Monday Open Thread

Comments

[not guilty]

Garry Trudeau can still bring it. https://www.gocomics.com/doonesbury/2024/03/03

[Kazinski]

Eh, Garry Trudeau was never half as good as Bill Watterson whose Calvin and Hobbes was good enough to found a religion upon(mainly focused on Hobbes of course, Calvin would be a jealous and errattic god), or Gary Larson who was even better but was too skeptical and eclectic to inspire religious devotion.

Best of all of course was Charles Schultz who explained life better than any maharishi.

[grb]

Leaving aside rating or rankings, Cul de Sac by Richard Thompson was another brilliant comic. unfortunately the cartoonist's last years were blighted by Parkinson's disease.

But Trudeau is spot-on here.....

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Oh, so boring
Oh, oh, so boring
Oh, so boring
It puts me to sleep

[Edmund Burke's Hastings spy]

Would that were true..you are no less boring.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I try to do my part to encourage healthy sleep.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Ain't y'all already "slope"?

[Brett Bellmore]

Trudeau had his moments, but I always found his politics just too heavy handed. He's more of a long form editorial cartoonist, than he is an entertaining one.

[Frank Drackman]

forgot who he was talking about, but he referred to someone as
an "Alleged Human"

[Frank Drackman]

How could I forget?
it was Frank Sinatra

[Mr. Bumble]

Did Trudrau find another reason for disqualification?

[Moderation4ever]

Good one. I forgot Garry is still out there, good to know he still got it.

[Michael P]

Yes, Trudeau continues to bring tedious and one-sided rants to the cartoon pages. Fortunately for him, the people in charge don't ask the general public which cartoons should be printed.

Imagine if he did a strip on Joe Biden's incoherent ramblings that was half as pointed as his strips on Bush, or one on Hunter Biden's ego and special pleading that was half as indignant as his ham-fisted swings at Trump.

[Sarcastr0]

Michel P does not like one-sided rants.

[Mr. Bumble]

Oh look, numbnuts woke up.

[Sarcastr0]

You and Wuz are the main folks on here who regularly post a comment that is nothing but an insult.

How lazy.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Note that no commenter snarking here actually says that there's anything untrue in this strip.

Trudeau is hitting the nail on the head here as to the mindset of evangelical Trump supporters. There really is no debate about this -- everyone agrees it's all true -- but as usual G.B. puts it in a coherent and memorable nutshell.

[Michael P]

It’s a fictional comic strip. Everything in it is made up. The rest of us didn’t need to be told that it’s not true.

[Mr. Bumble]

The capt lives in a fictional alternate universe.

[Nige]

People obliged to believe that every Trump fiction is true having difficulty identifying truth in fiction.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

What did evangelical voters tell you when you asked them why they voted for Trump?

The Bible celebrates Cyrus the Great for liberating the Jews, but that monarch looks like a real warmonger. And he probably didn't go to the Temple, either.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Until Trump, that kind of mentality did not exist among evangelical voters.

[Kleppe]

Why are you convinced you can read other people's minds? If you would abandon that frame, your life would improve immeasurably.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Kleppe, economists tell me I can better improve my life by paying more attention to revealed preferences than to stated preferences.

I am pretty sure you suppose you readily read the revealed preferences of leftists, by observing the choices they make. It goes the other way, too.

[Sarcastr0]

I don't worry so much about religious hypocrisy as some on here, but there's no shortage of excuse-ridden interviews and reporting about this exact thing.

[Dan Schiavetta]

A PRRI/Brookings poll in 2011 found that only 30% of evangelicals believed that people unethical in their personal lives can ethically fulfill their roles as political leaders. In 2016, with the rise of Trump, it had skyrocketed to 72%. You can look it up.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Evangelicals: When the facts change, we change our opinions. What do you do?

[Brett Bellmore]

Anybody with the least sense, on uttering, "There really is no debate about this — everyone agrees it’s all true", would stop, realize they've gone terribly wrong in their reasoning, and start reassessing their argument.

Seriously, how many topics is that ever even approximately true of? "The Sun rises in the East."? "Water is wet."?

Certainly it's never true of anything political.

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : "Certainly it’s never true of anything political"

That Trump is a sleazy amoral loathsome turd of a human being has "water is wet" standing. That his evangelical base has twisted itself into knots of hypocrisy to excuse Trump's record, actions, and character has "sun rising in the east" status.

[Theendoftheleft]

Sorta like the Blue Teamers claiming that they're progressive and the future of the world, even though they don't even meet replacement rate and are fundamentally reliant upon mass immigration to prop up the country from demographic collapse?

Sorta like the pervasive criminality of the Bidens being rationalized as right-wing spin?

Sorta like the Blue Team's claims of defending democracy and the rule of law in the face of Clinton's hard drives, Russia-gate, the new show trials, the non-stop MSM propaganda, and the pervasive efforts to regulate thought and speech in universities and private institutions?

Don't worry: everyone else in the world can see through your bullshit.

[Nige]

Yes, those are the sorts of things the supporters of a sleazy amoral loathsome turd of a human being say.

[Theendoftheleft]

I don't support you at all. Stop lying, Ingsoc.

[Nige]

Yes, you support the sleazy amoral loathsome turd of a human being.

[Theendoftheleft]

No, I just told you I don't support you. Why must you ALWAYS lie? It's boring.

[Nige]

Yes, and I told you that's because you support the sleazy amoral loathsome turd of a human being. This is slow, even for you.

[Brett Bellmore]

"My political foes all agree with me, and just pretend otherwise out of stubbornness/evil" has to be the stupidest political trope out there, by a wide margin.

[grb]

It’s not a good look to ignore the blazing obvious, Brett. Trump would be a loathsome creep just for his sexual obsession over his daughter alone, and that leaves a whole world of character flaws left to explore. Summary?

No books, No reading,
No friends, No music,
No curiosity, No patience,
No integrity, No compassion,
No empathy, No loyalty,
No conscience, No courage,
No manners, No respect,
No character, No morality,
No honor,

Not even a dog.

What’s there to debate?

[Mr. Bumble]

With the exception of the dog it sounds like Biden and the dog(s) seem to adopted have Biden's personality.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Biden definitely reads, he often from quotes Seamus Heaney and Kierkegaard. Does Trump even know who those are?

[Mr. Bumble]

Reading teleprompters and cue cards count?

[LawTalkingGuy]

For Trump reading, I suppose so? I mean he had to read these cue cards to act like a human being after a mass shooting.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/21/politics/trump-parkland-notecard/index.html

[Don Nico]

I have to admit that your list is a compelling argument.

[LawTalkingGuy]

TBF to Trump, on the music thing, I believe he is genuinely into Broadway show tunes.

[bernard11]

Self-aware much?

Do you realize how many of your comments make similar claims?

[Bwaaah]

"Note that no commenter snarking here actually says that there’s anything untrue in this strip."

I don't think I've ever met a "religious" Christian who held up Trump as a model of religious behavior or virtue. I'm sure they're out there, but they aren't at all representative of much more typical sentiments. Propagating false, bigoted stereotypes of large groups of people is a pretty pernicious endeavor.

And if I am to believe that you are sincere, then you have your head in the sand.

[grb]

Bwaaah : "I don’t think I’ve ever met a “religious” Christian who held up Trump as a model of religious behavior or virtue"

LOL:

"More Republicans say former President Trump is a person of faith than several other Republican figures, his GOP primary challengers and President Biden, a new poll found. In the survey, conducted by HarrisX for Deseret News, 64 percent of Republicans said Trump was a person of faith, up from 53 percent in October. Former Vice President Mike Pence, an evangelical Christian, came in second with Republicans, with 56 percent calling him a man of faith"

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4389102-trump-biden-pence-person-of-faith-2024/

[Bwaaah]

Per that article:

GOP respondents were less likely to say Trump is “religious” and pointed to his “support for religious people, not his personal religiosity, as their reasoning for saying he is a man of faith,” according to the Deseret News."

Like I said, few religious people view Trump as a model of good religious behavior like Trudeau and bigots like you assert.

[Kazinski]

Well maybe that's why it doesn't resonate with me at all, I'm an atheist.

[Bwaaah]

I too am an atheist. But my lack of belief in god didn’t metastasize into contempt for belief in god, or for those who hold such a belief. (And my lack of belief in god implies surprisingly few differences with those who do.)

Look at the people who bring up the religiosity of Trump and Christians in the same breath. It’s a few fringe people on the right, and MOST people on the left. Are they the good people holding up the value of Christianity? No. They are the mockers.

The mockers claim to be the betters. How grotesque is their view of people?

[Nige]

'who bring up the religiosity of Trump and Christians in the same breath.'

It's utterly amazing the things that you lot believe should be out of bounds for discussion or criticism - the evangelical support for a man like Trump is apparently a holy thing and off limits.

'The mockers claim to be the betters.'

A good thing evangelicals never claim to be better than anybody else and that everybody else are godless atheist scum bound for Hell. Speaking of grotesque views of people.

[Kazinski]

I'm not an expert on the subject but supporting Trump no matter how deplorable his personal morals seems consistent with scriptures:
"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's"

Jesus certainly doesn't say because Ceasers are having orgies in Rome good Christians need to oppose them. Jesus' recurring message is worry about your own spiritually and piety not anyone elses, in other words 'don't throw Stones at Trump, at least for religious reasons'.

Trump isn't running for pastor, neither was Bill Clinton, nor Joe Biden for that matter either.

[Nige]

No, that just sounds liek a cop-out, a complete abdication of responsibility, or rather the final revelation that this is not about religion, it's about control. It cuts against decades of moral majorty creeps denouncing lgtbq people and single mothers and evil atheists, most of it directed against politicians who weren't fervent enough for them. It's as flagrant and rotten an act of hypocrisy as we'll ever see.

It's funny, godless heathen liberals can elect a Christian who is devoutly observant, a good family man, faithful to his wife. Supposedly devout Christians elect a crooked philanderer. And yet they still think they can lecture us on our immoral ways.

[Kazinski]

Well I'm not going to try to argue that some evangelicals aren't inconsistent in their opinions, I'm just arguing there is nothing inconsistent with Christianity in supporting Trump.

[Nige]

There’s also nothing inconsistent about pointing out the disparity between the pious morality which evangelical Christians seek to impose on the rest of us, and the nature of the man they treat as the messianic figure who is supposed to bring it about. In fact, I would say it's weird that people would somehow claim to find it objectionable.

[not guilty]

"Well I’m not going to try to argue that some evangelicals aren’t inconsistent in their opinions, I’m just arguing there is nothing inconsistent with Christianity in supporting Trump."

Is there any of the seven deadly sins that Donald Trump doesn't personify?

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Sure, as a political cartoonist. That's what he always was--which is why his strips were out of place in the "funnies".

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Also, they're not funny enough for the funnies. Even "Cathy" was funnier.

[DaveM]

I hate it when people of Party X try to sound like they're Party Y. They just never, ever get it right. Trudeau is among the worst offenders, sadly, because mis-representing his political opponents is apparently his entire schtick.

What is funny is making fun with the unvarnished truth. Like this Ricky Gervais advert for Dutch Barn Vodka: https://youtu.be/s0HCAal2rf8?si=e8z9PpQ4tqmQN48f

[Dr. Ed 2]

This is like when people painting swastikas on things were getting them wrong. Not just backwards but scrambled -- any REAL NeoNazi would have drawn it right....

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

People who think spouting made-up bullshit about some group is clever and "spot-on" shouldn't be allowed to breed.

[AmosArch]

Hot Take: All ‘gender’ and race based assistance programs should be eliminated and replaced (if they are to be continued at all) with class/low income/low wealth based programs which basically address the same fundamental concerns (at least the valid ones) but do so in a far more equitable, far more accurately and precisely targeted fashion.

[Kazinski]

Well, I will take this opportunity to advocate again for my school reform proposal which advocates taking 10% of the current budget in underperforming school districts an paying it directly to parents who's children increase their reading or math scores by 5% on standard testing.

There seems to be a disconnect between the (what should be) obvious long term benefits of emphasising academics, and the the short term concerns of parents just getting through life.

Providing more short term incentives, and setting the bar low enough that just modest continuous improvement can yield significant gains should be plenty of incentive.

[Edmund Burke's Hastings spy]

“In short, some of the least qualified students, taught by the least qualified professors in the lowest quality courses supply most American public school teachers.”
― Thomas Sowell, Inside American Education

[Dr. Ed 2]

It's true...

[Noscitur a sociis]

And Dr. Ed certainly knows a thing or two about low qualifications!

[Davy C]

You'd have parents telling their kids to purposely score low on the *first* test so they could easily improve when they took the next test.

[Nige]

And what if it is found that such programs discriminate on the basis of race and gender? Because that's the reason those other programs exist.

[AmosArch]

programs that don't discriminate based on race and 'gender' can simultaneously exist with programs that don't discriminate based on race and 'gender'.

[Nige]

They were dealing with the programs that existed, not the Platonic ideals in your head.

[DaveM]

This idea, while well-intentioned, will not solve the problems of low educational performance.

The root of our problems is that we have a winner-take-all strategy for progressing through the school levels, where one either passes in all classes, or fails in all. Over the years, we’ve given up on even this, and now just have a time-in-class requirement for progress.

That’s not how we do it in the private sector. The private sector uses the concept of individual certification. The student must pass the requirements for each certificate to earn it, no matter how many attempts are made. If you have the certificate, then we know you know the material covered.

So, the problem is, indeed, systemic, just not in the way currently discussed.

[Kazinski]

This is probably my last post at Volokh, but I thought I'd better say something rather than slink off without a word after my anticipated 9-0 crushing in Trump v Anderson.

It was explained so often how wrong I was that I can't plead ignorance, but I still persisted, even knowing how wrong I was.

Good bye cruel open thread.

[AmosArch]

Decided not to waste time anymore?

[Kazinski]

Like most retirees, time is not a problem.

Not that I don't stay busy, but I'm busy with what appeals to me at the moment, not what's penciled in on the calender.

[Frank Drackman]

But what do you do after you jerk off?

[Bwaaah]

Clean up the mess. What do you do?

[hobie]

Don't let the door hit ya...as they say. I don't know if the bigotry here can survive the loss

[Mr. Bumble]

Bigotry is not holding an opinion contrary to yours.

[Edmund Burke's Hastings spy]

Hmmm, prejudice is a good and necessary part of a rational and spiritual life

In Praise of Prejudice: The Necessity of Preconceived Ideas
by Theodore Dalrymple
"Today, the word prejudice has come to seem synonymous with bigotry; therefore the only way a person can establish freedom from bigotry is by claiming to have wiped his mind free from prejudice. English psychiatrist and writer Theodore Dalrymple shows that freeing the mind from prejudice is not only impossible, but entails intellectual, moral and emotional dishonesty. The attempt to eradicate prejudice has several dire consequences for the individual and society as a whole"

--- THough Socrates said the same thing long ago 🙂

[Randal]

You’ve so thoroughly hedged your prediction you’ll be able to claim victory no matter what the opinion says.

[Kazinski]

But it turns out the ruled on precisely Section 5 grounds which is what I expressly advocated:
The Constitution empowers Congress to prescribe how those determinations should be made. The relevant provision is Section 5, which enables Congress, subject of course to judicial review, to pass “appropriate legislation” to “enforce” the Fourteenth Amendment. Or as Senator Howard put it at the time the Amendment was framed, Section 5 “casts upon Congress the responsibility of seeing to it, for the future, that all the sections of the amendment are carried out in good faith.”

I haven't finished reading the whole opinion, but its clear that Section 5 gives Congress exclusive authority to enforce Section 3, which you might recall me stating a few times.

[Sarcastr0]

The relevant provision is Section 5,

You should keep reading.

[David Nieporent]

But it turns out the ruled on precisely Section 5 grounds which is what I expressly advocated:

You based your entire argument on the mistaken belief that the phrase "the power" was in S5.

[Kazinski]

That was one of my arguments, but not the whole of it. The first two paragraphs of my conclusion (as originally posted Jan 8) hold up quite well:
"Conclusion

When the Constitution uses the phrase “Congress has power” the presumption should be that Congress’s grant of power is preeminent. That is not to say that the states cannot legislate supporting legislation, or state officials cannot issue regulations or make decisions conforming to the legislation Congress passes. However no other authority may contradict, narrow, or replace the enactments of Congress..

Congress has passed a statute making Insurrection a federal crime requiring a guilty verdict by a jury of peers, and none of the penalties, fines, imprisonment, and disqualification from offices under the United States, can be applied to any person not convicted under 18 U.S. Code § 2383 - Rebellion or insurrection."

Sure I wasn't 100% correct, but who was? I read 8-10 briefs, I don't think any one came closer than I did to the actual opinion.

And the fact it took the extraordinary and unprecedented act of the National Archives to actually change the constitution in order to undercut my brief shows how devastating my argument was, or at least that's how I interpret what happened.

[Sarcastr0]

Sure I wasn’t 100% correct, but who was?

You came in swinging big, and you missed. And now you're like 'sure I wasn't correct, but who was?'

People who had the humility to not make cocksure legal predictions!

I like that you engaged with the material.
I don't like how you came in writing checks you had no expertise to cash, didn't listen to anyone explaining why you were most likely wrong, and now toss it all off like win some lose some.

You don't evince the humility to play like you were just casual into this.

You are precisely as correct here as your Hunter Biden shit, or your Biden Crime Family shit, or your new Fani Willis shit.

[Kazinski]

I said I wasn't 100% correct, but I will claim 90%.

Show me who else came closer. (Well other than Ted Cruz's brief, but I don't claim to be in his league).

And as I had stated before, my brief was never my whole argument, I wrote that up because it was a novel argument that I hadn't seen anyone else make, and it was 100% based on the constitution. I had always said I thought Griffin was controlling before and after I posted my brief, but I don't mention it at all in the brief. Why? Because it was already well covered by Baude, Blackman, etc, and there was no point in rehashing their arguments. I wrote the brief not because I thought it was the one and only winning argument, but because I wanted to make my own argument, rather than parrot someone elses.

And yet even with those constraints I got the crux of it right in the brief: section 3 is not self executing, and 2383 is the only remedy currently available to disqualify Trump.

[Sarcastr0]

I already said the real winner were those who didn’t play.

90%? You came in haard on S5. You did a big long thing with that ad a thesis.

It is not better that you can’t even acknowledge your past position.

[Kazinski]

I certainly did come in hard on Section 5, and today's opinion fully shows why I did:

"The relevant provision is Section 5, which enables Congress, subject of course to judicial review, to pass “appropriate legislation” to “enforce” the Fourteenth Amendment."

"Or as Senator Howard put it at the time the Amendment was framed, Section 5 “casts upon Congress the responsibility of seeing to it, for the future, that all the sections of the amendment are car ried out in good faith.”

"Congress’s Section 5 power is critical when it comes to Section 3."

"So far as we can tell, they object only to our taking into account the distinctive way Section 3 works and the fact that Section 5 vests in Congress the power to enforce it."

8 mentions of Section 5 in 13 pages, all of them consequential. According to the majority their insistence on recognizing the importance of Section 5 is the only thing that kept the decision from being totally unanimous.

They went haard on it too.

If you haven't read the opinion just say so, but don't try to rewrite section 5 out of what they said.

[Noscitur a sociis]

You did state it. The Supreme Court didn’t.

[Life of Brian]

"For the reasons given, responsibility for enforcing Section
3 against federal officeholders and candidates rests with
Congress and not the States."

That doesn't seem particularly ambiguous to me.

[Randal]

But it turns out the ruled on precisely Section 5 grounds which is what I expressly advocated: The Constitution empowers Congress to prescribe how those determinations should be made.

All the smart money was here after oral argument. But for months prior to that, you’d been shouting about the Insurrection Act being the proper enforcement legislation, and disqualification requiring a criminal conviction. Both of those theories were rejected unanimously.

[Randal]

Hm… I take that back. Five justices do indeed suggest that 2383 counts as enforcement legislation, much to my astonishment.

You can have your victory lap I suppose.

[Kazinski]

Edit: Whoops, I didn't see your second post, I'm glad you corrected yourself. But ill leave my response.

Really, where does it state that? Sounds to me like they are saying 2383 is a perfectly valid way to enforce section 3:

See page 10:
“Instead, it is Congress that has long given effect to Sec tion 3 with respect to would-be or existing federal office holders….
A successor to those provisions remains on the books today. See 18 U. S. C. §2383.”

And I have said repeatedly, which the court also endorsed that Congress is free to change the enforcement mechanisms via additional legislation.

Sorry Randal, read better, I was right about section 5 and 2383.

[Randal]

They did it by implying that an existing law passed prior to an amendment can be supercharged into enforcement legislation for the new amendment without Congress having to do anything.

That's the part I find astonishing, although I suppose there is some logic to it.

[Kazinski]

Congress did do something, they updated the law changed the penalty and re-passed the law in 1948, in the same measure that repealed the Enforcement Act of 1870.

Besides Congress certainly had the 1862 act in mind when they proposed the 14th amendment.

[Randal]

Congress did do something, they updated the law changed the penalty and re-passed the law in 1948...

The Court didn't depend on that though. Their suggestion was that the Confiscation Act automatically turned into enforcement legislation when the 14th was ratified.

[tylertusta]

It was explained so often how wrong I was that I can’t plead ignorance, but I still persisted, even knowing how wrong I was.

I also am "befuddled" on the 14th Amendment. Oh, woe is me!

[OtisAH]

Leaving for a FedSoc internship, or did Baker McKenzie finally get back to you? I’m sure either group would make time for your efforts here. Just ask.

[1 hour after the above post]

“Kazinski 4 hours ago

“Frontiers of Psychology just pulled a paper, not because of any articulable defect, but because of criticism on X and reddit…”

[3 hours after the above post]

Kazinski 2 hours ago

“We may be coming close to a Civil War moment in the US…”

Hilarious.

[Kazinski]

You missed this one:
"Actually, just kidding, what are the odds of me losing 9-0, or even 5-4?"

And this isn't my quote it was Affleck's "We may be coming close to a Civil War moment in the US…”, and I was hardly endorsing it.

[OtisAH]

“I wouldn’t say I’ve been missing it, Bobs.”

- Peter Gibbons

[NvEric]

Gahan Wilson !
I think I won
You're not thinking intergalactically

[Kazinski]

Frontiers of Psychology just pulled a paper, not because of any articulable defect, but because of criticism on X and reddit.

The paper "Meta-analysis: On average, undergraduate students’ intelligence is merely average," does of course violate the Lake Woebegon law that virtually everyone is of above average intelligence.

Not only that, it runs counter to the important societal goal of universal college education that will make everyone's intelligence above average.

https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2024/02/28/x_users_didnt_like_a_papers_tone_and_findings_so_they_got_it_rejected_1014136.html

For the record I do think that the commenters here at Volokh are as a whole above average in intelligence, but anyone who has spent much time around intelligent people knows that intelligence isn't any sort of barrier to exhibiting profound stupidity, regularly, in all aspects of ones life. Whereas some people demonstrably lower intelligence make consistently better decisions and have much happier more successful lives than their "betters".

[Commenter_XY]

Kaz: There are few things as humbling as objective data.

O/T: Hope you stay.

[Kazinski]

Actually, just kidding, what are the odds of me losing 9-0, or even 5-4?

I'm actually just getting warmed up for my victory lap. Which won't of course be nearly as spectacular as Josh's should he prevail on the officers question, but of course he will deserve it more, because he put in a lot more work, went far out on a limb publicly and professionally, and got a lot more pushback and criticism.

[Bwaaah]

Unlike Josh, you get extra credit for amateur lawyering (despite the numerous people who feel that that alone should get you demerits). It's been a fun ride. (Kudos to some like Not Guilty who engaged your material.)

But really, Kaz, you should leave legal thinking to the lawyers, expert thinking to the experts, and silence to the rest of us. No?

lol

[Brett Bellmore]

I found that study kind of dubious, just on the basis that in order for the average IQ of college students to be THAT low, half of them would have to be dumb as rocks.

But perhaps I'm reasoning on the basis of a meritocratic admissions system that's long since dead...

[Bwaaah]

When student loans became available for just about anybody who wants to go to college, and they included additional monies for school-related expenses that could be turned into discretionary spending money, going to college became an alternative to getting a fulltime job for many unmotivated young people. "I'm bettering myself," is a half-witted mantra for completely disinterested students who are just riding their way through more program dollars.

One might ask, "Why would they take out long-term loans for no long-term benefit?" The answer is that they never considered how they'd pay any of it back, and most of them never will. (And there are increasing program dollars to fill that wasteful hole too.)

Painfully, this isn't even a case of everyone going to college. It's a case of everyone getting student loans and enrolling in college, and after that, c'est la vie.

[Dr. Ed 2]

IQ tests were developed what -- 80-90 years ago?

Have they ever been re-normed?

It's entirely possible that everyone IS above average now -- that the entire curve has shifted.

[Dr. Ed 2]

But as to the author's thesis, I question the relationship between social privilege and IQ (today) because access to knowledge is no longer restricted by social class, BUT ALSO reject the relationship between IQ and college attendance.

I suspect that the intellectually curious are LESS likely to go to college today because they aren't willing to put up with the indoctrination and bullshyte. But rejecting a paper because of "tone"? Like I said, less likely to put up with...

[Edmund Burke's Hastings spy]

I am studying Newman's Idea of a University and he completely rejects your reasoning. One needs a general knowledge as the nature to build on, and 'religion' insofar as it can be based rationally as the superstructure.

“It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

[Dr. Ed 2]

Newman was a cardinal -- I'm not quite sure what he'd make of the university of today bit I doubt he'd approve of it.

[Kazinski]

They definitely renorm them, and the are not static on an absolute scale. Here’s a good article about it:

https://thehill.com/policy/technology/3922608-american-iqs-rose-30-points-in-the-last-century-now-they-may-be-falling

By some estimates iodized salt raised the IQ’s of 50 million Americans by 15 points in the 1920’s. Unfortunately ionized salt has apparently been banned in the District of Columbia since the Eisenhower administration.
https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/en/blog/are-we-underestimating-benefits-salt-iodization

[ThePublius]

"Unfortunately ionized salt has apparently been banned in the District of Columbia since the Eisenhower administration.
https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/en/blog/are-we-underestimating-benefits-salt-iodization"

I can't find the DC reference.

[Absaroka]

banning "ionized salt"

Well, that's a pretty strict ban!

[Bwaaah]

I got a charge out of that one.

[Bwaaah]

Was I being too negative?

[Bwaaah]

I'm sorry. I'm attracted to that kind of a thing.

[NOVA Lawyer]

This is one of the least plausible assertions I have ever heard. And your link doesn't mention the District of Columbia.

What makes this highly implausible assertion "apparent" to you?

(Like, Morton's iodized salt isn't available in any grocery store in DC? Or did you really mean "ionized salt" and that wasn't a typo? And what even is that?)

[Kazinski]

What else would explain DC having IQ's 15-20 points below the rest of the country, other than a ban on iodized salt (and my damn spell checker tried to change to ionized again).

And for future reference, when I say something that isn't meant to be taken seriously I will often use cues or qualifiers such as "has apparently", that even the average college graduate should be able to pick up on.

But now you have me laughing envisioning you searching through the link trying to fact check that obvious throw away absurdity.

[NOVA Lawyer]

What else would explain DC having IQ’s 15-20 points below the rest of the country

Another of your “jokes” such as they are, I assume.

And when you are joking about others’ IQs, maybe don’t make grammar/punctuation mistakes.

But now you have me laughing envisioning you searching through the link trying to fact check that obvious throw away absurdity.

You have been in these comment sections, that’s obviously not one of the more absurd factual assertions anyone has made here. But, touche, it is absurd. And glad you got a laugh out of five seconds worth of control-F searching your doc.

[Kazinski]

Well if you want to nitpick my spelling, punctuation, typos, then have at it, its almost a full-time job, its too much for me to try to keep up with.

My mother was a first grade teacher, and lord knows she tried. My penmanship plateaued out in the 3rd grade too.

But I agree, there are a lot more absurd things you see here that are passed off as fact, but I assure you I had no intention that it be taken seriously.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I wonder how much of this is merely Iodized Salt, how much of it is frozen fish (and better transportation for fresh fish) making fish available to places where it wasn't before, and how much this is better nutrition in general.

Never forget that Dandelions are not native to the US -- they were brought over because they are the first edible green vegetables in the spring -- and people ate them. People's diets back then left a lot to be desired, particularly this time of year.

[bernard11]

Never forget that Dandelions are not native to the US

I'll be sure to make a note of that.

[David Nieporent]

From Wikipedia:

Taraxacum (/təˈræksəkəm/)[3] is a large genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae, which consists of species commonly known as dandelions. The scientific and hobby study of the genus is known as taraxacology.[4] The genus is native to Eurasia and North America, but the two most commonplace species worldwide, T. officinale (the common dandelion) and T. erythrospermum (the red-seeded dandelion), were introduced from Europe into North America, where they now propagate as wildflowers.[5]

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

And yes, I see the next sentence where it says that two particular species were brought from Europe to America. So, as always, Dr. Ed takes something he half-remembers, garbles it, and states it as if it were fact.

[Edmund Burke's Hastings spy]

Well, it has but statistically IQ of 100 is supposed to represent norm in a society of geniuses, Morlocks,or Invasion of the Body Snatchers pods.

[Brett Bellmore]

The problem with intelligence is that it's as useful for rationalizing as it is for reasoning. Avoiding rationalizing is a skill, and it's largely orthogonal to IQ. And it's not a skill the schools work hard to teach.

[David Nieporent]

Frontiers of Psychology just pulled a paper, not because of any articulable defect, but because of criticism on X and reddit.

Nothing in the article (other than the clickbait headline) supports that statement.

[Michael P]

Why are you so quick to lie?

Uttl was curious what brought on the sudden rejection of his already accepted paper, so he asked representatives at Frontiers. He was told that “several posts” on X triggered Dr. Davelaar’s review.

[Sarcastr0]

"not because of any articulable defect" is not supported.

There was a subsequent additional peer review that seems not to have gone well.

[Michael P]

Huh, I thought you knew what “peer review” means. That’s a note for the rest of us, I guess.

And there’s always some way to nitpick or second-guess methodology, nitpicks which are often debunkable as quickly as in this case.

[Sarcastr0]

So now it’s not that no defect is supported so much as you want to argue it’s all pretext.

I mean, could be! Wouldn’t be too he first time. But the article really doesn’t care to go into that exchange.

[Michael P]

One can articulate a fiction. That doesn't create a defect in the thing being criticized. The peer reviewers and first-line editor did not see a defect there; it was only after the executive editor saw critical Twits that he dug and found some excuse to kill the article.

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah maybe the tweets were a catalyst. That is unclear and does not demonstrate DMN was wrong.

Appeal to authority is something the article goes for just like your post. A fallacy that shows neither of you are coming in good faith.

[Michael P]

Huh, I thought you knew what "authority" means. That's a note for the rest of us, I guess.

[Sarcastr0]

Neither the article nor you goes into the substance of any of the reviews here. You just say 'review happened, so that means paper good.'

That seems disputed. But you aren't really here to get into the weeds of methodology,. You and the linked article just want to pick a fight, without any actual engagement.

Here's the thing - I'm no big fan of academic publishers, and I am quite happy to believe their scientific integrity is quite low and crumbles in the face of any public backlash.

But this article is propaganda, and does not establish what it claims to. You have jumped on this like it's making a partisan point and are as usual leaning on all your powers of disengaged indignance.

[David Nieporent]

1) Even if we could take thirdhand hearsay as valid, that quote did not mention Reddit.
2) That quote does not say that the paper was pulled because of criticism on Reddit or X.

[Michael P]

How many other articles has that editor axed at the same stage of publication?

[Edmund Burke's Hastings spy]

“It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky

so the pseudo-anti-religon thing is an example par excellence

[Jonathan Affleck]

I watched the Oakland federal court hearing in Defense for Children v. Biden. Judge White asked Biden’s counsel whether Biden could be tried for the US federal capital crime of genocide when he left office. The President’s counsel evaded the question by telling the judge she was not specialized in criminal law.

The following passage comes from “Why the Supreme Court Should Grant Certiorari in United States v. Trump” by Harvard Law School Professor Jack Goldsmith.

——>
The executive branch recognizes a broad constitutionally based clear statement rule to determine whether generally worded criminal statutes apply to the president. In a 1995 opinion, Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) head Walter Dellinger described the presidential clear statement rule as follows: “[G]eneral statutes must be read as not applying to the President if they do not expressly apply where application would arguably limit the President’s constitutional role.” Dellinger added: “[S]tatutes that do not expressly apply to the President must be construed as not applying to the President if such application would involve a possible conflict with the President’s constitutional prerogatives” (emphasis added). Dellinger acknowledged an exception to this rule when a statute “raises no separation of powers questions were it to be applied to the President.” He gave the example of bribery, since the Constitution “confers no power in the President to receive bribes,” and indeed specifically contemplates impeachment for “bribery” and “specifically forbids any increase in the President’s compensation for his service while he is in office, which is what a bribe would function to do.”

