Monday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[not guilty]

In what FBI officials are calling “an intentional act of terrorism,” a car bomb exploded Saturday morning outside a fertility clinic in Palm Springs, California. The suspected bomber was killed, and four other persons were injured.

The American Reproductive Centers in Palm Springs is a fertility clinic which according to its website provides in vitro fertilization, genetic testing, egg donation and other reproductive health services. https://arcbabies.com/

Here is an article containing some information about an audio recording said to have been left behind by the bomber: https://bnonews.com/index.php/2025/05/bomber-of-california-fertility-clinic-described-as-pro-mortalist/

I remain baffled as to why nutjobs like this regard it as any of their business whether other folks reproduce or do not reproduce, as well as the methods they choose to do so or avoid doing so.

[AmosArch]

The guy is part of the antinatalist/childfree movement (although obviously they have disclaimed him) that has grown up around reddit. Which has gotten real silent about this since they were really hoping over there it was some misinformed MAGA antiabortionist. Reddit like tumblr before is a hotbed where a lot of strange usually left leaning subcultures take root due to common causers being able to find each other. Which is ironic since they like to accuse other places of the same thing.

There are worlds upon worlds of these subcultures, often revolving around hating or being contrarian about something. Theres one community dedicated entirely to hating dogs, another based on hating cats. Yet another is completely dedicated to criticism of the wife of former Prince Harry. Must admit I find some of the content pretty funny.

[not guilty]

As Hank Williams, Sr. sang with the Drifting Cowboys:

Mindin' other people's business seems to be high-toned
I got all that I can do just to mind my own
Why don't mind your own business
Mind your own business
If you mind your own business you'll stay busy all the time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZH2bmbUTl4

[Speaking for normal people]

Yes, wel you could have sung that to Nazi approval

I've read a lot on the Third Reich and people like you made it happen

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

—Martin Niemöller

[JasonT20]

I've read a lot on the Third Reich and people like you made it happen...

Uh, that's not how I see it. The Nazis (and the Stalinists, Maoists, and every other totalitarian regime ever) absolutely wanted people up in their neighbors' business. They wanted them to inform the regime of anyone disloyal.

[Dr. Ed 2]

So does the nanny state.

[JasonT20]

Nanny state = Nazis, got it!

[JasonT20]

That famous quote says something different to me that it does to you, if you think it is relevant here. not guilty is talking about how people shouldn't be concerned about how other people behave in their private lives in ways that don't affect anyone else. Martin Niemöller was arguing about how we should all stand up for the rights of other people, including people we don't know or have no association with at all, because that is how we protect our own rights.

Now, I do see that as being not as strong a reason as it should be, from a moral and ethical point of view. It is a utilitarian view of human rights. I prefer a more positive motivation:

We would not want our rights violated, so we should stand up for the rights of others.

Stating it that way makes no reference to whether our own rights are in danger if we don't work to protect the rights of other people. In an ideal world, we wouldn't need a selfish motivation or a concern over reciprocity to want to see other people treated justly.

[Bwaaah]

Wasn't your professional life devoted not just to minding other people's business, but also to make your best effort to punish them for it? (Regrets if I have that wrong.)

This is not to say that's wrong, but that you strike me as a person whose inclination is to do anything but mind his own business.

[not guilty]

Where do you get that, Bwaaah? My career was as a litigator, primarily criminal defense work with a concentration on appellate advocacy.

[Bwaaah]

Regrets. I thought you had been a prosecutor.

[TwelveInchPianist]

How is it your business whether or not women color their hair or get a boobjob, NG?

[not guilty]

As Justice Scalia said, concurring in Pope v. Illinois, 481 U.S. 497, 505 (1987), "De gustibus non est disputandum. Just as there is no use arguing about taste, there is no use litigating about it."

It's nothing more than my opinion, but I regard massive breast implants and peroxide blonde hair as trashy. As Sevier County, Tennesee's beloved native Dolly Parton has stated, she modeled her over the top stage persona on the “town tramp”, a local woman who wore high heels and tight skirts, who Parton would look out for on trips into town. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/oct/09/dolly-parton-on-style-stardom-and-sexists-rockstar-behind-seams-my-life-in-rhinestones (Neighboring Cocke County was then known as a hotbed of vice.)

[Paladin_44]

Dolly Parton - one of my favorite people. Kind, generous to a fault, and a damn good entertainer to boot.

[Kazinski]

No worries about that happening here, we never agree on anything.

[Dr. Ed 2]

"I remain baffled as why nutjobs like this regard it as any of their business whether other folks reproduce or do not reproduce, as well as the methods they choose to do so or avoid doing so."

For a long time in this country, we had the same attitude toward domestic violence, i.e. "why is it anyone else's business how I treat my wife and children?"

[Martinned]

O, f*ck off!

[Frank Drackman]

Thanks Sherriff Justice, I heard the Bandit's heading East on I-20

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

lol there is no way in hell that foreigner will get that reference.

[TwelveInchPianist]

He didn't mean to single you out Martinned.

[Armchair]

"A 25-year-old man the FBI believes was responsible for an explosion that ripped through a Southern California fertility clinic left behind “anti-pro-life” writings before carrying out an attack investigators called terrorism, authorities said Sunday."

Gosh..."Anti-pro-life"? Interesting terminology that. Well, I guess we know he wasn't going after Planned Parenthood.

https://apnews.com/article/palm-springs-fertility-clinic-explosion-a4040e8b98cc4474a0a5bdc1078033fb

[Speaking for normal people]

So far on here no one gets it. To complain that you were born is maybe the the lowest animal state for a human."I didn't ask to be born soooooo I think I will kill YOU" It is my years in business , schools, non-profits, teaching that tells me there is something wrong with anyone who hears about this and doesn't see that the anti-natalist is demonic.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I look at this a little bit differently -- we talk about female empowerment while it is men committing suicide (which this was).

Perhaps if we cared a little bit more about men.....

[JasonT20]

Well, I don't see it as "demonic" since I don't believe that demons exist. But a fucked up, irrational, and probably psychopathic line of thinking? Yeah, totally.

[Speaking for normal people]

You are an ass. NO idea of conscience. You aren't baffled you are conscience-less

[not guilty]

Please tell me, Speaking for normal people. Just how does my denouncing a nutjob like the late, unlamented Guy Edward Bartkus evince any lack of conscience on my part?

In the words attributed to the Apostle Peter, "But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men's matters." I Peter 4:15 (KJV) (emphasis added).

[Commenter_XY]

Where did the nutjob learn and adopt the ideology, in the first place? That baffles me.

[santamonica811]

I give President Trump shit for a lot of what he says and writes. Because . . . well, a lot of what he says and writes is pretty awful. So, I'll give him props for his response to Biden's cancer announcement. Trump's response was short and kind, and was, essentially, "My wife and I wish Biden a full and fast recovery."

That's it. Trump often (usually?) manages to insert himself into the story, but not here. It was short, sweet, to-the-point, and without agenda. Nicely done, and--dare I say it--presidential.

(It says more about me and my own lack of character that my own first response to reading Trump's note was, "Who wrote this on behalf of Trump . . . because it sure doesn't sound like Trump himself wrote it?" I find that a very uncharitable reaction, and I regret that this was my knee-jerk response.)

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Enough with the self-harm/vice signaling.

Based entirely on objective factors, he almost certainly didn't write it (neither did Steven Cheung), and you know it.

Donald Trump's severe mental derangement doesn't "take a day off".

[Dr. Ed 2]

Bullshyte -- while he may or may not have physically written it (and I suspect he did), if he didn't agree with it, (a) it wouldn't remain there long, and (b) someone wouldn't remain in his employ long.

[Kazinski]

Ehh, knowing what we know now about Biden's mental state, and now physical health its hard not to have empathy for him.

And its hard to have anything but contempt for the elder abusers in his inner circle.

Anyone that knows anything about prostate cancer (I had it 15 years ago) knows that while someone could suddenly get diagnosis of a 9 Gleason score and bone metastasis prostate cancer, it would have to be someone that doesn't get regular medical checkups.

They knew, and not only did they keep it secret, they also decided not to do more aggressive medical treatment like surgery or radiation that likely would have stopped it from spreading, and political consideration probably played a part in that. However I will concede at his age and condition something else may well kill him first, so there is that.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Just wondering -- he's had two brain bleeds which is a whole bunch of related medical concerns.

Could this have precluded the standard cancer treatments because he would not have survived them because of this? Or could there be a third factor that we don't know about?

I'm more inclined to think that they chose not to act rather than didn't know about it, and it may have been the right decision.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's a nasty way to die, that's for sure. Given Biden's age his doctor was probably just playing the odds, and anticipating that he would die before it got this far. In most cases that's what you'd expect.

I got treated for it 15 years ago, because I was young enough at the time that the odds were it WOULD be the thing to kill me. If the same test results came up at my current age, the advice would be to just keep an eye on it.

[Frank Drackman]

Practicing Medicine without a license again Kazinsky?
I'd stick to the letter bombs.
The main way Prostrate Cancer is diagnosed is by biopsy, after an elevated PSA.
The problem is, PSA is one of those tests that is "Sensitive" but not "Specific" (or is it "Specific" and not "Sensitive"??, I hated that one class we had on medical statistics)
Either way, the most Bad-Ass Cancer Cells (in the medical biz we call them "Anaplastic") stop doing their normal jobs, Lung Cells stop breathing, Liver Cells stop Livering, and Prostrate Cells stop Prostrating.
One of the things normal Prostrate Cells do is make PSA (AKA "Prostrate Specific Antigen") and some of the most aggressive Prostrate Cancers don't make PSA.
Bottom line, think you're in like Flint because your PSA is normal?
Not so Fast my friend! (HT L Corso) Only way to know for sure is to have a Prostrate Biopsy, which sounds as painful as it is.
Even then, do you want to know? You gotta die of something.
Like with most Cancers, the key is prevention, and there's only one thing that's been shown to reduce the incidence of Prostrate Cancer, good thing is every man does it.

Frank

[Michael P]

Sensitivity and specificity are exactly what they sound like; PSA tests are sensitive but not very specific.

And maybe you should go lie down with all that prostrating.

[Kazinski]

Yes Frank, I realize that. But while you can't use PSA to diagnose PC its actually a good indicator of when you should have a biopsy.

Unless of course he fell for the "watch and wait", but he almost certainly knew he had it, but perhaps thought it slow enough that he'd die of something else first.

[Bubba Jones]

Prostate cancer therapy can have a lot of downsides.

Most people die "with" prostate cancer rather than "from" prostate cancer.

Biden may still end up there.

[Poxigah146]

I've been thinking about this too. Biden was never a lunatic leftist too for the first 77 years of his life, so the anti-American, anti-white tone he took starting in 2020 means he either changed drastically, which seems unlikely, or he was just a patsy, with someone else pulling the strings.

Now that we know about his illness, the latter seems to be the most likely scenario. These people are despicable.

[Bubba Jones]

Biden was whatever he needed to be.

Lunatic leftist wasn't the path to political success when he was "tough on crime."

[Bubba Jones]

My empathy tells me that Biden was an opportunistic asshole his entire life, who surrounded himself with opportunistic assholes.

While I don't actively wish him harm and suffering, this is likely just another example of him (and his wife) putting his political career ahead of all else.

If he had resigned in 2022 because of declining health, THEN he could have had my sympathy.

[gVOR08]

It seems to be newsworthy that Trump sent out a civil message.

[Brett Bellmore]

For all we know, Trump has reason enough to be sympathetic; If I had to bet, he probably has prostate cancer, too. At his age the odds strongly favor it.

[ReaderY]

Trump listened to his wife on something?

[Armchair]

Oh, give yourself more credit. Biden being around makes Trump look good.

[Speaking for normal people]

You shold regret most of all Biden's bullseye comment just before the Trump assassination attempt. I don't judge Biden's conscience but if you can't see he is a fool then YOU are a fool

[ducksalad]

Never fear, it was only temporary.

HOW MUCH DID KAMALA HARRIS PAY BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN FOR HIS POOR PERFORMANCE DURING HER CAMPAIGN FOR PRESIDENT? WHY DID HE ACCEPT THAT MONEY IF HE IS SUCH A FAN OF HERS? ISN’T THAT A MAJOR AND ILLEGAL CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTION? WHAT ABOUT BEYONCÉ? …AND HOW MUCH WENT TO OPRAH, AND BONO??? I am going to call for a major investigation into this matter. Candidates aren’t allowed to pay for ENDORSEMENTS, which is what Kamala did, under the guise of paying for entertainment. In addition, this was a very expensive and desperate effort to artificially build up her sparse crowds. IT’S NOT LEGAL! For these unpatriotic “entertainers,” this was just a CORRUPT & UNLAWFUL way to capitalize on a broken system. Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!

[Sarcastr0]

Good lord, this is embarrassing.

[Kazinski]

Hint, he isn't embarrassed.

I know the appeal of his speaking style is selective, I know it doesn't appeal to me, but it seems to be pretty effective with most of his base.

Thank God its hard to imitate, at least without being too obvious or we'd be seeing it imitated a lot more, in both parties, because its successful.

[Brett Bellmore]

My wife has been sharing these "baby Trump" videos, and as annoying as I find Trump's manner of speaking, they ARE hilarious. Especially the coffee one.

[bernard11]

Would you have found them hilarious if Biden were the speaker?

Or evidence of severe mental deterioration? Which they are. Is incoherence to be admired when it's your hero being incoherent?

[Brett Bellmore]

Actually, these videos aren't particularly incoherent. They're just funny.

[Sarcastr0]

I'm embarrassed.

I'm not a huge dignity of the office guy but...this is embarrassing.

[Magister]

"a CORRUPT & UNLAWFUL way to capitalize" is kinda funny, at least in isolation.

[JasonT20]

(It says more about me and my own lack of character that my own first response to reading Trump's note was, "Who wrote this on behalf of Trump . . . because it sure doesn't sound like Trump himself wrote it?" I find that a very uncharitable reaction, and I regret that this was my knee-jerk response.)

That's my knee jerk response as well. But I don't think it says that much negative about us. That we're cynical, definitely. But we have seen more than enough from Trump that is self-centered and lacking in empathy to be justified in being skeptical that he would express sympathy without any qualification.

