Friday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[not guilty]

Three U.S. District Court judges have now issued permanent injunctions prohibiting enforcement of President Trump's Execrable Orders retaliating against law firms that have displeased him. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/27/us/politics/trump-law-firms-wilmerhale.html So far, the Defendants have not appealed these injunctions.

The deadline for filing a notice of appeal in the Perkins Coie LLP matter is Monday. Although it would surprise me, I wonder whether in this regard Trump is folding his tent.

[Krayt]

Man, I hate it when politicians use the power of government to get political enemies, too.

[Supremacy Claus]

Do you object to the Democrats doing that, but all the time, even against other Democrats?

[thenotoriousrbg]

remind me, when's the last time a Democratic President issued an Executive Order to go after his political enemy?

[Frank Drackman]

Not sure when the order was issued but it was attempted July 13, 2024 in Butler PA

[John F. Carr]

If you're referring to case 1:25-cv-00716 with Judge Howell, the permanent injunction was entered May 2 and the government has 60 days to appeal.

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69725919/perkins-coie-llp-v-us-department-of-justice/?page=2

[not guilty]

I stand corrected. The ordinary rule in federal civil cases is 30 days, which here would run until Monday. Fed.R.App.P. 4(a). Where any of the parties is a federal agency or officer or employee sued in an official capacity, however, the deadline is 60 days per Rule 4(b). I had forgotten about the latter provision.

I see that the only post-judgment motions that have been filed are motions for clarification regarding the scope of the respective injunctions, primarily to confirm that review by the Chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission of the practices of representative large, influential, or industry leading law firms for consistency with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 applies only to the respective Plaintiffs' particular claims and does not impact the actions of the EEOC or Department of Justice regarding law firms not a party to this action.

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.278290/gov.uscourts.dcd.278290.186.0_2.pdf

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.278932/gov.uscourts.dcd.278932.141.0_1.pdf

In other litigation the government has been aggressive about seeking stays of injunctive relief pending appeal. I wonder why they are being more cautious here. (Could it be that the principals of the Plaintiff law firms are mostly white?)

[John F. Carr]

Explanation 1: The government's case here is weaker than in some other cases.
Explanation 2: Trump doesn't care as much.

[not guilty]

"Explanation 1: The government's case here is weaker than in some other cases."

That may well be, but I wonder. How would anyone in the Trump administration recognize that?

"Explanation 2: Trump doesn't care as much."

That was part of my point when I observed that the principals of the Plaintiff law firms are mostly white.

[Brett Bellmore]

I think in this case they believe they actually did screw up, rather than just skipping some 'formalities'.

[Bwaaah]

NG: "Execrable orders"..."30 days"..."Plaintiff law firms are mostly white."

I'm beginning to think that your greatest talent is the formatting of legal citations. Otherwise, you offer little that can't be found in the vicinity of the gutter.

[Riva]

Not unexpected given the state of the federal judiciary. A non political ruling would actually be surprising.

[SRG2]

Ah, I get it. Non-political ruling - going along with what Dear Leader wishes, regardless of the law; political ruling - going along with the law but it's not what Dear Leader wants

[Riva]

Just going along with the Constitution and federal law would be a nice change of pace. I'll settle for that.

[not guilty]

Riva, have you read the District Court's memorandum opinions supporting the permanent injunctions in any of the three cases? Yes or no?

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.278290/gov.uscourts.dcd.278290.185.0_2.pdf

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.278932/gov.uscourts.dcd.278932.138.0_6.pdf

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.278933/gov.uscourts.dcd.278933.110.0_4.pdf

One was written by an appointee of President Obama; two were by senior district judges appointed by George W. Bush. All reached similar results, and while Judge Bates reached fewer issues than the other two, all employed similar reasoning.

If you have read the opinions, what if anything do you perceive to be political about them?

[Riva]

Gee and I thought the court was above politics. Funny how the party affliation of the nominating president always somehow seems consequential when defending a preferred outcome. Incidentally, many district nominees are compromise appointments resulting from the blue slip process. The judges' politics are more aligned with the politics of the senators for the state, not the president. And these politics are on display almost daily with these judicial disgraces.

[David Nieporent]

Not only is this complete bullshit that MAGA people who know nothing about the judiciary have come up with as a desperate, feeble attempt to explain why GOP-appointed judges keep ruling against Trump, but it's particularly stupid here since this is the D.C. Circuit, where there are no "blue slips" because there are no senators.

[not guilty]

Riva, I asked what do you perceive to be political about these three opinions.

As David pointed out, the blue slip process has absolutely nothing to do with nominations to the district court in D.C.

Go ahead and own up to not having read the opinions.

[not guilty]

Still waiting, Riva. Have you read the District Court's memorandum opinions supporting the permanent injunctions in any of the three cases? Yes or no?

[Riva]

When a toddler throws a tantrum, best to just ignore the child.

[David Nieporent]

Bot not programmed to respond to questions.

[bye]

Which YOU yourself are not doing 🙂

[bye]

Does it make sense to phrase it that way? Who would make an EO against firms that are pleasing ?
Your writing style, you must be a teenage lawyer

[not guilty]

No, I am a former lawyer in my late sixties.

[not guilty]

"Does it make sense to phrase it that way? Who would make an EO against firms that are pleasing ?"

"To the victor belong only those spoils that may be constitutionally obtained." Rutan v. Republican Party, 497 U.S. 62 (1990). A government official "may not do is use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression." Nat'l Rifle Ass'n of Am. v. Vullo, 602 U.S. 175, ___, 144 S.Ct. 1316, 1326 (2024), citing Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of Univ. of Va., 515 U.S. 819, 830 (1995) (explaining that governmental actions seeking to suppress a speaker's particular views are presumptively unconstitutional). Retaliation by government officials for First Amendment protected speech or expression can itself be a First Amendment violation. See Board of County Comm'r Wabaunsee County v. Umbehr, 518 U.S. 668 (1996):

Recognizing that "constitutional violations may arise from the deterrent, or `chilling,' effect of governmental [efforts] that fall short of a direct prohibition against the exercise of First Amendment rights," Laird v. Tatum, 408 U. S. 1, 11 (1972), our modern "unconstitutional conditions" doctrine holds that the government "may not deny a benefit to a person on a basis that infringes his constitutionally protected . . . freedom of speech" even if he has no entitlement to that benefit, Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U. S. 593, 597 (1972).

Id., at 674.

[Martinned]

You would think that that's true for judges too...

https://reason.com/volokh/2025/05/30/chief-judge-steven-colloton-opines-that-boycotts-of-columbia-might-pose-ethical-problems/

[not guilty]

The post you link to is interesting.

I haven't researched it, but I suspect that a judge's law clerk may be among the type of policymaking, confidential employees who may be hired solely on the basis of their political ideology or affiliations per Branti v. Finkel, 445 U.S. 507 (1980).

[Martinned]

That makes sense, but like I wrote in the comments there it seems odd to me to have a judge acting in his official capacity (which must include hiring and firing people who are paid with tax money) invoking the first amendment.

[Dr. Ed 2]

When future generations ask why we abolished our court system, sending everyone involved out to die in the Gulags of Death Valley, Perkins Coie will be Exhibit A.

They want Congressional Action, well how about one which states that if anyone ever employed by Perkins Coie is ever found in the United States again, he/she/it shall be executed without benefit of clergy. Oh, and anything they own shall be used to retire the national debt.

That's how the British were removed from Massachusetts 249 years ago, and it's what is needed now.

[Krayt]

There's an "interesting facts" guy who does YouTube shorts. One was Plato's name wasn't Plato. People started calling him that because he was a great athlete with broad shoulders, like a plateau.

The only problem is Wikipedia mentions none of this (not that it is complete or inerrant.) It does mention a theory Plato wasn't his real name, but nothing about why.

[Martinned]

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy mentions this too, and lists several possible reasons for the nickname: https://iep.utm.edu/plato/#:~:text=Plato%27s%20actual%20given%20name%20was,all%20given%20in%20D.L.%203.4).

[santamonica811]

I took some Greek in Jr. High and high school, and we were taught that it was an endearing nickname that, in context, meant "fatty" or 'fatso.' My teachers said [a] that the story was admittedly very much apocryphal and [b] to the extent it was indeed true, the nickname was supposedly meant affectionately, and not insultingly. My teachers said that this period was one of the times when having a large girth was one of the periods in history when being, um, large was a sign of wealth, and was therefore seen as attractive. (Students obviously pointed out the many surviving statues that showed the toned athletic physique that persists to this day as the ideal, which seem to contradict this story, but the teachers always kinda hand-waved this away. Such was my life in LA public schools in the 70s.)

[Martinned]

I don't think those statues were necessarily meant to be a likeness the way we understand the concept, at least not beyond the face.

And yes, these nicknames were quite common, particularly also among the Roman elites where so many people had very similar names. That's how you end up with Ovidius Publius 'the Nose' Naso, and Marcus Tullius 'the Pea' Cicero.

[SRG2]

And most famously, Caligula - "booties", after the little boots he wore as a boy as part of his little military outfit.

[bye]

a statue idealizes a person, whatever being large was in society, it was not that in Philosophy.

[Dr. Ed 2]

They were homosexuals, and the statues were of boytoys they wanted to sodomize, not themselves.

We do the same thing with anorexic models.

[Frank Drackman]

“Galileo” was his first name, his last name was Galilei, so why are we on first name basis with this genius? We don’t talk about “Albert’s” Theory of Relativity

[bye]

Because it actually is the last name . I take it that galilei is a genitvie (Latin , possibly Italian) so an analogy

Georgie the Georgian where Georgie originated from 'being from Georgia"

[Frank Drackman]

Wow, even if that’s not right, it should be, well played!

[Martinned]

Because every Republican president makes his predecessors look better, here's a speech by George W. Bush from 2017.

Since World War II, America has encouraged and benefited from the global advance of free markets, from the strength of democratic alliances, and from the advance of free societies. At one level, this has been a raw calculation of interest. The 20th century featured some of the worst horrors of history because dictators committed them. Free nations are less likely to threaten and fight each other.
And free trade helped make America into a global economic power.

For more than 70 years, the presidents of both parties believed that American security and prosperity were directly tied to the success of freedom in the world. And they knew that the success depended, in large part, on U.S. leadership. This mission came naturally, because it expressed the DNA of American idealism.
(...)
That appeal is proved not just by the content of people’s hopes, but a noteworthy hypocrisy: No democracy pretends to be a tyranny. Most tyrannies pretend they are democracies. Democracy remains the definition of political legitimacy. That has not changed, and that will not change.
(...)
These matters would be difficult under any circumstances. They are further complicated by a trend in western countries away from global engagement and democratic confidence. Parts of Europe have developed an identity crisis. We have seen insolvency, economic stagnation, youth unemployment, anger about immigration, resurgent ethno-nationalism, and deep questions about the meaning and durability of the European Union.

America is not immune from these trends. In recent decades, public confidence in our institutions has declined. Our governing class has often been paralyzed in the face of obvious and pressing needs. The American dream of upward mobility seems out of reach for some who feel left behind in a changing economy. Discontent deepened and sharpened partisan conflicts. Bigotry seems emboldened. Our politics seems more vulnerable to conspiracy theories and outright fabrication.
(...)
We have seen our discourse degraded by casual cruelty. At times, it can seem like the forces pulling us apart are stronger than the forces binding us together. Argument turns too easily into animosity. Disagreement escalates into dehumanization. Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples while judging ourselves by our best intentions – forgetting the image of God we should see in each other.

We’ve seen nationalism distorted into nativism – forgotten the dynamism that immigration has always brought to America. We see a fading confidence in the value of free markets and international trade – forgetting that conflict, instability, and poverty follow in the wake of protectionism.

We have seen the return of isolationist sentiments – forgetting that American security is directly threatened by the chaos and despair of distant places, where threats such as terrorism, infectious disease, criminal gangs and drug trafficking tend to emerge.
(...)
Our identity as a nation – unlike many other nations – is not determined by geography or ethnicity, by soil or blood. Being an American involves the embrace of high ideals and civic responsibility. We become the heirs of Thomas Jefferson by accepting the ideal of human dignity found in the Declaration of Independence. We become the heirs of James Madison by understanding the genius and values of the U.S. Constitution. We become the heirs of Martin Luther King, Jr., by recognizing one another not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

This means that people of every race, religion, and ethnicity can be fully and equally American. It means that bigotry or white supremacy in any form is blasphemy against the American creed.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/19/full-text-george-w-bush-speech-trump-243947

[Brett Bellmore]

What makes his predecessors look better, in the eyes of the left, is that they're no longer President.

[Michael P]

Except for Ike, they've all been considered Hitler until the next one came along.

Leftists still think this says something about Republicans.

[not guilty]

When was Gerald Ford compared to Hitler? When was George H. W. Bush?

[not guilty]

What about it, Michael P?

When was Gerald Ford compared to Hitler? When was George H. W. Bush?

[Bwaaah]

How foolish are you to engage this argument, regardless of anything. Anyway, per this article:

Aryeh Neier, executive director of the American civil, Liberties Union.

“If [President] Ford's principle had been the rule in Nuremberg,” he said, “the Nazi leaders would have been let off and only the people, who carried out their schemes would have been tried.”

I won't try to prove that such a thing was ever said about George H.W. Bush. Let's go with your implied [dumbass] argument that nobody every likened him to Adolf Hitler.

[Drewski]

That isn't calling him a Nazi. Are you stupid?

[Kenneth Almquist]

Aryeh Neier didn’t compare Ford to Hitler. Maybe you don’t know what “compared” means?

[not guilty]

Bwaaah, Adolph Hitler was pretty famously absent from Nurenberg.

[Bwaaah]

When I wrote my comment, I understood well how it misses your mark.

"NG said 'Hitler.' But Bwaaah said 'easy on Nazis.' nyaaahhh!"

Do you not see how stupid this discussion is? Democrat insight into which Presidents are and aren't Hitlery, or fascisty, or racisty, or [fill-in-a-truly-useless-analogy] is a meaningful thing?

"But seriously...you can't name a Democrat who likened Gerald Ford to Hitler. nyaaahhh!"

I spent some time looking for evidence to contradict that. Indeed I did *not* find a single documented case, on the internet, of somebody having compared Gerald Ford to Adolph Hitler.

What is your point, NG? Democrats *do* know who is Hitlery and who isn't? Trump *is* like Hitler? That's a useful, insightful point?

We're in the weeds here.

[Malika]

"When I wrote my response I knew it was weak sauce. And then you identified it as such. This shows how stupid it is!"

[not guilty]

My point is that Michael P, who said upthread that every Republican president except for Eisenhower has "been considered Hitler until the next one came along", cares very little for truth or falsity.

[Michael P]

That's rich from the guy who spent countless electrons insisting that Fani Willis ran a clean office and had a strong case against Trump, among other famously bad takes.

[Mr. Bumble]

...and how is Miss Fanny? Have not seen anything about her lately.

[Michael P]

Not much news since she was ordered to pay lawyers opposing her: https://apnews.com/article/fani-willis-georgia-open-records-act-violation-8b79847469f33d36f9c37f86940a238d

She had a deadline of May 10 to testify before a state legislative committee investigating whether she abused her office, but I haven't seen whether she testified. The committee threatened to seek a court order if she didn't testify by then.

[Michael P]

https://marcuse.faculty.history.ucsb.edu/classes/33d/projects/media/AnalogiesUSPresHitlerMegan.htm cites a web page saying GHW Bush was a Nazi (the URL is currently broken but you can find the original content in the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine). Bob Dole also called Bush Nazi in 1980, although I think that's better evidence that such claims were made than a direct example of what I was taking about. There also a long history of people claiming that the Bush family was strongly linked to Nazis (via Thyssen) in WW2, including when GHW was an adult.

Ford was called a "fascist pig" -- but if your strongest example is the one president in that era who was never elected to the office, you are really straining.

[Martinned]

Leftists still think this says something about Republicans.

It does. For example, it says that Republicans don't mind a bit of torture here and there, as long as the victim isn't a white person. (Cf. Bush jr.)

[Frank Drackman]

“W” won Florida by 538 votes, “45/47” won by over a million, same story in Ohio, “W” and Chaney should be happy they never got prosecuted (and I voted for the bastards 4 I mean 2 times, what was the alternative? A goy diddling his maids and Lurch Kerry?)

Frank

[Martinned]

What makes them look better is that they say things like what I quoted.

[Brett Bellmore]

I will predict this right now: In 2028, the Republican nominee will not be Trump. Whoever the nominee is, instead, will be unfavorably compared to Trump by the Democratic party.

[Glaucomatose]

If it’s Stephen Miller, quite possibly.

[Sarcastr0]

Brett, lacking any ability to see anything through another perspective than his own, stumbles into saying the GOP has no bottom to it's shittiness.

[Krayt]

Maybe not. Politicians see colleagues who cannot run again as impotent politically, safe to ignore and get on with your own goals. The vultures waiting in the wings think, "My turn!"

But he may have the cachet to issue significant marching orders on who is next.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Whoever the nominee is, instead, will be unfavorably compared to Trump"

Too early. You have to have more space, preferably after a dem president intervenes.

[not guilty]

"I will predict this right now: In 2028, the Republican nominee will not be Trump. Whoever the nominee is, instead, will be unfavorably compared to Trump by the Democratic party."

I doubt that. It took the Republicans more that forty years to nominate a sleazier crook than Prick Nixon after he left office.

[Brett Bellmore]

I've been watching politics for longer than forty years, and the rule that each nominee is compared unfavorably to the previous Republican President has, in my experience, been invariable. I don't expect Trump to break that run, though it's possible he may strain it a bit.

[David Nieporent]

When was GHWB compared unfavorably (by Democrats, I mean) to Reagan?

[Frank Drackman]

Only constantly, remember Ann "Ma" Richards (I thought she was using a fake Texas accent but turned out it was her real voice)
"Pooooor Georg-ie, He cain't hep it! He was bawn with a Silver foot in his My-outh!"
6 years later "W" kicked her ass right out of the Governor's Orifice

[Brett Bellmore]

It's kind of a hard thing to document, as the internet isn't really very good for reaching back that far, but I do recall it happening.

Rising partisan antipathy; widening party gap in presidential job approval

For Eisenhower-Nixon, while the opposing party would rate a President lower than his own party, the ratings at least went up and down in synch. With Ford, the data is short, but you saw Ford's popularity rising among Republicans while it was falling among Democrats.

Ford and Carter had an unusually low partisan gap, after that it widened, and by the time Trump showed up, a President could only expect single digit support from the opposing party. I honestly think these approval ratings are so dictated by party at this point that they're just people identifying their party.

[not guilty]

Brett, you are a liar and the truth ain't in you.

Democrats never compared Gerald Ford unfavorably to Richard Nixon. Nor did we compare either George H. W. Bush or Robert Dole unfavorably to Ronald Reagan. Nor did we compare John McCain or Mitt Romney unfavorably to George W. Doofus.

[Bwaaah]

Not Guilty: Democrats never compared Gerald Ford unfavorably to Richard Nixon. Nor did we compare either George H. W. Bush or Robert Dole unfavorably to Ronald Reagan. Nor did we compare John McCain or Mitt Romney unfavorably to George W. Doofus.

In what universe do you consider that to be creditable remark?

"No Democrat ever said [blah][blah][blah]."

[not guilty]

Bwaaah, how old are you? Old enough to remember the low esteem in which Democrats then held Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan?

Can you say lower than a snake's belly?

[Joe_dallas]

ot guilty 4 hours ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
"Brett, you are a liar and the truth ain't in you.
Democrats never compared Gerald Ford unfavorably to Richard Nixon."

Wow - That is a seriously prick comment - Democrats have been accusing the republican nominee to being the next hitler since the late 1940's or some similar variation of that theme. Brett overlooks the one time the dem's didnt make that direct accusation, and you accuse him of lying!

[Malika]

If you say a rule is invariable in a limited time frame then a counterexample in it proves the claim was wrong (not lying though, I'd say).

