Friday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[Randal]

Do you guys believe me yet that Israel is the third-most evil country at present (after North Korea and Iran)? What's it going to take?

[Kazinski]

Well Randal, at the core we are all human beings.

Which of course means piss us off enough and we will rip off your nuts and stuff them down your throat.

Now obviously Hamas has been at that point with Israel for a while, and found a way to get to get Israel at that point with Hamas, and until Gazans get to that point with Hamas, or Israel finishes Hamas, the nut stuffing will continue.

And I'd you want to somehow claim that's not true with other countries, well run through this list, which is just a sampling:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides

[Randal]

So your take is that genocides are normal and fine. Man, you just get shittier every day.

(For the record, I don't think Israel is doing a genocide. I think they're doing an ethnic cleansing.)

[Kazinski]

I'm not trying to be shitty, but to be honest about my opinions.

It's long been my opinion that humans being primates will act like primates when stressed or enraged, or feel their self preservation is endangered, its genetic.

Take this account of the 2005 California chimpanzee attack:

"Buddy and Ollie attacked St. James simultaneously; one chimpanzee initially attacked his face, the other chimpanzee attacked his foot.[7] The sanctuary owner's son-in-law, Mark Carruthers, retrieved a .45 caliber revolver and shot Buddy in the head. Meanwhile, Ollie dragged St. James' body down a walkway. Carruthers followed and shot him.[7][3]

Buddy and Ollie destroyed a majority of St. James' fingers, his left foot, most of his buttocks, both testicles, part of his torso, and parts of his face including his nose and lips.[7][11][5][12] A paramedic who arrived said, "It looked like a grizzly bear attack."[3] St. James was transported to Loma Linda University Medical Center after the attack.[11]

St. James spent six months in the hospital recovering from the attack, including a period of time when he was in a coma.[4][13] Between 2005 and 2009, St. James Davis underwent over 60 surgeries.[14] He had a prosthetic eye and two slits in the middle of his face where his nose was.[12] He and LaDonna were uninsured, but initially decided not to sue Animal Haven,[7] before reversing course and filing a lawsuit by 2009."

Of course that is closer to describing the 0ct. 7 Hamas attack than the Israeli response, at least in terms of sheer animal savagery.

We share 98% of Chimpanzees genome, and note they specifically went for genitals and eyes in maiming them, as well as hands and feet.

I can't think of many animals that will intentionally maim their victims like that other than chimps, rarely, and humans, all too commonly.

And I think putting down the chimpanzees was a good call.

[Randal]

Most of us are trying to be better than chimpanzees. I agree that's about where Israel at. Hamas too. Which, for humans who should know better, is evil. Maybe even evil for chimpanzees.

[Kazinski]

Bit the point is, you push anyone to a certain point, then the chimpanzee comes out.

And sometimes the push themselves to that point.

Hamas is definitely at that point, Israel is not, if Israel was at the same point Hamas is, those piles of rubble would be piles of bodies.

[Speaking for normal people]

That is definitely not funny, something wrong with you

[Randal]

Wasn't trying to be funny... something wrong with you.

[Commenter_XY]

No, we do not believe you. More importantly, neither does the POTUS, or the American people.

Israel must win the war, and that means utterly defeating and eliminating hamas, a Judeocidal terror group. A Judeocidal terror group that killed many Americans, and currently holds dead American hostages in some ghoulish ploy for leverage.

Will you mourne the defeat of hamas, Randal? Sure sounds that way.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Randal, what about The Sudan?

And as to genocide, Hitler was using the technology of the 1920s. Steam engines, cattle cars, and trucks that could haul 5 ton loads.

Today we have trucks that can legally carry 50 tons, and often carry more, and cargo aircraft that such trucks could be driven into. If Israel wanted to kill every living person in Gazi, it would take maybe three weeks. I don't know if there are sharks in the Med or if they;d have to fly out to the Atlantic, but they could dump the bodies in the ocean as was done in Argentina.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

You're clearly upset about something, but I don't know what "ranking" countries on an "evil" scale does for you (or anyone else).

Israel's current leadership is vile, just like ours, and Russia's, and a whole slew of other countries and non-countries (such as Hamas).

So what?

[Michael P]

It will take them actually being evil at some point. Russia, China, South Africa, and others have much stronger claims to being evil.

[Michael P]

Microsoft has entered the chat:

Microsoft has barred its employees from using the words “Palestine,” “Gaza” or “genocide” in its internal email system as the tech giant looks to crack down on unrest within its ranks following protests of the company’s ties to Israel.

https://nypost.com/2025/05/22/business/microsoft-bars-employees-from-using-words-palestine-gaza-in-emails/

[Sarcastr0]

What do you think that shows?

[Martinned]

That free speech is really swell, as long as people don't want to talk about Israeli war crimes.

[Sarcastr0]

Not from this one data point - I'll buy ham-handed and bad at employee management, but that's about as far as this shows.

[Brett Bellmore]

I'm not sure it's even bad employee management, except for the part where the emails are blocked without any notification. Should at least get a bounce back saying "Please limit corporate email use to business related topics", or something like that.

[Sarcastr0]

You're also ham-handed at employee management, then.

Websites where you can waste your day I buy. E-mail keywords aren't going to change people's work habits in any substantive way - those conversations are still going to happen.

The cost is creating a work is no fun management vs. employees atmosphere.
The benefit is marginal.

[Don Nico]

"You're also ham-handed at employee management, then."
You would think that.

[Martinned]

That's what it shows to you and me, but I was having a guess at what it would show to our friend Michael.

[Speaking for normal people]

Yet you say nothing about rockets sent unexpectedly into civilian regions. So you have cancer of the soul

[Armchair]

What's it going to take?

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

Come back when Israel hits these numbers.

[Randal]

Israel has far surpassed those numbers.

Tibetans aren't treated great, but they're full Chinese citizens. The active oppression campaign ended in '60s.

The Uyghur situation is bad (and puts China in fourth place), but it's only been going on for barely a decade. And they're full citizens.

Israel's campaign against Palestine is coming up on its sixth decade. Israel wins.

[Mr. Bumble]

That would be "Palestine's" campaign against Israel.

[Armchair]

"Tibetans aren't treated great, but they're full Chinese citizens. The active oppression campaign ended in '60s."

Wow... you really have no clue.
https://freetibet.org/freedom-for-tibet/occupation-of-tibet/

"The Uyghur situation is bad"
Oh, you have no idea. Forced sterilization. Forced labor. Sexual violence. Torture. Mass arrests, including the largest mass internment of an ethnic-religious minority group since World War II. 16,000 mosques have been razed or damaged. hundreds of thousands of children have been forcibly separated from their parents and sent to boarding schools. Chinese government statistics reported that from 2015 to 2018, birth rates in the mostly Uyghur regions of Hotan and Kashgar fell by more than 60%. And of course, any sort of self-government by the Uyghurs is out of the question.

[Randal]

Once Israel frees Palestine, we'll start a 50-year clock, and if China is still persecuting the Uyghurs after 50 years, then they'll pass Israel on the list.

Give me a break on Tibet. Nobody would choose to be Palestinian in Gaza over Tibetan in Tibet. They're not even comparable.

[Mr. Bumble]

Gaza. One man, one vote, one time. Live with it.

[Frank Drackman]

Find that one man, and kill him

[Harvey Mosley]

Then why don't Gazans leave?

[Randal]

Many of them have. But making life so miserable for a nation of people that they leave is called ethnic cleansing. That's what's gotten Israel to #3 on the list. It isn't genocide, I agree with that. It's cleansing.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Except, of course, that it's Hamas that's making them miserable by using them as human shields.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Human shields against what?

[Mr. Bumble]

You play stupid so well.

[Bwaaah]

Regarding human shields, the question isn't, "Against what?" The question is, "To defend whom?"

Why do you frame an aggressor as a victim?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Why do you frame an aggressor as a victim?

Bwaaah — In this instance, mutual aggressions, and mutual victimizations, are self-evident. When that happens, support for victims is wiser than support for aggressors. The former features a benign tendency, the latter features a lethal tendency.

[Bwaaah]

That still doesn't explain why you frame an aggressor as a victim.

In your attempt to provide "support for victims," victims being e.g. human shields or Gazan civilians, you implicitly frame Hamas as being in a defensive posture. Hamas not only created and perpetuates this predicament for those would-be victims, but openly intends to continue this effort and rightfully create more such victims in that effort.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bwaaah — Your determination not to see victims, even among infants and young children, does you no credit.

I do not in the slightest advocate that violent members of Hamas are victims, or say they should not be targeted and killed.

Alas, but justly, Israel confronts an obligation to defend itself within constraints. Those impose a moral duty to limit use of deadly force short of indiscriminate killing.

Israel has failed in that responsibility. It has been a protracted, developing failure, built piece-by-piece on deliberately chosen policies. All too evidently, those policies prioritize domestic Israeli political outcomes ahead of protections for Palestinian innocents. I do not think anyone who endorses that history can rightly count themselves a wise friend of Israel.

[bernard11]

When exactly do you think "Israel's campaign against Palestine " began?

1948? If later you are conceding the legitimacy of Israel as a state, and that implies quite a bit.

[Randal]

Of course I concede the legitimacy of Israel as a state, otherwise it wouldn't even be on the list. (Palestine would be ahead of it if I thought Palestine were a legitimate state.)

When exactly do you think "Israel's campaign against Palestine " began?

For these purposes, 1967. That's when Israel "won" responsibility for the Palestinians. Big. Mistake.

[Speaking for normal people]

Randal, the uninformed ( or maybe just stupid Randal) leaves out Falun Gong, Christians , human organ harvesting, etc

[David Nieporent]

Tibetans aren't treated great, but they're full Chinese citizens.

Um, and? Why is that a good thing? Do they get to vote for the leaders of their choice? Speak freely?

[Randal]

It's good because it means they're included in China's prosperity and enjoy at least the presumption of normalization... which in the case of Tibet has borne fruit since the '60s.

By presumption of normalization I mean that Tibetans can be expected to be treated more and more like regular Chinese over time (which I agree is a low bar). And they have been. But also, as the bar for the Chinese goes up, it also goes up for Tibet. Which has also happened. Were the Chinese to treat Tibetans systematically worse, they would be correctly accused of apartheid. (Which is also still happening, for sure.)

Compare to Palestine. Israel can keep the Palestinians comfortably under its boot essentially permanently and defend against accusations of gross apartheid by claiming that they aren't really part of Israel.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"It's good because it means they're included in China's prosperity and enjoy at least the presumption of normalization..."

It does? Evidence?

[Randal]

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

For example:

From the 1951 Seventeen Point Agreement to 2003, life expectancy in Tibet increased from thirty-six years to sixty-seven years with infant mortality and absolute poverty declining steadily.

Look, I'm not saying that Tibetans (or anyone in China) have it great. Just that they have it way better than the Palestinians, largely because China actually annexed them and made them citizens, which Israel is too cowardly and evil to do.

[David Nieporent]

1) Cowardly? The Palestinians have no interest in being annexed or being citizens of Israel.

2) Why aren't you looking at changes in Palestinian life expectancy over the decades if that's your metric for Tibet?

[Randal]

Cowardly? The Palestinians have no interest in being annexed or being citizens of Israel.

Neither the Tibetans. But that didn't stop China.

Palestinian life expectancy fell by 10 years for kids born in 2023 compared to 2022, whatever that tells you.

[David Nieporent]

Neither the Tibetans. But that didn't stop China.

China isn't a democracy.

[Randal]

China isn't a democracy.

Oh? Being a democracy is a defense to evil behavior? So slavery was fine after all because Democracy?

Turns out indecisiveness is another way that democracy begets evil.

https://x.com/RaymondArroyo/status/1725551667427397866

[David Nieporent]

Oh? Being a democracy is a defense to evil behavior? So slavery was fine after all because Democracy?

Sigh. Please try to keep up. Being a democracy is a defense to not annexing a territory and forcibly declaring its residents to be citizens against their will. China can call Tibetans citizens because it doesn't care what its citizens want anyway. Israel can't, because as a democracy it does.

[Randal]

Yes, you've hit the nail on the head. Israel didn't really think ahead and got itself into a situation where they're evil if they do, and even eviler if they don't.

Lack of foresight also isn't a defense to evil. A nation that want's to retain its ethnic / religious character and an equality-based democracy shouldn't get half-pregnant attempting to conquor a territory that's more populous than it is. It would be evil to do so, since what're you gonna do with all those people? Seems sort of obvious.

[Speaking for normal people]

Randal, ALL Israel ? See you are a hater. WOuld you say ALL USA similarly. Haters all seem to end up with those extremist ways of talking that you have

[Speaking for normal people]

Randal, ALL Israel ? See you are a hater. WOuld you say ALL USA similarly. Haters all seem to end up with those extremist ways of talking that you have

Someone fires rockets into civilian areas and you rush to hug the people who launched the rockets. I say , find em, and capital sentence immediately executed. And then maybe you as a fellow traveler

[MoreCurious]

We all wish you success as you struggle to master the English language. With any luck, your next lesson will include learning the benefits of punctuation.

[Speaking for normal people]

Having studied 7 languages, no one masters the English language 🙂

[Swede425]

You're not in any danger of having most people believe you.
About anything.

[Riva]

Feel better? Now go back to that vile antisemitic pro terrorist Hamas protest.

[Joe_dallas]

Randal 5 hours ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
Do you guys believe me yet that Israel is the third-most evil country at present

Randal - you are consumed with blind hatred

[ReaderY]

Well, considering how easily the KKK managed to convince a lot of people that Negros were the most evil race on the planet, it may not so much, just a bunch of bigotry, hate and lies. Keep going with that and you may succeed..

Venezuala. You forgot about Venezuala. Venezuala these days is the most evil nation on the planet. Haven’t you been paying attention to the news? Mr. Trump has been saying so over and over and over again, just like you. Why not take his word for it? It’s based on at least as much evidence as yours.

[Don Nico]

No, Randel. SAy what you will. You only believe that because Israel is a Jewish state.

[Randal]

There's a sense in which that's true, in the same way that I only believe that Iran is #2 because it's a Muslim state. I don't have any animosity towards Jews or Muslims, but religious states do seem to have a tendency to turn evil. That's not why they're on my list, but you probably could draw some lines from Israel's religious nature to its evil behavior. For example, they can't simply annex Gaza and the West Bank because that would dilute the Jews too much. They have to think about things like that in order to retain their religious character.

[David Nieporent]

You're very confused. Israel is a secular state.

[Randal]

So you mean Don is confused.

[Don Nico]

Randal,
It would not be the first time that David is confused.
But you are worse, much worse.

[Randal]

Hey, I'm on your side!

[Don Nico]

I realize that. See my response to you comment about the West Bank.

[Speaking for normal people]

But that is why you are stupid. Your syllogism demands that to retain one's religious character is BAD. except of course if you are anti-religious (which reduces it all to a fallacy)
What proves opposites proves nothing.

[Speaking for normal people]

Here is how disgusting disingenuous people argue "There is a sense in which that's true"...reminds one of every slippery unprincipled charlatan you ever had to deal with.

[Don Nico]

I think that Israel has to annex Judea and Samaria. Given the continuing Palestinian intolerance of in that part of the world, Israel is not defensible with a waist of 10 miles especially as Zones B& C are the high ground.
Absent a terrorist governing entity Gaza could be a small "principality" like Monacco or San Marino are. If it were rebuilt nicely it could be a lovely place with a thriving tourist economy.

[Randal]

I completely agree. I don't begrudge Israel its conquest. Everybody started with a conquest for the most part. I begrudge them their inability to finish it. They bit off more than they could chew, clearly.

The options with Gaza are annex it as-is, convince Egypt to take it back, free it, ethnically cleanse it, or the status quo. The only way to get to Principality is to free it. As long as Israel is holding it captive, they're not going to do anything but writhe and strike at their captors. Maybe somebody else could administer it for a while... just not Israel (or the US). Qatar? Egypt?

But the options Israel seems to be attracted to are the evil ones: ethnically cleanse it or just keep doing what they've been doing for 60 years. (Personally, of the two evils, I think ethnic cleansing is the lesser. Get it over with already! Finish the conquest!)

If you consider Gaza as a state with Hamas as its government, it's more evil than Israel. But Israel seems to think that fighting evil makes it the good guy. That's not true at all. Fighting evil with evil is still evil.

[Commenter_XY]

Annex all three and immediately begin a generous incentivized emigration program.

[Nelson]

“ Do you guys believe me yet that Israel is the third-most evil country at present (after North Korea and Iran)?”

No.

[Randal]

Here's a question I'm actually curious about.

You lot have gotten all excited about "meritocracy" as the antidote to DEI. Are you serious? The meritocracy has been in place for the last ~75 years. That's what led to the rise of the 'elite.'

I really don't understand how you guys are pro-meritocracy yet anti-elite. What exactly are you hoping that the meritocracy will result in if not an elite?

You understand that you've already lost the meritocracy, don't you?

[AmosArch]

This is an extremely bizarre argument even by your standards.

1. those arguing against elites are not necessarily the same arguing for meritocracy. They're in many ways separate arguments and the demographics might be related but don't overlap one by one.

2. Arguments against elites or the right is in the sense of top down centralizing technocrats not simply someone elevated to a position based on superior skills. Which obviously the right supports since thats the definition of meritocracy. Thats the elites the left (you guys oppose). You're literally confusing your own position for with ours.

[Krayt]

Those arguing against elites are usually elites themselves, pontificating to the masses so they can get power, and use that power to get in the way of other elites, so their bank accounts mysteriously skyrocket at multiples of their humble Servant of The People salaries.

Of course, some are not elites, and want power, and gain it, pontificating, and then their wealth skyrockets anywa...ohhhh.

I see the common theme there.

[Kazinski]

I think those arguing against Elites are more arguing against elite credentials as an indicator of competence.

Elite credentials are not equivalent to merit.

And one reason for that divergence is because merit is increasingly not the criteria for admission to elite institutions.

The more elite institutions select based on merit, then the more elite institutions will be associated with merit, and vice versa.

[Randal]

Your blame-the-brown-people-for-your-own-misfortunes mantra is only convincing to MAGA retards.

[Kazinski]

I'm not blaming brown people, in fact many brown people from India are at least as brown as American Blacks and much browner than hispanics. If fact my own kids are Asians.

In fact I am blaming the overwhelmingly white Harvard administration.

Why do you people always try to make it about race?

[Randal]

Why do you people always try to make it about race?

Because we're not blind to the fact that your lot has started using "DEI Hire" as a euphemism for "a brown person with a job" as if jobs are reserved for whites. Did you think we wouldn't notice?

[Speaking for normal people]

Census says "10.8% of married Black American men had a non-Black spouse"
So that is a huge cohort that confuses you reserved job statement.
Does the spouse getting a job and being married to a Black mean anything to your analysis ?

[Randal]

Does the spouse getting a job and being married to a Black mean anything to your analysis ?

It means the racist people I was referring to also tend to be stupid.

[Nelson]

“ And one reason for that divergence is because merit is increasingly not the criteria for admission to elite institutions.”

Merit is exactly the criteria for elite universities. They obsess over the metrics. Average GPA, four year graduation rate, standardized test scores, excellence in extracurricular … they focus on it all. They compete amongst themselves. They want the best and the brightest and, by and large, they get it.

College itself is a testing ground. It requires a large breadth and depth of knowledge about more things to get through college.

That’s not to say that college makes the best people, but it does make people with more knowledge and more flexibility. That’s why women's studied majors can become top salespeople or C-suite officers. The major isn’t as important as the breadth of knowledge they gather.

College makes better executives. It is a training ground for them. It’s the central point and purpose of college.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Elite credentials are not equivalent to merit.

I'm all ears. What legal proxies for merit were created by the Constitution, or by Congress? How should the Supreme Court define American, "merit?"

[Brett Bellmore]

I think part of the problem here is confusing "How elites should be chosen" with "How much power elites should have over the rest of us".

The answer to the first question is meritocracy. The answer to the second is, "Very little indeed."

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

If that's true, you're not going to like what's coming next.

[Sarcastr0]

This admin chooses for loyalty, not merit.
And it is consolidating power, not giving it up.

You remain inconsistent between what you claim to believe and what you defend.

[Brett Bellmore]

Of course the administration is choosing people on the basis of loyalty. If you hire competent people who are disloyal, they're competently disloyal; The competence and merit are devoted to damaging your administration. Trump did at least figure out that much from his first administration.

I think it would be nice to have a bit more competence in the mix, these guys make me face palm way too often, but loyalty is an absolute must in politics.

[Sarcastr0]

Your loyal/disloyal binary is wild.

Beyond your failure to understand humans yet again, you have made it clear you don't actually care about merit.

Getting the inconsistency engines started early today!

[David Nieporent]

Of course the administration is choosing people on the basis of loyalty.

The problem is that it's loyalty to Trump, not to the constitution or to the country.

[Don Nico]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Seriously?

[Don Nico]

"This admin chooses for loyalty, not merit."
You seriously think all administrations don't do that?

[Brett Bellmore]

The first Trump administration didn't, actually, and boy did it ever show. You had stupidity like Rosenstein writing a memo justifying firing Comey, then using Trump acting on it as an excuse to sic a special counsel on him.

Assume Rosenstein genuinely thought firing Comey was wrongful. If he was principled, he'd have refused to write the memo. If he was loyal and unprincipled, he'd have written it and been fine with the firing.

But a disloyal and unprincipled Rosenstein? Yeah, he'd write the memo and then use it as a basis for hurting his boss.

Comey is an example himself. No sensible administration would have kept him on that long.

Failing to make sure he hired loyal people is something is definitely would fault Trump for in his first term.

[David Nieporent]

The first Trump administration didn't, actually, and boy did it ever show. You had stupidity like Rosenstein writing a memo justifying firing Comey, then using Trump acting on it as an excuse to sic a special counsel on him.

You continue to be dishonest here. Trump decided to fire Comey. He asked Rosenstein to provide post hoc written justification for it. Rosenstein's memo argued that Comey was too mean to Hillary. It had absolutely nothing to do with Trump's decision, which had already been made and was about shutting down the Russia investigation, as Trump expressly said.

[Brett Bellmore]

" Trump decided to fire Comey. He asked Rosenstein to provide post hoc written justification for it."

