Thursday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[Mr. Bumble]

Welcome to another thrilling edition of Open Thread Thursday!

[Mr. Bumble]

Looking for a good deal on used pagers and walkie talkies?
Contact Hezbollah, Beirut, Lebanon.

[Kazinski]

Are they in good condition?

[Mr. Bumble]

About the same as their former owners. Maybe should include "for parts only" disclaimer.

[Randal]

Jokes aside, indiscriminately killing a bunch of Lebanese children with exploding electronics without provocation is rocketing Israel up the rankings of most evil country, easily cracking the top five:

1. North Korea
2. Iran
3. Russia
4. Israel
5. Syria
6. Venezuela
7. Belarus
8. Sudan
9. Afghanistan
10. Myanmar

Still, the competition for a medal is fierce. Russia's likely to hold on to the bronze until Putin taps out at least.

[Frank Drackman]

Maybe don’t murder thousands of Israelis, and BTW like Elon says, GFY

Frank

[Armchair]

Without provocation? Really?

[Sarcastr0]

I’m not super up on the story but the OP did specify children.

[Armchair]

Look who's back.

Sarcastr0: "Violence against Jews and Israel? What Violence against Jews and Israel? I don't see Hezbollah doing ANY of that. Maybe I'm just not not up to date on the story"

Whenever Jews and Israel come up...we know what side you'll choose.

[Sarcastr0]

Did anything here make you think I was defending Hezbollah?

I was pointing out that your reply wasn’t responsive. No more no less.

[Frank Drackman]

Only everything

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, it is sorta defending Hezbollah, when you pretend (As Randal does.) that an Israeli anti-Hezbollah action was targeting children.

I don't doubt that a few children got hurt in the process, maybe one or two killed, war is like that. Still seems better focused than Obama's drone strikes, perhaps because the individual explosions were so small.

[Sarcastr0]

I said: "I’m not super up on the story."
If Randal was wrong about the children, or if the facts aren't in yet and Randal is coming in too hot Armchair could have said that.
If Randal was right and Armchair want to argue this is acceptable collateral damage, as you are, that's another response.

He did none of those.

[Randal]

when you pretend (As Randal does.) that an Israeli anti-Hezbollah action was targeting children.

I very plainly said "indiscriminately killing" -- which is completely accurate -- not "targeting."

[SimonP]

And "war crimes" are kind of like exploding thousands of small devices held by non-combatants, without much consideration for where the targets might be at the time or what collateral damage might result.

For fuck's sake, Brett. Imagine you're doing your grocery shopping and the guy's pocket next to you explodes suddenly. He's hurt, you're unscathed. Are you going to just shrug your shoulders and blame Hezbollah for picking a fight with Israel? Or are you going to say, Hey Israel, you fuckwits, maybe don't indiscriminately attack a bunch of non-combatant members of Hezbollah in sovereign territory?

[Bob from Ohio]

"small devices held by non-combatants,"

Hezbollah members are not "non-combatants", they are members of an armed force engaged in warfare against Israel.

[David Nieporent]

For fuck’s sake, Brett. Imagine you’re doing your grocery shopping and the guy’s pocket next to you explodes suddenly. He’s hurt, you’re unscathed. Are you going to just shrug your shoulders and blame Hezbollah for picking a fight with Israel? Or are you going to say, Hey Israel, you fuckwits, maybe don’t indiscriminately attack a bunch of non-combatant members of Hezbollah in sovereign territory?

I think you meant "discriminately" and "terrorist," when you accidentally typed "indiscriminately" and "non-combatant."

[Kazinski]

But it wasn't indiscriminately killing children, in fact it was designed not too.

It only killed children, unintentionally, that just happened to be close enough to a Hezbollah operative that just a few grams of explosive that could be concealed in a pager would be fatal.

And what percentage of the thousands of pager explosions met that criteria?2/10's of a percentage certainly way less than 1%.

I'd say that's much better that a drone stike on an Afghan water seller based on faulty intelligence.

[SimonP]

Hezbollah members are not “non-combatants”, they are members of an armed force engaged in warfare against Israel.

I think you meant “discriminately” and “terrorist,” when you accidentally typed “indiscriminately” and “non-combatant.”

Bobbie and Chip - please take the time to educate yourself on what Hezbollah actually is.

Many of the people with pagers or walkie-talkies - perhaps all of them - were not actively engaged in any kind of military operation when they exploded. Indeed, many of them had no such role within Hezbollah, which is a large organization with both military wings and social services wings. Calling them all "terrorists" and "combatants" is a bit like calling every government employee of Iran a "terrorist" and "combatant."

Just because you might be engaged in a military conflict with the organization does not mean every single member of it is fair game - to say nothing of attacking those members in a manner deliberately designed to inspire terror within the community more generally. There is no justification for this kind of attack under the laws of war. The Israelis responsible for planning the attack and triggering it had no way of knowing who would be harmed by it (apart from some general assurance that only members of Hezbollah would receive the devices), and they did not care - because destroying identified military assets or degrading Hezbollah's ability to strike at Israel was not the primary point of the attack.

Just the other day, some cops chasing a fare-beater on the subway shot a bystander in the head. The NYPD is blaming the fare-beater (apparently he had a knife and was not subdued quickly enough by tasers) for the consequences resulting from their recklessness and casual indifference to the safety of bystanders. That's the kind of bullshit you're defending here - whether because you're ignorant of Middle Eastern politics, indifferent when brown-skinned people are injured or killed without justification, or just malignant sociopaths, I couldn't say.

[David Nieporent]

Simon, Fuck you. There is literally not one thing Israel can do that you don't condemn based on made up facts and made up doctrines. If they drop bombs, that's "indiscriminate." If they send in combat troops, that's "indiscriminate." If they precisely target a terrorist group, that's "indiscriminate." This was literally as targeted as it's possible to be, and you still can't accept it. It's clear that your real complaint is that Jews refuse to just roll over and die.

[Randal]

This was literally as targeted as it’s possible to be

Are you saying that non-combatants are legitimate targets as long as they're associated with / employed by the enemy? So like, Israeli postal workers and school teachers are legitimate targets for Hamas and Hezbollah?

[Nelson]

"Many of the people with pagers or walkie-talkies – perhaps all of them – were not actively engaged in any kind of military operation when they exploded"

They were, however, members of a terrorist group. That the weren't actively being terrorists at that particular moment is irrelevant.

"Calling them all “terrorists” and “combatants” is a bit like calling every government employee of Iran a “terrorist” and “combatant.”"

Hezbollah isn't a government. It's a terrorist organization. Which is why it's 100% accurate to call them terrorists. And much like the Army desk jocky counts as a combatant, the support personnel of a terrorist organization are fair game.

"Just because you might be engaged in a military conflict with the organization does not mean every single member of it is fair game"

Actually, it does. They are terrorists who kill civilians with rockets.

"to say nothing of attacking those members in a manner deliberately designed to inspire terror within the community more generally"

Karma's a bitch. If they weren't terrorists, they wouldn't need to worry about their pager exploding.

"There is no justification for this kind of attack under the laws of war."

I'm not a lawyer, but I believe to be protected by the laws of war you have to be a uniformed military. Terrorists don't count.

"The Israelis responsible for planning the attack and triggering it had no way of knowing who would be harmed by it (apart from some general assurance that only members of Hezbollah would receive the devices)"

Sort of like rocket attacks, except those are intentionally fired at civilians.

This was incredibly precise. More so than drone strikes or bombs or urban warfare. This is the least collateral damage while targeting an enemy I think I've ever heard about. Short of a sniper, this is as good as it gets.

Simon, you may have noticed that the paleocons here despise me with the white-hot passion of a thousand suns. Culturally, I am not a conservative. Trust me, this isn't some racist, anti-Arab/anti-Palestinian/anti-Muslim thing.

Israel has done many terrible things and cannot claim the moral high ground in much of their policies in the West Bank and Gaza. But killing terrorists is pure good. Hezbollah and Hamas are evil organizations comprised of cruel, remorseless, and heartless people who intentionally attack, rape, and kill civilians. They deserve no sorrow, no pity, and no quarter. The world is a slightly better place every time one of them dies.

And I say that as someone who believes that killing is almost never the best solution to a problem.

[Randal]

Nelson, you’re hiding behind the word “terrorist.” Hezbollah is very much like a government in that they provide civil services within Lebanon. If labelling them “terrorists” mean they’re all legit targets, even the civil servants, then I think the reverse is true and Israeli civil servants would be just as legitimate for Hamas and Hezbollah to target. Right?

After all, after this stunt I think it’s fair to classify Israel as a terrorist organization. Exploding pagers are the stuff of terrorism.

Imagine Israel had set thousands of Lebanese government employees’ pagers to explode. That would definitely count as a terrorist act. Your only argument to save Israel is that unlike the Lebanese government, Hezbollah is itself a terrorist organization. But I don’t think that works. It’s not whoever shouts “terrorist!” first gets a free pass to use terrorist tactics. If you use terrorist tactics you’re a terrorist, even if you’re using them against other terrorists.

[Commenter_XY]

Randal, suppose Israel were responsible for the attack. It is a perfectly legitimate attack on an enemy force in the context of a war. The question is proportionality. What are you kvetching about...the attack was too successful?

What makes this attack unique is the degree of success in directly targeting the terrorists, and sparing civilians.

[Randal]

You need to read the above thread XY. The point Simon raised is that Hezbollah is more than just a paramilitary. They run schools. They collect garbage. They run hospitals.

So Israel intentionally exploded a bunch of teachers, nurses, and garbage men. The dead kids may have been an accident, but not these Hezbollah civilians.

If you think targeting civilian teachers, nurses, and garbage men is “a perfectly legitimate attack on an enemy force in the context of a war” then don’t cry when they do it back to Israel.

[Commenter_XY]

Oh, I read the thread, Randal. This was a stunningly successful military attack by parties unknown against the command leadership of hezball-less. But suppose it was Israel. It is a perfectly legitimate attack against an enemy in war, under international law.

Maybe the onus is on you to produce all of these victims, who are not men aged 16-60, that you claim exist. They don't.

What pisses you off is the effectiveness of the military attack, not the legality.

[Nelson]

"Hezbollah is very much like a government in that they provide civil services within Lebanon"

So if an organization that provides social services also indiscriminately and intentionally kills civilians they don't count as terrorists?

No. That is bullshit. If they want to provide social services and not kill innocent people, they should he safe. As long as they are killing innocent people, they are terrorists.

If there are people who want to provide social services, there are plenty of NGOs that do so without killing innocent people as well. A little charity mixed in with the terrorism doesn't change anything.

"even the civil servants,"

They aren't civil servants. They aren't a government. MSF is an NGO that provides medical care throughout the world. That doesn't make them civil servants.

"the reverse is true and Israeli civil servants would be just as legitimate for Hamas and Hezbollah to target. Right?"

No. You seem to be incapable of understanding the difference between a government, an NGO, and a terrorist organization. A government is the leadership of a sovereign nation. An NGO is a non-governmental aid organization that doesn't kill people. A terrorist organization is a non-governmental civilian-killing organization. They are three very different things.

"After all, after this stunt I think it’s fair to classify Israel as a terrorist organization."

That's because you want to, not because it's true. Much like the paleocpns here vehemently denying that the two Trump assassins were conservatives, you have a narrative in your head that doesn't match the facts. Your desire to mischaracterize Israel doesn't change anything.

"Imagine Israel had set thousands of Lebanese government employees’ pagers to explode."

That would be different because Lebanese government employees are part of the government and Hezbollah is not. So if everything were completely different, things would be different? No shit, Sherlock.

"That would definitely count as a terrorist act."

No, that would be an act of war because it's an attack by one sovereign nation on another. Hezbollah isn't a government.

"But I don’t think that works."

Because you don't want to, not because it isn't true.

An organization that intentionally targets innocent civilians is a terrorist organization. Hezbollah intentionally targets innocent civilians.

"If you use terrorist tactics you’re a terrorist"

Yeah, that's not what a terrorist is. And this wasn't a "terrorist tactic". It was a precision strike against the leadership of a brutal group of people who intentionally kill civilians.

"The point Simon raised is that Hezbollah is more than just a paramilitary. They run schools. They collect garbage. They run hospitals."

And there are other organizations that do those things as well, they just don't have killing civilians and destroying Israel as their primary purposes.

If someone wants to provide those services and not be a terrorist, they can join one of those other organizations.

"So Israel intentionally exploded a bunch of teachers, nurses, and garbage men. "

No, they intentionally exploded a bunch of members of a terrorist organization that joined a terrorist organization knowing it was a terrorist organization. It's not like Hezbollah is hiding their reason to exist. They exist to kill civilians. They actively promote their purpose of killing civilians. They brag about and are proud of killing civilians.

The fact that some people might not be actively killing civilians doesn't change that.

'If you think targeting civilian teachers, nurses, and garbage men is “a perfectly legitimate attack on an enemy force"

Again: teaching, providing medical care, and collecting garbage isn't the raison d'etre for Hezbollah. Killing innocent civilians is. No amount of Teach (Terrorism) For Lebanon, Doctors Without Morals, or Waste Removal and Murder Squad will ever change that.

Do you deny that the purpose of Hezbollah (and Hamas, for that matter) is to kill Israelis? Do you deny that they regularly target innocent civilians with rockets? Do you really think that a few good deeds counterbalance that sort of brutality?

[SimonP]

Simon, Fuck you. There is literally not one thing Israel can do that you don’t condemn based on made up facts and made up doctrines.

Chip, you can’t even be bothered to rebut my factually correct assertions about Hezbollah or the people targeted by Israel’s attack, or the actual intentions behind the attack (which were intended to terrorize civilians and non-military members of Hezbollah, not achieve any legitimate military objective).

I will stop criticizing Israel when Israel stops engaging in war crimes. I take no issue with striking at legitimate military targets, which Israel has also done, in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza. Missile launch sites? Sure. Ammunition silos? Of course. Targeted assassinations of people instrumental in coordinating the military effort? Sure. I’ve even gone so far to concede that the laws of war permit some degree of “collateral damage,” when striking at legitimate military targets.

But the laws of war also apply limits to what Israel may do, and I have seen no instance of you or Bobbie or any of the other Israel boosters here where you acknowledge even the possibility of such limits. The laws of war do not permit Israel to bomb dozens of Palestinians in order to strike at a single Hamas commander. They do not justify planting a bomb in a sovereign state in order to assassinate a lead negotiator in ceasefire talks. They do not permit the widespread destruction of the entire territory of Gaza, targeting of Gaza’s power, water, and sanitation infrastructure, strategic use of mass displacement and limiting the provision of aid and medical care, reckless targeting of aid convoys, and on and on.

I take no issue with Israel killing a member of Hezbollah’s military wing while he is engaged in an active military operation. If Israel should kill such a combatant while he is grocery shopping, I might be squicked out by it, but I’m not going to raise a serious objection to Israel doing what it can to avoid further attacks.

But that’s not what we’re talking about here. Israel apparently knew only that the devices would be going to Hezbollah and distributed through its network. They had no way of knowing whether the ultimate recipient would be a teacher, doctor, or a sniper. Or – christ, in one case, an ambassador. They had no way of knowing whether the member of Hezbollah who’d been granted the device would have it on him at the time it exploded. But they had to know there was a non-trivial chance that there would be non-combatant and non-Hezbollah people caught up in the explosions, when activated.

The attack was, in its essence and purpose, indiscriminate. Apply the laws of war to this attack and see where it leads you. The obvious conclusion is that Israel did not spend much time considering whether the military value of what they were doing was worth the potential civilian casualties it could and did cause. It is also obvious that the objective was not protecting Israel from any imminent or potential Hezbollah attacks or degrading Hezbollah military capabilities, but rather terrorizing non-military members of Hezbollah and the Lebanese public more generally.

If you pause your reflexive and stupid defense of Israel for just one second, and consider this analytically, it seems clear that Israel’s only calculations behind whether to do this were based on how it expected the West to respond. They’ve evidently calculated correctly – useful idiots like you and the media broadly have not been very critical of the attack, and the American political establishment has been ambivalent at best. But the fact that they haven’t “owned” the attack yet shows that they know they’re on thin ice.

[Randal]

XY: Oh right I forgot, you're the only one here who's simply a sociopath. The death of Arabs warms the very cockles of your heart. No justification required. There are other people around here, like Dr. Ed, who harbor violent dystopian fantasies, but that's just fantasy violence. You revel in the real life killing of actual innocent people. Consumed by a racist bloodlust, that's you. Get out of here.

Nelson: No, you can't make targeting innocent people ok through strategic use of labels. That's straight-up fascist. A non-combatant is a non-combatant even if they're a terrorist non-combatant. Labelling an NGO as a terrorist group is not an extrajudicial death sentence on anyone associated with it.

Do you really think that a few good deeds counterbalance that sort of brutality?

No, I think Israel bears the responsibility to target the people who are actually carrying out the attacks, not the civilians, even in this context. The laws of war don't permit guilt-by-association.

[Commenter_XY]

Randal....where are all these supposed innocent victims? Why are they not plastered on TV? There just are not that many.

OTOH, there are plenty of maimed, hezball-less terrorists. Let them bear the scourge of their shame for all to see.

The world weeps, Randal.

[Nelson]

"No, you can’t make targeting innocent people ok through strategic use of labels"

It isn't labels. It's literally the mission statement of Hezbollah. You seem to want to pretend that the social work is the purpose of Hezbollah, with some light terrorism and genocidal language on the side. That's just not true.

Hezbollah is a terrorist group. That's not some sort of false or misleading "label", it's the purpose for which the group exists. They want to kill Israelis, preferably Israeli Jews. They are proud of it. They are dedicated to it. They want to secure the destruction of Israel. So no, they aren't innocent people. If they wanted to help people, there are plenty of not-terrorist organizations they could join. Your "they're innocent" claim is complete nonsense.

"Labelling an NGO as a terrorist group"

You want to claim Hezbollah is an NGO aid organization that just accidentally kills innocent civilians with rockets? Why does Hezbollah exist? Hint: it isn't to provide services to Lebanese citizens.

"The laws of war don’t permit guilt-by-association."

It isn't guilt by association. Your claim is that, theoretically, there are Hezbollah members who aren't terrorists. Prove it. We know that Hezbollah is a vicious, brutal, genocidally-driven organization that regularly and intentionally attacks innocent civilian men, women, and children. The assumption that some of them may not have actively aided in those genocidal activities and, therefore, none of them can be targeted is a ridiculous and indefensible position.

You try to tap dance around the fact that Hezbollah exists to kill innocent Israelis and wants to wipe them out from the river to the sea. That sort of apologism and moral cowardice deserves nothing but derision.

Hezbollah doesn't get to actively pursue genocide, but not reap what they've sown because a few people pick up the trash. That's a ridiculous contention.

Finally, a bomb is far, far more likely to kill innocent bystanders than those pagers were, and collateral casualties from bombs aren't war crimes. The doctors who treat the terrorists and the teachers who indoctrinate them aren't innocent. If they got killed, it's because they chose help genocidal terrorists kill innocent people. If they just wanted to be teachers or doctors, they would belong to an organization that never, ever kills innocent people, let alone has it as their singular purpose. It isn't guilt by association, it's guilt by participation. They deserve to die as much as the rest of their terrorist coworkers.

[Randal]

I'm not saying Hezbollah isn't 100% terrorists. I'm saying you can't target civilians, no matter how much you just hate them.

[Commenter_XY]

Randal, you keep missing the point (or maybe not). This was a military attack on the command, control and communications of a Judeocidal terror group that has fired >8,000 missiles at Israel in the last 11 months. It is a perfectly legitimate military target. Judging by results, devastatingly effective and personal (which is what I think is really bothering you).

For a violation to occur, proportionality questions must be determined. The response (by whomever, heh) was proportional in time of war: kill the command, control; and disrupt comms of enemy. That is how you win a war. Were the number of civilians killed in the context of the attack disproportionate to the military objective? Given the relatively small number, the answer is no. This is not a close call.

What pisses you off is the attack was devastatingly effective.

[David Nieporent]

I’m not saying Hezbollah isn’t 100% terrorists. I’m saying you can’t target civilians, no matter how much you just hate them.

The purpose of an attack cannot be to kill civilians under the established rules. You absolutely can kill civilians in the course of an attack on non-civilians without it being a violation of anything, let alone a "war crime."

[Randal]

The purpose of an attack cannot be to kill civilians under the established rules. You absolutely can kill civilians in the course of an attack on non-civilians without it being a violation of anything, let alone a “war crime.”

That's true as far as it goes, but it only goes so far. You can't be totally indifferent to civilians. (XY puts it as "proportionality.")

But there's also a specific rule about not booby-trapping civilian devices. Pagers are civilian devices, and these pagers were mostly in use by civilians. You can't booby-trap toasters to explode when the toast is done and then, when tons of civilians are killed, say "Well the paramilitary also uses toasters and they were the intended target." That's a war crime. Same with pagers.

[Armchair]

"Did anything here make you think I was defending Hezbollah?"
Yes. See Brett's response.

More to the point however, antisemitism isn't about defending terrorists. It's about opposing the Jews and Israel. Consistently. Always. And whenever you deign to respond to a post about Israel or Jews...we know which way you're going to go. It's like the racist who always whenever African Americans come up, says "Don't you think the black people could be in the wrong here?"

But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you don't ALWAYS oppose Israel and the Jews in some way. So here's the challenge for you. Find just one post of yours in the past...just one...where you unambiguously without reservation support Israel. Just one.

[Sarcastr0]

You’re a blinking moron if you think I consistently oppose Jews and Israel.

Burden is on you; you made the accusation.
Even after you got utterly wrecked by multiple posters for your accusation of blood libel turned out to have a damp squib for evidence.

Really you have a double burden since you already have a record of making up truly evil things about me and Jews.
Good luck backing up you irresponsible accusations – the Volokh archives suck.

[Michael P]

Forget about it, Jake, it's Gaslight0wn. He's going to go all in on an "Israel indiscriminately bombed children without provocation" hot take while denying that he consistently criticizes Israel.

[Sarcastr0]

He’s going to go all in on an “Israel indiscriminately bombed children without provocation”

If you were serious about calling me an antisemite, you wouldn't need to put words in my mouth.

[Armchair]

"You’re a blinking moron if you think I consistently oppose Jews and Israel."
It's not that I "think" it. It's that you do it. Let's look at the facts for what you've done, just in recent memory

1. Repeated Hamas Propaganda Blood Libel about "indiscriminate bombing" that Michal Cotler-Wunsh (Israel's antisemitism envoy) and David Harris have called blood libel

2. Refused adamantly to apologize for it.

3. When presented with a laundry list of abuses against the Jews in the US 3 days ago your only response was that it was "Extreme partisanship of the Crank"

4. Just now, you've taken your buddy Randal's side, effectively saying "What Hezbollah provocation, I don't see any...but Israel is killing kids!"

5. Then I offered you a chance to defend yourself, just showing a single post...from one of the thousands you've made...where you defend Israel unambigiously. And Sarcastr0...Dodge! Can't answer that.

[Sarcastr0]

Except none of that happened. Do you want to play back the tape?
https://reason.com/volokh/2024/08/22/thursday-open-thread-205/?comments=true#comment-10696667

-not guilty: “He indeed did not accuse Jews of willingly and deliberately killing innocent Palestinian Children. Did you think no one would click the link?”

-David Nieporent: “The closest thing to it is Sarcastr0 accusing Israel of bombing “indiscriminately,” which — true or not — is literally the opposite of “willingly and deliberately killing” anyone, including “innocent Palestinian Children.”

Good jerb, Armchair. Maybe next you can re-argue the NY Post is centrist!

And I didn't take Randal's side; feel free to check below. You just posted a shitty reply to him and I pointed that out.

[Armchair]

Let's review the tape...

Me: 1. Repeated Hamas Propaganda Blood Libel about “indiscriminate bombing”

Sarcastr0: -David Nieporent: “The closest thing to it is Sarcastr0 accusing Israel of bombing “indiscriminately,”

Matches what was said.

whoops.

[Sarcastr0]

Ah. I had missed you changed your accusation since you kept your blood libel appellation.
How inconsistent! Did you think new goalposts would make your shittalking more legitimate?

No, one does not need to ride Netanyahu's jock and call Israel innocent lambs to be not antiSemitic.

Between the two of us, you're doing more harm to Jews and Israel being a piece of shit who makes false accusations, devaluing both antisemitism and blood libel.

[Randal]

More to the point however, antisemitism isn’t about defending terrorists. It’s about opposing the Jews and Israel. Consistently. Always.

No, antisemitism is about opposing the Jews, not Israel. Someone could very reasonably believe that Israel is a scourge on the Middle East for geopolitical (or other) reasons and consistently oppose it without being antisemitic.

[Commenter_XY]

Armchair....it is like a moth to a flame. They cannot help themselves.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

They criticized Israel, they must be antisemites! Blood libel!

This is beyond pathetic.

[Commenter_XY]

There are plenty of areas where Israel can be fairly criticized, AWD. For example, the question of agunot. The cases must be adjudicated promptly, without delay. Many of these cases have gained recent notoriety, and the foot-dragging by the Rabbinate is a very legitimate criticism.

As for Sarcastr0, he brings it upon himself.

[Don Nico]

There were a couple of children killed when they fetched the pagers / radios for their Hezbollah dads. With so many devices exploding it is also likely that some bystanders were injured.
There is no evidence of deliberately targeting children.

[Randal]

Something like 20% to 25% of the pager deaths were children.

Israel has discovered a whole new level of indiscriminate killing.

[Mr. Bumble]

Cite.

[Commenter_XY]

His anus.

[Riva]

A UN worker moonlighting with Hamas couldn’t have said it better. An AP “journalist” would be even better, if his pager hasn’t exploded.

[Don Nico]

That was true but hardly the whole truth. It is meant to mislead. Two deaths out of 8 but 2700 injuries,

[Don Nico]

Considering both days of communications attacks, Israel estimates 900 deaths. Child collaterals accounting for less than 0.5%

[Randal]

Without provocation? Really?

What was it in response to?

[Don Nico]

Frequent rocket attacks that have displaced nearly 100k people in northern Israel.

[Randal]

Which Israel has already been responding to with rocket attacks of its own.

This is a clear escalation from the status quo. That's what makes it unprovoked.

It's like if Russia fired a nuke at Kyiv randomly one day. That would rightly be described as unprovoked, notwithstanding the ambient fighting.

[Frank Drackman]

How dare Israel respond!
Hey I think your pager is ticking

Frank

[Riva]

Maybe the Iran proxy Hamas shouldn’t started the war in the first place and maybe the other Iran proxy Hezbollah should have jumped on board?

[Randal]

This war has been going on for far longer than Hamas has even existed.

[Riva]

Uh huh, if we ignore the fact that the Hamas animals provoked Israel into a war of self defense last October. And if we pretend the Iran proxy Hezbollah animals weren't eager to lend their little terrorist buddies a hand, well before they lost a few terrorist fingers anyway.

[zztop8970]

Open a dictionary to find out what the word 'unprovoked' means.

[Randal]

Do you think Oct 7 was unprovoked? I would call them both unprovoked. I think you’d have a hard time arguing (reasonably) that one was provoked and the other wasn’t.

[zztop8970]

Yes, we've established you don't understand what the word means. No need to show more examples of it.

[Randal]

I'm willing to agree to agree that this attack and Hamas's Oct 7 attack are in the same bucket, whether you want to call that kind of thing provoked or unprovoked. I think most people here would (and did) call Oct 7 unprovoked though, so I'm in good company with my usage.

[Riva]

Israel began it's preemptive measures AFTER detecting imminent missile and rocket attacks from Lebanon you clown.

[David Nieporent]

This is a clear escalation from the status quo. That’s what makes it unprovoked.

First, that's not what unprovoked means, and second, this is literally the exact opposite of escalation.

[Randal]

You see this as a de-escalation? In what universe do you live? Did the pagers explode with confetti in your world?

[David Nieporent]

You see this as a de-escalation?

Yes, of course. Like, if someone stabs you with a knife and you burn down his house with his whole family inside in response, that's escalating. If someone stabs you with a knife and you respond by punching him in the face, that's deescalating. This was a less lethal, more targeted response.

[Randal]

If they were attempting to de-escalate, they badly miscalculated. This will be interpreted as a major escalation by their enemies.

[David Nieporent]

If they were attempting to de-escalate, they badly miscalculated. This will be interpreted as a major escalation by their enemies.

Oh, no, what will Hezbollah do in response? Fire lots of missiles at Israel?

[Don Nico]

Saying that "this attack and Hamas’s Oct 7 attack are in the same bucket" demonstrates very little perspective on the dynamics in the Middle East

[Commenter_XY]

This is a clear escalation from the status quo. That’s what makes it unprovoked.

The status quo was war. Duh.

Nothing changed other than Israel launched a very successful attack.

[Don Nico]

It is in response to 100K displaced citizens. Tit for tat rockets don't address that issue

[Randal]

Rockets addres that issue better than exploding pagers do.

But I agree, what would really address the issue is a ceasefire. But that would put Bibi in political peril so it's about as likely as Russia ending its Ukraine capaign while Putin is still in charge.

[Don Nico]

"Rockets address that issue better than exploding pagers do."
I doubt that.
This attack was highly targeted toward a terrorist sub-state who have a long history of bombing civilians indiscriminately. They have also rendered the legitimate government of Lebanon impotent.
Moreover, the attack had a clear military purpose: to destroy the Hezbollah communication network for a while during which time more conventional military attack could be carried out
Your objection to this well designed and highly targeted operation against Hezbollah shows that your moral compass is broken.

[David Nieporent]

What was it in response to?

You do know that Hezbollah has been continually firing missiles at Israel since 10/7, right? Including killing a dozen Israeli kids playing soccer? That 100,000 people in Israel have had to flee their homes in Northern Israel as a result?

[Mr. Bumble]

I thought those were Arab children killed in the soccer attack.
In any event Hezbollah has been firing into Israel since long before 10/7 and in most cases this is the equivalent of H&I fire.

[Kazinski]

Isreali Arab children.

Isreali is an a national origin, Arab is an ethnicity.

And their religion was Druze.

[Commenter_XY]

Thank you...exactly correct. It was a horrific loss for the Druze, who have a small community. This is a case where I hope Israel has hunted down those who actually did the attack against the Druze and administered terminal justice.

[Don Nico]

Both Shia and Sunni have had a longstanding animus toward Druze.

[Armchair]

Let's see...

Start with Hezbollah's mission statement to eradicate the Jews from Israel. Or at least almost all of the Jews.

Then continue that to the thousands of rockets, anti-tank missiles, and mortar rounds Hezbollah has rained upon Israel, just since 2023.

Then, the 2000+ casualties (according to Hezbollah) they've caused in Israel among the people there. Not to mention the fact they've forced almost 100,000 Israelis to evacuate from their homes.

---Most consider that "provocation"---

[Armchair]

Plus, you seem to be missing the number 1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Uyghurs_in_China#:

[Michael P]

"Indiscriminately"? Maybe terrorists shouldn't leave the tools of their trade in the hands of their children. I think Golda Meir said something about that.

[Krayt]

To present such an asinine concept, I have to conclude you are a fool who hangs at echo chambers guided by state actors of all the other members of that list.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

"without provocation"

I am concerned about the innocents who were harmed (if children were killed, it would not surprise me) but this is a bit dubious.

The "exploding electronics" were used by Hezbollah for communication. Hezbollah is not just some innocent party and their usage would not be just to chew the fat.

[Randal]

Oh wait your take is that this was an elaborate plot to impede Hezbollah's communications capabilities, and the casualties were all collateral?

These were essentially booby traps my dear, quite illegal under international law (because of their propensity to kill curious children, as here).

[Brett Bellmore]

No, it was an elaborate plot to track Hezbollah's communications, and then finish up by killing as many Hezbollah as possible. And then use monitoring emergency rooms to identify a lot of them.

The casualties among Hezbollah were not a bit collateral, and were perfectly legitimate in a military context.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

These were essentially booby traps my dear, quite illegal under international law (because of their propensity to kill curious children, as here).

Okay. Doesn’t change my overall comments.

Oh wait your take is that this was an elaborate plot to impede Hezbollah’s communications capabilities

My comment doesn’t say it was only for that purpose.

But, yes, the coverage I have seen states that is the general reason for this specific plot. It was targeted at their communications capabilities.

and the casualties were all collateral?

Again, we have a form of the “so you are saying” that is not what I said. I did not say “all” the casualties were collateral. I simply said I was concerned about the collateral damage.

Some of those killed were likely active members that are not merely innocents like the children referenced.

[Commenter_XY]

Illegal under international law...hmmmmmm. Cite it. Which one.

[Life of Brian]

These were essentially booby traps my dear, quite illegal under international law

Randal's apparently channeling AOC today, so this devastating-if-cheeky takedown seems apropos. Lots of nice links to and quotes of the actual law!

[David Nieporent]

Oh wait your take is that this was an elaborate plot to impede Hezbollah’s communications capabilities, and the casualties were all collateral?

Yes. Was there any dispute about that?

These were essentially booby traps my dear, quite illegal under international law

Look, it's the ubiquitous "international law" that conveniently says whatever people who hate Israel want it to say.

[Randal]

Yes. Was there any dispute about that?

Well yeah, there are 100,baz,000,000 way easier, more effective, less risky, less illegal, and immensely safer ways of sabotaging enemy communications than secretly rigging personal devices to simultaneously explode without warning.

This was obviously intended not only to kill and maim Hezbollah but to terrorize them and the Lebanese. Disrupting comms is icing on the cake. And actually maybe a downside… if comms were the goal and you had this capability, wouldn’t you rather use it to intercept all your enemy’s chit chat rather than reveal yourself by disabling it? They can get new pagers.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Intercept all your enemy’s chit-chat

The pagers were used as a safer way to communicate to avoid interception.

Again, I'm going by the coverage, since none of us has some special inside look at the facts on the ground.

So, it is very unclear to me that Israel would have an easy ability to track them via the pagers.

get new pagers

Israel showed that their supply chain was unsafe. I'm not sure how easy it was to get those pagers.

My limited reply above left open the possibility that the purpose here was more than the destruction of the pagers. It also could be, e.g., to show them how nothing they do is safe. They thought they had a safe communication outlet and it was shown to be untrue.

There is a psychological as well as (deadly) physical result to the destruction of the pagers. That very well can factor in. Still doesn't make the target simply innocent, nor make this the ONLY reason it was done.

I saw a report with a former CIA/FBI agent discussing how it was an attack on their communications & the agent agreed with me (when I made a comment about it on Twitter) that they feared possible blowback. People can have a mixed reaction to the whole thing.

[Don Nico]

"sabotaging enemy communications than secretly rigging personal devices"
Again a dishonest characterization.
These devices were not "personal" in the way your cell phone is. The were distributed by Iran specially to enable secure communication among terrorist operatives.

[Drewski]

Interesting that you don't include Palestine, which last year killed hundreds of Israeli infants in a targeted, deliberate attack, which they then celebrated. Is this because you don't consider Palestine a country or because you don't consider Jewish infants to be people?

[Randal]

It's because the sporadic outbursts of an occupied territory aren't sufficient to make the top 10.

[Drewski]

So two children killed incidentally makes them "skyrocket" toward most evil, but hundreds of infants targeted for killing followed by celebration is an "outburst" that can be dismissed. You have a double standard: The actions of Jews are evil, and the actions of Muslims are good, definitionally in your mind. I already knew that, of course, from all the other times.

[Randal]

If this were the only factor, even the only war crime, you're right, Israel would be on par with Palestine. But they've got over 50 years of brtual occupation under their belts, with no sign of it ever winding down. So there's that.

[Frank Drackman]

Answer your Pager

[Joe_dallas]

Randal – why no condemnation of hezbollah shooting rockets into Israel ?

As posted on another forum:
"The United Nations Security Council will convene an emergency meeting on Friday afternoon to discuss Israel’s wave of attacks in Lebanon, according to Slovenia, which holds the Council’s rotating presidency this month.

How many emergency meetings have they held over Hezbollah’s rocket bombardment of Israel, which has gone on for months?

The United Nations’ human rights chief, Volker Türk, has criticized the pager attack as a violation of international law and called for those behind it to be held to account.

So, does sending thousands of rockets into Israel violate international law? What does the U.N. propose to do about it?

[Randal]

Of course Hezbollah should be and has been condemned, and will be condemned again. Condemn you, Hezbollah!

[Joe_dallas]

You didnt condemn them until you were called out for it

Your omission seems intentional since you directed the condemnation only to Israel

your follow up condemnation of hezbollah appears quite insincere

[Randal]

It's sincere, and this isn't the first time I've condemned them. I did condemn a lot of other countries above, three even more so than Israel. But my post was focused on the top 10 this time, and Lebanon isn't in it.

