Monday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[not guilty]

In Donald trump’s bid to avoid criminal prosecution based on his claim of absolute immunity, the Supreme Court in granting certiorari itself framed the question presented for review:

Whether and if so to what extent does a former President enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office.

That framing indicates the Court’s interest in determining whether the D.C. District Court indictment does or does not allege conduct involving Trump’s official acts. In the context of immunity from civil suits for damages, the Supreme Court made clear in Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681 (1997), a President’s official act immunity by nature does not extend to his unofficial actions. When he acts in an unofficial, private capacity, he is subject to civil suits like any private citizen. “[W]e have never suggested that the President, or any other official, has an immunity that extends beyond the scope of any action taken in an official capacity.” Id., at 694. SCOTUS has defined “official acts” to include any conduct falling within the “‘outer perimeter’ of [the former President’s] official responsibility.” Nixon v. Fitzgerald, 457 U.S. 731, 756 (1982).

The Court of Appeals, while not directly addressing the issue, questioned whether Trump's conduct as averred in the indictment constituted "official acts":

Because we conclude that former President Trump is not entitled to categorical immunity from criminal liability for assertedly “official” acts, it is unnecessary to explore whether executive immunity, if it applied here, would encompass his expansive definition of “official acts.” Nevertheless, we observe that his position appears to conflict with our recent decision in Blassingame [v. Trump, 87 F.4th 1 (D.C. Cir. 2023)]. According to the former President, any actions he took in his role as President should be considered “official,” including all the conduct alleged in the Indictment. Appellant’s Br. 41–42. But in Blassingame, taking the plaintiff’s allegations as true, we held that a President’s “actions constituting re-election campaign activity” are not “official” and can form the basis for civil liability. 87 F.4th at 17. In other words, if a President who is running for re-election acts “as office-seeker, not office-holder,” he is not immune even from civil suits. Id. at 4 (emphasis in original). Because the President has no official role in the certification of the Electoral College vote, much of the misconduct alleged in the Indictment reasonably can be viewed as that of an office-seeker — including allegedly organizing alternative slates of electors and attempting to pressure the Vice President and Members of the Congress to accept those electors in the certification proceeding. It is thus doubtful that “all five types of conduct alleged in the indictment constitute official acts.” Appellant’s Br. 42.

Trump v. United States, 91 F.4th 1173, ___, n.14 (D.C. Cir. 2024).

Trump's brief does not address how to distinguish a former President's official from non-official acts. https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-939/303418/20240319150454815_23-939%20-%20Brief%20for%20Petitioner.pdf The brief instead merely asserts, begging the question, that all of Trump's conduct constituted official acts. That is poor advocacy.

[Dr. Ed 2]

You make the case that Trump is being denied effective counsel -- and that may be the case.

[not guilty]

As I have said before, I am surprised that Donald Trump did not upgrade his counsel for the SCOTUS brief. John Sauer was quite unimpressive before the D.C. Court of Appeals.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Would you represent him?

[not guilty]

For the right amount of money, paid up front and nonrefundable, I would. I have represented clients more vile than Donald Trump.

[Stephen Lathrop]

not guilty, you have not represented clients more consequentially vile than Donald Trump, or anyone even close to that.

[NvEric]

What vile ?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Not even Robert Servatius represented viler clients than Trump.

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

Oh, OK, maybe I'm kidding about that.

[Commenter_XY]

lathrop, I can assure you, NG has represented clients far more vile than POTUS Trump. I know, because I listened to a much younger version of NG making oral argument at SCOTUS on behalf of a particularly depraved individual.

[not guilty]

Commenter_XY, that comment is highly insulting. My client at oral argument before SCOTUS (a civil, First Amendment case) was my then-wife, the mother of our child.

That having been said, in other cases I have represented dozens of defendants who were convicted of murder rape and/or armed robbery.

[Commenter_XY]

I'm talking about the criminal, NG.

[not guilty]

I have never argued a criminal case before SCOTUS. I have argued one civil case, a First Amendment challenge to the validity of an election law statute. While a violation of the challenged statute carried a misdemeanor criminal penalty, that civil suit did not involve a litigant being charged criminally, and it did not involve criminal conduct. It was an action for declaratory and injunctive relief. I surmise that you are mistaken.

[Commenter_XY]

I must be, and I apologize, NG.

[not guilty]

Your apology is gladly accepted.

[grb]

not guilty : "My client at oral argument before SCOTUS...was my then-wife..."

I hope you either won or your then-wife was particularly forgiving!

[David Nieporent]

Yes, but have you represented clients more uncooperative than Donald Trump, though? He comprises a toxic combination of vile and self-sabotaging. Any lawyer at some point encounters a client who has to be fired because the client simply refuses to listen. At some point the agita isn't worth it, even if the money is there.

Like — oh, just to pick a random hypothetical — you're desperately trying to get your client's required supersedeas bond reduced, arguing that it's impossible for him to raise the money, and then he just tweets out that he has all the cash on hand.

[not guilty]

I have represented one client who sabotaged his case in a manner worthy of Donald Trump. He was jailed awaiting trial on a charge of second degree murder, being unable to make a $3 million bond. The prosecution started as a defensible case. There were no incriminating statements to police, no weapon, no body having been found and no conclusive proof of death.

While in jail awaiting trial my client, despite strong and repeated warnings from co-counsel and me not to say anything to anyone regarding the charges against him, another inmate surreptitiously recorded audio tapes of him soliciting the murder of his alleged victim's parents. He was promptly indicted for solicitation of murder and conspiracy to commit murder. That indictment was tried prior to the trial of the murder charge and resulted in conviction. The audio tapes were played for the jury in both trials.

[Commenter_XY]

So your clients rodomontade did himself in?

(I borrowed a Selyaism)

You got your fee upfront, right? 🙂

[not guilty]

I got most of it upfront. I wasn't able to collect the balance.

[Kazinski]

And like clockwork Trump got his bond reduced by about 2/3 to 175m.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/25/nyregion/trump-bond-reduced.html

[Michael Ejercito]

including allegedly organizing alternative slates of electors and attempting to pressure the Vice President and Members of the Congress to accept those electors in the certification proceeding.
Of course, it is beside the point if these examples were official acts, because these examples are not even crimes in the first place.

It is telling that this Court used these acts as examples, instead of something obviously illegal like perjury or bribery.

[Z Crazy]

Wouldn't ordering war crimes involve the use of official presidential p[owers?

[not guilty]

"It is telling that this Court used these acts as examples, instead of something obviously illegal like perjury or bribery."

Could that be because the indictment does not allege perjury or bribery? The Court of Appeals was reviewing the District Court's denial of Donald Trump's motion to dismiss the indictment. For purposes of such a motion, the allegations of the indictment must be taken as true. Boyce Motor Lines v. United States, 342 U.S. 337, 343 n.16 (1952).

[Michael Ejercito]

It looks to me that the indictment is defective for not alleging acts that constitute crimes.

[not guilty]

Have you read the indictment?

[Brett Bellmore]

Is this the one that alleges he suborned public officials to commit unspecified crimes?

There are so many legal attacks at this point I'm having trouble keeping them straight.

[not guilty]

I surmise that you are thinking of the Fulton County, Georgia indictment, where the judge ordered dismissal as to six of the 41 counts. The instant discussion is of the District of Columbia indictment.

[Commenter_XY]

I think that case is effectively stalled until 2025 = The Smasher's case(s)

[not guilty]

"I think that case is effectively stalled until 2025"

I don't think so. Judge McAfee has not paused the proceedings to see whether the Court of Appeals will hear an interlocutory appeal, and the potential issues which could be raised on any interlocutory appeal do not meet the criteria of Rule 30(b) of the Georgia Court of Appeals.

CNN has reported that Fani Willis plans to ask for a trial setting in Fulton County, possibly for this summer. https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/21/politics/fani-willis-trump-georgia-trial/index.html Unless the appellate court grants permission for a discretionary appeal and orders a stay, there is no just reason to defer beginning the trial until 2025.

[Commenter_XY]

Do you really think so, NG = trial won't be stalled?

I can foresee POTUS Trump's legal team filing an avalanche of motions; they'll object to everything and litigate anything. What I have noticed is lawyers are very good at crafting inventive arguments to achieve their objective.

[not guilty]

Trump's team and counsel for other defendants have already filed numerous pretrial motions in Fulton County. Some have already been disposed of. The State has filed responses to some pending motions and, according to Ms. Willis, is in the process of preparing responses in others.

Absent a stay from an appellate court, the trial will begin this year if Judge McAfee wants it to begin this year.

[Riva]

No, it's because there are no crimes.

[John F. Carr]

"Organizing alternative slates of electors" includes criminal conduct as well as innocent conduct. The indictment is intentionally vague. Accepting all the allegations as true, it's still not clear if Trump was a legal cause of submission of fake electoral votes. It is possible that the evidence at trial will show he was without including any plausibly official acts.

Legit: "Have our electors' votes ready in case we win the court challenges."
Trouble: "We won Georgia, have our electors send in their votes and I'll tell Pence to count them."

[not guilty]

"'Organizing alternative slates of electors' includes criminal conduct as well as innocent conduct. The indictment is intentionally vague. Accepting all the allegations as true, it’s still not clear if Trump was a legal cause of submission of fake electoral votes. It is possible that the evidence at trial will show he was without including any plausibly official acts."

Wrong. That proposition overlooks Donald Trump's vicarious criminal liability for the actions of co-conspirators.

Three counts of the indictment allege a conspiracy among Donald Trump and at least six other co-conspirators. For purposes of the motion to dismiss, the conduct of the co-conspirators in furtherance of the conspiracy is attributable to Trump. The indictment at ¶7 alleges, "The purpose of the conspiracy was to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by using knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the federal government function by which those results are collected, counted, and certified." https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149.1.0_9.pdf

A defendant must merely reach an agreement with the "specific intent that the underlying crime be committed" by some member of the conspiracy. When people enter into a conspiracy to accomplish an unlawful end, each and every member becomes an agent for the other conspirators in carrying out the conspiracy. The government does not have to prove that the defendant intended to commit the underlying offense himself/herself. Ocasio v. United States, 578 U.S. 282, 288 (2016).

[Michael Ejercito]

“The purpose of the conspiracy was to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by using knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the federal government function by which those results are collected, counted, and certified.”

Of course, I fail to understand how "using knowingly false claims of election fraud" somehow "obstruct[s] the federal government function by which those results are collected, counted, and certified"

How is causality even alleged?

I mean, this is like arguing that promoting Badthink®™ somehow causes aN Insurrection®™.

[not guilty]

Again, have you read the indictment? Yes or no?

[not guilty]

Speaking of poor layering on behalf of Donald Trump, Trump last week filed suit in United States District Court in Florida against the American Broadcasting Companies, Inc., ABC News, Inc. and George Stephanopoulos for defamation. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.664183/gov.uscourts.flsd.664183.1.0_2.pdf Trump complains that Stephanopoulos, while interviewing Rep. Nancy Mace, falsely asserted that Trump had been found liable for rape of E. Jean Carroll. The jury in the Carroll matter found Trump not liable for rape, but liable for sexual assault upon Ms. Carroll.

The complaint purports to invoke federal diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332. Notably however, Trump failed to plead the state citizenship of himself and of each defendant. See ¶¶ 5 through 8. The complaint should accordingly be dismissed sua sponte for lack of federal subject matter jurisdiction.

In a posttrial order in E. Jean Carroll v. Donald J. Trump, U. S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan opined as to the significance of the jury verdict:

The jury’s unanimous verdict in Carroll II was almost entirely in favor of Ms. Carroll. The only point on which Ms. Carroll did not prevail was whether she had proved that Mr. Trump had “raped” her within the narrow, technical meaning of a particular section of the New York Penal Law – a section that provides that the label “rape” as used in criminal prosecutions in New York applies only to vaginal penetration by a penis. Forcible, unconsented-to penetration of the vagina or of other bodily orifices by fingers, other body parts, or other articles or materials is not called “rape” under the New York Penal Law. It instead is labeled “sexual abuse.”

As is shown in the following notes, the definition of rape in the New York Penal Law is far narrower than the meaning of “rape” in common modern parlance, its definition in some dictionaries, in some federal and state criminal statutes, and elsewhere. The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was “raped” within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump “raped” her as many people commonly understand the word “rape.” Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.590045/gov.uscourts.nysd.590045.212.0.pdf Pp. 3-5 [footnotes omitted].

[loki13]

"As I have said before, I am surprised that Donald Trump did not upgrade his counsel for the SCOTUS brief."

On this particular issue- I am not that surprised. Trump has a well-earned reputation of being a terrible client. He is known to stiff his attorneys, he is known (at this point) to demand that attorneys make arguments that are not great arguments (and I am being kind with this characterization; at some points and at some times, it would appear that he might shade into making requests that are at best unethical, and at worst unlawful).

Some time ago, a firm I was with had the "opportunity" to represent a certain business interest of DJT. It would have been a lucrative opportunity. It took approximately five minutes to determine that we would not accept the opportunity, as even then it well fairly well-known that outside counsel had a heckuva time getting fully repaid for the work done, and this wasn't a client that was worth representing.

This was prior to all of these other issues, and while it is my understanding that attorneys who consider representing him and his interests now demand money upfront etc. for any representation, most really really good and really really reputable attorneys wouldn't want this headache.

[Dr. Ed 2]

That is the difference between MDs & JDs -- "really really good and really really reputable" doctors don't get the choice to avoid the headache.

A drugged-out deadbeat can walk into any Emergency Room and get the best of care -- for free.

[Sarcastr0]

Not all doctors specialize in emergency medicine.

Also, concierge medicine is a thing that exists.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Concierge doctors do not have hospital privileges.
They can't admit patients.

[Sarcastr0]

You didn't bring up hospitals.

You also still think everyone who works in a hospital works in the ER.

[loki13]

Um, what?

Look, I'm not sure what you know less about- the practice of law, or of medicine.

That said, I'll bite. Imagine you don't have health insurance (or that it won't cover a particular treatment), and you want to see Doctor X, who is the best in their field. Do they have a choice as to whether or not to see you? You betcha! Also, if you think you are getting the "best of care" when you are a walk-in to an emergency room, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn .... sorry, Bayfront property in Worcester, that I'd like to sell ya! (Not to disparage the fine doctors in ERs, but they will be the first to tell you that the quality can be variable, and that they don't have the time or resources to do full care ... just, you know, emergency care).

Next, lawyers, especially for civil issues, aren't required. We get to choose our clients. And we do choose them- based on things like ... oh, how busy we currently are. Our estimation of the likelihood of the success of their claims (or defense of their claims). Whether the client is likely to pay us. And, of course, whether or not the client is a known PITA.

Anyway, much like the box of crayons in a kindergarten, this response is missing the point- that Trump has made his bed when it comes to attracting the best attorneys. He has earned his reputation for stiffing his attorneys, and he has earned his reputation as a difficult client. That said, because he HAS MONEY, he can still get counsel. Not the best. Certainly not the caliber that someone with his resources would normally get. But there is always a desperate or deluded attorney that will think that this time, it will work out (or that receives a big enough retainer up front, and doesn't mind occasionally looking like a fool in court, and hopes that they don't get mired in too many unethical shenanigans).

Which is not a luxury that all people are afforded.

[Brett Bellmore]

"that Trump has made his bed when it comes to attracting the best attorneys. "

But it's still worth remembering that he's had quite a bit of help in making that bed, from "Project 65". I don't know of any past effort of this scale to disbar any lawyer who's willing to work for a particular client.

Prosecuting Lawyers for Their Legal Representation Is Dangerous to Us All | Opinion: Alan Dershowitz

[Nige]

This is the same as ‘prosecuting Trump is dabgerous to us all.’ It ignores the fact that they are being prosecuted for, y’know, actual crimes in favour of demanding blanket exceptionalism for him and for them alone.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Imagine if it has been done to -- say -- the anti Vietnam War folk...

Or the gay rights folk. Or the organized labor folk a couple of generations earlier. Or the Catholics a generation before that...

Et cetera....

[Nige]

What makes you think way, way worse things, actual real abuses of power by local, state and federal authorities, weren't done to all of those people?

[Sarcastr0]

It's been explained to you before that Project 65 doesn't do what you think it does, and Alan Dershowitz is full of shit these days.

[Brett Bellmore]

You have a serious problem with confusing "explaining" and "asserting", don't you?

[Theendoftheleft]

You have a serious problem in assuming that he (Somin) cares.

Abandon this, and you shall see his comments here, let alone his insane, treasonous posts on mass illegal immigration, for what they're really worth.

[David Nieporent]

He chose terrible counsel, a choice forced by the fact that he's such a terrible client that few want to represent him; he wasn't "denied" anything. And while you can talk about "effective counsel" in a colloquial sense, in a legal sense, no. Lawyers sleeping through parts of the trial have not been deemed ineffective for 6th amendment purposes.

[Bored Lawyer]

"Lawyers sleeping through parts of the trial have not been deemed ineffective for 6th amendment purposes."

Which, as you well know, is a legal fiction. No normal person would consider a lawyer who sleeps through trial as being effective. Indeed, it would be a good basis for a malpractice suit.

But yes, Trump is his own worst enemy. The only lawyers who represent him at this point are grade-D hacks, and maybe lawyers seeking publicity

[not guilty]

Actually David is correct. There are indeed such cases. See Muniz v. Smith, 647 F.3d 619 (6th Cir. 2011); United States v. Massimino, 389 F. Supp. 3d 357, 373 (E.D. Pa. 2019) ("Several circuits that have considered this issue have rejected a per se approach, instead requiring for ineffectiveness to be shown that defense counsel was asleep at a critical time or pervasively through trial.").

The Fourth Circuit has held that a defendant is deprived of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel when counsel sleeps during a substantial portion of the defendant's trial. United States v. Ragin, 820 F.3d 609, 612 (4th Cir. 2016). While finding that counsel there was ineffective, the Court of Appeals noted that an allegation of sleeping defense counsel must be analyzed on a case by case basis: "Whether a lawyer slept for a substantial portion of the trial should be determined on a case-by-case basis, considering, but not limited to, the length of time counsel slept, the proportion of the trial missed, and the significance of the portion counsel slept through." Id., at 623 n.11.

[bernard11]

the Court of Appeals noted that an allegation of sleeping defense counsel must be analyzed on a case by case basis: “Whether a lawyer slept for a substantial portion of the trial should be determined on a case-by-case basis, considering,...

Which strikes me as utterly bizarre.

Is someone logging the time the lawyer is asleep, so it can be matched with the transcript to see what happened during the nap?

Is it possible that part of the trial was significant, but nobody noticed because the sleeper didn't raise appropriate issues, or missed some opportunity?

[Stephen Lathrop]

bernard11, court reporters should of course enter lines of "zzzzzzzzzzzzz" into the time line of the testimony, at each juncture where a snoozing defense counsel ought to respond. But event that could not preserve a record to show how much of the prosecutor's case the defense counsel missed.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I have long wondered if the sleeping lawyers were also drunk.

[Riva]

No, he makes the case that he has TDS; that he reasons poorly (the brief adequately describes the official nature of the conduct and the Court will rule on the legal/Constitional question, if they want a facually finding, they'll remand and if they want additional briefing on what constitutes an "official act," they'll ask for it); and that he apparently loves police state show trials, at least when they target politicians he doesn't like.

[Michael Ejercito]

So have you ever wondered why the DC Court of Appeals denied categorical immunity for official acts, instead of resting their judgment on whether oir not the alleged acts are official?

Absolute immunity is not a concept that was just invented last year. Judges and prosecutors have absolute immunity for their official acts.

[Michael Ejercito]

From that same brief.

However, if the Court concludes that criminal immunity exists generally, but requires further factfinding as to specifics of this case, it should remand to the lower courts to find any necessary facts and to apply that doctrine in the first instance. No court has yet addressed the application of immunity to the alleged facts of this case, and that question lies outside the Question Presented.

[not guilty]

The brief there is wrong. The question presented here, framed by SCOTUS itself in the order granting cert, is “Whether and if so to what extent does a former President enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office.”

Contrary to the assertion in the brief, the District Court and the Court of Appeals in the instant prosecution each addressed the application of immunity to the alleged facts of this case. Each court concluded that immunity is inapplicable.

Two additional courts have found in civil damages actions that some of Donald Trump’s actions which are also alleged in the instant criminal indictment constituted non-official conduct. Blassingame v. Trump, 87 F.4th 1 (D.C. Cir. 2023); Thompson v. Trump, 590 F.Supp.3d 46 (D.D.C. 2022).

[not guilty]

"Absolute immunity is not a concept that was just invented last year. Judges and prosecutors have absolute immunity for their official acts."

Uh, no they do not, at least insofar as criminal prosecution. Judges are subject to criminal prosecutions as are other citizens. Dennis v. Sparks, 449 U.S. 24, 31 (1980); O'Shea v. Littleton, 414 U.S. 488, 503 (1974). Neither are prosecutors immune from criminal prosecution. Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409, 429 (1976).

[Michael Ejercito]

Imbler held that prosecutors had absolute immunity for their official acts.

[not guilty]

“Imbler held that prosecutors had absolute immunity for their official acts.”

Not true. Imbler held that a prosecutor has immunity from civil suits for damages for actions within the scope of his duties in initiating and pursuing a criminal prosecution and in presenting the State’s case. SCOTUS there opined, “We emphasize that the immunity of prosecutors from liability in suits under § 1983 does not leave the public powerless to deter misconduct or to punish that which occurs. This Court has never suggested that the policy considerations which compel civil immunity for certain governmental officials also place them beyond the reach of the criminal law.” 424 U.S. at 428-429.

It is helpful to actually read a judicial decision before commenting on it.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, it's being prosecutors who'd have to be prosecuted by fellow prosecutors, that places them beyond the reach of criminal law.

[Riva]

The scope of prosecutor immunity is not controlling. Prosecutors do not embody the Executive branch.

[not guilty]

It is controlling as to whether Michael Ejercito falsely stated the import of Imbler.

[Riva]

I think you need a time out.

[David Nieporent]

Prosecutors do not embody the Executive branch.

Neither do former presidents.

[Riva]

The executive power shall be vested in a president of the united states, Art. II, sec. 1.

[Sarcastr0]

Except from the Washington administration on it was quite clear this did not mean *solely* vested.

The unitary executive is both authoritarian and anti-originalist. I expect it to continue to grow in popularity on the right.

[Riva]

There's another president? Please tell me it's not Kamala or Michele.

[David Nieporent]

The executive power shall be vested in a president of the united states, Art. II, sec. 1.

Joe Biden is the President of the United States. Donald Trump is a landlord, a golf course manager, a social media influencer, a former game show host. Not president. No power is vested in him.

[Riva]

President Trump was in office for the conduct at issue in the indictment. That fact that he is out of office now is irrelevant. Nixon was in office for the conduct at issue in Nixon v Fitzgerald, although he was out of office at the time of the litigation. The fact that he was out of office wasn’t relevant to the Court in Nxon, it isn’t relevant to President Trump's case now.