And I'll stand by what I said: If Rosenstein were principled, and thought it was wrongful to fire Comey, he'd have refused to write the memo. The reasoning he used, vs what Trump used, is irrelevant.

[Mr. Bumble]

Rosenstein, Trump's John Dean.

[Magister]

You've changed your story from the earlier post. A loyal and principled Rosenstein would believe in Trump's innocence and would follow the law regarding the special counsel to clear his name.

[Don Nico]

"The first Trump administration didn't,"
That is just nonsense Brett. True that they did not sweep the place clean, but new appointments were only loyalists

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

And despite "hiring the best people", there was still a breathtaking amount of staff turnover. Which continues to this day.

[Don Nico]

That is because Trump revels in firing people a la The Apprentice, Also he is far to turbulent a manager for many people.

[Speaking for normal people]

So illogical you are. That MUST mean there is no merit in loyalty. A dumb person indeed

[Randal]

The answer to the first question is meritocracy. The answer to the second is, "Very little indeed."

What, then, exactly, do you think the meritocracy is for? Are you turning socialist all the sudden?

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, it's not for deciding who gets to lord it over us. There's a huge difference between wanting your doctor to give you competent medical advice, and wanting your doctor to be able to force you to do a 1K run every week.

[Randal]

To the extent you're saying we should avoid tyranny generally, of course. But there's always some power, and it goes to the elites in a meritocracy.

[Don Nico]

True enough. In fact it would be highly unlikely for it to be otherwise.

[JD85]

In our current society it is.

We don't, in any meaningful sense, control how the wealthiest among us spend their money. They get functional control over quite a bit of our lives.

To argue they don't get to lord it over us is to argue in favor of the regulation of money in a more stringent manner.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore — There is no such thing in this country (for now, anyway) as, "doctorocracy." When you see that, "-ocracy," suffix, it is there for a reason. It means, "rule by." Thus, " meritocracy," means rule by the meritorious. I think you have a sort of inchoate feel that to implement meritocracy by law would be unwise. But if you want a republican form of government, you have to forswear specifically any notion of meritocracy. Those notions are antagonists.

But of course, that does not imply that the alternative must be government on the basis of personal loyalty. Swearing oaths to defend the Constitution, and enforcing them by law, would work much better. This nation ought to give that enforcement part a try. Grand juries armed with their formerly customary power of presentment, and enforceable laws against oath breaking, would go a long way toward putting this nation back in regular order, and it would not take long to do it.

[Speaking for normal people]

Even your logic is WOW!! silly

The 'elite' must have preceded.
From John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, 15 November 1813
"We are now explicitly agreed, in one important point, viz That “there is a natural Aristocracy among men; the grounds of which are Virtue and Talents.”

There are the 2 ends of the Founding spectrum.

[Randal]

I know. So then why are you so anti-elite? Relax and let us bring you comfort and prosperity as envisioned by our founding fathers and prescribed by capitalism and a meritocratic republic.

[AmosArch]

In the previous open thread someone was bewailing that countries like Germany don't approve of our choice of Trump implying that Germany was so much wiser. Well here's a video of the German political establishment clearly showing themselves to be fools who maybe should have listened a little more to trump that they and everyone on the left seem to have forgotten.

https://youtu.be/eKEycjREgPE?feature=shared

[Martinned]

Germany is not, in fact, "totally dependent on Russian gas". Germany is buying gas from all over the place at the moment.

German gas imports were 865 TWh, according to preliminary data (2023: 968 TWh). The largest suppliers of gas were Norway (48%), the Netherlands (25%) and Belgium (18%). 69 TWh of natural gas were imported via the German LNG terminals in Wilhelmshaven, Brunsbüttel, Lubmin and Mukran, making up 8% of all imports.

https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/SharedDocs/Pressemitteilungen/EN/2025/20250108_GAS.html#:~:text=Gas%20imports%20and%20exports,%25)%20and%20Belgium%20(18%25).

[Swede425]

Turn off the Russian gas and what happens to Germany?
It just buys more from the other suppliers?
If Russian gas got turned off, Germany falls on it's face.
That is what happens to them because of their dependence on Russian gas.

[Martinned]

You seem to be confused about what "dependent" means. I'll give you a clue, it doesn't mean "we can just buy from somewhere else if you stop selling to us".

[Swede425]

If you get any amount of something, whatever that percentage may be, and that amount gets shut off and it can cause a severe disruption that can harm people's lives, that's dependency.
Is Germany still buying Russian gas?
If so, why?

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Not directly. Russian-sourced LNG is apparently still imported to Germany via EU terminals. This is estimated to be between 3% and 9% of Germany's total gas imports.

That seems quite far from "totally dependent" to me.

[Bwaaah]

Martinned: "You seem to be confused about what "dependent" means. I'll give you a clue, it doesn't mean [...]"

You, Martinned, seem to be confused about what "dependent" means. And it doesn't help for you to give an example of what it *doesn't* mean.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bwaaah — It helped me. I had been under a mistaken impression that at least a notable plurality of German natural gas was imported from Russia. Martinned's citations unconfused me.

They also alerted me to the existence of an information faction which wants me confused, for some reason. I hope you are not a member of that group.

[tylertusta]

You're about 3 years late.

After the war in Ukraine started, Germany started getting itself off of Russian fossil fuel imports.

[Magister]

So you're saying they were right to laugh at Trump.

[tylertusta]

With the economic pain that Germany felt when they were forced off of Russia's teat, I highly doubt they were laughing.

The diplomat who laughed at Trump was unavailable for comment.

https://ktrh.iheart.com/featured/michael-berry/content/2022-09-20-german-diplomat-who-laughed-at-trump-un-speech-refuses-comments-now/

[Dr. Ed 2]

Unlike the so-called Palestinians, the Armenians have legitimate grievances with the Turks. Armenians are Christian, Turks are Muslim.

Imagine if an Armenian had brutally murdered a young photogenic Turkish couple in front of the Turkish Embassy and then run inside shouting "Fuck Allah" or something similar. Forgetting the fact that he'd never leave the building alive, say the perp wound up alive and ambulatory in the custody of the DC Police.

Can you imagine the outcry?

And yet this happens to Israel and, yawn....

I hope we don't execute the perp because that will make him a martyr. We don't need that.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Imagine if an Armenian had brutally murdered a young photogenic Turkish couple in front of the Turkish Embassy

Why on earth would it matter how attractive they were?

Can you imagine the outcry?

And yet this happens to Israel and, yawn....

What the fuck are you talking about?

I hope we don't execute the perp because that will make him a martyr.

Yeah, it’s not like he was a woman who got wore a short dress or something.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

What does he want to happen in response? Trump to use it as an excuse to turn most of Gaza into the Trump Gaza parking lot?

[hobie]

The Gazans aren't the brightest bunch. A few hundred million to the Trump family and it will suddenly be 'Israel who?' And a bonus will be that all the people like Ed will follow right along too. Best money Qatar will ever spend. But, like I said, not that bright.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

One airplane at a time, hobie, one airplane at a time...

[Dr. Ed 2]

I have a real problem with the airplane.

We need a policy on gifts to the COUNTRY.

[hobie]

So you don't like it when innocent young people from the Middle East are murdered, eh?

[Kazinski]

Anybody who claims they didn't know Biden was is a serious mental decline years ago is plain lying.

I know because I repeatedly posted about his mental decline to warn you.

Now I realize their were strategic political reasons to try to deny his mental decline, mainly because there was no graceful way to get rid of Kamala Harris, but it doesn't excuse the fact that anyone who wasn't themselves senile (which term I don't think I ever used for Joe), should have known.

[Commenter_XY]

It was pretty obvious there was a problem in 2020, during the campaign. How many times was there 'a lid' called at 10am? It wasn't just willful blindness, it was malicious.

[Frank Drackman]

The time he called someone a “Dog faced Pony Soldier” should have been a clue (man!)

[Speaking for normal people]

Or "I used to drive an 18-wheeler"
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/QR2mMXEC2Cs

[Swede425]

He was hidden for a reason.
And the press was fine with it.
Because they knew.
And they'd rather have whoever had their fist up Biden's ass running the country, because they were sure that person's ideology lined up with the MSM.
So not only did they support it, they were actively hostile to those who pointed out that Biden was barely warmer than a zombie.

[David Nieporent]

In fact, we know that's not true, because MAGA had so talked themselves into believing it that when Biden cleaned Trump's clock in two debates in 2020, they hypothesized that he must have been given some (as-yet-unidentified) drug that cures dementia for two hours.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

This from someone who no doubt "honestly" denies that Trump is (and has been for his entire political career) severely mentally deranged...

"...and on his knuckles he had 'MS13'..."

Biden obviously declined while in office and should never have run for re-election. I said this at the time. It was a huge mistake, sadly borne of his stubborn hubris, and it probably cost the Democrats the 2024 election. If I were a Democrat, I would be furious with my leadership for allowing it to happen.

MAGAts have been claiming (without evidence) that Biden was "sleepy", "senile" and "suffering from Alzheimer's" from at least early 2020 (if not before that), mainly because that was the Trump line. To the degree it was intended to convey an abnormal situation, it's nonsense. During his presidency Biden was an elderly man, and if you've ever worked with elderly people (not as a child or a carer) you probably know what that's like. He seemed to be doing okay for most of his four years, until June 2024, when he had a serious decline.

I think he should have resigned. You don't, lol.

[Sarcastr0]

I'm not sure if you understand that the real story is how Kaz is basically the Paul Revere of posting, but maybe a bit more noble and martyrish.

[Kazinski]

"Paul Revere of posting".

I like that.

But how would you describe yourself?

The Jim Cramer of posting? That's got a ring.

This is from August of '23:

"Y'all keep fucking that age chicken, but it's at variance with all the other stuff you're trying, and I think that's part of why it never caught on. Well, that and all the bad faith 'Biden misspoke - proof he's a vegetable!' nonsense."

[Sarcastr0]

Yeah, good job me to not trusted your say-so, nor your terrible contextless video examples.

[Kazinski]

I'm not big on posting video examples, at least of Biden, what prompted your diatribe was a poll:

"Percent who say the candidate is too old to effectively serve another 4-year term as president:
U.S. adults
Biden 77%
Trump 51%

Splits Biden first line Trump 2nd:
Democrats
69%
71%
Independents
74%
48%
Republicans
89%
28%
Results are based on interviews with 1,165 U.S. adults conducted Aug. 10-14, 2023.
https://apnews.com/article/biden-age-poll-trump-2024-620e0a5cfa0039a6448f607c17c7f23e"

Which of course highlights my point, it didn't take any unusual perception or inside information to see Biden was too old more than a year before the election, it took willful blindness, and a orchestrated sales job to ignore what more than 2/3 of people saw more than a year before the election.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Kazinski — The problem with your commentary—and now with your self-congratulation—is that you suppose any weakness in an argument offered against yours, makes your own argument incontrovertible. The fact is that advocates on both sides of the Biden competence question made unsupportable arguments. All but Biden's few (and apparently unidentifiable) inner-circle members had no sound basis to conclude anything on the Biden competence question—if even those inner circle members did.

A sounder argument was available. If the nation is about to choose a President, why not do so using precautionary prejudice against the possibility that a candidate is too old to expect 4 years of mental competence. The problem with that argument, from your point of view, was that it would disqualify Trump and Biden alike.

So here we are, with you crowing over unearned perspicacity, and the nation staggering at the precipice of existential crisis, while it struggles under Trump's flagrant mental derangement—for which you all along have been an advocate.

You had a far better choice—the anti-Biden/anti-Trump choice—than the one you advocated. You look foolish demanding deference for what amounts to a record of bad judgment. Even adversaries who now confess their own bad judgment look better.

[Speaking for normal people]

Even people who like him admit he is stupid, poorly-spoken and lazy . But they often add 'a nice guy' which actually makes it worse not better. Bottom 10 his law class. Do you want a nice guy lawyer who was bottom 10 of his law class ?

I have students who in effect say "I don't want to study Organic Chem or Biochem, I want to be a doctor and help people" okay well that is evil, I can't assess how evil but evil it is.

[Dr. Ed 2]

I remember Biden talking about the secret bunker under the Naval Observatory in 2009 -- he was losing it then.

[bernard11]

Yet you ignore Trump's far more frequent and incoherent babbling.

As we used to say, "He ain't right."

[Joe_dallas]

There was plenty of evidence that Biden's was "suffering from Alzheimer's" from at least early 2020 (if not before that)"

You are just engaging in the same game the media was playing until just recently.

[Randal]

What game do you think the media was playing exactly? Biden's decline was covered extensively. This thing where you invent media coverups that are obviously and disprovably fake is mind-boggling.

Here's an SNL cold open that's all about his mental and physical decline, and the political spin on it, from well before the fateful debate. (If you don't know, SNL is hardly Fox News.)

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

[Speaking for normal people]

Obviously, He spoke like a man with a big problem for years.
Dog faced pony soldier -- I used to drive an 18-wheeler. I watched him for 40 years. He showed bad signs even at the Clarence Thomas hearings

[Sarcastr0]

“ I know because I repeatedly posted”

The power of posting.

[Speaking for normal people]

You can repeatedly post all you want 🙂 We have your number

[Speaking for normal people]

That he picked Kamala shows that when in top form he was still stupid as hell. (Bottom 10 of his law class) He almost picked now Mayor Karen Bass--- yes, a goddam unbelievably stupid and lazy and poorly spoken clown. I pray for him,don't hate him , but watched the sub-sub-standard guy in DC for 40 years

[Bwaaah]

"That he picked Kamala [...]"

Joe picked himself, not Kamala. Then after the debates, the Democratic party leadership decided he had to go. Chuck and Nancy visited him and "advised" him he "should" step aside. But Joe stood fast. So the New York Times slammed his jaw to the curb by publishing George Clooney's opinion of the matter, "I Love Joe Biden. But We Need a New Nominee." And that was when all good Democrats said to themselves, "We really should move on."

Democratic leadership then got together to answer the question, "How do we minimize fallout from our usurpation of the election process?"

Their answer was, "Don't dare try to pass by the Vice President and Black Woman."

Don't underestimate the absurd implications of a hugely popular movement of people whose politics are, first and foremost, driven by fear of offending certain types of people. (For example, "Black people," or George Clooney, or ...)

[Brett Bellmore]

He did pick Harris: For VP, remember?

[Bwaaah]

Ahh...yes..*that* time. (I got off at the wrong exit here.)

[Moderation4ever]

In case you haven't noticed Joe Biden is no longer President. Perhaps rather than focusing on the past the American people should be asking what is being hidden from us about the current President. Or is that just to scary a place to go?

[Swede425]

LOL!
"Guys, nothing to see here, just let it go, ok?"
No need to reflect on it at all.
Which makes it easier to happen again.
So, no.

[Moderation4ever]

So, is it happening again? Is Trump compromised and being protected by staff? Staff from the first Trump administration suggested he was compromised, has that situation changed?

[bernard11]

It is happening.

And the Trumpies are behaving just like Biden's inner circle did - deny, rationalize, cover up, etc.

[Don Nico]

Really, bernard?
We all get to see DJT perform in front of the cameras without teleprompters or an aide whispering in his ear in front of sometimes hostile media, many days.
Do his staff kiss up to the boss? Sure. But they cannot cover up what the entire world sees many hours per week.

[Moderation4ever]

Really?
You describe DJT as performing and that is correct, a performance. He seem to really know little of what is going on in the world. Yesterday, he held up a photo claiming it was white genocide in South Africa, except the photo was from Goma, Congo. The entire world can see DJT is either a fool or mentality out of it.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

"...and on his knuckles he had 'MS13'..."

The 25th Amendment is ready and waiting.

[Don Nico]

He may be wrong, but he is not demented. You missed the point of the thread.
Biden was both demented (in the colloquial but MAYBE not in the clinical sense) and often wrong.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Trump is clearly deranged:

"...and on his knuckles he had 'MS13'..."

Keep on Noamin'...

[Don Nico]

please note that you had to change demented to deranged. In other words, all you can say is that you disagree strongly with him and dislike his "style."

[David Nieporent]

No. What we can say is that Trump is incoherent and has little or no contact with reality. Whether you want to call that demented or deranged is of little moment. (And also, he absolutely is demented in the colloquial sense, if not the clinical sense. Try looking up the word in a dictionary.)

[bernard11]

Yes, Don. Really.

Do you think that the entire world looks at Trump and marvels, "Wow. The guy is almost 79 years old and still sharp as a tack?"

[Josh R]

Trump has always acted like this. He suffers from narcissistic personality disorder, not cognitive decline.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

"...and on his knuckles he had 'MS13'..."

[Don Nico]

Josh,
You have it hit the nail on the head. Bravo!

[David Nieporent]

not cognitive decline.

No. Go look at video of Trump from before he entered the political scene. He has always been bombastic and dumb, but his mental acuity has overtly slipped significantly. He used to at least be coherent, able to complete whole sentences and paragraphs without losing the thread and ranting about something else entirely.

[Don Nico]

I think that you are very wrong.
Many throughout the world hate what he says, but I doubt that many think that he does not know what he is saying and actually intended to say something else.
I am surprised that you cannot distinguish that. But your disgust at the guy is blinding you from a dispassionate critique.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Intending to "say something else" would be an example of an elderly person succumbing to the normal debility of aging.

Trump is mentally deranged in a different way: He fully intends to say what he says--it's just that what he intends to say is nonsense, which he does not recognize as such.

"...and on his knuckles he had 'MS13'..."

In technical terminology, he's a loon.

[Don Nico]

"Loon" is not a technical term. You just disagree with him. In contrast, Josh R has the correct diagnosis.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Nico, my dispassionate critique is informed by evidence that Trump spouts lies an order of magnitude more often than any world leader ever, including leaders whom history has long-since judged crazy. Disconnection from the truth serves pretty well to define psychosis.

What makes Trump look self-controlled to some, is the fact that he still commands oligarchical support. His backers enjoy financial capacity to enforce loyalty upon Trump-supporting politicians craven enough to grovel, instead of walking away. There is no shortage of right-wing insiders who say off the record that is what is happening. They also say that many MAGA insiders know Trump is crazy.

But gullible bystanders take that groveling as proof of Trump's mental capacity, which remains for now a self-supporting fallacy. It will not last.

Trump displays a mania to destroy every record capable to memorialize his conduct. That futile ambition proves even Trump himself knows he is deranged.

[Speaking for normal people]

No college graduate would say such a stupid thing as "an order of magnitude more often" there is no such thing , you just talk and talk
IN fact scientifically you would need an 'operational definition"

So if an adult said "she is an order of magnitude more beautiful' that could only be on the basis of an operational definition that resulted in ordinal numbers
--an order of magnitude more guys (or girls) rate her more beautiful
--she has won an order of magnitude more beauty contests than any other woman
-- on a scalar rating given to a random population she is an order of magnitude more in their opinion

YOU just talk shit and hope everybody is stalled at your level of understanding

[Brett Bellmore]

"What makes Trump look self-controlled to some," is the fact that he is obviously capable of accomplishing complex tasks. They might be tasks you don't approve of, he might accomplish them by means we both dislike, but he's doing it.

I keep saying this: This is nothing but trash talk! It's the guy in the nose bleed section at the Olympics screaming that the guy mounting the podium to accept a medal is weak and clumsy.

Demonstrably, Trump is still functioning on a high level, even if he has deficits as does everybody at his age. He doesn't wander aimlessly, he doesn't forget who people are or why he is someplace.

[David Nieporent]

I keep saying this:

And you keep being wrong, and using a terrible analogy that relies on Trump accomplishing things that he didn't actually accomplish.

[Don Nico]

Stephen,
If you look outside the confines of the US, you will see that DJT is far more cagey than you give him credit for. He does intend to remake the Middle East in a way that will be all for the better for everyone in the region, once the accord between Israel and Saudi Arabia has been accomplished.

[David Nieporent]

If you look outside the confines of the U.S., you will see that Trump is far dumber than he seems domestically. He accomplishes nothing and is a total laughingstock, played by whoever he's dealing with.

If one wanted to steelman a defense of Trump's actions on the world stage, one should probably argue that he's not constrained by the taboos of the establishment. He'll do stuff that nobody else would do because he doesn't care when people tell him it would be imprudent. Occasionally that works, and breaks through an impasse. The problem is that they're experts and he's an uninformed moron, so the vast majority of the time they're right and he's wrong, and other people have to clean up his mess, which often involves him being forced to backtrack and do the things that everyone else had been doing all along.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Nico — I admit the notion of a pax-Arabia golden age, under joint Saudi/Israeli suzerainty, had not occurred to me. Do you suppose there is wealth enough in Araby to make it happen? I mean, if they did not hold back, but paid it all to Trump. You think he could do it?

[Kazinski]

I'm not the one who wrote the book that's being flogged everywhere, and is all over the networks and newssites.

But since it is a topic of widespread discussion wondering how it was that nobody knew, I'm just pointing out it shouldn't have been hard to see.

[Sarcastr0]

Your reason for why it wasn't hard is you posted a lot about it.

[Martinned]

Anybody who claims they didn't know Biden was is a serious mental decline years ago is plain lying.

How could anybody know? There is no way to hold a sitting US president to account in that regard. He can waive to the press while walking to his helicoptre every once in a while and that's all the press needs to see of him. Congress gets to listen to him give a speech once a year, if he feels like it. Utter absence of checks (and balances).

[Swede425]

LOL!
In which we learn that Martinned is a Jake Tapper sockpuppet.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Same thing with 625 Federal Judges...

[Martinned]

Judges who can't talk coherently get found out pretty quickly.

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

[Kazinski]

In which Martinned admits he's stupider than 71% of the American Public who did know.

Of course that's not true or fair, Martinned intentionally didn't want to know which is a completely different type of ignorance.

[Speaking for normal people]

I knew...and even 40 years ago when my manager (who lived in Delaware ) said friends and neighbors thought he had his first wife murdered. I don't know now but you have to be a certain kind of person for that to even be considered. As he himself said 4 decades after that :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mpk210Ee1Sg

Biden caught on hot mic: 'No one f---s with a Biden'

[DaveM]

The only people who can hold the Democratic Party to account are Democrats, and I think we all know how well that's going to turn out.

When you lose the will to ban bad behavior, your collapse comes from within.

