Thursday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[not guilty]

The Republican fake electors in Arizona have been indicted in state court, along with seven other associates of Donald Trump who participated in Trump's bogus elector scheme. https://mcusercontent.com/cc1fad182b6d6f8b1e352e206/files/fa85cddf-ccc6-7dee-dd58-ff5e80d53b15/Indictment.03.pdf The names of the defendants other than the fake electors are redacted, but Politico identifies them as Mark Meadows, Rudy Giuliani, Boris Epshteyn, John Eastman, Jenna Ellis, Christina Bobb and Mike Roman.

It's about time. As Groucho Marx said, time wounds all heels.

[NvEric]

Yet another fake lawsuit.
It is criminal to bring this type of case under color of law. This and other current and upcoming lawsuits/indictments brought by persons acting under color of law to deprive people of their rights, which these indictments are designed to do.

[Dr. Ed 2]

And what they are doing is destroying respect for the law.
Payback on this stuff is going to be a *itch....

[Balisane]

I hope so.

[not guilty]

Uh, all criminal indictments are brought under color of law and constitute one step toward depriving the accused of liberty or property. That is called due process of law.

Do you fancy that you have a point, NvEric?

[Mr. Bumble]

Does that include novel prosecutions that aren't supported by the law? Indictments that fail to list the crime?

Asking for a friend.

[not guilty]

Mr. Bumble, I linked to the Arizona indictment. Suppose you read it and tell us what part(s) thereof are novel and not supported by the law. Which count(s) fail to list a crime, and as to which defendant(s)?

You do know how to read, don't you?

[Mr. Bumble]

I was referring to Bragg's indictment.

[Bwaaah]

I see charges of fraud, forgery, and conspiracy for the same. Does it matter that no officials understood those documents and representations as being true or valid?

It looks to me like they were attempting to advance a clearly false theory of how the election should work, and nobody of consequence misunderstood that.

Am I guilty of fraud if my target knows I'm lying and takes no consequential action as a result?

[NOVA Lawyer]

Forgery doesn’t require reliance. A.R.S. Sec. 13-2002:

Under Arizona law, A person commits “forgery” if, with the intention of defrauding someone, they: (1) falsely make, complete, or alter a written instrument, (2) knowingly possess a forged written instrument, or (3) offer a forged instrument or one that contains false information. Intent to defraud can be implied if the person possesses five or more forged instruments.

Further a fraudulent scheme or artifice explicitly does not require reliance. A.R.S. Section 13-2310(B):

Reliance on the part of any person shall not be a necessary element of the offense described in subsection A of this section.

A possible problem seems to me to be obtaining a benefit. The complaint, after lengthy description of the absolutely shady conduct describes the benefit as:

they obtained a benefit under Arizona law by creating the opportunity for Pence to reject the legitimate certified Democratic elector votes for Biden-Harris and declare Unindicted Coconspirator 1 the winner of the 2020 Presidential election.

I’m not sure “creating an opportunity” for someone to do something, but they didn’t do it, is enough to “obtain a benefit”. I’m no expert in either Arizona or criminal law, but that seems like quite a stretch to me. And I might have missed something else in the indictment.

[Brett Bellmore]

The problem is, it may not require reliance, but it requires intending reliance: "if, with the intention of defrauding someone,

No reliance was intended here, it was fully expected that everyone would realize that these weren't the actual certified electors. They were 'simply' providing the raw material for Congress to wrongfully exercise discretion in the course of a ministerial act.

Note, I'm NOT saying that they weren't intending no good. I'm just saying that, not only was nobody fooled, they didn't INTEND to fool anyone; The members of Congress they'd hoped would count instead the fake electors were not to be duped, they were to be willing accomplices.

Suppose I'm driving without a license, and I get pulled over, and I hand the cop a piece of paper with "driver's license" scribbled on it, wrapped around a $100 bill. Am I trying to deceive the cop? No, of course I'm not. I'm bribing him!

The problem, legally, is that bribing members of Congress with the favorable opinions of their constituents isn't a crime. Extorting them with a threat to urge their constituents to vote against them isn't a crime, either. Both are just politics.

Your crime here would have been Congress deciding to count the fake electors. But, good luck getting a federal court to actually treat that as a crime, if it actually happened.

[Bwaaah]

^THAT^

[Sarcastr0]

No reliance was intended here, it was fully expected that everyone would realize that these weren’t the actual certified electors

The Eastman memo indicates otherwise. Monkeying with the legitimacy of the electors was absolutely part of the scheme to defraud.

[Brett Bellmore]

The Eastman memos indicate nothing of the sort. Nothing in the memos actually says anybody believes in the farce. It's just going through the motions.

[Sarcastr0]

A critical mass of the American People are supposed to believe the farce.

Otherwise, why bother?

[bernard11]

You're seriously claiming these guys aren't guilty of anything?

Wow.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm sure you could nail them on SOME charge. Just not THIS charge, given the intent requirement.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

That’s just the disaffectedness and autism talking, Mr. Bellmore.

[bernard11]

So you show up at the bank with a forged check, but the teller recognizes the forgery and refuses to cash it.

You've done nothing wrong?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

These half-educated misfits are just flailing.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Their ridiculous position, bernard11, is that if the teller knows it's a forgery, but gets a cut so cashes it anyway, then no one has committed a crime. Or, for Brett, maybe some crime, but not forgery. lol.

[Tempe Jeff]

Congratulations. You're a champ at missing the point.

[Brett Bellmore]

The Pennsylvania and Nevada electors made a point of including language in their submission to Congress stating that they were doing this conditional on court victories changing the outcome. Notice that they're not being prosecuted?

There are right ways and wrong ways to go about this, and the wrong ways leave you open to prosecution. Did these people not understand how much legal peril they were volunteering for? Seems not.

[not guilty]

Actually it was putative electors in Pennsylvania and New Mexico, not Nevada, that used the qualifying language.

The fake electors in Nevada are currently being prosecuted. https://ag.nv.gov/News/PR/2023/Attorney_General_Ford_Announces_the_Indictment_of_Six_Nevadans_Who_Falsely_Represented_Themselves_as_State_Electors_in_2020/

[Brett Bellmore]

My mistake, New Mexico.

But the point remains: They were doing something legally perilous, and should have known it. The ones who went about it the right way were safe enough.

[Mr. Bumble]

...and it only took three and a half years after the fact to commence a prosecution. Strange.

[Bob from Ohio]

Its only 6 months to the election though. That's the important time period here.

Punish your enemies and win some votes, Rule of law baby!

[Brett Bellmore]

No, not a bit strange. Wrong, sure. But anything but strange.

Politics ain't beanbag, I believe the saying goes.

[Sarcastr0]

No evidence, just vibes.

But here is how confirmation bias works. If it was sooner then say it shows the Feds are in a rush; if it was later say they're trying to hid this from the public.

That's how the pros do it - a conspiracy behind every possible fact pattern.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, Sarcastr0, if they had brought the charges back in 2021, that would have been perfectly reasonable, indicating that they were just treating it as a normal crime. I mean, they knew all about it in 2021, it's not like they spent 3 years investigating so that they could build a case; You hardly HAD to build a case!

Instead they waited until the Presidential campaign season had begun, to initiate the prosecution. That is, no matter how much you don't want to admit it, political timing.

Now, are they doing it for political effect? Are they doing it because the implacable urge to prosecute their enemies keeps growing, so they keep lowering the bar for initiating prosecutions? I donno. Could be either, or even some other political motive.

But you don't wait this long to prosecute, and then drop the hammer in an election year, by accident.

[Sarcastr0]

We've had some pretty legit practitioners say that the pace of trial and indictment and investigation can take a while.

I don't think you or I can assume there's something legit or hinky with the experience/info we have.

[Noscitur a sociis]

If it was sooner then say it shows the Feds are in a rush; if it was later say they’re trying to hid this from the public.

Feds?

[Sarcastr0]

Well, Biden at least.

[David Nieporent]

Yet another fake lawsuit.

It's not a lawsuit.

[Riva]

This sickening gross abuse of process is hard to comprehend, as is those cheering on this pseudo (maybe not so pseudo) police state garbage. With corrupt prosecutors eager to abuse their powers for political purposes, aided by conflicted and equally biased judges at all levels, and legal professionals, equally if not more politically rabid, this is getting worse. We used to be able to at least hope for a fair open minded jury in this country, but that’s a joke in democrat enclaves. And, unfortunately, if history is a guide, these things always get worse, until the corrupt hacks turn on themselves. Sooner or later, you repulsive leftist thugs will start devouring each other like the cannibals who ate uncle Joe. Let’s hope it’s sooner.

[Ed Grinberg]

"Sooner or later, you repulsive leftist thugs will start devouring each other"
https://nypost.com/video/alec-baldwin-smacks-phone-of-anti-israel-agitator-who-demanded-he-say-free-palestine-in-coffee-shop-2/
It's already starting!

[Nige]

Cats and dogs living together!

[ReaderY]

Ah for the good all days of the Godfather and the Sopranos, when the people who talked that way – and they did – were called mobsters, not politicians.

Every time a mobster was indicted, it was a sickening gross abuse of process, corrupt prosecutors, police state garbage, yada yada yada.

You forgot discrimination against Italians.

[David Nieporent]

This sickening gross abuse of process is hard to comprehend,

It might be easier to comprehend if you stopped imagining a massive conspiracy and just accepted that you have been misled by a handful of corrupt people in service of a sociopath.

[FletcherReed]

Are you okay?

[Kazinski]

For once I agree with Joe. Biden seems mystified at why Trump isn't even further ahead in the polls than he currently is:

“Folks, in a sense, I don’t know why we’re surprised by Trump,” Biden said during a stop in Florida. “How many times does he have to prove we can’t be trusted?”

https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/joe-biden-trolled-for-saying-we-cant-be-trusted-while-slamming-trump-in-latest-gaffe-the-truth-slipped-out-101713968460134.html

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Poor Joe is still traumatized by the memory of his uncle being shot down over Papua New Guinea only to be devoured by the cannibalistic natives.

[Commenter_XY]

Uncle Bosie, where are you?! 🙂

[not guilty]

The U.S. Secret Service reportedly has held meetings and started planning for what to do if Donald Trump were to be held in contempt and Judge Juan Merchan opted to send him to short-term confinement. https://abcnews.go.com/US/live-updates/trump-hush-money-trial/secret-service-has-plans-if-trump-is-confined-for-contempt-sources-109534103?id=108402689

While the prosecution is not at this point seeking a jail sentence, those discussions could be fruitful for planning as to when Trump will eventually be sentenced in other cases now pending.

[Dr. Ed 2]

You really want a shooting Civil War that badly....

[not guilty]

How would denying Donald Trump Secret Service protection during confinement bring about a shooting Civil War?

[Martinned2]

Because Ed is personally going to take his rifle, go to the jail where Trump is held, and start a civil war.

[Brett Bellmore]

Obviously the unstated premise is that the denial would be in order to clear the way for him being assassinated*. Which, I don't know actual civil war, but certainly would cause a considerable amount of civil unrest.

* Probably by being Epsteined, of course.

[not guilty]

Uh, the purpose of the meetings that the ABC news report referenced is to provide Secret Service protection to Donald Trump if he is confined, not to deny such protection. That is the point I lampooned Dr. Ed 2 for overlooking.

The planning meetings were for Trump's benefit, not to his detriment. Perhaps my sarcasm was too subtle, and I should instead have asked how would providing Donald Trump Secret Service protection during confinement bring about a shooting Civil War?

[Brett Bellmore]

Eh, I was just answering the question.

Obviously they're not going to do anything so nakedly obvious as put a high profile prisoner in solitary, in an area of the prison with a broken camera, and have him commit suicide without witnesses. That sort of thing only happens in badly written fiction. And they're certainly not going to find a printed suicide note complaining about how people are mistreating somebody else, torn in pieces, with the part with the signature missing. That sort of thing just NEVER happens. [/sarc]

But were I Trump, I'd absolutely see if I could pick my own SS agents, or have some private security on my own payroll. Just in case life suddenly emulates bad fiction in the way in never does in real life. [/sarc]

[bernard11]

Oh for Pete's sake, Brett. Get a grip.

Biden wants Trump imprisoned, with no protection, so he can be assassinated? Is that what you think? If so, you're nuts. Stop reading whatever crap you read that gives you these ideas. And quit the cult. It's damaging your mental health.

And bear in mind that if Trump is jailed for contempt it will be nobody's doing but his own.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Trump’s lawyer just told the Supreme Court that Biden would have complete immunity if he had Trump assassianted, so I’m not sure why he’d go to all the trouble of trying to hide it.

[Drewski]

So because you believe Trump had Epstein assassinated you believe Biden will have Trump assassinated in the same way. That makes sense, if you assume the Presidency is controlled by a single nefarious puppet master whose tenure crosses administrations, but specifically one who isn't very creative.

[Brett Bellmore]

You're reading too much into this. I don't think Trump personally ordered Epstein assassinated, though I wouldn't totally rule it out either. But Epstein had a LOT of people who needed him silent, didn't he? Important, powerful people. So he absurdly 'commits suicide' under circumstances that conveniently make proving what really happened impossible.

Similarly, the Democrats have been trying to convince everybody that Trump is the second coming of super-Hitler, that his being elected will literally end democracy in America. You think nobody would be interested in offing super-Hitler?

[Nige]

Make it super-duper hyper-Hitler, then maybe you'd have a point.

[Frank Drackman]

I don't know, did you ever learn about John Brown in your Pubic Screw-el?

[Dr. Ed 2]

USSS plans are usually secret and definitely not discussed by them.

[bernard11]

Then how do you and Brett know so much about them?

You're both full of shit.

[Moderation4ever]

Based on the pathetically small number of Trump Trial protesters outside the NYC courthouse I doubt the Civil War will be that big. Ed2 ask yourself this, "are you ready to die for Trump". I am guessing the number of people that are willing is small.

[Brett Bellmore]

Trump supporters typically are holding down jobs, which kind of conflicts with showing up at protests.

[Sarcastr0]

Haha have you seen his rallies, Brett? Or who came to J6?

MAGA is full of well-off retirees with nothing but time.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, people can arrange to show up for things that are scheduled well in advance.

[Sarcastr0]

You mean like a trial?

[Estragon]

Gee Brett, you seem to have hours of spare time to post on this website literally every day. Why don’t you get your ass down there? To quote from the NYTimes the other day:

“They say Laura Loomer is obsessed with President Trump… [w]ell everybody should be obsessed with making America great again and obsessed with taking their country back. And sometimes you have to put your personal life on hold and go out and organize for President Trump.
“That’s what I do […] You think I have a social life? You think I have a dating life? You think I’m married? You think I have kids? Do you think I go out and do fun things? No. Because I’m always putting every extra bit of time that I have into supporting President Trump.”

What a bunch of pathetic low-energy whiners you huckleberries are turning out to be.

[Estragon]

Also can I ask you a quick question. Am I right in assuming that when you say this:

“Trump supporters typically are holding down jobs, which kind of conflicts with showing up at protests.”

You are implicitly rejecting this assertion:

“Thousands of people were turned away from the Courthouse in Lower Manhattan by steel stanchions and police.”

?

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm implicitly rejecting the premise that Trump has only thousands of supporters, maybe.

[Estragon]

So— thousands in Manhattan? Yes or no?

[ducksalad]

You know, it could be that Trump’s claim of thousands turned away was bullshit, but he still has tens of millions of supporters. No contradiction there.

If just 0.1% of his voters decided to pick up a weapon and do something it would be a mess at a level we haven’t seen domestically in well over 100 years.

[Krayt]

If the goal would be to have a mass protest, and use large numbers to cow down politicians, as with BLM marches, which the capitol was a clone of, operationally.

Picking up weapons would be a non-starter.

[Sarcastr0]

BLM marches, which the capitol was a clone of, operationally

I can think of a few differences between BLM and J6. A couple of them (March and capitol) appear in your quote saying they are clones!

[Estragon]

“If just 0.1% of his voters decided to pick up a weapon and do something”

Yes, yes— we all know you hucklers are pinning your hopes on the dopes who shot up all those power substations last year. True patriots and profiles in courage, each and every one of them!

Have you seen a picture of Stuart Rhodes? You’re waiting for Meal Team 6 to come to the rescue?? Get out there!

“Ms. Loomer, who has traveled with Mr. Trump on his private plane and met with him at his private clubs, said that some Trump supporters had been talking a big game but had been “lazy,” made excuses and failed to show up for the former president.”

Lazy. Low energy. Sad!

[Dr. Ed 2]

It wouldn't even have to involve weaponry. French governments have been toppled by massive sickouts.

[Estragon]

Trucker’s strike!

[shawn_dude]

There's a wide gap between voting for a bombastic idiot that will make the libs cry and volunteering to be jailed or shot on his behalf.

[ducksalad]

I totally agree there’s a huge gap. Maybe you think the gap is 100%. I’m worried the gap might only be 99.9%.

[Bwaaah]

I'm a pessimist, and going with 99.9%, but only because I don't want to underestimate the problem.

[Bwaaah]

"Trump supporters typically are holding down jobs, which kind of conflicts with showing up at protests."

So true. An easily overlooked sign of sanity.

What is the intersectionality of a social justice warrior and not having a job to attend to? What is the intersectionality of being a social justice warrior and an insufferable, incorrigible employee?

[Estragon]

So wait. Trump supporters have jobs so they’re too busy to protest? I thought thousands were turned away from the courthouse by “steel stanchions and the police”!

You huckleberries need to pick a story and stick with it!

[Moderation4ever]

Do you have any proof that Trump supporters have jobs or is this just supposition on your part?

[Balisane]

Trump supporters generally have jobs. Liberals don't work. They collect welfare and spend their free time drinking malt liquor, smoking weed, and having gay sex.

[Estragon]

You forgot to include talking on their Obamaphones, driving Cadillacs and eating T-bones.

Missed opportunity. Several point deduction.

[grb]

Balisane : "... spend their free time drinking malt liquor, smoking weed ..."

I knew there was a reason I became a Liberal!

[Dr. Ed 2]

Who is funding all of this Anti-American crap?

I initially thought that the SJP chapters were self funding from mandatory student activity fees on the various campi, but there's too much big money in this for it to just be just that, unless the private schools have a LOT more of a slush fund than places like UMass do.

I know they are well organized -- they've been that way for 20-30 years -- but I'm starting to wonder where the money is coming from...

[Kazinski]

Probably almost universally Americans. Its not like its a new phenomenon, almost all the Soviet spies in the 50's and 60's were Americans too.

[Brett Bellmore]

You are, via Biden, most likely. His administration is funding anti-American NGOs all over the place.

[Sarcastr0]

You really needed no facts to spin up, eh?

[Brett Bellmore]

You really need to remind people you live in a bubble?

[Sarcastr0]

I’m talking about being evidence based. You come at me for bias.

Not a good show there Brett.

[Brett Bellmore]

Bubble, meet pin:

Biden admin sent $730M to UN group despite calls for anti-Jew violence: ‘Rotten to the core’

Biden Shovels Millions to Nonprofits to Aid His Open-Border Schemes. Congress Must Cut Off Cash Spigot.

[Brett Bellmore]

US State Department grants fund Palestinian group that organizes meetings attended by terrorists

[Sarcastr0]

None of these links support Ed's thesis.

They are also all pretty tendentious in and of themselves. Of course if your sources are Heritage, the NY Post, and a member press release, you may have some biased opinions in there.

[Brett Bellmore]

Right, I knew you were going to pretend that the Biden administration doesn't fund hostile NGOs, even after being shown the receipts. That was for the benefit of others who might have mistakenly thought you had a point.

[Sarcastr0]

Evidence needs to be connected to the thesis you are supporting, Brett.

This is not.

You're now in 'well this seems like the kind of thing Biden would do.'

Which is back to you making things up.

(BTW how many of these funding programs went on under Trump? Ah no matter, just proof of the Deep State.)

[Brett Bellmore]

I was going in with that from the start. Yes, the Biden administration is routinely funding people hostile to American interests. Hamas. Iran. NGOs channeling illegal immigrants to us. I don't know WHY they get their jollies giving money to our enemies, I just notice that they do.

So, yeah, I think the odds are they're funding these protests, indirectly.

[Sarcastr0]

'I think the odds' is not evidence-based, it's speculation

I don’t know WHY they get their jollies giving money to our enemies, I just notice that they do.
Well you and Ed go have a good time over there in cartoonish bad guy land.

[Brett Bellmore]

“You are, via Biden, most likely.”

I explicitly engage in speculation, and you accuse me of speculating… Only it's evidence based speculation, even if you don't like the evidence on account of it being not being reported by sources which wouldn't want to report it.

Yes, Sarcastr0, Biden IS a cartoon bad guy. Who the hell does his set design, Leni Riefenstahl? He sends huge quantities of money to terrorist groups and national adversaries.

If you wrote a novel with a figure like Biden in it you’d be accused of bad writing.

[Sarcastr0]

Humans are biased, and like to reinforce that bias whenever they speculate.
You let that impulse free, and quite soon you're off on your own reality-free frolic where facts have become vibes have become your own priors.

Yes, Sarcastr0, Biden IS a cartoon bad guy
This is you, showing how leaving evidence behind makes one become a clownshow.

[Balisane]

Because Biden is hostile to American interests. He's the very definition of a traitor.

[Sarcastr0]

Your compatriot, Brett.

[Commenter_XY]

POTUS Biden's entire ME policy is in ashes. All he did was continue the failed policies of his old boss, POTUS Obama. Now there are many thousands of people dead from their utter, collective incompetence. Iran openly mocks us. The Houthis mock us.

And you seriously expect Sarcastr0 to follow along. 🙂

You expect a lot from a government drone, Brett.

[Brett Bellmore]

"You expect a lot from a government drone, Brett."

Only normatively. Not predictively.

[Sarcastr0]

My fellow government employees tend liberal, but include Trump supporters, nevertrumper conservatives, and quite a few libertarians.

It's basically bigotry to assume all federal employees are going to think the same way.

[Balisane]

Government employees are the largest group of parasites ever. Go to a DMV, TSA checkpoint or Post Office, and you'll find lazy, disproportionately black employees who mouth off rather than doing their jobs.

[David Nieporent]

Immigrants — including illegal immigrants — are not "our enemies."

[Bwaaah]

Sarcastr0: "My fellow government employees tend liberal, but include Trump supporters, nevertrumper conservatives, and quite a few libertarians."

That’s a little bit of data. That’s interesting. (That doesn’t sound wrong to me.) Thanks for the contribution. (seriously)

[Sarcastr0]

May not be a representative sample, but the idea that government employees are ideologically in lock step is stupid if you know just about any group of humans.

[Bwaaah]

"I’m talking about being evidence based. You come at me for bias."

You are not evidence based. And yes.

It's as if language itself is your worthless bitch.

[Sarcastr0]

First, tu quoque is a fallacy.

Second, if you have a particular criticism about my failing to be evidence based, provide the example.

Because this empty insult (in defense of Brett's conspiracy theory) says a lot more about you than it does about me.

[Balisane]

When you and the Rev. Kirkland engage in bedroom fun, who is the top and who is the bottom? Are you taking your PrEP religiously?

[Sarcastr0]

I’m glad you at least acknowledge it’s fun.

Though I warn you, the next step is that having sex with women is gay:

Sex is for making children.

Any man who has sex with women because it “feels good” is gay.

Oh my pee pee feels good this is great!

In fact if you are 40 with less than 5 children you’re probably gay.

All that feel-good pee pee sex and hardly any genetic legacy?

[Nige]

He's funding groups that oppose his policies? Won't catch Trump doing anything like that.

[Martinned2]

The House of Representatives should start a committee to investigate. They could call it something like the House Un-American Activities Committee!

[Longtobefree]

Good idea.
I remember when we had one it found many of the communists in our government.
(of course, the communist press focused on the hollywood types, but that hasn't changed either)

[#FFFFFFPride]

The US Government.

It's full of Democrats, who are Anti-American.

[Longtobefree]

George Soros

[Moderation4ever]

We know that some of the Anti-American crap is funded by Russia. Republican Congress people have reported that their colleagues are reading directly from Russian propaganda.

[Bwaaah]

Ever since Trump got peed on, Putin's been the puppet-master. The whole Trump show is a Putin production. All the MAGAs are Russian stooges, and that's why the Ukraine.

Am I right?

[grb]

Dr. Ed 2 : “Who is funding all of this Anti-American crap?”

Since we’re obsessive on the doing of college kids, I’ll throw out the all-time greatest college protest stunt (which I witnessed). The setting was late-70s, a large southern state university in a small-town rural location. One day the Gay students organization put up flyers university-wide saying there would be a ‘Support Gays’ day and people would show their support by wearing jeans.

It shouldn’t have worked; people should have just ignored it. But in an age where denim-wear was ubiquitous, on that day they scrubbed the campus clear of jeans. This probably included the Gays themselves. I saw one guy wearing jeans pants, shirt and jacket, but I suspect they mostly kept their heads down too. Because the whole point was to make students change their basic lives out of fear of public disapprobation. And very large numbers of people got the message.

As for me? I wore jeans. I did support Gay rights and largely didn’t give a damn about disapproval, but the main thing is I had nothing else clean.

[ducksalad]

Don’t know if you’re talking about UT Austin but that happened while I was there, maybe 1979 or 1980. Perhaps the atmosphere at the engineering side of campus was different from wherever you hung out.

If it was intended as a teaching moment many of us failed to get the message. Most of the people I knew rolled their eyes and decided not to read anything into anyone else’s decision to wear jeans or not. Most everyone I knew wore exactly what they usually did, and that was usually jeans. I only owned corduroys (remember those?) at the time, sorry if any gays took offense but I wasn’t sending any message one way or the other.

Demanding that people engage in symbolic collective activities about their pet cause, even a cause I’m OK with, is something that gets on my nerves.

[Absaroka]

Same time frame for me, must have been a national thing. My experience was exactly parallel to Grb's. I didn't pay any attention and was halfway across campus when I figured out what was wrong. Even my gay friends were carefully wearing corduroy or whatever.

I dunno if it was a teaching moment or not; I didn't hear anyone talking about it before or after, but people sure left their jeans at home that day.

[shawn_dude]

Of course it was a teaching moment. People were left wondering if the person they saw in jeans was gay or not. The folks that intentionally didn't wear jeans had to consider what it meant in the 70s to be associated with homosexuality--as every LGBT person continues to do even today. There was a similar event at Disney World where on the first Saturday in June, LGBT people were encouraged to wear a red shirt. Still happens even today except it attracts a lot of straight folks now too as they enjoy the different crowd and the Orlando Gay Days events. Times have changed since I last wore cords to school.

[Dr. Ed 2]

This came to U-Maine in the 1980s and I know someone who burned a pair of jeans in protest. Got a fire permit and everything...

[Absaroka]

"someone who burned a pair of jeans in protest"

Why on earth would anyone do that? Wear jeans, or don't, but burn a pair? I'm not even sure which side that is supposed be on.

I personally thought it ('Denim Days') was clever as heck.

[grb]

I wondered - but didn't know - whether it was a local innovation or operating from a national playbook. Clearly the latter.

[Absaroka]

…and printing the posters on lavender paper…Faaaaabulous!

(I didn’t know it was national either)

[David Nieporent]

I personally thought it (‘Denim Days’) was clever as heck.

When I was in college in the late 80s, it was called "Gay Jeans Day."

[Bwaaah]

"When I was in college in the late 80s, it was called “Gay Jeans Day.”

Sounds like good times. I think it's racist to call it that now.

[Commenter_XY]

grb, I have always wanted to see in-person 'Ditch Day' at Cal Tech. I've read of some of their pranks - legendary. Seeing it happen live one time in my life is on my bucket list.

Why, you ask? I'll be in presence of some of the brightest minds of our species, and watch them at creative play. Is there any lifetime experience like that? Not to me.

As for the campus encampment protests. Whether the students intended to or not, they have gotten the attention of Hamas and PFLP. These terror groups, backed by Iran, are cynically using these students to advance their Judeocidal agenda.

Here is my question. When does 'protest' become explicit support for a terror group, prosecutable in court? What's the bright line for you; is there one?

[grb]

Commenter_XY : “When does ‘protest’ become explicit support for a terror group, prosecutable in court? What’s the bright line for you; is there one?”

On the students, here’s my take : I doubt the vast majority of them really support terrorism or are anti-semitic. I think there’re just into revolutionary theatrics and drunk on a crude dichotomy of “oppressed” and “oppressor”. But it becomes a meaningless distinction at the extreme end of the protests. When you do the “River to the Sea” thing, you’re just proposing an exchange of powerless Jews for the current powerless Palestinians. I can’t fathom the mentality behind that.

A recent post illustrated another issue, talking about a protest at a Jewish community center. I’ll bet that center had very minimum connections to Israel (if any) so why was it targeted? One answer is today’s climate, where censor can casts an absurdly wide net. But my criticism has been against Israel, it’s leader (who I find as contemptible as Modi & Orban). and its policies. Any protests or invective against the “Jews” is a big, big, problem.