Don Jr. showed what we expect from him and his father. He retweeted and agreed "100%" with his fathers post, but then followed it up less than 30 minutes later with a stupid conspiracy question about why "Dr. Jill Biden" didn't catch this "stage 5 cancer" sooner.

[Kazinski]

Moody's downgraded US debt last week, but it was the last credit rating agency to do so, SP did it first in 2011, and Fitch downgraded in 2023.

Some people blame tax cuts, some spending, some both.

So i looked at sending and taxes as % of GDP back to 1980 using St Louis Fed Data.*

Pres _ years _ Taxes/GDP% _ Spending%
Jimmy Carter 1980-1981 19.05 21.35
Ronald Reagan 1982-1989 17.95 21.93
George H.W. Bush 1990-1993 17.28 21.40
Bill Clinton 1994-2001 18.74 19.05
George W. Bush 2002-2009 17.08 20.23
Barack Obama (1st term) 2010-2013 15.75 22.38
Barack Obama (2nd term) 2013-2017 17.725 20.55
Donald Trump (pre-covid) 2018-2020 16.35 20.60
Donald Trump (covid) 2018-2020 17.05 30.55
Joe Biden 2022-2024 18.43 24.67
current 17.7 24.70
average 17.55 22.49

So one thing stands out right away, only Bill Clinton is blameless, everyone else averaged about 4% deficit over their terms, (not considering the 2 covid years), other than Joe Biden of course who averaged 6% deficit.

Bill Clinton only averaged 0.3% annual deficit over 8 full years in office, less than 1/10 the average since 1980.

So my conclusion is to fix our mess we need to raise our taxes as % of GDP about 1%, and lower our spending a little less than 5% (as a percentage of GDP) to duplicate what Clinton did, and please note thats really only 1.5% lower than Obama's 2nd term (or Trumps pre covid years) spending so I think thats pretty doable, it won't put us back in the stoneage.

* I had Grok do a first pass, and it decided to do fiscal years which makes sense because for instance Fiscal year 2025 would get attribted to Biden, since it started October 1 2024, so even though Trump is President, its almost June with no tax or spending bills passed yet, and just 4 months left in the fiscal year. I also split Trump to pre and post covid, and Obama two two terms because his first term was dealing with the financial crisis, the data shows clearly why a split is justified. And since I arbitrarily started with 1980 only Carter's last 2 years are counted.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Regardless of why you sliced and diced the data in the way you did, the entire exercise is obviously meaningless, because presidents don't control spending or taxes.

Well, until now...

[Kazinski]

Well somebody proposed the American Rescue Act, the inaptly named Inflation Reduction Act, several student loan forgiveness programs, some which were not stopped, the Infrastructure bill.

Biden might not have had a good idea what was in them, but his autopen signed them. Something caused spending to jump 4% from pre-covid levels.

And Trump is definitely responsible for his tax cuts, he proposed them and made sure they got passed, and actually signed them.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Obfuscating nonsense.

Presidents "take credit" and "put blame" on each other all day long; it doesn't change the facts.

[Speaking for normal people]

Which is to say , your experience is that Presidents don't lead.
They just diddle interns, or go to the beach, or put their two girls in a hugely expensive school while fighting freedom in education. Yeah, I get it

[Dr. Ed 2]

It was Newt Gingrich, not Clinton.

[Kazinski]

Give them both credit.

[grb]

Dr. Ed 2 : "It was Newt Gingrich, not Clinton."

Uh huh. In fact, it was:

1. 55% Clinton
2. 40% GWH Bush
3. 5% Gingrich

There were two major deficit reduction bills, one under Bush and one under Clinton. Both were passed by a Democratic Congress, the WJC one without a single GOP vote. Both were critical to the budget success under Clinton and Bush would merit more credit but he renounced his own responsible act shorting after signing it & was back campaigning for tax cuts in the subsequent election.

Has Ed ever gotten a single thing right?

[bernard11]

Is this the same Newt Gingrich who repeatedly predicted that Clinton's tax increase would lead to economic catastrophe? Sorry, no credit.

[Kazinski]

I left the last column off because I worried it wouldn't format correctly.

It was deficit as % of GDP, so here it is seperately which I hope further highlights where the problem is.

Jimmy Carter 1980-1981 -2.30
Ronald Reagan 1982-1989 -3.98
George H.W. Bush 1990-1993 -4.12
Bill Clinton 1994-2001 -0.31
George W. Bush 2002-2009 -3.15
Barack Obama 2010-2013 -6.63
Barack Obama 2014-2017 -2.83
Donald Trump (pre-covid) 2018-19 -4.25
Donald Trump (covid) 2020-2021 -13.50
Joe Biden 2022-2024 -6.24

Obama had a decent excuse for his 6.63% deficit, as well as Trump for his 2 covid years. But I am unable to think of a good excuse to still have 6% deficits 2 years after covid is over.

[Commenter_XY]

There isn't one = excuse

How does the government incorporate these credit agencies downgrades into their legal briefs arguing that spending cuts via staff reduction and agency reduction/elimination are necessary? ISTM that this reality needs to make it's way into legal argument, yet another reason why we can't have government run by TROs and injunctions.

[Kazinski]

Hopefully the budget bill will moot a lot of these lawsuits, if Congress weighs in the courts are out in the cold.

[tylertusta]

But I am unable to think of a good excuse to still have 6% deficits 2 years after covid is over.

I think you understand that this is a subjective argument.

Growing segments within the Democratic Party's coalition have been arguing for higher domestic spending levels for decades, and in recent years some of those factions on the left have started to lean towards the so-called Modern Monetary Theory (MMT), which argues in favor of unlimited deficit spending as if it had minor, manageable economic drawbacks.

[Commenter_XY]

Ok, but the credit markets are objective. Long term rates are rising. That is bad news for the US.

[tylertusta]

I agree, but others do not view the economy that way.

[Kazinski]

Not really. Using mortgage rates as an indicator of the long term rates by decade:

1960s 6.0%
1970's 8.9%
1980's 12.7%
1990's 6.1%
2000's 6.3%
2010's 4.1%
2020's 5.1% so far

Currently 6.81% which looks a little below the long term average, and completely unremarkable, but more likely to go down than up from here.

We got spoiled in the 2010's, we will not see its like again. Absent another major housing recession.

[Sarcastr0]

in recent years some of those factions on the left have started to lean towards the so-called Modern Monetary Theory

MMT has been around since the 1990s, it's always been fringe; I'm not sure where you're seeing a recent lean.

Here's Krugman going at MTT hammer and tongs 6 years ago:
https://archive.is/Btd5n#selection-399.0-410.0

Google Trends shows a slight increase in US interest since 2008 but nothing recent:
https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all_2008&gprop=youtube&q=MMT

Vastly more common is the right running around about "THE DEBT" as thought it's on a credit card. Of course, their prescription is that they get everything they want, and own the libs.

It's a running joke about political cartoons that just take big things and write DEBT on it and call it a day.

[tylertusta]

Look man, you need to do something better than come at me with straw man arguments.

This is about political influence, not whether the whole electorate is googling it. A google search of US trends is inappropriate.

Factions of the left includes- but is not exclusive to- AOC and Bernie Sanders.

[Sarcastr0]

AOC seems to have mentioned it once in 2019.

I don't see anything with Sanders talking about it.

[bernard11]

What are you even talking about?

[Kazinski]

Well jut what did Joe Biden mean when he said "Milton Friedman isn't running the show anymore”?

That there was a more Modern Monetary Theory to take his theories place?

That's how I read it.

That's how Ioe started out governing.

[Sarcastr0]

Pretty bold take to declare there is no middle ground between Milton Friedman and MMT.

[Kazinski]

Oh so as long as its in the direction, but we aren't completely there yet its not a thing?

Annual deficits of > 6% of GDP is a train roaring straight to the MMT station.

[Brett Bellmore]

The annual deficit was >9% last year; They didn't count the cost of interest on the debt in the >6% figure.

[Josh R]

No.

The CBO reports that outlays in fiscal 2024 were 23.4% of GDP including interest on the debt which was 3.6% of GDP. Revenues were 17.0% of GDP for a deficit of 6.4% of GDP including interest on the debt.

[Sarcastr0]

No. What are you talking about?

MMT isn’t deficits are high.

Words mean things.

[bernard11]

Since Friedman hated tariffs it's clear he's not influencing Trump either.

[bernard11]

You read it wrong.

[Brett Bellmore]

"So my conclusion is to fix our mess we need to raise our taxes as % of GDP about 1%, and lower our spending a little less than 5% (as a percentage of GDP) to duplicate what Clinton did,"

The problem is that Congress reliably responds to revenue increases by increasing spending even more. What you saw during the Clinton years was a dot com boom that happened to coincide with Congress being totally tied up with the impeachment fight, so that they were unusually slow to respond to the revenue surge. But spending caught up with revenue fast enough after the impeachment fight was over.

The other problem, of course, is that the accumulated debt is now so large that just servicing the debt is a substantial part of the federal budget. To even get to a balanced budget we'd need to run a pretty large 'primary' surplus.

For most of post- WWII history, all you'd have needed to solve the deficit problem was to stop raising spending for a few years, and let the revenue catch up. I believe that's no longer the case, thanks to the large debt carrying component of federal spending, even a freeze of all other federal spending would no longer stop federal spending from rising as fast as revenue.

[grb]

Brett : "What you saw during the Clinton years was a dot com boom that happened to coincide with Congress being totally tied up with the impeachment fight, so that they were unusually slow to respond to the revenue surge."

How the f**k can anyone repeatedly peddle something this lame? Four Points :

1. In terms of motivation, here's why: Brett likes whining about the deficit. But unlike Kazinski, he refuses to face any of the difficult choices and compromises necessary to confront it. He's interested in dealing with federal debt only if the Right gets everything they want, sates every desire, has no difficult choices, makes zero compromises, and owns the Libs every step of the way. Otherwise, Brett is satisfied with two-faced talk alone. What happened in the Clinton years is therefore a "problem" that has to be explained away, however absurdly.

2. I don't care if Brett "blames" Clinton's economic success entirely on the "dot com boom". Presidents usually get too much credit/blame for the macro economic trends during their term anyway. But in terms of this discussion, its irrelevant anyway. Reagan almost had as good an economic expansion as WJC and he buried the country under debt. The difference between the two was the deficit reduction bills passed under Clinton and GHW Bush.

3. Can anyone read Brett's gibberish about Congress being too distracted to spent without laughing their asses off? What a pathetic spectacle of weaseling! First, Congress has never been that absent-minded. Second, they had (from the two deficit reduction bills) created strict structural procedural blocks that prevented new spending without offsetting cuts or new taxes.

4. Something like that still exists today, but it's toothless and easily finagled. The real controls were eliminated after the election of W Bush to allow his massive tax cuts. Whatya wanna bet Brett applauded every single step that led back to massive deficits?

[Sarcastr0]

One of my favorite political cartoons

Might be one of the cutest Obama caricatures we got.

[David Nieporent]

I don't understand why this perennial discussion here never seems to mention the peace dividend.

[Kazinski]

Well it was not only the peace dividend during the Clinton years, but also we had the Savings and Loan crises during Bush 1 which raised the deficit, and put a lot of assets on our balance sheet. There were a total of 450 billion on Resolution Trusts ledger totaling 450 billion, and an 85% recovery rate when they disposed of the assets. A lot of those assets were acquired during Bush 1 and disposed during the Clinton years.

The First 2 trillion Federal budget was 1999, so that actually had quite an impact.

[bernard11]

The fact that you fail to give Clinton even a smidge of credit is proof your comment is dishonest.

The man got taxes raised in the face of all sorts of doomsaying by the right, but you can't even bring yourself to mention his name.

[Kazinski]

I think you are wrong Brett, the tech sector was a smaller part of the economy then and not only is it much larger, its still booming.

We had just as large of relative deficits after WW2, and while we had a little faster growth, we had more frequent recessions.

We go a decade with under 1% deficts then we will be back in reasonable shape. 2% growth, 2% inflation 1% deficit = -3% relative dent.

Over 10 years that's a 34% decrease in relative debt.

And any deficit % lower than the inflation+ growth rate is sustainable, but won't fix the problem.

[Brett Bellmore]

"We had just as large of relative deficits after WW2"

Federal Surplus or Deficit [-] as Percent of Gross Domestic Product

No, in fact we did NOT have just as large of relative deficits after WW2, unless you are talking only about the 1946 fiscal year, when the war was technically over, but the government was still on a war footing.

This chart is, by the way, not taking into account debt service, which is why it shows an actual surplus for a few years during the Clinton administration.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/FYOIGDA188S

So, for 2024, the deficit not counting debt service was 6.28% of GDP, add debt service, and it was 9.3% of GDP. Whether you count debt service or not, we were nowhere near these numbers until at least 40 years after WWII.

[jb]

"So my conclusion is to fix our mess we need to raise our taxes as % of GDP about 1%, and lower our spending a little less than 5% (as a percentage of GDP) to duplicate what Clinton did, and please note thats really only 1.5% lower than Obama's 2nd term (or Trumps pre covid years) spending so I think thats pretty doable, it won't put us back in the stoneage."

I'm okay with this if we're willing to keep Medicare and Social Security spending at the same portion of the GDP as in Clinton's era.

[Martinned]

That wouldn't be a very good deal for the left. Because of an aging population (no immigration!) and Baumol's cost disease both healcare and social security spending would normally increase by more than GDP even absent any change in what that money is actually spent on.

[jb]

I think it's an issue of generational equity, not left/right.

The Boomers have systematically screwed over subsequent generations while enriching themselves. Now that they're aging into entitlement programs, we shouldn't slash all other government spending to try to keep entitlement programs working for them, especially if the goal is mostly to keep taxes low.

[Brett Bellmore]

Nah, we boomers were also screwed over. They increased out SS contribution drastically to bail out the system, and then instead of bailing it out they just frittered the money away.

If they'd left it pay as you go, I'd have enough retirement savings today that I wouldn't NEED Social Security!

[jb]

The "they" doing the frittering was mostly Boomer politicians, though!

[not guilty]

Here is an interesting article about the U.S. District Judge who will preside over the Judge Hannah Dugan dog and pony show: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/wisconsin-judge-dugans-case-goes-before-scotus-bashing-jurist?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

Perhaps now Pam Blondie and Company will come to appreciate the maxim from Aesop's Fables: Be careful what you wish for; your wish may be granted.

