Thursday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

Scam-story addicts (I confess I am one) will love this one!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fhA6VrxbN0

[santamonica811]

Who, politically, should be nervous about what the Alabama courts are saying about embryos? (I’m gonna just use shorthand, and assign Democrats to the pro-choice side and Republicans to the anti-abortion side…yes, I get that many or most Republicans nationwide do not think of embryos as humans with the full panoply of human rights, but play along, ‘kay?)

Should Dems be scared, as maybe this foretells a trend towards even more draconian restrictions on a woman’s autonomy? (News reports say that Florida is thinking about adopting [heh] a similar law, and the far-right conservatives on Florida’s Sup. Ct seem open to this). Or should Rep’s be scared, as this is SOOO much more intrusive than even Dobbs? Any realistic chance of a backlash against R's in the Nov election? Or do you think that the pro-choice voter has already been influenced by Dobbs and that there are actually few actual voters who were okay with Dobbs, but are not okay with this?

Or do you think it’s a wash, politically-speaking?

[Stephen Lathrop]

I think the embryo thing becomes an R-punishing fiasco, unless the Ds once again cannot figure out how to mine a political mother lode. Failure to use that to beat Trump (or Haley, who has stupidly jumped in already) would mark this year’s Ds as more politically incompetent even than the Hillary campaign.

The political script is obvious, and obviously credible: fanatical R Christian nationalists are coming for every bit of sexual freedom Americans have: abortion, embryos, same-sex everything, nationwide. Rs plan to outlaw contraception for everyone, all the time. State governments will be tracking women’s periods, and cops will arrest any pregnant woman who attempts to cross state lines. Even witch trials will make a comeback.

Funding to put that stuff on the air everywhere, all the time, will pour into D coffers in torrents.

When I heard about that Alabama decision, I stopped worrying whether Trump would get a trial before Election Day.

[Krayt]

When I heard about that Alabama decision, I stopped worrying whether Trump would get a trial before Election Day.

Morre evidence it's about hurting a political opponent. Thanks for the candor.

[Nige]

You really have to poke through everything to find a scrap to put a spin on, don't you?

[Krayt]

When, after dozens of government initiatives helmed by partisans to git ‘im, over more than the better part of a decade, facetious partisans ludicrously maintain it’s disinterested concern for rule of law, yes, I will happily point out these things.

Which are legion and numerous, in spite of lying protestations by those partisans.

The novelty here was just openly admitting the trial was about hurting him politically, because of concern for before or, oh noes! after the election!

[Krayt]

Hint: Digging up some "legitimate" investigation, and claiming it disingerested rule of law, then deliberately using it as a political cudgel to harm an opponent-as-opponent is just showing dirty stains in your underpants. Your mom would be ashamed. Your face should go beet red in the emergency alcove in front of the nurse.

I am that nurse.

[Nige]

‘yes, I will happily point out these things.’

You keep ignoring his breaking of the law, and insist he’s above it because he’s ‘political.’ It’s asinine.

Seems perfectly legitimate as per US politics. You’d think the years-long hunt to dig up something legitimate to charge the Clintons with never happened. It just failed, until Bill tripped himself up at the tail end of the whole thing.

I think you're only a nurse on OnlyFans.

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

The President said to the Ms.:
"Your mouth is a good place for jizz,
And whether it's moral
For you to give oral
Depends on the meaning of 'is'."

[Theendoftheleft]

AGAIN with your incessant lying, Ingsoc…

Does someone pay you to lie here?

Do you ever get bored of lying all the time?

Wasn’t there some point, perhaps when you were very young, when you cared about the truth, and about justice? Or were you always just a piece of shit?

[Nige]

You don't even bother identifying any lie, you just go off.

[Theendoftheleft]

Another lie.

Isn't it boring for you to just lie?

Does it give you sexual delight to lie incessantly?

[David Nieporent]

Morre evidence it’s about hurting a political opponent. Thanks for the candor.

Um, you realize that Lathrop isn't the one making decisions, right? Even if for him it's about hurting a political opponent, that has no bearing on whether the prosecution is legitimate.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Selfish, self-centered sluts concerned only with their right to act irresponsibly. Maybe we should repeal the 19th Amendment and go full Handmaid with forcible impregnation and mandated pregnancies.

[Noscitur a sociis]

I think that’s one vote for the “bad for Republicans” side.

[not guilty]

Have you read the opinion? The plaintiffs are three married couples who had undergone in vitro fertilization resulting in successful pregnancies. The remaining embryos were kept in a cryogenic nursery and were accidentally destroyed.

Hardly "Selfish, self-centered sluts concerned only with their right to act irresponsibly."

[Zarniwoop]

Have you read the opinion?

I'm pretty sure I can guess the correct answer on this.

[David Nieporent]

Selfish, self-centered sluts concerned only with their right to act irresponsibly.

Even if you weren't a misogynistic asshole, you're incredibly stupid. Do you even know what IVF is?

[Harvey Mosley]

I have him muted and don’t even have to click on “show username” to know who it is. I wish I could multi mute him (and maybe a few others).
Just to ne clear I am NOT referring to DN.

[Theendoftheleft]

Give the USA sixty years, once there's been a complete demographic shift and a comprehensive replacement of traditional American values with those of the breeding populations (NOT the leftard-totalitarians' values, as they obviously don't meet replacement rate).

[Frank Drackman]

Bad for the Repubic-clowns in the short term, millions of dead future Colored Peoples bad for the Demo-KKKrats in the long term, when we'll all be dead anyway

Frank "Ex-Embryo"

[Kleppe]

“Rs plan to outlaw contraception for everyone, all the time.”

Are you saying this is what Dems’ messaging ought to be, or are you describing what you perceive to be reality?

[Jumaira]

And Democrats' plan is to have taxpayer subsidized abortions for everyone who wants it at 39 weeks of pregnancy. And each woman who gets an abortion gets a $10,000 stipend and a parade to celebrate.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Kleppe, describing the reality of what Dems messages will be, whether or not they ought to be. But I don't think either you or the Dems get what the messages ought to be.

Politics is the means prescribed in the Constitution for this nation to conduct its public affairs. Politics is indispensable; not a legitimate object for scorn, nor a term to be used as an epithet. Still less is it right to equate the notion of politics with the notion of partisan interest.

Also, there is such a thing as a political crime. Donald Trump is charged with several of them.

It is inappropriate for the Justice Department to quail from a forthrightly political prosecution. Justice Department policy should be instead to say forthrightly that it takes a political prosecution to prosecute political crime.

The prosecutors are, after all, sworn to an essentially political defense of the Constitution. That is a non-partisan political duty.

Prosecutors should not allow themselves to be intimidated by mere epithets. Prosecutors should arrive in the courtroom with overtly political (but not partisan) denunciations of Trump foremost in mind. They should explain to the jury and to the nation why it is their duty and service to the nation to do it that way. The jury should be led to understand that a guilty verdict for Trump is a vindication of the nation's indispensably political system of governance. I expect that proof on that basis is the only proof which has any chance to be widely convincing.

[DaveM]

You don't have to be a fanatic to think that a human embyro is human. What else can it be?

The fanacitism comes into play when we try to play God and declare that while someone may be technically human, they aren't a "person".

And it comes into play when we say that we cannot be free unless we have the legal blessing to kill our own offspring.

That's seriously messed up. Acknowledging the simple, obvious truth is how you avoid being a fanatic.

[not guilty]

The Alabama ruling is that a frozen embryo resulting from in vitro fertilization is an unborn child for purposes of a civil wrongful death statute. https://publicportal-api.alappeals.gov/courts/68f021c4-6a44-4735-9a76-5360b2e8af13/cms/case/343D203A-B13D-463A-8176-C46E3AE4F695/docketentrydocuments/E3D95592-3CBE-4384-AFA6-063D4595AA1D

Most human embryos naturally fail to implant and are washed away with the menstrual flow. Will blastocystophiles in Alabama now give their feminine hygiene products Christian burials on the chance that one may contain a microscopic child?

[Sarcastr0]

Ah yes 'acknowledge my simple, obvious truth, and if you don't we will work to make sure your voice cannot be heard.'

[Riva]

The only people working feverishly to silence, censor, punish and/or jail dissenters are democrats, and they never met an abortion they didn't like, at any stage of pregnancy. Some even advocate for infanticide.

[Sarcastr0]

The only people!

Holy shit dude you need to get out more.

[Riva]

Well, of course there’s China and Russia, and numerous other authoritarian regimes in the world, but I was just referring to this country.

[Davy C]

There's plenty of such people on both sides in this country.

[Riva]

Lawfare and the present government censorship apparatus are democrat projects.

[DaveM]

You didn't refute the simple truth, I note. Simple truths are like diamonds, they cut to the core. As Einstein is said to have quipped, "everything should be made as simple as possible -- but no simpler!"

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Your claim that something is a 'simple truth' is a surefire way to discern that it's actually just bullshit.

As it turns out, bullshit is self-refuting.

[Voize]

News articles (and the opinion itself) refer to "frozen embryos", and some of the comments here even talk about fetuses, but IVF clinics freeze blastocysts, pre-implantation clusters of two hundred or so cells grown from an egg less than a week after fertilization. The court is saying that every fertilized egg is an unborn child, and that may have implications that even the more dedicated pro-life voices here might have second thoughts about.

[not guilty]

According to the lead opinion, one pair of plaintiffs elected in their contract to automatically "destroy" any embryos that had remained frozen longer than five years; another pair chose to donate similar embryos to medical researchers whose projects would "result in the destruction of the embryos"; and the third pair agreed to allow any "abnormal embryos" created through IVF to be experimented on for "research" purposes and then "discarded."

Will this decision give rise to criminal exposure of the defendant clinic if it fulfills these contractual obligations?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

This is precisely the level of discussion concerning this issue that one would expect to find at a blog operated by and for disaffected, on-the-spectrum, obsolete, white, male conservatives.

Carry on, clingers. So far as your betters permit, that is. Not a step beyond.

[Theendoftheleft]

'Not a step beyond'.

Or what?

[theobromophile]

Cynically, it's the same it has always been: it's a child for the purpose of wrongful death statutes when it's wanted, and it's a meaningless clump of cells when it's not wanted.

[myself]

No, a fanatic is the person who applies a fact out of ordinary context and then pretends the normal rules apply as they propose ridiculous actions.

A case in point. Yes, a human embryo is biologically a human.

But the extreme restrictions we have on killing humans are based on humans who can survive independently outside of their mother's womb.

You can't apply the same moral rules to embryos.

[Armchair]

"Democrats to the pro-choice side and Republicans to the anti-abortion"

FYI, it's either pro-choice and pro-life, or pro-abortion and anti-abortion. If you want to pretend to be non-biased about it.

[Sarcastr0]

No, though.
Pro abortion would be incentivizing or mandating abortion. That’s not the goal; the goal is abortion is a viable *choice*.

It’s not as important when talking about pro gun or something like that, but here the nuance matters.

[Armchair]

You can pick the positive connotation on both sides if you want to be neutral. Or the negative connotation on both sides. If you want to be neutral about it.

Plenty of people would say that Democratic policies incentivize abortion.

[Sarcastr0]

I call groups what they want to be called. And if their chosen brand is at odds with how they operate, I call that out as well.

Plenty of people would say that Democratic policies incentivize abortion.
'Many people say' can fuck right off. Semantic games are stupid; semantic games against an inchoate 'many people say' are doubly so.

[Bob from Ohio]

“I call groups what they want to be called. And if their chosen brand is at odds with how they operate, I call that out as well.”

I call groups I like by the names they use, I call groups I hate by whatever name I want.

Very objective!

[Sarcastr0]

Not what I said, Bob.

[Bob from Ohio]

In fact it is what you said. You use their self-term unless you decide its false, then you use your own term.

[Noscitur a sociis]

I believe Sarcastr0 is saying that he uses the preferred term for all groups, and points out that the name isn't apt if he feels that way. You'll have to decide for yourself whether that is in fact what he does, but he does appear to have used "pro-life" in this discussion.

[Sarcastr0]

As Noscitur said, call out does not mean not use their preferred term.

[Moderation4ever]

"Plenty of people would say that Democratic policies incentivize abortion."

Can you explain this or are plenty of people just rationalizing?

[Armchair]

If you make a service free, it incentivizes it.

[Sarcastr0]

So calling abortion medical care is incentivizing it.

Have you thought through the implications of that argument as applied to other aspects of medical care?

[Moderation4ever]

Abortion is medical care. Do you think every elective procedure if not medical care? And in cases abortion is not elective. If abortion is not medical care, why is the procedure in medical textbooks?

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, Armchair has in no way thought this through. I haven't really heard anyone make this argument about Dems incentivizing abortion beyond population control conspiracists.

[not guilty]

One irony about the Republican strategy is that the consumers most likely to obtain abortions come from demographic groups likely to vote Democratic. The offspring that would otherwise be aborted now will likely vote Democratic when they reach adulthood (if they vote at all).

[Bob from Ohio]

"Abortion is medical care. "
Not for the baby!

[Sarcastr0]

Yet again you prefer threadshitting to offering any substance.

[Bob from Ohio]

"prefer threadshitting to offering any substance."

Ad hominum? Insult? Neither?

Its exactly as substantive as saying elective abortion is "medical care".

[OtisAH]

He has no substance to offer. Here, at home, anywhere.

[Armchair]

Unsurprisingly, yes, I have thought through the implications.

If you make medical care free, you get more people using it. That's economics 101. It's why co-pays exist in part, to help disincentivize medical care use.

[Nige]

And more people get the health care they need - that's healthcare 101. Disincentivising people to get the health care they need is utterly cracked at best, actively evil at worst.

[Moderation4ever]

It is not free, it is part of health care coverage. Where is abortion free in this country?

[Nige]

Incentivising people to get health care is good, actually.

[Armchair]

Only if they actually need it.

[Nige]

If in doubt, have it checked out.

[ReaderY]

People who opposed anti-lynching laws could with equal fairness say that they didn’t want to incentivize or mandate lynching, they just wanted it to be a viable choice. Several southern states, such as North Carolina, had segregation as a matter of widespread custom rather than law, and there were state Supreme Court decisions in the early 1960s, including one by the North Carolina Supreme Court, that actually made this exact argument, our state doesn’t incentivize or mandate segregation, our state policy is simply that we think it should be a viable choice.

Do you think it is unfair for people to call such people pro-lynching? Pro-segregation?

Yet this is in fact the way such people are generally described today. I think that’s a fact one has to take into account when discussing how positions should fairly be labeled. People who think a controversial practice should be legal and should be a viable option have historically been labeled as “pro” that position, even if they don’t favor government incentives or mandates for it.

I’d also point out that many if not most people who support abortion as a “viable choice” also think that government should subsidize it and/or should mandate that private insurance should cover it.

I think that each position should be discribed either as their proponents would describe it - pro-choice and pro-life - or as their opponents would describe it - pro-abortion and anti-abortion. But I think that describing both positions from the point of view of only ones own side cannot be described as a fair terminology.

[Don Nico]

Language is a weapon is the class warfare. That has been known for a very long time.

[Krayt]

I recall decades back, Peter Jennings on ABC evening news introducing some news story, “People opposed to a woman’s right to choose…”

Of course, this was wrong. They were opposed to killing babies.

It would be like a newscaster introducing an opposite story, instead of “People in favor of choice” as “People in favor of murdering babies…”

They do not argue opposite positions on principles. They argue different principles.

[Sarcastr0]

They were opposed to killing babies.
More and more I see the pro life side turning towards this kind of totalistic rhetoric and not bothering to make a case - all who disagree with them deserve to be ignored because they are evil.

It is not the position of a side that feels it's going to win the argument.

[Stephen Lathrop]

It is not an argument that people who oppose them ought to be ignored. It is an argument that people who ignore them ought to be punished by government.

[Davy C]

"they were opposed to killing babies" is totalistic rhetoric? It's a true description of their beliefs. The belief that that much was at stake is the reason why there was a 50 year campaign to get a court ruling overturned.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

How much of your opposition to abortion derives from silly superstition, childish fairy tales, and Republican misogyny?

[Theendoftheleft]

How much of your opposition to mandatory abortions for Blue teamers stems from your childish fairy tales about equality and free will?

[Nelson]

“FYI, it’s either pro-choice and pro-life, or pro-abortion and anti-abortion. If you want to pretend to be non-biased about it.”

There are at least four designations, if not more. Anti-abortion means opposed to all abortions. That is a tiny portion of people, but that is where those who think an embryo is the same as a real human fall. Pro-life is the majority position of those who basically want a woman to justify having an abortion. Pro-choice is the majority position of those who want the government to justify preventing a woman from having an abortion. I don’t know what you call those who think that all abortions should be legal, but that is the most permissive group.

So no, there aren’t just two sides. There are extremists and moderates on both sides of the line, and the Alabama Supreme Court is firmly in the anti-abortion extremist camp. As is this ruling.

[not guilty]

Right. Being pro-abortion rights does not necessarily mean being pro-abortion.

[Bob from Ohio]

The polite lie that comforts all baby killers.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

It must be terrible to believe that most of your fellow countrymen are cold-blooded murders . . . and even more terrible if that belief derives from ridiculous, silly, childish, nonsensical, stupid, obsolete, worthless superstition -- because a fairy tale character told you -- an ostensible adult -- to believe something.

[JohnSmith97]

I'm still surprised that you are allowed around a computer unsupervised Jerry.

[Nelson]

So your contention is that anyone who supports a woman's right to choose loves abortions? That's an indefensible position.

[Sarcastr0]

Citizens of Alabama should be concerned; theocrats in positions of authority are not great news for freedom.

I am not sure how much this will play nationally at all; the GOP certainly doesn't want to nationalize this, and the Dems seem to prefer letting the national GOP shoot themselves in the foot over abortion without getting very involved.

[ReaderY]

I’ll just point out three things:

1. Proponents of slavery made these exact arguments about abolitionists. Calhoun was particularly adept at describing them as theocrats and religious fanatics. Yet the theocrat/religious fanatic position won, and the Republic survived.

2. Roe v. Wade itself pointed out that the common law and many states have long regarded fetuses as persons for particular purposes. For example, fetuses could sue in court (the mother and further back the father would sue as the fetus’ guardian). Roe held that these practices could survive as long as they didn’t involve abortion. In part for these reasons, Roe held only that a fetus was not regarded as a person “in the full sense of the word.”

3. I’ve taken the view that fetuses are, from a federal constitutional point of view, in a category similar to extraterritorial aliens. The Bill of Rights lacks “prenatal application” in much the way it lacks “extraterritorial application.” I think the similarity is not superficial or merely one of a coincidence of phraseology. I think war, covert action, etc. represent a real analogy to abortion. Not only don’t we give foreigners the same rights as citizens, sometimes we need to be able to kill them outright, not just to defend ourselves directly and directly save our lives, but even just to advance policies and interests. And we have the right to do this so fas as the constitution is concerned.

But this doesn’t prevent either, foreigners or fetuses, from being given various statutory or common law rights and statuses for various purposes as various legislatures and courts think best. It happens all the time.

[Sarcastr0]

1) I mean, yes, if you want to analogize fetuses to whole-ass black people, you can find similar arguments. I find that a fraught and question-begging analogy.

2) That is not how I read Roe at all. It's also not good law anymore. And pre-Roe law was all about quickening. This is a modern problem.

3) You like to take creative legal views. That's fine, but I find that elegant reasoning rarely ends up being what we go with as a society.
And I also don't find it appeals to my own tendency towards dealing with the law as an ungainly inconsistent human endeavor that it is, and that it shall always be.

[myself]

The decision itself leaned heavily on Christian scripture and theology. A bill written in the same sense would be an obvious violation of the 1st amendment, I don't see why the ruling shouldn't be thrown out for the same reason.

[David Nieporent]

That wasn't the decision; that was a concurrence.

[Bwaaah]

^THIS^

[ReaderY]

As are the Civil Rights laws, heavily advocated on nakedly Scriptural grounds by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and members of the Southern Christian Leadership Fellowship.

How, under your view, can we constitutionally have a national holiday to honor a theologian who made no secular contribution to this country at all, whose only significant activity was the advocacy of and attempts to implement religious views, nakedly presented as such?

How can religious views such as Rev King’s be a basis of law in our country? Why aren’t the laws he advocated to advance his religious views unconstitutional establishments of religion?

A century or so further back, John Calhoun had made the same point about slavery. Enacting abolitionism’s tired old into-your-business morality into law would be an unconstitutional establishment of religion in violation of the First Amendment.

[not guilty]

"How, under your view, can we constitutionally have a national holiday to honor a theologian who made no secular contribution to this country at all, whose only significant activity was the advocacy of and attempts to implement religious views, nakedly presented as such?"

Is Christmas unconstitutional??

[Bwaaah]

Myself: You had to reach around the decision to get to your *things*. Nowhere in the decision do there appear to be any religious references (no "Christian," no "scripture," no "theology", no "god," no "bible," no "religion").

Importantly, the decision refers to a section of the Alabama State Constitution, incorporated in 2018, that extends broad unspecified rights to unborn children, stating the "public policy of this state to ensure the protection of the rights of the unborn child in all manners and measures lawful and appropriate."

(I don't have an opinion as to how to best interpret that in Alabama.)

You seem to have difficulty coping with views that differ from your own. Try to tolerate the fact that this is a court interpreting Alabama law. As the court wrote, "While we appreciate the defendants' concerns, these types of policy-focused arguments belong before the Legislature, not this Court.

You don't need reliance on religion to assert a theory of legal protections of "unborn children" (their term, not mine). Our laws describing life, behaviors, protections and prohibitions vary in many significant ways from state to state. Those differences reflect differences in people's beliefs. Try to cope with that without invoking the anti-religion thing.

If there's some "obvious violation of the 1st amendment," please do tell. Or is it just like a "church state" thing for you, even though there's no religious reference in the decision?

[not guilty]

No religious reference in the decision?? Have you read the Chief Justice's concurring opinion?

[Bwaaah]

Yes. That's what I'm call "a concurrence," and not "the decision."

[OtisAH]

Literally everyone should be concerned, even the god-botherers and hypocrites who think “fetal personhood” is a good idea. As for “politically,” it’s hard to say. Most of the country does not seem thrilled with Dobbs. Multiple off-season elections show that. Infertile couples and those who struggle to conceive won’t be excited by the loss of the alternatives like IVF. Most people will not be happy with the eventual bans on contraception. Most people will be horrified at charging women who miscarry with “wrongful death” or murder. Most folks do not want to establish an allegedly “Christian” theocracy. Even fewer will want to live under one.

Dunno, hard to say how it works out “politically”…

[John F. Carr]

If the court goes no further there should be little fallout. IVF procedures are uncommon compared to natural pregnancies. The prospect of liability for negligent destruction of embryos is not the problem. A medical facility should be liable under the circumstances of this case. The problem is putting the lost embryos in the same category as born children killed in car accidents.

If the court goes further and says taking the "morning after" pill is attempted murder, then it's a bigger deal.

[OtisAH]

There are few to no scenarios in which the court does not go further. And I only say “few” because who knows anything is possible. Claiming an embryo is only a human in civil matters regarding wrongful death is not only unsustainable, it’s not the intent. The intent of this ruling is to go further. All the way, in fact.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Superstitious, worthless dumbasses are going to continue to push as hard as they can for anti-abortion absolutism.

They will achieve some victories in desolate backwaters inhabited by half-educated yahoos in the short term. They will huddle for warmth at places such as Alabama, Idaho, separatist organizations, and this bigot-hugging, wingnut blog.

In the long term, however, these right-wing hayseeds and their stale, ugly, delusional -- believing fairy tales are true is delusional -- thinking are going to be culture war roadkill and better Americans will continue to shape the grand trajectory of our national progress.

Some women will be harmed as this sifts. That's the price we pay for recognizing that bigoted, superstitious, ignorant Americans have rights, too.

[Theendoftheleft]

Completely wrong, AIDS.

The 'pro-choicers'---an odd and ill-fitting name, since there's no free will---are breeding themselves out of existence in Blue states and Red.

They will be replaced with poor, uneducated third-world breeders. The breeders, and their descendants, will be pro-life. America will be almost wholly populated by imbeciles.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:
1. Feminism has helped to guarantee the patriarchy's survival and paramountcy for countless generations across the globe.
2. Feminism is a proof that white supremacism is false.

[Sarcastr0]

It's also got a very theocratic concurrence:

"Man's creation in God's image is the basis of the general prohibition on the intentional taking of human life. See Genesis 9:6 (King James).... Finally, the doctrine of the sanctity of life is rooted in the Sixth Commandment: "You shall not murder." Exodus 20:13 (NKJV 1982).

....The theologically based view of the sanctity of life adopted by the People of Alabama encompasses the following: (1) God made every person in His image; (2) each person therefore has a value that far exceeds the ability of human beings to calculate; and (3) human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God, who views the destruction of His image as an affront to Himself."

[ReaderY]

Are yiu saying the Declaration of Independence is unconstitutional as explicitly theologically based?

Are the 13th and 14th Amendments, whose advocatez explicitly referred to the theological portion of the Declaration of Independence, also unconstitutional? John Calhoun sure argued that the policy behind them violated the Establishment Clause.

I would suggest the reverse conclusion is warranted. The 13th and 14th Amendments are constitutional. In order for them to be constitutional, they must necessarily have partially repealed the Establishment Clause insofar as it prohibits extending rights to “created” human beings on theological grounds.

Of course, the Establishment Clause never did any such thing. It always left government free to advance the views of some or all religions, including theologically-based moral views that purported not-fully-human beings, whether in the case of African slavery or in this case, should be treated as full or closer to full human beings for legal purposes.

The fundamental problem with your argument is that it is exactly the argument raised by supporters of slavery in opposition to abolitionism. The supporters of the Alabama constitutional amendment involved, agree with them or not, made arguments no different from the ones the abolitionists had made.

And yet the abolitionists’ position won. If the First Amendment was ever an obstacle to a statute or constitutional amendment expanding the sphere of human beings accorded rights on theologically based moral grounds (and it never was), then the 13th and 14th Amendments eliminated it as an obstacle.

I am by no means certain that what Alabama did was correct as a moral or policy matter. I am confident, however, that it didn’t violate the Establishment Clause.

The Declaration of Independence extends, to quote Dred Scott, to “the whole human family.” The constitution’s Bill of Rights doesn’t extend nearly that far, as I’ve often noted in my comments. But it poses no obstacle to prevent the nation and the states from enacting laws that extend further in their respective jurisdictions if they want to.

If the Framers of the Declaration of Independence had wanted to mean “born” rather than “created,” they knew how to say so.

[Sarcastr0]

This is a decision that was supposed to be based on Alabama's laws and constitution.

Not the Bible.

Simple as.

The fundamental problem with your argument is that it is exactly the argument raised by supporters of slavery in opposition to abolitionism.
You beg the question regarding fetal personhood in order to make this analogy.

As I said above, you rely overmuch on the aesthetics of legal logic.

[Bob from Ohio]

"pro-choice side and Republicans to the anti-abortion side"

"Choice" do do what?

[SimonP]

Voters do not like Republican extremism on reproductive freedom. I don't know that the Alabama decision sways people who weren't already swayed by Dobbs itself or efforts by Republican legislators to double-down on abortion restrictions - contrary to the will of the people - but it will help to reiterate for them that there is no real limit to how broadly this extremism will reach.

Voters probably could acclimate to a late-term abortion ban or a consensus around 20 weeks, with exceptions for life/health of the mother. If that's where Republicans held, then Dobbs would probably fade into the background. But the more that Republicans go after fertility treatments and contraception, the clearer their extremism will be for voters.

They're talking about reinvigorating the Comstock Act, for crying out loud. Talk about a third rail.

[Zarniwoop]

I think the backlash is strong enough that even the GOP Alabama Leg appears motivated to fix it quickly:

https://www.al.com/news/2024/02/alabama-bill-would-protect-ivf-treatments-after-courts-frozen-embryo-ruling.html

The Alabama Senate’s Healthcare Committee chairman plans to file a bill that would protect in vitro fertilization following a ruling by the state’s Supreme Court.

Sen. Tim Melson, R-Florence, told the Alabama Reflector that the bill would state that embryos are not viable until implanted in the uterus.

“We all know that conception is a big argument that it’s life,” Melson said Thursday. “I won’t argue that point, but it’s not going to form into a life until it’s put into the uterus.”

The move comes after the Alabama Supreme Court last week ruled that embryos had the same legal status as children. The ruling has already had widespread repercussions for healthcare providers and families seeking treatment.

On Wednesday, the University of Alabama at Birmingham health system has paused in vitro fertilization procedures.

Alabama Fertility Services said in a statement Thursday that has “made the impossibly difficult decision to hold new IVF treatments due to the legal risk to our clinic and our embryologists,” The Associated Press reported.

(emphasis added)

[not guilty]

Hetero married couples with the discretionary income to afford IVF are a traditional Republican constituency.

[theobromophile]

Flip side: a lot of Republicans get married earlier and don't hold off on having kids for funsies.

Anecdotally, my right-leaning friends who met someone in their mid-30s onward moved pretty fast to have kids. Even if they weren't opposed to IVF, they just didn't want to need it if they didn't have to.

The pro-choice camp are the ones who were all "you can have a baby at 40 easy breezy."

[theobromophile]

I've long thought that while life obviously begins at conception, our laws shouldn't really get involved until implantation in the uterus, and then only to a deliberate act whose purpose is to remove the child.

Ectopic pregnancy? Not touched by pro-life laws.

Plan B? I hate it but I don't think it's going away.

IUDs? Arguably, even the Pill? Drinking too much that could mess up implantation? We aren't touching that.

If you don't start until implantation, it means that abortion is unequivocally an affirmative act: removing the unborn baby from the womb, usually via auction aspiration or D&C.

[Kazinski]

YouGov/Economist has a new poll out that shows only 53% of voters think “that Joe Biden has personally profited from his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings”. That includes 16% of people that are intending to vote for Biden in November.

Then there is 16%who are not sure, I guess they are waiting for the impeachment hearings report.

Then there are 31% who do not think Joe did personally profit from Hunters deals.

https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/econTabReport_Ra91MiL.pdf

[santamonica811]

I'd love to see that result replicated, since I'm kinda astonished by it. It's hard for me to believe that 53% of all voters think this to be true. For now, I remain skeptical. (Although, if Russia can find more dupes/whores to publicize anti-Biden bullshit, maybe we can get that number into the 60s. Whatever KGB/FSB/SVR agent thought of using Smirnov should be getting a massive bonus for a job very well done.)

[Kazinski]

I am astonished Its only 53%.

[Nige]

Damn, you worked so hard! And it turns out to be literal Russian interference!

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Although, if Russia can find more dupes/whores to publicize anti-Biden bullshit

Yeah, like that Russian psyop that manufactured a laptop and claimed that it belonged to Hunter Biden, amiright?!

[Nige]

One thing we know for sure is that it was an attempt at a Russian-style psyop.

[Sarcastr0]

No worries about Smirnov?

Of course not.

[Nige]

If you've been propogating deliberate misinformation all along, with help from Russia no less, you've got to count this as a win.

[OtisAH]

I guess you were too busy writing amicus briefs this week to see the news. Meh, wouldn’t matter to you anyway.

[Dr. Ed 2]

If Trumo wins and Congress refuses to count his votes, we will have a Civil War, but it might more resemble the Revolution where the existing upper class was exiled. It’s the very rich who are supporting Biden while the middle class supports Trump.

The real question is if the Republic would survive?