[Drewski]

Yes, but you imagine patterns that aren't there pretty frequently and attribute them to nebulous conspiracies. You need hard numbers with a source or it's just Brett doing Brett stuff in his head again.

[Frank Drackman]

The bigotry and racism today is at Harvard, Cal, Columbia, I’d like to see 45/47 deploy the National Guard like JFK did and send every Ham-Ass supporter to Gaza, but that’s just me

[not guilty]

When did JFK deploy the National Guard and send every Ham-Ass supporter to Gaza, Frank?

[Frank Drackman]

Stupid much?

[not guilty]

Frank, you are the one who wrote "I’d like to see 45/47 deploy the National Guard like JFK did and send every Ham-Ass supporter to Gaza[.]" (Emphasis added.)

Who's stupid? JFK did not in fact deploy the National Guard and send every Ham-Ass supporter to Gaza.

[Bwaaah]

That you would dare to seriously stand up to Frank Drackman suggests you have no idea how small you really are. (And you read Frank's remark wrong.)

[not guilty]

I'm not the one who composed Frank's bizarre syntax.

[Frank Drackman]

You’re (yay! I got the “your/you’re” right) just embarrassing yo-suff(HT J Sessions) I meant 1: Deploy the National Guard like JFK did and 2: kick todays KKK asses back to where they came from, see when JFK was POTUS, nobody thought it was a great thing to have A-rab Terrorists in Amurican Colleges, (or that the right to Abortion was in the Constitution)

[Malika]

Fakeman wants you to focus on what his made up character meant, not what he wrote him as saying!

[Malika]

Bwaah's next step, shipping the Fakeman character and Chewbacca.

[John F. Carr]

I see another downward trend in Democrats: Carter is better than Clinton is better than Obama is better than Biden.

[Martinned]

Carter's foreign policy was a car crash. Choosing between Clinton and Obama is a question of how much weight you put on various domestic and foreign policy areas. (Clinton wins on foreign policy, Obama probably wins on domestics, depending on how much you care about things like Clinton's budget surplus and Obama's healthcare reform.)

[Frank Drackman]

Hate to say this but Clinton wasn't bad

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, he was bad in a moral sense, but he wasn't awful at the job.

[Joe_dallas]

the one that was really bad was Obama

cuddling up to / propping up/funding the Iranian regime along with the faux nuclear agreement

introduction of the woke military concepts into the military ranks

reversal of the long and positive improvments in race relations in the US.

an ineffective health care bill that has increased both the per capita health care costs greater than the rate of inflation and increased health care costs as percent of GDP since the enactment.

[Sarcastr0]

This more shows about when you started watching FOX News.

[Joe_dallas]

I dont watch Fox

I do get my news from credible sources unlike those who get their news from msm echo chamber that you live

[Sarcastr0]

The point is the time of your specific buy in to the right wing fever swamps.

It’s not actually about Obama, since it’s all bullshit. But it tells us a bit about your backstory.

[JohnSmith97]

Aww, did someone say something bad about your hero? Maybe take the opportunity to actually do some work, rather then posting all day long.

[Riva]

What is this obsession with Fox news, little communist girl that never smiled? Many Trump supporters greatly dislike Fox News. I certainly do. You need to move on.

[Frank Drackman]

I wouldn’t kick Martha McCallum out of my bed, just sayin

[Malika]

We don't go to strip clubs, we watch porn!

[David Nieporent]

reversal of the long and positive improvments in race relations in the US.

Yes; Obama was terrible for race relations, what with him being all uppity. And black. And uppity.

[bye]

Which gives every morally bad teenager the excuse "hey, I do my job, bug off"

[bye]

I was raising a teenage daughter when he was diddling around (Lewinsky) and we even lived in DC. Almost impossible to make a moral point then , when the President was her counter-example Can't go into it, but some on here will know exactly the huge bad example he was.

[Bwaaah]

Implied is the dubious proposition that a politician should serve as a role model. I consider that to be beyond the scope of the job.

I'm not looking for a good guy. I'm looking for a guy who gets good things done.

[Mr. Bumble]

Well, the two are not mutually exclusive.
Reagan was a good guy who also got things done.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Clinton was neutered by the 94 Election, which gave Congress to the GOP in a landslide.

[Riva]

Was that what Biden was doing? Promoting freedom and prosperity? Well, to be fair, he probably was trying to promote his own prosperity. The rest of it looked rather like setting the stage for WWIII. Oh what fun and prosperity that would have produced.

[bye]

Riva, that sounds cogent but isn't at all. The Military LOATHED the man

CNN
https://www.cnn.com › 2014/12/22 › politics › obama-...
Dec 22, 2014 — Story highlights. Only 15% of active-duty troops approve of Obama's job as commander-in-chief, according to a Military Times survey.

[Josh R]

I know Trump believes that either tariffs are a great idea or provide negotiating leverage for trade deals, but perhaps he is wrong about that. So, if the courts prevent him from going forward it will save the GOP in the midterms from the fallout of the economic calamity that was prevented.

[Commenter_XY]

Josh R....The ruling from the Fed Trade Ct was the equivalent of a judicial speed bump. The tariffs are happening, one way or the other. There are many roads to Dublin.

What economic calamity? Name it. When you do, tell us why the calamity you posit did not happen 2018-19. You were wrong then, why are you right now?

[Martinned]

There are many roads to Dublin.

Are there? I mean, there's the M50, but what else? East of Dublin is the sea, south of Dublin is the Wicklow mountains, and there isn't much going on west and north either. One road along the coast to the North, one road west to Galway, and a few small roads, that's about it.

[ThePublius]

There Are Many Roads to Dublin
Tomás Ó Cárthaigh

There are many roads to Dublin, but some will tell you no
They will tell you the one true road, if to Dublin you want to go
They will insist to you this road is the one to take, the road they show
Because they knew a man who went to Dublin a long long time ago!

...and so on....

https://writingsinrhyme.com/index.php/there-are-many-roads-to-dublin/

[Krayt]

There are many roads to Dublin

Oh thank god. I'd hate to have to duble back.

[Josh R]

The economic calamity could be inflation or a recession. At the least it is likely to do long-term damage.

It did not happen in 2018-19 because those tariffs were small and limited in scope.

[Commenter_XY]

IOW, there was (and remains) no calamity.

[bernard11]

Just a question, XY.

Why the hell are you so enamored of tariffs? Surely you understand by now that they are a terrible idea for any number of reasons.

Is it just that you can't bring yourself to say anything critical about any Trump policy, no matter how stupid, cruel, or pointless?

[bye]

The history (short) of tariffs in American

for any number of reasons I will not give
I must be right because you are wrong
And all those reasons I did not give
would prove me right and you are wrong

https://imprimis.hillsdale.edu/tariffs-in-american-history/

[Michael P]

Alternatively, judicial insurrections are going to make people even more sick of our dysfunctional government, with adverse effects from both more enshittification of governance and higher frequency of vigilantism. (See also the murder of Brian Thompson and his murderer's fund-raising success.)

[Frank Drackman]

Surprised that Mangione’s still generating ATP’s, the Insurance guys are really slipping

[Sarcastr0]

Courts do what you want or right wing gonna start murdering.

Invoke ‘people’ all you want, this is just a threat against the courts.

Shows what you are.

[Michael P]

You sound like the kind of guy who would stab a high schooler who points out you're sitting in the wrong section of a rally. You're too lily-livered to address my actual comment or the actual trends, as usual.

[Sarcastr0]

You're the one talking about killings if the courts don't do what you want.
And then you say I'm the one who sounds like a murderer.

You aren't identifying actual trends other than those in your head.

You got issues.

[Michael P]

You continue to make up ideas and attribute them to others in spite of what they've written. It wasn't someone on my "side" who went to assassinate Justice Kavanaugh or Donald Trump -- those were yours. The left is normalizing breaking the law in the name of equity and social justice.

[Swede425]

He knows that.
And he supports that.
He just can't say that.
At least not yet.

[Glaucomatose]

It wasn't someone on my "side" who went to assassinate Justice Kavanaugh or Donald Trump -- those were yours.

The registered Republican gun nut who tried to assassinate Donald Trump was not “ours.” The guy who went to Kavanaugh’s house was so serious about it that he called the police on himself.

And you are the one darkly warning about how “judicial insurrection” is inviting vigilantism, not Sarcastr0.

[David Nieporent]

The guy who went to Kavanaugh’s house was so serious about it that he called the police on himself.

As a legal matter, all that is required to be guilty of attempt is to take a substantial step towards completing the crime. There's a good reason for this — we don't want law enforcement to have to wait until the act is underway to arrest someone.

But as a political matter, it's just ridiculous that Republicans are so desperate to play the victim card that they keep counting assassination attempts (Trump on the golf course, Kavanaugh's house) where nothing actually happened.

[Swede425]

LOL!
Because a trigger wasn't squeezed, "nothing actually happened".
Trump has to bleed (again) for David to "count" it.
You and your excuses are pathetic.

[Bob from Ohio]

You gotta understand, DN is just sad the golf course guy failed.

[Joe_dallas]

Nothing happened with The golf course guy because he lost his cover. but lets pretend "nothing happened"

[Commenter_XY]

They (Sarcastr0, David, NG) want him (POTUS Trump) dead. They're still upset that Crooks missed.

[not guilty]

I have never said that I want Donald Trump dead. When I learned of the gunshot that wounded him, I wished Trump a speedy recovery within minutes on these threads.

Do I believe that the world would be a better place without Donald Trump? Yes, I do. But I don't want him to die out of custody. His being held accountable for his criminal conduct is important.

[bernard11]

They (Sarcastr0, David, NG) want him (POTUS Trump) dead. They're still upset that Crooks missed.

Odious comment.

[Dr. Ed 2]

And yet you count the attempt on the Michigan Governor even though the FBI had to hold their hands all the way through,

[Sarcastr0]

You're the one saying 'courts do what I say or vigilantes.' And when called out, you point to some dude and say 'this is every Dem.'

I'm not talking about every Republican, nor nutpicking. And I'm not going to listen to you trying to do that either.

I'm talking about what you just wrote above, and what it says about your morals.

[Drewski]

So which "side" types your comments? Because it's what you are saying that's bad.

[Joe_dallas]

Sacastro - That is BS comment - No where does MP assert what you allege about murder.

[Sarcastr0]

"You sound like the kind of guy who would stab a high schooler who points out you're sitting in the wrong section of a rally."

[Joe_dallas]

You accused MP of stating something he clearly did not state.

What is the purpose of your inane reponse - other you being inane?

[Sarcastr0]

My quote is what MP said, nimrod.

[Joe_dallas]

Sarcastr0 57 minutes ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
My quote is what MP said, nimrod."

You are flat out lying - That is not even close to what MP stated

[Sarcastr0]

https://reason.com/volokh/2025/05/30/friday-open-thread-22/?comments=true#comment-11068327

This is concerning.

[not guilty]

Judicial insurrections? That word doesn't mean what you seem to think it means.

[Kazinski]

We will probably find out whether it will cause economic calamity or not.

I'm guessing there will be stays in place until the Supreme Court decides the issue, and it will not be decided on the Rocket Docket.

If I'm right it may be 12 to 18 months before Trumps tariff authority is curtailed.

And in that time there are other paths he can use to impose at least a subset of the tariffs. But that's limited:

"That's because this authority allows the president to have new tariffs in place within days, but only up to a 15% rate and for a 150-day span unless Congress extends it."

And there is another mechanism that takes longer and is more.permanent, and less flexible:

"These are tariff authorities — most prominently via the national security-focused Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 — where Trump can act unilaterally, but with the administration required to jump through time-consuming hoops like investigations and soliciting of public comment before the tariffs can go into place.

But the upside for Trump here is that these are well-tested legal authorities that have even been used in recent months on goods like steel, aluminum, and cars."

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/2-laws-trump-could-use-to-reimpose-his-tariffs-and-why-he-might-use-both-162942332.html

[Sarcastr0]

It’s like you don’t know Trump at all.

[Kazinski]

Yes, that's true, and despite getting a lot of emails from him, I don't think he even knows who I am either.

[bernard11]

I'll ask Kazinski the same question I asked XY.

Do you really think these tariffs are a good idea? Or it just your positive TDS that causes you to support them?

[Kazinski]

I don't support the tariffs, I am a free trader.

But I don't want the courts suddenly jumping into the fray and invalidating the trade agreements we have already reached and are negotiating.

[Riva]

Well China seems to love it. It seems saving the CCP is more to the liking of the democrats.

[bye]

That ensures the fallout when the whole nation collapses from fiscal irresponsibility. Is that what you want ?

[Poxigah146]

It's a lie that tariffs harm the consumers. They harm big corporations who see smaller margins. Obviously the Democrats care about stock prices more than anything else.

[Martinned]

Sure. And consumers are famously relaxed about inflation.

[Kazinski]

Well speaking of that the PCE inflation number is out, and personal income is way up, see my post below.

Consumers like that I hear.

[jb]

Even if they want to, companies can't eat tariffs that are larger than their margins (for very long).

Based on what we've seen when underlying costs have increased in other ways, though, companies will not just pass on the cost, but increase profit margins in the process. (It's surprising to me that this works, but seemed to happen throughout the Covid era.) As with almost everything Trump, he talks a big game about helping the little guy while actually enriching himself and his billionaire pals.

[Poxigah146]

Of course, but many companies saw their margins skyrocket during the scamdemic, and have plenty of space to eat those margins.

During the COVID era, people had plenty of free money handed out by Biden and Powell. That's now gone, so consumers are price sensitive again.

[jb]

Of course, Trump did double the stimulus that Biden did, and is the one pushing Powell to lower rates now.

But yeah, this time it's going to be the companies that suffer and not the American people. /s

[Kazinski]

Its always easy to tell other people what they should do with their money.

They should charge the margins they feel provide them the most long term value.

[Poxigah146]

What are you talking about?

[bernard11]

What an idiot you are.

[Poxigah146]

I know you are, but what am I?

[Mr. Bumble]

Thank you Pee Wee.

[bernard11]

I know Trump believes that either tariffs are a great idea or provide negotiating leverage for trade deals, but perhaps he is wrong about that.

No perhaps about it. Not to mention what he is doing with all the up-and-down stuff is making matters even worse.

[Mr. Bumble]

If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" is a philosophical thought experiment that raises questions regarding observation and perception.
If a judge of a court without jurisdiction makes a ruling, should it have any force?

[not guilty]

"If a judge of a court without jurisdiction makes a ruling, should it have any force?"

Why do you ask, Mr. Bumble? Such a ruling remains in force unless and it is set aside, by either the court that issued the order or a higher court.

FWIW, a federal court “always has jurisdiction to determine its own jurisdiction,” including its own subject-matter jurisdiction. Brownback v. King, 592 U.S. 209, 218-19 (2021) (quoting United States v. Ruiz, 536 U.S. 622, 628 (2002)). In order to give the court an opportunity to consider whether it has subject-matter jurisdiction, the court may order a respondent to preserve the status quo. See United States v. United Mine Workers of Am., 330 U.S. 258, 293 (1947) (“[T]he District Court ha[s] the power to preserve existing conditions while it [is] determining its own authority to grant injunctive relief,” unless the assertion of jurisdiction is frivolous.). Such an order is valid unless and until it is overturned, even when the issuing court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction to determine the merits of the underlying action. See id. at 294-95 (upholding criminal contempt convictions for violations of a preliminary injunction, assuming the District Court had no jurisdiction to decide the underlying matter).

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.282404/gov.uscourts.mad.282404.12.0_1.pdf See also, the All Writs Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1651.

[Martinned]

I don't think Bumble meant that as a serious question...

[Mr. Bumble]

Au contraire mon frere.
In the latest)?) case;
Federal District Court Issues Another Ruling Against Trump's IEEPA Tariffs
The decision by Judge Rudolph Contreras of the US District Court for the District Columbia holds IEEPA doesn't authorize the president to impose tariffs at all.

Does this court have jurisdiction?
Contreras says it does because "...Judge Contreras concluded IEEPA doesn't grant the president the power to impose tariffs at all,..." so no need to be before the CIT.
Very confusing.

[SRG2]

I like how the standard SOP for cultists is thar 5 minutes ago they were utterly ignorant about some point of the law, like when a court lacks jurisdiction, and after perusing the right-wing blogosphere, they now confidently post as though they were experts.

[Mr. Bumble]

Ilya Somin's OP is the right wing blogosphere?

[SRG2]

No. But your opinion on jurisdiction is not based on what Somin wrote. Else you'd not have disagreed with him.

[John F. Carr]

The tariff dispute is about money and the government can collect what is due if the judge is overturned.

The government had demanded (in effect) that the plaintiffs put the tariffs in escrow. The judge refused. Docket entry 38. The government has already appealed. Docket entry 39.

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69927142/learning-resources-inc-v-trump/

[Riva]

A court never has power to expand its own power. That’s rather basic to our constitutional republic. Well, before the judicial coup at least.

[LawTalkingGuy]

The long and storied history of the US courts began several weeks ago.

[Riva]

If you mean federal courts have intermittently abused their powers in the past, I agree. But they're really outdoing themselves lately. Is the democrat party awarding special prizes for the most nationwide injunctions?

[David Nieporent]

What is "the democrat party"? Never heard of it.

[Life of Brian]

The party of Democrats. Clearly Engrish is hard.

[SRG2]

But contrary to your Freisleriana, ruling that the president lacks the power to expand his power is not a judicial expansion of its own power.

[LawTalkingGuy]

I don’t think this is quite accurate. One branch deciding another branch can’t do something is often an expansion of the deciding branches power. I just don’t think it’s some unprecedented thing where courts had “never” done this until earlier this year. Courts expanding their power at various points at the expense of other branches is a things that has been going on for over two centuries. As is the executive getting in fights with the courts and Congress. The one branch that usually ends up losing power fights over our history has usually been Congress.

[Mr. Bumble]

"The one branch that usually ends up losing power fights over our history has usually been Congress."
Don't think it's a matter of losing power fights as much as it is a matter of surrendering their power to avoid tough decisions.

[LawTalkingGuy]

This is also true. But it does often come off worse in fights, especially ones where the Court insists it’s empowering Congress.

[Ted Chen]

That's a strong statement and would suggest that you are arguing that no ruling from the Judiciary limiting a a president's power can be expanding Judiciary's powers. For the most part that is true. But there are certainly cases/scenarios that is not.

An example. Boasberg's insistence that the Trump administration had a duty to turn around the airplanes once he said it in the hearing. Isn't that a case where the Judiciary was attempting to expand its powers over the Executive branch?

[SRG2]

That's a strong statement and would suggest that you are arguing that no ruling from the Judiciary limiting a a president's power can be expanding Judiciary's powers.

I don't think I suggested that - it's a general statement. I can certainly think of any number of instances where it would, but merely limiting the power of the executive is not ipso facto an expansion of judicial power.

As far as the Boasberg instance, though - his order attempted to restore the status quo ante and I am not sure that is necessarily an expansion of power, rather, it was an unusual exercise of existing power.

[William of Brooklyn]

NG -- I think it would be a helpful reset for a court to issue an *order* (as opposed to a ruling) that is completely beyond it's authority, and to have that order ostentatiously ignored. Typically, I would use the hypothetical of the Court ordering the invasion of Belgium, but I think we have a real world instance, and that is what the administration is doing with Judge Xinis in the Garcia case. We need each branch of government to stay in its box.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Has anyone tried WestLaw’s CoCounsel? If so what did you think?

[Dan Schiavetta]

It’s ok if you are totally at sea and want to get some idea of what the law is in an area you’re not familiar with. But that’s as far as it goes. If you are looking for nuances to distinguish cases that seem to go against you — a common situation for a practicing lawyer — it’s no help at all.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Have you only tried the research one? I was at a presentation and they said the full CoCounsel program could analyze documents, draft emails, and even draft deposition questions based on document, and I was highly skeptical of that.

