Thursday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[not guilty]

The United States Solicitor General has so far not weighed in as to whether Donald Trump is eligible to seek election to another term as President. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/24/trump-eligibility-supreme-court-biden-justice-department-00137655

Will this matter to those who yap and yammer that the Department of Justice is carrying water for Joe Biden's re-election? I doubt that it will. But it should.

[Kazinski]

That's not hard to explain. The deadline for briefs supporting the petitioner was 1/8, the deadline for response briefs is 1/31.

Wouldn't you want to take all the time you could to read the other briefs and hone your response?

Scotusblog:
Petition GRANTED. The case is set for oral argument on Thursday, February 8, 2024. Petitioner’s brief on the merits, and any amicus curiae briefs in support or in support of neither party, are to be filed on or before Thursday, January 18, 2024. Respondents’ briefs on the merits, and any amicus curiae briefs in support, are to be filed on or before Wednesday, January 31, 2024. The reply brief, if any, is to be filed on or before 5 p.m., Monday, February 5 2024.

[not guilty]

There is no likelihood that the Solicitor General would file a partisan brief supporting the Respondents, although that is theoretically possible. Any filing would more likely be in support of neither party, for which the deadline has passed. Also, the Court could expressly invite the views of the SG.

[Kazinski]

I don't think it's out of the question the SG would argue the Colorado Supreme Court should be upheld, but I somewhat agree that there isn't much upside for getting involved, unless the SG has some killer argument nobody has thought of, which I doubt.

[Mr. Bumble]

...and so today we continue with the latest chapter of The Never Ending Story.

[Kazinski]

Hang on for about 3 more weeks.

[OtisAH]

I’d expect them to wait for the Supremes at this stage.

[dwb68]

SG never files briefs until the last minute, and why would they?

If they say "keep Trump on the ballot" then people will say: See Biden DOJ is partisan. Biden wants Trump because he's weak.

If they say "throw Trump off the ballot" then people will say: See Biden DOJ is partisan. they dont want to face him.

A deadline is just a deadline, not a indicator of which way they lean. Personally I think they will find a middle ground that doesn't 100% agree with Trump briefs, but gives SC permission to keep him on the ballot.

[not guilty]

The deadline for filing amicus briefs in support of neither party was January 18. The Court could still call for the views of the Solicitor General.

[Dan Schiavetta]

If the roles were reversed, and this was the Trump Administration, Trump would order the DOJ to support throwing Biden off the ballot, the AG would refuse, he would resign, the SG would refuse, he would resign, and some low-level "Acting" sycophant would put in the brief. This kind of thing happened again and again under Trump (as recounted by Trump's own people) and I don't think anyone here would disagree.

[Mr. Bumble]

Go back to reviewing porn movies.

[Frank Drackman]

The Parkinsonian-Joe/Common-Law Harris admin-a-strain-shin is a Porn Movie, a bad one.

[Mr. Bumble]

Every time Kamala laugh Joe has an orgasm.
Check that; pisses his pants.

[Estragon]

I have a feeling you might want to lay off this particular insult in the weeks and months ahead…

[AmosArch]

So let me get this straight. According to progs, sexual orientation toward a man or a woman is 100% biologically engrained and immutable with no social component whatsoever and theres absolutely nothing you can do about it but the state of being a man or a woman itself is a social construct and eminently mutable and you can transition back and forth as you please?

Wow God, Darwin, or whatever or whoever must have been drunk when they came up with these rules.

[Randal]

No.

[Sarcastr0]

I think you have who are the extremists wrong.

The right thinks that gender is a 100% biologically engrained trait and immutable, while sexual orientation is eminently mutable and you can transition back and forth however you want (via conversion therapy or being ~converted into gayness~).

Conversion therapy being an abusive joke doesn't mean no one can change their sexual orientation.

[not guilty]

I wonder if the haters want men who were forced into "conversion therapy" during adolescence to marry their daughters and sire their grandchildren while getting hot monkey buttsex on the downlow.

[Randal]

Conversion therapy is like ivermectin. We'd love it if it worked! But the facts are in: it doesn't. And it's dangerous to think it does.

There's nothing ideological about it, on the left. Just facts. We have no problem with paxlovid, of course. It works!

The supporters of ivermectin and conversion therapy are idelogically delusional.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

...the haters...

What are you, 15 years old?

[Michael P]

A fringe group believes in conversion therapy, therefore you attribute their views to "the right" generally.

By the same logic, the left believes Israel should be driven into the sea and that Black Americans should have their own separate nation.

[Sarcastr0]

To be clear, you take issue with the idea that the right thinks sexual orientation is mutable?

[Michael P]

To be clear, you concede that the left believes Israel should be driven into the sea and that Black Americans should have their own separate nation?

[Sarcastr0]

What a deflection!
Why don't you want to answer that question?

[Michael P]

Point conceded, then.

[Sarcastr0]

Let me try to put it another way:

If only a fringe believes in conversion therapy, does that mean the right, other than a fringe, thinks sexual orientation is immutable?

[Bwaaah]

The "right" is a broad classification that includes tens of millions of people in the U.S.

You want to say what it thinks?

You are joined in your b.s. groupist thinking by tens of millions of people on the right and the left who have similarly dumbed down views of humanity.

[Sarcastr0]

Yes, I do think one can make generalized statements about the position of political coalitions.

[Bwaaah]

You certainly can.

What do Black people think?

[Sarcastr0]

Race is not an ideologycal coalition.

[Bwaaah]

Tell that to the Congressional Black Caucus.

The news media relies on them, and shysters like Benjamin Crump, to speak for what they call “the Black community.”

They do it for Jews, and Muslims, and Latinos, and others too. They refer to a “spokesperson” for the “[blahblah] community.”

And they speak just like you…about all those people.

[Sarcastr0]

A caucus is just a group of Congresspeople; it needn't be ideological.

e.g. Congressional Cancer Survivors Caucus

[Bwaaah]

Not ideological. Right.

[Sarcastr0]

What are you trying to say?

[Bwaaah]

You employ gross stereotypes in your discussions.

[Michael P]

I have no idea. I haven't polled anyone on the specific question, and haven't seen anyone on the right arguing either way. I personally have almost no idea to what extent sexual orientation is genetic, environmental, determined before birth, acquired during childhood, or mutable as an adult.

The one thing I am broadly confident on is that "gay conversation" will typically not do what it claims. Maybe there are a few cases where someone says it worked for them, but I would guess this is less common than transexual de-transition.

[EscherEnigma]

[...] and haven’t seen anyone on the right arguing either way.

Seeing as this has been a public debate for decades, on which conservative politicians have routinely fallen on the side of "conversion therapy works, is a moral practice, and should be a legal practice" (in stark contrast to any evidence-based approach), I think that says more about how much you pay attention then anything else.

[Bwaaah]

I've seen conservative politicians say "conversion therapy" shouldn't be illegal. But I don't know if I've ever met anybody, conservative or otherwise, who expressed any sense of likelihood it would work.

[Brett Bellmore]

I believe the actual evidence, such as it is, is that for most people heterosexual orientation is basically immutable, genetically determined. And this is perfectly understandable, being heterosexual is a pretty strongly selected for by Darwinian evolution.

But, of course, all things genetic are subject to the force of mutation, so you can't rely on genes always working, and this includes the genes dictating sexual orientation.

In some cases, when the mechanism for producing a heterosexual orientation breaks, it is inverted, producing an immutable homosexual orientation. In some cases. In other cases, it's broken in a way that leaves sexual orientation mutable.

So, for some people conversion therapy might work, for others it would be pointless. I suppose we'll never find a way to sort them out if we make attempts illegal, though.

But this is sexual orientation, which is distinct from sex, which is both immutable and VERY strongly dictated by genes, so that almost nobody isn't clearly one or the other sex. "Almost".

[Sarcastr0]

'for most people' is doing a ton of work.

Strikes me that, if something isn't universally genetically determined it's hard to say it's genetically determined. What about the outliers (not homosexuals, those who are flexible) is their 'mechanism' just lazy?

Plus, I think there are a ton of counterexamples. England in the Victorian era, prison, etc.

Gender identity != sex. It usually is! But when it's not, I don't think you can a priori call it a mental deficiency and be a dick about calling them what they want to be called because it's not your personal take on the truth.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Strikes me that, if something isn’t universally genetically determined it’s hard to say it’s genetically determined."

Did you actually think about that before writing it? Some people have broken genes, you know. Is blood sugar regulation not genetically determined just because diabetics exist?

[Bwaaah]

And I had a Spicy BK Royal Crispy Chicken sandwich. And it was VERY GOOD!!

Highly recommended. A real pleasure. (The $14.90 ticket price, including medium fries/drink, was a shock though. Is that just NYC?)

[Brett Bellmore]

Must be; The large combo meal is just $10.99 locally.

[Life of Brian]

"$15 in New York" is a hauntingly familiar refrain.

Paul Krugman assured me this sort of thing would never happen!

[Bwaaah]

I had to walk 1.5 miles, in Manhattan, to get to the nearest Burger King.

Magic question: is it that there aren’t enough people to support more Burger Kings here, or that Burger King can’t make money under Krugman’s theories of value?

(They’ve been shutting down BKs here for years.)

New York City Council: building a better future.

[jb]

LOL. Yeah, labor is the only thing that's more expensive in New York. Couldn't possibly be the rent that the store has to pay or the additional cost of getting deliveries into the city or anything like that. /s

Also, P.S.: the way that markets work is that people selling things set prices such that they think they will maximize profit, not so that they are priced some fixed percent above what they cost to produce and sell.

[Life of Brian]

LOL. Yeah, labor is the only thing that’s more expensive in New York.

Of course not, silly rabbit, but the spread has skyrocketed. About a decade ago, the NY Big Mac Index was barely 20% higher than the lowest-priced state. Now it's pushing a third.

Also, P.S.: the way that markets work is that people selling things set prices such that they think they will maximize profit, not so that they are priced some fixed percent above what they cost to produce and sell.

Yes, because if there's anywhere a fast food chain can command supercompetitive prices, it's Manhattan! /s

[bernard11]

Magic question: is it that there aren’t enough people to support more Burger Kings here, or that Burger King can’t make money under Krugman’s theories of value?

Or maybe people in NYC don't like Burger King all that much. There's not exactly a shortage of restaurants there. In fact, it makes you wonder why anyone would walk 1.5 miles to get to a BK.

Oh, and Krugman's little finger knows more economics than you do.

[Bwaaah]

“The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in ‘Metcalfe’s law’—which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants—becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet’s impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine’s.”
Paul Krugman (1998)

[Bwaaah]

“Now comes the mother of all adverse effects — and what it brings with it is a regime that will be ignorant of economic policy and hostile to any effort to make it work,” Krugman wrote. “So we are very probably looking at a global recession, with no end in sight. I suppose we could get lucky somehow. But on economics, as on everything else, a terrible thing has just happened.”

Paul Krugman (2016) (in response to Trump's election win)

[Absaroka]

Prediction is hard. There is a famous memo Lin Wells wrote that starts:

"If you had been a security policy-maker in the world’s greatest power in 1900, you would have been a Brit, looking warily at your age-old enemy, France.

By 1910, you would be allied with France and your enemy would be Germany.

By 1920, World War I would have been fought and won, and you’d be engaged in a naval arms race with your erstwhile allies, the U.S. and Japan.

By 1930, naval arms limitation treaties were in effect, the Great Depression was underway, and the defense planning standard said “no war for ten years.”
... and so on through 2000.

(the link is to an image of the memo ... it should be framed on a lot of office walls)

[Bwaaah]

"Prediction is hard."

Quite true. And even if they give you a Nobel prize, it doesn't get any easier.

[Commenter_XY]

Ok, I am going to try one. Second time this week someone mentioned it.

[Bwaaah]

I decided to do it yesterday for fear you'd beat me to it. (lol)

Note that "spicy" at BK is mildly spicy in more general parlance. But quite nice, actually.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm actually glad they took their supposed "Nashville hot" sandwich, and made it into this. Drenching the bun in oil was really messy, and didn't contribute anything to the flavor.

Man, I wish a genuine Nashville Hot place would open up locally. That stuff is GOOD.

[Bwaaah]

Man, I wish a genuine Nashville Hot place would open up locally. That stuff is GOOD.

You're killin' me here. This kind of talk of spicy food causes me to salivate like a dog.

[Commenter_XY]

That is where Sarcastr0 falls apart: genetics.

There is the immutable genetic characteristic....
XX: Female
XY: Male
Genetically determined at birth 99.999+% of the time. That is objective truth.

Then there is a group of people, about 0.0002% of live births where it is not XX or XY. It happens. It is exceptionally rare. I am not talking about them.

There is a last group of people who have severe psychological issues that need treatment. For whatever reason, this group believes erroneously they are another sex even though genetically, they are one sex. In some cases, children that some adults have arranged to have the child's gender destroyed (not gender affirming at all). It is barbaric.

[Nige]

It's a medically recognised condition with a recommended course of treatment, all of which you compleely ignore because of your personal prejudices.

[Commenter_XY]

You're right: Extensive psychological counseling = recognized medical tx

[Nige]

Oh, well, in that case, better pass loads of laws targeting trans people, like the good little lovers of freedom and liberty you are.

[bernard11]

OK, XY.

1. What evidence is there that extensive psychological counseling is benign, and works, for some definition of works?

2. Should we force transsexuals to undergo this counseling?

3. What if someone does go through counseling and it doesn't work? Is it now reasonable to subject that person to abuse, insults, discrimination, etc.?

[Brett Bellmore]

If only there were some middle ground between forcing people to undergo conversion therapy, and outlawing it.

Like, I don't know, maybe just permitting it?

[bernard11]

If only there were some middle ground between forcing people to undergo conversion therapy, and outlawing it.

Like, I don’t know, maybe just permitting it?

First, that's not the question I was asking.

Second, we normally don't allow "therapies" that are both known to be harmful, and have no plausible scientific basis. The fact is, "conversion therapy" is mostly ignorance-based abuse. And its "patients" are often teenagers more or less coerced into it.

And no, I don't think parents should decide, any more than you think parents should encourage their children to go for gender-affirming care.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Second, we normally don’t allow “therapies” that are both known to be harmful, and have no plausible scientific basis."

LOL! Really, you're going to say that, when there are people walking down the street with split tongues and implanted fake horns? I don't even have to go into the political nature of how 'gender reassignment" surgery got declared to work and conversion therapy got declared unscientific, to laugh at that argument.

We let adults do all sorts of stupid and self-destructive things. Why is conversion therapy anathema?

Politics, that's why.

[grb]

Commenter_XY : "There is a last group of people who have severe psychological issues that need treatment. For whatever reason, this group believes erroneously they are another sex"

Oh boy, but doesn't this raise questions!

1. What is this treatment you refer to and does it work?

2. Both homosexuality and individuals exhibiting traits opposite their physical gender exist elsewhere in nature. Do those animals have "psychological issues" too?

3. There are clearly people who have a strong indentification opposite their physical gender at a very early age. If transitioning helps them lived happier lives would you care? If studies showed that fact, would you pay attention? If not, why not? Wouldn't it be "barbaric" to ignore that evidence about fellow human beings?

This is all debated scientific ground, but here's what I think: There are two kinds of gender : The physical traits and plumbing we all treasure and enjoy, and a gender indenty hardwired into the brain. In the vast majority of people they are in sync, but in some they're not. That would explain why some people have an unanswerable unprompted yearning to be something different than they seem. That they do, is an easily seen fact - the only questions are why and whether their lives are hostage to cheap politics.

[Brett Bellmore]

"2. Both homosexuality and individuals exhibiting traits opposite their physical gender exist elsewhere in nature. Do those animals have “psychological issues” too?"

Well, duh. You think only humans ever suffer from psychological problems?

[Roberta]

Ooo, so close! There's no biologic gender. What there is, is sex. Gender is the word we use for a socially determined classification.

[Voize]

We let adults do all sorts of stupid and self-destructive things.

The Washington ban that didn't get to SCOTUS allows conversion therapy for adults. The ban only affects health care professionals with patients under 18.

Meanwhile it is a misdemeanor in WA under RCW 26.28.085 for anyone other than a licensed physician performing a medical procedure to apply a tattoo to a minor under 18.

[Sarcastr0]

So there is a gene to make you straight, and it can be inverted to make you gay, and it can in rare instances be broken to make you flexible?

Is this the Brett Bellmore Genetic Science on the issue?

Because that's what it looks like you're saying. And it's nonsense.

[Commenter_XY]

And you write science grants? 🙂

[bernard11]

It's amazing, isn't?

When Brett isn't explaining the Constitution to us he's providing lectures on genetics.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Did you actually think about that before writing it?

Forget it, Jake. It's Sarcastr0.

[Bwaaah]

You correctly nailed down some general theory on the matter there, in my opinion.

[Bwaaah]

[bernard11]

So, for some people conversion therapy might work, for others it would be pointless. I suppose we’ll never find a way to sort them out if we make attempts illegal, though.

OK, Dr. Mengele.

I mean, even if there were a therapy that works (doubtful) why would it be the abusive treatment used by charlatans today?

You don't just invent something and say, "Well, we'll never know unless we try."

What you are doing is conflating current "methods" with some well-reasoned therapy that has a sound basis in science rather than old wives' tales, and that probably does not exist.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

OK, Dr. Mengele.

My days of not taking you seriously are definitely coming to a middle.

[Nige]

I'd say his heart is breaking.

[bernard11]

My point, which you obviously and unsurprisingly missed, is that, "We won't know if it works unless we try it," is a piss-poor rationalization for an abusive treatment that is based on nothing but prejudices and nonsense.

[Social Justice is neither]

And yet you marxists are all in on child genital mutilation and castration because it sounds nicer to call it "gender affirming care" rather than child abuse of the highest order. Mengele heal thyself.

[bernard11]

I'm neither a Marxist nor "all in on child genital mutilation and castration," so go fuck yourself.

[Nige]

'I suppose we’ll never find a way to sort them out if we make attempts illegal, though.'

Torturing young people into converting sexualities the way people convert religions is, stupid, evil and cruel and the 'successes' can only ever be exactly as dubious and untrustworthy as forced religious conversions.

[Krayt]

"Poor is the man whose pleasures depend on the permission of another." - A wise woman

Who the hell gives government the power to regulate sexuality in the first place? Then whether people are born that way or not is academic, and they don't need that to be free from self-appointed assassins on behalf of magical beings.

[jimc5499]

That was the purpose of Liberia.

[Dr. Ed 2]

"By the same logic, the left believes Israel should be driven into the sea and that Black Americans should have their own separate nation."

Or Black Americans should be driven into the sea and Jewish Americans have their own separate nation...

Jewish AMERICANS, not Jews in general. And likewise Black AMERICANS, not Blacks in general. And if you have trouble with this, you should have trouble with the converse as well....

And as to Israel, what does it say on the Saudi flag???

[Kazinski]

"sexual orientation is eminently mutable and you can transition back and forth however you want"

That's true for some people, but not for the vast majority.

But it was asserted vociferously in a thread just a week or two ago that trans/not trans is binary, and diagnosis was decisive, so there was no need for worry in allowing access to private women's areas.

[Social Justice is neither]

And yet trans desistence is a real thing and common among trans identifying youth and so is detransitioning.

[AmosArch]

If you agree conversion can work in principal why is it being blanket banned with the same rhetoric conservatives use against trannies? Shouldn't they simply ban abusive forms rather than blanket ban the very concept?

[bernard11]

If you agree conversion can work in principal why is it being blanket banned with the same rhetoric conservatives use against trannies? Shouldn’t they simply ban abusive forms rather than blanket ban the very concept?

I don't agree it can work in principle. I admit, for the sake of argument, that some day, somewhere, someone might figure out a non-abusive, scientifically based, proven effective, method.

But right now all forms are abusive, ineffective, and potentially harmful as you would expect from their promoters.

Here is the AMA view:

Evidence does not support the purported “efficacy” of SOCE in changing sexual orientation.9 To the contrary, these
practices may cause significant psychological distress.10 One study showed that 77% of SOCE participants reported
significant long-term harm, including the following symptoms:11
• Depression
• Anxiety
• Lowered self-esteem
• Internalized homophobia
• Self-blame
• Intrusive imagery
• Sexual dysfunction
Participants also reported significant social and interpersonal harm, such as alienation, loneliness, social isolation,
interference with intimate relationships and loss of social supports
...
Young LGBTQ adults who report higher levels of parental and caregiver rejection
are 8.4 times more likely to report having attempted suicide.15 One study found nearly 30% of individuals who
underwent SOCE reported suicidal attempts.16 In a Trevor Project survey, LGBTQ youth subjected to conversion
therapy reported twice the rate of suicide attempts compared to those who were not.

administering change efforts is an inherently
discriminatory practice often administered coercively and fraught with ethical problems, such as:
• Uninformed consent (change efforts are often prescribed without full descriptions of risks and disclosure of
lack of efficacy or evidence)
• Breaches of confidentiality (content of treatment, sexual orientation and gender identity may be shared
with family, school or religious leaders without proper consent)
• Patient discrimination (change efforts reinforce bias, discrimination and stigma against LGBTQ individuals)
• Indiscriminate and improper treatment (change efforts are recommended regardless of evidence)
• Patient blaming (the failure of treatment may be blamed on the patient)

Get back to us when someone devises a humane, proven effective, way for those voluntarily seeking to change their sexuality to do so. I won't hold my breath.

[Krychek_2]

Can you name a single progressive who actually believes that?

[AmosArch]

Wackypedia for one, the APA, and the 'born this way' and 'not a choice' movement just to name a few used rhetoric strikingly similar to antitransgender rhetoric to proclaim the biological determinism of sexual orientation which is fixed to a degree that if you said the same thing about being a man or woman you would be labeled a bigot.

Of course in recent years as they've dumped gays and transgenders have become the new hotness they've started to realize the contradictions and have begun pulling back on the previous 'born this way' messaging but this pull back just goes to show that the fundamental contradictions in logic did indeed exist and are so blatant even the progs recognize it.

Has 'Born This Way' Outlived Its Usefulness? Advocate

It's time to rethink “born this way,” a phrase that's been key to LGBTQ acceptance. Salon

[Sarcastr0]

Born this way is generally an individual statement, not a broad statement about sexual orientation generally. Not for the last 20 years.

they’ve dumped gays
Finer on the pulse of the left as always, Amos!

[Nige]

Have you confused sexuality with gender? Again?

[myself]

So let me get this straight. According to progs, sexual orientation toward a man or a woman is 100% biologically engrained and immutable with no social component whatsoever and theres absolutely nothing you can do about it

I'm not sure anyone would say it's 100% biological, certainly social components can shift it at the margin, but things like conversion therapy that try a wholesale flip are dangerous bunk*.

but the state of being a man or a woman itself is a social construct and eminently mutable and you can transition back and forth as you please?

I don't think anyone claims this. Transgender folks think their gender is an immutable characteristic that doesn't match their sex at birth (which, knowing biology, seems fairly reasonable). Medically speaking, bringing their sex into closer alignment with their gender seems to be a lot easier than going the other way. Other folks have a much more fluid gender identity, which again, has some biological plausibility.

There's three main characteristics, gender identity, sexual orientation, biological sex. Generally, all three are aligned, but biology always has exceptions so gay and transgender are to be expected.

* Technically I do know someone who turned themselves gay. They were a straight man and transitioned to being a gay woman.

[David Nieporent]

I don’t think anyone claims this. Transgender folks think their gender is an immutable characteristic

Do they? What about all the people who call themselves "gender fluid"?

[Sarcastr0]

I think Trainspotting from 1996 presciently captured the current progressive take on gender/sexual orientation:

“In a thousand years, there will be no men and women, just wankers, and that’s fine by me.”

[SimonP]

Those people don't call themselves "transgender," Chip.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The gender fluid are mentally ill and we once had the courage to say that. We define a LOT of other folks as mentally ill today, we ought to go back to defining them as well.

[bernard11]

The gender fluid are mentally ill and we once had the courage to say that.

How are they mentally ill? Why would you label perfectly normal, happy, functioning people as mentally ill, other than your prejudices?

What business of your is it to (chuckle) "diagnose" them? What "treatment" do you have in mind, and why should they undergo it?

It's you, Dr. Ed, who are mentally ill.

[AmosArch]

I don’t think anyone claims this. Transgender folks think their gender is an immutable characteristic that doesn’t match their sex at birth
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

LOL nope. Haven't you heard of gender fluidity? You claim to be an enlightened prog yet you clearly have no idea what you are defending. LMAO

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

God, your strawmanning is tiresome. Don't you have anything better to do with your time than waste ours?

[myself]

Wow... both you and David Nieporent were so anxious to respond to the first sentence of that paragraph that you couldn't be bothered to read to the third sentence.

Which begs the question, if you're not bothering to even finish reading a medium sized comment before replying then why are you here?

[Nige]

'LOL nope.'

This is the same level as people claiming homophobia couldn't be real because it obviously meant 'fear of gays' and they weren't afraid of no gays.

[EscherEnigma]

No, that is not an accurate summary of the views of "progs".

[Kazinski]

I got a chance to read Ted Cruz's brief, and part of it is pretty strong:

"Section 3 enforcement mechanisms
are left to Congress, not to a patchwork of state
officials and courts. Congress implemented Section 3
in the Enforcement Act of 1870, which provided that
when an individual was holding office in violation of
Section 3, the local “district attorney of the United
States” must seek a “writ of quo warranto” and
“prosecute the same to the removal of such person
from office.” Act of May 31, 1870, ch. 114, § 14, 16 Stat.
140, 143; see also id. § 15. But Congress rescinded that
act nearly eighty years ago, in 1948. Act of June 25,
1948, ch. 646, § 39, 62 Stat. 869, 992.
Under current law, Congress has implemented
Section 3 only in the narrow context of requiring a
criminal conviction for “rebellion or insurrection,” and
provided that those found guilty “shall be incapable of
holding any office under the United States.” 18 U.S.C.
§ 2383. Just as Chief Justice Chase anticipated in
Griffin, § 2383 requires compliance with procedural
and factfinding requirements dictated by the Fifth
and Sixth Amendments. But Congress has otherwise
not seen fit to implement Section 3 enforcement
under current law, even though Congress is certainly aware
of its authority to do so, as demonstrated above."