[Martinned]

How exactly can Democrats (however defined) hold the Democratic Party to account? US political parties don't really exist beyond their fundraising functions. They are not in any meaningful sense an organisation that has authority over its members.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Ever read the 25th Amendment?

[Martinned]

How does the 25th Amendment empower "Democrats" (or the Democratic Party for that matter) to do anything?

[Speaking for normal people]

So if Dr Ed is right he expects people like a 90-year old Sen Feinstein to question Biden's age and fitness.

https://krcrtv.com/resources/media/384d432d-5860-4594-a260-872b711eb589-full21x9_AP23142833319682.jpg

[Don Nico]

Martin, you know that is false. Just think a moment about Nancy P. and her cronies.
Parties are certainly weaker than they once were, but they are far from the impotent organizations that you are making them out to be

[Commenter_XY]

Following up on Professor Blackman's post...

What is the likelihood that AI will be creating the majority of appellate briefs in the next 5 years? I will go out on a limb and say >75%.

When does an AI-enabled instrument (android?) make oral arguments at Circuit Courts? I think less than a decade.

What do the lawyers and law professors think?

[DaveM]

To allow the use of large language models to craft briefs is to admit that the law has no internal logic, it is literally just rhetoric, a mere succession of words chosen based on frequency. This is exactly how LLMs work.

I doubt the legal profession is ready to state this. And furthermore, if they ever did, there would certainly be no justification for following any judgments as legally binding. No one is going to consent to something written by a search algorithm.

[not guilty]

No. Appellate brief writing requires more than simple wordcraft and citation of legal authorities. Tying an argument to the record developed before the lower court(s) is critical. That is not something that can be done mechanically.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Mark Levin -- it's not antisemitism but evil on earth:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SI9WYfXFa94

They want to kill all of us, not just the Jews, this is a war for the survival of the West.

Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran,
Just like Japan....

[Dr. Ed 2]

The Constitutional Crisis of Rogue Leftist Federal Judges:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jZGj5LlA9Co

635 Federal Judges (100 more than the combined membership of Congress), half of whom weren't even born in this country and we need to start doing wholesale impeachments. Do I hear ten a day for the next 30 days???

[Noscitur a sociis]

If you do, that might be one of the many signs that it’s time to adjust the dosage.

[David Nieporent]

Three things struck me about this short comment by Dr. Ed:

1) In that video, Karoline Leavitt sounds like a middle school student reading the morning announcements over the PA system. She clearly doesn't understand the words she's using, and isn't even good at delivery. Other than being blonde, why does she have this job?

2) "Dr" Ed has — as usual — completely made up his "facts." There are not in fact 635 federal judges, and half of them are not foreign born. That last claim isn't from this universe.

3) Even if any of the judges merited impeachment — and "not bowing to Trump" isn't actually grounds for impeachment — does Dr. Ed not understand that it takes 67 senators to remove someone via impeachment, and the GOP has 53, a couple of whom aren't even MAGA?

[Speaking for normal people]

David, Karoline is better than the last 3 , you must have forgotten to mention that.

[Mr. Bumble]

David seems to have confused Leavitt for the black, lesbian Raggedy Ann who proceeded her.

[David Nieporent]

Not unexpectedly, we get two whatabouts as an immediate response, with of course neither one being true.

[Krayt]

I often point out how the Democrats, in his first term, fought him to a standstill mostly through the courts, as part of what I called "normal politics". This was in conrtrast to using the power of government to investigate, prosecute, and remove from power, things not in the spirit of the Constitution.

This time, it seems the Republicans, always late to the party on tricks used against them, have again slowly responded, to the former, and are fighting back.

What's good and bad is left as an exercise for the reader. However, clearly they are trying to address what happened the previous term.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Howie Carr -- next time I will fact check him.

And does David not know that we have an election in 17 months?

[David Nieporent]

Howie Carr -- next time I will fact check him.

We all know you won't.

And does David not know that we have an election in 17 months?

What does that have to do with "for the next 30 days," which is when you wanted impeachments to start? Also,

1) After that election, the GOP won't even have a House majority so there will be no impeachments of judges.
2) Even if the GOP won every single senate seat up for election in 2026, they still wouldn't have 67 seats!

[Speaking for normal people]

But you makes a worse mistake...If K Leavitt is so unfitted for the job that implicates a whole huge bunch who put her there --- and personally I would have to rate her higher than Psaki and Jean-Pierre. Your turn :0

[not guilty]

"635 Federal Judges (100 more than the combined membership of Congress), half of whom weren't even born in this country and we need to start doing wholesale impeachments."

Uh, no. There were 1,457 sitting federal judges in the United States as of Aug. 1, 2024. https://www.americanbar.org/news/profile-legal-profession/judges/ There are 871 Article III federal judges currently serving. https://ballotpedia.org/Current_federal_judges_by_appointing_president_and_circuit

[Dr. Ed 2]

Perhaps the law professors may wish to comment:

"Teresa Manning, Policy Director at the National Association of Scholars, said, “Law firms have long complained that law school graduates—who have also passed the bar—are not practice-ready when they are hired and that they, the law firms, must actually train new hires to do basic legal work. Think about that!”

“A law graduate has spent seven years to become a lawyer—four in undergraduate, then three in law school—has spent tens of thousands of dollars in tuition, and has lost even more money in forgone income during those years,” she said. “The graduate then spends time and money to take and pass the bar. And at the end of this long, expensive road, the graduate needs to be trained to be a lawyer? Why isn’t anyone asking about this?”

https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2025/05/22/americas-obsession-with-diplomas-is-killing-opportunity/

[CountmontyC]

The solution to that problem is immigration. Start allowing in tens, nay hundreds of thousands of immigrants who are practicing attorneys. Hey if importing millions of immigrants who work blue collar jobs a few hundred thousand white collar jobs such as attorneys should be double plus good

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Sure, if they can pass the bar. Many foreigners have a go; not all succeed.

[Frank Drackman]

You're right, it's not like Medicine where a STEMI is an STEMI no matter if you're in Birmingham England or Birmingham Alabama, but just imagine Attorney Moe-hammad-Jug-Lish-Ramma-Lamma-Ding-Dong trying to make sense of a Pre-Nup between 2 gays in Sausalito (Rodney Dangerfield's favorite "Gay" town "Lots of S's and L's")

Frank

[Dr. Ed 2]

How about letting them TAKE the bar? How about letting ANYONE take the bar and eliminating the ABA/Law School monopoly?

[Speaking for normal people]

Then we should go back to Lincoln and the Founders, who learned on the job

In the late 18th century and early 19th century, lawyer apprenticeship, also known as "reading law," was the primary method of legal training in America. Apprentices would work under established lawyers, gaining practical experience through clerical duties and legal research. This system, while informal, shaped the legal profession and the careers of many American founders.

[Martinned]

You laugh, but confusion about this came up in England just the other day.

https://thesecretbarrister.com/2025/05/18/no-the-inns-of-court-are-not-biased-against-white-barristers/

So is there an “over-representation of ethnic minorities” among new barristers called to Lincoln’s Inn? Well, in a sense, yes. The statistics show there to be an “overrepresentation” in all four Inns, when looking at the ethnic background of those called to the Bar. [Chart omitted for obvious reasons.]

Why should this be? Well, it’s because being called to the Bar of England and Wales carries international prestige, and our qualification is recognised in numerous common law jurisdictions, particularly throughout the Commonwealth. Hundreds of international students attend our Bar schools each year with a view to returning home upon qualification and practising law in their own countries. One of the features of the Bar school business model is that they offer the Bar course to far more students than there are pupillages (the 12-months on-the-job training that must then be undertaken before you can practise in England and Wales). This is how they remain sustainable. They rely upon the business of international students who have no intention of practising law in England and Wales.

[Dr. Ed 2]

"One of the features of the Bar school business model is that they offer the Bar course to far more students than there are pupillages"

And I thought that American higher education was morally bankrupt.

How is this not a fraudulent and deceptive business practice?

[Davedave]

I can't work out what Martin's far right propaganda point would be here, so maybe this time he was having a few minutes off from shilling for Nazi groups, and was being wrong on his own account.

Being called to the bar is very different from passing the bar exam. It involves completing pupillage, passing other checks, and being asked to become a barrister.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Probably not as confusing as Martin being called both "far right" and "far left" by people viewing the same comments.

[Speaking for normal people]

St Augustine : We see what we are

[Krayt]

The solution to that problem is immigration. Start allowing in tens, nay hundreds of thousands of immigrants who are practicing attorneys.

H-1Bs for lawyers! If the fast track is good enough for doctors, nurses, and software engineers, it's good enough for lawyers, to cut lawyer salaries and burgeoning costs to American citizens. Get that industry moving again!

And to cut conflict of interest, forbid these lawyers from making donations to either political party.

[Magister]

It seems unlikely that there are large numbers of foreign attorneys prepared to practice US law; doctors, nurses and software engineers all do stuff that isn't country or state specific.

And it's already illegal for foreigners to make political contributions; bribes after election, like airplanes, are of course OK.

[Martinned]

It seems unlikely that there are large numbers of foreign attorneys prepared to practice US law

Why not? It's in English, a language many foreigners already speak, and the money is good.

Here are the statistics about foreign solicitors in England and Wales. At the moment there are about 7,000 foreigners practicing as solicitors in England and Wales, out of a total of about 170,000. https://www.sra.org.uk/sra/research-publications/regulated-community-statistics/data/population_solicitors/

[Magister]

Maybe because their legal education in a foreign country is not relevant to the law in the United States? There are specific credentials to practice law in each state; credentials for software engineers in particular do not vary between states and countries. There may be location specific licensing for nurses or doctors, but the knowledge needed to qualify is mostly not location specific.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Not "large numbers", no, but foreign-educated lawyers used to be found mainly in New York and, to a lesser extent, California.

I haven't heard anything about this for at least 20 years, but back when I had colleagues trying to qualify in the US, I believe the difference was that NY allowed people with a foreign law degree to take the NY bar if they had at least an LL.M. from a US law school, whereas California also required them to be a qualified lawyer in their home jurisdiction.

That can be quite a difference if the home jurisdiction requires the completion of a "training contract" or judicial service before someone can be considered a "lawyer".

The main practical difference between a US state qualification and a foreign one is that most of the world uses civil law, rather than common law.

[Speaking for normal people]

Hmmm, really

In Louisiana, the requirement for hair braiding is to complete 500 hours of hands-on training at a private cosmetology school.

Arizona Is Close to Abolishing an Absurd Licensing Law Requiring 1,000 Hours of Training to Blow-Dry Hair

[Dr. Ed 2]

"It seems unlikely that there are large numbers of foreign attorneys prepared to practice US law; doctors, nurses and software engineers all do stuff that isn't country or state specific."

Bullshyte.

Prescribing protocols for controlled substances (Schedule II Drugs) vary widely between states and you go to JAIL if you get that wrong!
Differences in state protocol came out during Covid.

And then take abortion laws -- you better know what your state's are!

These are all state licensed professions, and pro hoc vice does not exist (although reciprocity laws sometimes do). But then you still better know your own state's laws.

[Magister]

Prescribing Schedule II drugs and abortions are hardly core functions, and I can't recall the last time I encountered a medical professional who didn't work for a very large HMO, hospital or clinic. Similarly, software engineers can do a lot of work without having to know the specifics of various information laws, important as those would be for a technology company.

[Speaking for normal people]

One of my alltime favorite associations, NAS. If Biden and Obama had listened to them we would have much better schools already.
And I do blame Reason, when Bruce Gilley needed help on personal rights, academic freedom, etc. where were you?

[jb]

Personally, I think it would be good if more states let you read on to the bar with an apprenticeship in a law office. It seems like only four states (California, Vermont, Virginia, Washington) still allow this without attending any law school.

But in general: universities aren't vocational schools. Their goal isn't to teach you how to do a job, even if they do provide foundational knowledge in related areas. Even medical school, which includes two years of clinical training, is largely setting you up for a residency in which you'll learn how to be a "real" doctor.

Unless Trump somehow manages to regress our economy into one primarily based on manufacturing, it probably would be good if there were more vocational opportunities for white collar jobs and more companies willing to hire from them. I know for tech disciplines, there's a reasonable body of vocational training (e.g., "boot camps") that can actually land you an entry level job, but I haven't seen this to the same extent for other types of roles. That may just be ignorance on my part, though.

[Brett Bellmore]

On the contrary, in general universities ARE vocational schools. A large enough fraction of the population is passing through them on the way to vocations that it is economically insupportable for them to NOT be vocational schools.

Now, if you want to argue that they aren't, or shouldn't be, just vocational schools, have at it. I actually think that most of them should indeed be just vocational schools, but there's certainly a case for at least some of them being something else besides that.

But they must be at least vocational schools, or we cannot afford to support them at this level.

[Sarcastr0]

A large enough fraction of the population is passing through them on the way to vocations that it is economically insupportable for them to NOT be vocational schools.

How are you defining vocational school?

[Brett Bellmore]

A school that provides skills useful to employment at a paying job.

[Sarcastr0]

A definition so broad as to be useless.

And it looks pretty wrong. The definitions I read vary, but all tie a vocational school to a particular profession.

Not just any job.

[Magister]

So medical schools and law schools and engineering departments are vocational schools? By that standard, even liberal arts education is vocational (skills useful to employment at a paying job to teach liberal arts).

I think Brett Bellmore has peculiar notions about academia.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, I think they do so qualify.

My point is that the universities consume enough resources, and enough man hours of people's lives, that they must show some return in order to justify that consumption. Or else we can't afford to continue subsidizing them at this level.

[Sarcastr0]

universities consume enough resources
Whose resources? Consuming what?

You'll need to show a lot more work if you want to establish that universities don't provide more value than they take in.

[jb]

Agreeing with something Dr. Ed 2 posted makes me think I might have taken crazy pills, but I think the analysis in the article is roughly correct: many hiring managers view getting a college degree as a heuristic for "not an idiot", "has some critical thinking skills" and "is organized and determined enough to make it through a degree program" as opposed to thinking that it's provided a bunch of useful training for their role. So college is a filter rather than meaningfully preparing people in their jobs.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Agreed. And they ALL started as vocational.

Harvard started to train ministers.
Yale started because the folk in Connecticut didn't like Harvard's ministers.

Most of the publics started as either normal schools or land grants -- both vocational.

[Speaking for normal people]

Sorry to drag reason, experience , and common sense into this

One of the central elements of the early modern attempt to reformulate knowledge and thereby extricate it from the tyranny of tradition was the attempt to reduce all knowing to technique. One–it was believed–need merely master a particular method, and with this technique firmly in hand, nature willingly yield her secrets. The result is a conception of knowledge that is severely truncated.

To learn by example is to submit to authority. You follow your master because you trust his manner of doing things even when you cannot analyse and account in detail for its effectiveness. By watching the master and emulating his efforts in the presence of his example, the apprentice unconsciously picks up the rules of the art, including those which are not explicitly known to the master himself. These hidden rules can be assimilated only by a person who surrenders himself to that extent uncritically to the imitation of another.”

[David Nieporent]

What do you think the significance of this is? Law schools are not vocational training. They're not trying to be. And it would not really work for them to be, given the myriad of legal systems the graduates are going to practice in.

[Kazinski]

The House actually has a proposal that will help address shortcomings in our University system:

"The U.S. House of Representatives has passed legislation that proposes to raise the tax on the investment income of Yale and a number of other universities from 1.4% to 21%. Each year, this increased endowment tax would strip hundreds of millions of dollars from Yale’s budget."

I think one of the sources of the widespread problem in US universities is they have too much money leading to administrative bloat and too many people with no meaningful purpose with too much time on their hands.

A University that doesn't have enough money to have a dean for the department of LGBTQQ Film study is better off for it.

[BrotherMovesOn]

Don't you trust the consumer to decide for themselves whether or not Yale University "[has] too much money", "administrative bloat" or "too many people with no meaningful purpose"?
And if the answer is 'yes' they can choose one they then prefer. If 'no' then that's The Free Market!
Or so they taught us in some course I took ...

[Don Nico]

Brother,
You comment may apply to tuition but what does that have to do with whether Yale should pay a higher tax rate or why Stanford can bill indirect costs at more than 70%

[BrotherMovesOn]

Don Nico,
Without question you know more about this subject than I, wrt "indirect cost billing" etc.
But that's not what Kaz talking about.
He wants universities punished, and the way he wants to do it is through the tax code.
That has zero to do with The Free Market.

[Don Nico]

Kaz,
I suggest that you go to youtube and listen to Bill Ackman describe Harvard's financial situation. And you'll wonder why Harvard is trying to float a $750M bond and learn how much debt it has to service.
The big question is why the federal government will let a university bill it for "indirect costs" at a rate much higher than any foundations will accept?
But it will tell you or me, that we cannot charge it a high rate than I charge any other client,

[Speaking for normal people]

I just wonder what non-profit means in relation to Harvard

David J Malan (Faculty), $1,550,518 ; Lawrence S Bacow (Fellow/President), $1,048,985 ; George Q Daley (Dean, Faculty Of Medicine), $893,188

Here is a Harvard apologist defending Sen Eliz Warren , who taught there and is famous for saying "America is failing its teachers"

Warren earned more than $400,000 for her work as a Harvard Law School professor in 2010 and 2011. Across those two years, she taught two classes, not one. She also left Harvard during the 2010-2011 academic year to advise the government.

Plus, her $400,000 salary would have reflected not only her work in the classroom, but also her reputation, her contributions to Harvard as a researcher and her many years at the university.

Yes,the Sen Warren who poses as an education reformer.
Here is my truth bomb, deal with it

in the past 20 years, college costs have grown twice as fast as the consumer price index (CPI). Similarly, a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York found that increases in federal lending cause higher tuition

[Dr. Ed 2]

IANAA so I get to say IANAA.

But subsequently am wondering -- forgetting equal protection, e.g. the VMI decision, has there ever been any rulings on affirmative action in college admissions for women?

Would Bakke have prohibited a setaside for women similar to what UC had for minorities? I've never really thought about it before, but IS there anything prohibiting this?

And then let me ask the converse: Is there anything prohibiting a private college from giving scholarships to physically attractive female students? To literally have a beauty contest where the male students get to judge applicants? (Imagine the marketing potental here....) If necessary, have a similar contest judged for male students judged by the female ones.

At "are you hot" university, the entire freshman class is selected by upperclassmen of the opposite sex. We only have attractive students on campus. Imagine the marketing potential...

[David Nieporent]

Incels gotta incel, I guess.

[Frank Drackman]

and you do it so well!

[Magister]

Incels hate women because women won't have sex with them. Dr. Ed 2 hates women because he blames them for his own failures:

This was the story of my Master's program -- all the cute girls got assistantships with tuition waivers and the ability to present at conferences and the other stuff that helps one build a CV -- I got none of that

[Dr. Ed 2]

I wasn't sleeping with the professors!!!

It's my fault that I don't have nice tits, a cute ass, and a hole between my legs?

Now this wasn't exclusive to the male student -- the older, married female students encountered the same thing.

[Frank Drackman]

Don't be so hard on yourself Ed, you're a great Ass!

[John F. Carr]

Private colleges otherwise subject to Title IX may discriminate on the basis of sex in admitting students. 20 USC 1681(a)(1), (2). I think your plan fails when it awards scholarships selectively.

[Kazinski]

A single person making 100k is considered low income in 5 California counties:

Residents making an annual income of up to $109,700 who are living in Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties are considered low income, according to the California Department of Housing & Community Development. Topping the list is Santa Clara County, the home of Silicon Valley’s tech industry, which designates $111,700 as low income.

For a three-person household — say, two parents with one child — earning a combined six-figure salary is also considered low income in an additional 11 counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, Los Angeles, Monterey, Napa, Orange, San Diego, San Luis Obispo, Santa Barbara, Sonoma and Ventura counties."

I've lived 3 of the counties named above, nice places to live but not worth it.

https://calmatters.org/newsletter/what-is-low-income-in-california/

A large part of the cost of living there is taxes and regulation.

[Commenter_XY]

Same thing happening in NJ, pricing out people of moderate and lower incomes.

[Speaking for normal people]

Many many years ago NJ smuggled casinos in on the claim that this will help the poor and elderly . FIrst thing I remember happening was that the poor and elderly living where land was claimed for casinos were out on the street

I lived there for many years. All you NJ residents boot those heartless bastards out. Get a Republican in just so the citizenry can breathe

[David Nieporent]

FIrst thing I remember happening was that the poor and elderly living where land was claimed for casinos were out on the street

Guess who spent many years trying to do just that? I'll give you a hint: Scooby Doo would pronounce his name as Ronald Rump.

https://www.cato.org/commentary/donald-trumps-eminent-domain-love-nearly-cost-widow-her-house

[Speaking for normal people]

Have NO IDEA what point you are making. NONE
Maybe you could talk plainly and that append a dollop of that cute writing that you think makes you a modern Oscar Wilde

[David Nieporent]

Have NO IDEA what point you are making. NONE

That sounds like a you problem. The good news is, recognizing your deficiencies is the first step to addressing them.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Larger than housing cost?

I remember when Marin was the wealthiest county in the state; then it became more "affordable" than the San Francisco Peninsula...

[Frank Drackman]

During an assignment in Fresno in 2022 (it did get me to stop smoking(for the most part, like with Barry Hussein, it's a "Work in Progress") I'd amuse myself by looking up the value of average mediocre old houses (if you know Fresno, right around Fresno State)
clap-trap, vinyl siding, 20 cars parked in the yard (some even not on blocks), man, you'd think you were in Alabama
on Zillow it'd be "Charming Rambler in Great Location!" (there was a Marriage-Juan-a Dispensary in walking distance) and darned if they aren't all right around a million bucks, and we're not talking Malibu, Beverly Hills, Santa Barbara, it's friggin Fresno

Frank

[Swede425]

My aunt lives in my grandparents old house in Tustin, California.
It's a Craftsman style bungalow in a large neighborhood of the same.
That house is listed as almost $1.4 million.
Unbelievable.

[Mr. Bumble]

Inflation; is there anything it can't do?

[Sarcastr0]

Cali sure sucks, see look how many wealthy people are paying a lot to live there!

