to get it on your own.

[VinniUSMC]

Good boy. Go fetch.

[Bwaaah]

“You should fill up your tank here. UK petrol is only £1.40 or so”

I hear you can get a milliliter of petrol for much less than that here in the U.S.

(That's why I avoid gasoline here.)

[Frank Drackman]

Brandon depleting the Strategic Petroleum Reserve

[Stella Link the dog]

Current US oil production at an all time high.

The strategic reserve is about 55-60% of its high. Do you consider this to be inadequate?

[Mr. Bumble]

Yes, inadequate. Given the state of the world today it should be at 100% and in the future used as was originally intended; for emergencies.

[Stella Link the dog]

Current reserves are about 20 days of supply. 100% would be maybe 30 to 40 days of supply. BFD.

Anyway, current us production exceeds current US usage.

There may be a good case to be made for worrying about the current level of the reserve, but I've seen nobody make it. And when it comes to making a case for anything, Bumbleberry, you won't be the one to make it.

[Bwaaah]

My theory is that the reserve capacity is sized with the assumption that it's kept at [near] 100% during non-special-need periods. That's the purpose of a reserve: to be available at a time of need. However much you let the reserve drop constitutes some theoretical reduction in the resilience that the reserve capacity is intended to supply.

Why would you let the SPR drop substantially below its capacity? When would you think it an appropriate time to get the reserve back to its target capacity, if ever?

Now, when production exceeds demand, would be an ideal time to replenish the reserve to its full capacity. Not doing that, it seems to me, would have to be predicated on a belief that the reserve capacity is excessive, and should be downsized.

What percentage of our reserve capacity, if not near 100%, do you think we should be maintaining, and why do you discount (to zero?) the value of that avoided reserve?

[bernard11]

My theory is that the reserve capacity is sized with the assumption that it’s kept at [near] 100% during non-special-need periods. That’s the purpose of a reserve: to be available at a time of need. However much you let the reserve drop constitutes some theoretical reduction in the resilience that the reserve capacity is intended to supply.

I'm not sure I buy your theory. Why is 40 days' supply the number? Are we expecting a flood or something?

I mean, it might be based on some scenarios regarding Middle East shutoffs or whatever, but I'd like to know what the basis really is.

[Commenter_XY]

The speed to uncap 'capped' wells < 40 days

The SPR was originally created to handle 90-180 days of use.

[Absaroka]

If, for example, you take FEMA's advice to have some water jugs stored in case of an earthquake or whatever, why would you keep them half full?

[bernard11]

If, for example, you take FEMA’s advice to have some water jugs stored in case of an earthquake or whatever, why would you keep them half full?

Well, I wouldn't, but I'd be curious to know the logic behind a recommendation to keep, say, twenty jugs rather than ten, or thirty.

[Absaroka]

I was interested enough to check the wiki page and found:

"the United States became a signatory to the Agreement on an International Energy Program (IEP) and a founding member of the International Energy Agency that the IEP established. One of the key commitments made by the treaty's signatories is to maintain oil stocks of no less than 90 days of net imports."

I doubt that 90 days is anything more than a round number; it's not like some carefully considered process decided the optimum number is 89.746455 and they rounded. I'm surprised it isn't 100 days. If I'm reading the wiki page, the amount currently stored is about a month's worth.

You can come up with a hard number: 'my disability insurance starts to pay after 180 days, so I want an emergency fund to cover six month's expenses'. Or you can do it the way we sized out emergency water supply: 'we could put water jugs in the back of the closet under the stairs ... how many will fit'?

But here is the sad part from the article: "Since 2015, Congress has been selling the oil in the reserve to fund the deficit, in unpublicized sales.".

You go to the expense of building the storage capacity. And you do a reasonably good job of filling it when oil prices are down. And the %^&**()(!% spendthrifts in congress can't keep their hands off, even in the relatively healthy economy of 2015. It takes a congress critter to spend the money to build the facility, then leave it half empty.

[Brett Bellmore]

But they didn’t “leave” it half empty, that would be mere negligence.

They filled it and then started emptying it again for non-emergency purposes.

This is how people with no spending restraint act. You don’t make the payments on your visa card by borrowing from Mastercard while taking expensive vacations, AND maintain an emergency fund.

But, I must point out something: The real draw-down of the reserve didn’t begin until Biden took office. It was basically full in 2010, about 720 million barrels. By the end of 2020 it had gradually been drawn down to 638 million barrels.

It’s now down to 356 million barrels. Biden was responsible for almost the entire drawdown, in just the first two years of his administration.

But that's what it looks like in the end game before a crash. In just the last few years we've increased the national debt by about a third, too.

[Martinned]

It's almost as if something happened since Biden took office that affected the world's supply of oil.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's almost like that dip was over by the time Biden became President, and he half emptied the reserve anyway.

[Life of Brian]

It’s almost as if something happened since Biden took office that affected the world’s supply of oil.

It's almost as if Trump specifically reacted to that situation by immediately directing DOE to add another 77 million barrels to the SPR, but then the Democratic-controlled Congress blocked it.

[Bwaaah]

FYI: I estimate the SPR to have a total capacity value of around $50 billion. (700 million barrels at $75 per barrel.)

(Just for total dollar value context. That's not much compared to a $6+ trillion annual federal budget.)

[Life of Brian]

And the really sick thing is the early 2020, 77-million barrel topoff would have been at less than $25 a barrel. I suppose we're just supposed to think of the additional ~$4B required to do that at today's prices as a rounding error these days.

[Bwaaah]

They've recently started describing the federal budget as only $1.5 trillion, the "discretionary" part, not even bothering to include the additional $5 trillion because, hey, you can't do anything about it, so you might as well not think about it. Right?

[Nige]

Its inadequate because of the sheer volume of oil consumed by the US, it’s sucking oil in from all over the world which still can’t keep up with US demand for the planet-burning stuff. The US won’t have energy security until it finds ways to massively reduce consumption, which would also have all sorts of health and environmental benefits.

[Stella Link the dog]

Current US oil production exceeds current consumption.

[Nige]

Still importing over 200,000 barrels a year.

[Brett Bellmore]

Still a net exporter, dipshit. We have a lot of refineries, we import foreign petroleum and export finished products like lubricating oil.

[Nige]

And yet you still feel terrifyingly insecure about your supply of world-burning fuels.

[hobie]

Columbus, Ohio - like other cities across the country - recently banned menthol cigarettes. They said it disproportionally targeted blacks and children. Basically what this says to me is that blacks are no better than children and are easily taken advantage of so the state needs to protect them from their bad choices...like children.

I recently moved from Texas to the black inner city of Cleveland. And blacks here do indeed prefer menthol cigarettes. Not because of predatory advertising...which has been banned for decades...but simply because of historical preference and taste.

Then this week I recalled that as a child in Texas we were awash in menthol/minty chewing tobacco and snuff. Adults - white adults - preferred them immensely and often gave us kids pouches to suck on. Where's the laws taking away menthol tobacco from helpless white rednecks? Why ain't they victims all the same? Or are any of you prepared to acknowledge that we still live in a racially unequal society?

[Krayt]

In a battle between any two democratic factions, the suing lawyers always win.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Will a Chevron reversal apply to STATE regulatory authorities?

[Martinned]

Each state has its own administrative law, although in practice they will typically align pretty closely with federal administrative law.

[David Nieporent]

No. This has been yet another episode of Simple Answers to Stupid Questions.

[Martinned]

As of Saturday:

It’s the 20th day of the year.

So far there have been 2,106 victims of gun violence, 16 mass shootings, and 77 children killed.

Just because gun violence isn’t the lead story of the day, doesn’t mean it’s not still a crisis that needs our immediate attention.

https://bsky.app/profile/darrigomelanie.bsky.social/post/3kjg6isl2ug2w

[Mr. Bumble]

Link leads me to a blank page.

[Martinned]

I have Bluesky invite codes if you need them.

[Mr. Bumble]

Thanks, but I'll pass. I am curious as to their source of this information and the definitions used.

[Martinned]

Looks like they used this source: https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/

[Bwaaah]

It looks like a pretty good source. It lists each shooting with details and link(s) to its source(s), which tend to be local news stories and PD/ME releases. And they even separate suicides from homicides, which represent about 62% of all gun homicides.

Democrats, like Joe Biden and Martinned, like to include the suicides in their stats without saying so. So when Martinned said "So far there have been 2,106 victims of gun violence," only 786 were cases of someone shooting someone else. 1452 were suicides.

[Nige]

Shooting yourself isn't gun violence?

[Martinned]

Keep your American political tribalism to yourself. Just because I think Trump should never be allowed near any position of power, and that insanity in gun control, as everywhere else, consists of doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results, doesn't mean I'm a Democrat.

(In fact, after a half decade without a formal party affiliation, I signed up to become a member of D66 this month.)

[Bwaaah]

I thought twice about calling you a "Democrat," because I do presume you are not one, technically speaking. But I decided to capture in my language your essence, and not some technical distinction that would suggest you vary substantially from prevailing Democratic thought. Generally speaking, you do not.

[Davedave]

Don't call Martin a democrat. He's more aligned with the lefty-neo-fash niche on most things.

[Bob from Ohio]

D66 stands for Democrats 66 as a singular member he literally is a Democrat.

[Commenter_XY]

Now he is in Damien's party, lol.

[Harvey Mosley]

"Just because I think... that insanity in gun control, as everywhere else, consists of doing the same thing over and over again while expecting different results..."

If you truly believe that then you would never be welcome in the Democratic party.

[Martinned]

My point was that gun control is such a good idea that the US should try it sometimes.

[Brett Bellmore]

We did try it back in the mid 20th century. We didn't like it, and we've been rolling it back ever since.

[Martinned]

The list of 95 new King's Counsel have just been announced. (Confusingly, it's the 2023 list, because it's the list of people who applied in last year's competition.)

https://kcappointments.org/current-competition/

The statistics for successful applicants are as follows;
• The overall success rate was 33.6%; 95 out of a total 283.
• 65 male applicants, 32% success rate
• 30 female applicants, 38% success rate.
• 13 applicants who declared an ethnic origin other than white, 27% success rate
• 8 applicants who declared a disability; 47% success rate
• One solicitor; 14% success rate
• One employed barrister; 14% success rate

[bernard11]

What is a King's Counsel?

[MoreCurious]

Google is your friend here.

[SimonP]

I'm not a big Biden supporter. If there were a respectable primary challenger in the Democratic primaries, I'd give them a strong look, and probably vote for someone other than Biden. I'll admit that his noticeable slowness, when speaking publicly, is a bit embarrassing. I wish that the leader of the party weren't so demonstrably and noticeably old.

But I still will vote for him because, even though the man himself may not be as sharp as he used to be, he tends to appoint smart, experienced people as his advisors and Cabinet members. If he delegates important negotiations and decisions to them, I feel a certain degree of confidence that they'll still do a good (enough) job.

I wonder if people watching Trump degrade in his own public appearances feel similarly. MAGA supporters come to his rallies, it seems, for a glimpse of celebrity and in case he says anything entertaining or fun. I get that; he has that charisma. But it's also true that he tends to ramble into nonsense, carping on about whatever random thing happens to be in mind. MAGA supporters supposedly are drawn to Trump's "strength," but apart from occasionally coherently claiming to be their "retribution," is "strength" really what they see, in that man? Or do they see an elderly man, getting on in years, yelling at clouds? If the way they filter out of his speeches is any indication, I suspect that they see the reality.

But that then makes me wonder: do people support Trump, notwithstanding his mental decline, because they trust that he will appoint a Cabinet and oversee an executive branch that will, nonetheless, pursue his "vision"? If they do, I wonder why they think that. During his first term, his Cabinet was a mix of party hacks and corrupt cronies. His second term promises fewer of the former and more of the latter. Does MAGA support Trump because they expect him to appoint someone who really will run the DOJ as an attack dog for his political opponents, instead of conservative institutionalists like Barr and Sessions? Does MAGA have any concrete sense of who the "right" leader of the DOE, DOL, Commerce or State Departments, etc., ought to be?

Trump will basically choose administrative heads who will either be party hacks or people who run their departments as personal fiefdoms. If Trump is not really engaged in enforcing a vision among them - because he's barely there mentally - they will do their own thing. Does MAGA want that outcome?

[Martinned]

The President of France just spoke, in German, at the German Parliament's memorial for Wolfgang Schäuble. There is a different way to do international relations.

https://twitter.com/bueti/status/1749452173539196934?s=46&t=lpVVI-5aw4iDaIlXtO4I8Q

[Martinned]

He took extra classes just to make sure he could do it: https://twitter.com/vonderburchard/status/1749451298083131596?t=_UKPgIJUFrS95OCLH9CG5Q&s=19

[Dan Schiavetta]

That’s how grownups do diplomacy. Good for him!

