Thursday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[F.D. Wolf]

Supreme Court of Hawaii holds it is not bound by the decisions of the United States Supreme Court, that there is no right to keep and bear arms in Hawaii, and that when the Constitution and laws of the United States conflict with the "Aloha Spirit", the court is bound by the Aloha Spirit.

e. The Aloha Spirit

In Hawaiʻi, the Aloha Spirit inspires constitutional interpretation. When this court exercises power on behalf of the people and in fulfillment of our responsibilities, obligations, and service to the people we may contemplate and reside with the life force and give consideration to the ‘Aloha Spirit.

The spirit of Aloha clashes with a federally-mandated lifestyle that lets citizens walk around with deadly weapons during day-to-day activities.

State v. Wilson at 50-51 (2024) (slip opinion) (citations, quotation marks, and brackets omitted)

Take that, you ignorant mainland haoles! This opinion reads like it was written by someone high on LSD, perhaps hoping to avert the wrath of Pele, goddess of volcanos.

https://www.courts.state.hi.us/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/SCAP-22-0000561.pdf>/url>

[Kazinski]

Insurrection pure and simple.

The only question is did the majority immediately lose their offices when they wrote the opinion or when it was published?

[AmosArch]

Because only rightwingers can be insurrectionists.

[Nige]

Because some right wingers attempted an insurrection so now all right-wingers have to talk like idiots.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Or more likely most right wingers didn't bother to read the actual opinion, and are just responding to slanted reporting about it.

[David Nieporent]

IKYABWAI? is not an argument. Just because a Republican is accused of something does not mean that you can just start repeating that word like a six-year old who just learned a curse word for the first time and delights in going around saying it to see people's reactions.

"Election interference." "Insurrection." The shtick is old.

[Kazinski]

Ok, but then what would you call it?

A judicial rebellion?

A legal insurrection?

[Sarcastr0]

An incorrect court case is none of those things.

The passion coming out of this weak-ass impetus (a slip opinion! OMG) just shows the straw grasping straining for an equivalence. Which shows that even Kaz in some part of himself realizes Trump is at least seen as uniquely bad.

[Kazinski]

It wasn't an incorrect court case it was "Fuck You SCOTUS".

And what's it got to do with Trump, other than recalling his phrase "Hawaiian Judge".

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, that happens. Not that often, which is a credit to the judiciary.

It sucks.

It is not an insurrection.

[NOVA Lawyer]

No, it wasn’t a fuck you SCOTUS. Did you read it? It expressly relies on Bruen to find that Hawaii’s laws requiring a license to carry are consistent with the 2nd Amendment.

We also hold that HRS § 134-25(a) and § 134-27(a) do not violate the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.

“[T]he right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited. . . . [T]he right [is] not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” Bruen, 597 U.S. at 21. States retain the authority to require that individuals have a license before carrying firearms in public. Id. at 79-80 (Kavanaugh, J., concurring) (“[T]he Court’s decision does not prohibit States from imposing licensing requirements for carrying a handgun for self-defense.”); Antonyuk v. Chiumento, 89 F.4th 271, 312 (2d Cir. 2023) (“Licensing that includes discretion that is bounded by defined standards, we conclude, is part of this nation’s history and tradition of firearm regulation and therefore in compliance with the Second Amendment.”).

HRS § 134-25(a) and § 134-27(a) allow a person to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home if they have a license issued per HRS § 134-9. See HRS § 134-25(a) (“Except as provided in sections 134-5 and 134-9, all firearms shall be confined to the possessor’s place of business, residence, or sojourn” (emphasis added)); HRS § 134-27(a) (restricting the possession of ammunition based on HRS § 134-5 and § 134-9). HRS § 134-25(a) and § 134-27(a) do not graze Wilson’s Second Amendment right.

[theobromophile]

A precursor to a well-deserved bench slap.

[AmosArch]

Go through the opinion and replace the word Hawaii with a random red state name and the phrase gun control with some cause conservatives like and you got yourself a full blown insurrection there. Bigger than the Civil War.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Better: Texas (at least according to Jay Leno) has "needed killing" as a justification for homicide. That's the "Texas Spirit."

So, imagine a Texas court ruling that a landowner can simply shoot the illegal aliens that are trespassing across his land (a big problem right now in Texas) -- and justify that with the "Lone Star Spirit."

Think that'd go over well???
And how is it different???

This is nullification pure and simple -- anyone remember "Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever?"

[Brett Bellmore]

"So, imagine a Texas court ruling that a landowner can simply shoot the illegal aliens that are trespassing across his land"

Actually, that's not an absurd hypothetical. If the Texas legislature wanted to pass a law making it open season on trespassers, they probably could. Making it only open season on illegal alien trespassers might be a little more legally problematic.

[Dr. Ed 2]

You could word it so as to make it illegal aliens.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, but odds are some court would declare that since illegal aliens are all aliens, there was a disparate impact on aliens, who are an official protected category.

Anyway, why wouldn't you make it all trespassers?

[Longtobefree]

Exactly.
The law just needs to declare all trespassers a threat to life, and self-defense does the rest.

[CountmontyC]

Simply make it so that if the trespasser is committing another crime while in the process of trespassing they are legal to shoot. So if illegally entering the USA and trespassing on private property the landowner is protected from prosecution. Same if the trespasser is carrying fentanyl or another illegal drug across the border.

[Brett Bellmore]

I think that's actually already current law in Texas, except that the "another crime" has to be against the property owner. (Though the person who shoots them doesn't have to be...)

Trespass on somebody's property AND commit a number of enumerated crimes, and they can shoot you: arson, burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, theft during the nighttime, or criminal mischief during the nighttime."

[bernard11]

This string of comments by Dr. Ed, Brett, ltbf, and Countmontyc, starting with Dr. Ed's about Texas, is nauseating to read.

You guys, "pro-lifers" all, want to shoot illegal immigrants. Really?

WTF is wrong with you? Do you hate that much?

[CountmontyC]

We dislike criminal activity and wish to see it punished.
Now can I presume you are pro abortion where the victim is a pure innocent who has never committed a crime?

[bernard11]

Oh fuck off, you degenerate.

You think all crimes deserve the death penalty?

I bet you do.

[Nelson]

“Now can I presume you are pro abortion where the victim is a pure innocent who has never committed a crime?”

There is no victim in an abortion. There’s only one person involved, the actual, real, living, breathing human woman who is getting the procedure.

[CountmontyC]

Simply expand it to any other crime above a certain level and it's good.

[Kazinski]

It also tries to rewrite Hawaiian culture using a Disney cartoon as a template.

The Hawaiians were quite warlike with a long history of inter island wars., Human and animal sacrifices. And of course the well known practice of capital punishment for violating taboos, even unintentionally.

Despite the Hawaiian Courts myth of Aloha culture, the Hawaiians were humans, with all the violence, superstition, and injustice that implies.

Yes it was every bit as bad as what Kirkland attributes to bible colleges and red states.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Actually worse -- while Bible colleges may actually *have* virgins on campus, they aren't tossing them into volcanoes....

[Longtobefree]

There is an old joke about a messenger approaching the King to announce the annual parade of virgins will have to be cancelled. It turns out one has a cold, and the other refuses to march alone.

[bernard11]

The Hawaiians, whatever their faults, didn't throw virgins into volcanoes.

That's (bad) movie stuff.

[Absaroka]

Working link

That is pretty state's rightsy.

n.b. cites to 'The Wire' and Josh Blackman.

My amateur tl;dr:
-we really, really don't like Bruen
-Aloha!
-the defendant didn't apply for a carry permit, carry permits OK under Bruen, sux to be him

(also, the defendant was trespassing with a concealed 22 pistol, arrested by landowner with AR-15!)

[Jacob Grimes]

I read through it a bit and you're basically right. There's more than a few dozen pointless pages whining about Bruen and a strange remark about originalism limiting individual rights in the context of Dobbs, even though originalism vindicated an individual right for firearms, which is what the case is supposed to be about.

[NOVA Lawyer]

That's a good summary. The whole opinion could basically be boiled down to the last paragraph holding that the state licensing laws are consistent with Bruen. The rest is unnecessary (other than, perhaps, to just say the Hawaii constitution doesn't grant greater protections than the 2nd Amendment as interpreted by Bruen.

[Martinned]

If you want Hawaii to have guns so much, maybe you should overthrow the government there and make them. O, wait, you already did that.

[Absaroka]

Indeed so! Taking over Pacific islands was a popular pastime at the time.

I'm always up for a little WWII era trivia, and this was new to me - the US was playing hardball with the Netherlands:
"The United States threatened to terminate financial aid for the Netherlands under the Marshall Plan if they did not agree to transfer sovereignty to Indonesia, leading to Dutch recognition of Indonesian sovereignty at the 1949 Dutch–Indonesian Round Table Conference."

The "Njai System" section was pretty interesting, too. On the one hand we have 'slavery ended in 1860', and on the other we have people being bought and sold into the 1900's.

[Martinned]

Yes, the US was more worried about the Red Scare than about a bunch of jihadis taking over the Dutch East Indies. Wait until you find out how Indonesia came to own the very much not ethnically Malay Western New Guinea.

[Absaroka]

No interest in the Njai?

"The Dutch then bought the "Njai", who were indigenous women who officially served as maids but were often also used as concubines. While officially contract workers, these women enjoyed few rights. They could be bought and sold together with the house they worked in as so-called "Indigenous Furniture" (Inlands Meubel). Njai were also not allowed custody of the children they had with their Dutch masters, and when they were fired, their children would be taken away."

[Absaroka]

The Coolie system is pretty interesting as well; it only ended in the 'early 1940's'. Highlights include:

"While coolies were often paid laborers who worked out of free will, in practice their circumstances often involved forced labor and more closely resembled slavery."
"The Coolie Ordinances ("Poenale sanctie") of 1880, which allowed the plantation owners to serve as judge, jury and executioner resulted in widespread atrocities. It included a penal sanction which allowed owners to physically punish their coolies as they saw fit. Punishments that were used against coolies included whippings or beatings. Other punishments used were electrocution, crucifixion and suspending coolies by their toes or thumbs until they broke."

[Martinned]

I know! Terrible, isn't it? Now tell me why that justifies the continued colonisation of Hawaii by the US?

[Absaroka]

"the continued colonisation of Hawaii by the US?"

I'm out of it, obviously - I didn't even know there was an independence movement in Hawaii!

[David Nieporent]

There is, and it's only slightly less serious than the Texan one, which is to say it's a handful of kooks. (Different political valence, though; the Hawaiian kooks are leftwingers, while the Texas ones are rightwingers.)

[F.D. Wolf]

Yes, I personally did that.

I consider Hawaiians my fellow Americans, you demented racist. Please take your bilious, divisive hate speech elsewhere.

[Martinned]

LOOOOL!! Did I touch a nerve when I reminded you of the awkward colonial history and present of the US?

[F.D. Wolf]

Your defensiveness can't hide your racism or your privilege. Just because you don't consider Hawaiians "real Americans" who don't deserve Constitutional rights, don't expect the rest of us to adopt your hateful views.

[Martinned]

Constitutional rights like being forced to live in some kind of "Escape from New York" hellscape against their will? I wonder why they might be skeptical about that.

[F.D. Wolf]

You believe Hawaiians aren't real Americans entitled to the rights of all Americans. Do you even believe they're real people, you vile racist? I guess I shouldn't blame you, but the institutionalized racist system you were born and raised in. You never had a chance. You value your privilege too much.

[Nige]

Whether Hawaiians are or are not real Americans, (not being 'real Americans' being a fairly common right wing ephithet for liberals and anyone who lives in a city, by the way) people who are not American are, in fact, humans and real people.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

F.D. Wolf gets quite excited when, after a lifetime of learning his conservative bigotry has become increasingly less acceptable in modern America (and retreating to a bitter and defensive crouch with all of the other bigots), he perceives any opportunity to go on offense for once and shout 'you racist' a few times.

[VinniUSMC]

Hawaii is an "Escape from New York" hellscape?

Jeebus, you're off your racist rocker. Kindly fuck off, mNaziscum.

[Nige]

Escape From New York, Only With Volcanoes

[Noscitur a sociis]

What is awkward about it?

[Voize]

Hawai'i should be a MAGA teaching moment for uncontrolled borders.
If you don't keep the foreigners out, before you know it they take over and displace the native government.
Although I don't expect gunboats to be involved when Mexico gets to that part of the plan.

[BrianL.]

I followed the link (which doesn't actually work as published, you have to take off some extraneous junk at the end of it), and what it actually says is this:

" We hold that in Hawaiʻi there is no state constitutional
right to carry a firearm in public. "

It doesn't say the 2nd Amendment isn't applicable in Hawaii, just that you can't carry them in public. I believe there are many cities on the mainland US that don't allow firearms in public.

[Brett Bellmore]

The problem is that, given that there's a federal constitutional right, the lack of a state constitutional right is largely irrelevant. States are allowed to have more extensive constitutional rights, but the federal constitution is a floor on the rights they must respect.

[Bwaaah]

[OtisAH]

There is currently no federal constitutional right to open carry firearms. There are only state laws that allow open carry of firearms. And Hawaii doesn’t have one of those, per the Hawaii Supreme Court.

[Ed Grinberg]

BrianL and Brett were talking about “constitutional right to carry a firearm in public.” Why are you switching to “constitutional right to open carry firearms”?

[Brett Bellmore]

The federal constitutional right is the right "carry" firearms, plain and simple. It is at present up to states to decide which they'll allow, open or concealed, but they must allow at least one of these.

[NOVA Lawyer]

And Hawaii does, you just have to license the gun which the defendant did not. So, per Bruen, the defendant loses. Which is what the actual holding of the opinion is.

[Brett Bellmore]

Except that the case happened before they had a constitutional licensing regime. Which is kind of relevant.

[NOVA Lawyer]

"Which is kind of relevant."

Not to the point you guys are trying to make about them "defying" the Supreme Court. They didn't. They expressly relied on Bruen and, given the facts as they described them, they applied it faithfully.

[Brett Bellmore]

"In December 2017, the County of Maui Department of the
Prosecuting Attorney charged Christopher Wilson by felony
information. He allegedly violated: (1) HRS § 134-25(a) place
to keep firearm, (2) HRS § 134-27(a) place to keep ammunition,
(3) HRS § 134-2 (2011 & Supp. 2017) permit to acquire ownership of a firearm, and (4) HRS § 708-813(1)(b) (2014 & Supp. 2015), first degree criminal trespass."

The question before the court was not whether Hawaii's 2024 statutes are compliant with Bruen. It's whether the statutes Wilson is charged with violating were compliant with it.

And they absolutely were not.

Now, it's true the Hawaii court didn't openly say, "Screw Bruen". That doesn't mean that they honestly applied it, either.

They say he doesn't have standing to challenge because he didn't apply for a permit back then, under the unconstitutional law. But it was essentially IMPOSSIBLE to get a permit under that law, even though in theory they might give you one, in practice they never did.

Are you required to attempt the impossible before exercising your constitutional rights?

[NOVA Lawyer]

A problem with your argument is that it was not, in fact, “IMPOSSIBLE” for him to get a permit. And, in a general sense, it was constitutionally permissible for Hawaii to require permits to carry. Therefore, the proper course of action for him was to apply for a permit and then challenge the denial. Because, again, while you may believe it was practically impossible for him to get a permit under the prior law, it wasn’t technically impossible (surely someone got a concealed carry permit prior to 2015).

I don’t think you can just claim a driving test is unconstitutionally too hard and drive without a license, you have to challenge the driving test (even if you are right).

That is, after all, how the Bruen plaintiffs got to court. They didn’t just go carrying unlicensed guns around New York without a permit and then challenge their convictions. That is a bad way to litigate and a bad way to do the law from a policy perspective.

I agree and understand if you think the law is absolutely unconstitutional, you don’t have to obey it and a conviction should be overturned. But this wasn’t a blanket prohibition on constitutionally permitted conduct, it was a flawed permitting system that, but for one requirement, was constitutionally kosher and the defendant never applied claiming he met all the constitutionally permissible conditions or testing whether the unconstitutional part would be applied to him.

In short, Hawaii has the right to require a permit. The defendant’s should have sought a permit and challenged the presumed denial. He couldn’t just ignore the entire permitting scheme because he thought it included one element that was not constitutional or would not be constitutionally applied to him. You have to test that and challenge it. Anything else results in legal chaos. At least, it seems that’s kind of where the Supreme Court is. Accord Edwards v. Vannoy, 593 U.S. ___ (2021); Linkletter v. Walker, 381 U.S. 618 (1965); Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288 (1989).

not guilty would probably have a better grasp on that particular aspect. I don’t do criminal law, so I am not sure how all this would shake out, though, again, I suspect that the problem here is that the licensing scheme itself was not inherently unconstitutional, so the defendant had an obligation to comply or attempt to comply and then challenge it if the local official unconstitutionally abused their discretion granted in the statute to conclude that he didn’t have a specific need to carry. (It would be different if the Supreme Court had ruled that states could not require gun permits at all.)

[NOVA Lawyer]

And that's exactly what the opinion says!

(They just decided they needed to spend about 50 pages saying that Hawaii doesn't have a more expansive state constitutional right and, oh by the way, irrelevantly, our constitution actually gives fewer individual gun rights. But the state law doesn't conflict with Bruen either, so you lose person carrying an unlicensed firearm while trespassing on someone else's property.)

[Voize]

Brian, I don't think that's quite right. They didn't say you can't carry in public in Hawai'i, that would be in conflict with Bruen. They said the current shall-issue licensing requirement is consistent with Bruen.

[Brett Bellmore]

Except that at the time Hawaii didn't have shall issue, (For all practical purposes they didn't have may issue, either!) so they're going after the guy for having violated an unconstitutional licensing regime.

That they now issue an occasional permit has no bearing on the case, because they didn't when it happened.

[Voize]

What the Hawai'i Supreme Court actually said was that when they interpret the state constitution, and it contains language identical (within punctuation and capitalization) to language in the US constitution, they are not constrained to reach the same conclusions that the US Supreme Court does when it reads the federal text.

They also say that the state is subject to the US constitution too, and the US Supreme Court's interpretation of that document is controlling.

Neither of those statements seem at all controversial.

[OtisAH]

Neither is controversial, which is one possible reason his post reads as it does. The more likely being he either didn’t read the article all, or didn’t understand any of whatever parts he did read. But it could just be he was being purposely disingenuous.

[Noscitur a sociis]

They spend fifty pages unpersuasively ranting about how Bruen is wrong and it’s unfair for the federal government to protect people’s gun rights, and then one page saying “oh, also this doesn’t violate second amendment as construed by Bruen either”. It’s a weird, bad opinion that is going to be swiftly reversed.

[Voize]

They spent 40 pages "ranting" whether the state should adopt the reasoning of Heller and Bruen as persuasive authority when interpreting the Hawai'i constitution, and concluded they would not (the other 10 pages were about standing). Is that what you think will be reversed?
Or is it their finding that Bruen allows the shall-issue licensing that Hawai'i implements?

[Brett Bellmore]

If Wilson had been charged under that shall issue licensing scheme, rather than the one in place when he was charged, that might be relevant.

[Bob from Ohio]

“Aloha Spirit” "reside with the life force "

Sounds like a religious decision.

[Noscitur a sociis]

The Montana Supreme Court did something similar after Citizens United. Expect this ruling to stand for about as long.

[CountmontyC]

Wasn't it only last week that the left was in an uproar and claiming ( falsely btw) that Texas was defying SCOTUS by continuing to lay concertina wire?

[EllaWilson]

I set this aside for a few hours. Then I watched the clown show on nbc.

luttug and tribe MUST go away. They haven't read the Constitution.

[EllaWilson]

Oh no. I just watched biden's talkie. he said he sat down for a 59 hour interview over two days. Please let him rest, doctor jill!

[Brett Bellmore]

Here's a working link.

[not guilty]

The Washington Post reports that Special Counsel Robert Hur has completed his report as to classified documents found in President Biden’s private home and former office, and the report may be released in coming days. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2024/02/06/biden-classified-documents-probe/

[Commenter_XY]

not guilty, we already know that it is (D)ifferent. 🙂

[santamonica811]

I know. The system is totally biased. One of my clients got 20 years for selling heroin. A few years later; the other client got only a $50 fine, for selling a small amount of pot. I can't believe how unfair the courts were, for treating these two different people, with different fact patterns, differently. I can think of NO logical explanation for the disparate treatment, since it's beyond my 4th grade educational level.

And yours as well, I presume, alas.

[VinniUSMC]

(D)ifferent, like XY said.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

That's not what XY said.

[not guilty]

It is completely different. There were documents discovered where they didn't belong, so the investigation was justified. But Joe Biden didn't conceal anything. He returned the documents promptly upon discovering them, and on his own initiative he invited the FBI to conduct a thorough search of the premises. He didn't lie to anyone, claiming to have returned all documents when in fact he had not. There is no evidence that he acted with any cul[able mental state.

Biden's tenure as vice-president ended in January 2017; his tenure as senator ended in January 2009. Assuming (without conceding) that there was anything nefarious about the initial removal of any documents, prosecution would be barred by 18 U.S.C. § 3161(a).

[NvEric]

What a load of crap ! and YOU know it !
Leftist support of the illegal Biden Junta is insurrection.

