Wednesday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[Mr. Bumble]

Better late than never?

[Magister]

Not true for Bumble comments.

[Mr. Bumble]

...and yet you see fit to address them.

[Magister]

Ignoring a problem doesn't make it go away.

[Mr. Bumble]

So a comment or opinion you disagree with is a problem? Grow up dipshit.

[Magister]

It's not disagreement; it's the insipidness of Bumble comments.

[Mr. Bumble]

Your opinion of my (or anyone else's comments) is not determinative.

[Magister]

Everyone can form their own opinion of the value of Bumble comments or of anything else, and share those opinions; it's called an open thread.

[Bwaaah]

I know you are but what am I?

[Magister]

Your comment makes no sense. Are you trying to defend Bumble being insipid?

[Frank Drackman]

Youknowhowiknowyouraprick?
You use “Insipid” when you couldn’t give the definition without retorting to AlGores Interwebs, unintentionally demonstrating the definition you don’t know

[Supremacy Claus]

Groups behind the anti-ICE riots identified. Hunt the oligarchs funding them. Seize their assets in civil forfeiture.

https://libertyunlocked.com/senator-fetterman-comments-on-la/

[Frank Drackman]

Enough about your Tertiary Lues

[hobie]

I hear Steve Miller is actually Jewish, which makes Terry Moran's tweet, 'World class hater' antisemitic terrorism.

the 'Legitimate Political Discourse' in Los Angeles is confined to a state with many Jewish people and also Teslas...antisemitic terrorism AND economic terrorism!

I can see why you rubes keep doing this. It is SO EASY...and fun!!!

[Don Nico]

You are so predictable and so boring.

[bye]

Hellooooooo!!! Many Jews are anti-semitic !!!!!

[hobie]

"Weeza gonna rid the South of the neegra and Jewwww. and weeza gonna do it dressed up as scarrrrrry ghosts!"

[Mr. Bumble]

Spoken like a true Democrat.

[Frank Drackman]

George Wallace circa 1962, when he’d been “Out N-worded” in the previous primary and swore never to be “Out N-worded” again, George McGovern even visited him in the hospital after he was shot in 72’ hoping to get his sloppy seconds, but it’s Nixon who’s called a race-ist for his “Southern Strategy” which was just the “DemoKKKrat Strategy” applied to the rust belt states

[not guilty]

George Wallace was more of an opportunist than a racist at heart. He had a reputation for fairness as a judge, and he ran for governor in 1958 with black support. After losing that primary, he vowed to "never be outniggered again." He engaged in his dog and pony show, secure in the knowledge that the feds would prevent his having to actually follow through with his racist pronouncements.

Later in life he repented of his racist past, to his credit.

[bernard11]

Exactly right.

Wallace was not an admirable individual. His racism was more political than heartfelt, but that's a piss-poor excuse. Still, he did seem to honestly repent in his later years.

That matters.

[BrotherMovesOn]

"fortunately for him the Devil is also a southerner."

[Dr. Ed 2]

Israel is the only country in the area not murdering gays.

[Frank Drackman]

Semantics, Semantics, OK, you’re right, they haven’t “Murdered” any but a few Ham-Ass Turd-Burglars have probably bought the farm as legitimate terrorist targets

[bernard11]

Many Jews are anti-semitic !!!!!

Horseshit. As it happens, I know a lot of Jews. Haven't run across an antisemitic one yet.

[Frank Drackman]

The ones who are are probably Moe-Saad, as a 1/2 Hebrew with an Irish name I get to see what you Goyim say about us, sort of like that SNL Eddie Murphy skit where he wore Caucasian disguise

[Kazinski]

Well that is the (proposed) standard for Soros haters.

Why not Miller too?

https://www.splcenter.org/resources/hatewatch/far-right-uses-antisemitic-george-soros-trope-attack-campus-protests/

I do think sometimes charges of antisemitism are weaponIzed used unfairly, and I didn’t see that in Moran’s tweet, as he just as likely would have said the same or worse about Trump.

Unlike racism there is more than enough of a supply of antisemitism, so no need to try to manufacturer it.

[shawn_dude]

"Unlike racism..."

Wow. You're saying that there isn't enough of a supply of racism so there is a need to manufacture it.

[Kazinski]

It happens way too often where someone has to manufacturer a racist incident because presumably they can't find a real racist.

here's one incident:
"Dermisha Pickett, 33, allegedly fabricated messages from her landlord stating the landlord did not want Black tenants. Pickett appeared in federal court in Cincinnati yesterday after self-surrendering. Her case was unsealed today."

Here is another:
https://www.actionnews5.com/2024/12/18/racist-message-rhodes-was-fabricated-school-officials-say/

And keep in mind these 2, and many more (i can spend all day posting more), they actually had to make up the incident, not just misinterpret something as in the Moran tweet.

[Sarcastr0]

White guys saying racism is solved is heartwarming. Like a vegan opining on how the steak looks.

And you even brought proof!

here’s one incident
Incredible proving.

Here is another:
Holy shit another anecdote!!
You're proving very super hard!

I'm just glad Trump healed damage Obama did to race relations healed so quickly.

[Kazinski]

Grok provided me a list of 30, here are a few:
Campus Hate Crime Hoaxes2011: Montclair State University (New Jersey)Incident: Two black students reported finding hateful and threatening graffiti targeting African Americans and women on their dorm room doors, including the message “Black B— you will die.”Outcome: Police discovered the students themselves wrote the graffiti.2013: Oberlin College (Ohio)Incident: Reports of a “KKK figure” roaming campus and racist, anti-Jewish, and anti-gay messages sparked outrage.Outcome: The “KKK figure” was a person wrapped in a blanket, and the messages were traced to two Obama-supporting students.
2014: University of Chicago (Illinois)Incident: A student claimed his Facebook page was hacked by a group posting racist and violent messages targeting him and another student for their activism.Outcome: Investigations revealed the claims were fabricated.2015: University of DelawareIncident: Three “nooses” were found near a hall after a Black Lives Matter protest, prompting accusations of racism.Outcome: The objects were remnants of paper lanterns from a prior event, not nooses.2015: Vanderbilt University (Tennessee)Incident: A bag of feces was found at the Black Cultural Center, leading to claims of racism.Outcome: A blind student explained it was their guide dog’s waste, left due to inability to find a trash can.2015: Kean University (New Jersey)Incident: An alumnus and former Pan African Student Union president tweeted racist threats against protesters from the campus library during an anti-racism protest.Outcome: The individual admitted to fabricating the threats.
2015: University of Texas, ArlingtonIncident: A Muslim student claimed she was stalked and threatened by a man with a gun.Outcome: She admitted to making up the entire story.

Why would so many people make up so many stories if racism is pervasive as people claim?

[Sarcastr0]

You did it! You proved racism is over!

[Commenter_XY]

He demonstrably proved you're asinine.

[Kazinski]

No, what I proved is there isn't enough racism to meet the demand, so it has to be manufactured, not that there isn't any at all.

[Mr. Bumble]

Cue Juicy Smolett.

[Sarcastr0]

My dude, you didn’t prove that either.

The plural of anecdotes isn’t data.

Plus, this isn't a market. It's individuals with individual issues. None of which are the racism economy.

Silly man.

[Magister]

By the same reasoning, one could post all day cases of minorities being unfairly accused, convicted, even lynched, which would prove that there isn't enough crime to meet the demand.

The more likely expectation is that there is so much racism that people sometimes jump to the wrong conclusion about a particular situation or that it's so frequent and plausible that people seeking or trying to divert attention resort to it in a hoax rather than alien abduction or ridiculous conspiracy theories.

There are thousands of hate crimes based on race, ethnicity or ancestry each year to set against your tiny number of hoaxes and misinterpretations.

[Stephen Lathrop]

No, Kazinski. You exampled a right-wing tic—to insist no one pay attention to racism, because who cares anymore. Give that some thought.

Millions of folks continue to suffer effects of anti-black racism. They will not cease to suffer if you get your way. Nor will they give up demands for correctives. You would not give up. Neither will they.

So if you succeed, and ameliorative polices disappear, what you will get is only a crisis which lasts longer, and gets angrier. The way out of that problem has always been the same—to fix it, not to hide it.

Turns out that despite progress, fixing the problem has taken longer than expected. Experience showed the expectations were optimistic. You can learn from that, or shake your fist at heaven. No other political alternative exists, except a feckless choice for horrific violence.

Of course it would be helpful if the current opponents of fixing racial inequities changed their tunes, and instead demanded more efficient, fairer, and faster-acting solutions. That could be you. Consider doing that.

[Frank Drackman]

What occurs more often?
1: Black person murders White person
2: White person murders Black person
Because I’ve watched hundreds of Perry Mason, Matlock, and Law @ Order episodes, I already know the answer,
Do you?
It’s why nobody worries about getting lost in “Honky Town”

[Sarcastr0]

I'm not sure you read what you linked. It makes a detailed case well beyond your strawman.

We have SOROS: International Banker Globalist puppetmaster
Contra Miller: actively rooting for the Insurrection Act angry bigot.

Unlike racism there is more than enough of a supply of antisemitism
Yep, we've solved racism! Do you fucking read the comments here?

[Frank Drackman]

Do you?

[Kazinski]

Well actually I see very little racism in the comments here, and yes I am willfully blind, I do see a lot of grey boxes because I mute people who have nothing interesting to say.

[Frank Drackman]

Explains why you don't remember your own comments

[Sarcastr0]

"[T]here are none so frightened, or so strange in their fear, as conquerors. They conjure phantoms endlessly, terrified that their victims will someday do back what was done to them—even if, in truth, their victims couldn’t care less about such pettiness and have moved on. Conquerors live in dread of the day when they are shown to be, not superior, but simply lucky.”

-NK Jemisin

[Bob from Ohio]

Never heard of her but her wiki entry does not show any training in history.

Most conquerors fear their own underlings more than their victims. Ambitious junior generals are often a threat to an older conqueror.

[ducksalad]

25 47!

[Don Nico]

Anti-semitism at MIT :
"On Monday, a number of stickers were discovered in the Infinite Corridor and Building 16 that carried very hostile messages. Some featured a Star of David, desecrated – as has been done through centuries of antisemitic propaganda.... We are investigating the incident. But let me state for the record now: This imagery is out of bounds in our community....More broadly, over the course of months, several faculty, staff and students have been targeted and threatened in their workplace, in person and online. "
- Sally Kornbluth

[hobie]

Kinda reminds one of antigay terrorism. Stickers, hostile messages, bathrooms, cakes, legislation, marriage nullification. Kinda like they want to erase them. Sound familiar? Aren't you equally horrified?

[bye]

Perverted sexual practices and hatred of certain groups come from two different sources. Homosexuality offends the mind , the conscience. But anti-semitism is from the will, it is even worse.
After all anti-semites meet and get along with many Jews in their day-to-day lives unaware that they are Jews.

[hobie]

What do we do about gay, pro-Israel Jews? Ah, bigotry. It can be so darn complex

[Magister]

After all anti-semites meet and get along with many Jews in their day-to-day lives unaware that they are Jews.

Neither Jews nor gays should have to live closeted for fear of what bigots will do. Feeble justifications of a particular kind of bigotry is irrelevant.

[bernard11]

Homosexuality offends the mind , the conscience.

No, it doesn't. You are just stating your own (odious) personal views, and trying to use pompous rhetoric, rather than logic, to support them.

[Don Nico]

How predictable, how boring.

[Commenter_XY]

Kornbluth needs to go. She is simply ineffective in her role.

[bernard11]

You mean she doesn't kowtow to Trump?

WTF do you know about the job of running a university like MIT? Nothing, I'll wager. Yet you are happy to spout some RW idiocy that you got from a bunch of media morons you pay attention to.

How did you become such a fool, XY?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Kinda reminds me of the "OK to be White" fliers.

[Martinned]

Cicero's 2nd Phillipic, section 19

But now what an act, I will not say of audacity, (for he is anxious to be audacious,) but (and that is what he is not desirous of) what an act of folly, in which he surpasses all men, is it to make mention of the Capitoline Hill, at a time when armed men are actually between our benches—when men, armed with swords, are now stationed in this same temple of Concord, O ye immortal gods, in which, while I was consul, opinions most salutary to the state were delivered, owing to which it is that we are all alive at this day.
Accuse the senate; accuse the equestrian body, which at that time was united with the senate; accuse every order or society, and all the citizens, as long as you confess that this assembly at this very moment is besieged by Ityrean soldiers. It is not so much a proof of audacity to advance these statements so impudently, as of utter want of sense to be unable to see their contradictory nature. For what is more insane than, after you yourself have taken up arms to do mischief to the republic, to reproach another with having taken them up to secure its safety? On one occasion you attempted even to be witty. O ye good gods, how little did that attempt suit you!

[Sarcastr0]

"Words had to change their ordinary meaning and to take that which was now given them. Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice; moderation was held to be a cloak for unmanliness; ability to see all sides of a question, inaptness to act on any. Frantic violence became the attribute of manliness"

-Thucydides

[Martinned]

There was a time when America's leaders knew these texts forwards and backwards...

[Bunny495]

"There was a time when America’s leaders knew these texts forwards and backwards…"

I really doubt that. Maybe Jefferson but for quite some time studying the classics has been out of favor.

[Martinned]

Yes, I was thinking of the found era.

[Sarcastr0]

I think you can go up to late 1800s...IIRC Teddy Roosevelt as part of his Harvard education struggled with the number of classics classes he had to get through. Latin and Ancient Greek.

Which implies to me most of the elites at the time had a similar background.

But nowadays, I'm not sure how on point a background steeped in the classics is.

[Martinned]

Whenever I read novels set in the late Republic, like Robert Harris's Cicero-trilogy, or serious history books about this period, it all seems eerily familiar...

[ducksalad]

Wikipedia lists 12 presidents as being "fluent" in Latin, the last being Herbert Hoover. Seven are listed as being fluent in Ancient Greek, the last being Chester Alan Arthur.

[Bob from Ohio]

I doubt any were “fluent” in either, if one means speech. Maybe Garfield.

Reading, sure.

[Frank Drackman]

Hilary Rodman’s VP pick, the Salon from VA with the crazy eyebrows claimed to be fluent in Spanish, he was doing well Hab-La-ing e S-span-yawl, at a Georgia rally until the teleprompter froze

[grb]

Frank Drackman : " ....claimed to be fluent in Spanish...."

Whereas Frank is fluent in no tongue except Incoherent Stupid. But as a worthless troll, he aspires to nothing higher...

[grb]

Martinned : “Whenever I read novels set in the late Republic, like Robert Harris’s Cicero-trilogy, or serious history books about this period, it all seems eerily familiar…”

That it does, and such a fascinating period it was! You have Caesar, who was stone-cold brilliant at pretty much everything and impatient of any constraint. The Senate oligarchs, who were determined to destroy him at any cost, even that of destroying the country itself. (maybe Caesar shouldn’t have slept with all of their wives) Pompey, who was never as clever as he thought he was, and Cicero – who always torn between his ideals and the desire to be accepted into the club.

And – of course – the most overrated figure in all of history : Cato the Younger. On the one hand, he pretty much failed at everything – often producing the exact opposite result of his intentions. On the other hand, he invented “branding” multi-millennia before the first Kardashian. If it wasn’t for his elaborate cosplay being an “antique Roman”, everyone would have laughed off the loser long before his final act of performance suicide.

[Martinned]

I was also thinking of types like Publius Clodius Pulcher, a nobleman who re-invented himself as a man of the people (as many Populares had done before him, going back to the Gracchi), and put himself at the head of "militia" that went around beating up politicians to intimidate them into not attending the Senate, or voting for the Populares' side.

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

[grb]

Clodius was murdered after a chance encounter on an open road with his arch-enemy, Milo. The latter's trial is a good measure of Roman law, as Pompey picked the jury and circled the trial area with rings of armed soldiers. Cicero was one Milo's attorneys, and was so intimidated he couldn't get out the defense. It's said he later sent a copy of his defense oration to Milo in exile. The later replied (sarcastically):

“It is as well that Cicero did not deliver it, for had he done so I should never have known the excellent flavour of these Massilian mullets.”

Given the never-ending debate whether Caesar had cause to fear when he crossed the Rubicon, the trial is instructive. Basically it all depended on Pompey, who was determined to put Caesar in his place. And only he knew what that meant.

More to the point was the Social War, fought over extending citizenship to the Italian provinces. That was debated a long time, with the Senate oligarchs reluctant to give anything to the Italians and vehemently opposed to anyone else getting the credit for doing so. War broke out after the leading proponent was knifed in a crowd by an unknown assassin. Much mayhem, destruction, and death ensued before the war ended with citizenship anyway. It was all for nothing.

[grb]

Another parallel is found at the end of the Catilinarian conspiracy. That plot to seize power by the senator Cataline looks a little lightweight & half-ass to my eye, but Cicero (who was consul at the time) never stopped trumpeting he had "saved the Republic".

There was a Senate debate on the fate of a handful of conspirators in custody and Caesar argued for trial & imprisonment as following the Republic's rule of law. The "defender of Rome's ancient traditions", Cato, argued for immediate execution without any trial or due process, both because he loathed Caesar and to appeal to the mob. This was the debate when Caesar was handed a letter during the Senate proceedings and Cato - ever eager to play the demagogue - loudly insisted it must contain evidence of conspiracy. So it was read and found to be a steamy love letter from Cato's own half-sister, Servilia, who was Caesar's long-time mistress. That left Cato choking with rage. He would win the debate but - as typical with Cato's "victories" - the win would subsequently prove toxic. Later, when Clodius and others began targeting Cicero, one of the charges was "executing a Roman citizen without legal process". By then the ever-fickle Pompey had withdrawn his protection from Cicero and the latter was forced to flee into exile.

[Kazinski]

Yeah, the same with the UK.

Now when the BBC interviews leaders they grill them about whether they've watched the right Netflix series.

[Commenter_XY]

There was never a time when America's leaders knew those texts backwards and forwards. Maybe 1 or 2, but leaders (plural)? NFW.

[hobie]

How in the hell was old Cicero able to watch CNN coverage of the Trump Militia on J6?

[Bunny495]

I am waiting with bated breath for Trump's birthday parade. Seems the major networks are declining to cover it. On the other hand there seems to be a somewhat coordinated effort by those protesting it to make a big deal with the protests. I have to wonder what type of coverage by the major networks will engage in if the protests turn out to be "mostly peaceful". Will they break in to soccer game or golf tournament?; enquiring minds want to know.

[hobie]

All they need are some red arm bands and announcements of renaming US military assets after enemies of the state. I doubt we'll get the red arm bands though...bummer

[Martinned]

It will certainly be interesting to see how much "very heavy force" Trump will use to make sure he doesn't have to suffer the trauma of people disagreeing with him to his face.

The other day when he was violating the Hatch Act by organising a campaiging event at Fort Bragg, they simply filtered the non-Trumpists out of the audience. But you can't really do that outside of a military base...

[Magister]

The Hatch Act does not apply to the president or vice president.

[Martinned]

No, but it applies to the army.

[Michael P]

Has that changed recently? https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/IF/PDF/IF11512/IF11512.1.pdf, dated 2020, says the uniformed services (and GAO employees) are excluded from the Hatch Act.

[Magister]

You said he was violating the Hatch Act, not the Army.

[shawn_dude]

Trump is "commander in chief." He can get the Army to do things for him that violate the Hatch Act.

[Magister]

If he ordered them to pass out campaign literature, they would be in violation of the Hatch Act to do so. Listening to his speech at Fort Bragg doesn't seem so clear, even if it veers into political campaign rhetoric.

[shawn_dude]

Nothing to disagree with there. The Hatch Act doesn't apply to the President but the President can issue orders that would result in a violation.

[ReaderY]

Regarding the recent California lawsuit against the administration regarding federalization of the National Guard and troup deployments in California, I think that California has a fairly straightforward case. However, I think its grounds for seeking an immediate injunction are badly flawed, I think due basically to bad lawyering, and should be denied as submitted.

On the overall case merits, I think California’s argument is straightforward. The statute President Trump used only permits federalizing a state’s National Guard with the permission of and in coordination with the state’s governor. It simply doesn’t permit doing so against a state’s will. Since Governor Newsom did not consent, I agree with the ultra vires argument. And based on the principle of constitutional avoidance, I would stop there and not reach the 10th claim in this case. If President Trump wants to federalize state militia or bring in troops against a state’s will, he will have to invoke a statute that authorizes it. And then the 10th Amendment claim might become relevant

The injunction request, however, is another matter. California’s main argument is that introducing troops will harm California because the harms from introducing them will be greater than the benefits. I think the political question doctrine applies to and precludes a claim like this. I think California is asking the judge to play politics, and this the courts cannot and should not do. How can a court possibly know whether troops will end up shooting demonstrators en masse and creating more mayhem, or will end up calming things down? How can a court possibly assess whether applying troops to the current situation is a better use than alternatives like (as California argued) keeping them in reserve for possible forest fires? The question of whether introducing troops will make things better or worse, and how they and the crowd will react towards each other, involves a combination of value judgment and oracular prophecy that is beyond the capacity of the judiciary to make. Courts should stick strictly to the question of whether Trump’s action was legally authorized and stay out of its policy merits.

I think California would have been much better off if it had used the affront to its sovereignty rather than the political views of its governor about what is best for California’s future as the basis of harm for injunction purposes. Harm to a state’s sovereignty is a kind of harm courts are capable of adjudicating. But while the complaint included this harm as one the harms giving California standing, it didn’t include it in the injunction request. This means the injunction request is based on only alleged harms that strike me as essentially political and beyond the scope of judicial adjudication. For this reason, I think the injunction request has to be denied.

[hobie]

I believe the National Guard is only deployed to protect federal installations. But the cover story for the rubes is they are there to kick ass

[bye]

I think they have NO CASE.

The hierarchy of responsibility for city, state, national citizens is just that. And Mayor did nothing, Governor did nothing.
Further when they find who funded it there will be evidence of intent to do real harm

[tylertusta]

Where in the statute is there a permission requirement?

10 U.S. Code § 12406

Whenever—
(1) the United States, or any of the Commonwealths or possessions, is invaded or is in danger of invasion by a foreign nation;
(2) there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States; or
(3) the President is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States;
the President may call into Federal service members and units of the National Guard of any State in such numbers as he considers necessary to repel the invasion, suppress the rebellion, or execute those laws. Orders for these purposes shall be issued through the governors of the States or, in the case of the District of Columbia, through the commanding general of the National Guard of the District of Columbia.

I don't see a permissions requirement. Indeed, the statutes express command for the governor "shall" strongly hints the other way.

[Magister]

"Orders for these purposes shall be issued through the governors of the States" pretty clearly means that such orders from the president shall be issued through the governor; the president has not complied with this law by issuing orders not through the governor.

[tylertusta]

Once again, I don't see where in the statute the Governor is allowed to deny this.

The Governor is not given a choice: he shall.

[shawn_dude]

The “he” in “he shall” is the President and not the Governor.

Trump is obligated to do this through Newsom, who isn't cooperating. Hence "permission."

[tylertusta]

None of what you wrote is true.

[Sarcastr0]

So the language about 'through the governors of the States' was just added for funzies; it has no practical upshot.

[tylertusta]

It was added to put the Governor in the chain of command. That's what "call into Federal service" does

President > Governor > National Guard (under Federal control).

It most certainly does not give the Governor veto power over Federal troops. If it did, then Congress would have written the statute that flatly spelled out the conditions with which a governor could refuse service.

[Sarcastr0]

Doubt that's it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#Commandeering

[tylertusta]

Pretty sure that's it. This is one of the few areas that the Constitution explicitly gives power to the Federal Government to do, anti-commandeering be damned:

10th Amendment:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people

Article I, Section 15, US Constitution:

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

(Emphasis mine)

Now, for a bonus question:

Who is the Commander-In-Chief of the California National Guard when not in Federal service? Could that person be called into Federal service as the CINC for the California National Guard.

[Sarcastr0]

Read my link. Very first line.

"the Tenth Amendment prohibits the federal government from forcing states to pass or not pass certain legislation, or to enforce federal law."

It doesn't matter how within federal authority the law is, you don't get to force states to enforce it.

[tylertusta]

The verb “federalize” means to “turn into federal.” That's commandeering.

The constitution expressly says that state militias can be federalized, so anti-commandeering does not apply by the very text of the 10th Amendment itself (If I have to quote the Constitution back at you, I will. I have it in my clipboard and I’m ready to CTRL+V it)

The idea that the state militias (and a governor in militia service) can't be used to enforce federal law ignores our long history of the opposite.

And for historical context, Governor Richard Howell served with President Washington when the New Jersey militia was federalized to put down the Whiskey Rebellion.

[David Nieporent]

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

And Congress did that when it passed the Insurrection Act, allowing the president to do just that. But Trump didn't utilize the Insurrection Act.

Who is the Commander-In-Chief of the California National Guard when not in Federal service? Could that person be called into Federal service as the CINC for the California National Guard.

No. This has been yet another episode of Simple Answers to Stupid Questions.