If this case should somehow go to trial, I will be surprised if it survives a Rule 29 motion for judgment of acquittal.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Be careful what you ask for....

[Kazinski]

She can beat the rap, but not the ride.

Probation was all she'd get anyway.

And she is still suspended.

[Martinned]

Who needs an independent judiciary anyway?

[Kazinski]

Had nothing to do with anything she did on the bench, and she is a state court judge anyway.

[Commenter_XY]

If the Dugan suspension converts to removal from the bench permanently, that would be appropriate. She did the public perp walk, mug shot. That is forever, Kaz. Hannah Dugan won't be going to her lib cocktail parties w/o someone thinking about her self-inflicted scarlet letters (ICE); she'll recognize the knowing looks. That is forever. I'm sure Judge Dugan sees herself as a martyr for the cause.

Are judges elected in WI? Just imagine that re-election campaign (with posters of her mugshot everywhere).

As for the presiding judge, I vaguely remember when he ran for office decades ago (remembered the name, and I bet National Review did a blurb on him). What is one step down from a loon? That's him. I just don't know what to call that.

[Kazinski]

Don't kid yourself, in Milwaukee in legal circles they are giving her high fives, and 'you go girl'.

[Commenter_XY]

If Judge Hannah goes to a judicial conference, I promise you, they won't be giving her 'high fives'. She'll see a roomful of knowing looks, and not a few just turning away.

That perp walk and mugshot will follow her for the rest of her life. Nothing hurts a progressive like public humiliation, Kaz. How can she possibly sit in judgment of others, is my question?

[Magister]

More dishonest crap from Commenter_XY "the process is the punishment".

A legal conference is likely to have a whole bunch of the people who decried this arrest as an attempt to intimidate the judiciary; being attacked by people as vile as Commenter_XY will not bring shame to any progressive. So she will not suffer for vindication in the face of Trump's judicial intimidation, which is why Commenter_XY is so eager to denounce it now. But it is a fair observation that people like Commenter_XY and the cult he follows never feel shame for their vileness.

If she chooses not to retire (she's 65 or 66 years old), her next election as a judge would be in 2028, coincidentally at the same time that Wisconsin has a presidential primary. But maybe Elon Musk will spend scads of money to affect that election; it worked so well in this year's Wisconsin Supreme Court election.

[Sarcastr0]

"Mr. C is not a born Nazi. He is the product of a democracy hypocritically preaching social equality and practicing a carelessly brutal snobbery. He is a sensitive, gifted man who has been humiliated into nihilism. He would laugh to see heads roll."

Or, as Michael Mann put it, “Fascism was a movement of the lesser intelligentsia.”

[Mr. Bumble]

A judiciary independent of the law?

[Bwaaah]

Reminds me of parents.

[Michael Ejercito]

A state judiciary independent of federal law?

[Magister]

A judiciary independent of the law?

Only if you think Trump is the law, rather than constitutions, statutes, precedent and tradition.

[TwelveInchPianist]

18 USC §1071 and §1505 are statutes, not Trump, correct?

[not guilty]

The matter is set for jury trial beginning on July 21, 2025. https://www.wied.uscourts.gov/sites/wied/files/documents/25cr89%205.15.25%20Arraignment%20Minutes.pdf

The facts appear to be essentially uncontroverted. I see no reason that the trial cannot commence as scheduled.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

From what little I've read about the case, I think she'd make a better politician than a judge. Perhaps a career change is in her future?

[not guilty]

I don't think so. The woman is innocent, but she is also old, obese and unattractive. If the facts in the affidavit supporting the criminal complaint are correct, she also appears to be a bit bitchy. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/FBI_charging_document_against_Milwaukee_Judge_Hannah_Dugan.pdf These are not appealing characteristics in politicians.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm not sure what basis there is for saying she's innocent, beyond that the charges haven't been proven in a trial yet. Are you sure you didn't mean, "At worst guilty of something I don't find objectionable."?

[Michael P]

not guilty's infamously reliable legal judgement is that what Judge Dugan did shouldn't be considered a crime. He reads the law to require an absurd level of success in the offense.

David Nieporent tried to explain it last week, but last I saw had made no progress against that invincible arrogance.

[not guilty]

Michael P, the language of criminal statutes -- which must be construed strictly against the government -- matters. What Congress has prohibited simply does not define as a criminal offense what Judge Dugan is alleged to have done here.

I respect David Nieporent's analytical ability, but he is simply wrong here.

[Michael P]

... says the same legal mind that spent many thousands of words explaining why Fani Willis and Nathan Wade had an ironclad arrangement that complied with all the ethical rules.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-fani-willis-georgia-election-indictment-removed-0aa6db3b7abed22eb08ed9323f687972
https://apnews.com/article/fani-willis-georgia-open-records-act-violation-8b79847469f33d36f9c37f86940a238d

[tylertusta]

I'm of the opinion that our friend Mr. Guilty offers views that are charitably described as aspirational and should be regarded with that disability in mind.

[not guilty]

tylertusta, Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously said in a 1983 op-ed piece for the Washington Post, "First, get your facts straight. Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts."

I would add that opinions are like assholes. Everyone has (at least) one. They often stink. And one should offer neither his opinion nor his asshole casually.

[tylertusta]

"Polemics are certainly necessary at times, but they are only justified by being necessary; otherwise they produce more heat than light."

Richard Strier, 1995

[not guilty]

With my background as a criminal defense lawyer, I don't often speak of actual innocence. This woman, however, is stone cold innocent.

She is accused of violating 18 U.S.C. § 1071 by concealing Eduardo Flores-Ruiz "so as to prevent [his] discovery and arrest" by federal agents. https://san.com/wp-content/uploads/securepdfs/2025/05/25cr89-indictment-us-v-dugan.pdf Actual prevention of such discovery and arrest is an essential element of the offense; a mere attempt to do so will not suffice. Federal agents at all relevant times knew where Mr. Flores-Ruiz was -- a DEA agent rode down the freaking elevator car shoulder to shoulder with him -- and the feds actually effected the arrest, according to the affidavit of FBI agent Lindsay Schloemer in support of the criminal complaint. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e7/FBI_charging_document_against_Milwaukee_Judge_Hannah_Dugan.pdf

Judge Dugan is also charged under 18 U.S.C. § 1505 with "corruptly endeavor[ing] to influence, obstruct, and impede the due and proper administration of the law under which a pending proceeding was being had before a department and agency of the United States, namely the administrative arrest of E.F.R. for purposes of removal proceedings conducted by the United States Department of Homeland Security, by committing affirmative acts to assist E.F.R. to evade arrest[.]" The culpable mental state of acting "corruptly" is an essential element of the offense. The actual actions and omissions attributed to the accused in the indictment, however, fail to evince that culpable mental state of acting "corruptly", to-wit:

a. confronting members of a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Task Force and falsely telling them they needed a Judicial warrant to effectuate the arrest of E.F.R.
b. upon learning that they had an administrative warrant for E.R.R.’s arrest, directing all identified members of the ICE Task Force to leave the location of the planned arrest (a public hallway outside of Courtroom 615 of the Milwaukee County Courthouse) and go to the Chief Judge's office;
c. addressing E.F.R.'s Milwaukee County Circuit Court criminal case off the record while ICE Task Force members were in the Chief Judge's office;
d. directing E.F.R. and his counsel to exit Courtroom 615 through a non-public jury door; and
e. advising E.F.R.'s counsel that E.F.R. could appear by “Zoom” for his next court date.

None of these alleged actions or omissions evince the accused having acted "corruptly." Black's Law Dictionary, Ninth Ed. (2009) defines "corruptly" as:

In a corrupt or depraved manner; by means of corruption or bribery. • As used in criminal statutes,corruptly usu. indicates a wrongful desire for pecuniary gain or other advantage.

The relevant definition there of "corrupt" as an adjective is "Having an unlawful or depraved motive; esp., influenced by bribery."

Cui bono?

[Michael P]

You should probably consult 18 U.S. Code § 1515 rather than Black's Law Dictionary for the operative definition of "corruptly":

(b) As used in section 1505, the term “corruptly” means acting with an improper purpose, personally or by influencing another, including making a false or misleading statement, or withholding, concealing, altering, or destroying a document or other information.

Judge Dugan's behavior satisfies all those elements.

[not guilty]

Fair point, but taking every fact alleged in the indictment and the affidavit supporting the criminal complaint as true, Judge Dugan is not accused of acting with an improper purpose, personally or by influencing another, including making a false or misleading statement, or withholding, concealing, altering, or destroying a document or other information.

There are no documents involved here. She withheld, concealed, altered or destroyed no other information.

Judge Dugan made no statement which she knew to be false.

There is no evidence of her acting with an improper purpose by simply maintaining control of state criminal proceedings before her. "[T]he courtroom and courthouse premises are subject to the control of the court." Sheppard v. Maxwell, 384 U.S. 333, 358 (1966). As the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals has opined:

If Judge Cassidy ordered Plaintiff removed from the court building, he was also engaged in performing a judicial function. Judges have an obligation to maintain control over the courthouse and over the conduct of persons in the courthouse; the issuance of an order removing persons from the courthouse in the interest of maintaining such control is an ordinary function performed by judges: for example, where a person might not be complying with a court order or might be impeding the judicial proceeding. Cf. Sheppard v. Maxwell, 384 U.S. 333, 358, 86 S.Ct. 1507, 16 L.Ed.2d 600 (1966) ("the courtroom and courthouse premises are subject to the control of the court"); United States v. Smith, 426 F.3d 567, 569, 576 (2d Cir. 2005) (stressing the importance that the judiciary—not the Marshals Service—play the primary role in controlling access to federal buildings containing courtrooms); United States v. Ulan, 421 F.2d 787, 788 (2d Cir. 1970) (appeal from a conviction for assaulting and interfering with a U.S. Deputy Marshal, which arose after a district court judge ordered the Marshals to clear the courtroom and to escort all demonstrators outside the courthouse); Richman v. Sheahan, 512 F.3d 876, 880 (7th Cir. 2008) (a state court judge ordered the son of a woman contesting a traffic ticket to leave the court building and, when he refused, ordered court security officers to arrest the man for contempt); United States v. Brugnara, 856 F.3d 1198, 1205 (9th Cir. 2017) (district court judge ordered a belligerent juror removed from the building); State v. Bush, 148 Ariz. 325, 714 P.2d 818, 823 (Ariz. 1986) ("the trial judge has the primary responsibility for controlling the conduct of spectators in the courtroom and the courthouse" and, if necessary, "may clear the courtroom and the courthouse of those who may be intimidating witnesses or other court personnel.").

Stevens v. Osuna, 877 F.3d 1293, 1305 (11th Cir. 2017) (footnotes omitted).

[Michael P]

Acting corruptly is an element of an offense for which Judge Dugan is indicted, and so she necessarily is accused of having those characteristics in her actions. For example, she should have known (constructive knowledge) that her claim about ICE needing a warrant was false -- "ignorance of the law is no excuse", to coin a phrase.

Perhaps indictments should be required to detail a specific theory of what facts satisfy each element of a crime, but that's not what our legal system requires or how indictments are normally written.

Your citation there is ridiculous. It's about judges having the authority to order people to be removed from their courtrooms for disruptive behavior. Are you suggesting that either the ICE agents or E.F.R. was disrupting the courtroom? If E.F.R. was disrupting it, ICE stood ready to assist in removing him.

[not guilty]

This case is not going to get past a defense motion for judgment of acquittal at the close of the government's proof.

The arrest, perp walk and indictment of this defendant are an abuse of the judicial process, likely intended not to actually obtain a conviction, but to bully those with the temerity to stand up to President Trump and his goon squads.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

You don't have a great track record with your partisan, goal seeking analyses.

Just an FYI. We can tell by your confidence that you're clearly not keeping track of how often you're flat out wrong.

[tylertusta]

Judge Dugan made no statement which she knew to be false.

Was Judge Dugan aware of the Chief Judge's policy about arrests being permitted in the public spaces of the courthouse?

If she was aware (a simple check of her email might suffice), then her statements to the ICE agents that contradicted the policy would be knowingly false.

[TwelveInchPianist]

And it's safe to assume she knows the law anyway. Judicial warrants aren't needed in public areas, like the public portions of the courthouse.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Cui bono is why she is guilty.

[Michael Ejercito]

If he has evidence of actual innocence, he needs to contact Judge Dugan's attorney.

[David Nieporent]

I disagree with his legal analysis, but I think you're confused about the burden of proof in a criminal trial.

[Kazinski]

The only basis for concluding she is innocent is the venue.

I don't know if that will be sufficient, but its a lot. Thats the reddest part of the state.

[Magister]

Isn't the venue Milwaukee, a county that went 68% for Harris? I have to assume you meant bluest, although Dane County is actually bluer.

[Armchair]

" but she is also old, obese and unattractive."

Wow...

[Mr. Bumble]

Only thing he got wrong was "The woman is innocent..."

[Speaking for normal people]

Nothing attractive except your projection of her innocence. I see 🙂

[Martinned]

Hannah Dugan is already a politician. That's how she got her current job.

[tylertusta]

-

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Indeed.

[Drewski]

If we look at it in a vacuum like it's an exam question - ignoring the politics of the matter, the judge assignment, matters of process, etc. - it seems to be a pure question of law. Yeah, she should absolutely put up a Rule 29 motion but I'm personally unfamiliar with the relevant law in this situation. What authority would you suggest she will invoke?

For the record I think she was morally correct, but the law doesn't always back that horse.

[tylertusta]

An 85-year old district court judge that hasn't taken senior status is pretty rare.

If this case should somehow go to trial, I will be surprised if it survives a Rule 29 motion for judgment of acquittal.

At this point, the case is win-win for the Trump administration because Adelman is the judge.

Perhaps now Pam Blondie and Company will come to appreciate the maxim from Aesop's Fables: Be careful what you wish for; your wish may be granted.

The immunity argument raised by Dugan definitely qualifies as the 'be careful what you wish for' wrinkle that will make this case drag out.

