Monday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[santamonica811]

1. Another horrific attempt by an evil and/or deranged asshole to kill former president Trump. So far, at least, it seems like things went right. Witness reported the suspect. A quick investigation. Quick fire at the suspect, which drove him away from Trump. Other helpful witness ID. A quick chase and arrest. Could have been much much worse, of course. (And, certainly, my first take is based only on initial reporting–that all might change in the next few days, once we’re past the fog of war.)

As I was listening to the news, I couldn’t help wondering–if these two attempts had happened against Candidate Biden or Harris--would not those on the lunatic Right would be speculating, “This was probably a con job…fake attempts in order to drum up popular support and sympathy for the evil Democrat candidate.”

The above is (knock on wood!) an untestable proposition.

2. I really hope Biden’s advisors are already strongly suggesting that he give Trump as much SS protection as possible. As much as he gets, as Harris gets . . . the current number is clearly not sufficient.

3. In spite of #2, above, I don’t see how any reasonable number of SS agents is supposed to secure a fucking golf course. I mean, they are huge. You need agents around the perimeter. Every 100 feet? Every 150 feet? In wooded areas, every 25 feet? Plus the agents scouring the golf course itself (full of trees, bunkers perfect for hiding in, golf bags perfect for carrying long firearms, etc.). Plus the agents actually walking with him and surrounding him. I’m hoping that while Biden’s advisors are telling him to increase Trump’s security; Trump’s advisors are telling him, “Sorry Prez. We know you love to golf. But…NO MORE GOLFING till after the election. Sorry…but you are just not safe, and there’s no realistic way to ensure your safety doing this particular activity. How about bowling, or ping pong, or anything else that’s indoors?”

[Martinned2]

Thoughts & Prayers

[Commenter_XY]

M2, you misspelled: The third time is a charm.

[Krychek_2]

No. I despise Trump with the fury of a thousand suns and I absolutely, positively want him alive on November 5 as he is the easiest candidate for Harris to beat. Plus I love my country enough to not want to put it through the anguish of a successful political assassination.

I don't want him dead; I want him alive to see Harris get 350 electoral votes.

[Armchair]

And if Trump wins on November 5th, what then?

Then the real crazies come out.

[Martinned2]

Yes. And worse, they'll get to run the country.

[Krychek_2]

I'll tell you what won't happen in that case. You won't see Harris telling lies about the election having been stolen and sending a mob to the Capitol to try to stop the count. She'll concede and do what she can to ensure a smooth transition. Whis all by itself renders her far more fit to be president than him.

[Frank Drackman]

She'll have her emotional support animal Sergeant-Major Pepper-Waltz do it.

[Armchair]

Sure. I still remember DistruptJ20.

[Krychek_2]

That's like comparing a head cold to a brain tumor. What was actually disrupted by DisruptJ20?

[Armchair]

You were saying stuff about "mobs". I just remember over 200 arrests for rioting, over $100,000 in damages.

And that's with the DC police prepared

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, that's great. I'll ask you to recall that Trump didn't send a mob to the Capitol, either. He was at the other end of the Mall giving a speech at the time, and the mob was pre-planned by others.

[Sarcastr0]

Brett, check out Trump's social media before January 06 sometime. Or the testimony of those who breached the Capitol.

You've been pointed to that information many times and yet you still make weak arguments like this.

[Michael P]

Stop lying, Gaslight0. Trump did nothing of the sort, and your sad arm-waving at unfounded assertions will never change that.

[Sarcastr0]

Trump was even indicted for these facts, so calling me a liar seems more you working some stuff out than anything to do with reality.

[Michael P]

Yawn. Yet again, Gaslight0 lies and refuses to make an actual argument. You're just seeing your conclusion, with no premises or alleged facts, much less any deductive steps.

[Sarcastr0]

Did YOU make an actual argument?

https://www.justice.gov/storage/US_v_Trump_23_cr_257.pdf

Start at number 94.

[Michael P]

As usual, your backup material shows facts that hardly match what you claimed. Why do you lie so much?

[Krychek_2]

More to the point, Sarcastr0, why do you waste time responding to Michael P, when all you're going to get back is "la la la la I can't hear you"?

[Riva]

Sarcastr0, aside from the sheer idiocy of relying on anything from that unconstitutionally appointed thug Jack Smith for any legitimate purpose, do your really think it's appropriate to use the bullshit from the Biden Harris lawfare abuses to impugn the victim of 2 attempted assassination attempts?

[Sarcastr0]

"On December 19, 2020, after cultivating widespread anger and resentment for weeks with his knowingly false claims of election fraud, the Defendant urged his supporters to travel to Washington on the day of the certification proceeding, tweeting, "Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!"
Throughout late December, he repeatedly urged his supporters to come to Washington for January 6."

"On December 23, the Defendant re-tweeted a memo titled "Operation 'PENCE' CARD," which falsely asserted that the Vice President could, among other things, unilaterally disqualify legitimate electors from six targeted states."

"96. That same day, the Defendant encouraged supporters to travel to Washington on January 6, and he set the false expectation that the Vice President had the authority to and might
use his ceremonial role at the certification proceeding to reverse the election outcome in the Defendant's favor, including issuing the following Tweets:
a. At 11:06 a.m., "The Vice President has the power to reject fraudulently chosen electors." This was within 40 minutes of the Defendant's earlier reminder, "See you in D.C."
b. At 5:05 p.m., "Washington is being inundated with people who don't want to see an election victory stolen ... . Our Country has had enough, they won't take it anymore! We hear you (and love you) from the Oval Office."
c. At 5:43 p.m., " I will be speaking at the SAVE AMERICA RALL Y
tomorrow on the Ellipse at 11AM Eastern. Arrive early — doors open at 7AM Eastern. BIG CROWDS!"

"Also on January 5, the Defendant met alone with the Vice President. When the Vice President refused to agree to the Defendant's request that he obstruct the certification, the
Defendant grew frustrated and told the Vice President that the Defendant would have to publicly criticize him.
Upon learning of this, the Vice President's Chief of Staff was concerned for the Vice President's safety and alerted the head of the Vice President's Secret Service detail. "

"As crowds began to gather in Washington and were audible from the Oval Office, the Defendant remarked to advisors that the crowd the following day on January 6 was going to be "angry."

"That night, the Defendant approved and caused the Defendant's Campaign to issue a public statement that the Defendant knew, from his meeting with the Vice President only hours earlier, was false:
"The Vice President and I are in total agreement that the Vice President has the power to act."

Now your laziness is no excuse.

[Michael P]

Facts: Donald Trump asked people to attend his rally.
Ham sandwich indictment: "the Defendant encouraged supporters to travel to Washington on January 6".
Gaslight0 pretends that means Trump was indicted for sending a mob to the Capitol.

[Sarcastr0]

" “Big protest in D.C. on January 6th. Be there, will be wild!”"

Seems like an ask to me, Michel P.

[Michael P]

If that's an indictable "ask", then by the same logic, calling Donald Trump a threat to democracy and a model-day Hitler is an indictable "ask" for domestic terrorism and attempted assassinations, right?

[Sarcastr0]

Lost the bubble, Michael? Your new goalpost of 'indictable' makes no sense because indictments are about the full factual record not some single element.

Check out Brett's original point above (and his own tendentious requirement that January 06 is the only day worthy of attention), to help you stay on track.

[Riva]

Just so you know, Sarcastr0, is it not in fact responsible to keep regurgitating the Biden Harris lawfare bullshit. Not now or anytime for that matter. But you double down on fucking stupid by posting more of this crap. For what purpose? Not exactly the campaign of joy, is it?

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

>because indictments are about the full factual record not some single element.

What sort of lying gaslighting bullshit is this?

[not guilty]

JHBHBE, "gaslighting" doesn't mean what you seem to think it means.

Or did anything Sarcastr0 said in fact lead you to question your own sanity, memory, or powers of reasoning?

[Riva]

Classy "not guilty," let's encourage more of the sick character assassination endemic in Smith's lawfare bullshit. Not like this bullshit weaponization of the legal process could do anything but promote a climate of calm understanding in which we can settle our political differences.

[Kazinski]

Sarcastro, while I myself do not believe Pence has the unilateral authority to reject electoral votes, its not the craziest constitutional theory I have heard people assert with straight face.

Does Smith point to any court decisions where the 12th amendment question has been decided?

It seems to me at this point a matter of opinion.

Would you also criminalize a President that claimed he had the right to infringe the right to keep and bear arms by outlawing some pistols by calling them short barreled rifles?

I can't see much difference between the two.

Honestly I can't see anything in those allegations that are not protected by the first amendment, as wrong as those opinions, or assertions might be.

[Sarcastr0]

1. "Also on January 4, when Co-Conspirator 2 acknowledged to the Defendant's Senior Advisor that no court would support his proposal, the Senior Advisor told Co-Conspirator 2, "[Y]ou're going to cause riots in the streets."
Co-Conspirator 2 responded that there had previously been points in the nation's history where violence was necessary to protect the republic.

2. Predicating a refusal to count the vote on lies is not legit no matter what.

3. Pressuring the Vice President via a riot you foment is also bad no matter what.

[Krychek_2]

Brett, pity 1984 was a novel; you'd have been perfect for a job at the ministry of disinformation.

[Sarcastr0]

Commenter does love his baseless accusations.

[Martinned2]

But seriously, maybe don't make it so easy for crazies to get their hands on all sorts of guns?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Including the machine gun he was convicted of possessing in 2022?

[not guilty]

You have said three times now that Routh was convicted of possessing a machine gun in 2022. Wha is your source of information?

[Dr. Ed 2]

NBC News
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/news-notification/ar-AA1qCWt9

[David Nieporent]

Um, that says 2002, not 2022.

[Martinned2]

Yes, crazies definitely shouldn't be able to get their hands on a machine gun. Was that meant to be a difficult question?

[Moderation4ever]

The problem I see is that there is not a really have a good system for telling when a gun moves from lawful possession to an illegal possession. Creating such a system would involve some type of gun tracking and I know that is a nonstarter for many. What is known is that bad people get guns and too many legal gun owners fail to properly secure their guns (this from school shooting cases).

[Brett Bellmore]

The basic issue here is that any effort to deny criminals firearms is, even in an ideal world, going to be about as effective as efforts to deny criminals cocaine, methamphetamine, or Fentanyl. Products which are fully illegal, and people get them anyway.

In the real world, efforts to deprive criminals of firearms will be substantially less effective than drug laws, because depriving the law abiding of firearms is a constitutional non-starter, and, of course, the government cannot know who all the criminals are, only the criminals who have already been convicted of something.

And even if the government is run by people who don't actually care about the unconstitutionality of their efforts, laws are notoriously hard to enforce without the cooperation of those subject to them. Which they don't get in the case of laws widely viewed as unconstitutional infringements on a civil liberty.

Back in the real world, it has long been observed that gun control laws first disarm those least likely to misuse firearms, the most law abiding segment of the population, and last disarm those certain to misuse them, the least law abiding segment of the population who are best connected to black markets.

So the first effect of gun control laws is to render the criminals' victims defenseless, and the last, never actually to be achieved in a country like the US, effect is to disarm the criminals themselves.

So they actually make things worse. Predictably, and observably.

[Joe_dallas]

One of the best crime deterrents is the fear of immediate retribution. Removing guns from law abiding citizens substantially reduces the risk of immediate retribution. So Yes, rendering criminals victims defenseless will have the opposite effect of what is intended.

[Krychek_2]

By that rationale, nothing should be illegal because criminals will just get it anyway.

[Moderation4ever]

First, I am not taking prohibition but rather tracking of guns. The idea being a cradle to grave tracking. Again, likely to meet a lot of resistance. But the average person will not care about tracking .

Assuming there was cradle to grave tracking you are correct that there would be a black market for untracked guns. But a black market for untracked guns would be different from black market drugs. First guns are larger physical objects and they cannot be portioned as drugs can be. Part of the problem with fentanyl is that it is so small for its potency. Cocaine and heroin can be smuggled in a pure form and then diluted at the point of sale. Another problem is demand. Drug addicts have a constant demand. Once a person buys a gun their demand drops significantly if not completely. Finally, most people will opt for the legal gun and accept the tracking and this again reduces demand. So, I see black market but a small one.

[Brett Bellmore]

Tracking of guns is a non-starter as long as confiscating guns is an announced goal. Only in an environment where gun confiscation was totally off the table would gun tracking be even vaguely acceptable.

Suppose the government demanded to know the titles of all the books in my library, in everybody's library. Would this be a defensible government goal, even if an intent to confiscate disapproved of books was denied?

[not guilty]

"Tracking of guns is a non-starter as long as confiscating guns is an announced goal. Only in an environment where gun confiscation was totally off the table would gun tracking be even vaguely acceptable."

Upton Sinclair once wrote, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something if his salary depends upon him not understanding it.” For decades Wayne LaWhore's generous salary depended on his scaring the bejesus out of rubes by evoking the bugbear of gun confiscation.

Fear of emasculation is a powerful motivator for those whose manhood is bound up in toting popguns. Sinclair's famous quote can apply to one's sense of identity as well as to his salary. Not everyone is blessed with the combination of brains and testicular fortitude that walking around unarmed requires.

[Sarcastr0]

Is this in like a penumbra of the 2A Brett?

[Martinned2]

The obvious solution is to restrict everyone's ability to get their hands on dangerous weapons.

[Commenter_XY]

M2, if that were the case, Chicago would be an oasis of tranquility. They have very restrictive, and ineffective, gun laws.

Your approach has the commonsense of offering a drowning man a drink of water.

[Martinned2]

How exactly do you think the law allows Chicago to control gun ownership in Chicago? The local gun control are completely meaningless, not worth the paper they're written on. It's like outlawing alcohol in Chicago only.

If you're going to do gun control, do it properly. I don't blame the City of Chicago for trying to do something that's better than nothing, but outcomes in Chicago provide zip, zero, no evidence whatsoever on what would happen if the US introduced serious gun control.

[Brett Bellmore]

Let's make the implicit component of Chicago's argument explicit: It's that Chicago's problem with gun violence despite their local gun control laws is due to 'lax' gun control laws in places where those laws inexplicably don't cause problems.

Certainly if the gun laws in Wisconsin and Indiana are causing high murder rates in Chicago Illinois, they should be causing even higher murder rates in Wisconsin and Indiana. And yet, they're not. How could this possibly be, if Wisconsin and Indiana gun laws are responsible for murder in Chicago?

In fact, Chicago, with uniform city-wide gun laws, has wildly different crime rates from one neighborhood to the next. Eleven neighborhoods have effectively zero murder rates. Fuller Park has a murder rate of 311 per 100K.

Are not Chicago's gun laws the same in West Ridge and Fuller Park? More to the point, are not Wisconsin's gun laws the same whether you're in West Ridge or Fuller Park?

I put it to you that it is starkly insane to attribute Chicago's sky high murder rate to the laws of neighboring states, rather than inquiring into why Fuller Park, neighboring those same states, is perhaps a thousand times more dangerous than West Ridge.

The rational conclusion is that the high murder rate in Chicago is related to the differences between West Ridge and Fuller Park, rather than the differences between Chicago and Wisconsin.

[Brett Bellmore]

Or, to give you a real life example: When it rains, my backyard gets wet. My neighbor's yard floods. It really does.

Is the flooding in my neighbor's yard really due to the rain? Or is it due to the 8-10 foot difference in elevation between our yards? (Seriously, there's a creek between us: My yard ends in a cliff, his is barely above the water on a dry day.)

Is the answer to his flooding changing the weather, or a couple feet of fill dirt?

[Martinned2]

Guns cause problems everywhere in the US. They just cause more problems in places where more people live.

[Brett Bellmore]

We're talking murder "rates", normalized to population, so try again.

If two places with the same gun laws have a thousand fold difference in murders per 100K people, blaming gun laws on the difference is simply irrational.

Whatever the difference between West Ridge and Fuller Park, call it the X factor, is capable of causing a 1000 times higher murder rate in one of them than the other, with identical gun laws and identical proximity to 'lax' gun laws.

One percent of that unidentified difference would be enough to account for the difference between Chicago's murder rate an the resit of Illinois, so it's simply innumerate to blow it off. You have to identify what it is, and very precisely, before you can even BEGIN to argue about gun laws.

At least if you care to be rational about it, you do.

[Commenter_XY]

M2, let me summarize.

You say that the problem here is ineffective execution of gun confiscation. The government just isn't draconian enough. By golly, if the government was just better at confiscating guns and passing and subsequently enforcing gun control legislation, it would work! You are so certain of that. Pay no attention to the fact that Chicago (and others) have the strictest gun control laws in the country. We see the result of your policy preference in Chicago. 🙁

I repeat: Your approach has all the common sense of offering a drowning man a drink of water.

[Martinned2]

The government just isn’t draconian enough.

When it comes to gun control, you don't even know what draconian means. You people are all nuts, and you don't even know it.

[Martinned2]

As much as he gets, as Harris gets . . . the current number is clearly not sufficient.

What makes you say that? As I understand it this guy never got within shooting distance of the candidate, and the only people who did any shooting are the Secret Service. There may be a case for more investment in threat detection, but the bodies on the ground seem to have been sufficient in this case.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Wrong. He was in range and waiting for Trump.

[Martinned2]

Range is often in the eye of the beholder...

[Kazinski]

USA Today:
"Trump was about 300 to 500 yards away from the scene of the assassination attempt when the Secret Service opened fire."

thegunzone.com:
"The maximum effective range of an AK-47 is around 800 meters,"

Its more the eye of the shooter than the beholder, but Trump was definitely in range of the shooter, even if he didn't have a good sightline, yet.

[Martinned2]

I hadn't heard that he had an AK-47 (or similar). Wow... Whose idea was it that ordinary civilians should be able to walk around with those?

[Brett Bellmore]

James Madison's, I think. Among others.

Our political system deliberately didn't give the government any sort of monopoly on the means of violence. That was a conscious decision that the government, in extremity, needed to be vulnerable to a popular uprising against it. They were quite explicit about that.

If we as a society decide that decision was a mistake, Article V is still available to change it. The reason it hasn't been changed is that there actually isn't any consensus here that it was a mistake.

[Martinned2]

James Madison had a lot of ideas that maybe weren't so great. To point out the obvious, he thought slavery was a great idea too. So yes, maybe someone should look into a constitutional amendment?

The reason it hasn’t been changed is that there actually isn’t any consensus here that it was a mistake.

I am aware. The question is why not. One might think that presidential candidates get shot at by lunatics would focus the mind, since clearly kids getting gunned down in schools doesn't do the job. But I very much doubt it...

[Brett Bellmore]

Oh, I agree that Madison made a lot of mistakes. I'm just adamant that, to the extent his mistakes made it into the Constitution, the only way consistent with the rule of law for undoing them is formal amendment. It seems we agree on that.

"The question is why not."

Well, it's a cost/benefit judgement. Americans perceive a LOT of benefit from gun ownership. Sports, self defense, the feasibility of revolution in extremity.

I mean, ownership of cars implies children dying in auto accidents, isn't it a no-brainer that we should ban cars? [/sarc]

Aren't there other, perhaps less constitutionally suspect, approaches to school shootings? Maybe reforming mental health administration? Getting serious about cracking down on bullying?

Madison thought highly of the early criminologist Cesare Beccaria. Here's a quote from the guy:

“False is the idea of utility that sacrifices a thousand real advantages for one imaginary or trifling inconvenience; that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it; that it has no remedy for evils, except destruction. The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are of such a nature. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man.”

That was the consensus of criminologists in the founding era. It still is a common view of criminologists, which is why most 'studies' of gun control are published in medical journals, not journals of criminology.

Maybe I'll care about those medical studies when doctors finally pay attention to criminologists' opinions concerning kidney transplants...

[jb]

I'm pretty sure James Madison had no opinions whatsoever about AK47s. Or the Internet. Or cars.

We could probably speculate about what his opinions on these topics would have been, but seems silly to suggest he had thoughts about things that hadn't been invented in his lifetime.

[Brett Bellmore]

That's like saying he had no opinions whatsoever about rotary presses or ink jet printers. He had an opinion about arms.

[jb]

Sure, and we spend a lot of time extrapolating concepts where we're relatively more confident about the Founders' opinions and trying to map them to modern day technologies. It turns out this isn't a precise process and since we don't have the ability to go back and interview them after introducing them to modern concepts, the answers are indeterminate and subject to debate.

[hobie]

Jb - we're kinda in a territory where the rubes are quite comfortable: mythology. Whatever the scribes of the Council of Nicaea said the Bible was and Jesus said is good enough. Same with Madison. Hanging on to interpretations of the past even in the face of monstrous modern consequences is the hallmark of conservatism

[Brett Bellmore]

You DO know that we have Madison's personal papers, written in his own handwriting, right?

The problem here is that you think supposedly 'monstrous' modern consequences actually somehow change the past.

The meaning of the 2nd amendment is the past.
“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.”

The meaning of the 2nd amendment is already fixed history, you can't change it.

Here's an idea; Convince a lot of people to agree with you and you can just repeal the 2nd amendment, instead of lying about it's meaning.

Or you can fail to get those people to agree with you, and go pound sand.

[not guilty]

Brett, quoting the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám without attributing it is bad form.

[Brett Bellmore]

My bad; I'd assumed that anybody who was minimally educated would recognize it. I suppose that's not a safe assumption these days.

[Sarcastr0]

I'd never read until I was in my 30s. It was a favorite of my grandma's.

[Brett Bellmore]

I read it as a pre-teen. My family had an extensive library, and I learned to read at age 3.

[Armchair]

A fully automatic AK-47 is illegal.

But more to the point, 500 yards simply isn't that far for a rifle. Even an old semi-automatic M1 Garand from WWII has an effective firing range of 500 yards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1_Garand

[Michael P]

A fully automatic AK-47 would be legal if it was imported and registered before 1986's Firearm Owners Protection Act went into effect, and any subsequent transfers were legally done.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

It's amusing to see you once again talking out of your ass.

How much personal experience do you have shooting rifles? How many 500yd shots have you taken, and how many actually hit the target?

I can tell you right now that your honest answer to both questions would be zero.

[VinniUSMC (Banana Republic Day 5/30/24)]

You're a moron. 500 yards is not difficult with just a little bit of practice. We did it while training with the M4, 5.56mm with a 14.5" barrel back in the early 2000s.

[Dr. Ed 2]

A M1-Garand is a good rifle -- fires a .30-06 round.
Quite accurate and popular as a deer rifle amongst the WWII generation.

It was replaced because the military wanted to go to a smaller round in a lighter cartridge -- studies of WWII combat indicated that the combat was at much closer range than the .30-06 was designed for.

An AK is not as accurate, just because of how it is built.

[Mr. Bumble]

It was "replaced" by the M-14 which fired the 7.62mm NATO round and featured full automatic fire; except it couldn't be controlled on full auto. That plus the decision that future warfare would not require long range marksmanship (plus the lighter ammo) led to adoption of the M-16.

[Frank Drackman]

The founding fathers

[Mr. Bumble]

"Whose idea was it that ordinary civilians should be able to walk around with those?"
Guess you've never seen pictures of the Middle East, Africa, Latin America etc.

[Martinned2]

I have. Typically they break down into brutal civil wars whenever terrorists and/or criminal gangs have unrestricted access to military hardware.

[Kazinski]

Like Switzerland, or Isreal, or even the US?