[Joe_dallas]

[Randal]

The question is, when are you going to condemn Israel's atrocities?

[Joe_dallas]

What atrocities is Israel committing?
Hamas started a war and Israel is prosecuting the war in a very humane manner by modern and historical standards. Its unfortunate that Hamas standard operating procedure is to put civilians at risk.

In response to your other comment - You like most other leftist commenting here - you havent condemned Hamas or Hezbollah until its pointed out that you chose to condemn Israel first.

[Don Nico]

Wow! Your hypocrisy is showing today.
Just admit to your animus toward Israel and the argument will be over.
We understand that each side has to have its backers.

[Randal]

Hypocrisy? It's completely legit to think that both sides of a war are despicable. If I were to pick a side it would be Israel, but I still think they suck.

[Joe_dallas]

Randal - reading through your comments on this thread and your prior comments, there is virtually no evidence that your condemnation of Hamas or hezbollah is sincere.

[Randal]

I don't even know what that means. You want it notarized?

[Nelson]

“is rocketing Israel up the rankings of most evil country, easily cracking the top five”

Stop it. Just stop. Is Israel killing a lot of civilians in Gaza? Yes. Are they being led by the Israeli version of paleocons who have little regard for Palestinian lives? Yes. Could they be better? Yes.

But they didn’t start this war. They didn’t massacre innocent civilians. They didn’t accept and defend a vicious terrorist group that is unabashedly, unapologetically, and unjustifiably evil. Hamas made this whole thing happen. Hamas bears part of the blame. The responsibility for all of the deaths is split evenly between Israel and Hamas.

Israel is a democracy that’s been under siege since its inception. Their illegal settlements, their unjustified occupation of Palestinian territory, their constant destruction of civilian infrastructure in the occupied territories are all exacerbating the problem. But they became occupiers because they were attacked. They have defended themselves. They are surrounded by enemies bent on their destruction and have been under siege for 76 years. An overreaction to a brutal assault on innocent Israelis isn’t surprising, nor is it evil.

[Randal]

Israel hasn’t made any serious efforts toward peace in the last 50 years, and millions of Palestinians are suffering because of it.

So, apart from the Palestinian lives lost, it’s the hundreds of millions of years worth (and counting!) of Palestinians’ lives lived under the indifferent jackboot of Israel that makes Israel so evil.

[Nelson]

Israel hasn't had a single moment since '48 when they weren't under siege by the surrounding Arab and Muslim world. Blaming the guy who punched back is unjustified and unfair.

If Arafat had followed through on peace, instead of calling for an intifada, we would be in a much different place. But he didn't, and the Palestinians have suffered for it.

[Randal]

You could say the Arabs were minding their own business until Israel came along.

That’s not my point, it’s just to say that “they started it” isn’t a compelling argument here really in either direction.

You yourself pointed out the many actions Israel has been taking to undermine peace. It’s easy to blame Arafat, but there’s no guarantee that Israel would’ve gone through with the deal either, and lots of reasons to think they wouldn’t. After all, the whole thing was driven by international pressure. Israel has shown entirely zero interest in peace when left to its own devices.

[Nelson]

"You yourself pointed out the many actions Israel has been taking to undermine peace."

No, I pointed out the various things Israel has done wrong. The Palestinians had a golden opportunity to have a star that wasn't occupied. The peace deal was negotiated and the Israelis were ready to sign. The government at the time was ideologically dedicated to a two-state solution.

Arafat called an intifada instead. He threw away peace and destroyed the credibility and political power of the peacemakers. Arafat gave us Bibi and his merry band of religious fanatics by undermining the peacemakers.

[David Nieporent]

Israel hasn’t made any serious efforts toward peace in the last 50 years,

Israel has entered into peace treaties with multiple Arab countries over the last 50 years.

Israel entered into peace negotiations and allowed the ur-terrorist Yasser Arafat to set up shop in disputed territory within the last 50 years. With the mediation of the U.S., Israel agreed to multiple peace proposals with said ur-terrorist, only for said ur-terrorist to reject them without even a counter offer.

[Don Nico]

"Israel hasn’t made any serious efforts toward peace in the last 50 years"
That is a plain, old-fashioned lie, my friend.
You might have also said that the Palestinians have not made any serious gesture of peace since 1948.

[Randal]

You might have also said that the Palestinians have not made any serious gesture of peace since 1948.

That's true, but you Israelophiles like to forget that the situation isn't symmetric. Israel has been occupying Palestine for 50 years, and not the other way around.

[Joe_dallas]

Cherrypick you facts

Randal - Are forgetting history or being intentionally ignorant of history?
Forgetting history since circa 1000bc
forgetting history since the late 1800's
Forgetting history since the 1930's

[Randal]

You think that history gives Israel the right to hold millions of Palestinians prisoner for indefinite generations?

[Joe_dallas]

Along with a lack of historical knowledge
You lack any geographical knowledge

Every palestinian can leave -
There is a border with Eygpt
There is an open sea - known as the Mediterranean Sea

Though the palestians could quit starting wars.

[Randal]

Do you not know that Israel has long blockaded the sea around Gaza? And has taken over the Egyptian border? Facts, man, facts.

[Joe_dallas]

Randal 53 mins ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
"Do you not know that Israel has long blockaded the sea around Gaza? And has taken over the Egyptian border? Facts, man, facts."

Really – when in the last 20 years did Israel invade Egypt?
How did Hamas manage to build tunnels into Egypt if Israel had control of the border?

[Randal]

I encourage you to research the Philadelphi Corridor.

How did Hamas manage to build tunnels into Egypt if Israel had control of the border?

Oh man two retarded ideas packed into one retarded question! First of all, Hamas managed to build tunnels into Israel as well, in case you were unaware. Second... tunnels? We're talking about the freedom of movement and trade that would be required for Gaza to develop its economy. You think the missed opportunity for Gaza was that it should have built up its economy by fulfilling international business arrangements through its system of tunnels? Wow that's an amazing ability you have to justify Israel's oppression of the Palestinians. Don't blame Israel for its embargo, they had tunnels! rofl

[Joe_dallas]

Randal 22 hours ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
"Israel hasn’t made any serious efforts toward peace in the last 50 years, and millions of Palestinians are suffering because of it."

You keep throwing statements that you know are wrong. As others have posted, there is considerable evidence showing your are wrong.

[Commenter_XY]

Well lately Kaz, there have been unusual goings-on inside Lebanon, Syria, and a few other countries in the region. Only judeocidal hezball-less hezbollah terrorists and the company they keep appear to have been targeted. Amazingly precise. But you're right, it is totally legit to worry about good condition of what you buy.

Three theories on what has happened, because nobody really knows.

Theory 1: It was Divine Intervention. Yes, The Almighty smote Israel's enemies with Ya'acov patish (Jacob's Hammer) and as an added bonus, emasculated maybe a thousand more, and turned them into eunuchs. The online reaction from Israeli women to that particular injury of hezbollah men is truly something to behold. The Hebrew language can be shockingly direct, and especially so from a woman. 🙂 Kaz, you sound like a decent man, The Almighty will not smite you for buying a pager or walkie talkie (just don't tempt fate and buy it from a Lebanese).

Theory 2: Some Other Dude Did It (SODDI). Whoever did this, assuming it wasn't The Almighty, has the technological and intelligence capabilities of a super-power. The sheer artistry, audacity, creativity, cleverness, ingenuity and boldness of this action requires immense resources and brainpower. Clearly, the Jews (those descendants of apes and pigs, according to hamas and their ball-less hebollah homies) are too small of a country and too stupid to pull this off. Therefore, SODDI. I note there are maybe 3-4 countries that could pull this off: US, CHN, RUS, UK - ok, so pick one. Then ask why? 🙂 Here too, I think you're safe, Kaz.

Theory 3 (my personal favorite): Elul 14 will forever be known as The Night of the Thousand Bris' for hezbollah and their asshole friends (hamas, iran, and others). Somehow, the in-house moyel for the Mossad, Motti Rola, working with Mossad's super secret agent, Eli Kopter, managed to circumcise (in a sort of mass bris, if you will) and/or partly emasculate roughly 1K hezbollah judeocidal terrorists by means of pagers and Walkie-Talkies. I will simply say, The Night of the Thousand Bris' takes the all-time moyel record for bris' performed in a single day; probably never to be equaled again .

These are the opening shots of the kinetic war I stated many months ago would happen in the North; hezbollah will be removed to north of the Litani river, or they will die in place. The die is cast.

I just want the hospital ER records for Mon-Wed of every hospital in the Middle East region. That would be revealing. A lot of people were smote, as it were.

[Michael P]

Tuesday it was pagers. Yesterday it was walkie-talkies. I look forward to seeing what today brings. (What odds do the bookies give space lasers?)

As far as your analysis, I don't think the UK has the state capacity, much less the will, to do something like this any more. Russia would like to, but I don't think they have the technical abilities, and perhaps they never did.

[Frank Drackman]

Vibrators probably, gives a whole new meaning to “Gang Bang”

Frank

[Commenter_XY]

Massive air strikes against launchers, is what I expect next.

[Commenter_XY]

LOL, it is Friday morning. Guess what Israel did last night? Took out a bunch of launchers. Again.

Guess what happens next.

Lots of drone strikes. And precision artillery strikes. Why? The battlefield needs softening (e.g. killing hezbollah troops) prior to any ground invasion.

[Commenter_XY]

Well, Sat morning and a precision strike took out the most senior military command and control of hezball-less in Beirut very late yesterday. With luck, some of those killed were eunuchs before they boarded the One-Way Paradise Train to a warm destination.

I do hope Iran's leadership are paying attention; they are not safe.

[John F. Carr]

I have not seen any real evidence on targeting accuracy. Even reputable organizations seem to be accepting without question that substantially all the pagers that blew up belonged to Hezbollah members. That's plausible but not proved.

I wonder if anybody on the Israeli side will face consequences for tampering with consumer products. Surely nobody in Israel, but there were agents working in countries that might prosecute or might entertain lawsuits for trademark dilution and the like.

[Dr. Ed 2]

John, this is the same thing as someone who swipes an Army Field Jacket being mistaken for a soldier.

Cell phones are different, but pagers and 2-way radios operate on a SPECIFIC frequency -- assigned by the FCC here, Lord knows by whom in Hezbollahland, but a specific frequency and each pager company has to have a different frequency. Like the police, fire, and such with 2 way radios.

So you steal a Hezbollah beeper that only works on Hezbollah's frequency and it blows up on you as an act of war -- sucks to be you.

[John F. Carr]

The reasoning I have seen is

Hezbollah switched from cell phones to pagers.
The exploding devices were pagers.
Therefore, Hezbollah members blew up.

This is comparable to

All men are mortal.
Socrates is mortal.
Therefore, Socrates is a man.

Which happens to be true as far as we know, but is not a logically compelled conclusion.

[Absaroka]

"Hezbollah switched from cell phones to pagers.
The exploding devices were pagers.
Therefore, Hezbollah members blew up."

I think it is more:
1)Hezbollah ordered a big batch of pagers
2)Just those particular pagers were rigged to blow

I'm still waiting for an accurate assessment of innocent victims - which, for example, an 8 year old girl surely is. I don't think, sadly, you can insist on zero collateral damage. The rockets Hezbollah routinely launches into Israel aren't precisely targeting only combatants, after all.

[Dr. Ed 2]

John,

A pager is a radio receiver tuned to one specific frequency. It only works if someone is broadcasting on that frequency.

Hezbolla bought a bunch of radios (pagers) that were tuned to the frequency that they (or someone acting on their behalf) broadcasts on. (Why the IDF didn't take out the transmitter is beyond me.)

The only person in possession of one of these beepers was either given it by Hesbolla or stole it from them. And it would be useless unless you wanted to receive pages or messages from Hesbolla.

This isn't like a kid finding an AM transistor radio and using it -- the beeper or walkie talkie would be useless for anyone other than a bad guy.

And remember that they have children soldiers over there -- a 10-year-old with an AK47 is still a child.

[John F. Carr]

Do we know the pager network was operated by and solely for Hezbollah? My starting assumption is there is a commercial service that does a lot of business with Hezbollah. If they can use civilian infrastructure, why wouldn't they?

[David Nieporent]

If they can use civilian infrastructure, why wouldn’t they?

For the same reason that the U.S. army doesn't use commercial communications networks for its internal operations, or send its battle plans via UPS?

[Michael P]

We know that only pagers ordered by Hezbollah included these devices. Unless they are in the practice of reselling or otherwise distributing pagers to third parties, only Hezbollah members and close affiliates (apparently including the Iranian ambassador) should have gotten them.

There is a lot of drama about adulteration of commodity goods, but this is almost exactly why people worry about supply chain security and vetting their vendors. The stories that make news are more often about digital sabotage, but the military is equally concerned about reliability of complex electronics.

[Don Nico]

Reports so far indicate that Israel did NOT tamper with consumer products. Rather the items made were expressly manufactured by an Hungarian company that inserted the Apollo name. Apollo has claimed that the model in question is no longer sold by them.
According to some reports, the pagers were supplied by Iran which had told Hezbollah to stop using cell phones. How Iran was marketed the rigged pagers, I have not heard.

So far Apollo has not said anything about a legal claim.

[John F. Carr]

At this point Apollo wouldn't know who to sue.

As of yesterday's news it is unknown whether the pagers were explosive when they left the factory.

[Mr. Bumble]

Thankfully no one in the US State Dept. suffered any injuries.
Did anyone check on Obama?

[Joe_dallas]

or any of the pro hamas , pro iranian advisors in the biden/ harris administration

[Joe_dallas]

As bumble asks - did anyone in the state dept get hurt.
For comparison purposes, note that FDR had quite of few communists in his administration such as Harry Hopkins.

[Dr. Ed 2]

It actually isn’t known that they ever were explosive per se.

One version I heard is that the trigger page put such a load on the battery that it overheated and exploded on its own. LI-ion batteries are known to do that when shorted, and if you put a short circuit into the pager’s hardware and then triggered it — it would explode.

I'm not going to do it because my Physics is rusty, but someone should calculate the energy yield of the LI battery alone and then see if it corresponds to the type of injuries we are seeing. Conversely, what types of energy (and thus injuries) would we be seeing from a few grams of military grade explosive, presuming a small amount would detonate. (I've heard of burning C-4 as a cooking fuel.)

[John F. Carr]

Initially people blamed batteries. As of last night's news explosives were blamed.

[John F. Carr]

Why not both? According to today's sources the batteries contained PETN.

[Michael P]

Lithium-based batteries will burn, sometimes very quickly, but they don't burn quickly enough or self-oxidize in ways that would cause explosions. Battery dies alone would not have been likely to kill anyone or seriously injure many people.

[Bob from Ohio]

"At this point Apollo wouldn’t know who to sue."

LOL A civil lawsuit. I don't think that is ever going to happen,what's the point.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Can you sue a sovereign country?

[John F. Carr]

Under U.S. law you can sue a foreign country for commercial activities but not military activities.

Israel as such is not afraid of being sued. If any person planted explosives outside of Israel, that person could be in legal trouble. A CIA officer was convicted in absentia by Italy in 2009. The Bush administration thought extraordinary rendition was a legitimate practice to protect national security interests. Italy thought it was a crime. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/03/01/517916196/italy-grants-partial-clemency-to-ex-cia-officer-over-extraordinary-rendition

[hobie]

I must agree. This is one hell of an impressive operation. A bunch of women-subjugating savages got it right in the junk. Poetic.

Now if someone could just similarly tamper with a few dreidels or tzitzits and take out the settler savages that keep murdering West Bank Palestinians and stealing the lands

[Lee Stillman]

If by "stealing the land" you mean "buying a worthless piece of dirt and spending the time and money to improve it into someplace livable", then yeah.

[Randal]

To the extent that’s an accurate characterization it’s only because the Palestinians have been barred from developing the land themselves.

Israel really is evil. (It’s short for Israellyevil.) We can debate just how evil, but they’re indisputably pretty evil.

Also entitled. The poster children of entitlement, actually. #1 on that list.

[Brett Bellmore]

"To the extent that’s an accurate characterization it’s only because the Palestinians have been barred from developing the land themselves."

Looters strip Gaza greenhouses

Palestinian looters, not Israelis, in case I have to clarify that.

[Randal]

We’re not even talking about Gaza. We’re talking about Area C.

[zztop8970]

Only about 10% of WB Palestinians live in Area C. The 90% who live in Areas A and B are free to develop their land as they see fit.

[Randal]

Only about 10% of WB Palestinians live in Area C.

Yeah, because they effectively can’t live there, even though it makes up the vast majority of the West Bank.

The 90% who live in Areas A and B are free to develop their land as they see fit.

They’re less restricted, but they’re certainly not free to develop it as they see fit by any definition of “free” that I’ve ever known.

[zztop8970]

They can live there, but because it is (a) rural and (b) mostly desert, it has not been historically densely populated, nor is it a particularly desirable area to live in.
In Area A and B they are free to build and develop as they see fit. The PA is responsible for that. That they prefer to invest in terror infrastructure is a choice.

[Don Nico]

"Israel really is evil."
Indeed, we saw at the top of the comments that Israelis are much worse than the Taliban.
You tipped your hand at the outset.
By the way, have you ever commented on the ethnic cleansing of more than 800,000 from Arab countries in 1947 -48?

[Nelson]

"If by “stealing the land” you mean “buying a worthless piece of dirt and spending the time and money to improve it into someplace livable”, then yeah."

They aren't buying it because the Palestinians who owned it weren't selling it. The Israeli government confiscated the land and then sold.it only to Israelis. That's not justifiable at all.

Israel isn't evil, but they aren't good, either. They are abusive and keep Palestinians living in squalor, then wonder why there are so many Palestinians who hate them.

Ending the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank should have happened long ago. It is hurting, not helping, their security by creating resentment in a population that loves right next door.

Being a slumlord hasn't worked. Maybe try letting them develop their own land in their own way with their own investors? Capitalism and wealth generation is a powerful and sneaky back door to peace.

[zztop8970]

Being a slumlord hasn’t worked. Maybe try letting them develop their own land in their own way with their own investors? Capitalism and wealth generation is a powerful and sneaky back door to peace.
This is exactly what Israel tried to do when it left the Gaza strip, completely, in 2005, going as far as leaving substantial assets - 3000 greenhouses valued at $14 million and facilitating international aid - and we know how that worked out. The greenhouses were looted, the irrigation pipes stolen to serve as raw materials for rockets, and international aid used to build terror infrastructure.
https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna9331863

[Randal]

Hahahahaha that's funny.

Facilitating international aid is not the same thing as letting them have investors. Gaza was under a complete embargo the entire time. Israel completely prevented any form of capitalism or wealth generation from occurring in Gaza.

[zztop8970]

Facilitating international aid is exactly letting them have $$$ they need, and using that $$$ to develop the strip, if that's what they wanted to do. That is exactly, exactly investment, another world you don't seem to understand.
There was no embargo on Gaza nor any limitation until 2007, and there's no way Israel could prevent capitalism there, even if it wanted.
You are repeatedly dehumanising Gazans by denying them their agency.
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-785234

[Randal]

No, investment is effectively a loan intended to bootstrap a productive business. Aid is just free goods that suppress local business. Why grow and process food when it's already available for free? Why manufacture textiles or household goods when they're already available for free? Even if the aid comes in the form of cash, it distorts the market. (And in practice, cash aid just leads to corruption.)

https://iea.org.uk/debate-does-foreign-aid-work/

Because the economies of recipient nations are fed by large sums of ‘free cash’, aid deters investment and the promotion of domestic businesses and industries. Large cash transfers politicise economies and centralise power, directing money towards governments – and away from profitable businesses. Instead of engaging in productive activity, interest groups instead compete to control aid funding. In practice, development aid is far more likely to be spent on military equipment or ‘white elephant’ projects than the promotion of economic freedom.

There was no embargo on Gaza nor any limitation until 2007... You are repeatedly dehumanising Gazans by denying them their agency.

Hahaha man you are really high on kool-aid! Before the embargo Gaza was fully occupied by Israel. Israel has dehumanized Gazans and denied them their agency, not me.

[zztop8970]

Israel did not prevent any loans from being made .
ut let's assume your baseless claims are true - Those evil Israelis! Instead of allowing loans , they allowed free aid which does not need to be paid back, and they did this knowing that the stupid Palestinians would not use the money for development, but just live off of it! The mendacity!

Israel left Gaza in 2005, and there were virtually no restriction until 2007, when Hamas took over and murdered the PA officials.
You simply do not know what you are talking about

[Nelson]

"hezball-less"

I see what you did there and it made me laugh.

Your pro-Israel position is extreme and largely lacking in empathy and basic human decency towards those caught between the Hamas rock and the Israeli hard place. A little sympathy for the average Gazan who wants nothing to do with Hamas or Israel wouldn't be misplaced.

But the pager attack was brilliant, audacious, stunning in its breadth, and highly effective. If it wasn't Mossad it was spontaneous testicular combustion. The Israelis get an A+ for emasculating (literally and figuratively) their enemy's leadership.

[Commenter_XY]

N, I only wish our military and intelligence people had the same level of ingenuity and creativity, paired with competent execution. We don't. So according to SODDI, because Israel just isn't clever enough or resource rich enough to do this, it had to be RUS or CHN or UK. 😉

I don't agree one iota with your comment about human decency or empathy, or being 'extreme' anything on Israel. That's crap.

[Nelson]

You have a “kill ’em all, let God sort ’em out” approach to Gaza, the West Bank, and the Palestinians. You are openly hostile about a two-state solution and feel Palestinians don’t have a right to their own country. You are an apologist for Israeli bad acts, including illegal settlements, the destruction of infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza, Jewish settler violence against Palestinians, and Israeli atrocities in this war (and yes, there have been atrocities).

You are an extreme supporter of Israel. You haven’t made a secret of it.

[Commenter_XY]

By extreme supporter of Israel, you mean that I choose their side in an existential war over Judeocidal terrorists. Very extreme.

[Sarcastr0]

Even your choice of vocab is that of an extremist.

As is your profligacy with charges of blood libel and antisemitism.

You appear to be to the right of Netanyahu.

[Commenter_XY]

Gaslight0 (I am trying this out),

I have precisely zero sympathy for hamas or hezbollah. Their covenants explicitly call for the extinction of Jews. Guess what? We Jews, regardless of where we are, not going to just sit back and gaze at our navels. We are at war. The rules in that neighborhood are as follows: Surrender, or die in place. Those are the terms offered by muslims historically when they are at war.

Those are the terms hamas and hezbollah receive: Surrender, and submit to Israeli justice. Or die in place.

The behavior of hamas is that of human animals. hamas have broken every ceasefire agreement they made. The treatment of the hostages was barbaric, and medieval. I personally have no moral qualms about hunting all hamas and hezbollah members and killing them, no matter where they are. Their covenants and subsequent actions dictate the response. Ismail became Wasmail back in Tehran (allegedly by Eli Kopter, super secret Mossad agent) – Iran is not immune. This is an existential war, Gaslight0.

As for the palestinians who live there, they broadly support hamas, and they generally support Judeocide. All you need to do is just ask them (there are polls in Israel all the time) — and the palestinians are delighted to tell you! What is there to say?

I feel sorrow for them. The palestinians are being cynically used by corrupt arab clan-based gangsters politicians (pa, hamas, Egypt, Jordan, KSA and a bunch of others, etc) who have stolen and diverted billions that was intended to improve their lives, and now sits in banks. The palestinians are fed ideological poison from the cradle, right into their education system. They live in piss and shit while their leadership lives in palatial homes. The infrastructure sucks, crime is high. The judicial system is corrupt. This is life for the palestinian living under palestinian rule. The palestinians deserve better.

PS: You do it to yourself, Gaslight0.

[Frank Drackman]

You can find them all over Beirut

[Bwaaah]

Give pieces a chance.

[Dr. Ed 2]

That was pure genius....

[Krychek_2]

And I thought Hezbollah liked terrorism.

[Armchair]

This is called "targeting the terrorists".

Much better than a drone-fired Hellfire missile, IMO.

[Krychek_2]

I agree. Insofar as Gaza is concerned, I think Israel lost the moral high ground months ago. But this was targeted specifically at the terrorists, so I'm fine with it.

[Dr. Ed 2]

It's actually psychological warfare.

And the thing about pagers is that it is not possible to triangulate the location of a pager as it is receive-only, there is no transmission.

[Drewski]

True thirty-ish years ago, not so much today. It's possible but unlikely these were receive-only. Pager networks are more robust than cell networks, which is probably why they chose to use them.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Which may explain why "Apollo no longer manufactures" that model.

If you don't want to use cell phones because they can be triangulated, you would also not want to use modern pagers that can transmit. Any transmission can (theoretically) be triangulated, and the USCG has gotten damn good at triangulating fake MayDay calls on the VHF Channel 16 -- they knew it was on the wharf and not in an adjacent boat.

I presume the IDF is at least as good as the USCG at this...

[hobie]

Looks like Israel created the Hungarian front company and the pagers by themselves. Impressive (free link for the shlubs who cannot afford the Times)

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/18/world/middleeast/israel-exploding-pagers-hezbollah.html?unlocked_article_code=1.L04.E2sP.uz2WXQP1-0Yq&smid=url-share

[hobie]

You know, the MSM. They investigate. Follow leads. Have foreign desks in every country. But, yeah, no, they just make everything up, right? Unlike the jews-will-not-replace-us hillbilly broadcasting from a cabin that you get your info from.

[Michael P]

It's a refreshing change from their usual practice: https://open.substack.com/pub/rufo/p/fact-checking-the-fact-checkers

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, sometimes they DO make things up. The usual tell is that they're relying on anonymous sources. Or insist on using paraphrases instead of quotes.

[Commenter_XY]

Nobody really knows, Brett. 😉

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

Well, the NYT found 12 anonymous sources who just happened to be intimately knowledgeable of the intelligence operations of Israel, and the internal goings-on of Hezbollah, and willing to share said knowledge. Definitely unimpugnable.

[Bob from Ohio]

Spy agency sources might also, just possibly, have an agenda when they leak to NYT writers.

[Brett Bellmore]

Certainly no less impugnable than the intelligence sources who said the Hunter Laptop looked like a Russian op.

[Joe_dallas]

fwiw - its very doubtful the NYT found any anonymous sources with any knowledge of Israeli intelligence operations, much less 12 anonymous sources

[John F. Carr]

According to the New York Times, the Hungarian company that manufactured the pagers was an Israeli operation. The pagers were not modified in transit. The company also had legitimate customers. It is unclear how the company knew which pagers were bound for Hezbollah. As a designated terrorist organization Hezbollah can’t do business in the EU in its own name.

https://www.boston.com/news/world-news/2024/09/19/how-israel-built-a-modern-day-trojan-horse-exploding-pagers/

[Kazinski]

Kamala Harris claimed at the debate to respect the 2nd Amendment.

I'm more worried about how she'll respect the 4th Amendment.

Kamala Harris as SF DA:
"Just because you legally possess a gun in the sanctity of your locked home doesn't mean we're not going to walk in and check that you're being responsible and safe in the way you conduct your affairs..."

https://x.com/_johnnymaga/status/1836411430012133747?t=CaMYugz-LY18DrkxTjzLWg&s=19

So the 1st, 2nd, and 4th amendment are all on her shit list. Is there any part of the constitution she does respect?

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Executive overstepping is why we have checks and balances. And (until recently) potential criminal liability.

You could have nominated a decent Republican, but your ilk chose Trump. Don't complain now that the only decent alternative is a typical Democrat.

[Frank Drackman]

Decent Repubiclowns lose, or like "W" fuck shit up (I would have voted a 3rd term for Wiliam Juffuhson) and GHWB was even worse.

[Krayt]

And (until recently) potential criminal liability.

This is true, and the ruling unfortunate. If'n only you hadn't been so gung ho on working around other checks and balances, like myriad instances of turning the investigative and prosecutorial power of government against a political opponent because he was an opponent.

You wish to lament that ruling? Look in the mirror and cry.

[Brian Thomas]

"Other checks and balances" - like, say, impeachment and removal? Which Republicans shielded him from, twice, even though Republican leaders like McConnell said they didn't have to impeach Trump for January 6 because criminal laws would hold him responsible?

Is that what we're supposed to look in the mirror about? How it's everyone else's fault that the Republicans have shielded Trump from any other type of check or balance, so its everyone else's fault we now have an "unfortunate" ruling shielding all presidents from criminal liability?

[Michael P]

There's still criminal liability for the line-level people who execute illegal searches. You just don't get lawfare against the President.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

It's our own fault Democrats will violate our constitutional rights!

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, they wouldn't have to if we'd just fall in line and stop trying to exercise them. So, yeah.

[verochkax]

No disagreement from me that he's not a good candidate, and never was. But don't kid yourself. The left would be claiming that Cruz, DeSantis or nearly anyone else that isn't a full RINO like Romney or McCain was not a "reasonable candidate."

[Brett Bellmore]

Reminder: The Democrats have compared literally every Republican Presidential candidate starting with Dewy to Hitler. Every last one.

They'd have started sooner, I suppose, but it would have confused people. "Who's Hitler?"

So, don't kid yourself, yourself: Even full on RINOs like Romeny or McCain got the treatment.

[Absaroka]

"The Democrats have compared literally every Republican Presidential candidate starting with Dewy to Hitler. Every last one."

If you meant 'Dewey', it seems kinda unlikely they compared Ike to Hitler, with the whole WWII thing.

Nazi references are way overused in politics, I think. Nazis and the Holocaust are horrible enough they shouldn't be trivialized.

(My aged memory does agree there was a pretty big uptick in the Nazi rhetoric with Bush II and then of course Trump, which is completely unwarranted for Bush II, and unwarranted for Trump in 2016 ...although recently Trump is working hard for the justification)

[Michael P]

https://www.nytimes.com/1948/10/26/archives/president-likens-dewey-to-hitler-as-fascists-tool-says-when-bigots.html

The amazing thing about American politics is that a Democrat can say just about any unhinged thing, such as saying that American tax dollars should pay for transgender medical care for illegal immigrants, and yet people who point that out get criticized for making things up because supposedly rational people refuse to believe that Democrats will say the kind of thing they have always been saying.

[Absaroka]

That seems like Truman likening Dewey to Hitler (which would be highly inappropriate). But did I miss the part where some Democrat (or Republican!) compared Eisenhower to Hitler? That just seems way odd to me, given Eisenhower's role in WWII.

I dunno if you had a chance to look at the link I provided, but it has examples of people throwing Nazi shade on LBJ and Slick Willie, so inappropriate Nazi references don't seem to be strictly a D thing.

[Brett Bellmore]

Nah, I wouldn't think they were exclusively a Democratic thing. Just disputing verochkax's claim that RINOs like Romney and McCain got spared the comparison.

[Joe_dallas]

Yes every election since 1948, the republican candidate was labeled as bad as Hitler with the possible exception of 1952 and 1956 when Eisenhower was the republican nominee. Probably because accusing Eisenhower as being another hitler would not have been a winning campaign theme since Eisenhower was the Allied Supreme Commander of ETO during WW2

[bernard11]

The Democrats have compared literally every Republican Presidential candidate starting with Dewy to Hitler. Every last one.

Ah. the Bellmore Generalization. If any Democrat anywhere compared a Republican to Hitler then "the Democrats" did.

Did David Duke make all Republicans Klan-level racists?

[Joe_dallas]

one person that the republicans have disowned vs democrat accusations in most every election since 1948 with the possible exception of the 1952 and 1956 when Eisenhower was running for president.

[Riva]

Name any democrat office holder who has rejected the never ending character assassination and stream of belittling insults directed against President Trump. Even after two assassination attempts he’s still labeled as a would be dictator and threat to democracy.

[Magister]

he’s still labeled as a would be dictator and threat to democracy

That's not character assassination or belittling insults; that's what Trump called himself (dictator for day one) and showed himself to be (January 6th insurrection).

[Riva]

Yeah, encouraging others to go peacefully and patriotically screams insurrection. But you sure showed me. Nothing irresponsibly unbalanced about the democrats’ rhetoric.

[Both Sides]

Living up to my username, I would point out that every Democratic presidential candidate for many decades has been labeled a communist/Marxist by a variety of Republicans/conservatives.

[Kazinski]

Well, they aren't wrong.

[Josh R]

It's your choice if you want to look stupid.

[David Nieporent]

Reminder: The Democrats have compared literally every Republican Presidential candidate starting with Dewy to Hitler. Every last one.

And we all know that by "The Democrats" Brett means that some no-name guy somewhere who might or might not have been a Democrat said that.

[Kazinski]

"And (until recently) potential criminal liability."

Actually Harris was a prosecutor at the time, prosecutors then and now possess very robust immunity for their actions. First of all they won't ever prosecute themselves, then the courts are very solicitous to their perogatives.

The odds of a prosecutor getting prosecuted locally, or federally for ordering cops to make warrantless raids to enforce gun laws is nil.

[not guilty]

Prosecutors have absolute immunity from civil suit for damages when they are acting as advocates -- deciding whom to prosecute and presenting the government's case. They are not entitled to absolute immunity for "investigative" or "administrative" acts. see, e.g., Burns v. Reed, 500 U.S. 478, 483 n.2 (1991). Directing police regarding illegal searches falls outside that advocatory role. Id., at 492-496 (no absolute immunity as to the prosecutorial function of giving legal advice to the police).

Prosecutors are not immune from criminal prosecution.

[Kazinski]

You didn't actually refute anything I said.

You do realize that don't you?

[not guilty]

Au contraire. You posited that "prosecutors then and now possess very robust immunity for their actions." I cited actual legal authority showing that not to be the case.

[Commenter_XY]

So the 1st, 2nd, and 4th amendment are all on her shit list. Is there any part of the constitution she does respect?

No

[bernard11]

Scroll down a few tweets and there is another video where you get a glimpse of the woman speaking in the first one.

She doesn't look like Kamala Harris to me. And note that this comes from the Trump War Room.

They would never manipulate a video, would they?

[Brett Bellmore]

Look, just give it up, it's not a manipulated video.

Why would you even think it was? Because she doesn't have a history of anti-gun positions?

[bernard11]

Why would you even think it was?

It comes out of the Trump campaign. Surely that's reason enough to be suspicious.

Also, in the admittedly brief look we get at her face she doesn't look like Harris to me.

[Brett Bellmore]

Sure looks like her to me, and the words were exactly the same in the original sound only recording I found.

[Sarcastr0]

This is an out of context single sentence from a 40 minute press conference 17 years ago.

Somehow, what you claim she wanted was never an actual policy.

Even if it is who the right claim it is saying what they claim it says in context, it’s not saying no warrants, it’s from nearly 2 decades ago, and it’s from a different position with different responsibilities than President.

Edit: Abrasoka does the spadework better than me below. Appreciate you, Ab!

Is this about the law that was at issue in Jackson v. City and County of San Francisco?

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, it’s not saying no warrants. It’s not saying warrants, either. Conspicuously not saying warrants.

Why’s Ab getting kudos for duplicating my link 40 minutes later?

Anyway, yes, it is the same law.

[Sarcastr0]

He’s going to go all in on an “Israel indiscriminately bombed children without provocation”

It’s a 15 second clip, Brett.

Ab managed to do analysis without being an outcome-oriented tool. Though I also admire his long history of asking questions and giving inputs that are respectful and thoughtful, even when those he is responding to (including me) are not.
I don’t agree with him on a ton of stuff but he’s a critical thinker.

[Roger S]

Harris says very little about what her policies will be, so we have to go on what she said.

[Joe_dallas]

Roger S 1 hour ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
Harris says very little about what her policies will be, so we have to go on what she said."

Concur
A good indication of her policies will be is based on her prior statements, her prior actions and who she has selected for her policy advisors, all of which point to be far left, pro - iran, anti Israel,

[Kazinski]

"A good indication of her policies will be is based on her prior statements"

I will have to disagree with you there, she will go as far as she can as fast as she can.

Prior statements are only an indication of how far she thought she could go in that place, and at that time.

[Sarcastr0]

telepathic demonization.

Based on your own partisan worldview and not much else.

How lame.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Harris says very little about what her policies will be, so we have to go on what she said.

Joe_dallas, I have now watched the entire press conference. The clip shown is not a fake. The characterization of what got said, however, has been outlandish.

Harris at that press conference, and Newsom at that press conference, said again and again that they were talking about prior offenders with guns. They both acknowledged, again and again, and insisted, that it was important to stay within the limits of the law in promulgating the new legislation.

They acknowledged intent to push restrictions—in the context of existing offenders—as far as they could legally go. Which amounted to acknowledgment that they did not intend to go farther.