[Dan Schiavetta]

I'm skeptical too. If someone phrases something in an unusual way, or uses an unusual word, AI will miss it. But it could be helpful to remind you of things you might overlook.

[Commenter_XY]

Can you give an example of this = what you think unusual phrasing (and the meaning behind it) would not be caught by AI enabled software? I am genuinely curious what you think would be missed, and why.

[John F. Carr]

Docket item 49 in Harvard v. DHS case 1:25-cv-11472 is a notice to Harvard about termination of student visas. Harvard has 30 days to respond. I take this to be the notice that should have been given before any action was taken. I understand visa termination this month to be procedurally improper even if Harvard deserves to be punished.

The specific charges against Harvard, officially revealed now, are

1. Violation of student misconduct reporting requirements under 8 CFR 214.3(g).
2. Failure to maintain a campus environment free of violence and antisemitism.
3. Coordination with foreign adversaries (China).

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/70349156/president-and-fellows-of-harvard-college-v-united-states-department-of/

[Josh R]

There is a First Amendment defense to the second charge.

[tylertusta]

I think the government can overcome that due to the compelling interest.

[Kenneth Almquist]

Thanks for the pointer. DHS terminated Harvard’s SEVP certification, Harvard sued, and the Court issued a temporary restraining order enjoining DHS “implementing, instituting, maintaining, or giving effect to the revocation of Plaintiff’s SEVP certification” or “giving any force or effect to the Department of Homeland Security’s May 22, 2025 Revocation Notice.” The DHS response is to announce it will revoke the SEPV certification again--an action that is not covered by the TRO.

John Carr lists the three claimed justifications for this new SEPV revocation. The first claims that failed to provide information as required by 8 CFR § 214.3(g). That section lists all of the information that Harvard is required to provide DHS. The “evidence” that DHS provides to show that Harvard failed to provide the required information is that “DHS determined that [Harvard’s first production of information] was not responsive” and that Harvard’s second response was “insufficient.”

The second and third justifications are based on language in 8 CFR § 214.4(a)(2), which says that, “if the school or school system is determined to no longer be entitled to certification for any valid and substantive reason including, but not limited to, the following...” This is followed by 19 reasons, all relating to the SEVP program. The DHS nevertheless interprets this clause as saying it can revoke SEVP certification for reasons having nothing to do with the SEPV program as long as the DHS asserts that the reason is “valid and substantive.”

[Armchair]

San Francisco Public Schools recently tried to pass "Grading for Equity"....

Also known as lowering standards, so students will get higher grades for worse work.

https://jonathanturley.org/2025/05/29/grading-for-equity-san-francisco-public-schools-trigger-outcry-with-plan-to-lower-standards-to-improve-grades-for-students/#more-232209

Since is something we've perpetually seen though. Grade inflation and erosion of the level of work previously being needed to obtain good grades and learning.

How do we fix this?

[Sarcastr0]

Schools grading on a curve is not new. Without more information about the new tests they're training on, I can't be sure if the standards actually are lowering.

It's a local issue, and you immediately wanting a fix for it based on a blog post that doesn't tell anywhere near the full story is coming in too quick, too hot, and too top-down authoritarian.

I don't understand why so many on here are content to take the lightest dusting of opinionated reporting and decide they have enough of the story to jump to a conclusion and be very sure of the facts, the motives, the policies needed, and how angry to get.

If you're interested, do some research; take some time for additional reporting to come in.

Realize ambiguity is a thing in this world.

[ThePublius]

"Currently, a student needs a 90 for an A and at least 61 for a D. Under the San Leandro Unified School District’s grading for equity system touted by the San Francisco Unified School District and its consultant, a student with a score as low as 80 can attain an A and as low as 21 can pass with a D."

Are you refuting this statement, saying it isn't true?

Are you saying, in light of this, "I can't be sure if the standards actually are lowering."

What are you talking about? This is lowering the standard, by definition, and obviously so.

[Armchair]

It's another one of his standard schtiks. "See no evil". "It's just a blog post". "It's someone I disagree with, but I won't offer concrete criticism" "I won't actually read anything more about the topic".

[Sarcastr0]

I explained what we don't know. You just love your narrative too much to listen.

[ThePublius]

We know enough to know with certainly the standards were lowered.

[Sarcastr0]

No, we do not.

[Michael P]

He's pretending that maybe the new grading lines go with a much harder test, and so students should be expected to score worse. I have no idea what planet he came from where he thinks anyone would fall for such a dumb theory.

[Brett Bellmore]

He comes from a planet where the policy was generated by bureaucrats, and any policy generated by bureaucrats is presumptively reasonable, and no evidence to the contrary is admissible.

[Sarcastr0]

It says a lot that when I say 'I don't think we can make the assumptions you did' you take that as 'I've made the opposite assumptions.'

You live in a world of certainty and excluded middles.

[Sarcastr0]

Michel, I'm saying *we don't know*.

[Michael P]

Thus I wrote "maybe", denialist.

[Sarcastr0]

There's no maybe in: "I have no idea what planet he came from where he thinks anyone would fall for such a dumb theory."

[Noscitur a sociis]

He included the word “maybe” in summarizing your theory, as was appropriate. He didnt hedge in calling your theory preposterous, which was also appropriate.

[Sarcastr0]

TP and Michael are working hard not to understand the ambiguity of the changes as Turley lays them out. They also, amusingly, don't seem to understand how grading on a curve works. Makes one wonder about their educational background.

You should know better, though.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Look, I’m all for keeping an open mind, but you’re well into brain-falling-out territory here. Or you would be if you actually believed it: you’re smart enough that you can’t actually think this change reflects increased academic rigor. I’m also all for reflexive partisan contrarianism, but sometimes you’ve got to recognize that your side is wrong enough that it’s best to just stay quiet.

[Sarcastr0]

I would be surprised if it increased rigor, but I also don't think it's established that it's a substantive lowering of standards.

I do not consider myself an unbiased person, and I try, but certainly my skepticism lies more slack than it should when the narrative's on my side.

I'm sure there's plenty of standard lowering initiatives schools do in the interests of this or that pedagogic fad, from inclusiveness to new math. I don't yet know if this is one.

But the broader thesis that education sucks now is absolutely wrong. For all the faddish fails there have been plenty of change over the years that have increased outcomes and requirements as well.
I don't know the exact stats, I'm pretty confident in saying that children today are on average getting a more rigorous education now than in the 1960s.

Doesn't mean we can stop examining and working hard at it, but the 'everything today sucks' is reactionary dumbness, and a very common conservative refrain.

[Glaucomatose]

I mean, in my advanced freshman physics classes in college, a 30 was usually a B+ (and only half the class scored that well). The idea that 95 means A, 90 means A-, etc. is pretty arbitrary.

No idea what’s going on in San Francisco, though.

[ThePublius]

They said "on a 100-point exam." So it's not arbitrary at all. It's pretty standard.

[Sarcastr0]

Glaucomatose seems to have been talking about a 100-point exam as well.

[jb]

I'd assumed that the "30" that Glaucomatose was referring to was a percent, so also on a 100 point scale.

Isn't this how curves work literally everywhere? You don't have a fixed mapping of grades based on scores, you have a fixed distribution of grades based on scores? Usually I've seen the switch away from curve-based grading in universities been described as one of the big culprits for grade inflation there, but like everyone else here I have no idea what's going on in San Francisco.

[Sarcastr0]

Plenty of exams in my undergrad STEM school had an average score in the 40s. We can talk about whether that's good pedagogy, but that's a test where a curve isn't a sign of low standards.

"Grading for Equity eliminates homework or weekly tests from being counted in a student’s final semester grade. All that matters is how the student scores on a final examination, which can be taken multiple times."
That at least suggests there's a new test. You can't baseline that to the old test.

[ThePublius]

It may suggest it to you, because that's what you prefer, to bolster your argument. But no one said anything about a new test.

[Sarcastr0]

OK, if you want to play it like that.

But my thesis is that uncertainty remains. You're the one who must assume the test is the same for your thesis.

[Life of Brian]

SarcLogic: "Mulligans can't have any effect on a golf score, 'cause it's the SAME HOLE."

[Commenter_XY]

LMAO = uncertainty remains. That was actually humorous.

Have academic outcomes declined over time, despite more money spent per pupil in SFO? Yes. It is systemic.

SFO is surrender and capitulation, not pedagogy. Children don't give money or vote, and SFO union members do both.

[Krayt]

I'm sorry, 20% knowledge of a subject should not be passing by any stretch of the imagination.

[bye]

hmmm

[Bwaaah]

Giving an "A" for a score of 80 isn't a "curve." It's lowering the meaning of an "A".

You are so unable to cope with the realities of DEI.

Anyway, San Francisco schools just backed off on this plan to lower requirements for students. I guess they grasped what you are unable to grasp: most of the world knows that people who justify this stuff, people like you, are idiots.

[Moderation4ever]

We could start by accepting that people are unique and judge people on criteria other than some grade letter. When I was a kid a "C" was average. It did not mean you were dumb it meant your level in a subject was about the same as everyone else. There were kids that got all A's but other that had mixed grades. Good in some subjects bad in others. Now what about today? If a student gets a C in English composition does it mean that they are dumb and worthless or does it mean that they be better off in a field that did not require a lot of writing.

[ThePublius]

What is your point? What does any of that have to do with what the SF school district wanted to do?

[Moderation4ever]

I was responding to Armchair's question of how do we fix this and my answer is to start accepting that a student doing average, a "C" ,in schools is not a bad thing. We don't need to figure out how to give every kid an "A" in every subject.

[ThePublius]

Oh, O.K., gotcha.

[Brett Bellmore]

A student getting a C in school was not a bad thing when I was a kid, because the grading was such that a C actually WAS average performance, and an A was exemplary performance.

Is that still the case? I don't know, my son is at a "mastery" school, and if you're on track to get a grade as low as C they stage an intervention and do intensive tutoring.

[Paladin_44]

'Mastery" school? OMG, gotta change that term, unless there's also a "Slavery" school somewhere nearby.

[Sarcastr0]

No, Moderation, we can never interrogate the meritocracy we have!

It's perfect and anyone wanting to change it is doing a DEI and hates white people.

[In reality measuring achievement is hard enough, much less predicting future success. But...simple worlds for simple people.]

[ThePublius]

Leftist plays race card. Dog bites man. What else is new?

[Sarcastr0]

Lazy.
Read the Turley article Armchair links.

[ThePublius]

I did! Turley doesn't play the race card, the school boards did! He's just reporting it.

"Faced with abysmal scores, particularly for minority students, school boards and union officials have called for lowering or suspending proficiency standards or declared meritocracy to be a form of “white supremacy.” Gifted and talented programs are being eliminated in the name of “equity.”

At the same time, we have previously discussed how schools have been dropping the use of standardized tests to achieve diversity goals in admissions. Cal State dropped standardized testing “to level the playing field” for minority students."

Your interpretation of this is bizarre.

[Sarcastr0]

You accused me of playing the race card. Turley brought up race.

His evidence of the schools is a link to a 2021 article of his highlighting a single quote.

"doing a DEI and hates white people" is an accurate characterization of what Turley is saying.

[Joe_dallas]

Its not even close to an accurate characterization of what turley stated

[Joe_dallas]

ThePublius 6 hours ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
I did! Turley doesn't play the race card, the school boards did! He's just reporting it.

Sacastro Publius statement is accurate. You are the one playing the racist

[JohnSmith97]

Maybe read Turley's article slower this time.

[Frank Drackman]

In Highschool I barely made a "C" in 11th grade Chemistry, there was a language barrier, (not Spanish, Ebonics) since I was planning on playing MLB, didn't worry about it, made A's in everything else.
2 years later at Auburn scored the highest on the Standardized Test they gave at the end of the year of General Chemistry, won a "CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics" still have it (indispensable if you ever need to know the melting point of Tungsten)

Frank

[bye]

St Isidore of Seville, Oklahoma, is how you fix it.

[ThePublius]

No-zero grading lets no-show students graduate: 'Just crazy'

"At Richards Career Academy High School [Chicago], which primarily enrolls Hispanic and black students from low-income families, "grading for equity" was introduced in 2019 to help ninth graders pass courses. "Students could redo assignments repeatedly and turn in work late. Even if they didn’t complete the assignment, the lowest score they could get was 50 rather than zero — a concept known as no-zero grading," they write."

https://www.joannejacobs.com/post/no-zero-grading-lets-no-show-students-graduate-just-crazy

Make no mistake, the move towards lowering standards in schools is a phenomenon of the progressive left. It's bad for students, and bad for society. The quintessential example of this is the young woman who graduated from H.S. from the Hartford public school system and was admitted to UConn, and she's absolutely illiterate. Literally!

https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/28/us/video/hartford-school-district-lawsuit-aleysha-ortiz-digvid#:~:text=Aleysha%20Ortiz%2C%20a%2019%2Dyear,CNN's%20Danny%20Freeman%20reports.

How did she graduate H.S.? Why was she admitted to UConn? Let me guess....

[Sarcastr0]

You're now well off subject.

I have no idea if your specific examples are legit or not. I've not got the time to click through, but they look pretty slanted.

That being said, I'm sure there are bad schools. I'm sure there were bad schools back in the day.

I'm not sure what you're even arguing anymore.

[ThePublius]

Let me net it out for you: lowering standards in schools results in harm to students and society at large.

Of course you don't believe what I've asserted and linked to. You don't believe there's an abjectly illiterate freshman at UConn (despite her interviews with various news outlets). You don't believe the zero grading phenomenon. There facts don't support your narrative.

[Sarcastr0]

"I'm sure there are bad schools. I'm sure there were bad schools back in the day."

Your anecdotes aren't going to cut it.

I'm reserving judgement on your links; that doesn't mean I think they're wrong, just that you've got a history of sharing lies.

[David Nieporent]

How did she graduate H.S.? Why was she admitted to UConn? Let me guess....

You guess racistly wrong. She was the 'beneficiary' of the special ed racket; she was passed along because she was classified, and had IEPs that let her get away without having to read.

[Kazinski]

Pretty simple, use standardized tests for certain benchmarks at certain tiers as hard standards that must be met for promotion.

For instance requiring that students meet basic reading standards at grades 4 and 8, and pass a high school graduation test.

Then it won't matter if a school gave an illiterate straight A's, if they can't pass the test to get them in to 9th grade, or graduate.

[bernard11]

This was the very stupid idea of the Superintendent.

Apparently there was a lot of backlash and outrage from parents and others, and the plan seems to be dead. (The SF Chronicle story is paywalled, so I don't have specifics). So a bad idea about schools got shot down.

Your point?

[Moderation4ever]

I like to update a story I reported on Wednesday, a six year old child remains in a local hospital in critical condition after shooting himself in the eye. The bullet entered through the child's eye and exited through his skull. The mother boyfriend has been charged with felony neglect. While I am happy that the man is being held responsible, had he exercised more responsibility earlier this tragedy would not have happened. Again, I say if you can not accept the responsibly of owning a gun then you should not get one. I am not suggesting a law I am suggesting people use good sense.

[not guilty]

Thank you for the update.

Will the firearm fetishists claim that the felony neglect prosecution violates the mother's boyfriend's Second Amendment rights?

[Brett Bellmore]

No, my opinion is that, as we're dealing with a constitutional right here, the law should basically stay out of it until there's actually some harm to address. Rather than promulgating rules to avert rare harms, that infringe exercise of the right on the part of an enormous number of people for each harm averted.

Here there was actual harm, so there is a basis for assessing whether it was a result of negligence.

By the way, "firearm fetishist"? I think it's been about a year since I as much as touched a firearm, unless you count my son's BB gun. I'm actually more of a "Bill of Rights" fetishist, and not the least ashamed of it.

[Sarcastr0]

So 'some harm' means 'harms beyond rare anecdotes.'

Assuming that's the right standard for good policymaking, now apply that standard to voter ID.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Brett didn’t say that’s the right standard for good policy making, he said it’s the standard for regulations that implicate constitutional rights.

[Sarcastr0]

Making good policy that doesn't run afoul of Constitutional prohibitions is a pretty common occurrence. Guns and voting rights included (both as a statutory right and as a fundamental right under EPC).

[Brett Bellmore]

I wouldn't say that guns are a great example of that, since most federal and state gun policy was adopted during a 68 year period during which the Supreme court was simply refusing cert without comment to every last case where one of the parties so much as mentioned the 2nd amendment.

Most of that mess has never yet been subject to any sort of judicial scrutiny, let alone the strict sort.

[Sarcastr0]

Nice boilerplate.

But the point here is if you're saying good policy where a right is involved shouldn't be concerned with edge cases (correct as a general proposition even for most policy!)...
that seems inconsistent with your passion for voter ID, despite the rare instances of the kind of voter fraud that would address.

[JohnSmith97]

You have to show a photo ID to do many things in life, but to a (D) doing it to vote is just a bridge to far.

[Moderation4ever]

I hope you understand that I am not suggesting laws but rather a change in social acceptance. I like to see people taking a realistic look what is the associated responsibility of owning a gun and then setting a social expectation that responsibilities are met.

[Frank Drackman]

His mom should have told him he'd put his eye out

[Moderation4ever]

I was reading an interesting article pointing out that red states often have the best locations for renewable wind power. Texas is a great example producing more wind power than any other state. The wind farms are a winner for most of the states, reducing the need for fossil fuels, bringing in money, helping farmers by getting them additional dollars for their land. It would seem that red states would embrace wind power and yet they often fight it the most.

[ThePublius]

They fight it because so-called renewables like wind and solar are folly, for a whole bunch of reasons. The end result is that it uses up lots of real estate, raises energy costs, gives rise to grid instability, and has huge environmental and human cost (in mining, manufacture, and eventual disposal). And, you still need conventional powerplants for load balancing. Oh, and by the way, wind generation kills lots of birds.

[Moderation4ever]

I have over my lifetime seen politicians fight for folly many times. Politicians go to bat for dying industries to save a few jobs for just as few more years The fact is that here politicians are turning their backs on promising technology to gain the votes of luddites.

BTW - cats take more birds than wind farms and no politician is calling for getting rid of cats.

[Mr. Bumble]

I doubt that cats take many, if any, raptors and sea birds as do windmills.

[Moderation4ever]

https://www.businessinsider.com/cats-kill-more-birds-than-wind-turbines-despite-trumps-claims-2020-10

[ThePublius]

That's an anti-Trump bullshit article. How many raptors do you think cats are killing? And, besides that, so what if cats kill more birds? Windmills aren't helping, and are killing birds higher up on the food chain that are rarer, some in danger of extinction. The birds cats kill are plentiful, for the most part.

[Brett Bellmore]

Wind isn't a promising technology until storage becomes incredibly cheap. Which I wouldn't rule out happening, but it's pretty expensive at the moment. The problem is that it isn't even predictably intermittent: The wind can die out over a large region for weeks at a time.

Solar is a bit more feasible, in that the Sun does rise every day. So, overbuild nameplate capacity by a factor of 10 or so, build enough storage to get you through a whole day, and you're good to go, because you'll get enough solar to average out OK even in bad weather, and have enough storage to get through the night.

By the time you've done that it's insanely expensive, but at least you wouldn't have to suffer through frequent blackouts, the way wind basically guarantees you to if you rely on it.

At a low level of grid penetration solar even looks reasonable without storage, because it displaces peaking power to some extent, being most available near the time of peak demand. It's just once you get past a few percent that it becomes problematic without storage.

Both sources of power are heavily subsidized, both directly, and by being permitted to free ride off the availability of fossil fuel plants to keep the grid going when they're not available. But you can't legitimately price a power source that's intermittent without attributing to it the cost of making it RELIABLE.

[Sarcastr0]

The engineer is saying the never invest in R&D.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, I'm saying invest in all the R&D you want, don't RELY on products that aren't yet ready to be relied on, and "reliability" is kind of central to that.

[Frank Drackman]

Trumps best line ever
"Honey, I'd like to watch Television, is the wind blowing??"

