Monday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[Kazinski]

Drug testing before Presidential debates?

Its never been done before, but it seems reasonable. There have been allegations against both Trump and Biden using drugs to enhance their performance. I'm not sure using Adderall is a disqualifier, but it is something the voters should be aware of.

[Commenter_XY]

It is pathetic, Kaz. Pre-debate drug testing? Really? You're right about it never being done before, but wrong on reasonableness.

The cognitive issues with POTUS Biden are glaringly obvious. No need to test what we plainly see.

[Brett Bellmore]

Actually, the stuff one group of people plainly sees, and another group denies seeing, are exactly the things that should be subject to objective tests.

[Commenter_XY]

Brett, they see it too, but will not say so b/c winning the White House is more important to them = POTUS Biden's obvious cognitive issues

Our adversaries are watching, and doing many grey zone activities.

[Martinned2]

Whatever is wrong with Biden doesn't seem to get in the way of his administration running the country at least OK. Trump, on the other hand, permanently needed to have his phone taken away lest he start World War III while sitting in the toilet. So yeah, neither one is my idea of a perfect president, but if the choice is between them it's not even a close call.

[NvEric]

Bloody Twits like Biden, because he's a bloody twit too.

[Frank Drackman]

See, the problem is you think the country is running "OK", I get it, you like Winken, Blinken and Nod, Charlie Chan, Pete Booty-Judge, The Tranny who was in charge of Nuke-ular Weapons, another in charge of Medical Policy, running things, while the Lesbian Shirley Temple Black tells us about it.
How many Amuricans were hostages in Gaza when Sleepy took over? How many now? (and after he paid a billion in ransom)

Do agree with you on your final point, it's not a close call

Frank

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

In a world that's teetering on the edge of WWIII, you seem to be scared of some hypothetical world that's teetering on the edge of WWIII under a future President Trump.

It's like you people lack awareness. Self or any other kind.

[Sarcastr0]

No we don’t all secretly agree with you and are lying about it.

No, Trump is not someone who will deter our adversaries. He will fuck up our economy over China and hand Russia whatever it wants including pulling out to NATO.

[ThePublius]

I don't follow that. There were no wars while Trump was in office. And the economy was much better than now. If anyone failed to deter our adversaries and f'd up the economy it's Biden.

[Martinned2]

It's easy to avoid wars if you just give America's enemies whatever they want.

https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/02.29.20-US-Afghanistan-Joint-Declaration.pdf

[Commenter_XY]

"Never underestimate Joe's ability to fuck something up"
-- POTUS Barrack Obama

Are you going to tell us how POTUS Obama was wrong? LMFAO.

[Frank Drackman]

If the Clean Articulate Storybook(man!) had taken Sleepy Joe's advice Bin Laden would still be making little Bin Ladens at Abbottabad (Sounds like something an old Red Neck would say, "Abbottabad Ford from that guy once, and never went back"

Frank

[Sarcastr0]

Biden got us out of the Afghanistan foreverwar. Trump did not.
And we haven't gotten into a war on Biden's watch either.

If you think Putin would be deterred by someone who kisses his ass and threatens NATAO as much as Trump has, you...well, you aren't thinking. Hence your pinched reasoning here.

Biden isn't doing huge tariffs. Trump thinks trade wars are fun and easy.

[Martinned2]

Biden got us out of the Afghanistan foreverwar. Trump did not.

Well, Biden implemented the "we'll give the Taliban whatever they want" deal that Trump made (op cit).

[Brett Bellmore]

And threw in all that military hardware we left behind, as a sweetener.

[Martinned2]

Most of it is effectively useless without ongoing support from US-based private contractors anyway.

[Frank Drackman]

Hear the news from Ear-Ron? Leaving all those Helicopters at Bagram was the best Strategic Move Sleepy’s ever made. Remember a Saudi Flight Student at Whiting Field, his Callsign was “Edward Scissorhands” (after he closed the canopy of a T-34C on his widdle fingers) fortunately for him he was already slated for the F-15, always think about him when I hear about how great the Saudi Military is.

[ThePublius]

"Biden isn’t doing huge tariffs."

What? Biden just hit China with HUGE tariffs, last week! 100% on electric cars.

"The tariffs announced on Tuesday will hit an estimated $18bn worth of imports, the White House said.

As well as a rise from 25% to 100% on electric vehicle tariffs, levies on solar cells will increase from 25% to 50%.

Tariff rates on certain steel and aluminium products will more than triple to 25%, up from 7.5% or less."

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-69004520

[Nige]

The main difference is Biden knows what tarrifs are and how they actually work.

The electric car one is hilarious, though. China is cleaning the world's clocks on electric cars. Gotta protect the US manufacturers who basically want everyone driving around in tanks.

[Frank Drackman]

Tanks? You seen that ridiculous Cyborg Electric Truck Elon Musk is making? (and I like Elon)
And while Biden may understand tarrifs, Nige-bot obviously doesn’t understand where Electricity comes from, nobody ruin it for him and tell him it isn’t Elves on little hamster wheels.

Frank

[ThePublius]

The point of that post was to refute Sarcastr0's obviously incorrect assertion that "Biden isn't doing huge tariffs." That was just plain wrong.

If I were a liberal I'd say Sarcastr0 is lying. As a conservative I'll just say he's mistaken.

[Sarcastr0]

Do you have some kind of selective amnesia of what Trump's plans were wrt trade with China?
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/02/10/new-data-show-the-failures-of-donald-trumps-china-trade-strategy

Trump backed off a lot of his idiocy around 2020. Pick your reason - an agreement was reached, the results were not good, or the election was ramping up.

Biden's not some foreign trade genius, but if you think Trump's approach was better you need to review what he did and how that went.

[Brett Bellmore]

Sarcastr0, you made a factual mistake about Biden and tariffs. Just own it and move on, instead of digging the hole deeper.

[Sarcastr0]

I sure do make mistakes, but I don't think I did here.

I believe that Trump's trade war came in at a height it is not at right now.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

“Biden isn’t doing huge tariffs.”

Was that you being mistaken?

[Brett Bellmore]

Sarcastr0, you said that Biden wasn't doing large tariffs. Just admit you were wrong and drop it.

[Sarcastr0]

You: "you said that Biden wasn’t doing large tariffs"

Me: "Biden isn’t doing huge tariffs. Trump thinks trade wars are fun and easy."

I think the comparison is pretty well baked into my comment, actually.
Unless you want to argue either 1) Biden is doing a trade war, or 2) Trump didn't do a trade war, I think you're misreading me.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Me: “Biden isn’t doing huge tariffs. Trump thinks trade wars are fun and easy.”"

Yeah, that's two statements, and the first is objectively wrong. Why not admit it?

[Sarcastr0]

If you took those two statements to be independent and unrelated to one another, I expect you're disabused of that notion now.

[Nige]

A whole lot of 'we caught Sarcastro out,' absolutely no 'here's why I approve of Trump's tarrifs and voting for more.'

[bernard11]

Biden just hit China with HUGE tariffs, last week! 100% on electric cars.

Of which there are hardly any being imported anyway. But yes, continuing or expanding Trump's tariffs is a bad idea.

Of course Trump wants to do even worse - a proposed 100% tariff on all imported cars, a 60% tariff on all Chinese imports.

But of course the Trump cultists are going to defend that to the death, and explain why it's a wonderful policy to increase inflation and damage the economy, to "show strength," I guess.

Either that or dead silence or utterly bogus claims about how wonderful Trump was and will be for the economy.

Hard to believe you guys are really that full of shit, but I guess you are.

[bernard11]

Tariff rates on certain steel and aluminium products will more than triple to 25%, up from 7.5% or less.”

Lots of steel products were already at 25%, put there by Trump.
Trust me. I was actually in the business of importing them. Another problem was Chinese currency manipulation, which made offering stable dollar pricing to our US customers (100% of our customers) a challenge.

Trump, Biden, it’s a bad policy unless there is a specific reason – strategic value, say, to impose a tariff on certain products.

Personally, I am quite disappointed by Biden’st tariff policy. I think he is saying that if Trump wants to impose a stupid, but popular, policy, he (Biden) has to do something similar, no matter the realities.

[Don Nico]

" we haven’t gotten into a war on Biden’s watch either."
Just a $150B proxy war.

[Sarcastr0]

Sure, if you don't understand how foreign military sales work.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Did you secretly redefine "proxy war" and aren't telling anyone about your novel definition of it?

"Proxy war, a military conflict in which one or more third parties directly or indirectly support one or more state or nonstate combatants in an effort to influence the conflict’s outcome and thereby to advance their own strategic interests or to undermine those of their opponents."

https://www.britannica.com/topic/proxy-war

The common understanding of the term is what appears people around here use, not your new secret definition.

Can you share with us what your definition is?

[Don Nico]

You really know nothing. Putin clearly considers this to be a proxy war. And when POTUS proclaims that Putin has to be removed as Russia's leader, Biden knows it it a proxy war.
Why are you so afraid of accepting the obvious.
Is your job as a bureaucrat threatened?
You certainly appear to have a conflict of interest.

[Don Nico]

JHBH,
He does not j=have a definition. He only stamps his feet ipse dixit.
But the idea of a proxy war certainly frightens him. Money, tactical intelligence support, targeting support.. and all he can answer is that I do not understand military sales (paid with by money from the US taxpayer).
Political scientists both in the US and EU, say that Putin's war is not against Ukraine (which he does not even consider a country) but against the West (read NATO). And the US has risen to the occasion to the tune of ~$150B.

In replies he frequently (and inconsistently) resorts to goalposts comments, as if they prove anything except his disagreement. From a guy trained in hard sciences, one expects better.

[grb]

Don Nico : “Putin clearly considers this to be a proxy war”

So (of course) you do too, since you dutifully repeat every single Putin talking point he gives you. When the Russian leader makes crude threats about nuclear war, we all know Don Nico will tumble along in his rear, repeating the bullshit verbatim.

I’ve long since stopped wondering why. I have a far-lefty friend prone to the same talk, and with him the answer is simple : He loathes everything about the United States government and society, therefore anyone on the other side must automatically be right. Maybe it’s the same with you.

But back on Planet Earth, we’re supplying military aid to a friendly country that has been brutally invaded. You can screech, wail, and caterwaul, and that will still be all we are doing.

I guess “proxy war” sounds more ominious. That’s what Putin thinks - so needless to say, you do as well.

[David Nieporent]

“Proxy war, a military conflict in which one or more third parties directly or indirectly support one or more state or nonstate combatants in an effort to influence the conflict’s outcome and thereby to advance their own strategic interests or to undermine those of their opponents.”

That is a terribly overbroad definition, that would essentially convert every stance other than neutrality into a "proxy war." Assisting an ally does not make something a proxy war. Ukraine is not our "proxy";¹ it is an independent actor that is defending itself. Ukraine is not fighting on our behalf; it's fighting on its own behalf. We did not enlist Ukraine to start a military conflict with Russia; that would be a proxy war.
​
​
¹Typically proxies are non-state actors.

[Kazinski]

You should know the difference between a sale and a gift too.

Congress isn't appropriating the money for Ukraine so they can pay us back later.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"From a guy trained in hard sciences, one expects better."

So did the hard sciences.

[Sarcastr0]

Well, I'm pretty sure the latest equipment has arrived too late, largely due to GOP dithering to how do deal with it's Putin-loving wing.

I'm sure you're all thrilled.

[bernard11]

Once again, I feel compelled to ask why we are haggling over the definition of "proxy war"rather than talking about whether it's a good idea or not to support Ukraine.

Why does the issue of "proxy war" matter in answering that question?

Personally, I think we, and the rest of NATO, should be going all out to stop Putin's expansionism. It would be a bargain at twice the price.

[Nige]

Who did he drop the MOAB on, then? Who were all the drones being sent after in his escalated drone warfare?

[ThePublius]

Take an inventory of world conflicts that have erupted since Biden took office, and their impact on the U.S. economy and foreign relations.

Russia-Ukraine
Hamas-Israel war
Iran and Pakistan
Houthis in Yemen
etc., etc.

Look at the impact of world shipping due to the last.

China is emboldened regarding Taiwan.

I prefer the order that Trump encouraged, in particular the Abraham accords, which Biden blew up.

[Martinned2]

the Abraham accords, which Biden blew up.

Wait, *who* blew up the Abraham accords???

[ThePublius]

Biden.

Biden Trashes the Abraham Accords

[Martinned2]

@Publius: Why do you feel the need to defend Hamas?

[ThePublius]

How am I defending Hamas???

[ThePublius]

From the article I linked:

"The reason for the administration’s hostility to the Abraham Accords goes beyond jealousy or the desire to deny credit to a hated predecessor. There are significant matters of substance and strategy at stake. The Abraham Accords framework is fundamentally opposed to the Obama-Biden vision for the region. Whereas the Abraham Accords framework draws a bright line separating the U.S.-allied camp from Iran and its camp, the Obama-Biden vision turns the very concept of friend and foe on its head, elevating Iran and downgrading allies under the pretext of creating “equilibrium” or “balance.” The problem the White House faces is that the accords are popular: The biblical name alone resonates with the American public."

[Martinned2]

By pretending that it wasn't Hamas who blew up the Abraham Accords. Why do you feel the need to pretend that what Hamas did isn't significant?

[Sarcastr0]

In ThePublius's world all events revolve around short-term American policy.

[Nige]

It’s a good thing Biden’s in charge, rather than Trump. He couldn’t handle a single one of those without trying to pull a Dr Ed or making deals that give the agressors even more than they demanded. Even Israel, where Biden’s support for the slaughter is a disgrace – Trump would be telling them to kill more, kill more!

[Frank Drackman]

That's why we love "45" (and by "we" I mean me, myself, and I) I won't feel safe (and I live in Georgia) until Gaza's a barren radioactive no-mans land with only a few mutant sand crabs scurrying on the shore (It was pretty much that before October 7, only with a few million Terrorists)

Frank

[Sarcastr0]

ThePublius earlier: "There were no wars while Trump was in office."

ThePublius now: "Take an inventory of world conflicts that have erupted since Biden took office."

Under Trump: ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood, South Sudan, Myanmar.

So even in your new goalposts towards a childlike post hoc ergo propter hoc your post hoc is wrong.

the order that Trump encouraged
Yes, that sounds about right.

[Frank Drackman]

"ISIS"? you must have Sleepy Joe's Disease, all the Cool People called it "ISIL" like Barry Hussein Osama did. South where? Myan-who? And now the Moose-lum Brotherhood is running our "Flagship" Universities.
Again, simple question,
"How many Amuricans were hostages in Gaza when Sleepy took over? How many now? (and after he paid a billion in ransom)"

Frank

[ThePublius]

"Under Trump: ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood, South Sudan, Myanmar."

That is just ridiculous. ISIS is credited to Obama. The Muslim Brotherhood goes back to 1928. The South Sudan conflict goes back far before Trump's presidency. Myanmar conflicts have been raging since 1948, and most recently flared up under Obama.

I'm not blaming Obama or previous admins for these issues or conflicts. I'm just asserting that Trump deterred conflicts, as a result of his foreign policy, where perception of Biden's weakness did not.

[Nige]

‘ISIS is credited to Obama’

George W Bush has been erased.

'I’m not blaming Obama or previous admins for these issues or conflicts.'

Of course not, because the previous admin was Bush's, which is, in fact, to blame for most of these conflicts.

‘I’m just asserting that Trump deterred conflicts’

Yes, he apparently has this magic aura of deterrence.

[Sarcastr0]

I’m not blaming Obama or previous admins for these issues or conflicts

How well tuned your goalposts have become.

Though of course you are drawing some pretty ridiculous lines about when conflicts start versus when they have their 'origins' and just 'flared up.'

By that logic Ukraine is just a flare up as well.

Foolish.

[ThePublius]

@Sarcastr0, note that Biden said a limited incursion into Ukraine by Russia is acceptable.

[ThePublius]

@Nige, ISIS was virtually non-existent under Bush, and grew under Obama due to the vacuum he created in the area.

[Nige]

ISIS grew out of the mess of a conflict Bush created. Blaming Obama for ISIS is like blaming him for the crash of 2007 - Bush broke it, it's Obama's.

[ThePublius]

Sarcastr0 is fixated on the concept of goalposts, and whips it out whenever he wants to refute an assertion, without providing anything else to counter it. 🙂

[Nige]

It's a useful metaphor for how the arguments in favour of Trump have to constantly shift to avoid facts and context, and how Democratic politicans always have Responsibility and Agency while Republican politicians just sort of float about while stuff happens.

[Sarcastr0]

Maybe you're not smart enough to have noticed, ThePublius, but here is how you've wandered:

-No wars under Trump.
-No 'world conflicts that erupted' under Trump.
-No flare-ups that had their origins within Trump's term under Trump.

And that's not counting the conflicting standards when you talk about Dem administrations.

You think the world revolves around the US. It does not. Trump deterrent madman is not a very good theory.

[Joe_dallas]

Nige 2 hours ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
‘ISIS is credited to Obama’

George W Bush has been erased.

For those that failed recent history
Isis is an offshoot of Al qaeda.
Al Qaeda grow largely during the clinton administration.
Al qaeda was cut back quite a bit during the Bush adminstration and then ISIS grew during the obama administration.

[Nige]

It's like Bush did nothing of any note that led to the resurgence of Islamic extremism!

[David Nieporent]

@Sarcastr0, note that Biden said a limited incursion into Ukraine by Russia is acceptable.

Sigh. No, he fucking didn't.

[Brett Bellmore]

NPR: How Biden is trying to clean up his comments about Russia and Ukraine

"I think what you're going to see is that Russia will be held accountable if it invades. And it depends on what it does. It's one thing if it's a minor incursion and then we end up having a fight about what to do and not do."

He clearly indicated that a 'minor incursion' might be something Russia could get away with. That's not permission, as such, but at the time people on both sides of the aisle were aghast.

[Nige]

That doddery old man had a keen sense of what could be involved with different scales of Russia incursion.

[bernard11]

I’m not blaming Obama or previous admins for these issues or conflicts. I’m just asserting that Trump deterred conflicts, as a result of his foreign policy, where perception of Biden’s weakness did not.

This horseshit again. Isn't it Republicans - a lot of them, anyway - who want to fold the tent in Ukraine, while Democrats mostly, and especially Biden, think we should continue to support Ukraine?

But Trump is the tough guy who stood up to Putin. I mean, WTF? He kissed Putin's ass a lot, so I imagine Putin wanted to see if Trump was re-elected in 2020.

Nobody making these claims of "Bone Spurs" Trump's toughness has explained how he magically backed Putin down. For Pete's sake, don't buy that shit.

[grb]

ThePublius : “China is emboldened regarding Taiwan”

This country’s Right is the biggest thing emboldening China. They saw the GOP block assistence to a desperate Ukraine out of childish petty spite. Sure, many of the Right’s leaders made token noise about Taiwan being different, but who believes that?

The party of Terrible-Two-grade snits wouldn’t hestitate to screw over the Taiwanese either. Not for a bit of political entertainment to boo & cheer on Fox News. The Chinese know that.

[hobie]

Trump inherited a roaring Obama economy. That'll make anyone appear good

[Riva]

It’s a little too early in the day for you to be doing so much drugs, ease up, you probably lack have Hunter’s tolerance.

[Frank Drackman]

Yes, Barry Hussein Invading Afghanistan helped the economy, temporarily. It’s certainly kept me busy treating the Veterans maimed and injured so Barry could act like he had a pair (he does, Mee-chelle has them).

Frank

[bernard11]

And the economy was much better than now.

Real GDP per capita grew 6.27% from 1/1/17 to 1/1/21, a 1.5% annual compound rate.

It grew 7.08% from 1/1/21 to 1/1/24, a 2.3% annual rate.

You want to back 2020 out of Trump's figures? OK. Then you get 4.77% growth, just under 1.6% annual, for 1/1/17 through 1/1/20.

[VinniUSMC]

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N

Yeah, so awesome.

[Riva]

Amazing how you can’t appreciate how mind bogglingly stupid that comment is in light of Bidenomics and that reptile’s collapsing foreign policy, and I’m begging generous to that corrupt snake.

[bernard11]

You are now as deranged as Brett.

It seems impossible for either of you to imagine that anyone could disagree with you in good faith.

[bernard11]

The cognitive issues with POTUS Biden are glaringly obvious. No need to test what we plainly see.

Are you really in so deep as to write that without mention of issues with Trump, and without any basis, AFAICT, in your training or experience, for your conclusion? OAN is not a reliable source.

[bernard11]

OAN is not a reliable source.

And neither are those RW rabbis, here or in Israel, you seem to admire.

They are, IMO, a curse on the Jewish people.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Kazinski, while you reach to imply something wrong with Biden, you sound like you're scared Biden will once again make Trump look foolish.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

while you reach to imply something wrong with Biden

LOL!

[Frank Drackman]

Oh, when Sleepy said he would have kicked Trump's ass in High Screwel? Such a tough guy, making Black guys wear swim caps in 1961!

Frank

[Kazinski]

That's all I said: "There have been allegations against both Trump and Biden using drugs to enhance their performance."

I think you must be supplying your own biases.

[Frank Drackman]

It's required regularly of all members of the Armed Forces, certainly testing the Commander of them is reasonable.
Now Congress is another matter, just the impracticality of replacing all the Alcoholics, Speed Freaks, Hop-Heads, and worst of all, the Pro-Zac/Zoloft-icts (My "Theory of the Case" on Fetterman's journey to sanity? he's given up all the shit they prescribed him at Walter Reed)

Frank "Trump/Fetterman? could work (at least in PA, which means it works)"

[Nige]

Oh I can't wait for the usual 'electronic devices hidden under Biden's clothes and behind his ear' shit that will go down.

[Frank Drackman]

An Automaton wouldn't know such things, but Sleepy's got a Penis pump and hearing aids (OK, speculating on the Pump, but the hearing aids are pretty obvious)

Frank

[Riva]

You already assuming the Big Guy is capable of finding his way on and off the stage. Let’s wait to see if he can accomplish that, then move on to other topics.

[ThePublius]

"There have been allegations against both Trump and Biden using drugs...."

Note that it is Trump who called for drug tests.

[Nige]

Yes, he's a ridiculous man.

[ThePublius]

That may be so, but he's our ridiculous man, and I'd rather have him in charge than your ridiculous man.

[Nige]

Obviously you support the crook and rapist who is promising to round millions up into camps and send red state national guard into blue states that don't comply, the guy who still hasn't accepted that he lost the election and tooks steps to overturn the result. What's not to love?

[ThePublius]

That is unhinged. 🙂

First, he's not a rapist. There's a more credible case that Biden is.

"promising to round millions up into camps and send red state national guard into blue states that don’t comply"

Do you sincerely believe this?? Holy cow, talk about unhinged conspiracy theorist.

Name others who took steps to challenge election results in the 21st century, please. Start with Gore.

[Nige]

‘There’s a more credible case that Biden is.’

There is no case for Biden whatsoever, meanwhile Trump has been found liable for sexual assault in an actual court of law, though I understand the distinction is meaningless to you.

‘Do you sincerely believe this??’

For a guy who supports Trump’s policy positions you sure have been paying absolutely no attention whatsoever to his own statements about his intended policies.

‘Name others who took steps to challenge election results in the 21st century,’

I didn’t say ‘challenge.’ I said ‘the guy who still hasn’t accepted that he lost the election and tooks steps to overturn the result.’ Again, actual distinctions related to conduct and intentions have to cease to matter to Trump voters.

[loki13]

“There is no case for Biden whatsoever, meanwhile Trump has been found liable for sexual assault in an actual court of law, though I understand the distinction is meaningless to you.”

I try to discuss things correctly. In the civil trial, in addition to defamation, the jury found that Carroll did not prove that Trump raped Carroll, but she did prove that he sexually abused her.

However, as Judge Kaplan explained in an opinion, the reason that the jury did not find that Trump raped Carroll (and otherwise found entirely in her favor) is that NY Penal Law provides that rape applies on to PiV penetration, and the evidence was Trump penetrated her with his fingers, etc.

In other words, in many states, that would constitute rape. In New York, it did not.

[Mr. Bumble]

There is no basis in fact that any of this happened.

[Bob from Ohio]

High end dressing room with no other customers around and no clerks for a long enough time for a rape to happen. No one notices one of the 5 most famous men in NYC loitering in a woman's dressing room.

[Nige]

Bumble and Bob were practically there themselves.

[David Nieporent]

There is no basis in fact that any of this happened.

There is sworn testimony that it happened.

[Mr. Bumble]

Replying to DN:
Sworn testimony is not proof of anything especially when it is not true. Perjury; it's a thing.

[David Nieporent]

Sworn testimony is not proof of anything

Sworn testimony is proof in every courtroom in the United States every day of the week.

[not guilty]

"Sworn testimony is not proof of anything especially when it is not true. Perjury; it’s a thing."

Let's see now. Who determines whether sworn testimony by a witness is or is not worthy of belief?

Hint: they are called jurors.

[Estragon]

“Sworn testimony is not proof of anything”

Ohhh bumble you see? This is why I can’t mute you! Because of gems like this! Don’t ever change

[Brett Bellmore]

The problem is that he was only "proved" a rapist by civil trial standards. And as ThePublius says, another rape accuser who can't remember when the traumatic event actually happened. It was a political conviction.

[Sarcastr0]

Hillary is a felon. Biden is corrupt.

Trump is innocent, because it's not formally criminal due process.

Jesus your double standards are ridic.

[Nige]

You're voting for a rapist.

[loki13]

"The problem is that he was only 'proved' a rapist by civil trial standards."

1. First, that's not a 'problem.' That's how things work. Preponderance is still a high standard when it requires unanimity.

2. Next, as I noted above, he wasn't "proven" a rapist because of New York law. He was proven to have sexually abused her.

3. Finally, the jury was clearly doing their job given that they did not find that he raped her. At a certain point, you can't just say that everything you don't like is a "political conviction."

No one is above the law. For that matter, Trump needs to stop digging his own holes with enablers like you. For example, if you are found to have done something, and defamed someone about it, you need to stop. There is no "Trump Exemption."