[Martinned2]

In Switzerland they have exactly the kind of gun control that your friend described as "draconian" above. The other two countries you mention are in a permanent (low-level) civil war.

[Kazinski]

There are legal civilian semi-auti AK47 knockoffs, and much rareer black market select fire automatics.

[John F. Carr]

Washington Post:

The weapon recovered by authorities was identified by the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office as an “AK-47-style rifle” equipped with a scope. However, a firearms expert told The Washington Post that the gun more closely resembles an SKS-type rifle.

It had a scope but is not a sniper grade rifle.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/09/15/trump-golf-course-gunman-weapon/

[jb]

Seems pretty meaningless to be "in range" without a sightline. If someone were half a mile away in a city with dozens of buildings between them and someone with a gun, they wouldn't meaningfully be in range of that gun regardless of how far it can accurately propel a bullet. A golf course is a less extreme version, obviously, but the landscape could make it effectively impossible to shoot at someone until they were much closer to you.

[Mr. Bumble]

"Seems pretty meaningless to be “in range” without a sightline."
In this case he had both.

[Armchair]

There's a nice map here.

But, more to the point, Golf courses are pretty well known for having decent sight lines, especially in the hundreds of yards area.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq5eewvy3nlo

[jb]

LOL, pretty funny to see your post and Kazinski's below right next to another. Golf courses have lots of obstructions that would mess up your sight lines, although looking at your map (and cross referencing with Google Maps which lets you zoom in a bit more) it does seem like he probably had a reasonable sight line on the fifth hole. It's good the Secret Service noticed him and was able to prevent him from firing.

[Kazinski]

Yes, they do have obstructed sightlines, and they have lots of long un obstructed views too.

Its almost as if they are purposely designed that way, to reward golfers who can hit the ball a long way on the straight and narrow, even over 300 yards, and penalize those that can't.

Its not mutually exclusive, it depends where you are and where your target, I mean the hole, is.

[Kazinski]

Well i said “even IF he didn’t have a sightline", I don’t know.

Golf courses are known for halving tree belts between fairways, rolling terain, hidden greens, etc. all that may interfere with sightlines.

[Mr. Bumble]

Well, it appears to have at least a 30 round mag. and if it was capable of full auto all you would need to do is find the range to do some possibly lethal damage.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The perp escaped in a vehicle on I-95, which means he had gotten out of a vehicle stopped on the side of I-95. That's one person (USSS or local LEO) in a cruiser covering a quarter mile or so and pulls up and inquires when anyone stops and gets out of a vehicle.

Yes, there are all the security issues mentioned above, but a fenceline along I-95 is like the building rooftop. Come on, folks.

I'm still intrigued about the use of an AK-47, and wonder if it was a "legal" one -- or a fully automatic one. There is NO WAY anyone could keep it on target while firing it on full auto, but if you started out with a scope and sprayed 30 rounds, with the barrel braced by a chain link fence -- IDK but theoretically it is possible to have some degree of accuracy, i.e. a couple of the rounds staying on target. In theory...

But if he was in prison, none of this would have happened. In 2022, he was convicted of possessing a "machine gun." Isn't that 5-15 years? Why isn't he in prison?

Where is his money coming from?

[Martinned2]

Where is his money coming from?

George Soros, presumably?

[Kazinski]

Good thinking.

[Nelson]

"which means he had gotten out of a vehicle stopped on the side of I-95"

What are you talking about? He could easily park on a surface street near the an ramp. Do you just naturally go to one of the least likely scenarios, or have you trained yourself to ignore reasonable explanations?

"but a fenceline along I-95 is like the building rooftop"

He didn't fire from I-95.

"Why isn’t he in prison?"

I don't know, but it isn't like you can't find out if you think it's relevant.

[Kazinski]

He should be in jail:

"In 2019, the FBI received a tip stating that Routh, a convicted felon, had a gun but apparently did nothing about it. Jeffrey Veltri, FBI Special Agent in Charge for the Miami field office, said, "He was the subject of a previously closed 2019 tip to the FBI, where it was alleged he was a felon in possession of a firearm, and following up on the tip, the complainant was interviewed and did not verify, I repeat, did not verify, providing the initial information. The FBI passed that information to local law enforcement."

I wonder how many hours the FBI spent investigating misdemeanors from Jan. 6th, rather than investigating a felony committed by a dangerous felon.

[David Nieporent]

Not sure why you're quoting something without providing a link — other than the fact that it's so stupid that you're embarrassed to have us see where you get your thoughts from.

The second and third sentences contradict the first. The FBI did not "apparently do nothing about it." The FBI sent someone to interview the guy who provided the tip, and then passed the info along to local law enforcement. That is in fact two things, not nothing.

[Sarcastr0]

People don't go to jail based on tips. What kind of firearms investigation do you think an unverified tip requires, and by local or federal enforcement?

I wonder how many hours the FBI spent investigating misdemeanors from Jan. 6th, rather than investigating a felony committed by a dangerous felon.
You can do better than this weak-ass partisan shitpost.

[David Nieporent]

In 2022, he was convicted of possessing a “machine gun.” Isn’t that 5-15 years? Why isn’t he in prison?

Why can't you read?

[Life of Brian]

Anyone who’s actually been tracking this story over the past 24ish hours knows or certainly should know that a number of outlets misread/mistyped the date of the prior arrest in the initial fog of reporting, including a different crew from NBC itself: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-campaign-says-former-president-safe-possible-gunshots-vicinity-rcna171206 (“Routh has a long criminal and civil court history, including a conviction for possessing a machine gun in 2022.”).

[David Nieporent]

It could be a simple typo on the part of a news outlet. But Dr Ed above cited an article that got it correct, and then repeatedly said, "How could he have done this two years ago and not be in prison?" without even bothering to check his premise.

[not guilty]

Not to mention that the correct information has been called to Dr. Ed's attention numerous times on these comment threads.

[Life of Brian]

I wouldn't normally nitpick at something like this, but you're a nitpicky one so let's boogie.

Your reply 2-3 posts down was after his last post on the subject, so that can't count.

The only other reply I see is where you said "I'm not so sure" about 2022 and mentioned that he was arrested in 2002 without saying that had to be the same event. If you're trying to retroactively say that was an explicit correction, points for creativity but no dice.

Please feel free to point out any other one(s) of these supposed "numerous" times that I somehow overlooked.

[not guilty]

I am not the only commenter who has brought Dr. Ed's mistake to his attention. Still, he refuses to correct or even acknowledge his incorrect information. An honest person would not refuse to do so.

[Life of Brian]

Yes, yes, duckie, I know -- he should have scrubbed the article he linked to make sure it said the same year as the one he first read.

A burden you conveniently bypass by generally providing no evidence whatsoever for your assertions.

[not guilty]

“But if he was in prison, none of this would have happened. In 2022, he was convicted of possessing a “machine gun.” Isn’t that 5-15 years? Why isn’t he in prison?”

In December 2002 Routh was convicted in state court in Greenesboro, North Carolina of possession of a weapon of mass death and destruction, in violation of Section 14-288.8 of the North Carolina General Statutes, a class F felony. Class F felonies in North Carolina are punishable by terms of up to 59 months’ incarceration. Routh was sentenced to probation.

As Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said, everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.

[Mr. Bumble]

Oh, probation. Don't see anything wrong with that?

[Armchair]

"3. In spite of #2, above, I don’t see how any reasonable number of SS agents is supposed to secure a fucking golf course."

It appears to clearly be possible, and indeed, standard practice...at least with the President. See below.

https://nypost.com/2024/09/15/us-news/shooting-reported-at-donald-trumps-golf-club-while-ex-president-was-on-grounds/

Despite the fact that the ex-president came within a few centimeters of having his head blown off barely two months ago, Bradshaw indicated Trump’s security detail was lighter than President Biden because he is not the sitting commander in chief.

“At this level that he is at right now, he’s not the sitting president. If he was, we would have had this entire golf course surrounded. But because he’s not, security is limited to the areas that the Secret Service deems possible,” Bradshaw said.

[Kazinski]

I think its worth noting that most Presidents going back to at least Eisenhower, including both Bushes, Obama and Biden, have been avid golfers, so the SS should have plenty of practice, and proper protocols for protecting them,

[myself]

I don't know about others but Obama golfed on a military base for that very reason.

It's Trump's insistence at constantly golfing on his own courses that makes it so hard to protect him.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

And that short skirt he's wearing...

[Dr. Ed 2]

COULD Trump golf (today) on a military course? I doubt it.

[Commenter_XY]

Armchair, here is the part that I think should trouble any American.

One would think, after a nearly successful assassination attempt on a former Pres (and current Pres candidate), that the USSS would maybe demonstrate a heightened awareness that the threat environment is greater, and add the appropriate resource and manpower to address that.

The fact that this did NOT happen, meaning the addition of protective resources and manpower to a leading Presidential candidate who already got shot once, indicates to me that the USSS is lead badly and/or has incredibly bad judgment, or there is purposeful action to withhold protective resource from Pres Trump. Either prospect is disquieting.

I'd love to see anyone make a credible case that the USSS was just inattentive, and this second assassination attempt in two months was a total fluke.

[David Nieporent]

Um, the Secret Service successfully prevented any attempt at an assassination, if that's what this was.

[Commenter_XY]

David, what an interesting take. Do you think it was not an assassination attempt?

[Jason Cavanaugh]

The security bubble did exactly what it is designed to do. You just want something to bitch about as an "undecided and uncommitted" partisan liar.

[not guilty]

If Routh is convicted of attempt to commit premeditated murder and challenges the sufficiency of evidence, the appellate court will rule against him. His conduct clearly went beyond mere preparation, and arming himself and traveling to a location where he expected Donald Trump to be would suffice in that sense.

In common parlance, however, the Secret Service did indeed successfully prevent any attempt at an assassination, akin to a traffic cop arresting a carload of would be robbers for firearms offenses while they were en route to the bank.

[David Nieporent]

David, what an interesting take. Do you think it was not an assassination attempt?

I think it very likely was, but I'm certainly not 100% sure since (unlike Crooks) he didn't fire a shot.

Either way, though, the Secret Service stopped him (and did so before he fired a shot), so I am not sure why they're being attacked for their performance.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"As I was listening to the news, I couldn’t help wondering–if these two attempts had happened against Candidate Biden or Harris–would not those on the lunatic Right would be speculating, “This was probably a con job…fake attempts in order to drum up popular support and sympathy for the evil Democrat candidate.”"

I've certainly heard left-wing speculation that Trump did this to himself.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"Conspiracy theories that the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump was staged flooded the internet almost immediately after a shooting suspect opened fire on Trump as he spoke at a July 13 campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania."

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2024/jul/14/social-media/donald-trump-staged-the-shooting-at-his-rally-in-b/

[Riva]

How about no more character assassination by Democrats that just encourages more deranged leftist nuts?

[Dr. Ed 2]

The insanity continues -- hours after an attempted assassination of Trump, the NH Libertarian Party calls for the assassination of Heels Up Harris. What is with people?!?

As to this week's would-be Trump assassin, he reportedly made a social media post backing Trump’s reelection in 2020, but in more recent years his posts have expressed support for Biden and Harris. According to a 2023 report in the NYT, he also sought to recruit Afghan soldiers fleeing the Taliban to fight in the Ukraine, spending several months in Afghanistan.

He also reportedly has an extensive criminal history including a 2022 conviction of possession of a machine gun (possibly a fully automatic AK-47, and we don't know if this one was. He also reportedly had ceramic plates in those backpacks -- as I understand it, ceramic plates go under Kelvar vests to increase their threat rating.

These people aren't the rabid anti-Trumpers you'd expect to be trying to assassinate Trump, but then it was the Manson "daughters" who tried to assassinate Ford in 1975, twice within 18 days.

While tactically stupid, assassinating Lincoln sorta made sense because Johnson was from a Confederate state, wanted to end Reconstruction, and there had never been a President impeached before.

But Garfield, McKinley, and Kennedy didn't make sense. The reason there are so many conspiracy theories about the Kennedy assassination is that Oswald really didn't have a reason to shoot him. Maybe that's the message here -- assassins are just plain crazy and there is no logical or rational basis for their actions.

The story on the NH Libertarians is here: https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2024/09/15/nh-libertarians-appear-to-encourage-the-assassination-of-kamala-harris/

[santamonica811]

That's actually a thoughtful post. I feel like someone has hacked Ed's account.

I'll note that both attempts were by white, male, young, US citizens. Perhaps this is the biggest threat re domestic terrorism, and the group we should first be doing mass deportations against. (Yeah, I get that we can't *really* deport citizens. But we could trump [pun intended] up charges and stick 5 or 10 million of them in Gitmo.

(Just think of the boost to the economy, with all these high-paying union jobs needed for building the extra prisoner camps in Cuba. Gitmo Two, Gitmo Three. And so on.)

[Kazinski]

Well actually the atempt today was by a 60 something white (not Chinese) male, which is not young.

[Dr. Ed 2]

58, but yes.

[santamonica811]

Thanks, Kaz,
I was basing "young" on the photos I saw on the news. Nope, 58 is definitely not = young. (Usually, the various media uses the worst and the most scary photos of a defendant. The ones I saw made him look 20 years younger.

I'm in my early 60s, I say we ignore the age factor, since I don't like the heat or the humidity in Cuba this time of year. Let's just deport or detain white male citizens. Under age 35, say. That seems reasonable.

[Commenter_XY]

Rouse is a 58 year old recidivist loser, with psychological issues, and a long rap sheet. Exactly the kind of loser who can be manipulated into doing something incredibly stupid by some very sick people.

[Stephen Lathrop]

XY — How many of those losers do you think there are, give or take. Given present levels of AR-15 prevalence (or AKs, or equivalents), how many points of intersection do you think those sets supply? A reasonable number? Too many? What measures might reduce those points of intersection?

[Commenter_XY]

lathrop, I'll assume you ask the question in good faith. I know you were a journalism guy, so I will walk you through some quick math. I know they don't require math for the journalism degree. It's Ok, I am actually pretty good at math, lathrop; I can help you.

There are ~360MM people in the US, currently. Let's assume the 'recidivist loser with psychological issues and a long rap sheet' percentage is 0.005% of the US pop. That is 5/1000ths of 1%. That is actually a very conservative number, as you will see.

Doing the math....I know, take some tylenol. Your head hurts already.

360MM * 0.005% = 18,000 recidivist losers with psych issue and a rap sheet

If you divide 'em up by state, that is a lot of losers just for FL: 360.

[Michael P]

Florida has more like 1/15th the total population of the country than 1/50th, so if we assume an even distribution per capita rather than 1/50th in each state, the number of recidivist losers with psych issues and raps sheet in Florida might be closer to 1200.

[Commenter_XY]

MP, it might blow lathrop's mind if I adjust for pop difference. So I have to keep it simple for the mathematically differently abled.

[Armchair]

Always a good idea.

[Kazinski]

But its well known that kooks and nuts are not evenly distributed.

As Frank Lloyd Wright once said "If you turned the country on its side everything loose would roll to California."

[Commenter_XY]

Kaz...I know, I know. But like I said, I have to keep the math simple for lathrop. I mean, the man plays poker, not bridge. That says everything.

NJ, RI, NY would get some loose items. There is no doubt.

[bernard11]

Poker and bridge are both very complex games, and one occasionally sees discussions over which is more difficult.

I know some people who are very good at both, and they will assure you that poker is quite a difficult game.

Top players make a lot of money playing poker. There are no tic-tac-toe millionaires.

[Stephen Lathrop]

XY — Apparently your math is not adequate to supply answers to my modest mathematically-related questions.

Also, I have no journalism degree. Just a record as an unusually successful reporter, investigator, editor, and small newspaper publisher. Plus expertise as a photographer, and photo editor.

As for math, I am weak in the subject—given my standard that professional competence using math ought to be reserved to those in the 99th percentile or above. For supercilious derogation of others’ math skills, I would put the bar several standard deviations higher.

Assuming you do get over that bar, I would still not hesitate to put my modest math skills to the test of competition with you at the poker table. Turns out, in a great many mathematically-related activities, mathematical insight is not sufficient on its own to deliver optimal outcomes.

[Commenter_XY]

What a limited mind; I play bridge.

[Stephen Lathrop]

What a limited mind; I play bridge.

Exactly the state of mind a poker player looks for in deciding who to invite into the game.

[bernard11]

given my standard that professional competence using math ought to be reserved to those in the 99th percentile or above.

It hardly requires professional competence in math to do XY's calculation. More like having finished the 7th(?) grade.

[Kazinski]

Well it would be nice if we could deport whoever we wanted, but we can only deport non citizens that either were not legally admitted, have overstayed a visa after being legally admitted, or have committed a serious crime and have had their visas revoked.

But any other criminals we can lock up in prison and theow away the key so not all is lost.

[Mr. Bumble]

Mostly we do neither.

[jb]

We have more people in prison than any other country, including places with a lot more people. Seems like we're doing a great job on that front.

[Mr. Bumble]

There are only two countries with larger population than the US (India and China).

[Sarcastr0]

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

We're way up there, for whatever reason.

[Kazinski]

What does that have to do with whether the people behind bars are criminals or not?

If we have that many people that need to be locked up, and have been convicted by a jury of their peers, then thats the size our prison population should be.

If someone disagrees they should run a campaign on defunding the police and emptying the prisons.

[Sarcastr0]

The thread here Kaz, is not based on your confusion of what's criminal and what's not.

It is based on Bumble's tossed off idea that we don't incarcerate criminals in America.

[Kazinski]

And Bumble may have a point, if there are criminals that are not being prosecuted and are not in jail when they should be.

You seem to making a claim because we have a lot, that we shouldn't have more, that's hardly evident.

[Sarcastr0]

That's a load-bearing 'should.'

We're currently more into incarceration than most.

Unless the rest of the free world and most of the rest are systematically wrong, if we need to get even more enthusiastic about jailing people in order to jail all that 'should' be there, that is a value proposition that puts us in a pretty bad crowd, and one which I would question.

[Mr. Bumble]

Replying to Il Douche:
"The thread here Kaz, is not based on your confusion of what’s criminal and what’s not.

It is based on Bumble’s tossed off idea that we don’t incarcerate criminals in America."

The thread is based on Kaz's original comment and my response.
"Well it would be nice if we could deport whoever we wanted, but we can only deport non citizens that either were not legally admitted, have overstayed a visa after being legally admitted, or have committed a serious crime and have had their visas revoked."

The other "criminals" is a throwaway line.

[Sarcastr0]

jb picked up your throwaway line, Bumble.

That's the thread, like it or not.

[jb]

Yes, and both of them have (literally) a billion more people than the US. Despite this, we have a higher prison population than either. Or anywhere else in the world.

[CountmontyC]

So are you counting the Uyghur population as prisoners? Because that would up China's prison population by at least 1 million. And of course China regularly sends citizens that offend the government to work or re-education camps which are simply prisons under another name. Simply comparing announced prison populations without context is worthless.

[Sarcastr0]

Yes, numbers from China are not to be trusted.

That changes little about America's incarceration rate as compared to the rest of the world.

[Mr. Bumble]

Replying to CountmontyC:
"Simply comparing announced prison populations without context is worthless."
Something Il Douche excels at.

[jb]

So if you added a million people to China's count, it's true they would have more prisoners than the US, but their incarceration rate would still be much lower.

Or, let's be more bold and add a few million prisoners so China's incarceration rate is higher than the US's. In which case we'd still have the seventh highest incarceration rate in the world, keeping company with El Salvador, Turkmenistan, Rwanda and Cuba.

The idea that the US doesn't put very many people in prison (Bumble's original proposition) is just laughable regardless of where you want to put China in the ranking.

[Dr. Ed 2]

According to NBC News, there are plenty of North Carolina and Federal charges -- real ones -- that this perp ought to have been in prison for.

And if he was in Afghanistan recruiting, that's foreign travel that ought to be a red flag -- it's not like going to Bermuda...

[not guilty]

"As to this week’s would-be Trump assassin, he reportedly made a social media post backing Trump’s reelection in 2020, but in more recent years his posts have expressed support for Biden and Harris."

CBS News reports as to the would-be shooter's 2020 social media post:

"@realDonaldTrump While you were my choice in 2106, [sic] I and the world hoped that president Trump would be different and better than the candidate, but we all were greatly disappointment and it seems you are getting worse and devolving," he wrote in a June 2020 post. "I will be glad when you gone."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-assassination-attempt-investigation-ryan-wesley-routh-florida/

He reportedly supported Tulsi Gabbard's candidacy in 2020. https://sg.news.yahoo.com/alleged-trump-golf-course-gunman-222614664.html

"He also reportedly has an extensive criminal history including a 2022 conviction of possession of a machine gun (possibly a fully automatic AK-47, and we don’t know if this one was."

I'm not so sure of that. He was charged in 2002, among other offenses, with possession of a weapon of mass destruction, which the local paper reported was a fully automatic machine gun. He was eventually convicted and sentenced to probation on all charges

[santamonica811]

Interesting. In the aftermath of the Twin Towers attacks; I'm surprised that someone charged and convicted of possession of a 'mass destruction' weapon didn't get swept up in the War On Terror zeitgeist and get sentenced to more than probation. [Without doing an iota of actual research; I suspect that there may have been mental health factors at play, and this led prosecutors and the court towards showing some sense of leniency.]

[not guilty]

In North Carolina possession of a weapon of mass death and destruction is a Class F felony. N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-288.8

[Brett Bellmore]

I think they're taking into account the fact that 'weapon of mass destruction' had been given an absurd definition, and refrain from treating people with guns that fire multiple shots per trigger pull the same as nuclear bombs.

[not guilty]

Per N.C. Gen. Stat. § 14-288.8(c), he term "weapon of mass death and destruction" includes:

(1) Any explosive or incendiary:

a. Bomb; or
b. Grenade; or
c. Rocket having a propellant charge of more than four ounces; or
d. Missile having an explosive or incendiary charge of more than one-quarter ounce; or
e. Mine; or
f. Device similar to any of the devices described above; or

(2) Any type of weapon (other than a shotgun or a shotgun shell of a type particularly suitable for sporting purposes) which will, or which may be readily converted to, expel a projectile by the action of an explosive or other propellant, and which has any barrel with a bore of more than one-half inch in diameter; or

(3) Any firearm capable of fully automatic fire, any shotgun with a barrel or barrels of less than 18 inches in length or an overall length of less than 26 inches, any rifle with a barrel or barrels of less than 16 inches in length or an overall length of less than 26 inches, any muffler or silencer for any firearm, whether or not such firearm is included within this definition. For the purposes of this section, rifle is defined as a weapon designed or redesigned, made or remade, and intended to be fired from the shoulder; or

(4) Any combination of parts either designed or intended for use in converting any device into any weapon described above and from which a weapon of mass death and destruction may readily be assembled.

The term "weapon of mass death and destruction" does not include any device which is neither designed nor redesigned for use as a weapon; any device, although originally designed for use as a weapon, which is redesigned for use as a signaling, pyrotechnic, line-throwing, safety, or similar device; surplus ordnance sold, loaned, or given by the Secretary of the Army pursuant to the provisions of section 4684(2), 4685, or 4686 of Title 10 of the United States Code; or any other device which the Secretary of the Treasury finds is not likely to be used as a weapon, is an antique, or is a rifle which the owner intends to use solely for sporting purposes, in accordance with Chapter 44 of Title 18 of the United States Code.

