Monday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[Don Nico]

In remembrance of the many victims of war throughout the planet in this past year. Avoidable or not all are human tragedies.

[Commenter_XY]

https://jewishjournal.com/commentary/columnist/350353/each-person-is-a-world/

Don Nico, I thought this was a good article supporting your last sentence.

[Don Nico]

Thank you for the link.

[Commenter_XY]

https://www.jpost.com/israel-hamas-war/article-823396

I also wanted to be sure to post this, an hour by hour record of 10/7/2023 from the Jerusalem Post.

[Frank Drackman]

The killings of Nabil Kaouk, Hassan Nasrallah, Ibrahim Kobeissi, Ibrahim Aquil, Ahmed Wahbi, Fuad Shukr, Moe-hammed Nasser, Taleb Abdalla, Moe-hammed Deif, Ishmail Haniyeh, Saleh Al Arouri, are about as far from "tragedies" as you can get, I literally care more about a roach I step on, than any Terrorist, and speaking of Terrorists, I might consider that the Iranian Ambassador to Lebanon only being blinded and not killed a "Tragedy" except that peoples tend to forget about the dead, but he'll be sort of the Bizarro Moshe Dayan (who didn't have a Moshe Dayan poster in their bedroom? OK, most of you Putzes)
and You mean, let me understand this … cuz I … maybe it’s me? Maybe I’m a little fucked up, maybe? But Lets go Biden wants Israel to wait until Ear-Ron has a Hydrogen Bomb until they can bomb the factory thats making the Hydrogen Bomb??
There's a reason Parkinsonian Joe isn't on the ballot even though he got 14 million more votes than Cums-a-Lot.
Ear-Rons Hydrogen Bomb Factory needs to be gone Now, Pronto, Schnell, Jetzt, Немедленно, מיד, Tout de suite, Subito, Natychmiast, 马上, فورًا, همین حالا, 당장, فوراً, OK, I think I included most of the important countries
Isn't it nice Sodom Insane didn't have a Hydrogen Bomb when he invaded Kuwait in 1990? it's because the IDF took out the reactor at Osirak in 1981
Like Lee Harvey when he ordered his Carcano from Klein's in 1963, Ear-Ron isn't building a Hydrogen Bomb to go Duck hunting

Frank

[Malika the Maiz]

“Maybe I’m a little fucked up, maybe?”

don’t Be Crazy? Why would Anyone think
That?

[Frank Drackman]

So I’m funny? I amuse you?

[Stella Link the dog]

Mentally defective psychopaths are neither funny nor amusing.

[MoreCurious]

Little Frankie doesn't care. His feeble mind is that of a 7th grader who lives in a fantasy world where he pretends that he's a doctor and that he has a couple of daughters who fly military planes. Living in a make-believe world -- at least until Mommy and Daddy take away his computer -- is safer than learning how to act in a decent and respectful way.

[Frank Drackman]

Hey, if Jill Biden can pretend she's a Doctor when she's not, then I can pretend to be a Doctor when I am, what? and even a DO could recommend you get a Corncob-Ectomy, do you not get the "Goodfella's" reference?? Jeezo-Beezo, have a Fresca Denny!

Frank

[MoreCurious]

That's pretty arrogant, Drackman. It takes an almost unimaginable amount of audacity to compare yourself to a decent, kind person like Dr. Biden. Have you ever considered acting like an adult and -- for the first time -- posting an insightful, intelligent comment? Your attempts at being thoughtful and amusing are failing miserably.

[Dan Schiavetta]

yes

[Riva]

These mass murders were quite intentional and the only way to do avoid it in the future is to utterly destroy the terrorists. Which is what some seem determined not to accept.

[JasonT20]

Every lost innocent life is a tragedy. The lives of innocent people killed in the pursuit of murderers have just as much inherent value as the lives of the murderer's victims.

Humanity is put in an impossible situation by terrorism, and this is actually part of their plan. If we don't go after them, then they claim victory and gather support to strike again. If we do go after them, and kill innocent civilians in the process, they claim justification and gather support and replace their losses from among the families of the slain to strike again.

Destroying Hamas or Hezbollah or any other terror group utterly is unlikely, possibly not even feasible. Israel can have all of the intelligence, precision weapons, and organizational superiority possible and their terrorist enemies can still survive. The cost of doing what is truly necessary to uproot them entirely is something Israel is probably not willing to pay. Returning to fully occupying Gaza in order to go building to building, searching for tunnels, or invading Lebanon would just require too much of their own resources and manpower, not to mention the risk of full-scale war with Iran.

As much as we in the West and in Israel might want to see every Hamas member killed or imprisoned for what happened on Oct. 7 and in other attacks and terrorist acts, the cycle of violence will continue indefinitely until both sides commit to pursuing permanent peace. That is beyond reach at the moment, but someday, it won't be. In my opinion, permanent peace and destroying Hamas completely are both beyond reach at the moment. The question then becomes, which one is an end goal that is more desirable?

[Riva]

No, Hamas can and will be destroyed, just like the Nazis were. That is one of the goals. And, Israel would be doing the world a great favor by crippling Iran’s insane nuclear ambitions too.

[Don Nico]

One can fully support the destruction of terrorist, criminality (and I do), but that does not remove the fact the the consequent loss of innocent lives is a tragedy on both the large and small human scale.

[Riva]

That’s exactly why Hamas must be destroyed. To prevent future massacres. And I wouldn’t mind seeing some serious damage done to their sponsors in Iran. That wouldn’t be a tragedy. It would be just.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's sad that we can't reduce loss of innocent lives to zero, but if we're going to minimize them, a lot of those lost innocent lives are, quite naturally, going to be collateral damage in killing not at all innocent people like Hamas.

It's similar to the way that, if you're minimizing lost lives from endemic disease, a lot of the lost lives will unavoidably be iatrogenic.

[Malika]

The classic FYIGM guy can so easily shrug off "collateral damage."

What's amazing is these types will on alternate days argue as if utilitarianism is an anti-individualistic evil!

[Riva]

“When peace comes we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons. Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.” Golda Meir

[Don Nico]

Collateral damage does exist, necessarily. It is part of the human condition. That does not mean that one should not try to minimize it, or that one must surrender to a mindless criticism to accepting an attendant evil.

[Brett Bellmore]

One should only minimize collateral damage to the point where the next incremental life saved does not result in more than one life lost elsewhere. Otherwise, the limit of collateral damage minimization is where you just give up and let the enemy win: No collateral damage at all!

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Lol, the Nazis haven't been "destroyed". Fascism and antisemitism are riding back on the Trump Train. There are even Classical Nazis living and (heavily) breathing in the Reason comments section...

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Yes. People speak in the voice of victims but the ultimate question there is how best to address their needs.

This is a lesson that is true in a variety of contexts, including how to formulate a suitable criminal justice system in this country.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"the cycle of violence will continue indefinitely until both sides commit to pursuing permanent peace. That is beyond reach at the moment, but someday, it won’t be."

Both sides are committed to pursuing permanent peace. But both sides have their conditions. The Jews aren't going to walk into the ocean and drown themselves for the sake of peace.

[Moderation4ever]

The saddest part is that the victims are often the most powerless. The old, the women, and the children.

[JasonT20]

I think Jon Stewart was the one that actually pointed out the biggest problem with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There really isn't anyone that truly representing the interests of the Palestinian people. Hamas certainly isn't. Even Fatah is only partially on the side of its people, as it has its own issues with corruption, ideology being put ahead of improving the daily lives of the people, and power grabbing.

[Don Nico]

Jason,
That is a large aspect of the tragedy of the situation.

[Commenter_XY]

You make a great point that is not heard enough = There really isn’t anyone that truly representing the interests of the Palestinian people.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Jon Stewart was the one "

That noted historian and political scientist.

[Moderation4ever]

It really doesn't take a degree to see that Palestinians have been poorly served by their leaders.

[Sarcastr0]

JasonT20 was giving credit, not appealing to authority.

If you disagree with the idea Jason presented, you should engage with it.

[JasonT20]

What Sarcastr0 said. The idea was not my own original thought. So I noted that I got the idea and agree with Jon Stewart. Do you disagree? If so, then let’s hear it.

[Bob from Ohio]

Its dumb even if a tv clown said it first [he didn't]

The "Palestinian people" support Hamas and Fatah. This "no representation" BS is just a way to excuse Hamas and Fatah atrocities.

[Don Nico]

Bob,
That is just beyond silly.
It is no excuse for Hamas or and of the other lackeys of the Iranian mullahs.
You want that we should blame you for all of the mistakes of Mr. Biden, Trump, Obama, etc. After all they were you leaders. Your tax money paid for their mistakes, etc.

[Joe_dallas]

fwiw - for a historical perspective, allied bombing prior to and during the normandy invasion killed approx 100k - 150K french. That death toll was in the range of the french death toll estimated during the planning for operation overlord.

[Sarcastr0]

Human tragedy is not amenable to statistical methods, nor should it be.

[JasonT20]

Right. You can't measure human suffering and tragedy by looking at numbers of dead people. Even more important, though, is that WWII and asymmetrical military operations in urban areas using modern technology is an apples to oranges comparison.

[Kazinski]

Really?

Actually i would think in well ordered counties like Framce with babtismal and civil records going back centuries, that they would have a very good idea about excess deaths, and before and after populations.

[Malika]

I don't think the question was of the accuracy but rather the relevance of the statistics.

[Brett Bellmore]

Almost anything is amenable to statistical methods, though often all the statistical methods will tell you is that they can't tell you anything without better data/definitions.

This is not to say that statistical methods properly dominate over ethical considerations, but they certainly do help to inform them.

[Sarcastr0]

X is a tragedy isn’t an ethical statement either.

There are lots of parts of human experience that are not informed by data, and that's okay.
https://xkcd.com/55/

[Malika]

I'd like to see a citation for that. Wiki says
Civilian deaths:
11,000–19,000 killed in pre-invasion bombing[28]
13,632–19,890 killed during invasion[29]
Total: 25,000–39,000 killed

Both citations are to British military historian Antony Beevor.

[Joe_dallas]

The number of civilians killed are a mere fraction of the number cited by Wiki

Wiki is source is from hamas - not what would be called a credible source

[Malika the Maiz]

“Wiki is source is from hamas”
Lol!

[Joe_dallas]

LOL is very appropriate - since the "civilian " death count is coming from Hamas and LoL is even more appropriate since you chose to believe an obviously non credible source

[Malika]

What are you talking about you goof, what I cited was from the Wiki for Operation Overlord. When I asked for a citation, given you'd only provided what you called numbers of "french" deaths from that operation, it should be obvious that was what I was referenced.

[ducksalad]

Ha ha

[David Nieporent]

Wiki is source is from hamas

Why would Hamas have an opinion on the number of French civilians killed during Operation Overlord?

[not guilty]

As I wrote about in the last open thread, in the D.C. prosecution Donald Trump has filed a supplement to his motion to dismiss, based largely upon Fischer v. United States, 603 U.S. ___, 144 S. Ct. 2176 (2024). https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149.255.0_4.pdf This Filing is seriously flawed, failing to address the inchoate nature of the attempt and conspiracy offenses charged under 18 U.S.C. § 1512 and falsely characterizing the fraudulent nature of the bogus "certificates of election" submitted by Trump's confederates which lie at the heart of the obstruction of an official proceeding charges.

The Supreme Court opined in Fischer:

As we have explained, [18 U.S.C. § 1521](c)(1) refers to a defined set of offense conduct—four types of actions that, by their nature, impair the integrity or availability of records, documents, or objects for use in an official proceeding. When the phrase “otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding” is read as having been given more precise content by that narrower list of conduct, subsection (c)(2) makes it a crime to impair the availability or integrity of records, documents, or objects used in an official proceeding in ways other than those specified in (c)(1). For example, it is possible to violate (c)(2) by creating false evidence—rather than altering incriminating evidence.

144 S.Ct. at 2186 [emphasis added]. Team Trump's most recent filing ignores the import of what the superseding indictment actually alleges as to the fake elector scheme. The superseding indictment alleges at ¶11:

a. The Defendant and co-conspirators used knowingly false claims of election fraud to get state legislators and election officials to subvert the legitimate election results and change electoral votes for the Defendant’s opponent, Joseph R. Biden, Jr., to electoral votes for the Defendant. That is, on the pretext of baseless fraud claims, the Defendant pushed officials in certain states to ignore the popular vote; disenfranchise millions of voters; dismiss legitimate electors; and ultimately, cause the ascertainment of and voting by illegitimate electors in favor of the Defendant.

b. The Defendant and co-conspirators organized fraudulent slates of electors in seven targeted states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin), attempting to mimic the procedures that the legitimate electors were supposed to follow under the Constitution and other federal and state laws. This included causing the fraudulent electors to meet on the day appointed by federal law on which legitimate electors were to gather and cast their votes; cast fraudulent votes for the Defendant; and sign certificates falsely representing that they were legitimate electors. Some fraudulent electors were tricked into participating based on the understanding that their votes would be used only if the Defendant succeeded in outcome-determinative lawsuits within their state, which the Defendant never did. The Defendant and co-conspirators then caused these fraudulent electors to transmit their false certificates to the Vice President, in his capacity as President of the Senate, and other government officials to be counted at the certification proceeding on January 6.

The superseding indictment includes considerable detail as to how the attempted fake elector scheme was carried out, including Donald Trump's participation therein. Trump's recent filing includes no discussion of the principle that Trump is vicariously liable for the actions of his co-conspirators.

The conduct of Trump and his co-conspirators alleged in the indictment is the quintessence of creating false evidence. Under 18 U.S.C. § 1521(c)(2) an attempt to corruptly obstruct an official proceeding of Congress is just as criminal as a successful obstruction would be. Conspiracy to do so is a separate and distinct offense per § 1512(k).

Trump's supplement makes mealy-mouthed references to "Contingent Certificates" of electors. The superseding indictment, however, makes no reference to any "Contingent Certificates" of electors. The sufficiency of a federal criminal indictment must be determined from the four corners of the document itself -- another principle that Trump's filing fails to address.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Trump’s supplement makes mealy-mouthed references to “Contingent Certificates” of electors. The superseding indictment, however, makes no reference to any “Contingent Certificates” of electors."

So, if the prosecution misrepresents something in their filing, the defense isn't allowed to point it out?

[not guilty]

“So, if the prosecution misrepresents something in their filing, the defense isn’t allowed to point it out?”

The filing of a motion to dismiss admits (for purposes of the motion) the facts averred in the indictment. The defense does not have the ability to reformulate facts alleged by the grand jury.

“An indictment’s main purpose is to inform the defendant of the nature of the accusation against him. It therefore need only contain a plain, concise, and definite written statement of the essential facts constituting the offense charged. When considering a motion to dismiss an indictment, a court assumes the truth of those factual allegations.” United States v. Ballestas, 795 F.3d 138, 148-149 (D.C. Cir. 2015) [citations and internal quotation marks omitted].

Determining whether the facts set forth in an indictment are true is not the province of defense counsel. We empanel petit juries to evaluate whether the evidence proves such facts beyond a reasonable doubt.

[Dan Schiavetta]

I think Brett already knew that (yet he made his comment anyway).

[Brett Bellmore]

If Smith can lard his motions with irrelevant PR fluff and allegations he's not pursuing in court, so can Trump. What's sauce for the goose...

[not guilty]

"If Smith can lard his motions with irrelevant PR fluff and allegations he’s not pursuing in court, so can Trump."

Uh, we are talking here about factual allegations contained in the superseding indictment. That is the very antithesis of "irrelevant PR fluff and allegations he’s not pursuing in court."

[ducksalad]

Well, pretty much everyone who pleads not guilty to an indictment is going to be taking the position that the allegations aren’t true. There’s a time and place to make that case.

Remember that scene from My Cousin Vinny where the judge is telling him the next words out of his mouth need to be guilty or not guilty but he keeps trying to dispute the facts.

[David Nieporent]

Determining whether the facts set forth in an indictment are true is not the province of defense counsel. We empanel petit juries to evaluate whether the evidence proves such facts beyond a reasonable doubt.

That having been said, I encourage Donald Trump's legal team to employ the "Hey! We only forged electoral votes in five states, not seven!" defense.

[Kazinski]

Elie Honig, CNN's legal analyst and a former federal prosecutor himself thinks Smith and Chutkan are specifically trying to influence the election, although I will admit I think they have zero influence:

"Jack Smith has failed in his quest to try Donald Trump before the 2024 election. So instead, the special counsel has bent ordinary procedure to get in one last shot, just weeks before voters go to the polls.

Smith has now dropped a 165-page doorstop of a filing in federal court, on the issue of Trump’s immunity from prosecution. Judge Tanya Chutkan — who suddenly claims not to care about the impending election despite her earlier efforts to expedite the case to get it in before the very same election, which got her reversed and chastised by the Supreme Court — duly complied with Smith’s wishes, redacted out a few obvious names (who ever might “Arizona Governor [Redacted P-16]” be?), and made the rest public."

The larger, if less obvious, headline is that Smith has essentially abandoned any pretense; he’ll bend any rule, switch up on any practice — so long as he gets to chip away at Trump’s electoral prospects. At this point, there’s simply no defending Smith’s conduct on any sort of principled or institutional basis. “But we need to know this stuff before we vote!” is a nice bumper sticker, but it’s neither a response to nor an excuse for Smith’s unprincipled, norm-breaking practice. (It also overlooks the fact that the Justice Department bears responsibility for taking over two and a half years to indict in the first place.)h"

"First, this is backward. The way motions work — under the federal rules, and consistent with common sense — is that the prosecutor files an indictment; the defense makes motions (to dismiss charges, to suppress evidence, or what have you); and then the prosecution responds to those motions. Makes sense, right? It’s worked for hundreds of years in our courts.

Not here. Not when there’s an election right around the corner and dwindling opportunity to make a dent. So Smith turned the well-established, thoroughly uncontroversial rules of criminal procedure on their head and asked Judge Chutkan for permission to file first — even with no actual defense motion pending. Trump’s team objected, and the judge acknowledged that Smith’s request to file first was “procedurally irregular” — moments before she ruled in Smith’s favor, as she’s done at virtually every consequential turn."

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/jack-smith-october-surprise-donald-trump.html

[not guilty]

Kazinski, there is a motion to dismiss pending. Team Trump’s motion to dismiss indictment based on presidential immunity was filed on October 5, 2023, and that motion has not yet been fully adjudicated. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149.74.0_3.pdf

Judge Chutkan initially denied the motion, and the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed. Trump successfully petitioned for certiorari, and SCOTUS on July 1, 2024 remanded the case with instructions for the District Court to conduct a “necessarily factbound analysis . . . to determine in the first instance whether this alleged conduct is official or unofficial.” Trump v. United States, 144 S.Ct. 2312, 2340 (2024). The Special Counsel’s September 26 filing (unsealed last week) is part and parcel of the continuing proceedings to adjudicate Trump’s October 5, 2023 motion.

It is unseemly that the Trump cult is accusing Judge Chutkan and Jack Smith of meddling in the election. But for his own dilatory tactics, Donald Trump could have had a jury trial beginning on March 4, 2024, which would likely have been concluded prior to the election. He could then have stood for election with the benefit of a jury verdict convicting or acquitting him.

[Riva]

No, what was seriously flawed is the election interference committed by Smith and Chutkan by rushing to release this previously sealed material before President Trump was even afforded an opportunity to respond. And this disgrace is not just election interference. It’s an effort to prejudice the jury pool. Even more disgraceful is the support this repulsive lawfare receives from some who profess to be legal professionals.

[not guilty]

"No, what was seriously flawed is the election interference committed by Smith and Chutkan by rushing to release this previously sealed material before President Trump was even afforded an opportunity to respond."

That is one more rank falsehood from Riva. Donald Trump's filing regarding sealing was filed on October 1, 2024. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149.248.0_2.pdf The District Court's order unsealing the government's filing (subject to redactions) was entered October 2, 2024. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149.251.0_4.pdf

[Riva]

That is absurd. President Trump had no meaningful opportunity to object to the disclosure, a little more than 30 days before the election, of this voluminous filing of previously sealed grand jury material. He objected the grossly distorted and rushed process of election interference Chutkan and Smith were determined to effectuate. He was given no time, and no opportunity, to object to or suppress all this so called “evidence” before its release to the public. This perversion of the rule of law for political purposes is disgraceful regardless of the target.

[Malika]

Lol, Riva was of course likewise upset when Trump was calling for Wikileaks to leak hacked documents during the 16 campaign, the NY FBI was leaking stuff about the Clinton investigation during same, etc.,'

Hypocrisy or amnesia?

[Riva]

I wouldn’t agree with your interpretation but, even if, arguendo, we assume your version of events is entirely correct, I would call what you write irrelevant.

[Malika]

Of course you would, you’re a hypocrite and/or amnesiac.

Or more likely a bot who wasn’t programed with data that goes that far back.

[Riva]

No, because I’m referring to the gross perversion of the rule of law known as “lawfare.” You are referring to political commentary you happen to disagree with (even assuming you’re accurately representing anything, which you aren’t of course).

[not guilty]

"President Trump had no meaningful opportunity to object to the disclosure, a little more than 30 days before the election, of this voluminous filing of previously sealed grand jury material. , , , He was given no time, and no opportunity, to object to or suppress all this so called 'evidence' before its release to the public."

Wrong! SCOTUS ordered that on remand the District Court must determine in the first instance what conduct is official and what is unofficial. Pursuant to the Supreme Court mandate, Judge Chutkan ordered a briefing schedule following a status conference on September 5, with input from both parties. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149.233.0_2.pdf

“This necessarily factbound analysis” by the District Court is mandated (literally) by the Supreme Court. Trump's Response and Renewed Motion to Dismiss Based on Presidential Immunity was originally due October 17, but that deadline was extended until November 7. If Team Trump wishes to submit that response prior to the election, they are free to do so. That response will presumably include the defense position as to what acts were official in nature and, if so, whether immunity from prosecution and exclusion from evidence at trial applies.

Judge Chutkan could have proceeded with a lengthy evidentiary hearing in open court regarding the scope of immunity, but the written submissions are a more efficient vehicle which will allow more orderly and deliberate consideration of the issues.

[Riva]

The S. Court did not order Smith to rush file a superseding indictment on August 27. The S. Court did not order Chutkan to distort normal process and deny President Trump an opportunity to respond before Smith made a massive evidentiary filing a little more than 30 days before the election. The S. Court did not order Chutkan to release this material, thereby prejudicing the jury pool in addition to blatantly interfering with the election. We’ve been through this before. Disgrace yourself by supporting this lawfare if you want but stop pretending this is proper.

[not guilty]

The Supreme Court ordered the District Court to make factual determinations after remand regarding the scope of immunity. Both sides offered input at the September 5 status conference as to how to proceed, so your claim that Trump had no opportunity to respond is a falsehood.

If Judge Chutkan had ordered an evidentiary hearing in open court with live witness testimony, Donald Trump would likely be squealing like Bobby Trippe in Deliverance. If the defense wants to file its responsive factual/legal submission in advance of the election, it is free to do so.

[Commenter_XY]

The wheels of justice turn slowly, NG, But not for Judge 'Red Diaper Baby' Chutkan. 😉

[not guilty]

But for Donald Trump's dilatory tactics, he could have had a jury trial which would have concluded before the election. (The original trial date was March 4, 2024.) Trump could stand for election having been acquitted or convicted.

I am curious as to why you repeatedly refer to Judge Chutkan as a red diaper baby. What do you know about her parents' political affiliation, and what are your sources of information?

[bernard11]

I am curious as to why you repeatedly refer to Judge Chutkan as a red diaper baby. What do you know about her parents’ political affiliation, and what are your sources of information?

I'd add that I'm curious as to what evidence XY has that shows that Chutkan's rulings are determined by her parents' political views, whatever they are.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Look at the cute little misogynist and his precious nicknames for women he doesn't like!

[Riva]

The S. Court did not order any of Smith and Chutkan’s election interference. And whatever “input” was allowed was not a substitute or cure for this perversion of legal process for political purposes. If it were up to me, and you were in fact licensed, I’d disbar you.

[not guilty]

Judge Chutkan has made it very clear that the election calendar does not figure into her scheduling decisions. Donald Trump's response on the immunity issues was originally due by October 17. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149.233.0_2.pdf By a minute order entered on October 3 Judge Chutkan extended that deadline to November 7. That response is likely to show the public just how insubstantial Trump's position is. It is now up to Team Trump as to whether they will reveal before or after the election that The Emperor Has No Clothes.

Riva, would you have preferred that Judge Chutkan had scheduled an evidentiary hearing with live witness testimony on the immunity issues that likely would have lasted for weeks? Since such a hearing would have affected what evidence is or is not admissible at trial, Fed.R.Evid. 104(a) provides that the court at such a pretrial hearing is not bound by evidence rules, except those on privilege.

[Riva]

Judge Chutkan made it very clear of her intention to interfere with the election by allowing Smith to hopscotch over any response to his rushly filed August 27 superceding indictment and file a massive, highly unusual, motion containing previously sealed evidence. And then publicly release the evidence, thereby interfering with the election and prejudicing the jury pool.

What would I prefer? Well aside from the ultimate dismissal of this disgraceful lawfare, I would prefer normal rules of criminal procedure be followed. It might also be a good idea to adhere to DOJ guidance that explicitly disproves of such unnecessary rushed filings timed to interfere with the election.

[not guilty]

"I would prefer normal rules of criminal procedure be followed. It might also be a good idea to adhere to DOJ guidance that explicitly disproves of such unnecessary rushed filings timed to interfere with the election."

Just what "normal rules of criminal procedure" do you contend have not been followed here? Please cite each such violation by the number and applicable subsection of the rule you claim was transgressed and state your supporting facts.

Rule 17.1 states that "On its own, or on a party's motion, the court may hold one or more pretrial conferences to promote a fair and expeditious trial." Judge Chutkan held such a conference on September 5, 2024 and promptly entered a scheduling order for certain further pretrial matters. A district court has boatloads of discretion regarding pretrial scheduling matters.

Nothing in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure precludes a prosecuting attorney from presenting a matter to a new grand jury and obtaining a superseding indictment. Rule 7(c)(1) states in relevant part:

The indictment or information must be a plain, concise, and definite written statement of the essential facts constituting the offense charged and must be signed by an attorney for the government. It need not contain a formal introduction or conclusion. A count may incorporate by reference an allegation made in another count. A count may allege that the means by which the defendant committed the offense are unknown or that the defendant committed it by one or more specified means. For each count, the indictment or information must give the official or customary citation of the statute, rule, regulation, or other provision of law that the defendant is alleged to have violated.

Do you contend that the instant superseding indictment fails to comport with this or any other provision of the Rules of Criminal Procedure?

Rule 6(e)(3)(E)(i) provides that the court may authorize disclosure—at a time, in a manner, and subject to any other conditions that it directs—of a grand-jury matter:
preliminarily to or in connection with a judicial proceeding. Rule 6(e)(3)(F) permits a court to order such disclosure on the ex parte application of the government.

As for the (unwritten) Department of Justice policy that avoids initiation of criminal prosecutions within 60 days before an election, the instant prosecution was initiated on August 1, 2023 -- more than fifteen months before the November 2024 presidential election. The superseding indictment was filed on August 27, 2024 -- seventy days before the election.

As the late Clara Peller bellowed in the Wendy's commercial, where's the beef, Riva?

[not guilty]

Still waiting, Riva. What “normal rules of criminal procedure” do you contend have not been followed here?

[not guilty]

Riva, if you can't answer my question, grow a pair and say so. What “normal rules of criminal procedure” do you contend have not been followed here?

[Riva]

You’re going in deranged circles again. It has already been noted above that allowing the prosecution to hopscotch over the defense and file his motion is highly unusual. It has already been noted that the motion’s length is highly unusual. The timing of the filing of this motion is also highly unusual, a little over 30 days before a presidential election. And Smith doing all this despite DOJ guidelines that direct prosecutors to “never select the timing of investigative steps or criminal charges for the purpose of affecting any election, or for the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party.” Some might consider the timing here to be somewhat, dare I say it, unusual. Actually it's pretty damn suspect. And what does Chutkan do? She unseals the filing right after Walz crashes and burns in the VP debate. It’s entirely up to you if you want to celebrate this gross perversion of the law, but at least have the integrity to acknowledge that’s your position.