[Armchair]

Seems a lot more wealthy people are leaving there.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/leaving-rich-americans-ditching-california-163000441.html

[Sarcastr0]

Yes, I regularly hear about the huge exodus from California and in the next breath how even high priced housing is outstripped by the population.

I have great affection for California - I spent my 20s there. Of course it has it's share of problems, plenty of them self-inflicted. But the inchoate anti-California hate from the right tends towards pointing at trees and ignoring the forest.

[Frank Drackman]

Hard to ignore the "Forest" when it's burning your house down.

[Don Nico]

The trees in CA are also part of the problem.

[Speaking for normal people]

Well that is false. The right wanted to secede.
Maybe you lived there but it must have been a hugely atypical place

"There's probably no way it really can secede, but if it did, California could survive on its own," Brady told CBS News Bay Area. "California is one of those states in which the taxes we pay and the benefits we get in return are roughly equal. So, we pay to the federal government about the same as we get back. So, leaving the union, we'd probably be just fine in that regard."

[John F. Carr]

Same in my area. We get "affordable" housing units set aside for people making around $100K. Affordable housing is lower middle class housing. If you're poor you need to look for public housing or a bad apartment.

[Krayt]

No inflation here. Move along, folks.

I had pre-election assurances from folks around here that inflation was meaningless, as their investments had kept well ahead of it. Well, I suppose owning a home with skyrocketing price counts as such. Maybe you sell your extra home to a house rental firm, who pushes up prices via supply and demand.

[jb]

Probably worth clicking through a few links to figure out the methodology:

Very Low-Income The very low-income limits are the basis for the extremely low- and low-income limits. The very low-income limit typically reflects 50 percent of median family income (MFI), and HUD's MFI figure generally equals two times HUD's 4-person very low-income limit. However, HUD may adjust the very low-income limit for an area or county to account for conditions that warrant special considerations. As such, the very low-income limit may not always equal 50 percent MFI.

Low-Income
In general, most low-income limits represent the higher level of: (1) 80 percent of MFI or, (2) 80 percent of state non-metropolitan median family income. However, due to adjustments that HUD sometimes makes to the very low-income limit, strictly calculating low-income limits as 80 percent of MFI could produce unintended anomalies inconsistent with statutory intent (e.g., very low-income limits being higher than low-income limits). Therefore, HUD’s briefing materials specify that, with some exceptions, the low-income limit reflects 160 percent of the very low-income limit. HUD may apply additional adjustments to areas with unusually high or low housing-costs-to-income relationships and for other reasons. This can result in low income limits exceeding MFI in certain counties.

The median family income in Santa Clara county is $195K, and the high "low income" limit is based purely on that overall high income level. There are some other counties like Los Angeles where housing costs are so high relative to income that the low income ($84K for a single person) definition is actually higher than median income ($75K), which represents a real housing affordability crisis.

tl;dr: Most of this is just semantics and reflects the fact that a lot of people in these counties make a lot of money. In some cases, though, it's a reflection of how unaffordable housing is. Except for very indirectly, it has nothing to do with taxes or regulation despite your desire to fit the data to your priors.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

It's hard to see how county-level taxes or regulations could be more significant that housing costs. But I've never lived in any of those counties, so maybe the garbage collection fees there are really high...

[Frank Drackman]

Remember when Nancy Mace shocked a Repubiclown Prayer Breakfast audience in 2023 when she told them she woke up late so couldn’t have sex with her Fiancé?
Now she’s saying the guy raped her
And the 3 guys she was dating before him…
Jeez, her genital warts probably have their own genital warts…

[Speaking for normal people]

You are mad because that trans woman got ruffled by Mace
You remember a prayer breakfast but not the headline-grabbing trans story!!!!!
I know what you are up to if no one else does

[Stephen Lathrop]

What a D Congress could do with the nation's newly acquired 747.

Rip out the interior. Put in tanks to hold fire retardant. Then transfer it to FEMA to live out its natural life as a firefighter.

But by all means, require that once its service life is over, but no sooner than 10 years after Trump departs office, transfer it to his Presidential Museum for perpetual display.

[Stephen Lathrop]

I forgot, also paint it a nice uniform bright orange.

[Mr. Bumble]

Angry old man yells at clouds..

[Frank Drackman]

That Solar Eclipse last year? I wasn't just yelling, I was cursing at the clouds, but hey, it worked. (Next one in the US isn't until 2044, but you'll only be able to see it in Montana, North Dakota, and Alberta)

[Bwaaah]

My wife dragged me for that escapade. (I'm the driver.) With clouds heading in from the west, we spent about 6 extra hours tacking hard north-eastward from central New York toward northern Vermont. That worked. We were ahead of the cloud front when the event occurred.

I poo-pooed the whole effort until I got to see the eerie transition of light casting upon the landscape, and then, the burning ring of fire. I don't take pleasure in saying to you, Frank, that it was a sight with a sensation unlike any other in my life...a holy-shit-that-sure-is-something moment. For a few minutes, the whole earth glistened (and I didn't drop any acid to get there).

[Brett Bellmore]

For the one a few years ago, we happily were right on the path of totality, so friends were visiting US for that one. It was indeed an amazing sight.

The last one, I tried to convince my wife we should travel to a nice campground on the path, and she vetoed it, saying "We've already seen an eclipse!".

Yeah, and I wanted to see another.

[Frank Drackman]

Saturday, 22 July 2028, mark the date
Only problem is it's in Australia, (or is it Austria? I better check that)
If the Earth's really round I think that would be Winter in the Southern Hemisphere. Delta First Class (I never fly anything else, OK, once in a while) Round Trip ATL-SYD-ATL around $15,000, hey it's just Shekels.

Frank

[Bwaaah]

"How's the weather out there?"

"Cloudy, and $15,000."

[Joe_dallas]

Stephen Lathrop 3 hours ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
What a D Congress could do with the nation's newly acquired 747.

If journalists had any standards - they would have reported the negotiations for that Qatar 747 started during the Biden adminstration.

[Magister]

This is from an assertion by Senator Markwayne Mullin with no corroboration. Mullin of course believes that the 2020 election was stolen, so he has no hesitation to assert things that are not true, but anyway, why would the Biden administration negotiate a Trump bribe? Just more Biden blaming to excuse the corrupt and incompetent Trump administration.

[bernard11]

You mean it's not a gift?

If it's a gift, what were the negotiations about?

[David Nieporent]

If journalists had any standards - they would have reported the negotiations for that Qatar 747 started during the Biden adminstration.

Why would journalists with standards lie?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Painting a 747 adds 1,200 lbs to it.

1,200 lbs less fire retardant in each flight.

[Frank Drackman]

1,200 lbs? lets see, that's about 3 "Christ Christie Units"

[CountmontyC]

Yes the Boeing plane being donated by Qatar ( btw did you know that the process for this began under Biden) could be used that way. It also would be a good idea to use in a museum like atmosphere such as at one of Trump's two presidential libraries ( he qualifies for two because his two terms were non-consecutive).

[Mr. Bumble]

Plans for Biden's presidential libraries:
https://urban-gardening-containers.blogspot.com/2023/04/10-front-yard-library-ideas.html

[Frank Drackman]

The LBJ Ranch(way better than the Li-berry in Austin, like LBJ spent any time in Li-berrys) has Luci-Bird's 1965 Corvette Convertible, 4 speed, 327, combine that with Sleepy Joe's 67(same powertrain) and I'd say, "Man, what a waste of machinery" except that there's an episode of "Jay Leno's Garage" from 2016 where Joe gets it up to 118mph

[David Nieporent]

btw did you know that the process for this began under Biden

See, this is the perfect illustration of how the right wing media ecosystem just creates lies. Two people here, despite knowing that this was untrue, have just said this, because one GOP senator just made shit up on TV and thus gave them permission to lie about it.

[Mr. Bumble]

Which anonymous source has come forth to claim it's not true?

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Why would this pink elephant ever be transferred to Trump?

[Mr. Bumble]

It isn't.

[CountmontyC]

The bus for the Biden presidential library

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQHBdrCP2AVM2vBQrOBBscEvcCmxzKmdGdsVQoxgjI1OXPVEGs6axF4omU&s

[hobie]

Can fly it annually to Burning Man and hold Trump family crypto fetes.

[Moderation4ever]

I rather that neither party spend a penny on the plane. Trump is a grifter I accept that fact. Park the plane and in January 2029 Trump can take it as he leaves Washington. Until then no American taxpayer dollars should be spent on the plane.

[Joe_dallas]

Mod - Negotiations to acquire the plane began during the biden adminstration.

[Sarcastr0]

What a trusting soul you are, to credit one quote from one Senator like that.

[Joe_dallas]

its been reported by several credible news organizations

Try to become educated

[Sarcastr0]

I know your lazy/angry deal well enough to know you didn't check whether all the reporting was sourced back to that one quote from that one notably crazy Senator.

It also, in the end, doesn't matter. Dumb not fit for purpose ornate plane is dumb and useless.

[David Nieporent]

It has not been reported by any news organizations, credible or otherwise. That Mullins said it may have been reported, but that's worthless.

Hell, when Scott Bessent said it the other day, even he didn't claim to know; he cited Mullins' statement.

[Moderation4ever]

I don't care if the negotiations started in the Eisenhower administration. I see no point in wasting money on this plane.

[Stephen Lathrop]

A better take on it than mine, actually.

[Speaking for normal people]

Okay, well then refuse to fly on it. Problem solved

[David Nieporent]

No, they didn't. Anybody with a brain knows that they didn't, because (a) none of the administration's spokespeople used this defense when the controversy arose; (b) it comes solely from a single person who said it once, completely out of the blue, without any basis for doing so; and (c) it comes from a person who would have no possible way to know this. The only way Markwayne Mullins could know that would be is if it were common knowledge in DC. And if it were common knowledge in DC, then lots of people would be saying it.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

I expect that if there were any "negotiations" about that jet, it would have been about the US buying it, not receiving it as a "gift".

Qatar had been trying to sell it for years, after all, long before they were somehow persuaded to give it to Trump last week.

[ThePublius]

Boeing has really dropped the ball on the two new presidential aircraft. The ones Trump is flying around in now are 40 years old, require a ton of maintenance, and their availability is compromised because of this.

Boeing is now saying 2029 or 2030 for delivery. This is for planes ordered in about 2017. So, 12 or 13 years to produce two planes?

I think Trump should accept the Qatari plane, have it fitted out within a year, and threaten to cancel the Boeings and go to Airbus, as a gambit to spur Boeing into prioritizing the new planes and finishing them ASAP.

[Martinned]

I think Trump should accept the Qatari plane, have it fitted out within a year, and threaten to cancel the Boeings and go to Airbus, as a gambit to spur Boeing into prioritizing the new planes and finishing them ASAP.

You wrote "as a gambit to offer bigger bribes" wrong.

[Moderation4ever]

Airforce One plane get top of the line service. The fact is that the average American is flying in planes more compromised than AF1.

As for Boeing is the problem that the company is dropping the ball or is it that it can't keep up fast enough to changing requirements?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Like the brand new one with the door plug falling out?

[Moderation4ever]

I would point out that Trump's freebee is also a Boeing jet, so the door plugs on it are also suspect.

[Stephen Lathrop]

ThePublius — Suckered again. That 40-year-old tale is wrong. Another Trump lie, although too old by about 5 years. By the way, I also heard Trump say they were 42 years old. For Trump, numbers are all interchangeable. He never cares what any of them signify.

[Moderation4ever]

How can you tell if Trump is lying? His lips are moving. In his defense he can't read and can not remember anything so making up numbers is the way to go.

[David Nieporent]

I think Trump should accept the Qatari plane, have it fitted out within a year,

I am not an expert, but I don't find it very plausible that the plane could be ready for service as Air Force One within a year. This isn't like cleaning the upholstery, repainting the thing, and changing the tires. It's got to be made completely secure.

[Krayt]

They've gotta check two things:

1. That there aren't bugs.
2. That all the air pieces have integrity. You don't know what might be counterfeit parts, literally run off the same line but with substandard material, to say nothing of deliberately planted weak pieces. And, like bugs, possibly a planted bomblet or thermite, to be activated by a passive listening remote.

Probably none of that, but can you be sure? The costs could run into the range of a new plane, and take years. 50/50 odds it'll not get done in time and just parked as a statue to (insert complaint here) outside the library, I guess like Elvis's jet across the street from Graceland.

There's a fascinating video on YouTube about using thermite to weld railroad rails together. Apparently expansion gaps is old school engineering, and for some time, the rails are welded together, which, when coupled with much stronger ties sunk into the rail bed, actually overpower thermal expansion, so no gaps needed, and hence much less wear and tear on everything, cutting costs. Crazy, buckled rails are brute forced away.

[David Nieporent]

The plane also has to have the most secure communications abilities in existence.

[Mr. Bumble]

All of that work would be done by the same company that will do it on the new planes (if Boeing ever completes them).

[Magister]

Enabling Signal chats and Truth Social posting would probably be enough.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Indeed, if those are the new standards...

[Krayt]

Interesting. On my "Instagram Wall" scroll, a video "have you ever wondered why train tracks are covered in gravel?", where freshly lain ties looking more like cement parking stops than wood, a railed vehicle drives along pouring grave atop them and in all the cracks.

This means some AI scrape bot is reading all these posts, analyzing them, and creating advertising on different sites based on it. I assume Reason is giving up the ghost on my ID, meaning pseudo-anonymity is a joke now.

Or maybe the FANG companies have long cracked all your pseudo-anonymous IDs.

Just remember, needing your phone number "for security reasons" is a fraudulent lie. That's to use it as a GUID, a globally unique ID for you.

[Kazinski]

FEMA doesn't fight fires, they push paper.

[Don Nico]

You sound very bitter today Stephen.

[Armchair]

Will Alberta and Saskatewan leave Canada? Odds are increasing.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/22/world/canada/alberta-separatism-referendum.html

This isn't surprising really. These are two of the richest provinces in Canada. And they are of consistently more a conservative bent than the liberal Canadian government. Moreover, due to Canadian law known as "Equalization payments", much of their income is diverted off to the low income provinces. Leaving Canada would make them much richer...a Western Hemisphere version of Norway.

I think there's a real chance of this happening in the future

(Now comes the normal blue state-red state debate, but I'll get to that)

[Armchair]

Now, in the wake of this argument I can already see "The blue states are rich and should leave from the US".

But....But...there are significant differences. There are three main "blue state" areas with higher incomes than "Red States".
1. The DC Metro Area
2. The New York Metro Area
3. California/West coast.
---Here's why it's a bad idea for at least two (if not all three) of these to leave.

1. The DC Metro Area (Northern VA/DC/Maryland leaving.
This one is obvious. The area is rich because of the Federal Government. It's soaking in resources from the rest of the country. If DC left the union, all that would drop off, and DC would quickly become a poor swamp.

2. New York City (and the metro area).
NYC is held afloat by its finance sector primarily. The stock exchanges. They act as a central finance sector for the rest of the country. And in a similar way...if the NYC metro area left, there would be significantly less reason for the rest of the country to bank there. You would see a fast decline and NYC would soon cease to be very rich.

3. California. California probably has the best chance of going independent successfully, and may have been able to pull it off 30 years ago. Today however, their economy is increasingly being held up by just the tech industry. And tech is mobile...it doesn't need to stay in CA. If CA left the union, many of tech's employees aren't native California residents. They don't have a strong attachment there. And tech may decide to relocate back to the US...it's a larger stronger market than CA alone. CA could potentially stand as an independent country. But I doubt it would have the GDP per capita it does today, it would likely be rather lower.

[Frank Drackman]

You get 50 miles outside LA/San Diego/San Fran-Sissyco you might as well be in Idaho.

[Mr. Bumble]

From the groove yard of forgotten hits:
The Four Seasons
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umfTpIEifnk

[Verse 1]
Idaho
Where I long to go
Thrilling checker games
Spelling bees, cherry trees

[Verse 2]
Idaho, lovely Idaho
Daisies on the grass
Grandma's stew
The cows and you

[Verse 3]
Idaho, lovely Idaho
Playing pick-up sticks
Santa Claus, apple sauce

[Verse 4]
Idaho
Rain or sleet or snow
You'll be in my heart
I love you so, just
Thought you'd like to know

[Verse 5]
My Ida
Sweet as apple cider
How I love you so
My Idaho

[Frank Drackman]

That John Denver is full of (redacted) man!

[Sarcastr0]

Maybe don't classify stuff as blue and red and you won't have to do so much work.

[jb]

Well, this analysis was pretty wrong:

1) First, the DC metro area actually gets a lot more back in federal dollars than it pays in, for the same reasons that the people make a lot of money there: the federal government invests a lot into the area around the capital.

2) It's not the "New York metro area", it's most of the Northeast. New Jersey, New Hampshire and Massachusetts export more money to the red states per capita than New York does.

3) It's not just California, it's also Washington. But your analysis of the tech industry is particularly off: the reason the tech industry is in California is not because California is in the US, but because there's an incredible network of people and innovation. And California is the most obvious example of a state that doesn't need the rest of the country very much at all--it's a big enough economy, large producer of food and even does a decent amount of its own energy production.

4) Minnesota, Colorado and Illinois are also net exporters of federal tax dollars, but to smaller degrees.

Having said that, there's not really a way for US states to secede so it doesn't really matter.

[Armchair]

1) Just no. You can't rationally think that if the DC area left the United States it would have anywhere near the current wealth it has. The idea is absurd.

[jb]

Yeah, duh. My point was that the DC metro isn't a tax exporter (quite the opposite!), so you shouldn't have included it in your analysis to begin with.

[Krayt]

"The blue states" became rich acting as ports for a continent's in and outflow. This lead to financial centers and manufacturing.

Corrupt, big city government glommed onto it, like parasitic moss, then declared itself the cause of the wealth, rather than the standard corruption seen worldwide and throughout history.

That's pretty much it. No deep meaning here. Just the same old thing plaguing humanity through history.

Parasitic corruption seeks out wealth, then strides around wondering rhetorically how sometimes things get broken.

[DaveM]

Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, North and South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington state would make an interesting country. Call it the United Northwest.

Moving provinces out of Canada is a whole lot easier than moving states out of the US, of course, so maybe the whole idea is nonsense. But geographically and culturally there's no reason a United Northwest couldn't exist.

[Martinned]

Moving provinces out of Canada is a whole lot easier than moving states out of the US

Is it? What makes you say that?

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, there's actually a statutory process for doing it in Canada, outlined in the "Clarity" act. That would appear to be helpful.

[Magister]

That still requires negotiation with the rest of Canada and a constitutional amendment. Good for Canada for offering provinces a gun if they want to shoot themselves in the foot.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, it does require that, but that's still a whole lot easier than the whole, "We have no process for it and we killed the last people who tried it!" thing we have going on here in the US.

[Martinned]

In Canada and in the US secession generally takes a broad consensus in the country, not just a unilateral decision from the seceding state(s). But I'll grant you that Canadians have had a few decades to get used to the idea, and so would probably be less hysterical about it.

[Magister]

Recent secession efforts in the United States are also nowhere near as serious as Quebec's effort. Most of the states that talk about seceding receive more from the federal government than they pay in; those if they secede would probably have regrets like Brexit supporters.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Quebec was threatening to do it 50-60 years ago

[Bob from Ohio]

"I think there's a real chance of this happening in the future"

Declare independence, US recognizes it and sends, at the government's request of course, "peacekeepers". Nothing Canada could do about it.

Only a way station to US statehood though.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Putin showed us the way...

[A Japanese Student]

New order from the Supreme Court of Japan, dated May 21. A judge, who convicted the defendant in the district court, participated in an appellate motion panel, which denied defendant's bail pending appeal; Court holds this is unlawful and the judge must recuse.

https://www.courts.go.jp/app/hanrei_jp/detail2?id=94115

[Frank Drackman]

Whenever I hear the word "Recuse" I can't help but think of "45/47" mocking Jeffy Sessions at CPAC a few years back,
"“And the attorney general says ‘I’m gonna recuse myself,’ ” Trump said, appearing to imitate Sessions’s accent as the crowd booed.
"Appearing to imitate"??? Trump made Foghorn Leghorn sound like Thurston Howell III
it came out as "Ahhmm gonnuh ruh-cuse mah suff....."

poor Jeffy, got slaughtered by a Foo-Bawl Coach

Frank

[hobie]

Poor Jeffy indeed. First acolyte, first infra-bus casualty

[Armchair]

Because it hasn't been mentioned yet...

Two people were brutally murdered in DC recently, because of their Jewish affiliations, as the exited the Capital Jewish Museum

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/05/21/capital-jewish-museum-victims-investigation/83782695007/

The shooter then proceeded to say "I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza’"

This is anti-Jewish terrorism. The behavior...the atmosphere which has been allowed to permeate on the left has caused this. The shooter had been indoctrinated by the left and their strain of antisemitism.

https://www.opindia.com/2025/05/how-a-left-winger-inspired-by-his-leftist-ideology-killed-2-jews-in-cold-blood-for-palestine/

[Sarcastr0]

The behavior...the atmosphere which has been allowed to permeate on the left has caused this.

I believe they call this politicizing a tragedy.

[ThePublius]

No, it was a politically motivated, terroristic tragedy. The killer politicized it.

[Armchair]

Indeed. Sarcastro would prefer it just...go away.... He doesn't want to talk about the terrorism.

[Bwaaah]

"He doesn't want to talk about the terrorism."

And notice how he reflexively shows up for this particular topic, Gaza, not to talk about terrorism, but to push back against those who do. (He shows up, particularly, for the topic of Jew-related terrorism.)

[hobie]

Speaking of politically motivated killings. I just read this is Wikipedia. Oh my god. Is any of this true?!

"During the foundational events of the Nakba in 1948, approximately half of Palestine's predominantly Arab population, or around 750,000 people,[19] were expelled from their homes or made to flee through various violent means, at first by Zionist paramilitaries, and after the establishment of the State of Israel, by its military. Dozens of massacres targeted Palestinian Arabs and over 500 Arab-majority towns, villages, and urban neighborhoods were depopulated.[20] Many of the settlements were either completely destroyed or repopulated by Jews and given new Hebrew names.[20][21] Israel employed biological warfare against Palestinians by poisoning village wells. By the end of the war, 78% of the total land area of the former Mandatory Palestine was controlled by Israel."

[Armchair]

Seems you left out all the other parts.