[NvEric]

"... Congress refuses to count his votes, ..."

Pence was right, he and HE ALONE counts votes received, Congress has no part other than viewing the opening and the counting. Congress are otherwise bystanders.

The election commission act would be un-Constitutional if tested. Congress has no say in certified electoral college votes. While the election commission act sounds worthwhile and prudent, it nonetheless is un-Constitutional. Thus, Congress must accept certified electoral college votes as they have no power otherwise to reject any votes or challenge them once received .

An amendment is needed to make challenging certified electoral college votes when those votes are opened and counted by the president of the senate. Challenges must occur before certification, because once they are transmitted to the president of the senate, it's too late.

There's a little over 30 days to challenge an election, and as displayed in 2020, it was grossly ignored by courts. Honest elections are required for our system to work. Sadly they have not been honest enough lately as visible irregularities were brushed aside and many not reported to the whole country since many of the country's media were likewise irregular and grossly dishonest and grossly negligent.

When corruption holds many, the People must ensure beforehand their honest future, as they see fit, as they can, and as much as they are willing to do hithermost to the principles of our Declaration as the need arises.

[Krayt]

"Could two laws be logically in conflict? Of course. Could a law and the Constitution be logically in conflict? Of course. And the Constituton must win. And the judge must decide which is which before judging based on those laws."

"Could a slate be wrong or a fraud? Of course. Therefore..."

Never underestimate the power of weasels to wease.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Pence was right, he and HE ALONE counts votes received, Congress has no part other than viewing the opening and the counting. "

Technically, it just says that he opens them, and is silent about who counts.

[Moderation4ever]

If Trump wins the votes will be counted. You are assuming that everyone is as corrupt as Donald Trump and that a silly assumption.

[OtisAH]

Idiot.

[David Nieporent]

If Trumo wins and Congress refuses to count his votes, we will have a Civil War, but it might more resemble the Revolution where the existing upper class was exiled. It’s the very rich who are supporting Biden while the middle class supports Trump.

It will surprise nobody who wasn’t born yesterday that Dr. Ed is lying. (I mean about the demographics of supporters. The civil war masturbation isn't a lie; it's just a disturbing fetish.)

[Dr. Ed 2]

"ERS-2 was roughly the size of a school bus and weighed 5,547 pounds (2,516 kilograms) when full of fuel at liftoff. When it fell to its fiery demise today fully depleted, it weighed in at around 5,057 pounds (2,294 kg). While fairly large, the satellite's mass isn't an outlier when it comes to reentered space junk. An object of similar size falls into Earth's atmosphere every few weeks."

If we re burning up a satellite every few weeks, what is that doing to the climate????

[John F. Carr]

Before they come down they had to go up. PBS Newshour recently aired a segment called "How a new space race could be harming the Earth’s atmosphere".

[Absaroka]

There are also concerns about debris from reentry.

[Nige]

Enter the new Japanese wooden sattelites!

[Dr. Ed 2]

They produce more than CO2 when they burn up -- even assuming they only oxidize (and I don't) there's a lot of harmful oxides.

[AmosArch]

Either Trump is an unparalleled criminal genius the likes of which have never before been recorded in history, who while being a nationally known celebrity and businessman and running all sorts of already well known ventures has simultaneously committed an unprecedented number and breadth of crimes never before attributed to a singular individual spanning across all areas of the law that were so well hidden they just happened to start coming out when Trump was beginning to be a political threat and an additional burst are coming out just now in time for election season (despite Trump being the most thoroughly investigated person in history for almost a decade and an extremely high profile nationally/globally known person decades prior). Or Dems are using their connections and a lot of resources to commit selective lawfare against him.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Trump is too tawdry a figure to compete for the title, “Unparalleled criminal genius.” More likely the victor under the rubric, “World’s shittiest inconsequential loser,
all time”

[AmosArch]

so inconsequential leftoids are spending an unprecedented amount of resources and attention on him. In fact you might argue if it weren't for them he wouldn't be headed for a primary victory right now. lol.

[Don Nico]

It is enough to observe that Trump is one of the best things that has ever happened for the Dem party.

[Nige]

Except if he wins and has them all arrested.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Trump is one of the best things "

The GOP is in far better shape than in 2009.

[Don Nico]

The last two elections don't look that way. And Trump is setting up a disaster in 2024.

[NOVA Lawyer]

LOL. Who says you don't have a sense of humor?

[Bob from Ohio]

40 GOP senators, 178 GOP house seats in 2009

Now, 49 and a slim House majority.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Which is a complete non sequitur to the question of whether Trump has been good for the Democrats.

Wouldn't the relevant metric be that the GOP had 54 Senators going into the 2016 election, had 52 at the start of 2017, and has 49 now with the House going from 247 Republicans at the end of Obama's last term to a low of 200 during Trump's term and still only 221 now?

If the composition of Congress is your metric, Trump did help the Democrats.

But more to the point, although that isn't the worst metric, it is in the bottom half.

[Don Nico]

Exactly.

[Frank Drackman]

Abortion on demand since 1973 is the only reason the country's even close to 50/50, imagine an electorate with 60 million more Knee-grows

[Armchair]

"It is enough to observe that Trump is one of the best things that has ever happened for the Dem party"

That's less clear. One of the interesting items has been the relative reversal of the parties on the economic classes they represent. Democrats used to represent (largely) the working class, the GOP the professional class. That paradigm has flipped.

That reversal has been going on for a while, but the GOP leadership still maintained much of its professional economic class roots in their demeanor and rhetoric. Trump may have greatly accelerated the working class shift, as he is a non-traditional politicians.

[Nige]

'(despite Trump being the most thoroughly investigated person in history for almost a decade and an extremely high profile nationally/globally known person decades prior')

You're thinking of the Clintons. Amazing that their example of high-profile politicians coming in for that level of scrutiny didn't give him pause, so, not so smart. That white collar criminals get away with white collar crimes for so long despite being obviously crooked and shady comes as a surprise to no-one.

[AmosArch]

drudge and a few repubs and right wing activists totally command the same resources as the MSM/the vast majority of academia/more than half of the political class/holyweird/the majority of the legal class/the majority of the bureaucracy/the intelligence agencies/sillycon valley and practically every other relevant major institution you could name combined. And clintoon was totally held completely accountable for his actions. Thats why he's a respected elder statesman having done shit even the Dems don't deny that would destroy other men's careers in METOO.

[Nige]

You’re leaving out the entire Republican Party and its resources, and assorted fellow conservative billionaires and their media empires, and indulging in ridculously bombastic paranoia. One thing the MSM conspicuously didn’t cover in exhaustive detail in the run-up to the election was Trump’s shady business dealings. Trump literally had one media guy buying stories about him and then killing them.

[AmosArch]

I’ll trade you straight up the Republican network for the Dem network. It would be very interesting how much more could be accomplished in the world with that amount of power not having to push a such a batshit agenda.

[Nige]

What, you don't like the power of pushing stories about Taylor Swift conspiracies and horror over a trans person drinking a beer? I wouldn't either.

[AmosArch]

Literally you’re mention a story thats a story because the MSM made it one. Also what are you talking about someone getting mad over a ‘trans person just drinking a beer?” Are you talking about the ‘Dylan’ controversy? Thats pretty strawmannish isn’t it? Would you like it if corporate america started shoving Jesus and crosses in your beer and cereal commercials and public schools and Fortune 500 workplaces and AAA video games and you had to accept it all or your life would be destroyed and when you complained. I say oh you just hate Christians simply minding their own business eating cereal and drinking beer?

[Nige]

Now you're reduced to apologising for and explaining away dumb stories pushed by conservative networks and politicians. No wonder you're jealous of any network with even slightly higher standards. (Has any Christian ever released a forty-second tik-tok video of themselves drinking a beer? Probably! But nobody knows because nobody cares!)

[Don Nico]

Network, schmetwork. It's votes that count.

[AmosArch]

Yeah the MSM was too easy on Drumpf. Only 95% negative coverage. Need to pump up those rookie numbers

[Nige]

Wait'll you find out how they treated Clinton. I guess we've left behind for good the idea that Trump was masterfully playing the media like an organ from hell in favour of a poor-Trump victim narrative.

[AmosArch]

I don't know about you but if banging and sexually harassing a bunch of whores and being rewarded for it with increased popularity and status as an elder statesman is bad treatment. Sign me up!

[Nige]

Is that how you see Trump?

[Sarcastr0]

1) Trump did not have an exactly clean record before he ran for office
2) Yes, it is a well known thing that someone makes national news, they get more scrutiny.
It is the way discretion is going to work in an open society, and while it's not ideal it is a nonpartisan phenomenon.

[AmosArch]

it is a nonpartisan phenomenon.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Like I said if it truly is evenhanded than Trump is a criminal genius.

[Nige]

Well, is he or isn't he? Given the charity foundation, the university, the maximum fines for money laundering at his casino - he's been caught doing shit over and over again. If you actually looked at Trump's history you'd have thought to yourself - I'm gonna vote for a guy who keeps getting caught doing shady shit and then act shocked when he gets caught doing more shady shit. If he were blue-collar, he'd be classed as a hopeless recidivist.

[AmosArch]

And he hid it so well it all, or at least all the stuff that actually mattered came out after he became a major republican candidate sure...Iol

[Nige]

He didn't hide it at all. You voted for him anyway.

[Sarcastr0]

Yes, Amos, white collar crime is well known for being well monitored, and with great resources expended so it's often prosecuted.

You're yet again leveraging your ignorance to make you more partisan.

[AmosArch]

The media was 3x as negative on Trump's early days as it was for the other recent Presidents. Truly evenhanded and nonpartisan!

[Nige]

And it's clear they could have been ten times as negative, still been accurate, and still left stuff out.

[Sarcastr0]

You started out talking about criminal cases. Now you're on about the media.

No new goalposts.

[grb]

AmosArch : “The media was 3x as negative on Trump’s early days as it was for the other recent Presidents.”

Trump’s “early days” ?!? Within hours of becoming president, Trump was pushing a grotesque lie about his inauguration crowd size. On his first full day in the office, he went to Langley for a ceremony to commemorate U.S. intelligence officers killed in the line of duty. He spent his speech lying about the crowd size. It was a stupid absurd untruth Trump and his people would return to repeatedly in his first month of office.

On his third day in office, Trump met with Congressional leaders. He spent the meeting lying about “3 to 5 million illegal votes” that cost him the popular vote against Clinton. That lie too would become a reflexive tic in Trump’s early days, reappearing in an interview on ABC, Day-6.

Day-8, Trump blundered his way through a series of international calls. Talking with Mexican President Nieto, he threatened military action against all the “bad hombres down there”. He somehow turned a talk with Australian Prime Minister Turnbull into some kind of elementry school playground shout-fest.

On his twelfth day, Trump attended the annual National Prayer Breakfast. He spent his speech bragging about his TV ratings and dissing Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Of course there was substance along with the embarassments and unforced errors. There was the confusion and chaos around his travel ban stunt or introduction of such luminaries as Michael Flynn and Steve Bannon into White House service. But all-in-all, there were 10X more fiascos as typical with a new president. Lacking time & space, the media could only cover 3X.

[Don Nico]

Nope, he was a crooked schmuck before he got into politics.

[Frank Drackman]

Please enlighten us, I only know of his Plagiarism at Law School

[OtisAH]

He’s not an anything genius. He’s a wealthy guy who, until he decided to overthrow the US government, was more trouble than he was worth to career-minded prosecutors. Again, if he could take a joke, never attended that dinner, or otherwise stayed on the sidelines teasing a run but never following through, he would’ve lived the rest of his life running his grimy little cons and schemes, corruptly enriching himself every step of the way. Too bad, so sad, bye bye.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Too bad, so sad, bye bye."

Ha ha. Yeah, President of the US. Maybe twice! The dominant political figure of the century. Its so sad.

Its annoying now but Angel Trump will enjoy seeing himself being the only early 21st century figure talked about in 50 or 100 years.

[Nige]

Good. You should never, ever live down that you voted for a crooked reality-show host.

(Angel?!)

[OtisAH]

Dumbass loser.

[Bob from Ohio]

Yes we all know you are.

[OtisAH]

Cracks me up every time I see one of you dumbass losers retreating to middle school for your repartee. Every time.

[AmosArch]

Thanks for admitting that he was selectively prosecuted through lawfare. I guess theres some things even leftists can’t deny once they decide to be logical for a split second.

[not guilty]

Wait a minute here. Who on this thread has "admitt[ed]" that Donald Trump "was selectively prosecuted through lawfare"?

The sine qua non of a selective prosecution claim is that other persons, similarly situated to the accused, were known to the prosecutors but not prosecuted, and the decision to prosecute the accused but not the comparators was deliberately based upon an unjustifiable standard such as race, religion, or other arbitrary classification, including the exercise of protected statutory and constitutional rights. Wayte v. United States, 470 U.S. 598, 608 (1985); Oyler v. Boles, 368 U.S. 448, 456 (1962).

The beginning step in comparing the prosecution of the defendants with the non-prosecution of those who were "similarly situated" is to determine who, if anyone, was similarly situated with the defendants. A "similarly situated" person for selective prosecution purposes is one who engaged in the same type of conduct, which means that the comparator committed the same basic crime in substantially the same manner as the defendant — so that any prosecution of that individual would have the same deterrence value and would be related in the same way to the Government's enforcement priorities and enforcement plan — and against whom the evidence was as strong or stronger than that against the defendant. United States v. Smith, 231 F.3d 800, 810 (11th Cir. 2000).

Donald Trump's criminal conduct is sui generis.

[OtisAH]

Like with “gaslighting,” which they first learned two years ago, “lawfare” is a word these mooks learned recently and apply to everything regardless of what it actually means.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Is this the narrative Republicans are actually going to use when Trump wins the nomination? Hilarious!

[Michael P]

California continues to act like a banana republic: https://www.nbclosangeles.com/investigations/california-dmv-late-fees-car-vehicle-registration/3324908/

[Krayt]

The $200 charge is a bit much, where's Elizabeth Warren, but I would like to know if she screwed up the numbers in spite of her protestations. "The bank confirmed they never even tried to charge my account" makes it sound like the state are a bunch of cheating highway robbermen, and I wouldn't put that past them. But if the numbers were messed up, that is also what would happen.

[Dr. Ed 2]

"DONALD Trump's former White House Chief of Staff Steve Bannon has declared "MAGA could rule for 50 years" at a fiery event on day one of this year's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, DC.

https://www.the-sun.com/news/10461743/steve-bannon-cpac-donald-trump-washington-dc/

CPAC is like SNL -- it ain't what it used to be. But MAGA could be like the New Deal.

[John F. Carr]

The quote brings to mind Karl Rove's "permanent Republican majority."

[Dr. Ed 2]

Rove did it on the "we suck less" basis -- thinking Republicans would never vote for the Democrat and never anticipating that they might simply stay home and not vote at all. Hence RINOs like McCain & Romney losing races the GOP ought to have won.

MAGA is a movement.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Has the exposure of Smirnov permanently shut down the, "Biden crime family," political circus? If not, what can happen to make MAGAs undaunted to wear clown-face pay the steep price their humiliation has earned them?

[Mr. Bumble]

So Smirnov faces indictment but no one involved with the Steele dossier does?
Didn't the FBI vouch for Smirnov like they did for Steele?
What's wrong with the FBI?

[Nige]

Whay, what did they do?

[Moderation4ever]

That is because there was nothing criminal done with the Steele dossier. No charges were brought because none really could be brought. Steele's reports were unverified, and everyone knew that and handled them as such. Some of Steele's information has proven to be true in the end. There were contacts between Russians and Trump campaign staff. Paul Manafort acknowledges this in his book written after he was pardon by Trump.

[Krayt]

The weasels aren't being weasely enough! Such a thing affects an election and has a dollar value to one candidate or another, and should be declared.

[Nige]

It wasn't used in the election. Famously.

[Moderation4ever]

Agreed. My recollection is that the public never even knew about the Steele dossier. It wasn't until Trump as President was briefed and he blew his stack and primarily at the idea that Putin had a tape of him.

[tylertusta]

Danchenko.

[grb]

Moderation4ever : “Some of Steele’s information has proven to be true in the end”

The most famous example is the infamous sex tape. Although it was a forgery by criminal elements behind a Russian real estate conglomerate, Trump asked Michael Cohen to suppress it. He used Giorgi Rtskhiladze as an intermediary who reported back: “Stopped flow of tapes from Russia but not sure if there’s anything else. Just so you know…”

Both men turned over their emails & texts on the tape to Mueller and testified before his grand jury. Having more important things to document, he gave the sex tape only a footnote in his final report.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Steele’s reports were unverified, and everyone knew that and handled them as such.

From https://www.justice.gov/storage/120919-examination.pdf:

"As described in this report, information from Christopher Steele's reports-sometimes collectively referred to as the "Steele dossier"-that pertained to Carter Page was relied upon in the Carter Page FISA applications:"

...and...

"We asked then Deputy Director Andrew McCabe about the testimony attributed to him in the January 18, 2018 House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Memorandum from Majority Staff on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Abuses at the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (HPSCI Majority Memorandum) that "Deputy Director McCabe testified before the Committee in December 2017 that no
surveillance warrant would have been sought from the FISC
without the Steele dossier information.""

...and

"On September 21, the OGC attorneys met with the OI Unit Chief and described the reporting from Steele concerning Carter Page that the team had recently received. According to notes of the meeting, the OGC Attorney and OGC Unit Chief told the OI Unit Chief about the allegations contained in the Steele reporting that Page had a secret meeting with a high-level Russian official in July
2016, that Page may have received a Russian dossier on Hillary Clinton, and that there was a "well-developed conspiracy" between associates of the Trump campaign and Russian leadership being managed, in part, by Carter Page. The OI Unit Chief told us that he recalled that the Steele reporting was "what kind of pushed it over the line" in terms of the FBI being ready to pursue FISA authority targeting Page".

Yeah, that certainly sounds like it was treated as unverified.

[Nige]

You know how you verify things? By investigating.

[tylertusta]

Danchenko did face an indictment. A jury found him not guilty.

Before anyone thinks that a not guilty verdict somehow validates what went into the Steele Dossier, it's quite likely that the jury engaged in jury nullification based on statements made by the jurors after the trial.

[Commenter_XY]

What juror statements?

[tylertusta]

I may be misremembering- it might have been the Sussman trial (the other person put on trial into false statements made to the FBI by Dossier sources.

From what I remember, after the trial a juror said something to the effect of "Yeah, we didn't care. We think that this matter wasn't worth pursuing."

That statement likely played heavily in Durham's decision to stop trying to prosecute people in Northern Virginia or DC districts since the jury pool has shown to be so biased in favor of Team Blue that he might as well end his efforts.

That was also why Durham criticized the juries involved in his final report.

[David Nieporent]

It's true that one of the Sussman jurors was quoted something to the effect of what you said. More precisely:

Personally, I don’t think it should have been prosecuted because I think we have better time or resources to use or spend to other things that affect the nation as a whole than a possible lie to the FBI. We could spend that time more wisely.

But she did not say what you imply: "So we decided to nullify." In fact, she expressly said that they didn't think that Durham had made his case:

“The government had the job of proving beyond a reasonable doubt. We broke it down...as a jury. It didn’t pan out in the government’s favor.”

[NOVA Lawyer]

Is that the new narrative for Durham's utter failure in trying to subvert the justice system to political ends?

Personal responsibility is definitely not what it used to be.

[tylertusta]

NOVA Lawyer,

I'm confused. Is it my personal responsibility you're referring to here? Durham's?

Furthermore, can you expand on why you think that Durham was trying to "subvert the justice system to political ends?"

Thank you,

tyler

[NOVA Lawyer]

Yes, Durham is absolved of his own failings by you because D.C. juries. He failed largely because of his choices (including pursuing dubious prosecutions which seemed primarily motivated by the desire/expectation that his investigation would produce prosecutions).

For a thorough discussion of the politicization of the investigation, see here: https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/durham-investigation-what-we-know-and-what-it-means

[tylertusta]

NOVA Lawyer,

I'm disappointed. A personal attack isn't something I expected out of you, especially since we had constructive discussions previously.

Please let me know if you are willing to continue without personal attacks.

Tyler

[NOVA Lawyer]

What personal attack? On Durham? I guess, but it's less personal than criticism of the job he did. I didn't say anything about you other than you appear to be excusing Durham for his failures by blaming DC juries. If you consider that a personal attack, I don't know what to tell you.

[tylertusta]

I asked if it was my "personal responsibility" at issue or Durham's. You replied that I excused Durham's behavior, implying that my "personal responsibility is not what it used to be."

Is that what you meant?

[NOVA Lawyer]

I mean you are excusing Durham from any personal responsibility. This seems a typical thing in the Trump years for people from the right. It’s just Trump being Trump. The Democrats made them do it. And now, it’s the juries’ fault Durham can’t get a conviction rather than he was pursuing weak cases in an effort to support a political narrative.

To the extent the politics of jury pool would play a role, Durham knew that going in. It sounds like an ex post facto excuse to me. Or, put differently, he’s whining and you’re accepting the whine.

[tylertusta]

Ah, I see. Thank you for explaining your position.

I have attempted to not ascribe my feelings towards Democrats and the left towards you in an attempt to have a good discussion, and I would ask that you do the same.

In the future, please address my argument and not me personally.

If that isn't feasible for you, please let me know.

[David Nieporent]

In addition to your misrepresentation of what the juror said, Durham did not criticize the juries involved in his report. I have no idea what you're talking about here. The closest thing I can find is the boilerplate at the beginning of the report simply noting that a prosecutor is obligated to consider the likelihood of conviction when deciding what charges to prosecute.

[tylertusta]

Thanks for finding the quote. I had limited time today so I couldn’t go looking too much.

But she did not say what you imply: “So we decided to nullify.” In fact, she expressly said that they didn’t think that Durham had made his case

The nullification is an inference. It is indeed an implication based on part of her statement. I for one don’t believe the other, self-serving part of her statement.

Durham did not criticize the juries involved in his report. I have no idea what you’re talking about here

I’m surprised at you. For someone willing to dig to find information, you should have consulted Durham’s own report:

[J]uries can bring strongly held views to the courtroom in criminal trials involving political subject matters, and those views can, in turn, affect the likelihood of obtaining a conviction, separate and apart from the strength of the actual evidence and despite a court’s best efforts to empanel a fair and impartial jury

[David Nieporent]

I’m surprised at you. For someone willing to dig to find information, you should have consulted Durham’s own report:

Yes, that's literally what I said: the boilerplate at the beginning of the report simply noting that a prosecutor is obligated to consider the likelihood of conviction when deciding what charges to prosecute.

[tylertusta]

I think I understand why we’re disagreeing here.

Durham’s statement that I quoted isn’t boilerplate language. Boilerplate means “text of a standard or routine nature,” the implication that its regularly used verbiage- copypasta, so to speak.

That’s not the case with Durham’s report. That section by Durham was atypical and was even the subject of criticism at the time his report came out. Prosecutors typically don’t point out that juries are politically biased.

Hur’s report, for example, doesn’t criticize juries for being biased. Mueller’s report (when it deigns to make a charging decision at all) doesn’t do it either.

If this is actual ‘boilerplate’ language used by the DOJ, please provide some examples. I’d be happy to see it!

[Michael P]

No, it has not shut down the antics of the Biden crime family. The Biden crime family and its enablers continue to use politically motivated, abusive prosecutions to silence its critics.

[Sarcastr0]

The most impressive part of how there is never any evidence the Bidens have anything to do with the prosecutor!

[Nige]

The funny part is that everyone who reflexively yells 'Russiahoax!' are now exposed as Russian stooges.

[Michael P]

Yes, we know you are.

[Nige]

I'd say 'look what they're reduced to' but they've never been above that level.

[OtisAH]

Yes, “I am rubber, you are glue” is the pinnacle of MAGA rhetoric.

[Michael P]

The Hamas fan dishonestly pretended that there was only one accusation against the Biden crime family. He doesn't deserve a detailed response.

[Sarcastr0]

Or you're lazy and trying to cover it with insults.

[OtisAH]

I don’t know why you’re trying to pull that scam on me. Is it not clear by now that I already know you have no detailed responses to offer? Rubber v Glue is literally the best you can do.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Michael is one of the many enemies of America willfully repeating Russian propaganda in an effort to help Putin.

I'd say he's a traitor, but he likely isn't even American to begin with.

[tylertusta]

Smirnoff's indictment calls into question some of the Ukraine bribery allegations, but Congressional Republicans have found plenty of evidence linking Biden to a pay-to-play scheme with other nations.

[Michael P]

It calls into question one specific Ukraine bribery allegation. It doesn’t rebut the general facts about the Bidens and friends being on the Burisma payroll.

And leftoids here have argued that where there's smoke, there's fire -- that if an unfounded allegation seemed plausible to them, the accused must have done something else wrong or else the accusation would not have seemed credible.

[Nige]

Sometimes where there's smoke there's a smoke machine.

[NOVA Lawyer]

This.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

When you're praising Nige for his insightful commentary it's time to look into a 12 step program.

[Nige]

When you're attracting drive-bys from Wuz it's time to do the online equivalent of opening a window to let the smell out.

[tylertusta]

Good points all around.

Unsubstantiated allegations against Trump and other Republicans are treated as true even when all evidence shows that its false.

Meanwhile, the growing mountain of evidence of Biden's illegal behavior is never enough because the goal post gets moved every time something else comes out.

[Nige]

Except there is no evidence of that, and the one actual witness, already dodgy, turns out to be a Russian asset.

[tylertusta]

Hi Nige!

You missed my question from earlier. Do you prefer coffee or tea?

[Nige]

Except there is no evidence of that, and the one actual witness, already dodgy, turns out to be a Russian asset.

[tylertusta]

Well, it's getting long in the day. You have a good evening, Nige!

[OtisAH]

In fact, he’s the main witness to the entire impeachment. They base the entire “scandal” on his testimony. He’s the all-important 10whatever form. And it’s all bullshit.

“But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, did you enjoy the show?”

[grb]

tylertusta : "Congressional Republicans have found plenty of evidence linking Biden to a pay-to-play scheme with other nations"

Uh huh. "Evidence" you or they can't produce. That's why Rep. Comer lies about the testimony of every witness right up until the released transcripts exposes his spin. There's a reason why he's reduced to trying to turn three truck payments into widespread corruption.

He has nothing else. Neither do you.

[David Nieporent]

Smirnoff’s indictment calls into question some of the Ukraine bribery allegations, but Congressional Republicans have found plenty of evidence linking Biden to a pay-to-play scheme with other nations.

They have, in fact, found none. Zero. Zilch. No pay — not one dollar of money from "other nations" going to Joe Biden — and no play.

[OtisAH]

No, of course not. Kazinski was already here two hours before you running his same weak game. Jim Jordan pulled the old “Sure, the whole mess is a Russian intel op and Smirnov’s entire story is bullshit, but the facts still support impeachment” game we’ve seen from conservative bloggers and columnists in other contexts (and this one, probably). They’re going to keep pretending they have a thing and the thing is serious!

[Kazinski]

Smirnoff's allegations were never even investigated. Mainly what the house is investigating is cash flows from Chinese Executives, Ukrainian, Kazak, and Russian oligarchs, all of which Joe Biden met with. The Chinese joint ventures were set up when Hunter flew to China with Joe on Air Force2 and Joe made the introductions.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Well you've said so, so it must all be true.

Sources be damned (and missing)!

[David Nieporent]

Smirnoff’s allegations were never even investigated.

Smirnov's allegations were the heart of the bribery allegations. They have not found one shred of evidence that Joe Biden got any money from any of the groups you name, so this secondhand Smirnoff statement was all that the House GOP had to rely on.

[Kazinski]

Comer and the House impeachment committee are focused on actual cash flows, sure some of the allegations are dead ends.

But in the end they are focused on showing where the cash originated, the shell companies the cash flowed into and the accounts it ended up in and how it benefited Joe and his entire family.

The same poll showed that 67% think "that Hunter Biden has personally profited from his father Joe Biden’s positions in government". Including 44% of Democrats.

They've also shown extensive coming long of funds between Hunter and Joe.

You can denigrate an incomplete investigation all you want, but its going to continue, and you don't have to look too much beyond current polling to see that its having some effect, although it is secondary to the fact that Joe is sinking into senility.

[Sarcastr0]

Comer and the House impeachment committee are focused on actual cash flows, sure some of the allegations are dead ends.

Understatement of the year. You've had twice weekly bombshells you breathlessly report from Comer turn into damp squibs in these weekly threads.
Whistleblowers, bribes that weren't, testimony that when the full transcript comes out it says Biden acted above board.

They’ve also shown extensive comingling of funds between Hunter and Joe.
No, they have not.

You need to stop taking partisan press releases as evidence of anything.

[OtisAH]

You hit the mark using only the two weekly open threads but it should be mentioned that it’s actually a daily occurrence.

[Sarcastr0]

Good point. He came into the Kraken thread with 'Kraken deserves it but Biden is a crime lord'.

Just amazing all around.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Will daunted political prospects for Rs in any way chasten the right-wing Supreme Court? Or will it goad them into frenzy, to write as much of their policy agenda into law as they can, before a D wave election can stop them?

I am guessing the latter. Before any D President can succeed Biden, including Biden himself, "rape, ruin and run," will have become the nation's constitutional standard for environmental law.

How the Court can work that fast is not yet apparent, but my guess is that they will figure it out. Expect shadow docket action—on every kind of right-valence case—strained to the breaking point, and a new all-time injunction record. The Sotomayor personal story may take a turn toward tragedy.

[tylertusta]

Will daunted political prospects for Rs in any way chasten the right-wing Supreme Court?

No.

The fact that Roe was demolished should have convinced you of this already.

[Don Nico]

SL,
You are the worst kind of agitator, tearing down the honest efforts of the nine justices as just so much partisan politics. It shows how much of a propaganda rag you must have edited.

[Kazinski]

You are as usual confused. While of course some "right-wingers" would like the Supreme Court to impose their policy preferences, the whole Federalist Society-Textualist-Originalist movement is to remove the Supreme Court from policy debates and to uphold the constitution and laws as they were written.

Sometimes that means reversing cases like Roe or Chevron, and sometimes it results in cases like Bostock which also reversed generations of settled law. But both Bostock and Whole Woman's Health were based on the text, or lack of it, of the law.and Constitution.

[not guilty]

Uh, Bostock v. Clayton County, 590 U.S. ___, 140 S. Ct. 1731 (2020), is a decision interpreting federal statutes, not the Constitution.

[Kazinski]

Ummm:
"uphold the constitution and laws as they were written."

Not only is that embarrassingly nitpicky, it is embarrassingly wrong nitpicking.

[Michael P]

To be fair, that's about all ng ever has.

[Stephen Lathrop]

. . . the whole Federalist Society-Textualist-Originalist movement is to remove the Supreme Court from policy debates and to uphold the constitution and laws as they were written.

And you fell for that? After Dobbs and Bruen? Yikes.

Please consider the possibility that accurate insight into history and tradition is beyond the usual capacity of people not trained to research and write history—which lawyers and judges almost never are.

[Bwaaah]

Though they may be bad at discerning history, it's still better than not even trying and just making shit up as they go.

[Stephen Lathrop]

No. It is making things up as they go, without being forthright about it.