[tylertusta]

But Trump didn’t utilize the Insurrection Act.

I don't see how this is relevant. The Insurrection Act is not the only means to activate the Guard and go through Posse Comitatus's provisions.

No. This has been yet another episode of Simple Answers to Stupid Questions.

Wrong. This has been yet another episode of David not understanding what he is talking about.

[Sarcastr0]

The constitution expressly says that state militias can be federalized, so anti-commandeering does not apply by the very text of the 10th Amendment itself

The law being used isn't the insurrection act. In the law Trump's cited, the governor is in the loop. And no, the governor is not part of the militia, and is thus not 'federalized.' federalized.

So your interpretation of the governor as pass-through is still commandeering.

But your interpretation would be wrong for another reason - it renders the text about the governor a nullity. That's a sign you're wrong.

[David Nieporent]

I don't see how this is relevant. The Insurrection Act is not the only means to activate the Guard and go through Posse Comitatus's provisions.

It's relevant because we're talking about the legality of what Trump did, not whether he could hypothetically use a different tool to get a similar result.

It's the same reason that Biden did not "defy the Supreme Court" on student loans: SCOTUS said that one particular law didn't entitle him to forgive loans. That was not some abstract ruling on the underlying goal of forgiving student loans.

[tylertusta]

The law being used isn't the insurrection act

Where in the Constitution does it say that only the Insurrection Act can be used to federalize the militia?

In the law Trump's cited, the governor is in the loop.

No, it doesn't.

But your interpretation would be wrong for another reason - it renders the text about the governor a nullity.

I explained this previously and I won't repeat myself.

It's relevant because we're talking about the legality of what Trump did, not whether he could hypothetically use a different tool to get a similar result.<

Then why the fuck are you bringing up the Insurrection Act?

Section 15 doesn't say "...but Congress can only call out the militia if they pass a law called the 'Insurrection Act and if the President invokes it."

Congress can bring out the militia to conduct tariff collections. It can be called the "Sunshine and Unicorn Farts Act" and it would still be allowed because it would be executing the laws of the union. SUFA even passes Posse Comitatus since that prohibition does not apply if another statute explicitly authorizes the militia to do it.

[Sarcastr0]

Where in the Constitution does it say that only the Insurrection Act can be used to federalize the militia?

So now the President just does things, and we need to guess what authority he's using?

And I'm not sure you know nullity means.
Your argument that including the governor is a purely formalistic necessity does not avail. Our laws don't contain requirements included for purely ritualistic propriety.
For one, it requires you discard elementary civics like the President is not part of the military.

[tylertusta]

So now the President just does things, and we need to guess what authority he's using?

Or you could just read his proclamation instead of guessing. It even has the statute he uses in it.

Here's a link in case you have trouble finding it:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/06/department-of-defense-security-for-the-protection-of-department-of-homeland-security-functions/

Our laws don't contain requirements included for purely ritualistic propriety.

I know you went to law school, so I know for that fact that you have heard of ministerial tasks.

[DaveM]

I think Tyler has the best of this argument. In this case, one can't "federalize" a militia without "commandeering" it, that's literally what federalizing means here. I agree that the text is somewhat ambiguous, but we can't interpret it to mean its opposite.

[Sarcastr0]

The governor is the one being commandeered.

[David Nieporent]

Then why the fuck are you bringing up the Insurrection Act?

Because several commenters claimed that Trump could do what he did pursuant to § 12406 because that's how it was used during the civil rights era. But that's not what happened during the civil rights era; a different law — the Insurrection Act — was employed.

You are very confused; none of this argument has anything to do with the names of statutes. This is quite simple:

1. Trump tried to exercise his authority under § 12406 to order the NG to act.
2. § 12406 does not give him authority to order the NG to act; he must go through the governor.
3. Trump did not go through the governor.
4. Therefore, Trump could not use § 12406 in that fashion.

Your "Congress could enact the Sunshine/Unicorn Act for tariff collection" is irrelevant to the discussion, because we're not talking about what Congress could do; we're talking about what Congress did do, and whether Trump complied with it.

[David Nieporent]

I think Tyler has the best of this argument. In this case, one can't "federalize" a militia without "commandeering" it, that's literally what federalizing means here. I agree that the text is somewhat ambiguous, but we can't interpret it to mean its opposite.

I agree with that, as far as it goes. But Tylertusta is attempting to extend it to say that therefore the governor can be commandeered, which there is no support for, and which Tylertusta has desperately and humorously tried to salvage by claiming the governor is really not a civilian at all, but a soldier.

[David Nieporent]

Or you could just read his proclamation instead of guessing. It even has the statute he uses in it.

Yes. And. That. Statute. Does. Not. Authorize. What. He. Did.

[shawn_dude]

"(3) the President is... " and "...the President may..." -- all of section 3 is speaking about the President as the subject. Basic English sentence analysis: the subject of the line "...shall be issued through..." is the President.

[Joe_dallas]

Sacastro and shawn dude proudly announce their approval of Bass, newsome and other CA officials slow walking their responses to the riots

[Sarcastr0]

We're analyzing a statute.

Your response is schoolyard grade unserious.

[Joe_dallas]

Both newsome and Bass intentionally impeded the response to quell the riots.

Neither of made any attempt to condemn their behavior.

Trumps only error is he called for the NG under the wrong statute.

You chose not to address the substantive issue.

[Sarcastr0]

Getting more indignant doesn't make your comments more relevant to statutory analysis.

You seem to agree we're right. So...what's your beef?

[Joe_dallas]

Sacastro – quit being intentionally stupid

Trump call the national guard because newsome, bass and other CA officials chose to actively impede a timely response.

Had Newsome bass and other behaved like responsible adults, trump would not have needed to call the NG.

You are bitching because trump doused your party

Trumps only screw up was using the wrong statute.

[Sarcastr0]

So your beef is that even though I'm right, you think it doesn't matter if the President cites the wrong statue for authority.

After all, as subjects it's our job to find the right authority and cite that.

[Joe_dallas]

The beef is that you embrace newsome and bass's behavior, Trump got the substantive issue correct - quell the riots

Like always you fail to grasp the important issue - being on the side of bad behavior.

[Sarcastr0]

You keep getting real mad about bad behavior. That's not relevant to the discussion here. But you're so mad you've decided relevance bedamned you want to talk about that here.

But I'm still not gonna indulge your little tantrums by engaging them.

[Joe_dallas]

Trump used the wrong statute, yet you wont condemn the behavior of the state officials impeding quelling the riots and the destruction of property.

you have no moral compass

[Sarcastr0]

You're still trying so hard to change the subject, lol.

[Joe_dallas]

Sarcastr0 5 minutes ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
You're still trying so hard to change the subject, lol.

Let us know when you develop a moral compass and are willing to comdemn the actions of newsome bass and others who are effectively allowing the rioting and destruction of property.

[Sarcastr0]

This is a thread about the law behind Trump's actions.
I'm not going to indulge you changing the subject from that. Even if you clearly so so so want to.

Maybe try and start a new thread about your mad at these guys and everyone should also be mad or they lack a moral compass.
It's a subjective and largely partisan argument, even a wankerific one. But you seem to think it's a winner so I think you should go for it.

[Joe_dallas]

Yes - clearly partisan

We know which side you belong
The side which is promoting the riots

[Sarcastr0]

We know that, do we? Sides, eh?
Just pure wankery now.

[Joe_dallas]

We know that because you always come down on the side of the bad behavior

[tylertusta]

"Orders for these purposes shall be issued through the governors of the States"

I don't know how you think the word President exists here, but OK.

[shawn_dude]

It sits in a subsection devoted to requirements that apply to the President. Taking it out of context as you've done here is silly.

And also note that the Governors of the States don't report to the President; they are independent. (See: Federalism) This means that the President must get the permission of the Governor since he cannot order him to do this.

[Commenter_XY]

So Eisenhower asked George Wallace for permission to deploy the NG to Little Rock? That's your argument. 🙂

Hint, hint: Eisenhower did no such thing. Trump doesn't have to, either.

[ReaderY]

Eisenhower invoked the Insurrection Act, a different statute that does not require a governor’s consent under a limited sset of circumstances. Trump invoked a different statute usable in a broader set of circumstances, but which requires state governor consent.

[David Nieporent]

So Eisenhower asked George Wallace for permission to deploy the NG to Little Rock? That’s your argument.

1) It's very unclear why a member of the Alabama legislature would need to give permission to send troops to Little Rock.

2) As I explained to bookkeeper_joe when he used a similar argument earlier today: no. Eisenhower employed the Insurrection Act, which does not require that the president ask a state politician for permission to do anything. Trump did not employ the Insurrection Act. He used a different statute which does require that the president ask the governor.

[Armchair]

Point out in the statue where the President must ask the governor.

[David Nieporent]

The orders must be issued through the governor's office. Since he can't order the governor to do that, he must ask the governor to do that.

[Armchair]

Incorrect. There's a long line of history in the Eisenhower episode in Little Rock, as to what exactly "through" the Governor's office meant. Now Eisenhower used the insurrection acts in addition to the above law, and noted that the Governor of the time (Fabius) would simply refuse to listen to the request. So Eisenhower (via the SecDef) issued the orders to the Governor, Lt. Gov, and Commander of the AR National Guard. Unsurprisingly, the Governor refused to act, but the state commander of the Nat. Guard did issue the transfer orders. Text below with links

"Fourth Army notified General Clinger, the Arkansas adjutant general, that Walker had been designated the commander of all Guard units inducted into the federal service.24 For a time, there was some doubt that Gordon, Faubus, and Clinger would issue the requisite orders, so Walker was instructed to summon the Guard if they failed to do so. In fact, Gordon turned the matter over to Faubus when he returned to Little Rock on Tuesday afternoon and Faubus refused to act. Clinger, however, after some hesitation, agreed to issue the order and used commercial radio and television along with telephone calls to subordinate unit commanders to assemble the troops in their armories. Formal orders on 25 September called the Guard into federal service. Shortly thereafter, Walker issued instructions setting forth the Guard’s mission.25 "

https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GOVPUB-D114-PURL-gpo82975/pdf/GOVPUB-D114-PURL-gpo82975.pdf

[Sarcastr0]

Now Eisenhower used the insurrection acts in addition to the above law
With this concession, your argument falls.

[David Nieporent]

With this concession, your argument falls.

That's true, but it's worse than that. His claim was "Eisenhower used the insurrection acts in addition to the above law," but Eisenhower did not use the insurrection acts in addition to the above law. He used only the Insurrection Act. Eisenhower never mentioned § 12406. (See Executive Order 10730.)

[not guilty]

"Once again, I don’t see where in the statute the Governor is allowed to deny this."

If the governor is merely a conduit through which a presidential edict flows, why did Trump ignore that provision of the statute?

[tylertusta]

I’m just speculating for this part, but it’s possible that Trump wanted to spare Newsom an Article 92 charge.

[tylertusta]

Turns out that the Governor of California isn't aware of what his own government is doing- the Adjutant General of the CA NG communicated with the DoD and transferred the personnel to Federal service.

[David Nieporent]

Your thesis is getting dumber and dumber. The governor of California is not in the military, and thus the UCMJ does not apply to him. He has — I reiterate — no legal obligation of any sort to give any sort of order to the NG.

[tylertusta]

Your comments are getting more shrill as time goes on.

You might want to get that looked at.

[ReaderY]

The 10th Amendment flatly prohibits the federal government from telling state officials what to do, Murphy v. NCAA. States are semi-independent sovereigns, not mere provinces or dependencies of the federal government.

Because Congress required orders to be issued through the state governor, I think the statute means that no orders can be issued unless the state governor agrees to issue them.

I think this is obvious from the statute. But if it isn’t, then California’s separate 10th Amendment claim gets reached and leads to the same result. A statute has to be interpreted in a constitutional manner if it can be, and this one easily can.

[tylertusta]

I might agree, except that California didn't actually argue that. California merely stated that a permission requirement exists and hand waves away the text that say 'the governor shall issue orders', pretending that it's a command for Trump and not a command for Newsom when it's actually the other way around.

Furthermore, California's 10th Amendment argument was that policing is reserved to the States, and using Federalized guardsmen to quell the riot intrudes on California's authority to police it's own people. There's no mention of Printz or its anti-commandeering doctrine.

Additionally, Newsom's chain-of-command argument has a glaring weakness: Newsom's lack of a statutory authority to deny the mobilization itself might mean that the troops are still federal but the movement from their base into LA was done without orders.

[ReaderY]

It’s well-settled law, a bedrock and fundamental constitutional pronciple, that Congress can no more issue orders to state officials than it can ban Catholicism.

If President Trump issued a proclamation seizing all the Catholic church’s assets and ordering it to cease all activity in the United States, and the Catholic Church filed a lawsuit that had the sorts of minor technical defects in its complaint and arguments that you are claiming California made, I don’t think the courts would find that an obstacle to ruling in the Catholic Church’s favor. Courts just wouldn’t care about arguments like the Catholic Church didn’t cite the magic right case in its brief, or church law somehow didn’t authorize filing the lawsuit.

[tylertusta]

As I said, Newsom didn't argue that. He inserted a permission requirement into the statute when the statute on its face doesn't have it, and the command to the state governor strongly hints that permission is not required, so inferring it doesn't work either.

Down below I argued that if Newsom had asked for the statute to be found to be unconstitutional he'd be on firmer ground. Since he didn't, there's no amount of constitutional avoidance that can get around the plain text of the statute while reading in a permission requirement as he wants.

Keep in mind that the statute was written well before Printz came around, so the statute was not written by Congress with avoiding commandeering in mind.

[not guilty]

The causes of action asserted by Governor Newsom are: (1) that the presidential action here is ultra vires, such that the Plaintiffs are entitled to a declaration that any action taken pursuant to the June 7, 2025 Presidential Memorandum is invalid, and an injunction prohibiting the DOD Defendants from implementing the Memorandum should issue; (2) a Tenth Amendment claim that because the Presidential Memoranda and resulting DOD Order and June 9 DOD Order purporting to federalize the National Guard for an unconstitutional and illegal purpose, the Plaintiffs ask the Court to find that the Orders are void, and that the National Guard should be transferred back to the rightful command and control of the State of California through Governor Newsom; and (3) a claim pursuant to the Administrative Procedures Act that the DOD Defendants lack authority to federalize members of the California National Guard without issuing such orders through Governor Newsom, such that the Plaintiffs are entitled to a declaration that Secretary Hegseth’s June7 and June 9 Orders are invalid, and an injunction prohibiting DOD Defendants from implementing the June 7, 2025 Presidential Memorandum.

The specific relief requested is:

a. A declaration that the June 7, 2025 Presidential Memorandum calling into Federal service members and units of the National Guard under 10 U.S.C. § 12406 and Secretary Hegseth’s June 7 and June 9 Orders (and any future orders) calling the California National Guard into service under the stated authority of the President’s use of 10 U.S.C. § 12406 are unauthorized by and contrary to the laws of the United States;

b. Injunctive relief prohibiting the DOD Defendants from federalizing and deploying the California National Guard and military without meeting the requirements of 10 U.S.C. § 12406, which include that issuance shall be “through the Governor” and only for the reasons set forth in 10 U.S.C. § 12406(1-3) and not to conduct domestic law enforcement activities;

plus costs, attorney fees and general relief.

https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/3c4a24009c49f1e0/9d03a781-full.pdf

[Commenter_XY]

This was helpful, NG.

Gruesome Newsome is gonna lose this one. 😉

[not guilty]

We shall see. Judge Breyer has scheduled a hearing tomorrow afternoon on the Plaintiffs' request for a temporary restraining order. https://assets2.pacermonitor.com/filings/Newsom_et_al_v_Trump_et_al/Newsom_et_al_v_Trump_et_al__candce-25-04870__0014.0.pdf?Expires=1749681783&Signature=AGtTc9YdFU9JCUtRqYHOI58bX9x~Zereq1KCDN~pvTXorBXmZRW783W48VyYXMBuTTHjilJ67SIFoho7g8dS-dvHtWafd96nStIM7GlJWFRBmfpfnaultCJwrPUKVZr4JBIE9uqlvpguxrC5pYNHmevG5r9C9OBmpUovi-EYRpdSwuKrHJm1ZZWgmvx5ykwT7jKUXKODucv3DO3C5rvSNY1a6~CUujurY2XXreP-MaJbg5nnrs1HuehDzuab8LlzkE2wvdgNckCid4K2UTHdwqbFCturabPipf71vwcQEQrmnpRv7daH7-KFxPSr2DBn3zLgDn2twIB-eNJeOC8iug__&Key-Pair-Id=K2D7QWCRVB398G

[Kazinski]

I agree with that, that the governor can't be ordered to cooperate, but doesn't that just make that part of the statue void.

Ordinary statutory construction is to interpret the statute to fulfill congressional intent, and ignore the part that exceeds their authority. Like Roberts saving Obamacare by calling the mandate a tax although Congress said it was a penalty. So strike the part about the governor.

[jb]

Isn't the law written that way because the Governor is in charge of the state's National Guard, though? You can't work around anti-comandeering by just directly ordering part of the state government to do something instead of telling the governor to do it.

[Kazinski]

No, actually the governor is not in charge of the National Guard when it has been federalized, the President is.

When they federalize the guard and send them to Iraq do their orders go through the governor?

Don’t you remember on Jan 6th screaming at Trump for not sending in the national guard (even though he had already authorized it days earlier).

They weren’t screaming at the governors of Maryland and Virginia, nor were the governors in the chain of command when they were sent in.

[jb]

Yes, once they're federalized the President has control. But the question here is whether the President can federalize them without the consent of the governor.

[Armchair]

"But the question here is whether the President can federalize them without the consent of the governor"

Yes, he can. Eisenhower did in 1957, against the express wishes of the Governor of Arkansas at the time.

"When integration began on September 4, 1957, the Arkansas National Guard was called in to "preserve the peace". Originally at orders of the governor, they were meant to prevent the black students from entering due to claims that there was "imminent danger of tumult, riot and breach of peace" at the integration. However, President Eisenhower issued Executive Order 10730, which federalized the Arkansas National Guard and ordered them to support the integration on September 23 of that year, after which they protected the African American students.[3]"

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

...using the Insurrection Act, which permits this.

[David Nieporent]

Don’t you remember on Jan 6th screaming at Trump for not sending in the national guard (even though he had already authorized it days earlier).

They weren’t screaming at the governors of Maryland and Virginia, nor were the governors in the chain of command when they were sent in.

Um, that's because the Capitol is in Washington DC, which as it happens is neither in Maryland nor Virginia. And the DC National Guard reports to the president, not to the non-existent governor of DC.

[Kazinski]

However the Maryland Guard did deploy at the Capitol that day at 3:55pm.

But I have to concede I am not sure if they had been federalized, which would mean they might have called the governor.

[ReaderY]

No. Congress intended governor consent. It couldn’t have intended otherwise.

The constitution only permits the federal government to quell domestic violence within a state at the state government’s request. Since this statute addresses using troops to quell domestic unrest, Congress was simply following the Constitution when it added this passage in.

The fact you didn’t read the Constitution didn’t entitle you to assume that Congress didn’t.

[David Nieporent]

I might agree, except that California didn’t actually argue that. California merely stated that a permission requirement exists and hand waves away the text that say ‘the governor shall issue orders’, pretending that it’s a command for Trump and not a command for Newsom when it’s actually the other way around.

I mean, when you start off with a falsehood — there is no "text" that say[s] "the governor shall issue orders." — you're unlikely to end up in the right place. And here you obviously didn't do so. It's a command for the president, not the governor, for two obvious reasons:

1) Congress can't order a governor to issue orders.

2) "Orders shall be issued through the governor" is a bizarrely roundabout way to express the requirement, "The governor shall issue orders." The word "through" means that the orders are originating somewhere else. (And where else would that be? The president.) Otherwise, they could've said, "Orders shall be issued by the governor."

[tylertusta]

The text says: “Orders for these purposes shall be issued through the governors of the States…”

The usage of “through” in the military order context means that the Governor is part of the chain of command.

[David Nieporent]

But the governor is not part of the chain of command, and Congress has no constitutional authority to make him such. That would be commandeering on steroids.

[tylertusta]

As commander of his state’s militia, he absolutely is. He would very much like to retain control of that militia.*

As for Congress not having that authority, you may want to reread Article I, Section 15:

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

*The next question you likely have right now is ‘How the hell does the governor fit into the chain of command?!’

The answer is that the first order that is conveyed to the troops is releases them from state militia service and places them into federal service. It is effectively “You are no longer part of the state militia, and your commanding officer is now this Federal army officer,” which cuts the Governor off from the chain of command. But in order to make that order to the troops in the first place, the troops must be brought under the Federal chain of command first.

That’s what the “orders” are in this context. Conceivably the statute and Art I, Sec 15 would allow the President to bring the Governor into Federal service, and there may well be occasions where that may be necessary.

[ReaderY]

Could you explain how a bunch of people protesting in Los Angelos is an “insurrection” or an “invasion?”

You intentionally ommited the next clause - the one that authorizes protecting a state from domestic violence, but only AT THE REQUEST OF ITS GOVERNMENT.

The Framers were careful not to let some hot-headed loony of a President order in troops and claim there’s an insurey whenever people gather to criticize him and somebody in the crowd throws a stone or two.

[tylertusta]

You intentionally ommited the next clause – the one that authorizes protecting a state from domestic violence

Which provision are you talking about? Art I, Sec 8, Clause 15 provides for calling forth the militia. The next clause (16) is about organizing and training the militia but there is no mention of domestic violence.

Could you explain how a bunch of people protesting in Los Angelos is an “insurrection” or an “invasion?”

No, I'm not prepared to explain it. My point here is that the provision "Orders for these purposes shall be issued through the governors of the States" works as a chain-of-command for how orders get delivered. It does not work as a veto or check on the President by the Governor.

[Kazinski]

Insurrection seems to fit:

'a violent uprising against an authority or government.'

As for whether Trump cited the insurrection act or not, it doesn't matter. EO's are not legal briefs or arguments before a court. If the president has any legal authority to support an EO of doesn't matter if he cites it in the EO. It would be like Congress to cite their authority in the text of a law.

When the question comes up before a court the administration is free to cite any existing legal authority or argument, including the Insurrection act.

[David Nieporent]

Conceivably the statute and Art I, Sec 15 would allow the President to bring the Governor into Federal service,

That is not "conceivable" in this or any other branch of the multiverse. The governor of California is a civilian position. Just as POTUS is not a member of the U.S. military by dint of being CinC, the governor of a state is not a member of the state's militia by dint of being state CinC.

[tylertusta]

That is not “conceivable” in this or any other branch of the multiverse. The governor of California is a civilian position.

A civilian that also happens to be the commander-in-chief of his state national guard.

The Governor of the State, by virtue of his office, is the Commander in Chief of the Militia of the State.

See CA Mil & Vet Code § 140 (2024).

Just as POTUS is not a member of the U.S. military by dint of being CinC

Now you're just being stupid. The President does not wear a uniform today, but he is a member of the military as the commander-in-chief. Orders are followed, honors are rendered.

However, George Washington led the combined states' militias in the field, and even wore a uniform!

[David Nieporent]

Now you're just being stupid. The President does not wear a uniform today, but he is a member of the military as the commander-in-chief.

Now you're just being stupid. He is absolutely not a member of the military. Have you never heard of civilian control of the military?

[tylertusta]

He is absolutely not a member of the military.

If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, he's in the military.

Have you never heard of civilian control of the military?

Have you ever heard of that time that George Washington, having previously resigned his rank as General, took to the field at the head of the militias of several states, wearing a uniform but was still President?

How about when the Governor of New Jersey led his militia, directing his forces through the best routes in order to suppress a rebellion?

Civilians do control the military, yes. But by virtue of putting themselves at the top of the chain of command, they are also in it, too.

[Sarcastr0]

Are you an American, tylerusta? You have some idiosyncratic takes on our civics.

"The President does not enlist in, and he is not inducted or drafted into, the armed forces. Nor, is he subject to court-martial or other military discipline. On the contrary, Article II, section 4 of the Constitution provides that ‘The President, [Vice President] and All Civil Officers of the United States shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of Treason, Bribery or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.’ . . . The last two War Presidents, President Wilson and President Roosevelt, both clearly recognized the civilian nature of the President’s position as Commander in Chief. President Roosevelt, in his Navy Day Campaign speech at Shibe Park, Philadelphia, on October 27, 1944, pronounced this principle as follows:–‘It was due to no accident and no oversight that the framers of our Constitution put the command of our armed forces under civilian authority. It is the duty of the Commander in Chief to appoint the Secretaries of War and Navy and the Chiefs of Staff.’

It is also to be noted that the Secretary of War, who is the regularly constituted organ of the President for the administration of the military establishment of the Nation, has been held by the Supreme Court of the United States to be merely a civilian officer, not in military service. (United States v. Burns, 79 U. S. (12 Wall. ) 246 (1871)).