[Bwaaah]

"Leftist support of the illegal Biden Junta is insurrection"

I'm looking at that from the Left, and from the Right, and thinking both sides would be better off without you on their team.

[Dr. Ed 2]

So if I buy a kilo of heroin and store it in my garage, and the statute of limitation on the purchase has expired, I can't be busted on POSSESSION of it?!?

Was Brandon IN POSSESSION OF classified documents?

And he wasn't a President then...

[not guilty]

What federal statute prohibits possession of classified documents, standing alone?

[Dr. Ed 2]

What federal statute, standing alone, prohibits saying the election was stolen?

[BrianL.]

Nothing. But that's not what Trump is being prosecuted for.

[not guilty]

Dr. Ed 2, is your motor vehicle also a dodge?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Dodge Dakota.

[Sarcastr0]

Failing to stay on target is a sign you're wrong and you know it.

[Brett Bellmore]

You know that you're fantasizing that Biden didn't conceal anything, right? It's not a question of a box that got packed up in the White house, dumped in his garage, and nobody looked in it. He had that office with handpicked documents, some of which were classified. He had to have known those were classified, whatever excuses you make for the boxes in the garage.

[Nige]

Did a pretty poor job of concealing it by, y'know, reporting them when they were uncovered.

[Brett Bellmore]

So, if you ever reveal something, you never concealed it?

[Nige]

If you want to claim he did, you'd have to prove it, otherwise it's pure speculation.

[Brett Bellmore]

I HAVE proved it, you idiot.

Forget for a moment the box of records in the garage. Forget that he accumulated them over years as a Senator. He had an office he opened up AFTER he ceased being VP, and they found classified documents THERE.

Those documents were not shipped direct from the White house, they were selected afterwards from stuff he'd taken from the White house. Therefore he couldn't claim that something had just been mistakenly boxed up as he was leaving office. THOSE documents got a looking over, years before he admitted to having them.

It is routine for high level politicians to ignore the illegality of retaining classified documents. Trump was basically the first guy they DID go after.

A lot of people had "Oh, Shit!" moments when they went after Trump.

[David Nieporent]

Those documents were not shipped direct from the White house, they were selected afterwards from stuff he’d taken from the White house.

Again, where are you making this up from? Why do you think they didn't just ship all his work papers over there?

[Brett Bellmore]

His office at the Penn Biden Center didn't exist while he was in the White House. He didn't get that office until 2018!

So, yes, it was literally impossible the documents found there were shipped direct from the White house.

[David Nieporent]

So, yes, it was literally impossible the documents found there were shipped direct from the White house.

I didn't say shipped "direct from the White House." Why do you think the fact that they were in interim storage somewhere has any bearing on your claim that they were "selected afterwards from stuff he'd taken from the White house"?

[Brett Bellmore]

"Why do you think the fact that they were in interim storage somewhere has any bearing on your claim that they were “selected afterwards from stuff he’d taken from the White house”?"

Because it wasn't a case of everything being sent from his garage to the new office. Only selected portions were.

[David Nieporent]

It is routine for high level politicians to ignore the illegality of retaining classified documents. Trump was basically the first guy they DID go after.

A lot of people had “Oh, Shit!” moments when they went after Trump.

Two factual claims with precisely zero support.

[Nige]

‘I HAVE proved it, you idiot.’

Holty shit you cracked the case tell the investigator! Oh wait, it's based on entirely made-up claims. Silly Brett!

‘Therefore he couldn’t claim that something had just been mistakenly boxed up as he was leaving office.’

Not only couldn’t he, he didn’t. Pushing against an open dor, there.

‘Trump was basically the first guy they DID go after.’

Fuck off, they didn’t ‘go after him’ they didn’t even ‘go after him for classified documents’ they gave him every chance to return government documents, that included classified documents, and he fucked it up and turned it into, well, a federal case, the fucking idiot. Whether Biden’s documents were genuinely discovered round then or whether they were aware of them all along and decided to just come out and give them back – it’s pretty clear: Biden’s a lot smarter than Trump.

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : “So, if you ever reveal something, you never concealed it?”

Kinda missing the big picture, Brett. Critical reasoning-wise, this is what you should do:

1. Take the long timeline of Triump lying to the National Archives, shifting boxes of classified docs around like the pea in a shell game, stiffing subpoena after subpoena and repeatedly saying he’d returned everything when he knew otherwise.

2. Find the analogous point to Biden’s story on the Trump timeline (which will be early, early on in Trump's endless saga of soap opera brigandage).

3. Ask yourself : If Trump had come clean then, would there have been any legal issues? Answer yourself : No.

Forget your bullshit whining. Forget your snowflake whinging. It’s as simple as that.

[bernard11]

Did he refuse to return them? Did he ignore a subpoena?

You're psychotic.

[VinniUSMC]

Did he have documents that he had no legal reason to possess? Did he have them squirreled away for less than a year?

You're (D)eranged.

[Sarcastr0]

Brett, it's not a fantasy it's what the evidence most clearly indicates.

You've added a lot of personally speculation to get to a different story, and now you're mad people haven't speculated along with you.

Common Brett behavior.

[David Nieporent]

Why are you making up facts ("handpicked")? Besides the obvious, which is that you're desperate to cover for Trump, who didn't tell anyone to attack the Capitol even though everyone except you heard it.

[Nige]

'(D)ifferent'

Vote for less dumb (R)eprobates.

[bernard11]

That's ridiculous, XY. Completely ridiculous.

Why do you buy those idiotic MAGA arguments?

[CountmontyC]

Actually from what I have read of the report it sounds like the counsel believes he is guilty but too senile to convict. What a defense.

[EllaWilson]

biden just started yelling about "his" son dying in WWII taking on the ruskies. Ouch.

[Kazinski]

In a few short hours we will have some idea of where the Supreme Court is going with Trump v Anderson. While I haven't changed my view that the best grounds for ruling for Trump is the non-executing Section 3, and exclusive power of Congress under section 5 argument, I have become more impressed with the officers argument.

One data point for me is the current Chief Justice himself wrote this sentence in 2010:

"The people do not vote for the “Officers of the United States.”".

The opinion was not only written by Roberts but was joined by Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas, and Alito.
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/561/477/

The fact that it is a relatively recent pre-trump majority decision that adopts the Tillman-Blackman position is very persuasive to me. I think that position will get at least 7 votes, including Kagans.

Add in the trio of 1888 decisions holding the same thing, US v Smith being one example, I don't think the court can retreat from those holdings.

While I certainly do hope the court also rules along the line of my mock brief that section 5 gives Congress exclusive authority, I can't ignore the officers question had been gaining strength.

I've also come to the conclusion that SCOTUS will.want to rule definitively on all the holdings of the Colorado Court, they won't want anything left loose that can get the case back in their lap again.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Of course it’s been repeatedly pointed out that section 5 does not in fact grant Congress exclusive authority, but why would a RWNJ allow silly things like facts to alter their predetermined conclusions?

Much like certain liars keep repeating that it was only Trump’s conduct on the 6th itself that matters, or pretending the evidence that people knew he’d direct them to the Capitol also doesn’t exist.

[Kazinski]

Once again, take it up with Chief Justice Chase and Ted Cruz’s brief.

I’m not going to convince you, and certainly you are not going to convince me.

That’s why we have a Supreme Court.

As for Trumps conduct, I am reading what the two Colorado courts based their decisions on, and 90% of it was Trump's fighting words at the Ellipse. I am not going to try to refute things the Colorado courts did not assert. Or the Baude or Abrams brief either for that matter

[Martinned]

Once again, take it up with Chief Justice Chase and Ted Cruz’s brief.

Did you miss the part where people have been doing exactly that? Do you even read this blog?

[Bwaaah]

You forgot to make an argument.

[Martinned]

I didn't forget, I didn't do that on purpose. At least half the commenters here aren't interested in a real conversation. Most of them I have muted, but not Kazinski.

[Mr. Bumble]

Pretty difficult to have a real conversation with the current format of this commenting system.

[Kazinski]

I'm not quite sure how to read that.

You haven't muted me even though I'm not interested in real conversation?

I hope I'm misreading that, because while I am not usually receptive to changing my mind, I do make sure to address criticism of my positions.

But then I can also say the same about you, you have what you consider well thought out opinions, and you are also quite entrenched in them.

[Martinned]

People keep explaining why you're wrong, and you keep repeating the same nonsense. I have seen no examples whatsoever of you addressing criticisms of your positions. Of course that is interpreted as no interest in a real conversation.

[Kazinski]

So "people" have disputed the opinion of the Chief Justice of the United States, who had also been a US Senator and contemporary of the Senators and congressmen who drafted the 14th Amendment, who who made a ruling of first impression at the time which was then promptly complied with by the US Congress?

Sorry, I think Chase's opinion should have a lot more deference than a bunch of politically motivated law professors 155 years removed from the case and a bunch of commentors.

Add to that Ted Cruz's brief not only a US Senator but an experienced Supreme Court litigator who also clerked for Chief Justice Rehnquist.

I think my reliance on their opinions is well founded.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

You also think living in an off-the-grid hermit shack in America's desolate backwater to indulge your antisocial and disaffected nature (and as homage to fellow misfit Ted Kaczynski) is a good idea.

You and Mr. Bellmore might have been separated at birth.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Kazinski, I'm not arguing anymore about these things, it's now beyond tiresome. But I'm curious if you've read Marty Lederman's series he wrote at Balkinization? A lot of interesting stuff and many points I hadn't considered.

[Kazinski]

One of the main points in asserting Trump incited an insurrection with his speech at the Ellipse is that the Ellipse is a 40 minute walk away from the Capitol building. Not only that but the assault on the Capitol was fully in progress 17 minutes before Trump finished speaking, and the oft quoted "fight like hell" segment was at the very end of the speech, and anyone that heard Trump say those words 17 minutes after the riot began were still 40 minutes away from the Capitol.

12:53 p.m.: Rioters overwhelm police along the outer perimeter west of the Capitol building, pushing aside temporary fencing. Notably, Ryan Samsel (convicted in 2024)[198] "took off his jean jacket, flipped his 'Make America Great Again' hat backwards, and began ripping down the bike racks that were used to form a line of defense," as reported by NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth. This threw Capitol Police Officer Caroline Edwards backwards; she was briefly knocked unconscious.[199] Some protesters immediately follow toward the Capitol, while others, at least initially, remain behind and admonish the others: "Don't do it. You're breaking the law."[200][201]

1:10 p.m.: Trump ends his speech by urging his supporters to march upon the Capitol Building:[207][179][208][209]
If you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore....We're going to try and give them [Republicans] the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country...The Democrats are hopeless—they never vote for anything. Not even one vote. But we're going to try and give our Republicans, the weak ones because the strong ones don't need any of our help. We're going to try and give them the kind of pride and boldness that they need to take back our country."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_January_6_United_States_Capitol_attack

How the two Colorado courts could have given credit to the theory that Trump's "coded language " could have incited the Capitol Hill invasion and riot is a complete mystery to me.

If there is other evidence out there of secret planning or collusion in the invasion and riot, I haven't seen it.

[Brett Bellmore]

"How the two Colorado courts could have given credit to the theory that Trump’s “coded language ” could have incited the Capitol Hill invasion and riot is a complete mystery to me."

I think we have to accept at this point that a lot of people out there are starting from Trump being guilty of something, and reasoning back to what happened. Any interpretation of events or his statements that doesn't arrive at his being guilty has been ruled out a priori. Any pre-existing rules or norms that get in the way of stopping him have to be broken. He must be stopped, everything starts from there, if you run into any contradictions, remember: He must be stopped.

In the immediate instance, what I think happened is that they don't want to apply Brandenburg, but don't want for obvious reasons to admit they aren't. They think the riot was incited by the totality of all of Trump's speech over years. But that's not the actual legal test.

So they pretend to be applying the actual legal test, while actually employing a very non-Brandenburg test.

[Commenter_XY]

Brett,

VC Conspirator Armchair recently posed a question I am curious about. I hope he posts his thoughts today. It was an interesting thought experiment. Suppose SCOTUS affirms CO in part: POTUS Trump's conduct did meet the legal definition of insurrection.

Does this make POTUS Trump an 'Enemy of the United States', and, does that mean anyone who donated to POTUS Trump 'gives aid or comfort to the enemies thereof'? These are very specific terms because they are found in the Constitution as well.

The analogy Armchair suggested was how we treat financial contributions to Al-Queda. And I am actually wondering about that aspect, since the government can simply take your assets and lie about it (see Private Vault).

Where is the line for providing 'aid and comfort to the enemies thereof'?

[Michael P]

"Enemies of the United States" seems to be limited to countries or similar groups that are engaged in overt war against the United States. I don't think the January 6th riot crosses that threshold. If it does, so too would a lot of violent protest since 2020, particularly including the prolonged attacks on the federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon. Similarly, if some other alleged plot involving Donald Trump crosses that threshold, so too would things like promising Russia "more flexibility after [the] election" in exchange for refraining from action before that election, or directing billions of dollars towards state sponsors of terror when it was known that such funding would be used to attack Americans and innocent third parties.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I really don't think the left wants to win today because of the consequences of that victory.

[Armchair]

Enemies of the United States is typically limited to such entities. Foreign States, Al Queda, and such. Also likely groups like the Confederacy.

However, 50 USCS § 2204 lists an “Enemy of the United States” as “Any country, government, group, or person that has been engaged in hostilities, whether or not lawfully authorized, with the United States;”

It would seem to me, that the leader of a violent insurrection that sought to overthrow the United States, and directly, violently assaulted the US Capitol would necessarily be defined as an "Enemy of the US".

If not, why not? What other threshold would need to be crossed?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Usually use of bullets & bombs….

[Commenter_XY]

I am glad you came back and elaborated. I hope I faithfully and
accurately posed your questions.

[Michael P]

Donald Trump no more led that riot than Joe Biden led the serial attacks on the federal courthouse in Portland. Do you agree that those were more "hostilities" than the mostly-peaceful, not even slightly fiery riot of January 6th?

[Nige]

They were not only not led by Biden, they had nothing to do with him whatsoever, unlike Trump and Jan 6th.

[David Bremer]

The easy answer to this is that you are an enemy of the United States when you're acting against it, but not when you're done. For example, if you helped a bunch of Japanese service members during WWII, you'd be a traitor and giving aid to the enemy. If you helped them after Japan's surrender, you're helping their country rebuild.

Once Trump finally called off the mob he riled up in the days and weeks leading up to 1/6, he was no longer acting as an insurrectionist. So if you later give money to his campaign, you are not helping an enemy of the state. You're supporting a former insurrectionist.

[Commenter_XY]

Ok, so political donations to POTUS Trump's presidential campaign or Team R, or working for POTUS Trump, are not 'aid and comfort' to an enemy of the United States. That seems to be what you are saying.

It is a part of the thought experiment to me. What exactly is 'aid and comfort to the enemy' for purposes of the Constitution? I have a feeling that might be a question asked in the near future.

[Michael P]

It's a form of the Politician's Syllogism: Donald Trump must be guilty for some reason, this is some reason, therefore Donald Trump must be guilty for this reason.

[Dr. Ed 2]

SCOTUS needs to toss this whole thing in the toilet for that reason and to say so.

[bernard11]

I think we have to accept at this point that a lot of people out there are starting from Trump being guilty of something, and reasoning back to what happened.

Accusation, confession.

And I think a lot of people, you included, are starting from Trump never being guilty of any wrongdoing - or at least none he should suffer the slightest consequence from - and reasoning back to what happened.

[Stephen Lathrop]

One of the main points in asserting Trump incited an insurrection with his speech at the Ellipse is that the Ellipse is a 40 minute walk away from the Capitol building. Not only that but the assault on the Capitol was fully in progress 17 minutes before Trump finished speaking, and the oft quoted “fight like hell” segment was at the very end of the speech, and anyone that heard Trump say those words 17 minutes after the riot began were still 40 minutes away from the Capitol.

Kazinski, that is not even weak sauce. That is no sauce at all. Lee was in Virginia when he set the assault on Gettysburg in motion. During the battle he was literally tens of miles from some of the forces he directed into battle. And somehow Lee accomplished the attack on Little Round Top without a cell phone.

Trump began the insurrection prior even to summoning the Capitol assailants to Washington. The Capitol attack was merely part of a plot for a coup, preplanned for literally months.

There is no possibility that Trump was sincere in any assertion that he believed the election stolen. There is timeline evidence to prove Trump knew otherwise, and lied about it repeatedly and purposefully.

That evidence consists of a series of multiple instances where his most senior advisers told him about some specific proof that the election was not stolen. These happened on various days prior to the coup attempt. In each of about 5 or 6 instances (I got this from broadcast narrative and did not know at first I needed to count), Trump promptly composed a tweet framed around the specifics of his briefing, which contradicted the briefing. The timeline proves beyond any possibility of doubt that Trump treated each proof to the contrary as a rhetorical weakness. A weakness which he promptly contradicted for the benefit of his followers, by lying to them and goading them on. It is devastating evidence, and if it ever gets before a jury Trump will be toast.

[Dr. Ed 2]

You need psych help -- stat!

I'm not even going to try to explain the holes in your logic.

[OtisAH]

Did anybody else just hear a collective sigh of relief from the internet?

[VinniUSMC]

preplanned for literally months

Never go full retard.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Even if we assume he did no planning at all prior to Election Day, that was just over two months before January 6, 2021.

[VinniUSMC]

Even if we assume he did no planning at all prior to Election Day...

Add that to the no planning of a coup between Election Day and January 6th. You drive a hard bargain. Should I add that up for you? 0 days.

[Kazinski]

Well in Lee's case you had a clear chain of command, including written orders and military dispatches.

Is there any evidence of any direct communication, a chain of command or orders given to breach the Capitol on Jan. 6th?

Not that I am aware of, the whole case depends on Trumps words at the Ellipse, which the rioters who breached the Capitol couldn't have heard not only because they hadn't actually been said yet, but also because the words were said to different people who would have arrived when the riot was already in full swing.

[Brett Bellmore]

In fact the guy arguing before the Court today said that himself: That you could nail Trump on insurrection purely on the basis of his speech on the Mall.

I think at that point he already knew he wasn't winning, and was arguing for the headlines, not the Court.

[bernard11]

Ever heard of sending reinforcements?

[Michael P]

Government overspending on science seems to be crowding out application of science to real life: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2024/02/is-science-a-public-good.html

[Martinned]

Or maybe to a hammer every problem looks like a nail.

[Michael P]

What do you think are the hammer and nail here?

[Martinned]

Economists (I am one myself) and productivity that can be measured in money.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Economists (I am one myself) "

That explains a lot.

[Martinned]

I don't apologise for being a triple threat.

[Commenter_XY]

And wrong more than 50% of the time. There is good reason to call it a dismal science (is it really a science, though? I think not), it is wrong a hell of a lot. Dismal real world results is more like it.

[Mr. Bumble]

For examples of "wrong" see anything by Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman.

[bernard11]

You're a fucking idiot.

Krugman's little toe knows more economics than you do.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Being wrong is a critical part of all science.

[Artifex]

In the service of eventually being right.

If you never develop laws or a model that works better than random chance, you don't have much of a science.

[Sarcastr0]

Descriptive science is a thing.

[Artifex]

"Descriptive science is a thing."

So the stamp collectors would have you believe. Yes, that is something a useless apparatchik would say when they need their self esteem boosted a bit. Still, I suppose it is actually useful and less toxic than the actual anti-science viewpoints like critical theory or Institutionalism.

[Absaroka]

It's hard to imagine, for example, modern biology without the taxonomists tediously describing species. Leeuwenhoek never developed any models or laws, but he sure advanced science. Einstein wasn't the guy building instruments to confirm his theories; experimental physicists did that, etc, etc, etc.

[Artifex]

No one is arguing taxonomists are not useful, but in general they are cataloguing, not contributing to human understanding. Yes, scientists would struggle to do their work with data, but the data isn't the science. My little joke is actually Rutherford's: "All science is either physics or stamp collecting"

Also, you very much give Leeuwenhoek the short end of the stick. I would say the mental model of what existed in the microcosm was very different before and after Leeuwenhoek.

[Sarcastr0]

1) Houses are important, but laying foundations don't really count as housebuilding?

2) Descriptive science includes identifying new species. Not predictive, but absolutely contributing to human knowledge.

3) You are playing games with the definition of model. 'A model that works better than random chance' is predictive.
'The mental model of what existed in the microcosm' is descriptive.

[bernard11]

First of all, that's not the reason it's called "the dismal science."

Second, what do you mean "wrong more than 50% of the time?"
That makes no sense.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bernard, it might make sense, really exciting sense. Wouldn't it imply that economics had achieved scientific predictability, albeit on the basis of theories which needed adjustment (perhaps to the point of reversal) to improve the usefulness of the predictions?

Not that I believe that. I think mathematical economics, at least, is little more than an ideology which posits you can predict what people would do if people were numbers. The notion of political economy seems sounder, however artistic.

But how many know that one of Mark Twain's best essays is titled, Political Economy? Save it for a day when you need to boost your spirits. Then Google the title and read it online.

[Martinned]

By that logic, why not abolish central banks. What they do is applied macro-economics, and it seems like they're doing a pretty good job of managing inflation and the broader economy. (At least compared to how it would turn out without central banks, and how it did turn out before them.)