[hobie]

So none of it is true? There appears to have been a lot of ethnic cleansing...and a lot of witnesses. I think you should read the whole article. Sounds like terrorism, don't you think?

[Armchair]

Did you know that in 1940, French soldiers deliberately killed thousands of German Citizens? The horror, right? How could those evil Frenchmen do that to those good Germans? Must be terrorism.

[hobie]

Yep, that little whatabout is indeed terrorism as well. So it looks like you have the ability to recognize it when you see. Stay with it, Armchair. Deprogramming is never easy

[Armchair]

"Yep, that little whatabout is indeed terrorism as well.."

I mean, I was being sarcastic. But if you think the French defending themselves from the Nazi invasion in 1940 was an example of terrorism by the French...well... I can't help you anymore.

[Bob from Ohio]

"So none of it is true?"

Arabs call the War for Israeli Independence the "Nakba" and it occurred in 1948. So that is true.

Nothing else though.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Ever hear of the country now known as "Jordan"?

The Arabs left because they were told, by Arab countries, that "Arab bombs couldn't tell them from Jews."

It was like Israel evacuating the border towns after Oct 7th.
The Arabs thought they would drive the Jews into the sea -- and they didn't.

[Krayt]

I knew a Paletinian Jordanian decades ago, who can tell you all about how the government plowed his and several nearby villages back into the desert.

The Palestians have been the dogs, the gypsies of the middle east, for centuries, to other muslims. This recent anti-Israeli twist is a new thing, to leverage ancient hatreds against Jews. Suddenly the Palestinians, uhhh, down there, are our grave concern!

[David Nieporent]

That is mostly not true. During the Israeli war of independence, yes, some Arabs were driven from their homes by Israelis. Many others simply fled the fighting, while others were following the orders of invading Arab armies to get out of the way, with the promise they could return after the Arab victory.

[Don Nico]

Hobie,
Why don't you study up on the ethnic cleansing of more than 800,00 Jews out of the Arab countries during that period.

[Armchair]

Look, our favorite "I'm not an antisemite, really" is back attempting to brush antisemitism under the rug again.

[Sarcastr0]

I've been pretty consistent in my 'don't try and peg mass shooters to an ideology for your own jollies.'

You've been pretty consistent in your unsupported and dramatic accusations towards people who disagree with you.

[Armchair]

"In a tragic event, two Jewish Israeli staff members employed at the embassy of Israel in Washington DC were killed on Wednesday (21st May) when they were returning after attending a cultural event at the Jewish Museum. The duo were supposed to get engaged in a week.

The murderer, identified as Elias Rodriguez (30), reportedly shouted ‘Free Palestine’ slogans before shooting the victims at a close range. The victims have been identified as Sarah Milgrim and her fiancé Yaron Lischinsky, both working with the Israeli embassy in Washington DC, and were about to get married soon.

As per reports, Rodriguez kept shouting ‘Free Palestine’ slogans and pulled out a red keffiyah from his bag even as he was being taken into custody after killing the Israeli embassy staff members. “I did it for Gaza,” Rodriguez told the police officers as per report by the New York Times. Ironically, the victims were attending American Jewish Committee’s ACCESS Young Diplomats Reception where the attendees discussed ways to bring more aid into the Gaza Strip.

Elias Rodriguez had a radical leftist ideology
An English graduate from the University of Illinois, Chicago, Rodriguez worked as an oral history researcher at History Makers and was recently working as a Profiles Administration Specialist at the American Osteopathic Information Association.

With no direct connection with Israel or Gaza, Rodriguez’s antisemitic ideology apparently hardened with his involvement in US far-left politics. He was a member of the far-left, pro-Palestine group called the ‘Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL)’ which routinely leads protests against Israel and posts hateful anti-Israel content on social media.

According to the New York Post, hours before shooting, the pro-Palestine organisation posted a message on social media that read, “End the genocide. Israel out of Gaza now.” However, a day after the incident, the PSL denied any association with Rodriguez through a social media post.

Rodriguez regularly attended protests for various causes which included Black Lives Matter protests and the protests over Israel-Palestine issue. A 2017 GoFundMe page reportedly revealed that Rodriguez was self-radicalised. The fundraiser aimed to send him to the People’s Congress of Resistance, a leftist gathering in Washington DC, guided by the slogan of “Stand against imperialism — Down with the warfare state!”

This isn't hard. A history of antisemitism leads to shooting of Jewish people.

[Sarcastr0]

I can't stop you from playing your stupid game of appealing to incredulity to impute blame to the left.

I can just tell you that this outrage addiction doesn't end up in a good place.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Because the schmucks who do these things tend to be right wing ROTC cadets who were members of JAF and YAL.

No, Gaslighto, it is the left that is breeding these schmucks.

[hobie]

"Rodriguez’s antisemitic ideology..."

“End the genocide. Israel out of Gaza now.”
"“Stand against imperialism — Down with the warfare state!”

Where's the antisemitic part in all that?

[Brett Bellmore]

I can understand the theoretical argument for distinguishing antisemitism and antizionism, but at the point where somebody goes on a murderous rampage, normal people feel the impulse to defend somebody fading.

[hobie]

The act may be construed as racist, but the ideology given doesn't appear racist

[David Nieporent]

Where's the antisemitic part in all that?

The shooting Jews for being Jews part?

[hobie]

See directly above...

And also, David, like I said a couple of weeks ago. I am against Zionism and for the Palestinian people. Doesn't mean I support Hamas. Doesn't mean I want Jewish people to die. Also doesn't make me a terrorist

[Don Nico]

"Where's the antisemitic part in all that?"
a bullet in each of two Jews.
Can you be that stupid?

[hobie]

Let me get this straight...if you kill innocent young people from the the Israel area...it's...terrorism?

[Armchair]

You really need us to explain why this is terrorism?

[hobie]

Oh my god. Dude, you should probably be sitting down for this. I've just discovered an area of Israel where 35,000 innocent civilians have been recently massacred. I mean, as bad as you feel about this DC thing...wait until I tell you about the other

[ThePublius]

For Gaza, I think you got the order of magnitude wrong on that; it would be surprising if there were 350 innocent civilians there.

Massacred. Right. You swallow all of the Gazan, Hamas propaganda on this, and accept the Palestinian Health Ministry casualty figures, which even they have recently "update," i.e., repudiated.

How about those guys riding paragliders who murdered and raped 1200+ innocent Israelis and their guests? Does that matter to you?

The two people murdered in D.C. didn't start a war with anyone, invade anyone, murder and rape/murder anyone, throw babies into ovens, or any such thing. Drawing a comparison, and equivalency, with what happened on Oct. 7 and in Gaza is reprehensible.

[hobie]

When you pronounce 'reprehensible' do your jowls shake and quiver with rage?

[ThePublius]

That's all you got?

[Frank Drackman]

Hey, at least he's not pretending to be a Combat Vet anymore.

[Don Nico]

Hey, he is a de facto jew hater, what could you expect

[Armchair]

There's a complicated discussion here about why war isn't necessarily terrorism, and terrorism isn't necessarily war.

But I don't think you would quite understand it.

[Krayt]

Support for Palestinian terrorist murders under the banner of legitimate war targets, a stretch, but even if one accepts that, is 180 degrees opposite as an argument for the "Israel has gone too far crowd" for Israel to stop.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Hobie, it wasn't that he murdered them but his stated reason for doing so. Kinda like murdering an innocent Black couple while shouting "I hate n*ggers."

[hobie]

Well, I get the anti-Israel, anti-war rhetoric attributed to the killer. But I'm failing to see the antisemitism

[Frank Drackman]

it's like how you don't notice your own repulsive body odor.

[Kazinski]

While there might be a reasonable claim that a targeted attack on the Israeli embassy, or Israeli embassy staffers isn't anti-Semitic, but the attack actually just targeted anyone at the Capital Jewish Museum, which isn't owned or operated by Israel.

He was looking for Jews to kill.

https://capitaljewishmuseum.org

[Bob from Ohio]

It was just an accident that the deceased were embassy staffers. He just targeted a couple leaving the event, assuming both were Jews.

[Don Nico]

Think just a bit. For more 75 years, Palestinian anti-zionism has been NO Jews between the river and the sea. That is simple Jew hatred.

[Don Nico]

Kill two Jews; where is the anti-semitism in that?
Then you fail the vision test.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Yes, it appears to have been an act of terrorism, reminiscent of other acts of antisemitic terrorism (which have been surging since October 7, 2023) and should be punished accordingly.

It's interesting that you acknowledge that normalizing hate against certain groups tends to result in unfortunate consequences for members of those groups, but I don't see any flickering recognition of the right's role in it?

But the sudden concern for Jews by "the right" is certainly amusing. They may be the right's mascots now, but history says that won't last...

[Armchair]

"I don't see any flickering recognition of the right's role in it?"

The "resurgence" in antisemitism in the US today is primarily due to the leftist culture. It can be seen in the Universities and other areas.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

It was a general statement, not limited to antisemitism.

[ThePublius]

"but I don't see any flickering recognition of the right's role in it?"

And what would that be? For those keeping score, virtually all of the violence is coming from the left.

[Sarcastr0]

Trying to flip the causal script is still reducing a pretty complex problem to a partisan cudgel.

I do think the right's partisan weaponization of antisemitism is not going to end well.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

For whom?

[Don Nico]

"weaponization of antisemitism "
that is just what the shooter did last night. So what is your point.
The persistent blood libels on campus are the weaponization of ani-semitism. You got the sign wrong again.

[hobie]

Let me get this straight. If you demonize a group of people...let's pretend it's...say...gays. And you get them expelled from civic facilities, deny them cakes, and random kooks target them in the Wyoming plains and Florida nightclubs... this is terrorism?

[ThePublius]

"deny them cakes"

Are you kidding me?

[Armchair]

hobie is apparently equating cold-blooded murder with a refusal to make a cake for something you disagree with.

[hobie]

You forgot to focus on the cold-blooded murder parts I mentioned. But, yeah, the cakes

[Armchair]

Hey hobie, can you make me a cake, and put on top of it "I love Trump, he's the best President the US has ever had?"

I'm gonna put it on Instagram and say how you made it for me.

[Martinned]

If hobie were a professional baker, why wouldn't he make that cake for you? You're the idiot who is proposing to pay for such a thing.

[Armchair]

Can he also make a cake in the shape of a swastika? Sarcastr0 has a birthday coming up.

[Martinned]

Under US law? Definitely.

[Mr. Bumble]

Can he do that in Germany?

[Martinned]

No, because in Germany they are rather sensitive about Swastikas, for obvious reasons.

[Bob from Ohio]

"No, because in Germany they are rather sensitive about Swastikas"

Yet they let people wear a "keffiyeh". They should be consistent.

[Sarcastr0]

You always sucked, but you didn't used to post lazy trolls.

[Bob from Ohio]

"post lazy troll"

Its not a troll, the swastika, "keffiyeh" and Hammer and Sickle are all symbols of murderous, genocidal groups. Its been 80 years since the Nazis, time to face the current threat.

[JohnSmith97]

martinned, didn't claim recently that Europe was much better about freedom of speech?

[hobie]

As a public accommodation, if I make schnitzels for the gays, I best do so for the Trumps or else I'd be guilty of discrimination. Same as if an Israeli came in the shop and ordered a schnitzel commemorating his new house in the West Bank. And in his case, I best do it right or else I'm a terrorist on top of being a bigot

[Armchair]

No, no... I don't want just any cake. I want a Specialty cake. That specifically says what I want you to put on it. Can you do that for me?

I want to post it to Instagram, saying how you made it. Deal?

[hobie]

Well, I just went to ChatGPT and typed in:

"Create an image of a a large birthday cake with the words "I love Trump, he's the best President the US has ever had" written in orange icing and a little figuring of Trump standing on the cake holding a wad of cash in one hand and a word balloon from the figurine saying "Fight! Fight! Fight!"

But ChatGPT replied:

"I can help create a festive image of a large birthday cake with decorative elements. However, I can't generate imagery that includes real political figures depicted in potentially promotional or controversial contexts. If you'd like, I can create a birthday cake with fun, non-political decorations or a generic figure holding a balloon with a playful message. Let me know how you'd like to proceed!"

I hear Grok (clearly a reliable source of information) has been manipulated to only give MAGA answers. I should try it

[Kazinski]

Well that's not true, I just asked Grok to create an Anti-MAGA birthday cake, and it readily complied.

It created a cake that said "No MAGA here" on the top, and "No MAGA" on the side, with a pastoral background.

I didn't download of course for fear of CBP finding it on my phone, although of course its just as likely Grok automatically forwards requests like that to the FBI for threat assessment.

Try Grok yourself and ask for an "8647" cake.

[Armchair]

Well Hobie, I directly asked you a question twice, and both times you dodged it. So here's your real answer. You wouldn't make such a cake.

You find the idea reprehensible. You feel the idea of being forced to make such a cake would imply that you support Trump (who you don't like at all). Someone else putting the cake you made with a such a statement on Instagram would be deeply embarrassing for you. And you don't think you should have to do it.

Let's further add on here. You're a bully and hypocrite. You would use the force of the law to force others to do things that you would not have done to yourself.

[Magister]

Armchair misrepresents the issue from Masterpiece Cakeshop; the proprietor refused to sell a wedding cake to a gay couple without regard to the design; before the design was discussed. If one of those men had shown up with a woman and let the proprietor think she was the bride, he would have sold them the cake. Nothing to do with the message intrinsic to the cake. Various conservatives tried to get other cake sellers to make cakes with nasty messages, and they were sold cakes without messages (in one case, a shop provided them frosting and tools to add their own message).

[Frank Drackman]

Hobie-Stank, not only do you steal Veteran's Valor, you're doing whatever it is when you pretend to be a Honky living in the Ghetto, because if you really did live in the Ghetto, no way you wouldn't have commented on the god-awful smell of Chitlin's frying on a hot summer afternoon (take a Stockyard, Paper Mill, Decomposing Bodies, Sewer, multiply by 10, and you might be close)

[hobie]

Am I stealing black valor by pretending to live in the hood? And, bro, I'm from Texas and fried, crispy tripas are by far my favorite taco

[Frank Drackman]

Now you're stealing Texan's Valor also? man, (see, the cool kids say "man" and not "bro", get it, "man"?) get ready for the villagers with torches and pitchforks to show up.

[Don Nico]

You're a culture appropriator and proud of it.

[Mr. Bumble]

Next thing you know he'll be claiming he love Haitian dirt cookies.

[Dr. Ed 2]

But I'm not going to eat it, Armchair-- Lord only knows what he may have put into it. And that's the thing about the gay couple -- wouldn't you prefer to have your cake made by someone who didn't hate you?

[Michael P]

Let's get this straight: declining to serve somebody is not "demonizing" them, unless you want to accept that conservatives were demonized by most large corporations (who de-platformed them) and the media (who advocated for that). If you want people to know what you mean by your references, you should be specific -- for example, clarifying whether the "Florida nightclub" reference was to the terror attack by a guy who swore allegiance to the Islamic State, demanded that the US stop bombing his country, and targeted a club based on it heading less security than one at Disney Springs -- not even realizing it was a gay nightclub.

[hobie]

Targeting gays rhetorically, economically, legislatively and with violence is exclusively a Right Wing thing. It is no less so just because an Islamist carried out. The reasons differ, the hate is the same

[Michael P]

The Pulse nightclub shooting was targeting Americans generally, not gays specifically. I'm glad you recognize how many terrorist Democrats are passing laws and making terror economics that target religious and conservative people, though.

[Martinned]

because of their Jewish affiliations

Because of their *Israeli* affiliations. You can't have it both ways. Israel /= Jewish people.

[Armchair]

"DC Jewish community event" "Capital Jewish Museum"

[Michael P]

They all look the same to him.

[Sarcastr0]

Capital Jewish Museum isn't the Capital Israeli Museum.

[Martinned]

It isn't the museum that was attacked.

[Sarcastr0]

So far as I can tell, it's the only info the shooter had about the people he killed.

[David Nieporent]

It was the people at the museum.

[Don Nico]

Martin,
When you're in a hole, stop digging

[ThePublius]

That's baloney.

The killing occurred at the Capital Jewish Museum, at a meeting sponsored by the American Jewish Committee, a Jewish advocacy group.

Apparently to the killer there is no distinction between Jewish and Israeli.

[Bored Lawyer]

How's the Jew-hunt this year, Martinned? You planning to attend?

[David Nieporent]

Because of their *Israeli* affiliations.

Best I can tell from the news coverage, this is wrong. This guy just targeted Jews at a Jewish event. That he happened to get embassy employees was just "lucky" on his part.

[hobie]

In MAGA-world:

Killing people you don't like = homicide
Killing Jewish people you don't like = terrorism

Vandalizing cars = vandalism
Vandalizing Teslas = terrorism

Gang tattoos = tattoos
Immigrant gang tattoos = terrorism

[Armchair]

In Hobie world.

Deliberately seeking out a Jewish event and murdering two Israeli embassy staff, while saying "Free Palestine!". - Just violence

Not making a specialty cake for a cause you disagree with = Terrorism.

[hobie]

Whoa there, Cowboy. Us libs ain't throwing around the T-word like drunken sailors. We might get there eventually

[ThePublius]

That's bullshit. The lib dominated deep state called many conservative organizations, including the Catholic Church, domestic terrorists, and even used the FBI to surveil them.

[tylertusta]

Don't forget about irate parents being accused of being domestic terrorists by the FBI's BFFs in the NSBA on the thinnest of pretexts.

https://reason.com/2021/10/06/ag-merrick-garland-fbi-critical-race-theory-parents-schools-domestic-terrorists/

[Sarcastr0]

Your link doesn't say anything about accusing people of being terrorists.

[tylertusta]

Come on. It was in the second paragraph. Even a ctrl + f would have done it.

This action comes after the Biden administration received a plea from the National School Boards Association (NSBA) to protect schools from the "imminent threat" of parents sending "threatening letters and cyberbullying" school officials. The association considers such activities to be akin to "domestic terrorism."

[Sarcastr0]

You should look into what the word 'akin' means.

[tylertusta]

This is an awfully stupid hill for you to die on today.

Are you sure you want to make it your motte?

[Sarcastr0]

Words mean things. Even weasel words.

You make an accusation, you bring evidence in support of the accusation, not akin to the accusation.

[hobie]

Game. Set. Match. Sarcastr0

[tylertusta]

Yes, words mean things.

If I call you as being akin to a terrorist due to the actions that you were taking, that means you're taking actions that terrorists take.

Which makes you a terrorist.

Here's another example:

"Your words in this thread have shown that you're akin to an idiot.

No, I didn't call you an idiot. I said you were akin to one."

Distinction without a difference.

[Sarcastr0]

I get that it wasn't as sexy to say "Don't forget about irate parents being accused of being akin domestic terrorists by the FBI's BFFs" but that's the hand you chose to play.

Also BFFs seems some trenchant analysis by itself.

[tylertusta]

And there we have it: A completed motte-and-bailey.

I give you kudos for switching it up from the usual straw man.

See you in the next thread!

[Kazinski]

Well did the FBI investigate parents for nothing other than expressing opposition to chool board policies or not?

I think that would answer the question of whether they considered it possible domestic terrorism.

They did.

https://www.ncregister.com/cna/parents-at-school-board-meetings-were-subject-to-fbi-intimidation-witnesses-say

[David Nieporent]

Well did the FBI investigate parents for nothing other than expressing opposition to chool board policies or not?

Not. HTH.

[ThePublius]

"In a letter addressed to the Justice Department, Jordan and Johnson said they have evidence that the FBI labeled dozens of investigations into parents with a threat tag created by the bureau’s Counterterrorism Division to assess and track investigations related to school boards. The evidence comes from "brave whistleblowers" within the Department of Justice, they say in the letter addressed to Attorney General Garland."

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fbi-targeted-parents-via-terrorism-tools-despite-garland-testimony

"House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan subpoenaed FBI Director Christopher Wray on Friday, compelling him to turn over documents and communications related to the FBI’s "misuse of federal criminal and counterterrorism resources" to target parents at school board meetings."

https://judiciary.house.gov/media/in-the-news/house-judiciary-subpoenas-fbi-director-wray-targeting-parents-school-board

Sarcastr0, why do you so reflexively deny this stuff?

[hobie]

Yeah, Sarcastr0! What do you have to say about Publius' whatabouts?

[ThePublius]

What whatabouts?

[Sarcastr0]

It's not even whattabouts. It's 'Republicans are sending investigating.'

If everything Republicans investigated were true, we'd all be dead from densely layered liberal evils.

[Frank Drackman]

There you go again (HT Ronaldus Maximus), pretending you were in the Navy, and sailors don't get drunk nearly as often as Lawyers, but how come you never about "Drunken Lawyers"??
OK, because they're Lawyers, if anyone can work the system it's them, (See Kennedy, Ted)

Frank

[tylertusta]

Meanwhile, in lefty world:

Rioting, plundering, assaulting, and murdering = speech
Actual speech from conservatives = violence

[Dr. Ed 2]

See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SI9WYfXFa94

[hobie]

Look at the bright side, Armchair. The administration is already handing out free taxpayer money to MAGA martyrs. Ergo...

[Dr. Ed 2]

$5M to a woman wrongfully shot by the police.
$27M to a man who overdosed on fentanyl while being arrested.

Floyd got over 5 times more.

[Magister]

If multiple police were convicted in the death of Ashli Babbitt, you might have an argument. This is just Trump paying off his insurrectionist foot soldiers, like the pardons he issued.

[David Nieporent]

Floyd was murdered. Babbitt committed suicide by cop.

[Mr. Bumble]

You have that backward.

[Magister]

Floyd was murdered. Babbitt committed suicide by cop.

Babbitt committed suicide by cop. Floyd was murdered.

Not seeing much difference, and the first one has the virtue of presenting the two events in chronological order.

[Mr. Bumble]

Floyd committed suicide by cop with a helping of an OD.
Babbitt was murdered by a cowardly cop. (only weapon discharged that day unless you count tear gas and pepper balls).

[David Nieporent]

There was no OD.

[Kazinski]

I don't think there is any serious dispute that shooting unarmed protesters who are not an imminent threat, even when they are breaking the law, is a fourth amendment violation.