How is that "an absurd definition"? It looks appropriately specific and workable to me.

[Brett Bellmore]

I guess it's 'workable' in the sense that you can apply it, but there's a huge disconnect between it and what the average person would think a 'weapon of mass destruction' would be.

[Martinned2]

And sometimes a bee is a fish.

https://www.loweringthebar.net/2022/06/court-says-bees-are-fish.html

[John F. Carr]

This is similar to the federal definition, including the dichotomy between sporting and non-sporting shotguns. A 12 gauge shotgun is a weapon of mass destruction unless determined to be suitable for sport.

[Brett Bellmore]

I would think almost any 12 gauge would be suitable for sports. That's what my deer hunting gun is: A 12 gauge bolt action shotgun.

[Kazinski]

The NY Times is recapping its interview with Routh in 2023:
"In a telephone interview with The New York Times in 2023, when Mr. Routh was in Washington, he spoke with the self-assuredness of a seasoned diplomat who thought his plans to support Ukraine’s war effort were sure to succeed. But he appeared to have little patience for anyone who got in his way. When an American foreign fighter seemed to talk down to him in a Facebook message he shared with The New York Times, Mr. Routh said, “he needs to be shot.”

In the interview, Mr. Routh said he was in Washington to meet with the U.S. Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, known as the Helsinki Commission “for two hours” to help push for more support for Ukraine. The commission is led by members of Congress and staffed by congressional aides. It is influential on matters of democracy and security and has been vocal in supporting Ukraine."

http://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/15/us/politics/trump-shooting-suspect-routh.html

[David Nieporent]

While tactically stupid, assassinating Lincoln sorta made sense because Johnson was from a Confederate state, wanted to end Reconstruction, and there had never been a President impeached before.

Why are you so bad at facts? The Lincoln plotters also plotted to kill Johnson.

[not guilty]

I have been trying to determine whether the reported incident at Donald Trump's golf course in Florida constitutes a federal crime.

Under 18 U.S.C. § 1751(a), "Whoever kills any individual who is the President of the United States, the President-elect, the Vice President, or, if there is no Vice President, the officer next in the order of succession to the Office of the President of the United States, the Vice President-elect, or any person who is acting as President under the Constitution and laws of the United States" commits a federal crime, and subsection (c) provides that whoever attempts to kill any individual designated in subsection (a) shall be punished by imprisonment for any term of years or for life.

Nothing therein applies in the case of a former president or a candidate for president.

Trump's golf course is not within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, so 18 U.S.C. § 1113 does not apply. See 18 U.S.C. § 7.

When Sirhan Sirhan killed and Arthur Bremer attempted to kill candidates for president, each was prosecuted in state court.

[Kazinski]

Everything is a federal crime if they want it to be.

[not guilty]

Is that as true as everything else you have said, Kazinski?

[Commenter_XY]

When Sirhan Sirhan killed and Arthur Bremer attempted to kill candidates for president, each was prosecuted in state court.

Lynette Fromme?

It is an interesting question: state or Fed charge. Could be both.

[not guilty]

Lynett Fromme attempted to kill a sitting President, Gerald Ford. As did Sarah Jane Moore.

An attempt to commit premeditated murder in Florida appears to be punishable as a felony in the first degree. Fla. Stat. §§ 782.04, 777.04(2). That does not depend on the status of the intended victim.

[Commenter_XY]

I think Rouse is going to have a very bad September, legally.

Does he get bail?

[not guilty]

Politico reports that the Palm Beach County state attorney has said prosecutors are drawing warrants against the suspect. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/15/trump-gunshots-florida-golf-club-00179228 I wouldn't be surprised to see him detained pending trial.

[Mr. Bumble]

"I wouldn’t be surprised to see him detained pending trial."
Ya think...

[not guilty]

Ryan Wesley Routh has now been charged in U. S. District Court with possession of a firearm and ammunition by a convicted felon, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(l), and possession and receipt of a firearm with an obliterated serial number, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922(k). https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25145938/suspect-in-apparent-assassination-attempt-of-trump-has-been-charged-with-2-firearm-counts.pdf

More serious charges will likely be forthcoming when the matter is presented to a federal grand jury. I expect that he will be held without bail in the interim.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Memory is it's a Federal offense to harm a USSS protectee, or to attempt to. That'd be a different statute, but Trump is a USSS protectee for life as a former President.

[Dr. Ed 2]

see: https://www.justice.gov/archives/jm/criminal-resource-manual-1532-threats-against-former-presidents-and-certain-other-secret

[not guilty]

The applicable statute is 18 U.S.C. § 879, which prohibits threatening to kill, kidnap, or inflict bodily harm upon a former President or a member of the immediate family of a former President. The penalty is merely a fine or imprisonment up to five years.

I haven't researched whether "threatening" includes an actual attempt, which intuitively is a far more serious matter.

[Joe_dallas]

My recollection was that the murder/assassination of a president was not a federal crime prior to the Kennedy assassination. It was in 1964 or 1965 that legislation was passed to make it a federal crime. I dont recall if the legislation included any modification to cover presidential candidates. As others have noted, there have been quite a few additions to the statutes since the 1960's

[John F. Carr]

There is also the law against intentionally crossing a Secret Service security perimeter without authorization. Many in the January 6 crowd faced this charge. If the golf course was properly posted the latest would-be shooter could too.

[Armchair]

Try 18 U.S. Code § 351

"Whoever kills.... a major Presidential or Vice Presidential candidate (as defined in section 3056 of this title), "

Also, whoever attempts to kill, later on.

[Armchair]

Here's your link. Pretty clear cut, in my opninion

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/351

[Joe_dallas]

enacted in 1971, probably in response to the 1968 assassination of Robert Kennedy. Prior that, it was only a state crime, falling under the regular state murder statutes.

Similar to the enactment statute for killing a president which wasnt a federal crime until shortly after the JFK assassination. (with the caveat that its my recollection)

[Martinned2]

Interesting. I wonder what the conferred power is they're relying on for that one. (In Art I(8), I mean.)

[Armchair]

Likely the "necessary and proper" clause.

In order for high ranking federal officials (and future/potential federal officials) to be able to carry out their duties, it is necessary that they be alive.

Thus Federal law made killing the these officials illegal.

[Martinned2]

Yes, that seems perfectly sensible when it comes to Federal officials. But how do you expand that logic to candidates for office? A candidate for office being murdered is bad, but from the POV of the running of the Federal government it's no worse than any other citizen being murdered.

[not guilty]

Okay. Thank you for the citation.

[Armchair]

You are welcome.

[Bwaaah]

Wow. No ad hominem swipes.

The day is still young.

[Commenter_XY]

Meh, just watch the UKR thread below. 😉

[Martinned2]

Thierry Breton, of recently "picking a fight with Elon Musk"-fame, wrote a wonderful burn-it-all-down resignation letter because the French President withdrew his nomination for the new Commission.

https://x.com/ThierryBreton/status/1835565206639972734

[Martinned2]

Although he is already able to joke about it: https://x.com/ThierryBreton/status/1835563159857320390

[Kazinski]

I don't get it.

[Michael P]

Neither did Thierry Breton, apparently.

[Kazinski]

A few fact check clean ups from last weeks debate.

First the most devastating real time fact check in the history of debating (although ABC did not fact check this or any other Harris statement.)
https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1834724210834653279?t=N7CdFQGBlOGk_jxwJK77LQ&s=19.

Second when Trump said that violent crime was up under the Biden Administration ABC told him he was wrong but the actual FBI “Total violent crime” from the national crime victimization survey figures (rate per 1000) are:

2019 – 21.0
2020 – 16.4
2021 – 16.5
2022 – 23.5
2023 – 22.5

2020 and 2021 were covid lockdown years so really its 2019 and 2022 and 2023 that are validly comparable.

And third, actual video of cats being barbecued in Ohio by migrants (but bot in Springfield, and not by Hatians).
https://x.com/realchrisrufo/status/1834926318883852543?t=K9-DCdMABsLpQQ3Ow–YEw&s=19

So 3 cases of fact checking where ABC was wrong, or let a demonstably false statement go unchallenged when they should have known it was false.

[Commenter_XY]

Kaz, I would also like to congratulate VP Harris on a wonderful interview with WPVI ABC (Philly) last Friday. A truly scintillating and spellbinding interview, absolutely engaging for undecided voters in PA.

Kamala....keep talking. Don't stop. 🙂

[Kazinski]

Yeah, but the ABC affiliate edited it before they aired it for broadcast.

[Commenter_XY]

Wonderful news, Kaz...WPVI posted the full, unedited interview. As I said, a master class on how to interview. I encourage everyone to see it. Consequently, I think Kamala should talk non-stop for the next 49 days, she is so effective at extemporaneous speaking!

I sat, listening to her utter her latest word saladpearls of wisdom, spellbound, and transfixed by her rhetorical skills. "My God", I literally said, after viewing the interview. 🙂

[Dan Schiavetta]

It's a choice. You're saying Trump is more coherent?

[Commenter_XY]

What I wrote:

I encourage everyone to see it. Consequently, I think Kamala should talk non-stop for the next 49 days, she is so effective at extemporaneous speaking!

I sat, listening to her utter her latest word salad pearls of wisdom, spellbound, and transfixed by her rhetorical skills. “My God”, I literally said, after viewing the interview.

You should avail yourself of the interview. There have not been very many with VP Harris. As an undecided and uncommitted voter, I want to encourage VP Harris to give lots of interviews so that all of America can be similarly spellbound and transfixed by her rhetorical skills.

Nevermind the debate, she is so good, she doesn't need another. Why waste a week on debate prep?

[Sarcastr0]

There was another interview with Harris this week. Not that you're bothering to keep up:

https://6abc.com/post/look-brian-taffs-exclusive-action-news-interview-vice-president-democratic-nominee-kamala-harris/15300044/

[Michael P]

You might want to read a bit farther up this thread, champ. C_XY mentioned that very interview.

[Commenter_XY]

To the contrary, as an undecided and uncommitted voter, I would like to hear VP Harris extemporaneously speak to issues that concern the American people. I am sure that if I am spellbound and transfixed by VP Harris' oratory, others will be also. We will all be saying a version of..."My God (what an interview)".

Appreciate the heads up for the ABC interview.

[Sarcastr0]

as an undecided and uncommitted voter

I presume this is a joke.

I did miss you did cite this interview tho.

[bernard11]

Are you impressed with the coherence, eloquence, honesty, and logic of Trump's speeches?

I ask because the man is a demented fool who can't talk for sixty seconds without lying.

[Bwaaah]

Il Douche speaks, proving an ass can be used for more than shitting and farting.

Dumbass troll.

[Joe_dallas]

debate prep is coordinating with the ABC and the debate moderators

https://x.com/DocNetyoutube/status/1835358499548602666

The Harris campaign received sample questions indicative of topics to be covered in the debate.

• The Harris campaign imposed restrictions on the scope of questioning that precluded inquiries concerning Joe Biden’s health and Harris’ tenure as “as Attorney General in San Francisco” [sic].

• ABC was instructed on which questions to avoid during the debate.

In addition:

• The whistleblower has recordings supporting his allegation that the Harris campaign pressured moderators to fact-check Trump.

• The whistleblower sent a certified letter to Speaker Mike Johnson dated September 9 to establish a record that the correspondence was sent before the debate commenced.

[Joe_dallas]

debate prep is coordinating with the ABC and the debate moderators

https://x.com/DocNetyoutube/status/1835358499548602666

apparently Harris wasnt fact checked during the debate because that was one of the conditions of the debate (side agreement)
See the link for more details

[Sarcastr0]

"Orin Kerr
@OrinKerr
If this were real, wouldn’t the lawyer be named, and wouldn’t the lawyer be one to release this? That way we have a member of the bar represent that it is real, even if the name of the client is concealed.

Here an unknown person is claiming to release a statement from an unknown person notarized by another unknown person and represented by an unknown lawyer."

[David Nieporent]

And as I tweeted in response to Orin, it's not an affidavit that a (competent) lawyer would have drafted. It doesn't say that it's on personal knowledge and indeed provides no information about how the affiant supposedly knows any of the facts s/he describes.

Also, some of the claims are retarded. ABC did not need to secretly give Harris a list of the topics to be covered; I could have done that. Or any person with a pulse. There were no surprises.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Well it's on the internet, so lying piece of shit Joe_dallas will assert it to be the truth provided it fits his little narrative.

Would you like for me to type up a document claiming it to be an affidavit? Perhaps you'd like for me to tell me story in front of a notary and have them sign it too? That would prove that I certainly wrote something down.

It doesn't prove that it's a court document, it doesn't prove that it's a genuine affidavit related to a genuine case. No penalty of perjury for typing up a fake affidavit in order to lie on social media.

It just proves you're a fucking moron pushing lies.

[Mr. Bumble]

My dog is more coherent than Harris.

[Martinned2]

Then your dog should probably replace Trump as the GOP nominee and make it a real race.

[Commenter_XY]

Mr. Bumble, that is uncharitable.

[Mr. Bumble]

Maybe, but also true.

[Moderation4ever]

But Harris was more coherent, by far, than Trump and that is the race, as your dog is not a candidate.

[Kazinski]

Well, I could be wrong, but that's why I think Independent voters will break heavily towards Trump, he is a known quantity, even if they don't like him.

They are looking at Kamala and asking themselves "could she possibly be worse than Biden?", and the answer is coming back "YES".

And spare me the fact checking on how wonderful Biden is, all the polls show Biden's approval rating way underwater with independents.

[Moderation4ever]

Trump is a known quantity and it's all bad. The debate reminded us all that he is incompent, nasty, and senile.

[jb]

I've never seen so many people beclown themselves trying to prove a ridiculous thing just because their cult leader said it on national TV:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ohio-police-dispute-new-allegations-immigrants-are-eating-pets-in-dayton/

(As basically everyone on the Internet has pointed out, those are chickens on the grill)

There's debates to be had over the pros and cons of immigration, but the pet thing is batshit.

[Commenter_XY]

Fortunately, the OH governor has stepped in, and corrected the record. And deployed state troopers and emergency aid to Springfield to actually deal with the problem. The Governor has appropriately kept the focus on solving the problem, that is competent (if not commendable).

There are so many things that are batshit crazy; I do agree with you about that. Just the SCOTUS court cases this year have been a doozy.

[Martinned2]

So you're going to skip right over the part where the Republican candidates for President and Vice-President made up a blood libel out of whole cloth and started a campaign that looks like it came straight out of Der Stürmer?

[Sarcastr0]

By the problem I presume Commenter means 'The Haitian Problem.'

[Kazinski]

Christopher Rufo intervieed the guy who took the video who said they were cats. Consulted a chicken Farmer who said they were definitely not chickens in the video.

"The CBS report hinges on two arguments. First, CBS writes: “The video shows what appears to be animal carcasses on a grill. The man filming the footage alleges, without evidence, that they are cats.” Without evidence? The eyewitness directly observed the incident and took a video recording of it—both of which are firsthand evidence. But CBS’s apparent standard, when such evidence violates the establishment narrative, is: Don’t believe your lying eyes."

"What did CBS not do? Journalism. The network, which has massive resources, did not send a reporter to the scene, interview the eyewitness, interview the neighbors, investigate the visual evidence, conduct background research, or provide a detailed analysis. They simply adopted “don’t believe your lying eyes” as their standard and repeated an empty, evidence-free statement from a partisan political figure."

There is an extensive response refuting CBS point by point from Rufo here:
https://x.com/realchrisrufo/status/1835354219454533862?t=TM6dMijNPy5-HdrKhrex9g&s=19

[Sarcastr0]

Christopher Rufo interviewed the guy who took the video who said they were cats. Consulted a chicken Farmer who said they were definitely not chickens in the video.

Christopher Rufo, famous for lying (or rather 'successfully freezing their brand') about what CRT is, is not a credible source.

And it's just hilarious and dumb to cite a chicken farmer (or even a Farmer) as an expert in what chickens on a grill look like.

[Brett Bellmore]

I had to look that up; "We have successfully frozen their brand—"critical race theory"—into the public conversation and are steadily driving up negative perceptions. We will eventually turn it toxic, as we put all of the various cultural insanities under that brand category."

It doesn't sound to me like he's talking about lying, so much as he is about preventing the opposition from retreating from the motte to the bailey.

Now, naturally, if you're desperate to abandon the motte, you're going to call the motte a lie. That doesn't mean it IS a lie.

[Nelson]

As opposed to the claim thay CRT is being taught in American schools? Because that's straight-up bullshit, and Christopher Rufo was front and center on that.

What he was saying is that they will shamelessly lie about CRT until they overwhelm the truth with bullshit. Sound familiar? It's the Trump/Vance playbook.

[Kazinski]

Sarcastro is our expert on sources.

I'm a little surprised he hasn't weighed in on the link I posted above where Libsof TikTok reposted a video calling Kamala a liar.

[Sarcastr0]

I am not an expert on sources; I do know who has boasted about fooling the public before.

I also know you have the worst critical thinking skills, and will swallow anything if you want to believe.

That you want to believe this does not reflect well on you, even above your being ill equipped to self-correct.

[Roger S]

Right, there is evidence that Haitians eat cats in Ohio.

[jb]

Let's suppose, arguendo that the thing on the grill is a cat.

Even if that were true, it would in no way actually support the original tale told by Trump and Vance:

1) Even according to Rufo, the cats in question were strays, not somebody's pet.
2) The people grilling them are not Haitian
3) The people grilling them are not in Springfield
4) Even the person who posted the original Facebook message about the cat in Springfield has subsequently said that it was just based on a rumor

But of course now the MAGAverse is desperate to try to prove this thing true so they don't look dumb for spouting it in the first place. How many hours did Rufo spend trying to establish that some other immigrants somewhere in Ohio might have eaten a stray cat? Even if they did, what bearing does it have on whether people in Springfield should be worried about their pets, which was the original claim here. And here you are, trying to justify the claim and amplify it more. Pathetic.

[NOVA Lawyer]

I mean, this.

It is quite telling to watch the usual apologists grasping at any straw to defend their cult leader even while J.D. Vance admits he is making up vile lies against legal Haitian immigrants which lies have resulted in placing them in peril and interrupting the education of young people in Springfield.

No class. No morals. No integrity. Thanks for showing us, again, who you are Kazinski, CommenterXY, and Roger S.

[Kazinski]

I don’t know why you think people killing and eating pets is batshit crazy.

Its actually pretty common in coutries where i have traveled extensively. Parts of Vietnam, Cambodia, and China unattended dogs especially often turn up missing and its well known that thats how dogmeat restaurants get their supply. I don't know about cats, but I've seen crazy things at wet markets.

I will also point out that the Lewis and Clark expedition when they came down out of the Rockies to Idaho turned down fresh and dried Salmon offered by the Nez Perce and bought several dogs, which were pets of a sort, to butcher because they wanted red meat and hadn’t been successful hunting.

[Sarcastr0]

Killing PETS? You're conflating a vital distinction.

Also, you're making a direct accusation. Act like it. Don't post airy shit about cultural norms. You need proof.

And a known right-wing liar posting an ambiguous picture of meat on a grill, especially given all the denials those who would know have made.

[Kazinski]

Nothing ambiguous about it, and he also provided confirmation from the person who shot the video and verified the location the video was shot.

CBS, and you, are just doing handwaving.

And yes, didn’t I specically say PETS (I can roll with caps too)?

Its a well known problem in some countries, why wouldn’t happen here if we open our borders to the whole world?

https://www.independent.co.uk/asia/east-asia/dogs-cats-china-meat-trade-b2114150.html

“More than 120 dogs destined for a brutal death in China’s pet meat trade have been plucked to safety from an illegal slaughterhouse.

Rescuers said many had collars on – showing they had been stolen from owners’ homes.”

[Sarcastr0]

Randos telling a known liar that the pic is totes of cats does not make the picture less ambiguous. Even testimony by legit sources would not make the picture unambiguous. That is not how that works.

And the real bit of trash, you’re talking a lot about cultures cooking dogs as proof pets are being stolen and eaten.

In what world is one proof of the other?

Badly sourced accusations against an insular minority group is you being bad.

[jb]

Even your source says the not-Springfield not-Haitian people were eating a stray cat, not pets.

[Zarniwoop]

Crime rates are currently (first half of 2024) below pre-covid levels:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/07/25/violent-crime-rates-us/74525483007/

For Trump to claim crime rates are out of control is pure demagoguery.

Specifics:
Homicides: 2% lower compared to first six months of 2019, 13% lower than the first 6 months of 2023
Aggravated assault: 0.2% lower than the six months of 2019, 7% lower than the first six months of 2023
Gun assault: 1% higher than the first six months of 2019, 18% lower than the first six months of 2023
Domestic violence: 8% lower than the first six months of 2019, 2% lower than the first six months of 2023
Robbery: 15% lower than the first six months of 2019, 6% lower than the first six months of 2023
Carjacking: 68% higher than the first six months of 2019, 26% lower compared to first 6 months of 2023. (The CCJ advises caution with this statistic as only seven cities reported data for carjacking).

[Kazinski]

I quoted the FBI National Crime Victimization survey which supports Trumps Claim.

Quoting 2024 data which is preliminary and incomplete does not refute Trump or the National Crime Victimization Survey.

[David Nieporent]

And third, actual video of cats being barbecued in Ohio by migrants (but bot in Springfield, and not by Hatians).

So, not Haitians, not Springfield, and no evidence that those are cats — let alone stolen ones.

[Dr. Ed 2]

OK, Heels Up gets elected and the stock market crashes, she becomes Hoover II.

[Dan Schiavetta]

Call me sensitive but I don't want to see your slutty nickname for Harris any more. It is juvenile and misogynist. Muted.

[Mr. Bumble]

How about we call you an idiot?
What a pussy!
Oh wait, I’ve been muted too.

[Frank Drackman]

"Muted"?? The Horror!!!

[Michael P]

Maybe your side should have picked a candidate who wasn't so promiscuous that her own running mate recounted her time as "a young prostitutor".

[Dan Schiavetta]

Thoughts of an incel mind.

[Michael P]

Tim Walz is an incel? That would certainly explain a lot.

[Mr. Bumble]

Well his wife did have to use a turkey baster.

[Kazinski]

I condemned such language last week, and its just gotten worse.

Her own VP nominee called her a “young prostitutor.”

https://x.com/_emergent_/status/1834381413811896364?t=bBQ_9bkE1FKgiI3nUkWqDQ&s=19

I don’t know whether they should remove Walz from the ticket or not, but they should consider it.

I did mute Jason last week for calling someones mother a slut. He never has anything thought provoking to say anyway, he just gets frustrated and says go fuck yourself.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Poor baby.

Upset that I called out the people who were ignoring Trump calling Kamala a cunt? Too stupid to think that perhaps their opinion on the issue might change if it was their own mother being called one?

(As it turns out, Brett was perfectly fine with Kamala being called a cunt, and my efforts to personalize it in order to pull his head out of his asshole were unsuccessful.)

I don't tell people to go fuck themselves out of frustration. 🙂 I do it because I treat people how they deserve to be treated, and several of you have demonstrated repeatedly that you don't give a shit about the truth, and you don't deserve to be treated like a human being.

If you find that so offensive, perhaps you could use your newly-gained knowledge of causality and convince your fellow lying shitbags to start being truthful. Until then, I'll keep being as hostile as they've earned. 🙂

[David Nieporent]

Dude, he just said that he muted you. Why are you responding?