This executive branch rule is grounded in Supreme Court precedent but goes beyond that precedent. The main case is Franklin v. Massachusetts (1992), where the Court reasoned that “[o]ut of respect for the separation of powers and the unique constitutional position of the President,” the term “agency” in the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) did not apply to the president—even though the express exceptions to the term did not include the president. The Supreme Court cited “respect for the separation of powers and the unique constitutional position of the President” as a basis for requiring “an express statement by Congress” to subject presidential decisions to the APA’s abuse of discretion standard. In addition, in Public Citizen v. Department of Justice (1989), the Supreme Court applied the clear statement rule (among other tools) to determine that the president and Justice Department did not “utilize” the American Bar Association under the Federal Advisory Committee Act when it sought its advice on judicial nominations. The Court said that reading “utilized” to apply to the executive’s relationship with the ABA would raise serious questions about whether the statute “infringed unduly on the President’s Article II power to nominate federal judges.” The Court added: “[W]e are loath to conclude that Congress intended to press ahead into dangerous constitutional thickets in the absence of firm evidence that it courted those perils.”

These Supreme Court decisions do not involve criminal statutes and do not contain a clear statement rule as broadly worded as the OLC’s. But they recognize a separation of powers concern about construing generally worded statutes in ways that burden the president’s Article II powers—a concern that may be heightened when criminal statutes are in play. Importantly, Special Counsel Jack Smith has recognized the validity of the OLC position. His brief in opposition to Trump’s immunity arguments in the D.C. District Court stated:

Courts construe statutes applied to a president for conduct during the presidency narrowly “[o]ut of respect for the separation of powers and the unique constitutional position of the President.” Franklin v. Massachusetts, 505 U.S. 788, 800-01 (1992). That approach reflects two principles: statutes should be interpreted to avoid serious constitutional questions, and Congress should not be assumed to have altered the constitutional allocation of powers between branches without clear assurance that it intended the result. See Walter Dellinger, The Constitutional Separation of Powers Between the President and Congress, 20 Op. O.L.C. 124, 178 (May 7, 1996). Relying on those principles, for example, the Department of Justice has concluded that three criminal statutes could not be applied against the president (or, in two cases, other Executive Branch officials). See Laurence H. Silberman, Conflict of Interest Problems Arising out of the President’s Nomination of Nelson A. Rockefeller to be Vice President under the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, at 5 (Aug. 28, 1974) (criminal conflict-of-interest statute, 18 U.S.C. § 208); Theodore B. Olson, Prosecution for Contempt of Congress of an Executive Branch Officer Who Has Asserted a Claim of Executive Privilege, 8 Op. O.L.C 101, 102, 140 (May 30, 1984) (the criminal contempt-of-Congress prohibition, 2 U.S.C. § 192); William Barr, Constraints Imposed by 18 U.S.C. § 1913 on Lobbying Efforts, 13 Op. O.L.C. 300, 305 (Sept. 28, 1989) (the Anti-Lobbying Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1913).

<——

So is 18 U.S. Code § 1091 (Genocide) inapplicable to the president because it “possibly conflicts” with the president’s constitutional prerogatives?

Does the president have the constitutional prerogative to perpetrate genocide, to assist genocide by genocide-incitement (the 40 beheaded babies propaganda), to conspire in genocide, or to aid and abet genocide? In the past the US routinely committed genocide against native Americans. One can even argue that genocide was a sovereign right and not an international crime according to customary international law until the conclusion of the 1946 Nuremberg International Tribunal on Oct 1 1946. Is the presidential prerogative of genocide part of the president’s authority in foreign policy?

The US government signed, ratified, and enabled the Genocide Convention. Article VI Clause 2 tells us a treaty “shall be the supreme Law of the Land”.

On Dec 11, 1946, the international community (including the USA) banned genocide and made this ban jus cogens. See first image after my signature.

Even if Biden cannot be indicted for § 1091 (Genocide), which Biden should understand because he is a lawyer and because he was the lead Senate sponsor of § 1091 when Congress voted to approve this statute in order to enable the International Convention for the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in US law, the DOJ should dispatch the FBI to arrest the US Zionist movement en masse for US federal crimes of genocide.

We may be coming close to a Civil War moment in the US because the US government is giving a license to approximately 2 million Americans including some of the wealthiest Americans to commit a US federal capital crime with impunity. Such impunity destroys the US legal system. The situation is not exactly comparable to 1850s USA because slavery was Constitutional and legal in the 1850s. Genocide and associated statutes like 18 U.S. Code § 2339A (Providing material support to terrorists) are serious US crimes. Not only is the US legal system in the process of destruction for the sake of Zionism, but the US Zionist lobby is attacking the US political, social, Constitutional, and academic systems.

[Kazinski]

“We may be coming close to a Civil War moment in the US because the US government is giving a license to approximately 2 million Americans including some of the wealthiest Americans to commit a US federal capital crime with impunity.”

That’s terrible of course, but I can’t help but wonder is this an actual formal “license” to kill, and (asking for a friend) how would do you apply?

[Jonathan Affleck]

I am not sure what is being asked.

18 U.S. Code § 1091 (Genocide) and 18 U.S. Code § 2339A (Providing material support to terrorists) are black-letter US law. The US DOJ does not have discretion in the enforcement of these statute.

[Theendoftheleft]

Of course you don’t understand what was asked. You also don’t understand how those laws, or really any laws, are to be applied.

Durka durka… jihad?

The genocidal, imperialist illegal occupiers won’t leave Cyprus. Gee, I wonder why not?

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240303-turkish-cypriot-leader-rules-out-any-talks-without-equal-status

Do you think they’ll give back Turkey, since they stole all of that as well?

[Jonathan Affleck]

Theendoftheleft parrots stand Zionist hasbarah (propaganda) of whataboutism that has no relevance to the question of US law that I posed.

[Theendoftheleft]

The jihadi Ottoman-fetishist has repeatedly demonstrated that he doesn’t understand how laws are APPLIED. I asked you about their application in another candidate case; you cannot answer (let alone do so badly) because you don’t understand the laws in question. Hence, it’s not a whataboutism but rather offering a REDUCTIO of what your own views entail (i.e., application without utilising the elements of crime).

Any anti-Zionist can see through your low-grade jihadi propaganda because you don’t understand application. You also taqiyah about your identity.

Thank you for providing further evidence that you are a fraud and an idiot.

Durka durka!

[not guilty]

"18 U.S. Code § 1091 (Genocide) and 18 U.S. Code § 2339A (Providing material support to terrorists) are black-letter US law. The US DOJ does not have discretion in the enforcement of these statute."

Uh, the DOJ has boatloads of discretion in deciding what criminal charges to bring, and against whom. And prosecutors are typically loath to bring charges which will be quickly dismissed on a defense motion.

[Jonathan Affleck]

A US prosecutor fails to prosecute supporters of the baby killer nation for a crime of genocide on the basis of religion.

The DOJ improperly considers religious belief that asserts:
1, that the Romans expelled Greco-Roman Judeans and
2. that consequentially modern Jews have a license or right to dispossess Palestinians, to commit genocide against Palestinians, and to steal Palestine from Palestinians
to constitute grounds for prosecutorial discretion.

The Roman expulsion is a fairy tale. The above two assertions constitute the fundamental theological principles of Zionist religion. United States v. Armstrong, 517 U.S. 456, (1996), specifically tells us that religion is not a legitimate basis to fail to prosecute a US supporter of the baby killer nation. Because this license to commit a crime of genocide is extended on the basis of religion to every US supporter of the baby killer nation, the US DOJ commits unlawful selective prosecution.

(b) Under the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause, the decision whether to prosecute may not be based on an arbitrary classification such as race or religion. Oyler v. Boles, 368 U.S. 448, 456. In order to prove a selective-prosecution claim, the claimant must demonstrate that the prosecutorial policy had a discriminatory effect and was motivated by a discriminatory purpose. I bid. To establish a discriminatory effect in a race case, the claimant must show that similarly situated individuals of a different race were not prosecuted. Ah Sin v. Wittman, 198 U.S. 500. Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, and Hunter v. Underwood, 471 U.S. 222, distinguished. Although Ah Sin involved federal review of a state conviction, a similar rule applies where the power of a federal court is invoked to challenge an exercise of one of the core powers of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government, the power to prosecute. Discovery imposes many of the costs present when the Government must respond to a prima facie case of selective prosecution. Assuming that discovery is available on an appropriate showing in aid of a selective-prosecution claim, see Wade v. United States, 504 U.S. 181, the justifications for a rigorous standard of proof for the elements of such a case thus require a correspondingly rigorous standard for discovery in aid of it. Thus, in order to establish entitlement to such discovery, a defendant must produce credible evidence that similarly situated defendants of other races could have been prosecuted, but were not. In this case, respondents have not met this required threshold. Pp. 463-471.

[Theendoftheleft]

I appreciate your reasoning. What you are suggesting is that the legal system should abandon talk of applying the legal criteria for crimes (such as mens rea and actus reus), including for genocide, and simply apply a test of whether someone is a member of a given group or not.

To that end, EVERY Muslim is guilty of the crime of apartheid, as sharia is unquestionably an apartheid legal order (and always has been) for infidels and dhimmis. It is not simply fundamentally incompatible with free democratic societies; by your own sort of reasoning, EVERY Muslim is also guilty of the crime of apartheid.

EVERY Muslim alive today also promotes and facilitates child sex abuse. Mohammad married a child (Aisha) and consummated that marriage when she was nine, let alone the fact that there are millions upon millions of Muslims who are today married to children. Every Muslim treats Mohammad as being the man of superlative virtue, whose life should be emulated. So EVERY Muslim supports pedophilia. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbPwtu8F7Yo

Every Muslim is responsible for the mass slavery practices in Mali, Sudan, and elsewhere that exist today, and which are protected by the Muslim states in the UN. Islam has always sanctioned slavery, too, and so every Muslim supports slavery in some form or other.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcTkwiKd1Vg

EVERY Muslim supports jihad. They claim that there are multiple senses of jihad; but all adherents agree that one key meaning is holy war and imperialism (even if they downplay it when talking to infidels). Therefore EVERY Muslim is guilty of not just being a terrorist and imperialist, but of providing material support to terrorism. This, let alone their commitment to genocide in South Sudan, East Africa, Israel, to the Coptic people, the Kurdish people, etc., and their support for terrorism in the Philippines, Thailand, Myanmar, India, Europe, America, and elsewhere.

The Quran and the Hadiths are also OBVIOUSLY hate speech. So, in any jurisdiction that criminalizes hate speech and bans it, those books must be banned.

Islam is clearly an imperialist apartheid terrorist belief system, and so, by your own sort of reasoning, each and every member of that faith should be considered not just a criminal, but as a mortal threat to the US Constitution and society.

Dark ages bullshit made up by a warmongering illiterate pedophile that promotes an inferior legal system and culture that structures apartheid and genocide should not be tolerated in civilised countries. Calling that ‘Islamophobia’ based on ignorance is a lie.

[Jonathan Affleck]

Alleged crimes of Islam throughout the world are irrelevant to the question that I posed with respect to US law. Theendoftheleft spews Islamophobic nastiness that hardly differs from Judeophobic nastiness that was common before WW2 and that litters the web.

Theendoftheleft parrots standard Zionist hasbarah (propaganda) of whataboutism that has no relevance to the question of US law that I posed.

It is possible to fill a good sized library with documentation of Zionist mens rea, actus reus, and dolus specialis of genocide. I created such a library when I was helping Martin McMahon with al-Tamimi v. Adelson.

The Zionist logic of mass murder genocide against Palestinians of Gaza is the same logic that Nazis used to justify mass murder genocide against Jews.

The Nazis always told us they were fighting Jewish Bolshevism. The Holocaust started after Operation Barbarossa (invasion of the Soviet Union) began.

To the Nazis, all the civilian deaths were collateral damage of the war against Jewish Bolshevik terrorism, and every Jew including a baby was a Judeo-Bolshevik terrorist. The judges of the Nuremberg Tribunals (metaphorically) laughed at this nonsense. The propaganda of Zionists and of supporters of the State of Israel is equally if not more ridiculous and just as evil.

Here is an overview of Zionist genocide against Palestinians.

A Summary of the White States' Betrayal of the International Anti-Genocide Legal Regime in the Context of Palestine

Today the State of Israel is perpetrating actus rei (criminal acts) of genocide with mens rea (criminal mentality) of genocide and with dolus specialis (specific malicious strategy) of genocide. Zionist leaders have been crystal clear about their goal since the invention of Zionism in 1881, and the Zionist movement has extensively and intricately developed dolus specialis of physical destruction of the Palestinian group since 1881.

Zionist leader Vladimir Dubnow, wrote in October 1882: “The ultimate goal … is, in time, to take over the Land of Israel and to restore to the Jews the political independence they have been deprived of for these two thousand years… The Jews will yet arise and, arms in hand (if need be), declare that they are the masters of their ancient homeland.”[1]

In January 1919 at the Paris Peace Conference, Weizmann “The Zionist objective was gradually to make Palestine as Jewish as England was English.”[2] This goal is predicated on destruction of Palestinian group (genocide). In 1919, genocide was a sovereign right. Count Three of the Indictment of the 1946 Nuremberg International Tribunal provides the first international legal definition of the crime of genocide.

Throughout the period of their occupation of territories overrun by their armed forces the defendants, for the purpose of systematically terrorizing the inhabitants, murdered and tortured civilians, and ill-treated them, and imprisoned them without legal process.

The murders and ill-treatment were carried out by divers means, including shooting, hanging, gassing, starvation, gross overcrowding, systematic under-nutrition, systematic imposition of labor tasks beyond the strength of those ordered to carry them out, inadequate provision of surgical and medical services, kickings, beatings, brutality and torture of all kinds, including the use of hot irons and pulling out of fingernails and the performance of experiments by means of operations and otherwise on living human subjects. In some occupied territories the defendants interfered in religious matters, persecuted members of the clergy and monastic orders, and expropriated church property. They conducted deliberate and systematic genocide, viz., the extermination of racial and national groups, against the civilian populations of certain occupied territories in order to destroy particular races and classes of people and national, racial, or religious groups, particularly Jews, Poles, and Gypsies and others.

The 1946 Nuremberg International Tribunal convicted Julius Streicher of genocide incitement
1. even though he had neither harmed anyone nor ordered harm to be inflicted on anyone and
2. even though hyperbolic or inflammatory speech during a war is rarely considered a war crime.

The Nuremberg International Tribunal had concluded
1. that Streicher’s speech was in anachronistic terminology genocide incitement that was an intrinsic element of a deliberate and systematic strategy [specific malicious strategy (dolus specialis)] of physical destruction of a group and
2. that this genocide incitement merited the death penalty.

The 1946 Nuremberg International Tribunal ended on Oct 1, 1946, and Streicher was hanged on Oct 16, 1946.

At this point in time, this precedent of customary international law made genocide into a defined crime during wartime.

[I question whether customary international law of genocide requires dolus specialis. Lemkin, who wrote Count Three was familiar with common law doctrines. These doctrines determine liability by categorizing the type of malice accompanying any given criminal action between:

1. Express malice – deliberate intent to bring harm to the victim; and
2. Implied malice – Indifference to harm that a victim may suffer due to the defendant's carelessness or inattentiveness.

Lemkin seems to have meant that genocide should be a crime of express malice and did not ever intend that dolus specialis should be a requirement. Dolus specialis is nowhere mentioned in the Genocide Convention.]

On Dec 11, 1946 the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) unanimously banned genocide either in wartime or in peacetime by means of A/RES/96. (See first image below.) Because the UNGA vote was unanimous, no United Nations Security Counsel (UNSC) resolution was necessary
1. for A/RES/96 to have force of international law and
2. for the ban to become jus cogens (a non-derogatable peremptory international legal norm).

“[A] treaty is void if, at the time of its conclusion, it conflicts with a peremptory norm [jus cogens] of general international law.”[3]

Likewise even if an action or a right is based on a treaty, the action becomes banned and the right becomes invalid if the action or the right conflicts with a later defined peremptory norm [jus cogens] of general international law.

Dec 11, 1946 marks the start of the international anti-genocide legal regime.

Because Zionism became a criminal genocidal ideology on Dec 11, 1946, the Zionist leadership, which hoped that the major powers were still too exhausted from WWII to take any action against Zionist colonial settlers, put into high gear the planning of the logistics, PR, and legal defense for the final solution to the presence of a Palestinian native majority in Palestine.

On September 30, 1947, the US Military Government for Germany reconstituted Military Tribunal I, which had earlier been convened for the Doctors' Trial, to try the RuSHA Case (United States of America vs. Ulrich Greifelt, et al). This was Case #8 of the Subsequent Nuremberg Proceedings.

When the US Zionist movement succeeded in pressuring Truman to support Zionism’s genocidal goal, the US compelled the UNGA to support the optional non-obligatory Partition Proposal of United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP). The UN did not create the State of Israel. Except for the rare situation of a unanimous UNGA vote, a UNGA resolution has no effect in international law unless the UNSC affirms the UNGA resolution — something the UNSC never did.

Because the Zionist leadership feared a UNSC veto and had no interest in a dialogue with the Palestinian leadership, the Zionist leadership gave Palestinians no chance to respond to the Partition Proposal and immediately started the genocidal crimes that are now called the Nakba. The brutality of the Nakba was probably greater than the Gaza Holocaust and is the start of the never ending genocide that continues until Palestinians return to their homes, property, villages, and country.

On March 10, 1948 in the midst of these Zionist genocidal crimes, the US subsequent Nuremberg Tribunal of the RuSHA case concluded with the conviction of Nazi leaders for the genocidal crime of Germanization, which is defined in Count Three of the 1946 Nuremberg International Tribunal.

(J) GERMANIZATION OF OCCUPIED TERRITORIES
In certain occupied territories purportedly annexed to Germany the defendants methodically and pursuant to plan endeavored to assimilate those territories politically, culturally, socially, and economically into the German Reich. The defendants endeavored to obliterate the former national character of these territories. In pursuance of these plans and endeavors, the defendants forcibly deported inhabitants who were predominantly non-German and introduced thousands of German colonists.

This Plan included economic domination, physical conquest, installation of puppet governments, purported de jure annexation and enforced conscription into the German Armed Forces.

This was carried out in most of the occupied countries including: Norway, France (particularly in the Departments of Upper Rhine, Lower Rhine, Moselle, Ardennes, Aisne, Nord, Meurthe and Moselle), Luxembourg, the Soviet Union; Denmark, Belgium, and Holland.

In France in the Departments of Aisne, The Nord, Meurthe and Moselle, and especially in that of Ardertnes, rural properties were seized by a German state organization which tried to have them exploited under German direction; the landowners of these exploitations were dispossessed and turned into agricultural laborers.

Lemkin explicitly calls Germanization a form of genocide in Chapter IX of his book, which is entitled Axis Rule in Occupied Europe.

New conceptions require new terms. By "genocide" we mean the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group. This new word, coined by the author to denote an old practice in its modern development, is made from the ancient Greek word genos (race, tribe) and the Latin cide (killing), thus corresponding in its formation to such words as tyrannicide, homicide, infanticide, etc. Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups. Genocide is directed against the national group as an entity, and the actions involved are directed against individuals, not in their individual capacity, but as members of the national group.The following illustration will suffice. The confiscation of property of nationals of an occupied area on the ground that they have left the country may be considered simply as a deprivation of their individual property rights. However, if the confiscations are ordered against individuals solely because they are Poles, Jews, or Czechs, then the same confiscations tend in effect to weaken the national entities of which those persons are members.Genocide has two phases: one, destruction of the national pattern of the oppressed group; the other, the imposition of the national pattern of the oppressor. This imposition, in turn, may be made upon the oppressed population which is allowed to remain, or upon the territory alone, after removal of the population and the colonization of the area by the oppressor's own nationals. Denationalization was the word used in the past to describe the destruction of a national pattern. The author believes, however, that this word is inadequate because: (i) it does not connote the destruction of the biological structure; (2) in connoting the destruction of one national pattern, it does not connote the imposition of the national pattern of the oppressor; and (3) denationalization is used by some authors to mean only deprivation of citizenship.

Many authors, instead of using a generic term, use currently terms connoting only some functional aspect of the main generic notion of genocide. Thus, the terms "Germanization," "Magyarization," "Italianization," for example, are used to connote the imposition by one stronger nation (Germany, Hungary, Italy) of its national pattern upon a national group controlled by it. The author believes that these terms are also inadequate because they do not convey the common elements of one generic notion and they treat mainly the cultural, economic, and social aspects of genocide, leaving out the biological aspect, such as causing the physical decline and even destruction of the population involved. If one uses the term "Germanization" of the Poles, for example, in this connotation, it means that the Poles, as human beings, are preserved and that only the national pattern of the Germans is imposed upon them. Such a term is much too restricted to apply to a process in which the population is attacked, in a physical sense, and is removed and supplanted by populations of the oppressor nations.

Nazi Germanization is no less a crime and no less genocide when Zionism renames Germanization to Judaization.

Because Palestinians are darker non-Europeans, the white states gave the Zionist colonial settlers a pass to commit genocide with impunity approximately one year after the international community banned genocide. The mere existence of the Zionist state negates the international anti-genocide legal regime and undermines international law because no one can take international law seriously if international law is not enforced uniformly and equally.
Since its founding 75 years ago, the Zionist state has been a suppurating festering cancerous tumor in international law and on the surface of the planet.[3a]

In resolution 260 A (III) of December 9, 1948, the UNGA approved the International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and proposed the Convention for signature and ratification or accession by means of General Assembly resolution 260 A (III) of December 9, 1948. The Convention entered into force January 1951, in accordance with its article XIII.
Apartheid and persecution of Palestinians under Zionist domination are byproducts of the ongoing genocide. In addition, apartheid and persecution are directed to “deliberately inflicting on the [Palestinian] group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”[4] The Zionist colonial settlers hoped that Palestinians would be pressured into leaving their stolen homeland. Instead, when Netanyahu started his latest term in Dec 2022, the native Palestinian population under Zionist domination had become larger than the Zionist colonial settler population, and the Palestinian population was much younger than the Zionist colonial settler population is.

The Zionist colonial settlers have become crazed and frantic. Since Dec 2022, the attacks of Zionist colonial settlers on Palestinians, on Palestinian property, and on Palestinian communities have been steeply increasing. Zionist colonial settlers have kidnapped and imprisoned thousands of Palestinians. Zionist colonial settlers have been terrorizing Palestinian children and schools. Zionist colonial settlers have besieged Palestinian religious sites. Zionist colonial settlers have stepped up efforts of Judaization of Jerusalem and of Hebron.

Hamas is a native resistance movement within stolen Palestine and hardly differs from a native resistance movement in Nazi-occupied Europe. Just as the Nazis called the native resistance terrorist, the Zionists and their supporters call Hamas terrorist even though Hamas like the French or Polish resistance to the Nazis is heroic. On Oct 7, 2023, Hamas reacted to the unspeakable barbarism of the Zionist regime and had no other way to force the State of Israel to negotiate except by taking colonial settler prisoners.

The kibbutzim of the Gaza Envelope are military bases
1. that are intended to make irreversible the ongoing genocide, which started in Dec 1947 and
2. that have been been camouflaged with civilians that have the role of human shields.

A native resistance movement like Hamas is fully justified in attacking such military bases. The civilian residents of such military bases are not protected noncombatants.

Hamas broke out of Gaza to seize Zionist colonial settlers so that they could be traded for kidnapped Palestinians and for a cessation of attacks on Palestinian religious sites.[5] The US federal code defines such hostage taking for exchange to be a legitimate non-criminal act during a war. See 18 U.S. Code § 2441 - War crimes. The occupation exists because the state of war has never ended.

When Zionist forces understood the actions of Hamas fighters, the Zionist military perpetrated unspeakably heinous and random slaughter in accord with the Hannibal Directive. Zionist military seems to have caused practically all civilian casualties and deaths during Oct 7.

[When Biden and other US propagandists for Zionist genocide lie about slaughter, beheading of babies, and rape by Hamas, they engage in classic genocide incitement and deserve the same punishment that Julius Streicher received. No one can take international law seriously if international law is not applied equally and uniformly.]

The incompetent but depraved, murderous, and genocidal Golani Brigade collapsed.

In response, the Zionist regime has revenged itself on the Palestinian population by destroying Gaza just as Nazi forces destroyed Warsaw. Even though genocide is not a legal or legitimate response to any act, the Zionist regime has achieved the grand slam of crimes of genocide:
• mass murder genocide (Gen. Con. Art. IIa),
• physical and psychological maiming genocide (Gen. Con. Art. IIb),
• hostile conditions genocide (Gen. Con. Art. IIc),
• birth prevention genocide (Gen. Con. Art. IId), and
• child-kidnapping genocide (Gen. Con. Art. IIe, mostly in the West Bank).

Notes
1. This claim is arrant nonsense. Rabbinic Judaism is a Babylonian (Mesopotamian) religion that has little connection to Palestine. After the maniac Bar Kochba and depraved Tannaim like Rabbi Akiva completely discredited Judaism by persecuting the Judean peasantry during the moronic rebellion against Rome, the Judean peasantry rapidly abandoned Biblical Judaism and converted to Christianity. Later the descendants of the peasantry converted substantially to Islam and became modern Palestinians. The Roman Expulsion can be considered a metaphor for the transformation of Judaism from the religion of Judea into a religion that only descendants of non-Judean converts practice. Vicious bloodthirsty racial supremacist Zionist colonial settler invaders, interlopers, thieves, and impostors have been committing genocide against the true descendants of Greco-Roman Judeans on the basis of a fairy tale.
2. Wikipedia, Chaim Weizmann. Accessed on Jan 23, 2024.
3. Legal Information Institute, jus cogens, Accessed on Jan 23, 2024.
3a. For 12 years the Nazis indoctrinated Germans and propagandized other Europeans with the falsehood that asserts European Jews are non-European and belong in Palestine. This lie is a fundamental principle of Zionism. Thus Germans especially but other whites have continued to carry out Nazi genocidal policies even though the Nazi government had been eradicated. The effects of Nazi indoctrination and propaganda seems finally beginning to wear off despite the efforts of hyperwealthy Zionists to maintain a Zionist cultural hegemony throughout the world. Biden is exceptionally vile and hypocritical in his support for Zionist genocide because of his unqualified support for Zionist genocide and because he expresses his hatred and antisemitism against Jews like me by telling us that we are unsafe anywhere but in the State of Israel. Biden implies that we should leave the US as quickly as possible. Zionism is an outrageously antisemitic ideology.
4. UN General Assembly, Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, 9 December 1948, United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 78, p. 277, accessed 23 January 2024].
5. Hamas, Our Narrative… Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, Published: Jan 21, 2024 [accessed 23 January 2024].

[Mr. Bumble]

VC really has to start truncating long posts.

[Theendoftheleft]

'It is possible to fill a good sized library with documentation of Zionist mens rea, actus reus, and dolus specialis of genocide. I created such a library when I was helping Martin McMahon with al-Tamimi v. Adelson'.

This is the PROOF that you don't understand the elements of crime and how they apply, let alone for an entire group or subscribers to an ideology.

Thank you again for demonstrating your idiocy.

And 'alleged' crimes of Islam across the world??? Of course they're real, and they are relevant, including for an understanding (and defense) of why Israel exists and how it has acted. Islam is a racist imperialist apartheid and slavery-legitimizing cult. It is for unthinking barbarians like you.

[Theendoftheleft]

The genocidal, imperialist illegal occupiers won't leave Cyprus. Gee, I wonder why not?

https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240303-turkish-cypriot-leader-rules-out-any-talks-without-equal-status

Do you think they'll give back Turkey, since they stole all of that as well?

[Jonathan Affleck]

The international community needs to the address Cyprus in accord with international law, but if there were crimes in the division of Cyprus (I believe there were), they are irrelevant to the enforcement of black-letter US federal anti-genocide law against Biden and the US Zionist movement. I was elaborating a question that Judge White posed in the Oakland hearing and that suggests Biden has an interest in the Supreme Court litigation that addresses Trump's claim of immunity.

Wikipedia summarizes the current situation.

As a result of the two communities and the guarantor countries committing themselves to finding a peaceful solution to the dispute, the United Nations maintains a buffer zone (known as the "Green Line") to avoid further intercommunal tensions and hostilities. This zone separates the southern areas of the Republic of Cyprus (predominantly inhabited by Greek Cypriots), from the northern areas (where Turkish Cypriots and Turkish settlers now reside). The 2010s have seen warming of relations between Greek and Turkish Cypriots, with talks officially renewing beginning in early 2014. The Crans-Montana negotiations raised hopes for a long-term solution, but they ultimately stalled.[7][8] UN-led talks in 2021 similarly failed.

[Theendoftheleft]

Every country in the world notes that Turkey is illegally occupying Cyprus; no one acknowledges Turkey's claim to it as being legitimate. International law dictates that Turkey must leave and take its people out.

Turkey is a racist imperialist apartheid genocidal state on stolen Cypriot, Byzantine, and Kurdish lands. The Turkish people are all thieves. The laws of genocide apply to Turkey regarding its treatment of Kurds.

You are too dumb to realize that you are a parasite.

[Jonathan Affleck]

The standard Zionist propaganda techniques no longer work. Whataboutism about Cyprus is irrelevant to Biden's exposure to possible trial for his life for the US federal capital crime of genocide once he leaves office.

When a hasbarah-monger (a type of Zionist propagandist) has no reasonable response to the facts or to the truth, he responds with an attack ad hominem.

[Theendoftheleft]

Again, not a whataboutism; it’s a reductio of your amateurish and ill-informed view of the law’s application to cases, and about exposing your dishonesty about how it is to be applied as well.

When you write, as you have for weeks, about humaniform so-and-so, you engage in ad hominems (and dehumanization!) from the outset.

When someone repeatedly claims that the laws apply to mere adherents of a belief system when they haven’t met the elements of a crime, that’s when you know he’s both a liar and that he’s on jihad.

Durka durka.

[hobie]

You were actually sounding rational until the ad hominem ...idiot

[Theendoftheleft]

Insulting someone (or, as in this case, affixing accurate labels to them and showing why they don't understand something) isn't an ad hominem. The latter is a fallacy whereby a person's irrelevant identity, or aspects of it, features as a component in an argument.

'Jill is wrong that the moon is made of cheese because Jill is a green person'. The proposition is false, but not because of Jill's being green. 'Jane says the moon is made of rock, but that can't be right because she's a purple person' is an instance of the fallacy because Jill's identity is irrelevant to the proposition's truth or falsity.

Simply calling, or adding that, Jill an idiot or a parasite is not a fallacy of argument. Saying that this jihadi doesn't even understand the points made because he's an idiot is not an ad hominem. For one thing, it's distinct from the propositions in question (above, about Turkey). For another, it's an epistemic claim about his level of understanding, which ISN'T irrelevant to his status as a claimed epistemic authority.

[Nige]

'a racist imperialist apartheid genocidal'

Amazing how you suddenly appropriated those words after people started using them to criticise Israel. Parrot.

[Theendoftheleft]

All you do is lie, Ingsoc. Read the scholarship on dhimmitude. People have been correctly stating that for decades.

[Nige]

The dhimmi thing’s been going around since 9/11. That’s how creaky and rusty that one is. I remember we were all going to be dhimmified if we didn’t invade Iraq, apparently.

[Theendoftheleft]

You don't really read academic scholarship, do you? That's no surprise, since you are a fraud.

[Michael P]

Apparently “zero tolerance” laws towards youth drinking (specifically, targeting BAC in under-21 drivers) have huge positive effects on health decades later, perhaps by disrupting the formation of binge-drinking habits: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047272724000021

[Dr. Ed 2]

Yes, they do drugs instead.

[Kazinski]

The Fani Willis closing arguments were Friday, and to my eye it wasn't looking good for her, but it looks like we are going to have to wait two weeks to find out.

[Mr. Bumble]

Only saw a portion of Abbate's (?) closing, but that was painful to watch. Miss Fanny and company have done nothing to bring credit to the profession.

[tylertusta]

As one observer noted:

Is the defense really sure that it wants to disqualify this prosecutor's office?

[Brett Bellmore]

At worst it's a "The horse might learn to sing" decision.

[tylertusta]

If DQ'd it would truly be a "dog catches car" moment.

[John F. Carr]

A randomly chosen replacement prosecutor is expected to be much less aggressive and might drop some charges.

[tylertusta]

The defense is also asking for dismissal.