[Sarcastr0]

That's an orthogonal point to: "[W]ind farms are a winner for most of the states, reducing the need for fossil fuels, bringing in money, helping farmers by getting them additional dollars for their land."

I've not seen anyone here arguing renewables are currently reliable as a sole source.

[Allutz]

The claim that they actually reduce the need to FF is dubious though. It may reduce the absolute amount, but in electricity generation that is pretty irrelevant and sometimes counterproductive. The relevant question is reliable capacity and the cost to generate that, which they currently don't help with to any significant extent.

I mean, if you think burning 5% less petrol while spending that money and more on solar and wind is worth it, I suppose that's something, but its not a libertarian or economically sound decision, its one that values reducing CO2 emissions as the highest goal within the sector.

[Sarcastr0]

Technology should not be analyzed as a snapshot. It improves over time.

[Don Nico]

That comment is false. Brett did not say that. Your issue with Bellmore is so lopsided that you'd argue with his claiming that the sun raises every day.
His analysis is widely accepted by energy economists that look at grid issues and also take into account birth to death costs of energy generation.
But it is accurate that Texas has deployed lots of wind power and that it also has sufficient gas peaking capacities to live through extensive Dunkelflautte.

[ducksalad]

Brett, your comment is somewhat like me, an EE, criticizing you for specifying a part in aluminum because I read on Wikipedia that tool steel is harder and now think I understand it better than you.

The observation that wind power is intermittent is not some genius insight that the entire electric power industry just overlooked. They understand the wind statistics far better than you, and because they work on it full time and their jobs and money are on the line, they will always understand it better.

You mention the expense. Do you imagine that the people putting up the capital don't care about their money, or can't read a financial statement, and keep building new turbines after the last round lost money?

You mention the reliability. When I'm not posting here, it's not because the wind died and I have no power. When the wind dies they spin up some more gas plants and everything is fine. Jeebus.

The strawman you are attacking is wind (or solar) as a sole source of power. That's just not how it is being used, nor are we moving toward it in some ignorant unplanned way. You are factually mistaken. Literally zero people running the grid have that idea. Wind is used to reduce fuel consumption on an opportunistic basis. They understand that 100% and are not confused even a little bit about it.

You're like some guy wanting to ban downhill/braking recharge on EVs because some roads are not downhill and sometimes you aren't braking. And who believes the engineers at Toyota just didn't know that there are uphills.

I know you're a nuclear fan and so am I. If we had nuclear capacity to cover all needs, there would be no use for wind. But we don't, natural gas costs money, and the people buying the natural gas figured out they could save themselves - and me - money by adding wind to the mix. And yes, they have people who took accounting classes and know to take the fixed costs of inactive gas plants into account.

[Brett Bellmore]

"You mention the expense. Do you imagine that the people putting up the capital don't care about their money, or can't read a financial statement, and have kept building turbines for"

No, I am aware, no imagining involved, that Texas had a really stupidly designed electricity "market" that legally compelled the grid to purchase whatever power was cheapest at any given instant, without regard to whether or not it could be counted on to be there when needed.

The people who built the wind turbines were aware of this, and knew that, despite their output being unreliable, the grid would be FORCED to buy it whenever the wind blew, and the would not be even the least bit on he hook for the cost of avoiding blackouts.

"When the wind dies they spin up some more gas plants and everything is fine."

Right, and I'm saying that if that's your approach to justifying using wind, then you have to cost into your wind power the expense of those gas plants!

Because if you skipped the wind, you'd be running the gas plants at a higher duty cycle, and they'd look cheaper by having their cost amortized over more KWHs. So getting to rely on them for backup without costing them into your wind power makes them look artificially more expensive, and your wind artificially cheaper.

[ducksalad]

Brett, the people on the other side of this issue did the calculations and ran the numbers. Did you?

Your idea that power companies don't understand things like amortization is silly. They also know what the gas plant costs, and they know what duty cycle it runs at. Do you know either, without looking it up?

I'll concede that there are regulatory considerations in the financial calculations, and that they make gas plants less profitable. Nevertheless, they are profitable enough that new ones are going up at the same time as the turbines, and in 25 years every single time I've lost power it's downed lines or a blown transformer. Never not enough capacity, not even for a few minutes in 25 years.

[Don Nico]

Wow, this appeal to authority is absurd. Were you correct the UK would not see nearly as much grid instability as it does.

I fear you are the one who has not taken advantage of reading extensive analysis in journals such as Energy Economics.

[ducksalad]

Wait, you're countering my appeal to authority with an appeal to a different authority.

But sure, I'm open to analysis that shows a regulatory regime requiring grid operators to buy from certain sources leads to negative economic and reliability consequences.

What I'm not open to is dumb arguments like "sometimes the wind goes down so it's all bullshit".

Anyway, why are a bunch of guys outside Texas so worried about the reliability of the Texas grid? If and when our catastrophe comes you can point to us for vindication.

[David Nieporent]

No, I am aware, no imagining involved, that Texas had a really stupidly designed electricity "market" that legally compelled the grid to purchase whatever power was cheapest at any given instant, without regard to whether or not it could be counted on to be there when needed.

Assuming for the sake of argument that this is true, it may something about Texas legislators. Why do you think it says anything about wind power?

Right, and I'm saying that if that's your approach to justifying using wind, then you have to cost into your wind power the expense of those gas plants!

Brett, you're still doing exactly what ducksalad accused you of above: thinking that you, a dilettante, have realized something that the actual people in the industry, engineers and accountants alike, haven't considered.

[ducksalad]

To be fair to Brett, he's got a little bit of a point. Not enough of a point, but something.

The industry isn't a single player with a single set of books, so the whole wind proposition looks different to the accountants for the gas plants vs the accountants for the grid operators.

Someone without much faith in others - and we live in an increasingly low trust society - might think the grid operators are going to make foolish short term choices and drive necessary gas plants out of existence.

But as I said above, there are new gas plants being built. And despite all the doomsaying, we've got power that is reliable enough. I'd still be satisfied even if the last 9 was knocked off the percent uptime.

[Commenter_XY]

We need a 'crash program' of nuclear power plant development and delivery infrastructure upgrades. The US is crazy 'not' to embark on building nuclear power plants. We need a lot of power for the America of tomorrow.

[Brett Bellmore]

I think the grid operators are going to make foolish short term choices, (And complain bitterly about it!) if they're legally mandated to make foolish short term choices.

Heavily regulated utilities do lots of boneheaded things, like canceling 90% finished nuke plants. They don't do it because they're run by idiots, they do them because they're not free to do what THEY think is the smart thing! They're "heavily regulated".

"But as I said above, there are new gas plants being built. "

And, as I said above, the cost of the new gas plants necessary to keep the grid stable in spite of solar and wind being unreliable ought, properly, be attributed to solar and wind.

What's wanted isn't power, it's "power you can count on", so for any source of power, the relevant accounting unit is everything necessary for it to be counted on.

For conventional plants, that's just the plant, and some fuel delivery infrastructure.

For wind and solar, it's the plant, and whatever is going to supply the power in their place when they're not doing their jobs.

[Brett Bellmore]

I thing what it says about wind power is that it would not be widely adopted under any economically rational system, but that it has had the advantage of a very irrational system.

"Brett, you're still doing exactly what ducksalad accused you of above: thinking that you, a dilettante, have realized something that the actual people in the industry, engineers and accountants alike, haven't considered."

No, this is actually a point that is routinely raised in the energy industry. It's widely understood that the only reason wind power got as much adoption as it did is that the policies it was adopted under were not sensible.

[Kazinski]

"You mention the expense. Do you imagine that the people putting up the capital don't care about their money, or can't read a financial statement, and keep building new turbines after the last round lost money."

Do the math without subsidies, or guaranteed take contracts:
Google AI:
"The strike price for offshore wind projects in New York is significantly higher than the national average, reaching $155 per megawatt-hour (MWh) for Empire Wind 1. This translates to roughly 15.5 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh). The cost of offshore wind is also significantly higher than onshore wind and natural gas combined cycle, with estimates ranging from 22.15 cents per kWh for offshore wind to 8.66 cents per kWh for onshore wind and 6.56 cents per kWh for natural gas combined cycle. "

[Drewski]

My state generates over 20% of its power by wind and it's significantly less expensive (and takes less subsidies per MW) than fossil fuels. You're wrong.

[Brett Bellmore]

The marginal cost of power that doesn't necessarily arrive when you need it is lower. The total cost of having power reliably show up when you need it is higher.

[Bob from Ohio]

"no politician is calling for getting rid of cats"

Sure, because unlike windmills, cats are useful.

[ThePublius]

Well, they don't want to upset the Haitians in Ohio. 🙂

[SRG2]

Or, for short, renewables are seen as leftist, economic, social and scientific arguments be damned.

[ThePublius]

No, not at all! The economic, social, and scientific arguments are opposed to renewables.

[Martinned]

Motivated reasoning is a powerful drug...

[ThePublius]

Likewise, I'm sure.

Give me one example of a country or state or city or other municipality where the deployment of wind or solar power made the electricity rates go down, and the grid more stable, or at least as stable as it was with oil, gas, coal, or nuclear.

Tell me about mining for rare earth minerals by near-slaves in Africa, including children, to support conventional powerplants.

Tell me about the feasibility and economy of storage of electrical power generated by wind and solar.

And, finally, tell me why solar and wind powered grids still need gas or coal powerplants to balance load.

[Drewski]

Nebraska. We're at 20% wind power and rates are the lowest in the nation because of it.

[JohnSmith97]

"lowest"? That would be ND by kwh...

[ducksalad]

This seems a bit self-contradictory. Red states are fighting wind power, but the state with the most wind turbines, by far, is the premier example of a red state.

Top five states by number of turbines: Texas, Iowa, California, Oklahoma, Kansas. I count 4 out of 5 as red.

[jb]

It's because there's no policy in modern Republican politics, it's all just rage-baiting. Wind power is something the libs like, therefore MAGA has to be mad at it.

Best evidence: concern trolling about birds. These are the same people who think coal plants are awesome and dismiss all the downstream consequences.

[Kazinski]

I don't know anyone who likes coal plants but they are better than cursing in the dark.

[Mr. Bumble]

...and more reliable than wind and solar.
Funny how jb is concerned about downstream consequences of coal but not of wind and solar not the least of which is their short life span.

[Kazinski]

Because we love Golden Eagles more than money.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/17/golden-eagles-wind-turbines-climate-crisis-wyoming

I'm not completely against wind power with a couple of caveats: No subsidies, a decommissioning trust fund, and rates adjusted for reliability taking into account costs of ensuring adequate power when there is no wind.

[Sarcastr0]

So we can use it, but not encourage any developmental work to make it better.

Seems hostile to me.

[Kazinski]

I'd love to see them make wind power better, and not use ridiculous 150' blades on 250' 250 ton towers, and need at least 20 acres per 1.5mw windmill, 0.075mw per acre, when there is actually enough wind to produce its nameplate capacity.

In contrast for example the West County Energy Center natural gas plant in Florida produces 17mw per acre, and is more than 200x - 1,000,000x more efficient in terms of land use.

[David Nieporent]

Are we running out of land?

[Kazinski]

They aren't making any more of it.

I hope you aren't claiming that windfarms are pristine habitat are you?

[Stephen Lathrop]

In Iowa they look like cornfields. Admittedly terrible habitat—for everything—but that's because of GMO ag tech, not because of the turbines.

[bye]

all based on an unstated comparison to other forms of power. THis is Economics. Doesn't matter what something is in itself, we have limited resources and we pick th best. You would save gas if you went to work in the winter using a sled and hanging on to the back of cars but ...

[Brett Bellmore]

That's actually an excellent analogy, because it doesn't count the extra gas used by those cars, just like 'renewable' advocates don't want to count the cost of the conventional plants needed to avoid blackouts sitting idle when the wind happens to be blowing.

[Area Man]

Looks like Trump hates the Federalist Society now because the judges and Justices it recommended are doing their job of faithfully applying the law, even if it means he occasionally loses. Will this be one of those “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” or will the Left still attack and lie about the Fed Soc?

Also, still waiting for Robert Hur to get his apologies.

[Sarcastr0]

You seem to assume the left has to pick a side.

I'd wager many of them won't.

In my law school, the Federalist Society occasionally held legit debates...and sometimes they held veiled propaganda sessions postured as debates. The consistent thing was that their pizza was always good.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Right-wing advocacy organization aligns with right-wing personalist politician, later gets burned by said personalist. I don’t have to pick a side on that one at all, just laugh.

[Poxigah146]

The Federalist Society is full of neocons. Most Republican voters want a judiciary of paleocons.

[Martinned]

Most Republican voters want a judiciary of paleocons.

If that's what they wanted, voting for Trump was a funny way of showing it.

[David Nieporent]

The Federalist Society is full of neocons.

That word does not mean whatever you think it means, and/or that is not at all true.

Most Republican voters want a judiciary of paleocons.

No; that's just your Klan friends.

[Brett Bellmore]

Could we just drop the whole "neocon" thing, already? The "neocons", "new conservatives", were a movement of otherwise liberal Democrats who became conservatives because the left wasn't taking the threat of communism seriously enough during the cold war. The actual neocons who aren't dead are in nursing homes by now.

[Poxigah146]

I use "neocon" today to refer to people who call themselves conservatives, but are only really conservative on taxes, and who buy into the free trade lies.

These people are never on the side of conservatism for any cultural issue.

[David Nieporent]

So, you use your own personal definition that has literally nothing to do with the definition for which anyone else uses it, and you throw in a soupçon of economic illiteracy.

[Sarcastr0]

"a movement of otherwise liberal Democrats"

Brett's reliable.

I'm sure some had that story; I'm sure many more did not.

It is not quite a defunct term. There's plenty of Dolchstoßlegende about Afghanistan. And more practically, there's a nontrivial constituency in the GOP that wants war with Iran.
Indistinguishable from the early 2000s flavor.

[David Nieporent]

As a historical matter, that's incorrect. Neoconservatism was originally a movement of former Democrats, yes, but they broke with the Democratic Party over the New Left and the Great Society, not foreign policy. Later they ended up being more hawkish than mainstream Democrats, also, but that wasn't the original basis for the split. (Where they differed from traditional conservatives was that they had supported the New Deal.)

[Michael P]

Is murdering an 18-year-old Air Force cadet one of those jobs that Americans won't do? If so, who's paying?

https://www.fox4news.com/news/jet-ski-grapevine-lake-hit-and-run

[Sarcastr0]

Were I to post a ton of stories of illegal aliens doing altruistic, selfless stuff, what would that make you think about me? About illegals?

This is shades of that dude who posts 'you can't hate Democrats enough.'

Excitement about anecdotes reveal who you are; not anything about the world in general.
[Yes, this applies to Moderation4ever's gun post above as well.]

[Michael P]

Thanks for reminding us that Democrats continually making excuses for crime, at least when committed by their favored demographic groups, is why people post "you can't hate Democrats enough".

[LawTalkingGuy]

Hilarious comment when Trump has been on a pardoning spree of people he likes or identifies with.

[Martinned]

likes or identifies

That's a nice euphemism for "pay him".

https://reason.com/volokh/2025/05/29/buddy-can-you-spare-a-million-bucks/

[LawTalkingGuy]

It’s also likes and identifies! He’s not always that transactional with many of them.

[Martinned]

True, but let's please not forget about the corruption.

[LawTalkingGuy]

It’s hard to forget because some of the pardons are clearly because he doesn’t actually think corruption is a bad thing or even a thing at all.

[JohnSmith97]

(D) know all about pay to play....

[Sarcastr0]

Saying anecdotes are not data is making excuses for crime?

One begins to suspect the you don't care about crime and just want your brief moment of hate, followed by short-circuiting actual practical discussions with bloody shirts.

[bye]

See, you don't think. Illegal aliens doing good things is a HUGE argument for vetting the MS-13, terrorists, TdA , rapists ,etc from their numbers. During times of despicable evil you cull the herd if you have any humanity or conscience left

[David Nieporent]

"Murdering." What a joke you people are.

[ThePublius]

Why Israel should starve Hamas

"STARVING your enemy to death, or at least to surrender, is a tactic of warfare as old as history. The idea that starving an enemy is immoral would have astonished the ancients. Sun Tzu, author of The Art of War in the 5th century BC, wrote: ‘The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting. When the enemy is relaxed, make them toil. When full, starve them.’

Not only the ancients used starvation. It has been a commonly used weapon throughout the modern age. President Abraham Lincoln, one of the ‘good guys’ of history, advocated that it was ‘lawful to starve the hostile belligerent, armed or unarmed, so that it leads to the speedier subjection of the enemy’.

Lincoln’s ‘Lieber Code’ issued during the American Civil War, which included this statement, became the foundation for the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907."

Read the whole thing:

https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/why-israel-should-starve-hamas/

[Ska]

Playing devil's advocate: starvation affects the entire population, not just military targets. Starving however many factors more civilians than soldiers to defeat the soldiers is a long, slow form of collateral damage whose magnitude would not be acceptable if effectuated through conventional weapons.

No, I didn't read the article.

[Martinned]

That's not "devil's advocate". Devil's advocate is what Publius is doing.

[Ska]

Yeah, it was more just a regular counterpoint; having not read the original argument making a counter argument seemed off. The idea of starving a populace to destroy their army is too medieval for me, and I admittedly closed my mind to it.

[Michael Ejercito]

So this is going beyond what the Allies did to Germany and Japan during the first half of the 1940's?

[Ska]

Considering the casualty rates in modern warfare, I'd like to think the world can do better than what militaries were doing in WWII. If that's going to be the metric why not compare to WWI and chemical warfare?

There's something about the indiscriminate use of starvation - the victims of which would first be the populace, not the militants who would just expand their group of acceptable casualties - that just repulses me. In this era, and with the capabilities that currently exist, such indiscriminate tactics are unnecessary. It's more than what Hamas deserves, but if people are going to argue they're more humane than their opponents they should be able to demonstrate it.

Thankfully for me I'm just a CPA eating his sandwich at his desk, with nobody having to live or die by my feelings.

[Moderation4ever]

Starving people worked for the American Civil War and World War II because we did not have instant media. Starvation is a brutal process and not one people like to see. Don't think that is true just think of your reaction seeing the Jewish survivors of the death camps.

[ThePublius]

Well, in the Civil War we had the telegraph and photography. In WWII we had radio, and in some cases TV (BBC) in addition to these.

The death camps is a poor comparison. It's not as if the prisoners could capitulate and end their imprisonment. The Japanese could have surrendered and ended the blockade, and the starvation.

[Martinned]

The Japanese could have surrendered and ended the blockade, and the starvation.

Are you under the impression that World War II Japan was a democracy? And, even if it was, why would it be OK to murder people who might very well be opponents of the regime, just because they're in the minority?

[ThePublius]

You throw that term "murder" around rather liberally.

Who cares that Japan was not a democracy? What does that have to do with anything?

You're not making a hell of a lot of sense, and you're saying things like "why would it be OK to murder people who might very well be opponents of the regime, just because they're in the minority?" that I never proposed.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Whatever its merits, I don’t think Martinned’s point is very difficult to follow:

1. World War II Japan was a theocratic military dictatorship whose decision were made by a small group of elite leaders (who were not themselves at any meaningful risk of starvation); misery inflicted on the populace generally couldn’t directly translate into political action.

2. Even if the people could directly influence the government’s war strategy, the harms of deprivation would fall on the people generally, including the ones who did want to stop the war.

Did you really not get this?

[Sarcastr0]

1. What the modern age?
2. What people are seeing isn't Hamas starting.
3. 'Lincoln did it so it must be good' is tellingly awful argument.
4. I am amused that a website called 'theconservativewoman' has 8 men and 4 women as writers.

[ThePublius]

A couple of typos in there, I think. Plus, your point 4 is bullshit. Attacking the source as you so often do.

[Sarcastr0]

I said I was amused, dude, cool your jets.

[ThePublius]

"dude, cool your jets."

Who do you think you are, the Fonz?