Which leads to a final point: Israel wants to keep land it has taken without giving the people living there citizenship, which is a problem. You can draw a theorectical link between that and quote – “Zionism” – unquote, but I think that’s extraneous to the issue/possible solutions and it caries a lot of toxic baggage to boot. Yet many protesters (the college kiddies in particular) gleefully embrace the toxcity. You also see it in this forum from some of the more extreme trolls. Again, it's indicative of the current culture, but I think it’s counterproductive, wrong, and stupid.

[Ed Grinberg]

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/2974413/major-columbia-protest-organizers-left-wing-donors/

[Dr. Ed 2]

There is something called "borrower's defense to repayment" -- if an IHE misled students or otherwise did not deliver the promised instruction.

Why does that not apply to places like Columbia where the Jewish students have had to be in hiding all semester, and now have essentially been driven off campus?

And the interesting thing about "Borrower's Defense" discharges is that the SCHOOL then becomes liable for repaying the loan.

[John F. Carr]

The regulations are here: https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-34/subtitle-B/chapter-VI/part-685/subpart-D/section-685.401

The Department of Education must find the borrower deserves to have the loan cancelled because

* The school made a "substantial" misrepresentation or omission

* "The institution failed to perform its obligations under the terms of a contract with the student and such obligation was undertaken as consideration or in exchange for the borrower's decision to attend, or to continue attending, the institution, for the borrower's decision to take out a covered loan, or for funds disbursed in connection with a covered loan; "

* The borrower or a government agency on the borrower's behalf won a judicial or administrative case against the school.

If Trump wins I could see Jewish students getting relief under the "failed to perform" standard. Not in a Biden administration. There is too much discretion. Maybe not in a Trump administration. It's not the Secretary of Education personally who decides individual cases. It's a team of lifer bureaucrats.

[Balisane]

The Jewish students deserve it, quite frankly. They've been on the forefront of liberalism, and now they're seeing that liberalism is an evil ideology that will swallow its own. Good.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Profs. Bernstein and Blackman will issue a pass to you on that one, Balisane.

Have fun, clingers . . . while you still can.

(Here is another episode.)

[Kazinski]

Bragg finally revealed the underlying charge which Trump supposedly committed and its not the bogus FEC illegal campaign finance violation that I've scoffed at quite a.few times before.

Its even stupider:
"On Tuesday, prosecutors suggested that Mr Trump falsified those business records with the intent to commit or conceal a conspiracy to “promote” his election through “unlawful means”.

Under section 17-152 of New York election law, “any two or more persons who conspire to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means and which conspiracy is acted upon by one or more of the parties thereto, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor”

A perfectly legal hush money payment to Stormy was evidently a unlawful conspiracy to rig the 2016 election.

But don't take my word for it, here is Liberal Boston U Professor Jed Shugerman:

I Thought the Bragg Case Against Trump Was a Legal Embarrassment. Now I Think It’s a Historic Mistake.

"As a reality check, it is legal for a candidate to pay for a nondisclosure agreement. Hush money is unseemly, but it is legal. The election law scholar Richard Hasen rightly observed, “Calling it election interference actually cheapens the term and undermines the deadly serious charges in the real election interference cases.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/23/opinion/bragg-trump-trial.html

Of its been acknowledged almost hush money payments are legal, as long as the conduct they are hushing up is legal. The idea trying to keep an affair secret is election interference is absurd.

I'm wondering now if the trial won't be over as soon as the prosecution rests his case, when Trumps Lawyer requests a directed verdict because the facts don't allege a crime.

Judge Juan Merchan had to have been sand bagged by this revelation too, and its almost certain he's not happy with it.

[Mr. Bumble]

"Judge Juan Merchan had to have been sand bagged by this revelation too, and its almost certain he’s not happy with it."

I wouldn't be so sure about that, since he has shown TDS on a par with ng.

[Kazinski]

No.You don't have to be unethical to be deranged.

Merchan and Braggs assistant DA's would be disbarred if it were found out that they were plotting strategy together.

Nobody could possibly be that stupid.

[Mr. Bumble]

You give them too much credit. There is plenty of stupid going around especially with no one to call it out.

[Brett Bellmore]

Of course they could be that stupid, they'd just assume they'd never be caught. The only question is whether they ARE that stupid, not whether it's possible. Think back to the Ted Stevens prosecution, for goodness sake! Prosecutors can get amazingly stupid about thinking they'll never get caught, while hounding a politician they don't like.

Anyway, you're right: The legal theory behind this prosecution is crazy, even plenty of legal authorities who hate Trump say that, if convicted, he's basically guaranteed to have it overturned on appeal. After the election, when it no longer matters. At which point, as Harry Reid famously said, "It worked, didn't it?"

So, no, they're probably not that stupid, but that unethical? Maybe.

[Mr. Bumble]

No "maybe" about it.

[Brett Bellmore]

That they're unethical is, I think, established at this point. That they're unethical enough for the judge and prosecutor to be in cahoots? Still up in the air.

[Mr. Bumble]

Don't discount Michael Coangelo's departure from a high ranking position in the DOJ to serve in the Manhattan DA's office.
Giving new meaning to "public service".

[David Nieporent]

Do you and Reva get your talking points from the same illiterate source? It's Matthew Colangelo, not Michael Coangelo.

[Mr. Bumble]

Never made a typo, you flaming asshole?

[David Nieporent]

I don't think "ch" and "t" are anywhere near each other on the keyboard. The last name could be a typo; the first name is just wrong, and — as I said — seems to indicate you're getting your info from the same wrong source.

[Kazinski]

I think the prosecution just unveiled theory is too nutso to even get by Judge Merchan.

Try to follow the prosecutors here as he describes having a campaign strategy is evidence of a conspiracy:

“But the evidence at trial will show that this was not spin or communications strategy,” he added. “This was a planned, coordinated, long-running conspiracy … It was election fraud. Pure and simple.”

Under that theory any campaign strategy is an illegal.conspiracy to “promote” a.candidate

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-trial-prosecutors-primary-crime-b2534202.html

The prosecution is chasing its tail while trying to get the jury to follow it down that rabbit hole.

[Armchair]

I think the Judge has other reasons to accept the prosecution's argument, so he will.

[Commenter_XY]

Kaz, I have explained this before: It is (D)ifferent. 🙂

[tylertusta]

It's unethical for prosecutors to attempt to obtain a conviction that they know will be tossed on appeal.

The fact that the prosecutor is doing it anyways and the usual suspect of barking seals are applauding it tells us a lot about how much they've broken our justice system.

[Balisane]

Just like they came up with BS to have Roy Moore lose, and then we heard nothing about it afterward.

[Noscitur a sociis]

even plenty of legal authorities who hate Trump say that, if convicted, he’s basically guaranteed to have it overturned on appeal

Like whom?

After the election, when it no longer matters.

In what possible way to you think this case will harm Trump's reelection prospects?

[Dr. Ed 2]

"Under section 17-152 of New York election law, “any two or more persons who conspire to promote or prevent the election of any person to a public office by unlawful means and which conspiracy is acted upon by one or more of the parties thereto, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor”

Why wouldn't that apply to Bragg, et al? If you could argue this is an unlawful prosecution, then....

[Martinned2]

"If you could..."

You've just answered your own question.

[John F. Carr]

If a prosecutor's decision to bring charges could ever be said to be unlawful, the intracorporate conspiracy doctrine may still apply. It is typically not a conspiracy for employees of the same company to work together. If this doctrine applies members of the prosecutor's team should be covered by it. There are exceptions and I don't care to research them because prosecutors ordinarily have absolute immunity for prosecutorial decisions.

[Noscitur a sociis]

It is typically not a conspiracy for employees of the same company to work together.

It is if they’re agreeing to do something illegal!

If this doctrine applies members of the prosecutor’s team should be covered by it.

If they’re agreeing to do something illegal, it does!

[Sarcastr0]

Hush money isn’t what Trump is charged with.

Lying about it is.

This has been explained on this blog scores of times.

[Brett Bellmore]

He paid his lawyer to obtain an NDA, which is a fairly lawyerly thing to do. He was under no obligation to record in his ledger what the lawyerly thing he'd paid his lawyer to do was.

It's already established precedent that paying hush money isn't a campaign expense, so he wasn't concealing a campaign expenditure. And he wasn't concealing it to influence an election, because the ledger entries came after the election.

The prosecution is a joke. It's not my fault TDS is blinding you to that.

[Armchair]

Indeed.

You write "Retainer for (date to date)" on a check, that's going to a lawyer, who you say is on your legal team during those dates. And that lawyer doesn't dispute it.

But since there's no written retainer (potentially just a verbal or inferred retainer), many people say "there was no retainer agreement". The lawyer was just on your legal team during that time out of good will....and being paid...on checks that said "retainer"....but there "was no retainer"....so that's fraud?

[Sarcastr0]

This is even worse than Brett. That money is well established not to have been for a retainer.

[Brett Bellmore]

You do know that a retainer doesn't JUST make the guy available, right? It also typically covers some amount of actual work.

[Sarcastr0]

You should take it up with Brett Bellmore above: "He paid his lawyer to obtain an NDA."

[Brett Bellmore]

Paying somebody to sign an NDA is obtaining an NDA.

[Sarcastr0]

It's not legal work, though. As has been explained a lot.

[Brett Bellmore]

You are perpetually confusing "explain" and "assert". It's like some sort of rhetorical tic.

[Sarcastr0]

You do not need a law degree to take money from person A and pay person B with it.

This has been a repeat of the last 3 weeks, as well as discussions from months ago. The legal practitioners around here are basically of one voice as to this payment.

But hey there’s going to be a trial; maybe this pass through will be insufficiently established.

Doesn't matter to you. You have made it quite clear that if the outcome is in your favor, it will be dispositive. Otherwise you will declare it fake news and keep saying it’s only been asserted.

[ducksalad]

JFTR, my employer *requires* us to go through a lawyer when negotiating an NDA. I imagine my employer is not even a little bit unusual in that. They pay the lawyer..

Now, if the NDA requires payments to the other party, I suppose you've got a point that it's not a legal expense. At least not if the money was paid directly.

However, that brings up a real-life question I want to ask for a "friend" who just recently handed over five digits worth of money to a lawyer to handle a criminal case. Suppose in my friend's records he lists it as legal costs. Suppose the lawyer, going about the business, needs a copy of a video from some camera, the owner balks a bit at the trouble, and she takes $50 out of the money my friend gave her, to compensate the camera owner for their time.

Multiple choice question:

(a) Both the lawyer and my "friend" have just committed a felony and both should expect a prison sentence.
(b) Both the lawyer and my "friend" have technically committed a felony, but because we're not national politicians no one gives a shit.
(c) Somewhere between $50 and $150,000 it turns into a felony.
(d) Other?

[shawn_dude]

IANAL...
But if you pay a woman for her time and that time is for sex then that's a crime in 49 states plus two (three?) counties in Nevada.

The $50 is a nominal fee for the expense of providing a copy of a video. These kinds of nominal record fees are common. Paying your former mistress (or prostitute) to not to tattle on you while your run for president of the united states is not a nominal record fee so I don't see your point. The $50 and $150K are not similarly situated. If you paid the person with the video $50 to destroy it rather than create a new copy, the line you're imagining might be less than even $50.

[ducksalad]

Shawn, thanks for a straightforward answer, which appears to be (c): giving the store owner $50 for a copy of the video (to overcome his laziness) versus $150K for the video (to satisfy his greed once he knows you really, really, need that video) makes a difference.

So if he only asks for $1K....

[David Nieporent]

(d) Other?

This one: nobody committed a crime based on those limited facts, as nobody lied about anything. (In real life, of course, a retainer agreement spells out how expenses are handled.)

[Sarcastr0]

Pass through payments are not legal expenses. Trump said they were. He lied.

It's incredible how many times you and Kaz get the same stuff wrong over and over.

[Brett Bellmore]

Tell that to Hillary, why don't you?

[Sarcastr0]

Should have figured a deflection was coming.

I can't keep track of your ever growing list of Clinton conspiracies, not even sure what you're talking about here.

[Mr. Bumble]

Not a deflection: a comparison and Hilary did it with campaign money not her personal funds thus the FEC fine.

[Brett Bellmore]

But the fine was NOT for calling it a legal expense, it was for not reporting it as a campaign expenditure. The difference is that compiling and shopping around to the media a political hit piece IS a campaign expenditure, and hush money isn't.

[Sarcastr0]

Sounds like she was penalized. Are you saying she did exactly what Trump was accused of and so there is a double standard?

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm saying she did exactly what Trump is only accused of, and got penalized under a different law.

What Trump is accused of is concealing a campaign expenditure as a legal expense. And that's what Hillary actually did: She fraudulently recorded a campaign expenditure as a legal expense by using her law firm as a pass through. A genuine campaign expense, paying a PR firm to smear her opponent.

Now, if you wanted to toss precedent, and treat paying hush money as a campaign expenditure, (Ask John Edwards how that will work out.) you could indeed go after Trump for the campaign finance violation, which is what Hillary got penalized for. Only Bragg can't do that, because he's a state prosecutor, and it would be a federal offense, and the people actually entitled to bring that charge properly refrained from bringing it.

Bragg, I guess, COULD go after Hillary, on the exact same theory as he's going after Trump, the only difference being that he'd actually have a strong case if he did THAT, because the underlying offense actually got adjudicated as having been committed.

[Sarcastr0]

she did exactly what Trump is only accused of

Frankly I don't trust your opinion re: anything Clinton-related.

But I'm happy to be proven wrong. What is Trump accused of, and what did Hillary get fined for?

[Voize]

Bragg, I guess, COULD go after Hillary, on the exact same theory

What New York business records did she falsify?

[Brett Bellmore]

"Frankly I don’t trust your opinion re: anything Clinton-related. "

Well, then don't trust me, trust the FEC.

She used Perkins Cole as a pass through to pay Fusion GPS to smear her opponent, and then record it as legal expenses.

Whereas Trump is accused of paying hush money using Cohen as a pass through, and recording it as legal expenses.

Now, which looks more like legal expenses: Obtaining an NDA from somebody, or hiring a PR firm to smear somebody?

[Brett Bellmore]

"What New York business records did she falsify?"

Her campaign headquarters were in NY, I'm fairly sure Bragg could leverage that to claim the campaign's financial records were NY business records.

[Voize]

The DNC and Hillary campaign (not Hillary herself) were fined for “misreporting the purpose of certain disbursements”* in an FEC disclosure, not for keeping false business records . I’m not aware of allegations never mind evidence that the campaign’s books were falsified.
(*This is the phrasing used in the conciliation agreement)
If Bragg can get over that hurdle, to charge Hillary with the same felony he also has to show that she caused the false entries to be made, with intent to defraud, where the intent includes an intent to commit, aid, or conceal another crime.
You say the crime part is easy because it was already adjudicated, but that FEC violation won’t serve because it was a civil infraction not a crime.
The case against Trump is also weak in the “other crime” element, but in the other elements the case against Trump is the stronger.

[David Nieporent]

But the fine was NOT for calling it a legal expense, it was for not reporting it as a campaign expenditure.

You are mistaken.

[Bob from Ohio]

"legal expenses"

You are assuming that means payment to lawyer. Why can't it mean payment to avoid bring sued? He didn't write "fees" did he?

Any tax fraud charges? So it seems that no deduction was taken. Some fraud.

[PaulS]

When I incorporated a business the lawyer paid all the fees required for the set up as part of his invoice. These were pass thru fees - I really have no idea how they were recorded for accounting purposes though. Practically speaking since they were on the lawyers invoice they probably all went in as one entry in the same category (legal expenses).

[jb]

This is such a bad argument. You can't say "I paid my lawyer to draft up a contract of sale" and then classify the jewelry or private jet you want to buy as legal expenses by getting the lawyer to pay for them on your behalf.

Drafting up the NDA is a legal expense. The payment to Stormy was not. This isn't that hard of a concept.

[bernard11]

Thank you.

[Armchair]

Here's the basic problem.

The money that Stormy got was only ~$130,000. But Cohen was paid on the order of $450,000 - $460,000. The majority of cost was not the cost of the item, but the cost of the service to acquire the item.

To use your "Jewelry" analogy, imagine you really want a handmade piece of Jewelry by authentic Incans from Peru. So, you find someone to go, fly down to Peru, negotiate with the sellers, negotiate with customs, purchase the item, and fly back. The jewelry itself might only cost $1,000. But the service of getting it..that cost $10,000. The entire bill comes to $11,000

It's inaccurate to say that the $11,000 was for the jewelry...it was the service to acquire it that cost the majority of costs.

[David Nieporent]

The money that Stormy got was only ~$130,000. But Cohen was paid on the order of $450,000 – $460,000. The majority of cost was not the cost of the item, but the cost of the service to acquire the item.

Yes, that could have been true, but it isn't. What happened was that Cohen advanced $130,000 to Stormy Daniels (as well as $50,000 for another expenditure) and then Trump was reimbursing him. But if Trump had recorded it as, "Reimbursement of money paid to Stormy Daniels," that would've kind of given the game away. So they pretended that the $180,000 was for legal services. But by making it look as if Cohen had received $180,000 for legal services, that also caused Cohen to incur taxes on that putative income. So they had to pay Cohen more so that the transactions would be neutral to Cohen. And then they tacked on $60,000 as a "bonus."

But then in the TO's books, they recorded it as though they were paying him a monthly retainer for monthly services rendered.

[David Nieporent]

He paid his lawyer to obtain an NDA,

False.

It’s already established precedent that paying hush money isn’t a campaign expense,

Also false.

[Kazinski]

Sarcastro: "I didn't have to watch the first half of the movie to know what's going on, because I watched the trailer."

The "falsified" business records charges are misdemeanors for which the statute of limitations has expired.

Bragg team needs to show Trump falsified the records to cover up another crime. That other "crime" turns out to be paying hush money while running for president.

[Sarcastr0]

No need to repeat Monday.

https://reason.com/volokh/2024/04/22/monday-open-thread-50/?comments=true#comment-10531310

https://reason.com/volokh/2024/04/22/monday-open-thread-50/?comments=true#comment-10532536

[Josh R]

Of course Trump lied about the hush money payments and other things. He was trying to win the election. And while that may be a felony under New York law (*), it should not be because it criminalizes run-of-the-mill hardball politics.

(*) I'm not following how those Monday posts refute Kazinski's argument that lying can't be the underlying charge.

[Kazinski]

Its based on the prosecutors opening arguments which weren't even made until Monday, nobody knew what the underlying charge was in Monday's thread.

[Sarcastr0]

But your argument that the underlying charge is an element that needs to be established was wrong well before that.

[Brett Bellmore]

If Bragg had not gotten around to specifying the underlying charge, I'm fairly certain the appeals court would have told you otherwise. As he did, it won't come up.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Sarcastro: “I didn’t have to watch the first half of the movie to know what’s going on, because I watched the trailer.”

That’s more accurate than you might think. When the controversy over Netflix’s Cuties exercise in sexualizing little girls was going on, he actually came here to tell everybody that what was in the show wasn’t actually in the show, and that he knew the facts better than the rest of us because…although he never saw it…he “read the synopsis”.

I continue to wonder why anyone bothers responding to him at all.

[Sarcastr0]

Nice to see you bring up something from 4 years ago.

But how did that controversy go anyhow? Didn't end up melting away as being baseless?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuties#U.S._political_responses

[Brett Bellmore]

Not so much "baseless" as said sexualizing being protected by the 1st amendment.

[Sarcastr0]

It was a dumbass moral panic based on nothing about the show itself, but like a poster or something.

[David Nieporent]

Nice to see you bring up something from 4 years ago.

That's WuzYoung's speciality, even if he just has to make shit up.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

That’s WuzYoung’s speciality, even if he just has to make shit up.

I’m betting you don’t even appreciate the hypocrisy of that statement, you lying bulbous sack of shit.

[not guilty]

Glenn Kirschner has made the trenchant observation that a finding by Judge Merchan that Donald Trump has engaged in criminal contempt would evince grounds that Trump has violated his conditions of release in the two pending federal proceedings as well as in Fulton County, such that he could be jailed pending trial. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5_KNfvDVRk

That makes sense to me. "Criminal contempt is a crime in the ordinary sense; it is a violation of the law, a public wrong which is punishable by fine or imprisonment or both." Bloom v. Illinois, 391 U.S. 194, 201 (1968). Trump would be entitled to a hearing before revocation of bail, but a state court judgment of criminal contempt should be conclusive.

[Mr. Bumble]

"That makes sense to me."
Of course it does.

[not guilty]

Let's game this out a bit, Mr. Bumble. Suppose Judge Merchan finds beyond a reasonable doubt that Donald Trump committed one or more criminal contempts and imposes monetary fines upon him. Suppose the prosecution in one of the other proceedings moves to revoke Trump's bail and the trial judge schedules an evidentiary hearing. At such hearing, the prosecution introduces a certified copy of the New York Supreme Court judgment(s) of criminal contempt.

What evidence could Trump offer to contravene the New York criminal contempt judgment(s)?

[Kazinski]

Criminal means it requires a conviction not a judgement, and would require a jury trial.

Civil contempt can be found by a ruling by the judge.

What game are you playing where a judge can find someone guilty of a crime without due process?

[Sarcastr0]

According to the wiki criminal contempt requires reasonable doubt but not a jury.

“ Contempt of court is considered a prerogative of the court, and "the requirement of a jury does not apply to 'contempts committed in disobedience of any lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree, or command entered in any suit or action brought or prosecuted in the name of, or on behalf of, the United States.'" This stance is not universally agreed with by other areas of the legal world, and there have been many calls to have contempt cases to be tried by jury, rather than by judge, as a potential conflict of interest rising from a judge both accusing and sentencing the defendant. At least one Supreme Court justice has made calls for jury trials to replace judge trials on contempt cases.”

[not guilty]

"According to the wiki criminal contempt requires reasonable doubt but not a jury."

Did you mean to say that conviction for criminal contempt requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt? Because what you said is exactly the opposite.

"Without deciding what may be the rule in civil contempt, it is certain that in proceedings for criminal contempt the defendant is presumed to be innocent, he must be proved to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and cannot be compelled to testify against himself." Gompers v. Bucks Stove Range Co., 221 U.S. 418, 444 (1911).

[FletcherReed]

You know what they were saying.

[not guilty]

"Criminal means it requires a conviction not a judgement, [sic] and would require a jury trial."

Wrong, Kazinski. The Supreme Court summarized the rules applicable to the availability of jury trials for criminal contempt in Muniz v. Hoffman, 422 U.S. 454, 475-476 (1975):

(1) Like other minor crimes, "petty" contempts may be tried without a jury, but contemnors in serious contempt cases in the federal system have a Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial; (2) criminal contempt, in and of itself and without regard to the punishment imposed, is not a serious offense absent legislative declaration to the contrary; (3) lacking legislative authorization of more serious punishment, a sentence of as much as six months in prison, plus normal periods of probation, may be imposed without a jury trial; (4) but imprisonment for longer than six months is constitutionally impermissible unless the contemnor has been given the opportunity for a jury trial.

See also Codispoti v. Pennsylvania, 418 U.S. 506 (1974).

[Kazinski]

I find that quite surprising, but I guess that's right, but the federal contempt statute limits it to a $300 fine or a 45 day sentence without a jury, but I don't know about NY:

"In all cases of criminal contempt arising under the provisions of this Act, the accused, upon conviction, shall be punished by fine or imprisonment or both: Provided however, That in case the accused is a natural person the fine to be paid shall not exceed the sum of $1,000, nor shall imprisonment exceed the term of six months: Provided further, That in any such proceeding for criminal contempt, at the discretion of the judge, the accused may be tried with or without a jury: Provided further, however, That in the event such proceeding for criminal contempt be tried before a judge without a jury and the sentence of the court upon conviction is a fine in excess of the sum of $300 or imprisonment in excess of forty-five days, the accused in said proceeding, upon demand therefore, shall be entitled to a trial de novo before a jury, which shall conform as near as may be to the practice in other criminal cases."

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, in light of the actual text of the 6th amendment, you should find it surprising. But the Supreme court doesn't understand three letter words like "all".

[not guilty]

What statute are you quoting? The statutes governing federal criminal contempts generally are 18 U.S.C. §§ 401 and 402. Section 401 states:

A court of the United States shall have power to punish by fine or imprisonment, or both, at its discretion, such contempt of its authority, and none other, as—

(1) Misbehavior of any person in its presence or so near thereto as to obstruct the administration of justice;

(2) Misbehavior of any of its officers in their official transactions;

(3) Disobedience or resistance to its lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree, or command.

Section 402 provides in relevant part:

Any person, corporation or association willfully disobeying any lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree, or command of any district court of the United States or any court of the District of Columbia, by doing any act or thing therein, or thereby forbidden, if the act or thing so done be of such character as to constitute also a criminal offense under any statute of the United States or under the laws of any State in which the act was committed, shall be prosecuted for such contempt as provided in section 3691 of this title and shall be punished by a fine under this title or imprisonment, or both.

The rules as to when the Sixth Amendment requires a jury trial are those that I quoted upthread.

18 U.S.C. § 3691, which applies when the contumacious conduct involves willfully doing or omitting any act or thing in violation of any lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree, or command of a federal district court and that conduct also constitutes a substantive federal or state crime, provides in relevant part:

Whenever a contempt charged shall consist in willful disobedience of any lawful writ, process, order, rule, decree, or command of any district court of the United States by doing or omitting any act or thing in violation thereof, and the act or thing done or omitted also constitutes a criminal offense under any Act of Congress, or under the laws of any state in which it was done or omitted, the accused, upon demand therefor, shall be entitled to trial by a jury, which shall conform as near as may be to the practice in other criminal cases.

[Brett Bellmore]

You cited above the rules as to when the Supreme court requires a jury trial. The 6th amendment rule is, "all criminal prosecutions".

It's important to notice this difference between clauses of the Constitution, and rulings regarding such clauses, because if you don't notice such differences, you blind yourself to the Court getting things wrong.

[Dr. Ed 2]

If a judge ignored that, how quickly could SCOTUS act?
Would it have to wait for the circuit to rubber stamp the mistake, or does it have the power that some state SJCs have to intervene directly (i.e. bypassing the middle and assuming jurisdiction immediately)?

[Brett Bellmore]

If a judge ignored the Supreme court wrongly gutting the 6th amendment right to a jury trial in ALL criminal prosecutions, and let a defendant have one in a 'minor' prosecution, I don't believe the Court would have any basis for acting. Nor any inclination.

[John F. Carr]

If the judge got pissed and sentenced Trump to life in prison for contempt Trump would have to seek review in state court first. If the New York Court of Appeals (state Supreme Court) denied relief then Trump could petition for a writ of certiorari. In normal cases the system tolerates defendants spending a year or two behind bars while judges argue about whether they should have been sent there. A clearcut case, like my life in prison example, would likely get faster action.

In federal cases a petitioner can ask the Supreme Court to take a case that the Court of Appeals has not yet ruled on.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Yes, I’m a discussion about what’s likely to happen in a real trial, the convention is to reference what law is, not what some crank on the internet thinks it should be.

[not guilty]

Brett seems to have the notion that judicial rulings that offend his personal sensibilities are not authoritative statements of law. In Bizarro World or Brettworld, perhaps they are not. But as Stephen Colbert famously observed, reality has a well know liberal bias.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm offended by the Court ruling contrary to the actual text of the Constitution. I'm not imagining that "all" in the 6th amendment. Which arguably was put in there exactly to prohibit the current situation!

I'm hardly the only person to notice that conflict between Supreme court precedent and the actual text of the amendment.

As noted in this paper, the exception actually was 19th century dictum, in a case where the defendant was found to be entitled to that jury trial. And the actual practice was to obey that "all" until that dictum was seized upon.

What you're treating as an eccentric delusion on my part was actually the normal practice for most of our history.

Particularly egregious is that the Court's current doctrine bases this decision on the maximum penalty for individual counts, allowing for somebody to be effectively sentenced to life in prison without getting a jury trial, if you just hit them with a couple hundred counts and promise to only ask for 6 months on each count.

[not guilty]

"Particularly egregious is that the Court’s current doctrine bases this decision on the maximum penalty for individual counts, allowing for somebody to be effectively sentenced to life in prison without getting a jury trial, if you just hit them with a couple hundred counts and promise to only ask for 6 months on each count."

That is not true unless the applicable statute caps the maximum penalty for each individual contempt at six months confinement. (Which is not the case with federal contempt statutes.) Compare Codispoti v. Pennsylvania, 418 U.S. 506 (1974), and Lewis v. United States, 518 U.S. 322 (1996). Where that is the case and multiple six month sentences are aggregated, the prosecution still must prove every underlying incident of criminal contempt beyond a reasonable doubt, and the sentencing judge must make appropriate factual findings to justify consecutive sentencing.

[not guilty]

What contempt statute were you quoting upthread, Kazinski?

[not guilty]

Kazinski, you quoted upthread what purports to be a statute regarding a jury trial in criminal contempt cases. You made the false assertion that "the federal contempt statute limits it to a $300 fine or a 45 day sentence without a jury", to which I promptly responded by quoting the actual, applicable federal statutes. I have twice asked you what statute you were quoting, and you have yet to respond.