[loki13]

They won't get a dismissal.

And yes, they do want a DQ, simply because given what we've seen before, replacement will be a lengthy process, and delay would appear to benefit the defense.

[David Nieporent]

It is, but that's not an available remedy for this sort of alleged misconduct.

[Moderation4ever]

The problem is there is no real evidence that she benefitted from the prosecution. That is the statue that would remove her. Those asking for removal have admitted they see this as only the appearance of impropriety. Is the “appearance “ enough. If you accept “appearance” as enough, can you accept Justice Thomas voting on cases involving Trump? There is an “appearance of conflict” from his wife’s affiliations.

[Mr. Bumble]

Quite a stretch.

[Moderation4ever]

Why? What is the difference?

[tylertusta]

I guess the many trips that Fani Willis took with Nathan Wade aren't evidence that she benefited from the prosecution?

[Moderation4ever]

Did they take more or less than any other couple in a relationship.

[tylertusta]

The number of trips doesn't matter. Just one trip paid for by her employee is evidence that she benefited from the prosecution.

But the more she took, the worse it is. In for a penny, in for a pound I guess.

[John F. Carr]

If the judge finds that that her boyfriend has a substantial financial interest in the prosecution, that should be enough. A leading case ordered disqualification of a county prosecutor from a case charging abuse of his daughter's classmate. That was too close to home. The case was personal instead of business.

The usual rule is, if the county prosecutor is disqualified the whole office is disqualified. The case can't be handed off to an assistant prosecutor with no conflict of interest. Conceivably, the conflict in the election case could be cured by taking only the boyfriend off the case. Then Willis no longer has a conflict of interest.

[tylertusta]

I don't know if the conflict can be cured. After all, Fani Willis and Nathan Wade ostensibly broke up before the motion was even filed.

[David Nieporent]

If the judge finds that that her boyfriend has a substantial financial interest in the prosecution, that should be enough.

He's compensated by the hour — as are other, non-boyfriends that were hired to handle the matter — so by definition he has a substantial financial interest. That isn't sufficient.

[Commenter_XY]

David, in your personal judgment, did Fani Willis lie to the Court?

[Kazinski]

I don’t think you can cure Willis conflict now, its so obviously personal with her now.

Sadow, Trump’s Attorney listed in his closing arguments 6 ethical violations, including painting the defendants and their lawyers as racists claiming they were only trying to remove Wade because he was a Black man.

If Willis lied to the Judge under oath, and she did, then I can’t see any way the Judge lets her continue as prosecutor. A prosecutor willing to lie to continue prosecuting, is a prosecutor willing to lie to secure a.conviction.

And Willis lying about when the relationship started, and lying about the reimbursement is conceding that she had a conflict in the first place, otherwise why lie?

[not guilty]

Steve Sadow was grasping at straws. In any event, the issue is not professional discipline for alleged ethical lapses, it is whether a conflict of interest exists, i.e., whether the prosecutor has “acquired a personal interest or stake in the defendant’s conviction.” Williams v. State, 258 Ga. 305, 314, 369 S.E.2d 232, 239 (1988) (disqualification not required based on prosecutor’s comments to news media following an earlier declaration of mistrial).

The disqualification motions were spawned in an ethical cesspool. Terrence Bradley shamefully gossiped and engaged in rank speculation regarding his former client to Ashleigh Merchant (who presumably plays hide the salami with her own co-counsel). Mr. Bradley's breach of confidentiality in violation of Georgia Rules of Professional Conduct 1.6(a) and 1.6(c) is clear cut.

If ethical breaches, standing alone, are grounds to disqualify an attorney, Ms. Merchant may have problems of her own. She appears to have based Mike Roman's motion to dismiss or disqualify largely on Mr. Bradley's blowing smoke up her ass. She should have known better than to build on such a shaky foundation -- Ga. Code § 24-9-25 states:

No attorney shall be competent or compellable to testify for or against his client to any matter or thing, the knowledge of which he may have acquired from his client by virtue of his employment as attorney or by reason of the anticipated employment of him as attorney. However, an attorney shall be both competent and compellable to testify for or against his client as to any matter or thing, the knowledge of which he may have acquired in any other manner.

Mr. Bradley's representation of Mr. Wade began in 2018. Section 24-9-25 is not limited to privileged attorney-client communications, which are covered by separate statutes (Ga. Code §§ 24-5-501(a)(2) and 24-9-24). Mr. Bradley's very competence as a potential witness was questionable.

Georgia's Rule 3.1 states:

In the representation of a client, a lawyer shall not:

(a) file a suit, assert a position, conduct a defense, delay a trial, or take other action on behalf of the client when the lawyer knows or when it is obvious that such action would serve merely to harass or maliciously injure another;

(b) knowingly advance a claim or defense that is unwarranted under existing law, except that the lawyer may advance such claim or defense if it can be supported by good faith argument for an extension, modification or reversal of existing law.

The obvious purpose of the defense motions is merely to harass or maliciously injure Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade.

As for fraud upon the court, Ms. Merchant's motion falsely accused Ms. Willis and Mr. Wade of theft of honest services under federal law. She failed to disclose that SCOTUS had rejected her theory of honest services fraud in Skilling v. United States 561 U.S. 358, 409-411 (2010). Georgia's Rule 3.3 states in relevant part:

(a) A lawyer shall not knowingly:
(1) make a false statement of material fact or law to a tribunal;
* * *
(3) fail to disclose to the tribunal legal authority in the controlling jurisdiction known to the lawyer to be directly adverse to the position of the client and not disclosed by opposing counsel

Neither Ashleigh Merchant nor John Merchant disclosed Skilling to Judge McAfee. Should the State move to disqualify Mr. and Mrs. Merchant from continuing to represent Mr. Roman?

[David Nieporent]

They're evidence, but they're pretty weak. First, they're only a benefit she received if she didn't pay her own way, which she testified she did. Second, they're only a benefit if they wouldn't have been able to take (or at least wouldn't have taken) the trips without the money paid to Wade.

[tylertusta]

First, they’re only a benefit she received if she didn’t pay her own way, which she testified she did

"Weak" only applies if Fani's testimony is believable- if she's a credible witness.

Considering what came out during the hearings, I have my doubts to her credibility. She was contradicted by her own admitted longtime friend as to the start date of her relationship with Wade.

Her explanation leaves a lot to be desired. She had the wherewithal to repay Wade to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest. But she did it in cash and didn't get receipts, thus has no record that she ever made the repayments, thus negating her entire intention of avoiding an appearance of a conflict of interest.

She's either lying her ass off, or she's the most incompetent girl scout ever.

Second, they’re only a benefit if they wouldn’t have been able to take (or at least wouldn’t have taken) the trips without the money paid to Wade.

The only way that it would work would be if Wade had a completely separate fund that had no connection to his income stream from his work as a prosecutor.

If I remember correctly from his testimony, he admitted to using his incoming from being Fani's employee to pay for the trips.

[Commenter_XY]

Kaz, what bothers me the most about it is the corruption of it all; moral, ethical and legal. It is becoming normalized.

[Bwaaah]

"It is becoming normalized."

Only for Trump, they say. (And for people who support Trump, and for anybody so amoral as to be unwilling to renounce his name.)

The principle of power, and whomever wields it, stands supreme. These are the views of the most ardent proponents of "justice."

[Nige]

Let's see if anyone votes Fani Willis for president.

[bernard11]

What's becoming normalized, XY?

The most corrupt, immoral, and unethical person in American politics today is Donald Trump. Yet you seem to be a supporter, so why the angst about corruption?

[not guilty]

Much of the argument on both sides focused on whether the defense must show an actual conflict of interest to support disqualification, or whether the appearance of impropriety is sufficient. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNJtpbGG7uw

A conflict of interest may arise when the prosecutor has “acquired a personal interest or stake in the defendant’s conviction.” Williams v. State, 258 Ga. 305, 314, 369 S.E.2d 232, 239 (1988) (disqualification not required based on prosecutor's comments to news media following an earlier declaration of mistrial). In the posttrial context, "the reversal of a conviction due to such a conflict of interest requires more than a theoretical or speculative conflict. An actual conflict of interest must be involved." Ventura v. State, 346 Ga. App. 309, 311, 816 S.E.2d 151, 154 (2018), quoting Whitworth v. State, 275 Ga. App. 790, 793 (1)(b), 622 S.E.2d 21 (2005). An appellate court applies an abuse of discretion standard when reviewing a trial court’s ruling on a motion to disqualify a prosecutor. "Such an exercise of discretion is based on the trial court’s findings of fact which we must sustain if there is any evidence to support them." Ventura, at 154, quoting Whitworth, at 791.

Judge McAfee questioned counsel as to whether a less stringent standard should apply to resolving a motion to disqualify prior to trial, which will be a matter for him to consider here. Any decision the trial judge makes, however, is highly unlikely to be grounds for reversal of any ensuing conviction.

[DaveM]

Is everyone in government this incompetent, or is it just in Georgia?

Wait, don't answer that question. I don't want to know.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Any marginal, sketchy, or cynical options available to the Justice Department to avoid sitting passively as they watch sand slip through the hour glass? Maybe raid the Federalist Society, to look for dirt on what else they have done to corrupt the judiciary? Other ideas?

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, they could get busy setting the pyro charges to trigger if Trump wins. Those phones and hard drives won't smash themselves, you know.

[Kazinski]

Maybe they shouldn't have waited over 2 years n to bring charges against Trump if they wanted them resolved before Nov. 2024.

They played a game strategically on timing the trials during the campaign season, now they are losing based on that strategy.

You had Trump pegged as a traitor 2 years ago, why did the DOJ drag its feet? Unless they are part of the same traitorous conspiracy, which is starting to become obvious.

I don't think Trump can be impeached again, right now, but Jack Smith probably can, and certainly Merrick Garland can be. That may be your only recourse.

[Brett Bellmore]

Maybe they dragged their feet on the off chance that he'd stroke out or retire?

Prosecuting him was a risky approach, after all, given the likelihood he'd be acquitted if they brought any really serious charges.

And, of course, bringing the charges earlier would have allowed time for appeals, dramatically increasing the odds he'd eventually be vindicated.

[tylertusta]

With exception of death row inmates, appeals courts typically don't operate all that fast in post-conviction appeals.

We're talking 12-24 months. The only way that Trump could be vindicated on appeal before Nov 2024 would be if the DOJ charged Trump in January of 2021.

[Nige]

This is your brain on 'working backwards from your conclusion.'

[Randal]

It takes time to do a whole Grand Jury song and dance.

[Stephen Lathrop]

In the present Senate, nobody can be convicted on any impeachment. It might be worth mentioning as a curiosity that British impeachment law enabled charges against former office holders even years after they were out of office.

[tylertusta]

It could be that Smith never originally planned to bring the DC case at all. The DC case was an emergency Plan B when Smith saw where the jury pool would be coming from in the FL case.

The only thing worse for Smith than not charging Trump for something was bringing charges and the jury acquitted him.

[SimonP]

The DOJ dragged its feet because it wanted to avoid an polarizing criminal prosecution of a former president in the immediate aftermath of an attempted coup. Biden ran on "return to normal," and Garland's process reflected a desire to do that.

The congressional investigation into Trump's actions in the insurrection made that more difficult to maintain. Increasing pressure on the right to investigate Biden's family also made clear that things weren't "returning to normal." It would have been bizarre for Garland to open investigations into Hunter while stonewalling on Trump. So he appointed independent investigators in both matters.

Smith, for his part, has been doing his best given his shortened runway. But - and this was true of Trump's impeachment, as well - Democrats have long sought to avoid bringing things to this level. Trump's criminality just was more than could really be tolerated.

If you don't believe me, just compare Trump's treatment to the treatment of other corrupt ex-presidents or other political leaders. Most democracies pursue these investigations and trials quickly. Americans have proven unusually tolerant of political corruption, among other modern democracies, and Trump almost got the benefit of that "live and let live" mentality among the political elite. He just had to keep pushing the line.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Is there any evidence that the timing was intended to serve a political strategy?

[tylertusta]

Smith's maneuvers in the courts strongly indicates that he wants this brought to trial before November.

Examples include:

- Requesting for the DC panel to expedite consideration of Trump's immunity appeal
- Requesting SCOTUS to bypass the DC circuit entirely with a cert before judgement
- Requesting that Trump's request for a stay to be denied, and barring that, requested cert on an expedited timetable.

The only thing missing is Smith's justification for asking Courts to expedite matters.

Smith actually cannot tell courts why he wants the case expedited so badly. If he did, he'd have to admit that he has an unconstitutional purpose for those requests.

[Sarcastr0]

Could you think of any reasons other than a political strategy why the trial happening before November might be called for?

[tylertusta]

That's the only reason that comes to mind for me.

Can you think of any other reasons?

[David Nieporent]

Sure: practical reality. If Trump wins, the trial can't go forward.

[tylertusta]

Sure it can. The election happens on November 5th. If opening arguments happen on November 6th, then Trump can be convicted before he's inaugurated.

Why not accept a November 6th trial date?

[Sarcastr0]

Are you being stupid on purpose?

Your plan is to put the President elect on trial.

As the path of least resistance.

[tylertusta]

How is that any different from "Your plan is to put a Presidential candidate on trial?"

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, it absolutely is different.

Elections matter.

[tylertusta]

If the principle here is that there's a practical argument for a pre-Nov trial, then I provided an example where it's not the case.

If your contention is that it's "stupid" to put a President-elect on trial, that it has to be done before November because "elections matter," then you have embraced the political strategy argument which was the basis of my response 3 replies above.

Thanks for playing.

[David Nieporent]

Taking account of the political calendar is not remotely the same thing as "political strategy."

[tylertusta]

Taking account of the political calendar is not remotely the same thing as “political strategy.”

At least Lathrop (below) acknowledges and embraces the politics driving the decisions being made.

What's the legal justification for "political calendars" being taken into account? What case? What rule? What provisions?

[Nige]

Hang on, it could be 'put the losing presidential candidate on trial.'

[Sarcastr0]

What’s the legal justification for “political calendars” being taken into account?

First, no new goalposts. You claimed this was politically driven. When folks came back and said practically driven is all you need, you show up with a whole new thesis and argument.

Second, what's the legal justification to legal calendars being blind to reality.

[tylertusta]

First, no new goalposts.

I didn't make new goalposts. I'm demonstrating how the ostensibly "practical" considerations are actually political ones.

Second, what’s the legal justification to legal calendars being blind to reality.

1st Amendment, 5th Amendment, 6th Amendment, 14th Amendment.

[Sarcastr0]

That is not what the text says. Not any precedent I am aware of.

And even if it did, that does not make this a political decision.

You do violence to words, and Constitutional law.

[bernard11]

It seems to me that the main reason for having the trial before the election is to inform voters. I suppose that's a "political" motive, but it's a benign, even desirable, one.

After all, don't voters deserve to know whether he's guilty before they cast their ballots?

Indeed, if Trump is as innocent as he and his backers claim, if the cases are empty, why wouldn't he want a quick trial? The sooner he is acquitted, the more time he has to campaign on the acquittals.

[tylertusta]

Sarcastr0: You do violence to words, and Constitutional law.

I’m still waiting for a legal principle- a court case, a constitutional provision, a rule, something beyond meaningless political platitudes. Don’t come back without it.

bernard11: After all, don’t voters deserve to know whether he’s guilty before they cast their ballots?

I’m reminded of a recent article from Jack Goldsmith:

Perhaps Smith is trying to affect the election, but that is not his only or his main purpose. Maybe Smith also wants to ensure that Trump can be tried and convicted before he can become president and end the criminal case against him. “The problem with this rationale,” Honig notes, “is that it implicitly holds that Smith’s job is to stop Trump from becoming president again so Trump won’t gain the power to throw out the cases. But if Smith’s goal is to prevent his subject from winning an election, that’s straight-up, blood-and-guts political…”

…We should at least be aware of the possible adverse consequences of Smith’s rush to trial. They potentially go far beyond a mere violation of a Justice Department rule. If Trump is convicted and is seen to lose the election even in part because President Biden’s Justice Department violated norms in rushing Trump to trial (and in giving Trump inadequate time to prepare), then the trial, and the election outcome, could be deemed illegitimate and unfair by approximately half the country. This might happen anyway, of course, in light of the state trials and the other legal efforts against Trump, even if there is no federal trial. But the Biden Justice Department rushing to put away Biden’s political opponent is uniquely harmful.

https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-consequences-of-jack-smith's-rush-to-trial

Far from being benign, it’s a pernicious, politically calculated decision.

“Oh, we’re helping give information to voters!”

Well, who died and made you king? Who said that you’re the one to “give information to voters?”

Take the following example: An unscrupulous, politically minded Republican prosecutor gins up a politically-charged case against the leading Democratic front runner in an election. That prosecutor stretches the meaning of criminal statutes to fit the objectionable but arguably legal conduct of the Democratic front runner and indicts the case in a Republican dominated district in Texas, where the Democratic candidate is sure to be convicted no matter what the facts are, and the judge is a hard right Republican, too.

Then the Republican prosecutor tries to get the Democrat to trial before the election through requesting expedited consideration in the courts. The Republican judge heartily agrees.

Please answer the following:

In that case, would you say that the prosecutor has a “benign” political motive? Would you say that the Dem candidate should want to proceed to trial before the election to “clear his name?”

Or is the whole thing a political sham, and maneuvers to speed a conviction along before an election is nothing more than to hurt the candidacy of the Democrat?

[Sarcastr0]

“ The Republican prosecutor tries to get the Democrat to trial before the election through requesting expedited consideration in the courts. The Republican judge heartily agrees.”

This as laid out is fine.

The first paragraph of your hypo is very silly, and worth ignoring.

[tylertusta]

Sarcastr0: I’m still waiting for a legal principle- a court case, a constitutional provision, a rule, something beyond meaningless political platitudes. Don’t come back without it.

[Sarcastr0]

I replied to that part below.

I guess you liked my answer to your hypo since you switched your argument again.

[tylertusta]

Sarcastr0: Is your name bernard11? No? Then why do you assume that the answer to bernard11 was for you?

I quote from you and replied: go get something besides political reasons. I'm still waiting.

I quoted from bernard11 and then replied to that. That part of the comment was not meant for you.

[Sarcastr0]

So sorry I interrupted your symphony of Internet responses by noting you made a ridiculous hypothetical.

Below I said the following: “Justice is more served by having trials or plea bargains than just running out the clock till you can’t.”

You seem to have missed that.

I'm also not at all clear you have a nailed down definition of what 'political' means in this context. You are all over the map on the scope of what's political and I am becoming suspicious.

[David Nieporent]

What’s the legal justification for “political calendars” being taken into account? What case? What rule? What provisions?

The ability of courts to manage their dockets is not governed by "rules." It's an inherent power of the court. And the scheduling of trials takes into account all sorts of real-world considerations. Vacations. Other legal proceedings. Holidays. Why would you think an event that might make a trial impossible would not be reasonable to consider?

[David Nieporent]

TBC, of course there are rules that pertain to scheduling, such as the 5th and 6th Amendments and the Speedy Trial Act, but within those constraints, courts have broad discretion.

[Kenneth Almquist]

Tylertusta: “[A Republican Prosecutor] indicts the case in a Republican dominated district in Texas, where the Democratic candidate is sure to be convicted no matter what the facts are.”

Your assumption that the Democratic candidate would be convicted “no matter what the facts are” assumes that rank and file Republicans, not just Republican leaders, are dedicated to overturning the rule of law. While I would agree that the Republican Party is no longer a normal political party, I see no reason to believe that the rot goes as deep as you assume.

If we do accept your assumptions about Republicans for the sake of argument, your analogy still fails because the Democrats still are a normal political party. Furthermore, one of Jack Smith's cases is in Florida, which is not exactly a Democratic stronghold.

[bernard11]

“is that it implicitly holds that Smith’s job is to stop Trump from becoming president again so Trump won’t gain the power to throw out the cases.

How can that be Smith's job when he has no power to do it?

Oh. You mean a pre-election conviction might actually cause him to lose, because some voters don't want to vote for a convicted criminal.

What's wrong with that? What other negative information should be concealed so as to prevent voters from acting on it?

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

The question was really about why the DoJ would have "delayed" the indictment, as has been alleged by Kazinski:

"Maybe they shouldn’t have waited over 2 years n to bring charges against Trump if they wanted them resolved before Nov. 2024.

They played a game strategically on timing the trials during the campaign season, now they are losing based on that strategy."

That's what I'm asking about the evidence for. Got anything other than Kaz-like paranoid speculation?

[tylertusta]

Perhaps you can enlighten the rest of us on what you feel the justification is for Smith bringing Trump to trial as quickly as possible, even including rocketing through the appeals process.

Please, enlighten us.

[Stephen Lathrop]

I can help you with that. Seems like I already have, but here it is again.

Trump is charged with political crimes. It is impossible to defend the American political system adequately while practicing a pretense that politics plays no part.

What must be excluded is only overt partisanship. Otherwise, prosecution requires a steady focus on politics, and no shrinking to be forthright about it. Objections that this is a political prosecution should be met candidly:

“Of course it is a political prosecution. It is this nation’s political system which has come under attack. We intend faithful performance of our oaths of office. Those require zealous defense of the nation’s political system. Any who attack it must not expect any but the most jealously political of defenders to bring them to trial, and to punish them severely for whatever political crimes they are found guilty of committing.”

[tylertusta]

In other words, that is an unconstitutional justification for taking certain actions during a prosecution.

Smith keeps this reasoning very, very quiet when asking Courts to expedite matters. He knows that if he admits it, he opens up a giant can of worms.

Much better to ask and let the judges connect the dots.

[Stephen Lathrop]

On the contrary. What the oaths of officials require is the very essence of constitutional justification.

I do think you are onto something about Smith’s circumspection. He understands as well as anyone that there are millions of fools around who haven’t the faintest idea what constitutionalism involves, and tactfully (but unwisely, in my view) bypasses taking them on.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

The most glaringly obvious reason supporting a speedy adjudication is that there is an election coming.

If one of the leading candidates is in danger of being a convicted criminal, it is monumentally better that is determined when the people still have an opportunity to vote for someone else--to do otherwise would "disenfranchise" them (to use their term) if their choice for President were physically unable to perform the duties of his office.

[tylertusta]

What's the legal principle there?

[Sarcastr0]

Justice is more served by having trials or plea bargains than just running out the clock till you can’t.

[Ed Grinberg]

Is there any evidence that water is wet?

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Same as the above for you, Ed. Got anything which explains the alleged "delay"?

[Michael P]

Thank you, Nikki Haley, for showing conclusively that in DC even the Republicans have an irrational animus against Donald Trump.

[Randal]

Hmmm... kicked out of NY, kicked out of DC... how long do you think until Florida gets sick of him?

[Michael P]

Florida still has the rule of law, unlike NY and DC.

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, no rule of law in either place.

Why would you post such obvious bullshit?

[Bwaaah]

They used to run out of the stores with the goods they've stolen here. Now, they walk.

[Sarcastr0]

Your evidence for this seems to be missing.

[Bwaaah]

Sorry. I've just had the misfortune of seeing it with my own two eyes. (But the mayor sees it, and so do the merchants, and so do many residents.)

In the most recent instance I observed, a guy walked toward the door with his arms filled with cleaning products. The cashier yelled, "Excuse me, sir. You have to pay for that." As he continued toward the door without even turning his head, he yelled back, "Fuck you all!" And he just walked out.

Employees in national chain stores make no attempt to stop theft. They have policies against intervening. The perps all know that.

A store owner I know said the police tried to discourage him from filing a complaint after a person stole stuff from his store.

Here's the mayor's report from 2023 about the problem. He points out the "recent uptick in shoplifting" is a big problem. Note that the only real data available for petit larceny in NYC is the number of complaints, and many merchants have given up complaining because there is [understandably] no per-incident follow-up. It is understood that only a fraction of shoplifting incidents get reported.

There's no meaningful penalty anymore for walking out of an NYC store with $500 worth of goods. Remember: judges have no right to impose cash bail. The cops don't want to waste their time on an arrest because the perps walk away free the same day.

You really are an intransigent ignoramus.

[SimonP]

Yes, Florida, where a DeSantis lackey installed to lead the University of Florida and pursue his anti-woke agenda just fired all of the system's DEI staff, in one fell swoop. That is definitely something that a system subject to the "rule of law" would do.

[Brett Bellmore]

Sure is, since DIE departments basically have no purpose but systematically violating anti-discrimination laws.

[SimonP]

Once again mistaking the strawman for the reality. In truth, while recent Court rulings may constrain the ability of institutions to pursue DEI using explicitly race-based considerations, there's absolutely nothing wrong under the law with thinking of DEI in terms of socioeconomic or cultural backgrounds, life experience, etc. There's also nothing wrong with DEI offices tracking progress on racial diversity.

Your adoption of the term "DIE" to refer to it marks another step in your move towards the lunatic fringe, Brett.

[Joe_dallas]

SimonP 24 mins ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
Once again mistaking the strawman for the reality.

SimonP - perhaps you should look in the mirror. Tells us again what DEI accomplishes

[Nige]

Is it the fall of western civilisation?

[Sarcastr0]

I’ve told you many times what it accomplishes - growing our effective talent pool.

You can’t seem to remember.

[Tom for equal rights]

Sarcastr zero
That is the stated goal

However, the reality is far different. DEI creates far more unintended consequences, hostility, reverse discrimination, promotion based on DEI, not on merit, etc.
Do either of you work in the real world?

[Sarcastr0]

I'm not saying DEI is a perfectly implemented bed of roses, but a lot of these consequences look a lot like you're confirmation biasing some anecdotes into a story you want to tell.

Now why would you work so hard to believe that stuff that helps nonwhites to be purely bad? That I leave as an exercise for the reader.

[Joe_dallas]

Sarcastr0 17 hours ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
I’ve told you many times what it accomplishes – growing our effective talent pool.

Sarcastro - There are vastly better ways to grow the effective talent pool. Improving education in math and the hard sciences, not the soft sciences.

Tremendous progress has been made in improving rac relations and the talent pool over that 50-60 years. DEI reverses that positive trend. It creates racial division instead of reducing the friction.

Reintroducing the racial friction that comes with DEI is not a program that grows the talent pool.

[Sarcastr0]

There are vastly better ways to grow the effective talent pool.

I think you are confusing developing our current talent pool with growing it.
We should be doing both.

Tremendous progress has been made in improving race relations and the talent pool over that 50-60 years
Progress, sure, but metrics show a pretty big gap remains. No reason to rest on our laurels.

the racial friction that comes with DEI
That you have the zero-sum racial mindset that racial friction is inevitable with DEI efforts is a part of the problem.

[Joe_dallas]

Sacastro -
"Progress, sure, but metrics show a pretty big gap remains. No reason to rest on our laurels."

As usual, progressives have misdiagnosed the reason for the gap and due to the misdiagnosis, progressives have instituted a policy that retards the progress.

[Sarcastr0]

What is the reason for the gap, that's being missed?

[Joe_dallas]

Sarcastr0 6 mins ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
"What is the reason for the gap, that’s being missed?"

Sacastro - do you really need the answer. The answer that should be obvious!

Look at the gap in academic performance and the pattern it sets in the workforce. Instead of teaching high standards in academics and emulating the successful students, DEI & CRT teaches that the lack of success is due to systemic racism.

It doesnt take a genius to know what works and what wont work, yet the woke progressives push the DEI and CRT. How is that going to motivate the segment of the struggling population to strive for improvement.

[Sarcastr0]

You're being cagey, dude.

Your upshot seems to be 'it's actually optimal be to have some minorities underrepresented in our talent pool.'
Which makes it look a lot like you've reached the conclusion that blacks, Hispanics, etc. are on average not as smart as whites and Asians.

If you want to find a scientific basis to be racist, you best do your homework. And anyone who reads these comments know you never do your homework.

1. This is not demonstrated by the studies we've seen over the past 3 decades.

2. If you look at the amount of representation, it's stark. blacks are 11% of the population and 9% of the STEM workforce. That's a gap of over 20%.
If current representation in STEM fields is right, minorities are on average not just slightly less able but collectively mentally handicapped.

[Joe_dallas]

2. If you look at the amount of representation, it’s stark. blacks are 11% of the population and 9% of the STEM workforce. That’s a gap of over 20%.
If current representation in STEM fields is right, minorities are on average not just slightly less able but collectively mentally handicapped.

Sacastro - you have to accuse others of racism to defend and hide your racism. Typical progressive woke.

In direct response to your argument - since blacks as a subsegment of the population do less well in the hard sciences and math - wouldnt a better approach be to focus on improving their performance so they can exceed on the merits and as individuals or would you prefer the counter productive approach that divides individuals into race classes.

[Sarcastr0]

My dude, you're the one saying blacks are genetically worse at math. With the only proof your usual appeal to your own authority.

focus on improving their performance so they can succeed on the merits

Can't improve people if you don't figure out how to let them in the door.
Which is, in a nutshell, the whole point of DEI.

[Joe_dallas]

Sarcastr0 34 mins ago
My dude, you’re the one saying blacks are genetically worse at math. With the only proof your usual appeal to your own authority.

Sarcastro - You have to accuse other of racism in order to hide your racism.

I never stated that blacks were intellectually inferior, promoters of DEI and CRT do unwittingly state that by their actions. Promotion based on the individual's merit not based on group identity.

As I stated earlier - you cant solve the problem if you misdiagnosis the problem, especially if you engage in lazy analysis of the problem - ie blaming racism on the the cause.

[Sarcastr0]

You're being cagey, but now you're lying.

You say it's misdiagnosis to say it's about anything structural, and it doesn't take a genius see there's an obvious reason blacks do worse at math.

Which, if that's not about racial inferiority, I'm listening for what the fuck you mean.

Cagey and cowardly.

[Sarcastr0]

Courts say otherwise, Brett.

[Bob from Ohio]

"DeSantis lackey"

United States Senator and former small college president.

"system subject to the “rule of law” would do"

Florida SB 266 bans DEI spending. Legislation passed by the legislature, signed by the governor and upheld in court is by definition "rule of law"

[SimonP]

Hey, you know what? The criminal prosecutions of Trump are also based on duly enacted legislation prohibiting his conduct!

[Bob from Ohio]

Yawn, whataboutism.

[SimonP]

Yawn, Bobby doesn't bother to read the thread he's jumping into again.

[Bob from Ohio]

Florida came up, you commented it and I responded.

[David Nieporent]

"Irrational."

[Moderation4ever]

Yes, they voted for the “bird brain” rather than the mature and super intelligent candidate.

[Commenter_XY]

MP, I think the equation you are trying to write is:
Gov Nikki Haley + DC = Perfect Together

[Bob from Ohio]

1200 votes! Swamp creatures unite.

Lets see how she does tomorrow.

[Nige]

When you’ve worked yourself into such a state of high dudgeon, disliking a given politician is ‘irrational.’

This, after the Clinton assasination rampage and the spirit cooking thing, which were clearly a form of rational animus.

[Armchair]

Today in antisemitism news.

1. Rampant antisemitism at a NY High School.

On Oct. 26, just three weeks after the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre of 1,200 Israelis, 40 to 50 teens marched through Origins HS in Sheepshead Bay waving a Palestinian flag and chanting “Death to Israel!” and “Kill the Jews!” staffers said.

According to interviews with multiple staffers, and a Jewish student’s safety transfer request, recent hate incidents include:

A student painted a mustache on his face to look like Hitler, and banged on classroom doors. When someone opened, he clicked his heels and raised his arm in the Nazi gesture, security footage shows.

Three swastikas in one week were drawn on teachers’ walls and other objects, a manager found.

A 10th-grader told Kaminsky, 33, who is Jewish, “I wish you were killed.”

Another student called her “a dirty Jew” and said he wished Hitler could have “hit more Jews,” including her.

Students pasted drawings of the Palestinian flag and notes saying “Free Palestine” on Kaminsky’s classroom door. One scribbled note that said simply, “Die.”

The teen tormentors have so far faced no serious discipline under interim acting principal Dara Kammerman, who has done little beyond contacting parents in an effort to practice “restorative justice,” staffers said.

https://nypost.com/2024/03/02/us-news/jewish-teachers-suing-nyc-school-that-wont-discipline-antisemitic-teens-terrorizing-them-on-daily-basis-i-live-in-fear/

I expect several of our posters will respond with "what about Israel's violence!" and "Well, if it's true it's bad, but..." and seek to change the topic as quickly as possible

[Randal]

Speaking of antisemitism... https://newrepublic.com/article/179430/zionism-lost-argument-american-jews-israel

[Theendoftheleft]

Amongst a moribund demographic: secularizing Jews who don’t meet replacement rate or intra-marry. They’re also being outbred by the religious, who simply will be the American Jews in a generation or two.