[Martinned]

Here is the video, off the French presidency's twitter account: https://twitter.com/Elysee/status/1749440747894366447

[Nige]

When people talk about Israel/Palestine, they use the example of WWII to justify mass slaughter, and ignore how sworn enemies who have killed millions of each others' citizens in one century alone can come to make an enduring peace over decades.

[Davedave]

Why don't you just say the Israel-Palestine mess is susceptible to a final solution, if this time the Allies don't interrupt your lot while they're wiping out the Jews?

[Nige]

Why don't you just go ahead and hold both sides of conversations, that way the other person will always say the exact thing you want them to say to make you think you look cool instead of having thoughts and opinion you can't cope with.

[Davedave]

You're basically the same as the other tinfoilhatters here in your ability to simultaneously believe two contradictory things, like, in this case, that you're so clever you can say what you mean and no-one will realise, and also that everyone will know what you really mean.

You have made it abundantly clear that your view of the Israel-Palestine mess is that the Jews must be exterminated, so anything that leads to that conclusion must be true. I don't know why you bother denying it at this point, except that clearly you are either ashamed of your views, or you believe that it's more persuasive to lie about what the things you say mean.

All your conspiratorial beliefs wrap up into the same load of bollocks, at the end of the day: white supremacy, but don't say it out loud.

[Ed Grinberg]

.

All your conspiratorial beliefs wrap up into the same load of bollocks, at the end of the day: white supremacy

Is it still a conspiracy if the President can't open his mouth without bringing it up?

[Nige]

I love that it’s unclear whether he thinks that white supremacists believe the conpsiracy theory which he completely fails to desccribe, or whether the existence of white supremacy *is* a conspiracy theory the same way blood-drinking Democrats are a conspiracy theory and white supremacy doesn’t actually exist. He’s the sloppiest thinker and writer on the site and that is saying something.

[Bwaaah]

Whuuuuuuuut?

How could you possibly pound all that out and think you said something? Maybe it's that you switch back and forth from sincere to facetious so frequently that just finishing the moment feels like a work of art?

You gotta be a bot. You just gotta.

[Nige]

If I was Davedave I would interpret this comment to mean you were demanding the extermination of the Jews.

[Davedave]

There you go again with the antisemitic conspiracy theories. And yet you claim not to be a raving antisemite and tinfoilhatter.

[Nige]

You are quite stupid, aren't you?

[Nige]

'You have made it abundantly clear that your view of the Israel-Palestine mess is that the Jews must be exterminated'

No, that's just you providing my side of the conversation again, you should learn to distinguish when engaging in public.

'All your conspiratorial beliefs wrap up into the same load of bollocks, at the end of the day: white supremacy, but don’t say it out loud.'

You aren't even talking to a *version* of me in your head, it's a completely different person, possibly yourself.

[SimonP]

Netanyahu recently invoked the "river to the sea" rhetoric, in asserting Israeli security sovereignty over the entire territory, so it's too bad he took that talking point away from you.

[David Nieporent]

Netanyahu did not. Someone mistranslated what he said.

[Bwaaah]

Who cares. He still said it.

It doesn't matter that it's wrong. It trashes the right person. And that's what makes it right.

Send that "fact" three times around the world by sundown, and let greater truths reign through these lesser lies.

[Brett Bellmore]

Who cares if what he actually said was (Charitably!) mistranslated? He said something, the cad!

New York Times, NPR and Others Left Out That Israeli Official Was Talking About Hamas, Not Gaza

[Jason Cavanaugh]

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/18/politics/netanyahu-biden-palestinian-state/index.html

The Israeli end-game is exactly as I suspect it would be: Using October 7th as justification to wipe out the entire concept of a two-state solution.

[SimonP]

Care to share what he actually said, Chip, or are you just going to let insinuations carry the argument here?

[Bwaaah]

It was Israeli defense minister Gallant (not Netanyahu), and the English translation of the Hebrew is said to be, "Gaza will not return to what it was before. There will be no Hamas. We will eliminate it all." (Per The Atlantic).

That was interpreted as a declaration that all of Gaza (of Gazans?) will be eliminated. You know... Their Call For Genocide.

[SimonP]

You’re citing something else, Bwah. The statement I cited was Netanyahu. There’s evidently some disagreement over the precise words he used, which Chip is taking issue with and is being evasive about, in his characteristic fashion. But suffice it to say that Netanyahu has laid claim to at least security sovereignty over the entire territory west of the Jordan River. “From the river to the sea, Palestine shall be Israeli.”

[VinniUSMC]

You didn't cite a statement. You claimed that Netanyahu "recently invoked the 'river to the sea' rhetoric" without citation, or an actual quote. Thanks Simple Simon.

[SimonP]

I know the statement I'm talking about, because I read and follow the news and am generally able to use google to supplement my understanding.

I don't owe you, or any other mouth-breather, a link, because my purpose in engaging here isn't to educate you or convince you, and I don't care about "winning" some online debate. You can find my comments interesting, informative, or persuasive - or not. I don't care. I am confident in my own knowledge and judgment. You can preserve your own ignorance if you like.

[Ridgeway]

I think you are the one ignoring history.

Those millions of casualties (military and civilian) inflicted on the Germans and Japanese accomplished several things necessary for the extended peace we have seen since.

First, and most important, it demonstrated to them that they had been well and truly defeated. No Dolchstosslegende followed WWII, because the defeat was clear to the whole population.

Second, those casualties made the victors feel that the defeated (Germany and Japan) had suffered sufficiently for their aggression and atrocities, enabling the victors, particularly the US, to behave magnanimously in victory. Thus, no revanchism followed WWII either.

That indicates to me that, using history as a guide, the only way to get genuine peace between Israel and Palestine would be for the Palestinians to suffer a catastrophic (for them) defeat. Unfortunately, none of the other countries using the Palestinians as proxies and/or puppets will have suffered that defeat, so peace would likely still be elusive.

[David Nieporent]

Second, those casualties made the victors feel that the defeated (Germany and Japan) had suffered sufficiently for their aggression and atrocities, enabling the victors, particularly the US, to behave magnanimously in victory. Thus, no revanchism followed WWII either.

Germany was stripped of territory in the aftermath of WWII, and millions of Germans were expelled from those lands.

[Ridgeway]

For the sake of a blog post response, I was keeping it simple. 🙂

I was focusing on West Germany (and Japan) and their post-war relationships with the Western allies.

The Soviets were indeed more punitive, but they had their own way of stamping out revanchism and embracing the brotherhood of man. Cf. Marshal Tito.

[Commenter_XY]

An apt and astute observation David; meaning, the stripping of territory from the losers of a conflict, and then expelling a large number of the losers, for good measure. And, as you note, it was successful.

If only there were a current problem where this could apply... 🙂

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The glorious American culture war?

[Nige]

The USSR was successful? East Germany and Poland were successes? The Cold War was a success? If that's your idea of success no wonder you support ethnic cleansing and mass slaughter.

[Nige]

'Those millions of casualties (military and civilian) inflicted on the Germans and Japanese accomplished several things'

I'm sure they did, but they were still a massive human catastrophe. Presenting them as merely pragmatic necessities is simply emulating the Nazi approach to the Holocaust.

'using history as a guide, the only way to get genuine peace'

This is what I mean. History does not justify mass slaughter, it warns against it.

[Nige]

Just to clarify, they died because the highly militarised countries they lived in decided that military might and warfare was the way to solve all their problems and get them what they wanted. If we haven't learned by now that that mindset isn't just stupid but disastrously stupid, then surely all the stupid wars since then have made the point for us.

[EscherEnigma]

Those millions of casualties (military and civilian) inflicted on the Germans and Japanese accomplished several things […]

The Geneva Convention, for example. It’s almost like one of the “lessons learned” in the immediate aftermath was “wow, this is fucked up, we shouldn’t do this again.”

[Michael P]

There were four Geneva Conventions agreed in 1949. The first updated an earlier Geneva convention going back to 1864. The second updated/replaced a Hague convention from 1907. The third replaced a different Geneva Convention from 1929. The fourth expanded on Hague conventions from 1899 and 1907 (the same one as earlier).

By the time of WW2, governments had lots of practice at being inhumane during war, and lots of practice at agreeing on conventions that didn't work very well at stopping that.

[Bob from Ohio]

Speaker of minor language learns another minor language to honor a minor figure. Yawn.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Lol is there ANYTHING you can't be a miserable cynical asshole about?

[Ed Grinberg]

Funny.

[Frank Drackman]

Puty Poot Putin speaks German fluently, from his time in the former DDR.

[Don Nico]

Example 2: Mussolini spoke in German to a huge Nazi rally.

[dwb68]

When the stock market is booming, Presidents get reelected (aka, “Its the economy stupid.”)

People have about a 7-9 month memory, and the stock market is hitting new highs.

Trump vs Biden, Kamala Harris wins.

Yes, I realize logic is irrelevant to Trump supporters. Must send that burning, flaming, chaotic grenade to Washington D.C.

[OtisAH]

The stock market is not the economy.

[dwb68]

Says every presidential advisor before they lose.

No, its not the economy, but its a leading indicator.

[OtisAH]

Yeah, that must be why stocks soared during the Great Recession and pandemic. Due to the strong economy.

[Michael P]

Like in 1980, when stocks rose 25% in the year before the election? Or in 1992, when they rose 9.4%?

[dwb68]

Every rule has an exception.

[Stella Link the dog]

Or the 15-16% increase from November 2019 to November 2020.

[EscherEnigma]

"Incumbent presidents get re-elected" is another bit of conventional wisdom and accurately describes all-but-one presidential election since 1996 (28 years).

"Party swaps with every president" is another bit of conventional wisdom and accurately describes all-but-one presidential election since 1976 (48 years).

"Don't trust any statistic based on only 40-ish data points" is another bit of conventional wisdom among people that have studied probability and statistics.

Which is to say, I'll wait until Nate Silver comes out with his data before I start making predictions. He hasn't had a perfect repeat of his early success, but he's been closer then most. And I'd like to point out, that while he gave Trump only 1-in-6 odds in 2016, anyone that rolls dice knows that's not as unlikely as it sounds.

[Josh R]

Silver gave Trump a 29% chance.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Always bet on black!

[John F. Carr]

Standing out among this week's political spam is a fundraising email with a picture of a small, dark-skinned woman holding a large gun. According to Wikipedia she is a registered Democrat. She is the Republican nominee to replace George Santos. Confused?

The email inspired me to play some Tommy Shaw instead of donating. I habitually don't give money to out of state candidates. Twenty years ago I gave to a couple campaigns and learned that's how you get on lists like the ones I am on.

[Stella Link the dog]

What a cluster fuck.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Holding a gun is now a prerequisite for Republican candidates. This is very bad news. They’re not pointing it at Communists any more.

[John F. Carr]

Bill Maher commented on this a couple years ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dMOfwUP0F0#t=487

The link goes 8:07 into a ten minute rant, when he gets to Republicans shooting guns in campaign ads.

[Longtobefree]

OK, they are pointing it at fascists. So?

[Nige]

Oh, right, suicide by gun isn't violence, I am being told, fair enough.

[John F. Carr]

Marjorie Taylor Greene pointed her gun at a car with the label socialism and blew that socialist car up. See the link above.

[John F. Carr]

Another entertaining fundraising email arrived today: "Very few people humiliate the Bidens & Clintons like Claudia did and live to tell the tale."

Sorry, Claudia, I'm too scared of Hillary to donate to your campaign. I know she would find out.

[Brett Bellmore]

Republicans Recovered More Than 100 Encrypted Jan. 6 Files, but There's a Catch

Seems that, when the outgoing Democrats handed over the files from the January 6th committee, they deleted about 2 terabytes of data. The deleted files have been forensically recovered, but it seems they're ALSO password protected.

I wonder what's in those files, that it was so vitally important that nobody who wasn't handpicked by Pelosi ever saw them?

[David Nieporent]

Weirdly, Pelosi did not handpick Troy Nehls, Kelly Armstrong, or Rodney Davis, and yet they were all placed on the committee by her.

[Sarcastr0]

It's probably how they all know Trump is innocent and J6 was an FBI- lead Riechstag fire.

You really need wait until you get more than one source on this kind of brethless reporting from venues like pjmedia who don't much care if the give an incorrect impression so long as it goes in the direction of Dems Bad.

[Life of Brian]

https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=117+encrypted+files

[Life of Brian]

I feel like you must have overlooked this, which is a real shame. Since it has indeed been widely reported, I was so looking forward to your substantive rebuttal!

[Brett Bellmore]

If they really wanted to be thorough, though, they probably over-wrote the files with random data before encrypting them and deleting them. You know, so that after all the work is done breaking the encryption, you find Schiff's ripped copy of Porky's?