On the general principle of civilian supremacy over the military, by virtue of the Constitution, it has recently been said: ‘The supremacy of the civil over the military is one of our great heritages.’ Duncan v. Kahanamoku, 327 U. S. 304, 325 (1945)."

https://law.justia.com/constitution/us/article-2/11-the-president-as-commander-of-the-armed-forces.html

[tylertusta]

Are you an American, tylerusta? You have some idiosyncratic takes on our civics.

Backhanded personal attacks against me are unbecoming. You continue to disappoint me today.

Regarding your article, nothing you cited disagrees with me.

The President is indeed a civilian, but by virtue of running the military he is also in it, as well. As you and others here keep ignoring, there are examples from the very start of our nation where a President and a Governor took to the field at the head of an army. The silence on that from you and David is quite deafening.

Over time a tradition has been established that Presidents should emphasize their civilian status, but that is only a tradition.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

A governor is indeed in the "chain of command" of his/her state's national guard, but the governor is not in the president's chain of command.

That is the missing link. Even lawful orders, issued by the president pursuant to 10 U.S.C. 12406, simply cannot reach the California National Guard "through the governor" if the governor does not transmit them. And the governor is apparently under no duty to do so. Was this a "drafting error" on the part of Congress? Or was it intentional?

"The answer is that the first order that is conveyed to the troops is releases them from state militia service and places them into federal service."

No order has yet been conveyed "through the governor" to the [national guard] troops, so this point has not yet been reached.

[tylertusta]

A governor is indeed in the "chain of command" of his/her state's national guard, but the governor is not in the president's chain of command

For the purposes of calling out the national guard he is.

That is the missing link. Even lawful orders, issued by the president pursuant to 10 U.S.C. 12406, simply cannot reach the California National Guard "through the governor" if the governor does not transmit them. And the governor is apparently under no duty to do so. Was this a "drafting error" on the part of Congress? Or was it intentional?

I think it was quite intentional.

First, the statute was drafted before Printz, so there was little care towards affirmatively excluding the governor from the command in the statute.

Second, there may well be a need in the future to call up the entire California Guard and the Governor into federal service in his position as commander-in-chief of the state's militia. As I pointed out above, that has happened at least once before in our history, albeit under the old Militia Act.

No order has yet been conveyed "through the governor" to the [national guard] troops, so this point has not yet been reached.

Apparently the process was followed according to California law. The DoD transmitted orders to the California Adjutant General who in turn activated the troops. Newsom was aware of but did not halt the orders.

[David Nieporent]

The President is indeed a civilian, but by virtue of running the military he is also in it, as well.

No. This is nutty and wrong.

As you and others here keep ignoring, there are examples from the very start of our nation where a President and a Governor took to the field at the head of an army. The silence on that from you and David is quite deafening.

1) It would not prove anything if it were true.
2) It is not in fact true. Washington traveled with the troops, but he did not lead them; it was General Henry Lee ("Light-Horse Harry") in command of the militia.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

"For the purposes of calling out the national guard he is."

Based on what authority? You keep skipping over this.

Moving on, Newsome could not have "halted" any orders which had already been given, according to your interpretation. That was the "first order" conveyed to the troops, in your characterization, which completed the chain of command between the president and the CNG.

However, if those orders had not been given under lawful authority in the first place, presumably, anyone who follows illegal orders does so at his or her own risk.

[tylertusta]

1) It would not prove anything if it were true.

A historical example showing I'm right doesn't prove anything?

How very lawyerly of you.

2) It is not in fact true. Washington traveled with the troops, but he did not lead them; it was General Henry Lee ("Light-Horse Harry") in command of the militia.

You're just wrong. Like most generals, they needn't micromanage every subordinate command, but in this case Washington himself led a column of troops to Bedford, Pennsylvania. While marching over the mountains the troops were definitely under Washington's command, not Lee's, who was not present there.

Washington then placed the troops that were with him under Lee's command when he arrived at Bedford, upon which he returned to D.C.

It did not escape me that you have also neglected to mention Governor Howell, who commanded the New Jersey contingent.

[tylertusta]

Based on what authority? You keep skipping over this.

Only if you haven't been reading this thread. He's the commander-in-chief of his state's national guard. Why wouldn't he be susceptible to being called up if the Federal government wanted him?

Moving on, Newsome could not have "halted" any orders which had already been given, according to your interpretation. That was the "first order" conveyed to the troops, in your characterization, which completed the chain of command between the president and the CNG.

Huh? Troops do stupid shit all of the time, and that's why Article 92 exists. Granted, Newsom isn't subject to its terms even if called into service but that doesn't mean he can't be called into Federal service.

However, if those orders had not been given under lawful authority in the first place, presumably, anyone who follows illegal orders does so at his or her own risk.

Here's a hypothetical for you: An Army Major gives a lawful order. A subordinate Lieutenant disobeys the order and orders his own subordinates to disobey. The Sergeant under the Lieutenant orders his troops to obey the Major's orders.

Are the troops under the Sergeant's command acting lawfully if they follow the Major's commands while disobeying the Lieutenant? I'm curious as to your answer here.

[David Nieporent]

It did not escape me that you have also neglected to mention Governor Howell, who commanded the New Jersey contingent.

That's because I don't know anything at all about that situation, and unlike some here, when it's a topic about which I have no background, I don't try to address it. I don't know what NJ law said at the time, what Howell did, or why.

[David Nieporent]

Only if you haven't been reading this thread. He's the commander-in-chief of his state's national guard. Why wouldn't he be susceptible to being called up if the Federal government wanted him?

Because he's a civilian and not a member of the national guard! How many times do we need to go over this?

[Drewski]

In the United States, our military is commanded by civilians. This is a foundational principle of the US. It might be different in your home country but any American with a grade-school education knows this. Commander-in-Chief is not a rank in the military but a civil, political position.

This is the same reason Trump can't be charged for violating the UCMJ.

[tylertusta]

It might be different in your home country but any American with a grade-school education knows this.

I'm sure the State of Illinois appreciates your endorsement of its education system.

In the United States, our military is commanded by civilians.

I agree. And by virtue of being its commander, he's also in it.

This is the same reason Trump can't be charged for violating the UCMJ.

The UCMJ doesn't cover the President because its own terms do not include him.

For example:

- Members of a regular component of the armed forces
- Volunteers from the time of their muster or acceptance into the armed forces
- Inductees from the time of their actual induction into the armed forces
- Other persons lawfully called or ordered into, or to duty in or for training in, the armed forces
- Cadets, aviation cadets, and midshipmen.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/802

[tylertusta]

Consider West Point's take on a similar topic: is a President who is also the Commander-in-Chief a lawful target under modern international law and under the American Laws of Armed Conflict?

The conclusion was unabashedly yes, and the article recognized the weird duality of a civilian who gives orders to the military. Despite being a civilian, a civilian commander-in-chief who issues orders is considered a lawful target. He puts on his "military" hat when giving orders despite being a civilian.

'A head of State who is also the Commander-in-Chief is not, however, a combatant by status. Yet, that leader may still be targetable due to their conduct. For instance, if a Commander-In-Chief is directly involved in military decision-making, he is a lawful target in an IAC. The non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch shares this view, observing that, “political leaders would not be legitimate targets of attack unless their office or direct participation in military hostilities renders them effectively combatants…. Thus, political leaders who are effectively commanders of a state’s forces would be legitimate targets…”'

Link to the article: https://lieber.westpoint.edu/targeting-leadership/

[Voize of Reazon]

There you go, Drewski, Donald Trump is simultaneously a member of the military and a civilian. Why, he's Schrödinger's President!

[Sarcastr0]

Ignoring the commandeering issue you seem ignorant of, you don't put people in the chain of command for no good reason.

[tylertusta]

Ignoring the commandeering issue you seem ignorant of

I addressed this point up above.

you don’t put people in the chain of command for no good reason.

I agree. The good reason here is that they have to be severed from state service and informed of whom their new commanding officer and chain-of-command will be.

[Sarcastr0]

they have to be severed from state service and informed of whom their new commanding officer and chain-of-command will be.

You don't need the governor to do that. A ton of folks could pass along that message.

I'm not sure if you realize how hard you're losing this argument on multiple fronts with multiple people.

[tylertusta]

You don't need the governor to do that. A ton of folks could pass along that message.

I took that portion to be a sop to keep the States' happy with the arrangement. It ruffles feathers when you rub peoples' faces in their inferiority with the arrangement, and going through the governors' assuages their otherwise hurt egos.

Consider an alternative wording of the statute: "Orders shall be issued through the component commands of the States' Guards," (replacing "Governor" with "component commands"). No one can reasonably argue that the text would give the component commanders authority to refuse those orders.

I'm not sure if you realize how hard you're losing this argument on multiple fronts with multiple people.

This wouldn't be the first time that I took a position opposite from you, David, and others. I also haven't forgotten all of the times that I was ultimately proven to be right despite going against the sentiment of the people commenting here, and I look forward to the next time that happens.

Ya'll lose your minds when Trump is involved, and it gives you a blind spot that even someone who hasn't gone to law school (like me) can see.

As an aside, I don't always see an argumentum ad populum fallacy from you, so it's a special treat when you make one.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

You so, so desperately want the fantasy to be true.

Are you trans, by any chance?

[tylertusta]

Yawn.

[bernard11]

This wouldn't be the first time that I took a position opposite from you, David, and others. I also haven't forgotten all of the times that I was ultimately proven to be right

Yes. We all tend to remember rare events in our lives. I clearly recall the one hit I got in Little League baseball. Maybe you could refresh us on the times you outdid David here. I can't recall any.

[jimc5499]

You might want to read the part about Federalization. When the President Federalizes a unit of the National Guard, it's orders come from the Department of Defense, not the State Governor. When Federalized that unit moves it's Chain of Command from the State to the Federal Government. It is done that way to prevent a Governor from using the NG as his private Army or to prevent a Governor from interfering with the Unit's operations for political reasons.

[tylertusta]

The statute says that the President can federalize the guard but the orders go through the Governor's office.

[ReaderY]

Both the Constitution and Congress were very careful to limit the circumstances under which the Federal Government can federalize state militia. congress did so in the statute Trump invoked. The statute only permits federalizing state militia if the state’s governor is willing to agree and order it.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

(Effectively.)

[Dr. Ed 2]

No, I read this as the existing officers keep their commands -- Trump can't appoint new officers.

[Joe_dallas]

victor hansen statement

You think that JFK said to George Wallace when he nationalized the Alabama National Guard, said, would you please let us nationalize your guard so you can be removed from stopping African-American people going to the University of Alabama? No.

[David Nieporent]

You think that JFK said to George Wallace when he nationalized the Alabama National Guard, said, would you please let us nationalize your guard so you can be removed from stopping African-American people going to the University of Alabama? No.

You think that bookkeeper_joe bothered to look up the facts before posting? No.

When Kennedy did that in Alabama, he did not rely on 10 USC § 12406, which Trump is relying on now. He relied on the Insurrection Act, then at 10 USC § 332, which does not have an "orders shall be issued through the governor" provision. It reads as follows:

Whenever the President considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State or Territory by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, he may call into Federal service such of the militia of any State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to enforce those laws or to suppress the rebellion.

You don't have to take my word for it; you can look yourself; it's Executive Order 11111.

[Joe_dallas]

Again - not addressing the substantive issue

Newsome and Bass are supporting the riots by not taken steps to quell the riots. / interferring with efforts to quell the riots.

DN and other wokes embrace the inaction.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, it is an issue: Trump made an easily repaired mistake, he issued the order under the authority of the wrong law. But it IS an easily repaired mistake.

[Joe_dallas]

thanks for the correction - yes trump did issue under the wrong statute.

the more important issue is the embracement of the riots via the inaction / delayed response. Its should also be noted that none of the woke, including DN, have expressed much if any comdemnation of the CA officials inaction and hinderance of efforts to quell the riots.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Sure, by re-issuing the order under the correct authority. Easy peasy...

Has he done that?

[Joe_dallas]

how about condemning newsom bass and other CA officials for letting the riots escalate

[Martinned]

What were they supposed to do? Send in the LAPD to stop the federal agents from escalating the situation?

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Why do you keep trying to discuss a different topic?

[bernard11]

Do they now cover two blocks, instead of one?

[Bunny495]

The administrations argument is the deployment is necessary to protect federal property and personnel, and to enforce federal immigration laws. There is little question federal property has been damaged (even if only a little) and personnel need protection (throwing rocks at the vehicles they are in for starters) and there has been obvious interference when the personnel tried to enforce the law.

Maybe more to the point the ongoing protests seem likely to continue. The LA mayor just announced it will take a huge effort to simply clean up the graffiti the protesters have created and she is worried it will affect the year away world cup. If things get worse (something that has a good chance of happening) it will only strengthen the administration's position.

[Martinned]

throwing rocks at the vehicles they are in for starters

For the record, at least some of the videos Trumpists have posted of that happening appear to be from the George Floyd protests in 2020.

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

So?

[Mr. Bumble]

Possibly by way of comparison?

[bernard11]

Sure, Bumble.

[Mr. Bumble]

Glad you agree.

[Kazinski]

And some are certainly not from 2020, including the rock thrower they posted a 50k reward for.

https://www.foxla.com/news/man-accused-throwing-rocks-cbp-cars-injuring-agent-paramount

[Don Nico]

Sob, sob, it will affect LA's World Cup activities.
Mayor Bass should have thought of that when she denied any LAPD protection to ICE. She had lots of time to think about it while she was flying to Ghana.

[shawn_dude]

ICE is scooping up people based on racial profiling, arresting them without a warrant, and then sorting through them in their detention center. It’s grabbing US-born citizens and grilling them on where they were born, according to reports from people who went though this.

ICE agents are masked and refuse to identify themselves so there’s no accountability when they violate people’s civil rights.

ICE agents are snatching up and deporting people in the country legally and illegal immigrants who haven’t committed any crimes while living in the US.

ICE agents are doing most of this work without warrants.

Why on earth would any mayor want to expend local tax resources and the reputations of local government to protect an organization that is behaving like a secret police force and rounding up peaceful, tax-paying neighbors in their communities?

[Joe_dallas]

lots of BS in your post

[grb]

Such as?

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Joe gives just one grunt per thread.

[Joe_dallas]

serious spam and grb - neither of which can spot the BS .

Objecting is neither of your forte's

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

C'mon, Joe. Break your one-grunt rule, just this once, and let us know what in shawn's post you're calling out as "BS".

[Dr. Ed 2]

Shawn,

Even if this was all true, the precedent was set 40 years ago with the crackdown on OUI.

THEN was the time to raise the civil rights issue.

[Kazinski]

But ICE officers only need warrants to enter a home.

They can arrest people they believe are removable based on probable cause.

And while the ICE officers are masked and don't have name tags they do have badge numbers so there is accountability, but no street justice.

[Martinned]

Do they ever have to explain what that probable cause is/was?

[David Nieporent]

Essentially, only if they were wrong about the person they arrested. And then only if that person sues.

[Swede425]

Ted Lieu has a post on X where he's displaying a photo of Soldiers in front of a federal building with no protesters there.
He's like "what are these guys protecting this building from?".
Trump activated and deployed these troops for this purpose.
Lieu is disappointed not to see some destruction going on there and decided to mock the presence of the troops. When the federal buildings are still standing after this is over, maybe Teddy can squeeze some fake tears over the rest of the destruction to state and local property, as well as private property. But that'll be for his state to pay for.

[Mr. Bumble]

Lieu doubling down on confirming his idiocy.

[ReaderY]

Make the argument to Congress. The statute requires orders to be issued through a state’s governor. Since the state’s governor didn’t agree to issue any orders, no valid orders were issued. Period. Policy arguments are for Congress, not the courts.

[Bored Lawyer]

The injunction request, however, is another matter. California’s main argument is that introducing troops will harm California because the harms from introducing them will be greater than the benefits.

First question in any injunction case: where's the irreparable harm?

[Mr. Bumble]

"...where’s the irreparable harm?"
Make Newsome and Bass look like bigger idiots than they've already proven to be.

[ReaderY]

I think the harms California alleged are speculative and non-justiciable as they involve essentially political questions that depend on value judgments and predictions of the hypothetical future that courts are ill-equipped to make. How can a court know whether calling in troops will cause more damage or calm things down? How can a court decide whether assigning them to this situation is more or less important than holding them in reserve for possible future forest fires? These are political questions, not justiciable ones.

I think the harm to California’s core sovereignty by having its own troops taken and deployed against its people against its will is both imminent and justiciable. But while California alleged this harm as part of its standing claim in its complaint, it didn’t include it in a its motion for an injunction. So I think it waived what might be its best argument.

[JustMark]

Randy Barnett wrote (https://x.com/RandyEBarnett/status/1932484166232293749) in regards to the Mexican Senate President holding a press conference and holding up a map of the U.S. with...pre-current borders drawn.

"So I guess it’s an invasion then and these are enemy aliens. Attention SCOTUS."

Would any of the recent statements by Mexican officials be admissible evidence in anything the Administration would have to prove in regards to the National Guard case?

[Joe_dallas]

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo

[David Nieporent]

Would any of the recent statements by Mexican officials be admissible evidence in anything the Administration would have to prove in regards to the National Guard case?

No. This has been yet another episode of Simple Answers to Stupid Questions.

Not to mention that Barnett is misrepresenting what happened. This was a speech by the Mexican senate president describing what he said in 2017 in response to Trump's "Mexico will pay for the wall." He said, "My response was, 'If you want us to build/pay for a wall, we'll do it… based on these borders.'"

[JustMark]

You'd think the plain language of 10 U.S. Code § 12406 would, at least for sections (a) or (b) [which may or may not be relevant to what the Administration will claim] would very well have the implied intent of foreign nations as being a part.

Do you do a lot of litigation on the statute or are you just supposing?

[tylertusta]

California should have made the argument that the state needs the Guard forces to put down the riots, and the Federal Government has now limited the amount of guardsmen available to do the task. That would have provided a concrete, immediate need and immediate harm that can be put in front of Judge Breyer.

California’s alternate argument should have been that 12406’s provision for the states is unconstitutional on its face.

California didn’t make those much stronger arguments because Newsom is caught in a catch-22:

On the one hand, he’s on the knife’s edge of watching his Presidential ambitions collapse as images of burning cars, looted business, civil disorder start to become seared into the public consciousness of middle America. One need only imagine how pictures of Mexican flags waving over wreckage in Los Angeles is going to impact moderates in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania to understand the peril of the Democratic Party here.

On the other hand, Newsom needs to keep the left wing of the Democratic Party happy, which means that he needs to proceed with the trickle-truthing fiction that there are no riots, and that if there are, it’s the Federal government’s fault and that the Guard’s presence makes it worse.

Thus he can’t argue that he needs the troops for the riots, and he can’t argue that the Guard can’t be brought in, period. Instead he’s trying to thread the needle of Trump needing Newsom’s permission, something which the statute does not actually say.

[Poxigah146]

The problem here is that most Americans don't know what they want. TEH situation with illegals was untenable, especially in places like NYC with migrants overrunning the hotels and in many other heavily illegal areas with hospitals and schools being crowded, but they don't want the pain and disruption of actually removing them.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/11/politics/deportations-trump-polling-analysis

For example:

"A Pew Research Center poll earlier this year showed that Americans opposed deporting people “who have a job,” 56% to 41%. They also strongly opposed deporting people who came here as children (68-30%), the parents of US citizen children (60-37%), and undocumented immigrants who married citizens (78-20%)."

- What does "have a job" mean? Does it mean doing day labor outside of Home Depot?
- What does "came here as children mean?" Does it mean came here at 16?
- Parents of U.S. citizen children means that all you have to do is create an anchor baby on U.S. soil, and now people "strongly" oppose your removal? But then the same people bitch when Trump tries to remove birthright citizenship.

People are either stupid or acting in bad faith.

[Bwaaah]

"People are either stupid or acting in bad faith."

You don't consider it a possibility that they feel emotionally sympathetic? Would that be inherently "stupid"?

[Poxigah146]

Yes, that's a possibility. It's fine to emotionally feel sympathetic. But emotions make for very poor policy. "My illegal housekeeper is a nice person, therefore, all 100 million people in Central America who want to come here should be allowed to" is not a compelling argument.

[Bwaaah]

Agreed. This is just a reminder that much of what is attributed to malice or stupidity is actually the result of unchecked sympathies.

[David Nieporent]

situation with illegals was untenable, especially in places like NYC with migrants overrunning the hotels

Those are legal.

[David Nieporent]

People are either stupid or acting in bad faith.

Or they're not racist POSes. They have an idea in their mind of which immigrants are undesirable — criminals or people on welfare — and want those gone, and don't hate all the others like Stephen Miller and you do.

[Poxigah146]

Are you inviting all 2 billion downtrodden people to live with you in your house?

You're the racist POS. You hate white non-Jews.

[David Nieporent]

I'm not inviting anyone to live in my house. A country is not anyone's house; the analogy is stupid. Do you not understand the concept of private property?

[Poxigah146]

Of course. You want the burden of unchecked immigration to fall on the lower middle class, not yourself.

[David Nieporent]

No; I want the benefit of unchecked immigration to accrue to everyone.

I don't want the lower middle class to be forced to house illegal immigrants either. (I do, however, want them to be allowed to house them on their own property.)

[Sarcastr0]

I would guess DMN doesn't think there is a net burden on the lower middle class.

I'm interested in how you switched from 'white non-Jews' to this socioeconomic group.

[bernard11]

TEH situation with illegals was untenable, especially in places like NYC with migrants overrunning the hotels

I was just in NYC a couple of weeks ago. My hotel was not overrun, nor did I see any others that seemed to be overrun.

[hobie]

I’m confused. Apparently Trump is able to summon the National Guard at a moment’s notice. I thought the consensus was that only Nancy Pelosi was in charge of the military

[Dr. Ed 2]

Hobie, it took him 2 days...

[Kazinski]

At its heart Newsom and Bass seem to be arguing for a neo-confederate state nullification right where the State and its citizens can take to the streets to nullify enforcement of federal law.

In US v Arizona in 2012 the Supreme Court sharply liimited the states ability to enforce federal immigration law,

As the Obama Administration said when they filed suit:
"The Constitution and the federal immigration laws do not permit the development of a patchwork of state and local immigration policies throughout the country."

[Sarcastr0]

"seem to be arguing for a neo-confederate state nullification"

How dramatic!

[Frank Drackman]

And accurate

[Josh R]

That's a strawman. They are arguing the feds are mistaken and the people have a right to protest.

[Armchair]

People can protest all they want...they can't assault federal officers though.

And if the local law enforcement won't or can't protect those federal officers, then the President has the right to call the call the militia or armed forces to help protect those federal officers.

[Kazinski]

Mistaken about what?

That the President has a duty to faithfully execute the immigration laws?

Throwing rocks isn't protest its rioting.

[Josh R]

You are mistaken that "Newsom and Bass seem to be arguing for a neo-confederate state nullification right where the State and its citizens can take to the streets to nullify enforcement of federal law."

[Sarcastr0]

You're not describing nullification here.

[Armchair]

The constitutional argument for CA is pretty weak. It's based on the 10th amendment, which states "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

So, we need to ask, is this particular power delegated to the United States?

Article 1, Section 8 specifically says Congress has the power "To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union"

Meanwhile Article 2 says "The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States" and " he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed"

By my reading, it's pretty explicit that Congress has the right to provide for calling forth the militia (The National Guard) to execute the laws of the United States, that the POTUS is the commander of that (when called into service) and that the POTUS has the duty to take care the laws be faithfully executed. Article 1 and 2 defining those powers, means that they aren't reserved to the states.

[Sarcastr0]

You're now arguing that absent any statute, Congress has an inherent power to federalize a state's national guard?

And further that Congress allowing states to retain control of their national guard doesn't matter, it's automatically all federal the moment the President wants?

That's an incredibly ahistorical take on militias.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yours is an incredibly atextual AND ahistorical take on them.

[Sarcastr0]

Federalizing state militia without a specific Congressional grant of authority is not an inherent Article II power.

Not in text, not in past practice, not nowadays.

You want a king.

[Brett Bellmore]

Your atextual take was that Congress doesn't have an inherent power to federalize a state's national guard, when the Constitution expressly says they do, and nowhere says they have to do so pursuant to a statute. They could just pass a resolution federalizing a state's national guard.

Or, (Stupidly, they do too much delegating.) just delegate that power to the executive. As they have.

Yes, Trump cited the wrong statute, but that's not the same thing as not having been delegated the power to do what he's doing.

[tylertusta]

Stupidly, they do too much delegating.

I think this is one of the few times that delegating this much to the Executive makes a lot of sense.

Congress designed the National Guard to fit into the Army and Air Force when activated, so it makes sense to put them under the President when called into service.

[Brett Bellmore]

Sure, but just like, though the President is commander in chief, but Congress was given the power to decide IF there was going to be a war, it makes sense that the President controls the NG if federalized, but Congress retains the power to decide IF they're federalized.

Presidents are dangerous enough without the power to decide whether they get to exercise more power. That's why delegating to them decisions which were deliberately given to Congress is stupid. It's just part and parcel of Congress handing off all the decision making to the Executive so that they can concentrate on rent seeking and graft with fewer distractions.