It’s nonetheless an odd stance for you to keep pushing, Randy, given that YOUR entire ideology is dying, i.e., the youth are moving to the left and right in America and will never believe your values ever again, and it is consciously rejected internationally by most of the world. No one outside the West is multiculting, and there are zero empirical data suggesting that they will. Pluralism and anti-nationalism are done.

Do you think an Islamic world is going to celebrate gay rights over the next 50 years or so, or, with the loss of Western hegemony, will it (like other cultures) instead codify the fundamental right to throw gays off of buildings?

[Nige]

‘who don’t meet replacement rate’

ladeez an gennulmen I give you: the new eugenics (same as the old eugenics.)

'Pluralism and anti-nationalism are done.'

If wishes were horses.

'will it (like other cultures) instead codify the fundamental right to throw gays off of buildings?'

With help and encouragement from yourself, I'm sure.

[Armchair]

"I expect several of our posters will respond with “what about Israel’s violence!” and “Well, if it’s true it’s bad, but…” and seek to change the topic as quickly as possible"

There's one.

[Randal]

The subject being antisemitism, I posted a much more thoughtful article than your NyPost shit… which (did you even read yours?) turns out not to be about antisemitism at all but just a shitty school with poor discipline and a penchant for all kinds of hate speech… antisemitic, anti-gay, racist, you name it.

So… what exactly is your substantive point in all this, Armchair? Oh I remember, you’re a troll… so the answer is “none at all.”

[Armchair]

"So… what exactly is your substantive point in all this, Armchair?"

1. Antisemitism is bad. And yet, it's happening at increased rates across the United States. There are more anti-semitic hate crimes that against any other group in 2023. Teens marching through a school chanting "Kill the Jews"... that ain't right.

2. Pointing it out, and bringing it to the center of attention is important in ultimately discouraging and reducing antisemitic hate. The first step to reducing hate is acknowledging it.

3. Along with those who actively chant "Kill the Jews" are those who downplay how severe this really is, or try to change the subject quickly. This enables the hate, by diverting/downplaying attention. These enablers need to be pointed out and criticized.

So to review:

1. Antisemitism is bad, and rising in America.
2. To reduce antisemitism, the evidence of the hate needs to be revealed publically, repeatedly.
3. Those who downplay antisemitism and seek to rapidly change the topic are enablers of antisemitism and need to be criticized as well.

[Randal]

Those are all three valid points. But allow me to add a fourth.

4. Unfair accusations and exaggerated accounts of antisemitism serve only to discredit the fight against antisemitism, making it easier for true antisemites to thrive in the noise.

In other words, don't be the wolf who cried "antisemite." You, DB, the ADL, and the NyPost are all guilty of point #4.

[Armchair]

There you go enabling antisemitism again.

[Jonathan Affleck]

When Biden tells me that I am unsafe in the USA but for the existence of Israel, he shows himself to be a vile and depraved antisemite that deserves hate, scorn, and loathing from the human race.

Biden is telling me that I must get out of the USA and emigrate to Israel, which is a suppurating, festering cancerous tumor in international law and on the face of the Earth.

Zionism is a depraved degenerate religion whose key elements of faith consist of:
1. the fairy tale of a Roman Expulsion that never happened and
2. the rebranding of a vicious bloodthirsty hijacking of Palestine from its native population by white racial supremacist European colonial settlers.

The creed of the Zionist religion consists of the following:
1. racial supremacism and chauvinism;
2. an obsession with a distorted and dishonest narrative of the Nazi Holocaust against Jews;
3. worship of the baby-killer nation; and
4. commitment to the ongoing dispossession of Palestinians, to the genocide of Palestinians, and to the theft of Palestine from Palestinians.

From the standpoint of Judaism, Zionism is a complete blasphemy. I am a Jew. A Zionist is not a Jew. A Zionist is post Judaism because Zionism murdered Judaism by transforming Judaism into a program of genocide.

[David Nieporent]

For the record, you're not a Jew and you've never been a Jew. You're a liar and a fabulist who adopted this current identity — just as you adopted all of your past online identities — for trolling.

[Randal]

I'm curious what you think of The New Republic article I linked. It's a bit of a softer take along the same lines as Jonathan's "trolling."

[David Nieporent]

It's nothing like Martillo's trolling. But it suffers from the delusion that online is reality. Online, one might conclude that American Jewish support for Israel is collapsing; in the real world, American Jews continue to overwhelmingly support Israel. (Not, of course, everything Israel does.)

[Sarcastr0]

It's high school students being assholes from 5 months ago.

These kids were really being awful. But you are truly scraping the bottom of the barrel these days, eh?

[Armchair]

"I expect several of our posters will respond with “what about Israel’s violence!” and “Well, if it’s true it’s bad, but…” and seek to change the topic as quickly as possible"

There's two.

[grb]

It's some twit high schoolers from months and months ago!

(three)

[Armchair]

You would think at least a suspension would be appropriate. Nothing.

By contrast, what happens if a group of high school seniors secretly plot to put the words “Kill all N*****s” in the yearbook?
Well, there they get suspended.

(FYI, just for reference, both groups should at least be suspended in my opinion)

https://www.nytimes.com/1995/06/15/nyregion/dismayed-greenwich-confronts-a-message-of-hate-in-a-yearbook.html

But openly calling to kill all the Jews? Nothing.

[Sarcastr0]

Demanding the scalps of children.

[Armchair]

Wow. Strawman of the year.

[grb]

OK. Armchair : Here's what you do : Google "high school racist incident" and set the search period for six months. Guess what you'll find? Dozens of hits, each one some local news mess.

What if someone started linking every single one from Idaho, Kansas, Georgia, and Arizona? I'm curious how you would respond. Would you be the first in line (every time) to simply condemn anti-black hate?

[Absaroka]

“Here’s what you do : Google “high school racist incident” and set the search period for six months. Guess what you’ll find? Dozens of hits, each one some local news mess.”

I did precisely that, and was happily surprised to get exactly one hit, from Massachusetts, involving stuff said on snapchat. The DA started a hate crimes investigation.

(I realize that your google search may return different results from mine!)

[grb]

Uh huh. Who are you trying to kid? There’s barely a subject imaginable that gets only one Google hit. The humorist Gene Weingarten used to search for a phrase that returned no hit, giving it the name “Googlenope”. But he found them rare as hen's teeth; “Queen Elizabeth’s buttocks” had initial success, but a few years later it returned more than 1,000 hits.

So you might want to come up with a story remotely plausable….

As for Armchair, we all cherrypick anecdotes to make arguments sometimes. That’s just human nature. But it has limited evidentiary value and you can run it into the ground.

[Magister]

Take off the quotes (that is, search without quoting the words high school racist incident) and you can find a sizable number just in the last month.

[Absaroka]

Fair point! I took your post literally, and searched for *“high school racist incident”*, not *high school racist incident*. Not enough coffee, perhaps. Without the quotes, you do indeed get many more. With the quotes, you do indeed get one.

My apologies for not trying harder to validate your point.

[Randal]

Even the kids in his very own article, if you read far enough, are also racist and anti-gay and not being suspended for it. It's just a shitty school. It has nothing of interest to say about antisemitism particularly.

[Armchair]

GRB,

Are there lots of incidents in your experience of a crowd of 50 or so high school students chanting "Kill the (insert religious/ethnic group) here, while walking down the halls of an American school?

What should the response be to actions like this?

[Absaroka]

"at least be suspended"

"Demanding the scalps"

Correcting children who misbehave is a fundamental duty of adults. Kids aren't born saints, and won't grow into sainthood if left to raise themselves.

There are times when I surely do want a scalp - McVeigh and bin Laden come to mind. But disciplining students in either of those incidents isn't scalping. I would prefer having them do a long, carefully researched term paper on genocide through the ages to suspension, but doing nothing isn't the right answer.

[Sarcastr0]

I don't like external people trying to make some broad national standard, and then insisting local schools abide by it.

I don't know enough about the incident or the school to come in hot like that.

Armchair has no such compunctions.

[Armchair]

Always fun when you tell me what my compunctions are.

Sorry if you feel my OPINION is that a crowd of 30-50 students chanting inside a school to "Kill the (insert religious/ethnic group)" here is grossly wrong, and deserves SOME sort of discipline.

But...you know..you always...always..seem to defend or downplay antisemitism.

It's like you're an enabler of antisemitism.

[Sarcastr0]

It's in your comments, Armchair. You don't know much about the incident other than the always complete and careful NY Post. But in you went.

And you gave away the game when you complained about some other incident where it was against blacks, and lower down about Jan 06.

You're not a knight in shining armor, you're a bad poster.

[Armchair]

Keep enabling antisemitism Sarcastr0.

You always seem to. Perhaps you don't like that it's pointed out. If you don't like it...stop enabling antisemitism.

[Nige]

'But openly calling to kill all the Jews? Nothing.'

You openly call for the killing of Gazans all the time, not sure you've a leg to stand on.

[Armchair]

"You openly call for the killing of Gazans all the time,"

Well, that's libel.

[Nige]

Then call for a ceasefire.

[Armchair]

A does not equal B.

[Nige]

Then you are calling for the killing of Gazans.

[Armchair]

Incorrect.

The correct answer is to call on Hamas to completely surrender and turn themselves over to Israeli authority for their crimes.

I notice you don't seem to do this.

[Armchair]

Is it so hard to simply condemn open antisemetic hate for you? Or even stay silent if you can't even do that?

There always seems to be a "but" to try to justify or minimize it. Or try to move the topic as quickly as possible.

[Sarcastr0]

This is why you post these anecdotes. You have a fetish for calling people antisemitic and will take any excuse to do so.

[Ed Grinberg]

Well, if you consistently try to minimize antisemites' behavior, and balk at the suggestion that they should be punished to the same extent as other racists -- it doesn't take a leap of the imagination to call you antisemitic.

[Armchair]

No, here's why I post it.

1. Antisemitism is bad. And yet, it’s happening at increased rates across the United States. There are more anti-semitic hate crimes that against any other group in 2023. Teens marching through a school chanting “Kill the Jews”… that ain’t right.

2. Pointing it out, and bringing it to the center of attention is important in ultimately discouraging and reducing antisemitic hate. The first step to reducing hate is acknowledging it.

3. Along with those who actively chant “Kill the Jews” are those who downplay how severe this really is, or try to change the subject quickly. This enables the hate, by diverting/downplaying attention. These enablers need to be pointed out and criticized.

So to review:

1. Antisemitism is bad, and rising in America.
2. To reduce antisemitism, the evidence of the hate needs to be revealed publically, repeatedly.
3. Those who downplay antisemitism and seek to rapidly change the topic are enablers of antisemitism and need to be criticized as well.

I want to prevent antisemitism. That's why I post it.

[Nige]

'I want to prevent antisemitism. That’s why I post it.'

No, you need to blow up every (deplorable) incident of anti-semitism, however isolated or minor, to bolster your defence of Israel's slaughter of Gazans through claims that critics of Israel are anti-semites.

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, no.

Out-and-out 'gas the Jews' poster show up here at least once a month. Silence from you.

You're not some brave knight fighting post-by-post on behalf of the Jews, you're a commenter who likes to act like they have the moral high ground and feels like this is it.

[Absaroka]

"...poster show up here at least once a month. Silence from you."

I'd be careful about how much you read into 'commenter A didn't respond to commenter B'. I know that I have muted quite a few commenters after reading one post. When I see 'ejaculate into the tuchis' for example, that's an instant mute.

I don't claim any particular consistency here - Ed, for example, goes all 'machine guns on the border' and I haven't muted him, yet anyway. But 'A said blah and Absaroka didn't jump on him' in no way implies Absaroka agrees with whatever A said. I am frequently reminded of the 'something is wrong on the internet' XKCD post. There is just too much wrongness on the internet to correct it all. And there is the famous quote about pigs enjoying the wrestling. Choosing not to wrestle the pig doesn't mean I agree with them. Only some people are worth disagreeing with.

Heck, I don't even correct you every time you are wrong 🙂

[Sarcastr0]

I generally agree, but Armchair has laid out a whole motive for why he is so nobly posting; that is why his partisan blind eye matters more than for a regular commenter.

I’m partisan as heck; I’ve called liberal folks out, I’ve also winced and read on. Depends on my mood.

But I’ve never said I post to bring some wider justice to the world.

[BrotherMovesOn]

I can't speak to the Ed issue but I didn't get a harrumph out of Absaroka.
https://youtu.be/kH-eD7Hnl-Q?si=CVe30Dlv4udl5SXh

[Armchair]

I don't respond to every poster here. duh.

The nut jobs need not be responded to, and in fact responding to them encourages their position.

The real risk are the actual events of violence against Jews that need to be responded to, as well as those who enable that violence by minimizing it.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Is this supposed to be some kind of "gotcha" in your mind?

To the extent their actions are not constitutionally protected speech, it should be subject to whatever the normal disciplinary procedures are. End of.

[Nige]

'Is it so hard to simply condemn open antisemetic hate for you'

The right: we hate virtue signaling!

Also the right: you're not signalling enough virtue!

I expect the note of hysteria in your comments around this issue to only get louder and stronger as the ocean of blood rises higher and higher.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Why are these students wandering the hallways in the first place?

[Jonathan Affleck]

If a Zionist belongs to a pro-Israel organization that coordinates with the State of Israel and that propagandizes on behalf of Zionist genocide. He should be arrested to be tried pursuant to: 18 U.S. Code § 2339A - Providing material support to terrorists.

Explaining Antisemitism and Racism (I am really tired of vacuous accusations of antisemitism)

An example of racism is the treatment of blacks under Jim Crow. White racists hated and oppressed blacks. Blacks reciprocated with hate, but the black hatred cannot rationally be considered racism.

During the 19th century modernization caused the traditional Jewish economic niche gradually to vanish in Central and Eastern Europe. In response, in order to maintain incomes, Jewish business practices in finance (loan sharking) and in commerce (unfair dealing) became nastier. This changing economic behavior caused friction and tension.

The lower bourgeoisie and peasantry reacted with antisemitism (a genuinely new concept), but this antisemitism was not racism. It was the hatred of the exploited class for the exploiter class. When the exploited class reacted to exploitation with violence, Jews were often able to obtain protection from the state. Jews often responded to this antisemitism, which I call "traditional", with hatred that probably qualifies to be called racism.

Traditional antisemitism was dwindling in the 19th century as the Jewish and gentile communities worked out issues of modernization. 19th century German or Austrian antisemitic parties were failures and vanished in the early 20th century.

The Nazis created a new antisemitism in the 1920s. This Nazi antisemitism combined remnant traditional antisemitism with fear and loathing of the Soviet Union, whose face seemed and was disproportionately Jewish. Few non-Jews realized how much the Jewish section of the Soviet Communist Party persecuted more traditional Jews like the members of my father’s family. (My mother's family consisted of N. African Jewish Berbers and did not have to deal with the same sorts of issues of modernization until the family was tricked into emigration to the Zionist state, which I nowadays call the baby killer nation.

Today neither traditional 19th century antisemitism nor Nazi antisemitism exists to any major extent.

We, who hate, scorn, and loathe the baby killer nation, are just like my father’s generation that abominated the Nazi nation because of its racism, because of its mass slaughter, because of its war crimes, and because of its genocide.

Gentiles, who worry about antisemitism today, are ethically challenged nitwits.

A group, which has been subjected to genocide at the hands of a first set of genocide perpetrators (e.g., Nazis), can later themselves form a second set of genocide perpetrators (e.g., Zionists) just as evil as the first set of genocide perpetrators.

I am a Jew. A Zionist is not a Jew. A Zionist is post Judaism because Zionism murdered Judaism by transforming Judaism into a program of genocide.

Among Americans under 24 years old, Jews and anti-Zionists seem vastly to outnumber the Zionists, who cannot rationally be considered Jewish -- even (or especially) those Zionists that have Jewish ancestry.

There is no middle ground on genocide.

US anti-genocide law is unforgiving. For example:

18 U.S. Code § 1091 – Genocide; and
18 U.S. Code § 2339A - Providing material support to terrorists.

The ICJ has already ruled that SA’s accusation is plausible, which alleges that the State of Israel perpetrates genocide. The ICJ ruling is like a magistrate’s report and recommendation.

The US federal definition of genocide and the international definition of genocide differ little, and dolus specialis of physical group destruction may not be required to convict a defendant of genocide.

Throughout the world experts in genocide law and in genocide studies call the actions of the State of Israel a textbook genocide.

The Zionist logic of mass murder genocide against Palestinians is exactly the same logic that Nazis used to justify mass murder genocide against Palestinians.

The Nazis always told us they were fighting Jewish Bolshevism. The Holocaust only started after Operation Barbarossa (invasion of the Soviet Union) began.

To the Nazis, all the civilian deaths were collateral damage of the war against Jewish Bolshevik terrorism, and every Jew including a baby was either a Judeo-Bolshevik terrorist or potentially a Judeo-Bolshevik terrorist. The judges of the Nuremberg Tribunals laughed at this nonsense. The propaganda of Zionists and of supporters of the baby killer nation is equally if not more ridiculous and just as evil.

On Dec 11, 1946, the international community banned genocide and made this ban jus cogens. No compromise is possible with a state that perpetrates genocide. Zionist genocide against Palestinians started in Dec 1947 and has never ended. The Zionist genocide against Palestinians will not have ended until Palestinians return to their homes, property, villages, and country. The State of Israel belongs to the same category to which a cannibal state belongs.

[David Nieporent]

The ICJ has already ruled that SA’s accusation is plausible, which alleges that the State of Israel perpetrates genocide. The ICJ ruling is like a magistrate’s report and recommendation.

A magistrate's report and recommendation is not in fact anything like a finding that something is "plausible."

Oh, and it is impossible to be Jewish and not Zionist. Of course, one could have a Jewish background (which you do not) and reject Judaism.

[Jonathan Affleck]

A Magistrate's Report and Recommendation can cover all sorts of dispositive and non-dispositive matters. Here is a link to RULES FOR UNITED STATES MAGISTRATE JUDGES IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS.

You have already told me that you have no experience with Title 35. I have only been involved in an infringement trial in the District of Massachusetts and in the Eastern District of Texas. In both districts, a Magistrate Judge can conduct a Markman Hearing on claim construction. The Report and Recommendation can address validity, definiteness, enablement, and possession, which is called plausibility in Europe.

Patent litigation has its own unique characteristics, but the issues, on which a magistrate judge might rule, all have counterparts in litigation outside of Title 35.

[David Nieporent]

A magistrate's report and recommendation, whether it covers dispositive or non-dispositive matters, is not a finding that anything is "plausible."

[Jonathan Affleck]

Since David Nieporent has never participated in a patent litigation and does not know much about Title 35, how can he possibly tell us that plausibility is never address in a Magistrate's Report and Recommendation in a patent litigation?

I don't know if a magistrate has ever addressed whether a complaint meets the Twiqbal standard of plausibility, but I have read no rule that would forbid a magistrate from reporting and recommending on the plausibility of a complaint.

[David Nieporent]

While a proceeding before the USPTO is likely to have its own set of procedures, patent litigation in the federal courts follow the same rules of procedure as other civil litigation. Yes, of course a magistrate can issue an R&R on a Twiqbal motion, but that situation has nothing to do with it being a "magistrate." In that context a district judge would issue the same ruling.

[Jonathan Affleck]

The magistrate reads the complaint and submits a Report and Recommendation to the Court.

The District Court of the Eastern District of Texas has its own Title 35 specific procedures for a magistrate hearing in a patent litigation.

[Dr. Ed 2]

With all the talk about Harvard, here is the Massachusetts Constitution on it:
________________________
Chapter V, THE UNIVERSITY AT CAMBRIDGE, AND ENCOURAGEMENT OF LITERATURE, ETC.

Section I. The University.

Article I.
Whereas our wise and pious ancestors, so early as the year one thousand six hundred and thirty-six, laid the foundation of Harvard College, in which university many persons of great eminence have, by the blessing of God, been initiated in those arts and sciences, which qualified them for public employments, both in church and state: and whereas the encouragement of arts and sciences, and all good literature, tends to the honor of God, the advantage of the Christian religion, and the great benefit of this and the other United States of America — it is declared, that the President and Fellows of Harvard College, in their corporate capacity, and their successors in that capacity, their officers and servants, shall have, hold, use, exercise and enjoy, all the powers, authorities, rights, liberties, privileges, immunities and franchises, which they now have or are entitled to have, hold, use, exercise and enjoy: and the same are hereby ratified and confirmed unto them, the said president and fellows of Harvard College, and to their successors, and to their officers and servants, respectively, forever.

Article II.
And whereas there have been at sundry times, by divers persons, gifts, grants, devises of houses, lands, tenements, goods, chattels, legacies and conveyances, heretofore made, either to Harvard College in Cambridge, in New England, or to the president and fellows of Harvard College, or to the said college, by some other description, under several charters successively: it is declared, that all the said gifts, grants, devises, legacies and conveyances, are hereby forever confirmed unto the president and fellows of Harvard College, and to their successors in the capacity aforesaid, according to the true intent and meaning of the donor or donors, grantor or grantors, devisor or devisors.

Article III.
[And whereas, by an act of the general court of the colony of Massachusetts Bay passed in the year one thousand six hundred and forty-two, the governor and deputy-governor, for the time being, and all the magistrates of that jurisdiction, were, with the president, and a number of the clergy in the said act described, constituted the overseers of Harvard College: and it being necessary, in this new constitution of government to ascertain who shall be deemed successors to the said governor, deputy-governor and magistrates; it is declared, that the governor, lieutenant governor, council and senate of this commonwealth, are and shall be deemed, their successors, who with the president of Harvard College, for the time being, together with the ministers of the congregational churches in the towns of Cambridge, Watertown, Charlestown, Boston, Roxbury, and Dorchester, mentioned in the said act, shall be, and hereby are, vested with all the powers and authority belonging, or in any way appertaining to the overseers of Harvard College; provided, that] nothing herein shall be construed to prevent the legislature of this commonwealth from making such alterations in the government of the said university, as shall be conducive to its advantage and the interest of the republic of letters, in as full a manner as might have been done by the legislature of the late Province of the Massachusetts Bay..

[John F. Carr]

It was said that Harvard is to blame for the loud squealing of wheels as trains pass through the adjacent subway tunnels. Harvard is immune from eminent domain and the subway tracks have to follow a sharply curved right of way established centuries ago for livestock and wagons.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I doubt this -- WHICH subway tunnel(s)?

The only one IN CAMBRIDGE is the Red Line that has a new tunnel that was built in the 1980s, I don't know about the Red Line before that. All of the streetcars in Cambridge were replaced (until recently) with "trackless trolleys" -- rubber tired electric buses with two overhead wires because of carbon monoxide concerns in the Harvard tunnel.

The reason why the Green Line screeches is (largely) because they essentially have a rotary at Park Street. There once was a LOT more streetcar lines that came in and turned around at Park Street -- there is a whole branch tunnel at Boylston where they now have the antique trolleys on display. Hence even though every train either goes straight through or reverses at Park Street, with the modern LRVs able to go in either direction, there is still that rotary there.

The Elevated Orange Line (the BERy main line) used to screech in the North End and outside the Catholic cathedral in the South End. The North End was because there used to be a split there, with a second route going down to the waterfront and then to South Station. It was damaged in the Molasses Flood although it was increasingly abandoned because of low ridership. As to the South End, word always was that the Protestant-run BERy wanted to piss off the Catholics, but screeching costs money (rails, wheels, etc) and I can't see a profit-driven company intentionally doing it.

And while the initial tunnels were "cut & cover", tunneling technologies improved and they went directly under the Old State House, using its basement as an entrance to a station. And did the private BERy even have eminent domain rights?

[BrotherMovesOn]

I doubt this — WHICH subway tunnel(s)?

The subway tunnel which services the station that is inexplicably named Harvard Square?

[BrotherMovesOn]

John F. Carr mentions a noise issue in the Cambridge subway system and you respond with a non-sequiter about a subway rotary in a different city. Do you grow your own mushrooms Dr. Ed?
I suppose it's a harmless, and a better use of your time than dreaming up ever more medieval ways to kill people who annoy you.

[John F. Carr]

The curve on the Central Square side of Harvard Station was very loud when I rode the T regularly.

[Armchair]

In other antisemitism news in the US today.

Jews assaulted at UC Berkeley

Jewish students at the University of California, Berkeley were forced to evacuate an auditorium as anti-Israel protesters banged on and eventually broke through the glass doors of a campus theater, where an Israeli Defense Forces soldier was scheduled to speak.

Disturbing footage posted online by the Daily Wire shows an angry mob chanting “intifada, intifada” and banging violently on the glass doors outside Zellerbach Playhouse Monday night as a small group of students gathered inside Monday night for a talk about the war in Gaza.

In one clip, a student could be heard telling his friends inside the auditorium that a woman outside spat on him and called him “Jew, Jew, Jew — literally right to my face.”

Other students also claimed the protesters shoved a senior into the auditorium door as he tried to check in attendees and grabbed a freshman by the neck, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Eventually, some of the glass could be heard shattering in the videos posted online, after which one person could be heard shouting, “You got what you deserve.”

At that time, university police reported, “They’ve breached the door,” according to dispatch audio posted online.

https://nypost.com/2024/02/28/us-news/angry-mob-forces-jewish-students-to-evacuate-uc-berkeley-theater/

I expect these "protestors" should get the January 6th treatment, and a comprehensive manhunt by the FBI over multiple years to throw them in prison for the maximum possible sentence?

Well, no...that won't happen. They probably won't even be arrested, and if they are, they'll be immediately let go.

[Michael P]

Attempts to kill Jews in Berkeley don’t count because they’re not Congress. (According to the usual leftoid logic about why January 6th was sui generis and nobody else should be treated as harshly as conservative protesters.)

[Dr. Ed 2]

Actually there is a Federal versus State issue here -- it's the CA AG instead of Meritless Garland, but still, there is a dual standard.

[Randal]

Don't you read anything but the Post?

[Mr. Bumble]

Cue Twilight Zone intro.

[Michael P]

Your only argument is a second-hand ad hominem. Sad.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Personally, I view all bullies the same no matter which side or direction they come from. I do not care what animates them.

Nor do I care if this prompts non-stop whingeing from you...

[Commenter_XY]

Let's leave antisemitism aside for a moment.

What happened to free speech? The law school is now a gigantic no free speech cesspool zone, and it evidently has spread to the rest of the campus. I thought UC Berkeley was the place to go in order to hear 'forbidden speech' in America. Times have certainly changed.

WRT antisemitism...The war is in Israel, not America. I don't think it is a good idea to normalize antisemitism in American society. And that is starting to happen.

[Bwaaah]

Yes to all of that. Their lawless answer: "That's morality for you."

[Dr. Ed 2]

Starting to happen?!?

UMass Amherst had a Hamas chapter 30 years ago.

[Ed Grinberg]

.

I expect these “protestors” should get the January 6th treatment, and a comprehensive manhunt by the FBI over multiple years to throw them in prison for the maximum possible sentence?
Well, no…that won’t happen. They probably won’t even be arrested, and if they are, they’ll be immediately let go.

Not only will the school administration not punish the "anti-Israel protesters," but if anyone tries to record them in action and then post the footage, the administration is likely to punish them!

[tylertusta]

Fani Willis's disqualification might hinge on the standard that Judge McAfee uses.

The prosecution, along with many left-pundits, insist that the standard is an "actual conflict."

The defense and some other cases say that it's only an "appearance of conflict." Judge McAfee has previous said that he would rely on this standard, though he might change his mind. However, during summations on Friday, McAfee did seem to correct the prosecution's attempt to characterize one Georgia case as only using the "actual conflict" standard.

[Mr. Bumble]

Is McAfee conflicted since he formerly worked in the DA's office?

[tylertusta]

No. For McAfee to be conflicted, he would have to have a stake in the trial, thought not necessarily the outcome.

[ThePublius]

Biden: "Get me a deal!"

"So what would a proposed deal look like?

A potential deal could include a six-week pause in fighting, the release of approximately 400 Palestinian prisoners in return for the freeing of 40 Israeli hostages, as well as preparation for a gradual return of Palestinian citizens to the northern part of the Gaza Strip."

Why 10:1 Palestinians to hostages?

And why not all of the hostages?

I honestly don't understand how the entire humanitarian responsibility falls to Israel and none to the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/03/get-me-a-deal.php

[Michael P]

It's the deadly bigotry of Dem expectations, to coin a phrase.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Why 10:1? Precedent. Some idiots decided long ago to bargain with terrorists, and that was established as the "accepted" ratio.

Good luck changing it now.

[Commenter_XY]

I don't think there is a deal to be had. I am not Israeli. Israel must choose whether or not they want to try and get back the dead hostages. They must choose, not us.

There is no proof of life. What is the point of a deal? Israel must now defeat and annihilate Hamas on the battlefield (in the South).

And then look to the North.

[Bob from Ohio]

Lots of pressure to bring the hostages home. Mistake IMHO to agree to a cease fire until victory but I'm not under that pressure nor do I have the responsibility that Bibi, Gallant and Gantz have.

[Commenter_XY]

There is even more pressure to win the war and deliver a knockout blow. Israeli society is roiled by 'conceptzia'; read MK Lieberman's discussion about that. He was dead on about that.

[Nige]

Netanyahu won't like that. He might face elections.

[Commenter_XY]

MK Lieberman's discussions this year, as well as papers he wrote back in 2014 were eerily accurate. He nailed 'conceptzia' back then. I wish he were sitting in the War Cabinet now.

[Nige]

If there's a ceasefire, they might get back living hostages without killing them.

[Dr. Ed 2]

At the price of ensuring that there would be future hostages taken in the future.

[Bob from Ohio]

Darn right, the current Hamas leader was released on a 1000-1 exchange.

[Nige]

The IDF shooting Israeli hostages isn't going to do anything to prevent future hostage-taking.

[DaveM]

I very much doubt that Israel is going to make any sort of a "deal" short of an unconditional surrender by Hamas.

I know I wouldn't. Imagine if it was your country that had been attacked on Oct. 7th. Imagine it was your neighbor that was armed to the teeth with rockets and dug into hundreds of miles of tunnels, all in preparation for raiding you again the moment they get a second chance.

There is absolutely no way you would stop short of complete disarmament at this point. Especially now when you have their military backed into a corner.

The Hamas fighters are going to have to face up to the fact that their imagined future of glorious death in combat is a pipe dream. The poor citizenry of Gaza is going to have to face up to the fact that Israel is going to be policing their territory for the foreseeable future. The only way out at this point will be to integrate with them.

[Nige]

Thus propagating the conflict far into the future.

[Bob from Ohio]

That's up to the Arabs. 75+ years of loss after loss should teach them something, but alas, it seemingly does not.

[Nige]

75+ years of loss? Wow. Amazing that them losing all the time doesn't magically end the conflict.

[Bob from Ohio]

Some people just never learn.

If one accepts Hamas figures, then twice as many Arabs have died just since October 8 than Israelis in all the wars and terrorist attacks combined including October 7.

Losing badly every time is pretty stupid.

[Nige]

Inflicting defeats on people, over and over again and thinking that somehow peace will happen is even stupider.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Let’s see how things develop when Israel’s superstitious, bigoted right-wingers try to operate without American support. It should be quite the spectacle to watch, far more difficult to predict.

[Dr. Ed 2]

It's not just the 10:1 although that is bad enough -- while there may be legitimate due process concerns regarding the Palestinian prisoners, I highly doubt that the IDF is going out and grabbing random people from hippie music festivals and such -- as Hamas *did*.

Israel is being asked to trade guilty people for innocent ones -- and all that will accomplish is more hostages being kidnapped in the future.

[Jonathan Affleck]

I have worked in the occupied Palestinian territories including Gaza. The IDF is as vile as the Waffen-SS, randomly grabs people, and murders them.

I recommend From Under the Rubble – A story from Gaza to anyone that doubts my characterization of the baby killer nation and of the IDF.

[David Nieporent]

You've never been anywhere near the Middle East.

[Longtobefree]

Any mention at all of American hostages and our dead?

[Armchair]

Biden DoJ now targeting reporters.

As we all know, a free press is critical to a free republic. For this reason, freedom of the press, and a certain degree of immunity is available to the press, especially when covering protests and other controversial matters. Otherwise, the government could just target reporters who give unfavorable coverage, or are at a protest covering that protest in a favorable light. And that would prove to be chilling on the rest of the press.

Well, Biden's DoJ has decided...screw it. And started targeting reporters who were covering the January 6th protest in an unfavorable light to the administration, by arresting them.

I can hear the objections now. "The Blaze isn't a real media organization". To which I respond, if only the government can define "real" media organizations, and does so according to it's whims, pretty soon the "real" media organizations know the line they need to tow. Or else.

https://thefederalist.com/2024/03/01/biden-regime-ratchets-up-its-authoritarianism-with-arrest-of-blaze-investigative-reporter/

[Absaroka]

That article seems to be getting ahead of itself.