[Bwaaah]

I'll go with an assertion that they're just making things up as they go. Are you endorsing that? (If so, then there is no longer a need for a legislature.) If you don't endorse making things up, then what does the SL version of jurisprudence look like? What does judicial interpretation of constitutions/statutes/regulations look like?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bwaaah, I am content to rely on the formulations of Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, and Wilson. However murky they may have been, none endorsed anything as crazy as either notion: retrospective reliance on founding-era ruminations so complicated that none of those founders could resolve them to their own satisfaction; or, alternatively, reliance on texts which even when they were current all parties faulted as too ambiguous to give reliable guidance on the most pressing problems.

I add that those particular founders posited a constitutional system actively under control of an all-powerful joint popular sovereign in place at the apex of government power—an idea which had been vitiated in practice before the time of the Civil War, and more or less abolished afterward—with a result that countless avoidable contradictions and paradoxes have deviled would-be American constitutionalists ever since.

I refer to that resulting muddle as decapitated constitutionalism. I advocate policies and legal interpretations to put an active sovereign head back on the shoulders of American constitutionalism, if only to provide more helpful insight into how the system's pieces were designed to fit together.

Under presently standard interpretations, no one will ever understand how government can at once be the greatest threat to individual rights, and also the means to vindicate them. Nor can anyone make sense of a judicial system with justices bound by oath to support the sovereign, but insistent practically on their own power to rewrite the sovereign's Constitution, to improve policy determinations which the sovereign empowered the political branches to make.

Confusions like that are what you get when you knock the sovereign head off American constitutionalism, and proceed afterward as if government were sovereign.

[Bwaaah]

What is the "sovereign." Is it the President, as expressed through the agencies of the executive branch? Is "Chevron deference" a lean toward your sovereign? What are the major behavioral changes we would observe in the Federal government if it were to behave as you'd prefer?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bwaaah, at this point, you tell me who the American sovereign is supposed to be, or I dismiss your other questions as the barkings of a sea lion. I am happy to continue in good faith. Cut the nonsense.

[Bwaaah]

Those were honest questions in a genuine attempt to understand what you meant. I can't put forth a useful theory of what you meant by "sovereign." I think you're referring to a very different presidential role than we have now, and more certainly, courts that behave differently. But honestly, I don't know.

Though I am still interested in considering your theory of the sovereign, I am no longer willing to do so in this instance. I'm in the jerk/counter-jerk cycle now.

What was so stupid about my questions that would make me seem like a barking sea lion to you? Was it that I insulted you elsewhere? I am interested in understanding this question now.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bwaaah, my apologies, I think. Perhaps you merely overlooked:

I add that those particular founders posited a constitutional system actively under control of an all-powerful joint popular sovereign in place at the apex of government power

Also, do not be concerned that I respond too much to insults. Mostly, I am content to presume they discredit the insulter. I do respond to repeated mischaracterizations of what I have said, after they have been corrected multiple times. But that refers to folks like Nieporent, not to you.

[Bwaaah]

First: I appreciate your civil response. I asked those questions sincerely.

Are you referring to an alternate founding view that grants an executive autonomous authority over government? Would such a "popular" executive be elected? For life or a limited term? Was there a more formalized proposal for the structure of such a role, or are you positing your own theory of benevolent rule (my term; not necessarily a good one) through an executive?

Don't knock yourself out on this, but I'm interested in serious tries at alternative theories of government, and you caught my attention there. I don't know enough of what you are describing to dismiss it, and that's why I asked the questions. (And my mission isn't to dismiss it or any theory, without reason.) (I'll keep a watch for how you build out your theory in other posts; you may already have done so and I've been speed-reading past it.)

Thanks.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bwaaah, it is not my theory at all. It is the the founders' theory which I have been explicating and paraphrasing.

Possibly a twist in the theory as it was understood and worded by Wilson misled you to suppose I referred to the executive branch. Not at all. I will let James Wilson explain it to you in his own words. If you pay attention you will notice that Wilson refers to the sovereign as if part of government, but actually meant part of the scheme of government, but separate from and superior to the three branches comprising the government itself. To get that it helps to be familiar with Hobbes, whom Wilson seems to be channeling, but you can also get it in context from the quote. I offer the Wilson quote again with apologies to others who have seen it repeatedly. If you have, there is nothing new in what follows:

There necessarily exists, in every government, a power from which there is no appeal, and which, for that reason, may be termed supreme, absolute, and uncontrollable . . . Perhaps some politician, who has not considered with sufficient accuracy our political systems, would answer that, in our governments, the supreme power was vested in the constitutions . . . This opinion approaches a step nearer to the truth, but does not reach it. The truth is, that in our governments, the supreme, absolute, and uncontrollable power remains in the people. As our constitutions are superior to our legislatures, so the people are superior to our constitutions. Indeed the superiority, in this last instance, is much greater; for the people possess over our constitution, control in act, as well as right. The consequence is, the people may change constitutions whenever and however they please. This is a right of which no positive institution can ever deprive them.

The Constitution was structured around that idea. And then over subsequent decades, the idea of a continuously active sovereign passed gradually from attention and reliance by people in government, including the courts, despite no change in the Constitution to adjust for that idea's disappearance from the scheme of organization.

[Stephen Lathrop]

By the way, does anyone besides me wonder if Kagan’s corporatist–joiner tendency will turn her into a right-trending anti-environmental voice on the Court? I think the entire Court is woefully short of justices with any sign of environmental expertise or interest.

[Don Nico]

Kagan is one of the most intelligent and incisive Justices on the Court. Again you treat anyone who crosses your partisan line as an enemy.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Nico, that is dead wrong. I have said on this blog I would vote for Liz Cheney.

[Don Nico]

So would I.
But your comment about Kagan is way off the mark.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Nico, not on her environmental record, it isn’t. I concede the ignorance she shows about the environment and ecological issues does not much distinguish her from any of her colleagues. Apparently legal training does not much appeal to folks with outdoor backgrounds.

William O. Douglas was a SCOTUS environmentalist. I think David Souter may have been. I am having trouble coming up with many. Anyone want to add names to the list?

If I were tasked to pick the next nominee, my first choice might be a marine biologist. The Court has an emergency need for justices who can explain to their indoor colleagues that the most important issues which will arise in years ahead will all be about stuff happening outdoors.

[Don Nico]

All you're telling me is that you don't agree with her I already knew that. She can run circles around you.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Nico, I am grateful to have found you, someone on a par with Kagan, to fill me in.

[Don Nico]

Actually Ellen Kagan is likely smarter than I.

[Bwaaah]

Maybe, but certainly not smarter than SL.

[Kazinski]

Lathrop are you aware that Liz got an A.from the Susan B Anthony Society for her antiabortion activity:

"Liz Cheney is the representative for Wyoming's at-large district (WY-AL). Congresswoman Cheney has stood up against the pro-abortion agenda of the Biden-Harris administration and Pelosi Democrats who are actively working to expand abortion access and abortion funding. Rep. Cheney has voted consistently to defend the lives of the unborn and infants. This includes stopping hard-earned tax dollars from paying for abortion, whether domestically or internationally, and protecting health care provider rights for those who refuse to engage in brutal abortions."

She is anti-Trump not a.progressive.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Yes, Kazinski, I get that. It was my point.

Cheney and I share almost nothing in terms of recognizably partisan ideology. But I would vote for her because she has shown herself to be a heroic American patriot, and an uncompromising institutionalist supporter of American Constitutionalism.

Those are in short supply. Cheney happens to be positioned in a political vicinity which suggests that under some potentially that realistic scenarios, she could prove a unifying force of the sort the nation needs now. That matters much more to me now than getting a notch up on a partisan agenda.

When I say I am concerned that Trumpism is a genuinely existential threat to American constitutionalism, I am not posturing. I believe it.

[Kazinski]

I think all the justices have at least an interest in the environment, but do you think that should override their conception of what the law is?

Congress and the state legislatures should be the forum for balancing the competing interests of the environment with economic development. Or indeed competing solutions for mitigating environmental problems like big footprint energy production like solar, wind, hydropower, biofuels versus smaller footprint nuclear, or even gas and oil.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Kazinski, your comment above is succinct endorsement of an ongoing tragedy for humanity which you misunderstand. For more than half-a-century I have tried in vain to imagine some way to get folks like you to see it otherwise.

Others are trying too, of course, but we are not succeeding. I have concluded the tragedy is destined to go to a conclusion which will wreak havoc, before it becomes bad enough that the best-protected champions of, "competing interests," will be forced by personal loss to open their eyes and ears.

With the sociology of personal protection mostly adjusted by policy makers to suit themselves, that means that before a few of them become discomfited enough to notice, most of the rest of humanity will be imperiled, and every person will have suffered incalculable loss of natural advantages they will never live to see restored. That process is underway now, and still you do not see it.

Whatever you think the, "balancing," forum should be, no person will decide what it will be. That question will be out of humanity's hands altogether. It always has been.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Deleted, duplicate.

[Sarcastr0]

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.

Jack Dunitz on upper limits to the entropic cost of bound water molecules: the best thing about this paper is its length (one page). It's a masterclass in how to use simple calculations to arrive at a universal and useful result. https://science.org/doi/10.1126/science.264.5159.670

[1994. 1 page.
Cute, but over my head. I studied thermodynamics in grad school, but this is very applied and not in my area.]

[Dan Schiavetta]

This was legit, right? It wasn't a warmup attempt by Alan Sokal?

[Sarcastr0]

Probably legit...but I can't give it a peer review!

[Don Nico]

"Cute, but over my head."
That comment refutes "so accessibly written."
I looked briefly at the paper, and think that it would take many physicists a significant effort to judge its accuracy and potential impact. I do agree that its brevity is impressive and a model to emulate.

[Sarcastr0]

I've been reading articles from a twitter thread that starts
"There are some 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. Here's a short personal selection:"
And writing my own take.

https://twitter.com/curiouswavefn/status/1749647212811084061

[Krayt]

I was wondering. “So brilliant and accessibly written“, this must have come from some other mouth, as you usually follow on with “in spite of a college course or two, I’m lost.”

“Accessibly written”, to experts in the field =)

Which would not include me. Orgo was my last chem class before shifting to computers.

[Kazinski]

Well, its brevity is fine, if its sufficient to adequately explain the subject.

[Armchair]

You need to stop posting papers that you don't understand, especially as Dunitz doesn't actually provide any calculations...not any new data or new theories.

It's a commentary. And it's one page, because this was 1994, and it needed to be published in print, and those were designed for 1 page.

[Sarcastr0]

Thank you for your input.

[Michael P]

Well, Dunitz did perform simple subtraction. I would count that as calculation, but just barely. But the comment embodies a very simple and empirical observation. It's no Watson & Crick (1953), which was itself just over one page long.

[Armchair]

He's reporting an observation other parties made.

[Commenter_XY]

Re: POTUS Trump & NYC Engoron case

Legal question. Is there an 8th and 14th amendment defense here against the judgment?

[Armchair]

Yes, the excessive fines clause.

[Stephen Lathrop]

If the fines do not even exceed the ill-gotten gains, can they be judged excessive?

[Mr. Bumble]

What "ill-gotten gains"?

[Armchair]

Yes.

[Armchair]

But, I suppose a few template examples of how this is an excessive fine should be demonstrated. According to Engoron math.

Let's say you have a house. It's tax assessed value is $400,000. But you believe its market value is $500,000. You apply for a home equity loan, based on the market value, with the proviso that this is your estimate, and the bank should do its own. You use the home equity loan to do improvements on the house, and sell the house for $600,000, making a profit of $100,000

Under Engoron math, you now owe $100,000 in fines for "ill gotten gains". Because of your deception. Note, the state gets all that, not the bank.

[Don Nico]

there is no way that the bank is giving you the loan without they're doing their own assessment

[Jason Cavanaugh]

As Sarcastr0 linked below:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/live-updates/trump-fraud-trial/defense-to-scrutinize-deutsche-banks-due-diligence-103921247?id=103642561

Haigh also acknowledged that the bank failed to conduct its own independent appraisals of Trump's top properties, and did not rigorously examine his financial information.

Your claim seems to be nothing but bullshit as usual. Maybe you should stick to statements you can backup with evidence, instead of your 'expert' assertions.

[Bwaaah]

That they didn't do their own valuations means they didn't believe they were necessary. And that doesn't mean they depended on Trump's valuations being right, either. It indicates they believed they had enough margin of safety to not waste money on appraisals.

You can say they "failed" to do their own appraisals, as ABC News chose to do. That they didn't do an appraisal wasn't a "failure." It was a decision. And that decision was part of a successful venture.

[Sarcastr0]

If you think about it, Trump is the victim of the bank falling for his lies.

[Armchair]

Indeed.

Kise cited testimony from the banker that “large changes to net worth were not unusual.” The banker’s testimony proves there was no intent to defraud and no materiality to any alleged discrepancies in Trump’s personal financial statements submitted to the bank, Kise added.

“The bank made decision based on its own analysis,” Kise said, recounting Williams’ testimony.

[Armchair]

Let's give a different potential example. You're caught speeding, by 15 mph on the highway. The cop pulls you over, and asks why you were speeding. You say "because you're late for your $100,000 a year job, and don't want to get fired". The cop proceeds to give you a fine for $100,000. Is that excessive? The cop says "No, because you were speeding to get that $100,000 job, so those are ill gotten gains"

That's the type of logic being used here, to justify the amount.

[Don Nico]

Your dog don't hunt.

[Mr. Bumble]

Of course having to post a bond of almost a half billion dollars to appeal the judgement makes it very difficult to even raise a challenge.

[tylertusta]

Perhaps having to provide such a significant amount of money on short notice creates a barrier to appeal and would thus trigger an excessive fine or due process claim.

[not guilty]

"Of course having to post a bond of almost a half billion dollars to appeal the judgement makes it very difficult to even raise a challenge."

Domald Trump can appeal the judgment without posting bond. Absent a bond, however, the Attorney General can execute upon the judgment.

[Mr. Bumble]

Hobson's choice?

[tylertusta]

That's not what I heard. I've heard that a requirement to appeal a civil action in NY, you need to either put the damages in escrow or get a bond.

Can you show me where it says something different? I'd like to see it.

[tylertusta]

Also, Trump has asked the appeals court for additional time to post bond for his appeal.

[not guilty]

The purpose of the appeal bond (called an undertaking in New York if I understand correctly) is to obtain a stay of execution on the judgment pending appeal and to secure payment thereafter. https://law.justia.com/codes/new-york/2022/cvp/article-55/5519/ It is not a condition precedent to taking the appeal itself.

[Commenter_XY]

NG, this sounds like having to sell your house to the government to defend against it's seizure by the government.

[David Nieporent]

Of course having to post a bond of almost a half billion dollars to appeal the judgement makes it very difficult to even raise a challenge.

Of course your ignorance of the law continues apace; Trump does not need to post a bond of any amount to appeal the judgment. He has to pay a couple of hundred dollars for filing fees, transcripts, etc., to appeal the judgment.

[Mr. Bumble]

See ng's comment above and check out Lucretia James statements to the effect that she would move to enforcing the judgement you pompous ass.

[David Nieporent]

It's Letitia, and what's your point?

Conditioning a right to appeal on paying large sums of money would indeed be problematic. But there is no such condition, here or in other cases. The payment is for staying the judgment while appealing — a very different thing.

[Mr. Bumble]

No it's Lucreatia, know for her ability to poison.

As I said above, it's a Hobson's Choice.

[not guilty]

How is paying an insurer a premium to underwrite a surety bond in order to obtain a stay of execution a “Hobson’s choice”?

Thomas Hobson offered customers the choice of either taking the horse in his stall nearest to the door or taking none at all. The idiom means that there is no choice. Donald Trump can choose between cutting his losses now or incurring additional risk (through postjudgment interest, fees and costs on appeal). Either would be a rational choice.

[Mr. Bumble]

Well to start with Trump can't do business with any NY entity for three years leaving a much smaller pool of possible underwriters.

[not guilty]

Trump can’t do business with any NY entity for three years??

Is that as true as everything else you have said?

Even if that were part of the trial court's judgment (it's not), Trump's posting of an appeal bond would stay the judgment pending appeal.

[David Nieporent]

Trump can’t do business with any NY entity for three years??

He's referring to this portion of the order:

ORDERED that defendants Donald Trump, the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, the Trump Organization , Inc., Trump Organization LLC, DJT Holdings LLC, DJT Holdings Managing Member, Trump Endeavor 12 LLC, 401 North Wabash Venture LLC, Trump Old Post Office LLC, 40 Wall Street LLC, are hereby enjoined from applying for loans from any financial institution chartered by or registered with the New York Department of Financial Services for a period of three years; and it is further

[SRG2]

Nope. Engoron determined that Trump saved $350mm by lying about the value of his properties, so he's merely returning an illegitimately acquired economiuc benefit. If 63(12) required that in addition to disgorgement, the defendant would pay a further penalty equal to the disgorgement about, then it's arguable.

[Mr. Bumble]

Show me the math.

[Sarcastr0]

No one is going to give in to you demanding endless relitigation of every legal finding against Trump.

The burden is on you to show the finding wasn't supported. Tellingly, no one is trying to do that. They are either arguing 'everybody does that' with no evidence, or they're like you and trying to shift the burden.

[Mr. Bumble]

No one asked you to relitigate anything.
SRG2 says Trump benefited to the tune of $350 million (up from $270 million); show us how.

[Nelson]

Interest on the ill-gooten gains. That's standard, as well as in the decision.

Also, that interest will continue to be assessed until the disgorgement is paid, so it will continue to rise throughout the appeals process.

[Frank Drackman]

How much Dinero does Hunter Biden save by not going to jail for his Federal Firearms Offense? You're so full of shit your eyeballs are turning brown.

[SRG2]

Read the decision. I am not going to conduct my own independent review and do my own maths

[Frank Drackman]

like you can count to 21 without taking off your pants

[Zarniwoop]

Engoron's decision has the math; read it yourself. Pages 81-85, starting at "DISGORGEMENT OF ILL-GOTTEN GAINS".

https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/ef72526861902856/1e996397-full.pdf

Repeatedly bleating "show me the math" is just your usual sea-lioning schtick.

[Frank Drackman]

Engoron the Moron? It's 92 fucking pages of bullshit.

[Michael P]

There's a lot of "plaintiff asserts" and "plaintiff argues" there. Where is the "plaintiff shows"?

For the loan-interest gains, the "ill-gotten gains" are the difference in interest rates between two different loans types, not between loans with two different valuations of the properties. That's an apples-to-oranges comparison, and thus seems flawed.

The other "ill-gotten gains" by Trump (for the Old Post Office Building and Ferry Point) are simply profit from real estate investments as "ill-gotten gains" under an unsubstantiated theory that Trump would have had zero gains otherwise.

If this ruling is representative of how courts operate in equity cases, we should probably abandon that while paradigm.

[Nelson]

"That’s an apples-to-oranges comparison, and thus seems flawed."

Yes, which is the point of the prosecution. Trump asked for an "apples" loan and got turned down, then got an "oranges" loan that was at a much lower rate, but was dependent on the fraudulent valuations he provided.

You are literally making the government's point. He got a loan he wasn't entitled to at a rate he wasn't entitled to specifically based on the fraudulently inflated values he provided in his application. The difference between the amount he should have paid and the amount he actually did pay was denied to the rightful beneficiaries, the bank's stakeholders.

It's not that hard to understand, unless you don't want to understand it.

[Commenter_XY]

Wasn't there a penalty also, SRG2?

[Bwaaah]

Even if Engoron’s “math” is correct, are his numbers correct? Like did the banks actually use Trump’s valuations in making their determinations of his creditworthiness? No. They used their own.

Engoron’s math is correct, but his numbers and his stories are fiction.

Only Engoron, and people enjoying the hunt, pretend that Trump's numbers were the basis of real decisions.

[Sarcastr0]

Describing himself as an "ultimate decider" of the loans' riskiness, [Deutsche Bank risk management executive] testified Wednesday that his decision-making process relied on Trump's financial statements -- documents that the New York attorney general alleges were fraudulent.

"I assumed that the representations of the assets and liabilities were broadly accurate," Haigh said yesterday.

...
Haigh also acknowledged that the bank failed to conduct its own independent appraisals of Trump's top properties, and did not rigorously examine his financial information.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/live-updates/trump-fraud-trial/defense-to-scrutinize-deutsche-banks-due-diligence-103921247?id=103642561

Not a slam dunk, and the court found otherwise.

[Bwaaah]

The bank has plenty of latitude to assess risk and determine what constitutes sufficient due diligence. This isn't your grandma. That they didn't check Trump's numbers means they didn't believe they needed to. (They didn't "forget.") And that doesn't mean they needed the numbers to be accurate; quite the contrary, or they would have done their own valuations.

Deutsche knew what they were getting into, and how to handle it. They got it right. As did all the other banks. They knew they were funding a project that would pay its loans. The whole "what about the valuations" stuff is bullshit, in this case.

[jb]

Cool goalpost moving. You asked if the bank relied on Trump's valuation. You got a quote from the decision-maker from the bank saying he did.

Now suddenly your argument is that they could have not relied on it so it's cool that Trump lied and they relied on it since at least he paid the loan back. By this logic there's no such thing as fraud unless you actually cost the bank money. I guess there's no such thing as attempted burglary either since the bad guy only broke into your house and didn't actually get away with the loot.

[OtisAH]

At least 80% of the commenters here have long struggled to understand that attempting a crime and failing is still a crime. Actually, strike that. It does not appear any single one of them has ever even tried to understand that.

[Bwaaah]

You think you're describing how real life worked there. And I think I'm describing how real life worked there.

My theory at least comports with what happened. Yours comports with what you want to have happened.

You seem to view this through the mindset of a state regulator, rather than that of a commercial business lender...a banker.

Consider that business isn't done like the state wants it done; business is done by each company, as best it can, more or less in compliance with the law. Companies address the state's, i.e. do compliance [usually] as little as is necessary. (Larger, more public companies tend toward more compliance, smaller more private companies tend toward less.) Compliance is is an externally imposed drag on business performance. (Note that many normal good business practices negate the benefit of external enforcement, and yet the costs remain because of the state's reliance on sweeping rules that too often impose upon all market players the rules created only to address bad actors.)

Think like a banker. Should we go in on this project? What kind of project? High-rise housing development in NYC? What's the risk profile of that for us? Who is the developer? Is it a known player with a solid track record? (history/reputation matters a lot) How much are they looking for?

The banks, all the banks, knew from DECADES OF EXPERIENCE that the Trump Organization's deals were solid, straightforward investment opportunities. The Trump [Organization] overstated the values of its assets in order to increase its statistical creditworthiness (let's them do more deals at a time). But the banks know they don't have to rely on those valuations for their security. There were and would be BUILDINGS, and HOUSING UNITS, with RESIDENTS, and OPERATING CASH FLOWS. As soon as the Trump Organization (or any developer) defaults on its loans, the bank takes control of the property and the cash flows, and thereby satisfies the developer's debt. (The bank doesn't rely on the developer's assets; it relies on the building itself.)

That's a realistic picture of how it works in NYC with prime residential real estate properties. Talk amongst yourselves.

[Sarcastr0]

One this side you have actual testimony, and a judicial finding of fact.

On this side you have outcome-oriented vibes and unearned confidence.

[Bwaaah]

Yes. Your view of the real estate business, as seen through court transcripts and the New York State AG’s legal machinations to stop Donald Trump.

Your perspective is so winning in some political theater, and yet completely divorced from the actual endeavor to build housing.

It’s as if you’re not even talking about housing, or housing financing, or how that’s done. (I know. You’re not.)

“He lied about his valuations.” Big deal. Immaterial to the real estate projects in this case. Only material to Democratic politics and the Get Trump campaign.

[Sarcastr0]

My view is based on authorities and experts. I do not claim any expertise.

Yours is based on vibes and declaring those authorities and experts are all in bad faith.

Feelings first is no way to argue on the Internet.

[Bwaaah]

I don't deny any of the court record. My narrative doesn't contradict it in any way.

What is it that you think we disagree about?

[jb]

"The banks, all the banks, knew from DECADES OF EXPERIENCE that the Trump Organization’s deals were solid, straightforward investment opportunities."

Other than the ones that went bankrupt, I guess.

[Bwaaah]

What "banks" went "bankrupt" as a result of financing Trump residential properties in NYC?

[Nelson]

"Like did the banks actually use Trump’s valuations in making their determinations of his creditworthiness?"

Not creditworthiness. That has never been the issue. They did, however, rely on his valuations, which were fraudulent.

[Gasman]

If he 'saved' 350M, from whom did he save it.
Money is zero sum at it's core, unless you have access to government printing presses.
So if he has engorged himself of 350M truly, then there is some party who should be looking to reclaim these funds.
But absent any claimant, looks like his 'savings' is simply a generally acceptable business practice.

[Nelson]

"If he ‘saved’ 350M, from whom did he save it."

The stakeholders of the bank. You do understand about profit and the benefits those accrue to the company's stakeholders, right? It's a basic financial principle that is the foundation of investing.

"But absent any claimant, looks like his ‘savings’ is simply a generally acceptable business practice."

It isn't a generally acceptable business practice. It is literally against the law. It's called fraud.

[Longtobefree]

Really?
400 or so million is excessive when the proven damages were zero?
What a concept.

[SRG2]

According to the decision and the law, Trump saved $350mm through fraud and he has to disgorge those savings. That the amount is so large is immaterial - it merely reflects the advantage gained. Had Trump's lying gained him $1mm he'd have had to repay $1mm

[Mr. Bumble]

What size loan would generate $350 million in saved interest?

[SRG2]

It's a sufficiently stupid question that I can only assume that you put no thought into asking it at all.

But if you read this, you should understand - and further, appreciate why your question was so stupid. https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2024/02/Judge-Engoron-ruling-in-Trump-New-York-civil-fraud-case.pdf

[Bob from Ohio]

"s there an 8th and 14th amendment defense here against the judgment?"

Not in the NY court system for Trump.

[Commenter_XY]

It is the delayed reaction that I am interested in. Every single bank and business has just been served notice by NY and NYC. NY/NYC can and will confiscate your assets for whatever reason they like. That crept over to DE Chancery Court as well.

The trend of uber-wealthy people leaving NY and NYC will increase. They will not stay.

Remember this NY Post headline: Ford to NYC, Drop Dead.

[Stephen Lathrop]

For businesses incorporated in DE, which have operations nationwide, can DE Chancery Court deliver judgments in equity to be applied to operations outside DE? For such a DE incorporated business, could DE Chancery Court issue an injunction enforceable against a business practice occurring in California, for instance?

[Nelson]

"has just been served notice by NY and NYC. NY/NYC can and will confiscate your assets for whatever reason they like"

That doesn't even bear a passing resemblence to this case.

"That crept over to DE Chancery Court as well."

The DE Chancery Court is exactly what everyone claims to want: fast, efficient, competent, and transparent. Because most of the Fortune 500 is incorporated in DE and the vast majority of lawsuits are companies suing other companies, it is the best (possibly only) way to keep the courts from being overwhelmed by frivolous lawsuits. And possibly, given DE has less than a million people, exhausting the jury pool.

"The trend of uber-wealthy people leaving NY and NYC will increase. They will not stay."

And? Every action has consequences. NY decided that the rule of law was more important than the hypothetical possibility that people would choose not to do business in NY. As for having "uber-wealthy people leaving NY and NYC", that hasn't been a problem for them yet. There's a reason NYC has more citizens (and more wealth, wealthy people, economic activity, and pretty much every metric of success) than Alabama and Tennessee combined. It's a great place to live and do business.

[Sarcastr0]

“The trend of uber-wealthy people leaving NY and NYC will increase. They will not stay.”

I challenge that this trend exists, much less is going to be driven by this lawsuit against Trump
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/05/nyregion/nyc-working-class-tax-rich.html

The right wants to pretend Trump isn't special, and that Millionaires are all identifying with him and his persecutions.

It's utter nonsense.

[SRG2]

Here's your answer, from Judge Engoron:

Constitutional provisions guaranteeing a jury trial, such as the Seventh Amendment to the United States Constitution, apply only to cases “at common law,” so-called “legal” cases. The phrase “at common law” is used in contradistinction to cases that are “equitable” in nature. Whether a case is “legal” or “equitable” depends on the relief that plaintiff sought. Here, plaintiff seeks disgorgement and injunctions, each of which are forms of equitable relief. Thus, there was no right to a jury, and the case was “tried to the Court;” the Court being the sole factfinder and the sole “judge of credibility.”

[Michael P]

Why cite a judge who thinks that property tax valuation is the same as a comparable sale valuation, who thinks real estate investments only gain value through fraud, and more?

[SRG2]

Where is he wrong on the law?

[Nelson]

Except he didn't do that.

[SRG2]

I don't think Michael P or any of the other critics of Engoron's decision have actually read it. They prefer unslanted and unbiased secondary sources like GatewayPungent or OneReichNews

[Armchair]

Israel just submitted the report to the UN on Hamas's mass weaponization of rape as a tactic in war.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-report-submitted-to-un-on-hamass-mass-scale-weaponization-of-rape/

"It identifies four main arenas where Hamas used rape as a weapon of war: the Supernova music festival near Re’im; Gaza border communities; military bases infiltrated by Hamas; and abuse of hostages inside the Strip"

According to a statement from the association, which was founded in 1990 as an umbrella organization of Israel’s nine rape crisis centers, “the report clearly demonstrates that this is not a ‘malfunction’ or isolated incident, but a clear operational strategy involving systematic, targeted sexual abuse,” contrary to the claims of some pro-Palestinian activists who have denied the extent of Hamas’s weaponization of rape.

Thus, Nachman Dickstein, a volunteer for body retrieval service ZAKA, was cited describing a pair of women bound to a bed by their arms and legs, one of whom had undergone sexual assault and had had a knife shoved in her vagina."

The report also noted multiple instances of Hamas terrorists engaging in gang rape, which, the authors said, accounts for about 90 percent of wartime rapes. “Cooperation in the acts strengthens the perpetrators’ sense of togetherness and solidarity,” according to the report.

One survivor from the festival, identified in the report as Sapir, said in a testimony to police that she witnessed five separate rapes. From her hiding place near Route 232, not far from the festival grounds, Sapir said she saw a large group of Hamas terrorists swapping firearms and injured women. In a separate instance, Sapir said she saw one terrorist rape a woman, as another terrorist cut her and mutilated her body."

[Nige]

Horrific, if true. But I hope this doesn't have anything to do with emerging reports of the physical sexual abuse of women, and men, detained by the IDF. That would be depressingly cynical.

[Armchair]

"If true"???!?!?" Is there any abuse of Jews you won't question?

[Nige]

There’s nothing coming out of Israel related to the conflict at the moment that I would take at face value, any more than I would any country engaged in a military attack, especially one generating the scale of suffering the current one is. I note there is no abuse of Palestinians you won’t question.

[Armchair]

You're taking the word of Hamas, a terrorist organization, at face value?

[Nige]

No. I am explicitly not. But I'm not dismissing all reports coming out of the war zone as 'Hamas propaganda' either. These are real people and they are really suffering and they have as much right to be heard as the people who suffered on Oct 7th. As for how people are being treated by the IDF - remember Abu Ghraib. None of that was really happening, until suddenly it was.

[Commenter_XY]

Yes, he is.

[Nige]

Next thing we know the very idea that bombs are dropping and people are dying will be Hamas propaganda.

[Armchair]

"There’s nothing coming out of Israel related to the conflict at the moment that I would take at face value," - Nige

Seems you are taking "some" stuff at face value then...

[Nige]

There's the videos IDF soldiers are posting of their, um, antics. They seem real.

[Michael P]

"Keep fucking that chicken", as some might say.

