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Eugene Volokh | 7.4.2025 11:54 AM
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Celebrate the 4th of July!
It has become customary on this blog, on this anniversary, to see interpretations of the Declaration of Independence which insist the document announced rights pre-existing government.
As always, invocation of rights-first ideology is a present-minded notion, without a long historic provenance, and notably unreflective. The usual, and historically accurate review of the ideology of rights begins with a state of nature.
In a state of nature, rights remain unimaginable. Thus, government gets instituted to deliver collective force greater than any individual trapped in a state of nature might enjoy. That force may serve various interests, but life under governance improves upon no-governance. It suppresses to some measure the capacity of the strong to oppress the weak. Alas, governance itself can also prove oppressive—and oppressive in a worse way, because of its preponderant capacity for force.
It is at that point of political evolution that the notion of rights gets invented, and may take hold. A right gets defined as a commitment by a sovereign—a political entity wielding force greater than government’s—to stay the hand of government, lest government oppress the sovereign’s subjects. It is only after the invention of the notion of a sovereign to rule government, and to rule government’s subjects as well, that the notion of rights becomes meaningful.
The final step in that evolving train of thought on governance was invented in America. It was the invention of the notion of a joint popular sovereign, comprising a populace with a dual character. In that notion, members of the public as individuals were at once subjects of government (as in other sovereign systems), but newly in the American system, jointly sovereign over government.
That final step in the evolution of government, and in the notion of rights, for the first time joined the self-interest of the sovereign to the individual interests of the subjects. In principle, that arrangement was meant to constrain a likelihood of inherent conflict of interest between a bad sovereign, and that sovereign’s subjects. In the American system, the joint popular sovereign would ideally prove incapable to harm the interests of the subjects without harming itself.
The American system worked better than previous ones, and became a widely imitated model in world politics. It proved adaptable to accommodate extensive variations among the systems of government chosen in different places.
The American system is, of course, a sovereignty first, government second, and rights third sort of system. It is emphatically not a rights-pre-existing-government system.
Advocates to the contrary abound, but disqualify themselves by insistence on what amounts to a contradiction in terms. The notion of a right as a power to stay the hand of government abuse self-evidently makes no sense unless government has already been imposed.
The OG No Kings day!!!
Have we come full circle, what with having a head of state who aspires to be King George III?
Unless they're true believers in "God-given rights", of course, which by definition would have superseded both government and sovereignty.
You know, the same way God gave the Jewish people the eternal right to the land of "Judea and Samaria".
Or as a believer in "god given rights" might put it:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,"
Interestingly, Thomas Jefferson, the author of that passage, was not a believer in "god given rights."
I am an atheist but I believe in god given right's, because it means nobody can take them away, including god, because there isn't one.
In other words, you're not above casting lies among rubes.
Its tough being out in the political wilderness, but being bitter doesn't help.
You've got a lot more losing to do over the next 3 and a half years, pace yourself.
You do not appear to enjoy being exposed.
Perhaps you should try to hide your character better?
Heh, "exposed".
Quit making yourself ridiculous.
Spam has the sad because the B-2 fly over at the White House didn't drop a bunker buster.
"I am an atheist but I believe in god given right's..."
No, you don't. That's the lie.
"...because it means nobody can take them away, including god, because there isn't one."
And that's the why. You lie to keep the suckers in line--to bind them by their own knots--because (presumably) it benefits you.
Nothing more; nothing less.
Pot calling kettle and all that.
The other term for god given rights is natural rights. Since they mean the same thing I don't have any problem using them interchangeably.
And I don't care much if you do.
And sure it does benefit me that my fellow citizens also believe we have an inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
Guilty as charged, but none of it is a lie.
An atheist saying "I believe in god given rights" is either a liar or someone who has no self esteem. (Possibly both.)
Glad to see you reject the leftist antisemitic trope that Jews are colonizers. Now go tell your little buddies.
What makes you think I'm a "true believer"?
I think your comments expose you as an intellectually immature clown. But if you want to convey something that is not offensive and/or childishly sarcastic, feel free.
Crimea Riva, indeed...
Allow me to add tediously idiotic to offensive and/or childishly sarcastic. Ok now go ahead.
Present day references to "Judea and Samaria" by supporters of Israel puzzle me. I learned in Sunday School that ancient Jews and Samaritans did not get along with each other.
Samaria refers to a region, like "Normandy" or "Thrace." Specifically, it's the region currently analogous to the northern West Bank in Palestine.
When "Judea and Samaria" are referenced, it's what is commonly called the "West Bank" today. Samaria as a region has had several different rulers, including the ancient Israelites.
Better to ask why the region came to be called by some the “West Bank.” Because that was the name Jordan attached to the land they seized and occupied after attacking Israel in the 1948 war. That’s the great historical lineage of that name. Israel retook the land in the 1967 six day war, renaming it judea and samaria consistent with its biblical and historical heritage.