It seems to me that you regard truth as such a valuable commodity that you use it sparingly.

[Krayt]

We wouldn't be here if he weren't running again.

The whole thing's a joke. Nonsentient cogs play their part, where they fret and strut upon a stage. It is a tale, told by an idiot (nonsentient cog) full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

[shawn_dude]

If he weren't running again he'd have still been accused of these crimes, though maybe he'd have taken a plea deal for probation instead of going to a jury trial.

[Kazinski]

Now how in the world can a Federal judge order Trump held in pre-trial detention for his federal cases when he has to be in a NY court every day for his NY State case?
Will they suspend his NY trial?

And if they tried that it would be immediately appealed, with an almost guaranteed stay.

And since NY's bail reform law there is no grounds to hold in jail under NY's 2019 bail reform law.

And they can't throw him in jail for criminal contempt without a trial finding him guilty for that.

[not guilty]

"Now how in the world can a Federal judge order Trump held in pre-trial detention for his federal cases when he has to be in a NY court every day for his NY State case?
Will they suspend his NY trial?"

Jail inmates routinely attend their own criminal trials. But prosecutors in the other pending matters could wait until the conclusion of the New York trial to seek revocation of bail. That trial seems to be moving at a pretty good pace.

[Krayt]

If it were about getting a political opponent, the other prosecutor would sit back, put his hands behind his head, and say, “Sure, lock him up! We’ll wait! Great optics behind jail!"

Since it’s not, the other prosecutor will put up a fight?

[Armchair]

I gotta wonder, at what point do election interference laws start being a real potential issue for some of these judges and prosecutors.

[Sarcastr0]

You're telling on yourself as an authoritarian again.

[Brett Bellmore]

Typical authoritarian, complaining about the head of government having his political opponent brought up on charges during the campaign against him. All the authoritarians find that sort of thing offensive, after all. [/sarc]

[Sarcastr0]

It requires some dumb gymnastics, but you can say your guy is innocent and not be authoritarian.

Saying your guy is so innocent we should charge the judges and prosecutors with crime is sure as fuck authoritarian!

[Bob from Ohio]

Bringing the charges against Trump for political reasons is actually something "authoritarians" do.

A remedy targeting the bad acting prosecutors and judges is anti-authoritarian.

[Nige]

Demanding that your populist strong-man oligarch leader be treated as above the law is the opposite of anti-authoritarian.

[Nige]

Authritarians hate when their authoritarian leaders are held accountable for their criminal actions.

[Frank Drackman]

Maybe when the Judge isn't a Colombian born Parkinsonian Joe Donor

[Bob from Ohio]

January 21 2025?

[Noscitur a sociis]

Now how in the world can a Federal judge order Trump held in pre-trial detention for his federal cases when he has to be in a NY court every day for his NY State case?

The state judge would file a writ of habeas corpus ad prosequendum directing him to be turned over to the custody of New York authorities, who would bring him into court like any other in-custody defendant.

This is, believe it or not, a scenario that has taken place before.

[Sarcastr0]

Lots more fines to be assessed before jail is even in the horizon.

[Frank Drackman]

Really, haven't been following it, what has Hunter wrought now?

[tylertusta]

Putting Trump in jail for criminal contempt over the gag order would probably be worth a 2-3 point bump in Trump's polling.

If I could talk to the judge or the prosecution, I'd tell them: Do you want to see Trump reelected? Because this is how he gets reelected.

[shawn_dude]

The more Trump is exposed as a criminal, the more attractive he is to Republican voters?

[tylertusta]

Republicans (and many independent) voters think that the charges against Trump are bullshit.

The more that Democrats go after him, the angrier those voters get and the more likely they are to vote.

[Martinned2]

Fortunately we have an independent press and free & fair debate protected by the 1st amendment, so I'm sure those voters will be educated on the facts shortly.

[tylertusta]

I'm sure they will.

... that's why Trump would get a 2-3 point bump.

[Commenter_XY]

I just don't see that happening = Imprison POTUS Trump for criminal contempt over gag order

[tylertusta]

I don't think it's likely either, but that doesn't prevent the peanut gallery of usual suspects from demanding it either.

It's TDS in its most distilled, purest form. It's like crack cocaine for them.

[not guilty]

I doubt that Judge Merchan is (so far) contemplating jailing Donald Trump for violating the gag order. The prosecution is seeking only monetary fines.

But Trump's conduct occurred while he was released on bail in three other criminal prosecutions. a condition of bond in each case was that he must not violate federal, state or local law while on release. See, e.g., https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149.13.0_7.pdf

If Judge Merchan finds beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump willfully violated the gag order in New York, that finding can serve as a factual predicate for revocation of Trump's pretrial release in any of the other cases. Whether the prosecution will seek that remedy remains to be seen.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

The two duopoly parties in Ohio are having talks about removing ballot-access hurdles for Joe Biden:

"Asked about Biden’s ballot-access troubles, [Republican House Speaker Jason] Stephens said that overall, he thinks it’s 'important that we have ballot access for everybody' — referring to major-party candidates."

So "everybody" means "everybody who counts."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/ohio-lawmakers-say-they-need-to-permanently-change-the-state-law-threatening-joe-biden-s-ballot-access/ar-AA1nxiGK

If Biden were a third-party or independent candidate, we'd be hearing from commenters here that it's his own fault for being too darn stupid to comply with legal deadlines.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Indeed, my point about duopolistic practices is supported by the fact that a Republic-controlled Ohio legislature is tripping over itself to provide relief to Democrats.

Just as it's telling that a Democratic commenter here mocks the idea of ballot access for the Constitution Party, even though that party's presence on the ballot would help Democrats by "stealing" votes from Republicans.

Duopolists gotta help each other out.

Of course, if it was a third party facing exclusion from the ballot in Ohio (a state notorious for its ballot-access hurdles), then the duopolist fluffers would say this is simply a nondiscriminatory law which everyone has to obey. Whereas in reality the law is negotiable when it comes to the two duopoly parties.

[Bwaaah]

Responses to your position...agreeing or disagreeing?

Nothing. Crickets.

This is why I so often refer not to "Republicans" or "Democrats," but to "partisans." (I sometimes use the term "Republicrats.") Because they both cheat like that, whenever and wherever they can pull it off. And yet, we're supposed to take partisans seriously when they talk about "fairness" or "principles."

(I'm not a sleazy person. I just do sleazy things.)

[NOVA Lawyer]

Crocodile tears.

Because the Democratic Party is a responsible, organized entity, it has recognized the problem and is seeking a solution which may or may not involve a change in Ohio law to fix this year's problem and prevent future problems.

If the Democratic Party fails to find a solution, then, absolutely, they will have screwed up and that's on them. They'll get no sympathy from me.

Meanwhile, the Constitution Party did screw up. The fault is theirs, just as the fault will be the Democratic Party's if they can't find a solution.

This isn't hard.

It appears your point is that there should be no laws or standards for appearing on the ballot. It's a rather non-mainstream view that would seem ripe for all sorts of mischief.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"It appears your point is that there should be no laws or standards for appearing on the ballot."

If you can't make your points without blatant straw-manning, then your position is probably untenable.

Of course there should be standards for getting on the ballot: access fees, organizing a party (or a candidate committee for independent candidates), designating a treasurer...

When you "assume" you make an "ass" out of "u" and "me."

But mainly out of "u."

"seeking a solution which may or may not involve a change in Ohio law"

Yeah, that's exactly what the Constitution Party should do. Get the duopolist legislature to make a favorable law, just like the Dems are seeking a favorable law from the Ohio legislature.

That makes sense...to someone in Northern Virginia. Wasn't there a ballad about the cluelessness of people like you?

The law, in its majestic equality, allows both duopolist and dissenting parties to lobby for a change in the law.

The Northern Virginia version of equality!

[NOVA Lawyer]

If you can’t make your points without blatant straw-manning, then your position is probably untenable.

You have spilled a lot of words, but haven’t actually set out any coherent position. One has to make assumptions to engage in any substantive way.

For example:

Of course there should be standards for getting on the ballot: access fees, organizing a party (or a candidate committee for independent candidates), designating a treasurer…

Access fees are a thing, okay.

“organizing a party” is not a requirement anywhere to get on the ballot, I don’t think. Is it a legal requirement for independent candidates to have a “candidate committee”? I am not aware it is. You seem to be have veered off into practical things someone has to do, not legal requirements. That’s what I mean by you not having a coherent argument. Do you think there are any permissible legal requirements other than an access fee? Is there a limit on the fee? Must it only be de minimus or related to the actual costs associated with including them on the ballot?

You seem to have pointedly not listed any threshold of demonstrated support, such as by a petition of X number of citizens. Why do you apparently think that having 5,000 or whatever fellow citizens say they want you on the statewide ballot is not okay? You’re not making any arguments, you’re just throwing excrement at our computer screens and leaving us to try to decipher the resulting mess. Then you complain I make assumptions. But you still don’t respond with any coherent substance.

You’re missing the fact that there are millions of registered Democrats in Ohio with a vested interest in having their candidate on the ballot. It’s not duopolist of Republicans to recognize that and maybe not piss off roughly half of the electorate by not working with Democrats to solve the problem (not only for Democrats but for future Republicans, Constitution Party people, etc., by having a later date). Despite rational, good faith reasons to work together on this, you jump immediately to conspiracy theory.

Yes, fringe parties don’t have that sort of negotiating power unless and until they prove they actually have some sort of support. Shocking.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

“conspiracy theory”

Is this one of those places where “[o]ne has to make assumptions”? You’re really bad at guessing my position. Anyway, you don’t *have* to assume what I think; you can ask. I’ve expressed my views on other threads, to the extent it’s been called a “hobby horse” of mine. It’s not as if I wouldn’t address your concerns; it’s that you don’t want to know, and you choose to fill in the (alleged) gaps in your knowledge with pure speculation.

You try to find an equivalence between the Democrats and the Constitution Party – “Meanwhile, the Constitution Party did screw up. The fault is theirs, just as the fault will be the Democratic Party’s if they can’t find a solution.”

As if the two are on an equal footing.

But you don’t actually want the parties on an equal footing, do you? As seen by this remark:

“You seem to have pointedly not listed any threshold of demonstrated support, such as by a petition of X number of citizens.”

Because that’s what *elections* are for – to see how much support each candidate has. We saw the purpose

Your duopolist bedfellows don’t want this, they want to hobble dissenting parties and candidates. The Constitution Party may be small. But “fuck ’em, nobody would vote for them anyway” isn’t the right attitude, and it doesn’t even describe, say, the RFK, Jr. candidacy, because people *would* vote for him. That’s why there’s so much hysteria around him. I don’t care for RFK myself, but I recognize the rights of those who want to vote for him – and indeed, I support my own right to vote *against* him, a right you’d deny to me by opposing him on my behalf.

Even where the small parties are concerned, your duopolist bedfellows hyperventilate about how much they’ll “steal” from the big parties. The situation could be remedied with, say, runoffs, but that wouldn’t answer the duopolists’ purposes, they want the small parties off the ballot altogether.

Incidentally, I also support the right of the voters of Ohio to support Joseph Biden. You are willing, in the admittedly remote contingency of the duoplists failing to work something out, to suggest the complete exclusion of Biden from the ballot:

"If the Democratic Party fails to find a solution, then, absolutely, they will have screwed up and that’s on them. They’ll get no sympathy from me."

You're a Democrat, aren't you? Why are you willing, even in theory, to disenfranchise the supporters of your own party? And why are you willing to keep a small party off the ballot which would help Democrats by "stealing" votes from Republicans? You act a if you have fellow-feeling for your fellow duopolists in the Grand Old Party.

As far as punishing political parties, I believe in this just like you do, and the way to punish them is by voting against them. Your ballot-exclusion proclivities would foreclose this type of punishment, in favor of punishing the voters themselves be constraining their choices.

[NOVA Lawyer]

I support my own right to vote *against* him, a right you’d deny to me by opposing him on my behalf.

You’re definitely making assumptions or just making things up.

You’re a Democrat, aren’t you?

Just keep making assumptions….

Why are you willing, even in theory, to disenfranchise the supporters of your own party?

I’m not disenfranchising anyone. There are rules. The Democratic Party will determine a way to get Biden on the ballot, if they have to have an online convention before the date or with the help of Republicans to move the date or whatever. I’m not worried about it because parties competent to run the country will be competent enough to get on the ballot.

And why are you willing to keep a small party off the ballot which would help Democrats by “stealing” votes from Republicans?

This isn’t even an assumption, it’s just making things up. Also, my position isn’t partisan. It’s legit to have rules to get on the ballot. I’m not in favor of ignoring the rules just to help one party or the other.

Your ballot-exclusion proclivities would foreclose this type of punishment, in favor of punishing the voters themselves be constraining their choices.

I took no position on how hard it should be to get on the ballot other than that some level of signature requirement is not unreasonable. You know nothing of my proclivities. Most of the discussion was whether the rules should be followed or, your position, they should be ignored or changed so that anyone could get on the ballot. Which brings us back to this:

It’s not as if I wouldn’t address your concerns; it’s that you don’t want to know

But I asked questions and, surprise, you didn’t answer.

A few of my questions: Do you think there are any permissible legal requirements other than an access fee? Is there a limit on the fee? Must it only be de minimus or related to the actual costs associated with including them on the ballot?

I did want to know. Now, I’m convinced you aren’t discussing this in good faith, given you didn’t answer any of my questions and you leaned all in with assumptions about me and my position after whining about how awful it is to make assumptions. If you are discussing in good faith, answers would be appropriate. As would stop making assumptions about me and my position.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

As they say, “[o]ne has to make assumptions” – I made some educated guesses to the effect that you’re a Democratic duopolist. What standing do you have to complain about my making assumptions?

“parties competent to run the country will be competent enough to get on the ballot”

You’re a comedian now! Imagine someone saying that the Democrats and Republicans are “competent to run the country.”

“my position isn’t partisan”

Come on, pull the other one. You supported keeping a dissenting third party off the ballot for failure to meet North Carolina’s fairly stringent petition requirements. Nonpartisan, indeed.

“Most of the discussion was whether the rules should be followed or, your position, they should be ignored or changed so that anyone could get on the ballot.”

Now you’ve gone beyond simply assuming what my position is, to ignoring my specifically stated position. I’m supposed to take you seriously when you claim I just don’t get your position?

“Do you think there are any permissible legal requirements other than an access fee?”

Objection, counselor, asked and answered.

“Is there a limit on the fee? [etc.]”

I’ve already refuted you claim that I’m against all rules, which is the issue I was addressing. By pointing out I support access fees and the like, I showed you were wrong in your assumption that I was against all rules.

“you leaned all in with assumptions about me and my position after whining about how awful it is to make assumptions.”

Or, to put it another way, I gave you a taste of your own medicine, and I showed I could make assumptions about you as well as you could about me. You showed you can dish it out but you can’t take it. And at least I had some evidence of your duopoly proclivities, as in your stating in your handle that you’re a lawyer in northern Virginia, and your belief that the Democrats and Republicans are “competent to run the country.” Can you think of anyone *not* a duopoly supporter who would believe the Dems and Reps are competent to run the country? What would incompetence look like?

[NOVA Lawyer]

What standing do you have to complain about my making assumptions?

You're the one claiming it's illegitimate to make assumptions. You can't have it both ways. I'll take this as an admission that it is reasonable to make inferences and incumbent on the other in the discussion to clarify. All your whining was no more than that.

You supported keeping a dissenting third party off the ballot for failure to meet North Carolina’s fairly stringent petition requirements. Nonpartisan, indeed.

First, I didn't support "keeping a dissenting third party off the ballot", I said the Constitution Party knew the rules and they made a series of errors that put their being on the ballot in jeopardy. I see why you rail against assumptions, because you are really bad at reading what people say and making reasonable inferences.

Second, even if I supported the "fairly stringent" requirements, that says nothing about partisanship. One wonders if you even know what the word means. My position had nothing to do with what was good for any particular party. As you pointed out, someone might believe it would be good for Democrats if the Constitution Party made it on the ballot. Or someone might believe it was good for Republicans. But which party it was good for was irrelevant to my position. Which you knew when I pointed out that I would apply the same principles in Ohio.

You just throw out random accusations that make no sense. Which is commensurate with the general quality of your thinking and analysis.

Imagine someone saying that the Democrats and Republicans are “competent to run the country.”

The duopoly, as you cal it, has managed to guide the country into being the wealthiest country in the world with the strongest military and one of the freest in the world to boot. Are their problems with the country generally and with the two-party system specifically? Absolutely. But it shows a distinctive lack of depth of thought to just lean in to "the duopoly is incompetent."

Objection, counselor, asked and answered.

Overruled. Asked, but you didn't answer the follow ups as to what those limits are. You lied when you said you would be eager to share your thoughts. Here, again, you avoid the substantive questions to hit at your empty rhetorical points.

I’ve already refuted you claim that I’m against all rules, which is the issue I was addressing.

Pathetic dodge of the questions. What happened to the Margrave who said: It’s not as if I wouldn’t address your concerns. It appears he was just playing dishonest games.

You showed you can dish it out but you can’t take it.

No, I pointed out your hypocrisy. I can take it fine. I just pointed out that you were doing what you complained about.

What would incompetence look like?

Yemen. North Korea. El Salvador. Pakistan. Iran. Hungary. Etc.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I think the liar here is the person who won’t answer my questions – basic shit like whether you’re a Democrat – but gets vein-poppingly indignant when I won’t answer your interrogatories in exactly the way you want.

If I saw a scintilla of the spirit of good faith inquiry in you, of course I’d have been happy to answer your sincere queries. However, you went in assuming what I believed, saying I was against any ballot access rules. I tried to reply to your remarks, I really tried, but it couldn't penetrate your skull. You deceptively introduce questions about the amount of the ballot access fee, still trying to maintain your transparent fiction that I’m against any ballot access rules at all. Then you lie and pretend not to know what else I support besides ballot fees.

Why should I continue battering my head against this particular brick wall?

Of course you wanted a political party kept off the ballot, because you thought that was what they deserved (never mind what the voters deserved). Then you lie again and say you’re nonpartisan.

Again – aren’t you a Democrat? Answer me, you evasive dillweed!

Maybe you’re a Republican? I don’t particularly care which wing of the duopolist bird of prey you belong to.

And yes, you lack standing to object when I make assumptions – you made claims without any basis in fact, then persisted in those claims when I showed that you were being retarded. Then I came back with some assumptions of my own – as I said, you can dish it out, but can’t fucking take it.

I’m going to make sure that, albatross-like, your claim that the duopoly parties are competent to run the country continues to hang around your neck.

[NOVA Lawyer]

basic shit like whether you’re a Democrat

Your question appeared rhetorical. I am registered as a Democrat to vote in primaries, I consider myself independent.

I tried to reply to your remarks, I really tried

No, you didn’t. You just dodged. I asked what your specific position was on ballot access. You declined to provide any specifics.

still trying to maintain your transparent fiction that I’m against any ballot access rules at all

That’s just a lie. You have indicated opposition to every legal requirement mentioned other than access fees. I’ve asked about any others and you consistently demur. Here again, rather than say what other rules you might support, you decline to answer. You would rather throw shit than actually say what you position is.

you wanted a political party kept off the ballot, because you thought that was what they deserved (never mind what the voters deserved). Then you lie again and say you’re nonpartisan.

You’re again lying about what I “wanted.” Reality check, they weren’t kept off the ballot, they just had to go get more signatures which they may or may not succeed in doing. I have no desire one way or the other on whether they succeed.

You quite clearly don’t know what nonpartisan means. My position has nothing to do with the identity/ideology of the party involved nor with what other party might benefit. But it makes you feel better to throw spurious accusations of partisanship (or admit you were wrong), so you continue to operate in bad faith.

I don’t particularly care which wing of the duopolist bird of prey you belong to.

Clearly you do, else you wouldn’t be so upset your rhetorical question went unanswered, then asked multiple times again. Liar.

your claim that the duopoly parties are competent to run the country continues to hang around your neck

LOL. Yes, because the United States is in so much worse shape than which other country in the world? You think Russia is being led more competently? LOL. Maybe Italy? Or, more realistically, would you say England or Germany or Denmark or Japan? If you can’t name a country that is doing better, well, maybe you need to rethink your position in light of reality.

I suspect you won’t actually answer the questions asked, but will substitute new questions and claim you answered mine.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"I suspect, in a cowardly fashion, you won’t actually answer the questions asked, but will substitute new questions and claim you answered mine."

I'm not interested in that, I'm simply interested in pointing out that you are a lying liar who lies.

I said:

"Of course there should be standards for getting on the ballot: access fees, organizing a party (or a candidate committee for independent candidates), designating a treasurer…"

You say:

"You have indicated opposition to every legal requirement mentioned other than access fees."

That's not only a lie, but a childishly obvious one, and it shows the uselessness of engaging with your further. Have a nice day.

[NOVA Lawyer]

“Of course there should be standards for getting on the ballot: access fees, organizing a party (or a candidate committee for independent candidates), designating a treasurer…”

Only one of those is a legal requirement: the access fees.

You are either utterly acting in bad faith or you are an idiot.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I suggested a *legal* requirement that anyone seeking ballot access have, e. g., a campaign treasurer, you lying liar.

Of course, you’re someone who thinks he can register as a Democrat without being a Democrat. It’s like thinking you can fuck chickens without being a chickenfucker.

[NOVA Lawyer]

I suggested a *legal* requirement that anyone seeking ballot access have, e. g., a campaign treasurer.

LOL. So you are suggesting an individual who wants to be on the ballot must have a campaign treasurer? You acknowledge that it isn’t a requirement now? And you never intended to imply it was a legal requirement only that, prospectively, you thought it was a good idea (heaven knows why)? Do you believe what you’re saying?

And just to be clear about how dishonest you are, if that really was your position, I made clear what I thought you were saying and asked for clarification:

“organizing a party” is not a requirement anywhere to get on the ballot, I don’t think. Is it a legal requirement for independent candidates to have a “candidate committee”? I am not aware it is. You seem to be have veered off into practical things someone has to do, not legal requirements. That’s what I mean by you not having a coherent argument. Do you think there are any permissible legal requirements other than an access fee? Is there a limit on the fee? Must it only be de minimus or related to the actual costs associated with including them on the ballot?

You answered none of my questions and didn’t clarify that, yes, naming a treasurer wasn’t currently a requirement but you would like it to be. That you have to grasp at straws to try to pretend I am the one acting in bad faith says everything one needs to know about you. I legitimately asked for clarification and you dodged (you repeating only part of my question in bold):

“Is there a limit on the fee? [etc.]”

I’ve already refuted you claim that I’m against all rules, which is the issue I was addressing.

Mind you, this was two comments later after I asked a second time for clarification of your position.

What a joke, Margrave.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Here is what you claimed:

“It appears your point is that there should be no laws or standards for appearing on the ballot.”

This evidence-free assertion made me suspect your good faith, and your subsequent behavior merely confirms my view.

You expect me to believe:

-that you’re not partisan, you simply are against a party’s ballot access

-that you aren’t a Democrat, you simply registered in the Democratic Party. They caught you with you pants down with your dick in the chicken, but you continue to insist you’re not a chickenfucker.

In any case, a chickenfucker is better than what you are.

[NOVA Lawyer]

that you’re not partisan, you simply are against a party’s ballot access

No. And given that I have explicitly corrected you on this point, I’m not sure why I would address it again. I am not against any person or party’s ballot access. I haven’t considered whether NC’s rules are ideal, only that they are rules known well in advance and so follow the rules.

that you aren’t a Democrat, you simply registered in the Democratic Party. They caught you with you pants down with your dick in the chicken, but you continue to insist you’re not a chickenfucker.

I know you like saying chickenfucker, but it’s neither a difficult nor uncommon concept that some states have closed primaries, so you have to register with one of the major parties if you want to participate in the primaries. Maybe sometimes you register as one, sometimes another. It doesn’t mean your ideological views have changed. You can accept my word or not that I don’t identify as a Democrat.

“It appears your point is that there should be no laws or standards for appearing on the ballot.”

This evidence-free assertion

First, it was neither evidence-free nor an assertion. It was explicitly a guess (“it appears”) at your views. Which you’ve then declined to clarify other than you find access fees acceptable and you think, prospectively (lol), state’s should require candidates to have treasurers to appear on the ballot.

The evidence is that you were mad at signature requirements in NC and you didn’t like the deadline in Ohio. Up to that point, you had only disagreed with any requirements for appearing on the ballot and all your rhetoric was about how dare anyone keep anyone off the ballot. And, sure, I could have asked about the access fees, but it seems odd you’d have a problem with 275 signatures (Tennessee) (because you are explicitly against any signature requirement), but not a $35,000 fee (Oklahoma). (And, yes, I bet now you aren’t happy about those access fees, but I asked how much and you repeatedly declined only to say you supported access fees). Those (signatures and/or fees) are literally the only two current requirements states have (aside from filing the paperwork with the fee and/or the signatures).

But I’m happy to see you boiled it all down to these three simple points. Anyone reading this can see who was discussing in good faith and who wasn’t.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

“Those (signatures and/or fees) are literally the only two current requirements states have (aside from filing the paperwork with the fee and/or the signatures).”

Who am I going to believe: you, or the Florida Division of Elections Web site, describing what you have to do to be recognized as a minor political party. While the requirements for registering are fairly basic, they do include the following:

“the officers must at least include a chair, vice-chair, secretary, and *treasurer* with all being different individuals, except the secretary and treasurer may be the same person” [emphasis added]

And they have to file “copies of the party’s constitution, bylaws, and rules/regulations.”

https://dos.fl.gov/elections/contacts/frequently-asked-questions/faq-minor-political-parties/

Or I could ignore all the evidence and live in your reality, where

-Florida’s ballot access regulations don’t exist

–You can oppose ballot access for a political party without being partisan

-you can register as a Democrat without being a Democrat. Schrodinger himself would be confused at how you can be a Democrat and not-a-Democrat at the same time.

-The two duopoly parties are competent to govern.

Of course I’m not *discussing* this with you; I’m pointing and laughing at your mendacity and/or stupidity.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Who am I going to believe: you, or the Florida Division of Elections Web site, describing what you have to do to be recognized as a minor political party.

You really are not bright. We were discussing what you have to do to appear on the ballot, not what a group has to do to be recognized as a minor party.

You should believe the Florida Division of Elections. However, they make clear that you can appear on the ballot without being affiliated with any party, minor or otherwise. Qualifying as a "no party affiliation" candidate requires signed petitions and paperwork.

See pages 15-16 for a summary from the Florida Division of Elections Handbook for qualifying for the ballot:

https://files.floridados.gov/media/707690/final-2024-fed-qualifying-handbook.pdf

You can also qualify as a write-in candidate and have blank spot on the form. For that, you don't need even need signed petitions or a fee.

Ergo, the requirements simply to appear on the ballot absolutely do not require having a treasurer or any of the other offices, etc., you list.

Now would be a good time to concede. (First rule when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging!)

[The Margrave of Azilia]

If you want the minor-party route to the ballot, you need a treasurer and other officers. If you want some other route, you can’t be listed as a minor-party candidate.

So, minor-party candidate ballot access requires for the minor party to have a treasurer, etc., otherwise the minor party doesn’t have ballot access, imbecile.

Unable to practice honesty yourself, you don't see why an honest party would want to run on the ballot with its party label,

As for petition candidates:

"When can I start collecting signatures to qualify as a petition candidate?

"Before collecting any signatures, all candidates (except federal candidates and special district candidates who have not collected contributions and whose only expense is the signature verification fee) must file the Appointment of Campaign Treasurer and Designation of Campaign Depository (Form DS-DE 9) with the filing officer."

Even if you go by petition, there's generally an additional requirement of having a campaign treasurer - did you expect to wiggle away from acknowledging this?

https://dos.fl.gov/elections/contacts/frequently-asked-questions/faq-candidates/

Remember that I'm speaking of the laws *I* support, not the laws Florida supports, but you thought it was OK to claim that no state had a treasurer requirement. How did you think you would be able to get away with this?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

And, of course, much of your “discussion” involved ballot access for third parties – which as I’ve shown, in Florida requires a treasurer and other officers.

You adopted the pretense that I was against any ballot access rules. When I mentioned I was for a treasurer requirement, you gaslit about how no state has these. When I showed that a third party needs a treasurer, etc. to get on the ballot in Florida, you rambled on about unaffiliated candidates, but what do unaffiliated candidates have to do with third-party ballot access? (And it looks like the unaffiliated candidate process is more complex than you let on, but I’ll allow that to pass.)

[NOVA Lawyer]

Even if you go by petition, there’s generally an additional requirement of having a campaign treasurer – did you expect to wiggle away from acknowledging this?

First, we were talking about campaigns for president. There is no such requirement in Florida or anywhere else to appear on the ballot as candidate for president. I already linked to the relevant document.

Second, a requirement to name a treasurer was something you did support, now you’re taking pains to say that’s just a Florida requirement (not for presidential candidates, at least) and not something you necessarily support.