But he lost me at the part where the brief says that disqualifying Trump from the ballot now, encroaches on Congress' power to remove the disability later. The question might be asked "why doesn't Congress just remove any disability now?"

Its a somewhat better argument that Section 3 only disqualifies a candidate from office, not the ballot and Congress has removed the disqualification to hold office in the past from candidates that were elected despite being disqualified. Trump.does make that argument in his brief.

[Randal]

Its a somewhat better argument that Section 3 only disqualifies a candidate from office, not the ballot...

This argument has the potential to backfire on you in case Section 3 is found not to be self-executing. If Section 3 only disqualifies a candidate from office and not the ballot, then states like Colorado and Maine aren't implicating Section 3 by keeping Trump off the ballot. Even the old Enforcement Act was written only to apply to people already in office, not to mere candidates for office.

Under that reading, Colorado isn't "enforcing" Section 3 at all. It's just choosing not to risk its electoral votes going to a candidate who might get disqualified down the road, were Section 3 ever to be enforced. (Such as by Congress on Jan 6, 2025, should Calabresi's nightmare-slash-fantasy scenario come to pass.)

[Kazinski]

No. If Section 3 doesn't disqualify Trump from the ballot, then states have to put Trump on the ballot under he same rules any other candidate would face.

Under your theory of unlimited state ballot discretion NC, GA, and AZ could keep Biden off the ballot because he's a loser.

If they can't use section 3, there are no arrows left in the quiver.

[Randal]

They can “use” Section 3 without “enforcing” Section 3, if Section 3 doesn’t itself apply to ballots.

I’m not sure CSC would interpret Colorado law that way, but it could. “We find that the terms of Section 3 would apply to Trump were Section 3 to become enforced, and Colorado law prevents its electoral votes from going to a candidate at risk of disqualification, and it further requires candidates incapable of receiving electoral votes to be stricken from the ballot.”

[Kazinski]

That's just nonsensical, if section 3 isn't self executing it can't be used for anything other than what Congress says it can be used for.

The only way a non-self-executing Section 3 could be used to keep Trump off the ballot is if Congress passed a law allowing it.

[Randal]

Do you have any authority or reasoning for your bald assertion?

There are ways for non-self-executing Constitutional clauses to be "used" without enabling legislation in other contexts, like as a defense. Even Section 3 was used this way in the Case of Jefferson Davis apparently...

By contrast, Davis sought to use Section 3 as a shield -- as a defense in his criminal prosecution -- and he could do so without enforcement legislation.

[Life of Brian]

Under that reading, Colorado isn’t “enforcing” Section 3 at all. It’s just choosing not to risk its electoral votes going to a candidate who might get disqualified down the road, were Section 3 ever to be enforced.

Oh, if states can control ballot access based solely on their own what-if fears, that opens up SO many fresh, new possibilities! Why in the world would a state risk its electoral votes going to a candidate who very well might be dead by Inauguration Day?

I’m sure you have a very non-self-serving limiting principle in mind that would control the chaos.

[Randal]

Not at all, I think that sort of thing is totally legit.

A reliably red state could pass a law saying, we’re done holding presidential elections, with all those costs and shenanigans. All our electoral votes automatically go to the Republican nominee.

Given that, I’m not too worried about ballot access. If the state has more than one candidate in mind and it wants to let the people choose between them, that’s great!

I think you could run into issues with discriminatory rules like “no women.” And I think any election that does get held has to be fair to the voter, like, you can’t have the people of just one county pick the winner. The standard Due Process and Equal Protection guardrails still apply.

[Life of Brian]

Yeah, this "let's just drop the pretense and race to the bottom" theory really seems to be starting to catch on. Hopefully it doesn't get past the internet bloviation stage.

A reliably red state could pass a law saying, we’re done holding presidential elections, with all those costs and shenanigans. All our electoral votes automatically go to the Republican nominee.

And the same for the blues, speaking of race to the bottom. But what's "reliably" have to do with anything? If laws like that are cool, all it comes down to is legislative firepower.

[Randal]

it comes down to is legislative firepower.

And potentially the Governor's veto. And potentially the state Supreme Court saying it's unconstitutional. Which is what I mean by reliably. If you get all those lined up, I mean, why not, the election is a foregone conclusion anyway.

[Life of Brian]

Oh, I thought you were presuming constitutionality. But anyway: so under your worldview do states like Texas WANT to turn blue, or are they just unimaginative suckers?

[Randal]

I meant state-constitution constitutional.

I don’t get the Texas thing. Do states want to turn different colors? I don't know.

[Life of Brian]

Progressives have been salivating for a good while now about the potential for turning Texas blue. Why in the world wouldn't they just legislatively lock it at red and take that off the table?

[Randal]

I think taking away elections isn't very popular politically. Attempting to lock it in at red could be the quickest way to turn it blue. 🙂

We'll see though. When Trump loses again, I bet some states will give up on elections and try it for 2028.

[BrianL.]

The National Vote Compact is an example of this. Several states have passed laws saying that their electoral votes will go to whichever candidate wins the popular vote, no matter how their respective state voted. The laws do not go into effect until enough states pass it so that the combined states in the compact have at least 270 electoral votes.

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

[Life of Brian]

Yes, I'm well aware of that bit of too-cleverness. The current members are deep blue states that are confident the NPV will be blue in perpetuity. Setting aside the virtual certainty that they're not going to get enough currently purple states to enter the compact to matter (at that point it wouldn't be needed anyway), if the NPV ever started even flirting with trending red again the blue state laws would be challenged in court 5 minutes later (if the states hadn't already voluntarily thrown them out 4 minutes later). It's an unserious gimmick IMHO.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

You attribute malign motives or bad faith to everything with which you disagree. You're welcome to believe that, but it doesn't make for very interesting conversation.

[Life of Brian]

I certainly don't find bad faith in everything, but neither do I insult my own or others' intelligence by suspending disbelief in painfully transparent situations like this one.

Simple sanity check: not a single red state has entered the NPV compact. Do you honestly believe that's simply due to sheer, improbable coincidence?

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

I honestly believe that every state controlled by a single political party acts in what it sees as the best interests of that party. But that's obvious and boring. We could discuss whether or not NPV is a good idea on its own terms, that might be interesting. But discussing it in terms of assumed motives of partisan politics is pointless. That's what happens to every single discussion here. So boring.

[Randal]

I'll discuss it. I think it's a terrible idea. We vastly underestimate the value of the electoral college and running 50 isolated elections instead of one big one. Could you imagine a close popular vote? What about the incentives for states to goose their numbers relative to other states? (Maybe the second one is good from a poll access perspective, but still a dangerous incentive I think.) It just seems all bad.

If we want to elect the President based on the popular vote, we should at least do it right, with a consistent, federally-administered election. But I think that's still far less stable than what we have now.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

I think if we want to elect the President by popular vote, we should do away with the electoral college and have a nationally run election, as you say. NPV is just a half-assed way to achieve that without having to amend the constitution. I'm not sure that would result in better Presidents. But it would be better than what we have now, where millions of Republican voters in blue states and millions of Democrats in red states basically have no say in the outcome of the election in November.

Perhaps we should try returning to the original plan of the framers, electing or appointing electors who would act as free agents and cast their votes as they see fit. It will never happen, but it would be miles better than the crazy system we have now.

[bernard11]

No. Of course not.

It's based on the likelihood that it would work against their political interests, no more, no less.

It is, after all, the red states who benefit from the EC.

[not guilty]

The brief of Ted Cruz, et al, is here. https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-719/298014/20240118120731316_23-719%20Amicus%20Brief%20of%20U.S.%20Senator%20Ted%20Cruz.pdf

Cruz’s contention (Part I.B., pp. 9-11) that the action of the Colorado Supreme Court somehow interferes with the ability of Congress to remove a § 3 disability is batshit crazy. The first rule of construction is to look at the language of the text itself: “But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.” There is no textual limitation on whether or when the Congress may act, regardless of by whom or how the § 3 disability was imposed. The decision of the Colorado Supreme Court does nothing to negate or detract from Congressional authority in that regard. Indeed, if it chose to do so Congress could moot the Colorado lawsuit in an instant by removing the disability from Donald Trump.

Cruz contends that Congress must pass authorizing legislation to enforce § 3. That is simply an exercise is question begging. The Fourteenth Amendment, § 5 states that “The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.” Here what is not said is critical. It does not say “The Congress shall have the exclusive power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.” Neither does it use prefatory language such as “No state shall . . .” Compare, Article I, § 10.

[Kazinski]

Cruz also cites Griffin for that premise, and Congress followed Chases ruling soon thereafter with legislation enforcing Section 3.

The Constitution also says Congress shall have Power to… Declare War”, and it doesn’t that power is exclusive.

Another example is the Constitution says “Congress shall power to … regulate commerce between the states”. We know that power isn’t exclusive, but any state regulation at odds with what Congress passes doesn’t last long. For instance Berkeley’s local zoning regulation that didn’t allow new gas hookups was recently struck down by the 9th circuit. That was less at odds with Congress “power” regulation than Colorado disqualifying a presidential candidate and not following the procedures Congress laid out for disqualification.

[not guilty]

Article I, § 10 provides that no State shall, without the Consent of Congress, engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay.

[Mr. Bumble]

Is stringing barbed wire on state property engaging in war?

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Ask Chief Justice Roberts. W, The President!

[Michael P]

But he lost me at the part where the brief says that disqualifying Trump from the ballot now, encroaches on Congress’ power to remove the disability later. The question might be asked “why doesn’t Congress just remove any disability now?”

The prohibition is on holding office, not on getting votes in a primary or general election, or even from electors. Congress wouldn't have to make a decision before January 6, 2025 -- and that will be a new, different Congress than the current one, as it will include any changes due to the special and ordinary elections this year.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

I haven't read Cruz's brief, but I think the argument is that since there is at least a theoretical possibility that Congress could remove the disqualification from Trump, he shouldn't be disqualified on that basis by the states, since that would have the effect of mooting Congress' action.

[Randal]

This conversation made me realize there's a better way to think about self-execution that doesn't rely so much on that term -- self-executing -- which people think they understand but really don't. I think this might be appealing to SCOTUS. It goes like this.

The Colorado court reasoned that Trump is disqualified by Section 3, as if disqualification were a platonic state of being brought into existence by the 14th Amendment. That was the court's mistake.

Becoming disqualified is a process. It's not state of being.

So although 14/3 describes the criteria for disqualification, it doesn't provide the process. Therefore Trump isn't disqualified for the simple reason that he hasn't been disqualified.

(This also helps with the question of whether he or Pence was President after the first week of January.)

But, the criteria is still there in the constitution. So while Colorado can't say that Trump is disqualified or has been disqualified, it can determine that Trump doesn't meet the criteria for qualification. Remand to CSC to decide if that makes a difference under state law.

And if you think about it, that's really how it works for the other qualifications too, like age and citizenship, even if the language used isn't always precise since in those contexts, there's not so much of a gap between "has been disqualified" and "meets the criteria for qualification."

It also helps with Cruz's argument, although not in the way you're suggesting. Instead it says that absent a process for disqualification, nobody is ever actually disqualified -- even people who "don't meet the criteria for qualification" -- so there's no disability for Congress to remove.

[Life of Brian]

And if you think about it, that’s really how it works for the other qualifications too, like age and citizenship, even if the language used isn’t always precise since in those contexts, there’s not so much of a gap between “has been disqualified” and “meets the criteria for qualification.”

I think the age/citizenship qualifications really don't map well to this situation because those characteristics are 1) objectively measurable, and 2) immutable. Save a criminal conviction, whether someone has engaged in insurrection/rebellion is neither of those things. The entire reason everyone is spinning on this and coming up with all these exotic theories (sorry, but trying to distinguish "disqualified" from "not qualified" just strikes me as more of the same) is because they know criminal conviction is not in the cards and are trying to come up with a shortcut.

[Randal]

I don't think a criminal conviction would disqualify Trump. I think that part of the Insurrection Act is unconstitutional as applied to the presidency. So that's not my motivation.

But even if it were, there's nothing more or less objective about a criminal conviction than there is about an administrative determination. In fact, it's not too hard to argue that a criminal conviction is less objective (if your goal is to get to the fact of the matter) since the criminal process is so totally skewed towards the defendant. Lots of murderers aren't criminally convicted, for example, but they're still objectively murderers.

[Life of Brian]

What I was getting at with "objective" was not the process of the criminal determination, but the fact that it had happened. If you're not allowed to vote because you're a felon, that's an objective fact about you based on a criminal conviction to that effect, not just someone's opinion. Same deal here.

Lots of murderers aren’t criminally convicted, for example, but they’re still objectively murderers.

No, by definition if they're acquitted then they're only murderers In your subjective opinion. We just went through this with OJ last week.

[Randal]

No, by definition if they’re acquitted then they’re only murderers In your subjective opinion.

That’s one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard.

I do get the idea that it’s easier to determine “OJ is a convicted murderer” than “OJ is a murderer.” Both are objective facts, but the former is easier to establish.

But “OJ is a convicted murderer” and “OJ was determined to be a murderer by administrative decree” are objective facts that are both easy to establish.

[not guilty]

The only white man over the age of 40 to be awarded a Heisman Trophy is Fred Goldman.

A criminal trial is not a search for truth. It is a test of the prosecution's evidence. A preponderance of evidence standard is more suited to reliable factfinding.

[Life of Brian]

You must not get out much!

Not to get too semantical this early in the morning, but the whole idea of a unanimous jury evaluating evidence under a "beyond reasonable doubt" standard is by definition an effort -- imperfect as most things human, but the best we have to my knowledge -- to objectively determine guilt.

If the evidence leaves room for reasonable doubt and the jury hangs/acquits, then again by definition any individual's opinion re guilt is nothing more than their own reasonable -- but subjective -- take on the evidence.

Similarly, an individual judge/adminicritter pushing out a ruling under a coin-flip standard is just one particular subjective opinion wrapped in an appeal to authority. See, e.g., forum shopping.

[Randal]

Oooo you went to college and learned some epistemology. Not enough to understsnd it, but just enough to confuse yourself with nonsense like the above.

Objective truth can’t be known with 100% certainty (leaving aside self-consistent domains like math). Juries can be wrong too. But that doesn’t mean everything is subjective. As a libertarian especially you should know: “The truth is out there!”

The purpose of a criminal trial is absolutely not to objectively determine guilt. If that were the case, rules of evidence would be much looser and the standards for guilty vs. not-guilty verdicts would be symmetric. (If they were both “beyond a reasonable doubt,” we’d have a lot of mistrials.)

No, the purpose of a criminal trial is to determine suitability for punishment.

But that’s beside the point, really. The point is, there’s a difference between a subjective opinion like “Aerosmith can bite me” which — because it’s subjective — is true by definition versus an opinion on an objective fact like “ivermectin is effective against covid” which might be right or wrong.

“OJ is a murderer” is an opinion on an objective fact that might be right or wrong.

The legal system came up with two answers. For the purpose of suitability of punishment, using a very stringent standard, it decided OJ wasn’t a murderer. For the purpose of equity, aka maximizing fairness, it decided he was a murderer. Most people think the latter result is the more likely correct one, since it was optimizing for the best answer rather than the safest (from a liberty perspective) answer.

Anyway, “findings of fact’ are a core competency of the court system in all contexts, not just criminal ones, and there’s nothing special about the criminal system that makes it “more objective” than other methods of adjudication.

You might like the fact that the criminal system has its thumb firmly on the side of the accused, i.e. Trump, but that works against correctness if anything.

[Life of Brian]

Meh -- it was a nice long post and all, but after weeding out the straw men and weird torturing of the King's English,* about all that's left is your "we're not determining guilt; we're determining suitability for punishment" theory -- which reminds me a good deal of yesterday's "not disqualified -- just not qualified" pinheading. Suitability for punishment, if that's your chosen term now, is the entire bottom line behind this cloud of debate over the past few months. Not sure why you think it's a useful distraction from anything I said.

Zooming out, it strikes me this is about the first time in a long while I've heard a lefty argue against consensus (well, OK, save Queenie's universal "lived experience" trump card). Apparently all ideals can be thrown off the back of the sled under the right conditions.

* E.g., "an opinion on an objective fact that might be right or wrong" -- those words don't cogently work together as written, I'm guessing because you're conflating "fact" with "proposition" or similar. Facts are.

[Randal]

I’m totally happy to take this out of your ridiculous objective / subjective framework.

You think being unqualified is a punishment.

It’s not.

You’re right, that’s really the bottom line.

[Life of Brian]

You think being unqualified is a punishment.

It’s not.

Back you come with more language molestation. Participation in the political process is at the core of those pesky things held self-evident hundreds of years ago. If your argument relies on the lifetime removal of that fundamental right being something other than a "punishment," it might be time for a bit less snarky arrogance and a bit more humble introspection.

[Randal]

Even if there were a fundamental right to be a candidate for President (there isn't), one sure way to change the contours of that right would be via constitutional amendment.

[Life of Brian]

I'll take a cite on that if you think you have one -- it's been well settled since you were in diapers that the ability to run for political office goes directly to freedom of association.

And if all you're alluding to is the Constitutional restrictions on Presidential eligibility (like, just strictly for example, A14S3), you're just steering us right back into the objective/subjective discussion you didn't want to have.

[Randal]

No we don’t. Let’s even assume that running for President were a fundamental right protected by the First Amendment and incorporated against the states. That would just mean that states couldn’t pass laws restricting the right to run for President. Which they already kind of do, so that seems suspect. It especially seems in conflict with their Constitution-granted right of states to select their Presidential electors however they want.

But even if states couldn’t pass laws restricting Presidential ballot access, that’s not what happened here. There’s a Constitutional Amendment that did it. So there’s no statute to challenge the constitutionality of, which is the way you’d get to the strict scrutiny and due process that comes with rights infringement.

In other words, you can’t challenge the constitutionality of a Constitutional Amendment.

As for whether the Amendment itself requires a criminal conviction, not only does it obviously and logically not require one, but it didn’t require one for old confederates nor did the original Enforcement Act require one. So… you lose in like five or six different ways.

[Life of Brian]

OK, so you don't have a cite. Didn't figure.

The rest of the verbal gymnastics are just silly. Fundamental rights are sometimes impaired, but as you know those circumstances get a white-hot spotlight and the state has an extremely high burden to show why such impairment is warranted. "I think he's a bad man" doesn't cut it.

And the Constitutional amendment itself isn't being challenged in any of the current kerfuffle, as you also know. What's being challenged is the ability of individual states (at bottom, individual heehaws in those states) to... so sorry... subjectively interpret whether that Constitutional amendment strips a fundamental associative right from a specific individual.

[Randal]

interpret whether that Constitutional amendment strips a fundamental associative right

You're almost there. States are empowered to interpret the federal Constitution as necessary, so there's nothing wrong with what CSC did. But their interpretations are subject to review by SCOTUS. So that's where we are.

[Life of Brian]

I sure hope clipping "from a specific individual" from my sentence you quoted was just a slip of the fingers and not necessary to support your rebuttal.

Giving you the benefit of the doubt, I guess in a few short weeks we'll know if the Supremes opt to follow your worldview and simply disagree with the specific call the CSC made on Trump's eligibility, or get out of the one-off referee business and disagree that the CSC has the ability to unilaterally make that call at all. My money's on the latter.

[Roberta]

What does any of this matter? If a candidate for president with the support of roughly half the electorate were not allowed to run, or not allowed to take office, their roughly half the electorate would revolt. And by "revolt", I mean shoot people. Enough people would be killed or disabled that one side or the other would acquiesce, but there would not be government by law again for at least a long time.

There are times when the spirit of the law must take precedence over the letter. The spirit of the law of elections is, people have to have their preferences acknowledged in some approximately fair way.

[Mr. Bumble]

moved

[Mr. Bumble]

So if states are free to define "insurrection" for purposes of keeping Trump off the ballot are they also free to define "invasion" to repel and control the influx of illegal aliens?

[not guilty]

No. See Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. 387 (2012).

[Mr. Bumble]

https://www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2024/01/Screenshot-2024-01-24-at-12.14.57%E2%80%AFPM.png

Abbott seems to be making a different claim.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Wow, Powerline blog still exists!?!! Next you’re going to tell me Instapundit still exists. And the Daily Kos. And the Volokh Conspiracy…I wonder what happened to them??

[Sarcastr0]

Abbot is playing populist games. He does this every few years.

The Constitution says Congress deals with immigration, and the Executive enforces it.

The Supremacy Clause says that states don't get to interpret federal law so they may do as they wish.

And Texas isn't; it's just pretending it is.

SCOTUS shot down a lower court injunction against the federal government.

Abbot is acting like the Court ruled against Texas and he's totally nullifying. It'll get the neo-confederates hooting and hollering, but if and until the Feds move, it's just the same play-acting as always.

[Brett Bellmore]

And the Declaration of Independence says that it is a right of people to change their government if it becomes hostile to their interests.

You think the Constitution is some sort of demonic pact that binds you and your descendants eternally, no matter how ugly things get? And it doesn't even matter if the demon keeps his side of the deal?

Biden has been pushing things to the breaking point with his illegal immigration policy, and when you push things to the breaking point?

They break.

[Sarcastr0]

No, Abbot isn't doing an American Revolution 2.

But how far you've fallen in these past months. We already know you think terrorism is righteous if Trump's left of the ballot.
Now insurrection is good too. You just had to exclude the middle between demonic pact and useless piece of paper to do it.

How quickly the patina of patriotism and conservativism fled, in favor of treasonous MAGA bullshit.

[Brett Bellmore]

You'll know whether it's an American Revolution 2.0 in a year or two. You don't know that today.

What I do know, that you can't accept, is that the Constitution isn't indestructible, that it can be broken. You actually CAN push things too far, and once you have, there's no going back.

This might not be the moment when the hairline fractures that are all over the place open into gapping fissures, but if things keep going in the direction they are, that moment WILL come. Because all things have their breaking points, and people who don't understand that break things.

[Nige]

Trump tried to steal an election he lost. You didn't give a shit about him spitting in voters' faces then, did you? No, just more ominous warnings and threats about what will happen if you don't get your way.

[Mr. Bumble]

Seems like ng has gone silent to be replaced by the double dumbfuck twins; Nige and GaslightO.

[Nige]

Seems like you keep regressing to your favourite self-soothing comments.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

You mean, like, "terminating" the Constitution?

[bernard11]

This is Brett "rule of law" speaking.

Next he'll be defending McVeigh.

[Brett Bellmore]

Border Statement

It has a certain "long train of usurpations and abuses" vibe to it.

[Sarcastr0]

Brett's hootin' and hollerin'

[Brett Bellmore]

Sarcastr0's convinced the Supremacy clause wins all arguments, so the feds can do anything they want, period. If the law worked that way, we'd still be British.

[Sarcastr0]

The law DOES work like that.

You’ve just decided the Constitution is bad now, and naked force is what you would prefer.

You’re full on Dr. Edding it up now.

[Brett Bellmore]

So, we're still British, then, because the American Revolution was illegal?

No, the law does not work like that. The idea that it does is horribly dangerous.

[Sarcastr0]

Trying to make the American Revolution a legal act is ridiculous.

Revolutions are extra-legal; you're in the utterly wrong ballpark.

[Brett Bellmore]

That revolutions are extra legal is exactly my point. You can't dismiss a revolution by citing law. The law works until it doesn't.

It isn't people who are aware that things can be broken who break things, they are careful with them.

It's people who are convinced things are indestructible who break things.

And Biden is treating the Constitution like it's indestructible.

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : “And Biden is treating the Constitution like it’s indestructible”

Internet-wise, Kevin Drum is a national treasure. His primary virtue is taking common memes (very often Leftist) and showing they’re empty via factual means (very often statistical). One thing he does at regular intervals is deflate the hyperventilating rhetoric from those claiming this is the apocalyptic End Days worst of all times (Dr Ed-wise). As he says:

“…I was pondering the fact that people forget so quickly about the problems of the past, which is part of what makes the problems of the present seem so overwhelming and unique”

Usually he picks the Sixties as a contrasting example. Anyone who uses your whiny snowflake fainting-couch talk, Brett, must have forgotten they existed rather than grown-up during the period (as was the case w/ you and me). Here he opts for the more placid Nineties. You should read the post; it’s a hoot. I threw in another one about the life of his grandfather and all the horror and trauma he saw.

In fact, these are not particularly bad times. All your talk of Biden destroying the Constitution is a silly joke. For every example you provide of his pushing executive power, I can match with counter-examples from recent presidents, Democrat or Republican. You know that but (as typically the case) your talk outpaces your brain. The only thing unique to this era is someone tried to brazenly steal a presidential election he lost. But you supported that, didn’t you?

https://jabberwocking.com/how-do-we-compare-to-the-90s/ https://jabberwocking.com/the-life-and-times-of-my-grandfather/

[David Nieporent]

Of course the American Revolution was illegal!

And the DoI does not say that people can ignore the government if they're unhappy. It says that they can try to overthrow the government if it violates their rights.

What makes us not British is that we won a war and they were forced to recognize that fact, not that we were upset.

[Brett Bellmore]

Right. That's my problem with Sarcastr0's position, that the Supremacy clause settles this.

It settles this right up until things break, until people get so unhappy that they decide they'd rather have a revolution than submit.

People who understand that try to avoid pushing things to that point.

People who don't, who think formal authority ends all questions? They're exactly the people who will push things to the point of revolution.

[Sarcastr0]

Saying ‘your point is incorrect because I advocate for the violent overthrow of the US’ is not the incisive argument you think it is.

[Brett Bellmore]

That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying the "Supremacy clause model" breaks down if you push it too far, because you CAN push things far enough that people revolt instead of submitting. So it's dangerous to pretend that the Supremacy clause settles everything, when you're pushing the limits.

And deliberately bringing in 3 million illegal immigrants a year, actively assisting them in entering the country illegally, is really pushing the limits.

The Biden administration is deliberately bringing millions of people into the country illegally, and as Abbot says, that's breaking the very basis for the Constitution, which is mutual defense, not "Obey, peon!".