[Martinned]

So that's a "yes" on war crimes then? I guess I shouldn't be surprised to see someone who knowingly voted for a criminal to be president more than once to be endorsing mass murder, but I'd have thought that even someone who is willing to overlook some mild corruption, sexual assault, fraud and occasional insurrection might draw the line at actual fucking murder of millions of people.

[Bob from Ohio]

I guess your friends should not have launched the October 7 pogrom

[Martinned]

You can shove your silly accusations where the sun don't shine. Meanwhile, you still haven't explained why mass murder is remotely OK.

(Unless you think any of the dozens of countries that were unlawfully attacked by the US in the last half century or more would have been justified killing every man, woman and child in the US if they'd been able.)

[Bob from Ohio]

Every country we have ever "attacked" was done lawfully under US law.

[LawTalkingGuy]

You know, I’m gonna posit that most supporters of a country’s military intervention consider it legal under their country’s own laws. It was legal under German law for it to invade Poland.

[Bob from Ohio]

Oh, look, a Nazi comparison.

[LawTalkingGuy]

And that’s a bad comparison here because?

[Bob from Ohio]

The US is just like the Nazis?

[LawTalkingGuy]

The US has laws. The Nazis had laws. The fact that a military action “followed its law” is meaningless in evaluating it.

[ThePublius]

All that Hamas has to do to end whatever oppression they perceive is to surrender. Simple.

[ThePublius]

"So that's a "yes" on war crimes then? "

Where's your outrage over the October 7th atrocity? I don't recall you expressing any.

I guess that didn't involve war crimes, eh?

[Sarcastr0]

Immediate deflection from talking war crimes is a helluva look.

[ThePublius]

Well, starving Hamas in the prosecution of a war is not a war crime, in my view. Though everything Israel does is apparently a war crime in the view of the Hague, including fighting an enemy sworn to their destruction.

[Sarcastr0]

The war crime concern isn't the Hamas people starving.

This is not hard.

[Bob from Ohio]

UK blockaded food from getting to Europe in both world wars. In 1940, it even rejected Hoover's attempts to get food to Nazi occupied countries, so not even the "enemy".

War crimes?

[Sarcastr0]

You have a scale problem, Bob.

Palestine isn't Europe.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Palestine isn't Europe."

So "starving" 2 million is ok, because its not 100 million?

[Sarcastr0]

No - cutting off food to a swath of countries is going to be a naturally leakier proposition than doing so to a small region where you completely control the borders.

This is more a 'West Berlin if there wasn't an airlift'' situation.

[Bob from Ohio]

"naturally leakier"

The denial of food shipments is either a war crime or not, the success of the effort doesn't matter.

So, did the UK commit war crimes?

[Sarcastr0]

War crimes are, like it or not, a consequentialist domain. 'Technically a war crime' doesn't usually cut it.

The consequences of the WW2 policies were not the same as what the world is observing in Gaza right now.

Even if you don't care about Palestinians starving, you might care about Israel isolating itself.

[Bob from Ohio]

"you might care about Israel isolating itself."

Once this Gaza campaign ends, I think I can rely on an Arab group doing something horrible that will swing back a fickle western world to Israel's side. Happens regularly.

[Kenneth Almquist]

As the article linked by the OP acknowledges, the law of war has changed over time. The Lieber Code, a codification of the laws of war commissioned by Abraham Lincoln, allowed starvation as a tool of war. This wasn’t changed until 1977.

I don’t believe that the Union Army starved Confederate civilians during the Civil War; if they did it would be a war crime under current international law but not under the Lieber Code. Similarly, blocking food shipments to Europe during WW2 wasn’t a war crime under the rules of the time, and likely wouldn’t be under current rules because it didn’t result in civilians starving.

As of Tuesday (three days ago), Israel is permitting the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a newly created organization, to provide food to people in Gaza. The article linked to by the OP suggests that the GHF’s operations will be able to prevent starvation in Gaza. If the writer believed this dubious proposition, he would have likely lead with it. Instead, the discussion of GHF is sandwiched between a discussion of how starving civilian populations wasn’t recognized as a war crime in previous centuries and the assertion that, “realistically a high level of collateral suffering for Palestinian civilians is unavoidable.”

[Noscitur a sociis]

Where's your outrage over the October 7th atrocity? I don't recall you expressing any.

I guess that didn't involve war crimes, eh?

Martinned is a rather noxious illustration of the pervasiveness antisemitism among the Eurotrash soi-disant intelligentsia, but this isn’t an NFL game where the penalties offset. Israel has done an exemplary job of being better than their enemies and using historically-unprecedented restraint in prosecuting their entirely righteous war, at no small cost to the heroic soldiers fighting it. That should be celebrated, not denigrated.

[LawTalkingGuy]

This is pretty over the top praise that is undercut by things said by Israel’s own leaders

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/israeli-official-gaza-destroyed-palestinians-will-start-to-leave/

https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/israel-hamas-war-idf-palestinian-prisoner-alleged-rape-sde-teinman-abuse-protest/

Their politicians are literally praising rape here.

[Noscitur a sociis]

Yes, fringe politicians defended the misconduct, as has happened in every country in every conflict in human history. The actual government, however, investigated it as the criminal offense that it was.

All of which is a further reflection of Israeli’s moral superiority, incidentally. Antisemitic and anti-American* partisans are going to excoriate Israel no matter what they do. Sacrificing the lives of their own soldiers to mitigate the harm to the civilian population isn’t going to get them any additional friends or goodwill, so the only explanation is that they geniunely believe it’s the right thing to do and are willing to pay the price for it.

*To be clear, these are two different categories; I place you only in the latter.

[LawTalkingGuy]

It’s anti-American to criticize the government of Israel? Why?

And I didn’t realize the national security minister in charge of the police is a “fringe politician.”

Honestly you can probably justify the government or the war without such obsequious brown-nosing. You don’t have to make preposterous claims about it being the most virtuous thing done by the most virtuous people. It’s neither. Just defend it on realist grounds.

[Krayt]

"STARVING your enemy to death, or at least to surrender, is a tactic of warfare as old as history.

Not necessarily true. Apparently there was a time where a city under seige was not sealed off, and at night, people would go out and get food, and the surrounding army did nothing about it.

Starving out a city under seige for months already had to be invented.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Lincoln's comment was not in the context of the level of starvation present in Gaza.

[ThePublius]

So you know why Israel stopped shipping food aid to Gaza in March? Because the warehouses were full, and there was nowhere to put it!

The only people engaging in starvation in Gaza at the moment is Hamas.

[jb]

So, according to your article: good tactics by Hamas?

[ThePublius]

They are starving Gazans, not "the enemy," Israel, dummy.

[jb]

I know. I was, admittedly, being trolly. But it's weird to on the one hand try to say that it's cool that Israel is starving the Gazans and then to turn around and say that it's actually not their fault at all. Seems a little desperate.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

But Israeli military officers who monitor humanitarian conditions in Gaza have warned their commanders in recent days that unless the blockade is lifted quickly, many areas of the enclave will likely run out of enough food to meet minimum daily nutritional needs, according to the defense officials. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to share sensitive details.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/world/middleeast/gaza-famine-starvation-israel.html

[Bob from Ohio]

"condition of anonymity "

[bye]

UTTERLY MISLEADING WHAT YOU SAY

the code Lieber drafted and Lincoln approved
“was not merely a constraint on the tactics of the Union . . . [but] also a weapon
for the achievement of Union war aims. . . . It [was] not just a humanitarian shield
. . . it was also a sword of justice, a way of advancing the Emancipation
Proclamation and of arming the 200,000 black soldiers who would help to end
slavery.”

John Fabian Witt, Lincoln’s Code: The Laws of War in American History (New York: Free
Press, 2012), 4.

[LexAquilia]

A winning argument against birthright citizenship relies on the 14th Amendment’s rule that citizenship goes to those “born or naturalized in the United States, and under its full sway.” The phrase “under its full sway” means owing complete loyalty to the U.S., which, as Senator Jacob Howard said in 1866, leaves out “outsiders” or “newcomers” like children of unlawful settlers who are tied to foreign lands. The 1898 United States v. Wong Kim Ark ruling, often used to back birthright citizenship, only covered lawful dwellers, not those here against the law, so it sets no firm rule for them. Under Article I, Section 8, Congress has the power to shape citizenship rules and could redefine this to bar such children without changing the Constitution, as backed by court rulings like Fiallo v. Bellthat give the government broad say over newcomers.

Also, birthright citizenship clashes with the idea of fair treatment by giving a prize—citizenship—to children of those who broke the law, which feels unjust to those who follow the rules. Past court cases, like Elk v. Wilkins, denied citizenship to people not wholly under U.S. rule, hinting that birthright citizenship has limits. Most countries have dropped automatic citizenship by birth, and the U.S. could follow suit through new laws or orders, especially since courts often let the government lead on such matters, as seen in Trump v. Hawaii. These points use the Constitution’s wiggle room and legal leeway to question birthright citizenship today.

[not guilty]

Au contraire! That is not at all a winning argument. Dual citizenship has long been recognized under our constitutional law.

Tomoya Kawakita was born in 1921 in California to Japanese parents. He was in Japan when World War II broke out and stayed in Japan until the war was over. After returning to the United States, he was arrested and charged with treason for having abused American prisoners of war. Kawakita claimed he could not be found guilty of treason since he had lost his U.S. citizenship while in Japan, but this argument was rejected by the courts, which ruled that he had in fact retained his U.S. citizenship during the war.

The Supreme Court opined, "Petitioner was born in this country in 1921 of Japanese parents who were citizens of Japan. He was thus a citizen of the United States by birth, Amendment XIV, § 1 and, by reason of Japanese law, a national of Japan." Kawakita v. United States, 343 U.S. 717, 720 (1952), citing Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81, 97 (1943) ("Children born in the United States of Japanese alien parents, and especially those children born before December 1, 1924, are under many circumstances deemed, by Japanese law, to be citizens of Japan.") SCOTUS elaborated:

[Kawakita] had a dual nationality, a status long recognized in the law. Perkins v. Elg, 307 U.S. 325, 344—349, 59 S.Ct. 884, 894 896, 83 L.Ed. 1320. The concept of dual citizenship recognizes that a person may have and exercise rights of nationality in two countries and be subject to the responsibilities of both. The mere fact that he asserts the rights of one citizenship does not without more mean that he renounces the other.

343 U.S. at 723-724 (footnote omitted).

[LexAquilia]

The Supreme Court's decision in Kawakita v. United States (1952) confirms that U.S. law recognizes dual citizenship but does not directly resolve whether children of undocumented immigrants are entitled to birthright citizenship. Kawakita retained his U.S. citizenship despite wartime actions, yet the case hinged on citizenship retention, not its initial grant. Since his parents’ legal status was not contested, the ruling sidesteps the question of whether the 14th Amendment’s “subject to the jurisdiction thereof” clause includes those born to undocumented parents, leaving this issue unresolved compared to precedents like Wong Kim Ark.

Although dual citizenship is affirmed, Congress holds authority under Article I, Section 8 to regulate naturalization, meaning Kawakita does not bar laws limiting birthright citizenship, such as excluding children of undocumented immigrants. The decision upholds an existing citizen’s status but does not mandate unconditional jus soli (right of soil) for all U.S.-born individuals, especially when parental legality is disputed.

[PaulS]

Interestingly - While the US does allow it, Japan does not now allow the duel citizenship - They say choose one or the other

[not guilty]

You are crawfishing away from your "owing complete loyalty to the U.S." trope. Mr. Kawakita owed loyalty to two different sovereigns; indeed, his having retained his allegiance to the United States resulted in his conviction of treason under 18 U.S.C. § 2381 (then numbered as 18 U.S.C.A. § 1).

The Supreme Court opinion in Kawakita indicates that the Defendant's parents were citizens of Japan; it is silent as to whether their presence in California at the time of his birth was lawful or not. In numerous other cases, however, SCOTUS has recognized that offspring of aliens unlawfully present in the United States at the time of birth are U. S. citizens.

United States ex rel. Hintopoulos v. Shaughnessy, 353 U.S. 72, 73 (1957), was a habeas corpus proceeding to test the validity of an order of the Board of Immigration Appeals denying the petitioners' request for suspension of deportation. The Petitioners, husband and wife, entered the United States in 1951 as alien seamen, and remained unlawfully after expiration of their limited lawful stay. In November 1951, a child was born to them -- an American citizen by birth. In January 1952, petitioners applied for suspension of deportation under §19(c) of the Immigration Act of 1917, which conditionally authorizes suspension of a deportation which "would result in serious economic detriment to a citizen . . . who is the . . . minor child of such deportable alien." The Board of Immigration Appeals found that petitioners were eligible for relief but, as a matter of administrative discretion, denied suspension of deportation, relying mainly on the fact that petitioners had established no roots or ties in this country. Id., at 73-75.

The Board's findings there included:

"It is obvious that the American citizen infant child is dependent upon the alien parents for economic support, care and maintenance. Documentary and other evidence establish good moral character for the requisite period. The aliens have no connection with subversive groups."
* * * *
"As stated above, we have, in the instant case, a family consisting of two alien parents illegally residing in the United States and one American citizen child, age about two and one-half years. These respondents have been in the United States for a period of less than three years. Both arrived in this country as seamen. They have no other dependents or close family ties here. The record indicates that the male respondent may be able to obtain work as a Greek seaman and earn about $85 monthly."

"Notwithstanding the fact that . . . the deportation of these respondents would result in a serious economic detriment to an American citizen infant child, the granting or withholding of maximum discretionary relief depends on the factors and merits in each individual case, and is a matter of administrative discretion.

353 U.S. at 75-76 (emphasis added).

Upon the Petitioners' motion for reconsideration, the Board found: "We indicated in our previous order that the deportation of the respondents would result in a serious economic detriment to their citizen minor child, and we do not question that the respondents have established the statutory requirements for suspension of deportation. . . ." Id., at 76-77 (emphasis added).

SCOTUS observed: "Upon being taken into custody for deportation, petitioners instituted the present habeas corpus proceeding, alleging that the Board abused its discretion in denying their application for suspension of deportation. The District Court dismissed the writ, 133 F. Supp. 433, and the Court of Appeals, one judge dissenting, affirmed, 233 F.2d 705." 353 U.S. at 77.

The Supreme Court expressly opined that the Board of Immigration Appeals was correct in its determination:

We do not think that there was error in these proceedings. It is clear from the record that the Board applied the correct legal standards in deciding whether petitioners met the statutory prerequisites for suspension of deportation. The Board found that petitioners met these standards, and were eligible for relief. But the statute does not contemplate that all aliens who meet the minimum legal standards will be granted suspension. Suspension of deportation is a matter of discretion and of administrative grace, not mere eligibility; discretion must be exercised even though statutory prerequisites have been met.

353 U.S. at 77 (footnote omitted, emphasis added).

The U.S. citizenship of the child was a sine qua non of the Board's finding the parents to be eligible for suspension of deportation.

Justice Harlan wrote for the seven justice majority, "In November, 1951, [the Petitioners'] child was born; the child is, of course, an American citizen by birth." 353 U.S. at 73. Justice Douglas, joined by Justice Black, wrote in dissent, “The citizen is a five-year-old boy who was born here and who, therefore, is entitled to all the rights, privileges, and immunities which the Fourteenth Amendment bestows on every citizen.” Id., at 79.

IOW, seven justices affirmed the discretionary decision of the Board of Immigration Appeals to deny suspension of deportation, which decision expressly found the infant to be a U.S. citizen. All nine of the justices recognized the child's American citizenship.

In INS v. Errico, 385 U.S. 214, 215 (1966), the Court explained that children born in United States to parents who procured entry to country by fraudulent means “acquired United States citizenship at birth”.

In INS v. Rios-Pineda, 471 U.S. 444, 446 (1985) the Court opined that the undocumented respondent -- who had entered the country without permission -- “had given birth to a child, who, born in the United States, was a citizen of this country”).

The Supreme Court has expressly rejected the contention that undocumented aliens, because of their immigration status, are not "persons within the jurisdiction" of the State of Texas:

We reject this argument. Whatever his status under the immigration laws, an alien is surely a "person" in any ordinary sense of that term. Aliens, even aliens whose presence in this country is unlawful, have long been recognized as "persons" guaranteed due process of law by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Shaughnessv v. Mezei, 345 U.S. 206, 345 U.S. 212 (1953); Wong Wing v. United States, 163 U.S. 228, 163 U.S. 238 (1896); Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356, 118 U.S. 369 (1886). Indeed, we have clearly held that the Fifth Amendment protects aliens whose presence in this country is unlawful from invidious discrimination by the Federal Government.

Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202, 210 (1982).

[David Nieporent]

Congress holds authority under Article I, Section 8 to regulate naturalization,

Since naturalization is literally applicable only to people who are not birthright citizens, it's also irrelevant to this discussion.

[bye]

Just to point out the fallacy and it's huge
To have dual citizenship, you must first have the one citizenship, and that one citizenship is addressed by Lex.
That you can get second citizenship if you have a legitimate first doesn't establish anything at all about the legality of your first citizenship. YOU must be a lawyer.

[Josh R]

The phrase "under its full sway" does not appear in the 14th Amendment. But even if we assume "subject to the jurisdiction" means "under its full sway" which in turn means owing complete loyalty to the USA, green card holders do not have complete loyalty to the USA. Your argument does not explain Wong Kim Ark.

[Martinned]

It also doesn't explain the children of slaves, who owed absolutely no loyalty to the United States.

[ThePublius]

Subject to the jurisdiction doesn't mean loyalty.

[jb]

Well yes, that's what everyone is trying to explain to LexAquila.

[Noscitur a sociis]

The 1898 United States v. Wong Kim Ark ruling, often used to back birthright citizenship, only covered lawful dwellers, not those here against the law, so it sets no firm rule for them.

I realize this is what you’d like it to say, but at some point you do have to grapple with what it actually says.

[David Nieporent]

A winning argument against birthright citizenship relies on the 14th Amendment’s rule that citizenship goes to those “born or naturalized in the United States, and under its full sway.” The phrase “under its full sway”

…is not in the 14th amendment, and is thus irrelevant to the debate.

[Hugh]

86 47. Impeach him, convict him, try him for his crimes, lock him up. 86 47.

[Krayt]

Third time's the charm. For impeachment. Seventy fourth time's the charm, for trying to jail your political opponent.

[ThePublius]

86 Hugh

[Noscitur a sociis]

I ask this to your counterparts on the other side, so turnabout is fair play:

What is going through your head when you post something like this?

[ducksalad]

How about 25 47? Will you permit that one?

[Both Sides]

I would accept 25 or 6 to 4. . . .

[JoeFromtheBronx]

I think of Maxwell Smart when I see "86."

Yes, I know the reference. It's a tad bit troll-y.

Trump has done more than enough to be impeached. I think a good case was made that he committed multiple crimes (other than the ones for which he was prosecuted). He's special [see, e.g., Trump v. U.S.], so none of that is likely to happen.

It's okay to point out also that he is not constitutionally qualified. The king is naked, even if no one says so.

[Frank Drackman]

I always heard the writers wanted Barbara Feldon to be "Agent 69" but Standards & Practices....

[bye]

Notice , everyone, the HUGE HUBRIS... If no one says so...except the one lofty prescient genius Joe. Against everyone no saying so comes the only vote that matters.

Against : Millions
Ayes: Joe
THE AYES HAVE IT

[LawTalkingGuy]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/05/29/trump-paul-ingrassia-head-office-special-counsel/83931251007/

“A highly respected attorney, writer, and Constitutional Scholar” who graduated in 2022 and was admitted to practice less than a year ago.

[not guilty]

Interesting. The USA Today article also states:

Ingrassia also briefly served as the White House liaison for the Department of Justice shortly after Trump returned to office in January.

But he was reassigned to DHS after pushing to recruit candidates showing "exceptional loyalty" to Trump, and his efforts sparked clashes with Attorney General Pam Bondi's top aide, Chad Mizelle, ABC News reported in February.