[Commenter_XY]

Brett, POTUS Trump was found guilty of sexual abuse of an old, kinky string bean, by an unbiased NYC jury.

The Donald smashed a lot of hot women before he became POTUS. When he says, No way I messed with that knarly-ass string bean she ain't my type, I actually believe him about that. I mean, look at who he has smashed. Were he not a billionaire, I would think he is lying (and to be clear, POTUS Trump lies about many things).

The only thing POTUS Trump got wrong about the old, knarly-assed string bean was the name of her cat. The string beans cat is not named Vagina. Nope. It is named Fireball T Vagina. Such....a degenerate desirable woman.

[loki13]

Commenter_XY,

I assume you are being sarcastic in order to tease Brett (because I generally try to assume the best of people, despite that being repeatedly disproven). That said, Poe’s law and all that.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the facts, the sexual abuse happened in 1995. When Trump was shown a photo of Carroll (admittedly, the photo was from 1987) he mistook Carroll for his ex-wife, Marla Maples.

You know, the person he was married to at the time he sexually abused Carroll.

To recap-

1. The assault occurred decades prior to the current time.
2. She most definitely was “his type” (to the extent he has a type, other than, “woman” or, in some cases, “girls in my pageants”).
3. As a general rule, the defense of “I am innocent because, c’mon, I would never hit that! Amirite? C’mon guys, who’s with me on this????” is the absolute lowest of the low.

(If you aren't following, it's always about the power. Always. Saying that you are innocent because you wouldn't hit that ignores countless examples. After all, look at the failed marriages of Hugh Grant and Arnold Schwarzenegger - I am sure that their immediate defense was, "But darling, I didn't do that! I mean, c'mon, I would never have hit that!")

[Nige]

'When he says, No way I messed with that knarly-ass string bean she ain’t my type, I actually believe him about that.'

This is a shitty defence given by pieces of shit. What is it about this ugly little piece of casual misogyny that appeals to you?

[Jason Cavanaugh]

"No way I messed with that knarly-ass string bean she ain’t my type, I actually believe him about that."

Four things:
1) Your misogyny is gross.
2) Trump mistook a photo of her for his ex-wife.
3) Nobody cares what someone like you believes, because
4) You're a bigoted, biased moron who ignores the evidence in front of your own face.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

“As the court explained in its recent decision denying Mr Trump’s motion for a new trial on damages and other relief [in the New York case] … based on all of the evidence at trial and the jury’s verdict as a whole, the jury’s finding that Mr Trump ‘sexually abused’ Ms Carroll implicitly determined that he forcibly penetrated her digitally – in other words, that Mr Trump in fact did ‘rape’ Ms Carroll as that term commonly is used and understood in contexts outside of the New York penal law.”

It was not a "conviction" of any kind; it was a factual finding by a court of law. But a person who "rapes" is a "rapist". It doesn't matter that he was not convicted of committing the crime called "rape" in the New York Penal Code. He should consider himself lucky.

[bernard11]

It's Bellmore you are talking to.

You expected integrity?

Oh, and as a matter of simple logic, which Brett never seems to have mastered, that A in Thermodynamics notwithstanding, if I prove something by "a preponderance of the evidence," or whatever the standard is, that does not mean, in any way, that I couldn't, or didn't, also prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.

[loki13]

It is somewhat amazing that no matter what, even after trials and testimony and court decisions, people refuse to even engage with facts.

I mean, it would be one thing if they bothered going back and trying to understand the relevant evidence and the decisions, but nope.

It’s just the same BS, over and over again.

(That said, it wouldn’t be correct to say Trump was “convicted.” Trump was found liable. That’s still a factual finding, and he can’t challenge that in future proceedings, but we don’t normally say that a person is convicted in civil proceedings.)

(ETA- this was supposed to be nested with DMN's comment, about, but it didn't.)

[Mr. Bumble]

Proof is also a requirement in civil trials, though the standard proof needs to meet is not “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Instead, the standard of proof is by a preponderance of the evidence, which means it must be more likely than not that something happened. Generally, plaintiffs have the burden of proof and must supply evidence that the claims they allege are accurate, though sometimes the burden of proof switches to defendants.

...and what "evidence" was supplied beyond her sworn testimony?
Like I said; perjury, it's a thing.

[David Nieporent]

…and what “evidence” was supplied beyond her sworn testimony?

While any litigant, civil or criminal, would always prefer more evidence to less evidence, why do you think evidence "beyond sworn testimony" is needed in any case?

[Mr. Bumble]

Corroboration.

[ThePublius]

Trump was not convicted of rape. I believe that's a true statement.

Second, I put E. Jean Carroll in the same category as Christine Blasey Ford: bullshit artist grifters and cheats. Interesting that neither can remember when these things supposedly occurred, in Carroll's case, what year! It's all B.S.

[Sarcastr0]

But you do believe Tara Reade, apparently, despite her literally defecting to Russia.

What a shameful display of outcome-oriented reasoning.

[Nige]

Of course you do - you literally refuse to accept that the man you're voting for is a rapist. EVERYbody who votes for Trump has to distort their brains to a minimum degree.

[loki13]

"Second, I put E. Jean Carroll in the same category as Christine Blasey Ford: bullshit artist grifters and cheats."

It is interesting that you think that E. Jean Carroll is a "bullshit artist grifter and cheat," while you don't think the same of Trump. They both have histories, you know.

Speaking of histories, you do know that Trump actually has a pretty long and-well documented history when it comes to women, right? I think that, in the light most favorable to Trump (and that is saying something), he operated with a sense of entitlement that was more common back then, and arguably did not think twice that his unwanted assaults were any thing that bad. In his mind, unless he hauled them off to a back alley, with them screaming, it wasn't "rape, rape." But I'd like to think we've moved a little past that.

Of course, given the comments on the VC, it looks like I am wrong for some values of "we."

[Don Nico]

"Christine Blasey Ford"
Who was caught in two lies under oath.
1) So-called fear of flying
2) Two front doors contrary to local building permits.
Fortunately for her she was never held to account for that

[loki13]

"Who was caught in two lies under oath.
....
2) Two front doors contrary to local building permits."

I am going to make a very simple remark. This is, quite literally, the worst habit people have. Studies have repeatedly shown that memory is tricky. People can misremember details all the time- you do it, I do it, we all do it. If you've ever looked at an old photo, and been struck with the realization that you didn't remember another person being there, or that you wore a particular T-Shirt, or whatever, you know exactly what I mean.

What I hate about internet sleuths is just this. This isn't a lie. Look, I don't know what actually happened. You don't know.

The only two people that truly know are Ford and Kavanaugh. And, as people remark, truth is a three-edged sword. There is your truth, my truth, and what really happened. I don't think Ford was just making stuff up- no one wants their life turned upside down by that. However, it can also be said that people can have different opinions and views about the same event, and that Kavanaugh is not the same person now (assumedly) as he was then, as we all grow and change.

[Brett Bellmore]

Oh, come on: She couldn't name the date, even the year.

She couldn't identify where it happened.

She named witnesses, they said it didn't happen.

Seriously, what do you need to make you accept that she's lying?

What you had there was a carefully engineered smear, designed to be vague enough to be unfalsifiable. If she'd said where and/or when, he might have been able to prove incontrovertibly that she was wrong, by producing a solid alibi. Vagueness about time and place has become a standard technique in smear jobs, now that it doesn't automatically result in even your own partisans scoffing.

[loki13]

I think that you probably need to broaden your sources, Brett.

And also you might want to look a little bit more into the issues and the recollections.

But given that you couldn't do that with an open mind, but would instead do it solely to find things to support what you already know, I doubt that it would be a very productive exercise.

(But as an aside, you should ask yourself- how much of what you just said is based on what you have verified by reviewing actual sources, as opposed to things that you are reiterating from what your ... well, let's say usual suspects have told you? You don't have to reply, this is more of an exercise for you.)

[David Nieporent]

The only two people that truly know are Ford and Kavanaugh.

Or, perhaps, she actually did confuse him with someone else, in which case the only two people that truly know are the actual culprit and Kavanaugh.

I don’t think Ford was just making stuff up- no one wants their life turned upside down by that.

If Kavanaugh didn't do it, there are explanations other than her lying. She could have misinterpreted events at the time. She could be mixing him up with someone else in decades-old memories. But, also, people do lie for many reasons. And, to be clear, when she first reported it, she tried her best to keep her life from being turned upside down; she tried to do a backchannel report which would keep her name out of it.

[loki13]

"Or, perhaps, she actually did confuse him with someone else, in which case the only two people that truly know are the actual culprit and Kavanaugh."

That is also a possibility. That said, she had told others about it being Kavanaugh long before he was appointed. So it's not like she hadn't identified him years prior to the appointment. And she had told others about the sexual assault, as well. Of course, that doesn't mean it was definitively Kavanaugh- she might have mistaken him at the time (or shortly thereafter) and then memory colored in his identity more fully (see also, memory studies).

Given the lack of a full investigation, I doubt anyone but the principals will ever know the full truth.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Brett: "Look, I don’t recall the date or year my own mother died, and I watched it happen. The event itself is engraved in my memory, the date is an irrelevant detail I’d have to look up.

Not everybody obsesses about dates, and memorizes them!"

Also Brett: "Oh, come on: She couldn’t name the date, even the year."

By your own standards, your mother didn't die, and you're a bald-faced liar to claim she did and that you were actually present when it happened.

JFC you're a moron.

[TwelveInchPianist]

“That said, she had told others about it being Kavanaugh long before he was appointed. So it’s not like she hadn’t identified him years prior to the appointment.”

There’s very little evidence of that. It's not just Brett that needs to broaden his sources.

[not guilty]

How many of the people who trash the juries' verdicts in both of E. Jean Carroll's lawsuits wholeheartedly believe Juanita Broaddrick's claim against Bill Clinton, despite such claim having never been subjected to the crucible of cross-examination and despite Ms. Broaddrick's having specifically disclaimed, in a sworn affidavit (under the pseudonym Jane Doe # 5), that Clinton had made unwelcome sexual advances toward her? https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/affidavit122398.htm

[bernard11]

“promising to round millions up into camps and send red state national guard into blue states that don’t comply”

Do you sincerely believe this??

I do. You don't? I mean, he explicitly promised top do that, and now you're saying he didn't promise to?

[bernard11]

Trying to get out of the debates, I'd say.

Look, Publius, this is BS. Make yourself look good by committing to something, then make a whole series of ridiculous excuses the other side won't accept, and use that as the excuse to renege. Push it forever.

It's why you don't give in the the first demand. Because that's not the end. Biden agrees, and the next thing is the tests have to be run by Ronny Jackson. Or they have to test for some normal medication that Biden is known to take. Let him refuse and he's probably a drug addict. Let him agree and he's certainly one.

Remember the tax returns?

"Of course I'll release them."

"Oh, my accountant is working on them."

"Oh, they are so complicated no one will understand them."

"Oh. I can't. They are being audited."

And you swallow it all.

"Short form birth certificate? No. We need the long one."

"I don't think I lost the election. I'm going to court."
"I lost in court. The judges are all Democratic plants. I demand the state legislatures conduct (yet another") round of audits."

"They either refused, or did it and didn't find any significant problems? Then send a mob to the Capitol to prevent certification."

It's disgusting, dishonest, behavior, the worst, most loathesome, in US politics since secession. (And no, Gore filing a suit and then conceding when he lost at SCOTUS is not the same thing.) Yet you continue to act like a treasonous jackass my defending him and his thugs.

[Armchair]

Well, I'm in favor of the debaters being asked certain questions during the debate that can help evaluate their mental stability.

1. President Trump. What are your sons names? When were they born?

2. President Biden. What are your sons names? When were they born? When did one of them die.

I think the answer to those questions will be far more informative than any questions about "What would you do to help the economy" which results in a talking point response.

[Nige]

Reducing them to the level of baby-talk - they're supposed to be articulating high-level policy positions, albeit in soundbite forms. I think that should be sufficent for judging mental acuity and stability and engagement with current events and priorities for the future. Like the last debate they had.

[Armchair]

Afraid at what the answers from such simple questions may be, eh?

[Sarcastr0]

Yes, Armchair, everyone thinks your 'ask super easy questions in the debate' plan has Biden's number and we're all afraid about it.

You've figured it out.

[Commenter_XY]

POTUS Biden, under oath, failed to remember the date or year that his son died. Further, he failed to recall the location. That happened. POTUS Biden is experiencing cognitive decline, that is normal for people. It is not normal for a POTUS.

[Brett Bellmore]

People keep citing this as proof of his decline, and it annoys me.

Look, I don't recall the date or year my own mother died, and I watched it happen. The event itself is engraved in my memory, the date is an irrelevant detail I'd have to look up.

Not everybody obsesses about dates, and memorizes them!

The location is somewhat more significant, the fact that he spouts lies about his personal history right after people point out they're not true is pretty significant. But not remembering even pretty important dates is remarkably common.

[Commenter_XY]

I do not agree about this, chiefly because POTUS Biden shamelessly milks the death of his son for political purposes when it suits him. It is beneath contempt.

[Nige]

'milks.' Fucking hell.

[Bob from Ohio]

There's only three things he mentions in a sentence -- a noun, a verb, and Beau died. There's nothing else! There's nothing else!

[Nige]

Yeah! Nothing else! Back to sleep Bob.

[Bob from Ohio]

Just paraphrasing one of Sleepy Joe's old statements.

[Nige]

That was a pretty sharp sting by 'sleepy' Joe.

[bernard11]

What is beneath contempt is your attacks on Biden and worship of Trump.

Biden is "shameless," says the Trump toady. Do you imagine Trump has some sort of conscience? That he is capable of shame, or guilt, or anything but blind personal greed?

Donald Trump is in the 99+ percentile of shamelessness, and you're criticizing Biden. Get a brain.

[Commenter_XY]

Here is your cognitive champion, bernard11. Enjoy. 🙂

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MVZdS18NX8

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

I don't click on videos, but I'm guessing it wasn't the one where Trump spoke about the "Revolutionary Airports"...

[Frank Drackman]

Well he did die in Iraq

[TwelveInchPianist]

Not only does he milk it, he lies about it.

Unless, perhaps, his cognitive decline is such that he actually believes his son died in Iraq.

[Sarcastr0]

Don't be a piece of shit.

Biden has attributed the brain cancer to toxic burn pits in Iraq, which might explain error. Do you think his plan was to get away with it?

But milking it? Lying? He had to bury his son.

You can be a partisan without being this kind of asshole.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Don’t be a piece of shit."

Don't insult other commenters.

"Biden has attributed the brain cancer to toxic burn pits in Iraq, which might explain error."

How would that explain his falsely saying that this son was killed in Iraq?

And in any event, there's no evidence that his son's cancer was caused by burn pits, so he's either making an irrational conclusion, or lying. And we already know that he lies about his son's death.

And when he lies about it in political speeches, he's milking it.

[Nige]

It's not an unreasonable conclusion to draw. Those burn pits were a war crime.

[bernard11]

Biden shamelessly milks the death of his son for political purposes when it suits him.

Oh fuck you and whoever put that odious idea in your lame brain.

You have no goddamn basis for any of this, but are happy to smear Biden regardless.

Assuming you are an Ashkenazi Jew (I thought we were supposed to be smart, so maybe that's a bad assumption) you and I are possibly something like 6th-7th cousins. I sure hope not.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

I intentionally do not remember death dates. I do (try to) remember birth dates.

[NOVA Lawyer]

POTUS Biden, under oath, failed to remember the date or year that his son died.

You obviously have no idea what you’re talking about. He said “May 30th.” Which is, in fact, the date his son died.

If you the truth itself isn’t enough to make your point, do you have a point?

As Brett reasonably points out, it is not at all unusual to not remember specific dates or years when someone close to you dies. As he says, not everyone obsesses over dates. But, regardless, Biden did remember the date. May 30.

Maybe you’d have more success mocking Biden’s memory if your own was better.

(And maybe read the transcript. Biden also wasn't asked either the date or year, but asked himself the month and correctly answers "May 30" then maybe paused without saying the year while thinking about it and others chimed in with 2015, to which Biden responded "Was it 2015 he had died?" Then "It was 2015.")

This talking point is almost more stupid (not an easy lift), and certainly more vapid, than the Burisma bullshit.

[David Nieporent]

POTUS Biden, under oath, failed to remember the date or year that his son died.

That is incorrect. Beau Biden died on May 30, 2015. In his interview with Hur, Joe Biden identified May 30 as the date that Beau Biden died:

And, and so what was happening, though - what month did Beau die? Oh, God, May 30th --

[Sarcastr0]

Yes Commenter, we all know you've adopted a Brett-like confidence that reaches out and finds everyone else secretly agrees with you and is in bad faith.

You didn't used to be like this.

Remember when the drip drip drip of scandal was going to get Biden to have to resign? How'd that go?

[Commenter_XY]

Did you read SC Hur's report, Sarcastr0? I merely stated facts from it.

[Nige]

I don’t know what you’re all concerned about. In the debates, Biden will be revealed as a doddering shell of a man who doesn’t even know where he is, Trump will incisively run rings around him, articulating his policy positions with such clarity and persuasiveness that the entire country will have no choice but to vote for him.

[NOVA Lawyer]

You merely misstated facts.

[Nige]

Afraid that the trend of dumbing everything down and lowering standards and expectations to facilitate Trump is incredibly bad for the country. ‘Trump can for sure remember his kids names, let’s do that!’ What a low bar.

[Frank Drackman]

Low bar? that would be the Morehouse Students putting a DemoKKKratic Repubic of Kong-O Flag behind Sleepy at the Commencement in Atlanta yesterday, probably thinking it was Palestinian (and they had it backward to boot) Wonder how many watermelons gave their lives for the reception after?

Frank

[ThePublius]

What you are suggesting is an abbreviated cognitive aptitude test. I think they should begin with a game of checkers.

I think the debate should be more like a Festivus celebration.

The feats of strength: recall it is Biden who has often challenged folks to push-up contests (honest!).

Airing of grievances: obvious.

Festivus miracles: the labeling of easily explainable events as "Festivus miracles". Economy, etc.

[Frank Drackman]

For all of Sleepy's talk about push-ups I've yet to see him do one (Hunter's more into the push-ins)
I've seen him (try) to ride a bike, in his defense, bicycling's not really a good treatment for Parkinsons.

Frank

[Moderation4ever]

This is simply silly. It is Donald Trump laying the groundwork to withdraw from the debate. Maybe Joe Biden had an espresso before the SOU. What I think more likely is that Joe Biden knows how to pace himself. When to come on strong and when to lay back. If you look at his past performances you can see that he can step up when he needs to do so.

[ThePublius]

Moderation4ever:
"This is simply silly. It is Donald Trump laying the groundwork to withdraw from the debate. Maybe Joe Biden had an espresso before the SOU."
Ha, ha, I was going to say that as a joke! Biden was, to use Trump's words, high as a kite.
We should circle back, and see who, if anyone withdraws. My money's on Biden.

"What I think more likely is that Joe Biden knows how to pace himself. When to come on strong and when to lay back. If you look at his past performances you can see that he can step up when he needs to do so."
You give him too much credit. Perhaps you're choosing particular "performances." His routine performances portray an old man in his dotage. Perhaps senile.

[Moderation4ever]

True believer I see. If Trump said the world was flat, then flat it is. LOL.

[ThePublius]

No. Trump is not perfect by any means. But I much prefer the way he ran the administration when he was in office, and I much prefer his policy positions. I think he's better for the country, and for the citizens, for business, for industry, for the economy, and so on.

Say you had two flat-earthers, one who can pilot and airplane, and one who can't. Who do you want piloting the airplane that you're on?

[Nige]

If Trump is telling you he can fly a plane and fly it better than the trained pilot, you might want to think twice.

[Moderation4ever]

Trump was incompetent and if you had clear eyes, you would see that. He took a good economy and ran it into the ground like many of his businesses. I not happy having two old farts for candidates, but I am picking Biden because he is actually doing a good job.

[Bob from Ohio]

"took a good economy and ran it into the ground"

Trump caused a worldwide pandemic, who knew.

[Brett Bellmore]

To be fair, it wasn't the pandemic that crashed the economy, it was the lockdowns. But that was mostly state policy.

[Nige]

And Biden managed the recovery.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, how much managing does it take to stop telling businesses that they have to be closed? That crash was purely a consequence of government policy, the moment the policy went away, the economy recovered.

[Nige]

Biden and Obama inherit a crashed economy, they rebuild and recover, Trump inherits a strong economy he rides it out but hands a pandemic economy in the dumps to Biden, which recovers under Biden. And yet you claim to think Trump is good at the economy and Biden isn't.

[Nige]

Trump fucked up the response to the pandemic. Few governments covered themselves in glory, but Trump was a stinker.

[Bob from Ohio]

He pushed the vaccine process, that was the only part of the "response to the pandemic" that mattered.

All the masks and closures did squat.

[Magister]

Trump predicted that COVID would disappear the day after the election, and implemented this prediction by having no plan to distribute the vaccines that were approved in December. He was simultaneously building on his earlier policy of denial and his interest in engineering a coup.

Republicans, apparently based on the Trump administration's ineffectiveness, were insistent that the Biden administration could not deliver 100 million doses in its first hundred days; but the administration reached 200 million in that time frame.

(And of course masks and closures did help.)

[Nige]

Delayed response, no real federal response, Jared Kushner handing out pandemic-funding as favours to friends, hospitals scrambling and competing for PPE, Trump giving put quack remedies his followers actually believe, pandering to fucking idiots who claim to believe masks and distancing and isolating can’t possibly help reduce the spread of an airborne virus. He was a fucking disaster, the vaccine excepted.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuacohen/2024/01/07/trump-promoted-hydroxychloroquine-to-treat-covid-19-a-drug-now-linked-to-17000-deaths/?sh=7e0b0ac82fcd

[bernard11]

Wiat.

I thought the vaccines were a useless waste. Wasn't Brett telling us that not long ago?

[David Nieporent]

Trump caused a worldwide pandemic, who knew.

Well, you guys think Biden caused worldwide inflation.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, actually I don't. I think a lot of the world's governments are governed by people who tend to think alike, who've bought into the same theories that conveniently say they can safely spend like drunken sailors, and who are insulated from the direct effects of their own policies, and so they tend to make the same sorts of mistakes.

You can certainly identify wildly inflationary policies that Biden pursued, like sending out billions in Covid checks that weren't even means tested. Deliberately driving up the cost of energy doesn't help, either.

[Nige]

It got things back on track a heck of a lot quicker and easier than austerity ever did.

[bernard11]

“wildly?”

No.

And I see that the official RW position on the economy is still that inflation is absolutely the only thing that matters, and that if it goes up the President should be impeached, at a minimum.

Why do act like such a tool when you actually are capable of unnderstanding this stuff, if you tried, and weren’t afraid you would find all your cherished notions would prove to be BS?

[TwelveInchPianist]

What do you think happens when the government sends out billons of checks in the face of decreasing economic capacity?

[bernard11]

What do you think happens when the government sends out billons of checks in the face of decreasing economic capacity?

What do you think happens? what do you think happens when they don't send out a lot of money? How much inflation is it worth living with to recover from a threatened recession?

What aspects of economic performance do you consider important, and how should we trade these off against one other?

What do you know - not imagine, know - about the relative performance of western economies in recent years?

If Biden is responsible for the negative effects of recent inflation, does he also get credit for any aspects that have performed well?

What do you think about the interaction among things like inflation, GDP, unemployment, growth, etc.? All independent variables?

What is your training and experience in macro-economics?

What reason is there for anyone to take your rants seriously?

[TwelveInchPianist]

"What do you think happens? what do you think happens when they don’t send out a lot of money? How much inflation is it worth living with to recover from a threatened recession?"

So are you agreeing that he caused it? Or is your position that he didn't cause it, but if he did, it was good?

[Nige]

'but if he did, it was good?'

I mean, it worked, the economy recovered, and not through years of grinding austerity shifting the burden onto the poor.

[Kazinski]

Yeah but if we had to choose between only Trump and Biden to drive an 18 wheeler then Biden is the clear choice.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/24/politics/fact-check-biden-driving-18-wheeler/index.html

[bernard11]

I much prefer the way he ran the administration when he was in office, and I much prefer his policy positions. I think he’s better for the country, and for the citizens, for business, for industry, for the economy, and so on.

Why would any sane person say this? WTF did he do that so impressed you?

[Frank Drackman]

I want some of what you're smokin, Sleepy got Bee-otch Slapped by that Bee-otch Common-Law during that debate in 2019 (OK, he eventually got over 2000 delegates, who wouldn't against that horseface?)

Frank

[grb]

Kazinski : "Drug testing before Presidential debates?"

Good to see Trump's supporters getting their debate excuse prepped weeks before the actual event.

[OtisAH]

Seems like none of these mouth breathers got the note yet but expect to see the phrase “jacked up” with increasing frequency over the next few weeks when MAGA “discusses” debates and Biden speeches.

[Estragon]

Why was Ronny Jackson demoted, again?

[Frank Drackman]

Because he wasn't politically correct. Happens all the time in the military, even with Doctors.

[Estragon]

Who was doing all the ketamine and provigil he was prescribing?

https://media.defense.gov/2024/Jan/09/2003373440/-1/-1/1/DODIG-2024-044_REDACTED%20SECURE.PDF

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Did the United States military determine that retired admiral . . . . oops, captain . . . Jackson had disgraced his uniform and consequently demoted him?

Does Jackson still lie about being a retired admiral?

[Frank Drackman]

Revolting, as usual. Like a Fruit-Loop like you could tell the ass end of a, oh wait, you know all about ass ends.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Nothing wrong with directing attention to and expressing scorn concerning a taxpayer-funded military member who disgraces the uniform and fails his country, like Ronny Jackson.

[Frank Drackman]

Well you're certainly the expert on disgraceful failures, Revolting.

[Frank Drackman]

They're both legal medications, so his patients I'm assuming.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Why was Ronny Jackson demoted, again?"