It's very risky trying to make the basis of government "Obey, peon!"

[Sarcastr0]

Brett, that IS what you are saying!

'Your right about what the law says, but your analysis doesn't take into account political violence' is a stupid argument because it's not an argument.

It can be used about literally every single legal principle. Well, a progressive income tax may be legal, but have you considered there could be a revolution?

It's logically degenerate; it's anti-American, and it's immoral.

[Commenter_XY]

How far is too far? Brett's point is that there will be a 'break' at some point. You say No.

How far is 'too' far?

[Nige]

For the brave armed revolutionary guardians against the tyranny of the state who sided WITH police brutality? There is no 'too far' so long as they're in charge.

[Zarniwoop]

C_XY sez:

How far is too far? Brett’s point is that there will be a ‘break’ at some point. You say No.

Brett’s making an argument that, paraphrased, says “the rule of law and the supremacy clause have no interpretive validity because “something bad” completely outside their scope could, might, theoretically happen”.

So what? the Constitution could also be “broken” by a 5 mile wide asteroid impacting in central Kansas … and what about it? Returning to the reality most of us live in, how does rule of law and the supremacy clause work? How should they work? Bleating “but revolution!” doesn’t inform how they work or should work. Bleating “but revolution!” isn’t a serious position about anything.

Especially when it comes in the form of keyboard wanna-be warriors like Janitor Ed pleasuring themself while fantasizing about snowplowing leftist/commie/BLM/everyone not from rural Maine protesters.

[Commenter_XY]

Zani...you make a fair point. Theoretically, lots of things could 'break' the Constitution (asteroid, maybe a pandemic, etc).

The developing situation in TX has some troubling elements I don't think we have had in really in a long time. What I am grappling with (as I am sure others are too) is where is that line. How far is too far. We need to know about where the break point is, if anything, to avoid it.

That is why I am asking. I want to avoid conflict.

[bernard11]

that’s breaking the very basis for the Constitution, which is mutual defense,

And here I thought it was:

to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,

Where could I have gotten such a silly idea?

[OtisAH]

No one knows where you get this stuff Bernard. You probably think there’s more than the one amendment too.

[Brett Bellmore]

Let me get this straight: You don't think "provide for the common defence" refers to mutual defense?

It's true that Biden isn't breaking EVERY purpose for which the Constitution was adopted. But mutual defense was a big one.

[Sarcastr0]

What are you defending against? The Great Replacement?

We should enforce the border, but this is not a national defense issue. Not under current events.

[bernard11]

Let me get this straight: You don’t think “provide for the common defence” refers to mutual defense?

You're trying your usual crawfishing away. Stop being dishonest. What you wrote was:

very basis for the Constitution, which is mutual defense,

Which (inaccurate) statement means that defense was the entire basis, not part of it.

[Bwaaah]

The law works however the law says, OR however the people permit opportunists to manipulate it. The second part negates the relevance of the first.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Dr. Ed agrees with him -- the concept of a rule of law has gone into the toilet.

[BrotherMovesOn]

Well? You're a janitor, can't you fix that?

[bernard11]

You know, Brett, when someone complains about some aspect of the Constitution they don't like, your standard response is "pass an amendment."

Suddenly that doesn't apply to you.

[Brett Bellmore]

I don't object to the supremacy clause. I object to the Court replacing the word "law" in it with "policy". It doesn't make federal policy supreme, it makes federal law supreme.

Law and policy aren't the same thing, often they're diametrically opposed.

[Sarcastr0]

If you don't like how the Court interprets is, pass an amendment.

You're inconsistent with your past stated principles; this is the MAGA way.

[bernard11]

Which court are you referring to?

[Bwaaah]

It has a certain “long train of usurpations and abuses” vibe to it.

Scarily, it does.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

More of a "Declaration of Causes of Seceding States" vibe to me.

[Bwaaah]

Why didn't Brett think of that?

[apedad]

not guilty,

I don't see where Arizona v. United States specifically addresses "invasion."

https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/11-182

It talks about how states can/can't process illegal immigrants but not really "invasion."

Or am I missing something?

[Commenter_XY]

Is there a common legal definition of 'invasion' that is used in American jurisprudence?

This development is troubling. Because I don't think TX is going to back off trying to stop the flow of illegal aliens. And it is unthinkable to me that we would ever deploy Federal troops to actually fight Americans who are trying to stop the flow of illegal aliens from entering this country.

What happens when the Feds refuse to enforce their laws and TX subsequently chooses to enforce TX state law instead?

This has all the makings for a protracted standoff, bitterness and acrimony.

[Brett Bellmore]

"What happens when the Feds refuse to enforce their laws and TX subsequently chooses to enforce TX state law instead?"

We are way past that point. For some time now, Biden hasn't been content with simply refusing to enforce the law, he has been affirmatively expending resources to violate it.

He hasn't not placed barbed wire, he has removed barbed wire.

[Nige]

So vote against him. Vote for barbed wire.

[Brett Bellmore]

We already did. What part of "Biden is refusing to enforce the law" do you not get? We elected a Congress that enacted border laws, Biden is actively violating said laws. Not just declining to enforce them, actively expending resources to violate them.

I rather expect that, if there's an accounting, we'll find that he's also funding the NGOs that help illegals travel to our border.

[Nige]

And you lost. Tough shit. You're defending Trump for breaking all sorts of laws, remember, you don't really care about presidents and laws any more, even if you were being honest.

[billardl]

America is losing with every worthless migrant who crosses our borders.

A patriotic president would order the military to fire on these illegal invaders. Then their "families" wouldn't be separated ever again. They'd be forever united in the loving arms of Hay-Sus!

[Dr. Ed 2]

The other day, Trump mentioned doing a second "Operation Wetback" -- although he didn't use the term. He praised Eisenhower for doing the first one and said he'd do another.

[Nige]

Well, America's crops get picked and their lawns get mowed and their motel rooms get cleaned, that's 'losing' I guess.

[Bob from Ohio]

"America’s crops get picked and their lawns get mowed and their motel rooms get cleaned"

Yes, the left want servants.

[Nige]

So impose a minimum wage across those sectors, see how easy it is for migrants to take jobs from Americans who can suddenly earn a living wage.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

These bigoted right-wing assholes are your fans, your defenders, your allies, and your target audience, Volokh Conspirators . . . and the reason you should expect to be expanding your employment horizons soon enough as more mainstream schools follow UCLA's lead.

You brought it upon yourself. Next time, don't hug quite so many gape-jawed, delusional, antisocial bigots.

[Sarcastr0]

If Biden's use of discretion is overbroad, you have two legal options - you can challenge in court or revise the law.

You, of course, have neither the authority nor the expertise to say anything about Biden's enforcement of immigration law.

Better people than you have and are weighing in and find otherwise.

I rather expect that, if there’s an accounting, we’ll find that he’s also funding the NGOs that help illegals travel to our border.
You keep doing this making things up shit. Almost like you know you can't justify your nonsense within the bounds of the actual facts.

[billardl]

You liberals would be throwing a tantrum if police and prosecutors turned a blind eye to crimes committed against your pet voters.

[Bwaaah]

If Biden’s use of discretion is overbroad, you have two legal options – you can challenge in court or revise the law.

Those are two legal options. When a government becomes lawless, it invites other options.

Just keep talking, Sarc. Everybody hears you.

[Sarcastr0]

You saying it’s time for gunplay?

[Bwaaah]

Nothing to see here. Nothing to be concerned about. Carry on.

[Sarcastr0]

Keyboard warrior coward.

Say what you mean.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

.

Those are two legal options. When a government becomes lawless, it invites other options. Just keep talking, Sarc. Everybody hears you.

All-talk, big-talk, pusillanimous right-wing write-offs like this Bwaaah are among my favorite culture war casualties. Shoving even more progress down the whining, impotent throats of assholes like this guy -- and other clingers -- is entertaining and important work for America's culture war winners.

And you will continue to comply with the preferences of your betters, Bwaaah. You get to whimper and mew about it as much as you like -- especially at the Volokh Conspiracy, operated by and for your fellow clingers -- but you will comply. Thank you for your continuing cooperation as American improves against your bigoted wishes, dumbass.

[Life of Brian]

You, of course, have neither the authority nor the expertise to say anything about Biden’s enforcement of immigration law.

Better people than you have and are weighing in and find otherwise.

As per usual, not a single cite to any of these mythical better-people pontificating on how Biden runs the strictest border control program in the history of the nation.

[Bwaaah]

"Better people," as in people who understand that the purpose of a court is to deliver JUSTICE, not your silly "rule of law."

[Sarcastr0]

Many people are better than Brett with his recent penchant for political violence.

But I was talking about to e Supreme Court and Congress.

[Life of Brian]

Oh, got it. So what have THEY said about the stunning effectiveness of Biden's border control efforts?

Or are you just saying they've said Biden can do (or not do) whatevs at the border, and it's all cool? Because in the context of the current discussion, that's not really the mic-dropping point you might have imagined.

[Sarcastr0]

the stunning effectiveness of Biden’s border control efforts?

You don't even know Brett's thesis.

Figure out what you're arguing for, and then come back and maybe you'll have something relevant to say.

[Life of Brian]

I quoted the language of yours I was responding to. Here, I'll do it again:

You, of course, have neither the authority nor the expertise to say anything about Biden’s enforcement of immigration law.

I take it you used purposefully broad language to support the exact sort of squirming deflection you're doing now.

[Dr. Ed 2]

What scares me is that we are going to have another Kent State before this is over.

[Bwaaah]

Four dead college students? You're an optimist.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Open wider, asshole. Better Americans are going to continue to shove even more progress down your un-American, deplorable, right-wing throat.

You get to whine about it as much as you like, but you will do as you are told.

[OtisAH]

Here’s Ed confusing fear with arousal.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Commenter_XY, perhaps what happens will resemble what happened during the civil rights era, when states decided to flout federal law, and enforce state law instead. Ask the older residents of Little Rock, for instance.

Perhaps a Governor of Texas will stand in the Rio Grande, defending his barbed wire, the way Governor Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door in Alabama, with similar effect.

Of course, back then it was unthinkable for folks like you that America would ever deploy troops to fight Americans in defense of civil rights for blacks. (I get that you do not think quite that way now; I am referring to the way folks of your tendency thought then.)

As the American right has progressively deteriorated, President Eisenhower’s presidential reputation has grown by comparison. Where Eisenhower was formerly counted a mediocrity, he now appears destined for the roster of presidential greats. And all it took was for his own party to drag down the norms of decency which Eisenhower defended, leaving Eisenhower to stand out above the others.

Of course you are right about the bitterness and acrimony. For right-wingers, bitterness and acrimony over the civil rights era has not receded much.

[Brett Bellmore]

Of course, back then the states were resisting federal law, and the feds were enforcing it.

Today it's the feds violating federal law, and the states trying to enforce it.

As I've frequently mentioned, in a sane judiciary, it would be the states citing the supremacy clause, not the feds, because the states aren't acting in conflict with federal law, it's the executive branch that's flouting it.

[Sarcastr0]

SCOTUS disagrees with you. I guess that's why you want to throw out the Constitution now.

[Brett Bellmore]

The problem with recent Supremacy clause jurisiprudence is that the Supremacy clause makes federal "law" supreme. But the Court has ruled it to make federal policy supreme.

Which is all well and good when you're dealing with an executive branch whose policy is to enforce the law. But here we have an executive whose policy is to violate the law.

And, again, it's the "law" the clause makes supreme.

I wonder if there's a point where federal policy and federal law can get to being so blatantly contrary to each other that the Supreme court has to admit that they're not the same thing?

[Sarcastr0]

They aren’t contrary.

Not that you need to care about such minor things anymore. You are a revolutionary now, who needs laws?

[OtisAH]

The federal government’s authority to enact immigration policy *is* supreme. And, you lying useless tit, show this alleged “policy to violate law” or shut the fuck up about it. Dick.

[Mr. Bumble]

From Article II section 3:

"...he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed,..."

[OtisAH]

Okay, you’ve quoted a portion of a part of Article 3. Now where is the Biden policy to violate the law. Or is that it?

[Mr. Bumble]

You are conflating two different terms; immigration policy (whatever that means) and immigration law. Biden is not currently enforcing immigration law.

[Life of Brian]

The federal government’s authority to enact immigration policy *is* supreme.

Otis is doin' him some LAW this morning, w00t!

For his next act, maybe he'll read up on question begging.

[OtisAH]

Jesus, Bumble, you are one dumb motherfucker. And LoB is just a nob.

[Mr. Bumble]

Retreat to ad hominem as always.

But you may be partially right in that I am dumb to try to have a conversation with you, you ignorant shit.

[OtisAH]

One dumb motherfucker. With far too much company.

[Life of Brian]

Yeah, that burst of faux intelligence was short-lived indeed. Back to his comfort zone of Tourette-grade sputtering.

[Brett Bellmore]

Congress doesn't enact "policies", they enact "laws".

"This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."

See anything in there about "policies"? Constitutionally, states are free to oppose federal policies, so long as they comply with the actual laws.

[Sarcastr0]

Congress doesn’t enact “policies”, they enact “laws”.

And by that same dumbass analysis, executive actions are policies not laws and so do not fall under the 1A "Congress shall make no law."

Your Revolution fever has led you to some very dumb places. And to openly advocating for political violence by people who are not you.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Eisenhower did Operation Wetback....

[myself]

If illegal immigration is an invasion then Russia pushing immigrants across NATO-member Finland's border means that the US is at war with Russia.

[Commenter_XY]

Tomorrow, the ICJ is expected to issue an interim ruling on South Africa's request for Israel to suspend their war against Hamas, a Judeocidal terror group.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/initial-ruling-on-gaza-genocide-trial-at-hague-reportedly-expected-friday/

I expect the ICJ statement to arrive at sunset Friday. I do not think that the ICJ picking a Friday afternoon to release the statement is coincidental at all. As I understand it, the ICJ issued an 'emergency injunction' to Russia over their invasion of UKR. Russian compliance with that emergency injunction is an issue. 🙁

In intl contracts (think American defense contractor, not a small business), is it customary to have contract clauses that state if country X is in violation of intl law, those are grounds to exit the contract without penalty? I am wondering about the fallout to Israel from an adverse ruling at the ICJ. Could the US be enjoined by the ICJ?

There are a thicket of legal issues here, especially in the contracting area.

[John F. Carr]

If the decision is issued Friday afternoon the Israeli government has an excuse not to read it until Saturday evening.

A hearing is imminent in a lawsuit against the Biden administration demanding that it stop supporting Israel because Israel is committing genocide. Most of the claims are clear losers. A judge can't order the Secretary of State to negotiate in a certain way. Part of one claim seeks relief that the court can grant: stop sending arms to Israel. An ICJ decision adverse to Israel would make such an order less unlikely.

The ICJ can't order anybody to do anything. It can publish empty words. If a country declines to respect an ICJ decision enforcement is up to the Security Council. As long as the USA shows up there will be no order enforcing an ICJ decision. (America could decline to attend. A Soviet boycott of the Security Council in 1950 allowed the UN to authorize intervention in Korea.)

[Commenter_XY]

You know, until you said it that way -- If the decision is issued Friday afternoon the Israeli government has an excuse not to read it until Saturday evening -- I had not considered the potential positive aspects of having 25 hours to think about a response, before actually responding. That is a really great point (nice way to convert a negative into a net positive).

[Martinned]

The ICJ can’t order anybody to do anything.

Sure it can. That looks like this:

86. For these reasons,
The Court,
Indicates the following provisional measures:
(1) By thirteen votes to two,
The Russian Federation shall immediately suspend the military operations that it commenced on 24 February 2022 in the territory of Ukraine;
in favour: President Donoghue; Judges Tomka, Abraham, Bennouna, Yusuf, Sebutinde, Bhandari, Robinson, Salam, Iwasawa, Nolte, Charlesworth; Judge ad hoc Daudet;
against: Vice-­President Gevorgian; Judge Xue;
(2) By thirteen votes to two,
The Russian Federation shall ensure that any military or irregular
armed units which may be directed or supported by it, as well as any organizations and persons which may be subject to its control or direction, take no steps in furtherance of the military operations referred to in point 1 above;
in favour: President Donoghue; Judges Tomka, Abraham, Bennouna, Yusuf, Sebutinde, Bhandari, Robinson, Salam, Iwasawa, Nolte, Charlesworth; Judge ad hoc Daudet;
against: Vice-­President Gevorgian; Judge Xue;
(3) Unanimously,
Both Parties shall refrain from any action which might aggravate or extend the dispute before the Court or make it more difficult to resolve.

It's even called an "order".

https://icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/182/182-20220316-ord-01-00-en.pdf

[Commenter_XY]

Russian compliance appears to be an issue.

[Martinned]

Absolutely. That's true all the time when people get ordered by someone to do something or not do something. But that doesn't mean the order isn't an order.

[John F. Carr]

The ICJ can call it an order, but if the ICJ tells Netanyahu to eat a bacon cheeseburger it's really spouting empty words.

An ICC warrant has more real world effect.

[Martinned]

ICC arrest warrants have marginally more effect, but also haven't done a great job of getting the Russians to stop shooting at Ukraine.

[Bwaaah]

Words prevail again!!!

[Martinned]

That's what the law is: words that we all agree matter.

[Bwaaah]

Without enforcement, they mean little to some of us.

[Martinned]

What do you think international sanctions are?

[Bwaaah]

Broadly speaking, a notion of some collective actions that countries may choose to engage in through organizing treaties and policies coordinated with other participating countries.

I couldn't answer clearly without a touch of word salad.

[Bob from Ohio]

But we all don't agree ICJ words matter. In fact, its mainly the opposite, as your Russia example illustrates.

Don't say "we agreed by treaty", that is just a scrap of paper.

If it was really "law", the ICJ police would enforce it.

[Martinned]

You're right, it's turtles all the way down. Welcome to the world of the rule of recognition, etc.

[John F. Carr]

On the subject of the American court hearing:

The hearing is today. The judge asked the parties to address the questions below:

1. Under what authority can the Court, in effect, exercise its judgment over and reverse United States foreign policy decisions and assess whether Israel has transgressed limits imposed by international law? How is this not a quintessential political question best left to the coordinate branches of government?
2. If the Court determines that Plaintiffs’ claims present nonjusticiable political questions best left to the executive branch, must the Court adjudicate whether Plaintiffs have stated cognizable causes of action for injunctive relief under the Alien Tort Statute and whether the claim is barred by the Federal Tort Claims Act or whether the government has waived sovereign immunity?
3. The United States Constitution, Article VI, Clause 2 provides: This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. If the Genocide Convention is explicitly binding on this Court and the supreme law of the land, can the Court find support for exercising jurisdiction here?
4. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the actions taken by the Israeli government constitute genocide under international law and the actions taken by the United States government constitute complicity, what mechanism do Defendants contend would be the appropriate forum to enforce binding international law forbidding complicity with genocide? What is the proper procedural mechanism for enforcement of international law as embodied in the Genocide Convention?
5. Can Plaintiffs join the current suit before the International Court of Justice (“ICJ”) regarding the participation or support offered by the United States government? What is the status of that proceeding? Can Plaintiffs file on their own to proceed before the ICJ?

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68000231/defense-for-children-international-palestine-v-biden/

[Martinned]

I expect the ICJ statement to arrive at sunset Friday

The ICJ will announce its decision at 13.00 CET. That's probably around sunset somewhere, but not in Europe or Israel.

[Dr. Ed 2]

One has to *want* to exit the contract and why would one?

[not guilty]

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has taken a look at Nathan Wade's professional background. https://www.ajc.com/politics/misconduct-allegations-lead-to-scrutiny-of-fulton-trump-prosecutor/5DB2F5T6ANHEHFQ5RFWJ2SG4N4/ His credentials look pretty skimpy relative to the task he has been performing. I will reserve judgment until I see the District Attorney's response to Mike Roman's unsworn, evidence-free motion, but it is at least plausible that Fani Willis was thinking with her crotch when she contracted with him. That is a bad look which reflects poorly on her judgment.

That having been said, nothing that has been disclosed to this point shows that Mr. Roman (the only Defendant who has challenged his prosecution to this point) is entitled to any relief from the Court. Two prosecutorial colleagues playing hide the salami does not compromise the prosecution of Mr. Roman (or any other Defendant).

Perhaps Mr. Wade should heed the counsel of Sir John Falstaff, conclude that the better part of valor is discretion, (Henry IV Part 1, Act V Scene 4,) and voluntarily step aside.

[Mr. Bumble]

Care to address why Mr. Wade had two meeting with White House counsel?

[Sarcastr0]

I think most of us wouldn't speculate about a meeting we don't have a record of.

Seems like you're pulling an 'it would be irresponsible not to speculate.'

[Life of Brian]

Of course there's a record: Wade explicitly submitted bills for attending those meetings. What are you on about now?

[Bwaaah]

Sarc doesn't speculate.

[Nige]

If there's a record, why the need to speculate?

[Sarcastr0]

We have a record of the existence of the meeting, not what was discussed.

Most people would realize that's the record I was talking about. Then there's LoB.

[Bob from Ohio]

"not what was discussed."

Weather? Who will win the Super Bowl? Taylor and Travis?

[Life of Brian]

Of course -- just like when Loretta Lynch got on Clinton's plane on the tarmac for 45 minutes and they just "talked about their grandkids."

I'm sure Sarc will uncritically swallow whatever Wade coughs up.

[Life of Brian]

Well, clearly I erred by giving you credit for playing the "nothing to see here" card for a more plausible reason than the meeting not having been tape recorded. Won't happen again.

[Sarcastr0]

I don't know what was discussed. Neither do you.

What do you think happened, that has you all het up about it?

[Life of Brian]

Oh, well then I'm sure they were just talking about the weather and their kids. What did you talk about the last time you met with White House counsel?

[Sarcastr0]

What do you think happened, that has you all het up about it?

[Life of Brian]

Still not biting. How about you make the case for what sort of benign, garden-variety things White House Counsel and a state prosecuting attorney would normally talk about during the prosecution of a political opponent? That'll be a much shorter list.

[Sarcastr0]

You're the one claiming this is evidence of something, so maybe you tell us what your specific issue is. Burden is very much not on me.

Ah, you can't meet that burden, though. That's why you're shit-stirring.

You never meet any substantive burden to take a position. Pedantry is the best you ever have. And here, you don't even have that, hence your especially pathetic display.

[Life of Brian]

You’re the one claiming this is evidence of something

You know full well I made no such claim -- you're just winding up for your typical huffy exit.

It stinks to high heaven just like everything else in this Nathan Wade debacle -- you know that, you're just reflexively arguing. An if indeed it was some sort of benign explanation that not even you can manage to scrape up, we certainly deserve a detailed explanation as to why. I highly doubt we'll get it, though, due in no small part to you perpetual "nothing to see here" apologists.

[Sarcastr0]

If you claim I'm playing the 'nothing to see card' then that means you think there's something to see here.

Oh hay you still don't have anything. Empty as always.

[Life of Brian]

"You weren't sitting in the meetings and the actors are keeping their lips zipped, so you can't proooove this giant, reeking appearance of impropriety actually was. Nothing to see here, neener neener!"

And hay's for horses.

[Sarcastr0]

You're still not positing anything about what you think happened that even COULD have been improper!

You live in a land of hand-waiving with nothing behind it.

[Life of Brian]

Of course not: you've already played your "nobody knows what was discussed" and "it's irresponsible to speculate" trump cards and flatly ignored what I've said about why the composition of the parties to the meetings themselves is presumptively improper and should be rebutted if it indeed they were instead some doe-eyed innocent thing that just normally happens.

So I'm exceptionally comfortable you're not going to suddenly come off that square and substantively engage with any what-if rocks I might bring you, and are just Lucy-football baiting.

[jb]

Seems pretty unrelated as to the purported conflict of interest.

Having said that, maybe he was asking OLC something like "what do you understand to be the role and/or limitations of the President when it comes to the administration of local elections for federal offices" which seems like it might be helpful to know if you're trying to prosecute a President for something and are unlikely to be successful if he was just doing his job.

[Commenter_XY]

Will 'The Smasher' (my nickname for Fani Willis) need to recuse herself from the Trump case, ultimately? What do you think, not guilty?

I agree, it is a bad look.....smashing the hired help like that. 🙂

[John F. Carr]

If she has a personal interest in the case she and her office are disqualified and there is no need to prove prejudice. There is an allegation of a personal interest here: some the money she spends on prosecution of the election case goes back to her. Her (alleged) personal interest is different than if she were sleeping with a regular salaried employee who already worked for the office when she was elected.

[not guilty]

I don't foresee Ms. Willis voluntarily recusing under any circumstances. I wish that Mr. Wade would voluntarily withdraw, but I don't expect that he will. As for Mike Roman's unsworn, evidence-free motion to dismiss/disqualify, I will reserve judgment until I see the District Attorney's response, but based on what has become public to this point, I see no basis for the Court to grant the requested relief, in that there is no indication the investigation or prosecution of Mr. Roman (or any other Defendant) has been compromised.

Under Georgia law, there are two generally recognized grounds for disqualification of a prosecuting attorney. The first such ground is based on a conflict of interest, and the second ground has been described as "forensic misconduct." Williams v. State, 258 Ga. 305, 314(2)(B), 369 S.E.2d 232 (1988). A conflict of interest has been held to arise where the prosecutor has acquired a personal interest or stake in the defendant's conviction. Id. 258 Ga. at 314(2)(B); Amusement Sales, Inc. v. State, 316 Ga.App. 727, 730 S.E.2d 430, 438 (2012). If the assigned prosecutor has acquired a personal interest or stake in the conviction, the trial court abuses its discretion in denying a motion to disqualify him, and the defendant is entitled to a new trial, even without a showing of prejudice. Amusement Sales, 730 S.E.2d at 438.

I have seen nothing evincing any personal interest or stake in the conviction of Mr. Roman on the part of Ms. Willis or Mr. Wade. In that Mr. Wade is being paid by the hour, he arguably has an interest in the scope and duration of the prosecution. That, however, is distinct from any personal interest or stake in whether Mr. Roman is convicted or acquitted. By way of comparison, in Amusement Sales v. State, special assistant district attorneys were employed on a contingency fee basis to represent the State in seeking civil forfeiture of electronic game machines and the money seized from them. The Court of Appeals reversed the judgment of forfeiture because of the State's attorneys' conflict of interest.