Journalists covering a riot are always in a risky position, legally and physically. I'm much in favor of them being treated with kid gloves, both by the police on the scene and later by the courts if arrested.

That said, if a journalist is throwing rocks at a riot, they ought to be prosecuted like any other rock thrower. If they were merely filming after curfew, they ought to be excused. Let's see the evidence in this case.

[Armchair]

It appears from the charges that there were no violent actions.

Notably, other reporters who were more friendly to the administration weren't charged at the January 6th protests...

[Sarcastr0]

Suddenly minimizing and skepticism are cool and good.

[Absaroka]

Which administration friendly journalists knowingly entered the capitol, engaged in disorderly conduct there, and so on?

I'm not saying there weren't any, just who your examples are and the degree to which their actions were the same as this guy.

If favorites are being played that's bad, but the details of who did what/where/when matter.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

I see we're again playing "hide the documents"...

I wonder what Baker and his supporters don't want us to see in the Statement of Facts?

[not guilty]

"As we all know, a free press is critical to a free republic. For this reason, freedom of the press, and a certain degree of immunity is available to the press, especially when covering protests and other controversial matters. Otherwise, the government could just target reporters who give unfavorable coverage, or are at a protest covering that protest in a favorable light. And that would prove to be chilling on the rest of the press."

Immunity available to the press? I don't think so. The affidavit in support of the arrest warrant is here: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24453041/steve-baker-affidavit-via-attorney-bill-shipley.pdf

A reporter is subject to criminal process just as anyone else is. See Branzburg v. Hayes, 408 U.S. 665, 682-683 (1972):

It is clear that the First Amendment does not invalidate every incidental burdening of the press that may result from the enforcement of civil or criminal statutes of general applicability. Under prior cases, otherwise valid laws serving substantial public interests may be enforced against the press as against others, despite the possible burden that may be imposed.

Much of the evidence recited in the affidavit comes from Mr. Baker's own reporting of his participation in the riot. He is not being arrested for that reporting, however, but for his own culpable conduct. To paraphrase Ron White, Steve Baker had the right to remain silent. He just didn't have the ability.

[Commenter_XY]

What actions did Steven Baker do to warrant arrest?

There are all misdemeanors, correct? Just trying to figure out the protocol for when the FBI does perp walks.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Exactly. These are all misdemeanors, the exact same crimes the DoJ is prosecuting hundreds of "ordinary" people for. Steve Baker was not singled out in any way, nor was he given the special treatment he thinks he deserves.

[Nige]

Is there any particular reason why the free speech absolutists have singled out this guy to rally around?

[Armchair]

Is there any particular reason that this reporter was charged, and the other reporters at the January 6th protest that were more friendly to the Biden administration weren't?

[Sarcastr0]

From above, it appears to be the things he did which distinguished him from other reporters who were not charged.

[Bwaaah]

What things did he do that distinguished him from other reporters?

[Michael P]

Canada is going all in on precrime: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-justice-minister-defends-house-arrest-power-for-people-feared-to/

[Mr. Bumble]

Minority Report territory.

[Ed Grinberg]

A few years ago I read an editorial in a foreign newspaper, which said that, while it's all well & good that the U.S. Constitution protects the right to keep & bear arms, that shouldn't mean that "people with violent or racist histories" are allowed to acquire guns.
I commented at the time:

The editors' idea that someone with "a racist history" should be denied his civil rights strikes me as rather curious. In addition to not letting such a person have guns, would they also restrict his freedom of speech? Subject him to unreasonable searches and seizures? What about the right to due process of law? Should we just throw him in prison and throw away the key? I don't think I'd want to live in the editors' "peaceful" society...

The Canadian government has answered my last question in the affirmative. (I know, it's just "house arrest" for now. How liberal of them!)

[Stephen Lathrop]

There has been a surge of television commentary attacking the Biden administration for parachuting food aid into Gaza. That seemed incongruous. Interviewees on the Sunday news shows demanded, apparently irrationally, that airlifted aid stop, and be replaced with more trucks—which have plainly been too much obstructed getting in, and getting around. Another notable feature has been insistence that airlift capacity is too small to match need, and therefore just for show. Three different commenters I heard making these points all expressed outrage. One attempted to quantify the insufficiency, and ended up suggesting in a roundabout way that the aircraft capacity was about one-third what it actually seems to be—just for the 3 relatively small C130 aircraft used in the initial airdrop. This looks like an organized propaganda campaign in support of some policy preference, but I am unable to suggest a source or motive.

For what it is worth, the US has much larger aircraft—twice or more times the payload of a C130, and hundreds of them. US allies fly the same large aircraft, including Kuwait and Qatar, which are relatively close to Gaza. It seems evident that if there were will to do a massive airlift, and if trucks did continue to serve Gaza, the overall capacity to deliver food aid could probably be at least tripled, within just a few days. Doing it would depend on telling Israel to stay out of the way, of course.

Any thoughts?

[ThePublius]

I am opposed to any aid being airlifted into Gaza. These supposed allies of Israel and aiding and abetting Israel's enemy in a war. Is there any doubt that Hamas will intercept and control that aid?

Let me ask you a question. Did the Allies airlift food aid to the German population during WWII?

[Nige]

'Did the Allies airlift food aid to the German population during WWII?'

Who honestly gives a good flying fuck? WWII isn't a how-to manual, you bloodthirsty nitwits. 'Let's starve people to death!' What a fantastic, moral and noble idea! Every new cruelty erodes the supposed moral outrage for Oct 7th. Why should we believe you were truly upset at awful things that were done to those human beings when you cheer on more and worse being done to other human beings?

[Theendoftheleft]

Ingsoc, you label as ‘bigotry’, ‘phobic’ and ‘ignorance’ the very identification of evidence of a given belief system being an imperialist apartheid cult. Hundreds of thousands of slaves to Muslims in West Africa. Genocide and slavery in Sudan based on race and religion. Functional apartheid in Turkey. REAL apartheid in every sharia jurisdiction ever for ALL infidels and dhimmis. Practices across the Ummah, such as bint am marriages that are harmful and incongruent with Western ones, eg https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-67422918

There are millions of dead and murdered in Syria, Iraq, West Africa, Turkey, and elsewhere and not just at the hands of the regimes. But there's no moral outrage from you, only attempted normalisation.

Who gives a flying fuck what you think (or rather STATE) is moral or noble? You’re a totalitarian fuckwit who hides behind an ideology of liberal freedom, when you’re really a cheerleader for thought policing, imperialism, and comprehensive social re-engineering. There’s not a peep from you about what importation of millions of people who habour such norms and do things you claim to hate entails for their new host societies.

Since you’re nothing more than a fraud and liar your posturing here has no moral salience.

[Nige]

You really are just grindingly repetitive, your responses are as rote as they are prolix. At the bottom of it all you're quite the bog standard right-wing reactionary thriving on fear and hate, deploying language co-opted from people with actual opinions and points of view, not your weird mushy variations on Great Replacement and anti-wokism.

Still curious about the role of the 'American Hebrew' in your mythology.

[Theendoftheleft]

‘… thriving on fear and hate, deploying language co-opted from people with actual opinions and points of view, not your weird mushy variations on Great Replacement and anti-wokism’.

This is all question begging and spin. It’s part of the REAL reason you’re losing the world, and the Western youth, to both the left and the right. Your values are doomed and your ideology is intellectually bankrupt. Further, no one outside the West is multiculting, and you can point to no empirical evidence that they shall. On the contrary, all the sociological evidence points to a rejection of that normative aspiration.

Yours is an evolutionarily inferior meme and it is doomed. Your lot has no credible, empirically-grounded knowledge or skills for making the world (or even just America) a better place, and all you have done is make it far worse. Your time is over, and you have wasted your entire life.

[Commenter_XY]

Food, water, and medicine = that is all that should be allowed. And nothing else.

It is a war zone.

[ThePublius]

Sure, let's provide food, water, and medicine to the Hamas soldiers who are trying to kill us.

[Bob from Ohio]

The garrison always eats first, in every siege since sieges began.

The West no longer knows how to win complete victory.

[Nige]

That's because most people worked out that 'complete victory' is bullshit. Other people remember the 'Mission Accomplished' banner and still haven't worked it out.

[Bob from Ohio]

"‘complete victory’ is bullshit."

This is why Nazis still govern Germany I guess.

[Nige]

No, that's why after WWI we got WWII.

[Bob from Ohio]

WWI was not "complete", it left Germany largely intact, the largest and richest country on the continent. But nursing grievances.

“This is not a peace. It is an armistice for twenty years!” Marshal Foch.

[Joe_dallas]

Nige 2 hours ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
No, that’s why after WWI we got WWII

Nige -
The lack of complete victory is why we got WWII.
the complete victory is way both Germany and Japan have been productive and peaceful countries for the last 75+ years

[Theendoftheleft]

No, Ingsoc. We got WWII because of the Versailles treaty.

And you missed his point that complete victory was achieved in Germany with WWII---at least regarding West Germany.

[Nige]

'WWI was not “complete”,'

Yes, that was my point.

'The lack of complete victory is why we got WWII.'

No, the fucking up of the peace is why we got WWII. This 'complete victory' is a daft fantasy.

'We got WWII because of the Versailles treaty.'

Correct! So, after WWII what did they do? They didn't do another Versaillles. They worked on making peace until they had peace. You think they couldn't have fucked that up and laid the groundwork for yet another land war in Europe? 'Total victory' means fuck-all. It's how you build peace that prevents more war.

[Joe_dallas]

Nige 6 hours ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
“That’s because most people worked out that ‘complete victory’ is bullshit.”

Nige – you cant even keep your own argument straight.
Your original comment was the complete victory is bullshit.

Every reply to your delusional inane comment was pointing out why “complete victory ” is the best long term result.

[Nige]

Yes, the idea of a ‘compltete victory’ is bullshit. The thing that lead to a long-term peace was the work put in to building peace after the war. But it's telling that people who are living in 2024 are looking back to WWII, and not to more recent conflicts which show how vastly superior military forces overwhelming inferior forces somehow never, ever result in peace, but instead in drawn-out insurgencies that can eventually spring up into scattered bushfires of open warfare.

[Joe_dallas]

Nige 2 mins ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
Yes, the idea of a ‘compltete victory’ is bullshit. The thing that lead to a long-term peace was the work put in to building peace after the war.

Nige - your grasp and understanding of world history is pathetic.
Tell us again how the allies were going to build the long term peace without complete victory?

Same question with japan - Tell us again how the allies were going to build the long term peace without complete victory?

[Joe_dallas]

Nige 30 mins ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
Yes, the idea of a ‘compltete victory’ is bullshit. The thing that lead to a long-term peace was the work put in to building peace after the war. But it’s telling that people who are living in 2024 are looking back to WWII, and not to more recent conflicts which show how vastly superior military forces overwhelming inferior forces somehow never, ever result in peace, but instead in drawn-out insurgencies that can eventually spring up into scattered bushfires of open warfare."

Nige - your entire statement explains how poorly you grasp the history. Those examples - post WW2 rarely achieve long term peace precisely because they dont reach complete victory. ie they didnt destroy the culture.

[Nige]

'Tell us again how the allies were going to build the long term peace without complete victory?'

If they didn't build peace, they'd have had to be trying to acheive another complete victory all over again roughly ten years later.

'ie they didnt destroy the culture.'

Ie they didn't commit genocide. I guess if you want to advocate for genocide, go ahead. It'd be saying the quiet part loud, though.

[Tom for equal rights]

Nige - You have to complete step one before you can even start step two.

Please explain how it is possible to start building the peace with a hostile enemy if you have achieved complete victory.

[Stephen Lathrop]

The, “complete victory,” hypothesis seems misplaced. Only two major nations suffered complete defeat during the 20th century, and they were not Germany and Japan. They were Tsarist Russia and Nationalist China. Throughout almost all the territory governed by each, those polities disappeared, never again to enjoy notable influence, let alone actual power.

In both cases, results which followed complete victory remain controversial to this day. There is apparently nothing about, “complete victory,” which inherently implicates improvement, or perhaps any particular subsequent consequence at all. Complete victory implies a clean slate, upon which anything at all might next be written.

In Germany and Japan, the experience was different. After suffering chastening defeats, former ruling polities quickly sprang back. They adjusted constructively to changed circumstances, with far less loss of their pre-conflict cultures, their customary organizations, and their familiar methods than was suffered in Russia and China.

With purposeful assistance to guide those accustomed rulers in Germany and Japan away from their previous catastrophic errors, very rapid development followed. That enabled extraordinarily rapid renewal of two recognizably continuous cultures. Both have proved better able to judge their own interest than previously, and at least for the present to steer father from paths leading to catastrophe.

We already know which results Joe_Dallas prefers. He seems to misconstrue how those results were arrived at. Experience seems to show insistence on a notion of complete defeat for erstwhile enemies is unwise. You never know what you are going to get.

[Tom for equal rights]

lathrop - do you really think the civil wars in Tsarist Russian and China's are comparable to the complete victory in WW2 over Germany and japan?

both Post civil war china and Russia have been involved in several wars.
While your statement that the former leaders of japan and germany took over and "former ruling polities quickly sprang back" is simply inane. Niether Japan or Germany has been involved in a war since the end of WW2.

For someone that preaches history and historical analysis, you badly mangled the basic history.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Lol. This is such pathetic LARPing.

[MaddogEngineer]

Right, it's not Israel's job to care about the Palestinian civilian population when conducting a siege. That responsibility belongs to their elected government, Hamas. Hamas remains free to surrender at any moment.

Just like it wasn't Grant's responsibility to worry about the condition of the civilian population during his siege of Vicksburg. That rested with the Confederate forces who resisted unconditional surrender. It would have been ridiculous for anyone to suggest that Grant allow food in for the "civilian" population.

[David Nieporent]

It would have been ridiculous for anyone to suggest that Grant allow food in for the “civilian” population.

The Geneva Conventions require it. They don't necessarily require that Israel supply the food, but they do require that Israel allow it.

[zztop8970]

They require it subject to the following -
"The obligation of a High Contracting Party to allow the free passage of the consignments indicated in the preceding paragraph is subject to the condition that this Party is satisfied that there are no serious reasons for fearing:

(a) that the consignments may be diverted from their destination,

That's clearly not the case here

[Commenter_XY]

Could Israel expel UNRWA, and still be considered to allow in the aid? That is a coming next step: the expulsion of UNRWA from Israel.

[zztop8970]

Are you under the mistaken impression that UNRWA is the only possible way aid could come in?

[Commenter_XY]

No, only what a country like SA would argue at ICJ.

[Jonathan Affleck]

MaddogEngineer parrots Zionist hasbarah that the human race must scorn.

Genocide is neither a legitimate nor legal response to any action, of which Hamas is falsely accused in carefully planned Zionist genocide incitement, in which Biden and Harris criminally conspire.

The baby killer nation has entered the category to which a cannibal nation belongs. The IDF must be obliterated, the baby killer nation must be abolished, and every colonial settler of the baby killer nation must be removed to a detention camp to await trial for the international capital crime of genocide.

[Theendoftheleft]

Jonathan Affleck is the parody of an anti-Zionist critic. He repeatedly calls for genocide, defends Islamic imperialist apartheid (and Turkey particularly), and systematically misrepresents how US law works.

Affleck, are you Hasbarah? Do you write the idiotic things you do to make critics of Israel and anti-Zionists look bad?

You also never answered my question from several days ago: when the prophet put his penis into the nine-year-old Aisha, did he bring her to orgasm, or is it far more likely that she cried and whimpered as a fifty-something-year-old man put his penis into her child vagina? Would the prophet properly be charged with pedophilia in any civilized Western country today?

[Jonathan Affleck]

In practice, Islam and Judaism separate betrothal and consummation. According to most commentators, Rebecca was betrothed to Isaac when she was three years old. (Technically, Isaac is pre-Judaism, but the story describes a later practice.) Consummation took place later. Aisha was betrothed to Muhammad when she was 9 years old. Consummation took place later.

[Theendoftheleft]

Don’t taqiyah me, jihadi.

Several Jew commentators, such as Rashi, said Rebecca was three. Not most. That interpretation was and is widely rejected outside the Haredi community—especially given the biblical accounts of Rebecca talking to and engaging with strangers and carrying water by herself (showing she was obviously much older), let alone the math behind the age dating being speculative and reliant on inadequate data in the Bible.

By contrast, the Quran states Aisha was 6 when she married and the relevant Hadith (again, accepted by all four schools) says she was 9 when Mohammad fucked her. The STATED age is easily verified in those two sources.

What do the relevant US criminal laws hold concerning child sex abuse and child marriage? Would Mohammad go to prison in the US today for committing those crimes?

You are a PARASITE on a Western European Christian settler colony on stolen Indigenous land. (If you are Turkish, you come from land your people stole from the Kurds and Byzantines.) You are interested in America because of the system made by the Western European settlers. It is something your people could never be able to accomplish themselves because your culture and values are inferior. You are not equal, you make the West a lower quality place, and you should move to central Asia.

Do you even know where the name Affleck comes from???

[Theendoftheleft]

And, of course, no educated Christian believes that nonsense about the biblical character of Rebecca either.

[Commenter_XY]

There is the ICJ to consider. Israel must report back to the ICJ what measures they are taking in the midst of their war to protect civilians. The law says food, water, and medicine.

Killing Hamas members is A-Ok.
Failing to take any minimal documentable measure to comply with ICJ ruling is not.

[zztop8970]

food , water and medicine are regularly coming in, so the bar of "any minimal documentable measure" is met.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-says-gaza-has-received-almost-14000-trucks-of-aid-since-start-of-war/

[Commenter_XY]

Totally agree. In fact, Israel is going well beyond any minimal requirement to preserve life in the middle of a hot combat zone of a declared war.

[Moderation4ever]

I think the idea is to show Israel that humanitarian aid will be getting trough one way or another. In doing so to get the Israelis to let more aid in. People are suffering around the world but the people of Gaza have the attention of the world and that requires a response.

[David Nieporent]

Any thoughts?

Yeah: Israel is unlikely to allow Qatar — which hosts Hamas leadership — to fly over Israel and drop uninspected goods into Gaza.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Tillerson is essentially a member of the Qatar royal family…when you were paying $200 to fill up your Eddie Bauer Expedition with a “W, The President” bumper sticker…Tillerson was investing those profits into Qatar’s LNG industry and making them the wealthiest country ever on the face of the earth. Thankies from Qatar!!

[Joe_dallas]

2nd Amendment - both an individual right and the right to form militia's for the common defence

In late August 1789, the House debated and modified the Second Amendment. These debates revolved primarily around the risk of "mal-administration of the government" using the "religiously scrupulous" clause to destroy the militia as British forces had attempted to destroy the Patriot militia at the commencement of the American Revolution. These concerns were addressed by modifying the final clause, and on August 24, the House sent the following version to the Senate:

The Senate returned to this amendment for a final time on September 9. A proposal to insert the words "for the common defence" next to the words "bear arms" was defeated. A motion passed to replace the words "the best", and insert in lieu thereof "necessary to the" .[142

[John F. Carr]

The Washington Post reminds us of the 1954 attack on the Capitol in which members of Congress were shot instead of merely intimidated. The attack was on March 1. By mid June the attackers were convicted of seditious conspiracy and sentenced to six years (suspended for those who pleaded guilty). The convictions were upheld on appeal in May, 1955. Some attackers were also convicted of assault in a separate trial and were imprisoned on those charges until Carter commuted their sentences in 1979.

Seventy years later we have to look to South America to see a swift reaction to a threat to democracy. Same day impeachment, for example. Same year trials. Prompt decision on disqualification before the next election cycle begins.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2024/03/01/puerto-rican-nationlists-attack-capitol-january-6/
https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-lebron

[Sarcastr0]

1) Criminal law has changed since 1954.

2) You really need to be very careful when an entire political party, for populist or cowardice reasons, is going to bat for the accused.

[DJK]

You also really need to be very careful when an entire political party is going against the accused. 2024 Democrats in a divided nation do not have the political or moral authority of the Reconstruction Republicans.

[Stephen Lathrop]

DJK, I disagree. The, "moral authority," of Reconstruction Republicans played to bad reviews among rebels like you.

In the here and now, you have Trump playing Jefferson Davis, as costumed by Mussolini, and directed by Stonewall Jackson—who may have been the only historical success ever crazy enough to provide a model for Trump. Of course, if Trump ever heard anyone say that, he would demand to get himself up on Stone Mountain with the others, and you know it.

I was taught in grade school to despise the Reconstruction Republicans, by the way. It took me a while to get over it. You might be wise to try something similar.

[Sarcastr0]

Sure, that also makes sense.

And care takes time.

[grb]

Trump told a Richmond crowd he will take all federal funds away from public schools that require vaccines. Of course Virginia requires vaccines against chickenpox, polio, measles, mumps, etc. It's interesting almost no one has reported this. Everyone now expects Trump will say braindead stupid things with the same regularity he mangles words, confuses different political figures and transposes historical eras. It's not even considered newsworthy.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

THE VOLOKH CONSPIRACY

This tellingly white, strikingly male,
movement conservative blog
with a vanishingly scant academic
veneer has operated for no more than

FIVE (5)

day — a single day — without
publishing at least one racial
slur; it has published racial
slurs on at least

FOURTEEN (14)

occasion (so far) during 2024
(that’s at least 14 exchanges
that have included a racial slur,
not just 14 racial slurs; many
Volokh Conspiracy discussions
feature multiple racial slurs,
as its management seems to
like.)

This blog is exceeding its
remarkable 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
anyone to catch all of them.

This assessment does not address
the broader, everyday stream of
antisemitic, gay-bashing, misogynistic,
immigrant-hating, Palestinian-hating,
transphobic, antisemitic, racist, and
other bigoted content published
at this faux libertarian blog, which
is presented from the disaffected,
receding right-wing fringe of
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 how it was presented on the Ed Sullivan show, which likely didn't feature many 11-minute songs.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Today's Rolling Stones tunes, by request:

First, from Goats Head Soup, is one that is only rock 'n' roll for the first few bars (thanks, Chuck!) and a bit more after that.

Next, a scruffy outtake from those sessions, with Jimmy Page (an ardent session guitarist before joining a band Keith Moon and John Entwistle likened to a lead balloon) aboard.

If anyone wishes a request an album or theme for the next installment, please do!

[BrotherMovesOn]

Excellent tunes as usual.
Aftermath might be an interesting vein to mine.

[David Nieporent]

Unshockingly, 9-0 in favor of Trump.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-719_19m2.pdf

[Mr. Bumble]

Guess Kaz was right after all.

[Sarcastr0]

Guess you didn't read what Kaz wrote.

Makes sense. He wrote lots and you're lazy.

[Mr. Bumble]

...and you are still full of shit. Troll.

[Sarcastr0]

"Neither we nor the respondents are aware of any other legislation by Congress to enforce Section 3."

Or...you think Kaz's only thesis was that the Court would rule 9-0?

Eh, you don't really think. Especially today, it seems.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I read it as 5-3-1 with all the women saying they wouldn't have gone as far as the men did.

I particularly like what Barrett wrote and it does need to be said before this gets into a shooting civil war.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Blustering, all-talk right-wing assholes threatening political violence (because they are getting their asses kicked by better ideas and better people in the culture war) are among my favorite culture war casualties.

[Kazinski]

As I said above replying to DN I don't claim I was 100% correct, but who was?

Who got it closer than I did, in either the comments here, or the briefs filed with the court?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Kazinski, who cares? The closer you got, the wronger you were.

Or, alternatively, congratulations. Accurate legal prediction is a marketable skill, I guess, but don’t you need a credential to get into the marketplace?

For some reason, Samuel Johnson just came top of mind:

“No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.”

Indeed.

Of course I number myself among blockheads here, but I would not count it worth the wage if all I got from it was self-satisfaction to predict nasty outcomes—and then to call my accuracy virtuous.

[Bwaaah]

"Kazinski, who cares?"

You seem to, enough to comment, and that's about as much a sign of currency around here as anything.

And what about the fun of the try? It's a pretty rich foray into timely new material that explores history and law, gamed to win with the risk to lose (and probably a draw at best when you examine the details).

You seem to be bothered by his unvarnished ego (in some measure) being on display. You challenge the "virtuosity" of his game (even though he asserts none). Why do you insist a question of virtuosity into such a game? Is that appropriate to your views of games? (Was this not a game?)

And what about "don’t you need a credential to get into the marketplace?" Again, this was unabashed amateur lawyering. Did I miss Kazinski representing it was more than that? You seem to be implying that if he doesn't perform the inquiry as a professional (including compensation and credentials), then he should not be "publishing" (my word, not yours) his work. (Or he should have no pride in it?)

I might be calling Kazinski's motives wrong here. Somebody will hopefully correct me if I'm wrong. But it looks like what bothers you is that he is publishing less-than-professional analysis. Can you clarify why you imply that Kazinski wasted his time with this?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bwaaah, sure, it was a matter of style. I wanted to turn the comment on the Samuel Johnson quote. Anyone who comments online ought to recognize its delightful irony in this context. It was for your entertainment, but you apparently mistook it for bait.

[Bwaaah]

Ahh. That line made sense to me. Thanks for the clarification.

[tylertusta]

Amazing.

I was told that I was "befuddled" for thinking that States can't enforce Section 5.

I guess our entire Supreme Court is also just as mentally limited as I?

[David Nieporent]

I'm sure you've been told you're befuddled many times for many reasons.

[Mr. Bumble]

So says the pompous ass hat.

[tylertusta]

Absolutely! I am a crayon-eating jarhead, after all.

But at least in this case, I'm in good company.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Which company? An out-of-touch, discredited Supreme Court whose decisions -- which favor childish superstition, old-timey bigotry, and white, male privilege -- seem destined to be reversed at wholesale before they have half the durability of Roe v. Wade?

[MaddogEngineer]

Well, Baude and Paulsen for one (and two).

Section 3 obviously disqualified Trump, and anyone who believed otherwise was a partisan hack.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Profs. Baude and Paulsen certainly wrote that the people who disagreed with them were wrong (that’s what disagreeing with someone means), but I don’t recall them accusing anyone of bad faith or partisan bias (including the people who pretty clearly warranted such a characterization).

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Most Americans consider the current Supreme Court to be led by partisan hacks. Not one in five Americans considers the current Court worthy of respect.

That is a foundation for fundamental change. See you down the road a bit, clingers.

[MaddogEngineer]

Exactly.

But I guess that's because some people couldn't fathom any reason Trump wasn't disqualified. You had to be acting in bad faith to think otherwise. Like how Nixon won.

[Frank Drackman]

Let the Shit Eating begin!

[David Nieporent]

Note to Dr. Ed: they did not rule that J6 was not an insurrection, nor did they rule that Trump didn't engage in it.

[MaddogEngineer]

No, they said that Section 3 was not for the states to self-enforce against federal offices. (I presume unless Congress would so empower them to do so.)

[Brett Bellmore]

No, they essentially said "Charge him with insurrection and convict him, if you want to disqualify him." That it's up to Congress how Section 3 is enforced, and federal insurrection law IS the means Congress has chosen.

[DJK]

I don't think this is what they said. The 5-1-3 majority (Barrett doesn't really take a position on this) says Congress needs to enact legislation to enforce Section 3. Doesn't say you have to charge someone with insurrection or convict them. It sounds like simple legislation would be enough. I'd guess that the usual Congressional hearing procedures would be sufficient due process, though SCOTUS did not speak to this.

[Josh R]

Brett is correctly claiming 18 U. S. C. §2383 is the only current vehicle. And, the vote was 5-0-4 (all four did not weigh in one way or the other). Barrett wrote separately to downplay the disagreement.

[DJK]

I say 5-1-3 because Barrett doesn't seem to express any opinion on what entities other than the states can do. Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson all strongly hint that they disagree with Part II-A. See, e.g., page 4, paragraph 2 through page 5, paragraph 1 of their concurrence in part.

[Josh R]

On second thought, I agree that KSJ (Kagan/Sotomayor/Jackson) expressed clear disapproval of the holding that you currently cannot initiate an action in federal court (except under 18 U. S. C. §2383).

[DJK]

But definitely agree with you and Brett that the majority says that Section 2383 is the only current vehicle.

[Dr. Ed 2]

But any new law applied to what Trump may or may not have done on January 6th would be an ex post facto law.

[not guilty]

The prohibition of ex post facto laws does not apply to civil sanctions. Disqualification from holding office is not a criminal penalty; it is a civil sanction akin to occupational debarment, which can be applied ex post facto. See Hudson v. United States, 522 U.S. 93 (1997).

[Josh R]

And there will be no attack on the Supreme Court building.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Distinction without a difference -- they said that Congress has to pass a law prohibiting what Trump allegedly did, knowing that it would also have to pass the ban on ex post facto laws. QED....

[Kazinski]

Absolutely correct, but any fact finding done by the Colorado courts on that matter is dead and buried with the rest of the decision.

Under today's decision, under current law, the only vehicle for such a finding of fact is by a jury under 2383, if Trump is ever charged under that statute.

Which is also consistent with the Arizona rulings in 2022.

[MaddogEngineer]

I'm very sorry this is happening to Baude and Paulsen.

Looking forward to the subsequent blog entries explaining why they weren't actually wrong. The next phase!

[Commenter_XY]

They did it to themselves.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

That is what people will be saying about Israel and the Republican Supreme Court justices soon enough.

Unless you think the tide of the culture war will miraculously reverse . . . And who is gullible enough to believe that tides can be reversed, seas parted, etc.?

[Kazinski]

They already said Chase was wrong in Griffin and were pretty nasty about it, I'm not sure why they wouldn't just double down and say this court is wrong too.

[David Nieporent]

For those interested: zero citations to Blackman or Tillman. No "officers of" or "officer under" arguments.

(Also no citations to Baude.)

[tylertusta]

Barrett could have endorsed Blackman's argument.

She didn't adopt the majority's rationale but didn't say why.

[David Nieporent]

She didn’t adopt the majority’s rationale but didn’t say why.

Yes, she did: "I join Parts I and II–B of the Court’s opinion."

[DJK]

Yup. Barrett agreed that the states do not have power to enforce 14A3S. She merely observed in three paragraphs that it was not necessary to go any further than that for the case at hand. It is not clear what she would rule beyond that. But it doesn't matter - five Justices prescribed the procedure for enforcing 14A3S.

[MaddogEngineer]

I guess it's a good thing Blackman and Tillman didn't rest their entire argument on the officer question. There were like 12 things they threw against the wall

Sure, the officer question been their hobby horse, going back far longer (even before the earlier cause celebre emoluments). So it remains undecided by SCOTUS.

But Blackman and Tillman were not wrong about the outcome. Unlike Baude. And I've never gotten the feeling that Blackman was invested in the particular outcome of Trump not being disqualified because of his opinion of Trump. Unlike Baude, who seemed determined to see Trump disqualified because of his personal antipathy.

[tylertusta]

As Blackman keeps reminding everyone willing to listen:

Trump's opponents had to run the table on every pitfall and every issue. All it took was one, and in this case, it was self-execution.

[David Nieporent]

It's absolutely fair to note that SCOTUS rejected Baude (and Paulsen)'s argument that A14S3 is self-executing. But I don't think it's quite the right framing to say that Baude was "wrong about the outcome." Baude (and Paulsen) were not making predictions. They were saying, "This is the best interpretation of A14S3."

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Baude and Paulson have probably spent enough time at Federalist Society events to recognize that Clarence Thomas and the rest of the Clinger Court majority would flutter rightward with the partisan winds.

[DaveM]

"Officers" and "Office of" both mentioned on pages 2 and 3. OK, so only mentioned in reference to the CO court, but not completely ignored.

[DJK]

For those interested, there was no need for the court to invoke Blackman or Tillman. This was such a thorough demolition of Colorado that there was no need for an assessment of the meaning of "Officers" in 14A or other parts of the Constitution.

[Josh R]

It could have been a demolition only if SCOTUS ruled against the decision below on the merits. They did not.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

At first skim, nine votes for a per curiam decision, including six judicial activists, at least one coward (and maybe a few others too cowardly to chance a peek from the foxhole), and three stewards of judicial humility.

[MaddogEngineer]

Whatever helps you sleep at night. That would be name calling and insults, just like Trump does. Why I've never voted for him.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

This was a reasonable result -- not the sole reasonable result, not likely the most courageous or helpful in the long term, but reasonable.

This decision by a partisan, fading Supreme Court is unlikely to affect my sleep.

[Bored Lawyer]

Ah yes, another RAK post consisting purely of personal attacks and zero legal analysis.
It must rankle you that the result was 9-0, including three Justices appointed by Obama or Biden. Hard to spin it as politics, huh?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Did you read the concurrences?