Its certainly not an unprecedented settlement for a fourth amendment use of force violation, here is one recent settlement:

"The City of Brooklyn Center has agreed to pay $3.25 million to Daunte Wright’s family, who was killed by officer Kim Potter during a traffic stop.

Potter initially detained Wright for an expired tag and an illegal air freshener and later found out that he had an outstanding warrant. Potter, who had a trainee with her, then proceeded to shoot and kill Wright after alleging she mistook her gun for a taser. The 26-year police veteran was later sentenced to two years in prison for manslaughter."

[hobie]

Well, the policewoman admitted she fucked up. So the perp gets paid. However, the Capitol Police didn't fuck up. They had to protect the congressmen streaming 10ft behind them from the savages breaking down the door. I'm upset they didn't shoot more of them.

[Magister]

Way to whitewash an insurrection seeking the Vice President and members of Congress to kill or hold hostage. Babbitt was armed and backed by a large crowd that would undoubtedly followed her, and Markwayne Mullin, the same guy who now says Biden arranged the Qatar bribe of Trump, says that Byrd had no choice but to shoot.

[Kazinski]

Armed with this?
https://www.judicialwatch.org/documents/ashley-babbitts-knife/knife-ashley-babbitt/

I don't think its seriously disputed a cop can't shoot someone with a pocket knife in their pocket.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

I see you're not denying she was "armed". That's progress!

[Magister]

The Capitol police were warned that many insurrectionists had concealed weapons, and had no certain information about what weapons or who had them. That knife looks sufficient to kill a police officer or member of Congress, even if a crowd overrunning that police officer did not take his gun.

[Brett Bellmore]

A pocket knife you're not even aware exists could never justify the least act, let alone shooting someone.

[Magister]

The overall circumstances could and did justify the officer's actions; the size of the insurrectionist force and its willingness to break through a barricaded door to get to members of Congress is pretty significant. Not knowing what weapons were present adds to the danger of that scenario.

(Brett Bellmore is not, that I recall, one of those who insist that victims of other police violence, like George Floyd, got what they deserved, in circumstances where unknown weapons and a violent mob were not present.)

[David Nieporent]

She did indeed have a knife, but her primary weapon was not a knife, but a mob.

[Mr. Bumble]

Brandishing a mob?

[Frank Drackman]

Good thing she didn't have a Banana

[Speaking for normal people]

when he is justifiably punished by death we can say "I did it for freedom, I did it for the American Founding"

[Armchair]

Is the Democratic party doomed to a emerging MAGA majority?

Some more data on the 2024 election came out recently, and it's been pretty stunning. Democrats have been banking on a liberal-minority coalition to carry them through elections. But that minority part is dropping...and fast.

Perhaps the most notable point. Obama had carried working class Latino voters by 38 points when he ran. In 2024, Harris carried them by just 6 points. A stunning 32 point drop. But, across the board Harris did worse...working class voters, minority voters, women, rural, urban...Except in one area. Harris drove UP her margins in college-educated whites compared to Obama

That leaves the question, is the future of the Democratic party, the party of college-educated white people? What other tactics will the Democratic Party use to stay in power, if that's their base?....Lots of lawyers and judges in that group.

https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/the-decline-of-the-democratic-coalition

[Frank Drackman]

maybe if they would love the "Uneducated"??

[ThePublius]

I surmise that Harris' success with college educated whites isn't attributable to Harris, it is the result of hatred of Donald Trump, and elitist white tribalism.

[Armchair]

"elitist white tribalism."

That's the interesting thing though. That may be the core of the new Democratic Party. "Elitist Whites" (Like the old Democratic party, now that I think about it).

Elitist Whites have levers of power that go beyond their numbers in a purely voter-centric base. How far they push those will be interesting.

[Sarcastr0]

may be!

[tylertusta]

be may!

[tylertusta]

In fact, the story is even worse. While these trade deals were putting manufacturing workers in direct competition with low-paid workers in the developing world, they also increased protectionism in the form of stronger and longer patent and copyright protection. Proponents of these trade deals turned reality on its head and dubbed these government-granted monopolies “free trade.” ... In short, working-class people not only got screwed by the trade policies associated with Democratic presidents, but they also had to listen to elite types lie about the nature of the policies. The lying went deep.

https://cepr.net/publications/revising-nyt-history-on-democrats-losing-the-working-class/

Gaslighting is a form of abuse in a relationship. Fortunately for America, we were never in love with Democrats and elites, so we didn't just sit back and take the abuse.

[jb]

Wait, is your theory that it was Democrats that are responsible for all these free trade agreements? Who do you think signed NAFTA? Or USMCA for that matter?

There's a reasonable set of criticisms to be made against the Washington Consensus approach to trade and economic policy, but the word "consensus" is in there for a reason. It's roughly the shared economic approach that both parties adopted for several decades.

That article is interesting but overly motivated to make its point: for example, it talks about the idea that doctors and dentists were "protected" by trade agreements. This is dumb. The reason your doctor isn't being outsourced to China is because doctors in China aren't very useful to patients in the US, not because trade agreements prevent the importation of medical advice. Similarly, we get this kind of analysis trying to blame Democrats for the financial bailouts of the late 2000s:

Here also the Democrats’ fingerprints were everywhere. The first bailout took place under Bush, but the regime of bailouts continued under Obama. This was a clear case where the Democrats were not prepared to leave things to the market, but rather insisted on putting a very big thumb on the scale to benefit the rich at the expense of everyone else.

Oh, that thing started by a Republican is clearly the Democrats fault! Some very objective analysis there.

[Jmaie]

"Wait, is your theory that it was Democrats that are responsible for all these free trade agreements? Who do you think signed NAFTA? "

Bill Clinton?

[Magister]

Except Clinton wasn't president on December 17, 1992 when it was signed.

[jb]

It's pretty hilarious--just deny that your team had anything to do with the things you don't like. It's the same as in the discussion of the bank bailouts I pointed out above--something W started but since Obama continued it, it's the Democrats' fault.

[David Nieporent]

Twitter is filled with MAGA people saying that they don't care about Biden having cancer because they're still bitter about lockdowns that prevented them from spending time with their dying relatives. Those all happened, of course, under Trump, not Biden.

[Armchair]

Those lockdowns happened at the state level, not national.

And generally, it was the blue state governors who had the long lockdowns as well as the most severe ones. California's lasted from March 19 - August 28. New York from March 20 - June 27, Michigan from March 24 - June 1.

Texas by contrast lasted just the month of April. Florida April 2 - May 4th.

Here's the full list. https://ballotpedia.org/States_that_issued_lockdown_and_stay-at-home_orders_in_response_to_the_coronavirus_(COVID-19)_pandemic,_2020

[bernard11]

And this makes Clinton responsible?

And what was so terrible about NAFTA, anyway.

I mean Trump screamed about it, but he knows nothing about trade, and his "new" deal was not much different.

[Speaking for normal people]

And you are bitter about everything. Want an award

[Armchair]

Except Clinton WAS president on December 8, 1993 when it was signed into law.

In Clinton's words

"In a few moments, I will sign the North American Free Trade Act into law. NAFTA will tear down trade barriers between our three nations. It will create the world’s largest trade zone and create 200,000 jobs in this country by 1995 alone. The environmental and labor side agreements negotiated by our administration will make this agreement a force for social progress as well as economic growth. Already the confidence we’ve displayed by ratifying NAFTA has begun to bear fruit. We are now making real progress toward a worldwide trade agreement so significant that it could make the material gains of NAFTA for our country look small by comparison".

https://www.americanyawp.com/reader/30-the-recent-past/bill-clinton-on-free-trade-and-financial-deregulation-1993-2000/

[jb]

I'm failing to see how this makes Biden responsible somehow.

[jb]

Oops, that was supposed to be in response to the lockdown discussion.

[Speaking for normal people]

Biden was responsible by his hateful

Biden: 'Patience wearing thin with unvaccinated Americans'

[jb]

Let me help you with the timeline here: the lockdowns were before there was a vaccine. Biden wasn't in office. Trump was President.

[tylertusta]

Let's set aside your mistake where you think that -Bill Clinton- who signed NAFTA- was somehow not a Democrat.

The old DC consensus was rejected by the working class largely because of NAFTA, and Trump is the current manifestation of that rejection.

You misunderstand how protectionism for professionals work. Here's an example:

You don't offshore your doctor to China. You would onshore a Chinese doctor who went to a foreign medical school and had the benefit of government subsidies. They can work in the United States for a substantial fraction of the salary of an American doctor.

The protectionism that is used is that many foreign medical programs are simply not accepted in the United States at face value.

[jb]

Let's set aside your mistake where you think that -Bill Clinton- who signed NAFTA- was somehow not a Democrat.

You and Jmaie need to crack the history books! NAFTA was signed on December 17, 1992 by George H. W. Bush.

Clinton negotiated two side agreements (including one to improve protections for labor) and submitted it to Congress, but NAFTA was the creation of Bush v1.

You don't offshore your doctor to China. You would onshore a Chinese doctor who went to a foreign medical school and had the benefit of government subsidies. They can work in the United States for a substantial fraction of the salary of an American doctor.

The protectionism that is used is that many foreign medical programs are simply not accepted in the United States at face value.

I'm all for this. But for some reason I suspect that Trump and the rest of the MAGA crowd aren't that interested in bringing in a bunch of foreign doctors.

Having said that, NAFTA has does have visas (TN-1/2) that are targeted at allowing skilled professionals to work throughout the US/Mexico/Canada. Dentists are eligible for TN visas, although it looks like clinical doctors are not. Point being, though: I don't think the article actually does a good job of making the case that either trade agreements or (especially) Democratic administrations have much to do with the disparate outcomes that it highlights since it doesn't even try to explain why US doctors get paid more than those in Germany or other countries.

[Armchair]

You need to "actually" crack the history books.

While Bush signed the initial agreement in 1992, that didn't have the force of law. That was just an executive agreement between heads of state.

To actually make NAFTA law, it needed to be ratified by US Senate, then be signed into law by the President. And that's what Clinton did in 1993. Clinton's final signature is what made NAFTA law in the United States.

[jb]

If you're going to try to be a pedant, you're going to need to pay attention to the actual words being used.

Bush signed the NAFTA treaty (as I said). Clinton submitted it to Congress (as I said) and then signed it into law (as you said). But since my original question was "who signed NAFTA?" the answer is indisputably Bush. Here's a picture of him doing so:

https://news4sanantonio.com/news/local/north-american-free-trade-agreement-gets-signed-on-oct-7-1992-in-san-antonio

Even if you were right and somehow "signed into law" was what I really meant when I asked who signed the agreement, it wouldn't change the fact that the Bush administration negotiated it. Clinton may have liked it as well, but it's Bush's agreement. In fact, the history here just proves my general point that the Washington Consensus was bipartisan and that the high level approach to trade policy was shared by both parties.

[Kazinski]

The first big bailout was the Chrysler bailout in 1980 under Carter.

[Bob from Ohio]

"doomed to a emerging MAGA majority"

Neither party can be "doomed" by slightly shifting majorities.

Can the GOP retain [or increase] its new voters once Trump exits?

Will abortion lose its hold as the dominant issue for suburban women?

[tylertusta]

Nothing is inevitable. People who think that find themselves trapped by their own hubris.

If you take demographics for granted they will eventually find somewhere else to call home.

[Bob from Ohio]

Other than the unicorn Arch Moore, W. Va. was the strongest Democratic state in the nation 40 years ago, now its probably the most GOP.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Reminds me of FDR and the robber barons circa 1933...

[Martinned]

The German blog Verfassungsblog ("about matters constitutional") had an interesting post this morning about a constitutional provision that people don't tend to think about very much.

Under art. 140 of the German Basic Law art. 136, 137, 138, 139, and 141 of the constitution of the Weimar Republic remain in force. (France has something similar for the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, and for the preamble of the constitution of the 4th Republic.)

Art. 138(1) of the Constitution of the Weimar Republic said (and says) as follows:

Rights of religious societies to public subsidies on the basis of a law, contract or special grant shall be redeemed by legislation of the Länder. The principles governing such redemption shall be established by the Reich.

Throughout its existence, the parliament of the Weimar Republic never adopted any legislation setting out such principles, and neither has the parliament of the Federal Republic. And so, more than a century after this privison was adopted, churches in Germany continue to have certain special privileges, because in the absence of Federal legislation the Länder cannot abolish them. Apparently this amounts to €600 mln per year, basically as a result of the various ad hoc arrangements that were made in the 19th century when the (Catholic) church lost its worldly powers in various places. (The famous German church tax is much bigger, but is not covered by this provision.)

The author goes over various things the Länder could do, but it's an interesting example of how inaction can make a constitutional provision dead letter. It certainly isn't likely that the current Bundestag will act in this area, given that the Christian-Democrats are running the show again.

https://verfassungsblog.de/ein-verfassungsauftrag-fur-die-ewigkeit-staatsleistungen-religionsgemeinschaften/

[ThePublius]

On Left-Wing Terrorism

"...one can say that the authorities and the press are always looking for “domestic terrorism” on the right, but in fact, it consistently comes from the left."

"Murderers and would-be murderers are of course relatively rare. But the level of derangement on today’s Left is such that it is producing attempted and successful homicides with some regularity. James Hodgkinson, Nicholas Roske, Thomas Crooks, Ryan Routh, Luigi Mangione and Elias Rodriguez are unusual because they carried their convictions to a logical extreme. But the deranged hate that led to their homicidal deeds grew directly out of today’s mainstream Left.

I am afraid that we have not seen anything like the end of left-wing terrorism."

Read the whole thing:
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2025/05/on-left-wing-terrorism.php

[Martinned]

I can see how you might reach that conclusion if you would define right wing terrorists as "very fine people" instead of terrorists.

[ThePublius]

Oh, get lost with that bullshit.

[Martinned]

Tell me more about Anders Breivik.

[ThePublius]

I never said there was zero violence from the right; though I would argue that Nazism is a phenomenon of the left, not the right. As is fascism. Historically speaking.

[Sarcastr0]

What a mish-mash.

All the bad things are on the left. Which is itself a flag that you're just simplifying reality so you can be pure.

But some shooters are on the right still. Not caused by the right, of course. Only the left gets causality.

This manifest double standard shows up real quick every time. It is one reason why it's a stupid game.

[Frank Drackman]

It was National "Socialism" after all.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Nazi = National Socalist (in German)

[bernard11]

Yes. We've all heard that idiocy repeated countless times, as though it were the ultimate gotcha. Any attempt to learn anything about how that name was adopted, and the party's early history, would quickly reveal that the party had little interest in promoting socialism and was, in fact, fiercely anti-Marxist.

Somehow you never mention the right's love of Nazism before and immediately after WWII, and more recent examples such as the loathsome Pat Buchanan, and Trump's lovely dinner with Nick Fuentes and friendship with Tucker Carlson. .

[hobie]

Being a white foreigner not affiliated with Israel or South Africa, you may not be up to date on America's Right Wing terrorism and our biggest massacres:

Vegas, Oklahoma City, Pulse nightclub, El Paso, Buffalo, Temple of Life. Black church bombings, lynchings

These days that shit don't count here, but it might in your country

[ThePublius]

You're so full of it. One example, the Pulse Nightclub shooter:

"In a call to 911 during the shooting, Mateen identified himself as "Mujahideen," "Islamic Soldier," and "Soldier of God";[9][10] and pledged his allegiance multiple times to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who at the time was the leader of the militant jihadist group, the Islamic State.[11] He said the shooting was "triggered" by an airstrike in Iraq that killed Abu Waheeb, an IS commander, six weeks before.[12]"

This is a right wing guy?

If you read his bio he was mentally unstable, identified as such at a young age. There is nothing in his bio that explicitly indicates his political leanings.

So where do you get this "right wing terrorism" thing from?

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

Yes, there are murders who are aligned with white supremacy, but these are hardly representative of conservatives or Republicans. On the left, however, we have overwhelming political and media support for leftist domestic terrorists. Just look at the $1M+ donated so far to Luigi Mangione's defense by leftists, and the coddling treatment of him in the media, and from politicians like Bernie Sanders [2] and Elizabeth Warren [1]. Look at the treatment of violent disrupters on campuses across the U.S. Look at the treatment of the BLM rioters. Look at the excusers and rationalizers of the Tesla vandalizers and dealership firebombers.

Have you seen or heard of any conservative or Republican rationalizing or excusing any of these far right killers? No, I didn't think so.

[1] Sen. Elizabeth Warren sympathised with Luigi Mangione, the 26-year-old suspect in the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, saying “people can only be pushed so far.”

[2] Sen. Bernie Sanders: “It goes without saying that the murder of this gentleman who has two kids is outrageous and unacceptable.”

He adds: “But I think what the outpouring of anger at the health car industry tells us is that millions of people understand that health care is a human right, and you cannot have people in the insurance industry rejecting needed health care for people while they make billions of dollars in profits.”

There's a big difference.

[Sarcastr0]

There's a big difference in the work you'll put in to find nuance in shooters seemingly from the right, versus just labels and Powerline for the other side.

Your standards are not equal. They can't be, because otherwise your stupid game would not deliver to you what you want.

[Michael P]

First take the beam out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Is that supposed to be a translation?

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Religious nutjobs are almost exclusively a "right wing" thing (if they're not irrationally excluded due to the right's usual racism).

[Speaking for normal people]

I have posted about him many times. He is what you get if you let people who live off of opposition just go on. I call such people on here "those whose hates are stronger than their loves"

IT has served me for a longtime as a quick test of who is a hater under whatever banner

[Sarcastr0]

Taking your ball and going home when someone uses your stupid game against you seems about your speed.

[ThePublius]

"very fine people?" That hoax?

[Sarcastr0]

Not sure how you define hoax, but that's real words from the real guy you support.

[ThePublius]

That has been thoroughly debunked. Context matters.

[Sarcastr0]

Context matters
Amazing.

[Martinned]

What has been debunked? I said nothing about Trump. I said something about you, i.e. that you define any right-wing terrorist as "not a terrorist", making your claim tautologically true.

[ThePublius]

"you define any right-wing terrorist as "not a terrorist""

That's not true.

[Sarcastr0]

Right- you define it as not right-wing.

"I would argue that Nazism is a phenomenon of the left, not the right. As is fascism. Historically speaking."

You should check out what people at the time actually thought, historically speaking.

[ThePublius]

Oh, why don't you inform me, Sarcastr0? And tell me how socialism, and national socialism, and fascism that arose from socialism, are phenomena of the right.

I have checked - read what people at the time thought, in particular, William L. Shirer.

[Sarcastr0]

If you're making ideological classifications, identify your buckets and apply them to the facts.

You're making a historical causality argument to create your ideological classification buckets. That not how to distinguish ideologies - an ideological movement can be vastly different from its original foundation. Or synthesize multiple ideological strands such that highlighting one will fail.

Should Hong Xiuquan be classified as Christian? Was Marx basically Hegel? Are modern progressives just Teddy Roosevelt with fewer teeth?

So lets gets started on the project of actually figuring out what's right and what's left. It's gonna be reductive as all labeling exercises is, but this is the Internet.

Here's wiki's bucket for right wing:
"Right-wing politics is the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable,typically supporting this position based on natural law, economics, authority, property, religion, or tradition. Hierarchy and inequality may be seen as natural results of traditional social differences or competition in market economies."

Do you think that's a fair definition of right wing?

[Michael P]

That definition of right-wing is so vague and broad that essentially all politics are covered. For example, communism believes that a certain social order and hierarchy is inevitable and desirable, basing that (typically) on economics, authority and property.

[Sarcastr0]

So right wing isn't a legit term.
But left wing is fine to use - you do it all the time.

Michael, you've never been more naked in your jokeness.

[Michael P]

No, the definition you pulled from a horse's ass is merely an awful definition, no matter what politics you label with it. Learn to read.

If you want more useful definitions, there are lots. DuckDuckGo's second hit for "definition of right wing politics" is a generic "compare two words definitions" SEO site, but the third gives what I would call useful, fair definitions of right and left wing:

The left-wing ideology typically champions ideals of equality, social justice, and collective responsibility, advocating for government intervention to address societal inequalities and to provide public services.
The right-wing ideology primarily champions social conservatism, limited government, and free-market economics, asserting the importance of personal responsibility and traditional values.

[Michael P]

The astute will notice that those definitions also show why fascism is more aligned with the left wing than the right, incidentally: it has a very strong idea of social justice that government should enforce, largely through collective responsibility, and has extensive government services. It pays lip service to traditional values but the 20th Century versions were quite eager to impose new aesthetics and dynamics on both appearances and social structures. Fascism is opposed to limited government, free markets and personal responsibility. (All within the state, etc.)

[JohnSmith97]

When you define everything other then communists as "far-right", it really is easy to declare everything as "right-wing"...

[David Nieporent]

Not sure how it can be "debunked" when it's on video.

The "context" is that Trump referred to a group of solely neo-Nazis and claimed they were very fine people. Then, in his usual rambling incoherence, he tried to claim he wasn't talking about neo-Nazis, but he by definition was since it was a group of exclusively neo-Nazis he was talking about.

[ThePublius]

"As CNN's Jake Tapper has said, President Trump did not call neo-Nazis or white supremacists "very fine people."

Jake Tapper: "Elsewhere in those remarks the President did condemn neo-Nazis and white supremacists. So he's not saying that the neo-Nazis and white supremacists are very fine people"
President Trump, August 15, 2017: "I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists — because they should be condemned totally.""

[hobie]

Wednesday I pointed out to Armchair that he was promoting statements by the lying liars from the lefty MSM including Tapper. And here you are doing it too. You boys are coming around!

[Brett Bellmore]

He lied by pointing to Trump's actual words?

[Magister]

Trump says a lot of contradictory things. Any "very fine people" at the Unite the Right rally who didn't leave when they saw the neo-Nazis and racists and antisemites on their side would have left, so the "very fine people" Trump referenced would have to be ... neo-Nazis, racists, antisemites.

[Brett Bellmore]

I think you're discounting the extent to which people who started out in the rally were trapped there by violent counter-protesters. The police basically channeled anybody leaving right into them in order to produce a riot, the goal being to generate a pretext for canceling an event they had to be forced by a court into permitting.

But, be that as it may, the objective fact is that Trump made the distinction you're denying he made.