Because he worked for Trump, duh.

[Estragon]

Who was doing all the drugs?

[Frank Drackman]

Most likely the patients who got the prescriptions

[Estragon]

Don’s got a cough, sounds kind a rough

Yeah, and the codeine to fix it

Doctor prescribes, drug store supplies

Who's gonna help him to kick it

[Estragon]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qjUyzh_DkeI

[ThePublius]

Regarding Biden's mental acuity:

""When I was Vice President, things were kinda bad during the pandemic," is not a thing former Veep Mike Pence said on Sunday. "And what happened was, Barack said to me, 'Go to Detroit! And help fix it!' Well, poor Mayor [Duggan], he's spent more time with me than he ever thought he's gonna have to.""

So, Biden is saying that Obama was president and he was VP when during the pandemic. Right.

This guy's playing with a full deck?

[Sarcastr0]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_pandemic

[Absaroka]

Are you saying that Biden was referring to going to Detroit during the 2009 Swine Flu outbreak, to meet Mayor Duggan? Because Duggan assumed office in 2014, if wiki has his bio right.

Are you sure you did your homework, as you like to say, on this?

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Are you sure that he didn't simply refer to the Mayor who's sitting next to him in the present sense. You know, since the guy is currently the Mayor?

You might do your own research as to the stupidity of Publius and Kazinski and find out that Duggan was the President and CEO of Detroit Medical Center in 2009.

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

Yeah, he might have had plenty of conversations about a 2009 pandemic, don't you think?

[Sarcastr0]

All I know is when I google that quote I turned up exactly 1 source - pjmedia.

But doing some digging, it looks like he meant recession not pandemic.

Not really what ThePublius is looking for, but he's looking to feed a story he's telling.

[Absaroka]

"it looks like he meant recession"

So that would be a recession while Biden was veep, and Duggan was mayor? So sometime between 2014 and 2016?

Because wiki seems to be missing that one.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

I will never not be appreciative of you fact-checking Publius' stupidity right here.

5/5, no notes.

[bernard11]

Again, anyone who repeats all the dementia crap about Biden is a gullible fool.

For every example of him getting something wrong there are probably 100 of Trump doing so.

And that doesn't count the endlessly repeated promises. Tax returns, testimony, infrastructure.

You dumb fucks believe it all, and then criticize Biden for getting an inflation rate wrong. If we weren't facing a real threat to the country it would be funny. It's not. It's tragic.

[Brett Bellmore]

That's only because the media obsessed over hunting down every 'lie' Trump told, even to the point of characterizing something as a 'lie' if they just didn't like the implications, regardless of whether it was factual. While they've had to be dragged kicking and screaming into fact checking Biden at all.

To give you an example go look at what Trump has said about NAFTA that the WAPO lists as "lies". Most of it is pure opinion, and a lot of it is factual stuff that they just didn't like.

[Martinned2]

Yes, isn’t it terrible when someone is obsessed over hunting down every ‘lie’ a politician told, even to the point of characterizing something as a ‘lie’ if they just didn’t like the implications, regardless of whether it was factual?

[Voize]

Brett, the lie here is when you say that WaPo fact checkers accuse Trump of lying 30,000 times when they have consistently called his statements "false or misleading", not lies. Here you even repeat your false claim while supplying a link that directly refutes it.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Kazinski, what would you think about pre-trial drug testing, to disclose whether a defendant has been sedated by his legal team.

[gVOR08]

Trump makes stuff up and the world is supposed to accommodate him? How about we start drug testing debaters after Trump voluntarily releases his tax returns?

[Brett Bellmore]

Biden makes stuff up, too, you know. He's notorious for it.

[Frank Drackman]

C'mon Man! he marched with Mandela at Gettsburgh! He even had to miss every Foo-bawl game at West Point because he wouldn't play on the Sabbath! His son died in Iraq!(man). His first wife was killed by a Drunk Driver!

Frank

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : "Biden makes stuff up, too, you know. He’s notorious for it"

Absolutely true. Likewise, a picturesque pond is wet. So is the Pacific Ocean. Lying-wise, that's Biden & Trump respectively.

[Frank Drackman]

Pacific Ocean? Where Sleepy's Uncle was eaten by Cannibals?

[Brett Bellmore]

Typically Trump engages in braggadocio, lies that are intended to make people impressed by him. Biden engages in the sort of lies intended to make people think he's one of them, like claiming to have attended a historical black college, or being in the civil rights marches in the 60's. (Spoiler: At the time he was on the other side...)

They both lie like rugs.

You probably think Trump is worse about lying because of that ridiculous database the WaPo created, that obsessively reported as a lie everything Trump said that they didn't like. He could say it was a nice day, and they'd record it as being a lie on the basis of a thunderstorm 100 miles away...

[Sarcastr0]

Trump denies he did stuff he did all the time as well. And tells his followers how the Dems are stealing the election.

His Hurricane marker thing led to an entire government wide initiative to insulate scientific results from political shenanigans so everyone is like our statistical agencies now.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

"Inflation was at 9% when I took office."

How many times has he claimed that now even after having been called on it repeatedly?

[grb]

WuzYoungOnceToo : "How many times has he claimed that now..."

Hundreds upon hundreds times fewer than Trump's repeated election lies. Just the other day he was telling the good people of Minnesota he won their state in '20 though - to be fair - it was a medium length speech and Trump never talks that long without 5-6 lies minimum. Three more points :

1. You can't say that about Biden. He can make it through a dozen speeches without once insisting up-is-down. Trump can't.

2. And Trump demands all GOP politicians / party officials lie the same way he does. He's purged officials that refused. Get back to me when Biden requires all Democrats to parrot his 9% business.

3. And here's something to note about Trump and his toxic election bullshit : He's never settled on a consistent story. One crowd gets one hustle; the next day's group something totally different. You'd think he'd have paid someone to produce a Grand Unified Theory of election fraud by now, but Trump can't be bothered. Just like his lifelong criminality, it's sport to him. You see, there are players (him) and dupes (yourself, Wuz). To lie to the dupes - cheat & defraud them - is what Trump considers fun.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

You see, there are players (him) and dupes (yourself, Wuz).

Speaking of pathological liars...like you....

I know Trump is full of shit, and have never excused/defended any bullshit claim he's made, contrary to your stupid claim above. I'm just pointing out your own hypocrisy.

[bernard11]

I’m just pointing out your own hypocrisy.

What about your own? And how did you vote in 2020 and 2016?

And the reason you and your pals keep pointing to one thing is because you have limited material, whereas Trump critics have tens of thousands of examples.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

What about your own?

Well, if/when you can point to any examples of hypocrisy on my part I'll gladly address them. Until then you're just making shit up.

And the reason you and your pals...

There's that idiotic inability to deal with people as individuals.

because you have limited material, whereas Trump critics have tens of thousands of examples

You really are one of the dumbest, most clueless SOBs on the planet, aren't you? Biden has been infamous for his habitual bullshit for decades. There's more material there than in a Chinese textile factory.

[bernard11]

Biden makes stuff up, too, you know. He’s notorious for it.

Oh well. That excuses all Trump's 30-50K lies. At least in Brett's mind.

[Kazinski]

Talk about making stuff up. Biden just said that Obama sent him to Detroit when he was VP to help out during the Pandemic.

https://twitter.com/ClayDeux/status/1792376237564027151?t=L_s0IMYrjsZOXUO2wp5XCw&s=19

[Jason Cavanaugh]

How embarrassing for you.

https://reason.com/volokh/2024/05/20/monday-open-thread-54/?comments=true#comment-10567860

You should try thinking before posting. Just once, I promise it won't hurt.

[Kazinski]

If nobody can remember there was a pandemic in 2009, then there wasn't a pandemic in 2009.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

And yet people do remember it, and it did happen.

It's odd that reality contradicts you so frequently.

[Nige]

No wonder you vote for Trump.

[TwelveInchPianist]

In 2024, "the pandemic" means the covid pandemic. It's like someone in Westchester lying about being in "the city" and claiming they meant St. Louis when called out.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

One way to approach comprehension is to focus exclusively on two words in an entire sentence and ignore the rest.

Another, more successful way to approach it is to pay attention to the entire sentence to determine its meaning.

Illiteracy must really be hard. Let us know how you plan to attack your struggles.

[TwelveInchPianist]

How embarrassing for you.

[Sarcastr0]

I was wrong it was another pandemic. Instead, he just meant recession.

He didn't lie.

You have never ever gone by the idea that if it's too good to be true, it probably is. Maybe check what Lake Boss on Twitter says first next time?

[TwelveInchPianist]

"I was wrong it was another pandemic. Instead, he just meant recession.

He didn’t lie."

Evidence?

[Sarcastr0]

Evidence? Weird ask. It's pretty basic logic.

Recession makes sense with the timeline and description.

Lying about the pandemic being during the Obama admin makes no sense to tell.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Evidence? Weird ask."

Unsurprising words from a science bureaucrat.

How does 'recession' make sense with the timeline and description?

Lying about your son being killed in Iraq makes no sense either, but there it is.

[Sarcastr0]

It’s in the corrected transcript.

You are straining to find Biden is telling nonconvincing lies when there are other explanations.

It’s a weird thing to be committed to.

And quit bringing stuff you know about me into this, it’s creepy.

[TwelveInchPianist]

“It’s in the corrected transcript.”

A corrected transcript isn’t evidence.

“You are straining to find Biden is telling nonconvincing lies when there are other explanations.”

But you have utterly failed to provide any other explanation.

Even if he meant recession, there wasn't one when Duggan was mayor.

[TwelveInchPianist]

What recession happened when Duggan was mayor?

[Sarcastr0]

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2024/05/19/remarks-by-president-biden-at-a-campaign-event-detroit-mi-2/

You are so confident and yet so lazy,

[TwelveInchPianist]

Huh? There is nothing in that link about a recession when Duggan was mayor. Talk about lazy. Or, more likely, dishonest.

[Sarcastr0]

It literally corrects the language to recession.

[Brett Bellmore]

Corrects, alters. Tomato, tomato.

That's why people want the Hur audio; To see what got corrected.

[Sarcastr0]

So is your position that Biden told an obvious and not very coherent lie but then got caught?

The GOP knows what Hur said; it's absolutely insane to argue there's a coverup there.

[TwelveInchPianist]

He said, 'Pandemic'. Even if he meant recession (for which there is no evidence), how is that not still a lie?

Even if Obama sent him to Detroit to "fix" the recession, why would he be spending time with the CEO of the Detroit Medical Center?

Again, how does this explanation make any sense?

[Sarcastr0]

Even if he meant recession...how is that not still a lie?
Because lies are when you *mean* to say something false, you dunderhead.

[Sarcastr0]

Even if he meant recession (for which there is no evidence),

There is evidence, in that then the statement makes sense, and that the White House corrected it presumably based on the intended meaning.

Even if Obama sent him to Detroit to “fix” the recession, why would he be spending time with the CEO of the Detroit Medical Center?
The statement was “poor mayor, he spent more time with me than he ever thought he was going to have to”

Seems you’re confused. And blaming Biden for it, in a pretty pathetic display.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Because lies are when you *mean* to say something false..."

And given the fact that Duggan was not mayor during the great recession or any other recession, the statement he supposedly meant to say also appears to be false, you dunderhead.

[TwelveInchPianist]

And before you whip up some BS like, “well, maybe he wasn’t referring to Duggan, it’s clear from the video at 2:15 that he is.

So confident, so lazy, so ready to project your shortcomings onto others.

What a flailing, desperate little liar you are.

"There is evidence, in that then the statement makes sense, and that the White House corrected it presumably based on the intended meaning."

1. The statement still doesn't make sense.
2. Again, your presumptions aren't evidence. I should expect better of our science bureaucrats, but sadly, I don't.

[Martinned2]

What checks should courts make before relying on information and imagery published on the internet? Can so-called digital open source information ever be regarded as reliable evidence?

Answers to these questions can be found in a guide for judges and fact-finders published today. The team responsible for it is headed by an academic at Swansea University.

https://www.trueproject.co.uk/osguide

[Martinned2]

Professor Yvonne McDermott Rees and her colleagues say that imagery found online should require corroboration in the same way as any other evidence. But there are additional challenges:

– There may be no information about how or when the image was recorded.
– We may not know who posted the images online.
– The image may have been manipulated or tampered with.
– Metadata associated with the image may have been modified or deleted.
– Video content may have been staged by actors.
– Material may have been generated by artificial intelligence.

Even so, says the report, some edited or inauthentic content may have evidentiary value. A long video recording may be edited without any intention to mislead the viewer. The date of an image may be accurate even if the content has been manipulated.

[DaveM]

I’m not sure I understand why these are challenges of online imagry, specifically. Clearly, they would apply to imagry from any source.

The big problem with the Internet is using it as a transport medium. It’s a public medium that fundamentally relies on making copies of the data to move it, so there’s no way to guararantee chain of custody and privacy if any of the participants must remain anonymous, such as in voting.

Finding something online doesn't mean it's useless as evidence. There is some metadata, there are copies to compare it to, there are chains of custody of hosts and registrars, etc.

[Martinned2]

Presumably the idea is that, as you say, offline images have a provenance that can be proven and/or challenged.

[DaveM]

Just being offline shouldn’t grant anything because the thing itself (digital image) isn’t a unique physical object, but rather an editable series of instructions to create an image. (There is a way to overcome this with digital signing, but that can't be done anonymously.)

[Martinned2]

I don't think there's a suggestion otherwise. I think the idea is that images and video taken from the internet pose a distinct set of problems that can usefully be discussed together for the purposes of producing some guidance. If you make the guidance cover a wider range of evidence, you either have to make it longer or you have to make it more shallow.

[DaveM]

Good point.

[Stephen Lathrop]

DaveM, the problem of reliable provenance for a digital online image will prove unsolvable. But it will often prove possible to debunk fake images. The presence of logically contradictory information—such as anachronisms provable from image content—can establish the impossibility of a valid image.

It will almost never prove possible to identify real images reliably, if only information present in a digital file of uncertain provenance is available. There will never be any way to rule out every possible undiscovered image flaw, nor to rule out sophisticated counterfeits of supposedly undetectable digital proofs of authenticity.

Note also that even for files as simple as texts, time problems may prove to be pitfalls. Timestamps on files can be added anywhere along a chain of transmission between servers. The standards for time may, or may not, rely on time zones. Time references in timestamps may be based on anything, from arbitrarily entered initial data, to accurate-to-the-second computed astronomical time at the location of an intermediate server.

I know of one such server. It enables me to send a file from my wife's computer to my own, which will always arrive with a paradoxical timestamp, several minutes prior to when the file was sent. By comparing time discrepancies over multiple messages (which all fall in a quite narrow range), I can compute pretty accurately the longitude of the server doing the time stamping, which is at a location I have previously identified by other means.

I suggest that the only way to use legally open content information from the internet is to insist on personal testimony in court, which comes identifiably and provably from the first person to post the content. In short, a standard similar to the customary best-evidence standard long familiar to legal practitioners.

[DaveM]

I agree it is easier to prove a digital image is fake than it is to prove it is original. To prove a fake, you just have to find one image that contradicts the claim of authorship. To prove an original, you'd have to find *all* the images.

If only for that reason, "clear text" content from any source can't have its provenance established well enough to count as proof on its own. It needs confirmation, as you noted.

However, it should be noted that the same does not apply to digitally signed digital information -- even if the information is transported over the Internet. Digital signatures provide mathematical proof that content is unchanged, and the encrypting/decrypting keys provide proof of uniqueness. If you have to establish a chain of custody on digital information, and the parties are known to each other, you can, indeed lock down that information tight enough to serve as evidence.

[David Nieporent]

There will never be any way to rule out every possible undiscovered image flaw, nor to rule out sophisticated counterfeits of supposedly undetectable digital proofs of authenticity.

So what? You're overthinking this. If one is trying to establish a principle of quantum physics, one may need to rule out every possible flaw in one's data. But trials do not require absolute proof. They only require proof by a preponderance of the evidence in a civil case (occasionally clear & convincing evidence) or proof beyond a reasonable doubt in a criminal case.

There is no evidence, online or offline, about which one can say, "There is 0.0000% possibility of this evidence being flawed or counterfeit." And yet such potentially-flawed/fake evidence is admitted all the time.

[Don Nico]

We can know with certainty whether validated digital data transmitted over a quantum-encrypted data link has either been intercepted, altered, or is identical with the sent message.

[David Nieporent]

A jury has to rely on testimony. The witness whose testimony authenticates the evidence in the manner you describe could be lying.

[Stephen Lathrop]

And the sworn testimony of a liar can be punished.

An image presented without a creator to vouch for it creates no comparable risk to encourage honesty.

[David Nieporent]

An image presented without a creator to vouch for it creates no comparable risk to encourage honesty.

I'm sorry, but how exactly do you think the picture got into evidence in this hypothetical? Do you have any understanding of courtroom procedure?

[Drewski]

"But trials do not require absolute proof. They only require proof by a preponderance of the evidence in a civil case (occasionally clear & convincing evidence) or proof beyond a reasonable doubt in a criminal case."

You're putting the cart before the horse. The standard is normally evidence sufficient for a reasonable juror to find that an item is what it is claimed to be. You don't have to win the case before you're allowed to introduce evidence.

[David Nieporent]

You don’t have to win the case before you’re allowed to introduce evidence.

No, but you have to be able to win the case. If all evidence were excludable on the grounds that there's a theoretical possibility that it was fake — as Lathrop appeared to be arguing wrt digital evidence — then a party could never meet its burden.

[Drewski]

Okay, so you're confused by a little rhetorical flourish. Let me try in simpler terms: The standard for authentication is not the same standard the jury uses to decide the case. The former is what I wrote, and the latter is what you wrote, which is wrong.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Nieporent, two points:

1. My comments referred only to images without an identifiable source. Are images such as that, "admitted all the time."

2. Previous experience will deliver an unhelpful standard. Democratization and even automation of image manipulation tools will presently make modified images so commonplace that suspicion that any particular image has been modified will become both routine and reasonable.

[Martinned2]

Sorry, the source for all of this is, of course, Joshua Rozenberg: https://rozenberg.substack.com/p/judging-the-internet

[Archibald Tuttle]

The weakness in such efforts is in the definitions. The first two technical sentences in the judge's guide say: The Berkeley Protocol defines open source information as ‘information that any member of the public can observe, purchase or request, without requiring special legal status or unauthorized access’. Digital open source information is ‘publicly available information in digital format, which is generally acquired from the internet’.

To circumvent the whole thing, a trickster need only submit a print in analog format, or to submit it before it becomes publicly available. If successful, all the other pages in the guide don't apply.

Similarly, poorly thought-out regulations of AI begin without defining what is and AI. Some can argue that even a car cruise control, or a car's mechanical thermostat, is an AI. Indeed, car makers will probably advertise "AI-enhanced cruise control" someday soon. A violator could challenge a prosecutor to prove that his device is an AI. How would you prove it beyond a reasonable doubt?

[Commenter_XY]

There is a new 'Hero of the Pitch': Alexander Sorloth

This fair haired Norwegian player scored four (yes 4) goals against Real Madrid yesterday in the space of 17 minutes. Incredibly, Villareal tied RMA (4-4). A spectacular individual performance.

It has been ~75 years since a player scored 4 goals on Real Madrid.

What I saw made me wonder about the Champions League match on 6/1 against Dortmund. I still think RMA wins, though. Too strong upfront.

[Frank Drackman]

Real Madrid? The team with the player opposing fans make Monkey noises at when he scores a goal against them? and Norway produced Anders Breivik (who got less time than “45”‘s looking at), so there’s that.
Says everything about Soccer that you’re so excited about a tie game

Frank “Remember when the wind blew Carlton Fisk's fly ball back into the field and game 6 of the 1975 series ended in a tie!!!????”

[Commenter_XY]

The player you are talking about is Vinicius Jr. He is magical on the pitch, next time you are on YT, check out what he can do.

I enjoy a good football or baseball game. As a Yankees fan, I fondly recall the outcome of the 75 World Series. 😉

[Frank Drackman]

Well played, I keep up with Energie Cottbus because my Mom's an Energie Cottbus fan, so I have to be a fan. Been a Braves fan since they've been in Atlanta (I beat them by 3 years) but always liked the Red Sox since they were the proverbial underdogs, and thats where the Braves started and the Yankees were US Steel/CBS/Steinbrenner, until I went to a game at Fenway, What A-Holes!, rooted for the Yanks over the Sox since the A-rod error (I know, and I don't care)

Frank

[Commenter_XY]

The Braves made the A Train famous, LOL. One of their pitchers, as I recall. It was hilarious.

[Frank Drackman]

Lat time the Yankees won a World Series, Sleepy Joe was in his 60's. And with all those Yankees $$$$ what a waste of talent.

Frank

[Commenter_XY]

Wow, you know how to hurt a guy. Ouch. It has been a while.

[Frank Drackman]

Just bustin balls, keep kicking Red Sox butt

[bernard11]

1998-2000? 2009?

[Noscitur a sociis]

If he works hands enough, do you think he might get skilled enough to play a real sport?

[Commenter_XY]

Cute....but I don't know Nas.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

What is signaling to all how much you hate soccer supposed to demonstrate? I've seen it many times and I've never understood it.

[BrotherMovesOn]

Ignorance?

[bernard11]

I'm guilty sometimes, AWD, but I like to talk about a conversation I had some years ago.

I was part of a small group on a photographic trip to Tanzania - Serengeti, Olduvai Gorge - the usual. The World Cup was in progress and one of the women on the trip, who had played on her college soccer team, was intensely interested in the games, as I was not.

So we fell into conversation one day and I made some remark about not caring about the World Cup, and not really understanding the game and the tactics.

This brought a sharp, Internet level, reaction.

"Are you a moron? What do you mean you don't understand? Do you understand basketball?"

"[Cautiously] Well, yes."

"So what do basketball players do?"

"They move the ball around, trying to get a good shot at the goal, while the defenders try to stop them, prevent the shot, and get the ball back."

"Congratulations. You now understand soccer, because that's exactly what soccer players are trying to do. Is that hard to grasp?"

"Um. No. Heard any baseball scores?"

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Yeah, that response by her is just as hard to understand. Perhaps it is a defensive reaction because so many Americans like to make a point about how much they dislike soccer. It doesn't sound like you were doing that, though.

I know next to nothing about cricket or rugby. I find football (the American variety) boring, and college football financially outrageous. But if other people like that stuff, that's fine with me. I don't blast football every time someone here brings up the subject. In this country soccer seems to draw hateful reactions in some quarters, and I've never really understood why. It's just another sport.

[David Nieporent]

In this country soccer seems to draw hateful reactions in some quarters, and I’ve never really understood why. It’s just another sport.

It's part of the endless culture wars. Europeans like soccer, so therefore people who like soccer are un-American.

[Dr. Ed 2]

UMass Amherst needs to arbitrarily fire at least 225 tenured professors.

while he should have acted immediately, the new (Mexican-born) Chancellor finally sent in the police to remove not only the tents but the barricades which had been erected around them. So now there are some 225 professors demanding that he be fired -- and I think that they instead ought to be fired.

That's the untold problem of academia, and one which has become very visible this spring -- out of control EMPLOYEES who really need ti be fired. Students have free speech rights -- employees don't.

So let's simply start firing them.

[mse326]

What is the relevance of his place of birth?

And how would arbitrarily firing them help? That would just get them massive damages in lawsuits and probably reinstatement anyway.

[Dr. Ed 2]

We need to get rid of them

[Dr. Ed 2]

Disrupting graduation is unacceptable.

[David Nieporent]

Did the professors you're uncharacteristically not calling for the death of disrupt graduation?

[Frank Drackman]

Well he can't be POTUS for one thing, the founders thought it had some relevance.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

.

What is the relevance of his place of birth?

At the Volokh Conspiracy, bigotry (including xenophobia) is a point of core relevance for the right-wing law professors and their fans every day of every week of every month of every year.

(The racial slurs are only published roughly once a week at this white, male, movement conservative blog, though.)

[John F. Carr]

Massachusetts will not uphold firing a tenured professor for signing such a letter.

In related news, Harvard's unionized grad students claim encampment-related discipline is an unfair labor practice. The NLRB will decide.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I'm not so sure -- there is a lot of BIG money in high tech DoD weaponry in Massachusetts and they are hiring a lot of UM grads and the demands that UM sever ties with DoD contractors have upset some really powerful people.

[Krayt]

I was unaware protests was a duty of grad students.

[Frank Drackman]

They gotta have something to do when they're not fucking undergraduates

[Martinned2]

Unilever has decided not to sell its Russian ice cream business. Or, as the Daily Telegraph put it in its headline (because they can't help themselves): "Ben & Jerry’s owner to keep making Soviet-style ice cream despite pressure to quit Russia"

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/05/16/unilever-keep-making-ice-cream-russia-spin-off-plan/

[Michael P]

Heh:

Mikoyan was said to have been accused by Stalin of caring more about ice cream than Communism.

[bernard11]

I'm with Mikoyan.

[NvEric]

Beware of the nocturnal burrito !

[Martinned2]

* Sandwich

https://reason.com/volokh/2024/05/19/indiana-court-rules-burritos-and-tacos-qualify-as-sandwiches/

[Commenter_XY]

In other news....Hamas Homies Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi along with Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian were burnt to a crisp died in a helicopter crash yesterday and subsequently took a ride on the One-Way Paradise Train to what one hopes is an especially warm destination.

The world is a better place today.

Cue in 'Zionist plot'. 🙂

[Frank Drackman]

Sounds like an "added scene" from "Munich"

Frank

[Dr. Ed 2]

🙂

[Martinned2]

I liked this discussion on Bluesky yesterday, about why anyone would want to fly in a helicopter. (Any helicopter, or this particular type.)

https://bsky.app/profile/kilgoretrout.bsky.social/post/3ksu7axuo2e22

[ThePublius]

Well, POTUS uses helicopters. I think they are inherently more accident prone than airplanes, but with proper maintenance and well trained crews, and due notice of weather, they are fine.