[Stephen Lathrop]

Martinned, whether by chance or successful policy, you make that argument at an uncharacteristically favorable time. We do have now a convincing-looking case that central banking dogma has for once succeeded, and done so without inflicting road-kill type damage indiscriminately on the non-commercial classes.

Whether or not that results from stopped-clock style happenstance will have to await proof that it is a repeatable outcome. No such proof seems evident from general experience during my lifetime. Of course I get that bankers may differ with my conclusion, but they are differently situated.

Just out of curiosity, what would you do if you were charged to invent a central banking inflation-control mechanism which would distribute the costs of controlling currency values only to people with power to set prices? And to do it with an eye to relieve losses suffered by people whose only choice is to pay prices.

I have been wishing for a long time that some scientific answer to that question would show up. For some reason, I cannot recall even seeing such a notion discussed. I assume economists generally are not all so evil that they just prefer victimizing the poor, so what have they been saying on the topic, and why has nothing been done?

Of course I promise to listen attentively to patient explanations that I am mistaken, and that the poor do not know how beneficial central banking has been for them. I am used to those.

[Martinned]

Interesting. TIL why they call economics "the dismal science".

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

[Nige]

I don't think it's the government's fault that private tech is moribund and eating its own tail in chase of higher profits for worse products and services. They're not iterested in using ideas and research generated by unoversities, because a lot of that research shows that they are, basically, wrecking the planet, and they'd rather not direct innovation towards fixing that problem, but at dumb shit like 'AIs.'

[Sarcastr0]

'overspending on science.'

That begs the question.

I will disagree with some of the other replies that crowding out is a legit concern when doing R&D spending.

Fundamental research - the kind done at universities - should always have no application in mind. That is the way to make it different from anything the private sector would do.

Now, the article links to a working paper. So not peer reviewed. It states: abstract knowledge advances per se elicit little or no response. So it's specifically about the effect of universities in the higher technology readiness realms.

I don't see anything fundamentally wrong with it's approach, except that it does ignore the university entrepreneur - profs and sometimes students taking the patents their research developed and spinning off to a company.

Anyhow, this is not just partisan twaddle, though the marginalrevolution people seem to misunderstand the scope of the paper and expand it to just public spending on research which is not correct.

[Reallynotbob]

I think you're being charitable. Even if we're just talking about academic-based research, the fact that it creates publicly-available peer-reviewed articles is a major public good. Once upon a time, companies might have shared their research more readily, e.g. (for those of a certain age) the Bell Labs Technical Journal. But I'm not aware of similar private-institution publications of core science being published by the likes of Alphabet, Tesla, et al.

That also doesn't include the government-funded pure science occurring on the military side of the equation.

[Sarcastr0]

Academic research *starts* fundamental, and I don't think there is any crowding out there.
But it doesn't always end that way. Bayh Dole means universities get to keep patents.

And their incentives and skills may not lie in the development and commercialization as much as private industry would. At the same time, having done the research they are intimately familiar with the the underlying science in a way no private industry could be. It's a cost-benefit, but worth thinking through.

And the government does some applied research. DoE has FFRDCs; DoD has UARCs. Which are kind of hybrid. And I don't know too much about either, but I could see crowding out being a concern there.

[ReaderY]

The response brief filed by Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold argues for a core position I’ve advocated, that the US Supreme Court can uphold the Colorado Supreme Court decision on grounds that Colorado has the power to make its own decisions about whether to disqualify Mr. Trump. The brief argues, as I have, that Trump’s disqualification is a question of Colorado state election law empowered by the Electors Clause. The brief specifically argues, as I have, that Moore v. Harper establishes that state courts have a role in interpreting state election law, and hence the Colorado Supreme Court decision disqualifying Mr. Trump was an implementation of rather than a usurpation of the state legislature’s authority.

In doing so, however, it states as settled law an obviously incorrect position, that Thornton makes it “beyond dispute that states add or modify qualifications for the presidency.” The brief discusses Thornton in some detail. The whole discussion is incorrect.

Thornton has no relevance to Presidential elections. It is grounded in the Constitution’s explicit grant of the power to elect members of Congress to each state’s citizens. State legislatures and state law, Thornton held, cannot interfere with citizens’ constitutionally granted power to be the sole decision-makers.

But electing a President is different. The Constitution grants all decision-making power not to citizens, but to state legislatures. Thus, when state legislatures impose their own qualifications on who their state’s presidential electors can lawfully be directed to vote for, they are properly exercising a power the Constitution expressly grants to THEM, not improperly interfering with a power that the constitution grants elsewhere, to the citizens. The situation with presidential elections is accordingly totally different from congressional elections, and Thornton is completely irrelevant.

I find it very strange that all parties in this case seem to take it as a total given that Thornton applies to Presidential elections, when its underlying reasoning is so obviously inapplicable.

[ReaderY]

Both Jenna Griswold and Norma Anderson assumed the Electors Clause was a weapon in Trump’s arsenal, that if it applied it favored Trump. Both argued that the Colorado Supreme Court didn’t violate it.

They should have used it as a weapon on their own behalf. They should have argued it specifically authorized and empowered the Colorado Supreme Court to do what it did, that the Colorado decision IMPLEMENTED the Electors Clause, and moreover the Clause, by making the appointment of presidential electors solely a matter of state statutory law and its interpretation, prohibits any federal interference with Colorado’s decision.

[David Nieporent]

Your mistake, as I keep pointing out, is in assuming that because a state legislature could pick electors however it wanted, that if it chooses to hold a public election for those electors that it also can do so however it wants. You have never come up with anything to justify that assumption.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Perhaps the bigger problem is that the Colorado Supreme Court decision only applies to the Primary Election, which has nothing to do with choosing electors, but rather determining the number of delegates for various candidates who will attend a national party convention. it's not clear to me why the Electors Clause would apply at all.

[Michael P]

What exact wording in the Electors Clause do you think gives that authority to state legislatures? Is the same substantive language present in the Elections Clause of Article I, Section 4?

Compare:

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

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

I don't think "Manner" stretches the way you apparently want it to.

[ReaderY]

It’s completely different language. The manner of appointment can include appointment directly by the state legislature. It can include appointment by a commission or official designated by the state legislature. It can include appointment by the state’s voters.

Or it can include any hybrid of these approaches. For example, a state legislature could provide that it, an official, or a commission nominates candidates and then voters pick from the nominated candidates. Or it can provide that it or a commission or an official sets rules or qualifications candidates must meet and then voters pick from the candidates meeting the rules lr qualifications.

A state legislature’s plenary authority over the appointment of presidential electors makes the situation radically different from Congress, where the constitution says there must be a popular election and state legislatures only get to decide details about how the election gets conducted. For Presidents, the state legislature gets to decide if there will be a popular election in the first place and if so, what issues will be decided in it. A state legislature can decide everything itself. It can let voters decide everything. It can split the decision between the two any way it wants.

A manner of appointing electors where the legislature sets qualification rules and the voters then pick candidates within those rules is a manner of appointing electors. It’s as good as any other manner so far as rhe constitution is concerned.

[Michael P]

A manner of holding elections where citizens vote from a list of candidates screened by the states legislature is also a manner of holding elections. You still haven't explained why it's so different than U. S. Term Limits v. Thornton.

[ReaderY]

Because state legislatures don’t have to have elections at all to pick presidential electors. Presidential electors are appointed, not elected. Citizens aren’t usually involved in appointments

If you are saying there’s no meaningful difference between appointment and election by citizens, would it be your position that federal judges and cabinet officials must be elected by popular vote, that the president and the senate can only perform ceremonial roles and what realky needs to happen is first the citzenry votes for these officials, and then the President and Senate go through a ceremony of nominating and confirming the candidates the citizens pick for these offices?

We COULD do things this way. A President could easily decide to conduct a poll and nominate the people for cabinet offices and judgeships that the voters prefer rather than make nomination decisions on his own. It could become a custom to do this. It could become a custom for the Senate to always rubner-stamp confirm. But even if several Presidents and Senates in a row do this and it becomes an established custom, it doesn’t change the Constitution. A new President and Senate could always take the power back and nominate and confirm candidates directly. Or they could do a hybrid, create a short list ask voter to choose from them.

Selecting presidents works the same way. Just because state legislatures haven’t used their full power in a while doesn’t mean they’ve lost it.

[ReaderY]

That is, “manner of holding elections” says there must be elections and the legislature only fills in details about how elections are conducted. It can’t pick the members of Congress a completely different way, for example picking them itself.

But “manner of appointment” means the legislature can appoint electors any way it wants. It doesn’t have to use elections at all! Elections are just one manner, it can pick a totally different one. As I said above, it can pick the electors itself, let a commission do it, whatever it wants. A hybrid appointment manner that splits the decision among multiple parties and lets voters get a say but only a partial say is a perfectly good manner of appointment.

[Michael P]

Sure -- but if the legislature prescribes an election, they need to stand by that. Or can they change their mind after the process starts, potentially even after such an election?

[ReaderY]

No, the only federal election that occurs is the one by the Electoral College in December. In November, all that happens is electors get appointed. How that happens is a state law question. For the actual election, Chiafolo clearly establishes that for legislatures get to dictate even who the electors vote for. They don’t have to “stand by” any ordinary conception of what an election means. And that’s for the event the constitution actually calls an election!

For the elector appointments, a legislature’s power is even greater. Nothing prevents a state legislature from reversing what’s substantive and what’s ceremonial and picking the electors itself but going through the motions of having a pro-forma ceremonial election with a single candidate on the ballot. That too is a manner of appointing electors.

For Congressional (and electoral college) elections. “Election” is a constitutional term, a term of federal law to be given a uniform definition by federal courts. But for presidential elector appointments, “election” is not a term of federal law at all. If a state chooses to use that term, it can mean whatever the state legislature says it means.

The 14th Amendment imposes limits. If the legislature gives citizens a say, Equal Protection means it must give all citizens an equal say. But it doesn’t mean it has to give them a complete say. As long as whatever say they have is distributed equally, Equal Protection is satisfied.

[Brett Bellmore]

If they want to directly select the Electors by legislative vote, or throw darts at a phone book, they can. They could make being an Elector something like jury duty, or even just pick from among the members of the legislature.

But once they decide to hold elections, they need to hold real elections, not rigged ones. Or at least, based on Supreme court precedent, any rigging has to just be against third parties...

[ReaderY]

Bush v. Gore says that presidential elections are subject to 14th Amendment equal protection and can’t be “rigged” in the sense of giving some citizens more of a say than others. But imposing qualification rules isn’t “rigging” the elections, because all voters get an equal say in the questions given to them to decide. And as I argue above, even if the qualification rules resulted in a single caandidate being on the ballot, Equal Protection would still be satisfied. As long as there’s no hanging chad problems and such, everybody’s vote on the 1 candidate is counted equally. And that’s all Bush v. Gore requires.

[Brett Bellmore]

Imposing qualification rules doesn't have to be rigging, but it's certainly capable of being rigging, if done tendentiously.

I'll remind you that the Court thought that honest literacy tests were not a constitutional violation. Too bad they were never honest...

[Martinned]

Colorado has the power to make its own decisions about whether to disqualify Mr. Trump

Well, the power to decide whether or not to include him on the ballot anyway. What happens after that isn't within Colorado's power.

[Don Nico]

Indeed, SCOTUS could rule that A14S3 does not disqualify Trump serving as President a second time.
My impression is that ruling would not in itself contradict CO's ruling that Trump will not be on the CO ballot or that Trump may not receive any CO electors.
Not politically savory, but consistent with Y's argument.

[Bob from Ohio]

I don't understand. If SCOTUS rules that way, how can Colorado than decide to ignore it?

There is no independent Colorado "insurrection" clause as far as I know.

[Krayt]

In theory, such a conclusion by a state should be acceptable as a national concensus. If not, it is still in the form of a state adding qualifications under the guise of enforcement of 14.3.

“We did all the necessary work in this blue state, trust us, and we were not forum shopping, trust us, and now we need one or two purple states to bite, all that is needeed to make him lose.”

Yeahhhhhh, trust us.

[Kazinski]

Well good luck with that, you'll need it.

That's a very fringe position.

[Michael P]

I guess the good news is that climate change, AI singularity amd nuclear war are existential threats no longer.

https://nypost.com/2024/02/07/news/biden-greeted-by-anti-israel-protesters-in-nyc-after-telling-donors-trump-is-existential-threat/

[Martinned]

Are you somehow under the impression that there's only ever one existential threat?

[Michael P]

Joe Biden said there's just one right now, dear chap.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Joe Biden IS one....

[Nige]

Well, if you agree with him...

[Bwaaah]

Yeah. I think the Doomsday Clock already passed midnight, and we're on negative borrowed time now. It's beyond existential threat. It's like existence itself isn't anymore.

Can anybody say something, just one thing, for the children?

[Nige]

I believe your message for the children is 'tough shit.'

[Bwaaah]

That wouldn't be nice. But your deeply serious concern is noted.

[Sarcastr0]

If you're wrong, your nihilistic rationalization of apathy seems pretty shitty.

This is one of those wagers where the actions implied by taking the hopeful side can be seen as risk mitigation if you're wrong about taking the hopeless side.

[Nige]

Pretending real problems and threats aren't real isn't nice, either, especially to the children.

[Nige]

You didn't even read your own fucking article.

[Mr. Bumble]

Anyone noticing Joe Biden's accelerating mental decline?
Twice this week he made reference to talking to dead people and couldn't remember the name Hamas until a reporter helped him out.

[Dr. Ed 2]

But, but, but, Trump....

[BrianL.]

So you don't think Trump is in mental decline as well? In a speech a few months ago he said that if Biden were re-elected he'd get the US into World War II; said he was ahead of everyone in the polls, including Obama; said he beat Obama in 2016 when everyone said he couldn't. Then a few weeks ago, he said Nikki Haley was in charge of security at the Capital on Jan. 6th.

[Brett Bellmore]

Of course he's in mental decline. The two of them are older than dirt, in a race to the grave. Biden might be in the lead, but Trump is hot on his tail.

We REALLY need a maximum age limit on public office!

[ThePublius]

That's baloney. There's a big difference between mis-speaking and showing obvious signs of mental decline. Have you never misspoken? It even happens to people in their youth!

[David Bremer]

Remember kids, when it's your guy, it's "misspeaking." When it's the other guy, it's mental decline.

Trump is absolutely mentally unfit for office. Hell, after all these years, he still doesn't understand how tariffs work. The latest mental lapses are just showing the acceleration of the decline.

[Brett Bellmore]

Of course I've misspoken. And I'm 65, so I'm painfully aware of the difference between simply misspeaking, and starting to lose it. Old age is hell for the introspective, you not only decay, you get to notice it.

The two Davids are deliberately confusing policy disagreements with mental incapacity, but Trump is absolutely showing increasing signs of the latter.

[ThePublius]

You know, one's perception of the mental acuity of Biden v. Trump is a good test of one's partisanship, bias.

But then, I don't know if I'm truly seeing it objectively, either.

But, I've seen Trump at recent rallies, and he's energetic, articulate, and able to speech for extended periods, coherently, without a teleprompter or script.

Biden can barely find his way off the stage, shuffles like a 99 year old, is led by the hand by Jill; and shows the anger and bitterness in his speech characteristic of Alzheimers. He continues to confuse world leaders, and refers to conversations he had recently with people who have been dead for decades. Repeatedly. And according to the special prosecutor, couldn't remember when he was VP, or when his son died.

If Trump and Biden had a checkers match, who would you bet on? If Biden and a checkers-playing chicken had a checker match, who would you bet on?

You judge.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's quite possible to think that they're both showing their age, but that Biden's showing it worse, not the least because he's actually older.

That report clearing Biden of his illegal possession of classified documents, confirmed that he DID willfully retain and disclose classified information. It recommended against charges, essentially, on the basis that he has deteriorated so badly that you'd be hard put to prove that he hadn't simply forgotten he had possession of them, and that dementia cases are very sympathetic defendants.

[David Nieporent]

But then, I don’t know if I’m truly seeing it objectively, either.

You can say that again!

For example: Trump has never spoken coherently, not for short periods, not for extended periods. He is incapable of communicating in other than stream of consciousness rambling, and gets all his facts wrong, like the difference between Pelosi and Haley, or the difference between Clinton and Obama.

[Mr. Bumble]

Again, stop with this ageist bullshit. We all age at different rates both mentally and physically. There is very little comparison between Trump and Biden and if Biden even tried to duplicate Trumps schedule he'd be dead in a week.

[David Nieporent]

There is very little comparison between Trump and Biden

Indeed. Biden might have suffered some decline; Trump is already at the bottom, and has been there for years.

[grb]

Mr. Bumble : “Again, stop with this ageist bullshit”

I’m curious where Right-World thinks their Biden Dementia shtick is going. The whole country is going to see Trump and Biden on stage live in the debates. Biden as mental cripple will be a hard sell if he is significantly more rational and coherent than Trump.

As he will be. We went thru this the last presidential election. We were fed the same agitprop about Biden then. It did not survive the debates very well.

[Mr. Bumble]

" The whole country is going to see Trump and Biden on stage live in the debates. "
Wanna bet?

[Nige]

Think Trump will chicken out?

[Brett Bellmore]

I think they'll BOTH chicken out, and try to construe it as the other doing the chickening. Easy to do, they merely have to not come to an agreement.

Personally, I'd like to see a debate where they're put in sound proof booths with microphones connected to a timer, so that there's no talking over, just alternating speech. And shoot anybody who tries to play "moderator".

Feeding N2 into both booths at the end of the debate is optional.

[Nige]

Trump will chicken out and you'll claim that since Biden would have chickened out too that's the same as them both chickening out.

[grb]

Mr. Bumble : “Wanna bet?”

Absolutely hilarious! For weeks before the first debate last prez election, all the right-wing wack jobs in this forum were insisting Biden wouldn’t show. His handlers wouldn’t allow it. They’d come up with some excuse. They couldn’t allow him to be “exposed”.

Wait a minute, said some (myself included). Didn’t Biden debate Sanders for nearly three hours a few months earlier? Forget that, the right-wing loons answered. Biden has gotten “much worse” since then.

Of course we all know what happened. Biden showed & kicked Trump’s ass. Somehow incoherent irrational bluster doesn’t work so well on a debate stage. Now here we are nearly four years later and our own Bumble seems to be recycling the same old imbecilic crap. It ain’t gonna play out any better this go-round.

[David Nieporent]

The whole country is going to see Trump and Biden on stage live in the debates.

I'm not clear that there will be any debates this time around.

[SRG2]

IMO both Biden and Trump are unfit for office, Biden, because he's becoming senile, and Trump, because he's a crook and is also becoming senile.

That's why I am not voting for either.

[Don Nico]

Hear, hear !

[Krayt]

1. Yes
2. Trump is way ahead in that department
3. Let’s have an amendment nobody 80 can run for president, or re-election. Or who will become 80 during. You haggle the details.

As this will aid 100 senators in clearing the deck for their presidential fantasies, it should be clear sailing to get to the states.

[Martinned]

Do you know how many senators are older than 75???

[Brett Bellmore]

15 are 75 or older. Grandfather everybody over 70 in.

[Armchair]

So, a question for all the commentors out there…

Assume for a second that the SCOTUS finds that Trump did engage in insurrection. Would that make Trump a “Enemy of the United States”?

For reference 50 USCS § 2204 lists an “Enemy of the United States” as “Any country, government, group, or person that has been engaged in hostilities, whether or not lawfully authorized, with the United States;”

The way I read it, if the SCOTUS found Trump engaged in insurrection (A violent attack against the government), he would almost certainly be classified as an “Enemy of the United States”. But perhaps other people have different opinions?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Trump’s closest co-plotters should be treated as being as guilty as he is, including co-plotters in Congress. All subject to proof, of course.

By the way, given the possibility of direct Congressional intervention after the next election, that raises a concern that appropriate charges against congressional insurrectionists be filed promptly.

[Dr. Ed 2]

You belong in prison.

That's the logic you're using...

[Armchair]

So, would you consider Trump an "Enemy of the United States" then?

[Michael P]

No. Trump has not engaged in such hostilities, and no one has even alleged that he did.

Do you have any more phenomenally stupid questions?

[Zarniwoop]

You’re basing your entire Q on “the way I read it”. This runs the significant risk of confusing your linguistic generalities with the legal meaning of the statute.

Perhaps you should go figure out what the legal meaning of the statutory term “Enemy of the United States” is. This may also require interpretation of the term “hostilities”: does it refer to military operations, or anything down to pushing a police officer?

It’s entirely possible that a solidly originalist interpretation of 50 USCS § 2204 would exclude Trump. Or maybe not. I honestly have no idea, and don’t feel like researching it.

[Noscitur a sociis]

1. Section 2204 defines the word “enemy”, not the phrase “Enemy of the United States”.

2. Section 2204 explains that that is the defintion “used in this chapter” (i.e. chapter 39 of title 50 of the U.S. code).

3. Within that chapter, the defined term enemy is used only as part of the definition of the term “spoils of war”, and to explain that the restrictions on transferring spoils of war don’t prohibit “the return of spoils of war to previous owners from whom such property had been seized by enemy forces”. 50 U.S.C. § 2205(4).