[tylertusta]

Let's not forget that Article II puts the President in power of the militia when called into federal service.

[Brett Bellmore]

"When", but puts Congress in charge of "if".

[tylertusta]

Ah, I see now.

In that case, I think it's a good thing for Congress to delegate to the President whether to call state militias into service.

In a crisis moment I wouldn't want Congress to be needed; one need only imagine the incapacitation of Congress through enemy attack to understand to see the logic in giving that authority to the one branch with an established line of succession.

[Sarcastr0]

Article II, Brett. You're arguing against something I'm not saying.

[tylertusta]

The only thing ahistorical is the idea that a federal militia cannot be called into service when the federal government wants it.

If the National Guard was just a state militia, there would be historical precedent for states refusing to pony up troops. But those refusals was the impetus for Congress creating the Guard in the first place.

[Sarcastr0]

We in America have been pretty chary about the military in domestic affairs. There's a whole painting in the Capital about Washington resigning his commission. And there's a posse comitatus law about that.

Congress didn't create the NG as a Presidential organ to do with as he will; the laws about federal use of the NG are few and narrow.

[Brett Bellmore]

And sending the NG to defend federal officers who are under attack with the approval of a state government easily falls within them.

[Sarcastr0]

So easily the President fucked up which authority to cite.

Or TACO'd when Miller wanted to pull the Insurrection Act trigger.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, he does fuck up a lot of things, I find it extremely irritating.

[Sarcastr0]

Not so easily then.

[tylertusta]

It's clear that you have moved this conversation to the "pounding the table" part. I have better things to do today, so no thank you.

[Armchair]

"You're now arguing...(insert different argument"

Strawman alert. Remember, anytime Sarcastr0 says "You're now arguing..." it's going to be a strawman.

[Sarcastr0]

You: "So, we need to ask, is this particular power delegated to the United States?"

You answer in the negative. That under the Constitution (no law cited) activating the NG is an inherently federal power.

Feel free to tell me what I misinterpreted. Or I'll just assume you are once again unwilling to stand by that argument but don't want to admit that.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

They keep jumping from "Congress shall have the power to provide for" to "the President shall be Commander in Chief of the ... Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States..." without pausing to consider how a power explicitly delegated to Congress might end up in the hands of the president.

Congress can only do so by passing legislation. 10 U.S.C. 12406 is one such law. The Insurrection Act is another. Accordingly, in order for the power to get to the president, it must first be authorized by statute. Absent that authority, the president has no such power. Which is why the words of the statute matter.

[Armchair]

"You: "So, we need to ask, is this particular power delegated to the United States?"
You answer in the negative. Feel free to tell me what I misinterpreted."

Here is where you "misinterpreted". I answered in the positive. This particular power IS delegated to the United States.

You're either too dumb to understand that, or your lying, or both. Either way, there's no point discussing it with you until you apologize.

[Sarcastr0]

"That under the Constitution (no law cited) activating the NG is an inherently federal power."

I do have you correct.

Just an ambiguity between the united states and the United States.

[Armchair]

So...you're just a lying shitbag.

1. Let's review. I said "Yes" the Federal government has the power.
2. You said, "You answer in the negative" the Federal government doesn't have the power. But... "Feel free to tell me what I misinterpreted"
3. "I answered in the positive. This particular power IS delegated to the United States."
4. But...you still for whatever reason say I said something else.

You're just a lying shitbag. No point to the discussion anymore.

[SRG2]

Army restores the names of seven bases that lost their Confederate-linked names under Biden

No genuine patriot or non-racist would countenance such a disgraceful act of "restoration". I doubt any other country would name its bases after people who lost a civil war in an evil cause. It is indefensible - though it won't stop racists defending it.

[Bob from Ohio]

"To restore the original names of the additional seven bases, the Army once again found service members with the same last names to honor."

So they are not named after people who lost a civil war in an evil cause, but genuine US army heroes. Rest easy.

[SRG2]

As you well know and as the story makes clear, this is pretextual; Everyone knows who they mean - even you

[Mr. Bumble]

Thank you Everyone.

[Estragon]

It’s so incredibly juvenile, it’s like dealing with teenagers. But also yet another example of TACO Trump. He wanted to bring back the rebel names, just chickened out and went for trolling instead. Trolling and owning libs— the one true philosophical lodestar of the MAGA movement.

[Bob from Ohio]

The renaming is very inventive, finding heroic US soldiers with same names is not trolling.

[Estragon]

“We are also going to be restoring the names to Fort Pickett, Fort Hood, Fort Gordon, Fort Rucker, Fort Polk, Fort A.P. Hill and Fort Robert E. Lee”

Even accepting your absurd excuse befitting a 12 year-old, how do you explain Robert E Lee? The base is being “inventively renamed” for a certain Private Fitz Lee. Not Robert E.

You can engage in whatever mental contortions you want but the conclusion is obvious. He wanted the rebel names back but was too much of a chicken to go all the way. TACO TACO.

[Estragon]

Another possibility is that his handlers told him the names were reverting to the exact originals, even though they were being “inventively” renamed. The deep state at work perhaps?

[Bob from Ohio]

"He wanted the rebel names back but was too much of a chicken to go all the way."

There is a law that forbids getting the "rebel names back".

You wanted him to break the law? Interesting.

[Estragon]

“We are also going to be restoring the names to […] Fort Robert E. Lee”

Sounds like HE wanted to break the law! But chickened out! TACO! Even more pathetic since he has immunity per John Roberts.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Like that would stop him? He could obviously do it if he wanted and then claim that no one has standing to challenge the decision/make an argument that base names are his prerogative as commander-in-chief and the courts would absolutely stay out of it. The republicans in Congress would not care/would support it.

He broke a statute by firing NLRB MTSB commissioners. He isn’t enforcing the TikTok ban. I don’t want him to break the law, but that’s not going to stop him if he actually wants to do this.

[Kazinski]

Well good, now we don't have to worry about Trump becoming a dictator or overwrought claims of fascism.

[jimc5499]

Wow do you have that wrong. Every Base that had it's name changed was originally named after a Democrat. That's why the Democrat's wanted them changed.

[SRG2]

As I: have observed before:

Republicans: "All those Confederate monuments were put up by the Democrats!"
Democrats: "And now we want to take them down"
Republicans: "No"

[LawTalkingGuy]

It's pretty telling that they are ideologically incapable of committing to the bit in this instance.

[David Nieporent]

I can't tell if the people who say this are actually so stupid that they believe it. (Someone who thinks that one makes a word plural with an apostrophe is probably so stupid, yes.)

[Swede425]

LOL!
Does that make you mad?
Good.
But I won't have you besmirching the good names of those named Soldiers that these bases now bear.
Liberals wanted to play fuck fuck games with the military that it doesn't give a shit about.
"Watch this! We'll fuck around with military tradition and culture because we can! And we did!"
Hegseth renames them after deserving Soldiers and we can play this game forever and ever.

[Brett Bellmore]

I actually find it kind of hilarious. It's like the Taliban tearing down a statue of the Buddha, and when they get kicked out of power, it's replaced with a statue of some professional wrestler named "Buddha" Jones, just to offend them. Hilarious!

Frankly, the iconoclastic urges the left is subject to are so stupid, I'm glad to see them made fun of.

[Sarcastr0]

Supporting the Confederacy to own the libs.

Hilarious!

[bernard11]

Why is objecting to naming military facilities after traitors stupid, Brett?

I'd say the people who want them named for traitors are stupid, or worse. But go ahead, take pride in your juvenile gloating.

[Estragon]

“named for traitors”

Also stupid would be naming bases after terrible generals! I wonder if Bellmore would have enjoyed a stint in the Army of Tennessee under the command of John Bell Hood in the Franklin-Nashville area in late 1864? Might have been “hilarious”!!

[Kazinski]

I think its widely acknowledged the South had better generals than the north, particularly during the first 3 years of the war when the Union was being beaten even though they had decisive advantages in men and materials.

And the General that beat the South had his background as a quartermaster in the Mexican American war, and knew how to use that advantage.

In fact in Grant's memoirs he was very complimentary about the Southern Generals he faced and their difficulties.

Also see "American Civil War: An English View: The Writings of Field Marshal Viscount Wolseley"

[Estragon]

“South had better generals than the north”

Leonidas Polk? John Bell Hood? Braxton Bragg? One can only hope in the next civil war Ed is forever pining for, you people can be led by such brilliant military minds.

C’mon— even Bob can bring himself to admit these guys sucked. If we’re going off of military prowess— where’s Ft. Bedford Forrest? The mental contortions you will go through to deny the obvious is astounding.

[Bob from Ohio]

“South had better generals than the north”

Only in the beginning, by the end Lincoln Grant and Halleck had weeded out most of the "political" generals and a lot of he good rebs were dead

Hood was an excellent brigade and division commander, he got promoted too high. Not that it would have mattered, he faced George Thomas!

[Kazinski]

Pretty much what i said:
"I think its widely acknowledged the South had better generals than the north, particularly during the first 3 years of the war"

Grant frankly admitted that in the closing stages of the war in Northern Virginia he was very careful not to start any engagement where Lee had any chance to out general him. Any time when there forces were roughly equal he'd dig in and decline battle until he had at least 2-1 or 3-1 advantage.

My sympathies have always been with the North, but there is no way to claim the North had better Generals when it took an army twice as large, and better supplied 4 years to win, and were arguably losing the first 3 years of the war.

[Estragon]

Ever notice how these base re-naming threads always devolve into “our generals were better” wankery?

[Estragon]

“no way to claim the North had better Generals”

Uhhh, there 100% is. The north’s generals were “better” because they weren’t trying to kill other Americans so that they could keep black people as property. Every single Union general was “better” than his rebel counterpart. Which is why we should not be naming bases— even “inventively” after these people.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

"Dishonestly" is the word you're looking for, not "inventively".

[bernard11]

Grant frankly admitted that in the closing stages of the war in Northern Virginia he was very careful not to start any engagement where Lee had any chance to out general him. Any time when there forces were roughly equal he'd dig in and decline battle until he had at least 2-1 or 3-1 advantage.

Sounds like good generalship to me. Read Sun-tzu to understand why.

I think its widely acknowledged the South had better generals than the north,

Whether that's true or not we don't erect statues to Rommel, or Guderian, or von Runstedt. Wonder why.

[bernard11]

I think its widely acknowledged the South had better generals than the north, particularly during the first 3 years of the war when the Union was being beaten even though they had decisive advantages in men and materials.

So fucking what? The Nazis had many fine generals as well. This has zip to do with the justice of their cause. They were mostly war criminals, regardless of their military skills.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

Please don't give them ideas for the next round of re-naming...

[Michael P]

Which of the namesakes were convicted of treason?

[LawTalkingGuy]

I would bet a LOT of money you have stated other people have committed crimes, or even called them traitors, without an accompanying criminal conviction.

[Michael P]

I would bet that nobody is naming government installations after the people I accuse of crimes, except for failed, single-party states like California, which loves to name buildings after their corrupt politicians.

[LawTalkingGuy]

So basically, it's okay to call people criminals and traitors if they don't have a conviction unless they were leading an armed rebellion that got many Americans killed to protect and expand a brutal system of chattel slavery that wasn't even under a real threat?

[Michael P]

Lay off the funny cigarettes, dude. You are going way overboard in your whataboutism about the names of military bases. Maybe you should have a talk with the guy who wants to only name military assets after leftists with feet of clay.

[LawTalkingGuy]

How am I doing whataboutism?

[Michael P]

From Wikipedia:

Whataboutism or whataboutery (as in "but what about X?")[1] is a pejorative for the strategy of responding to an accusation with a counter-accusation instead of a defense against the original accusation.

Which part isn't blazingly obvious to you?

[Magister]

Maybe you could speak up in the same way when others make baseless accusations, such as when Harvey Milk was falsely called a pedophile in discussion of renaming a ship that bore his name. It's a weak defense of these names to say, well, the namesakes weren't actually convicted of treason; there are very good reasons to call them traitors.

[Mr. Bumble]

Funny that those who fought the war were willing to forgive their opponents for the sake of uniting the nation. Meanwhile the mis-spelled female hormone wants to resurrect the conflict.

[Estragon]

“willing to forgive their opponents for the sake of uniting the nation”

Oh really? Is that what Bedford Forrest did? How about George Gordon?

[Michael P]

Who named military bases after Nathan Bedford Forrest or George Washington Gordon? (I assume you weren't talking about Lord George Gordon, who organized riots named after him in 1780 that led to him being charged with, but acquitted of, high treason against the UK. I don't believe any military bases were named after him, either.)

[Estragon]

That’s right— Ft. Gordon was actually named for Brig. Gen. John B. Gordon. He was probably in the Klan too. But rather than speculate, let’s just turn the mic over to him:

“The Saxon race was never created by Almighty God to be ruled by the African.”

You get the heroes you deserve.

Anyone else get the sense General Gordon might not be too far out of the mainstream in this comment section?

[David Nieporent]

There is a difference — a vast gulf, in fact — between "forgiving" and honoring. None of these bases were named after the traitors by those who fought the war, and none were named after the traitors for the sake of uniting the nation. That is pure retcon. These base names were all 20th century innovations.

[SRG2]

Prsumably you would argue that Hitler and Stalin weren't mass murderers because they were never convicted of murder.

[bernard11]

Which did not levy war against the United States?

[Brett Bellmore]

Because it's just a name, and obsessing about names is stupid.

Only reason I'd put the names back is to establish that, no, you don't get to go around renaming everything to erase history just because you got control of the government for a few months.

For the record, renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America is the exact same stupidity.

[LawTalkingGuy]

How does it erase history? There are books and museums that explain the confederacy. The names didn't explain anything, they honored people who didn't deserve it. The bases were named as part of the Lost Cause project to rehabilitate the Confederacy. Their various names were an attempt to alter public memory of historical events. If you were actually concerned about history, you would argue to keep the names with a big asterisk that says the base is named after a traitor who fought to preserve and expand chattel slavery and was named decades later to promote the white supremacist myth of the lost cause. That's the history.

[SRG2]

Precisely so. And the Germans seem to know who Hitler was even though there aren't any statues of him still around.

[Estragon]

“to erase history”

I love this faux principled idea that history with be inextricably altered and erased if we don’t name military bases for rebels who took up arms so that they and others could continue to own human beings as chattel— as if reactionaries won’t continue jacking off to Shelby Foote in their mom’s basement for eternity.

Don’t worry Brett— we won’t forget the Confederates and their perfidy. It’s just that some us would rather honor someone like Richard Cavazos.

[Sarcastr0]

obsessing about names is stupid

But *statues*, now that's the real stuff to worry about!

Unless its *Mexican Flags in the US!!!*

The right is the one obsessed with semiotics, including you yourself Brett. This is just another double standard.

[bernard11]

obsessing about names is stupid.

That explains, I guess, why so many neo-Confederates object so strongly to the name changes. They are stupid, hopelessly so.

[hobie]

Trust me, my black neighbors don't think it's funny

[Frank Drackman]

Probably not, every N-word Thug turns into Web Dubois when a Confederate Flag shows up,
They think you’re funny though, hilarious in fact

[Poxigah146]

Am I supposed to care what your black neighbors think? 80% of black men and 92% of black women voted for Harris.

[bernard11]

Thereby demonstrating their intellectual superiority to Trump cultists, not to mention their patriotism.

[Poxigah146]

I agree it's hilarious. As are people calling the confederate generals "traitors." Had they won of course, they'd be heroes. They're honored for their bravery, not success.

"Why doth treason never prosper? For if it prosper, none dare call it treason."

[Commenter_XY]

They hate public ridicule = Frankly, the iconoclastic urges the left is subject to are so stupid, I’m glad to see them made fun of.

[Bob from Ohio]

"this is pretextual"

So what? The signs at the base and info on Army websites is just going to mention the men who have just been honored.

How many people knew Fort Polk was named for Leonidas Polk or had ever heard of him? Leonidas Polk is not exactly a household name, not to mention he was a terrible general, like Hood and Bragg.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

It is indeed interesting that Trump apparently had the power to re-assign the original names to the bases, but still felt compelled to lie about it. And lie about it in such a way as to make it very clear he was lying.

What kind of person does that, I wonder?

[Michael P]

No true Dutchman would agree with SRG2 on anything, but martinned probably does, because they both rely heavily on name-calling as a substitute for logic and reason.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Name one after James Longstreet and cite his heroics at Liberty Place.

[shawn_dude]

Trump is pandering to the lingering elements of the Confederacy in modern America. It calls into question the wisdom of not being more aggressive in punishing the people who took up arms against the United States after the civil war. Now here we are, over a hundred years later, still dealing with the consequences.

I hope we learn from this mistake when we eventually get around to cleaning up this mess.

[Poxigah146]

They wanted to leave America, and would have been very happy to do so.

[not guilty]

Naming United States military bases for Confederate traitors made about as much sense as it would make to rename Boston's Logan Airport for Osama bin Laden.

[Poxigah146]

Why don't you look up "false equivalence?"

[Dr. Ed 2]

No other country had a Lincoln who gave the 2nd inaugural address.

Most would have executed all the Confederates.

We are different -- we forgave.

[Estragon]

“Most would have executed all the Confederates”

As shawn says above— one wonders how things might have gone if we had done so. I continue to believe Trumpists are maximal because of this: they expect to be treated as the Confederates were if they are ultimately defeated. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to form their own opinion on this.

[bernard11]

To forgive is not to honor.

[Sarcastr0]

The Confederacy was evil. It fought for an evil system.

How do you get to the point that performative 'it's funny' and 'why do you care' is your reaction to this kind of open endorsement of the bad guys in our history?

For some here it looks like they are prioritizing owning the libs over even attempting to be a good person.

For others, it's the white nationalism.

And as shown by the white utopia discussion above, for some it's both.

[LawTalkingGuy]

One of the most depressing things in the last few years, and something that absolutely is consistent with the idea that the new right has a major fascist element is the proliferation of AI generated videos and images of what the country “used” to be like. These images generally depict a few white people in some kind of idealized street or home with the implication that we can “go back” or that “they” took it from you. These posts can get thousands and thousands of likes. But it’s an imagined past. Literally. It’s a computer generated image of what the prompter imagines what the past was like that they want us to “return” to. It’s the apotheosis of reactionary modernism.

[Brett Bellmore]

I honestly haven't seen any of that. But it seems like a pretty silly thing to use to back an accusation of fascism.

Things are better today in some respects, worse in others. What ticks me off is that I don't think the losses were necessary to achieve the gains. I don't think we have to give them up to reclaim what was good about what we used to have.

[LawTalkingGuy]

It’s not silly if you know anything about fascism. The return to the mythic past is a core idea of fascism. If you’re literally imagining a better purer past and then using that to justify revolutionary politics to “return” to it, that’s just fascism full stop. It’s the entire ideology in a nutshell.

[Brett Bellmore]

The problem here is that you’re taking a general tendency that’s just as common as dirt, and associated with many disparate and even orthogonal lines of thought, and linking it to “fascism”. It’s like saying that being a vegetarian is fascist because Hitler was one.

The return to the mythic past has been a common thing since people first realize there WAS a past! It predates not just fascism, but probably recorded history. Cavemen were probably discussing how much better things were before the midden heap cut down on the headroom in their cave!

That's why I prefer to look at fascism in terms of its approach to economics. That's most of what distinguishes it from other authoritarian movements, without failing to distinguish it from things that weren't at all authoritarian.

[LawTalkingGuy]

You’re being too generous here and ignoring that the imagined past from these posts is being created for the purpose of promoting a nationalistic social revolution to bring us back to the mythologized era, i.e. palingenesis or rebirth. It’s the core of fascism and that’s why you don’t see regular conservatives, liberals, or leftists doing this. It’s not simple nostalgia.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, as I relate below, I asked Gemini AI to produce a picture of children playing in a 60's suburban neighborhood, making no reference at all to race, and it produced the sort of thing you complain about: All the children were white.

But it wasn't because I wanted all white children; As Gemini explained, it was because that was a faithful representation of the source material it was trained on, and if I wanted an unrealistic drawing of a 1960's suburban neighborhood, I had to be specific about it.

Now, I'm a bit nostalgic about the 60's neighborhood *I* grew up in, but not because it was all white. Because it was a happy time in my life. So if I wax nostalgic about having sidewalks that weren't right next to the road, and having a lot of kids my age around to play with, it's got nothing to do with race or fascism, and if I ask Gemini for an illustration of that era, it's not MY fault it doesn't produce an image that has the diversity you demand.

[LawTalkingGuy]

It's not just about the AI Brett, it's about USING the AI to create a fake image of the past for the purpose of promoting a reactionary social revolution aiming for an ultranationalist rebirth. That's what makes it fascist.

[Brett Bellmore]

I realize a picture is supposedly worth a thousand words, but you're straining even that in what you're reading into these pictures. Per Freud, sometimes a picture of children on a playground is just a picture of children on a playground.

[LawTalkingGuy]

What is its posted accompanying a statement that we need to "return" or "fight" to get this "back" by an account that posts racist and fascist memes, continually advocates for extremist right-wing politics, and is retweeted by open fascist and Nazi accounts? Is it straining then?

[Brett Bellmore]

Given that you're calling these images racist on the basis of their having a character you get automatically without mentioning race, I'm going to have to say I doubt your capacity to distinguish innocent content from racist and fascist memes.

Maybe produce some actual examples?

[Stephen Lathrop]

Bellmore, let's give you and your AI full faith and credit. Give it a prompt for a picture of kids playing in the Montgomery County, MD neighborhood called, "Snakes Den," circa 1953. Use that as your prompt exactly, no racial cues. Tell us what you see.

[Don Nico]

LTG,
Your idea of Fascism is incredibly simplistic and seems like it is more suited to justify name-calling than any honest form of historico-political or philosophical analysis.

[bernard11]

I prefer to look at fascism in terms of its approach to economics.

Terrible idea. Fascism is not an economic ideology, any more than Nazism was. It was political - a matter of power.

And please, nobody come along and argue that the meaning of "Nazi" proves me wrong.

[Brett Bellmore]

Fascism was not JUST an economic ideology. It most assuredly was in relevant part an economic ideology, and my point is that, if you want to know what distinguished fascism both from other contemporary totalitarian movements, AND from general social movements that weren't at all authoritarian, it was their approach to economics.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Autarky.

[Brett Bellmore]

Hardly. It's been described as socialism with a capitalist veneer, or "dirigisme" if you want to get fancy: They mostly left the owners of the means of production in nominal ownership of said means, so long as they did with those means as they were directed to by the government. Rather than, as with the socialists of the era, taking direct control over the means of production. The reasoning being that the owners already knew how to run them, so let them do the scut work.

So, the ACA was a classic example of fascist economics: The health insurance companies remained nominally part of the private sector, but had the government dictating in detail what they could sell, to who, at what price. As a practical matter, they were converted to off budget government agencies.

[Commenter_XY]

I learned a new word today; dirigisme. 🙂

[Bwaaah]

I don't think I've ever before seen such a new word that is so unlikely to stick. I'm pretty sure the next time I see it will be my first time. "Dirigisme."

[shawn_dude]

You're attempting to associate Naziism with socialism--a common right-wing misdirection. Despite the Nazis calling themselves the "National Socialist German Workers' Party," they were far-right totalitarians. They gave themselves a name that would attract Germans suffering from economic stress both the left and the right. Hence "Socialist" and "National."

" Nazi ideology was racist, nationalist, and anti-democratic. It was violently antisemitic and anti-Marxist. "
Marxism is a form of socialism and a far-left ideology.

[Bunny495]

The Nazi ideology did have a strong socialism component. thing was they thought socialism was only for what they defined as pure Germans; not for anyone else.

[shawn_dude]

Could you provide an example of Nazi "socialism?" I'm a bit skeptical given the general lack of understanding of socialism within today's right wing.

[bernard11]

It most assuredly was in relevant part an economic ideology,

No. Various versions had various economic policies, few of which had ideological bases. Remember too, that economic policies adopted in wartime are not generally the same as those followed in peacetime. War, especially one on the scale of WWII, requires a somewhat exceptional approach.

[grb]

bernard11 : “Various versions had various economic policies, few of which had ideological bases.”

1. This is true both of the Nazi Party in Germany and fascism overall. In Germany, there were radically different economic visions in different factions of the party. This was because Hitler wasn’t that concerned about economics beyond keeping a complacent population and supplying the military with arms. Speer said he was economically illiterate with anything beyond the simplest level. So the factions – which included full socialism – continued until the Night of the Long Knives, when the socialists decidedly lost. By then, Hitler had made his choice after the country’s industrial oligarchs had bent the knee and made generous financial payouts. That’s what settled the question. Ideology had nothing to do with it.

2. Likewise with fascism in general. It spread to Spain, Italy, and large parts of Eastern Europe. It’s common features were nationalism, militarism, anti-democracy iron-fist rule, performance violence and ceaseless propaganda. (all things the Cult cheers today). The governments were all totalitarian to a degree, but usually operated in conjunction with business oligarchs. There was almost zero socialist ideology in the lot.