[Frank Drackman]

You get any fixed wing aircraft trimmed properly and it'll fly for hours until it runs out of fuel. Rotary Wing aircraft are constantly fighting their "Pilots" (they always joke about who's flying who) to crash. The most important part of any Helicopter is called the "Jesus Nut" which told me everything I needed to know about Helicopters. I did a token 1.0 hour familiarization flight in one as a Student Flight Surgeon, and a few rides in the Search and Rescue Helo (CH-46, has 2 Props to chop your limbs/head off) to get my flight pay before I got my Hornet Squadron

Frank "Kobe, honey, can't we just take an Uber?"

[ThePublius]

Maybe we need a new White House, with an airstrip, and just turn the existing one into a museum.

[Martinned2]

Don't jinx it!

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

[Frank Drackman]

Saw one of the JFK Secret Service Agents interviewed once, said he was always most worried on the stupid Helicopter ride to Camp David.

[ThePublius]

Was it because of helicopter unreliability, or vulnerability to attack from the ground, as with RPGs?

[Frank Drackman]

the first

[Moderation4ever]

I noted that there were reports of fog. I wonder how many times I see the mention of weather and helicopter crash? It certainly seems to be a common feature. I think that far too often helicopters are allowed to fly in bad weather. I think the rule of thumb should be that unless you have good weather skip the copter and take the car.

[Frank Drackman]

Are you Dr. Ed in Drag? You see, Aircraft have these things called "Instruments" which allow them to fly into these things called "Clouds" which is all that fog is, a Cloud that lost it's way and made it down to Earth. But you're right about the car, it's amazing you never hear about any chain reaction crashes where hundreds of cars run into each other driving in Foggy conditions

Frank

[Moderation4ever]

Better chance of surviving a car crash than surviving a helicopter crash.

[Frank Drackman]

Penetrating Anal-lyis Captain Obvious, have you submitted your CV to be Common-Law Harris's replacement?

[Dr. Ed 2]

If I am not mistaken, notwithstanding instruments, there are minimum visibility requirements for both fixed and rotary wing aircraft. In fact, the highest fatality commercial aircraft crash ever involved two loaded 747s running into each other on a runway in the fog.

It depends on what you have for instruments, how well the airport is equipped, and your level of training (at least in the FAA/civilian world) but I know quite a bit about fog and minimum visibility with single engine fixed wing because I've been grounded by it.
And I've seen the FBI in their Black Helo (I presume keeping their hours up) grounded by the same fog.

Now the thing with Iranian aircraft (including their F-14s) is that everything they have is 50 years old, they can't get parts, and it isn't like they have FAA-approved mechanics following FAA hourly maintenance schedules on their aircraft.

I'm not at all surprised it fell out of the sky, even without help. My guess is that the fog set in quickly, as it can this time of year, and they weren't willing to wait it out. And that's assuming all of the instruments were (a) working and (b) accurate and (c) the pilots trusted them -- any one of those three in foul weather and it's all over.

[Frank Drackman]

You’re so full of Miss-Information you should dress up as that for Halloween, “Dr Miss-Information”
Yes, there are Visibility requirements for Aircraft, and Landings, with the lowest visibility landing being a Cat IIIC which have no Decision Height or Range limits.
and Despite what you saw in “Topgun 2 Maverick” the Ear-Ronians have more than F-14’s(actually have more F-4s) They’ve been building their own version of the F-5 “Freedom Fighter” since 2007.
1977-78 dad was on Faculty at Maxwell AFB, occasionally would host parties with the Foreign Officer Students, still remember an Iranian F-4 Pilot and and Israeli F-15 pilot talking Fighter tactics, if Khomeni hadn’t taken over Ear-Ron was in line to get F-16’s.

Frank

[David Nieporent]

it’s amazing you never hear about any chain reaction crashes where hundreds of cars run into each other driving in Foggy conditions

Maybe you don't.

[Krayt]

He was being sarcastic. However, aircraft flying into mountains in fog is also not unheard of, instruments be damned. In at least one case, in spite of instruments on autopilot.

[Frank Drackman]

You have to be patient with David Never-Potent, those on the Spectrum have difficulty detecting sarcasm.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Another expression of that rule from a veteran aviator: "If you've got time to spare, go by air."

In general, near-terrain aviation is always a bad idea. I was raised and went to college in the East. I had never known anyone killed in a plane crash. After 10 years living in Idaho I took stock, and counted 7 people I knew killed in 5 separate crashes.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, the son of my previous employer went that way; Neglected to reset the altimeter on his private plane before taking off, and later that day landing in the fog he flew into a tree thinking he was at a safe altitude. Wouldn't likely see that these days with GPS.

[Frank Drackman]

Obviously was below the MDA (Meet Death After)

Frank

[Stephen Lathrop]

GPS or not, a limited visibility landing amongst 12,000-foot mountain peaks, at a short dirt strip field located on a basin floor at elevation 8,000 feet, is not wise.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, but this was South-East Michigan, not the Rockies. The highest point within a hundred miles was a 1,200 foot rolling hill.

[Frank Drackman]

It's not so much the altitude, but the sudden deceleration that gets you. Aortas don't like 75G's

[Dr. Ed 2]

GPS isn't as bad as LORANS was, but thunderstorms can mess it up.
It's calculating the time that it takes for a radio signal to follow a certain curved path through the sky, and anything that either slows the signal down or refracts it (and thunderstorms can do both) can give you some bogus data, particularly with regard to altitude versus distance.

The first time I used LORANS, just to see how it worked, it plotted me not only on dry land but in the middle of a cemetery -- and I was at least five miles away from anything, but there was that little thunderstorm on the horizon.

We live in an age of miracles, and you have to trust your equipment, but only so much...

[Commenter_XY]

M4e, it was all a Zionist plot. Just ask the Iranians and the Hamas Home Boys.

A super-duper Mossad agent - Eli Kopter - was working with another super-duper secret agent - James Bondstein - to shoot down the aircraft. With special weapons, like space laser beams, or something.

[Frank Drackman]

Or could just something simpler, like having Ear-Ronian Pilots fly an Ear-Ronian Helicopter.

[John F. Carr]

I figured they were dead after the euphemistic "hard landing" statement. I didn't know if I should care. Will anything about Iran improve in the aftermath?

In America the presidential successors are Harris, Johnson, Murray (I had to look her up), and Blinken. Rank them against Biden before deploying your fog machine.

[Commenter_XY]

That succession list is scary. Can we keep the cognitively challenged incumbent? 🙂

[John F. Carr]

Blinken might not be too bad. Hard to tell. Part of the job of the Secretary of State is appearing to be a responsible adult.

[Commenter_XY]

Blinken is too much of a boob to have any balls.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Disaffected, superstition-addled, bigoted clingers are among my favorite culture war casualties.

And they are no problem that would be solved by replacement (involving better Americans).

[Bob from Ohio]

"responsible adult"

That's not Blinken for sure. An international doormat.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Should we wish the same for international fugitives, terrorist enablers, and all-round assholes Netanyahu, Ben Givr, and Smotrich?

[Commenter_XY]

No, none of them are 'Hamas Homies'.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

They are terrorism-promoting international pariahs with more than a little in common with the low-lifes of Hamas.

[Commenter_XY]

Do you weep for the Hamas Homies, Arthur?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

No.

Do you yelp with Joy when Israelis settlers terrorize, kill, and ethnically cleanse Palestinians in the West Bank; when Israel's right-wing radicals cuddle with Hamas to avoid engaging productively with Palestinians, or when Israel kills, starves, and tries to remove more women and children in Gaza?

[Commenter_XY]

No.

That said, I do smile in satisfaction when Hamas members are sent on the One-Way Paradise Train. And then donate a pizza to the IDF squad that waxed them. Would you like to send pizza to the brave IDF soldiers in the field, Arthur? Link is below.

https://www.pizzaidf.org/

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I will smile when better Americans pull the plug on aid to Israel's war-criming, bigoted, superstition-driven right-wing assholes.

I don't like right-wing assholes, home or abroad.

When my country is no longer complicit in Israeli misconduct (West Bank, Gaza), I figure a proper celebratory meal would include a bacon cheeseburger, shrimp cocktail, and crabmeat Hoelzel. Would that be appropriate?

[Mr. Bumble]

Guess it's going to be a long time before you smile and have that meal.
Poor you.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

You hayseeds never saw gay marriage, integrated schools, women voting, lesbian teachers, environmental protections, abortion, interracial marriage, consumer protections, the decline of religion, professional women, or a Black president coming, either.

The current proposed menu is:

Bacon cheeseburger
Shrimp cocktail
Crab Hoelzel
Candied bacon

Any other suggestions?

[Frank Drackman]

Instead of your usual cum of sum yung goy?

[bernard11]

No.

But they are thugs and war criminals.

[Bob from Ohio]

"The world is a better place today."

Unfortunately it looks like they died immediately. Oh well, most good news has a downside.

[Martinned2]

This just in from the International Criminal Court:

The Prosecutor has just announced he has applied for five arrest warrants in #Palestine. Two are for Israeli officials: Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister, and Yoav Gallant, the Minister of Defence. Three are for Hamas leaders: Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Dief, and Ismail Haniyeh.

[Martinned2]

Continuing, based on Kevin John Heller's Twitter thread:

Netanyahu & Gallant are charged with the war crimes of starvation, causing great suffering, wilful killing/murder & directing attacks against a civilian population. They are also charged with the crimes against humanity of extermination/murder, persecution & other inhumane acts.

Sinwar, Dief & Haniyeh are charged with the war crimes of murder, taking hostages, sexual violence, torture, cruel treatment & outrages on personal dignity. They are charged with the crimes against humanity of extermination, murder, sexual violence, torture & other inhumane acts.

https://x.com/kevinjonheller/status/1792507757184074239

[Martinned2]

Here is the full statement of the Prosecutor: https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/statement-icc-prosecutor-karim-aa-khan-kc-applications-arrest-warrants-situation-state

[Frank Drackman]

It's so sad you wasted precious moments J-hova gifted you on that bullshit

[Frank Drackman]

OK, you got me to waste a minute also,
is it just me, or does KC Khan and his Sunshine Band Henchmen look like cheap copies of Austin Powers Villains/Henchmen? I suppose next he'll demand the accused pay ONE MILLION DOLLARS RANSOM BHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Frank

[Martinned2]

The Office of the Prosecutor also published a report by the panel of independent experts in international law, which advised on this matter: https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/2024-05/240520-panel-report-eng.pdf

(One of them is Amal Clooney, if you care about that sort of thing.)

[Martinned2]

The panel has published an op-ed in the Financial Times to explain their views: https://www.ft.com/content/aa2089c5-6388-437d-bf5c-9268f3a788ce

[John F. Carr]

The independent experts are all British or American. Some diversity would be good.

[Martinned2]

I agree, although the Academic Experts aren't (though they both work for UK universities).

But I guess if the audience you're trying to convince are Americans and Brits, you might as well get some Americans and Brits to go on the record saying you're right.

[John F. Carr]

Good luck. Really, good luck. I agree with the sentiment and do not expect them to go on trial.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

If better Americans stop providing various skirts Israel's right-wing belligerents currently hide behind, who would shield Netanyahu from accountability?

The Lord God of the Bible?

[Martinned2]

For the record, the Prosecutor may not get some/all of his arrest warrants. It wouldn't be the first time that the pre-trial chamber has denied a request for an arrest warrant.

[Bob from Ohio]

Not sure why Khan wants to re-elect Bibi or why he wants to self-immolate his organization but whatever.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Let's see who pays the more severe price, Khan and his organization or Netanyahu, Likud, and the even more despicable elements of Israel's government.

If Israel's right-wing belligerents bring down the entirety of Israel with them, that will be deserved (Israels elected those assholes, more than once) and I will be content.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Incredibly, other people sometimes do things because it's the right thing to do, rather than because they are in their own self-interest.

[Martinned2]

Interesting statement from the Chancellor of Austria:

We fully respect the independence of the ICC. The fact however that the leader of the terrorist organisation Hamas whose declared goal is the extinction of the State of Israel is being mentioned at the same time as the democratically elected representatives of that very State is non comprehensible.

https://x.com/karlnehammer/status/1792562117960175880

[Commenter_XY]

He has common sense and a brain; I suppose that is interesting for an EU politician.

[Martinned2]

He's not an EU politician, he's an Austrian politician.

[JasonT20]

I comprehend it fine. Charges against the democratically elected Prime Minister of Israel and his Minister of Defense don't have to be for alleged acts as horrifying as what Hamas has done. They just need to meet the definitions and standards that warrant the charges. Both sets of charges coming at the same time is simply due to both stemming from the same conflict.

Simply put, Israel's government and military doesn't need to do things that are as evil as what Hamas as done in order to commit war crimes that deserve accountability. Both sets of leaders being charged does not imply an equivalence to me.

[Heedless]

This is exactly why the US rejects the jurisdiction of the ICC. They are constitutionally incapable of distinguishing between war and war crimes.

A military power is obliged to prevent starvation in territories they control. This is the first time someone has been charged for failing to send enough food into enemy territory (particularly ridiculous when that territory has a border with a neutral country). The rest of the charges against Netanyahu should be leveled against Hamas – using human shields and civilian infrastructure to conceal or protect military assets IS a warcrime. Attacking those assets, even if it leads to civilian casualties, is not.

[Martinned2]

This is the first time someone has been charged for failing to send enough food into enemy territory (particularly ridiculous when that territory has a border with a neutral country).

Are you one of those people who keeps insisting that you can't charge someone with something unless someone else has already been charged with that crime before?

The rest of the charges against Netanyahu should be leveled against Hamas

And broadly they are.

using human shields and civilian infrastructure to conceal or protect military assets IS a warcrime. Attacking those assets, even if it leads to civilian casualties, is not.

Attacking a target "protected" by a human shield is most certainly capable of being a war crime. (It depends on the value of the target, and on how many innocent civilians are on site.)

[JasonT20]

The interesting thing to me about the "human shield" argument is how differently police would act. We hear stories in the news frequently of someone accused of some major crime holing up in a house with guns and police just set up a perimeter and try and get him to surrender. Add in a situation where that same perpetrator was surrounded by his neighbors and family within the house. What are the chances that a SWAT team goes in, guns blazing? Innocent people DO get killed in police raids, but the vast majority of the time, police would be highly reluctant to fire upon a suspect with many civilians in the area that could get hit by their shots.

Why do we accept such high levels of "collateral damage" in war when we would expect police to be far more restrained? It's something worth thinking about.

[Heedless]

Because the police are acting in territory that they control and they are backed by overwhelming and absolute military superiority.

There don't need to worry about an RPG attack from behind as their SWAT team is setting up, much less an organized ambush by an enemy with locally superior numbers. That allows for much greater patience, precision, and care for the lives of hostages (or even of the hostage takers) than is typically achievable in a warzone.

[JasonT20]

That's fair. But now apply that to artillery and missiles and bombs dropped from aircraft.

Police know that going into a building with bad guys could mean someone with a gun could be around a corner, hiding behind something, etc. But they don't bomb the building to get the bad guy so that they can stay safe, do they?

[Heedless]

Still part of military operations in territory you don't control, where hostile forces are attacking (or preparing to attack) your troops.

The police control the territory. They know that the criminals are contained, isolated, small in number, and without reinforcements. Police tactical teams very rarely suffer casualties.

Militaries (like Israel's) confront an enemy that is numerous, distributed, and able to maneuver. They are so much more dangerous than bank robbers that I'm a little shocked you're making the comparison. More aggressive measures are needed to defeat such an opponent without an unacceptable number of casualties (of which there will be many regardless), and that includes bombs and artillery.

[David Nieporent]

Innocent people DO get killed in police raids, but the vast majority of the time, police would be highly reluctant to fire upon a suspect with many civilians in the area that could get hit by their shots.

Oh, my sweet summer child.

[JasonT20]

Well, it is big news when innocent people are killed by a cop's stray bullet. It is hard to imagine that it is a common occurrence.

[Heedless]

I'm one of those people who thinks that if a behavior was considered normal and legal until 20 minutes ago, then it should continue to be legal unless there is an explicit change of the law.

Denying the enemy supplies has been an accepted tactic for the entirety of human warfare. It is a laudable humanitarian goal to avoid causing deprivation in enemy territory, but it is not a legal requirement.

And indiscriminate slaughter of civilians can be a warcrime, but given that the Israelis have managed a lower ratio of civilian to combatant deaths than is typical in urban warfare, it takes considerable chutzpah to call their actions indiscriminate.

[Martinned2]

it should continue to be legal unless there is an explicit change of the law

You mean, like a new treaty?

https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/Publications/Rome-Statute.pdf

(Not that it matters, but intentionally shooting at civilians is illegal under the Geneva Conventions/customary laws of war as well, and it has been for decades.)

And indiscriminate slaughter of civilians can be a warcrime, but given that the Israelis have managed a lower ratio of civilian to combatant deaths than is typical in urban warfare, it takes considerable chutzpah to call their actions indiscriminate.

Even if that were true, you don't get credit for averages. To dumb in way, way down: Just because you drive from A to B at 50 kph average, doesn't mean you can't get a speeding ticket for the bit halfway where you're going 150.

[Heedless]

Fair point on the Rome Statute. I thought it has been in force for longer. Still not convinced that Israel's actions count as deliberately (required for culpability) preventing aid (given the second border and the fact they are allowing some aid through), but that is a debatable point.

The second one is not. If an individual Israeli commander was being prosecuted, then we would be looking at an individual action. Since Netanyahu is being prosecuted, we need a pattern of Israeli conduct, which means that the overall average is, if not dispositive, at least a major indicator that he is not guilty.

[Nige]

Exactly, starving men, woman and children to death is the POINT! When Charlemagne does it he’s the Father Of Europe but when the IDF does it they’re the worst! Such a double standard.

[Heedless]

When Israel lets in 180,000 tons of food aid, but enthusiastically enough for Nige's taste, they are history's greatest monsters.

Israel has a humanitarian responsibility to avoid famine (where possible given military constraints). They do not have a responsibility to let in uninspected convoys, nor to provide more than what is necessary for Gazans to meet basic nutritional requirements, and they do not have the ability to ensure equitable distribution in areas they do not control.

Besides given that the casualty figures coming out of Gaza have been a tissue of lies, the claims of "one week to run out of power" lasted for 3 months, and 180,000 tons of food have been trucked into Gaza since October, we can't even be sure that the famine conditions have anything to do with the blockade (as opposed to looting by Hamas and other militant groups).

[Nige]

180,000 tons of food! That's a lot!

Since October! Not so much!

Look, are you committed to starving men, women and children to death or aren't you?

[Heedless]

It's about 1 pound per person per day. That's somewhere between 1700 and 3500 cal per person per day (Depending on the fat to protein to carb ratio of the foodstuffs) It's easily enough to sustain the population of Gaza.

I know math isn't exactly your strong suit, but we're not talking about challenging calculations here.

Yeesh.

[Nige]

Leaving aside whether that's correct and what it means on the ground: so you're NOT committed to starving men women and children to death. This is to your credit!

[Heedless]

We just established that no one should be starving Gaza based on the amount of food that is being delivered.

When you have proven to be utterly, embarrassingly wrong, an honorable man would admit his error, and a man with basic self-awareness would quietly let the matter drop. But that's not you, is it?

You just double down on the unearned moral preening, because that is the limit of your intellectual capacity.

[Nige]

We have not, in fact, established any such thing, you did a sum thousands and thousands of miles away, it didn't feed one single person. I'm trying to reconcile the contradiction between your claims that it's ok to starve people but how dare you suggest people are starving.

[Krayt]

Ancient city seiges used to let the populations leave at night and resupply. Stopping this to starve them out was actually an invention to seige warfare.

Of course that's not what's supposed to be going on here.

[Nige]

Ancient city sieges that let the cities resupply simply didn’t have the manpower to prevent it. They were probably all dying of dysentry.

[Commenter_XY]

What is the legal obligation of ICC signatories when PM Netanyahu or MK Gallant travels through their territory?

Must they be detained?

[Drewski]

If the warrants issue then my understanding is yes, signatories must arrest and deliver them to the ICC.

[Martinned2]

More or less. Art. 59(1) Rome Statute:

A State Party which has received a request for provisional arrest or for arrest and surrender shall immediately take steps to arrest the person in question in accordance with its laws and the provisions of Part 9.

https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/Publications/Rome-Statute.pdf

[Commenter_XY]

What is taking a step? I can read the arrest warrant, do nothing, and state that I took a step.

[Martinned2]

Seriously? I assumed English was your first language. If requested, a State Party has to arrest someone who is within their jurisdiction and against whom an arrest warrant has been issued. I'm not sure how I can make it any simpler.

[Commenter_XY]

Your cite of Art 59 said, "...shall immediately take steps...". I read the warrant. That is taking a step toward arresting someone. Geez, and after I read the warrant, they had already left, and got away. Sorry fellas.

Tell me how that is not in compliance.

[Magister]

It doesn't look like compliance to me; at least make a pretense that you sent law enforcement to the wrong address or something. It matters if the court issuing the warrant thinks it isn't compliance; I have no idea what the consequences of their disapproval would be, but probably some forms of international opprobrium. Would that matter to the Sovereign Nation of XY? Maybe not.

I recall reports that South Africa would face obligations to arrest Putin if he went there, and searching turns up this:
https://www.ejiltalk.org/the-putin-south-africa-arrest-warrant-saga-a-tale-of-the-shrinking-world-of-an-accused-war-criminal/

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Because not everyone is stupid enough to argue that pretending to do something is the same thing as doing something. Just you.

Did you ever actually attend anything resembling a school?

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

How old are you?

[Commenter_XY]

Old enough to know that there is a lawyer who can make a case out of it, ONS.

[Sarcastr0]

If you think that pretext would fly, no you do not know what a lawyer can make a case out of.

[Bob from Ohio]

"signatories must arrest"

I think the treaty is bound to get violated here.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Pinochet might have agreed with that.

[Martinned2]

The US State Department has issued a statement about the OTP's decision: https://www.state.gov/warrant-applications-by-the-international-criminal-court/

(NB the title is wrong. The International Criminal Court, as such, hasn't done anything yet. The Office of the Prosecutor has applied with another part of the ICC, the pre-trial chamber, for arrest warrants.)

The United States fundamentally rejects the announcement today from the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) that he is applying for arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials, together with warrants for Hamas terrorists.

We reject the Prosecutor’s equivalence of Israel with Hamas. It is shameful. Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization that carried out the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and is still holding dozens of innocent people hostage, including Americans.

Moreover, the United States has been clear since well before the current conflict that that ICC has no jurisdiction over this matter. The ICC was established by its state parties as a court of limited jurisdiction. Those limits are rooted in principles of complementarity, which do not appear to have been applied here amid the Prosecutor’s rush to seek these arrest warrants rather than allowing the Israeli legal system a full and timely opportunity to proceed. In other situations, the Prosecutor deferred to national investigations and worked with states to allow them time to investigate. The Prosecutor did not afford the same opportunity to Israel, which has ongoing investigations into allegations against its personnel.

There are also deeply troubling process questions. Despite not being a member of the court, Israel was prepared to cooperate with the Prosecutor. In fact, the Prosecutor himself was scheduled to visit Israel as early as next week to discuss the investigation and hear from the Israeli Government. The Prosecutor’s staff was supposed to land in Israel today to coordinate the visit. Israel was informed that they did not board their flight around the same time that the Prosecutor went on cable television to announce the charges. These and other circumstances call into question the legitimacy and credibility of this investigation.

Fundamentally, this decision does nothing to help, and could jeopardize, ongoing efforts to reach a ceasefire agreement that would get hostages out and surge humanitarian assistance in, which are the goals the United States continues to pursue relentlessly.

[Martinned2]

Some thoughts:

- As noted, there is no "equivalence" here. Different people are being charged with different crimes.

- The ICC has jurisdiction over the territory of the state of Palestine. While you can wonder where that is, it seems pretty difficult to deny that that includes the Gaza strip. There is a judgment from the pre-trial chamber that confirms this, so I'm not sure why the US state department thinks that the OTP should ignore that judgment.

- Complementarity is an excellent point, that Netanyahu and Gallant will be able to raise in due course. Their case on this point would, of course, be strengthened greatly if there was a good faith attempt in Israel to prosecute them. So far, I haven't seen any sign of such a thing.

- I'm not sure what the relevance of that rescheduled meeting is for "the legitimacy and credibility of this investigation". Presumably the OTP will continue to meet with Israeli officials for as long as Israeli officials are willing.

- A criminal investigation can make a negotiated settlement more difficult, that is true. And that is a valid reason for opposing the general idea of international criminal law. For that reason the Security Council can order the OTP to freeze its investigation for a year (renewable). See art. 16 Rome Statute. The US is welcome to go to the Security Council and seek such a resolution.

[Commenter_XY]

The United States fundamentally rejects the announcement today from the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) that he is applying for arrest warrants for senior Israeli officials, together with warrants for Hamas terrorists.

We reject the Prosecutor’s equivalence of Israel with Hamas. It is shameful. Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization that carried out the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and is still holding dozens of innocent people hostage, including Americans.

Seems clear enough to me. Besides, there is no such thing as a state of palestine.

[Krayt]

They wouldn't even be mentioning Hamas butfor needing it to deflect criticism they're a little too preocupied with Israel.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Announcing warrant requests for both Hamas and Israel at the same time was probably not done because their war respective crimes were "equivalent", but because if they had done one without the other, they would have gotten it in the neck--either way.

[TwelveInchPianist]

The US position is that the court doesn't have jurisdiction over non-parties.

And the "Hague Invasion Act" covers Israel.

[Martinned2]

Is the US position also that Germany can't prosecute US citizens for murders committed in Germany?

[TwelveInchPianist]

Huh? AFAIK not on US bases in Germany. As for if they were conducting active hostile military operations against Germany? I would hope not.

[Martinned2]

Who said anything about US bases in Germany?