[Riva]

And, this not too insignificant fact seems to escape you David for some reason, the conduct alleged in the indictment occurred when President Trump was in office. Get a support animal and deal with it.

[Riva]

That case, Dennis v. Sparks, concerns a Texas state judge, not a federal judge, and zero relevance to the present issue. Stop relying on your retarded woke AI searches and try thinking. You never know, it might work. Have you ever tried?

[not guilty]

Do you think that federal judges are immune from criminal prosecution, Riva? You might ask Harry Claiborne, Walter Nixon, Alcee Hastings and Otto Kerner, Jr. about that.

[Michael Ejercito]

And all of them were prosecuted only for making wrongheaded rulings, right?

[not guilty]

You asserted upthread that judges and prosecutors have absolute immunity for their official acts. The fact that the four federal judges I listed were prosecuted at all shows the falsity of your assertion.

[Riva]

Alcee was indicted for taking bribes to reduce mobster sentences. And I think perjury. Not even sure immunity was raised as a defense in that case.

[not guilty]

"Not even sure immunity was raised as a defense in that case."

Is that as true as everything else you have said? How do you explain United States v. Hastings, 681 F.2d 706, 708 (11th Cir. 1982) ("In this case, appellant contends that as an active federal judge he has an absolute right not to be tried in a federal court unless and until he is impeached and convicted by Congress.").

And for how long were you on a first name basis with "Alcee", Riva?

[Riva]

Assuming that analysis and all precedents relied on by that circuit are correct, so what? President Trump wasn't a judge, federal or otherwise.

[not guilty]

So what? Other than that you are completely indifferent as to whether what you say is truthful?

[Riva]

So what? The executive power was vested in President Trump, not Alcee. Kinda important distinction. Hence the separation of powers concerns not at issue for Alcee. Not to mention that Alcee was accused of objectively criminal acts, while that hack Smith is trying to criminalize objectively non-criminal acts within the scope of official presidential responsibilities based on President Trump’s alleged intent.

[not guilty]

"Not to mention that Alcee was accused of objectively criminal acts, while that hack Smith is trying to criminalize objectively non-criminal acts within the scope of official presidential responsibilities based on President Trump’s alleged intent."

Unclear on the concept of overt acts in furtherance of a conspiratorial objective, are we? An overt act need not itself be independently criminal.

[Riva]

Thanks for proving my point. President Trump did nothing criminal. It's improper for courts to examine and punish presidential motives. Oh and there's nothing illegal about challenging an election so apart from the separation of powers problems, it's not a crime for anyone to conspire to do something that isn't illegal.

[Martinned2]

President Trump did nothing criminal.

If you say so, that must be right. So no need to have a trial. Are there any other accused criminals that you want to acquit, while we're at it?

[Michael Ejercito]

It is fucking obvious that bribery and perjury are not official acts.

[Michael Ejercito]

Unclear on the concept of overt acts in furtherance of a conspiratorial objective, are we? An overt act need not itself be independently criminal.
So what was the conspiratorial objective?

[Riva]

Hmm. Good question “Not Guilty.” Definitely not that snake Biden for Bribery, FARA violations, stealing classified info (and just to point out all that was before he assumed the presidency) but there are quite a number of J6 defendants who should be acquitted and/or pardoned. And anyone in the future charged for exercising their first amendement rights for questioning an election or any politicians who challenge election results seem like good candidates too.

[David Nieporent]

It is fucking obvious that bribery and perjury are not official acts.

As fucking obvious as it is that pressuring state elections officials to 'find' nonexistent votes, or to forge electoral vote certificates, or the like, are not official acts.

[Riva]

For a second there David, I thought you might be referring to that illegally recorded phone call wherein President Trump said nothing improper in communicating with state election officials, the same factual basis underlying the joke GA charge recently dismissed in the Biden orchestrated state case. That can’t be what you’re referring to, can it?

[not guilty]

"So what was the conspiratorial objective?"

Read the frigging indictment, Michael Ejercito. The purpose of the conspiracy is set forth at ¶7:

The purpose of the conspiracy was to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election by using knowingly false claims of election fraud to obstruct the federal
government function by which those results are collected, counted, and certified.

[Riva]

One could make such charges against every Democrat who has challenged an election. In fact, I recall quite a few who made ads campaigning for Electors to vote against President Trump in 2016, not to mention Hillary’s fraudulent Russian conspiracy hoaxes. The main difference being democrats did use fraud to try to overturn elections and President Trump was fighting against fraud.

[Michael Ejercito]

Claiborne was accused of bribery, fraud, and tax evasion.

[Riva]

Don’t know all the particulars of Alcee’s case, or the full scope of immunity for federal judges, but here’s the important thing. HE WASN’T THE PRESIDENT. And it should be noted nothing that President Trump did not accept bribes or enage in any per se criminal activity. That would be Biden.

[David Nieporent]

Judges and prosecutors have absolute immunity for their official acts.

No, they don't. We're talking about criminal cases, not civil, and judges and prosecutors have no criminal immunity for their official acts.

The only people who have criminal immunity are legislators under the Speech & Debate Clause, because that — unlike Trump's garbage — is actually in in the constitution.

[loki13]

Well, leave it to some to argue for "penumbras and emanations" when it suits them.

I joke, but only kind of. People always believe that the Constitution enforces their own policy preferences.

[Michael Ejercito]

So a state could in theory prosecute a federal prosecutor for attempted murder, on the vasis seeking the death penalty in federal court constitutes attempted murder under state law?

[not guilty]

A federal prosecutor seeking the death penalty in federal court constitutes attempted murder under what state law(s)? Please cite the applicable jurisdiction(s) and statute number(s).

[Michael Ejercito]

A state legislature could in theory pass a statute that expands the definition of attempted murder and murder to encompass seeking the death penalty in federal court.

[not guilty]

To respond further to the silly facts that you hypothesize, the federal prosecutor by statute could remove the matter to United States District Court and therein assert federal sovereign immunity (which is not contingent upon the defendant's status as a prosecutor) as a defense to the state prosecution. See, Tennessee v. Davis, 100 U.S. 257 (1879).

[Michael Ejercito]

Prosecutors and judges do enjoy absolute immunity for their official acts.

You do know what an official act is, right?

[David Nieporent]

Prosecutors and judges do enjoy absolute immunity for their official acts.

Once again: they enjoy no criminal immunity for their official acts.

[Noscitur a sociis]

The reason why a state could not do that isn’t because federal prosecutors have absolute immunity from criminal laws (because they don’t).

[Stephen Lathrop]

not guilty, it is brilliant advocacy if it opens a door to encyclopedic SCOTUS rumination on the question whether any president under any circumstance can be immune. That will run out the clock on legal charges for Trump, and instead put the nation to a trial by force to see whether Trump can corrupt the next election sufficiently to seize power, whether or not he can win the vote.

Make no mistake, Trump will not leave the question to be decided at the polls. He will move aggressively to rig the polling prior to the election, and thus try to corner the Biden administration into either letting him do it, or conspicuously and forcefully take actions which Trump will portray as tyrannical government interference with a fair election.

In his attempts to do that, Trump will be abetted by a multi-billion dollar right-wing dark money organizing effort, ostensibly going on in the states and outside Trump's control, and, anyway, largely invisible to the public. All it will take to throw the nation into a Constitutional crisis which can only be resolved by force will be enough election deniers in positions of power in key states to refuse to certify results which show Trump losing. Ongoing attempts to organize that were reported in last night's news.

It should never have come to this.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Yet it's only Brandon and the left who are actually engaged in lawfare and corruption.

[Michael Ejercito]

It started against Rick Perry in 2014.

https://ethicsalarms.com/2014/08/17/ethics-dunces-abc-news-jonathan-karl-and-the-sunday-morning-roundtable/

[Don Nico]

SL,
How have you fallen so deeply into the lap of leftist conspiracy theorists?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Nico, by reading the mainstream media.

[Don Nico]

At least that admits that you have become a conspiracy theorist.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Nonsense.

[Theendoftheleft]

Have you failed to notice that most people in the rest of the West, across the political spectrum, CANNOT trust your American MSM anymore?

It's amusing how much of the American centre's identity is shaped by ideas of being well educated, informed, critical, etc, yet are the ones who are most easily duped. (Some social scientists try to explain this along class lines, suggesting that these are the ones with the most at stake in the regime/society, and so have the greatest reason to accept the bullocks uncritically. This is obviously inadequate, since the red/blue divisions do not track class lines.)

[DaveM]

Yet that mu!ti-billion dollar dark conspiracy is oddly unable to pony up enough to even LEND Trump tbe funds to appeal. Seems to not support your theory.

[Stephen Lathrop]

DaveM, Trump does not need funds to appeal. I could pay the administrative fee for Trump's appeal out of funds I happen to have in my wallet this morning.

Trump needs funds to prevent seizure of assets. Customarily, the way to borrow money to do that is to provide surety to the lender. Understandably, even dark-money right-wing conspiracists will be reluctant to pony up hundreds of millions to a serial grifter who announces publicly that he already has the money, but refuses to pay it himself.

I suspect the Federalist Society is content to foist Trump upon the nation, but unwilling to be foisted upon itself. Or maybe they are angling for an opportunity to inveigle Trump into some crime he can commit secretly, so they can blackmail him in office. But for that, they probably worry that they would have to join a queue already distastefully populated with speakers of Arabic, Russian, and who knows what other outlandish languages.

[Publius_2020]

You've put all the emphasis on the "official acts" clause, without noting that this is the portion of the cert issue that is prefaced by "alleged to involve."

The more likely case is that the Court is only interested in the "from criminal prosecution" part of the question. The DC Circuit ruled that Fitzgerald immunity doesn't apply in criminal cases. The Court's statement of the question appears directly aimed at whether that is true. My expectation is that they will hold that it isn't true -- that Presidents enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution for the exercise of their Article II powers.

[not guilty]

As I have pointed out upthread, for purposes of a defendant's motion to dismiss an indictment, the allegations of the indictment must be taken as true. Boyce Motor Lines v. United States, 342 U.S. 337, 343 n.16 (1952).

[Riva]

what is your point with that citation?

[not guilty]

My point is exactly what I stated. SCOTUS is reviewing the District Court's denial of a defense motion to dismiss the indictment. The allegations of the indictment accordingly must be taken as true at this stage of the criminal proceedings. The factual record, at this point, is stated within the four corners of the indictment.

[Riva]

So what? President Trump's conduct was still within the scope of his official responsibilities.

[not guilty]

Ipse dixit assertions from Otto Yourazz do not constitute legal analysis. Neither does glibly saying "so what?" when backed into a corner.

This is a law blog. If you can't run with the big dogs, stay on the porch.

[David Nieporent]

Which portion of the constitution assigns any responsibility to a president to tell a state who to appoint as its electors?

[Riva]

Uh, he didn’t “tell a state who to appoint as its electors” He “communicated with state officials about the administration of the federal election and urged them to exercise their official responsibilities in accordance with the conclusion that the 2020 presidential election was tainted by fraud and irregularities” (from President Trump’s brief) Seeing to it that federal election results are not corrupted by fraud is well within the scope of presidential duty to faithfully execute the laws. And aside from that, there's nothing illegal about that conduct even if DJT had not been president.

[not guilty]

The Supreme Court made clear in Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681 (1997), a President’s official act immunity by nature does not extend to his unofficial actions. When he acts in an unofficial, private capacity, he is subject to civil suits like any private citizen. “[W]e have never suggested that the President, or any other official, has an immunity that extends beyond the scope of any action taken in an official capacity.” Id., at 694.

Donald Trump’s actions between November 2020 and January 2021 as a candidate for re-election were not official acts of an office holder, but were undertaken in his personal capacity as an office seeker. Trump’s bill of complaint in intervention in Texas v. Pennsylvania, 592 U.S. ___ (2020), recited:

Plaintiff in Intervention, Donald J. Trump, the current President of the United States and a candidate for re-election as President at the general election that was held on November 3, 2020, is domiciled in the State of Florida. He seeks to intervene in this matter in his personal capacity as a candidate for re-election to the office of President of the United States. [Emphasis added.]

https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/22O155/163234/20201209155327055_No.%2022O155%20Original%20Motion%20to%20Intervene.pdf

[Riva]

That wasn't unofficial, and that case is inapplicable.

[Riva]

And, just so you know, quite apart from the issue of presidential immunity, no needs immunity for exercising their constitutional rights. Clinton’s vile conduct, however you want to describe it, wasn’t an exercise of his constitutional rights, even in the leftists’ warped view of the Constitution.

[Riva]

The statement of the case adequately characterizes the indicted acts as within the scope of official presidential responsibilities (“The indictment charges President Trump with five types of conduct, all constituting official acts of the President…”), and correctly notes the need for a remand for factual findings, if necessary. If the Court wants additional briefing on the issue of the definition of official acts, they’ll request it.

[not guilty]

As I said upthread, the Trump brief instead merely asserts, begging the question, that all of Trump’s conduct constituted official acts. That is poor advocacy.

[Riva]

No, your comment is poor analysis.

[Dr. Ed 2]

An interesting -- and asinine -- Mass SJC decision that the Town of Brookline can prohibit those born after Jan 1, 2000 from EVER purchasing cigarettes.
https://www.mass.gov/files/documents/2024/03/08/w13434.pdf

How does this possibly comply with the "equal protection" clause?

[Michael Ejercito]

Age only relies on rational basis scrutiny under a 14th Amendment challenge.

[David Bremer]

How does one rationally distinguish between a 24 year old and 25 year old when it comes to buying cigarettes? How does the analysis get any better five years from now, when it's the difference between 29 year olds and 30 year olds? Especially when many of those 29 year olds will have been able to legally buy and smoke those cigarettes in other towns.

I get a line between 17 and 18 or even 20 and 21. The human brain is still developing a bit at that age. But the difference between older ages is indistinguishable.

[Sarcastr0]

It's a rational basis decision. This is a slow-rolling ban on cigarettes. As a method to slow-roll, that seems to clear that low threshold.

So long as a state's police power includes banning cigarettes, this decision seems correct.

[bernard11]

Could Brookline simply ban the purchase of cigarettes outright?

If so, this hardly seems outside its power.

[Martinned2]

That's not how that works. The greater doesn't always imply the lesser. Having the power to ban cigarettes doesn't mean you have the power to ban the purchase of cigarettes by, say, black people.

[Dr. Ed 2]

A lot of people moved up into ski country during Covid and now telecommute. But won't be tomorrow...
https://www.boston.com/news/weather/2024/03/24/hardy-souls-across-new-england-shoveling-out-after-major-snow-storm/?p1=hp_featurestack

Two feet of wet snow with ice brought down lots of wires....

🙂 🙂 🙂

[Kazinski]

Now I know why my son wants to move back to the West Coast.

[NvEric]

Nevada is nice if wind blown grit is wanted. I can never get enough of the breezes offered here. Hanging laundry dries in no time and smells better too. Sweat dries to an acceptable fragrance, because there's little time for it to convert into its more noxious form.

[Commenter_XY]

How is the golf?

[Krayt]

"The wind blows my golf ball all over the place," is what I would say.

[John F. Carr]

Wyoming wind has less grit.

[Stephen Lathrop]

There are nevertheless many, many cubic miles of Wyoming, even from west of the continental divide, to be found in the Mississippi delta.

[Joe_dallas]

Stephen Lathrop 38 mins ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
There are nevertheless many, many cubic miles of Wyoming, even from west of the continental divide, to be found in the Mississippi delta.

parts of the mississippi delta west of the continental divide - who knew?

Parts of the mississippi river basin west of the continental divide - who knew ?

[Jerry B.]

Sure. Many cubic miles of Wyoming soil washd down the North Platte river to the Platte river in Nebraska to the Missouri at Omaha then across Missouri to St. Loius where it joins the Mississippi, and hence to the Mississippi Delta.

[Magister]

I won't comment on the volume involved, but "west of the continental divide" is clearly about parts of Wyoming, not about the Mississippi.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Our resident know-it-all seems to have finally revealed his true weakness: literacy.

SL stated that dirt from Wyoming, even from west of the continental divide (in Wyoming), can be found in the Mississippi delta.

How you managed to butcher comprehension of his remark so badly is beyond my ability to explain.

[Sonja T]

Jason - Try not to make yourself look stupid.

How you managed to butcher geography that is taught in elementary school is beyond my ability explain.

the resident know it all is the only one that got it right while the 3 people condemning his response got it wrong.

West of the continental divide means West of the continental divide which means water and sediment flows west to the pacific ocean, not into the Mississippi river basin.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Well, in fairness, dust is blown to the eastward.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Does wind follow the same rules as water? Is water the only method by which dirt can travel from one place to another?

Idiot.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bingo. See my explanation below, and accept my apology for including you among the uninformed.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

I live in Colorado. I've traveled up to Wyoming many times and am well-aware of how windy it is. I knew that was what you were talking about the moment I read your first remark.

Often it seems like the moment you cross into the State is when the wind starts! That's not actually true of course, but it sure seems that way.

Your apology is not necessary, but accepted nonetheless.

[Sonja T]

Jason - Nice effort trying to hide your error-

He used the term cubic miles,

Stephen Lathrop 4 hours ago
"There are nevertheless many, many cubic miles of Wyoming, "

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Cubic miles are a measurement of volume, not a statement of how the thing you are measuring came to exist.

I live 90 minutes from the continental divide. I've been up to Trail Ridge Road multiple times. You might as well accuse an eskimo of not knowing what a polar bear is.

JFC.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Actually, none of you has it right; but my bad, on re-reading I find I shorted you all on explanation.

As many a western geologist can tell you, aeolian sediment can blow over the continental divide. You all forgot we are talking about wind in Wyoming, which goes right over the continental divide with persistence and ferocity rarely matched elsewhere. Geologists have show that wind scoops out basins west of the divide, and blows their erstwhile continents right over the divide, and into the headwaters of the Mississippi drainage. From there, at least since the the upthrust of the Rockies, that formerly aeolian sediment has been washing downstream to the Mississippi delta.

If I remember correctly, some geologists even insist that parts of former Wyoming can be found in the Carolinas, and even in Africa.

You can learn something every day. Try it.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Dust blown off Africa does something to Atlantic Hurricanes.

[Kazinski]

My summer home is only about 55 miles from Reno, I usually go in once a week, for food and building materials. It’s got frigid winters and hot dry and dusty summers. But it’s at least close to the mountains and it does cool off nicely at night.

[Stephen Lathrop]

18 U.S.C. § 2384: “[i]f two or more persons in [the U.S.], conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.”

If Abraham Lincoln had been the President inaugurated on January 20, 2021, by January 21, 2021 Donald Trump would have been in jail awaiting trial, and nothing SCOTUS said to the contrary would have got him out. The nation would not now be on tenterhooks waiting to see if Trump can be tried at all.

Trump would have had to face justice, and win acquittal to be released, which would or would not have happened already. An acquitted Trump would undoubtedly have run again for President, playing up his arrest and trial as brutal tyranny. But he would be playing to a nation which had already seen the facts presented in court, and free to decide and vote according to those facts. Had Trump been convicted, in a case as clearly overwhelming as the one which could still be made, he would not have become the GOP candidate.

The question whether the liberal, institutionalist approach of the Garland Justice Department has been too weak to match the need to protect American constitutionalism thus remains a disturbing one. It was a blunder not to arrest and try Trump before he became the presumptive nominee. To wait still longer will only make that question loom larger every month that passes.

Way too much depends on the fading hope that Trump can be tried at all before seizing power and wiping out both the charges against him, and quite likely arresting and charging everyone associated with the cases against him. Nobody should suppose Trump will prove as hesitant as Garland if Trump gets power.

If Garland thought he was being cautious to withhold the sternest action he could take, he may presently find out how reckless caution in the midst of dire emergency can be. Whatever Trump is, he is not a cautious institutionalist, and neither will this nation be governed by cautious institutionalism if Trump can either be elected, or seize power corruptly under some subterfuge.

[Michael Ejercito]

How do Presidents insurrect against themselves?

[Magister]

The President is not the start and end of the US government.

[David Nieporent]

They don't. As we keep trying to explain to MAGA, "l'etat c'est moi" is not an American principle.

[Theendoftheleft]

You probably need to explain that to the CIA and FBI instead.

[Kazinski]

"Nobody should suppose Trump will prove as hesitant as Garland if Trump gets power."

Despite Trump's somewhat interoperate rhetoric, do you have any examples of the DOJ actually engaging in any political prosecutions when he was in office (Lets exclude Mueller's special prosecution team, since it would hardly be fair to pin that on Trump)?

[Michael P]

Did Bob Menendez's first trial count?

[Mr. Bumble]

The trial may have been in 2017, but I believe the investigation that led to it was the work of the Obama DOJ.

[Martinned2]

Prosecuting someone as corrupt as Menendez definitely doesn't count as political.

[Martinned2]

Not prosecutions, no.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/22/us/politics/fbi-clinton-foundation.html

[Sarcastr0]

Trump railed against both his AGs for being too independent, partially because they wouldn't go full bore with unfounded investigations against his enemies.

So your question is improperly scoped - if we're trying to predict what a Trump administration DoJ will do, you need to take into account how committed he is to appointing MAGA tools this go-round.
There is a lot of reason to believe it will be substantially different from the largely independent AG we see now.

Of course, many on here think that's good, and it's time for revenge.

[Michael Ejercito]

I hope he appoints MAGa tools this go round.

Remember what Eric Holder said?

[Nige]

Of course you do. You're all authoritarian goons.

[Theendoftheleft]

You're a totalitarian charlatan with a sinecure.

[Nige]

You're a blithering idiot who knows you've lost and has sunk into doomster fantasies to console yourself.

[Theendoftheleft]

You're clearly just projecting, moron.

All the data prove that younger people in the West reject your values and are continuing to move both left and right. The global south is almost wholly against you, too.

YOU are losing and shall continue to do so. YOUR time is over. You are an under-educated, superficial ideologue who has misspent his entire life.

And you waste your time on a blog, the contents of which you don't even understand!

[Nige]

Nah, your right-wing reactionary anti-science culture-war bullshit is a pure dead end and you know it. You’re trying to shift the blame for the narcissitic stagnation and malaise at the heart of shit like Trump and Brexit onto the people actually thinking about the future. ‘The Global South is coming for you!’ Classic fascist xenophobic panic-mongering, an old, old trope.

[Theendoftheleft]

Anti-science??? Your projections wholly miss the mark, retard. It’s YOUR lot that’s afraid of science when it comes to questions of free will, about intelligence distributions amongst disparate groups, etc. Real, empirical hard science is a threat to your superficial ideology. So, too, is social science for your socioeconomic assumptions and ideology.

Whatever the future might hold, especially for a developing world that is currently engaged in a global intifada against your system, YOU aren’t the future of anything. You are ruined.