Seriously, he didn't overlook it, he just doesn't care, he thinks the Democrats were entitled to deny the new majority access to the committee files, since they'd just misuse them anyway. Same theory behind it being OK for Pelosi to pick the minority members of the committee.

[Sarcastr0]

There's nothing to rebut; your response was non-responsive.

"Official records are typically handed over to a successor committee, then to the House clerk, and eventually to the National Archives, where they’re shielded by law from public view for at least 30 years. Sensitive information can be held back for up to 50 years.

When Republicans took control of the House in January, they included something new in the rules for the 118th Congress: an order that all documents that were retained from the House Jan. 6 select committee go to the House Administration Committee. All materials already sent to the National Archives were to be returned.

...

Because the committee disbanded moments before the new Congress controlled by Republicans was sworn in, their new rule ordering preservation of “any noncurrent records” from the committee could only apply to records that had already been transferred to a successor committee or to the National Archives. In essence, the Republicans couldn’t order the Jan. 6 select committee to turn over anything because it no longer existed.
...
Smith said in a court filing Thursday that he is ready to turn over discovery materials in the case as soon as a protective order is in place, including “unredacted materials obtained from other governmental entities, including the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol."

So I'm going to wait until this is more than pjmedia doing stenography Rep. Loudermilk, who has his own issues regarding Jan 06.

[Life of Brian]

Official records are typically handed over to a successor committee, then to the House clerk, and eventually to the National Archives, where they’re shielded by law from public view for at least 30 years. Sensitive information can be held back for up to 50 years.

Huh -- seems like "typically" is doing an awful lot of work in this ludicrous suggestion that Congress can hide materials from Congress. Even in this tortured explanation, "successor committee" seems like it would do the trick -- unless of course a game is afoot and the J6 committee is bending over backwards to try to hide something from members outside the kangaroo court.

Because the committee disbanded moments before the new Congress controlled by Republicans was sworn in, their new rule ordering preservation of “any noncurrent records” from the committee could only apply to records that had already been transferred to a successor committee or to the National Archives. In essence, the Republicans couldn’t order the Jan. 6 select committee to turn over anything because it no longer existed.

And there you have it. It's like kids on a playground coming up with a convoluted and smug rule why they couldn't be tagged even though they were a mile from base. All they left out was the "neener neener." Pathetic.

Smith said in a court filing Thursday that he is ready to turn over discovery materials

That, of course, will be limited to the subset of materials Smith received from the J6 committee and likely has little to no bearing on the withheld materials. I fully credit you with understanding that difference.

[Michael P]

The FBI got rebuked for manufacturing a conspiracy and tricking their targets into doing things that enabled federal charges.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/19/nyregion/newburgh-four-release-terrorism-case.html

We know they did something similar in the Whitener kidnapping case. How many other times has the FBI organized a conspiracy to justify its ongoing funding?

[Sarcastr0]

I love how the FBI has been in trouble for entrapment with respect to disafected Muslims for a couple of decades.

But now that some white guys are in for the same thing, it’s real shit. And to ignore court findings because it's always entrapment, so you can knee-jerk cover for yet another right-wing spat of political violence.

You have discovered a way the FBI sucks, but you’re going to special pleading yourself into a liberal deep state conspiracy that must be defunded.

It’s been wild seeing some of the more partisan non-lawyers on here discover all the concerns of the left about criminal justice, but only for Trump supporters. And the only reforms they want are badly thought out spleen venting.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Fake drug house too. ATF/DEA basically puts a too good to be true target out there to some guys. Although the drugs are imaginary, the amount of the imaginary drugs still impacts the sentence. And of course they need to use guns because of the imaginary drug lords guarding the house. So gun charges come in too.

[Randal]

It's the logical extension of the right's unmitigated quest for power. They've put party over country to such an extent that they actually want America to suck more so that they can have more grievances to use to motivate their voters.

1. Trump wants the economy to be bad.
2. The Republican House loves to complain about the border but refuses to do anything about it.
3. Trump is still trying to make people think they have bad health care even though they no longer really think they do (and still has no alternative).
4. Made up stories about big-city crime.
5. Republicans complain about the FBI / Deep State but again, no proposed legislation. Just whining.

The only thing they "fixed" was abortion and boy did they learn their lesson from that one. What a mistake.

[billardl]

As opposed to your buddies' weaponizing the DOJ/IRS? Or proposing bad faith gun laws? Or intentionally letting in migrants so that you can get the votes of their citizen crotch droppings in 18 years?

[not guilty]

The judge in Cobb County, Georgia has ordered unsealing of the file in Nathan Wade's divorce case. He has also ordered that Mr. Wade should be deposed before he determines whether Fani Willis is subject to being deposed. https://www.ajc.com/politics/judge-unseals-divorce-case-involving-fulton-trump-prosecutor/67SHFAT27JFJLKTFFSUX6EWWV4/

[not guilty]

Video of the Cobb County hearing is here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XawrHhNHXd8

The initial deposition subpoena was issued more than two years after the divorce action was filed, on the same day as a defendant in the Fulton County criminal case filed an unsworn, incendiary, evidence-free motion making salacious allegations against the District Attorney. Neither party in the divorce action has been deposed.

It looks like the divorce judge is not going to let the lawsuit before him to turn into a dog-and-pony show.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

THE VOLOKH CONSPIRACY

This anachronistically white,
odds-defyingly male, right-wing
blog has operated for

SEVEN (7)

days without publishing
at least one racial slur;
it has published vile
racial slurs on at least

THREE (3)

occasion (so far) during 2024
(that’s at least three discussions
that have included a racial slur,
not necessarily just three racial
slurs; many of this blog’s
discussions include multiple
racial slurs,)

This blog is more than matching
its deplorable pace of 2023, when
the Volokh Conspiracy published
disgusting racial slurs in at least

FORTY-FOUR (44)

different discussions.

It is likely these numbers miss
some of the racial slurs
published regularly by this blog;
it would be unreasonable to
expect anyone to catch all
of them.

This assessment does not address
the broader, everyday stream of
gay-bashing, misogynistic, Islamophobic,
antisemitic, racist, Palestinian-hating,
transphobic, and immigrant-hating slurs
(and other bigoted content) published
at this faux libertarian blog, which
is presented from the disaffected,
receding, disrespected right-wing fringe
of modern legal academia by members
of the Federalist Society for Law
and Public Policy Studies.

Amid this blog’s stale, ugly right-wing thinking, here is something worthwhile.

This is a good one, too.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Today's Rolling Stones pointers:

First, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHXDzpi4lTU&quot;Keith and the Killer with -- surprise! -- Mick

Next, a snappy, crackling popper you might have missed.

[Mr. Bumble]

So, who wins the NH Democrat primary?

[Longtobefree]

Trump

[billardl]

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/22/politics/supreme-court-texas-razor-wire/index.html

I knew Barrett was trouble when I saw that she adopted a Haitian. Why any white person would want to raise an African in their house is beyond me.

[Nelson]

Haiti is in Africa now? Dumbass.

[billardl]

Number one, I'm a troll. Number two, I was clearly talking about African descent.

[John F. Carr]

The Massachusetts Ballow Law Commission decided that it does not have the authority to take Trump off the presidential primary ballot. The reasoning is by now familiar. This is not a normal election that goes from nomination papers to primary to final vote. This is a step on the way to a nomination by a political party. It could be a different story in November when the winner gets electoral votes. Not that it matters in Massachusetts whether Trump is on the ballot or off in November.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Tim Scott is auditioning for Trump's running mate by endorsing Trump and announcing his engagement. To a woman. Who appears to exist.

The guest list for the wedding is said to include Rock Hudson, Elton John, Little Richard, Liberace, Tyrone Power, Raymond Burr, Oscar Wilde, Alan Cumming, and Anthony Perkins.

Guests will be encouraged to wear lavender.

[Commenter_XY]

Well, well, well....

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Are Christians allowed to do dog style?? Asking for a friend. 😉

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Is that a Little Richard song?

Lavender weddings were created for people like you.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I should have mentioned that I am confident Tim Scott will look fabulous in lavender.

I wonder what the other senator from South Carolina will wear.

Who has more girlfriends . . . married Republican senators, or South Carolina senators?

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

So proud of Tim Scott for tapping that ass! Unwed mothers are guaranteed!! My man!!

[Michael Ejercito]

An interesting comment in another post.

https://reason.com/2024/01/22/trumps-demand-for-total-presidential-immunity-reflects-his-authoritarian-impulses/?comments=true#comment-10410625

This “opinion” is biased because immunity is a protection created by courts to protect themselves, then to protect the president and congress, and later to protect prosecutors. Trump didn’t make this up, he’s just regurgitating the despicable protections created by the US Supreme Court themselves and the states thereafter. But even if there was no immunity, I would have to question the separations of power – which the US Supreme Court has relied on since Marbury.

- Master

[JasonT20]

Not really. The immunity that courts have created, such as qualified immunity and the more absolute immunity courts have granted judges and prosecutors, is immunity from civil suits against them personally. It does not make anyone immune from criminal prosecution for violating criminal statutes.

This comment you quoted isn't so much interesting as it is greatly misunderstanding the concepts involved.

[Z Crazy]

Here's a joke I read online:

Q: Why were there no black people in the Flintstones?

A: Because there were no slave ships importing them from AfROCKa!

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Were there any Mexicans and Asians?

[TwelveInchPianist]

Of course.

[Michael P]

I saw a headline today: "Asteroid the size of two ducks impacts above Germany"

I've seen similar clickbait headlines from the same source before, comparing the sizes of asteroids to various other animals, but this one made me ask myself: Would those have been small, medium or large ducks? Or maybe it was a large boulder the size of a very small boulder?

[Commenter_XY]

I see stuff like that in Jerusalem Post (Jpost.com).

[Michael P]

Yes, that's where I saw it as well. I have a better sense of what "two ducks" means than six crocodiles or 37 hippos or others I've seen in the past, but it always strikes me as too click-bait-y to find out whether they mean mass or volume or linear dimensions.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Sounds like part of a Carnac the Magnificent bit.

[John F. Carr]

This trend of odd comparisons started maybe a year ago.

[Bwaaah]

An article I read described a new large stadium being built somewhere. To make a point about it's size, it said something like, "It's big enough to hold X thousand pickup trucks."

And all I could think was, "Yeah. But how many cups of coffee would that be???!!!"

Honestly, these units of measure escape me.

[Brett Bellmore]

I guess the purpose is to deal with innumerates who have no conception of normal units of measurement.

[Bwaaah]

It's like a gazillion challoppees.

[JasonT20]

Were they African or European ducks?

[JasonT20]

Also, a duck could weigh more than a witch, so that could be a sizeable meteorite.

[Randal]

Dear bigots, I regret to inform you that reelecting Trump won't make your beliefs mainstream again. It didn't work in 2016 and it won't work in 2024.

[Michael P]

So much projection from the guy who just argued -- over and over -- in another thread that the US needs to impose racial discrimination in order to put uppity whites in their place.

[Randal]

I'm sorry, you must have the wrong number.

[Longtobefree]

I guess we will have to settle for a return to energy independence, peace in the middle east, no new wars, and an economy that benefits everyone, not selected components. Oh, yes, and more secure borders.

[Martinned]

If you think that Trump will deliver literally any of that, I have a nice bridge you might like to buy

[ThePublius]

Well, he did it before! Ha, ha.

[Martinned]

He didn't deliver any of those things in his first term. He just gaslighted a segment of the population into thinking that he did.

[Randal]

Gaslit. Gaslit.

[Martinned]

It looks like even Americans agree that the -ed past tense is preferred: https://www.businessinsider.com/gaslit-gaslighting-past-tense-liguistics-expert-internet-2024-1?r=US&IR=T#:~:text=Bailey%20agreed%20with%20Merriam%2DWebster,ed%20for%20the%20past%20tense.

[Martinned]

Merriam-Webster already settled this on Twitter in 2017: https://twitter.com/MerriamWebster/status/861912308049686529?lang=en

[Randal]

I can't believe you'd allow yourself to be gaslit by Merriam Webster of all people. The Dick & Jane of dictionaries.

[Martinned]

I thought I'd cite something that might convince an American. But having a conversation with an American about correct grammar and correct spelling is almost as pointless as having a conversation with them about weights & measures (op cit.).

[Mr. Bumble]

You are turning into Nige and GaslightO.

[Martinned]

Texas still on track to becoming the new Florida, I see:

Texas Superintendent Defends Suspending Black Student Over Locs Hairstyle in Full-Page Ad: ‘Being American Requires Conformity’

https://themessenger.com/news/texas-superintendent-black-student-locs-hair-punishment-lawsuit

[Michael P]

The school district is enforcing a rule against hair for boys "that would allow the hair to extend below the top of a t-shirt collar, below the eyebrows, or below the ear lobes when let down." That's about hair length, which last I checked was not racially discriminatory. The family is playing the race card, not a sex discrimination card, so they don't seem to have a leg to stand on even if the policy against long hair is stupid.