In any event, the limits of German criminal jurisdiction over US forces in Germany are carefully defined in the status of forces agreement, being an exception to the normal rule that everyone present in Germany is subject to German law. Likewise, everyone present within the territory of an ICC state is subject to the laws of that state, including the Rome Statute.

https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%20481/volume-481-I-6986-English.pdf

[Martinned2]

O, and if you weren't aware, the leading case on this issue is the 1927 Lotus Case of the permanent court of international justice, where the court started from the territoriality principle for criminal jurisdiction, but noted that actual international law allowed for many different approaches too:

No argument has come to the knowledge of the Court from which it could be deduced that States recognize themselves to be under an obligation towards each other only to have regard to the place where the author of the offence happens to be at the time of the offence. On the contrary, it is certain that the courts of many countries, even of countries which have given their criminal legislation a strictly territorial character, interpret criminal law in the sense that offences, the authors of which at the moment of commission are in the territory of another State, are nevertheless to be regarded as having been committed in the national territory, if one of the constituent elements of the offence, and more especially its effects, have taken place there. French courts have, in regard to a variety of situations, given decisions sanctioning this way of interpreting the territorial principle. Again, the Court does not know of any cases in which governments have protested against the fact that the criminal law of some country contained a rule to this effect or that the courts of a country construed their criminal law in this sense.

https://www.worldcourts.com/pcij/eng/decisions/1927.09.07_lotus.htm

[Ed Grinberg]

Why the Right loves the anti-Israel encampments
I suppose, by this twisted logic, you could say that the Holocaust was a gift to the Jews.
It is not an accident that large swaths of the Left are supporting Hamas -- it was predetermined by the Left's (evil!) ideology. The Right denounces the pro-Hamas protests not to score political points but because Hamas is evil. The author just can't see that.

[Nige]

The enampments = the Holocaust. Yes, yes, I see.

You denounce them because you're pro-war.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, of course the encampments don't equal the Holocaust. They equal Hitler youth rallies prior to the Holocaust.

[Nige]

Hitler Youth, famously anti-war, with Jewish members.

[ThePublius]

The encampments aren't anti-war. They are anti-semitic, pro-Hamas, pro war - regarding the elimination of Israel and the killing of all the Jews there. That's what "from the river to the sea" means.

They are in favor of the war Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are waging on Israel. Quite a difference.

Jewish members of this cohort are dupes, just as are the LGBTQ+ community members who support Hamas and the PA. They would eventually be dispatched.

[Nige]

No, they're anti-war. You can't tell them what their own words mean, just because they mean something different to you. Or rather you can, because you want to justify the ongoing slaughter.

Guess who's despatching LGTBQ people in Gaza right now.

[Brett Bellmore]

Their own words.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

You clingers should stick with Netanyahum Ben Givr, Smotrich, and the settlers.

Your betters will start planning how to spend the money we save after mainstream America ditches Israel's bigoted, war-crimey, superstition-driven, right-wing belligerents.

[Sarcastr0]

Still nupicking that video from weeks ago so you can generalize about all the protesters, eh Brett?

[Commenter_XY]

Video doesn't lie. And we see much of the same repeated on many campuses. Are you still talking to the ostrich under the sand?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

.

Video doesn’t lie.

Do you wish to try to defend the video, photographs, convictions, etc. of Ben Givr, Smotrich, and the other despicable right-wingers who hold important positions in Israel's government?

If Israel doesn't fix its house soon and thoroughly, there may be little to no house left to repair.

[Nige]

They want a ceasefire. You want the killing to continue.

[David Nieporent]

They want a ceasefire. You want the killing to continue.

Western Putin apologists also couch their arguments as wanting a ceasefire in Ukraine.

By "ceasefire" they mean that Israel will stop attacking, not that Hamas will.

[Nige]

If Hamas keep attacking, then it's not a ceasefire.

[Noscitur a sociis]

You’re *this* close to getting it!

[bernard11]

Actually, video lies all the time.

[Nige]

So what? They want the conflict to end, unlike you lot, who every time you open your mouths or type words on this subject are making your own little chants in favour of bloody slaughter.

[Heedless]

They don't want the conflict to end. They want Israel to stop fighting.

I tend to think it's naïveté rather than malice that prevents them from taking into account what happens when Hamas reconstitutes itself, declares victory, and gets back to the business of murdering as many Jews as they can get their hands on, but let's not pretend that the conflict would be over.

[Nige]

They want Israel to stop killing tens of thousands of innocent men women and children. The ending of the conflict has probably been set back decades.

[David Nieporent]

They want the conflict to end,

If they wanted the conflict to end, they would be calling on Hamas to surrender, not for a ceasefire.

[Nige]

Hamas are not the party directly responsible for the ongoing destruction of Gaza and tens of thousands of deaths.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Ah, so "ceasefire" and ending a conflict can only mean what David Nieporent wants it to mean.

You've fallen a long way.

[Commenter_XY]

Hamas can lay down their arms, surrender unconditionally to face Israeli justice, and release the hostages. That will end the conflict also.

[Martinned2]

Yes, and nobody would mind it if they did that.

[David Nieporent]

Yes, and nobody would mind it if they did that.

To the contrary, a lot of Hamas supporters who defended and even celebrated 10/7 would mind.

[Nige]

Israel can literally just stop killing tens of thousands of innocent men women and children.

'To the contrary, a lot of Hamas supporters who defended and even celebrated 10/7 would mind.'

Exactly the sort of people we need to show preferment in Middle East affairs.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Israel can literally just stop killing tens of thousands of innocent men women and children."

That's how 10/7 happened, remember?

[Nige]

It happened because the Israelis didn't kill tens of thousands of innocent men women and children?

[Sarcastr0]

the Left’s (evil!) ideology

You read and post VDARE. I guess you ignore the antisemetic stuff?

Anyone who rolls with 'the other side is evil' is really not a serious person.

[Ed Grinberg]

Our resident Dutch leftist loves to gloat about conservative reverses in the U.S. Today, I get to gloat back:
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2024/05/16/veteran-populist-wilders-one-step-closer-to-forming-dutch-government/

[Martinned2]

We have radical-right politicians too. Have you ever heard me say otherwise? AMA about this new coalition agreement.

[ThePublius]

Are there any "right" politicians who aren't radical, in your view?

[Martinned2]

Yes. For example, two of the four parties in the new coalition are centre-right. Out of the four, only Wilders is radical-right.

[Sarcastr0]

Wanting another country to go racial purity nationalist authoritarian so you can get one over on your posting nemesis.

Ed, you're a shallow dude.

[Martinned2]

As far as I can tell from his posts, Ed (this one) wants everyone to go racial purity nationalist authoritarian for reasons quite unrelated to me.

[ThePublius]

I drove to/from NY Saturday and was listening to some strong NY AM stations. One one I heard and ad, and the gist of it was, I think, that if you are caring for a loved one, you can join this home care provider company as an employee/contractor, be assigned to care for your loved one or relative, be paid to provide the care, and Medicare will be billed.

Could this be so? Anyone ever hear of this?

[Armchair]

Sounds likely. And of course, the company gets their cut.

[ThePublius]

Of course. It's a very interesting concept, though. Why not? Why, if Medicare will pay a stranger to care for mom, can't they pay you?

[Nige]

Or Medicare could pay you directly with no middleman taking a chunk of the money you badly need to function and survive as a carer.

[ThePublius]

Yes! But the likelihood of that happening is zero. One actually useful value the agency adds is billing, coding, dealing with Medicare, your payroll administration, and so on.

[Armchair]

Honestly, I'm of mixed opinions on it.

On one level, sure. "If Medicare will pay a stranger to care for mom, can’t they pay you?"

On a different level, there's a whole lot of mixed and skewed incentives going on, that affect social order, family bonds, finances, and more.

Let's give an example using children for a second. It's accepted that parents will pay for their own children, not the state. But if a child doesn't have parents, an orphanage may be needed. And that orphanage may be paid for using charity or state funds.

But then you get into an intermediate area, regarding foster families. And the state will pay a foster family in the area of $1,000 a month to take care of a kid. But if they're paying foster parents to take care of kids, why can't the state pay actual parents? (Well, there's a reason, it's the ~$900 Billion a year price tag, among others). And then you get into potential skewed priorities, and commoditization of family bonds...which isn't great.

So, back to the elder care and financial reimbursement issue. On one level...it makes sense. On a different level, you're paying people to do something they would be doing anyway, and commoditizing the relationship. And then Grandma says "you're only taking care of me because the state is paying you". And Grandpa says "you take care of Grandma, you get paid for it and I won't"...So, there are issues that arise that can be problematic, breaking down normal social and family bonds.

Just my thoughts there.

[DaveM]

"When you look around the table and you can't figure out who the sucker is, it's you."

[ThePublius]

I don't get it. Maybe I'm the sucker.

[John F. Carr]

AARP has a page about this subject: https://www.aarp.org/caregiving/financial-legal/info-2017/you-can-get-paid-as-a-family-caregiver.html

[Brett Bellmore]

Sure would have been nice when I had to drop out of college to take care of Mom after that bad auto accident.

[Sarcastr0]

Don't let envy make you insist no one gets good things.

Elderly and childcare are important, expensive, ignored things.

[Brett Bellmore]

Where did I express envy? I think it's a good policy.

[Commenter_XY]

Sarcastr0 has a special decoder ring, Brett.

He just knows things that other people don't.

[Armchair]

Indeed. I'm sure there's an "Armchair says" or "Armchair thinks" comment coming soon.

[Magister]

Since you already posted a comment only a minute earlier that ended "Just my thoughts there.", it really wouldn't be much of a challenge.

[Wisconsinite in Minnesota]

There is also the possiblity that the income earned is not taxable:
https://www.irs.gov/individuals/certain-medicaid-waiver-payments-may-be-excludable-from-income

And even if not taxable, the income can qualify the taxpayer for the earned income credit and the additional child tax credit. (see Q9).

[apedad]

Supreme Court Should Prevent Flood of State Climate Change Torts

The petitions for certiorari in Sunoco LP v. City and County of Honolulu and Shell PLC v. City and County of Honolulu were filed by the defendants in February, and the city and county of Honolulu plaintiffs submitted their reply asking the Supreme Court not to hear the case on May 1.

The petitions raise critical questions of constitutional authority—and do so against the backdrop of the heated controversies of climate change being used by the plaintiffs and some courts to claim that crises justify circumventing normal boundaries of constitutional law.

The Hawaii Supreme Court rejected a motion to dismiss where defendants argued that federal law displaces or preempts these kinds of lawsuits because a patchwork of state laws shouldn’t be allowed to govern global issues that are already addressed under federal law. The defendants had further argued that issues such as energy policy and sensitive decisions about geopolitical issues of climate change are exclusively within the purview of Congress and federal policymaking authorities.

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/supreme-court-should-prevent-flood-of-state-climate-change-torts

While I generally agree with the defendants who, " . . . argued that federal law displaces or preempts these kinds of lawsuits because a patchwork of state laws shouldn’t be allowed to govern global issues that are already addressed under federal law," I could see granting an exception to Hawaii because of its geographical separation from CONUS.

[Martinned2]

I could see granting an exception to Hawaii because of its geographical separation from CONUS.

How does that work? Something is either pre-empted or it isn't.

[David Nieporent]

Is this suit any different than the numerous such lawsuits that Prof. Adler has argued are not preempted by federal law? (That's not a rhetorical question.)

[Noscitur a sociis]

It’s one of the lawsuits that Prof. Adler has argued are not preempted by federal law.

https://reason.com/volokh/2024/05/03/are-state-law-climate-change-tort-suits-preempted-by-federal-law/

[David Nieporent]

Thx.

[apedad]

Hey Bob from Ohio...

I had the pleasure to drive from northern Virginia (and through small portions of MD, WV, and PA), across Ohio to Cincinnati this past weekend.

Nice state you got there and Cincy was nice too; very walkable and Findlay Market was a delight.

[hobie]

A very nice state. I'm glad I moved here.

hobie from Cleveland

[Bob from Ohio]

Been a long time since I was in Cincy but it was always nice.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Are you sure you’re talking about the right state?

[Frank Drackman]

Most states are nice once you get out of the Inner City Shit-holes

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Uneducated, bigoted, economically shambling, superstitious, declining, parasitic, white Ohio is the best Ohio!

[Martinned2]

This blog post is a nice example of what I have in mind when I say that the US needs a lot more dormant commerce clause: https://eulawanalysis.blogspot.com/2024/05/compatibility-of-member-states-alcohol.html

The Irish law in question clearly aims at a legitimate objective (reducing alcohol abuse), and is in a field not foreclosed by EU law (there is EU law here, but not full harmonisation). Yet there's still a discussion to be had about whether the law interferes with trade between the member states in a disproportionate way.

[jb]

Alcohol is not the best example, though, since in the US it's the one type of commerce specifically assigned to the states to regulate.

[Martinned2]

Feel free to substitute "tobacco" for every mention of "alcohol".

In any case, the dormant commerce clause still applies to state regulation of alcohol imports. https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt21-S2-2/ALDE_00013861/

[Moderation4ever]

While there is lots of talk about campus protests and world court, the real news in the Israeli/Gaza conflict is that Benny Gantz is threatening to quit the cabinet unless the Netanyahu government start think about an end plan. The length of the war is taking a toll and it is felt everywhere including inside Israel.

[IAdmitIAmCrazy]

Already after the Six-Days-War in 1967 prescient voices asked about the end-game for the occupied territories. And there were more Israeli voices then than there are today. They were over time drowned out by the ever more jingoistic all-Israel voices. It is painfully true that the other side did little – there were sober Palestinian voices, too – or next to nothing to facilitate solutions, either.
Yet, there is no alternative to – after an initial emergency response – reflecting where should war lead us to in the end.
Was it Shimon Perez who said that the Palestinians never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity? Well, Israel – I am afraid: as a society – never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity thinking about a future without violence. (If you exclude ethnic cleansing after which there are no Palestinian people within Israeli security borders left.)

[Moderation4ever]

Sadly, what you have said about missing opportunities applies to too many leaders. For Israel and its Arab neighbors this is especially true since the beginning. The Jewish national movement, Zionism, coincided with the raise of the Arab national movement following the demise of the Otteman Empire. The two movements found themselves competing rather than assisting each other towards their goals.

[David Nieporent]

The Israeli leaders accepted the UN partition plan. The Arab leaders did not. After the capture of the WB/Gaza in the Six Day War, Israel tried to negotiate over the return of those territories. The Arab leaders immediately adopted a no-negotiation-of-any-sort posture. (The infamous Three Noes of Khartoum: no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with Israel.)

[JasonT20]

The Israeli leaders accepted the UN partition plan. The Arab leaders did not.

I can't say I blame the Arabs for that. I can easily see why it would look to them that colonial powers had decided to give their land to Jews, when only a small fraction of them had roots on the land going back even two generations. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 also came a year after the British had convinced Arabs on the peninsula to revolt against the Ottomans. In their view, those Arabs had been promised an Arab state covering all of the Arabian peninsula, as well as Palestine, Jordan, and parts of Syria. But the Mandates set up by the League of Nations ended that hope for good.

The Arabs in Palestine also felt very left out of the UN plans as they were formulated and debated in 1946 and 1947. They felt that the plan was generous to a fault in favor of the Jews over the majority Arab population in the area.

The resulting war over the formation of Israel in 1948 saw many Arabs displaced from their homes. The proposed Jewish state in the Partition Plan would have had over 400,000 Arabs living within it. (45% of the total population) After the war, the new State of Israel had borders beyond the Partition Plan, yet fewer than 200,000 Arabs remained. Palestinians refer to this as the Nakba (catastrophe) and claim that 700,000 Arabs were forcibly displaced. Israel has long countered with claims that they left voluntarily.

The history of the creation of modern Israel doesn't look to have had much in the way of heroes, and probably not that many outright villains, so much as it had self-interested groups with mutually exclusive goals. Surrounding Arab nations went to war for their own reasons at least as much as for the Arabs living in Palestine. Israel won that war and every war since.

I think I saw Jon Stewart say it best. (I forgot the context and don't feel like looking it up again now.) The main problem with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that no one with any power is truly representing the best interests of the Palestinian people. Hamas most certainly isn't. Their actions on Oct. 7 only make any kind of sense at all if you believe that they were trying to provoke Israel into inflicting so much death and suffering on the civilians of Gaza that Israel would lose support even among some western allies. Fatah is ineffective, corrupt, and generally useless. The hard right parties in Israel would be happy to see all of the West Bank and Gaza emptied of Arabs, so they aren't going to treat them decently. (A poll in 2016 by Pew found a plurality of Israeli Jews, 48%, agreeing with a statement that Arabs should be expelled from Israel. Support for that statement was much higher among self-described right-wing respondents and those of Orthodox sects.) And there is no organization or nation on the outside that really has incentive to help the Palestinians other than how it would benefit themselves.

War and violence between nations or peoples only turns into peace when both sides have enough incentive to make the compromises that bring peace. I don't see anyone involved with the incentive to compromise like that.

[Moderation4ever]

It is interesting that the Arabs in the region saw the Jews coming into Palestine in a way similar to how too many American now see immigrants coming in our country. The Jews made Palestine better just as immigrants to America make it stronger, better and more affluent. Yet the prejudice persists.

[zztop8970]

. I can easily see why it would look to them that colonial powers had decided to give their land to Jews,
In what way was it "their land', as a collective (as opposed to private land owned by individuals?

[JasonT20]

Immigration is beneficial to an existing population when the immigrants are filling gaps in the labor force or bringing capital that is invested in ways that benefit everyone. That's not what was happening, as the Arabs saw things.

The issue was that it was the same basic problem as gentrification. Arab peasant farmers in Palestine were extremely poor and indebted due to really poor governance and incentives from the Ottomans, and the British didn't help either. They were surviving on barter and not able to build up any capital to improve the land they farmed or equipment or techniques. The vast majority were tenant farmers. Immigrants came in with capital, bought the land, and improved it. But they also built businesses that served their own and leased the farmland that they had bought to their own, not to the existing Arab population.

[David Nieporent]

There was also the fact that much of the land that the incoming Jews bought was bought from the formal owners — absentee Ottomans — rather than from local Arabs who might have been living on and/or farming the land for decades. The incoming Jews didn't do anything wrong there; they followed the law, paid for the land, etc. But — as we see in American contexts as well — a lot of renters start to think of the place where they reside as their own, and when some new owner comes in, buys the property, and kicks out the tenants, they get very upset. Opposition to gentrification is not a bad mental model for this.

[JasonT20]

But they also built businesses that served their own and leased the farmland that they had bought to their own, not to the existing Arab population.

Do you dispute this part of what I wrote? That would be like gentrification if the new, white owners of land in a black neighborhood would only rent to other white people.

[zztop8970]

That's not an answer to what I asked you.

Certainly, individual land owners (both Arabs or Jews) owned the land they owned, but in what way was this a collective Arab land, such that a division of it between a Jewish state and an Arab one was taking away "their land"?

[JasonT20]

As I've explained, many Arabs felt that they had been promised an Arab state that included Palestine in 1916, when they went against the Ottomans in the Arab Revolt (made famous by T.E. Lawrence, aka Lawrence of Arabia). That, and that they were denied self-determination or self-governance throughout the British Mandate period.

Put yourself in their shoes. What would you think about a region you lived in, and that your ancestors as far back as you know about had lived in, went from being ruled by one overbearing power that didn't respect your culture to a colonial power that you had thought might be the 'good guys' that you helped fight your previous rulers. Then that colonial power decides that you should share that area with immigrants whose cultural ties to the land had been broken by close to 1500 years of dispersal throughout more distant parts of the Middle East, throughout Europe, and then east through Russia. Would it seem reasonable to you to just accept that proposal which you hadn't been properly included in drafting?

[David Nieporent]

Then that colonial power decides that you should share that area

The land allotted to Jews was a tiny percentage of "that area."

[zztop8970]

many Arabs felt that they had been promised an Arab state that included Palestine in 1916,

...and they were getting an Arab state under the partition plan, alongside several others that they had already gotten subsequent to that war (Transjordan, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon) - so they clearly were being given self-determination and self-governance , just not in all 100% of the land they wanted.

Which brings me back to the original question that you have now twice dodged - in what sense did they have, as a collective, the rights to all 100% of the British Mandate territory? It what way was Tel-Aviv for, example "their land", but Karameh, across the Jordan River, was not?
Jerusalem, as another example, contrary to your claim of 'immigrants whose cultural ties to the land had been broken by close to 1500 years' had a Jewish plurality through the 1860s, at least - in what way is the Jewish claim to Jerusalem as "their land" less forceful than the Arab claim to it?

Jews were exactly in their shoes in 1947 - they believed that they had been promised self determination in ALL of the British mandatory territory (and participated in the war alongside the promising colonial party) but were willing to accept the parceling off of Transjordan in the 1920s, and were again willing to compromise and split the remaining territory again in 1947, despite their feeling of betrayal.

And Arab representatives were most certainly invited to participate in the UNSCOP planning- but as has been their wont throughout history, decided to boycott the committee (and then they and their apologists complain they weren't involved in the plan)

[Longtobefree]

They already have one.
End plan: all of Hamas is dead.
Turn Gaza over to Egypt to provide food and medical care, and to make sure there are no weapons more powerful than an eight inch chef's knife.
(call it reparations for 400 years of slavery)

[Moderation4ever]

All of Hamas is dead is not really an achievable goal. There will always be Hamas. Hell, the world still has Nazis and that war ended in 1945.

[IAdmitIAmCrazy]

Whatever happened to the separation of powers?
Whatever your views of the adequate interpretation of the US Constitution - as it evolved, as originally intended or originally understood - few would probably openly challenge one of its bedrock principles: the separation of powers.
Let’s focus for the moment on the parallel separation between the three branches of government, and leave the vertical separation - local, state, federal - aside for the moment.
That the former president - indicted as he is - shouldn’t be too happy about the judiciary right now might be understandable. His attacks on the branch imho disqualify him for any office. But that is not my main point.
It is also no earth-shattering discovery that constitutional ideals are loftily praised only when they suit the political outcome desired. How much support for the Senate Majority Leader’s dark muttering’s about SCOTUS abortion decision by Republicans, how much opposition by Democrats?
There is a lot that might be challenged about the judiciary - is the direct election of prosecutors and in some states of judges the right way to ensure a nonpartisan delivery of justice? Is the jury system? But there are distinct ways to do so, not centering on four cases and one defendant only.
It is bad enough that Republican office holders subscribe hook, line and sinker to the former president’s all out assault on the judiciary. But that the Constitutional leader of one House of the Federal Legislature, Speaker Mike Johnson should do so - and without swift and decisive rebuke - is unconscionable.
And how is the response? Luke warm pearl clutching at best. No reaction whatsoever from an official organ of the Judiciary: no protest from the Court of Appeals in New York, the Supreme Courts of Georgia or the United States, any judiciary conference, none I do know of.
Democracy dies by a thousand cuts, its grave diggers are not the loud mouthed authoritarians, they are those, numbed by the constant onslaught and intimidated by opened and veiled threats, look on and do nothing.
That way, you don’t keep your Republic.

[DaveM]

It is hard to reconcile this statement:

"It is also no earth-shattering discovery that constitutional ideals are loftily praised only when they suit the political outcome desired."

with this one:

"It is bad enough that Republican office holders subscribe hook, line and sinker to the former president’s all out assault on the judiciary."

Make up yer mind.

[IAdmitIAmCrazy]

“It is bad enough” is true independent of its earth shattering value. No contradiction there, but apparently a nice opportunity to avoid my main argument:
The Speaker represents not only his constituents. He speaks for half of one branch of government. To assail the justice system the way he did is far more serious. In essence he is saying that the House as an institution is convinced that the Manhattan DA, the grand jury and the judge, in effect the whole New York state judicial system are corrupt and partisan. Proof: they dare to indict and prosecute the former president supposedly on the flimsiest of pretexts. When the Speaker utters his opinion it means the House thinks that the jury is unable to find the truth out for themselves, whether out of their own ill will or because they are hoodwinked, challenging the very essence of jury trials.

[ThePublius]

Interesting that you ignore the overt attacks on SCOTUS by the Democrats.

[IAdmitIAmCrazy]

Read my remark about Schumer and SCOTUS. I am sure there is a lot to be criticized about my opinion. Why you chose tonput up a strawman, beats me.

[Stephen Lathrop]

IAIAC, your concluding reference to Franklin's famous remark ought to clue you in about separation of powers. They apply as formalistic restrictions on government. They neither define American constitutionalism, nor empower it.

In fact, absent a higher, absolute, unappealable, and ungovernable power to enforce government constraints, separation of powers remains a flawed concept. That corrective power of course is the role American constitutionalism reserves for the jointly sovereign People.

But modern Americans have largely forgotten that notion of a continuously active sovereign. They try instead to get by under an essentially decapitated constitutional regime, in which a continuously active sovereign plays no governing part at the top.

That happened despite memory that the continuously active sovereign was the, "you," implied by Franklin, when he said in full: "A republic, if you can keep it. Nevertheless, the attempt to get by without invoking an unappealable sovereign corrective worked adequately, as long as norms were honored to respect constitutional formalisms like separation of powers.

It is not working now, with the norms gone, and not much active sovereign power in evidence since the Civil War. Thus, the nation finds itself in what amounts to a foot race, to see whether a corrupt rival for sovereignty—granted by judicial default scope to operate with minimal interference—can sufficiently obstruct the People's constitutive power to disable it, before the People can exercise that power in November—and then defend until January any victory they win at the polls.

What sovereign correctives might be required between Election Day and Inauguration Day will likely remain a suspenseful question. Concern is fully warranted that it may take renewal of a long-unaccustomed contest of power to answer it.

[IAdmitIAmCrazy]

Reducing the separatiin of power issue to a “formalism” ignores the vivid debate among the Founding Fathers at the Constitutional Convention. I would also hold that a considerable fraction in the assembly were more than skeptic about your “active sovereign power”, far more btw than I would be.

[Stephen Lathrop]

The founders were rarely of one mind, I'll give you that.