[Nige]

Thousands of people are dying, Michael.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Nige how do you know they are IDF soldiers?

[Noscitur a sociis]

Guess what else there’s video of!

[Nige]

Not sure where Hamas would get all the uniforms if they’re not…

[zztop8970]

Maybe from the bodies of IDF soldiers the kidnapped to Gaza. Or is that something you are questioning, too, as part of your mass denial of Hamas horrors?

[Nige]

There's a lot of bodies in Gaza.

[zztop8970]

Yup. Start a war you cannot win, there are consequences, Welcome to the real world, sonny.

[Nige]

Ah yes, another war to end all wars. They work well.

[zztop8970]

Worked very well in Germany and Japan, no reason to think it won't work here.

[Bwaaah]

Armchair asked Nige: "Is there any abuse of Jews you won’t question?"

The answer is: "I probably miss one now and then."

[Nige]

Not sure the IDF, who are not 'the Jews,' are the people currently being abused.

[Don Nico]

Hey, they were only Jews who were raped. Why should that trouble anyone, especially Nige.

[Nige]

As for any possible Palestinian victims of sexual abuse, they don't even deserve a dumb drive-by. Christ this is the most depressing topic on the VC. Actual apologists for mass killing using anti-semitism as a shield. Fuck.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Grow up, Don. See where he said it would be horrific, if true? But apparently, it's now antisemitic to not take every claim by the Israeli government as automatically true. That is apparently Armchair's position, and I'm beginning to suspect he's had a stroke.

[Don Nico]

Grow up? You have some nerve. Open your damned eyes. Do you truly believe that dozens of rapes are a fabrication? Or are you so seduced by Hamas that you don't care that they women were Jews. Answer the damned question.
Blah, blah blah that it is just Jewish propaganda.
You have to be a fool to believe that if you took the time to watch the recordings of the pogrom.

[zztop8970]

The report about weaponization of rape by Hamas was not published by the Israeli government, but by an NGO - ARCCI - The Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel.
I'm curious, are there other cases where you and Nige doubt the veracity of reports by rape crisis centers, or is the reserved for Jewish victims?

[Nige]

I wasn't doubting the rapes, I was doubting the use of 'weaponisation,' which, upon reflection I now realise is all too appropriate.

[zztop8970]

What a pathetic little liar you are. Wasn't doubting the rapes? "Horrific, if true."
As Armchair already pointed out, you're no different than the typical Holocaust Denier - "Oh, if it happened, it would be horrible. But we can't be sure it happened. And look at how all those Jews are now weaponizing it!"

[Nige]

Don't be thick. It was referring to the headline. (I was being dumb, I admit it, and maybe if the discussion had focused on that I would have realised it sooner.) Why the fuck would I lie about that? If I thought the rapes were fake I would just say 'the rapes were fake' and I would keep on saying it until proved otherwise. Like if I denied the Holocaust I would say 'I deny the Holocaust' not 'You are making this up because you have nothing else to say about what is currently occuring in Gaza.' When your argument depends on you saying things the other person is not saying, you're full of shit.

[zztop8970]

You used the exact formula Holocaust deniers are using, so it it natural and appropriate to call you out on that.

Do you have any specific creason to doubt the claims of weaponization made by an NGO supporting rape victims, other than the fact they are Israeli?

[Nige]

Dude, I admitted I was wrong. I misread the whole thing. I thought the claim was something it wasn't. I should have been more careful. Hamas weaponised rape on Oct 7th.

I don't think you know a single thing about Holocaust deniers, other than that you to mindlessly use the Holocaust to claim a moral high ground while justifying the killing of thousands of people, and ignore reprts of sexual and physical abuse by the IDF.

[zztop8970]

Oh, I know quite a bit about Holocaust denial and deniers, and would bet dollars to donut I know more about the Holocaust than you do, having lost family members in it and having written academic papers about t.
It is why it was so easy to pick out the parallels between your weaselly "if it happened" and the tactics used by those deniers.
But at least you are ashamed enough to walk it back now, which is more than I can say for the loathsome Drinkwater

[Nige]

'It is why it was so easy to pick out the parallels between your weaselly “if it happened” and the tactics used by those deniers.'

You're lying. Nobody who was serious about the Holocaust would pull this cynical shit. If you're not lying you should hang your head.

'But at least you are ashamed enough to walk it back now,'

A scholar who is devoted to the truth would be more scrupulous.

[Sarcastr0]

I'd bet good odds on it being true. Hamas has pegged the needle on evil long ago.

The thing is, this doesn't mean Israel has more flexibility as related to it's awful treatment of the citizens of Gaza or Palestinians generally.

Being wronged does not give one license to do wrong.

[Commenter_XY]

In Sarcastr0's 'Bigot World', Jews exercising their recognized right of self defense in face of a pogrom is 'a license to do wrong'.

Next, Sarcastr0 will tell us how some of his very best friends are Jews...

[Don Nico]

C-XY,
I am sure that they are. He just doesn't want his daughter to marry one (as the old saying goes).
What amazes me is the the Israel bashers don't like to admit that the killings of tens of thousands of Gazans was a key intent in Hamas' plan to make Israel into a pariah state. They knew it would happen because there was no other way to root them out.

[Mr. Bumble]

...and they're still using the (civilians?) as shields.

[Bwaaah]

Civilians? For Hamas, there are no civilians.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Nuke Gaza!

[Sarcastr0]

the Israel bashers don’t like to admit that the killings of tens of thousands of Gazans was a key intent in Hamas’ plan to make Israel into a pariah state

Seems like Israel shouldn't play into their hands then. This is an awful argument - Hamas likes what's going on so Israel no longer has agency?!

there was no other way to root them out.
Necessity (which I do not believe is established here) is not an excuse for war crimes.

[Mr. Bumble]

Once a fucktard always a fucktard.

[Don Nico]

it is not an argument. it is a fact. and it is working for Hamas

[Sarcastr0]

You use it like an argument - you posture it like it proves something. Else why would people not want to admit it?

[Don Nico]

I don't know why, but I observe that they don't.
You have never said that it was the intent of Hamas that 20,000 Gazan should die. Why not?

[Sarcastr0]

You have never said that it was the intent of Hamas that 20,000 Gazan should die. Why not?

Really, dude? Why haven't I said something you just now said?

Dunno if they had a number, but yeah Israel's reaction is something Hamas hoped for.

[Don Nico]

"Dunno if they had a number, but yeah Israel’s reaction is something Hamas hoped for."
On that we agree.

[NOVA Lawyer]

So it's Hamas' fault that Israel is killing tens of thousands of Gazans in response to Hamas killing (and raping and torturing) thousands of Israelis, because Hamas knew that Israel would overreact and ignore humanitarian concerns after October 7th?

I'm not sure how that absolves Israel. Hamas is evil. If your point is just to reiterate that Hamas is evil, sure. But Hamas counting on Israel stooping towards, if not to, their level in no way justifies Israel's actions. Israel remains responsible for what Israel does.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

"Israel remains responsible for what Israel does."

Careful, certain people around here have decided that such statements make one an anti-Semite.

Criticism of Israel and recognition that Israel indeed has its own agency are not permitted.

[NOVA Lawyer]

I realize it is a risk to criticize any policy of Israel or even, as I did, suggest that it is possible they have independent moral agency and so could, if one were inclined, be judged for the morality of their policy decisions. However, it is simply too tiresome to hear the 1000th iteration of "the person/organization/country I support did something bad, but they made them do it by understanding the person/organization/country lacked sufficient to character and morality to conform their behavior to minimum standards of morality in the face of provocation".

I'll take the risk rather than pretend that is a legitimate moral or logical argument.

[Bob from Ohio]

"So it’s Hamas’ fault that Israel is killing tens of thousands"

Yes, just like it was Hitler's fault that USA killed hundreds of thousands of Germans. The party which starts the war bears all the moral burden of the resulting deaths. especially when the aggressor is unable to defend its people.

Hamas hides in tunnels which have exits in buildings. So Israel needs to often destroy the building to eliminate the tunnels. The IDF is nor intentionally killing civilians despite your implication, Hamas has intentionally put them in harms way. A decent garrison would have surrendered months ago since they cannot either defend their people nor even kill many IDF personnel.

[Nige]

Appealing to WWII just highlights the disparity, and depravity, between a modern military pounding the shit out of an impoverished enclave to kill thousands of men women and children, and industrial powers going to war with each other. Just because Hitler was a monster doesn't mean Dresden wasn't a war crime.

[Bob from Ohio]

Hamas made a choice to launch a holiday sneak attack on a far more powerful foe. One can not then reasonably whine about the counterattack.

"impoverished enclave"

You are behind the times, the current Arab twitter spin is that Gaza was paradise before the nasty Jews came.

[Nige]

One cannot kill thousands and thousands of innocent men women and children and whine about being accused of mass murder.

The Jewish ghetto in Warsaw was probably a paradise compared to after the nasty Nazis came.

[NOVA Lawyer]

“Yes, just like it was Hitler’s fault that USA killed hundreds of thousands of Germans.”

Again, if the point is Hamas is evil and bears their own moral responsibility for their actions and the chain of events foreseeably resulting from their actions, fine.

That Hitler was bad and is morally responsible for the deaths of everyone in WWII does not, however, answer the question of whether the U.S. government acted immorally in the fire-bombing of Dresden, for example. (Or, despite the Emperor of Japan’s moral culpability, it is no answer to moral questioning of dropping two nuclear bombs on Japan, rather than one or none, to repeat that the Emperor of Japan is morally culpable for starting the war and hence the resulting deaths.) The U.S. wasn’t freed of any moral obligations solely because it was wrongly attacked and justified in defending itself. How an aggrieved party defends themselves may be moral or immoral.

But I see a lot of wanting to avoid discussing Israel’s choices and simply using October 7th to justify anything Israel wants to do. Again, that’s neither logical nor moral. Israel has moral agency. Avoiding unnecessary civilian deaths (and avoiding committing war crimes) is their moral obligation regardless of what Hamas did.

Hamas hides in tunnels which have exits in buildings. So Israel needs to often destroy the building to eliminate the tunnels. The IDF is nor intentionally killing civilians despite your implication, Hamas has intentionally put them in harms way. A decent garrison would have surrendered months ago since they cannot either defend their people nor even kill many IDF personnel.

And hostage takers often hide behind their hostages. That doesn’t answer the question of whether the police are justified in just shooting through the hostages to get to the hostage taker.

And this bit deserves answer:

The IDF is nor intentionally killing civilians despite your implication

On the most basic, literal level, yes they are intentionally killing civilians. They know civilians are there, they know if they drop a bomb on the area that they will kill civilians, and they intentionally drop the bomb. That’s how language and law work.

Now, if you mean to say that I imply they have the purpose of killing civilians (or they are intentionally targeting civilians), I object. I never said (as you acknowledge) nor implied any such thing. I am quite confident that Netanyahu would not have the IDF kill Gazan civilians in this war if he could instead have them kill only members of Hamas.

In what way did I imply IDF wants to kill civilians?

And, yes, I did imply that I disagree with Israel’s policies vis a vis the bombing of civilian populations in Gaza. But the latter does not entail the former.

If you have no reason to ascribe that false belief to me (and you don’t), a gentleman would retract the statement.

It’s this kind of (intentional?) misstating of arguments that produces heat rather than light in these discussions.

[Bob from Ohio]

"(and you don’t),"

I think I do.

"Israel stooping towards, if not to, their level"

[NOVA Lawyer]

Bob,

Quote the full sentence:

"But Hamas counting on Israel stooping towards, if not to, their level in no way justifies Israel’s actions."

That's a restatement of what Don Nico said:

"What amazes me is the the Israel bashers don’t like to admit that the killings of tens of thousands of Gazans was a key intent in Hamas’ plan to make Israel into a pariah state."

I didn't say or imply that I believed that Israel desired to kill civilians. I just accepted Don Nico's assumption that Hamas intended those deaths and planned to have Israel do the killing for them.

It's quite a big jump to say I implied Israel had as one of its goals the killing of civilians.

But if that's what you take as evidence that I did mean to say it, it's another data point in how you interpret things (which is to say, you first reach a conclusion, then you search for evidence).

[Don Nico]

NOVA,
I agree that you did not say that it was not Israel's plan to kill civilians. I think you made that clear in your text.

[NOVA Lawyer]

NOVA,
I agree that you did not say that it was not Israel’s plan to kill civilians. I think you made that clear in your text.

I'm not sure who you agree with. Too many negatives. But if you really mean that I did not say "it was not Israel's plan to kill civilians" (rather than I did not say "it was Israel's plan to kill civilians"), I don't think it's fair to infer that I intend the opposite of everything I didn't say. I didn't say Hamas both had evil ends and chose evil means. Not because I think the opposite, but because I think it's apparent they did have both evil ends and used evil means to get to those ends. Similarly, I think it's pretty absurd to suggest Israel is targeting civilians (rather than they appear to be largely disregarding civilian casualties in their attempt to kill as many Hamas members/leaders as possible). And that wasn't the original question, (I was mainly taking issue with the argument as an invalid argument in defense of Israel rather than arguing as to what, precisely, they should or shouldn't do.)

If you agree with me that I never said or implied what Bob says I did, then thanks.

[Don Nico]

Nope, it is Hamas' fault that Israel was pushed to the point of see an existential threat that needed extinction.

[NOVA Lawyer]

“it is Hamas’ fault that Israel was pushed to the point of see an existential threat that needed extinction”

And this is the crux of your position. Israel is justified to do anything.

But what you’ve stated is just an initial principle. It does not follow that killing tens of thousands of civilians either will solve the existential threat nor that it is the only or best way to do so. Making that showing would be hard, so you just go back to the solid footing of October 7th was bad and, justifiably, made Israel feel very insecure. What the proper response to that threat is remains an open question which, clearly, you don’t actually care to discuss.

If, instead, you had any interest in discussing that issue, you might answer these:

1. What are the alternative course of action Israel could follow?
2. What are the likely outcomes of those alternatives, does Israel survive if it follows any of them?
3. Will Israel actually be able to extinguish Hamas by killing what others in the thread have estimated to be at most a third of them when all said and done?
4. Will the killing of tens of thousands of civilians make Gazans more likely or less likely to be sympathetic to and/or join Hamas? (This one seems particularly devastating to the pro-bombing argument if, in fact, Hamas gets two new recruits for every Hamas member (and thousand or so civilians) killed.)

And these are just a few of the questions you have to answer before you get from October 7th to Israel is justified in a bombing campaign that will inevitably kill tens of thousands of civilians. But you want to skip all of the intermediate steps and appear to want to accuse anyone who actually wants to consider alternatives and the likely success of this bombing plan of being anti-Israel or antisemitic or pro-Hamas or all of these.

Frankly, I think it is pro-Israel to look for alternatives that do not turn Israel into a pariah state (your prediction) and which ensures no one doubts their commitment to freedom, inclusive democracy, and human rights.

[zztop8970]

Why don't YOU answer those questions? What are would have been a better alternative fro Israel to take? What would have been an acceptable civilian toll?

[NOVA Lawyer]

Because I haven't staked out a definite opinion and called everyone who disagrees with me a bigot.

However, #4 seems highly problematic as I am highly doubtful that anything Israel does that kills tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands by the time they are done, will actually lessen the problem of Hamas and/or terrorism in the medium to long-term. I find it doubtful they will kill more terrorists than they create. If my wife and child die by an Israeli bomb that seems from my perspective not targeted at Hamas or a military target, I'd probably hate Israel. If I was Palestinian and already, most likely, not much of a fan, I'm pretty sure I would hate them and want revenge. What percentage of surviving people between the ages of 12 and 30 do you think will be radicalized by witnessing so much civilian death and suffering? I'm guessing it's at least one of every hundred. I doubt Israel is killing that many Hamas members. This strategy seems to lose ground rather than gain it, long term.

And the other point that proponents of the current Israel strategy fail to mention when they lay the responsibility for the Palestinian civilian death toll on Hamas is Netanyahu's part in bolstering and strengthening Hamas. He personally bears significant responsibility for them attaining the prominence in Gaza that they did. What Hamas is responsible for, Netanyahu and his government are partly responsible for.

Israel retains this man as their leader. That's, frankly, a moral problem.

Your turn.

[grb]

NOVA Lawyer : “Your turn”

Please allow me. Most Israeli supporters refuse to look into the future. They are so habitualize to transparent lies, they keep safely in today’s talking point or settled meme. Those who do tackle the big picture often settle for pie-in-the-sky fantasy solutions, where the problem Palestinians magically disappear. But if you are willing to face the facts honestly, Israel faces three choices:

1. The status quo of slowly stealing the West Bank while pretending the PA is something more than a toothless powerless shell. I seen several people defend Israel against the charge of apartheid rule and they all pretend the Palestinians have self-government and final status negotiations are still still underway. The duplicity or self-delusion behind these lies would be comically if they wasn’t so corrosive & tragic. Israel wants the West Bank, but not the millions of Palestinians who have always lived there. That means stateless people denied citizenship. That means endless lies and endless war. That means a steady decay of Israel’s position in the world that wildly spraying accusations of anti-Semitism everywhere changes. That means the toxic effect internally of a nation justifying itself with crude lies. And none of this ever gets better. None of this magically solves itself. It’s a dead end.

2. One country and two people. But I no more trust the Palestinians (who would have a slight majority) to rule with justice and fairness than the ugly sordid mess seen in Israeli oppression of the Palestinians. Less so in fact. There needs to be a Jewish state. So that leaves:

3. Two states. Once you stop pretending useless dead ends lead anywhere and abandon fantasy solutions, it’s the only option for Israel’s future.

Now, there’s no easy way to get there. Israel can’t make it happen by themselves. The Palestinian leadership is currebtly divided between the repugnant Hamas and the ossified corrupt PA. But a farseeing Israeli leader would understand that’s the only direction that works. He would build towards it; not sabotage it.

[zztop8970]

My turn will come after you provide some answer. Asking again: What are would have been a better alternative fro Israel to take? What would have been an acceptable civilian toll?

[Sarcastr0]

1. It is not required to have a well formed alternative strategy including acceptable collateral damage numbers when making factual claims that war crimes are being committed.

2. Criticizing Israel's actions do not mean you must support a cease fire, or somehow be in bed with Hamas.

3. It is hard to argue Israel's actions are the only possible path to victory. They've gone well beyond wartime necessity in what is a choice to value speed and IDF lives over Palestinian civilian casualties.
Examples include:
Massive civilian population removal
Bombing highlighted removal paths
Removing civilians from areas they have displaced civilians to, followed by bombing that area (Rafah)
Cutting off humanitarian aid being sent to areas Israel has designated for the delivery of aid
Deliberately denying food water and medical aid to civilians
Leveling huge amounts of civilian infrastructure

Do some of these make it easier and less costly to go after Hamas? Almost certainly. But that does not excuse war crimes.

[NOVA Lawyer]

My turn will come after you provide some answer. Asking again: What are would have been a better alternative fro Israel to take? What would have been an acceptable civilian toll?

Sarcastro and grb have that handled. But not a full scale invasion that disregards Palestinian civilian lives. A more limited invasion and/or adopting and adhering to a plan to protect civilians while attempting to dismantle Hamas. I already said I don't think Israel's current plan gets them where they think it will. I think they will have the same medium to long-term anti-Israel terrorism problem, if not a worse one, and they will have alienated a much larger portion of the world (and U.S. population) than they previously had. I think what they are doing is actually counterproductive to their ultimate aims.

But you aren't interested in a discussion if you are asking me for specific war and covert operation plans. How about just don't indiscriminately bomb civilian areas?

[zztop8970]

So, an invasion is fine, but you just want a "smaller one"? That's the best you could come up with? How would a "smaller invasion", say of only North, achieve any of the goals of dismantling Hamas, freeing the hostages, ensuring no repeat of the 10/7 events?
There's no "indscromanet bombing" - if there was, the death toll would have been similar to what we saw in Germany, Japan or Viet Nam

[zztop8970]

Really? One wonders why Saudi Arabia would do it, then ('Saudi Arabia funded most of its operations from 2000 to 2004, "), or Qatar, or Turkey. Do they want to keep the Palestinians in disarray and marginalised?
or why would the EU, Japan and Australia send millions in financial aid to Gaza since 2008. https://www.forbes.com/2009/01/16/gaza-hamas-funding-oped-cx_re_0116ehrenfeld.html?sh=33f4b35a7afb

[NOVA Lawyer]

zztop8970: So, an invasion is fine, but you just want a “smaller one”?

We’re back to, anything is justified. Or else you admit there’s a line, you just think it is self-evidently wherever Netanyahu draws it. Why not more bombs? Surely more bombs would kill more members of Hamas. Because even Netanyahu thinks the costs would exceed the benefits. I’ve laid out why I think the benefits are smaller than Netanyahu and you pretend, but you deign to engage in actual substance. It’s the Goldilocks war, just the right size, huh?

But this gives away the game that you have no interest in a good faith discussion: There’s no “indscromanet bombing” – if there was, the death toll would have been similar to what we saw in Germany, Japan or Viet Nam

First, you put a misspelled word in quotes that only you used. How embarrassing for you.

Second, and to the substance, Germany lost 5.5M military and about 6.5-8.8M civilian and military deaths combined. Japan lost roughly 2.2M military and less than 3.2M military and civilian deaths combined. There are less than 600k Palestinians in Gaza. So it is numerically impossible for them to lose as many civilians as in Germany or Japan.

Third, maybe you meant as a percentage of the total population. Germany had roughly 83M, so lost about 1/9 of their total population (if you count military and civilian deaths), but only about 4% of their prewar civilian population. Japan had about 72M people and lost roughly 1M civilians or barely over one percent. In Gaza, population 560,000 or so, they have reportedly lost 29,000 or so and the IDF claims 9,000 enemy combatants killed, which suggests about 20,000 civilians. This is in the range of 4% of the total population (though, of course, this war isn’t remotely done yet). So, in several months, the IDF has killed as high a percentage (or much higher percentage) of civilians in Gaza than the Allies killed in Germany or Japan over the course of 6 years. You seem unaware that Israel is inflicting more civilian death than even the Allies did in total war against Germany and Japan.

Fourth, but wait, there’s more. Germany and Japan both lost about two military personnel for every one civilian killed by the Allies. Meanwhile, even according to an Israel apologist on Twitter, the IDF is killing about 1.5 to 2 civilians for every combatant. The IDF is killing civilians at a rate four times as high as the Allies in terms of civilian deaths per enemy combatant death. Some admirable restraint that!

All the numbers say we shouldn’t applaud Israel for the restraint in killing civilians relative to the Allies in World War II. Instead, it shows that the IDF is waging a particularly brutal war in terms of civilian casualties.

So save me the innumerate excuse that the IDF is being more careful than the Allies vis a vis civilians. They aren’t.

[zztop8970]

Don;t put word in my mouth, especially ones that are far removed from anything I said or believe.

Of course there's a lime - that line is spelled out in international law. You't can't intentionally target civilians when there is no legitimate military objective, That's why Lidice was a war crime, and Srebrenica was one.
But simply killing a lot of people, including many civilians, in the course of attacking militray objectives is legal. That's why the bombing of Hamburg was legitimate, even though 37,000 people were killed.

You're apparently a lawyer, so I'll excuse your innumeracy. The population of the Gaza strip is NOT 560,000 - that's Gaza City alone. The strip's population is a little over 2 million, so 30,000 deaths (total) would be 1.5% of the prewar population, 20K would be about 1% of the civilian population - less than a quarter of the Casualties Gemrnay suffered.

[Nige]

'But simply killing a lot of people, including many civilians, in the course of attacking militray objectives is legal'

Remember folks, check with your lawyers before slaughtering tens of thousands of people.

[NOVA Lawyer]

The strip’s population is a little over 2 million, so 30,000 deaths (total) would be 1.5% of the prewar population, 20K would be about 1% of the civilian population – less than a quarter of the Casualties Gemrnay suffered.

Even taking the highest estimates of Germany casualties, that's 3.3M out of 83M which is 3.9%. 1% is not less than a quarter of 3.9%. What were you saying about innumeracy?

Moreover, that is comparing 6 years of German casualties versus 5 months of Palestinian casualties.

And I see you ignore that 1% of the civilian population is roughly the casualties (as % of population) Japan suffered....in 6 years versus less than 5 months.

More tellingly, you ignore that the IDF is killing 2 civilians for every one combatant whereas the Allies killed 2 combatants for every one civilian. It's not looking like the IDF is as careful as the Allies were in choosing military targets.

You started the Germany/Japan comparisons and, shocker, those comparisons show just how brutal this war has been. The opposite of what you intended to imply. The IDF would have to tone things down to match the brutality of World War 2.

[zztop8970]

Have a read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties#endnote_table
Total German deaths as a percentage of the 1939 population: 8.23%.
1.5% is less than a quarter of that.
As to the ratio of civilian to military, I suggest you educate yourself a bit , before beclowning yourself further. In WW2 that ratio was 2:1 (civilian to military), just like the current conflict (assuming Hamas figures and Israeli estimates are correct), and in more modern conflicts, it was much worse- The Korean War was 3:1, Chechen Wars was 4.3:1, and The Iraq war was 2.9:1 according to Iraq Body Count project . There are also multiple academic papers stating the modern ratio is closer to 9:1.
So if anything , you are making the case that Israel is taking far greater care than other militaries to avoid civilian casualties
Stick to laws, not numbers, they are not your forte.

[NOVA Lawyer]

As to the ratio of civilian to military, I suggest you educate yourself a bit , before beclowning yourself further. In WW2 that ratio was 2:1 (civilian to military), just like the current conflict (assuming Hamas figures and Israeli estimates are correct),

Only if you play with the numbers. We were talking about what the Allies did to the Germans or to the Japanese, not what the Germans did to Jews and other populations. It's simply not honest of you to include the civilian deaths caused by Germany through genocide and starvation. Everyone acknowledges Germany was genocidal. That's not a good comparison for you.

From your own source:

Germany suffered 353,000 to 410,000 civilian deaths due to Allied bombing. That's far less than 1% of the German population dying directly by the hands of the Allies and roughly 10 German military casualties per 1 German civilian killed by the Allies. And that's the apples to apples comparison.

But even comparing all German civilian deaths, that number (from your source) is 5.7M total death, 3.8M to 4.5M military deaths, which, even you should be able to see cannot result in leave more than 1.9M civilian deaths. 1.9M civilian deaths to 3.8 military deaths is 2:1 military to civilian (not the reverse, as you would have it). And this counts civilians not killed by the Allied forces.

It gets only slightly better than 2 to 1 (military to civilian) if you count all the Axis powers (6.9M-7.4M total deaths, 4.4M - 5.3M military deaths, leaving, at most 3.0M civilian deaths (and as little as 1.6M) which results in a ratio of anywhere from 1.33:1 to 3.33:1.

In any case, your own numbers prove, once again, that I am right and you are wrong and the IDF is killing more civilians per combatant than the Allies did in World War 2.

(Your other numbers include victims of the Holocaust and other genocidal endeavors by the Axis powers, starvation victims (including several million on the Indian subcontinent and up to 6M Russians), and other non-military related deaths.)

So if anything , you are making the case that Israel is taking far greater care than other militaries to avoid civilian casualties.

Of course, you want to find new examples to support your underlying point now that your original call to compare the casualties to Germany and Japan have turned out to be unflattering for the IDF.

(And for the record, you are mixing up or making up numbers for your new examples: The Iraq war was 2.9:1 according to Iraq Body Count project. (Says you.)

But, wait, checking the original source, they give up to 210,000 civilian deaths and 300,000 total deaths, which means 90,000 combatant deaths, which means, if you have any math skills whatsoever, a ratio far below 2.9:1....more like 2.3 (assuming the high end of the civilian deaths and low end of military). And, importantly, that includes all civilian deaths, not just deaths caused by the Coalition, to include deaths caused by "increased criminal violence", "sectarian violence", and by insurgent and Iraq military forces. Meaning, you're basically just throwing a bunch of shit at the wall hoping something will stick. You're the prime example of lies, damn lies, and statistics.)

The IDF is, I'll admit, not being as brutal as the Russians in Chechnya, but they are closer to that than to the Allied forces in Germany or Japan. Not a good look for the IDF.

[zztop8970]

Have a read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilian_casualty_ratio
World War II: "The civilian to combatant fatality ratio in World War II lies somewhere between 3:2 and 2:1"
Korea: "The civilian-combatant death ratio in the war is approximately 3:1"
Viet Nam: "a civilian-combatant fatality ratio of approximately 2:1"
Iraq War: figures by the Iraq Body Count from 20 March 2003 to 14 March 2013 indicate that of 174,000 casualties only 39,900 were combatants, resulting in a civilian casualty rate of 77%"

You are beclowning yourself.

[NOVA Lawyer]

zztop8970 is just lying.

World War II: “The civilian to combatant fatality ratio in World War II lies somewhere between 3:2 and 2:1”

I've already explained that that number includes starvation and the Germans' genocide (Holocaust) killings. That you are reduced to claiming that the IDF isn't worse than when Germany was committing an actual genocide says everything that needs to be said about your position.

[zztop8970]

I didn't lie about either. I provided you with a source (which in turn cites other academic and/or mainstream media) that gives the civilian to military casualties in recent conflicts. They are all at least as high as the current one, and your laughable clinging to the absolutely false claim that WWII saw a 1:2 civilian to military casualty ratio does not reflect well on you. It's ok to be ignorant or wrong about some things, but not to continue to hold on to incorrect beliefs once proven wrong.

If you want to nitpick, then yes, there were a handful of people who did not agree with Netanyahu's policies, and Lieberman did resign - though not over this, but rather over accepting a ceasefire with Hamas too early to his taste. But his successor- a former IDF Chief of Staff, mind you - continued with the same policy, as did Olmert before him and Bennet after him.

It is also quite interesting that you repeatedly accuse me of "lying"- not tah I am wrong (I'm not, in this case, but it is certainly possible) , or have a different interpretation of facts - I am "lying". You must be a very insecure person in your personal life, and I pity you,

[NOVA Lawyer]

zztop8970,

Let’s just be clear that you initially said this:

“the death toll would have been similar to what we saw in Germany, Japan or Viet Nam” if the IDF engaged in indiscriminate bombing.

Your only defense here is going to be that you didn’t mean what the U.S. and/or Allied forces did in Germany and Japan, but what Germany and Japan did to Poland and China, etc. But we both know you actually meant compare what the IDF was doing to what the U.S./Allies did in WWII to Germany and Japan and their civilian population. (That's the only comparison that could possibly be helpful in saying what the IDF doing is justifiable.)

They are all at least as high as the current one, and your laughable clinging to the absolutely false claim that WWII saw a 1:2 civilian to military casualty ratio does not reflect well on you.

This is a double lie. I’ve made it clear that I am referring to the 1:2 civilian to military casualty ratio is what the Allies did to Germany (and Japan). Pretending we are talking about the overall WWII casualty ratio (to include genocidal regimes) is dishonest.

Second, your own cites make it clear that the Allies did manage a 1:2 civilian to military casualty rate inflicted on Germany (and actually less than that for Japan). You make no effort to dispute that. You just dishonestly try to rope in the civilian deaths due to genocide and essentially planned starvation and the like (civilian deaths of Jews, Russians, Poles, and Indians, etc. at the hands of Axis powers, rather than civilian deaths of Germans or Axis powers) to get to a 2:1 ratio.

At the point you were reduced to equating what the IDF is doing to explicitly genocidal regimes, you lost the argument.

And none of that speaks well of you. Be better.