It is not difficult to recognize politics in at least some respects.

[MaddogEngineer]

Yes, I recognized the politics in the Kagan/Sotomayor/Jackson concurrence. While complaining that the Court was deciding things it didn’t need to, subtly agreed that Trump may have been guilty of insurrection, just not for the purposes of the 14A3. Great moments in jurisprudence.

Probably need to reflect on it, but I saw nothing wrong with the Court taking the opportunity to reflect on the entirety of the 14A3 controversy and therefore the law, even though it’s primary holding was enough. (Not unlike the Blackman long list of everything necessary to disqualify Trump.) I understood Barrett’s concurrence as lamenting that the per curiam in total made the other joint concurrence necessary and she would have limited it to whatever would have kept them silent.

I think they probably would have written something anyway regardless, perhaps just to infer/confirm Trump’s awfulness despite the decision in his favor. I’m sure leading off with a Dobbs shout-out was a feel good moment.

[DJK]

The 5-1-3 portion (Part II-A) of the opinion seems designed to head off the possibility that a Democratic House could refuse to certify the election if Trump wins. Need legislation passed in both houses of Congress (and fat chance of that with the Senate filibuster). Wanna keep Trump from being President? Beat him in the election.

[Bob from Ohio]

"seems designed to head off the possibility that a Democratic House could refuse to certify the election if Trump wins"

Agreed, that is what I meant with "post-trump victory Dem congressional shenanigans" below.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Any legislation passed now would be ex post facto if applied to Jan 6th.

[Bob from Ohio]

The libs' semi-dissent is so whiny.

Seems like the majority also acted to stop any post-trump victory Dem congressional shenanigans.

[Bored Lawyer]

He could still be impeached and disqualified by Congress. But fat chance of that happening.

[DJK]

5 Justices signed on to part Part II-A of the lead opinion. As I read that, they're saying the only way to enforce Section 5 is by the standard Congressional legislative process. So passing legislation in both the House and the Senate (subject to Presidential veto?). Presumably that means going through the usual legislative rules of those bodies, meaning you'd need a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. So yep, fat chance that happens in this election.

[tylertusta]

Smith can always indict Trump under section 2383.

Nothing stopping him.

[DJK]

Probably true. Why hasn't he so far?

[tylertusta]

A good question. He hasn't had any problems indicting Trump in DC, so why not?

[Brett Bellmore]

A total lack of evidence of guilt?

[DJK]

Bingo bango.

[Nige]

Why would that matter? According to you guys there's no evidence of any of his other alleged crimes either.

[Bored Lawyer]

I don't think that forecloses the impeachment route. Insurrection is certain a high crime, so he could be impeached and convicted for that.
But as I said, not happeing.

[Krayt]

In this case, the Court must decide whether Colorado may keep a Presidential candidate off the ballot on the ground that he is an oathbreaking insurrectionist and thus disqualified from holding federal office under Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment. Allowing Colorado to do so would, we agree, create a chaotic state-by-state patchwork, at odds with our Nation’s federalism principles. That is enough to resolve this case.

The absurd result, not as implication from sketchy interpretations of laws created under the Constitution, but of the Constitution itself.

[DaveM]

A welcome and swift end to this latest sad attempt at lawfare.

DEMOCRATS, YOU HAVE TO BEAT TRUMP AT THE BALLOT BOX.

There is no other way. And you better get busy on Plan B, while you're at it. Your man isn't looking too healthy. Will he even make it to your convention?

[Nige]

'DEMOCRATS, YOU HAVE TO BEAT TRUMP AT THE BALLOT BOX. '

They already did. Twice. You'll find he had absolutely no respect for either result. Democrats have to beat him a third time (no surprise - for some reason you can try to illgally overturn an election and their is, aparently, no legal recourse.) He potentially gets a second go at an insurrection. The conclusion here is - Democrats don't respect democracy.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Twice"?

Is this some novel form of 'beating' that doesn't imply actually losing?

[Nige]

‘AT THE BALLOT BOX’

He has never won the popular vote. So, ‘at the ballot box’ is something of a misnomer.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

And he never will. Just not enough ignorant, worthless, superstitious, bigoted clingers left in America to get it done, not even in desolate, can't-keep-up stains such as Tennessee, West Virginia, Idaho, Kentucky, Alabama, South Carolina, west Texas, Mississippi, Wyoming, Kansas, Iowa, and Arkansas.

At some point, the culture war's winners may start to fuck with the losers for sport, perhaps by outlawing hunting on public lands, denying accreditation to nonsense-based schools, ending the free ride for parasitic states and churches, etc.

[Joe_dallas]

In a major blow to democracy, the Supreme Court rules the people can vote for their favorite candidate

[Nige]

In a major blow to democracy, the guy who openly tried to overturn it faces no consequences, and will be given another chance to do it again.

[Mr. Bumble]

Paging Mr. Guilty. Paging Mr. Not Guilty.

[not guilty]

The per curiam opinion is here. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-719_19m2.pdf I will likely have more to say once I have read it. (Unlike many commenters here, I actually read judicial opinions before commenting on what they mean.)

[#FFFFFFPride]

If you actually are reading opinions, why do you get so much wrong?

[Bob from Ohio]

Ouch.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's fairly short.

I feel vindicated. The federal insurrection law IS specifically cited as how Congress has chosen to enforce Section 3.

[tylertusta]

Preach it, brother. Many in the VC peanut gallery dunked on anyone who dared disagree with the self-execution argument.

...an argument that was so blisteringly and obviously wrong that it didn't get a single vote in today's decision.

[MaddogEngineer]

Amen brother!

[Sarcastr0]

You said it was exhaustive, Brett. The Court explicitly assumed otherwise. You had it wrong, as everyone told you.

You should not feel vindicated.

[Brett Bellmore]

Go back and reread the opinion, this time applying English grammar.

[NOVA Lawyer]

The federal insurrection law IS specifically cited as how Congress has chosen to enforce Section 3.

That’s not really accurate.

In fact, the federal insurrection law is specifically cited as one method by which Congress has chosen to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the Presidency.

Setting aside “especially the Presidency” (it’s a yes or no question), the Court also specifically endorsed state court cases which enforced Section 3 of the 14th Amendment as to state officeholders. (From Trump v. Anderson: “We conclude that States may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office.”).

Their hook for making federal officeholders different from state officeholders does not rely on any text in the 14th Amendment, but is more of a structural argument that states have the right under the Constitution to determine the qualifications for state office, but not the authority to enforce at least this qualification for federal office.

[Commenter_XY]

Because the Constitution makes Congress,
rather than the States, responsible for enforcing Section 3
against federal officeholders and candidates, we reverse

NG, this was the ball game, right? They never really had to address anything else, did they.

I figured CJ Roberts would narrow it to get 9-0.

[not guilty]

The upshot of the decision is that states cannot disqualify candidates for federal office who have engaged in rebellion or insurrection from appearing on the ballot based on the Fourteenth Amendment, § 3.

I find what the Court did not say to be significant. The Court did not address whether Donald Trump did or did not engage in insurrection. It did not say that a criminal conviction is a prerequisite to disqualification under § 3. The Court did not embrace Trump's outré arguments that he had not taken an oath to support the Constitution and that the President is somehow not an officer of the United States.

[Brett Bellmore]

” Section 3, unlike other provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment, proscribes conduct of individuals. It bars persons from holding office after taking a qualifying oath and then engaging in insurrection or rebellion—nothing more. Any congressional legislation enforcing Section 3 must, like the Enforcement Act of 1870 and §2383, reflect “congruence and proportionality” between preventing or remedying that conduct “and the
means adopted to that end.” City of Boerne, 521 U. S., at 520. Neither we nor the respondents are aware of any other legislation by Congress to enforce Section 3.”

I think you’re wrong, they precisely said that you had to convict him under §2383, at least as the law stands now.

[Sarcastr0]

“Neither we nor the respondents are aware of any other legislation by Congress to enforce Section 3.”

[Brett Bellmore]

Any "other". Leaving only that legislation they cited.

[Sarcastr0]

But also showing that the legislation did not exhaust Section 3, which is what you were very very sure was the case.

[Josh R]

What does "the legislation did not exhaust Section 3" mean?

[Michael P]

It means he’s trying to move yet more goalposts so he can make some more straw men.

I'm pretty sure that Brett (like me) pointed to a now-repealed part of 1870's Enforcement Act as another case of Congress enacting Section 3, which pretty clearly rebuts the idea that §2383 somehow "exhausts" Section 3.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, yeah: Congress could enact other enforcement mechanisms. They just haven't

[Sarcastr0]

That is not what you said before this opinion.

You said only a criminal conviction would do.

You said it a lot.

[Josh R]

I think that means Brett is correct.

[not guilty]

"I think you’re wrong, they precisely said that you had to convict him under §2383, at least as the law stands now."

No, Brett, it doesn't say that at all.

[Josh R]

Given this decision, what other current vehicle is there besides §2383?

[not guilty]

If I were the Colorado Secretary of State, I would sue Donald Trump in United States District Court in Denver under 28 U.S.C. § 2201 for declaratory judgment as to whether Trump has engaged in insurrection after having previously taken an oath to support the Constitution.

[Josh R]

That action is precluded by this decision. Or at least the KSJ concurrence thinks it is.

the Court departs from that vital principle, deciding not just this case, but challenges that might arise in the future [...] the majority shuts the door on other potential means of federal enforcement

[not guilty]

With due respect for Justice Jackson, I don’t think so. The determination of facts necessary for disqualification would be made by a federal district court, which would preserve the state/federal dichotomy that the Court is concerned about. The trial would be conducted according to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. A ruling against Trump would have preclusive effect in any other federal court, so there would not be a patchwork of Trump appearing on the ballot in some states but not in others. Appeal as of right would be to the U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, with the possibility of SCOTUS review by certiorari.

[Josh R]

KSJ = Kagan, Sotomayor, Jackson (perhaps I should make it SKJ to honor seniority).

I am at a total loss on how you can read II-A of the opinion differently than how SKJ or Barrett read it. If it permits the action you posited, why didn't they join the opinion?

[Life of Brian]

The first stage of grief is usually denial, but it's almost as though he's fast-forwarded to bargaining. Maybe that means we get to skip anger.

[not guilty]

"I am at a total loss on how you can read II-A of the opinion differently than how SKJ or Barrett read it. If it permits the action you posited, why didn’t they join the opinion?"

Perhaps because no party had briefed the issue nor otherwise raised the question? The dissent (and Justice Bear It) chastised the per curiam opinion for opining on matters extraneous to what was at issue regarding the Colorado Supreme Court decision. It would have been unseemly for the dissenters to go off on a tangent of their own.

[not guilty]

"The first stage of grief is usually denial, but it’s almost as though he’s fast-forwarded to bargaining. Maybe that means we get to skip anger."

I haven't denied a thing, LoB. As I wrote on the Somin thread, this decision illustrates the accuracy of Justice Robert Jackson’s observation about the nature of SCOTUS. “We are not final because we are infallible, but we are infallible only because we are final.” Brown v. Allen, 344 U.S. 443, 540 (1953) (Jackson, J., concurring in result).

If you doubt that maxim, just ask President Gore.

[Life of Brian]

I know you're old enough to understand the term "fast-forwarding." I'm hard-pressed to think why else you would think your response contradicted anything I said.

Maybe try looking up the "bargaining" stage of grief and compare it to your desperate attempt to substitute a brand new Very Clever Legal Plan for your prior one that many of us correctly predicted would go down in well-deserved flames.

[Life of Brian]

chastised the per curiam opinion for opining on matters extraneous to what was at issue regarding the Colorado Supreme Court decision.

Oh, and speaking of, it's exceptionally cute that you're now all about minimalist, cabined decisions when the entire reason we're here at all is because the Colorado trial court went off on a 75+ page binge of gratuitous factfinding completely unnecessary to its original holding (which you cheerfully and endlessly defended). Goose/gander; self-petard hoist; &c.

[David Nieporent]

Oh, and speaking of, it’s exceptionally cute that you’re now all about minimalist, cabined decisions when the entire reason we’re here at all is because the Colorado trial court went off on a 75+ page binge of gratuitous factfinding completely unnecessary to its original holding (which you cheerfully and endlessly defended). Goose/gander; self-petard hoist; &c.

It is utterly routine for a trial court to rule on multiple grounds, even if one of them is sufficient to decide the case, especially when fact-finding is involved and the hearings on said fact-finding have already been held.

Let's say that you sue to enjoin a law on first and second amendment grounds. (Don't have an idea in mind what would violate both; just assume.) A trial judge could say, "I find that this law violates the 1A, so I need not reach any other issues in this case; injunction granted." (If the judge is utterly confident in that ruling, he may well stop there.) But a judge can also say, "I find that this law violates the 1A; I also find that it violates the 2A. Injunction granted." That way, if the appellate court rejects one of those theories, the parties and trial court don't have to do the whole thing over.

[not guilty]

“Oh, and speaking of, it’s exceptionally cute that you’re now all about minimalist, cabined decisions when the entire reason we’re here at all is because the Colorado trial court went off on a 75+ page binge of gratuitous factfinding completely unnecessary to its original holding (which you cheerfully and endlessly defended). Goose/gander; self-petard hoist; &c.”

Have you read the Colorado District Court opinion, LoB? Yes or no? The findings of fact were in no wise “completely unnecessary.” Pay particular attention to footnote 12:

The Court is denying Petitioners the relief they request on legal grounds. Because of the Parties’ extraordinary efforts in this matter, the Court makes findings of facts and conclusions of law on all remaining issues before it. The Court does so because it is cognizant that to the extent the Colorado Supreme Court decides to review this matter, it may disagree with any number of the legal conclusions contained in this Order and the Orders that precede it. The Court has endeavored to give the Colorado Supreme Court all the information it needs to resolve this matter fully and finally without the delay of returning it to this Court.

Do you have a clue what judicial economy means?

[Please forgive me, Jesus, for casting pearls before swine, contrary to your admonition in Matthew 7:6.]

[Mr. Bumble]

"I find what the Court did not say to be significant. The Court did not address whether Donald Trump did or did not engage in insurrection. It did not say that a criminal conviction is a prerequisite to disqualification under § 3. The Court did not embrace Trump’s outré arguments that he had not taken an oath to support the Constitution and that the President is somehow not an officer of the United States."
Didn't it say that these are issues for Congress to decide?

[not guilty]

No, Mr. Bumble, it didn't. Have you read the opinion?

[BrotherMovesOn]

Do you realize who you're responding to NG?

[Mr. Bumble]

For the reasons given, responsibility for enforcing Section3 against federal officeholders and candidates rests withCongress and not the States.

[tylertusta]

The Court did not address...

I don’t find that to be all that significant. The Court didn’t have to go there, so it didn’t.

The one Justice who could have adopted Blackman and Tillman’s theory is Barrett- she wrote separately that she had her own reasons but isn’t saying why.

[Josh R]

Barrett wrote separately to say she does not agree that the Court should have held federal courts cannot enforce 14.3 absent congressional legislation. She (and all 9) agree, absent congressional legislation, a state cannot enforce 14.3 against a presidential candidate.

[not guilty]

“The one Justice who could have adopted Blackman and Tillman’s theory is Barrett- she wrote separately that she had her own reasons but isn’t saying why.”

Uh, no. Justice Bear It wrote:

I join Parts I and II–B of the Court’s opinion. I agree that States lack the power to enforce Section 3 against Presidential candidates. That principle is sufficient to resolve this
case, and I would decide no more than that.

[tylertusta]

Yup. I goofed.

[Kazinski]

I just don't think the court wants to touch the officers issue unless they absolutely have to, if emoluments come up again. Certainly not in this case when it would get them a deluge of criticism from people who have no interest in trying to understand the argument.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

I find what the Court did not say to be significant. The Court did not address whether Donald Trump did or did not engage in insurrection. It did not say that a criminal conviction is a prerequisite to disqualification under § 3. The Court did not embrace Trump’s outré arguments that he had not taken an oath to support the Constitution and that the President is somehow not an officer of the United States.

You find it significant that the court did not address questions that there was no reason for it to address?

[ReaderY]

The Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. Anderson essentially deletes the Elector Clause from the Constitution. Under the Constitution, the President represents the States, not the People. The States, and only the States, appoint the Electors. The States determine what Electors to appoint and what candidates their Electors are qualified to vote for.

Indeed, as recently as Chiafolo v. Washington, the SupremeCourt had upheld states limiting their Presidential Electoral ballots to a single candidate, the candidate who had one the popular vote in their state. The Constitution imposes no requirement that a candidate win a popular vote in order to be qualified to receive the votes of the State’s Electors. Any such requirement is a purely extra-constitutional state-imposed qualification.

The Supreme Court has essentially stripped the States of any real power to determine how to appoint their electors. It has made a mockery of the Electoral College provision.

The Supreme Court talked about the “chaos” that would ensue if different states got to make their own, different decisions about who could be qualified to receive their Electors’ votes. But no less chaos ensues when the people make these decisions. Different people prefering different candidates leads to exactly the same spectre of chaotic national disunity that today’s decision used as the basis of stripping state legislatures of their power to appoint their electors according to their preferences.

The Justices prefer a President elected by and representing the people to a President ele ted by an electoral college whose members are appointed by and represent the States. Perhaps their preferred policy is better policy than the one our Framers gave us. But a Supreme Court that can simply ignore the text and history of our Constitution and impose its own policy in naked contradiction to it also has a power to impose a tyrrany.

A certain amount of chaos is a normal part of a pluralistic system of government where different people, and different units of government, reach different, sometimes contradictory decisions. A Supreme Court that fears the ordinary chaos that comes with pluralistic government fears pluralism. The only way to avoid the inevitable chaos pluralism brings is one-man rule.

[MaddogEngineer]

Electors are not state officials. Opinion makes that clear (again).

US Term Limits v Thornton.

[ReaderY]

US Term Limits was about Congress. The People elect the members of Congress. But under Article II, Presidential electors are appointed by the States, in the manner directed by state legislatures. Under Article II, the people have nothing to do with it unless state legislatures want them involved.

How can presidents appoint judges or indeed any national officer under US term limits? Judges and cabinet officers are national officers. judges represent the people just as Presidents do. Under US Term Limits, how can the President interfere with the People’s exclusive right to select national officers any more than state legislatures can? What the president thinks is a good qualification ought to have no more to do with deciding who Supreme Court justices shoudl be than what states think is a good qualification does with Presidents. The President’s appointment power here ought to be the same as state legislatures. It means a purely ceremonial power to appoint the individual the People choose, not an actual power to interfere with their choice or impose the President’s own views.

[MaddogEngineer]

No, it was about states attempting to place restrictions/qualifications on federal candidates, beyond what the Constitution authorized. Congress can't do that either, which is why Section 3 was included.

[ReaderY]

But there is no requirement that a candidate for federal office recieve the approval of a state’s citizens in order to be qualified to receive the votes of the state’s electors. Pledging electors to vote for only the candidate receiving popular approval is a state-imposed restriction on a federal election. It’s a completely extra-constitutional qualification. There’s no such requiremnent in the constitution. And that’s precisely what Chiafolo said states could do.

If the legislature had appointed and pledged the electors itself, the state would be restricting the permissable candidates to just one. But popular ballots also result in restricting the field of permissable candidates to just one. What makes a popular vote any different? It’s still state action. It’s still the state imposing restrictions on the field of permissable candidates.

Why should a state restriction on permissable candidates that its electors can consider be treated differently whether it’s imposed by popular ballot proposition or by the legislature itself? Why should it matter to the Federal government whether it’s the state’s citizen-voters or its legislature who impose the restriction on who its electors are permitted to vote for in the federal election for President that takes place in December?

[MaddogEngineer]

States cannot restrict elector power to vote for a candidate beyond what the Constitution allows for presidential qualification:

1. Age
2. Natural born citizen
3. Two term limit
4. Disqualification for insurrection, according to congressionally authorized definition/procedure

(So yes, fun fact, a felon convicted of something other than insurrection remains eligible if he meets those first 3 criteria. States could not prohibit their electors from voting for a felon. Chaos according to you. The law may be an arse, but it is the law.)

[MaddogEngineer]

The one thing states can do is require electors to vote for the candidate they are pledged to, especially (but probably not exclusively) when it is the candidate's name that appears on the ballot. Faithless electors.

If a state ever just listed the presidential electors without a pledge affiliation (like voting for multiple county commissioners or something), I suppose those electors would be free to vote for whomever they wished, like the Founders originally envisioned.

[David Nieporent]

Also, note that not every state has laws against faithless electors.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Nimarata is not a Natural Born Citizen…and neither are Kamala and Rubio. The notion place of birth was important was a red herring as JQA’s son was born in Prussia in 1800 and so the Framers obviously saw that scenario happening. So we saw with Elian Gonzalez that no American had any legal rights to Elian and so we had no jurisdiction to keep him in America. So if Nimarata’s parents wanted to take her back to India in 1974 then no American could do anything about it.

[Paladin_44]

Eugene V Debs ran as a Socialist candidate for President of the United States five times: 1900 (earning 0.6 percent of the popular vote), 1904 (3.0 percent), 1908 (2.8 percent), 1912 (6.0 percent), and 1920 (3.4 percent), the last time from a prison cell.

[ReaderY]

Chiafolo said that states have the power to restrict electors to vote for a single candidate if they want.

After all, unlike electors for members of Congress, who ARE the people, presidential electors are appointed by the states, not the people, and are appointed in the manner the state legislature directs. The people get a say in the affair only if and to the extent the state’s legislature wishes.

[Krayt]

So you are saying states can just ignore some candidates in favor of others? That increases the SC's concern about a state-by-state patchwork of chaos.

It makes the situation worse, severing it from this 14th Amendment issue and turning it into a general option for states.

[Krayt]

Also, 15 years down the road, you, “We didn’t mean for Republicans to start deleting Democrat candidates!”

[Krayt]

Also, we hate the electoral college, until we love it! (And, 15 years later, hate it again.)

[Davy C]

Can states just ignore some candidates in favor of others? Yes. It's probably a bad idea, but nothing in the Constitution says they can't. The state legislature could, in fact, skip having the President on the general ballot and just appoint EC members. (I believe one newly-formed state did so in the election of 1876.)

[David Nieporent]

The Constitution imposes no requirement that a candidate win a popular vote in order to be qualified to receive the votes of the State’s Electors.

As I kept trying to explain to you, the fact that states can directly appoint electors using any criteria they want that isn't expressly forbidden by the constitution (they can) does not mean that if states choose to hold popular elections to select electors that they can do whatever they want. "Winning the popular vote" is inherent in holding an election.

They already rejected (over Thomas's dissent, to be sure) your position in U.S. Term Limits.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

The Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. Anderson essentially deletes the Elector Clause from the Constitution.

Every time I think you’ve already said the dumbest thing you’ll ever say you one-up yourself and prove me wrong.

[Darth Buckeye]

I am imagining an orc yelling, “LOOKS LIKE TRUMP’S BACK ON THE BALLOT, BOYS!”

https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/97c1871d291f1fb13c293fbcd86da47ee970780fff3cf81b3e6624a703ef56f0.jpg

[Bored Lawyer]

LOL. That was a good one.

[Commenter_XY]

That was inspired.

[AtR]

The Supreme Court today, in a rare moment of sanity ...

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/03/04/us/trump-supreme-court-colorado-ballot

[ThePublius]

I wonder if Colorado, Maine, and Illinois will observe this.

[AtR]

I don't know ... but I would like to note that it is serious statement about the legal profession that such a fundamental point of law could produce a unanimous position in the supreme court and yet completely contradictory positions in the state court.

If experts in law cannot easily discern the law, how are simple citizens expected to follow it?

[Jerry B.]

You’re assuming that the Colorado ruling was based on law.

[DaveM]

Touche. But in all fairness it was at least "arguably" based on law. It wasn't like there was absolutely no reason. Heaven knows we've spilled enough digital ink on the topic here at the VC.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Unless you can demonstrate that it was not, there is no other assumption worth making.

[Brett Bellmore]

How about the fact that you could count the courts that agreed with them on the fingers of a careless woodshop teacher?

[Jason Cavanaugh]

How many courts were involved in this interpretation of Colorado State law?

Could you please, just once, not be a goddamn moron? Arguing that 'popularity' somehow determines whether a decision was based on the law is beyond stupid, even for you.

[Bored Lawyer]

They will be forced to if they don't comply.

[ThePublius]

That could be interesting. Biden hasn't been forced to comply with the SCOTUS decision on student loan forgiveness.

And, what's to stop state election officials from just 'forgetting' to put Trump on the ballots, or disqualifying him for some other B.S. technical reason?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Bellows will be impeached if she (ME) doesn't -- people are already pissed at her.

[tylertusta]

From today's decision:

But the text of the Fourteenth Amendment, on its face, does not affirmatively delegate such a power to the States. The terms of the Amendment speak only to enforcement by Congress, which enjoys power to enforce the Amendment through legislation pursuant to Section 5.

I suppose that SCOTUS ruled that Congress meant what it said when it wrote Section 5 after all.

Mostly. The Court said that the states can do whatever they want to state candidates since it's their own officials.

[NOVA Lawyer]

I suppose that SCOTUS ruled that Congress meant what it said when it wrote Section 5 after all.

You suppose wrong. The Court specifically noted that Section 5 does not mean Congress has the exclusive power to enforce the 14th with remedial legislation, but, without any reliance on the text of the 14th, says that only Congress may enforce Section 3 with respect to federal officeholders or candidates. That's basically a repudiation of the notion that Section 5 "means what it says" if you interpret it as saying only Congress may act to enforce the 14th.

In other words, they absolutely had to go outside the text to adopt a rule that Section 3 is only enforceable by Congress as to federal officeholders/candidates. They did not adopt the textual arguments posted in these comments by you and many others suggesting that the matter is decided solely by the language of Section 5. In fact, they rejected that argument by explicitly endorsing the fact that Section 5 doesn't operate the way you posit with respect to the remainder of the 14th or with respect to Section 3 as to state officeholders.

[tylertusta]

So, I'm half right? I'll take it.

I do think that the Court should have gone the distance and said that states can't use the 14th Amendment against state candidates as well, but I understand the federalism interests the Court had.

But rest assured, I will be bringing out that quote from today's decision on a semi-regular basis.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Saying 3 + 1 equals 2 is not half right.

[tylertusta]

Yet the Court did not adopt the idea that Section 5 conferred any power- explicit nor implied- to the states to enforce Section 5 without Congressional legislation. The Court was hostile to the idea that states could do it without legislation, and flat out denied it for the case of federal officers.

If the only issue here is that the Court didn't go all of the way, then I'm more right than not.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Yet the Court did not adopt the idea that Section 5 conferred any power- explicit nor implied- to the states to enforce Section 5 without Congressional legislation

I think you mean Section 3, there.

But no one argued that Section 5 conferred power on the states. People only argued that it didn't prohibit enforcement of Section 3 by the states. And the Court ruled it didn't. The Court also reemphasized that Section 5 doesn't prohibit states or individuals from obtaining relief under the other sections even absent remedial legislation passed by Congress. Which means, with no textual hook, the carved out a special interpretation of Section 5 vis a vis only one part of Section 3. In other words, the opinion basically acknowledges that Section 5 doesn't say what you and Kazinski and others say it necessarily meant, but they found other reasons to interpret that way in very limited circumstances.

In other words, they actually ruled that, for purposes of Section 3 as applied to federal officeholders/candidates, Section 5 doesn't mean what it says, it means something more than what it says.

(For the rest of the 14th Amendment, they agreed that it means what it says and only what it says.)

[Greg J]

From the leftists:
SOTOMAYOR, KAGAN, and JACKSON, JJ., concurring in judgment

The contrary conclusion that a handful of officials in a
few States could decide the Nation’s next President would
be especially surprising with respect to Section 3. The Re-
construction Amendments “were specifically designed as an
expansion of federal power and an intrusion on state sover-
eignty.” City of Rome v. United States, 446 U. S. 156, 179
(1980). Section 3 marked the first time the Constitution
placed substantive limits on a State’s authority to choose
its own officials. Given that context, it would defy logic for
Section 3 to give States new powers to determine who may
hold the Presidency.

[tylertusta]

I saw some commentary a couple weeks ago about how we shouldn't have been surprised by this take by the left wing Justices.

They all built their careers off of the 14th Amendment limiting state power. Why would they suddenly endorse an expansion of state power under the 14th Amendment when that expansion can obviously be abused to the detriment of the People?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The liberal justices take their cues from the 14th Amendment.

The conservative justices get their cues from Leonard Leo, Donald Trump, Harlan Crow, and a few other well-heeled culture war casualties.

That point should survive enlargement of the Court.

[Commenter_XY]

Arthur, are you still bandying that SCOTUS enlargement theory? The theory from March 2021 where you confidently predicted a 13-member SCOTUS? Do you remember that, Arthur?

If not, Sandra (formerly OBL) will be along to remind you.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

It will be interesting to see which lasts longer -- a conservative majority on the Supreme Court, or Israel.

Carry on, clingers . . . so far as your betters permit. Not a step beyond. Whine and moan as you wish, but you will continue to toe the line established by better Americans.

[Greg J]

SOTOMAYOR, KAGAN, JACKSON, JJ., concurring in the judgment

Yet the majority goes further.
Even though “[a]ll nine Members of the Court” agree that this independent and sufficient rationale resolves this case, five Justices go on. They decide novel constitutional questions to insulate this Court and petitioner from future controversy.

Sotomayor's assessment is correct. Her whining is not.

Yes, 5 members of SCOTUS, led by CJ Roberts, just announced
"No more lawfare. If you want to beat Trump, you're going to have to do it at the ballot box"

Which means, for example, that "Presidential immunity" issue is NOT going to get resolved before the election.

SCOTUS is going to punt back to the District Court, with guidelines to follow. Then Trump will appeal the DC result to the DC Circuit. Then he will appeal it to SCOTUS. SCOTUS will accept teh appeal, set a non-rushed calendar, and not issue any sort of ruling before the election.

You scum bag losers chose to try to bring the trial during an election year. SCOTUS is not going to let you play that game.

[Bored Lawyer]

The real irony here is that Trump is really an awful candidate. It's just that Biden is even more awful. Which is why the Dems are panicking -- they can't get rid of the albatross around their neck.

[Nige]

You persuaded yourselves of this exact same thing in 2019.

[Josh R]

As the polls indicate, Biden has work to do to catch up (he was always ahead in 2020).

[DJK]

Biden was leading by, what, 6 points in 2020 national popular vote polling? He won by something like 50,000 votes total in 3 swing states. Trump now leads by 2-3 points in similar polling. He leads handily in 5 of the 7 swing states. The situation is nothing like 2019. Barring conviction or the public mood shifting, Trump is the 2024 favorite.

[DJK]

And don't forget that a lot has changed since 2020. Covid is over. Biden has had numerous foreign policy crises. Most of the electorate believes there is a crisis at the border. Inflation has hit the middle and lower classes hard. Four years have passed since the bad things that happened under Trump happened. All of these things help Trump.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

What helps Trump is the bigotry, ignorance, resentment, disaffectedness, and superstition among the lesser third or so of the American population.

I believe there are not enough half-educated racists, superstitious gay-bashers, and economically inadequate right-wing losers left in America to position Trump for another try at a three-cushion bank shot at the Electoral College.

This election should be illuminative.

Carry on, clingers . . . but only so far as your betters permit, especially in the medium to long term.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

What’s strange is that things were clearly worse in 2020 than in 2016 and yet Trump supporters still voted for him in record numbers…but now they want everyone to go with that standard?? Such a head scratcher.

[Davy C]

Things were better in 2019 than 2016, and 2020 was going to be bad no matter who was in office.

[Nige]

Even Biden's supposed lead was somehow a disadvantage to him. Everything was a disadvantage to Biden and an advantage to Trump. We've been here before.

[Michael P]

The internal poll results for Trump v. Newsom and Trump v. Harris must be ugly for them to stick so hard with Biden.

[Nige]

You lot must have real serious doubts about Trump, you want Biden replaced so bad.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Don't ascribe reason to bigoted, ignorant, superstition-addled, half-educated write-offs. You can't reason with these losers. You just continue to kick their worthless, deplorable asses in the culture war.

[SRG2]

When anyone bitches about "lawfare" wrt Trump, dollars to doughnuts they have no issue with the ongoing House attempt to impeach Biden.

[Bob from Ohio]

Impeachment is not law, its politics.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Do you denounce Gingrich’s machinations in the 1990s??

[#FFFFFFPride]

Check out this headline from ZH.

Hunter Biden Held Previously Undisclosed Meeting With The "F**king Spy Chief Of China"

Okay Lefties, don't respond. Wait until the IC or State crafts a suitable message and then tells you how to think about this new, shocking, development.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Neal Bush has been on China’s payroll for 25 years!?! And you still voted for the Jesus Lover.