Harris did say, word for word, the controversial utterance she is charged with. And out of context it sounds bad. Which appears to be why gun advocates on this thread have ripped it from the otherwise deferential-to-the-Constitution context which characterized every other moment of the press conference.

Why did Harris say that? I speculate it had to do with another point made at the conference, talking about known offenders who may live in city properties where their possession of guns is banned, and which the new law apparently encouraged more effort to monitor. I will not lean on that point, because it is speculation. I expect Harris relied on the crystal-clear press conference context to clarify her point. Your interpretation may differ.

I can insist, however, that the uproar over this long-ago incident—which was not apparently controversial at the time—has been over-the-top, and intellectually dishonest in context of what the clip actually showed happened.

I get that many gun advocates on this thread would insist anyway that an honest presentation of what happened proves intended tyranny by Harris and Newsom. You can argue that, but to argue about this event without acknowledgement of the overwhelming contrary context is not forthright.

[Sarcastr0]

What an old and busted talking point.

[Absaroka]

"Even if it is who the right claim it is saying what they claim it says in context, it’s not saying no warrants,..."

1)With only audio, I tried to be careful about who was speaking. It sure sounded like the lady introduced as Harris. There were other female speakers, but to my ear they had rather different voices.
2)I'm not going to listen to it again, but I think she said something like 'for the law abiding who are just sitting at home, we'll have the police just waltz in and check'. That, ummmm, seems pretty far from 'if we have sufficient evidence of a crime and get a judge to sign off on a warrant'. (Don't take my word for it, listen for yourself and give us the verbatim quote)

Harris is a politician, and the Venn diagram of 'politicians' and 'lying weasels who will on any given day say whatever they think is needed to get elected' isn't far from two overlapping circles. All four of the pres/veep candidates are in that circle. Politicians from blue states pivoting from 'ban all the guns now!!!' to 'I'm a big 2A fan' when they go national is a phenomenon as familiar as the fall leaves turning. There isn't much point in denying it.

(And to be sure, R's do their own predictable pivots, which are also not worth denying)

[Absaroka]

D'oh. Kazinzki's quote in the OP seems accurate to me, except maybe I heard 'waltz' instead of 'walk'. Wouldn't bet money, though, and too lazy to listen again.

[BadLib]

She said “just because you legally posses a gun in the sanctity of your locked home doesn’t mean we aren’t going to walk into that home and check to see if you’re being responsible and safe in the way you conduct your affair”. No search warrant would be issued just on a hunch that you might not be storing your firearms legally and she indicates that “we” (i.e., "the government”) will “walk into” your locked home. It’s hard to envision how any such search, just based on you possibly having a firearm in your home, could possibly be anything but a warrantless search as if the house is locked at the time of their entry the search clearly isn’t voluntary.

She didn’t say, for example, “if we are serving a search warrant and happen to notice a gun stored counter to the law, we will prosecute you for the violation of that law”.

She put no qualifiers on under what conditions “we” would walk into your home. Therefore a reasonable person would not assume any. If she had said “Just because you may have adult art in your home doesn’t mean we aren’t going to walk into that home and check to see if you have illegal child porn” wouldn’t that suggest to you that that such a search was not done with a warrant?

[Randal]

She put no qualifiers on under what conditions “we” would walk into your home. Therefore a reasonable person would not assume any.

No, a reasonable person would assume the normal conditions that always apply.

Only a partisan asshole would assume that she was surreptitiously implying an intent to jettison half of the Bill of Rights.

[David Nieporent]

That sounds bad, but I'd like more than a sentence fragment before I determine what she was saying.

[zztop8970]

You have the full press conference in a link below. Listen to it, There is absolutely no doubt that (a) this is Harris and (b) she says exactly what the quote says - she thinks the police can simply walk into the house of a law abiding citizen who legally ownes a gin to check if thye are keeping it secure. Let's see all the hoax claimers -(I'm looking at you Lathrop) acknowledge they were wrong to doubt the veracity.
https://sanfrancisco.granicus.com/player/clip/3577?view_id=106&redirect=true

[Stephen Lathrop]

zztop8970 — Given what was presented, I was not wrong to doubt the veracity. If there is solid confirmation now, or soon, I will be fine with that.

So far, it looks to me like the confirmation level has achieved probity about equal to the Hunter Biden laptop stuff. In short, it might be real, but if it were mine to decide whether or not to publish, I would still wait for better evidence.

I would prefer something from a source without partisan valence, and both capability and motivation to doctor evidence. I have a prejudice against shocking stories that just, "surface," prior to an election. It dates back to good advice I got from an old-time politician in the 1970s. That advice proved wise, and it served me well.

It could be I am getting too conservative about these things. I just heard candidate Vance try to convince everyone that if it were necessary to plant a fake story to get the mainstream media to address his constituents' concerns, that was fine with Vance.

Please excuse my over-caution, if that is what you think it is.

[Brett Bellmore]

You're pathetic, you know that?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore, perhaps pathos is in the eye of the beholder. You are quite the beholder.

[Absaroka]

"I would prefer something from a source without partisan valence"

I'm really trying to grok this. You think that the city of San Fran has for years employed a right wing partisan vendor to distribute its press conferences, and makes no objections when that vendor releases doctored versions as genuine?

You hear some weird conspiracy theories in the comments here, but ... wow.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, that's exactly why I said above that he was pathetic.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Absaroka, are you telling me that the City of San Francisco published that record of a press conference, or that someone else you demand I trust published it? If it’s the latter, then I have no way to know whose hands have had access. My caution would be less needed if the release were a clip sourced currently from San Francisco archives, clearly showing Harris’s face while speaking. What I saw was not that. And if it is not that, I wonder why San Francisco is not the source. That at least would need detailed explanation.

I absolutely do expect fake media attacks online during this election cycle. I expect they are already commonplace, and would be perplexed if some magically accurate method could prove otherwise. Online political publishing has become a cesspool.

By the way, I am also sufficiently familiar with archival practice to understand that tampering by outsiders with archival materials is fairly commonplace, including at some archives famous world-wide for their historical collections.

Some of the best and most prestigious archives in the world have been systematically plundered. The FBI has arrested looters with giant collections assembled from treasures stolen from a range of archival sources.

Archival thefts, and archival tampering are both threats to be reckoned with. Unlike you, apparently, I have never been comfortable with publishing notable news I could not be confident I had evidence sufficient to prove, even assuming the demise of my best source for a story.

All that said, I have not bothered to follow the twists and turns of this story. I just looked at the first link provided, and commented on that. Tell me where I can find evidence to support the story to the level of reliability I mentioned, and I will take a look.

[Brett Bellmore]

See, truly pathetic: You're hypothesizing that SF's archive of their own press conferences got hacked, in order to avoid admitting that Harris really did say something that was totally in character for her, and perfectly consistent with her stance on gun ownership and civil liberties in general.

Seriously, have you noticed that the Harris campaign isn't denying she said it? Nobody in the SF government is claiming the video is faked.

You're just inventing an imaginary hacking to dismiss evidence you don't like the implications of. That's why I called you pathetic.

[Absaroka]

"Absaroka, are you telling me that the City of San Francisco published that record of a press conference, "

As a casual few minutes of looking would tell you, the city of SF contracts with Granicus Inc. to distribute recordings of city functions. That's what Granicus' business model is.

You posit that the city willingly contracts with that provider, and has for years, either knowing that their provider has a rightwing bias and doctors the recordings, or that the city has never learned that their provider is doctoring the recordings. Over the years, no resident or reporter has ever called up the city and said 'you know, the recordings don't match what happened'.

Here is your big chance - you can have the scoop of your journalistic career by exposing the scandal. Exposing a major national scandal like that will way eclipse your brief small town newspaper career. Just call the city up and explain the provider they contract with is doctoring the recordings. It will bankrupt Granicus. I see a Pulitzer in your future.

Alternatively, whoever you connect with will put the phone down and say 'Wow, you wouldn't believe what some kook is saying'.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Absaroka, I posit nothing.

You are the guy demanding acceptance of unsupported presumptions, while buying into a take you are nearly certain is true. I'm the guy sitting on the sidelines waiting to hear more.

If we both repeat what we are doing time and again, you will be the guy who sometimes turns out wrong. I will be the guy who published something else I knew I could prove. My publication record will be better than yours.

As an editor and publisher, I many times bypassed or delayed a decision on good-looking stories that were almost certainly true, because neither plausibility nor probability is adequate basis to publish a consequential news story. It was always the right thing to do. There was never a shortage of other stories to investigate. Only a shortage of good investigators to go after them.

We both enjoy the luxury that if that outdated attack on Harris can be shown reliable, it will get the minor play in major media it deserves. No matter how vociferously it gets featured in Trump campaign ads, it will move no polling results, and affect barely any ballots. Your notion that a major national scandal might be implicated is a gun advocate's fever dream. Calm down.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Absaroka — Interestingly—now that a link to actual press conference video has been posted—I can see that the camera angle in that plainly-genuine video differs markedly from the one initially presented in a link from the post which kicked this discussion off. In the originally-presented link (the one I first responded to) no part of Harris's face is visible while she speaks. She is recorded at an angle from her rear right. Her back is visible. Her hair obscures completely the side of her face. Her eyes, nose, and mouth never appeared.

In the more-recent link, the view is clearer, and the camera angle discloses the faces of speakers after they step to the microphone. I surmise that the inexpertly-made video which kicked off this controversy was recorded by some unknown party, other than the one you insisted I must defer to because it has a business relationship with San Francisco.

[BadLib]

Although if you listen to the clip starting at about 7:25, it appears the legislation being discussed affects "known gun offenders" (presumably those convicted of a gun related crime) register with the police (perhaps as a condition of parole?). So, in context, it appears that Harris is not talking about all residents or even all gun owners, just those who have previously been convicted of a gun related crime.

That doesn't necessarily make her statement or the law being discussed a good idea or even constitutional, but her statements taken in context are nowhere near as extreme as they seem to be when taken out of context.

I didn't listen to the whole recording or track down the (proposed?) statute so there could be more relevant context that I missed.

[Absaroka]

"I didn’t listen to the whole recording or track down the (proposed?) statute so there could be more relevant context that I missed."

About 9 minutes later she says, as quoted earlier, "Just because you legally possess a gun in the sanctity of your locked home doesn’t mean we’re not going to walk in and check that you’re being responsible and safe in the way you conduct your affairs…"

The "just because you legally possess" doesn't sound like she is talking about the previously convicted prohibited persons on her gun offender registry, because "legally possess" doesn't apply to them, and you wouldn't check how they were storing their gun, you would (hopefully) be arresting them for felon in possession.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Weird link. Weird wording. Weird visual artifacts. No view of her face, so no way to see whether it looks like she is uttering those words, or others. Actually, no way to see the speaker is even Harris. No provenance except, "Trump War Room." And it's from repeat fakery victim Kazinski.

Without further corroboration, this one goes down as a likely not-very-deep fake hoax.

[Frank Drackman]

I thought Governor New-Scum outlawed them?

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

I know right? CA has declared this election a state designated "meme-free zone". Why are there memes still being published online?

Don't they know this is a Meme-Free Zone? Is it because meme's are still allowed across state lines and the only solution is to federally ban all memes everywhere? I'd argue that good law-abiding memester's will be the only ones harmed, but what do I know?

[Drewski]

There are a ton of news stories confirming this statement, although it's being exclusively carried by right-wing news outlets that appear to have decontextualized it. Probably it was clear she was talking about warrants if it weren't cut so tightly.

[Brett Bellmore]

It was a May 2007 press conference concerning this new law.

I believe this is the full press conference. At 33 minutes. While earlier in the press conference somebody had stated that they wouldn’t be just breaking into people’s houses to check, her own statement doesn’t appear to include that proviso, seemed actually to be walking it back.

[Drewski]

Thanks for the link. Having listened to the whole thing, I can't defend that statement without bending my mind into a pretzel. I think she does know better and failed to articulate it properly, given that she hasn't actually done that thing, but on its face the clip contains exactly what it says on the can.

[zztop8970]

Well , give Lathrop a call, and I'm sure he'll provide the needed lessons on how to bend your mind into a pretzel- you can see a fine example from him a few posts above.

[Krayt]

Don't you hate it when political parties decontextualize stuff for cheap political shots? Ahhh why bother? There's too many examples.

[Brett Bellmore]

Standard visual artifacts when you're recording a TV screen, actually. It's a video of her own press conference on an SF TV station.

[Absaroka]

Here is a link to all 40 minutes of the press conference (I couldn’t get the video to work, but the audio was OK).

1)Geez, politicians sure do ramble on. Concise, clear speech sure isn’t a core competence of theirs..
2)A little after 24 minutes, Harris is talking about checking up on people in the new gun offender registry, so explicitly not law abiding people.
3)But then, a little after 33 minutes, she really explicitly talks about searching houses of the law abiding.

[Brett Bellmore]

I couldn't get the video to work, either, but the audio was clear enough. I expect Fox used that video somebody had captured filming a TV because the actual conference video was unplayable, and they really wanted the picture, not just sound.

I really don't know why Lathrop would think deep fakes would be necessary to produce video of Harris making anti-gun threats. Given her record in California, all you'd need is a bit of searching. She really IS hostile to civil liberties.

[Sarcastr0]

I really don’t know why Lathrop would think deep fakes would be necessary to produce video of Harris making anti-gun threats. Given her record in California, all you’d need is a bit of searching. She really IS hostile to civil liberties.

'I don't know why anyone would disagree with my very partisan takes.'

I tend to agree with you that the short clip is legit and of Harris, if I had to bet. But come on, man. You can have your PoV; you can't insist everyone share it.

[Brett Bellmore]

Harris has her own PoV, and the clip was entirely representative of it, so why assume it was fake? Because it might hurt her politically?

[Sarcastr0]

The point of the clip is to establish that PoV.

I don't think it does so.

You came in already having decided that was her sekret thoughts, never mind her actual statements.

Your credibility determination was already baked in due to your telepathy.

[Brett Bellmore]

You don't 'think' it does because you know here actual PoV on guns is politically damaging, and you're helping her to be unburdened by the past.

With somebody like Harris, you don't need to be reading secret thoughts.

Here's "On The Issues" quoting Kamala today Even in her efforts to unburden herself from the past, that's pretty radical. But, let's see what she was saying just 4 years ago, trying to get the Democratic nomination:

Harris quotes on gun control back in 2020

"Q: Senator Harris, you think the buyback should be mandatory?

Senator Harris: Five million assault weapons are on the streets of America today. During the course of this debate, eight people will die from gun violence. We need action, and Congress has had years to act and failed because they do not have the courage. When I'm elected, I'll give them 100 days to pull their act together, put a bill on my desk for signature and if they don't, I will take executive action and put in place a comprehensive background check requirement and ban the importation of assault weapons into our country, because it is time to act. "

"The idea that we would wait for Congress, which has just done nothing to act [on gun control], is just overlooking the fact that every day in America, our babies are going to school to have drills where they are learning about how they have to hide in a closet or crouch in a corner if there is a mass shooter roaming the hallways of their school. "

"The problem is Congress has not had the courage to act which is why when elected president, I will give Congress 100 days to bring all these good ideas together and put a bill on my desk for signature. If they do not, I will take executive action and put in place the most comprehensive background check policy we've had. I will require the ATF to take the licenses of gun dealers who violate the law. I will ban by executive order the importation of assault weapons. "

So, she's not only anti-gun, she intends to do it by executive dictateorder if Congress refuses.

[Sarcastr0]

You don’t ‘think’ it does because you know here actual PoV on guns is politically damaging, and you’re helping her to be unburdened by the past.

Fucking telepathy about me calling you out on telepathy.

You ignore some of her quotes and not others. Because you're the one among the two of us with an outcome you are committed to.

And then you switched to your own 2A take and away from the quote in the OP, which is a whole new goalpost. And a pretty low bar of one - yes, I do expect Harris and you disagree on gun rights.

[Joe_dallas]

Just pretend her prior actions and statements bear no reflection on her POV.

her POV is just a complete mystery

[Sarcastr0]

Y'all are the one trumpeting a 15 second clip that's nearly old enough to vote.

If her PoV is so obvious, why are you scraping the bottom of the barrel?

[Joe_dallas]

Gaslight - lets pretend 30+ years of her political history is a complete blank slate
No voting record
No interviews on any subject
No statements on any subject

Just keep pretending

[Sarcastr0]

I will admit I've not paid attention to her political history.

But I sure don't trust you lot to give a fair accounting, and if you had any self reflection you wouldn't trust yourself either.

Certainly her campaign has said otherwise recently.
Which means, even if you don't trust her, she thinks gun regs carry a political price that she doesn't think is worth pushing for.

[Kazinski]

Secret Thoughts?

Nothing Secret about it.

[Sarcastr0]

Never mind her current statements. THOSE are lies.

But this thing from 17 years ago? That's the real stuff!

Cherry picking to get you to where you want to go.

Has zero to do with her actual thinking, just yours.

[Kazinski]

Well Sarcastro, then how old are the allegations of racial discrimination in renting do you and others continue to bring up against Trump?

Way more than 17 years.

How old is the Jean Carroll allegation?

What is the statute of limitations for past statements and conduct in a presidential campaign?

[Sarcastr0]

How often do people bring up those old issues with Trump?

And how hard are you deflecting from your own speculative telepathy?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Sarcastr0 — I suggest that for confirming news stories, it is better not to bet. My practice in the news business was to confirm, or postpone, or discard. It became habitual. I stick to it now, and rarely have cause to regret doing so.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Moved.

[Brett Bellmore]

Hey, Stephen; Want to concede it's not a fake, now that I hunted down the original press conference, and linked to it a few comments down?

It's not like you need deep fakes to produce video of Democrats making anti-gun statements...

[Commenter_XY]

Net net: Kamala, please keep talking. 🙂

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore — I repeat here the reply I offered Joe_dallas; it applies alike to you:

Harris says very little about what her policies will be, so we have to go on what she said.

Joe_dallas, I have now watched the entire press conference. The clip shown is not a fake. The characterization of what got said, however, has been outlandish.

Harris at that press conference, and Newsom at that press conference, said again and again that they were talking about prior offenders with guns. They both acknowledged, again and again, and insisted, that it was important to stay within the limits of the law in promulgating the new legislation.

They acknowledged intent to push restrictions—in the context of existing offenders—as far as they could legally go. Which amounted to acknowledgment that they did not intend to go farther.

Harris did say, word for word, the controversial utterance she is charged with. And out of context it sounds bad. Which appears to be why gun advocates on this thread have ripped it from the otherwise deferential-to-the-Constitution context which characterized every other moment of the press conference.

Why did Harris say that? I speculate it had to do with another point made at the conference, talking about known offenders who may live in city properties where their possession of guns is banned, and which the new law apparently encouraged more effort to monitor. I will not lean on that point, because it is speculation. I expect Harris relied on the crystal-clear press conference context to clarify her point. Your interpretation may differ.

I can insist, however, that the uproar over this long-ago incident—which was not apparently controversial at the time—has been over-the-top, and intellectually dishonest in context of what the clip actually showed happened.

I get that many gun advocates on this thread would insist anyway that an honest presentation of what happened proves intended tyranny by Harris and Newsom. You can argue that, but to argue about this event without acknowledgement of the overwhelming contrary context is not forthright.

I add in your case, Bellmore, that if I had ever had a reporter working for me who tried to smuggle through a distortion that outlandish about a reported event, that reporter would have been fired. Of course no one who would have done that ever got hired in the first place.

[Kazinski]

Well there is one tell,if the Trump Campaign did put out a deepfake video of Harris saying something she never said, both Harris, and the MSM would be calling out the Trump campaign, nonstop.

Kind of like this CNN fact check, but much more prominently:

Fact check: Harris campaign social media account has repeatedly deceived with misleading edits and captions
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fact-check-harris-campaign-social-media-account-has-repeatedly-deceived-with-misleading-edits-and-captions/ar-AA1qzZdx

"Below are eight examples of false or misleading video posts from the account since mid-August, including three from the latter part of this week."

[Dr. Ed 2]

Another reason to be armed...
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-hell-and-horror-of-cow-attacks-i-told-my-husband-to-leave-me-to-die?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us

[ThePublius]

You would need an elephant gun.

[Kazinski]

Naw, my uncle used to execute cows with a point blank LR .22 to the forehead.

[ThePublius]

Try that with a cow charging towards you. In a herd.

[Magister]

the average weight of a UK dairy cow is 620kg (98st).

As an American, I appreciate an effort not to go exclusively metric, but saying 98 stones doesn't really help.

[Dr. Ed 2]

A stone is 14 lb
10 are 140 lb
100 are 1,400 lb
1,400 - 28 = 1,372 lb

[Magister]

I know what a stone is. That was not the point.

[ThePublius]

Yet, 620kg is 1,364 lb.

[Voize]

If the unit isn't weird enough it gets weirder, because when referring to the unit of weight the plural of "stone" is "stone".
As in, "He's a big bloke, at least 15 stone."

[David Bremer]

"a big bloke" and "at least 15 stone." So 210 pounds?

Excuse me while I head off to the gym.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Brit-speak for a visiting NFL team: "Big lads"

[Commenter_XY]

I have been following the pseudoanonymity series of posts by Professor Volokh. It has been very educational. Now I have a question.

Why can't one rule be: If one private party in a suit gets pseudoanonymity, then so do the opponent(s). A level playing field.

Exception: Government entities with enforcement authority cannot be pseudoanonymous.

[Noscitur a sociis]

As Prof. Volokh has explained, the situation requires balancing the party’s interest in concealing their identity with the public’s interest in knowing it. There’s no particular reason to think that that balance is always going to come out the same way for every party in a particular case.

[Commenter_XY]

Balancing is done by a judge with their own set of biases; is what I suggest a way to reduce the biases Judges bring to the table?

[Noscitur a sociis]

With respect, it doesn’t really seem like it, no. Under your system, the judge is still going to have to figure out whether the first party gets anonymity or not, biases and all.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Trump’s lackadaisical campaign activity ought to raise a question. Is this guy even trying to win in the electoral college, or does he have some other route in mind to get sworn in and avoid prison? If so, what route? Does he plan to win in the House? Will he rely on his partisan buddies on the Supreme Court?

Corollary question: If there is attempted circumvention of electoral procedures, does Garland have the foresight, energy, and commitment necessary to stop that kind of plot? If it happens, it will be alleged an alternative—but constitutionally legitimate—route to win the presidency. Will that make Garland worry and mumble, or will he act, and act soon enough, to charge criminally whoever participates in a plan to thwart another election?

It’s dismaying to have to worry about preposterous-sounding stuff like that, but here we are. There are less than two months until election day, visible attempts under way in at least Georgia to subvert another election, and no public sign of anything but piddling private civil actions to prevent it.

Also, what has been seen happening in Georgia is not likely to be happening only in Georgia.

[Krayt]

I suggested he may have gone into retirement, and everyone gone home. But you couldn't just stop prosecutions of your opponent, the reason you did them, because then that would expose they were political prosecutions, and can't have that!

So continue. And it turns out at least some have a partial defense that he honestly thought he was right. This is laughable, but that's the law. And what better way than to double down on it?

You've gone full circle, driving him to run again as a defense, then are shocked it is a defense?

He was gone. Mission accomplished. So you try to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

[Randal]

You are too drunk to comment. Try again in the morning.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, that sounds about right. I think Trump probably would have retired if not for the lawfare; It just became too obvious he needed to be President to stop it.

You politically persecuted him, and made getting reelected his only viable defense. Same reason dictators don't voluntarily leave office: The retirement plan sucks.

You made it suck for an elected President, and got the predictable result.

[Drewski]

Sorry, you can't simultaneously take the position that Trump's prosecutions were because he's a candidate and that he's a candidate because he's being prosecuted. You and Krayt have now each taken on both claims, and it merely highlights how dishonest you are to anyone paying attention.

[Krayt]

You sure can do this. I admit it's just a theory and I could be wrong.

I still look on an early theory he got so tired of tangling with NY democrats, he decided to kick them in the nuts before shuffling off his mortal hair curl.

[Drewski]

"You sure can do this."

Well, yes, obviously you can, if you're dishonest or mentally ill. I meant "can't" more in the sense of "shouldn't."

[Krychek_2]

Trump was repeatedly sued since long before he went into politics. He's been a business crook all his life and has the lawsuits to prove it. So the idea that simply because he has continued to be sued is lawfare is ridiculous, and convinces no one except the already converted. Granted, the criminal charges are new, but hardly unfounded.

[Brett Bellmore]

You're not going to pretend, are you, that nothing changed in terms of legal attacks on him when he announced for the Presidency? Sure, prior to that he'd been sued occasionally. Afterwards it was non-stop, and crazy prosecutions, too.

[Krychek_2]

The quantity may have gone up, but no, he's spent his entire business career being sued. Are you going to pretend that he isn't a fraud?

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm going to say that he's always been cutting corners. I wouldn't say he's an outright fraud, but he's let people who were pretty scammy borrow his name, like Trump U.

That said, the legal environment clearly changed, drastically, when he started running for President.

[Krychek_2]

But the legal environment *always* changes when someone runs for president. The Republicans spent 25 years investigating Hillary Clinton and only stopped when it became apparent she wasn’t going to run again.

Trump failed to appreciate that running for president generates scrutiny. No matter your political party, your opponents are going to put your life under a microscope and every bad thing you thought was a secret is now going to be front page news. In Trump’s case there were plenty of bad things to expose.

Trump handed them the ammunition, regardless of how gleeful the Democrats may be in using it.

And frankly, complaining about lawfare when you're defending an obvious crook just looks like chickshit whining. As I said, it convinces no one except the already converted.

[Magister]

Both Trump and his Trump Organization have been found to have committed fraud, which is pretty much what outright would mean.

And of course Trump never let anyone borrow anything, let alone his name; everyone had to pay and pay. Trump University was 93% owned by Trump, according to Wikipedia; you'd do slightly better with Trump Institute which licensed the Trump name, and Trump described it as his own teaching in an infomercial, thus participating in that fraud.

[CountmontyC]

Every major corporation is sued constantly. Being sued constantly only proves you have enough money that people sue to get a part of it.

[Sarcastr0]

Trump has a special reputation for being well above the norm in being sued, suing, and failing to pay his lawyers.

[Krayt]

Hence the need for things like the 4th and 5th Amendments, to stop the king from filching through uppity lords' papers looking for anything to tag him with. Rich people have their fingers in many pies, and the king is guaranteed to be able to find something if they look hard enough.

And, failing that, the king would just sanction the entire estate, seizing that. Which was also partially done here, demanding, with glee in their hearts, over $500 million in cash.

He may be rotten, but you are also POSses for abusing this.

[Randal]

You’re not going to pretend, are you, that nothing changed in terms of legal attacks on him when he announced for the Presidency?

Do you mean in 2015 or this time?

[bernard11]

occasionally???

No. Not "occasionally."

[Stephen Lathrop]

. . . and crazy prosecutions, too.

Bellmore — In every federal prosecution Trump enjoyed the protection of grand jury process. He was indicted by the jointly sovereign People, not by political actors.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

What's happening in Georgia is called "election integrity", which of course is driving you people bonkers.

[Randal]

Election integrity = not letting Democrats vote.

[Mr. Bumble]

"Election integrity = not letting Democrats vote." Twice.

[Krychek_2]

Well, the GOP US House candidate in my district is campaigning on a promise to refuse to certify a Harris victory.

And I will repeat what I said earlier: When an elderly man starts ranting about eating cats and dogs, you get him to a neurologist. You don't give him access to nuclear launch codes.

[verochkax]

I don't know why he doesn't seem to be running a campaign either. It's almost like he'd rather lose and be able to claim that he was cheated rather than win.

This should be an easy election to win, given how bad Harris is.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm not sure how much of it is a lackadaisical campaign, and how much of it is the media deciding that they weren't going to COVER his campaigning. He's obviously holding campaign events, he even got shot at one.

If the media decide that they're just not going to cover a candidate's campaigning, that looks a lot like him NOT campaigning.

[Magister]

Two rallies in a week is a slow pace compared to 2016 or 2020 (his first rally then did kill Herman Cain). In 2016 by this date he'd done almost 60 rallies; in 2020, only 25 rallies by this date, as he suspended rallies during the early pandemic; in 2024, only 23 rallies without a pandemic excuse. Fewer general election debates this year than 2016 and the same as 2020 which had one Covid cancellation, if he sticks to his refusal to have another debate with Harris.

[Bob from Ohio]

Maybe his people realize rallies are a waste of resources.

[Brett Bellmore]

Maybe they realize it's an opportunity to shoot him.

[Magister]

The more likely problem is that Trump is tired and old and boring compared to 2016. Then, he liked rallies so much he wanted to do rallies after he became President rather than the actual work of the office; he did almost 20 rallies after the 2016 election through the end of 2017.

[Brett Bellmore]

Oh, I'm sure that's the case, too. But it's possible for him to be both doing fewer rallies than 4 years ago, AND for the media to be giving said rallies virtually no coverage.

[Magister]

I see plenty of sanewashing, so "virtually no coverage" is not correct.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Stephen, you kinda know that Team Trump has its own internal polls. And if they think they are going to win in a landslide, maybe they aren't so worried about winning....

[Krayt]

Or they know it's hopeless, and they're peeing on the toilet paper rolls before they go home.

[SimonP]

No, I think Trump's campaign is genuinely trying to win. They're just trying to do it in a way that doesn't over-tax their elderly, lazy, incompetent, and fundamentally unlikeable candidate. They're aiming for razor-thin margins of victory in just enough swing states to get them over the line. They're planning to get that by riling up their base, purging voter rolls, menacing voters on election day, challenging voter registrations, and so on. With polling where it is, they might manage to win that way.

Now - if that doesn't work? The next step will be de-certifying or contesting the electoral slates sent up to Congress from the states. It seems unlikely that they'll have majority support for that effort in the House or the Senate, so there will probably be a lawsuit to compel some result. They'll choose the state where they have the best chance, with sufficient electoral votes to deny either candidate an outright majority of the electoral college. Georgia, Arizona, one of those probably. (Unfortunately for them, the Fifth Circuit doesn't oversee any important swing states.) It'll go up to the Supreme Court, where they'll hope to sway Kavanaugh or Roberts to provide the fifth vote to toss the ballots or require Congress to select the president.

And if that somehow doesn't work, there is sure to be some manner of violence. Whether that looks like a re-hash of J6, with more guns and more of a plan, I'm not sure.

Or, who knows. Maybe Trump will gracefully concede and tell his supporters to calm down.

[not guilty]

Will the self-styled "pro-life" crowd weigh in on this?
https://www.propublica.org/article/georgia-abortion-ban-amber-thurman-death

[Stephen Lathrop]

not guilty — Sure. The new MAGA take on that is going to be that any attempt to, "exploit a tragedy" is left-wing stochastic terrorism, done with an eye to get Trump assassinated.

[Brett Bellmore]

How about, "It's pretty sad when a doctor is so gullible that he lets some woman die because he believes pro-'choice' lies about what a law says. Maybe you could stop the lying?"

[Michael P]

Senseless death is the point of the baby-killing brigade, apparently. Some moral midget brought that up in Monday's open thread and got super pissy when I pointed out the article wasn't based on anything the law actually requires. Apparently a "law talking guy" is as bad at reading relevant laws as that hospital and its counsel.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Don't play the reactionary fool. Nothing in that article convicts the law as the cause.

[Brett Bellmore]

Was that a reply to me? I don't think the law WAS the cause. Doctors taking seriously lies about the law, OTOH...

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Yes it was to you. There's no evidence of even that. There was a 20 hour delay. That's the only fact presented.

That delay being caused by the doctors deliberating over the law is just a retarded insinuation that assumes their premise.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore — Assume for the sake of stupid argument that you could find a lawyer—maybe a lawyer sent from God—with credibility sufficient to convince the doctor that it was a pro-choice lie that the law put him in jeopardy. What would that do to prevent a politically motivated prosecution by a pro-life grandstanding MAGA attorney general?

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Well seeing's how nothing is preventing our current US AG from politically motivated prosecutions, I'd say "nothing".

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Using the text of your evidence alone, can you demonstrate how the law was to blame? Be specific, please.

I didn’t see it in there. I only saw appeals to emotion, appeals to vague authority, insinuation and implication. But no claims supported by facts.

That’s probably good enough for your emotion-driven, feminine hate circles, but not for those of us that care about the facts.

[CountmontyC]

How much blame do you give the abortion provider who gave her the abortion drugs and then did no follow up? This has been a foreseen consequence of the drugs involved and the failure of the abortion provider to do proper care needs to be part of the discussion.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Well none of course, it doesn't serve his activist goals. He's not a critical thinker, only an emotional activist.

Counter arguments will fall flat, as this is a matter of faith for them and not empiricism.

[not guilty]

"How much blame do you give the abortion provider who gave her the abortion drugs and then did no follow up? This has been a foreseen consequence of the drugs involved and the failure of the abortion provider to do proper care needs to be part of the discussion."

Did you miss the part about how Ms. Thurman had to travel four hours to North Carolina to receive abortion care which was unavailable in Georgia? She was advised to go to the emergency room if complications developed. And this kind of complication from the mifepristone/misoprostol regimen was hardly foreseeable. As the ProPublica article states:

Deaths due to complications from abortion pills are extremely rare. Out of nearly 6 million women who’ve taken mifepristone in the U.S. since 2000, 32 deaths were reported to the FDA through 2022, regardless of whether the drug played a role. Of those, 11 patients developed sepsis. Most of the remaining cases involved intentional and accidental drug overdoses, suicide, homicide and ruptured ectopic pregnancies.

This woman died because the doctors in Georgia were cowed by the "pro-life" movement.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Sounds like those abortion providers in NC made a callous medical decision, no? What sort of shitty doctor would put a patient knowingly at risk like that? They were so bloodthirsty for killing that baby, that they deliberately endangered the mother. Pretty sick if you ask me.

>This woman died because the doctors in Georgia were cowed by the “pro-life” movement.

Where’s your proof? Or you just being driven by your emotions like a woman?

[not guilty]

"Sounds like those abortion providers in NC made a callous medical decision, no? What sort of shitty doctor would put a patient knowingly at risk like that? They were so bloodthirsty for killing that baby, that they deliberately endangered the mother. Pretty sick if you ask me."

The North Carolina providers first scheduled a surgical abortion. When the patient was late for that appointment, they offered mifepristone and misoprostol, a less invasive and safer course than surgical abortion. https://healthnews.com/family-health/pregnancy/surgical-vs-medical-abortion-pros-and-cons/ The providers counseled the patient regarding how to safely take the pills and instructed her to go to the emergency room if complications developed.

How did any of that deliberately endanger the patient? It seems pretty unremarkable to me.

[Life of Brian]

Well, for one thing, either the entire premise of the ProPublica hit piece (GA docs wouldn’t perform the procedure out of fear of the law) is completely false, or the NC clinic endangered the patient by handing over some pills, sending her back to her home state, and flippantly saying “no worries — just hit your local ER if anything happens!”

Having actually read the GA law at issue and seeing absolutely nothing that would have prohibited a D&C under the facts as presented, I’m strongly tending toward the first option. And to anyone that has spent any length of time in hospitals, the several-player “who’s on first” timeline so poignantly armchair-quarterbacked through the rest of the hit piece just looks like fairly standard institutional bumblefuckery.

[bernard11]

LoB,

Having actually read the GA law at issue and seeing absolutely nothing that would have prohibited a D&C under the facts as presented,

And how far would you back your analysis if you were facing a lengthy prison sentence if it turned out wrong, or if an ambitious prosecutor was eager to bring a case?

[Life of Brian]

Even setting aside the crystal-clear threshold requirement in the law for "a detectable human heartbeat" for it to apply at all, it seems to me you're just replaying the same general ooh-scary-what-if tone of the article and not taking into account what everyone actually did.

The itself article admits that the initial OBGYN noted in her file that they might do a D&C the next day, presumably if needed after trying to deal with the infection through less-invasive means. And ultimately they did the procedure, though unfortunately too late at that point.

There's simply no objective sign whatsoever that anyone was making decisions about her care in the shadow of the law -- and even if they were, no cogent explanation for why they would have suddenly thrown caution to the wind and put their freedom on the line by performing the D&C several hours later. As I said, the story told by the file is much, much more consistent with a typical hospital bureaucratic snafu.

Huge numbers of hospital deaths are attributed to mistakes in care, particularly when "mistakes" are measured via 20/20 hindsight by people with far more time on their hands than the actual practitioners in the trenches. In my view, this particular tragic story is just getting dragged into the spotlight because of its proximity to a hot-button topic.

[CountmontyC]

It has been known all along that complications from these drugs could arise unless under proper medical care. Prescribing these drugs without proper follow up is malpractice. It is the provider who is at fault.