[LawTalkingGuy]

The smarter hacks like Mizelle understand that you can’t be a total loyalty obsessed hack all the time, and you do have to administer competently.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Maybe, this should be put in the thread above about grading on a curve. I think the main qualification is his "exceptional loyalty" to Trump. He also shares some, um sentiments, favored by many of Trump's supporters.

https://www.npr.org/2025/05/14/nx-s1-5387299/trump-white-house-antisemitism

[LawTalkingGuy]

The young staffers in the Republican Party are groypers.

[ThePublius]

Oh, get lost. That's shameful to brand these young people with that despicable label.

[LawTalkingGuy]

If the shoe fits.

https://www.npr.org/2025/05/14/nx-s1-5387299/trump-white-house-antisemitism

[ThePublius]

Let's see if that pans out, if it is shown to be true. There are zero indications that Trump is an antisemite, in fact, he's shown to be quite the opposite.

Then again, look at the Democrats in congress. Many more unabashed antisemites there that the three suspected in the WH staff.

[LawTalkingGuy]

I didn’t say Trump was an antisemite. I said Republican staffers are groypers.

[ThePublius]

All Republican staffers? You said "the Republican staffers," which implies as much. That's what's despicable about your comment.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Okay. Well then they shouldn’t be groypers, idk what to tell you.

[Sarcastr0]

All Republican staffers? You said "the Republican staffers," which implies as much

He said "The young staffers in the Republican Party."

You're strawmanning and then getting outraged at the strawman.

[Ted Chen]

I think this is what it is called gaslighting?

[Bob from Ohio]

"The young staffers" means ALL young, right? I don't see "some' or a percentage or any limit.

And what does "young" mean? Under 25, under 30, under 35?

Do you agree that is a smear of many people?

[LawTalkingGuy]

Smear? You think anyone mildly critical of the Israeli government is friends with Hamas. That’s much more of a smear than saying young republican staffers are groypers.

[Sarcastr0]

"The young staffers" means ALL young, right?

Straining for outrage.

[not guilty]

Ted Chen, which "gaslighting" commentary here has led you to question your own sanity, memory, or powers of reasoning?

[David Nieporent]

I think this is what it is called gaslighting?

You think incorrectly. Gaslighting is not a synonym for lying or deceiving people; it's about trying to get someone to doubt his or her own sanity.

[David Nieporent]

To be fair, Trump is an antisemite.

But not in an ideological way like said staffers. (He's similarly a racist.) That is, yeah, he holds derogatory stereotypes about these groups, and is disdainful towards them, but it's not his entire worldview worldview that The Jews are responsible for this or that, and he has nothing against individual Jews, blacks, etc. His bigotry is just casual.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Yair Rosenberg wrote this interesting piece during Trump 1 that about his philosemitism: he believes a lot of stereotypes about Jews but thinks many of them are admirable traits. Which he is clear is still damaging and can also lead to more sinister views.

[Bob from Ohio]

"To be fair, Trump is an antisemite."

Its like butting one's head against the wall to point this out but his beloved daughter is a Jew, married to a Jew, and their children, Trump's grandchildren, are Jewish.

But sure, he hates Jews.

You badly need some therapy DN

[LawTalkingGuy]

To be fair, it’s pretty easy to not be antisemitic if he gets to decide who and who isn’t a Jew and decide the ones (perhaps many) he doesn’t like aren’t actually Jewish :

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/12/trump-calls-schumer-a-palestinian-while-defending-gop-spending-bill-egg-prices-and-tariff-policy-00226516

[David Nieporent]

Its like butting one's head against the wall to point this out but his beloved daughter is a Jew, married to a Jew, and their children, Trump's grandchildren, are Jewish.

But sure, he hates Jews.

It's almost like I prebutted that very argument!

(And, since you clearly didn't read the comment, you should note that I didn't say "hates Jews." I said "antisemite.")

[David Nieporent]

I should note that this is a particularly bad faith argument from Bob because he has no trouble labeling Jews themselves who are demonstrating against Israel of being antisemites. So if Jews can be antisemites, then certainly someone merely related to Jews can be.

[bye]

No, actually , that kind of childish epistemology of yours is what causes real hate.

In Praise of Prejudice: The Necessity of Preconceived Ideas
by Theodore Dalrymple

He says what Wiliam James, Michael Polanyi, and many others have said (even Socrates)

.
"Of course, hatred of the rich is a much stronger emotion than love of the poor,"
SO your view :an excuse for a philosophical disputatiousness that rejects all authority regarding moral behavior, whether that authority is religion, history or social convention.

About you would apply his famous law:
the "Law of Conservation of Righteous Indignation" suggests a psychological or social tendency to find and focus on reasons to be outraged, even as old sources of indignation disappear.

[Estragon]

“Black guys counting my money! I hate it […] the only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day.”

[Frank Drackman]

Hey, even Tony Soprano had Hesh to keep the books in order

[Bob from Ohio]

A common sentiment among black people in my experience.

[Noscitur a sociis]

While LawTalkingGuy is certainly painting with too broad a brush, the label is unquestionably true as applied to this guy.

[LawTalkingGuy]

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-66314075.amp

Maybe it’s too broad. But probably not as narrow as you think it is. (This guy works for Eric Schmitt now).

[bye]

Ouch, using that word "unquestionably' --- if it were so you wouldn't need to mention it

[Ted Chen]

I 2nd Publius post that this post is despicable.

Do you really believe this? Or you just want to say inflammatory things for I don't know what reasons?

If you believe that, then Republicans can say that all Democratic Congressman are anti-semitc and want to genocide Jews.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/rep-rashida-tlaib-faces-criticism-democrats-palestinian-remarks-rcna123735

[LawTalkingGuy]

Yeah. I do. Because they are. If they weren’t, this guy wouldn’t be close to office. Trump wouldn’t be able to have dinner with Fuentes. That doesn’t happen without significant groyperization of the staff.

“Republicans can say that all Democratic Congressman are anti-semitc (sic) and want to genocide Jews.”

They do that already. They’re not waiting for permission from Dems.

In any event, the leading author on groyperfication is a Jewish guy.

https://www.unpopularfront.news/p/groyperfication

[Ted Chen]

Your post makes unserious and/or hyper partisan arguments. The post again gave anecdotes (not data) to support the despicable argument you made. There was no attempt to quantify (eg 1,000 staffers signed this petition that is extreme right wing). You have a conclusion (Trump is a right wing extremist) and then use that to support conclusions about other people.

Updating my analogy based on your response. The argument that can be made is that everybody that voted for Rashida Tlaib is anti-semitic and wants to genocide Jews.

Yes, Republicans make bad arguments. I don't see how it helps your side to make equally bad arguments.

Your arguments are what you claim to hate.

[LawTalkingGuy]

K. Well when groypers stop getting into high level positions or meetings with the President, you might have more of a point. But they are and you have to live with that reality, whether you think it’s despicable to point it out or not.

[Ted Chen]

Yes, I have to live in a reality where there are some leftists that are not reality base and are looking to just confirm their biases.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Sure. But in my defense,
appointing this guy, who is so open about this, to such a high level and high profile position is a pretty good confirmation of my bias.

[Shoota1488]

did you say the same when the hnic appointed his lackey doctors for obama cheerleader as surgeon general with a similar amount of experience?

[LawTalkingGuy]

No because I have no clue what the fuck you’re talking about.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Also even if I knew what you were on about, there’s really no point in talking to someone who chooses to broadcast his severe antisocial personality disorder by putting 1488 in his username. It won’t be productive.

[David Nieporent]

I've encountered this guy on twitter for the past few years. He's your standard MAGA troll. At the time I first encountered him, he was holding himself out as a legal scholar despite not having graduated yet.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

I recently finished a book by Joshua Douglas entitled The Court v. The Voters about multiple Supreme Court cases involving voting rights. Prof. Douglas ends with three strategies:

• Voters compromise/avoid SCOTUS
• Reasonable Court Reform
• Mobilize / form pro-democracy movement

[JoeFromtheBronx]

He argues that a bipartisan pro-democracy coalition can form, promoting laws with these themes:

• Every eligible person can vote with minimal burden
• Acknowledge concerns for potential fraud [e.g., use of paper ballots]
• Voters should be as educated as possible
• Elections should be based on ideas, not rules; losers should accept defeat

He argues that in-person voting fraud is basically not a thing, but if you use identification, it has to be applied over multiple years, with careful means to address special cases. For instance, Texas has a form that you fill out that explains you are unable to obtain a photo ID.

Douglas supports judicial term limits, opposes simple court expansion, but thinks other proposals, like having a larger court with panels, might work. Again, there is room for bipartisan approaches for court reforms, including ethics.

[Brett Bellmore]

There's a certain contradiction between "with minimal burden" and "Acknowledge concerns for potential fraud".

Unless "acknowledge" just means something like admitting the concern exists, doing something about potential fraud generally requires procedures that negatively impact your minimal burden. ID, avoiding use of voting machines with reprogramable hardware, that sort of thing. There's a tradeoff between security and ease of voting.

[Ted Chen]

What was Douglas take on requiring voter IDs and limiting mail-in ballots?

[JoeFromtheBronx]

He argues that in-person voting fraud is basically not a thing

So, he is not a big believer in the need for voter ID, but again, if in-person ID is required, it should be done carefully, as noted.

He generally supports vote by mail (as Republicans used to) and does not see much of a need to provide limits. Some reasonable regulation can be done if voting rights are truly protected.

[Ted Chen]

I respect that Douglas is thinking about this issue. But I can't really take serious the argument that in-person vote fraud is not a thing, so voter ID shouldn't be needed. First, maybe Douglas is being very specific. He is only arguing there are very few cases where a person impersonates another persion (ie Person A voting for Person B at the ballot box). But without IDs, how do we even know the scale of the issue? And they are other types of in person voting fraud (eg illegal immigrants voting) which may not fall into Douglas defintion. How specific was Douglas about in-person voting fraud types?

Many, many countries require voter IDs and when I scanned the list below, it looks like all major European countries do. Why the US doesn't have mandatory voter ID laws is crazy. It is the one outlier among the western nations.

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

I use to support easy to get mail-in ballots. But I changed my mind. With current laws allowing ballot harvesting, mail-in balloting becomes a huge source of possible corruption in voting. How much is the harvester just making it easy for a person to vote (eg a senior that may not be able to get to the ballot box or even the mail box), wrongly influencing the senior to vote a certain way, or outright fraud (harvester is just marking ballots they have without the person knowing).

[JoeFromtheBronx]

He provided a discussion, with sourcing, on the lack of the problem of in-person voting fraud. Rick Hasen has also supplied the receipts. People have studied the problem.

In-person voting fraud overall is simply not very efficient as a matter of fraud. But, as noted, if we do have various types of identification, it should be done carefully.

The evidence of abuse of mail-in voting is also quite exaggerated. Again, the matter has been addressed elsewhere . Regulation can help to address possible problems.

[jb]

Turns out life is full of areas with this sort of tension. Do we design our roads so they're safe or so that people can get from place to place as efficiently as possible? Do we make our computers so they're easy to use or so that it's hard for hackers to steal your data? Do we make it so pitchers in baseball have the advantage, or do we want more offense? It turns out we almost never want absolutes in these sorts of tradeoffs, and need to engage in some sort of balancing.

In the case of voting machines, this means that reprogrammable hardware is probably okay if there's a voter-verifiable paper trail. In the case of ID requirements, it's probably okay if there's a relatively straightforward way for everyone to get an ID card. In all of these things, you think about how much risk you're taking on in terms of fraud versus how much friction you're putting up to people being able to vote.

[Brett Bellmore]

I realize that this is a tiresome theme of mine, but you really need to lean into security more than if everybody was trusting, because you don't need to get the people who win elections to believe they were fair, you need to get the people who lose elections to believe they're fair.

And they have a mental thumb on the scale you need to counter, by removing all those "probably"s.

We got by just fine without programable voting machines, and I'm getting REALLY tired of finding out that these machines are actually relying on security through obscurity, and that it's a big freaking deal if anybody gets a look at the code they're running. I'm getting really tired of security holes being exposed, and the response being "we'll get around to fixing them after this election".

[bernard11]

you need to get the people who lose elections to believe they're fair.

Up to a point. The fact is Trump is never going to believe an election he loses is fair, and neither will his cultists. And anyone unconvinced after the various 2020 post-election activities
is not worth catering to.

It is neither sensible nor wise to run elections in a way that tries to convince them. There were all sorts of court cases, recounts, whatnot, and there remain a large number of unconvinced voters. Why? Because Trump says so. Not good enough.

These people have responsibilities too, one of which is to respect the outcome of various processes intended to make elections secure, and to investigate plausible problems.

It's just like the birther issue. Refute one idiocy and they invent another. Well, too bad for them. We don't have to try to convince every deluded fool.

[Bob from Ohio]

"bipartisan"

You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means.

The subtitle of his book is "The Troubling Story of How the Supreme Court Has Undermined Voting Rights" I think it unlikely it is a "bipartisan" even handed analysis of the law.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

He provides an example of a package in Kentucky that passed a bipartisan voting package. It meant the common sense definition: both Republicans and Democrats joined together to pass it.

He cites a case where someone's voting rights were denied. She was a big Trump supporter. Disagreed with her lawyer on lots of things. Agreed with him on protecting voting rights.

McCain and Feingold, of different parties, joined together to pass a campaign finance law. Which people of both parties support.

People, of both parties, think there is a constitutional right to bear arms. Someone can write a book how SCOTUS, until 2008 at least, did not honor the right to keep and bear arms.

People of both parties agree on many things, including on the idea that SCOTUS was wrong about something over the years.

[ducksalad]

"McCain and Feingold, of different parties, joined together to pass a campaign finance law. Which people enemies of free speech in of both parties support."

The law they passed was unconstitutional, and blatantly so. The government was threatening to put actual people in prison for five years for making a video critical of Hillary Clinton.

If this is Douglas's example of good bipartisanship - two media darling senators conspiring to suppress non-mainstream sources - then I'm not interested in his ideas about democracy.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Kennedy's opinion struck down a portion of the law while upholding another part of it concerning disclosure.

The concern is that a specific revenue stream was used to fund the video. The majority held that the rules were too restrictive. Certain types of campaign finance regulation, again, have been upheld.

It was not about making a video critical of Hillary Clinton, full stop. Or John McCain. Or whomever.

If I rob a bank and the government tells me I can't use my ill-gotten gains to pay for a lawyer, it is not an illegal infringement of my right to a lawyer.

If a person fails to disclose money correctly when paying for the video, they can be criminally charged. The blatant violation of "free speech" regarding campaign finance widely used in free countries is open to debate.

You are latching on to a SINGLE example and even that on part of the law, which, yes, people of both parties agree with (even if misguided). Finally, call out the provision all you want. It was not "conspiring to suppress non-mainstream sources."

If the video on demand funding was "mainstream," the law in question does not treat it differently.

[ducksalad]

Well, we could rehash the whole Citizens United debate. Just to summarize:

I think the whole argument about ill-gotten gains is utterly defeated by the fact that the government was fine with spending those gains on anything, even videos as long as they aren't about a federal candidate. To me that proves the government's animus was 100% against the political video and 0% against any ill-gotten gains.

It was not "conspiring to suppress non-mainstream sources."

Of course I don't hold you to what other people said at the time. But I'm not buying a claim that the proponents wanted just as many independent videos and advertisements made, with just as much money flowing into the production, and just as many resources available, and that their only goal was about some details of whether the big money operation was structured as a corporation rather than a partnership, or something like that.

I'm not buying it because the proponents were quite open about what they wanted. They wanted to reduce the flow of money - they were crystal clear on that - because, and only because, it was going into producing and distributing campaign materials. It is inescapable that they wanted less production and less distribution.

We need a right to anonymous political speech for the exactly same reason we need a secret ballot. And not anonymous speech that is legally limited to be small, cheap, and little heard. We need robust, loud anonymous speech richly funded through sources utterly beyond government control.

[Stephen Lathrop]

They wanted to reduce the flow of money - they were crystal clear on that - because, and only because, it was going into producing and distributing campaign materials. It is inescapable that they wanted less production and less distribution.

ducksalad — That almost describes my advocacy, without getting at my point on the subject. I want politics conducted as a contest between natural citizens, who all avail themselves alike with the resources natural citizens can muster. To do it that way still leaves room for political spending disparities proportionate to variations in personal wealth.

Citizens United blew that up. It put disproportionate corporate resources into the hands of business managers. Those remain free to use that money to advance their own political interests. It is not their money to use, in any other personal context except politics.

That is peculiar. It confers by law a dominant edge in politics to the few members of the polity positioned to take advantage, and leaves them free to do it without limit, and without accountability. They need not even report to the public—let alone to shareholders—from whom they took the money, how much they spent on particular political positions, or what they advocated.

By that means, the political power of ordinary citizens to influence day-to-day policies and operations of government has been mostly overwhelmed. No realistic observer of American politics any longer thinks that ordinary citizens enjoy meaningful power to control matters of political economy in this nation.

[Stephen Lathrop]

We need robust, loud anonymous speech richly funded through sources utterly beyond government control.

So much for a republican form of government. That does not even rule out American governance by foreign oligarchs.

[David Nieporent]

He provides an example of a package in Kentucky that passed a bipartisan voting package. It meant the common sense definition: both Republicans and Democrats joined together to pass it.

That may have been the pre-Trump definition; now that just makes it a RINO bill. Real MAGA never compromise/work with Democrats on anything. Ever. Anything that "both Republicans and Democrats joined together to pass" is really a Uniparty™ thing.

[ducksalad]

Like Brett and jb are saying, some of those things are in tension.

But I'm more concerned with the suggestion that we should be "promoting laws" for those last two bullet points.

I'd like to see an example of a law requiring that "voters should be as educated as possible". You do realize that such laws have a history and it's not a good one...

I'm not clear what "based on ideas, not rules" means - is Douglas against rules? - but more importantly, it's hard to imagine any viable law requiring ideas.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The rules show that regulation is complicated.

Different parties focus on different aspects of the problem, while there is an opportunity to agree on the basics.

So, voting should be done with a "minimal burden." But there still are going to be rules that make voting a bit harder. Free speech includes some regulations. And so on.

I'd like to see an example of a law requiring that "voters should be as educated as possible". You do realize that such laws have a history, and it's not a good one.

I received a voter guide in the mail. It informed me of the issues.

The book talks about the ills of literacy and understanding tests. I "do realize" the history involved. This includes, for instance, the promotion of public education to inform voters. Need more examples? Promotion of debates on public TV comes to mind.

based on ideas, not rules" means

I briefly summarized his position, and you jumped to extreme conclusions. Since I already referenced certain rules, obviously, he grants voting will involve rules.

As a general matter, he thinks that electing people should arise from their ideas. If possible, that should be the most important reason, not the rules of the game, why people win.

I simply don't know what "hard to imagine any viable law requiring ideas" means. Laws involve ideas. Anyway, hope that helps.

[ducksalad]

I received a voter guide in the mail. It informed me of the issues...Promotion of debates on public TV comes to mind.

OK, thanks for the examples. Those are fairly innocuous things that most places already have, so it's not going to change much of anything.

As a general matter, he thinks that electing people should arise from their ideas. If possible, that should be the most important reason, not the rules of the game, why people win.

Sad to say (actually tragic) but I think we have to admit that Donald Trump got elected mainly based on his "ideas". Awful ideas catering to baser impulses, but ideas nevertheless. Not rules, he broke all the unwritten rules of the game and some of the written ones.

Conversely, both Biden and then Harris ended up as candidates largely because of written and unwritten rules in the Democratic nomination process. Stuff about waiting your turn, listening to party elders and leaders of key organizations, primaries that make certain states more important. Not so much because people thought they had the best ideas.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Sad to say (actually tragic) but I think we have to admit that Donald Trump got elected mainly based on his "ideas"

In some universe where the id is not the antagonist of the super-ego, that might make sense. In this universe . . . ? Leave off the lies, and tell me what ideas were left.