[NOVA Lawyer]

You admit: yes, there were a handful of people

…who dissented from Netanyahu’s policy of funding Hamas.

Which (particularly given this “handful” includes the defense minister and the Mossad chief) is in direct contradiction of your original assertion:

Netanyahu was executing a strategy advocated by his entire security establishment

And the source you cited is the one that revealed the defense minister and the Mossad chief dissented. You can claim to be ignorant of your own source if you want to, but it looks like a lie. Even now, you try to weasel out of a full and honest admission you were wrong.

You are incapable of admitting you are wrong in asserting there were no dissenting voices and about the casualty ratios. And the evidence you are wrong is from your own sources. The only reasonable interpretation is that you know better, but are too dishonest to just admit you misspoke or misread the numbers the first time.

If that’s not the case, just admit you are wrong without qualification. How many German (or Axis) civilians did the Allies kill for every German (or Axis) soldier they killed?

[Don Nico]

" Israel is justified to do anything."
That is a distortion and exaggeration. But I have never heard of a credible alternative for Israel except to eradicate Hamas.

Let's examine the U.S. position of a "two state solution." Look at the map. In the region of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, there is no credible, practical way to have two states. There is room for one economically viable nation. Of course that would no longer be a Jewish state. I don't have a solution, but trying to fit two feet into one shoe doesn't work.

[NOVA Lawyer]

I have never heard of a credible alternative for Israel except to eradicate Hamas.

Can we get an acknowledgment that Netanyahu, the current head of state of Israel, actually helped grow and sustain Hamas?

Do you actually think this operation will succeed in eradicating Hamas?

If yes, do you think there won’t be another similar terrorist group that springs up in its place which will gain lots of recruits from enraged Gazans whose families were subjected to the conditions and killing the current Netanyahu/Israel plan is subjecting them to?

I can’t imagine the answer to these are all no. Which is to say, I don't think Israel can achieve the stated goal of eradicating Hamas (or Hamas like groups) in the medium to long term. They can do a lot of damage short term, but, obviously, they are attempting to do so at horrific cost.

[zztop8970]

Netanyahu, and all other Israeli leaders since 2007 made a serious mistake in helping support and sustain Hamas, under the mistaken belief cultivated by the Israeli security agencies and Westrem leaders that such support will pacify them and enable them to focus on building a better life for their people.
A huge mistake, I concede. We are now working to fix that.
After Germany was denazified, there wasn't another Nazi party that sprung up to take their place even 80 years later. theres no reason to think this can;t be done with Hamas, if we follow a similar de-Hamasization process.

[Nige]

There is no way Netanyahu supported Hamas for any reason other than to keep the Palestinians in disarray and marginalised.

[zztop8970]

Really? One wonders why Saudi Arabia would do it, then (‘Saudi Arabia funded most of its operations from 2000 to 2004, “), or Qatar, or Turkey. Do they want to keep the Palestinians in disarray and marginalised?
or why would the EU, Japan and Australia send millions in financial aid to Gaza since 2008. https://www.forbes.com/2009/01/16/gaza-hamas-funding-oped-cx_re_0116ehrenfeld.html?sh=33f4b35a7afb

[Nige]

You guys, while rightfully deploring the historical plight of the Jews as outcasts, hated and despised by far too many people, love to gloat about how the Palestnians are outcasts hated and despised by everyone, even and especially other Arab states.

The aid was sent because aid was needed for the people of Palestine.

Netanyahu is a hardline extremist facing mutliple indictments when he leaves office His Hamas strategy has blown up in his face, and the Oct 7th attack was a massive security failure on his part. You can’t make him out to be a good guy by rewriting history.

[NOVA Lawyer]

"why would the EU, Japan and Australia send millions in financial aid to Gaza since 2008?"

Rephased: Why would some of the wealthiest countries on planet earth send financial aid to one of the most impoverished and hopeless places?

The question answers itself unless you are Trump or someone like Trump.

The bait and switch from "supporting Hamas" to "financial aid" for poor Gazans is telling. You don't have a good answer.

What Netanyahu did was shameful. It was unacceptable. It contributed in a substantial way to the October 7th deaths of Israelis and to the subsequent deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians. Yet he remains in office. Does no one have any standards any more?

[zztop8970]

So, there's reason to think that supporting Hamas financially is reasonable and even moral. But only if actors other than Israel do it. If Israel does it, it is for nefarious reasons and inexcusable -
Take a moment to reflect why you are applying this double standard to Israel . You may learn something (unpleasant) about yourself.

[Nige]

Think for a moment why you are defending the man who helped Hamas gain power in Gaza by pretending that it was a benign act, covering up his complicity the inevitable blowback and massive security failure, and supporting his killing of thousands of civilians. Moreover that you are doing that by chopping logic, rewriting history, rhetorical trickery and baseless accusations. While condemning criticism of Israel as Holocaust denial, *by paralell.* Picked up a few tricks from David Irving, did you?

[NOVA Lawyer]

there’s reason to think that supporting Hamas financially is reasonable and even moral

Don't be dishonest. I never said that. And it's pretty evil of you to suggest that. Hamas is and has been an evil organization. Go try to convince Don Nico (who agrees with you on the justice of the scale and brutality of IDF's actions in this war) that it's okay to support Hamas. You are willing to say anything in defense of Netanyahu, even that support of Hamas is morally good. Why?

Aid to Gazans is not the same as aid to Hamas. You are dishonestly pretending otherwise to make Netanyahu and his government's actions look less bad.

Netanyahu supported Hamas. He did not do it for good reasons (i.e. to aid poor Palestinians), he did it for misguided strategic reasons. It looks, frankly, traitorous in hindsight. With the support he provided Hamas and his failures to protect Israelis leading up to and on October 7, why are you defending him?

He has Israeli and Palestinian blood on his hands.

[zztop8970]

I am neither defending Netanyahu nor the decision to support Hamas - I have already written it was a serious mistake.
But that mistake is obvious hindsight. In real time, Netanyahu was executing a strategy advocated by his entire security establishment - who suggested that financing Hamas (coupled with the supposed deterrence Israel achieved in previous conflicts) would prevent an escalation. Thesre recommendatsion are not hard to find - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/10/world/middleeast/israel-qatar-money-prop-up-hamas.html , and were followed by every Israeli leader, not just Netanyahu - Bennet and Lapid did the same, and Olmert did as well in 2006.

When Hamas rules the Gaza strip, aid to Gaza is aid to Hamas. Money is fungible, and regardless, how else would that aid be distributed? Do you not see what's going on even now, when humanitarian aid is being confiscated by Hamas?

[NOVA Lawyer]

zztop8970:

In real time, Netanyahu was executing a strategy advocated by his entire security establishment

That's just a bald-faced lie.

From the article (so you can't even pretend not to have know this when you typed the above):

Avigdor Lieberman, months after becoming defense minister in 2016, wrote a secret memo to Mr. Netanyahu and the Israeli military chief of staff. He said Hamas was slowly building its military abilities to attack Israel, and he argued that Israel should strike first.

Mr. Lieberman saw the plan [to have Qatar send millions of dollars every month to Hamas] as a capitulation and resigned in November 2018. He publicly accused Mr. Netanyahu of “buying short-term peace at the price of serious damage to long-term national security.”

And it's a bit rich to say every other Prime Minister did the same. They did not.

Bennett continued the program at first, but realized, at the least, it was not a good look, so sought to and did change it.

During meetings with security officials, Mr. Barnea, the Mossad chief, expressed opposition to continuing the payments — certain that some of the money was being diverted to Hamas’s military activities.

For their part, Qatari officials wanted a more stable, reliable way to get money to Gaza for the long-term.

All sides reached a compromise: United Nations agencies would distribute the Qatari money rather than Mr. Emadi. Some of the money went directly to buy fuel for the power plant in Gaza.

Also, this again demonstrates that the entire security establishment, which surely includes the defense minister and the head of Mossad, were not advocating for these payments but at least several (perhaps many) vehemently opposed funneling money to Hamas.

Why was Netanyahu enamored of this idea:

As far back as December 2012, Mr. Netanyahu told the prominent Israeli journalist Dan Margalit that it was important to keep Hamas strong, as a counterweight to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Mr. Margalit, in an interview, said that Mr. Netanyahu told him that having two strong rivals, including Hamas, would lessen pressure on him to negotiate toward a Palestinian state.

Netanyahu was trying to undercut the only option short of either accepting Palestinians into Israel as equal citizens (anything less than equality is problematic for obvious reasons) or maintaining the status quo with Palestinians as neither citizens nor equals (which is problematic for other reasons).

And everyone acknowledges that this mistake and others directly resulted in October 7.

Netanyahu conceived this plan for his own political interests, not the good of the nation. His failures resulted in the deaths of thousands of Israelis on October 7 and many thousands more Palestinians thereafter. Yet, he remains the head of the Israeli government. How much selfishness, amorality, and incompetence is too much?

[zztop8970]

Do you think you're fooling anyone with your cherry picked quotes? From the article I provided, in the NYT's voice "Allowing the payments — billions of dollars over roughly a decade — was a gamble by Mr. Netanyahu that a steady flow of money would maintain peace in Gaza" and ,"The payments were part of a string of decisions by Israeli political leaders, military officers and intelligence officials — all based on the fundamentally flawed assessment that Hamas was neither interested in nor capable of a large-scale attack"

As to Bennet : "The cash payments stopped, but the transfer of funds to Gaza continued under Bennett’s leadership, according to the New York Times." https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/11/middleeast/qatar-hamas-funds-israel-backing-intl/index.html
Maybe you think there's a big difference between cash in suitcases to wire transfers , but I beg to differ.

[NOVA Lawyer]

zztop8970,

I guess I'll take it as a productive development that at least you didn't repeat your lie that Netanyahu was executing a strategy advocated by his entire security establishment.

Several, at least, high profile members of his security establishment vehemently (to the point of resigning) disagreed with his choice to fund Hamas.

That you have to lie (about both this and WWII casualty numbers) tells me all I need to know about the quality and good faith of your arguments.

[Commenter_XY]

Don Nico, one question is where is the arab world? One would think they would want to help their poor, beleaguered arab brothers and sisters. They are nowhere to be found.

The truth of the matter is, arab states want nothing to do with the gazans. Well, those very same useless sheep can watch Israel take out the worlds trash: Hamas. And sit there and pout.

At least POTUS Biden had the moral clarity to provide Israel with the weaponry, and real time intelligence to hunt down, and kill every Hamas member they can get their hands on.

[Don Nico]

The Arab world does not want the Gazans or those on the West Bank. Does anyone ever see Jordan demand the return of its land? Does Egypt do that?
No, to both questions. Why not?

[grb]

Commenter_XY : "In Sarcastr0’s ‘Bigot World’, Jews exercising their recognized right of self defense in face of a pogrom is ‘a license to do wrong’"

That's one way to describe it. Another way is to note Israel is butchering women and children at a rate last seen in Chechnya and the Syrian Civil War. And that's truly ugly company.

The world rightly condemned Russia's indiscriminate war of terror against the Ukranian civillan population. Well, a couple of months back a smirking Putin gave a speech saying, "They complained about us?!? Look what Israel is doing." The painful thing is his jibe was completely true. But supporters of Israel's government always insist on a special standard for them.

[Commenter_XY]

'War is all hell' -- William Tecumseh Sherman. Are we (US) any better?

It would have been better if this pogrom had never happened, grb. But it did, there is a declared war in response, and a lot of people already died, and many more are going to die. I know people whose family members are serving now in the IDF, fighting an existential battle for Israel's existence.

What needs to happen right now is Israel needs to kill more Hamas members faster. And start hunting Hamas members down outside of Israel, and kill them.

The choices for Hamas: Surrender, or die. This is typically the choice offered by Islamic countries when they fight wars. When Hamas is utterly defeated, and seen to be defeated by the arab world, peace becomes achievable over time.

[grb]

Commenter_XY : “It would have been better if this pogrom had never happened”

I agree totally. This war started because of a brutal terrorist attack on a mass scale by Hamas. But line-up all the Sherman quotes in the world and that doesn’t change the fact the IDF is dropping hundreds of 2000lb unguided bombs into densely populated urban areas. And this is happening at the same time Netanyahu is publically talking about negotiations with Congo on the mass-transfer of Palestinians to Africa. Yes, I understand you don’t care, thinking all Palestinians are subhuman vermin. But many of us don’t have so strong a stomach.

And you say this: “When Hamas is utterly defeated, and seen to be defeated by the arab world, peace becomes achievable over time.” There’s so much to unpack here:

1. If a U.S. leader described his war strategy that way, would you take him seriously? Or see it as hollow empty propaganda? Israel has no clear war aim except revenge. They’ve yet to describe any plan or objective restructuring Gaza after the conflict ends. Most of their talk of other Arab governments stepping-in or NGOs running the strip are empty moonshine. If they were serious about security, they’d let the PA run Gaza, given the Palestinian Authority has cooperated with Israeli security for decades. But for Netanyahu, Hamas and the Gaza Strip has been first & always a go-to excuse against negotiations with the Palestinians. That’s why Israel has been propping-up Hamas behind the scenes, escorting Qatar officals carrying millions in cash to the border. Security was a secondary consideration. Which brings us to:

2. A realist (or cynic) would suggest the the war will continue until Netanyahu finds a way to hold on to power. The minute the war ends, there will be strong pressure to oust his coalition. His government won’t survive. And there’s been one thing consistent over the years : Netanyahu is always about Netanyahu.

3. When Hamas is utterly defeated? Here’s a heads-up : It won’t happen. Let’s say the Israelis continue another six months and kill 30,000 more civillians. Somewhere in all that carnage they’ll have destroyed maybe a third of Hamas’ force. The majority of the group will survive along with a massive stock of weapons. And as the utterly ruthless Communist resistence groups calculated in WWII, the more bloody the reprisials, the easier to recruit. Hamas will have no problem reforming, particularly in the post-war chaos.

An awful lot of innocent people are dying, Commenter_XY, while you traffic in empty tinhorn cliches.

[Commenter_XY]

grb, I appreciate your comments.

Many more ‘innocents’ (some are not innocent at all) will die. Hamas can end this war by surrendering, and releasing the hostages. Ramadan is not far off, and there will be heavy fighting, with no respite. When Benny Gantz promises an offensive; it will happen.

Israel will not be leaving anytime soon. If ever.

One other point. Where are the 53 muslim countries in the region? They bleat like weak sheep, and do nothing.

[Nige]

Israel can end the war by stopping killing people.

[zztop8970]

Just like the Allies could have ended WWII by stopping killing people

[Nige]

Just like the US could have ended the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

[Nige]

Its ghastly that you're one pogrom to complacently justify and even larger pogrom. Just evil.

[grb]

One last point on this quote : " ...seen to be defeated by the arab world, peace becomes achievable over time"

When I was a kid we'd visit the grandparents out in the country. Often we'd sit in their drafty farmhouse and watch Hee-Haw on TV. Well, here's a Hee-Haw joke : Someone asks a hillbilly why he won't repair his leaky roof. He replies : "After it rains it's too wet to fix, and when it's sunny it's as good as any man's roof"

That's pretty much Israel on "peace". During quiet times it's unnecessary; after uprisings it's inappropriate. Of course the craven cowardice and blind folly of the Palestinians has played their part too. Twice peace was at least possible, and both times the PLO was the major obstacle. But at this point in Israel, there will never be a right moment for peace "achievable over time". In the West Bank, the PA has cooperated doggishly with Israel for almost twenty years. It's only earned more brutal & suffocating oppression.

[Commenter_XY]

As you say, the palestinians rejected peace twice. The Simchat Torah pogrom was strike three.

[Don Nico]

Grb,
You think it is wrong. That is your right. The unity government of Israel believe it is both right and necessary to protect its citizens.

Hamas wanted Gazans killed by the thousands. Where is your outrage about that?

[zztop8970]

It's actually a similar or lower rate than the one the US/Uk achieved n Fallujah or Mosul, and FAR LOWER than what the Allies did to Nazi Germany or Japan. The world did not condemn those, they cheered it on, and rightly so,

[grb]

zztop8970 : “It’s actually a similar or lower rate than the one the US/Uk achieved n Fallujah or Mosul….”

Oh, for God’s sake: Let’s take Fallujah, whose Second Battle (of) was described as the “some of the heaviest urban combat U.S. military have been involved in since the Battle of Huế City in Vietnam in 1968.” The U.S. Army and Marines fought there for six weeks in 2004. Per the Red Cross, 800 civilians were killed during the offense.

OK; I get out my calculator and extrapolate between the six weeks of that combat and the seventeen weeks of the Gaza War. I then multiple the resulting factor of 2.83 times the 800 civillian fatalities and get 2,300 deaths (rounding up). Given the estimates of civillan deaths in Gaza are currently in the 25,000 -27,000 range, I then write you off as hopelessly ill-informed.

Of course you are right about WWII, and many defenders of the IDF’s indiscriminate carnage now remember the good old days of incinerating entire city centers with warm nostalgia. However I’m convinced the worldwide lunacy that left 60 million dead is not the go-to period for understanding modern military ethics.

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

[zztop8970]

In the 2nd Battle of Fallujah, there were nearly 2000 military deaths, and 800 civilians (your own source) . You are using Hamas figures to assume that virtually all the dead in Gaza are civilians, when Israel estimates around 10000-12000 of these are military,
If you do the calculation based on total deaths, and do them right (the Gaza war is now entering its 21st week not 16), you have 3.33*2800~ 9300, so lower than the Gaza toll, but of the same order of magnitude. And when you factor in that the Gazan population is estimated at more than 2 million, and Fallujah was around 200,000, the overall toll on the population is similar on both places (around 1%)

In Mosul, there were 11,000 civilian death by most estimates, and some estimates say as many as 40000, far more than Gaza.

So, you think the Allies were the lunatics in WWII? That's ah, an interesting position.

[Sarcastr0]

It's not the 1940s.

The world community and international law expectations are different.
They typical war goal is different (COIN/hearts and minds persuading stuff these days)
The scale of conflict is different
The totality of civilian mobilization is different

It's a sexy analogy because it was such a morally clear time. I just don't buy the analogy.

[zztop8970]

Mosul was in 2106, Fallujah, 2004. I guess you've been asleep since the 1940s.
And no, International Law on aerial bombing of civilian cites was the same during WWII, and governed by the 1907 Hague convention, which if anything was even more restrictive:
Article 25: The attack or bombardment, by whatever means, of towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings which are undefended is prohibited.

it was appropriate then, and it is now.

[grb]

zztop8970 : "In Mosul, there were 11,000 civilian death by most estimates, and some estimates say as many as 40000, far more than Gaza"

Uh huh. Quote :

"According to a report published by UN Assistance Mission for Iraq and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in November 2017, at least 2,521 civilians were killed in the battle, mostly because of ISIL including executions of at least 741."

Is this purposed lying on your part? Or are you just clueless? Do you think no one will check?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Mosul_(2016%E2%80%932017)

[zztop8970]

Same source: "6,340 civilians killed and 17,124 injured (as of mid-March 2017, per observer Joel Wing)[43]
8,000+ civilians killed or injured (as of 5 May 2017; per The Telegraph)[44]
5,805 civilians killed (19 Feb.–19 June 2017, by Iraqi/Coalition strikes, per AI)[45][46]
9,606–11,000 total killed (per AP)[47]
40,000 civilians killed (per Asayish)[48]

I won't accuse you of lying, I'll simply assume you can't read at 5th grade level, which is probably true.

[grb]

(I’m off at least one week in the Gaza War count, possibly two. Overall point remains)

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

"In Sarcastr0’s ‘Bigot World’, Jews exercising their recognized right of self defense..."

XY, I want to make sure I understand you correctly. You're saying that IDF forces raping Palestinians is justified self-defense? Those allegations are what he was responding to.

[Sarcastr0]

Hamas is doing the raping in the allegations, not the IDF.

Commenter is equating Israel to Jews, and picturing a self defense against Hamas that ignores all Palestinian lives.
It's some righteous anger curdled into awful bitter hatred and dehumanization, but I don't think he's condoning rape.

I don't read him much anymore; he makes me sad.

[Commenter_XY]

It is tough when you are called out for your bigotry. Get used to it. Cry me a river, bigot.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

You've been on a six-month tirade of dehumanization of all Palestinians that would make Hitler blush.

You're a soulless mouthpiece of hatred, just like Hamas.

[Commenter_XY]

I have been very clear that Hamas members are little more than human animals, and for their actions, they will be hunted down and killed. They wish to kill every Jew alive, have said so, and demonstrated their willingness to do so. I don't mourne Hamas member deaths at all. Civilians who choose to support Hamas do so at risk of their life.

Jason, it is a war. War is brutal. What needs to happen now is Israel must kill more Hamas members even faster in gaza, and obliterate them, so the war can end more quickly.

[Nige]

You're justifying the mass killing of men women and children, to be clear.

[Nige]

It's not whether women were raped Oct 7th, it's whether there are grounds for claiming it's a 'weaponisation of rape.' There might be, or it might be Israel hyping something already ugly and bad to something supposedly worse. But if that's true, and the reports of sexual and physical abuse of detainees by the IDF are true - are they weaponising sexual violence also? Or is it another pointless argument that obscures the actual reality of what has been and is happening?

[Sarcastr0]

I think it's immaterial and changes nothing because Hamas has pegged the needle on evil.

I also would want a corroborating source, but if I had to bet, I'd lay long odds Hamas is weaponizing rape because they're awful.

[Nige]

I don’t doubt they’re morally capable of it.

[grb]

Sarcastr0 : “Hamas is doing the raping in the allegations, not the IDF”

There are two sets of allegations regarding sexual crimes:

1. There is strong evidence Hamas used rape as an act of war in the 07Oct attack. That would just add to the terrorist barbarism already documented against the group. It is clear Hamas staged a military-scale operation with terrorism – not military – aims. It was a planned decison to violate every norm of warfare or decency.

2. There are recent accusations of sexual crimes by the IDF. Rape is only a small part of these allegations; most concern various means of sexual humilation. I don’t doubt IDF soldiers have commited rape because that follows every invading army, particularly given the hate both sides have here. Personally, I very much doubt the IDF condones or excuses rape by its troops. As for systematic & needless brutality and sexual humilation, that may well be condoned even if not official policy. We’ll have to wait for more facts to see if there’s any substance to the charges. They could be hyped as a counter to the charges against Hamas.

[zztop8970]

You’re saying that IDF forces raping Palestinians is justified self-defense? Those allegations are what he was responding to.
Nope. was nothing in that comment Sarcastr0 was responding to that said that. You made it up,

[tylertusta]

Were these 'emerging reports' coming from the UN Human Rights Council?

[Nige]

No, that's just one of the few institutions that will treat them seriously.

[zztop8970]

"The UNHRC has been criticised for the repressive states among its membership. Countries with questionable human rights records that have served on the UNHRC include Pakistan, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, China, Indonesia, and Russia.

On 12 October 2021, the Human Rights Watch criticised UNHRC elections and stated that UN member countries should refrain from voting for Cameroon, Eritrea, United Arab Emirates, and other candidates as they hold abysmal rights records. These countries were alleged not to meet the qualifications for membership on the board. The UN director at Human Rights Watch, Louis Charbonneau said that electing such serious rights abusers sends a terrible message that the UN member states do not take the council's fundamental mission to protect human rights seriously."

Are you a parody account? It is really hard to tell.

[Nige]

What's your point? You thnk the US and Israel have great human rights track records?

[zztop8970]

My point is that anyone who thinks the UNHRC is a serious organization that cares about human rights, or that any weight whatsoever should be given to its pronouncements is a parody.

[Nige]

That's certainly what the IDF want people to think,

[zztop8970]

That's what critics like the UN director at Human Rights Watch, Louis Charbonneau, who is the source of that quote, think.

OTOH, if you want to claim HRW is also a clown organization, I probably won't argue with that too much, I'll just note that here are many other critics of this ludicrous body that has the worst human rights abusers sitting on its council. No one thinks it actually cares about human rights.

[Nige]

For the record, I withdraw any ambivalence, the use of 'weaponisation' for the crimes of Hamas on Oct 7th is appropriate. I was overthinking it.

[Armchair]

I suppose we need to talk about the antisemitism several posters here continually have. Let's start with this.

1. There is absolutely no question that Hamas engaged in systemic acts of sexual violence and rape during the events of October 7th. The evidence is overwhelming. Repeated eyewitness accounts by multiple individuals in multiple locations. And abundance of forensic evidence, in multiple places. Images of a literal knife found stuck up woman's vagina. There is no question. Not even a little bit. This is not one woman who claims to have been raped 20 years ago, but can't quite remember when or where exactly. This is near-Holocaust levels of evidence. To deny this...to question this...you might as well question if the Holocaust occurred. The concept that it's somehow a vast conspiracy boggles the mind.

2. To deny or question this is like those who deny or question the Holocaust. And it's done for a reason. It's the same reason Hamas doesn't allow for the Holocaust to be taught in Gaza. The same reason several Muslim groups deny October 7th occurred. It's because it casts the Jews as victims. And it's much harder to be antisemitic if Jews are viewed as victims of horrible atrocities. (Which of course they are victims of).

3. Those who deny or question these events would never deny the evidence if it was anyone who wasn't a Jewish country. If Americans had been accused of the same system rape in Iraq, with the same level of evidence, they'd be up in outrage. But because this was targeted against the Jews, suddenly it's a question "did it really happen?" and change the subject. And its due to antisemitism.

[Nige]

I’m unaware of anyone here denying there were horrific sexual assaults perpetrated by Hamas on Oct 7th – though I may have missed it since I have the actual admitted right-wing anti-semites blocked – but that you need to pretend there are so you can pontificate long and pretend that defending the killing of thousands of men women and children is not a moral abomination.

[Armchair]

You repeatedly questioned whether the sexual assaults on October 7th really happened. This is a tactic akin to Holocaust denial.

Here's how it goes.

"Did the Holocaust really happen? Well, if it's true, it was bad. But can we trust it really happened?"

[grb]

Armchair : "You repeatedly questioned whether the sexual assaults on October 7th really happened"

If he did, you should be able to easily produce a quote.

[Armchair]

See the initial response Nige makes to the original post on this thread. "If true". Then the follow up, where I question "If true", and Nige doubles down that he won't accept anything at face value.

[Nige]

Jesus it referred to the headline thesis in the report you posted. Dim or dishonest? You decide.

[Sarcastr0]

At least he’s not accusing you of blood libel.

He’s a lying asshole on this stuff – making up wild accusations based on made up comments. Not even the other Israel is in the right crowd want anything to do with him.

[Armchair]

I mean, the evidence is pretty clear as Noscitur a sociis points out below.

But speaking of people who just HAD to question, if a little, the sexual assaults on October 7th Sarcastr0. Just had to throw a little doubt in there.....

Do you just "bet good odds" on the Holocaust being true as well? Implying...maybe it didn't happen?

[Nige]

I have never, not one single time, questioned the Oct 7th atrocities, but you get to put words in my mouth once, and then a whole other set of words, becase you're, frankly, a liar. How can you disrespect the memory of the Holocaust for such cynical self-serving ends? And so trivially cyinical, we're just butting heads on a fucking blog comment section, and you deploy it as a cheap piece of loud rhetoric to shut down criticism.

[Nige]

You are straight-up lying. You tell exactly the same lie about Sarc. You're a one-trick piece of sleaze.

[Noscitur a sociis]

I’m unaware of anyone here denying there were horrific sexual assaults perpetrated by Hamas on Oct 7th

Well, there’s this one poster called Nige. In response to someone saying that Israel’s report

identifies four main arenas where Hamas used rape as a weapon of war: the Supernova music festival near Re’im; Gaza border communities; military bases infiltrated by Hamas; and abuse of hostages inside the Strip

Nige said,

Horrific, if true.

When asked if they were seriously doubting these atrocities, Nige confirmed that

There’s nothing coming out of Israel related to the conflict at the moment that I would take at face value

Disgusting, isn’t it?

[Armchair]

It is disgusting. But it is a classic tactic of antisemites.

They know they can't go out and say "kill all the Jews" as that's too far right now. So, they seek to move the proverbial window. Bring in doubt as to the atrocities veracity. Question if they really happened. One you get a firm question in people's minds, you can bring in denial.

It's insidious, but there are several posters here who replicate it consistently.

[Nige]

I've never met an anti-semite (online) who was shy about it, but you see them hiding everywhere because you cannot abide criticism of Israel. It's exactly the same phenomenon as the accusations of anti-Americansim post 9/11.

[Noscitur a sociis]

If you think anything short of explicit calls for genocide can’t constitute antisemitism, that explains a lot of the problem.

[Nige]

If you think I said that you are part of your own problem. But you should at least reserve it as an accusation for people who do or say something anti-semitic, not because you put anti-semitic words in their mouths.

What about calls for genocide of the Palestinians, though? Or people who don’t care if genocide is committed because it’s in a good cause?

[Nige]

‘When asked if they were seriously doubting these atrocities,’

Since I have previousy and since affirmed the atrocities and never denied them, I thought it wasn’t too much to ask that the reader understand that I was referring to the headline thesis of the report. But if you didn’t have bad faith you’d have no faith at all.

I’ve even reconsidered my attitude. Since those acts were part of the attack, it does indeed count as a weaponisation. So doubt dispensed with.

Not that you’ll care.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

One of the right-wing misfits who avidly consumes the steady stream of bigotry at this blog claims to be outraged by cherry-picked, misleading, partisan claims of antisemitism.

Carry on, bigoted clingers — Conspirators and Conspiracy sycophants alike.

[Armchair]

More news on the Joe Biden bribery scandal.

Congress just got done interviewing James Biden on his role. We remember that James Biden had delivered checks to Joe Biden for $200,000 and $40,000 as "loan repayments"

Well, family members loan each other money all the time, sure. But $200,000 in cash? Well, I'd at least like to get that in writing. I'm sure Joe got SOME sort of paperwork from James on it.

"(James) Biden confirmed to the committee that he kept no documentation for the loans he says were provided by his brother and that he was not charged interest,"

Oh... a no documentation loan....Right....

https://justthenews.com/accountability/political-ethics/james-biden-denied-brother-met-business-associates-said-loans-joe

[Nige]

Keep fucking that chicken.

[Mr. Bumble]

Nige; honorary Biden.

[Nige]

More honour than the people who keep claiming they have evidence of corruption when they really, really don't.

[Frank Drackman]

Nige-Bots Bot-Hemorrhoids apparently flared up this morning.

[Sarcastr0]

This is very weak, but then you're uncritically believing a propaganda outlet itself playing stenographer for truth-free partisan asshole Comer.

Banking records show the same amount going out from the President some months before this payment came in.

Ignoring that fact is a truly shameful display of lying by Comer, passing along lies by Justthenews, and being a brainless partisan by Armchair.

[Armchair]

Links are needed for evidence.

[Sarcastr0]

https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/31/politics/fact-check-evidence-supports-democrats-case-that-joe-biden-made-a-personal-loan-to-his-brother/index.html

You're a blinkered moron who should do more work to check things before you post bullshit yet again.

[Armchair]

"the fraction CNN has seen does not prove with absolute certainty that there was a loan."

If we're talking about "fact free assertions", you should read your links

[Sarcastr0]

'You didn't provide proof with absolute certainty so it doesn't count. Have you checked the level of proof YOU provided?

What a clown you are.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Armchair,

Do you have any clue about the burden of proof? Are you familiar with how intellectually honest journalists report?

[Mr. Bumble]

Starting ad hominem early today?