3. I sometimes wonder about people like Brett, who are relentlessly determined to pound the square peg of nazism into the round hole of socialism. Haven’t they noted the majority of worldwide support for the nazis came from the Right? This was particularly true after they started to rule, purged the left-wing faction from the party, and showed what they were by deed, not label. I likewise wonder how Brett explains the fact that 99.9 & 9/10 of support for neo-nazis and fascism today is very much from the Right. Somehow the nazis of today find his convoluted arguments unpersuasive. They know what fascism means. They’re not pretending otherwise.

[Bunny495]

See my post below. Nazis simply thought socialism was only for "good Aryans". They envisioned a "people's community" (Volksgemeinschaft) that transcended class divisions but was based on racial purity. As someone who has wasted way too much time in the time sink of genealogy tracing my roots back to Ragnar Lodbrok with the help of DNA analysis. While I do have lots (over 87%) of what passes for Northen European DNA there is a surprising amount of North American Indian DNA most likely from the Indian concubines the Vikings captured and returned to Scandinavia with. I have to wonder if the Nazis would include me in their socialism.

[Brett Bellmore]

In practice, the difference between Fascism and Communism is largely academic; Both are totalitarian movements, and totalitarian movements all converge on roughly the same set of behaviors, for all that they attempt to justify themselves in different ways. (Horseshoe theory.)

That's why I find the perpetual argument over whether fascists are right or left wing monumentally boring. Ok, if you're 'right wing' and you become totalitarian, you're probably going to be a 'fascist', and if you're 'left wing' and you become totalitarian, you're probably going to be a 'communist', but who the heck CARES? Either one will throw you in a death camp at the drop of a hat! Either one will make you poor and your life hell.

The interesting axis isn't right/left, it's libertarian/totalitarian.

At the libertarian end of that axis, who the hell cares about right or left wing? The government's leaving you the hell alone, so what does it matter?

At the totalitarian end of that axis, who the hell cares about right or left wing? You're in a prison camp (Inside the walls or outside is only a minor difference.) or you're in a death camp, so what does it matter? I guess it informs you of what sort of protective coloration to assume, if you want to become one of the oppressors, in addition to being oppressed.

It's between those extremes that the details matter, because they dictate in what ways your liberty gets compromised, right wingers and left wingers tend to behave in a different manner from each other when they're not committed to either leaving you alone or completely controlling every aspect of your life.

I have noticed that the right seemed for a while to have a little more resistance to progressing from authoritarian to totalitarian, but I've come to believe that was just a consequence of the Nazis losing WWII. DeNazification and their inability as the losers to conceal just how awful they had been.

We didn't similarly purge our communists, and (Duranty!) they were more successful for longer in hiding their horrors. So people were more easily fooled into thinking they had benign motives.

Whatever, even that difference seems to be fading.

So, really, the biggest difference seems to be that the right is more favorable to religion and conventional morality, and the left more interested in redistribution and tearing down conventional morality.

Back to the topic, I think it's just interesting that the left seems to have mostly abandoned its desire for explicit ownership of the means of production, in favor of the fascists' regulating nominally private industry into being de facto arms of the government. Maybe they decided the fascists were right, let the existing owners do the scut work, and just call the shots.

[grb]

Brett : “I have noticed that the right seemed for a while to have a little more resistance to progressing from authoritarian to totalitarian….”

1. The distinction between Fascism and Communism is not “academic”.

2. Shorter Brett: “Anything I don’t like is totalitarian. Anything totalitarian can be labeled anything I like. We are surrounded by hidden communists. Business regulation is fascist.” Via that soft-headed muddle, Brett can produce nearly any conclusion he likes based on any moment’s whim.

3. And one of our most fanatical Trump cultists is still performing in Libertarian drag. If this was serious, Brett would be tied-up in rubbery knots of hopeless contradiction. But it’s only cosplay. Not a single atom of seriousness is there to be found.

4. But funniest of all is the statement quoted above. Because if there was ever any doubt whether Right or Left was more likely to betray our democracy to totalitarianism, that’s now settled. Trump’s cultists have cheered themselves hoarse while he shredded the Constitution, ignored legal due process, destroyed every guardrail against unchecked executive power, repeatedly based illegal actions on Potemkin Village “emergencies”, and (the very latest) bulldozed over law and tradition in his eagerness to target civilians with the U.S. military.

And every step of the way, “libertarian” Brett has applauded. After all, Trump provides too much entertainment for him to have any leftover pesky scruples. As long as the Mad King keeps owning the Libs, he can name himself king as far as the cultists care. Perhaps if he declared himself God Incarnate, Brett would rediscover principles and grow a spine. But I seriously doubt it.

[Don Nico]

Bernard,
I agree that what was called fascism in the 1930's was not primarily defined by its economics. Although if you say that fascism was the socio-political movement started by Mussolini then it did have a definite economic form associated with it, the "corporate state."

Both fascism and nazism had their philosophical roots in the romantism of the late 19th century and had the same theoretical structure as many ersatz religions of with roots in that period.

[M L]

I mean, the state of things obviously varies between better and worse, in particular places and times throughout history, and as to various particular aspects of life.

So more than a mere human tendency, it’s also just an obvious fact that there will, at times, be particular things that are worse than before. Basically there is always room for improvement and we can in fact compare to and learn from the past, even though you obviously you can’t “go back” to it as time travel is notoriously fraught with problems.

[Sarcastr0]

This comments has real "future events such as these will effect you in the future" energy.

[M L]

I don't know the reference, what is that?

Basically pointing to a particular thing that was better in the past is a form of learning from history, here's some quotes Google gave me about that.

"A generation which ignores history has no past and no future." - Robert Heinlein
"History is a vast early warning system." - Norman Cousins
"History is a cyclic poem written by Time upon the memories of man." - Percy Bysshe Shelley
"The only thing new in the world is the history you do not know." - Harry Truman
"History is a gallery of pictures in which there are few originals and many copies." - Alexis de Tocqueville

[Magister]

Criswell’s line which I know from Plan 9 from Outer Space.

[Frank Drackman]

And it’s based on Sworn Testimony!
Can you prove it DIDN’T happen?????

[Bunny495]

Obligatory history quotation.

Those who forget history are condemned to go to summer school.

[Frank Drackman]

I went to 2 years of Summer Screw-el in the California Pubic Screw-els, pre Prop-13,
No, I didn’t fail Engrish, anyone could go, take a cake Tennis or Volleyball course and get extra credits to graduate a little early
Oh, and the girls from Junior High got to go, so lots of “talent” allriteallriteallrite
Then I get to Ali-bama, Summer-Screwel was only for the retards, weight room looked like San Quentin

[bye]

Lived all over the country. Found CA disgusting and the Deep South had real culture, honest hard-working folks, not everything was corner newspaper boxes, riots, protests, etc.

[bernard11]

+1

[Don Nico]

LTG,
"return to the mythic past" that is your modernist idea of the core concept. It is very far from a commonly agreed on philosophical analysis of fascism as a political mass movement. I refre you to Eric Voeglein's "New Science of Politics."

[bye]

Forget Voegelin, try
Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning --- by Jonah Goldberg

Rexford Guy Tugwell, an influential member of FDR’s Brain Trust, said of Italian Fascism, “It’s the cleanest, neatest most efficiently operating piece of social machinery I’ve ever seen. It makes me envious.”

In Democracy in America, Alexis de Tocqueville warned: “It must not be forgotten that it is especially dangerous to enslave men in the minor details of life. For my own part, I should be inclined to think freedom less necessary in great things than in little ones.”(p 20) <========

“Almost every program of the early New Deal was rooted in the politics of war, the economics of war, or the aesthetics of war emerging from World War I . . . Many New Deal agencies, the famous ‘alphabet soup,’were mostly continuations of various boards and committees set up fifteen years earlier during the war.” (p 151)

[Dr. Ed 2]

LawTalkingGuy doesn't know what fascism is.

He describes nostalgia.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Roger Griffin’s definition of the fascist minimum:

“Fascism is a political ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of populist ultra-nationalism.”

The use of technology to construct an imagined and purer past that the nation needs to return to for a national rebirth is about as fascist as it gets even under the narrowest definition. It’s reactionary modernism in an almost literal sense.

[bye]

Definitions, schmefinitions....

Rexford Guy Tugwell, an influential member of FDR’s Brain Trust, said of Italian Fascism, “It’s the cleanest, neatest most efficiently operating piece of social machinery I’ve ever seen. It makes me envious.”

There is a real and disgusting piece of folly from that past.

[Bob from Ohio]

You can tell Griffin is accurate because he uses an obscure and weird word like "palingenetic".

[LawTalkingGuy]

You can tell he’s accurate because the definition, technical philosophical term aside, matches with the historical facts and is consistent with what other historians like Paxton have identified about fascist movements.

[Bob from Ohio]

There is no mass fascist movement in America. A few thousand losers like always.

Any definition that says there is one, or that Trump and/or Magadonians are fascist, is just bunk.

Silly AI images are not fascist either.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Okay and what historical research have you done on fascism that would compare to the work of say Robert Paxton or Griffin that leads you to this conclusion?

[Bob from Ohio]

"compare to the work of say Robert Paxton or Griffin"

Resorting to a naked appeal to authority now.

[LawTalkingGuy]

No. I’m inviting you to show that your conception of fascism is more accurate based on your own work. Can you?

[LawTalkingGuy]

Also Griffin’s definition of fascism comes from his work done in the 90s looking at European regimes. He doesn’t even personally think Trump is fascist.

Paxton’s seminal work came out in 2004 but he’d been studying fascism since the 60s.

If MAGA or Trumpism fit into Griffin’s definition or bears a similarity to what Paxton discusses that’s not a problem with the definition or their analysis of fascism.

Instead it reveals something about the MAGA movement since it replicates fascist tropes that were identified when Trump was still on his first wife.

[Bob from Ohio]

"fit into Griffin’s definition or bears a similarity to what Paxton discusses "

It does not though, its all in your fevered mind.

[LawTalkingGuy]

https://theonion.com/this-war-will-destabilize-the-entire-mideast-region-and-1819594296/

[LawTalkingGuy]

Also not for nothing but the department of homeland security tweeted this:

https://x.com/dhsgov/status/1932834565048975831?s=46&t=swfuX8A13L7H9PAYSakPtA

The account in the meme tweets racist stuff like this:

https://x.com/memeticsisyphus/status/1671569424866738193?s=46&t=swfuX8A13L7H9PAYSakPtA

DHS also posted this.

https://x.com/dhsgov/status/1932820723606958122?s=46&t=swfuX8A13L7H9PAYSakPtA

The poster was designed by an account that tweeted this:

https://x.com/mrrobertwp/status/1932712314320404633?s=46&t=swfuX8A13L7H9PAYSakPtA

Maybe it’s not my fevered mind but your contrarian denialism.

[Stephen Lathrop]

This thread features yet more careless narratives about fascism.

A fascist analytical framework is predictive only to the extent that today's political leadership has adopted historical fascism as a model. And then only to the extent they succeed.

Perhaps authoritarian leaders today intend to tailor political outcomes to their models' dimensions. They still may encounter friction, resistance, materials too obdurate to be shaped accurately, changes forced by happenstance. There will be distortions and surprises, results of operating under different conditions, in different places, with different histories and contexts than prior models example.

On the basis of historical comparison, the United States today is more unlike post-Wiemar Germany than otherwise. Nuclear potential in warfare, especially, is a dramatic difference, whether alarming, or reassuring, or a mixture of both.

To the extent that German nationalism was a movement of short prior duration, Germany as a people, and as a culture, were especially vulnerable. For pre-war Germany, made-up history—offered as substitute for customary governance inherited from a long history—made for especially volatile prospects. The United States enjoys a comparatively long history.

I mention such differences not for reassurance, but to emphasize caution. Do not suppose you have any reliable framework from the past to inform expectations about this nation's suddenly different-looking future. What Trump/MAGA attempt now is—as usual in cases of radical political ambition—historically unprecedented.

For questions of governance, unique and durable structured outcomes are uncommon results of radical ambition. Failures are commonplace. Failures tend to look alike, in that chaos and disorder look similar wherever and whenever they occur. They also tend to last longer than expected, and prove harder to reorganize.

A legacy of political stability is a treasure that only fools put at risk on purpose. If you never know what you are going to get, then wisdom prefers less scope for radical change.

[Stephen Lathrop]

My comment above is a lightly edited near-repeat of one which appears below, which at first went haywire in the submission process, and latter reappeared. No need to read the one below.

[Swede425]

LOL!
It really must be depressing. For you.
I don't need AI generated anything to show a few white people (GROSS!) living life in an "idealized" street, home, or anywhere else.
I can simply look in a family album to see that, or a Facebook page to see it happening right now.
Sorry for your shitty life. Maybe do something about it?
I mean other than complaining.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Lol the people with shitty lives are the ones posting fake AI images to show how life was supposedly better at some point in the past. Why do you think I have one based on what I said?

[Swede425]

None of this stuff is real!
That kind of life didn't exist!
It's all fake because of fascism and stuff!
Get yourself a hug.

[LawTalkingGuy]

There are plenty of actual pictures and videos that show what life was like in prior decades. Many of which depict it as quite nice. But these accounts use fake images to promote an incredibly specific aesthetic. And people eat it up. Again I don’t think I’m the one who needs a hug since I’m not the one who is consumed by nostalgia for an idealized past.

[Brett Bellmore]

No, you're consumed with quasi-nostalgia about an idealized future.

[LawTalkingGuy]

That…makes no sense.

[Swede425]

LTG?
Is the fascism in the room with you...right now?
Apparently you're an art critic who doesn't like what he sees because he KNOWS those evil white people will use it as an excuse to form the next Crusades.
Somebody here's "consumed", alright.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Insofar as historians and political theorists have identified the ideas and actions that constitute “fascist” movements, yes there is a substantial contingent of people in America with politics and attitudes that fit the description. And the AI slop fits with this. And not for nothing but these accounts will often either be run by or shared by open Neo-Nazis and fascists who actually are quite open about their ideology and goals.

And the use of fascism isn’t just a pejorative, it’s a mostly a pretty useful analytical framework that provides predictive power about where politics, culture, and society might be headed in the next few years.

[Swede425]

Don't look at a Norman Rockwell painting.
You'll piss yourself.

[LawTalkingGuy]

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

[Swede425]

Look at those evil white guys forcing that poor black girl to go to school.
Good thing the president called up the troops.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Okay I think we’re done here. You’re just kind of a dumbass.

[Dr. Ed 2]

You don't know what fascism IS...

[Stephen Lathrop]

A fascist analytical framework is predictive only to the extent that today's political leadership has consciously adopted historical fascism as a model. And then only to the extent they succeed.

Perhaps authoritarian leaders today intend to tailor political outcomes to their models' dimensions. They still may encounter friction, resistance, materials too obdurate to be shaped accurately, changes forced by happenstance. There will be distortions and surprises, results of operating under different conditions, in different places, with different histories and contexts than prior models example.

On the basis of historical comparison, the United States today is more unlike post-Wiemar Germany than otherwise. Nuclear potential in warfare, especially, is a dramatic difference, whether alarming, or reassuring, or a mixture of both.

To the extent that German nationalism was a movement of short prior duration, Germany as a people, and as a culture, were especially vulnerable. For pre-war Germany, made-up history offered as substitute for customary governance inherited from a long history made for especially volatile prospects. The United States enjoys a comparatively long history.

I mention such differences not for reassurance, but to emphasize caution. Do not suppose you have any reliable framework from the past to inform expectations about this nation's suddenly different-looking future. What Trump/MAGA attempt now is—as usual in cases of radical political ambition—historically unprecedented.

For questions of governance, unique and durable structured outcomes are uncommon results of radical ambition. Failures are commonplace. Failures tend to look alike, in that chaos and disorder look similar wherever and whenever they occur. They also tend to last longer than expected, and prove harder to reorganize.

A legacy of political stability is a treasure that only fools put at risk on purpose. If you never know what you are going to get, then wisdom prefers less scope for radical change.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Edited version posted above. This appears here as a result of a submission malfunction.

[bye]

You law folks often miss the point you think you are making !!! An amazing thing if you get accustomed to looking for it. Those depictions often are for the people in them almost pointers to a suicidal verdict.

I always think of Bertrand Russell's daughter
Reason, progress, unselfishness, a wide historical perspective, expansiveness, generosity, enlightened self-interest. I had heard it all my life, and it filled me with despair.

Katherine Tait

[Sarcastr0]

One thing about likes these days is they're also just as likely to come from bots.

Comments too.

It's a weird weird place out there.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Getting close to the dead internet theory. But then the problem here is that stuff on Twitter and Reddit and chans etc has an identifiable effect on real world politics.

[shawn_dude]

AI sock puppets are filling up the right wing manosphere trying to give the impression that incel ideology is mainstream.

[Michael P]

Is it as depressing as grotesquely ahistorical AI-generated images that "diversify" history, which companies like Google tried to shove down people's throats?

[LawTalkingGuy]

Good reminder that one reason this stuff works is that the target audience lives in an imagined present too.

[Michael P]

Maybe you do. In reality, Google’s AI image generator generated astonishingly non-white and female Nazi soldiers and US founders when users didn’t specify race or diversity at all.

https://www.axios.com/2024/02/23/google-gemini-images-stereotypes-controversy
https://www.independent.co.uk/tech/google-gemini-ai-images-racially-diverse-b2500730.html

It was a recent and very blatant counterexample of your lie up-thread:

You’re being too generous here and ignoring that the imagined past from these posts is being created for the purpose of promoting a nationalistic social revolution to bring us back to the mythologized era, i.e. palingenesis or rebirth. It’s the core of fascism and that’s why you don’t see regular conservatives, liberals, or leftists doing this. It’s not simple nostalgia.

Maybe you meant to say that the DIE crowd are fascists?

[LawTalkingGuy]

You linked to an article where Google acknowledged the mistake and tried to fix it which is not exactingly them “shoving [it] down [your] throat”

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, except that the mistake was a pre-prompt directing the AI to shove it down people's throats; They had actively directed the AI to insert 'diversity' unasked for.

So, it's an interesting question, if you ask an AI to produce an image of a 1960's suburb with children playing... What will you get? I tried Gemini, and did indeed get an image with all white children. In fact, it looked remarkably like the street my grandfather lived on.

Is that because I asked it for all white children? No, I literally entered, "produce an image of a 1960's suburb with children playing". So, blame Gemini, not me. In fact, I asked Gemini for an explaination.

"You've hit on a really interesting point that's often discussed when looking at historical media and images from the mid-20th century, like the 1960s.

The representation of children as primarily or exclusively white in images of suburban and urban life from that era can be attributed to several factors:
Historical Demographics

While certainly not universally true, many of the rapidly expanding suburbs built in the post-World War II era were, by design and societal norms of the time, predominantly white. This was due to a complex mix of factors, including:

Redlining and Discriminatory Housing Practices: Government policies and real estate practices actively restricted Black families and other minority groups from purchasing homes in certain neighborhoods, especially in the growing suburbs. This created racially segregated communities.

White Flight: As urban areas began to diversify, many white families moved out to the suburbs, a phenomenon known as "white flight," further contributing to the racial homogeneity of these new communities.

Similarly, while urban areas were more diverse, segregation still played a significant role, with many neighborhoods being ethnically or racially homogenous due to similar discriminatory practices and economic disparities.
Media Representation and Bias

The media of the time often reflected and reinforced these societal norms. Images used in advertising, television, and even photography tended to portray a particular idealized vision of American life, which frequently featured white families and individuals. This was partly due to:

Target Audiences: Marketers and media producers often targeted what they perceived as the dominant consumer demographic.
Unconscious Bias: Creators of content, like photographers and illustrators, often operated within the prevailing societal norms, which could lead to unconscious biases in their representation of people.
Limited Diversity in Photography: The professional photography landscape itself was less diverse, which could also influence the perspectives and subjects chosen for portrayal.

Algorithmic Bias (in AI Image Generation)

When an AI like mine generates images, it learns from vast datasets of existing images. If the historical data it's trained on disproportionately features white individuals in certain contexts (like 1960s suburbs), the AI can inadvertently reproduce those patterns. This is a known challenge in AI development, and it highlights the importance of diverse and representative training data to avoid perpetuating historical biases.

So, in essence, the images you're seeing reflect a complex interplay of historical segregation, societal norms, and the way those norms were captured and amplified by media, all of which can then be reflected in how AI models learn and generate images. It's a really important observation and great for discussions about representation and history!"

Or, long story short, "Don't blame me, either, that's what the photos I'm working off typically showed."

[Michael P]

He's acting like the excuse-makers in the articles I linked to: Arguing that because Google apologized after trying to shove it down people's throats (and either doing a stupidly small amount of testing, or more likely ignoring the glaringly obvious problems), it doesn't really count as trying to shove it down people's throats because they had Good Intentions. Not like those fascists and their AI-generated images of a mythologized past.

[LawTalkingGuy]

The fascists don’t have good intentions though. They’re pretty open about it!

[Michael P]

You people retreat to (false) name-calling so quickly. At least you’re learning to recognize when you have lost an argument.

[LawTalkingGuy]

It's not "name calling" its a description of the ideological slant of these accounts, who again, are often quite openly fascist! And the description works because it is comparable to what historians and political scientists have identified as being associated with fascist movements for decades. If you feel its false name-calling you might want to reflect on why you feel that way instead of declining to engage with the substance of the ideological description. You'd probably be less offended if I called it a symptom of "Reactionary Modernism"

"At least you’re learning to recognize when you have lost an argument."

LOL. This means so much coming from a guy who is belligerently wrong about so many things.

[Michael P]

You could be making up those accounts, for all I know. You haven’t provided any specifics to substantiate your name-calling. It’s not my burden to go find whatever images and posts you claim to have seen in social media and guess which ones that you think exhibit the unspecified characteristics that are “comparable to" some academic model of fascist ideology.

Maybe you should waste less time on Twitter and Reddit, and more time familiarizing yourself with the research that says that randos posting to social media, and even organized efforts like Russia’s, have no statistical effect on election results. What changes elections are the biases of the platforms themselves.

[Brett Bellmore]

"its a description of the ideological slant of these accounts,"

Look, if it were a description of the ideological slant of these accounts, you could illustrate it in a more direct manner than attributing "fascism" to a visual aesthetic. Like, quoting ideological proposals.

[LawTalkingGuy]

I mean fascism is largely aesthetic but I think it is relevant when the accounts posting this stuff, usually with a desire to "return" to such a state of affairs follow and are retweeted by open fascists who post racist memes all day.

[Michael P]

Yeah, we get it, you want to accuse the people you disagree with of fascism based on vibes, rather than address the fact that the observable traits you actually cited also apply to people you agree with doing things that you think were directionally correct.

[Brett Bellmore]

"I mean fascism is largely aesthetic"

Look, I dislike brutalism, and am a fan of classic architecture. Aesthetically, that apparently puts me in the same camp as the fascists, but doesn't give you any reason to suspect I'd load you onto a cattle car.

We don't dislike fascism because of the aesthetic, we dislike it because of the camps.

[Sarcastr0]

There's plenty of ambiguity in what fascism means.

Ecco did some seminal work making a great case it's aesthetic-as-politics.
There's historians who insist if it's not in the 1930s, it's actually just sparkling authoritarianism.
There's some who use it as a synonym of authoritarianism.

One thing that is certainly true is no one but Brett has the definition where it's in a continuum where the more regulations of business you have the more fascist you get.

[Brett Bellmore]

"a continuum where the more regulations of business you have the more fascist you get."

Nah, I'm saying that whether to openly claim ownership of the means of production, or to leave it nominally in private hands while regulating it to the point where it's a de facto arm of the government, was a disagreement between fascists and communists.

A disagreement the fascists won, even if they lost the war. Even the people who call themselves communists eventually gave up on government running everything in favor of a nominally private command economy.

[Sarcastr0]

This is not consistent with past comments.

What you lay out here is fascism as a state one arrives in.

But what you have said in the past is that it's a continuum. Laissez faire on one side, and then fascism on the other.

Thus your past arguments that the Dem party wants things more fascist and the right wants liberty.

If you've come off that definition, glad to hear it.

[Dr. Ed 2]

He really doesn't know what a fascist is...

[LawTalkingGuy]

It’s palingenetic ultranationalism.

[David Nieporent]

So, it’s an interesting question, if you ask an AI to produce an image of a 1960’s suburb with children playing… What will you get? I tried Gemini, and did indeed get an image with all white children. In fact, it looked remarkably like the street my grandfather lived on.

Is that because I asked it for all white children? No, I literally entered, “produce an image of a 1960’s suburb with children playing”. So, blame Gemini, not me. In fact, I asked Gemini for an explaination.

You people are all completely missing the point of this discussion. LawTalkingGuy was not criticizing AI for generating these images; he's not saying that the images themselves are racist. It's a criticism of white nationalists taking those fake pictures and citing them as supposed evidence of what the country was like before the mean ol' Jews and blacks and gays destroyed it.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, and he was using that they were all white as evidence of that supposed racism. I was simply pointing out that you'd get all white pictures without specifying race, so the fact that the people in those pictures were white wasn't evidence of anything but that the AI hadn't been specifically directed to not output only whites.