[not guilty]

You haven't cited a single Federal Rule of Civil Procedure. Why am I unsurprised? Once again, what “normal rules of criminal procedure” do you contend have not been followed here? There is a reason those rules have numbers and subsections, Riva.

Have you actually read the government's motion which was filed on September 26 and unsealed on October 2? Yes or no? https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149.252.0_1.pdf

It is titled "GOVERNMENT’S MOTION FOR IMMUNITY DETERMINATIONS". At page 1 the motion recites:

In Trump v. United States, 144 S. Ct. 2312 (2024), the Supreme Court held that presidents are immune from prosecution for certain official conduct—including the defendant’s use of the Justice Department in furtherance of his scheme, as was alleged in the original indictment—and remanded to this Court to determine whether the remaining allegations against the defendant are immunized. The answer to that question is no.

This motion provides a comprehensive account of the defendant’s private criminal conduct; sets forth the legal framework created by Trump for resolving immunity claims; applies that framework to establish that none of the defendant’s charged conduct is immunized because it either was unofficial or any presumptive immunity is rebutted; and requests the relief the Government seeks, which is, at bottom, this: that the Court determine that the defendant must stand trial for his private crimes as would any other citizen.

[Paragraph break added.]

Rules 12(b) and 47 permit the filing of this motion. Pre Rule 12(b)(1), "A party may raise by pretrial motion any defense, objection, or request that the court can determine without a trial on the merits. Rule 47 applies to a pretrial motion." The United States is a party. The District Court has been ordered by SCOTUS to determine immunity issues upon remand. Such determinations can be made without a trial on the merits.

Rule 47(b) provides, "A motion must state the grounds on which it is based and the relief or order sought. A motion may be supported by affidavit." The instant Motion is supported by a variety of proof, some of which the Government has designated “Sensitive” under the Protective Order, such as grand jury testimony, materials obtained through sealed search warrants, transcripts and reports of witness interviews, and materials obtained from other governmental entities. These materials, which remain under seal pending defense objections to the proposed redactions (due October 10), were filed as Exhibits B-1 through B-4 to the government's September 27 Motion for Leave to File to Unredacted Motion Under Seal, and to File Redacted Motion on the Public Docket. ECF 246.

The District Court is permitted by Rule 12(c) to set and reset deadlines for pretrial motions. Judge Chutkan did so on September 5 following the status conference.

The District Court and the Special Counsel have proceeded with alacrity to move this case forward since jurisdiction after remand vested back in the District Court on August 2. That is commendable. As Louis Brandeis wrote in Harper's Magazine in 1913, “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.”

[Riva]

Well you’re right about one thing. Smith and Chutkan seem to be working together. Did Brandeis write anything about unconstitutionally appointed prosecutors and conflicted district judge dynamic duos and their obscene lawfare ?

[not guilty]

Is your vehicle also a Dodge, Riva? One more time, what “normal rules of criminal procedure” do you contend have not been followed here? Please identify by number. For your convenience, here is a table of contents: https://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcrmp#:~:text=Federal%20Rules%20of%20Criminal%20Procedure.%20(As%20amended%20to%20December%201,

Judge Chutkan has an obligation to protect Donald Trump's Sixth Amendment right to a speedy and public trial. Additionally, SCOTUS has recognized that the Speedy Trial Act of 1974, 18 U.S.C. § 3161 et seq.,:

serves not only to protect defendants, but also to vindicate the public interest in the swift administration of justice. We thus held that a defendant may not opt out of the Act even if he believes it would be in his interest; “[a]llowing prospective waivers would seriously undermine the Act because there are many cases ... in which the prosecution, the defense, and the court would all be happy to opt out of the Act, to the detriment of the public interest.” Zedner v. United States, 547 U.S. 489, 502, 126 S.Ct. 1976, 164 L.Ed.2d 749 (2006).

Bloate v. United States, 559 U.S. 196, 211-212 (2010) [footnote omitted].

Trump has a Fifth Amendment right to be charged only with offenses as to which the grand jury has found probable cause, that is, a "substantial right to be tried only on charges presented in an indictment returned by a grand jury." United States v. Miller, 471 U.S. 130, 140 (1985), quoting Stirone v. United States, 361 U.S. 212, 217 (1960). Trump also has a Sixth Amendment right to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation against him. The Special Counsel's obtaining the superseding indictment, which was filed promptly (24 days) after then District Court regained jurisdiction, has helped to ensure that Trump's rights in this regard are protected.

Trump has been in no way prejudiced or disadvantaged by the finding of the superseding indictment. While it charges the same four offenses, the scope of allegedly criminal conduct that Trump is being called upon to answer is in fact narrower than that alleged in the original indictment. There is one fewer co-conspirator identified, and the earlier allegations regarding Trump's corrupt abuse of Department of Justice personnel have been removed.

Jack Smith made a wise prophylactic decision to present the matter to a new grand jury which had heard none of the proof supporting the initial probable cause determinations. It may well have been that the original grand jury heard evidence of official conduct as to which Trump was later determined to be immune from prosecution. Presentation to a newly empaneled body which had not heard the earlier evidence may help to ensure the integrity of any ensuing conviction.

[Riva]

I doubt you would see election interference if the jury was empaneled on Nov 4 and the trial began on Nov. 5, as long as the rules literally allowed it. But speaking of that disinfectant and daylight you mentioned above, in other related lawfare, it will be interesting to learn more about why Matthew Colangelo, once the No. 3 official in the Biden administration Department of Justice, made the odd career decision to take a job with the that fat slob Bragg’s Manhattan DA office. Judge Merchan’s conflicts are also a bit stinky and merit some disinfectant. And it would also be interesting to learn what Nathan Wade, Fani’s “special” counsel (special in many ways) discussed when he met with WH officials. For 8 hours one day apparently, at least that’s what he billed. And Newsweek had reported that VP Harris met with Fani the day before she filed the indictment. Maybe needs some daylight? And of course, the J6’s committee’s collusion with Fani bears some additional scrutiny (those interested are welcome to consult the initial findings report of the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight)

I think some slimeball democrats better lawyer up. Their repulsive lawfare is going to bite them in the ass after President Trump wins.

[David Nieporent]

But speaking of that disinfectant and daylight you mentioned above, in other related lawfare, it will be interesting to learn more about why Matthew Colangelo, once the No. 3 official in the Biden administration Department of Justice, made the odd career decision to take a job with the that fat slob Bragg’s Manhattan DA office.

When bot runs out of programmed material, it just recycles old stuff no matter how false and/or irrelevant to the discussion.

[Riva]

If you’re finished with your tantrum, please wipe the dribble from your chin and enlighten everyone as to what is false.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Disbarment for speech you don't like?

Once an authoritarian...

[Riva]

Why not? They're doing it to Jeff Clark and Giuliani. You like lawfare so much, maybe it should be shoved down your throats?

[David Nieporent]

I think

False; bots just respond to inputs. But no more false than the claim that Walz "crashed and burned" in the debate.

[Riva]

I defer to your views in so far as they represent the batshit crazy perspective.

[Sarcastr0]

Riva seizing the 'I'm the sane mature one here' is hilarious.

[David Nieporent]

President Trump had no meaningful opportunity to object to the disclosure,

There is no 'president Trump,' and not guilty linked to disgraced-ex-president-Trump's meaningful opportunity to object to the disclosure.

[SRG2]

Possibly the Trump filing's true intended audience are some of the SC justices, who will cite it favourably if and when an appeal gets up to them,

[Dr. Ed 2]

Future historians will write that the concept of rule of law in America ended with the lawfare against Trump.

[SRG2]

Nope. If anything, they'll point to Whitewater, while a few right-wing historians, not willing to concede that the GOP started it will argue retroactively from the Trump immunity case that Watergate was the starting point.

[windycityattorney]

The only principle that historians will note was lost with Trump was the basic principle that in America, no man is above the law.

Future generations will be shocked such a brazen immoral grifter dumbass was the beneficiary of such a disappointing ruling.

[David Nieporent]

I honestly think that one day Trump v. U.S. will be in the constitutional anti-canon with Dred Scott and Korematsu. It's such a terrible decision that I'd prefer a constitutional amendment that abrogated it even if it was not retroactive; it's more important to eliminate immunity for all future presidents than it is to convict Trump.

[Dr. Ed 2]

David, imagine that Ted Cruz is AG in a future Republican admin.
Can you not see Presidential Immunity being a necessary thing?

[David Nieporent]

No.

[Riva]

The informed viewpoint of someone who never heard of separation of powers. Or if he/she/it did, he/she/it probably thinks it has something to do with the Southern border.

[Commenter_XY]

Wow, really? = it’s more important to eliminate immunity for all future presidents than it is to convict Trump

I am puzzled by this. As I understood Trump v US, absolute immunity only applies for official acts of the elected position. I thought the objection was what acts of Pres Trump were official, and what acts were not official. But no, your objection is even more fundamental.

David, I do not follow your logic of throwing away absolute immunity for future POTUS' while performing official acts. You are straitjacketing future POTUS' without any knowledge of what is to come, and what challenges they will face. But you place a stumbling block before them (endless lawfare, which is a certainty).

What am I missing? Because I think it is a terrible idea to even seriously entertain the idea doing away with absolute immunity for official acts. What about the foreign policy aspects of the job; a POTUS deals with some very bad people (like Putin, for instance).

The legal argument is one thing, but I am questioning the logic.

[Riva]

I doubt he even read the case.

[David Nieporent]

I am puzzled by this. As I understood Trump v US, absolute immunity only applies for official acts of the elected position. I thought the objection was what acts of Pres Trump were official, and what acts were not official. But no, your objection is even more fundamental.

Correct. To be clear, "official acts" in the decision is not limited to core specified constitutional powers like vetoes or pardons (about which I would have much less objection), but my objection is to the idea of criminal immunity. It is not supported by text, precedent, or history.

David, I do not follow your logic of throwing away absolute immunity for future POTUS’ while performing official acts. You are straitjacketing future POTUS’ without any knowledge of what is to come, and what challenges they will face. But you place a stumbling block before them (endless lawfare, which is a certainty).

What am I missing? Because I think it is a terrible idea to even seriously entertain the idea doing away with absolute immunity for official acts. What about the foreign policy aspects of the job; a POTUS deals with some very bad people (like Putin, for instance).

And POTUS can deal with those people in ways that do not violate U.S. law. A president, like every other American, is supposed to be "straitjacketed" by the criminal code.

What you are missing is (at least) twofold:

1) Ultimately a president decides whether to prosecute a former president. There is no incentive for a president to criminalize routine official acts by a former president, because that simply leaves himself vulnerable when he leaves office. (For 235 years former presidents were not immune, and yet there was no rash of prosecutions for their official acts.) Look at unquestionably illegal torture conducted by the Bush administration during the War on Terror. Nobody was prosecuted for that, because all presidents do questionable stuff in the name of national security.

2) Eliminating immunity does not mean that a former president goes to jail. It means that he may have to stand trial. You still have to convince a jury to convict him. If it's some heroic but illegal act in the name of national security, a jury isn't going to do that.

Moreover, I can't even see policy grounds, let alone legal ones, why a president ordering one of his subordinates to illegally subvert an election needs to be even arguably immune from prosecution. What freedom of action does a president need in that regard?

[Commenter_XY]

1. I agree about no incentive for a POTUS to prosecute a former President, I am not so sure about whether it is the POTUS who makes the ultimate call, though. Sometimes political circumstances dictate a choice other than a POTUS would want. But I understand your point. Example: Would Obama be liable for drone strikes on Americans overseas?

2. Ok, this smells like a recipe for endless stumbling blocks. Imagine the conversation btwn Trump and Bibi setting up a meeting. "The Donald: Hello Bibi, I have Tuesday at 10 open, but might have to testify in a case, so Thursday at 3pm might be better. Bibi: Hello Donald, I have testimony for a case on Tuesday at 10, so Thursday at 3pm it is. But I am running a 7-front war, presently."

Ok, hyperbole, but you get the point. How does the POTUS even do the job if they're preparing for court case(s)?

The impression I have is you're Ok with putting a strait-jacket on our successors that go well beyond the strict bounds of a criminal statute. That is a step too far.

Would your concerns be addressed by Judge 'RDB' Chutkan making a ruling on each and every act (official or non-official) at trial, without removing absolute immunity for official acts?

[David Nieporent]

2. Ok, this smells like a recipe for endless stumbling blocks. Imagine the conversation btwn Trump and Bibi setting up a meeting. “The Donald: Hello Bibi, I have Tuesday at 10 open, but might have to testify in a case, so Thursday at 3pm might be better. Bibi: Hello Donald, I have testimony for a case on Tuesday at 10, so Thursday at 3pm it is. But I am running a 7-front war, presently.”

Ok, hyperbole, but you get the point. How does the POTUS even do the job if they’re preparing for court case(s)?

First of all, people do their jobs all the time while they're preparing for court cases. Second, we're talking about former presidents being prosecuted, not sitting ones.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Preparing for elections is apparently no problem at all...

[Commenter_XY]

David, do you really think that former Pres won't call a current POTUS to the stand? And how to address providing testimony on sensitive Nat Sec matters in court?

Legal questions aside, I just don't think proponents of your argument have thought through the logical implications of removing absolute immunity for official acts. It is a step too far to remove that.

[David Nieporent]

I do not see how a sitting president would be a likely witness in the prosecution of a former president. To take this specific case, what would Joe Biden (or Kamala Harris, if the trial takes place after she's elected) testify to that is relevant to Donald Trump's defenses to charges of stealing the 2020 election? How are they witnesses?

Note that a party to a case — even a criminal defendant, who has more rights than others — cannot just call anyone he wants to the stand. There must be a showing first, and the apex doctrine says that if you try to call high-ranking business or government officials, you must show that you need that person, rather than some lower-ranked person.

And as for sensitive national security matters, CIPA already provides the framework for that. (It's being used in the Florida documents case, for instance.)

[Commenter_XY]

This was an interesting discussion David. Thx for the explainer.

[Noscitur a sociis]

2. Ok, this smells like a recipe for endless stumbling blocks. Imagine the conversation btwn Trump and Bibi setting up a meeting. “The Donald: Hello Bibi, I have Tuesday at 10 open, but might have to testify in a case, so Thursday at 3pm might be better. Bibi: Hello Donald, I have testimony for a case on Tuesday at 10, so Thursday at 3pm it is. But I am running a 7-front war, presently.”

You realize that Netanyahu has been on trial during the entire war, right?

[Commenter_XY]

Yes Nas, why do you think I made a crack about Bibi testifying in a case...? 🙂

[Sarcastr0]

Isn't that a strong counterexample to your speculative parade of horribles?

[Life of Brian]

Came to fix the mute button.

[Sarcastr0]

1. Giving you a time out for a day seems about the right speed for your antics. I do that a decent amount, actually.
Sometimes to keep myself from reengaging. In your case because you were bringing too much cringe.

2. Isn’t Netanyahu a counterexample to the speculation you’re using to favor Presidential immunity?

[Life of Brian]

Speaking of cringe, do you even pay attention to who you're responding to? LOL

[Sarcastr0]

Also, the status quo ante did not include this immunity, and we were fine for the whole time.

Even including Nixon and Iran Contra and a Civil War and all sorts of shenanigans.

The main opinion just goes off to speculate on a future that is not suggested by our history. Whereas the dissent points to stuff that absolutely did happen.

[Riva]

The recent history of lawfare tells a different story.

[Magister]

Recent history tells a story of a former President who committed crimes far beyond any other President or ex-President.

[Dr. Ed 2]

And his name was Obama...

[Magister]

Dr. Ed 2, making stuff up again.

[Riva]

It’s not a crime to challenge an election. But given your attitude, I do hope you enjoy the new Trump DOJs investigation of the criminal conspiracy to violate his rights with this lawfare.

[David Nieporent]

It’s not a crime to challenge an election.

That depends how one challenges the election.

[Magister]

For Riva, it depends only on who challenges the election.

[Commenter_XY]

One year ago, Americans were brutally and viscously murdered by Judeocidal hamas terrorists in the Simchat Torah pogrom. The hamas terrorists hold them hostage, torturing them daily.

Believed to be living
Keith Siegel, 65
Sagui Dekel-Chen, 36
Edan Alexander, 20
Omer Neutra, 22

Assumed dead
Itay Chen, 19
Judith Weinstein, 70, and Gadi Haggai, 73 (married couple)

POTUS Biden, bring them home!

[santamonica811]

Genuinely, XY,
What the fuck do you think Biden could do, to get them home? (That also applies to a future Pres. Trump or Harris.)
One: They could send in our own troops. This would result in (a) Some American soldiers being killed, and more wounded, (b) A crapload of terrorists being killed, (c) some-to-another crapload of innocent Gaza civilians being killed, with the likely result being (x) Rescuing some of the hostages, but having the terrorists kill the remainder, or (y) rescuing a few or none of the hostages, with most/all being killed by the terrorists.
Two: They could continue to try diplomacy.
Three: They could blackmail or otherwise threaten Israel to capitulate to the terrorists' demands (which, presumably, would result in some or most or all of the still-alive hostages being returned).
Four: Something else???

The only thing a US president could do that could actually accomplish what you want is Number Three. The problem is that, so far, the terrorists are not making reasonable demands, and Israel (either collectively or at the sole direction of Bibi) is insisting on carrying out the war in the way it wants, rather than in a way that the US/the world community wants.

So far, Harris has given zero "new" options if she were to win in Nov. And Trump has also given nothing specific. (Saying, "Oh, I'll fix the problem on Day One of my presidency." is obviously utter bullshit, and as believable as him saying, "I'll end the Ukraine/Russia war on my first day as well.")

But if you have some specific ideas that have eluded the leaders of Israel and America that will allow our president to get American hostages home safely . . . please post them here. There's probably a Nobel Peace Prize waiting for you. (And, with our New Year just starting; I very much home that, this time 2025, I will write again here, congratulating you on your Nobel and rejoicing with you that you got all the hostages home.)

[verochkax]

For starters, he could stop prioritizing unassimilable welfare case migrants

[Frank Drackman]

Here’s what President Franky would do
24 hour Ultimatum to Ear-Ron, all hostages flown First Class to Reagan National (14 hr Flight, so gives them a few hours to think about it) $10Billion in Gold per Hostage (OK, that’s almost a million pounds of Gold, stay with me Yolanda) immediate redeployment of all Ear-Ronian military/Repubiclown Guard back to Ear-Ron.
Or the Minuteman Missiles start flying (they’re about to Expire anyway) I’d do it like they do with the College Foo-Bawl Bowl games, start with City #47 and go one by one
and I get my demands are impossible, even if Ear-Ron wanted to comply, that’s the point
Ridiculous? Outlandish? War Crimes?, maybe, I don’t care.
Look at what Jimmuh Cartuh’s (I don’t care he’s a 100 and the Guinea Worm’s biggest enemy, he’s the worst POTUS since Buchanan) way got us.

Frank

[Brett Bellmore]

What could they do? How about,

“Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead.”

And then follow up on it.

[Dr. Ed 2]

A coup in Iran would help...

[Armchair]

"One: They could send in our own troops."

Why exactly is this a bad idea? This is exactly what Israel is doing.

This is exactly what the cops do whenever there is a hostage situation. Yes, the cops know there is a risk...they some of them may be injured or killed. But, there are hostages, and that's why there are hostage rescue teams.

[Brett Bellmore]

In fact, that's how you minimize the occurrence of hostage situations: By making it entirely clear that taking hostages gets you nothing, absolutely nothing, but a guaranteed death sentence, no matter what it takes to accomplish it.

[OtisAH]

Just a reminder that Brett has extensive knowledge of and experience with hostage situations. He is not just cosplaying Keyboard Rambo and talking shit to make himself feel better this morning. And shame on anyone who thinks otherwise.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm familiar enough with history to know that you don't pay the Danegeld if you mean to be rid of the Dane.

A lot of the lessons of history are unpleasant to modern sensibilities, so people avoid learning them. But you can't avoid learning them, you can only choose whether to learn them from history books, or learn them from your morning news.

[Malika]

And cops are, or should be, very careful about moving against hostage takers, especially when innocent civilians are around. See the MOVE tragedy in Philly back in the 80s.

[Brett Bellmore]

MOVE didn't have any hostages that I know of. This is no different from the Davidian massacre, where law enforcement decides to characterize somebody's children as being their 'hostages' in order to justify moving against them aggressively.

I'm not saying that the MOVE people were nice folks, and the Davidians had problems, too. But they weren't holding hostages by any sensible definition.

[Malika]

Good grief. The "be careful about moving aggressively against 'bad guys' who have innocents (hostages or not) around for the sake of the innocents" is my point.

[Brett Bellmore]

If that was your point, maybe you shouldn't have called them "hostage takers" in the first place. We've had a number of tragedies/atrocities in this country traceable to treating people as having 'taken hostages' just because their kids were present during an interaction with the police. Like the people were threatening their own children, when it's the police who posed the threat to them.

[David Nieporent]

Why exactly is this a bad idea?

Answered in the post to which you're responding. It's unlikely to accomplish its goal but will get troops killed. (In addition to plenty of collateral damage.)

This is exactly what the cops do whenever there is a hostage situation.

This is exactly what the cops do not do when there is a hostage situation. You watch way too much television.

[Armchair]

"Answered in the post to which you’re responding. It’s unlikely to accomplish its goal but will get troops killed. (In addition to plenty of collateral damage.)"

The Israelis seem to be able to get it done.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/27/middleeast/israel-hostage-rescue-gaza-hamas-intl/index.html

Imagine if the US decided to actually send forces to rescue its citizens....But Sleepy Joe says "meh".

And that whole FBI "Hostage Rescue Team" thing seems to imply that they actually do...you know...rescue hostages. You may want to look it up.*

(*They do better when there are actual hostages to be rescued, and not being used when there aren't hostages)

[Magister]

Americans were more willing to expend American lives in response to 9/11 than for invasion and regime change in Iraq.

Beyond that, sending in armed forces is not what police do whenever there is a hostage situation; many such situations are resolved by negotiation.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Beyond that, sending in armed forces is not what police do whenever there is a hostage situation; many such situations are resolved by negotiation."

But the negotiations never involve making the hostage-takers better off than they were before taking hostages, for reasons that should be obvious.

[Magister]

Kinda wandered off the topic being discussed, or at least excluding the middle.

[TwelveInchPianist]

The topic being discussed is how to respond to hostage situations without creating the wrong incentives.

[Magister]

The topic was the analogy of police responding to hostage situations; there's a wide gulf between sending in the troops and making hostage takers better off than they were before.

[David Nieporent]

The Israelis seem to be able to get it done.

Um, if the Israelis were able to "get it done," then there wouldn't still be hostages there for the U.S. to rescue.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"This is exactly what the cops do not do when there is a hostage situation. You watch way too much television."

The other thing they don't do is give the hostage-takers a suitcase full of money and a flight to a country where they won't be extradited.

[Magister]

Kidnapping and ransom insurance is a thing, though.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Sure. The hostage, or the hostages's families, aren't worried about big picture incentives. Because, as your article says, "Quickly making good on a large ransom raises the expectations of future kidnappers. It can make hostage-taking more lucrative and more common."

And I'll bet you K&R Insurance doesn't offer a free t-shirt with every ransom insurance policy. Just a hunch.

[Magister]

If you read the article, you would see that one of the conditions of such insurance was to keep the policy secret. But it does contradict your assertion that hostage takers are never given money.

[Commenter_XY]

Pres Carter was incompetent, but at least he tried to extract our people from captivity by means of an incompetently executed military mission. He at least tried to bring home American hostages, sm811.

POTUS Biden hasn't even made an attempt, or even paid lip service to the idea of extracting our people.

Do more. Do better. Bring them home.

[Malika]

Should we give them an arms deal (because that's what ultimately "worked" with Iran)?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Nuke Iran.

[Malika the Maiz]

You’re a psychopath, but also an impotent lil’ sissy, so it equals out.

[Kazinski]

Demonstrably false.

The Iran Hostages were released Jan 20th 1981, on the first day of Reagan's presidentcy.

The Iran Contra Arms for hostages scandal was 1986 well into Reagan's 2nd term.

Do you just make shit up?

[Malika]

OK, yes, my bad, that was a different hostage rescue by Reagan involving Iran. This one was solved by military extact-wait, checks notes, I'll come in again!

[Magister]

Illegal arms sales to Iran began in 1981 with the approval of the Reagan administration.

[OtisAH]

Yes, and Carter received exactly zero credit for the try. It’s cute you’re giving him that nod, though. And I’m certain that credit comes from your heart and reasoning and not just you trying to use that situation to ding Biden in this one.

[David Nieporent]

Um, we knew where the hostages in Iran were.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Rescuing Americans from kidnappers seems a better casus belli than an open-ended intervention to bring democracy to resistant nations, or some other wars by the U. S. whose legitimacy could be questioned.

Let Congress declare war. Rescue the hostages and seize and arrest the perpetrators. Then depart, whether Gaza has been democratized or not.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I have admittedly been considering this situation in a vacuum, as if we're a country which only goes to war to defend its own specific interests, not to fulfill ideological fantasies. In other words, I'm not sure if we even have the money to send a rescue expedition to Gaza, or what it would mean in the context of all our other commitments. Or how to work with Israel as a cobelligerent. But in principle, fighting to rescue kidnapped Americans strikes me as totally legitimate.

[David Nieporent]

It is entirely legitimate. And entirely infeasible in this instance.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Perhaps so. If so, the inability to get into a fully justified war is due to all the *unjustified* wars and military commitments we’ve got.

[Bob from Ohio]

"What the fuck do you think Biden could do, to get them home? "

Qatar is a "major non NATO ally" of the US and also Hamas's chief patron. We just let Qatar into the visa waiver program.

Strong arming/convincing our ""major non NATO ally" would be a good way to "get them home".

[Commenter_XY]

A shameful aspect here is sm811 (and people like him) throwing up their hands and saying, in effect, 'we can't do anything'. What?! Those are Americans he is cavalierly hand-waving away.

If our POTUS and military aren't interested enough to go in and extract Americans who are being tortured by Judeocidal kidnappers, then who are they serving?

It comes down to: Do more, Do better. And bring them home.

[Sarcastr0]

Commenter:
'Something should be done. No I don't know what something is. But I will blame the Administration for it. Also, how dare you disagree with me, you must not care about American lives.'

Do you see why people find this reasoning kinda shitty?

[Commenter_XY]

No, I don't. Illuminate me, Gaslight0.

[Sarcastr0]

Your premise is flawed. A well known fallacy, actually.

And you lash out at everyone who points it out with empty emotionalism.

That's shitty.

[Commenter_XY]

What's the premise, Gaslight0?

That POTUS Biden is incompetent and should do more to get American hostages back home -- guess what? That happens to be true. POTUS Biden should do more, and do better.

[David Nieporent]

The premise is that there is something more or better that can be done. That is likely to work. That is more likely to work than to get the hostages killed quicker.

[Commenter_XY]

Doing nothing guarantees their torture and death, David.

We have to try. What does it say when you don't even try?

[David Nieporent]

"We must do something. This is something; we must do it!" — but that was a joke.

In any case, your premise that we are "doing nothing" is also faulty. Did we get American hostages released in other situations without sending in troops? Yes.

[Bob from Ohio]

I just told you "something" we could do. But Commenter_XY is criticizing your boy so he's being "kinda shitty".

[Commenter_XY]

Next, Gaslight0 will act as the tone police, and issue you a summons, BfO. Please act properly chastened and try not to laugh too much when that happens. 😉

[TwelveInchPianist]

"‘Something should be done. No I don’t know what something is. But I will blame the Administration for it."

Sure. We pay the Administration a lot of money to figure out what should be done.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Wow, you somehow managed to make it about Americans...