Third, but you’re just showing utter lack of good faith with your opening:

So, minor-party candidate ballot access requires for the minor party to have a treasurer, etc., otherwise the minor party doesn’t have ballot access, imbecile.

Unable to practice honesty yourself, you don’t see why an honest party would want to run on the ballot with its party label,

That would be a great point if only I ever said anything remotely like that. I just said we were talking about what you have to do to get on the ballot and I pointed out that the requirement to get on the ballot is a number of petitions, a fee, or both. Now you’re making up a position for me that isn’t even related to, much less a plausible interpretation of, anything I said and which is as dumb as possible, so that you can skewer it, all while claiming I’m somehow dishonest. What a lying liar you are.

You’re good at winning imaginary arguments with imaginary opponents though.

In addition to not understanding the word “partisan”, you haven’t a clue what “gaslit” means.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

“you’re taking pains to say that’s just a Florida requirement (not for presidential candidates, at least) and not something you necessarily support.”

Yet another lie. I *do* support parties having a treasurer – you claimed that wasn’t a legal requirement and that no state had such a requirement.

Since your claim covered *all* states I simply needed to provide a single counterexample, hence Florida, where, to get on the ballot, a minor party has to have a treasurer and certain other officers.

This is sufficient rebuttal for the likes of you, after you expended so much effort on the subject of ballot access by minor parties.

Even assuming purely for the purposes of argument that you’re telling the truth about non-party independent candidates being able to get ballot access in Florida without a treasurer (do you have an example?), it has no bearing on your fulminations about minor parties, which, to repeat, *do* need a treasurer for ballot access in Florida.

You make ludicrously false assumptions about my positions – in contrast to my correct assumption that you are, in fact a Democrat.

Plus you think you can evade my questions and later say, oops, you thought they were rhetorical, yet you predictably refuse me the same “out.” If it weren’t for double standards you’d have no standards at all.

Without reviewing all your greatest hits, I’ll just focus on your belief that the duopolists are fit to run the country.

Keep fucking that chicken.

[NOVA Lawyer]

you’re taking pains to say that’s just a Florida requirement (not for presidential candidates, at least) and not something you necessarily support.”

Yet another lie. I *do* support parties having a treasurer

First, you don't understand what lies are. You did take pains to distance yourself from the Florida law you cited:

Remember that I’m speaking of the laws *I* support, not the laws Florida supports

How else to interpret that other than you don't necessarily support that Florida law? In any event, I didn't say you didn't support requirements for treasurer only that you didn't "necessarily support" the particular Florida law. English isn't your first language, is it?

– you claimed that wasn’t a legal requirement and that no state had such a requirement.

And, as I pointed out, Florida doesn't have that requirement to get on the ballot for "no party affiliation" candidates, which can be anyone. You refuse to admit you lost, so you've made up a new special category as if our conversation wasn't ballot access, but what it takes to form a minor party and have a candidate from a recognized party. That's different than ballot access.

after you expended so much effort on the subject of ballot access by minor parties

It's cute how you try to change the topic so you can be right. We only talked about ballot access, not "ballot access by minor parties".

Of course you wanted a political party kept off the ballot

Who's the liar? You previously said this:

you simply are against a party’s ballot access

To which I responded:

No. And given that I have explicitly corrected you on this point, I’m not sure why I would address it again. I am not against any person or party’s ballot access.

Who do you think you're kidding? You can't win an argument by dictating what the other person's motives are and pretending they haven't repeatedly corrected you. We're the only two people in this conversation. Claiming what I want is something other than I have repeatedly said is just lying. And it's lying to me about my own state of mind which is just stupid.

Plus you think you can evade my questions and later say, oops, you thought they were rhetorical, yet you predictably refuse me the same “out.”

And, one comment later, when you said it wasn't rhetorical, I answered. You still haven't answered my questions from something like 10 comments ago. I would have, and still would, happily give you that out if you'd deign to answer my questions. But you don't. That's why it's clear you're acting in bad faith.

I ask again: Who do you think you're fooling with this nonsense?

I found you mildly amusing. I don't any longer. Goodbye.

[Martinned2]

If you think that is fun, look at North Macedonia: https://www.politico.eu/article/north-macedonia-journalists-accuse-ruling-party-and-opposition-restrict-press-freedom-ahead-balkans-election/

The country’s parliament in February approved changes to the law with the support of 78 out of 120 lawmakers, lifting the ban on government and municipal advertising on the TV and radio, which President Stevo Pendarovski signed into law in March.

The same Social Democrat government had originally abolished state advertising in 2017.
(...)
Critics of the media law amendment say state advertising can restrict press freedom by leaving media outlets financially dependent on the government, leading to self-censorship and biased reporting.

It can also be used as a tool to reward or punish media outlets based on their coverage of government activities, which ultimately creates a hostile environment for independent journalism and undermines the watchdog role of the press, one leading domestic journalist said.

[Krayt]

If threats to crush section 230, gravely injuring the trillion dollar club, unless they censor harrassment isn’t enough to have an effect on their behavior, where said harrassment censorship happened coincidentally anyway, how could the above minor do so?

You give a benefit, then threaten to take it away.

[Kazinski]

Seems somewhat ridiculous of a ban to me, our airwaves in the US are flooded with government advertising from voter registration reminders, to public service announcements, etc. If the fear is that it makes media beholden to government it seems to be well founded, our media are lap dogs.

North Macedonia is a fairly small backwater and has the lowest GDP of any European country, but people are friendly, its cheap, and they drink beer. I spend almost a month there winter of 2022-23. It avoided being part of the post Yugoslavia dissolution wars because Serbia and Bulgaria both think it should belong to them, in fact both the first and Second Balkan Wars 1913 and 1914 right before WW1 were both largely over who got North Macedonia.

And if you think that's all ancient history, in 2022 Bulgaria was blocking North Macedonia's entry into the EU demanding NM change its history books because they were teaching their school children that the fascist government of Bulgaria invaded NM in WWII when they demanded NM as its price to join the Axis. Which was of course true but they didn't like the tone.

[BrotherMovesOn]

"Which was of course true but they didn’t like the tone."
Nicely phrased.

[Martinned2]

About the new FTC rulemaking on non-compete clauses, do people think it matters that there is literally centuries of contract law case law finding non-compete clauses void as being in restraint of trade?

[Martinned2]

FYI, a whole bunch of that case law was discussed by the arbitration panel in a case I was involved in last year, Poulter et al. v. PGA European Tour. (Starting in paragraph 51.)

https://www.sportresolutions.com/assets/documents/2023.04.03_-_Players_v_PGAET_-_Decision_%28redacted%29%28reduced%29_.pdf

[Kazinski]

Its spotty by state here, but mostly under federal law they are valid.

But the real question is by what authority is the FTC issuing the regulation?

[Martinned2]

15 USC 45, in combination with its power under 15 USC 46(g) to "make rules and regulations for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of this subchapter"

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/45

[Sonja T]

Kaz makes a good point. What authority does the FTC have for making the rule. Non competes have been around for 100+ years. The act was first enacted in 1914, with a few dozen amendments to the Act without any reference to banning non competes. Congress has had ample time to address the issue.

fwiw, I am personally against non-competes in the employment arena,

[jb]

Seems pretty weird to respond to a post pointing to what authority the FTC has by asking what authority the FTC has.

[Sonja T]

jb 39 seconds ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
Seems pretty weird to respond to a post pointing to what authority the FTC has by asking what authority the FTC has.

JB - What authority does the FTC have to issue the rule?

100+ years in which the act has been in place,
A few dozen amendments over those 100+ years
Congress never addressing non competes in the original legislation nor in any of the subsequent amendments.

Legitimate question as to what authority the FTC has.

Can congress make any rule it wants as long as the statute doesnt specifically ban the rule?

As previously stated, even though I am an employer, I am opposed to non competes in the employment arena (with very limited exceptions).

I personally think it is a good rule,
My objection is that statutory basis for the rule change is weak.

[Kazinski]

Well it was a rhetorical question because I’m hardly the first one to ask it. The US Chamber of commerce has already filed suit asserting that the answer to that question is “no, they don’t have that power.”

“The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the country’s largest business lobby, filed a lawsuit on Wednesday seeking to strike down a federal agency’s near-total ban on employers requiring workers to sign agreements not to join rivals or launch competing businesses.
The Chamber’s lawsuit in federal court in Tyler, Texas, alleges that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission lacks the power to adopt sweeping rules such as the ban on so-called noncompete agreements released on Tuesday, which is set to take effect in August.

The FTC is empowered by federal law to enforce existing antitrust laws passed by Congress, but not to enact rules determining what other type of conduct by businesses is anticompetitive, the Chamber said in the lawsuit.”

https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-ban-worker-noncompete-agreements-faces-lawsuit-major-business-group-2024-04-24/

[jb]

To be clear, I was responding to Sonja T, not to you. Asking where the authority comes from is reasonable--asking the exact same question in response to someone providing an answer seems silly.

I think it's a shame that Congress has become so ineffective that 99% of the policy changes we see these days comes from executive action. I like this policy, but personally don't have enough knowledge to know how well it fits in the wheelhouse of the FTC's authority. The fact that the Chamber of Commerce is filing the suit in Tyler, Texas, though, makes me think that they may not be so confident about the merits of their case.

[Sonja T]

JB - I thought the reason for asking the question where the authority came from was obvious - though i could have phrased it better. A) no direct language in the statute, B) major questions doctrine C) Chevron deference. Congress had acted and/or addressed non competes since the inception of the Act circa 1914 which would imply that Congress had not given the FTC authority for the rule.

[Martinned2]

How much more direct than this do you want it?

<blockquote.The Commission is hereby empowered and directed to prevent persons [and lots of other people] from using unfair methods of competition in or affecting commerce and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce.

And the major questions doctrine isn't actually a thing. Congress has delegated broad lawmaking powers to executive branch officials and agencies all the way back to the first Congress, and nobody ever thought that was a problem until the most recent rise of crony capitalism.

[Joe_dallas]

Martinned - The lack of action by congress is a strong indication that the "broad " authority is not nearly as broad as you allege.

[Sarcastr0]

The lack of action by Congress is a strong indication that they have become a craven institution that prefers to leave whatever policy they can to the administrative state rather than stick their necks out.

[Sonja T]

JB - Ryan and company based in Dallas , TX has also filed suit. Ryan and company is a tax and accounting software company whose focus is in the state taxation arena (sales and use tax primarily as I recall)

[Brett Bellmore]

"I think it’s a shame that Congress has become so ineffective that 99% of the policy changes we see these days comes from executive action."

Might also be because Congress isn't too fond of mandating unpopular policy changes, which characterizes a lot of the policy changes you're seeing these days.

[Martinned2]

Are you somehow under the impression that the FTC, because it's already existed for 100 years, isn't allowed to make any new rules anymore?

[Bob from Ohio]

"15 USC 45, in combination with its power under 15 USC 46(g) to “make rules and regulations for the purpose of carrying out the provisions of this subchapter”"

Cough, "major question" doctrine, cough

[Martinned2]

[Cough] You can't make up constitutional doctrines out of whole cloth because you don't like what the Federal government is doing [cough]

[Sonja T]

you misinterpret the major question doctrine
It boils down to two basic differences in legal philosophies
One side argues:
A) The executive branch can enact rules only if specifically authorized by congress
The other side argues
B) The executive branch can enact any rule as long as congress has not specifically prohibited the rule.

[Joe_dallas]

The major question doctrine is new doctrine in name only.

Its a basic constitutional principle that boils down to "congress shall make law" which is in the constitution vs the executive branch shall make law which is not in the constitution.

[Martinned2]

By the way, for the avoidance of doubt, my suggestion was that the existence of case law predating the FTC Act might inform the interpretation of the term "unfair competition" in the FTC Act.

[Longtobefree]

General welfare, commerce clause, national defense, whatever.
Fascists don't need any authority than "we can do it, so there!".

[Sonja T]

It can even be spotty within the state by county/judge .

I do not have my employees sign non competes primarily because it creates bad will with the employees.

[John F. Carr]

The problem with noncompetes as used in the tech industry is they are clearly illegal as written but there is an uncertain core of the contract that courts might enforce. One contract I didn't sign would have prevented me from going on to sweep floors in an Amazon warehouse. I interviewed with a company that made software to help provision virtual machines. I would not have been able to work in any capacity for any company that has cloud computing or virtual machines in its portfolio. Amazon has AWS.

The solution to that practice is to disregard severability clauses in noncompetes. If any reasonable construction could be overbroad then the entire noncompete is invalid.

After I declined that job offer Massachusetts passed a new law related to noncompete agreements. I have not had cause to study it.

[Bwaaah]

Through the stroke of a hand, government once again diminishes the value of employees to employers, and expects this to result in a higher valuation of employees.

[Absaroka]

"diminishes the value of employees to employers"

Lessee ... is the argument that if I have employee Eric sign a noncompete he is more valuable because I'm willing to share trade secrets, and that makes him more valuable to me?

But that makes him less valuable to competitors, right, because they can't hire him until his skills are stale?

So if I'm paying him according to how much value he adds to my business, I'll pay him more if he signs a noncompete. OTOH, if I'm paying him only what I have to pay to keep someone else from hiring him, then I will pay him less if he signs a non-compete.

My sense is that employers (and employees!) generally look out for #1, and thus banning noncompetes won't cost employees anything. Generally speaking, jobs with noncompetes aren't jobs you use a robot for (yet!), so it seems like a different model than e.g. burger flipping being automated because of raising the min wage.

I may well be missing something. Thoughts?

[Sonja T]

Absaroka
Most of the Non Competes are in the sales arena or professional jobs, accounting, legal, architectual, dentist, doctor, where you have a lot of interaction with customers/clients and the employer has risk of losing clients.

One of the typical arguments is that the employer has provided the employee with specialized training, skills that is unique to the company and doesnt want the employee to go to work for a competitor with those speciallized skills that are unique to the soon to be former employer. The fallacy in that argument is that while those skills and speciallized knowledge may be very specialized, those skills and specialized knowledge are very much common knowledge within each industry. It is generally only the customer list that is unique.

[David Nieporent]

Most of the Non Competes are in … legal, … where you have

Non-competes are not just unenforceable, but unethical for lawyers. (That was the aspect of the show Suits that bothered me more than anything else: all the lawyers had non-competes, and that was a repeated plot line.)

[Bob from Ohio]

"aspect of the show Suits that bothered me more than anything else"

Not the lawyer knowingly allowing someone to pretend to be a lawyer and representing his firm's clients, just some inside baseball ethical rule?

[David Nieporent]

That was the premise of the show; if one can't suspend disbelief for that, then one just can't watch the show at all.

[Sonja T]

My mistake on including the legal profession. Also my mistake in omitting the software industry where non competes are common.

[Sonja T]

But that makes him less valuable to competitors, right, because they can’t hire him until his skills are stale?

Adding to Absaroka comment -
The non compete also makes the potential employee less valuable due to risk of being sued for hiring an employee with a non-compete. Hard for me to justify hiring someone with a non-compete since the probability of getting sued is very high.

[David Nieporent]

The non compete also makes the potential employee less valuable due to risk of being sued for hiring an employee with a non-compete. Hard for me to justify hiring someone with a non-compete since the probability of getting sued is very high.

Indeed; many non-competes are blatantly unenforceable for being way broader than courts allow. But the purpose isn't to actually bar employees from going to competitors; it's to intimidate competitors from hiring away employees. A competitor doesn't want to win a lawsuit; it wants to avoid it.

[Bwaaah]

Non-compete agreements are typically between an employee and an employer, and only binding upon them. A subsequent employer of that employee is not a party to that agreement, and has no obligation to abide by it. The only risk to the new employer, to my knowledge, is the indirect cost of the risk to the employee, e.g. the employee may have to resign in order to comply with the agreement (with the former employer). There may be additional risks to a subsequent employer who specifically induces the employee to violate the agreement, but that's an unlikely cause of action.

[David Nieporent]

There may be additional risks to a subsequent employer who specifically induces the employee to violate the agreement, but that’s an unlikely cause of action.

A tortious interference claim is not only not unlikely, but common in these cases. To reiterate what I said above: "A competitor doesn’t want to win a lawsuit; it wants to avoid it."

"If I hire job applicant X, I may get sued for tortious interference. If I hire applicant Y, I won't be. Hmm. Which should I hire?"

[Bwaaah]

"If I hire job applicant X, I may get sued for tortious interference. If I hire applicant Y, I won’t be. Hmm. Which should I hire?”

Depends on the terms of the non-compete, the risk cost of hiring that person, the compensation you'll be paying him/her vs the other, and the expected productive value of his/her services as an employee, vs the other. (Or were you imagining you were talking about two corpses, one having a non-compete agreement?)

[David Nieporent]

If you are selecting a QB in the NFL draft, there may be such a clear difference in expected contribution between one's first choice and one's second that it might make sense to stand firm on the first. If you are hiring a software engineer or accountant or regional sales manager or the like, it is unlikely that there is going to be a meaningful distinction.

[Bwaaah]

“If you are hiring a software engineer or accountant or regional sales manager or the like, it is unlikely that there is going to be a meaningful distinction.”

You have a low opinion, and little appreciation, for talent. The multiples of productive capability in higher end talent vs the lower end are often very substantial, and are typical in a wide range of skilled and semi-skilled jobs. Even in many low-skill jobs, the variance in individual productivity is wide unless you impose a process that doesn’t allow for that variation. Maybe you work in a culture that discourages individual excellence? It’s odd to me that you don’t perceive how pervasive and significant those performance variations are.

[Bwaaah]

In considering whether to hire people who would come with potential risks/encumbrances, I routinely considered a few tens of thousands of dollars of [legal] risk cost to be a worthy [potential] spend for an expected high-performer. Higher performance, even with that additional risk cost, gives a better return than a mid-level-performer who comes without that legal risk.

It really came down to a reasonable guesstimate of the legal risk cost, and factoring that into hiring and compensation decisions just like all the other numbers. I didn't treat the mere threat of litigation, especially such a low threshold accusation as tortious interference, to be cause to ignore the potential benefits of incurring legal risks, like any other risks.

[Bwaaah]

Many jobs require situational skills and experience that take years to develop. (I think of my own experiences as a software engineer, for example.) Employees are of lower value to employers when they lack those skills/experience, and of higher value when they have them. Companies understand and invest in employee development, regardless of the presence of a non-compete, because the skills/experience are necessary to sustain satisfactory performance. Additionally, employer trade secrets and goodwill (like customers) flow into the custody of employees, and where there's no non-compete agreement, employers face increased risk costs associated with employees leaving and appropriating secrets/goodwill to the benefit of DIRECT COMPETITORS. (Note that all non-competes I've ever seen were only crafted to discourage employees from taking their value to a direct competitor; they did not discourage their employment/value elsewhere. Also note there is practical enforceability of non-compete agreements, whereas intellectual property agreements are difficult-to-impossible to enforce in practice.)

There are many instances now of over-use of non-competes, particularly when applied to lower skilled positions. (I would be amenable to some regulatory restriction of the use of non-compete agreements based on some potentially articulable class(es) of employment that reflect specific cause for inapplicability of non-compete agreements.)

There are potentially good and potentially bad effects of non-compete agreements. This seems obvious to me.

But what can be said for a blanket rule that presumes all non-compete agreements are against the interests of the parties involved (or society in general)? What do I think about a law that forbids people from entering into non-compete agreements with their employers?

This rule CATEGORICALLY DENIES employers and employees of the use of a potentially valuable tool that can obviously be used for the mutual benefit of both parties. in the form of a SHARED AGREEMENT. I think this is an example of one-size-fits-all central government, lording over the affairs of individual people who are trying to make the best of their individual situations. It suffers the problem of all central planning, which is its total lack of situational appropriateness or adaptability.

One-size-fits-all is BIG STUPID.

[Absaroka]

"This rule CATEGORICALLY DENIES employers and employees of the use of a potentially valuable tool that can obviously be used for the mutual benefit of both parties. in the form of a SHARED AGREEMENT."

In your experience, how is that shared agreement usually negotiated. I.e. does the employee suggest 'Been thinking boss, that I'd really like to sign a non-compete for our mutual benefit', or does the employer say 'Have you considered a non-compete for our mutual benefit, no problem if you don't want to' or is it more 'Here's a non-compete, sign it or clean out your desk'. I'm just trying to get a feel for the shape of the mutual benefit here.

[Sonja T]

Abasroka

In my industry accounting and tax, the typical non compete is not signed or required until you reach manager level or supervisory level with direct client contact. There are virtually no skills that are not generic through the industry, so the only thing the employers are trying to protect is the client base. As such, there is nothing the employer is trying to protect for a lower level employee. The problem is when the employee is required to sign the non compete, which is often when you are already employed and your only choice is to sign the NCA or quit without a job.

[Bwaaah]

Perhaps regrettably, non-competes are typically included and accepted with little special consideration in an initial employer/employee negotiation. Differently, when an employer attempts to impose a non-compete upon an existing employee, any attempt to do so without equitable adjustment is viewed with hostility, and serious discussions ensue. (I’ve only seen attempts to unilaterally impose non-compete agreements upon existing employees in distressed or poorly managed businesses.)

There’s clearly asymmetric value to the non-compete vis-à-vis employer vs employee, i.e. it’s of relatively higher value to the employer, and in consideration of the restrictions therein, it’s of relatively lower cost to the employee. So the employer’s position is, “It’s good for me and shouldn’t be too bad for you.” The employee’s position is, “It’s good for you, and shouldn’t be too bad for me.” Carried to their practical conclusions, I think those are usually accurate assessments.

More highly skilled, experienced, in-demand potential employees do particularly see and recognize their potentially elevated cost of a non-compete agreement, and it’s not unusual for it to become a subject of consideration. Potential employees note the implied extension of their person commitment to the employer beyond their term of employment, and that awareness does tend to imply a premium in compensation (and sometimes, reduction or elimination of non-compete restrictions).

I’ve seen people leave companies and go work for competitors, in obvious violation of their non-compete agreements. Companies do not automatically take action in those cases, and in many cases (possibly most), take limited or no action of consequence. Especially when employees leave in good standing, it can be unhelpfully chilling to attack their livelihoods in full view of their former coworkers (i.e. your employees). In the time subsequent to employee termination, companies I’ve observed have carefully considered the particulars of an employee’s situation and the particulars of risk costs before attempting to enforce an employee non-compete agreement.

I interpret this to say that non-competes are, in the professional areas, most used to discourage boosting of competitors through intellectual property appropriation. They are not intended or enforced to restrict the movement of former employees (even though they sometimes have that effect).

I may have a big blind spot of non-competes being used in ways that are not like what I’ve seen. I can’t say that I’ve seen the world. I’ve only seen how they were used in a bunch of different businesses and industries that I’ve observed, and in those cases, employers and employees alike seemed to have a good grasp of the relative value implications of non-compete agreements.

[bernard11]

This mostly accords with my experience.

Employers like them, employees hate them, they are a source of discord, and are usually ignored, left unenforced, or invalidated in court.

Most recently a software company I'm involved in has never used them, or tried to. No problems have arisen.

[Commenter_XY]

I am bound by a non-compete right now. An old employer has gone to court in the past to enforce them. My impression is that when they did go to court, it was more 'harassment' than it was 'intellectual property concern'. Sort of like an expensive warning.

I think a lot of lawyers are going to make a lot of money litigating the rule.

[Bwaaah]

I’ve seen that kind of messaging. Employer counsel sends a letter to “remind” you of your obligations. The letters often allude to things heard (as to suggest that what is done may be known).

I’ve been on both sides of that (as employer and former employee). The company rationale goes like this…the company knows serious litigation is uneconomical and out of the question (except in quite unusual cases). Counsel concurs in that opinion, and does a quick rundown on why: “Customers go where customers choose, as do employees. Absent clear evidence in hand, in art, of copyright, trademark, or NDA violation, you got very little. I can send him a letter.”

That’s the most typical way I’ve seen “enforcement” of non-compete agreements, and enforcement typically stops there. The company fires off a one-time “chill” message to remind the former employee of the real or potential damage he/she may cause the former employer, and resulting actions that may be taken thereupon. (Those letters get you thinking, don’t they? lol)

Did you move to a competitor? (Don’t answer if that’s a technical question.) Do you think the non-compete agreement was a reasonable component of your agreement with that employer?

[Bwaaah]

A common case: employee leaves to become self-employed.
A problem: the former employee immediately appears to the company as an unconstrained rogue competitor.

In fear, the imagination can run wild. It often does. And imagination aside, there are some real risks among those unknowns.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I had a company ask me to sign one for a job involving driving a truck and delivering their furniture. I suggested they hire someone who couldn't read English and deal with the consequences of *that*, as I wasn't interested anymore.

[Bwaaah]

Yours sounds like a rational response to me.

It wouldn't surprise me if non-competes are overused in agreements between employers and non-English speaking laborers (especially immigrants). In my opinion, the employer in that case is over-valuing the non-compete agreement, and the employee is valuing it at a risk cost that is approximately $0 (zero). True to the employee's perspective, there is little-to-no value in a non-compete like that. (It's probably not economically practical to enforce it.) It diminishes the value of the company to prospective employees, especially the ones who value the non-compete risk cost as you did.

I don't need the FTC to get rid of non-competes like that. That company's foolish practice is a real drag on its own economic performance. Hopefully, for their sake, that's their only misjudgment. (But as misjudgment goes, it's probably not.)

[jb]

Those California (where noncompetes are already disallowed) tech employees sure seem to have been suffering...

[Bob from Ohio]

"non-compete clauses void"

Not in US generally. Voidable, must be limited in time and geographic scope to be ok.

[Frank Drackman]

Sucker Bet of the Day
Over/Under for “Reverend” Kirtland saying “Klinger” on the Thread

63
Not telling you if I’m taking the Over/Under (with the “Reverend” not good to be the “Under”) like I said, it’s a Sucker bet, and if you don’t know who the Sucker is, it’s probably you

Frank

[CountmontyC]

Are we talking the number of posts he says "klinger" or the number of times he says "klinger?" Becausie if it is the number of times he says it that is maybe 5 posts.

[Frank Drackman]

total "Klinger" mentions, not posts.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Which is more likely to occur today:

__ I write "clinger"

__ This blog publishes a vile racial slur

__ Prof. Volokh uses a vile racial slur

[CountmontyC]

Well if it is total mentions of "clinger" i expect triple digits.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

How many racial slurs do you figure this blog has published this year (so far)?

Caution: Prof. Volokh hopes you will consider carefully before answering that question.

[DaveM]

So, what does Georgia do now with Trump’s RICO trial? Fani Willis cannot be happy with the way things have been going: No trial date has been scheduled, and very unlikely to happen before the election; her professional judgment found wanting by the judge; her made-for-TV moments now nowhere to be seen. If the point of this lawfare was to damage Trump politically, it appears to have done just the opposite.

Does Georgia drop the case and cut their losses? Or keep going, hoping to get another shot at the brass ring? And does Willis remain on the case if it goes forward?

[Armchair]

The state of Georgia would likely love to drop the case. But Fani brought it, and Fani needs to see it through, for her supporters.

[Frank Drackman]

After watching her testimony I'd love to see Fanny prosecute the case herself.

[#FFFFFFPride]

She has a goal to pocket 5 or 6 million from her next election campaign.

Now that she knows she is above the law, why not be even more obvious about it?

[tylertusta]

Within the next week or so, the Georgia Court of Appeals will decide whether to take up Trump & Co's appeal. Should the Court take the case, it probably will take jurisdiction from McAfee.

[John F. Carr]

I am sure Willis still has the support of voters in her county. The case is not so expensive that voters have to choose between food on the table and Trump in prison. She may have lost her chance for higher office if that is her goal.

[Kazinski]

Fani has a primary election May 21, and then the general in Nov.

It doesn't look to me though that any of the challengers are that strong, but I think Fani is much weaker than she was too.

[not guilty]

Kazinski, how long have you been on a first name basis with Ms. Willis?

[Kazinski]

About as long as you’ve been Mrs. Merchant's breast size monitor.

[Bob from Ohio]

Touche

[Armchair]

I'm seeing more and more political ads about the dangers of "MAGA supporters".

They're more than a little disturbing in many ways, the way they characterize certain American citizens who are doing nothing illegal or wrong.

[theobromophile]

Inadvertently supporting the idea that the Left doesn't want Trump removed from political life; they want us removed from political life.

[CountmontyC]

At times it seems they want us removed from life.

[Sarcastr0]

Being secretly oppressed by every single institution out there is MAGA's ideology. From Hollywood to the FBI and CIA to the IRS to schools to the media to Silicon Valley to big companies to advertisements on the TV to Biden speeches to the justice system to immigration to every single executive agency to the GOP itself.

So I'm sure you feel that way. I do think you'll get through this without actually being killed by the evil libs.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Sounds like 1973 -- and where were those people by 1977?

[#FFFFFFPride]

It's not a secret, Sarcastr0.

We're being erased, replaced, jailed, audited, discriminated against, and oppressed.