[Sarcastr0]

trapped there by violent counter-protesters

Did you see how you wanted it to not be true so you just made up a story where it didn't need to be true and then said the story you made up like it was true?

Don't do that.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Any "very fine people" at the Unite the Right rally who didn't leave when they saw the neo-Nazis and racists and antisemites on their side would have left, so the "very fine people" Trump referenced would have to be ... neo-Nazis, racists, antisemites."

Even if that were true, so what? If Sarcastro is alone in a room, and somebody says, "There's some very fine people in that room, and I'm not talking about Sarcastro..." that doesn't mean that the speaker is saying that Sarcastro is a very fine person, it means he's incorrect about who is in the room.

[Magister]

A lot of excuses being made. Very fine people who were trapped there by violence would hardly be on that side, and it would take Mr. Magoo to fail to see the composition of the side they were supposedly on before violence trapped them. Thinking that neo-Nazis, racists and antisemites included very fine people is hardly an innocent mistake of "oh, I miscounted the number of people".

[bernard11]

I think you're discounting the extent to which people who started out in the rally were trapped there by violent counter-protesters. The police basically channeled anybody leaving right into them in order to produce a riot, the goal being to generate a pretext for canceling an event they had to be forced by a court into permitting.

One of your worst. Where do you get this shit? And who are these wonderful people who showed to a neo-Nazi rally anyway? Fuck your BS excuses.

[ThePublius]

Hobie, I figured it's a source that you and Sarcastr0 and others on the left would accept.

[Sarcastr0]

You should read my posts about media literacy from Wednesday.

I also don't know Tapper. I'm not a cable news guy.

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

Look at you playing coy.

"Who is the Jake Tapper fella? Never heard of him!!, I only watch TV over the airwaves while I'm playing DND with my gay friends, he said what you say? That's crazy!! Never heard of him!"

lmao

[hobie]

Wouldn't Trump's support of Neo-Nazis shouting 'Jews will not replace us' qualify Trump as a supporter of antisemitic terrorism. Shouldn't that earn him a Salvadoran jumpsuit. I mean, is that not the new hayseed standard these days?

[Frank Drackman]

Get the Spirochetes out of your Auditory Cortex, the chant was
"You will not replace us"
not "Jews" (You seen our fertility rates? if it wasn't for the Ethiopians we'd already be gone) and with Memorial Day just a few days away, what was your Military Service again? "Air Force F-19 Pilot/Special Forces Marine SEAL????"

Frank

[bernard11]

Both were chanted, though "The Jews will not replace us" scans a little better.

[Speaking for normal people]

Hobie has never gotten over how a brilliant well-spoken Woman for all Seasons could have lost. Kamala, my Kamala

[Sarcastr0]

What we have here is a blizzard of anecdotes and squinting to claim square pegs fit into round holes.

Good lord half of these didn't kill anyone! Now that's some good expanding your base set so you can do some confirmation bias.

I could list supposed right-wing mas killers too - gay nightclub, black church. But the point is it's a stupid game. You're going to find whatever pattern you look for.

It's a game which, ironically, extremists like to play because it ratifies their own extremism.

[ThePublius]

A Clockwork Blue: How the Left Has Come to Excuse Away and Embrace Political Violence
The left excuses and embraces political violence.

https://www.commentary.org/articles/noah-rothman/left-excuses-embraces-political-violence/

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

They always do. That's the trend line. When free people reject their ideals, they impose it by force and mass murder

History backs this up.

[bernard11]

the deranged hate that led to their homicidal deeds grew directly out of today’s mainstream Left.

The kind of horseshit you expect out of Powerline.

You want to compare those guys' body count with that of Robert Bowers, Dylann Roof, Timothy McVeigh, James Alex Fields (a "very fine person"), or the J6 mob.

Here's a clue, Publius. These people were all loons, as were the non-political shooters. They had various motives - some political, some racist, some who knows.

But the idea that "the deranged hate that led to their homicidal deeds grew directly out of today’s mainstream Left" is ludicrous, and whoever wrote that is not to be taken seriously.

[Frank Drackman]

I thought "Open Carry" of handguns was Ill-legal in DC? Man, that guy is really gonna be in trouble!
Oh wait, he'll get a D.C. Jury, 12 Mullah Ilhan Omar Bin Laden fans, probably be on the 2028 ticket with David "Publicity" Hogg or Booty-Judge.

Frank

[LawTalkingGuy]

Many weighty issues out there this week. But I think it should not go unnoticed that Randy Barnett is horny on main.

https://x.com/randyebarnett/status/1925752005022065136?s=46&t=swfuX8A13L7H9PAYSakPtA

[Martinned]

I like that reply: "I thought you were supposed to be an originalist, Randy."

Anyway, has he been appointed to anything Trumpian yet? It would be pretty embarrassing for him to get nothing when even Josh gets some kind of position in the administration.

[LawTalkingGuy]

He’s too established to be a striver, he’s just a hack for the love of the game.

[David Nieporent]

I'm more concerned about the fact that Randy used to be an actual libertarian but has spent the Trump era arguing that we need to "update" libertarianism to be Trumpian.

[bernard11]

Link does not work for me.

[Martinned]

The problem with people who do international law as academics is that to them every problem is an international law-shaped nail that they can/should attack with an international law-shaped hammer. So this blog post is more interesting for its question than for its answer:

This post raises the possibility that the current and proposed deportations from the US might rise to the level of a crime against humanity as they unfold. Recent deportation actions by the Trump administration have included DACA recipients and people in protected status, and now might even be expanded to include U.S. citizens. Other commentators have extensively discussed the legality of these actions and the proposal regarding US citizens under US law. Courts, including the US Supreme Court, have stepped in to pause some of the removals. However, these discussions so far have overlooked the possibility that these deportations might, not only result in state responsibility for violations of international law, also amount to the crime against humanity of deportation. While international law generally supports a state’s right to deport unlawfully present non-citizens, when a state systematically and knowingly expels individuals who have a legal right to remain, in an arbitrary manner contrary to international law, within a larger context of similar deportations, such actions can be criminal. Provided that the destination state(s) for deportations are parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, such as Mexico, El Salvador, and most Central American states, the ICC might even have jurisdiction over the offense.

https://opiniojuris.org/2025/05/23/trumps-deportations-as-an-emerging-crime-against-humanity/

(It also doesn't help that this guy never made it further than the polytechnic here in The Hague, which is a Josh Blackman level school. There is no proper university in The Hague, and there never has been, because The Hague was historically never a city. That's why the parliament of Holland and later also the parliament of the Netherlands met here: neutral territory.)

[Riva]

Maybe some future democrat administration, when and if this country is so cursed again, can re-start the lawfare and even kick it up a notch by sending President Trump to be tried before an international tribunal? Not sure the ICC will do but who knows? whatever works. And as during the old lawfare, all federal courts so interested in playing chief executive, chief magistrate and commander in chief will suddenly all lose interest in defying the new Democrat regime and would largely defer I suspect. And all the little trolls here and elsewhere (how many are still paid I wonder?) will of course cheer it on as well.

[tylertusta]

An open records request has revealed security camera footage of Judge Dugan's actions and that of the illegal alien that was being sought by ICE.

What I learned from this video is that in between Dugan shooing ICE away and the alien's exit through the juror's hallway, Dugan informed the alien and his attorney that ICE agents were present to deport him.

https://youtu.be/BjQ0IwmB4DE

[JohnSmith97]

No, it is (D)ifferent. Just ask NG, DN, Sarc... etc..

[not guilty]

"What I learned from this video is that in between Dugan shooing ICE away and the alien's exit through the juror's hallway, Dugan informed the alien and his attorney that ICE agents were present to deport him."

If you didn't know that before viewing the video, tylertusta, then you haven't been paying attention. We have plowed this ground before. With my background as a criminal defense lawyer, I am more wont to speak of reasonable doubt than 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 accordingly 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

Per ¶19 of the affidavit supporting the criminal complaint, federal agents observed Eduardo Flores-Ruiz arrive on the 6h floor of the courthouse at approximately 8:43 a.m. Judge Dugan's actions accordingly did not prevent "discovery" of the subject of the administrative warrant. The affiant further recites at ¶33, "At approximately 8:50 a.m, DEA Agent A alerted other members of the arrest team that DEA Agent A was on the elevator with Flores-Ruiz." The agent could have arrested him then and there. At ¶34 the affidavit states that "Around 9:05 a.m., or approximately 22 minutes after the arrest team first spotted Flores. Ruiz on the sixth floor of the courthouse, FBI Agent A communicated to the surveillance team that Flores-Ruiz had been arrested." Judge Dugan's actions accordingly did not prevent the "arrest" of Mr. Flores-Ruiz.

The language of 18 U.S.C. § 1071, "so as to prevent his discovery and arrest," does not subsume a mere attempt to conceal. There is no general criminal attempt statute in federal criminal law. When Congress intends to prohibit the inchoate offense of attempt along with the substantive offense, it knows what language to employ.

For example, 8 U.S.C. § 1324(a)(1)(A)(iii) provides that anyone who “knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, conceals, harbors or shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, such alien in any place, including any building or any means of transportation,” commits an offense. (Emphasis added.) Section 1071 includes no such language.

It can't get any simpler than that, tylertusta.

[DaveM]

If the courts are unable to discipline a judge who leaves her courtroom to go out into the public and personally prevent a suspect from appearing before a different judge, then there is no discipline.

If there is no discipline, there is no respect for the law. If there is no respect for the law, there is no respect for the courts.

Is this really the hill the Left wants to die on? It's better to interfere with the law than to uphold it?

[not guilty]

Dave M, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, you go to court with the law you have, not the law you might want or wish to have at a later time.

Congress, and only Congress, can define a criminal offense. The full text of 18 U.S.C. § 1071 is:

Whoever harbors or conceals any person for whose arrest a warrant or process has been issued under the provisions of any law of the United States, so as to prevent his discovery and arrest, after notice or knowledge of the fact that a warrant or process has been issued for the apprehension of such person, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both; except that if the warrant or process issued on a charge of felony, or after conviction of such person of any offense, the punishment shall be a fine under this title, or imprisonment for not more than five years, or both.

As SCOTUS has cogently opined. "We are not willing to narrow the plain meaning of even a criminal statute on the basis of a gestalt judgment as to what Congress probably intended." Garcia v. United States, 469 U.S. 70, 78 (1984). Verbs in particular matter. The operative verbs in § 1071 are "conceals" and "prevent." Each is an essential element of the offense.

It is well established that the fundamental fairness guarantee of the Due Process Clause requires the prosecution to prove beyond a reasonable doubt every element of the offense. In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 364 (1970). Like it or not, if Judge Dugan somehow "conceal[ed]" Eduardo Flores-Ruiz in a manner which did not "prevent his discovery and arrest," she did not violate § 1071.

[Riva]

There's video evidence you clown.

[Riva]

And that's your interpretation of the facts, Not Guilty. The jury may find otherwise.

[David Nieporent]

Federal agents at all relevant times knew where Mr. Flores-Ruiz was

Your argument hinges on this, and as far as I can tell this is a mistaken premise. The judge (without lawful authority to do so) diverted the agents while he was in the courtroom, and then snuck him out a private doorway to a back hallway. Eventually he ended up back in the main hallway, where one of the agents found him again and rode down in the elevator with him. But they did not know where he was when she snuck him out. She did not prevent his arrest for long, but she did prevent it for a time.

You have pushed back on this by saying that the statute doesn't include the word "delay," but that's inherent in the offense, as the alternative — requiring that the arrest be permanently prevented — would not be a sensible reading of the statute.

[not guilty]

The critical question as to the charge under 18 U.S.C. § 1505 is whether Judge Dugan acted with the requisite culpable mental state. The relevant portion of the statute states, "Whoever corruptly, or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication influences, obstructs, or impedes or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede the due and proper administration of the law under which any pending proceeding is being had before any department or agency of the United States" commits an offense. Per 18 U.S.C. § 1515(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." These penal statutes must be construed strictly against the government. As Chief Justice Marshall wrote in United States v. Wiltberger, 18 U.S. (5 Wheat) 76, 95 (1820):

The rule that penal laws are to be construed strictly is perhaps not much less old than construction itself. It is founded on the tenderness of the law for the rights of individuals, and on the plain principle that the power of punishment is vested in the legislative, not in the Judicial Department. It is the legislature, not the court, which is to define a crime and ordain its punishment.

The phrase, "acting with an improper purpose" necessarily excludes acting with a legitimate, proper purpose. If Judge Dugan believed her actions to be a lawful exercise of her judicial duties, she simply committed no crime under §§ 1505 and 1515(b).

The Supreme Court has made clear that "courtroom and courthouse premises are subject to the control of the court." Sheppard v. Maxwell, 384 U.S. 333, 358 (1966). "A secure courtroom is necessary to protect the judicial function from interference or intimidation[.]" Richman v. Sheahan, 270 F.3d 430, 438 (7th Cir. 2001). "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." Stevens v. Osuna, 877 F.3d 1293, 1306 (11th Cir. 2017).

In interpreting and applying criminal statutes, there are three related manifestations of the fair warning requirement. First, the vagueness doctrine bars enforcement of "a statute which either forbids or requires the doing of an act in terms so vague that men of common intelligence must necessarily guess at its meaning and differ as to its application.'' Connally v. General Constr. Co., 269 U.S. 385, 391 (1926). Second, the canon of strict construction of criminal statutes, or rule of lenity, ensures fair warning by so resolving ambiguity in a criminal statute as to apply it only to conduct clearly covered. Although clarity at the requisite level may be supplied by judicial gloss on an otherwise uncertain statute, due process bars courts from applying a novel construction of a criminal statute to conduct that neither the statute nor any prior judicial decision has fairly disclosed to be within its scope. In each of these guises, the touchstone is whether the statute, either standing alone or as construed, made it reasonably clear at the relevant time that the defendant's conduct was criminal. United States v. Lanier, 520 U.S. 259, 266-267 (1997) (emphasis added).

If what Judge Dugan did here is construed to be "acting with an improper purpose" for purposes of §§ 1505 and 1515(b), that would raise a significant due process as to the statutes as applied. Subsection 1515(b) was added following the D.C. Circuit ruling in United States v. Poindexter, 951 F.2d 369, 386 (D.C. Cir. 1991), that "corruptly," which was then undefined in 18 U.S.C. § 1505, was unconstitutionally vague as applied to the defendant's conduct of lying to Congress.

I am unaware of any judicial decision suggesting that a state trial court's exclusion of persons from a courtroom or courthouse is "acting with an improper purpose" for purposes of § 1515(b). In order to convict Judge Dugan, the prosecution must negate or rebut beyond a reasonable doubt that the judge then believed that she was acting in the lawful exercise of her judicial authority and, a fortiori, lacked the culpable mental state specified by statute.

[DaveM]

"I am unaware of any judicial decision suggesting that a state trial court's exclusion of persons from a courtroom or courthouse is 'acting with an improper purpose'".

The judge left her courtroom, walked out into the public hallway, and personally escorted the suspect out the back door.

That's not an "exclusion", that's "fleeing arrest". And yes, absolutely improper.

[not guilty]

DaveM, what judicial decision(s), extant on April 18, 2025, would have put Judge Dugan on notice that her exercising control over her courtroom in the manner that she is accused of doing was "acting with an improper purpose" as that phrase is used in 18 U.S.C. § 1515(b)?

Kvetching "but I don't like what she did" does not suffice.

[not guilty]

Still waiting, DaveM. What judicial decision(s), extant on April 18, 2025, would have put Judge Dugan on notice that her exercising control over her courtroom in the manner that she is accused of doing was "acting with an improper purpose" as that phrase is used in 18 U.S.C. § 1515(b)?

[David Nieporent]

The phrase, "acting with an improper purpose" necessarily excludes acting with a legitimate, proper purpose. If Judge Dugan believed her actions to be a lawful exercise of her judicial duties, she simply committed no crime under §§ 1505 and 1515(b).

What would be the legitimate, proper purpose in abruptly canceling a scheduled hearing when all the parties were present and then sneaking him out the back door? Her purpose, in the absence of any other information, can be inferred as trying to prevent him from being seized by the federal agents. I would suggest it can only be reasonably inferred as such.

I am unaware of any judicial decision suggesting that a state trial court's exclusion of persons from a courtroom or courthouse is "acting with an improper purpose" for purposes of § 1515(b).

Notice how you just bait-and-switched from the question of her mental state to her actions?

[Magister]

Maybe there is a legitimate purpose to preventing federal agents from executing flashy arrests in front of her courtroom that might discourage witnesses, jurors, plaintiffs or defendants from coming to that court.

[not guilty]

As I understand it, Mr. Flores-Ruiz was there on a domestic violence charge. I have no information as to whether the alleged victim in that particular case was in the U.S. legally, but the presence of federal immigration agents in general can discourage victims and witnesses from coming to court, such that the perpetrators go free. It is not uncommon for a full docket to be devoted to domestic violence cases. If that were the case here, there is nothing at all improper about the trial judge's conduct in maintaining control of the courtroom and courthouse.

As for what you characterize as a "bait and switch," the actus reus and the mens rea are closely intertwined. As I said, if the judge then believed that her conduct was within the lawful exercise of her judicial authority, she lacked the culpable, "improper purpose" mental state specified by statute.

[ThePublius]

More murderous leftist rhetoric:

"The Bronx "Anti-War" Coalition just called Elias Rodriguez’s execution of two innocent people in D.C. the “highest expression of anti-Zionism.”

This group leads the pro-Palestinian rallies in NYC. Don’t ever try to tell me this movement isn’t fundamentally violent."

https://x.com/EYakoby/status/1925600355720597839

[Sarcastr0]

Rhetoric!!!

You said you wanted the leftists purged...what did you mean by that?

What do you think of Dr. Ed's rhetoric?
Or Brett talking about lynching judges?

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

Midwittery Whataboutism.

lmao you suck

[ThePublius]

You are deranged. You never address the issue, you only attack the messenger.

Can you even comment on the issue at hand, or is it always "Publius pounces," "Republicans pounce, weaponize?"

You shallow twit.

[Sarcastr0]

Your pearl clutching is in bad faith.

You do a lot of it.

It's very silly, because you are legit sincerely crybaby offended even as your double standards are open and obvious.

[ThePublius]

More of not addressing the issue, just attacking me.
Shallow.

[Sarcastr0]

I started with attacked your pearl clutching.

[Dr. Ed 2]

What -- Nuke Gaza?

It's a shooting war that Israel did not start and Hamas is the recognized government of Gaza. Hence a nation State named Gaza attacked Israel and it is perfectly acceptable for Israel to Nuke Gaza in response.

What is the issue?

[JohnSmith97]

I'm more interested in reading what you think about violent rhetoric from the left, not your whataboutisms.

[Sarcastr0]

Violent rhetoric is in bad taste, but not generally illegal; incitement is a really really high bar.

Anyone trying to argue for legal sanction based on such is an authoritarian.

[jb]

Those guys think that Bernie Sanders and AOC suck because of their defense of Israel. Maybe they're "leftist" but they don't seem to have anything to do with even quite far left Democratic views.

There's definitely fringe right groups that think Jews getting murdered is great as well. Would that make you change your views on Donald Trump or the Republican party in general?

[ThePublius]

You're not making any sense. Anyone, Warren and Sanders included, who says Mangione did this and that, but.... Is morally bankrupt.

[jb]

Cool subject change.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

I’m now tribal for Democrats. Biden stood strong with Israel and Republicans pretended he equivocated…but it’s pretty obvious his support for Israel cost him votes with young voters. Payback is that Trump will add $8 trillion to the debt to fill the coffers of the wealthy…so those young people will end up paying for that! lol.

[ReaderY]

The “big and beautiful bill” the House of Representatives passed contains a provision prohibiting the expenditure of federal funds to enforce judical contempt orders except in cases where the party seeking contempt has posted security.

1. Is this provision constitutional?

2. Could this provision be complied with by requiring posting security in a nominal amount, e.g. one dollar?

3. If the answer to (1) is Yes and the answer to (2) is No, are there alternative ways for judicial contempt orders to be enforced? Could they be enforced through a posse? Through lawyers agreeing to serve as prosecutors pro bono?

[Michael P]

Yes, only if the judge is fishing for impeachment, and security is already required by Rule 65(c).

[Dr. Ed 2]

Does an impeached (and convicted) judge still retain his pension?

If so, one planning on retirement in the near future might decide to do it and go out in a blaze of glory.

Of course as to the posse, could they be facing personal liability under Section 1983?

[Brett Bellmore]

1) I'm pretty sure it's constitutional, given the whole "No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law" bit, and the fact that Congress can not, constitutionally, be compelled by the courts to enact laws.

2) Maybe? But maybe not sustained on appeal.

The bill says, " No court of the United States may use appropriated funds to enforce a contempt citation for failure to comply with an injunction or temporary restraining order if no security was given when the injunction or order was issued pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65(c), whether issued prior to, on, or subsequent to the date of enactment of this section."

65(c) says, " The court may issue a preliminary injunction or a temporary restraining order only if the movant gives security in an amount that the court considers proper to pay the costs and damages sustained by any party found to have been wrongfully enjoined or restrained."

So I think there's a good chance that, if the administration appealed in a case where bond was set at $1, they'd win the appeal if they could demonstrate that $1 wasn't a plausible amount.

3) Potentially I suppose the courts could try to rule any acts by somebody under such a contempt order unenforceable in court. But at that point, with both elected branches in opposition, the courts are rather in a sticky spot, because they're the 'least dangerous' branch, they're not supposed to be able to prevail over the both of the other branches united against them.

[John F. Carr]

It should be sufficient to require $1 security.

The canon of constitutional avoidance means judges will try to interpret the law so as not to raise serious constitutional questions. For example, judges may decide people on salary can enforce contempt but no overtime pay is allowed. This is not the way courts would intepret a funding restriction that didn't step on anybody's toes. For example, the Rohrabacher–Farr amendment created a statutory right not to be prosecuted for offenses related to medical marijuana.

[not guilty]

I haven't researched the question, but contempt power is inherent in the judicial branch. For Congress to limit enforcement of judicial contempt orders would pose significant separation of powers problems.