I conclude from your substance-free comment that you also don't see any legal merit in the lawsuit.

[Martinned]

So you're going to skip right past that "Being American Requires Conformity" quote?

[Michael P]

I already said the policy is prima facie stupid. Are feelz your strongest defense of the lawsuit, or do you think that other countries are less strongly motivated by conformity? Variation in what conformity is demanded is a matter of degree and domain, not of presence or absence.

[Martinned]

You said no such thing. Read your comment again.

[Sarcastr0]

You seemed to support the policy above.

Has your bad faith rotted your brain?

[Randal]

That’s about hair length, which last I checked was not racially discriminatory.

Check again. It's racially discriminatory when you pull the hair straight to check compliance. Black people generally have curlier than average hair, or haven't you noticed.

That's like saying a policy of "no tans darker than Trump's spray-tan" isn't racially discriminatory.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

.

That’s about hair length, which last I checked was not racially discriminatory.

The clingers sure switched gears from their bigot chicken arguments quickly!

Of course, these culture war casualties have plenty of practice.

[Martinned]

Today in election shenanigans:

New Hampshire investigating fake Biden robocall meant to discourage voters ahead of primary

https://apnews.com/article/new-hampshire-primary-biden-ai-deepfake-robocall-f3469ceb6dd613079092287994663db5

[Mr. Bumble]

And?
Biden isn't even on the ballot in NH.

[ThePublius]

In the story it turns out the fake call spoofed a caller ID of the woman who's running the write-in campaign up there. She's the one who contacted the authorities.

[Nige]

Really? Not going to defend it as an obvious joke?

[Martinned]

And yet he won anyway.

[Martinned]

Elsewhere on Reason.com: "Oklahoma Bill Would Ban Sending Sexy Selfies Unless You're Married"

https://reason.com/2024/01/22/oklahoma-bill-would-ban-sending-sexy-selfies-unless-youre-married/

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Unless it mentions drag queens, lesbians, or transgender anything, you should expect that one to go unremarked at The Volokh Conspiracy.

[Voize]

Some Republican legislators in Florida want to use state funds to pay Donald Trump's legal bills, but Gov. DeSantis has dared trifle with the ire of the MAGA by declaring he would veto any such bill.

[JasonT20]

Reading some of the bill supporters' arguments for it was surreal. They were actually trying to say that it benefited Florida to pay Trump's legal fees because, as a candidate from Florida, him being railroaded on fake charges was bad for the state.

They actually might have a point. Florida needs to protect its reputation for insane and bizarre behavior by Florida Man.

[not guilty]

It has been two weeks now since the D.C. Circuit panel heard oral argument as to Donald Trump's immunity and double jeopardy claims. What with the accelerated briefing schedule, I was hopeful that we would have a decision sooner than this.

[David Nieporent]

Agreed. I didn't think it would take more than a week.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

.

I didn’t think it would take more than a week.

So you figured the timing would be similar to the Volokh Conspiracy's timetable for publishing vile racial slurs.

[Mr. Bumble]

How about an example of what you consider to be a "vile racial slur".

[Bwaaah]

Celia made poopies.

[David Nieporent]

Troll more better.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

You seem extremely touchy about references to the remarkable frequency with which the The Volokh Conspiracy -- and its proprietor in particular -- publishes vile racial slurs.

Is that what attracts you to this faux libertarian, right-wing blog?

[Mr. Bumble]

Well if it's any consolation the appeals court refused en banc review of Jan. 6 gag order.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, New Hampshire's initial primary results are in, and it looks like Trump won handily.

And this was going to be Haley's best state.

[Mr. Bumble]

Can't see many DeSantis votes going to Haley so it would seem like a win for Trump. Only question is by how much.

[OtisAH]

Turnip wins. If he feels he didn’t win big enough he’ll blame it on democrats from Massachusetts and her cheating. She gets blown out in SC but hangs on with her fingers crossed for a Turnip stroke, death, or imprisonment, which *might* lead to her as the gop nominee. None will get her elected because the number of “lefties” who’d vote for her because Biden Old and/or Biden War-Mongering Corrupt Monster Tyrant will not come close to making up for the millions of pissed off MAGA who will not, under any circumstance, vote for her. Reasons for that will include her getting rid of confederate flags, her name of “Nimrata,” and her being the nominee instead of Turnip.

[Commenter_XY]

POTUS Trump will get the most votes in the NH primary, by far.

I wonder though if it changes the CO and ME cases, for SCOTUS. POTUS Trump will have won all of the primaries by the time that case is argued, and eventually decided. It will be very hard to disqualify someone from the ballot who half the country is affirming with their votes in an open and transparent primary process, in state after state.

[ducksalad]

Obviously the moderates have to abandon Haley now that Trump has pointed out she was responsible for January 6th. A lot of her supporters who rely on the MSM for their news didn’t know until now that she refused his offer to help that day.

[Dan Schiavetta]

If my dog is eating, or if I immobilize him by scratching him behind the ear, he stops wagging. My theory is that they wag their tails because they want something, and stop once they get it.

[Commenter_XY]

Paywalled, sadly. Sounds interesting.

[OtisAH]

Just owning dogs will teach you they wag for at least a few reasons, not all of them understood. One seems to involve signaling to strange dogs. Whether they started wagging their tails around humans out of positive reinforcement is an interesting thought, and might be correct, but the behavior is built-in now.

Dogs most certainly do wag their tails when they’re happy, whether around humans or other dogs they know and like. But they don’t *only* wag their tails because they’re happy.

[hobie]

I once saw a horrifying video of a dog being crushed to death by a giant python. What struck me was that the dog was wagging its tail during it all. Fortunately a bunch of men had arrived and beat the snake with sticks until it released the dog and slithered off. This makes me think tail wagging is just reflexive regardless the circumstance

[Sarcastr0]

dog tail-wags made people happy

That seems a causal assumption worth looking into.
My sister took a class in this, and I recall her telling us that dogs mouths going upturned so it looked like they are smiling was a selected trait.

[bernard11]

Alternatively, maybe tail-wagging got you fed better, so tail-waggers came to predominate in the dog community, but this was no advantage among wild canids.

Could it be not because "dog tail-wags made people happy," per se, but because the wagging was a useful signal from the dog when the group was hunting. Maybe it signaled that the dog smelled game nearby that the humans couldn't see.

[Brett Bellmore]

The last New Hampshire poll I saw had DeSantis at about 5%, Haley at 35%, and Trump at just shy of 50%. And a bunch of also rans in the low single digits.

As you say, it's basically guaranteed that Trump wins New Hampshire, but it's one of the two states that award delegates proportionately, so she's probably not going to be totally skunked.

I'm guessing he tops 50%, and she gets maybe 40%, with the rest going to also-rans.

[Brett Bellmore]

I suppose it depends on WHEN he strokes out, in that scenario.

If he strokes out tomorrow, DeSantis unsuspends his campaign, and slaughters her. (He's by far the second choice of Trump voters.)

If it's just before the convention, when he's already secured most of the delegates, (She'll net a few delegates in New Hampshire and Iowa, the rest of the states are winner take all.) the freed up delegates will probably vote for DeSantis, and he wins.

But in between? I suppose there might be a narrow window where DeSantis hasn't time to resume campaigning, Trump hasn't yet accumulated a large majority of the delegates, and she nets enough of them to make it awkward to not pick her.

Nah, they'd chose awkward over her.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Ann Colter was more eloquent as to why Nikki will lose.

Cue "Darling Nikki" by Prince -- I'm just waiting for trump to start playing that....

[Kazinski]

If Trump does have a health crisis or a legal setback that knocks him out of the race DeSantis gets back in and goes head to head with Haley. She doesn't inherit Trump's Delegates just because DeSantis suspended his campaign.

[Bob from Ohio]

"which *might* lead to her as the gop nominee"

You don't have to be a declared candidate to get a nomination, the convention can nominate anybody.

She has zero chance.

[Mr. Bumble]

...and what does it say if she can't win in her home state?

[Mr. Bumble]

Maybe there should be a study on who finances studies like these.
Do wild canines wag their tails?

[Brett Bellmore]

That we're familiar with her?

Being appointed UN Ambassador isn't an indication that you're going places...

[Martinned]

…and what does it say if she can’t win in her home state?

Neither can Trump, in the General Election.

[SimonP]

Same thing it said when it looked like DeSantis would lose to Trump in Florida's primary. Trump is running with an incumbency advantage. Which is why it's so remarkable that he barely got a majority of a low-turnout caucus in Iowa and is running so close to Haley in NH.

Much of the same logic that compelled DeSantis to drop out after his second-place showing in Iowa likely will weigh heavily on Haley after NH, especially if she loses by more than a sliver of a margin. But it'll be interesting, if she stays in the race, and is able to make more of a show of Trump's mental decline. His increasingly detached sense of reality may become further evident, too, as he feels the need to campaign more to foreclose any embarrassing losses on Super Tuesday.

[Martinned]

It will be very hard to disqualify someone from the ballot who half the country is affirming with their votes in an open and transparent primary process, in state after state.

Alternatively, that will make it very easy because it will be a decision that is utterly inconsequential.

[OtisAH]

35-40% of the country != 50% of the country

See also: 30% chance to win != 0% chance to win

[Noscitur a sociis]

.

It will be very hard to disqualify someone from the ballot who half the country is affirming with their votes in an open and transparent primary process, in state after state.

Isn’t that precisely the situation where enforcing disqualification is most important?

[Martinned]

Not if the appointment is by Donald Trump, no.

[Mr. Bumble]

Anecdote that I heard somewhere was that she was appointed as UN ambassador at the suggestion of SC's Lt. governor because he wanted to run for governor.
A similar situation as when NY Republicans anxious to get reid of TR had the party chose him for VP. That backfired when McKinley got assassinated.

[Bwaaah]

For what it's worth, here are former U.S. Ambassadors who may be viewed as having gone further than Nikki Haley:

George H.W. Bush
Daniel P. Moynihan
Madeline Albright

[Mr. Bumble]

Check with your Magic 8 Ball.
Reply hazy try again later.

[Martinned]

If you think that Trump can beat Biden or any other Democratic nominee in November in New York State, I'd be curious to see your work. In 2020 Trump lost New York 61%/38%, and in 2016 he lost there 59%/37%.

[Mr. Bumble]

I thought we were talking about SC. Where does NY come in? Trump's current home state is Florida, which I doubt Biden would win no matter who the Republican candidate was.

[Martinned]

Fair point, although Trump's home state in 2016 was New York, when he got crushed by his fellow New Yorker Hillary Clinton there.

[Bwaaah]

Was there any point in this argument at which you realized that you had abandoned your thesis? Or does that just happen fluidly for you?

[Martinned]

Which thesis do you think that I abandoned? The thesis that politicians lose their home states all the time?

[zztop8970]

Trump losing NY doesn'tt do much for your thesis that "politicians lose their home states all the time" - NY was the home state for both candidates in 2016, so obviously one of them would lose it, and one would win it without doing much for the claim that "politicians lose their home states all the time" one way or the other

[zztop8970]

As far as supporting your thesis , you're on pretty thin ice - only two U.S. presidents lost their home state in a general election, Polk and Wilson. It is very rare for an eventual general election winner to lose their home state, and it certainly doesn't "happen all the time".
It is more common for general election losers to also lose their home state, but that just proves that poor candidate are unelectable - losers are losers, and the "home state" advantage only goes so far.

[Martinned]

Sure, or:

- Henry Cabot Lodge
- Adlai Stevenson (albeit before he became ambassador)
- Arthur Goldberg
- Richard Holbrooke
- Susan Rice

Not sure what the point is, but it's a fun game.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's easy in the sense that it doesn't require any heavy lifting, just an utter disregard of consequences.

[Josh R]

Inconsequential? Presumably, a ruling in favor of Colorado would also apply to the general election ballot.

[Bwaaah]

I said the "Democratic party," not "leftists."

Even the left is subject to the preferences of the Democratic party. (Remember how they used their rules and super delegates to knock down Bernie?)

(But also, as best I can tell, only about 35% of the [voter class] left is anti-Israel.)

[Davedave]

No, only the fash in disguise, masquerading as lefties.

[Martinned]

In the scenario posited, there would be no consequences. That's what "inconsequential" means.

[bernard11]

You know, I'm tired of these threats.

Suppose the tables were turned, and a Democratic candidate had done something you thought merited disqualification, while the vast majority of Democrats, and maybe even a few Republicans, disagreed.

Then suppose Democrats were running around issuing threats of massive violence if the candidate were disqualified. Would that be OK with you?