[Sarcastr0]

So it was just the AI making you look like you were excluding minorities from your utopia when in reality you just don't care whether minorities exist in your utopia.

And this manifests as an all white ideal world.

Well then.

[David Nieporent]

I was simply pointing out that you’d get all white pictures without specifying race,

Once again: he's not talking about what pictures you "get." He's talking about what pictures you use, and, of course, how you use them.

[bye]

Wow , are you not convincing.

Fact Check: Altered video shows Pope Leo praising Burkina Faso’s Traore
By Reuters Fact Check
May 30, 2025
The Vatican recently had to condemn a video in which Pope Leo appeared to praise the leader of Burkina Faso. The video was a deepfake, an AI creation that used techniques like morphing and deep synthesis.

[Kazinski]

Kind of funny about most social media feeds, they show you what you want to see because its what you are more likely to click on.

I don't see any thing like that.

Although my wife did show me a still supposedly from a video of Beyonce having a 3some with Jay-Z and PDiddy last night from her FB feed (maybe I should monitor her social media use, although most of its not in English so that will be difficult).

[LawTalkingGuy]

Well Twitter is inundated with this stuff, it’s hard to escape these accounts even with good blocking. And of course sometimes other accounts I follow will see and comment on this phenomenon.

[Kazinski]

Really? I never see stuff like that in my X stream.

I think mostly because I stay in the "following" rather than "for you".

Top of my feed now is someone responding to Newsome complaining that the money going to pay for the National guard should go to fire recovery. They point out that only 24 building permits have been issued, out of the 7500 structures destroyed.

My own response would be lets use the guard to insure there aren't any more buildings burned down in LA.

I don't follow any accounts that post a lot of memes.

[Michael P]

Is the 7500 count using some restricted count? https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2025/01/21/california-fires-heres-the-data-behind-the-historic-blazes-that-have-burned-through-40000-acres/ says upwards of 15,000 structures destroyed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_2025_Southern_California_wildfires says more than 18,000 (apparently based on reference 5, an archived version of CALFIRE's web page -- the current CALFIRE page "only" shows ~16,000 structures destroyed in 2025).

[Brett Bellmore]

Top of my feed is a friend complaining that he needs a bigger garage given all the farm machinery and motorcycles. Oh, and there's Darkseid beating the crap out of Superman, probably shouldn't have paused so long on that old comic book post.

[M L]

I think I know generally the form of meme you are talking about. It’s not usually AI and predates AI, though.

For example this one, about women and feminism, got a lot of traction all over recently, with a lot of critics responding.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/7074338952689609/posts/9735475866575891/

Better:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Natalism/comments/1ky9xly/imagine_the_amount_of_propaganda_it_took_for/

Others of this sort include posts about how, in the past:

– young couples could afford to buy a home

- boomers in general got lucky, had it easier and squandered it

– a man could support a family on his single income working in a factory or as a tradesman etc

– families were stronger and more together, neighborhoods safer, communities stronger and more together through local organizations and living IRL, more wholesome activities etc

__
So overall, just normal stuff that any normal person recognizes as good and what we should strive for – which is also the same stuff that predictably and unsurprisingly triggers the leftists to cry "fascist", because they are ugly and sad and repulsive and would rather make the world in their image.

[LawTalkingGuy]

“So overall, just normal stuff that any normal person recognizes as good and what we should strive for”

Normal would be just living your actual life in a wholesome and productive way with your actual family and friends instead of posting some AI slop of a fake family and being mad someone took that from you.

“because they are ugly and sad and repulsive and would rather make the world in their image.”

Maybe this applies to tankies, but democrats liberals and even leftishy social democrats generally live the lives this slop is supposedly pining for. They have decent jobs, love their families, have friends, and do various social and healthy activities. I’m a lawyer in a city. Most of my friends are dems with professional backgrounds. They basically all live in the suburbs with their spouses and kids and live the way right-wingers say we’re supposed to live except they aren’t super weird about it.

And let’s just say it’s pretty funny that Obama actually lives the normal life we’re supposed to live and Trump is an absolute degenerate.

[M L]

Wait, I thought the content depicted evil, false, fascist propaganda. Now it’s just good wholesome stuff that normal democrats do, and people should go do and live IRL rather than posting about online? Which is it?

In the example I posted, nobody appears to be mad that someone took anything from them. Instead it appears they are enjoying something they think is great, and they want to share that joy and tell others not to buy into the propaganda that it’s “oppressive.”

Anyway, sure, but you’re the one getting all triggered about posts online promoting wholesome stuff, so your attempt to distance yourself from “tankies” in this regard is a little unpersuasive here.

[LawTalkingGuy]

No. I’m talking about generating fake images to create a particular idealized aesthetic for the purpose of promoting reactionary politics and inspiring outrage. It’s not “wholesome” when the message is “things were better when there were less racial minorities around” and you can tell that’s the message because these accounts will also post stuff about Rhodesia and other racist memes!

“Instead it appears they are enjoying something they think is great, and they want to share that joy and tell others not to buy into the propaganda that it’s “oppressive.””

Their joy about fake things? If they really want to share their joy about things they think are great wouldn’t they post images of the actual thing they think are great and not some shitty simulacrum? Surely if this life is so great they have pictures of it and them being happy. Charlie Kirk recently posted a fake picture of a patriotic parade saying “this is what we’re fighting for.” If it’s so important and great and worth fighting for why didn’t he go to a small town Memorial Day a few weeks ago and take a picture of that?

[M L]

Did you click on the second example? It's just real footage of moms sharing the joy of motherhood. And the first is obviously a depiction of the same reality. It's an illustration but I don't see what's "fake" about it beyond that.

I guess you are thinking of worse instances of a similar thing, which I'm sure exist. But I looked up the Charlie Kirk example. https://x.com/charliekirk11/status/1932113460957196343 I have no interest in Charlie Kirk, and this is cheesy. But . . . this sort of use of AI is now taking over advertising, film production, etc - is it not? Is your objection to the use of AI, or is it to the message because you find it jingoistic or something? Or just some constructive criticism that the message would be more powerful with a real photo?

[bye]

don't you guys ever link to serious stuff

The Vatican recently had to condemn a video in which Pope Leo appeared to praise the leader of Burkina Faso. The video was a deepfake, an AI creation that used techniques like morphing and deep synthesis.

Fact Check: Altered video shows Pope Leo praising Burkina Faso’s Traore
By Reuters Fact Check
May 30, 2025

[Kazinski]

I do know what kind of pictures you are talking about.

My mother had an entire book of Saturday Evening Post cover art. Like this:
https://images.app.goo.gl/RoJf1

But Norman Rockwell was no relation to George Lincoln Rockwell as you can see from this Rockwell:

https://images.app.goo.gl/2iToHDx7T4xecUGW6

[Estragon]

I was promised 90 deals in 90 days.

90 days runs on 7/8. Anyone have an update on how close we are to our goals?

[shawn_dude]

Our goal is to shift 90% of the goalpost before people realize we're going to miss them by a mile.

[SRG2]

Typical convo from the first Trump presidency:

MAGA type: "Trump has kept all his promises!"
Me: "Except he didn't, for example this, this and this..."
MAGA type: "Ah, but he would have kept all of them if it hadn't been for..."

We will no doubt see the same thing this time.

[Dr. Ed 2]

All the lawsuits haven't helped....

[SRG2]

Yeah, not being allowed to break the law does make it more difficult for Trump.

[shawn_dude]

I have to remind myself that there are two meanings of "not allowed." One is, essentially, law (or some other set of rules) prohibits it and the other is he is actually prevented from doing it by some mechanism.

Consider that Trump is "not allowed" to deport people from the US without due process but has continued to do this without any repercussion. Even a USSC decision hasn't stopped him.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Rep. LaMonica McIver indicted on federal charges over clash with law enforcement at ICE facility in New Jersey" NBC News [and other places]

[Estragon]

This is going nowhere. Get your thrills now!

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

Why would it go nowhere? Politicians aren't above the law.

[Commenter_XY]

You mean, like Chris Matthews kind of thrills, or something else?

[Estragon]

Whatever kind of thrills you can possibly scrape from this kind of retconned indictment that will be dismissed.

Hitch your wagon to Ms. Habba at your own risk. I say again: this is going nowhere

[Bob from Ohio]

"this is going nowhere"

Neither did the Trump indictments in Atlanta, Florida and DC but that didn't stop you and the lib herd here crowing about it.

[Kazinski]

St Louis Fed tracks total Foreign Born Employment, based on surveys.

It hit an all time high of 33,719,000 Feb 1, 2025.

Now its dropped more than a million to 32,706,000.

For context BLS reported a total of 7.2 million people unemployed in May, 7.1 million people in February.

Now obviously foreign born includes many US citizens, Green card holders, and H1b holders as well as some illegal aliens, and people with some sort of temporary status who were not legally admitted but issued work permits.

Maybe self deportation is starting to work.

[shawn_dude]

What mechanism are they using to track undocumented immigrants?

If "self deportation" is meant to indicate leaving the US voluntarily, you'd need to account for workers who leave places like Missouri for California. Workers may only leave the red states that collaborate with ICE for the states that do not. And at least some of those workers will be citizens with non-citizen family members or citizens afraid of being grabbed by ICE simply because they have brown skin and speak spanish.

[Kazinski]

Dude, it dropped more than a million nationwide in two months. Moving from MO to CA wouldn't change that.

While the number of unemployed among all workers went up only 100k over the same period of time. While total employment was up more than half million from 160,968,000 to 161,491,000

To summarize from Feb thru April:
FB workers down 1.01 million.
Total unemployment up 0.1 million
Total employment up 0.52 million

And for what its worth my wife, who is a US Citizen, is one of those 32 million foreign born workers so I know there are a lot of different categories in that larger bucket.

[Dr. Ed 2]

AND seasonal employment is lowest in February, picks up in April.

[Frank Drackman]

Maybe that’s why it’s called “Seasonal”

[Kazinski]

Trumpi-flation continues to disappoint:

"May's Consumer Price Index (CPI) report showed inflation pressures eased on a monthly basis despite investor concerns that President Trump's tariffs would accelerate the pace of price increases.

The latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) increased 0.1% month over month, below April’s 0.2% rise and lower than economists' estimates of a 0.2% monthly gain in prices.

On an annual basis, CPI rose 2.4% in May, a slight uptick from April's 2.3% gain, which marked the lowest yearly increase since February 2021.

On a "core" basis, which excludes volatile food and energy costs, CPI rose 2.8% over the past year in May, matching April. Monthly core prices increased 0.1%, a touch below April's 0.2% gain. Heading into the report, economists had expected core CPI to rise 2.9% year over year and 0.3% month over month."

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/may-cpi-inflation-pressures-ease-on-a-monthly-basis-as-tariff-uncertainty-lingers-123342465.html

[tylertusta]

Anyone up for some tacos today?

[shawn_dude]

So the rate of inflation increased to 2.4% and that's good news?

The economists hadn't considered the Trump Always Chickens Out aspect of our new economy and overestimated tariff impacts (and Trump's spine.) Don't get me wrong, I'm glad he chickened out after the mess he made of the stock market, but he's announcing new tariffs again so we'll see what inflation does next.

The key takeaway, though, is that increase in the rate of inflation impacts everyone and was caused by this administration's bad economic policies. It didn't need to happen. We could have had even lower inflation if he'd just coasted on Biden's efforts a while longer.

[Jmaie]

And it’s too early for a victory lap in any case. Once the China tariffs were announced, a whole lot of importers canceled orders. Volume through the port of Los Angeles for May was down something like 35% over a year earlier. So it’s not that the product isn’t costing more, it’s that it’s not being sold at all.

[Commenter_XY]

Agree...too early for victory lap. But a promising start, nonetheless.

[Kazinski]

They keep promising me inflation but I'm not getting it, and they are surprised, from IBD:

"The real surprise was the absence of goods inflation in May. New vehicle prices were flat. Used car and truck prices fell 0.5%. Apparel prices fell 0.4%"

And JP Morgan said last month trying to explain why we didn't get the inflation then:
"Vinny Amaru, Global Investment Strategist at J.P. Morgan Wealth Management, believes this may be due to a simple timing discrepancy.

“Part of the benign reading could be the timing mismatch of when goods arrived in the U.S. during the month of April versus how quickly businesses adjust prices. May's data will likely be a more helpful read on the pass through from tariffs to consumer prices. And we still expect goods inflation to pick up gradually in the coming months from elevated tariffs.”

And sure predictions are hard, especially about the future.

However I was pretty close on my CPI prediction I posted Monday:

"May CPI is coming out on Wednesday morning.

I’m predicting 2.2 in core inflation, 0.1 adjusted m/m.

And another month where Trumpflation fails to materialize."

I nailed month over month but as I discussed with Shawn above y/y is more complicated.

[grb]

Jmaie : “And it’s too early for a victory lap in any case.”

Absolutely true. We architects are the canaries in the coal mine. When things are heading south, nothing gets canceled quicker than a building project. This week my firm had the first economy-driven layoffs I’ve seen in fourteen years of this company.

My career stretches almost four decades. During that period, I was laid-off once during the Great Recession. As I’ve said before, presidents usually get too much credit/blame for macro-economic trends and that was true of W Bush then. He could have done some things better, but overall the Great Recession was not his fault. But Trump’s torpedoing of the U.S. economy is an exception. It is his fault alone - and for no greater reason or purpose than he’s an imbecile.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

The Great Recession was Bush’s fault because he firehosed dollars into a dysfunctional economy with 4 years of elevated CPI peaking at 5.6% in July 2008. The elevated CPI was after we hemorrhaged millions of manufacturing jobs to China which Bush thought was a positive thing because the Bush family wanted to make China great again. And the Housing Bubble was also seen as a positive by Bush because he believed in an “ownership society” and residential construction is dominated by Latinos an ethnic group he believed he could turn them into Republicans and the heir to the Bush political dynasty is a Mexican American. So as we lost millions of union jobs…the jobs created went to illegal immigrants and not Americans.

[Kazinski]

You must have had a lot in the pipeline, interest rates spiked right at the beginning of 2023 so we've had about 2 1/2 years at ~ 7% mortgages.

But as for Trump torpedoing the economy he certainly didn't his first term, and if its tanking now you are the only one seeing it, its certainly not showing up in employment data, or any other indicator.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

I take it you don't FX...

[bye]

That is not being sold, but an economic substitute will be if it is a true staple...and that means a lot of what used to be covered by sumptuary laws is just fading away

[Kazinski]

Dude, 8 months of that inflation was when Biden was president.

Monthly inflation under Trump annualizes to about 1.2%:
Feb. 0.2
March -.1
April 0.2
May 0.1

Last 3 months under Biden:
Nov 0.3
Dec 0.4
Jan 0.5

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Trump’s tariffs have so far lowered inflation because for a while it looked like Trump was going to cause a recession. I actually think Trump could get some credit for defeating Putin because the several months of low oil prices harmed American frackers but they probably harmed Putin even more. Biden made us energy dominant and so low energy prices aren’t necessarily good for America like in 2006…but Putin is much more dependent on high oil prices than the American economy.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Biden did such a great job, 2020 was the biggest shitshow in American history and Biden had everything back to normal by early 2024. Biden was the right man at the right time.

[bye]

ON the assumption he was in charge --- which destroys everything you imply 🙂

Embarrassing but he said

“Don't tell me what you value, show me your budget, and I'll tell you what you value.”
― Joe Biden

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The winner of the Democratic primary for governor in N.J. received around 34% of the vote. Various significant races break down that way, here with four candidates, all with over 10%.

I find that troubling. There should be some form of instant run-off voting to have a clearer idea of who received the majority's support, not what limited plurality of those who voted thought.

[Brett Bellmore]

Instant runoff is a bad idea; I don't think most voters actually HAVE fully formed preference orders past their top pick.

Actual runoffs actually give people time to form preferences between the top two in the first round.

[Michael P]

Kenneth Arrow's impossibility theorem says that no ranked-choice voting system can be ideal in all situations. ("Ideal" includes non-dictatorship, so letting me personally choose the winner avoids the paradox, but somehow our country has failed to adopt this solution.) However, instant run-off methods are particularly prone to failures because they throw away preference information -- especially about the top choices of small groups -- so quickly.

(Notwithstanding Arrow's theorem, I still like Condorcet-compliant ranked-choice methods like ranked pairs and beatpath better than approval or range voting. Gibbard's theorem applies to the latter as well, and I think they are more susceptible to abuses of strategic voting while also being harder for voters to express themselves accurately.)

[David Nieporent]

Actual runoffs actually give people time to form preferences between the top two in the first round.

No, they don't, and they're much more expensive and lead to much less participation.

[Brett Bellmore]

Actually holding an election more expensive, what a shocker.

[Sarcastr0]

Here you are, opting out of any kind of cost/benefit discussion because anything but your way is illegitimate.

[Don Nico]

DO you don't that real elections are more expensive or is that just another Brett-jerk reflex?

[David Nieporent]

Actually holding an second election, instead of just doing an instant runoff, is more expensive, yes. IRV offers all the benefits of a runoff without the cost.

[Brett Bellmore]

Obviously not ALL the benefits, because in a runoff election you know what the choice is. In IRV you do NOT know in advance what the 2nd round choice will be.

[David Nieporent]

You usually have a very strong idea, but even in the situations where you don't, you know what the possibilities are.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yeah, trivially I can run off all the possible permutations. While still not knowing which of them is going to actually show up.

The only cases in which IRV actually matters are the cases where it produces a different result from the plurality rule, and those are exactly the cases where you're not going to see it coming.

[Sarcastr0]

Again, you cite better handling of edge cases as the benefit of a formal runoff system. No sense of the frequency departures will reach a problematic threshold.
And you seem to assume so long as there are theoretical edge cases, any cost will be worthwhile to get at them.

But of course no voting system will be free of flaw. Everything has benefits, flaws, and costs.

You're ending your inquiry early.

[Brett Bellmore]

Yes, I cite the better handling of edge cases as the benefit. In most elections, you actually have a majority winner, and there is no advantage to the added complexity of IRV for the voter. In most cases where IRV actually kicks in, the outcome is going to be exactly the same as plurality voting.

So, yes, IRV is for edge cases, too, and I think having actual runoff elections handles them better, because IRV is based on a false premise: That most voters actually HAVE ordered preferences below their top pick, that would be stable if the line up were reduced.

Once you realize that isn't actually the case, the argument for IRV instead of real runoff elections collapses.

[Martinned]

But of course no voting system will be free of flaw.

Ain't that the truth!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrow%27s_impossibility_theorem

[Sarcastr0]

IRV is based on a false premise: That most voters actually HAVE ordered preferences below their top pick, that would be stable if the line up were reduced.

What evidence do you have for the idea that rankings below the top are spurious?

Once you realize that isn't actually the case
I don't think the word 'realize' means what you think it means.

[David Nieporent]

The only cases in which IRV actually matters are the cases where it produces a different result from the plurality rule, and those are exactly the cases where you're not going to see it coming.

I don't even understand this response. If there are more than two candidates running, then you know there may be a runoff. So rank one or more of the candidates according to your preferences. Why do you find this difficult?

[Brett Bellmore]

*I* don't find it difficult, but *I'm* a life long political activist, not exactly the average voter.

[Commenter_XY]

Why a run off? The rules are top vote getter wins. She won. 🙂

Better question: Where did Mickie Sherill's 7MM come from?

[David Nieporent]

Why a run off? The rules are top vote getter wins.

Because he's saying that's a bad rule.

[Kazinski]

I think he is really saying he wanted someone else to win.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

No. I specifically spoke in general terms.

I do not know who is the best candidate in this race.

[Commenter_XY]

I was holding out hope for Ras 'I got myself arrested by ICE' Baraka and Sean Spiller was my back-up; both are equally nuts.

[bye]

Not voting is a form of voting for whatever process that results will produce. It can hardly be troubling given the nature of the people who don't vote

2 of 3 Americans Wouldn't Pass U.S. Citizenship Test

U.S. News & World Report
https://www.usnews.com

[JoeFromtheBronx]

From an article about the renaming of the army bases:

For example, Fort Eisenhower in Georgia, honoring President Dwight D. Eisenhower — who led the D-Day landings during World War II — would revert to the name Fort Gordon, once honoring John Brown Gordon, the Confederate slave owner and suspected Ku Klux Klan member. This time around, however, the Army said the base would instead honor Master Sgt. Gary Gordon, who fought in the Battle of Mogadishu in Somalia.

They should have done that on D-Day!

This is creative, but it still appears to be a violation of the law (the article talks about "skirting" the law) that was passed over Trump’s veto. Others can parse the law, but that is what some responses, including by a law professor, are saying.

As the article notes:

Mr. Trump’s pledge was brought to fruition in March, but with a twist that seemed both a rewriting of history and an internet troll.

It is a wink and a nod. It is also a tad “woke.” Well, the traditional use of “woke” was not a bad thing, so that is not necessarily a criticism.

https://archive.ph/ahY8M

[Michael P]

Joe from the Bronx thinks the US should have (re-)named, on D-Day, a two-year-old Army base after somebody who fought in a 1993 battle?

Well, it's not the craziest thing he's written. Maybe it's not even the craziest thing he'll write today.

[Magister]

Pretty obviously he means they should have made the slap to the memory of Dwight Eisenhower more stinging by issuing it on June 6th of this year, the anniversary of D-Day, which is often referenced as just D-Day in the same way that your birthday comes up once a year.

[tylertusta]

In my opinion, names should be reserved for only one major military installation or warship at a time.

For Eisenhower, there already is the USS Eisenhower (CVN-69). Naming a base Fort Eisenhower without renaming the Ike doesn't sit well with me.

[ObviouslyNotSpam]

How well does naming something after a "Confederate slave owner and suspected Ku Klux Klan member" sit with you?

[tylertusta]

Yawn.

[M L]

lol, these clowns

Jimmy Kimmel ‘Very Angry’ as ICE Arresting Murderers and Child Molesters Erupts in Left-Wing Violence

Disney-owned ABC late-night host Jimmy Kimmel downplayed the violent, destructive, insurrectionist L.A. riots Tuesday night and said he was “very angry” that immigration officials were arresting murderers, drug dealers, and rapists.

“I’m very angry, I have to say. I cannot believe what’s going on. I knew it was going to be bad, I did not know it was going to be this bad. People who have lived here their whole lives, people who have been in this city longer than I have, the vast majority of whom have never done anything wrong, are being abducted, which is the correct word to use, by agents in masks, hiding their identities, grabbing people off the street and at work, sending people to detention centers,” Kimmel said without bothering to point out that the bulk of those detained for deportation already have deportation orders out against them and most have criminal convictions.

https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2025/06/11/jimmy-kimmel-very-angry-as-ice-arrests-of-murderers-and-child-molesters-erupts-in-left-wing-violence/

[Dr. Ed 2]

If we can have OUI roadblocks, why can't we have ICE roadblocks?

[shawn_dude]

LOL, Breitbart. What a circus.

[Sarcastr0]

Based on his posting, ML reads a lot of Breitbart.

And believes it all.

[M L]

Like it or not, Breitbart is relevant now, with close ties to the Trump admin, and they are getting a lot of exclusive interviews and stories.

Democrat Congressman Jared Huffman recently said on the House floor, "That’s how it works these days. Breitbart posts something, Congress reacts."

Other than that, it is like checking WaPo for me, check one to see what the right wing media is saying and the other for the left wing. Then, as I've said before, always make sure to post one here, just for you because I know you enjoy it so much.

[shawn_dude]

Trump has a well-documented issue with reality. Breitbart's close connection to Trump has more to do with their similar issues with facts.

[David Nieporent]

Kimmel said without bothering to point out that the bulk of those detained for deportation already have deportation orders out against them and most have criminal convictions.

Perhaps he didn't bother to point that out because the first part is irrelevant to his point and the second part is untrue.

[Kazinski]

Kimmel is an entertainer, if you find him entertaining watch him.

No need to take him seriously, nobody else does.

[M L]

I don’t watch him or any TV really, but I always see the clips when, in between jokes, he changes tone and gives his little “but seriously folks…..” talks, literally they are little sermons on the woke religion/politics of the day, like you get from Colbert and Stewart and such. My entire generation came up with a lot of them taking these people seriously, actually.

As I recall there was some point where Kimmel gave a really revolting little spiel about guns, showing he would like to leave the commoners defenseless against rape and murder while he enjoys his private security of course, that was when I saw how particularly disgusting Kimmel is.

[bernard11]

I think it's worth viewing this Kimmel monologue.

[Dr. Ed 2]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HH6n2PE_PPo

See at 15 minutes -- back in the '70s, all aliens had to register at the Post Office annually. We should go back to that...

[Magister]

No, that can't be right; they didn't let Mork register as an alien.

[not guilty]

R.I.P. Brian Wilson, dead at 82.