[Stephen Lathrop]

I have commented previously about a seeming incongruity in American constitutionalism. I said there seemed not to be enough in the Constitution to support continuous activities of the jointly sovereign American people to exercise their undoubted power to control government, and make it do their will. That seemed to me to be an odd lapse in the founders’ typically systematic structuring of American governance. It is a lapse recently made more pressing by erosion among members of government, and especially among the judiciary, of the role of Constitutional separation of powers.

On reflection, I think the MAGA crisis, and particularly Trump’s election denials, point to an error in my previous view. I think now that the government itself has all along featured a means expected by the founders to provide means more direct, and likely more powerful than separation of powers, to effect the jointly sovereign people’s will. That means was the founders’ reliance, now apparently misplaced, on oaths sworn by elected office holders, by government officers, and by members of the military.

In former times that reliance was sometimes tacit, but also sometimes enforced, by laws against oath breaking. Neither reliance seems applicable today to the conduct of too many government personnel.

Perhaps changes in religious attitudes, or decline in social strictures to enforce honorable norms of conduct, have something to do with present-day lapses in that power of direct government constraint by the jointly sovereign people. If so, it is past time to correct that, by renewed legal enforcement of the various oaths which condition exercise of government power.

As soon as it is possible to assemble political power sufficient to do it, Congress ought to pass, and the President ought to sign a new law to define oath breaking, and to punish it as a federal crime. At a minimum, that definition ought to include election denial, properly detailed, by any sworn office holder. It ought to demand concessions after election losses, and continuous acknowledgement by word and deed thereafter. It also ought to specify an oath to support the Constitution to be sworn anew by every contestant for any state or federal office, as a condition of ballot access. And it ought to include a code of ethics for members of the judiciary which defines criminally enforceable misconduct.

To anticipate critics who might assert such an oath would too much burden expressive freedom, please consider that the oaths in question would apply only to members of government who exercise government powers, and only during the duration of their service. Everyone else except defeated candidates for office would remain at liberty to deny election results, or advocate whatever other government activity they think best comports with the jointly sovereign people’s will.

But those in office could not do that. They would be sworn to serve that will, at least insofar as election results and existing federal laws are concerned, and to comport their advocacy with that service. Except, of course, that members of legislative bodies and the executive branch must remain at liberty to advocate changes in the laws.

The role of the judiciary to advocate legal changes, or to overturn laws passed by congress as unconstitutional, ought to be more tightly constrained than it is presently. It is one thing to have judicial power to say what the law is. That must continue. It is another thing to presume to say judicially what the law must be. That has to stop, and the judicial oath should be construed to prevent doing that.

To that extent, the judicial oath could reinvigorate the other principal means by which the jointly sovereign people have constrained their government, by the separation of its powers among the branches.

[Commenter_XY]

Logorrhea aside, what are you actually proposing this time....

Sounds like you favor jailing politicians who do not follow through on their oaths? Who decides that? Is there a trial? Unanimous verdict, or is a simple jury majority needed?

lathrop, with respect, please read the very first word of 1A. Then re-read your latest contribution and revise. 😉

[Stephen Lathrop]

There was a slight edit I made, but you seem to have beat me to the post. This is not a reply to your comment, just calling attention to a mention of defeated election candidates.

To reply to your comment, oaths are specified already in the Constitution. The Necessary and Proper Clause thus empowers Congress to enforce them. Given that the oaths are mandatory, the notion that to enforce them violates expressive freedom is paradoxical and ridiculous.

As for enforcement, politicians, like everyone else subject to federal criminal enforcement, would enjoy grand jury protection, due process, right to a jury trial, and requirement for proof beyond a reasonable doubt. That would make prosecution and conviction rare and difficult, except in cases of flagrant violators such as Trump.

[Brett Bellmore]

In a rare case, I have to defend Lathrop: The Oath clauses were not meant to be empty formalities, and Congress could indeed give them teeth. It is expressly empowered to judge the qualifications of its own members, and could give them teeth for members of Congress that way. It is expressly empowered to impeach, and could do it that way, too.

And it could do so by enabling legislation, as he suggests, making oath violation a felony. At least for federal officers...

[Commenter_XY]

Impeachment and removal from office is the enforcement mechanism.

[Brett Bellmore]

It is "an" enforcement mechanism.

[Frank Drackman]

oh right, you and your stupid Constitution

[Krayt]

We've seen it abused wrongly for attempted political removals (apparently a-ok, have at it, I guess) the last 3 times.

Proposals to make this easier among Congress will make this worse, in a be careful what you wish for way.

If we are going to have fantasies "we", for various definitions of we, will remain in control, and thus control of that power, we will not need it.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Krayt — People in Congress would be among the principal targets of anti-oathbreaking laws. There seems little likelihood they would be over-zealous in tailoring legislation so coercive against them personally.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, if things actually worked that way in this country, our politics today would look very different. Political prosecutions are normally reserved for people who are viewed by the establishment as 'troublemakers', and equally guilty establishment members are just ignored.

[Stephen Lathrop]

XY — Not for members of Congress.

Moreover, there is an obvious need for criminal penalties, which impeachment has no power to inflict.

[Commenter_XY]

Congress can expel their own members, and have.

lathrop, you are doing wonderfully channeling your inner totalitarian this morning.

[Stephen Lathrop]

XY — Your notion is that the Constitution is totalitarian? Ben Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and James Wilson were totalitarian?

Admittedly, Washington and Jefferson, as major slave owners, joined many anti-federalists in the South as advocates of a peculiarly American style of totalitarianism. In that respect, they resembled Locke himself.

But Locke was no libertarian. He invested in the slave trade, advocated dispossession of indigenous Americans, and proposed mandatory permanent indentures for the English poor, in England. Locke also wrote a charter for South Carolina, with an eye to make Barbadian-style plantation slavery safe for the planters in SC. It was by that route that the most horrific version of slavery became the standard model across America's deep South. On the plus side, no Americans except those planters have ever enjoyed such unfettered personal liberties.

More generally, when you slip into the habit to accuse of totalitarianism every critic of your hyper-rationalist, rights-before-government, advocacy, you become a crank. Try to be more engaged, and more thoughtful.

[Commenter_XY]

Well, to be accurate, my original notion is you suffer from logorrhea.

Then I stated that impeachment was the correct enforcement tool to use (for Executive, Judicial branch) and remove them from office. And Congress can expel members who violate their oaths (and have).

Good luck with lathropistan.

[David Nieporent]

Lathrop is not wrong that Congress can make it a criminal offense to violate the federal oath of office. Where he's wrong is (a) in essentially treating such a law as self-executing; and (b) being crazy about what that oath entails. As to the second, no, challenging the result of an election verbally is not oathbreaking. As to the first, he doesn't actually say that, but without it, we just have politicians enforcing the law against other politicians, which is not going to happen.

[Commenter_XY]

Imagine life in lathropistan, David. Alice in Wonderland comes to mind. 🙂

[Stephen Lathrop]

Niepoorent, as much as you would like to have it otherwise, federal grand juries are not, "politicians." Neither is due process inherently anti-liberty, nor a burden on expressive freedom.

And of course a candidate who continues to assert he won an election, after he has been properly certified the loser, is breaking his oath to support the Constitution. A certified election outcome is not some legalistic loose fish, perpetually at risk of being put back in play. It is an exercise of the defining power of sovereignty, the constitutive power. That is a power the collectively sovereign People exercise at pleasure, and without constraint. Any losing election candidate who does not concede, but instead tries to keep the question open, has thereby entered into a contest against the People themselves for the nation's sovereignty.

[David Nieporent]

Niepoorent, as much as you would like to have it otherwise, federal grand juries are not, “politicians.”

Federal grand juries are not self-appointed free floating bodies who can take action and enforce it. They must be convened by judges, their subpoenas enforced by courts and law enforcement, their indictments prosecuted by prosecutors.

And of course a candidate who continues to assert he won an election, after he has been properly certified the loser, is breaking his oath to support the Constitution.

Do you see where you first started begging the question? (I helpfully emphasized it for you.) And, no, "of course" is not an argument.

A certified election outcome is not some legalistic loose fish, perpetually at risk of being put back in play. It is an exercise of the defining power of sovereignty,

The supposedly sovereign people don't certify election outcomes. Government officials do.

[Kazinski]

So Kamala Harris and Joe Biden should go to jail for violating her oath of office for proposing to violate the constitution by implementing gun control, and social media censorship, and the apprpriations clause to give student loan relief through executive order?

[verochkax]

They belong in concentration camps.

[Malika the Maiz]

Lil’ Nazi troll is all worked up today!

[David Nieporent]

Yawn. You're not even trying.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Kazinski — Perhaps it would make sense to distill from that brew of particulars a general principle to include in the definition of oath breaking. If you find that impossible to do, then I think the answer to your question must be, "No, no jail time for folks who do stuff like that."

You seem to have missed the point that the founders did not intend by specifying oaths to criminalize politics. Exactly the opposite, actually. They intended to facilitate politics as the principal means to conduct the nation's public business. To do that required institutionalization of specific principles, and the oath requirements were intended as a corner-stone of that effort.

[DaveM]

Hoo boy, I don't think anyone will be happy if we truly attempt to go down this particular path. What DO you do when your own government fails to enforce the laws it is sworn to uphold? As a recent example, what can be done if your government allows millions of people to cross your borders without a visa, "surrender" themselves, and then declares them to be here legally -- to say nothing of even paying to have them relocated and housed at public expense?

There are two remedies, and they are powerful: Vote them out of office or impeach them. We don't need more than that.

[verochkax]

It's easier said than done when there are 100 million citizens who hate whites and support their non-white brethen abroad than their alleged fellow citizens.

[Stephen Lathrop]

DaveM — The two remedies you mention have been effectively circumvented, with the circumventions empowered by oath breaking . The voting-out was circumvented by gerrymandering for the House, and partisan corrupt oath breaking on the Supreme Court, to make politically partisan gerrymandering an unassailable legal feature of American constitutionalism.

Impeachments have been circumvented by oath breakers in the House, the Senate, and the Supreme Court. The latter has intervened to make it easy for would-be oath breakers to dodge subpoenas, both from Congress and from the courts.

It is not my contention, however, that laws against oath breaking would necessarily have deterred oath-breaking miscreants already in office. It is my contention that laws against oath breaking would deter such miscreants from seeking office, or in many cases from achieving office if they tried for it.

Your comment seems motivated to further empower government capable to escape constraint by the jointly sovereign People. You would be wise to reconsider.

[Heedless]

Even assuming that your (highly tendentious and partisan) assumptions hold, what makes you think that a law against oath breaking wouldn't be circumvented by the exact same people who circumvent impeachment and voting out?

The Supreme Court is the ultimate arbiter of what is legal and what is not. Passing another law isn't going to do anything to reduce their power, and would (again, assuming your characterization of them is accurate) merely provide them another tool to reward their friends and punish their enemies.

The truth is that the voters are the only pale who have the power to rein our government in, and only when they choose to. The fact that the voters mostly believe that lying and corruption are less important than supporting their team is frustrating, but it's also not fixable by making party breaking illegal. The voters still won't care, and neither will the politicians.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Heedless — For pity's sake. There is not a syllable of partisanship in anything I have said on this subject. Every bit of my advocacy ought to apply alike no matter which of two (or more) parties holds office.

The rest of your comment seems about as reflective as the partisanship bit.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Can you offer at least a rough draft of the key test of the law you’re proposing?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Noscitur — To answer that requires more discussion than I have time for now, but your question deserves an answer. Check the next open thread. I may make it a stand-alone comment subject there.

[Malika the Maiz]

Old Man Trump

“Mr. Trump, at 78, is now the oldest major party nominee for president in history and would be the oldest president ever if he wins and finishes another term at 82. A review of Mr. Trump’s rallies, interviews, statements and social media posts finds signs of change since he first took the political stage in 2015. He has always been discursive and has often been untethered to truth, but with the passage of time his speeches have grown darker, harsher, longer, angrier, less focused, more profane and increasingly fixated on the past.

According to a computer analysis by The New York Times, Mr. Trump’s rally speeches now last an average of 82 minutes, compared with 45 minutes in 2016. Proportionately, he uses 13 percent more all-or-nothing terms like “always” and “never” than he did eight years ago, which some experts consider a sign of advancing age.

Similarly, he uses 32 percent more negative words than positive words now, compared with 21 percent in 2016, which can be another indicator of cognitive change. And he uses swearwords 69 percent more often than he did when he first ran, a trend that could reflect what experts call disinhibition. (A study by Stat, a health care news outlet, produced similar findings.)

Mr. Trump frequently reaches to the past for his frame of reference, often to the 1980s and 1990s, when he was in his tabloid-fueled heyday. He cites fictional characters from that era like Hannibal Lecter from “Silence of the Lip” (he meant “Silence of the Lambs”), asks “where’s Johnny Carson, bring back Johnny” (who died in 2005) and ruminates on how attractive Cary Grant was (“the most handsome man”). He asks supporters whether they remember the landing in New York of Charles Lindbergh, who actually landed in Paris and long before Mr. Trump was born.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/06/us/politics/trump-speeches-age-cognitive-decline.html

[Dr. Ed 2]

90 is the new 60.

[Krychek_2]

If Trump is elected, his aides will prop him up, give him a crate of whatever he drinks, let him play on is I-phone all day, and all actual decision making will be done by his underlings. It will be the last year of Diane Feinstein all over again.

God forbid there's an actual crisis that requires an engaged president.

[Brett Bellmore]

So, no different from the Biden administration, except different underlings?

[Krychek_2]

So, you're saying that *continuing* to have an unengaged and demented president is a good thing?

And I actually do think Trump is worse than Biden. At this point I'm not sure Trump can even distinguish truth from falsehood any more.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, I'd much rather have an engaged and undemented DeSantis for President. Ideally an engaged and undemented Rand Paul, if I'm dreaming. I'm just going to settle for a disengaged and demented President whose underlings aren't out to destroy liberties I treasure.

Not that Trump is any worse today than Biden was 4 years ago. He's always been a rambler.

Of course you think Trump is worse than Biden. You like the policies Biden's underlings pursue in his name, and dislike the ones Trump's would pursue. I perfectly understand that; Neither of us cares as much about the condition of the President as much as we care about what policies get implemented.

[Krychek_2]

OK so you're willing to risk a demented president driving the country off a cliff to ensure that children don't have health care. Got it.

[Sarcastr0]

Yes we all know you'd rather someoneo other than Trump. But also Trump is innocent of everything and his policies both clear and great and mentally he's fine, actually, and we need someone as willing to bend the rules as him to get the liberals under control.

[SimonP]

I’m just going to settle for a disengaged and demented President whose underlings aren’t out to destroy liberties I treasure.

What a bunch of hogwash. There are no "liberties" that you can properly be said to "treasure," apart from gun rights. I've probably read hundreds of your comments by now, and you seem primarily motivated by a reactionary grievance, revenge, and spite. I've seen nothing to suggest that you have a coherent or committed "libertarian" outlook.

As I put it elsewhere: Your conception of "liberty" is nothing more than being free to live your life as you see fit, while also permitting others to live their lives as you see fit.

[Krychek_2]

I have thought about what my own response would be if that shoe were on the other foot. Suppose that in the last year of her life, Diane Feinstein had somehow managed to secure the Democratic nomination for president and were running against a competent Republican with policies I abhorred. What would I do?

You never know what you will actually do until you're in that situation, but I would hope I would not vote for Feinstein. I may not vote for the Republican either, but affirmatively voting to put the country in the hands of someone not mentally competent is, for me anyway, a bridge too far. Sometimes putting the country first means swallowing hard and accepting an unpalatable option.

If Harris wins, you'll have four years of policies you don't like and you can try again in 2028. If Trump wins, there is a real risk the American experiment will be over for real.

[Brett Bellmore]

If Harris wins, I'll have four years of policies I REALLY don't like, including all-out attacks on basic civil liberties.

And some of those policies may very well end of bearing on whether we can really try again in 2028.

[Krychek_2]

Women who want bodily autonomy may disagree with you over which party is the party of civil rights. If it's your body that's been seized for nine months, that's a pretty big one.

[SimonP]

If Harris wins, I’ll have four years of policies I REALLY don’t like, including all-out attacks on basic civil liberties.

When Trump's more troubling, liberty-attacking campaign promises are presented to you for defense, you usually say, "I'm not worried, our institutions will protect us" (despite the fact that an express part of the platform is to dismantle those very institutions). Why wouldn't that apply to any dreaded Harris presidency?

In any event - what "all-out attacks on basic civil liberties" do you suppose are in the offing?

[bernard11]

all-out attacks on basic civil liberties.

Except for guns, which is the only civil liberty you really seem to care about, Trump is miles worse on civil liberties than Harris. He has, for example, called for the arrest of journalists, and of anyone who has opposed him politically.

[Malika]

"He’s always been a rambler."

Biden's always been a rather dim gaffe machine. It's not much of a defense to say "I'm going to vote for the guy who has always dementedly rambled!"

[OtisAH]

Ah, yes, everybody’s choice for Top Libertarian of the World, Ron DeSantis. Such a libertarian is he. Libertarian to the marrow. If you cut DeSantis, he bleeds Liberty. If you squeeze DeSantis, he oozes freedom. If you put DeSantis in a blender you get a perfectly layered red, white and blue slurry that forms the face of a founding father after you pour a glass.

[Commenter_XY]

I thought Chase Oliver was the top libertarian of the world.

[Don Nico]

What do you mean "any more"?

[Krychek_2]

Point taken.

As someone else said, we've gone from George Washington, who never told a lie, to Richard Nixon, who never told the truth, to Donald Trump, who never knew the difference.

[Swede425]

Your sudden concern, missing these last few years, for an engaged and undemented president, whose underlings won't be propping him up and lying to the American people, is duly noted.

[Krychek_2]

I'm going to assume you're new here so you didn't see my two years worth of comments that Joe Biden should not run for re-election.

But even if that weren't the case, are you saying that *continuing* to have an unengaged and demented president is somehow a good thing?

[Joe_dallas]

Krychek
Those comments didnt show up until after the june debate. Most every leftist commentator here was denying Bidens mental decline until the June debate including you.

[Krychek_2]

My own position for the past two years has been Biden should not run and I'm pretty sure I said so here. Until the June debate I did not realize the extent of his decline, and neither had other "leftist commentors." But the main point is that once the extent of his decline became apparent, his entire political party leaned on him to step aside.

So what's your excuse with Trump? Trump's decline is apparent and has been for quite some time. Where are the calls within the Republican party for him to step aside? Where are the conservatives going to him and telling him he's not up to the job?

As between the two parties, it's clear as crystal which one was the responsible adult once the facts became known, and it ain't the GOP.

[zztop8970]

Do you ever wonder why it is that you, and other “leftist commentors" did not realize the extent of his decline, while among conservative and libertarian commentors its was not just common knowledge but widely and derisively discussed?

[Krychek_2]

So what's your excuse with respect to Trump and his decline? Why isn't the GOP treating him the same way the Democrats treated Biden?

In answer to your question, you're trying to make "did not realize the extent of his decline" do far more work than is warranted. Nobody thought he had the mind he had when he was 30; the question was whether he had gone so far downhill as to no longer be up to the job. That question was answered in June, and once it was, his party went to him as a body and said Joe, it's time to go. When are the Republicans going to do the same with Trump?

And I don't know for a fact that this is true, but it would not surprise me if, before the debate, his underlings knew how the debate would play out and intentionally let him go through with it specifically so he could then be pushed off the ticket. The point is, though, at the Democrats are not running a demented old man; the Republicans are. What's your excuse with respect to Trump?

[Joe_dallas]

Trumps level of decline isnt even remotely as bad as Biden's was in 2020.

[Malika]

"Trumps level of decline isnt even remotely as bad as Biden’s was in 2020."

Yes, it's far worse, not remote at all.

[Joe_dallas]

Malika 6 mins ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
“Trumps level of decline isnt even remotely as bad as Biden’s was in 2020.”

Yes, it’s far worse, not remote at all.

Maliki
You are not dealing with reality, nor are you even trying to deal with reality

[Sarcastr0]

Joe does his restate what he said and claim those who called him on his ipse dixit aren't connected to reality.

[Malika the Maiz]

That’s our joe!

[zztop8970]

I don't believe I've defended Trump here , or elsewhere, and I don't play whataboutism games.
The question remains - how is it that you were surprised by Biden's decline, as were those who assured us, on the eve the debate, that he was "as sharp as a tack", and those on the other side weren;t.
GIve it some thought,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kKUye23KBQ

[bernard11]

how is it that you were surprised by Biden’s decline,

Same reason Republicans won't acknowledge Trump's incoherence, irrationality, wild babbling, and general lack of mental capacity. (It doesn't matter if it's a decline or steady state. He's plainly mentally incompetent, on top of being an ignorant bigot.)

Lots of people see what they want to see, a flaw not restricted to Democrats.

[Magister]

Because conservatives, and conservatives posing as libertarians, were claiming incontrovertible mental decline when Biden was defeating Trump in debates and giving effective State of the Union speeches. In short, they made it up for political reasons, and now they have to pivot frantically away from their "don't vote for the old guy" strategy.

[David Nieporent]

Because conservatives, and conservatives posing as libertarians, were claiming incontrovertible mental decline when Biden was defeating Trump in debates and giving effective State of the Union speeches.

They were also inventing imaginary drugs that can temporarily cure dementia.

[Sarcastr0]

Hey zz –

I’m too much of an institutinalist to make a good leftist, but I reject your framing here.

Biden had lost a step; that the extent had become an unacceptable risk was evident at the debate. It was not evident before that. Rather the opposite in fact, considering the results he was getting from meeting with GOP leadership, one of who directly shared any concerns. And the State of the Union was a banger.

The right yelled about it and shared 15 second clips that were disingenuously cut.
That is not evidence. The right took it as evidence, but objective factual judgement is not their thing these days.

[Krychek_2]

To quote Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republicans were losing to a guy who couldn't find his pants.

[zztop8970]

It was very evident before that, to anyone paying attention.
I don't know what drugs they pumped him up with for the SOU address, but evidently their ability to correct things diminished.

[Bob from Ohio]

"It was not evident before that."

LOL Way to burn your credibility dude!

[zztop8970]

If in fact Trump was losing to a guy who couldn't find his pants, why the rush to unceremoniously dump that guy?

[Krychek_2]

zztop8970, I believe her comment was directed to Biden consistently getting what he wanted from Congress over GOP opposition. Whether he also would have won re-election is a question that will never be answered, and one opinion is as good as another.

But even if he had, why would the Democrats not want a candidate who isn't suffering from mental decline?

[Sarcastr0]

“It was very evident before that, to anyone paying attention.

I don’t know what drugs they pumped him up with for the SOU address, but evidently their ability to correct things diminished.”

This is beyond unsupported to just made up. And an appeal to incredulity is a fallacy that should cause you to interrogate your own priors and why you aren't bothering to provide what evidence you used to become so confident.

I thought you were better than this.

[Commenter_XY]

Biden had lost a step; that the extent had become an unacceptable risk was evident at the debate. It was not evident before that.

You have a future in comedy. This was pure comedy gold.

[Sarcastr0]

Utter lack of engagement.

Putting you on mute for a bit.
You're really sucking out loud today.

No one who uses shitty political nicknames is really interested in discussion.

[David Nieporent]

Do you ever wonder why it is that you, and other “leftist commentors” did not realize the extent of his decline, while among conservative and libertarian commentors its was not just common knowledge but widely and derisively discussed?

Because those same people were making the claim in 2020, when it was obviously false.

There's an accusation that such-and-such economist predicted 10 of the last 3 recessions. If one says the same thing over and over, one will eventually say it at a time when it's true; that doesn't show that one was insightful.

[Joe_dallas]

"Because those same people were making the claim in 2020, when it was obviously false."

DN are you still believing the leftist propaganda from 2020

[David Nieporent]

Maybe try balancing your checkbook and leave the facts to actually qualified people?

[Swede425]

His decline was apparent for years.
It was certainly commented on for years by people who weren't blind or lying to themselves.
This whole "OMG! Where TF did this dementia come from?" after his disastrous debate with Trump is the poorest of fig leaves.
Harris certainly knew. The MSM, too. They had faith that the "right" people were calling the shots so nothing to worry about.
But because enough people saw the debate and how dazed and confused Slow Joe actually is, we now have a literal DEI hire and her cut and run clown replacing him.
"Responsible adults" didn't do that. Panic and desperation did.

[Malika]

"His decline was apparent for years."

As is Trump's now. Are you blind or lying about it?

[Swede425]

So, the new strategy is Trump is senile, like Biden?
Work it, baby.
I guess "Weird" didn't pan out.
Joe gets lost on stage and has to be led away. And it's never soon enough.
Trump gets shot on stage, jumps up and tells his supporters to fight.
They're not the same. Not even close.

[Malika]

Many senile folks are weird.

"Trump gets shot on stage, jumps up and...says 'Let me get my shoes!'"

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

"So, the new strategy is Trump is senile, like Biden?"

Only one of them is currently running for President...

[SimonP]

This is completely false. Biden ran in 2020 as a one-term president, due to his already advanced age. In the run-up to his announcing his intention to run for re-election, there was widespread commentary and polling showing that people did not want him to run again. Once he announced, mainstream media continued to pound on that message, right through the primaries: But he's so old!

By the time of the debate, the party apparatus had consolidated behind a Biden run - resigned to the expectation that he'd probably lose to Trump - and the media had largely tapped the well dry and moved on to other topics. The debate just re-invigorated that earlier discussion and alarmed donors to an extent they hadn't previously been.

[Malika]

I will disagree on a few points.

1. Biden never clearly said he was going to be a one-term President, but it was assumed by lots of his supporters in 20. This was an error as Biden's life story is one of really, really wanting to be President.

2. Biden was sailing through the primaries because I think most Democrats thought that despite his limitations he would still beat Trump. I mean, that guy was a deranged, obese convicted felon.

3. Around the debate there was a general nervousness among Democrats. I think a huge misconception is that most of them were thinking that Biden was somehow incapacitated in the 25th Amendment sense. Rather I think most felt that Biden was not the person to "take it to" Trump. It was much more a loss of vim and vigor thing. And at the debate he proved it. His weak fumbling of the abortion question was, to the Democrats I spoke with, the final straw. This was not someone who could generate the enthusiasm and counter to an increasingly realistic chance of fascism.

[SimonP]

When we voted for Biden, in 2020, it seemed like he would be a truly transitional president - move on from Trump, Trump would fade, the fever of MAGA would die down into something more normal. Again, Biden was pretty old even back then. I don't think anyone was wrong in thinking he would abide by that expectation.

Democratic voters supported Biden through the primaries largely for lack of alternatives. No one wanted to take a shot at the candidacy, as long as Biden was in the race, because history shows that such challenges usually fail and just weaken the incumbent. But the polling throughout that whole period was consistent: Biden was too old. We wanted someone new. Biden was the one whose decision to stay in the race precluded us from choosing otherwise.

Your third point is basically just what I said.

[Swede425]

LOL!
Dude just won his primary. Again.
Unlike the current clown show they replaced him with.
Where was his primary challenge if people were so worried?
Status quo was just fine. The apparatchiks love it. Biden's their favorite fake Irishman, all folksy and easy to handle.
Of course, when Joe has to stand up there all alone there's nobody on the planet that can save him. Hell, if they just hid him in the basement (again) and said no to any debates he'd still be the candidate. Woulda, shoulda, coulda.

[Malika]

"said no to any debates"

Like Trump now?

[verochkax]

Who cares? Vance would be a very competent, conservative President, even if this is true.

It's not analogous to Biden, as Cumala is only competent at letting older men shoot of in her mouth.

[SimonP]

Vance is a 100% artificial candidate, clearly modeled after the kind of right-wing populist authoritarian candidates that have seen success in Europe, like Viktor Orban.