[not guilty]

As I have said before, immunity from criminal prosecution for a state court judge is a non-starter. "[J]udicial immunity was not designed to insulate the judiciary from all aspects of public accountability. Judges are immune from 1983 damages actions, but they are subject to criminal prosecutions as are other citizens." Dennis v. Sparks, 449 U.S. 24, 31 (1980). "[W]e have never held that the performance of the duties of judicial, legislative, or executive officers, requires or contemplates the immunization of otherwise criminal deprivations of constitutional rights. . . . On the contrary, the judicially fashioned doctrine of official immunity does not reach so far as to immunize criminal conduct proscribed by an Act of Congress." O'Shea v. Littleton, 414 U.S. 488, 503 (1974).

[tylertusta]

She's clearly just bootstrapping her judicial immunity argument off of Trump's successful immunity argument, but there may be federalism and separation of powers arguments that may make her immunity argument stronger than you give her credit for.

[Michael Ejercito]

Immunity was meant to ensure state judges could not be prosecuted for orders or judgments issued from the bench 9absent extraordinary circumstances).

What is alleged was not an order nor judgment from the bench.

[tylertusta]

Some of the alleged acts taken by Dugan were from the bench. Her cancelling the hearing was definitely within the province of her position as a judge. It was highly unusual and procedurally indefensible (in the context of the case she was overseeing), but definitely within her authority to do.

Other things, like distracting Federal agents with a faux prohibition on arrests and then her doubling back to usher the illegal alien out through a staff-only hallway definitely were not official acts.

[David Nieporent]

Immunity was meant to ensure state judges could not be prosecuted for orders or judgments issued from the bench

No; it was meant to ensure that state judges could not be sued for orders or judgments issued from the bench. There has never been criminal judicial immunity.

[not guilty]

"She's clearly just bootstrapping her judicial immunity argument off of Trump's successful immunity argument, but there may be federalism and separation of powers arguments that may make her immunity argument stronger than you give her credit for."

I understand the need for defense counsel to file the pretrial motion and thereby preserve the issue for review. But on the merits it is foreclosed by precedents which only SCOTUS can overturn.

[tylertusta]

I agree.

I would love to read Judge Aldelmen's regretful denial of a MTD where he says "While you may be right that you have immunity, only SCOTUS can give it to you."

A statement like from Adelmen that would be quite a change from how the lower courts treated Trump's (ultimately mostly successful) immunity argument: abject hostility and a contemptuous, out-of-hand denial.

[Martinned]

In Romania civilisation just about hung on. Nicușor Dan beat George Simion 54/46. In Poland they had the first round, and the result was basically the same the centre-right candidate (Trzaskowski) beat the far right candidate (Nawrocki) 31,4% to 29,5%, with the second round to take place on 1 June. In Portugal the centre right also won, but that was a parliamentary election so the result is less easy to summarise, other than that the far right made serious gains and went from 50 to 58 seats (out of 230).

My sense is that none of these elections had an obvious Trump effect, like the recent elections in Canada and Australia, even though various Trumpists did of course endorse the far right candidates in most of these elections. (In Poland and Romania, I didn't see anything either way about Trumpists endorsing Chega in Portugal.)

[Dr. Ed 2]

In the 250th Anniversary of the Revolution, I am struck at how close the situation is to what it was back then.

Instead of Lord North and the Privy Council, it is Lord Roberts and the Federal Judiciary and the dynamics are the same.

And Lord North lost, as did Roger Taney...

[Martinned]

In both cases a bunch of racists who didn't like paying taxes were/are stirring up trouble for the rest of North America. Plus ça change...

[ThePublius]

That's quite an insulting smear, even for you. Coming from someone whose home country engaged in the international slave trade from the late 1500's, i.e., 200 years before the United States' founding, until after the emancipation proclamation, and then 10 years more in the Dutch colonies, you have no grounds to call the U.S. revolutionaries racists. And, yes, we didn't like paying taxes to a colonizing empire without representation. The American Revolution was a noble, laudable cause.

[Sarcastr0]

Tells us more about the Haitians eating our pets, TP.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

You can just go find the videos. They're still available all over the place. The government censors didn't squash them all.

[Martinned]

Wait, you think that I'm not allowed to call Americans racists just because most of my ancestors were racists too? I mean, most of everyone's ancestors were racists, that doesn't really have anything to do with anything.

The American Revolution was a noble, laudable cause.

Sure, for the people who were trying to get out of paying taxes, and who wanted more freedom to steal indigenous people's land and have slaves work that land. For everyone else, not so much.

(I'm simplifying, of course. There were a lot more reasons why the revolutionaries were odious people. But then the Brits were no saints either.)

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

Martinned has a point.

We should all go back to where we came from. But, I'm not go to gerrymander cut-off dates to just make Whites look bad.

Everyone should go back to their genetic ancestral homelands. All 9B humans.
- Whites should go back their genetic home in Europe
- blacks should go back to their genetic home in Africa
- yellows should go back to their genetic home in Southeast Asia
- retards and mudbloods can be shipped off to Australia, where they seem to concentrate now

[Vryedni]

The day Dr. Ed doesn't wishcast the next civil war is a day that doesn't end in "y."

[Commenter_XY]

I wish President Biden well in his fight against cancer. I've had family members battle cancer, it is tough (even to watch, let alone experience). The political differences between family members are immaterial, they don't matter in that battle. Why?

Best of luck, President Biden. Get well soon.

[Kazinski]

In absolutely bizzarro world news, Trump's approval rating in New Jersey is dead even, and his net approval is 18 points higher than it was in 2020:
"President Donald Trump is seeing an unexpected surge in support in New Jersey—a state Republicans haven't carried in a presidential election since 1988.

According to the latest Emerson College/PIX11/The Hill poll, conducted between May 11-13 among 1,000 New Jersey registered voters, Trump holds a 47 percent approval rating, while 47 percent also disapprove, and 6 percent are neutral. The poll, like previous Emerson polls, had a margin of error of +/- 3 percentage points.

That is a significant change from July 2020, when an Emerson poll found that the majority of New Jersey voters (56 percent) disapproved of the job Trump was doing as president, whereas 38 percent approved, and 7 percent were neutral."

https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-approval-rating-new-jersey-poll-2073209

Hard to paint this as anything but terrible news for Democrats. Trump only lost NJ by 5 in '24 after losing by 16 in '20.

If NJ turns purple that could really shake things up.

[Mr. Bumble]

Both parties have several candidates. Wait for the primary results for a better picture.

[Commenter_XY]

The People's Republic of NJ is not turning purple anytime soon; I live there (in a rather nice 'small' township). They regularly compete with NY, CA, CT and IL for 'Bluest of the Blue'. There is a Team D supermajority in the People's Duma, and that isn't changing, Kaz.

'Jack' needs to articulate a better alternative. It is a very low bar to run on, "I am not Phailing Phil Murphy and I can work with a Team D supermajority in the Duma".

Right now, whoever Team D selects as their candidate will win election, easily. Unless something dramatic happens here in the People's Republic of NJ between now and November, math is still math. Team D outnumbers Team R by a huge margin.

Something exogenous needs to happen to change the dynamics of the race, or Ciattarelli loses. And that's a fact, Jack. 😉

[Speaking for normal people]

I spent 30 years in NJ including two attempts by South Jersey to SECEDE. people will go for Trump once they see the connection with sen Menendez and fat Christie. No one likes someone pretending to be helping you while getting fat and rich off you.

[hobie]

I think that if these poll numbers hold true, the Democrats need to take notice. Even with all the naked corruption and pointless on/off tariffs, Trump has hardly done anything meaningful...EXCEPT...he's gone after the brownies just like he said he would. It must be this. I'm a lib, yet I have never liked illegal immigration. I suspect other libs may think the same way. Message to lib candidates: drop the immigration avoidance. Get on board this one

[Brett Bellmore]

"with all the naked corruption and pointless on/off tariffs, Trump has hardly done anything meaningful...EXCEPT...he's gone after the brownies just like he said he would."

Illegal immigration is almost universally unpopular, even (Democrats were in denial about this!) in the ethnic/racial groups the illegal immigrants are members of.

But the Democratic party has long had a policy of enduring the political cost of illegal immigration, in the interest of skewing US demographics in a direction they thought would favor them in the long run. Ironically, this IS about "brownies", but for Democrats, not Republicans.

But I think there IS some chance of the Democrats abandoning this project. Not just because it's becoming increasingly expensive in terms of political cost, because they're starting to realize that they don't actually have a political lock on 'brownies', so the whole program may end up pointless, the payoff is vanishing.

[tylertusta]

But I think there IS some chance of the Democrats abandoning this project ... the payoff is vanishing.

There is historical precedent for American political parties to flip on immigration based solely on immediate perceived political gain. Democrats were against it before they were for it.

It has happened before and it will happen again; I expect that the 'evolution' we're going to hear in their immigration rhetoric will be aimed at trying to win back union working class voters.

Perhaps the Democratic Party will learn a painful lesson from their November defeat: sweep en masse illegal immigration under the rug at your peril.

[bernard11]

But the Democratic party has long had a policy of enduring the political cost of illegal immigration, in the interest of skewing US demographics in a direction they thought would favor them in the long run.

Brett Rule #1:

Everyone who does something Brett dislikes always does it for some nefarious purpose, often as part of a conspiracy against the republic, never because they think it's a worthwhile idea and they honestly disagree with Brett.

[JasonT20]

But the Democratic party has long had a policy of enduring the political cost of illegal immigration, in the interest of skewing US demographics in a direction they thought would favor them in the long run.

This Replacement Theory nonsense gets really tiresome. "Democrats support illegal immigration because they want the children of the illegals to grow up to be Democrats." Say that out loud in mixed company with a straight face sometime.

[tylertusta]

How far we've come!

Once, many within the Democratic Party would repeat the mantra that demographics are destiny. They would actively chase a bloc that was growing and was believed to be a solidly Democratic. Don't worry- they would say- we're on the cusp of a permanent Democratic majority!

Now we're just left to suffer through people who pretend that the last 20-something years of Democratic political strategy was just a conspiracy theory.

All in all, seeing comments like yours is a small price to pay for seeing the strategy smashed so thoroughly.

[Sarcastr0]

I first heard it presented some 15 years ago as 'demography is NOT destiny.'

But regardless of your possibly distorted view of Democrats, even by your own standards you confuse observation with strategy.
Description does not mean action. They are very different words!!

Quite a leap to make. Especially given the timeline.

[tylertusta]

I first heard it presented some 15 years ago as 'demography is NOT destiny.'

'Demography is destiny' goes back to at least the 19th century French mathematician Auguste Comte. It's modern context as being used to support Democratic Party strategy only arrived in the early-to-mid 2000's.

Description does not mean action. They are very different words!!

Not much of a leap at all. The Emerging Democratic Majority came out in 2002, and the party targeted the precise demographic groups Judis and Teixeira suggested in the 2006 election. The victories in 2008 and 2012 seemed to prove it, hence the madness continuing.

[Sarcastr0]

I can't imagine anyone would dare to contradict Comte to me.

As to the book you cite - I'm not one for of-the-moment political prescriptions; seems like more just-so-story than science.

I haven't read the book, but looking it up I don't see any sign it has any policy prescriptions versus a prediction based on demographics.

Certainly I'd have seen if it calls for a strategy of upping illegal immigration.

[hobie]

Can't argue with that. For a hundred years the Democrat Machine saw to it that every ignorant white man could get $100/hr for just pulling a lever. In the end, they turn around and support the party that has been trying to destroy them.

And all the Latinos given nice comfy citizenships. In the end, they support the party that hates them.

Contrary to what others might think, fear drives all of humanity's endeavors. So you get the Unions afraid of the Latinos and you get the Latinos afraid of newer Latinos...boom...you win elections. On paper it shouldn't make sense. But when have humans ever been sensible?

[Commenter_XY]

https://www.timesofisrael.com/the-rise-of-yehuda-kaploun-how-a-hasidic-fixer-became-trumps-antisemitism-czar-nominee/

POTUS Trump's anti-semitism czar nominee. Lengthy write-up.

I bet similar situations arise for divorce lawyers and a few of their clients. How do you avoid that, as a lawyer? Getting embroiled in a dispute that could result in reputational harm.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

The fact that Trump even appointed an "anti-semitism czar" is disgusting.

[David Nieporent]

Voltage here was all excited until he found out that the guy was meant to oppose antisemitism, not incite it.

[jb]

From the article:

That lawsuit alleged that Kaploun conducted an affair with a married woman he met through his Orthodox congregation and threatened her husband to keep it quiet.

From Commenter_XY:

I bet similar situations arise for divorce lawyers and a few of their clients. How do you avoid that, as a lawyer?

I don't know a lot of divorce lawyers, but I would hope that this is not a common pattern. At the very least, there's an obvious way to avoid it: don't have affairs with your clients! And if you do, don't threaten their spouses. Hope that helps.

[A Japanese Student]

House Budget Committee has passed the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act", a reconciliation bill. I'm not even sure if this passes the House. And many of the provisions in this bill - spanning more than 1,000 pages - will likely be stricken under Byrd Rule in the Senate.

Reconciliation bills can only include spending, revenue, and debt ceiling matters. Even the proposed short title - "One Big Beautiful Bill Act" (very unconventional, to say the least) - would be stricken under Senate precedent should a Senator challenge.

[Mr. Bumble]

Making sausage is not beautiful.

[Commenter_XY]

AJS...wait until you see 'The Byrd Bath'. That is when things get interesting, from a legislative perspective.

[Kazinski]

I think it's will pass the the house, the four votes that stopped it in committee Friday voted present today, indicating they are not dead enders.

If some parts of it are dropped in the senate version then it goes to the joint conference committee, I'm not sure if a filibuster is in order coming out of conference.

[A Japanese Student]

My understanding is that almost every debatable motion can be filibustered, including conference reports. see Vote 341, 118th Congress, 1st Session (three-fifth majority required for cloture on NDAA conference reports)

Though, I think you don't actually need conference - you can send bills back and forth between the two Houses.

[John F. Carr]

I gather from seeing news flow past that Senate Republicans want to overrule the Senate Parliamentarian on the scope of reconciliation. By reinterpreting the rules they can pass an otherwise filibusterable bill by majority vote. A form of nuclear option.

[Commenter_XY]

Consider the Senate Parliamentarian, a Harry Reid appointee with some history. The dispute arises over scoring projected tax revenue from continuing the 2017 TCJA tax rates. It only takes a majority vote to decide what the scoring methodology will be; the Parliamentarian doesn't decide that.