But do keep bandying about the epithets of ‘fascist’ and ‘xenophobic’. Watch as they complete lose their potency, as more and more people completely see through you. (Just like the Israelis who overused the word ‘terrorism’. Just like the Jews who abused the term ‘antisemitism’.) Watch as the old left AND right increasingly, and CORRECTLY, accuse you of using mass immigration and multiculturalism to engage in class warfare, diagnosing YOUR accusations of ‘racism’ to mask your imperialism and totalitarian social re-engineering projects. You can call ALL of them fascists xenophobes all you like. 🙂

You’re ruined, airhead. Make the world a better place for everyone: euthanise your grandchildren now and abandon your sinecure.

[Bwaaah]

^I agree with every part of that.^

[bernard11]

Well, assuming he's elected, let's see who his AG is.

[Kazinski]

James Carville had some comments about the Presidential race in the NY Times yesterday, on Biden's polling numbers:

“When I look at these polling numbers, it’s like walking in on your grandma naked. You can’t get the image out of your mind.”

And on Trump and Biden's relative cognition:
“Now don’t tell me that Biden has more energy or cognition than Trump because it’s evident that, yeah, Trump’s got word salads, but he projects energy,” Carville said. “He’s insane. He’s a criminal of the first order. But he does have a little timing and a little sense of humor and knows how to move from one story to the other.”

Keep in mind Carville has never been on the far left of the Democratic party, the DLC was long at war with the progressive wing of the Dems. He is also 79, but smart enough to be mostly retired, but his age shows a little bit here, not being able to distinguish women from effeminate men:

“A suspicion of mine is that there are too many preachy females … ‘Don’t drink beer, don’t watch football, don’t eat hamburgers, this is not good for you,'” he said. “The message is too feminine: ‘Everything you’re doing is destroying the planet. You’ve got to eat your peas.'”

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/23/opinion/james-carville-bill-clinton.html

[Z Crazy]

I thought by now that Brandon would announce he was dropping out of the race for "health reasons".

[NvEric]

Massive fear makes one to grip even tighter lest be thrown and injured.

Absent honest votes, Biden, Mr. 81 million, is toast. But, it's still to early to call. Marial Law is still the best option and more realistic than anyone concedes as so.

While neither is good for the Republic, being still a two-party dictatorship in Congress, Trump would be the better choice as there is no one remotely known who could return our country to an acceptable condition even if wanted. Too many Americans subscribe to what delt fatal blows in killing the original concept of Self-Government - love of money.

[Nelson]

"Absent honest votes, Biden, Mr. 81 million, is toast."

Probably not. Most people aren't paying attention yet and Trump hasn't even started his vengeance porn tour yet. People forget how bad it got under Trump with the chaos and dysfunction his administration embodied.

Joe Biden isn't a good President, but he is steady, stable, and consistent. When Trump's rage and revenge agenda hits the commercial airwaves, I don't see moderates and independents signing up for that. And when it's coming from the candidate himself, it's hard to pretend it's just a liberal smear campaign.

It'll be close, but I think it'll end up similar to 2020. Which is the best of two bad options.

[tylertusta]

If Biden planned to drop out of the race, the middle of the primaries is the absolute worst time to do it.

[grb]

tylertusta : “If Biden planned to drop out of the race….”

1. Why are hardcore Righties the ones most frantically pushing Biden to drop out?

2. The most recent polls I’ve seen are tightening. It may be Trump has already peaked.

3. And the campaign hasn’t even begun – particularly on Biden’s part.

4. The media is barely paying attention. I read a column by someone who followed every vicious, incoherent, unpopular, braindead thing Trump said this past week. Eventually everyone will be paying attention. (The Right will find that SO unfair, but they’re such a whiny bunch).

5. The Biden Dementia Shtick has fizzled-out. This happened even before he and Trump appeared on a debate stage so all the country can see who still has a functioning brain….

6. Biden has more money and a whole galaxy of Trump misbehavoir, misdeeds, & lackbrain lunacy to work with.

7. And if any trial reaches the point of presenting evidence of Trump criminality, it’s over. The Right’s base either gets-off on his lawbreaking or pretends it does exist. That won’t work electorate-wide when witness after witness takes the stand.

[tylertusta]

Why are hardcore Righties the ones most frantically pushing Biden to drop out?

It’s not just conservatives talking about it. There are those on the left who are also asking for Biden to drop out as well.

If Biden plans to drop out, doing so in the middle of the primaries is the worst time to do so as it would cause chaos within the Democratic Party as everyone scrambles for power as they try to snap up as many delegates as they can.

If Biden plans to bow out of the race, he would have done it before New Hampshire’s primary or is waiting until after the primaries are done.

[Z Crazy]

I was expecting him to do that by February 1st.

[Kazinski]

To me really the question is why aren’t Democrats frantically trying to get Biden to bow out?

Read the comments above about Trumps.trial, its clear at that most Democrats think the only chance Joe has is convicting Trump before the election.

Whereas in 2020 Trump.consistently trailed in all the polls right up to the election, now he is consistently ahead, and not only in the national polls, but he’s ahead in all the battleground states, including up by at least 4 points in AZ, NV, and GA, the states that cost him the election in 2020.

But to answer your question, I want Biden out because in the unlikely chance the Dems win, I actually want someone who isn't a crook and can competently govern in office for the good of the country.

[Martinned2]

I assume the idea is that getting rid of Biden now makes the Democrats look like they couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery. The time to start putting forward a new candidate (or, better still, more than one) was 2021.

Separately, I don't think a blog full of MAGAs is a very good place to understand anything about the Democratic party.

[Brett Bellmore]

You have to distinguish about the timing that's best for the Democrats, and best for Biden, politically.

Ideally for the Democrats, Biden would have bowed out early enough to have a competitive primary.

Ideally, for Biden, politically, he wants to capture almost all the delegates, so that he can dictate his replacement.

[Martinned2]

Why would Biden's interest matter to anything? Unlike the GOP, the Democratic party is not a cult run by one person. If the Democrats had wanted to get rid of Biden, they could have.

[Bob from Ohio]

"they could have"

Its been about 150 years since an incumbent president was denied re-nomination. Even Carter was re-nominated.

[Krychek_2]

Biden remains popular with the base. If he weren’t they would have nominated someone else.

[bernard11]

LBJ wasn't quite "denied" renomination (or nomination, I guess), but it was clear there was a lot of pressure on him to step down.

[Martinned2]

Just because there is a custom of re-nominating incumbents, doesn't mean you have to follow it. That's the whole point of what distinguishes a custom from a legal rule.

[tylertusta]

Unlike the GOP, the Democratic party is not a cult run by one person

I'm sure Bernie Sanders in 2015-2016 would disagree with that statement.

[Martinned2]

Yes, a competitive primary where two candidates presented different visions for the party and one won is definitely a great counterexample...

[tylertusta]

The Party was definitely in favor of Clinton and helped her a lot. It also hamstrung Sanders.

Whether it was competitive isn't relevant.

[Theendoftheleft]

‘Unlike the GOP, the Democratic party is not a cult run by one person’.

It’s a cabal. That’s what makes the name so ironic and inapt. Like the DRC or DPRK.

[Z Crazy]

I honestly thought they were doing this behind the scenes, before having their allies in the media start telling stories about Bursima just as people were recovering from New Years hangovers.

What were they doing?

[Sarcastr0]

Its clear! If you ignore all the people who talk about not letting Trump get away with doing crimes. Which it seems you have done.

You've been hard against Biden for ages, and not just swallowing every morsel of bullshit Comey serves up. You've talked about his mental capacity (not so much nowadays, it seems) and gone against his economic policies well beyond things actually under the control of the President.
And you've been defending Trump for about that long.

Your current rationale seems to fly in the face of your piles of outcome-oriented analysis.

Feel more like the usual 'just the tip' MAGA 'Trump is distasteful but better than the Dems' party line.

[grb]

Kazinski : “….its clear at that most Democrats think the only chance Joe has is convicting Trump before the election…”

No; the odds are Biden wins by an equal or greater margin than before. That’s true whether Trump’s is exposed at trial or not. Granted, it will still be too close for comfort (no matter where you find comfort), but that’s a given with modern presidential elections.

As for wanting “someone who isn’t a crook”, who do you think you’re fooling? The Right has now spent six years trying to find a dust mote of evidence Joe Biden ever did anything wrong. This has been a frenzied search for anything (ANYTHING!) to balance against Trump’s lifetime of criminal behavoir. The search has failed repeatedly, failed embarassingly, failed in every substantive or factual way imaginable. At times the failure was downright clownish, as when Comer tried to make a few truck payments into “corruption”

At this point your “crook” talk is empty bullshit and you know it.

[Michael Ejercito]

The Right has now spent six years trying to find a dust mote of evidence Joe Biden ever did anything wrong.
There is far more than enough evidence to establish probable cause.

[grb]

You don’t even have a crime – much less probable cause pointing to one.
You. Have. Nothing.

But you need a crime, right? Next election you're going to vote for a lifelong criminal and you want to pretend Biden is one too. Too bad pretense doesn't cut it.

[Theendoftheleft]

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

[John F. Carr]

If he quit last winter primary voters would have had some influence. If he waits until summer he can ask his delegates to vote for his chosen successor.

[bernard11]

He can, but I think that would be terrible strategy.

The new candidate would have a few months to establish a national presence, get the whole thing organized, select a VP, etc.

[tylertusta]

It's not ideal, yes.

But of all of the time between Super Tuesday and the election, it's the least worst time to do it.

[Commenter_XY]

I am going to miss this guy when his ticket gets punched. The Ragin Cajun has provided much amusement over the years.

A suspicion of mine is that there are too many preachy females … ‘Don’t drink beer, don’t watch football, don’t eat hamburgers, this is not good for you. The message is too feminine: Everything you’re doing is destroying the planet. You’ve got to eat your peas.

He nailed it.

[Nige]

A misogynist old man scared of the truth? I can see why his schtick resonates.

[Commenter_XY]

I can always tell when I meet a Progressive, their humor meter is broken.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

If disaffected right-wing bigots are known for anything, it is humor and comedy.

[Nige]

I can always tell when I meet a conservative, they have this weird idea that humour is something you hide behind like a parent playing peek-a-boo with a baby.

[Theendoftheleft]

The American liberal females don't meet replacement rate. Their ideology shall only be of consequence for the next little while. Soon, they will have removed themselves from the earth.

I've said it before and I'll say it again.

1. Feminism has ensured the survival and paramountcy of the patriarchy for countless generations.

2. Feminism is a proof that white supremacism is false.

[David Nieporent]

You are very concerned about "replacement rate," for some [Nazi] reason, but of course the entire developed world, not the U.S., is below the 2.1 fertility level usually deemed replacement. It's normal for wealthy societies to see birthrates drop drastically.

[Theendoftheleft]

Cultural collapse and the inability to sustain the state.

Other, more civilised countries don't undertake immigration as you do. Moreover, yours is evidence of an unsustainable value system.

You can desperately try to impugn the diagnosis, and opposition to the American policy, as Nazism or racism of any form, but that cannot help you at all.

[David Nieporent]

Other, more civilised [sic] countries don’t undertake immigration as you do.

Exactly. Which is why we're thriving and they're not.

[Theendoftheleft]

Why are you writing '[sic]' for something that was spelled correctly? The language is called 'English', not 'Yankee Doodle'.

Regardless, you're on the cusp of socioeconomic fracture. Further, if you didn't have millions of people enter from outside the system, people who fundamentally don't believe what Americans liberals (in both the 'classical' and BS American senses) do about breeding and families, then your collapse would be more immanent.

You then take exploit the illegals based on their race. When it comes to labour practices and laws, you systematically treat them differently, in every city in the country. You give their kids shit educations.

What's it like knowing that the whole world can see through your liberal veneer now, ie that you're just as much of a imperialist totalitarian force as the Soviets were? What's it like knowing that, for much of the world, and for many good-hearted, honest Americans, you and your lot are evil villains?

[Bwaaah]

Every date my son, who is in college, has had for the past three years has been with that female. She only slightly tries to hide those feelings while giving him the side eye, checking if he's one of those people who, for some reason, don't think humanity is a blight on the earth. Quickly enough, they realize he is one of those people because he likes hamburgers and doesn't hate all those other people. Game over.

Imagine being born innocent into the world, and by the time you finish your schooling, you've lost all sense of humor about human life, and even more destructively, yourself.

How do people seeking a better world grow so distant from one? By rotting, ideologically, from the inside out.

[Commenter_XY]

The solution can be found at Chik-Fil-A....waiting for Bwaaah. 🙂

[Bwaaah]

This is the week. This might even be the day.

[Sarcastr0]

Sounds like your son is more open minded and less into partisan telepathy and Ferengi semantic choices than you are.

[Bwaaah]

It was a tad nicer around here for a few days.

[Sarcastr0]

Sorry about your safe space.

Amazing what snowflakes the people who post hateful sexist bullshit tend to be.

[Bwaaah]

LOL. Online discussions are so threatening.

You can't take away a "safe space," a concept that never existed except in the minds of illiberal intellectuals and their infatuation with "harmful language" as a way to say STFU.

[Sarcastr0]

Above, you whined about your safe space being taken away. As a way to tell me to STFU.

And lets not sleep on your ‘feeemales’ nonsense. I highly doubt your son is bringing home America-hating vegetarians who don’t know he’s not that.

That's you projecting some weird shit onto your kid's love life.

[Bwaaah]

You're not even on the rails, much less headed in the right direction. Try to find the person to whom you're trying to speak. I'm not like that guy. (And there's no way you could possibly see that. LOL.)

Yes. I know I'm talking to myself.

[Bwaaah]

What's with that "feeemales" thing? What's with that "American-hating vegetarians" thing? What's with that "projecting some weird shit onto your kid's love life" thing?

You missed my positivity. Like I said: it was a tad nicer around here for a few days.

[Sarcastr0]

“Every date my son, who is in college, has had for the past three years has been with that female.

She only slightly tries to hide those feelings while giving him the side eye, checking if he’s one of those people who, for some reason, don’t think humanity is a blight on the earth.

Quickly enough, they realize he is one of those people because he likes hamburgers and doesn’t hate all those other people. Game over.”

People who refer to women as females are 90% likely to be retrograde sexists. Sorry, but I’ve done the science.

The rest are Ferengi on a time travel Internet adventure.

[grb]

Bwaaah : “You missed my positivity”

“Positivity”, huh?

Your poor kid brings home his lady friends for three years running straight and all your eyes ever see is some demon-seed Eternal Femine from Hell. There ain’t a lot of “positivity” in finding woman qua woman automatically a malignant alien species.

But – hey – what do I know? I actually like women!

[Bwaaah]

So, "scientifically" speaking, there's a "90%" chance I'm a "retrograde sexist."

You got a long word _and_ a number in there, statistically speaking, as we do with one another, eh, Sarc?

Yes, Sarc. You are the style of the proponents of contemporary scientism.

Science? Surely you jest. (wait...you're serious)

[Sarcastr0]

Holy shit you are bad at spotting jokes.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Sexbot technology is less than 5 years away.

I mean sexbots with bodies no woman has and able to perform sexually as no woman ever could.

Feminism will end overnight....

[Sarcastr0]

Some men like spending time with women beyond just sexy times.

[David Nieporent]

Setting aside the lack of anything resembling logic in this statement, does Dr. Ed think that only men would be interested in “sexbots”?

EDIT: But actually I don't want to sex aside the lack of logic. What on earth is Dr. Ed claiming? That men only put up with feminism so we can get sex? And so if we didn't need women for sex we would just go around running them over with snowplows if they mouthed off?

[Nige]

'How do people seeking a better world grow so distant from one?'

Most people who don't share your toxic bubble probably prefer some distance from you.

[Moderation4ever]

I have to wonder where Carville get the idea that Trump has any sense of humor. Trump demeans people like a school yard bully, and that is not humor. Comedians who make jokes about people doing it by punching up. Comedians know how to take a joke about themselves, often use it to their advantage. Trump has none of these characteristics he is merely means and that is not humor.

[Michael P]

Was Chris Rock at the Oscars punching up? If so, did that mean that Will Smith was punching down? (And I'm not talking about Rock being not quite as tall.)

[bernard11]

Trump has none of these characteristics he is merely means and that is not humor.

Yes. He doesn’t know how to do anything but mock people.

[Nige]

'not being able to distinguish women from effeminate men:'

It's never far below the surface, is it?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The bigotry at the Volokh Conspiracy?

It is the surface.

[apedad]

It is the surface . . . and openly marching in Charlottesville, and the US Capitol, and in a town near you.

Never quite understood Proud Boys wearing masks though.

Good COVID practice?

[David Nieporent]

“When I look at these polling numbers, it’s like walking in on your grandma naked. You can’t get the image out of your mind.”

They're not great… but in fact Biden's polling has been significantly improving in recent weeks; he's again ahead of Trump in a majority of polls.

[Kazinski]

In a majority?

On the realclearpolitics average its 5-2-1 Trump
https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2024/trump-vs-biden

Then on the Latest Polls page which mixes in battleground states its 34-2-3 Trump
https://www.realclearpolling.com/latest-polls/president/general-election

[Nige]

Prediction: by the end of the summer we'll be back to 'you can't trust those dishonest and slanted polls' again.

[Mr. Bumble]

News from the Swamp:

"Few things so clearly reveal the innermost ugliness and presumptuousness of our ruling class clustered in and around Washington DC (where eight of the ten highest-income counties in the nation now cluster) than the recent Wall Street Journal news account of a “scandal” in DC-area little league baseball. It seems politically powerful people, especially elite lawyers, rigged the local little league process for creating a level playing field among teams to guarantee that their own little leaguers were on the little league equivalent of the 1927 Yankees—steamrolling all opposition on the way to a “championship.”

More here:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/03/our-ugly-ruling-class.php

[Commenter_XY]

The article reads like a lesson in how to be an obnoxious, pretentious asshole; and lord it over others. What are the children being taught? Isn't that the real danger?

[Mr. Bumble]

That as per Rev Jerkland, they are our betters?

[Frank Drackman]

It's "Bettors"

[not guilty]

As in gamblers who place bets?

[apedad]

Yes, the dreaded little league scandal . . . meanwhile in Tennessippi; six (white) former Mississippi Law Enforcement Officers sentenced for torturing and abusing two black men.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/six-former-mississippi-law-enforcement-officers-sentenced-torturing-and-abusing-two-black

[apedad]

According to court documents and the plea hearings, the defendants admitted that on Jan. 24, 2023, Dedmon sent a group message to Middleton, Elward, and Opdyke, three members of the “Goon Squad,” orchestrating a “mission” to forcibly enter a home in Braxton, Rankin County, Mississippi, where two Black men, M.J. and E.P., were residing. “The Goon Squad” is a group of RCSO officers who were known for using excessive force and not reporting it. Dedmon warned the officers that there might be surveillance cameras at the house, and told them “no bad mugshots”, meaning that the officers should use excessive force, but they should make sure not to leave any marks that would be captured in a mugshot.

Upon arrival at the home, the defendants kicked in the door and entered the home without a warrant or any exigent circumstances. The defendants handcuffed and arrested the men without probable cause to believe they had committed any crime, called them racial slurs, and warned them to stay out of Rankin County. Dedmon fired his gun twice to intimidate the men. Further, the defendants punched and kicked the men; tased them 17 times; held them down and poured liquids on their faces, forcing them to involuntarily ingest these liquids; threw eggs at them and assaulted them with a dildo. McAlpin, the senior officer on the scene, failed to intervene to stop the torture or abuse and stole property while the incident occurred.

At the conclusion of the incident, Elward surreptitiously removed a bullet from the chamber of his gun, forced the gun into M.J.’s mouth, and pulled the trigger. The unloaded gun clicked but did not fire. Elward racked the slide, intending to dry-fire a second time. When Elward pulled the trigger, the gun discharged. The bullet lacerated M.J.’s tongue, broke his jaw, and exited out of his neck.

As M.J. was bleeding on the floor, the defendants did not provide medical aid, but instead gathered outside the home to devise a false cover story and took steps to corroborate it by planting a BB gun on M.J.; destroying surveillance video, a spent shell casing, and taser cartridges; submitting fraudulent drug evidence to the crime lab; filing false reports; charging M.J. with crimes he did not commit; making false statements to investigators; and pressuring witnesses to stick to the cover story.

[Commenter_XY]

Thank God these LEOs are being sent to prison.
What is in the water of MS?

[Frank Drackman]

Same thing Capitol Police LT Michael Byrd was drinking

[Nige]

I doubt it's the water that causes or allows that sort of thing to happen. Better question is what's in the institutions?

[Frank Drackman]

What do you expect, the County Seat is "Brandon"

[bernard11]

But somehow it's Black people whose culture is destructive.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

.

What is in the water of MS?

Conservative bigotry and half-educated superstition, for starters.

[Theendoftheleft]

Do you think your children will be sold into slavery, Somin?

[Frank Drackman]

"Assaulted with a Dildo"??
Wasn't that a Monty Python bit,
"You shot him!"
"He was assaulting me with a Dildo!"

Frank

[bernard11]

Moved

[bernard11]

As one would expect from Powerline the actual facts do not measure up to the hype.

Oh, and it seems sort of stupid to pretend that the incident could only occur in DC. Parents in lots of places are unhealthily obsessed with their kids’ sports activities. Does anyone doubt that team rosters are widely manipulated, one way or another?

IOW, the implications of the article are bullshit.

[Michael P]

Joe Biden loves him some carbon footprint, at least when it's bankrolling Putin's regime: https://www.politico.eu/article/report-us-urges-ukraine-stop-attacking-russian-oil-refineries/

[Michael P]

At last, a small victory over misinformation about COVID-19: https://www.newsweek.com/fda-settles-lawsuit-over-ivermectin-social-media-posts-1882562

[Martinned2]

So Ivermectin cures Covid now?

[Michael P]

I think the fatal flaw was in them saying “You are not a horse. You are not a cow.” This discriminates against all those Americans who identify as farm animals.

Or maybe it was in dismissing ivermectin as nothing more than a veterinary dewormer.

[Sarcastr0]

Or maybe settling is the less expensive option and that’s all there is to it.

[Don Nico]

That is often the case.

[Martinned2]

You certainly wouldn't want the FDA to send clear messages about public health in the middle of a pandemic.

[Michael P]

I would prefer their messages to be scientifically sound, but you do you.

[Martinned2]

Getting people not to take Ivermectin as a cure for Covid *is* scientifically sound.

[Randy Sax]

Calling it ONLY a horse de-wormer is not factually sound.

[Martinned2]

No, but it is clear communication, which seems like a reasonable thing to prioritise in the middle of a pandemic.