Suppose the Supreme Court disqualifies Trump. Are you saying your gang would resort to violence, and you and Dr. Ed would cheer them on?

Here I thought conservatives were big on the rule of law, or do they only like it if it goes their way?

[Nige]

I keep asking this and never get answers - where was the regard for consequences when Trump was trying to steal an election and a mob of his supporters tried to prevent certification? Oh, it was that they assumed there would be none, and when there were, for breaking various laws, they got mad. But no regard whatsoever for the majority of voters, who voted for Biden. No suggestion that they might get violent and start a civil war if they somehow succeeded, no suggestion that the naked attempts to do so might affect their views and opinions. Nobody gives a shit what they will think if their faith in the system to hold Trump to account is betrayed not because of what he has or hasn't done but because of who he is.

[Commenter_XY]

Appreciate the link...really.

[Moderation4ever]

Really? You seem to forget the greats. Ackroyd, Bulushi, Curtain, Radner, Murray. These people set the standard.

[LawTalkingGuy]

I think you mean Chris Parnell.

[Bwaaah]

"Do you think shooting yourself with a gun isn’t an act of violence?"

Let's not use language to obfuscate the important difference between suicide and homicide (of another). I can call it an "act of violence." But it's no threat to me or others, so it matters little to me. And it's a viable potential tool should I want to kill myself.

Are you trying to protect me from myself too? Or are you just trying to protect me from guns? Or is this more of the slippery slope of "harm," as in "words can be violence?"

Violence is a threat to me. But no, not suicide violence.

[David Nieporent]

Do you think shooting yourself with a gun isn’t an act of violence?

While it's certainly not peaceful, I think the phrase "act of violence" fits rather awkwardly with a suicide.

[Nige]

‘But it’s no threat to me or others, so it matters little to me.’

Other peoples’ suicides may mean little to you, but shooting yourself is still an act of gun violence.

[Bwaaah]

No.

To the extent that litigants are voters, it can be said that one or the other "party [is] in a case before them." That's an audaciously low bar for requiring recusal.

If one litigant is Republican and the opposing litigant is Democrat, would all justices have to recuse themselves? Could the case not be heard?

[Krayt]

Let's face the reality. Get rid of them, leaving the remaining partisans for the other side, and one or two he didn't appoint?

There are no correct answers for this problem.

[OtisAH]

No, and I’m sick of the formulation that claims judges and justices are beholden to the person who appointed them and act accordingly. A president does nominate judges/justices based on their judicial philosophy, which more often than not aligns with the administration’s priorities and philosophies. And yes, someone like Aileen Cannon might believe her role is as an advocate/roadblock on behalf of someone like Don the Turnip, who believes everyone he promoted owes him. But the vast majority of judges and justices do their jobs, which is to administer the law. And they do that more or less as ethically as possible. And all but one (modern) president accepts the losses as well as the wins, regardless of how they feel about either.

[Nelson]

No.

The whole idea of a lifetime appointment is that once you have it, you are immune from political manipulation, even by the person who appointed you. As much as people like to bitch and piss and moan about how awful [insert Justice here] is, the difference is their judicial philosophy. Much like the more serious posters here, they differ in how they interpret facts and the law, how they prioritize the various conflicting ideals and interpretations in precedents, etc. However, none of them are intentionally distorting the law in ways you wouldn't expect, given their judicial philosophy.

For example, I think that almost 100% of Clarence Thomas' positions are insane, but he has a consistent interpretation.

I just don't buy into the "political bias" theory of judges, assuming they were actually experienced in the law when they were appointed (a number of Trump's choices were ... we'll call them neophytes with no judicial and/or legal experience). I think claiming that a D-appointed judge is biased for liberals and against conservatives (or vice versa) verges on a conspiracy theory.

If a judge lurches away from their judicial philosophy, then maybe. But a judge that has a more "liberal" judicial philosophy ruling in a way that you would expect given his/her judicial philosophy isn't bias. Being surprised that Scalia followed conservative jurisprudence is expected, not bias.

[David Nieporent]

(Remember how they used their rules and super delegates to knock down Bernie?)

No. No such event occurred. They "used" the fact that a large majority of Democratic primary voters preferred Hillary over Bernie to knock down Bernie.

There was no conspiracy. Bernie lost easily, in both 2016 and 2020.

[Bwaaah]

I'm applying SELF INTEREST. And you are applying some greater interest?

[Krayt]

You are not applying a straightforward definition of violence.

For rhetorical reasons, you want the connotation of violence out on the street, robberies, and so on, things to be afraid of, which is your goal with the rhetoric, to effect legal changes.

But you include suicides, which are not something anyone is afraid of in that sense, to pretend gun violence is 3x worse than the above.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Dana Carvey.

[Nige]

Because they're boring. Politics is boring. Trump entertains them. His actual policies are loathsome, inasmuch as he has policies, which he doesn't really, so when you strip Trump away, you're left with loathesome policies enacted by boring bureaucrats which hare highly unpopular except amongst a base that only Trump can energise en masse.

[dwb68]

One of the rare times we agree on anything. Mark your calendar, play the powerball.

[Commenter_XY]

I will tell you QA, but you won't believe it.

POTUS Trump supporters believe he is the man most likely to completely upend the system and force changes that benefit the people.

Rightly or wrongly, the level of pushback that has occurred for the last 8 years in DC against POTUS Trump has utterly convinced them of this.

[Ed Grinberg]

Because we know that, as soon we give up on Trump, you'll start giving DeSantis "the Trump treatment." He'll become "the new Hitler." Might as well stick with our original champion.

[Krayt]

Trump punches the evil opposition effectively (pleasurably?) This is why his positions don't matter.

Politicians have spent the last 20 years demonizing the other side, so it's more like a sport or religion than usual.

[OtisAH]

DeSantis has baggage. It’s called “being a singularly objectionable human who few people can stomach being around.”

[Dan Schiavetta]

If he can’t be persuaded to step down then any nomination fight will spell defeat in November.

[SimonP]

Democrats are sticking with Biden because Biden signaled an interest in running for re-election, which cleared the field, deadlines for primaries are passing or have now passed, and there's no longer any option.

What are we supposed to do now, if not go with Biden?

[Moderation4ever]

President Biden is the incumbent and incumbent always get renominated. Biden has weaknesses but he also has strengths and those go a long way to helping him. Joe Biden beat a sitting President no easy task. He has very good judgement, not perfect by any means, but he seems to know how to handle situations well.

[Commenter_XY]

They (Dems sticking with POTUS Biden) like POTUS Obama, and want to see a 4th Obama term since they feel POTUS Biden was really the 3rd Obama term.

[I am telling you what POTUS Trump supporters believe]

[Nige]

Your self interest has nothing to do with whether something is an act of violence. It's like saying that can't be violence because apples are green.

[Nige]

Given their support for his attempt to steal the election, we have some idea of how they think upending the system will benefit them, and why they're determined to double down, and their outrage at pushback just hardens their sense of entitlement to be in charge, no matter what.

[SimonP]

Right - he's just this blank space into which they project their desires, he says enough mammer-jammer for them to convince themselves he actually agrees with them, and there's always a conspiracy theory to explain why the first term didn't seem to work out that way.

Same way he won in 2016. Before that, he was just a loudmouthed reality TV star. Why did anyone think he would fight for them? Mammer jammer, mammer jammer.

[dwb68]

I do agree with “the level of pushback that has occurred for the last 8 years in DC against POTUS Trump has utterly convinced them of this.”

But its ironic people think he’ll change the system since he’s now the establishment, lol. And he’s spent his life profiting off the rules.

Its hilarious to me people think that a former Democrat real estate developer from New York will stand up for the little people. He’s for getting his gold-plated name on buildings, and institutions, that it.

He was the face of gun control after Las Vegas, sitting with Diane Feinswine. Durr bumps stocks evil. When its convenient to throw the little guy out of the development project, he will.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Trump supporters see Trump as a middle finger they can try to flash at the culture war's winners before the clingers get stomped into deserved irrelevance.

He promises to afflict the people -- modern, educated, credentialed, literate, marketably skilled, diverse, mainstream -- they resent.

He pledges to flatter their bigotry, is a proven warrior for white grievance, and is seen as the last great hope for the backwater Christian right.

Not only is this pitch irresistible to disaffected, desperate culture war losers but it is so powerful among beleaguered clingers that evangelicals abandon their ostensibly foundational morals and principles to promote and defend Trump.

[Nelson]

"POTUS Trump supporters believe he is the man most likely to completely upend the system and force changes that benefit the people."

He had four years and didn't do it then. Why do they think another four would be different?

[bernard11]

POTUS Trump supporters believe he is the man most likely to completely upend the system and force changes that benefit the people.

Of course, their definition of "the people" is dubious.

[dwb68]

inflation- yes. But those prices have stabilized and food/gas inflation is declining.

(One) reason the stock market is cheery is that Fed rate hikes are almost done. Fed rate hikes are almost done because they think inflation is declining.

[Ed Grinberg]

I speak four languages. All I want from a presidential candidate is that he (1) speak comprehensible English (which isn't always the case with the current president and vice-president), and (2) promise to promote my preferred substantive policies. If you're voting for president based on how many languages the candidates speak ... you're doing it wrong.

[Bob from Ohio]

Knowing Latin or ancient Greek is hardly bi or multi-lingual. Maybe i 50AD but not for 1500+ years.

A person who can read classical Greek cannot even speak modern Greek very well.

[OtisAH]

Gotta admit, throwing a winner-take-all open nomination vote on the floor of the MAGA convention has immense entertainment possibilities. And I’m sure they’ve worked out the kinks since the last Speaker battle so we could expect better organized chaos. Heck, we might even get a new Speaker race beforehand just to work out any remaining issues.

[Life of Brian]

Sure, but how much of that “lost easily” happened due to Sanders voters staying home out of despondency/cynicism because the superdelegates had already publicly announced they would shut him out regardless?

[Bwaaah]

Yes.

[Nige]

'something anyone is afraid of in that sense,'

In what sense? It's an act of violence. There are less violent ways to kill yourself. There are MORE violent ways to kill yourself. But shooting yourself is definitely violence.

Lots of people are afraid they'll commit self-harm or suicide if their mental health declines or they experience periods of extreme dissociation. Lots of people who are friends or relatives or people with mental health struggles are afraid they'll self-harm or suicide.

[VinniUSMC]

Almost always "someone else". Of course, Queenie excels at being the useful idiot.

You do not do violence to yourself.

[Dr. Ed 2]

What I can't get over are the pro abortion folks who totally freak out over suicides. What's the difference???

Actually, suicide is the lesser evil because the person who committed the suicide is the one who made the decision.

[Bwaaah]

Voluntarily inflicted self-violence versus uncontrolled person-on-person violence.

What's the difference?

Almathea: "The dictionary says none."

[Reallynotbob]

Well gee, Ed, let me know if you feel you have the right to kill the next person to put himself inside you without your agreement.

[Nige]

Oh no, they'll dare to campaign against him! Outrageous!

[Krayt]

The last sentence contradicts the first, except in the most irrelevant ways.

They need Biden for their best chance agqinst Trump, it's a much less risky roll of the dice.

[Brett Bellmore]

"deadlines for primaries are passing or have now passed,"

That didn't seem to matter when they were headed into a defeat with Bob Torricelli. Isn't there an over-arching legal principle that Democrats are allowed to replace candidates arbitrarily late in the game, if they might otherwise lose?

[Nige]

He tried to overturn an election, ineffectually, and they want him to have another chance, and the other side think this is bad, so in a way they're both the exactly the same.

[NOVA Lawyer]

That's a terrible analogy. Individual voters have only a tangential relationship to appointed Justices and, moreover, an individual vote has never decided and likely never will decide a national election. Meanwhile, the President who appointed a Justice was solely responsible for their appointment.

It could be reasonable for Justices to recuse in cases involving the President who appointed them but not recuse because the litigants in the case vote (whether for or against the President who then appointed the Justice).

[Nige]

It's directing violence at oneself, it's still violence.

[Nige]

Which would be an interesting analysis of continuity of policies across administrations if they didn't literally believe Obama is secretly President.

[Bob from Ohio]

– Henry Cabot Lodge
– Arthur Goldberg
– Richard Holbrooke
– Susan Rice

Lodge was a losing VP for Nixon but just other embassies afterwards, UN was Goldberg's last government post, Holbrooke was just a deputy SOS and Rice was only a white house staffer

[David Nieporent]

None.

[Josh R]

"Ted Cruz without the personality." - Stuart Stevens in a paywalled NY Times editorial from last month.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm gonna guess that you've never actually been around DeSantis.

[Bwaaah]

Martinned pretends to be unable to grasp this.