[Commenter_XY]

Not guilty, thank you for the complete response. I learn a lot here. There is always some interesting twist in the law...I find it fascinating.

[Bob from Ohio]

NG is talking out of his a**.

Try Andrew Fleischman on twitter, a Georgia defense attorney [former public defender] and a lefty. He thinks there is a strong possibility of disqualification [but certainly not a slam dunk]. Importantly, he has concluded there is no case on point.

The conflict is that Wills devised a RICO case that is way more complicated than some other statutes so her lover will make more money. And the defendants will have to spend more as well.

[Commenter_XY]

I'll check out Fleischman.

[Mr. Bumble]

Might also try Margot Cleaveland at the Federalist:

https://thefederalist.com/2024/01/25/if-fani-willis-get-trump-case-were-legit-democrats-wouldnt-be-so-desperate-to-keep-it-in-the-das-office/

[David Nieporent]

Margot Cleveland is slightly less of a legal expert than Brett.

[Mr. Bumble]

But 10 times the legal expert you think you are.
Once a pompous ass, always a pompous ass.

[Life of Brian]

That's a pretty significant compliment to Brett, however unintended. Margot Cleveland has been an attorney longer than you have.

[not guilty]

Ms. Cleveland links to a useful and thorough analysis of Georgia law by Just Security, which concludes that disqualification is not warranted. https://www.justsecurity.org/91368/why-fani-willis-is-not-disqualified-under-georgia-law/

Ms. Cleveland's own screed is remarkably bereft of legal analysis. Why am I unsurprised?

[Life of Brian]

"Links to" being the sophist's shorthand for "spends half the column discussing its blatant (and somewhat desperate) political overtones," and "useful and thorough" being your typical empty superlatives for something that scratches your partisan itch.

There are no Georgia cases directly on point with this remarkably outrageous fact pattern, as I'm sure you already know (and your favored position paper repeatedly if grudgingly admits in between its creative presentation of tortured analogies as precedents). Concluding that means Willis is untouchable is just another one of your exercises in wishful thinking.

[not guilty]

My point -- which appears to have gone completely over your head -- is to contrast the Just Security authors' analysis of how Georgia law applies to this situation with Ms. Cleveland's abject refusal to do so.

[Kenneth Almquist]

Ms. Cleveland “spends half the column discussing its blatant (and somewhat desperate) political overtones,” but makes absolutely no attempt to challenge the conclusions of the Just Security article that she links to.

Ms. Cleveland paraphrasing the Just Security article: “In other words, to ensure Trump is convicted before the November 2024 election, Roman’s motion to disqualify the Fulton County DA’s office must be denied.”

The assumption that Trump will ultimately be convicted comes from Ms. Cleveland, not the Just Security article. So Ms. Cleveland implicitly concedes that the analysis in the Just Security article is accurate (by linking to it without challenging it), and pretty explicitly concedes that Trump is guilty.

[Life of Brian]

Ms. Cleveland paraphrasing the Just Security article: “In other words, to ensure Trump is convicted before the November 2024 election, Roman’s motion to disqualify the Fulton County DA’s office must be denied.”

The assumption that Trump will ultimately be convicted comes from Ms. Cleveland, not the Just Security article. So Ms. Cleveland implicitly concedes that the analysis in the Just Security article is accurate (by linking to it without challenging it), and pretty explicitly concedes that Trump is guilty.

Alternately, the article walking through the various rhetorical oversteps of the Just Security authors' fervent advocacy for what they believe to be the last-gasp hope of keeping Trump out of the White House is doing exactly that. Perhaps save the "pretty explicitly conceding" line for your next brief where it might actually have some chance of applicability.

[Life of Brian]

contrast the Just Security authors’ analysis of how Georgia law applies to this situation with Ms. Cleveland’s abject refusal to do so

As Ms. Cleveland extensively points out, the Just Security article is at bottom an advocacy piece, impregnated with enough faux legal analysis of admitted inapplicable precedent to satisfy the shallow thinkers in the room.

As I said: there's no precedent on point for anything close to this outrageous of a conflict scenario. You were, for once, wise enough not to deny that. When the authors themselves quietly admit their analysis is whole-cloth wishful thinking, there's nothing to "analyze" in response.

[Mr. Bumble]

" I will reserve judgment until I see the District Attorney’s response, ..."
But not stop speculating.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I found this in the AJC article:
"Georgia law allows the attorney general to pay private attorneys to do legal work on behalf of the state. These special assistant attorneys general are typically used in cases where the attorney general’s office doesn’t have sufficient manpower, it wouldn’t be efficient to use state attorneys or specialized knowledge is required. " [emphasis added]

She's a District Attorney, not Attorney General. Did she even have the right to hire him in the first place?

What do the GA Bar Regs say about billing a client (i.e. the state) based on records "in your head"? I know it is customary to reduce bills to billable hours, but is there any rule one must?

What do the GA Bar Regs say about fraternization? Could she lose her Bar Card for this? That'd be the end of her being a prosecutor -- everyone is asking if she would be disqualified, I'm asking the more basic question about losing a law license which would inherently disqualify her indirectly.

And the irony here is that it was the feminists who pushed these fraternization rules on the presumption that it was the male in the position of authority -- and here it was the female.

[David Nieporent]

What do the GA Bar Regs say about fraternization? Could she lose her Bar Card for this?

Nothing, and no. This has been yet another episode of Simple Answers to Stupid Questions.

[Kazinski]

Of course its never really been about who she sleeps with, its about steering public money to whom she sleeps with, and benefiting from the disbursement of those funds.

[Mr. Bumble]

...and apparently doing so without without the knowledge and approval of the Fulton County Commissioners.

[mulched]

The special assistant attorney general appointment was not done by Willis. It was done by the previous state AG back in 2010, a month before he left office.

The AJC and the current AG’s office found no evidence that he ever worked on any case as a result of the appointment.

[Kazinski]

"I will reserve judgment until I see the District Attorney’s response to Mike Roman’s unsworn, evidence-free motion"

Its ridiculous at this point to keep asserting their is no evidence, the judge in the divorce case has unsealed the receipts showing the airplane tickets, the hotels, the cruise ship bookings.

See here for a sampling:
https://technofog.substack.com/p/fani-williss-affair-there-are-receipts

[Mr. Bumble]

ng is really heaving the shit today.
Funny how few questions he answered.
As he would say: still waiting.

[Life of Brian]

Its ridiculous at this point to keep asserting their is no evidence, the judge in the divorce case has unsealed the receipts showing the airplane tickets, the hotels, the cruise ship bookings.

Like Sarc, NG has a secret, infinitely malleable definition of "evidence" that magically filters out all such inconvenient facts. See, nothing left!

[Kazinski]

They are least haven't claimed it's Russian disinformation, yet.

[not guilty]

The motion filed on behalf of Mr. Roman is unsworn, and it includes no supporting evidence such as affidavits or declarations of anyone with personal knowledge. It relies on gossip and salacious averments asserted "on information and belief." https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24352568/roman-motion-to-dimiss-010824.pdf That is not evidence.

Judge McAfee has scheduled an evidentiary hearing for next month. It will then be time for Mr. Roman to stop singing it and start bringing it.

[Kazinski]

The unsealed financial statements proving the allegations are now publicly available, and better yet, there isn't any doubt they are authentic, because they were submitted under seal in the divorce proceedings.

I'm glad the judge hung Wade out to dry and unsealed them.

[not guilty]

The (unauthenticated) documents in the divorce case were submitted by Mrs. Wade's attorney to a different court in a different county from where the criminal prosecution is pending. Mike Roman's attorney has offered nothing but gossip and hearsay before Judge McAfee.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

but it is at least plausible that Fani Willis was thinking with her crotch when she contracted with him

That's like saying it's at least plausible that it was cold in Anchorage, AK today.

[not guilty]

Donald Trump has now joined Mike Roman's motion. He also takes issue with Fani Willis's remarks at a black church. https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24376500/trump-motion-12524.pdf

Like Mr. Roman's motion, the Trump motion includes no evidence of facts that would support the relief requested.

[Michael P]

Javier Milei seems to be demonstrating why rent controls are bad for renters: https://capx.co/argentina-offers-a-textbook-study-in-why-rent-controls-are-a-bad-idea/

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Yeah, rent control was bad for Monica and Rachel.

[Moderation4ever]

Interfering in the working of the market never end well and rent control is no different. Reason published an article recently showing this;

https://reason.com/2024/01/09/rent-control-for-the-rich-2/

The question is why it is used and what is a better market-based idea to achieve the goal of affordable housing in large urban areas.

[Martinned]

Yes, that's basically the Milei approach: thinking that undergraduate textbook economics is how the world works.

[Bwaaah]

We have real world experience with rent control in New York City. We're only now rebuilding on the empty lots of the buildings that were destroyed by neglect for decades.

Our new version of rent control, "rent stabilization," at least provides in some measure for inflation.

Rent control is another case of government attempting to solve real would problems with the stroke of a hand, as if it doesn't take real capital. I don't understand why they don't just make everything FREE.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The best approach I've seen is you exempt all new construction for a set period of time, e.g. 20 years.

[Bwaaah]

To get developers to build rent-regulated housing, they tend to offer a carrot, in the form of tax abatements, with a stick, which is the local community board's ability to simply stall approval of the project for a long, long time.

Otherwise, after 3-6 years of expensive, exhaustive litigation, you can build something like what you want, subject to all the applicable regulations that address other people's interests in your property.

<facetious>I don't know why there's a housing shortage.</facetious>

[Life of Brian]

I don’t understand why they don’t just make everything FREE.

Complicates the tourist trade, for one. But we can get to the same place, as I've said for many years: just give every citizen a billion dollars, and we'll all be rich!

[Bwaaah]

Yes! I always figured a million per person. Now I see how small was my thinking.

[Kazinski]

He knows better than to think that's the way the world actually works, that's why he's pissed.

He thinks that's the way it should work, and he's a lot more right than the WEF is.

[Martinned]

That's definitely what the VC comments section needed: WEF conspiracy theories. To think that once upon a time this was a place to have sensible conversations with conservatives.

[Sarcastr0]

I tend to agree with M4E that price controls are generally a bad market intervention.

But, as with most things in the real-world, it's not cut-and-dried.

NYC has had great success with rent control as a cultural subsidy for artists. Is it an efficient system, free from people gaming it? No. But it has benefits, and there is at least an argument those benefits outweigh the costs.

I'm not saying NYC chose the best policy, nor that such a policy should be the norm even if you have the same goal as NYC. Just that shit's complicated, man.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Only if you consider politics complicated...

[Bwaaah]

Only if you consider politics complicated…

Are you admitting you don't? (Do you have some kind of special glasses?)

[Sarcastr0]

Pretty sure he's joking.

[Bwaaah]

You might be right. Nige made the point, a few months ago, that fixing the world’s problems is really easy to do, and the barrier is that the people in charge are too stupid to understand that.

I tend to find things complicated. And when they don’t look complicated, it’s almost always the case that I haven’t studied the matter much.

(No helpful "lol" there. lol)

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

I was saying the politics may themselves be "complicated, man", but the linkage between the policy and the politics is anything but.

[Sarcastr0]

OK then, this is also nonsense. Politicians are not stimulus-response creatures.

They make policy based on a personally-brewed stew of whatever multiple agendas are within their coalition, the general public pull towards the status quo, their own personal position, their understanding of the political price and their own political capitol, and implementation issues.

To start with.

[Bwaaah]

I don’t know if I’ve ever felt my position as well-represented by you as it is in your response here. Yes!

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

I give up!

[bernard11]

NYC has had great success with rent control as a cultural subsidy for artists.

But that's a limited use.

Broad rent control is a terrible idea, not just because the textbooks say so. For one thing, it doesn't really work very well. Tenants, and especially would-be tenants, simply bear the costs in other ways - difficulty finding an apartment to begin with, including payments, legal or otherwise, to agents, poor maintenance, etc.

[Krayt]

NL has rent control. I went there on contract, and there was a 5 year waiting list for apartments. They do, however, have uncontrolled (or less controlled) apartments for people like me, for a steep fee, mercifully paid for by my company.

I assume there are fights and waggle fingers to get to offer those few uncontrolled apartments, right in accordance with:

Fundamental Theorem of Government: Corruption is not an unfortunate side effect of government. It is the purpose of it from day 1.

You go into government to make a better life for yourself and your family by getting in the way, to get paid to get back out of the way. This is the way of the world and all history.

[Sarcastr0]

Agreed on broad price controls. See the 1970s gas price controls.

[Michael P]

The wheels of justice grind slowly. No word on whether Justin Trudeau's bank account will be frozen: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68038172

[Mr. Bumble]

A better option would be to freeze Trudeau himself.

[DaveM]

In Carbonite. Black is the new black.

[John F. Carr]

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has heard yet another case involving government misconduct in thousands of criminal cases. This is a long running case involving bad cops in Springfield and the Hampden County prosecutors who cover up for them. The conclusion:

First, the discretionary approach of the [Hampden County] district attorney's office to disclosing adverse credibility determinations made about the department's officer witnesses violates the duty of the district attorney's office to disclose. Second, the policy of the district attorney's office of not disclosing instances of officer misconduct when the identity of the offending officer cannot be clearly proven violates the duty of the district attorney's office to disclose. Third, we require that the district attorney's office obtain all records from the department that are known to have been reviewed by the DOJ and, subsequently, disclose them in an electronic format with optical character recognition, subject to a protective order.

The DA's office had a policy of hiding police witness credibility problems. Prosecutors might decide an incident or judge's finding was not serious enough to disclose. They might know that a group of police beat up a suspect but claim uncertainty as to which individuals in the group delivered the blows. Such excuses are no longer allowed.

The third item relates to documents relied on by the DOJ in finding that police falsified reports and used excessive force. The DOJ won't release the records. But most of them came from prosecution and police files. The DA's office knows what it turned over the to DOJ. It has to turn the same information over to defense attorneys, but not (not yet?) to the public.

A concurrence observed that a judge might decline to credit a police officer's testimony on the grounds that eyewitness testimony can be mistaken. An explicit finding that testimony is not credited may need to be disclosed as impeachment evidence.

For those not already keeping score, we have in the past 15 years

Annie Dookhan falsified thousands of drug test records at a state lab. She served three years of a five year sentence and tens of thousands of criminal cases had to be dismissed.
Sonja Farak falsified thousands of drug test records at another lab. She got 18 months. More thousands of criminal cases affected. An Assistant Attorney General was disbarred in the wake of this scandal.
Police lied about calibration of breath test machines. Nobody went to jail for this, not even for lying to the judge overseeing the investigation, but breath test results were not admissible in DUI cases for several years until the state cleaned up its act.

[Commenter_XY]

Wow! And here I was thinking that NJ was gold standard (thinking of Sticky Fingers Menendez) for corruption. MA is atrocious too. Damn, that is an impressive 15-year scorecard (but very sad that thousands of innocent people were harmed - it is pretty unbelievable).

Could the MA legislature help by passing legislation to expedite remuneration to people who were harmed? Have they done so?

[ThePublius]

I think in referring to the "thousands" the OP was referring to people who were presumably guilty, but had to be have their convictions overturned or cases thrown out because of the corruption in the labs. So, they have already received their reward! I haven't hear of innocents being released, but I could be wrong.

[John F. Carr]

How often does the bag of cocaine turn out to be flour, the marijuana turn out to be tea leaves, and so on? That's probably how often an innocent person went to prison. There must be some. It will be very difficult for them to prove their innocence, which is the standard set by state law for compensation.

[bernard11]

How often does the bag of cocaine turn out to be flour, the marijuana turn out to be tea leaves, and so on?

I don't know, and, on the one hand share your skepticism, on the other, why falsify if it really is cocaine?

I remember the Dookhan case, but not the specifics. Did some of the falsification consist of not doing the test at all, and then submitting a report as if she had? Or overstating quantities?

[John F. Carr]

The problem with the drug cases is, most defendants are factually guilty. We just don't know which ones.

The state offered $14 million in compensation for monetary costs incurred by the 30,000 or so defendants. For example, probation fees and driver's license reinstatement fees can be paid back as long as the fund has money.

Compensating wrongful conviction is difficult under state law. See General Laws Chapter 258D. The court must be convinced that the wrongly convicted person spent over a year in prison for a crime he did not commit. The claimant must also show that his conviction was reversed on grounds tending to suggest innocence, rather than what we commonly call "a technicality." Under Guzman v. Commonwealth 458 Mass. 354 (2010) the drug lab cases probably qualify.

Here's the problem. Colin Cocaine was caught with 100 grams of a white powdery substance and a gun he did not have a license to carry. The drug lab says the white powder is a controlled substance. He pleads guilty to either or both charges in return for a lower sentence. Once the drug lab scandal breaks he withdraws his plea. With witness memories five years old the prosecution drops both charges. The facts still tend to show he was guilty of a gun charge for which he could have been imprisoned. He is not eligible for compensation. Without the gun charge he would have to show by clear and convincing evidence that he did not possess a felony amount of drugs.

[Commenter_XY]

What a mess, John F Carr. That entire situation sounds like a guaranteed jobs program for smart and enterprising defense attorneys. 🙂

Thanks for all the background. It is fascinating reading.

I ain't ever breaking the law if I set foot in MA. If I ever do....though Boston is nice in the summer and I would miss that.

[bernard11]

But in your example Caleb did in fact serve five years, no? What would just the gun charge have gotten him?

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Wow! And here I was thinking that NJ was gold standard (thinking of Sticky Fingers Menendez) for corruption.

Illinois would like to have a word with you.

[Dr. Ed 2]

What is with the Springfield Police?!?

They were dealing with this stuff back in the 1990s -- one of the TV stations got actual footage of a cop beating a high school student.
Thirty years -- cops retire in twenty so it's not even the same officers....

And John, you've forgotten to mention all the scandals that the Mass State Police have been involved in, ranging from the judge's daughter (Alli Bibaud) to the Federal indictments for overtime fraud (it was Federal money), to Trooper Leigha Genduso (the really cute drug dealer and girlfriend of Lt. Col. Risteen -- https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/state-police-commanders-daniel-risteen-susan-anderson-retire-alli-bibaud/

And then there's the Methuen Police Department -- https://www.mass.gov/news/indictments-announced-in-case-against-former-methuen-police-chief-police-officer

Massachusetts is incredibly corrupt...

[bernard11]

Massachusetts is incredibly corrupt…

Indeed, it is very corrupt. ISTM, as a resident, that what there is here is an absurd amount of cronyism and patronage that leads to this sort of thing. Remember the probation department scandal a few years ago? Legislators were using it as a dumping ground for anyone they knew who needed a job.

I suspect all this has a lot to do with the strong history of ethnic politics in the state.

[Moderation4ever]

In our civil court system, the role of punitive damage is to punish the defendant and effect change in their behavior. What happens when the defendant has deep pockets and no inclination to change their behavior. I don't think the jury in the trial of Jean Carroll v Trump can set a punitive damage amount that will keep Trump from continuing to make defamatory remarks against Carroll. Question for the lawyers, if you the plaintiff's lawyer what do you do here? Take what you can get or keep hauling Trump back to court?

[Martinned]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contempt_of_court#United_States

[Moderation4ever]

I could see Contempt if the judge ordered Donald Trump to refrain from speaking about Ms. Carroll, but what if he pays the judgement but just keep defaming her.

[Martinned]

Then I should hope that she can seek an injunction ordering Trump from saying specific things that have been found to be defamatory. That would at least require him to mix up his repertoire.

[Zarniwoop]

I am unconvinced DJT has the capability to adjust his repertoire. He’s apparently been repeating near-identical riffs multiple, disjointed times in the same campaign rallies in 2024.

I saw someone who works as a caregiver to elderly folks in metal decline comment that the one area where they show the most vigor and mental connection is anger and vitriol.

Weird how well that describes Trump’s M.O. at campaign rallies.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Trump isn't going to pay any money out of his own pockets in any case: he just goes on Xitter (or the Trump equivalent thereof), flashes his pearly whites, and the MAGA money rolls in.

He defames Jean, she sues him, he defames her again, she sues him again, etc. It will probably go on until he sneers his last.

[Zarniwoop]

I don’t practice in this area well enough to know a solid answer, but I’m curious – if there’s a third (and subsequent) lawsuit(s) for identical or near-identical statements, does Ms. Carroll need to re-prove damages determined in the second trial? Or is a finding of damages from the current trial something that could be taken off the table in trials 3, 4, 5 … n?

I mean, one way to get Trump to drop Ms. Carroll as a campaign subject might be the knowledge that it costs him (for example) $1 million every time he mentions her and says she’s a liar as an applause line.

But sheesh, the way Trump keeps bringing her up is a self-inflicted shot in the foot. I’d say he’s into “At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” territory … but that ship sailed a long time ago.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Nowhere near my area either, but I couldn't help but notice that that appears to be what has happened in the current proceedings (although there were two cases initially, one with the re-activated statute of limitations, and then Trump repeated his statements, so who knows).

I guess Trump could argue that each time he repeats the same lie its impact on E. Jean is less than the first time, thus making new damages phases necessary?

[Krayt]

In theory, wouldn't continued, repeated payments fully compensate the victim?

[Dr. Ed 2]

The way I look at it, NYT v. Sullivan should have applied here -- she made herself a public figure by filing a CIVIL suit and the whole thing is sketchy as hell anyway. Trump should have a right to say he's innocent -- convicted criminals do, so why not Trump?

[Martinned]

That's an interesting approach! Whoever sues for defamation automatically makes themselves a public figure and must therefore lose. Out of curiosity, are you proposing that that rule should apply to other defendants than Trump too?

[Moderation4ever]

What you are missing is that Trump is not saying he innocent he is saying Jean Carroll is a liar, that is not the same. Trump is billionaire and he can certainly hire people that can tell him how to address the issue without making himself open to charges of defamation. The thing is he will not follow advice. Notice the little temper tantrum he had the other day when he won the NH primary. He is as thin skinned as they come.

[Noscitur a sociis]

The jury found that Trump acted with actual malice, you giant doofus.

[Mr. Bumble]

Can juries act with actual malice?

[David Nieporent]

Once more, Dr. Ed fails to understand that NYT v. Sullivan did not say that defamation of public figures was immune from liability.

[Ed Grinberg]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-harvard-of-the-unwoke-university-of-florida-is-fixing-higher-education-13f22b77
The Harvard of the Unwoke
University of Florida President Ben Sasse has a theory of how higher ed succumbed to execrable ideas—and thoughts on reforming it.
By James Taranto
Jan. 19, 2024
Would calls for the genocide of Jews be a violation of the University of Florida’s bullying and harassment policy?
“Yes,” says Ben Sasse, UF’s president.
Three university heads equivocated when lawmakers asked that question in a congressional hearing last month. So far two of them, the University of Pennsylvania’s Liz Magill and Harvard’s Claudine Gay, have been demoted to the faculty. ...
Yet when I follow up by raising the issue of free speech, he acknowledges the answer isn’t so simple. Regarding the First Amendment, he says, “I’m a pretty libertarian zealot.” He emphasizes that the Constitution “draws a deep, deep line at speech and action,” that “threats are the front edge of action,” and that “orchestrated plans, or getting to a definable way of targeting specific people, is when speech ceases to be deliberation.”
Which isn’t that different from Ms. Gay’s testimony last month: “We are deeply committed to free expression. But when speech crosses over into conduct that violates our policies—policies against bullying, harassment, intimidation—we do take action.”
Does that mean we have a meeting of the minds between Florida’s president and his erstwhile Harvard counterpart? Not quite. Mr. Sasse calls Ms. Gay’s appeal to free speech “laughable” in light of “the culture of trigger warnings and safe spaces and everything else that they’ve built on top of their victimization grid that defines the worldview of Harvard bureaucrats of late.” Mr. Sasse’s view is that toleration of antisemitic expression is a price worth paying for free speech. Ms. Gay expects us to pay it and get nothing in return.
Mr. Sasse, 51, says higher education is having an “emperor-has-no-clothes moment.” Illiberalism, anti-intellectualism and identity politics were spreading on campus for decades before they congealed recently into open and pervasive antisemitism.

[Bwaaah]

That's the right takeaway (if you're not a DEI lover).

[Moderation4ever]

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Impressive.

[Moderation4ever]

My bad. I accidentally post the same thing twice. I could delete the post but not the record.

[Armchair]

Antisemitism is just so difficult to condemn for some people...

In North Carolina, a group (No Peace Without Justice ) made antisemitic statements during a protest, calling "October 7 was for many of us from the region a beautiful day." (Because nothing like the violent death of over a thousand innocent Jews to bring a beautiful day for some people, plus some raping for good measure, and a little baby burning).

Seems easy to condemn. Like condemning the Holocaust. And UNC's faculty counsel tried...but objections kept coming up. Like

"“There is no mention of Islamophobia here. There is no mention here of the disproportionate use of force that Israel has been, in my opinion, exerting in Gaza.”
***
“Why single this out and not address ongoing harassment of Muslim faculty going on right now on campus?”
***
“This resolution contributes to a hostile campus environment for many students, staff and faculty who fear being branded as anti-Semitic.”
***
“I don’t feel comfortable voting for a resolution that condemns any opinion that is not a pro-Israel opinion.”
***
“I fear that the is no right answer here because the resolution forces us to take sides in a larger battle.”
***
“There have been comments made about condemning of violence, like speech advocating violence, but we have so much military on this campus and courses taught about the military.”
***
“We cannot be confident that everyone has the same understanding of the concept of the term anti-Semitism…without clarifying that, I feel uncomfortable making a decision about this resolution.”
***
“If we vote for the resolution, I am afraid, I have received emails from some members of the community who are worried because they feel marginalized by us not addressing other issues related to this, like war in Gaza.”"

Ultimately the resolution was tabled, and UNC's faculty just couldn't bring themselves to condemn the antisemitic attacks.

And this is how it spreads, and the tactics used by those who practice strategic antisemitism use it to spread.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/01/at-unc-anti-semitism-is-too-close-to-call.php

[Nige]

'(Because nothing like the violent death of over a thousand innocent Jews to bring a beautiful day for some people, plus some raping for good measure, and a little baby burning).'