[Randy Sax]

It does the opposite. When you lie by omission about what ivermectin actually is, it enables more idiots to think it IS a covid cure. In 7th grade health class when they say smoking weed will make your dick explode, and then you find out it doesn't, you don't trust another word out of their mouths.

[Martinned2]

So your theory is that by not issuing a 12-page carefully lawyered up statement you make the reader believe the opposite of the truth? "Idiots" definitely seems like the right word.

[Randy Sax]

"Ivermectin is mainly an antiparasitic, it has not been shown to cure covid or reduce covid symptoms"
VS
"It's for horses, ya dummy"

Doesn't seem that difficult to understand that the first statement is better than the second one.

[Martinned2]

@Randy: For forums like Twitter, the former is most definitely worse than the second. You of all people should understand the importance of avoiding multisyllabics whenever possible. Not to mention that it might be useful to, ya know, write something memorable.

[David Nieporent]

“It’s for horses, ya dummy”

Doesn’t seem that difficult to understand that the first statement is better than the second one.

What you people keep ignoring is that ivermectin was a not-very-available prescription drug, and when the do-anything-but-listen-to-doctors conspiracy nuts couldn't get prescriptions for it, they were taking the veterinary formulations. It's not that ivermectin is inherently for horses — though it's not for Covid under any circumstances — but that they were taking the horse version.

[Brett Bellmore]

Generally speaking, the horse version of a drug and the human version of the same drug are pharmacologically indistinguishable, aside from little matters like size of dose and the manner of administration. (Horses are bigger than humans, and very bad about swallowing pills.)

It's actually pretty normal for farmers to occasionally use veterinary medications like antibiotics, when they're hard to come by in the regular human pharmacy.

[Nige]

'it enables more idiots to think it IS a covid cure'

It's always supposed flaws, slips, omissions and mis-statements by people who usually tell the truth that cause people to believe lies, never either their own politically-driven desire to believe something that isn't true for whatever reason or the people who spew out massive quantities of lies to cater to and exploit them.

[Michael P]

Okay, which of you is Dan Rather, and which one is Fauci?

[Nelson]

"Calling it ONLY a horse de-wormer is not factually sound."

True. It's also monthly heartworm preventative fir dogs.

Calling it effective in treating or preventing Covid is absolutely not factually sound.

So the FDA was snarky, but mostly correct, and that's a problem but the vaccine skeptics were 100% wrong and that isn't?

That's the kind of flawed thinking that got people eating horse paste in the first place. Nothing like doubling down on stupid!

[Joe_dallas]

Martinned2 - you seem to forget that the cdc and other health agencies had lost a lot of credibility with their own misinformation through out the covid pandemic and while ivermectin wasnt a cure nor did ivermectin do anything to reduce the severity of covid, the govt were not providing the correct reason as to why ivermectin did not work. They attacked it as a horse dewormer instead of stating that it lack the mechanism to fight a respirator virus.

[Martinned2]

No, they lost a lot of credibility because they were attacked by partisan lunatics. There's no defence against that. People prefer to believe things that suit them, and there will always be people trying to make a quick buck by telling people what they want to hear. In this case, that was different versions of "Covid is no big deal" and "Lockdowns are an authoritarian conspiracy".

[Mr. Bumble]

"...and there will always be people trying to make a quick buck by telling people what they want to hear."
You mean like MSNBC and the rest of the MSM. Right?

[Martinned2]

MSNBC definitely makes money by telling a group of people what they want to hear. But that isn't that they shouldn't believe what experts tell them about things like how to combat a pandemic.

[Joe_dallas]

martinned2
the cdc etal lost a lot of credibility because they were consistently wrong .

In response to to of your false claims:
"In this case, that was different versions of “Covid is no big deal”"

for children and young adults - Covid was absolutely no big deal except for the tiny fraction of that population that already had pre existing life threating illnesses.

“Lockdowns are an authoritarian conspiracy”.

Whether lockdowns were or were not an authoritarian conspiracy is not important. What is important is knowing that the lockdowns did virtually nothing to slow or eliminate the spread of covid. Covid was too deeply embedded into the general population for even the tiniest remote possibility to stop covid from spreading.
Even it the lockdowns worked, neither masking or lockdowns were every going to achieve the only long term solution which was developing immunity through out the general population. Masking and lockdowns at best were only going to prolong the pandemic.

[Martinned2]

Even now you're still clinging on to the misinformation you swallowed hook, line, and sinker during the pandemic. Like the man would say: "SAD".

https://www.bmj.com/content/382/bmj.p1959

[Joe_dallas]

cochrane study shows otherwise

[Martinned2]

OJ's lawyer? Why would you believe a non-expert who's been dead since 2005?

[Randy Sax]

Martinned, I can't tell if you are joking or you legitimately don't know what the Cochrane org is.

[Martinned2]

It would have been easier if Joe had told me.

[Magister]

Since he's going to invent warp drive in 2063, it would be easy to assume you'd know.

[Nelson]

"cochrane study shows otherwise"

Joe knows confirmation bias. Hell, he lives it every day.

Remember all the "ivermecting works" and Hydroxtchloroquine works" studies? I do.

[Bob from Ohio]

"It would have been easier if Joe had told me."

You made a stupid assumption and you blame Joe. Interesting.

[Nige]

We have been reliably informed that this is how misinformation works - a person making a factual claim omits or mis-states some aspect of the claim, thereby allowing idiots to flood through the gap believing whatever they want to believe.

[Bob from Ohio]

"idiots to flood through the gap believing whatever they want to believe."

Harsh comment about our Dutch friend.

[Sonja T]

martinned2 you linked to a BMJ article which provided no data to support its conclusion

Who is clinging to misinformation

[Don Nico]

Martin,
Joe may be overstating his case, but you definitely are also. In retrospects lockdowns were credibly more damaging to societal welfare than have more rational less stringent measures. Looking for temporal correlations between the Oxford stringency index of public health edicts and COVID-19 morbidity in a wide range of countries found no correlation whatsoever. Those are the biostatistics and epidemiology about the matter.

The big question is whether the CDC, FDA and US State agencies have learned anything that will make the next epidemic less damaging. If they have they should inform the public and initiate a national conversation about the issue.

The next serious communicable disease will come. We should talk about it in the absence of scaremongering or political polemics.

[Nige]

'The big question is whether the CDC, FDA and US State agencies have learned anything that will make the next epidemic less damaging.'

Yeah. It depends, doesn't it. An administration that will take the lessons of covid and use them to establish pandemic response strategies. Or an administration made up of people who claim to think public health is fascism.

[Nelson]

Don, thank you. A detailed, accurate, factual, and moderate post identifying both the successes and failures (as well as the badly skewed balance towards containing the spread over social and economic factors). Man it's refreshing when we get one like that. Kudos!

[Nelson]

"for children and young adults – Covid was absolutely no big deal except for the tiny fraction of that population that already had pre existing life threating illnesses."

No, Civid largely wasn't fatal for children and young adults. But it turns out that long Covid is having unexpectedly adverse health effects on young people who got it.

I have two friends in their mid 30s who still think that Covid was ... honestly, I'm not really sure about all of what you Covid/vaccine skeptics believe. They refused to get vaccinated (and still believe they made the right choice). They got Covid five times. Five! And now they are having health issues that are 100% consistent with long Covid.

It makes me think about smokers who insisted that cigarettes weren't as bad as the government said and then, when they spent 15 yeats slowly suffocating to death with COPD, still insisted it wasn't the cigarettes. It boggles my mind.

And it makes me so sad for my friends, who are likely to suffer for the next 50 years or so because they believed that "vaccune skepticism" nonsense.

"What is important is knowing that the lockdowns did virtually nothing to slow or eliminate the spread of covid."

That is impossible to prove one way or the other. Your bias is showing.

"Even it the lockdowns worked, neither masking or lockdowns were every going to achieve the only long term solution"

No one said it would. They were strategies to slow the transmission.

"which was developing immunity through out the general population"

Which is what the vaccine, combined with the standard evolution of pathogens (lethality decreases while transmissability increases over time), achieved.

The response wasn't perfect, but it succeeded. 20/20 hindsight and saying "I knew the solution, even though I have no knowledge, and those epidemiologists didn't" is pure bullshit. When you don't have to deal with the consequences if you're wrong, grandiose proclamations are easy.

[Joe_dallas]

No, they lost a lot of credibility because they were attacked by partisan lunatics. There’s no defence against that.

Martinned2

With the exception of HCLX and Ivermectin, the partisan hacks were generally correct while the partisan hacks at the CDC were wrong quite frequently - masking and vax effectiveness.

[Nige]

Hosts of malicious idiots made the wildest, stupidest fucking claims about every single covid-related thing, you've memory holed all but two that you seem to think are obvious, and yet still completely and utterly wrong.

[Commenter_XY]

The lying and hypocrisy is what caused them to lose credibility.

Examples: lying about masks (to preserve supply); French Quarter; teachers unions promoting lockdowns; closure of synagogues, but not liquor stores or marijuana dispensaries ; closure of local hardware store, but not home depot.

Do I need to go on. It wasn't partisan lunatics. It was behavior.

[Nige]

You do need to go on, you're excluding a lot of things that people claimed to believe that had nothing to do with anyone losing faith in the CDC and everything to do with a campaign to destroy faith in public health of any kind. Things for which the CDC could be rightfully criticised, and some decisions that were clearly ham-fisted political compromises, did not cause the wildest, weirdest, even horrific claims that were being flung around constantly. Any damage to the credibility of the CDC and polticial authorities for their mistakes and blunders was not comparable to the credibility of most of the people attacking, which mostly started in the deep negatives, or wuickly went there when their claims were scrutinised. But credibiilty to these people was a question of political loyalty, not scientific ability.

[Kazinski]

The CDC lied, and people died.

My daughter works in a hospital, she said they had lots of patients coming into the emergency room with untreated chronic conditions because they couldn't get medical treatment outside the emergency room, and many of them didn't make it.

[Nige]

Trump and Kushner decided to let the states compete for PPP so who knows how many that decision alone killed when it came to hospitals trying to protect staff and patients.

[Sarcastr0]

lots of patients coming into the emergency room with untreated chronic conditions because they couldn’t get medical treatment outside the emergency room, and many of them didn’t make it.

Yeah, that is a well-reported phenomenon.

What the fuck does this have to do with the CDC?

[Kazinski]

It was the CDC that recommended shutting down the economy and closing nonessential businesses, including doctors offices for routine care.

[Nige]

Yeah, I wonder why they decided that people with chronic conditions that made them vulnerable to covid should probably not go to places where covid patients were concentrated. Let me make this clear: if you were ok with normal life carrying on, then you were ok with everybody, with vulnerabilities and without, catching and potentially dying from or being disabled by covid. Your concern about vulnerable people being kept out of hospitalsd filled with covid rings hollow.

[Nelson]

"including doctors offices for routine care."

I don't know where you live, but in Delaware nothing like that ever happened. There were onerous and time-consuming protective measures (it took me almost two hours to get my annual physical from my GP), but there wasn't a prohibition on doctor's offices being open.

[Don Nico]

You might listen to Kazinski about the answer to your question.

[grb]

Joe_dallas : “the cdc and other health agencies had lost a lot of credibility”

You have to wonder at someone who traffics in an excuse this bogus. It’s much like someone murderering his parents and then demanding mercy because he’s an orphan.

For the sleaziest of political reasons, the Right attacked every single aspect of the official covid response with relentless propaganda. They attacked the reported statistics as made-up, the number of deaths as fabricated, and the disease effects as lies. In the earliest days of the pandemic, Sean Hannity claimed covid was a “deep state” plot to sow panic. Rush Limbaugh said it was a biological weapon attack launched against the U.S. Fox business anchor Trish Regan announced the disease a hoax to provide impeachment grounds against Trump. According to the Right’s pet media, everything was a conspiracy.

They launched crude vicious smear-campaigns against public health officials. Junk cures were pushed as the magical answer the government was trying to hide; the studies that disproved their efficacity were all coverups. When the first vaccines emerged, the Right went anti-vaxx in a heartbeat to scrape a little political gain from that as well. Today, you see the effect of that loathsome tactic in depressed rates for all vaccines across the board.

So if the CDC “lost a lot of credibility”, it was because the Right taught their servile base to think what they were told to think and say what they were told to say. And all for a few polling points of gain.

[Randy Sax]

Pointless masking, skool closures at behest of teachers unions, getting your 14th booster, claiming the vax prevented transmission. I'm not saying there weren't right wing lunatics who made up bullshit, but a lot of the confidence loss was self inflicted.

[Sarcastr0]

I mean, you just posted a lot of made up bullshit yourself.

1) Masking was effective. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10446908/

2) I agree that school closures were not the right way to go. Kind of wild you think teachers unions were the main cause. I guess they beat out the restraint and bar lobbies? Or maybe America has some bad priorities for reasons deeper than your reductive partisan take.

3) Hyperbole about boosters is not a sign of a serious post. Are you anti-vax, or just think that boosters aren't a thing?

4) I presume you mean 100% prevention, otherwise this is an accurate statement - cutting down on the time and seriousness of the infection absolutely cuts down on transmission. Do you have a source or is this, again, bullshit?

[Absaroka]

"cutting down on the time and seriousness of the infection absolutely cuts down on transmission"

Too lazy to dig for sources, but I don't think that is an absolute.

Just in general seriously ill people are more likely to stay home than people with minor symptoms, and thus might transmit less. Or not; if someone is sneezing twice as much they likely spread more. But if Fred has a higher fever, he might stay home, while lower-fever Betsy goes into the office and spreads. I don't think it's a simple problem.

ISTR also, for covid in particular, speculation that the mRNA vaccine did its work late in the game; it prevented serious disease at the stage the virus was attacking those specific receptors in pulmonary cells. But that it wasn't affecting things early in infection when the virus was replicating in - and spreading from - the nasal passages. That could actually make it counterproductive if you have a bunch of people who have minor sniffles who also feel well enough to go to work. I think the idea of having a nasal spray vaccine to specifically prime the early stages of the immune system was floated to avoid this problem; it wouldn't help you if the infection got into your lungs, but it would make you less likely to transmit.

I don't recall any of this being nailed down; it just struck me that the issue of vaccines and transmission could be pretty complicated.

[Sarcastr0]

Sure, there are going to be cases where that's not the case. But collectively it holds.
And remember, the vaccine is not operating in a vacuumed - other policies including social distancing and masking were in place for a lot of the initial rollout.

I don't know about Covid in particular, but respiratory diseases are generally transmitted more strongly the more you have the respiratory symptoms.

Bottom line - the argument that the vaccine did nothing to lessen transmission rests on a number of unsupported assumptions that fly in the face of previous vaccine and respiratory disease experience, and the observed (roughly) correlated drop in the death rate worldwide.

And here's a source, though it isn't longitudinal and I only read the abstract. Still, a data point - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10073587/

Conclusions
While we observed VOC-specific immune-escape, especially by Omicron, and waning over time since immunization, vaccination remained associated with a reduced risk of SARS-CoV-2-transmission.

[Absaroka]

That study certainly supports 'it's complicated' 🙂

The study is limited to "high-risk exposure contact", which unfortunately they don't define. If they mean 'people sharing a household' or similar, it doesn't speak to the issue of how many people Mildred infected because she felt well enough to go to the grocery store. It's almost like ... it's not a subject well addressed by short absolute sentences.

[Sonja T]

SO the conclusion of vax effectiveness study is not nearly as robust as the study authors conclude.

The conclusion provides :
"For primary BNT162b2-vaccination we estimated initial VET at 96% (95%CI 95–97) against Alpha, ..."

The alpha variant ran from Sept 2020 through mid Summer of 2021 with the normal/natural peak of the wave in December 2020 / January 2021 and a moderate to rapid decline as spring approaches which is consistent with most every respiratory virus.

The study is giving the vaccines credit for what is historically happening to every respiratory virus.

[Sonja T]

Did you read any of the caveats in the study

These are the most important and prominent reviews, among a large number of reviews of variable quality, which inevitably include many of the same studies. The review that was limited to RCTs was unable to draw firm conclusions about the effectiveness of masks, whereas those that included observational studies were able to draw low to moderate strength conclusions that generally favoured the effectiveness of masks.

In summary, the great majority of studies found that masks (n = 39/47; 83%) reduced transmission, although the magnitude of measured effects was variable and the quality (precision and ROB) of evidence in both community and healthcare settings was low

The first study cited [14] is the bangladesh study.
Another study cited in the meta study Hast M et al. 2022. with 9800 eligible students in the pool, but only 628 participants in the study.

I havent taken the time to review all the studies in the BMJ study your link provided, though first impression isnt promising.

[Artifex]

Hmmm, about that NIH reference ....

Often, Sarcastro presents sources he neither reads nor understands while trying to support some stupid point with a quick google search. You can often be sure that they didn't say what he is claiming. While his usual hyper political partizan gish gallop get old, it can sometimes be entertaining to actually read the literature. In this case several amusing elements immediately jump out.

From the synopsis:

Ninety-five per cent of studies included were conducted before highly transmissible Omicron variants emerged. Ninety-one per cent of observational studies were at ‘critical’ risk of bias (ROB) in at least one domain, often failing to separate the effects of masks from concurrent interventions.

At least they are up front about telling us that their data is shit before they come down on the politically correct side of the argument.

Also, if you have been around the Sarcastro style dishonesty before in this type of argument, you know where to go looking. My bet was that there would be the neat rhetorical slight of hand where they try to conflate N95 masks and scraps of bandana hung over some idiots face. Sure enough, deep inside, multiple studies report ...

... compared with no statistically significant effect of cloth masks (aPR 0.94 [95% CI: 0.78, 1.10]).

Also, they note that the surgical mask vs cloth mask studies were universally of high ROB (risk of bias) quality. So as usual, if it is actually said: "Masking was effective." it should be prefaced by the typical cartoon buffoon statement: "for some utterly arbitrary redefinition of effective".

As a last note, metareviews that use a series of studies that find both effects and lack of effects and then attempt to stir them all together in a pot and claim "well some small majority of the studies claim the effect is real so the effect is real" are themselves bullshit. This might work in the Critical Studies world where the goal is to sell the political narritive, but it is pure statistical malpractice in the empirical world. What we can actually say is: "We are not sure that there is an effect because the studies don't replicate and if the effect exists, it is small because it does not stand out in all studies".

[Sarcastr0]

I freaking said I didn't read this study. I explicitly declaimed it as dispositive as well!

You came in with suppositions and no sources; I guess that keeps you from being vulnerable to this kind of bullshit.
But it's also not a very substantive way to be.

[Kazinski]

Well then if you didn't read and its not very robust why did you link it?

[Sonja T]

Uses a study he didnt read to prove you were wrong.

[Sarcastr0]

Kaz - it's more than nothing, and I was quite clear about that fact.

Sonja T - that's not what I offered it for; and again I was quite clear about that fact.

Seems to me it's pretty normal to say 'here's a source; I haven't vetted it yet but take a look.' And not just in academic circles - Y'all are just terminally Internet-brained and can't see anything as something other than an attack, even when well caveated.

[Artifex]

Sarcastro is always our most reliable source of insipid derp.

I freaking said I didn’t read this study. I explicitly declaimed it as dispositive as well!

Dishonesty is instinctive for you isn't it ? What did you actually say ?

1) Masking was effective. ...(link)

I must have missed the part about not reading the material you were trying hit Randy Sax over the head with.

You came in with suppositions and no sources; I guess that keeps you from being vulnerable to this kind of bullshit.

LOL. When presented with an uncomfortable fact, you shriek and lie to try to spin the narrative. The fact is, it is obvious to anyone who is not an abject moron that I came prepared with a source. I read and quote "your" source. I suppose that I need to since actually reading and understanding is beyond you. See those things called blockquotes in my original post ? Those are actually text clips from your source. So your point that I came without source is as transparently dishonest as you can get, but then that's you.

To be substantive, you need to honestly appraise the data. I do that by actually reading technical material and attempting to understand it. You don't. Simple as that.

[Joe_dallas]

Sacastro - ill informed rant

3) Hyperbole about boosters is not a sign of a serious post. Are you anti-vax, or just think that boosters aren’t a thing?

The effective life of the original vax was barely six months,
The effective life of a booster vax was barely 3-4 months
The effective life of a second booster vax was at best 2 months.

With all the good information out in the public domain, you are still getting it wrong

[Don Nico]

S_O,

1) is true in a lab setting and for people who were rigorous in the way they wore high quality masks. It is very questionable in practice if you actually paid attention to how people wore masks in public.

2) He never said teachers unions were the main cause. YOu applies your typically dishonest way to response to 2).

3) and 4) Do you just agree to discount detailed statistics of the ever decreasing effectiveness of vaccines to prevent transmission with each new variant of SARS-CoV-2? Or do you only believe the science that fits your bureaucrat politics?

[Sarcastr0]

Read the Randy Sax post I replied to. As usual you didn't read the thread and so come in half baked.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Read the Randy Sax post I replied to."

He read it, and pointed out how you distorted it. Did you miss that part?

[Don Nico]

S_0,
"You come in half baked"
Bullshit, You have nothing useful to say except for insults, exaggeration to the point of lying and moving your goal posts.

I don't have to read every comment to recognize dishonesty in a single post.
And did you have a substantive reply? No, Why? Because you do not know and have not seriously studied the topic. You just come in with obligato support of fellow bureaucrats.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Kind of wild you think teachers unions were the main cause."

The AFT's collusion with the CDC has been documented via FOIA'd emails.

[David Nieporent]

That does not show "collusion" or any significant impact from the AFT. Did you read the story or just the headline?

[Joe_dallas]

No - Ivermectin does not cure covid, nor does ivermectin partially alleviate the symptoms of covid

though it is important to understand why a fringe portion of the population believed ivermectin to be a cure for covid.

several small regions of the world with high ivermectin usage had shorter and much less severe waves of covid . Currently with no known reason though likely something else in regional environment that was causing the shorter waves of covid. It was worthwhile to explore why that was happening. However, the manner in which ivermectin was attacked from government organizations that had already lost a lot of their own credibility with their own misinformation boosted the perceived benefit of ivermectin.

[Sarcastr0]

it is important to understand why a fringe portion of the population believed ivermectin to be a cure for covid.

It is not because of anything the CDC did. It's because the right went full-bore anti-expertise and plenty of fringey bloggers were quite willing to take advantage.

Joe, there were studies being done on Ivermectin by these governments you take to task.

Saying don't take untested drugs is not some irrational attack.

You, meanwhile, were full-bore on some stupid blogger you took as gospel, quoted at length, and attacked everyone else as not sharing your expertise on the issue. It's where you began building your reputation for high-handed yet unearned claims of expert credentials in every field under the sun.

[Joe_dallas]

Sacastro -

Did you bother to read the first sentence

Did you bother to read the 3rd sentence / paragraph

Apparently not - because nothing you wrote addresses the points I made. Instead you come out with a partisan attack.