[Armchair]

NG,

Should the North Carolina clinic have issued those abortion pills to the woman? Knowing the situation and knowing the dangers?

Or was the right to terminate the fetus's life more important than the risk to the woman's life?

[not guilty]

"Or was the right to terminate the fetus’s life more important than the risk to the woman’s life?"

Hyperbole much? Medication abortion is quite safe and effective. https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2024-03-26/whats-the-evidence-that-mifepristone-is-safe

In fact, carrying a pair of twins to term and delivering them is considerably more risky.

[CountmontyC]

It wasn't safe for this woman.

[Armchair]

"Hyperbole much?"
---No. A woman is dead. It's not hyperbole. It's callous to say it is.

"Medication abortion is quite safe and effective."
--Clearly it ISN'T safe. Not as it was prescribed and monitored. A woman is dead. This is your story, your link. If she hasn't taken that medication, she would be alive today. If you're going to use your case example, you need to stick by it.

Let's be clear here. The clinic SHOULD have kept her for observation. Not just sent her off and on her way with medication the clinic KNEW could cause complications.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

I love how he talks out of both sides of his mouth.

[not guilty]

Uh, abortion clinics are outpatient facilities, Armchair. They do not “keep [patients] for observation.” (The second pill is not taken until the next day after the first.)

Fatalities from the mifepristone/misoprostol regimen are vanishingly rare. The New York Times reports:

More than 100 scientific studies, spanning continents and decades, have examined the effectiveness and safety of mifepristone and misoprostol, the abortion pills that are commonly used in the United States. All conclude that the pills are a safe method for terminating a pregnancy.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/04/01/health/abortion-pill-safety.html A vast majority of the studies report that more than 99 percent of patients who took the pills had no serious complications.

The ProPublica article that I cited upthread states:

Deaths due to complications from abortion pills are extremely rare. Out of nearly 6 million women who’ve taken mifepristone in the U.S. since 2000, 32 deaths were reported to the FDA through 2022, regardless of whether the drug played a role. Of those, 11 patients developed sepsis. Most of the remaining cases involved intentional and accidental drug overdoses, suicide, homicide and ruptured ectopic pregnancies.

Ms. Thurman in all likelihood would have survived if doctors had begun surgery in a timely manner. She presented to the hospital at 6:51 p.m. on August 18. “Within Thurman’s first hours at the hospital, which says it is staffed at all hours with an OB who specializes in hospital care, it should have been clear that she was in danger, medical experts told ProPublica.” After attempts to treat her medically were unsuccessful, she was finally taken to an operating room at 2 p.m. the next day. Her heart stopped during surgery.

Per the ProPublica article, there is a “good chance” providing a D&C earlier could have prevented Amber Thurman’s death, the maternal mortality review committee concluded. That woman died because of the in terrorem effect of Georgia's abortion laws on the physicians treating her.

[Armchair]

You're talking out of both sides ng. It doesn't work.

1. You given a case example of a woman who died due to complications from a medical abortion.
2. But you're simultaneously arguing medical abortion is "super safe" and doesn't need any further regulations to prevent women like our victim here from dying.
3. AND simultaneously, you're arguing this case example DOES justify changing anti-abortion laws (which arguably didn't apply in this case anyway).

It doesn't work. Either the case example matters, or it doesn't. But not both.

[not guilty]

You were trying upthread to shift blame from the Georgia doctors to the North Carolina abortion providers. It seems to me that the latter followed the applicable standard of care, while the former did not.

[CountmontyC]

That standard of care by the abortion provider led to the woman's death. It was the drugs that they provided that caused her death. My proof? Without the drugs there would have been no dead material in her to cause sepsis. Obviously there needs to be a higher standard of care when prescribing these abortion drugs.

[Randal]

That's ridiculous. All drugs have potential side effects, many of them deadly. The standard of care is very often to go to the emergency room if you experience side effects. We're not going to change that standard. It would make pharmaceuticals almost impossible.

But it doesn't work if the emergency room is allowed to deny medical care. Clearly this woman's death is the fault of Georgia for failing to provide care.

[not guilty]

"That standard of care by the abortion provider led to the woman’s death. It was the drugs that they provided that caused her death. My proof? Without the drugs there would have been no dead material in her to cause sepsis. Obviously there needs to be a higher standard of care when prescribing these abortion drugs."
Unclear on the concept of proximate cause, CountmontyC?, What do you claim that the standard of care required of the North Carolina providers that they failed to do?

Fatal complications from administration of mifepristone and misoprostol are freakishly rare, as the articles I have linked to upthread attest. To reiterate:

Deaths due to complications from abortion pills are extremely rare. Out of nearly 6 million women who’ve taken mifepristone in the U.S. since 2000, 32 deaths were reported to the FDA through 2022, regardless of whether the drug played a role. Of those, 11 patients developed sepsis. Most of the remaining cases involved intentional and accidental drug overdoses, suicide, homicide and ruptured ectopic pregnancies.

https://www.propublica.org/article/georgia-abortion-ban-amber-thurman-death

Eleven out of 6 million is infinitesimal.

[CountmontyC]

Randal and NG the fact of the matter is that there are known side effects to the abortion drugs and at the minimum the ones prescribing them should be responsible for the proper care. In fact that is the standard of care most doctors and hospitals are actually are held to. There are all kinds of rules about doctors handing out prescriptions and their responsibility in keeping their patients safe. Why should abortion drugs be exempt from those standards?

[not guilty]

Once more, what do you claim that the standard of care required of the North Carolina providers that they failed to do? They acknowledged the possibility of complications, and they advised Ms. Thurman to seek care in the emergency room if needed. The NC providers had no reason to anticipate the timidity and incompetence of the hospital personnel.

If you don’t know the answer to my question, there is no shame in admitting that.

[Randal]

I mean, let's be honest. There's some shame.

[CountmontyC]

Why do you not hold the people that provided the drugs to account for her death? Do you find it acceptable that they gave her these drugs and did no follow up? That their responsibility after handing out a drug that carries potentially fatal consequences ( as was the case here) is to tell the recipients to get to the emergency room? Personally I believe that those handing out the drugs should hold primary responsibility for what happens.

[Sarcastr0]

The whole reason this is a thing is the Georgia expert panel ruled the death was preventable based on the standard of care *in the hospital*

Are you trolling?

[Armchair]

In terms of this case example....

It's pretty clear to me that the hospital screwed up, and the Georgia Abortion Law didn't apply. It only applies to live fetuses, and in this case, given the sepsis and dead tissue, the fetus was most likely dead when the woman got to the hospital.

In terms of abortion clinics being an "outpatient" facility that does surgical abortions...you're making a good case for abortion clinics NOT to be outpatient facilities, and needing to have overnight beds (or at least a nearby hotel where patients are required to stay). Complications happen (as they did in this case), and at least waiting until the treatment regime is over, rather than allow the patient to go hours away...seems like a prudent regulation in my opinion. In order to keep people alive.

[Michael P]

You would have a stronger basis in evidence if you wrote that this woman died because the doctors wanted a horror story to push their agenda.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Are my favored laws vague and extreme?

No its the doctors and hospital lawyers and women who are evil and wrong.

[Michael P]

I don't remember seeing your favored laws, but I would guess they're not vague but are extreme. "You can kill an unborn baby at any point, plus babies that escape during a to kill them" is extreme. I think Georgia's law sets the deadline too early, but it's not vague.

In this case, the hospital's doctors and lawyers do come across as either evil or dangerously ignorant to the point of malpractice.

[LawTalkingGuy]

“You can kill an unborn baby at any point, plus babies that escape during a to kill them.”

Is a stupid lie that right wingers make up about democratic abortion policy.

In this case, the hospital’s doctors and lawyers do come across as either evil or dangerously ignorant to the point of malpractice.

Yeah that’s what I thought. Blame everyone else and never engage in any self-reflection or acceptance of responsibility. You’ll do this forever and ever without end no matter how many horror stories you hear. It’s also remarkable that you take this position when actual lawyers and judges take the position that the laws mean the mother has to be dying (see Texas and the Kate Cox case/Idaho’s position on EMTALA) or that a state can actually balance a mothers life against the fetus and impose a duty to die (Oklahoma Supreme Court dissenters in a right to life case).

[Michael P]

I described the law in something like nine states plus DC, according to https://abcnews.go.com/US/state-state-breakdown-abortion-laws-2-years-after/story?id=111312220 .

You can make all the vacuous personal attacks you want, but it's obvious to the rest of us that you're avoiding the substance and not even trying to defend any position, much less standing behind one.

[Dr. Ed 2]

EXACTLY -- and perhaps that is what the lawsuit should have been -- that anyone prescribing the pill has to travel to the Red State for followup care, that they can't make Red State MDs do it.

[Armchair]

What happened was a tragedy. That being said....

An abortion clinic issued a dangerous medicine, without the proper follow up.
There was then less than a day's delay in the procedure on the other hand, a procedure which was clearly legal (since there was no live fetus), and which only had a "good chance" of preventing the death.

What this type of tragedy calls for is much tighter regulations on dangerous abortion medicines. Wouldn't you agree ng?

Or is the right to end a fetus's life more important to you than the risk to the mother's life?

[Sarcastr0]

Man, these are some causal gymnastics.

The right has some dumbass abortion bills on the books and Dems have been saying it's gonna get people killed.

And it has.

Best you can do is say other things are also to blame, but this is exactly the thing we all predicted - stupid anti-abortion paranoia makes for shitty, deadly laws.

Says a lot y'all can't even admit the law is bad and should be changed, you are just throwing chaff after chaff.

This will continue to happen, and the right will continue to be to blame for dead women.
This is dumb, unneeded, and ignores the medical community to women's health.
This is what no compromise the other side is pure evil gets you.

[Noscitur a sociis]

I’m pretty radical in my support for abortion access, but I’m having trouble seeing how Georgia’s abortion restrictions (which, to be clear, I oppose) are responsible for this tragic situation.

[Sarcastr0]

Did you read the Pro Publica Article? Melodramatic perhaps, but I do think they made a good case that these laws encourage defensive medicine on steroids, and that that's what happened to the standard of care here.

"The most restrictive state laws, experts predicted, would pit doctors’ fears of prosecution against their patients’ health needs, requiring providers to make sure their patient was inarguably on the brink of death or facing “irreversible” harm when they intervened with procedures like a D&C."
...
"She showed up at Piedmont Henry Hospital in need of a routine procedure to clear it from her uterus, called a dilation and curettage, or D&C."..."It took 20 hours for doctors to finally operate. By then, it was too late."

[Noscitur a sociis]

I did read the ProPublica article, and I agree that’s the conclusion they want the reader to reach. But I’m not sure that the article justifies it. There doesn’t seem to be any suggestion thst the Georgia law actually restricts the procedure at issue here, and I have trouble seeing how anyone could be in any doubt about that. And the article doesn’t offer anyone who can say that fear of violating the law actually had any effect on how this particular case was handled. Or is there something I’m missing.

[Sarcastr0]

The cause is clearer after the fact.

The take is that ‘life of the mother’ is a bright line where none exists in medical reality. It’s all risks until things go terminal.

So doctors are not sure where to draw the risk line, and if you add in super harsh penalties, they are hesitating.

Inevitably that will lead to some deaths, and the case here includes unexplained hesitation, as predicted.

[Armchair]

There's no issue about the law, because the fetus was dead before the woman even got to the hospital.

There's only a question about the "life of the mother" if the fetus is still alive.

[Sarcastr0]

I don't know how clear that was.

I don't know how clear the law is about the relationship between abortion services like D&C and fetal death:
"ProPublica learned how difficult it is to interpret the vague and conflicting language in bans’ medical exceptions — especially, the doctors said, when their judgment could be called into question under the threat of prison time."

I'm not sure I'd take ProPublica's reporting for gospel here, but bad or conflicting drafting is not a shocking and rare thing.

[Armchair]

You don't know. Most truthful thing you've ever said.

Stick with that. Repeat it to yourself. You don't know.

[Sarcastr0]

I regularly admit when I'm beyond my expertise.

You never do so.

What does that say about you and I?

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

If you corner him, he'll probably accuse you of blood libel again.

[Michael P]

I didn't know either. So I dug up the law in question read it and linked to it above. I educated myself before posting much about it.

You never do so.

What does that say about you and I?

[Noscitur a sociis]

The take is that ‘life of the mother’ is a bright line where none exists in medical reality.

That’s not the way that the statutory exemption for a medical emergency . Moreover, as described in the article, there wouldn’t even be a need to consider it, because the procedure wouldn’t have met the statutory definition of an abortion.

Now, it’s possible that the doctors involved thought that the law could be implicated. But none of them say that they did in the article. It doesn’t say there was any guidance from the hospital telling doctors to change their approach (on the contrary, it seems to say that there wasn’t). In fact, it doesn’t have any direct evidence that any medical provider in Georgia has changed anything about what they do in response to the change in the law. Unless I missed something (in which case I welcome your corrrection!), I’m having trouble seeing how there’s enough information here to justify drawing the connection.

[Sarcastr0]

I agree that the explanation for the delay isn't clear, but the article
1) establishes the medical and legal uncertainty that laws like Georgia's create
2) establishes that death was preventable and attributable most likely to a delay for uncertain reasons that fits the kind of delay the above uncertainty would cause.

It is a circumstantial case, because testifying about the delay would be career suicide. But it's a pretty strong circumstantial case, seems to me.
And a continuing concern, since even as legal understanding clarifies there will always be a continuing danger of some enterprising prosecutor pushing the envelope for that right wing cred.

[Note that there is a but-for cause here that if abortion were legal she wouldn't have needed a medical abortion and hence no complications. But the complication was a rare event so it's not worth gong down that rabbit hole]

[Noscitur a sociis]

I agree that the explanation for the delay isn’t clear, but the article
1) establishes the medical and legal uncertainty that laws like Georgia’s create
2) establishes that death was preventable and attributable most likely to a delay for uncertain reasons that fits the kind of delay the above uncertainty would cause.

I have to disagree. I don’t see any evidence presented in the article that justifies the inference that the law contributed to the delay. It’s possible that it did, obviously. As you note, it’s entirely understandable that the doctors involved wouldn’t tell the media that that’s what happened even it were true. But without that information—or, again, the information that any provider in Georgia actually changed any of their practices in response to the law—I don’t see any basis to infer that what might have happened did happen.

Note that there is a but-for cause here that if abortion were legal she wouldn’t have needed a medical abortion and hence no complications.

In the sense that “if things had been different, they would have happened differently”, I guess. But not in a way that supports an argument against the law. According to the article, she would have been able to obtain a medical abortion in Georgia and might have been more likely to make the appointment. But the article says that the alternative that she was given was just as good. Either that’s true, in which case the law didn’t do anything wrong, or it’s not, in which case the major problem is that the North Carolina clinic gave her inappropriate care.

If a state legalized marijuana, and someone died in a car accident while trying to buy some, that wouldn’t be a very persuasive argument that the law was dangerous. So I think you’re wise to disavow that argument.

[Michael P]

I think the law clearly changed the practices of doctors in Georgia, but it should not have changed their practices in cases like this, both because the lack of a heartbeat means the D&C is not an abortion under the law and because the law gives considerable leeway to the attending physician to define the "life of the mother" threshold. (There's no apparent provision for criminal prosecution of a doctor if a prosecutor disagrees with that assessment.)

If the drug combination is as safe as described (especially considering the relatively early stage of the pregnancy), I don't think the North Carolina clinic acted unreasonably. I think only the delay at the Georgia hospital, which in the best case was based on exaggerated impressions of the law, was far short of the standard of care -- and those exaggerated impressions would largely be due to the pro-choice crowd.

[Michael P]

How does a state end up with the equivalent of 11% of its population as bogus entries in election rolls, including 2.5% dead people?

https://kfor.com/news/local/453000-oklahomans-purged-from-voting-registration-rolls/

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

The DOJ better investigate and arrest the MAGAt officials responsible for disenfranchising the ballot harvesters, illegal aliens, and other Democrat fraudsters! Oklahoma is violating Federal election rules and the VRA!! Their purge is racist!

Sincerely,
Stephen Lathrop, Kamala Harris, Marc Elias, Joe Biden, George Soros, and Satan

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Hi,
This is Karl Marx reaching out from the pits of Hell. Please add me as a signatory!

Yours,
Karl "The Man" Marx

P.S. Rabbi Eliezer mentioned he would be my +1

[jb]

Must be because of the commie Democrats running things over there, right?

[Gasman]

"How does a state end up with the equivalent of 11% of its population as bogus entries in election rolls, including 2.5% dead people?"
I expect that 2.5% of the electorate dies over a period of a few years. Likewise 11% of people moving (out of voting precinct, or out of state, or out of country, such as military folks might do) is also not an unrealistic expectation over a couple year period.

One thing that keeps ERIC from being optimally effective is the wide spread non-participation of other states. Georgia is surrounded by many non-member states that would not share voter roles with Georgia, which might otherwise strike non-residents.

The system is chaotic because for some folks that is a feature, not a bug.

[Michael P]

Voter rolls are supposed to be updated shortly after a disqualifying event occurs, not several years later. If leaving them unattended for several years is good practice, that makes fraud much easier.

[David Nieporent]

1) Nothing in the article says that any of the entries were "bogus."

2) This is breathtakingly cynical, even for hacks like Michael P. The state properly updates the voter rolls to remove outdated entries, and Michael P pretends that doing so is somehow proof of nefariousness.

[Michael P]

The article doesn't have to use the word "bogus" for the entire to be "[n]ot conforming with what one would hope to be the case; disappointing or unfair". I think the only nefarious behavior here is by the people who make it hard for states to clean up their voter rolls.

[David Nieporent]

It need not use the word bogus, but it must describe something that substantively is bogus. But it didn't. It described groups of perfectly legitimate voters whose eligibility had since expired for one reason or another, from death to moving to conviction for a crime. So, as the state is supposed to do periodically, it went through and cleaned those up. Everything worked precisely as it was supposed to.

And yet instead of saying, "Oh, good, they removed ineligible voters," you sneered, in essence, "How sinister that they identified ineligible voters."

[Nelson]

Are you under the mistaken impression that a state automatically removes a voter from the rolls when they die? How exactly would that even work?

The same goes for anyone who moves out of the state. I first registered to vote in Illinois, but now live in Delaware. Until I informed them of my change of residence, they had no way of knowing where I lived.

Do you believe that the government tracks ever voter's residence?

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

At what point in time do you think the bottom rung, non-elite Democrat will go back to believing Kamala is an idiot?

[Frank Drackman]

November 6th

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

That's pretty hopeful thinking we'll have results on 11/6. We both no that is highly unlikely. It will look like a Trump landslide, until about a week or two afterwards after all the Democrats stop counting votes.

[Frank Drackman]

who am I to question Hey-Zeuss?

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Hey, how about that Hank performance last weekend? That's got me pretty hopeful, hbu?

[Frank Drackman]

Not sure why he didn’t start the season opener

[Michael P]

Are the Teamsters racist, misogynist MAGAts for not endorsing Harris-Walz in 2024 after endorsing Biden-Harris in 2020?

[apedad]

Not all of them.

Just the ones who are actually racist, misogynist MAGAts.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Apedad, a lot of municipal police unions are Teamster.

Personally, I think that concentrating on police unions was a savvy political move by a union seeking to clean up its image, but still...

[Sarcastr0]

It says a lot that Michael so often comes in insisting the left is going to be this knee jerk.
He's so sure he doesn't need to bother finding actual examples.

[Michael P]

Yes, it says that the left is ridiculously inconsistent in applying its purported principles.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/bunch-of-bigots-teamsters-union-slammed-for-not-endorsing-harris-despite-backing-biden/ar-AA1qNEtI provides receipts of those jerks kneeing. Or those knees jerking, as the case might be.

[Sarcastr0]

Tweets from:
Former TMZ host and producer Van Lathan
Chris Towler, who is a political science professor at Sacramento State
University of South Carolina poli-sci professor David Darmofal
James Williams — a former advisor to Sen. Dick Durbin

Someone did a search of twitter and made an article. Beats working, I guess.

Nutpicking is not better than handwaiving.

[Michael P]

Alternet is a very lefty site. Blame them for nutpicking, if you want to blame anyone. I think those examples are just the ones who said the quiet part out loud.

[OtisAH]

“Harris racks up regional endorsements from Teamsters locals after national union declines to endorse.”

“ny1” is a Spectrum news site.

https://ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2024/09/18/harris-local-teamsters-2024-trump

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Does a Federal prosecutor operating in a state have to have valid license in that state?

>Federal prosecutor Tina Ansari, who is trying to put whistleblower Dr. Eithan Haim in prison, has been practicing law without a license. License was suspended on September 1.

https://twitter.com/EdWhelanEPPC/status/1836563015480627560

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm pretty sure that he doesn't need the license if the only practice of law is doing his job as a federal prosecutor.

[not guilty]

My understanding is that there is a federal bar, not associated with any state.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The VA now requires its MDs to obtain and have a valid MD license issued by the state the VA hospital is in because of this. Federal Wildlife requires its employees to comply to have state-issued CDLs where otherwise required by state law.

I would be surprised if DOJ doesn't require its people to be members of SOME state bar, even if they may be operating under the license of the USA. I believe that the USA signs all prosecutions, I've seen his name on them even though someone else is actually doing it.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Your understanding is doubly incorrect. Each federal court has its own rules for admission, but all of them require, at a minimum, admission by a state or DC. Those rules, in turn, don’t generally restrict practice by DOJ attorneys, but they are also required to be admitted somewhere, and by statute (28 U.S.C. § 530B) they are required to comport with local professional conduct rules.

[Noscitur a sociis]

You are mistaken. Federal prosecutors don’t need to be licensed in the state the practice in, but they do need to be licensed somewhere.

[John F. Carr]

Good news: A new law aims to make Chinese government officials produce more accurate economic statistics.
Bad news: Accuracy is as defined by the Communist Party.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Biden, Newsome, Walz and Harris caught a break with that one!

[Dr. Ed 2]

The former Soviet Union's Constitution had a far more expansive protection of individual rights than ours does. But it was as interpreted by the Communist Party....

[Ed Grinberg]

compare:
https://nypost.com/2024/09/19/us-news/roger-marshall-demands-testimony-from-labor-stats-boss-over-818k-job-revision/

[apedad]

One or two weeks ago we had a discussion about officials turning against Trump; here’s a continuation:

Over 100 Republican National Security Leaders Endorse Vice President Harris

We firmly oppose the election of Donald Trump. As President, he promoted daily chaos in government, praised our enemies and undermined our allies, politicized the military and disparaged our veterans, prioritized his personal interest above American interests, and betrayed our values, democracy, and this country’s founding documents. In our view, by inciting the violent attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 and defending those who committed it, he has violated his oath of office and brought danger to our country. As former Vice President Pence has said "anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be President of the United States."

https://rbmralumni4harris.substack.com/p/over-100-republican-national-security?r=4ctaut&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&triedRedirect=true

Mostly Bush people but several prominent Trump officials too.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Did these national security officials say that Trump's campaign had all the signs of a Russian disinformation operation?

[Michael P]

And when the CCP lavishes gifts and finds a patsy to hold 10% for The Big Guy, does that now mean Tim Walz?

[verochkax]

Let's assume that what they say is true. They'd rather have a dangerous, anti-American far leftist who openly sics the federal government on political and ideological opponents?

[apedad]

No.

"We believe that the President of the United States must be a principled, serious, and steady leader who can advance and defend American security and values, strengthen our alliances, and protect our democracy. We expect to disagree with Kamala Harris on many domestic and foreign policy issues, but we believe that she possesses the essential qualities to serve as President and Donald Trump does not. We therefore support her election to be President."

[verochkax]

She is principled in the sense that she’s a principled leftist who is serious about destroying America.

She's also serious about letting older men finish in her mouth to get political appointments.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Bullshyte -- they are the RINO establishment and their attitude is "we may suck, but the Dems suck worse."

[Bob from Ohio]

"President of the United States must be a principled, serious, and steady leader who can advance and defend American security and values, strengthen our alliances, and protect our democracy"

Oh, and then they are endorsing Harris, who is none of these things. Unserious fools.

[apedad]

Hmmm.... whose opinion should we value more when discussing. " . . . advanc(ing) and defend(ing) American security and values . . . ?

Bob and Ed and verochkax (Truth X?)

Or people with titles like:

Former Assistant Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Obama and Trump Administrations
Former Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security, Trump Administration
Former Chief of Staff, Dept. of Homeland Security, Trump Administration
Former General Counsel, Dept. of Homeland Security, Trump Administration
Senior Advisor to the Directional of National Intelligence, Trump Administration; Republican Staff Director, Senate Armed Services Committee; Senior Advisor to the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, George W. Bush Administration
Senior Counselor to the Secretary of Homeland Security, Donald Trump Administration
Former Director of Counterterrorism, National Security Agency, George W. Bush Administration
Former Director of National Intelligence and Former Deputy Secretary of State, George W. Bush Administration
Former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigations, Reagan and George H.W. Bush Administrations
Former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency, George W. Bush Administration and Obama Administrations
Former Director of Threats, Ballistic Missile Defense Organization, Reagan and Clinton Administrations
Former Director, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Reagan Administration

[Bob from Ohio]

Only fools are impressed with mere titles. So your comment tracks.

[apedad]

I'd fully agree . . . if there were only a handful.

But this is not a handful; it's widespread across agencies, Rep/Dem administrations, and decades.

[verochkax]

These are all people who part of the Wall Street government complex. Meaning that they are older, have plenty of assets, and benefit from big government policies that inflate the value of assets and make them richer while hollowing out the middle class.

There's a reason that Warren and Harris both cheered the 50 bps interest rate cut.

[apedad]

So then they're NOT folks who would support "a principled leftist who is serious about destroying America."

I agree (and someone above described VP Harris this way).

[verochkax]

No, they are those such folks. They just think the destruction will happen after their lifetimes.

[Sarcastr0]

Vance is just gonna call the Haitians illegals even if they are not because at this point the lie is just out in the open.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

Great comment, let's hope Vance publicly prostrates himself enough to earn your approval!

He should be ashamed! A Democrat is insinuating he's a racist! That's so powerful, because it's an accusation so rarely made!

[hobie]

Trump's Hillbilly Homonculus is the gift that keeps on giving. A majority of women (both Dem and Rep) now despise him.

[Dr. Ed 2]

And a majority of men despise Heels Up.

Big secret -- this election is breaking down along gender lines...

[Sarcastr0]

Nah – a differential is not a breaking down.

But it is true that Dr. Ed is breaking down along gender lines.

[John F. Carr]

Women are more likely than man to vote for Democrats. This is a general trend and not specific to Harris.

[verochkax]

Single women, not married women so much.

[SRG2]

I'd guess that far more incels would vote for Trump than for Harris.

[Sarcastr0]

Kamala Harris is somehow, a woman, doing better!

[John F. Carr]

The federal government has filed a claim (described in media as a lawsuit) against the owner and operator of Dali for the destruction of the Key bridge.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1369026/dl
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/68396058/in-the-matter-of-the-petition-of-grace-ocean-private-limited-for/

In addition to the usual hopes and prayers – this is a serious accident and somebody with deep pockets must be responsible – the government pleads

1. The Limitation of Liability Act does not apply to claims by the United States under the Rivers and Harbors Act or the Oil Pollution Act. Under the Rivers and Harbors Act, the government claims, the responsible party must compensate the government for clearing obstructions from navigable waters.

2. Synergy, the "technical manager" of the ship, is not an "owner" subject to limited liability and "faces unlimited liability for the damages caused in this disaster upon finding that it is at least 1% at fault." (I recall one of the Corvair cases found that Chevrolet was less than 50% at fault but 100% financially responsible because of the particular comparative or contributory negligence rules of the jurisdiction.)

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

It's about time. But a hard lesson learned for businesses out there today. If you want to be free of accountability for your actions, be controlled by the CCP, OR make better donations to Democrats.

[Dr. Ed 2]

The ship burns two types of fuel -- low sulfur Diesel and high sulfur black oil, which is a lot cheaper. They are required to burn the low sulfur Diesel in US waters. It appears that they switched back to the black oil upon leaving the wharf, with the distance they traveled being about what is necessary for the change to make it through all the fuel lines, and that would be why their generators stalled when/where they did. Loss of electricity meant loss of rudder control (until someone physically ran to the stern) and loss of engine because somehow ship Diesels need electricity to continue to run.

It's big time illegal to burn Black Oil in US waters, but the USCG only checks when they are at the wharf, and would never check as they were going down the bay. And there are International regs on burning black oil -- it's prohibited in European waters too.

So if you are violating international law or regulation, and the accident wouldn't have happened if you hadn't, then????

[John F. Carr]

Fuel has apparently been ruled out as the cause. The loss of power may have been caused by a loose wire. A breaker is designed to open when voltage drops so when a generator fails it is disconnected. The loose connection caused a voltage drop. The breaker opened. Then power was not restored as quickly as expected by regulations.

One problem the government faces is pinning blame on the big companies that owned and operated the ship.

I also question whether getting stuck on a bridge support falls within the scope of the Rivers and Harbors Act, which is designed to prohibit intentional construction of obstructions to navigation. If there is precedent, the government did not cite it.

This is an admirality case and there will be no jury on the issue of whether liability can be limited.

I forgot to mention, the United States seeks punitive damages. Punitive damages might not be covered by insurance. Otherwise, insurance is adequate and the main question is whether insurance has to pay millions or billions.

[grb]

Dr. Ed 2 : “The ship burns two types of fuel….”

My memory isn’t as good as it once was, so help me out: Wasn’t it Ed who insisted for weeks that the bridge accident was caused by Black people and DEI? There was never a hint of evidence to support this, then or now. But per Ed, Black people must be a fault.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Well, if John is right, it then does bring in DEI because the Baltimore port authorities were aware of earlier power failures and let her sail.

[David Nieporent]

I don't think it was a sailboat.

[grb]

Dr. Ed 2 : ” … it then does bring in DEI because the Baltimore port authorities were aware of earlier power failures and let her sail.”

OK. I’ve stopped laughing and caught my breath. So explain this to me, Ed: Why does letting the ship sail have anything to do with DEI? Seems like we’ve come full circle with anything anywhere the fault of Black people precisely because they’re Black.

Because – of course – you have a sick & diseased mind. Only this time your “reasoning” is even more baseless / tenuous. Your old “theory” had the accident caused by incompetent harbor pilots (because they were Black). That was refuted by all evidence then, but what did you care? Racists gotta bigot and that’s soup to nuts with you. Your new theory is ….. what?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Well, one commenter warned me that third party candidates were being supported by Republicans in order to serve as spoilers.

If so, the other party is balancing out such efforts, so it should be a wash.

First, a story about a group financing third-party challenges throughout the country:

“The group’s operation provides few clues about its management, financing or motivation. But interviews, text messages, emails, business filings and other documents reviewed by the AP show that a significant sum has been spent — and some of it traces back to Democratic consulting firms.”

https://apnews.com/article/patriots-run-project-congress-candidates-trump-democrats-republicans-election-d29b438f46589bd7ecced80ac64e93a4

Now, a look at how this sort of thing operates in a Minnesota Congressional campaign.

“According to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) reports, six out-of-state funders gave the maximum allowed — $3,300 each — to Bowman’s campaign. Some of the donors have given to Democratic causes and candidates.”

https://www.minnpost.com/elections/2024/09/are-democrats-now-the-ones-recruiting-spoiler-candidates-in-minnesotas-2nd-congressional-district/

It seems these candidates have been getting on the ballot despite restrictive ballot access laws, understandably so because major-party donors can raise the necessary money.

Meanwhile, honest third-party candidates, not having access to that sort of money, still face greater obstacles to ballot access.

[Magister]

Oh no, people who have at other times supported other Democratic candidates have supported Republican candidates! The articles drip with vague accusations (a significant sum! some of the sum traced back to Democratic consulting firms! the Libertarian guy thinks it's the Democrats doing what Republicans have done!). Wake me when there are as many prison sentences for Democratic Party people doing election bad stuff.

The solution to these sorts of shenanigans, and also making life hard for third parties, is ranked choice voting, which is supported by significant Democratic politicians and blocked by Republicans in states they control.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"Oh no, people who have at other times supported other Democratic candidates have supported Republican candidates"

That's not what the article says - it says Democratic donors have supported third-party spoilers. They matched the donation records to find the donors gave to both.

[Magister]

Yes, I should have said conservative candidates, or perhaps "candidates who appeal to Republican voters".

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Perhaps I should throw your mistake in your face in all future threads? No, that would be too obsessive and stalker-ish.

But I will throw your mistake in your face in *this* thread. You completely mistook the nature of the reports, which said that the Democratic wing of the duopoly was doing the thing you accuse the Republican wing of doing: funding ghost candidates, or whatever you wish to call them. They're acting within existing ballot-access restrictions to put spoiler candidates on the ballot. Since they did it to benefit your own wing of the duopoly, of course you don’t object. But if you flipped the parties, in other words if it was Republicans doing all this, you’d cite it as proof of Republican wickedness.

Maybe you’re going to claim next that the Associated Press is biased against Democrats?

[Magister]

You are welcome to criticize this mistake, and whenever I make the same mistake. If there is a continued pattern of the same error, then that is itself something to comment on, with reference to past incidences. Your persistent tendency to logic errors and to evade answering for the inconsistencies in the positions you advocate would be such.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

“logic errors”

Bullshit.

“evade answering for the inconsistencies in the positions you advocate”

Bullshit.

You took evidence of Democrats doing the exact same thing you accuse Republicans of doing, and dismissed and minimized it. There’s a logical error and an inconsistency. Projecting your faults onto me won’t help you.

[Magister]

I don't minimize Democratic wrongdoing; I correctly compare it to the amount of Republican wrongdoing, both in quantity and impact. Yet Margrave still prefers the Republican party, and only after a year of discussions like this did he indicate that it was because of his stance on abortion.

Yes, you have made logic errors and evaded answering to the inconsistencies pointed out in your rhetoric, and neither just a single time. And I don't have to resort to coarse language to rebut your claims.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

It’s par for the course that you would take a news article about Democrats financing spoiler candidates against Republicans, and misinterpret it to mean that Democrats are giving money *to* Republicans.

This kind of upside-down, nonsensical take on the world is what informs your false claims about me, which of course are just as absurd as your interpretation of the articles I provided.

"Yet Margrave still prefers the Republican party, and only after a year of discussions like this did he indicate that it was because of his stance on abortion."

You can't stop with the distortions, can you? Both Democrats and Republicans are driving the country down the highway to Hell, on more issues than just abortion. The Democrats, as I've said, are going faster and more enthusiastically, while sometimes the Republicans ostentatiously tap the brakes. But it makes no difference in the end, since both duopoly parties are going to the same place, and taking us with them.

And of course, in citing why the Republicans were uniquely evil, you said in part it was because they support spoiler candidates. Faced with evidence the Democrats are doing the same thing, you put reality on its head just as you do with my remarks.

[Magister]

My point was that people giving money to Democrats but also to conservative (yes, not Republicans) is hardly proof of Democrats doing what Republicans do. My point remains that Republicans do the bulk of this sort of chicanery, and some things that Democrats never do. Democrats are not making things worse anywhere near as fast as the party that puts Donald Trump, insurrectionist, forward as their nominee, and who are working hard toward yet another federal shutdown. I did not ever claim Republicans were uniquely evil, only that they far exceed what Democrats do.

Again and again, Margrave is not capable of following what is plainly said, and either makes outright logic errors or claims without evidence, and that's why he gets frequent criticism for it from me.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

What you claimed was the Republicans were backing third-party candidates – left-wing candidates – as spoilers. You won’t confront the mirror-image behavior by your own party: Democrats backing third party conservative candidates as spoilers.

This very comment of yours displays “outright logic errors and claims without evidence,” like glossing over mirror-image behavior by Democrats corresponding to identical alleged behavior by Republicans – and asserting without providing any proof that “Republicans do the bulk of this sort of chicanery.”

Since you object to “coarse language” like “bullshit,” I’ll simply observe that your comments are fucking stupid.

[Magister]

Supporting spoiler candidates by people who have otherwise supported Democrats is not the Democratic Party or its leaders doing that stuff. And support of spoiler candidates is the tip of the iceberg for Republican wrongdoing, as I've explained over and over and over again. Voter suppression, voter intimidation, threatening election officials, calling for second amendment remedies, ghost candidates, improperly striking voters from registration lists, banning ranked choice voting, consent decrees against election interference, preclearance of election changes, and of course Donald Trump's insurrection, which few Republicans condemned when he was impeached in 2021 and fewer still will condemn now (if you don't count the ones driven from the party). And I'm sure I'm leaving a lot off the list.