You constantly celebrate thousands of deaths of innocent people, lots of babies burned. Not much room between you at all, really.

[Armchair]

Point out one place where I have celebrated the atrocities Hamas has foisted upon its own people.

When Hamas brainwashes a child into putting on a suicide vest and charging an Israeli soldier, I do not celebrate. I weep and cry out in horror, at the devil's choice put before the soldier. The devil forcing this choice (Hamas) must be wiped out so that such horrors don't occur in the future.

[Nige]

See? You’re piously justifying atrocities and mass slaughter in the very comment you claim you don’t. Every 'Hamas must be wiped out' comment is a celebration of thousands and thousands of deaths and maimings.

‘I weep and cry out in horror,’

Big Bill Murray in Scrooged accepting a humanitarian of the year award vibe.

[Commenter_XY]

Hamas can choose a different path. They can surrender. They can choose to live in peace with Jews. Instead, they have repeatedly stated their goal is the extermination of all Jews, not just Israel. They themselves have rejected any two-state solution. There is no deal to be made with Judeocidal terrorists, aside from asking them what size burial shroud do they want.

I don't mourn the deaths of Hamas members have sworn to kill me just because I am a Jew. So far, 9K Hamas are members dead, with another 31K to go (roughly). I figure the job will be done by the end of 2025. A couple of years to hunt down and kill the Hamas animals seems reasonable.

I also want to say that I am especially delighted, as an American Jew, that POTUS Biden has spoken with great moral clarity, and moreover, provided armaments to Israel so that Israel can kill every Hamas member they can lay their hands upon.

[Dr. Ed 2]

POTUS Biden is just afraid of losing the Jewish vote.
Don't think he actually supports you....

[Nige]

See? Actually delighted at the slaughter of innocent men women and children.

[Harvey Mosley]

Is it dishonesty, stupidity, or both that causes you to equate Hamas with innocent men, women, and children?

[Nige]

Who's doing the equating? Who just doesn't care, to the extent that their deaths are trivial and casually accepted?

[Armchair]

Nige,

I just want to double check here. Are you honestly equating "wiping out terrorists" with "rape and murder of innocent civilians"? Do you actually consider these the same thing?

[Nige]

No, I equate the killing of a thousand civilians with the killing of thousands and thousands of civilians, even though there is actually an obvious disparity between the two.

I expect Palestinian women who report being raped by Israeli soldiers will be given short shrift on here.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Suppose the Supreme Court does what most expect, and finds a way to keep Trump on ballots nationwide. What should we expect Trump to do in office, if he achieves office? (Note that I do not say, “wins the election;” that is a separate possibility which needs its own treatment.)

1. Trump will govern using only acting department heads, whom he will appoint without Senate confirmation.

2. Trump will inflict mass firings on the civil service, wrecking it.

3. Trump will shake up the military chain of command, to assure that only Trump loyalists have oversight.

4. Trump will treat the entire federal budget as one giant kitty from which he can draw at will to fund whatever projects he wants, and to deprive of funding projects he does not want, regardless of congressional appropriations.

5. Trump will weaponize the Justice Department to persecute his political enemies.

6. Trump will confederate with state government loyalists nationwide to rig state election systems against Democrats.

7. Trump will order policies to persecute blacks, Indians, gays, trans people, and various political groups as targets of opportunity.

8. Internationally, Trump will side with fascism, oppose and starve NATO, and court the favors of foreign kleptocrats.

That list is probably just a beginning. It merely assumes Trump will do what he has said he will do, or will try to achieve the policies he has publicly demanded.

What response should the Supreme Court expect from a national anti-Trump majority, if the Court has ignored the plain language of the Constitution to put Trump in office? What safety from civil disruption will result? Does anyone suppose that if a Trump opponent wins the popular ballot count, that an actual anti-Trump American majority will accept with docility that the Court has been punctilious about the electoral college, and turned a blind eye to voting rights, and ignored the 14A?

[Armchair]

Every time some liberal says "what Trump will do", and is just never seems to come true.

Seems like projection to me.

[Nige]

People keep projecting some level of competence on him, true, but it still seems reckless to give him the power to try to do those things, even incompetently.

[Krayt]

Thank you! Now let’s address any party turning the investigative power of government against political enemies, i.e. weaponizing it. Clearly facetious claims of purely disinterested concern for rule of law is a massive hole.

[Nige]

I was talking about the patriots and lovers of democracy *voting* for the guy who tried to steal an election he lost and who is explicitly promising to be a fascist dictator if he wins; your obsession with granting him absolute immunity from the law on top of all that is your own thing.

[Martinned]

Half the things listed there are things Trump already tried to do during his first term.

[SRG2]

Would you oppose any or all of the actions listed?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Armchair, that critique is at a disadvantage. I made nothing up. I confined the particulars to items Trump is publicly on record for.

I get that MAGA types resort all the time to, "Pay no attention." Seems unwise to heed it.

[Armchair]

I mean...let's just pick one.

"Trump will order policies to persecute blacks"

How is Trump "on the record" for this? I mean, during his presidency, African American poverty rates fell to record lows. (Biden...well...that's a conversation for another day)

[Nige]

I actually sort of agree. Trump doesn't give a shit about policy on that level, and he's all about enabling white nationalists and supremacists, but he holds them and black people in similar disdain. For him, a win will be all about revenge and shoring up his own power. State Republicans, on the other hand, who would think a Trump win is a sign that they've won the culture war, would absolutely redouble their efforts, even though such policies reduced DeSantis to a laughing stock and a cautionary tale on the national level.

[bernard11]

Every time some liberal says “what Trump will do”,

Much of it is just quoting the man.

[Commenter_XY]

lathrop, normally I read your posts, and just smile. I think you are approaching 'Peak lathrop' this morning. Let me allay your anxieties.

There is a very long road to the actual nomination in July at the Team R convention. I don't think it is healthy to get too worked up about something that isn't here yet, and won't be for months. I would not worry too much about this before Independence Day.

Then, POTUS Trump needs to get re-elected in November. No guarantees there.

Breathe. 🙂

PS: How is the legislation for 'lathropistan' coming along? Your fictional world you posted about a month ago?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Commenter_XY, I listed 8 items on a bill of particulars, all publicly bruited by Trump, or previously resorted to. You can't find even one of them to deny?

Your advice is, let time pass until Trump takes office, and that will make it better?

[Commenter_XY]

Yes = let the time pass --> is my advice to you

and just breathe. 🙂

[Bwaaah]

You do understand that "words" and "actions" have different meanings, no?

Remember: your speculations are words. And as C_XY recommended: breathe.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Commenter_XY, for you, does every proposal for constitutional adjustment introduce a, "fictional world?"

[bernard11]

XY,

Are you saying you don't believe Trump will do what he has been promising to do?

You don't trust your man to follow through on his promises?

[Brett Bellmore]

1A great deal depends on how the Congressional elections go.

As far as the Senate goes, it's looking unpleasant for the Democrats, but not terrifying. They're likely, but not overwhelmingly, to lose the Senate, chiefly due to the fact that most of the seats up for reelection are currently held by Democrats.

Of course, Senate races are not fully independent of the Presidential race, and in the event Trump wins that, the odds of the Democrats holding onto the Senate look pretty poor.

So, probably Trump has a Republican Senate to confirm nominees.

On the House, Republicans are currently predicted to have a slight lead in retaining that chamber.

So, if I had to bet, I'd guess a Republican Senate and a Democratic House, but the odds of Democrats getting control of both chambers at the same time Trump wins would be pretty low.

[Life of Brian]

That list is probably just a beginning.

No doubt. Didn't you forget kicking dogs and running over small children who wander in front of his motorcade?

[VinniUSMC]

I almost feel sorry for you SL. You’re not even 1/1000000000th as clever as you think you are.

[DaveM]

OK, I'll bite. Let's see how I feel about this list.

1. Trump will govern using only acting department heads, whom he will appoint without Senate confirmation.

I take it you mean he will have no cabinet secretaries at all? He could probably do that if he wanted. The cabinet is just for the convenience of the executive in any event. If he doesn't feel the need to have one, not having one isn't technically illegal. Not advisable, in my opinion (and George Washington's), but it could be done.

2. Trump will inflict mass firings on the civil service, wrecking it.

I spent my life in the private sector. We have mass firings as a regular feature. If done properly, it can be very beneficial, indeed. If done wrong, yes, it could wreck things.

3. Trump will shake up the military chain of command, to assure that only Trump loyalists have oversight.

Yeah, that's not going to be possible. The Senate has to confirm too many officers for this to work.

4. Trump will treat the entire federal budget as one giant kitty from which he can draw at will to fund whatever projects he wants, and to deprive of funding projects he does not want, regardless of congressional appropriations.

Well, we're all learning what happens when the chief executive ignores the written law right now with Biden completely ignoring our national border. When Trump does the same, it'll suck big time, just like it does now. Congress does have a tool to deal with this, should they choose to use it.

5. Trump will weaponize the Justice Department to persecute his political enemies.

Already being done right now, and no doubt it will continue under Trump. Only I think Trump is probably "better" at it, having so much experience growing up in Queens and being a real estate power playa.

6. Trump will confederate with state government loyalists nationwide to rig state election systems against Democrats.

Yes, already being done right now, and I think we could expect exactly the same from Team Trump.

7. Trump will order policies to persecute blacks, Indians, gays, trans people, and various political groups as targets of opportunity.

I don't believe this for a minute, you must be mis-quoting him. Trump has nothing to gain from doing this, and he only does things that get him something he wants.

8. Internationally, Trump will side with fascism, oppose and starve NATO, and court the favors of foreign kleptocrats.

The bits about fascism and kleptocracy are just more lefty talking points, I very much doubt Trump has said anything like it. But oh yeah, he will starve NATO.

All in all, in my opinion Trump will just be Biden 2.0, only pointing in the opposite direction.

[Armchair]

Why is Trump doing well in the polls.

Real wage growth under Trump: + 7%
Real wage growth under Biden: -3%

Oh.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/01/the-daily-chart-are-you-better-off-than-you-were.php

[Commenter_XY]

Nice charts, but what is their source?

[Kazinski]

Steven Hayward made the chart, and he should have posted the source(s), but its not like he's some anonymous rando on twitter.

"Steven F. Hayward (born October 16, 1958) is an American conservative author, political commentator, and policy scholar. He is a senior resident scholar at the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and a visiting lecturer at the UC Berkeley School of Law.". From Wikipedia.

[Armchair]

There's a note on one of the charts, that the data is from the census bureau.

[Commenter_XY]

I missed it; my bad.

[Kenneth Almquist]

When unemployment rises, the workers who lose there jobs are disproportionately low wage workers, so the average wage of workers who are still employed rises. That's why we saw a spike in real wages when COVID hit.

When Trump took office (Jan. 2017), non-farm employment was 145.639 million. When Trump left office (Jan. 2021), the number had fallen to 142.969 million. Trump is the first president since Herbert Hoover to leave office with fewer people employed than when he took office. Under Biden, the number of people working has grown to 157.232 million (Dec. 2023).

Under Biden, real wages have been growing since Q2 2022 *without* a rise in unemployment. That means that workers are seeing their inflation adjusted wages increase. Your claim is basically that Trump is better than Biden because workers are seeing their real wages increase under Biden, whereas a whole bunch of them lost their jobs under Trump. I doubt that argument will win over many voters in the general election.

Sources:
Employment: FRED series PAYEMS
Real wages: FRED series LES1252881600Q

[Michael P]

I agree with this post by Arnold Kling on Trump and this year's election: https://arnoldkling.substack.com/p/the-threat-to-democracy

I wish that Republican voters would choose someone other than Mr. Trump as their champion. In his first term, he showed that he is unable to select key personnel for competence, rather than for personal loyalty. He got into many conflicts with his own officials. He will not be able to govern effectively unless he can do better.

But I do think that it is time for the entrenched left give way. I am afraid that a peaceful transfer of power is the last thing that the entrenched left wants to see. I shudder to think how they will behave should Mr. Trump win in November.

[Nige]

'I am afraid that a peaceful transfer of power is the last thing that the entrenched left wants to see.'

Somebody mind-wiped 2020 from their memory banks.

[billardl]

Oh noes, a few idiots took selfies in the Capitol. The only violence came from the low IQ, raised by a single teen mother, black police officer who killed an unarmed protester without provocation.

[Nige]

A racist idiot agrees.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

I think it's probably the same racist idiot as before.

[Sarcastr0]

What the fuck is the 'entrenched left?' Seems like this is an attempt to rename Democrats as though they were radicals.

You think like Pelosi and Schumer are going to say it's time to take to the streets?

Trump, of course, already has. So this is a pretty transparent deflection by you, and Kling, who seems a bit of a Trump fan in a quicky Google ("When I look at the foreign policy establishment, the public health establishment, and the economic policy establishment, I wish that Mr. Trump could have done more to overcome them. ")
https://www.arnoldkling.com/blog/the-trump-presidency/

[Michael P]

You could read the article to find out.

Mr. Trump’s enemies are in what I might call the entrenched left, the college-degreed elites who hold sway in academia, media, and government.

Imagine a federal bureaucrat who works on a DEI effort to direct taxpayer money towarda BIPOCs to research native methods for underwater basket weaving. He fits this into a busy schedule of trolling a blawg where he acknowledges that he only criticizes the political right and defends the left, and justifies this by saying that others criticize the left so he doesn't need to. That's one example of the entrenched left.

[apedad]

You guys can't even identify a real person so have to make up an imaginary phantasm.

It must suck to be you.

[Michael P]

That was sarcasm. I wrote "imagine" but meant "look in a mirror at". That was a lightly summarized version of how Sarcastr0 has described himself. (The specific Native American research topic was artistic license on my part, as I haven't seen him specify exactly what kind of research he is trying to DEI.)

[Michael P]

The entrenched left spent most of 2020 calling for people to take to the streets. Yes, that included Pelosi and Schumer. It included other prominent Dems, such as Maxine Waters, as in 2018:

Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up. And if you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere.

[Michael P]

Finally, Kling is no fan of Trump. He thinks Trump acted horribly after the 2020 election, and was only marginally effective before that. Wishing that someone did better does not mean one is a fan of that person! Maybe you should form your opinions by reading more than one sentence of what a quick Google search shows you. The blog post you linked spells out Kling's opinion for you.

[Nige]

'Finally, Kling is no fan of Trump.'

Amazing how all the non-fans of Trump spend more time attacking people who aren't Trump. Worrying the 'entrenched left' won't allow a peaceful transfer of power after Trump and his supporters tried to prevent a peaceful transfer of power is typical for the breed. Not only did the 'entrenched left' not rise up in violence after Trump's efforts to disenfracnhise the majority of American voters, they literally stood back to let the law take its course instead of frothing about civil war.

[Bwaaah]

What the fuck is the ‘entrenched left?’

You have a mirror, don't you?

[Sarcastr0]

Well, good news! I'm not going to call for violence if Trump is elected.

You, on the other hand, called for violence over immigration earlier this morning.

[Bwaaah]

I don't recall either having or expressing that sentiment. Paste what I said that triggered you.

[OtisAH]

He probably means this:

“‘If Biden’s use of discretion is overbroad, you have two legal options – you can challenge in court or revise the law.’

“Those are two legal options. When a government becomes lawless, it invites other options.

“Just keep talking, Sarc. Everybody hears you.”

[Bwaaah]

“Those are two legal options. When a government becomes lawless, it invites other options."

That's exactly what I meant. It's an observation. Do you disagree? Do you read that as an endorsement of lawlessness?

But even more, how does that become a "call for violence over immigration"?

[Sarcastr0]

Posting about government lawlessness in a thread about Texas and immigration is not just an off-the-cuff factoid; don't piss on our legs and tell us it's raining.

What does: 'Just keep talking, Sarc. Everybody hears you?'

[Bwaaah]

What does: ‘Just keep talking, Sarc. Everybody hears you?’

It's advice, as if to suggest that the more you write, the less persuasive are your points.

Anyway, just keep going. Everybody hears you.

[Nige]

'Do you read that as an endorsement of lawlessness?'

It's supposed to be a threat, but if you're too cowardly to stand by your threats, you're too cpwardly to carry them out.

[Mr. Bumble]

Comments above from reunion of short bus riders.

[Nige]

Oh look, you changed it up a bit.

[Bwaaah]

My assertion that "lawlessness invites lawlessness" is not a threat. It's an observation. And I don't see anybody disagreeing with me.

(except queue the nige-bot)

[Nige]

Of course it’s a threat: the law being applied to your billionaire ex-president as though he were an ordinary citizen isn’t lawlessness. You’re threatening lawlessness for lawfulness.

[Ed Grinberg]

re: "I do think that it is time for the entrenched left give way."
A few years ago, Wall Street Journal published a reader's letter, asking Democrats (among other things): "Is stifling free speech on college campuses consistent with our values?"
I replied:
"The highest value the Left holds is winning (obtaining / retaining power). The Left, with its antisocial agenda, cannot win unless it stifles free speech. In fact, from the French revolution onward, various leftists have been willing to murder any number of their countrymen in order to obtain / retain power."
The entrenched Left's behavior during and since the 2016 election has fully confirmed my view.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Yup, "entrenched left" appears to be the new buzzword they've been instructed to use.

[Bwaaah]

Buzzword? They've been instructed?

There's an entrenched left. And there's an entrenched right. They move as herds, and are very hard to sway through reason. That's why the adjective "entrenched" is applicable.

Judging by the fact that you seize on the words "entrenched left," my guess is that you are part of that herd.

[Krayt]

Sounds like a simple rename of the deep state.

GuyWithCoffeeProveMeWrong.jpg

[Bwaaah]

"Deep state" is, I think, a contentious and unsettled term. Many people, for example, do not assert that there is a deep state, and to the contrary, find it to be rooted in misinterpretation and confabulation. The deep state concept tends to be animated by, and of utility to, the people on the right these days much more than on the left.

Much less controversially, the two political parties in the U.S., and their superficial monocultures are deeply entrenched. I don't see that as being a concept (like the "deep state"), but rather, an apt description of two large groups that are not easily moved by reason. I suspect that most people on the right see an entrenched left, and most people on the left see and entrenched right.

[Sarcastr0]

The GOP has changed on free trade and kicked out the neocons both somewhat recently.

Entrench monoculture seems wrong.

[Bwaaah]

The cultures are not absolutely fixed, and indeed, GOP culture has changed a lot recently. That's why I say that their cultures are shallow, paper thin (if you'll allow the metaphor). But they move as a herd, only as a herd, and everybody moves. You thought free trade was a core GOP value? Gone, as quick as the herd moves. You thought free speech was a core Democratic value? Gone, as quick as the herd moves. (I suspect you're inclined to disagree with that assertion, but think about the elevation and expansion of the concepts of "harmful speech" and "hate speech," and think back to the ACLU's defense of neo-Nazi speech in Skokie Illinois in the 1970s...liberal speech values in action.)

I'll concede that "entrenched" isn't an ideal word here. I didn't pick it. Somebody else used the phrase, "entrenched left," and Krayt responded to that term like it was some kind of political speak. But it was just describing the nature of political parties in general, which is that, for the purpose of argument, they are practically fixed in position. Strong partisans generally won't change their minds because they can't support their parties without being sync'd on message.

[Sarcastr0]

Your herd paradigm would require people don’t change party affiliation.

Parties are just brands; they’re not lumbering mobs, they’re coalitions.

You mistake the tool for the thing.
Parties are no more entrenched monocultures now as like the early 1900s.

Except the GOP at the moment is captured by a person. Trump, acting merely as candidate, says stop making a deal on immigration, the actual elected officials hop to.
Do you think Biden could pull that off, for a deal on like gun control, with Nancy and Chuck?

[Bwaaah]

Yes, in effect, the GOP is captured by a person. But really, enough people who will vote Republican are captured by Trump such that they are now the center of mass for the party. Many Republicans, possibly most, don't prefer Trump. But party politics is a team sport.

There's nothing extraordinary about today's news on Trump being able to scuttle an immigration compromise. If they agree to the compromise, he will grab the microphone and scream how the "RINO sellout guarantees the Democrats get to let in at least 5,000 aliens per day." Meanwhile, the typical Democrat thinks the administration is just coping with a large influx that it doesn't control, and simply has a legal obligation to process them. You think the Democratic party leaders can get away with saying, "We want this crush of immigration, and we will not let the Republicans stop it"? No. So they don't say that. They just do that. And the Times/Post bury the details of the deal down low enough on the page to keep their strategy on the downlow.

Immigration is like water, and border enforcement is like a spigot. Republicans are fighting to close the spigot. And Democrats are pretending there's no spigot, when they're really just keeping it wide open.

Why do they insist on a minimum of 5,000 per day? I don't hear Joe, or Chuck talking about that, and yet, that's what they're doing.

[Brett Bellmore]

5,000 a day is 1,825,000 a year. Well, 1,830,000 this year, it's a leap year.

That's higher than any year on record until 2022.

So, what they're offering is to take that spigot, crank it back a quarter of a degree, and then weld it in place.

In place of actually enforcing the law that's already on the books.

That's not even a bad joke. They're offering to let the Republicans utterly surrender on illegal immigration. So, naturally, McConnell is all in favor of it, because he DOES want to surrender, so long as he can pretend it's something else.

[Bwaaah]

And FYI per the table on this page about immigration, we were doing around 1.4 million deportations per year, peeking during the Clinton administration, right through until the Obama administration. And that's when we started dropping enforcement and got to around 300,00 per year now.

[Sarcastr0]

We've had it before, it's just extraordinary. Bryan springs to mind, but I'm reading a lot about that era lately.

You don't understand the Democratic position at all. Why would they be into this compromise if that's their thinking?!
Politicians are shit at keeping secrets - if you're assuming a secret agenda, you need evidence not hot takes.

And no, Democrats are not pretending there is no border enforcement, that's stupid. And no, the borders are not wide open, that's bullshit.

[Brett Bellmore]

They're proposing this compromise because it's not a compromise, it's a complete win for them.

They propose to limit illegal immigration to higher than it ever was until just the last couple of years, and not much below the all time peak.

[Bwaaah]

The partisan culture is bound more by shared revulsion of its opposition than shared political beliefs. The revulsion is visceral and easily fueled without being locked down to ideological details. (After all, you're fighting fascism, aren't you?)

[Sarcastr0]

Tribalism is a big driver, and recently largely negatively based and emotional (check out your own pretty emotional takes on race-based policies).

But that's the base; the wrangling continues because the base is necessary but not sufficient for either party to win.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

I was just commenting on the apparent use of a "new" buzzword. I could be wrong; it was an off-the-cuff observation and speculation, after all.

The "left", entrenched or otherwise, would be quite surprised and probably horrified were I to suddenly appear among them.

[bernard11]

I am afraid that a peaceful transfer of power is the last thing that the entrenched left wants to see.

Amazingly idiotic statement.

[Armchair]

A shocking poll about American Elites.

"The problem is starkly illustrated in a new survey Scott Rasmussen conducted on behalf of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, which divided respondents between elites (people with at least one postgraduate degree, earning more than $150,000, living in ZIP codes where the population density exceeds 10,000 per square mile) and the general public."

Rasmussen also recorded the responses of a subset of elites — “super elites,“ if you will — who graduated from a few prestigious private universities, including members of the Ivy League, Duke, Stanford and Northwestern.

It should come as no surprise that between America and its upper crust, a much higher proportion of the latter (73%) consider themselves Democrats and approve of Joe Biden’s performance as president (84%).

A stunning 77% of elites and 89% of super elites support the “strict rationing of meat, gas, and electricity.”

Seventy-two percent and 81% would ban the use of gas-powered cars.

Fifty-five percent and 70% would prevent Americans from engaging in “non-essential” air travel.

Oh, and 47% and 55% believe the government affords Americans “too much freedom.”

https://nypost.com/2024/01/19/opinion/shocking-survey-reveals-the-reason-elites-are-out-of-touch-and-it-isnt-why-you-think/

[billardl]

They hate the average American, which is why they hate the 2nd Amendment.

America is heading toward a Robespierre type reckoning. I cherish the thought.

[Nige]

The racist idiot agrees!

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

What these disaffected, downscale clingers call "average Americans" are profoundly below-average Americans.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Armchair, for some reason (long personal ties stretching back to college days, mostly), I not infrequently socialize with the kinds of elites you mention. I not infrequently find their political views out of touch, frustrating, and unrealistic. Sometimes I let them know it. I have skunked up the occasional Brookline garden party. But never during decades doing that have I ever encountered anyone to match the characterization delivered by that ludicrous, lying poll.

[Dr. Ed 2]

How about the parties you AREN'T invited to?

[Absaroka]

If anyone has a link to the actual survey, I'd be grateful. I did find the 'Committee to Unleash Prosperity' article. That's a cool name, but it doesn't seem like a neutral source.

But it does seem closer to the source, for example the rationing question is given as 'To fight climate change, would you favor or oppose the strict rationing of gas, meat, and electricity'. The NYP article leaves off the start of that.

It would be nice to see the actual questions, in the order asked.

That said, if there isn't some explanatory context, that's pretty bad. I'd like to follow up with 'and should that rationing be strictly enforced across all income levels?'. 'Let them eat cake' is a bad strategy.

[Commenter_XY]

https://committeetounleashprosperity.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Them-vs-Us_CTUP-Rasmussen-Study-FINAL.pdf

There is the final study. Interesting reading.

[Absaroka]

Yes; that is what I posted a link to. When I read that, though, I didn't see the actual survey methodology. I like to see the actual methodology.

Survey 1:
Q1:Are you aware that an epidemic of puppycide is sweeping the country?
Q2:On a scale of 1-10, how important are puppycide laws to you?

Survey 2:
Q1:Are you aware that puppycide is vanishingly rare?
Q2:On a scale of 1-10, how important are puppycide laws to you?

S1Q2 results: 'people really care about puppycide!'
S2Q2 results: 'people don't really care about puppycide'

When all you get are the results, it's hard to tell how useful the survey was. And when I look at the ‘Committee to Unleash Prosperity’ main web site, it doesn't really come across as an organization with a neutral viewpoint. As the Gipper said, 'trust but verify'.