Just for wanting to be free from the Neo-Marxist Revolution, be happily natural married and raise White children.

[Sarcastr0]

It must be secret, because I see happy couples raising white children all the time.

[#FFFFFFPride]

Not on American TV you don't, or in print media.

You can still find that in Eastern European countries that are lagging behind the GloboHomo/Jew Great Replacement.

[Sarcastr0]

No, in real life.

Plenty of this group you claim are being erased just walking free and happy.

But yeah, maybe you should move to Russia.

[#FFFFFFPride]

>Plenty of this group you claim are being erased just walking free and happy.

With no representation, and a full-on cultural & institutional assault on their history, normalcy, Whiteness, and heterosexuality.

>But yeah, maybe you should move to Russia.
"If you don't like it, you can get out!"
You're a caricature of a stupid trope.

[Sarcastr0]

As a white hetero guy living in Northern Virginia and planning on having kids soon, I can tell you I am quite well represented.

Your fear and loathing is a *choice*.

You said Eastern European countries are flat better for white people, dunno why you'd be offended when I say you should vote with your feet.

[#FFFFFFPride]

You said you read my comments yet you still lie about them.

How vile.

I said Whites and White natural families have representation on TV and print.

Why do you lie so much? Is it because you're a Fed? Or are you a Fed because you lie so much?

Also I love how you sling personal anecdotes as of they were global truisms while diligently on guard to police others use of anecdotes.

I don't think this how someone with integrity behaves.

[bernard11]

assault on their history

You mean assault on a bunch of lies and misrepresentations that you want to believe, but are afraid to face the truth about.

[#FFFFFFPride]

Hoo boy, we have a real live 1619'er.

lol wtf, do you still wear a mask? Are you about to get your 22nd booster?

[Sarcastr0]

We’re being erased, replaced, jailed, audited, discriminated against, and oppressed.
That’s you. Not talking about TV.

You can still find that in Eastern European countries that are lagging behind the GloboHomo/Jew Great Replacement.
That’s you, and you claim you were only talking about TV.

I’d say you were lying, but it looks a lot more like you were so angry reality went away and the story your pulsing rage blister of a brain told you was all that mattered.

[bernard11]

Oh stop.

Nobody wants you removed from life.

Fucking persecution complex because people don't agree with you, and you're not automatically in charge.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

We subsidize these bigoted hayseeds and their desolate backwaters.

We permit their nonsense-teaching, bigoted schools to be accredited.

We let them circumcise their children and send those children to backwater religious schools that teach nonsense.

We haven’t criminalized most of their bigoted, deplorable conduct.

We funded the rural electrification that enabled these worthless hillbillies to build a community from scattered, bigoted, uneducated misfits.

We still enable old-times churches to freeload.

The liberal-libertarian mainstream has been magnanimous to a fault toward the culture war’s pathetic losers.

[Ed Grinberg]

Pretty much.
https://www.google.com/search?as_q=&as_epq=cold+civil+war&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&lr=&cr=&as_qdr=all&as_sitesearch=www.johnderbyshire.com&as_occt=any&as_filetype=&tbs=

[Sarcastr0]

Cold Civil War.

Fucking move then. If you're being warred upon, sounds like that sucks.

More likely, you don't believe a word of it and are just putting voice to your generalized alienation and frustration.
Wouldn't be the first person to take their personal problems and blame politics.

[Sarcastr0]

And did a quick look ad John Derbyshire. Of course you align yourself with this shit:

-Derbyshire once argued that America would be better off if women did not have the right to vote

-Since 2012 he has written for white nationalist website VDARE

-Derbyshire wrote "White supremacy, in the sense of a society in which key decisions are made by white Europeans, is one of the better arrangements History has come up with

There isn't a Cold Civil War, you ad Derbyshire are just still sad you lost the last one.

[Nige]

Raicsm, which still seems to be fairly acceptable, is overall somewhat less acceptable, THAT is cold civil war.

[#FFFFFFPride]

Dehumanize and Otherize is what Democrat/Marxists do. It’s what they’ve always done, going back to Da Shoah, the Holodomor, the Cultural Revolution, the Red Terror (is there any other kind??!?!), and the French Revolution.

Can't have a Marxist Revolution if you don't have several million innocents to murder.

[bernard11]

So you're all concerned about, the "Shoah, the Holodomor, the Cultural Revolution, the Red Terror* (is there any other kind??!?!),and the French Revolution, " but a minute ago you were complaining about "the GloboHomo/Jew Great Replacement.

You're a bigot, fool, hypocrite, and ignoramus.

*Yes. There are other kinds. Lots of them.

[#FFFFFFPride]

Only an ignoramus would put GloboHomo/Jew Great Replacement in opposition to those others.

They're all Marxist/Leftist movements.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

This comment cements this guy’s position as the personification of the Volokh Conspiracy’s essence.

[Frank Drackman]

We’re delivering your food, flying your Airliners (OK, most made in France/Brazil now) Ectomy-ing your Gallbladders, Keeping you Asleep while the Surgeons inflict their procedures, unclogging your toilets/coronary arteries, evicting squatters from your Tony Brooklyn walk ups, we’re from North California and South Alabama, and little towns all around this land, we can skin a Buck (well I did once, made me sick, poor Bambi :(), run a Trout line, ….wow, could be a Country Song
Oh wow, how could I forget the Nurses? Like MLB Umpires, when they're good you don't even know they're there. Most of them marry Docs, Firemen, or Cops, which may tell you something about their Political leanings.

Frank

[Bwaaah]

There you go...not supporting Democrat? MAGA people. All of 'em. (And as Dems would have it, me too.)

[Nige]

If you vote for Trump, and you get called MAGA and you don’t like it? There’s a tiny violin playing for you.

[Bwaaah]

What if you don't vote for Trump, and stand politically opposed to "MAGA" ideology (insofar as there is one)? How does that make you MAGA?

I'm beginning to think you're MAGA too. (Let all language and reason be butchered here.)

[Nige]

But you ARE voting for Trump, thereby supporting MAGA "ideology."

[Bwaaah]

"But you ARE voting for Trump."

Fascinating. Am I? I must not have received the memo. (I thought I was undecided.)

But your implication is that you can infer a person's political philosophy based on who he/she votes for. That's a false, stupid implication. (People who vote for Biden are pro-Israel, right?)

[Sarcastr0]

Your entire posting persona is grievance about crime in cities, and white people not getting a fare shake. You blame Dems for both. You also think Trump is innocent of all the stuff he's on trial for.

If you're not MAGA I don't understand why not - you have their same enemies.

[Bwaaah]

You made all that up. I know how you got there, but you inferred all that. It's all wrong, and it reflects your myopic two-bin political dialectic. You are actually unable to see me as I am, apparently because it has no place in your binary worldview.

No need for you to respond. I presume you believe I am clueless, disingenuous, in my self-analysis.

[Nige]

'You made all that up.'

Your brave rejection of the binary doesn't change your posting history.

[Nige]

Nah, you're whining because nobody perceives how special and complicated you are. You complain about the Democrats and the left all the time in exactly the same culture war terms as the MAGA crowd while occasionally mentioning how much you hate Trump. This is not exactly unique in the annals of Trump voters, or even the Trump-curious.

[Sarcastr0]

Go check Patriots.win to see what kind of support they have for an American Pinochet.
In contrast, you have Biden saying MAGA sucks.

In this thread already this morning we have:

1) WhitePride saying Dems are not American
2) You speculating that the judge and prosecutors in the Trump case are doing a crime

And then the rush of validated paranoia in response to your comment here. As everyone here posts securely on the Internet with no fear of reprisal.

Yeah, MAGA are bad at living in a republic and wants things that are not good for American democracy as basically their baseline beliefs.

Plenty of conservatives are not MAGA. I remain optimistic in the long run this, like so many populist eruptions, will die down.

[Armchair]

Note that phrasing "MAGA are bad at living in a republic and wants things that are not good for American democracy"

Note how it includes a broad swath of American Citizens and metaphorically indicts the people...Not looking at specific concepts (level of taxation, support for gun rights, etc), but indicts the people.

This language has been used in the past to condemn other people based on who they are as a people. Jews, Blacks, etc.

It's annoying when seen in anonymous forums. But, hey, it's a consequence of freedom of speech. But when politicians openly start using it...that's when things start to get dangerous. When real discrimination occurs.

[Sarcastr0]

Your airy pronouncements that condemning groups is bad is a ridiculous change of scope since MAGA is an ideological movement, not a race or creed.
So condemning MAGA for *what it openly believes* is pretty legit.

Crying oppression has been an excuse of authoritarian populist movements since Rome.

Yes, it sucks that MAGA is a thing, with it's revenge-based platform, cult of personality, and belief the other side is evil.
You fucking accused me of blood libel for fuck's sake, don't pretend to be the innocent lamb.

[#FFFFFFPride]

You're really an authoritarian if you don't want to be oppressed by my authoritarianism!

lol good grief, do you have really think about the things you say or do you just blurt them out as if you have no inner monologue or self-awareness?

[Sarcastr0]

Your patina of innocent nonviolence does not wear well. You don't want to be left alone, you want liberals to suffer.

I've heard about helicopter rides for the political opposition only from one side on this website.

[#FFFFFFPride]

Well looky here, it’s a mind reader telling me what I think and what I want!!

You should join a circus with your gifts. Well, you do work for the Feds, so you already belong to a bunch of midwit circus freaks and other assorted queers and losers.

Historically speaking, when your side has a revolution, hundreds of millions die.

When my side has a revolution, we spark off the greatest experiment in human freedom and flourishing the world has ever seen. Until you people have decided humans don’t deserve to flourish.

[Sarcastr0]

Mind reader? You post about liberals needing to suffer all the time!!

I mentioned Pinochet. Your thoughts? Was his coup a big human freedom flourishing moment?

[Bob from Ohio]

"Was his coup a big human freedom flourishing moment?"

For Chile, yes. It stopped a Marxist from permanently destroying human freedom in Chile, like his buddy had already done in Cuba.

[#FFFFFFPride]

>Mind reader? You post about liberals needing to suffer all the time!!

I post about wanting liberals facing justice for their actions. Meanwhile, your side wants people like me to face justice for some long past sin of some imaginary forefather or you create some serious-sounding invented crime like "threat to our republic" or "threat to our democracy".

You characterize it as “He doesn’t like his opinion, so he WANTS TO MURDER THEM!!!!! It’s a THREAT TO OUR SACRED DEMOCRACY”

Which of course is exactly how the rest of the Federal government also characterizes America-First conservatives. But, which you gaslight us and tell us that even though the Federal government is filled with civil servants who believe people like me want to murder and kill innocent liberals and queers, they would never use their institutional power to stop me because that would be wrong even though they would never get caught and maybe even get awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom!

lol

[Sarcastr0]

I post about wanting liberals facing justice for their actions.

You mistake vengeance and spite as being anything like justice.

[#FFFFFFPride]

You're pretty bad at this mind reading thing.

I'm not mistaking anything.

How do you think your peers, who also hate people like me, treat citizens in their jobs?

[Sarcastr0]

It's your persecution complex, dude, I can't tell you what the government employees in your head do.

But I can tell you that anyone with as much fear and loathing in themselves as you do will have a fucked up idea of 'justice.'

[#FFFFFFPride]

Well, can you share with me the Official Approved US Government definition of "justice" so I can be sure to get your approval?

Also, what's your doctorate in? You seem to be adamant at diagnosing my mental state, are you qualified to do so?

I thought you were some federal know-nothing/do-nothing making bank off the backs of people like me, and not a trained and qualified psychiatrist.

[Sarcastr0]

Justice is a philosophical concept; sure it can change from person to person. Reasonable people can differ about it, debate about it, all sorts of variations.

But you're a grievance elemental. Justice isn't in you.

[LawTalkingGuy]

This is a god one to bookmark for the next time Bob tries to white knight crime victims, or cry about Trump/Jan 6 defendants, or in any way tries to present himself as a good person:

Here is an example of what he thinks is freedom in Chile:

"Por violación de los torturadores quedé embarazada y aborté en la cárcel. Sufrí shock eléctricos, colgamientos, "pau-arara" , "submarinos", simulacro de fusilamiento, quemadura con cigarros. Me obligaron a tomar drogas, sufrí violación y acoso sexual con perros, la introducción de ratas vivas por la vagina y todo el
cuerpo. Me obligaron a tener relaciones sexuales con mi padre y hermano que estaban detenidos."

https://www.derechoshumanos.net/paises/America/derechos-humanos-Chile/informes-comisiones/Informe-Comision-Valech.pdf

For an English summary of the report:

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2007/2/7/torture-under-pinochet-we-were-peeling/#:~:text=The%20perpetration%20of%20this%20crime,dogs%20and%20with%20live%20rats.

"For women, it was an especially violent experience. The commission reports that nearly every female prisoner was the victim of repeated rape. The perpetration of this crime took many forms, from military men raping women themselves to the use of foreign objects on victims. Numerous women (and men) report spiders or live rats being implanted into their orifices. One woman wrote, “I was raped and sexually assaulted with trained dogs and with live rats. They forced me to have sex with my father and brother who were also detained. I also had to listen to my father and brother being tortured.” Her experiences were mirrored by those of many other women who told their stories to the commission."

TL;DR: Bob thinks that putting rats in women's vaginas is freedom. Bob believes that putting spiders in a women's vagina is a good thing.

Bob, how many women can be raped by trained dogs before you won't defend it?

Do your family, friends, and colleagues know you support raping women with animals? Because if you support Pinochet, that's what you support.

Bob from Ohio, animal rape defender, is a bad person. If anyone had any doubt, this should put it to rest.

[Bob from Ohio]

Now do Cuba. Marxist dictators are much, much worse and for longer, than Latin American military strongmen. Pinochet voluntarily [if grudgingly] left power. Unlike the Castros, which was the end game if Allende was left in power.

Castro was worse than Batista, who was also bad, which does not mean I'm "defending" Batista, just that there are degrees of badness.

[Nige]

'Their dictators are better at being dictators than ours' is a hell of a whine.

[LawTalkingGuy]

"Castro was worse than Batista, who was also bad, which does not mean I’m “defending” Batista, just that there are degrees of badness."

You accuse anyone (including me) of supporting Hamas if they are critical of Israeli's war conduct. You accuse anyone who supports rights for criminal defendants of "defending" the underlying conduct. So if you want to EXPLICITLY praise and support Pinochet, you are defending raping women with animals. That's more than fair under your own rules. Either deal with it and accept yourself as a rape-apologist, or apologize to me, Sarc, etc for saying we support Hamas and the abhorrent acts that a criminal may have engaged in.

"Now do Cuba."

If you want me to defend communist and left-wing authoritarian governments, you're out of luck. I'm not going to. I'll never be in the position of defending their atrocities because I would never say something as fucking depraved as "Castro or Chavez brought peace and prosperity to their people." But you did for Pinochet, so you can get to defend the animal rape.

Sorry dude. You're an animal rape apologist. Your weak-ass and citation-less "they're worse" defense of Pinochet confirms it. When you look in the mirror you'll see one. It's hopefully something you keep to yourself in public settings.

[bernard11]

Now do Cuba.

Fucking moronic comment. Are you really claiming that Pinochet's crimes were OK, because they were necessary to keep Chile from turning into a left-wing authoritarian state? And how exactly do you determine that "Marxist dictators are much, much worse and for longer, than Latin American military strongmen." And why would that justify the strongmen anyway?

Do you know how stupid and immoral that is. I doubt you're smart enough. You just think you have the perfect whataboutery. You don't.

[Bwaaah]

There is some argument to be made that "MAGA" is an ideology (although very loosely so). But that's not how the term is widely used now by people on the left. The term is used as a disparaging slur to denote anybody who expresses anti-Democrat views. It is used to intimate that you are a Trump lover, and its use is triggered by the slightest disagreement with Democrat blah blah blah.

[Nige]

If you claim you don't like name-calling and 'slurs' and you're voting for Trump you're a massive hypocrite.

[Bwaaah]

Who are you talking about? I never voted for Trump. I never endorsed anything like "MAGA ideology."

Why do you do that?

[Nige]

Didn’t you say you were going to vote for Trump? Sincere apologies if I’m mistaking you for someone else, or mistook something you said.

But the point stands, even if does not pertain to you specifically.

[Sarcastr0]

Hey, so this is you above:

"It’s as if language itself is your worthless bitch."

Tone policing telepathy does not suit you.

[#FFFFFFPride]

That's strictly your job. Reading people's minds then telling them how bad they are for thinking that way.

[Sarcastr0]

I'm reading your posts, not your mind.

[#FFFFFFPride]

Woah you say those lies about me and you actually read my comments?

Have you no integrity?

[David Nieporent]

Wait, you’re complaining that the term “MAGA” is being used to intimate that one is a Trump lover? Because, I mean, MAGA does mean one is a Trump lover. No need to intimate anything.

[Bwaaah]

I despise Trump, and am no fan of his political zeitgeist either. And yet, I am explicitly called "MAGA" by left-leaning advocates here, over and over again, it seems merely because I express great disagreement with current Democratic party politics/positions.

It's really quite simple. Don't like Democrat policies? You're MAGA.

Of course, that's just the Republicrat duopoly speaking as it does; you're either with us, or you're with them. There is no other way, Republicrats say.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Democratic policies, dumbass. You certainly write life a Trump-class clinger.

[Nige]

Just MAGA-curious.

[Commenter_XY]

I don't think the two (MAGA, Trump Lover) are synonymous in the sense that the ideas and policies that have been defined as 'MAGA' are independent of the man (POTUS Trump).

There are a body of people in this country who believe POTUS Trump is a bombastic blowhard, but had sound economic policies and solid foreign policy; and vastly prefer those 'MAGA' policies to what we have had the last 4 years under POTUS Biden.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Most MAGA fans couldn't describe Trump's economic or foreign policies with a gun at their temple.

[Ed Grinberg]

"MAGA is an ideological movement, not a race or creed. So condemning MAGA for *what it openly believes* is pretty legit."
from The Black Book of Communism:
Efforts to draw parallels between Nazism and Communism on the basis of their respective extermination tactics may give offense to some people. However, we should recall how in Forever Flowing Vasily Grossman, whose mother was killed by the Nazis in the Berdichiv ghetto, who authored the first work on Treblinka, and who was one of the editors of The Black Book on the extermination of Soviet Jews, has one of his characters describe the famine in Ukraine: “Writers kept writing ... Stalin himself, too: the kulaks are parasites; they are burning grain; they are killing children. And it was openly proclaimed ‘that the rage and wrath of the masses must be inflamed against them, they must be destroyed as a class, because they are accursed.’” He adds: “To massacre them, it was necessary to proclaim that kulaks are not human beings, just as the Germans proclaimed that Jews are not human beings. Thus did Lenin and Stalin say: kulaks are not human beings.” In conclusion, Grossman says of the children of the kulaks: “That is exactly how the Nazis put the Jewish children into the Nazi gas chambers: ‘You are not allowed to live, you are all Jews!’”
Time and again the focus of the terror was less on targeted individuals than on groups of people. The purpose of the terror was to exterminate a group that had been designated as the enemy. Even though it might be only a small fraction of society, it had to be stamped out to satisfy this genocidal impulse. Thus, the techniques of segregation and exclusion employed in a “class-based totalitarianism” closely resemble the techniques of “race-based totalitarianism.” The future Nazi society was to be built upon a “pure race,” and the future Communist society was to be built upon a proletarian people purified of the dregs of the bourgeoisie. The restructuring of these two societies was envisioned in the same way, even if the crackdowns were different. Therefore, it would be foolish to pretend that Communism is a form of universalism. Communism may have a worldwide purpose, but like Nazism it deems a part of humanity unworthy of existence. The difference is that the Communist model is based on the class system, the Nazi model on race and territory. Thus the transgressions of Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism, and the Khmer Rouge pose a fresh challenge for humanity, and particularly for legal scholars and historians: specifically, how do we describe a crime designed to exterminate not merely individuals or opposing groups but entire segments of society on a massive scale for their political and ideological beliefs?
...
Critics have often tried to make a distinction between Nazism and Communism by arguing that the Nazi project had a particular aim, which was nationalist and racist in the extreme, whereas Lenin’s project was universal. This is entirely wrong. In both theory and practice, Lenin and his successors excluded from humanity all capitalists, the bourgeoisie, counterrevolutionaries, and others, turning them into absolute enemies in their sociological and political discourse. [Karl] Kautsky noted as early as 1918 that these terms were entirely elastic, allowing those in power to exclude whomever they wanted from humanity whenever they so wished. These were the terms that led directly to crimes against humanity.

[Sarcastr0]

The project to pretend Nazis were of on a comment thread that includes Trump supporters saying Jews deserve what they get...not really bringing the thunder.

You mix up the political with the economic. Read more Marx.
You also mix up nationalism with totalitarianism. Read more Eco.

[Bwaaah]

Beautiful commentary. Relevant (probably always).

[Nige]

Everyone who votes for Trump is supporting a man who tried to illegally overturn an election. Are we supposed to overlook this fact? Because it seems notable.

[Bwaaah]

Nige: “Everyone who votes for Trump is supporting [blah blah]”

Nige, taking the intentions of 70 million people and reducing them to one simple motive.

I feel like you’re not capturing the spirit, the spirits, of them all. (Is it just me?)

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

How many Trump voters don’t support Trump, dumbass? Please tell us about these people.

[Nige]

I am perfectly comfortable with assuming that every single person who votes for Trump is fundamentally ok with him trying to overturn an election. I think it's pretty foundational and unavoidable.

[bernard11]

“MAGA are bad at living in a republic and wants things that are not good for American democracy”

Not accepting the outcome of an election is pretty good evidence of that. (And don't start with all the fraud bullshit. It's nonsense and you know it.)

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

.

the way they characterize certain American citizens who are doing nothing illegal or wrong

The insurrection was unlawful. The broader, related efforts to subvert the election were unlawful.

Being a bigot is wrong.

Other than that, though, great comment!

[Moderation4ever]

I see MAGA supporters like those kids protesting on college campuses, both have slogans but no real ideas. MAGA supporters want the country to change but no real ideas on how, the campus protesters want the war in GAZA to end but have not real ideas on how. Change takes ideas and then working for those ideas.

[Ed Grinberg]

What does Hamas want? Dead Jews (Israelis).
What do Palestinians want (or, at least, that majority of Palestinians who put Hamas in power)? Presumably, the same thing.
What do "anti-Zionist" protesters in the West want? Based on their words & actions, I'd say: the exact same thing (except not limited to Israeli Jews).

"MAGA supporters want the country to change"
???
I like this country. The entire orientation of "MAGA supporters" is to resist people ("progressives" / "liberals") who're going all out, changing (we'd say: ruining) the country in front of our eyes. So you have it exactly backwards.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Wrong.

Clingers can't stand (1) modern America, with all of its damned progress, science, reason, inclusiveness, modernity, and education, and especially (2) the modern American mainstream.

Spoiler: It only gets worse for conservatives.

How many years until whites are a minority in this country?

Is the decline in religion going to continue, reverse, or accelerate?

Will rural, uneducated males continue to die off more quickly than other Americans?

[Sarcastr0]

Ed, what does MAGA stand for? It isn't 'I love this country!'

[grb]

Ed Grinberg : "The entire orientation of “MAGA supporters...."

Let's try honesty : The entire Right is an empty shell at this point, rotted out from the inside. It's fueled by an endless stream of substance-free indignation & victimhood whining, bloated into spectacle by cartoon fireworks & pro-wrestling-grade theatrics.

Try this experiment : Take the National Review, traditionally one of the Right's standard-bearers of reason, philosophy & thought. Go to their website and see what they report. I did this morning and counted the clickable headlines. Twenty-one about campus kids or the latest batch of transexual filler. Five on foreign policy; two on the economy.

You can say they're in the click-bait business, but that pretty much describes the entire Right these days. It's an entertainment conglomerate, marketing fake indignation to make their consumer's heart beat wildly while they scream themselves hoarse.

[bernard11]

I like this country. The entire orientation of “MAGA supporters” is to resist people (“progressives” / “liberals”) who’re going all out, changing (we’d say: ruining) the country in front of our eyes. So you have it exactly backwards.

You don't like this country, Ed. Not if you hate seeing it change because the people who live here want it to. What you like is some false image you have of a static society that doesn't change - which is impossible - which is run by people you approve of in ways you approve of, democracy be damned.

What exactly are liberals/progressives doing to you that is so awful? Insisting that people have rights even though you wish they didn't?

[Dr. Ed 2]

No, it's more than just dead Jews -- they want an end to the Western Christian Liberal Enlightenment and seek to impose some weird form of Nihilist Marxism.

MAGA simply wants to go back to the 1980s.

[Nige]

See? MAGA will take grave offence at being called MAGA and criticised for their beliefs and actions, then in the same breath come out with this sort of shit.

The 1980s - when lgtbq were back in the closet, you could still say the n-word without pushback and sexual harassment in the workplace was just part of the job.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Those were "good old days" from the perspective of (and envisioned by) movement conservatives. The '50s were great days, from the bigoted, half-educated perspective -- 1950s or 1850s, they'd take either.

[Voize]

I’m seeing more and more political ads about the dangers of “MAGA supporters”.

Armchair, being fair-minded you must feel equally distraught over seeing more and more political ads about the dangers of the "radical Left", but I can't seem to find any comments from you about that.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Armchair has long since given up any semblance of thoughtfulness or integrity. But I still appreciate you pointing out his latest hypocrisy and persecution paranoia.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Armchair has long since given up any semblance of thoughtfulness or integrity.

Speaking of hypocrisy...

[NOVA Lawyer]

Speaking of hypocrisy

lol, sure Wuz. Sure.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

100% sure, in fact,

[Nige]

They seem to want all sorts of horrible things, including voting for a criminal rapist who tried to overturn an election - are we not allowed to notice this, and point it out?

[shawn_dude]

And let's not forget that peaceful and wonderful day where they smashed out the windows, and the heads of a few police officers, in the Capitol building to hunt down the Speaker of the House while chanting "Hang Mike Pence." They stole items from the building, smeared feces on the walls, and even frightened their own supporters in the building enough that they ran out the back door.

https://youtu.be/9EIeHq9P3q4?si=QSXc5AMrb5ViBkye

[bernard11]

You mean like Dr. Ed, who likes to threaten Civil War every time something he doesn't like happens? You don't consider that a dangerous attitude - the constant threats if violence, not just from that buffoon but others?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

THE VOLOKH CONSPIRACY

This white, male, conservative blog
with a thin, receding academic veneer
— dedicated to creating and preserving
safe spaces for America’s vestigial
right-wing bigots as modern America
passes them by — has operated
for no more than

FOUR (4)

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

TWENTY-TWO (22)
occasions (so far) during the
first three months of 2024
(that’s at least 22 exchanges
that have included a racial slur,
not just 22 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 and ugly content, here is something worthwhile for people wondering about the current protests.

This one is good, too.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Today's "the tour is about to begin" Rolling Stones moments:

First, a still-relevant social commentary that has been played live (Beacon Theater, for example) but not often.

Next, an earlier observation that has weathered well.

Sunday in Houston!

[ThePublius]

So, Arthur, I've purchased a couple of Stones vinyl LPs lately. I'm into vintage hi-fi, vinyl, and all kinds of music. I consider the Stones to be the quintessential rock and roll band. I've wanted to get Sticky Fingers, but haven't come across it in the record stores or thrifts yet. I can certainly find it online via Discogs, et.al. But I'm wondering, what, in your opinion, is the BEST Stones album?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The most consistent Stones album, in my judgment, is Let it Bleed. Not a clinker to be found: Gimme Shelter, Love in Vain, Country Honk, Live with Me, Let It Bleed, Midnight Rambler, You Got the Silver, Monkey Man, You Can't Always Get What You Want

The Stones album with the most points of brilliance, which perfected the "Stones sound," in my judgment, is Sticky Fingers: Brown Sugar, Can't You Hear Me Knocking, Dead Flowers, Wild Horses, Bitch, Sway, Moonlight Mile, Sister Morphine

The Stones album with the highest volume of quality, I believe, is probably Exile On Main Street: Tumbling Dice, Happy, All Down the Line, Torn and Frayed, Loving Cup, Shine A Light, Sweet Virginia, and the benefit of being a double album.

The most important Stones album likely is Some Girls. Most bands fall back, or apart, by the time the Stones produced this one. It was the foundation for 60 years of staying power, propelled by the addition of Ronnie Wood after some listless years. It demonstrated a mastery of music -- disco, country, punk, ballad, rock, Motown -- and met the challenge of younger artists and new styles.

The overarching achievement is the Beggars Banquet-Let It Bleed-Sticky Fingers-Exile on Main Street run (in four and one-half years).

Also interesting is how many great Stones songs (and hits) were non-album releases (Honky Tonk Women, Jumpin' Jack Flash, Satisfaction, Poison Ivy, 19th Nervous Breakdown, Paint It Black, etc.). Most bands labored to fill two sides, using a couple of hits to sell plenty of filler -- the Stones were pumping them out so quickly they sometimes didn't wait for an album release.