[shawn_dude]

Glad I actually got to see him play live. 82 is a good long life by today's standards and his life's work will be remembered far into the future. Good on him.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Harvey Weinstein on Wednesday was convicted of a sex crime in Manhattan for the second time in a little more than five years, reaffirming his guilt in the eyes of the legal system.

But a jury of 12 New Yorkers acquitted Mr. Weinstein on another of the charges against him, and reached no decision on a third. The panel is expected to return on Thursday to continue deliberating the final charge. [NYT]

[Roger S]

The witness testimony against him seemed very weak to me.

[Commenter_XY]

https://legalinsurrection.com/2025/06/grand-jury-hits-dem-rep-lamonica-mciver-with-3-count-indictment/

Can't wait to see the perp walk.

[LawTalkingGuy]

Why?

[Magister]

Because Commenter_XY is a vile person who delights in extrajudicial punishment for his cult leader's enemies: "the process is the punishment".

[Commenter_XY]

One side set the rules; now, the other side is enforcing them. See how that works?

[LawTalkingGuy]

That doesn’t explain why you “can’t wait” to see someone you don’t know do a “perp walk.”

Idk if you’ve ever seen someone get cuffed and let away, but it’s not something you should want to see, much less gleefully anticipate, even with people who thoroughly deserve it.

[bye]

IN what sense do you admit they thoroughly deserve it and then describe it as if they don't thoroughly deserve it.

[Magister]

You are mistaken, but please do not resume the mask of normality that you occasionally affect. Wear your vileness proudly.

[Mr. Bumble]

Bummer.
Brian Wilson has passed at age 82.

[Mr. Bumble]

Missed ng's comment above.
Hope "Good Vibrations" follow him in the here after.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Reagan was right about them...

[Bunny495]

Since everyone else seems to be musically deprived props to Brian Wilson, a true master. RIP

I’ve been in this town so long that back in the city
I’ve been taken for lost and gone
And unknown for a long long time
Fell in love years ago with an innocent girl
From the Spanish and Indian home
Of the heroes and villains

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42crkoI–6g

Looks like Mr. B beat me to it

[Mr. Bumble]

"... a true master..."
So much good stuff!

[Mr. Bumble]

"On June 4, 1962, the Beach Boys debuted on Capitol with their second single, "Surfin' Safari" backed with "409".
Where were you in '62?

[Bunny495]

In high school. Saw them live in the Miami Beach Convention Center in 64. I get around.

[Frank Drackman]

In my mom's Uterus until July 4th, came out to see what all the noise was about.

Frank "Born on the 4th of July"

[Armchair]

Let's take a moment to consider the plight of poor Greta Thunberg. "Kidnapped" by Israelis off her boat, "Forced" to sit on a carbon-emitting aircraft to be returned to Sweden...

Oh boy... I mean, there were real kidnapping victims that Hamas kidnapped into Gaza. They raped, tortured, starved, and killed these innocent women and children. If Greta had been at that concert in Israel, she may have very well faced that horrible fate herself.

But she was not...and to compare her "fate" of "kidnapping" to the victims of those whom she appears to support... Something is wrong in her head.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Someone should tell that little girl about the USS Liberty and why it's not wise to sail into a war zone.

It's a British flagged ship, I'll bet the British gave permission to board & divert it, but what are the rules of war about 3rd party ships and a blockade -- during WWII, they were sunk.

I saw that the Israelis were going to show her a video of the carnage.

[Martinned]

I'm old enough to remember when you guys wanted to summarily execute pirates who commited crimes on the high seas. But when Israel hijacks a ship outside of its territorial waters and kidnaps the people on the ship that's hunky-dory?

[bye]

That is just you dissembling on the word 'pirate"

It is hunky-dory.
Climate activist Greta Thunberg bursts into laughter as she declares ‘f–k Israel’ at rally: video
By Zoe Hussain
Published Dec. 9, 2024

Now let her send a boat to a Muslim country and have her insulting Muslims. When her remains return you can post another childish comment

[Bob from Ohio]

"Israel hijacks a ship outside of its territorial waters and kidnaps the people on the ship "

Israel is a state, it is enforcing a wartime blockade. It can stop and inspect ships trying to break the blockade in both domestic and international waters and arrest the crew if necessary.

Your "hijack" and "kidnap" just shows your biases, anti-Israel and pro-Hamas.

This has been the way blockades work since at least the Age of Sail.

[Armchair]

Hey, the Justice Department is back, bringing lawsuits against evil cakeshops coffee shops for discrimination.

What? Throwing out Jews because they're Jewish?

https://jonathanturley.org/2025/06/11/the-justice-department-sues-california-coffee-shop-over-discrimination-against-jewish-customers/

[Dr. Ed 2]

There is a BIG difference between refusing so stock Kosher Coffee and refusing to sell your standard product.

I have to admit the inverted triangle is a new one to me.

[Poxigah146]

These people should be removed from America.

[hobie]

As long as the coffee shop owner has sincerely held beliefs, you insurrectionists can't do anything about it, yeh? In fact, were you consistent, you'd support them

[bye]

have no idea what you are saying , so can't agree or disagree.
But if it is discrimination can't see why you would approve.
Further, if it is, why would Justice Department offend you?

It is your poor writing style more than anything 🙂

[JoeFromtheBronx]

I listened to the Jimmy Kimmel monologue and it was on point.

Talk show hosts are an influential voice in culture. Many (somewhat unfortunately) get a lot of their news and social commentary from them. The same applies to various other celebrities.

Trump is influenced by some celebrities, including when he makes his pardon decisions. People like Joe Rogan, who I remember as the weak link on News Radio, have a lot of influence.

[Kazinski]

According to court filings Albrego Garcia is using Federal Public Defenders in Tennessee.

In April his gofundme had over 200k.

Now the page is blank. Did his wife cash it in and cut him loose?

[Shoota1488]

the jews behind his public relations campaign probably stole it.

[Frank Drackman]

You’re on to all of our tricks! I’m going to tell the Learned Elders

[David Nieporent]

Gofundme generally does not allow the use of raised funds for criminal defense.

[Martinned]

That's interesting. Why not?

[Sarcastr0]

I'd guess reputational risk. I.e. bad news stories.

[Martinned]

Interesting. I would have thought that there are lots of other Gofundme's that are reputationally worse than "here's this innocent person who needs saving from the evil prosecutors!"

[Sarcastr0]

Given that Gofundme probably doesn't want to independently verify the innocence or guilt of people, that points to part of issue.

And then there's America's relationship with our criminal justice system.
DMN notes Cassell. And there's a ton of commenters who think the moment you're accused of a crime, you're of the criminal class and surely guilty of *something*.

Unless you're Trump, natch.

[Martinned]

Yes, I've noticed that. The American left and the American right might disagree about who should go to prison, but they both share a desire for tarring & feathering and an inability to appreciate the wisdom of "there, but for the grace of God, go we all..."

[Sarcastr0]

I don't think you characterize the left correctly here. There's plenty of appetite for criminal justice reform. If anything, they risk going too far.

The right may not be well sampled here, but I do find it remarkable how many treat those with criminal charges as villains. Thus, harsh punishments are good AND due process is a tiresome chore since they're generally 'bad guys' and surely guilty of something.
And they live in constant...not fear they'll be preyed upon, just distaste society has these undesirables.

The middle in America, at least for the past 2 decades I've been paying attention, seem easily stampeded to a fear-based adoption of the right's othering paradigm. This fear is not based on stats, just vibes.

[Martinned]

Look at anyone who has been remotely caught up in any sort of #MeToo, or who said something wrong about Gaza/women/gay rights/etc. Yesterday I ended up in the middle of an online conversation with some American lefties about Clarkson's Farm, and the passionate anger that that man somehow awoke in them left me fascinated.

[Sarcastr0]

Purity tests are a different thing from othering folks that run afoul of the criminal justice system, and manifests differently.

Purity-test wise, the left loves them. But that's the left out of power. Go to bluesky sometime and you will find people absolutely reveling in calling everyone ableist. The right has fewer of those. And the left also loves to attack their own allies while the right just ignores all the neo-Nazis that kinda show up sometimes.

But with the right, the fringe has become the rug. So when they say Roberts and Pence etc. no longer count, it's the GOP doing so not some randos with an Internet show.
----
As for finding a guy weirdly passionate about some esoteric thing on the Internet, there's a lot yet unwritten on the Internet allowing people to not have to deal with obligate communities meaning some previously needed internal controls are left to wither.

[David Nieporent]

Yes; since it's perfectly legal to raise and spend money that way, I think it has to be optics. They don't need the Paul Cassells having a tantrum and saying, "What about the victims?"

[Brett Bellmore]

Gofundme is pretty determined to not be useful for things they disapprove of, regardless of whether they're legal. Reminds me of Paypal in that regard.

[Sarcastr0]

Me: Which views, exactly?
Brett: Oh, you know the ones

[Brett Bellmore]

GoFundMe’s Sordid History of Censorship of Conservative Causes

Rather like the way Paypal up and decided that they weren't going to complete perfectly legal money transfers if they disapproved of what you were buying.

Gofundme only wants to help you raise money if it's for something they don't disapprove of.

[Sarcastr0]

You claim to be a libertarian, right?

[Brett Bellmore]

Gofundme is rather like Paypal in another regard: They only started getting censorious AFTER they'd gained market power by just impartially being useful.

I don't like the bait and switch involved in having a neutral policy until you've achieved something like monopoly status, and only then asserting the power to veto legal transactions. Being a libertarian doesn't require you to like bait and switches.

Fortunately, there are alternatives to gofundme that have at least different biases. It's not like Paypal, where every time I sign up with a new online payment processor the bastards buy it.

[Sarcastr0]

Yes, companies don't worry about reputational risk until they're large enough to have a reputation.

This is not a bait and switch, or liberal bad faith.

And I'd say there are lessons to learn from how it's gone for alternate funding platforms aimed at those 'censored' by Patreon, paypal, and the like.
The trajectory ends in wall-to-wall Nazis. And then failure. And being bought out if you're lucky.

There's good evidence that some efforts to curate one's community in social spaces (i.e. the Internet) is good business, and not some liberal bait and switch plot.

[Brett Bellmore]

"Reputational risk" is an excuse, nothing more. In the end it just means, "We don't like you."

[Sarcastr0]

Sure, Brett.

It always ends in an ipse dixit from you that it's another liberal conspiracy based on your vibes.

[Brett Bellmore]

Somehow in your world only offending left-wingers involves 'reputational risk'. Offending right-wingers? Big nothing burger.

Paypal had no problem at all destroying their reputation as a reliable way to conduct transactions by suddenly one day deciding they wouldn't complete any transaction they suspected of being firearms related. Lost a lot of customers over that, that they'd had before the decision, because, surprise: The reputation most people want out of their financial service provider is shutting up and doing what they're paid to do, not second guessing what you want to do with your own freaking money.

Likewise, Gofundme lost a lot of customers as a result of developing a reputation for shutting down fundraisers for conservative causes, often on the stupidest of pretexts. They'd hardly have any competition at all, otherwise.

And Facebook? Alternate platforms like MeWe wouldn't even exist if they hadn't taken to 'curating' their own users' speech, but only after growing by acting like a common carrier.

But in your world not screwing half your customers is just a 'reputational' risk with the half you have remaining after you do it.

But only in one direction, of course.

[Sarcastr0]

They made all a business decision that the risks regarding guns or whatever else outweighed the risks of pissing weirdos like you off.

Was it right? Dunno; they have a ton of info I do not.

I do know you're yet again insisting that the only way a company could fail to agree with your personal take is dishonesty.

As I said, there have been attempted competitors to all of these companies that tried to get an edge by having a different risk appetite.
It always ends in Nazis and scams.

[Bunny495]

Karmelo Anthony's gofundme is North of half a million dollars. His parents have spent about half of that on a new house.

[David Nieporent]

No.

[David Nieporent]

GoFundMe’s Sordid History of Censorship of Conservative Causes

That is a perfect Brett article, in that its headline confirms his priors and therefore he doesn't bother to think about it at all.

"Here are a couple of anecdotes in which conservative fundraisers were blocked. And we know it's bias because there were at least two anecdotes in which liberal fundraisers weren't blocked. Actual research is too hard, and we know you don't care enough to read the story anyway, so we won't go beyond that."

[Shoota1488]

today another judge appointed by the hnic, pulling the strings for the senile biden, ruled that the u.s. cannot detain or deport mahmoud khalil. if he has his way, this dangerous man will have to be released into the u.s., when he doesn't belong here in the first place.

the retarded banana eating coon elected in 2008 by a fake american people continues to do his damage.

[santamonica811]

??? Well, some of your words strung together made sense.

[Frank Drackman]

“HNIC”? That’s still being used? First heard it from my 7th Grade Basketball Coach in No-Fuck (No profanity, that’s the way the locals pronounce “Norfolk”) Vagina, 1975.
Funny thing is he wasn’t an “N”

[Martinned]

RFK's new vaccine committee:
- Malone - claimed vaccines cause AIDS
- Kulldorff - promoted mass COVID infection
- Meissner - opposed vaccines and masks for kids
- Pebsworth - worked at antivax nonprofit
- Levi - FL Surgeon General cited his paper when recommending not to get COVID vax

Gee, I wonder if there's some reason why they were chosen...

[bye]

Another odd comment since the claims/promotions/opposition/working history of the former didn't cause you to wonder why they were chosen....I smell what PK might call 'selective outrage'

[Frank Drackman]

Those all sound pretty good to me

[Martinned]

That's going well:

The dozen board members of the prestigious Fulbright program that promotes international educational exchanges resigned on Wednesday because of what they said was political interference by the Trump administration in their operations

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/11/us/politics/fulbright-board-resign-trump.html

[Bunny495]

I have every confidence that they will be replaced by members more in line with Trump. This is what Trump will call a win-win. Getting rid of guys he does not like and replacing them with guys he does like. Things are going well; except for Martinned and his homies.

[Sarcastr0]

I note that the actual merits of the Fulbright program was not part of your analysis.

Just 'Trump is happy' and 'Martinned is not.'

That says quite a bit about your priorities.

[Bob from Ohio]

The merits: it should be de-funded

"Since the inaugural class in 1949, Harvard, Yale, Berkeley, Columbia, and Michigan have been the top producers of U.S. Student Program scholars. Michigan has been the leading producer since 2005."

Its a slush fund for ivy/Ivy adjacent students.

[Though impressively Michigan must have had multiple directors on the recently resigned board.]

Its also named for a Jim Crow supporting senator.

[Sarcastr0]

They have a merit review process.

You sound like a Maoist with your populist anti-intellectualism.

[Bob from Ohio]

"merit review process"

Spoken like a bureaucrat.

they have a process!

[Sarcastr0]

If you are going to allege that they weren't selecting based on merit, You need to bring proof.

But no, you're just doing an unsupported anti-intellectualism. From a pretty well educated person.

[Martinned]

Statement from the office of Marco Rubio:

On behalf of the American people, I want to congratulate the Russian people on Russia Day.

The United States remains committed to supporting the Russian people as they continue to build on their aspirations for a brighter future. We also take this opportunity to reaffirm the United States’ desire for constructive engagement with the Russian Federation to bring about a durable peace between Russia and Ukraine. It is our hope that peace will foster more mutually beneficial relations between our countries.

https://www.state.gov/releases/2025/06/russia-national-day/

[Commenter_XY]

Iran is about to experience some abnormal events at some industrial areas of their country. Abnormal, as in, things go boom. The IAEA report on Friday will be the final straw.

[Martinned]

Tap, tap:

Article 8 bis
Crime of aggression
1. For the purpose of this Statute, “crime of aggression” means the planning, preparation, initiation or execution, by a person in a position effectively to exercise control over or to direct the political or military action of a State, of an act of aggression which, by its character, gravity and scale, constitutes a manifest violation of the Charter of the United Nations.
2. For the purpose of paragraph 1, “act of aggression” means the use of armed force by a State against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations.
Any of the following acts, regardless of a declaration of war, shall, in accordance with United Nations General Assembly resolution 3314 (XXIX) of 14 December 1974, qualify as an act of aggression:
(a) The invasion or attack by the armed forces of a State of the territory of another State, or any military occupation, however temporary, resulting from such invasion or attack, or any annexation by the use of force of the territory of another State or part thereof;
(b) Bombardment by the armed forces of a State against the territory of another State or the use of any weapons by a State against the territory of another State;
(c) The blockade of the ports or coasts of a State by the armed forces of another State;
(d) An attack by the armed forces of a State on the land, sea or air forces, or marine and air fleets of another State;
(e) The use of armed forces of one State which are within the territory of another State with the agreement of the receiving State, in contravention of the conditions provided for in the agreement or any extension of their presence in such territory beyond the termination of the agreement;
(f) The action of a State in allowing its territory, which it has placed at the disposal of another State, to be used by that other State for perpetrating an act of aggression against a third State;
(g) The sending by or on behalf of a State of armed bands, groups, irregulars or mercenaries, which carry out acts of armed force against another State of such gravity as to amount to the acts listed above, or its substantial involvement therein.

https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/2024-05/Rome-Statute-eng.pdf

[Commenter_XY]

We don't know who will 'do the deed'. I would note that the statute allows for a military response to an aggressor. Iran aided hamas, directly, in their attack on Israel 10/7/23. It would be a real tragedy if there was a release of fissile radioactive material (which Iran should not have).

Iran might never be the same, afterward. Time to pay the piper.

[Martinned]

Iran aided hamas, directly, in their attack on Israel 10/7/23.

Is your view that Iran is already at war with Israel? Because by that logic the US is also at war with Russia, which can't possibly be right. (See Rubio's message, above.)

It would be a real tragedy if there was a release of fissile radioactive material (which Iran should not have).

Sure, but getting bombed isn't an acceptable punishment for violating the non-proliferation treaty.

[Frank Drackman]

When a country attacks you over and over it’s usually considered a “War”

[Bob from Ohio]

"Is your view that Iran is already at war with Israel? "

They have exchanged missile/bomb attacks. Have we done so with Russia?

[Martinned]

The Ukrainians drop US-made bombs on Russia every day, or at least they did while the US was still supplying them.

[Bored Lawyer]

What a dope. Iran has committed multiple acts of war against Israel, including itself launching missiles against it.

My contempt for you grows with each post.

[Martinned]

The US committed acts of war against Russia too. Not recently, but a bit more than 100 years ago there were US soldiers in all sorts of random bits of Russia.

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

How recent does it have to be to count?

[Bored Lawyer]

Everyone point at the fool and laugh.

Iran launched missiles a few months ago at Israel, and continues to date to threaten to annihilate it, and to fund the Houthis, you launch missiles.

Martinned thinks that's the same as "a bit more than 100 years ago."

This is the Volokh Conspiracy, not the Babylon Bee.

[Sarcastr0]

I don't believe starting a war with Iran at present will not end up well for Israel in the long run.

Israel is pretty globally isolated right now; the US doesn't have a lot of appetite to back them up with boots on the ground. This will not help that.

Iran is a different enemy than Hamas; this is an uncertain victory.

Wars for regime change are a tricky victory condition; and require winning the peace as well.

Absent the isolation, this feels like the US after 9-11. Something radical and violent should be done. These guys over there are pretty bad. Lets go in and not think too much about a larger plan.

[Martinned]

It doesn't matter whether it will end up well for Israel, as long as it keeps Netanyahu in power and out of prison, and as long as it justifies more violence against the Palestinians. Nobody who's currently calling the shots in Israel actually cares about the interests of Israel as a country.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Nobody who's currently calling the shots in Israel actually cares about the interests of Israel as a country."

But you do?

[Commenter_XY]

The war has been going on for a while, Sarcastr0, in case you had not noticed. Iran hasn't felt any real consequences for their malignant behavior. This is about to change. It is not about regime change, it is about exacting a price for perfidy and making a permanent change to a despicable, unworthy enemy.

Russia won't cry about a bunch of Islamofascists dying a violent death (by explosive effects, or radiation). Pakistan won't cry about it, either. Neither will KSA. Nobody is rushing to Iran's defense. China will sit on it's hands.

[Frank Drackman]

Borrowing from Dirty Hairy Callahan in "Magnum Force"
Iran wants a Hydrogen Bomb?
"Lets give them one"

Frank

[TwelveInchPianist]

"These guys over there are pretty bad."

"Pretty bad" in this case means have threatened to annihilate you and are a week away from developing nukes.

[Bored Lawyer]

Everyone come an see how absurd this is.

Country A states openly its intent to completely wipe out Country B. It develops nuclear weapons for that purpose. Meanwhile, it arms three terrorist-military groups and encourages them to launch attacks on Country B. Which they proceed to do, each launching missiles against Country B, and one of them invading and massacring 1200 people.

If Country B does anything to stop Country A from annihilating it, it is guilty of a crime of aggression.

Does anyone believe that any country in the world other than Israel would be held to this standard?

Shorter version: Jews have to sit back and allow themselves to be wiped out. Anything else is an international crime.

And the people like Martinned advocating this view themselves as noble and upholders of international law.

I get it Martinned. The "Jew hunt" in Amsterdam makes you uncomfortable. You would rather have the Jew hunt by Middle East proxies so you can absolve your consciense. Screw you.

[Martinned]

Unless your country A and country B are very different countries than Iran and Israel, you're assuming a lot of things that aren't true or at least cannot be proved based on the current public knowledge of the situation.

O, and fuck you for accusing everyone in sight of antisemitism.

[Bored Lawyer]

Poor Martinned. I see through his invocation of International Law as a smokescreen for another Holocaust, and it upsets him.

You have amply earned muting.

Bye-bye!

[Bob from Ohio]

He is too amusing to mute.

[Bob from Ohio]

Like this gem:

"Not recently, but a bit more than 100 years ago there were US soldiers in all sorts of random bits of Russia." in comparison to today.

[Bored Lawyer]

Right. That was a new level of absurdity.

[TwelveInchPianist]

On a lighter note, do you know any good recipes for cooked Salami?

[Commenter_XY]

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2025/06/11/dnc-votes-to-remove-david-hogg-as-vice-chair-re-do-elections/

The kids are alright. LMAO. I see Team D has graduated from removing candidates from ballots to removing officeholders from office by means of re-doing elections whose results they don't like.

[Martinned]

I don't care, and I can't for the life of me imagine why you would. The Democrats can do what they like. It's a free country (ish).

[Brett Bellmore]

And they can't, obviously, do it because the right was right, Hogg is a lunatic. It had to be because he wasn't 'diverse' enough. His replacement should be a chimera, I guess. Or at least a transplant recipient.

Well, I guess they ARE, as a private organization, entitled to have racial quotas. I think. Has the DOJ opined on that?

[Sarcastr0]

We're all just glad Brett is here to explain the Democratic mind with his unassailable logic.

I'm trying to remember the last time GOP inside baseball was of as much interest to liberals.

Trent Lott maybe?

[David Nieporent]

He's not an officeholder, he didn't hold an office (not under any Blackman/Tillman definition), and he wasn't removed because they didn't like the results of the election. Other than that, great comment!

[Sarcastr0]

Maybe it's that I'm not a big reader of Hill gossip, but I've heard more about Hogg here than anywhere else I check combined.

[grb]

Sarcastr0 : " ...but I've heard more about Hogg here than anywhere else I check combined."

Shades of Saul Alinsky. I'd never even heard of the guy before the Right made him into a towering epochal figure and the fount of all known Evil.

The way to picture today's Right is as a group of small children following a puppet theater. They're kept quiet and rapt with a continuous stream of lurid fictions & cartoonish characters. That's how Mommy and Daddy Handlers keep them docile & behaving.

[ThePublius]

Of course he was an office holder! Private and political organizations can have offices, as can fraternities, and even socially oriented groups.

[Sarcastr0]

of·fice·hold·er
/ˈôfisˌhōldər/
noun
noun: office-holder; noun: office holder

a person who holds public office.

[grb]

“When I use a word,” the Right said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

[Bored Lawyer]

What a myopic comment by DN.

Hogg does not hold an office under federal law. He holds an office with the DNC. Which holds elections for those positions in an attempt to appear democratic. They are not legally obligated to do so (I'm sure not every employee at the DNC is elected). Having done so, their hypocrisy is ripe for calling out.

He was ostensibly removed because he is the wrong gender. Real reason is that he is a threat to the DNC establishment. Both reasons are solid grounds for criticisms.

Not every political criticism has to meet legal definitions. The DNC violated no laws in what they did to Hogg. They still acted like a bunch of hypocrites. They act in way as "democratic" as the Poliburo. They can be called out on it by their critics.

[David Nieporent]

He was ostensibly removed because he is the wrong gender.

Closer, but no. The problem was that they tried a shortcut in selecting people to fill these vice chair positions, and while they thought it would not make a difference versus following the written rules, after the election someone realized that it made it mathematically less likely they'd have the "diversity" the rules were designed to foster. That's why they voided the selection of both people selected that way — Hogg and Kenyatta.