Other than that, great comment!

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Hey buddy.

Are you ever going to acknowledge and apologize to Sarcastr0 and myself for your recent repeated lies, or are you content to be known as a bitch with no integrity whatsoever?

[Mr. Bumble]

...and in other Trump Trial News:
Judge Cannon Rejects Jack Smith’s Attempt to Keep Names of Government Witnesses Secret, Discovery Material Under Seal.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/02/judge-cannon-rejects-jack-smiths-attempt-keep-names/

[Moderation4ever]

It will be interesting to see if this ruling is appealed. Judge Cannon has lost on appeal before, and this could be a second strike.

[Mr. Bumble]

A conundrum for Smith, since an appeal will further delay the start of this trial.

[OtisAH]

Cannon so far appears to have learned her lesson from the last time, which from her perspective was “Don’t be so fucking obvious, dummy!” So maybe she slipped up here but overall she’s managed to keep her palm on the scale for Turnip without triggering any pushback from the higher court.

[SRG2]

It's perfectly possible that Cannon is throwing all minor decisions to Trump regardless of the law knowing that Smith won't want to delay the trial with further appeals and that therefore nothing will be done about it, so she has carte blanche.

[Mr. Bumble]

FWIW:
"A press coalition included The Associated Press, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, Fox News, and other outlets have also requested the unsealing of the discovery material."

[OtisAH]

She’s stayed so neatly within the bounds of her defensible discretion that the case has pretty much entirely fallen out of every discussion of Turnip’s indictments, despite it being a case that is second to none in terms of importance. Certainly no lower than the coup case and, imo, a tic higher. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if many to most folks who, when/if they hear “classified documents,” they think only of Biden.

[Moderation4ever]

It seems unlikely this case will get to trial prior to the election and so it might be time for Jack Smith to be little more aggressive. Trump could make the case go away should he with the Presidency, but he will go down hard if he loses. His chances for a plea deal will be nonexistent post election.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Judge Cannon has lost on appeal before,"

Yes, like every district court judge ever.

[Moderation4ever]

Is this true? Less than 10% of appeals are overturned, so it would seem some judges likely never get overturned.

[Martinned]

Unless some judges rarely get appealed, that seems unlikely.

[Zarniwoop]

I think the only judges that have never been overturned are the relatively new ones.

Pretty much every Federal judge gets appealed all the time. If each decision has an independent 10% chance of being reversed (this is, of course, a poor assumption that does not account for the judicial temperament of either the Federal judge or the circuit in which they sit, and is made for math purposes only!), by the time a judge gets to 20 appealed decisions they have only 0.90^20 = 0.12 = 12% chance of a perfect record. At 50 appealed decisions it’s 0.5%, and at 100 appealed decisions it’s 0.0027%.

I clerked for a U.S. District Court judge, and he would humorously remind us that “judges get affirmed, law clerks get overruled” when reading a draft we’d prepared of decision that really could go either way. He took reversals in stride; it’s part of the job.

[Dr. Ed 2]

AI started nuke war "to have peace in the world."

Scary....

https://gizmodo.com/ai-deployed-nukes-have-peace-world-tense-war-simulation-1851234455

[Bwaaah]

Next thing you know, people will be writing computer programs that simulate this kind of stuff. What will happen then?

[Krayt]

"The only winning move is to grunt like Tim Taylor."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DGNZnfKYnU

[Dr. Ed 2]

By the logic I'm seeing expressed here, every drug dealer who initially pleads innocent should be charged with the additional crime of lying.

[Moderation4ever]

Would that be the case? Is a person under oath at the time they plead? We have seen, including some recent cases, people make statements that are false during trials but outside the courtroom where they are not obligated by oath to tell the truth. It is during testimony they are required to tell the truth.

[Brett Bellmore]

Didn't the judge in Flynn's case try to go after him for perjury, for simply attempting to retract his guilty plea after prosecutorial misconduct came to light? (The same judge who didn't want to let the feds drop the charges just because THEY had concluded that they were guilty of that misconduct...)

Why, yes, he did.

Normally I think you're only under oath when pleading if you're pleading guilty as part of a plea deal. Confessing under oath is part of the deal.

[not guilty]

"Normally I think you’re only under oath when pleading if you’re pleading guilty as part of a plea deal. Confessing under oath is part of the deal."

More words of wisdom from Otto Yourazz, Brett?

Before accepting a plea of guilty or nolo contendere, the court must address the defendant personally in open court and determine that the plea is voluntary and did not result from force, threats, or promises (other than promises in a plea agreement). Fed.R.Crim.P. 11(b)(2). Before entering judgment on a guilty plea, the court must determine that there is a factual basis for the plea. Fed.R.Crim.P. 11(b)(3). These provisions apply to all guilty pleas -- both negotiated pleas with an agreement and "blind" pleas to the offense(s) charged in the indictment without an agreement.

The ordinary method of ensuring this is for the trial court to place the defendant under oath and engage in colloquy with him to make sure he understands the various rights that he is waiving by entry of the plea.

[David Nieporent]

Didn’t the judge in Flynn’s case try to go after him for perjury, for simply attempting to retract his guilty plea after prosecutorial misconduct came to light?

No, for two separate reasons.

1) What Sullivan was looking into was Flynn lying under oath, not "retracting his guilty plea."

2) No prosecutorial misconduct ever came to light. Nor — as I have told you repeatedly — did the federal government ever admit to that. Barr's decision to throw the case was based on the (false) idea that the government couldn't prove materiality, not that it had engaged in misconduct. It's true that Flynn's lawyer Sidney Powell alleged misconduct, but Flynn's lawyer Sidney Powell is a fucking loon (as her election related litigation demonstrated).

[Brett Bellmore]

Tell another one.

1) The lying under oath was proposed to be the pleading guilty, on the basis that he was now claiming he wasn't guilty, so he must have been lying under oath.

2)The feds did not, naturally, admit that they'd been engaged in misconduct, but they'd had exculpatory evidence and hid it from the defense, what else would you call that?

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : "....after prosecutorial misconduct came to light?"

What "prosecutorial misconduct"?

[Brett Bellmore]

It seems really strange to ask that in response to me identifying it.

[grb]

Really? I saw a lot of stuff about the judge, questioning his actions and judgements. Maybe if you specifically define what "exculpatory evidence" was hidden from the defense it would help. If it's what I suspect, it's a laughable joke. But you might have something else in mind....

[David Nieporent]

Your link supports precisely nothing you've said.

1) The lying under oath was not proposed to be the pleading guilty; rather, it was his allocution, where he — as defendants do when they allocute — testified under oath, admitted specific wrongdoing.

2) You don't even read what you write. You said above, "just because THEY had concluded that they were guilty of that misconduct…" But now you concede that they didn't admit it.

3) They did not have any exculpatory evidence, and didn't hide anything. Again, you confuse Sidney Powell's allegations with the actual record facts. (Nor is it even clear that this would be prosecutorial misconduct! The Supreme Court has never said that Brady applies to plea deals, and multiple circuits have ruled it doesn't.)

[bernard11]

Heritage Foundation. Hans von Spakovsky.

One liar quotes another. And exaggerates what the first one says.

About the withdrawn plea the article says:

The judge also asked Gleeson to address the issue of whether Sullivan should hold Flynn in criminal contempt for lying to the judge, presumably for admitting guilt to a crime Flynn now says he did not commit.

Not about perjury, and with "presumably" doing a lot of lifting.

About prosecutorial misconduct it says:

Powell has filed a motion asking that Flynn be allowed to withdraw his guilty plea due to prosecutorial misconduct—a failure by prosecutors to turn over evidence favorable to Flynn.

Now, what did you "identify" again?

[Zarniwoop]

Correct, a person entering a plea at arraignment is not under oath when they simply inform the gov’t that their constitutional right to a trial is being exercised. It’s not testimony.

Big hint: often the defendant doesn’t even speak during entry of a “not guilty” plea; their lawyer does.

Another hint: if a defendant refuses to cooperate, a judge will enter a “not guilty” plea, and can’t (for obvious reasons) enter a “guilty” plea.

In a sense Grampa Ed is right that such a rule would be ridiculous; but it’s no more logical or persuasive than if he’d written “by the logic I’m seeing expressed here, 2+ 2 =5”. He probably thinks that by blathering about “plead[ing] innocent” he sounds erudite and all legal-fancy, despite the fact that he can’t even use the proper term of “not guilty”.

[Stephen Lathrop]

For what it's worth, newspaper publishers reluctant to take chances may have invented the term, "plead innocent." Back in the day, before Section 230, "not guilty," was inherently dangerous. Any inadvertence in production which dropped the, "not," could subject the paper to a whopper of a defamation charge.

That was lore in common circulation in newsrooms in the 1970s. I have no source for it.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Well don’t let that slow you down!

[Stephen Lathrop]

Why should I slow down? The first rule of critical thinking is to be sure you can answer the question, "How do I know that."

Thanks to my little note you now know something you might not have known before. You know a bit about where and when it came from. And you have information helpful to match to circumstances the level of trust you invest.

That's a pace most of the commenters here struggle to keep up with.

[Zarniwoop]

Back in the day, before Section 230, “not guilty,” was inherently dangerous.

Stephen Lathrop ... a noun, a verb, and Section 230.

(hat tip to Joe Biden, nuking Crazy Rudy's presidential hopes from orbit.)

[Absaroka]

He is half right - apparently the AP Stylebook prefers 'innocent' for the reasons he mentions.

The S230 tie in is nonsense but, well, Drink!

[John F. Carr]

In federal felony cases there is a punishment for going to trial, despite the lack of any denial of guilt under oath. It is not as bad as punishing "initially pleads innocent". There is a separate punishment for denying guilt under oath. For judicial economy this is imposed by the judge during sentencing without requiring a new indictment.

In federal court, does the defendant personally say "not guilty"? I remember O.J. Simpson saying "not guilty" in a California courtroom. I also remember many cases from the Northeast where the defendant didn't say anything at all and the court "entered a plea of not guilty on his behalf."

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

There is no "punishment" for going to trial; there is, however, a "discount" for pleading guilty.

[Brett Bellmore]

Eh, it's just like your average "sale"; They hike the regular price so that they can discount it.

[Martinned]

Which is why, outside the US, (constitutional) courts often look very skeptical at the size of those discounts. Back when I used to do cartel investigations, which involved no prison time for anybody, we weren't allowed to give anyone a discount on their fine of more than 10%. (Unless they settled before the SO, i.e. really early.) Otherwise the discount might be excessively coercive.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-on-the-cmas-investigation-procedures-in-competition-act-1998-cases/guidance-on-the-cmas-investigation-procedures-in-competition-act-1998-cases#settlement-discount

[Brett Bellmore]

You won't find me defending the US "justice" system, it's a mess in many, many ways.

Mostly related to efforts to eliminate as much as possible the constitutionally mandated role of juries, and transfer all power in the courtroom to the lawyers in the room. Plea bargaining is part of that, it avoids jury trials.

I've occasionally likened our government to a computer that's just been left running too long without a reboot. It's accumulated all sorts of work arounds and exploits designed to defeat various structural protections, and so gradually that the judiciary and legal community have just gotten to not even notice them.

But average Americans, who pick up a copy of the Constitution and then look at what is going on notice...

[Artifex]

It's interesting because it seems institutions age just like biological entities. They start out full of ideas, energy and life and end up with age spots and fully metastasised cancers.

Maybe there should be a rule we burn all institutions down every generation and rebuild them from the ground up

[Brett Bellmore]

Jefferson thought something like that. And the idea of Jubilee years goes back to antiquity. Everything decays and must be renewed occasionally.

[Martinned]

I’ve occasionally likened our government to a computer that’s just been left running too long without a reboot.

That's a nice way of getting at an idea that I've been playing with ever since it occurred to me during my PhD defence. They asked me whether the railways should be private or publicly held. (I'd studied both possibilities.) I tried to avoid giving an answer, but they insisted. So I said that it was probably healthy to go back & forth every couple of decades. Basically because, in your words, that reboots the system. Wipe the slate clean by privatising/nationalising the whole lot.

[Zarniwoop]

FFS, that’s the stupidest thing you’ve written in … well, at least 5 minutes. Go back to yelling at the clouds.

[Bwaaah]

"that’s the stupidest thing you’ve written in …"

I was wondering how you were going to finish that sentence. LOL

[OtisAH]

Well, you are an idiot so nobody is surprised that’s your take.

[Martinned]

That is basically why I don't think pleading should be a thing. (Or at least make the options different.) Let defendant plead no contest and skip the guilt phase of the trial if they want, but don't make someone say they're not guilty just because they want a trial.

[OtisAH]

Your big idea is that instead of requiring the government to prove your guilt, you accept a conviction without admitting guilt? And you come to this at least in part because Dumbass Ed thinks an actually guilty person who pleads “not guilty” has committed perjury?

This is very silly. Very silly indeed.

[Martinned]

Whether the defendant admits guilt or not is completely immaterial to me. The relevant question is whether they are insisting that the prosecution prove its case or not. If it makes you feel better, we can call the options "I plead guilty" and "I want a trial". I don't care, as long as the second option isn't "not guilty". Because there are many reasons why guilty people might nonetheless want a trial, e.g. because they think the government can't prove its case, or can't do so without relying on unlawfully obtained evidence.

And, for the record, describing a "not guilty" plea by a guilty person as perjury is very stupid.

[Dr. Ed 2]

A Nobel Peace Prize for Tucker Carlson?

Putin is not stupid -- and remembers the Soviet experience in Afghanistan. He's got to want a peace deal -- and at this point, all he probably wants is to not lose face.

So invite Tucker over to negotiate it...

[Sarcastr0]

Tan your balls.

[Frank Drackman]

Suck my balls

[David Bremer]

Jesus, man. Touch grass.

Tucker is simply a pawn to make Russia seem sympathetic to a bunch of sheeple in MAGA hats. The obvious hope/goal is that it further erodes support of aid to Ukraine--aid that has thus far kept Russia from successfully taking over Ukraine.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The small portion of the aid which wasn't stolen..

[Sarcastr0]

Russia's military failure thusfar would disagree.

[Moderation4ever]

If denying Donald Trump ballot access is denying voters a choice, is the effort in Florida to keep an abortion access amendment also denying voters a choice? We have seen in Florida that the legislature has tried to circumvent voter initiatives like along off paper felons to vote. If a referendum did pass allowing abortion access to viability would the legislature again step in to stop the will of the people? I don't want an incompetent narcissistic Trump reelected but the ballot is the best way to decide the matter, it provides the clearest decision of the voters. Similarly, the Supreme Court handed abortion back to the states and people of the state should be able to decide.

[Zarniwoop]

If denying Donald Trump ballot access is denying voters a choice, is the effort in Florida to keep an abortion access amendment also denying voters a choice?

As I understand it, the current effort in Florida is to keep the voter initiative off the ballot despite compliance with the FL initiative proces. Are you perhaps missing a few words up above, to wit “If denying Donald Trump ballot access is denying voters a choice, is the effort in Florida to keep an abortion access amendment off the ballot on the ground of alleged ambiguity also denying voters a choice?”

The attempt to keep the voter initiative off the ballot on the basis of alleged ambiguity is so weak that the conservative FL S.Ct. doesn’t seem like they’ll go along with it. Yes, it’s an attempt to do an end-run around the initiative process and deny voters a choice, a choice to which the FL constitution says they’re entitled. The last part is why it’s different than Trump, if Trump is constitutionally ineligible.

You might want to go review Baude and Paulsen’s discussion of your very question here: https://reason.com/volokh/2024/02/03/the-objection-that-enforcing-section-three-is-undemocratic/

The fundamental issue isn’t whether one or both are “denying voters a choice”. Baude and Paulsen are clear that following the constitution may require exactly that. Just like we can’t vote Governator Ahnold for President; the constitution says he’s ineligible, even if it “denies voters their choice”. Just just the same as if Jefferson Davis had been on the ballot in 1868; he would have properly been excluded from the presidency under the constitution even if it “denied voters their choice”.

[apedad]

More info on the Florida case: https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/4449664-florida-supreme-court-to-hear-pivotal-battle-over-abortion/

[Krayt]

Keeping the opposition off the ballot for proposals is a regular game. People overshoot their petition signatures not for a handful of goofs, but because of concerted efforts to poison the signature lists with sufficient bad ones the proposers sumbit, only to find themselves denied for insufficient real signatures.

And court cases abound, driven by both sides.

And barring that, factions fight to be the “no” vote, since a certain fraction of people vote no on initiatives.

In Michigan, Detroit went banktupt. There was a state law giving the state great power to direct bankrupt cities. Some got on the ballot to repeal that law, where power would devolve onto an older, weaker law.

“No!” voted for repeal, which won.

We love democracy. Until we don't.

[Longtobefree]

The effort in Florida is to require an accurate description of the initiative, not keep it off the ballot.

[SRG2]

Alternatively, is claiming an inaccurate description in order to keep the initiative off the ballot.

[Moderation4ever]

The fact is that there is no accurate description that would be accepted by the antichoice crowd.

[Mr. Bumble]

" If a referendum did pass allowing abortion access to viability would the legislature again step in to stop the will of the people?"

Didn't the California SC do something like that with regard to gay marriage?

[Brett Bellmore]

And they've made multiple attempts to undo the voters' rejection of racial discrimination, too.

[Martinned]

Let's please not equate a referendum outcome with The Will Of The People.

[Krayt]

That's how one gauges it, the vote.

In that case, it collided with supermajority Will of the People in the US constitution.

Robert Byrd, D-some southern state, once stood on the floor of the senate during debate over a balanced budget amendment, a tear literally streaming down his face, crying at how awful it was that would thwart The Will of The People.

So supetmajority will is important, until it's not, say the facetious power mongers and corruptionista skimmers.

Whatever works for power and monetary direction and burdening things.

[Martinned]

A referendum seeks the view of *voters* on an artificially narrowed question. That is some way away from the volonté générale of philosophy fame.

[OtisAH]

If getting a war whoop stuck in the throat and looking ridiculous in a tanker helmet are enough to end higher political ambition, it figures that getting beat 2-to-1 by nobody has to have a similar effect, yes? In hindsight, Darling Nikki was better off getting humiliated in the caucus. At least then she could have credibly claimed it was rigged.

[Brett Bellmore]

I hear her new campaign slogan is, "Haley, second to none!"

[Mr. Bumble]

+1

[OtisAH]

Credit where due.

[Bwaaah]

I think she can ride that all the way to I-don’t-know-what. You nailed it.

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : "I hear her new campaign slogan is, “Haley, second to none!”

Please tell me you came up with that on your own!

[Harvey Mosley]

Congratulations sir! You have been awarded one internet!

[ThePublius]

Yes, but now she can honestly claim she was beaten by no one.

[SimonP]

It actually was rigged - the process, not the vote. That's why there was a caucus and a primary. Nevada wanted to move to primaries, but the Nevada GOP felt that caucuses would help Trump, so they decided that the caucuses would determine the delegate count, and anyone who participated in the primary would be barred from participating in the caucus.

So Nikki didn't campaign in Nevada. It was priced in. If she had won the primary, she would have gotten zero delegates. By the same token, Trump's win in the caucus is basically meaningless, apart from being handed the delegates through a rigged process.

Do you people not understand this? The GOP doesn't respect you and isn't interested in giving you a real choice. Why do you think Romney's daughter is out? Trump wants the GOP to declare him the winner of the primaries because he doesn't want to have continued flak from Nikki. Romney's daughter wanted to do that, but apparently isn't moving fast or hard enough for Trump's liking.

[Martinned]

Has there always been so much of a mess created by state authorities trying to tell political parties how/when to run their primaries/caucuses? Because after the Democrats in New Hampshire, this is already the second mess in short succession. I don't remember such things happening in previous elections.

[SimonP]

Every cycle there's a debate on contest order and competition between parties and states, with both parties more or less doing what the presumptive/preferred nominee wants.

Biden wanted to start the primaries off in a state that was more representative of the Democratic electorate. Trump wants to win the nomination with minimal fuss or input from the voters. The rule and calendar changes generally track those preferences.

[David Nieporent]

People may remember in the 2008 Democratic primaries, Florida and Michigan went too early, and so the DNC told Hillary/Obama that they couldn't campaign in these states and that the states would be penalized half of their delegates.

[VinniUSMC]

Haley is not going to overtake Trump, anywhere. Even if Trump dies tomorrow, Haley will not on the Presidential ticket. She's a turd. She'd have a better shot replacing Biden.

[ThePublius]

Mann v. Steyn

The jury has it. Doesn't look good for Mann, who's attorney invoked Trump in closing arguments.

"In the rebuttal part of his closing, Mr. Williams argued for punitive damages, to deter climate deniers, and compared them to Trump election deniers. Weatherford and Steyn were slow to object."

Holy Cow. I agree that Mann's team asked for punitive damages because they couldn't assert that any actual damage had resulted.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/02/the-jury-is-out-2.php

[Mr. Bumble]

Funny that this essentially free speech case has been ignored here at the VC.

[ThePublius]

Yes, I agree.

[Bwaaah]

Though the case is steeped in a matter of partisan contention, is there anything novel about it?

[David Nieporent]

There were important issues relating to the application of DC's anti-SLAPP law, but that was years and years and years and years ago (and they were covered here.)