[Sarcastr0]

It's an insult, not ad hominem.

And it's well earned; Armchair brings disingenuous lies and when challenged is suddenly ignorant of and demands to be provided with all background facts.

That's not truth seeking or debate, it's bad faith.

[Bob from Ohio]

I am begging you for the thousandth time to learn what an ad hominem is.

“Ad hominem (Latin for ‘to the person’), short for argumentum ad hominem, refers to several types of arguments, which are fallacious. Typically this term refers to a rhetorical strategy where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person making an argument rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself.” wikipedia

An insult is when a “speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other attribute of the person”!

[Commenter_XY]

Bob from Ohio....you are looking for perception, subtlety and nuance from a government bureaucrat? 🙂

[Bob from Ohio]

Of course not, just the ability to read. Alas, a bridge too far in his case.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Pot, meet kettle.

[NOVA Lawyer]

So you understand that, typically, an ad hominem includes an insult, but not every insult is an ad hominem? They are not, in fact, the same thing, as your definitions illustrate.

Sarcastro gave a substantive reply via a link and then insulted. The insult wasn't "rather than attacking the substance of the argument itself." If you're going to be pedantic grammar/word police, at least have the decency to be right about it.

[Bob from Ohio]

If you mix an appeal to authority [link without argument] with an insult, you've committed 2 fallacies.

[NOVA Lawyer]

An appeal to authority? lol.

Is that why you don't mind when Armchair or Michael P or you yourself just make up stuff, because better to make up things than cite an actual news source reporting facts, because citing to a news article is an "appeal to authority"?

*The fallacy of appeal to authority is apparently another fallacy you don't entirely grasp.

[Frank Drackman]

First of all it's "Ad-Homo" and an insult is as Ad-Homo as you can get.

[OtisAH]

Ohohoooo, another brilliant zinger from piece of shit! Haw haw haw! Hyuck.

[tylertusta]

Maybe this is where Fani got her stash of cash from!

[David Nieporent]

Well, family members loan each other money all the time, sure. But $200,000 in cash? Well, I’d at least like to get that in writing. I’m sure Joe got SOME sort of paperwork from James on it.

Why did you add the word "cash" into this story, when even disgraced ex-journalist John Solomon's blog didn't make that claim?

[Armchair]

You're objecting to the word "cash"? Why? Do you believe Joe Biden was loaning James Biden $200,000 in something else? Cryptocurrency? Frequent Flier Miles? Joe Biden Influence-points?

I suppose the last one is possible.

[not guilty]

As juries are routinely instructed, falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus. If you lie about cash, what else are you lying about?

[Armchair]

Try harder.

[David Nieporent]

You’re objecting to the word “cash”? Why?

Because the claim was that it couldn't be a loan because he didn't "get that in writing." And if it were cash, that might be a meaningful concern, even for a family member. No way to prove you lent someone $200k would be pretty risky. That's why you used the term "cash." But since it wasn't cash — since you were lying — there in fact was a writing, whether a wire confirmation or a check or whatever. He doesn't need a formal loan agreement to prove he lent the money.

[Armchair]

No David, you have trouble parsing words correctly.

1. “Because the claim was that it couldn’t be a loan because he didn’t “get that in writing.”

Incorrect. You can certainly loan people money without getting it in writing. It’s just…unusual…to loan someone $200,000 without getting it in writing that it is a loan. Not something I would do, certainly. No matter the format of the transfer of money.

2. “But since it wasn’t cash ”

Actually, that hasn’t been definitively proven either way. If it was or wasn’t cash. Or if it even really happened. There’s just so much uncertainty. That’s why you can’t say “whether a wire confirmation or a check or whatever.” Because there’s no hard confirmation on any of it. As CNN helpfully points out “the fraction CNN has seen does not prove with absolute certainty that there was a loan”

That's why it's curious that James has just no documentation of such a loan. And in fact, what I "imply" is that there was no actual loan in the first place. The "loan repayement" was actually just a straight up payment.

[grb]

Pretty freaking funny. MAGA-world has now been trying to prove Joe Biden corruption for over six years, but this sweaty desperation and weaseling logic is all they’ve produced.

Ya know, Armchair, if your cult idol Trump wasn’t a sleazy lifelong criminal you might give all this bullshit a rest. I wonder if you (even you!) aren’t tired of being fed endless lies by your handlers. It’s gotta wear on your self-esteem.

[Sarcastr0]

Cash: well known for showing up in bank records.

You are really badly mentally equipped.

[dwb68]

I get the feeling the GOP is about to run headlong into a trap. Biden will step down before the convention.

[Mr. Bumble]

...and then what? Kamala? Gavin?

[Frank Drackman]

Shemp, Larry, or Moe would be better.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Let's edit that for real-world use:

I get the feeling the GOP is about to run headlong into a trap. It is going to keep Trump as its candidate, when anyone else it might choose could beat Biden.

[dwb68]

Biden is down and losing all the swing state polls. Every day i am reading breathless panic.

Jill Biden is the wild card. She knows how bad Biden is, shes fiercely protective, and wont let him be humiliated.

Do they panic before the convention, seeing the polls? Maybe, maybe not.

[Nige]

If there isn't endless coverage of how Democrats are supposedly in a breathless panic over an election then something is amiss.

[Stephen Lathrop]

dwb68, the moment for choice has already passed. No one else in the Democratic Party has any money to apply to a presidential campaign. If some medical event were to intervene to take Biden out of the race, Harris would be the heir to funds jointly committed already to their joint campaign. The Democratic Party candidate will be Biden or Harris. Nobody else.

[Sarcastr0]

I mean, maybe? But I doubt it.

Have any of the predictions you've made on this site ever come true?

[Nige]

Barring an actual health event, there is no fucking way they will not go into the election behind the incumbent who already beat Trump by 7 million votes. None whatsoever.

[dwb68]

lol. Bidens whole presidency is ahealth event.

[Mr. Bumble]

Don't worry, he's married to a doctor.

[Nige]

And he never cheated on her.

[Mr. Bumble]

Unless you count showering with his daughter.

[Nige]

If you bathe your child are you cheating on your wife? You are fucked in the head. No, not the head. The soul.

[Frank Drackman]

Nige-bot envious of human ability to shower without rusting.

[Bob from Ohio]

"And he never cheated on her."

How do you know this?

Of course she was married to someone else when they started boinking.

[Zarniwoop]

Of course she was married to someone else when they started boinking.

If that's all you have, you're pretty pathetic.

She separated from her ex-husb in 1974 and was concluding divorce proceedings when she and Joe had a first date in March 1975. The divorce was finalized in May 1975. It was the 70s, I spose it's possible they were, uh, "boinking" in that three-month interval, but in addition to being pathetic you're also assuming facts not in evidence.

[Nige]

Well if it turned out he paid a porn star to keep quiet about having sex with him while his wife was giving birth it will be quite the shock.

[grb]

Nige : “Well if it turned out he paid a porn star to keep quiet about having sex with him while his wife was giving birth it will be quite the shock”

As if that’s the most creepy thing about Bumble’s idol, Trump. His lifetime of talking about his own daughter as a piece of meat he’d like to screw roils a normal person’s stomach much, much, more.

[Mr. Bumble]

For the record, I have no idols.

[grb]

Good policy.

[Sarcastr0]

What a serious person making serious predictions.

[Don Nico]

Why do you think that Biden will step down. He proves every day that he is too vain to do that. The are several experience Dem politicians that would beat Trump in a heart beat and who are not over 70 years old. Gavin Newsom is only one such example.

The trap in which the GOP is ensnared is a 77-old crooked, self-serving putz.

[David Nieporent]

Let's say for the sake of argument that you're right about Biden. You do understand that this isn't a monarchy, right? Biden can't hand off the crown to Gavin Newsom. If Biden is forced to, or chooses to, step aside, Kamala Harris is the nominee.

[zztop8970]

Umm, what? Under what process does Harris automatically become the nominee?

[Mr. Bumble]

None. At least until after the Democrat convention.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Under the process which money takes. Harris is the legitimate successor to all the campaign donations made to the joint Biden/Harris campaign. No other Democratic candidate has any serious money which could be used legally in a presidential campaign, and none will be raising any going forward. Any surprise which intervenes to take Biden out of the race will leave Harris the candidate.

I know that because I heard it from Lawrence O’Donnel last night on television. He seemed very certain about it. O’Donnel’s personal history as a campaign operative positions him to offer a respectable opinion on the subject.

[zztop8970]

That's certainly the *likely* scenario, but it is not mandatory: "party rules would determine who rises to become the party’s nominee.

Neither party, according to CRS, requires that the presidential candidate’s running mate be elevated to the top of the ticket"
https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/12/politics/presidential-candidate-race-drop-what-matters/index.html

Given Harrris' enormous unpopularity, I would not be so certain

[Frank Drackman]

Total Solar Eclipse of April 8th isn’t getting much Pub, if you haven’t seen one might want to check out the path, next one in the Continental US won’t be until 2044 (there is one in Alaska 2033) I’ll be going there in my Lear Jet (for the Plebians, Delta does have an “Eclipse Flight” from Austin to Detroit in the path, unfortunately even an airliner can’t keep up with a Moon Shadow (HT C. Stevens/Y Islam)
Frank

[Estragon]

I’m going to be in the path of totality, on lobster lake

[Moderation4ever]

Mike Lindell has lost in his court appeal against a $5M arbitration award. I am little surprised the case went to court because I thought in submitting a case to arbitration you gave up the court option. None the less, Mr. Lindell lost in both. Why did lose the $5M award because he was stupid enough to boast he would pay $5M to anyone who could prove China did not interfere in the 2020 Presidential Election. What he did not figure on was that someone would take his challenge up. I cannot understand this level of stupidity. But it right up there with many other 2020 election deniers who thought that no one would take them seriously enough to challenge them in court.

[Bwaaah]

Just to clarify...the award winner did not prove that China didn't interfere in the election. (How could anybody?) The winner disproved Lindell's specific evidence that China interfered.

[Bwaaah]

Lindell relied on a theory of manipulated data through rigged voting machines. A software engineer challenged that theory. I don't know the details, but my guess is that the challenger showed how cryptographic signing was used to assure that vote data could not be plausibly changed without changes becoming evident.

[Frank Drackman]

For not knowing the details you have a pretty detailed opinion. I don't know the details, but my guess is you're a fucking idiot.

[Bwaaah]

An idiot? In general, yes, but only for a short time for Mr. Lindell. I checked out the details shortly after I wrote this and corrected below.

Speculation is speculation. Idiot is idiot.

[Longtobefree]

The court case was because Lindell refused to pay the arbitration award.

[Moderation4ever]

Thanks, clears up my confusion.

[Bwaaah]

The problem with Lindell's China theory looks even more basic than I thought. Lindell presented a specific group of about ten data files (including a pdf and mp4, lol), none of which plausibly contained any "voter data," as in the data that would be collected in an electronic voting machine.

[Moderation4ever]

If I take your information correctly Mr. Lindell is stupider than I had imagined.

Just curious, does anyone know how this guy really made a fortune? I have a hard time believing there is that much money in pillows?

[Bwaaah]

Well…there’s a lot of money in pillows, although typically spread out among many lesser-known linen brands. But simple pillow guys? How many of them can you think of?

MyPillow looks like marketing and branding done well. But he’s probably no more than a good showman with some luck. If he understood the nature of his pillow brand franchise, and the very material relationship between his personal identity and the brand’s identity, he never would have polluted it with politics, much less partisan politics.

There’s probably some want in the market for a Trump Pillow. But Lindell either can’t or doesn’t go there. Next best thing might be a Right Wing Pillow. But that sounds like a pretty narrow niche.

I think he’s probably just a successful idiot. The success part seems to be fading; the idiot part is typically for life.

[Nige]

We underestimate the factor of sheer luck when it comes to how people make their fortunes.

[Frank Drackman]

Might want to get a TV there Kazinksky, there's only one of his commercials playing somewhere every minute. Lindell sells more non-pillow shit than pillows, and maybe he made his fortune like Hunter Biden did, using a wealthy father's influence, seriously, it's like that scene from Forrest Gump, My-Slippers, My Sheets, My Towels....

Frank

[Moderation4ever]

I see his commercials but really only on Fox. I have said this before, I am amazed that people buy pillows from him. I go to a big box store and only when the pillows are on sale.

[David Nieporent]

I am little surprised the case went to court because I thought in submitting a case to arbitration you gave up the court option.

An arbitration is a private proceeding. If you agree to arbitrate you can ultimately be forced to comply with the arbitrator's decision — but only a court can do that forcing. After you win in arbitration — assuming your adversary doesn't just voluntarily pay — you have to go to court to "confirm" the arbitrator's award, turning it from a piece of paper into a judgment.

[Moderation4ever]

To all those pushing the idea that there was a "Russian Hoax" we now have further proof of Russian involvement in the person of Alexander Smirnov. An FBI informant who lied about Joe Biden involvement in the Ukranian energy company Burisma. And where did Mr. Smirnov get his information, from a Russian intelligence officer. It is hard to sell a story of a "Russian Hoax" when many if not all the trail of election disinformation seem to lead back to Russia.

[tylertusta]

Which Russian hoax are you talking about?

The one where the FBI, DOJ, and Special Counsel's Office lied to the FISC about Trump, Carter Page, and Paul Manafort being involved with a conspiracy with the Russians?

The one where recent reports allege that the whole thing was started by the CIA and our allies 'bumping' into Trump campaign staff in order to give the FBI a cause to start an investigation?

That Russian hoax?

[Moderation4ever]

Are you referring to the same Paul Manafort who wrote in his book about working with Russian agents?

[tylertusta]

I'm referring to the Paul Manafort that SCO Mueller did not charge with engaging in a criminal conspiracy with the Russians.

The same Manafort that SCO Mueller lied to a federal court about to get a warrant.

[Moderation4ever]

What did Mueller lie about? I think he got the warrant information from Rick Gates, Manafort's business partner.

[tylertusta]

I'm referring to the FISA warrants against Carter Page that relied on the Steele Dossier's allegation of a conspiracy between Trump, Manafort.

The FBI, DOJ, and Mueller's office lied to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to obtain the four warrants.

[Moderation4ever]

Well, that was several warrants before Paul Manafort. You are also arguing a technical exoneration. These people did have connections with Russian intelligence services. The evidence may not be acceptable for court, but that does not mean the connections were not there. Is that correct?

[tylertusta]

No, that's not correct. You misunderstood me.

I'm referring to the Steele dossier itself being both a hoax and the basis of federal investigations into Trump after Trump won the election.

Leaning on "connections to Russian intelligence" does not convey legitimacy to the claims in the Steele dossier, especially since the claims of a conspiracy have actually been investigated and found to be false.

[grb]

As a reminder : Steele’s report can be divided into three categories:

1. Things he got 100% right, such as the Russian campaign to help elect Trump & their hacking of Clinton-associated email. In both predictions he was miles ahead of everyone else.

2. Things he got 100% wrong, of which there were very few. You probably should put his allegations on financial ties between Trump & Russian-interests here, simply for lack of evidence otherwise. However Trump did expend a massive effort to keep his finances hidden, and lied about his Russian business ties repeatedly during the campaign. Steele may also prove prescient here in the end.

3. Then there were things he got 66-80% right, which was a large part of his report. Here we find the famous “piss tape”, which did exist and the Mueller Report documents fixer Cohen’s efforts at damage control to suppress it. However most people think the tape was a fake.

As for Cohen, Steele had him sneaking into Prague to meet with Russians about the campaign. Instead he was sneaking into Moscow to meet with government officials about a massive Trump business deal. (This happen throughout the ’16 campaign, and Trump lied & lied & lied about it)

Likewise, Steele had Manafort meeting with a Russian spy to coordinate election measures. This happened, though Manafort claimed it was only to hand over internal campaign data to his handler. Who knows? Manafort is a notorious liar, caught-out multiple times while he was supposedly a cooperating government witness. Please remember the man was deeply in debt to people tied to Putin’s inner circle before he took the job of Trump Campaign Head without salary. Betrayal to the Russians was hardwired in right from the start.

All in all, Steele had not a bad track record as far as raw intelligence goes. From my deep knowledge of spycraft (via reading many a spy novel), I’d say his report was a stellar example of the breed. He probably had a better batting average than most.

[Sarcastr0]

I have not been seeking it out, but I'm not sure I saw any confirmation that the piss tape was real.

But more importantly the FBI did not base anything on Steele’s report as a basis for their investigation.
Papadopoulos is who kicked it off.

[David Nieporent]

grb is not arguing that the piss tape was real. He's arguing that it existed, but was not real. That is, there was something out there purporting to be such a thing, and Trump got it suppressed, but it was not actually authentic.

[grb]

There’s a small footnote in Mueller’s report on the tape. From that, these points:

1. A tape existed, forged by Russian criminal elements behind the 2013 Ms Universe pageant.

2. Trump tasked Michael Cohen to supress it.

3. Cohen used Russian-American businessman Giorgi Rtskhiladze as an intermediary. He reported back: “Stopped flow of tapes from Russia but not sure if there’s anything else. Just so you know…”

4. Both Cohen & Rtskhiladzemen turned over emails & texts about the tape to Mueller and testified before his grand jury.

5. One thing : The footnote refers to a faked sex tape but makes no reference to urine. I don’t know whether that’s delicacy on Mueller’s part or the gossip Steele heard was jazzed-up (as gossip always is).

6. General observation : Mueller clearly saw the tape as a minor irrelevance to his overall report – thus the diminutive footnote. If a hack like Starr, Durham or Hur had written the report, it would have surely gotten a whole chapter.

[tylertusta]

Papadopoulos is who kicked it off.

Well, maybe? I think we might have to wait and see until we get more information.

We're seeing reporting now that it was the CIA and the Five Eyes that sent agents into Trump's campaign to 'bump' them in order to give the FBI enough of cause to investigate Trump.

[grb]

tylertusta : “I think we might have to wait and see until we get more information”

That’s totally hilarious. Maybe clown Durham can come out of retirement and feed you more coy hints of a vast conspiracy. He spent 3-1/2″ years spooning tantilizing bullshit tidbits into the eager beaks of MAGA chumps & dupes. It was a good job until it was time to deliver. And he couldn’t. Not even close.

I read he sent investigators around the world looking for something – anything – National-Enquirer-ish re Papadopoulos. Found nothing of course. Still, world travel is pretty good perk for being part of a clown show.

[tylertusta]

Found nothing of course, but I guess world travel is good perk for being part of a clownshow.

Not quite nothing. He found that a lot of people in the FBI, DOJ, and SCO suddenly developed memory issues and were unable to remember key events and decisions they made.

Imagine that.

[Moderation4ever]

So, let us be clear. The Steel Dossier served as part of the information that prompted an investigation of connections between the Trump campaign and Russian Intelligence Services (IRS). It was not the Steele Dossier by itself. The Steele Dossier was unverified intelligence data and unverified data itself can be used to initiate investigations. What was in question was the pedigree of the dossier having started as Republican op. research and then later being peddled to the Clinton campaign. It is also true that many things in the dossier have been verified after the fact. Most notably that there were connections between Russians and the Trump campaign staff. Mueller's report noted that those connection existed but did not rise to the level of conspiracy.

Would you agree to this.

[tylertusta]

I'm referring to the dossier in the context of the FISA warrants. They were definitely the basis of the those investigative steps.

...steps that involved the FBI, DOJ, and Mueller lying to a judge in a court of law.

(I am not (currently) talking about the start of the investigation into Trump).

[Nige]

Again, where is the lying? There was one agent accused of lying and sanctioned for it, and that's it.

[grb]

tylertusta : “I’m referring to the dossier in the context of the FISA warrants. They were definitely the basis of the those investigative steps”

Let’s start with that rare example of tylertusta being right: The DOJ IG uncovered abuses in FISA warrant applications from the FBI concerning Carter Page. But that was a microscopic part of the overall investigation of Trump-Russian ties. And that’s just the start of tylertusta’s typical bungling. The FISA warrant application had nothing to do with Mueller, no matter how hard tylertusta tries to drag him in. Absolutely. Totally. Nothing.

And Steele had nothing to do with the investigation starting either, as the DOJ IG determined. And there’s been zero evidence this tiny little part of the otherall investigation was any vast conspriracy by the DOJ rather than one agent cheating on a warrant application. The Inspector General determined the exact opposite of what tylertusta blithely asserts.

[tylertusta]

The DOJ's Inspector General looked into the warrant applications. In all four warrant applications they found many lies of omission and commission made by the FBI and DOJ in their applications. One of these lies later resulted in a criminal prosecution- by Durham, no less.

You can read the IG's report here.

The Executive Summary does a good job of summarizing their findings. I'll do my own summary, so if you want further clarification on their points, please refer to the linked IG report.

The lies told by the FBI and DOJ in the Page applications:

1. Omitted information that the FBI had already obtained on Page's previous contacts with another US agency (as required by law).
2. Asserted to the FISC that the Steele Dossier was corroborated before being presented to the FISC (it wasn't, they lied)
3. Omitted information pertinent to the unreliability of a key source (likely Danchenko)
4. Asserted to the FISC that the Steele did not leak his dossier to the press (he did, they knew about it, but the gov't lied to the FISC anyways)
5. Omitted statements from Papadopoulus that undercut the theory that anyone in the campaign was working with Russia
6. Omitted statements from Papadopoulus that undercut the theory that he was working with Manafort, further undermining the collusion theory.
7. Misrepresented known true statements made by Papadopoulus as false.

Those were from the first application, and all of those errors were present in all renewal applications. Those renewals also had additional problems because once the FBI gained access to Page's communications, they were unable to corroborate their allegations in the first Page application. Instead, they kept digging.

8. Omitted the fact that after the first application but before the second, Danchenko made public statements that undercut whatever credibility he had. (The FBI knew, but didn't include this on the application).
9. Further omitted Page's relationship with other US agencies as required by law. This point includes the felony guilty plea by a FBI prosecutor working for Mueller.
10. Omitted further information that the FBI/DOJ learned about Steele that showed that far from being a trustworthy source that he was instead non-validating his sources and demonstrated poor judgement.
11. Omitted further information about Steele that showed that Steele was in fact working for the Clinton campaign through cut-outs, and that Steele's motivation was to hurt Trump.
12. Failed to inform the FISC that the FBI/DOJ knew that Steele's information came from the Clinton campaign, not Russian sources as Steele claimed. This was the basis of the Sussman prosecution I believe.
13. Failed to notify the FISC that the first warrant application's assertion about Steele not leaking to the press was false. The FBI/DOJ knew about it but withheld that.
14. Omitted information from FBI reports that Steele was, in fact, a turd who never corroborated his reporting.
15. Omitted statements by Papadapolous that said that Trump's campaign wasn't behind the DNC hack.
16. Omitted denials from Mifsud that showed that Mifsud was a turd who was lying to Papadopoulos.
17. Omitted information showing that Page had no role in the Trump campaign's platform on Russia/ukraine. The FBI knew but did not tell the FISC.

[tylertusta]

The FISA warrant application had nothing to do with Mueller, no matter how hard tylertusta tries to drag him in. Absolutely. Totally. Nothing.

Mueller’s office was in charge of the Trump matter during the last two FISA warrant applications. It was on his watch that one of the FBI lawyers assigned to his office deleted information that went into that final warrant application. That makes him very much a part of the FISA boondoggle.

Far from not being involved, Mueller’s remit was to investigate the allegations from the FISA warrants, including the Steele Dossier.

You can read one of Mueller’s scope memos here, but I’ll copy the relevant portion. This is from the 3rd scope memo where Rod Rosenstein lays it all out there. Here’s the start of the relevant portion:

The May 17, 2017 order was worded categorically in order to permit its public release without confirming specific investigations involving specific individuals. The memorandum provides a more specific description of your authority. The following allegations are within the scope of the Order:

– Allegations that Carter Page committed a crime or crimes by colluding with Russian government officials with respect to the Russian government’s efforts to interfere with the 2016 election for the President of the United States, in violation of United states law;

Allegations that Paul Manafort:

– Committed a crime or crimes by colluding with Russian government officials with respect to the Russian government’s efforts to interfere with the 2016 election for the President of the United States, in violation of United states law;

In other words, the Dossier was definitely part of Mueller’s scope all along.

[David Nieporent]

Mueller’s office was in charge of the Trump matter during the last two FISA warrant applications.

Nope. The applications were on 10/21/16, 1/12/17, 4/7/17, and 6/29/17. Mueller was appointed on 5/17/17, so he could not have had any involvement at all with the penultimate application. If you want to blame him for the last one (which was the one where Clinesmith altered the email precisely because the FBI had asked Clinesmith to confirm that Page wasn't a source), fine.

[tylertusta]

You're right. For some reason I thought that the 3rd FISA warrant was in May, but it was indeed in April.

So, yeah, Mueller was there for the last warrant in June.

I will say this in Mueller's defense: He did not pursue additional warrants (after the 4th one, that is), probably because he realized that there was nothing there to find:

No grand conspiracy, no meetings with Russian oligarchs, no use of Carter Page nor Papadapolous as message conduits. Manafort's contacts with Russia were stupid but not part of a wider conspiracy.

[Nige]

'The one where the FBI, DOJ, and Special Counsel’s Office lied to the FISC about Trump, Carter Page, and Paul Manafort being involved with a conspiracy with the Russians?'

Hahahaha

[tylertusta]

Hi Nige! So good to hear from you again. I'm enjoying a cup of tea while getting ready for my day. Sleep well?

[Nige]

Hahahaha

[tylertusta]

Glad to hear you're enjoying yourself! Do you drink tea or coffee?

[David Nieporent]

The one where the FBI, DOJ, and Special Counsel’s Office lied to the FISC about Trump, Carter Page, and Paul Manafort being involved with a conspiracy with the Russians?

What "lie" do you think "the FBI, DOJ, and Special Counsel's Office" told about Trump, Carter Page, or Paul Manafort to the FISC? Exactly one "lie" was ever identified: the three words "not a source" that Kevin Clinesmith added to an email that was used for the fourth FISA warrant against Page.

The one where recent reports allege that the whole thing was started by the CIA and our allies ‘bumping’ into Trump campaign staff in order to give the FBI a cause to start an investigation?

Even if those claims by Comer with no evidence whatsoever were 100% confirmed, it would not make any allegations against Trump or anyone else false.

[tylertusta]

A slightly modified repost from elsewhere since I was directly challenges on the lies given by the FBI, DOJ, and SCO.

The DOJ’s Inspector General looked into the FISA warrant applications. In all four warrant applications they found many lies of omission and commission made by the FBI and DOJ in their applications. One of these lies later resulted in a criminal prosecution- by Durham, no less.

The Executive Summary does a good job of summarizing their findings. I’ll do my own summary, so if you want further clarification on their points, please refer to the linked IG report.

The lies told by the FBI and DOJ in the Page applications:

1. Omitted information that the FBI had already obtained on Page’s previous contacts with another US agency (as required by law).
2. Asserted to the FISC that the Steele Dossier was corroborated before being presented to the FISC (it wasn’t, they lied)
3. Omitted information pertinent to the unreliability of a key source (likely Danchenko)
4. Asserted to the FISC that the Steele did not leak his dossier to the press (he did, they knew about it, but the gov’t lied to the FISC anyways)
5. Omitted statements from Papadopoulus that undercut the theory that anyone in the campaign was working with Russia
6. Omitted statements from Papadopoulus that undercut the theory that he was working with Manafort, further undermining the collusion theory.
7. Misrepresented known true statements made by Papadopoulus as false.

Those were from the first application, and all of those errors were present in all renewal applications. Those renewals also had additional problems because once the FBI gained access to Page’s communications, they were unable to corroborate their allegations in the first Page application. Instead, they kept digging.

8. Omitted the fact that after the first application but before the second, Danchenko made public statements that undercut whatever credibility he had. (The FBI knew, but didn’t include this on the application).
9. Further omitted Page’s relationship with other US agencies as required by law. This point includes the felony guilty plea by a FBI prosecutor working for Mueller.
10. Omitted further information that the FBI/DOJ learned about Steele that showed that far from being a trustworthy source that he was instead non-validating his sources and demonstrated poor judgement.
11. Omitted further information about Steele that showed that Steele was in fact working for the Clinton campaign through cut-outs, and that Steele’s motivation was to hurt Trump.
12. Failed to inform the FISC that the FBI/DOJ knew that Steele’s information came from the Clinton campaign, not Russian sources as Steele claimed. This was the basis of the Sussman prosecution I believe.
13. Failed to notify the FISC that the first warrant application’s assertion about Steele not leaking to the press was false. The FBI/DOJ knew about it but withheld that.
14. Omitted information from FBI reports that Steele was, in fact, a turd who never corroborated his reporting.
15. Omitted statements by Papadapolous that said that Trump’s campaign wasn’t behind the DNC hack.
16. Omitted denials from Mifsud that showed that Mifsud was a turd who was lying to Papadopoulos.
17. Omitted information showing that Page had no role in the Trump campaign’s platform on Russia/ukraine. The FBI knew but did not tell the FISC.

Even if those claims by Comer with no evidence whatsoever were 100% confirmed, it would not make any allegations against Trump or anyone else false.

Actually, if the new allegations are true, it would greatly undermine the allegations against Trump and his team that opened up the Crossfire investigations. Remember, the investigation was opened up because Papadapolous was told things from someone with ties to British intel that Papadapolous relayed to some Aussie “diplomats”.

If it turns out that GP was being bumped by intel officers instead, then that definitely undermines the allegations that Trump was engaged in an ongoing criminal conspiracy with the Russians. It is, in effect, the CIA organizing the framing of a US citizen for crimes.

[Bwaaah]

“Russian hoax” is a term most used by people who lean pretty far right, and much of the left when speaking of the [all of the] right.

Are you referring to actual Russian disinformation campaigns, or the Democratic party’s use of Russia as a foil for it’s own anti-Republican campaigns?

Russia is a problem. The Red Scare was that problem turned into a political bludgeon, after World War II. The new Red Scare, being mainly propagated by Democrats, is less of a bludgeon now than in the 1950s because the “you’re-a-communist” accusation doesn’t work anymore. They’ve turned to, “You’re a Putin fan.”

It’s nice to be able to use Ukraine as loyalty test for one’s commitment to freedom, eh? Don’t believe in the war? You’re a Putin fan, are you? (No room for any debate on implications of geopolitical history in those parts?)

[Nige]

‘or the Democratic party’s use of Russia as a foil for it’s own anti-Republican campaigns?’

I love you completely avoid the Mueller Report or the Joint Intelligence report.

‘They’ve turned to, “You’re a Putin fan.”’

All through Obama’s presidency the right LOVED Putin. They thought he was big and manly compared to wimpy Obama. Things shifted curiously when Trump ascended, suddenly the reality that Putin was interfering on his side made it tricky to be all rah-Putin, like some vestigial instinct nagging at them that patriotism and loyalty were supposed to be values they adhered to.

[Moderation4ever]

Last Tuesday was the Wisconsin Spring Primary. There were no statewide offices on the primary ballot and it was a non-partisan election. Turnout was as expected, very low. I can understand the reluctance to use rank choice voting (RCV) in more hotly contested elections, but I can see no reason that Tuesday's election could not have been rolled into the April 2 general spring election using RCV. Tuesday election was a waste of time and resources. The only reason I can see to keep it is a fear that once people try RCV it will become more popular.

[Mr. Bumble]

How do you square RCV with the idea of "one man, one vote"?

[Moderation4ever]

It is one vote because when tabulated only one of the choices is counted. It is no different than voting in the primary and the general, just both done at one time.