[jb]

Yes it is true that Republicans are desperate to fail to deal with the budgetary implications of their tax cuts. I guess you can try to blame the Parliamentarian for that, but it's the Republicans changing how the scoring is done, not the Parliamentarian coming up with some novel approach here.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Two words --- Bret Kavanough.

The Dems eliminated it for lower judges, then the GOP did for SCOTUS. Kavanaugh passed with something like 48 votes against him.

It's all in the rules of the Senate.

[David Nieporent]

Setting aside the substance, the fact that grown adults are calling it the "Big Beautiful Bill" because Trump talks that way ought to be disqualifying to any of them ever being in politics ever again.

[Martinned]

A number of people last week mentioned the Lucy Connolly case, typically when arguing that free speech only existed in the US. I can recommend this blog post for people who actually want to understand what happened: https://barristerblogger.com/2025/05/18/will-lucy-connolly-win-her-appeal-against-sentence/

My views:
- This case illustrates why I'm not a fan of (rigid) sentencing guidelines. 31 months (of which, to be clear, she'd serve less than half) is ridiculous when looking at this case from first principles.
- The case also illustrates how plea bargaining can catch people out, even in countries that use it much less aggressively than the US does.
- On the facts it doesn't seem right to put her in the highest severity category, given that she tweeted before the riots really took off.

[Michael P]

Yes, that write-up confirms that freedom of speech only exists in the US.

[Malika the Maiz]

Mikie thinks she should have been sued for 20 billion dollars.

[Kazinski]

I'm glad to see JD Vance is involved in the trade talks, he will definitely represent the tech companies and social media freedom of expression in the talks.

I hope agriculture is on the table too.

"Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni hailed a “new beginning” in transatlantic relations as she hosted US Vice President JD Vance and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to talk about trade, tariffs and security."

[Martinned]

Is that the same JD Vance who is getting blamed for this "flat out terrible" new FTC commissioner? https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/05/the-new-ftc-commissioner-mark-meader.html

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

If your tribe is having a hissy fit, then that's a strong enough signal to like the guy.

[JasonT20]

MAGA GOP political philosophy: If Democrats like it, we hate it! If they hate it, we love it!

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

Not absolute, but it's definitely a signal.

Sorry for being high-functioning enough that I can notices patterns and shit.

[Sarcastr0]

"social media freedom of expression" in trade talks.

You got weird priorities.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

Haha yeah, freedom is a "weird priority". We should be forcing them to have gay pride parades like before instead!! Now THAT's a HIGH PRIORITY!!!

[Malika the Maiz]

On the table is better than the couch I guess….

[Frank Drackman]

Why was Sleepy Joe even getting screened for Prostrate Cancer at age 82?
"The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force says men should be screened for prostate cancer until age 69. The American Cancer Society recommends screening for prostate cancer only if the patient expects to live at least 10 more years."
and now you see why, the only treatment that might extend his life is "Androgen Deprivation Therapy" which could also be called "Testicle Deprivation Therapy" and I'd say "Dr" Jill Biden has been doing that for the last 50 years. (too soon for Biden Cancer jokes??)

Frank

[hobie]

It looks like the mRNA vaccines for cancer have progressed far enough that old Biden might be eligible. We all know they are going to eventually work, even a racist doctor should understand this. What will be enjoyable for me is watching all you antivax kooks squirm when cancer comes a-callin' and there's that mRNA vaccine just sitting there in the medicine cabinet. And I guarantee you a sprinkling of ivermectin will NOT work

[Mr. Bumble]

"And I guarantee you a sprinkling of ivermectin will NOT work"

"In the 1970s, Japanese scientist Satoshi Ōmura discovered Streptomyces avermitilis, a rare bacterium found in Japanese soil, and successfully cultured it in the laboratory. What makes this bacterium special is that, despite decades of global screening, it remains the only known natural source of ivermectin. Partnering with William C. Campbell at U.S.-based Merck & Co., they turned this microbial discovery into a breakthrough antiparasitic drug that would go on to eradicate river blindness and lymphatic filariasis, earning them the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. But ivermectin’s story may not end there. In recent years, scientists have uncovered its surprising potential as an anticancer agent. Could a decades-old discovery from a humble patch of soil now hold the key to a revolutionary cancer treatment?"
https://integrative-cancer-care.org/ivermectins-untapped-anticancer-potential-mechanisms-and-emerging-clinical-trials/

[hobie]

I recall with amusement in 2020 trying to make you rubes understand that a medicine which targets multicellular organisms by a method of action of disrupting nerve and muscle function, could not work on a thing that lacks nerves and muscles. But science is clearly an irritant to the rube.

[Mr. Bumble]

You obviously did not bother to read the linked article.
"Ivermectin’s ability to manipulate chloride ion flow actually makes it a promising candidate for cancer therapy. In 2010, scientists from the Ontario Cancer Institute, Canada, discovered that ivermectin could act as an ionophore – a molecule that helps transport chloride ions across cell membranes – while studying its effects in leukaemia (blood cancer) cells. Compared to normal cells, cancer cells rely more heavily on chloride channels to regulate their electrical balance and cell volume for their survival and rapid growth. By increasing chloride influx, ivermectin disrupts this delicate balance, creating oxidative damage and pushing cancer cells toward apoptotic cell death. This ionophore mechanism makes ivermectin particularly promising as a targeted anticancer agent that spares healthy cells, which are more resistant to chloride imbalances."

[Frank Drackman]

Who's "Antivax"?
I've gotten every Vid' jab they've offered (maybe that's my problem) although last few years the Publix Pharmacist looks at me like I asked for a hand job,
"We don't get many people asking for that" (The Vid' jab, not a hand job")
"You know most Insurance doesn't cover it?" (then I really get the Stink Eye when I say I'm paying Cash)
OK, I've skipped the HPV shot, but I don't have your same "Risk Factors"

Frank

[Malika the Maiz]

Made up persona wonders…

[Frank Drackman]

Don't be so hard on yourself Queenie, as long as you believe in yourself, that's all that counts.

[Malika the Maiz]

Crazy people are drawn to Trump

[Dr. Ed 2]

Maybe this will get us Prostate Cancer postage stamps?

You want to talk about a war on men, compare prostate cancer to breast cancer...

[Josh R]

Why was Sleepy Joe even getting screened for Prostrate Cancer at age 82?

He had symptoms (couldn't pee?).

[Sarcastr0]

Passing around on other fora:
“Although he learned Italian first Joe, now 24, speaks English without an accent and is otherwise well adapted to most U.S. mores. Instead of olive oil or smelly bear grease he keeps his hair slick with water. He never reeks of garlic and prefers chicken chow mein to spaghetti.”

Life magazine, May 1939.

[Frank Drackman]

sounds like Joe Colombo, I was more of a Meyer Lansky fan, although a case can be made if Arnold Rothstein hadn't fixed the 1919 World Series, Baseball would never have become the #1 sport until being replaced by Pro Football in the 60's.

Frank

[apedad]

The Annual Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Report (CY2024) to Congress was published.

In 2024, the govt filed 308 applications with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FSIC).

Of the 308 applications, FSIC approved 228, modified 64, and 15 were denied in part.

Zero applications were denied in full.

During CY2024, the total number of persons targeted for electronic surveillance was between 500 and 999.

The total number of US Persons targeted was between zero and 499.

https://www.justice.gov/nsd/media/1397996/dl?inline

For comparison, # of applications:

2023: 327
2022: 317
2021: 388

2020: 478
2019: 848
2018: 1,117
2017: 1,349

2016: 1,477
2015: 1,499
2014: 1,416
2013: 1,655

Note: "US Persons" means US citizens, US green card holders, US companies, and US non-profits, e.g., Boy Scouts, ACLU, etc.

[Michael P]

Thanks, Trump! Dropping those numbers by two-thirds was a big achievement for civil liberties and accountable federal law enforcement.

[apedad]

I wonder if it was actually Trump's (and Biden's) admininstrations simply submitting less applications due to policy or if the law changed which allowed less situations for FISC approvals.

The threat environment certainly didn't decrease during this time - especially by the amount the numbers indicated.

[Commenter_XY]

So...95% were approved. This fact alone is why FISA Court must be abolished. It is a rubber stamp.

[Malika the Maiz]

Delicious to see so many MAGAns finally see Michael Moore was right.

[Frank Drackman]

"finally"??
Fatty Moore was one of the few who thought "45" would win way back in 2015 (Ann Coulter was another)
He sort of got it wrong last year though.

[A Japanese Student]

I'm pretty sure grand juries have higher approval percentage.

[Commenter_XY]

You'd be wrong; it is less than 80% (includes state, local + Fed).

[David Nieporent]

Whether or not there are problems with the FISC, the logic is dumb. Close to 100% of people are approved to get through the metal detectors at courthouses. Does that mean the security screening is a "rubber stamp"? Or does it mean that the screening successfully deters the vast majority of people from trying to bring guns into courthouses?

[Malika the Maiz]

Probably just nixing the ones on Michael Flynn…

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, it was a big achievement assuming they're not just covertly bypassing the FISA courts, which I wouldn't want to bet against.

[Mr. Bumble]

...and the beat goes on, the beat goes on.

[Malika the Maiz]

“Voters who have not heard much about some of the many major news events from the first 100 days of Mr. Trump’s second term have a higher opinion of the job he is doing, according to the latest New York Times/Siena College poll. A little under half of the 42 percent of voters who approved of the job Mr. Trump is doing as president said they had not heard much about at least some of the ups and downs of his administration’s decisions.”

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/05/18/polls/trump-job-approval-news-attention.html

“I love the poorly educated." The Mad King.

[Mr. Bumble]

You're claiming there were "ups"?

[Michael P]

He's claiming that people who listen to lamestream media have their opinions distorted by propaganda.

[Malika the Maiz]

Mikie likes “had not heard!”

[jb]

So your argument is that in fact Trump hasn't done anything at all during his term and therefore any information about him actually doing something is made up? Seems like a weird rebuttal.

[Speaking for normal people]

Voters are not supposed to look over the President's shoulder. IN Poli Sci you learn there are 2 views of voting: Yours-- I vote for a guy that will do exactly what I would do and the other: I vote for a guy whose attitude, promises,and campaign indicate I can trust him. I have kids, a job, doctor's appointments, a list of things to do

[SRG2]

I vote for a guy whose attitude, promises,and campaign indicate I can trust him

Yes. This is why when Trump does something malign or illegal, Trump voters don't generally have the right to say, "but I didn't vote for that." Though it seems regardless of what Trump does the vast majority of cultists will approve and defend.

[Commenter_XY]

If you voted, you have a right to speak disapproval. Seems only fair.

[SRG2]

You have a right to be disappointed but you have no right to disavow your vote.

[Bwaaah]

SRG2: "voters don't generally have the right to say..."

lol

[Malika the Maiz]

Boy, I’m sure glad Harris and her “price controls” didn’t get elected!

“Walmart should STOP trying to blame Tariffs as the reason for raising prices throughout the chain,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social media site. “Walmart made BILLIONS OF DOLLARS last year, far more than expected.”

He called on Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer, to “EAT THE TARIFFS” and keep prices down. “I’ll be watching, and so will your customers,” he wrote.”

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/05/17/us/trump-news#trump-walmart-eat-the-tariffs-prices

[SRG2]

On the contrary, because Walmart didn't vote for tariffs but a significant proportion of its customers did, it is quite right that they should bear the cost.

[Malika the Maiz]

Your Free Speech, cool Joe Rogan GOP at work!

“The Interstate Obscenity Definition Act (IODA) clarifies the definition of obscenity across all states and provides updated descriptions suited to modern content. The new definition removes dependence on ever-changing and elusive public opinion, replacing ambiguity with practical standards to make obscenity identifiable. This change will prevent obscene material such as pornography from evading prosecution by relying on the legal confusion of differing standards between states. Under IODA, law enforcement will be empowered to identify and prevent obscenity from being transmitted across state lines.”

https://www.lee.senate.gov/2025/5/lee-bill-establishes-obscenity-definition-across-states

[Frank Drackman]

Queenie, you could be a Styx song
"Too much time on my(your) hands"

[Malika the Maiz]

Made up persona upset

[Frank Drackman]

Everybody funny, now you funny too.

[Malika the Maiz]

What causes a person like you to pathetically make up a persona on a website like this? I mean, everyone can see why a person like you supports Trump.

[Bwaaah]

"What causes a person like you to pathetically make up a persona on a website like this?"

What's your excuse? The world needed another nasty bitch persona?

Try to build it out, like Frank does.

[Michael P]

Makika is just the latest in a series of made up personas, often called sock puppets.

[Malika the Maiz]

This poor guy confuses handles and personas. I guess that’s what happens when you spend so much time on your knees to the Mad King!

[Frank Drackman]

Maybe his wife is a little funny

[Malika the Maiz]

Mikie a wife? Be serious

[A Japanese Student]

Isn't obscenity defined under constitutional precedents like Miller? As far as I am aware, the definition of obscenity used in Federal law is the same as the constitutional standard.

[Michael P]

Yes, but the first two prongs of the "Miller test" explicitly rely on the ambiguous "contemporary adult community standards":

1. Whether the average person, applying contemporary adult community standards, finds that the matter, taken as a whole, appeals to prurient interests (i.e., an erotic, lascivious, abnormal, unhealthy, degrading, shameful, or morbid interest in nudity, sex, or excretion);
2. Whether the average person, applying contemporary adult community standards, finds that the matter depicts or describes sexual conduct in a patently offensive way (i.e., ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or simulated, masturbation, excretory functions, lewd exhibition of the genitals, or sado-masochistic sexual abuse); and
3. Whether a reasonable person finds that the matter, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

https://www.justice.gov/criminal/criminal-ceos/citizens-guide-us-federal-law-obscenity

[not guilty]

Obscene matter under federal law is not defined by statute. See 18 U.S.C. § 1460 et seq. The task of defining what materials are obscene initially fell to the courts. In Roth v. United States, 354 U.S. 476, 481-485 (1957), SCOTUS ruled that obscene matter is unprotected by the First Amendment.

The Court there opined that "sex and obscenity are not synonymous. Obscene material is material which deals with sex in a manner appealing to prurient interest." Id., at 487. The "test [is] whether, to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material, taken as a whole, appeals to prurient interest." Id., at 489. At footnote 20 the Court approved the definition of the A.L.I., Model Penal Code, § 207.10(2) (Tent.Draft No. 6, 1957), viz.:

"A thing is obscene if, considered as a whole, its predominant appeal is to prurient interest, i.e., a shameful or morbid interest in nudity, sex, or excretion, and if it goes substantially beyond customary limits of candor in description or representation of such matters."