[Mr. Bumble]

So an asshole like you could respond.
Simple!

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Because I think he'll look and he misquoted me out of context.

[Nelson]

The S&P is up over 16% since January. If Harris will be just like Biden, why would the market suddenly crash?

Historically, the broader stock market does better under D Presidents. You can always make money in the market, regardless of whether it goes up or down, but it's a lot easier under Ds.

[Bwaaah]

Deep, rich economic analysis there. Makes me wonder why people make such a big stink about grocery store prices.

[Nelson]

He talked about the stock market, so I also talked about the stock market. If he had talked about grocery store prices, I would have talked about grocery store prices.

Responding to one subject with a completely unconnected subject is the paleocon playbook, not mine. I don't engage in dishonesty like that.

[Kazinski]

Mark Cuban a Harris supporter said the Market will crash if her unrealized capital gains tax is implemented, and her increase in capital gains.

His says he still supports her because she wont be able to implement it.

"Mark Cuban, billionaire and owner of the Dallas Mavericks, isn’t happy with Vice President Kamala Harris’ proposed tax on unrealized capital gains. During an interview today, Mark said this plan would “kill the stock market.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/mark-cuban-says-kamala-harris-will-kill-the-u-s-stock-market/ar-AA1q4yFJ

I don't have as much faith in Harris' incompetence as Cuban does.

[Nelson]

Yes, a wealth tax in any of its permutations would have a huge negative impact on the market. But it isn't a reasonable assumption to make.

[Stephen Lathrop]

In eastern Massachusetts gasoline prices look poised to go below $3.00 per gallon. It has been an abrupt plunge. Anyone know what might account for that?

[Brett Bellmore]

They're down to $2.45 in places here in SC.

I know there were some scheduled dumps from the politicastrategic petroleum reserve, explicitly to push down gas prices, but the drop has been world-wide, so that can't account for all of it.

[Nelson]

Or any of it. Much like inflation or unemployment or anything else that happens all over the world, if it happens elsewhere at roughly the same rate at the same time as in the US, it isn't dependent on policy.

[Brett Bellmore]

On the principle that Presidents have a very limited capacity to make things go right, but almost unlimited power to F things up, it IS sort of dependent on policy: The administration temporarily put on hold their policy of driving energy costs up, for the election year.

[bernard11]

the drop has been world-wide, so that can’t account for all of it.

Do I detect a glimmer of understanding as to the movement of gasoline prices? Clue: They are not under the direct control of the President.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, not much in the downward direction, anyway. Like I said, President's don't have a lot of power to improve stuff, but they have a vast capacity to screw it up.

[bernard11]

not much in the downward direction,

Not much in the upward direction either.

[Mr. Bumble]

Saw a report (somewhere) that the Chi-Coms have cut back on oil purchases which would have an effect on world oil prices.

[Harvey Mosley]

Damn. I'm paying almost twice that in California (4.67).

[hobie]

$2.89 down from $3.19 here in NE Ohio. In 2021 in Houston, the juvenile rednecks were placing Biden stickers on gas pump prices with Biden exclaiming "I did that!"

So it was all Biden's doing on the way up, yeah? Ergo....???

God my job is easy

[Krayt]

He should write down what he did.

[Kazinski]

I just paid 4.77 a gallon for regular at a Costco in California, its well above 5$ a gallon at Shell or Chevron.

[John F. Carr]

Most expensive gas I ever bought was around Bridgeport, California. All the California rules and regulations plus they have to truck the gas over the Sierra Nevada.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Anyone care to speculate by what national popular vote margin Harris would have to win, to avoid a Trump attempt to subvert the election outcome, bypass the electoral college result, illegitimately force the election into the House, or just plain attempt to seize power with organized violence?

I assume there is some margin large enough to chasten with institutional resistance Trump's presumably unquenchable ambition for power—not to mention his motivation to stay out of prison. Who thinks there is any chance that a margin large enough to do that could happen?

[Martinned2]

Why would Trump care about the national vote margin? I'd say the key drivers of how much Trumpists will try to overturn the election results are the margin in the electoral college, the number of states where the result is close, and exactly how close it is in each state (particularly in GOP controlled states).

[Brett Bellmore]

Quite right. The popular vote margin is utterly irrelevant here. It really comes down to the margin in the states on the margin, as it were. And what electoral hijinks can be plausibly alleged.

To that end, it's really helpful that the Pennsylvania supreme court decided this time around that the state's election laws would have to be followed.

[Martinned2]

I wouldn't say that "plausibly" was something that Trumpists took into account in 2021, or that they are likely to now.

[Brett Bellmore]

Look, if Trump alleged that little green Martians had used advanced nanotechnology to change the markings on ballots, that wouldn't get him very far. Complaints about election administration have to have at least a little grounding in facts.

By reluctantly deciding to actually enforce PA's election laws, the state supreme court took away an excuse for claiming the election there was rigged. If only every state had been so careful to actually conduct a lawful election back in 2020, Trump wouldn't have had a plausible basis for claiming he'd been robbed.

[jb]

Trump's claims about the election being rigged had nothing to do with the sorts of procedural changes you didn't like. It was all conspiracy theories about voting machines and suitcases full of ballots.

[Brett Bellmore]

You're just handwaving away his actual complaints at this point.

And electronic voting machines are a huge problem, which elections administrators are desperately trying to sweep under the rug. They're simply not secure.

Expert shows how to tamper with Georgia voting machine in security trial

General purpose computers should NEVER be used to record votes. Counting physical ballots, where the ballots can be checked to confirm the count? Sure, that's fine. But record them? Never.

[Nelson]

"Counting physical ballots, where the ballots can be checked to confirm the count? Sure, that’s fine. But record them? Never."

There are now two things Brett and I agree on. Voting machines should always, at the very least, have a paper ballot for records and recounts. The ones in my state record the vote electronically, but print a paper ballot out that is displayed in a sealed window. The voter can then confirm that their vote has been recorded correctly before they press the final "VOTE" button. That's a good system.

[Nelson]

FWIW, nuclear energy as the best source of green energy is the other. Hell, the best source of energy, period.

[Brett Bellmore]

I would venture to say that there are a long list of things we agree about; Most of them just don't come up for conversation here.

[Nelson]

Fair point.

[Nelson]

From the book post, I can say we agree on those as well.

[Sarcastr0]

These are not Trump's complaints.

[jb]

I actually agree that voting machines that don't leave a voter-verifiable paper trail aren't a good idea. But that doesn't mean that there's any evidence they influenced the election outcome in 2020, which is a consistent claim that Trump and his allies have been making.

Also, I'm not handwaving Trump's claims--almost none of them are about voting procedures. Here's a comprehensive analysis (and ultimately, debunking) of the claims made by Trump and others:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/qfvavvua3g6dksnzl9ils/TrumpClaims.pdf?rlkey=rnig91049e5js1hprelig4ij9&e=2&dl=0

Feel free to pick out the claims listed therein that you think are related to state electoral procedures in 2020. The only one I could find relates to procedures for voting in nursing homes in Michigan.

[Nelson]

"But that doesn’t mean that there’s any evidence they influenced the election outcome in 2020"

Absolutely. There is zero evidence of any unusual levels of fraud in any state in 2020.

The "it potentially could happen, so it did" argument is ridiculous, since there hasn't been a system created in the history of the world that's been foolproof.

100% secure is an impossible standard, which the election deniers know. That's why they use it.

[SRG2]

if Trump alleged that little green Martians had used advanced nanotechnology to change the markings on ballots, that wouldn’t get him very far.

Except with his supporters

[bernard11]

Somehow, the assumption, by Brett and others, is that any fraud, or simple error, is the work of Democrats, as though Republicans are innocent of any election shenanigans whatsoever.

That tells you all you need to know about his allegations.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, I think both parties cheat where they think they can get away with it, but Trump hardly has any motive to complain about Republican cheating, and I thought we were discussing Trump's complaints.

[Magister]

Many of Trump's complaints fall to the lack of evidence that the improper votes favored his opponent or that votes that were improperly blocked favored him. (All of them fall for a lack of evidence.) But I understand that your cult membership requires you to condemn everyone who opposes Trump and to excuse anything in favor of Trump, both without actually requiring any credible support.

[Brett Bellmore]

What? I agree, I've actually pointed that out before: Demonstrating that enough illegal votes were cast to have thrown the election is hardly going to get you across the finish line, outside of maybe a local election. (Where that's sometimes enough to get the outcome thrown out and the election rerun.)

You'd have to demonstrate that the illegal votes were cast for a specific candidate. Something which is just barely possible if the disputed ballots are segregated and overwhelmingly were cast for one candidate. But won't be possible if they weren't segregated.

The courts aren't going to throw out a result in a Presidential election just because there were enough dubious ballots that it was possible the election was thrown by them. There's no provision in the law for Presidential do-overs! That's part of why Trump kept losing even before reaching the merits stage: Judges won't entertain cases where there's no remedy!

He really needed to prevail in his pre-election challenges. Really, it was all over but the shouting AFTER the election.

[Nelson]

Except his pre-election complaints were as specious and unfounded as his post-election complaints.

Would a change in the rules before the election have changed anyone's vote?

Would whatever version of "Ds cheated by making rules that were against the law" have prevented anyone who voted against Trump from voting?

Would anyone's mind have been changed by any wonky procedural change, let alone enough people to make a difference?

No, to all three. Trump lost because more people voted for Joe Biden than him. The procedural challenges just mean that the people who voted against Trump under the "illegal" changes would have voted against Trump in whatever way was in place.

This is the sort of dishonesty by Trumpkins that drives me mad. They rail against something that wouldn't have changed a damned thing, then claim that it would have completely changed the election. It's bullshit, and the worst part is they know it.

[bernard11]

Trump hardly has any motive to complain about Republican cheating,

True. But the commenters here who are so concerned about accuracy, etc. never seem to worry about GOP cheating, and pretty much assume it's all Democrats.

Is Mark Meadows out of jail yet?

[David Nieporent]

Look, if Trump alleged that little green Martians had used advanced nanotechnology to change the markings on ballots, that wouldn’t get him very far.

He claimed it was Hugo Chavez, who had been dead for a decade, using Italian satellites and Chinese bamboo. Roughly as credible, and got him roughly as far.

[Nelson]

"And what electoral hijinks can be plausibly alleged."

Plausible to normal, sane people? Or plausible to MAGA? Because those are two VERY different things.

"To that end, it’s really helpful that the Pennsylvania supreme court decided this time around that the state’s election laws would have to be followed."

None of the Trumpkons have ever explained why, if a voter followed instructions that were valid when they voted, they should have been disenfranchised. Can you?

[Brett Bellmore]

Just because a lower court tells you to violate the law doesn't mean that violating the law was "valid".

It means the lower court was complicit in the violation.

[jb]

Or it might mean that Brett's interpretation of the law is wrong. Imagine that!

[Sarcastr0]

Try saying you are following a higher legal power than the District Court, Brett, see how far it gets you.

You say silly things sometimes.

[Brett Bellmore]

That would be a silly thing to say to a judge. Just because saying it isn't prudential, though, doesn't mean you're not allowed to think it.

[Nelson]

Complicity requires an intent to behave criminally. Siding with one side over the other isn't complicity.

Disagreeing with Brett's interpretation of the law (or a higher court's interpretation of the law, for that matter) isn't complicity. It isn't immoral. It isn't evil. And it most certainly isn't election fraud.

[Nelson]

No, Brett. If a legal voter cast a legal vote in the manner that was legal at the time they voted, that vote counts. Period.

The fact that courts argued back and forth AFTER the legal vote was cast isn't a valid reason to disenfranchise anyone. A different process wouldn't have changed the substance of their ballot, only the method by which it was cast.

I know that this is one (of many) deeply stupid things Rs are trying to make sound reasonable.

If there isn't a date on the envelope, but it arrives before Election Day and is a clear demonstration of voter intent, why shouldn't it be counted? Why should that citizen be denied their rights for a typo or a mistake? What factual error is contained within a dated envelope that isn't contained within an undated envelope?

This obsession with disenfranchising voters has one, and only one, impetus: as time goes by, fewer and fewer people are conservative*, so fewer and fewer conservatives* win. Rather than running candidates who better address voter concerns, conservatives want to invalidate the votes of their opponents.

* conservative as defined in the 60s, 70s, and early 80s. Nothing in the last 40 years counts.

[Commenter_XY]

lathrop, turn the question around.

What margin would 'Orange Caligula' (this was a pretty funny term from hobie) have to win for the victory not to be challenged by the Harris campaign?

This assumes Orange Man Bad survives to the election. It is now an open question.

[Martinned2]

It's reality-based comments like this that make me come back to the VC every week!

[Frank Drackman]

More than he did in 2016 as Hillary Rodman questioned the legitimacy of his erection and there were serious attempts to get enough Erectors to change their votes and get the erection thrown to the House of Representatives of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

Frank

[hobie]

I think Bush's second term was the only one in the 21st century where a Republican won the popular vote. It's getting less likely that a Republican can win a national election, especially when they keep fielding angry lunatics. My point being that SCOTUS and subversion is all they have left. So expect both ever time moving forward

[Martinned2]

The GOP could easily pivot back to competing for the median national voter. They wouldn't have to pivot very far to make their candidate look sane by comparison. The problem is that they don't want to because a) the US electoral system doesn't necessarily reward it, b) internal party politics.

[Magister]

Their problem is that the median voter is pretty much a Democratic voter, even before excluding the crazies.

[Martinned2]

Nonsense. In an election where the Democrats win 51% of the national vote, the median voter voted Democrat. That's what median voter means. But there's nothing inherent in that result. The national median voter probably wouldn't vote for a Trumpist candidate, but then the GOP doesn't have to nominate a Trumpist. If they nominate a non-Trumpist and take some clear steps away from Trump, they could still run on, say, an anti-abortion platform and win the national median voter. As recently as 2022 the median voter in the House of Representatives election voted Republican.

[Magister]

Not nonsense, although it is a short term problem, in that a major party which did not depend on the crazies is possible; it’s just that the Republicans have no plan or incentive to move there. For now, it is inherent: the MAGA voters stay home without Trump, and the median shifts well into the Democratic voters; or the MAGA voters drive off the majority of voters, and the median voter is (barely) among the Democratic voters.

(I will add that the House vote is not especially persuasive, since many seats are not contested, and the Republicans enjoyed advantages that should have led to a "red wave" but didn't.)

[Brett Bellmore]

The GOP establishment generally views 'red wave' elections as opportunities to sacrifice seats to kill the careers of successful primary challengers without losing too much power in Congress as a result. Thus retaining their own control over a somewhat weaker GOP, rather than ending up losing control of a stronger GOP.

[Sarcastr0]

No proof of this offered.

Brett just knows the only reason for the GOP not agreeing with him has got to be a secret agenda by The Establishment.

[Martinned2]

the Republicans have no plan or incentive to move there

Yes, that's what I said.

[Magister]

I wasn't endorsing an inevitable demographic triumph of the Democratic party, either, so no reason to declare nonsense.

[Nelson]

"What margin would ‘Orange Caligula’ (this was a pretty funny term from hobie) have to win for the victory not to be challenged by the Harris campaign?"

Challenged? Or for them not to make up ridiculous conspiracy theories about truckloads of ballots in PA or suitcases full of ballots in GA or some other fresh insanity, leading to a refusal to concede the election?

I'd say a challenge will come if any combination of swings states that could change the outcome are within a few tenths of a percent. A concession would come after that process has played itself out.

There has only been one election in the history of the United States in which the loser of a free and fair election has refused to concede. Harris, in your 'Trump wins' scenario, wouldn't make it two.

[Commenter_XY]

Define 'few tenths of 1%'

[Nelson]

I’d say between .3 to .7%. So a vote total of 50.3% to 50.7% for the winner, leaving a Trump margin of victory of 1.4% or less in enough states to give Harris over 270.

That said, if she loses the challenge I would expect a concession like in every other Presidential election except one.

[Magister]

Most of the swing states provide for recounts if the difference is 0.5% or less, although recounts are unlikely to change that much in a statewide race.

[Moderation4ever]

If Trump wins Kamala Harris will accept the results. Presidential candidates through the years have accepted the results. The one exception is Trump. Like Al Gore before her, Kamala Harris will certify the results accepting her loss.

However, if Trump declares victory, tries to stop the count, or to throw out results he does not like, Harris's team will fight.

Which question were you asking.

[Kazinski]

Will Jaimie Raskin and House Democrats recognize the results?

[Josh R]

Yes. If Trump wins, on Jan 6 his election will be certified. There may be an objection that requires the House and Senate to vote on a state or two, but those votes will overwhelmingly reject the challenges.

There will be nothing that comes close to what Trump did from election night through Jan 6 in 2020.

[Moderation4ever]

Yes

[Roger S]

Let's have a fair and verifiable election, and everyone will accept the results.

[Moderation4ever]

And what are the parameters for a fair and verifiable election? Because right now the only parameters for a fair and verifiable election seems to be Trump must win.

[Roger S]

Neutral observers for casting and counting votes. Verifying eligibility to vote and vote counts. European countries do a better job of running elections. It is not complicated. There just has to be a will to do it.

[Moderation4ever]

All that you asked for exists now. So, if Trump loses will you accept the results?

As for the difference in European and American elections I suggest this and ask if you agree.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/11/03/10-problematic-ways-in-which-u-s-voting-differs-from-the-worlds/

[Martinned2]

In the Netherlands we also vote on a work day (because obviously you can't have an election on the sabbath), and the Brits generally do it on a work day too. But otherwise, yes. And that doesn't even include weird things like queuing for a long time to vote. The reason why voting on a Thursday is no big deal here is that voting takes 5 mins. People do it on the way to/from work, or during their lunch break.

[David Nieporent]

The vast majority of voting here takes 5 minutes too.

[Nelson]

"Let’s have a fair and verifiable election"

We had that last time. The wingnuts rioted and smashed their way into the Capitol.

[Michael P]

From https://abc7.com/post/lafd-battles-massive-fire-apartment-building-chinatown-1-person-critically-injured/15298740/: "The fire was believed to have started by homeless encampments."

Who knew homelessness was so contagious? Can we apply public health or safety laws to prevent its spread?

[Michael P]

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/oregon-dmv-admits-wrongfully-registering-hundreds-non-citizens-vote

We were assured that this could never happen -- that there are layers and layers of editors, I mean filters, and fact checkers who would prevent any ineligible people from getting registered to vote.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

That's a conspiracy theory and not true!

Sincerely,
Sarcastr0, Martinned2, David Neirponte, not guilty, nige, and other assorted bootlickers and dipshits.

[Nelson]

There was a mistake in their automatic voter registration system. That's hardly surprising, easily fixed, and isn't even close to the sort of rampant and intentional fraud conservatives are talking about.

It's as big a difference as between killing wild geese and killing pet cats and dogs.

Oh, right. You idiots can't differentiate between that, either.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Hakeem Jeffries was out there with hours after another CIA operative* attempted to assassinate Trump declaring Trump a MAGA threat to the country.

These are scary times if you’re not a bootlicker of the State and worshipper of tryants like the Democrats around here.

* What sort of guy “independently” travels to Ukraine to recruit civilians for one of America’s proxy Forever Wars? Especially one with curious social media ties to a former CIA leaders?

[Commenter_XY]

What sort of guy “independently” travels to Ukraine to recruit civilians for one of America’s proxy Forever Wars? Especially one with curious social media ties to a former CIA leaders?

Answer: Recidivist losers with psych issues, and a long rap sheet.

Don't think it is time to start writing the script for another Oliver Stone movie, quite yet. Seems premature.

BTW, I don't think that Jesus had blonde hair or blue eyes. Do you?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Sadly, the CIA have already taken sides and hence the finger of suspicion inevitably will be pointed at them.

[Sarcastr0]

It's a very dumb take that the CIA is a rogue but inept agency that tried to take Trump down twice and failed.

[Michael P]

It's about par for an agency that has such bad opsec that they let China roll up all their agents and informants within the Middle Kingdom, though.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Don't forget how the guy they had in charge of the Cuba Desk was in fact a Cuban double agent.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

I didn't say fight, I said recruit.

[Michael P]

What sort of guy “independently” travels to Ukraine to recruit civilians for one of America’s proxy Forever Wars?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Legion_(Ukraine) has an illustrative list under "Notable criminals who joined the legion": a fugitive murderer, a drug smuggler, a guy rejected by the US Army for his criminal past, a Japanese Yakuza member...

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

He didn't go to fight, he went to recruit.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Yes, and in addition to using the AK, if he'd just waited until Trump came up to that hole, rather than sitting there with the barrel through the fence, the USSS would not have seen said barrel through the fence, may not have seen him, and thus given him the opportunity for a shot.

BUT WHO'S FUNDING HIM?!?

[David Nieporent]

BUT WHO’S FUNDING HIM?!?

Nobody. This has been yet another episode of Simple Answers to Very Very Stupid Questions.

[Commenter_XY]

And while we are on the topic of Ukraine....My, my what a lively exchange from the last Thursday Open Thread. I will briefly summarize.

- RUS (Putin) has directly threatened retaliation on NATO and US soil for the use of ATACAM and Storm Shadow missiles by UKR inside RUS. US forces are currently deployed in Romania, Poland, The Baltics, Finland, and Sweden.
- We have a cognitively diminished POTUS who isn't deciding jack-shit; this man cannot debate coherently, let alone think. Who is making those decisions? VP Harris...(rotflmfao)? Jake Sullivan - the man is pompous and incompetent (ayfkm)?
- The execution of Biden/Harris UKR foreign policy has been horrific.
- UKR is not a vital US national interest
- UKR is not a NATO member
- UKR is not a EU member
- America and UKR do NOT have a treaty
- America and UKR do NOT share a common history, heritage, or culture.
- UKR has embroiled not one, but two POTUS' in controversy. They are more trouble than they are worth (and they're corrupt AF, to boot)
- Antisemitism runs deep within their culture in the hinterlands of UKR; it is their mother's milk in the hinterlands.
- The UKR counter-offensive has been stopped, and is being rolled back. RUS will simply win by attrition, and more resources. UKR is fighting valiantly in a doomed effort.

Commenter_XY: UKR is not worth a single American life. Not 1. With a credible threat of direct retaliation on our soil now on the table, the evaluation matrix changes. The best way to help UKR (and RUS) is to help them find a way to stop the killing they can both live with (the 'exit ramp')

I challenge anyone to make the case that UKR is worth American deaths. Make your case.

[Martinned2]

That depends, we’d first need to establish some common ground as to what *is* worth American lives. Is Poland? Germany? France? The UK? Canada? Maine? Alaska?

[Commenter_XY]

M2, all of the countries you named are NATO allies by a treaty ratified by the US Senate. The states...c'mon man. 🙂

[Martinned2]

Well, that's my answer right there. It's not that obvious that a Trumpist would be committed to defending NATO allies. Trump isn't.

But if your baseline is that the US should defend NATO, then there's a reasonable argument that limited engagement in Ukraine (i.e. lots of weapons and some manpower to help the Ukrainians use it) is a good investment to avoid a much bigger effort to protect Poland or the Baltics. If giving the Russians a bloody nose in Ukraine reduced the chances of a Russian invasion of a NATO country by 10%, that would be enough to make it a sound investment. (Never mind reducing the likelihood of a Chinese attack against Taiwan.)