Against your historical opinion are the explicit words of founder James Wilson, which I have repeated here so often I forebear to do it again, unless you tell me you are unfamiliar with it.

The historical record shows additionally that Wilson's eloquent summary spoke for the views of at least these founders, in no particular order, and without regard to whether, like Wilson, they signed founding documents: Washington, Franklin, Hamilton, Jefferson, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Jay, Madison, Paine. Undoubtedly others as well. I have not researched them all.

Further evidence is to be found in the wording and structure of the Constitution itself. The first three words, for instance.

Note also that the founders were rightly esteemed for careful reasoning about political institutions. Absent a presumption of active sovereign power, the notion that government could at once be: the fount of personal rights; the principal threat to personal rights; and the power to be relied upon to enforce personal rights, is not the kind of mish-mash you expect from the likes of, for instance, Madison, Franklin, or Hamilton. Instead, they posited a need for a power greater than government's, precisely to defend the rights of members of the joint popular sovereignty from abuse of government power.

Recall also this, from the Declaration of Independence:

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

That is an echo of Wilson so directly on point you might suppose he wrote it himself. Some historians have speculated on the basis of fair evidence that Jefferson did borrow it from Wilson. Note the lack of separation of power, and indeed the emphasis on capacity to act at pleasure, without constraint.

If you want to make a case from history that the notion of resort to sovereign power has declined in public awareness, especially since the Civil War, I will agree with you. There is no good historical case to show that continuously active sovereign power was not at the time of the founding the intended keystone American constitutionalism.

[Martinned2]

The founders also weren't above a bit of occasional propaganda, or getting distracted by shiny theories. Not everything they said should be taken literally.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Completely agree with that. For instance, in the Federalist Papers, Hamilton outright lied about his views on the militia.

But on stuff the founders did take seriously enough to structure the Constitution around, it is wiser to believe either that they were serious, or at least trying their sincere best to get past fraught questions they expected could not be resolved.

[Martinned2]

I wouldn't put the declaration of independence under that rubric, for example. I'd assume the founders were firmly in the 'rebellion for me but not for thee' camp. I don't think the northerners among them would have been OK with the confederate states declaring independence.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Martinned2, true enough. But not for the arbitrary reason implied by, "rebellion for me but not for thee." Instead, the founders reasoned that joint popular sovereignty, once established as the basis of American government, made rebellion by anyone paradoxical.

As joint sovereigns already, they controlled government, and could not expect to control it any more so by means of rebellion, even presuming success. Rebellions, in their eyes, were a resort properly undertaken by subject populations, oppressed by governments under the control of sovereignties alien to the subjects themselves. Which was no longer America's situation.

To understand that is to understand, for instance, the full import of Jefferson's otherwise puzzling, "Tree of Liberty," remark, which advocates almost mysteriously, and all at once, the suppression of rebellions, their salutary influence on governments, and the advantages of treating erstwhile rebels to mercy and education. The notions expressed are that rebels are dangerous, useful to alert governments to constrain themselves within constraints according to the Peoples' will, and misguided given what invention of joint popular sovereignty had already achieved.

But if that is not yet enough to convince you, note that the Declaration is both a proclamation, and a bill of particulars. And if you treat the proclamation part as anything except announcement of joint popular sovereignty, then the bill of particulars part makes no sense. Because the particulars chosen to illustrate the Declaration are not—as so many would have it without paying particular heed to those particulars—examples of offenses against rights, natural, Lockean, or otherwise. Instead, the particulars actually listed focus time after time on offenses against presumed sovereign powers belonging to the colonists. Re-read them and see if you do not agree.

[Brett Bellmore]

The problem is, under your view, who gets to say that the government is no longer realistically an instance of "joint popular sovereignty"? The people running the government are always going to claim it is, no matter how much they've rigged things.

[Martinned2]

Jefferson’s otherwise puzzling, “Tree of Liberty,” remark, which advocates almost mysteriously, and all at once, the suppression of rebellions, their salutary influence on governments, and the advantages of treating erstwhile rebels to mercy and education.

I'm not sure what's puzzling about that. He was rich, didn't want to pay taxes to the English, and didn't want the English to abolish slavery or stop him stealing indigenous people's land. So naturally he was in favour of kicking out the English, against letting anyone but rich white guys run the US, but in favour of a pragmatic approach to domestic insurrection.

[Martinned2]

LOL, TfL has published information about how much each country's embassy owes in unpaid congestion charge. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the size of the embassy, the US ranks at the top with £14.6m.

https://x.com/Psythor/status/1792496059756810259/photo/1

[Martinned2]

For reference, the US embassy in London is in Battersea, just outside the congestion charge zone: https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/congestion-charge/congestion-charge-zone

[Martinned2]

O, sorry, forgot the merits: Like parking tickets, there's no way to make diplomats pay this stuff. All you can do is ask nicely. (But you can impound non-diplomatic cars, I suppose.)

[Martinned2]

It turns out that the US State Department has already published a note in 2005 to explain why they believe the congestion charge is a tax, meaning that it's not even like parking tickets, but simply something that diplomats don't owe in the first place.

https://2009-2017.state.gov/s/l/2005/87224.htm

[John F. Carr]

New York City will have a similar toll soon. The British consulate and delegation to the UN can refuse to pay.

[Frank Drackman]

The "New York City Toll" is having to live in New York City.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

They can't all be West Virginia, Mississippi, or Idaho.

(And if they were America would still have combination hospitals/veterinary facilities/barber shops offering "patent medicines" and faith healing.)

[hobie]

Last week, as I drove closer to Ohio's border with West Virginia, I noted the homes and the people became trashier and trashier. The central Ohio Amish - the most impressive and accomplished people I have ever seen what with their magnificent homes and land - gave way to Amish with derelict cars in their lawns, babies slung on hips and a generally nasty-looking disposition. That the corrosive effect of Red America can bring down the Amish was an eye opener. Even the niggas (that's what we call each other) in my Cleveland hood live more respectfully.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Hobie, the cultural gradient between DC and West Virginia, measured mile-for-mile, must be one of the steepest anywhere.

Remarkably, it was not always that way. As recently as the 1950s West Virginians, at least among the unionized labor contingent, were alert, organized, community-minded people. Not necessarily educated, but self-reliant and responsible. At least while they were not actively violent.

[Frank Drackman]

Yes, the District of Colored People and West Virginia are quite different culturally, you just figure that out?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The smart, ambitious young people have been leaving the desolate stretches of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Indiana (and the entirety of West Virginia) for generations. They seek education, opportunity, reason, and modernity elsewhere, likely never returning.

That creates a depleted human residue, a concentrating pool of ignorance, superstition, addiction, indolence, bigotry, economic inadequacy, and disaffectedness. Ironically, these can't-keep-up communities are among those most likely to benefit from immigrants, but the bigotry and superstition get in the way.

Most of these towns and their inhabitants are hopeless write-offs. But better Americans should arrange and fund a lifeline for the young people who wish to overcome their shambling beginnings. No good person faults a child for having losers for parents. Those strivers tend to be strong achievers with excellent character. And America is going to need all of the skilled, educated, modern citizens it can arrange. Enabling and encouraging those young people to move to strong, successful, educated, modern communities and/or to strong, reason-based, mainstream, liberal-libertarian campuses is the right thing in from every perspective.

[hobie]

I'm with the Conservatives on this one: Bring back Jim Crow and it's polling tests.

[Frank Drackman]

Be careful what you wish for. Lots of rope in "Flyover" country.

[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 bigots
as modern America passes them by —
has operated for no more than

THREE (3)

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

TWENTY-EIGHT (28)

occasions (so far) during 2024
(that’s at least 28 exchanges
that have included a racial slur,
not just 28 racial slurs; many
Volokh Conspiracy discussions
feature multiple racial slurs.)

This blog is outrunning its
remarkable pace of 2023,
when the Volokh Conspiracy
published racial slurs in at least

FORTY-FOUR (44)

different discussions.

These numbers likely miss
some of the racial slurs this
blog regularly publishes; it
would be unreasonable to expect
anyone to catch all of them.
This assessment does not address
the broader, everyday stream of
antisemitic, gay-bashing, misogynistic,
immigrant-hating, Palestinian-hating,
transphobic, Islamophobic, racist,
and other bigoted content published
at this faux libertarian blog, which
is presented from the disaffected,
receding right-wing fringe of
legal academia by members of
the Federalist Society for Law
and Public Policy Studies.

Amid this blog’s stale, ugly right-wing thinking, hereis something worthwhile. (That’s the encore-ender from the last show of the first leg of the U.S. tour — you can catch the next leg of that tour in a few months.)

This one — the band’s original showstopper — is good, too.

[Frank Drackman]

Starting off the week with something original, Revolting?
See, I change up my material periodically, like how I've stopped referring to you as "Reverend Sandusky", OK, that was partly due to threats (from Jerry Sandusky, irate at the possibility peoples would think he was you) but not you, it's "Klingers this, and Bettors That" but who do you thinks gonna show up when you call 9-11 when your China manufactured Tamsulosin stops working?

Frank

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Original would be a month without a vile racial slur or a day without multifaceted bigotry at the Volokh Conspiracy.

Maybe these clingers will surprise us?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Today's Rolling Stones between-Seattle-and-New-York pointers:

First,
a "newer" tune featuring more guitar from Mick than usual.

Next, Mick without guitar.

[Frank Drackman]

Keep whistling in the dark, a Storm is threatening

[Martinned2]

I always think it's strange that in the UK you first have to ask permission to appeal from the same judge or judges who ruled against you in the first place. But the President of the King’s Bench Division, Dame Victoria Sharp, and Mr Justice Johnson, have just given Julian Assange permission to appeal their judgment from 26 March, which ordered him extradited to the US.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cw44l170xdwo

[John F. Carr]

In traditional American practice one needed a formal "exception" to preserve an issue for appeal. An exception was a written record of an objection, granted by the presiding judge if in his opinion the issue was worthy. Laywers might spout off oral objections as if they were paid by the word. Following up by requesting an exception was much less common. If the judge did not grant you an exception you could ask a higher court to review the refusal. I have only seen one case where a higher court granted an exception the judge refused.

In modern federal habeas proceedings a "certificate of appealability" serves as permission to appeal. The trial court judge has to listen to your dumb arguments. The appeals court does not. In (at least) Florida an appeal to the Supreme Court is available if the intermediate court grants permission, otherwise you only get one level of appellate review.

[Martinned2]

Like the man said, nemo iudex in causa sua

[Paladin_44]

Thank's for another lesson in Latin (my mother, a Latin teacher herself, was always disappointed that I never studied it).

[David Nieporent]

In modern federal habeas proceedings a “certificate of appealability” serves as permission to appeal. The trial court judge has to listen to your dumb arguments. The appeals court does not.

But that's only in habeas proceedings; on direct appeal from a conviction, you don't need such a certificate. Appeal is as of right.

Note that it's a one-way thing; only the defendant, not the state, needs such a certificate.

[Martinned2]

For the avoidance of doubt, the Assange case isn't a criminal case, it's extradition proceedings. It's heard in administrative court. (Most recently in the divisional court in the high court, and now it's going to the civil division of the court of appeal, presumably to the master of the rolls.)

[Martinned2]

A transcript of the judgment doesn't seem to be available yet, but Joshua Rozenberg was in court and has a blog post: https://rozenberg.substack.com/p/the-curious-case-of-julian-assange

[Martinned2]

.

[Commenter_XY]

Commenter_XY will be making a brief trip to Charleston, SC. It is a potential place (on the list of a dozen) to live for 186 days annually. We checked out Myrtle Beach last year, very promising. Affordable, I thought.

Any recommendations on where to stay in Charleston aside from Marriott?
Where to eat?
Off the beaten path attractions? DW and I like to walk nature trails
How are the beaches?
Local conservative shul? Chabad? - Your experiences?

[Moderation4ever]

Charleston is a great American city. As for eats my wife and I always have lunch at the Cru Cafe downtown near market street. Hiking, check out the low country south of the city. Hunter Island state park is nice. I like history and one thing you learn about Charleston is why the Civil War started there. Slavery was so important to the economy that the City would not chance losing it.

[Commenter_XY]

Cru Cafe looks promising for a quick bite. Thanks for that. We enjoy history too; me more so than DW. If Marriott represents the 'lowest' I will go, where would you recommend staying? My experiences with airbnb have been hit or miss....mostly great, but some spectacular failures.

[Brett Bellmore]

Be VERY careful if you're there and it rains at high tide. We visited there with my brother' and sister some years ago, and when we'd finished our dinner on Market Street, we looked out and smaller cars were floating down the road.

The locals hadn't thought it was out of the ordinary enough to bother warning the diners.

[Commenter_XY]

Damn.

[Brett Bellmore]

Just a few weeks ago.

[Commenter_XY]

Fuck, that dude from Jersey is pissed. Ok, no parking in downtown Charleston unless it is a parking garage.

[Brett Bellmore]

It' s OK if it's clear weather or low tide. It's the combination that gets you, there's nowhere for the water to go.

[bernard11]

A few years ago you were looking at Tennessee - I recommend Nashville, BTW. What happened to that?

Is Carolina BBQ on the Chabad menu?

[ThePublius]

"Joe Biden inspires Black graduates at Morehouse College by telling them that they’re victims and America hates them."

https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1792231594801201289?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1792231594801201289%7Ctwgr%5Ed25f5cd00c7e3189510a25e55272e8d558d21a32%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Finstapundit.com%2F648820%2F

Now, that's what I call fostering positive race relations!

[hobie]

If that's truly what Biden said, then he's squarely in the company of another certain presidential candidate

[Moderation4ever]

Wow, that all you took from the speech the little clip. What about when he talked about the College’s founding by men who believed that education was the way to success for the newly freed black man. What about when he talked about MLK a Moorehouse Man and when he talked about Booby Kennedy’s vision. Maybe you should listen to speeches instead of snippets. Assuming your attention span is that long.

[hobie]

Living in a fact-free world must be awesome for these folk. It obviates the need to think

[Sarcastr0]

Fucking libs of tiktok?

She is not a good person.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

She'd be right at home at the Volokh Conspiracy, as a Conspirator or as a superfan.

I doubt UCLA would want her around, though.

[Ed Grinberg]

Even if she really wasn't a good person (which assertion I have no reason to credit), her opinions might still be valid. But she didn't even express an opinion -- she just showed what the President said!
You're pathetic, Sarcastr0.

[Nige]

So send a bomb threat on her behalf to a school or whatever it is you libsoftiktokers like to do.

[Moderation4ever]

She showed a snippet of the speech that poorly reflected what was said.

[Bob from Ohio]

Did he say the words or not?

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

"Did he say the words or not?"

Is this a standard principle you're espousing, or does it only apply to Joe Biden? Just checking.

[Nige]

A bunch of Americans declared war on diversity in colleges and rant and rave about the study of black history being the real racism. He might not be completely wrong.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Plenty of conservatives are racist. But those losers and their bigotry have been diminished in America throughout my lifetime -- thanks to our national progress shaped by the liberal-libertarian mainstream throughout my lifetime -- and America's trajectory indicates right-wing bigots (of various disgusting stripes) will continue to lose ground in modern America.

America's lesser voices have targeted most of America -- Blacks, gays, Irish, Catholics, Asians, women, Italians, eastern Europeans, Hispanics, Muslims, agnostics, other Asians, atheists, other Hispanics -- at one time or another, in successive waves often fueled by race, religion, ethnicity, or perceived economic pressures, throughout our history.

What makes America great is that our bigots don't win, not over time. And our latest batch of right-wing bigots seems nothing special, its reliance on the charms, insights, and character of Donald Trump and his ignorant, intolerant, poorly educated, obsolete, backwater followers notwithstanding.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Normal people: Hold on to your britches
Democrats: fire up your goal seeking legal principles and constitutional theories.

Headline:
Judge strikes down portion of Florida election law: “The Citizenship Requirement unconstitutionally discriminates against noncitizens on its face."

https://flvoicenews.com/judge-strikes-down-part-of-florida-law-targeting-noncitizens-helping-with-voter-registration/

Apparently, in election years when Democrats need to steal another one, it becomes unconstitutional to forbid registering non-citizens to vote.

[apedad]

Sheesh…read the link.

It’s not about registering non-citizens to vote.

It’s about a, ” . . . Florida election law barring noncitizens from handling voter registrations for third party groups.”

And the court said that’s unconstitutional under 14A.

“The Citizenship Requirement unconstitutionally discriminates against noncitizens on its face . . . . ”

[hobie]

Apedad, don't sully the man's delusional interpretations

[Brett Bellmore]

The 14th amendment explicitly discriminates between citizens and non-citizens itself; The idea that discrimination against non-citizens automatically violates it is absurd.

But that's one of the absurdities that comes from substantive due process; Every warm body is entitled to due process, only citizens are entitled to "privileges and immunities", and incorporation was supposed to happen vial the P&I clause.

Shoehorning it into the due process clause, instead of just cleanly overturning Slaughterhouse, really warped the 14th amendment's application.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

"Every warm body" is entitled to due process, because that's exactly what the 14th amendment says:

"...nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Privileges and immunities to citizens, due process and equal protection of the laws to everyone. Seems pretty plainly spelled out to me.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I'm starting to suspect this guy is a Conspirator sockpuppet.

[Ed Grinberg]

https://www.2000mules.com/
Here we go again...

[Dr. Ed 2]

I see that UCLA has banned Jewish speech.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/ucla-locks-doors-on-conservative-students-preventing-them-from-hosting-pro-israel-event-yaf/ar-BB1mFR9K?cvid=9b89b80be87d413cb41416620c091365&ei=47

SUE!!!!!

[hobie]

Does Liberty U have Jewish student groups?

[Bored Lawyer]

Ah yes. The old tu quoque argument. Which is not even applicable here, since UCLA is a public institution, while Liberty U is not.

[Sarcastr0]

It's Dr. Ed, posting a FOX News repost whose source is 'according to the student group.'

Seems bad, but we should probably wait to see what the actual facts are.

[Dr. Ed 2]

There's more, Gaslighto: https://yaf.org/news/ucla-pulls-plug-on-pro-israel-yaf-event-in-unconstitutional-move-to-placate-pro-hamas-radicals/

Young America is a reputable organization that I've worked with in the past, they help student groups bring speakers to campus.

My guess -- just a guess here -- is that they were blindsided by UCLA and they are getting all their facts straight right now and will be issuing a press release later this week.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Young America Foundation is a group of and for fledgling bigots, aspiring culture war casualties, and obsolete, superstitious, right-wing dimwits.

[Frank Drackman]

And all-around good guys! I think I saw them on Ed Sullivan after Senor Wences.

[bernard11]

'S all right?

[bernard11]

Young America is a reputable organizationit wasn't when I was familiar with its doings, and probably isn't now.

The right grows these people in its cellar, making sure to keep out the light.

[ThePublius]

Typical. You don't like the report, so you question the source (Fox), the group (YAF), and say "we should probably wait to see what the actual facts are." Typical liberal/prog denialism.

It really did happen!

[Sarcastr0]

It’s not outcome oriented it’s media literacy. One sided allegations to a partisan source are nothing to rely on.

I do the same thing with liberal stories.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

What's not just applicable but also important is that Liberty is one of America's many censorship-shackled, bigoted, academic freedom-flouting, blatantly discriminatory, low-quality, poorly regarded conservative campuses that suppresses science to flatter superstition, teaches absolute fucking nonsense, and does not deserve mainstream accreditation.

Much like every conservative-controlled campus in America.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Yes: https://www.liberty.edu/news/2008/09/09/new-center-for-judaic-studies-takes-shape/

[hobie]

Oh, they definitely STUDY Judaism there

[apedad]

.

[Balisane]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/supreme-court-declines-to-hear-challenge-to-maryland-ban-on-rifles-known-as-assault-weapons/ar-BB1mIR4Y?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=7d29bb500b5b4beeb77f1242adcb0bff&ei=2

Yes, it's time to let it percolate. But if a state tried to regulate what the Rev. Kirkland could do with his diseased pecker, the courts would be there in a heartbeat to issue a stay.

[Brett Bellmore]

I've noted that: The majority on the Court are forced to uphold the 2nd amendment if cases reach them purely for reasons of constitutional doctrine, but very few of them actually like the amendment, or are personally outraged at violations.

So remedying violations of it is never, ever a high priority for them.

They're seriously emboldening the lower courts' defiance of Bruen doing this, but they seem to not much care.

[Bob from Ohio]

"seriously emboldening the lower courts’ defiance"

They tolerated lower court defiance of Heller for long time. Bruen won't be different.

Of course it could just be the sloth they have towards working in general they exhibit.

[not guilty]

By its own terms, 28 U.S.C. § 455(a) applies to SCOTUS justices: "Any justice, judge, or magistrate judge of the United States shall disqualify himself in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned." (Note the mandatory word "shall".) The test is objective, and existence of actual bias is not required for recusal.

It seems to me that flying the American flag upside down during January of 2021, when so-called "stop the steal" groups had co-opted that gesture in support of Donald Trump's criminal activities, would pose a reasonable question regarding Samuel Alito's impartiality with regard to litigation involving Trump's activities and the activities of those who breached the Capitol on January 6. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/05/17/justice-samuel-alito-wife-upside-down-flag/

[Commenter_XY]

It does not pose a reasonable question of impartiality, NG. You're a lawyer, make the case.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

He's a lawyer.

You're a bigoted, superstitious, disaffected, right-wing loser who can't stand modern America.

Everybody has problems.

Some problems -- those involving America's remaining inventory of roundly bigoted, conservative culture war casualties -- are already being solved by replacement.

[not guilty]

At the time the flag flew outside Justice Alito's home, there were petitions for certiorari to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania pending before SCOTUS regarding whether votes in the 2020 presidential election had been counted in contravention of the United States Constitution, Art. I, §4, cl. 1; Art. II, §1, cl. 2. Donald J. Trump for President, Inc. had moved for leave to intervene as a petitioner. (Cert was denied on February 22, 2021.) https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/20-542_2c83.pdf

SCOTUS presently has before it on plenary review questions as to the proper scope of application of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2) regarding the Capitol riot and whether Donald Trump is immune from criminal prosecution for his conduct leading up to the Electoral Count in Congress on January 6, 2021. An objective observer can reasonably conclude that Justice Alito allowing a symbol of the "stop the steal" movement to fly outside his household for several days following the riot reflects poorly on his impartiality. It is the functional equivalent of having posted a "stop the steal" sign in the front yard.

The New York Times article which broke the flag story, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/16/us/justice-alito-upside-down-flag.html , observes that employees of the Supreme Court are prohibited from political activity relating to elections contested by political parties, such as displaying signs or bumper stickers or stating positions on social media. The purpose of these prohibitions is no doubt to preserve the dignity and impartiality (both real and perceived) of the Court. What the Court prohibits its employees from doing, it should not indulge its members.

[Commenter_XY]

Sure, and if Mrs. Alito were a sitting SCOTUS Justice, I would totally agree with you. She is not. Unless you want to say it is A-Ok to punish someone for their spouses speech. Better be careful with that one, NG. 😉

So NG, now we are back to: Make your case.

[not guilty]

So you take at face value Alito's suggestion that he is merely a pussywhipped stooge?

[Commenter_XY]

Yes NG. Justice Alito is just a pussy-whipped stooge like the rest of us married guys. He is no different.

Just to be complete, Roberts, Thomas, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch are all pussy-whipped stooges too.

What's the female version of pussy-whipped?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

The birther-Pizzagate-Italian thermostate-stolen election-bamboo ballot-Vince Foster-Seth Rich clingers suddenly become avid swallowers of unsworn, untested, partisan pap when the defense of the Federalist Society wing of the Supreme Court is involved.

What is coming to those right-wing losers in the culture war couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch of gullible, half-educated, obsolete, un-American misfits.

[bernard11]

Wow. That's weak.

But suppose it was Mrs. Alito who put up the flag.

Was that appropriate behavior by the wife of a SCOTUS Justice?

Do you imagine she mentioned it to hubby?

Do you imagine he saw it? (Careful. It was right outside the garage door.)

What do you think would have been his proper response had he seen it or otherwise been made aware of its presence?

What response did he make?

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Justice Alito allowing a symbol of the “stop the steal” movement to fly outside his household for several days

Are you saying that Alito has to “allow” his wife to make public statements? You misogynistic pig.

So you take at face value Alito’s suggestion that he is merely a pussywhipped stooge?

I rest my case.

[Krayt]

I'm inclined, but since his wife supposedly did it, I wonder if people wouldn't rise with a defense of "'But the wife is an independent person with agency, how dare you strip their rights!" if the shoe were on the other foot.

Note: I do not agree with this as a defense.

[jb]

If his wife really did it, and he didn't know about it at all, it's a reasonable defense in general. The "he didn't know about it at all" seems to stretch credibility a bit, but since he's supposed to recuse himself and he knows the truth I guess it's up to him.

Having said that, the idea is that the judge is supposed to recuse himself if there's an *appearance* of impartiality, so usually you'd think that if it was a close call recusal is probably the right answer since even if you think you could be impartial that doesn't mean that you would appear to be so.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

An upside-down flag appears to have been displayed. At Alito's house. Right next to his driveway. For days.

And Alito claims (although not under oath) he didn't see it. And, one would expect to learn, that no one told him about it.

Carry on, clingers.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm not seeing the "didn't know about it" part here. It scarcely matters if he "knew" about it, just that he wasn't the one that did it.

[jb]

Of course it matters. He lives there and should reasonably understand that people will associate a visible symbol at the house with him. If he knew about it and let it be, he's tacitly endorsing it.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

One more step toward enlargement of the Supreme Court by better Americans.

If Alito never provides an account under oath and subject to questioning (rather than getting the cuddly treatment from a sympathetic, lightweight Fox News talking head), that will be another step.

Also steps toward imposition of sensible, enforceable ethics standards at the Supreme Court.

See you down that road apiece, clingers.