354 U.S. at 487 n.20.

In Memoirs v. Massachusetts, 383 U.S. 413 (1966), the Court revised the test in finding that a book named "John Cleland's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure," a/k/a "Fanny Hill," is not obscene. The plurality there opined that:

Under [the Roth] definition, as elaborated in subsequent cases, three elements must coalesce: it must be established that (a) the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to a prurient interest in sex; (b) the material is patently offensive because it affronts contemporary community standards relating to the description or representation of sexual matters, and (c) the material is utterly without redeeming social value.

383 U.S. at 418. At this time obscenity vel non of a particular work was regarded as a matter of law. That led to the tradition of one day a week being "movie day," where the justices (other than Black and Douglas) gathered to watch pornographic movies. (When the second Justice Harlan's eyesight failed, he reportedly brought a clerk to describe the on screen activity.)

Obscenity law is currently controlled by Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973), which jettisoned the "utterly without redeeming social value" requirement. The Court opined:

we now confine the permissible scope of [state] regulation [of obscene material] to works which depict or describe sexual conduct. That conduct must be specifically defined by the applicable state law, as written or authoritatively construed. A state offense must also be limited to works which, taken as a whole, appeal to the prurient interest in sex, which portray sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, and which, taken as a whole, do not have serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

The basic guidelines for the trier of fact must be: (a) whether "the average person, applying contemporary community standards" would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest, . . . (b) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct specifically defined by the applicable state law; and (c) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

Id., at 24.

[Malika the Maiz]

The Fuck Your Feelings Prez has named his Surgeon General:

“Means discussed how she participated in “full moon ceremonies with grounded, powerful women where we called in abundance and let go of what wasn’t serving us, and amplified each others’ dreams” and “hiked alone and talked (literally out loud) to the trees, letting them know I was ready for partnership, and asking if they could help.”

https://www.christianpost.com/news/4-things-to-know-about-trumps-surgeon-general-pick-casey-means.html?page=4

[SRG2]

I wonder whether any cultists here can suspend their fealty long enough to criticise this choice.

[Mr. Bumble]

That's why you're here.

[ThePublius]

I read the linked article and I like her! I think it's time we changed course, got off the drug and additive industrial complex treadmill and took a fresh look at health in the U.S. MAHA!

[Sarcastr0]

You can go spend all the money you want on Earthing or whatever.

Forcing that shit on Amercans in general is going to needlessly shorten a ton of lives.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

Hey, have you looked around at what the govies have done to the state of American Health?

Anything is better than what you people have done.

[SRG2]

You must think that no actually qualified person agrees with you.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I will -- we need Dumb Cunt Control in this country, and need to recognize this "female empowerment" stuff for what it is: Manbashing.

And maybe we need to start prosecuting witchcraft -- actual witchcraft -- as the evil that it is.

[jb]

Maybe we can start burning them at the stake again. Those were the times!

[Commenter_XY]

Does SCOTUS restrain national injunctions from Dist Ct judges? The case was argued this week. What do you think.

My guess: SCOTUS will not restrict their injunctive or TRO power. This power has been around for a long time w/o serious issue, until now. Many decades. No need to throw the baby out with the bath water. Can a SCOTUS decision be the equivalent of a finger-wagging and stern lecture. That is what I think happens.

[ducksalad]

Stern lecture? I think *at least* five of the justices think they would have done the exact same thing if they'd been the district court judge.

My hope: the SC rules that

(1) national injunctions are appropriate only when the conduct being addressed is (a) nationwide and systematic, and (b) so obviously illegal on its face that there's no realistic chance further hearing of arguments will convince anyone otherwise.

(2) the executive order in question clearly meets the criteria.

[jb]

The administration chose a ridiculously poor vehicle for this argument. My read from oral argument is that several of the Justices wanted to restrain the lower courts in some way but didn't hear any takers for the government's position (although Alito and maybe Thomas will probably talk themselves into it).

My guess is they'll basically punt on the issue here and say that at least in situations where it's necessary for states to fully address their harms, nationwide injunctions are okay. Possibly they'll just DIG this case to get at the same result. I'm skeptical a meaningful limitation will be introduced since it's completely unnecessary to decide this case and they probably want a better vehicle to figure it out.

[ThePublius]

News of Biden's cancer diagnosis is to distract from the release of the Hur tapes.

There is no way that his prostate cancer could have advanced to this stage without anyone noticing. It can take 10 years for it to progress to this point. The WH physicians lied, the WH staff lied, and maybe even the media knew and lied. So, why announce it now? To invoke pity and compassion, and forget about the Hur tapes and the autopen scandal.

[Sarcastr0]

NEVAR FORGET BIDEN.

Sure, I have no doubt Trump has a shitload of people investigating. Bring charges if there are charges to bring, and lets out in court.

In the meantime, it sure makes it looks like you miss speculating about Dem perfidy and are tired of defending Trump's corrupt and arbitrary administration.

[tylertusta]

NEVAR FORGET BIDEN.

Mocking people who are skeptical of manipulation of news regarding Biden's health in the immediate aftermath of recent events is, at the very least, tone deaf.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

Watch, he's going to pull a Jake Tapper and fully get on the other side of this issue and then pretend he was never lying about Biden's mental state.

[Sarcastr0]

You heard he had cancer and jumped right into a partisan narrative.

You need to get a hobby.

[tylertusta]

If you have bothered to actually read my comments, you would have learned that I did not actually do this.

[Sarcastr0]

You and TP are fighting below. You seem to be aligned with me on this.

And yet, you can't bring yourself to actually *agree* with me.

[tylertusta]

You replied to my comment, falsely accusing me of jumping into a partisan narrative.

And you have the gall to say that I can't agree with you when the only beef we've had on this topic is that I don't care for you mocking others.

I think you need a new hobby besides that of 'troll.'

[Sarcastr0]

Your comment above claims TP is merely skeptical. Jumping to the defense of his partisan narrative.

Below you argue with him and his overdetermined self.

[ThePublius]

Gee, that's textbook whataboutism.

[Sarcastr0]

Let me repost what I posted, since you missed it:
"Sure, I have no doubt Trump has a shitload of people investigating. Bring charges if there are charges to bring, and lets out in court"

[ThePublius]

You left out "In the meantime, it sure makes it looks like you miss speculating about Dem perfidy and are tired of defending Trump's corrupt and arbitrary administration."

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah - my comment boils down to let the consequences fall where they may, and also you seem eager to deflect from this admin's constant shittiness.

Not sure where the whattaboutism comes in.

[ThePublius]

Don't you get that you just contradicted yourself? You're saying you don't know where the whataboutism comes from while saying in the same breath that I'm eager to deflect from this admin's constant shittiness.

Holy cow. Talk about lack of self awareness.

[Sarcastr0]

You may not be clear on whattaboutism is.

Calling you out for conspiracizing and deflecting is not inconsistent with letting the process play out, nor is it whattaboutism.

[Super Scary]

"Talk about lack of self awareness."

That is a feature for people with "Sarc" in their name.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Not sure where the whattaboutism comes in."

Right here: "and also you seem eager to deflect from this admin's constant shittiness."

Hope that helps.

[jb]

And these are the same people who think "Trump Derangement Syndrome" is a winning argument whenever people disagree with something Trump does.

While we're at it, though, some forms of prostate cancer are very aggressive. Just because it's typically a fairly slow developing form of cancer doesn't mean that there needs to be a big conspiracy here for the truth to fit the announcement.

[tylertusta]

Maybe, maybe not. His cancer is fairly aggressive and he might not have much time left.

[Brett Bellmore]

Realistically, he probably wouldn't have much time left even without the prostate cancer. He's 82 and has had serious dementia for several years. The prostate cancer is just piling on.

[tylertusta]

Statistically speaking, you are correct.

If Biden had somehow clung onto the Democratic ticket last year and if he somehow beat Trump in November, he would be resigning right now. The cancer is reportedly too aggressive and if that is true then the short-term prognosis isn't good even with treatment. He would be unlikely to make it through a 4-year term.

[Sarcastr0]

There is no way that his prostate cancer could have advanced to this stage without anyone noticing.
I'd missed this.

Where are you getting this very confident take from?

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

It can be deduced from common knowledge, you govie midwit.

You think he went from cancer free to stage 5 cancer down to the bone in a matter of months?

[ThePublius]

From medicinenet.com, corroborated by other sources:

"Prostate cancer is a slow-growing cancer and, more often, it is confined to the prostate gland, requiring minimal or no treatment. In some cases, it can take up to eight years to spread from the prostate to other parts of the body (metastasis), typically the bones."

Google AI:
"The time it takes for prostate cancer to spread to the bones varies widely, depending on the specific type and aggressiveness of the cancer. Some cases may see metastasis within a few years, while others can take up to eight years or longer. In advanced cases, it's estimated that approximately 90% of men will develop bone metastases."

Prostate cancer is easily diagnosed. Biden's physicians were surely looking, via a simple PSA test. If not they should be sued for malpractice.

[Sarcastr0]

This doesn't support what you said.

It's also fucking AI.

You're making shit up.

And no, the timing doesn't make sense. When he ducked out of the race would have been the ideal time.

Not everything is a fucking conspiracy.

[ThePublius]

I'm not making up anything. Do your own research. And, the first quote wasn't AI generated.

[Sarcastr0]

Do your own research.

Burden is on you. It's not going to be met by GoogleAI. Which alos

A fellow MAGA below had a more moderate take and you just stamped your foot and yelled no.

Pretty clear you've decided on your facts independent of the uncertainties of reality.

[ThePublius]

I'll repeat this non-AI quote:

From medicinenet.com, corroborated by other sources:

"Prostate cancer is a slow-growing cancer and, more often, it is confined to the prostate gland, requiring minimal or no treatment. In some cases, it can take up to eight years to spread from the prostate to other parts of the body (metastasis), typically the bones."

[Sarcastr0]

"In some cases, it can take"

You are bad at this.

[jb]

This is dumb. Most prostate cancers are slow moving, but not all:

The vast majority of these malignancies, especially those discovered with the extensively used prostate-specific antigen, or PSA, test, are slow-growing tumors that are unlikely to cause a man any harm during his lifetime. Yet in 10 to 15 percent of cases, the cancer is aggressive and advances beyond the prostate, sometimes turning lethal.

And some of the more aggressive types aren't detected via PSA testing:

Prostatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDA): This cancer is a rarer but more aggressive form of adenocarcinoma. It develops in the cells lining the tubes and ducts of the prostate gland. When it occurs, it frequently develops along with acinar adenocarcinoma. This cancer type doesn’t necessarily increase PSA levels, making it harder to detect.

[Brett Bellmore]

Look, if you know nothing about prostate cancer you should probably remedy that before it matters.

Biden is in an economic bracket where you routinely get the best of medical care, including regular checkups and comprehensive bloodwork. PSA tests are a routine part of that bloodwork for any guy above an age Biden passed decades ago.

And prostate cancer is a very slow developing cancer, it starts to show up on those tests a decade or more before reaching the stage Biden is at now.

So, realistically? Yeah, there's no freaking way he hasn't been aware he had prostate cancer since some time in the early Obama administration.

The thing is, it IS a very slow developing cancer, even if it's extremely nasty once it metastasizes. And the treatments for it, while very effective before it metastasizes, are no fun at all. So it's quite routine for patients as old as Biden would have been when it was first discovered to be counseled to just keep track of it, and otherwise do nothing, because the odds are something else will kill them first, and research is closing on a cure anyway.

Unfortunately for Biden, he got the short straw.

[Sarcastr0]

I'm no medical doctor, but I do know what cancer has wide variety of presentations, and you're making some pretty broad assumptions about this particular case.

Realistically? You're not a doctor, and you're basically joe_dalassing your way into acting like you are one.

But yeah, bone metastasis is not good news. I think that's a fair general statement to make.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm a prostate cancer survivor, Sarcastr0, so I've been pretty motivated to be informed about this, even if you ignore my general interest in human biology.

It's not impossible for prostate cancer to go from undetectable to this stage in only 15 months, but it's the medical equivalent of being struck by lightning. It is very much NOT the way to bet.

Realistically, they have probably known it for years, and just kept it under wraps. And that's fine by me, it's not like it would affect his capacity to do the job he was elected to, the way the dementia did.

[Sarcastr0]

You had a personal experience with prostate cancer.

Not sure why that would make you an expert on *detection*. I also know a motivated layperson is not the same as an expert.

Realistically, they have probably
Every fucking time.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, every fucking time I make a reasonable observation about the odds, you react this way. It's pathological.

Look, if this had been an administration characterized by honesty and transparency, I'd be a lot more inclined to think they'd been blindsided by this. It's not impossible, after all.

But we already know this administration was covering up medical problems he had, so that they were also covering this up is just the way to bet.

[Sarcastr0]

Your statements about the odds are never realistic, always vibes.

And the vibes are always some conspiracy by ze libs.

[Bwaaah]

Sarc...you're a noise machine. The less you post, the less immaterial the dialog becomes.

[hobie]

It's 2025 and Biden still lives rent free in your head. Speaking of crime families, have I got a doozy for you. You may want to sit down before I tell you.

[ThePublius]

What are you talking about? I'm just objecting to the apparent conspiracy to conceal Biden's senility by the WH and media, and the potential that the autopen pardons were issued illegally. That's all.

[hobie]

You know, you kinda remind me of Sean Hannity. For the last twenty years, not an episode can pass without him repeating:

"Reverend Wright! Sistah Soldah! Benghazi!"
"Reverend Wright! Sistah Soldah! Benghazi!"

It's like his autorepeat function has been broken

[ThePublius]

I honestly don't get that comment.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

How did all those elite White House doctors miss Biden's cancer? Is it because they were Democrats, and thus know literally nothing about healthcare (or public education for that matter)?

[tylertusta]

Biden's last physical was in February of 2024. I'm no oncologist, but from what I've learned on this topic since the news broke is that it's entirely possible that this cancer was undetectable during his last prostate screening, assuming that they even performed a prostate screening at all.

Apparently, in some medical circles it's believed to be counterproductive to check for prostate cancer after the man is over 75 years old.