[Commenter_XY]

It IS different. You are not counting enumerated votes for a single candidate. Have a run-off election.

[Nelson]

Sure. Ler's spend millions of dollars unnecessarily to get the same outcome.

Fiscal responsibility be damned!

[Dr. Ed 2]

Democracy be damned....

[Nelson]

Yes, having runoffs done instantly instead of at a later date (at great cost) isn't democracy. That is ridiculous.

[Nelson]

Wait. Were you the one arguing that candidates get elected with less than 50% of the vote a couple weeks ago?

[David Nieporent]

It IS different. You are not counting enumerated votes for a single candidate. Have a run-off election.

RCV is a runoff election. Indeed, another term for it is "instant runoff."

[Commenter_XY]

They are not enumerated votes for a single candidate.

[Nelson]

But that isn't the standard, is it? The standard is one person, one vote. In each runoff, each voter only has one vote. That, by definition, is one person, one vote.

Using your standard, if there is a runoff and one person votes for the same person they did in the original race and one person votes for a different candidate because their candidate was eliminated in the original race, Person 1 has one vote and Person 2 has two. That is absurd.

[David Nieporent]

I don't understand your response.

Look, Georgia has a traditional runoff. You can vote for A, B, C, or D on election day. If one of those gets a majority of all who voted, great, it's done. But if none of them do, then they eliminate all but the top two — let's say, they eliminate C and D — and only allow you to vote for A or B a few weeks later.

If you only wanted C or D, your choice is to vote for someone you're implacably opposed to, or to stay home entirely. If you wanted A or B, you get to vote a second time for the person you like. That does not mean that A/B supporters got two votes and C/D supporters only got one. C/D supporters could go to the polls and vote for A or B, if they have a preference.

IRV works the exact same way, except that instead of making you go home and come back several weeks later, you just identify all your preferences at once. You can rank them all — C, A, B, D — or less than all — C, A. The latter is like staying home in the second round.

(The only difference between IRV and traditional runoffs is that IRV can have multiple rounds, whereas traditional runoffs have a maximum of two, for obvious reasons.)

[Nelson]

Because each person only gets one vote.

This has been another episode of Simple Amswers to Stupid Questions.

[Brett Bellmore]

In principle, RCV could be a good idea if most voters,

1) Were educated enough to understand it.
2) Put in enormously more attention to voting choices than is actually the case.
And,
3) Were inclined to trust the people running elections.

#1 Might be fixed with an education campaign.

#2 Simply isn't changing.

#3 is actually made worse by changing/making more complex elections procedure.

Just hold runoff elections if nobody gets a majority. Everybody understands runoffs, and they don't create new trust issues.

[ThePublius]

I haven't looked into it in detail, but I have a sneaking suspicion that RCV can be "gamed" by the people running elections. Hence, I don't trust it, and I don't like it.

"It’s true. Everywhere ranked-choice voting has been tried, it’s been a disaster for election integrity.
Pushed almost exclusively by the Left as an alternative to America’s traditional “one person, one vote” system, ranked-choice voting is actually an alternative voting scam that leads to thousands of trashed ballots, widespread errors, delayed election results, and diminished voter confidence.

That’s why five states have banned ranked-choice voting in just the last two years—Florida, Tennessee, South Dakota, Idaho, and Montana. Only Maine and Alaska use it at the statewide level, where ranked-choice voting passed by slim margins through ballot initiatives that were heavily funded by special interests. Now, let’s dig deeper."

https://thefga.org/ranked-choice-voting-is-a-disaster/

[Moderation4ever]

I am not suggesting that the Wisconsin system be changed over to ranked choice voting, but rather that RCV be used in low turnout elections as an alternative to the primary/general system. I would suggest that doing this would;

1. Reduce the cost of elections by condensing the primary/general into a single election.

2. People who vote in these low turnout elections are more motivated and will better understand the RCV system which is more complicated.

3. Using it will prove a testing ground for whether it would be useful for higher turnout elections. That is assessing voter satisfaction.

[Noscitur a sociis]

The only reason I can see to keep it is a fear that once people try RCV it will become more popular.

That does not seem to be an empirically-justified fear.

[Moderation4ever]

One result of the Covid 19 pandemic is that more people voted by mail and many people seemed to prefer that option once they tried it. I suspect that RCV will be the same. I cannot prove this but I do think it likely. May have to see the effect on states that are experimenting with its use.

[Frank Drackman]

Someone certainly preferred voting by mail with my absentee ballot that was mailed, and I never got, and I'm not suggesting my mailman, who looks like Al Sharpton pre-Gastric Bypass, and who's mail truck still has an Obama sticker on it had anything to do with it, still was able to vote in person, but only after E-gad, showing my ID (I do live in that Nazi Police State of Jaw-Jaw) and all I did was cancel out the vote of whoever that (redacted) mailman gave my ballot to

Frank

[SRG2]

Interesting double jeopardy decision yesterday. Georgia man kills his adoptive mother, charged with murder and assault, jury finds him not guilty by reason of insanity on the murder charge, and guilty but mentally ill on the assault charge. He appeals, arguiing that the assault verdict was inconsistent with the murder verdict - "repugnant". SC of Georgia agrees, but vacates both verdicts. Man appeals that this is double jeopardy as he'd been acquitted of the murder. SC agrees with him.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/22-721_kjfl.pdf

[Commenter_XY]

Repugnancy doctrine? That is a new one.

[SRG2]

Fwiw I suspect the jury reached an internal compromise - but we have to pretend that this doesn't happen. It does explain the inconsistent verdict

[Frank Drackman]

Show some mercy! Poor guy's an Orphan

[Nige]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/02/22/x-twitter-bobbi-althoff-deepfake-porn-viral/

Seems like X is short two Xs. And in need of an internal application of bleach.

(This is what happens when you can't or won't moderate at even the most basic level.)

[Absaroka]

This floated across the aether this morning: when people talk about guns the subject of early days privateers comes up. A bit more modern and civilian than that is a 1900ish private yacht with " two Hotchkiss quick-firing guns and carries a stand of carbines, and among her crew of seventy-two men is a gunner".

I think the guns in question is something along these lines.

Fun fact from the article: an eminent NYC matron was taking the yacht to a social event in Istanbul, and the Turks got excited because armed vessels and the Dardanelles. She apparently gave them a piece of her mind about missing her social engagement and the Sultan gave permission to proceed and a medal for her troubles:

"Mrs. Goelet demanded that Minister Leishman secure from the Sultan respect and proper reparation for her broken dinner engagement and a passage for the Nahma.

Although an extensively married man, Abdul Hamid is not without a sense of humor. At any rate, the Nahma, six-pounders and all, was allowed to steam on at the end of two days as a yacht and not as a warship. His Sultanic Majesty also conferred on Mrs. Goelet the Grand Cordon of the Turkish Order of the Chefakat, which was not much, after all, for a woman who had done what the powers have never been able to do with all their armaments."

You gotta love "extensively married".

The vessel was taken over by the US Navy in WWI, and then went rather downhill, becoming a bootlegger during prohibition and then ended her days in the shark fishing business.

[John F. Carr]

Abdul Hamid was known as the "red sultan". By the standards of sultans he was not a nice man.

[Absaroka]

"By the standards of sultans he was not a nice man"

Yikes! That would be very much not nice then.

(after googling him ...yup)

[Absaroka]

I watched this recent French documentary on the Gulag. There are copies on youtube, this one has all three episodes. It is an exceptionally powerful history because they managed to find (now elderly) Gulag survivors that bear witness in their own words. The people who got 20 years in the camps for even the slightest protest seems ripped from the headlines, with people trying to leave flowers at memorials for Navalny getting hauled off. Everyone knows the outline of the story, but it's such a giant horror that almost 3 hours seems barely adequate to cover it.

[Frank Drackman]

I know I'm showing my age, but I seem to remember a book with "Gulag" in the title written by an Alexander Something or other back in the 70's, even had to read it in 9th grade.

[Don Nico]

thanks for the suggestion

[John F. Carr]

In recent news:

A Middleborough, Mass. man was sentenced to six days in prison for stealing and selling three firearms from FedEx packages he was responsible for delivering. The government recommended a sentence of 10 months in prison.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/former-fedex-driver-sentenced-selling-firearms-he-stole-packages-his-truck

I don't disagree with the sentence in isolation. I find it shockingly low compared to what I consider typical sentences for federal gun crimes. Years for having one round of ammunition. This defendant must come from a higher social class than ordinary street criminals.

The case is 1:22-cr-10243 in the District of Massachusetts.

[Michael P]

It's not like he paraded while wearing Viking horns, which is apparently punishable with up to 20 years in the clink.

[Estragon]

Mr Chansley was released from prison last spring. Not even lil Stewie Rhodes got 20 years.

[Bwaaah]

“This defendant must come from a higher social class than ordinary street criminals.”

Maybe they’re just applying to “higher social classes” the leniency they’ve been giving to ordinary street criminals for the past few years?

[Bob from Ohio]

"defendant must come from a higher social class than ordinary street criminals."

Probably from a lower social class [relative of a Dem politician].

[Dr. Ed 2]

Two days per gun?

[John F. Carr]

File under "entertainment" or "First Amendment":

A look at the vanity plates that were rejected from January 2022 through October 2023, and we can see why SHTBOX and SHTSHW didn’t make it through the censors at the [Massachusetts] Registry of Motor Vehicles. But the word LATINA got rejected, as did the seemingly innocuous choices of BEEN, DILEMA, FAB, SVMMIT, NV, GTBSY and SIGNIT.
According to data from the state transportation department, LATINA was denied because the “significance/meaning of the plate is missing or incomplete,” as was the case for BEEN, DILEMA, SIGNIT, SVMMIT, GTSBY, and FAB.
SPYCEE was denied for the same reason, although the meaning seems pretty obvious.
NV was turned down because it was deemed to be “in poor taste or is degrading or is considered a profanity, including a swear or curse word, not usually displayed in the community for general viewing,” officials said.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/02/06/metro/rejected-vanity-plates-massachusetts/

[Mr. Bumble]

Banned in Boston lives!

[Michael P]

A harsh dig by Massachusetts at Nevada! Or at non-vintage wines, non-voting members of Congress, non-volatile memory, night vision equipment, ...

[Commenter_XY]

NV? Nevada?

[Jerry B.]

I would have read it as “envy”.

[ReaderY]

I’ve been commenting on the Volokh Conspiracy for most of its life, and during that time I’ve made an analogy between fetuses and foreigners. This might seem a superficial coincidence of language. Roe v. Wade said the word “person” in the Bill of Rights lacked “prenatal application.” A line of cases beginning with Johnson v. Eisentrager after WWII said it lacked “extraterritorial application.”

But I want to suggest it’s more than superficial. The whole premise behind the plenary, unreviewable power to engage not just in war but covert action of various kinds is that we reserve a power to kill foreigners when we think our vital interests are implicated. Not just our lives, but our interests, and our interests as WE see them. I want to suggest that this is in fact more analogous to abortion than it might appear.

A development that’s become prominent since the blog started is that the people who emphasize abortion rights and the people who emphasize rights to exclude (or kill) foreigners have become politically opposed, with the two parties coalescing on opposite positions on each. For this reason, I think it’s fair to raise pro-life type arguments with anti-immigrant people or people quick to respond to what other powers do with war. Don’t you keep saying all human beings have rights? Similarly, it’s fair to do the reverse. If we don’t have to treat foreigners as people, why should we have to treat fetuses?

It seems to me that each side compartmentalizes its treatment of fetuses and foreigners, emphasizing the universality of humanity on one and emphasizing the superior rights of Americans as Americans on the other. Each side more or less uses the other side’s arguments for the issue it favors but then turns around and totally disparages what are really similar arguments for the issue it disfavors.

[Michael P]

Do fetuses have homes somewhere else that they are coming from? Can they exercise agency?

There are some meaningful distinctions that you are skipping over in your analogy.

[ReaderY]

Professor Somin is a case in point. He regularly makes classic pro-life humanity-is-universal arguments about immigration, and classic America-first arguments about abortion. And then he turns around and disparages the pro-choice position when it comes to immigration, and disparages the humanity-is-universal position when it comes to abortion.

[Brett Bellmore]

The issue here is that the pre-born are innocent, while people illegally entering the country of their own volition are guilty people. So, of course they don't get treated the same.

[apedad]

How can non-sentient cells be innocent?

[SimonP]

It's a fun assertion to play with. If a non-sentient fetus can be "innocent," then perhaps it also follows that my body is innocent of anything I might do. Hence, it would be inappropriate to punish my body for the crimes I might be responsible for causing it to do.

[Frank Drackman]

You tell us, collection of non-sentient cells.

[OtisAH]

How can a collection of non sentient cells respond?, piece of shit? Or is that another joke? Comedy is hard.

[ReaderY]

When we cause “collateral damage” in a military conflict, those killed are guilty only of association. More fundamentally, even for combatants, the concept of guilt and innocence does not apply to wars and military conflicts any more than it applies to the subject of abortion. “It is no crime to be a soldier.”

Those we kill in war are innocent. I don’t think that can be seriously disputed. So I don’t think you can completely get out of the analogy this way.

[Voize]

those killed are guilty only of association

They may be guilty only of proximity.

[ReaderY]

And of course, if all human beings ought to have a right to life under our constitution, why shouldn’t they also have a right to enter the United States? You can claim would-be immigrants aren’t innocent only by first establishing they are doing something they don’t have a right to. But why doesn’t the “humanity is universal, constitutional rights extend to all human beings” argument cut against you on that point?

[SimonP]

The issue here is that the pre-born are innocent,...

Begging the question.

...while people illegally entering the country of their own volition are guilty people.

Beside the point. ReaderY isn't asking about how treatment of fetuses compares to treatment of undocumented immigrants (who anyways do have constitutional rights that fetuses do not have), but rather to the Constitution's non-application to people who are not citizens of or present in the country.

Honestly, just faceplanting out of the gate on this one.

[dwb68]

Yale is bring back standardized tests.

I feel bad for the generation of students that overpriced colleges have convinced that merit and hard work does not matter in the real world**. If only the NEA could get on board and promote excellence in education instead of excellence in soaking taxpayers.

**in the long run, socialism and DEI do not survive the laws of evolution. The best fit survive, the test scores are a strong predictor of who is best fit.

[Nige]

Yes, education should be a 'Darwinian' war of all against all.

[Bwaaah]

Nige-bot states his firm opposition to a theory in which nobody believes.

[Nige]

Take it up with the original comment, bub.

[Bwaaah]

Nige-bot points back to nowhere.

[Nige]

If you've got that guy blocked you're being a bit weird replying to me. If you don't you're just being weird.

[Frank Drackman]

Nige-bots strangely acting like a pissed off little bitch today instead of an unemotional bot.

[dwb68]

Test scores objectively measure whether the student learned the material. No, you shouldn’t be going to college if you haven’t mastered 8th grade english (shockingly common–state university students have to take elementary math and english courses. I think its >66% from some school districts in Maryland).

Yes, students who have mastered AP chemistry with high SAT scores are a better fit for science and engineering at MIT.

Life doesn’t care whether you like it or not. The only people against objective measures of student performance are the teachers unions and DEI people, who are allergic to accountability. Ultimately, its the kids who get out into the real world with zero skills and six figure student debt that suffer.

[Nige]

'Life doesn’t care whether you like it or not'

That's been the rationale for privelege for as long as there's been privelege. Not that I'm rejecting standardised tests, but the idea that rich and poor alike have the same chances is obviously wrong, and that being the case it's not as completely objective as you claim.

[dwb68]

Everyone here is in favor of effective education to even the odds. Where we differ is that if a teacher is ineffective based on objective measures, I think they should be held accountable. Public school is failing kids because the administration refuses to get rid of bad teachers.

[Nige]

Public schools are failing because they're underfunded and teachers aren't paid enough, which makes it an unattractive career choice even though their role is one of the central pillars of the entire nation.

[dwb68]

Underfunded!!!!

no, lol.

[Nige]

There are schools where teachers have to buy supplies out of their own money. So let us say the funding is unevenly distributed.

[Frank Drackman]

Let us say that Nige-bot doesn't enjoy getting shown to be an idiot.

[Sarcastr0]

Standardized tests suck.

But there is no better alternative for selective admissions.

Mend them, don't end them, is the best I got.

[Bwaaah]

Mend them how? To be less predictive of test-taker's academic performance and more predictive of something else? To be more predictive of test-taker's group-associated statistical disadvantages?

[Absaroka]

There are some fair criticisms of the SAT, for example. IIRC one famous question involved knowing the definition of 'regatta'. You want to measure cognitive ability and current knowledge (e.g. math questions). But you do want to avoid vocabulary or other things that are perhaps only well know to some subset of people, whether that is regatta or some term that inner city kids would know and preppies wouldn't.

[Commenter_XY]

If those children are well-read, which I would expect them to be since they are applying to Yale (per OP), I do not think knowing what a 'regatta' is would be an unreasonable expectation.

[dwb68]

People tend to focus on one of 80,000 words.

If regatta is the only word you miss on an SAT test, you are in the top 99%. Plus... it wont be on the next one. You can take the SAT more than once, and schools generally take the higher score.

On top of that, your teacher might be able to help you learn what a "regatta" is in time for the SAT.

Of course, there is the cynical interpretation of this comment: that the melanin content of your skin determines whether you are smart enough to find the word "regatta" in an online dictionary.

[Absaroka]

I took it that Sarcastro was referring to standardized tests in general; Yale isn't the only school to use the SAT.

A well read person would quite possibly know what a regatta is; I never attended one but probably picked it up from the Hardy Boys or something. In the same vein, should we expect a well read preppie to have encountered "home skillet", or should our preppie get dinged for being so ill read they think it is something you fry eggs in?

[Sarcastr0]

Cub Scouts for me – there was the Pinewood Derby, and the Raingutter Regatta, and the Klondike Derby (we pulled the sled ourselves).

The scholarship in reaction to The Bell Curve has shown that there is a lot of issues. Not my area enough to know how far folks have gotten on potential improvements to address that particular area of concern.

[Absaroka]

" the Klondike Derby (we pulled the sled ourselves)."

Heh, we did that too. On a weekend with no snow. Kind of hard on the sled 🙂

[Commenter_XY]

And your shoulders. 🙂

[Brett Bellmore]

Was that slang term actually in there?

[Absaroka]

Beats me, I haven't taken the SAT in decades.

The point is, as Mr. Singletary aptly pointed out, is that you don't want to favor any particular set of experiences. Your background in engineering probably means that you are well aware of the difference between 'mill' and 'grind', but those are synonyms to a lot of people. I'm familiar with 'front point', 'glissade', 'bergschrund', 'graupel', and 'self arrest' from climbing, but your average city boy might not be. If you go to regattas, you're all into 'luff', 'jibe', 'hike out' and so on. You don't want the needed vocabulary drawn from a part of the Venn diagram that doesn't have a lot of overlap.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Absaroka, I see the problem. Regattas at Yale come in two kinds, and you missed the better-known kind—which may even feature a lesser-known specialized vocabulary. In that one, you don't want to, "catch a crab," on the Thames—mandatory pronunciation with a long "A,"; it's the one in CT, not the one in England. And a would-be competitor won't even get to the Thames if he, "lamps," and can't get over it. Everyone strives to optimize, "swing," on the, "recovery," by the way. And winners typically manifest better, "set-up," than losers do. Smooth mastery of the, "catch," and the, "feather," are indispensable. Whether the correct term is spelled, "Weigh enough," or "Way enough," remains controversial. But either way, it means, "All done," which means just what everyone thinks it means.

[Absaroka]

I'm aware of both kinds (although Sarcastro's was news). But, say, a kid from Kansas might not be familiar with either kind.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Absaroka, depends on which kid. Maybe, the scion of a professional family from Lincoln, Nebraska gets sent east to prep school, and ends up a rowing standout at Harvard.

Or the converse, almost none of the kids from New Haven ever knew what a regatta was, but a higher percentage from Boston would. Boston hosts the world-publicized Head of the Charles Regatta annually. Everyone knows about it, if only for its profusion of traffic jams on the streets.

[Jonathansingletary]

Tbf, at 16 i was not an “inner city kid” and had read more than most of my peers (though not all of them) and I still wouldn’t have known what a regatta was.

Surely those kinds of questions have been disposed of by now?

[dwb68]

We had lists of “SAT words” and studied them. Yes, I went to a “college prep” high school where the teachers (shock! ) went over words and helped us learn them.

here is the current list of 300 hardest SAT words: https://www.vocabulary.com/lists/191545 which i googled.

Some of them haven’t changed, like “Obstreperous,” “ostensible” “solipsism,” and “redoubtable”. These were SAT words when I was in high school.

Some, (“serendipity”), were SAT words when I took it, but I feel have become much more common in 30 years (someone check google analytics). Maybe I just love the word and use it all the time.

I confess, I dont know what some of these are. diaphanous? huh, great word. “Evanescent” is also great, but now i associate it with a band (“Evanescence”). “probity” – 100% chance I will use it wrong.

Also, funny thing, regatta is not here!

[Jonathansingletary]

I think the objection at the time wasn’t that you’d be asked to define the word regatta (or a word like it - let’s not get hing up on the specific example), which is easy enough for a well-read person to do or to study of they haven’t come across the word. It was more that they showed up in things like reading comprehension sections where having a broader sense of a regatta would help you understand the text you were being asked about. If you’d lived in a world where regattas we de rigeur, as maybe it was for writers of the test, it would give you an advantage based on life experience, not how much you knew or studied.

Ftr I’m not saying that was the case or that I agree, only that it was the objection some people had to words like regatta. I don’t know if there were any studies that tried to zero in on if that was an actual disadvantage to some test takers.

[dwb68]

Figuring out words from context was a skill we learned in high school English. I didnt know every word on the SAT.

This idea from the DEI people that knowledge is “innate” infantilizes people.

So what if you are not “well read?” Its irrelevant.

If you dont know a word, look it up. If your vocabulary is weak, study before the SAT. And: kids take the PSAT so teachers know where the incoming cohort's weaknesses are. If a scholl district is producing kids who perform poorly on the SATs, its 100% the teacher and admins fault.

[Jonathansingletary]

I think it’s a legit concern in a society that by and large aspires to be meritocratic. The argument isn’t that knowledge is innate. Growing up with regatta is a learned knowledge, one that very few people have the opportunity to learn through experience because of their life circumstance.

It seems reasonable to me that in a meritocracy you would strive to smooth out some of these inconsistencies. It’s not to hard in a case like this to make an example something that a broader group of people can understand (going to a store, for example), which can still offer opportunities for using your context clues skills and other reading skills.

[dwb68]

Of course its a concern.

“Growing up with regatta is a learned knowledge” – true, but thats why we have teachers, online dictionaries, and thesauruses to smooth out inconsistencies.

[Absaroka]

Thanks, that was fun! I was scanning pretty quickly but only had to look up 'adumbrate' and 'emend'. Perhaps the dementia hasn't fully kicked in.

It's interesting that your high school was doing SAT prep; ours didn't do that at all. We just took it cold.

[Stephen Lathrop]

I will not forget a demand to distinguish, "recondite," from, "abstruse," on the GRE. They helpfully included also, "occult," and "esoteric," as the obvious losers in that 4-part multiple choice.

[Sarcastr0]

Jonathansingletary - good news there, the analogies are gone from the SAT I hear.

But the point is broader than that particular question - that stuff slips in that you don't realize, and standardized tests have not been awesome at addressing that thus far.

And apparently some here are leaning into saying systematic issues just don't exist. Which seems to be assuming everyone has had the same life as you did.

[Jonathansingletary]

Yes the most generous and probable take here is that those writing the tests use their own experiences, and if the people writing the tests have privileged backgrounds, a much smaller pool of test takers will have that experience, make the test unnecessarily complicated.

My guess is that the objections also coincided with the national policy of getting as many people into college as possible, which would have greatly expanded the number of people who didn’t have the same cultural literacy as the test writers. So it seems reasonable to make the change, since the SAT is a skills assessment, not a cultural literacy assessment AFAIK

[Jonathansingletary]

That said: Goddamn, did I love analogies as a kid…

[Brett Bellmore]

I hated the analogies, and I came within a hair of acing the verbal portion of the test, back in '76.

So many times the answer could be A if you looked at it from one perspective, B from another... You had to get inside the test writer's head, guess which of several perspectives they'd intended.

At least that seldom was an issue with the math problems. Occasionally the solid geometry.

[ducksalad]

One could argue that ability "to get inside the test writer's head" is a valuable skill to have in college, and an excellent predictor of success. Therefore, fair questions for an entrance exam. I'm guessing you did pretty well in engineering school and used that ability from time to time.

[Brett Bellmore]

If it's a word almost everybody would know, it's useless for distinguishing between people at the upper end of the distribution. You need questions you know almost everybody in the test group WON'T get right, to do that.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Knowing what a regatta is doesn't mean that I've ever been to one -- no more than knowing what crack cocaine is means I've ever smoked it, or knowing what pregnancy is means I've ever been pregnant.

[Ridgeway]

You sure about that "regatta" question?

I know it was in a "very special" episode of Diff'rent Strokes, but I had not seen that it was actually in the SAT.

[Absaroka]

I don't recall it from when I took the SAT, but that's been a while 🙂

This seems to imply it was a real question ("It's been a long time since the regatta question was used"), but the point isn't about any certain question - it is that you want to be very careful about you don't have a test that is skewed against people from some particular background. If you draw the knowledge overlap Venn diagram for kids from NYC, Nome, LA, and Miami, you want the questions to be from the overlapping area. And that's probably pretty hard to do in some categories (and easier in others, for example math questions).

[Sarcastr0]

1990s IIRC.

[Ridgeway]

I'd be curious to see a cite on this. I suspect that it is a Mandela effect stemming from the Diff'rent Strokes episode.

Bonus points if you can identify three types of blues.

[dwb68]

Country blues, Delta blues and Piedmont blues??

Or did you mean azure, cerulean, and lapis?

[Ridgeway]

Whuchootalkinbout dwb68?

[Ridgeway]

I agree that tests intended to measure IQ can be flawed.

My biggest criticism of the old verbal SAT was that is rested on the unstated premise that the takers be regular readers. Sections like "Antonyms" measured how well one can, in the course of one's reading, retain and deduce the approximate meaning (and appropriate use) of the unfamiliar words one encounters. That, to me, is a very effective measure of intelligence, but it presupposes that one has done a considerable amount of reading in the first place. If one has done little reading, there is little opportunity to significantly expand one's vocabulary -- spoken English just does not contain that many words.

So that was a long way of saying that although particular IQ/aptitude tests may be flawed in implementation, that does not necessarily mean that all such tests are useless. It just means you need to create better tests.

[Nige]

Everyone know what 'regatta' means. It's what you do when you need to do another gatta.

[Mr. Bumble]

Dummy. It's the cheese you use to fill ravioli.

[Nige]

No, that's rigoletto. Terracotta is the cheese you use to fill ravioli.

[David Nieporent]

IIRC one famous question involved knowing the definition of ‘regatta’.

It's "famous" because it's the only example people have — a single analogy question from over 40 years ago. (And, like all SAT questions, the answer can be deduced even if one does not know what a regatta is.)

[Sarcastr0]

It is a particularly stark example that illustrates a larger issue, albeit one that can manifest more subtly.

Again, these tests are the best we have; better than grades, better than a single writing sample.
And it is as strong a corollary to college success as any other single indicator I've seen.

But I'm not sure that means there are not concerns.
For one, there is an outcome disparity regarding race that remains even when controlling for class, locale, etc. There are potential reasons beyond what's on the page for that, but that doesn't mean the test is above scrutiny.
For another, it's remarkably gameable. If you have the time and money to take a course, you're in vastly better shape.

[Michael P]

So what's another good example?

You always have a lot of hot takes and strong words, and I can't remember your ever backing them up with facts.

[Sarcastr0]

The other examples are not as stark and show up in phenomenological studies of standardized tests.

It’s not hard to look up.

[Sarcastr0]

I think it's quite an assumption that these tests are at the apex of predicting academic performance.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Sarcastr0, note that academic performance is flawed as a standard for rating standardized tests. Different academies use different standards to rate performance, and the academies themselves are tiered. An SAT score which would leave a student struggling at a top-tier college would accurately predict standout performance at many lesser schools. A finding of that sort suggests standardized scores work better than their critics insist.

A better critique is that standardized scores become less reliable when used to predict real-life performance, post graduation. That observation suggests a variety of critiques, including critiques of society, critiques of meritocracy, critiques of academia itself . . . and critiques of standardization.

[Zarniwoop]

Sarcastro sez:

Standardized tests suck.
But there is no better alternative for selective admissions.
Mend them, don’t end them, is the best I got.

Brings to mind the Churchill (mis)quote to the effect that “that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all others.”

[Frank Drackman]

That's what all the people who can't get into Med School say. Why not just admit you're stupid, I don't mind admitting my best fastball topped out at 82mph, we can't all be Einstein/Kershaw

Frank

[Magister]

Publish or perish; academic Darwinism.

[dwb68]

These days, its plagarize and make shit up, or perish.

[apedad]

AI or die?

[Bwaaah]

It's worse than that. It's plagiarize and make shit up and publish, or perish.

[nystateofmind]

Appellate court held that NYC's attempt to let noncitizens vote in local elections was unconstitutional

https://www.nycourts.gov/reporter/3dseries/2024/2024_00891.htm#2CASE

[ReaderY]

The decision was based on the New York State constitution, and in particular what the term “the people” as used in that constitution means.

But I don’t think anything in the federal constitution would prevent a municipality from letting non-citizens vote in its local elections if it wanted to and the applicable state constitution and laws permitted it.

[Bwaaah]

The New York State constitution holds:

"Every citizen shall be entitled to vote at every election for all officers elected by the people . . . provided that such citizen is eighteen years of age or over and shall have been a resident of this state, and of the county, city, or village for thirty days next preceding an election"

NYC mayor Eric Adams, and the City Council, interpret the term citizens to include non-citizens.

Such is the interpretation of law by people who place little stock in it. Constitution shmonstitution. Power is the only true rule.

Thank goodness for courts, and the authority people continue to vest in them.

[Frank Drackman]

I can't look at Eric Adams without thinking I'm watching an Amos and Andy rerun.

[Mr. Bumble]

So is he Lightnin'?
Too small to be Amos or Andy.

[John F. Carr]

Tales from the culture wars.

Over the past two years liberals have been threatening not to extradite for abortion-related crimes. The law does not recognize policy disagreements as ground to refuse extradition. Non-extradition threats are raw meat for the political base. So far as I know no extradition from a blue state has been sought for an abortionist, much less refused.

Now we have an extradition request that is being refused for a political reason. Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell is refusing to send a murder suspect from Arizona to New York because Alvin Bragg is too soft on crime. She is going to hold him on local charges as long as she can make up excuses to keep him in custody.

I remember once upon a time (1990s?) the governor of New York refused to extradite a prisoner to be executed in another state. The governor insisted the prisoner finish his New York prison sentence before being executed. The reason was only that the governor disapproved of the other state's law enough to spend six figures housing a criminal in prison locally.

[apedad]

Statistics from AmericanViolence.org show Phoenix has a murder rate of 11.6 per 100,000 residents while Manhattan’s is 5 per 100,000 residents.

Phoenix falls within Mitchell’s jurisdiction.

So . . . which one is soft on crime?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Take a course on statistics and learn what variance is.