[Commenter_XY]

It's true. The questions were 'meh', but straight-foward.

It is a point in time estimate. I do think that the disconnection between those groups of people is quite real, though.

[Absaroka]

We saw Q2. We (or at least I) haven't seen Q1.

Good survey reporting includes all the questions, how they picked people, how many people hung up mid survey, and so on.

[bernard11]

I read the thing.

To be blunt, I don't believe the results. I don't know how they picked their sample, and note that it was an online survey. I'm also wondering how they identified people who fit their criteria.

I also note that the Principals and the Committee include a lot serious RW crackpots.

[billardl]

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/24/health/rape-pregnancy-abortion/index.html

How much do you wanna bet that this "study" counts tons of rapes as rapes that were not, legally or practically?

[Life of Brian]

They didn't even have to be that devious about it: all they did was build a handwaving statistical model based on some surveys:

used a combination of federal surveys on crime and sexual violence to estimate . . .

* * *

It’s difficult to measure how often sexual assault occurs, and Dickman acknowledges that the study includes many statistical assumptions.

[Bwaaah]

If Greg Abbott isn't stopped, it is estimated that 2.4 million immigrants are at risk of drowning in the Rio Grande over the next three years alone.

[billardl]

I hope so! The world has too many people, the liberals say, and they say they love diversity. Well there's too few whites, and too many people of color. So drowning some of the latter will balance things out.

[Dr. Ed 2]

It's not logistically possible for 2.4M people to drown in the river in 3 years.

[Bwaaah]

My statisticians are working on revised estimates as we speak. What kind of hyperbole would you find workable? Can we at least get to six figures?

[Commenter_XY]

No, you need to work in a moat with alligators.... 🙂

[Bwaaah]

Did you hear? Republicans in Texas are talking about releasing crocodiles into the Rio Grande?

The Biden administration contends that would be a usurpation of the authority of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

But it's consistent with the Republican belief that immigrants should be treated as food. (Well, dog food, actually. But nobody can stomach throwing dogs into the Rio Grande.)

[Commenter_XY]

I am kind of partial to minefields, myself. The toe-popper kind. If you get through, you're in. Sort of like a new age version of the movie 'The Gauntlet'.

[Zarniwoop]

More like "Escape From New York" than "The Gauntlet", really.

[Bwaaah]

My first thought is how unsightly it will look in NYC, with all the crutches and missing limbs. But the “toe-popper” refinement intrigues me. Are you suggesting a sort of surgical maiming? Do you think you can get that precise enough where the damage could be hidden inside people’s shoes?

Would just toes be a sufficient deterrent? I mean, if I would only lose one toe, I’d see it as a worthwhile trade for a life in the U.S. Would it have to be multiple toes, even a whole foot, to significantly deter the border-crossing value proposition?

But once we determine what level of injury is needed to have a significant deterrent effect, the gauntlet works well because you don’t have to maim everybody; only enough to diminish the border crossing value proposition. That’s where the gauntlet idea starts to get some legs (no pun intended). Maybe with only a 1% maiming rate in the gauntlet, that is with only 1% of people passing through the gauntlet sustaining limb damage, the deterrent effect would be substantial?

Just thinking out loud, in case an policymakers are leaning in.

[Commenter_XY]

LMAO...

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

What the fuck is wrong with you clingers?

You assholes can't die off fast enough, and take your bigotry, silly superstition, and belligerent ignorance with you.

[Nige]

Jeez, stand by your belief that raped women and girls should be forced to carry any resulting pregnancies to term, don't cavil about numbers. No number of raped women and girls forced to bear their rapists' babies can be too many, surely.

[Zarniwoop]

I heard an interview this morning (going on memory here) with a woman who was raped while a student at BYU and impregnated. She went to Planned Parenthood, got counseling and advice, and decided to keep the baby* (though she lost it to a miscarriage).

She related that even though she personally decided not to get an abortion, having that choice was hugely important to her; making the choice herself was mentally a completely different prospect than having it forced on her. Unsurprisingly, abortion positions were a factor in how she'll vote in 2024.

That's what freedom and liberty look like, people. Patients deciding with medical professionals ... not government intrusion into pregnant women's pants.

*PP actually counsels and advises about all available options in accordance with patient needs, unlike a lot of religiously-funded "pregnancy crisis centers"

[Nige]

Bodily autonomy for women is DEI, probably CRT, definitely woke.

(Some well-connected Catholic is going to write a masterpiece about the current iteration of the culture war. It'll be their Opus DEI.)

[Jacob Grimes]

I mean, she had a choice. She could go to Colorado, or Wyoming, or Arizona and get an abortion.

Freedom and liberty is all well and good until it encompasses destroying the freedom and liberty of another human being to exist. You might not think it's a human being, but many people do, and they in turn are using their freedom and liberty to enact laws to protect those human beings.

[Nige]

Freedom and liberty: not for women.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

.

but many people do, and they in turn are using their freedom and liberty to enact laws to protect those human beings

Those people are gullible, half-educated, bigoted, obsolete hayseeds who are properly being concentrated in increasingly ignorant, desolate, parasitic, worthless sections of America.

[MJYelnosky]

I have been thinking about the impact SFFA v. Harvard may have on employer DEI programs and have published this essay with Georgetown Law Journal Online. https://www.law.georgetown.edu/georgetown-law-journal/glj-online/glj-online-vol-112/racial-preferences-in-employment-after-students-for-fair-admissions-v-harvard/.
Racial preferences for "operational" reasons (think, to foster more creative problem-solving) are in trouble, but racial preferences to address a dramatic underrepresentation of black employees in a job category are lawful under longstanding Title VII precedent.

[Martinned]

Here's an interesting free speech law problem, courtesy of the High Court in R (Phillips) v Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs [2024] EWHC 32 (Admin). The UK Human Rights blog sums up the issue as follows:

Graham Phillips, the Claimant, is a British national and video blogger who posts content from the Donbass dressed in Russian military fatigues. He says he is a journalist who provides a “counterbalance” to widespread western misunderstanding of the true situation in Ukraine. (...)

In July 2022 the Claimant was sanctioned for producing and publishing in support of the Russian invasion and military campaign. The impact was swift. His bank account was frozen. Paypal and Patreon, which he used for crowdfunding, terminated his accounts. In the Court’s words, “his entire income stream was eliminated”. The regulations entitled the Claimant to apply for licences to meet his basic needs but he declined to do so on the basis that would be “buying into the system” when he insists it is illegal and illegitimate.

In January 2023 he challenged the decision to maintain his listing, arguing (i) that the relevant statute – the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018 Act – did not permit the imposition of financial sanctions on a person because of their political views; and (ii) that his designation was a disproportionate restriction on his rights to freedom of expression, property, and family. (...)

The nub of the proportionality test – whether a fair balance had been struck – hinged on the “nature of the Claimant’s activities”. Article 10 was engaged, the Court held, but the “nature of the Claimant’s activities meant his freedom of expression did not merit the level of protection that is afforded to political speech”. The material he produced was “entirely one-sided, supporting Russia and denigrating Ukraine. He is, in effect, embedded with and adopted by the Russian military”. He “wears Russian military uniforms, displays their insignia and … has fired Russian weaponry”. Moreover, his conduct was “not at all consistent with responsible journalism”. (...)

The Court appeared to have little difficulty deciding the Claimant’s application, but it recognised other situations in which it may be less easy to distinguish between legitimate political dissent – worthy of protection – and illegitimate propaganda. To illustrate the point, the Court referred to a series of ECtHR cases concerning Turkey’s terrorism legislation and in relation to which Sharp LJ had observed (in R v Choudary [2016] EWHC Crim 61) that “no bright line principle” emerges from the jurisprudence, thereby requiring an intensive factual analysis of the circumstances.

https://ukhumanrightsblog.com/2024/01/25/financial-sanction-and-free-speech-in-the-high-court/

[Noscitur a sociis]

It is "interesting" only as an exemplar of how illusory freedom can be, even in nominally civilized societies, as a reminder that those of us lucky enough to get to live in the U.S. ahould be eternally grateful.

[Martinned]

Are you somehow under the impression that enemy propaganda in time of war is an easy issue under the first amendment? https://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=2764&context=vlr

[Kazinski]

Obviously if Britain were a belligerent in the war the calculus would be different.

Really what are the authorities afraid of with this idiot?

[Absaroka]

"Really what are the authorities afraid of with this idiot?"

Indeed, and that's the problem. I'm fine with punishing Lord Haw-Haw, Axis Sally, and Tokyo Rose. But as the saying goes, 'this ain't that'.

As much as I despise, say, Jane Fonda, I don't want to see her punished. Even is something like WWII you want to allow dissenting voices - once in a while they might be right.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Are there hard and interesting questions that can be fairly classed under that rubric? Sure.

Is the question raised in your case one of them? Not to anyone sensible.

[Martinned]

Hmm... My comment might have gotten eaten by the spam filter. Anyway, the news is that "The U.S. economy grew at a 3.3% pace in the fourth quarter, much better than expected"

[Mr. Bumble]

Of course, subject to later revision.
For 2023 it was reported as 2.5%. Nothing to write home about.

[Martinned]

"Who are you going to believe? Me or your lying eyes?"

[Ed Grinberg]

https://www.startribune.com/minnesota-records-a-new-record-for-food-shelf-visits-as-more-residents-seek-out-food-assistance/600338095/

Someone really ought to tell these people "the news"!

[Commenter_XY]

Thank God there is growth. It sure beats the alternative.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

THE VOLOKH CONSPIRACY

This strikingly white, tellingly
male, movement conservative
blog has operated for

THIRTEEN (13)

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.

That guy also provided this one. (The singer, not the guitarist . . . who was somewhat well-regarded.)

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Today's Rolling Stones rarities:

First, some stripped-down Stones.

Next, an early take you might not recognize as Good Time Women . . . but you might recognize as something else.

[BrotherMovesOn]

Terrific!

[dwb68]

The MSM totally in the bag for Trump as the inevitable nominee telling me everyday how she should drop out and the donors wont support her and the entire GOP establishment is against her sounds too much like what they said about Trump in 2016.

The best indicator she's a threat is Trump treating her like one and going full rant.

Maybe she wont win, but I want to see a fight. She is tough and seems to have Trumps number.

Trump loses in November either way.

[ThePublius]

Ha, ha. That's funny.

The MSM is not and has never been "in the bag" for Trump, they are just reporting the obvious here.

Haley has not a snowball's chance in hell of beating Trump in the primary, or even coming close. She's widely recognized as a tool for the Democratic party. 70% of her vote in NH came from Democrats, and her funding is Democrat based. People know this, and are not fooled.

Trump wins in November, barring widespread cheating. Cheating includes all kinds of election interference and fraud, like another pandemic-like thing foisted upon us, or other justification for mail-in voting, and last minute non-legislative changes to voting rules.

[dwb68]

Nah, he’s already lost the popular vote twice. 2016 was fluke. It’s rare to lose the popular vote and win. He wont even win GA (where by the way, Kemp beat the crap out of his candidates). He also lost the house and senate.

Trump + Dobbs is a double whammy on suburban voters with a uterus. They wont vote for him. They didnt last time.

I do agree Haley at this point looks like a longshot. If she can go toe-to-toe with his toughness, which I think she can, she can peel off enough GOP voters to win.

[ThePublius]

The popular vote is meaningless. It's not how we elect presidents. It's like arguing after a football game that the losing team should be declared the winner because they gained more yards than the other team. Rules are rules. Only the electoral college matters.

[dwb68]

LMAO. Not quite. The winner of the popular vote vs electoral vote is different <10% of the time. Trump lost PA, AZ, and GA. How the hell do you lose GA? Kemp trounced Trump's candidates and proved its a Trump problem.

[Brett Bellmore]

I think there are a lot of problems on display, actually.

1) Trump is pretty sub-optimal as a candidate. Even if you like his policy positions, it's absolutely undeniable that he's got all sorts of character deficits, you'd really prefer somebody who had his good points without the bad points.

2) Trump's relationship to the GOP establishment is rather hostile, they view him as an interloper alternately to be coopted or destroyed. Which means that he doesn't get the sort of whole-hearted support from the institutional party that an establishment candidate would get.

3) Trump's relationship with the Democratic media complex is even worse, they're not even conflicted, they are all in on destroying him.

Now, point 1 is something another candidate could fix, which is why I was supporting DeSantis.

Point 2 could also be fixed by another candidate; The GOP establishment don't view DeSantis with the same loathing, because he came up through the ranks.

But, point 3? Nothing's fixing that. The Democratic media have now affirmatively rejected objectivity as a value.

U.S. journalists differ from the public in their views of ‘bothsidesism’ in journalism

Beyond Objectivity

Swapping candidates isn't going to fix that. The media have picked their side in our politics, they're not going to be objective or balanced, and they're actually proud of that.

[dwb68]

2) Watching everyone fall over themselves to endorse Trump this round, I don’t think 2 is true. People are kneeling to kiss the gold ring. If anything, Haley is now the outside interloper.

3a, Trump’s relationship with the Business-centric Republican media is almost as bad. Maria Bartiromo is one exception. WSJ though hates Trump and his tariffs. That said, they will swallow their bile, come the general.

I’ll make a startling prediction: IF Haley peels off enough voters and becomes the nominee, he will endorse her as “so tough” and campaign for her.

He will do it because she has two things he wants: influence, and a pardon.

Its miraculous how he can gaslight people into “I was for it before I was against it.”

[ThePublius]

What do you mean "not quite?" Please elaborate.

Are you suggesting that the popular vote has something to do, legally, with electing the president? It doesn't! If you think it does, please explain.

[mulched]

He's saying that the popular vote and the electoral college vote are closely correlated, such that they reach different results less than 1/10 times. The EC vote obviously controls the outcome, but it's much easier to get an EC win if you also get a PV win.

[Kazinski]

Trump often trails more mainstream conservatives in states like Georgia and Arizona, but it doesn't mean he can't win.

Currently 270 to Win's polling map shows GA and AZ as leans Trump.

The current tossup states are NV, CO, MN, WI, PA, NC. Trump needs to pick up 24 of those 86 votes, Biden needs 64.

[dwb68]

He needs GA and AZ to win, lol. He almost surely wont win AZ

[Frank Drackman]

Someone should tell Parkinsonian Joe

[dwb68]

First tell Herschel Walker, LMAO.

[SRG2]

The popular vote is meaningless. It’s not how we elect presidents.

Those are two different statements. Because a candidate wins the electoral college, he becomes president and can do president-y things.

But if he received fewer votes than the loser he cannot legitimately claim a mandate for any controversial action and a Congress is in a stronger position to forestall any such action of his, much as his supporters will protest that he won.

[Stephen Lathrop]

deb68, after candidate loyalists take control of states' election machinery, the prospect of a candidate losing the popular vote and winning goes way up.

[dwb68]

Conspiracy theories don't work in me. I am immune. There are simply no facts to support you theory of alien life on 64chan boards.

[Moderation4ever]

You are wrong and it does happen that the winner of the EC loses the popular vote. GW Bush lost in 2000. The EC has a built in bias for Republicans where they dominate in low population states. California has 472K people/EC vote while Wyoming has 144K/EC vote. In fact for a Democrat to win the EC they have to win the popular vote by more than 3 or 4% to capture the EC win.

[David Nieporent]

Haley has not a snowball’s chance in hell of beating Trump in the primary, or even coming close. She’s widely recognized as a tool for the Democratic party.

Widely recognized… among loons who should be locked up for their own safety.

70% of her vote in NH came from Democrats, and her funding is Democrat based. People know this, and are not fooled.

Once again: 0% of her vote in NH came from Democrats.

[Armchair]

"Once again: 0% of her vote in NH came from Democrats."

Well...that's not "technically" correct. What you meant to say was that 0% of her vote came from "registered" Democrats.

On the other hand, if you look at the exit polls from the GOP NH Primary, you'll find that 6% of voters self identify as Democrats. And Haley won 86% of those voters. (Trump won 74% of self-identified Republicans).

https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/primaries-and-caucuses/exit-polls/new-hampshire/republican-primary/0

So, you really needed to qualify your statement to just "Registered Democrats".

[bernard11]

70% of her vote in NH came from Democrats,

So let's see. Applying the exit poll results to all voters, 6% self-identified as Democrats, and Haley got 86% of their votes.

Well, there were about 324,000 votes cast, so there were about 19,400 Democrats, of whom 86%, about 17,300, voted for Haley. Looks like about 12.35%, not 70%.

[Armchair]

The 70% number comes from the number of Haley voters who were not registered Republicans. So, not “Democrats” but rather “individuals who were not registered Republicans”. Not exactly the same, but it’s pretty telling.

If you’re just counting registered Republicans (which, again, is different from self identified Republicans), Haley only won 27% of their vote.

I'll add on one other odd detail. It's somewhat amusing to me for people to self-identify in an exit poll as a "Democrat", when it was a GOP primary. Not necessarily that people wouldn't do that...but they'd so brazenly admit it in an exit poll.

I'd love to run a different exit poll, with a different question mixed in, after a federal election. "Are you a US Citizen, Green Card Holder, or Other?"

The results would be interesting.

[Michael P]

NPR says thousands of New Hampshire Democrats switched party registrations to vote for Haley, but apparently couldn't find any to interview. The closest they came was someone who "leans Democratic and voted for Joe Biden in 2020".

[OtisAH]

She’ll win the primary in Nevada that Turnip isn’t in and that awards no delegates (he’ll win the caucus, which does grant delegates). Then she will be absolutely humiliated in her home state of South Carolina and it will be over. Ofc, it’s over now, but that’ll end it for the last of her donors and thus for her.

[Brett Bellmore]

I don't know, I think she's in it on the same basis Bernie was in 2016: He KNEW the primaries were rigged, that he simply wasn't winning. He'd been told outright that the super delegates weren't voting for him no matter how well he did. But he stuck it out, because there was a non-zero chance she'd simply self-destruct, being who she was, and then how would they avoid letting him be the nominee?

Of course, Harris is a lot less competitive than Bernie was. She has 17 delegates of the 1,215 needed to secure the nomination, and that is probably all she's going to get. Bernie had 1,831 of the needed 2,383. So, while Bernie made for a plausible replacement if Hillary blew up, Haley is NOT a plausible replacement for Trump.

If he blows up, the convention will ignore her and pick somebody else, probably, but not certainly, DeSantis.

[David Nieporent]

He of course knew the primaries weren't rigged, because of course they weren't.

[Frank Drackman]

Of course they were/are, remember when Hillary Rodman tried to steal Michigan? If you A-holes hadn’t been so stupid Bernie would be in the last year of his second term.

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : “…on the same basis Bernie was in 2016: He KNEW the primaries were rigged, that he simply wasn’t winning. He’d been told outright that the super delegates weren’t voting for him no matter how well he did….”

What a strange statement, independent of whether it’s true or not. The super delegates were designed to be independent of the cacuses and primaries. That was their whole point. So how do they point to the primaries being “rigged”.

Of course some people never pass up a chance to yak conspiracy talk, no matter how absurd. And I heard the exact same charge from a hardcore Bernie Bro – the talk of extreme Left and Right being so similar you’d eaily mistake one for the other in a blindfold test. That Bro couldn’t explain how the primaries were “rigged” and I bet Brett can’t either.

There was Ms. Clinton getting the cue a water question was coming in the Flint town forum (something roughly equal to getting the inside scoop water is wet). There was Bernie not getting everything he wanted in debate numbers and scheduling. And there was some amusing political warfare in Nevada, where both sides tried to game the system before Clinton ended up with the exact percentage of delegates she won in the cacauses.

And that’s about it. Not much “rigging” there, but conspiracy mongers gotta conspiracy…

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, things were rigged.

nside Hillary Clinton’s Secret Takeover of the DNC

[Sarcastr0]

LOL. Brett sounding like a Bernie Bro.

The article is selling a book. And Donna Brazil may have moved to FOX News, but her take is gospel, because Brett wants to believe it!

This is the shit I argue with on other message boards. But I suppose given what Brett thinks Democrats are like, it's not too surprising he horseshoes around to agreeing with the dirtbag left.

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : “Yes, things were rigged”

Pretty hilarious. I asked how it was rigged, just like I asked the Bernie Bro. I gave every single example of “unfair treatment” against Sanders I could find, just like I did with the B.B. Given they didn’t amount to squat, I asked for him for any additional evidence.

And heard nothing back in return. Your reply almost perfectly matches the BB’s. The party leadership prefered Clinton. Clinton was more influencial. Therefore the primaries were “rigged”. Apparently neither of you understood that “proof” is proof of nothing.

And so the Horseshoe Theory is confirmed once again. At the extremes of Right & Left, basic logic breaks down, absence of fact & disconnect from reality is irrelevant, and conspiracy fever is an addiction equally obsessive as a soiled & sweaty crack addict’s.

So, again: How. Were. The. Primaries. Rigged…..

https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horseshoe_Theory#:~:text=It%20asserts%20that%20the%20far,either%20is%20to%20the%20centrists.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Let's not forget that Brett Bellmore is a delusional, superstition-addled, autistic, antisocial, disaffected, bigoted, backwater culture war casualty. If that's the perspective you want to rely on, you are a worthless clinger.

[dwb68]

On paper i agree with you.

However, Haley is very good at retail politics and knows the state. She’s done this before in SC. Trump comes in, assumes he’s got it locked up, or worse insults S. Carolinians, she tromps him.

Trump has 4 weeks to fuck up, and historically, he only needs a week.

She will go after his COVID record. Why didnt he fire Fauci day 1? She’ll play endless reels of him and Fauci side by side. How could he not know what was going on inside his own administration with the Chinese lab? She will leave him to defend his chaotic record on COVID.

She will say: Trump fucked up and gave us Biden, now he will fuck up again and give us Kamala Harris. She doesnt need to win over a majority of Trump voters– she only needs to peel away enough to get to 50.1%

The difference between Haley and every other GOP candidate: She can be tough as nails on him, and smile. Maybe it will be enough. I love a fight!

[Frank Drackman]

If Darling Nikki is so very good at retail politics why does she keep losing? And she keeps saying she's brown, besides her bunghole, what the hell is "Brown" about her?

Frank

[OtisAH]

Good luck with that. But what I said is what will happen. She has almost no constituency left in SC. MAGA hates her more and more every minute. And many of those already had grudges over the rebel flag. Now that Turnip has unleashed “Full Racist” against her, she’s toast.

I’d add that she couldn’t even get Tim Scott’s endorsement but that’s a cheap point. Scott wants to keep having a political career so he was always going to endorse Turnip.

[dwb68]

"What I said is what will happen"

At least I am smart enough to realize the world is uncertain. Leave the bubble. Trump is DOA.

[Bwaaah]

This may be a crazy question, but...

Has anybody ever seen Donald Trump laugh? (Smirks don't count.)

[Commenter_XY]

I have. Remember the famous dinner with Mitt? The audition for SecState? When Mitt asked for the job, The Donald laughed. /jk

[Bwaaah]

I'm looking through youtube, and not finding laughs. I see smiles. I see smirks. But I don't see laughs.

I'm not looking for a belly laugh; just the fun look of inconsequential humor on his face.

[Commenter_XY]

My interest is piqued. Try Right Side Broadcasting Network. If anyone has footage of a genuine POTUS Trump laugh, they will.

[Bwaaah]

I started to lose hope when I found the CNN headline, “James Comey says Donald Trump never laughs. Is he right?”

I know; neither CNN nor Comey make my point more palatable. But sure enough, there’s a link there to this:

https://youtu.be/pYux2DBFnoY

There he is, with a small but REAL laugh! Who knew?

Admittedly, it turns out, it was prompted by somebody in the audience referring to Hillary as a dog. Is there such a thing as a "belly smirk?"

[Commenter_XY]

That was a real laugh in the YT video. 100%, no debate.

The Science is now settled: The Donald Truly Laughs. 🙂

[grb]

Still, it’s clear it's a rare event. Perhaps we should add it to the list:

No books, No reading,
No friends, No music,
No curiosity, No patience,
No integrity, No compassion,
No empathy, No loyalty,
No conscience, No courage,
No manners, No respect,
No character, No morality,
No honor,
Not even a dog.

No description of Trump has ever bested that. I doubt even the cultists could contest any of it. They just love him because he's entertaining.

[OtisAH]

He thinks handicapped people are pretty funny.

[Frank Drackman]

Parkinsonian Joe is, when he tries to figure out how to get off the podium.

[OtisAH]

Oh look, the piece of shit is trying out “comedy” again.

[Frank Drackman]

So what do you do for a living when they stopped having Elevator Operators

[OtisAH]

Haw haw haw, zinged me! Another instant classic from piece of shit. Brilliant. Simply brilliant.

[VinniUSMC]

Serious question: I work for a company in Michigan that, as of last week, is in the process of deciding whether to unionize or not. The vote is in a few weeks. My company apparently hired consultants to come in and inform us of the law (NLRA says Captain Obvious). Anywho, here's my question:

The consultant told us that, due to Michigan's repeal of Right to Work, the forced dues clause of a contract was up to the company, not the union. That sounds like a straight up lie to me. The company and union have to agree to a contract, but it's not in the company's interest to have the dues clause, except for the union using it as leverage for the management clause. It's in the interest of the union to be paid, by everyone, without a choice. So, was the consultant fully lying to us when he said that it's up to the company? Obviously a contract needs to be agreed on by both parties, but the only party that wants forced dues is the union, yeah?

Side question: I was told later that the consultant is a retired, 30+ year UAW member currently receiving a UAW pension. Is it required for my company to hire these consultants? Like, did the company have a choice of whether to, or who to, hire? Is he just a union stooge playing at neutrality, but really stumping for the union? Are these consultants actually neutral "just here to tell you the law" actors?

[Bwaaah]

Years ago, I worked in a company that was in the midst of a union organizing effort. The company hired consultants to lead the company's communication efforts with employees.

The biggest reason they used consultants was the risks associated with the company saying anything to potential union members that could be construed as being threatening or coercive.