[bye]

Yet you too start with Federal law whereas JD says on his website "His most recent legal scholarship focuses on the constitutional right to vote, with an emphasis on state constitutions"

Now the problem is largely that would be reformers assume the priority of Federal law. But in some states you vote for judges and in others you do not. Why homogenize things. WHY

[Shoota1488]

the supreme court sensibly allowed trump to end protections for temporary not so temporary migrants allowed in under biden. one of those countries is haiti. look at the problems we have with our black population as it is. anyone who wants to import their genetic cousins is an evil person.

[jb]

I like when people show up and make it clear that I should mute them right away.

[Frank Drackman]

Oh Mute, where is thy Sting?

[bye]

You can't beat a DOGma with a STIGma. t

[hobie]

After all the naked corruption, self-dealing and quid pro quos we've all witnessed with our own eyes these past couple of months, I don't expect to ever hear a peep out of you hayseeds about 'Biden Crime Family'. Capiche?

[Ted Chen]

Examples?

[jb]

The crypto dinner is to me the most obvious/egregious one. "You get to hang out with the President in exchange for personally enriching him!" It's gross enough when politicians do pay-for-play stuff with donations to organizations like SuperPACs, but at least in theory that's money for campaigning and not just being put into the politicians' own pockets.

For closer analogies to what the Biden family was accused of doing: having the Trump sons go and make deals with foreign governments to develop Trump properties while Trump is President and managing foreign policy with those same governments. I fail to see how that is different in any way (and at a MUCH larger scale) than anything Hunter was accused of.

[Ted Chen]

Thanks for the examples.

I admit the optics of the crypto dinner are not good. If I am steelmanning the event (because I am not sure I have all the facts), I would say that the dinner was for existing buyers. From what I read, it wasn't a "buy my crypto and I will have dinner with you" (obvious quid pro quo). It was "you brought my crypto and I want to reward you with a meeting" (dinner in this case). That is less clear of a quid pro quo and arguably not even a quid pro quo because for the crypto buyers, they didn't even know of a quo.

As you said, SuperPACs are an example of pay-for-play. I would argue they are even worse than the Crypto dinner. SuperPACs have clearer lines of quid pro quo. For many of the events, it is literally "pay $1,000 and you can come to my dinner".

Biden family: I don't think there would be as much of an uproar if Hunter was just doing regular "lobbyist" things. Hunter was effectively a lobbyist for MBNA, though technically a consultant and then a Vice President at the bank. If Hunter had continued that, I don't think the Republicans would make much of an issue.

But, Hunter was "helping" foreign companies where he had no experience. Hunter was a board member of Burisma, which is in the gas industry. Hunter had no previous experience and I doubt his contacts at MBNA were helpful (a relatively large bank, but very much focused on the US). So what was Hunter offerring?

As for the Trump property deals. Again, I admit the optics look bad and I wished that Trump would pause some of those efforts. But, are they corruption? My argument is that they are not clearly as corrupt as what the Biden's were doing. Trump's business for the longest time is to license his name to golf courses, hotels, and casino's. These foreign deals are just continuing the same. Are the foreign investors trying to "buy off" the family? I don't know. But I would argue it would be easier to just set up shell organizations to donate to Trump or make small donations through some SuperPac that had lax donation controls (link below). Since Trump's business are usually just licensing deals, the foreign companies are potentially losing ten's of millions just to buy access? Seems a little farfetch.

Also, the post-presidency deals are getting out of control. Obama, a career academic and politician, is estimated to be worth $220 million (google AI result for "obama net worth). And there was lots of press that these deals (eg Netflix) were in the works around the last year of Obama's presidency. I argue that that is a clearer examples of corruption.

https://nypost.com/2025/04/02/us-news/dem-fundraiser-actblue-made-donations-standards-more-lenient-received-foreign-contributions-during-2024-election-internal-docs/

[jb]

1) No, the crypto dinner was not for existing buyers. Quite the opposite. Trump announced that the top holders of $TRUMP during a certain period (in the future) would be invited, and with the top 25 getting a personal audience with the President. So while it's true that existing holders of $TRUMP were eligible, a lot of people bought into the coin in order to do so. The activity during the eligibility period created huge spikes in the price of the coin, although they haven't really endured.

But unlike pay-for-play with SuperPACs, Trump personally benefits from people's investments here. I think there's a significant difference between a politician saying "help me and my friends get elected and I'll have dinner with you" versus "help pump up the value of my personal assets and I'll have dinner with you". Maybe you think that's a distinction without a difference, but usually we at least make a pretense about there being a difference between campaign finances and personal finances.

2) I find the distinction between the Trump family getting foreigners and foreign governments to invest in their business, versus the Biden family getting Hunter cushy jobs to be not at all compelling. Sure, Trump has been in the business of licensing his name for a long time, but there's just not any difference in the types of conflict that arise from hiring Hunter to do some lame board job that he may or may not be qualified for versus investing in Kushner's hedge fund or working with Don Jr. and Eric to get the latest Trump resort off the ground. And the scale of conflict is massively bigger with Trump: we're talking about deals in the billions of dollars whereas the concerns with the Biden family were often in the millions or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

3) Post Presidency deals don't really bother me (for either party). Same for post-Senate or post-judge jobs. There's risk with revolving doors, so I have bigger concerns when people potentially move back into government, but I find it unsurprising that people want to hear a speech or read a book by someone famous so it's expected that there will be a reasonable market for that sort of thing.

[Kenneth Almquist]

Hunter Biden’s stated qualifications for the Burisma board of directors include

1) Understanding of regulatory compliance issues. Probably his time and MNBA would give him a bit of insight into this, and at a minimum he had a law degree.

2) Ability to represent Burisma outside of Ukraine. “Hunter Biden” may not have been a particularly famous name at the time, but it’s a step up from Joe Smith. You write that ”Hunter was effectively a lobbyist for MBNA,“ which suggests some ability to represent MNBA when interacting with people outside of that company; it seems reasonable to assume that he could do something similar for Burisma.

3) Previous experience in similar jobs. Hunter had been on other boards of directors.

Hunter Biden had no previous experience in the gas industry, but as far as I can tell, neither did anyone else on the board. Alan Apter, the Chairman of the Board, was a former lawyer and investment banker. Aleksander Kwaśniewski had been President of Poland; at the time he joined the Burisma board he was teaching at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service (Georgetown University). Anzelika Pasenidou and Riginos Charalampous were accountants.

[BrotherMovesOn]

jb and K. Almquist, good points, of course.
I welcome posts like these and all, but you're wasting your time trying to bust through here. Burisma is canonical on the right as prima facie evidence of corruption.
Like a Star Wars historiography.
Appreciate the attempt though, and please keep spending your time posting.

[hobie]

You gotta be fucking kidding me. You cultists really do have blinders on, don't you?

[Ted Chen]

Why did you have to resort to an ad hominem?

[hobie]

And the pearl clutching completes the tableau. I must say, you rubes never fail to amuse

[Ted Chen]

I guess you are not interested in rationally discussing things here. Fair enough. This is an open thread and people can be as unhinged and as crazy as they want.

[Bwaaah]

"Why did you have to resort to an ad hominem?

It's hobie. He doesn't have substantive arguments. Occasionally, he teaches us a new stereotype he's adopted. That's pretty much the best of him.

Understand, cultist?

[Frank Drackman]

We can spot fake Veteran's though, what were you again? an Army Ranger F-19 Pilot?

[hobie]

Frankie, just like homophobes tend to be homo, your singular protests about the military are starting to raise flags. A lot of people here doubt your CV. And what with your decidedly un-military hatred and constant need for validation, I'm starting to believe you're a fake as well. Anyone with your personality would have been fragged in the first week of basics. Yet here you are; alive and annoying

[Mr. Bumble]

Hey asshole. You get to throw ONE live grenade in basic (from a bunker with a DI right next to you) and no one has a weapon or ammo except on the range.

[Frank Drackman]

Like my Sunday Screw-el teacher said (My Mom, yes she’s Jewish, the Air Farce Chapel needed Sunday Screw-el Teachers)
“You might not believe in Hey-Zeus, but he believes in you!” (OK I think it was in the “programmed learning” book we used)
You couldn’t make up my CV, like most real peoples my secret to success was being in the right place at the right time. If we’d stayed in California I’d probably be driving a Truck (not that there’s anything wrong with that) Baake had to go to the Surpremes to get in a California Med Screw-el, how would I have gotten in?
Oh, it’s not “Basics” it’s “Basic” Training, and that’s for the Enlisted, we smart people’s (Docs, Dentists(I know, they’re “Doctors” too, Nurses, Chaplains, Shysters, went to “OIS” Officer Indoctrination Screw-el, where the most rigorous task was getting up at 5:45am to do a few Jumping Jacks after a late night in Newport RI

[hobie]

Yeah, that response pretty much seals it. Good luck to you, civilian Frankie. When I thank real soldiers I'll be thinking of you

[Mr. Bumble]

FWIW:
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Friday that the Trump administration can restart deportations of up to 530,000 Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan and Venezuelan migrants who entered the US as part of a controversial “humanitarian parole” program under former President Joe Biden.

Seven of the high court’s justices granted the stay on a Boston federal court ruling that had halted the removals.

Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson authored a dissenting opinion, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor joining her.
This image released by the Department of Defense shows US Northern Command, US Transportation Command supporting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation flights by via military airlift, at Fort Bliss, Texas, February 7, 2025.
https://nypost.com/2025/05/30/us-news/supreme-court-rules-trump-can-restart-deportation-of-more-than-530k-migrants-from-biden-era-parole-program/

[jb]

I'm just going to point out again: this may be legal by Trump, but puts the lie to the notion that this debate is about legal vs. illegal immigration. Rather than trying to use the limited bandwidth of ICE/immigration courts to remove people who snuck into the country, Trump is trying to kick out a bunch of people who entered completely legally.

So let's just get it out there: y'all don't like immigration. We can dropof this pretense about illegal immigration being the problem.

[Bob from Ohio]

Mass immigration is bad, legal or not.

[not guilty]

Which Native American tribe are you descended from, Bob?

[Poxigah146]

What a stupid argument.

[John 4]

Ah, so not THAT type of mass immigration, eh?

[Poxigah146]

European settlement of North America was not immigration.

[not guilty]

"European settlement of North America was not immigration."

Is that as true as everything else you have said, Poxigah146?

[Bob from Ohio]

"European settlement of North America was not immigration.'

No, it was invasion.

[Poxigah146]

Correct. Immigration is moving to an existing country. There was no country in existence to move to in the New World.

[David Nieporent]

Immigration is moving to an existing country.

Glad to see you admitting that there is no "invasion" of the U.S. now.

[not guilty]

"Immigration is moving to an existing country. There was no country in existence to move to in the New World."

There were indigenous tribes with distinct habitats and governing structures. I surmise that in Poxigah146 world, nothing nonwhite matters.

[Poxigah146]

Nothing to do with white, and everything to do with that the Europeans did not come to take advantage of the existing systems that the Indians had built. They came to replace those systems with their own. They were conquerors, not immigrants.

[not guilty]

Unless you are Humpty Dumpty speaking to Alice (“When I use a word, . . . it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less."), you don't get to make up meanings for words.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/immigrant

[JoeFromtheBronx]

They were immigrants, too.

[Frank Drackman]

And had Slaves

[Poxigah146]

Correct. We don't like unskilled, low income immigration of people who will not pay their own way.

[tylertusta]

They aren't even technically immigrants, so your statement that people are not liking legal immigration isn't even correct.

Given that you made the logical leap of turning 'foreign nationals with temporary protected status' into 'legal immigrant' then it's fair for me to call bullshit on Biden's grant of TPS in the first place: it was an abuse of power and the people using it to remain in the US should be called out as abusing US refugee laws as a means to backdoor hundreds of thousands of otherwise illegal immigrants into the United States.

It's open borders, nothing more. We are well within reason to demand that people who want to come to the USA follow the process like everyone else has to do and not be allowed in with the wave of a magic wand.

[tylertusta]

Let's keep in mind that many of the people who are covered by Biden's grant of TPS are those who unlawfully crossed the border, found a border patrol agent, said they were from a country like Venezuela, and then they're here for good.*

That's the kind of thing that people are complaining about.

[Brett Bellmore]

You know, I keep pointing this out: Objections to bank robbery are not cured by adopting a policy at the bank of just handing money to anybody who asks for it without waiting for them to pull out a gun.

The objection is mostly about the depositors' money ending up with people who aren't entitled to have it; The way they arranged for that is just an additional problem.

Similarly, we have TWO objections to illegal immigration. Sure, one IS that it's a crime, but the other is that the people who come here illegally are not the sort of well vetted, highly educated and law abiding, English literate immigrants who would maximize benefit to the country.

We do not, frankly, need more illiterates, more people who are casual about obeying our laws, and more low skilled laborers.

Sure, business wants that last, but WE don't. We'd rather that market scarcity drove up the incomes of the low skilled, than just pay them welfare.

[Poxigah146]

There is a segment of the elite who think immigration is not about maximizing benefit to the country, but to the immigrant. Nearly every immigrant is better off coming here.

[Sarcastr0]

"Rather than trying to use the limited bandwidth of ICE/immigration courts to remove people who snuck into the country, Trump is trying to kick out a bunch of people who entered completely legally."

Your comment doesn't look like a relevant reply.

[Brett Bellmore]

He has limited resources, so he's kicking out the people who shouldn't be here who aren't already in hiding.

[David Nieporent]

the people who come here illegally are not the sort of well vetted, highly educated and law abiding, English literate immigrants who would maximize benefit to the country.

We do not, frankly, need more illiterates, more people who are casual about obeying our laws, and more low skilled laborers.

The market says otherwise. Markets are much much much better at figuring out what's "needed" than politicians, bureaucrats, and voters are, Mr. Lenin.

But, also, your claim is based on a bullshit premise. The anti-immigration crowd hates H1B visas, too. They don't want highly skilled people any more than they want low-skilled ones.

[Frank Drackman]

you want some Dot/Towel-Head who'll do your job for 1/2 the pay?

[Brett Bellmore]

The market will tell you we need more burglars; Fences are part of the market, aren't they?

[tylertusta]

The 'market' wants a convoluted tax code so Intuit and H&R Block can remain in business.

[Frank Drackman]

My Accountant had to complete a 5400? 5500? What ever it was it had “EZ” in the title for my Suf(HT J Sessions) Employed 401K
The IRS estimated time to complete the form was 34 hrs(OK, that does include the “Record Keeping” time over the last year) and boy did he bill for every last minute of it

[jb]

This mostly sounds like a post hoc rationalization. For decades the story from the right has been "it's not immigration we hate, it's illegal immigration". Now that Trump is kicking out people who entered the country legally, we're suddenly hearing "oh, well those people just entered the country legally, they didn't immigrate legally" or "by legal immigration, we mean a certain class of high-skilled immigration". But so much of the story for years has been about breaking the rules and jumping the line and not rewarding bad behavior.

As I pointed out last time you made this argument, though, you're not actually providing any evidence that the folks here under TPS are less literate or law-abiding than immigrants admitted through other channels. Sure, they're almost certainly lower-skilled than people coming in on H-1 or O-1 visas, but there's always been more immigrants coming in under family visas or on humanitarian grounds than through high-skill visas.

And for over a century, that broad welcome of all sorts of Americans is what makes America great. People don't look at the Statue of Liberty and think "oh, what we need is more tech bros", they think of Emma Lazarus:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

[Bob from Ohio]

Government by poem!

[Frank Drackman]

Slouching towards Gommorah…

[tylertusta]

I missed the part in civics where our immigration policy has to be based on a poem that a 19th century sculptor decided to put onto a statute.

[Frank Drackman]

He got the “Muddled Asses” part right

[David Nieporent]

It was actually a 20th century public campaign. It wasn't added by any sculptor, let alone in the 19th century. (The poem was written in the 19th century, to be sure.)

[David Nieporent]

Rather than trying to use the limited bandwidth of ICE/immigration courts to remove people who snuck into the country, Trump is trying to kick out a bunch of people who entered completely legally.

What a lot of people don't realize about the mass deportation fetish is that almost by design it cannot target (despite what Trump implied on the campaign trail) the "worst of the worst." The people who are easiest to sweep up, if you're trying to make splashy headline numbers, are the ones who are cooperative and follow the rules. The person who makes his or her monthly immigration check in, the people who applied for asylum, etc. The actual threats are few and far between, and are hard to find.

[Kazinski]

We want them all out by the 2030 census at the least.

Half a million here, another half million there, and we will get there.

And by the way the should be working on the census regulation that tripped us up last time, so we can ask about immigration status.

[tylertusta]

Congress should pass a law to make it difficult for Democratic judges to engage in shenanigans.

[Frank Drackman]

Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda, you’d probably be lucky to get a 1 or 2 vote margin to stop sending Condoms to Gaza, Congress could totally reorganize the Federal Courts and their jurisdiction if they had the Balls (they don’t)

[Kazinski]

Lets be clear about that JB, these people were not legal immigrants, nor were they legally admitted.

They were paroled, not admitted, which is a completely different status and is not a legal immigration channel.

Sending these people home, isn't a lot different than telling people on a tourist visa, who are legally admitted, that they have to go home when their length of stay has expired.

[jb]

I mean, other than the fact we're sending some of them back literally to the Taliban, not much different at all.

[tylertusta]

Only a relatively small number of them are from Afghanistan. They should have request asylum sometime in the past four years instead of just sitting around with their temporary status. The vast majority are from Central and South American countries.

Perhaps you should have gotten Congress to pass a law instead of trying to play a shell game.

[bye]

still, you mock your own argument by not admitting MS-13, TdA, terrorists, druggies, and psychos....IF you care about the good people coming over , THEY are the most affected by people like you giveing a pass to the demons coming in with them.
There is a certain folly that shades into gross immorality

[Commenter_XY]

Adios Amigos...

[John F. Carr]

The French legislature voted to eliminate low emission zones in cities. Currently you need a sticker saying your car is a low emission vehicle to drive in a city over 150,000 people, at least during the daytime. The vote was 98-51, including both left and right. I gather the left is worried about people who can't afford electric cars and the right is worried about overregulation. The measure is an amendment to a larger bill that has not yet passed.

European cars are generally lower emission than American cars. There is a punitive tax on large engines. One correspondent tells me his 3 liter displacement American car would cost $39,000 to register in Europe. From context, he meant Spain, Portugal, or Germany.

English: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0mrpl2208no
Français: https://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2025/05/28/zones-a-faibles-emissions-l-assemblee-nationale-vote-leur-suppression-dans-le-projet-de-loi-de-simplification_6609032_3244.html

[Bob from Ohio]

"Supreme Court allows Trump to suspend deportation protections for immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela"
Devan Cole
CNN By John Fritze and Devan Cole, CNN
Updated 11:15 AM EDT, Fri May 30, 2025

Dumb and Dumber dissented.

[Bob from Ohio]

Didn't se Bumble's comment

[Kazinski]

Jackson didn't seem pleased:

"The Court has plainly botched this assessment today."

And goes on to say:

"Even if the Government is likely to win on the merits, in our legal
system, success takes time and the stay standards require more than anticipated victory."

I'm no expert on preliminary injunctions and stays, but it seems to me she is taking the four factors needed to issue a preliminary injunction and applying them to the application for a stay of the injunction.

[not guilty]

The legal principles governing a stay pending appeal:

have been distilled into consideration of four factors: “(1) whether the stay applicant has made a strong showing that he is likely to succeed on the merits; (2) whether the applicant will be irreparably injured absent a stay; (3) whether issuance of the stay will substantially injure the other parties interested in the proceeding; and (4) where the public interest lies.”

Nken v. Holder, 556 U.S. 418, 434 (2009).

[Kazinski]

Which the district court judge violated in issuing the preliminary injunction.

So it's your position that the district court judge can violate the "likelyhood of prevailing" standard for issuing the preliminary injunction, but then the administration has to then meet all four factors in staying the injunction?