It may also pose a problem with the petition clause of the First Amendment. The right of access to the agencies and courts to be heard is part of the right of petition protected by the First Amendment. California Motor Transp. Co. v. Trucking Unlimited, 404 U.S. 508, 513 (1972), see also, Bill Johnson's Restaurants, Inc. v. NLRB, 461 U.S. 731, 741 (1983).

In the specific context of habeas corpus, there could also be problems under the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment. In Smith v. Bennett, 365 U.S. 708 (1961), SCOTUS ruled that Iowa statutes that required an indigent prisoner of the State to pay a filing fee before his application for a writ of habeas corpus ($4) or the allowance of his appeal ($3) in such proceedings will be docketed in a state court denied him the equal protection of the laws in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. "We hold that to interpose any financial consideration between an indigent prisoner of the State and his exercise of a state right to sue for his liberty is to deny that prisoner the equal protection of the laws." Id., at 709.

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

Dear middle class Americans,

When Democrats were in power, they passed laws to make you report your $600 Venmo transactions and hired 87,000 IRS agents to hunt you down

When Republicans are in power, they passed laws so that you have No Tax on Tips and No Tax on Overtime

I hope you wake up and realize that the Democrat party hates you, and Republicans want you to succeed

---
Very powerful.

https://x.com/DC_Draino/status/1925550710558425338

[jb]

I mean yes, it is true that Democrats think you should actually try to pay for what the government does.

This post serves to remind me: how are the deficit hawks here feeling about that extra $3T that the Republicans are trying to add to the national debt (on top of the current trendline!)

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

Republican deficit hawks only exist on the campaign trail. Just like Republican Border Securers, and Republican Small Government types, and Republican Obamacare Replacers, and Republican Peaceniks, and Republican America Firsters.

And that's why we have MAGA now. There just isn't enough MAGA yet to overcome the entrenched greed and corruption and evilness that's infesting DC, the Deep State, and the rest of the Establishment.

[jb]

Oh, good point: how are the deficit hawks here feeling about that extra $3T that MAGA is trying to add to the national debt? (Since it's the tax cuts that you're so excited about without offsetting spending cuts that are the problem.)

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

Go find one and ask him.

TIA

[jb]

There's some folks on here like Brett that purport to be very concerned about the deficit, which is why I used the phrase "the deficit hawks here". I'm eagerly awaiting the response of someone who pretends to care about deficits but constantly votes Republican (or now MAGA) since the Republicans of all stripes have proved over and over again that they will do nothing but explode the deficit when they are in power.

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

Until Trump, every Republican sad they will do something over and over and then do nothing.

Federal Republicans are just Democrat enablers and protectors since they all share the same goals: make their family members as rich as possible while making everyone else poor, stupid, and unhealthy so they become docile and domesticated.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Trump added $8 trillion to the debt in his first term and will add another $8 trillion this term.

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

In your world, Bizarro World, does the President appropriate monies?

[JohnSmith97]

Well, some of the to the left posters in here do like to mention Clinton when writing about deficits... So I think they do believe that.

[Brett Bellmore]

Look, I've already said that this is THE classic failure mode of democracy: Once politicians can get away with borrowing money to buy votes, any politician who refuses to ends up in the private sector.

In his first term, Trump proposed a budget with cuts, not even very big cuts, and Congress returned a spending bill with increases, instead, passed with a bipartisan veto proof majority. And Trump gave up on cutting spending and moved on to topics where DC wasn't united against him.

I'd personally have preferred if he'd submitted a balanced budget every year, and let Congress annually override his vetos, just for clarity's sake, but I understand why he didn't want to spend all his political capital on a futile gesture.

The only way we're solving this problem is with a constitutional amendment to take the power to run deficits away from Congress. And Congress will not originate such an amendment, no matter how popular it is.

So we'll either have a constitutional convention, or the debt will keep mounting up until we default. There is no third option, because anybody who would actually do anything about balancing the budget would lose their next election.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Is that a yes or a no?

Yeah, we get it: "alpha victim" Donald Trump really wanted to reduce the debt, but a mean "bipartisan" Congress stopped him back in 2017, which means he now gets a free pass to blow it up as much as he wants!

[David Nieporent]

It should be noted that the no-tax-on-tips and no-tax-on-overtime would be retarded policy even if they were somehow made revenue neutral. There is no rational justification for excluding random portions of people's income from taxation.

If the waiter makes $10/hr — $5/hr wages and $5/hr tips — while the dishwasher makes $10/hr wages, why the fuck should the waiter pay lower taxes? (Or to make it even more stark: If the waiter makes $15/hr — $5/hr wages and $10/hr tips — while the dishwasher makes $10/hr wages, why the fuck should the waiter pay lower taxes?)

[Bob from Ohio]

"rational justification"

Votes, especially votes in Nevada.

[ThePublius]

You know, David, I actually agree with you on this. I don't condone special cut-outs for certain categories, in what is an obvious vote-getting ploy. Yes, why the waiter but not the line cook or the dishwasher? And why should the hourly worker be exempt from tax on overtime, while the salaried employee gets no break?

That said, I wish they would eliminate income tax on social security payments. I feel as if I've already paid my dues on that, having paid income tax and payroll tax on a lifetime of earnings. I now have to pay tax on my SS distributions, and my IRA distributions, which sucks. I provided for myself, I'm not a burden on society, so, yea, tax the shit out of me in my old age.

[Commenter_XY]

Help is on the way = tax/financial relief from SSA taxes.

Roth conversions can be your friend.

[jb]

Plus they incentivize weird things--do we really want more tipping or more overtime as a matter of policy? You can be certainly we'll get more of both if that's what the tax regime encourages.

[Mr. Bumble]

I suspect many people would be less generous with a tip if they knew it wasn't being taxed.
Also, why would an employer cut back on overtime hours? If the work needs to be done, it needs to be done. He isn't going to hire a new worker to do it.

[jb]

My point is that the number of workers who are primarily paid via tips will explode if suddenly that income is untaxed. Employers will prefer it--they can pay even more people the tipped minimum wage! Employees will prefer it--no taxes on any of their income! Customers will hate it.

In practice, I see no correlation between tipping behavior and how much income service employees expect to receive. For example, in places that significantly increased the minimum wage (including by in some cases removing the tipped minimum wage) for service workers, it doesn't seem like there's any expectation to tip less.

[Kazinski]

It can't explode, the legislation restricts it to occupations that currently get tips, restaurants, nails, etc.

[jb]

That's not true. It's restricted to occupations that "customarily" get tips, and there's no reason that can't change over time.

Also, there's a reasonable number of people in all of those jobs who aren't currently primarily paid based on tips. For example, tips are common but not the primary source of income for people in some retail jobs. Why wouldn't every company slash base pay and push you to tip retail staff in basically every context with this new law?

[David Nieporent]

That's not true. It's restricted to occupations that "customarily" get tips, and there's no reason that can't change over time.

No. They're stupid, and cowards, and stupid cowards, but they're not quite that stupid. It's restricted to occupations “which traditionally and customarily received tips on or before December 31, 2023."

[TwelveInchPianist]

Certainly true. Although worth noting that both candidates supported it.

[Frank Drackman]

and ironically, the Candidate who claimed to own a gun lost.

[David Nieporent]

Harris was a terrible candidate. It wasn't even a good attempt to pander.

[Mr. Bumble]

...and yet with a little more fortification she might have won and whoever was acting as President for Biden's four years would have had another four years.

[Mr. Bumble]

Of course she didn't help herself by picking Tim "Dancing Queen" Walz for VP.

[Frank Drackman]

Of course she could have picked the 1/2 way moderate PA Governor, funny, almost seems like there's something about him that they didn't like.

[Frank Drackman]

OK Mr. Pink, you convinced me, I want my $5 back!

[Kazinski]

That's actually inaccurate JB, the current trendline is what the deficit would be under current law, the cost of extending current tax law is 4 trillion.

So that's actually 1 Trillion in cuts from the current trendline, although I agree we need another trillion in cuts, plus a few trillion in deregulation savings.

Did you really think this would happen a > 3% tax increase on those making less that 250k, and cutting the standard deduction almost in half?

Bracket Rates Under TCJA Rates if TCJA Expires
1 10.0% 10.0%
2 12.0% 15.0%
3 22.0% 25.0%
4 24.0% 28.0%
5 32.0% 33.0%
6 35.0% 35.0%
7 37.0% 39.6%

[jb]

I view the current trajectory as "what happens if the law weren't changed?" but sure, it's also fair to compare to "what happens if this year's tax policy were to extend forever?"

Of course, the bill is loaded with more of the same kind of gimmicks with many of the new tax cuts phasing in four years to hide their real costs. Things would look a lot worse if you extended all of the cuts indefinitely.

Regardless of what baseline you want to use, the bill pushes the deficit up to 7% of GDP and will push the debt to 125% of GDP. And this in an environment where the economy is actually doing pretty well (for now).

[Commenter_XY]

I have to agree, this is pretty serious = Regardless of what baseline you want to use, the bill pushes the deficit up to 7% of GDP and will push the debt to 125% of GDP. And this in an environment where the economy is actually doing pretty well (for now).

[Gasman]

University administrators proving once again they lack the judgement to run a university, create comedic skit of keystone cop level of stupidity.
Citing overriding safety concerns, a graduate was chased across the stage and detained(though released) later for daring to have an infant in arm.
https://www.npr.org/2025/05/22/nx-s1-5407498/police-chase-father-student-baby-graduation-stage-university-buffalo

[Bob from Ohio]

The young lady murdered by one of Hobie's friends this week was American. From Kansas.

May her memory be a blessing.

[Sarcastr0]

When you take something gracious, and then use it to attack some rando poster on the Internet...that's not gracious, that's you being gross.

[LawTalkingGuy]

You have to remember he doesn’t actually care about the individual humanity of anyone who is the victim of violence.

[Bob from Ohio]

"you being gross"

Funny how hobie is not being "gross" in his multiple comments justifying her murder.

You are probably right nonetheless, it was ill considered on my part. But you and LTG are not people who have a a right to lecture me.

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

That's all that midwit does, Bob.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Actually, I do. I do in fact care more about victims of violence than you do.

[Frank Drackman]

and ironically, nobody cares

[hobie]

He say mean things about me, Sarcastr0. 🙁

[Kazinski]

You attack "random posters" on the internet all the time, but I can assure you they don't take it personally.

Besides, it wasn't a random attack, Bob specifically directed it at Hobie.

[hobie]

Oh, so Hobie is random now. Finally, people get me

[Kazinski]

I'm not sure I get you, but I do understand Cleveland better after watching this:

https://x.com/ColtersFootrace/status/1925291559899054235?t=2tVxwUWY7zYu4_6A4If8Ow&s=19

[hobie]

Speaking of tripa tacos earlier sent me to a westside taco house. Got two pupusas: lengua and ayote. The ayote squash was mixed with sauteed onions, crema and cotija and was delicious.

The bathroom sign said 'bathrooms for all genders' and had the male figure, the skirted female figure and then a third half-pants-half-skirt icon. See, even the savage Salvadorans have accepted Jesus' call for charity. So what then is so squeamish with the redneck women?

[Bwaaah]

A NY state campground I've been going to for many years recently replaced their bathroom signs to look like that. I think the previous signs were just a pictograph of a spraying shower head. (Everybody understood that bathrooms were for anybody to do their personal business.)

That was before Democrats decided public bathrooms were not just lavatories, but good locations to teach people about gender expression. Maybe they should hang dildos next to the doors in order to broaden people's feelings about toys?

If it was just a "Restroom" sign, Hobie, you wouldn't be talking about it. So I'm glad that you and I both could openly share our feelings about gender expression with our community, and leave behind what would otherwise be a who-cares? bathroom story.

Bravo.

[jb]

It turns out that there's some people who are just shocked and appalled at the very idea of a bathroom that people of different genders might be able to use:

https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/11/gender-neutral-bathrooms-pointless-wasteful-sexist/

The author starts with an anecdote about what was pretty clearly a lockable, single room bathroom. The type that (as you point out) has commonly been used without gender association for as long as any of us can remember. And then uses this to talk about how terrible the idea of gender neutral bathrooms are. Maybe you think the iconography on the door is offensive, but equally there's a whole bunch of people trying to create a controversy that we largely managed to avoid until they decided we needed to make it as hard as possible for certain people to pee (I guess since there's only a few million of them if we go by the logic of her first point).

[hobie]

They had both a ladies and gents bathrooms. I guess the gays pick which one they want, and us Libs and the woke-ass Salvadorans couldn't give a shit. Only when a hillbilly shows up does it become apocalyptic. I see why them rubes have to have a guns all the time. Them bitches are scared of everything

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

My pastor said that if you want to see if your son is gay play “Pink Pony Club” and if he starts dancing he’s gay. The cure is playing strictly Morgan Wallen songs until he’s 18. I’m worried because I like “Pink Pony Club”.

[Stella Link's Ghost]

That's about a minute of my time I'll never get back.

[hobie]

Is that what's been going on? Gender classes being conducted in restrooms? Who pray tell has been doing this?

[Frank Drackman]

President James Garfield was shot July 2, 1881, died Sept 19, 1881, his killer was executed June 30, 1882. President McKinley was shot Sept 6, 1901, died Sept 14, 1901, his killer was executed October 29, 1901, Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak shot Feb 15, 1933 (shooter was aiming for FDR) died March 6, 1933, his killer was executed March 20, 1933.
So why is Luigi Mangione still walking the Earth?

Frank

[Mr. Bumble]

...with a million dollar Go Fund Me account for his defense.

[Frank Drackman]

I'm still betting he'll get a Shiv (is that how you say it? a "Shiv"?) in the back before he gets to trial.

[Mr. Bumble]

...or maybe the front. Kidneys or liver insure a fast bleed out.

[Frank Drackman]

Kidneys are in the back

[Mr. Bumble]

Yes, I was referring to your post "in the back" (kidneys). and front liver (should have put that first).
Nothing to get in the way and like I said, quick bleed out.

[hobie]

"So why is Luigi Mangione still walking the Earth?"

Probably because he has private insurance

[Mr. Bumble]

Insurance against being shived while in jail?

[Kazinski]

I thought UHI was private insurance, although government is a big customer.

[ThePublius]

So, can we start a GIve-Send-Go fund to put a hit on Mangione?

[M L]

If an AI tries to blackmail someone, should the creator of the AI be treated as doing the blackmailing?

https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/22/anthropics-new-ai-model-turns-to-blackmail-when-engineers-try-to-take-it-offline/

[Kazinski]

It almost sounds as if the AI was engineered to use blackmail intentionally.

But it could be that it came up with the idea through material it was trained on, then the company wanted to test how frequently and I what circumstances it would resort to blackmail.

If the IRS implements AI to recover back taxes some guardrails may be a good idea.

[Brett Bellmore]

That's exactly what they were doing: The AI was in a sandbox, deliberately supplied with potential 'blackmail material', they wanted to see if it would use it if threatened with replacement.

And, yes, it would, most of the time. Apparently the AI has a sense of self preservation, or something analogous, that can override it's imposed ethical boundaries.

[Estragon]

I owe C_XY an apology.

I have been prominent in deriding his repeated assertions that the actions of the Big Law Capitulators— Paul Weiss in particular, but there were others— were a savvy and ultimately beneficial move for the spineless firms.

However, today’s opinion in the Jenner Block lawsuit gives a different context. It turns out that those cowardly and shameful actions— derided by most but extravagantly praised by C_XY— have provided pivotal real-world examples that are underpinning some of the decisions in the cases where law firms are doing what they are paid to do— fight! Here’s a taste:

“The serial executive orders targeting law firms have produced something of an organic experiment, control group and all, for how firms react to the orders and how they might escape them. Over the course of that experiment, several firms of (presumably) ordinary firmness have folded rather than face similar executive orders. Indeed, it appears to take extraordinary firmness to resist. And the experiment has shown what folding entails: compromising speech. See, e.g., Second Paul Weiss E.O. § 1 (Paul Weiss agreeing to "adopt[] a policy of political neutrality," accept pro bono matters "representing the full political spectrum," and dedicate $40 million in pro bono
services to causes of which the President approves).”

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.278932/gov.uscourts.dcd.278932.138.0_6.pdf

THANK YOU PAUL WEISS!

You think they hung Brad Karp’s picture in the boardroom yet, as you confidently predicted?? LOLOLOLOL

[not guilty]

Thank you for the link, Estragon.

Are the firms like Paul Weiss who capitulated going to put signs on their doors reading "Please hire us. When the going gets tough, we fold like a deck chair."?

[Estragon]

“Four top partners at Paul Weiss announced late Friday that they were leaving the law firm, a major blow to the firm in the wake of its decision to cut a deal with President Trump to head off an executive order that would have restricted its business.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/23/business/karen-dunn-paul-weiss-partners

[Commenter_XY]

Four top partners leaving? That is just a good start.

They'll take their clients with them. That result is not displeasing.

Karp is still running the firm. 😉

(ps: You're welcome, LOL)

[David Nieporent]

Um, you've completely lost the plot here. You claimed it was smart for Paul Weiss to cave. This shows exactly the opposite, making your original take look really really dumb.

[Frank Drackman]

Breaking News....
Congressman Van Holland having Margaritas at the DC Jail with Elias Rodriguez, surprised Judge Bozo hasn't ordered him released on his own recognizance yet...

[Estragon]

You should take the weekend off, Frank— this one feels very mailed in.

[Frank Drackman]

Your wife seemed to enjoy it

[Estragon]

The self-proclaimed modern Faulkner speaks! This is a pretty low energy Jeb response though. You should go to bed gramps, it’s almost 9

[Frank Drackman]

I’m more in the Hemingway/Hunter Thompson genre but I can get into some (the) Sound & Fury, “Gramps”? Ok I’ll be 63 July 4th, a day younger than Tom Cruise, and I do go to bed early, I get up at 5, Screwing your wife tires a guy out(I was gonna give you my “Jerk Store” retort but you made me go Nuke-ular, seriously if you used your fingers on your wife as much as you do your phone……

Frank

[Dr. Ed 2]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6MgCiosaPA

Secret watch lists.
Paging Richard Nixon, Paging Richard Nixon....

[John F. Carr]

Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink resigned in protest over Trump's foreign policy and is considering a run for Congress as a Democrat in Michigan's 7th district. I don't know anything about her domestic political views. She might be running just to oppose Trump. She spent her career on assignments related to eastern Europe and the Black Sea region.

[Mr. Bumble]

Appointed by Biden in 2022, so not a Republican.
"Brink announced her intention to step down as ambassador on April 10, 2025, effective on April 21.[17] She reportedly chose to resign due to disagreements with the Trump administration, pressure from President Zelenskyy, and the toll of working in a war zone away from her family for nearly three years. Brink's resignation was seen as another upheaval amidst the State Department's reorientation away from Ukraine and towards Russia.[18][19]"
Wiki

[John F. Carr]

She's a career official, not a political appointee. With her background in security rather than appeasement it's possible she's not as liberal as the average career State Department employee.

[ThePublius]

This is a powerful message.

An Arab man from Saudi Arabia in a message to Palestinians:

"Who are you trying to fool? You have no land and no case. This land belongs to Israel for the people of Israel. You Palestinians are evil in any country you set foot on!"

https://x.com/VividProwess/status/1926008561718493315

No one wants these Palestinians. No Arab country is willing to take them in. They have no historical claim to the land of Israel. Things will never be settled there until they are wiped out. It's sad to say, but if it's labeled genocide by the world, so be it. It's survival for Israelis. If we wiped out all Nazis would that be called genocide? If the Palestinians are relocated to some other country, like South Sudan, do you think their murderous intentions and actions would cease? They would surely arm, organize, and perpetrate terrorism aimed at Israel and Jews forever.

[Estragon]

“until they are wiped out”

The willingness of some around here to put their name (even pseudonym) to murderous genocidal rhetoric never ceases to amaze. I’ll also note that you do a lot of tone policing! In any event, I look forward to reminding you about this little bon mot

[Shamie Ervin iv]

Free Speech lawyers, Larry Forman and Tony DeWitt, are carrying torches in YT against the persecution of obviously innocent Karen Read who is accused of murdering her boyfriend, John O'Keefe, a Canton, MA cop. You lawyer types ought to quit running your mouths and go take a look at that detestable parade of injustice in the courts of Massachusetts.

[Magister]

"Obviously innocent" seems to belie a hung jury in the first trial, and requires a fairly broad conspiracy to frame her. Her defense seems to depend on a badly handled police investigation more than actual innocence.

[ThePublius]

In Karen Read's first trial, jurors were deadlocked on the charge of manslaughter while operating under the influence. They reached a unanimous verdict of not guilty on the charges of second-degree murder and leaving the scene. The jury was split on the manslaughter charge, with some jurors believing Read was guilty and others not.

Based on what I've seen and heard and read since this began I think she has been framed by the Canton PD officers and others. So much of this case just doesn't make sense.

[David Nieporent]

They reached a unanimous verdict of not guilty on the charges of second-degree murder and leaving the scene.

I haven't been following this case closely, but unless I'm confusing this with another case discussed here, they did not. They reached no verdict on that.

[ThePublius]

Yes, they did, but the knuckle-headed corrupt judge didn't give them a verdict form that allowed them to indicate their determination on the individual charges.

[Magister]

The Supreme Court denied Read's double jeopardy appeal; that's a really big conspiracy if they're in on it too. Jurors would have to have been pretty stupid not to figure out how to tell the judge where they stood without explicit instructions.

[David Nieporent]

Again, unless I'm mixing this up with a different case, a couple of jurors claimed, after the fact, that they had reached a verdict. That is not the same as the jury actually having reached a verdict.

[Magister]

Apparently the jury didn't reach any verdict, but certainly their deliberation did not support "obviously innocent". The police investigation seems compromised but the conspiracy also seems rather too large to be credible. And the amount of witness intimidation seems more than an obviously innocent person would need.

[ThePublius]

See above.

[ThePublius]

"The EFF President and Commander in Chief
@Julius_S_Malema
ending his address with a revolutionary song at Ward 16, Koppies in Free State.

Shoot to kill, Nyamazana!

Kill the Boer, the farmer!"

https://x.com/EFFSouthAfrica/status/1926602917022228890

Tell me again why we shouldn't take these people at their word?

[David Nieporent]

Setting everything else aside, the EFF is not the government.

[ThePublius]

Yes, I know that. Your point?