[Krayt]

The astounding thing about Trump supporters, and I don't just mean squirrely posters, but high politicians and talking heads, some with their own shows, is they're wearing a virtue signal badge that defending a country against aggression is some kind of worthless task. This is not a new thing. These oppositional blowhards sound like similar cretins squeaking, "communism ain't so bad" during Vietnam.

[Brett Bellmore]

Trump was using a threat to drop out of NATO as a lever to get NATO countries to start living up to their own obligations under the treaty. That's all that was going on.

It was understandable that we carried most of the load for defending Europe shortly after WWII, when they had devastated economies. Today? Not so justifiable.

[ThePublius]

Exactly. M2 is confusing negotiation with allegiance. If NATO countries won't contribute to their defense according to the treaty, then - f'em! They've essentially broken the treaty, abandoned it. The U.S. shouldn't be making up for their lack of funding and personnel.

I say it's about time we got out of NATO, in this world, in the 21st century, it really does not serve the United States' interests. Likewise the UN.

[Martinned2]

If NATO countries won’t contribute to their defense according to the treaty, then – f’em!

Yes, that's what I meant with "It’s not that obvious that a Trumpist would be committed to defending NATO allies."

They’ve essentially broken the treaty, abandoned it.

Which part of the treaty, exactly, has been broken? Here it is, for your convenience: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_17120.htm

I say it’s about time we got out of NATO, in this world, in the 21st century, it really does not serve the United States’ interests. Likewise the UN.

That's exactly what I was checking with Commenter, whether he agrees with this.

[Commenter_XY]

I do not agree = leave NATO.

We have a treaty, ratified by the US Senate. That is the controlling document.

[Martinned2]

Trump was using a threat to drop out of NATO as a lever to get NATO countries to start living up to their own obligations under the treaty.

No, he was threatening not to comply with his treaty obligations. He said nothing about withdrawing from the treaty.

(Being a speaker who thinks carefully before he speaks he is careful about distinctions like that, and doesn't accidentally set off a diplomatic riot.)

[Mr. Bumble]

"(Being a speaker who thinks carefully before he speaks he is careful about distinctions like that, and doesn’t accidentally set off a diplomatic riot.)"
Is that supposed to be sarc?

[Martinned2]

It's a subtle suggestion that yes, electing an incoherent rambling lunatic president has consequences for the international relations of the US beyond what you might intend.

[Commenter_XY]

Brett, I just want to see any one of them make a reasoned, rational case that UKR is worth sacrificing American lives. Nobody did last week. No one had the chops to argue: Here is the case for sacrificing American lives for UKR.

Not one.

BTW, you're right about the leverage thing. It is called negotiation. 😉

[Nelson]

"Nobody did last week"

Because everyone pointed out to you the absurdity of your premise (that Putin's threat is real and that the US will directly fight in Ukraine).

Anyone with a room-temperatire IQ knows that neither of those things is true.

[Commenter_XY]

I said Putin's threat was real, and that he has explicitly threatened retaliation on US and NATO soil.

You said Americans fighting in UKR. I did not. I pointed out our actual troop deployments in Europe.

You think the RUS threat is total bullshit. Fine.

Pretend hypothetically, Nelson, the threat is dead-ass serious. Retaliation will come to US soil because of the use of ATACAM and Storm Shadow missile inside RUS by UKR.

Now...can you please make an attempt at rationalizing the case that UKR is worth the sacrifice of American lives? Make the moral and/or intellectual and/or policy and/or rational case for this (American lives).

I challenge anyone to make the case.

[Martinned2]

What you're describing is why the Biden Administration is putting constraints on what the Ukrainians can do with the weapons they're being sent. But at the margin it's a judgment call, weighing the risks you describe against the risk of Ukrainian defeats that would embolden the Russians.

[Commenter_XY]

M2...Uh, there is nothing 'on the margin' about making decisions regarding the execution of foreign policy. Especially in the context of an explicit threat of retaliation on your own soil.

Taking deliberate, escalatory actions that will bring us to the brink of war is something the US Congress should be talking about. The Congress did not vote for war, or to invite war to our soil.

[Nelson]

It's an impotent threat. Putin is 0-for-every one of his previous threats. You want everyone to pretend it's a serious threat. It isn't.

[David Nieporent]

Trump was using a threat to drop out of NATO as a lever to get NATO countries to start living up to their own obligations under the treaty. That’s all that was going on.

Both halves of that claim are false.

1) Trump wants to pull out of NATO. He was using a threat to drop out of NATO to establish a basis to pull out of NATO.

2) There are no such "obligations." That's something Trump just fabricated.

[Martinned2]

The states…c’mon man.

For the record, it's not obvious to me why Massachusetts and California should sacrifice lives to protect, say, the Aleutians. The case for defending NATO allies is certainly stronger than the case for defending an empty chunk of Alaska with no oil in it.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Hawaii was just a territory in 1941, and the Japanese didn't think that the US would go to war over it.
Hitler didn't think the West would go to war over Poland.
Stalin didn't think the US would go to war over South Korea.

Should we have???

[Kazinski]

The Japanese weren't trying to sieze Hawaii, they just wanted to destroy our fleet, which they thought would knock us out of the war on the first day.

[Mr. Bumble]

Luckily for us.
Among their many mistakes was thinking that disabling our fleet would allow them to secure dominance in China and Southeast Asia. What they failed to do was destroy the fuel reserves on Hawaii (the planned second wave that they abandoned) which would have really crippled the fleet including the aircraft carriers that were at sea.

[Sarcastr0]

I’ve had this take shared with me, via Scott Ritter.

[Commenter_XY]

Fine...Make the case that UKR is worth a single American life. I don't think you're capable, personally, of making an effective argument for it. Impress me.

[Sarcastr0]

I and others have to you on Thursday.

You are rolling an isolationism that will cost American lives in the long run.

And kowtowing to threats from someone who you seem to think is super tough.
Scared America, muscular Russia. That’s not reality.

Don’t listen to Scott Ritter he is paid by Russia to put forth false analysis and lie to you.

[Commenter_XY]

I remain supremely unimpressed by the logic of your argument. I cannot say I am surprised.

No vague nostrums to being the Arsenal of Democracy? No case for falling dominos? No strident appeal to national security? No defense of a 'rules based, world order'?

Are you even capable of making a rational argument for sacrificing American lives for UKR?

[Sarcastr0]

What the fuck is this shameful slop, Commenter?

You’re ignoring my list from Thursday, and put out a passel of strawmen arguments no one has made.

You’re not interested in discussion.

DMN put it quite well when he noted that you would accept none of these arguments if they were about Israel.

[Commenter_XY]

It is as I said: You don't have the intellectual chops to make the case.

There is a qualitative difference between having bilateral relations with a country, and being an ally of a country. That is the difference between UKR and ISR. Additionally, Americans were killed in ISR by Judeocidal terrorists and taken hostage. Americans have died, there is skin in the game, as it were. It was an ill-considered analogy by someone who knows better.

[Sarcastr0]

You made up a bunch of arguments you wish I’d made, and then said I was too dumb to understand. That is not really doing a great job burnishing your credentials as a critical thinker.

Here is what I said Thursday: https://reason.com/volokh/2024/09/12/thursday-open-thread-208/?comments=true#comment-10723115

As Nelson is pointing out your whole argument is based on a false premise, whose falsity many people have pointed out to you today and Thursday.

Again, your thesis echoes very strongly Scott Ritter, who is a disgrace and cannot be trusted.

And also again, your double standard as compared to the vital interests of the US re: Israel is also notable.

[Commenter_XY]

Combatting Russian imperialism is vital to US interest.
Projecting our power by not shrinking before saber rattling is vital to US interest.
Setting a global norm by defending the freedom of Ukraine is vital to US interest.

That was your argument.

When you grow up, and start demonstrating some critical thinking skills, come back and try again.

[Sarcastr0]

It's three arguments as to why preventing Russia from taking over Ukraine is in the US interest. (This is the benefit side - as Nelson has ably pointed out your cost side is based on a false premise)

You have addressed none of the three. You, as I noted above, seem to have no actual interest in arguing, just declaring you're extremely correct over and over again.

[Commenter_XY]

When you use the phrase, 'vital to US interest' you perfectly illustrate my point. That is a meaningless, throwaway phrase. Can you define that?

You simply do not have the chops to make the case. Not in reality, and not even hypothetically.

[Sarcastr0]

You seem to be dodging actually addressing my arguments by taking refuge in semantic quibbling.

As I noted above, you’re making a cost-benefit argument, I’m making a cost/benefit argument as well. These are on the benefit side.

Vital or important or useful or whatever phrase you choose, address the arguments.

You simply do not have the chops to make the case
You keep saying I don’t have the chops. In what world am I less sophisticated on foreign policy than your stenography for Putin?

Look at the tone you've taken all across this thread you made 'are you even capable' 'you don't have the chops' 'No one had the chops to argue' 'I don’t think you’re capable, personally.'

What a dicksh way to engage. Almost as though you don't want to engage, you just want to be a dick.

[Nelson]

"Are you even capable of making a rational argument for sacrificing American lives for UKR?"

No one has said American lives should be sacrificed in Ukraine. Not one.

Pointing out that impotent threats from Putin are worthy of nothing but a yawn isn't advocating for US deaths.

It isn't a binary choice between abandoning Ukraine or American deaths. That's idiocy.

[Nelson]

"Fine…Make the case that UKR is worth a single American life."

No one here has said it is. Last week, not a single person took that position.

We should give Ukraine arms and support. I personally believe we should take the restrictions off the weapons we already give them and add unrestricted use of more weapons, like anti-ship missiles. Let them lose a few capital ships in Crimea and see how the climate for Putin worsens at home.

Russia, as long as Putin is leader, is a force for evil in the world. Giving modern weapons to a highly motivated ally to defend themselves from evil is a no-brainer. We should give more.

[Commenter_XY]

N, you are at least starting to make the outline of a case = Russia, as long as Putin is leader, is a force for evil in the world. Giving modern weapons to a highly motivated ally to defend themselves from evil is a no-brainer. We should give more.

So your argument is: It is worth sacrificing American lives for another country we have bilateral relations with when they are fighting a force for evil in the world.

Is that a fair restatement, N?

FTR....UKR is not an ally. We have NO treaty with UKR, ratified by the US Senate.

[Brett Bellmore]

Essentially every freaking thing the government does involves sacrificing American lives. The government's very footsteps are soaked in blood, people wouldn't even pay taxes if refusing didn't eventually get you shot.

EVERYTHING government does is grounded in the threat of violence, and the threat only carries weight because it gets executed sometimes. It's called law enFORCEment for a reason, you know.

So, is it useful to support Ukraine in opposing Russia? Yeah, pretty useful, it means not having to support Poland in opposing Russia. Is it worth American lives?

Gee, I don't know: Is banning gas stoves worth American lives? Is making sure I don't pick up a fallen eagle feather worth American lives? It's ALL got to be worth SOME number of American lives, or why would you have the government, soaked in blood, doing it?

[Commenter_XY]

Brett, the US currently has troops (and their heavy armor) deployed at Poland's border with Russia; we already support Poland (btw, a NATO member).

None can even make a coherent hypothetical policy case on why we ought to back UKR, even at the expense of American lives. They deny that the other guy (Putin) gets a vote.

Do you know what that is like? It is like the old Uncle Pompous who was once wealthy, and had the means to act pompously at the family party and tell everyone else why they should do things 'The Pompous Way'. But Uncle Pompous is no longer wealthy, is older and poorer, but still wants to tell everyone to do things 'The Pompous Way'. That is when the reckoning happens for Uncle Pompous. We know the story....Uncle Pompous suffers a very nasty fall.

You at least come out and say: It is totally worth fighting RUS down to the last UKR soldier, but not at a cost of American lives.

[Brett Bellmore]

I thought it was clear, but I'm not explicit enough: By wasting Russia's blood and treasure in Ukraine, we improve the chances of those troops deployed in Poland not having to fight.

Which fighting would... cost American lives!

So it logically follows that supporting Ukraine is worth SOME number of American lives. We can argue about how many, I suppose.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Thank you, Brett, for a cogent, logical analysis.

If Commenter can find two brain cells to rub together, he'll get it this 1,129,537th time that his premises are utterly flawed and take Putin's talking points as givens.

CommenterXY, you are (1) stupid, (2) a troll, or (3) a paid Putin propogandist. There is no other possibility.

Your intentional (unless 1) misunderstanding of Brett was pathetic. You have demonstrated either your utter inability to engage in logical reasoning or your utter lack of character. Frankly, I suspect the latter, but out of charity I will assume the former.

[Commenter_XY]

Here is a certainty: You are an asshole, NOVA Lawyer. Bye.

[Sarcastr0]

Commenter, you came in hot and got bodied again and again on this thread.

Because you refuse to engage, just high-handedly say 'not good enough' or strawman.

You have not covered yourself in glory on this outing.

[Bwaaah]

"CommenterXY, you are (1) stupid, (2) a troll, or (3) a paid Putin propogandist. There is no other possibility."

NOVA: You are (1) a nasty asshole filled with malicious hubris, (2) a nasty asshole filled with malicious hubris, or (3) a nasty asshole filled with malicious hubris. There is no other possibility.

If I sound like a nasty asshole filled with malicious hubris, for the purpose of the comment, I am.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Good riddance, CommenterXY. I haven't seen you be honest or make a good faith argument yet.

[NOVA Lawyer]

"If I sound like a nasty asshole filled with malicious hubris, for the purpose of the comment, I am."

Nope. You don't. You sound rather pathetic and flailing. You usually manage asshole, but fell short this time.

Funny, though, to see you, of all people, with sensitive feelings.

You still smarting from the spanking you took last Thursday when you had no analysis and didn't understand the term "saber rattling"?

You first have to sound like you know what you're talking about to come across with hubris. And your insults have to sting to really sound like an asshole. As CommenterXY might put it, "you haven't the chops."

Now run along like CommenterXY and spread your Putin propaganda somewhere else.

[Zarniwoop]

Nelson:

“Fine…Make the case that UKR is worth a single American life.”

No one here has said it is. Last week, not a single person took that position.

C_XY:

So your argument is: It is worth sacrificing American lives for another country we have bilateral relations with when they are fighting a force for evil in the world.

Is that a fair restatement, N?

Imma going with "laughably not a 'fair restatement'"

Seriously, who do you think you're arguing against?

[Nelson]

"So your argument is: It is worth sacrificing American lives for another country we have bilateral relations with when they are fighting a force for evil in the world.

Is that a fair restatement, N?"

No.

"FTR….UKR is not an ally. We have NO treaty with UKR, ratified by the US Senate."

FTR, having an ally and having a treaty are two very different things. We have allies who we don't have treaties with. We also have treaties with those who aren't our allies. They are two separate things.

And no, it doesn't require a treaty to be an ally.

You refuse to acknowledge that American lives aren't (and won't be) at stake in Ukraine. Putin's latest threat will have to get in line behind the dozens of other impotent threats he's issued over the years.

It just isn't credible to say that continuing to support Ukraine with weapons (and, potentially, removing the restrictions on the use of those weapons) has more than a 0% chance of leading to American deaths. It's like saying that continuing to support Ukraine will result in people getting stabbed with a Unicorn horn. It's fantasy.

[David Nieporent]

It just isn’t credible to say that continuing to support Ukraine with weapons (and, potentially, removing the restrictions on the use of those weapons) has more than a 0% chance of leading to American deaths. It’s like saying that continuing to support Ukraine will result in people getting stabbed with a Unicorn horn. It’s fantasy.

I don't think that's true at all. Of course there's a risk. There's always a non-zero risk of something bad happening. The problem is that he utterly ignores the risk of something bad happening if we take his approach.

[bernard11]

Just to butt in here, I don't think Sarcastro or anyone else can make an argument that will convince you until you specify what you think is worth an American life.

Otherwise we're going in circles here, or just arguing subjective values.

[Commenter_XY]

Additional point....Where is the US Congress? They are MIA.

When Congress voted for lethal aid to UKR, they did so under explicit agreements and understanding; there were strings attached. Those strings were in place to keep the risk of all out war lower, not higher.

The POTUS decides the conduct of foreign policy (but not this one, though - he is cognitively diminished); but in matters of war and peace, Congress gets a say. We have been credibly threatened with outright war by an adversary with the means to carry it out.

The US Congress should be talking about this, openly, to the American people.

Final point: We are in a situation similar to what we had prior to WWI, a century ago. Countries allied by interlocking treaties, divided into two great alliances opposed to each other. And a cognitively diminished POTUS. What an odd coincidence.

[Martinned2]

Isn't the Unitary Executive great?

[Brett Bellmore]

You do realize that all the unitary executive means is that the President gets to exercise all the lawful authority of the executive branch, not they EXTENT of that authority?

It's basically Truman's "The buck stops here". The buck can't stop at the President's desk if somebody else gets to call the shots.

[Martinned2]

I used it as shorthand for "Congress can't make laws to regulate how the President uses all that power, because reasons", as should have been obvious from the context.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The only difference is that WWI had been a full-fledged war for 3 years before we entered it.

[Nelson]

"I challenge anyone to make the case that UKR is worth American deaths. Make your case."

As was pointed out to you repeatedly, there is zero chance of American boots on the ground and Putin's threat is as valid as the dozens of other threats he's made since Russia went all Sudentenland and started a war wor specious reasons.

I know you want people to react to your bizarre and ignorant assertion that the Ukraine war will end up with US deaths, but it won't. Not directly, through casualties on the battlefield, and not indirectly, through any action of Putin.

Russia is impotent when it comes to the US. We will keep giving them arms and, if the war takes a turn for the worse, will slowly remove restrictions on their use of our weapons. Russia has barely held a stalemate when Ukraise is being hobbled by restrictions on arms usage by the West. If the restrictions are lifted and Ukraine is allowed to fight with no restrictions? Man, that'll be a shit-tom of dead Russians.

[Josh R]

I challenge anyone to make the case that UKR is worth American deaths. Make your case.

You continue to assume that permitting deeper strikes into Russia will result in American deaths (Russia will attack a NATO country) while dismissing the possibility that not permitting those strikes will result in American deaths (Russia wins the war and Putin later on attacks a NATO country).

The correct question is which choice will result in a lesser chance of American deaths. And again from the Monday discussion, I don’t trust your analysis given you would not have provided any support to Ukraine from day one of the invasion.

[Commenter_XY]

Try a thought experiment.

Pretend, hypothetically, retaliation will come to US and European soil from RUS because of the use of ATACAM and Storm Shadow missiles inside RUS.

Now make the hypothetical case it is worth American lives.

[Josh R]

If we knew with a 100% probability that deeper attacks in Russia will start WWIII, of course we would not approve of it. SFW? We don't know what will happen with or without deeper strikes. That's the whole point you keep ignoring.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Commenter XY,

Now you pretend, hypothetically, that if we stop supplying Ukraine and do not authorize use of ATACAM and Storm Shadow deeper inside Russia, then Russia will defeat Ukraine, consolidate, and then attack either Poland and/or the Baltic States and, moreover, China will see it as a sign of U.S./western weakness and will attack Taiwan all of which sparks World War III.

Now you make the case that it is worth sacrificing American (and European and Taiwanese and Japanese and South Korea, etc. etc.) lives over this Putin bluster.

The above scenario is no more far-fetched than yours. If you want to have a serious discussion, have one. If you want to keep pretending that authorizing Ukraine to use U.S./U.K. supplied missiles in Russia means committing U.S. lives, then you have to account for all of the U.S. lives you are risking by not authorizing their use.

I expect you are, in fact, just a Putin propagandist and have no actual interest in a good faith discussion. That, or you are an idiot sucked in by Putin’s propaganda and think the world is incredibly simple such that your oft-repeated, childish question is some sort of deep insight.

[Commenter_XY]

I don't propose to simply stop arming UKR. But suppose we did just pull the plug. Fair question.

The POTUS would need to pair that 'plug pulling' with a credible threat to defend NATO borders; every millimeter. We have stated that already, that we will defend every millimeter of NATO soil. And back it up with heavy armor troop deployments along the periphery of UKR, and RUS. We have done that already. RUS will not defeat NATO in a conventional battle; they know that, and so do we. Watch Moldova. That will tell you RUS intentions.

What did RUS 'win'? A bombed out country whose infrastructure is a mess, and experiencing a 'brain drain'. Along with being the second-most corrupt people in all of Europe (exceeded only by RUS itself). Oh, and Putin and crowd managed to kill 100K Russian citizens doing that. Not much of a victory. That effectively ties down RUS in europe. They got a booby prize with UKR.

Taiwan. China will invade, and likely win (meaning occupy Taiwan) in a conventional war, regardless of UKR outcome. America projecting weakness worldwide with Harris and Biden in charge make this outcome more, not less likely. Robert O'Brien (former NatSec Adv) told Taiwan back in 2019, "Become like a porcupine". That has not happened. Taiwan is ~100mi from China...pretty close. Taiwan is thousands of miles away from US...a pretty long logistical supply chain.

What also has actually happened under Harris/Biden is China has significantly increased grey zone activities against the Philippines, who are an ally to America by treaty (ratified by US Senate). We are obligated to respond if Philippines are attacked, and have stated so, explicitly.

I don't have a perfect answer on Taiwan, NOVA. I would love to say we will win, with certainty. I can't say that....the correlation of forces is too adverse in the extreme, against us.

[Josh R]

We have stated that already, that we will defend every millimeter of NATO soil.

Why does that policy keep Putin from attacking a NATO country after he takes over Ukraine, but not keep him from attacking a NATO country after we permit deeper strikes in Russia?

[David Nieporent]

That's not a thought experiment. That's a "Pretend I'm right. Then wouldn't you agree with me?"

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Look who's back with his usual litany of lies, ignorance and prejudice to pretend like anyone is going to convince him that Ukraine is important!

Your entire opinion of Ukraine starts and ends with their actions 80 years ago in WWII. Believing that you have the ability to understand any of the situation properly is like believing a rat can understand the benefits of space exploration. You're disingenuous and dumb. Nobody should waste their time on you.

[NOVA Lawyer]

This.

[BrotherMovesOn]

Cubed.

[Nelson]

"I challenge anyone to make the case that UKR is worth American deaths. Make your case."

There is zero chance of any Americans dying for Ukraine. We aren't going in with troops and Putin isn't going to do anything. He can't even handle Ukraine, he certainly doesn't want the tiniest piece of NATO or the US.

I don't know why you are so obsessed with pretending anything other than the status quo will happen until either Ukraine wins or Russia wins.

If Russia wins, we'll just move on to arming the guerrilla war against Russia. In no scenario will any American life be in danger.

[Martinned2]

Canada is following the UK example. (Although I'm not sure the legal framework is the same.) In military terms none of this matters as long as the US is still supplying Israel, but politically it is of course significant.

Canadian-made weapons will be prohibited from reaching the Gaza Strip, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said Tuesday.
(...)
"We will not have any form of arms or parts of arms be sent to Gaza, period," Joly said.

"How they're being sent and where they're being sent is irrelevant."

As part of a recent proposed arms sale to Israel, the U.S. State Department has approved the purchase of 50,000 high-explosive mortar cartridges with fuses made in Quebec. It pegs the sale at a maximum cost of US$61.1 million, roughly C$83 million, with deliveries estimated to begin in 2026.

A notice posted by the U.S. on Aug. 13 lists the "principal contractor" as General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems Inc., based in the town of Repentigny, east of Montreal.