[Sarcastr0]

Oh, I did. But I also remember your posting during Covid. Which it kind of seems like you forgot. Or at least are committed to learn nothing from.

My main refutation of your third paragraph: "Joe, there were studies being done on Ivermectin by these governments you take to task.

Saying don’t take untested drugs is not some irrational attack."

[Joe_dallas]

Sacastro - you are misrepresenting my covid comments

I never said ivermectin was effective

Most , if not all my other covid comments have been correct including my comments regarding masking. See the cochrane study issued in 2023 largely supported my comments from 2020 through 2023.

The pro masking studies were of very low quality, especially the highly touted Bangladesh study , the arizona school mask study and the kansas mask study.

[Sarcastr0]

Longitudinal studies of masking have come out, and it turns out to be effective.

I don't recall if your endless posts of the 'Healthy Skeptic' included anything about Ivermectin, but you were hard to the paint with 'if the CDC says it it's probably false' nonsense.

[Sonja T]

Sacastro - the longitudinal studies that have come out demonstrating masking effectiveness have all included the caveat of either being low quality or biased. See my commentary on the BMJ study you cited.

[Sarcastr0]

low quality or biased

Do you know what longitudinal means?

[Sonja T]

Sacastro - the two meta studies you linked included 2 or 3 longitudinal studies. Both of the meta studies included the caveat that the underlying studies were low quality or biased.

[Sarcastr0]

Both of the meta studies included the caveat that the underlying studies were low quality or biased.

The longitudinal study I am talking about here was about masking.

The cool thing about longitudinal studies is you have enough data to compensate for (some) quality issues and sample bias.

The masking study was thus able to come to a robust conclusion despite the various flaws in the various studies.

[Sonja T]

Sacastro - that masking study you cited was a meta study that had only included one longitudinal study which was of low quality.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10446908/

[Don Nico]

Please cite the study to which you refer. I’d like to read it and compare the methods with a range of other information.

By the way, I still use a mask in crowded environments with limited air circulation, because a good mask can be effective as long as it is worn properly.

[Nige]

'though it is important to understand why a fringe portion of the population believed ivermectin to be a cure for covid.'

Some fucking lawyer went on Fox and made the claim, it was picked up and spread through right-wing media until it got to Trump, and then it became an article of holy faith for believers.

[John F. Carr]

A very, very small victory. A few tweets were deleted years after they were relevant.

Like the federal government agreed not to run an immigration checkpoint in a certain town along I-93 in central New Hampshire for the next few years. The plaintiffs could claim victory. There was no real change to government policy. (The "immigration" checkpoint was solely a way to legitimize warrantless searches for drugs.)

[Martinned2]

A very, very small victory.

Which is why the FDA had a strong incentive to settle.

[Kazinski]

Actually the big victory was the FDA was constrained in trying to contradict physicians advice off label use of approved medications.

"The appeals court also said that, "Even tweet-sized doses of personalized medical advice are beyond the FDA's statutory authority."
https://www.newsweek.com/fda-settles-lawsuit-over-ivermectin-social-media-posts-1882562

I did have some experience with off-label use of prescription medication in the early days of Covid. When the pandemic first hit I was in SE Asia and secured a supply of Hydroxycloroquine, which is available there widely without a prescription. I actually could have easily got a prescription in the US before I left because they recommend taking it preventively when going into regions with malaria.

I did take it for about a week when I traveled back to the US, in April of 2020, and I did find it very effective when I got back and took it during the early stages of a cold (which is a coronovirus). I'd take it again if I thought I was.coming down with a cold or covid.

[Michael P]

Joe Biden seems to have plagiarized and fictionalized his political origin story: https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/joe-bidens-political-origin-story-is-almost-certainly-bogus-and-he-just-swore-to-it-under-oath/

[Kazinski]

Another day ending in Y.

[Bob from Ohio]

Really, its a dog bites man story. There is very, very little in Biden' life he doesn't lie about.

[Nige]

Certainly there's very little in Biden's life you lot don't lie about.

[Kazinski]

Well you can see why Biden lies so much about his accomplishments, a career politician since he was in his 20's.

Scraped by in law school, but he did thrive in the swamp.

His only success in the private sector was as a life guard, not that there is anything wrong with that, Reagan was a lifeguard too, credited with saving over 70 people in the Rock River in Illinois.

I'm sure Biden whistled at least that many kids for running.

[Nige]

It certainly provides ample opportunities for you to claim he lies or lied about something or other that happened a few decades ago. Meanwhile Trump still claims he won the last election.

[Krychek_2]

https://julieroys.com/book-publishers-refuse-macarthurs-war-on-children/

A Christian celebrity pastor, John MacArthur, excommunicated the wife of a staff pastor for refusing to take him back after he molested their daughter. He has publicly sided with the molester, and helped the molester start a Christian ministry from prison, called Chains for Christ. (Seriously.)

Anyway, MacArthur tried publishing a book about how to protect children from the evils of godless liberalism, only no Christian publisher will touch it because MacArthur has now been publicly tarred as someone who sided with an abuser rather than the abused, so he has now self-published. I guess the publishers can see the hypocrisy of him pontificating about protecting children even if he can't see it. I swear, every time you think they can't top themselves, they somehow do. Better to protect kids from drag queen story hour than from a staff pastor who is actually molesting them.

[hobie]

Lots of documented child molestation from Christian denomination authorities. Need to pass some bills banning conversion into the faiths. Need some bills regarding Sunday story hours.

[Bob from Ohio]

Lots of documented child molestation from public school teachers.

[Krychek_2]

Probably more than from drag queen story hour.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Probably more than from drag queen story hour."

Probably more than from pastors as well.

Drag queens never seem to read to elderly nursing home patients though, just children.

[Krychek_2]

Bob, I subscribe to a religious news service, and about a third of the news stories are about sexual misconduct among the clergy, frequently with children. Granted that's anecdotal.

I actually attended a drag queen story hour just to see what the fuss was about. A drag queen wearing so much makeup you could have buried Jimmy Hoffa read The Cat in the Hat, acting out the parts, with the children shreiking with laughter the entire time. It was hilarious. So why don't they read in nursing homes? Because it's the sort of humor small children will get into and elderly adults won't.

The grooming claim is really the same type of claim that Jews kidnap Christian babies and use their blood to make matzo. Same type of accusation, different hated minority group. The people spreading it should be ashamed of themselves.

[Martinned2]

https://www.alphahealthcaregroup.co.uk/news/drag-queen-visits-care-home-to-celebrate-alpha-pride/

[Martinned2]

https://www.oregonlive.com/clackamascounty/2018/06/drag_show_comes_to_a_retiremen.html

[Bob from Ohio]

Both your links regard shows though. Old people do like circuses and clowns.

[Nige]

Explains your love for the Republicans and Trump.

[Martinned2]

I had more links, but the spam filter stopped me posting them.

[hobie]

Bob 'whatabout' Ohio. You get the new 'whatabout' mantle that I had bestowed on AmosArch. Enjoy it, sir.

[Nelson]

"Lots of documented child molestation from public school teachers."

Less, per capita, than priests. And that's just the Catholic Church.

Also, public school teachers don't, as an organization, cover for molesters, prevent law enforcement from doing their job, help molesters flee jurisdiction, move known molesters to unsuspecting parishes, etc.

Child molesters exist in every profession. Religious organizations actively and aggressively cover up for and obstruct the prosecution of pedophiles. There is no equivalence between the behavior of teacher organizations and religious organizations.

The ones who fail to act morally are the ones who claim they are the moral guides. Your apologism and whataboutism is disgusting and false.

[Bwaaah]

"I swear, every time you think they can’t top themselves, they somehow do."

Which they? Christians?

Teach me about bigotry.

[Krychek_2]

The average person in the pews? No. But corporate Christianity? Yup. You should read what Jesus said about organized religion. He called them a brood of vipers, hypocrites who do things to be seen of men, told people to do as they say but not as they do because what they say is not what they do, asked how they expected to escape the condemnation of hell, said that they shut the kingdom of heaven in people's faces, said that when they make a convert they turn him into twice the child of hell as themselves, called them blind guides, said they were like whitewashed tombs full of dead men's bones, and said their house would be left to them desolate.

Today's atheists have nothing on Jesus when it comes to hurling invective at organized religion.

[Bwaaah]

So "they" are Christians who participate in any churches (i.e. groups organized enough to have an asset, such as a building, which requires funding)? I'm trying to distinguish "corporate Christianity" from "organized religion," which seem to be roughly the same for you. Is that correct?

[Krychek_2]

Do you understand that a small, family-owned business that employs five people is not the same kind of entity as IBM or General Motors? That while there are some superficial similarities, their differences are far more significant? If you understand that, then I'm sure the distinction I'm drawing between a local flock and corporate Christianity will occur to you.

[Bwaaah]

I'm not at all clear on your analogies. Can you clarify what "corporate Christianity" is? Is it the so-called "mega churches"? Is it the Catholic Church? Is it the local church with 100 congregants? Is it a church with too much money? Too much fundraising? Too many members?

I can't relate "family-owned business" and "IBM" to whatever "corporate Christianity" means to you. Is it an ambiguous thing? Please clarify.

[Krychek_2]

And I'm candidly skeptical that you're honestly not getting it. I've articulated the general principle that corporate religion (not just Christianity) is evil. You're now trying to engage me in a game of whack-a-mole in which any answer I give will just lead to six more questions. If I were to say, for example, that 100 congregants either is, or is not, corporate Christianity, your next question would be what about 90 or 110, and where exactly am I drawing that line? If I were to say that the Catholic church is, or is not, corporate Christianity, your next question would be do I mean the Vatican bureaucracy or the local parish priest. You can do this all day.

This discussion arose on the context of a specific mega-church pastoral celebrity who has made millions of dollars in the religion business. Wherever I might draw the line on how many congregants makes for a mega-church, he definitely qualifies. And yes, mega churches are big business by any reasonable definition of the term. Just as I can say that someone who weighs 500 pounds would be better off losing some weight even if I don't have a precise number in mind.

[hobie]

Bingo. He gets selectively confused when it suits him, incisive otherwise

[Bob from Ohio]

" big business by any reasonable definition of the term"

Fortune 500? Dow Jones listed? NY Stock exchange listed? NASDAQ listed?

Those are big business, not single site churches..

[Krychek_2]

I would say a church with Joel Osteen’s budget qualifies as big business.

[Bob from Ohio]

90 million?

"As per the data provided by National Automotive Dealers Association (NADA), the total sales of light vehicles topped 618 billion at half year 2022. With over 16,750 dealers across the country, the average turnover of a car dealership is about $74 million per year…!"

So a bit more than the average car dealership's gross income. Do you consider all 16,750 dealers to be big business?

[Nelson]

So your argument is, "sure, they're constantly immoral protectors and defenders of sexual predators, but 90 million doesn't count as big business"?

That's not the great defense you think it is.

[Bwaaah]

Ok. I think I understand. You don’t have a well-formed definition for “corporate Christianity.” I think it’s a generalized term that conveys your contempt for organized religion and profiteering.

Deep inside this is a story of child abuse, and allegations of wrongful counseling, support and sanctioning of church members by church leaders. One could take interest, for example, in whether the child was protected from further potential injury once the alleged abuse came to light (assuming it did). But this story isn’t about a child being abused; it’s about those Christian organizations deaf to women and child abuse.

(This story even invokes the allusion to “grooming.” And it’s published by a large corporate Christian organization. Go figure.)

This wasn’t a game for me. I wasn’t trying to make you dance. I was trying to see if this was anything but a case of call-out-a-villain-and-extend-your-attack-to-his-ilk. I think the problem is child abuse, and the villains are child abusers. But for you, that’s just a vehicle to advance the problem of your focus: corporate Christianity.

Whatever.

[Nelson]

“I think it’s a generalized term that conveys your contempt for organized religion”

No, it’s a pretty accurate description of organiztions like the Catholics, Mormons, Southern Baptists, etc. They sell morality, but their product is defective. The are immoral when it comes to sexual predators in their midsts. The documentation is all over and discovery hasn’t changed their behavior. Unfortunately, you can’t take the Catholic Church to trial for child trafficking and running an international pedophile ring. The First Amendment protects them and their accounting tricks protect their assets.

But I would dearly love to see a criminal trial of the pedophile priests, plus the bishops and cardinals who protect them. Priests should be subject to the law just like everyone else.

[Bwaaah]

There's more truth in what you say than I can dispose of. I'd only add that I'd focus on the people who did wrong, and not the institutions except insofar as they institutionalized wrongful practices.

Institutions are best viewed as a sum of the behaviors of their practicing members. When the members avoid engaging in wrongdoing, there's a pretty good chance that the institution won't be engaged in wrongdoing. And this is also to say that when people change, their institutions can very much change as a result. The past is not necessarily a good indication of the present or the future.

[Drewski]

Hah, you really zinged that Jesus fella.

[Nelson]

"I’m trying to distinguish “corporate Christianity” from “organized religion,”"

Yes, organized religion is the category, like fast food, Christianity is the sub-category, like burgers or tacos, and the specific denomination is like Burger King or McDonalds. They all sell a product. Burger King sells burgers, the Catholic Church sells morality.

Organized religion, however, fails to act morally. And their adherents make excuses and attack others with claims of false equivalence (the go-to is to say "but teachers molest kids, too", ignoring the lack of active interference from teacher organizations and the complete difference in the two groups' cooperation with law enforcement) to prevent their actions from tarnishing the brand.

My father was molested by a Catholic priest. He was the fifth boy at the third parish that they sent him to. He would go on to molest seven more boys (that are known) at four more postings. The Church knew, and when their victim blaming (literally) and moral blackmail didn't stop some of the parents from going to the authorities, they moved the pedophile out of the state, protected the pedophile priest, and aggressively interfered in the investigations. Eventually they sent him out of the country to do missionary work. They never admitted he was a pedophile, prevented him from interacting with children, or warned anyone at the new parish.

That story is not an outlier. It isn't the exception. It isn't limited to the Catholic Church.

Pointing out that organized religion protects sexual predators, especially pedophiles, isn't being a bigot. It's making an observation reinforced over and over again by actial cases over decades. It's the norm, not the exception.

And before you tell me they don't act against accusers any more, this is from the other day:

https://www.kadn.com/news/local/former-deacon-whose-son-was-abused-by-priest-excommunicated-by-diocese-of-lafayette/article_2be4f994-e702-11ee-a4f5-433e07ba84c0.html

If you still have faith, great. But don't gaslight us by claiming this isn't a problem or that religious organizations don't actively hide cases of sexual predation, actively retaliate against accusers and their families, or actively interfere in the process when law enforcement does get involved. It's patently false to make such a claim.

[hobie]

They preach bigotry from the pulpit every week. They get called out on it which is reverse bigotry. You got anything else beyond second grade 'I-know-you-are-but-what-am-I'. Lord...fish in a barrel.

[Commenter_XY]

Antisemitism in the Peoples Republic of NJ….Hate and bias crimes, particularly those directed toward Jews, have skyrocketed in the wannabe socialist paradise of NJ. A few pieces of summary data.

2022: Total of 2605 hate or bias crimes
2023: Total of 3211 hate or bias crimes (23% increase in 1 year)

2022: Antisemitic hate crimes 446
2023: Antisemitic hate crimes 708 (58% increase in 1 year)

For all the talk, Jews are being systematically targeted, and it is getting worse. The antisemitic virus has taken hold here in the People’s Republic. This should not be happening here in America.

https://patch.com/new-jersey/across-nj/2-6k-bias-incidents-fueled-njs-largest-hate-crime-surge-date-ag

[Don Nico]

C_XY,
Unfortunately, it is not just in New Jersey.

[Nelson]

And it should sicken us all. When someone can't condemn violent bigotry because it's a bigotry they approve of, it says a lot about that person, not the target of the hate.

Jews have been enduring this treatment for hundreds (or thousands) of years. I'm not as horrified by the most recent numbers as I am by the baseline. When someone violently attacks 446 people merely because they're Jewish, it should dismay everyone. The fact that there were so many more attacks last year than the year before shouldn't obscure that truth.

[jb]

It's true that antisemitism is on the rise, and there's obviously no excuse for the attitude or the crimes. Looking at the broader data shows there's a broad pattern of increased bias crimes, as even the 23% increase overall should tell us that there's a significant overall problem. Anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hate crimes were actually up even more on a percentage basis although the absolute numbers are lower.

[Mr. Bumble]

"Anti-Muslim and anti-Arab hate crimes were actually up even more on a percentage basis although the absolute numbers are lower."
Got a source for that claim?

[jb]

Yes, it's the exact same data set that Commenter_XY's data comes from:

https://apnews.com/article/bias-incidents-hate-crime-new-jersey-18360bafe696bfc07e8ef1e3744ca267

[hobie]

Israel is not a Jew, it is a state. And states must be held accountable for any crimes it commits. My Jewish friends would agree

[Martinned2]

In a just world, this would come up a lot more in the US too:

The governor of Wandsworth Prison in London has avoided being sent to prison herself after not complying with a judge’s order to release a man who had been unlawfully detained.

https://rozenberg.substack.com/p/prison-governor-avoids-prison

[Michael P]

Why? How often do US prison bosses refuse to release people who were unlawfully detained? Is it a great achievement for the UK to not send such prison bosses to jail?

[Martinned2]

I can't find the source now, but it happens more often than it should (i.e. more than zero) that prisoners end up still in prison for days or weeks after they were supposed to be released, due to some combination of slow bureaucracy, IT SNAFU, or outright private prison greed.

[Noscitur a sociis]

or outright private prison greed.

Oh for fuck’s sake.

[Martinned2]

Wouldn't be the first time. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w25715/revisions/w25715.rev0.pdf

[Noscitur a sociis]

What part of that article do you feel supports your claim?

[Martinned2]

I linked it as another example of private prisons acting unethically at the expense of prisoners in order to make more money.

[David Nieporent]

How often do US prison bosses refuse to release people who were unlawfully detained?

It happens routinely in Louisiana, because apparently their schools are so bad that state officials can't do math, and of course some of the awful judges on the 5th circuit are having a tantrum because state prison officials are being held civilly accountable.

[Nelson]

It's been a disturbing trend recently. I read one story about a guy who had served his sentence, but they wouldn't release him for over a year.

[John F. Carr]

The post is unclear on what the governor did and what sort of criminal intent was alleged or proved.

I could imagine a bailiff storming into her office, wearing his official wig and robe and thumping his official staff to get her attention, and then presenting her with an ornate scroll bearing His Majesty's seal in crimson wax. On the scroll is written "Release this prisoner to me now, or I shall send you to the Tower."

I could also imagine a database being updated to show a new release date and the change failing to be noticed.

[Martinned2]

Well, the post said that there had been a "judge's order", so that's clearly more than a database entry being updated.

[Martinned2]

Never mind, I can do better than that. The judgment is here: https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kim-v.-Governor-of-HMP-Wandsworth-21.03.24.pdf

7. On 16 January 2024, Bumju Kim pleaded guilty at the Westminster Magistrates’ Court to an offence of battery contrary to s.39 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988. He was sentenced at 11.41 a.m. that day to ten weeks’ imprisonment. Taking into account the time that Mr Kim had spent on remand, it is common ground that he should then have been released. Instead, Mr Kim was put on a prison bus and taken back to Wandsworth Prison.

8. That evening, Mr Kim was told that it might take until 18 January for the paperwork to be sorted out. His solicitor, Bartholomew Dalton, formally complained that his client’s continued detention was unlawful: (...)

9. I was the duty judge that evening. At 2.23 a.m. on 17 January 2024, I gave leave for the issue of a writ of habeas corpus and ordered the Governor of Wandsworth Prison to produce Mr Kim before me at the Royal Courts of Justice at 11 a.m. unless he had been released from custody before that time.

10. Mr Dalton called the prison again at 9.14 a.m. but the member of staff answering his call refused to put him through to either the duty governor or the OMU.

11. Mr Kim was released on 17 January but not until after the 11 a.m. deadline. In breach of my order, the Governor failed to produce Mr Kim before the court. (...)

[John F. Carr]

After the jury said O.J. Simpson was not guilty of murder he was taken back to jail anyway, for much the same reason that the defendant Mr. Kim was kept in custody after being sentenced to time served. Jailers want to follow procedures. Wandsworth prison wants to double check the release date, which is something done during business hours or in emergencies as late as 22:00. After that time the national habeas corpus help line shuts down for the night.

Now the Governor has been reminded that she is personally responsible for compliance. She had accepted a statement from her staff that the problem would be taken care of and she did not need to do anything.

Meanwhile in America we argue over whether Louisiana officials should know it is wrong to keep people locked up without cause.

[Martinned2]

I gather that it is not proper English procedure to take a remand prisoner back to prison if they've been ordered released.

[Bob from Ohio]

Jail sucks but it was one whole day. Not exactly keeping him in Devil's Island.

[Martinned2]

It's better if government employees whose job it is to lock people up don't get in the habit of being flexible about court orders.

[Brett Bellmore]

We could probably be a bit more casual about this sort of thing if the victims of it were actually compensated properly.

[Martinned2]

Even then I'd still prefer it if government employees strictly complied with court orders.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I'll vary my usual routine and bring up a question from an earlier thread:

When did George Washington exert executive privilege? Don't say his 1796 message on the Jay Treaty, because his message doesn't invoke modern concepts of executive privilege:

https://reason.com/volokh/2024/03/21/thursday-open-thread-182/?comments=true#comment-10495133

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

I don't have time to do any real research, but I seem to remember that Congress asked Washington to turn over some documents relating to negotiations over the Jay Treaty, and Washington politely refusing. I thought he invoked some form of executive privilege, but I could be wrong.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Wait, did your comment always have that caveat about not saying the Jay Treaty? I must be having a stroke, or else you're gaslighting me.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Neither, I hope.

Washington wouldn't turn over the Jay Treaty documents to the House because treaties were the responsibility of the President and the Senate. So it wasn't Congress v. President but House v. Pres+Senate.

Another commenter said there were *other* examples of Washington invoking executive privilege, and if there are such examples I'd love to learn about them. The Jay Treaty stuff was the only example I heard about from Washington - are there other incidents?

[NOVA Lawyer]

Washington and his cabinet agreed in March 1792, that Congress could not request papers directly from department secretaries (in this case, Secretary of War Knox), but instead had to make the request directly to the president. And, after Congress directed the request directly to President Washington, he complied because releasing the requested documents would not damage national security. (Which, of course, implies that there would be some instances in which he could rightly deny Congress access to executive branch materials.)

However, as I am sure you will note, his concept of executive privilege was definitely far more limited than what it has become today and, moreover, these examples both resulted in Washington ultimately providing the documents. Not super strong precedent for the level of privilege invoked by AG Holder (which I bring up only because that was the context of the earlier discussion).