[David Nieporent]

when so-called “stop the steal” groups had co-opted that gesture in support of Donald Trump’s criminal activities, would

Assumes facts not in evidence. I'm a pretty darn online person, and the NYT article the other day was the first time I had seen/heard anyone claim that doing so was a "stop the steal" message.

To be clear, I have long known of it as either a distress symbol or a symbol of protest. And I have no doubt that some Trumpkins may have used it as the latter relating to the 2020 election. But the fact that someone used it that way does not mean that it was so inextricably intertwined with that message as to inherently carry that meaning.

[not guilty]

What message do you surmise that Mrs. Alito was trying to convey to her neighbors, David?

Context matters. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/17/us/upside-down-american-flag-alito.html

[David Nieporent]

What message do you surmise that Mrs. Alito was trying to convey to her neighbors, David?

“GFY” is my guess. I doubt it was any deeper or more thought out than that.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

That's the right-wing sycophant perspective. Ignore the evidence that un-American insurrectionists and MAGA asswipes had used that symbol, and accept the justice's sketchy blame-the-wife story (relayed through a pliable Foxer who is no threat to win any Pulitzers).

[Jason Cavanaugh]

People commonly fly US flags upside down just to tell their neighbors to GFY.

Oh wait, no they don't. Certainly not the (alleged) wife of a SCOTUS justice.

How convenient for you that you've suddenly discovered a previously-unknown yet somehow commonly-used symbol to do that with!

[Brett Bellmore]

So, you want Alito removed because he married a drama queen?

[Jason Cavanaugh]

1) I never said anything about Alito being 'removed.'
2) I don't believe his excuse.
3) A real man doesn't throw his wife under the bus.

It should embarrass you immensely that you cannot read what people write and form basic, correct conclusions. Especially at your advanced age.

[Bwaaah]

"A real man doesn’t throw his wife under the bus."

Real men protect their cronies. Good one.

Here's another: only a dumbass would use the "real men [blah][blah][blah]" line as a serious argument.

No. Seriously. Real men are complicit in their wives' foolishness. Seriously. I'm serious.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Here's another: It's called knowing the difference between right and wrong.

If she did it, she should say so - not him. His saying so makes it look to be nothing more than an excuse.

[Stephen Lathrop]

"GFY” is my guess. I doubt it was any deeper or more thought out than that.

What if anything would that have to do with an appearance of impropriety regarding Alito? Seems like you can credit his denial 100%, but still not deal with the glaring reality that not everyone will do that, join your view, or believe Alito can sit impartially on any case involving Trump.

[grb]

David Nieporent : “Assumes facts not in evidence”

Fair enough, but with one caveat : You, David Nieporent, may be a “pretty darn online person”, but not (I bet) in the same internet cesspools the Alitos probably frequent. It is possible – in fact, likely – they knew Stop-the-Steal code words & rituals that you (a normal person) had no knowledge of.

Besides, what’s your theory? After Justice Alito threw his own wife under the bus, we were given this alternate story: She was having a snit with a neighbor, who said meanie hurtful things to her. Thus she flew the flag upside down out of “emotional distress”.

Given a cover-story that comically ridiculous, the Alitos knowing Stop-the-Steal tribal signals looks a LOT more credible.

[jb]

Yes, I tend to agree that it's not certain that this was a "stop the steal" symbol. But whoever put the flag upside down was trying to convey *something* so it might be helpful to hear what the alternative explanation is if it's not "Stop the Steal".

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

You may not have seen (or recognized) them, but it appears they were there on Jan. 6, 2021 (and before and after.

[Frank Drackman]

It's also a sign of Stupidity, I raised the flag upside down at Boy Scout Summer Camp in 1973 by mistake, funny thing was nobody noticed until afternoon, they should have gotten the extra dish washing punishment.

Frank

[Bob from Ohio]

"Note the mandatory word “shall”."

Keep hope alive!

[MoreCurious]

It's becoming hard to ignore Steven Calabresi's nonsense. All evidence leads to the almost unavoidable conclusion that he is experiencing serious cognitive decline. If that is true, I hope his friends, colleagues, and loved ones are encouraging him to get help and maybe stop writing garbage. If it is not true, an explanation -- from him or from his supporters -- for why he posts comments such as the one yesterday about the Manhattan trial would be helpful. No one is enjoying watching him make a damn fool of himself.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Don't be so sure about that...

[not guilty]

[duplicate comment deleted]

[Bored Lawyer]

Interview of Salman Rushdie here:
https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-801909
Insightful in many ways.

Here is a snippet:

"The fact is that any normal person can only be shocked by what is happening in Gaza, by the extent of the innocent deaths. But I think the demonstrators could also mention Hamas because it all started with them and Hamas is a terrorist organization. And it's strange that a young progressive student politician supports a fascist terrorist group, because that's what they do in a way. They demand 'free Palestine,' liberate Palestine," added the author.

"I have been in favor of a separate Palestinian state most of my life. Since the 1980s. But if there were a Palestinian state now, it would be run by Hamas and we would have a Taliban-like state. A satellite state of Iran. Is this what the progressive movements of the Western Left want to create?"

[Commenter_XY]

They never talk about that part, BL.

The palestinians want a state to: toss gays off rooftops, hang trannies on cranes until vultures eat their dead flesh, mutilate female clitoris', call for the genocide of Jews, and institutionalize their kleptocratic ways.

What could possibly go wrong? I mean, there are only 56 other muslim states in the area that do the same thing. Why not one more? That is the sum total of their logic.

These TSS dopes have no logical thought. They emote.

[Nige]

These people sound inherently and irredeemably evil and a threat to the whole world, better kill them all, I suppose.

[Commenter_XY]

Speak for yourself, Nige.

[Nige]

Oh, I'm sorry, you are painting these groups of people as irredeemably evil and malignant and intrinsically violent and brutal - the reason people do that is generally to justify killing lots of them. This is consistent with your support for the slaughter in Gaza.

[Frank Drackman]

First intelligent statement you've made.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Commenter_XY has declared he is not bothered by Israel's (settlers, government, and military) terrorism, murder, theft, and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.

Who is interested in relying on that kind of partisan, character-deprived loser's moral compass, especially when it involves an issue regarding which superstitious bullshit and pathetic tribalism corrodes his thinking?

[Frank Drackman]

Only reason you're revolting the unfortunates wherever you're exhaling your 12L/Hr of CO2 is because some Settlers/Government/Military "Ethnically Cleansed" your state. It's why Indians in New York look more like Tony Sorpano than Jay Silverheels

Frank

[grb]

Bored Lawyer : "But if there were a Palestinian state now, it would be run by Hamas"

Here's the problem : You act like that was a bug, but to Israel's recent leaders, it's a feature. They nutured Hamas precisely so you can make that statement. They knew Hamas was a vicious loathsome terrorist group, but that was exactly what they wanted.

The PA in the West Bank? After twenty-plus years cooperating with Israeli authorities & the country's security agencies? That was the real threat per Netanyahu. So he watered, fertilized, and nutured the Hamas boogeyman as a go-to excuse why peace could never be discussed. All so you can say the exact same words you said here.

Of course there was never supposed to be any real cost to this ugly cynical ploy. There'd be the occasional brief flare-up but both sides - Israel and Hamas - would do the usual pyrotechnic show and both sides - Israel and Hamas - would enjoy the political benefits showing tough to their base.

Until the brutality of 07Oct, it was the perfect symbiotic relationship.

[Illocust]

Cool story, you forgot motive though. Israel and its government gain nothing from a forever war. It costs them defense spending, popularity with their voters, and international acceptance. If Hamas would stop attacking them every other day, Israel would literally stop giving a shit about them.

[grb]

Illocust : "Israel and its government gain nothing from a forever war"

On the contrary, right now Netanyahu is frantically clinging to forever war because his coalition is toast whenever it ends. As for the bigger picture: Before 07Oct, Israel found the occasional rocket or attack more than justified by completely shutting down any pressure to hold peace talks. Why else would Israel officials regularly escort Qatari diplomats carrying millions in cash over the border into Gaza.? Keeping Hamas afloat was Job Number One.

[Bored Lawyer]

Nice fairy tale. Too bad it's not true.

As I have posted here before, in 2005 were were promised that Gaza would turn into the Singapore of the MIddle East. Had that happened, then 80% of Israelis would be demanding to repeat the experiment in the West Bank.

Instead, Gaza became a hellhole. If free elections were held in the West Bank tomorrow, Hamas would win hands down, and the hellhole would expand.

[grb]

Bored Lawyer : “Too bad it’s not true”

And yet nothing you say refutes or contradicts my points above. Granted, I do see your narrative : Israel withdrew from Gaza earnestly and sincerely hoping a thousand flowers might bloom but – alas – their deepfelt hopes were heartbreakingly crushed.

Do you really believe that? I suggest a little research:

“The special envoy of the Quartet (a coalition of nations promoting peace) James Wolfensohn noted that “Gaza had been effectively sealed off from the outside world since the Israeli disengagement [August–September 2005], and the humanitarian and economic consequences for the Palestinian population were profound. There were already food shortages. Palestinian workers and traders to Israel were unable to cross the border”.

On 15 January 2006, the Karni crossing – the sole point for exports of goods from Gaza – was closed completely for all kinds of exports. The greenhouse project suffered a huge blow, as the harvest of high-value crops, meant to be exported for Europe via Israel, was essentially lost. Moreover, closing of Karni cut off the so-far resilient textile and furniture industries in Gaza from their source of income….. Between 1 January and 11 May, more than 12,700 tons of produce were harvested in Gaza’s greenhouses, almost all of it destined for export. Out of it, only 1,600 tonnes (less than 13%) were actually exported.”

Please note how much of that predates the election victory of Hamas at the end of January ’06. That election took place under a full blockade of Gaza, complete with food shortages and hunger.

I’m not sure when this utopia the Israelis “hoped for” was supposed to occur. When Israel withdrew in late 2005, Gaza was already a wall-off prison, its only airport bombed to rubble by the IDF three years after it was built. All points of entry into the strip sealed-off by Israel except for two – which were regularly shut down on a whim. Use of the Gaza sea ports was denied the Palestinians. Use of the Strip’s air space also.

And this was the “happy” time, when the blockades were intermittent and the flow of goods still occasionally possible. Of course that period only lasted from Sept05 to Jan06. After that, the entire Strip was strangled by a suffocating blockade.

Not much time to recreate Singapore, ya think?

[M L]

Is any of this true?

Guy on your left is Kristian Andersen, British scientist who emailed Fauci 1/31/20 saying virus looks lab-made. Guy on your right is Kristian Andersen, guy who Fauci called 2/1/20 and ordered to publicly say it wasn't lab-made, which he did. Fauci then gave him $1.88M grant, +$16.5M funding

January 31, 2020 - BEFORE FAUCI TELEPHONE CONFERENCE

On January 31, 2020, at 10:32 p.m., Dr. Fauci received an email from British researcher, Dr. Kristian Andersen. Dr. Andersen has received millions of dollars in grants from the NIH. In the email, he warned Dr. Fauci:

" [O]ne has to look really closely at all the sequences to see that some of the features (potentially) look engineered . . . Eddie [Holmes], Bob [Garry], Mike [Ferguson] and myself all find the genome inconsistent with evolutionary theory."

February 4, 2020 - AFTER FAUCI TELEPHONE CONFERENCE

However, we do know what happened four days later. Dr. Andersen, the virologist who sent the original 10:32 p.m. email on January 31, went public with this statement:

“The main crackpot theories going around at the moment relate to this virus being somehow engineered . . . and that is demonstrably false.”

In four days, Dr. Andersen flipped 180 degrees! The only intervening event appears to be the conference call with Dr. Fauci.

https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/1crwony/guy_on_your_left_is_kristian_andersen_british/

Reddit is an awful place. But it tends to be heavily censored with a leftist political bias. The post appears to pull from a Federalist article and some affidavit. I'm not sure what the purpose of the affidavit was and I haven't read it, but I saw it claims the following:

• I attest that I analyzed the funding of Dr. Kristian Andersen of the Scripps Research Institute from data obtained from NIH funding databases. Dr. Andersen’s funding dramatically increased after changing his position on the characterization of the agent as
being manmade, to naturally emerging, after a series of discussions with Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Total Funding Awarded Per Month Before Fauci Teleconference $393,079.65
Total Funding Awarded Per Month After Fauci Teleconference $800,139.15
Total Funding Awarded Per Calendar Year Before Fauci Teleconference $ 1,042,628.25
Total Funding Awarded Per Calendar Year After Fauci Teleconference $2,284,161.08
Total Continuing Funding Before Fauci Teleconference $7,141,011.83
Total Continuing Funding After Fauci Teleconference $23,724,681.83
Total Continuing Funding INCREASE After Fauci Teleconference $16,583,670.00

Is any of this true? Seems like it should be more well known and I should have heard of it before if so.

[M L]

This Dr. Andersen is the same guy who published THE paper . . . if you were paying attention at all, you remember it. "The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2" in March 2020. It was the definitive paper used to "debunk" the idea that it was a lab leak.

I'm just floored that the guy who authored that paper wrote the email above days prior to Fauci, if true. And that 4 days later he was calling his own belief a "crackpot theory" that was "demonstrably false," after having a phone conversation with Fauci, and then he got 16 million in additional funding. If that is true why isn't there an investigation?

[Nige]

'Is any of this true?'

Does it matter? Just get it out there! The lab leak theory hasn't been definitively re-proven in ages!

[M L]

Did Andersen really write an email to Fauci saying the virus looks engineered, and then 4 days later say it was a demonstrably false crackpot theory?

Do you remember when that Proximal Origins paper came out?

[Nige]

Why didn't you check before posting?

[M L]

I did.

If you Google "Dr Kristian Andersen," there are zero mainstream media results on the first page, other that the NYT article someone linked below, which is nothing but a damage control puff piece spin, it says nothing about the funding situation or the timing of this email and the public statement, etc.

[M L]

On to page two of the results now.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-12289007/Scientist-denounced-Covid-lab-leak-theory-said-privately-highly-likely.html

A renowned scientist who led the condemnation of the Covid lab leak theory privately believed it was 'highly likely', leaked messages show.

Dr Kristian Andersen, a Danish evolutionary biologist, co-authored a now-notorious research paper published in March 2020 that denounced the origin scenario as a conspiracy theory and xenophobic.

Yet Slack messages obtained by DailyMail.com show how just weeks before the publication of that paper, Dr Andersen told colleagues the idea of a lab leak was 'not some fringe theory' and was, in fact, 'highly likely' the genesis of the pandemic.

Separate, publicly-available communications between the virologist and his co-authors show how the group backed the natural origin theory - the idea the virus jumped from an animal to a person in the wild - for 'political' reasons and feared pinning the blame on the Chinese lab would cause a ‘s***show’ and threaten future funding of virus manipulation research.

[M L]

Also on page two, an independent left-wing source.

Key Scientist in Covid Origin Controversy Misled Congress on Status of $8.9 Million NIH Grant

Kristian Andersen had a major grant proposal on Anthony Fauci’s desk while writing a paper exonerating an NIH-funded lab in Wuhan, documents show.

https://theintercept.com/2023/07/21/covid-origin-nih-lab-leak/

[Nige]

So, you were unable to confirm this, but you posted it anyway.

[M L]

Correct. Which is why I asked the question. And it seems to be working, apparently this guy really did say and do those things and most of this is true (though of course they dispute the implications, the appearance of quid pro quo, etc.).

[Nige]

Yes, we can see you squeezing and bending them and chopping bits off to make them fit your preferred narrative.

[David Nieporent]

Is any of this true? Seems like it should be more well known and I should have heard of it before if so.

You probably should've, since it's very old news.

I do like trying to spin a conspiracy theory about a virologist's research funding increased right after that virus became a worldwide pandemic. What are the odds that NIH would ramp up research spending right at that time?

[M L]

So it is true?

[David Nieporent]

Mostly not. But here, read Anderson's testimony for yourself, where he explains why it isn't:

https://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Testimony-of-Dr.-Kristian-Andersen.pdf

[M L]

I see he claims he did nothing wrong. What a surprise.

Do you find it credible that he genuinely changed his mind based on scientific evidence within the four days where he talked to Fauci and then publicly declared that his own privately thinking from four days earlier was now a "demonstrably false" "crackpot theory"?

[David Nieporent]

Well, he did not in fact "change his mind," but I find his explanation entirely credible. Also, that testimony clarifies that that is not in fact what he said was a crackpot theory. What he described as a crackpot theory was that the virus was "engineered with intent" — e.g., a bioweapon — not that it was engineered at all.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

You mean like they do in all those US-funded bioweapons labs in Ukraine?

[M L]

Looks like his testimony hasn't held up too well.

Key researchers who testified before the House subcommittee investigating the origin of Covid-19 virus last week misled Congress about the nature of a multimillion-dollar grant that was pending at the time they joined a critical conference with Drs. Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci in February 2020, according to National Institutes of Health documents.
https://theintercept.com/2023/07/21/covid-origin-nih-lab-leak/

[grb]

M L : “So it is true?”

I’m hearing a mournful plaintive ring in that! Let’s do a quick summary :

1. When Covid emerged, scientists overwhelmingly thought the disease emerged through natural means like the outbreak of SARS earlier. That disease jumped to humans from civet cats in southern China and it was later determined bats were SARS’ natural reservoir.

2. Some politicians (mostly on the Right) wanted a different explantion for very un-science reasons. When the scientists stuck to their guns, the politicians wailed about how hurtful that was, whined they were being victimized, whimpered everyone’s against them and it’s soooooo unfair. (In short, the same snowflake rage & tears we hear from them every debate, every subject, every day).

3. Now time has passed. The politicians feel much more confident pushing their political message. But guess what?

“It’s not correct to say that there’s no epidemiological evidence linking the origin of SARS-CoV-2 to a virus circulating in animal populations,” said Maciej Boni, a professor in the biology department at the Temple University College of Science and Technology in Philadelphia, referencing the scientific name for the coronavirus that causes Covid.

“The genetic evidence is there. The market evidence is there. And also the geographic evidence is there, and it’s very strong,” he said, nodding to studies linking the pandemic’s origin to a market in Wuhan selling live wild animals that some scientists believe could have passed the virus to humans.”

Meanwhile, the FBI’s “moderate confidence” in a lab leak assessment was based on nothing more than their belief the natural origin theory is unproved.

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/future-pulse/2024/05/16/a-lab-leak-theorist-explains-00158283

[M L]

“Some politicians (mostly on the Right) wanted a different explantion for very un-science reasons.”

No, some people observed that there was a mountain of circumstantial evidence demanding explanations and inquiries.

But some politicians and establishment bureaucrats wanted to shut down that question, for very un-science reasons . . . and they were willing to brazenly lie, threaten, cajole, and persecute others including their own colleagues to do it.

[Nige]

'circumstantial evidence'

I think I've spotted your problem.

[M L]

Tell me you don't understand circumstantial evidence without telling me.

[Nige]

Tell me you don't care about actual evidence etc.

[apedad]

New Regulation Reaching Even One Gun Sale Put on Hold by Court

Texas and several other plaintiffs were granted a temporary restraining order preventing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ new regulation on gun sales, which was set to go into effect Monday, from being enforced against them.

The new regulation defines “engaged in the business” of dealing firearms to include a single sale of a gun. But Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk of the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas said May 19 that the regulation is inconsistent with the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.

Anyone in the business of selling firearms must have a license to do so and is subject to severe penalties, including up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, if they don’t have one, Kacxmaryk said. Previously, a private gun owner who wanted to sell his guns wasn’t subject to the licensing requirement, he said.

ATF’s new regulation now says: “Even a single firearm transaction, or offer to engage in a transaction, when combined with other evidence, may be sufficient to require a license.” But the BSCA says that a person is in the business of selling firearms if they do so as “a regular course of trade or business to predominantly earn a profit through the repetitive purchase and resale of firearms.”

The plaintiffs face irreparable injury if the rule goes into effect, Kacsmaryk said. Texas will lose revenue and the other plaintiffs could face civil and criminal enforcement actions, he said.

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/new-regulation-reaching-even-one-gun-sale-put-on-hold-by-court

How can the judge say the plaintiffs (Texas, the Gun Owners of America Inc., the Gun Owners Foundation, the Tennessee Firearms Association, the Virginia Citizens Defense League), face irreparable injury?

They're not the ones selling weapons on a regular basis - or are they.

[Brett Bellmore]

Trivially, an organization faces irreparable injury when its members face such injury.

[Brett Bellmore]

Oh, and the point is that the change of the regulation means that you DON'T have to be selling guns on a regular basis for them to conclude you're engaged in the business. Even ONE sale, plus vague considerations, is enough.

They're trying to put the fear of the BATF into anybody who might legally sell as much as one firearm.

[David Nieporent]

Brett,

I incorporate Guns R Us, LLC, open up a storefront, put a sign in the window, and stock up on inventory. But my advertising is lacking, and I only make ONE sale in my first month of operations. Was I in the business of selling firearms during that month?

[Brett Bellmore]

Sure, thanks to actually incorporating as a business selling guns.

But the BATF reg change isn't aimed at that group. And I think you know that.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

Sure, thanks to actually incorporating as a business selling guns.

And generally satisfying the criteria established in the statute...which the ATF regulation ignores.

[David Nieporent]

Sure, thanks to actually incorporating as a business selling guns.

So you're saying that the number of sales isn't dispositive, that there are other factors to consider?

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

So you’re saying that the number of sales isn’t dispositive, that there are other factors to consider?

You should probably try actually reading linked Bloomberg story. Nobody is claiming that the number of sales is itself dispositive (hence the "plus vague considerations" part of Brett's comment). The issue is that the controlling federal statute establishes multiple criteria that must be met for one to be considered in the business of selling firearms, and the new ATF reg largely ignores those criteria.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

How can the judge say the plaintiffs (Texas, the Gun Owners of America Inc., the Gun Owners Foundation, the Tennessee Firearms Association, the Virginia Citizens Defense League), face irreparable injury?

You do understand (never a good bet with you, I know) that those are organizations made up individual people...right?

They’re not the ones selling weapons on a regular basis – or are they.

Did you not understand anything that you quoted in your post?

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

“ATF’s new regulation now says: “Even a single firearm transaction, or offer to engage in a transaction, when combined with other evidence, may be sufficient to require a license.””

No, it doesn’t.

Engaged in the business—
* * * * *
(c) Dealer in firearms other than a gunsmith or a pawnbroker. (1) A person who devotes time, attention, and labor to dealing in firearms as a regular course of trade or business to predominantly earn a profit through the repetitive purchase and resale of firearms, but such term shall not include a person who makes occasional sales, exchanges, or purchases of firearms for the enhancement of a personal collection or for a hobby, or who sells all or part of the person’s personal collection of firearms. The term shall not include an auctioneer who provides only auction services on commission by assisting in liquidating a personal collection of firearms at an estate-type auction, provided the auctioneer does not purchase the firearms, take possession of the firearms prior to the auction, or consign the firearms for sale.

(2) For purposes of this definition—
(i) The term “purchase” (and derivative terms thereof) means the act of obtaining a firearm in exchange for something of value;
(ii) The term “sale” (and derivative terms thereof, including “resale”) means the act of providing a firearm in exchange for something of value; and
(iii) The term “something of value” includes money, credit, personal property (e.g., another firearm or ammunition), a service, a controlled substance, or any other medium of exchange or valuable consideration.

(3) Whether a person is engaged in the business of dealing in firearms requiring a license is a fact-specific inquiry. Selling large numbers of firearms or engaging or offering to engage in frequent transactions may be highly indicative of business activity. However, there is no minimum threshold number of firearms purchased or sold that triggers the licensing requirement. Similarly, there is no minimum number of transactions that determines whether a person is “engaged in the business” of dealing in firearms. For example, even a single firearm transaction or offer to engage in a transaction, when combined with other evidence (e.g., where a person represents to others a willingness to acquire more firearms for resale or offers more firearms for sale), may require a license.” § 478.11 (proposed)

Try reading the actual proposed rule, rather than the commentary accompanying the proposed rule-making…

“Predominantly earn a profit. (a) The intent underlying the sale or disposition of firearms is predominantly one of obtaining pecuniary gain, as opposed to other intents, such as improving or liquidating a personal firearms collection: Provided, that proof of profit, including the intent to profit, shall not be required as to a person who engages in the regular and repetitive purchase and disposition of firearms for criminal purposes or terrorism. For purposes of this definition, a person may have the intent to profit even if the person does not actually obtain pecuniary gain from the sale or disposition of firearms.”

A court may or may not ultimately agree that the wording of the proposed rule goes “too far”, but most of the proposed rule was copied verbatim from Section 12002 of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022.

[Brett Bellmore]

So, the latest revelation from Cohen's testimony:

CNN: Defense grilling Cohen about stealing from Trump Org.

He stole $60K from the Trump organization while he worked there. He'd admitted it to the prosecutors he made the plea deal with.

They didn't think it was worth pursuing...

[Commenter_XY]

Brett, I'm sure DA Bragg gave careful consideration before deciding to pursue charges against POTUS Trump, and not pursue charges of theft against Michael Cohen. If you ask him, he just exercised prosecutorial discretion.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Is it your legal opinion that the limitation period had not lapsed with respect to a theft charge, you bigoted right-wing rube?

[ThePublius]

Why do you say that? What does bigotry or "rube" have to do with this? It's a matter of record at this point. Note that the charges against Trump are misdemeanors for which the statute of limitations has expired, and the elevation to a chargeable felony by Bragg is dubious, at best, and for a crime he hasn't even articulated.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

If you dumb fucks would actually read what people who are much smarter and more informed than you actually said, you might not be worthless, misinformed, lying pieces of shit.

https://reason.com/volokh/2024/05/18/trump-should-not-testify-at-manhattan-witch-hunt-of-a-trial/?comments=true#comment-10566472

Since I have mentioned this before, I will say this again. (This is the third time I have said this in a thread).

You cannot have intelligent discussion when people keep raising the exact same, wrong, points that have been repeatedly shown to be incorrect.