Conservative voters in Europe like these leaders, because they retrench conservative social values, channel public money into rural districts where they live, and shut down room for debate. Meanwhile, progressives and outsiders look on these candidates with some concern, because they typically consolidate power (by manipulating the judiciary, shutting down unfriendly media, ban opposition parties and make it harder to win elections against them) and engage in massive corruption.

That is what you're looking to get, with Vance. Trump's corruption, while pervasive, is solipsistic, ad hoc, even in a sense amateurish. Vance promises to make corruption institutional.

[verochkax]

It's rich hearing a leftist talk about corruption with the Bidens in charge.

[SimonP]

What corruption? Do you mean the "corruption" that the Republicans just forgot about entirely, when Biden dropped out? That corruption?

[verochkax]

No, I mean weaponizing the DOJ for political purposes

[SimonP]

The same DOJ that has pursued charges against Biden's son, a New Jersey senator, and the NYC mayor?

Meanwhile, here's a list of enemies that Trump pushed the DOJ and IRS to investigate:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/09/21/us/trump-opponents-investigations.html?searchResultPosition=6

[MoreCurious]

It's rich hearing verochkax pretend that Trump and his family aren't the most corrupt in presidential history.

[Joe_dallas]

Malika -The democrat party were active participants in hiding Bidens mental decline which was vastly worse as early as 2020 than the level you are describing with trump in you comment , yet its suddenly important

[SRG2]

It clearly wasn't as bad in 2020 as Trump is now given how Biden defeated Trump in the debates then.

But regardless of what the Democrats did or didn't do, their candidate is not presently suffering from major cognitive decline, and the GOP's candidate is.

And you have conceded as much in deflecting to what the Democrats did rather than addressing Trump's current state - which even you could admit is worse than Kamala's.

Also you watch almost nothing but right-wing "news" so it's unlikely your opinion is grounded in reality.

[Malika]

Every accusation is truly a confession!

[David Nieporent]

Malika -The democrat party were active participants in hiding Bidens mental decline which was vastly worse as early as 2020 than the level you are describing with trump in you comment , yet its suddenly important

The bookkeeper shows his advanced medical knowledge yet again!

[mulched]

Why are you making fun of someone's job again? What an ass!

[santamonica811]

Do you get the sense that "bookkeeper" is an insult? I saw it as descriptive, in the "you're educated in ways that don't translate to political knowledge" sense.

If a medical doctor, with an additional 7 years of specialized training made some idiotic point about politics here, it would be like observing, to him, "Get back to your liposuctions and tummy tucks." Just a shorthand way of indicating that a person can be extremely knowledgeable in one area, while also being rather dumb a different area.

YMMV

[David Nieporent]

I do not think that being a bookkeeper is an insult. The point is that he keeps pretending to expertise he doesn't have (and until recently, did not reveal what his actual profession was). If a doctor said, "Oh, yeah, Enron was obviously a fraud; anyone who couldn't see that years before it collapsed was an idiot," I would indeed say something along the lines, "Get back to your liposuctions" to him.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Is he a bookkeeper?

[santamonica811]

I hope so, otherwise I don't see how the comment fits. (If he had written, "Get back to your job digging latrines." or "Get back to your job as a crash test dummy." then the insult makes some intuitive sense.)

[David Nieporent]

I believe when he finally revealed his background he implied he was a CPA, and I expect that bookkeeper is a mildly insulting term in that context. But certainly no more insulting than his comments.

[David Nieporent]

Joe_dallas has conspicuously failed to provide any evidence whatsoever in support of his claim that there was any problem with Biden's intellect in 2020. He's been challenged repeatedly, but all he can do is rant incoherently that it was obvious.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

He learned it in high school.

Someday he might even graduate.

[Jerry B.]

And if Trump wins and then goes 25th Amendment, you get J. D. Vance, who's always wrong.

[Commenter_XY]

For my Tribe Friends...

L'Shanah Tovah Tikatevu V'taihatem
May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year

There is much critical self-examination (Cheshbon Ha'Nefesh) happening during the Days of Awe (myself included). I really hope that your 5785 is better than your 5784, and that brighter times are ahead.

PS: I personally have extra 'Al Chayt' prayers to say this year

[Dr. Ed 2]

Heels Up is advertising in the Boston media market, which includes NH -- she's bought AM radio ads.

I don't think I have ever heard a Presidential (as opposed to Primary) candidate advertise here before.

HOW bad are her internal polls????

[John F. Carr]

She may have more money than she can spend on high impact ads.

[Krayt]

Right after she lost in 2016, Hillary was accused of spending her time out west chasing her 340th electoral vote when she should have been in the midwest chasing her 270th.

Never so much money as to waste it on deep blue states.

[bernard11]

Yes. And I am among the accusers. I think she let ego get in the way of sound strategy - get the win, don't worry about trying to run up the score.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's never a smart move to believe your own supporters' trash talk, and both parties have been guilty of that in recent years.

But I think a factor in 2016 was that she combined in one person both extraordinary competence at the mechanics of politics, (The way she rooted the DNC to secure the nomination was terrifying.) with genuinely negative personal charisma.

She and Bill were the two halves of an unbeatable politician, but neither was that impressive by themselves.

Of course, in 2016 it was looking to be either Hillary or Bernie, and that's about the only reason Trump had a chance. In 2020 he had a successful record going for him, all the worst case scenario claims were off the table, but while Biden had always been a gaffe machine, he was also an experienced politician and personally affable.

And it was still a close thing.

I'll continue to think that nominating Trump this year was a mistake, even if he pulls out a victory. Democrats know how to run against him now, and have put in 8 hard years of lawfare against him. A change of candidates would have rendered all that hard work wasted.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Well, it is the NH market -- and that Governor's race is getting nasty.

[bernard11]

OK Ed.

I'm willing to bet that Harris carries both MA and NH.

What odds do you want? Should be attractive to you since her polls are terrible (you think.)

[David Bremer]

It could also be a strategy to generate additional donations. For all we know, the ads could be a request to contribute to her campaign.

[Dr. Ed 2]

It will be interesting to see what Team Hamas does today.

[Commenter_XY]

This is what hamas was doing earlier today

https://www.timesofisrael.com/nation-marks-moment-oct-7-onslaught-began-as-major-hamas-rocket-barrage-said-foiled/

[Frank Drackman]

Lots of unanswered pages

[Malika the Maiz]

Some Good News

“Overdose deaths appear to be declining sharply in the United States, a sign that efforts to combat the scourge of lethal fentanyl may be paying off even as experts caution that the toll remains unacceptably high and could rise again.
Preliminary data compiled by states and released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show a 10 percent drop in deaths during the 12-month period ending in April 2024, with about 101,000 people succumbing to overdoses.
Public health officials and researchers said the decline could reflect multiple forces, including widespread availability of the overdose-reversal medication naloxone, greater access to opioid addiction treatment and law-enforcement crackdowns on illicitly manufactured fentanyl, which had become the leading killer of 18-to-49-year-olds.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2024/10/07/overdose-deaths-decline/

[Commenter_XY]

That is good news.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Fentanyl, not guns

[Frank Drackman]

Also opiate addicts develop tolerance, which is why Hunter would need a Jerry Nadler/Christ Christie sized Heroin/Oxycodone/Fent-a-nol dose to OD

Frank

[windycityattorney]

Worrying trend in the midwest: fentanyl is showing up in methamphetamine samples. So meth is being cut with fent. Which is somewhat counterintuitive...as meth is a stimulant. But the fentanyl side effects/cravings and sickness (think heroin withdrawal) makes the users even more likely to become daily users vs weekend warriors.

Meth addiction really took out what used to be the crack addicted populations. Powder cocaine is still around but not much crack because meth (in smokeable form) is cheaper than powder cocaine which can be freebased/inhaled.

[Malika the Maiz]

Do You Dream in Color?

“While dreaming in black and white is not uncommon, many people dream in color much of the time. A 2017 study showed that participants reported color in nearly 50 percent of their dreams, with black and white dreaming reported only 10 percent of the time. For 40 percent of the dreams, dreamers could not recall whether there were any colors.

The tendency to dream in gray scale or color may be influenced in part by age and when people grew up. Up until the 1950s, research suggests, a large majority of people surveyed said they only occasionally, rarely or never dreamed in color, referred to at the time as “technicolor” dreams in the scientific community. That seemed to change with the advent of color TV.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2024/10/04/dreams-color-black-and-white/

[Brett Bellmore]

Most of the time I don't recall whether I dreamt in color, but why would I? Unless color was relevant to the dream, I'd not notice.

Actually, it goes a bit further than that: Dreaming does not, after all, involve any actual retinal input; Essentially, your high order feature recognition systems have their gain turned up so high that they turn noise into recognized images. Unlike normal vision where there is an image, and it's recognized, here there is recognition without any underlying image. The system is working top down, instead of bottom up.

So normally only visual features relevant to the dream would even exist, to be remembered. If color isn't relevant, it doesn't exist.

[Krayt]

The memories reconstructed would be based on color inputs.

I think I have had both, not really sure. You're talking recalling memories of reconstructed virtual problem solving holodeck adventures based on real world visual inputs.

[santamonica811]

Brett,
Tonight, as you go to bed, say to yourself for a full minute, "I will dream in color; I will dream in color; etc." Have a pencil and paper by your bed. If you wake up during the night (or, when you wake up in the morning), it's very likely that you will remember enough of your dream(s) to note if they were in color or were in B/W.

It's one of the things I studied and researched when in psych grad school, a lifetime ago. More than 90% of subjects were able to remember this, when self-primed to focus on this aspect of dreaming. Post back tomorrow with an update. And if you want to be extra nice to me, also give your approx age (ie, within 5 years of your actual age), as this seemed to have the largest impact, as has already been noted, earlier.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm actually quite good at lucid dreaming, but you only remember your dreams if you wake up during them, and I honestly value getting a good night's sleep more than remembering my nightly hallucinations.

I suppose now that the subject has been raised, I'll dream in color tonight, but hopefully won't recall it, on account of sleeping soundly.

It's actually kind of creepy knowing you're routinely having conscious experiences that you don't have any memory of...

[Bob from Ohio]

"participants reported "

Science!

[Sarcastr0]

Is this coming at social science?

Because the advertising industry and their focus groups might want a word about the utility and reliability of self-reported perceptions.

[Bob from Ohio]

Social sciences are not science. Hasn't the replication crisis made any impact on you?

"advertising industry"

"Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” John Wanamaker (1838-1922)

[Sarcastr0]

The replication crisis is focused on medical science. I don't work for NIH, who basically prices out anyone trying to wedge in there.

A lot of social science is descriptive, not predictive. That helps attenuate the replicability issue. It’s still there, of course. Like in every other field of science. Because science is difficult.

Consensus among lots and lots of business people is that advertising works. It’s applied social science, albeit more phenomenologically derived than foundational.

Maybe it doesn’t! But the burden would seem to be on you.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Consensus"

Oh, well that's different, science is always decided by consensus after all.

[Sarcastr0]

Now you're going against capitalism.

OK Comrade.

[hobie]

In the ghost gun case before SCOTUS (Garland v. VanDerStok), I don't see any amici from traditional gun manufacturers. Presumably, ghost guns can eventually put all traditional firearm manufacturers out of business, forcing all you gun nuts to get your guns in kit form at the 7-11. I suppose any amici by gun manufacturers would make the hayseeds go ballistic.

Also, over the past two years, young children across the nation have been buying, assembling then shooting each other with ghost guns. If SCOTUS rules these parts harmless objects, there will be no prevention whatsoever from kids obtaining these weapons

[verochkax]

That "young children have been buying, assembling then shooting each other with ghost guns" is complete and utter bullshit.

[hobie]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/07/12/teens-ghost-guns-deadly-shootings/

"Jul 12, 2023 — Dozens of teens have bought, built and shot ghost guns in recent years, and a federal attempt to regulate sales has faltered."

You were saying...?

[Brett Bellmore]

Wow, dozens in an undisclosed number of years. It’s an epidemic! Soon it will rival teens struck by lightning!

[hobie]

It's a nascent industry, Brett. Give it time

[Brett Bellmore]

It's the usual: Obsess over a rare cause of death that's so rare it doesn't even happen every year, and blow off more frequent causes of death, because you're just looking for an excuse to attack a civil liberty you don't like, not trying to save lives.

Yes, it's a nascent industry, and you want to quash it before it makes your dreams of disarming the public even more obviously infeasible.

[hobie]

As of today, I'm actually for it. It will bring down the gun industry, gun nuts will more easily shoot each other, and will darwinize our stock of loser children

[Brett Bellmore]

It's not going to bring down the gun industry, short of somebody coming up with a consumer level 3d printer capable of micron tolerances in durable materials like steel, and if you had something like that which actually operated cheaply, (Maybe the hypothetical nanotech fabricator.) the firearms industry would be the least among the industries dying out.

[hobie]

Gun nuts just want the ability to shoot things. Whatever accomplishes that the cheapest and with the least hindrance will eventually win

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, just like speech nuts just want the ability to say things, and press nuts just want the ability to print things.

Just like anybody who values a civil liberty just wants to be left alone to exercise it, so long as they don't harm anybody else.

[Michael Ejercito]

Irt is like they reject the concept of civil rights.

[ThePublius]

It's not the "gun nuts" shooting each other, it's the hoods - the gang bangers, mostly black "teens" in Dem-run cities, people involved in illegal enterprises like the drug trade, and so forth. The "gun nuts" are remarkably peaceful.

[Z Crazy]

Operation: Ceasefire explains it.

https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/how-the-gun-control-debate-ignores-black-lives/80445/

Instead, the violence often starts with what seems to outsiders like trivial stuff — “a fight over a girlfriend, a couple of words, a dispute over a dice game,” said Vaughn Crandall, a senior strategist at the California Partnership for Safe Communities, which did the homicide analysis for Oakland.

Somebody gets shot. These are men who do not trust the police to keep them safe, so “they take matters into their own hands,” he said. It’s long-running feuds, Crandall said, that drive most murders in Oakland.

Men involved in these conflicts may want a safer life, but it’s hard for them to put their guns down. “The challenge is that there is no graceful way to bow out of the game,” said Reygan Harmon, the director of Oakland Police Department’s violence reduction program.

[verochkax]

You realize that this stock of "loser children," as you describe them are going to be disproportionately black and Hispanic. Your party's pets.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Hobie, most of these "children" are Black teenagers in gangs.

So you want to eliminate Black males.
OK, you do remember who also wanted to...

[Frank Drackman]

They can’t all be aborted

[verochkax]

As expected. Nearly all of the examples in the article were 16 or 17 year olds (and one was in fact 18, and not a child at all). Nobody reasonable would describe them as "young children."

[Dr. Ed 2]

19 is still "teen."

[verochkax]

Yes, but that's not what Hobie said.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, it's a typical problem with the way these statistics are "binned".

The Major Causes of Death in Children and Adolescents in the United States

1-4, 5-9, and 10-19. Four years for the first bin, five for the second, and TEN for the third bin. All so that they can pretend that legal adults are children for statistical purposes.

If you look at an actuary table, which is sensibly binned by 1 year intervals, you can see that the death rate at age 19 is THREE TIMES higher than at age 15; They've binned together very different groups!

[Frank Drackman]

The Washington Post/Bullshit? it's Bullshit
and before you insult yourself/me, remember what happened to Tyler Durden

[David Nieporent]

You were saying…?

That article does not support any aspect of your original claim, starting with the fact that "teens" are not "young children." In fact, it lists only three times nationwide since 2019 when a teen (one of whom was 18) might have assembled a "ghost gun."

[Brett Bellmore]

Probably more like 99 and 44/100ths percent bullshit; It's possible that there was one case on the East coast, and one on the West. , and so trivially plural and across.

[verochkax]

I consider a young child to be pre-teen. So I'd be surprised if he could find even one case on each coast.

[Brett Bellmore]

For gun control purposes, anybody under 20 is typically referred to as "a young child". They need to sweep up as many gangbangers as possible, after all.

[verochkax]

When I still practiced law, I was an M&A transactional attorney. I'm a firm believer in the idea that when using the language, superfluous words should not be used. If every child is a "young" child, then there's no reason to use the "young" adjective. If used properly, "young child" can only properly be a subset of "child." Since the conventional definition of "child" is "minor," and thus "under 18," a 17 year old cannot be a young child.

[Krayt]

In advertising, especially of food, every item is required to have an adjective, as it's advertising.

It should not surprising the same technique is used here, as it is a kind of advertising.

[verochkax]

Advertising for what? Tyranny?

[Malika]

Were 20 year olds considered to be children before 1971? It was common for state laws then to consider anyone under 21 to be a minor for various purposes.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Still is. Alcohol, Marijuana, handguns...

[ThePublius]

+1

[Brett Bellmore]

I seriously doubt gun manufacturers have anything to fear from ghost guns: Most are considerably inferior to commercially made firearms, and the ones that are comparable are more expensive. I suppose eventually 3D printing could get good enough to give them a run for their money, but not any time soon.

But, yeah, you're not going to see the firearms manufacturers go to bat for a competing source of firearms, it's not really in their economic interest.

And, yet, plenty of amicus briefs from the usual sources, which you will pointedly NOT notice demonstrates that they aren't gun industry astroturf.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore — the likely impact of 3D printing will be to enable precision fabrication of jigs and fixtures to enable amateur machinists to get industry-standard quality from ghost gun kits. Let that technology run unregulated, and specialist machines will become commonplace—optimized to be inexpensive, while performing a few ghost gun tasks to high standards.

Then, the only remaining barriers to fully professional quality from a ghost gun kit will be metallurgical, and absence of the benefits of forging and heat treating in the materials. Those advantages can likely mostly be added in at the kit stage.

I will leave it to others to grapple with the question whether pre-forging materials prevents or even inconveniences minor machining operations. I suspect that with the exception of welding, flame cutting, and plasma cutting (probably not gun kit requirements) no machining operations on a pre-forged and heat treated gun part are likely to diminish its quality.

[Brett Bellmore]

I do a fair amount of 3d printing, as well as being a mechanical engineer and having some experience as a machinist. Precision and 3d printing are not two terms I'd normally associate.

The issue here is cost; While it's certainly possible to do precise firearms fabrication at home, and even achieve match grade results from a totally home fabricated firearm, mass production can achieve the same results much more cheaply. It really only makes sense to manufacture at home if you want to get something that's not commercially available, or a lot of the value to you is exactly that you DID build it yourself.

The "not commercially available" property might be the lack of traceability, or just that nobody's actually making the particular gun you want.

I think technology is trending in a direction which will eventually end up with self-contained system that can built anything that's buildable and for which the plans are available, but barring Drexlerian nanotechnology working out, such systems are more likely to be the size of a factory than a desktop.

[Commenter_XY]

If 2A gets emasculated, I could see a lot of 3D printing happening, thereafter.

[Brett Bellmore]

If the 2nd amendment gets emasculated, look for them to go after home machine shops next.

[Noscitur a sociis]

The technology that would enable 3D-printing guns at a similar cost to traditional manufacturing would revolutionize society in ways much more profound than access to 3D-printed guns.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Perhaps, but I doubt it. For the reason that if it became possible to do, it would replace now-traditional technology as the standard method of industry. By advantage of economies of scale and marketing expertise traditional manufacturers would likely continue as before.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, think about this: What would most likely happen is that people would own their own "matter printers", and simply purchase designs, or perhaps subscribe to large libraries of designs.

But unlike physical products, designs are non-rivalrous. They're more like recipes than food.

Look at what goes on with recipes today: Sure, people still buy cook books, but you can find recipes for almost anything online, paid for by nothing more than the hope that you'll glance at an ad or act on a brand recommendation. The marginal cost of obtaining recipes is essentially zero.

The impact on society of the designs of everything from firearms to toasters being obtainable at essentially zero cost would be incredible. Set aside the economic effects for a moment, what would happen to all sorts of regulatory efforts by government, when to have the design of something was, for all intents and purposes, to be able to have the physical object?

It would make a total hash of current regulatory approaches, because regulatory compliance assumes centralized manufacture, choke points at which the design of stuff can be controlled.

Obviously the current fight over censorship would be turned up to 11 or 12, because government regulation would BE censorship.

Look at what's going on right now with the fight by the government to treat plans for guns as something they can regulate ownership and distribution of as though they were actual firearms. And imagine that fight spreading to EVERYTHING.

[Moderation4ever]

Interesting musing but I am not really sure if this ever meets up with reality. There will be a market for guns in kit form and for printed guns, but I don't see this ever being a large part of the market. It is far simpler for the average person to purchase an assembled quality firearm. I doubt that the average person even cares that the gun has some traceability. I really think you are talking about a limited market of conspiracy nuts, criminals, and yes underage purchasers. I doubt major firearm companies are worried. That said, no businesses like competition and so the absence of amici briefs might not be unexpected.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm pretty sure your admittedly limited market also includes enthusiasts who just want to build it themselves to the extent they can. People have been building their own guns as a hobby thing for as long as there have been hobbies and guns.

[Frank Drackman]

Still have the AR-15 I built in 1989, now my friend (yes, I had "friends") was a genius, he built FAL's, I gave up at the beginning where the "Inch" or "Metric" decision had to be made. Of course the receiver had to be (originally) purchased through an FFL Dealer, but you could get them dirt cheap at gun shows (AlGore hadn't invented the Internets yet) from peoples who bought them and realized building a gun from a parts kit wasn't as easy as it was depicted

Frank

[Brett Bellmore]

I've got the plans around here someplace for Robert Stewart's Maadi-Griffin .50 BMG rifle. I was seriously going to build one, until I realized that my half-mile deep lot wasn't enough to provide even a challenging range for it, let alone a safe backstop.

[Moderation4ever]

Sorry that I missed them, but I don't think it changes the number much.

[OtisAH]

I think you’ll find a broad consensus of people here who will agree that your child’s life is a small price to pay for my freedom.

[Michael Ejercito]

This was something Paul Harding pointed out.

https://www.quora.com/How-can-a-gun-enthusiast-still-claim-their-right-to-bear-arms-is-more-important-than-public-safety/answer/Paul-Harding-14

All of your Constitutional Rights come at the cost of safety.

For example, you would be much safer if I could search houses, cars, and people whenever I wanted to, for any reason, or no reason at all. I'd catch more real bad guys. You know those stories about creeps who keep sex slaves locked in their basements for years? I'd find those victims and rescue them. That neighbor of yours who might have a meth lab that is going to send poisonous fumes into your child's bedroom window, or explode and burn down your house? I'd find out for sure whether a lab was there.

How about all those guys who are probably child molesters, and we've got some evidence, but it isn't enough to convict in front of a jury, especially with that defense attorney throwing doubt all over our evidence? Those guys are on the street right now, and a child you love may be their next victim.

Give up your rights under the 4th, 5th, and 6th amendments, and I'll make the world safer for you. No question about it.

The only problem is that if you give up all those rights, which are really just restrictions on the things I'm allowed to do to you, what's going to keep you safe from me?

Every right you have increases your danger from other people who share that right. Free speech? It allows monsters to spread hateful messages, possibly about a group to which you belong, just the same as it allows you to petition your government with legitimate grievances.

That free speech even allows you to argue in favor of discarding freedom and liberty as just too dangerous to trust in the hands of ordinary people. Now that, my friend, is what scares me - that people with opinions like that will spread them to weak-willed individuals who haven't really thought through the consequences. I won't argue for taking that right away, though, despite the dangers. That would be even more scary than you are.

Yes, some people in a free society are always going to abuse those freedoms. Criminals are going to hide behind the 4th amendment to conceal the evidence of their crimes. People who commit horrific acts are going to hire excellent defense attorneys who can convince a jury that doubt exists. And, yes, some people are going to use guns to commit murders.

Freedom is scary, but lack of freedom is scarier.

[OtisAH]

Yep, there it is. Of course, freedom of speech, the press, and religion were far more important for the founders, but they wore wigs!

If I can’t buy the parts for and assemble a gun, all of our freedoms are lost. So fuck your kid, I gots guns to buy!

[Michael Ejercito]

So you feel that cops should be able to rummage through your stuff on a whim?

[Ed Grinberg]

“All of your Constitutional Rights come at the cost of safety.”
What was it that Supreme Chancellor (soon-to-be Emperor) Palpatine said to Anakin Skywalker? Go forth, kill all the Jedi, show no mercy. And then, when the Jedi are all destroyed, and the Sith have absolute power, “we shall have peace.”
Don’t be fooled: it’s that sort of “peace” / “safety” that gun-controllers seek.
There’s nothing that’s worth giving up your freedom for.
If you follow OtisAH’s advice and give up your freedom to the government (for the sake of “your child’s life”), how sure are you that the government will indeed safeguard it? Even if the government itself has no designs on “your child’s life,” how sure are you that it will act against those who do? What if, for some reason, it prefers their wellbeing to that of your child? (I’m specifically thinking back to May / June of 2020, right here in the Twin Cities. I’m also thinking of the government’s more recent failure to interdict untold numbers of illegal border-crossers, and the many cases where no action was taken against such illegals even after they committed crimes against Americans.)

[Michael Ejercito]

Never forget.

The same side that attacks the 2nd Amendment is the same side that calls for decarceration, defunding the police, and supported California's Proposition 47.

https://www.newsweek.com/you-can-have-gun-control-you-can-defang-police-you-cant-do-both-opinion-1794484

But you simply can't demand both that people relinquish their guns and that the police be denuded of the power to protect them from criminals. It's impossible to square calls for more gun control with the positions many of the advocates making those calls hold on matters of policing and criminal justice. Existing gun regulations are essentially meaningless empty threats without the will to enforce them, and additional restrictions would be rendered even more superfluous by efforts to actively undermine the very institutions tasked with such enforcement.

What these people want are neither locking up street thugs =or gangbangers nor defunding the police,.

They only want police whose sole purpose is to persecute their political enemies.

[windycityattorney]

IL has some of the strictest gun laws in the country. We also eliminated cash bail, legalized weed and are doing some other things red states would consider 'soft on crime.' I think you are missing the point on 'defunding the police.' Nobody is talking about actually defunding the police force. We will still have plenty of cops. They are talking about supplementing the police role (and yes diverting some of the funds that would otherwise go to police agencies) with professionals who would work with the police to deal with things like mentally ill and homeless populations.

You can send a cop to de-escalate someone with active psychosis but they will likely end up resorting to physical violence when the person doesn't respond (or responds nonsensically) to the police yelling commands at them. If they had a social worker with experience in dealing with schizophrenia with them, maybe a less violent encounter could be the result. Our jails house many mentally ill people and the C/Os are often not trained to deal with them as in our state, they work for the county sheriff office and are police officers, not mental health professionals.

If the cops have one less bearcat or riot vehicle because of this so be it. The point is to let cops do their jobs that they trained for and let other professionals do their job they are trained for. Cops doing shit they are not trained for is unfair to both them and the people they come across. It's a bit of common sense really.

[Brett Bellmore]

" Nobody is talking about actually defunding the police force. "

Well, not anymore, they aren't. They absolutely were a few years ago until it blew up in the faces of the communities where it was tried.

[Sarcastr0]

'they' sure is a conveniently flexible term.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Defund" is an unfortunately accurate term that they only ran from when it worked out badly.

Yes, they actually wanted to take funding away from the police. And put it into doing things other than enforcing the law.

[Sarcastr0]

From your links, it looks like you've made my point. Your they is a pretty niche group you're using the ambiguity in 'they' to generalize massively about.

It's nutpicking, and it's not a good argument.

[David Nieporent]

In addition to what Sarcastr0 wrote, the second link doesn't even endorse it. The only use of the word "defund" is a link to an article in Bloomberg.

[Brett Bellmore]

What do you think YOUR point is? Unless it's that "Defund the police" meant reducing spending on law enforcement, I'm not making your point.

[Sarcastr0]

My point: "‘they’ sure is a conveniently flexible term."

IOW, your argument is bunk. Which you then established for certain right next.

What did defund the police mean? What does Make America Great Again Mean? Different things to different people. You know, like slogans do.

[Bob from Ohio]

"diverting some of the funds "

Defunding in other words.

[bernard11]

All of your Constitutional Rights come at the cost of safety.