[Bunny495]

I am not convinced that at the time of the election the Democrats were unhappy with Hogg's victory in the election. There was always the reality understood by Democrats that young men were drifting away and Hogg was a young man who was viewed as someone who could get young men back in the fold. It was only after Hogg went off the reservation wanting to primary current office holders who were Democrats and upsetting donors who were withdrawing donations that that the DNC brought out the long knives for Hogg.

[Martinned]

I know that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result, but someone reminded me of the Holocaust Museum's fascism checklist, a list that long predates the (first) Trump presidency:

1. Powerful and continuing nationalism
2. Disdain for human rights
3. Identification of enemies as a unifying cause
4. Rampant sexism
5. Controlled mass media
6. Obsession with national security
7. Religion and government intertwined
8. Corporate power protected
9. Labor power suppressed
10. Disdain for intellectual and the arts
11. Obsession with crime and punishment
12. Rampant cronyism and corruption

[bye]

MIght I aid your confusion by a little logic

1 is not a blanket condemnation of nationalism ,not as worded
2 "disdain' has no legal meaning as the law either addresses human rights or it does not
3 enemies always result in unification
4 Again, not 'sexism' but 'rampant' --- totally untestable, would you agree
5 Controlled by who? We see Zuckerberg, Bezos and other billionaires either changing their tune for real or not. But I doubt Z did anything but admit who butters his bread.
ON AND ON

[apedad]

To be fully honest, that is NOT the "Holocaust Museum's fascism checklist" but instead:

"(2018) According to Snopes, this list was sold in the gift shop of the Holocaust Museum at one point, although it's no longer sold there (it was never an exhibit):

Sarah Rose, who first shared the photograph on social media, confirmed to us that she took the picture in the museum’s gift shop. We reached out to the USHHM to confirm that it sold a poster showing “early warning signs of fascism,” and they told us that the museum no longer carries the poster.

The list was originally created by Laurence Britt in 2003, for an article published by Free Inquiry magazine (a publication for secular humanist commentary and analysis)."

https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/41551/did-the-united-states-holocaust-museum-have-a-display-entitled-early-warning-si

[Martinned]

Interesting. Thanks.

[Martinned]

David Allen Green, who is one of the more level-headed and insightful commentators about law & policy, has a new blog post about the situation in the US.

https://davidallengreen.com/2025/06/a-postcard-from-a-spectator-of-a-constitutional-crisis/

Let me split them up, because they are related but distinct.

[Martinned]

He considers that a constitutional crisis, the way he defines the term, now exists in the US:

The United States is now in a full constitutional crisis. There is no doubt about that, just like there should be no doubt that Marley is dead to begin with.

There was a moment at the start of the second Donald Trump presidency when it seemed there was constitutional drama but not (yet) a crisis, but that soon passed. Indeed, a perhaps better view is that the United States has been in a constitutional crisis since the failure to convict Trump on impeachment after the 6 January 2021 attack on the Capitol. Some would say that the crisis started before then.

A crisis is a volatile situation the outcome of which cannot be confidently forecast. If you can predict what will happen next – or even the range of what events may happen next – it is not a crisis.

But in the United States it is now difficult to even keep up up with the constitutional trespasses and contradictions.

You have a President using – or seeking to use – emergency legislation to change the world trading system and to send individuals to foreign gulags. He is now even mobilising troops against United States citizens. So-called executive orders are being used to dismantle entire rafts of Congressionally approved spending and activities. Court orders are being flouted. Individuals and firms are being targeted. Masked federal agents are kidnapping people on the streets.

[Martinned]

Peaceful solutions are possible, but so far nobody is doing anything:

A martian looking down on the United States would assume one possible outcome of all this could be a civil war. That martian may well be right.

Perhaps Congress and the Courts will assert themselves and put Trump back in his box. After all little of what Trump is doing is based on the inherent powers of the presidency, but his misuse and abuse of legislation and the exploitation of the latitude that he has been given by the courts.

Perhaps it will keep getting slowly worse, with no flashpoints of rebellion or opposition, until there is nothing but the tyranny of whatever Trump (and his circle) want to do. Like the urban myth of the boiled frogs, nobody is going to do any jumping to stop it.

Nobody knows what will happen next. It may well be something we cannot even imagine.

[Martinned]

A big part of the problem is that there is a "solid block" of voters who back Trump no matter what:

Yet almost nothing of what Trump is doing is unpreventable. Congress and the courts could stop him, if they wanted to do so.

So the real problem is not so much Trump – there are always Trumps of one kind or another – but the failure of the gatekeepers.

And there is the unwelcome and inconvenient fact that, regardless of all Trump’s antics and misdemeanours, a solid bloc of the electorate support him now and will always support him.

This means that until and unless the opponents of Trump can put together a broader coalition of support and/or break down the bloc supporting him, then this is a situation that can only continue, either under Trump or someone like him.

[Brett Bellmore]

It's easy to claim that people will back Trump "no matter what", when it's merely the case that he's extremely unlikely to actually do the things that would cause them to stop backing him. The fact that somebody's line isn't where YOUR line is, doesn't imply they don't have one.

[David Nieporent]

No, they will back him no matter what. If he does A, they back him. If he reverses himself and does not-A, they back him and praise his strategy and/or trolling. He could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and they'd support him. It's a literal cult.

[ThePublius]

This is all just in your fantasy mind. Let's see if any of that actually happens, and see how Trump's current supporters respond.

[Martinned]

It's basically already happened. (Just not literally on 5th Avenue.)

[ThePublius]

It's already happened, except it hasn't. Got it.

[Martinned]

SAD

[Bunny495]

The devil is in the details. Trump has lost some support both in the public and elected pols due to how the BBB (in the detractors opinion) is spending too much and in the case of SALT rewarding the wrong peeps. I am still not convinced the BBB will pass unless there are significant changes or the real possibility of splitting it up into two bills.

[Martinned]

Because nobody is doing anything, Trump's violations of the constitution become ever more normalised.

One thing which is noticeable in this crisis is the lack of drama – each move by Trump now seems normalised, hardly a news item for more than a few hours. Some may think crises must be dramatic, but this is humdrum.

Many are getting used to the United States government purporting to rely on emergency legislation regarding economic affairs, migration and (soon) “insurrection”. Any sensible legal analysis points to this emergency legislation not providing a sound basis at all, but that does not matter. Many are also getting used to court orders being ignored and federal agents acting without legal authority.

The constitution of the United States is in crisis, and there are shrugs rather than pitchforks.

[bye]

You needed to be around in the 60's , it would cure your PollyAnna analysis. This is the opposite of how you see it, it is a parting on first princples. Some take the Declaration of Independence and Constitution as their foundational values and others do not or (and this is more common) DO NOT EVEN KNOW THEM

" 2017 Annenberg study reported that 75 percent of Americans do not know the three branches of government and 37 percent could not name one right in the First Amendment."

Your analysis actually and amazingly shows the real and only crisis : no civics education and a decline in the awareness of the electorate

[Brett Bellmore]

It's like you're wildly ignorant of American history. Compared to FDR, for instance, Trump is a piker. Hasn't even set up prison camps and started shipping citizens to them!

The lack of drama is because Trump for the most part is coloring inside the lines. Don't confuse "Is acting illegally" and "Is legally enforcing laws that normally get blown off.". A lot of the hysteria is over the fact that he's set out to enforce immigration laws that have largely been ignored for decades. Over the fact that he's finally doing what the public wanted all along.

I wish it weren't just "for the most part", of course, and even the fully legal things are often horribly clumsy. But it's tiresome having people freak out just because the public's will is no longer being thwarted.

[Sarcastr0]

Compared to FDR
That's not history, that's right-wing wankery. Along with some presentism.

But then you're the guy who thinks the Dems are exactly the same as they were during Jim Crow, they just 'switched client races' so you've got some pretty wildly ignorant views of American history yourself.

But it's tiresome having people freak out just because the public's will is no longer being thwarted.
Balance in all things, but the road to authoritarianism is paved with people saying to calm down.
You're one of the biggest Trump apologists on this website.

[ThePublius]

You see what happened here? Brett makes an observation, and you respond by criticizing Brett. This is a consistent theme. Why can't you keep it topical rather than personal?

[Brett Bellmore]

Because most of the time ad hominem is all he has for an argument.

[tylertusta]

I'm disappointed in him. After I recently went to such pains to explain to him what an ad hominem was, he still made such a blatant one.

[Sarcastr0]

Brett is making factual assertions, not arguments or opinions. It's not ad hominem to point to his credibility problem there.

[Brett Bellmore]

It is HISTORY, that FDR threw American citizens in concentration camps.
It is HISTORY that he violated what had until then been an unbroken rule that nobody ran for a third term. And so frightened people that they amended the Constitution to prohibit anybody from doing it again, but only after he was safely dead.
It is HISTORY that he threatened to pack the Court when they correctly ruled his initiatives unconstitutional.

Trump is a piker compared to FDR in terms of a constitutional threat. We're STILL dealing with the fallout from the damage FDR did the the Constitution and the rule of law in America!

[Sarcastr0]

1. Not FDR's finest hour, but using that to normalize Trump is not going to play.

2. People were so frightened they voted him into 4 terms. What a ridiculous choice for a battle to fight.

3. He did threaten to pack the Court. Trump's just threatening to defy all the lower courts.

Tu quoque is a fallacy. Here, you say Trump can't be bad because you think FDR is worse. That's a tellingly bad argument.

It only gets worse when on recalls you have also argued FDR was an attempted fascist.
By your own subjective take, what a low bar you set for your guy Trump!

[Bunny495]

FDR was one of the worst presidents ever. His actions (including his first EO about hording gold) putting America on the road to fiat money is in great part responsible for the massive problems with the economy. RMN put the final nail in the coffin by finishing what FDR started. All one needs to do is look at the economic trends in thing like inflation to see what a disaster these two presidents caused.

[Martinned]

the massive problems with the economy

Real GDP per capita is 10x higher now than it was when FDR came to power. I can see why you'd be worried.

[Brett Bellmore]

Inflation averaged approximately zero between the founding and our going off the gold standard. Since then it has deprived our currency of about 97% of its value.

[Sarcastr0]

A growing economy requires a growing money supply. Gold grows at a rate set by external forces, putting a ceiling on your growth and making a country utterly unable to monetarily react to economic shocks.

What is the practical significance of your '97% of it's value' metric? Looks like another 'number big' argument - people aren't paid in 1925 dollars.

[Martinned]

Why is moderate inflation bad? Total inflation since 1933 is 2372.8%. That's 3,5% per year, on average. Why is that bad?

[Brett Bellmore]

Inflation is bad because it warps economic decision making by making investment into a Red Queen's race: Any investment that yields less than the rate of inflation is actually losing you money, so you must be more aggressive than you would otherwise be.

It's bad because it's a covert tax, and taxes should not be covert. At 3.5% inflation, 3.5% of everything dollar denominated is transferred to the government every year, because their value drops by 3.5%, and the government gets to spend the increase in the money supply, enjoying seigniorage.

It's bad because COLA does not, by design, keep up with inflation. Both because of the stepwise and lagging nature of COLA, and because official inflation numbers are lowballed.

But points 2 and 3 are why governments like it so much. They get the money, and the private sector gets the blame.

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

And yet after the 1970s America was no worse for the wear from a macro view. The deficit didn’t become an issue until the 1980s and then it really blew up after 2008 after a round of inflation we were told by Bernanke wasn’t inflation.

[Sarcastr0]

COLA being badly index is where the value loss comes in.
Not that all loss of value is a covert tax. That's reductive.

Reductive like you think all loss of money is tantamount to loss of time on your life.

You've reduced and transitive everything together into an economics that only works in some kind of infinite frictionless financial plane. The only liberty that matters is economic.

points 2 and 3 are why governments like it so much. They get the money, and the private sector gets the blame.
Of course you think inflation is a government conspiracy.

[Sarcastr0]

Your argument for why having fiat money is bad is pure counterfactual correlation.

I haven't seen one of you in the wild in over a decade.

[Bunny495]

You need to get out more. In another post in this thread you mention why fiat money is necessary for growth. The problem with that claim is that at some point growth can exceed carrying capacity. I can still remember as a kid drinking water that tasted good out of a garden hose. Now I have a filter on my kitchen sink and spend serious money on bottled water. There is no question in the US the water supply is being depleted and the quality in lots of places is suspect (and in some cases not potable). As an example the water table in the Midwest has dropped by close to 100 feet and lets remember this is where we grow all that wheat which we not only use for food and livestock feed but waste big bucks making ethanol which not only ruins the seals in internal combustion engines but puts big bucks in the pockets of the men in shark skin suits. This is only one of the many examples where unbridled growth has caused problem.

Are there benefits from growth, sure; is there a downside, absolutely. Inflation aside (and that is a big if) the current path is not sustainable. We are on track to pay a billion a year just on the interest of the national debt; no way we can keep that up. What is counterfactual is that since 1971 when RMN completed the fiat money lunacy America is headed for a better future. No way America can sustain the current path.

[Sarcastr0]

I can still remember as a kid drinking water that tasted good out of a garden hose. Now I have a filter on my kitchen sink and spend serious money on bottled water.
Not sure where you live, but tap water is still fine in most cities.

the water table in the Midwest has dropped by close to 100 feet
You're blaming the creation of the Fed for this?!

Blind growth for growth's sake can be bad. But blindly limiting growth is worse.

Weird luddite-flavored take you got here.

[SRG2]

Trump for the most part is coloring inside the lines.

The courts say otherwise.

[Brett Bellmore]

Mostly the lower courts, you'll notice. And I said "for the most part" in recognition of the fact that he wasn't always.

[Sarcastr0]

Lower courts are still courts, and still have more authority and expertise about the law than you do.

[Bunny495]

After the massive number of cases of forum shopping for a lower court judge that will side with the forum shopper only to have the decision overturned on appeal, I will grant you more authority. As for expertise if you mean making a decision that will only result in delay till it is overturned you get props for that as well. But I suspect that was not what you meant.

[Sarcastr0]

I challenge your assertion that 'massive number of cases' challenging Trump's actions are being overturned on appeal.

[Bunny495]

Not disagreeing about lots of cases related to Trump being overturned. My point is that forum shopping has been going on for some time and lots of those cases have been overturned. It is easy to find lots of posts at Reason about the 9th Circuit being the most overturned (maybe true at one time but there seems to be real competition for that title) and quite frankly the Supremes seem to be on track to address that issue by limiting circuit judges' rulings to the circuit they are in. Both factions on SCOUS seem to agree that this is a problem.

[Sarcastr0]

Forum shopping being a thing that exists does not delegitimize lower courts.
Plenty of conservative judges have found Trump's out of line.

the 9th Circuit being the most overturned is a canard. It's the biggest Circuit that handles the most cases! Given that it's not overturned out of proportion. And it's not been particularly liberal since for over a decade.

limiting circuit judges' rulings to the circuit they are in.
Off topic and not a sure prediction. Just ask Blackman!

[grb]

Brett Bellmore : "But it's tiresome having people freak out just because the public's will is no longer being thwarted."

Jesus bloody hell, Brett! Are you so freak'n wacko you actually believe people think like you ?!? That's mental-illness-grade delusional thinking. From the latest Quinnipiac poll:

Voters were asked about Trump’s handling of seven issues…

Immigration: 43 percent approve, 54 percent disapprove, 3 percent no opinion.
Deportations: 40 percent approve, 56 percent disapprove, 4 percent no opinion.
Economy: 40 percent approve, 56 percent disapprove, 4 percent no opinion.
Trade: 38 percent approve, 57 percent disapprove, 6 percent no opinion.
Universities: 37 percent approve, 54 percent disapprove, 9 percent no opinion.
Israel – Hamas conflict: 35 percent approve, 52 percent disapprove, 13 percent no opinion.
Russia – Ukraine war: 34 percent approve, 57 percent disapprove, 10 percent no pinion.

https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3924

[Bob from Ohio]

"David Allen Green"

Rando UK lawyer says something!

[Martinned]

Feel free to explain why he's wrong.

[Bob from Ohio]

its too banal to waste time on, standard lib stuff, like hobie here would write

[Sarcastr0]

Lazy.

[Bob from Ohio]

Right, I should have included you.

its too banal to waste time on, standard lib stuff, like hobie or sarcasto here would write

[Martinned]

The European Court for Human Rights has given judgment today in the case of S.S. et al. v. Italy, holding unanimously that Italy was not answerable under the Convention for Libya's actions against refugees on the Mediterranean, even though Italy had asked Libya to do those things.

https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng-press?i=003-8253503-11608675

https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng?i=001-243769

[Brett Bellmore]

Well, not answerable under that particular Convention, anyway.

Asking another state to stop their own people from coming to your own state apparently doesn't constitute "refoulment", and I think that's a reasonable conclusion. If they'd made it into Italy's own territory, or Italy had done the deed themselves, it would likely have turned out differently.

[Martinned]

There are some circumstances where an ECHR state can be held accountable for what a 3rd country does. For example, ECHR states aren't allowed to send someone abroad to be tortured or executed. Nor are they, IIRC, allowed to arrange for someone to be tortured in some other way, the way some of them did during the Bush years.

But in this particular case the link between the alleged human rights violations and the actions of the Italian state was too weak to bring the alleged victims within the scope ratione personae of the Convention.

[tylertusta]

In other news, a district court judge has ruled that the government cannot remove Mahmoud Khalil:

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.njd.564334/gov.uscourts.njd.564334.299.0_1.pdf

[tylertusta]

The jurisdictional argument by Judge Farbiarz is quite interesting.

[Commenter_XY]

What was 'interesting'?

[tylertusta]

The fact that Judge Farbiarz made no mention of jurisdiction and completely ignored the issue.

[Commenter_XY]

To the appellate court the case goes.

[Bunny495]

Any update on the government appeal needed by the 9AM deadline

[Mr. Bumble]

One more week until the second (illegal) extension of the deadline for Tik Tok to find another owner or be shut down.

[Martinned]

Still time for Bezos and Zuckerberg to buy more Trumpcoin...

[tylertusta]

This morning, Politico published an article on the politics and perceptions surrounding Trump, ICE, and the riots:

‘It’s a winner for him’: Dems work to turn LA debate from immigration to Trump’s executive powers

For Democrats, it’s a concern rooted in Trump’s historic strength on immigration with voters not in Los Angeles, but watching on social media and TV in swing states and districts across the country.

“There’s a background and a history, and so that limits the sympathy of lots of fair-minded Americans watching this spectacle unfold,” said Will Marshall, founder of Progressive Policy Institute, a center-left think tank.

I'm impressed that prominent Democrats and their allies are able to peel themselves away from their open borders shibboleths long enough to even consider that going down the immigration road was a loser. It's only taken five days, and that's five days too many.

Unfortunately, I think that their initial instincts of opposing even lawful immigration actions to the point of tacitly- and in some cases not even that- supporting a riot to stop federal law enforcement will overcome the initial imagery and the recordings of their speeches which will no doubt be played constantly for key electorates over the next few years. What a massive self-own to a party that didn't apparently learn its lesson from November's losses.

[shawn_dude]

"open borders shibboleths" This is a right-wing strawman talking point and not an actual thing. The rest of your argument hangs from this, which makes it a waste of time to respond to.

[tylertusta]

I only wish I that I knew beforehand that your comment would be a waste of time before I read it.

[Bunny495]

DeSantis is sure to get lots of likes and dislikes over this. Expanding the castle doctrine to cars could be next. Whatever saying it is OK to drive over protestors blocking the road will be an interesting development to watch.

https://www.newsweek.com/ron-desantis-says-floridians-have-right-hit-protesters-cars-2084418

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

Good, next time something happens in Cuba I’m heading out on the highway.

[grb]

Bunny495 : "DeSantis is sure to get lots of likes and dislikes over this"

DeSantis is sure to fade into irrelevance. He and his wife are embroiled in multiple corruption scandals and even the Florida Republicans are starting to write the two of them off. Why do you think he's trying to outdo Trump and Abbot in phony tough guy talk?

[Brett Bellmore]

If anybody complains, just remind them of Reginald Denny.

Protesters who stop cars have a bad track record for what they do after stopping them.

[Frank Drackman]

They'll be Zombies they try that with me

[grb]

RFK Jr. fired all the scientists and healthcare experts on his vaccine committee. So what whack-job freak would he appoint first as replacement? The answer is in: Robert Malone. Here's some of his statements gleaned from a single interview with Joe Rogan:

Malone falsely suggested that former President Joe Biden lied about being vaccinated for COVID while receiving his booster on live TV, and claimed that Israel, where over two-thirds of the population had received the vaccine, had a higher mortality rate than Gaza and the West Bank, which had lower vaccination rates, despite figures pointing to the contrary. He also drew a comparison between the country’s pandemic policies and medical experiments in Nazi Germany, and accused Dr. Anthony Fauci of hypnotizing a third of the U.S. population into believing his recommendations on COVID.

Separately, Malone suggested that COVID vaccines could damage children’s brains, hearts and immune system, plus also cause a form of AIDS according to The Associated Press.

But - hey - at least he doesn't have black or brown skin. That would have been evidence of DEI, right?

[Sam Bankman-Fried]

So in America for a population age at the high end was not a major factor in a population’s Covid death rate. So the only state in which age shows up as being a major factor is Utah which has a median age close to 30. Now around the globe in a country like Haiti the median age is closer to 22 and so Covid wouldn’t have seemed like a big deal in Haiti…Gaza could be the same way. But remember that a perfectly healthy 40 year old Republican congressman died from Covid in Louisiana and so pinpointing the age where people are safe wasn’t really worth it when a safe and effective vaccine was available.

[M L]

Malone sounds highly qualified, he should have Peter McCollough in there too.

[grb]

Up is Down!
Black is White!

Has there ever been a political movement so addicted to lies as today's Right?

[David Nieporent]

Why not Andrew Wakefield, while you're at it?

[Bored Lawyer]

Trans-Identified Male Killer Accused of Raping Female Inmate in Illinois Women’s Prison Remains at Facility Despite Officials’ Attempts at Transfer

A male convicted killer has been allowed to remain at a women’s prison in Illinois despite disturbing allegations that he raped a female inmate. Department of Corrections officials have attempted to have Andre Patterson returned to a men’s prison, but have been unsuccessful due to his “transgender” identity and support from activist groups.
Patterson, also known as Janiah Monroe, was first transferred from a men’s detention center to the Logan Correctional Center for women in April of 2019 as a result of litigation backed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Illinois. Court documents reveal that Monroe continues to be detained at Logan, a women’s correctional facility, despite efforts by authorities at the Illinois Department of Corrections to remove him.

https://reduxx.info/exclusive-trans-identified-male-killer-accused-of-raping-female-inmate-in-illinois-womens-prison-remains-at-facility-despite-officials-attempts-at-transfer/

[shawn_dude]

Oh gosh, where to start?
Story source: Reduxx.info is a far-right, anti-trans source with questionable factual reporting. This should be obvious to anyone reading the linked article in the OP.

The story is 5 years old and it's based on a lawsuit by a woman in prison who claims to have been raped. An estimated 5.1% of women in prisons are sexually assaulted and that number represents a likely undercount given the tendency for inmates not to report. So women sexually assault other women in prisons just like men sexually assault other men in prisons.

So aside from the typical right-wing anti-LGBT chumming to get fresh blood in the water, what does this article prove other than prison rape is a real thing among violent criminals?

[grb]

If Bored Lawyer's hate encompassed left-handed albino Albanian pipefitters, he would find some junk website that reports a gruesome crime by the same. This he'd repeat to us in breathless excitement - proving God alone knows what.

Meanwhile, I bet it'd be much simpler to find hideous crimes committed by right-wing white bored lawyers. There are probably examples of that in spades. Admittedly, it wouldn't prove anything either. Hell, I wouldn't even get the corresponding tingly thrill of joy in my nether regions as BL probably got with his post....

[M L]

That men shouldn't be in women's prisons? Obvious to any sane minded person. I mean, it's right in the term, "women's prisons." There's a reason they were created as women's prisons.

[Frank Drackman]

Enjoyed seeing the California Congressman get the "Bum's Rush" from Kristi Noem's presser.
He asked the Cops if they knew who he was, apparently they didn't (I didn't)
Padilla? wasn't he the "Dirty Bomber"??

Frank

[grb]

Still in denial about the United States becoming a world-wide laughingstock? Let me introduce you to the "Trump Card":

(and no, this isn't some Onion hoax. It's very embarrassingly real)

https://digbysblog.net/2025/06/12/the-kingdom-of-trump/

[Kazinski]

Seems to me there is are two easy workaround in the statute even if they find the governor's role is not merely ministerial.

He merely has to call his good friends descent is and Abbot and call up their national guards and deploy them to Los Angeles.

Or call out more marines.

(3) the President is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States;
the President may call into Federal service members and units of the National Guard of ANY State in such numbers as he considers necessary to repel the invasion, suppress the rebellion, or execute those laws. Orders for these purposes shall be issued through the governors of the States or, in the case of the District of Columbia, through the commanding general of the National Guard of the District of Columbia.

Issue the order through Abbot if Newsom won't cooperate, nothing in the statute precludes that.