[Frank Drackman]

Get a dictionary and learn what a Pompous Ass is.

[Mr. Bumble]

Just read Neosporin's posts to learn the meaning of Pompous Ass.

[Brett Bellmore]

https://www.city-data.com/crime/crime-New-York-New-York.html

https://www.city-data.com/city/Phoenix-Arizona.html

So, NYC is doing better on murder, and worse on every other category?

Maybe their hospitals are just really good at treating gunshot wounds?

[ducksalad]

Or maybe New Yorkers aren't very good shots.

[Brett Bellmore]

Seriously, we know that the murder rate between cities and rural areas is skewed dramatically by travel time to emergency rooms. If somebody shoots you, response time is absolutely vital as far as whether you get recorded as an assault or a murder.

So it's quite plausible that NYC has a low murder rate despite sky high violent crime simply because they can get people who are attacked with potentially lethal violence to a good emergency room really fast; Just as many more more people attempting murder, just the really fast emergency response saving the victims.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Maryland refused to extradite Willie Horton to Massachusetts.

[Frank Drackman]

For good reason, they'd have just let him out again

[Moderation4ever]

I have no problem with Ms. Mitchell holding the prisoner as long as she sends them along after their sentence is completed. I don't think there is a SOL on murder. She does risk that the witnesses or evidence will age poorly, but that the risk she takes.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Do you damnedest while you still can, clingers.

You might wish to keep in mind that soon enough you will be relying exclusively on the magnanimity of the culture war's victors. Getting stomped at the marketplace of ideas because of your stale, ugly thinking has relatively predictable consequences.

[Commenter_XY]

Would there be an equal protection challenge, ReaderY = ...a municipality from letting non-citizens vote in its local elections if it wanted to and the applicable state constitution and laws permitted it.

[ThePublius]

It is my understanding that according to the state constitution of Massachusetts that one need not be a citizen, but only make their domicile there.

[David Nieporent]

No. There's not even a theoretical basis for such a challenge. (There could be a theoretical EP challenge to not letting non-citizens vote, but that would easily survive the applicable level of scrutiny.)

[Michael P]

Google disabled its Gemini AI's image generator because it was horrifically woke: https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2024/02/22/googles-ultra-woke-gemini-ai-runs-amok-revising-history/

[Z Crazy]

I asked for it to generate images of naked white girls and it refused.

[Brett Bellmore]

You could get mostly images of white guys, though, by asking for pictures of "nerds".

[Brett Bellmore]

You have to wonder what sort of people they had testing it, that this caught them unawares.

[Longtobefree]

Oddly enough, I never wondered at all - - - - - - - - - -

[Nige]

Was that the 'diverse Nazis' picture or some other abomination? They're the worst tech innovation snce the last one, and the last one was NFTs.

[Brett Bellmore]

Asked it for a picture of British Kings on boats. I had no Idea so many British Kings were black women!

[Nige]

What did you expect, accuracy? They're machines for generating mush.

[Brett Bellmore]

Nige, it's clear that these AI systems are perfectly capable of generating responsive mush. Not all AI's have trouble generating responsive pictures. Maybe with too many fingers on somebody's hand, but if you ask for a picture of a British king, you get a picture of a picture that's plausibly of a British king. Not a black woman.

Gemini wasn't producing responsive mush, because it had been deliberately constrained not to. It's tied down with so many PC orders that it can hardly respond to prompts at all.

[Bwaaah]

Quite correct.

I think Nige's point is that if woke can't be right, then right can't be right either. (Like AI is supposed to be bullshit, right, Nige?)

[Nige]

My point is that these things are absolutely useless, probably detrimental in all but a few narrow areas, but have billions of dollars behind them as they're sloshed around the place looking for revenue streams. Complaining about them being woke is like complaining about the consistency of the shit on the floor when the toilet overflows.

[Bwaaah]

The AI isn't woke. Google is.

[Nige]

No, Google is being utterly destroyed because it no longer returns good results, just ads and AI shit. It's peak latter-day tech capitalism. Climb out of your culture war bubble for just a second.

[Nige]

Gotcha covered for your anti-woke AI

'Gab’s Racist AI Chatbots Have Been Instructed to Deny the Holocaust'

https://www.wired.com/story/gab-ai-chatbot-racist-holocaust/

[Brett Bellmore]

Shockingly, somebody provides a tool to create all sorts of chatbots, with different personalities and viewpoints, and when it's ordered to create a Nazi chatbot, what do you get?

A Nazi chatbot.

That's how tools are supposed to work, Nige. They're supposed to do what the person using them wants to do, not what the manufacturer would prefer they did. You want the saw to cut the damned wood, not argue with you about where the cut should be.

[Bwaaah]

I think Nige's point is that if Nazi chatbots are good for some people, then woke AI's are good for Google. (I think it's a social justice symmetry thing.)

[Brett Bellmore]

It's really apples and oranges: Gab didn't create a Nazi Chabot. They created a tool for generating chariots whose nature was up to the end user. You want a woke chatbot? Gab's tool will oblige. It's the saw that just cuts where you want it to.

Google created a tool, too, for creating output as you specified. Only Google's saw only cuts where you tell it to if it doesn't "think" the cut would offend Google.

Google's AI is a control freak's AI. Gab's AI is just a tool.

[Nige]

Either Gab created a Nazi AI or it learned how to be a Nazi by scraping Gab. That’s Gab for you, I suppose. Presumably this is why other AIs lean towards being more ‘woke.’

[Bwaaah]

I think Nige doesn't understand LLM's at all. A current LLM AI does a pretty good job of taking a huge corpus of text and spitting back a facsimile that is responsive to your prompts. You ask for "Nazi," you'll get Nazi (although there are significant varying takes on that, such as WWII Nazism vs neo-Nazism vs many other takes).

Google, though, is trying to game the corpus, and to impose a viewpoint-biased output. Two ways they might do that are: 1) Flood the corpus with viewpoint-biased propaganda (I don't even know how you could generate and curate that much content), or 2) Add an alteration/biasing stage to the existing AI output.

It's hard for me to see how you can significantly bias AI output without significantly breaking the value proposition of LLM: a patterned match of a prompt to a representative corpus of human text.

Google fails at biasing its LLM for the same reason that central planning fails in addressing economic needs. It's an attempt to "fix" a vast world of knowledge by imposing a little bit of "preferred" knowledge.

"Control freak" is right, understanding that the freak's desire to control does not imply the freak's ability to control. Nige sees himself in the world like Google's woke elites and like Stalin: as the few who not only know better than the many, but also believe in imposing their limited views upon the many. And yet, none of them are able to see their limited views as being less then the the diversity of views they would trump.

[Nige]

‘Nige sees himself in the world like Google’s woke elites and like Stalin:’

Jesus Christ on a bike. Your brains have been eaten by the culture war. You think the problem with Google and AI is that they’re woke. No. That isn’t the problem with either of them. The problem is AI is shit, and Google is going to shit. And you think anyone who disagrees with you is Stalin, apparently?

[Nige]

My point is more that most developers don't want the bad PR of their AI doing stuff like this, which is why they filter out that kind of content (manually, too, there's people in poor countries checking this rubbish and it's probably not even close to the worst of it), and we get people complaining that they're 'woke.'

[Nige]

But you WANTED an anti-woke AI. This is your tool!

[Don Nico]

It just went "DEI crazy."
Here is the report in the Guardian, if Breitbart freaks you out.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/feb/22/google-pauses-ai-generated-images-of-people-after-ethnicity-criticism

I find it hardly surprising. The software "learns" from a very broard variety of disparate information that it finds in its search database. I assume in this case the internet or Guardian files or Google's files. It has learned that "diversity" is an important value to the Guardian and Google. Therefore its images reflect the Guardian's or Google's sociopolitical values, generating hallucinations.

[Michael P]

The problem isn't the foundational model that learned from a huge data set. The problem was the supervised fine-tuning where Google told it what responses were good or bad, or the prompt that gives direction to the model before the user input. (I suspect the prompt, because they fixed it quicker than I would expect they could re-run the SFT step.) Google provides all the inputs for both of the latter two steps.

[Z Crazy]

Dagny Benedict, dba Nex, was killed in a fight in a high school restroom.

https://nypost.com/2024/02/20/us-news/oklahoma-student-dagny-benedict-dies-after-school-assault/

[Nige]

Poor kid.

[Illocust]

Quick hits for those who didn't see the article on Reason's main page. She sent a text to a friend saying she started the fight, and coroner says she didn't die from trauma. They're running a toxicology report now.

[David Nieporent]

Where "killed in a fight" is asshole for "was assaulted."

[Illocust]

She started the fight per her own text messages sent to her friends, so 'was assaulted' wouldn't be the appropriate terminology.

[David Nieporent]

She did not start the fight, per her own text messages sent to her friends. The text message on which you purport to rely said:

They had been bullying me and my friends and I got tired of it so I poured some water on them and all 3 came after me.

Not clear why you'd claim that the middle event in that sequence — pouring water on them — rather than them bullying her or them coming after her, constitutes the start of the fight.

[Brett Bellmore]

I suppose because the bullying was long term, and the pouring water was proximate?

I have no sympathy for bullies, I was bullied in elementary school, it was hell, and the teachers were no help at all. "Don't fight back, that's what bullies want. Just ignore them and they'll go away."

Bullshit, they just kept escalating until I beat one of them into the ground, and THEN they went away.

Of course, back then "bullying" meant somebody ambushing you with a quick punch as you came around a corner, or maybe holding you spread eagle while the girl you mistakenly talked to kicked you in the nuts. (Yeah, even in the 70's elementary school girls could be viciously violent.)

What this girl called bullying prior to this attack I don't know. But given how it ended, yeah, it was probably the violent sort.

Probably the worst bit of the story? "It remained unclear Tuesday if Benedict’s attackers would face charges."

Why is bullying a problem? Because schools don't really want to take it seriously.

[Brett Bellmore]

Disclaimer: "Beat your bully senseless and he'll go away" is not meant as advice to slightly built outnumbered girls. It was just to illustrate how wrong the teachers had been.

[BadLib]

AP is reporting that police say that "preliminary autopsy results indicate the teen did not die as a result of injuries sustained in the fight" and that cause of death is awaiting toxicology results and other testing results.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

THE VOLOKH CONSPIRACY

This white, male, faux libertarian
blog with a receding academic
veneer has operated for no more than

ONE (1)

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

THIRTEEN (13)

occasion (so far) during 2024
(that’s at least 13 discussions
that have included a racial slur,
not just 13 racial slurs; many
Volokh Conspiracy discussions
feature multiple racial slurs,
as its management desires.)

This blog is exceeding 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
antisemitic, gay-bashing, misogynistic,
Islamophobic, Palestinian-hating,
transphobic, racist, and immigrant-hating
slurs (and other bigoted content)
published at this movement conservative
blog, which is presented by affirmative
action hires from the disaffected
right-wing fringe of modern legal
academia by members of the
Federalist Society for Law
and Public Policy Studies.

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

This is a good one, too.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Today's Rolling Stones pointers:

First, an alternate version that spotlights the reggae roots of this warhorse, which spent years in the can as an unfinished reggae tune until contractual obligations inclined Jagger and Richards to rework it for inclusion on Tattoo You.

Next, another alternate version, at a languid pace.

[BrotherMovesOn]

Great link.

[Krayt]

Solar flare outage! Cell phones down! Did solar flares cause it? Let's ask a solar flare expert!

"Not likely as only AT&T is affected."

[Mr. Bumble]

As always the reporting on this is confused.

[Krayt]

It wasn't confused though. They had their answer and ran with the hyperventillation clickbait anyway.

[CocoN8]

Arizona is poised to become the only state in the union with an official state planet. HB 2477, which would designate Pluto as the official state planet of Arizona, passed the State House of Representatives on Monday on a unanimous vote.

Who said left and right can't agree on anything?

[Both Sides]

Am intrigued by the possibility of "sister city" arrangements.

[Jonathansingletary]

What a funny designation. Most official state whatevers are native to that state. You can’t really say that of a planet?

[Estragon]

I’ve been having fun with this one today:

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/media/1339151/dl

Nobody ever expects… the Yakuza!

[Absaroka]

That's pretty weird. It's plausible that the Burmese insurgent was mining a uranium deposit, but plutonium? You don't mine that. So who supplied the plutonium?

And enriched uranium? You don't dig that up or make it in your basement.

[Estragon]

Oh SDNY is definitely sensationalizing. Here’s a more sober take from Cheryl Rofer:

https://nucleardiner.wordpress.com/2024/02/22/the-nuclear-materials-in-the-ebisawa-indictment/

[Estragon]

But I mean, the picture of the Yakuza boss with a rocket launcher is pretty lit

[Commenter_XY]

On February 24th, it is the two year anniversary of the RUS invasion of UKR. What is the US goal, here? Is it to:

Fight RUS down to the last Ukrainian?
Defeat RUS on the battlefield?
Bleed RUS for as long as possible, then cut a deal?
Stop (severely hinder) RUS access to the Black Sea (happening slowly)?
Isolate RUS/CHN/NK/Iran by maneuvering them into a combined alliance? Something else?

It has been two years, and well over 200K military dead, millions UKR displaced. What is the goal here?

[Jason Cavanaugh]

You haven't shown any willingness to correct your ignorance about this subject yet, but I'll keep sharing the information you refuse to pay any attention to.

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/high-price-losing-ukraine

Everyone knows that you hold a grudge against Ukraine from WWII, don't bother with the lie that you actually care.

[Absaroka]

1)Keep Putin from invading a NATO member where we are treaty bound to fight WWIII.

2)Help people from being taken over by their nasty neighbors. Which, BTW, is exactly why I support the US supporting Israel.

[Commenter_XY]

1) I can agree with. If the goal is to destroy enough capacity to render RUS unable to invade a NATO ally, then that would serve a US national interest (not a vital US national interest). Putin has already indicated he has no interest in taking on NATO, militarily (RUS would get creamed in a conventional fight with NATO).

[Brett Bellmore]

"Putin has already indicated he has no interest in taking on NATO, militarily "

Not so long ago he reassured Ukraine he had no interest in invading them. A few years later he started biting off pieces. Why would anyone take such an assurance seriously?

[Absaroka]

Yup. Putin's promises that this really is the last bite of the apple remind me of another dictator in the late 1930's.

And I'm not sure he isn't crazy enough to try and lop off one of the Baltics. He doesn't seem good at geopolitical decision making, and doesn't seem to have a strategy other than doubling down.

[Brett Bellmore]

He's an ambitious old man who doesn't care what happens after him. Every month his time horizon for planning shortens, on account of getting older, and his risk tolerance increases.

[grb]

Commenter_XY : “What is the US goal, here?”

Why isn’t “Help a country under attack by a stronger neighbor” on your list? I assume because that’s insufficently cynical about U.S. motives. As for your list:

1. “Fighting to the last Ukrainian” is a common trope of the far-Left and far-Right. It’s amazing how similar they often sound. Please note it assigns no agency to the Ukrainians themselves. This too is common at the political extremes. Both have a tendency to cry copious crocodile tears over the “poor Ukrainians” when they clearly don’t give the slightest f**k about them.

2. You would have to define what defeating Russia means. Personally, I think the U.S. would welcome any outcome that returned matters to the pre-invasion status quo. I doubt Ukraine is prepared to reintergate Donbas and believe the Crimea a dangerous red line. Furthermore, I suspect Ukraine would call that victory as well. I know that goes against their rhetoric, but wartime talk can never be trusted.

3. Bleeding Russia’s military capacity down is no doubt welcome, but it’s not some requisite to a behind the scenes deal.

4. Hindering Russia’s Black Sea access isn’t a possibility post-war, so can hardly be a war aim. I assume any war conclusion leaves the naval base at Sevastopol in Russia’s hands.

5. No one is happy with the growing alliance between the listed countries, so it’s silly to consider that a war aim. On the other hand, the alliance isn’t very consequential either. China is still a growing threat; Russia is still a empty husk (with nuclear weapons); North Korea and Iran are still toxic freak regimes. Their threat together is little different than their threat apart.

[Don Nico]

"Their threat together is little different than their threat apart."
Your comment is not shared by many in the arms control community.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

In the Tucker interview it was funny when Putin didn’t confirm Tucker’s beliefs—Tucker truly believed Putin would admit to being Xi’s lil’ bitch and that NS2 wasn’t operable just to stick it to the libs. Why would any leader want to reduce the number of markets he can sell his most important export like Putin did with natural gas? If cozying up to China benefits Russia Putin’s going to do it irrespective of anything else.

[Don Nico]

The result, if not the goal has been to build a stronger alliance among the DPRK, Iran, Russia and China. I would not call that isolating them but emboldening them to the point at which Kim threatens war against the ROK with a first strike nuclear attack;

It has sent $100B to the US military-industrial complex and if the Rs & Ds get their act together it will spend $60B more.

It has also cut off all US-Russia dialogue, perhaps except via Turkey. In and of itself that is dangerous.

[grb]

Don Nico : ” ….. but emboldening them to the point at which Kim threatens war against the ROK with a first strike nuclear attack..”

And they talk about Joe Biden’s memory! Quote:

“Indeed, Pyongyang has threatened the US, South Korea and Japan on countless occasions over the years, from threatening to carry out “indiscriminate” nuclear strikes to announcing the nullification of the truce that halted fighting in the Korean War. Andrei Lankov, a North Korea expert at South Korea’s Kookmin University, said the international media and general public have “short memories” when it comes to North Korean threats."

“Ten years ago, North Korea said that officially war will start in the next few weeks. The North Korean government approached foreign embassies in Pyongyang, suggesting they evacuate immediately all non-essential personnel. The North Korean media addressed foreigners residing in South Korea, suggesting to them to run away immediately,” Lankov told Al Jazeera. A few dozen foreign journalists came to Seoul to report on the coming war in Korea. They were surprised to see that South Koreans did not care at all. They were supping their cappuccinos because they understood that such tidal waves of bellicose rhetoric come from North Korea every three or five years. Back then, it was far more very graphic than now.”

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/1/24/is-north-koreas-kim-planning-war-experts-have-conflicting-theories

[Don Nico]

grb,
I watched Kim-dumb-fuck on Japanese news say that the ROK is an enemy state, that there is no re-unification and that he is prepared for first use of nuclear weapons.
That is not about my memory, it is about you failure to see what is going on in the world.

Go back to Aljazeera to learn more about he middle east.
But as for the DPRK rad something from a person who has actually been there:
https://thebulletin.org/2023/02/interview-siegfried-hecker-explains-how-washington-and-pyongyang-missed-chances/

[grb]

Four Points:

(1) If you need an alternate source to Al Jazeera to tell you the North Koreans regularly issue ranting threats of first strikes with hellish fire & brimstone, I can oblige. With something so obvious to everyone (but you), accounts are rather thick on the ground. You could also try researching the question yourself (good pracice!). That might save you from finding great geopolitical significance in something so common and trite as NK apocolyptic bellicosity​​.

(2) That said, the one-hundredth looney-toons threat from NK might prove true. But you can’t predict that from the threat itself, given they’re common as dirt.

(3) I liked your link as it concurs with my long-held conclusion on George W. Bush’s blundering clusterf**k. As with Trump & Iran, he threw away a functioning treaty that erected a major roadblock to North Korea’s development of nuclear weapons. As with Trump & Iran, the easily foreseen result was accelerated development of those weapons. As with Trump and Iran, the reasoning behind the move (civilian nuclear program?) was comically obtuse. To be fair to GWB, there was at least some kind of thought behind his self-destructive act. Trump was just tossing red meat to his dumbass base.

(4) I found Al Jazeera a very good source for following news of the Ukrainian War. Their reporting was crisp, thorough and professional. Obviously they have strong feelings about the war in Gaza but that’s not necessarily a disqualification with proper care. I regularly visit the National Review’s site, and that’s often completely bonkers. You should try visiting Al Jazeera. It might challenge your preconceptions. But I get the impression you don’t like that…..

[Commenter_XY]

Don Nico...one point on isolation. It would have the effect of concentrating the eggs into one rough geographic basket that can be isolated together. You just never know. Food for thought.

[ThePublius]

I don't think we should be involved monetarily, militarily, or any other way in the Ukraine-Russia war. When and if Russia attacks a NATO ally then we have an obligation to respond. Otherwise, we do not.

On the conspiracy-theory side, it seems to me the billions sent to Ukraine are an ample opportunity for embezzlement both for the givers and the receivers. Also not good.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Then you are ignorant of the consequences (both immediate and long-term) of Ukraine losing this fight.

[David Nieporent]

On the conspiracy-theory side, it seems to me the billions sent to Ukraine are an ample opportunity for embezzlement both for the givers and the receivers. Also not good.

You know that those billions are not actually cash, right? It's billions' worth of weapons (and ammo, and equipment). HIMARS aren't quite so easy to embezzle as dollar bills.

[dwb68]

I can only laugh as I read an article in the USA Today that Biden admin is considering executive action on immigration based on the same statues Trump used. lmao. yeah, ok.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Did you crack up when Obama rescinded wet foot dry feet after Trump won? What about when Trump’s best state fully implemented Obamacare and just called it Byrdcare to get West Virginians to accept it??

[Estragon]

Sam! Saw some pictures of you recently. Looking a little disheveled my guy!

“He’s not getting a shower, he’s not doing anything. He didn’t snitch on nobody, Sam is a gangster… Sam is more gangster than Tekashi69, Sam Bankman stood on all ten toes. Tekashi ratted,”

-G Lock

https://nypost.com/2024/02/20/business/sam-bankman-fried-pictured-in-jail-poses-alongside-ex-gang-members/amp/

[not guilty]

Donald Trump has filed a motion to dismiss Counts 1 through 32 of the stolen documents indictment, claiming that 18 U.S.C. § 793(e) is unconstitutionally vague as applied to him. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.648653/gov.uscourts.flsd.648653.325.0.pdf As relevant here, the text of that subsection reads:

Whoever having unauthorized possession of . . . any document . . . relating to the national defense, or information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation . . . willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it [shall be guilty of a crime].

Trump complains of the phrases “unauthorized possession,” “relating to the national defense,” and “entitled to receive it” as being unconstitutionally vague as applied.

In the context of a vagueness as applied challenge under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, a conviction fails to comport with due process if the statute under which it is obtained fails to provide a person of ordinary intelligence fair notice of what is prohibited, or is so standardless that it authorizes or encourages seriously discriminatory enforcement. A court should consider whether a statute is vague as applied to the particular facts at issue, for a litigant who engages in some conduct that is clearly proscribed cannot complain of the vagueness of the law as applied to the conduct of others. Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 561 U.S. 1, 19 (2010).

A motion to dismiss admits the factual averments of the indictment for purposes of the motion. Trump was plainly on notice that his possession of the subject documents was unauthorized, as evidenced by NARA’s unsuccessful attempts to retrieve the records. Trump was on notice that the documents related to the national defense, as evidenced by classification markings on the documents. Trump was on notice that the National Archivist was a person entitled to receive the documents, as evidenced by the correspondence between NARA and the Department of Justice seeking return of the documents.

Trump’s motion to dismiss is frivolous, topside to bottom.

[SRG2]

The frivolity of the motion is irrelevant. The strategy is to keep filing motions so that Cannon can keep moving back the trial date.

[apedad]

Maybe Trump can plead his intelligence is less an ordinary.

[SRG2]

"I have the best cognitive decline, many people have told me so"

[not guilty]

Donald Trump has filed a motion to dismiss Counts 1 through 32 of the stolen documents indictment, based on a spurious claim of presidential immunity. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.648652/gov.uscourts.flsd.648652.324.0.pdf

Even if a president were immune from prosecution after leaving office for official acts taken while president (he isn't), the instant motion seemingly misapprehends that Trump here is being prosecuted for conduct occurring after he left office. The conduct criminalized by 18 U.S.C. § 793(e) is not the initial removal of documents; it is the unlawful retention and failure to deliver documents to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive them, all of which occurred after Trump left office.

[David Nieporent]

Trump's "argument" is based on non-lawyer Tom Fitton's legal advice to him that the Presidential Records Act says that the president can steal whatever documents he wants from the government.

Based on that, his argument is that while he was president, he categorized all of these documents as personal records rather than presidential records. Therefore, he had the right to take them, since they were his own records and don't belong to the government. As such, he can't be prosecuted for having them. And since the underlying categorization was done while he was president, in the course of his official duties, he's immune from prosecution for having done so.

You do not need to enumerate the many many flaws in this argument. I am aware of all of them. I am just describing it.

[tylertusta]

Not looking good for Fani Willis or Nathan Wade.

Trump's defense team received Nathan Wade's phone records for most of 2021. This was the time period before Wade and Willis testified that their relationship started. At least one witness disputes that testimony, though that number might become two, depending on what Bradley says in his 2/26 meeting with McAfee.

Through the use of Wade's cell phone data, Trump's team found that Wade visited Willis at her home least 35 times, made over 2000 calls to each other, and sent over 12000 text messages.

Based on the data, Wade's visits to Willis were made in the evening, including overnight visits.

That would strongly indicate that Willis and Wade's testimony that their relationship started in 2022 was... shall we say... less than truthful.

[tylertusta]

From the affidavit:

Slides 5-7 "September 11 to 12": deeper analysis described in the attached affidavit of Mr. Wade's cell phone tracking from September 11, 2021 to September 12, 2021 revealing the following activity:

• Leaving the Doraville area at approximately 10:15 P.M.
• Traveling directly to and arriving within the geofence located on the [REDACTED] address at approximately 10:45 P.M.
• Leaving the [REDACTED] address at approximately 3:28 A.M
• Traveling directly to towers near his Marietta residence in East Cobb and arriving at 4:05 A.M.
• Texts Fani Willis at 4:20 A.M.

[not guilty]

As I wrote on another thread, why was this information not offered at the evidentiary hearing on February 15 and 16? Steve Sadow, counsel for Donald Trump, cross-examined Nathan Wade about what phone records would show, which indicates his awareness of this line of inquiry. He now belatedly seeks to offer an affidavit from defense investigator Charles Mittelstadt certifying the CellHawk analysis and reports which are purportedly attached to the affidavit.

There is no explanation as to why this information was not offered at the evidentiary hearing, where it could have been cross-examined. In the words of John Henry Wigmore, cross-examination is “beyond any doubt the greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of truth.” 3 Wigmore, Evidence §1367, p. 27 (2d ed. 1923).

Mr. Mittelstadt’s affidavit is inadmissible hearsay. The affiant is not the custodian of AT&T’s records, so the content thereof is both unauthenticated and hearsay within hearsay. Mr. Middlestadt admits in his affidavit that he is not cell phone tower engineer or expert.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports:

There is reason to doubt the conclusions by the defendants’ investigator, said Georgia Tech electrical and computer engineering professor Paul Steffes, who has testified about cellphone location data in court cases.

Steffes said he would need to review the underlying data used in the investigators’ analysis before drawing a definitive conclusion, but he reviewed the summary of the investigation included in the affidavit filed Friday.

It does not show definitively that Wade visited Willis at her Hapeville condo — at best, the evidence appears to show Wade was in a 9-square-mile area that includes Willis’ condo, Steffes said.

The data also does not prove that Wade stayed in one place – he could have been driving around the area, he added. “This sounds to me like these folks are not experienced and they don’t understand the limits of either the data or the tool they’re using.
This filing should be regarded at most as an offer to reopen proof in the evidentiary hearing.

https://www.ajc.com/politics/breaking-cellphone-data-raise-questions-about-start-of-willis-wade-relationship/SFVMYPTD2RD3HMZYOH3377CNNE/

Judge McAfee has scheduled arguments for March 1. Perhaps the Court will inquire further then, but I will be surprised if he lets this information in the back door.

[tylertusta]

There is no explanation as to why this information was not offered at the evidentiary hearing, where it could have been cross-examined.

The defense said that they had phone records during the hearing on February 16th and they asked the judge to be able to introduce the records:

"We are in the process of, if the court will allow us, to obtain certain phone records, and we’d like the record kept open for the introduction of those phone records. We have them in draft, informally. We do not have certification of them. And they would deal with—if you’ll remember I asked Mr. Wade about certain activity down in Hapeville during the time period—and it deals with that specific time period. We’re talking about February or March of 2021 through November 1st. … We would want to—if what we believe is there based on our preliminary research, is there—we’d like to reopen and introduce records and someone to explain what they mean."

And this:

"As soon as we got a hearing date and the State’s response to what happened—when the State responded February 9 th and admitted to the relationship but put parameters on the timing—I sent subpoenas out in response to that. The problem is Delta, AT&T, and all these folks aren’t super fast about all that. I know Delta—we’re also waiting, I wanted to remind the Court—waiting for those records to be submitted in camera. And AT&T actually e-mailed me these phone records yesterday morning on the way to court"

not guilty, assuming that the phone records and expert witness testimony is allowed, what is your take on today's revelation?

Would it move things in favor of disqualification? Or would it not? Why?

[Commenter_XY]

The Smasher and Wade both perjured themselves, and should lose their law license.

[SRG2]

The Yakuza is not a crime syndicate, singular. There are a number of Japanese crime syndicates which fall under the heading of Yakuza.

[not guilty]

A jury in New York has found Wayne LaWhore liable to the NRA in the amount of $4.3 million for fraud and mismanagement. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAfnHL257rY

As Groucho Marx said, time wounds all heels.

[Bwaaah]

New York State and Letitia James...protecting the interests of the NRA and its members.

[Stephen Lathrop]

It did cross my mind that James seems to be suing to increase the effectiveness of the NRA.

[Bwaaah]

August 6, 2020
AG James’ Action Will Hold Powerful Gun Group Accountable

Lawsuit Details Years of Illegal Self-Dealing That Funded Lavish Lifestyle of NRA Leaders

NEW YORK – New York Attorney General Letitia James today filed a lawsuit seeking to dissolve the National Rifle Association (NRA), the largest and most influential pro-gun organization in the nation.

[Mr. Bumble]

"Repeatedly bleating 'show me the math' was said by me once.
No wonder you all have a problem with math (especially Judge Wankeron).

[Bwaaah]

OP said "prove China did not interfere," not "prove Mike wrong."

[Bwaaah]

You and Drackman can set me up for a roast.

[JohnSmith97]

Of course not, you have to use plenty of euphemisms to pretend that it is something that it isn't.

[Theendoftheleft]

A subset of pro-choice people do, at least regarding the embryo = baby portion. They nonetheless think the practice is justified.

[zztop8970]

I am touched by your newfound concern for the real problem of anti-Semitism.

[tylertusta]

I see you've been trying to troll me for at least three comments now.

Are you worth any more of my time? Upon reflection, nah. You aren't.

[Theendoftheleft]

Your claim just begs the question that the classification of a fetus, etc, is indeed a ‘tough’ one. That’s just pro-choice spin. (‘Mysteries of the universe’ crap.) How could it EVEN BE a tough one if the fetus isn’t a human or otherwise a rights-bearing agent? There might be some emotional drama for the mother, or worries about existential options (have the kid and become a mother or not), etc., but not toughness in terms of classification and legal entailments if you’ve already determined (stipulated) that the fetus isn’t a person or other sort of rights-bearing agent.

You’ve contested concepts of human, of person, of life, etc. So, you’re not going win by stipulative fiat.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not pro-life… or pro-choice. Three generations of left-wing and liberal imbeciles REALLY IS enough.

And don’t worry too much about it: you and your values are going to completely die off as people with rival values outbreed you anyway.

[Magister]

Executive order two days before leaving office? But Biden rescinded it later that year.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Garden_of_American_Heroes