[ThePublius]

No, it's entirely not possible that this was undetectable a year ago when it's at its current stage.

[Sarcastr0]

TP MD.

[ThePublius]

So you're saying one must be an MD to opine on this?

[Sarcastr0]

I think coming in this hot: "it's entirely not possible" is pretty stupid if you're just opining.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Malpining?

[tylertusta]

No, it's entirely not possible that this was undetectable a year ago when it's at its current stage.

This does not appear to be a correct statement:

Types of Prostate Cancer

The specific type of prostate cancer also influences its growth rate, with some prostate cancer cells developing faster than others. Different types originate in different cell types:

- Acinar adenocarcinoma: The most common type, which is usually slow-growing, develops in the cells lining the prostate.
- Small cell prostate cancer: This begins in neuroendocrine cells and is rare and aggressive.
- Ductal adenocarcinoma: Grows and spreads quickly, starting in the cells lining the prostate ducts.
- Squamous cell cancer: Tends to grow and spread more rapidly than adenocarcinoma, originating in the cells covering the prostate.
- Transitional cell cancer: A rare and aggressive type that begins in the lining of the urethra and typically starts in the bladder before spreading to the prostate.

https://georgiaradiationtherapy.com/blog/how-fast-will-my-prostate-cancer-grow

Most people are familiar with Acinar adenocarcinoma, which grows over a decade.

The rarer forms are much more aggressive and faster-growing. For example, small cell prostate cancer has a 1 year survival rate of 42%.

That's a very nasty cancer that is typically discovered only after it has metastasized.

See: https://www.healthline.com/health/prostate-cancer/small-cell-prostate-cancer

[ThePublius]

So, you're saying I'm incorrect because I don't agree that Biden has a rare form of cancer that grows and metastasizes very quickly, when we don't know exactly what form of cancer he has? The likelihood is that he doesn't have a rare form; that's what "rare" means.

We shall see, I guess. But the most likely case, statistically speaking, is that this has been going on for nigh on eight years.

Do you have any evidence to the contrary?

[Brett Bellmore]

You were wrong to make a categorical statement, since there ARE forms of prostate cancer that advance that fast. They're not at all common, but it IS possible that he has one of them.

[tylertusta]

No, I said you're incorrect by saying "it's entirely not possible."

It's possible that Biden has less common form of the disease.

The term 'rare' for diseases doesn't mean that it's one in a million prostate cancer patients. The term means that most common forms that doctors see fall into a handful of types with a small amount of other, rarer cancers.

95% of diagnosed prostate cancers are adenocarcinomas, which are slow-growing and detectable on a prostate screening.

That means 1 out of 20 prostate cancers are fast, deadly, and wouldn't be easily found in a standard prostate screening (assuming that Biden even got them).

If you've ever played a board game with a D20 die and you got a 1, congrats, you just got a 'rare' form of prostate cancer. Roll the die again to find out exactly which one you got and how fast it will kill you.

https://www.verywellhealth.com/types-of-prostate-cancer-8633485

[ThePublius]

I'm just speculating from a statistical perspective. If 95% of all prostate cancers are a particular type, that's probably what Biden has. No? Isn't that what "probably" means?

[tylertusta]

If all you're going to base your viewpoint on is that 95% figure then I cannot help you.

All I can say that there is more evidence in favor of this being one of the 5% of aggressive cases than there is of Biden & Co. deliberately neglecting his slow-growing cancer for several years, possibly even during his time as VP.

As I'm fairly sure that Brett and other cancer survivors can attest to, there are less drastic options you can utilize if the cancer is treated before it metastasizes. It's easier to conceal treatments as 'routine medical visits.'

[hobie]

I know/knew two men who were fine one year, then the next...boom...malignant prostate cancer. Your BDS apparently disallows you to have critical thought.

I also cannot figure out why all you people are obsessed with a fair-to-middlin, inconsequential president, who's not in office and may be dying

[tylertusta]

I also cannot figure out why all you people are obsessed with a fair-to-middlin, inconsequential president, who's not in office and may be dying

I can answer this one.

This isn't about Biden.

Us on the right are still pissed about how the Biden administration and especially the national news lied to the public about Biden's health issues. These last couple of months have seen a slow but steady trickle of 'mea culpa but not really' stories from major news outlets as they try to explain why they pretended that the emperor always had clothes on.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Hard to believe you're upset about being "lied to", frankly...

[hobie]

+1

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

It's more likely they were covering up his cancer just like they were covering up his mental decline.

[tylertusta]

I don't know about that.

If it was the common form of the disease that takes a decade to grow, and if his doctors knew about it (apparently there's debate on whether they should even check at Biden's advanced age), then they would have taken action about it long before it metastasized.

Cancers that react to hormone therapy like Biden's can even be treated without surgery- it's just pills. Who would notice one more pill bottle in Biden's war chest of old man pills?

[Brett Bellmore]

I wouldn't say that chemical castration is "just" pills. The quality of life impact is pretty significant.

[tylertusta]

With Biden's already visible medical and mental issues and his staff's propensity to hide him from everybody outside of a small circle of insiders, I bet most people wouldn't even notice.

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, sure, but if we're assuming here that he had the regular slow sort of prostate cancer, and was just covering it up, the decision to not bother with the pills would have been made at a time when he was certainly competent to make his own medical decisions. And the resulting reduced quality of life would have been a factor in that decision.

[tylertusta]

Are hormone pills the first course of treatment for slower prostate cancers? What other treatment options are available?

I'm not the expert here- I'm genuinely asking you since you survived it and you're closer to this subject than any of us are.

[Brett Bellmore]

The first course of treatment recommended is to just do nothing, because it IS a slow growing cancer, and medical technology for treating it is continually advancing, so the longer you put off doing something about it the better, as long as it doesn't metastasize.

That was, in fact, my doctor's advice, and if I'd taken it I would have died, (But of lymphoma, not PC; The preop for the surgery led to it being discovered early enough to treat!) but he had no way of knowing that at the time. I just didn't like having that sword of Damocles hanging over my head, and at 50, it wasn't like I had much chance of dying of something else first, or so I thought. So I'd just be putting off the inevitable, might as well get it over with.

You can slow the advance of prostate cancer dramatically with hormone suppression therapy, but this can involve a considerable cost in terms of quality of life; Men don't really do well with vanishingly low testosterone levels, as I can testify.

Both surgery and radiation treatment can cure the cancer before it spreads, and they will tell you that the side effects are not too bad, what they won't tell you is that they're talking short term side effects; The long term prognosis of surgery or radiation is no fun at all. (That was a joke, but it's still true.) It just takes a while to get there. Mind you, going through chemo starting a week after the surgery did me no favors.

So there aren't really any GOOD options. Just varying sorts of bad options. I guess the hormone blocking therapy hits some guys harder than others, so it's certainly worth resorting to if you find that sword hanging over your head unbearable, before going for surgery or radiation.

[ThePublius]

Biden in 2022:

"“And guess what—the first frost, you know what was happening?" said Biden. "You'd have to put on your windshield wipers to get, literally, the oil slick off the window.,” he said during a speech about climate change in Somerset, Massachusetts. “That's why I, and so damn many other people I grew up with, have cancer. And why, for the longest time, Delaware had the highest cancer rate in the nation.” [emphasis mine]

QED

[tylertusta]

Eh, I don't see that as being conclusive.

FACT FOCUS: Biden cancer remark causes confusion

In response, a White House spokesperson confirmed reports that Biden was referring to previously disclosed skin cancer that was removed before he became president — not announcing a new diagnosis.

By 2022, Biden was more vegetable than man.

[Sarcastr0]

You're so confirmation-bias brained you post QED like this is proof.

[ThePublius]

But he gave his word as a Biden! 🙂

[ThePublius]

Don't you allow that the WH spin could be just that - spin? Joe's internal dialogue often leaked out. Biden's cancer remark could be a gaffe - when a politician accidentally tells the truth. Then the WH staff does a clean-up on aisle 3.

[Sarcastr0]

could be!

[ThePublius]

"Fox News Senior Medical Analyst Dr. Marc Siegel says the presence of symptoms and bone metastases in Joe Biden’s case strongly suggests the cancer had been growing undetected for quite some time. That’s not just concerning—it raises serious questions about how such an advanced stage of disease went unnoticed, especially for someone with constant access to top-tier medical care.

Siegel pointed out that Biden’s age—82—is a major risk factor, noting that more than 80 percent of men over 80 have some level of prostate cancer cells in their bodies. “This is one of the cancers doctors specifically monitor in older men,” Siegel explained.

Which begs the obvious question: Are we really supposed to believe that Biden, while in office, wasn’t being routinely screened for this? Come on. Not giving him a cognitive exam because they knew he’d flunk it is one thing; not screening him for something he was obviously at high risk for?

That just doesn’t pass the smell test."

https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2025/05/18/something-doesnt-add-up-about-bidens-cancer-announcement-n4939923

[Commenter_XY]

Kudos to the IDF for converting Mohammed and Zakarias Sinwar to Sinwas, like their brother. One by one, the hamas human animals will be hunted down and eliminated.

And one by one, we'll deport the foreign alien hamas cheerleaders from this country.

[John F. Carr]

A study published in March provides stronger evidence that traffic enforcement is racially biased. Everybody knows it is, but good data is harder to find than a general understanding. The 2018 book Suspect Citizens lacked hard data on whether blacks and whites had similar driving habits. The new paper uses cell phone surveillance to show that blacks and whites drive equally fast but blacks get more and more expensive speeding tickets.

High-frequency location data show that race affects citations and fines for speeding

[ThePublius]

It's not just speed. It's often driving style, adherence to or observation of local driving standards - like taking the right of way when it's not appropriate, tailgating, and otherwise cutting people off.

I recently moved to a much more diverse neighborhood than the lily-white suburb in which I resided for 25 years. These people drive like maniacs, idiots! Yes, "these people." There, I said it. They either just don't what the heck they are doing, or they don't care. They are reckless, impolite drivers.

I went from no accidents in 30 years to being T-boned twice in the last two years. They are on their phones, jump the light, run the light, distracted by girlfriend or crack pipe (true!), and whatever.

Granted, lots of white people in New England are shitty drivers, too. Two very annoying and dangerous things they routinely do are making the left as soon as the light turns green, i.e., not yielding to the straight traffic; and swinging out to the right to make a left turn, like they were driving a fire truck or something.

As I said, it's not just speed that results in fines, there are compounding factors.

[ducksalad]

I went from no accidents in 30 years to being T-boned twice in the last two years.

Have you considered the possibility that it's you, not them? As any cop will tell you, getting t-boned usually takes two bad drivers: (a) one who ran the light, and (b) one who wasn't looking, which is an obligation even if you've got the green light. And either one of them could be either part of the T.

No dishonor in realizing that after 30 years you're past your prime and need to sign up for Uber. Wish my father-in-law had realized that before the cops had to seize his DL on the roadside....

[ThePublius]

Not the case. First one was someone speeding and ran the light. I was already in the intersection. Second one was me going straight on a street, and the other driver popped out of a side street as if they never saw me.

So, screw you for making it my fault. Both drivers were cited. I was not. Their insurance paid to fix my car.

[ducksalad]

Oh, let's say it was more their fault than yours.

But defensive driving* is about anticipating and correcting for other people's mistakes. As you progress into your Golden Years your reaction times decrease. Your ability to stay focused decreases.

And you've already admitted it was your decision to move into a neighborhood where you'd need better reaction times and constant awareness. That part's definitely on you. Shouldn't have done that if not at the top of your game.

------
Unless you're one of those guys who raises his hand in defensive driving class and says "but the best defense is a good offense..."

[ThePublius]

Oh please, drop it. There are driving situations that one cannot do anything about, like suddenly, without warning, being T-boned. I know, I've been there.

It's not on me. I have no idea why you're beating this drum. Maybe because I'm a conservative and you hate conservatives?

Since retirement I put 12,500 miles per year on my car, and about 10,000 between my two motorcycles. I know something about reaction times and defensive driving.

[Dr. Ed 2]

John, this study is utter bullshyte and this is where it helps to be a researcher and not a lawyer to understand why.

Staying out of the weeds here, the data is only valid IF you first show that your sample population is reflective of the larger population it is supposed to reflect.

Let's take lawyers and something totally objective, number and type of college degrees they have. Assuming that my methods are done "right", I can sample Black and White lawyers and get statistics that are valid for Black and White lawyers in general.

And I'd find that both Black and White lawyers have a graduate degree (i.e. the JD) in equal percentages -- they all have one.

What I can *not* do is then say that these Black and White lawyers represent Blacks and Whites in the general population. Do you see why?

"rideshare data from Lyft in the state of Florida to compare minority drivers with their white counterparts." Drivers while driving for Lyft so you have a double fallacy here -- not all drivers (of any race) drive for Lyft and then they are also "on the job" for Lyft at the time.

It's like the use of obscenities in the courtroom -- my guess is that few lawyers of either race use them in court. Judges frown on this, much as Lyft frowns on reckless driving.

But do stats relating to lawyers in court apply to non lawyers in a bar? No. And not here...

[Dr. Ed 2]

Harvard continues to discriminate:
https://www.city-journal.org/article/harvard-university-discrimination-dei-hiring-trump

EEOC?

[Dr. Ed 2]

"The resources of the anti-Western academy are wide and deep. The Trump administration can sue against racial preferences and opt not to fund particular research. But it will take a more broad-based coalition of alumni, donors, trustees, and opinion-makers focused over years to make courses like Empowering Black Leaders the atavistic relics that they deserve to be."

https://www.city-journal.org/article/harvard-university-empowering-black-leaders-seminar-race-trump

[grb]

Donald Trump is 78yrs old. He was raised in a wealthy home and had opportunities few can dream of. He received a stellar education, though there are credible reports he had to pay people to take his tests. He was bankrolled scores of millions by Daddy, though he bungled most of that away. He's held the highest position in the government twice.

So the man should know the freak'n definition of a tariff by now, and there are signs he's gradually inching towards a grade-schooler's degree of knowledge. This statement shows his slow progress:

“Between Walmart and China they should, as is said, “EAT THE TARIFFS,” and not charge valued customers ANYTHING. I’ll be watching, and so will your customers!!!”

Until recently, Trump thought tariffs were a cost borne by foreign governments alone. Now he seems to understand they're imposed on U.S. companies. If this progress continues, he'll realize they are a tax on American consumers.