[Bwaaah]

Here’s an example of Kazinski’s pre-decision analysis of Trump v. Anderson. Did Kazinski get it right?

(I'm gonna duck out of the way here.)

[Commenter_XY]

I think Kaz got it mostly right. Law School awaits him.

[Bwaaah]

Even if he did get it right, that's no reason to condemn him to law school.

[Dr. Ed 2]

+ 10000

[ThePublius]

I think he got it right.

[Josh R]

Read my comment and his response. He initially argued Congressional legislation was necessary for the states to enforce 14.3 against state and local candidates.

[Kazinski]

Well I did say something a little like that, but I think I left some wiggle room:
"That is not to say that the states cannot legislate supporting legislation, or state officials cannot issue regulations or make decisions conforming to the legislation Congress passes. However no other authority may contradict, narrow, or replace the enactments of Congress".

But state actions against state officials was hardly my focus, or anyone else's focus for that matter.

One thing you have to remember is Section 3, and the Enforcement Act of 1870 were written because Congress didn't trust the states and wanted to assert Federal control in de-confederation of the south. Certainly not to leave the matter and enforcement up to the states.

[NOVA Lawyer]

You were wrong about the states. You needed more wiggle room than you left regarding the states.

And on the federal offices question, your analysis was that the text of Section 5 dictated the result which the Court rejected. They explicitly noted that the text was insufficient to get to the result they decided was appropriate (and pretty much everyone predicted, so no points for predicting the result). Rather, they noted that, despite the text of Section 5 remains the same regardless of whether it is in reference to other parts of the 14th or Section 3 with respect to state officeholders or Section 3 with respect to federal officeholders/candidates, the structure and purpose of the Constitution and Section 3 required a different interpretation of Section 5 for Section 3 vis a vis federal officeholders/candidates than for any other part of Section 3.

It is not a textualist opinion. Your analysis was entirely textualist. You got the result right, but nearly everyone did, and your reasoning was not adopted by and, in fact, was essentially rejected by the Supreme Court. It's not the text of Section 5 that dictates the result, it's primarily the fact that chaos would ensue if each state could make it's own determination regarding the qualifications for a candidate for federal office, especially the office of the president.

[Kazinski]

"You got the result right, but nearly everyone did."

Revisionist history. Who's nearly everyone? I just remember lots of pushback telling me how wrong I was. I don't remember you saying how obvious my position was.

Sarcastro is still arguing that section 5 wasn't a core part of the controlling opinion up thread.

And let me say this again:
"But state actions against state officials was hardly my focus, or anyone else’s focus for that matter."

[NOVA Lawyer]

I don’t remember you saying how obvious my position was.

That's because your textualist position wasn't right and wasn't adopted by the Court.

You are conflating the right result with being right. But the result was a 50-50 proposition (if we knew nothing, but we all knew the composition of the Court, at minimum). Most people predicted the Supreme Court would rule against Colorado.

(1) If you were right, the other parts of the 14th Amendment wouldn't be considered self-executing. But they are, which the Court acknowledged in this opinion (without using the word self-executing).

(2) If you were right, the states couldn't enforce Section 3 as to state officeholders/candidates either, but the Court explicitly held that they could.

In short, your reasoning got you to the right answer, but it's not the reasoning the Court adopted.

I was pretty sure the Court would rule for Colorado, but had no idea the legal reasoning other than, I was confident it wouldn't be the textualist position you advocated because of (1) and (2) above. Again, I admire your analysis, especially the effort you put into it as a non-lawyer, but I still disagree with it and the Court did too.

You made a textualist argument. The 5 Justice majority adopted a largely consequentialist argument draped in some Constitutional structure curtains. Less metaphorically, the Court recognized that the text of Section 5 alone can't both require Congressional action for part of Section 3, but not all of it, and also require Congressional action for part of Section 3, but not the rest of the 14th Amendment. You basically argued that Section 5, by its very words, required Congressional action to enforce any part of the 14th Amendment.

As I recall. At least, that was my objection (in addition to permission language is not the same as giving exclusive power) and I don't recall you ever explaining why it only dictated that Congress must be involved with respect to Section 3 as applied to candidates for federal office and not the rest of the 14th, including candidates for state office.

[Joe_dallas]

The Houthis have carried out more than 60 attacks in the Red Sea region, upending the shipping industry’s ability to travel through one of the world’s busiest commercial waterways, which connects Asia to Europe and beyond through Egypt’s Suez Canal
Houthis being funded by Iran

Tell us again why the Biden administration (along with the prior Obama administration) was coddling Iran, along with assisting in the funding of Iran via the releasing funds, a major sponsor of terrorism through out the world.

[#FFFFFFPride]

Because they hate America and freedom and want to foment a neo-Marxist revolution.

[#FFFFFFPride]

Ok, mea culpa time.

I finally found a law that I am 100% certain Trump has violated. Not once, but several times.

49 CFR § 232.103

[Bwaaah]

LOL.

[Bored Lawyer]

Looked it up. Not sure what that has to do with Trump.
Better is the rule against ripping tags off mattresses. Trump likely conspired to violate that one.

[#FFFFFFPride]

Ain't no brakes on the Trump Train, playa.

CHOO-CHOO!

[Michael P]

"Which specific clause(s) of that regulation do you believe Donald Trump has violated, and what is the factual evidentiary basis for your belief? Show your work!"

[#FFFFFFPride]

now that's a great not_guilty impression.

[Jonathan Affleck]

Some Israeli colonial settlers have woken up to the depravity of the baby killer nation. I saw the following comment on a social medium platform. (The social medium platform will probably remove the comment after a hate-speech determination.)

הסדיזם של הרייך הציוני הוא מה שמבדיל אותו מהרייך השלישי.

The sadism of the Zionist Reich is what distinguishes it from the Third Reich.

A Hebrew author responded, "I am against the comparison between the Zionist Reich and the 3rd one as it ain’t fair on the Nazis or the Germans."

The sadistic nature of the mass murder genocide of the Gaza Holocaust is its most prominent identifying feature and differs the Nazi Holocaust against Jews.

The online videos of the baby killer nation show beyond a shadow of a doubt the sadism of the baby killer nation. The colonial settlers of the baby killer nation enjoy torturing, humiliating, and murdering Palestinians. Sadism is the defining feature of a sociopathic society of the baby killer nation.

Some Nazis were sadistic, but the allegation of pervasive Nazi sadism comes from Hollywood and not from historical analysis. Most people of Nazi society had not been indoctrinated long enough.

The Nazi genocide came from the leadership. In the case of the baby killer nation, the colonial settlers have been indoctrinated for 3 generations with the depravity and sadism of Zionism. The mass murder genocide and sadism of the baby killer nation is now intrinsic to the baby killer nation, which must be abolished as a cannibal nation would have to be abolished..

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Meh, Trump’s first military order was for SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a little American girl and 9 of her little friends…apparently she called him a “poop head” and so she had it coming. Bush and Obama took out entire wedding parties fairly regularly…shit happens.

[Jonathan Affleck]

Does Sam Bankman-Fried believe that his comment is relevant to a discussion by Israeli colonial settlers of the murderous sadistic genocidal racism that permeates the society of the colonial settlers of the baby killer nation?

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Poop emoji

[ReaderY]

These are if course the same baby-killer Jews who perpetrated Kristalnacht during their illegal occupation of Germany, which your esteemed colleagues also held them solely responsible for.

[Jonathan Affleck]

ReaderY is racial supremacist and ethically challenged. He believes that descendants of Rabbinic Jewish communities should have a permanent license to commit genocide with impunity.

A group, which has been subjected to genocide at the hands of a first set of genocide perpetrators (e.g., Nazis), can later themselves form a second set of genocide perpetrators (e.g., Zionists) just as evil as the first set of genocide perpetrators.

The Zionist logic of mass murder genocide against Palestinians of Gaza is the same logic that Nazis used to justify mass murder genocide against Jews.

The Nazis always told us they were fighting Jewish Bolshevism. The Holocaust started after Operation Barbarossa (invasion of the Soviet Union) began.

To the Nazis, all the civilian deaths were collateral damage of the war against Jewish Bolshevik terrorism, and every Jew including a baby was a Judeo-Bolshevik terrorist. The judges of the Nuremberg Tribunals (metaphorically) laughed at this nonsense. The propaganda of Zionists and of supporters of the State of Israel is equally if not more ridiculous and just as evil.

[Commenter_XY]

POTUS Trump has elected to appeal the Engoron NYC case. However, in order to appeal, he must post a bond guaranteeing payment of 450MM+ dollars.

What happens if he cannot find a guarantor? Then what?

Does NYC then have the right to seize POTUS Trump's properties and liquidate them?
And if so, has this ever been done before on this scale?

[tylertusta]

Maybe Trump declares bankruptcy to prevent her from seizing the properties right away?

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

I see a new Scooby Doo episode where Ivana’s ghost haunts the property and forces them to leave…but it was Eric the entire time!!! 😉

[not guilty]

"Maybe Trump declares bankruptcy to prevent her from seizing the properties right away?"

Bankruptcy is not my field. Trump might be able to buy some time that way, but there is the maxim about being careful what you ask for. I doubt that Trump wants a bankruptcy trustee to distribute his assets to creditors, including the State of New York.

I don't know, but I wonder whether the Attorney General could force Trump into an involuntary bankruptcy if the state court judgment is not stayed.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Would Trump's court-ordered debt to the woman he sexually assaulted and defamed by dischargeable? It has been decades since I took a bankruptcy class but my hunch is that the claim of a creditor deriving from sexual assault and defamation would survive a bankruptcy proceeding.

He seems to be reduced to (1) special pleading (a longshot), (2) securing a bond (also probably a longshot) or (3) posting cash and collateral he probably doesn't have. And he's fucked around long enough, with respect to the assault-defamation case in particular, that his time in the barrel likely has already begun.

Couldn't happen to a bigger piece of shit. Maybe the tension will give him a stroke or heart attack. Or maybe one of his wealthy, character-deprived supporters will bail him out in exchange for prospective favor.

[Paladin_44]

“…Or maybe one of his wealthy, character-deprived supporters will bail him out in exchange for prospective favor…”
I think this is more likely his immediate solution. But consider the likely potential favors that could be asked of one ensconsed in the WH? The possibilities are limitless and frightening. JMHO – I could be wrong…

[not guilty]

Donald Trump can appeal the judgment without posting a bond. If he does so, however, there will be no stay of execution on the judgment, and the Attorney General can levy on his assets while the appeal is in progress.

[bernard11]

I very much doubt Trump will declare bankruptcy.

First, can you do that if your assets exceed your liabilities? Even with the judgment would that be the case for Trump?

Second, does he really want to expose his financial situation in a filing, especially if his liabilities exceed his assets, (probably they don't.) ?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

It might expose plenty if his judgment creditors start grabbing his assets. Any reason to believe they would or should refrain from commencing collection efforts on the first day that would be lawful?

I hope they go after the assets that would be most painful, damaging, personally disruptive, and humiliating. Maybe his hair care products, bronzer stash, Mar-a-Lago, and those personal photographs of Ivanka.

[Noscitur a sociis]

POTUS Trump has elected to appeal the Engoron NYC case. However, in order to appeal, he must post a bond guaranteeing payment of 450MM+ dollars.

Incorrect.

[Commenter_XY]

What must POTUS Trump do to appeal the verdict?
POTUS Trump doesn't have to post a bond guaranteeing the payment of 450MM+ to appeal?

[Noscitur a sociis]

What must POTUS Trump do to appeal the verdict?

File a notice of appeal, which he’s already done, and pay the rather modest filing fees, which I assume he’s also already done.

POTUS Trump doesn’t have to post a bond guaranteeing the payment of 450MM+ to appeal?

Correct.

Ps. You know that Trump is not, in fact, the president at the moment, right?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Un-American, deluded right-wing misfits still consider Trump their president. They also believe in fairy tales, white supremacy, and the second coming of the ‘50s.

[Moderation4ever]

While Trump will fight the payment but he he will post the bond. He will get a bond because he has properties that are clean and can be used for collateral. This is just a show. James knows this and will not back down.

[bernard11]

Normally, I'd agree.

But we are dealing with a dishonest client who has a strong dislike of paying, justified or not. Seizing those properties, if it comes to that, is going to be no fun.

Maybe they will do it for a spectacular bond.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

His apparent lack of creditworthiness and vivid lack of trustworthiness are compounded by the risk that, as president, he would be protected by law (and a compliant Supreme Court) against collection efforts by the surety.

Maybe the Saudis or Russians would conclude it's a worthwhile gamble, though.

[John F. Carr]

Jack Teixeira, the young Air National Guard soldier who spread classified documents online to impress his peer group, has pleaded guilty to six counts of retaining and/or transmitting national defense information. This is the same charge that Donald Trump faces, 18 USC 793(e). Teixeira's conduct is worse because there was an actual leak of classified information. The statute and guidelines do not distinguish between having a memo about the Mexican-American war locked in a safe and posting information about current military and intelligence capabilities online.

The plea deal calls for a sentence between 132 and 200 months. If the judge does not accept the sentencing range the deal is off. By the government's calculation, if the defendant had been convicted after trial the guidelines minimum would be 262 months.

The defendant agrees not to make any money from publicity related to his crime or his service with the Air National Guard.

The government is considering whether soldiers in similar roles should be able to browse through classified information without first demonstrating need to know.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

So Tucker Carlson destroyed DeSantis’ candidacy and this guy’s life….too funny! TC viewers believe wars started in January 2021 because Americans voted for Biden! If we just say things in a funny manner and laugh then Trump voters will think the Deep State is out to get them!! I will post on Substack and X and make a lot of money!! Oh, and don’t get vaccinated! Take Ivermectin!! Covid is a hoax created in a Wuhan lab!

[ducksalad]

Take it every night according to the instructions, even if you think you don't need it.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Meatball Ron!! lol.

[ducksalad]

I'm not up on how much damage was actually done, but for someone who wasn't spying for a foreign government or selling secrets, even the reduced sentence seems awfully severe.

Hope they're not harshing on this guy just to send some message about Trump.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Love it, are you also a Yoko Ono fan now?? Give peace a chance, right?? How dumb do you feel voting for Bush/Cheney in 2004?? Hopefully none of your buddies got their legs blown off while slaughtering innocent Muslims in Iraq.

[John F. Carr]

It's what the guidelines say. Least severe crime is losing classified documents through gross negligence. Next up is keeping them in a safe without authorization, or in your bathroom, or in an internet forum. Most severe is espionage, revealing classified information to a foreign power with reason to believe American interests will be harmed.

If I wrote the law or guidelines I would make Trump's offenses less serious than they currently are because hoarding is not as bad as publishing.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

What sentence should Hillary get??

[ducksalad]

The buttery mails? I could see a case for letting it go, but then I could see a case for letting Trump go too.

If it were up to me, first offense, just a felony conviction with the attendant disabilities, a few years unsupervised probation, and then a pardon if she'd been keeping her head down and pretended to be apologetic. About what I’d wish on Trump.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Fortuitously the cankle bracelet the FBI spent $1 billion developing to put on Hillary also happens to fit Trump!!!

[John F. Carr]

She is accused of improper storage of classified materials, which is the lowest degree of crime in my fictitious Espionage Act. If her negligence caused them to be leaked, up a level. If she intentionally revealed them to an unauthorized person, one more level.

[ducksalad]

Sure, but the guidelines are too harsh, and the result of the usual disease of passing general laws motivated by individual outrage cases. (Ought to be a ban on bills named after crime victims...)

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

You don’t support Nora’s Law?? That says a president shouldn’t order SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a little American girl and 9 of her little friends?? Trump was discussing that today and he mentioned it as a reason presidents should get full immunity for anything done as president.

[#FFFFFFPride]

Well he could always play the senile ol' Grandpa and the DOJ will just say that the jurors would like him too much to bother bringing charges.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Morally bankrupt, antisocial, right-wing gun nuts like Teixeira are an important reason America hasn't won a war in 75 years. We need to find a way to attract a better class of person to military service.

[grb]

Before the quote, one personal observation : It seems like all the most rabid looney-tunes Rightists are campaigning nonstop that Biden must be replaced on the Democratic ticket. Now, maybe they’re doing that out of bipartisan goodwill, to assure an even and close contest between the parties. But maybe not, ya know? I’m reminded of the fact Trump was scared shitless of Biden in ’20, which is why he had Giuliani and his two hood goons, Parnas & Fruman, hopelessly scouring Ukraine for Joe Biden dirt almost two years before the election.

Now, a cheerful quote from Kevin Drum:

“I remain unmoved by the liberal panic over Joe Biden’s weak poll numbers. However, I keep getting asked why, so here it is:

1. Right now the race is basically a tossup. But it’s still very early. The vast majority of swing voters aren’t paying attention yet—and won’t until after the conventions.

2. As voter attention shifts to the campaign it will hurt Trump. Historically, the more people hear from Trump, the less they like him.

3. Trump has a lower ceiling than Biden. There are just too many people who flatly won’t vote for him. Biden has more upside. Many of the people who say they won’t vote for Biden will come around later in the year. As always, the prospect of a Republican winning—especially Trump—will overcome their early doubts.

4. Biden hasn’t even begun to campaign yet. He has a lot of money, and when the ads start running they’ll hurt Trump a lot.

5. Biden has an obvious problem with his physical condition, which reads as old. But his mental condition is fine. Trump, by contrast, shows signs of serious mental deterioration. This hasn’t gotten a lot of attention yet, but it will.

6. Trump has a big potential downside from all his trials. His MAGA fans might not care, but centrist voters do, and it could spell big problems if prosecutors are getting headlines for Trump’s misdeeds when October rolls around.

So that’s that. But I have two big worries. The first is that the economy might go south, though that’s looking less and less likely all the time. The second is that although the race is a tossup nationally, it really does seem like Biden is weak in the battleground states that matter. I’m not sure how that will play out.”

https://jabberwocking.com/heres-why-im-still-bullish-on-biden/

Sounds like an insightful analysis to me!

[Bored Lawyer]

Biden has an obvious problem with his physical condition, which reads as old. But his mental condition is fine.

Anyone who can write that has lost all credibility in my eyes. (Trump is also starting to lose it mentally, IMO.)

[ducksalad]

I guess if you define "fine" as relative to the average for 81 year old males, and being on the wrong side of the bell curve but still on the slope rather than out in the tails, then yeah he's fine.

Lots of 81 year old guys are in Biden's condition, many still live independently and maybe even drive. They hang out with friends, do leisure activities, and still recognize family members. Of course those that worked were asked/pressured/forced them to retire well before they got this bad. Those that own a business have had their decision making gently and kindly overridden or ignored by younger subordinates. In other words, they're no longer in responsible charge of anything outside the purely personal.

But they're fine for being retired and semi-independent.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

LOL! From the same Mother Jones dipshit who made this "insightful" observation about Clinton v Trump:

https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/08/hillary-clinton-absolutely-kicking-donald-trumps-ass/

[Armchair]

" It seems like all the most rabid looney-tunes Rightists are campaigning nonstop that Biden must be replaced on the Democratic ticket"

Campaigning? No. Rather it is "expected" or "anticipated" that Democrats will replace Biden. Like it's expected that a starting pitcher will be replaced in the 7th inning. But if Democrats stay with Biden, well...it's rather like an average or so pitcher who should've been replaced in the 6th inning. Results won't be pretty for the Dems.

1. Right now the race is basically a tossup.
-Ehh... Not according to the polls. It may be close, but it's pretty consistent in favor of Trump.

2. As voter attention shifts to the campaign it will hurt Trump.
-In a typical year, with a lesser-known candidate perhaps. But Trump is anything but unknown.

3. "Trump has a lower ceiling than Biden. "
-You only need 50% + 1. Having a ceiling at 60% or whatever, isn't actually a big problem.

4. "Biden hasn’t even begun to campaign yet"
-No...he hasn't. Will he? Can he effectively do it in person?

5. "Biden has an obvious problem with his physical condition, which reads as old. But his mental condition is fine."

-Tell you what. Let's put Biden and Trump on a stage without a teleprompter, and shoot simple questions at them. "How old are you? What's your son's name? What state are you in? How much is a gallon of milk? (no, Trump might get that wrong). How much is a McDonalds Hamburger? (That's a better question for Trump)."

That will tell me a lot more about their mental state than any assumptions by a person online.

"6. Trump has a big potential downside from all his trials"
If it hasn't hit now with the polls, it's not going to.

[NOVA Lawyer]

You only need 50% + 1.

Actually, you don't even need that. You just need more than the other guy.

Having a ceiling at 60% or whatever, isn’t actually a big problem.

That would be fine analysis if Trump's ceiling were anywhere near 60%. It's actually closer to 47-48%, at best. Likely lower now. A ceiling under 50% is problematic, if not necessarily fatal given he's won with 46% of the vote.

[Armchair]

Since Trump is already polling above 50% in several polls, it's pretty clear his "ceiling" is above 50%.

https://harrisx.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/HarrisX-Overnight-Poll-Permanent-Political-VP-Mental-Acuity-Bidenomics-2.29.2024.pdf

[NOVA Lawyer]

That's a charitable interpretation of polling results before the primaries are even over.

And you'll notice the only polls that have Trump over 50% have results that add to 100% which means they pushed everyone to pick one or the other and/or excluded results that didn't involve Trump or Biden.

But if you want to bet whether Trump gets over 50% of the vote, I will happily take that.

[Armchair]

Sigh... You mentioned a "ceiling." You don't grasp what that actually means.

[NOVA Lawyer]

You don't, apparently.

I assert his ceiling is below 50%. Thus, I am quite comfortable betting he doesn't get over 50%. Are you confused by that?

[Nige]

‘Rather it is “expected” or “anticipated” that Democrats will replace Biden.’

It’s an entirely manufactured expectation, but sure.

'Will he? Can he effectively do it in person?'

Don't see why not. He's managing a packed daily schedule quite easily. Doesn't even take extended golfing vacations.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Tell you what. Let’s put Biden and Trump on a stage without a teleprompter, and shoot simple questions at them.

Let's start by asking Biden (a fit guy and biker) and Trump (a flabby, undisciplined guy who avoid walking) to walk 100 yards to that stage. I have heard, informally, that the Biden campaign possesses some footage of Trump (involving stairs, golf carts (not on golf courses), and loud refusals to walk even moderate distances with other people in public settings) that are going to star in some handy campaign ads.

[ducksalad]

So, Trump and Biden both running ads mostly about how the decrepit and senile the other guy is.

It would be an important milestone for our democracy: the first campaign where the ads on both sides are honest and factual.

[Armchair]

Some of our greatest Presidents couldn't walk. Luckily, that's not a critical skill for a president.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Ooh, burn!

Arthur is of superior intelligence, yet even he made such an obvious blunder. What's the hope for the human race if even he, who is at the very pinnacle of human intellect, can act this stupid?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Trump and his fans claim Biden -- a fit, trim cyclist -- is decrepit, making it reasonable to observe that Trump is fat, undisciplined, and sedentary, a guy who refused to walk with world leaders (he insisted on a golf cart as the others walked, as I recall) because he knew how old and feeble he would look. Biden rides a bicycle. Trump avoids walking like it was paying a bill on time and scales like they were his children.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

You managed to miss the point entirely. If even a genius like you misses such an obvious point, humanity as a whole is doomed.

[Bored Lawyer]

Yes, walking 100 yards is a great way to test someone's mental fitness.
But you get a bonus for originality. Beat your usual ad nauseum repetition.

[David Nieporent]

“6. Trump has a big potential downside from all his trials”

If it hasn’t hit now with the polls, it’s not going to.

I am always skeptical of polls that deal in hypotheticals; "how would you vote if such-and-such happened" is not really a question people can reliably answer. But with that caveat, polls do consistently suggest that a Trump conviction would cost him significant support. (By "significant," I mean enough to meaningfully impact his chances of winning; I don't mean that he's going to lose half his voters to Biden.)

[Commenter_XY]

Bob from Ohio has this right: Polls are trash, especially this far out.

No one really knows. At best, polling is directional. The major conclusion: the election is not a slam dunk for either candidate. Can anyone really say more than that with any certainty? No.

[ReaderY]

Suppose that, instead of calling its manner of appointing electors an “election,” a state used the label “state hybrid appointment method.” Under its state hybrid appointment method, the state’s legislature first either selects a slate of candidates or establishes candidate qualifications, at its option, by a certain date, and the state’s citizens then subsequently choose from candidates on the legislature-selected slate or who meet the legislature-determined qualifications, and only those candidates. Electors pledged to the final voter choice are then appointed. Both the legislature’s and the voters’ decisions occur on or before the date Congress sets for presidential elector appointment.

So long as a state is careful not to call this manner of appointing its electors an “election,” would there be any constitutional problem with this manner of appointment? After all, Trump v. Anderson only claims that states can’t impose their own qualifications on candidates selected by means of a “federal election.” It says nothing about electors pledged to candidates selected by a state’s own local hybrid appointment method. No federal election, no federal interest. Is it entirely a question of label, not function?

[Commenter_XY]

Under its state hybrid appointment method, the state’s legislature first either selects a slate of candidates or establishes candidate qualifications, at its option, by a certain date, and the state’s citizens then subsequently choose from candidates on the legislature-selected slate or who meet the legislature-determined qualifications, and only those candidates.

That sounds suspiciously like...an election. How do you get around that?

[ReaderY]

It’s not an election. It’s simply a manner of appointing electors. Appointments are not necessarily elections. Federal judges get appointed with out any official citizen input at all. Here the state has said that it will not use elections as its appointment method.

The difference seems pretty obvious. In a hybrid method, the legislature makes part of the decision. In an election, it doesn’t. It’s as simple as that.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

It’s not an election. It’s simply a manner of appointing electors.

That manner being a popular vote by the citizenry. You know...an election. The fact that the results of that vote are transmitted via a slate of electors doesn't make it any less an election.

[ReaderY]

Suppose there was a clause that said if the hybrid method gets struck down, the legislature does everything and picks the final candidate itself. This should make it clear that it’s not an election.

[ducksalad]

I’d say “selects a slate of candidates” is different from “establishes candidate qualifications”. The key is that disqualifying someone from receiving votes is different from merely declining to vote for them. Just don’t state explicitly that they are disqualifying anyone.

For example: anyone can file a request to be considered. A decent pile of applications arrives. The legislators look over the applications, talk and negotiate. Then each legislator votes for three names out of the pile, the top three vote getters move on to the “public referendum” phase. If the majority party wants to appear fair-minded, and plans accordingly, they could even let the “right” candidate from the minority party have the third slot for appearance’s sake.

[Bored Lawyer]

DC Circuit Court of Appeals came out with this opinion on Friday:
https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24452522/brock.pdf

One of the J6 appealed his conviction and sentence. Although the conviction was upheld, the sentence was reversed, because, the district court applied an enhancement for interfering with "the administration of justice." The Court held that Congress counting electoral votes does not qualify. So he will be resentenced.

Apparently many of the J6 defendants will benefit from this ruling.

[santamonica811]

Seems reasonable enough. (It seems a close call to me, so I would not have been terribly exercised if the appellate court had gone the other way.) Those scum deserve prison. But only for reasonable sentences, and I'm not a hypocrite . . . fair is fair; regardless of your political bent, or your (IMO) un-American goals. Having appellate courts look over the shoulders of trial courts is a good thing, full-stop.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Those scum...

OK, Emperor Palpatine.

[David Nieporent]

What I haven't seen is any analysis of how much this ruling is likely to impact the sentences.

[Estragon]

I can’t speak to that in any specific way, but I did just look at the Stuart rhodes sentencing memo… they were adding a three point enhancement for substantial interference in the due administration of justice, for a total of 33 points. Without digging further into the guidelines I can’t say if 30 v. 33 would move Mr Rhodes down to a lower “level” for sentencing purposes.

[Magister]

It might have no effect there; Rhodes was separately convicted of obstruction of justice for concealing evidence from the investigation, rather than just obstructing a legislative proceeding, and the sentencing memorandum says that counts for the enhancement. Prosecutors sought a longer sentence than he received, so maybe there would be no change anyway.

I assume that Brock, who was sentenced to 24 months with the enhancement, will receive a shorter sentence, since that appears to be above the maximum for the level without the enhancement.

[Estragon]

Kind of buried the lede there a little, huh?

Some good discussion about what constitutes “corruptly” for purposes of 1512. Not the ruling Mr. Brock and others were hoping for. Who knows— maybe the supremes will take it up pronto!

[Commenter_XY]

Those scum deserve prison. But only for reasonable sentences, and I’m not a hypocrite . . . fair is fair; regardless of your political bent, or your (IMO) un-American goals.

Suppose one agrees with your sentiments here. What is reasonable wrt sentencing in your judgment?

[santamonica811]

Just making it up, off the top of my head: “This court saw 2 enhancements–one for use of weapons, and one for interfering with the admin. of justice. Given the appellate court’s guidance, we’re now removing the second one entirely from consideration in sentencing; and this court will lower the sentence to the original sentencing-amount minus X months. The first enhancement is satisfied by Defendant’s use of a flagpole as a blunt spear and by Defendant throwing a 2-lb rock at a law enforcement officer and hitting that officer’s helmet with that rock.

“Defendant’s original sentence is now reduced by 5 months, to reflect the elimination of the above-mentioned 2nd enhancement factor.”

[ReaderY]

Suppose that a state had its legislature appoint the electors, but its voters passed a ballot proposition imposing limits on who the Electors could select . Say they passed a ballot proposition saying no insurrectionists. Suppose they passed a ballot proposition saying that the Electors must cast their ballots for Donald J. Trump in the 2024 Presidential election.

Would it make any difference? If the legislature appoints the electors, does the Federal Constitution then prohibit the state’s voters from interfering with it on grounds that “the state” cannot impose any additional restrictions or qualifications on candidates or interfere with the legislature’s complete freedom of choice?

I personally don’t see much difference between what’s done by the state through the state’s legislature and what’s done by the state through its voters, especially when the Constitution gives all decision making power entirely to the state and specifically assigns the state’s legislature plenary power to devise whatever decision-making process it sees fit.

It seems to me that when “the state” appoints the electors, as Article II clearly says it does, then all decision-making of any kind, however done, whether done by legislative statute or by popular ballot, is always done by “the state.” That’s why the idea that the state can’t interfere with its own decision strikes me as such utter nonsense. Under Article II, who else makes it? It would at least make sense to say the Electors get to decide however they want and can’t be interfered with. But Chiafolo ended that idea.

Fundamentally, when a state legislature delegates part of the state decsion-making process to its citizens, the citizens are acting solely as delegates of the state. The state is the sole source of their power to decide. Their power is entirely local in nature. The text of Article II is wholely inconsistent with the idea that they are acting as members of “the people” or are exercising any power that arises from any federal source.

Fundamentally, state presidential elector appointments are not “federal elections.” They are state appointment procedures. Nothing else. The constitution ASSIGNED this appointment to the states. In saying states cannot interfere with this clear textually assigned power, the Supreme Court ripped a whole right through the constitution. In saying that it is acting out of a need to avoid the “chaos” that could occur if every state is allowed to decide for itself, the hole ripped provides a future Supreme Court an equal opportunity to avoid the “chaos” that also occurs whenever ordinary people are allowed to decide for themselves. In establishing a federal system of government with significant powers assigned to the states, the Framers invited the chaos that comes when every state gets to make its own decision and the outcomes vary. This chaos, this disunity that comes with accepting disagreement, is simply an ordinary part of our system of government. It’s what a federal system is all about. We have a federal government, not an exclusively central one. State powers are part of “federal” power.

[ThePublius]

Dems are plotting ways to get around the SCOTUS decision and kick Trump off the ballot.

WTF? If you can't beat him at the ballot box, then cheat, cheat, cheat.

[Sarcastr0]

Dems are plotting ways

Zounds.

[Mr. Bumble]

See Jamie "Durag" Raskin's comments of yesterday.

[Sarcastr0]

What do you think plotting entails?

And at what point does 'a Dem' become just 'Dems?'

Quite straining for drama; some actual political drama will be along in a bit I'm sure.

[ThePublius]

You know, Sarcastr0, you are so polarizingly partisan! Here, read this:

"Calling it "one on a huge list of priorities," Rep. Jamie Raskin, D., Md., announced that he will be reintroducing a prior bill with Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla. and Eric Swalwell, D-Calif., to disqualify not just former President Donald Trump but a large number of Republicans from taking office."

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/democrats-rush-keep-trump-off-ballot-scotus-decision-election-voters

Is that O.K. now? Does that qualify as "Dems?" Do you think any of these folks are acting independently?

And I know, you're going to say, Oh, but that's Fox News, and they lie, blah, blah, blah."