[ThePublius]

What's partisan about this case? Mann is a bully, which is well known and widely documented and self-evident. Steyn said the hockey stick is fraudulent, which is it, and that is also widel documented, even by Mann's own words.

[Martinned]

That way of describing it is pretty partisan, in the sense that no one to the left of Hitler would think to put it that way.

[VinniUSMC]

Good ol' Martin, always good for ... nothing.

[Martinned]

Case in point, here is how the AP told the same story:

WASHINGTON (AP) — A jury on Thursday awarded $1 million to climate scientist Michael Mann who sued a pair of conservative writers 12 years ago after they compared his depictions of global warming to a convicted child molester.
(...)
In 2012, a libertarian think tank named the Competitive Enterprise Institute published a blog post by Rand Simberg, then a fellow at the organization, that compared investigations into Mann’s work to the case of Jerry Sandusky, a former assistant football coach at Penn State University who was convicted of sexually assaulting multiple children. At the time, Mann also worked at Penn State.

Mann’s research was investigated after his and other scientists’ emails were leaked in 2009 in an incident that brought further scrutiny of the “hockey stick” graph, with skeptics claiming Mann manipulated data. Investigations by Penn State and others found no misuse of data by Mann, but his work continued to draw attacks, particularly from conservatives.

“Mann could be said to be the Jerry Sandusky of climate science, except for instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data,” Simberg wrote. Another writer, Mark Steyn, later referenced Simberg’s article in his own piece in National Review, calling Mann’s research “fraudulent.”

The jury in Superior Court of the District of Columbia found that Simberg and Steyn made false statements, awarding Mann $1 in compensatory damages from each writer. It awarded punitive damages of $1,000 from Simberg and $1 million from Steyn, after finding that the pair made their statements with “maliciousness, spite, ill will, vengeance or deliberate intent to harm.”

https://apnews.com/article/climate-change-defamation-michael-mann-penn-state-61289ee2d8d2143768d28995c83899ef

[Bob from Ohio]

"Doesn’t look good for Mann, who’s attorney invoked Trump"

In DC that will be an advantage.

[Nige]

Doesn’t look good for Mann

Michael Mann, a Leading Climate Scientist, Wins His Defamation Suit

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/08/climate/michael-mann-defation-lawsuit.html

Welp

[Brett Bellmore]

"Third, this desperate tactic is unlikely to succeed. Generally speaking, jurors hate naked appeals to prejudice, like this one. Jurors almost always try to discharge their civic duties conscientiously, and they feel insulted when lawyers appeal to bigotry rather than facts."

He evidently failed to take into account that it was a DC jury.

[Nige]

I guess DC juries know it's defamation to maliciously call someone's work 'fraudulent.'

[Sarcastr0]

Another entry from that twitter thread of academic papers that are so brilliantly and so accessibly written and so universal in scope that they transcend disciplines and stand as timeless testaments to both great thinking and great writing:

Bennett on the thermodynamics of computation: Never have I seen anyone marry two disciplines - three if you count the discussions of molecular biology - so brilliantly and simply. IMHO one of the most important disciplinary confluences of the 21st century https://sites.pitt.edu/~jdnorton/lectures/Rotman_Summer_School_2013/thermo_computing_docs/Bennett_1982.pdf

[1981. 36 pages. A lot more readable than I would have thought. What starts as sort of a 'lets use some out-there physical models to set an open bound' has a great twist on the 8th page. 'To see how a molecular Brownian computer might work, we first consider a simple apparatus: a Brownian tape-copying machine. Such an apparatus already exists in nature, in the form of RNA polymerase..." and thus is smoothly transitions to to the information theory of biological systems, with a concomitant substantially better phenomenological foundation. And then back to creating a complete irreversible logic structure, and a refinement of Maxwell's demon that I think I'd heard before. Finally, a checksum be deriving statistical mechanics truism via the algorithmic thermodynamic paradigm.

This paper goes places!]

[Bwaaah]

That paper isn't yours?

[Sarcastr0]

1981.

[Brett Bellmore]

I’ll have to read that, it sounds good. And I’ve had an interest in the intersection between computation and biology ever since reading Blood Music.

OK, I guess that's not quite true, given that my college majors were computer engineering AND human biology. But I wasn't thinking of computing USING biology.

[Sarcastr0]

Scientific papers don't usually have twists, so this one was unexpectedly fun.

Though now I've spoilered it for you.

[Brett Bellmore]

That's fine, as I've mentioned, I'm 65. 😉

[ThePublius]

Taylor Swift. Toby Keith. Discuss.

[Frank Drackman]

Swift is cuter.

[Bob from Ohio]

I like Toby's whole body of songs.

Taylor's early stuff was much better than most of her latest stuff which is too "camel is a horse designed by committee".

[John F. Carr]

Mojo Nixon died yesterday, decades after he left mainstream culture.

Here is a music video relevant to this site: Destroy All Lawyers.

[Commenter_XY]

VC Conspirators, sometimes we forget the truly important things in life. This Sunday is Super Bowl Sunday! The SFO 49ers are favored at -2.5 over the Kansas City Chiefs. Looks to be a phenomenal game.

Who wins, and what is the final score?
Who makes the game turning play...offense or defense?

Although I may have left my heart in SFO, my gut says KC Chiefs win this game. Why? Experience in the clutch. The game turns entirely on whether Bosa (who is a Beast!) is (in)effective. I think KC will shut him down, ultimately.

31-28, KC with a 4th quarter drive (middle of Q4) to get the winning FG. They'll hold off SFO at the end.

[Mr. Bumble]

Truly important?

[John F. Carr]

No respect for Lunar New Year?

[apedad]

"VC Conspirators, sometimes we forget the truly important things in life. This Sunday is Super Bowl Sunday!"

You got me Comm_XY . . . I thought you were going to veer into Super Bowl recipes.

[Commenter_XY]

LOL...Yes! You have any faves, apedad, for the Big Game?

[Bwaaah]

Watch out...C_XY's wife can't eat anything that's good.

[Davedave]

Ah, the American national passion, kayfabe.

[ReaderY]

The Florida Supreme Court is deciding whether a proposed ballot measure that would amend the Florida constitution to allow abortions up to “viability” is unconstitutionally vague. Opponents argue thst because “viability” is a somewhat inexact boundary, the whole ballot measure is void.

I’ve often noticed that the more strongly people oppose something, the more vagueness problems they see in it. Decades ago, a string of liberal decisions struck down various obscenity and morals laws as unconstitutionally vague, claiming nobody can really tell what is and isn’t obscene. So here we get to look at the same process with the shoe on the other foot.

Nothing in life is completely clear. As Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes noted a century ago, even day and night have no exact boundary, there are only shades of gray.

The fact that a term in use for many decades and with well-established caselaw would suddenly be challenged as vague is an indication of how highly selective vagueness standards can be used by opponents to derail policies they don’t like through nice-sounding but bogus constitutional arguments.

Just as zealots are unable to see reason in their opponents’ views, they are unable to see them clearly either. These have to be understood as properties of zealots’ perception, not of the things they oppose. We should become more conscious when willful blindness to reason and willful fuzziness of vision get used as weapons by partisan judges to invoke Due Process arguments to declare policies they oppose unconstitutional.

[Martinned]

I’ve often noticed that the more strongly people oppose something, the more vagueness problems they see in it.

Well yes, the more people oppose something, the more problems they see with it generally. That's sort of the idea of relying on litigation to get rid of unconstitutional laws.

[SimonP]

I was hoping the open thread might provide some respite from the disqualification noise inundating the VC lately, but alas...

[Commenter_XY]

I'm trying! 🙂

(Super Bowl post above....who will win?)

[SimonP]

Fuck the Super Bowl.

The only thing I know about it is that MAGA is big mad about Taylor Swift and something something Chiefs.

[Mr. Bumble]

...and of course according to the NFL we now have two National Anthems.

[Frank Drackman]

Haven't watched a Superbowl since the Falcons were up 28-3 in LI, anyone remember how that one turned out?

[SimonP]

Bubbles, I don't know what the hell you're talking about, and I'm not going to be arsed to figure it out, but given your posting history I can only surmise that it must be something something "woke" grievance, so you can shove it up your warty ass.

[Ed Grinberg]

What an ass you are.
Here's what Mr. Bumble is talking about:
https://dennisprager.com/column/the-super-bowl-will-again-feature-two-national-anthems

[SimonP]

So I was exactly right, it's just something something "woke" grievance.

Funny how I was able to call it so easily, isn't it?

[Mr. Bumble]

So we do have two National Anthems?

[SimonP]

No, we don't.

What the NFL chooses to do with its dog-and-pony show isn't all that important. Unless you're looking for something to be upset with.

[Ed Grinberg]

Did you bother reading the article I linked? It spells out why this is a problem worth being concerned about.

[SimonP]

Did I bother spending more than 30 seconds skimming a screed by Dennis Prager? No. I skimmed enough to determine that it had the usual anti-"woke" agenda and figured that was good enough. I don't need that kind of trash knocking about in my head. I get more than enough of it from you lot.

[bernard11]

Dennis Prager is a jackass.

If I hadn't known it before reading that column it would have persuaded me.

[grb]

SimonP : "....MAGA is big mad about Taylor Swift"

Funny cartoon : https://digbysblog.net/2024/02/06/operation-microchip-sheeple/

[Bob from Ohio]

"Fuck the Super Bowl."

Only weirdos don't like the Super Bowl.

[SimonP]

From what I can tell, most people who watch the Super Bowl don't seem to be that interested in it, either. It seems to be more about the party and the commercials than anything happening in the game itself.

It seems to me that the people who express interest in the playing of the game focus more on collegiate football.

[Bob from Ohio]

"people who express interest in the playing of the game focus more on collegiate football"

Not what the ratings say. 56.1 million average for the NFL conference games v. 25 million viewers for the college championship

But I admit many people [my daughter for one] just watch the Super Bowl for commercials etc. Its popular, don't be a weirdo.

[SimonP]

Not what the ratings say. 56.1 million average for the NFL conference games v. 25 million viewers for the college championship

Drawing an unmerited inference. I didn't say college football was more popular. I said that the fans' interests seem different, from an external perspective.

There's nothing "weird" in finding the Super Bowl tedious and stupid. By your own numbers it sounds like most of us aren't paying attention.

[Bob from Ohio]

That's the prelims, the Super Bowl will do double.

[SimonP]

56.1 times 2 is...

And the American adult population is...

Trust that I looked up the actual Super Bowl viewership numbers before responding to you more succinctly. More than half the country isn't watching, and a good number of those ratings are coming from people who are only (very) lightly engaged.

[Sarcastr0]

A ton of MAGA hates the kneeler bowl, Bob.

I'm gonna watch it. I wanted Ravens/Lions but so it goes. 49ers, despite a past of being defensively strong, got a bit of a glass cannon high O low D thing going and I'm interested.

[OtisAH]

They’re boycotting — an act they despise, btw — so many different products and companies at this point they cannot possibly keep track of them all. To refresh, MAGA is boycotting the nfl because Colin Kaepernick hates America. And I don’t know if it’s an add-on to that or a separate boycott, but there’s the whole “nfl rigging the Super Bowl for Joe Biden” thing too.

[Bob from Ohio]

"ton of MAGA"

A few oddballs on twitter is not a "ton".

But they are also weirdos.

[Sarcastr0]

Bob going hard with the No True MAGA.

Check out any right-wing echo chamber; they all at least say they don't watch football.

[Bob from Ohio]

Didn't say they weren't "True MAGA" just that they were also weirdos.

I do dispute its widespread.

[grb]

Sarcastr0 : "Check out any right-wing echo chamber; they all at least say they don’t watch football."

Per my observations, the hive mind of Right-Wing-World is still generally acceptive of pro football. This is in contrast to pro basketball, which is somehow seen as more "black". Of course that's considered more "icky" per the hive mind of RWW.

[Sarcastr0]

Eh, you probably frequent a better set of echo chambers than I do.

I'm talking Free Republic and the like.

[grb]

Yikes! How long do you have to shower after each visit?

[Life of Brian]

Apparently we've woken up in a parallel universe: The Biden administration is considering executive action to deter illegal migration at the southern border, and actually, according to the article, has been considering it for months.

The unilateral measures under consideration might upset some progressives in Congress, the officials said, but they noted that Democratic mayors who have asked for more help from the federal government to handle the influx of migrants in their cities would be pleased.

I had been assured by Very Smart People repeatedly over the past couple of weeks (including Biden himself!) that the President simply had no power to do anything to stem the flow without Congress granting him This One Weird New Trick.

I'm curious whether we'll now be treated to another round of jumbo pretzel logic trying to reconcile the two, or whether the apologists have finally realized nobody is buying what they were trying to sell and they actually need to take action to try to get the crisis off the front page before Biden bleeds any further support. The halfhearted "legislation would have been BETTER, yo" in the article seems to point toward the latter.

[SimonP]

Biden: "Legislative reforms that would fund the processing of asylum claims, create new authorities to close the border, raise the bar for grants of asylum, get work permits out faster so that people are less dependent on aid while their claims are processed, and regularize the process for meritorious asylum claims, would have been better, but there are perhaps some tools at executive disposal that can help."

LOB: "I knew that's what you were going to say! Pretzel logic!"

People with memories longer than that of a goldfish may recall that something similar happened during the Obama administration. While the Republicans were busy undermining their own attempts at comprehensive immigration reform, Obama developed a Dreamer EO. Just because Obama could do things by fiat doesn't mean that actual legislative reforms wouldn't have been more effective. So too here.

Biden won't get the resources needed to resolve asylum claims faster. He won't get the authority to just not process them when migration is high. He's stuck trying to do things that may or may not hold up in court, ahead of expected surges in the summer.

The only "pretzel logic" involved here is in Trump brigade. You were on course for a victory on immigration, until Trump decided that he wanted to run on chaos at the border. Now what? Are we to take your complaints seriously, when border communities continue to be overrun? You don't give a shit about immigration, and you never did. You're just here to try to help Trump get himself elected, because you're all these spineless simps.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Just because Obama could do things by fiat doesn’t mean that actual legislative reforms wouldn’t have been more effective."

More like, just because Obama admitted that he couldn't do things by fiat didn't mean that he wouldn't turn around and do them by fiat anyway.

[SimonP]

It's an open question whether the Dreamer EO would withstand a direct challenge. Trump lost on his attempt to rescind it outright, but the logic that kept it in place for that challenge makes it vulnerable to another one from the other direction.

HR 2 is a whole grabbag of new authorities and directives. Republicans clearly believe that the president needs new authorities and constraints to manage the immigration crisis. This whole spin to avoid taking the blame for their inability to just take the win - again, in service of one piece of shit - is ridiculous no its face.

[Life of Brian]

Republicans clearly believe that the president needs new authorities and constraints to manage the immigration crisis.

If that's a circuitous way of saying the bill seeks to remove a lot of the opportunities for discretion that the administration has been hiding behind, I agree that does appear to be the case -- but that doesn't seem inconsistent with the administration being able to tighten up its discretion right now. If more, maybe you can point out the "new authorities" you're referring to since that doesn't jump off the page from a quick skim (no, I haven't exhaustively read the whole thing and don't intend to).

[SimonP]

What "discretion" do you think Biden has, that he's not using, that would put a real curb on migrant inflows?

There are thousands of people coming into the country and claiming asylum. You can't discretionarily throw them back into Mexico and expect them to stay there, absent Mexican cooperation. You can't discretionarily throw them into prisons without having the facilities and resources to do so, as well as a system to process their claims expediently so they're not in jail for years waiting for a hearing. You can't discretionarily act to authorize them to work and support themselves without going through the process the law currently requires.

The people claiming that Biden isn't using whatever "discretion" he has to solve the problem are just playing games. You don't have a concrete action plan in mind. You're just looking for excuses so that you don't have to be angry at your own politicians. You want to see razor wire and snipers on the border, migrants in jails, and camps in Mexico. You don't care whether any of that is properly authorized or legal. You just assume that the president can do whatever he wants, because that's what Trump did.

[Brett Bellmore]

"What “discretion” do you think Biden has, that he’s not using, that would put a real curb on migrant inflows?"

Wouldn't simply refraining from contesting state efforts to secure the border clearly be within his discretion?

And what about his terminating of Remain in Mexico? Not discretionary?

Flying illegal aliens into the interior of the country? Not discretionary? Why not fly them South, instead?

[SimonP]

Wouldn’t simply refraining from contesting state efforts to secure the border clearly be within his discretion?

Texas and Florida are creating chaos and trying to block effective enforcement of the border by federal agents, in favor of their more performative and violent efforts. The CBP doesn't want into Eagle Pass just so they can wave migrants over the border. They want in so they can apprehend them themselves.

Flying illegal aliens into the interior of the country? Not discretionary? Why not fly them South, instead?

In MAGA, the only country with true sovereignty is the US.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Texas and Florida are creating chaos and trying to block effective enforcement of the border by federal agents,"

Wow, that's multiply distilled stupidity. Texas is trying to block effective enforcement of the border by lining it with razor wire?

[SimonP]

By trying to block federal agents from the portion of the border they're trying to control, they are. Like I said, CBP isn't trying to access Eagle Pass to let migrants in.

[Mr. Bumble]

When it comes to being a dumbfuck you are giving Nige and SarcastrO a run for the money.

[Brett Bellmore]

Where "control" means, "escort illegal aliens into the country"?

[Sarcastr0]

Brett thinks that taking illegals into custody means escorting them into the country, because he's got a fucked up Camp of Saints worldview.

[SimonP]

Where “control” means, “escort illegal aliens into the country”?

What do you think Texas officials are doing, when they encounter immigrants crossing the border?

[Brett Bellmore]

I think that because that IS the next step after taking them into custody. Letting them go, if not flying them further into the country.

That's why it's called "catch and release". Because the second step is "release", not "deport".

[SimonP]

I think that because that IS the next step after taking them into custody. Letting them go, if not flying them further into the country.

Aren't Abbott and DeSantis spending their taxpayers' money to do precisely this?

[Brett Bellmore]

With the difference that Biden is dropping them off in 'red' states to bolster their illegal alien populations, while Abbot and DeSantis are dropping them off in 'sanctuary cities' to rub their noses in what they're demanding.

I'm sure Abbot would rather drop them off in Mexico, but that's probably a bit too much to expect the courts to permit.

[SimonP]

With the difference that Biden is dropping them off in ‘red’ states to bolster their illegal alien populations, while Abbot and DeSantis are dropping them off in ‘sanctuary cities’ to rub their noses in what they’re demanding.

Is it "catch and release," or isn't it, Brett?

I’m sure Abbot would rather drop them off in Mexico, but that’s probably a bit too much to expect the courts to permit.

Funny way to put, "illegal."

[Davedave]

Simon, you've misunderstood. The objection to Biden isn't the actions or policies, it's that he won't say racist things in public. What they want is for him to use racist slurs.

[VinniUSMC]

Awww, Dumbdumb is back.

[Life of Brian]

Biden: “Legislative reforms that would fund the processing of asylum claims, create new authorities to close the border, raise the bar for grants of asylum, get work permits out faster so that people are less dependent on aid while their claims are processed, and regularize the process for meritorious asylum claims, would have been better, but there are perhaps some tools at executive disposal that can help.”

Compare that to Biden barely a week ago, in response to a direct question about executive action:

Q Mr. President, on the border. Have you done everything you can do with executive authority? Or is there more you could do absent (inaudible)?

THE PRESIDENT: I’ve done all I can do. Just give me the power. I’ve asked from the very day I got into office. Give me the Border Patrol. Give me the people — give me the people, the judges. Give me the people who can stop this and make it work right.

That's the basic circle you just can't square here, regardless how delicately you try to tapdance or loudly you try to ridicule.

[SimonP]

This isn't biblical exegesis, LOB. I don't need to "square" anything other than pointing out he's speaking off the cuff, on the White House lawn, responding to reporters who are shouting questions at him, emphasizing the key points of the deal he thought he had in the Senate. It wasn't a comprehensive response to a nuanced question.

And yet it was still more coherent and on-message than what Trump would garble out.

[Life of Brian]

Nor is it fetch me a rock. That was one of the most recent examples of the party line, oft repeated around here as well, that this new whizbang legislation was needed to be able to do anything at all to cut back on the last few years of unprecedented flow rates.

If you're really denying that, I'll give you a few points for the stones it takes to try to rewrite such recent history to that degree, but that's about it.

[SimonP]

That was one of the most recent examples of the party line, oft repeated around here as well, that this new whizbang legislation was needed to be able to do anything at all to cut back on the last few years of unprecedented flow rates.

I'm not defending a strawman.

Suffice it to say that Biden still doesn't have the authority to "close the border." He doesn't have the judges to evaluate claims or officer for patrols. Republicans have endangered Ukraine's war effort as a bargaining chip for immigration reform, have voted against a package they should have liked because Trump told them to keep the issue live for the next several months, and are now trying to pass blame to Biden by pretending none of that prior exercise was ever necessary. That much, at least, is true.

[Brett Bellmore]

He has everything he needs to 80% close it from where it is now, because he's got everything Trump had.

Every dollar he spends on cutting razor wire could be spent placing it, instead.

[Life of Brian]

Suffice it to say that Biden still doesn’t have the authority to “close the border.”