The first thing the consultants did was a training session with all managers to teach us how to properly keep our mouths shut about the whole thing. We were advised that even discussing the matter off premises was risky business. (And that wasn't some hidden attempt at covering up management's internal dialog...it was truly advice that silence was our only useful contribution to the matter.)

My view of NLRB decisions suggested that strategy was well-advised.

[Martinned]

the company’s communication efforts with employees

There's a scary euphemism if ever I heard one. It reminds me of this thing that Matt Levine wrote about the other day, the warning letters that Bank of America sent to its employees to tell them to work from the office more often:

Bank of America has sent “letters of education” to employees who have not been showing up at the office, warning them of disciplinary action, in the latest move from a large company to push staff back to the workplace.

One of the messages said its recipient had failed to meet the bank’s “Workplace Excellence Guidelines” for work location “despite requests and reminders to do so”.

“Failure to follow the workplace excellence expectations applicable to your role within two weeks of the date of this notification may result in further disciplinary action,” according to the text of the letter that a BofA employee posted online.

As Levine put it, this "sounds like it was generated by an artificial intelligence set to “evil”".

[Krayt]

Are their companies that order their workers back, and the workers treat it as optional, and nothing happens?

[Bwaaah]

From general observations, I see very few companies simply ordering people to work in the office. They move through a progression that begins with recommending that people work in the office. They then start requiring some number of day(s) per week. And they try to push forward from there.

In any case, they steadily watch how employees react, especially in that first step. They look for how much compliance and resistance is out there, to be sure they don't trigger an uprising. By the time they get to "you are required to work in the office," they're only dealing with the stragglers.

For anybody who thinks corporations operate autonomously with an iron fist in matters such as this, it's almost never that simple.

[ducksalad]

Yup, exactly. The many stages we went through were:
- Forbidden to come to the office, enforced by security. (Two weeks in March 2020. You know, to stop the spread.)
- Forbidden to come to the office, enforcement lax. (mid 2020)
- You can come but we recommend you don't (late 2020).
- You can come or not come (early 2021).
- We want you to come, but it's not required (mid 2021).
- It's required, the penalty is the process of continuously justifiying not coming (late 2021).
- It's required, the penalty is letters in your file (early 2022).
- It's required, the penalty is termination (mid 2022).

[Bwaaah]

Nice, complete details. Sounds like real life. (Thanks for filling them in.)

[SRG2]

Matt Levine is great.

[bernard11]

This is typical corporate BS. Basically ass-covering in case someone working from home turns out not to be doing much work.

I'm on the board of a pretty small software company. Something like 80-90% of our employees work from home, and they are scattered around the US, with one or two in Canada.

Guess what:

1. The work gets done, because management pays attention.

2. The employees love it.

3. It's a real attraction when hiring, where we are in a very competitive environment.

4. We are saving a ton on rent. We shrank our space substantially while expanding staff.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Vinni, as a former member of 3 industrial unions, ranging from excellent to corrupt, I suggest you not rule out the possibility that there is already some fix in between the union proposing to organize you, and the company. If so, the manifestations you might see could be anything but intuitive to understand.

[VinniUSMC]

I know the employees who opened the dialogue with the union.

Care to add something of substance?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Vinni, I was the employee who opened the dialogue with the union. Didn't mean I had any notion what was going on.

I got permission from the union's local office to exercise a contract provision by taking a vote the contract stipulated for the contract anniversary. Submitted the proposed ballot to the union office for review. Got it approved. Got the go-ahead. Printed the ballots at my own expense.

Then, before any vote, got met at the plant gate by a shop steward from another shift. I didn't even know the guy. He dragged me before the company personnel manager, who I had never heard of. The personnel manager told me straight out, "No vote. Anyone who tries to vote will follow you right out of a job. Go back and tell them that."

Turned out the vote provision—as written, a choice between taking the stipulated amount of annual raises as wage increases, or as benefits increases—had been, "informally" negotiated away during initial negotiations. But left in the contract to be ratified as written.

The result was a secret agreement between the union and the company, good for the duration of the contract, in favor of giving all contract anniversary raises as retirement benefits increases to long-time employees (who were few)—like that shop steward. Of course, everyone else (who were many) could also enjoy those benefits increases—if they happened to be employed long enough to get vested, 18 years later.

But you had to be in on the secret to know any of that. To find out, you had to read the contract like I did, and then try to get the vote it required. No one else I knew had ever read the contract.

My fate until I quit became sort of a joke. When they weren't shunning me for their own safety, co-workers would sidle up and whisper, "Want to sell your tape measure? With the shit labor they give you, you don't need it. I'll give you a buck for it."

It worked out fine for me, though. I found out my skills were worth three times in Portland what I had been getting paid in Boise. And I got into a union that wasn't corrupt.

[VinniUSMC]

Corrupt union, who would've guessed?

[Randal]

I don't know Michigan law, but I do think companies want forced dues. Unions aren't all bad for companies. If there's gonna be a union, it's better to have everyone be in it, and forced dues leads to greater union membership. The union ends up taking over a lot of HR tasks from the company, so from the company's perspective, forced dues are almost like being able to make employees pay for their own HR. Kind of great.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Randal, you have that right. During the heyday of industrial unions the bigger companies were all in favor of unions, as a means to keep the labor supply skilled, predictable, and docile. The companies were happy to pay higher wages to get that done. The unions assured that all the companies paid alike, so there was no competitive disadvantage to working with unions. American industrialism prospered under that system as it has not done since.

[VinniUSMC]

Did you get that from the "Why are unions great?" section of the local union website?

[MoreCurious]

Before I retired I represented unions comprising employees in many trades and professions. Smart employers and smart unions can make the relationship work so that everyone benefits. Union workers are typically better trained than non-union workers, and the results show up in the efficiency of the workplace and in the employer’s bottom line. And better trained employees tend to mean safer workplaces and safer products. (For example, would you rather ride in an elevator constructed and maintained by union employees who have gone through an intensive, multi-year apprenticeship, or one thrown together by a few minimum-wage employees who barely know a screwdriver from a wrench?)

[VinniUSMC]

This reads like a union press release.

I couldn't roll my eyes any harder.

[VinniUSMC]

The union ends up taking over a lot of HR tasks from the company, so from the company’s perspective, forced dues are almost like being able to make employees pay for their own HR. Kind of great.

Interesting, thanks.

[billardl]

So now the elite liberals are touting the casino stock market as proof of a strong economy.

At one point, the stock market was representative of the state of the economy. Now, it's a casino that is based on whether the Fed will provide more free cheese for the welfare queens on Wall Street.

It no longer benefits America as a whole.

[OtisAH]

“At one point, the stock market was representative of the state of the economy.”

Ah yes, for those four years of the Turnip administration. Never before or since. I remember it well.

[Randal]

Welcome to the left! We've never believed in trickle-down. You're now to where we were in the '80s.

[Michael P]

If you on the left want that guy, you are welcome to have him.

[Nige]

Where would Trump be without his base?

[Estragon]

I’m thinking we should start referring to Ronny Jackson as “Dr Feelgood”

https://media.defense.gov/2024/Jan/09/2003373440/-1/-1/1/DODIG-2024-044_REDACTED%20SECURE.PDF

[Commenter_XY]

Helpful link. Makes me wonder if we have POTUS' who pop a few 'feel good' pills before a press conference. Damn.

[grb]

And yet Trump is the one who's regularly so incoherent he seems drugged up....

[Estragon]

I mean, I guess I can understand the provigil and ambien (but WOW that’s a lot of ambien) but who was doing all the ketamine?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The relevant medical "professionals" should lose their professional privileges and a criminal investigation should be conducted.

[Estragon]

Well, Dr. Jackson has ridden this train all the way up to the hoary halls of Congress! How many times you think him and Rudy got completely plastered together?

[Z Crazy]

Did you know that the Supreme Court overruled the conviction and DEATH SENTENCE of a mass shooter because the prosecutor violated his civil rights? That's outrageous!

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/18pdf/17-9572_k536.pdf

What about his victims' right to life?

[ducksalad]

If making another exception to the constitution would have given the victims their lives back, the SC would’ve likely made one by coming up with some kind of balancing test.

But since giving the victims their right to life isn’t one of the options, seems like Kavanaugh et al might have made the right decision. And Mississippi has the option to keep doing the trial over, and maybe at some point their incompetent/indifferent prosecutors will decide to finally do their homework, check off all the boxes for a constitutional trial, and get the perpetrator a sentence that sticks.

Those prosecutors are the ones you should be mad at. If they’d done their job, Kavanaugh, Alito, and Roberts would have no problem signing off on the death penalty. They usually do sign off, either actively or by declining to take the case. The fact that they didn't shows how badly this was botched.

[Bwaaah]

I don't think you've addressed the "That's outrageous!" part.

But thanks for explaining why it's quite reasonable, and handily dismissing the legal doctrine of the "victim's right to life." (Is that one of those "human rahts" they talkin' about?)

[ducksalad]

The right to life is real, however, if it gets violated the remedy isn’t to take some randomly picked innocent person’s life. The remedy is to take the guilty person’s life.

How do we tell who is the guilty person? By holding a trial that meets constitutional requirements. Mississippi just needs to go through the process.

We all agree the result is outrageous, and the reason is failure by the prosecutors. Their negligence led to this outrage.

[Bwaaah]

I was too dismissive of a "right to life." It is, in many ways, already quite baked into our laws.

Outrage doesn't come to me just because there's a highly undesirable outcome to a process that strikes me as well considered and justified, as you ably described.

(And I don't believe the OP's outrage is sincere.)

[Krayt]

Is this AI turned loose trying to generate outrage clicks?

[Zarniwoop]

I don't recall a lot of ways to generate ad revenue on supremecourt.gov ...

[Bwaaah]

I don't think current LLM would produce that particular construct. It's kind of novel in its theory. You'd need that "outrage" instinct to get there, and LLM doesn't have outrage.

On second thought, if it can manufacture citations, why can't it manufacture human rights? Like, is there any basis under which a person shouldn't have a right to a hot dog? I think we all, fundamentally, as humans, have a right to a hot dog. I mean, on what basis would anybody be denied the right to a hot dog?

Now, I know the "right to life," unlike the right to a hot dog, is obviously a serious proposition. But then, so is death. So, good luck with that yet-another-right.

(Having twisted my way through this, I think I see the game of Z Crazy's outrage. Weak. Very weak.)

[Krayt]

It may not have outrage, but trying different phrases to see what works to generate clicks evolves ads, and hence revenue. There was a whole South Park episode about it quite a while ago.

News or opinion sites with comment sections rely on outrage to get people to click and respond, and hence generate peeps for ad revenue.

[Bwaaah]

I seriously consider this proposition regularly now. Many trollish remarks are simple enough to easily be AI generated. And they generate valuable engagement as you describe.

It may be here already. If it isn’t, it shouldn’t be far now.

That’s part of my theory of a coming tsunami of AI-generated bullshit that’s going to be so annoyingly disorienting that a lot of people will seek refuge in “real life.”

[Michael Ejercito]

Here is a comment I made on Quora.

https://www.quora.com/What-if-you-took-a-picture-of-yourself-when-you-were-still-a-minor-and-kept-the-picture-of-yourself-until-you-became-a-legal-adult-would-that-be-considered-possession-of-child-porn/answer/Laurence-Taylor-6?comment_id=387950041&comment_type=2

The purpose of the law is to protect children. They are presumably too immature to consent. I am not aware of this law being applied to an adult who kept (let alone distributed) explicit pictures of their minor selves. I am not aware of any highest court case where laws against kiddie porn were expressly interpreted to prohibit possession or distribution of kiddie porn when the subject had reached the age of majority and expressly authorized possession or distribution by others, nor if the law, interpreted as such, is consistent with the First Amendment as applied to this situation.

It would make for an interesting legal drama on Netflix or some other streaming service, though.

[Krayt]

I can see a victim preserving such stuff, for possible future legal proceedings. It would be outrageous for a prosecutor to go after them.

But let's get real, they probably would.

[ducksalad]

Knew a guy who'd made a video with his girlfriend. Didn't want to press on the details but I believe it was made while they were underage and got caught after they were over the age.

He was on deferred adjudication. No prison, but the laws in TX about the registry, residence restrictions, and employment restrictions apply to both convicted people and those who accepted deferred adjudication. Found this out when I had to withdraw an employment offer after it came up on the CBC.

[Frank Drackman]

So you learned your lesson

[ducksalad]

Actually, I did a learn a lesson. The guy openly and honestly told me he had a deferred adjudication on a felony charge when he applied. Considering that we'd hired even convicted felons for university work before, and the work was super low risk (no money or accounting, no children involved, no access to any sensitive information), I put in the electronic paperwork. I was very quickly informed there is a statewide rule specifically about sex offenders.

[Bwaaah]

Did you *have* to withdraw the employment offer? Was there any discretion exercised in that decision?

[ducksalad]

I work for a state university. If the CBC comes up with a conviction or deferred adjudication for a sex related felony, we are required to withdraw the offer without discretion. It's systemwide policy.

[David Nieporent]

Prosecutors — or at least cops — have gone after people even while they were still minors for making "child pornography" of themselves. So, yes, they would absolutely go after an adult that retained his or her own underage selfies after reaching adulthood.

[ducksalad]

“I am not aware of any highest court case where laws against kiddie porn were expressly interpreted to prohibit possession or distribution of kiddie porn when the subject had reached the age of majority and expressly authorized possession or distribution by others”

In that sentence you’ve generalized to where the subject and the creator not the same person, which is even harder to accept. Suppose several people are convicted while the subject is a minor, some for making it and some for buying it. The subject is incapable of consent, but let’s say the subject made it crystal clear (at the time) that they felt very severely injured and victimized.

The subject reaches the age of 18 and then says “You know what, I changed my mind, now I’m fine with what happened. I’d like the material legitimized. I’d also like the photographer and his customers released so we can go into business together and monetize this thing, as they’ve suggested.”

Seems to me allowing that would reduce deterrent effect at the time of creation, by opening the idea that you can persuade the victim to get you off the hook. Legal penalities aren’t just to get the victim some retaliation and deter repeat offenders, they are to deter others from ever offending in the first place.

[Michael Ejercito]

That would be easy.

Those who had created and distributed the material while the victim was still a minor would still be guilty, as they did not have valid consent at the time. As such, the convictions would still be valid.

And "deter[ring] others from ever offending in the first place" is a compelling government interest given the type of offense.

[ducksalad]

I agree. But then, at least legally, it applies with equal force to underage self-pornography. You can’t consent to take nude photos of yourself because you’re incapable of consent at the time.

[EscherEnigma]

I don't know of any cases where an adult has been tried for possessing "child porn" or their younger selves.

But there have been cases of minors that exchanged nudes both being tried for child porn. I believe the case I'm thinking of was eventually dropped when the prosecutor started seeing public pressure.

Which is to say... I suspect such a case is possible, but with prosecutorial discretion in play, it'll obviously be rare. Not because people don't keep mementos of their younger, fitter, years, but because most prosecutors are going to look at it and go "not worth it".

[Joe_dallas]

Michael Mann is going through cross yesterday and today.

He is not looking good. Far too many oral statements on direct with no corroborating documents/exhibits that are being shredded on cross with exhibits

[David Nieporent]

Given Joe_dallas's track record, this likely means Mann won the case last week.

[ThePublius]

I confess I have no idea what that comment means.

[David Nieporent]

It means that Joe_dallas claims to be an expert in every single scientific area, citing to things like high school biology and un-peer-reviewed studies he never read. He's always wrong. So if he says that Mann couldn't support his claims yesterday, the natural inference is that Mann already supported his claims a week ago.

[Mr. Bumble]

Moved

[ThePublius]

Oh, wow! Where are you following this? I'd like to, also.

[Mr. Bumble]

12 years in the making, I think the trial Mann v Steyn is being live-streamed. See https://www.steynonline.com/ for details.

[Frank Drackman]

US maintains a mine field surrounding Guantanamo Naval Base and it's not even US Property, but leased (eternally) from Cuber, why can't Tay-Hoss do the same??

[Krayt]

Would Jesus put up barbed wire to snag and drown a woman and two kids, not even offering them a dirty animal manger?

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Would Jesus put up barbed wire to snag and drown a woman and two kids, not even offering them a dirty animal manger?

The wire set up along the TX-Mexico border is on dry land, so it's kind of difficult for it to drown anyone.

[OtisAH]

No, it’s literally in the river where the border is. There are pictures and everything. It’s been on the news.

[Mr. Bumble]

As always: WRONG!
Provide a link to the pictures you've seen.

[Bwaaah]

It appears that you are literally wrong.
You literally made up the "pictures and everything."
You are literally a tool of false beliefs.

[Michael P]

You mean like this? https://twitter.com/JoaquinCastrotx/status/1689015922202132480

He complains about something he calls a "chainsaw-type device" on a buoy that would float, but only shows edge-on. And he points to barbed wire that is on dry land.

[Frank Drackman]

I don't believe in your made up Zombie Surpreme Being

[SRG2]

Republican Jesus (tm) would, but then, Republican Jesus is white, pro-guns, riches, etc. and is definitely not Jewish.

[M L]

The Corporate Transparency Act was passed by a lame duck Republican Congress in Dec 2020. The following ABA article notes, Donald Trump vetoed it, and apparently this was only time Donald Trump used the veto power during his term in office. In Jan 2021 the lame duck Republican Congress responded by overriding the veto and passing the CTA into law. https://www.americanbar.org/groups/business_law/resources/business-law-today/2023-july/the-corporate-transparency-act-deniers-beware/

It is certainly accurate to call it "The furthest- and widest-reaching federal business entity law ever enacted" as this ABA article describes it.

This law turns the typical paradigm of the applicability of federal regulations upside down. Whereas many federal regulations apply to bigger businesses and exempt smaller businesses, this law only applies to smaller businesses and exempts bigger businesses (apparently because if you are bigger the government already has enough information). The threshold generally involves having 21+ full time employees and $5 million or more in revenue to be a "big" exempt business.

No business is too small to be caught up in the CTA. You don't even have to be a business. Just a "business entity" so every single corporation, LLC, and the like. The law requires disclosure of various personal identifying information of all "beneficial owners" and all persons with "substantial control" (which might include even mid-level employees with influence over decisions) for all business entities. This involves regular mandatory filings to FinCEN (Financial Crimes Enforcement Network). The law imposes fiduciary duties and obligations on many persons and imposes harsh penalties including fines and jail time for failure to comply.

Supposedly this is necessary for our safety (?) and to prevent money laundering. Count me skeptical. Every tyrannical action uses justifications like this of course.

The following WE article reasons, "Won’t the new law help federal officials identify money launderers and drug smugglers? Hardly. The CTA relies on criminals to self-report accurate information about their illicit activities without any third-party verification. As these criminals are already breaking the law, it’s hard to see how a paperwork violation will compel their good faith participation." https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/1734589/this-law-claims-to-be-about-transparency-but-it-will-hurt-small-businesses-instead/

The ABA article above notes:

..there are a number of factors uniquely associated with the CTA, its origins, and its implementation that make its enforcement and your possible noncompliance exceptionally problematic. Chief among these, at least for individuals, is that their refusal will be conspicuously noted on a reporting company’s filing with FinCEN. .. Once checked, this conspicuous omission will be a red flag to FinCEN, and other law enforcement agencies, for initial or further investigation.

Further, the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) recently announced its taxpayer enforcement initiatives, which include plans to hire nearly 87,000 new employees and invest $80 billion over the coming years to improve tax enforcement and customer service, with more than one-third of the new hires being enforcement staff. The agency also plans to hire more data scientists to complement traditional tax attorneys and revenue agents in using new data analytics technology to identify audit targets. FinCEN’s BOSS database, created under the CTA, will likely be a key component to such data analytics technology and will provide an inexpensive, efficient investigative tool and corroborating (or “red flag”) source of taxpayer information for the IRS...

Hopes that the CTA is nothing more than another pro forma survey data collection initiative by the government are naïve and misguided. FinCEN’s BOSS database will be a critical point of diligence for investigation by federal government agencies. Your business entity’s conspicuous absence from the BOSS database, or your personal omission from a reporting company’s CTA filing, will most certainly be discovered—and will spearhead other federal investigations into you and your business practices.

All things considered, it is safe to assume that this law will be used to go after political dissidents, personal enemies, business competitors, and such. There is no doubt it is also a massive intrusion on small businesses that will impose billions in compliance costs. Any supposed benefit or justification is dubious and should be viewed skeptically.

There is some lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the act. I doubt that will go anywhere but maybe. Commerce clause again I assume, but what if the business entity doesn't impact interstate commerce? I think they are challenging it based on the 4th and 5th amendments as well.

[Sarcastr0]

You go into government to make a better life for yourself and your family by getting in the way, to get paid to get back out of the way. This is the way of the world and all history.

Government employees are like any other person doing any other job, your weird libertarian bigotry continues to be weird and bigoted.

Were it not for me and my team, plenty of research projects would never have been funded. To risky – no ROI for a company to do them. And yet some of them have yielded important scientific breakthroughs, opening new vistas in the frontiers of human knowledge.

I like my job; I’m good at it.

I’m not here to make money – for that, I’d go into lobbying or industrial applied research.

I find my fulfilment in how I’m improving the world, and engaging in the specifically human exercise of satisfying one’s curiosity about the world around them.

[mulched]

Making yourself feel good by handing out other people's money. You're such a good person.

[Sarcastr0]

No, actually, taxation is not theft.

Grow up.

[mulched]

Still not your money. It came from other people and belongs to the public. You yourself are just a pass-through. You are not the source of this money. So stop patting yourself on the fucking back like you’re a do-gooder.

Put up your own money, or shut the fuck up.

[M L]

The federal government should be reduced by 75%. Nothing but a lot of leeching.

[Sarcastr0]

Turns out money just sits there and doesn’t do basic research all by itself.

Basic research grants are required to be for the public good. If they were acquisition for governmental purposes, it'd be a contract.

[Absaroka]

With all due respect, I think you are missing the point. Government research can do a lot of good - there are numerous examples, but it can also be used for more questionable things like studying the gambling habits of pigeons (just the first example a quick search found).

Moreover, I have worked for non-profits that had very noble goals - curing cancer in my case - that, to use a little British understatement, weren't always paragons of efficiency.

And, in my experience, people working in government are at significant risk of starting to view tax money very differently than their own money, like it is something akin to monopoly money. I'm not sure how long you have worked for the government, but if you have ever experienced the 'we have leftover year end money, figure out a way to spend it fast!' phenomenon, that's not really pinching pennies the way people do with their own money.

[Martinned]

How is any of that different from the private sector? Very few people have jobs where they spend their own money, and life isn't very different between a government bureaucracy and a private sector bureaucracy.

[M L]

It’s nothing at all like the private sector. First of all, in the US “small businesses” account for 64% of new jobs creation and 44% of all economic activity. Small businesses don’t have giant bureaucracies and the owners tend to keep up on where money is going. And then in large megacorps, you have regular mass layoffs, performance evaluations, management turnover, M&A activity, etc. Cutting costs generaly brings rewards rather than punishment. There is a payroll to meet, costs to pay and a profit motive, all without the luxury of just printing free money out of thin air, or the power to levy taxes on people. I agree that there can be a lot of “spending other people’s money” dynamic but still not like government.

[Absaroka]

"How is any of that different from the private sector?"

Most (not all!) of the private sector is rather Darwinian - you are always worried about some competitor undercutting you by 10% and driving you out of business. Governments are not, IMHE, always worried about someone coming along and underbidding them by 10% on next year's contract to be the government.

When you go the the owner of a private company and say 'Hey, I found $500k left over in the budget so I spent it all on things we didn't really need so I wouldn't have a surplus', you are telling him you just spent $500k *of his money* on things the company didn't really need, so he doesn't get his yacht this year, or can't upgrade his mistress, or whatever. My sense is that kind of thing isn't career enhancing in the private sector. I can't be sure, though, because I've never seen it done, whereas it was an annual event in government service.

[Magister]

I see your preference for autocracy; lots of places you can move to with that kind of government. Or you could join Dr. Ed 2's next civil war (one should be along no later than a few days).

[Sarcastr0]

Program management is also Darwinian - you need to justify to 1) your resource managers, 2) OMB, and 3) Congress. Profligate spending means your program is in trouble. Success means you may get more appropriations next go-round.

Maybe it's because I don't run contracts, but we always have more fund-worthy grant applications than we have money. We don't end up with straining to expend all our money, unless there's some paperwork delay on the business opps side. (Money expiring is another way federal $$ are MORE restricted than are personal budgets)

Here's how it goes:

If at all possible, use private, commercial businesses (markets appropriately regulated to avoid failure)

But some things are not well suited for a ruthless competition for efficiency.
Basic research, with it's high risks, is absolutely one of those things.
So is health care; rationing survival necessities via the market is a rich-man's game and gets pretty dystopian pretty fast.

[Absaroka]

Sure, there are absolutely things only the government can do - police, courts, the military, and much more. No argument there.

"Program management is also Darwinian"

Not in the same way. Let's take the Forest Service, for example. If they waste too much they might get exposes written, congressional hearings, whatever. But what isn't going to happen: being underbid on next year's contract by Acme Forest Services Inc and the USFS closes up shop end everyone is looking for a new job. I have worked in places like that, where every year you were hoping to stay just far enough ahead of the competition that you had a job for the next year. You've heard the old saw about 'Nothing focuses a man's attention like the prospect of being shot at dawn'. The same applies to working in that kind of competitive environment - you, as an organization, are forced to be efficient in ways that just don't apply inside most government programs. This isn't a random down with government screed - I worked for decades in government. It's just the way it is.

In fairness, I have had competent government colleagues who thought they were models of efficiency. But, compared to highly competitive private companies, they just weren't.

[JasonT20]

But some things are not well suited for a ruthless competition for efficiency. Basic research, with it’s high risks, is absolutely one of those things.

We should also keep in mind what Sarcastr0 means by risk when it comes to basic research. The risk is in whether the research will actually lead to new understanding. It is not about whether it will lead to something marketable that people will want to buy or to some new medical treatment that will cure diseases. That can be the result of any new understanding gained, but that can't be the only consideration at that level of science. Practical applications of new discoveries in fundamental aspects of science could be decades down the road and involve many further steps that are also risky to predict.