There is a difference between giving up some of my own safety in return for rights. That my safety is threatened by the 4th Amendment, say, is part of the price of receiving its protections.

But that's far from giving up someone else's safety to secure your own rights, which I think Otis is complaining about. Would we care as much about drunk driving if the only person ever harmed were the driver himself?

[Brett Bellmore]

A right you don't want to exercise is still your right.

The major problem here, though, is the persistent failure to recognize that the people you'd most effectively disarm are the habitually law abiding who cause the least problems with guns, and the people you'd least effectively disarm are the habitually law violating who cause most of the problems.

Almost all gun crime is the doing of a tiny fraction of the population, and they're the fraction of the population least responsive to gun control laws.

So you'd abolish almost all the benefits from gun ownership without touching the downsides.

The other issue, of course, is that it's widely understood that gun control is unconstitutional. You're not going to make that understanding go away just by packing the Court into reversing Heller.

So you're going to drive a simply enormous number of people to become law violating, because they won't feel any obligation at all to obey an unconstitutional law aiming at violating a basic civil liberty.

Especially given the widely understood purpose of the amendment as deterring tyranny: Any attack on it is self defeating, because it increases the perception that it's needed!

[verochkax]

Obama and Harris represent an alien, anti-American presence in the government.

It wasn't always this way. Democrats like JFK and Bill Clinton were not traitors who hated white men.

[Malika]

White fragility can look very sad.

[Frank Drackman]

Whites still make up 87% of the current major parties candidates for POTUS/VPOTUS

[bernard11]

87%?

[Armchair]

Worth reading. Compares the federal Response to Katrina to Helene.

https://thefederalist.com/2024/10/04/comparing-helene-to-katrina-suggests-americans-are-left-to-die-because-democrats-run-the-white-house/

[Dr. Ed 2]

Where the hell are the USCG Helos?

[Longtobefree]

Attending a DEI conference. That is the number one priority.

[Frank Drackman]

Umm, on the Coast??

[Dr. Ed 2]

GW Bush ordered a lot of them to New Orleans in response to Katrina, it was USCG chopping people out of attics and doing marine rescues (which is what they are equipped and trained for).

I remember someone speaking in front of a helo that was assigned to Cape Cod, and NC is at least 500 miles closer to MA than LA is.

[David Nieporent]

Where the hell are the USCG Helos?

Probably guarding the coast. Duh.

[Armchair]

"Probably guarding the coast. Duh."

Huh, wonder who made that decision? Here there are thousands of stranded Americans who desperately need rescue choppers in Tennessee. And the Coast Guard, who has all those rescue choppers.

Might make a sort of sense to, oh, repurpose some of them temporarily from the coast to rescuing the civilians that need help now in the mountains.

Or Sleepy Joe and David here can go "Nope..."

[Moderation4ever]

The Governors of the affected area and the local newspapers seem to be happy with the response they are getting. Why go with an armchair quarterback's opinion?

[Armchair]

They don't seem happy...

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp slams Biden admin for not doing enough on Hurricane Helene disaster declaration

https://nypost.com/2024/10/03/us-news/ga-gov-brian-kemp-slams-biden-for-response-to-helene/

[Moderation4ever]

Let me counter with

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/4908016-georgia-kemp-biden-hurricane-helene/

[jb]

In your own article:

“So we called the White House. We spoke to the president’s chief of staff, the FEMA administrator and said, look, you’re sending the signal that you’re not paying attention to some of these rural communities,” the Republican governor said.

Immediately after he made the call, Kemp said, White House officials added an additional 30 counties to the declaration — and he noted that FEMA could add more if needed.

“I absolutely think we will have a lot more counties added. We’re at 41 right now and I could see it going anywhere from 70 to 90,” Kemp said.

On Thursday, Biden told reporters it’s likely all of the Peach State will be made eligible for FEMA aid.

“I imagine every county in the state will be approved,” the president said.

And the article also notes that Kemp called Trump out on his bullshit:

During his own trip to Georgia Monday, Trump stoked further controversy over Biden’s phone when he claimed the president wasn’t picking up calls from Kemp – saying he was “sleeping” instead.

“[Kemp is] calling the president and hasn’t been able to get him,” Trump said, later repeating the claim during his trip, according to the Guardian.

But Kemp refuted Trump, insisting Biden had even called him the day before.

“The president just called me yesterday afternoon and he just said, ‘Hey, what do you need?’” Kemp told reporters.

“He offered that if there’s other things we need, just to call him directly, which, I appreciate that.”

[Armchair]

You seemed to ignore the first part.

"Kemp – whose state has seen at least 25 deaths from the storm — vented about having to call the White House and request additional parts of Georgia be added to President Biden’s disaster declaration.

“When the first emergency declarations came down, there was only 11 counties in that. A lot of people were outraged, including me, because there was such devastation in up to 90 counties,” Kemp told WRDW."

[Sarcastr0]

Really getting in the weeds here about resource allocation.

Good thing you're an expert in disaster response.

[Armchair]

Well, we know where the FEMA money REALLY went..

$1 Billion on Joe's "illegal" immigrants.

https://www.newsweek.com/fema-migrant-funding-hurricane-disaster-relief-1963336

Gosh, wouldn't that have been better spent on disaster preparedness in the Southeast? Even just a fraction.

[Sarcastr0]

Lame pivot, and that's not how the federal budget works - it's not one big ole pot of money.

Feel free to read ML getting bodied over and over again on this exact issue below, lol.

[Brett Bellmore]

FEMA disaster relief monthly obligations

I have to ask: Why would FEMA be spending any money on Covid 19 at all, at this point? Apparently they're STILL paying funeral costs for anyone who dies of Covid until the middle of next year.

How exactly is this emergency relief? Covid hasn't been an emergency in years now. It barely made the top 10 last year.

Maybe the problem here is mission creep.

[Sarcastr0]

Opening up a whole new front doesn't really burnish ML or Armchair's arguments.

Your new goalposts are utterly different, bespeaking a lack of faith or interest in picking up on the discussion.
You are arguing about Covid stuff. And calling out a specific program. Which is a different scale with a different set of people involved in the decision making.
A whole new discussion, really.

[Sarcastr0]

LibsofTikTok is not credible, but even assuming she’s not shading the truth or outright lying, her objection to Covid-related support is shallow. What’s the economic impact? Is there an executive order?

Nah, just gonna complain without really digging in.

There is, of course, plenty of government waste. This could be bad. Or reasonable minds can differ. Or it's pretty clearly good to all but cranks. But it’s easy to complain when you don’t bother to get the whole story.

[Magister]

FEMA will continue to provide COVID-19 funeral assistance until Sept. 30, 2025, which is the date identified by Congress in the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 appropriation.

Maybe the problem is Congress; was FEMA or Congress more dysfunctional in 2023 when the pandemic emergency ended?

[jb]

Yeah, and then he called them and they fixed it. What a scandal!

[hobie]

Unless I’m missing something, all these affected states have been completely run by Republicans for decades. Don’t these states have their own agency, or are they just helpless babes reliant on the Feds?

[SRG2]

You're not supposed to point this out. FEMA are supposed to come in and fix all the states' own disaster-related situations, before heading back to DC where the Republicans can go back to opposing funding and saying that the Federal government doesn't work, states' rights, etc.

[ThePublius]

That's bullshit! From 1977 through 2013 North Carolina had Democrat governors. Why do you make up shit?

[Frank Drackman]

Because he is literally Shit, why do you think Hobie-Stank?

[Bob from Ohio]

"1977 through 2013 North Carolina had Democrat governors."

Plus the current NC governor!

[ThePublius]

Tell me about the Democrat-run states that are NOT reliant on the federal government for disaster aid and relief. New York? (super storm Sandy) Massachusetts? California?

And what Dem run state has its own Coast Guard, and Emergency Management Agency with helicopters, trailers, supplies, and so on?

Waiting.

[hobie]

Last I heard, roads, power and water infrastructure were the exclusive dominon of the states run at the behest of their legislatures

[Dr. Ed 2]

Yea, they have three helicopters -- maybe a half dozen with a couple in the shop at any given time (you'd be amazed at the required hours of maintenance). They need a hundred and only the Federal Government has that...

[jb]

It's kind of funny to read this, actually. I'll paraphrase:

"I think it's bad that the military mobilization isn't as big for Helene as it was for Katrina. This made me wonder what the cause could possibly be. I, an obvious partisan, also double-checked my thinking with my [presumably also mostly obviously partisan] followers on X to make sure I wasn't missing anything.

So here are some theories. I am going to declare one of them only technically true (but c'mon! Biden could just strongarm the governor of North Carolina if he wants) and various of them 'improbable' with no supporting evidence whatsoever, which leaves us with only one possibility left, which is that Biden, Harris and the governor of North Carolina are all working together to suppress the votes of people in rural North Carolina. What else could it be?????"

Yeah, that was a very thoughtful comparison of the responses indeed.

[Commenter_XY]

But Armchair, the important thing is to protect the feelings of the tender egos of FEMA staff. Just ask their boss.

These federal bureaucrats are utterly incompetent. It is a national embarrassment.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Buttplug won't let PRIVATE helos go in to help.

[hobie]

The Black Nazi should chime in on this if true

[bernard11]

What are you talking about?

The whole FEMA criticism is just a lie made up by Trump, yet you, and the federalist, gleefully spread it without the slightest hesitation.

It's scummy. Maybe, in this time, one of the things you should reflect on is how eager you are to repeat lies and slander honest people, and why you choose to serve Trump at the expense of being truthful.

[Commenter_XY]

Watch her interview, bernard11. Her own words condemn her. Her utter incompetence is on display before the entire world.

[Sarcastr0]

You keep just stating this and appealing to some frankly over the top rhetoric.

That's not arguing, it's just asserting.

[Commenter_XY]

https://x.com/tomselliott/status/1842966349372338301

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Well the interview certainly condemns you and your bullshit lies you love to spread.

Shocking how you've found yet another woman to demonize with your misogyny.

[Malika]

When the Federalist feels like it has to use the qualifier "suggests"....

[Moderation4ever]

I have no illusions this country will ever move away from the Electoral College, but I am still disturbed by what I see happening. Here in Wisconsin, we are getting weekly visits from the candidates because we are one of a few swing states. Every other commercial is political. I just wonder what it must be like for a person in a state that is being ignored because its outcome is already decided? I would certainly like to see a Presidential race that is competitive in more 10% or 20% of the country.

[verochkax]

I’d be thrilled to move to a popular vote only provided that we had common sense, reasonable restrictions on voting.

[Nelson]

No you wouldn't. With the Electoral College, we are approaching 40% of the country (by population) controlling 60% of the Electoral College.

If we went to popular vote/direct democracy, a conservative wouldn't win the White House for a generation or more. It would take that long for conservatives to give up on their minority-opinion culture war bullshit and start addressing the actual concerns of the electorate.

[hobie]

Don't despair, bro. Ol' Somin's foot voting is coming to pass. Texas, Georgia and Arizona made the mistake of encouraging non-redneck industries to move into their states. They'll be reliably blue in a few years

[Krayt]

Or nearby states drove them out. So they flee then start voting for that which they fled.

It's like Little Orphan Annie and her friends fled that orphanage with that horrible woman, only to pull up in the new one, asking they hire someone similar.

[Nelson]

Yes, the thing that is well-known about the states around Georgia and Texas is how blue they are.

[Ed Grinberg]

Texas, Georgia and Arizona made the mistake of encouraging [sophisticated] industries to move into their states. They’ll be reliably blue in a few years

Here's a reader's comment on a 2018 Wall Street Journal op-ed talking about "college-educated single women" being reliable Democratic voters:

Let me fix your story: "especially college-liberal-indoctrinated single women." What I've noticed in my community is an influx of "college-educated single women" who have run away from the expense and crime of [Democrat-]controlled cities, but not from the exact same politics which created what they're running from in the first place. So how "educated" is that?

[Malika]

One immediate reason this comment seems goofy is whether you're in a red or blue state the major cities are "[Democrat-]controlled."

[hobie]

Of course we need to also take into consideration that draconian abortion laws may drive the Blue women from the states (white flight)

[Commenter_XY]

M4e....you do not like the attention and TLC from the candidates?

Pres Trump was in Juneau yesterday.

[Moderation4ever]

He has actually been closer to Madison in Waunakee (the only Waunakee in the world, actually). While the attention is nice it does showa big flaw in our selection of a leader? Wisconsinites are getting a lot of attention but we are unlikely to see anyone of the candidates back after the election.

[Commenter_XY]

I live in the Philly Metro area and the 'Air War' is incessant. It is like that for every election.

Just once, I would like to see a candidate be smart, and do thematic series of commercials ion the same topic. Just for variety sake.

Pres Trump is showing up, and asking for votes.

WI is very, very close (within MoE); too close to call.

[hobie]

"Just once, I would like to see a candidate be smart"

You will see this. Buttigeig is inevitable. Your only chance to counter him would be Ben sold-his-principles-for-a-shekel Shapiro. Their debates should me must-see TV. But in the end you'll have to choose the one that has integrity

[Commenter_XY]

Mayor Pete? The Alfred E Neumann sound-alike? Smart? ROTFLMFAO

[John F. Carr]

The European Court of Justice ruled that being a woman from Afghanistan is sufficient grounds to claim asylum in the EU. It is not clear from press coverage whether member states are required to grant asylum or have discretion to deny it.

In theory Europe could receive 20 million more Muslim refugees under this policy. In reality, I think very few.

[Moderation4ever]

Pretty hard to argue with the logic. It seems pretty straight forward that any Afghanistan woman should be able to get asylum.

[John F. Carr]

I don't see it as straightforward in either direction. The decision is a policy choice. Unless you're Ilya Somin there has to be some threshold distinguishing refugees from migrants. Some forms of suffering will fall short.

There are about 200,000 Afghan immigrants of all categories in the United States now, half of them arriving since the return of the Taliban.

[Krayt]

Shouldn't it be policy from the elected officials, not judges making policy?

Or have the officials made broad statements, relying on what passes for other branches to do the dirty work?

Btw, I support inhaling refugees from terrible places.

[Moderation4ever]

I assume the judge is simply applying the standards set by an elected legislative body. Try the reverse logic, what would be a set of guidelines that would allow asylum but would preclude Afghanistan women?

[ThePublius]

That's a stupid and extreme rationale for asylum. It's like saying if the entire culture of a country is bad, then everyone there can claim asylum. It' s not sensible or workable. Fix your own country!

[Moderation4ever]

How many years did we allow Cubans asylum saying the culture of the country was bad?

[John F. Carr]

Cubans have a special place in law thanks to the Cuban Adjustment Act. They need not be granted asylum to get a green card.

[David Nieporent]

"Why didn't the Jews just 'fix' Nazi Germany?" asks very intelligent person.

[ThePublius]

There's a difference, and that's that being a jew is not an innate human characteristic of half the population, in case you haven't noticed.

[Voize]

The Federal Administrative Court of Austria asked the ECJ for guidance on how a collection of treaties and EU directives apply to two Afghan women. You can read the opinion here.

[Sarcastr0]

Reading a bio of Frankfurter. I'm only 10% in so not enough to recommend it or no in the media thread tomorrow.

But he just made it to the Harvard faculty and WWI has just kicked of in Europe.
I was struck by how different a lot of stuff was.

Until a professor had to resign in scandal, he thought he had to endow his own chair. By now a fried with the progressive legal establishment, a bunch of that set kicked in money, including Brandeis who pledged 10K, or over 300K today.

Gave rise to 3 thoughts about that era

1. The wealthy elite had an easy in to drive the intellectual foundation of our country way more than they do today.

2. The robber barons didn't go that rout but the next level down contained plenty of engaged academic and legal elites that were actually already tracking a big government liberal realignment in 1914 that became the New Deal, even if it might be against their interests.
Corporate citizenship before that was even a thing.

3. There was a pretty good intellectual meritocracy at the top at this point in American history, even if socioeconomically less so.
Frankfurter was a middle-class immigrant who was a working student and then civil servant. He was, at least at this point in his career, never independently wealthy, even if those who were loved to come over and talk a whole bunch. And he was very influential.
Note that joining the Harvard faculty was considered an easy, but low-paying life to most of the legal and political luminaries he was asking advice from.

The brief period at the turn of the 20th century until WWI may be my favorite to study. We think of the post-War era as seminal, but a lot of that stuff kicked off decades earlier, when we were smaller on the world stage but had boundless ambition.

[Commenter_XY]

1890-1920 is a fascinating time period; agreed.

Re: 1....One thing we will see in the coming years is the Presidency becoming the exclusive province of the uber-wealthy. The days of a Harry Truman with modest means winning the White House are gone.

That has implications for representative government; namely, will it be representative of the people? Or will the profound disconnect between the governed and those who govern them become wider and more pronounced.

I do not think sufficient attention is being paid to this development. That disconnection was very evident 100+ years ago, with predictable results (social instability).

[Sarcastr0]

I don't think I agree with your prediction re: the Presidency.

Biden wasn't a very wealthy Senator at all. Right wing intimations of secret huge payments and whatnot notwithstanding.

The separation between political power and socioeconomic power continues, but only one way - the rich are now by default politically powerful, but not everyone who is politically powerful is rich.

There is no new or growing disconnect between the governed and those who govern them. As the history we are discussing, we are atually a lot more democratic now than in the past, both culturally and institutionally.

This is very old, and very empty populist 'who will be the tribune of the plebs' rhetoric. It's been a drumbeat in every single generation of our history, and of republics before that too.
And it never ends up actually redounding to any kind power to the populous. Generally, the opposite - it results in some elite or the other taking power and centralizing it for a time cloaking themselves in being 'for the people.'

[Commenter_XY]

There is no new or growing disconnect between the governed and those who govern them.

Sarcastr0, why do you think you ever got a Pres Trump?

It was because of the glaring disconnect; Pres Trump was the inevitable result. I'm surprised you miss that. Well, maybe not, on second thought.

[Ed Grinberg]

LOL
We don’t call him “Gaslighto” for nothing!

[Commenter_XY]

I had high hopes for Gaslight0, but alas, he hasn't the chops. Sad.

[Sarcastr0]

Pointing to a post about hour history over 100 years ago and saying that nowadays is when you think our politicians are too elite and rich...that's not history speaking, that's empty populism.

Empty populism hs zero relation to actual facts on the ground, just feelings. And it is one element of how democracies elect dictators and end themselves. (The main other one being the weakening of civic institutions)

Congrats on being part of the risk factors.

[not guilty]

"We don’t call him 'Gaslighto' for nothing!"

Actually, you do. Does any commenter here actually question his own sanity, memory, or powers of reasoning as a result of anything Sarcastr0 has said?

[Jmaie]

Just because the attempt was unsuccessful doesn’t mean it wasn’t an attempt.

🙂 Jk

[not guilty]

Uh, if no one is in fact gaslighted, there has been no gaslighting. The latter word is a noun, or sometimes a transitive verb. It is not an intransitive verb.

Do those who bark about “Gaslighto” acknowledge a difference between a field goal and an unsuccessful field goal attempt? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8GKmkD1pUG0

[Both Sides]

Let me just say, in a non-partisan, not-specific to any accuser or accused way, that the term “gaslighting” is regularly misused by lots of people. Not Guilty, you have the correct definition.

[Malika the Maiz]

Lol, this guy is a full throated Trump supporter!

[SRG2]

Trump supports the traitors.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/they-were-traitors-republican-slams-trump-for-despicable-and-disgusting-promise/ar-AA1rIXAg

Donald Trump’s latest campaign promise to restore Confederate names to military facilities that have been changed over the last two years drew a sharp rebuke from at least one former Republican member of Congress Friday night.

I am sure that if a German politician suggested returning street names to their Nazi-era names there would be some slight murmurings – and the Nazis weren’t even traitors…

There’s a simple principle. If you argue for such a restoration, or the preservation of public monuments for Confederate leaders in their present public location, you’re a racist and a supporter of treason, and any argument you advance denying it is mere rationalisation. The Germans haven't forgotten who Hitler is just because there are no public statues of him still standing.

[Ska]

One of my greatest/worst social errors of recent memory - on the way from the airport to Munich there is clear road signage for ausfahrts - wait, sorry - for Dachau. To see signs for that destination was chilling and emotionally impactful. I casually mentioned this at dinner - the profundity of seeing Dachau as an exit ramp - to a group of German and Dutch colleagues. It felt like time stopped for a few seconds there.

No, they have not forgotten.

[Dr. Ed 2]

There are American tourists who want to GO TO Dachau, so you kinda have to put signs up for them. Some people want to actually go to where it happened (which is part of why these places weren't bulldozed decades ago).

[Ridgeway]

Uuuuh, there was and still is is a good-sized (pop 50,000) town in Germany called Dachau. That is what the exit sign refers to. The KZ was called Dachau, because it was located in the town.

[santamonica811]

In Poland, Auschwitz is in a village. When you visit the concentration camp in summer, you walk around and you hear the little kids next door shouting and yelling happily as they play. It was the most fucking surreal experience I’ve ever had in my life.

The fact that lots of people have made, and do make, a conscious decision to live normal lives and work at normal jobs in the Auschwitz area, in the 21st Century, a stone’s throw from this sort of place . . . I guess it could say something about humans' ability to move past tragedy, or about our ability to compartmentalize, or about something else. But it’s still so weird for me; I still can’t really wrap my head around it.

[Michael Ejercito]

The whole base renaming idea was stupid.

Here was what my longtime Usenet ally, Christopher Charles Morton, wrote about the issue.

https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/a-few-suggestions-for-renaming-americas-military-bases-currently-named-for-confederates/#comment-4538946

All of the bases should be renamed after Pokemon, Super Mario and Spongebob characters. At least that way the whole thing would be treated with the seriousness that it merits.

[SRG2]

Do you agree that US military bases should not be named after Confederate leaders?

[Michael Ejercito]

They should have the same names they did when I was born.

[Malika]

This is the epitome of conservative thinking these days!

[SRG2]

As I said, "If you argue for such a restoration,[...] you’re a racist and a supporter of treason."

[Michael Ejercito]

Renaming the bases was a mistake, and fortunately it is a mistake that can easily be remedied.

[Malika]

Renaming the bases was a mistake...because they should have the same names they did when he was born.

[SRG2]

They should never have been named after Confederate leaders but this was a mistake that was easily - eventually - remedied.

You would hold that the original naming was no mistake. Ergo you support racists and traitors.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's an old maxim that you oppose the enemy on somebody else's ground, before they reach you, or you end up fighting him on your own territory, and taking damage there.

So, you see a push to tear down every 'problematic' monument, rename everything that's been named for anybody 'problematic', and you look ahead, and if you don't like where you see it going, (These people have some demonstrably crazy ideas about what is 'problematic'.) you oppose it BEFORE they're tearing down monuments on the Mall.

I'd not be personally so horrified that Democrats are determined to rename everything named after the last batch of Democrats, if i had any reason at all to think they were going to limit their crusade to erase the past to their own dark past.

But they're not going to. They're determined that everything that offends them has to go, and everything offends them on SOME level. It's a perpetually moving target, an arms race of outrage, and it has no sensible stopping point.

[Sarcastr0]

What an awful argumet.

You defend Confederate monuments not because you support them, but because you support speculative future pushes to take down monuments.
Those speculative monuments you're sure will be bad to take down. But rather than wait and make that speculatively easier argument, you'd prefer to be stubborn about this one.

Or, your side likes the Confederacy and you're enough of a tribal tool you'll throw in with those white supremacist traitor losers to own the libs.

That seems the simpler set of assumptions.

[Bob from Ohio]

Libs don't really care about dead rebs, it was just a way to bash southern conservatives.

Joe Biden voted to restore Robert E. Lee's citizenship in 1975, he must have liked the Confederacy

[Sarcastr0]

Just because you only do things to own the libs doesn’t mean the reverse is true, Bob.

And going from your unsupported thesis about libs to vastly narrowing your scope to a single dude’s position 40 years ago is not even an argument, it’s a gesture at the idea of making an argument one day.

[bernard11]

Brett,

You can always claim that something you don't like is just the first step on the slope to some vague thing that might happen in the future. It's a stupid argument, in part because it allows no counterargument, in part because it's based on pure speculation about the future, in part because it obviates the need to show that the actual thing being done is a bad idea in its own right.

Further, it is quite often, as here, dishonest. You didn't want bases renamed, monuments taken down, etc. Don't pretend that your only concern was future events.

[bernard11]

I’d not be personally so horrified that Democrats are determined to rename everything named after the last batch of Democrats, if i had any reason at all to think they were going to limit their crusade to erase the past to their own dark past.

This "dark past" business is horsecrap. Yes, the party name is the same, but if you think Democrats today have some deep loyalty to the slaveholders and segregationists who had that name many decades ago you're nuts. There is no such emotional link.

And don't give us any shit about racist Democrats today. It's not the Democrats who are pandering for votes by spreading outright lies about the behavior of Haitian immigrants. It's Trump and Vance, and a hell of a lot of Republicans going along like earthworms. Not many profiles in courage on the right there. It's the GOP that only wants Norwegian immigrants, and finds, or manufactures, excuses for slandering dark-skinned people. Blatantly racist comments here come from your allies, not mine.

So STFU with all that.

[NOVA Lawyer]

To the extent people in these comments throw around the term gaslighting to mean saying obvious untruths with an apparent purpose of trying to convince people of factually batshit things, then Brett has just set the bar for gaslighting.

In a thread complaining about taking down monuments of Civil War era Democrats who chose to become traitors, which is overwhelmingly supported by present-day Democrats and the opposition to which is composed almost entirely of present-day Republicans, he pretends it's today's Democrats who have the closer connection to those traitorous Confederates. What an intellectually dishonest argument, Brett.

And I love how you describe a monument to a traitor or naming a U.S. military base after a traitor as "problematic", scare quotes yours. In what way is naming a U.S. miiltary base after someone who was an actual traitor to the country not problematic (no scare quotes)?

[Brett Bellmore]

Give me a break, it's not like the Democratic party got shut down for a generation, and then somebody came along and decided for some reason to create a new party with the same name. It IS the same party that pursued Jim Crow. There's more continuity there than you like to admit.

You're still the party that rationalizes racial discrimination. You may use different rationales, pick different beneficiaries and victims, but that has remained constant. To this day you're the party of racial discrimination.

And, yes, you want to take that ugly history of when your victims were black, and shove it down the old memory hole. And I'd even sympathize with that if there were the least chance you'd stop there.

But you won't, because you're caught up in an arms race of moral outrage, and every time you win one fight you move onto the next. This impulse to destroy the impure past is one that has no stopping point, it's a perpetual war on everything that upsets you.

[Sarcastr0]

Political realignments are a thing that happen Brett.

You can complain about affirmative action, but Bernard has pointed out that actual out-and-out bigoted appeals? That's the GOP appealing to it's base.

you’re caught up in an arms race of moral outrage
Yea, the real problem with all the racism the GOP is spewing up and enthusiastically lapping up is people pointing it out.

Remember when the Trump War Room posted really anti-black and anti-Latino racist madness and you were all 'this is fake, or at least that account isn't Trumpy?'
Remember when you argued that illegal immigrants have an inherent attraction to other criminal asks based on your gut?

Yeah, can't imagine why you'd dodge moral condemnation.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Lying liars gonna lie.

It IS the same party that pursued Jim Crow. There’s more continuity there than you like to admit.

The South became Republican when Democrats threw in with civil rights and racial equality. Strom Thurmond became a Republican. Jesse Helms, never recanted his support for segregation (and apartheid) became a Republican. Trent Lott praised Thurmond and his Dixiecrat revolt against the Democratic Party…Republican. People who criticize the Civil Rights Act of 1964, primarily southern Democrats of the 60s era and current Republicans….but also Barry Goldwater, Republican. People who want to re-rename military bases after traitors who were 1860s Democrats: current Republicans. People who want to maintain or erect monuments to traitors who were 1860s Democrats: current Republicans.