This is the party Margrave prefers, to the point that he has to pretend that Democrats do the same.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

More errors about my position, from someone who can't tell the difference between donating to Republicans and donating to anti-Republican spoiler candidates.

[Magister]

Difference between contributing to Republican candidates and conservative candidates? Sounds like someone is defending the evil duopoly but not maintaining a coherent position.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Should I use shorter words?

You can’t tell the difference between donating to a Republican candidate and donating to an anti-Republican candidate.

More logical errors.

"defending the evil duopoly"

Where does this nonsense even *come* from? Are you just typing words at random?

[Magister]

The candidates you describe as "anti-Republican" were also conservative candidates. Yes, spoiler candidates are chosen so that they will appeal to voters who would otherwise support the candidate targeted. So your criticism of "anti-Republican" candidates is criticism of conservative alternatives to the duopoly, and apparently you now think they shouldn't be allowed, in defense of the Republican half of the duopoly.

I've alerted the Waahmbulance to be ready when you post another clueless complaint.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

“So your criticism of “anti-Republican” candidates is criticism of conservative alternatives to the duopoly, and apparently you now think they shouldn’t be allowed, in defense of the Republican half of the duopoly.”

Such utter bullshit.

I’ve already explained the relevance of the story. These “ghost candidates” of yours can get on the ballot under the *existing* system while honest third-party candidates are kept off the ballot by laws you support. The supposed horrors of ghost candidates already happen even with the ballot access restrictions in place, leading me to wonder why you want these ballot-access laws, since the effect is to exclude honest third-party candidates who *don’t* have access to duopoly money and support.

I’ve also denounced your so-called “misunderstanding” by which you think this is about Democratic donors giving money to Republicans. I’m starting to think you couldn’t have made this “mistake” in good faith.

[Magister]

Ghost candidates and legitimate third party candidates face the same obstacles to getting on the ballot; the former have more support, even though it's dishonest, so they manage it while third party candidates flail around. But some third parties manage it just fine, mostly because they pull in more support and thus would seem to be a bigger threat to and target for evil duopolists, and still they persist.

I've encountered people who have supported Democrats and Republicans at different times, and in this case you haven't presented any evidence that these donors are really Democrats or have anything to do with the party or its leadership.

I listed a whole bunch of bad election things that Republicans have done and continue to do and seem to be planning to do more of; at least some of it Democrats have not done, and in other cases a subset of Democrats have done less of some particular thing out of a belief that they have to to compete. So your inability to distinguish more from less may need medical attention.

The only issue you have ever mentioned that might justify your preference for Republicans was abortion. Please, list anything else that outweighs much greater election corruption by Republicans. And while you're at it, what are reasonable ballot access fees, an actual number, for even just one state?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Like many of your posts, this is a veritable club sandwich of bullshit.

I don’t think I can do it all justice.

Of course, there’s your lie that I want to ban spoiler candidates. It’s telling that you think criticizing a particular candidate, or in this case his associates, means wanting to ban it. Yet by that logic you'd want to ban the Republicans, and we know you'd never want that, right?

Yet you want me to believe your stories about Republicans. Maybe those stories are true, but I want to hear them from credible sources.

As for stories about Democrats, don’t you count the AP as a credible source, or in you addled brain is the AP biased in favor of the Republican Party?

You’ve obsessively attacked me for saying I want reasonable, nondiscriminatory fees for ballot access, which leaves room for various dollar amounts, yet you lyingly pretend that because I haven’t given you the answer you want, I haven’t answered at all.

I’ve said the Republicans are driving us down the highway to hell and that in general they’re bad, I simply added the heresy that the Democrats are going faster down that particular highway. If it were the reverse – if between the two parties taking us down the highway to hell, it was the Republicans who were worse – then how would that affect the key outlines of my ballot-access argument? Because both parties are bad.

But I’ll leave you to youur delusions in favor of your particular branch of the duopoly.

[Magister]

AP story says "It could help Democrats" and some of the money has been traced back to Democratic consulting firms.

Despite the ties to Democratic firms, there is a scant paper trail to determine who is overseeing the effort.

Compare to dirty tricks run by actual Republican party members. You know that there are plenty of Republican-on-Republican fights in the primaries, don't you? And none of it compares to the voter suppression, gerrymandering and insurrection that pervades Republican efforts.

Choose a state and state what the range of reasonable fees for ballot access would be, in actual dollars rather than "feelings". You steadily refuse to answer this without obfuscation.

I give up on trying to understand your political views; apparently the reasons for your support of the Republican party are too embarrassing to reveal, and you just want to whine. But it is weirdly inconsistent with your claims about bad election practices, and it just leads you to defend Republicans.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Still no retraction of your lie that I want to ban spoiler candidates, and the rest of your post is the usual garbage.

[Magister]

Ban spoiler candidates? I never said you wanted to do that; you've made it clear that you want third party candidates and the telephone book ballot. Your inability to read is your usual garbage.

How much should the reasonable ballot access fee be? One state, one particular statewide office, 2024 dollars.

[apedad]

Read this if you want to be absolutely disgusted.

https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/usa-v-bateman-plea-agreement.pdf

Some examples.

On or between January 28 and November 5, 2021, defendant took Jane Doe 9 (then age eleven) as a child "bride."

On or between January 1, 2021, and August 27, 2022, in Colorado City, Arizona, the defendant had sex with co-defendant MARONA JOHNSON in front of some of the minor girls, including Jane Doe 10, while some of the girls were touching the defendant.

[hobie]

Dude, I remember seeing the video of the vehicular pullover and arrest. Didn't know it was the tip of this god-awful ice berg. Surely enough arrests and evidence have accumulated over the years to establish the FLDS is a child rape cult.

[apedad]

Lawyers Give More to Harris in 10 Days Than Trump in Entire Race

The Harris campaign received nearly $8.3 million in about 26,000 individual contributions from donors who listed “attorney” or “lawyer” as their occupation in the 10 days after President Joe Biden left the ticket and endorsed Harris as the Democrat’s new nominee on July 21, the latest FEC data analyzed by Bloomberg Law shows.

The Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign together have raised about $6.88 million from lawyers since the former president announced his candidacy on Nov. 15, 2022, according to FEC records.

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/lawyers-give-more-to-harris-in-10-days-than-trump-in-entire-race

Is it mainly dumb, mouthbreathers from Tennessippi who support Trump?

[Brett Bellmore]

Smart people are acting in anticipation of the coming Democratic police state by minimizing their exposure to the Dems looking back through old records and settling scores.

[Magister]

So these undisputed smart people think it's far more likely that the Democratic candidate will win than the Republican candidate who has promised retribution at a level never seen before? Good to know.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, they know that, if Trump wins, he's not going to have people looking for folks who donated to Harris, and arrange for them to be disappeared. So the risk is just a bit asymmetric...

[Magister]

Yes, they are less scared of the candidate who promises retribution and revenge, who is a fraudster and a rapist and a convicted felon and twice impeached, and who has driven almost all of those who do not support him out of the Republican party.

Another triumph for Brett Bellmore telepathy.

[verochkax]

Trump may be blowing smoke about retribution, but Harris and Biden have actually done it.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Lawyers Give More to Harris in 10 Days Than Trump in Entire Race"

And you somehow think this reflects negatively on Trump?

Rent seekers contribute to Harris.

[verochkax]

Same for the shylocks on Wall Street.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Ha ha but the people who criticize the Israeli government are the REAL antisemites, right? Not dog whistlers like this troll.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

I've usually been critical of Israel on their reaction to 10/7. But I must say this latest bit is really genius.

I especially appreciate how the rumors are spreading that it's any electronic device made since 2019, including watches, appliances etc. If that's true, that's really impressive, pretty evil to be making bombs in general access consumer devices and appliances, but impressive.

If it's not true, that's genius, because they just made a whole bunch of Moslem terrorists scared of every day things, beyond the paranoia it creates, it could also cripple their ability to communicate.

[Commenter_XY]

Jesus….I laid out the various theories above. Since Jews are just too stupid (since we are the descendants of apes and pigs, according to hamas and hezball-less) and don’t have the resources to pull this off, it has to be SODDI.

Maybe some people in the ME should be more careful of the company they keep. Clearly, The Almighty was vexed.

[apedad]

Unkechaug Indian Nation says treaty predating US Constitution allows glass eel harvesting

The Unkechaug Indian Nation, which began harvesting the baby eels in 2010, filed a complaint in 2018 against New York environmental regulators after facing criminal prosecution for harvesting critically overfished glass eels outside of their reservation.

The tribe adds the treaty — which stems from an order issued in 1676 by New York’s colonial governor Sir Edmond Andros — prevented interference in the tribe’s fishing practices out of fear the tribe would revolt against Long Island settlers.

But New York’s environmental agency says the order isn’t federal law, as the tribe claims, because it predates the formation of the United States by a century and has not been ratified by Congress.

https://www.courthousenews.com/unkechaug-indian-nation-says-treaty-predating-us-constitution-allows-glass-eel-harvesting/

It's interesting when colonial and pre-colonial issues appear today.

In this case, I think NY has it right since it was not the US Government that ratified the treaty.

[Krayt]

NY is the one that ratified it!

Also, it shows the pecking order to modern politicians, in spite of their hot air.

1. Federal uber alles
2. Environmentalism
3. Honoring treaties
4. Tribes

Usually tribes are considered higher. After all, they and their concerns are pushed mightily when they can stop a pipine proj....ohhhhhhhh, I get it.

[apedad]

But NY was a British colony in 1676 - not a US government entity.

"The Province of New York was a British proprietary colony and later a royal colony on the northeast coast of North America from 1664 to (1776)." (wiki)

And (correct me if I'm wrong), but none of the British treaties migrated under the US after 7/4/1776.

[Bob from Ohio]

Strange, I thought "indigenous" people always respect the environment, unlike evil European invaders.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"indigenous" just means penultimate colonizer.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I can't decide on the merits of the issue until I know whether the Unkechaugs are for or against Donald Trump.

[Michael P]

A study made the news not too long ago for reporting that Black newborns had higher survival rates when attended by Black doctors rather than White doctors. Correcting for low birth weight (a major risk) alone removes most of the reported effect.

In fact, the estimated effect is near zero and statistically insignificant in the expanded specifications that control for very low birth weight and include hospital and physician fixed effects.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2409264121

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, it was an artifact due to most of the specialists in high risk pregnancies being white.

[NOVA Lawyer]

The data doesn’t fit that hypothesis. You have to explain why “most of the specialists in high risk pregnancies being white” only skews the data for Black newborns, but not White newborns.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Looking at Figure 1, they could have gone a long way to answering Brett’s hypothesis by showing this same graph, but with separate lines for Black physician-Black newborn, Black physician-White newborn, White physician-Black newborn, and White physician-White newborn. It’s curious they didn’t break that out, because that would clarify if there were disparities in outcome at each birthweight category (which they have by 250 gram increments, it appears), rather than just “underweight” which is defined as under 1500 grams although by far the most at-risk newborns are under 1000 grams (or under 750).

The anomaly I pointed out still shouldn’t exist, but it could maybe explained by random noise IF the vast majority of very underweight newborns are attended by White physicians, but they are an extremely small portion of the overall, especially for White newborns. In that case, the fact that White physicians also attend very underweight White newborns at a much higher rate might not skew the numbers for merely underweight newborns and could be disguised by noise or some other factor.

The “White specialists” hypothesis is still possible, but the data reported in the study seems to cut against it.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Thanks for the link. I'll be interested to see responses to this study.

One obvious question, why are White physicians so much more likely to attend underweight Black newborns than Black physicians?

If your first guess was that physicians who specialize in underweight newborns are more likely to be White, this seems unlikely to be the reason for the disparity where, as the article indicates, underweight White newborns are attended by White and Black physicians at roughly the same rate. If the effect was due to the racial composition of physicians who attend underweight newborns, we would expect the effect to be present regardless of the race of the newborn.

The other obvious guess is: Is the physician who attends the newborn more likely to be the physician who provided prenatal care? If that's the case, then it may be, as the study suggests, that "the newborns attended by White and Black physicians are not random samples" but are, in fact, based on whether a White or Black physician provided prenatal care. Which, if that's the case, doesn't undermine the conclusions of the earlier study, it just indicates the likely point at which the racial matching affects the outcome of Black newborn health: in prenatal care that, for some reason, results in lower birthweights for Black newborns with White attending physicians than Black newborns with Black attending physicians.

These are just the two most obvious to me possible explanations for why White physicians are far more likely to attend underweight Black newborns (again, despite White physicians and Black physicians attend underweight White newborns at the same rate). I'm sure there are other possible explanations that I haven't thought of (including, possibly, just a random effect which could be excluded or confirmed by checking other health systems), but this non-random sampling fairly screams for further study as to why that would be the case.

The article does make a strong case that taking ameliorating whatever factors tend to reduce birthweights for Black newborns is an important part of reducing infant mortality rates for Black newborns.

[Brett Bellmore]

" If the effect was due to the racial composition of physicians who attend underweight newborns, we would expect the effect to be present regardless of the race of the newborn."

I think I see the source of your confusion.

Unproblematic black newborns are mostly seen by black physicians. Unproblematic white newborns are mostly seen by white physicians. Whether this is due to racism on the part of women choosing their physicians, where people live, or whatever, I don't know. It's the observed pattern.

Both white and black underweight newborns are mostly seen by white physicians, because the specialists in that field are almost all white, so there's hardly any choice in the matter.

So, you see a correlation between poor outcomes and race of physician for blacks, because blacks switch to using white physicians in difficult cases, and difficult cases lead to bad outcomes more often even with good care.

But, you don't see such a correlation between poor outcomes according to race of physician for whites, because whites continue using white physicians in difficult cases. There's no switch to produce a correlation...

[NOVA Lawyer]

"Both white and black underweight newborns are mostly seen by white physicians, because the specialists in that field are almost all white, so there’s hardly any choice in the matter."

You're the one who is confused. That's exactly not what the data in the study show.

I anticipated this explanation in my comment. You apparently missed that:

Percentage of underweight Black newborns attended by Black physicians: 1.42

Percentage of underweight Black newborns attended by White physicians: 3.37

So far so good for your hypothesis.

Percentage of underweight White newborns attended by Black physicians: 1.28

Percentage of underweight White newborns attended by White physicians: 1.12

This is not what you would expect if, as you posit, the physicians who attend underweight newborns are mostly White, regardless of the race of the newborn. The specialists (who you assume are mostly White) would attend higher rates of underweight newborns of both races (which you suggest but, obviously, are wrong about). If the disparity was due to the specialists in underweight newborns being White, that would show up in skewing of the data towards White physicians attending underweight newborns for both White and Black newborns (again, as you recognized). But, in fact, Black physicians are more likely to attend an underweight White newborn than are White physicians (maybe not statistically significant, but, at best, equal distribution for White newborns).

You'll have to revise your hypothesis to explain why White specialists in underweight newborns are more likely to attend underweight Black newborns but are not more likely to attend underweight White newborns.

There could be other cuts of data which would support that hypothesis, but the data from the study strongly suggests your hypothesis is wrong. Which i noted in my original comment.

[bernard11]

Something wrong here:

Percentage of underweight Black newborns attended by Black physicians: 1.42

Percentage of underweight Black newborns attended by White physicians: 3.37

So far so good for your hypothesis.

Percentage of underweight White newborns attended by Black physicians: 1.28

Percentage of underweight White newborns attended by White physicians: 1.12

Who attends the 90+% of underweight newborns who are not attended by Black or White physicians?

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm gonna assume that the 90% plus weren't underweight, and it's just unclearly phrased.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Yes, poorly worded. It’s the percentage of the newborns attended by the physician who are underweight, not the percentage of underweight newborns being attended by the physicians.

The point being, Black physicians attend underweight newborns at roughly the same rate whether the newborns are White or Black. ut Whereas White physicians, for some reason, attend underweight Black newborns at a much higher rate than do Black physicians.

But, contrary to what Brett would expect with the hypothesis that this is because underweight newborns are more likely to be attended by White physicians, the rate at White physicians attend underweight White newborns is not elevated. This suggests that Brett's hypothesis is wrong.

[Roger S]

It still could be that the White physicians are seeing the most difficult cases, and the Blacks are getting just as good medical care as the Whites.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Yes, but as I point out, then the data should skew towards White physicians seeing underweight White babies at a higher rate too. Because, in fact, Black physicians have a higher proportion of their patients being White underweight newborns (or, if you like, roughly equal proportion) as compared to White physicians, the data presented in this article cuts against that hypothesis.

I set out above that it is possible it's due entirely to an overwhelming percentage of specialists in the care of very underweight newborns, but, again, you would still expect some skew of the numbers for White newborns (just maybe less than the skew for Black newborns). But we don't see that skew.

[Brett Bellmore]

This is twice now that reason has eaten a comment with these links, so just the data this time, you can surely find it.

Demographics of neonatalists: 65.6% white, 3.8% black, so, yeah, pretty heavy disproportion.

Since we're not talking about the percentage of babies seeing doctors, but the percentage of babies SEEN BY doctors, you'd expect this to be primarily driven by the demographics of the births, not the doctors, all being equal.

51.5% white, 14.4% black. So all else being equal, you'd expect a doctor to see about 3.6 times as many white babies as black. Rather than the <1 ratios we're actually seeing by your numbers.

But, what are the demographics of underweight births? Per the March of Dimes,

"During 2020-2022 (average), the low birthweight rate in the United States was highest for Black infants (14.0%), followed by Asian/Pacific Islanders (9.0%), American Indian/Alaska Natives (8.3%) and Whites (7.2%).
Black infants (14.0%) were about 2 times as likely as White infants (7.2%) to be born low birthweight during 2020-2022 (average)"

That makes sense of things, actually: The underweight birth rate among blacks is enormously higher than among whites. So, what's happening?

As neonatalists are disproportionately white, and underweight births are disproportionately black, here's my revised hypothesis: The very best neonatalists are white, (Driven by why neonatalists are disproportionately white.) and the very worst off underweight babies are black. (Driven by why underweight births are disproportionately black.) The left tail is larger for the white physicians, and the right tail larger for the black births.

So, yeah, the white neonatalists are getting the worst cases, with accordingly worse expected outcomes. Rather than white doctors giving black babies crappy service.

But, really, man: We we need to do something about black underweight birthrates!

[NOVA Lawyer]

"the white neonatalists are getting the worst cases, with accordingly worse expected outcomes"

You are far too sure of that, though there is no data that you or I have found saying that. Again, it's the first thought that occurred to me too (I hadn't seen your first comment when I wrote mine). But you haven't engaged with why, if that's the case, the numbers don't show that White physicians also treat more White underweight newborns.

Again, I've thrown out one possibility how the stats could show White physicians treating a much higher percentage of Black underweight newborns than White underweight newborns despite the fact that the numbers do not change for Black physicians, but I'm not sure that's at all statistically likely.

[Absaroka]

That's a good example of people being overly simplistic with statistics.

Did you know your local Level 4 trauma center has a higher fatality rate than the nearest Urgicare? Make the ambulance take you there.

[NOVA Lawyer]

I'm not sure who you think was being "overly simplistic": the original study, the second study, Brett, or me.

But I will agree that at least one of us was!

[Bwaaah]

The study didn’t just make the news. Its misleading conclusion became a truth expressed by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in her dissenting opinion in “Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard“. Judge Jackson wrote (PDF pg 231):

For high-risk Black newborns, having a Black physician more than doubles the likelihood that the baby will live, and not die.

It’s unfortunate to see a Supreme Court justice parading a neoracist perspective under the authority of twisted science. (Remember Democrat screams of “white supremacy” and “systemic racism”?)

[Roger S]

Jackson was appointed because she is a Black woman.

[NOVA Lawyer]

I get it. You're a racist. Say less.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

I just read What’s Next: A Backstage Pass to The West Wing, Its Cast and Crew, and Its Enduring Legacy of Service By Melissa Fitzgerald and Mary McCormack.

The title is a good summary of the book. We get a behind-the-scenes look, with a lot of input from the people involved, narrated by two of the characters. Don’t read it if you want a lot of “dirt.”

They are rather deeply in awe of the show and the people involved. The main sign of dissension is Rob Lowe’s decision to leave the show. The person originally planned to be a main character but was only in the first season, played by Moira Kelly, is referenced once. She’s a forgotten person.

A major theme is service. The two co-authors are involved in many causes, particularly involving veterans. There is also the overall possibility of the government doing something good.

Some see the government as evil. The government is made up of “we the people” and our representatives, millions of people locally and nationally who swear and affirm to uphold the Constitution and serve the people. Quite a few of them, in the flawed way of us all, do just that. Some better than others, to be sure.

[Sarcastr0]

I do like competence porn.
West Wing and Star Trek spring to mind.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

West Wing porn on PornHub has a lot of walking and talking.

[Sarcastr0]

Hawt.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Favorite competence porn thread would be a good topic.

Michael Shur definitely loves this genre:

Parks and Rec;
Brooklyn 99;
Arguably the Good Place
Parts of The Office (Michael Dwight and Jim are all shown to be excellent at sales although this could be lamp shading).

Then there is Abbott Elementary which is definitely Parks/Shur influenced.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Hot take: The Wire is competence porn to some degree. The main police characters are for the most part are or become competent investigators and leaders. Prez is a shit beat cop but becomes a talented investigator and teacher. The drug dealers are brutally efficient at their jobs. The politicians and politically connected cops or others are morally dubious but effective operators at getting what they want.

[Sarcastr0]

That's part of why I found the first season of The Wire so compelling.

I found it less so later on, Prez aside.

[Both Sides]

Season 2 of "The Wire" is underrated. Seasons 3 and 4 are great. Season 5 is a bit of a mess.

[BrotherMovesOn]

What actor appeared in both The Wire and The Office (not a trick question/minor character)?

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

I seem to remember Idris Elba on the Office? That would be my guess.

[BrotherMovesOn]

That's a correct guess AWD!
How did I forget that.
I was thinking of Amy Ryan.

[MoreCurious]

It seems to me that “Homicide,” now streaming on Peacock, is one of the better examples. I highly recommend it.

[Bob from Ohio]

I watched and very much liked West Wing in its original run and 15 years late in reruns. As a TV show, well acted with good characters despite often silly plots.

West Wing Brain however is a plague on the US political system.

[Brett Bellmore]

Just so it doesn't get lost, my reply to CaptCrisis on the 14th amendment and interracial marriage.

Contrary to modern legal mythology, legalization of interracial marriage was an intended and anticipated effect of the 14th amendment, and prior to Pace v Alabama, it was being interpreted to that end.

The legal situation with Loving is VERY different from Obergefell!

[Sarcastr0]

This distinction matters only if you're a very particular kind of originalist.

[Michael P]

As per the Sarcastr0 usual, constructing an actual argument is left as an exercise to the reader.

[Sarcastr0]

The argument requires assuming a very particular method of interpretation to be valid.

Pick any of the other methods, including positivist originalism, or original public meaning, or *anything* but 'the Constitution in amber' style of originalism, and it's all hogwash.

[Bwaaah]

Michael P was referring to your [non]argument, not Brett's argument.

And you harken back to the tradition of trollavistic douchism.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Or you could just admit that his cogent explanation was over your head.

[Michael P]

No, Sarcastr0 belatedly provided an argument. It was just wrong, because for example, Brett's argument works with original public meaning originalism: the practices of those who adopted the 14A changed after its adoption in ways that match Brett's assertion about the meaning. The only hogwash is from Sarcastr0.

[Brett Bellmore]

By which you mean, any sort of originalist at all?

Captcrisis’ position was that you couldn’t object to Obergefell if you accepted Loving. I was establishing that they were radically different in terms of original expected application of the 14th amendment.

Just another way in which the Reconstruction Court set back civil liberties in America by over a century. And have they ever had a mea culpia moment over it, fessed up that Slaugherhouse and related cases shouldn’t be worked around, they should just be outright reversed as wrong from the moment they were decided?

Nope. Only Thomas would do that. The rest of them are glad to pretend that Slaugherhouse and related cases were right, and just expand on the oxymoronic ‘substantive’ due process, no matter how it distorts the 14th amendment.

I expect that's got something to do with Slaughterhouse being an economic liberties case, and reversing it would constitute the dreaded "Lochnerism".

[Sarcastr0]

I can't speak to the provenance of your take on the mentality of some specific people in the 1860s.

My point is I shouldn't have to. The style of originalism you practice was never intended as a method of interpretation - it was a political project to dismantle Warren Court precedents while blaming the Constitution so you could avoid the political fallout.
It worked great.
But now that scholars have had a good chance to take a look, it's bunk.

Your source for why your choice is right is just your appeal to incredulity and logical aesthetics.

[Brett Bellmore]

Right, you don't like originalism because it doesn't produce outcomes you like, got that. That's hardly shocking, the whole point of living constitutionalism is that it's guaranteed to produce outcomes its practitioners like.

It's still painfully easy to establish that the 14th amendment WAS intended to legalize interracial marriage, and no evidence exists at all that it was intended to legalize same sex marriage, so Captcrisis' supposed inconsistency is fictional.

[Sarcastr0]

What you practice is Constitution in Amber, which honestly at this point one could barely call originalism.

If you do an actual originalist inquiry, contemporary legal understanding (and just reading the text of the Constitution as compared to laws and contracts at the time) did not expect your method.

One sign you're doing more politics than jurisprudence is you just talk about 'intent' like that's a clear word in originalism. It isn't. But it is in your head, so why bother getting in the weeds, eh?

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, I believe that the chief component of originalism is fixity, while a lot of nominal originalists are abandoning fixity because of despair over ever getting non-originalist rulings overturned.

Is it at all controversial that the Supreme court went out of its way to sabotage the 14th amendment shortly after its ratification, by giving it an 'interpretation' that rendered it largely moot? Not that I've heard.

I'm just pointing out that legalizing interracial marriage was one of the consequences of the 14th amendment that the Slaughterhouse Court mendaciously put a stop to.

[Sarcastr0]

You believe *with no reason to* that the chief component of originalism is fixity.

While a lot of originalists did some actual historical work and found that's not actually original.

I don't care about the post-Civil War precedents. The vast majority don't matter beyond being historically important. The few that do are baked in.
It's done; there's no going back. Read your Burke and deal with what changes you can make not some utopian legal project that will never survive actual humans being involved.

You're doing a lot of work to square your shitty version of originalism with this one precedent. And no one here, including you, has the expertise to actually judge whether your work is sufficient.
Probably it can't be, because history is very bad at coming to concrete conclusions.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Brett, I would be interested to see evidence for your assertion that the framers and ratifiers of 14A intended it to legalize interracial marriage.

[bernard11]

Why does originalism claim that the 14th doesn't legalize SSM?

No "original expected application?" It's a nonsense argument. But if you want to make it, how the hell do you know what was expected? How many of the drafters even thought about SSM? Close to zero is my guess. But if they did, "expected application" would be strongly influenced by the attitudes of the times. We are bound by the Constitution, not by 18-19th century bigotry and ignorance.

The same applies to the argument that we can't point to legislation from back then legalizing SSM. That only means that the possibility of passing such a bill then was nil because of attitudes towards homosexuality.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The Founders were products of the Enlightenment and knew knowledge was not fixed. The application of the principles of the Constitution would not rest on a fixed knowledge of their age.

A written Constitution provides somewhat more "fixity" than the alternative but our specific Constitution will not do that too much with open-ended provisions and very limited handcuffing (such as the Ninth Amendment) on how to apply it.

Eric Segall naming his book "Originalism as Faith" is appropriate.

[verochkax]

If the drafters didn't think about SSM, then the language they wrote can't be said to require it. Your argument is manifest bad faith on its face.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

If the drafters didn’t think about SSM, then the language they wrote can’t be said to require it.

They were working on the knowledge and practices of the times, including a much more strict division of the sexes (three justices soon said women not being lawyers was an application of natural law) and 19th-century knowledge about sexual orientation.

The text provides open-ended language for which specific applications will change as the facts on the ground change. They specifically were aware of this fact, especially when giving Congress the power to pass appropriate legislation.

The Framers were big supporters of McCulloch v. Maryland, which specifically noted that when applying that rule in the future it would be applied with knowledge that the current generation might know only dimly at best.

[David Nieporent]

If the drafters didn't think about semiautomatic weapons, then the language they wrote can't be said to protect them.

[Michael P]

How many times do people have to tell you about the existence of repeating rifles before the US Revolution? For example a John Cookson of Boston made them and advertised them for sale in 1756, and they date to at least 1640 in Europe (when a parent was issued for one design).

[Brett Bellmore]

"But if you want to make it, how the hell do you know what was expected?"

See my link to the other thread, where I replied to Captcrisis. I linked to a couple historical studies, one of advocacy of legalizing interracial marriage by abolitionists, the other of the immediate legal consequences for interracial marriage laws between ratification and Pace.

The evidence is there for what they expected, and it was happening until the Court put a stop to it.

[bernard11]

But that's about interracial marriage.

What I was saying is we don't know what they expected to happen wrt SSM (and it likely wouldn't be useful if we did know.)

[Brett Bellmore]

Are you somehow under the impression that we had no idea at all of attitudes towards homosexuality at the time?

If they'd thought for one second the 14th amendment would have the result of compelling legality of SSM, they'd have re-written it or shitcanned it. Even a hundred years later the allegation was enough to kill the ERA.

[NOVA Lawyer]

And, come on, page 244 has this gem purportedly in support of the proposition that the original public meaning was to strike down laws against interracial marriage:

The [North Carolina] committee recommended against ratification, in part because the federal government might declare these "privileges or immunities" to include intermarriage.' Although conceding that such a declaration was not "probable," the committee insisted this result was sufficiently "possible" that the Amendment should be rejected.'

So the North Carolina committee was worried about it, but thought it probably didn't actually mean that? That's evidence in the against column for any reasonable version of original public meaning.

If the rest of Upham's Hastings article is like this, it's not only not an easy case, it's not a good case at all. (And glancing, yes, it is a mishmash of poor reasoning. It acknowledges multiple people who voted for it pretty clearly expressed the belief the 14th Amendment didn't invalidate ant-endogamy laws, but he places more weight on allegedly "tacit" silence of others. Seriously?

No, if it's an easy case, Upham flubbed it. It's not an easy case.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

People were worried about ratifying the original Constitution in part because they thought it would threaten slavery when it turned out that people bent over backward to give the document a pro-slavery interpretation.

As you say, the general understanding was that interracial marriage was not required. John Marshall Harlan himself also didn't think public school integration was required.

It was within the realm of possibility. But, free love theorists were around with an open-ended view of liberty even at that time. Originalism aiming at "realm of possibility" is a stretch.

[NOVA Lawyer]

"It’s still painfully easy to establish that the 14th amendment WAS intended to legalize interracial marriage"

That's quite a surprise given it's just now being posited as true. Which isn't to say it's not right, haven't had the chance to read your links. But "painfully easy"? lol. No.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, no, per the links it was posited about the time of the Civil war and 14th amendment's origin.

You might have said the same of the 14th amendment prohibiting governmental discrimination, prior to Brown, and be just as wrong for the exact same reasons. The Court took it's own sweet time about partially repairing the damage it had caused itself.

[NOVA Lawyer]

“per the links it was posited about the time of the Civil war and 14th amendment’s origin.”

Well, allegedly. But then, indisputably, not for 100 years afterwards.

If it was such an easy case, it wouldn’t have taken that long and still not be the prevailing view.

Again, I haven’t read the links, but what you’ve shared and the glimpse I did take, is the evidence is that some people advocated for the abolition of the anti-“miscegenation” laws and thought the 14th Amendment was a good vehicle.

But, as Illya has pointed out:

Upham’s evidence is very powerful from the standpoint of theories of original meaning that emphasize the understanding of actual or hypothetical readers expert in law. Most of his evidence consists of the views of just such experts…. But many original meaning theorists emphasize not the understanding of experts, but that of the general public—either the actual public or a hypothetical non-expert “reasonable” reader at the time….

In other words, it’s not at all an easy case. It may be the better case. I’ll read it. But it’s far from an easy case to make, especially given the vast majority of the white voting public pretty strongly opposed so-called interracial marriage at that time and for the next 100 years.

But, yes, if your originalism is akin to my view where the authors of the Constitution and Amendments strove to advance certain principles, even where full realization of those principles at the time were not politically possible though the majority of people agreed with the principle, then, sure, there is a good originalist case to make. If your originalism looks at what the average citizen thought it meant when their representative voted to ratify it (you know, the Heller version where you look at what laws were on the books and what the populace thought of the particular issue at the time: original public meaning), then it’s a hard, hard case to make that Loving was an originalist result.

[apedad]

Please remind me, which Originalism are we talking about?

Actual Originalism
Framework Originalism
Intrinsicist Originalism
Instrumental Originalism
Liquidated Originalism
Original Intent
Original Meaning
Original Methods Originalism
Original Public Meaning
Semantic Originalism
Structuralism
Textualism
“Halfway Originalism”
“History & Tradition” with a special focus on “analogous regulation”

[Brett Bellmore]

Original public meaning, as demonstrated by statements before ratification, and application after.

Keep in mind that most modern forms of originalism, which you rightly mock, represent an incremental surrender of originalists in the face of longstanding and intransigent non-originalist precedents.

Most of it is just sour grapes, IOW. Claiming they didn't really want what they know they'll never get.

[NOVA Lawyer]

No, original intent originalism, for instance, was abandoned because it is intellectually incoherent which is why it was eventually replaced with original public meaning, something which the advocates can at least pretend to be a little more objective about. Ditto for the others. All the now-disfavored versions of originalism had weak intellectual foundations which is why originalism has to keep morphing. The idea of the Constitution in amber was always antithetical to the idea of the Constitution itself.

[Stephen Lathrop]

NOVA Lawyer and Bellmore — Contrast the intellectual challenges of two methods: original public meaning v. original intent. Neither presents an easy problem. Both entail substantial risk of intellectual incoherence.

However, considered in light of the canons of academic history, original intent is by far the more intellectually supportable. Among controlling factors in both cases are, first, to develop capacity to apply contemporaneous context, and, second, to exclude absolutely all present-minded context.

To do those things with regard to original intent is sometimes barely possible. To attempt to do them with regard to original public meaning is more difficult, often paradoxical, and usually impossible.

Contemporaneous contextual analyses are among the fundamentals of the academic historical method. It is a need to get those right that dictates that the would-be historian become an expert upon the historical record of the era under study, acquainting himself or herself with broadly varied aspects of life in those times and places.

Contemporaneous context subjects include but are not limited to: religion; social mores; technological capacities; political ideologies; legal texts, legal practices, and case outcomes; public health issues; labor market conditions; the statistics of trade in many commodities; economic theories prevalent during eras where those had become influential; facts and technologies associated with warfare; the climate and wild ecology which affected activities and subsistence; agricultural practices and outcomes; trades, tradesmen and their practices; communications speed and methods; transport options; theories of government and political philosophies; historical influences derived from prior times and earlier texts; cultural diversity; various interacting cultural heritages; ethnic diversity; foreign political and military influences; happenstance distribution of influential cultural leaders of whatever types and talents, and the means and constraints they managed to deliver influence; facts about the webs of acquaintance and interaction among cultural leaders, and among ordinary persons, and between classes of people, etc.

To summarize, a scholar who hopes to apply contemporaneous context, with an eye to enable accurate historical inferences, must first read broadly and deeply from surviving sources contemporaneous with the era under study. The scholar aspires to achieve a state of mind like that of an exceptionally well-educated person who was raised and trained by the standards of, and using the means available, at that time and place. A scholar who accomplishes that thus gains two-sided insight, with both sides indispensable.

First, there is an intuitive feel not only for what amounted to commonplace understanding then and there, but also for a broad range of more specialized experience. Second, there is insight into at least the identity of a vast array of post-contemporaneous occurrences which would happen only after the era under consideration. The latter thus remained unknowable, without influence, and chronologically unsupportable as premises for historical inferences about the era in question. In the historical context under study, those must be rejected as anachronisms.

The procedural lapse to posit such anachronisms—often quite unconsciously—entails a presumption of jolting surprise introduced into the analysis. They bring with them unresolved paradoxes, paradoxes comparable in oddity to those delivered by science fiction time travel. Despite such extreme intellectual disruptions, those untrained in academic history are typically powerless to avoid anachronistic analyses; the historically untrained scatter anachronisms—both overt, and as tacit premises—throughout their conclusions. Most often, they are not even aware they do it. Lawyers and judges who style themselves originalists (of whatever kind) are as a group conspicuous for that kind of error.

Historians term that kind of intellectual error, "present-minded analysis." It happens whether the method used is original intent, or original public meaning. But compared to the former, the latter method multiplies the intellectual disruptions many-fold.