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/07/29/george-washington-invoked-executive-privilege-hed-reject-barrs-version/

[John F. Carr]

From the hyperbole department:

A plaintiff commented on the failure of a judge to grant her requested injunction.“I view the failure of the court to take the concerns of possible harm and displacement which would occur as being similar to the Dred Scott decision wherein our rights as black citizens are not worthy of serious consideration or respect,” Elisa said in a statement. “Nothing has changed in Boston.”This second worst judicial decision in American history allowed a professional women's soccer team to play in a city stadium on most Saturdays in summer in return for the team paying half of the $100 million cost of renovations. The stadium is in a large city park. No neighborhoods will be razed. The deal is nothing compared to the demolition of Boston's West End in the 1950s in the name of urban renewal.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/03/22/metro/court-ruling-allows-white-stadium-renovation-project-proceed/
https://www.bostonherald.com/2024/03/22/boston-professional-womens-soccer-team-win-judges-approval-for-white-stadium-renovation/

[Bob from Ohio]

White Stadium! A coincidence?

[M L]

If you as a regular citizen are worried about who the next POTUS is going to be, this means the federal government has too much power.

[Martinned2]

And presumably one of the ways to fix that problem is to elect the right person as president, no?

[Ed Grinberg]

The way to fix that problem is to vote against the party of Big Government.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

You mean the party of statist womb management?

The party of torture and endless detention without trial?

The party of the drug warriors?

The party of bloated military spending?

The party of attacking the wrong country?

The party of theocracy?

The party of authoritarian, cruel, and bigoted immigration policies and practices?

The party of militarized law enforcement and abusive, bigoted policing?

The party of big-government micromanagement of ladyparts clinics?

The party of a white, male, faux libertarian, bigot-embracing, Federalist Society blog?

The party of America's vestigial bigots (racists, gay-bashers, Christian dominionists, misogynists, immigrant-haters, Islamophobes, white nationalists, antisemites, white supremacists, etc.)?

[M L]

Ed

"The way to fix that problem is to vote against the party of Big Government."

Which one?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Either MAGA or the party which arises with an alternative *positive* vision.

Trump is like FDR -- he is reshaping the party into his agenda and the establishment are going over to the other party, just like happened with the Jacksonian Democrats in the 1930s.

It's Trump versus the UniParty although it's been the populists versus the UniParty for about 30 years now -- Howard Dean being a good example of this.

[Martinned2]

Trump is like FDR — he is reshaping the party into his agenda

True. How else is he going to get his legal fees paid?

[M L]

The Republican Party has always been a party of big government and Trump isn’t changing that. Trump is basically Bill Clinton but 30 years later with bombast and a spray tan.

The fact that there’s a party of even bigger government doesn’t change that.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Trump is nothing like Clinton other than both have, at best, questionable sexual morality/ethic and both are more dishonest than your average politician and both abused the pardon power (but not equivalently, one was far, far worse), but their policies are nothing alike, their intelligence and understanding of how government works are nothing alike, and one is a raging narcissist who has no loyalty to anyone or anything (concept, value, political ideology, religion) and who has said aloud he'd be a dictator "from day one", and who can't credibly claim there is no truth behind the "joke" given how much he fawns over foreign dictators, Xi, Kim Jong Un, and Viktor Orban, among others.

In short, with respect to all of the characteristics most relevant to actually doing the job, Trump and Clinton are nothing alike. (And, if it's not clear, I am not a Clinton fan, but he is undeniably very intelligent, extremely knowledgeable about government, political philosophy, and the nuances of policy from tax to foreign relations. Trump thought the Supreme Court would convict Hillary Clinton at his direction, mused about nuking hurricanes, and proposed injecting sunlight and/or bleach into Covid patients.)

[M L]

Their basic policy positions are very much alike, actually.

And that is all I was referring to in this context, which was about parties and broad platforms. Not personal characteristics and the like (although those are important, too).

[NOVA Lawyer]

Their policy positions are not very much alike, to the extent Trump has any coherent policy positions.

Clinton touted NAFTA. Trump hates NAFTA and free trade generally.

Clinton was for a responsible budget and Trump is the worst deficit spender in history. (And, yes, each of those are due in large part to the presidents and their priorities, though Congress deserves a share of the credit/blame in each case.)

Clinton favored education and sought to strengthen the Department of Education, Trump wants to eliminate it.

Clinton favored international alliances, Trump wants to leave them.

Clinton favored expanding access to health insurance to poor and struggling people/families, Trump did everything he could to kill the ACA and shrink the programs that Clinton favored.

Clinton favored allowing the children of unauthorized immigrants in schools, Trump wants to punish the children for the "sins" of their parents.

Clinton supported the right to choose, Trump is proud of appointing judges who overturned Roe v. Wade and promises a nationwide abortion ban.

Clinton believed competent effective government could solve or reduce problems, Trump pretends to believe government is the problem and, worse, actually believes government is a tool to be used for personal power and enhancing one's own wealth.

Clinton was a pragmatist who believed in and practiced compromise for the greater good and accepted getting only part of what he wanted and allowing Republicans to get some of what they want in deals, Trump and his MAGA crowd are an absolutist death cult who admit of no dissent and will sabotage policy they actually like if they won't politically benefit (see the immigration deal as just one example).

Their world views and policies are fundamentally different.

[Sarcastr0]

FDR did not actually shape the party into his agenda, though. At least not in Congress. Maybe he would have but for court packing.

The post-FDR Democratic Party had Dixiecrats, conservatives, progressives, and anti-FDR reactionaries in one big messy coalition.

[Nelson]

"The way to fix that problem is to vote against the party of Big Government."

So vote third party? Because big government is a rhetorical hobby horse for one party, but they both love it. The only difference between the two is who they're stepping on with their big government foot. Just look at Florida.

[M L]

No, that isn't a way that's likely to fix that problem.

[Sarcastr0]

So early 1800s America had too big a government?

Americans have always been worried about their government. It's part of our culture. I rather like it, but using that to prove anything factual is silly.

[M L]

No. The only interaction an average person would have with the general government then was if they went to the Post office.

[Sarcastr0]

No new goalposts.

Americans in the 1800s were absolutely worried about their federal government.

Even your new goalpost doesn't work - land surveying was a big deal back then, as was debt servicing/taxes.
And 1812 included a federal government decision that ended up being pretty big for the most Americans.

Your social and historical understanding remains fiercely outcome-oriented, and it makes your takes really shallow.

[M L]

Americans have been “worried about their federal government” since before it existed. Very worried, that it would become too powerful. Which it has. That’s different from being preoccupied with whether the next President is going to be A or B. At the outset, the federal government was intended to have far less power than it does now. And of the power it does have, the executive branch was intended to have a smaller share. The intrusion of the federal government into the ordinary course of everyday life of the average citizen is many thousands of times more now than it was then. If the Presidency has little power to interfere in your daily life, then it's largely irrelevant to you; the more power they have to do so, the more problematic it becomes.

[Sarcastr0]

The reason people are worried about who the President will be has everything to do with worries about the government.

You're now splitting hairs between concerns about the President and the government generally in a weak attempt to defend your awful logic.

Though your axiomatic invocation of the pre-Civil War government as the bestest (because it was SMALL!) continues to be your absolute stupidest take.

It wasn't small
It wasn't free
It wasn't good, just better the monarchy.

[M L]

They were far more concerned with their local municipal and state governments, because the vast majority of all matters and potential matters of government would be resolved there. Such is self-government and such are the founding principles of the US. That has been turned on its head.

[Sarcastr0]

1. No, people have been plenty worried about the federal government since the Founding.

2. Government power exercised through the states is still government power. As our pre-Civil War history shows, federalism can be a tool against liberty as much as for it.

3. Area man passionate defender of what he believes the 'founding principles of the US' to be.
This is just the same ipse dixit as natural law.

We are a vastly more free and democratic society now than in the Founding era.

[M L]

" No, people have been plenty worried about the federal government since the Founding." Yes, are you copying me now, like that little kid annoying game thing?

[NOVA Lawyer]

He's obliterating your facile argument is what he's doing.

[Jonathansingletary]

ML, this is bad history. Statements like "the federal government was intended to have far less power" are reductive and ignore that there was very strong debate--a debate that thankfully continues!--about how much power the federal government should have. If you find yourself on the side of "it should have less power," then fine; but don't portray the founding as an event during which one side of the debate prevailed.

I think it's also worth noting that even the anti-federalist founders were far more comfortable with the exercise of government power and were far more narrow in their definition of who was to be protected from abuses of that power.

[M L]

I didn’t mean to portray the founding as an event where one side of the debate prevailed. It was very much a compromise between two disagreeing sides, as I began to touch on further below.

However, whatever the distance was between those two sides, we are now a hundred times that distance removed from anything the most ardent nationalist/federalist might have countenanced, in the direction of centralization and imperialism. Decentralized self-government was the founding principle both sides held in common and it has been turned on its head over time, especially through events like the world wars.

In the founding view the most durable way to “be protected from abuses” for example over the long term would be by this principle working itself out, rather than by embracing the opposite idea of overarching, centralized, imperial authority (even if for some short term morally good aim, under the stewardship of upright and benevolent leaders – as students of history and human nature, the founders saw that any such system could eventually be in the hands of tyrants). Still today, that founding viewpoint is the newest significant political philosophy on the scene of human history, even as we regress to more ancient forms.

[Jonathansingletary]

I appreciate this answer, ML, thank you! I was strident in my comment, so I appreciate the gracious reply. I'm inclined to agree with you. Humanity does seem to have a predilection toward authoritarian, hierarchical rule, especially as an empire gets bigger. Guarding against centralization of power and its abuses is a never ending work.

[Brett Bellmore]

I've said that myself: Hamilton, in contrast with most of the founders, very much wanted a powerful central government. One so powerful that... It would today be dismissed as indistinguishable from anarchy!

[Nelson]

"Decentralized self-government was the founding principle both sides held in common"

We started with decentralized self-government, with states rights being superior to the national government. It was called the Articles of Confederation and it was an abject failure.

The problem is that everyone wants a powerful government ...
at the level that allows them to exercise their political preferences. The Ds have been pretty consistently pro-federal-government, but the Rs prefer local control ... until locals oppose their priorities, then they don't. They prefer states rights ... until they control the federal government and states oppose their priorities, then they don't. They oppose a powerful federal government ... until they control Congress and the White House, then they don't. They decry an "unelected judiciary" ... until they don't.

That's not to say that Ds are honest and Rs aren't. Ds have just, historically, supported a strong federal government and are willing to wait it out when they lose power, rather than change their horse in the middle of the race. Rs have preferred a more transactional approach, where they maximize the levels of government they control when they control them and oppose the levels they don't control.

Both are long-term strategies. While the optics of the R strategy makes them look feckless and hypocritical, in the long run it gets results.

Just look at the Supreme Court and Justice Amy Coney Barrett. We don't get a 6-3 conservative majority (and the rush to have "unelected judges" decide politically-motivated test cases that have been waiting for years for such a Court) without the willingness to be hypocritical in the short term to achieve lasting change in the long term.

Politicians know that ultimately what matters is long-term results. That's why Mitch McConnell has no problems being a hypocrite, because he's a hypocrite who captured the Court for the next 30 years. That's what matters.

It's why Rs will be giddy if Trump wins and unleashes a flurry of executive orders. They're only bad when the Ds do it, and they aren't ashamed to show it. Politicized DOJ? Good under the right President.

If you think that your side is moral and has integrity and the other side doesn't, you're fooling yourself. Results are all that matter in politics, whether with the Constitutional Convention, the Emancipation Proclimation, Prohibition, women's suffersge, the Civil Rights Act, the Patriot Act, or today. Politicians understand that, and though their methods may differ, they are equally cynical and equally aware that the long term is what matters.

[Dr. Ed 2]

No, ML -- Lighthouses were important back then -- getting them, keeping them, and improving them.

Most commerce and transportation was by water.

[M L]

At the founding, the big-government side of the argument (the nationalists) were perplexed at the idea that we'd need a Second Amendment, because the federal government had no power to do anything about gun ownership in the first place, so it was completely unnecessary! And what's more, they worried (again, this was the bigger-government side of the argument) that having the Second Amendment could lead to too-big government by implying otherwise!

Amazing to think how fundamentally transformed our system of government has been between now and then.

[Brett Bellmore]

Eh, I'm not entirely convinced that the Federalists were genuinely of the opinion that the Bill of Rights wasn't necessary. I think at least some of them thought it would be harder to get away with shit if they were expressly prohibited from doing it, than if they just weren't expressly authorized to.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Some genuinely thought it was implied -- look at the 11th Amendment, none of them ever anticipated that being done.

[Jonathansingletary]

I'm curious which of the federalists were trying to get away with shit and what shit they were trying to get away with.

My understanding about opposition to the bill of rights was that many of the federalists thought that the constitution already protected individual rights and was thus redundant, and many were concerned that a bill of rights would make it look like the original document was unstable and would undermine the new government.

[Brett Bellmore]

The Alien and Sedition acts? Passed by a Federalist controlled Congress. The same Federalists who didn't want the 1st amendment enacted the Sedition act criminalizing criticism of the government.

Yeah, why wouldn't I think they actually opposed a Bill of Rights because it would be inconvenient? It was consistent with their actions after the government was formed.

[Nelson]

Or you could read their letters and papers and, you know, assume that they weren't carrying out a multi-year bait-and-switch.

The majority of Federalists thought exactly as was stated. A belief that thousands of pages of documents support.

I get that you wish the Articles of Confederation could have been retained because you support the primacy of the states over the federal government. But weakening the ststes gave us the single greatest and most successful nation in the history of the world.

Giving the states primacy was a recipe for failure. The compromise we got has been a roaring success.

Compromise works. Refusing to accept compromise doesn't. We could learn a lesson today from the Constitutional Convention and their willingness to meet people halfway.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

No, it does not mean that.

[M L]

It is a good sign of that, for anyone that subscribes to notions of limited government or the founding principles of the US.

[Sarcastr0]

'The founding principles of the US' is also a new goalpost. And a talismanic empty one as well.

You also exclude a helluva middle when it comes to limited government. Because we don't have an unlimited government right now, nor is that something Democrats advocate for.
Though MAGA assholes want something pretty authoritarian, but to police for wokeness and jail Democrats.

[M L]

Goalpost? No, just acknowledging that while I think the above is true, not everyone will agree. A far left bureaucrat and ardent proponent of bigger government and centralization such as yourself, for example.

[Sarcastr0]

I'm largely a pretty bog-standard Democrat, and I was that well before I entered government.

You, being an extremist, can't see anything but extremism in those who disagree with you.

[M L]

Ok, a bog-standard Democrat will also disagree, if you like. Because today a bog-standard Democrat favors staggeringly big government and centralization. I’ll leave the quibbling over labels to you. But the reality is, the average American is not very political and they don’t hold very strong or detailed political opinions. Outside of places like D.C., 9 out every 10 Democrat voters can have a conversation over a beer and be somewhat persuaded by points like I am making here. But it’s just like you see in surveys, the large bulk of the public will express contradictory opinions, because they don’t understand that they are contradictory, they don’t understand and are not interested in the details and nuances, and they want to have cake and eat it too, as human nature does. People will say they want to cut spending and be fiscally responsible, but also want various things that they think benefit them or just things they think would be cool, man, like why not just have high speed trains everywhere dude? Or higher minimum wage sounds good but oh what I really meant was I just want working class people to be better off generally and didn’t even think of what is the best way to do that.

So, you can have a set of policy positions that, on paper, make you into whatever label you want to be. That’s fine. But make no mistake, in a certain way, you’re in a tiny fraction of a percent and nothing like the average American politically.

[Bob from Ohio]

He somehow thinks a "bog-standard Democrat" is not an "extremist" these days.

[Sarcastr0]

Invoking 'the average American' is just shitty populism. You don't speak for anyone but yourself.

And, as with most populist authoritarian types, you pivot directly into false consciousness you know what they really need better than they do, even as you appeal to their authority. You follow a formula, and it's not one followed by lovers of freedom.

I have conversations with conservatives every Friday when I play D&D. Don't confuse the Internet with reality.

[#FFFFFFPride]

Like you confuse your ultra-wealthy and insulated DC bubble with reality?

[M L]

You appear to spend 40+ hours a week arguing about politics in internet blog comments. It's neither shitty nor populism to point out how unique this makes you.

[#FFFFFFPride]

What’s the limiting principle on the General Welfare Clause?

PS the Democrat DOJ told the J6 political prisoners that if they prevail at SCOTUS, they will crush them if they try and appeal their sentences.

You cry victim while stabbing others in the back.

[Drewski]

The most important principle in the founding of the US was that the federal government be stronger than the failed Confederation tho'. It's a but-for thing.

[David Bremer]

I worry about it because this country is quickly running into another cold war with Russia.... but this time supported by China, Iran, and North Korea (which starves its people to fund a military). Meanwhile, we're forced to choose between a frail and failing Biden and a professional internet troll with no actual knowledge or qualifications who has already been willing to turn his back on allies and buddy up to adversaries if they stroke his fragile ego.

In normal election times, when we were governed by rational, thinking, intelligent people that happened to disagree on some points, yes. But as we speed toward Idiocracy... well, this one actually matters regardless of the size of the federal government.

[Moderation4ever]

I would say my worry is not that the federal government has too much power, but rather I see one candidate as incompetent. What I want is a government that takes care of things in the background and that I rarely think about the government. My concern is that Trump will come in, chaos will ensue and the country will be back to where it was in 2020 when we fired Trump.

[Bob from Ohio]

"where it was in 2020"

You see a world wide pandemic coming?

[Moderation4ever]

The incompetence lasted most of the four years of the Trump administration. What the pandemic showed was that Trump had no ability to handle a crisis, something President generally have to be ready to address. Now if you can guarantee that there will be no crisis in the world from 2025 to 2029, I will be much more comfortable with allowing an incompetent like Trump to be President.

[Bob from Ohio]

"incompetence "?

Low unemployment, low inflation, some efforts at slowing illegal immigration, no war in Europe or Gaza, appointing good judges, not kowtowing to Iran.

More incompetence please.

[Nige]

As usual the messes a Republican makes is left to a Democrat to clean up.

[Bob from Ohio]

Yes, the world is in much better shape now!

[Nige]

Imagine what a mess he'll make with four more years and supporters who think he not only has absolute immunity but think that attempting to overturn an election was a legitimate presidential act.

[bernard11]

Unemployment has been lower under Biden than under Trump.

Biden didn't start either the war in Gaza or the one in Ukraine.

Trump's judicial appointees are far from outstanding - Cannon, Kacsmaryk, the loonies on the 5th Circuit...

Inflation is up, but the US economy on the whole is doing fine. And you're wrong about Iran.

Plus, Trump is an ignorant fool who can't be trusted to handle any sort of crisis, and is sure to appoint nothing but MAGA sycophants.

[Kazinski]

Trump did yeoman work on the Supreme Court, vastly improved the 9th circuit.

It can always be better, but I'm pleased with the improvement.

[Moderation4ever]

You're confusing Trump with Mitch McConnell.

[M L]

“What the pandemic showed was that Trump had no ability to handle a crisis”

You mean because he went along with all the spending, supporting all the blue state governors with all kinds of ridiculous resources, and didn’t actively oppose the shutting down and mountains of other nonsense enough?

That’s what comes to mind for me. I’m open to other ideas. At the time, IIRC he was in front of the cameras and addressing the nation constantly every day. And putting the government scientists out front constantly as well, and giving them free reign, always offering a plan of some sort. Not sure if all that was really good, though. I can’t imagine Biden even being able to speak clearly for such amounts of time much less being as accessible.

Regardless, a federal government with less power makes their (inevitable) incompetence that much less problematic.

[Nige]

'You mean because'

Because he decided that a global pandemic didn't call for a federal response. It seemed like the main reason was he was too terrified of the task to even try. Of course, he also decided he needed to be on board with his base's conspiracy thinking. It's still amazing we actually ended up with a vaccine, and I'm happy to credit him for that, but it doesn't make the rest not have happened.

'I can’t imagine Biden even being able to speak clearly for such amounts of time much less being as accessible.'

Because you have a goldfish memory, tunnel vision and believe every weirdo who makes bizarre claims about what's really happening when Biden speaks at length.

[Brett Bellmore]

He decided it didn't call for an exclusively federal response, because almost everything that needed doing was actually a state responsibility. A few things were properly done at the federal level, like trying to keep carriers out of the country, and hitting the regulatory agencies with a clue bat when they tried to slow down vaccine development.

That's a key thing left-wingers don't seem to understand: Most things are not federal responsibilities.

[Nige]

This was. He fucked it up.

[bernard11]

Trump didn't even understand what was going on. He told a bunch of lies about how trivial the whole thing was because he thought it reflected badly on him.

Remember when he didn't want cruise ships to unload because it would make the numbers look bad?

Crisis management? A guy with six major bankruptcies on his record doesn't strike me as a good manager of anything.

[Don Nico]

The pandemic did show that Trump was clueless about how to exploit a crisis. Had he taken lessons from Gavin Newsom about how to react and kept Fauci as the front man ,he would actually have been reelected.

[Nige]

By whom? The people who think Fauci is the anti-christ?

[Kazinski]

Name a country that did better, other than Sweden.

Obviously some did better, some did worse, but it was luck of the draw.

And we were the first to roll out a vaccine, even though it wasn't fully effective.

[Nige]

What are you talking about? It was extremely effective, more effective than all but the wildest optimists expected, 92% for hospitalisations, 91% for mortality. It was even somewhat effective against the variants, but vaccine development kept up with those. I loathe Trump, but would happily give him a standing ovation for overseeing the vaccine development. Not many of his supporters would agree.

[Kazinski]

By not fully effective what I mean is that it doesn’t prevent you from getting or spreading the disease.

I got smallpox and polio vaccines as a kid, and I never got them.

My kids got MMR vaccines and never got measles, mumps or rubella.

When I got my first two covid vaccines I was told it would prevent 95% of infections.

EVERYBODY still got it.

That’s what I mean.

[Nige]

What, you think the near-eradication of those diseases happened overnight? We're a long way from the post-pandemic phases of those diseases, unless the charming folk who made being anti-vaxx their political philosophy bring them all back again.

It is a pity there was a massive campiagn against the other measures that might have reduced transmission even more, but wearing masks to reduce the spread of an airborne virus is apparently ridiculous

[Brett Bellmore]

You CAN'T bring Covid back at this point. Basically everyone has had it already, and it's really only a threat to people who are already on death's door, or have had no prior exposure. It's currently evolving towards becoming yet another 'common cold' virus, because that's the evolutionary sweet spot for respiratory viruses that have that option, and a fair number of prior coronaviruses have taken that route.

Before they had the vaccine, you know, they were trying to explain why some people got bad cases, and some people didn't, and one of the primary drivers seemed to be prior exposure to a related coronavirus. In fact, some researchers were deliberately exposing themselves to coronavirus 'common colds' as an ad hoc vaccine.