The company would not specify what role it has in the sale, nor respond to the claim that this goes against the government's aim to restrict new arms sales to Israel. The firm has instead referred questions to the U.S. military, which acknowledged a request but did not respond by deadline.

In March, the Liberals joined the NDP to pass a motion to stop authorizing arms exports to Israel, though permits approved in prior months are still active.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/melanie-joly-canada-arms-israel-gaza-1.7319112

[Dr. Ed 2]

This could get interesting if the US wanted to play hardball as the Canadian company is merely a subcontractor supplying ordinance to the US, which can then do whatever it wants to with it.

Personally, I'd tell General Dynamics to close that PdQ factory and move the jobs to the US. And then I'd double the import duty on forest products and toilet paper to make my point.

[Martinned2]

the Canadian company is merely a subcontractor supplying ordinance to the US, which can then do whatever it wants to with it.

That's not how contracts (or licenses) for the supply of military equipment work.

[Nelson]

Dr. Ed built his argument on something untrue? Shocking.

[John F. Carr]

There are contracts that work like that, for example the Swiss-made equipment that Germany was not allowed to re-export.

Canada has a special place in U.S. military procurement law, being exempt from some "buy American" rules. I don't think the U.S. government would grant that privilege if Canada could veto use of purchased equipment.

[Martinned2]

It's a point of negotiation. The US government doesn't have to grant that "privilege", and Canada doesn't have to sell it weapons. Lord knows you guys have plenty of weapons already.

[Frank Drackman]

What are the odds Pooty-Poot(that was "W"'s nickname for Putin, how come nobody said W was "Putin's Puppet"?) deploys a Hydrogen Bomb in You-Crane? They could drop it on Chernobyl and blame it on left over Plutonium.

[Krayt]

"For he was so concerned, he so loved his Ukrainian kin, he nuked them."

Great line to be remembered by, by history.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Actually no.

First, Plutonium has a chemical "fingerprint" that somehow enables one to trace it -- remember that not all of the Plutonium splits so it is somehow possible to get traces of it afterwards -- AND that the yield of a Hydrogen bomb is multiples of the fission bomb that sets it off, that's why they are called "thermonuclear" bombs.

Third, and most important, left over Plutonium won't explode. As fission starts, a great amount of heat is created and that naturally pushes the plutonium away from itself, thus preventing the neutrons from continuing to exponentially split more atoms and creating an explosion.

The bomb works by inertia, there is an explosive blanket around the Plutonium sphere, it is crushed quick enough to not have time to expand outward until it is all detonating, and even then you don't have all the Plutonium splitting.

That's why Chernobyl didn't blow up -- it instead blew OUT and spread the radiation everywhere. No one would be fooled.

[Brett Bellmore]

While a "squib" reaction is small compared to a conventional bomb, and is a terribly inefficient use of fissile material, it's still a pretty big explosion.

[SRG2]

Plutonium doesn't detonate.

[Sarcastr0]

IIRC it’d turn into an uncontrolled nuclear pile and melt down.
(I haven't seen the OP so I could be wrong about the context)

[Brett Bellmore]

It certainly can. It just doesn't do so spontaneously.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Plutonium doesn’t detonate.

News to Nagasaki.

Perhaps more to the point, U.S. fission bomb designer Theodore Taylor told author John McPhee that plutonium stolen from commercial nuclear waste—which emits neutrons at too high a rate to make an efficient fission bomb practical—would be an imposing source to enable creation of a fizzle bomb with a sub-kiloton yield—a yield nevertheless powerful enough to destroy, for instance, the World Trade Center (which had yet to be destroyed at the time of the conversation). Taylor added that the high neutron emission rate would obviate need to solve the engineering problem of designing a fission initiator—which remains one of the most closely guarded secrets in bomb design.

[SRG2]

Nuclear fission is not a detonation.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Yeah, I get it. But I'm pretty sure the term, "nuclear detonation," is a thing. Maybe more to the point, isn't a chemical detonation still the usual way to initiate an uncontrolled fission chain reaction?

[Don Nico]

Stephen,
A high-order chemical detonation is necessary to compress the fissile material fast enough that it can reach criticality before the first neutrons are introduced into the core.

The nature of the neutron initiators is by now well known.

As a technical point I'm uncertain of how high a burn-up of the the reactor fuel would make it unlikely that the chemical explosives could actually make a critical mass before spontaneous fission caused a disassembly of the device.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Nico — As to your last point, Taylor's explanation was that the longer uranium cooks in a reactor, the higher will be the ratio of Pu 240 to Pu 239 in the spent fuel. If I understand this correctly, Pu 239 is suitable bomb material because its spontaneous emissions of neutrons are infrequent enough that implosion can assemble the critical mass efficiently, before the spontaneous neutrons get a chance to trigger it prematurely and deliver a fizzle. By contrast, use of Pu 240 emits spontaneous neutrons at a rate too high to permit assembling an efficient critical mass, and thus delivers only premature fizzle-type explosions. But with the advantage that the spontaneous neutrons do the work of an initiator to get things going. So if all a terrorist bomb designer needs is an explosion as energetic as a few hundred tons of TNT, then a fizzle bomb made from spent reactor fuel can be a plausible way to go. With the huge advantage that enormous numbers of critical masses of that kind of material are sitting around lightly guarded at nuclear power reactor sites around the world.

As for "the nature of neutron initiators," my guess is that whatever is publicly known on that subject is likely misleading on purpose. Apparently, subtle differences in initiator designs are among the methods weapons designers use to control the power and character of the resulting explosions. I doubt they publish that stuff, except maybe to each other.

[Brett Bellmore]

I suppose in the technical sense that it's going on through the entire bomb at once, rather than propagating, yeah. No "detonation wave".

Seems a rather technical point to be so insistent about.

[Frank Drackman]

correct it starts the chain reaction so that the Deuterium can fuse, similar to what happens in the Sun.

[Brett Bellmore]

Actually, the Sun is mostly P-P fusion. You only get significant D-D fusion in very young stars, because Deuterium fuses so darned fast that it's all gone in an astronomical blink.

[Don Nico]

Although p+p reactions start the fusion chain, most of the Sun's energy comes for He-3 He-3 fusion

[Sarcastr0]

....For now.

[Mr. Bumble]

douche!

[Don Nico]

Ed,
That is not why Chernobyl did not "blow up."
Once the water moderator was lost, most of the neutrons escaped from the core and could cause an exponential increase of neutrons within the core. The 'blowing out" was a chemico-mechanical explosion of stream and hydrogen. And yes it did spread radioactive debris over a very wide area.

[Mr. Bumble]

I thought Chernobyl used graphite as a moderator.

[Frank Drackman]

Ok, this is an easy one, who agrees that this new NFL Kickoff rule is bullshit? Like the late great Jack Lambert (I know he's still alive, like Hannibal Lector) said, "Quarterbacks should wear dresses if they don't want to get tackled"

Frank

[Moderation4ever]

I have been bothered for a long time by the media back-channel reporting of stories. Cases where there no proof of a story so media reports that the story is circulating on the internet. This allows newspeople to bring out stories they want with no actual proof. They are not reporting the story but just the story's presence. Now we have the Republican VP candidate, JD Vance saying that he and his running mate are making up stories of pet eating to get the story reported. The media will not report the story because there is no proof so they just make up a story that fits the idea some people have about immigrants.

BTW - stories of immigrants eating dogs and cats have been around for longer than I have been around.

[Brett Bellmore]

" Now we have the Republican VP candidate, JD Vance saying that he and his running mate are making up stories of pet eating to get the story reported."

That's the sort of claim that really ought to involve a link to a direct quote, not paraphrase. Or was it really meant to be a self-referential example of the sort of thing the media are doing?

[ducksalad]

Asked if he knew the claims were false, Mr Vance said: “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/jd-vance-says-he-had-to-create-pet-eating-controversy-to-highlight-people-s-suffering/ar-AA1qCE1u?ocid=BingNewsSerp

[Brett Bellmore]

The follow up:

"When Dana Bash, the CNN interviewer, put it to Mr Vance that he had “just said you’re creating this story,” the senator clarified.

“I say that we’re creating a story, meaning we’re creating the American media focusing on it,” he said.

“I didn’t create 20,000 illegal migrants coming into Springfield thanks to Kamala Harris’s policies. Her policies did that.”

He added: “But yes we created the actual focus that allowed the American media to talk about this story.”"

I will concede that this could be read as an attempt to undo a damaging admission. And I'm glad to see no paraphrases here!

[ducksalad]

I read that third line as admitting he knowingly repeats the false part about the pets in order to call attention to the 20,000 migrants.

But even that part is a lie, because he tossed in the word "illegal". It simply isn't true that all 20,000 Haitians in Springfield crossed the border illegally.

[Brett Bellmore]

I kind of missed the part where he admitted that any of it was false.

[Sarcastr0]

“I say that we’re creating a story, meaning we’re creating the American media focusing on it,” he said.
“I didn’t create 20,000 illegal migrants coming into Springfield thanks to Kamala Harris’s policies. Her policies did that.”

You’re gonna do your hyper literal bullshit like Trump’s perfect phone call, but to most normal English speakers 'we're creating a story' is an admission.
Saying 'I didn't create' and then talking about something else that isn't the eating pets thing underscores this fact.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Are you also still insisting they are "illegal" immigrants, like you did last week?

I corrected you on it then, but you never responded because you're a bitch who runs off the moment the light of truth spoils your fun.

You'll perhaps miss the fact that JD Vance had no problem parroting that lie too.

[hobie]

Yep, for decades the hayseeds have been bringing up them Carribbean negroes eating pets, spreading disease, fucking chickens for the sake of Santeria.

However, I see that Catholicism is the new 'in' thing for the American redneck. Ah Catholicism! Where to begin. America's newest little Papist Vance may be in for a surprise

[not guilty]

J. D. Vance embraced Roman Catholicism at age 35.

I can understand cradle Catholics being unwilling to repudiate their upbringing. For a well-educated father of prepubescent children to associate voluntarily with RoCaMBLA, however, is sheer moral idiocy.

[Kazinski]

Well I posted a link to a video of Ohio migrants grilling cats above with a statement from the person who shot the video, interviews with neighbors that also saw the cat grilling.

Now I realize people are going to dispute it, until there is an on camera DNA test while the cat is directly on the grill, but it seems pretty indisputable to me.

[Commenter_XY]

It was indisputable. But don’t believe your lying eyes, ok? That is their argument, lmao.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Kazinski — One of the people disputing the story turns out to be its ostensible source. Sorry I don't have a link. It was Mrs. Lathrop's report to me of a news story she saw yesterday. If I recall Mrs. Lathrop, and she recalls the news, it was a confession of a hoax.

[Sarcastr0]

Repudiated by the original source, and JD Vance admitted it was a lie.

There have been bomb threats. Local schools are doing virtual classes.

This is absolutely echoes of the lies that fueled European antisemitism back in the day.
Commenter and Bored Lawyer should know better.

[Brett Bellmore]

Local schools do virtual classes at the drop of a hat. Frequently it's a performative way to say, "This is serious!" rather than a response to something BEING serious.

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, no big deal. Just a community being disrupted by a waive of bomb threats.

Demanding blood before it counts as serious is bad. But I fully expect you to continue to minimize in the eventuality that something awful does happen.

These are lies, Brett. Lies *meant* to inflame bigotry against a minority group.

The very fact that one of our political parties is happy to countenance that is bad. And given how much y'all embraced that hate I expect the GOP to get worse more openly willing to be openly bigoted before it gets better.

[David Nieporent]

These are lies, Brett. Lies *meant* to inflame bigotry against a minority group.

Yes. The same people who are pretending to be upset that Democratic rhetoric is leading to attempts to kill Trump are trying to get black people lynched in Springfield, Ohio.

[Brett Bellmore]

Speaking of lies, those bomb threats...

OH Gov. DeWine: Springfield Bomb Threats Were All Hoaxes Originating Overseas

"Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said:

These 33 separate bomb threats, each one of which has been responded to and each one of them found as a hoax. So 33 threats. 33 hoaxes. I want to make that very, very clear. None of these had any validity at all. We know that people are very, very concerned. We have taken some actions and in a moment I’ll let Andy Wilson go into more detail. But we’ve moved resources into Springfield. So I want to say to the parents in Springfield these hoaxes have all, these threats have all been hoaxes. None of them have panned out. We have people unfortunately overseas who are taking these actions. Some of them are coming from one particular country. We this is one more opportunity to mess with the United States and they’re continuing to do that. So we cannot let the bad guys win. Our schools must remain open."

[Sarcastr0]

Hoax bomb threats are still very bad Brett!

Bad people motivated by a racist lie.

[David Nieporent]

Yeah, I'm not sure what your point is. The threats happened; nobody lied about that. That there were no actual bombs is to be expected — I'm sure that a large majority of death threats and bomb threats one hears about are meant to terrify, while people who actually want to kill/blow stuff up don't actually warn their targets — and is good news, but doesn't change the fact that the threats were made.

[Brett Bellmore]

My point was that the bomb threats didn't originate domestically. Which makes the idea that domestic politics are causing them total nonsense.

Instead they seem to be, what's that term? Oh, yeah: Foreign election interference. An effort to make one side in the impending election look bad by creating the illusion that it's responsible for a spate of bomb threats.

[Sarcastr0]

1. "We have people unfortunately overseas who are taking these actions. Some of them are coming from one particular country" does NOT mean none of the threats were domestic.

2. These are *absolutely* caused by domestic politics. You're not getting 33 bomb threats in Springfield Ohio without the racist liefest.

3. No, it is not established the motive behind the threat is to make Trump look bad. You're making things up again.

[Sarcastr0]

Don't you say money is time is life? You are ignoring costly life-theft in Springfield!

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Tell me Brett, does the Klan do membership cards or numbers or something? How do you guys keep track of whom of you has which rank anymore?

[Life of Brian]

Repudiated by the original source, and JD Vance admitted it was a lie.

Nah and nah, under any plausible definitions of "repudiated" and "admitted."

There have been bomb threats.

Inconveniently, Mike DeWine explained today at a press conference that they've looked into each and every one of those bomb threats, and have determined they were all hoaxes and originated from overseas.

[David Nieporent]

Note that DeWine did not say that they all originated from overseas, and I'm not sure why you think that's "inconvenient" for Sarcastr0's point anyway.

[Kazinski]

Lathrop, you are talking about a different report, without video from Springfield.

This report has been verified by the person that posted it originally in August 2023.

Did you say you used to be a journalist?

[Mr. Bumble]

…and in immigration news from Europe:
Sweden offering “migrants” $34,000 to leave.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/13/world/europe/sweden-immigration-reform.html
...and in the Netherlands:
https://www.politico.eu/article/dutch-government-announces-strictest-asylum-policy-ever/

[Martinned2]

Yes, hysterics about immigration happens in other countries too.

[Mr. Bumble]

I thought that was confined to Eastern Europe.

[Martinned2]

In Denmark the immigration minister went to jail for going overboard making immigrants' lives miserable.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/13/danish-ex-minister-inger-stojberg-given-jail-sentence-for-separating-couples-seeking-asylum

[Mr. Bumble]

By the way, I forgot this one:
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2024/09/15/germany-s-toughening-on-immigration-sparks-tense-debate-in-europe_6726138_4.html

[Sarcastr0]

Are you appealing to the authority of Europe?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Drudge had an article the other day about how rich Americans are planning for massive tax increases if Heels Up wins. As long as we can get the Senate, we'll be OK because of the inevitable landslide in the 2026 Congressional elections and it will be like with Clinton.

Although it will be interesting to see what happens when she brings her abusive personnel management style into the White House.

[Krayt]

Drudge had an article the other day about how rich Americans are planning for massive tax increases if Heels Up wins. As long as we can get the Senate, we’ll be OK

…because we are rich, or because taxing the hell out of the rich is punishment for captialism, which brings us full tables and iPhones, is detrimental to the economy?

[Sarcastr0]

'we are rich'

Americans feeling they are all temporarily embarrassed billionaires is a big reason why our taxes are the way they are.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I don’t care who he sleeps with, but I consider David Brock no better than a prostitute.

He switched sides because he saw which side the big money was on, and Clarence Thomas isn’t doing anything that other Justices before him didn't also do. Who was it that was writing LBJ’s speeches while on the court?

But the Thomas haters here will like this: https://dnyuz.com/2024/09/16/first-he-went-after-anita-hill-now-hes-coming-for-clarence-thomas/

And I’d love to see someone write a book about David Brock.

And the Republicans have a gay problem — not that there aren’t gay Republicans but that the GAYS have subverted the GOP, destroyed CPAC and sought to impose a litmus test on the GOP.

[SRG2]

Yet curiously you don't actually say what Brock got wrong.

[David Nieporent]

"The gays have subverted the GOP," says Mr. I Don't Make Things Up.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Well the pro-life shitheads finally managed it: they were so pro life, their extreme antiabortion laws got a mother killed:

https://www.propublica.org/article/georgia-abortion-ban-amber-thurman-death

[Michael P]

That's a lot of firebreathing that buries the admission that they don't actually have any evidence at all that the law they're criticizing changed the care that Thurman got. They only have post hoc ergo propter hoc.

[LawTalkingGuy]

She needed a D&C. The maternal mortality committee was clear on that. The hospital had no policies or interpretations of the new law. They discussed it twice but kept delaying. They would have

Face it, these vague laws with draconian penalties made them hesitate to provide care. There are going to be more stories like this and the other near misses that have been already reported on. You can’t UM ACKSHUALLY your way out of this. Women know better. Doctors know better. No one wants to hear the latest spin from ghouls like you who can’t even get pregnant.

Also if you really truly believe this I dare you to tell this to this women’s family’s face. I fucking dare you. Film it and post it here.

[Michael P]

More firebreathing unattached to actual evidence, except you're proud to be evidence-free.

[LawTalkingGuy]

And you’re proud to be a bad person with bad morals.

[hobie]

Was just a black lady. Who cares?

[hobie]

From where I sit, I don't see a housing crisis. Here in the inner city Cleveland are thousands of unoccupied, cheap (maybe $20k-$50k), stylish (sometimes outright mansions) houses there for the taking. Same as in a lot of other Northeast cities such as Buffalo, Scranton, Erie, Columbus, Detroit. So what's the problem? Probably because the neighborhoods are full of black folk. I've seen the working-class white areas of Cleveland: small, crummy, overpriced bungalows. The wages of keeping white.

But there's good news hayseeds! There's no NIMBY here. No hillbilly-style animus to the 'other'. Both I and my black-ass neighbors would welcome all bigotted comers. And i must confess, from one end of the city to the other, Cleveland is a really great town. All of it

[ThePublius]

"How safe is Cleveland, OH?
The metropolitan area's violent crime rate was higher than the national rate in 2022. Its rate of property crime was higher than the national rate."

https://realestate.usnews.com/places/ohio/cleveland/crime

[Sarcastr0]

Answering an absolute question *your put forth* with a comparative response via a non-urbanized national average.

Truly, stats are not your calling.

[hobie]

Ah Fear. The great driver of the modern conservative

[Michael P]

From the link: “Cleveland has a higher crime rate than similarly sized metro areas.” Cleveland’s violent crime rate is more than three times that of Raleigh NC, almost six times that of Miami FL. Median household income is low, unemployment is over 12%. Overall rating: #141 in best places to live.

Your bad assumptions do not reflect reality, Gaslight0, and neither does the unhinged assertion that “Cleveland is a really great town. All of it”.

[ducksalad]

Everyone I know who’s been to Cleveland describes it as much nicer than they expected.

BTW, many of the people repeating something about a city having (say) a 50% higher murder rate couldn’t tell you within an order of magnitude what their actual chance of being killed is, either in their own “safe” city or in the supposedly dangerous one.

They don’t have a clue whether it’s 0.01% or 0.1%. But they claim to be terrified that it went up 0.01 to 0.015, or from 0.1 to 0.15, without knowing which it is.

[Commenter_XY]

Yeah, but the weather sucks, hobie. Now I've been to Cleveland and I have to tell you, it is eminently forgettable. And the winters? No thanks. I don't feel a strong need to shovel snow.

[ReaderY]

Rupert Murdoch is using corporate-law arguments to overthrow an “irrevocable” trust distributing his shares to his children. He seeks to strip 3 of them from having voting power in the Fox companies. The reason is that the three, who would become the voting majority after Murdoch’s death under the terms of the trust, would tend to make the editorial line of Fox News etc. more liberal. This, Murdoch argues, would be very bad for business. Fox News is known as a conservative company, that’s its brand, that’s what its audience expects. Since changing would not be in the shareholder’s interests, the 3 would be unfit to meet their fiduciary duty to advance the shareholders’ interest, and should be so declared and stripped of their voting rights.

An extraordinary position. It’s an obvious First Amendment problem for a judge to declare that espousing one political position is so much better for business that a corporation is required to espouse it as a matter of fiduciary duty to shareholders, to the point where opponents are deprived of the right to manage it. But even if the First Amendment wasn’t there, and it won’t be for many decisions to change the direction of a business, I would not have courts be in the business of umpiring decisions of this short.

Murdoch’s position assumes he knows the future. He assumes the current state of affairs, for example, will always continue. But how does he know that? He doesn’t really know for sure, for example, which political position will most likely enable this country to survive into the future. If there is no country, there is no corporation, and no corporate profits for shareholders.

Any farmer can increase this quarter’s profits by eating the seed corn. Any buggy whip maker can make more money this year by not changing the business and not worrying about the gradually increasing market share of the automobile.

One of American business’ biggest problems, biggest competitive weaknesses, is its tendency to focus on the very short term. But the idea that corporate law REQUIRES business to focus on the very short term, the idea that judges can step in and remove managers who think the time has come to rethink refocus the product line on grounds that keeping things as they is better for short-term profits — would completely destroy a key element of our capitalist system, that businesses and their managers have freedom to take risks and invest in change even when nobody else sees change coming.

Murdoch is alleging nothing remotely resembling incompetence or malfeasance. Even if this case didn’t present serious First Amendment issues, even if it were a more run-of-the-mill disagreemwnt, Murdoch merely has a simple disagreement with his children about which direction to take the company in. It’s a disagreement judges have absolutely no business interfering with.

There are absolutely no grounds to revoke the trust.

Murdoch has purported to believe that government intervention should be limited. Yet he has no problem calling on government to intervene in a matter it has absolutely no business intervening in, when it happens to suit his convenience.

[ReaderY]

Ome of the core purposes of the corporate form and its formalities, like other forms of governance, is to give participants in a shared enterprise an agreed-upon procedure to follow to resolve differences when they disagree. This is an ordinary business disagreement. It should be resolved in the ordinary business way, without the courts intervening.

Mr. Murdoch agreed to the current procedure when he got whetever benefits he got from creating an irrevocable trust as opposed to using a will to distribute his assets. He should be stuck paying the costs, like anyone else who makes a business decision he later regrets. That’s how genuinely free markets work, as distinct from oligopolies where government steps in to protect the powerful from their mistakes. Not to mention - and it’s especially worth pointing out here - to protect the prevailing ideology from change.

[Commenter_XY]

What state is this in? SD? NV?

[Krayt]

Someone asked Roger Ailes why he was in the business of pushing conservative news. He said he was in the business of earning money. The implication was there was money on the ground awaiting a news organization that didn’t end every other story with, “…and the problem is America.”

Given its success, while cynical, it was not wrong.

This story sounds like a simple screw up. Hope he has a good lawyer. But that goes without saying.