[Stella Link the dog]

Each, other than Goldberg, achieved more after UN service than has Haley. Perhaps Haley has future significance. Perhaps Trump will take her on golf outings so she can wash his balls.

[Martinned]

I think being a major party VP candidate is pretty impressive, but you do you. (And Susan Rice wasn't just "a white house staffer", but the National Security Advisor.)

[LawTalkingGuy]

You're such a miserable bastard, it's incredible.

[Frank Drackman]

Well it's all Greek to me.

[Bwaaah]

Granted about the weakness of the analogy.

Since the implication is that judges appointed by a President can't fairly hear cases in which the President of the appointing party is a litigant, what about when the litigant is the DOJ representing the President's interests (and clearly subordinated to his interests)?

[Krayt]

Or one side hyperbolizes to git a political opponent.

To sum up, one side squeaks concern over rule of law, violating rule of law, directing the investigative power of government against a hiss hiss spit political enemy in initiative after initiative after initiative, one fails, move on to the next, for the past 7 years.

Hiss hiss spit! We'll git 'im.

Both sides, QED

[David Nieporent]

I think that does violence — pun intended — to the word violence.

[OtisAH]

It is but I don’t think splitting that hair is worth the distraction from the broader topic, even if suicide by gun is a part of the broader topic.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The Democrats WERE issuing threats of massive violence in 2020 if not "all" the ballots were counted.

[David Nieporent]

No. Also, Torricelli dropped out. Biden has not, and will not, absent being medically forced to. So the reference is meaningless to this discussion.

[Frank Drackman]

Sucked

[Bob from Ohio]

Cranky today I see.

Is anything I wrote wrong?

[Stella Link the dog]

And you are the sucking expert?

[LawTalkingGuy]

A different language is a different language and learning one is an impressive accomplishment, whether its ancient Greek, Latin, Hebrew or Sanskrit. You just typed this to denigrate someone more accomplished than you to make yourself feel better.

[Brett Bellmore]

Didn't matter that Torricelli dropped out, (Because he was going to lose.) it was legally too late to replace him. But the Democrats, in a story that keeps reoccurring, got the judiciary to bail them out from having to follow the law.

So, Biden drops out, hypothetically because he's "medically forced to", but really for the same reason Torricelli did: He's going to lose.

The deadlines for the primaries being passed isn't going to matter. They wouldn't even need a judge to sign off on replacing Biden, the convention could just name a substitute.

[Dan Schiavetta]

I feel better with a President who has shown he can work hard than with a President who is lazy and even boasts about it.

[Bob from Ohio]

"denigrate someone more accomplished than you"

We are talking about Presidents of the United States, they are all "more accomplished" than anyone here.

Learning a dead language does not enable one to communicate with other living people now or even in the 19th century like the examples. You can read original texts, which is great, but does not make you bi-lingual.

[LawTalkingGuy]

He was great on SNL (never broke), but Dr. Leo Spaceman was his best role.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Languages are cool and interesting and knowing more than one is cool and interesting. Whether it's wide-spoken or rare, actively used or dead, or hell even wholly constructed like Elvish, it's impressive.

If someone tells me they are an expert in Akkadian, I'm not going to be like: "pft that doesn't count," I'm going to be like: "wow that's awesome, tell me about it."

[John F. Carr]

Like Al Franken drawing a map of the United States.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0-FYyuvrRk

[Brett Bellmore]

That's actually part of why I was supporting DeSantis this time around. Not just that I think Trump is too old, or that it's stupid to pitch your tent in a location you KNOW the enemy already has their artillery dialed in for.

You never know what a politician really thinks until they don't have to face the voters again. And I never thought Trump was actually conservative, just that, the Democrats having burned all bridges to him, he'd "dance with the one what brung him". He craves being admired, and the admiration of Democrats off the table, he had to make conservatives happy.

But I don't think he has the right instincts on everything, or else, yeah, he wouldn't have pursued that bump stock ban. So I'm kind of concerned about what he might do in a second term.

[Stephen Lathrop]

dwb68, on that gun thought. How many major Democratic Party figures do you suppose would try if elected president to organize mass gun bans?

Consider the alternative in the case of Trump. He spouts totalitarian crap and gets elected. A year or two later—right when Trump is rigging politics to hand power to Jared—Trump runs into political trouble with some other right-wing would-be totalitarian. The new guy is younger, and charismatic. Trump's political shenanigans will block his ambition. The new guy starts recruiting militias to block Trump.

Nobody should be confident that if they install totalitarian Trump, Trump will stay totalitarian on their side. As American dictator, Trump would be the first person to try to disarm any and all people he thinks are a threat to his political control.

For anyone who fears gun confiscations, Trump is the very worst bet you could make. He will stop at nothing to tear down any institutional impediment to doing what's best for him.

Meekish Democratic Party institutionalists don't work that way. It may seem paradoxical, but it ought to be obvious that private gun ownership would be safer under almost any Democrat than under Trump.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Krayt, there are more sides than both. Anyone is out of his mind to suppose Trump is reliably on any side but his own. Any impulse to install a totalitarian, and then steer him where you want to go is pure craziness.

[Bwaaah]

Too true, unfortunately. Way too true.

[Nige]

'Or one side hyperbolizes to git a political opponent'

Oh, so he didn't try to steal an election, that's fine. 'Git 'im' is what the law does to people who break the law. Only when it's Trump is this suddenly a bad thing.

[Noscitur a sociis]

.

So I’m kind of concerned about what he might do in a second term.

You don’t say!!!

[Commenter_XY]

No, it is not.

[Bob from Ohio]

he, among other things, dated the homecoming queen, was captain of a D1 baseball team, member of congress, twice elected governor and married a gorgeous woman.

But nobody likes him!

[OtisAH]

Hilarious.

[David Nieporent]

It absolutely mattered that Torricelli dropped out. The issue in that case was whether the party could replace their candidate on the ballot who was no longer running. The issue being discussed above is whether someone else could belatedly jump into the race just because some people wish they had another option besides the ones who were actually running.

[dwb68]

lol, no. When the enemy tells you want they are going to do, believe them.

[OtisAH]

Bullshit.

[grb]

Ed Grinberg : "All I want from a presidential candidate is that he (1) speak comprehensible English...."

I guess that rules out any vote for Trump. Because Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris are both models of lucidity & clarity compared to him. Let's quote the Elton John Oldie:

“I have broken more Elton John records, he seems to have a lot of records. And I, by the way, I don’t have a musical instrument. I don’t have a guitar or an organ. No organ. Elton has an organ. And lots of other people helping. No we’ve broken a lot of records. We’ve broken virtually every record. Because you know, look I only need this space. They need much more room. For basketball, for hockey and all of the sports, they need a lot of room. We don’t need it. We have people in that space. So we break all of these records. Really we do it without like, the musical instruments. This is the only musical: the mouth. And hopefully the brain attached to the mouth. Right? The brain, more important than the mouth, is the brain. The brain is much more important.”

Here's the sad thing : This dates from years ago and Trump's brain has clearly rotted away significantly since then, as witnessed by his confusing Obama with Biden, Pelosi with Haley, Orbán with Erdoğan, and claiming Joe Biden is about to start WWII.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Do you know what "bi" means. Or "lingual?"

And you are obviously denigrating accomplishments. Someone pointed out some impressive accomplishment and your immediate reaction is to be like: "PFT that's not impressive." That's denigration and that's you being a miserable bastard.

[Commenter_XY]

This thread was hilarious, btw.

[OtisAH]

Also hilarious.

[LawTalkingGuy]

"Dated the homecoming queen and was captain of the baseball team and member of congress."

Dumb jocks and members of congress are famously likeable people!

[Sarcastr0]

Four Touchdowns in one game, Peg!

[Bob from Ohio]

wa wa wa

Super cranky. No sex recently?

[LawTalkingGuy]

Not really refuting the miserable asshole thesis here. And you can add immature dork on top of that.

[Stella Link the dog]

Do you know what “bi” means. Or “lingual?”

Yeah, you can't mention either in a Florida school.

[Bob from Ohio]

“Dumb jocks ”

Oh, look, someone got pushed into a locker a lot.

Unsurprising really.

[Davedave]

Yes, his comments on the subject. Of course, you'd have to jump in to defend a fellow antisemite.

What a fine collection of conspiracy-loons the VC has acquired. You lot can't agree on anything, except that the Jews must be exterminated.

[Brett Bellmore]

They went after 14, and got at least two of them to plead guilty for a reduced sentence. That's actually a remarkably bad batting average for federal prosecutors.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Nah. But it is completely unsurprising that you positively identify with the high school bully. Is there anything more pathetic in a supposed adult than that?

[SimonP]

Brett is more of a "he won't hurt the right people" kind of guy, not a "he will get us into another world war" kind of guy. Just to be clear about what he means.

[Stella Link the dog]

"dumb jock"
I'm no DeSantis fan and he certainly appears to suffer from a personality deficit, but he's neither stupid nor incompetent. It's not clear whether that makes him more or less dangerous than Trump, but dangerous, he certainly is.

[Bob from Ohio]

"pathetic"

You called a Yale and Harvard law grad dumb.

Also, aren't you against a comment which “denigrate someone more accomplished than you”? Seems like DiSantis is way more accomplished than you even before getting elected to anything.

Jocks are usually quite popular as well.

[LawTalkingGuy]

"You called a Yale and Harvard law grad dumb."

A lot of dumb people go to Yale and Harvard Law. It's actually not that impressive. I've met some of them, they aren't necessarily the brightest people. For example DeSantis, despite going to Harvard Law appeared not to know what the business judgment rule was because he was threatening to sue Twitter for not selling itself to Elon Musk. He also thought a campaign targeted at people who are very online was a good idea. That's not very smart.

"Seems like DiSantis [sic] is way more accomplished than you even before getting elected to anything."

Kind of depends on what you mean by accomplished. We have the same level of education and I will never be known nation-wide as a huge embarrassing loser who once employed a Neo-Nazi. Also I know what the BJR is, sooo I'm apparently a better lawyer too. In the end when we both die only one of us will have op-eds and obits mentioning how much they sucked. And it won't be me.

"Jocks are usually quite popular as well."

Can be. But not always. It's a movie trope for a reason!

[Sarcastr0]

Which doesn't really mean there wasn't a bona-fide right-wing plan for political violence in the offing.

But you approve of that nowadays, at least if it has to do with 14A3. In that case, political violence would be called for.

A little terrorism for MAGA, you know, as a treat.

[John F. Carr]

According to CNN last September

Eight men were charged on the state level and another six were indicted on federal charges in 2020. Ultimately, nine were convicted or pleaded guilty in the case, and five were acquitted.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

What was the Durham investigation batting average??

[Bwaaah]

I agree.

[bernard11]

A president does nominate judges/justices based on their judicial philosophy, which more often than not aligns with the administration’s priorities and philosophies.

This is an awfully idealistic view. I don't think many Presidents have judicial philosophies. They mostly have political views, and will nominate judges who support those, philosophies notwithstanding.

That said, I agree it would be unwise to require recusal except in exceptional cases.

[John F. Carr]

According to Wikipedia French drops from 5th to 16th when measured by native speakers instead of including second language speakers, and English drops from 1st to 3rd.

The Chinese regional languages are at the other extreme, with second language learners around 1% or less of native. I know somebody from China who never learned her mother's language. It was all standard Mandarin at home.

[Stella Link the dog]

"A lot of dumb people go to Yale and Harvard Law."

In order to get through Yale and Harvard, DeSantis had to do a lot of things that we typicaly associate with smart people. He had to do well in high school, he had to do well on standardized tests, and we know that he did well as a Yale undergrad and at Harvard Law. So, I don't think he's stupid. In fact, I'd bet that he has at least a Mensa level IQ (along with about 7 million other Americans). But, what good is a high IQ if a person has poor judgement and is a poor decision maker or doesn't have the self awareness to understand the influence of prejudice and emotion?

So, there's a big question I don't know the answer to. Why do some really smart people (much smarter than me) do and say and believe some really stupid things? William Shockley, for example. I don't understand it.

[Bob from Ohio]

"I will never be known nation-wide "

On that we can agree.

[Bob from Ohio]

"poor judgement and is a poor decision maker or doesn’t have the self awareness to understand the influence of prejudice and emotion?"

I don't understand how a single failed campaign for the top job shows any of those things. Almost every presidential candidate fails, including Joe Biden.

Some failed campaign decisions do not make one a "singularly objectionable human who few people can stomach being around” which is the original assertion here.

[Sarcastr0]

Bob equates fame with both intelligence and success, it seems.

What does that say about Bob's self image?

[LawTalkingGuy]

“On that we can agree.”

Yup. And I’m damn glad for it. We should all be so lucky.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Recently learned that the co-founder of Mensa believed in phrenology (in the 50s and 60s) and was upset that the membership weren’t uniformly elite aristocrats but were a bunch middle class people good at tests and puzzles.