Also noteworthy: Beggars Banquet (Street Fighting Man, Sympathy for the Devil -- and Jumpin' Jack Flash should have been on it) doesn't make the discussion.

[BrotherMovesOn]

I think Beggars Banquet was a very important album for the band and much better than Their Satanic Majesties Request.
Whether it belongs in the discussion of the 'top tier' of their albums, is a decision I'm very happy that I don't have to make!

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Beggars Banquet is a fascinating album. It is the gateway from Chicago blues (electrified and perhaps gentrified) and channeling their boyhood heroes to a broader Stones palette of which the Stones were in control.

The songs become much more theatrical, with the music setting a stage and the singer creating a persona.

Gram Parsons (considered responsible for the Stones’ longstanding country tour) and Ry Cooder (from whom Keith Richards nicked open G tuning, the key to the kingdom) helped build that gateway, in my judgment, as did Marianne Faithful, who seems to have expanded Mick’s mind (without recreational drugs) in a way that produced the lyric to Sympathy for the Devil.

Jagger developed his voice in this period. Jimmy Miller, best producer the Stones (or, perhaps anyone) ever had, arrived. Keith became more confident and inventive in the studio (Brian Jones was leaving, in several respects); check the power of Street Fighting Man and consider that power derives from acoustic guitar and a bunch of knobs.

Beggars Banquet would be the best work of nearly any band that has recorded an album.

[ThePublius]

Thank you!

[ReaderY]

One of the great settler-colonialist civilizations of the past millenia was Islamic civilization. In the Middle Ages and early modern period it was more technologically advanced. This gave it a big head start on the West in settler-colonialism, sweeping through North Africa, India, and colonizing parts of China, Asia-Pacific, and Russia. It successfully colonized large swathes of Europe. The Moors conquored and held Iberia for centuries. The Ottoman empire conquored the Balkans, Ukraine, even parts of Poland, and twice besieged Vienna. Even after the Europeans gained a technological advantage beginning in the late 17th century and began driving the Ottomans back, various Islamic enpires were still subjugating and colonizing parts of Asia, to be surpassed by the West only in the 18th or 19th centuries.

It was a slave empire. Arab traders captured and dealt in slaves in the millions, rivalling the West. They enslaved a few million white Europeans, but most of their slaves were black.

The various Islamic redemptionist movements currently at work, even more than the American Southern redemptionist movement of the 19th and early 20th centuries, openly seek to restore the greatness of Islamic settler-colonialist empire, including slavery. And their underlying motivation is essentially the same as the American Redemptionists. How could it be that we could be defeated by our natural inferiors, people who rightfully ouught to be our slaves?

There are many strategic and tactical similarities between the American Redemptionists and today’s Islamic Redemptionists. Both sought stab-in-the-back explanations for their defeats. Both portray the victors as fundamentally illegitimate. Although the Ottoman Empire was never colonized by the West and and after its defeat in World War I was occupied for a couple of decades in the early 20th Century, not much longer than the European empires (Austria-Hungary and to some extent Russia and Germany) it had allied with and which were similarly occupied and split up, Islamic Redemptionists have managed to update the American Redemptionist terminology and have turned the carpetbaggers of old who propped former slaves up into power into “colonists.” As occurred in many parts of Europe, another of former provinces of the Ottoman Empire were given independence after an occupation; this behavior, which mirrored what happened with European empires, got protrayed as fundamentally colonialist.

A second tactic is a complete distortion of history. Much as the American Redemptionists claimed the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery, Islamic Redemptionists have flatly pretended the long history of Islamic settler-colonialism never happened. They’ve ignored the fact that they started the settler-colonialism game by invading Europe, colonizing large parts of it, and enslaving millions of Europeans. They ignored the fact that they were winning the settler-colonialism game for hundreds of years, and it was only a couple of centuries ago that the Europeans even began catching up with them. They portray settler-colonialism as an entirely European thing, not something they started and had had the upper hand in for a long time. The way the Islamic Redemptionists tell the tale, you would think they were just sitting calmly doing nothing when these Europeans sicced these Jews on them to rule over and oppress them, much the way the American Redemptionists suggested they were just minding their own business when the imperialist Yankees sicced the Negros on them.

I think the fact that they were historically a large-scale slave-based empire, and their redemptionists openly seek to restore slavery, goes a long way to explaining how closely their attitude towards Jewish independence resembles the American redemptionists attitude towards Negro political power. The American Redemptionists blew up every ordinary incident into a tale of savage atrocities. The way the American Redemptionists told it, Reconstruction was all one long horror story of atrocities, oppression, murder, rape, and theft. They portrayed the Yankees as seeking to wipe out their culture and way of life. Islamic Redemptionists have taken similar tactics, portraying everything the Jews ever did as one big act of “genocide.” Just as American Redemptionists flatly lied about their history, Islamic Redemptionists try not only to pretend they don’t have a long history of settler-colonialism, conqest and slavery, they have attempted the even bigger whopper of trying to pretend that the Jews who were there long before they first conquored and colonized Judea aren’t native to it.

The restoration of pure Islamic Rule has been closely followed by the restoration of slavery in the Islamic State, in Yemen, in Somalia, and elsewhere. Like the American Redemptionists before them, the Islamic Redemptionists are incensed that they were defeated by people they regard as their imferiors, and not only that, a people they regard as naturally and rightfully their slaves have been given power and in places even been in a position to rule over them. Like the American Redemptionists before them, they seek to restore the natural order.

Hamas, like other Islamic Redemptionist movements, seeks a “free Palestine” in the same way the American Redemptionists sought a free South. It seeks ultimately to enslave the area’s Jews, much as the Islamic State and the Houthis have enslaved religious minorities.

And in doing so, it has like the American Redeemers taken advantage of a certain favoring of the underdog and the defeated, a certain wistfulness and nostalgia for traditional rural culture and traditional loyalties, that have long been part of both the Western right and the Western left. And it has in particular taken advantage of Western public opinion’s extreme ignorance of history.

After all, the American Redeemers were highly successful for nearly a century in leveraging their defeat in the civil war and occupation during Reconstruction into practically a victory by exploiting the same sympathies, nostalgia, and prejudices Islamic redemptionists seek to exploit, turning history utterly on its head, portraying themselves as the victims, the Yankees as genocidal colonizing oppresessors, and the Negros as their tools and muscle.

The American Redemptionists succeeded as well as they did because of prejudices, deeply rooted in the American psyche, which made it easy to see African-Americans as brutal and savage, as inherently inclined to steal and kill. If Islamic Redemptionists succeed, it will be because of similar deep-seated prejudices about Jews.

[bernard11]

Interesting, Y, but maybe you shouldn't be referring to American Redemptionists in the past tense. They sound an awful lot like MAGAts to me.

[Mr. Bumble]

Well, this is interesting:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/justice/2979091/harvey-weinsteins-sexual-assault-conviction-overturned-by-new-york-appeals-court/

"The court ruled 4-3 that the judge had made “egregious errors” with how the trial was conducted and ruled that a new trial may be held.

“We conclude that the trial court erroneously admitted testimony of uncharged, alleged prior sexual acts against persons other than the complainants of the underlying crimes because that testimony served no material non-propensity purpose,” the majority opinion said."

[Bwaaah]

You are obviously pro-rape, anti-woman, and MAGA. (To some people, anyway.)

[Nige]

Weinstein good, Epstein bad?

[Mr. Bumble]

Judge bad. Epstein dead.

[Kazinski]

Weinstein is a miserable asshole, but there was also a moral panic that probably impacted his ability to get a fair trial.

[Nige]

A 'moral panic?'

[Bwaaah]

Did you miss the rise of pure, unforgiveable, incontrovertible evil?

Oh, wait. That wasn't moral panic. It was moral certainty.

Sorry. My mistake.

[Nige]

No, I remember a lot of women speaking out about sexual predators getting away with it because the system was stacked in their favour. This seems to prove them right.

[Kazinski]

Yeah, they crop up occasionally, when a sudden topical concern becomes such a pervasive part of the public.consciousness then oftentimes people in institutions go overboard to combat it. Sometimes its annually like the concern for “sex trafficking” whenever the Superbowl comes to town.

Or a temporary fad like Tipper Gore’s campaign against indecent lyrics.

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

And I’m not saying their aren’t legitimate concerns like teenagers exchanging nude photos, but they often end up going overboard like charging 14 year old girls for distributing child pornography because she texted a topless photo to a 15 year old boy.

[Nige]

If you want a modern moral panic, look no further than the anti-trans campaign or the populist hysteria around illegal immigrants. But what does it have to do with Weinstein?

[Mr. Bumble]

I expressed no opinion only presented the fact.

[Bwaaah]

(My assertion about you, in this context, was purely facetious.)

[Mr. Bumble]

I assumed as much but just wanted to be clear for Nige.

[Nige]

And I'm trying to work out the basis for your facetiousness. It was an odd response to a sexual predator winning an appeal.

[Mr. Bumble]

Fuck you!

[Nige]

The funny thing is, none of my responses were adressed to you.

[Bwaaah]

Fuck you!

(Just pleasuring myself here.)

[Nige]

No doubt.

[grb]

Nige : “It was an odd response to a sexual predator winning an appeal”

Speaking of odd responses to a sexual predator, consider this:

“A New York Times/Siena College poll asked voters how much they think former President Trump respects women: a lot, some, not much or not at all? A majority of men — 54 percent — said that Trump respects women either “a lot” or “some.” Just 31 percent of women saw things that way.”

I’m on record as saying polls become less trustworthy the farther they stray from hard policies and real choices. People tend to go tribal and support obvious absurdities – but even allowing that, this is totally bizarre. This “opinion” shouldn’t survive one of several dozen established facts, such as Trump’s stomach churning sexual obssession with daughter Ivanka. Biden’s campaign should dig up tape of one of the public interviews where Trump gleefully talks about his own daughter like she’s f***kable meat. Or the interview where he describes getting away with molesting women. Or when he openly spectulated how big another infant daughter's breasts would be. Just the other day I heard another one. Trump was asked whether his marriage to Melania would survive a disfiguring car crash. He took this slow easy ball right over the plate and replied: “How do the breasts look?”

Bet the wivey loved that one. But – hey – if she’s fine with him banging porn stars while she’s pregnant & drooling over Ivanka, I guess she’s got a thick skin.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/24/us/politics/trump-respects-women-most-men-say.html

[Balisane]

But it's okay for Biden to sniff teenage girls' hair? Or to let Obama peg him?

[grb]

OK. Let’s see if I have this straight : Trump can describe his own daughter as a “piece of ass” and discuss whether she’s gotten breast implants on a national radio broadcast. Over & over, he demands people confirm how “hot” she is and repeatedly says he’d be doing her if it wasn’t for that whole fatherhood thing.

In a 2015 interview with Rolling Stone, Trump celebrated Ivanka Trump’s “beauty” and said, “If I weren’t happily married and, ya know, her father …” This led one commentator to note Trump’s marriage situation shouldn’t have been a factor, much less the one he led with.

A real display of nauseating creepiness came on the Wendy Williams show in 2013. Father and daughter were asked what they shared in common. Poor Ivanka gamely said “golf and real estate”. A leering Trump answered: “Well, I was going to say sex but I can’t relate that.” Just imagine Ivanka’s mortification, embarassment, and humiliation.

According to White House aides, Trump talked about his daughter’s “breasts, her backside, and what it might be like to have sex with her.” It reached a point where former White House chief of staff John Kelly had to remind Trump that Ivanka was his daughter. Afterward, Kelly retold the story in visible disgust. Trump, he said, was “a very, very evil man”.

Against this, smelling hair ?!?

[Kazinski]

How about Joe Biden showering with his daughter inappropriately?

https://x.com/SeibtNaomi/status/1320964624448167936

[Sarcastr0]

Hey Kaz, you’re linking to right-wing propaganda again. Stop doing that.

Why are you allergic to checking if your bombshells are real and not lies?

https://reason.com/volokh/2024/04/18/thursday-open-thread-187/?comments=true#comment-10528462

DMN put it well so I won’t repeat it here: “You’re of course lying about the diary, referring to a made up page that wasn’t in the diary and that doesn’t say what you pretend it says.”

[grb]

Kazinski : ” …. Biden ….. showering ….. (etc)”

Two Points :

1. When Ashley Biden moved out of an apartment, someone stole a bunch of stuff including her diary. It first went to a far-right news media source who didn’t trust it. Then it was leaked by a disgruntled employee to whomever would take it, though Trump’s own campaign refused.

By now, multiple versions are in circulation. As part of the ongoing effort by right-wing-world to find matching charges against Biden corresponding to every Trump misdeed, there’s a meme claiming Ashley feared Biden would come into the shower with her. They often list a specific page, sometimes no. 16, other times no. 25. It constantly changes. But nothing remotely resembling the quote is found anywhere in the 112 pages of the diary.

Wouldn’t it be better if MAGA-types just accepted they worship an addled buffoon, career criminal, and loathsome turd of a human being? Then Kazinski wouldn’t have to work himself into a frenzy over one dubious Biden claim after another.

2. Now the part more in sorrow than anger. A while back, Kazinski took a stab at promoting the Shokin Meme. No surprise there, though that particular MAGA fairy tale is grotesquely at variance with reality. But Kazinski did something amazing. He tried to make the case using legtimate facts.

It was like stumbling across an albino alligator in the wild, an event astounding in its rarity. You’ve heard Charlie don’t surf? Well MAGA don’t do real facts. Needless to say, he was forced to constantly retreat because what he was quoting didn’t support his claims, yet he tried at least. But – sigh – since then there’s been a major regression. Kazinski is back in the fantasy biz again.

[Kazinski]

Its not a lie, the woman who found Ashleigh s diary read it and disseminated it was charged with stealing it by the FBI which validated is provenance.

You haven’t provided any evidence to refute it, and Ashleigh has never denied nits hers and she wrote those words.

Same old story as with Hunter's laptoop, years of denial, claims its forged, but not by Hunter, and finally the FBI confirms its whole contents.

[Nige]

'You haven’t provided any evidence to refute it,'

Refute a picture on twitter? This *is* like Hunter's laptop - loads of completely unverified claims being thrown around to obscure the nothing at the core.

[Sarcastr0]

Ugh. Kaz in the Pedo Joe right wing fever swamps.

He just continues to disappoint.

[David Nieporent]

Same old story as with Hunter’s laptoop, years of denial, claims its forged, but not by Hunter, and finally the FBI confirms its whole contents.

Same old story, yes, in that it never happened. The FBI has never confirmed its contents. The FBI has never discussed its contents.

The FBI has effectively (though I believe only unofficially) confirmed that it is in possession of a laptop that it believes to have been Hunter Biden's. But anyone on the planet can say, "I obtained a copy of the laptop's hard drive; here's a document from that drive showing Hunter Biden emailing Osama Bin Laden about the upcoming 9/11 attacks." The fact that the FBI (sort of) says, "This laptop we have is genuine" in no way means that this particular email is actually from the laptop. Remember that any purported laptop contents floating around by definition are not from the FBI.

News outlets have subsequently looked at the purported copies of the laptop circulating around, and have only been able to authenticate a small percentage of the files and emails purportedly from the laptop.

(And at the time the NYP reported the story in October 2020, nobody even had a circulating copy to examine.)

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

No discussion of Melania Trump should overlook her false claims to have earned an undergraduate degree, her sketchy (and hypocritical) immigration record, and her reliance on (hypocritical) chain migration to get her parents into the United States.

No discussion of Donald Trump and Ivanka Trump should omit the reports and photographs.

Oops, sorry, that's former Advisor to the President Ivanka Trump.

[grb]

And there's this famous photo with the copulating parrots :

https://twitter.com/bloggerheads/status/693818465086488576?lang=en

[Ed Grinberg]

See kids, this is how we do criminal law now: we label someone something -- "sexual predator," "insurrectionist," whatever -- and then we throw the book at them -- to hell with any semblance of due process! How "woke"!

[Noscitur a sociis]

Uh, isn’t the basis for this appeal that the prosecution was allowed to present far too much evidence that Weinstein was a sexual predator?

[Ed Grinberg]

Maybe if you read the comment I'm replying to -- which, I admit, is rather difficult with this comment-system -- you'd understand what I'm saying.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Unless I'm missing something, the comment you were replying to is:

And I’m trying to work out the basis for your facetiousness. It was an odd response to a sexual predator winning an appeal.

If your complaint isn't that Weinstein is being unfairly labeled a sexual predator, what is it that you're trying to say?

[Sarcastr0]

Are...are you saying Harvey Weinstein is innocent?

[Ed Grinberg]

See my reply to Noscitur a sociis directly above.

[Nige]

You're saying people get charged with crimes, then tried for the crimes, yes? He was convicted of rape in California, you know.

[Bwaaah]

See kids, this is how we do criminal law now: we label someone something — “sexual predator,” “insurrectionist,” whatever — and then we throw the book at them — to hell with any semblance of due process! How “woke”!

I find this offensive. Your language is abusive. And it’s sexually predatory. (Your words, not mine.) Your language is sexually abusive.

I think you sexually abused me. (I’m just sayin’)

[Nige]

Man, your political ideology is SO complex and different.

[Commenter_XY]

You were triggered. 🙂

[apedad]

Weinstein will remain in prison for a 16-year sentence after he was convicted of rape in 2022 in Los Angeles though.

[Ed Grinberg]

I am not a criminal law specialist, but this certainly seems like a pretty basic rule; I think I even remember it from law school. What was the trial judge thinking?!

[Bob from Ohio]

“The court ruled 4-3 that the judge had made “egregious errors” with how the trial was conducted and ruled that a new trial may be held."

Trump news from 2026.

[Estragon]

LOL!!!

I encourage you to compare Don and Harvey at every opportunity! Do it early often and loud!

Do you think Harvey farted as much in court? Will he fall asleep during the re-trial?

[M L]

Ukraine-Israel Aid Bill Includes ‘$3.5 Billion to Supercharge Mass Migration from the Middle East’

President Joe Biden’s pro-migration border chief is opening new processing centers for Muslim migrants, amid pro-HAMAS riots in U.S. cities and just after Congress granted $3.5 billion more for migration within the $95 billion aid package for Ukraine and Israel.

“Not only did the ‘Foreign Aid’ package do nothing to secure our own border, it included $3.5 Billion to supercharge mass migration from the Middle East,” said a tweet from Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO)....

...The package does not include any funds to help rebuild Americans’ border defenses against migration. but it does include $481 million to settle migrants in U.S. cities and $3.5 billion to expand migration programs worldwide.

https://www.breitbart.com/immigration/2024/04/25/bidens-deputies-to-import-more-muslim-migrants/

[#FFFFFFPride]

Maybe the Senator should've done something to stop it?

[M L]

That would be a departure from anything the federal government or perhaps the "uniparty" if you will, has done for 50+ years now.

[jb]

Or maybe the House shouldn't have shot down the Senate plan to help secure the border, since it's obviously incapable of generating any ideas of it's own.

[#FFFFFFPride]

Do you actually believe that the Senate bill actually secured the border?
Do you not know any of the criticisms of that bill?

Or are you a gullible fool who sees an Act's title and think it's descriptive of what it actually does?

[jb]

I believe the Senate bill did a lot more to secure the border than doing nothing, which is the only alternative the House majority seems to have in mind.

In particular, making it harder to claim amnesty and disposing of amnesty cases more quickly would have addressed one of the principal structural problems with the current situation. It also provided significantly more money for border enforcement, which is the exact thing that Senator Schmitt is complaining was missing from the foreign aid package.

AFAICT, most of the criticism was bullshit ginned up after Trump decided it would be bad if anyone tried to actually make progress on border security prior to the election but do tell us what you think was wrong with it.

[Brett Bellmore]

Most of the criticism I've seen is based on two things:

1: The threshold for emergency border rules.
a: It was set higher than any level of illegal immigration we'd ever seen before Biden took office, which kind of looked like legitimizing his increase. What, only FOUR times higher than before he took office didn't qualify as an emergency?
b: It phased out over the course of 3 years.
c: It could be waived by Presidential decree, so if Biden remained in office it would never actually take effect.
d: By contrast, the pro-immigration provisions were permanent.

2: The whole "What's the value in changing the law when the existing law isn't being enforce anyway" issue. Really, there's just no case for making any concessions in return for changing the law, when you're dealing with an administration that doesn't feel obligated to enforce existing law. They'd just fail to enforce the NEW law!

This last one is really central: You can't make bargains unless there's some reason to believe you'll actually GET your end of the bargain. There hasn't been any reason to believe that since, roughly, the Reagan administration, when they negotiated an amnesty in return for stricter enforcement, and only the amnesty actually happened.

The House alternative would be, "Start enforcing existing law and maybe we'll have something to discuss."

[#FFFFFFPride]

That last paragraph is just so absurd.

There were no changes in law between Trump and Biden.

The premises of that belief are:

- Biden can't do anything without new laws.
- Trump couldn't claim his influence is what finally got the Senate to act.
- Conservatives are like Federal employees and often leverage suffering of citizens for political gain (see Washington Monument Syndrome)

[Sarcastr0]

1. Cannot trust a bare '$3.5 billion more for migration.' Breitbart lies.

2. This is about legal migration. So what's the issue?

3. Is the point here that Muslim migration is bad?

4. Can "supercharge mass migration" be anything more than fearmongering bullshit?

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

We should want immigrants to have liberal values and so Muslim immigrants are bad.

[Ed Grinberg]

I agree, we should want immigrants to have classical liberal values. I further agree that, by this standard, Muslim immigrants are particularly bad. (But then so are the people already here who call themselves "liberals.")

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Those are progressives. Liberals are like Bill Maher.

[Sarcastr0]

A classical liberal value is treating people like individuals, not prejudging based on some general sense of their demographics.

Quit with the cultural fragility and have some faith.

[bernard11]

But then so are the people already here who call themselves “liberals.”)

Fuck you, Ed, and your purported, but non-existent, love for the country.

[grb]

Sam Bankman-Fried : “We should want immigrants to have liberal values and so Muslim immigrants are bad”

At almost regular intervals throughout our country’s history, huckster demagogues stoke dupe mobs over immigrants. And it’s always about wild fear and ….. wait for it ….. “values”.

The Irish didn’t have the right “values”.
The Italians didn’t have the right “values”.
The Jews didn’t have the right “values”.
The Chinese didn’t have the right “values”.
The Japanese didn’t have the right “values”.

And so on. The same shtick, over and over. Eventually the scam grows stale and the mobs drift off to more real concerns. Then history proves the hucksters wrong. Always. Every damn time. No exceptions.

You’d think people would learn after the sixth or seventh time this dance plays out. But – I’m sorry to say – there are always people eager to blame everything on the latest Other. Hell, we just went through a period where the GOP stirred its base into hysterical frenzy over the “national threat” of transexuals. If people are dumb enuff to fall for that, they’ll fall for anything.

[apedad]

As oral arguments at the Supreme Court on the question of Donald Trump’s immunity from criminal prosecution got underway Thursday, Trump’s lawyer started out by saying a president could assassinate a political rival if it could be considered an “official act.”

“If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person and he orders the military … to assassinate him, is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity?” Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked Trump attorney John Sauer.

Sauer, invoking an argument he made previously before Thursday replied: “It could well be an official act.”

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/that-could-well-be-an-official-act-trump-attorney-tells-scotus-a-president-assassinating-rival-could-be-immune-from-prosecution/

JFC....

Is THIS what you REALLY want?!?

[Balisane]

It's what I want. America would be a better place if a Pinochet type gets into office and commandeers the military to wage jihad against leftist agitators. Imagine how great America would be if these whiny fairy professors who teach critical race theory were thrown from helicopters.

[Estragon]

You huckleberries have really sapped the shock value of this one by repeating it so often. Might be time for new material…

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

.

Imagine how great America would be if these whiny fairy professors who teach critical race theory were thrown from helicopters.

Instead, I expect to continue to see hard-right professors leaving mainstream law school faculties.

Maybe, when no longer being inflicted on law students, Prof. Volokh will have time to reconsider his "civility standards" claims and his viewpoint-driven, partisan censorship of comments at this blog.

[Dr. Ed 2]

It's not what I want but well what we might get.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Another lie from Dr. Ed!

[Nelson]

So if Trump's argument prevails and Biden decides to have Trump killed, you're on board?

[Nige]

If Trump's argument prevails, every complaint they make about a sitting president using the legal system to go after his political enemies is redundant.

[Absaroka]

Well, I obviously don't want presidents offing people.

But remember that Anwar al-Awlaki was a native born US citizen, and he got droned.

So what's the rule? Obama gets prosecuted for murder? You could say it's OK if it is overseas, perhaps, but I wouldn't really want to get offed on my Paris vacation. Somehow just letting the president decide 'well, he needed killing' doesn't offer much comfort.

So what should the rule be for presidents having US citizens whacked extra-judicially?

[apedad]

I've argued before that I think the Constitution follows the Flag, i.e., wherever the US acts (including outside the US), it must follow constitutional constraints - with the understanding that military activities may be bound by treaties and not specific constitutional requirements, e.g., 4, 5, 6A.

So a lot would depend if al-Awlaki was considered an active combatant.

I also fully agree that the US is not always the good guy (speaking as a former federal officer who was mainly stationed overseas).

[Sarcastr0]

I think the very uncertainty here cries out for some kind of policy, at least going forwards.

[Absaroka]

"So a lot would depend if al-Awlaki was considered an active combatant"

And who gets to decide that? Can Biden declare Trump an active combatant?

TBH, a lot of this strikes me as something that has to be a norms thing rather than black letter law. We haven't been great about keeping norms lately, but sometimes they are the only choice.

[apedad]

It is not a clean-cut line but the Geneva Conventions (which we're part of but not all of the Protocols), gives some definitions like between Privileged Combatants and Unprivileged Combatants.

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

[jb]

If we have to choose between a President second-guessing already pretty questionable decisions like droning US citizens on the one hand, or the Supreme Court proclaiming that a President can do literally anything he wants with no consequences, I'm definitely on the side of letting all of the Presidents sweat a little...

[Absaroka]

Fair point!

[David Nieporent]

If we have to choose between a President second-guessing already pretty questionable decisions like droning US citizens on the one hand, or the Supreme Court proclaiming that a President can do literally anything he wants with no consequences, I’m definitely on the side of letting all of the Presidents sweat a little.

I agree, but also (as I've pointed out before) the decision to prosecute is going to be ultimately made by a subsequent president. A sitting president is not going to permit the prosecution of a past president for the sort of decisions the sitting president can see himself making, like the use of the armed forces overseas. So the notion that the president is going to be looking over his shoulder is vastly overstated.

[Martinned2]

the decision to prosecute is going to be ultimately made by a subsequent president.

That sounds like an excellent reason for putting the decision to prosecute at a bit more distance from the politicians.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Trump’s first military order was for SEAL Team 6 to assassinate his little daughter!! Lolololololololololol!!!!

[theobromophile]

So Biden could have Trump assassinated and would be immune from criminal prosecution?

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

It depends…did Biden call Trump a “poop head” like the little American girl that Trump assassinated??? Lololololololololol!!!

[shawn_dude]

After which he would lose his re-election because too many Democrats and Dem-voting independents would abandon him.

If I wanted to live in a country where the media was put under the government's thumb and the president-for-life could assassinate his competition, I'd move to one of the countries DJT openly admires.

[Nige]

Why would he need to be re-elected? He could sieze power in a coup and it would be within his powers.

[bernard11]

That's what Trump is arguing in front of SCOTUS.

[Moderation4ever]

I noticed that in todays argument the defense against used the "it could be an official act", this time if the President call ed out for a military coup. It is clearly lawyer talk to keep them from having to make a definite statement.

[Randy Sax]

Question for the lawyers;
Lawyers are notoriously expensive on a per hour rate. I'm a structural engineer. My employer charges clients a significant amount of money for my time. I see less than half the charged amount in my paycheck. (there are good reasons for that, I'm not complaining). Does lawyering work the same way? Does what the firm charges and what the lawyer takes home differ significantly?

[NOVA Lawyer]

Yes.

[Commenter_XY]

Damn, that has to suck (to see the 'keep' by the Firm).

[M L]

Yes and no. A junior associate at a big law firm, for example, has no marketable knowledge or skills with regard to practicing law that would allow them to charge the rates they are being billed at or even do the kind of work they are doing, outside of the context of them being a junior associate at such a firm.

[David Nieporent]

Not to mention that the junior associate isn't generating the business for the firm in the first place.

[not guilty]

"Does lawyering work the same way? Does what the firm charges and what the lawyer takes home differ significantly?"

Yes, it does differ, even in the case of a sole practitioner. There are those pesky items like rent, utilities, staff salaries, supplies, etc. that need to be paid before the lawyer takes home a penny.

[M L]

Correct. Even if you are an equity partner in a law firm, there is a lot of overhead. And that overhead comes out of your billable rate. But if you have a large book of business and you employ other attorneys to work for you in a profitable way, then you are able to leverage your business for higher profits.