Explanation for the multiplication of error is intuitively easy to understand. In the case of an original intent analysis, the scholar typically has a relatively narrow geographic venue to consider, with a limited cast of influential people, acting within a relatively narrow interval of time. Often, the objective of events under study involves conscious attempts by the persons acting to minimize or circumvent disagreements, and to harmonize their views. If the participants can be shown by the record to be trying to harmonize their intent, then it is not obvious why it ought to be an intellectual error in historical scholarship to notice that, and say so.

By contrast, when attempting an original public meaning analysis, each of those considerations listed above enlarges the context, in some instances almost without limits. Instead of a single geographic venue, like Philadelphia for the the Constitutional Convention, the geographic scope enlarges to all the states, and to their prior history as colonies. Instead of a limited time span defined by Convention-related activity, the more-extended time span of ratification activity must be studied. Instead of views deliberately harmonized at the Convention, ratification activities encompassed both ratification and anti-ratification factions, almost everywhere.

Different colonies featured distinctive variations among the many factors in that above-mentioned list of contextual rubrics. Different colonies could, and did, support ratifications, for various reasons—reasons not infrequently in opposition to each other. For instance, the tidewater elite of Virginia backed ratification of the militia purpose, as did the Scots-Irish borderlanders who had immigrated to people the Pennsylvania highlands. But those distinctive groups ratified the militia purpose on the basis of vastly different, and actually opposing, cultural contexts. They agreed on the militia purpose. They differed on what militias were for, and on other aspects of the public governance of firearms.

To insist that either state adopt the view of the other in a Constitution destined to nationalize such views, was a tactic the Convention wisely bypassed. Nevertheless, an original intent analysis commands intellectually supportable evidence of high quality, and abundant quantity, all pointing to an exclusive militia purpose as the intended meaning of the 2A.

Historical evidence for that conclusion is unusually strong and unambiguous. In few other cases is historical evidence so clear cut.

Then, to further clarify the differences between the two originalist methods, consider what would happen if a coherent and historically conscientious attempt to liquidate colony-by-colony disagreements by an original public meaning analysis were attempted for the 2A issue. Multiplications of both effort and intellectual problems would be mind-boggling. After a fragmented series of at least 13 separate historical investigations, touching on various unlike lists of rubrics from state to state—a massive research effort which would take years to complete—no unified statement of original public meaning would be found intellectually supportable.

In general, the notion of any public meaning applicable nation-wide looks to be a fool's errand. Perhaps trivial cases occur where that does not apply. But no important controversy is likely to be susceptible to solution by any such method, with no better reason needed than the notion of unified public meaning, and the notion of controversy, seem mutually incompatible. It turns out human activity, and thus history, is usually a better fit for a notion of intended purposes, followed by varying experiences, and thus controversies.

[NOVA Lawyer]

“To do those things with regard to original intent is sometimes barely possible. To attempt to do them with regard to original public meaning is more difficult, often paradoxical, and usually impossible.”

I mean, yes, but it’s actually worse with original intent. Whose intent? Thomas Jefferson’s or John Adams’? And what was either of their intent with respect to searching cell phones? You have to hold a seance to interrogate them and then, what, hold a vote of ghosts?

Original public meaning does have all the problems you identify. Imagine in our polarized world, which is not quite as polarized as 1868, what the original public meaning of anything is. 46% of the country will interpret things one way, 46% will interpret it another, and 8% of the country doesn’t even pretend to understand the question. But original public meaning is superior to original intent because at least you are basing it on the understanding of the governed and using some textualist methods to determine what would people think the text meant at the time. Yes, it has the problems you identify, but you don't seem to realize all of those ideas are also present with original intent but more of them.

The most coherent originalist views are that they provide sort of guardrails in between which there are legitimate answers. But, rarely, as it’s advocates hope/claim, does originalism provide the One True Answer to any particular constitutional question. Text sometimes. Originalism rarely.

[Stephen Lathrop]

But original public meaning is superior to original intent because at least you are basing it on the understanding of the governed and using some textualist methods to determine what would people think the text meant at the time.

Thank you NOVA lawyer for a considered rejoinder.

My reply to the excerpt above is that you continue to misunderstand an indispensable requirement for accurate textual interpretation. It is capacity to infer—by a method to make historical survivals critique each other—a contemporaneous context of creation which was long ago forgotten.

Historical evidence routinely gets misinterpreted. In the absence of that missing context from the past, modern interpreters substitute the only other context they know, which is present-minded context. Misinterpretations get worse to the extent the aim of the analysis is to mine the past for purposeful answers to resolve a present controversy. To do that necessarily forces present-minded historical errors into the analysis.

There is no such thing as an accurate textualist reading of a 200-year-old text by someone whose contextual judgments are all sourced to present context. That critique extends full force even to tools such as corpus linguistics.

If the output of those methods were interpreted by the kind of historical experts I mentioned—essentially scholars who have trained themselves by years of reading and research to think as if they were native to the times and places under study, then corpus linguistics might prove a modest research improvement. It could help to collate relevant sources.

But that is not how corpus linguistics is typically used, and would fall far short of the ambitions of the method's boosters. They suppose corpus linguistics is a tool with power to assemble a bunch of texts from the past—while forgetting or never noticing that none of those texts arrived in the present accompanied by a contemporaneous context of creation—and then to enable someone unschooled about the past to rely on present context to surmise what those texts might mean if peered at together. That is reliance on present context; to do that reduces the exercise to nonsense.

And what corpus linguistics cannot accomplish, neither can any person, or lawyer, or judge, or justice, who rummages archives equipped only with present-minded critical judgments to attribute meanings to texts.

Please do not misinterpret what I am telling you. This is not about anything so simple as word definitions which change over time. It may come as a surprise to find that in early colonial times, in some places, the word, "cattle," might include chickens. But stuff like that only rarely becomes a major stumbling block.

The major stumbling blocks are exampled by frustration to explain why folks like Samuel Adams were not at least imprisoned, or hanged for treason, despite open agitations which drove royal governors mad, and made the king's military impotent to do anything but make a bad situation worse.

Bafflements of that sort have to do with reliance on a present context to which it never occurs that loyalist government was restricted—in ways unaccustomed today—to operate without electricity with every implication that lack implies, with seasonal interruptions of the means of transit and supply, among deadly epidemic and endemic diseases which lacked medical remedies, with every resource to deploy force keyed to the scheduling demands of bare subsistence agriculture, among a populace suffering a shortage even of means to do transactions with liquid currency, while everyone remained mindful of a population of sometimes hostile, sometimes friendly Indians, who sometimes seemed disorganized, and at other times seemed to loom as a rival sovereignty.

What factors such as those, and myriad others, might have to do with public reactions, mobs, the waxing or waning of protests, the meanings of media, responses to taxes, or the interpretations of laws, an analyst restricted to present context cannot hope to guess. Insight into that problem of interpretation—which was in fact more complex than my short list hinted at—gives salient meaning to the notion, "You really had to be there."

Training oneself, "to be there," mindfully is the task, specialty, and advantage an academic historian brings to such problems. It is something no textualist analysis based on present context can achieve, or even approach.

Respectfully, the task to train oneself to be in Philadelphia, among a known group of literate founders who left records well cared for, at the time they convened, is a task far smaller and more manageable than the task to be ubiquitous among the states, at all relevant times stretching back through colonial eras, and to make yourself conversant with everything which happened to everybody, and the various interpretations of what everybody thought everything meant. That imposing challenge is the historical task the notion of original public meaning implies. Because no such distillation can be accomplished, the original public meaning method cannot deliver either the fixity or the constraint claimed for it.

What you get instead is heedless, results-oriented pseudo-analysis, founded on present minded context, and every bit as personal and variable as would be a method to leave all questions to the whims of the legal analyst. In short, you get Dobbs and Bruen, adorned with empty claims of historical dignity.

Ask yourself, if either of those cases were to be rewritten from scratch, even by an ideologically sympathetic colleague of Alito or Thomas, do you expect the treatments of history and tradition would be substantively repeated? If not, why would you expect original public meaning to deliver fixity, repeatability, or legal constraint?

By contrast, if the Heller case were to be re-litigated from scratch, by any justice relying on original intent, in light of texts in contemporaneous context, very similar interpretations would emerge again and again, no matter how many times the exercise was attempted.

I am in no way a fan of originalism; I think the notion of history as a practical tool to supply leverage to fix present day legal problems is nonsense. If you want intellectually honest history, you have to respect the limitations its methods impose. In short, do not expect history to do much, except to answer one question, "What happened in the past?"

[Stephen Lathrop]

It occurs to me that my too-lengthy comment above may have prepared you for a summary I neglected to supply. Here it is:

The scope of history is the widest possible, including potentially everything which happened everywhere at any time. Obviously, given that, any meaningful historical analysis must set stringent limits, and stay within them.

The point of my remark above was to show that resort to original public meaning, far from being an abridgement of the historical task called for, is a many-fold multiplication of it. Only by means of inappropriately applying present context to everything, can original public meaning pretend to provide tighter focus than original intent.

To understand the actual role of contemporaneous context of creation for historical texts, is to understand that more general studies will always require more extensive research than less general ones.

Original public meaning, deprived of inappropriate reliance on present-minded context, forces much more historical effort than does original intent. The context (at least) expands geographically, encompasses a larger and more varied population, embraces more issues, introduces more contradictions, and lengthens the time interval requiring study.

[NOVA Lawyer]

"Because no such distillation can be accomplished, the original public meaning method cannot deliver either the fixity or the constraint claimed for it."

This is equally, if not more, true of original intent. At least for most provisions.

"What you get instead is heedless, results-oriented pseudo-analysis, founded on present minded context, and every bit as personal and variable as would be a method to leave all questions to the whims of the legal analyst. In short, you get Dobbs and Bruen, adorned with empty claims of historical dignity."

Yep. With either original intent or original public meaning originalism.

"By contrast, if the Heller case were to be re-litigated from scratch, by any justice relying on original intent, in light of texts in contemporaneous context, very similar interpretations would emerge again and again, no matter how many times the exercise was attempted."

Nope. Heller was based on bad history. Moreover, there is plenty of wiggle room to come out how you want because, as you say, the historical record is not perfect, in order to think like any individual, you not only have to understand the times (as you so copiously discuss above), but also the particular individual (who also changes over time or sometimes, as these comment threads reveal about human nature, holds contradictory ideas at the same time).

As has been pointed out, the question asked in Heller wasn't really one that the Founders really thought much about. And, of course not, in an urban, modern society.

https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/2020/10/why-heller-is-such-bad-history

Don't buy the hype that Heller is a good example of historical analysis or that the type of originalism practiced in Heller will always reach the same result, regardless of who does the analysis or what result they want. Certainty is not actually one of the features of originalist analysis of any type. Only by acknowledging that is it possible to have a conversation about what methods of interpretation are useful and when.

[Dan Schiavetta]

During Reconstruction some states repealed their antimiscegenation laws. They were quickly re-enacted once white Democrats retook power, and upheld in Pace. The Fourteenth Amendment had no effect whatever on such laws in the North. They stayed in force, and new states quickly enacted them, beginning with Oregon in 1866.

[OtisAH]

MAGA is quite upset that the price of gas is falling, which it usually does after peak summer driving season. And they’re upset the Fed dropped interest rates yesterday. I’d like to think that pollsters, pundits, and big brained op-ed columnists might learn a lesson from this with regards to alleged “economic anxiety” and general “concerns about the economy,” but I sincerely doubt any will.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm not particularly upset, I like low gas prices. And I have clearly said that oil prices are dropping world wide, so you can hardly attribute it to any manipulations by Biden. Aside from his abandoning his push to drive energy prices UP for the duration of the campaign.

I just hate knowing that, if Harris is elected, they'll resume deliberately forcing energy costs up.

[hobie]

"so you can hardly attribute it to any manipulations by Biden"

And there it is folks. The golden quote. Remember it always. All you little juvenile hayseeds running around placing Brandon stickers on gas pumps nationwide...all the proclamations that Brandon the flea was controlling the great dane of worldwide inflation...bullshit

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : “…. if Harris is elected, they’ll resume deliberately forcing energy costs up.”

Your fever-dream brain is really cooking today, eh Brett? Scorching hot conspiratorial nonsense delivered in a continuous stream of consciousness. Meanwhile, there was record energy production under Joe Biden:

“However, President Joe Biden maintained that he was not holding back domestic energy production in the push for renewable energy. In its first two years the Biden administration approved nearly 6,500 applications for permits to drill, according to Bureau of Land Management data. This slightly outpaces the Trump administration, which approved just under 6,300 permits during its first two years.”

“The Energy Information Administration estimates that this year domestic oil production will surpass its record high, set under the Trump administration, and continue to climb into 2024. Natural gas production, which reached a record high in 2021, is also expected to continue to grow this year.”

But – hey – that’s back on Earth, not the far distant planet of BrettWorld.

https://rollcall.com/2023/02/13/despite-criticism-biden-hasnt-slowed-energy-production/

[Brett Bellmore]

What, are we pretending now that Biden didn't start canceling oil leases and pipelines left and right as soon as he took office? He literally had to be forced by court rulings to resume the leases!

[Sarcastr0]

Brett, being Brett, is unable to see the difference between
-Canceling oil leases.
-Deliberately forcing energy costs up.

Because for him there is ever only one possible motive for actions he doesn't like, and that's whatever scheme he's speculated they're doing.

[Brett Bellmore]

Sarcastr0, being Sarcastr0, wants to pretend there's no connection between a policy of suppressing energy production, and rising energy costs.

[Sarcastr0]

That’s not what I said.
And, perhaps more importantly, that’s not what you said.

[Brett Bellmore]

You don't think Thomas understood what he was writing in Bruen, so it's hardly surprising that you don't think I understand what my own comments mean.

[Sarcastr0]

I don't know what you meant. I do know what you said.

Brett1: "Deliberately forcing energy costs up."
Brett2 (slightly paraphrased): 'there’s a connection between a policy of suppressing energy production, and rising energy costs.'

Do you see the difference between these two statements?

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : “…pretend there’s no connection between a policy of suppressing energy production, and rising energy costs.”

Three Points :

1. There’s been record energy production under Biden, so somehow his evil scheme to “supress” it came to naught.

2. Above, Brett said “that oil prices are dropping world wide, so you can hardly attribute it to any manipulations by Biden.” Why can’t he see the same is true for rising energy prices under Biden? After all, they were worldwide as well. Answer: Because his brain is incapable of even the simpliest ratiocination when hot in pursuit of the latest conspiracy bullshit. His thinking just shuts down.

3. And you have to wonder how Brett pieces his gibberish together into a coherent whole. During record energy production, the evil team of Biden-Harris is still somehow/someway focused on “deliberately forcing energy costs up”. Why? What is their motivation? Do they cackle with glee while doing so?

[hobie]

Yep, Brett got well caught in his fallacy today. For three years Biden's been the cause of the world's woes. Today? Biden cannot possibly influence the leviathan that is the world's oil markets and economy.

It's like fish:barrel with these hayseeds

[grb]

hobie : "Biden cannot possibly influence the leviathan that is the world’s oil markets and economy"

Of course you can say the same thing about presidents & the economy in general. They get the credit & blame, but mostly effect matters only at the outer margins at best.

[hobie]

Having been intimately involved in the energy industry, I can tell you that neither Obama nor Biden did anything to stop drilling and production. The Permian Basin and also other Texas shale plays have been going like gangbusters 3 years straight. Everyone is making money.

So why did oil prices skyrocket when Biden took office? Because the pandemic sent crude oil prices to the negative. Remember that? Producers and explorers worldwide had to mothball their rigs. Entire drillship fleets of new, billion dollar vessels were sent to Asia for dismantling. They had no choice. So when things got back to normal and commerce kicked into gear again, there was no longer the capacity.

It takes days to mothball. It takes years to get them operating again. But here we are, roaring again. Its a beautiful thing. And neither Trump nor Biden have a damn thing to do with it. Nor will they ever

[Bwaaah]

“Having been intimately involved in the energy industry, I can tell you that neither Obama nor Biden did anything to stop drilling and production.”

Do you ignore Obama’s widespread drilling bans? Are you carefully ignoring Biden’s stopping of oil distribution by killing the Keystone XL pipeline project?

Am I to ignore overt Democratic contempt for the continued development of oil production (except at election time)?

Fossil fuel production grows despite the efforts of Democratic Presidents, not because of them. Your “intimately familiarity” is a leftist's joke.

[bernard11]

Prices up? Biden's fault.

Prices down? Biden had zip to do with it.

[Bwaaah]

Neither up prices nor down prices hide Democrat policies, and contempt, for oil. (Historically, they’ve sucked on nuclear energy policy too.)

And let’s not forget how Biden drained half of our strategic petroleum reserves to drive prices down at the expense of our national security interests. No emergency. Just gaming voter ignorance.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Well, I guess you showed Bernard wrong by admitting that Biden is responsible for lower fuel prices.

[hobie]

My neighborhood gas station last week was at $2.89. Yesterday, $2.74. Fed rate cuts. Cheap gas. My oh my. Brandon's gone full MAGA!

[Michael P]

You must be orgasmic every September when it comes time to switch blends. Ignorance is bliss.

https://www.gasbuddy.com/go/summer-blend-and-winter-blend-gasoline

[Mr. Bumble]

Brandon had little if anything to do with it and is probably unaware that it even happened.
Did somebody say ice cream?

[Frank Drackman]

Cause you live in a red fucking state, move to Springfield if you love the Haitians so much (Free Frankie M.D. tip? Start the INH early, and the pink piss is a feature, not a bug)

Frank

[ThePublius]

Let me ask you, OtisAH, what is "MAGA?" Is it some monolithic community regarding thought and philosophy and preference, as you seem to imply? Are all Trump supporters "MAGA?"

And how do you know how MAGA feel, about anything?

[OtisAH]

You don’t even know what MAGA is? It’s you, shithead. It’s you and all these other Convicted Felon Trump-supporting shitheads. Obviously.

[Mr. Bumble]

Otis AH, proud graduate of the Jason Cavanaugh School of Elocution.

[Bwaaah]

LOL. Too true!

[OtisAH]

Mr. Bumble, proud high school dropout.

[Frank Drackman]

I voted Perot 92’, would have in 96’ but was stuck in that hellhole of Aviano Italy and AlGore threw my ballot out, would have voted a 3rd term for William Juffuhson, no way I would vote for AlGore so voted ‘W’ (in Florida, Fuck you Tipper!)

Held my nose for “W” in 04, McCain in 08 and Willard in 12’
“45” is way closer to William Juffuhson(and not just with his Dick) than to “W”, McCain, or Willard

Frank

[ThePublius]

I shouldn't have expected a rational or thoughtful response.

[grb]

Trump just said he is going to cap credit card interest rates at 10% –which is actual price controls. And makes no sense. And he can’t unilaterally do that. And if he could, credit cards will literally go away.

I’m curious though: Where are the MAGA lickspittles who (obediently) shrieked in indignation over Harris’ price gouging talk? They howled “socialism” over that. Will they even notice Trump’s latest dementia gibberish?

https://x.com/SwissWatchGuy/status/1836587728902799635

https://jabberwocking.com/sure-donald-lets-cap-interest-rates/

[Mr. Bumble]

Are usury laws still a thing?

[John F. Carr]

Credit cards have to obey the usury laws of the state where the credit card comes from and not where the credit card user lives. This is a federal law. Repeal this federal law and states will be allowed to regulate credit card rates again.

[M L]

Haha, of course silly, but those laws only apply to the little people!

[Frank Drackman]

Usury? Did someone call? and I prefer “Short Term Loan Facilitator” to $&@%^! that the N-words usually call me when I have to tell them their $15,000 Diamond is maybe worth $1.50,

Frank “Shylock? Personal Idol”

[OtisAH]

He also says he’s gonna cut insurance rates by 50%, which requires a takeover of that industry as well. Or it would if any of his promises beyond “retribution” and “revenge” can be taken in good faith.

[Krayt]

CC companies claiming you’re a risk ergo 30% rate now, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck and is a scam. See also banks charging $35 for overdrafts, “but not reporting it to a credit agency, we’re you’re friend.”

I don’t know the solution, but the last time government trial ballooned tangling with ccs, the stock market crashed so they backed off.

[Brett Bellmore]

My favorite tactic was clearing all charges first at the start of the day, and only then clearing incoming funds at the end of the day, so that they could nail you for a shortfall they'd arranged for themselves.

[jb]

They also liked to do the trick of clearing charges starting with the biggest ones so you'd get the maximum possible number of overdrafts.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, when I was in financial trouble after my 1st wife cleaned me out prior to the divorce, (She didn't ask me for anything IN the divorce because she'd taken it while we still had joint accounts...) that was what finally ended the desperate juggling act: The bank had sat on a check I'd deposited for a couple weeks without telling me, and by the time they cleared it all the accumulated overdrafts ended any chance of my ever putting things right.

It only accelerated things, of course, but they had absolutely engineered the overdrafts.

[bernard11]

Complaining about the market again, Mr. Libertarian?

The bank had sat on a check I’d deposited for a couple weeks without telling me, and by the time they cleared it all the accumulated overdrafts ended any chance of my ever putting things right.

When did this happen? These days, thanks to some of that awful regulation, they can no longer get away with crap like that. They certainly skate the edges though, IME.

The thing to bear in mind is that banks are thieves, not legally maybe, but they sure do try to sweep up every nickel they see, and are not above shaking the customer's pocket to see if they can make another one fall out.

[Brett Bellmore]

Back in the early Oughts.

[ThePublius]

Credit card companies are the financial analog of illicit drug dealers. They wreck lives. I'm a conservative, and generally libertarian, but I acknowledge that in the society in which we live, some degree of socialism, and regulation, is a good thing. I think the CC companies, and also some retail banks, have gotten out of control, and it would be good for society at large to reign them in.

Why no postal banking in the U.S.? If we did have USPS banking, with savings accounts, checking accounts, and yes, credit cards, what would the cc interest rate be?

[Magister]

Squeeze out private industry with a government program? Sounds like a communist plan.

Banks (and related entities) probably experience a lot more competition than health care providers. I've moved my banking, including mortgages and accounts and credit cards, repeatedly because of comparison of rates, services and policies; I've rarely switched doctors, and never due to rates (I did switch my employer health insurance once because of a significant rate increase, but the new insurer covered the same doctors I already had which made it an easy comparison).

[Absaroka]

"Trump just said he is going to cap credit card interest rates at 10% –which is actual price controls. And makes no sense. And he can’t unilaterally do that. And if he could, credit cards will literally go away."

That's a dumb idea - I can remember when mortgages were double digit. But I dunno about 'literally go away'. Only half of credit card holders carry a balance. If the bank was actually losing money on people who don't carry a balance, why wouldn't they cancel those cards? And I presume banks manage to turn a profit on debit cards, and they aren't collecting interest on those.

I'm open to a deeper analysis, for sure!

[OtisAH]

It’s estimated that about 200 million Americans haven’t least one credit card. So half is roughly 100 million Americans carrying a cc balance. Or roughly a third of the country.

[Mr. Bumble]

Fuzzy math and I think you meant "have at least".

[OtisAH]

Is *anyone* surprised Bumble thinks I used fuzzy math to calculate half of 200 being 100?

[Brett Bellmore]

For sensible customers who don't carry balances, who typically are low risk, they get their profits from processing fees, that range from 1.5% to 3.5% depending on the card. They're not all that high, but neither are the expenses for those customers.

[M L]

The processors (Visa/Mastercard) have a lot of monopolistic practices as well and are constantly under antitrust scrutiny.

Imagine the hubris to go after 3% of every transaction. And prohibit passing the fee onto customers.

Then you have more and more retailers and points of sale refusing cash. And the IRS with their thousands of new agents was going to be focused on billionaires, it turns out that was a lie, and instead they are focusing on tracking small cash and hammering middle and working class.

Anyway, the system in a lot of ways benefits many people like me and probably you, who never pays a dime in credit card interest or late fees, collects reward points, and holds stock in the banks and payment processors. It’s reminiscent of a lot of Bible verses, such as Amos 8.

Hear this, you who trample the needy
and do away with the poor of the land,
5 saying,
“When will the New Moon be over
that we may sell grain,
and the Sabbath be ended
that we may market wheat?”—
skimping on the measure,
boosting the price
and cheating with dishonest scales,
6 buying the poor with silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals,
selling even the sweepings with the wheat.
7 The Lord has sworn by himself, the Pride of Jacob: “I will never forget anything they have done.”

[M L]

LMAO, you blithering idiot.

The concept of usury has one of the longest historical, political, and philosophical pedigrees of any commercial regulation.

The bizarre aberration here is that credit cards managed to become exempt from usury laws in the U.S. only in the last 40 years or so.

"credit cards will literally go away"

https://media1.tenor.com/m/ZttURy99Kn8AAAAC/good-great.gif

[Dr. Ed 2]

It might be a good thing if they did go away.

[Commenter_XY]

grb, it is a dumb idea = cap CC interest rate, federally

(if that is what Pres Trump actually proposed)

[bernard11]

That something is a dumb idea, or wildly impractical or even impossible, is no bar to Trump proposing it.

He has threatened to impose 100% tariffs on countries that don't use the dollar as their reserve currency - a proposal so stunningly stupid as to demonstrate - once again - that he is a hopelessly ignorant fool, as does his repeated belief that foreigners pay tariffs and they will be a bonanza for the US.

[Commenter_XY]

I am leery about tariffs for a different reason; on the eve of WWI, the world went a little tariff crazy. It was one more thing that added to the geopolitical pressure cooker of that time. I am not sure this is the right time for a move like that = tariffs for not using dollars.

One alternative is to make the dollar cheaper, relative to the rest of the world, as a strategy. It worked in the 80's, under TresSec James Baker. We have a somewhat different geopolitical circumstance now.

Politicians suggesting dumb, impractical ideas is nothing new or unique.

[M L]

And yet the U.S. levies sanctions and takes actions that are 100x more punitive and impactful than a mere wimpy tariff, against particular countries, for things like . . . homosexual sex acts and homosexual marriage?

https://www.heritage.org/monetary-policy/commentary/woke-sanctions-and-countries-abandoning-the-dollar-will-ruin-the-world

Trump's threat is just that . . . a threat, designed to prompt a response, ideally, rather than to be permanently implemented. This general idea of tariffs being used as a tool to illicit a response was described by Adam Smith thus:

"There may be good policy in retaliations of this kind, when there is a probability that they will procure the repeal of the high duties or prohibitions complained of. The recovery of a great foreign market will generally more than compensate the transitory inconveniency of paying dearer during a short time for some sorts of goods. To judge whether such retaliations are likely to produce such an effect does not, perhaps, belong so much to the science of a legislator, whose deliberations ought to be governed by general principles which are always the same, as to the skill of that insidious and crafty animal, vulgarly called a statesman or politician, whose councils are directed by the momentary fluctuations of affairs....."

Now, with all of that said, I am not supporting Trump's idea and threat here. It may be stupid, just as you say. But it's not as stunningly stupid, or as indicative of being a hopelessly ignorant fool, as some other things out there, like medicare for all and open borders.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Spreading more lies, ML?

Trump's tariff talk is not just a threat. He's done it before, and the consequences were exactly as everyone except the Trumptards expected.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-rNxvt0TcQ

[M L]

"consequences were exactly as everyone except the Trumptards expected"

Wait a minute, Biden decided to keep the "Trump tariffs" in place though. Biden even increased them and added additional tariffs. Isn't that interesting? Why did Biden and his team decide to do that, if "everyone" else agreed it was a bad idea? Could it be that you are lying again?

Regardless, the post I responded to stated that Trump was threatening a much higher tariff rate against particular countries that don't do a certain thing he wants them to do. I was merely explaining that in this particular instance, according to the post I replied to, this is being touted as a way to get them to do something and is not being touted as a desirable tariff rate to have in place permanently.

[bernard11]

ML,

Firs, that paragraph from Heritage is bullshit. The guy has no more grasp of the matter than Trump.

That said, a threat is only useful if it can be carried out. The "reserve currency" business can't be.

Further, threats to harm yourself are really not very smart. And yes, it is as stunningly stupid, and indicative of being an ignorant fool as those other things.

[grb]

bernard11 : "That something is a dumb idea, or wildly impractical or even impossible, is no bar to Trump proposing it"

He's pledged to deny all education funding to any school with a vaccine mandate - which is all schools, of course. Somewhere upthread Brett (in full Brett-mode) complained the MSM was hiding the substance of Trump's campaigning from the people.

He doesn't realize that's to Trump's benefit. By this point no one bothers to notice when he says something mind-boggling stupid.

[Mr. Bumble]

Democracy Teamsters style.
Teamsters poll members to determine which candidates the membership supports for president.
Electronic Poll: Trump: 59.6%; Harris: 34%.
Phone Poll: Trump: 58%; Harris: 31%.
Decision of leadership: no endorsement of either candidate.

[hobie]

It looks like the American redneck would rather vote on culture war issues (Republican) than their own economic/union self-interests (Democrat). Union leadership clearly sees the paradox so they had to stay out for rational reasons

[Brett Bellmore]

It's that darned false consciousness, the only reason anybody ever doesn't vote for Democrats.

[M L]

Exactly the opposite, of course. Trump is the one whose policies will be more favorable to American manufacturing jobs.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

So we should mark you down as one of the dumb shits who doesn't understand what a tariff is and who ends up paying for it?

That's his only economic answer.

[M L]

As I've discussed many times here, Adam Smith made a good case for half a dozen or so "exceptions" where tariffs might be a wise policy used in a targeted way to achieve certain results.

Furthermore, tariffs are in any event no worse than sales taxes or income taxes, and I would argue significantly better than income taxes.

But all of that aside, what you're not understanding is that even if tariffs in a particular case are bad for the American consumer and bad national policy generally, they will still generally inure to the benefit of the particular domestic industry jobs that are protected from foreign competition by the tariff. So this point you are trying make about self-interest of those industries is not correct.

This is only addressing your dumb argument about tariffs. There are many, many other more significant ways in which Trump is better for American manufacturing jobs, contrary to hobie's nonsensical blather about voters' economic self-interest.

[Sarcastr0]

You should read up on what you’re defending.

Trump wants to impose new tariffs of 20% on most imports, and a 60% tariff on products from China.

Not some sector, or manufacturing. Just across the board.

No domestic industry in particular, just stupid and across the board.

The kind that invites a trade war. One that a command economy can handle more easily than we can.

[M L]

It seems you lost track of the issue being discussed here.

In the context of the Teamsters union support of Trump, Hobie said "the American redneck would rather vote on culture war issues (Republican) than their own economic/union self-interests (Democrat)"

To which I responded no, just the opposite - support of Trump by people with manufacturing jobs shows that they would rather vote in their economic self-interest.

Now, there are many ways in which I think Trump's policies are better for manufacturing jobs. In general, Democrat policies promise more government handouts and more taxes, which are economically destructive, rather than focusing on opportunity and growth and jobs.

[Sarcastr0]

The tariffs I described would protect no one. There is no self-interest at work. Union workers need to buy things too.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

"But all of that aside, what you’re not understanding is that even if tariffs in a particular case are bad for the American consumer and bad national policy generally, they will still generally inure to the benefit of the particular domestic industry jobs that are protected from foreign competition by the tariff. So this point you are trying make about self-interest of those industries is not correct."

This statement was made after you presumably watched the video I linked previously about the impact Trump's tariffs had on agriculture exports to China and the farmers who relied upon them? The American farmers who lost their farms and had to be bailed out by the government using taxpayer money?

What do you think happens to the cost of goods 'manufactured' in America when the materials necessary to create them is hit by one of your idiot leader's indiscriminate tariffs? Tariffs only work if you already have a competitive industry to protect which does not rely on the goods you raise prices on. That requires some knowledge of the economy and economics, which Trump absolutely does not have. Let's find out just how stupid your precious manchild is:

(This answer was given in front of the Economic Club of NY on Sept. 5)

But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about — that, because look, child care is child care, couldn’t — you know, there’s something — you have to have it in this country. You have to have it. But when you talk about those numbers, compared to the kind of numbers that I’m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to. But they’ll get used to it very quickly. And it’s not going to stop them from doing business with us. But they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country. Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we’re talking about, including child care, that it’s going to take care. We’re going to have — I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time, coupled with the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country.

Because I have to stay with child care. I want to stay with child care. But those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I’m talking about, including growth, but growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just — that I just told you about. We’re going to be taking in trillions of dollars. And as much as child care is talked about as being expensive, it’s, relatively speaking, not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers will be taking in.

We’re going to make this into an incredible country that can afford to take care of its people. And then we’ll worry about the rest of the world. Let’s help other people. But we’re going to take care of our country first. This is about America first. It’s about make America great again. We have to do it because right now, we’re a failing nation. So we’ll take care of it. Thank you. Very good question. Thank you.

Where are these economic policies you think Trump has, and what is your evidence they will help anyone? Unlike you, I've provided evidence of what he actually has done, and the consequences (and yet more evidence) of his utter stupidity.

[M L]

"Where are these economic policies you think Trump has"

What I said is that policy under Trump will be more favorable to American manufacturing jobs than policy under Democrats. For example, Trump successfully renegotiated a number of trade agreements, while Democrats and the establishment did not. Trump secured the border and stopped illegal immigration, while Biden Harris opened the border and frantically waved in 20 million illegals like a 3rd base coach. Trump would be more likely to lower income taxes while Democrats raise them. Trump would be more likely to reduce regulation while Democrats enact absurd onerous levels of regulation. Etc.

[Sarcastr0]

Trump successfully renegotiated a number of trade agreements, while Democrats and the establishment did not

No, Trump just said he hated the current trade agreements, tweaked it, and said it was much better now.

This is 'he made sure the trains ran on time' levels of not correct at this point.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

"Trump secured the border and stopped illegal immigration"

Can you please tell me if that's the most untrue thing in your paragraph, or just the baseline standard of lies you're willing to utter?

I noticed that you didn't include any evidence or specifics in your argument, and that you completely ignored the obvious ignorance and stupidity in Trump's remarks, yet you keep assuring everyone that Trump has some kind of policy which will be good for America.

Presumably you mean something along the lines of his "concepts of a plan" for replacing the ACA.

[bernard11]

Furthermore, tariffs are in any event no worse than sales taxes or income taxes, and I would argue significantly better than income taxes.

Wow. What a howler. You really are an economic buffoon. The fact that tariffs have some value in a small number of cases offers no support whatsoever for Trump's proposals.

even if tariffs in a particular case are bad for the American consumer and bad national policy generally, they will still generally inure to the benefit of the particular domestic industry jobs that are protected from foreign competition by the tariff.

That doesn't sound very sensible. "Let's help the manufacturers (some of them, anyway) and screw everyone else." Your idea of good policy?

Oh, and they hurt many manufacturers. Those who export will face retaliatory tariffs. Those who import raw materials or intermediate goods will be hurt.

Stop making up nonsensical BS to defend your cult hero.

[Commenter_XY]

Mr. Bumble, you know that is is [D]ifferent. It wasn't universal, like an NK election. So no en[D]orsement.

[Sarcastr0]

Bumble has discovered that unions are not a plebiscite.

[M L]

But you know if they had 50.01% for Harris, they would endorse. Probably even with less, like 40-45%.

[Sarcastr0]

Counterfactual hypocricy is the easiest to prove.

[Sarcastr0]

The right's pissed at the Fed because they might make the economy do well.

Starkly party above country.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Bush II and Trump lucked into picking really good Fed chairs.

[Commenter_XY]

It wasn't luck. All of the Fed Chairs have been distinguished academics (Yellen included).

The only cautionary note....back in the mid to late 70's, prior to Volker, Miller and Burns (Fed Chairs) let up on rates too early. And there was another spike of inflation that the Fed just did not pick up on fast enough; added 3-5 years to inflation. That is a potential danger here.

I am not saying it will happen, just that it is a risk.

[Krayt]

“In many religions, hair is the most precious thing on the body – it’s where you store your memories and your dreams and your history. (Shaving) it was really bizarre,” said Pugh

From a CNN article on how shaving her head for a role caused issues for her.

I had never heard of any worldview where hair stored memories and dreams and histories. Samson's strength, or records of past drug use, sure.

[Brett Bellmore]

Apparently it's a thing in Hinduism, and some native American religions.

[hobie]

Made authentic Louisiana seafood filé gumbo yesterday. Started the show with a cup each oil and flour and made that roux chocolate brown. Then in with the trinity, spices, homemade shellfish stock, shrimp, chicken, crawfish tails, andouille sausage.

But the fun part was the filé powder (ground sassafras leaves) at the end. You tap a little in and it thickens things instantly. Wow. So much more powerful than cornstarch.

Fantastic flavor.

[Commenter_XY]

Post.the.recipe.