Oh and both he and the other co-founder were barristers. Which LOL. LMAO even.

[Bwaaah]

Stella Link the Dog: "Why do some really smart people (much smarter than me) do and say and believe some really stupid things?"

That's a great question. I am skeptical of "stupidity" being the reason. I don't know the answer, but I tend to presume that there's hidden information, particularly about motive and strategy, that would explain the seemingly stupid thing as being more carefully considered, and purposeful, than is apparent.

Life is complicated. And I'm pretty ignorant. These two facts explain a lot for me.

[Life of Brian]

The question wasn't how much time you'd actually spent thinking through this topic. Mulligan?

[Bob from Ohio]

He is going back to being governor and his great looking wife and some nice kids.

You are just another useless bureaucrat. At least Al provided a useful service selling shoes.

[Nelson]

The most common is when they're nervous. Head down, avoiding eye contact, and wagging their tail low ( rushing the back of their legs) is a sign of nervousness or apprehension.

[Sarcastr0]

Do you really think governor of Florida beats shoe salesman?

[LawTalkingGuy]

Bob you’re a mediocre lawyer in Ohio. I don’t think you have room to can call anyone else “useless.”

[Nige]

What the hell is wrong here? Why is it suddenly controversial to say that self-inflicted gunshot wounds are violent incidents?

[Nige]

'Yes, his comments on the subject'

My actual comments or the comments you're obliged to supply because I would never say such things? No, don't answer, we already know.

[Bwaaah]

In the battle Krayt is describing, there are essentially only two sides that are manifested as either the "Democratic" or "Republican" side (or right/left, liberal/conservative, whatever), because it's a two-team sport. The teams are not as much defined by common political ideology as they are by a shared collection of villainous memes that they use to characterize the other team.

Think of Clarence Thomas's "gifts from rich white friends." And Joe Biden's "family graft scheme." And the State of Texas "leaving immigrants to drown in the Rio Grande." And all the "immigrants working for the drug cartels." And "poor black folks in Georgia being prevented from voting." And "completely baseless masking rules." And all "the people who died from Republican COVID policies." And "the impending extinction from climate change."

Villainous hyperbole. It goes on, and on, and on.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Why would they think that?

They must not watch enough Fox News, Newsmax, and Republican campaign commercials.

I blame their education, experience, and character.

[Bwaaah]

He made Alaska too small.

But wow. That's really something there. I don't know how useful it is. But wow.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

As usual, you answered without engaging your brain.

[tylertusta]

...which undermines the original argument against Trump in the first place.

[Commenter_XY]

Jason, Jason....friend to the friendless Hamas. Jason, aren't you tired of being a pro-Hamas manyouk?

[Brett Bellmore]

Like I said, a really bad batting average for a federal prosecutor, and quite a few of those convictions occurred before the defense got hold of the evidence that led to those later acquittals. Of course it's easier to convict when you can keep the defense in the dark about exculpatory evidence.

[Commenter_XY]

Arthur, you are onto something. I agree with you that POTUS Trump supporters do see support for him as a yuuuuuge middle finger (mostly to DC), especially this election cycle. That proverbial middle finger is augmented with a toxic dose of grievance and outrage (not good for the country).

[Commenter_XY]

I don't know about the shoe salesman, but I am pretty sure the Governor from FL bests a useless bureaucrat.

[Brett Bellmore]

"The issue in that case was whether the party could replace their candidate on the ballot who was no longer running." Because he was losing...

That WAS the issue: The law said one thing, the judge said another.

" The issue being discussed above is whether someone else could belatedly jump into the race just because some people wish they had another option besides the ones who were actually running."

Essentially the same, then: Democrats wanted a choice other than Torricelli, because he was losing. They managed to persuade him to drop out of the race. It was too late to replace him on the ballot according to the law, but a judge decided to override the law and allow it anyway.

So, the question is, can they persuade Biden to drop out of the race? If they do it by the convention, they won't even need a judge to authorize violating the law.

[Commenter_XY]

David...You're leaving out the corruption context (and the endless leadup to The Torch stepping aside to avoid prosecution), and the SCoNJ intervening in the election to rewrite the ballot and put another candidate there for Team D.

The issue was timing. It was after a critical deadline, when The Torch flamed out, as I recall. So the SCoNJ just rewrote the rules and made the change, and put in Lautenberg as the Team D candidate. Bada Bing, Bada Boom. Their rationale was that the voter's right to have an actual choice at the voting booth superceded the actual text of the written law.

[EscherEnigma]

Inherit? No.

But if it's close to the convention and she's been campaigning for months and DeSantis hasn't, then I imagine it would feel a lot more "illegitimate" for the convention to give DeSantis the nomination giving that he'd bowed out months prior.

Then again, in the case where the convention has to decide, we'll be well off-script anyway, so who knows.

[EscherEnigma]

Is that what it is this week? I thought they'd largely given up on Obama and were just insisting that Harris was in charge.

[Sarcastr0]

Relitigating political violence so right[wing yahoos are innocent. Based on...well, the usual inside scoop Brett has on the facts of the case. See also both Clintons.

Amazing how when Brett retries these people in his head, it always comes out how he'd want it to.

Tell us again about how political violence would be righteous if Trump is kept off the ballot? Because that aligns quite well with your project here.

[bernard11]

WTF does Hamas have to do with this discussion?

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Here I thought we'd be talking about why your response to Noscitur was idiotic, but I guess the 'why' was already answered in bold right above your...'input.'

[Jason Cavanaugh]

I repeatedly called him out on his callous support of genocide, which you can see for yourself throughout the Open Threads since October 7th.

In response, because he's a horrible person, he pretends that being Jewish prevents all criticism, and anyone who doesn't agree with his vision that all Palestinians other than 'very young' children deserve to die must therefore be anti-Semitic and allied with Hamas.

It's all he's got. *shrug*

It seems oddly counterproductive when viewed in tandem with his complaints of rising anti-Semitism in America, but he's kind of retarded and doesn't seem to realize that his own behavior is likely contributing to that very problem.

[MoreCurious]

Are you trying to tell us that Mexico hasn't paid for the wall yet? What? There is no wall? But he promised!

[Brett Bellmore]

Looking back at those four years, some of that failure was on him, but a lot of it was on the Republican Congress.

I think the lesson here is that a President can't easily upend things if Congress is still controlled by establishment types.

[Nige]

Biden was supposed to immediately resign upom election and Harris take over, so some people claim that has happened, only in secret.

[Nige]

The problem isn't hyperbole. The problem is distinguishing what's true from what's false, and people who shrug as if the distinction doesn't matter. 'Drag queens are a serious problem' and 'climate change is a serious problem' are not two sides of the same coin. One is true, the other is completely false.

[Jmaie]

^^^this

I was recently in Canada and the local radio station was planning a panel discussion on cross (municipal) border dumping of construction debris. A non-hyperbolic discussion of a topic of import to local taxpayers. Very refreshing.

There, the conservatives propose a cut in expenditure for the national health (or whatever they call it). Reply from the liberals, " this will result in longer waiting times for patients." Same conversation here would be, "Why do you hate sick people and want them to die?"

[Nige]

No, it just avoids adressing the argument.

[Martinned]

A state Trump lost 55%/42% in 2020.

[Davedave]

I don't know why you deny the conversations we've had in the past. You said luridly antisemitic things.

[Brett Bellmore]

You really are in denial about how often the FBI entraps people it doesn't like, aren't you?

[Brett Bellmore]

That's a funny thing to write, when defending the President who DID get us involved in foreign wars.

I think Presidents are mostly incapable of doing much good, but they have vast potential to do harm. So the primary thing I look for in a President is somebody who isn't out to make my life worse.

Mostly Trump didn't want to get in my face. Biden, yeah, he is out to do a bunch of stuff to make my life worse.

[Sarcastr0]

1. Focusing on your life, and ignoring other people in this country, is itself a pretty telling difference between you and many other people.

2. You are absolutely into owning the libs for it's own sake! Don't pretend this is just about your own life - you've said you think Trump's promises of revenge are OK because Trump deserves some revenge. That revenge is not about policies that will benefit you.
See also what you want to happen to judges you really don't like. Their decision doesn't effect you, but lynching is nevertheless on your menu.
See also your recent flirtation with political violence (terrorism) if Trump is left off the ballot. Hard to see the personal benefit in that either.

You say libertarian, but you are the standard modern GOP reactionary conservative: 'There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.' You just have enough of a self-image you work very hard to convince yourself that you're not like that. But for all your rationalization, your conclusions converge on this every time.

[SimonP]

That’s a funny thing to write, when defending the President who DID get us involved in foreign wars.

Brett, stop being a total moron for a moment and play out how Trump’s foreign policy views might work from 2025.

Ceasing aid to Ukraine and signaling a disinterest in following through on commitments to NATO will lead to Russia seizing more or all of Ukraine and preparing to invade other near-abroad nations in eastern Europe.

Signaling disinterest in protecting Taiwan from invasion by China, and having a manifest inability to work alliances to counter any such action, will keep China on track for invading around 2027.

Stepping up support for Israel and renewing antagonism with Iran puts us on a conflict course there, as does his softer approach to a newly-emboldened North Korea.

Every theater, every conflict, Trump’s incompetence and stated preferences lead to more aggressive action by America’s adversaries, which puts Trump in the position of conceding either total American abdication in world affairs, or prompts him to take decisive, military action, without the strategic chops to manage alliances and regional power dynamics to avoid escalation without limit.

I credit Biden and his team for putting a severe cost on Russia’s invasion on Ukraine, bolstering NATO, and doing it all without getting us into a spiraling conflict with Russia. I credit him, also, with managing the Gaza war (at least initially) in a way that has kept Lebanon out of the conflict, and his strategy with the Houthis may well be calling Iran’s bluff with its proxies. None of this military entanglement is great for us, but Trump’s apparent strategy of retreating from the world stage leaves us less secure, in the long run.

Mostly Trump didn’t want to get in my face. Biden, yeah, he is out to do a bunch of stuff to make my life worse.

Considering that Trump (and the GOP more generally) do want to make all kinds of decisions about how people ought to live their lives, this helps confirm that you are, indeed, the sort of person who supports Trump because you think he’ll hurt all the right people. Haley doesn’t want to make you wait another five years to retire, for instance.

[Absaroka]

"I think the lesson here is that a President can’t easily upend things if Congress is still controlled by establishment types."

I concur, but I also think it is a feature rather than a bug.

Generally speaking, there aren't a lot of times that you need to radically restructure society in a hurry. And for at least some of the times when you do need changes, they have very broad public support. In WWII, for example, people just obeyed coastal blackout orders - there weren't a lot of people going to court saying they had a right to keep their beach house porch light on[1].

Getting drastic change means maintaining broad support over a long enough period to change the president, change the congress, change the courts, and for drastic enough changes, change enough state legislatures to amend the constitution. This is a good thing.

I suspect you agree when the political winds are blowing against you - when Biden tells the ATF to crack down every where they can think of, you like the courts standing in his way. But then you can't complain when you elect a president with an agenda outside of the congressional consensus and congress objects. If you want to steer things that far right, you need to win more congressional seats over a longer period.

[1]and even in WWII sometimes things moved too fast, e.g. the Japanese internment. The Supreme Court flubbed it's role of being a brake on runaway public opinion.

[Sarcastr0]

The lesson is that laws and norms matter. This guy Burke said something bout that, IIRC.

Trump has a project to get rid of those, so he can do his crazy shit now without those things gumming up the works.

How great our country will be then.

[Sarcastr0]

No, Brett *I require particularized evidence about things that are claimed*.

You don't - this is one of the things that makes you a conspiracy theorist. You turn the general into the specific regularly, and it's not how the world works, and it's why you're wrong all the time.

It is a very malleable worldview, allowing you to smuggle in outcomes you favor while convincing yourself you're principled.

To wit - you relitigate criminal cases you don't like. You carp about the process that is due, but if the outcome is something you don't care for, just point out some random collateral examples of overturned convictions over the past 50 years or so and you can overcome that patina of respect for process and turn the innocent guilty and the guilty innocent.

[Brett Bellmore]

1. Biden's out to make a lot of peoples' lives worse. Not just mine. When he took office they came right out and SAID they were going to make people's lives worse, as a way of forcing us to abandon fossil fuels.

2. "you’ve said you think Trump’s promises of revenge are OK because Trump deserves some revenge."

I've said I understand his desire for payback. And to some extent payback IS a good thing; People don't stop doing bad stuff if it never blows up in their faces, if they never experience a cost for it. What is the "tit" in "tit for tat"? It's payback.

Payback is feedback, Sarcastr0, and no system works properly without feedback.