For example, it’s a completely incorrect statement for those to keep saying that Trump (or you) don’t know what the “another crime” is. If you keep saying it, you are committing to looking as stupid as Lauren Boebert, and that’s not a great look (especially at Beetlejuice).

This was already adjudicated. There are three-
FECA, 17-152, Tax Law 1801(a)(3), 1802.

Okay? Are we good?

[Frank Drackman]

Well I'm "Dr." Dumb Fuck thank you, and I read that bullshit link, and I see why you're wasting time calling people who are much smarter and more informed than you Dumb Fucks, you Dumb Fuck, no way you're making any money at law, oh wait, the Dumb Fucks, my bad!

Frank

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Bigoted rubes should be labeled bigoted rubes at every opportunity. Right-wing culture war casualties disagree, of course. Thanks to American progress, they no longer want to be known as bigots. In public, anyway.

[CountmontyC]

The statute of limitations in New York for felony embezzlement in New York is five years. The crime Cohen committed was in 2017 and the prosecutors apparently knew about it in 2018. Well within the statute of limitations.

[Kenneth Almquist]

So Commenter_XY overlooked the fact that Bragg cannot charge Cohen for embezzlement because the statute of limitations has expired.

If Cohen told Federal prosecutors in 2018 that he had embezzled, that was probably under some arrangement whereby Cohen would tell prosecutors about his other crimes with the understanding that the prosecutors wouldn’t persue those crimes. Federal prosecutors got Cohen to plead guilty to a bunch of crimes that the prosecutors already knew about prior to the plea agreement negotiations.

[Brett Bellmore]

As I keep saying, the guilty plea was bought and paid for, the currency of the payment being going easy on him for serious crimes they had him dead to rights on. All this does is demonstrate that the payment for his confessing that Trump was guilty was larger than we initially thought.

No, actually it also demonstrates that he's been a snake happy to screw over his boss for quite some time now.

[Magister]

Apparently the money he stole was because he paid only $20K to Red Finch to rig an online poll for Trump but requested and was reimbursed $50K (plus additional money because he would have to pay taxes on that). It doesn't make Trump look good in the current case, where he's claiming all of the payments were for legal work.

[David Nieporent]

Right. Cohen did admit to defrauding Trump (a more accurate term than 'stealing'), but for that to be correct, Trump has to be guilty of the crimes of which he's charged! Trump's position is that the monies Trump paid to Cohen were for legal services, not as reimbursement for monies Cohen expended on Trump's behalf. If that's true, then Cohen didn't defraud Trump at all! If, on the other hand, these monies were for reimbursement, then Cohen defrauded him by getting reimbursed for expenditures he didn't make.

[Brett Bellmore]

He also structured the transaction, though they didn't pursue that, either.

[Brett Bellmore]

Who said anything about Bragg? I'm talking about the prosecutors who gave Cohen the sweet deal in return for confessing that Trump was guilty of a campaign finance violation.

[David Nieporent]

1) Cohen did not get a "sweet deal."

2) Again, if the arrangement were for the reasons you pretend, why did federal prosecutors never use Cohen's plea against Trump?

[Brett Bellmore]

Give me a break, Nieporent. In theory he could have gotten as much as 65 years in prison, an effective life sentence. Instead he got by with a fine and 3 years, and got to serve the 3 years in home confinement. That's a sweet deal indeed, all for the small price of pleading that Trump was guilty.

[Estragon]

“3 years in home confinement“

You mean Paul Manafort, not Cohen

[not guilty]

Brett, do you claim that Michael Cohen went to a sweet prison?

[NOVA Lawyer]

By his own standards, Brett is obviously demented.

Cohen quite obviously spent a year in prison and was released early because of the Covid pandemic, not any sweet deal. Further, the Trump administration then tried to put him back in prison in retaliation for his exercise of his first amendment rights (he was drafting and shopping a book critical of Trump).

https://news.yahoo.com/judge-rules-michael-cohen-retaliated-154912180.html

This has been another example of the poor memory and reasoning of Trump apologists and how everything Trump touches is corrupt. Even as slimy as Cohen is, Trump still found a way to go lower. And, yet, his apologists are out here spreading lies about how the Trump DOJ went easy on Cohen. Ridiculous.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Maybe an antisocial, disaffected, bigoted, autistic, delusional right-wing misfit is not a reliable source in the context of legal matters or analysis?

But he is the target audience of this white, male, polemical, conservative blog.

[Frank Drackman]

Always talking about your Revolting self as usual, Revolting

[Noscitur a sociis]

I guess we can add “federal sentencing practices” to the list of things that Brett Bellmore thinks he’s an expert on while knowing absolutely nothing about.

[David Nieporent]

In theory he could have gotten as much as 65 years in prison,

No, he absolutely could not have. That is not the way federal sentencing works.

Instead he got by with a fine and 3 years, and got to serve the 3 years in home confinement. That’s a sweet deal indeed,

That's factually and legally wrong. There was no such deal, and he was sentenced to prison, not home confinement. He served a little over a year in prison, and the conversion of the remainder of his sentence to home confinement was a COVID-related Bureau of Prisons decision that was applied to lots of non-violent offenders in 2020, not part of any "deal."

[Brett Bellmore]

Going by this: Courthouse News Service: Embattled Former Trump Attorney Michael Cohen Pleads Guilty

"Facing a consecutive maximum sentence of 65 years, Cohen agreed at his hearing Tuesday not to challenge any sentence between 46 and 63 months. Pending this sentencing, Cohen will be out on $500,000 personal-recognizance bond co-signed by his wife and one other person."

It's not like I pulled 65 years out of my ass.

[Absaroka]

This something reporters get wrong all the time. Even in state courts, summing all the maximum sentences assuming they will be served consecutively is not a good predictor of the actual time to be served if convicted. Maybe occasionally they sentence a serial killer to 97 consecutive life sentences or whatever, but that would be an anomaly.

And in federal court, it's a worse predictor, because sentences are pretty tightly constrained by the sentencing recommendations.

[David Nieporent]

It’s not like I pulled 65 years out of my ass.

Agreed. But it's something you didn't know was wrong. The media gets this wrong — accidentally or deliberately for clickbait — all the time. I have little doubt that if one tabulated each of the charges and the statutory maximum for each, that it summed to 65. But that is not how federal sentencing works. It does not take a "deal" to get less than 65 years. That's automatic. The sentencing guidelines control in all but the rarest circumstances, and specify many many many fewer years than that, for many reasons including the fact that sentences on multiple counts for related acts are almost always required to be imposed concurrently rather than consecutively.

[Frank Drackman]

Any one else get a little turned on by AOC’s “Baby Girl” crack the other day?? (I like AOC’s crack also) Couldn't tell if it was more Rosie Perez or Cardi B, Unlike Hillary Rodman, AOC may have a future, she does a Black/Puerto Rican Accent way better.

Frank

[Commenter_XY]

That hissy fit catfight on the House floor was a spectacle.

[Estragon]

What… no “smash”?

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

I figure your horse in that contest was the drawling Jewish space laser adherent who looks like a horse.

[Frank Drackman]

Never understood "Horse Face" as an Insult, I like Horsies, now Pigs, that's another story, that Congresswoman from Connecticut?? Could be the Arkansas Razorbacks mascot.

Frank

[Brett Bellmore]

I like horses and pigs, too. But I'd prefer that women not look like them.

[Estragon]

Congrats to the Indiana pacers, who blew out my beloved Knicks last night. The city seemed depressed today, despite the rangers.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

So long as Dolan is involved the Knicks can’t lose often enough. They try, though.

[Frank Drackman]

Can't wait for a Timberwolves/Pacer series

[NOVA Lawyer]

So no comments about Gov. Abbott pardoning a convicted murderer (who talked about murdering Black Lives Matter protestors and then murdered a Black Lives Matter protestor) for nakedly political purposes?

So now, in Texas, it's okay to murder as long as you have the right politics and the person you murder has the wrong politics?

This is an extension of the Trump pardons of people like Manafort, Flynn, and Stone and his promises to pardon January 6 protestors. Why this isn't chilling to everyone escapes me, other than Trump apologists really are comfortable with a fascist approach to politics.

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, I'm not one to insist people talk about what interests me, but this is a glaring omission in a blog about the judicial system.

This seems a pretty new development and not a good one. But no one seems particularly put out, and none of the folks in the Conspiracy seem interested in posting about it.

[Mr. Bumble]

There are twice per week open threads for that.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Sarcastr0, I doubt the MAGA types think of it as a new development, or even a change.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

.

but this is a glaring omission in a blog about the judicial system

This blog is not "about the judicial system." It's about Federalist Society polemics with a daily side of bigotry.

You knew that.

[Frank Drackman]

Isn’t the “Convicted” redundant? Except for the rare cases like President Milhouse, that’s the whole reason you’re pardoning somebody, that they were convicted.
And I thought you guys were against peoples even having AK-47s (actually the departed had a semi-automatic version of the AK, not an actual select fire AK-47) much less walking around pointing them at people. One reason nobody gives a shit is the dear departed was a white guy and not a career criminal/domestic abuser like Floyd George
The real scandal is that the Innocent Sgt Perry (does a Pardon make you Innocent?) had to work as an Uber driver even while serving in the Army

Frank

[Frank Drackman]

What's chilling is even in "Red" Te-jas you have a place like Travis County that would even charge Sergeant Perry for obvious self defense. Emmett Till had a better chance of getting a fair trial in that cumstain.

Frank

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Everything about that pardon stinks. The pardon board is hand-selected by Abbott, he specifically wanted them to look at this case, they unsurprisingly recommended a pardon, and Abbott immediately pardoned someone who clearly intended to commit a murder that day.

At least half of the commenters around here absolutely don't even pretend to care, largely because of their own hatred of BLM and their inherited hatred of it because Trump doesn't like it either.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

(who talked about murdering Black Lives Matter protestors and then murdered a Black Lives Matter protestor) for nakedly political purposes?

And by that you mean, “The guy who was doing his job driving for Uber when he shot someone in self-defense after his vehicle was surrounded and pounded on by angry “protesters”, and was approached by someone wearing a mask and carrying an AK-47 (who had been previously warned multiple times in multiple protests that “he was carrying his rifle in a dangerous manner”) that he then pointed at the driver…and who later called police to report the incident”?

Said “protester” before the incident when asked about why he was carrying an AK, proclaiming that those who “hate them” are “too big of pussies to stop and actually do anything about it”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJVTB9pXxe8

An honest summary would would have included this information as well, so of course you chose to omit it. Interestingly, the same dipshits who blathered on incessantly about how Rittenhouse was the aggressor in Kenosha simply because he was armed, and that those who attacked him repeatedly were justifiably responding to that aggression didn’t feel the same way in this case, when the guy who got ventilated was the one who approached someone with his rifle while that individual was surrounded by an angry mob. Go figure.

[Sarcastr0]

There was a jury trial. Our due process says you and the defense were full of shit.

You're just retrying him and finding him innocent, as judge and jury.

It's hard to shake that you just want people to be able to shoot people you don't like.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Wuz,

he then pointed at the driver

This was the defense raised by the murderer. However, the prosecution had multiple witnesses who said this was utter bullshit. And, in fact, the murderer's initial statement to the police was to the contrary of this later contrived defense. You are upset about insufficient context, yet you mentioned none of this. You aren't actually interested in an impartial weighing of the facts taking into consideration all of the relevant evidence, because you've omitted the facts the jury did find. In fact, you're rejecting out of hand the jury's finding which gives lie to your purported interest in presenting all the context. Here's context to the allegation you highlighted:

At trial, Perry’s defense team alleged that Foster had pointed his rifle at the defendant. But witnesses testified that Foster never brandished his weapon, only carried it, which is legal in Texas. And Perry corroborated that account in his initial statement to the police, saying, “I believe he was going to aim at me. I didn’t want to give him a chance to aim at me.” A jury convicted Perry of murder last year.

https://www.vox.com/politics/2024/5/17/24159084/daniel-perry-pardon-greg-abbott-samuel-alito-flag

The only question, Wuz, is whether you understand you're full of shit or do you think other commenters here are stupid enough to believe your whine that the full context wasn't provided? .....and then you failed to give anything approaching the full context.

Sarcastro is right. You're just attempting to retry him based only on the evidence you want to highlight, despite it being contradicted by the murderer's own statements.

And the protestor said he would carry the AK-47 in an open carry state. How does that justify his killing?

Meanwhile, the murder said:

“I might go to Dallas to shoot looters.”

“I might have to kill a few people on my way to work they are rioting outside my apartment complex … No protesters go near me or my car.”

“I wonder if they will let [me] cut the ears off of people who’s decided to commit suicide by me.”

And, of course, the murderer wasn't just doing his job. He ran a red light and drove into the midst of the protest almost hitting several protestors. He instigated the incident and he shot a man in cold blood. He's a murderer.

The jury heard all of the evidence and convicted. The pardon is not based on a lack of evidence, it was based on purely partisan considerations and, rather cynically, the devaluation of the lives of Black Lives Matter protestors.

[WuzYoungOnceToo]

However, the prosecution had multiple witnesses who said this was utter bullshit.

And who were those witnesses? Oh, that's right...members of the same angry mob.

You aren’t actually interested in an impartial weighing of the facts

They hypocrisy of you saying that immediately before citing a pathologically biased source like Vox as your source would be funny were it not so pathetic.

And the protestor said he would carry the AK-47 in an open carry state. How does that justify his killing?

I never said that him simply carrying legally justified anything...so why are you lying and claiming that I did? You and Sarcastr0 really are birds of a lying-sack-of-shit feather.

and he shot a man in cold blood

The stupidity of that "in cold blood" assertion has already been addressed. That you're dumb enough to continue trotting out such a sad plea to emotion is equally pathetic.

[NOVA Lawyer]

And who were those witnesses?

lol. Your witness was the murderer who directly contradicted his later defense in his initial statement to the police.

They hypocrisy of you saying that immediately before citing a pathologically biased source.

Those facts are available in many places. Do you dispute the murderer's quotes? Do you dispute that there was testimony to those alleged facts? Of course not. Because the parts I quoted from Vox just summarized the facts that, again, were widely reported. You're flailing by attacking the source given that those facts were presented to the jury. Lame, Wuz. Incredibly lame.

I never said that him simply carrying legally justified anything

The quote of the victim you used only related to him carrying an AK-47 in public. Unlike the murderer, he hadn't talked about shooting and killing people. So, yeah, you did say something about him talking about simply carrying a gun somehow justified the killing. Or are you admitting the victim's statement that you quoted was entirely irrelevant? It's so hard to follow your logic, Wuz.

In cold blood

That's what the jury found after considering all of the facts, particularly including the ones you ignored despite dishonestly claiming you were the one providing full context.

You're a partisan seeking a partisan result and rejecting the foundation of our entire justice system. Instead of spilling so much ink, just say you don't mind political killings so long as the killer and victim have the correct respective political affiliations.

You're making a fool of yourself trying to defend someone who murdered a person because the victim had political views the murderer didn't like and you're defending the pardon of that murderer by a governor because the murderer's political views aligned with that of the governor.

[Martinned2]

It turns out the UK government wasn't allowed to use its Henry VIII powers to redefine “serious disruption” to mean “more than minor”, for the purposes of deciding when the police is allowed to shut down a demonstration.

https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/National-Council-for-Civil-Liberties-v-Secretary-of-State-for-the-Home-Department-judgment.pdf

[John F. Carr]

The government, having failed to win legislation to oppress the people, enacted what we Americans call regulations to oppress the people. The reviewing court concluded this was acceptable: “Grounds II and III are dismissed.” I remember Cameron’s request to intervene in Syria. He respected the vote against him. It was not an order not to intervene, as the decision of the Lords to block the disruption amendment was not legally binding. It left the legal situation unchanged. Yet it represented a clear statement.

[Martinned2]

The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea has just delivered its Advisory Opinion on the Request submitted to the Tribunal by the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law.

From the summary:

) Under article 194, paragraph 1, of the Convention, States Parties to the Convention have the specific obligations to take all necessary measures to prevent, reduce and control marine pollution from anthropogenic GHG emissions and to endeavour to harmonize their policies in this connection.

https://www.itlos.org/fileadmin/itlos/documents/press_releases_english/PR_350_EN.pdf

[Martinned2]

For reference, this is what it says in art. 194(1) UNCLOS:

States shall take, individually or jointly as appropriate, all measures consistent with this Convention that are necessary to prevent, reduce and control pollution of the marine environment from any source, using for this purpose the best practicable means at their disposal and in accordance with their capabilities, and they shall endeavour to harmonize their policies in this connection.

https://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/unclos_e.pdf

So basically all the Tribunal has found is that greenhouse gases can be "pollution" in the sense of art. 194. At least in the case of CO2 that makes sense, given the effect of CO2 on the acidity of water. But given the reference to "energy" in art. 1(1)(4) I can see the logic for climate change more generally:

"pollution of the marine environment" means the introduction by man, directly or indirectly, of substances or energy into the marine environment, including estuaries, which results or is likely to result in such deleterious effects as harm to living resources and marine life, hazards to human health, hindrance to marine activities, including fishing and other legitimate uses of the sea.

[Mr. Bumble]

Do you ever get tired of talking to yourself?

[Martinned2]

In this case I was apparently talking to you. It is in the nature of the internet that you don't always know who you're talking to, but educating my American friends is often a worthwhile endeavour, given the outsize consequences that their choices have in the world.

[Mr. Bumble]

Fair enough. This site would be better for trying to have a conversation if there was some sort of notification when there had been a response to a person's comment. Also, some way to sort through hundreds of comment other than scrolling through.

[Martinned2]

I tend to do a search for "mins ago", if I know that I was last here less than an hour ago.

[Brett Bellmore]

Same here.

[David Nieporent]

Yes, except there's one frequent commenter here who routinely copies the caption from the comment to whom he's responding, so each of his comments has the words "mins ago" in its body.

[Mr. Bumble]

Which is why I say there needs to be a better way.

[Don Nico]

For those who condone such things:
"We have learned that a final exam was briefly disrupted yesterday by protest activity. We hope there will not be any further disruptions to the exam period, but wanted to make you aware of this possibility in advance so that you can be prepared. Please also make exam proctors aware.
If students enter the exam room to distribute leaflets or make statements while the exam is being held, please ask them to respect their fellow students and leave the room so that others can focus on their work."

[Stephen Lathrop]

Please assume for the sake of argument that Trump is convicted in New York. What follows legally, and how long does it take? Presumably Trump appeals—to what court? What interval does that court decree to allow preparation of briefs? How long does that court have to decide? What comes next? When, during the normal course of procedure, does Trump get to appeal to the Supreme Court? Is it likely, or possible, that Trump can get an appeal heard and decided by the Supreme Court within a week or two, a month or two, or before the election?

Who is willing to predict that SCOTUS will sit on its hands for months while Trump appeals wend their way through lower courts at a pace which SCOTUS does not control?

[not guilty]

"When, during the normal course of procedure, does Trump get to appeal to the Supreme Court? Is it likely, or possible, that Trump can get an appeal heard and decided by the Supreme Court within a week or two, a month or two, or before the election?"

No, that is not possible. Donald Trump can file a petition for writ of certiorari with SCOTUS, but not until there is a final judgment or decree rendered by the highest court of New York in which a decision could be had. 28 U.S.C. § 1257(a). That likely will not happen until 2025 or 2026. The Supreme Court cannot review issues of New York law. In its discretion it can review issues of federal constitutional law which have first been presented at all levels of the state court system.

[David Nieporent]

Don't worry; Lathrop will ask you the same question six more times.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Nieporent, are you willing to predict that SCOTUS will sit on its hands for months while Trump appeals wend their way through lower courts at a pace which SCOTUS does not control? Because I am not a lawyer, I wonder about legal issues which perhaps would not trouble someone like yourself, with superior knowledge.

For instance, it strikes me that there must be some timely way to get a death row appeal considered by the Supreme Court, at least if the Court chooses to hear it—perhaps in a case where alleged denial of state due process is the subject of the appeal. I wonder why the Court would consider timely consideration of a scheduled execution a more important due process issue than an appeal of a felony conviction which in the judgment of the Justices might decide the outcome of a presidential election.

[David Nieporent]

Nieporent, are you willing to predict that SCOTUS will sit on its hands for months while Trump appeals wend their way through lower courts at a pace which SCOTUS does not control?

Only five more times to go!

[David Nieporent]

For instance, it strikes me that there must be some timely way to get a death row appeal considered by the Supreme Court, at least if the Court chooses to hear it—perhaps in a case where alleged denial of state due process is the subject of the appeal. I wonder why the Court would consider timely consideration of a scheduled execution a more important due process issue than an appeal of a felony conviction which in the judgment of the Justices might decide the outcome of a presidential election.

None of this even makes any sense. Nobody can be executed before his state appeals are exhausted. Once they are, the federal courts have the jurisdiction to hear his claims. (SCOTUS on direct appeal, lower courts on habeas.) So it's inherently "timely" if by that you mean "before execution." That has nothing to do with the issues here.

[Stephen Lathrop]

not guilty, thank you for that.

Assuming on that basis that Trump has been convicted and sentenced to prison, who decides, and on what basis, whether Trump gets released on bail pending the outcome of his appeal? How long would it take to decide that question, whether in state or federal court? Would Trump require certiorari to appeal to the Supreme Court to hear whether he could be held in prison to await the outcome of an appeal on his conviction? Or is there some process separate from certiorari to decide that question?

[not guilty]

It is unlikely that Donald Trump will be sentenced to prison in the event of conviction in New York. For a defendant without prior criminal convictions, convicted of a low grade felony, a sentence of probation is the norm.

I don't know the ins and outs of New York posttrial procedures, but I surmise that, if the trial court imposes a sentence of incarceration, the determination of bail pending appeal will initially be made by the trial court, with expedited appellate review of that determination. The possibility that any sentence of confinement will expire before an appellate court can review the merits of the appeal would strongly favor bail pending appeal.

Bail pending appeal following conviction is not a federal constitutional right, so SCOTUS review of the state courts' bail determination should be unavailable.

[Stephen Lathrop]

ng, thank you again for your thoughtful commentary. I hope you understand I am a legal layman who struggles for insight into points of law which require both education and experience to interpret. It is generous of you, and much appreciated, to volunteer the benefit of your expertise.

Thus, I must apologize in advance if I seem obtusely persistent, as Nieporent insisted.

Have you said that habeas corpus is not federally available to an incarcerated defendant who alleges it was an impermissible interpretation of state law which put him in prison?

Also:

For a defendant without prior criminal convictions, convicted of a low grade felony, a sentence of probation is the norm.

Would a prior finding of responsibility for a serious civil offense affect that norm, if the record were accompanied also by criminal convictions for contempt, multiple indictments pending trials for major federal felonies, and notoriety for flaunting norms such as conditions of probation might impose? If, for instance, Judge Merchan reasoned that Trump's overall history warrants at least a term of a few months imprisonment following a conviction, is it within his power to do that without review to say Merchan imposed an inappropriate sentence?

To be forthright, I have concern that the nation's legal system insists that Judge Merchan constrain his sentencing within a framework of legal fictions which exclude consideration of likely future conduct, while the Supreme Court could expand its response to encompass consequentialist speculations. Does the Supreme Court properly get to avail itself of a forward-looking response that is not legally permitted to Merchan?

Of course I get that if the Supreme Court did that, nobody could say otherwise. But would it be legitimate?

My judgment is that this Court would not hesitate to overturn norms to do something illegitimate, if that were to deliver a result a majority wanted. Do you disagree? I ask because in this case I am more interested in the law's effect on future likelihoods than in other issues.

[David Nieporent]

Have you said that habeas corpus is not federally available to an incarcerated defendant who alleges it was an impermissible interpretation of state law which put him in prison?

Correct. Also, habeas corpus is not federally available at all until state processes are exhausted.

If, for instance, Judge Merchan reasoned that Trump’s overall history warrants at least a term of a few months imprisonment following a conviction, is it within his power to do that without review to say Merchan imposed an inappropriate sentence?

Merchan has discretion about how to sentence Trump within the statutory limits. Of course he does not have the power to do it — or anything else — "without review." But that would represent a state, not federal, question, unless it transgressed on the 8th amendment, which of course a few months in prison would not.

[David Nieporent]

1) He's not being sentenced to prison. Not for the NY case. Probably not for any of them, but definitely not for the NY case.
2) If by some infinitesimal chance he was sentenced to prison, the trial court — Judge Merchan — would decide whether to grant bail pending appeal, and of course the appellate division could review that. Given the circumstances, they would almost certainly grant it.
3) SCOTUS has no say in that whatsoever, whether they grant cert or not.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Thanks for that, Nieporent. One follow-up. Do you say no one with a record like Trump’s would be, or has been, sentenced to prison in such a case? Or does Trump enjoy a practical legal advantage not extended to others? I presume since you said, "Probably not for any of them," that you meant the latter. I take it that proof of guilt for any other defendant who did what Trump is alleged to have done in the documents case would almost always result in imprisonment.

[David Nieporent]

With respect to the NY one, I meant nobody similarly situated to Trump (setting aside the presidential aspect) would likely be sentenced to prison. First time, non-violent offense with no actual victims.

With respect to the other cases, I do think that Trump would be treated differently. But I'm not saying special solicitude for Trump personally; I'm saying that the logistics of putting any former president in prison would be difficult to address. I think that home confinement would be much more plausible.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Perhaps it's too late now to bring this up, but I remain nonplussed that Trump is permitted a coterie of especially-privileged trial attendees, presumably named on the basis of Trump's say-so.

My suggestion for Judge Merchan would be to deny Trump that privilege, except on condition that his acolytes agree to be bound by the same gag-order terms imposed on Trump. Otherwise, let Trump's supporters come and go on the same basis as the public at large, and take the same chances on getting in.

I assume Judge Merchan did this to avoid accusations of being unfair to Trump. If so, he ought to think it through, and let the prosecution likewise designate particularly-interested members of the public to share the same access privileges.

The prospect of jury deliberations still looms. It will be worse than unseemly if Trump supporters with special access to the Court remain at liberty to castigate the process during deliberations.