Nor does the legislation he was whining for grant him authority to "close the border." That's just marketing language.

[Nige]

Well, exactly. Nobody wants to 'close the border' except deranged cranks, who also happen to be the people Republicans are trying to appease, and since those people are stupid and want stupid things, they can never be appeased.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's very convenient to define half the population as "deranged cranks", isn't it? You can run an authoritarian state, spit on democracy and the rule of law, and it's all OK because everybody who opposes you is a "crank".

[OtisAH]

No it isn’t “convenient.” Or “half the country.” You’re 35-40% of the country. That’s you. 35-40%. And it’s very inconvenient having to live alongside such decrepit immoral people.

[Nige]

'It’s very convenient'

It's actually pretty disheartening, but, as has already pointed out, there's no way in hell you're 'half the country.'

'You can run an authoritarian state, spit on democracy and the rule of law,'

You're voting for Trump, whose most notable acheivement was an effort to remain in power after losing an election. You don't know what any of those words mean. OVER half the country voted for Biden, and you and Trump are telling them to go fuck themselves.

[Brett Bellmore]

Look, if you said that a tenth of a percent of the population were deranged cranks, people might dispute that, but it would be arguable.

If you said that 1 percent of the population were deranged cranks, you're pretty casual about labeling people deranged.

If you said that 10% of the population were deranged cranks, you're probably a crank.

When you're at the point of saying 40% of the population are deranged cranks, you've failed to notice you're looking at a mirror.

[Nige]

No, YOU'RE claiming some number of other deluded cranks agree with your deluded crankery; having some arbitrary percentage of the population agree with your deluded crankery doesn't magically stop it from being deluded crankery.

[Sarcastr0]

This establishes that the right doesn't actually care about the border.

Either they think any progress will help Trump, and that comes before what their rhetoric calls an 'invasion', or

they are so brain-poisoned by partisanship they can't do any kind of consensus-based activity, and collectively don't deserve to be legislators.

If anyone wants to say that the border is a Democratically-caused problem, they have zero legs to stand on now.

[Brett Bellmore]

ONCE MORE, illegal immigration went up by a factor of FIVE within a couple months of Biden taking office. With the exception of February '21, when Biden was still winding down Trump policies, EVERY month of Biden's term has had more illegal immigration than the very worst month of Trump's term.

When you claim this wasn't a result of policy changes, you look like an idiot.

[SimonP]

And ONCE MORE, Trump's unilateral actions were not a long-term solution, with Title 42 time-limited by its terms, RIM legally dubious, and his various EOs vulnerable to challenge. There is probably some truth in saying that people felt safer coming to the US because they weren't worried about their children being disappeared into an unmonitored foster system or summarily handed over to coyotes on the Mexican side of the border. But that does not mean that Trump was doing a job that Biden has refused to do. It just means that Trump was more draconian about it.

Never mind that current migration patterns are being juiced by the end of COVID and geopolitics in a way that Trump benefited from not having, during his last months in office.

[Brett Bellmore]

You can literally look at illegal immigration statistics, and see that they didn't have much influence on illegal immigration. When Covid started in March of 2020 it barely caused a blip in illegal immigration rates, they were already so low.

Covid did not end on January 20th, 2021! But that's when illegal immigration shot up.

So, yeah, you've decided to look like an idiot, after all.

[SimonP]

I'm the idiot? Look, dude, you basically whizzed right past my concession that numbers after Biden entered office probably reflected what migrants expected Biden not to do with them.

And, like I said - COVID didn't end in January 2021, but as economies opened up and restrictions eased, migrant flows have increased. Current numbers are a function of current circumstances.

[Nige]

When you claim it was a deliberate policy decision you sound like a Nazi.

[Davedave]

Not just then. So, the question is, of course: why are you two at odds? Is it just that you think the _idiot_ Nazis are giving the game away by not using the codewords you 'intelligent' Nazis adopted when you realised that cosplaying as 1930s/1940s Germans didn't get you anywhere?

[Nige]

No it's because you're honestly in a world of your own.

[Davedave]

Ah, there we go with the conspiracy theories again. You are at odds with some other Nazis because of stuff I do. Right. That makes sense. It's those mean European liberals driving splits into your movement.

Do you have any idea how batshit insane you are?

[Nige]

You also don't know what a conspiracy theory is.

[Sarcastr0]

Not only are you assuming correlation is causation, you assume a level of causal speed that is absolutely impossible.

You have a technical background and should know better. But we all know your outcomes come first, with the science, law, or evidence applying only as they align with what you want.

[Brett Bellmore]

As XKCD notes, correlation isn't causation, "but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'." Sometimes the correlation is so strong it just skips all that and shouts.

Illegal immigration could shoot up almost instantly because illegal immigrants knew who had won the election and was taking over on January 20th, and started moving towards the border in anticipation of that.

If Biden hadn't lived down to their expectations, it would have dropped again. But it didn't, because he was just as determined to enable illegal immigration as they thought.

Look, I'm going to say this one more time: If you genuinely think that a massive step change in outcomes when a new administration comes over and changes policy isn't a result of the policy changes, you're an idiot.

You're not an idiot, though. You just can't bring yourself to admit it was deliberate.

[Sarcastr0]

No, appealing to 'you're an idiot or in denial' and an XKCD joke is not science. It is abuse of science.

Look at how many times in this comment you appealed to incredulity. Including shitting on my skepticism?! Any trained scientist should see a TON of red flags.

[Absaroka]

"an XKCD joke is not science"

Well, sometimes it sure is (you get the punchline by hovering over the comic).

Right up front, I'm not saying anything about immigration, I'm just commenting on what correlation can imply about causation. And that XKCD comic is very apt, and actually pretty deep.

Correlations can certainly be spurious, but they can also build a strong case for causation. If I'm outside on a buggy night swatting mosquitoes, and I notice that a good swat seems highly correlated with the sudden demise of the mosquito, it's pretty silly to say 'you can't say swatting mosquitoes kills them, correlation doesn't imply causation'.

When you have a strong correlation ('every skeeter I swat dies') *and* a plausible causal mechanism ('because their little bodies are smushed flat'), correlation can be pretty suggestive. In this discussion, feel free to question Brett's causal mechanism (or perhaps his correlation, I haven't looked at the data). But just saying 'correlation isn't causation' like a mantra isn't good statistics or science.

Signed,
XKCD fan

[Sarcastr0]

Correlation ALONE is not enough to say there is causation.

One great way is to have a theory of causation and then *establish it phenomenologically* Brett doesn't have that.

Another way is to look at the 3 causal factors - A follows B, A and B are covariant, there is no confounding variable. This is done statistically. But Brett only has one data point.

Which is why he basically can't prove his case in any kind of firm way. So he appeals to incredulity a lot. Because if you can't prove, just get angry about it.

In fact, of course, the timeline is way to fast for a legit theory of causation. You would need a hive mind or something for a 4-month rampup like we saw.

Or a conspiracy.

[Life of Brian]

phenomenologically . . . covariant . . . no confounding variable. . .

* SWAT *

[Brett Bellmore]

To use the mosquito analogy, this is correlation on the order of, "The hand grenade went off, and the person standing next to it died".

Five fold increase in two months, one of which Biden wasn't fully in control for. Demonstrated actions to that end, such as ending Remain in Mexico, cutting razor wire...

I'm not quite sure why you're so absolutely determined to insist that Biden isn't responsible for what his own policies were designed to accomplish, but, again, it really makes you look stupid at this point.

I suppose we'll have to run an experiment: Put Trump back in the White house, and see if illegal immigration goes back down again.

Oh, but that would just be another coincidence...

[Michael P]

"The Big Lebowski" made S_0’s argument much more effectively: “That’s just, like, your opinion, man.”

Trying to apply experimental scientific methods for determining causation to one-off government policy changes is a category error. To the extent that policy changes like Biden’s have been tried before, we know they tend to increase illegal immigration.

[Sarcastr0]

Brett you are still appealing to incredulity. And what the fuck is ‘number is big that makes causation strong’

Just awful science and you should know that.

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, not only is your narrative sketchy, but insisting the best policy is deliberate, performative, cruelty?

That's not you wanting to solve the problem; that's you being an awful human.

Maybe I'm an optimist, but I think there are solutions that don't involve being soulless monsters.

[Brett Bellmore]

You see, this is why it's actually impossible at this point to come to a compromise on the border; One side or the other must prevail.

On one side, the only acceptable level of illegal immigration is zero, and since nobody has any right to illegally immigrate, any consequences that occur to them if they do are on them. If they don't want those consequences, they can simply not illegally cross the border.

On the other side, enforcing the border is deliberate, performative cruelty, illegal aliens utterly lack agency, so you can never blame the consequences of their actions on THEM.

One more issue to add to a growing list of issues where the two parties preferences are utterly disjoint.

[Nige]

'On one side, the only acceptable level of illegal immigration is zero'

Which is so ridiculously fucking stupid. 'Getting illegal immigration to zero' is a waste of time, completely impossible without creating a stifling dystopia, and a distraction from about a million more important problems.

'so you can never blame the consequences of their actions on THEM.'

And this is just even stupider. The one group of people unquestionably and undeniaby experiencing the consequences of illegally immigrating at every stage are illegal immigrants.

[Brett Bellmore]

"The one group of people unquestionably and undeniaby experiencing the consequences of illegally immigrating at every stage are illegal immigrants."

And the only reason they experience them is that they illegally immigrated, which they obviously, except for trafficking victims, had the choice to not do.

So the only people to blame are them.

[Sarcastr0]

'Never legislate with the other side' says Brett.

You're the problem, Brett. Nothing will ever get solved, not because of your speculative future Democratic bad faith, but because of people like you, right now, insisting on disfunction.

Because you're too partisan and steeped in your own speculative universe to care about actual substance, whether immigration or Israel or Ukraine.

You would rather support secession, political violence, Texas legalizing shooting illegals. That is being the baddies. But luckily the liberals in your head are ever worse than any depths you fall to.

[Nige]

As a Christian, or as any sort of moral person, do you think this attitude absolves you or anyone else from needlessly inhumane treatment of other human beings?

The answer is 'no,' by the way.

[OtisAH]

Normal people understand that reducing immigration to zero and deporting the immigrants already here will devastate the US and world economy. People like Brett understand nothing.

[Davedave]

Talk about a parallel universe. A nation built by immigrants, which had absolutely zero immigration restrictions (except of course on nasty little yellow people) until 1924, and which started to decline at almost precisely that time, now spends a significant fraction of its wealth excluding new people who want to immigrate and continue the process that made it great.

And the people at the forefront of the clamour to do so pretend they want to 'make America great again' while opposing the thing that actually made it great, thereby showing they're just plain old racist.

It's like the way the US spends more money not granting universal healthcare than universal healthcare would cost, because fucking the poor is worth whatever it costs. It would cost an order of magnitude less to pay whatever the costs of building for unrestricted migration might be - and let's ignore the economic benefits, of course - than is spent on attempting to prevent anyone following the current inhabitants up the ladder their g'grandparents climbed.

[Life of Brian]

Wow it's a veritable squirrel convention!

So I guess under your logic, Biden is suddenly turning just plain old racist. That's an interesting take.

[Davedave]

It isn't exactly contentious to point out that US politics is so right wing that even the Democrats in the US take positions that would be regarded as the furthest of the far right anywhere else.

[David Nieporent]

It isn't exactly intelligent, either.

[Davedave]

No, of course not. It's sufficiently blindingly obvious that even those of lesser intellect than the typical Trump fanatic can see it.

As you admit both that it's uncontentious and doesn't require intelligence to see it's true, I'm not sure quite what your point is - except, obviously, 'hurr-durr foreigners bad'.

[Brett Bellmore]

Of course it's blindingly obvious that US politics are, for some definitions of "right", so far to the 'right' that even our left-wingers would be considered right-wingers in most other Western countries. So much the worse for those other countries. You can look at per capita GDP and incomes and see how it's hurting them.

But, you know, that's comparing us to European countries, and we're not a European country. Why not compare us to countries on THIS side of the globe, instead? In the Americas we're not an outlier except for being unusually wealthy. In the Americas it's Canada that's the outlier.

[Davedave]

You really ought to see a doctor about your hallucinations, Brett. As you said yourself, you're getting to an age where dementia should be a real worry.

[Davedave]

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/joe-biden-racial-jungle/

Just to point out, there's no 'suddenly turning' here.

[Mr. Bumble]

"...and which started to decline at almost precisely that time, "
Yes it declined so much that a mere 20 years later it had fought a two front war and supplied its allies with the food and weaponry necessary for them to defeat Germany and Japan. Then after the war led the way in rebuilding the shattered economies.
Some decline.

[Davedave]

You do understand the concept of a process beginning at a certain point not meaning it has completed at that same point, right? Well, evidently not.

[Longtobefree]

You might want to look at all the executive actions he has taken to date to determine what he thinks "Deter illegal migration" means.

[IAdmitIAmCrazy]

Apart from the usual suspects moaning about the “liberal” DC Appellate Court, there seems to be considerable agreement across the political spectrum that the Appellate Court’s decision about the former president’s absolute immunity claim is pretty water-tight. Far more brilliant minds than this judicial layman’s capacities agree, among them Jack Goldsmith. Goldsmith, however, argues that SCOTUS should grant certiorari nevertheless (https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/why-the-supreme-court-should-grant-certiorari-in-united-states-v.-trump). While he agrees that Trump’s cause is basically lost, he thinks that the decision needs some corrections because “[t]he court’s conclusion that Marbury does not preclude federal courts from entertaining a criminal prosecution of a former president may be right, but this reasoning is undisciplined and sweeps broadly.“ He maybe right, he may be wrong, but I agree that SCOTUS should have a say in this. Rule 10 of the Supreme Court holds that “A petition for a writ of certiorari will be granted only for compelling reasons. The following, although neither controlling nor fully measuring the Court’s discretion, indicate the character of the reasons the Court considers: …. (c) a state court or a United States court of appeals has decided an important question of federal law that has not been, but should be, settled by this Court, or has decided an important federal question in a way that conflicts with relevant decisions of this Court.” However, an unwanted results of such a certiorari would be that it helps in The Very Special Genius’ attempt to simply run out the clock on this particular trial. I wonder, if the compromise suggested by Ruth Marcus in WaPo might mitigate the effect. Grant certiorari but deny the stay Trump is seeking (https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/02/07/trump-immunity-supremecourt-jacksmith/). I wonder how explicitly SCOTUS could justify such a split, indicating that Citizen Trump might forget his absolute immunity claim while the Justices are considering the broader implications shown by Goldsmith.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

THE VOLOKH CONSPIRACY

This white, male, right-wing blog
with an increasingly scant academic
veneer has operated for no more than

ZERO

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

SIX (6)

occasion (so far) during 2024
(that’s at least six discussions
that have included a racial slur,
not just six racial slurs; many
Volokh Conspiracy discussions
feature multiple racial slurs,)

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

FORTY-FOUR (44)

different discussions.

These numbers probably miss
some of the racial slurs
this blog regularly publishes;
it would be unreasonable to
expect 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 right-wing fringe
of modern legal academia
by members of the
Federalist Society for Law
and Public Policy Studies.

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

This is a good one, too, also suitable for Super Bowl weekend. (One of the deftly dancing customers wrote one of Southside Johnny's signature songs, and it probably wasn't a coincidence she was in that particular soul food cafe.)

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Today's Rolling Stones pointers (by request):

First, the Stones headline another show in Detroit (where I have seen some fine Stones performances, usually with a Motown twist).

Next, the Stones demonstrate they can draw a crowd -- of two million! (It's long; perhaps it could provide background beauty for those scrolling through the Blackman-Tillman output.)

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Also by request:

Perhaps the best pick from Santana's Shango album, followed by another perspective.

[Commenter_XY]

Arthur, thank you. ????

What did you think of Shango?

(you picked a good one, btw)

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I listened to it while working, for the first time in many years. It was OK. No Samba Pa Tis or Europas, nor an Evil Ways (a great song on which to learn bass guitar) or Black Magic Woman. But it was acceptable background music. I remembered Hold On.

[wolfefan]

Just read this exchange in the SCOTUS case. Somewhere Josh is considering whether he still thinks Mitchell is a genius, and whether he (Josh) is still an originalist.

Gorsuch: Is there anything in the original history, drafting, that would show why that distinction (between office and officer) should have such profound weight?

Mitchell: "Not really"

[LawTalkingGuy]

Justice Jackson might buy the officer argument according to some of the questions/commentators live commenting? Which while bad for a number if reasons...would be an amazing troll of Josh if she puts out the lone concurrence endorsing his theory.

[Brett Bellmore]

Things are really not sounding good for Colorado. Hasen's live blog on the oral arguments says it's sounding like it might be 9-0 in favor of Trump, and Hasen would crawl a mile across broken glass to keep Trump out of office.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Did any justice mention how avoidably and intensely sad it is that the low character and wrongful conduct of some un-American, disaffected right-wing misfits precipitated this legal problem?

[zbidim]

Jared Polis is a liberal Jewish fag.

[ReaderY]

One of the Rguments raised in the Trump v. Anderson oral argument was an expansive reading of Calebrezze, under which the First Amendment prohibits states from taking actions that affect the decisions of others in other state.

My question is, how can party primaries survive Calebrezze under this reading? Primaries do exactly what the argument claims is forbidden, weeding out candidates as disapproved. Surely this has the same effect on other states as disqualifying the candidate administratively or judicially. Exactly as complained about, a negative primary outcome in one state tends to discourage people in other states from supporting the candidate. Staggered primaries compound this effect, giving early primary states a disproportionate effect on states with later primaries.

How is this not unconstitutional under the expansive interpretation of Calebrezze? How is it not a violation of candidates’ First Amendment rights? How is this not an utter violation of the supposed national election system we have?

It doesn’t seem to me that the reason a candidate is disqualified has any relevance to the outcome. Disqualification for any reason has the same negative effect on a candidate’s chances elsewhere, and hence shoild trigger the same First Amendment analysis. And requiring candidates to win a primary to advance strikes me as being a completely extra-constitutional state-law requirement. Nothing in the constitution says anything about it.

[Harvey Mosley]

States don't disqualify candidates in primaries. Most candidates simply decide to quit at some point due to their poor showing in various primaries. Until there is an actual winner candidates can still campaign and receive votes.

[Krayt]

I thought parties arose naturally from a free people being free.

Oh, right. I can see how that's a thorn in the side of those in power.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Ha ha yeah. The Democratic Party and the Republican Party aren't defenders of "those in power."

[David Nieporent]

I thought parties arose naturally from a free people being free.

You've got to fight for your right to party.

[Mr. Bumble]

Neosporin tries to make a funny.

[JasonT20]

What, you expected him to just leave that there?

[JasonT20]

I thought parties arose naturally from a free people being free.

No, parties arose naturally from human psychology and the nature of politics in a democracy. If you need a majority to pass legislation, then trying to organize into political parties that could achieve a majority in legislative chambers greatly helps that happen. Then, a legislator can count on fellow party members to help pass something they want due to being in the same party rather than having to persuade a majority of the individual legislators.

Freedom had little to do with it.

[JasonT20]

How is this not unconstitutional under the expansive interpretation of Calebrezze? How is it not a violation of candidates’ First Amendment rights? How is this not an utter violation of the supposed national election system we have?

I don't know about the constitutionality of our primary system, but it sure is stupid for the reasons you discussed, as well as other reasons. 1) It just takes too fucking long. 2) Not only do early states get outsized influence, the early states are early due to history, not for any predictive power in choosing the eventual nominee or for being representative of the overall electorate.

At this point, I really wonder if it wouldn't be better to go back to how nominees were chosen prior to 1972, where the national conventions were more important. The 1968 Democratic Party convention was seen as highly chaotic, and that led to current system of (mostly) binding primaries. The argument against giving party leaders so much say in the nominee is to make it more 'democratic' and less about the goals and desires of party 'elites'. But that misses the point of having a political party in the first place.

If a voter supports a party, then they support the goals and desires that the party represents. The success or failure of the party in general elections is the most important measure of whether the party is representing the people well. Because primary elections have no direct impact on policies voters actually care about, turnout is very low other than the parties' most committed voters or those with a high preference for a particular personality running for a nomination. That makes primaries a poor representation of how well the party can do in a general election.

I could give out my ideas of how we should do primaries instead, but that would just be talking to the clouds, so I won't bother unless someone really wants to know.

[Jerry B.]

“Treason is ne’er successful. What’s the reason? When it succeeds, it is no longer treason.”

Second Assistant Secretary of State Alvey A Adley.

[Brett Bellmore]

I think it can be safely said at this point that Trump is winning this case. The only remaining questions being on what basis, (Concurrences all around, probably.) and whether it will be 9-0 or 8-1.

It will be interesting to see what Baude has to say next. He's not going to be a happy camper. Well, he'll have company in that.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Reading the tea leaves of oral argument can be misleading. And the grounds they choose to take for their decision may be more important than the decision itself.

One interesting point brought up by Prof. Lederman is mootness. Because of circumstances, Trump's name will appear on the primary ballot in Colorado at this point, regardless of what SCOTUS decides and when the decision comes out. Colorado has already mailed out absentee ballots with Trump's name on it, and presumably printed all the Republican ballots for the primary, since it occurs on March 5.