[M L]

Lawyering generally works the same way, but one big difference is that non-lawyers cannot own law firms. So you don't have publicly held law firms. You don't have law firms being purchased by private equity or other investors. Generally the owners of a law firm are lawyers practicing law at that law firm or who built the business of that law firm.

But these rules are probably going to change (perhaps, a cynic would say, as baby boomers look for one last big opportunity to "sell out"). It's already changed in the UK.

[jb]

If we have "non profit" hospitals with basically no charitable mission and with executives encouraged to generate as much profit as possible, I don't see why law firms should be treated as special snowflakes where "normal rules of capitalism" don't apply.

Having said that, I'd much rather go in the other direction and put more restrictions on ownership for certain types of institution than the other way around. But lawyers aren't somehow more important to society than doctors, credit rating agencies or television stations so I don't see the rationale for them to be one of the few holdouts with these sorts of ownership restrictions.

[M L]

Those hospitals probably should not be "non profit," at least not in any tax advantaged way.

But I gather your point is, if nondoctors can own medical practices, why can't nonlawyers own law firms?

I think historically the rule has been based on the argument that nonlawyers, who are not subject to the licensing rules and have not sworn to uphold certain ethical obligations, should not have decisionmaking authority in the practice of law.

I don't have any strong opinion on the issue.

But I have to amend my original post because actually, I just remember that engineering firms can't necessarily be owned by persons who are not licensed engineers, either. Many states have restrictions on firms that offer engineering services to the public being owned by persons who are not licensed.

Likewise for dentists. A whole industry has cropped up for creating "dental support organizations" or DSOs which are a vehicle for private equity firms to "own" dental practices without actually "owning" dental practices at all. In all but a few states, a person who is not a licensed dentist cannot own a dental practice. So they create these complicated agreements to basically direct all of the profits and put all of the "business decisions" into the hands of the DSO while the "medical decisions" remain in the hands of the licensed dentist to whatever narrow extent the law requires.

I personally do not have experience with medical practices or hospitals in this regard but I believe those face similar restrictions and have similar types of workaround arrangements. It appears the vast majority of states require that medical practices are owned by licensed persons only.

[Commenter_XY]

Why can't a non-lawyer own a law firm?

[Bob from Ohio]

Because the state supreme courts say so.

[Brett Bellmore]

The state supreme courts being run by... lawyers, of course.

The practice of law is a classic labor guild, shielded from any legal problems only because the guild runs the legal system.

[Bob from Ohio]

Its good to be the king!

[M L]

How are they shielded from legal problems? They are subject to malpractice claims. And they don't get to enjoy the limited liability shield of an LLC or corporation as much as most business do, but instead remain individually liable for their work product.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Because non-lawyers aren't subject to professional conduct rules and can't be held accountable if the firms they're directing violate the rules of legal ethics.

[Commenter_XY]

Why can't the owner be held accountable for the actions of the employees? I am not following that. We hold owners of businesses accountable in the courts all the time, every day.

[not guilty]

Lawyers are held accountable for the conduct of non-lawyer employees. Rule 5.3 of the ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct states:

With respect to a nonlawyer employed or retained by or associated with a lawyer:

(a) a partner, and a lawyer who individually or together with other lawyers possesses comparable managerial authority in a law firm shall make reasonable efforts to ensure that the firm has in effect measures giving reasonable assurance that the person's conduct is compatible with the professional obligations of the lawyer;

(b) a lawyer having direct supervisory authority over the nonlawyer shall make reasonable efforts to ensure that the person's conduct is compatible with the professional obligations of the lawyer; and

(c) a lawyer shall be responsible for conduct of such a person that would be a violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct if engaged in by a lawyer if:

(1) the lawyer orders or, with the knowledge of the specific conduct, ratifies the conduct involved; or

(2) the lawyer is a partner or has comparable managerial authority in the law firm in which the person is employed, or has direct supervisory authority over the person, and knows of the conduct at a time when its consequences can be avoided or mitigated but fails to take reasonable remedial action.

Familiarity with the professional obligations of the lawyer is a necessary component of this kind of supervision of non-lawyer employees.

[Kazinski]

Its similar in the IT consulting industry, where often the pay rate is half or less than what the client is being charged.

When I was able to switch firms from one that was taking 50%, to 10% (+ employers share of payroll taxes which are ~ 8%), I got a significant pay bump.

I had a friend who was a communications engineer when cell phone network was being built out. When he found out what he was getting compared to what he was billing at, he quit and founded his own engineering consulting company charging just 20% of the billing rate and got rich overnight.

[ReaderY]

Trump’s lawyer has been conceding a surprising amount in the Trump immunity appeal. But he has offered some fairly complicated distinctions.

I am wondering if the strategy is a now basically a time stall. If Trump’s lawyer can get the Court to devise a sufficiently complicated standard for what constitutes an official act, the defense might be able to get the case tied up in proceedings in District Court for months arguing about how to apply the standard, followed by another round of appeals to the Court of Appeals and Supreme Court. By the time all those get sorted out, the election can easily be over, and if Trump wins he can simply appoint an Attorney General who will dismiss the special prosecutor and end the prosecution. Or he could pardon himself.

Either way, Trump may have decided he doesn’t need to win in court. He simply needs to make a show and stall the proceedings long enough to win by other means.

After all, Jan 6 showed he doesn’t necessarily have to win elections either. There too, he just has to make enough of a show to get into office by other means.

[tylertusta]

Trump’s lawyer has been conceding a surprising amount in the Trump immunity appeal. But he has offered some fairly complicated distinctions.

I'm not surprised. Trump has argued that immunity has limits at all stages of this little drama.

I think that the media has (perhaps deliberately) muddled Trump's arguments and has thus made Trump's position look more expansive and extreme than it actually is.

I am wondering if the strategy is a now basically a time stall.

I'm sure that Trump might appreciate a delay in the DC case while the district court tries to figure out whatever guidance SCOTUS eventually gives.

But Trump would be much happier if the Court finds that criminal immunity exists for Presidents and the charges against him get dismissed on that basis.

[Krayt]

Concern that this must happen before the election exposes the sordid underbelly it is about attacking a political opponent, not disinterested concern for rule of law, which does not care about that.

On the other hand, he gets to appeal stuff, and trying to delay past the election is fair game for him, in light of this. Again, this in theory has nothing to do with tagging him before an election to hurt his chances, right? So what do you care, as you, let's coin a new verb, facetious about?

In short, you wanting it before the election, and him wanting it after, are not ethically equivalent opposites.

We are the Disinterested Knights of Rule of Law.

[Krayt]

There was another professor elsewhere, who, while facetiousing about, faceted it was important for The People to see prompt, assured prosecutions of lawbreakers to bolster their confidence, as argument to not delay, without bringing up the problematic issue of needing it before the election for political reasons. Props to him for at least implicitely acknowledging it was a possible problem.

Except in every other case, especially capital punishment cases, where delay in spite of the exact same sentiment of The People needing prompt blah blah blah.

Let’s all pray for a giant asteroid to smear this worthless planet against the celestial crystal spheres.

[jb]

For cases about whether or not Trump tried to tamper with the previous election it seems pretty important to know the answer before we have another one.

Edited to add: also worth noting that it's also important for these trials to happen before the next election because otherwise (for the federal cases we're talking about here at least) Trump can simply order the justice department to stop pursuing them. So waiting til after the election may very well be the same as not resolving the cases at all. Which is great if you're on Team Trump but not so great if you were interested in some abstract notion of justice.

[Brett Bellmore]

"For cases about whether or not Trump tried to tamper with the previous election it seems pretty important to know the answer before we have another one."

Then maybe they shouldn't have waited so long before filing the charges?

[tylertusta]

What a novel idea!

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : “Then maybe they shouldn’t have waited so long before filing the charges?”

On the other hand, maybe Trump shouldn’t have tried to brazenly steal an election he lost. Or stiff repeated efforts to get him to return government documents per the law. Or grotesquely inflate the value of his properties when applying for loans. Or crudely defame the woman who accused him of rape. Or run a fraudulent charity. Or operate a scam university.

But – hey – if you’re a lifelong criminal, those are the kind of things you do. His phony foundation was exposed as following none of the legal requirements of a charity. And like all the other examples above, Trump didn’t just bend the law, he flouted it altogether. It was effectively a slush fund to buy baubbles for his golf clubhouses or pay off business expenses. But someone noticed he also used his charity to pay little Don Jr’s $7 Boy Scout membership cost.

Just try and get your head around that, willya? A billionaire resorts to fraud over a seven dollar fee. Any normal person would have just opened his wallet, but Trump had to cheat, scam, and break the law. There are dope dealers on street corners like that. They prefer a crooked dollar to a legit one. It’s the criminal mind in all its bent twisted toxic “glory”.

Thus Trump. Without daddy’s millions he’d probably be on some street corner running a three-card monte (or some other petty scam).

[not guilty]

A person suspected of a crime has no right to be arrested as soon as probable cause for the arrest is available.

In light of the Speedy Trial Act, a federal prosecutor should not indict until he is prepared to try the case within 70 days. A thorough investigation prior to charging is not a bad thing.

[tylertusta]

I wholeheartedly agree with everything you said.

However, if the actual goal of the prosecution is to bring to trial/convict someone by an arbitrary deadline, then it follows that the prosecution should have charged/arrested/indicted that person well in advance to meet it.

It is no substitute to ask the courts to trample on a defendant's right to effective assistance of counsel because the government wants to meet an arbitrary deadline.

[Krychek_2]

I have to laugh at Trump having complained for years about fake news, only to now be the defendant in a trial in which his own fake news tactics are being exposed.

Also, does he have a single friend in the courtroom? I'd like to think that if I were on trial my spouse and at least some family members and friends might show up to offer moral support. But I guess the way you treat people really can come back to bite you.

[Moderation4ever]

What I found funny was David Pecker's story of the illegitimate child by a maid. The story is false, but Trump reaction to it was different. Normally Trump goes on the attack when accused of something, but for this story he was looking to bury it quickly. I have to wonder if there is some truth or a different related story that caused the Trump to want to keep the story quite even knowing it was untrue.

[windycityattorney]

Its probably because she is an immigrant and he spent most of his campaign calling all them rapists and drug dealers. If Trump himself was employing a ton of migrants (which of course he almost certainly is) it could look bad among his core base of racist dickheads.

[mydisplayname]

Good pickup in today's oral argument: once a killing has been declared illegal, anyone can be prosecuted for it. The State Department has declared the killing of 21,000 Palestinians to be unlawful; accordingly, Biden and/or Netanyahu can be charged with murder (or abetting murder) by any prosecutor in any jurisdiction.

Interesting that there is no disagreement on the foregoing... and ironic that in accusing Trump of hanky-panky, Biden must now defend outright murder.

[tylertusta]

You see, when my does it, it's high-minded statesmanship. You your side does it, it's a crime.

(This argument is why we very well might get a majority of the Court in favor of immunity)

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

The State Department has declared the killing of 21,000 Palestinians to be unlawful

Well, no. It didn't declare any number of killings to have been "unlawful". What it said was, "Significant human rights issues included credible reports of: arbitrary or unlawful killings...".

[David Nieporent]

The State Department has declared the killing of 21,000 Palestinians to be unlawful;

It has not, not to mention that it is not a judicial authority and any "declarations" to that are of no legal effect in an American courtroom.

accordingly, Biden and/or Netanyahu can be charged with murder (or abetting murder)

What act by Biden constitutes either murder or "abetting murder" under U.S. law?

by any prosecutor in any jurisdiction.

No, people can only be prosecuted where their purported crimes were committed.

[tylertusta]

Based on today’s oral arguments, I think that there are at least five Justices in favor of criminal immunity for Presidents. It remains to be seen how expansive that immunity is and what guidance that the Court will provide to lower courts.

If there are five Justices in favor of some form of criminal immunity, then Jack Smith’s dream of putting Trump on trial in DC before November is probably gone now.

That is in addition to the probably impending collapse of at least two of Smith’s charges against Trump under 1512.

[tylertusta]

Another Court watcher noticed something significant: Every single Justice seem to have at least endorsed the idea that Presidents have criminal immunity for their "core" Article II powers.

That's a direct rejection of Chutkan's opinion at the district court as well as the DCCA panel decision.

[David Nieporent]

That’s a direct rejection of Chutkan’s opinion at the district court as well as the DCCA panel decision.

It isn't.

[tylertusta]

Are you saying that the lower courts found that immunity exists?

Chutkan: "Former Presidents enjoy no special conditions on their federal criminal liability. Defendant may be subject to federal investigation, indictment, prosecution, conviction, and punishment for any criminal acts undertaken while in office."

https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/chutkan-denies-trump-motions-to-dismiss.pdf

DCCA Panel: "For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant. But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution."

https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/1AC5A0E7090A350785258ABB0052D942/$file/23-3228-2039001.pdf

If you can point out where either lower court agreed that former Presidents would enjoy some level of criminal immunity, I'd be happy to see it.

[David Nieporent]

Start with page 21 of the DC Circuit opinion:

Former President Trump misreads Marbury and its progeny. Properly understood, the separation of powers doctrine may immunize lawful discretionary acts but does not bar the federal criminal prosecution of a former President for every official act.

And then read on from there.

[tylertusta]

Where the panel claims that immunity exists, but only for acts that are “lawful,” then there is no immunity at all. Here’s the panel again:

The cases following Marbury confirm that we may review the President’s actions when he is bound by law, including by federal criminal statutes. (Emphasis mine)

…so, in other words, no criminal immunity.

This is the circular reasoning that the panel employed, one that’s likely going to get all nine Justices onboard with reversing at least that part of the panel decision.

As CJ Roberts put it yesterday:

It says simply a former president can be prosecuted because he’s being prosecuted.

[windycityattorney]

I am not so sure I agree. I thought there might be a majority on the 'private acts vs official acts' dichotomy... where purely private acts of a then sitting president do not enjoy immunity whereas official acts might... but then there was a series of questions trying to flesh out what 'official' meant and it all kinda went sideways.

I didn't listen to the argument or read a full transcript...just snippets of live blogging from people in the room.

I don't think that Congress would have to say in each and every criminal law that it also 'applies to the President." I think Alito suggested that "clear statement rule." That is ridiculous to me.

I commented in another thread that the Court likes to establish bright line rules. And maybe its as broad as a 'purely private acts of a sitting President are not criminally immune' and remand to district court to determine which of the allegations alleged are private.

But again, presidents can do official acts using improper means so i don't think they would embrace a broad rule that ALL official acts are immune. There was a bribery example. A coup example etc...
I also dont think they are buying Trump's counsel argument that any prosecution *must* follow impeachment and conviction by the Senate. So this whole ordeal is a toss up to me. I am guessing remand to apply some made up test of what is immune and what is not. You know, a strictly textualist/originalist ruling from the self-proclaimed originalist majority (Ha!)

[tylertusta]

I’ll summarize how it looks from where I sit. Much of oral argument was about trying to discover where the line for immunity should be drawn. It seems like everyone, including the petitioner and the respondent (as a concession), was in agreement that “private acts” were not immune but “official acts” were. The question was what constitutes an “official act” and where that line should be drawn.

On this, I think that Sauer had the better argument in front of this Court. Dreeben probably saw he was on a sinking ship based on how he was trying to steer the Justices towards Orange Man Bad arguments. He ranted quite a bit, and it might have cost him ACB’s vote.

Based on the Justices responses (with a disclaimer that oral arguments don’t always reflect the final outcome), it looks like there are three camps:

The first camp is the three liberal Justices, who are settling on immunity only being present for “core” powers, like the pardon power.

The second camp is Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh. They appear to be saying that criminal immunity exists at roughly the same place as civil immunity does in Fitzgerald: absolute immunity within the outer perimeter of the President’s duties.

The third camp is ACB and maybe Roberts. ACB expressed that perhaps immunity goes beyond “core” powers but not as expansive as immunity in Fitzgerald. She indicated that Presidents should be able to get an interlocutory appeal before going to trial.

If oral arguments are an indicator on how the Justices are leaning, that’s at five votes (perhaps six depending on what Roberts does) in favor of some kind of immunity from criminal prosecution for Presidents.

If SCOTUS reverses the DCCA panel (a strong possibility at this point) and the controlling opinion is ACB’s position, then that will definitely require Chutkan perform fact-finding on what constitutes official acts that are thus immune. She would have to do this before it got to a jury.

Trump will then get to make additional interlocutory appeals and the case will go back up to the DCCA and SCOTUS.

[windycityattorney]

Thanks for the reply. I am going to try to read a transcript when its available. I was getting a lot of the questions; but not the responses from the litigators.

What will be interesting is how they justify (legal philosophy wise) what you described as likely (presidents enjoy at least some immunity)….and I imagine they will have to resort to separation of powers.

Jackson and others seemed to foresee this with comments about the founders breaking away from a King and the attempt to NOT install someone with similar power in the US (along with other general concepts like ‘no man is above the law' etc…). It should be an interesting decision with multiple opinions I am guessing.

[tylertusta]

What will be interesting is how they justify (legal philosophy wise) what you described as likely (presidents enjoy at least some immunity)….and I imagine they will have to resort to separation of powers.

There's a couple of ways that they could go about it.

One of the possibilities is something that you mentioned: the clear statements rule.

The other way would be the separation of powers, which was also the basis of the Court's holding in Fitzgerald that found civil immunity for the President.

[not guilty]

The oral argument helped to clarify the respective litigants' positions regarding the scope of a former president's immunity from criminal prosecution. The Court of Appeals categorically rejected absolute immunity. I surmise that SCOTUS will recognize that immunity attaches under some circumstances. Neither advocate before SCOTUS took an absolutist position. (Pun intended.)

Counsel for Donald Trump acknowledged that a former president can be prosecuted for private conduct occurring during his term of office. The Office of Special Counsel allowed that there is a small core of exclusive official acts that Congress cannot criminalize.

The concession as to private conduct may prove to be significant. The gravamen of the D.C. indictment is Trump's allegedly criminal efforts to remain in office after the expiration of his term on January 20, 2021. Under controlling D.C. precedent, a political candidate's seeking to remain in office is not official conduct. As the Court of Appeals opined in Blassingame v. Trump, 87 F.4th 1 (D.C. Cir. 2023):

[W]hen a sitting President acts in his capacity as a candidate for re-election, he acts as office-seeker, not office-holder. The presidency itself has no institutional interest in who will occupy the office next. Campaigning to attain that office thus is not an official function of the office. Rather, an incumbent President’s interests in winning re-election have the same purely private character as those of his challengers—i.e., “substantial personal interests as a candidate” to attain (or retain) the office. Trump Mot. to Intervene 24. Accordingly, a President acts in a private, unofficial capacity when engaged in re-election campaign activity.

https://www.cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opinions.nsf/A3464AEB2C1CB89985258A7800537E73/$file/22-5069-2029472.pdf (slip op. p. 29.)

[tylertusta]

The concession as to private conduct may prove to be significant.

I could very well see that some of Sauer’s concessions might hurt Trump back down below.

One caveat here is that the Court might give guidance to the lower courts on official-vs-private, and that guidance could contravene Blassingame, which would put Chutkan in another pickle.

Another caveat is that when the case bounces back up on an interlocutory appeal, the Court might overrule Blassingame. The Court may not like the standard it would have set here and may revisit it again.

Suffice to say, things are not looking good for Smith pushing this to a pre-election trial.

[Balisane]

https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/25/politics/federal-judge-upholds-e-jean-carroll-verdict/index.html

Shocker! I hope Judge Lewis Kaplan chokes to death on a piece of matzah.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Profs. Bernstein, Blackman, and Volokh will give you a pass on that one, Balisane, thanks to "fellow conservative privilege."

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Aw, c'mon! None of the usual suspects want to tell us all how Biden's latest public recollection of something that never happened (his uncle being shot down over Papua New Guinea in WWII and being eaten by cannibals) is consistent with their claim that...

1) His mental faculties are nothing to be concerned about, and/or
2) He's not a serial liar

...?

[jb]

It's pretty funny that the same people who frequently trotted out the term "Trump Derangement Syndrome" think that this is the kind of thing we should spend our time worrying about.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

It’s pretty funny that the same people who frequently trotted out the term “Trump Derangement Syndrome” think that this is the kind of thing we should spend our time worrying about.

And here's our first contestant come to brag about being too dumb to know the difference between who is currently in the White House and who isn't.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

By the way, I’ve never “trotted out the term “Trump Derangement Syndrome””, let alone done so “frequently”. So you’re also full of crap.

[Commenter_XY]

Not to mention the diplomatic faux paus POTUS Biden created for his State Department. New Guineans are mad.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Maybe he can team up with Netflix (also good a pissing off countries by making stuff up about them) to produce a documentary about how his great-great-great-(etc)-grandfather was Caesar Augustus, making the first emperor of Rome an Irishman.

[Brett Bellmore]

Everybody who has been paying attention on both sides of the aisle has known for decades that he's a serial liar. That's nothing new. Practically his whole past, as he describes it, is fictional.

It is kind of new that CNN is starting to get fed up with it, though.

[Sarcastr0]

Leave it to Brett to take it to 11.

[Brett Bellmore]

CNN took it to 11, in this case.

[Sarcastr0]

Practically his whole past, as he describes it, is fictional.

You can't lean on CNN for this hot-ass take.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, I can lean on being 65 and not having ignored politics for t he last 50 years.

[Sarcastr0]

Wow and look where you ended up relying on your personal vibes - exaggerating stuff till you have stupidly cartoonish ideas about the other side!

Well, at least you seem to really love the drama you have conjured for yourself.

[Absaroka]

"You can’t lean on CNN for this hot-ass take."

Which parts of the article are incorrect?

[Sarcastr0]

Brett is using it as an authority for this proposition: "Practically his whole past, as he describes it, is fictional."

That is not something the linked article can support.

[Absaroka]

Fair enough!

(although ... that's a lot of things wrong for one campaign trip. Especially since he knows people will latch on to them, so he should know to be careful about accuracy)

[Brett Bellmore]

I think he is being careful about accuracy, it's just at this point he can't personally tell the difference anymore.

[Sarcastr0]

Thanks for the telepathy, Brett.
Between you and I, you're the conspiracy theorist though.
Liberals have marched through every institution, remember? Or the Constitution means a lot of stuff no one else acknowledges but everyone knows?

Of all the people here, maybe you shouldn't be the one to come at me re: being reality based.
----------
I think any person or politician will have better or worse traits. You seem to know this isn't much in the grand scheme, which is why you are trying to turn this up to 11 with dumbass takes like: "Practically his whole past, as he describes it, is fictional.”

CNN won't really help you get to the level of partisan drama and nonsense you want here.

[grb]

Absaroka : Fair enough!

Biden’s habit of telling bizarrely silly fabulist lies about family history is absolutely fair game. That said, he isn’t in the same league as Trump in the pathological liar category.

But who is? The point is this: Biden’s supporters (myself included) see this character flaw as a minor laughable matter. To do so, we must climb a low hill of hypocrisy – the walk by gentle moderate slope.

On the other hand, Trump supporters have to ascend a Mount Everest on their corresponding trek, laborously climbing from base camp to base camp & always with the support of their logistics team & sherpas (aka, the Right’s whore media).

Because every word he says is false, including ‘and’ and ‘the’.

[Absaroka]

I have no disagreement that Trump is a lying weasel.

I am worried about Biden's mental state. He's not in a BS session with the bros; he knows - or should know - that these kinds of mistakes are going to be spotted. So why keep making them? It seems like he is unable to stop making them, whether they are old family stories or the details of tax policy or China's demographics.

No politician has been nicknamed 'Honest' since Lincoln. But, say, remember Hillary and the sniper fire? She could turn the lies off. Biden doesn't seem like he can.

Remember the worries about who was actually running the country toward the end of Reagan's term? I'm worried who is going to be running it if Biden wins.

(I'm also worried about the person running it if Trump wins ... just no warm fuzzies to be had here)

[grb]

Absaroka : “But, say, remember Hillary and the sniper fire?”

Two Points :

1. I did indeed remember that while typing my comment above. It seems to be a not uncommon political affliction. There’s another pol out in Montana in a similar situation. He’s ex-military and told a heroic story of being shot in the arm during combat. Then someone dug-up a National Park Service report how he accidently shot himself while moving his handgun.

2. As for Biden & running the country, this goofy bullshit from him is a lifelong affliction, not a sign of advancing age. Some of us recall how Biden’s first shot at the presidency ended after a similarly pointless bit of empty aggrandizement. As a aside, I was working in Delaware at the time and should have been on Team Biden. But one of the guys in my office was the nephew of another presidental candidate, so we rooted for him. I think we saw White House invites in our future, but he wasn’t Clinton’s kin so it came to naught.

Secondly, Biden’s been pretty sharp on the job so far.

[Absaroka]

"a lifelong affliction, not a sign of advancing age"

How do you tell? They kinda look the same. And if he can't turn it off even if it's costing him, that's bad. Can he turn it off when it matters, like talking to foreign heads of state? If he can turn it off, he should, so we'll know. If he can't ... kind of a problem.

"pol out in Montana"

Had to look that up ... pretty weird all right.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Biden’s been pretty sharp on the job so far.

I frequently enjoy an adult beverage too, and even over-indulge from time-to-time. But I pass out before getting as drunk as you must have been when you typed that.

[bernard11]

"Trump cultist accuses Biden of being a serial liar."

Wow. Brett Bellmore won't tolerate falsehoods from politicians. Fucking joke.

[Estragon]

Brett: I can’t vote for a serial fabulist (Biden)

Also Brett: Trump voters didn’t show up to protest in Manhattan because they ALL HAVE 9-5 JOBS

Trump: THOUSANDS of my supporters were prevented from protesting at the courthouse by STANCHIONS and POLICE!

Brett: Serial fabulist! Biden! Decades of lying!

[grb]

Bless his heart, Brett’s standards are somewhat situational / flexible. I always imagine him as the key witness when Trump decides to shoot a stranger on Fifth Avenue. His statement at the local precinct might run something like this :

Yes, Officer, I saw Trump raise the handgun and yell “Die Loser”. And, yes, I heard the sound of the gunshot and saw the victim fall wounded to the ground. But I didn’t actually see the bullet go from the gun to the victim, so can’t say Trump shot him.

[Estragon]

“Decades of lying”

I shot 67 to win the men’s club championship at Bedminster.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

If Trump and that twerp from North Korea played a golf match, they would report the first below-zero scores in golf history?

And the Conspirators and their dumbass fans would believe Trump's card (or in the case of a couple of the less ridiculous Conspirators they would merely claim to believe Trump's card).

Carry on, clingers. Until replacement.

[not guilty]

I once litigated a murder case that could arguably be helpful to Donald Trump's claim that his actions in trying to hold onto the presidency were within the scope of his official duties.

I was employed to pursue a direct appeal by a defendant who had been convicted of fatally shooting his electoral opponent. My client had been the Republican nominee for a state legislative seat. The decedent was a longtime incumbent Democrat. The shooting took place at a time when it was too late for a replacement nominee to be selected and placed on the November general election ballot.

The defendant was arrested and charged with murder in the interim between the shooting and the general election. The decedent's widow was elected on write-in ballots to the seat that her late husband had held. The defendant was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced by the jury to life imprisonment without possibility of parole.

The sole aggravating factor supporting the life without parole was the jury's finding that "The murder was committed against a national, state, or local popularly elected official, due to or because of the official's lawful duties or status, and the defendant knew that the victim was such an official." I argued on appeal that the evidence of this aggravating factor was insufficient, in that the evidence at trial taken in the light most favorable to the State, showed at most that the decedent was killed not because of his official duties or status, but instead because he was a candidate for office.

The appellate court disagreed. State v. Looper, 118 S.W.3d 386, 437-438 (Tenn.Crim.App. 2003).

As I have said before on these comment threads, I have represented clients more vile than Donald Trump.

[Commenter_XY]

Damn NG, politics is serious business in your patch of the woods. It is hazardous to your health... 🙂

[not guilty]

Despite having been arrested and charged with murder prior to the election, my former client still got more than 2,000 votes.

[Brett Bellmore]

You can't reasonably expect that every voter will have seen the news report.

[shawn_dude]

Given multiple comments here and elsewhere that convicting Trump of any of the crime's he's been indicted for would only make him more popular, are you sure those 2,000 votes were unaware of the outcome?

[Brett Bellmore]

No, but murder is rather different from any of the farcical charged that have been brought against Trump.

[Brett Bellmore]

War on Guns: Biden Commerce Dept. Will Make Small Arms Export Pause Permanent

Going forward, the administration has now flatly banned US gun manufacturers from the export trade, except to governmental buyers. Expected to cost the industry hundreds of millions annually.

Not an absolutely huge percentage for the industry as a whole, but it has already resulted in the closure of several smaller companies particularly focused on the export market. The Biden administration, of course, would view that as an upside...

[tylertusta]

I imagine that Congress will step in eventually.

[Brett Bellmore]

Maybe. While the gun control movement doesn't at the moment have enough clout to get Congress to pass new gun control laws, they do seem to have enough clout to prevent any pro-gun laws from passing.