The people that do R&D trying to do something practical hoping for benefits 'soon' rely on advances in that basic science. But it is just too hard to predict what avenues of that kind of research are going to pay off in the long run for anyone to put up private capital hoping for a return on that investment. At least, not at the scale needed.

[Absaroka]

"We should also keep in mind what Sarcastr0 means by risk when it comes to basic research."

Sure, lots of good stuff has come from federally funded research (and some not so great, see gambling pigeons).

NASA did awesome things, but they (and as you state below, big aerospace contractors building rockets for them) just aren't competitive with SpaceX's $ per pound to orbit. It's not even a close race.

Space race aside, the research that NACA/NASA did on basic aerodynamics was extremely valuable to the US - the world's - aeronautical companies. That they did it with money that wasn't theirs 🙂 in no way means it wasn't valuable.

[Sarcastr0]

Let’s take the Forest Service, for example. If they waste too much they might get exposes written, congressional hearings, whatever.

Not right.

Agencies have internal controls. Comptroller, IG, politicals. They each get a quarterly report, including whether you're meeting your goals. I have absolutely seen resource managers sweep money from underperforming programs. Darwinian

And externally, there is quarterly reporting to OMB, along with annual Congressional reports, and ad-hoc Congressional reports, and annual staffer days with both the authorizing committee and the appropriations committee.

Those are not if you get in trouble, they're to make sure you don't get into trouble. Because your trouble is their trouble.

And then come budget time, you need to justify your program with past accomplishments, and granular future plans. Just like everyone else in your agency is. Darwinian?

You act like the free market is the only way to select for efficacy, and that's demonstrably not true.
You can be a capitalist without uncritical market worship.
Markets are unequaled in 1) Information gathering, and 2) efficiency seeking.
That's it. If neither of those are not your PRIMARY goals, the market is no longer the clearly best model.

Creative industry is a great example, since it's market based, but it's product's merit is hard to predict. Hollywood, music, advertising. Not models of efficiency or selection success.

[Sarcastr0]

We should also keep in mind what Sarcastr0 means by risk when it comes to basic research.

I actually don't like to talk about risk, but I need to to speak the language a lot of people do.
The selection criteria for basic research is technical merit, not any risk-discounted expected return.
Basic research ALWAYS leads to more basic research, and that's a win in my book.

The best basic research success is not technology, it's opening a new sub-field. Because that's how you get the real leap-frogging change in paradigm that can move out to change the world.

[Sarcastr0]

Space race aside, the research that NACA/NASA did on basic aerodynamics was extremely valuable to the US – the world’s – aeronautical companies. That they did it with money that wasn’t theirs
If it were their money, that'd be a lot worse, though, eh? Like, we don't want NASA to become a fee-for-service entity. That's not it's job.

NASA did awesome things, but they (and as you state below, big aerospace contractors building rockets for them) just aren’t competitive with SpaceX’s $ per pound to orbit. It’s not even a close race.
How many of SpaceX's technically excellent personnel were trained at and by NASA, or NASA funds? If it wasn't NASA's money, are those people really SpaceX?

I'm not sure that absent guaranteed federal $$ (and insurance!) the commercial space launch market is ready for prime time all on it's own.
SpaceX is still chasing federal contracts, with federal subsidies attached. That covers up a market that remains very high risk in ways that cannot be mitigated, and are not sufficiently understood to accept and charge around.

[Absaroka]

"And then come budget time, you need to justify your program with past accomplishments, and granular future plans. Just like everyone else in your agency is. Darwinian?"

No. The difference is you can spin those, and people do. I worked in government jobs for decades, and I've read enough of them.

If you work for Alpha Widgets, and Gamma Widgets is stealing your sales by making better/cheaper widgets, you can't really spin that you aren't getting enough sales to keep your payroll checks from bouncing.

[Sarcastr0]

you can spin those, and people do.
Can, but it's better to actually do good things.

There is still ruthless competition for scant assets.
The only difference is the discriminator is a person/small group, not the public generally.

And you can absolutely spin a shit product on the public. There are tons of examples. That's a good part of why the advertising industry exists.

[Martinned]

Most (not all!) of the private sector is rather Darwinian – you are always worried about some competitor undercutting you by 10% and driving you out of business.

That actually describes very little of the private sector. In most sectors most companies routinely get away with being a lot less efficient than their direct competitors indefinitely. https://cep.lse.ac.uk/pubs/download/dp0716.pdf

[Absaroka]

Fordes: "According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, roughly 20% of small businesses fail within their first year of opening. After five years, half of companies go out of business — and only about 30 percent make it to year ten."

I'm old enough to remember when US retail was dominated by Sears, Penneys, and Montgomery Wards. Walmart wasn't a thing yet, much less Amazon. If you needed computing, IBM was the place to go. Telecommunications, well who could ever top Ma Bell. Nucor, currently the biggest steel producer in the US built its first steel mill in 1968.

[Sarcastr0]

I'm not sure it can be assumed that failure means lack of merit. Great businesses can fail just because they're unlucky. Bad businesses can succeed because they're lucky.

Silicon valley is full of flim-flam-men getting millions for nonsense.

Note that I still think that the market is the best at promoting efficiency, but
1) it's not a perfect meritocracy,
2) the government is not promoting inefficiency, nor can it never select for merit,
3) there are plenty of things where efficiency is not your goal; or where the market is suitable. Basic research, health care, commercial launch (though a subsidized market seems to work there), etc.

[Absaroka]

"I’m not sure it can be assumed that failure means lack of merit. Great businesses can fail just because they’re unlucky. Bad businesses can succeed because they’re lucky."

I completely agree. But winning big at the casino last night doesn't mean gambling is a good investment. I could win a race against Usain Bolt if his shoelace came undone and he tripped. That doesn't mean that whether he beats me is just a random event.

Honda and Toyota didn't get where they are by making bad cars. Nucor didn't get bigger than US Steel by producing bad quality high price steel.

How did Sears get to be a dominant player? They realized that reliable mail service meant they could deliver unheard of variety to customers across the country. How did they die? They missed the switch to the internet, and Amazon didn't. Sears didn't rise and fall based on some random process like nuclear decay, it rose because it out competed its rivals, and it died when its rivals out competed it.

[Sarcastr0]

Your Sears story is not something alien to governmental process - come up with a new program model that works better, and your success will being you more resources, plus everyone will switch over to you.
Plenty of examples. Little DARPA's everywhere. Or NIH's Kangaroo grant growing and being adopted elsewere. Or, heck, NIH's funding doubling by Congress because it had results it could tie to it's basic research program.

I agree with you *on average*. I mean, Hayek wasn't an idiot - markets may not be perfect, but they are head and shoulders at gathering and disseminating information. But the issue is
1) actual operation doesn't happen on average, so your general take may not apply to any given program, or any given company. And
2) markets are not good at fairness, nor at operating where the demand curve is too uncertain. Those are sometimes things society wants.

[Sarcastr0]

I’m not saying government is efficient.

I am saying modern basic research is of a risk and expense only government will do it.

Being a good steward of the federal dollar is actually a very different exercise from treating the money as your own. Transparency, consensus, socializing with politicals and Congress. It’s basically a very different standard of care.

I’m also saying that other offices may be inefficient, but I’m not talking about other offices, I’m talking about my job. And my team takes our pot of money and buts our asses to wring every last bit of public good out of it we can (science, transition to tech, public engagement, education, etc. etc.)
Not just because we believe in efficient government, but because our office is very good at hiring creative people who are motivated by a love of science more than anything.
It helps that the team is kept extremely tight, and I spend the time to make sure we have a good onboarding.

Bottom line – the incentive of bankruptcy, just like the incentive of maximizing your paycheck, is far from the only human motivation.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

mulched, that is without doubt one of the stupidest comments I've ever read here. Do you enjoy driving on roads, using the electric power grid, eating uncontaminated food, flying in airplanes that don't crash into each other? Do you value having your trash collected, your freedom defended, your children educated? Take Sarcastro's advice and grow the fuck up.

[Magister]

Do you value having ... your children educated?

An excellent list, but that one's very likely to be "no" for someone like mulched.

[M L]

Muh Roads!!!

https://ibb.co/JFLH4VF

[Sarcastr0]

You're too old to shitpost.

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

Learn something.

[grb]

mulched : “Making yourself feel good by handing out other people’s money. You’re such a good person”

Wierd. Did you try thinking even a second before making such a clownish reply? Here’s a question : What do you do? By overwhelming odds, I bet it involves other people’s money.

Take me; I’m an architect. My building projects may be imaginative and positive for the community or pure utilitarian sludge – I’ve seen plenty of both in my nearly forty years of working – but they’re always tethered to someone else’s cash. Philip Johnson, a promient architect of the Twentieth Century, used to proudly proclaim himself a “prostitute”. Generally speaking, that’s apt, though particularly so with him, given he was sometimes conniving & disreputable and often a mediocre designer (at best).

Most of us working in the real world are just (metaphorically-speaking) “GI Traits” for someone else’s dough. There’s no shame in that – or justification for your ignorant sneer.

Note : I could forgive Johnson for much of his cynical mischief because of a handful of nice designs, particularly his tiny pavillion of pre-Columbian art found at Dumbarton Oaks. That’s a near-perfect little jewel of neo-classical design (not my prefered genre but you gotta bend for quality). But anyone who could go Nazi Germany in the Thirties and see nothing but how hot the soldier boys looked in their black & brown uniforms exhausts the limits of my tolerance.

https://www.doaks.org/visit/museum/galleries/pre-columbian/pre-columbian-gallery-olp

[Absaroka]

"By overwhelming odds, I bet it involves other person’s money. ...Take me; I’m an architect."

Taking other people's money that they willingly give to you is not exactly the same as spending money that other people are forced to hand over to you.

There is a difference between Apple deciding to provide Lamborghinis to all employees as company cars (not my business!) and GSA deciding to buy Lambos for every government worker (very much my business!).

I - and you - are in a sense the company owners of the business that is government, and like a private sector CEO we get to stick our nose in how *our* money is spent. And as a government worker, I always tried to remember that I was spending taxpayer's money, and it behooved me to spend it as efficiently as possible. That's why e.g. the end of fiscal year spendfests always bugged me.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

But the original distinction made by mulched was simply one's own money vs. other people's money. You are moving his goalposts. The distinction you make is true, and I also wish more government bureaucrats kept it in mind, or that there were fewer government bureaucrats with less public money. But all that just further illustrates the idiocy of mulched's oversimplified argument.

[Absaroka]

I guess I don't see the distinction; it is your own money (or money that someone willingly gave you to spend as their agent).

Anecdote alert: I worked in a (government office). It had a break room - fridge, sink, coffeepot. It was functional but a little shopworn - as in you might remodel your own kitchen that was in that shape, but you probably lived in worse in college.

I ran into one of the facilities guys looking at the completed remodel and asked why he was shaking his head. He replied 'this cost $60k'. Wow, I've remodeled kitchens, and I'd call it a $10k job.

But that's not the interesting part ... a little later I was in a conference room waiting for a meeting to start and mentioned the cost. I got a lot of 'So what?' looks. The sentiment was 'it was getting shopworn, it's fixed up, what's the problem?'. I pointed out that about 60 people used that room, and asked if anyone would have taken $1k cash in lieu of the remodel. The answer was universally yes ... it was worth $1k per capita of the taxpayer's money, but not $1k of their own money. That's what I mean when I say tax money becomes analogous to Monopoly money.

[JasonT20]

That’s what I mean when I say tax money becomes analogous to Monopoly money.

This strikes me as being a problem of large organizations rather than government vs. private sector. Working in a large corporation can feel the same way, where the accountability for being efficient with that kind of spending is mostly on the bottom line well above the level of most workers. I don't imagine that workers in a large company are going to be at all involved in the decision on whether or how much to spend renovating a break room either, or end up thinking much about how much it cost the company.

[Absaroka]

Indeed, although I will quibble that I think the exception is 'large industry in not-especially-competitive market'.

In the period when Boeing had an almost monopoly on the passenger jet market, they were called 'The Lazy B' for a reason.

Nucor Steel is a big, competitive, efficient company; US Steel, not so much.

[Sarcastr0]

I think the issue I'm mainly having is that you're essentializing - saying that government can never spend money efficiently, and businesses always do.

If you just say *statistically* a government program is less likely to be as efficient as the market, I'll agree. But that just means government should stay out of things where the market is the right tool.
Sometimes, you take the efficiency hit to meet some other goal. The public good, for instance. And when you do, there are plenty of ways to incentivize efficiency and mitigate that issue, though none are perfect. But then markets aren't perfect either.

[Absaroka]

"I think the issue I’m mainly having is that you’re essentializing – saying that government can never spend money efficiently, and businesses always do. "

With respect, I have said no such thing, and in fact have said the opposite more than once in this very thread.

(well, I will grant that *most* businesses - those without some kind of a moat - do exhibit at least as much efficiency as their competitors, or they go out of business)

[Sarcastr0]

The issue as it started was about how my office is not spending it's own money, and that means some things about it's efficiency of operation.

Or that was how I thought the thrust of the discussion was.

[Absaroka]

Heh. If you were spending your own money, you'd know it because you'd be pulling out your wallet when the hat came around :-).

Where the money comes from is orthogonal to whether it is spent efficiently. You seem like a good hearted guy, so I expect you try to give the taxpayers good value for their money. Such people aren't rare - I sure tried to do the same.

But on the contrast between public and private, let me share another anecdote (after decades in various jobs, I have a big supply!): I worked for a natural resources agency. Most of our vehicles were trucks, because we were frequently off the pavement. If 4 people were going somewhere, you needed 2 vehicles. But one day we were going somewhere on pavement. We took a truck and our only car, a station wagon. I remarked it seemed a shame that some penny pinching accountant had cheaped out and bought the station wagon without rear seats, otherwise we could have all ridden in one vehicle. The surprising answer: they paid **extra** to have the rear seats removed. Why? There was a cap on the number of vehicle *seats* an agency could have. And you couldn't remove seats after delivery, so they paid a premium to special order rear-seat-less cars from the factory.

If I explained that I had done that to any of my private employers ... I'd have been out of a job.

And, to repeat myself, there are private companies that are pretty inefficient (I worked for a state BCBS once, for example), and there times and places where government agencies are super efficient. For an example of that, NACA, or the 1950's USFS. My sense is that those people viewed themselves almost forest-protector-monks, and being WWII/depression types did a great job on a penny pinching budget. But I know several career USFS people my age and that isn't true anymore.

[Sarcastr0]

Do you think I'm arguing every office in the government is an efficient and upstanding steward of the federal dollar? Not hardly.

We may be in furious agreement.

On average the market wins for basically Hayekian reasons. At least in places where the government can operate in some way such that you can compare it with market functions. (defining efficiency isn't always easy!)

But that doesn't mean we should pre-judge on an individual basis each government office or each business.

[Absaroka]

"We may be in furious agreement."

I kinda get that impression.

"On average the market wins..."

That kinda depends :-). Do they still have Skilcraft pens? IIRC that was kind of a sheltered workshop thing, leading to not-politically-correct remarks when they leaked on your pocket. We spent our own money 🙂 on Bic pens. So yeah, the gubmint isn't a good manufacturer of office supplies.

Lots of stuff the govt does pretty well - you could contract out NIST, say, but my sense is they are doing a great job. Research - heck, my name is listed as a junior author on some long ago articles, so obviously that was stellar work :-).

And, unfortunately, I have seen some boondoggles along the way. If you spend a few decades working for the government, I expect your eyes will roll from time to time.

"But that doesn’t mean we should pre-judge on an individual basis each government office or each business."

That's why I don't do that :-).

[Stephen Lathrop]

. . . and places where government agencies are super efficient. For an example of that, NACA, or the 1950’s USFS. My sense is that those people viewed themselves almost forest-protector-monks, and being WWII/depression types did a great job on a penny pinching budget.

Absaroka, those would be the Forest Service monks who scandalously subsidized road construction throughout the national forests, to convenience private industry to clearcut old growth wilderness? And administered polices which encouraged lumber mills to stockpile redwood—to stack redwood logs so big they had to dynamite each log in half lengthwise—each split half-log a full load for a lumber truck.

Did you ever visit a virgin forest clear cut as it happened? Ever see lumber trucks skidding straight down-grade, up to their wheel hubs in the dust they made? Rape, ruin, and run turned out to be efficiency, of a sort. Look at satellite views of the Oregon and Washington Cascades to see what sort.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Absaroka, I do not know if when the Forest Service chose its motto, “Land of Many Uses,” conservation was one of the uses it had in mind. By the 1960s, and probably sooner, conservation use had been forgotten by the venial administrative monks you so admire.

[Absaroka]

Hint: USFS policy isn't set by district rangers. It is set by, you know, the voters through their elected representatives.

These were people who I know personally, and you are wrong about their ethos. Just flat wrong.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Absaroka, pretty hard to understand how the nation got such a shit result from those sainted monks you mention. My guess (from, "district rangers,") is that what you got first-hand was, first, too low down, and second, not coming to you from anyone willing or positioned to contest with higher-ups.

What those folks might have hoped they were doing was rarely what their agency was doing. I am sure most of them knew that, professed their hopes, maybe to you, and went to work every day to jobs to do the contrary. No doubt some tried where they could to make the best of it, and did some unpunished good in the process.

My own experience came from interviews and acquaintances (over years) at multiple levels, from Forest Service-employed private contractors, to trail crew workers, to forest rangers, up to forest supervisors, and included also discussions with congresspeople. During that experience, I met exactly one forest service official I would describe as conservation-minded, and willing to try to build a career on that basis.

He was a hero to some others, and at one point the Forest Service found a political use for him, when it was trying to prevent the Park Service from grabbing one of the nation's choicer natural assets from Forest Service control. I did what I could, as a newspaper editor, to thwart that grab. With credit rightly shared among many—but first and foremost due to the Forest Service's Tom Kovalicky—it worked. The Sawtooth National Park never happened, and the Sawtooth Wilderness was created under Forest Service control.

It remains a gem worth visiting. To make a national park out of it would have ruined it. The desert-edge carrying capacity was too limited to carry that load.

None of that can excuse the appalling environmental mess the Forest Service inflicted during its 20th century mis-stewardship of the American West—an affliction which continues today. That Forest Service motto, "Land of Many Uses," would be more appropriately replaced. Every forest entrance point should instead display John Muir's famous remark, "Nothing Dollarable is Safe."

[Absaroka]

1)The people - you know, the ultimate sovereign people you like to go on about - want to live in houses made of 2x4s[1]. They elect people to congress - you remember high school civics, perhaps? - and congress tells the forest service 'make 2x4s'. What would you like the Forest Service to do? Resign en masse and let their replacements log with abandon?

2)Logging wasn't a huge priority in, for example, the district where my father in law was a District Ranger. It just wasn't where he spent his time. The national forests are indeed lands of many uses, and logging wasn't really a huge deal in his. But don't let reality get in your way.

3)All this is unrelated to whether the FS employees were giving good weight in return for their salaries. I don't know any USFS employees from the Olympics, but if congress told them to arrange timber sales, then they should be arranging timber sales. Your beef here is with your fellow voters, not the civil service.
4)Unlike you, I am very grateful for the national forests. If they hadn't been set aside, they would have been private land, with no protection at all. Your view of things, where SL not getting 100% of what he wants is an outrage, is bizarre. Life means compromise. Society made a bargain, to both supply lumber to build houses, and preserve the forests for the future. And that has worked, as today's national forests show.

The funny thing is, I would also prefer that they be preserved with minimal logging. Unlike you, I don't have the view that I always get my way despite what the majority wants.

[1]Unlike you, I'm sure, who would never rape the environment by living in a house built of lumber.

[WAappellate]

Eugene, I think you will be as tickled by this story as I am. Apparently in 1996, when the National Archives digitized the Constitution and placed it online, they mistranscribed Section 5 of the 14th Amendment:

The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

That definite article “the” before the word “power” did not belong there. But from the National Archives that mistake spread over the course of 28 years to the Library of Congress Constitution Annotated and to numerous books, articles, opinions, and briefs — including briefing to SCOTUS in the Trump v. Anderson Colorado ballot disqualification case! The mistake was finally discovered by some folks on Reddit.

James J. Heaney over at De Civitate on Substack has the full story.

[bernard11]

My 1978 edition of Edward Corwin's The Constitution and What it Means Today, originally published in 1920, gives the text as "Congress has power," FWIW.

[WAappellate]

Yeah, it looks like the mistake was very uncommon before the dawn of the internet, and much more common thereafter. Writing here at Reason, Jacob Silum misquoted it, although the article by Baude and Paulson that he is citing gets it right.

[Bwaaah]

Thanks for the post. I found this very interesting.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

I agree. That is crazy!

[Brett Bellmore]

OK, that's actually pretty significant, in that it eviscerates one of the arguments against states enforcing Section 3.

Maybe, as the subject is before the Court, they could officially recommend that this error be corrected?

As dicta, of course.

[Martinned]

Not really. It's a dumb argument regardless of whether that "the" is there.

[Brett Bellmore]

Look, I've already said before that I don't buy this argument. There's enough to it to spare it from being genuinely frivolous, but that's about it.

OTOH, arguments no less stupid prevail and become precedent all the time, so you can't really blame people for making stupid arguments if there's even the slightest textual hook.

Here I'm just suggesting that part of the highest law of the land being wrong in widespread references is a big enough deal for the Court to comment on, and motivate people to FIX IT. Perhaps we need to proof read the whole thing against original copies?

[Martinned]

Of course: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEqTRoPRpXs

[Brett Bellmore]

Commas; In the founding era, they used them almost randomly. It was more an indication that the writer thought you might pause there to take a breath than anything grammatical.

Punctuation has become much more organized since then.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

I believe I also mentioned this here on the VC a couple of weeks ago (although it could have been on the Reason forum).

I thought everyone knew about it, lol.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

It was three weeks ago: https://reason.com/volokh/2024/01/07/the-january-6th-riot-was-not-like-the-civil-war/?comments=true#comment-10389193

I was responding to Kazinski, so he may have spotted it first, but I did spot it independently.

[WAappellate]

Nice catch, though props to the guys over at Reddit who actually contacted the Library of Congress and National Archives to get it fixed.

Funny enough, Kazinski did not heed your warning and wrote up a whole mock brief emphasizing that the (misquoted) use of the definite article in Section 5 of the 14th Amendment would mean that the states have no business disqualifying insurrectionists from the ballot.
https://reason.com/volokh/2024/01/08/monday-open-thread-34/?comments=true#comment-10389181

[Martinned]

While we wait for the ICJ President to finish talking in the South Africa v. Israel case, here is a blog post about a topic that I discussed in one of the open threads last week: May a state invoke self-defence in response to an attack on a ship that sails under its flag? Answer: it's complicated.

https://www.ejiltalk.org/protecting-commercial-shipping-with-strikes-into-yemen-do-attacks-against-merchant-shipping-trigger-the-right-of-self-defence/

[Martinned]

The ICJ's provisional measures order has now been published: https://icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20240126-ord-01-00-en.pdf

Tl;dr version:
1. Prevent the commission of genocide
2. Make sure your military doesn't commit genocide
3. Prevent and punish the incitement of genocide (even the Israeli judge ad hoc voted in favour of that one)
4. Allow humanitarian assistance in Gaza (even the Israeli judge ad hoc voted in favour of that one)
5. Make sure you don't destroy any evidence
6. Report back within one month how you've complied with the order

I always think orders like 1 and 2 are weird. They don't seem to go beyond the obligations that Israel already has under the Genocide Convention anyway. Not sure why the Ugandan judge voted against all six orders. (There doesn't seem to be a dissent available at the moment.)

And remember, all of this is just provisional. The merits case will take ages. (On Wednesday we will get the merits judgement in the terrorism financing and racial discrimination case of Ukraine v. Russia, which Ukraine started in 2017.)

[Martinned]

P.S. Obviously, the thing that's missing here that the ICJ did order in the Genocide Convention case of Ukraine v. Russia is an order to stop shooting.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Was that also a provisional decision?

Ah, yes. It was. I'd guess the Israelis are happy with the provisional outcome.

[Bored Lawyer]

# 3 has the most potential for mischief. It can be used to punish almost any speech one side does not like. If an Israeli politician says, "we are at war with the Palestinian people," that can be argued to be in violation of # 3.

1, 2 and 4, Israel can say it's already doing.

5 is easy -- since there is no genocide, there is no evidence of genocide.

6 is just a cut and paste of above.

[Martinned]

that can be argued to be in violation of # 3.

As the VC comments section proves every week, lots of things can be argued. But what you're describing can't be argued with anything resembling plausibility.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

#7. Israeli Defense Forces should stop killing civilians who are waiving white flags.

[Nige]

At this point, if elected, Trump's major economic policy will be giving billions and billions of dollars to his rape victims for defaming them.

[not guilty]

Isn't it peculiar how those who trumpeted Juanita Broaddrick's unproven and inconsistent allegations of bad conduct by Bill Clinton are silent in the face of Donald Trump's having been adjudicated to be a sex abuser and having lied about it?

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

“The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’ Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”

You don't have to sugar-coat it: Donald Trump is a rapist.

If the past is indicative of the future, he will continue to defame E. Jean Carroll until he runs out of MAGA donations.

[Brett Bellmore]

She managed to prove that he was a disliked rich guy. The only real evidence of guilt she had was her own accusation, which wasn't even specific as to when it supposedly happened.

[Nige]

It is weird that the way he keeps defaming her, while kind of amazing, overshadows the fact that he's a rapist.

[David Nieporent]

The fact that his defense was demonstrably false ("She's not my type, oh, and I've never met her") probably didn't help.

[David Nieporent]

The fact that he thought “She’s not my type” — even if not demonstrably false — was actually a good defense certainly didn’t help.

Imagine if police claimed to have found heroin in your car and your immediate reaction was, "They must be lying; I wouldn't deal heroin."

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore, more often than not, rich guys are popular, especially on the political right, and certainly among political centrists. Right wing Democrats like them too.

One reason Trump is a rich guy who is disliked is because he was adjudicated more-likely-than-not to be a rapist. And because if there were coinage of the term, "Visible Idiot," Trump's trial conduct would put his picture in the dictionary definition.