The literal same people who wanted to maintain Jim Crow and segregation used to be Democrats, yes, but they became Republicans. Maybe you didn’t grow up in the South and are unaware of history so you don’t understand that the actual individuals who used to identify as Democrat and supported segregation are now Republicans who support monuments to traitors.

You’re still the party that rationalizes racial discrimination.

I’m not a party. And I get you don’t like affirmative action. That isn’t a continuation of Jim Crow. Pretending otherwise is just lying.

you want to take that ugly history of when your victims were black, and shove it down the old memory hole.

My victims? And the only people I see trying to ban the teaching of the racial past of the United States are DeSantis and Republicans. By all means, let’s be honest about the 1760s, the 1860s, the 1960s, in the hopes that we won’t have to also have an accounting of the 2060s. You are the one on the side of the memory hole.

every time you win one fight you move onto the next. This impulse to destroy the impure past is one that has no stopping point, it’s a perpetual war on everything that upsets you

I’m losing track. I thought you kept saying Democrats keep harping on the same fight. Now, you’re saying they won on civil rights and racial equality, so they’re looking for something else. That is news to me and would be to most of my friends.

You just say whatever is convenient that day to defend the side you want to defend.

Bottom line: You are defending the Jim Crow era monuments. Not any Democrats. Stop gaslighting with your bad history.

[santamonica811]

I'm a bit depressed at the realization that, some day in the future, there will be a Trump National Airport at some unfortunate city. (Obviously, if I could choose; it'd be either Hooker, OK or Intercourse, PA.). Sadly, both are far too small to support a national airport.

[SRG2]

This is a disguised slippery slope fallacy

[Frank Drackman]

Do you agree that States and US Capitols should not be named after Dead Slave Owners?
I don't

[Dr. Ed 2]

Read Lincoln's second inaugural address -- or what Condi Rice has said about this.

[Frank Drackman]

Like the guy in “Uneasy Rider” I still have my (Real)Georgia State Flag from 1990 in my “Man Cave” (and an Israeli Flag I got in Jew-rusalem in 2008) (No, not in front of my house, I live in the Atlanta MSA, I’m a White Jew, why make yourself more of a target than you already are?)
But I like Honest Abe (an example of somebody who’s done an amazing job and is being recognized more and more), there was a great Twillight Zone “The Passerby” with Dead Civil War Soldiers marching down a road, and of course the last one is Lincoln., who’s favorite tune was “Dixie” and when he was murdered, the only money he had in his pocket was a Confederate $5 Bill.
Yes, you can like the Confederate Flag, the Star of David, and Lincoln to, Life is complicated.

Frank

[Bob from Ohio]

Kinzinger of course.

You are so hard core about the traitors. Much more than the men who actually fought them. President McKinley, a Union Army veteran, appointed two ex-reb generals to posts in the Spanish American War, one in command of the cavalry in Cuba.

Its the worst kind of useless virtual signaling. Congrats, you sure showed Braxton Bragg!

[Malika]

The naming of a base after a person is signaling, the question is, what would you like to be signaled? If Braxton Bragg someone you'd like your kid to be taught was a hero worthy of emulation, or was he a champion of a most regrettable cause and ethos in our nation's history?

[Bob from Ohio]

He was the best Union general in the West because he was so incompetent.

Nobody this century associated the base with the general.

[Malika]

It's not surprising Bob didn't respond because the question was about morality. Might've well have asked a blind man what he thought of the colors in a painting.

I mean, Goering was competent. Should there be German bases named after him today? What would you tell your kid, Bob, is Goering someone he should emulate?

[Bob from Ohio]

I always decline to address dishonest framing.

[Malika the Maiz]

What’s dishonest about asking you if Braxton Bragg is someone you’d tell your kid to emulate?

[Frank Drackman]

Is Mullah Ill-hand-job Omar, Priapism Slap-a-Jap, or Hakeem the Bad Dream Juffuhson someone you'd tell your kid (yeah, right, it's a hypothetical ?) to emulate?

[Frank Drackman]

He fought for the US in a War, did you?

[SRG2]

President McKinley, a Union Army veteran, appointed two ex-reb generals to posts in the Spanish American War, one in command of the cavalry in Cuba.

And the Americans hired Wernher von Braun and other Nazi scientists after WWII. IOW so what?

I am not "hard core" - I am merely endowed with a moral and political sensibility that you evidently lack. That you think that condemnation or disparagement of the Confederacy is virtue signalling tells us all we need to know about you.

[Bob from Ohio]

"tells us all we need to know about you"

Oh dear, I've disappointed someone else here.

[SRG2]

You don't disappoint me. I already knew what kind of contemptible clown you are. If anything, you're doing the opposite - by confirming my previous opinion of you.
'

[David Nieporent]

Its the worst kind of useless virtual signaling. Congrats, you sure showed Braxton Bragg!

Supporting the old names is the worst kind of malicious vice signaling.

[Malika]

"Oh dear, I’ve disappointed someone else here."

It's the kind of signaling he's into.

[jb]

Curious how folks like Brett who thought the big problem in the 2020 was judges and elections officials making changes in election procedures feel about:

(1) The NC Supreme Court deciding to take RFK Jr off the ballot even though he made the request after the deadline, and even though it caused the state to miss the federal deadline for mailing overseas ballots to armed forces servicemembers,

and

(2) The Georgia elections board issuing last minute changes to require hand counting of ballots on election day, despite there being no basis in the law for this and elections officials telling them this is impossible in the time provided.

Less obviously partisan:

(3) Arizona deciding to leave a bunch of people's state voting privileges intact despite them being clearly ineligible by the letter of the law (in that they had not provided proof of citizenship to support their voter registration, but were accidentally grandfathered in).

[SRG2]

“Why then, the case is altered”

[Brett Bellmore]

Actually, all three seem pretty bad to me.

1) Apparently the only time 3rd party/independent candidates catch a break from strict enforcement is when it would be detrimental to a major party candidate.

2) Follow the damned law, and get it actually changed if you don't like it.

3) Just a little bit ambivalent, though; You shouldn't wait until the last minute to require people to fix this sort of thing.

[Commenter_XY]

I don't like any of the three.

[SRG2]

[Kazinski]

Secretary of Transportation Buttigieg just announced 2 million in funding to help South Carolina repair their roads.

Same day Secretary of State Blinken announced 157 million in funding for Lebanon.

Just put in context, Lebanon and South Carolina have roughly the same population.

https://x.com/greg_price11/status/1842381637255917802?t=8I_Yqh3f6GFUePnptnemtQ&s=19

[John F. Carr]

South Carolina needs to get bombed by America or its allies.

This is the premise of The Mouse That Roared. In the years after WW2 it looked like the best way to get aid was to lose a war.

[Malika the Maiz]

What’s the scope of the damage to South Carolina from Helene?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Water deeper and moving much faster from what I have heard.
Fast moving water picks up debris which can be lethal.

[Malika]

You're a nonsensical human being, you know that, right? Are you ok with that being you?

[Kazinski]

South Carolina has the 2nd highest death toll at 48 of the 6 states hit by Helene.

Is that high enough?

[Malika]

Are you as upset that we've spent 17.9 billion dollars on aid to Israel in the last year?

[hobie]

FEMA used its funds on foreigners instead of Americans! (see where I'm going with this?)

[Commenter_XY]

The botched Helene response has hurt the Harris campaign. I thought VP Harris had a decent shot at biting off NC, I no longer believe that to be the case. Robinson's self-immolation in the Gov's race was overwhelmed by the horrid federal response to Helene, and callous treatment of the people in FL, GA, NC, TN, VA by the Feds.

The Mayorkas comment was disastrous. That message - the ROW (Rest Of World) is getting more aid than our own citizens - is resonating very, very strongly throughout the American electorate.

[SRG2]

Apparently Biden sent $2bn to the Taliban from money he took out of FEMA and whatever was left was used to buy fentanyl off Mexican drug dealers entering the US with INS permission.

[Dr. Ed 2]

No, the FEMA money went to house and feed the illegal aliens.

[Malika]

Citation?

[SRG2]

Liar. https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2024/10/04/trump-fema-claim-debunked-agency-not-running-out-of-money-because-of-migrants

[Commenter_XY]

SRG2, it is about perceptions - that is my point about what Majorkas said on national TV. It was ill-timed, and disastrous to the Harris campaign. The perception it created was one of incompetence, at the wrong time. That perception was reinforced by the sight of Samaritan's Purse trucks bringing in tons of supplies before FEMA was even set up.

To me, Helene was a golden opportunity for Kamala: a chance to be seen as competent and compassionate....turning that new page. Instead, we got unaccountable bureaucrats who are utterly incompetent.

Helene might be the October surprise sleeper issue that decides the election.

[SRG2]

It would not have mattered if Helene had been handled flawlessly - the misinformation and lies that would have been spread by many on the right would still have been received uncritically by their target demographic - and like as not, reposted here.

[Commenter_XY]

This is where I do not agree with you. The SHTF after 7 days, and 7 days of watching SP deliveries, drone footage of the FEMA 'non response'. And a ton of conspiracy shit. That might have all blown over. BUT...

Then Majorkas made his truly idiotic comment. That man should be tarred and feathered for political incompetence.

Once that happened, any hope of Helene being a golden opportunity for Kamala just went out the window.

[SRG2]

This is where I do not agree with you

And you're wrong. The reason I think so is because I have read a large amount of misinformation and outright lying from right-wing FB friends and acquaintances and from some posters here vastly disproportionate to any adverse facts, and it is entirely inconsistent with what we know about human behaviour to suppose that whoever is creating and spreading the misinformation and lies would not do so if FEMA had handled Helene flawlessly.

And certainly the people who spread the misinformation and lies they'd seen - many of whom are at best gullible, at worst malignantly stupid - had been primed to doubt any account of FEMA success.

[Commenter_XY]

SRG2, time will tell who is right or not.

Milton will be an opportunity to prove the 'conspirators' wrong.

It remains a fact that Harris and Biden are being pummeled for the anemic response. It is deserved.

[Sarcastr0]

This seems a really cold and awful way to think about this coming disastrous storm.

[Magister]

Also unfalsifiable; no response is going to prevent all deaths and property damage, so Commenter_XY will declare victory. (House Republicans will most likely help, just as Republican administrations do tend to remake FEMA in their corrupt and incompetent image.)

[SRG2]

Can you assure us that neither Trump nor Vance will tell lies about the response to Milton?

[bernard11]

The response was not botched.

If you read anything other than lying crap like the Federalist you wouldn't be posting this cultist BS.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Bullshyte.

[Commenter_XY]

bernard11, we have a difference of opinion on the perceived effectiveness of the federal response to Helene.

If you would like to make the case for how effective Helene response has been, go for it. Because it looks like a total cluster-fuck to me (and many others).

[Frank Drackman]

are you "Brownie" of "Heck of a Job Brownie!" (in) Fame???

[David Nieporent]

There was no botched Helene response. MAGA are just lying to you on twitter.

[Commenter_XY]

David, would you like to make the case that the federal response to Helene was efficient and effective? Because the comparisons to Katrina are hitting home.

And that the Mayorkas comment was nothing to write home about (29 days from election), right?

David, this is a perceptions game. And right now, it is seriously hurting VP Harris and her campaign.

[bernard11]

this is a perceptions game. And right now, it is seriously hurting VP Harris and her campaign.

So you are saying that Trumpist lies about the whole thing are effective, and the fact that they are lies doesn't matter, least of all to you.

And why is that? Because gullible fools believe them, and spread them.

[Commenter_XY]

Well, I've invited you to make the affirmative case that FEMA's response is going swimmingly well. You want to try?

(did not think so)

[Jason Cavanaugh]

What case have you made, you dumb fuck?

You've called it 'botched.' That isn't evidence, especially from the likes of you.

[bernard11]

Hey. He cited the Federalist or something. Surely that's convincing. To XY, anyway.

[hobie]

So you don't like us preferentially giving foreign aid to countries in the Middle East over Americans, yes?

[Frank Drackman]

So you've gone from stealing Valor to phrasing questions in "Yes we have no Bananas" quadruple negatives? Do you know School Shooters???

Frank

[hobie]

Frankie 'wounded warrior' Drackman; America's neediest veteran. We all know comprehension and grammar are not your strong suit, so I'll explain. This was me pointing out hypocrisy. Here, I'm gonna give you a link to the definition of the word:

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hypocrisy

[Sarcastr0]

This class of argument has has never been anything but disingenuous.

‘How can you support Thing A while Thing B is not solved’ is just bait for those who don’t understand how governments or budgets work.

In this case, reductive ignorance about foreign policy is also added.

e,g, 'How could Trump be spending money on the Wall while not caring about, say, our hypersonic gap with China?!! Does he want us to all die in hypersonically delivered nuclear flames?!!!!!'

[ThePublius]

"Secretary of Transportation Buttigieg just announced 2 million in funding to help South Carolina repair their roads."

That's an insult. The cost per mile to maintain roads in South Carolina is $1.1 million. That's just to maintain, not repair. How long do you think $2M will go? That won't even be enough to roll trucks!

[Malika]

Was every road damaged?

This was also described as an "initial" award of funding.

[hobie]

The Infrastructure Act gave billions to South Carolina to use at their discretion. So why ain't they using it here?

[Zarniwoop]

Do you imagine that the $2M is the only assistance SC will receive?

[Commenter_XY]

Nope, but the optics right now are atrocious for VP Harris.

[David Nieporent]

The "optics"? Presumably anyone who can see can tell the difference between a 40-year old white man and a 60-year old black woman.

[Commenter_XY]

Still though...the negative perception was created (slow response), and reinforced (SP aid deliveries, Mayorkas comment). There is no denying it. The Harris campaign took a major hit to the bowline from Helene.

We'll know in 29 days if my words are true or not.

[Josh R]

If it is a major hit, we will know within a week from the polls.

[Commenter_XY]

The leakage will increase now = bowline hit.

We will both be watching. I'll be looking at data. 😉

[Josh R]

There has been no leakage since the debate.

[Commenter_XY]

Josh R...If Nate Silver is your measuring stick, then you're right.

Nate Silver is not my measuring stick. Just saying.

I now feel more confident about PA going for Pres Trump (assuming he does not do something stupid, which is always a risk with him) in the EC. The speech in Butler, the sympathy vote, illegal aliens, and his consistent support for fracking are all factors.

Senator Fetterman comments about Pres Trump and his r'ship with the electorate about 1.5 months ago seem prescient. 😉

Watch AZ, GA and WI.

[Josh R]

What measuring stick shows leakage since the debate?

[Commenter_XY]

Josh R....ask yourself this question. Why is VP Harris suddenly doing interviews, just 29 days out? It is not because she feels confident. It is because she knows she is in trouble. Serious trouble. It is slipping away.

BTW, Walz is violating the Cardinal Sin for VPs: Don't do anything to hurt your boss. His debate performance was eminently forgettable, his gaffe's multiply, and Walz managed to get his ass repeatedly kicked by the reporter (Bream?) on Fox. It was cringeworthy.

I cannot 'call' the election yet; it is statistically tied. That is a fact. Things are not moving in the right direction for Kamala.

[Josh R]

In other words, you have no measurng sitck. Just vibes.

[Josh R]

And, a new TIPP poll came out (your preferred poll). It shows Harris +3 nationally (same old).

[Life of Brian]

Well, this morning Reuters/Ipsos came out with one for 10/4-10/7, showing +2 Harris. Their last poll about 2 weeks earlier (9/21-9/23) was +6 Harris. Seems about as apples-apples as you're going to get in this business.

https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2024/trump-vs-harris

[Josh R]

JFC. Never look at just one poll. NY Times/Sienna just came out with their new national poll. Harris is now +3. Previously she it was tied.

The race has been stable since the debate. It is a toss-up.

[Life of Brian]

OK, lovely: then let's look at ALL the polls ending over the last couple of days against their prior equivalents:

Reuters/Ipsos: Harris -4
Yahoo News: Harris -4
TIPP: Harris -1
[your very-not-cherry-picked] NY Times/Sienna: Harris +3

That's an average of Harris -1.5. What's your threshold for "stable"?

[Josh R]

Four polls ain’t enough.

Look at this chart or this chart. Both cover more than 10 polls. The former (Silver) has Harris up about 3%-points for a month now, the latter (Realclearpolitics) has Harris up about 2%-points for a month now (both post-debate). Silver weights the polls based on recency, sample size and past performance. Realclearpolitics does not weight them.

[Life of Brian]

It's... interesting that you found it necessary to send me the link to the RCP polls given that was the same one I sent you three posts ago.

Anyway, we seem to be talking past each other. My point relates to same-shop poll to poll trends (and the rather precipitous cliff effect in this latest batch compared to past cycles), which has little to nothing to do with a broader average that also includes shops that haven't yet dropped a poll for this most recent period and so of course is going to attenuate the signal of those who have.

Anyway, since 10+ polls seems to be your threshold for allowing yourself to observe a trend, I guess that buys you a few days -- maybe even longer since some of the shops only poll every month or so!

[Commenter_XY]

LoB...It is pointless to look at the national average. We don't elect by popular vote, we elect by EC (I know you know this). Therefore, the national average doesn't mean that much in the context of a presidential race. I've already discussed my reservations about Nate Silver's methodology (net net: Silver cherry picks his polls and applies arbitrary weighting that reflects his personal bias, which is true of much modeling)

There are 10-12 states in play. That is what matters. That is the data I am following. Josh R, maybe not so much. Pres Trump and Sen Vance practically live in PA (rally every day, almost), with auxiliary addresses in WI and MI. PA has moved. It is not 'in the bag' for Pres Trump, but moving that way. Note to MAGA-World, just remember, The Donald is his own worst enemy.

As for the 10-12 'battleground' states....there are more states in play in 2024 than 2020. That only helps the challenger (more paths to victory).

I did everything but put up billboards and send Carrier Pigeons telling Josh R (and others) what three battleground states to watch; they will decide the election if it is close.

If I am wrong, then I am wrong. We'll see soon enough.

[Josh R]

Silver does not cherry pick polls nor arbitrarily choose weights. He uses a published objective measure and shares all the raw data that go into the measure.

The race is also stable in the battleground states.

[David Nieporent]

Silver does not cherry pick polls

Assuming his methodology hasn't changed since his 538 days, the only polls he excludes are ones where he has concluded that the pollster is actually fraudulent — that is, that the pollster isn't actually conducting polls at all, but just making up numbers. There were just a few over the entire length of the 538 run where he formed that conclusion.

[Nelson]

“I now feel more confident about PA going for Pres Trump”

I feel the exact opposite. Today I was in one of the two heavily red counties that I frequently drive through for the rescue (Chester County, with Lancaster being the other). Four years ago you wouldn’t have seen a handful of Biden signs the entire drive and definitely none posted in front of businesses. Businesses either had Trump signs or nothing.

This year the Harris/Trump split is closer to 33/66 for yard signs. Businesses are displaying Harris signs, indicating that they don’t think it will hurt their business. Even some Amish/Mennonite businesses and farms have Harris signs, which I would never have believed if I hadn’t driven by a couple of them several times.

When the conservative party has lost rural business owners and the Amish, it should be very worried.

Obviously that isn’t scientific by any means, but the shift from four years ago is startling and stark. I think the polls are underestimating Harris’ support in PA (or perhaps underestimating Trump opposition would be more accurate).

Without PA, Trump will struggle to win. If he loses NC, it will be a blowout.

[Brett Bellmore]

That should be enough to replace a couple miles of road, and maybe a bridge or two.

I do think most of the road money should be going to North, not South, Carolina. That mountainous terrain really amplifies the damage, you know. Whole sections of I-40 are just gone; I hear it's not going to be back in operation until 2026.

[jb]

You guys are clowns. You see some stat and think it's a big gotcha moment, but never stop to think "hmm, what are some other examples in the past of how various administrations have handled this same issue?" to see if you're going to make a fool of yourself or not. Or even "hmm, what about other states that were also impacted by Helene?"

First, the other states:

The DOT has released $100M in funds for North Carolina and $32M for Tennessee. In South Carolina's case, the funds are targeted at a single project (access to US-276 in Greenville County), and additional funds are expected to be released as projects are identified.

Now, let's look at how much some previous administrations released in response to major Hurricanes:

- The Bush administration initially released $10M to reconstruct two bridges in Louisiana in response to Katrina
- The Trump administration initially released $25M to Texas in response to Harvey. The DOT didn't release any quick release funding for Dorian, but FEMA did pay Florida DOT $1.29 for infrastructure repairs.

So the Biden DOT is actually releasing much more quick release funding than we've seen from previous Republican administrations.

[hobie]

https://www.fema.gov/disaster/current/hurricane-helene/rumor-response

"Rumor: Funding for FEMA disaster response was diverted to support international efforts or border related issues.

Fact: This is false. No money is being diverted from disaster response needs. FEMA’s disaster response efforts and individual assistance is funded through the Disaster Relief Fund, which is a dedicated fund for disaster efforts. Disaster Relief Fund money has not been diverted to other, non-disaster related efforts.

October 3, 2024"

In fact, all the alt facts you hayseeds have been latching onto are addressed on that FEMA page. You're welcome

[Brett Bellmore]

One of the most dispiriting developments of the 21st century, so far as I'm concerned, is the way people have come to routinely confuse denial and refutation. Oh, look, FEMA says it's not true, that settles it!

If it were true, you'd expect them to confess? How does the denial prove it's false?

Maybe it IS false. Could be for all I know. But FEMA saying it's false doesn't prove anything. Even if the search engines buries any contrary stories once FEMA denies them.. Now, here's the sort of thing I'm pretty confident IS happening:

Lake Lure couple reunited after volunteer rescue pilot threatened with arrest

[Sarcastr0]

So your speculation is unfalsifiable absent a forensic audit of the federal government.

And then you believe it unshakably.

Yikes.

[bernard11]

And the search engines are in on the conspiracy, for reasons known only to Brett.

[SRG2]

Why blame FEMA rather than Republican governors?

[bernard11]

Trump’s campaign proposals would increase the ballooning national debt by $7.5 trillion; Harris’s would add $3.5 trillion, according to a nonpartisan think tank.

Comments from the deficit hawks? Brett?

[SRG2]

Ah, but GOP deficits don't count.

[ThePublius]

Yea, according to the Washington Post, a tier-on propaganda arm of the DNC. Ha, ha, ha.

[SRG2]

Looks like the WaPo reported it fairly accurately.

Here's the primary source: https://www.crfb.org/papers/fiscal-impact-harris-and-trump-campaign-plans

Now do you believe it? Or have you already decided that Trump good Harris bad and so the research cannot possibly be right?

[jb]

Those are some real good critical thinking skills on display. Pretty convenient to be able to dismiss information by who is saying as opposed to what the argument actually is. Almost like there might be some kind of logical fallacy involved...

[bernard11]

IOW, you don't want to look at the numbers.

[Commenter_XY]

It would be great to cut spending.

[bernard11]

How would you cut it?

[Commenter_XY]

Start on military procurement, work your way through entitlements.

If that does not work; sequestration will.

[Nelson]

I would target slow-change reforms to SS first. Adding 1 year to the eligibility age every 2 years for 10 years would make a huge difference. Also adjusting benefits by percentage of income that you paid FICA taxes on would be an easily-implemented means test. That would lower benefits to those who exceed the income ceiling or made a large portion of their income via unearned income (like stocks/stock options and other investments) and were therefore taxed a lot less than their middle-class peers. Alternately (and ideally) implement FICA equally on all income, earned and unearned. Those things would go a long way towards sharing the burden of paying FICA equally, rather than having the middle class shoulder the lion's share.

For Medicare, remove the Republican block on negotiating drug prices. The best thing the Ds did was getting rid of the negotiation ban Bush put in place when he added Part D, but to get it to pass Rs demanded a limit to the number of drugs they were allowed to negotiate for. They can only add 10 new drugs to the negotiation pool each year, meaning they have to identify the worst offenders in the pharmaceutical game. Capitalism works, I wish people would let it do its thing.

Entitlements are the most important thing to reform if we want to balance the budget. Draconian cuts aren't necessary. Just removing artificial caps on revenue sources and drug price negotiation will make a massive difference. Hell, the savings on insulin alone is probably more than the total of waste, fraud, and abuse within the system. It's that expensive to forbid negotiation.

[Magister]

Raising the retirement age for Social Security is not a problem for some workers but rather harsh for people with physically demanding occupations. I'm not sure how they can be separated out or otherwise taken care of.

[M L]

Not surprising. Trump has spoken in favor of big spending from day 1.

If you listen to a Republican and a Democrat today, basically it’s a choice between center left and far left.

That said, the “campaign proposals” have barely any substance, especially Harris who didn’t even have any policy statements until they finally C+P’d a few sentences from the Biden campaign website onto the Harris campaign website. A 7th grade school paper may contain more substantive policy. I don’t take these numbers as an actual prediction of future budget deficits. All in all, I would expect not much difference between the two. Democrats tend to spend a bit more but also tax more, while Republicans might spend a bit less and tax a bit less but may very well end up with a larger deficit. The bigger difference lies in how their policies impact the economy and foreign relations/wars.

[bernard11]

So suddenly all the fiscal hysteria on the right disappears when it becomes obvious that Trump's deficits would be larger than Harris'.

[Nelson]

"If you listen to a Republican and a Democrat today, basically it’s a choice between center left and far left."

Yes, the thing that everyone says about the MAGA GOP is that it's center-left. Oh, sure, that's totally believable.

[Krayt]

Here's Rick and Morty re-enacting an actual court transcript.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson has noted Judge Motley is a role model, helped by sharing a birthday.

“Constance Baker Motley: Pioneering the Path as America’s First African American Woman Federal Judge”

https://teachnthrive.com/history-passages/u-s-passages/constance-baker-motley-pioneering-the-path-as-americas-first-african-american-woman-federal-judge/

You can listen to her give multiple oral arguments in front of the Supreme Court at Oyez.com. Her voice (shades of Katherine Hepburn/New England Brahmin) reflects her Connecticut origins.

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

How is FEMA applying it's equity goals to this recovery effort in Applachia?

That is, what does an equity-focused relief action look like in practice?

[M L]

On the last open thread I posted this:

Feds say there’s no money left to respond to hurricanes — after FEMA spent $1.4B on migrants

https://nypost.com/2024/10/03/us-news/feds-say-theres-no-money-left-to-respond-to-hurricanes-after-fema-used-640-9m-this-year-on-migrants/

This prompted a barrage of haranguing non sequiturs from the leftists. Sarcastro called me ignorant. They seemed to want to contradict or critique this story in some way, but they couldn't muster a coherent point as far as I can tell. Have there been any enhancements to the talking points over the weekend, or can someone take another shot at explaining or clarifying the issue here?

[Commenter_XY]

Mayorkas said what he said, and it was disastrous. If they're explaining, they're in trouble.

[Sarcastr0]

You are cheerleading for lies to be effective.

When did facts stop mattering to you?

[Commenter_XY]

You do not actually get it, do you?

It is about perceptions.

[OtisAH]

This is as close as you’re gonna get to an admission that he knows he’s lying and doesn’t care, Sarc. Continue to try to engage with him in good faith at your own peril.

[Sarcastr0]

Oh, he's muted for a while at least.

Just on a tear of shitposts today.

[Frank Drackman]

They don't call him Major Dork-Ass for nothing

[Sarcastr0]

I called you ignorant because you didn't realize that the ones holding up the appropriations process were Republicans. They stripped out supplemental funding from the CR.

The entire Florida delegation voted on this, as the hurricane bore down on them.

You're also ignorant because you seem to think federal appropriations to FEMA are like one big slush fund.

Quoted from Magister in the Thursday thread:
"“These claims are completely false,” DHS said in a statement Thursday to Fox News following the Republican outcry.

“As Secretary Mayorkas said, FEMA has the necessary resources to meet the immediate needs associated with Hurricane Helene and other disasters. The Shelter and Services Program (SSP) is a completely separate, appropriated grant program that was authorized and funded by Congress and is not associated in any way with FEMA’s disaster-related authorities or funding streams.”

[M L]

So, once again, election time makes people even stupider than usual.