Actually, the last pro-gun federal law I recall was the Protection of Lawful Commerce act, back in 2005 and I think that only passed because they were concerned about those sorts of suit metastasizing and messing with the entire economy, if they weren't stopped.

Before that you had the Firearms Owner Protection Act, in '84.

Pro-gun federal laws are pretty thin on the ground.

[apedad]

Every bullet used in a mass murder is also a bullet towards the pro-gun crowd.

And since it's a given there will be more mass murders, school shootings, etc., all those bullets will eventually (metaphorically) kill the pro-gun crowd.

[Brett Bellmore]

You know, that reasoning would apply to outlawing absolutely anything.

Every drowning victim downs the pro-swimming pool crowd.
Every car accident death runs over the pro-automobile crowd.
Every adverse vaccination reaction jabs the pro-vax crowd.

But, that's not the way the dynamic works, because things have UPSIDES as well as down sides, so you don't get this inevitable ratchet.

Maybe you should reflect on that?

[Nige]

I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, all those are true enough. If they apply to them, they apply to guns.

[Brett Bellmore]

The point I'm making is in my penultimate paragraph. Things just don't work the way Apedad suggests, with every negative incident taking us closer to gun control, for the same reason every drowning doesn't take us closer to outlawing pools: It's not a one-way ratchet, because there are positives in regards to guns, too, and they actually far exceed the negatives, which is why my side has been WINNING this one in the culture wars.

I don't know how old you are, but there was a time when the gun control movement openly aspired to totally ban guns in this country. The were actually able to pass national gun control laws. That changed!

Today they can sneak through changes to regulations, but the national gun laws that get passed, though rarely, are pro-gun. State after state adopted concealed carry reform, democratically. State after state adopted constitutional carry, democratically. The anti-gun laws you hear about? They're all in a handful of outlier states fighting a rising tide.

We. Are. Winning.

That wouldn't be the case if there was any validity to Apedad's reasoning.

[Sarcastr0]

You don’t sound like you are winning, you sound like you are permanently furious.

It isn’t knee jerk gun folks like you that move the needle anyhow. What you want as an end goal remains unpopular and not really legally argued at all.

[Nige]

'for the same reason every drowning doesn’t take us closer to outlawing pools:'

A couple of years ago they redesigned the outlets in pools. The government mandated them for every federally-funded pool. The number of drownings plummeted.

'We. Are. Winning.'

And children have to do mass-shooting drills, and get trained to run around if a shooter enters their classroom to delay them from going into other classrooms.

[tylertusta]

The pro-gun side has on occasion been able to muscle some minor changes through Congress. I think this would qualify, especially if they tack it onto "must-pass" legislation.

[Brett Bellmore]

Maybe, given that the fix would be a pro-commerce act. Same was the case for the PLCA, of course: The chamber of commerce didn't like absurd liability lawsuits, and they won't like arbitrary export bans, either.

[Balisane]

But the liberal judges routinely ignore PLCA, claiming that the false advertising exception applies to anything, and ignore FOPA on the grounds that a police officer doesn't have to research the law, and thus can always arrest with impunity.

[Noscitur a sociis]

If only the Republicans had controlled the presidency and both houses of Congress at some point recently! Just think of everything they could have gotten done!

[#FFFFFFPride]

What a surprise, unelected ideologues making law that harms millions.

This is what Sarcastr0 calls a "republic" and if you're opposed to unelected bureaucrats making law, we'll you're an anti-democratic authoritarian!

[Dr. Ed 2]

What is with the Maine law -- mandatory psych exams?

[David Nieporent]

Worried about flunking?

[M L]

Any lawyers here dealing with the Corporate Transparency Act?

[Brett Bellmore]

Bad news for Ilya:

Exclusive poll: America warms to mass deportations (Before you ask, commissioned by Axios, which is really hostile to the idea. They're horrified.)

Share of Americans who say they support mass deportations of undocumented immigrants:

General public: 51%
Democrats: 42%

"The bottom line: "The tradeoff here in the poll is, people would take expanded legal immigration if they saw there's a crackdown on the border," Penn said."

Pretty decent sample size, too, with an expected error of +/- 1.5%.

I'd like to see more detail, but don't have access to more than this.

[shawn_dude]

Then the people who claim they'd take expanded legal immigration won't be voting for the guy that tanked the recent bipartisan border deal, I'm assuming?

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4459861-trump-praises-collapse-of-bipartisan-border-deal/

Right?

[Brett Bellmore]

No, not at all.

First, why is it that getting a handful of Republicans to support a Democratic bill makes it 'bipartisan', but it never works the other way around?

Second, they'd accept it as a trade for a crackdown on the border, not a farce like that bill.

[JasonT20]

What was the farce? What else was politically viable that wasn't in the bill?

You're trying to make it seem like there was a better bill to be had before the next Congress (and possible next President) rather than Trump and the MAGA wing tanking that bill because they didn't want any deal before the election.

[Brett Bellmore]

The farce is that,

1) The emergency officially goes away at a level of illegal immigration higher than we’d ever seen before Biden took over.

2) The stuff in it for Republicans sunsets, the stuff in it for Democrats is permanent.

3) Trading changes to the law only makes sense if the law is being enforced to begin with, so even bargaining with the Democrats at this point is silly. Show that you’re willing to enforce the laws already on the books, and it might be worth negotiating with you.

"What else was politically viable that wasn’t in the bill?"

There's no point in negotiating at this time, no non-farcical bill is politically viable because Republican and Democratic positions on illegal immigration aren't just different, they're disjoint. There ISN'T any compromise position between them both parties would find minimally acceptable.

[Sarcastr0]

You rave about the status up.
You rage about reform.

You make compromise the enemy of any change.

This is why immigration won’t change. It’s too good a populist issue for the simpleton crowd.

[JasonT20]

1) The emergency officially goes away at a level of illegal immigration higher than we’d ever seen before Biden took over.

This isn't what the bill would have done. I see lots of Republicans claiming it 'lets in' up to 5000 per day, which is not true. What it does is at 5000 per day (averaged over 7 days, or 8500 in a single day) is that all of those apprehended at deported as soon as possible. With less than 5000 per day, they would still screen those apprehended for possible eligibility for asylum. They would deport those that were obviously not eligible, which I think is how it already works. The Sec. of Homeland Security and/or the President would have discretionary authority at 4000 per day, which was exceeded in late 2019, from what I've read.

2) The stuff in it for Republicans sunsets, the stuff in it for Democrats is permanent.

Oh? Like what?

3) Trading changes to the law only makes sense if the law is being enforced to begin with, so even bargaining with the Democrats at this point is silly. Show that you’re willing to enforce the laws already on the books, and it might be worth negotiating with you.

Again, what is on the books that isn't being enforced? Trump claimed to be able to shut down the border already, but courts had ruled against him.

The U.S. is party to treaties regarding asylum-seekers, so even if the GOP wins everything they couldn't just close the border completely to asylum seekers from "shithole" countries without violating those. (Besides violating common decency, that is.)

[Dr. Ed 2]

Brett, we did that in 1986 -- Reagan later said it was the biggest mistake he ever made.

[#FFFFFFPride]

Is it legal for the Democrats at the FBI to use US Treasury's FinCEN network to spy on Americans without a warrant?

We know it's defacto legal for the Democrats at the FBI to use FISA to spy on political opponents without a warrant, but what about FinCEN?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Merely being on a runway without a TSA pass is a serious (I year) Federal offense -- it's gotta be as serious as wandering through the Capitol, and yet Meritless Garland is ignoring this.

https://www.foxnews.com/us/climate-activists-arrested-blocking-airstrip-massachusetts

[Dr. Ed 2]

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/49/46314

[Noscitur a sociis]

What is your basis for saying that the federal government is ignoring this?

[Dr. Ed 2]

I haven't seen any Federal arrests…

[Sarcastr0]

The part of J6 that is being prospected wasn't a protest.

I hope this helps cure you of your confusion as to why different things are being treated differently.

[#FFFFFFPride]

Right, it's the tourists on the guided tours by the Capitol Police that are getting prosecuted.

[Sarcastr0]

the tourists on the guided tours by the Capitol Police

Can't talk about justice if your understanding of the underlying facts is poop from your butt.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Gaslight0 -- exactly what part of not having a valid TSA runway pass do you not understand?

It's something that the Feds take seriously -- unauthorized (read "unknown") persons on aprons and such is a BIG thing that they WORRY about.

How many people died on Sept 11th? And on Jan 6th?
Enough said?

[Sarcastr0]

Apparently the feds don't take it as seriously as an insurrection.

You declaring the standards based on EdFacts, and then finding that they are inconsistent? That's just a self-licking ice cream cone.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Well the Feds have their heads up their arses -- and when we have a second terrorist incident because of it, maybe they will be held accountable...

Maybe...

[Dr. Ed 2]

Update on the Karen Reid Lynching -- I refuse to call it a "trial."

The fact that the cops prosecuting the case have admitted to a Federal grand jury that they lied to the State Grand Jury can not be raised. The fact that one of these witnesses has a Federal Proffer can also not be raised....

[Noscitur a sociis]

Do you also refuse to spell her name correctly?

[Dr. Ed 2]

My bad: Karen Read.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Just when you think that UMass Amherst can't get any more crazier...

The PALESTINIANS are claiming discrimination!

the administration has deployed law enforcement to arrest over 57 Arab and Palestinian students and their allies for engaging in a peaceful campus sit-in,

Yes -- at 5AM after they wouldn't leave Whitmore.

opted to pursue criminal charges, posted their home addresses online even after the shooting of three Palestinian students in nearby Burlington, VT,

They charged them with trespass -- and then dropped the charges, and name & address of anyone who is arrested is a public record in Massachusetts pursuant to state law.

subjected students to campus disciplinary charges,

Yea, probation. They EXPELLED three girls for not wearing masks off campus at Townhouse a couple years ago.

and denied some of them education opportunities in the form of study abroad.

They did no such thing. It's just that foreign countries won't give you a visa if you have criminal charges pending against you, and thus they couldn't "Study Abroad" this spring. Heck, it used to be that you couldn't go into Canada if you've ever had an OUI -- probably still is but this was when you didn't need a passport, or even a picture ID as Maine still had paper licenses at that point.

Furthermore, throughout the period of the most intense harassment and discriminatory treatment on campus, high-level UMass administrators were actively communicating with anti-Palestinian groups such as the Anti-Defamation League,

Perish the thought.

and joined a coalition of universities taking a public stand in favor of Israel.

This the same institution that gave Robert Mugabe an honorary degree (*finally* retracted), and had a program with the ANC-South African government in the '90s?

[Stephen Lathrop]

I hope SCOTUS can figure out that to whatever extent it awards criminal immunity to the US president, to that same extent it withdraws protection of the criminal laws from everyone else.

At what point should a boundary be drawn between public actions which can be immunized for a president, and private actions which cannot? At exactly the point where Congress prohibited those actions by criminal laws which apply to everyone else.

[Dr. Ed 2]

This made sense for me:
https://www.newsweek.com/why-supreme-court-will-likely-rule-that-trump-has-immunity-opinion-1868343

For the President to be criminally liable, it has to be conduct for which he/she/it was both impeached and convicted by the Senate.

And the post-Presidency trial of Trump in the Senate negates the issue of what if the POTUS is out of office before Congress can act.

[JasonT20]

Impeachment is entirely about removal from office. The punishment for impeachment cannot be more than removal from office and being barred from holding any office again. If no double jeopardy attaches when an official is impeached, then criminal prosecution is separate from impeachment.

Think of it this way. Bill Clinton was impeached for actions that had nothing to do with his official duties or powers. Could he only have been tried for perjury if he had been convicted by the Senate? If impeachment and removal is necessary for criminal prosecution for official acts, then why is impeachment even possible for things that are not official acts?

[Brett Bellmore]

" Bill Clinton was impeached for actions that had nothing to do with his official duties or powers. "

Actually, he used government paid staff to collect and destroy evidence, and to contact witnesses to suborn their testimony.

[Dr. Ed 2]

And then this:
"“The Open Meeting Law does not apply to Town Meeting,” Mullen said, citing the definition of a “meeting” under Massachusetts General Laws, Chapter 30A Section 18. “That’s why we can exclude people from Town Meeting who aren’t registered voters in Wakefield; we couldn’t do that at, say, a Town Council meeting where the whole of the public has a right to attend.

That means that you can exclude the press unless the reporter is a registered town voter. That doesn't make sense....

[Brett Bellmore]

Sure, it makes sense. Members of the press don't have any special rights, freedom of the press is everybody's right to use printing presses.

So calling yourself a journalist doesn't give you any new constitutional rights.

[JasonT20]

If a newspaper that is owned and published by a registered town voter, that has registered town voters as subscribers and regular readers, then any reporters that paper hires in order to write a story about town business that aren't can be excluded? I am with Dr. Ed on this. It doesn't make any sense.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Members of the press don’t have any special rights, freedom of the press is everybody’s right to use printing presses.

Bellmore, you misunderstand, although you are literally right in part. Everyone enjoys an equal right to press freedom. That is all you have right.

That does not mean that press freedom is the mere shabby right of access you say it is. I know you are just parroting Volokh on that part, but his article on the subject was tendentious, unprofessionally reasoned, and wrong on the historical facts.

As a matter of history, it remains beyond question that the, "press," referred to in the 1A was meant by the founders to create a Constitutional role for newspapers and other institutional publications. Thus, the minority among Americans who practice institutional publishing do make use of rights not used by others. But the others remain free to practice institutional publishing themselves, and enjoy those rights alike with other publishers. That—plus the less-consequential piece advocated by Volokh—combine to form the entire basis of the press freedom right enjoyed by any and all.

It is also beyond question historically that the founders believed that even people who did not practice institutional publishing personally would enjoy benefits from its Constitutional protection. Founders insisted again and again that it would facilitate and advance the public life of the nation to nurture institutional publishers with an eye to the edification of their subscribers and readers. Leading founders, including John Adams, Samuel Adams, Franklin, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, Paine, and Wilson endorsed those views explicitly. All agreed that without protection for institutional publishing, their experiment with republican government would suffer, and possibly fail.

I understand that to attack and degrade America's institutional press has become a badge of membership among right-wing factionalists. They are unwise to do it. To the extent they insist as Volokh and you do that there is a founding era historical basis for those attacks, they are wrong.

[Brett Bellmore]

"I know you are just parroting Volokh on that part"

Chronologically speaking, he's just parroting me, though causally we independently arrived at that correct conclusion.

"It is also beyond question historically that the founders believed that even people who did not practice institutional publishing personally would enjoy benefits from its Constitutional protection."

Again, it is not institutional publishing that is protected, but just publishing, period. This is VERY important, because without that universal application, the government would just have to say, "You're not really an institutional publisher!" to deprive you of the right. That's why we can NEVER property give the "institutional press" more rights: Doing so hands the government a gift wrapped opportunity to decide who does and doesn't get to exercise them!

[Absaroka]

When Fred Smith arrived in Placerville, pop 100, looked around and said 'I think this town is going somewhere, I'll start a newspaper', is he part of your institutional press as soon as he hangs the 'Placerville Times' sign out front?

Or is this a 'you aren't part of the institutional press until your blog has N contributors or R readers' thing?

I don't think 'you're not the press unless you have ink stains on your fingers' works; National Geographic, CNN, and Vox all seem like 'The Press' to me, with nary an ink stain in sight.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Absaroka, people define themselves as institutional publishers when they practice institutional publishing activities. Size is unimportant. Protection for those activities is what the press freedom right is about. A right to practice those activities is available alike to all; relatively few people make use of them.

Bellmore and Volokh practice a political vice; they dislike the institutional press for factional reasons—they think it abets and advantages opponents—so they advocate to narrow the right to burden what they take to be an opponents' advantage. Perhaps that is your intention as well.

Of course, I never said, ‘you’re not the press unless you have ink stains on your fingers,' or anything like it.

[Absaroka]

"people define themselves as institutional publishers when they practice institutional publishing activities"

Okay, to make it a little less circular, what are "institutional publishing activities"?

Maybe with compare and contrast examples for National Geographic, CNN, Vox, Fox, Cowboystatedaily, VC, and the Daily Worker.

[Brett Bellmore]

Or Bob Black's Combozine, which I was a contributor to way back when; Each subscriber was entitled to so many pages, (You could pay for extra.) you'd print them up yourself, one for each subscriber, and mail them off to Bob. He'd bind them together and mail each subscriber their own copy.

So, who's the publisher there? Bob? He wasn't printing anything but the cover.

[Stephen Lathrop]

. . . what are “institutional publishing activities”?

• Soliciting and paying for contributions.

• Editing prior to publication.

• Collaborative news gathering.

• Curating audiences.

• Selling advertising and subscriptions.

• Organizing and operating means of distribution.

• Operating business models based on the foregoing items, while tailoring their interactions to match differing circumstances.

• Competing mutually with each other for audience, opinion influence, reputation, and business success, in ways which affect the fortunes of other institutional publishers.

In other ways, speech freedom and press freedom overlap somewhat; but that list of distinctive institutional press activities will not prove exhaustive. There is no single model which encompasses the entire set of institutional publishing possibilities.

[Absaroka]

This doesn't make any sense at all.

"Soliciting and paying for contributions"

So, no solo journalism? No pro bono?

"Editing prior to publication"

Well, duh, who doesn't? Or is this your version of a 'no lone zone'? Alice and Betty can't do journalism unless they cross edit?

"Collaborative news gathering"

So, Bob Woodward interviews a bunch of people, and publishes it himself. Not journalism unless he hires an intern so it is a two person 'institution'? Then he's fine and gets whatever special privileges you envision?

"Curating audiences"

What on earth does that even mean?

"Selling advertising and subscriptions"

No ad free publications? Can't just sell it at newsstands?

"Organizing and operating means of distribution"

What, if you mail out a magazine via USPS it's not 'the press'. If the NYT goes online only it's not journalism any more? CNN only sends out electrons, kind of like bloggers.

And, of course, nothing in the constitution says any of that.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Absaroka, the bulleted items above are useful as features to distinguish institutional journalism from other sorts of expressive activity. They are in no way proposed legal requirements. I am not saying anything to urge that expressive freedoms of non-institutional internet commenters, for instance, be in any way curtailed—except insofar as they already are limited in principle by existing laws, particularly laws pertaining to defamation, fraud, true threats, etc.

Nor are those bulleted items related to special privileges which some elite clique can claim while others are denied. Everyone who wishes to practice activities those listed items encompass remains free to do so. No one needs permission, training, regulatory compliance, nor anything else. Anyone is completely at liberty to do them, or not.

What those bulleted items are, however, are rubrics for characteristic activities necessary to maintain and operate an institutional publishing organization. Because the Constitution does have a Press Freedom Clause, and because it does protect institutional publishing along with other kinds of press activity, every one of those bulleted activities refers to protected rights.

Thus, if government attempts to infringe any person's right to practice any of those activities, then we ought to expect the courts to constrain the government. Accordingly, your final dismissive sentence is historical nonsense, and pretty much modern legal nonsense as well—at least thus far. As I have remarked before, recent advocacy does suggest right-wing factional interest to attack and suppress institutional publishing. Right-wingers seem to suppose institutional publishers are ideological opponents; they do advocate to urge government to interfere with institutional publishers. Your own advocacy suggests you may count yourself a supporter of that nonsense, but I continue to hope not.

To illustrate further, you write (with regard to prior editing):

Well, duh, who doesn’t? Or is this your version of a ‘no lone zone’? Alice and Betty can’t do journalism unless they cross edit?

What motivated you to invent that fantasy I cannot imagine. But it doesn't matter. "Editing prior to publication," is included to reiterate the right to do it. Institutional publishers—or any other publishers, for that matter—cannot be subjected to laws or administrative practices which require that they publish without editing—as advocates to apply common carrier theory to social media platforms do tend to insist.

Another tendentious fantasy from you:

So, Bob Woodward interviews a bunch of people, and publishes it himself. Not journalism unless he hires an intern so it is a two person ‘institution’? Then he’s fine and gets whatever special privileges you envision?

What special privileges have I said I envision? What fears lie behind that fevered scenario?

I will insist that institutional journalists who collaborate—in ways broader and more consequential than your remarks imply or seem to understand—cannot be subjected to laws to prevent doing it. Once again, the Press Freedom Clause was intended specifically to promote and protect that kind of collaboration. Thus, governments cannot properly use laws or policies with an eye to burden collaborative practices used to facilitate news gathering.

Check the next open thread on that one. I will offer remarks to feature collaborative news gathering specifically, to explain what it encompasses, and to clarify its importance. I will say more about why it is vital to protect it from government interference.

All your responses thus far have been off topic, and out of context with regard to my remarks. We have been talking past each other.

I have a suggestion for you. Try to focus on the subject of institutional journalism as if you were serious about doing it yourself. Imagine that it was your goal to emulate, and perhaps one day to supplant, the New York Times. What specific goals would you have to accomplish, and what activities would have to organize and manage, to make that happen?

Make yourself a list of what you think it would take to do it. I suggest the effort will either better ground you for this discussion, or demonstrate to your own satisfaction that you have little reason to continue it. Here is a hint: use the bulleted list above to organize the topics on your list.

[Absaroka]

Upthread you wrote "Thus, the minority among Americans who practice institutional publishing do make use of rights not used by others."

I guess I misread you as thinking that being part of your ill-defined 'institutional press' brought some rights that others don't have.

But now we seem in agreement that the First Amendment gives each and every American exactly the same broad freedoms, regardless of whether they are part of whatever you define as the 'institutional press'. So that's great!

It does kind of make your posts above seem kind of pointless, like a long discussion on the rights of people named Alice and people named Betty and in the end declaring they are identical.

[David Nieporent]

As a matter of history, it remains beyond question that the, “press,” referred to in the 1A was meant by the founders to create a Constitutional role for newspapers and other institutional publications.

Maybe you should defer to actual lawyers on what the constitution meant.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Nieporent, I do in fact defer to actual lawyers about what the Constitution means. I even defer to you on that question, and thank you when you enlighten me.

I do not defer so much about what the Constitution meant at the time of the founding, although on some points I give lawyers more credit than on others. If a lawyer wants to trace influence of British common law from Blackstone into American constitutionalism, I am not likely to second-guess whatever that lawyers says—even if I doubt his capacity to understand antique British historical context. That is because I likewise distrust my own capacity to understand antique legal authorities.

Otherwise, lawyers would get more deference from me if they showed any sign they could separate questions of law from questions of historical context, or even notice the contextual questions exist, and how much they matter.

For extra points, lawyers could demonstrate skill to distinguish a present-minded historical analysis from a scholarly historical analysis, but that almost never happens. Even the notion that such a distinction exists, and actually matters, seems to escape almost everyone in the legal profession. I do give a few lawyers credit for knowing the distinction exists, even if they lack a historical scholar’s ability to evaluate it. I applaud those lawyers for trying.

Maybe actual lawyers should defer to historians about what happened in the past. That, however, almost never happens.

The notion is absurd that anyone with historical training, however slight, should defer on questions of history and tradition to historical knuckleheads like Justices Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch. I would similarly criticize the other justices as well, except the others save themselves from going so far wrong simply by virtue of less assertive temperaments, and less stubbornly rationalistic insistences. Those more cautious habits of intellect somewhat protect the others from plunging so deeply into demonstrable errors.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

recall how the Democrats made Trumpian claims of election misconduct to get the North Carolina Green Party off the ballot? Well, the judge is not amused, as an order this month made clear:

'In his order, U.S. District Judge James Dever III wrote that some of the Democrats’ efforts to intervene in a lawsuit over the Green Party’s ability to run candidates were “frivolous” and “without foundation.”'

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article287318725.html#storylink=cpy

[Sarcastr0]

I know you have a cause and it makes you feel righteous, but you're boring as fuck.

[ThePublius]

"We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic."

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Isn’t it annoying how some commenters focus on specific issues and make frequent posts on the same topic?

That’s why you criticize apedad. You *do* criticize apedad, I presume?

Kirkland is a very special case because he doesn’t simply focus on one *topic,* he keeps recycling the same lines.

[tylertusta]

I'm sure we're going to see the NC bar sanction the attorneys who intervened.

Any day now...

[Bwaaah]

From the decision (pg 11):

''The record flatly contradict[ed] all of [Democratic Party] intervenors' arguments. Indeed, intervenors ''tilt[ed] at windmills," out of ''fear that some voters will vote for the two Green Party candidates instead of the Democratic candidates."

This is another example of partisans, Democrats in this case, trying to manipulate our democratic systems through patently false arguments presented to courts, under oath (kind of like Republicans, eh?).

Gaslight0: "Boring."

Gaslight0 teaches us the difference between right and wrong, Democrat and Republican, respectively. His thinking is deeply ethical.

[grb]

The Margrave of Azilia : ” …. recall how the Democrats ….”

I’ll withhold my opinion whether you’re “boring as fuck” for another day and speak to the substance:
A political party tried to weasel an advantage and got pushback from a judge? Dog bites man.

I don’t object to you raising the issue. Hypocrisy is one of the base currencies of all modern political parties, but we always bring up examples of the other side doing it. Still, its news value is pretty minimal. Of course, you could say the same about me providing yet another example of Trump being an imbecile. Or buffoon. Or criminal. Or amoral cretin. Or bungler. Or clinically addled.

Everyone (his less cultish supporters included) already knows that too.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Trump's supporters presumably want the Constitution Party off the ballot, and by that metric I've taken sides against Trump by supporting the Constitution Party's access.

[grb]

To the degree my opinion matters (got an electron microscope handy?), I’m against the Dems trying to muscle-out the Greens in NC. We’re still in dog-bites-man territory here….

[The Margrave of Azilia]

It's man bites dog for duopolists to file legal papers which are frivolous and without foundation, yes. You got me there.

[grb]

The Margrave of Azilia : "You got me there"

No sir, you've got me. A Trump supporter talking about "legal papers which are frivolous and without foundation" ?!?!?

There aren't enuff question & exclamation marks to adequately deal with that! I admit to being in awe of your brazenness....

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"A Trump supporter talking about “legal papers which are frivolous and without foundation”"

Which Trump supporter would that be?

[Bwaaah]

There it is. You're MAGA! No soup for you!

[Martinned2]

Interesting, Joan Donoghue, the President of the ICJ when it delivered its preliminary measures judgment on Gaza (whose term ended since) has gone on the record to correct some widespread misreporting about the case: https://rozenberg.substack.com/p/top-judge-corrects-media

[Mr. Bumble]

The "media" gets things wrong? Who knew?

[Martinned2]

Me, every time I come to this website and see people repeating incorrect talking points they heard in the media.

[grb]

Mr. Bumble : “The “media” gets things wrong? Who knew?”

Here’s the problem with your boringly typical whinging: I followed media accounts of the ICJ ruling at the time & Donoghue’s comment correspond exactly to what I read.

Of course the same was true about the clownish hit-job on NPR : It bears no relationship to what was actually reported (as NPR’s response makes exhaustively clear). So much on the Right’s snowflake victimhood whining over the media is based on ignoring what was actually reported in favor of the overall perception of a particular story.

[Mr. Bumble]

Your argument is with Martinned2, not me.

[grb]

No. My comment addresses yours directly above.
(And his too. My comment embraces multitudes!)

[grb]

I’m curious: Is anyone else under assault by a voracious earworm? I recently saw Drive-Away Dolls, a movie lovable because it’s very intentionally slight and silly. Since then I’ve had Linda Ronstadt’s cover of Blue Bayou playing in a continuous loop inside my head.

There are worse fates. I wasn’t a big fan of hers back in the day, but it’s a pretty song. Nonetheless, if this continues another year or two, I’ll probably end-up in a padded cell.

[M L]

Always something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDHV4PUZvgY

[Mr. Bumble]

Ronstadt's is good but Orbison's is better.
Listen to both and wishing you a speedy trip to the padded cell where you belong.

[grb]

Thanks!

[Stephen Lathrop]

grb, maybe you need a remedy that works like scaring someone out of the hiccups. Take an hour or two to listen to maturely-themed material—Janis Joplin, or, better yet, Butterfield Blues Band. East-West doesn't even have lyrics.

[kramartini]

Has anyone analyzed the question of whether Trump's records in the NY criminal case are business records at all, much less falsified business records?

Per N.Y. Penal Law § 175.00:
"'Business record' means any writing or article, including computer data or a computer program, kept or maintained by an enterprise for the purpose of evidencing or reflecting its condition or activity."

Note the last few words: "for the purpose of evidencing or reflecting its condition or activity".

Each of the records specified in each of the 34 counts in the indictment refers to a check drawn on Trump's personal checking account (or his alter ego revocable trust), an entry in the general ledger of Donald J. Trump (or his alter ego revocable trust), or to a "record of Donald J. Trump" (or his alter ego revocable trust). These are thus personal records of Donald Trump, and not business records of the Trump Organization.

Although the records are kept and maintained by the Trump Organization, they do not reflect the "condition or activity" of the Trump Organization, but rather the private affairs of the boss, and thus fall outside of the relevant statutory definition of "business records". If none of the records are business records, they cannot be falsified business records.

Does anyone have thoughts on this matter?