[Life of Brian]

It's hard for me to fathom that SCOTUS would punt on the merits (via mootness or similar shortcuts) knowing full well the same issue would be back before them soon enough -- whether for Trump or others deemed to lose the J6 Kevin Bacon game.

[Brett Bellmore]

Not JUST J6; The Texas AG has threatened to take Biden off the ballot over his handling of illegal immigration.

I'd been pointing out all along that, despite the desperate efforts to define "insurrection" as exactly what they accuse Trump of, and nothing else, if you lower the bar for insurrection low enough to capture Trump, you lower it enough to capture a lot of things Democrats have done in the last 7 years.

[Davedave]

Ah, Brett. Have you spoken to your doctor about your declining faculties and hallucinations?

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Ken Paxton would be a better and smarter person if he shot himself in the fucking head.

[grb]

Ken Paxton : Corrupt, but able to escape impeachment and prison by a continual frenzied & frantic clown dance….

In short, the ideal Bellmore hero. A worthless piece of shit as a human being; never producing anything of significance or substance; but entertaining. You see, thats what Brett wants : Entertainment….

[Frank Drackman]

be careful what you wish for, as he's obviously in your head, so if he shot himself in the head, he'd shoot you in the head, sort of like that scene in 'Fight Club'

[tylertusta]

I think mootness is easy to address. This one falls under being "capable of repetition while evading review."

Yes, Trump will be on the primary ballots. However, the issue is going to come up for the general election ballot.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Yes, Prof. Lederman gave this a very thorough airing over at Balkinization, if you haven't read it yet. He basically agrees with you, although it's complicated.

[dwb68]

Its 8-1. The dissent will completely misread the 14th amendment to allow states to do anything they want as long as she agrees with it.

Her real mistake will be not retiring this year.

[Moderation4ever]

I think the Court and especially Chief Justice Roberts will want a strong opinion here and the neither the Country nor the court will benefit from a 5-4 or 6-3 decision. The question comes what will Roberts do to get that strong vote. We could see a decision that throws some strong shade on Trump, but lets him remain on the ballot. Will that phase Trump no, but it could add to his erratic behavior and have him lash out at the Court that just helped him.

[Imreasonable]

Ok, unsuscribing. Bull, always independent. The gymnastics to support Trump and obnoxius conservative positions is more than I can bear. Originalists when you want to be, not when it conflicts with your crusade. And, some members try to argue being in the Federalist Society is not activism. The Federalist Society has pretty much destroyed our country. Pollution and corporate greed have won.

[Life of Brian]

Hmm.... perhaps you should have changed your moniker before posting?

[Ed Grinberg]

"The Federalist Society has pretty much destroyed our country."
I certainly agree that our country has been (largely) destroyed. Pinning that on the Federalist Society is ... odd. I'd say that, if anything, the Federalist Society has somewhat retarded the destruction.

[tylertusta]

Both the Justices and the petitioners made a lot of the same arguments against Colorado that I made here in the VC comments.

I eagerly await to hear the Court’s opinion.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

You should read Marty Lederman's careful explanation that in fact Colorado is NOT enforcing section 3. At Balkinization. Nothing in the Colorado Supreme Court decision claims that they are.

[tylertusta]

Thanks for the tip. I'll give it a read.

I'm skeptical of the claim that Colorado isn't enforcing section 3, especially since Colorado essentially conceded that point during oral arguments.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

My understanding is that it requires drawing some pretty fine distinctions, ones that constitutional scholars seem to enjoy, but that often defy common sense. A bit like Prof. Tillman's "Officer under the United States" stuff.

[Michael P]

It's only a careful explanation in that it dances around the point. It assumes states have the authority to insert arbitrary qualifications on candidates, regardless of what the federal constitution says. It pretends that a state can "assess" what the Fourteenth Amendment means without applying or enforcing it. The best way for Colorado to enforce the "purity" of its "political process" is to take such a dishonest argument out back and shoot it.

[Martinned]

It assumes states have the authority to insert arbitrary qualifications on candidates

No it doesn't. Apart from the obvious - there's nothing arbitrary about following the letter of the constitution - the point is that states have power over ballot papers, not about who may or may not take or hold federal office.

[Mr. Bumble]

...and in other news:
Marilyn Mosby found guilty.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13061437/marilyn-mosby-verdict-fraud-baltimore-cops-state-attorney.html
Maybe there is still some justice in this world.

[Ed Grinberg]

But, if she's locked up, who'll carry on the struggle for Social Justice?!
(insert Fearful Face Emoji)

[Dr. Ed 2]

Possibly of interest.
https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2024/02/08/five-new-england-ski-resort-employees-fired-after-giving-nazi-salutes/?p1=hp_featurestack

Interesting thing is that they were here on J-1 visas from Peru.
I wonder what really happened...

[Dr. Ed 2]

Welcome to modern education...
https://www.boston.com/news/local-news/2024/02/07/up-to-100-middle-schoolers-running-amok-medway-shaws-supermarket/?p1=recirc_mostpopular

What ever happened to Reform School?

[JasonT20]

Alternative schools do still exist. Students do still get expelled from regular public schools. It is just a lot harder to do that than it once was. Decades of lawsuits, laws, and civil rights legislation have made it that way and both the federal and state level. As far as I know, the vast majority of states, if not all of them, declare in their constitutions that a free, public education is a right of every child in the state. Couple that with the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment and federal civil rights laws, and each child is entitled to due process before being expelled from their regular school and placed in an alternative school.

This is all both good and bad for education as a whole. On the one hand, children can be protected from arbitrary decisions by school administrators, as the school will need to carefully document how they have tried to intervene to manage a child's behavior. This can be especially important in an era where public schools have the data from their students test results made public, and they can be taken over by state officials if the test results are persistently very low. Making it easy to get rid of students with learning disabilities as well as any student with low test scores is a really bad idea in high stakes test regimes.

But that also makes it hard to expel students that should be expelled. Or even to discipline them short of expulsion, as school systems can get charged with racism if students of one racial or ethnic group are getting more discipline referrals total and more suspensions for the same offenses than other groups.

Of course, it would be really, really helpful if the vast majority of parents would have high expectations for their children's behavior and back up the teachers and schools when their child misbehaves. But hey, you can't have everything.

[TTC]

Has anyone found any good online blogging or commentary about the Crumbley case - the mother found guilty of negligent homicide after her son killed four students in school?

Everything I have found is written for the popular media and is usually an advocacy piece. I am looking for something with more nuance and more even-handed.

[Mr. Bumble]

Attention. VC issues Silver Alert for commenter not guilty who seems to have lost his way in reaction to today's oral arguments at the SC.

[Bob from Ohio]

In other news the DOJ special counsel found that Biden is too senile to prosecute over classified documents.

[Commenter_XY]

Was I not clear enough this morning, Bob from Ohio?

It is (D)ifferent! 🙂

[Moderation4ever]

In other news, the DOJ has decided that a person who address the issue of mishandled documents promptly and openly does not have to be prosecuted. Pretty straight forward.

[Bob from Ohio]

"person who address the issue of murder promptly and openly does not have to be prosecuted"

No one "has" to be prosecuted. He decided he couldn't get a conviction because Biden is a "sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory".

Biden told classified info to his ghostwriter. I recall the angst over the reports that Trump mentioned something about subs to a club guest.

[Moderation4ever]

Do you find it interesting that Biden would be seen sympathetically while Trump at the same age and having visible mental deterioration is not viewed sympathetically. Any thoughts on why?

[Brett Bellmore]

Had serious flash backs to Comey announcing Hillary wouldn't be prosecuted.

This whole "Announce all the reasons the target is guilty as hell before explaining that they won't be prosecuted for reasons." genre is getting tired.

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : “Had serious flash backs to Comey announcing Hillary wouldn’t be prosecuted”

For once we’re in total agreement! There are a few points remarkably similar :

1. As with Clinton, there was zero chance of criminal charges not politicaly motivated. No one who fully cooperated with the authorities on these types of documents cases has been charged previously or will be in the future. Likewise Cinton, where private email wasn’t even a crime and the most she could charged with was receiving messages the sender mistakenly though were unclassified but were upgraded after later review. Simple irrefutable fact : Nobody not-named-Clinton has ever faced criminal liablity for this or anything remotely similar.

2. But politics demanded an investigation in both cases, even though the result was always a forgone conclusion. If Trump had cooperated like Biden, he wouldn’t have been charged. If Trump hadn’t forced authorities to take legal action through gross criminality, the Biden investigation wouldn’t have been politically “necessary”.

3. And in both instances the investigator had to lard his conclusions with red meat to prove his pointless investigation had been “tough”. The prime example of this was Comey, who put on quite a theatrical production in announcing what was always obvious. But Hur seems to have politically positioned himself against GOP criticism too.

[Nige]

Must drive you round the bend to know that Trump could have had the same leniency if only he hadn't fucked around.

[Brett Bellmore]

You're already around the bend, if you think that. Unless you mean by "hadn't fucked around" that he hadn't run for President.

[Sarcastr0]

Trump fucked around with the files in a way Biden did not. That is a fact.

Your persecution counterfactual is unsupported, because it’s pure speculation based on a story you tell yourself

[Nige]

You're sulking now. Remember the Mueller Report? All the stuff about lies and obstruction, and no prosecution? The worst Biden's accused of is being forgetful, and, frankly it's got big Durham Rport vibes of 'can't prove anything, here's some unfounded editorialising for the MAGAs.'

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : "You’re already around the bend...."

Someone said of today's Right : “shamelessness is their only superpower.”

By that standard, Brett is a very towering superhero indeed! Captain Shameless, maybe?

[zbidim]

When he wipes, he forgets to get all the dingleberries.

[Frank Drackman]

Special Counsel Report released on Parkinsonian Joe Classified Documents Case:
"He's an old man! (Man!) He's Confused!"

Frank

[Mr. Bumble]

Too old and confused to prosecute but OK to be President.
What's wrong with this picture?

[Commenter_XY]

For the last time....I said it is (D)ifferent!!!! 🙂

[Michael P]

Wil Wheaton's Facebook rants about Larry David and Elmo remind me of a lot of the commenters here.

[Bored Lawyer]

So the verdict is in, in the Mann v. Steyn defamation case.
Some defamation, but not all statements.
$ 1 in compensatory damages.
$1000 in punitives against Simberg, and $ 1 Million against Steyn.
Expect post-trial motions to reduce the punitives. Expect BMW v. Gore to be cited. See this link: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/517/559/

[Life of Brian]

Yeah, have to think the ultimate punitives won't even be enough for a round of coffees for Mann's lawyers. Doubt on these facts he gets fees either. Wonder how much he spent on this 10+ year crusade?

[Bored Lawyer]

A prevailing party generally does not get fees under the American rule. There are some statutes that do have fee-shifting, but as I understand it, this was a common law defamation claim.

[OtisAH]

He spent roughly a million dollars less than Steyn.

[Michael P]

Mann testified that he personally has spent nothing and would owe nothing regardless of the case's outcome.

[Life of Brian]

Well that's pretty interesting. Wonder who's been bankrolling him all this time?

[Nige]

What a piece of work is Mann.

[Brett Bellmore]

Credit where due, that was witty.

[Commenter_XY]

So Mark Steyn has to cough up a million dollars?

[Bored Lawyer]

Not yet. There will be post-trial motions to reduce the award. SCOTUS has indicated that anything more than a 10:1 ratio of punitives to compensatories requires judicial scrutiny. This is 1 million:1.
And then there will be an appeal, although that generally does not stop collection, unless you post a bond on the award.
In short, the fat lady has not yet sung.

[EllaWilson]

I left this site because of the overwhelming amount of racists.
rev and sarcasto are evil.
I came here today to see what lawyers thought of the SCOTUS discussion.
I only found that lawyers are racists.
No change. Sad.

[Sarcastr0]

Bwahahaha.

[Michael P]

An evil laugh. How fitting.

[JasonT20]

No, an evil laugh is Mwahahaha. Bwahahaha is an uncontrolled burst of laughter because of something ridiculous that was said or occurred.

[JasonT20]

With all of the debate centered around whether Trump is eligible to hold office again under Sect. 3 of the 14th Amendment, I think the real debate is being lost. Should he be President again? Can he be trusted to uphold the Constitution and execute the laws faithfully? The vast majority of the arguments I see for Trump are actually arguments against Biden, just like in 2020 and 2016 against Hillary. What are the positive reasons to pick Trump, without any reference to who the other choices are?

[Moderation4ever]

I cannot help but think that the main reason for supporting Trump is to complete some unfinished business, namely to rerun the 2020 election. It is a symptom of a mental quick that some cannot move forward and move on. The gambler who loses but continues to play because they have to win before they can quit. Trump has to win and the American people will have to deal with the consequences, another four years of incompetence. The year 2029 could be a lot like 2021, with a new President having to dig the country out of the mess a second Trump Presidency has left.

[Brett Bellmore]

Can Trump be trusted to uphold the Constitution and execute the laws faithfully?

No, of course not, if by that you mean completely and without exception. Our politics have reached the point where a President's first act is to perjure himself by taking the oath of office. That's been the case for quite some time now, and for both major parties.

The problem is that neither can Biden be so trusted, and the exceptions are much larger.

If I vote for Trump this fall, it won't because I expect anything good out of him, it will be because I expect worse out of Biden. Well, that was true 8 years ago, and 4 years ago, too. I gave up on voting FOR anybody when I gave up on the LP. I content myself with voting against the worse evil, knowing I'm getting evil regardless of which wins.

...

You know, Democratic academics are making a lot of noise right now about the need to change our voting system, and that's not entirely out of a tactical desire for a system they'll win more often under.

How's this for a proposal: On election day, you have two choices: You can vote for one of the candidates, but can also vote against any or all of them.

The "for" vote counts normally, and determines the winner. The "against" vote just gets totaled up and announced.

Maybe it would induce a tiny bit of modesty in the winner to know for a fact that most of the voters didn't actually like them, merely hated the other choice more.

[Nige]

'No, of course not,'

He tried to remain in office despite losing the election, so it's practiaclly part of his re-election platform.

'and the exceptions are much larger.'

Yes, Biden didn't show hself to be an anti-democratic authoritarian crook by trying to illegally overturn an election.

[Brett Bellmore]

But he has shown himself to be an authoritarian crook by refusing to enforce immigration laws, by illegally canceling student loans, by attempting to violate the 2nd amendment, by pressuring Amazon to stop selling books he doesn't want people reading, pressuring online platforms to censor their users.

His authoritarian actions and violations of his Presidential duty to see the law faithfully enforced are numerous. You just LIKE them. They're still violations.

[Frank Drackman]

Eeekk! Facts!

[OtisAH]

Okay, so you’re going to give us some examples of which laws Biden is not enforcing eventually, right? And you’re going to show us how the student loans he has forgiven — a fraction of the attempts because “courts” — were done illegally, yes? His attempt to violate yhe 2nd amendment should be easy, so you’ll post that shortly I’m certain.

But there can be no purer distillate of the conservative mindset than that provided by Brett’s “Of course my chosen presidential candidate cannot be trusted to uphold the constitution and enforce the laws faithfully, BUT…!”

Meanwhile, let us know when you update with all your examples that prove the things you like to say.

[Nige]

But that's all just complete lies. You're lying. None of it's true, except if you start with the presumption that all Democratic policies are illegitimate, which is itself a profoundly anti-democratic and authoritarian presumption. Book-banning and the suppression of university courses and the persecutioin of trans people hasve all been defended here on the gounds that they're being done by elected officials following their voters' wishes. But clearly none of that applies to Democrats.

[ThePublius]

"But that’s all just complete lies. "

No, it's actually all true! Ha, ha.

refusing to enforce immigration laws - self evident
illegally canceling student loans - yes, in defiance of SCOTUS
attempting to violate the 2nd amendment - yes, obviously so
pressuring Amazon to stop selling books he doesn’t want people reading - yes, see the recent emails
pressuring online platforms to censor their users - yes.

Nige, as is typical of leftist progs, just denies, lies, and so on.

[Nige]

And you just keep making shit up and acting as if a everything a Democrat president does is by definition illegitimate, since you’re voting for a guy who tried to ilegally overturn an election, and you support banning books, suppressing university courses, persecuting trans people, harassing cis women accused of being trans, and arresting women who have miscarriages, you need to make a ton of false equivalences for your whataboutery.

[ThePublius]

Where did you get all of that from, all of those spurious allegations about me? Holy cow. Just attack the guy you're arguing with, I guess.

Biden did, indeed, do all of those things listed. If you disagree, make a case!

[Nige]

Biden did some stuff, you claim they were all illegitimate, on what basis? Bullshit basis. If Trump is authoritarian and anti-democratioc, and he absolutely is he's not hiding it, you can only justify voting for him by making false-equivalent whatboutery against Biden.

[Frank Drackman]

Nige-bot has a stick up his neo-Nige-anus

[JasonT20]

Brett,

You had no reason to think that I was asking about upholding the Constitution so strictly. As you say, there will always be acts a president takes that at least some legal scholars will argue are unconstitutional. I am asking if Trump can be trusted with essential and basic constitutional requirements.

[Brett Bellmore]

So, what you're saying is that you're ok with a President being a little pregnant?

It doesn't really matter, is my point, because Biden is MORE pregnant than Trump.

[JasonT20]

I need to say it again: what do you think about Trump without referring to anyone else? Our cognitive biases show when we can’t or won’t explain our voting choices other than by who we are against. It also is why we end up faced with poor choices for our preferred parties the vast majority of the time. Politicians get away with so much bullshit because they know they can convince so many voters that the other guys are worse. Not to mention the more recent phenomenon of being able to convince voters that the bad things they do or say are lies and/or it is just the enemy media making them look bad.

[Commenter_XY]

Policy: Economic, Foreign = What are the positive reasons to pick Trump, without any reference to who the other choices are?

That is independent of the assessment of personal fitness for office.

[Brett Bellmore]

If we were voting on personal fitness for office, the office would have been vacant for decades now.

[Nige]

Of course not, because you vote for crooks and demagogues and the rest vote for people who want policies they support implemented, but which you don't like. Same thing in your mind.

[Bored Lawyer]

Should he be President again?

That is a question for the voters, not the courts.

[Nige]

For a certain value of 'voters' since he's never won the popular vote.

[JasonT20]

And my question was about the voters’ perspective, not about the eligibility issue. My question is also directed primarily at those who plan or are considering voting for Trump. What is appealing about him as a candidate, and not in comparison to other choices, but on his own merits?

[Brett Bellmore]

On his own merits?

Keeping in mind that if he's not elected, his opponent will be, so that's not the question I'm actually faced with...

Keeping in mind I'm not voting for him in the primary, nor did I in the last two primaries, so he's the guy other Republicans foisted on me...

His chief merits are that,

1) He is actually inclined to enforce the border.
2) He understands that the only legitimate aim of our government is to benefit OUR citizens.
3) He recognizes national self-sufficiency as an important goal. That it's REALLY dangerous to depend on a global adversary for part of our supply chain.
4) He actually has some sense that not all tasks are the federal government's responsibility, that the states get to make the calls on some issues.
5) In the same vein, he recognizes that the government is parasitic on the private sector, and dare not outgrow its host.
6) He has attempted to roll back regulations, and succeeded in at least slowing their growth.
7) He's not terribly enthusiastic about government censorship of the media, having been a victim of it.
8) Violating the 2nd amendment isn't a priority of his. (Though he's not above doing it if the NRA traitorously gives him the OK.)
9) He doesn't treat sexual deviancy or kleptomania as a job qualification for sensitive positions.
10) He's intimately acquainted with the excesses of the national surveillance state.
12) He understands that it's vitally important that the bureaucracy be brought back under the control of the elected government.

I could go on. Really, even without these positives, the fact that he's not trying to make things worse in multiple ways would be enough.

[Frank Drackman]

Parkinsonian's Joe has Parkinson's Dementia? Big news flash, notice how Sleepy said Israel has been going "Over the top" which apparently means killing terrorists who killed innocent Israelis (and Amuricans, surprised Sleepy isn't bragging about how there aren't any Amuricans held hostage anymore, umm, because they've been murdered) I can't hear "Over the top" without thinking of the 1987 Stallone Arm Wrestling movie of the same name (directed by the great Menahem Golan BTW) underated flick with great sound track including the title tune by the great Sammy Hagar (Van Hagar beats Van Halen all the way)
1987, back when Parkinsonian Joe was just Plagiarizing Joe, blathering about Jungle Schools and Crack Ho's

Frank

[ThePublius]

Many here have argued, indeed, argued with me, that they didn't think it was necessary for Trump to actually be charged, tried, and convicted of insurrection to be ineligible for office; that somehow a state body could just determine he was, declare him so, and then make him ineligible, not just for office, but to be on the ballot. That is, in my opinion, utter nonsense. Kavanaugh seems to agree:

"Some of the rhetoric of your position — I don't think it is your position — some of the rhetoric of your position seems to suggest, unless the states can do this, no one can prevent insurrectionists from holding federal office," Kavanaugh began. "But obviously, Congress has enacted statutes — including ones still in effect — Section 2383 of Title 18 prohibits insurrection; it's a federal criminal statute, and if you're convicted of that, you are — shall be disqualified from holding any office. And so there is a federal statute on the books, but President Trump has not been charged with that."