What made Covid especially bad was that, as a zoonotic virus, (Meaning, freshly having made the jump from a different species.) it was poorly adapted to humans, and humans hadn't yet preexisting herd immunity. That's done now, there are no immunologically naive populations left, and children will acquire immunity to it in the normal way, at an age when the consequences are very mild.

So you can't bring covid back now. You'll have to wait for the next pandemic to let your medical authoritarian freak off the leash.

[Nige]

'Basically everyone has had it already, and it’s really only a threat to people who are already on death’s door,'

A few thousand people are still dying from it regularly, but go on.

'It’s currently evolving towards becoming yet another ‘common cold’ virus,'

No, it's becoming more like the flu, only way worse, and long-term effects are becoming more and more apparent.

'In fact, some researchers were deliberately exposing themselves to coronavirus ‘common colds’ as an ad hoc vaccine.'

This sounds completely fucking idiotic.

'That’s done now, there are no immunologically naive populations left,'

Daily deaths since May 23 have been at their lowest around sixty, at their highest just under two hundred. Covid's going to require annual jabs, like the flu.

'You’ll have to wait for the next pandemic to let your medical authoritarian freak off the leash.'

I expect your werid, fascist, anti-science, anti-public health politics will chug along regardless since the underlying conspiracies seem self-replicating.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

THE VOLOKH CONSPIRACY

This white, male, conservative blog
with a thin, receding academic veneer
has operated for no more than

SIX (6)

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

FIFTEEN (15)

occasions (so far) during 2024
(that’s at least 15 exchanges
that have included a racial slur,
not just 15 racial slurs; many
Volokh Conspiracy discussions
feature multiple racial slurs.)

This blog is outrunning its
remarkable pace of 2023,
when the Volokh Conspiracy
published racial slurs in at least

FORTY-FOUR (44)

different discussions.

These numbers likely 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, Islamophobic, 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 -- the unadorned artistry of Jeff "Skunk" Baxter --is something delightful. If you didn't stick around for the solo work, you erred.

This one is good, too. Youtube has a fine video in which Jay Graydon discusses crafting that solo, but this site can handle but two links.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Today's Rolling Stones links, involving two Ron Wood endeavors from bands lesser known than the Stones and Faces:

First, what might be the first recording featuring Ron Wood, from his time with the Birds (also known, for legal reasons, as the Birds Birds).

Next, from the briefly but deftly operating Santa Barbara Machine Head, one that foreshadows Ronnie's work with The Faces.

Enjoy!

[Moderation4ever]

Ron is a great guitar player and one smart enough to never try to overshadow Keith Richards. A lesson Mick Taylor, another great guitar player, failed to learn.

Any thoughts on who was better Ron or Mick?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Neither better, in my judgment. Taylor is by far the more inventive and technically proficient fretman, who pushed (or led) the Stones to new heights, but Ronnie Wood is an excellent, enjoyable, and reliable guitarist who has been part of the reason the Stones are still performing at a high level after six decades as a somewhat stable band.

It is unfortunate, nearly inexplicable, and saddening that the Stones do not invite Taylor, Wyman, Watts, Fischer, and a few others to contribute to this year's tour. Taylor on Can't You Hear Me Knocking, Time Waits for No One, Brown Sugar, Dead Flowers, Sway, All Down The Line . . . I'd pay to listen from the parking lot.

(That Dead Flowers recording indicates why claims that Taylor tried to overshadow Richards are unpersuasive. He doesn't step on anyone. He just shines at a level others could not reach.)

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Two people from the music business told me that the reason Fagan and Becker never admitted other members of Steely Dan was an early experience with Chevy Chase, who was such a dick he scarred them for life.

(Chase was the drummer in a Steely Dan precursor. Also, the Daddy G in My Old School reportedly was un-American asshole G. Gordon Liddy.)

[Commenter_XY]

Interesting Steely Dan triviata. 🙂

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Someone requested Steely Dan. It was easy to oblige.

The Drummer World examination of the "Legendary Purdie Shuffle" (rebrushed version) on Youtube is worthwhile, too.

[Moderation4ever]

As AI become more common and important, I am wondering if anyone has requested and published an AI decision for some of the more controversial SCOTUS cases? I be interested in see a comparison of what AI wrote vs the Justices.

[Commenter_XY]

Start with Marbury v Madison. 🙂

[M L]

The beginning is always a good place to start.

[Kazinski]

What would be the point?

To see the result of having 9 black woke justices who make up precedent to get the requested result?

[Moderation4ever]

The point would be to see if a program with no political bias came up with a similar opinion to the justices or a different opinion altogether.

[Kazinski]

No, what you are doing is substituting the inexpert political bias of the programmers for the expert political bias of the justices.

[Moderation4ever]

But with the programmer you could look at the program and see if its bias. There is a paper trail with the programmer.

[M L]

If your country can afford to give money away to other countries, then you pay too much in taxes.

[Sarcastr0]

On May 6, 1812, despite continued hostilities over independence from British colonial rule, US Senator from Kentucky Henry Clay signed a bill appropriating $50,000 for disaster relief food aid to Venezuela after a massive earthquake devastated the capitol, Caracas, that was enacted on May 8 by the 12th Congress

These broad statements are populist dumbassery.

[Drewski]

Is there any part of your political philosophy that wouldn't fit on a bumper sticker?

[Brett Bellmore]

He's not wrong about that, though. Tax revenues should be exclusively spent for the benefit of the citizenry, and nobody else.

[Martinned2]

No, they should exclusively be spent on things that the citizenry wants tax money spent on. Conveniently we have a whole process for determining what that is!

[#FFFFFFPride]

Congress ignores the public will 90% of the time while holding a 90%+ incumbency rate.

Congress' actions are unmoored from the citizens.

Just like the Administrative State.

[Moderation4ever]

You could cut down the incumbency reelection rate if there was less political gerrymandering.

[M L]

How do you avoid gerrymandering? Just have equal representation for each county?

Whenever Democrats say something against gerrymandering, it turns out they just mean less gerrymandering for Republicans and even more gerrymandering for Democrats. And Republican gerrymandering is always illegal in their view, and being illegal, it must give way to equal and opposite Democrat gerrymandering, which incidentally is never illegal.

[Bob from Ohio]

No GOP state is as gerrymandered as Illinois, Maryland and Mass.

California is both gerrymandered and has a phony "independent" redistricting commission and a rigged jungle primary.

Nobody hates democracy more than Democrats,

[Nige]

You're supporting a guy who tried to overturn an election.

[Moderation4ever]

You should visit Wisconsin.

[Sarcastr0]

1. Foreign aid is often for the benefit of the citizenry

2. Foreign aid is pretty center-mass foreign policy, and this within the authority of both Congress and the President with no limit to 'for the benefit of the citizenry). So your thesis here seems anti-Constitutional.

3. We're all on this planet together. History has shown us defensive nationalism makes for a shitty world. It's also a pretty shitty morality.

[M L]

No, taking people’s money and property by force is a shitty morality.

[Sarcastr0]

Most people get past this level of unthinking libertarian stupidity when they're like 20.

Go move to Grafton and good luck with the bears.

[M L]

(Bureaucrat who makes his living off the peoples taxes)

[Nige]

You live in the richest country in the world, you think you are some sort of nepo billionaire by default and can't understand you aren't simply allowed to accumulate and hoard all the wealth in the world.

[Martinned2]

You think M L lives in Luxembourg???

[Nige]

He doesn't?

[M L]

Anyone care to opine on National Small Business United v. Yellen ?

A federal court in Alabama held that the reporting requirements under the Corporate Transparency Act are unconstitutional, and the CTA exceeds Congress’ authority under article I of the Constitution and violates the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments. The government argued that the CTA is valid under the 1) foreign affairs power, 2) commerce clause, and 3) taxing power.

[Brett Bellmore]

Every once in a while a federal court wakes from their slumber, actually reads the Constitution and applies its words as written.

Then an appeals court reverses and reprimands them for doing it... I expect that will happen here, too.

[M L]

Seems accurate.

[NOVA Lawyer]

After Raich v. Gonzalez, among others, I don’t see how the Court's Commerce Clause precedent could, in any principled way, allow upholding this decision.

I definitely think Raich (like Wickard) went too far, but the Court (to include Scalia) decided regulating a single marijuana plant in your basement that would be dried and smoked in your basement was constitutional, so surely setting up shell corporations and conducting any business in connection with the shell corporation would qualify. The weakness of the District Court opinion, as I skimmed it, is that I didn’t see anywhere where it was able to say this case is like one in which the law was struck down as unconstitutional. It only tried to distinguish all the cases in which a federal statute was upheld. The analogy to Morrison is the only real such example and it is unavailing as there the noneconomic activity was gender-motivated crimes of violence, here the court argues that incorporating and operating shell companies is not an economic activity. Only, it appears to me, it quite plainly is.

Which is not to say that, on a clean slate, I wouldn’t agree with the District Court. But I don’t see how this survives.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Anyone care to give an OBJECTIVE (non political) explanation of what is going on today in the Trump Lawfare Cases?

[loki13]

In the civil fraud case, the appellate court reduced the bond amount to $175 million, to be posted within ten (10) days. This is somewhat surprising, but not completely surprising. The order did not provide any reasoning, so (1) it isn't precedential for other cases, and (2) we have no idea why the appellate court chose to reduce the bond, and why that amount. I would call this is a massive victory for Trump, however. Reductions in bond such as this one are, IME, very rare, but not unheard of (I once received a reduction in bond in a civil matter pending appeal to $0, but that was from the trial court, and the appellate court did not disturb it even though the trial court was way out on a limb granting it).

In the pending criminal case in New York, the arguments related to discovery were not well-taken by the Court ... at all. Without going into detail, the judge basically was confused by several things-
1. Why did Trump's team not request the documents?
2. Why did Trump's team demand sanctions and/or impugn the ethics of the prosecution without a basis to do so, and without any authority (case law, statute) to do so.
3. Why did Trump's team "sit on the issue."

Trial is scheduled for April 15, 2024, with leave to file for an extension, although that looks like it is on shaky grounds (media coverage is not likely a winning argument, although we'll see).

Analysis- this went about as poorly as it could have gone, in that the judge appeared very unhappy with Trump's counsel, and the trial date is very very close.

[Dr. Ed 2]

“we have no idea why the appellate court chose to reduce the bond, and why that amount.”

So I’m not missing something — thank you!

[Bored Lawyer]

1. Why did Trump’s team not request the documents?
2. Why did Trump’s team demand sanctions and/or impugn the ethics of the prosecution without a basis to do so, and without any authority (case law, statute) to do so.
3. Why did Trump’s team “sit on the issue.”

Occam's razor says, the answer to all three is "Utter Incompetence."

[loki13]

Eh, I think that the answer to the first and third was simple- delay.

And they did get some benefit out of it.

On the other hand, I am reminded of the old "Feed a pig, slaughter a hog," maxim. I once attended a CLE on getting judicial recusals that was titled (jokingly) "If you come at the king, you better not miss." Well, when it's a criminal case, if you're going to allege that the Prosecutor is unethical, you better be able to back it up.

I would argue that from a litigation strategy standpoint, arguing that this discovery issue was a sanctionable ethics issue was DRAMATICALLY overplaying the hand. It's one thing if you find out that the prosecutor was deliberately hiding documents that the Prosecutor had and was hiding from you (Brady)... it's another to say that the Prosecutor should have gotten documents that you could have gotten, and took your own sweet time on.

And courts, in general, hate it when you start slinging this around ... and when it's as unfounded as this appears to be, you've lost a lot of credibility that you might want later.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

These lawyers may be unable to plead unfamiliarity with the issues . . . the judge observed, if I read correctly, that the lead lawyer for Trump worked for one of the relevant prosecutorial shops.

Trump seems to be going all-in on a combination of (1) delay and (2) victory in the presidential election before any more convictions or judgments are entered. If he doesn't win the election, he may be bankrupted and imprisoned by judges and juries that do not share his fans' appreciation for his conduct.

[Dr. Ed 2]

"(1) delay and (2) victory in the presidential election before any more convictions or judgments are entered."

That's not inherently a bad tactic in a high stakes gamble -- if he wins, he can pardon himself for all of the Federal stuff and lean on NY/GA to the point where they at least CWOF it, if not drop it outright. OTOH, if he doesn't win the election, he won't much care what happens to him.

Legally speaking, IANAA -- but in terms of high stakes gambles (which is his style) -- this does make sense.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

.

OTOH, if he doesn’t win the election, he won’t much care what happens to him.

Seems unlikely. He was born a silver-spooned asshole, he lived a life of heedless opulence, and he is accustomed to neither privation nor restrictions. Life as a bankrupted, imprisoned felon should be a daunting prospect for Trump.

[David Nieporent]

In the civil fraud case, the appellate court reduced the bond amount to $175 million, to be posted within ten (10) days. This is somewhat surprising, but not completely surprising. The order did not provide any reasoning, so (1) it isn’t precedential for other cases, and (2) we have no idea why the appellate court chose to reduce the bond, and why that amount. I would call this is a massive victory for Trump, however. Reductions in bond such as this one are, IME, very rare, but not unheard of

But remember, the courts are biased against Trump.

[Kazinski]

The lower court judge definitely was, which is one reason why there are courts of appeals.

[Sarcastr0]

You're defining 'ruling against Trump' as bias, and 'ruling for Trump' as unbiased.

You claim not to like Trump, but you're sure culting it up for him.

[Martinned2]

That way of phrasing the question definitely makes it sound like you're interested in an objective explanation.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I was interested in something like what loki13 was kind enough to write because while I am personally glad that the appeals court cut the bond to $1.75M, I couldn't for the life of me figure out any legal rationale for either doing it or for using that number.

One other thing that no one has mentioned in any of this is that the current market for urban commercial property ain't doing so well right now, and a "fire sale" of Trump's properties would (a) destroy other developers and the values of their properties -- as well as (b) destroy NYC's tax base.

As to the latter, if his stuff is sold for (say) 1/5 of appraised value, you better believe that the purchaser of it is going to demand an 80% tax reduction -- and then all the owners of comparable properties are going to do the same thing.

I don't know how this would all wind up in the end, but there would be a lot of (non-Trump) good lawyers trying to accomplish this and I don't see how they couldn't accomplish at least part of it.

Particularly if other highly-leveraged developers were pushed into bankruptcy because of it. Kinda like margin calls back in 1929.

Why wouldn't both of these happen?

[PaulS]

If Trump posts the 175 million in cash - then wins a partial or total reduction (from this amount) - would he be due interest on the money he has posted? If yes, How would the interest rate differ from what he would have to pay were it not reduced?

[Dr. Ed 2]

What I've always wondered is when someone pays 10% for a bail bond and is found not guilty, why the defendant isn't entitled to the 10% which he/she/it had to pay to the bail bondsman?

[Magister]

I'm tempted to wonder if there are people who wonder why they don't get their insurance premiums back when nothing bad happens. Or should I wonder if there are people who don't understand why they don't get the interest they paid back when they pay off their loan?

[Dr. Ed 2]

There IS a difference here -- I am not saying that the bondsman isn't entitled to his fee, only that the state ought to be liable for it.

[David Nieporent]

The state isn't liable for the defense attorney's fees, either.

[Brett Bellmore]

The answer is that if he pays the bond himself, then he gets it all back. The 10% is covering the bail bondsman's risk and profit.

You expect him to provide the service for free? He's not the government, after all.

[PaulS]

News reports have indicated that interest accumulates on the penalty/fine at a rate of over 100k per day. Is this incorrect? Also - the "bondsman" (I think you mean bonding company) is paid outside of the bond amount - sort of like buying an insurance policy - the cost of the policy isn't included in the limits

[PaulS]

My question is - if he hands them a check (not a bond) for 175 million and wins - does the state of New York have to pay him back his 175 million plus interest on his 175 million

[Brett Bellmore]

According to this,

"Since bail deposited with a county treasurer is not money paid into court which remains in the physical custody of the court, it would not appear to be subject to the amended provisions of State Finance Law, §182, quoted above. Therefore, any interest earned on cash bail which has been deposited with and retained in the custody of the county treasurer is not required to be paid to the State Commissioner of Taxation and Finance pursuant to that statute. Rather, section 520.15(3) of the CPL provides that "moneys posted as cash bail is and shall remain the property of the person posting it unless forfeited to the court." Accordingly, it is our opinion that, consistent with the traditional property doctrine that interest follows principal, any interest earned on such moneys by the county treasurer would be paid to the person posting the bail."

[Brett Bellmore]

And, can I say, Trump should totally do this. It would be hilarious.

Though there would be considerable added expense in finding and delivering 19, 290 tons of nickels, it would be a worthwhile campaign expenditure...

[Moderation4ever]

Let me suggest that this was a very practical decision, if somewhat frustrating. The purpose of the bond is to insure the defendant having lost the case, does not liquidate their assets during the appeal process. Trump money is so tied up that there doesn't seem to be a simple way to hide the assets should he lose the appeal. From the NY District Attorney's Office, the idea of seizing assets is a nightmare, again because nothing is straight forward. So, waiting on the appeal seems practical, plus it makes the courts look like the bad guys instead of the NY AG's office. I think it unlikely Trump will win on appeal. He could see a reduction and the $175M figure maybe where the appeal court has pegged the reduction. I think pragmatism is the objective answer.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I still -- genuinely -- can't see what he did wrong.

So he got the dimensions of a building wrong -- do you have any idea how common that is? For example, UMass Amherst had to literally go measure all 480(?) of its buildings because they knew the data they had was so inaccurate.

Do you have any idea how many property deeds include a "more or less" clause as to how much land is actually there to be sold?

That's honesty, not fraud -- the related concept is "go have your own survey done to find out" if it matters.

As I understand it, Trump went to the Banks and said "this is what I think we have and what I think it is worth -- but do your own homework and find out. You give them access to your books, you let them go wander around the property to their heart's content, and they use THEIR estimates.

So where's the fraud?

And if there *is* fraud, why was there no prosecution of the people who took out the SupPrime Mortgages back in the '00s?

[David Nieporent]

So he got the dimensions of a building wrong — do you have any idea how common that is?

Yeah, it’s not. I have never accidentally claimed that a 10,000 square foot apartment was actually 30,000 square feet; have you? Hard to mess up with the tape measure that badly.

Yeah: none. Property deeds use metes and bounds; they don't just guess. And, again, this wasn't some rural property bounded by a river or something; this was an apartment. You know where the walls are. (Sometimes an irregularly shaped room can require some rounding, so you'll get 5% or 10% difference. But not being off by 200%.)

As I understand it, Trump went to the Banks and said “this is what I think we have and what I think it is worth — but do your own homework and find out. You give them access to your books, you let them go wander around the property to their heart’s content, and they use THEIR estimates.

You do not, in fact, understand it.

And if there *is* fraud, why was there no prosecution of the people who took out the SupPrime Mortgages back in the ’00s?

Prosecution of which specific person for what specific crime?

[PaulS]

Actually it is quite easy - one just misses a decimal point ie 12'7" x 10'0" room becomes 127 x 100 in the calculator (Same person didn't do calculation that did/wrote down measuring). Running a string of numbers one might never notice. Miscalculation shouldn't happen but it does. I bought a house that has 50% more SF than it was listed as having (by Realtor) - helped quite abit on the price to buy a 3100 SF house that was listed as 2000 SF. The final price (and appraisal) was based on comp per sf in area. Both the realtor and appraiser do this for a living but didn't stop to think about the number they provided/used. One would have thought that one of them would go - wait a minute that doesn't look right. Nope.

[Ridgeway]

More likely is that someone saw the 10,996 sq ft figure, assumed it was for one floor, multiplied by 3 (for the total number of floors) and got 33,000.

But even assuming that was the initial explanation, it doesn't excuse the continued use of that figure after it had been shown to be incorrect.

[Moderation4ever]

You can't see what he did wrong because you don't wish to look. I can agree that there are different assessments of a property's value and the only true measure of value is at sale. But in this case the assessments were so far out of reasonable range that fraud was the only explanation. It is not just that the Trump company got the measurement wrong on Trump personal penthouse, but that he would not allow assessors access to the property or the floor plans. Trump assessed rent-controlled properties at value of non-rent controlled. He valued the Mar a Lago property like it did not have all the deed restriction that were actually in place.

If the differences in assessments had been small or the large over valued assessment had been limited in number, people could question the court's decision of fraud. But the repeated over assessment and large amount of each over assessment point to fraud.

[Bwaaah]

For anybody willing to comment, which Chick-Fil-A [chicken] menu item do you think is the best? (I will be going for my first time shortly, and am looking for experienced opinions to guide my selection.)

[Commenter_XY]

Spicy chicken deluxe…gotta do it. The peach milkshake rocks.

[Bwaaah]

LOL. I just went from "never heard of a peach milkshake" to "gotta have a peach milkshake". LOL

[Brett Bellmore]

Yup, absolutely the spicy chicken deluxe. Though the breakfast sliders aren't bad.

[Bwaaah]

Brett endorsed the Burker King Spicy Royal Crispy Chicken sandwich as good. (He wasn't saying it was better than all others; just that it was surprisingly good.) I tried it, and sure enough, it was good.

But it was alleged that Chick-Fil-A was better, and I've long heard as much. So it was that I headed out for a Spicy Deluxe Sandwich today. I was not disappointed. The chicken was good-sized (it was thick and overhung the bun) and succulent. The spice was snappier than BK's and the slice of pepper jack cheese zings up the whole thing. The lettuce was perfectly green, and the tomato perfectly orange, conveying wholesome freshness through and through.

It was notably tastier and more satisfying than the BK Spicy Royal Crispy Chicken.

I add that the waffle fries were quite good and a competitive alternative to MacDonald's or BK fries. I'm a sucker for good fries, and like 'em different ways. I think each of these players has carved out their own way of doing a good eating fry. Chick-Fil-A's fry is a little bit fancier, but no less respecting of the basics of a good potato.

I hoped to also get a peach milk shake on advice of Commenter_XY, but they didn't have peach. I went with strawberry instead. It was topped with whipped cream and a Maraschino cherry on top (even though I thought those things had been outlawed by the FDA years ago). The shake was thick, rich, sweat, creamy and excellent every which way.

And if the meal wasn't enough, even though it was, the hospitality was extraordinary. This Chick-Fil-A is located at Sixth Avenue and 37th Street in midtown Manhattan. In addition to counter people who act like they are not bothered by customers, they have a dining room upstairs with a smiling caretaker who wipes down tables as soon as parties leave. She even took a moment to ask if everything was OK, and if there was anything she could get for me. That was just over the top in New York City fast food.

I'll be looking to enjoy another Chick-Fil-A Spicy Deluxe Chicken Sandwich some time in my future. It's fast food that's a cut above fast food. (I think In-N-Out Burger gets there too.) And it looks like Chick-Fil-A is opening up another unit in Penn Station, so that'll bring it a little closer to home.

A very good hearty spicy chicken sandwich.