[hobie]

https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/seafood-gumbo

[Commenter_XY]

Looks good...nice quantity, too.

[Brett Bellmore]

Huh. I've tried file powder, and it never had that impressive an effect. Maybe mine's full of filler?

[M L]

Trump-inspired song "Fighter" has reached #1 spot on iTunes.

https://www.popvortex.com/music/charts/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr-EHcUPat4&ab_channel=BasteRecords

[M L]

28% of Democrats say America would be better off if Trump had been murdered. Another 24% (52% total) say they are unsure. So a majority either says the nation would be better off or they are unsure.

A minority of Democrats say America would not be better off if the opposing party’s candidate for president had been assassinated.

https://napolitaninstitute.org/2024/09/18/17-say-america-would-be-better-off-if-trump-had-been-killed/

[Sarcastr0]

This is laundered Scott Rasmussen. Doesn't mean it's wrong; does mean take a careful look - this group has a conservative agenda.

[Ed Grinberg]

Some "democrats"...

I'm reminded of that poll that found that a minority (or was it a majority?) of college students said it's OK to physically confront (i.e., assault) someone if you don't like what they're saying.
Fascists all around...

[grb]

M L : “28% of Democrats say America would be better off….”

A reminder of grb’s Rule on General Polling : The further a poll gets from a real practical decision, the more likely it is to be warped by tribal posturing. I no longer find much significance in crap like this, whether the bizarrely large percent of people holding a bizarrely stupid opinion are from the Right or Left.

In this case I seriously doubt this 28% are down for Trump’s murder. But I likewise doubt most republicans are imbecile enough to believe Trump’s election fraud lies. In both cases they are serving their tribal identity with cheap talk.

[M L]

Oracle Co-Founder Larry Ellison Hopes for AI-Powered Surveillance Hellscape to Keep Americans on ‘Best Behavior’

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2024/09/17/oracle-co-founder-larry-ellison-hopes-for-ai-powered-surveillance-hellscape-to-keep-americans-on-best-behavior/

Larry Ellison, the billionaire co-founder of Oracle, believes that artificial intelligence will enable a vast surveillance system capable of monitoring citizens and ensuring they remain on their “best behavior."

Business Insider reports that during a recent Oracle meeting with financial analysts, Larry Ellison shared his thoughts on the future of AI-powered surveillance tools, painting a picture of a world where constant monitoring and reporting of citizens’ actions become the norm. Ellison . . . envisions a future where AI will be used to analyze data from various surveillance systems, including security cameras, police body cameras, doorbell cameras, and vehicle dashboard cameras similar to China’s social credit system.

“We’re going to have supervision,” Ellison stated during the meeting. . . . “Citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that’s going on.” . .

[apedad]

OK so . . . what should we do about this?

There are more than 120 AI bills in Congress right now

They’re pretty varied. One aims to improve knowledge of AI in public schools, while another is pushing for model developers to disclose what copyrighted material they use in their training. Three deal with mitigating AI robocalls, while two address biological risks from AI. There’s even a bill that prohibits AI from launching a nuke on its own.

The flood of bills is indicative of the desperation Congress feels to keep up with the rapid pace of technological improvements. “There is a sense of urgency. There’s a commitment to addressing this issue, because it is developing so quickly and because it is so crucial to our economy,” says Heather Vaughan, director of communications for the US House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2024/09/18/1104015/here-are-all-the-ai-bills-in-congress-right-now/

Or would you prefer a religious or 2A solution?

[M L]

Fair question. I think mostly, we just need to resist government action that would require or have a tendency to establish this sort of thing. That’s probably 95% of it at this point. I haven’t thought about this a ton from a policy standpoint, but I think if you look at a lot of these “proposals” to “do something,” some of them may be well-intentioned, but they are often counterproductive, and a solution looking for a problem. In fact, they will have a tendency to establish the very thing they are billed as trying to prevent – just in a form that is more acceptable the government, by cutting them in on the action/power/control/money, and a form that is perhaps more initially saleable to the public.

Mostly, I just think it’s interesting to note that a lot of people in power (and that includes a hell of a lot more than are coming out and saying it like Ellison) are actively pursuing this. That’s the salient point of my comment.

[M L]

Hillary Clinton says American citizens should be "criminally charged" for speech that she deems "propaganda"

https://www.newsweek.com/hillary-clinton-spreading-russian-misinformation-crime-1954941

[Michael Ejercito]

Is stochastic terrorism still a thing?

[Bwaaah]

If a tree falls in a forest, but before it does, somebody makes up the word "soundoftreesyoucanthear," will that make people hear it?

[M L]

Following the 2nd failed Trump assassination attempt, a number of leftwing politicians, celebrities, and media personalities immediately doubled down on their violent, doomsday, and/or dehumanizing rhetoric. Maybe not surprising given the poll I cited above.

Hillary Clinton promptly called Trump a "danger to our country."

The object in this case is Donald Trump, his demagoguery, his danger to our country and the world. . . I do think more and more Americans are rejecting the kind of chaos that he represents. We can’t go back. That’s what the Harris campaign says all the time. We’re not going back. We’re not going back to, you know, what he failed to do to protect American lives during COVID. We’re not going back to the, you know, romance with dictators that puts innocent lives at risk and puts America’s security in danger. We can’t go back and give this very dangerous man another chance to do harm to our country and the world.

Sen. Chris Murphy blamed the victim following the attempt, saying "No leader has done more to inspire and endorse political violence than Donald Trump." Yet Harris senior adviser David Plouffe once called for the extermination of not only Trump but also "his kind" : “It is not enough to simply beat Trump. He must be destroyed thoroughly. His kind must not rise again.” https://www.breitbart.com/2nd-amendment/2024/09/17/sen-chris-murphy-sundays-assassination-attempt-trump-the-one-inspiring-political-violence/

Then there's Jimmy Kimmel. https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2024/09/17/jimmy-kimmel-attacks-trump-over-second-assassination-attempt-reaction-this-is-a-crazy-person/

[Sarcastr0]

Neither of these attempts have any sign of being motivated by Democratic rhetoric.

Plus you have Trump out there calling Harris a fascist communist Marist who will steal the election and then everyone's money and guns.

It's too obvious a double standard and lie but some shameless Breitbartly tools gotta try.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Neither of these attempts have any sign of being motivated by Democratic rhetoric."

A flat lie, not even your usual gaslighting.

Dem Iran and Jan. 6 riot rhetoric directly led to the latest attempt.

“You are free to assassinate Trump,” Routh wrote of Iran in an apparently self-published book in 2023, “Ukraine’s Unwinnable War,” which described the former president as a “fool” and “buffoon” for both the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot and the “tremendous blunder” of leaving the Iran nuclear deal. AP story

[Sarcastr0]

You're a liar and it's intentional.

Routh's got a political valiance all over the map, including voting for Trump in 2016.

You just cherry picked a small part so you could present a false impression.

[Bob from Ohio]

"present a false impression."

No, that's what you do, the reason why you are called Gaslighto.

Dems have been beating the "threat to democracy" horse 24/7/365 and someone finally took the bait. Now, instead of thinking your it over, your side is doubling down on its stochastic terrorism.

[Sarcastr0]

Right wing tools have made up a shitty nickname for me. Wild you'd think that has any truth value in it. But you don't - the truth isn't in you - the only true virtue is to say whatever you need to get your side into power, after all.

I see you're now just handwaiving about Dems bad. Not bothering with even making causal arguments anymore.

No one's buying it, Bob.

[Bob from Ohio]

I don't recall if I invented the name but I was an early adopter, for sure.

You tell half truths and leave out important info all the time. Not a flat lie, usually, but misleading.

Of course, there are your always convenient assertions that you have talked extensively with a certain group and they all [amazingly] agree with your conclusion. Though I have noticed you don't pull that as much, perhaps I shamed it out of you.

[Sarcastr0]

Name calling, tu quoque, and confirmation bias.

One a roll today, Bob.

[Sarcastr0]

You notice how no one else claims I’m lying about when I give a personal anecdote? Just you? That’s weird because plenty of people love to call me a liar.
Sometimes I talk to people that don’t agree with Democratic positions like DEI trainings being bad, or SJW types making liberal nonprofits toxic.
My opinion has changed based on those same people, so I agree with them as well

I’m sure there are people I’ve talked to and didn’t agree with, and so forgot about their point, as people are wont to do.

My anecdotes don’t come up all that often. You just not every time and add it all together. That’s how confirmation bias works!

Meanwhile you have said that lying to help your side is a virtue, and that having principles beyond that is for suckers. When people call you a liar and/or an asshole, you’ve thanked them.
You’re vice signaling for sure, but you also can’t stand on honesty as a principle you care about.

So as Simon said, go fuck yourself.

[Commenter_XY]

Early adopter. 🙂

I see it has widespread use, and it appears to be 'safe and effective', judging by the reaction.

'stochastic terrorism'...only in America. What exactly is this?

[LawTalkingGuy]

I mean he tried to illegally stay in office after losing an election and still continues to push lies and conspiracies about electoral processes. That's a threat to democracy. It's an accurate characterization. Whether someone acts on that is immaterial to its accuracy.

[SimonP]

Oh, go fuck yourself.

Democrats have been warning about political rhetoric inviting "stochastic terrorism" for years. It comes not just from Trump, but from Republican politicians at every level. It comes from sheriffs, pastors, pundits. It's why our election workers are dealing with death threats and engaged in drills to protect themselves from pipe bombs and anthrax-type attacks. It's why Kamala supporters in red states are keeping quiet about their support. It's why Springfield officials are working so hard to counter the Vance lies about Haitians eating pets.

The one and only reason you and any other MAGA asshats are suddenly worried about "political rhetoric" and "stochastic terrorism" now is because you want to throw up a smoke screen to deflect from your own continuing efforts to drive it in the other direction. You have been the ones motivating for political violence, for years. You have been the ones repeating and defending this dehumanizing and extreme rhetoric. Now you are trying to smear Democrats for pointing that out.

Our politics right now is miserable, just this endless cycle of hate and derision - and it's your fault. You took away a politics of decency and ideas, and gave us this bullshit in Trump. Now you're bitching that some of it's coming back around to you.

So - GO FUCK YOURSELF.

[not guilty]

Bob, do Sarcastr0's comments actually lead you to question your own sanity, memory, or powers of reasoning?

Your own commentary shows you to be dumb as a box of rocks, but why do you and your ilk fixate on Sarc?

[Commenter_XY]

How do they find these unstable losers, in the first place? It doesn't seem random.

[Sarcastr0]

Who the is they, Commenter?

[M L]

That's a whopper of a lie, even by Sarcastro standards.

[Sarcastr0]

Gonna walk through your issue, or just gonna signal?

[Commenter_XY]

Political violence, and antisemitism are becoming normalized in American society. We are in civic decay.

We are told by the wokesters and uber-libs: Words are violence. Are they? Did words lead to two assassination attempts? People will need to decide that one for themselves, but I would say that the incessant incitement for years has had some impact, probably in lowering the inhibition to act in a violent manner.

When one-quarter of Americans believe that political violence is justifiable, it is an American problem.

[grb]

Commenter_XY : "We are in civic decay"

Can we give that talk a rest? I grew-up in the 60s, with JFK, RFK, and MLK. By any metric, these are calmer times.

[Commenter_XY]

No, because it is true, we are in civic decay = Can we give that talk a rest?

I grew up in the same rough timeframe. Both can be true: the mid-60's-mid 70's were a time of great political turmoil and and political violence, and, America is today in civic decay. Neither is Ok.

[grb]

We’ve been in “civic decay” according to some hyperventilating snowflake every single year of my plus-six decades.

Seems like we would have decayed already, but it seems a neverending process – always just on the verge of coming-to-be.

[Sarcastr0]

Why were the 60s and 70s full of turmoil and violence but only now is it ‘civic decay?’

Seems as grb said it’s more just a kids these days complaint than anything particularized.

I will note that rhe GOP is the party of skepticism about our civic institutions these days. And over the past year your comments have moved way way right.

[grb]

My theory is this : If the country was strong enough to survive 70s fashion and the Disco Era, it will persevere.

[Commenter_XY]

LOL = survive 70's fashion and disco....what, you don't have you bell bottomed jeans? Or your Pet Rock in the bright yellow box? Or gold bling from the disco era?

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

Like any genre, disco could be done well or poorly. For instance Chic were fantastic, Bernard Edwards was an absolute monster on the bass.

[grb]

I wanna put on my, my, my, my, my boogie shoes.

[Sarcastr0]

"the wokesters and uber-libs" are the types you follow, now?

Did words lead to two assassination attempts? People will need to decide that one for themselves
Not really; this is a factual inquiry. You're trying to dodge the fact that the right is lying.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Perhaps you could start with the guy who 'normalized' it 8 years ago and hasn't stopped.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/16/us/politics/trump-violence-assassination-attempt.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-K8JxUueLPM

[Bob from Ohio]

Yes, Dems are leaning hard into "meddling priest" territory.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Crazy thing to post when on of Trump’s wealthiest and prominent supporters on the biggest social media platform was like: why isn’t anyone trying to kill Kamala Harris?

Also when the entire GOP is going: who will rid me of these meddlesome Haitians based on fake stories about cat eating.

[Sarcastr0]

Bob wants to claim the lack of connection is insignificant because sure.

[LawTalkingGuy]

The thing is, he doesn’t actually believe this. He just likes to lie.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Also a crazy thing to post when Trump once posted Obama’s address and they arrested a guy with weapons outside of it. Oh and when Trump’s election lies led to the attempted murder of the Speaker’s husband and then both he and his son (plus other right-wingers) either engaged in conspiracy theories or straight up nasty jokes about the situation.

And then there’s how the right-wing anti-immigration rhetoric was copied by mass shooters at El Paso, Buffalo, and the Tree of Life Synagogue.

Then there’s the Trump-fan who killed a federal judge’s kid and had Sotomayor on a hit list.

Then there is the general fact that Republicans routinely refer to democrats as communists, marxists, anti-American, groomers, degenerates etc etc etc and have for years.

So it’s really really fucking rich to be like: how dare democrats accuse the guy who illegally tried to stay in office and uses fascist rhetoric (according to actual experts on the topic of fascism) of being a fascist threat to democracy.

Luckily for you, I know you actually don’t believe what you just wrote because you’re a known bad faith liar who gleefully and openly supports lying and hypocrisy to own the libs.

[verochkax]

Democrats are in fact communists, Marxists, anti-American traitors, groomers, perverts and degenerates.

When the shoe fits, wear it.

[LawTalkingGuy]

If you actually feel that way (or even if you don't, but you talk that way) you can't really complain when you get labeled a fascist.*

*hahaha just kidding, of course you can. A core part of being a fascist is dishing it out but being unable to take it. So yeah you actually can and will complain like a little bitch that someone's rhetoric is too mean.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Just got my flu and COVID shots.

[Sarcastr0]

Early bird. I usually wait till Veterans' Day.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

I was going to wait until October but kept on getting reminders to get the flu shot including from my doctor so oh well.

[Brett Bellmore]

I got my flu shot as soon as it was available. Most years influenza isn't any big deal, but my immune system isn't exactly improving with age.

[Sarcastr0]

The flu shot is improved as the season progresses, so it can be good to wait.

New Covid variants are also addressed by the Covid vax so even if you've had it back in the day, you should consider getting it again.

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

I'm in the same boat, Brett. Old age, plus medicine I take for my ulcerative colitis drives my immune system way down. I never bothered with flu shots until recent years.

[SRG2]

SciAm - on the FDA's holding up approval of thalidomide

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/was-thalidomide-safe-frances-oldham-kelsey-was-not-convinced/

Things you can't leave up to the market to decide...

[Brett Bellmore]

They got one thing right, and they've been waving that bloody shirt around ever since, to excuse being slower at drug approval than the rest of the developed nations, with no better record once you set aside thalidomide.

They've long since killed more people by far by delaying drug approvals, than they saved with thalidomide.

[SRG2]

Quite possibly - but it is nonetheless worth bearing in mind whenever getting rid of the FDA or drastically reducing its authority is concerned.

[Brett Bellmore]

What I advocate is allowing any drug that has been approved by more than one of the developed nations with as good of approval records as the FDA's to be automatically approved here.

[Gasman]

Regarding the assassination attempts, Trump personally has skin in the game regarding the success/failure.
But for the Republicans as a whole, not so much. Foiled attempts get a bump in publicity, supports the narrative of oppression, and improves donations. A successful attempt would likely do the same.

Near martyrdom is good for business.
Martyrdom is good for business.
All Republicans win (except Trump himself)

[LawTalkingGuy]

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/huge-story-about-to-drop-on-mark-robinson/

LOL. LMAO.

[Estragon]

Turns out even the grab em by the pussy party has red lines

[LawTalkingGuy]

Will be very very fun to ask the biggest "Democrats hate their primary voters and Joe Biden must be on the ballot" boosters, (including speaker Johnson) about this. Especially since the NC rule appears to be he stay on the ballot but the votes go to the new nominee (who obviously is not going to be picked through an open primary process)

[LawTalkingGuy]

Or maybe nothing is happening after all.

[LawTalkingGuy]

So the supposed "bombshells" are;

Liking trans porn (This is not in anyway surprising)
Wanting to own slaves
And being a locker room peeper in college.

The last one is probably a crime, but in the great pantheon of republican sexual misconduct, it's not in anyway remarkable.

[Estragon]

Uhhh, you missed the SS figurines.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Yikes.

[Michael P]

Did Robinson employ the nom de chat of "Carlos Danger" or something?

(And yes, I know what "chat" means in French.)

[Zarniwoop]

CNN has a review of the direct evidence linking Robinson to the trans porn etc.:
https://www.cnn.com/2024/09/19/politics/kfile-mark-robinson-black-nazi-pro-slavery-porn-forum/index.html

Stick him with a fork, he’s done…

[Dr. Ed 2]

Or he "found Jesus" and repented.

[Zarniwoop]

Bwaaaahaaaahah!! .. stahp .. you're killin' me!

Of course, GOP folks preaching the Bible while surfing pr0n is completely not new ... but Robinson did take it up a notch by liking trans pr0n and proclaiming "I’m a black NAZI!" (actual real quote).

[Alpheus W Drinkwater]

People here in NC have known how nuts Mark Robinson was for many years. Only Trump-supporting primary voters would ever have put that wing nut on the ballot.

[Zarniwoop]

Well, Trump picks the best people!

Wait, does he know Robinson? Or was he just someone who got Trump coffee?

[Commenter_XY]

This is where Mitch McConnell is/was right. Specifically, Team R has to recruit and run better candidates. Robinson was losing badly before this came out, and this looks like a political coup de grace.

[LawTalkingGuy]

See the problem is that they can’t. Because they let their entire party become a support group for people with horrible character or obvious personality disorders. And McConnell helped with that.

[Sarcastr0]

The GOP has a pretty good youth recruitment infrastructure. Young Republicans, Federalist Society, etc.
It's one of the few things they haven't dismantled completely (though see some young republican orgs that have imploded due to crazygonuts leadership). They would be able to in a couple of election cycles if their electorate actually cared.

But the electorate doesn't care - it wants whomever will own the libs the hardest. Sounding reasonable hurts you in the current electoral atmosphere. Reaching across the aisle is deadly. Putting country above part is not tolerated.

So yeah, you get a bunch of weirdos and no one with a whiff of statesmanship in them.

Commenter will sigh and vote GOP. But he's also one of those driving these choices.

[LawTalkingGuy]

One big long-term (electoral) problem for them is the “groyperfication” of the junior staffers.

https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/the-browning-of-the-right

So the GOP is likely not going to be interested in winning elections by advancing popular policies with popular leaders for some time, especially post-Trump.

But do they need to? All they need is enough power at certain critical chokepoints in our political system to frustrate progressive goals or undo progressive accomplishments. As for affirmatively advancing their own goals they don’t need elections to do that. It’s either grifting or LARPing some mythic trad aesthetic for the elite class while they let the crazies just do street violence. What a fun future.

[Sarcastr0]

I'm optimistic. This GOP's racist populist turn is not new. In the past it's been able to garner like 25-30% support nationally, more locally sometimes.

In the current moment it's up to 40-50. But I don't think it's anything clever the GOP has done. So when this pendulum swings back, they are going to be in a world of electoral wilderness.

[Zarniwoop]

There have been loons (RFKjr, Tulsi) that are embraced by the GOP after they find the Democratic Party not to their liking.

Not just switched allegiance; fully incorporated by the highest folks in the GOP, i.e. Trump.

I’m struggling to think of recent examples where such high-caliber bat sheet crazy has ended up on the inner circles of the Democratic Party.

[Sarcastr0]

David Brock, maybe?

But yeah, the grift is easier on the right for sure. The drift to the right to follow the money has been documented for some YouTube personalities. And that's before Russia was discovered to be in the mix!

[Commenter_XY]

Before you declare defeat for Team R, maybe see the results of the congressional elections in two months to determine whether your hypothesis is right or wrong, overall. Or mine about Senator McConnell.

I see Robinson as a failure of vetting by Team R, and also a failure by Robinson himself on forthrightness and honesty (if the allegations are true).

Both of those are fixable, LTG.

[grb]

Commenter_XY : "I see Robinson as a failure of vetting by Team R..."

That's being a bit too kind. It's like you blame "team vetting" for Trump himself. Your guys love Crazy as long as it's entertaining because entertainment & spectacle & cartoon theatrics are what the Right's base demands. Today's GOP is the WWE party. A substance-free sham built on phony spectacle for consumers who don't care it's all a lie.

Sarcastr0 nails it above:

"But the electorate doesn’t care – it wants whomever will own the libs the hardest. Sounding reasonable hurts you in the current electoral atmosphere. Reaching across the aisle is deadly. Putting country above part is not tolerated. So yeah, you get a bunch of weirdos and no one with a whiff of statesmanship in them."

Thus Trump, Vance, Robinson, Greene, Gaetz, and all the other freaks, weirdos, whack-jobs, and loons who teem within the GOP's ranks.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The recent post about the new firearms volume released led me to wonder again how originalist sorts are not concerned that we don't have the traditional militia that supposedly is necessary for a free state. Not a bunch of free agents with guns.

An organized militia, with officers (governor/president in command), people called periodically for roll and training. The militia would have the duty to help enforce the laws, including to address local disorderly protests and some such.

Each member would have an obligation to either have specific arms or the knowledge of how to use arms kept in a government store. People for religious/moral reasons can choose not to have a duty to keep or bear arms. They would have other duties as would some members of the militia generally. People older than those on active duty also can be involved in training etc.

Instead, for instance, we have a select quasi-military police force "occupying" certain areas, which regularly threaten the liberty of a free state. How different would it be if locals instead had the duty to safeguard these areas, armed in organized militia units?

[Ed Grinberg]

how originalist sorts are not concerned that we don’t have the traditional militia that supposedly is necessary for a free state.

Sigh. Brett explained this at length (in the very thread that "led you to wonder..."). You're badly confused. The "militia" isn't some magical entity that prevents tyranny. It's just citizens with guns. That's what prevents tyranny (which is why your ilk is trying so hard to disarm us).

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The “militia” isn’t some magical entity that prevents tyranny. It’s just citizens with guns.

It’s not “just citizens with guns.”

The militia is a specific type of organization, regulated by the state, with a state official at its head. The President, e.g., is the commander-in-chief of the militia when it is in active federal service. Governors are the head of the state militia.

Likewise, a jury is not just “citizens with opinions” about judicial proceedings. It is a specific way for the people to protect liberty by being part of the court system.

That’s what prevents tyranny (which is why your ilk is trying

The traditional militia helped to “prevent tyranny,” including the abuses I cited of the modern police departments in a certain way. People of some ilk don’t care that said militia aren’t around.

so hard to disarm us).

By supporting a right of self-defense, specifically the right to own a firearm, but using different reasoning?

I have long engaged with Brett & with respect his reasoning has not led me to change my positions.

[Brett Bellmore]

Aside from what Ed says, historically there are reasons why the militia system declined in America, and why it's only really viable in Switzerland right now.

First point, the US started giving up reliance on the militia system around 1812, which was the first time after the country's founding when the federal government decided to embark on a foreign war of aggression, invading Canada. And the militia system?

Worked exactly the way it was supposed to, it was basically useless. Because part of the freaking POINT of the militia system was that it wouldn't allow itself to be used for wars of aggression! Large parts of the militia refused to cooperate with the invasion.

It wasn't abandoned because it didn't work, it was abandoned because it worked just fine, and the people running the government didn't really like that.

Second point, people don't LIKE being in a militia, it's a time suck. This means the system is really only viable, once a country is wealthy enough to afford a full time army, if that country is under such an obvious and sustained threat from its neighbors that it has to have every man armed. That's basically Switzerland's position.

That still leaves the unorganized militia as the restraint on government that Ed mentions, though.

[Dan Schiavetta]

The British ran over our militias in 1812. That's when we learned our lesson and created a standing army, instead of trying to raise one whenever a crisis threatened.

Militias were effective on a colonial/state level, but not nationally. Nowadays their function is fulfilled by the National Guard, which is the only sphere where 2A rights should exist.

[Mr. Bumble]

Guess you never heard of Andrew Jackson and New Orleans.

[Sarcastr0]

Bumble having trouble distinguishing between battle and war. That checks out.

[Noscitur a sociis]

During the War of 1812, the British army generally outperformed the American army significantly, notwithstanding the decisive victory at New Orleans after the peace treaty had been signed. The U.S. Navy, by contrast, had a favorable records, but of course it was staffed by professionals.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The militia has a limited function.

Jefferson in his first inaugural noted: "a well-disciplined militia, our best reliance in peace and for the first moments of war till regulars may relieve them."

There is no reason why a city, for example, cannot have a popularly trained militia, made up of representatives of the general public, to do many police functions. Instead, we often rely on outsiders, and neighborhoods feel under siege.

At least, that is where I'm coming from.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

That's why it says "...the right of the people...", right? Because they actually meant "..the right of the National Guard/militia...?"

I'm really not sure how you can screw up simple nouns so badly other than deliberate misrepresentations.

[Noscitur a sociis]

First point, the US started giving up reliance on the militia system around 1812, which was the first time after the country’s founding when the federal government decided to embark on a foreign war of aggression, invading Canada.

We invaded Canada during the American Revolution.

It wasn’t abandoned because it didn’t work, it was abandoned because it worked just fine, and the people running the government didn’t really like that.

The founders certainly had a romantic view that a militia would preserve freedom in a way that a standing army wouldn’t (although the concern was more the military being deployed against the populace rather than other countries). The problem is that by the early nineteenth century, military technology had reached the point where professional specialists could pretty much always outperform amateurs, and that’s only gotten more true. The War of 1812 showed that a militia wasn’t adequate to defend American interests like preventing its citizens from being kidnapped and enslaved or executed by foreign countries, and the fact that we wised up and fixed it is something we should all be thankful for.

[not guilty]

An Alaska man has just been charged in a 22 count federal indictment with making threats of violence against six Supreme Court justices and family members of two justices. https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/59b5569a-ccbf-49ce-92e0-9c05a84ffdd9.pdf?itid=lk_inline_manual_3 The indictment does not specify which six justices.

No matter what one thinks of their jurisprudence, threats of this nature should be vociferously condemned.

[John F. Carr]

See https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69175197/united-states-v-anastasiou/

One justice was to be hanged from an oak tree.
All six justices were threatened with firearms violence, beheading, drowning, strangulation, and lynching.

There are 22 counts. Some of them are duplicates because a message can be both a threat in interstate commerce (18 USC 875) and a threat against a judge (18 USC 115).

[not guilty]

The government's memorandum regarding pretrial detention gives greater detail than the indictment about the content of the threats. A former president (presumably Trump) was also threatened. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.akd.74712/gov.uscourts.akd.74712.5.0.pdf

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Yes. Threats to the judicial departments overall have had an uptick in recent years (going back to before 2020).

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-election-judges-threats

[hobie]

Well, Cinderella DJT stock turns into a pumpkin today. Any of you trumplicans plan to still be holding tomorrow morning?

[Brett Bellmore]

I'd have to be holding some, to still be holding it.

[hobie]

Seems disloyal, Brett. Are you a faithless Trump elector then?

[Brett Bellmore]

It think I've already pointed out that Trump hasn't gotten a cent from me since a couple months before the 2016 election. I don't terribly like Trump, I favored Rand Paul in 2016, and DeSantis in the primaries this time around. (I NEVER get my primary pick.)

I'll probably vote for him, but I think the GOP was stupid to have nominated him this time around. Well, famously they ARE "the Stupid party".

[Frank Drackman]

I’ve passed gas for Randy (I know it’s “Rand” but he went by Randy until he went into politics) I busted his balls about his Mike Brady Perm(look at his childhood photos, same Moe Howard Bowl Cut I had) You have to be on top 5% of your class to match in Ophthalmology, he started his own board when the “Accepted” one (such bullshit, all of the Boards are small private companies) started requiring every 10 yr recertification (main requirement is writing a several thousand $ check) so he started his own Board “National Board of Ophthalmology” vs “American” actually with tougher exam, I’d have done the same but it’s easier just to write the check

Frank

[Brett Bellmore]

Most politicians are scum of the Earth, even the ones whose policies I like. But here we're talking about a guy who literally goes off and does pro-bono eye surgery for the poor. Most of Congress doesn't deserve to breath the same air as this guy.

I honestly think it's pathetic that the GOP, with Rand Paul as an available choice, picked Trump.

[Frank Drackman]

Hey, he couldn't do all of that Pro-Boner work without somebody passing Gas for him (Ever had somebody slice your eye open without Anesthesia?) Once during residency, had some Ass-hat Surgery resident who had a big case( "Horrendeomas" we call them in the biz) ask me for my "Recommendations for Anesthesia" of course what he meant was how I planned to keep the patient alive during the Horrendeoma-ectomy.
I said "I do recommend the patient have Anesthesia, otherwise it's really going to hurt when you slice his belly open"

Surgeons have no sense of humor.

Frank

[Brett Bellmore]

"Ever had somebody slice your eye open without Anesthesia?"

I've had cataract surgery, (Chemo induced cataracts.) with conscious sedation. I was EXTREMELY nearsighted before the surgery, (20-450) so I could see the scalpel clearly right up until my cornea was cut. Well, "clearly" for "needs cataract surgery" values of clearly.

Those are some amazing tranquilizers; "You may feel some pressure.", and I wasn't even the tiniest bit nervous about the approaching knife.

[OtisAH]

I’d love to hear who among the usual VC dopes you think has money to invest in anything other than a couple $5 scratchers and an extra bingo card every week?

[Sarcastr0]

VC is full of overeducated folks; there's plenty well heeled folks with portfolios in that socioeconomic group. I among them.

[OtisAH]

I’m not referring to them. I mean the 80-odd percent of “contributors” who would fall for a DJT scam. If they could afford it, that is.

[Sarcastr0]

I think it's like 80% overeducated - you see the sci-fi thread yesterday?

The contributors you are talking about largely know better (some Ed shaped exceptions). They have either chosen to shitpost or partisan politics short circuits their judgement.

[OtisAH]

Your faith in our fellow man remains strong. But I don’t believe people who are “better than this” could actually spend several hours a day every day of every week in every month of every year posting the shit they do. Especially if they’re so over-educated. Take Brett for example. I suspect Brett is an engineer like George Costanza is an architect.

[Mr. Bumble]

...and you are an ass hat as your name implies.

[Frank Drackman]

Awwww poor widdle POS projecting his own lack of success on his “Bettors”(Bettor earning anyway, RIP Revolting Reverend Kirkland)
I’ve “contributed” a few thousand Shekels mostly buying T-shirts that I give as gifts to my “Hayseed” In-laws you know, in that Red Backwater of Long Goy-land. Initially just had the “Mugshot” now with the “Fight, Fight, Fight!” Edition
But hey man, just because I spend more tipping Hooters girls than you make (that’s who I am, and that’s who you are) doesn’t make me “Bettor” than you
My good looks do that

Frank

[John F. Carr]

The Institute for the Study of War (the folks who bring us war maps of Ukraine) offers its opinion: "Israel is defeating Hamas, but destroying Hamas will require a post-war vision." The situation looks to me like Iraq 20 years ago. The military mission can be accomplished by brute force. The leaders can be killed. Purging everybody associated with the ruling party (Ba'ath, Hamas) is going to cause trouble.

[Mr. Bumble]

Given the small size of Gaza vs Iraq this doesn't seem right.

[Michael P]

This strikes me as typical of how Democrats deal with illegal and irregular immigrants: https://wgnradio.com/news/chicago-public-schools-teachers-say-they-were-told-by-administrators-to-give-migrant-students-passing-grades/

[Sarcastr0]

irregular immigrants

Inventing new terms so you can hate on immigrants.
Awesome.

The teachers we spoke with work in CPS elementary schools and say they spoke no Spanish, while their migrant students spoke no English, making communication virtually impossible. They also added that because their schools were located in predominantly Black neighborhoods, they offered no English as a Second Language (ESL) support. Despite this, they say they were instructed by school administrators to give their migrant students a 70 percent in every subject and pass them on to the next grade.

This is not a Democratic problem; Dems love educational infrastructure spending.

[LawTalkingGuy]

I mean it is slightly better than being like Vance and saying "they're still illegals, even though U.S. law allows them to be here." We now know there are limits to his mendacity.

[Michael P]

The Harris-Biden administration is perverting immigration laws and procedures to admit economic migrants under fraudulent asylum claims, without individual consideration (until years later, when they could claim they’re already too used to living here), and so on. “Irregular” is the right word to describe their immigration.

What Chicago did wasn’t “educational infrastructure spending”. It was cheating the system and cheating children so the Dems in charge could look good.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

The only proof your offer is your own complaint on the matter. You're a lying sack of shit: do you seriously think anyone takes you at your word anymore? LOL

[Sarcastr0]

They are legal residents like any other regardless of your issues with our asylum policy. Laws and regulations mean something whether you like them or not.

You're making up words not aimed at the administration you disagree with but aimed at this insular racial minority.

Do you think that will make you dodge looking like a racist? It isn't working very well.

[Michael P]

You're just pissy that I used a perfectly accurate word instead of your preferred fiction that they're just "like any other". If Democrats were at all consistent about standards for impeachment, they would have impeached -- and removed -- Joe Biden for his immigration malfeasance among other independently sufficient causes.

I don't care whether you are trying to use your racist card. It's overdrawn and you get no further credit on it. Do you think pulling it out saves you from looking like a duplicitous moron? It isn't working.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Michael P,

The only duplicitous moron in this particular subthread is you.

It's not a "perfectly accurate word", you pathetic Trump wannabe. It's a made up word to just avoid calling them what they are: legal migrants.

And, yes, you avoiding correct terminology to try to further "other" an insular minority is definitely on the xenophobic/racist end of the spectrum.

Maybe really do some introspection as to why you need to make up new terms to describe legal immigrants and why you support people who spread hateful lies about legal immigrants, to include claiming they are "illegal" immigrants because J.D. Vance wishes the law was something other than it is. Be prepared, if you do the work, you're going to find some deep seated prejudice inside.

[loki13]

Thoughts for today-

1. Verified that I have no "Hezbollah Brand" electronics. Whew!

2. I wish people would spend a little more time working to make things around them better, and less time arguing about things around the country that they don't control and have no real knowledge about, but just like to get angry over.

3. Today's topic of debate? What is the best beer, and why? You can even break it down for different occasions. Now, I know some of you will hate this ... but IPAs? Overrated.

IMO-
I love a good wheat beer in the summer. Weisse, Weizen, Wit? Alles ist gut.

I want to like porters, but I'm more of a stout guy. Guinness is always good and readily available, but Murphy's, Beamish, and a bunch of locals are also excellent.

Finally- Belgians? Belgium is Beer Disney World.

[LawTalkingGuy]

So maybe like 7-8 years ago I might have agreed on the IPAs because there just seemed to be a lot of double IPAs everywhere, and I was sort of over them after being really into them.

Now I think its hard to say that they are overrated because there are a lot of different kinds. Session IPAs, Hazy IPAs, New England IPAs other weird geographic distinctions. There are probably too many varieties and some of the style are clearly just made up to seem unique. But idk if I'd call them overrated anymore.

[grb]

loki13 : “I love a good wheat beer in the summer”

Taste is a variegated thing, as I loathe wheat beers in all seasons. However a good stout is for anytime.

As for the Begians, I love their sprouts – but there are limits where a man of probity & rectitude must draw the line: Putting mayonnaise on your pommes frites qualifies as an abomination.

[Zarniwoop]

Belgian sours were my fave. One of the few boozes I actually miss.