You are so desperate to filter the issue through your narrow lens of partisan politics, that you suffer from hallucinations of me making claims I didn't make. And then you shrilly denounce me as a liar based on your hallucinations.

You seem to be claiming that Republicans share some blame in this. I have no problem believing that. It does not contract anything I said. It does not contradict my general criticism of the federal government.

I don't even want more disaster money for FEMA. I doubt it should really be the federal government's job to fix every problem. I do however think the billions and trillions of dollars they send to foreign countries all over the opposite side of the globe, and spend on things like housing and coddling illegal immigrants, would, if it HAD to be spent somewhere, would be better spent on things like domestic disaster recovery.

[Malika]

"I don’t even want more disaster money for FEMA. I doubt it should really be the federal government’s job to fix every problem. I do however think the billions and trillions of dollars they send to foreign countries all over the opposite side of the globe, and spend on things like housing and coddling illegal immigrants, would, if it HAD to be spent somewhere, would be better spent on things like domestic disaster recovery."

The food here is terrible, and such small portions!

[Sarcastr0]

No, ML. You're the obligate partisan here.

I'm pointing out your ignorance of the processes and systems you're criticizing.

You don't even care enough to engage with that criticism.

You're not actually here to debate anything.

[M L]

This is all projection. I'm criticizing the government for spending 1.4b of FEMA money on illegal immigrants and not having "enough" (in their words) for disaster relief. It's pretty straight forward.

You want to go on irrelevant tangents about processes.

[Sarcastr0]

You're saying two things are related.
But has been explained to you quite a few times now, they are not related. The federal budget doesn't work like that.

You have no excuse for your continued attempts to argue this without engaging with that point.

Which is why, I guess, you're purely pounding at the table and repeating your now busted thesis over and over.

[M L]

So when your alcoholic dad spends all the money on booze and the children don’t have a decent pair of shoes for school – no criticism allowed, because those were “different funding pots.”

Got it.

[Sarcastr0]

Personal budgets are not the federal budget.

This is the ignorance I'm talking about.

[M L]

It’s called an analogy. And it’s a fine analogy.

Proponents of Keynes or MMT like to criticize analogies to household budgets when it comes to recurring deficits, but that’s a different issue.

[Sarcastr0]

The budget process is in law and the rules of both chambers. It is also longstanding and relied-upon practice.

You want to ignore that law not to reform it, but so you can whine about a different law.

This is stupid. You're being stupid.

[M L]

"See, dad decided to spend all the money on booze according to a well established process and that was yesterday. When the kids need new shoes for school today, that's a different process. So the two can't be tied together."

Got it, thanks for the explanation Mr. Federal employee! Very enlightening as always.

[bernard11]

dad decided to spend all the money on booze according to a well established process

And since this isn't the case, you've broken your own analogy.

[bernard11]

The alcoholic dad (not mine or, I hope, yours) is not bound by law to spend money only in certain restricted ways.

[M L]

Good grief man. Again, I never claimed that it was FEMA bureaucrats doing this.

The alcoholic dad is the federal government.

[Zarniwoop]

SRG posted a link to that well-known leftist mouthpiece Forbes, which you then blatantly mischaracterized, lied about, and refused to engage on substance:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisondurkee/2024/10/04/trump-fema-claim-debunked-agency-not-running-out-of-money-because-of-migrants/

“But those financial issues aren’t because of money going to migrants: While FEMA and U.S. Customs and Border Protection have given more than $1 billion since the start of 2023 to communities that are taking in migrants, that’s been through the agency’s Shelter and Services Program, a totally different funding pot than the Disaster Relief Fund used to respond to hurricanes and other natural disasters.”

So what’s your excuse? Are you peddling knowing and deliberate lies, or are you completely and fundamentally ignorant about how Congressional appropriations work?

[M L]

I am completely ignorant. Please enlighten me. Which of the following is false?

1. Feds say they are running out of money for hurricane season
2. FEMA spent 1.4 billion on illegal immigrants

I understood the Forbes link to be alleging that the blame for this (if indeed there is a wrong to affix blame for, not a given, what is the wrong exactly?) should be on Congress moreso than FEMA. Ok, cool? Was that supposed to contract something I said? I mean that argument is already covered right in the New York Post article. Why don't we address the actual issue first. Arguing about who is to blame can be one of the follow up items.

[Zarniwoop]

Oh come the frack on. You’re not making the OP out of disinterested altruism, you’re disingenuously trying to tie the two events together. And Trump is expressly doing that in rallies, to lie to the rubes.

It is true that FEMA’s budget for disaster relief may have shortfalls by the end of hurricane season (not at present, though), after the U.S. spent money on … our nuclear arsenal. On lighthouses in Alaska. On Park Rangers in the Grand Canyon.

Whoop-de-fookin’-do.

[M L]

You did not answer the question.Which of the following is false?

1. Feds say they are running out of money for hurricane season
2. FEMA spent 1.4 billion on illegal immigrants

[Sarcastr0]

"you’re disingenuously trying to tie the two events together. " Failed to even address the nut of his objection.

And your reduced argument still fails, because asylum seekers, are not illegals.

[M L]

I've addressed it. The open borders tactic is to simply make illegals legal. Make them into “asylum seekers.”

[Sarcastr0]

So you're also at war with words meaning things, when you don't like what they mean.

How Trotskyite of you.

[M L]

Pure projection as always.

[Josh R]

I'm with Zarinwoop, as in get the fuck out of here with your faux "I'm just presenting facts." You are tying the two together. It's a blatant lie.

[M L]

1. Feds say they are running out of money for hurricane season
2. FEMA spent 1.4 billion on illegal immigrants

People keep suggesting this is false but not outright saying it - I'm guessing because it is true and I am correct.

Once that is answered - yes, FEMA stands for Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA and the money it spends is very much tied to hurricane relief, there's no getting around that. There's also no problem with criticism of the federal government for spending a trillion dollars in Ukraine while not spending money or X or Y. Why is that an invalid criticism in your view? But we're talking here about FEMA spending so it's even more specifically related.

Up to now, the responses here have been mainly "Yeah but it's Congress' fault" or "Yeah but it's Republicans fault." Whose fault do you think it is, or do you think it's nobody's fault, or not even a problem to begin with? In my opinion, the money they spend housing and coddling illegal immigrants is unnecessary. Biden/Harris policy has been almost a de facto open borders policy.

[Sarcastr0]

"In my opinion, the money they spend housing and coddling illegal immigrants is unnecessary."

This is your real thesis. Everything else is eyewash.

[M L]

Not quite, it's that it's unnecessary and that even if there were a case for it, it's bad prioritization.

You and others know that this is obvious common sense that would resonate with the overwhelming majority of Americans. That's why you don't want to defend your real thesis, which is disagreement with the above, instead you have eyewash about process and faceless bureaucracy where nobody is to blame for anything. More projection.

[Sarcastr0]

The only way you can make a prioritization argument is to tie the two things that are not tied together.

You've failed to do that, nor learn about the system to even understand what is tied together and what is not.

Because you are not here to argue; you're here to wank.

[Zarniwoop]

It’s your insistence that 2) somehow impacts 1) that is the problem.

Actual Trump quote:
“FEMA is now out of money, because Joe Biden and Kamala spent over a billion dollars of FEMA cash on migrants.” (Emphasis added)

That’s a lie, as Forbes discusses. Your preferred guy is lying to the American public in a time of crisis. That’s not leadership, that’s asshat behavior. Unfit to serve the American people.

And you’re making the same claim, with the difference being that you do not use the word “because” when repeatedly asserting a casual linkage of 2) to 1).

What Trump expressly lies about, you “merely” imply.

And then you think that you’ve made some sort of sooper-clever “gotcha” when people call you on your transparently-obvious bool and sheet.

[M L]

I have no problem believing that Trump said something inaccurate. At no point have I been discussing anything Trump said, only what our government is doing and spending.

But OK, if you want to change the subject, let’s get into it. First of all, Biden is the president. And the president does sign the budget, right?

As far as Harris, Biden said:

“. . . we’re singing from the same song sheet. She helped pass all the laws that are being employed now. She was a major player in everything we’ve done, including passage of legislation in which we were told we could never pass. . . Her staff is interlocked with mine in terms of all the things we’re doing.”

As ignorant as I am about these things, I'm currently thinking Biden and Harris do in fact play a major part in the federal budget, perhaps more so than any other person. I'm open to being corrected about this.

Now as for the federal budget, let's start at the beginning. In your view, are there any sorts of limits on the amount of money that the federal government can spend?

[Zarniwoop]

As ignorant as I am about these things, I’m currently thinking Biden and Harris do in fact play a major part in the federal budget, perhaps more so than any other person. I’m open to being corrected about this.

I’ll agree with the first clause regarding your apparent ignorance. “Congress holds the purse strings” in the usual formulation. Did you fail high school civics?

As I recall, you also ignored Sarcastro’s comment on Thursday that the entire GOP delegation from Florida voted against more funds for FEMA, the day before Helene hit. Go MAGA, I guess?

Newsweek:

Last week, Congress approved $20 billion for FEMA's disaster relief fund as part of a stopgap spending bill to fund the government through December 20. But the measure left out billions of dollars in requested supplemental disaster funding.

The Senate approved the measure by a 78-18 vote on September 25 after it passed the House in a 341-82 vote. Republicans supplied the no votes in both chambers

[M L]

Hmm. Well check out this picture I found on the internet. It allegedly shows President Joe Biden signing a budget for the federal government.

https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/230603153448-01-biden-budget-deal-white-house.jpg?c=16×9&q=h_653,w_1160,c_fill/f_webp

Now, I know you can’t believe everything you see on the internet. Can you fact check this for me, is it an AI created image or ?

[Zarniwoop]

Your sealioning is getting progressively more ridonkulous. Let's try this again:

I’ll agree with the first clause regarding your apparent ignorance. “Congress holds the purse strings” in the usual formulation. Did you fail high school civics?

If you don't like the FEMA disaster relief numbers in the budget that Biden signed, maybe pen a stern letter to Rep. Mike Johnson (R) c/o the House of Representatives.

That's where the numbers come from. The line item(s) for FEMA disaster relief. No matter how much you whine, moan, and lie to yourself and the rubes that the US also spends money on (gasp!) other things!

[M L]

It seems you didn't bother to read the thread you are replying to. As I said in the second comment:
"You seem to be claiming that Republicans share some blame in this. I have no problem believing that. It does not contract anything I said."

So, that's fine. Mike Johnson is partly to blame. Biden is at least as much, as are other Democrats. As I said above it's largely center left vs far left these days.

[Josh R]

STFU already. It’s invalid because you are linking #2 to #1. Not only is there no linkage, FEMA/DHS has no authority to move money from other FEMA or DHS funding to disaster relief.

[M L]

Your mistake is fabricating this idea that I am blaming FEMA bureaucrats for the problem (which, again, is it even a problem? the desperate attempts to shift blame seem to indicate yes.)

If it was all done pursuant to a bill passed by Congress and signed by Biden, that does nothing to undercut the criticism: that our government spent 1.4b in FEMA funds on migrants while underfunding disaster relief, according to Mayorkas.

[Sarcastr0]

You take issue with the bill because you refuse to learn about the process.

You refuse to learn about the process because you might have to create a real argument if you learn about how things work.

It's all very lazy.

[Josh R]

Cut the shit. You brought it up to link #2 to #1 and blame Biden/Harris.

[M L]

I brought it up to criticize the government. If it was done while a Republican was president I would do the same thing. That said, what person or persons do you think are most responsible?

[Josh R]

If you brought it up to criticize the government, you wouldn't have brought up #2.

[Zarniwoop]

that our government spent 1.4b in FEMA funds on migrants while underfunding disaster relief, according to Mayorkas.

Your use of “while … according to Mayorkas” is the GOP/MAGA misinformation line. The problem. It’s where Trump is lying, and where you’re lying.

Mayorkas noted that FEMA disaster relief is underfunded, per the NYPost article, yes yes, we all agree on that.

The NYPost article does not attribute the “while” part to Mayorkas. In fact, the article seems pretty clear that it’s not Mayorkas that made the connection:

Critics pointed out that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) allocated $640.9 million this year in FEMA-administered funds to aid state and local governments coping with the influx of asylum seekers

(Emphasis added). You keep making the connection between the two, and attributing the non-existent connection to Mayorkas. Sometimes implied; sometimes expressly like your “while” language above.

It’s bullshit. And when called on your bullshit, you start asking whackadoodle Qs about the validity of a photo of Biden signing a bill, because you have no substantive response.

If you want to blame Congress for underfunding FEMA disaster relief, that’s legit.

Your (and Trump’s) inane insistence that it’s because of separate government programs is .. just not how national budgets work.

C’mon, I don’t think you’re actually as dumb as you’re coming across here … but you’re starting to change my mind.

[M L]

The "according to Mayorkas" part was that they underfunded disaster relief, that's all.

Yes, I am making a connection, saying look, FEMA spent a bunch of money on migrants (whether by spending bill or whatever) and they don't have enough money for disaster relief. What's so hard to understand about this? I think you actually are as dumb as you're coming across here.

[Josh R]

Did you not read the CRS article I linked to? FEMA/DHS has no authority to move money from other FEMA or DHS funding to disaster relief. Your linkage makes as much sense as saying tax cuts or military spending are to blame for not having enough disaster relief money.

[Zarniwoop]

The “according to Mayorkas” part was that they underfunded disaster relief, that’s all

Bullshit. The normal way to interpret “A while B, according to Mayorkas” is that Mayorkas is the one stating “A while B”.

You’re not making an argument at this point, you’re trolling.

[M L]

"Did you not read the CRS article I linked to? FEMA/DHS has no authority to move money from other FEMA or DHS funding to disaster relief."

Again, I never said it was FEMA bureaucrats to blame. Congress and the President do have that authority via the spending bills they pass. In some respects and degrees there is executive discretion within the legislative parameters set by Congress, in other ways not. This entire talking point about "FEMA bureaucrats didn't have discretion in this case to use this pot of FEMA money for disaster relief because Congress designated that money for migrants," even if it is true, is totally irrelevant because I am criticizing the federal government generally and I never said it was FEMA bureaucrats who made the funding decision. With that said, don't agencies usually make recommendations/requests and actually play a pretty big part in crafting their budget?

"Your linkage makes as much sense as saying tax cuts or military spending are to blame for not having enough disaster relief money."

And what would be wrong with saying hey, we gave a trillion dollars to Ukraine but don't have money for disaster relief, that ain't right. Or even that we cut taxes but didn't fund enough space exploration, or whatever thing you think should be funded more? What exactly is your objection to that sort of argument? I don't understand the problem. Moreover, we are talking about subcategories within the FEMA budget which is a pretty specific and small bucket, looks like about 0.3% of the federal budget...so these things are 300x more linked together than just any random things in the federal budget.

[Josh R]

What exactly is your objection to that sort of argument?

I'm not a fan of the zero-sum game argument. But accepting it as legitimate for the sake of argument, you chose to highlight spending on migrants to put the blame on Biden/Harris (stop with your bullshit claiming otherwise). And, the argument that we should only look at FEMA funding as fungible is a pathetic way of trying to justify your partisan take.

[Sarcastr0]

You chose to reengage because you didn't think anyone properly responded to you last time.

How's it going this time?

Not well, it looks like!

[David Nieporent]

I am completely ignorant. Please enlighten me. Which of the following is false?

1. Feds say they are running out of money for hurricane season
2. FEMA spent 1.4 billion on illegal immigrants

#2 is false. They were not illegal immigrants.

And of course linking two true sentences together can be false, which is the case here.

[Michael Ejercito]

Here is Jack Marshall's latest post.

https://ethicsalarms.com/2024/10/07/unethical-quote-of-the-week-ethics-villain-hillary-clinton/

Democratic Party leaders are being remarkably open about their contempt for free speech now, sensing in such astounding blind public support for their “She isn’t what she is” Presidential candidate that they have a shot at total “control.” Most of the news media, secure that their little corner of the First Amendment is safe even though they no longer deserve it, are supporting totalitarianism-advancing measures by their Axis allies. Academia, now almost totally corrupted and politicized, is increasingly hostile to the Constitution. Surveys indicate that a majority of young Americans believe that government censorship of “hate speech”—that is, speech progressives hate—should be enacted. Of course, those younger Americans were mostly never taught about the Constitution in school, so they have some excuse, unlike Clinton. Hillary, of all people, has no credibility complaining about “misinformation.” She seeded the Russian collusion hoax. She told the “Today Show” that her husband’s sex scandal was the work of a “vast right wing conspiracy,” bolstering her husband’s “I did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinsky” lie.

[David Nieporent]

Is Jack Marshall as dumb as, or dumber than, the Usenet rando you keep quoting?

[Michael Ejercito]

He is on par with Chris!

[bernard11]

WTF is Jack Marshall?

Based on your quote he just another RW idiot, much like you.

[ReaderY]

GenBioPro v. Raynes is scheduled for oral argument in the 4th Circuit at the end of October. The case is approximately the opposite of the AHM case. A manufacturer of mifepristone is suing West Virginia on grounds the FDA’s approval of mifepristone and related federal laws pre-empt and void West Virginia’s abortion ban.

GenBioPro mostly lost in the district court. A Clinton appointee found that the FDA laws do not preempt West Virginia’s abortion law. He cited past cases holdong that federal regulatory schemes for horse slaughter, uranium minimg, and other activies do not pre-empt state bans on those activities and said that after Dobbs, abortion is no different. He also said the FDA REMS statute, which directs the FDA to regulate safety in a way that ensures adequate access, merely limits the reach of the FDA’s own safety regulations and does not apply to anyone else.

GenBioPro is appealing a loss.

An interesting thing about the case is that should GenBioPro win on its claim that the FDA approval pre-empts West Virginia’s law, West Virginia would then have standing to challenge the validity of FDA’s law. West Virginia, I think wisely, is defending the idea that the federal and state laws are compatible and there is no conflict and no pre-emption. However, various amici have decided to make a full-blown argument for invalidating the mifepristone approval, repeating the arguments made in the AHM case but also including an argument that the FD&C Act requires the FDA to protect the safety of the unborn and hence prohibits it from approving abortifacients period.

At any rate, here is a case where standing appears to be unimpeachable. West Virginia (rather foolishly I think) is taking up considerable briefing space arguing there’s no standing because GenBioPro has suspended sales in West Virginia. But it seems pretty obvious that without the ban, its sales would be substantial.

[ReaderY]

Oral argument is scheduled for October 29.

Here is the District Court decision dismissing most of the case. GenBioPro voluntarily dismissed the comparatively minor points it had won on to enable it to appeal the judgment immediately.

https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/west-virginia/wvsdce/3:2023cv00058/235957/66/

[Thrax]

Ron DeSantis, friend of civil liberties:

https://x.com/jason_garcia/status/1842646033890746744

[Krayt]

Wait. I thought lies were ok, especially in a political context?

(For the record, they are, because of the more important principle the government should never become the arbiter of trVth spoken against it. Not because there's something noble in balls-out pursuit of power.)

[Thrax]

balls-out pursuit of power

That's certainly what DeSantis is up to. The advertisement in question is in support of a constitutional amendment, not a campaign for office, so I don't think the shoe otherwise fits.

As for "lies," women have died as a result of extremely similar bans in other states. It's only a matter of time before it happens in Florida.

[Bob from Ohio]

"As for “lies,” women have died as a result of extremely similar bans in other states."

Correct, that is a lie.

[Krychek_2]

Whether true or not, I'm not sure the fetus worshippers would care. Their sole concern seems to be with protecting the fetus, at least until birth. If a few women die here or there but it saves lots of fetuses, isn't it worth it from a cost-benefit analysis?

[Michael Ejercito]

What I do know is that people lost their limbs due to taking the COVID-19 vaccine.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-9826739/Minnesota-woman-legs-AMPUTATED-contracting-COVID-19-days-receiving-vaccine.html

FJB issued the OSHA vaccine mandate AFTER this.

There is no denying it.

Dems abandoned "My Body My Choice".

[jb]

Do any of you guys read the articles you link to?

That person had her limbs amputated because she got COVID, not because of the vaccine. It’s a shame she didn’t get the vaccine a few weeks earlier since it might have prevented this.

[Commenter_XY]

It’s a shame she didn’t get the vaccine a few weeks earlier since it might have prevented this.
Except....the vaccine did not prevent transmission, or infection.

After covid, and all the attendant bullshit, I never want to hear about 'My Body, My Choice' ever again. Repeal Buck and Jacobson, then the 'My Body, My Choice' conversation can occur. But the arbitrary standards don't work.

As for abortion, Dobbs got it exactly right. Now the states decide.

[Josh R]

In 2021, the vaccine did prevent infection (it did a very good job for the alpha and beta variants, and a decent job for delta).

Congress also has a say in abortion policy.

[Commenter_XY]

What is there for Congress to say? For the majority of the country, nothing changed wrt abortion restrictions or access.

What consensus do you think you'll get in the House, the Senate, and then a POTUS (to sign)? That is a long legislative runway.

[Josh R]

It's long runway for now. But at some point if the Dems control the White House, House and Senate, there would be the votes for a bill to restore Roe if it is not subject to a Senate filibuster.

[jb]

"Except….the vaccine did not prevent transmission, or infection."

No one, including the biggest vaccine skeptics, that actually know anything about this topic thinks that the Covid vaccines didn't provide significant protection against getting infected for at least some period of time. Similarly, everyone agrees that they significantly reduce the risk of the type of serious illness this woman faced. I'd love to see if you think there's any evidence to the contrary. There's fair arguments to be made about how long the protection lasts or whether the risk of side effects for certain populations (especially young males) outweighs the risks of Covid for them, but that has nothing to do with your regurgitated and false talking point.

As for the rest, hopefully it's obvious to everyone that there's a big difference in the amount of loss of bodily autonomy in receiving a quite safe shot and being forced to carry a pregnancy to term. All rights have limitations and tradeoffs, especially when exercising them has effects on others.

[Magister]

Also, the vaccines protected against severe illness from COVID, like the kind that results in amputations.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

A reminder to everyone that C_XY is a rank misogynist who regularly makes up crude sexual names for women he doesn't like.

His views on abortion should be taken in the context of already hating women.

[bernard11]

Note that Michael E. is claiming that the vaccine actually caused the condition that led to the amputation.

He wrote:

What I do know is that people lost their limbs due to taking the COVID-19 vaccine.

Further, he turned one case into "people lost their limbs."

Lying jerk.

[Bob from Ohio]

"fetus worshippers"

Ok, abortion worshiper.

[Krychek_2]

Try liberty worshipper. I don't have to approve of something to recognize it's none of my business.

And I would find the misnamed pro-life position far more palatable if not for the total and complete disregard with which it holds the interests of the woman. Doesn't matter how much she's harmed, she simply does not matter.

[Bob from Ohio]

Half of all abortions kill females.

[Krychek_2]

So what? Does that make it any less onerous to force a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term?

[Armchair]

Well, Krychek, the "Fetus Worshippers" also care about the lives of the mothers.

The question really is about mifepristone, which is...surprisingly dangerous. This abortion causing drug has the following risks... Clinical trials have shown that 2.9% to 4.6% of women taking it will need an emergency room visit. 0.2% of women taking it will have sepsis as a result. Sepsis of course, is life threatening. From taking this "safe" drug.

Now, you may say "well, 0.2% isn't that high". But when you consider the number of mifepristone abortions in the US (~60% of all abortions are medication abortions, and there are ~900,000 abortions per year in the US), you're looking at approximately 1,000 women a year getting sepsis, and potentially dying due to this "safe" medication.

Question is, are you OK with that? ~1,000 women a year getting Sepsis and potentially dying, just so it's a little easier to get an abortion?

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/the-truth-about-amber-thurmans-death-abortion-procedure-state-laws-healthcare-f302e4f9?st=nPz77N

[Jason Cavanaugh]

I encourage everyone to actually read the source of Armchair's lies this time.

You won't find anything stating someone 'needed' an ER visit.

Yes, a 1-in-900 chance for a treatable condition from a single study is beyond reasonably safe to everyone who isn't a lying partisan shithead.

[Armchair]

Absolutely. Read the "source of my lies"

The official FDA sheet on mifepristone

https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/drugsatfda_docs/label/2016/020687s020lbl.pdf

[Jason Cavanaugh]

That is precisely the source I encourage people to read.

I stand by my remark and your false characterization of the results. You've been caught lying many times; nobody will be surprised to find out you've distorted the truth yet again.

[not guilty]

I have no reason to do anyone else's homework here, but how does the frequency of complications from taking mifepristone and misoprostol compare to the frequency of complications from surgical abortion and the frequency of complications from carrying a fetus to term and birthing?

[Armchair]

Since you asked...And can't do your own homework.

The maternal mortality rate in the US is 0.03%

The risk of Sepsis from mifepristone, according to the above study is 0.2%

[Armchair]

Although, I should put in a caveat.

Maternal mortality includes all causes from pregnancy and giving birth. Including complications from an abortion-causing drug.

So, if you see a spike in deaths due to complications from mifepristone, that will also show in the maternal mortality numbers.

[NOVA Lawyer]

Armchair is a lying jackass.

In one U.S. study of 629 women, 1 woman got sepsis. Hence, the 0.2%. However, in a non-U.S. study of over 11,000 women, also only 1 woman got sepsis, for a <0.01% correlation. Of course, being the dishonest person he is, he pretends one small study with one occurrence establishes the risk level for mifepristone, despite another much larger study that establishes there is little to no risk of sepsis related to use of mifepristone. This, despite the fact that the two studies and the incidents of mifepristone were presented literally side by side.

Hence, the conclusion: "No causal relationship between MIFEPREX and misoprostol use and an increased risk of infection or death has been established."

Two freak occurrences out of roughly 12,000 women who took mifepristone suggests that mifepristone is not dangerous, but Armchair pretends otherwise. Now, compare a <0.01% (assuming a causal relationship, rather than it was related to the pregnancy itself or stepping on a nail and, further, that the people died from sepsis although sepsis is usually treatable in otherwise healthy patients) with 0.03% for pregnancy and you get that pregnancy is much more dangerous than mifepristone to a pregnant woman's health.

But Armchair is an unaccomplished liar, so he posts links and challenges people to read them, but they never, ever say what he says they say. It's best to ignore Armchair. He is just a liar.

[Magister]

The FDA reported only 11 deaths from sepsis, and only a few hundred infections (less than a hundred "severe infections") in over 20 years with approximately 5.9 million women having terminated pregnancies with it.

Armchair is a liar.

[Armchair]

768 hospitalization cases...
416 requiring blood transfusions
308 Infections
57 severe infections.

That's just what is reported.

And as the number of medication abortions rises, those numbers are bound to rise. Prior to 2011, less than 1/4 of abortions were with "medication". Now it's up to over 60%. As the number of clinics just "mail in" the medication, then drop the patient...complications and deaths are bound to rise further.

https://www.guttmacher.org/2024/03/medication-abortion-accounted-63-all-us-abortions-2023-increase-53-2020

[Magister]

Nobody would notice the insane number of sepsis cases among women of child bearing age that Armchair's rate would indicate out of millions of medication abortions? Conspiracy theory, or are all those women hiding from doctors and hospitals because of abortion bans and fear spread by people like Armchair? Neither makes Armchair look good.

[Armchair]

Would they?

Currently the US sees 1.7 million cases of Sepsis per year, with 350,000 a year dying of it.

Another 1,000 cases a year? Could easily slip into those numbers.

https://www.nigms.nih.gov/education/fact-sheets/Pages/sepsis.aspx#:~:text=Sepsis%20is%20a%20serious%20condition,are%20readmitted%20to%20the%20hospital.

[Magister]

Most of those deaths are older people or men. The number of deaths from sepsis in 20 years for young women is small enough that another 1000 would be noticed, even if a conspiracy or ignorance failed to connect it to medication abortions, and, again, medication abortions have happened a lot in 20 years -- fearmongering over the drug is 20 years too late.