[Sarcastr0]

FOX News has become quite a bit more anti-American than like NPR or the WaPo.

Fox News makes money by damaging American civic life with lies and bullshit. That's their right, but it's also bad.

[ReaderY]

Murdoch’s position isn’t merely that it’s right. It’s that the law REQUIRES it of any media business that operates using a corporate form. Because, Murdoch argues, the law makes maximizing value for shareholders a corporation and its management’s sole duty except for following the law, the law makes reporting anything except the thing that will make the most money (so long as it’s legal to say it) a form of corporate malfeasance, a betrayal of duty to the shareholders. Under this position, the law essentiallg prohibits people who have countervailing senses of duty, such as a sense of duty to their country from being corporate managers. Only people who can be relied on to ruthlessly consider their corporation’s short-term profits aboving anything else are fit to manage corporations. Koombaya woosies who care about petty things like whether their country survives or not need not apply, and must and shall be removed by judges if any of them manages to sneak into the boardroom by oversight.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Reader Y — I take no position on the legal dispute. I do think you misinterpret Murdoch. He made his fortune as a publishing expert with an instinct for a sociologically durable-looking publishing niche which was being under-served. I guess Murdoch is betting that his business has brighter prospects continuing to occupy that niche, than it would have if it attempted to compete more broadly. If it really is a durable niche, then policy predictions about the future probably are not a big part of the problem.

[Krayt]

As for the issue, yes, companies have free speech, but as the SC pointed out in Citizens United, that doesn’t come from corporations being pseudo-people, but from the free speech rights of their owners, and The People take their rights with them wherever they go, including choosing to participate in congressional creations like corporations, and Congress may not strip rights as the price of entry.

So straying from the conservative-news-sells-and-how business model might be a fiduciary failpoint, still, such laws are just laws in the end, and cannot override the First Amendment.

If he wants to yoink back future control from (choose: future ingrates, or future socially responsible kids) I would think it would take another tack. Tact. Tack?

[Krayt]

Tack
Tact(ic) would also work.

So possibly would tack, pushed into the ass of the kids.

[Martinned2]

This whole case is fascinating to me. Starting with the idea that Rupert Murdoch has somehow created a will that he can't change during his lifetime.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's not a will, that's the problem.

It's an irrevocable trust.

It has tax advantages, but it has one pretty big disadvantage that Murdock is going to run headlong into: He's already surrendered his interest in Fox. It's not his company anymore.

I really like the legal principle he's appealing to, but the market in the US would look very different if the courts actually took fiduciary responsibility to stockholders even a tiny bit as seriously as Murdock is proposing. It basically gets blown away short of management making a pile of the corporate assets and setting them on literal fire.

[Commenter_XY]

The first thing is...it is a state, not federal matter = trust.

What are the laws of the state where the trust is filed? That is what controls, no? Some states do have provisions that soften 'irrevocable' (I know, I know) to something somewhat more malleable.

That is why the state matters. If it is SD or NV, this will be fun.

[ReaderY]

It’s a pretty standard tool of the wealthy. Key benefits are that the grantor can keep enjoying income from the assets while alive, and the structure bypasses the estate and hence avoids estate taxes upon death.

https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/irrevocabletrust.asp

[John F. Carr]

I live in an area with a lot of wealthy people and if you browse the assessor's map you find a lot of trusts instead of human beings as owners of real estate.

[M L]

Those trusts you are seeing won't be irrevocable trusts, though.

Putting your home in a trust is a pretty standard estate planning tool, not at all limited to the wealthy or to those with an estate large enough to worry about estate tax.

[Roger S]

Murdoch has been extraordinarily successful with his news and entertainment businesses. He could argue that he knows the business better than the judge or his children. He is probably right about that.

[Brett Bellmore]

He probably is, but he's probably also going to lose, because his business sense didn't extend to realizing his kids were going to run the business into the ground so that they could enjoy going to the right parties.

[Nelson]

Apparently in Australia, “irrevocable” means something different. Or he’s a rich guy who thinks the rules shouldn’t apply to him.

Hmm. I wonder which it is?

[apedad]

This Wednesday (9/18) is National Cheeseburger Day.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/national-cheeseburger-day-major-deals-fast-food-chains

Which reminds me of a Peter Griffin quote from "The Top Ten Things I, Peter Griffin, Would Like to Say to America" on The Late Show with David Letterman, February 23, 2006.

The List
10. If George Bush had Dick Cheney's first name his name would be Dick Bush, and I'll tell you I'd listen to a lot more of his speeches.
9. Did the Patriot Act take care of Mujibur and Sirajul?
8. Shouldn't Crystal Bernard be in 'Playboy' by now?...I mean we did our part and sat through seven seasons of Wings.
7. Laura Bush killed a guy.
6. This is the best moment in television since Mr. Belvedere sat on his own nuts and fainted.
5. Did you know Jim Belushi had a brother who was in TV, too?
4. Hey Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, we're all still waiting on that second Oscar-winning script.
3. I have always wanted to do this...Ladies and Gentleman, The Max Weinberg Seven.
2. If Jay Leno makes you laugh, chances are I don't care for you as a person.

And the Number One Thing I, Peter Griffin, Would Like to Say to America:

1. We should all buy more American made products which at last check are down to porn and cheeseburgers.

[John F. Carr]

Music, movies, microcode, and high-speed pizza delivery.

[Zarniwoop]

Nice Snow Crash call-out. Well played, sir, well played.

[Bored Lawyer]

Bill Barr, former AG, has a searing article about anti-semitism at Columbia:

Bill Barr: Mob Rule and Moral Bankruptcy at Columbia
Antisemitism isn’t borne of ignorance at my alma mater. Antisemitism is taught there

https://www.thefp.com/p/bill-barr-mob-rule-and-moral-bankruptcy-at-columbia

I cannot quote the whole article here, but here is one salient portion:

Antisemitism isn’t borne of ignorance at Columbia. Antisemitism is taught at Columbia. Discrimination—now reconceptualized as “intersectionality”—has become the ideological touchstone of the university. It is the subject of training programs, celebrated in academic centers, studied in labs, and baked into departmental mission statements. Under this theory, the world is divided into oppressor and victim classes based on racial, ethnic, and gender identity. And in this system of power and subordination, Jews are the ultimate oppressors. As one Columbia student leader put it, “white Jewish people are today and always have been the oppressors of all brown people.”

So the problem is not, as the report suggests, an “absence of clarity” about what constitutes antisemitism. It’s that antisemitism now lies at the ideological heart of the university, smuggled in through postmodern critical theory. It has been nurtured in faculty lounges and classrooms for decades. Now it is on public display for the entire world to see.

I fully expect the deniers and dissemblers (aka gaslighters) here to push back. Don't believe them. They are ideologically committed to defending this position, and avoid its political spillover.

[Roger S]

It is funny how the Democrat Party is completely dependent on support from both Jews and the intersectionality antisemites.

[Commenter_XY]

BL, I guess the big question is where do we go from here?

Some big donor alumni pulled their money; some did not
The Pres is gone (ok, she resigned);
The faculty is all-in on persecuting Jews.

Shining a light on it is good. What actually changes behavior?

[Bored Lawyer]

Now to segue from the deeply disturbing to the merely annoying.

My daughter visited a friend in Brooklyn on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend, and drove home late that night around 1:30 am. Late last week we received three speeding tickets she got on Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn. For those who do not know, Ocean Pkwy is a busy thoroughfare which runs across much of the borough and ends at two interstate highways at either end.

The tickets were for speeding in a school zone. This was around 1:45 a.m. on Monday, Labor Day. A bit of research revealed that until a few years ago, the law in NYC did not permit such tickets between 10 pm and 6 am, but the law was changed to allow such tickets 24/7.

To add insult — she received three tickets on the same Parkway timed within 7 minutes of each other — 1:43 am, 1:48 am and 1:50 am. Literally blocks from each other.

The whole thing is a dishonest scam — the notion that school children need protection in a school zone at 1:45 am (let alone on a legal holiday) defies logic, and that three cameras are set up within blocks of one another only proves that this is a money making operation, full stop. (The fine is $ 50 each, no points, so it’s designed that people won’t fight it.)

[Mr. Bumble]

So, will she fight them?

[Bored Lawyer]

I will try. The car is registered in my name and the tickets were issued in my name. I will object, but fully expect to lose.

[Commenter_XY]

Pay the fines, lesson learned. At least there are no points.

However......I think the violation does get reported to the insurance companies, and factored into next year's premium.

BL, please do not ask me how I know this. 🙁

[Mr. Bumble]

How could three tickets for the same offense within seven minutes be justified?

[Frank Drackman]

Hobie-Stank can probably back me up on this (no way I'd let Hobie within a mile of my "Back") but the N-words seem to favor the heavily tinted license plate covers where you can't even see their expired plate and then complain when they get pulled over. I've got a concept, pay your tag on time and obey the Traffic Laws (Yes, I did go 115mph just south of Arturas CA earlier this year, flat desert for hundreds of miles, seemed like the thing to do, but normally I'm my Nice-Jewish-Boy Self.)

Frank

[hobie]

Frankie 'wounded warrior' Drackman: America's neediest veteran. In Cleveland, traffic laws are non-existent. They no longer engage in pursuit. They no longer ticket for no insurance. Red lights are merely a suggestion (I have to make a near complete stop at green lights). Horrific accidents at the two major intersections near me happen weekly. AND, the thugs black out their windows and plates with no consequence. In Texas these people would be stomped. It's like the police have given up here. Other than that, great city

[Krayt]

Vote for politicians that outlaw robo-tickets. My state did so right away when this horrid proof of police-as-highway-robbers was born.

Also vote to outlaw “eye in the sky” while you’re at it. The opposite of Field of Dreams: if you don’t build it, they won't come -- it can’t be abused.

[ThePublius]

That's criminal. Like medieval chivalry - demanding a payment for passing through.

[SRG2]

These speeding cameras are all over the place in Brooklyn and Queen's. I've been done twice for speeding - same $50 fine, no points.

[Mr. Bumble]

Are these operated by the city of private contractors?

[John F. Carr]

Almost all camera enforcement in the United States is designed to be purely for revenue violation. Laws allowing camera enforcement are generally drafted to make it illegal to use cameras for safety. Government officials and camera companies know if somebody's insurance went up for breaking the law there would be hell to pay. In the past there have been exceptions in California and Arizona where camera tickets were treated as moving violations, meaning the driver had to be identified. I think the new speed camera law in California says cameras may only be used for revenue.

When cameras were approved in NYC the people who take Streetsblog seriously were cheering the death of their most hated foe, the driver. And then car owners got a dozen tickets and maybe didn't even pay them and what could the city do? Suspending registration for unpaid tickets is to scare people who drive Upstate. Nobody enforces paperwork offenses in New York any more. The cops got pulled off traffic duty when the cameras went up.

Somebody who watches the issue more closely than me told me the reduction in the city speed limit from 30 to 25 was needed to get more people above the 10 mph threshold to get a ticket. I.e. they really reduced the speed limit from 40 to 35, strictly enforced, to make sure midblock speeds were citable. A reduction to 20 mph is on the way.

[Mr. Bumble]

Time for James Bond revolving license plates?

[John F. Carr]

Truckers already do that to beat the ~$100 tolls they owe to enter New York City.

On avoiding tolls and speed cameras in smaller vehicles, see
https://www.fox5ny.com/news/toll-dodgers-illegally-altered-obscured-license-plates
https://www.npr.org/2023/09/24/1201383736/nyc-drivers-are-attaching-fake-license-plates-to-their-cars-to-evade-speeding-ca

[Nelson]

"Almost all camera enforcement in the United States is designed to be purely for revenue violation."

In my region (Mid-Atlantic), all speed cameras are preceeded by signs warning drivers that there are speed cameras ahead. Not the best strategy if they are supposedly only being used for revenue generation. But it does slow people down, which ... wait for it ... increases safety. Especially in work zones.

"Laws allowing camera enforcement are generally drafted to make it illegal to use cameras for safety."

Nonsense. You really think politicians make it illegal to use cameras fir safety? That's kinda nuts.

Cameras were specifically illegal in Delaware. They were made legal by a law that allowed them only for an I-95 construction area. The number of injuries and the number of speeders plummeted. They implemented it this way: they ran a speed study to show the problem, then signs were put up a short distance (maybe a mile) from, and also right before, the work zone. A couple weeks later the cameras were installed, but for the first week only warnings were mailed with the fine that would have been charged included. After that week, it went live.

I have a lead foot, so if there weren't all the warnings ahead of time I would have a lot of tickets. I have never gotten a camera-based speeding ticket. Ever. And there's a few permanent ones south of Delaware on the way to Baltimore and DC.

If they're only doing it to generate revenue, they really suck at it.

[John F. Carr]

Close to 20 years ago now Oregon passed a law saying school zones were in effect 24 hours per day. This was so obviously stupid that the law was repealed a few years later.

[Estragon]

I don’t think that’s entirely accurate; some school speed zones apply “when children are present” which can be anytime, see ORS 811.124

[John F. Carr]

The old law said they were 24x7.

[Estragon]

Yes, and now one flavor applies 24x7 if children are present

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Perhaps she could try not speeding.

[Noscitur a sociis]

For what it's worth, I've never heard of school zone speed limits that are in effect 24 hours a day, and I can't imagine why anyone (who hadn't gone through what Bored Lawyer is describing) would think that's how they work.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

He might mean that she was simply speeding in an area considered a school zone.

He might also mean that she ignored the flashing signs that indicate a slower speed temporarily. Out here, they activate during the morning and afternoons to reduce speed to 20mph. In that scenario, it is still not within her prerogative to decide that the traffic signs are invalid, or that they shouldn't be going off.

Either way, if she had followed the law she would not have received tickets.

[Noscitur a sociis]

If the school zone signs were flashing and 1:45 in the morning, I’d be prepared to modify my position.

[Estragon]

“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that's what I'm going to do."

The voltage guy in his various iterations must be so proud! The whole campaign is a giant trolling operation at this point.

[OtisAH]

A resident of Hawaii flew to Florida, went into a store — probably a gun store, possibly a Piggly Wiggly or a Waffle House — and purchased an AK-47, ammunition, and body armor. He then easily accessed Convicted Felon Trump’s Florida trash palace and set up along hole 6 or 7 in order to, apparently, attempt to assassinate the MAGA nominee for president.

It is unclear whether background checks and waiting periods could’ve possibly done anything to prevent this from getting so far. But we are certain that background checks and waiting periods, along with assault weapon bans, assault weapon accessory bans, and, probably, body armor bans are unconstitutional and against the original meaning of the second amendment.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

And that’s why all people that oppose the 2A must convert to Satanism. We must force the Supreme Court to protect Satanism in order to shine a light on the absurdity of the 2A!! And religion is so stupid that it is a good right to undermine.

[loki13]

Thoughts for today-

1. I am not going to go over it again in detail. But I am still deeply disturbed about the people who continue to propagate the lies about the Haitian community in Springfield. This is no better than repeating blood libel against Jews … knowing it is false, and claiming you are doing it for the lulz. Real people are affected and will get hurt by this. This type of thing has a long and very ugly history, and if you are part of it, you really need to reevaluate your life.

2. Aside to FSU fans… three weeks, and it just keeps getting better!

3. It’s the time of year when the market has Muscadine grapes. Look, if they were year round, I would probably not enjoy them. But boy, I do like ’em when they are in season!

4. I had watched the first three seasons of Barry a while ago, but didn’t get to the fourth season until this weekend. And … mixed feelings.

5. Finally watched The Killing of a Sacred Deer, by one of my favorite directors (Yorgos Lanthimos). It was … a lot. Which was to be expected. But I will give it this recommendation- if you like his films, watch it. If, on the other hand, you watched The Lobster and were like, “Wut?” give it a hard pass. Anyway, it still lingers.

[Roger S]

The Biden-Harris administration really did send 20,000 Haitians to Springfield Ohio, and the result has been bad in many ways. It is not a lie.

[loki13]

Since you seem to have forgotten what I already explained to you, I will say it again-

If you wish to have a serious discussion about immigration policy, that's fine. But I won't have one with someone who repeatedly spreads malicious and evil lies about specific groups that can, and will, lead to their harm.

And no, it is NEVER justification to say, "Well, I disagree with a policy, so it's totally okay to demonize this group with malicious falsehoods. Can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs!"

Because the eggs are innocent people - men, women, and children, who did nothing wrong, and are just working for a better life. You might think that they don't "deserve" to be here. Fine. Doesn't mean you get to make up stuff and incite violence against them.

You are not a person worth having a real conversation with. Just like I won't discuss foreign policy with someone citing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

[Roger S]

No, you are the one promoting moving Haitian migrants into Ohio, and causing all the troubles there. What is your justification? You have none. You are the one trying to demonize your political enemies.

[loki13]

You are lying again.

I did no such promotion. I have no opinion on the matter of immigration policy and why we have LEGAL (yes, legal) Haitian immigrants in Springfield, because I lack actual knowledge of it. And I have this habit of avoiding commenting on things that I don’t know about.

All I did was say that spreading knowingly false rumors about a group of people in order to incite hatred, and to continue to do so knowing the falsity and the harm it is causing, is evil.

That isn’t a partisan issue. Or it shouldn’t be. That you think common decency is a partisan issue says more about you than about politics.

[Roger S]

So you don't know anything about it, but somehow talking about it is just like the Protocols of the Elders.

Millions of migrants have come into the USA, causing huge harms in many ways. Anyone who criticizes it gets called a racist. That's all you have. Name-calling.

[Estragon]

“causing huge harms in many ways”

I believe this is what Scott Adams meant when he referred to the pet-eating story as “directionally correct” despite being admittedly false. It’s not surprising you see no problem here.

[loki13]

This is my last response to you, because you have shown what you are. So, bye.

But to be clear- you said I was "promoting moving Haitian migrants into Ohio," which is, of course, a lie. One of many you make. My response was to that specific statement. I have not commented on the particulars of the underlying issue because I don't happen to know much about it, and I am not going to pretend I am an expert by quickly googling. I do know that they are legal immigrants but I don't want to wade into a giant debate about that, because ... that doesn't matter. I mean, other than the fact that you were lying again.

I do know that the vicious and malicious statements are a lie, because I did look into that. And I find that to be reprehensible. Promoting lies that cause harm to people ... that's a bad act. Period. Actual people will be hurt by this. And there is no way you can justify the harm to these people who have done no wrong to you, and have done nothing to deserve this.

I would wish the same upon you so that you could experience that pain, except I am not that evil. But maybe just imagine you are a scared child right now, suffering for Roger's LULZ.

KTHXBYE!

[Sarcastr0]

I've seen no sources for the 20,000 number.

[Life of Brian]

Have you looked for any? It took all of about 10 seconds to unearth this Gray Lady article, which I presume still falls in the correct bucket of your truth-by-authority worldview: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/14/us/haitian-migrants-springfield-ohio.html

[Sarcastr0]

Thanks.

"How many Haitians live in Springfield? Estimates range between 12,000 and 20,000, according to city officials who have spoken with The Times."

[Mr. Bumble]

Sorry to read that you've suddenly become blind.

[David Nieporent]

The Biden-Harris administration really did send 20,000 Haitians to Springfield Ohio, and the result has been bad in many ways. It is not a lie.

Both parts of that are a lie. Nobody "sent" anyone to Springfield, and the Haitian migration to Springfield has not been bad — except, of course, from the perspective of people who don't want blacks around them.

[Mr. Bumble]

How the hell did they get there?
Could your community in Whitelandia absorb 20,000 new arrivals irrespective of race?

[David Nieporent]

Car? Bus? Train? Plane? Hitchhike? What do you mean, “How did they get there?” How does anyone move to a new town?

My community — which is not wherever you think it is — is not a dying deindustrialized community with large numbers of empty homes for people to move to, the way Springfield, Ohio was before the town started trying to recruit immigrants to settle there.

[Mr. Bumble]

Like I said, Whitelandia.
So 20,000 "refugees" all found there way to Springfield?

[Sarcastr0]

There were jobs there from a Dole Plant, and no local employees to fill them.

No need for federal action.

[Mr. Bumble]

Cite!
20,000 workers?

[Sarcastr0]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/14/neo-nazis-springfield-ohio-haitian-immigrants

[Mr. Bumble]

Great piece. No numbers and a quick deflection to neo Nazis.
Fail.

[Sarcastr0]

You asked for a cite for my comment. Which also has no numbers. I gave you a cite.

Sorry if it’s not a one stop shop or if it mentions who started the bullshit that the GOP has eagerly picked up on.

[Ed Grinberg]

How the hell did they get there?

https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/RadioDerb/2024-09-13.html#02

[Mr. Bumble]

That’s a long post which I don’t have time to read right now (but I will since it seems informative) but specifically where does it answer the question? Maybe rephrasing to; How did 29,000 Haitians wind up in Springfield, Ohio?

[David Nieporent]

If by "How?" you mean "Why?" then the answer is simple: there were large numbers of jobs there. Some Haitians found out about them, moved there, and then told friends and family about it. The same way clusters of members of particular ethnic groups routinely wind up somewhere.

[Mr. Bumble]

How? Why? There were not enough jobs to support 20,000.
The Dole operation Il Douche mentioned supposedly only employ about 900 people in total.

[Nelson]

"The Biden-Harris administration really did send 20,000 Haitians to Springfield Ohio, and the result has been bad in many ways. It is not a lie."

It is a lie. 12-15,000 legal Hatian immigrants have come to Springfield over the past three years, mostly on their own. But I guess if you accept that hunting geese without a license is the same thing as killing and eating pet cats and dogs, it's the same as Biden/Harris mumble-mumble-mumble.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Let's put aside loki13's points about morality, and let's stipulate that both of your claims are true. Let's even stipulate that Trump will do something to make it better.

Do you think Trump's decision to focus false claims about people's pets being eaten makes it more or less likely that he'll be in a position to do something about it?

[Bored Lawyer]

This is no better than repeating blood libel against Jews

The blood libel against Jews was that they kidnap Christian children, murder them, and use their blood for religious rituals. (Later this lie was repeated in the Muslim world).

The story about the Haitians is that they eat cats and birds, perhaps stolen pets.

I think one of these lies is worse than the other.

[loki13]

If you're trying to defend the finer points of demonizing small groups, you might be missing the point.

People in this country have a great love of their pets, and this idiocy has already caused fear and terror in the community.

[Bored Lawyer]

I am not defending anyone. I am critcizing your equation of two stories.

[Roger S]

His name-calling is how he demonizes people.

[Sarcastr0]

It’s the same badness, Bored. The fact that it’s pets not babies being stolen and eaten is quibbling about degree not kind – people care deeply about both and lies about either is pogrom shit.

Previously you’ve defended the factual accuracy of this canard. Have you recanted?

[Roger S]

There are credible reports from Springfield Ohio. It could be all a hoax, but I doubt it. I do not have any direct knowledge.

[David Nieporent]

There is not a single report from Springfield about a cat being stolen and eaten. Or just stolen. Or just eaten.

[Estragon]

“But the people on television say their dog was eaten by the people that went there.”

[Noscitur a sociis]

There are credible reports from Springfield Ohio.

Could you provide a link to the one you consider the most credible?

[Bored Lawyer]

One, as I stated on the other thread, it's a lie that I defended the accuracy of the reports. What I said is, I don't care. Yet you persist in your lies.