Jeez.

[Sarcastr0]

Yes, I read that.

But I also don't think this has anything indicating it is going anywhere. i.e. it does not have any push by the Democratic Party as an institution.

Do you disagree?

[ThePublius]

Yes, I disagree. I think the party is going to bring everything to bear to defeat Trump, including a part-wide effort to get or keep him off ballots nationwide.

That's the first step, to soften up the beaches with artillery. Then they will implement all of the things they did on 2020, including fake scandals, misinformation, changes to voting rules via AG's (which was, and remains illegal), more mail-in voting, which is easily manipulated, and maybe even a new pandemic to support all of this monkey business.

[Estragon]

“maybe even a new pandemic”

Oy vey.

Let me ask you a serious question: Do you believe Trump shot a 68 at bedminster to win the senior club championship last year?

[Sarcastr0]

Are you a 2020 truther?

Regardless, this 'first step' nonsense is overdetermined. Every single action to help with ballot access thus becomes more proof of a plot against Trump.

That's nonsense.

[ThePublius]

"What do you think plotting entails?"

plot
/plät/
verb
gerund or present participle: plotting
1. secretly make plans to carry out (an illegal or harmful action).
"the two men are serving sentences for plotting a bomb campaign"

[Sarcastr0]

Secretly is kind of where I'm going with that.

[ThePublius]

Nice pivot. You don't think they had some closed door meetings about what their next steps would be???

[Sarcastr0]

I don't think that rises to the level of secret sufficient to be plotting.

I also think you need evidence. Well, most folks do. If they're into facts-based discussions not gut-based story weaving.

[ThePublius]

Pick those nits.

[Sarcastr0]

Don't use the wrong words to make stuff more sinister sounding than it is.

[ThePublius]

Oh, come on! Suggest a word then - for members of a political party meeting in private to make plans to commit sone nefarious act. Is "plot" not appropriate somehow? Or, perhaps, you don't think it's nefarious? Pr something? Really, you are arguing a silly point. Not very serious.

[Sarcastr0]

Except that's not what you're talking about - you're talking about a member of Congress telling the press openly.

The rest is all storytelling.

[Mr. Bumble]

Haven't seen any comments about Texas SB 4, the on again off again law allowing Texas to arrest illegal aliens. Will the SC grant cert?

[John F. Carr]

I think the court will not grant certiorari before judgement. Instead the court will vacate the stay and hope the Fifth Circuit reaches the right result.

[John F. Carr]

Or is it certiorari before judgment? I see both spellings.

[David Nieporent]

Fundamentally, state presidential elector appointments are not “federal elections.” They are state appointment procedures. Nothing else.

To quote the Wire:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=409Pjtq7jzY

[ThePublius]

Merrick Garland is full of it:

"Garland recalled the history of voting rights for black Americans since the end of slavery, which he said has “never been steady” into the present day, charging that voter ID laws have made it harder “for millions of eligible voters to vote and to elect the representatives of their choice.”"

This is such crap. It's racist. Does Garland think blacks are stupid, and don't have or can't get I.D.?

No. Lack of voter ID enables election fraud.

[Mr. Bumble]

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2021/06/04/study-46-out-of-47-european-countries-require-photo-id-to-vote-n2590454

[Sarcastr0]

For once in your life Google to see if there is anything that might disagree with your take:
https://apnews.com/study-voter-id-laws-cut-turnout-by-blacks-young-1dba56c5f8f7430f859748aff4405b10

Now, I agree that it makes voter fraud easier. I just think that given we have seen very little of it, and the demonstrated costs to the franchise of voter ID, the appropriate risk mix mitigates towards broadening the franchise.

[Absaroka]

From your link:
"The study cautioned that the results from Kansas and Tennessee don’t necessarily apply to other states with stricter ID laws. It also found that of 10 other studies that mostly focused on voting before 2008, five found no significant impact from voter ID laws, four found decreases and one found an increase."

It would be interesting to read the actual report. The fact that this study was reporting low single digit differences, and the differing results among other studies, suggest that the differences may just be in the noise.

[ThePublius]

Associated Press? Really? Ha, ha, ha.

I think the reason that people say voter ID disenfranchises blacks and the elderly is because those are whose votes the dems steal because they vote in lower numbers.

You institute voter ID regulations and all of a sudden those votes disappear. Is it because the blacks and elderly were turned away from the polls? No, it's because it became tougher to 'use' their identities to produce fraudulent votes.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

The Associated Press has more credibility than you will ever have.

[Sarcastr0]

those are whose votes the dems steal because they vote in lower numbers.

You discard my study and them come back with this pure bullshit.

You don't get to just make shit up and then get angry that not everyone has joined you in your personal world of bullshit.

You institute voter ID regulations and all of a sudden those votes disappear.
You need a source for shit like this.

[ThePublius]

"You institute voter ID regulations and all of a sudden those votes disappear.
You need a source for shit like this."

O.K., so if I concede this is not true, then what's the problem with voter I.D.? If blacks' and the elderly's votes are not suppressed, what's the problem?

[not guilty]

Kenneth Chesebro, the architect of Donald Trump's fake elector scheme, reportedly is under investigation in Michigan regarding potential perjury charges. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/exclusive-key-figure-in-fake-electors-plot-concealed-damning-posts-on-secret-twitter-account-from-investigators/ar-BB1iV5Hz That also has the potential to vitiate Chesebro's plea/cooperation deal in Georgia.

[not guilty]

Chesebro is also reportedly under investigation for perjury in Nevada. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/legal-experts-say-trump-s-jan-6-architect-has-a-new-perjury-problem-his-goose-looks-cooked/ar-BB1jnnWI

[ThePublius]

Will this be the last new post for this Monday Open Thread?

I wish there was an Open Thread every day!

[Bwaaah]

(I intended my outer post below to be a reply to this)

[Bwaaah]

I kind of like the dwindling half-life of the semi-weekly thread. It creates tension between the new and the fading relevance of the past.

It's nice how it simmers down after the first 24 hours with only some stragglers left in the room. The party is over, almost everybody's gone home, and conversations are much less subject to the potshots and aimlessness of groupist inquisition.

But there are real logistical challenges to revisiting long and aging threads. I am only now developing "best practices" for keeping with old threads, including bookmark management and a regular expression browser add-on to make it more manageable. It's no wonder I paid little attention before having retired from my job; ain't no working person got time for this.

So I'd say that though there would be benefits to a daily open thread, two shit-shows a week may be just enough. (lol)

[Michael P]

It's not like you ever gave them any credit in the first place.

[Theendoftheleft]

Credibility amongst whom? You? Your entire ideology is a veneer.

Amongst the Blue Teamers? They're totalitarian fraudsters too. The lies they've fed the world over the last eight years have discredited them across the globe.

They need a tough guy who will stand up to your totalitarian, evil, anti-republican, and anti-democratic domestic and international agendas. Their problem is that they need more than just one tough guy.

[ThePublius]

1. It's illegal immigration he is addressing;
2. newly arriving illegals are generally not working, and in fact, not allowed to in most places.

[Moderation4ever]

What really is Trump’s plan for immigration? I hear a lot of complaints but no real plan. He can EO all he wants but he likely be in court on most of what he might do.

[SimonP]

Trump's plans for illegal immigrants in the country would be massively disruptive for the American economy, as would his plans for across-the-board tariffs. They're also talking about "broadening the tax base" by taxing more working families, rolling back infrastructure spending and CHIPS subsidies, increasing the retirement age, and phasing out entitlements. Never mind what they might do with respect to wages and labor unions, or Obamacare.

If they achieve their plans, it will be significantly more expensive to live and work in the US, with workers paying more in taxes, more for health insurance and healthcare, and earning less, while the Republicans do nothing about housing affordability and may incrementally reduce the price of gas by "drill, drill, drill"ing.

An acceptable cost for "owning the libz," I guess, in the MAGA mind.

[DaveM]

Inflation is created by the government and the federal bank. It has nothing to do with illegal migrants being taken advantage of by shady businesses who can cheat them and exploit them all day long and never have to worry about them complaining or paying a legal wage, because they know they’re here illegally.

So unfortunately your question cannot be answered. There’s no connection between the two.

[Dr. Ed 2]

There is nothing more expensive than cheap labor.

What you don't understand is that it is cheap only because its actual costs are shifted to persons other than the employer. Massachusetts is facing a budget crisis because of them.

[ThePublius]

Regarding Hamas' response to the proposed deal:

"Details of the response were not immediately available."

Do you know something we don't?

[Mr. Bumble]

So we support terrorists?

[ThePublius]

Hamas can end this war today by surrendering, and returning all the hostages.

[Michael P]

Which humanitarian responsibilities does the Biden regime act like Hamas has?

[ThePublius]

Define "MAGANs."

[Theendoftheleft]

What planet are you on, troll?

[hobie]

England

[Michael P]

"Make America Great Again N(bong)s", apparently.

[Brett Bellmore]

Because itt's illegal for them to work, you mean?

What do they care? It was illegal for them to enter the country, too. And yet, here they are.

[ThePublius]

To work one must be hired. This generally relegates employment opportunities to unscrupulous employers, or jobs for entrepreneurial types, like house cleaning, drug dealing, retail theft, and so on.

The vast majority of illegals in MA are simply on the dole. It's costing us a fortune. Besides housing and cash, they get three meals a day, delivered, with a 20% tip for the delivery agent!

So, why work?

[Nige]

'What do they care?'

What do the people who employ them care?

[OtisAH]

Yeah, don’t hurt your hand patting him on the back. It’s just another basic conservative Dodge wherein they call for one thing they hate to be replaced by another thing they hate. If his stated plan ever happened he’d be railing against the class based distinctions almost immediately after.

[Sarcastr0]

I was of the class over race position until about 2021. It was actually Will Baude's podcat on CRT that showed to me how it's gotta be both, because their achievemant gaps actually come from different, though intersecting, places.

And that mere financial assistance alone is not a great way to design a program if you want to genuinely uplift.

But really, Otis is right - Amos' posting history should make one skeptical that he is actually coming into this wanting to help the poor either.

[Theendoftheleft]

To the occupied Dutch. The Netherlands didn't vote for Germany to come in and take our land.

[ThePublius]

"Operation Manna and Operation Chowhound were humanitarian food drops to relieve a famine in the German-occupied Netherlands undertaken by Allied bomber crews during the final days of World War II in Europe. "

Final days of the war.

Occupied Netherlands.

Jerk.

[Kleppe]

One day you'll figure out what a protest vote is.

[Bwaaah]

When did you first realize that evangelical Christians were stupid? (Be honest.)

[Theendoftheleft]

Why are you calling me a guy? Why are you gendering this with talk of 'toughness'. How bigoted and exclusionary of you.

Perhaps when Biden wins again you'll be sent to a re-education camp to learn (conditioned) to be more inclusive.

[Michael P]

If you can point towards any that were not triggered by leftist snowflake complaints, that might help DMN's case.

[Sarcastr0]

DMN's case is based on the linked article, and seems pretty tight.

Your complaints are all speculation. Burden should be on you. Even if you establish re-review at this stage is rare, you need to dig into that additional review if you want to claim it's bogus.

And you've made it quite clear you have no interest in doing that; just complaining.

[David Nieporent]

If you can point towards any that were not triggered by leftist snowflake complaints, that might help DMN’s case.

DMN's "case" was that the article simply doesn't say what was claimed. DMN has no idea what actually happened, and made no affirmative representation as to such.

[David Nieporent]

Given how ludicrous their stated beliefs are, combined with how rarely they were faithful to those beliefs outside the partisan arena, I have always tended to assume they were insincere. But the Trump era has brought into stark relief the ones who mean the things they said vs. the ones who were just saying it for political advantage.

[Sarcastr0]

New goalposts.

Jerk.

[David Nieporent]

He's everywhere! That's how he knows what the entire rest of the world is thinking!

[Mr. Bumble]

Not new goalposts, just facts that make clear the Queens comment is bullshit.

[ThePublius]

No, it's just not the same! We're not talking about dropping food to the hostages, we're talking about dropping food, water, and medicine to the Hamas soldiers who are trying to kill all Jews.

[Dan Schiavetta]

As someone at the National Review pointed out in 2016, the rise of Trump seemed to validate the stereotypes liberals have of white evangelicals as ignorant, bigoted haters for whom declarations of piety are just a smokescreen.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Aren't you the same idiot who just a few days ago made the sophomoric assertion that Nazis are Trump's base?

[ThePublius]

Don't tell me what I think, unless you are a proven mind reader.

[Bwaaah]

"you don’t think Palestinian lives have any value"

Try to rise above stupid trash talk.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Trump is a warrior for, not one of...

[Bwaaah]

Quick...google your conclusion and post a link. Garner another win, ipso facto!

You and Gaslighto use the same "research" technique.

[Bwaaah]

And you can be the first person to write a review for that book, even though it already represents to you proof of what tens of millions of Americans think.

Hollow. Disingenuous.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

From the Overview:

"In part, the authors argue, President Trump won over evangelicals not by pandering to them, but by supporting them and all their most important issues without pretending to be something he's not. Though the forty-fifth president is far from the perfect vessel--he has been married three times--his supporters argue that Donald Trump may be just what America needs."

Sounds like they're "h[olding] up Trump as a model of religious behavior or virtue"! /sarc

[Sarcastr0]

The history is new to me, but the WW2 operations seems like they were sure some of the food would go to Nazis, and some to civilians.

That seems quite analogous to Palestinian civilians in Gaza and Hamas.

[bernard11]

Warrior? Even with those bone spurs?

[Frank Drackman]

we know you meant "Make Amurica Great Again N-words" what makes you more disgusted, 1: that your POTUS of choice was friends with Strom Thurman, was against bussing his kids to "Jungle" Schools, bragged about threatening some Black Kid with a Bicycle Chain, supported the 1993 Crime Bill that sent millions of your kind to prison,
or 2: that more of your kind voted for "45" than any previous Repubic-Clown?
OK, make your sick remarks about my Horror-cost Survivor mom who worked in the burn unit at BAMC

Frank

[bernard11]

I think that was mad_kalak, not Kazinski.

[Bob from Ohio]

Allied civilians, not enemy ones, in the last week of the war.

The German garrison was cut off by Allied advances. Not an on going threat.

[Theendoftheleft]

It SEEMS so to you based on your complete lack of knowledge of the event or related actions at the time.

Go back to Russia. Stop promoting national security threats that allow Putin and Xi to smuggle enemy agents into the country. (How much does Putin pay you to promote subversion of the US?)

[Joe_dallas]

no Mr bumble, neither you or I support terrorists, though quite a few of the woke posting on this site would

[Jonathan Affleck]

Hamas is no more a terrorist organization than the native resistance to the Nazis in occupied Europe consisted of terrorist organizations.

The terrorist designation of Hamas is purely political. Hyper-wealthy Zionist oligarchs paid for this designation with political contributions.

According to:
18 U.S. Code § 1091 - Genocide; and
18 U.S. Code § 2339A - Providing material support to terrorists,
the colonial settlers of the baby killer nation are genocide perpetrators and terrorists.

An hyper-wealthy Zionist oligarch, who corrupts the US political and legal system, must be tried, almost certainly convicted, and sentenced to death as § 1091 requires.

All US Zionist assets must be seized and used to help the victims of Zionism. Not only Palestinians are victims of Zionism, but Americans are also victims because Zionism is the most outrageous and horrendous fraud in human history. If the US had not been tricked and manipulated into supporting Zionism, the US would have a national surplus instead of a national debt. The costs of Zionism to the USA must be clawed back from all Zionist individuals and organizations.

Every Zionist must die penniless and impoverished.

[Joe_dallas]

Queen - is your grasp of history that poor?

very pathetic comparison - heavily impacted by the lack of historical knowledge

[Bob from Ohio]

As we've seen today, I don't think Will Baude has much of a grip on what the Constitution requires though.

[AmosArch]

showed to me how it’s gotta be both, because their achievemant gaps actually come from different, though intersecting, places.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

What would that be? And how would it be fixed by a wealthy black son of corporate executives getting preferential university admission over a poor white son of drug addicts?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Why don't those dumb evangelicals just vote for Democrats, and then await replacement?

[Nige]

How are illegals on the dole?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Actually, a lot of them do both -- collect the handouts and then work under the table and pocket that. How do you think they afford their booze and drugs?

[Kazinski]

That certainly wasn't me, my take was Patton was right: after we beat the Nazi's we should have kept going all the way to Moscow.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I forgot all about Saint Nikki. Isn’t it too bad she didn’t win the Republican nomination, because then you would certainly vote for her! /sarc

In fact, you may as well vote for her, since there isn’t much difference between her and Biden.

Fortunately, I'm unlikely to vote for any of the three.

[LawTalkingGuy]

It's almost like WWI and WWII taught us that mass civilian death due to war is bad and thing and that we that as humans with moral responsibility should work against that. Especially when it comes to civilians and children.

[Absaroka]

I watched this talk by (Sir!) Antony Beevor yesterday. In the QnA at the end someone asked if that would have worked. His answer is a pretty unequivocal no.

(Apparently Churchill was so pissed about Stalin's perfidy over Poland that Churchill asked for a plan to do just that, but his staff, and the Americans, said no way.)

(I got there via this video where Beevor talks about Russian history and Putin's worldview, which is pretty concerning.)

[David Nieporent]

No, it was you. Patton's take was that the dirty Jews deserved it and we should've fought alongside the Germans against the Soviets all along.

[Nige]

'Of course you don’t want other people to vote for him, and you assume anyone who doesn’t share your preferences is evil.'

Why are evangelicatls voting for him? Is it because, despite his personality and behavour, he is the best way of acheiving Christian Nationalist goals? Like banning abortion, contraception, divorce, gay marriage, etc? Are we not allowed to have opinions about whether those are good or bad goals? Are we not allowed to notice the discrepency between the things they want enforced on the rest of us and the nature of man they want to elect into power? Bearing in mind that evengelicals have never been shy of criticising politicians they don't like for being unChristian, if not downright demonic.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Why don’t you ask one of your evangelical friends what they think?

Edit - you responded to an early draft of my reply - thinking on your feet there! But I'll repeat the sentiment - Of course you don’t want other people to vote for Trump, and you assume anyone who doesn’t share your preferences is evil.

[Nige]

You make it sound as if we have no information about which and why evangelicals are voting for him, and that you want to avoid acknowledging that information in favour of the laziest bromide about political facionalism you can come up with.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

OK, are you willing to concede that in some situations there are non-evil reasons for voting for Trump? What situations, exactly?

Or maybe my lazy bromide has hit home, and you do in fact think that voting for Trump is inherently an act of an evil person, where your only job is to figure out precisely what kind of evil the voter is manifesting (Chaotic Evil? Neutral Evil? Lawful Evil?).

[David Nieporent]

OK, are you willing to concede that in some situations there are non-evil reasons for voting for Trump? What situations, exactly?

Sure, there are non-evil reasons for voting for Trump: complete and utter stupidity and ignorance.

(Or are you asking for some sort of pure hypothetical? If he were running against actual Hitler (who SCOTUS just ruled states can't keep off the ballot.))

As someone recently said on Twitter: there was a case for voting for Trump in 2016; there was even a weak case for voting for him in 2020 — IOW, pre J6. There is no legitimate case for voting for him now.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

This comment section reflects a general social trend - anyone who disagrees with me is either fundamentally evil or fundamentally stupid. In either case it's futile to try and debate with them.

Some people take this to the logical conclusion and decide that since such evil and stupid people contribute nothing to the conversation, they should be shut down by force.

Is there a flaw in that reasoning? What public benefit is there for debating the incorrigibly evil and stupid, or permitting them to poison others with their ideas which we know in advance to be completely wrong?

[David Nieporent]

This comment section reflects a general social trend – anyone who disagrees with me is either fundamentally evil or fundamentally stupid. In either case it’s futile to try and debate with them.

Anyone who disagrees with me about certain things is evil or stupid. There are plenty of areas for good faith disagreement. The lack of merits of Nazis, the NY Yankees, and Donald Trump are not among those areas.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

But the issue *isn’t* the merits of Donald Trump, the issue is which crook to vote for in the election in preference to the other crook(s).

If those who answer "Trump" are obviously evil and stupid and no more worthy of a platform than National Socialists, why not censor them?

[Dr. Ed 2]

YES!

A cop died in the 1950s preventing Truman from being murdered, and then they had Congressmen shot in the chamber (one almost died) and then there were bombs detonated in the building.

[Bwaaah]

Repeat:
I don’t think I’ve ever met a “religious” Christian who held up Trump as a model of religious behavior or virtue. I’m sure they’re out there, but they aren’t at all representative of much more typical sentiments.

That statement, to you, is "dumb."

[DaveM]

Sorry, but that is incorrect. Inflation is the result of there being too much money in circulation. It is a form of devaluation or debasement. Only the government can create currency, so only the government is responsible for inflation.

Wages are downstream of inflation, and typically adjusted only after a long delay. Prices respond generally much more quickly. The delay between the two is what causes consumer pain.

But none of that is even pertinent to illegal migrants, who do not earn legal wages. They are hired completely outside any protections whatsoever. They are unfairly subject to abuses by powerful interests and they can do absolutely nothing about it. It is a dangerous situation and completely unfair.

[Dr. Ed 2]

If we had a competent President, he would arrange for an exile somewhere for the Hamas leadership along with an Israeli promise not to send the Mosad after them as long as they behaved themselves. Which dictator was it that we put on Gilligan's Island?

And as I have been asking for some time -- exactly what part of "Kill the Jews" do American Jews not understand? When will they stop supporting an increasingly antisemitic Democratic Party?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Hmmm.... I do wonder what Iran is doing in this mess....

[Bob from Ohio]

Our enemies took no such lesson.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Maybe that’s why they’re enemies? Because they are not good people and we shouldn’t be like them?

[David Nieporent]

Which dictator was it that we put on Gilligan’s Island?

The Skipper?

[bernard11]

And as I have been asking for some time — exactly what part of “Kill the Jews” do American Jews not understand? When will they stop supporting an increasingly antisemitic Democratic Party?

Get your head out of your ass.

[David Nieporent]

as would his plans for across-the-board tariffs.

The man is so fucking economically ignorant that he thinks tariffs are paid by foreign countries, rather than by consumers.

[Jonathan Affleck]

Hamas is the good guy.

The US supports depravity, which has little difference from the Nazi nation. The baby killer nation has been a suppurating festering cancerous tumor in international law and on the surface of the planet since the leadership of the white racial supremacist baby killer nation put into full operation the genocide that European Zionists had planned since 1881.

This genocide has never ended and has evolved to the mass murder genocide of the Gaza Holocaust as the Nazi genocide against to Jews evolved from Jan 1993 to the mass murder genocide of the Jewish Holocaust during 1941.

International law requires the USA to obliterate the IDF, to abolish the baby killer nation, and to remove every colonial settler to a detention camp where he can await trial for the international capital crime of genocide.

Native Resistance during WWII — Native Resistance Today

During WW2 we Americans considered the native resistance to be heroic and admirable when it fought or killed racial supremacist genocidal Nazi invaders in occupied Europe.

Today we Americans must consider the native resistance to be heroic and admirable when it fights or kills racial supremacist genocidal Zionist invaders in stolen Palestine.

The Zionist mentality is completely congruent to the Nazi mentality, and the US Zionist movement commits heinous crimes according to the US federal code.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

He's far too busy studying for his 17th degree.

[Michael P]

Ah, but That's Different(tm) because it wasn't during the specific act of Congress that Queenie specified. Actual bombings and shootings don't count, only malicious protesting and unsanctioned touring.

[Bwaaah]

...and evidently the contributor that you are.

[Joe_dallas]

Both of you repeatedly demonstrate your ignorance of commonly known facts

[Jason Cavanaugh]

"Commonly-known" facts should be the easiest ones to source evidence for, unless those 'facts' are really just strings of tubular brown excrement.

A cow says 'moo.'

[bernard11]

What really is Trump’s plan for immigration?

Concentration camps, I think.

[Longtobefree]

More than likely exactly what worked before.
(just a thought)

[Joe_dallas]

Jason - His citation was to the dutch airlift in the final two weeks of wwii in europe, last week in April and first week of may 1945.

It is a commonly known fact that VE day was may 5, 1945 with mass surrenders of german army groups in those last two weeks. Maybe not a commonly known fact among the woke, but it is a commonly known fact with most educated individuals.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

As expected, you continue to miss the point.

It was still Nazi-occupied at the time, was it not? Can you assert that all Nazis had surrendered, and that none of the aid fell into their hands? No, you cannot.

Next time you should try to follow the argument before mooing.

[Theendoftheleft]

His point was salient: the food was for the people of an occupied people. It was not sent to the people of Germany who had voted for its government.

Your efforts to avoid that fact are pointless.

[Joe_dallas]

Jason Cavanaugh 2 hours ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
As expected, you continue to miss the point.

It was still Nazi-occupied at the time, was it not? Can you assert that all Nazis had surrendered, and that none of the aid fell into their hands? No, you cannot

Jason - you are displaying far more ignorance than I thought possible. Not only were unaware of commonly known facts, you did bother to do any research prior to commenting. It was airlift that the germans agreed to. But I guess that is standard for the woke

[Joe_dallas]

jason missing the point -
Queen was equating providing aid to the Hamas who are actively fighting to providing aid to civilians will the "occupying " army is not only not actively fighting but in the process of figuring out how to surrender.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

That's why some of the planes returned with bullet holes, right? I guess not all of the Nazis had received the memo.

Perhaps you should actually read the cited source yourself, Mr. Moo.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Texas Governor Abbot is in a wheelchair -- something about a tree falling on him, I presume paralysis.

Franklin Roosevelt was also in a wheelchair -- that was Polio.

[Kazinski]

It was me that said we should have joined the Nazi's?

Nah, never happened. I've always been a committed Churchillophile, in fact I have on the bookshelf at my cabin his 5 part great war series, 6 part WWII history, 4 part history of the English Speaking Peoples, 4 volume history of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, and his compilation of his Indian war, Sudan River War, and Boer War correspondence, when he was both in the Army and covering the wars for a newspaper at the same time.

Its impossible to be both a Churchill sycophant, and a Nazi admirer.

[Magister]

Apparently, El Presidente Pancho Hernando Gonzales Enrico Rodriguez of Ecuarico was exiled to Gilligan's Island; a person and country as fictitious as the usual Dr. Ed 2 post.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Ferdinand Marcos

He was supposed to be exiled to the island used for Gilligan's Island, but wound up instead in a ritzy part of Honolulu.

[Sarcastr0]

You've hit on an intersection where some of the challenges of race can be offset with privlidges regarding class!

But not all. I work with some black women, both of whom are well to do. Both have had academics actively discourage them from STEM fields. Dunno if it was based on their race, gender, both, or some other factor. But that is an issue that isn't going to be removed by $$.

Another thing is support systems. First time college goers sometimes feel alienated and without a support system and with all these new expectations they were told about. That's something that statistically hits minorities harder, but really the demographic driver seems to be frist time college going. (Though even then not everybody that's a first time college goer has that issue)

An interesting thing I hear about HBCUs is the level of support system they provide is a huge part of their culture and value add they believe they give to the students. But also no HBCUs are R1s...so is that a tradeoff or not?

[Nige]

Wealthy people get preferential treatment automatically, just by virtue of being wealthy, though it doesn't preclude discrimination against wealthy black people. You're coming at that problem from the wrong end.

[Theendoftheleft]

Hamas is a designated terrorist organisation in many Western countries. By your own repeated-offered interpretation of US criminal law (where the elements of a crime are irrelevant for their application), you are supporting a terrorist group here. You have, by your own reasoning, just committed a federal crime.

Further, Hamas is basically Islamic Brotherhood. It is a religious-fascist political organisation, based on dark ages bullshit that supports imperialist apartheid. It is fundamentally incompatible with Western civilized countries, just like you.

Are you a child rapist, like your prophet, as well?

[Bob from Ohio]

"I work with some black women"

No doubt. And their experience completely supports your point here!

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Dunno if it was based on their race, gender, both, or some other factor."

Seems like that would be important to know before drawing conclusions.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

How are they relevant to Trump’s lying and cowardice?

[bernard11]

Very unfortunate, but legitimate, disabilities.

But BS bone spurs? Give me a break.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Baude may become more insightful, with many mainstreamers, after better Americans enlarge and improve the Court.

[Nige]

Bet the Nazis are all good Christians. But a base can consist of more than one group, y'know.

[Nige]

They're sneaking in to the US hidden inside food drops to Gaza?

[Jonathan Affleck]

Hamas is no more a terrorist organization than the native resistance to the Nazis in occupied Europe consisted of terrorist organizations.

The terrorist designation of Hamas is purely political. Hyper-wealthy Zionist oligarchs paid for the designation with political contributions.

According to:
18 U.S. Code § 1091 – Genocide; and
18 U.S. Code § 2339A – Providing material support to terrorists,
the colonial settlers of the baby killer nation are genocide perpetrators and terrorists.

An hyper-wealthy Zionist oligarch, who corrupts the US political and legal system, must be tried, almost certainly convicted, and sentenced to death as § 1091 requires.

All US Zionist assets must be seized and used to help the victims of Zionism. Not only Palestinians are victims of Zionism, but Americans are also victims because Zionism is the most outrageous and horrendous fraud in human history. If the US had not been tricked and manipulated into supporting Zionism, the US would have a national surplus instead of a national debt. The costs of Zionism to the USA must be clawed back from all Zionist individuals and organizations.

A Zionist must die penniless and impoverished.

[Theendoftheleft]

See, you’re just a jihadi terrorist yourself. Do you rape children, just like your prophet did?

All Jihadi assets globally must be seized to pay compensation to the dhimmis and infidels who have been oppressed and robbed under Sharia since the 7th century, and to pay reparations to Black and Hindu slaves of Islamic regimes.

All Turks must leave Turkey and return to Turkmenistan and central Asia. They must pay compensation to the Greeks and Southeastern Europeans for their centuries of occupation and theft.
All Arab colonists of the Levant must return to Arabia proper.

Mecca must be restored as a pre-Islamic pagan temple.

All Muslims must apologize for the Quran and the Hadiths, for Mohammad’s evil murderous imperialist schemes, and forswear Islam forever as dark ages barbarism

All Muslims in America MUST admit publicly that they are just parasites on a European settler colony on stolen Indigenous land. They must admit that they ONLY moved there because of the superior systems created by the Christian Europeans, and so they are merely opportunistic parasites upon those systems. Every Muslim must leave America forever and apologize for ever moving to the country.

[Kazinski]

Yeah well I never claimed it was a practical option. Just his heart was in the right place.

And at least Churchill was consistent, he funded and supplied White Russians and whatever other anti-communist forces he could gin up after WWI for at least 2 years, I think he was Minister of Munitions then.

[AmosArch]

There is nothing preventing you from banning racial discrimination while simultaneously having no racial spoils awards. Ending racial discrimination by engaging in more of it on the other hand is a pretty tall order.

[santamonica811]

And by island, I assume you mean the CBS sound-stage, which located in Studio City, California. Your comments are reminding me of Trump's many speeches over the weekend, in terms of their rather loose tether to reality.

[David Nieporent]

No; it's yet another garbled half memory of Dr. Ed's. They used aerial shots of Coconut Island in the opening credits of Gilligan's Island — the show itself wasn't shot there, — but even if you give half credit for that, Marcos was never "supposed to be exiled" to Coconut Island.

[Nige]

This assumes that it can be banished with a snap of the finger, and that the effects of a few hundred years worth of discimination will vanish overnight.

[santamonica811]

THIS is the big problem. Sadly, most of us are idiots (in terms of basic economics understanding), so they don't understand that tariffs will almost certainly be directly passed on to consumers. It will be a massive increase in the costs of goods. If Americans are already whining about the higher costs of petrol, groceries, etc . . . just wait till a shit-ton of other items skyrocket in price. (Sadly, that will be well past the election, and too late for America and Americans.)

[bernard11]

Let's also note, as a not-entirely tangential matter, that they drive up the cost of American exports, because many manufacturers import raw materials or intermediate products.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Apparently he's referring to Coconut Island, in Oahu.

[santamonica811]

12,
Thanks. Interesting. If Coconut Island was used at all in the show, then I'll take Ed's comment as being correct. I therefore graciously retract my earlier snark. One vote for an honest and accurate post from Dr. Ed!!! 🙂

[Stephen Lathrop]

Nieporent, addressing you as a member of the VC's sanity faction, you ought to see what your comments—and those of the other sanity faction members—look like on my computer screen. It presents as a nice, evenly-spaced ladder, with a muted user bar followed by a sane-faction reply, again-and-again, right down the page.

The notion becomes unavoidable that you guys let yourselves get baited, and waste a lot of time doing it.