[ducksalad]

There is no learning or realizing. It's simpler than that. Walmart said something that made him upset so now he wants to them to be the ones paying the taxes.

If and when the voters make him mad, he'll say the voters deserve to pay the high taxes.

[ThePublius]

"I'm the president of the Trump Derangement Society, and I approved this message."

[ThePublius]

Tom Callahan:

"Callahan Auto is officially severing all ties with Walmart!

It’s come to my attention they raised prices on Callan Brake Pads (in the name of tariffs) even though we manufacture and source 100% in the USA!!!"

https://x.com/CallahanAutoCo/status/1923868217589616722

[Mr. Bumble]

Not sure this is real. Might be a parody acct.
https://xcancel.com/CallahanAutoCo/status/1923868217589616722

[grb]

Mr. Bumble : "Not sure this is real. Might be a parody acct."

Right you are :

"Callahan Auto Parts is a fictional auto parts company featured in the movie "Tommy Boy". The company is located in Sandusky, Ohio and is owned by Big Tom Callahan. In the film, Callahan Auto faces a hostile takeover attempt, but Tommy Boy, along with his friend Richard Hayden, manages to save the company through their sales effort."

Apparently, this fictitious company is so famous they sell T-shirts with its movie logo. Perhaps we could all pitch in and buy ThePublius one?

[ThePublius]

Ha, ha, that's funny.

[ThePublius]

You can buy Callahan brake parts at WalMart.

https://www.walmart.com/browse/0?facet=brand:Callahan+Brake+Parts

What do you think of that?

[ThePublius]

And on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/stores/page/FCB1D2E7-AB59-4D3F-ACC6-19697F01C6B0?ingress=0&visitId=4bf7d60c-f5c5-4ddb-a3f8-e8e165f5a5d9&tag=reasonmagazinea-20

[Ska]

Well, I could stick my head up a steer's ass but I'd rather just ask a butcher.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Oh, dear...

[Dr. Ed 2]

Walmart has become immensely profitable and he is making a populist political point

[A Woman of No Importance]

I rather like the idea that the people who voted for Trump should be the ones to pay the price for his policies. It would mean the law of cause and effect has not been repealed. So I'm good with passing it on to consumers.

[Mr. Bumble]

Too bad you didn't feel that way for Obama and Biden.
You could have picked up the tab for Obama Care.

[A Woman of No Importance]

How do you know I didn't feel that way for Obama and Biden? And did you know that Obamacare actually saved $2.3 trillion?

https://www.statnews.com/2019/03/22/affordable-care-act-controls-costs/

[ReaderY]

Since at least the New Deal, American governance has taken an instrumentalist attitude to the Constitution’s grants of power to Congress. The Constitution sets out no plan or guide to how Congress should behave or the kind of things it should want to do. Rather, it simply either empowers Congress to act or poses an obstacle to its acting. And when it poses an obstacle, there’s no shame in devising clever strategems to get around them and seeing if they pose obstacles to the courts. There’s simply no concept of there being anything WRONG with Congress wanting to do something the courts say it can’t do. The concept of it having a moral valence simply doesn’t exist. If the lawyers think some more, they might be able to come up with a strategem that will work.

What the Trumo administration is doing is simply taking this well-established set of attitudes and approaches to the Constitution’s limitations on Congress’ enumerated powers - which amhas resulted in their de facto disappearing in all but mostly symbolic form - and applying them to legal constraints on the Executive. This applies to the entirety of American law - Constitutional powers and rights, statutes, court orders, everything. Nothing in American law has any moral valence. Nothing provides any guide to what the Administration should or should not do. Rather, all of it either empowers the Administration to act as it wants, or poses obstacles to its acting. And when it imposes obstacles, the Administration’s lawyers are expected to devise clever legal strategems to get around them, generally strategems that keep the limitations on the books but limited their actual practical application to rare instances.

Seen this way, the Administration’s approach to habeas corpus and judicial orders enforcing constitutional rights is no different from the historical approach to the limitations on Congress imposed by the Interstate Commerce Clause. The Administration is not seeking at this point to suspend habeas corpus. Rather, it is seeking to narrow its practical ability to limit what the Administration wants to do to rare instances, exactly the way the Commerce Clause’s limits on Congressional power were overcome. Not only does the latter still exist, but occassionally a law is struck down because of them. But it’s usually only because the law was poorly drafted. The Trump Administration takes a similar attitude to habeas corpus. And everything else.

From this point of view, the Take Care Clause is essentially practically meaningless. A President who enforces the refugee or civil rights laws only for white people, or who enforces the tax laws only for his political opponents, or who will obey court orders only for the individual named plaintiffs, is taking care to follow the law in exactly the same way Congress takes care to abide by the Commerce Clause. Not more, not less.

But this attitude has historic roots. Trump’s attitude towards the Constitution’s limits on what he wants to do is different in degree but no different in kind from Roosevelt’s. The courts have accepted, even encouraged, these sorts of instrumentalist attitudes to large swathes of rhe constitution for nearly a century.

Why should they be surprised when somebody comes along with exact same pragmatic, instrumentalist attitude they’ve long accepted, merely directed towards parts they think sacred? Why is one in any way less more or less moral than the other?

[JasonT20]

A President who enforces the refugee or civil rights laws only for white people, or who enforces the tax laws only for his political opponents, or who will obey court orders only for the individual named plaintiffs, is taking care to follow the law in exactly the same way Congress takes care to abide by the Commerce Clause. Not more, not less.

This is one of the more ridiculous false equivalences I've seen here, and that is saying something.

The Constitution is deliberately vague about the limits of Congress's powers related to commerce at least partly because there are so many ways that a government can legitimately "regulate" it. All of those ways would limit someone's ability to engage in business, labor, or trade of some kind to some degree. Congress was also given flexibility because it needed it in order to be effective.

The Equal Protection Clause, habeas corpus, and other limits on both general government power and executive power specifically also have much different stakes than whether a business or ranch can pollute local wetlands, whether they must pay workers overtime beyond 40 hrs a week, and so on.

Blatant discrimination, abuse of power, and defiance of courts by the executive is in no way comparable to the how the Commerce Clause has been expanded over the last century.

[ReaderY]

Well, the reaon you find them different is you have different moral beliefs about and attitudes towards the two.

But why should they be any different for someone who’s moral beliefs and attitudes are identical, for whom the constitution’s limits on his ability to audit his political opponents’ taxes or spirit them away to concentration camps in El Salvador is no different from his view of the EPA’s (the Act, not the Agency) limits on his ability to encourage more coal consumption, which are in turn no different from the commerce clause limits you think unimportant?

These are, to him all just obstacles to what he’s like to do. They have no intrinsic moral valence. They just impose practical limits that either can be overcome by some strategem or can’t.

The whole moral baggage you are bringing to the game just doesn’t exist for this President. There’s nothing intrinsically immoral about auditing ones political opponents or arresting them in the middle of the night and spiriting them away to rot in concentration camps in foreign countries. It’s just that the law isn’t working for him right now to help him advance his agenda on these issues. If he can find a way to make it work for him, he will. There’s no more shame for him in trying than there was for Obama trying to find a way to regulate wetlands. There’s nothing moral or immoral about any of it.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

The Commerce Clause has been "expanded" over the last century differently than Trump has "expanded" the definition of habeas corpus over the last four months--mainly in relation to the time it has taken.

These are both examples of various individuals and institutions wilfully ignoring the plain meaning of constitutionally restrictive words they have found inconvenient. Democrats' attempted re-definition of "woman" is another prominent example, as is Trump's would-be re-definition of "invasion".

It took the Supreme Court decades to do essentially the same dishonest thing Trump has accomplished in mere months. His dearest wish will be granted: History will never forget him.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

McCulloch v. Maryland, written by someone who helped ratify the Constitution, reminded us:

To have prescribed the means by which Government should, in all future time, execute its powers would have been to change entirely the character of the instrument and give it the properties of a legal code. It would have been an unwise attempt to provide by immutable rules for exigencies which, if foreseen at all, must have been seen dimly, and which can be best provided for as they occur.

The Commerce Clause today addresses today's world, which involves a more expansive interconnected commercial universe here and abroad than was present in the past.

The whole "woman" thing, which is not just something "Democrats" have recognized has a complexity not as well understood in the past,* also makes me question your nom de plume.

This latest "both sides do it" fail is sponsored by a colorfully named drug that you can ask your doctor about.

==

* A nuanced definition of sex and gender has been recognized by many cultures throughout history. So, I'm not even sure how much that qualifier applies. Anyway, some Republicans have managed to accept trans people, for instance.

[Brett Bellmore]

"And when it poses an obstacle, there’s no shame in devising clever strategems to get around them and seeing if they pose obstacles to the courts."

Nah, that's actually pretty shameful, since they do swear oaths to obey the Constitution.

[Dr. Ed 2]

"Going to college has consistently conferred a large wage premium. We show that the relative premium received by lower-income Americans has halved since 1960."

https://www.nber.org/papers/w33797

It's more complicated than they state it, parental expectations are also a factor here (e.g. third-generation GW Bush *not* going to Yale?) but this is what I have been saying for years. And the data is worse if you start at 1980 instead of 1960.

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

Before and after's should be pegged at Bretton-Woods

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Pope Leo XIV (not the one in a 1980s film) had an interesting address to diplomats.

https://substack.com/inbox/post/163807851

[Michael Ejercito]

Hannah Dugan has a legal defense fund.

https://civicmedia.us/news/2025/05/19/dugan-says-she-will-not-accept-contributions-from-milwaukee-county-residents-local-attorneys-lobbyists-judges-county-employees-or-anyone-with-pending-cases-before-milwaukee-county-judges

I must wonder though. What would happen to regular people who helped Nikolas Cruz, Dylann Roof, John Mohammed, or Timothy McVeigh evade arrest?

[John F. Carr]

Georgia is going to build a wall around Fani Willis and make Fulton County residents pay for it.

The governor signed SB 244. The new law requires a judge to award attorney's fees to a criminal defendant when the prosecuting attorney is disqualified. The county is responsible for paying the award. Courthouse News Service says Trump spent $1.5 million and his co-defendants $2 million defending the racketeering case.

CNS reports on a less blatantly partisan part of the new law:

Kemp's signature on the bill establishes a new standardized process under state law for people who have been exonerated for crimes they did not commit. It requires administrative law judges to rule on wrongful conviction compensation cases and award a standardized rate of $75,000 for each year of incarceration to each exoneree, with an additional $25,000 added for each year spent on death row.

The corresponding law in Massachusetts leaves the award up to a jury, subject to a $1 million cap.

[Michael Ejercito]

Young Thug's lawyers must be patting themselves on the back.

[TwelveInchPianist]

New York seems to be doing the opposite for Laticia James.

I wonder if the Big Beautiful Bill has a 100% tax on such payments. Although I suppose such compensation would be taxable as ordinary income anyway.

[M L]

Glancing through Trump's big beautiful bill.

No tax on tips - stupid. Probably good politics.
No tax on overtime - Meh. Not terrible in theory but no break for salaried?
Deduction for seniors - Yet more unsustainable handouts to boomers at the cost of younger people (like Obamacare).
Car debt interest deduction - stupid.
Employer provided child care - stupid.

[jb]

Mostly agree.

What do you think the steelman argument in favor of no tax on overtime is?

I'm not sure a tax break on employer provided child care is the right answer, but child care is a pretty big problem for working families. From a federal level, this seems like a not-obviously-stupid attempt to do something.

[TwelveInchPianist]

If we want to subsidize people with children, we can do that.

But subsidizing childcare qua childcare is anti-family.

We shouldn't be subsidizing working families over families with stay-at-home parents.

[M L]

I would like federal income tax to be zero or very low. If something results in less income tax, I will generally think that is a good thing, unless it is unfair or creates some bad incentive. Here, the incentive is . . . to work more and earn more money? Not too bad.

Of course, I wish we could wipe the slate clean and have a new tax code without this monstrous accretion of complicated rules and social engineering, but it is what it is.

You're probably right, increasing the employer child care tax incentive is a not obviously stupid attempt to do something. Ideally, we would go back to the conditions where a single lower-middle class income could support a family. Then women (or men) would not be seemingly forced to outsource the critical job of raising children. Not to mention home economics, cooking healthy meals and so on. Of course there is a broader problem as as 40% of kids are born outside of marriage now and 35% live without one of their parents, this is up from low single digits in previous decades.

In my opinion more government child care is not a good answer, it is maybe the worst thing we could do.

[grb]

I'll take "What Could be More Predictable" for $200, Ken:

"More than six in ten Britons (62%) say that Brexit has so far been more of a failure, against just 11% who feel that it has been more of a success, though a more noncommittal 20% of Britons consider it to be neither a success nor failure. Notably, even Leave voters are more likely to consider Brexit to have gone badly than well, with 32% labelling it more of a failure so far, compared to 22% describing it as more of a success."

https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/51484-how-do-britons-feel-about-brexit-five-years-on

[M L]

Failure because the EU and UK's own politicians and government largely refused and failed to execute and deliver on it?

[ThePublius]

Karma?
This from 2020:
"Joe Biden’s cancer charity spent more than $3.7million on staff salaries but distributed ZERO towards research grants over two years, tax filings reveal"

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8950275/Joe-Bidens-cancer-charity-spent-3-7million-staff-salaries.html

[Sarcastr0]

Why are you like this?

[A nerdy Fred]

There are better sources than Daily Mail.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/biden-cancer-charity/

[Magnus Pilatus, MBA, MD, JD, PhDx2]

Uh...

[ThePublius]

Yea, I read that. It's a weasely piece to excuse Biden's charity for not doing charity. It doesn't say the above is not true, it says "Sometimes disinformation states the facts correctly but frames them misleadingly." So, they did pay those big salaries,, and spent zero on research, instead, just 'organizing.'

[A nerdy Fred]

There is an interesting compare-and-contrast case.The fact pattern is quite different and it doesn't shed any light on the discrimination claim that Professor Volokh highlighted. This guy got prosecuted. His defense was that he hit send to all contacts by accident when he meant to send to his girlfriend. https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/soccer-coach-accused-of-sending-lewd-video-pleads-not-guilty/58400/

[Michael Ejercito]

Outrageous!

They may have rediced FJB's chances of having an opportunity to play GTA VI.