Second, if you think stealing and killing someone's pet and stealing and killing their child is "the same badness" then you truly are a sick, morally perverted person.

You have earned permanent muting by me.

Bye-bye!

[loki13]

I am not defending it; I am just not going to care.

And by not caring, I am going to comment about it, and make sure that the harm that it does is minimized. Because I don't care so hard I will make sure that I interject to defend it.

Okay than. I honestly didn't expect that from you. Think I need a break from your comments, until some time in the future when it's more law-like substance. See you after the election, maybe!

[Bored Lawyer]

You must have missed my comments. Point was, eating cats, ducks and geese is not a big deal. People around the world eat weird things. In fact, there are plenty of restaurants around the US that serve duck and goose.

[Roger S]

You are right, people around the world eat weird things. It is just a way of drawing attention to cultural differences. Trump could have mentioned Voodoo or many other things.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

While you keep pretending that the uproar is about culture and cuisine, rather than racist accusations that Haitians are stealing, murdering, and eating people's pets.

Decent people say that's horrible and inexcusable to spread racist, xenophobic lies like that. You've had almost a week and all you do is change the subject and then defend the strawman, completely glossing over the harm that is occurring because of people exactly like you.

Emperor BL has new clothes, and they're a white, hooded robe.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Point was, eating cats, ducks and geese is not a big deal.

Maybe you don't think it's a big deal. But I'm pretty sure Trump does!

[Sarcastr0]

https://reason.com/volokh/2024/09/12/thursday-open-thread-208/?comments=true#comment-10721483

Bored Lawyer 4 days ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
Colorado governor Jared Polis and local progressives have tried to downplay the chaos and violence that’s descended on Aurora, pushing back on Mayor Mike Coffman’s claim that the CBZ apartments have been “taken over” by gangs. But, according to Cindy Romero, who used to live at the Edge apartments, that’s exactly what’s happened.

“They want to say there’s no takeover. I don’t know what your definition of ‘takeover’ is, but there were no managers, no owners, the housekeepers were being harassed, and these guys changed the locks to the outside of buildings.”

“I saw them breaking down doors and taking pictures, then showing the apartments to different families like they were real-estate agents.”

“They had their own electricians, locksmiths, and plumbers, and they cooked in my building for like 50 people like six days a week. They partied all night until breakfast then went to bed. They carried guns and terrorized every lease holder until they moved. I was the last [lease holder] in my building.”

“That’s a takeover.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/poorly-managed-aurora-apartments-offered-easy-target-for-nonprofit-driven-migrant-takeover/

Sorry, your gaslighting and racism-calling does not impress.”

[Mr. Bumble]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/us-border-crisis/article-13852629/Documents-Aurora-Colorado-Tren-Aragua-gang-complete-control-apartments.html

[Sarcastr0]

"EXCLUSIVE Bombshell documents reveal Aurora, Colorado officials admitted Tren de Aragua gang had 'complete control' of apartments despite public denials"

Daily Mail wants me to stop blocking adds to see what their EXCLUSIVE Bombshell documents entail.

[Brett Bellmore]

Wow, you weren't even trying. The ads aren't THAT bad. The evidence is pretty nasty, though

Try this hotlink to page 1 of the evidence.

Page two.

[David Nieporent]

Owners claim: Venezuelan gangs have taken over these buildings.

Rebuttal: Actually, no. The owners are slumlords who are using this claim to escape liability for their slum lording. Indeed, the police, mayor, and governor all say that the gang claim is untrue.

Dumb GOPers: But I found the documents where the slumlords made these claims! This proves those claims are true!

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm not seeing any reason to credit your denial over the owners' claims.

[Sarcastr0]

Owners have an incentive to lie. And seem like the kind to do so,

You jumping to government coverup is unsurprising but dumb.

[David Nieporent]

I’m not seeing any reason to credit your denial over the owners’ claims.

You mean, other than the fact that the governor, mayor, and police chief all called those claims lies?

[Sarcastr0]

The above appears to be you pushing the lie.

Also you:

“And I know what gaslighting means. It has undergone a linguistic shift to mean argument by misdirection and misleading.

Language changes over time. Deal with it.”

I don't think that there has been a shift.

[Estragon]

“People in this country have a great love of their pets,”

Well, most people anyways…

“I hated that dog”

-Gov. Noem

[Nelson]

Non-sociopaths have great love for their pets.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The demonization of Haitians is a time to step up and defend what should be basic American values. It also is a moment to have a serious conversation about the tragic state of Haiti in recent years.

It should be simply disqualifying what Trump/Vance is doing.

As to sports, I'm a Mets fan. Thanks to the Dodgers for last night, but painful two days all the same.

[loki13]

As for sports, I hope that all of us can come together with something that cannot be argued.

The Yankees suck.

[Commenter_XY]

Wait a minute.....that is a very low blow = The Yankees suck.

[loki13]

In fairness, the Yankees both suck, and blow.

(apologies to Spaceballs)

[Commenter_XY]

Such abuse and invective....for the first place team in the AL East (+3) with 13 games to go. 😉

I can't say anything bad about the Orioles. They are a decent team. Just bad luck to be playing in Baltimore, the sewer by the sea (Oooops, heh heh).

[loki13]

"Such abuse and invective….for the first place team in the AL East (+3) with 13 games to go."

I think good-natured and performative "hate" (trash talk, etc.) can be fun and entertaining! I will never stop mentioning that the Yankees suck, and that FSU is 0-3, and they spent over a million dollars to bring in the last team to beat them (MONEY WELL SPENT!).

But I make sure to remember that this is in fun; I worry about people that can't maintain the difference between "fun" and those who actually, you know, hate.

[David Nieporent]

The Yankees are _evil._ They also suck.

[BrotherMovesOn]

The Yankees also steal and eat pets on road games.

[Nelson]

LOL!

[Commenter_XY]

N....All of those terrible things David and BMO said upthread about the Yankees might - and I emphasize might - be true. I don't deny that.

But at least they aren't the Mets.

[David Nieporent]

See, now if Trump/Vance had just stuck to that claim, I might be forced to support them.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Hopefully, the Guardians will go to the World Series.

I'm fine with the Orioles or Twins, basically, but not seeing it. Guardians have a real shot.

[Mr. Bumble]

You of course mean the Indians!

Long live Chief Wahoo!

[Estragon]

“Long live Chief Wahoo”

Wow, shockingly edgy. If mascot contrarianism isn’t the lamest cultural signifier out there— it’s damn close.

You remind me of the kids in undergrad who were still exercised, for some reason, that my alma mater ditched the Indian mascot back in the early 80’s. They also imagined themselves edgy when they would bust out “wah-hoo-wah scalp ‘em!” in the frat basements. Are you actually 19? Sad!

[Mr. Bumble]

Think I'll watch Major League tonight.

[Estragon]

It was indeed a painful weekend, especially in a certain persons lower back area… but can you imagine the looks on the Bravo’s faces when acuna the younger leads our heroes past those tomahawk-chopping morons while older brother looks on sourly? First, the nats who always seem to play tough this time of year.

[OtisAH]

In other news, the anonymous whistleblower who will blow the whistle all over ABCDEBATEgate, and who Marge Greene reported killed in an auto accident in some unknown locale, is now said to not be dead. Good news! The Nigerian actor from whom Marge receives all of her reports on this very real person who will very really blow the whistle all over ABCDEBATEgate is apparently in talks to release the name of the totally real whistleblower to GatewayPundit. This will almost certainly send shockwaves throughout the MAGA community.

[Martinned2]

This isn't so important from an international trade POV, because the WTO isn't nearly as influential as it was in the past, e.g. under Pascal Lamy, but it is an example of how the mere possibility of a second Trump administration is having all sorts of consequences:

World Trade Organization Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala announced Monday that she will seek a second term, accelerating the normal selection process in an apparent attempt to prevent former President Donald Trump from blocking her appointment if he becomes U.S. president again.
(...)
Okonjo-Iweala’s current term expires on Aug. 31, 2025. The selection process for the next WTO leader would normally have started on Dec. 1. However, waiting until then could have potentially given Trump the opportunity to block her reappointment before it becomes final since the next U.S. president will take office on Jan. 20. Trump’s top trade adviser, Robert Lighthizer, sought to block Okonjo-Iweala’s appointment in 2020, raising concerns that could happen again.
(...)
However, if any member objects, Ølberg will have to wait until Dec. 1 to start the considerations, since all decisions at the WTO require the consensus of all members.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

So they are trying to subvert the democratic process.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Do you support DeSantis’ AK-47 assault rifle ban???

[John F. Carr]

Confiscate all the AK-47s and hand out AK-74s in their place.

[Commenter_XY]

Thanks to Bored Lawyer and the suggestion to make gefilte fish baked, in a loaf, Commenter_XY has been playing in his kitchen for several months, and has run across a few wonderful recipes for baked gefilte fish.

Let me just say this. It is hard AF to get A&B loaves right now, and I live not so far from Lakewood. In the great debate about who makes the best loaf, for me it is A&B (savory). Ungar's is Ok. It is also 3 bucks cheaper than A&B.

https://www.kosher.com/recipe/sweet-gefilte-fish-with-caramelized-tomatoes-mushrooms-and-onions-497/

All I will say is that this recipe is stupendously simple and easy. And very healthy. And gentlemen, it is prostate-friendly - lots of lycopene in cooked tomato, mushrooms help too. The contrast of the tomato and mushroom is a real taste treat.

This can also get some 'heat' with some harissa on the side, or if you prefer, a siracha sauce.

Roughly 2.5 hours start to finish. The 'work' is halving grape tomato's and roughly chopping mushrooms (5 minutes, max). It is mostly baking time.

[hobie]

For 40 years I have studied the cooking of all peoples on earth, and I have come to the conclusion that there is nothing worse than Jewish (and by extension...Russian) food. That's not an ethnic dig, it's just fact. I mean, look at yourself, man. You're starting a dish with jarred fish turned into fish-loaf that has already had the shit cooked out of it in processing. Then you try to revive it by cooking it in aromatics for another blistering two hours. We no longer have to abide by biblical preservation techniques. We have fresh fish now

[Brett Bellmore]

I don't know, my sister gave me a book on British cooking, and I made the steak pie. Never opened it again. What an awful thing to do to perfectly good meat! (I actually LIKE bubble and squeak, and toad in the hole, by the way. British pub food is OK.)

[Sarcastr0]

British food has varied a lot in the past couple of centuries.

2 of the main culprits of bad British food is a pre-war desire adopt French cuisine as a sign of statues, and post-WW2 rationing culture taking a while to recede.

I found this podcast quite delightful. They do spend a long time talking about tea:
https://www.podbean.com/media/share/dir-jza2z-e2c19b3?utm_campaign=w_share_ep&utm_medium=dlink&utm_source=w_share

[ThePublius]

That's a shame. One of my fondest memories of my mother's cooking is a Scottish steak pie. She was an Irish woman, born in the Bronx. She made it with everyday ingredients. Even in the '60's it wasn't easy to get lamb kidney, so she have a steak and sausage pie, with Jones breakfast sausages, stew meat, and Gravy Master. Home made dough, which is easy. I recently replicated this, and it was awesome!

Next time I'm going to use short ribs for the beef part.

[ThePublius]

By the way, make extra dough. It's just flour, butter, and water. Let me know if you want a recipe. I love it.

[Commenter_XY]

Jar? Heresy! This is what you start with.
https://www.kroger.com/p/ungar-s-gefilte-fish/0008086822001

hobie, I know you have Kroger's nearby. Try it.

[Commenter_XY]

hobie, one other observation. Try some Israeli cuisine. It is nothing like you find on an American grocery shelf.

[Bored Lawyer]

Sounds like you are sampling bad Jewish food. A jar of gefilte fish is foul. Homemade gefilte fish can be delicious. My grandfather used to make it homemade for every Sabbath from fresh fish he would buy in the market. (In fact, he bought them live -- they had them in giant aquariums and would scoop them out on demand.)

[Archibald Tuttle]

I watched the recent hearings about Gov Andrew Cuomo’s May 25 2020 directive sending COVID patients to nursing homes, while the COVID facilities at the Javits Center and on the hospital ship Comfort had staff and facilities but very few patients.

How about a complaint to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hauge accusing Cuomo of genocide?

[Ska]

There are assholes here actually floating the idea of him running for mayor of NYC in 2025.

[ThePublius]

The only asshole floating the idea of him running for mayor is Andrew Cuomo!

"Cuomo weighs run for NYC mayor amid Adams’ woes"

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/21/cuomo-mayor-adams-00128380

[David Nieporent]

Um, there were no "COVID facilities on the hospital ship." The whole point of the hospital ship was to treat non-COVID patients to free up beds in hospitals for COVID patients.

Also, as anyone who paid attention at the time knows, your timeline is wrong. Cuomo's nursing home directive was March 25, 2020, not May 25, 2020, and there weren't any hospital ships or COVID treatment centers at Javits at the time.
​
​
Also, that's not what genocide means, but I figure if you're going to make up all your facts then you might as well make up definitions for words, too.

[Bwaaah]

I attempted to identify the last comment made by Rev. Arthur Kirkland. It appeared to have been on August 8, in a comment in response to a remark by Riva under Josh’s post, “Reconsidering United States v. Nixon“. The Rev’s last comment was thusly:

Great comment at a right-wing blog that has repeatedly imposed viewpoint-driven censorship on liberals and libertarians who criticized or made fun of conservatives — and bragged about it.

Carry on, clingers.

Interestingly, he made no posts to that day’s Thursday open thread.

I don’t mind remembering him that way, which is pretty much as I have always thought of him. If he returns unchanged, then death may remain his only opportunity to better his online presence.

And if he is indeed gone forever, I do wish everyone a commemorative “Carry on, clingers.”

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

That's more class than he probably deserved, but well said.

[Commenter_XY]

You know Bwaaah, why assume the worst? Perhaps Arthur has gone on an international vacay, and is now swilling white wine on the French Riviera and laughing at the premature eulogies here. Maybe Arthur 'unretired' and is busy working a big case. You just never know. It doesn't always have to be a 'bad' reason someone goes dark for a while.

But I also know that Arthur is not a young man.

[Mr. Bumble]

Maybe he finally pissed off the wrong person.

[loki13]

As someone who remembers Arthur Kirkland as a commenter before he turned completely to shtick (it was a long time ago), I am disturbed by this news.

I hope you are safe and happy, and just taking a long break from the VC. Which is what I would wish upon all the commenters here, even those I really disagree with.

None of us are as bad as we seem on-line. I hope.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I hope he’s not only alive, healthy and thriving, but doing and feeling *better* now that (as may be the case) he no longer feels impelled to post the sort of stuff he used to post.

[David Nieporent]

If the reason for his absence is something unfortunate, two sad observations:

1) That he spent so much of his final years on earth as a sad, bitter old troll.
2) That despite the vast amount of time he spent here and the large number of our collective interactions with him, none of us know who he was or have any idea what happened to him. His departure is identified by the fact that after a few weeks people start to say, "Hey, haven't seen that guy around lately."

I mostly enjoy debating and discussing with people here or I wouldn't do it so much, but it's just so ephemeral.

[Commenter_XY]

...but it’s just so ephemeral - This is the right time of year (Elul) to think about that.

[Bwaaah]

From time to time, he provided glimpses of the rest of Arthur. I think his Rolling Stones tributes have been a hint at that. More pointedly, I remember a post in which he described having successfully lifted himself out of a childhood that was worth escaping. Unmistakably, he seemed proud of himself and his accomplishments, and in some real measure, satisfied.

I developed a sense that one person who enjoyed the ethos of Rev. Arthur Kirkland was the Arthur himself. I think he enjoyed his condescension, and what appeared as a drone of anger may have been more of a meditation on victory. To further credit his outlook, he was of the belief that the world *has* changed, for the better, and that those who believe otherwise are the stragglers who haven’t adapted to progress. Arthur, ironically, seemed to have an unshakably positive view of the world.

I subscribe to loki13’s hopeful view that “none of us are as bad as we seem on-line.” The mere fact of the energetic efforts by many at criticism of what is and aspiration toward what should be suggests a belief, an optimism, that these efforts, here, are somehow worthwhile.

Hopefully Arthur is doing better than being here at VC. Still, there are many less hopeful places to be.

Ephemeral, indeed. All of it.

[Life of Brian]

Yes, I landed on the same post when I looked a couple of weeks ago, and also found it interesting he altogether forewent the same-day open thread (which had already been up for about 7 hours at the time of his post).

If he's no longer with us, hopefully he's experiencing somewhat more compassionate judgment by his true "betters" than he was able to muster here.

[hobie]

I've been enjoying his repetitive tenacity for over six years now. I find it the height of humor that he could hold (cling) to a single grudge as long as he did. It's amazing how some people occupy their time.

But he always championed the same vulnerable people that you rednecks denigrate. So his online life was well lived

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

He bootlicked the elites just like you do, hobie. “vulnerable” people my ass. If he could stitch his tongue to some George Soros type's decrepit, Nazi, wrinkly taint he’d have no need for his heaven. He’d already be there.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Hear, hear, hobie. A tribute, hopefully en vivo, worthy of Arthur.

[Mr. Bumble]

Big News:
Secret service holds press conference on second Trump assassination attempt along with various other agencies.
Say nothing.

[Sarcastr0]

```• The FBI received a tip in 2019 that Ryan Routh was a felon in possession of a firearm. The unverified tip was passed to local law enforcement in Honolulu.

• Ryan Routh hid outside the fenceline near the 6th green at Trump International. A USSS agent scanning the area spotted the rifle while Trump was on the 5th fairway. Routh did not have line of sight to former President Trump.

• The agent fired at the rifle. Routh fled the scene without firing his weapon.

• USSS evacuated the president to a secure location.

• USSS had the following protective assets in place Sunday: counter sniper, counter surveillance, counter assault teams, counter unmanned aerial teams.

• USSS did not send advance teams to sweep the golf course ahead of Trump’s arrival because Trump was not scheduled to be there. It was an off the record movement.

• Director Rowe spoke with Trump. Rowe said Trump is aware the USSS provides him the highest level of protection.

• The FBI does not have information that Routh had help from anyone else.

[ThePublius]

How did Routh know Trump would be playing there? Sounds fishy to me.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

How could anyone guess Trump would visit his golf course?!

Yeah, you're that dumb.

[NOVA Lawyer]

I mean, seriously. These people.

Trump playing golf at the Trump International Golf Club near Mar-a-Lago? Routh must have been a genius to figure that out.

[ThePublius]

No, you're dumb. Trump doesn't play golf every day. Routh sat there for 12 hours. Was he prepared to camp there for days?

[Sarcastr0]

Routh sat there for 12 hours. Was he prepared to camp there for days?
Why not?

But yeah, we should probably track gun sales better.

[ThePublius]

As far as I know he is a federally prohibited person, and no one knows where he got the gun, at this point. It all seems very fishy to me.

[Sarcastr0]

So you agree that we should track gun sales better. Prevent this kind of thing from happening again.

[Bwaaah]

So, no, he didn't say anything of the sort, and you are merely echoing yourself.

[Sarcastr0]

He's saying the system didn't work as it should have.

I don't see why he wouldn't want to fix that.

[ThePublius]

I don't think he bought it. I think it was supplied to him.

[Sarcastr0]

How does that change that we need to track guns better?

Even if we assume your conspiracy, the fact that the gun wasn't in the system would itself help back up your theory.
But at this point we have so porous a system that the gun's provenance being unclear is not strange at all.

[ThePublius]

Let's not loose sight of the fact that it's not the gun, or the availability of guns - it's the loose nut behind the trigger.

[Sarcastr0]

I agree. And I think there is an individual right to self defense.

And we also need better mental health infrastructure.

But nuts alone are not nearly as dangerous as when they get guns.

Like good detective work to solve a crime, if you want prevent or deter you should spend effort on both the person and the weapon.

[David Nieporent]

Trump doesn’t play golf every day.

But he plays golf virtually every weekend, and that's what this was.

[Sarcastr0]

Damn it DMN, this has gotta be fishy! They just can't have another tantalizing chance to condemn Dem rhetoric snatched away!

[ThePublius]

That's kind of silly. Trump plays at other courses, one of which he owns and is nearby. This was a last minute, unscheduled, i.e., "off the books" round of golf. How did Routh know?

[Sarcastr0]

I don't think it's established he knew.
Maybe he got lucky (odds are not low Trump'll be golfing).
Maybe he was there lots of other days because he has the patience of the insane.
Maybe he was in the area and spotted the motorcade or secret service rolling in.

[David Nieporent]

Maybe he was in the area and spotted the motorcade or secret service rolling in.

Well, it was reported that — based on tracking his phone — he hung out there overnight, waiting for 12 hours.

[David Nieporent]

Trump plays at other courses, one of which he owns and is nearby.

Um, this is the one he owns and is nearby. (10 minutes from Mar-a-Lago.) He owns two others in Florida, both of which are significantly farther away (30 min, 90 min.)

[ThePublius]

He plays at the others, too.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

So if you were Routh, you would've camped out at one of the golf courses further away?

You're that stupid that you can't even form a logical assumption? Yet we should buy into your evidence-free conspiratorial bullshit?

Lol.

[ThePublius]

It's not just me!

"Martin County Sheriff Speculates How Alleged Assassin Knew Trump’s Schedule: ‘Is This a Conspiracy? … Not an Easy Case to Unravel’"

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2024/09/16/martin-county-sheriff-speculates-how-alleged-assassin-knew-trumps-schedule-is-this-conspiracy-not-easy-case-unravel/

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Someone's on the new journolist.

[Nelson]

Here's a question that puzzles me: Why do conservatives want to kill Trump?

I don't think I'm alone in thinking, when the first assassination attempt happened, that it would end up being some liberal version of the paleocons that did it. Then it turned out to be a conservative, albeit a (possibly) mentally ill conservative (*pause for joke about redundancy from the liberals*).

Then when the second happened, I thought, "Alright, THIS one is a whackjob leftist". Again, I don't think I'm alone in that thought. Then it turned out that he, also, was a (possibly) mentally ill conservative.

So what is going on? Are former Trump voters just that angry and prone to violence? What gives?

[ThePublius]

That's the kookiest comment I've seen on here in a long time. What makes you think these two are conservatives??? Maybe the Biden bumper sticker on Routh's truck? Or that he encouraged Iran to kill Trump?

As to Crooks:

"So far, there has been no public disclosure the shooter left any writings, suicide note, social media screed or any other indicator explaining his reasons for targeting Trump. A law enforcement official briefed on the ongoing investigation told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity that Crooks’ phone had not immediately yielded any meaningful clues related to motive, or whether he acted alone or with others.

Crooks’ political leanings were also hazy. Crooks was registered as a Republican in Pennsylvania, but federal campaign finance reports also show he gave $15 to a progressive political action committee on Jan. 20, 2021, the day Democratic President Joe Biden was sworn into office."

So, you have somehow divined that the 20 year old who donated to a progressive PAC is a conservative? Sheesh!

[JoeFromtheBronx]

I'm reading the West Wing book ("What's Next").

A big part of the book is service. The two cast members behind the book are big on volunteering and service-related efforts.

For instance, Melissa Fitzgerald is involved with All Rise & Justice for Vets. https://allrise.org/why-all-rise/

Cheers for Ainsley Hayes.

[Martinned2]

Agreed! We should stop talking about people eating pets, and start talking about people healing them!

[Sarcastr0]

.