That is obviously Jackson's view.

My own view is if the preliminary injunction fails to properly apply those standards it should be stayed because it isn't a valid use of judicial authority in the first place.

I think that is the view of the other 7 justices, although they didn't explain their reasons for the stay.

[not guilty]

Kazinski, do you not understand the difference between the initial issuance of an injunction and the stay of an injunction pending appeal?

Ron White is right. You can't fix stupid. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDvQ77JP8nw

[Kazinski]

Sure I do.

You aren't claiming that success on the merits isn't a factor in issuing a preliminary injunction are you? Roberts says its a must, striking a preliminary injunction:

"A plaintiff seeking a preliminary injunction must establish that he is likely to succeed on the merits that he is likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief, that the balance of equities tips in his favor, and that an injunction is in the public interest."

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/555/7/

And as for how stupid I am, I'm not the one is arguing for a proposition that 7 justices just rejected.

[not guilty]

"You aren't claiming that success on the merits isn't a factor in issuing a preliminary injunction are you?"

Of course I'm not claiming that, so put away your straw man. A plaintiff seeking an injunction from a district court must establish that he is likely to succeed on the merits, that he is likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief, that the balance of equities tips in his favor, and that an injunction is in the public interest. Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 555 U.S. 7, 20 (2008).

There is some surface similarity to the Nken v. Holder four factors that I quoted upthread, but showing a likelihood of success on the merits in an appellate court requires a significantly higher threshold than showing a likelihood of success at an early stage in a trial court.

Issuance of a preliminary injunction is an "extraordinary and drastic remedy" that is "never awarded as of right." Munaf v. Geren, 553 U.S. 674, 689-90 (2008) (quoting 11A C. Wright, A. Miller, & M. Kane, Federal Practice and Procedure § 2948, at 129 (2d ed. 1995)). The standard of appellate review is whether the issuance of the injunction, in the light of the applicable standard, constituted an abuse of discretion.Doran v. Salem Inn, Inc., 422 U.S. 922, 931-932 (1975). A district court has exceeded the permissible bounds of its discretion when its "decision rests on an error of law (such as application of the wrong legal principle) or a clearly erroneous factual finding" or "cannot be located within the range of permissible decisions." Mastrovincenzo v. City of New York, 435 F.3d 78, 88 (2d Cir. 2006).

Clear error is a high standard, which by design is difficult to meet. See, e.g., Ocean Garden, Inc. v. Marktrade Co., Inc., 953 F.2d 500, 502 (9th Cir. 1991) ("[T]o be clearly erroneous, a decision must strike us as wrong with the force of a five-week old, unrefrigerated dead fish."). "If the district court's account of the evidence is plausible in light of the record viewed in its entirety, the court of appeals may not reverse it even though convinced that had it been sitting as the trier of fact, it would have weighed the evidence differently." Anderson v. City of Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 573–74, (1985).

A plaintiff seeking a preliminary injunction in a district court is writing on a clean slate, and the balancing of the Winter factors reflects that. The "likelihood of success on the merits" there considers whether a permanent injunction is likely to issue at a trial on the merits. According to well-established principles of equity, a plaintiff seeking a permanent injunction must satisfy a four-factor test before a court may grant such relief. A plaintiff must demonstrate: (1) that it has suffered an irreparable injury; (2) that remedies available at law, such as monetary damages, are inadequate to compensate for that injury; (3) that, considering the balance of hardships between the plaintiff and defendant, a remedy in equity is warranted; and (4) that the public interest would not be disserved by a permanent injunction. eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C., 547 U.S. 388, 391 (2006).

In order to obtain relief on appeal from the issuance of a preliminary injunction, the appellant must show that the district court abused its discretion in application of the Winter factors. This standard of review is quite deferential to the district court -- especially in regard to the determination of disputed facts. "In applying the clearly erroneous standard to the findings of a district court sitting without a jury, appellate courts must constantly have in mind that their function is not to decide factual issues de novo." Anderson v. City of Bessemer, supra, 470 U.S. at 573, quoting Zenith Radio Corp. v. Hazeltine Research, Inc., 395 U. S. 100, 123 (1969). "Where there are two permissible views of the evidence, the factfinder's choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous." Id., at 574.

[Mr. Bumble]

PBJ, Biden's gift that keeps on giving.

[John F. Carr]

The First Circuit ruled that a Puerto Rico law prohibiting discounts for paying in cash is not preempted by federal laws protecting cash discounts. The federal law regulates credit card issuers and processors. The Puerto Rico law regulates merchants.

The opinion was written by Judge Gelpí, the Puerto Rican member of the First Circuit. I notice his name more than the rest because as printed in opinions it includes the rare capital I with acute accent: GELPÍ.
Asociacion de Detallistas de Gasolina de PR Inc. v. Commonwealth of Puerto Rico
https://www.ca1.uscourts.gov/sites/ca1/files/opnfiles/24-1188P-01A.pdf

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Puerto Rico being part of the New England circuit seems a bit silly, as if "well, they are a small one, let's toss it over there instead of the 2nd [NY] where it might make more sense."

The Virgin Islands are part of the Third Circuit (NJ, etc.).

[Michael Ejercito]

Here is an unethical post that showed up on my InstaGram feed.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DJfV1Rji0tK/

The author simply dismissed the idea of false rape accusations as a bad thing.

Also, InstyaGram user DAApplejuice wrote this comment.

“Less than FIVE percent of REPORTED cases are false. But yes be worried about YOUR life being ruined”

So if less than five percent of reported rape cases are false, what is the point of the Innocence Project?

[Noscitur a sociis]

I’m not sure why anyone should care about some random comment you saw on instagram, or what is “unethical” about it (as opposed to simply being silly or wrong).

[Michael Ejercito]

I wonder why people even think this in the first place.

[Brett Bellmore]

I swear, the last time I looked the police were saying it was more like 50%, but I guess that's down to 45% of the time there's "merely" no evidence at all that the crime happened, while 5% of the time you can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that it didn't happen.

[John F. Carr]

With the modern definition of rape and modern behavior, a lot of the time only the two parties can provide useful evidence. If "no evidence" means no corroboration of her story, I'm not surprised.

The "by force" element of rape has for practical purposes been read out of the statute in Massachusetts. (I saw one case where a conviction was overturned because the guy was completely passive.) I think most states are the same. There was a case in Maryland, perfectly preserved for appellate review, where the court ruled failure to pull out on command was rape.

[Poxigah146]

If a woman says the man raped her, and he said it was consensual, and there is no additional evidence beyond their statements. Is that in the 45%? There is, in that scenario, evidence that the crime happened, the evidence being the woman's word. But there's also evidence it didn't happen, being the man's word.

[bye]

If a woman is sexually involved with a man who (surprising to her) does anything resembling rape, she is not innocent.

I thought he was a monk but he was a serial murderer .
RASPUTIN
"When the bell tolls three times, it will announce that I have been killed".
"You kiss me, you kiss God. You lie with me, you lie with him."

[Bored Lawyer]

There used to be a saying that better to let 99 guilty men go free to save one innocent man. That's 1 %.

[Bwaaah]

We're upgrading our criminal justice system to be more inclusive.

[Noscitur a sociis]

I don’t think that arithmetic is an especially productive way to think about this, the most common formulation (and the one in Blackstone) has a 10:1 ratio, with 1:1 being pretty common as well, although 100:1 isn’t unheard of (Benjamin Franklin said it, for instance).

Prof. Sasha Volokh has more here: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=11412

[bye]

No, that didn't mean what you think.

If you know that 99 are guilty then you are unleashing multiple horrors on multiple future victims

“Mercy to the guilty is cruelty to the innocent.”
― Adam Smith

You don't not do your best just because you know you are fallible

[JoeFromtheBronx]

President Tyler's last surviving grandson has died, ending an amazing footnote of history.

https://www.npr.org/2025/05/29/nx-s1-5415207/president-tyler-grandson-harrison-ruffin-tyler

[Frank Drackman]

I want whatever President Tyler and his son/grandson were drinking

[Estragon]

Au revoir to Bernie Kerik. To my (admittedly limited) knowledge, the only guy to be housed in a jail that once bore his own name. I trust he will justly reap his eternal reward. Condolences to those who cared about him.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c74qwj1wv34o.amp

Ps: A “private illness” is an interesting formulation I’ve never seen before.

[John F. Carr]

A private illness must be the opposite of a social disease.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The phrasing is "private battle with illness." Not sure if I saw the framing but there were various people (including Norm McDonald) who battled a serious illness without many people knowing.

FBI Director Kash Patel included a passionate statement in his memory, including praise as “a warrior, a patriot, and one of the most courageous public servants this country has ever known.”

Other Trump insiders had similar sentiments as did someone who was the Republican candidate for mayor of NYC and might be again this year.

https://nypost.com/2025/05/30/us-news/former-new-york-police-department-commissioner-bernard-kerik-remembered-as-fearless-leader-who-helped-guide-nyc-through-9-11/

[hobie]

From the 'They Eat Their Own' section:

"... a real ‘sleazebag’ named Leonard Leo, a bad person who, in his own way, probably hates America..."

Doesn't Trump realize that apart from Harlan Crow, Leo holds the leashes of all the justices Trump will need to depend on?

[thenotoriousrbg]

seriously, how is nobody talking about this? I know the President issues a lot of bombastic proclamations and agitating invective, but calling Leonard Leo a 'sleazebag' who 'hates America' seems beyond the pail. I really expected a blog post on the matter.

[bye]

Beyond the PALE

The word "pale" in the historical contexts of "The Pale" in Ireland and "Pale of Settlement" in Russia refers to a boundary or a restricted area, derived from the Latin word "palus" meaning "stake". I

[Brett Bellmore]

Wouldn't claiming that be roughly equivalent to admitting that he was a real sleazebag?

[hobie]

Of course! But it takes extraordinary admissions for the rubes to realize their heros have been playing the base like suckers. Brett, you seem intelligent enough that you'd realize the con eventually

[LawTalkingGuy]

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/05/30/joni-ernst-town-hall-00376747

The Senator added: Eat Arby’s.

[jb]

Senator Ernst having her "Let them eat cake!" moment.

[hobie]

She probably wanted to say: "What are you people bitching about? Everyone has access to ivermectin at Tractor Supply!"

[hobie]

Looks like the boxcars are coming for the Gazans after all. Adding to the forced starvation, the whole thing is largely indistinguishable from Krakow or the Holodomor . It's ironic that the Jews are the ones perpetuating this

[ThePublius]

Got a citation for any of that?

[hobie]

Which part? The forced movement of the remaining living to a small strip by the sea, or the mass starvation?

[ThePublius]

Boxcars and "forced starvation."

[hobie]

Boxcars is an analogy. An apt analogy. The famine isn't some act of god either, Publius. Someone is deliberately keeping food out, and it ain't the Gazans. If you want to play ignorant of all this just to make me explain it...eh, I'll play along

[ThePublius]

First, "boxcars" is invoking the holocaust, which is despicable.

Second, Israel, in cooperation with the U.S., has established food distribution centers in Gaza, I think 5 of them, and has packed them to the gills with food to distribute to the population there. The only difference between this and the UN administered distribution scheme is that this new one excludes Hamas, and distributes directly to those in need.

[hobie]

"First, "boxcars" is invoking the holocaust, which is despicable."

Like I said, an apt analogy.

[hobie]

Plus, the Palestinian civilians are not soulless, subhuman, enemies of the state. That personification was also applied with fervor by the Third Reich and its supporters (you). It turned out to be wrong. And when your fever breaks, you'll realize it too.

[ThePublius]

I'm a third reich supporter? You are truly deranged.

[hobie]

Another analogy that went over your head.

[Brett Bellmore]

Hamas is more like the fourth reich, but not the most effective one.

[Armchair]

Well...there's one part that seems to be different.

During the Holocaust, the Jewish population was reduced...some may be say dramatically.

Meanwhile, there seem to be far more Palestinians today than there were in Gaza 30 years ago.

Israel must not be doing this genocide thing right.

[hobie]

You have to admit, Israel is trying. Have you seen pictures of the wastelands that used to be cities? I mean, they might as well boxcar them. They are all essentially homeless now

[Brett Bellmore]

No, we don't have to admit Israel is trying, because if Israel was trying, they'd be succeeding.

[hobie]

Them brown civilians ain't much of a consideration...are they, Brett?

[Commenter_XY]

The only problem here is that Israel is not killing hamas members fast enough.

[Michael P]

Compare Gaza to, say, the genocide of the Tutsi and Batwa by the Hutu. The latter involved something like 20 times as many deaths (with similar populations: Wikipedia says there are 1-2 million Tutsis in Rwanda, and the number before that genocide is not clear) in about a fifth the time. I think we have to say that the Israelis are not trying to commit genocide.

Comparisons of other intense urban combat, especially after considering the recent revisions by Gazan authorities of casualty numbers to admit that many more of the dead were militants, indicate that Israel is trying rather hard to minimize civilian casualties even though Hamas does things like holding meetings underneath hospitals.

[Brett Bellmore]

Can't follow reasoning, can you?

The Israelis have massively more military capacity than the Palestinians. They're highly competent. After last year's atrocity, they're highly motivated.

If they were actually trying to commit genocide, they wouldn't be failing miserably at it.

[Sarcastr0]

"It can't be a genocide because it could be so much worse" is not a great argument.

Doing a genocide and getting away with it? That's the real trick.

It's not going very well across the world, but better than if it became and open push.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, it's actually a great argument, but like most logical arguments, it only works on logical people.

[Michael P]

"hobie cannot distinguish" is very different from "largely indistinguishable". Where was the equivalent of October 7 or ongoing rocket attacks in Krakow or the Holodomor? Where was the equivalent of the Nazis or Soviets giving away food for free or rescuing hostages?

[Kazinski]

PCE the Federal Reserves preferred came in lower today, and inflation continues to decline, despite the tariffs:

Annual inflation in the United States (US), as measured by the change in the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Price Index, declined to 2.1% in April from 2.3% in March, the US Bureau of Economic Analysis reported on Friday. This reading came in below the market expectation of 2.2%.

The core PCE Price Index, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, rose 2.5% in the same period, down from the 2.7% increase reported in March and in line with analysts' estimates. The PCE Price Index and the core PCE Price Index both rose 0.1% on a monthly basis."

https://www.fxstreet.com/news/us-core-pce-inflation-likely-steady-in-april-as-markets-price-federal-reserve-rate-cut-for-september-202505300600

[Kazinski]

Personal Income was also up .8% for April( that's a 9.6% annual rate) , while expenditures were only up .2%.

https://www.bea.gov/news/2025/personal-income-and-outlays-april-2025

[Mr. Bumble]

That fucking lunatic Trump is ruining the great Biden economy.

[not guilty]

R.I.P. Loretta Swit, best known as Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan, dead at age 87.

[Mr. Bumble]

Bummer.

[hobie]

That's a shame

[ThePublius]

Yes, but 87 is not so bad. I doubt I'll achieve that. 🙁

[bye]

Two spinster sisters in their late 90's die on the same day.
They get to heaven and the elder says "Damn, if we hadn't eaten all that health food we'd have been here sooner !!!"

[ThePublius]

So, who was the better Hot Lips, Sally Kellerman or Loretta Swit?

[Mr. Bumble]

My vote is for Swit, although that might not be fair because she had more time to develop the character. I do think she was better looking, also.

[Frank Drackman]

You’re a “Breast Man” I see, I’m more of an Ass Man,
People are always telling me,
“you’re an Ass, Man!”

[bye]

I think it was Grace Slick who said the sexiest part of a man is 'the mind"

[JoeFromtheBronx]

She was the original Christine Cagney in the Cagney and Lacey, but contractual obligations prevented her from following up her role in the t.v. movie when it was picked up as a series. Her replacement only lasted a few episodes, and Sharon Glass eventually played the role the rest of the way.

She popped up in a bunch of other things, including a cute film (recently re-made) based on a children's book entitled "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever."

The "Hot Lips" character had more development over the span of the series, ending up a more serious character.

[Frank Drackman]

Sally Kellerman, Hotlips in the original Movie version was hotter, Movie was so much better, Donald Sutherland as “Hawkeye” was supposed to be, sardonic instead of sarcastic, Bobby Duvall as a fanatical rather than foolish Frank Burns, Trapper in the TV version was as good as Elliot Goulds, and they just left out the Southern Nathan Bedford “Duke” Forrest altogether (“Viper” in “Top Gun”)
I watch the movie from beginning to end a few times a year, right up there with “Top Gun”, “Dr Strangelove” and “Office Space”
Oh , and Goodfellas (I always wanted to be a Gangster)

[Zarniwoop]

Big Beautiful Bill … alliteration is nice:
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/XeirUTzisL0?si=2Bb95D6VEGDiH4_J

[BrotherMovesOn]

"Sally Kellerman, Hotlips in the original Movie version was hotter" Agreed!
"Oh my God they shot him!"
Comparing the movie and the tv series is pointless.
And Tom Skerritt played a heroic astronaut in Alien and a millionaire in Cheers.
RIP

[BrotherMovesOn]

Tom Skerritt is 91 and will be 92 on August 23rd.
Very happy to have been wrong. Go Dallas!

[bye]

After a long sluicing trawl through these comments, I have 3 observations

1) Glib folk with literary allusions and a huge vocabulary are usually wrong because they assume that what is well stated must be true.

2) Abstract words and contrafactuals and hypotheticals occur most in lazy people.

3) Labels like 'liberal" "Republican" "racist" show Dalrymple's law

"I do not think it possible for anyone to get by in life without prejudice. However, the attempt to do so leads many people to suppose that, in order to decide any moral question, they have to find an indubitable first principle from which they can deduce an answer.'
Me, I know something is wrong or right and never feel the need to argue against someone who says they have proof my mother was a Nazi camp guard.

====> And I have to add the fallacy that spreads like Bubonic Plague on here " I must be right because you are wrong" See it innumerable times on here. Makes me smile

[ThePublius]

Palestinians Shocked U.S. Aid Is Free, After Being Charged by Hamas for U.N. Aid

"Palestinians picking up food packages from the Trump administration-backed American alternative to the United Nations (UN) in Gaza were reportedly shocked the aid was free, having become used to being charged for it.

As Breitbart News reported, the new Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) was launched to provide an alternative to the UN, which either fails to deliver trucks of aid or allegedly lets Hamas steal the supplies.

Hamas then keeps the aid (especially fuel) for itself, sells the aid on the black market, or makes Palestinians pay inflated prices for it."

https://www.breitbart.com/middle-east/2025/05/30/report-palestinians-shocked-u-s-aid-is-free-after-being-charged-by-hamas-for-u-n-aid/

[Brett Bellmore]

Quick public service announcement. You may know that Pyrex has licensed their brand name to people manufacturing cookware out of ordinary, not borosilicate, glass.

What you might not know is that some of them aren't even tempering it!

Just had a "Pyrex" pie pan explode in my face when I took it out of the oven with a freshly baked quiche. And not in those nice little squares you get with tempered glass, no. Razor sharp daggers flying everywhere.

My wife complaining that I hadn't cleaned up the dripping blood was kind of rubbing salt in the wound. Glad I'm back to wearing glasses...

[ThePublius]

Yikes! I hope you're O.K. Thanks for the PSA.

[Bwaaah]

That's a useful message that I didn't know. And what a way to destroy a brand. It almost reads as, "Pyrex isn't anymore."

[ThePublius]

Did the pie pan say it was oven safe? You might have a lawsuit opportunity. Take pics if there's anything left, of both the broken pan, and any wounds.

[Brett Bellmore]

Closeup

an instant after removing it from the oven.

[ThePublius]

Brett, thanks, but I can't view the pics, I get this:

"This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below.

MissingKey
Missing Key-Pair-Id query parameter or cookie value
"

[ThePublius]

Inflation Eases to Four-Year Low in April; Income and Savings Rate Spike.

The S&P500 had the best May since 1990.

Damn Trump!