[Sarcastr0]

1. So your assertion that it was about your life wasn’t correct. You speak for everyone when you say oil and gas forever, and anyone asking for any sacrifices by Americans is bad.
No, Biden wasn’t saying ‘I hate Americans and want them to suffer.’ Once again you stumble into silly territory as you try and defend your support for Trump.
Or are you a single issue voter on oil and gas forever? Because that is also dumb. And also definitely not true for you.

2. Rationalizing payback as good policy for America is about where I’d expect you to be, yeah.
Because you for all your pretend rational thinking, are driven by hatred of the Democrats in your head.

Just like so many others in the modern GOP.

[SimonP]

Biden’s out to make a lot of peoples’ lives worse. Not just mine. When he took office they came right out and SAID they were going to make people’s lives worse, as a way of forcing us to abandon fossil fuels.

And then he… presided over increased fossil fuel production… pushed for increased investments in green technologies so that they could be made available, more cheaply, as an alternative to fossil fuels… sought infrastructure investments so that not all transportation needs to be done using single-occupancy, gas-burning cars…

Brett, this kind of complaint is exactly the kind of childish gripe one has become inclined to expect, as climate change increasingly impacts the way we live our lives. We can address climate change. We can try to stop it, or we can try to adapt to it.

Stopping it would be costly and disruptive. But adapting to it is also going to be an incredibly expensive and disruptive process – people will have to move, we will need to stop subsidizing construction on coasts and flood plains, we will need to figure out where and how to grow our food, we will need to anticipate and address global climate refugees as some areas become uninhabitable and nations buckle under their own domestic pressures, etc.

So all that we are trying to do – and what petulant man-children like you are resisting – is to form a global consensus aimed at avoiding climate change’s most severe and disruptive potential outcomes. Doing that requires American leadership, and it will require domestic policies that, yes – may mean we learn to live a slightly different lifestyle.

So far, we are pursuing that change solely using policy carrots. We are not imposing carbon taxes, we are not trying to make meat more expensive, we are not (on a national level) trying to mandate the end of gas-guzzling cars. That means that our chosen policies – again, catering toward the petulant man-children in all things – end up being more expensive than they might otherwise have been, if we could just have priced carbon and let the market sort it out.

Again and again and again, we try to get fuckwits like you to come to reality. Climate change is happening. We don’t know how bad it’ll get, or how quickly, exactly. But the longer we wait to do anything about it the more expensive and shocking dealing with it will be. We are trying to get there as painlessly as possible, but you fuckers insist that the only acceptable policy is to ignore it entirely and pass the buck to future generations.

It’s like with everything else the Boomers are leaving us. You’ve extracted whatever value you can from our economy and planet and are stopping the generations after you from cleaning up the mess before we get stuck with a total catastrophe. Just die already.

[Nige]

'Payback is feedback, Sarcastr0, and no system works properly without feedback.'

Unless it's Trump and his supporters facing the consequences for their own actions, obviously.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's a feature if the establishment is committed to the right thing, it's a bug if they're desperately defending the wrong thing. And if you're electing somebody to upend things?

It's because you think the establishment is doing the wrong thing.

The Republican voting base want illegal immigration stopped. The Republican establishment want it continued, because the Chamber of Commerce likes the way it drives down wages. The main reason Republican voters want things upended in Washington is that they've experienced decades of electing people who say they'll do what the voters want, and then refuse once in office.

[Sarcastr0]

If your standards change depending on whether you like the outcome or not, then you don’t have standards.

The ends do not justify the means.

[Absaroka]

"committed to the right thing, it’s a bug if they’re desperately defending the wrong thing. And if you’re electing somebody to upend things?"

Your mistake is thinking that 'the right thing'=='what Brett wants', as opposed to 'what the voters broadly want'. And if the voters elect a president that wants X, and a congress that wants Y, that doesn't mean 'the voters want X but not Y'.

Look at the vote for women, or prohibition (enactment or repeal), or desegregation. None of those were decided by any single election. They were decided because society slowly changed its mind, and elected/appointed people across the three branches who reflected the changing consensus.

Neither fringe gets to get one of their people elected/appointed and than go all 'mandate from the people' and make radical changes. If you have a mandate from the people you have enough support to elect a president and a congress and appoint judges who agree with you. If you can't do all those things, you don't have the mandate you think you have.

I'm pretty sure you agree that Biden doesn't have a mandate from the people to change everything. Trump didn't either.

[SimonP]

The Republican voting base[, a minority of the overall population,] want illegal immigration stopped[, because they fundamentally do not understand what doing so would require or what an abrupt change on immigration policy is likely to result in]. The Republican [and Democratic] establishment want it continued, because the Chamber of Commerce likes the way it drives down wages[ and undocumented immigrants otherwise provide a labor force that our economy has come to rely on]. The main reason [some] Republican voters want things upended in Washington is that they’ve experienced decades of electing people who say they’ll do what [a minority of] the voters want, and then refuse once in office [because any broad reforms would require compromise with Democratic members of Congress, which means taking on political risk from all sides].

FTFY.

[Brett Bellmore]

You didn't seem to think norms mattered when Pelosi decided to shitcan a 230 year old norm that the minority got to pick the minority members of a committee.

[Brett Bellmore]

I thought we were talking about the motivation of Republican voters in supporting Trump?

The key thing to understanding the behavior of Republican voters is that they are not getting what they want from the people they elect. From the perspective of Republican voters, their party is broken: They win elections, and then the people they elected don't do what they elected them to do. Over and over.

The Republican party is a party embroiled in a civil war between its base and its establishment. It's been that way since the 90's when the GOP finally got control of Congress after years in the wilderness, and the Republican Congress conspicuously didn't try to deliver on its campaign promises.

Electing Trump instead of an establishment pick was just the latest salvo in that civil war.

[Nige]

Dave had to actually type them up for you, but that's as good as you saying them!

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Hey, somebody has to proofread those $42,800 residential deeds in Can’t-Keep-Up, Ohio . . . and if there were no downscale lawyers in our left-behind backwaters, who would sort out the problems precipitated by ignorance, addiction, dysfunction, indolence, superstition, delusion, bigotry, economic inadequacy among those who remain after generations on the wrong end of bright flight?

Do you want to go to west Texas, central Pennsylvania, rural Ohio, Alabama, or West Virginia to settle the disputes, handle the foreclosures, operate the drug court, or decide which cousin (among the parents) gets the children in family court?

Thank you for your service, Bob from Ohio!

[Sarcastr0]

No, I recognize what are norms and what is you getting the facts wrong after being repeatedly told by many people you are baseline incorrect about what happened.

Another data point in what you believe in enough to delude yourself. Oh hey it's another way for you to deflect from GOP doing bad stuff by pointing at a (false) narrative of Dem badness.

Dems bad - once you truly commit, there is nothing the right does you can't rationalize. Up to, as you showed this weekend, terrorism.

[Josh R]

Depending on the reasoning SCOTUS uses to affirm the decision below, it might apply nationwide. And if the decision leaves it up to the states, the decision in the battleground states will be very consequential.

[Brett Bellmore]

"because the Chamber of Commerce likes the way it drives down wages[ and undocumented immigrants otherwise provide a labor force that our economy has come to rely on]"

Saying that illegal immigrants drive down wages, and that they provide a labor force our economy as presently set up relies upon, amounts to the same thing. Without that labor force, what would businesses have to do?

Offer higher wages. And automate, of course.

[Brett Bellmore]

You're, deliberately, confusing Pelosi having a reason for violating the norm, with her not having violated the norm. The whole point of the norm was that it didn't matter what the majority thought about the minority's picks, because they WERE the minority's to pick.

It. Simply. Didn't. Matter. what her reasons were. They were utterly irrelevant.

[SimonP]

The point is that a dramatic and sudden change in immigration policy is going to have a significant, negative economic impact that will take years to work through, as we've seen in the UK after Brexit and as we're seeing so far in Florida. (And it looks like Texas also wants to experiment with this shock therapy.)

It's perfectly fine to say that a number of Republican voters - again, a minority of the population - want to go all-in on that kind of policy, for reasons that are hard to put a charitable spin on. But we shouldn't pretend those negative impacts aren't going to happen. Trump will break the system, we'll see what happens, and then we'll have to vote in another group of politicians to fix the mess he creates.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, obviously if you tomorrow, BAM, deported every illegal immigrant in the country, somehow, it would be very disruptive, on Thanos snap level. It would also be unrealistic on a Thanos snap level.

OTOH, if you tomorrow, BAM, stopped illegal immigration in its tracks, all that would happen immediately is that the number of illegal immigrants would stop increasing. It wouldn't be disruptive to our economy at all, we'd have years and years to adapt to their gradually declining fraction of the workforce.

[SimonP]

Yeah, obviously if you tomorrow, BAM, deported every illegal immigrant in the country, somehow, it would be very disruptive, on Thanos snap level. It would also be unrealistic on a Thanos snap level.

And what is Trump's promised day-one policy on immigration, Brett?

Are you planning on voting for a guy who can't deliver on his promises, because you don't expect him to deliver? Or are you just making a disingenuous argument in order to avoid looking like an idiot in this thread, and reserve the right to say something completely different in another context?

[Sarcastr0]

Advocating for a draconian policy and then saying 'well, implementation issues will keep it from being draconian' is a great way to get awful policy.

[SimonP]

Advocating for a draconian policy and then saying ‘well, implementation issues will keep it from being draconian’ is a great way to get awful policy.

Well, it’s a lie, of course.

Brett has really outdone himself in this thread, since just a few levels up he blames institutionalists and establishment Republicans for preventing Trump from “upending” things in his first term. His failure to deliver on his promises the first time wasn’t his fault!

But Brett is here also arguing that Trump’s worst policy preferences and instincts aren’t a problem, because he’ll be stopped by those institutionalists and establishment Republicans from fully carrying them out.

The reality is that Brett and others like him know and expect Trump to do his level best to “upend” things by rooting out institutionalists within the federal government and any who would oppose him in Congress. That is what Trump is campaigning on, that’s what the think tanks and Steve Bannons are plotting, etc. And when we see all of this plotting happening in plain sight and point out how disruptive and unwelcome these promised changes are likely to be – they put on this chummy facade, like, “Who, me, a fascist? Why, no, of course in practice all of these policies will get watered down and dragged out, nothing to worry about here…”

I don’t know how these people can engage in this kind of knowing deceit and not think they are basically evil. I would never defend Biden this way, or any other Democrat.

[Absaroka]

"The key thing to understanding the behavior of Republican voters is that they are not getting what they want from the people they elect."

Well, some people who voted R aren't getting everything they want. I'm not a republican voter, but I sometimes vote republican (and sometimes vote democratic). And when I do, I'm not saying I want to go full AOC or MTG. Generally speaking, the R's I vote for are farther right than I want, and the D's farther left. Your guy winning a 51/49 election doesn't mean 51% of the voters support every position his party takes.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, that's true. Just as true as it was when Democrats upended the whole health care insurance system on the basis of a tiny and transitory Congressional majority.

But members of a party still get pissed when they elect somebody who campaigned on doing something, and they give up on doing it once they win the election. If it happens persistently enough, they conclude they're the victims of a bait and switch, and start looking for somebody who will deliver, and tune out the warnings of the people who refused to.

[Absaroka]

"But members of a party still get pissed when they elect somebody who campaigned on doing something, and they give up on doing it once they win the election."

People who aren't members of a party don't like that either :-). I expect it, but don't like it.

[Sarcastr0]

You're confused about what happened, and who got to pick what.

It's not deliberate though - you've twisted it in your mind to the point no one can get through to you.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, I’m not at all confused, I’m simply unwilling to adopt your framing.

The Republicans named a set of minority members, Pelosi, for the first time in history, told the minority they couldn’t have the members they’d picked. She didn't reject all of the, sure, but she wasn't supposed to have any say at all in who they picked.

So Republicans boycotted the committee, rather than legitimize her violation, and Pelosi picked out a couple of Republicans to be the ‘minority’ members.

[David Nieporent]

"Jews are responsible for antisemitism" is certainly a thing that a not-an-antisemite would say.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Is the casual indifference to tens of thousands of innocent deaths not permitted to be criticized if the person is Jewish? Is that an anti-Semitic criticism, or does it have nothing whatsoever to do with Judaism?

His attitude here is no different than trying to say any criticism of Israeli policy makes one an anti-Semite, regardless of the content.

That is not the kind of behavior that helps eradicate stupidity and prejudice, so fuck off with your false characterization.

[Bwaaah]

Good example. It routinely gets that bad.

And the answerback can be something like, "Why are you trying to bankrupt the country?"

It's trash talk. And it's central now to popular American political discourse. (I can't speak much to the implications or repercussions of this. But it strikes me as "unhinged.")