[Nige]

https://hellgatenyc.com/migrants-arrest-nypd-times-square-body-cam

New Body Cam Footage Shows NYPD Started Confrontation With Migrants in Times Square

[Frank Drackman]

So the Cops deserved it? How about Nicole Simpson? Leon Klinghoffer? (Google that Shit) Amurica had one "October 6th" and we're still fucking around in the Middle East (why is it OK to have Georgia National Guardsmen in Syria but not in Texas?) "Over the Top"? not until Gaza is one huge parking lot.

Frank

[Bwaaah]

I guess you can't tell when a douchebag is fucking with the cops. Are you seriously that stupid? I know you're not. You're just grinding your Axe Against Authority.

Crime is up because morons like you tells stories like like "the cops started it."

[Nige]

But the cops absolutely started it and then lied blatantly about it. If crime is up because cops act like this, then it's the cops doing the crimes, and because they're lying.

[Bwaaah]

So you are that stupid. Gimme a break. Even the assholes know people like you are just tools.

[Nige]

You were the stupid one, you believed the cops, and the NYPost.

[Bwaaah]

I see the video, asshole. His prior movements, attitude and body language SCREAM with resistance. Are you that dense?

[Nige]

Body language isn't a crime you absolute twerp, unless, of course you mean a specific type of body.

[Bwaaah]

No. Body language isn't a crime. It speaks to us, though. And you can pretend you don't see it. Now I know you're a liar.

[Nige]

It speaks to you, and it tells you what you want to hear, which is that it's okay for cops to attack non-white people and charge them with bullshit and lie about the whole thing.

[Bwaaah]

Either you live in a hole, or you're stupid. Seriously buddy...try to learn how the games work.

[Nige]

We’re all familiar with the games cops play, it’s just odd to find someone cheering them on.

[Bwaaah]

The cops, the criminals, and I all agree on what the games are. You're an intellectual tool doing the anti-cop thing. And I didn't even say anything about cops. All I said was that the guy was fucking with the cops. And you've got your head up your ass if you can't see it.

[Nige]

The guy was fucking with the cops by walking down the street with a child in a buggy the absolute fucking evil of it! Get him officer!

[Brett Bellmore]

It's the cops' JOB to "start it" in many cases, Nige.

[Nige]

That's fascism.

[Bwaaah]

Yeah, man. Like it's a police state, man. Totally.

I don't know you or your life. But it is my observation that there's an inverse relationship between the likelihood a person will talk shit like you do, and the likelihood said person will have a legal, productive job.

Maybe you're a billionaire who still can't figure out how to appreciate life. Maybe you're a quadriplegic and just resent your dependencies. But if you have food in your belly, and you know where your next meal is coming from, and you have a warm, dry, safe place to sleep at night, then you have no excuse for the low-life disgust that beads off your snooty nose.

Cops have a tough job to do. I doubt you have any. But if you do have a job, try to get your head in the game and out of this rhetorical sewer you've painted for yourself.

[Frank Drackman]

Nige had the job at the morgue shaving pubic hair off the corpses, until it was 'Outsourced', but just like Milton in 'Office Space' he kept showing up for work

[Nige]

'Like it’s a police state, man.'

It's getting there, if that's allowed.

[Frank Drackman]

The Po-Po only bother pricks, and A-holes, I’m 61 and last time a Cop bothered me was in 1988 when I got a ticket for going 67 in a 55, today you’d only get hassled for driving suspiciously slow, and I drive fast and without a Radar Detector, usually carrying a pistol, but I dress nicely, mind my own bid-ness, and don’t draw attention to myself, other than dressing nicely. Worst thing about the whole NYPD thang is they didn’t hang those wetbacks from the nearest lightpole and stake their heads on pikes at the Brooklyn Bridge. But that’s just me, yeah, me, and about 200 million Amuricans

Frank

[Bwaaah]

"It’s getting there [to a police state], if that’s allowed."

They were selling hats illegally, against the laws of New York. The cops came along and told them to stop. They refused to cease. And they attacked the cops. The cops arrested them.

To prevent a police state, what is it that you wouldn't allow, Nige?

Do believe in the American system of democracy, Nige?

[Bwaaah]

Notice how the start of the incident in the video shows the cop saying "vamos" to the group? Cops in NYC don't just go up to groups of people and push them along like that. Either the cops saw indications the group was causing a problem, or they got complaints from local merchants or buildings (who have no interest in harassing people on the sidewalks). I don't know what kind of no-good those people were up to because there are so many kinds. But their reaction, when first asked to move along, was to not comply. That doesn't tell me they did something wrong. But it indicates that they're the type of people who fuck with cops, and usually, there's serious trouble that they make when the cops aren't there. (When Nige is nursing his keyboard.)

There were 28,000 felonious assaults reported in NYC last year. That's not just grandma getting cold-cocked on the sidewalk, which would only be a misdemeanor. Grand larcenies reported? 65,000. Petty thefts? Many times that, and not even worth reporting.

And to all that, all Nige has to say is "the cops are the problem."

[Bwaaah]

And now I see more preceding video that shows Mr. Yellow Douchebag and his incorrigible friends "vending" hats illegally at a sidewalk table when the cops approach and tell them to move along. Maybe Nige can't tell what "fuck you pig" looks like in the world of street douchebaggery, but take a good look at the video and watch Mr. Yellow Douchebag carefully. He demonstrates the art of "Go Fuck Yourself." He comes from the Nige school of citizenry, and if you think he's worried about cops, you should see how much he worries about a store owner as he slow walks in front of him while his friends run out with merchandise. Maybe they just crossed the border so they could pick up their hat order from a local distributor? Nige knows why the cop is wrong.

[Nige]

'Maybe Nige can’t tell what “fuck you pig” looks like'

Whatever you or the cops choose to think it looks like it is not a crime.

[Frank Drackman]

Neither is yelling 'Nigger' in a crowded theater full of Niggers, but try it and tell me how it goes, once they unwire your jaw.

[Bwaaah]

For most people, it's just a trading game...pick your groups, pick your niggers, treat 'em as such. You know...the less-than types of people...people like MAGA...loud trans activists...people like you, Frank.

A bunch of damned niggers is what you are.

Good people stand by when they come for the niggers. A little justice does the community well, yeah? Not many tears to be shed for the loss of one nigger, eh? (It's just a nigger.)

Fuckin' cops. A bunch of damned niggers is what they are.

Carry on, good people.

[Bwaaah]

Vending of anything on a sidewalk without a permit is a crime in NYC (and in many other places). The government imposes those laws because they also impose much more stringent, much costlier regulations on the storeowners (who pay rent and workers’ compensation insurance and taxes and all kinds of other stuff).

So their first crime was unpermitted vending. They then tried to resist a lawful order to move along. The cop did a good try of pushing them along. But Mr. Yellow Douchebag doubled back, clearly flouting the order to move along. His douchebag friends were doing the circle walk back while Mr. Yellow Douchebag lead the resistance effort. The cop then attempted to detain Mr. Yellow Douchebag because he was refusing to leave. Mr. Yellow Douchebag then resisted detainment, and then, resisted arrest. Then douchebag friends assaulted the cop.

Did I miss something, Nige? Or did you miss all of it?

[Bwaaah]

Or maybe you are that stupid?

[Nige]

Anyone who believes cops is stupid.

[Bwaaah]

I believe video (so far, until AI fucks that up too).

[Nige]

You're down to a layperson's reading of 'body language' to justify police abuse of power, you'll believe whatever they tell you to believe.

[Bwaaah]

A “layperson”? I’ve been in NYC for 40 years. I don’t need to read stories. I see this shit regularly. You’re a bad intellectual joke.

[Nige]

So you see police brutality regularly and you cheer on the cops, what are you, stockholm syndromed?

[Bwaaah]

I've never seen an NYPD cop just start with somebody. I don't doubt that it happens. But trouble finds cops so easily (in NYC) that they don't need to start it. Cops who start trouble are bad for everybody, including their partners and other cops. Troublemaking cops tend to disappear more than they persist in the force.

And I've never seen anybody "cheering" for the cops. There are, however, many ideologically motivated people like you who inject themselves into third party police encounters. People like you verbally rage against cops while real predators get to enjoy the sympathetic audience you provide.

There's no pro-cop movement, Nige. There's just an anti-cop movement. And then there's the many people, MOST people, who just want and appreciate good law enforcement.

You're SO part of the problem.

[Nige]

‘I’ve never seen an NYPD cop just start with somebody.’

You didn’t watch the video then.

‘And I’ve never seen anybody “cheering” for the cops’

What, you lonely?

‘There’s just an anti-cop movement.’

After seeing that video I’m not surprised, but also the weekly circuit court roundup here attracts a ton of savage criticisms of cops, and no pushback like this, wonder what the difference is?

[David Nieporent]

I’ve never seen an NYPD cop just start with somebody. I don’t doubt that it happens.

But only on days ending with 'y'!

[Bwaaah]

With 35,000 police officers, it’s probably true that on any given day, at least one starts something with somebody. If that’s your case for “Cops are shit,” well, that’s just a case of “People are shit” and not a very useful conclusion.

But that doesn’t change the fact that I’ve observed a lot of police interactions over many years, and never seen NYPD cops just start trouble with people. Alternatively, I have seen numerous incidents of people starting shit with cops. Maybe you’re just one of those anti-cop people, and that’s why you paint a non-representative picture of their behavior? If you’re not, then why do you smear them with a cheap days-ending-in-'Y' line like that?

[David Nieporent]

But that doesn’t change the fact that I’ve observed a lot of police interactions over many years,

Why? Are you a cop?

and never seen NYPD cops just start trouble with people.

You have; you just pretend you haven't. Like this video.

[Bwaaah]

"You have; you just pretend you haven’t. Like this video."

I have not. And in this video, the troublemakers appear to have been vending hats illegally on a table on the sidewalk, refused to stop doing so, resisted arrest, and assaulted police.

I've had bad run-ins of my own with police. But all started with them attempting to execute a normal, competent law enforcement action. It's never desirable to have one's freedom impinged. Almost every act of law enforcement necessitates a cop impinging upon a person's freedom. That conflict is unavoidable, unless you eliminate policing.

[David Nieporent]

I have not. And in this video, the troublemakers appear to have been vending hats illegally on a table on the sidewalk, refused to stop doing so, resisted arrest, and assaulted police.

In fact, they did not refuse to stop doing so, and moved when the police told them to — but yellow jacket guy mouthed off while doing so, so the cop decided to teach him a lesson and grabbed and assaulted him. And then, like the good gang members they are, other cops came along and joined in rather than stopping the assault. And that's when the fight broke out.

[Bwaaah]

And even if you've never seen it, a "layperson" feels the threat. We see the assholes fucking with the cops every day. And intellectual tools like you justify it. The criminals are more honest than you. (I've gotten to speak to enough of them.)

[Nige]

'Officer officer this person attacked me with his body language which consists mostly of his body being non-white, please protect me by physically assaulting them and charging them with bullshit!'

[Bwaaah]

"I know this guy Nige who says you weren't fucking with the cops."

"BWAAAAA HAH hahh hahh."

[Nige]

Actual quote from video produced by cops to prove that the guy they physically assaulted deserved it, please ignore bad splicing.

[David Nieporent]

Hint: "Contempt of cop" is not a crime.

The cops are the only ones who committed a crime in that video.

[Frank Drackman]

I think I might agree with you, whatever the crime of getting your ass kicked by a gaggle of beaners is, they might get a different reaction even in California when they run into some Hell's Angels.
and what's the story with 'Nieporent'? it's literally German for "Never Potent"

Frank "Immer-Potent"

[Bwaaah]

Contempt of cop is not a crime. Vending on the sidewalk without a license in NYC is. So is resisting arrest. So is assault of a police officer.

[David Nieporent]

"Resisting arrest" is a fake crime that is used by police when they don't have a real crime; it's just a variety of contempt of cop.

[Bwaaah]

Oh. The flailing arms, the shoulder butts, the muscle spasms, the kicking, the grabbing onto the handcuffs...all involuntary reactions to a uniformed law enforcement officer who says, "You're being detained. Stand still."

You don't believe in American policing practices. As a matter of fact, you don't believe in any effective policing practices.

[Bwaaah]

And just to simplify it all: this was people selling shit illegally. The cops came along and told them to stop. They refused to cease. And they attacked the cops.

All the rest of this story, from Nige and Nieporent, is anti-cop axe-grinding superimposed onto a normal case of competent civilian policing.

There is very serious contention between the exercising of our freedoms and the imposition of our laws. Police do the job of imposing upon us our laws…they are our laws because we have propagated them through our elected officers.

I hope Nige and Neirporent aren’t among the “Save Our Democracy” movement, although if they are, they’re in good company with people who demand more laws while they attack cops who enforce them. Laws are, most of all, for the lawless. Nige is one. E tu, Nierporent?

[David Nieporent]

Nieporent is a libertarian and thus wants almost all of those laws abolished, in part because they’re rights-violative on their own and in parts because they enable and encourage police abuse. (That is, abuse by police, not abuse of police.)

[David Nieporent]

But even if your narrative were otherwise correct, it doesn’t apply to that guy in the yellow jacket.

[Bwaaah]

I’ll give you this, my opinion: In all matters of public policy, we are faced with choices that are either bad, or worse. The very act of “collectively” imposing action upon anybody, for any reason, is a taking from that person.

The New York City “crime” of which I spoke, unlicensed vending (my non-legal term), is not *just* a creation of the state. It’s also a cause of serious, damaging, unintended consequences, just like we see here. That cop is putting himself and everybody else around him in danger by attempting to enforce that law.

But that’s definitely the cop’s job to do that. He didn’t make up the rules.

I think it’s very dangerous to challenge our laws outside our courts (excepting by ways of permissible speech). And it’s especially dangerous to have our laws challenged at the intersection of people and police enforcement actions.

Your law nullifying language, “’resisting arrest’ is a fake crime,” is such a danger-encouraging denial of the reality of what will happen when somebody commits that very crime that you call “fake.”

People get killed pretending your story shows the way, David. And you stand in support of the victims of those engagements of resistance? Which people? EVERYONE loses in those incidents. But you, Mr. Ideologue, retain your aloof, pointedly disinterested ideological purity. (People get tased daily as they resist arrest while screaming, “I’M NOT RESISTING! I’M NOT RESISTING!!!” Do you not even watch the videos?)

Your best intentions here encourage lots of people to get fucked in violent, serious, criminal justicy ways. Our elected officials are at ground zero of the problem, not the cops. Take your bullshit to the right venue, and maybe, there, it will appear as more than bullshit. For sure, less people will get hurt.

Fortunately, most of the victims of police brutality are just troublemakers who know very well that your position is bullshit. But hey...SMILE FOR THE CAMERA!!!

[David Nieporent]

People get killed pretending your story shows the way, David. And you stand in support of the victims of those engagements of resistance? Which people? EVERYONE loses in those incidents. But you, Mr. Ideologue, retain your aloof, pointedly disinterested ideological purity. (People get tased daily as they resist arrest while screaming, “I’M NOT RESISTING! I’M NOT RESISTING!!!” Do you not even watch the videos?)

I do. And the actual fact is that police are trained to yell "stop resisting" when they attack people, so that bystanders who aren't allowed to get too close will be confused about what's happening.

[Bwaaah]

"Nieporent is a libertarian and thus wants almost all of those laws abolished, in part because they’re rights-violative on their own and in parts because they enable and encourage police abuse. (That is, abuse by police, not abuse of police.)"

Well at least that explains your anti-cop position. And you're blaming the police for even faithfully executing our laws as we've set forth through our government. You need to get the laws changed. You need to see much of our government dismantled.

[Bwaaah]

"Nieporent is a libertarian"

Do you hold the same beliefs as the person you call "Nieporent?" I'm trying to figure out if your use of the third-person voice reflects you representing multiple perspectives, or if it is just a dissociative rhetorical affectation.

[Frank Drackman]

"Biden slams comments on his memory, criticizes Israel Prime Minister Begin, praises Egyptian President Sadat"

[Zarniwoop]

Now I need to rinse my brain with bleach.

[Kazinski]

No he's not, unless "present day" means "feverish imaginings".

[David Nieporent]

The good news is that this will also cure your covid.

[Bob from Ohio]

The Democrats in Florida would, like those in Ohio and other places, like to see hundreds of thousands unborn humans destroyed. Sick.

[Sarcastr0]

7 layer dip for me, yeah.

[Commenter_XY]

Last week, I posted the 'sweet' recipe...a keto red velvet cake. https://www.wholesomeyum.com/keto-red-velvet-cake-recipe/

Some updates...
Gametime salsa to go with low carb crackers (spicy)
https://www.mexicoinmykitchen.com/salsa-taquera/

Beer: Sierra Nevada’s Hazy Little Thing IPA (it is available)

It is 'Potluck' this year, so I hope my guests bring a protein; shredded chicken, shredded beef.

If anyone has a better hazy IPA reco, let's hear it.

[Mr. Bumble]

Isn't Swift the voice of popular music today?

[LawTalkingGuy]

Just a reminder that Bob only uses abortion as a form of virtue signaling and moral balancing to justify his odious anti-life and anti-human positions on pretty much any other issue. He couldn't even concede that he would be against murdering everyone in Gaza when asked directly. So no one should credit him as having any authority on what is or isn't "sick."

[Brett Bellmore]

I don't think I've heard anything by her in years, in our household. My 15 year old son is into Ultrakill music.

[Bob from Ohio]

1 case a year [maybe] is no way to set policy

[LawTalkingGuy]

It was actually 3 within the few months of the heartbeat rule being in effect. And you can actually make the policy so that this doesn’t happen. Literally could be like: minors under 14 can get abortions. That you and republicans not only chose not to, but also lied about the law and circumstances is all on you.*

*Due respect to the ghouls who openly said: ten years olds should give birth and that is a good thing.

[Mr. Bumble]

Well someone must be buying what she's selling. After all, she is a billionaire at age 32.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

If you wish to attempt a defense of "schools" that teach nonsense, enforce dogma, impose speech codes, mock academic freedom, suppress science to flatter silly superstition, require bigotry based on fairy tales, collect loyalty oaths, require statements of faith and old-timey speech codes, engage in strenuous censorship and viewpoint-driven discrimination, and the like -- and you wish your argument to be to any degree persuasive among educated, modern, reasoning, and competent adults -- you will need to do far better than that.

I suggest you give up while you are hopelessly behind.

[Bob from Ohio]

She's quite popular and quite rich but don't believe the billionaire spin. Its hard to earn enough to become a billionaire without having a real business, same goes for Labron and most other celebrity alleged billionaires

[Mr. Bumble]

Billionaire as per Forbes:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2023/12/05/taylor-swifts-power-era-why-the-billionaire-pop-star-is-one-of-the-worlds-most-powerful-women/?sh=40c2041a5c14

[John F. Carr]

It was reported that Tracy Chapman made $500,000 in a few months when a cover of "Fast Car" became a country music hit. Taylor Swift has a lot of popular songs in recent decades and some successful tours.

[Mr. Bumble]

IPA=tiger piss.

[John F. Carr]

...in 1.8 recent decades...

[Bob from Ohio]

Yes but she pays 40%-ish in income taxes and she shares her writing credits now.

Nobody other than her accountants, including Forbes, knows her financial condition though. Let's just say she is very rich,

[Commenter_XY]

I am open to suggestions.

[Mr. Bumble]

As Jimmy Breslin said about Piels: "It's a good drinking beer" and for me that's Yuengling Lager.
However, what ever floats your boat is fine with me. Choice is what makes America great (again).

[Bob from Ohio]

Skip the beer, try a nice bourbon or rye instead,

[Mr. Bumble]

Eat, drink and be merry...
Think I'll try to get my wife to make up some of her killer Irish coffee.

[Commenter_XY]

Yuengling is Ok, kind of weak. Did the brewery tour, though. America's Oldest Brewery. Decent taste.

[Bwaaah]

Piels was the cheapest case of beer we could get in New York in the 1970s. It was [therefore] in my mind the best drinking beer of the time. Good times.

[Theendoftheleft]

‘If you wish to attempt a…’

Sounds like a sizable number of the American unis that:

* Require DEI statements for employment and now such courses for students (McCarthyism meets 1984, viewpoint diversity eat your heart out).

* Teach gender studies, critical (race) theory and other spurious identity subjects (ideology masked as credible social theory, produced by sophomoric halfwits).

* Are zealously partisan in their faculty hiring, ensuring that intersectional check marks invariably take precedence over quality pubs, quality doctoral training, teaching skills, etc.

* Suppress and exclude bona fide scientific research which threatens their ‘egalitarian’ ideology (and try to hound out of academia those who do legit research in that space);

* Replace critical reasoning and logic with the prioritization of feelings, sensitivity and a wholly inchoate and pervasive sense of ‘harm’ (and hence regulates so-called microaggressions and identity politics);

* Have implemented rampant grade inflation, such that American transcripts (including and especially from the Ivies) are no longer trustworthy for foreign unis and employers.

Many of which are going to go bust with the coming demographic cliff 🙂

You know, the sort of stuff which underpins the growing view, if not quite yet consensus, that American unis predominantly pump out infantilized ignoramuses.