[Frank Drackman]

Mayonnaise, I just don’t get it, on anything, it looks like Pus, it smells worse than pus, (Ever smelled Burning Pus? Attending Surgeon in Med School used to say “I love the smell of Burning Pus in the morning” Especially pungent is the Pus from a Peri-Rectal Abscess (A "Pone" as we call it down South) as it's Pus combined with Shit) it’s not healthy, it’s like the worst of all possible worlds, seriously, I’d take waterboarding, listening to Hilary Rodman/Cums-a-lot’s cackles on endless loop, watching Soccer, to eating a tablespoon of that shit.
And why do restaurants insist on putting it on your sandwich, your burger? and once they do, you can’t get that nauseating taste out, convinced I got bad grades in Med School because I was the one student who turned down one of the Dean’s Baloney sandwiches, each slathered with probably 500 calories of the shit, didn’t he realize some people might not like Mayonnaise (Pretty sure Jules Winfield would have turned it down)

Frank

[grb]

Three Points:

1. I hate mayonnaise.

2. I REALLY hate mayonnaise. When I’m dictator, there will be absolute tolerance (except for mayonnaise being banned).

3. A broken clock is right twice daily. A toxic troll like Frank may make once a week at best. This is his week’s moment.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Porters are good for winter. Guinness and some other stouts are still light and fresh enough to enjoy outside all summer. Porters are for snowy days inside or darkly lit divey bars during winter.

[Frank Drackman]

Love Black & Tan's best of both worlds. Right up there with the Martini (and NO, a "Vodka Martini" is not a Martini) and Old Fashioneds (and NO, an Old Fashioned with Scotch is not an "Old Fashioned")

Frank

[Mr. Bumble]

Anything as long as it isn't pumpkin!

[Commenter_XY]

loki13, I do not often have beer, although I golf (go figure), lol. I never drink on the course, though. I once saw a guy get beaned who was drunk AF, it was bad. Consequently, I save it for the 19th hole. I will chime in for New England hazy IPA. My experience was it had body, was not as quite as 'hoppy' as other IPA types, and without the heavy bitter at the end. It caressed, not assaulted my palate.

For Guinness, I make my own 'Irish Car Bombs' on St. Patty's Day; nobody has more than two. 😉

[Zarniwoop]

Never liked "Irish Car Bombs" as a drink name. And there are bars in Boston where trying to order one will get you kicked out ... and you're lucky if it's only kicked out.

[Frank Drackman]

Not a drink, but a Cajun Delicacy, "Boudin Balls" (pronounced "Boo-Dan") Nurse told me this gas station had the best ones, thought for sure it was a "Deez Nutz" style joke, I'm gonna ask for some "Boo-Dan Balls" and this big Black Guy named Boodan is gonna give me some.
Spicy Sausage deep fried (Of course, it's Louisiana Jake) with a cornmeal breading, every time I be down by Laf-ey-ette( Frankie knows Cajun) I enjoy me some Boo-Dan Balls.
Sometimes I even get some food,

Frank

[Brett Bellmore]

I've never been much of a beer guy, aside from using it occasionally in cooking. (Guinness Stout works really well in Irish coddle.) I just happen to not like the taste of hops.

I do home brew mead and ciders, though. Got a 2.5 gallon batch of blackberry mead just settling out right now. Tasted a bit when cleaning out the yeast collector on my FastFerment last night, and it's going to be good.

It's a "fruit bomb" style: Macerated blackberries are added at the start of fermentation, and then again after fermentation is complete. This gets you a more rounded flavor, as fermentation changes the flavor of the blackberries, and you get both the pre and post fermentation flavors combined.

A friend is making a run to one of the few orchards in NC that still sells unpasteurized apple cider, (State law requires pasteurization of cider, even though it ruins the taste. But some old orchards are grandfathered in.) and when he gets back I'll be starting a large batch of hard cider.

A note on fermenters: I use conical style fermenters, a couple of "3" gallon, (Actually 2.5 gallon if you don't want your brew going up the airlock!) Fastferment conicals, and a "6.5" gallon (Same proviso!) "Catalyst" conical.

The general advantage of conicals is that the yeast and other solids that settle out fall into a jar attached to the bottom, (And thanks to the bottom being conical, all goes to the middle.) then you can close a valve and clear the yeast without having to siphon to a new fermenter. Very convenient! Then you replace the jar with a dispensing hose for filling bottles.

The Catalyst fermenter is good for large jobs, and has good top access if you're adding mesh bags of flavorings, or dealing with chunky starting materials. Easy to clean, too. And the valve is a very large one.

The downside is that the bottom cone is too blunt, so it doesn't effectively concentrate the "trub" in the center. You have to repeatedly pick it up and swirl it around to whirlpool it into the center valve. Not easy with 6 gallons of liquid!

The FastFerment conicals have a really steep angle on the bottom, which IS effective at concentrating the trub. This makes them quite tall, though, and as they're a very slippery polyethylene, awkward to handle. Smallish valve, too. But I think if I had to do it over, I'd have skipped the Catalyst fermenter, and stuck with FastFerment, which also sells a large fermenter.

The "3" gallon model is a good size if you're just starting out, but they don't sell replacement seals for it, and you do eventually have to replace those seals. The 6 gallon model is a bit big if you're just starting out, but is better supported.

[Ridgeway]

My favorite wheat beer is Weihenstefaner Kristall. I prefer Kristall (filtered) to Hefe (infiltered). I find Hefeweizens to be a little muddled, although still good.

In terms of Belgians, I really like Leffe -- they are not cheap, but are still more budget-friendly than Chimay and the like. Leffe comes in blond and brun, and both are excellent.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Aileen Cannon following in the footsteps of her hero, Corrupt Thomas.

https://www.propublica.org/article/judge-aileen-cannon-trump-documents-case-travel-disclosures

[Sarcastr0]

"In 2021 and 2022, Cannon took weeklong trips to the luxurious Sage Lodge in Pray, Montana, for legal colloquiums sponsored by George Mason...
Current rates for standard rooms at Sage Lodge can exceed $1,000 per night, depending on the season. With both Montana trips, Cannon’s required seminar disclosures were not posted until NPR reporters asked about the omissions this year as part of a broader national investigation of gaps in judicial disclosures.
...
In response to questions from ProPublica, the clerk in the Southern District of Florida wrote in an email that Cannon had filed the Sage Lodge trips with the federal judiciary’s administrative office but had “inadvertently” not taken the second step of posting them on the court’s website. She explained that “Judges often do not realize they must input the information twice.”

Ehh, she is a very bad judge don't get me wrong, but I'm not sure this is scandal material.
I'm content to just wait for the 11C's take.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

"Cannon’s husband, Joshua Lorence, a restaurant executive, accompanied her to the 2021 and 2022 colloquiums, which featured noted conservative jurists, lawyers and professors as well as lengthy “afternoon study breaks,” according to records obtained by ProPublica. Cannon emailed university staff to submit airport parking expenses and inquire about rental car reimbursement.

The rule for paid seminars is among the policies set by the Judicial Conference. Federal judges are also required by law to file annual financial disclosures, listing items such as assets, outside income and gifts.

Cannon’s annual disclosure form for 2023, which was due in May and offers another chance to report gifts and reimbursements from outside parties, has yet to be posted. (Cannon reported the two Montana trips on her annual disclosure forms, but the required 30-day privately funded seminar reports had not been posted. In 2021, Cannon incorrectly listed the school as “George Madison University.”)

The court’s administrative office declined to say if she requested a one-time extension to give her until Aug. 13 to file. A spokesperson would not discuss whether she met the deadline or the status of her disclosure, which must be reviewed internally."

It isn't just coincidence that she isn't doing the right thing.

[Sarcastr0]

Oh, she broke the rules.
But the explanation why looks plausible.
And this is hardly a Harlan situation.

[Zarniwoop]

agreed, I'm willing to give this a "*shrug* do better next time" response.

[Estragon]

Was David Bernstein there???

[Frank Drackman]

Talk about lying sacks of shit……

[JoeFromtheBronx]

More on the pagers things from someone with some expertise in international matters.

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/09/is-that-a-pager-in-your-pocket-or-are-you-just-happy-to-see-me

Concern about int'l law is not just some anti-Israeli dig:

"The entire operations is pretty sketchy from the point of view of international law, both in terms of the lack of discrimination (knowing that targets could be separated from civilians) and because there are specific prohibitions against booby-trapping civilian devices. This is probably why Israel hasn’t acknowledged the attacks."

(link provided with more)

[Commenter_XY]

I've yet to see a single citation of what specific 'international law' was violated. It will ultimately come down to proportionality of Israel's response to daily missile attacks by hezball-less during wartime; and, the proportionality of civilian deaths to military deaths given the attack's specific objectives.

It does not seem a very close call at all, to me. Violation...what violation? Cite the law.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

It's linked to in the article, idiot. If you had an iota of morality in your entire body, you'd just admit that you don't actually give a fuck and have no interest in the facts or the law.

Allow me to hold your hand:

https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v2/rule80

[Commenter_XY]

Jason, friend to the friendless hamas, and hezball-less homies. LOL.

This was a military operation executed against the military command and control of a judeocidal terror group, hezbollah, who has fired thousands of missiles at Israel in the last 11 months. It appears to have been devastatingly successful, killing or wounding thousands of hezball-less leadership in about 5 seconds. with a minimum of civilian casualties. This military operation was a tremendous success, by whoever did it.

You will not get around the question of proportionality, in any of these alleged violations of international law. Proportionality is integral to the determination of whether a violation actually occurred or not.

[Brett Bellmore]

"a judeocidal terror group"

Common mistake. Like most Islamic terror groups, they're "everybody but their own sect of Islam"-cidal. Jews are just at the top of the list, they'll get around to the rest of us once they're checked off.

[Commenter_XY]

Brett, I get what you are saying. In theory, I agree. I made that very same point to Arthur, many times. Apostates like him would actually be whacked before you.

However, I am at the top of the list (Jew), so Judeocidal terror group it is. 😉

[Jason Cavanaugh]

*Yawn*

Your "Israel is never wrong about anything if they're killing Arabs" opinion is noted, and dismissed as nothing more than your usual bloodthirst and prejudice.

You actually have no idea how many casualties were legitimate targets, and how many were innocent people being too close to an illegal booby-trap. The disturbing part is that you know you don't know, and you don't give a fuck because they aren't Jews.

Shocking how you beg for information that's right in front of your face, and then completely ignore it when it doesn't look good and fall back on your usual bullshit.

[Josh R]

This article provides a balanced view and cites the appropriate laws. It doesn't strike me as a close call. But if it is clear in Israel's favor, then so to would exploding devices planted on Israeli reservists.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Thanks. I will let the experts debate it. It looks somewhat hazy.

[Commenter_XY]

I agree with your assessment, Josh R. It is not a close call (I say not close based on proportionality of response), and yes, hezbollah could try and do the same to Israel.

[Josh R]

I misspoke. I mean to say it doesn't strike me as a clear call.

The polls have moved slightly back towards Harris since the debate. Silver has Harris up 2.8%-points nationally and 0.7%-points in the swing states.

[Commenter_XY]

That is Ok, Josh R....Kamala is speaking, unscripted. That is all that is needed.

[Randal]

If, however, it is known that the pagers are likely to be in the possession of persons who cannot be classed as fighters, for example because the individuals in question have exclusively diplomatic, political or administrative roles for Hezbollah and have no combat-related function, such persons should be categorised as civilians, and it would not be lawful to target them.

The reporting I’ve seen is that the pagers were in fact in wide use by non-combatants within Hezbollah.

“Even those who might be affiliated with Hezbollah, the vast majority of those we saw were civilians coming in [to the hospital].”

Hezbollah has a paramilitary, but it also has a political wing and a social services wing (schools and whatnot). I don’t think there was any reason to believe that the pagers would only go to the paramilitary — and the evidence is that they didn’t.

So if it is legal, then Hezbollah could plant exploding devices not just on Israeli reservists, but on Israeli politicians, school teachers... anyone "associated" with Israel.

[Brett Bellmore]

“The reporting I’ve seen is that the pagers were in fact in wide use by non-combatants within Hezbollah.”

I’ve got to break it to you: Aside from specifically medical personnel, military non-combatants are totes legitimate targets. That goes double, of course, for terrorist organizations.

And, yes, if Hezbollah were to plant exploding devices on people in the Israeli military who were in logistics positions, or leadership, or what have you, that would be legitimate in terms of the rules of warfare. What they actually do is launch missiles into residential neighborhoods...

[ThePublius]

+1

[Randal]

You seem incapable of reading. Hezbollah is not a military organization. It has a military within it, much like Israel. Israel attacked the non-military parts of Hezbollah. Not the logistics officers. The civilians.

[Commenter_XY]

Oh, they're just innocent terrorist wannabes until they pick up guns? LMAO. You're just pissed because of the effectiveness and efficiency of the attack.

[Randal]

I'm curious what makes you think it was efficient? It didn't kill very many people. It maimed an awful lot, which is sort of what you don't want to do in a war. And it mostly maimed civilians. Yeah, I expect now they'll pick up a gun, even if they have to learn to fire it left-handed.

I'll give you effective... if the purpose was terrorism. It was great as a terrorist attack. Targeting civilians, check. Lots of mayhem, check. Explosions in "safe" places like markets, homes, schools, and hospitals, check. Random and without warning, check. Congratulations on joining the ranks of the terrorists you claim to hate so completely.

Oh, they’re just innocent terrorist wannabes until they pick up guns?

This is what the Jihadists say about Jews. You would fit right in at Guantanamo.

[Commenter_XY]

Where are the breathless reports of thousands of innocent civilians killed? The pictures of swaths of crying, maimed children? Why are they not plastered on our screens 24/7? Even Al-Jazeera is running commentary satirically congratulating Nasrallah for another 'victory'! They anxiously await Nasrallah to kill some more chickens.

Lebanon has a problem. The problem is the uninvited guests in their home (hezball-less). Perhaps the uninvited guests need to leave. Forever. And never come back.

[David Nieporent]

It maimed an awful lot, which is sort of what you don’t want to do in a war.

I mean, if it maims enemy fighters, you actually do want to do it.

And it mostly maimed civilians.

I'll take "Shit Randal just made up, while he's pretending that Hezbollah primarily comprises school librarians and mailmen," for $500, Alex.

Random and without warning, check.

Again, it was literally the opposite of random. Rather than just attacking the Lebanese people, it precisely targeted Hezbollah.

[Randal]

Try reading the news.

The detonating devices hit workers in Hezbollah’s civilian institutions, including its health care and media operations, as well as fighters, dealing a blow to the militant group’s operations beyond the battlefield.

Qassim Qassir, a Lebanese analyst close to Hezbollah, said the detonating devices actually struck mostly civilian workers within the group and not military or security officials…

https://apnews.com/article/hezbollah-israel-exploding-pagers-walkie-talkies-devices-b8506471525e3848023b1d6a863827e8

[Jason Cavanaugh]

"precisely targeted Hezbollah"

Thousands of bombs with completely unknown locations and unknown number of innocents within range of being killed or injured by said bombs cannot possibly be called "precise" by anyone who isn't pushing an agenda.

[David Nieporent]

Qassim Qassir, a Lebanese analyst close to Hezbollah, said

Shorter Randall: "I didn't make it up; I'm actually just parroting Hezbollah."

[David Nieporent]

Thousands of bombs with completely unknown locations and unknown number of innocents within range of being killed or injured by said bombs cannot possibly be called “precise” by anyone who isn’t pushing an agenda.

Wow, based on your description tens of thousands of civilians with no connection to Hezbollah must have been killed. Is that what happened? No. So, in other words, you're full of shit.

[Randal]

I didn’t make it up; I’m actually just parroting Hezbollah.

It’s 100% more facts than you’ve got.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Based on your statement, David, I'd say you can't even read.

How many people were injured or killed by the explosions? How many were terrorists, and how many were innocent civilians?

Show your fucking proof.

Where was each bomb when it went off?
What intelligence was done to ensure civilians were not nearby?

You have no goddamn idea, and it seems you're willing to simply argue otherwise despite that fact. You used to be better than C_XY.

[Randal]

"When Israel does it, that means it's not a war crime."

-- David Nieporent

[Frank Drackman]

Or maybe just massacre a bunch of Israelis, oh, they already did that, it's people like you that make me like (the late) Dr. Baruch Goldstein even more.

[ThePublius]

Yea, I'm flabbergasted at the folks who apparently side with Hezbollah, and attempt to establish some kind of equivalency between Hezbollah and Israel in this situation, and apply the international law of warfare; as if Hezbollah gives a rat's ass about international law. They are a recognized terrorist organization, and have been launching rockets into Israeli civilian neighborhoods for years. Don't they get that?

[SimonP]

No one is defending Hezbollah.

You and the other MAGA shitstains here want to deflect from Israel's war crimes by calling on everyone to reiterate what has always been true, which is that Hezbollah and Hamas are engaged in terroristic, unlawful acts of their own. No one here asserts to the contrary. There was no justification for the October 7 attack, there was no justification for Hezbollah's decision to get involved on Israel's northern border, there's no excuse for the way these groups have historically and since October 7 continued to target Israeli civilians.

No one denies that. No one denies, either, that Israel has a right to respond militarily to all of these attacks from Hamas and Hezbollah.

But this does not mean that Israel gets a blank check in the response. What some of us see is a series of steps where people like you slowly acclimate to the idea that only the total destruction of Gaza, the West Bank, and perhaps half of Lebanon (including Beirut) will finally achieve, for Israel, peace. You are talking yourselves into killing tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of civilians, which you will justify (at each step, as necessary) by pointing to their assumed complicity in supporting Hezbollah and Hamas, by their not getting out of the way of Israeli bombs, by their being sad but necessary collateral damage of Israel's legitimate military strategy.

This is madness. This is how genocide happens. You are rooting it on.

[Frank Drackman]

they're only doing what we did to the Japs and Krauts (and in the Wah of Nawthun Agression, to our own Citizens), more humanely if you can call killing your enemy "Humane"

Frank

[Commenter_XY]

Maybe you can name the war crime with a citation, Simple Simon. It was a perfectly legitimate military attack on military personnel. You sound more pissed that the attack (by parties unknown, heh) was actually effective, than anything else. You know that hezball-less appreciates you wearing the kneepads for them, right?

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Yeah, he should link to the same law everyone else has linked to, so that you can pretend nobody has actually linked to anything and you can gleefully cheer on Israeli war crimes.

Your hatred and rationalization of anything targeting Arabs is precisely the same attitude Hamas and Hezbollah have, but pointed the other direction. You don't care about civilian deaths or casualties as long as you can still breathe the words "they deserved it."

It's unfortunate that more Jews aren't around to call you out.

[SimonP]

CXY, explain to me what possible purpose an express cite to the law of war could serve, when you refuse to start with a correct set of facts and beg the question from the very beginning?

I am not going to spend the time explaining why the law of war prohibits booby-trapping everyday devices, requires that attacks distinguish between combatants and non-combatants, to the extent possible, and requires that risk to non-combatants be weighed against the value of the military objective, when you are coming to the conversation with "Every member of Hezbollah is by definition a terrorist" rattling around in your head, high off the low-T fumes of right-wing, small-dick media.

[ThePublius]

I have just read the article, Josh. I ask you now, and all others who have read it, to now apply it to the activities of Hezbollah, and the launching of rockets into civilian neighborhoods. Not a close call, at all.

[Randal]

So? That makes it ok for Israel to stoop to their level? You're simply admitting that Israel is as bad as Hezbollah.

[ThePublius]

Not at all. I'm saying that the press and some governments and NGOs are holding Israel to a standard that they don't apply to Hezbollah, Hamas, or other aggressors. Remember, Israel is in these wars, the war with Hamas, and the war with Hezbollah, because they were attacked, and are defending themselves against extermination, which is the stated goal of both terrorist organizations.

Israel doesn't launch rockets indiscriminately into Lebanese or Gazan civilian neighborhoods. Israel does not conduct terrorist operations. Big difference.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Israel agreed to the standards of international law they are now violating with impunity.

If Israel doesn't want to be held to those standards, then it shouldn't have agreed to abide by them.

[Randal]

Israel isn't in these wars because it was attacked by Hamas and Hezbollah. It's in these wars because of its brutal 50 year occupation of Palestine (which includes random killings of Palestinian civilians).

[Randal]

...

Israel does not conduct terrorist operations.

That might have been true last week, but not after this week.

[Josh R]

Of course the Hezbollah rocket attacks violate international humanitarian law. Who is holding Hezbollah to a different standard?

[David Nieporent]

The person above calling Israel's action "unprovoked"?

[Josh R]

I think he (Randal) argued that both Israel and Hezbollah's actions were unprovoked, so no double standard (without commenting on whether he is right or wrong).

[ThePublius]

That statement is nonsensical.

[Brett Bellmore]

And, of course, he's wrong. Because Hezbollah's unprovoked action came first, and thus qualified as "provocation" for Israel's entirely provoked action.

[Randal]

I argued that Israel’s pager attack and Hamas’s Oct 7 attack were both unprovoked in the sense of representing deliberate escalations into what had been a relatively stable situation. Obviously they were both provoked in the sense that all these guys have been at war for decades.

I never suggested holding Hezbollah (or Hamas) to a different standard. I'm only suggesting to hold Israel to the same standard. It's people like Nelson and XY who think Israel gets a free pass to do wharever it wants since it's a sovereign country and Hamas and Hezbollah are sub-human "terrorists."

[Commenter_XY]

Free pass, my ass.

The onus is on you to make a case. Try making a case better than, "Waaaaah! The attack was too successful! Must be violation of international law".

[Randal]

The case is all over these comments. Your reading disability is your own lookout.

[David Nieporent]

what had been a relatively stable situation

What the fuck are you talking about? Do you not understand that there are 100,000 Israelis who are internal refugees because of constant Hezbollah bombardment post-10/7? This isn't just people having to hide in bomb shelters from time to time; this is 100,000 people who've been displaced from their homes for almost a year now. Entire towns and villages completely depopulated. Relative to the population of Israel, that's the equivalent of several million Americans.

And yes, I realize that these people are in better shape than refugees in Gaza. But there is nothing remotely "relatively stable" about it.

[Randal]

Do you realize there have been millions of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation for over 50 years? If you're ok calling that situation stable, then I'm ok calling 100k internally displaced Israelis stable.

[Frank Drackman]

So Cums-a-Lot says that anyone who breaks into her house is "Gonna get Shot!"
Well Duh, she has 24-7 Secret Service protection, what about the rest of us?

Frank

[Bwaaah]

When seconds matter, the police are only minutes away.

[Frank Drackman]

And since they’re letting illegals take over apartment buildings with “Assault Weapons”(one of the videos seems to show a miscreant with a single barrel 20g Shotgun, not that you couldn’t do some damage with one.
Isn’t it “Common Sense” that law abiding citizens should be as well armed as the Criminals, or at least as well as Cums-a-lots SS Agents?

Frank

[OtisAH]

What is “gaslighting”? Gaslighting is when Convicted Felon Donald Trump repeatedly claims that “everyone wanted Roe returned to the states.” It’s when Convicted Felon Trump repeatedly says the debate audience went wild when the moderators refused to fact-check Harris. It’s when Convicted Felon Trump repeatedly insists that what everyone saw broadcast live on television on January 6, 2021, was not what everyone saw broadcast live on television on January 6, 2021.

What gaslighting isn’t: Someone calling “bullshit” on your bullshit.

[Frank Drackman]

Ohh Piece of Shit still in D-Nile stage of VP Cums-a-lot and Sergeant Pepper-Waltz’s coming loss in the Electrical College (she’ll get a Po-peel “Pocket Fisherman” as consolation prize for winning the Pubic Vote)

Frank

[OtisAH]

piece of shit has had a stroke.

Meh, I’m sure there’s *somebody* he can call for help.

[Frank Drackman]

"Piece of Shit"???
(Not)My Man Otis thinks I'm his wife!
and also confusing me with Parkinsonian Joe, who's actually had multiple Strokes,
It'll be OK, Otis, "45" will get those Haitians to stop eating your cats in just a few months

Frank

[David Nieporent]

What is “gaslighting”? Gaslighting is when Convicted Felon Donald Trump repeatedly claims that “everyone wanted Roe returned to the states.”

No; that's just lying bullshitting, in the Frankfortian sense: it's saying things that have no truth value at all because he doesn't know or care whether they're true, and is just saying them for the sake of saying something.

Gaslighting means something different than lying, even than outrageous lying. Gaslighting refers to the attempt to convince the listener that the listener is crazy, that the listener can't trust his or her own senses.

[Brett Bellmore]

Which is why nobody should be calling Sarcastr0 a "gaslighter"; He really does not try to convince anybody they're crazy. He scarcely even could be said to be trying to convince people of anything at all.

[Sarcastr0]

I’d say this is a sick burn, but no one comes here as an advocate hoping to convert people.

Still, I appreciate the stand on linguistic clarity.

[Randal]

Gaslighting refers to the attempt to convince the listener that the listener is crazy, that the listener can’t trust his or her own senses.

Interestingly, the opposite of gaslighting -- attempting to convince the listener that the listener is not crazy, that the listener can trust his or her own senses -- is indistinguishable from gaslighting from the point of view of the listener. That's why so many MAGA types feel like they're being gaslit all the time.

[ThePublius]

About those walkie talkies that blew up in Lebanon.

1. They are apparently Chinese clones of a long discontinued Icom radio. So, intellectual property problem, but Lebanon probably doesn't care about that;

2. These require an amateur radio license to operate. Do you think all of those thousands of Hezbollah users of these have amateur radio licenses in Lebanon? Ha, ha.

[Frank Drackman]

Has one in Boy Scouts the size of a shoebox, occasionally if the Solar prominences were just right it might transmit further than my yells. but man, you could have put 3-4 Hand Grenades in that monster

Frank

[Commenter_XY]

That just tells me is you shouldn't buy cheap Chinese knock-off products. 😉

[OtisAH]

We all know how Convicted Felon Donald Trump feels about folks who disappoint/betray him. And we all know, because he’s told us, what he wants to do to folks who disappoint/betray him. Don’t say you didn’t realize he was serious.

“Trump warns Jewish voters they’ll be partly to blame if he loses.”

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/09/19/trump-jewish-voters-blame-00180177

And “partly to blame” is the best case scenario.

[grb]

Imagine all the posts from Professor Bernstein if a Dem gave a speech like that....

[Randal]

Don't forget Josh!

[M L]

Buttigieg Defends $7.5B Spent on 8 EV Charging Stations

!!!!

Your tax dollars at work. Corruption . . .

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2024/09/20/buttigieg-building-8-ev-charging-stations-under-7-5-billion-investment-for-them-is-on-track/

[apedad]

Um, it says 8 EV charging stations have been built under the $7.5B program - not that it cost $7.5B for 8 EV charging stations.

"Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg stated that building eight electric vehicle charging stations so far under the Inflation Reduction Act’s $7.5 billion investment in electric vehicle charging stations is “on track.” Because most construction will occur in the second half of the decade."

[M L]

https://reason.com/2024/05/30/7-5-billion-in-government-cash-only-built-8-e-v-chargers-in-2-5-years/

The point is, the government is a joke. They are bad at doing things. And they waste billions of dollars.

[Brett Bellmore]

If it ever happens.

So, how much of the $7.5B has already been spent? If the answer is, "virtually none of it", that's cool, because it means the program can be canceled early next year without a huge amount of waste.

If the answer is, "A good deal of it", then, yeah, only 8 stations being built IS a scandal.

Because it's not like they needed to invent the stations. They're an existing commodity. You could put in an order for 50,000 of them tomorrow.

If the stations are actually needed, and they spent more than a trivial amount of money on anything besides getting them installed, it's a huge waste.

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : “So, how much of the $7.5B has already been spent?”

The ever-helpful Kevin Drum lays it out. Quotes:

“The plan from the start was to have 500,000 charging stations by 2030. Why so long? Because the money was allocated by state and wasn’t allocated all at once.”

“NEVI started up in February 2022. By August states had submitted plans for the first round of funding and in September the plans were approved. Notably, the plan is not to build charging stations willy nilly. The plan is to build a national network along approved corridors, mostly interstate highways.”

“Once the plans were approved states got to work finding sites in the right areas and putting out construction bids. The first charging station was opened in Ohio in December 2023.”

https://jabberwocking.com/no-we-havent-spent-9-billion-on-eight-ev-chargers/

So, yeah, all the gaslighting above about the incompetent government is so much empty bullshit. That similarly applies to your snark about the program being “canceled early next year” during the incoming Harris Administration. Because “if the stations are actually needed” isn’t really a valid question. You could scarcely find a more legtimate example of national infrastructure projects than building a charging network along interstate highways.

(Of course if Trump wins we have the offsetting plus of huckster “Infrastrcture Weeks” at sixteen month intervals)

[Brett Bellmore]

Ah, I see. It's not $7.5B for only 8 stations. It's only $3B for only 8 stations. I have to admit that changes everything. Less than half the cost per station! [/sarc]

[grb]

Brett, sarcasm only works when the faintest trace of reality lies behind the exaggeration. Here there is none, so it fails.

If you wanna reread the article and try again, good luck. But I have to say your future in the Humor Biz looks hopeless.

[NOVA Lawyer]

"I have to say your future in the Humor Biz looks hopeless."

It's a side effect of MAGA. They've been conditioned to only find humor in things like old men getting hit in the head with hammer by a nut. Or such rip-roarers as: "I drank a Mountain Dew. I guess Mountain Dew is racist now too!"

But that won't stop Brett from making detailed objections to a plan he clearly hasn't read anything about (other than ML's lie) or understood.

[NOVA Lawyer]

A lot of ifs.

First, most of the money is goes to states who then have to bid the work, etc.

Second, the requirements include that the stations have to have 97% reliability which, apparently, is better than what your off the rack stations tend to produce. So, no, it isn't just as simple as putting in an order for 50,000 (including because each state is doing the buying, site planning, etc.).

Third:

States have also faced challenges getting permitting approval and electricity out to stations that may be in fairly remote areas. Nigro points out that each charging spot will require the same maximum power as around 20 homes — a huge lift for local utilities not used to installing chargers.

It's an ambitious program. I only read this Washington Post article, so have no expertise or intimate knowledge. But it isn't as simple as "why didn't Pete just put in an order for 50,000 charging stations and get them installed?".

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2024/03/28/ev-charging-stations-slow-rollout/

[grb]

The WaPo article includes this quote:

"Twelve additional states have awarded contracts for constructing the charging stations; 17 states have not yet issued proposals."

I wonder which party runs the seventeen states that haven't yet responded? There's a long tradition of ML's party doing its best to sabatoge the government so ML can whine, bitch, and moan about government inefficency. Does he care he's always being played?

[Brett Bellmore]

You know what's more reliable than a 97% reliable charger?

An 80% reliable charger that's actually been installed. Because a 97% reliable charger that hasn't been installed is actually a 0% reliable charger.

There's always a tradeoff between spending money on planning, and spending money on execution, (You can see this on display for SpaceX and Blue Origin.) and they are pretty clearly a ridiculously long way from the optimum ratio, in favor of planning.

So, why didn't he just put in an order for 50,000 chargers and 50,000 Tesla powerwalls to average the load, and 50,000 shelters with solar roofs, (Paying for the powerwalls and shelters with planning money.) and, you know, PEOPLE WOULD ALREADY BE CHARGING CARS? On the principle that getting it done now is usually preferable to getting it done perfectly a decade from now?

Silly question, actually: Because the people in charge of deciding the proper priority between money spent on planning, and money spent on execution, happen to be in charge of planning, and the money spent on planning goes into their own pockets and the pockets of people like them.

I think an awful lot of screwups like this are explained by that dynamic.

[NOVA Lawyer]

"So, why didn’t he just put in an order for 50,000 chargers and 50,000 Tesla powerwalls to average the load, and 50,000 shelters with solar roofs, "

Come on, Brett. Did you read anything anyone above you wrote?

If you want the question to be sensible, then ask why your state's governor didn't order chargers.

If they bought a whole bunch of half ass chargers and then they were down and unreliable all the time, by 2026 you'd be complaining about that. This is an infrastructure plan similar to the Interstate Highway system. It will take time and only once it's done can anyway fully say whether there was too much planning, too little execution. Yes, certainly you can make periodic checks, but the comments from you and M L make clear that neither of you have any interest in how the program is actually progressing or who is responsible for any current slow roll-out. Or you'd make a complaint and suggestion that is actually relevant to how the NEVI rollout is structured.

Or you could complain that the plan is too federalist.

But braying that Pete should buy inferior chargers.....that's mulish partisanship.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm not suggesting he buy inferior ones. I'm suggesting that they could have bought stock ones, instead of spec'ing out something that wasn't available on the market and that would be outrageously expensive when they eventually got some.

But the way they actually are doing it makes perfect sense if the goal is to make sure as much of the money gets spent on something other than chargers as is possible.

[NOVA Lawyer]

You're just such a lying sack of shit.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2024/03/28/ev-charging-stations-slow-rollout/

[M L]

Just more about the radical unprecedented Biden-Harris open border policy, from a Congressional hearing yesterday.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2024/09/19/former_border_patrol_chief_how_the_biden_administration_tried_to_cover-up_the_border_crisis.html

[Commenter_XY]

I just viewed the latest VP Harris campaign telethon livestream interview with Oprah. It....it was exquisite. A tour de force. A powerful, spellbinding display of rhetorical skill and intellectual incisiveness.

My reaction was probably like many others in America, "My God, what an interview."

Keep talking, VP Harris. Please. By all means, tell America what is on your mind. All of America will glean wisdom from the rhetorical pearls you drop in front of us for the next 40 days.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

You support Trump, you dumb fuck. You have no room to mock anyone’s eloquence. Yet you’re retarded enough to think otherwise.

That explains the Trump support, I suppose.

[Commenter_XY]

I am an undecided, registered, likely voter. I would love to vote Team L for POTUS, but Chase Oliver is the epitome of the 'Unserious' candidate. Therefore, what the leading POTUS candidate (yes, VP Harris currently leads) thinks and says extemporaneously is very important to this undecided voter.

I will say as a Jewish American, I am not especially encouraged by the thought of VP Harris getting a promotion.

[Magister]

Maybe you're just afraid Donald Trump will hold you to blame, and that then his anti-semitic followers will attack you.

Somehow you think nobody will notice the steady tone of your rhetoric.

[Brett Bellmore]

I assume he's siccing them on his son in law last?

[Magister]

Since his son in law supports him, he will not be siccing anyone on him. Donald Trump plans retribution and revenge on those he considers his enemies, like those who support Harris.

[Brett Bellmore]

Meanwhile, back in the real world, my point is that Trump does not in any way behave in the manner of an actual antisemite. The idea that he's an antisemite is absurd, given the evidence available to us.

[Magister]

Brett Bellmore is delusional, and Donald Trump is plenty antisemitic.

[Bwaaah]

You can talk all you want about talk. Actions are what matters.

Trump is bad for Israel, or bad for Jews? ("Antisemitic", as you call him.) That's obviously B.S. (Yeah, he said [blah] [blah].)

Thank goodness the Democratic establishment is providing the kind of support to Israel that it can't openly speak about, lest it upset its LOUD fringe (which is quite visible here in VC comments). There's little such cowardice on the right.

And what of almost all those Hamas sympathizers in our universities and on our streets, who harass American Jews? Democrats. Kamala plays nice with them, weak and fearful (and sympathetic) as she is. That's why she wouldn't meet openly with Netanyahu.

Democratic leadership...an oxymoron.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Trump's repeated anti-Semitic remarks don't matter because they're just words and not actions, but the criticisms of Israel around here mean you're an anti-Semite despite being just words (that do not target Jews like Trump does) and not actions.

You're a fucking hypocrite and a clown.

[SimonP]

I am an undecided, registered, likely voter.

You're not meaningfully undecided. But it's a good insight into the mind of a Trump supporter who pretends to be "undecided" in order to troll others online. It would go a long way to explaining the focus groups and polls the WaPo keeps publishing.

[M L]

The Biden-Harris DOJ has just published a bounty on Trump's life from Ryan Routh.

[Absaroka]

How likely do you think it is that some successful assassin would be able to collect? More precisely, perhaps, how many prospective assassins do you think will believe they have a non-zero chance of collecting from Mr. Routh if they succeed?

Suppose I am a successful assassin, and escape capture. Do I send the payment request to 'Mr. Routh, c/o US Bureau of Prisons' and ask for a check? What will Mr. Routh's likely bank balance be?

I know crooks are dumb, but that dumb? Or more precisely, again, how likely is it that anyone who is that dumb will succeed in an attempt?

[M L]

1. I posted in the wrong open thread. It's from last week!

2. I imagine Ryan Routh would pay in bitcoin, a suitcase of unmarked bills, or most likely a vault of precious gems and he provides the location via some sort of code.