Of course, Armchair's link to the Guttmacher Institute says

The two-drug combination of mifepristone and misoprostol is the most common medication abortion regimen offered by US providers, and decades of research have established that medication abortion using mifepristone is highly safe and effective.</blockquote
So Armchair is not interested in facts, just scoring points by misrepresenting data.

[Thrax]

Nope:

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

[hobie]

Mortalities of that nature won't be happening in Ohio that's for sure. Isn't that right, Bob?

[Bob from Ohio]

Woman takes abortion drug, waits until she develops septic and dies at hospital. Not sure there is an Ohio exception.

[Krychek_2]

Hovering over all of this is an issue that rarely gets discussed, and that is this: Even if I were to agree that a fetus is a person in the same sense that Bob and I are persons, *it is not the state that's doing the aborting.* This is not a Nazi Germany situation in which the state is the entity that is loading the people on to the trains to be taken to the camps; this is rather a situation in which the state has merely decided not to get involved.

Which is why the silly 14th Amendment theory of asking the Supreme Court to declare a fetus a person for 14th Amendment purposes would be a wasted effort even if successful: The Constitution only proscribes state action, not private action. I don't think there's anything in the Constitution that requires that a state criminalize anything. A state could, if it chose, repeal all of its murder statutes, and while that would be terrible public policy, it would not be unconstitutional.

We do know that adult women -- who clearly are persons for 14th Amendment purposes -- do have an interest in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. And that ought to resolve the issue.

[David Nieporent]

Which is why the silly 14th Amendment theory of asking the Supreme Court to declare a fetus a person for 14th Amendment purposes would be a wasted effort even if successful: The Constitution only proscribes state action, not private action. I don’t think there’s anything in the Constitution that requires that a state criminalize anything. A state could, if it chose, repeal all of its murder statutes, and while that would be terrible public policy, it would not be unconstitutional.

Can the state repeal some of its murder statutes, though? Can it make it illegal to kill white people?

[Krychek_2]

David, the state already does pick and choose which homicides to prosecute. Is the death penalty murder? What about self defense, especially in states with stand your ground laws? Those acts are simply *not defined* as murder for purposes of the criminal code. It’s not an all or nothing proposition, in which either every time someone dies someone else goes to prison for it, or none of the time when someone dies, somebody else goes to prison. Those are false alternatives. By how murder is statutorily defined, and also by creating exceptions, the state already does this.

I don’t think the state could say it’s OK to murder whites, or Jews, or Baptists, or Republicans, because those would all be protected classes. And I don’t think being a fetus is a protected class, at least not in the same way. I think the better comparison would be a statute that says that anyone who steps onto my property without my permission, even inadvertently, may be summarily shot. Again, bad policy, but would it be unconstitutional? I don't think so.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm pretty sure that the state actor restriction on the 14th amendment couldn't stop an EP clause application if fetuses were declare to be people.

[Krychek_2]

I may regret having asked this, but how exactly would you get around the state actor restriction?

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The 14A argument repeatedly is made in the voice of “protected classes” with fetuses (or whatever) cited as the most at-risk class worthy of protection.

The state arguments in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton cited that. The overrated John Hart Ely Jr. article references it.

You seem to be just talking past the argument. Why are fetuses — taking the argument seriously — not a protected class? I’m not accepting it. But, it needs to be addressed.

As to private action, putting aside that the 13A (which is relevant in the abortion context) is an exception to that, a major concern is compelling state interest.

People argue abortion rights cannot be denied because of the rights of the pregnant person. The rejoinder made is that there is a compelling state interest justifying abortion bans, namely fetal personhood.

Again, I’m not accepting the argument, but a bit of effort needs to be made to address it.

[Josh R]

A state could not limit applying murder statutes to rich people even though wealth is not a protected classification. An exception for self defense or stand your ground does not treat an a priori class of people differently.

If a fetus is a 14th Amendment person, states cannot refuse to apply their murder statutes to abortions (the state is the actor in how it applies the murder statute to some a priori classifications, but not others).

[Krychek_2]

The 13th Amendment is an exception to the state action requirement because the 13th Amendment explicitly contains language that makes it an exception to the state action requirement. There is no such language in the 14th Amendment.

If a fetus is a protected class, it would be the first time in American history that we have a protected class whose class status is being used as a sword rather than a shield. The fetus (or its advocates) would be invoking it as a sword so that the fetus can do harm to other people, namely pregnant women who do not wish to be pregnant. It's a huge leap from "I'm protected; stop making me sit at the back of the bus" to "I'm protected, you have to let me live inside you for nine months."

Ending Jim Crow involved telling racists that they can't use the law to dump on people just because the political majority doesn't like them. Fetal personhood would be telling pregnant women that they have to give up their personal autonomy for the sake of someone else. Nothing against fetuses (at least in the sense that racists had something against blacks); they just can't use the law to force themselves on other people.

I see that as a pretty big distinction.

[Josh R]

It’s a huge leap from “I’m protected; stop making me sit at the back of the bus” to “I’m protected, you have to let me live inside you for nine months.”

If a fetus is a 14th Amendment person it's "I'm protected; stop murdering me." And again, the state action is not applying the murder statutes to a particular a priori classification of persons.

[Bob from Ohio]

A "protected class" is any group that SCOTUS says is "protected".

Homosexuals were not a protected class, until they were.

Unborn children can easily be a protected class, it just takes 5 votes.

[Joe_dallas]

Josh R 2 hours ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
"If a fetus is a 14th Amendment person it’s “I’m protected; stop murdering me.” And again, the state action is not applying the murder statutes to a particular a priori classification of persons."

One of the major arguments used by pro abortionists to justify abortions is that the fetus is not a person with legal rights until actual birth.

[Brett Bellmore]

As Josh R says, it's pretty straightforward: If fetuses are constitutional people, the EPC prevents states from not treating murder of fetuses as legally equivalent to murder of anybody else.

[Josh R]

Joe_Dallas: Not one of the SCOTUS justices make the argument that a fetus is a 14th Amendment person. And for good reason. That would require a national ban on abortion where the woman is charged with first-degree murder.

[not guilty]

“As Josh R says, it’s pretty straightforward: If fetuses are constitutional people, the EPC prevents states from not treating murder of fetuses as legally equivalent to murder of anybody else.”

I’m not so sure of that. The age of a homicide victim can make a difference as to sentencing. I haven’t done a deep dive, but in my state the first degree murder of a person less than twelve (12) years of age where the defendant was eighteen (18) years of age or older is an aggravating factor that can support imposition of a death sentence. Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-13-204(i)(1). So can the first degree murder of a victim seventy (70) years of age or older. Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-13-204(i)(1). In the case of second degree murder, where a victim of the offense was particularly vulnerable because of age that can support an enhanced sentence of incarceration. Tenn. Code Ann. § 40-35-114(4).

I am unaware of any authority suggesting that these statutes imposing harsher penalties due to the age of the victim are without a rational basis for equal protection purposes.

[Josh R]

I'll buy into not guilty's argument about degrees of murder. But, murder it is. If the fetus is a person, the EPC will not allow assault for the killing a fetus while the killing of all other persons is murder.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"But, murder it is. If the fetus is a person, the EPC will not allow assault for the killing a fetus while the killing of all other persons is murder."

Sure it would, as long as the appropriate level of scrutiny is satisfied.

That would be rational basis unless fetuses come under fn4, and rational basis could be met pretty easily.

[Josh R]

You are nuts if you think punishing the killing of a rich person as assault while punishing the killing of a poor person as murder would be evaluated under rational basis review. Life is a fundamental right. Strict scrutiny will apply (or at least some form of heightened scrutiny).

[verochkax]

Very simple compromise. 70% of abortions are by black and Hispanic women. So allow those, and ban it for whites and Asians. Liberals get 70% of the abortions they want and the world isn't deprived of higher IQ babies. Win win.

[Frank Drackman]

Most demographic groups would be upset if a social policy resulted in 80,000,000 fewer of that group over a 50 year period

[Joe_dallas]

We traded Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, known as the “Merchant of Death,” for WNBA player Brittney Griner.

Bout is so notorious that Hollywood based the movie Lord of War on him. He sold weapons to Africa, the Middle East, and South America for decades before the U.S. caught him in 2008.

Well, Bout reentered the weapons business, according to The Wall Street Journal:
https://archive.is/gWcYZ

[Commenter_XY]

Can we 'undo' the trade? \sarc

[Joe_dallas]

The trade should never have been made.

Same as attempting to bribe the mullahs with pallets of cash.

[bernard11]

True. Without Bout there would be neither demand for weapons nor supply, nor any intermediaries to handle the transactions.

Only Bout makes the market work.

[Gasman]

Griner is the new Gilad Shalit. Her freedom (from a calculated risk of doing business in Russia, while being a high profile target from a number of perspectives) comes with the high prospect of thousands of others who will loose their freedoms or lives.
Bad trade. But good political optics for the Biden administration to curry gay votes; the dead attributable to this action will never be accounted for politically.

[verochkax]

When did white liberals begin to hate their own race? That wasn't the case as recently as 60 years ago.

[Roger S]

During the Obama administration.

[SimonP]

I’m a white man. Majorities of white men have consistently supported Trump since he first announced his campaign in 2015. We vote so consistently in favor of shitty Republicans that most of the public discourse around Democratic turnout and coalition-building excludes any reference to us. They just focus on WOC, white women, Black men. White men are presumed lost.

On this board, the vilest comments consistently come from white men. Most of them older, nearing retirement age.

That might start to give you an idea of why I “hate” white men, despite being one of them. We really are the worst.

[Frank Drackman]

I want the computer/phone you have that tells you people's race from their written comments.

[SimonP]

VC commenters are presumed white until they state otherwise. You forget where we are, Frankie.

[Malika]

So, a current meme for MAGA seems to be "the federal government might not have given you enough money because of Helene but it's giving money to migrants/Lebanon/etc.!"

So, these people are, of course, furious about the aid given to Israel?

[verochkax]

Money given to an ally benefits our interests, at least indirectly.

Giving money to worthless Haitians, Venezuelans and other human refuse does not.

[Jason Cavanaugh]

Speaking of pieces of shit: when do we get a refund for you?

[Frank Drackman]

It's in your Rectum (My Bad, it's one of the things in your Rectum)

Frank

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Busy sports Sunday.

Former Jets QBs: 1-1

NY Teams: 0-2 (Buffalo/Mets)

[Mrs. Alito put up a special Phils' flag for one of those games.]

NY Teams playing in NJ: 1-1

Blocked FGs Returned for TDs: At least two.

Teams that Gave up a 102 YD fumble/TD and Still Won: 1

[Frank Drackman]

Mrs. Drackman is a Met's fan, (and Braves, these Dames and their dual loyalties) so I've sort of got to be a Met's fan since the Braves are out, but I'm as much a Met's fan as Sleepy Joe is a Cums-a-lot fan, in my inner Monolog
I like Filthy-Delphia, Bryce Harper (Homo? no Homo? that's a "Clown Question" (Bro) all they do is Win Win Win...) Could we get a repeat of the 80' series???

Frank

[bernard11]

Since we've gotten to the football section of the the thread may I, a loyal Vanderbilt guy, shout out "Go 'Dores," and "Roll it up your ass, Tide?"

Gloat of the century.

[not guilty]

I grew up as a Vanderbilt fan, and I still root for them most of the time. (My principal loyalty shifted when I went to law school at UT Knoxville.)

Congrats on the upset of Alabama!

[bernard11]

Thanks.

Many VU fans don't have a lot of interest in the football team, for obvious reasons. (At one point not long ago it had the worst cumulative W-L record since WWII of any major college team. This may still be true. It's .395 through 2023.)

Basketball and, in recent years, especially baseball have commanded more interest.

[Frank Drackman]

Loved the Vanderbilt Students (all several hundred of them) carefully descending the steps to run onto the field, "Be careful Jug-Lish, some cretinous Alabama fan spilled his Beer on the bottom step! Wait Poindexter, I need to check WWV for the Solar Prominence Forecast!" Not exactly the looting of Rome. Nice thing, with the new SEC "balanced" schedule, you won't have to play Alabama every year.
Now do the same thing to the Vols (no, seriously, they're worse than Alabama fans, at least Alabama's won titles this Millenium

Frank

[Frank Drackman]

Think how great it would have been if you'd actually watched the game.

[Rarely Posts]

Question re race-based research fellowships.
Independent research libraries (IRLs) are not associated with any unit of government, or with any state or local university.
Some IRLs offer research fellowships that are limited to BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color). These are financial stipends to scholars who wish to use the IRL collections in a research area of interest.
Is this practice legal? SFFA/Harvard case was brought under Title VI, which wouldn't seem to apply to IRLs. Maybe if they receive federal funds such as NEH grants?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

My inclination is to say the *government* shouldn't be able to discriminate based on race, or encourage such discrimination. As for private groups, the burden is on those who would limit those groups' freedom of action. The burden can be met (1960s motels/hotels, etc.), but it shouldn't be simply a conclusory statement.

How this applies to the specifics of your situation I don't know.

[John F. Carr]

See Black-Women-Only Grant Program Likely Violates Federal Law, Isn't Protected by First Amendment posted by Eugene Volokh in June. Racial discrimination is not allowed in contracts, including employment contracts. Racial discrimination is allowed in unilateral gifts. There may be tax implications for the donor.

[Alan K. Henderson]

I've been looking back at the practice of certain platforms to scrub the mere mention of the name of the alleged Trump-Ukraine impeachment whistleblower, whose name is known to every right-of-center political junkie forever immortalized in the Streisand Effect Hall of Fame. My interest was trying to determine what rule the platforms claimed to be enforcing. Rand Paul released a video that cited EC as a material witness with no mention of whistleblower status; YouTube spokesindividual Ivy Choi said he violated its rules without saying what rule was violated; reading the YT community guidelines offers no clues.

Facebook *did* cite a rule: “Any mention of the potential whistleblower’s name violates our coordinating harm policy, which prohibits content ‘outing of witness, informant, or activist.'”

https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/8/20955760/facebook-whistleblower-name-ban-trump-ukraine-impeachment-harm-rules

This sounds like a misrepresentation of Facebook's own rules. FB rules have gone through several updates, and the update history is available online.

https://transparency.meta.com/policies/community-standards/coordinating-harm-promoting-crime/

The rules consistently prohibit revealing the name of a witness, informant, or activist. Current policy prohibits “exposing the identity of [informants et. al.] and putting them at risk of harm [including]…Witnesses, informants , activists, detained persons or hostages.”

Logically, only a first-hand source (the Intelligence Community Inspector General, anyone who witnessed the whistleblowing) or citation of such can reveal WB identity. The FB rules do not prohibit speculation over the identity of such persons. They do they prohibit the mere mention of an alleged informant without any reference to informant status (as in cases like Rand Paul's). Witness, informant, and activist are terms that apply to persons whose identities are both public and classified, and FB does not add a caveat to distinguish between the two.

Does Facebook face legal liability for removing posts that do not violate its rules?

[David Nieporent]

Does Facebook face legal liability for removing posts that do not violate its rules?

No.

[M L]

KJP busted lying about FEMA money for migrants.

https://x.com/Apoctoz/status/1842578046081282531

[David Nieporent]

But that's just the same lie as above.

[apedad]

Supreme Court snubs review of nondisclosure order in Trump Jan 6 inquiry

The Supreme Court refused Monday to review whether a gag order on social-media giant X, which prevented the company from notifying former President Donald Trump of a government search warrant for his account data, was unconstitutional.

In January 2023, as part of the the government’s investigation into 2020 election interference, Special Counsel Jack Smith sought a warrant under the Stored Communications Act for information on Trump’s then-Twitter account.

Additionally, Smith requested a nondisclosure order prohibiting X from disclosing the warrant or its content.

X refused to comply with the order, challenging the nondisclosure mandate as unconstitutional. The site claimed that Trump’s First Amendment rights were violated by the nondisclosure order, arguing the stakes were heightened because of executive-privilege issues.

A lower court and two D.C. courts upheld the nondisclosure order, finding it valid under the First Amendment.

The justices apparently agreed — though they did not explain their denial. There were no noted dissents.

https://www.courthousenews.com/supreme-court-snubs-review-of-nondisclosure-order-in-trump-jan-6-inquiry/

More details in the link but the decision(s) sounds right.

[Roger S]

More evidence that the Democrats are against free speech.

[jb]

Yes, those noted Democrats in the 6-3 majority on the Supreme Court.

Hint: you can't blame random shit you don't like on the Democrats when it's Republicans doing it.

[Sarcastr0]

Supreme Court is Democrats?

[Sarcastr0]

Apoctoz is fun to click through for those who enjoy a shitlord safari.

He calls himself a right-wing meme maker. He's been at it a very long time.

M L's twitter links always deliver the cringe.

When he's not linking to actual Nazi Posobiec.

[Commenter_XY]

Just when I thought the election could not possibly get any crazier...

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/07/elon-musk-pac-election-bonus-gun-rights-petition-referrals.html

Only in America.

[Moderation4ever]

This is pretty straight forward. Credit cards are always offering me some perk for referring people. The thing here is a bunch of smart people could make a lot of money. You let me refer you and I will split the 47 dollars. A smart hustler in a college dorm could make a lot of money. He makes 100 referrals takes 5 for each ($500 to him) and his referrals get $42 each. What difference does it make if I refer you as it doesn't really require you to vote either way. I would see where this might fall in trouble with states outlawing paid people to register voters. Not the same thing but butting up close to it.

[Commenter_XY]

Last Friday, Short Circuit (my fave!!) discussed an IJ case, from TN. It was a private prison being sued. The attorney has had a gag order for over two years. Two years.

There is a gag rule in the Middle District of TN where an attorney cannot discuss their case publicly. Is that 'normal', where you cannot even disclose who you are sueing?

[Nelson]

I agree, XY. I love Short Circuit!

And I share your curiosity about whether you can gag an attorney from publicizing their cases at all, let alone for two years.

Anyone know?

[Commenter_XY]

not guilty....I summon thee! You're the TN legal expert. Help!

[JesusHadBlondeHairBlueEyes]

https://x.com/stephenehorn/status/1843350858492182915

Video of an Army Chinook terrorizing local volunteer workers.

Video of another Democrat helicopter terrorizing volunteers.
https://x.com/DefiyantlyFree/status/1843271937348575477

I guess this is what Equity-Centered FEMA relief looks like.

[jb]

LOL. "Biden isn't sending any helicopters" followed hours later by "OMG, look how evil the Biden helicopters are".

But, once again, do you guys actually read your links?

A National Guard chinook helicopter was landing next to our project, like the other 100 helicopters we’ve seen this week, and they decided to “buzz the tower”, if you will.

So one helicopter out of a hundred messes up (hopefully accidentally) and you think this is some Democratic conspiracy against these guys? Next you're going to tell me we should defund the police because a bad cop shot someone in the back, I guess.

[not guilty]

Mark Joseph Stern reports in Slate that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ administration is threatening TV stations that air ads in support of an abortion rights ballot initiative with criminal penalties, including jail time. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/10/florida-amendment-4-ron-desantis-administration-prosecute-media-airing-pro-choice-ads.html

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Slate was paywalled, so I checked the Independent in the UK:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/desantis-threatens-tv-station-abortion-advert-b2624767.html

The DeSantis administration claims that an abortion ad is harmful public-health-related disinformation and as such should be suppressed.

Now, where did DeSantis get the idea that you can suppres false and harmful reports about public health?

You’d have to have a gnat-like attention span to forget where that idea surfaced in the past few years. Alleged public-health misinformation was a major censorship target of the current administration.

So – is there in fact a First Amendment right to spread harmful public-health misinformation, and what did you say about the federal administration when it was censoring what was alleged to be such misinformation?

[hobie]

I must say it is delicious to see the yay-whos employ the very thing they decried

[The Margrave of Azilia]

For the situations to be comparable, DeSantis’s censorship activities would have to be concealed from the public and take place behind the scenes in private talks with the large organizations he was threatening. And he would have to act based on no specific statute, but on a vague and malleable public interest concept.

[Voize]

For the situations to be comparable DeSantis would have to be trying to persuade the stations and not be threatening them at all, especially not with criminal sanctions.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

"Alleged public-health misinformation was a major censorship target of the current administration."

The targets that I know of involve "jawboning" by flagging untrue information. The Slate article references possible criminal charges.

The article challenges DeSantis on the merits. It also argues that current SCOTUS doctrine protects even misleading and untrue speech. The Biden Administration did not go that far:

Because of this case law, the federal government does not attempt to police the truth of campaign ads. As former chair of the Federal Communications Commissioner Tom Wheeler put it bluntly, “you’re allowed to lie.”

Facebook and Twitter, for example, might have been informed about misleading health content but criminal threats against campaign advertising would be quite dubious.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

“jawboning”

Jawboning in the sense of “nice business you have there…”

*Of course* the companies listened to a government with the capacity to wield power over them. Even the jawbone of an ass can serve as a weapon, and if you want a judicial precedent, see Judges 15:15-16.

[jb]

Except they often didn't do what the government wanted. Even Zuckerberg, who recently complained about the pressure on COVID topics, said that the company got to make its own decisions and that it owned them.

He also said that they've changed their policies to pay even less regard to such jawboning, so he's obviously not that worried about the government retaliating against them for such decisions.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"they often didn’t do what the government wanted"

And opposition papers published plenty of criticism against the government after the Sedition Act of 1798.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Jawboning in the sense of “nice business you have there…”

Not really.

Florida specifically threatened them with criminal consequences.

It did not simply write to them (putting aside — as the article argues — it would be wrong) that the statements were wrong.

The government is allowed to speak. The ability of the government to prosecute doesn't erase that. The article makes two general arguments (1) Florida's claims were wrong (2) they put forth an additional level of threats that is legally dubious.

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

ON MY MIND: Yet ANOTHER Nobel prize for RNA!!! Congratulations to Victor Ambros and Gary Ruvkun, who share the prize for Physiology/Medicine, for their discovery of microRNA, tiny bits of genetic material that serve as on and off switches inside cells that help control the activity of larger macromolecues.

RNA chemistry: the gift that keeps on giving.

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/nobel-prize-medicine-opens-6-days-award-announcements-114553991

[Sarcastr0]

1993. They were about my age when they made their discovery.

This is not an area I had been following at all! I guess it gets in the weeds.

Tomorrow I may ask for a book recommendation on the history of epigenetics. I had a good time with the history of CRISPR's discovery.

And yeah, RNA does seem like it can just about do it all. Except multiply itself!

[Brett Bellmore]

RNA World

"The RNA world is a hypothetical stage in the evolutionary history of life on Earth in which self-replicating RNA molecules proliferated before the evolution of DNA and proteins."

[Frank Drackman]

Before getting all into Biochemistry, maybe learn the first 20 Elements of the Periodic Table, amazing how many supposedly Ed-jew-ma-cated people don’t know them (I learned them in High Screw-el Chemistry in Ali-bama)

Frank

[JoeFromtheBronx]

To further a thread that was getting unwieldy.

The 13th Amendment is an exception to the state action requirement because the 13th Amendment explicitly contains language that makes it an exception to the state action requirement. There is no such language in the 14th Amendment.

The text of 4A speaks of “unreasonable searches and seizures” without explicitly saying that only applies to governmental conduct.

The “state action” component of the 14A is of questionable breadth by text alone. What does “denying” mean exactly etc? It very well can be interpreted to require positive protections.

If a fetus is a protected class, it would be the first time in American history that we have a protected class whose class status is being used as a sword rather than a shield.

It is shielding fetuses. The “sword” part involves limiting the rights of pregnant people. Protecting other classes results in decreasing the license of people to do things too. For instance, the right to deny service to certain people.

Also, abortion rights are not the only scenario where the rights of the unborn might arise. For instance, the health care of a fetus can be threatened by a company’s pollution. A criminal feticide (not involving abortion) can be treated as equal to the murder of an infant.

The fetus (or its advocates) would be invoking it as a sword so that the fetus can do harm to other people, namely pregnant women who do not wish to be pregnant.

Yes. I think the rights of pregnant people are compelling. That helps to show the problem of making embryos etc. a protected class. But, merely burdening the life, liberty, and property of others to some degree occurs in various cases. It is a matter of degree.

It’s a huge leap from “I’m protected; stop making me sit at the back of the bus” to “I’m protected, you have to let me live inside you for nine months.”

Yes. I think it is quite possible to show the problems with making an embryo a protected class. You need to show the work. The level of third-party harm is one such line drawing.

The argument the protection of an embryo is a compelling state interest might require overriding the burdens on the pregnant person. The weakness of the claim goes to the balancing of interests, not the mere idea that the embryo can be a protected class.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

[deleted]

[Intelligent Mr Toad]

[ReaderY]

It’s not the first time. Far from it. Calhoun wrote a lot about abolitionism being entirely a sword, not a shield. Completely irrational, based on nothing but hatred of people who are different and whose institutions are peculiar. Indeed, slaves’ gains were entirely slaveholders’ losses.

One has to remember the Dred Scott court not only found the equivalent of a fundamental right to own a slave, it even developed a prototype of equal protection. It said citizens have a right not to be treated worse than others just because of the kind of property they choose to own.

[M L]

Good ol' Forbes magazine.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2024/10/08/forbes-proposes-doubling-gas-prices-to-combat-climate-change/

Forbes Proposes Doubling Gas Prices to Combat Climate Change

An astonishing article in Forbes Tuesday asserts severe measures are needed to effectively combat climate change, including more than doubling the cost of gasoline.

The climate crisis is “a present-day emergency,” writes Nils Rokke, and “we must use every tool at our disposal to combat it.”

One such measure is to force fossil fuel users to pay the “social cost of carbon,” Rokke proposes, without explaining how levying a carbon tax would magically make global warming go away.

Instead, he points to a paper issued last May that made the extraordinary and undemonstrable allegation that “1°C warming reduces world GDP by 12%,” a cost that must be passed on to the greatest offenders.

Applied to automobiles, the real social cost of carbon runs to “approximately $9 per US gallon,” Rokke claims, and thus “implementing the true social cost would more than double current prices.”

[John F. Carr]

Nine dollars is quite high. A dollar or two is not. I suggest a trade. The climate alarmists and environmental justice advocates get a tax on oil pumping and imports equivalent to $2.50 per gallon of gas. Revenue must be spent on mitigation and not on pet projects of urban mayors. Health care for breathers of exhaust fumes. Stilts for houses in Bangladesh. Carbon capture. In return no CAFE regulations, no gas guzzler taxes, no EV mandates. No consideration of motor vehicle exhaust in environmental impact statements because the damage will be paid for out of taxes.

[David Nieporent]

The author of the Breitbart piece supposedly has a degree in economics, and yet is puzzled at how taxing something will lead to less use of it.

[M L]

Guy on IG and other platforms complains that 45 million went to Helene response while 8.7 billion went to Israel in the same month. I have no idea if his numbers are accurate, and if they are, I’m not familiar enough with the context and circumstances to evaluate the complaint or have an opinion on it. But it happens to be an example of someone making a (rather common) form of argument that was being discussed above.

https://www.instagram.com/king_trout/reel/DAu4MwTx6E9/

[Sarcastr0]

How would you think finding some guy whose profile says 'Low-Effort Sh*tposter' supports you in any way?

[M L]

You don't identify with that description?

[Sarcastr0]

I guess that's as much an answer as any I'd expect.

[Josh R]

It's a crap style of argument that is used to complain about whatever spending or tax policy you don't like. The person who makes it isn't honestly engaging in how to better fund disaster relief. They want to push whatever their agenda is, as you did about bashing BidenHarris over migrants.

[Commenter_XY]

VC Conspirators in FL...Milton looks ferocious. Stay safe & good luck!

[Magister]

So you're saying that Milton is burly?

[David Nieporent]

I'm saying that the first amendment ought to be repealed so you can be punished for that comment.

[Commenter_XY]

Columbia University pro-Palestinian group endorses violence and walks back apology for student who said ‘Zionists don’t deserve to live.’

This is surreal. Protected by 1A, right? Explicit calls for, and full endorsement of, violence against Jewish students at Columbia University. But it IS protected political speech, correct?

https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/397334

I cannot believe it is happening here in America.