[Commenter_XY]

I foresee a few more Chik-Fil-A visits in your lifetime. 🙂

(in a pinch, C-F-A works!)

[Brett Bellmore]

The BK sandwich is a bit crispier than the CFA sandwich, which I like, but between them it's just a matter of taste, really. They're both good.

But nobody beats CFA's customer service.

[Jonathansingletary]

Frankly, I'm a chicken nuggets guy. With waffle fries and sweet tea.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Is Chick-Fil-A really all that great? They're fine in a pinch, but if it's got to be fast food chicken, give me Popeyes any day of the week. They're open on Sunday too.

[Commenter_XY]

You'll laugh when I say that Royal Farms has Popeye's beat = chicken

(popeye's has more variety, though)

[Brett Bellmore]

Are they THAT great?

Well, the service is superb, 6 days a week, and the food is... better than OK.

I honestly think the BK spicy royal chicken sandwich is better than anything at Chick-Fil-A. And, yeah, Popeyes is pretty good, too, especially the cajun chicken.

But around here the service sucks at both. While I can be in and out of Chick-Fil-A in under 5 minutes even if the line wraps around the building.

What I really wish they'd open around here is a Jolibee. Their chicken has Popeye's beat, it's not even a near thing.

[Bwaaah]

I went to a Popeyes in NJ about 15 years ago. My experience wasn't good, including a disappointing chicken sandwich, which was unexpected. I'll be giving Popeyes a renewed chance now in my informal chicken face-off. (I admit...I like 'em all, 'cause I like chicken every which way.)

And Jollibee? Who ever heard of that, until now? There are a couple in town here, so it's on my list now. Royal Farms? They don't get closer than a ways out into Jersey, so that's a long-term long shot.

Happy chicken.

[#FFFFFFPride]

Today in Marxist Crazy Land:

1. In Washington, disparate impact theory has proven the Bar exam to be racist. Therefore the Bar is no longer required to practice law in Washington.

2. In Washington DC, disparate impact theory has found the color "green" to be stigmatizing to the Coloreds, so the DOJ is suing Apple to change the color of their messages.

3. Seattle has solved the problem of Capitalist greed by mandating gig drivers get paid a living wage. Next up, they will need to solve the racist disparate impact of $40 delivered fast food combos.

Now that the Bar exam has officially been declared racist, will the White Democrat lawyers on this board acknowledge their privilege and take anti-racist action to reduce their privilege?

[Kazinski]

The effect of the Seattle food delivery law seems to be quite mixed:

The companies responded by adding substantial new fees for consumers — $5 for each order — and say demand has fallen substantially in the subsequent weeks.

"Data from Solo shows that the number of active workers on these platforms fell by around 15% in February, compared to the year-ago period, showing that consumer demand has likely indeed fallen in Seattle.

Hourly earnings are up 8%, Solo said, with base pay — calculated by time and distance — up substantially, by 38%. But tips are down 16%."

So you do the math: hourly earnings up 8%, but employment down 15%. And that doesn't show total hour for the drivers that are working, which may also be down.

[Dr. Ed 2]

On the other hand, if you are requiring people to pay the actual worth of something, a drop in demand is not inherently a bad thing --
it may be more efficient for people to go pick up their own food.

[Martinned2]

Sure, or it may be more efficient for people to go without food every once in a while.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Frozen pizza?

[Dr. Ed 2]

The real "privilege" is being able to afford three years of law schools....

[#FFFFFFPride]

If Homeland Security has identified threats to our Democracy, and the General Welfare Clause is a open-ended grant of power to protect our general welfare, what should Homeland do to protect Democracy?

[Magister]

Not really an open-ended grant of power; Congress can lay and collect taxes to pay debts, and to provide for the defense and the general welfare of the Union. It's not a grant of anything to Homeland Security, which has power to do what various laws authorize. The Justice Department prosecuting insurrectionists is a good thing in defense of democracy.

[#FFFFFFPride]

Many people around here believe the General Welfare Clause is an unlimited grant of power to the federal government to do whatever they deem promotes the general welfare.

Word is the DOJ has informed the J6 political prisoners that if SCOTUS rules in their favor and they appeal their sentences, that they will massively punish and oppress them. What is that in defense of?

[Sarcastr0]

No one thinks that. Maybe you're thinking of the commerce clause?

Better go back to White Pride law school.

[Dr. Ed 2]

You can not honestly believe in the concept of a "rule of law" without being bothered by the way the Jan 6 folk are being treated.

And the consequence of that is that they will treat you and yours the same way when they eventually assume power. Or do you somehow believe the pendulum will never swing back?

[NOVA Lawyer]

Dr. Ed 2,

It was already baked in that the MAGA crowd would "treat us and ours" the way they pretend to think the J6 crowd is being treated. For example, in 2016, Donald Trump ran on sending Hillary Clinton to jail. He actually made a promise in a debate to do that. He just learned he couldn't and his base was happy chasing other shiny objects he threw before them. But MAGA has always been about treating political opponents unfairly.

Which is a long way of saying, you don't even understand what the rule of law is. As your comments about "the way Jan 6 folk are being treated" reveals. They have been treated according to the rule of law. And your guy is presently promising to undermine the rule of law by pardoning them and treating them as heroes.

[Brett Bellmore]

My understanding is that it's actually a limit on the exercise of enumerated powers: Even if something were within those powers, it's not permissible if not done for the general welfare.

[Sarcastr0]

"The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States"

I don't see how you can parse this as a limitation at all.

[#FFFFFFPride]

Two hours ago:
Sarcastr0: "no one thinks that"

One hour ago:
Sarcastr0: "I think that"

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, if you authorize raising money for the common defense and general welfare, have you authorized raising it for just any random purpose, instead? Should the courts really be reading that sentence as if it read, “The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;"?

Good luck exercising enumerated powers without spending any money.

[Magister]

What would be a purpose that is not for the general welfare? Defending the country would seem to be a benefit to the general welfare. Even paying debts would promote the general welfare, because a large national debt seems to make so many people unhappy, and taxpayers will owe less interest.

Has anyone ever successfully challenged anything in any court on the basis of the clause you strike out? Trickle down economics and other justifications for less than general benefits are political cover, not legal. I expect the remedy for violating that would be political rather than judicial, and that courts would rarely read those additional clauses.

And while most money spent ultimately comes from laying and collecting taxes and so on, they are not the same thing; the money spent could come from selling government owned assets, for example.

[Brett Bellmore]

"What would be a purpose that is not for the general welfare?"

That's easy. Spending on purposes that were instead for the particular welfare of some identifiable group or region, or not for the welfare of the United States at all.

You know, like foreign aid?

[Absaroka]

I dunno, Brett. Lend-Lease strikes me as something that benefited us all. Or, looking at current Asian geopolitics, was stopping NK from taking over South Korea a mistake?

If aiding Ukraine today stops a general war with Russia in a couple of years, that strikes me as pretty beneficial to us all. Of course, withdrawing from NATO would mean we could sit out that war for a while anyway, but it's worth remembering that NATO was a two way street[1]. Without it, the Warsaw Pact might have included Europe up to the Portuguese coast, which I don't think would have been good for America.

[1]insert obligatory 'much of Europe is a bit stingy on funding their end lately'

[Brett Bellmore]

To be clear, just because I think the Constitution dictates some policy, doesn't mean I necessarily think it's a good policy. (Though it may be obligatory if you value the rule of law.) The Constitution is over 200 years old at this point, after all, and wasn't intended for a world super power running what amounts to an empire.

Indeed, it largely was intended to make sure we WOULDN'T be running an empire...

I honestly don't like the fact that we're a world superpower with an empire, I think WE, (Though maybe not the world.) would be better off if we were just another country. The best and most powerful "just another country", but not running, effectively, an empire.

But getting us disentangled will be a long, long job.

[Martinned2]

NATO was also a two-way street because it involved Europe backing all sorts of US foreign policies, including military adventures. Why do you think various Dutch governments incurred the domestic political cost of backing the US attacks on Iraq in 2003 and on Yemen now? It was much easier for them to sit back and let the US do what it would, but the theory was that such political support was part and parcel of an Atlanticist national security policy. If Trump doesn't think the US needs allies, he can find out whether that's true.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Brett:

The best and most powerful “just another country”, but not running, effectively, an empire.

That sentence is an oxymoron. I'm not sure it was ever possible, at least since, say 3000 BC, for the "best most powerful" country to not "effectively" run an empire.

Of course, best and most powerful don't necessarily go together. I am sure plenty of people doubt the U.S. is the best, but I don't think any reasonable person doubts the U.S. is the most powerful country. That same sentence can be said about any of the most powerful countries from 3000 B.C. forward. Setting that aside, is there any country that was "the most powerful" but was not "effectively" running an empire at any point during the past 5000 years?

If not, I would suggest that is pretty strong evidence it is not possible to be the most powerful and not an empire.

And that should give you pause as to whether we can disengage from the rest of the world and remain the most powerful (militarily or economically) country in the world. I think your (and more so Trump's) isolationist fantasies are dangerous fabulism at its worst.

The same sort of thinking is how we almost let Germany take over all of Europe. Twice.

With great power comes great responsibility.

[Magister]

Why not list pork in Mitch McConnell's state? Or tax cuts aimed at a small number of wealthy people? Landing a man on the moon? Anything foreign is arguably for defense, even if it's just helping a poor country which might otherwise support terrorists or pirates; but a sound defense and a safer world is also in the interests of the general welfare.

MAGA legislators could justify giving a huge amount of money to Donald Trump by asserting that it would create jobs, or that there will magically be so much winning everyone will get tired of winning. No court is going to strike down anything Congress does because it doesn't provide for the general welfare.

[NOVA Lawyer]

“Word is the DOJ has informed……”

You never get any facts right. (30 million unauthorized immigrants, for example.) What is your basis for this claim?

And, I’m just guessing, but prosecutors often try to impose the maximum penalty on criminals who renege on deals they made to obtain leniency in the first place. I’m guessing DOJ is saying “we gave you a good deal, if you appeal this, we won’t be inclined to go as easily the next time ’round.”

*I don’t have a good alternative to plea bargaining generally, but there is often a lot of abuse. But these are defendants with some of the most press and scrutiny in all of the penal system, so I am least worried about them being railroaded. Funny though, how all the people so concerned about these J6 criminals and the rule of law whole-heartedly support the guy who advocated punishment (which he previously specified should be the death penalty) for the innocent Central Park Five even after they had been exonerated. Now he lauds J6 criminals as heroes. What hypocritical assholes you all are.

[David Nieporent]

He's of course spinning. DOJ notified those convicted that if SCOTUS rules that the 1512(c) obstruction charge cannot be applied to them, then it will seek to impose a similar sentence pursuant to other crimes for which they were convicted.

[mydisplayname]

The world has now ordered the most vile and reprehensible beings on the planet to unconditionally cease fire: https://www.npr.org/2024/03/25/1240669997/united-nations-security-council-cease-fire-resolution-gaza-israel-war

While this is a victory for the world, as Americans we must now be alert from attacks from terrorists -- Israelis -- we once called allies: as we well know from our own past (USS Liberty, et al) as well as that of Egypt, Russia, and Turkey, Israel savagely lashes out against any who danes to condemn its barbarous behavior.

[David Nieporent]

Hamas is indeed irredeemably evil, but "the most vile and reprehensible" seems a bit overstated.

[Don Nico]

Ramadan will soon be over and the attack on Rafah can begin.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

If Israel continues to misbehave, particularly by defying the United States with respect to Rafah, let's hope our government refuses to provide aid or cover to Israel until every right-wing asshole has been rooted out of Israel's government.

Israel is free to do as it wishes. So is the United States.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Let's hope that every Left-wing Asshole is rooted out of OUR government. Repealing the civil service act comes to mind.

[Magister]

What, no snowplow murders, machine guns or nukes? Has Dr. Ed 2 gone soft as his cult leader's rhetoric gets more extreme?

[Commenter_XY]

There is no need to wait. There is also the North (hezbollah) to consider.

[Kazinski]

Bloomberg has updated its estimate of Trump's net worth in the wake of the SPAC completion and the bond reduction.

"Trump’s Net Worth Hits $6.5 Billion, Making Him One of World’s 500 Richest People
Former president joins Bloomberg’s list of 500 richest people
Trump Media merger adds billions of dollars to paper fortune

"Donald Trump’s business empire was supposed to be in peril like never before on Monday. Instead, it turned into the single-greatest day on record for the former president’s wealth."

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-03-25/donald-trump-6-4-billion-net-worth-makes-him-one-of-world-s-richest-people

[#FFFFFFPride]

Well seeings how Letitia and Erogan colluded on their damages by looking at the FEC disclosures from his campaign, I'm guessing they'll now go back and try to revise their damages to take away these new gains.

[David Nieporent]

I just don't get the point of this trolling.

[#FFFFFFPride]

I’m putting out there what was reported about where that $450M came from.

Trumps campaign disclosures.

I know people like you aren’t allowed to get that sort of news.

[David Nieporent]

That was not, in fact, where the $450 million came from, and nobody in fact "reported" that. You can find out where the $450 million came from by taking the strange approach of reading the decision.

The rest is gibberish. There are no such "FEC disclosures," and Trump hasn't spent any of his own money on his campaign and wasn't and isn't going to, and he can't use campaign monies to pay the judgment, so everything about this is false.

[Kazinski]

You might ask Leticia James the same thing:

https://twitter.com/NewYorkStateAG/status/1761457522395750576?t=UWgfNHQoq5ooKdXL9sgDyg&s=19

[David Nieporent]

You might ask Leticia James the same thing.

I don't need to; I know what she gets out of trolling. And yes, I think it's inappropriate for her to do so.

[Magister]

I think it's the new "voltage!" troll.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Let's watch how quickly Trump pumps and dumps that stock. I am tempted to believe that the dumbasses who buy that stock from him deserve to eat pet food in their later years.

An entity with a few million in revenue, maybe $50 million in losses, few hard assets, and a market valuation in the billions? Good luck, MAGA rubes.

[Nige]

Aw, isn't that lovely? For a minute there we were worried that they might treat him like a poors.

[Martinned2]

The whole point of that acquisition is that Trump Social is worth a lot of money because it's a meme stock. The people running that SPAC are betting that all the little MAGAs out there will want to own a stock, even though the company doesn't make any money. So it's yet another example of Trump treating his followers like chumps, and laughing all the way to the bank.

[Mr. Bumble]

So thoughtful of you to be concerned about MAGA followers.
What a kind heart you have.

[Martinned2]

Well yeah, sort of. Seeing millions of people, many of them not very well off, conned by a rich guy with a big mouth definitely irritates me. In that way it's not very different from the reporting in the Dutch press last week about a new "prosperity church" in the Netherlands, which conned thousands of people out of thousands of Euros. It has nothing to do with me directly, but I'm still annoyed that it is happening and feel sorry for the victims.

[Mr. Bumble]

Do you feel the same way for all of the fools who contributed to BLM?

[Martinned2]

Who is the con artist in that analogy?

[Mr. Bumble]

The communist lesbians who used the money to buy houses?

[Martinned2]

Never mind then. Sorry I asked.

[Mr. Bumble]

Did I say something wrong?

[Brett Bellmore]

No, but he's probably in a bit of denial about that.

[Nige]

Well you changed the subject, so, good dodge!

[Dr. Ed 2]

I remember when the same thing was said about Amazon.

[Magister]

Amazon was valued at less than $500 million at its IPO, and while its earnings were only a few percent of that value, it had grown at a fast pace to that point. So I doubt anyone said the same thing then.

[Jumaira]

I'm not sure what exactly was said, but regarding the below, threatening that a public official will be arrested, charged with treason, convicted, and executed is not a legal threat, as it's pursuant to a legal process. I wouldn't be surprised if Merrick Garfinkel was flouting the 1st Amendment, of course.

“There’s a common denominator in many of these cases,” US Attorney for Arizona Gary Restaino said Monday, “election denialists announcing an intent to violently punish” people who they believe “have wronged them, often with a threat of arrests leading to executions for treason.”

[ReaderY]

It depends. Everything depends on intent. If organizers of lynch mobs entice others to join the mob by saying the lynchee should be executed for treason, their speech isn’t protected by the First Amendment. They weren’t intending for the execution to occur by any process of law.

[Jumaira]

Of course, but the threat of "arrest" by definition means pursuant to legal process.

[NvEric]

LEGAL THEORY BLOG
Paper
"Beavers-on-drug-induced-homocide (sic?)"
Rampant rodent killers ?

[Theendoftheleft]

This is a helpful video that credibly explains, in part, the backstory of Macron's recent bellicosity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiD24uEvY1U

[ReaderY]

The Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine has attracted a huge amount of attention and numerous amicus briefs. But the case has no business deciding anything. It should fail on standing. The plaintiffs combine two theories of standing each highly problematic. The first is statistical standing - a member of their organization may someday have to treat a patient injured by side effects of mifepristone used for an abortion. The second is organizational - treating auch a person wiuld interfere with the organization’s mission of treating patients they’d rather be treating.

Although there’s strong precedent against standing based on teh mere possibility of future injury, I think the organizational standing claim is the most absurd. I don’t think either these physicians as individuals or AHM as an organization would be injured at all if this occurred.

Treating a patient injured in a manner the physician wishes hadn’t happened does not cause any legal injury to a physician. Treating whoever walks or gets carried in the door is simply what physicians sign up to do. Being a physician does not confer general standing to challenge any law on any subject related to health or safety.

And it certainly doesn’t injure AHM’s organizational mission, which is basically to oppose legal abortion and advocate for its criminalization. If the legality of an act or its occurrence injures an organization organized to advocate for the act’s criminalization, then simple political opposition to a law or action is enough to confer standing on political opponents. And that’s exactly the situation standing law exists to prevent.

Because there is no standing here, and the lack of standing is obvious, federal courts have no jurisdiction to address any legal question the plaintiffs raise.

The opinions and injunctions below should be vacated and the case should be dismissed for lack of standing, with everything left as it was before the suit started. And that should be that.

[not guilty]

Another standing problem for the AHM is the requirement that it must be “likely,” as opposed to merely “speculative,” that the injury in fact claimed by the plaintiffs will be “redressed by a favorable decision.” Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 561 (1992).

Suppose the plaintiffs are successful and mifepristone is taken off the market. A pregnant woman who cannot obtain mifepristone has three options: she can abort using misoprostol alone, she can obtain a surgical abortion, or she can carry the pregnancy to term and give birth. Each of these (especially carrying to term) is to some degree riskier than undergoing a mifepristone/misoprostol abortion.

The removal of mifepristone from the market actually increases the likelihood that an AHM provider will need to treat the woman who did not receive a mifepristone/misoprostol abortion.

[Dr. Ed 2]

"Treating whoever walks or gets carried in the door is simply what physicians sign up to do."

And yet lawyers don't......

[Martinned2]

They do in civilised countries. https://thesecretbarrister.com/2024/03/24/is-it-fair-to-criticise-keir-starmer-for-representing-terrorists-ten-things-you-should-know/

[NOVA Lawyer]

I agree the case should be thrown out on standing for all the reasons you and NG raise.

On the substance, any of the "small government" commenters around here should side with the government (which is trying to reduce regulation of a commodity and reduce it's involvement in the personal lives of citizens). At bottom, what AHM is asking, is that the government not be allowed to shrink it's footprint unless it properly says mother may I.

This is a modification of an approval, but it is functionally the same as removing a regulation and allowing people to buy and corporations to distribute something without government interference. AHM is arguing that the government should be required to interfere with these interactions.

[not guilty]

[duplicate comment deleted]

[Martinned2]

The High Court has just given Julian Assange leave to appeal in his extradition proceedings.

we will grant leave to appeal on grounds iv) (extradition incompatible with the right to freedom of expression under article 10 of the Convention), v) (extradition barred by section 81(b) of the 2003 Act because the applicant might be prejudiced on grounds of nationality) and ix) (extradition barred by sections 93 to 95 of the 2003 Act because of inadequate specialty/death penalty protection).
(…)
We refuse the renewed application for leave to appeal on grounds i) and viii) (extradition incompatible with the Treaty), ii) (extradition barred by section 81(a) because it is for the purpose of a prosecution for political opinion), iii) (extradition incompatible with article 7 of the Convention), vi) (extradition incompatible with the right to a fair trial under article 6 of the Convention) and vii) (extradition incompatible with articles 2 and 3 of the Convention).

https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Assange-v-USA-Judgment.pdf

I haven’t read the judgment yet, but this seems broadly right. I’m not quite sure what the difference is between “inadequate specialty/death penalty protection” and “extradition incompatible with articles 2 and 3 of the Convention”, given that the latter protect against being killed or tortured by the government, but I’m sure I could read the judgment and find out.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The irony here is that Bradley Manning is free...

[Estragon]

“Bradley”

Christ, you are an asshole

[Estragon]

“Irony”

It’s like 10,000 spoons when all you need is a snowplow, right Ed?

[Estragon]

“It is my great honor to be at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach tonight, AWARDS NIGHT, to receive THE CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP TROPHY & THE SENIOR CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP TROPHY. I WON BOTH! A large and golfing talented membership, a GREAT and difficult course, made the play very exciting.”

I’ll just echo the biden-Harris campaign here and say wow, what an achievement.

I guess it’s microscopically more plausible than the claim from last year that he shot 68 (after all, in match play, your opponent can just concede holes) but the apparently uncontrollable need to claim these obviously fake achievements should be cause for serious concern, IMHO.

[Brett Bellmore]

I honestly have no interest in golf, ("A nice walk in the park, ruined.") but I assume the guy plays a lot of it. Is there any reason for assuming he didn't win aside from disliking him?

[Martinned2]

Have you seen the man? The only thing he would plausibly win is a burger eating contest.

[Estragon]

It’s not even remotely plausible. If biden had claimed the same, the huckleberries on here would be calling for the 25th amendment.

I’d put it in the category of Kim Jong Il making 5 holes in one in a single round.

It’s absurdly laughable, which makes it all the more disturbing that he feels compelled to claim it.

Does he actually believe he won the men’s club championship at age 77? Might be time for another round of those cognitive tests he “aced.” After all— Fred had dementia at the end…

https://www.golfdigest.com/story/donald-trump-shank-golf-video

[NOVA Lawyer]

This is a better analogy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgbI55HdqQs

Yes, Putin scored 8 goals in an "all-star" hockey game, but the goalie was pretty clearly frightened he might block the shots. And, while Putin obviously had a passing knowledge of hockey, he also clearly hadn't half the skill and agility of anyone else on the ice. It's the kind of fake victory dictators or dictator wannabes love to tout.

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : "Is there any reason for assuming he didn’t win aside from disliking him?"

Of course he won!

The club probably figured Trump would have a mob overrun their grounds if he lost....

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Brett Bellmore’s stylings on evidence, credibility, and probability are one of this blog’s more entertaining features.