Not a rights pre-existing system? I’ll pass on your version and stick to the original:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
...to which, the logical response is, "Amen!"
Not logical the logical response to anyone at any time in history but you apparently.
Thanks, but I doubt I'm the first person in history to have recognized the catechismic quality of the declaration.
I believe the popular term for it these days would be "manifesto".
Perhaps I painted with too broad a brush? Yes, I suspect that Robespierre, Stalin, Castro and more than a few other past and present communist tyrants and just plain old tyrants would concur with you. Fortunately our Founders didn't.
Which is why it is so sad that it's come to this.
Long live the King!
Fuck the King.
Careful, the Internet remembers...
Indeed, fuck the King. Iused to be opposed to the Queen
https://x.com/WhiteHouse/status/1892295984928993698?lang=en
The left longs to be ruled again by a king, apparently.
And they seem to be obsessed lately with coronating a certain radical socialist antisemitic slob who hasn't yet discovered the fork, or any other eating utensil.
There is this President who literally refers to himself as a king,…
Learn what "literally" means as opposed to "actually."
I'm not sure that posting a picture of yourself wearing a crown is a "literal" reference, but it is pretty fucking clear, regardless.
And has sex with a Porn Star. Seems like that would tick the Queen off.
Is that not typical of the modern Leftist to believe rights flow from government?
Government is nothing but in institution of man, my rights do not come from another man. Modern Leftists, however, worship the State, an institution of men. Modern Leftists worship the men who govern them. Meanwhile, the Leftists in the State see themselves as benevolent gods, protectorate of the peons who serve and worship them. Just look at Sarcastr0 and his non-stop Mother Hen routine he does around here.
It’s doubtful most “Leftists” think this because they are often upset that this or that government’s laws and policies are violating all kinds of what they deem human rights.
Which is weird why Leftists keep demanding the government take more control and grow ever powerful.
It's like the Leftists brain's are broken and they default to the ideal and ignore empiricism. Religous-like.
It’s like how anyone would trust an agency that conducted the “Tuskegee Experiment” with anything related to their health
Don’t throw your back out moving those goalposts (all that time in the bean bag in your mom’s basement is poor training for that kind of thing)!
Remarkably, I write to show rights do not come from government, but are instead enforced against government. Then LexAquila replies as if illiterate, to accuse me of insistence that rights come from government.
That is reflexive blather from Lex, another among the myriad who imagine every man a king. Which is an assertion little different in substance than a demand for a return to the state of nature, where every man's liberty, property, and very life will always remain at hazard that some other man who commands greater force will take them all.
"Remarkably, I write to show rights do not come from government, but are instead enforced against government. Then LexAquila replies as if illiterate, to accuse me of insistence that rights come from government."
I would recommend that you take the appropriate lesson from this: When everybody, not just one guy, takes from your writings the exact opposite of what you meant, you're a really bad writer.
Or that the respondent hears what he wants to hear. Jesse is constantly accusing me of being a Marxist when every post I’ve ever made has supported capitalism. That’s Jesse being intellectually deficient, not me being unclear about my position.
I can struggle to understand Lathrop’s point sometimes as well, but I read it as “government exists to protect rights”, not the other way around.
But Lex is one of the knee-jerk hard right folks, so it’s not surprising he jumps to a hard right interpretation.
Jesse?
JesseAZ, leading commenter in the ignorance movement that is paleoconservatism.
I remember JesseAZ, but I don't recall him being here for a long time, perhaps years, now.
Check out any of my comments, particularly about tariffs. He’ll be there, beclowning himself.
"It has become customary on this blog, on this anniversary, to see interpretations of the Declaration of Independence which insist the document announced rights pre-existing government."
Look, you are free to disagree with the DoI if you want, but the fact remains that anybody who can parse English sentences at a 5th grade level can tell that the Declaration of Independence did, indeed, announce that rights pre-exist government.
So, you don't agree. That's fine. It still means that.
Amen.
Bellmore — To repeat historical misinterpretations does nothing to make them come true. Among the founders were several with profound insight into the history of rights and governments. One of those, James Wilson, who was among only 6 founders to sign both the Declaration and the Constitution, also happens to be the first who put these ideas on paper, in 1774:
All men are, by nature, equal and free: no one has a right to any authority over another without his consent: all lawful government is founded on the consent of those who are subject to it: such consent was given with a view to ensure and to increase the happiness of the governed, above what they could enjoy in an independent and unconnected state of nature. The consequence is, that the happiness of the society is the first law of every government.
You must recognize that, because it is the only conceivable basis for your outlandish misinterpretation. Jefferson, of course, cribbed those ideas, and improved their eloquence, for that most famous passage in the Declaration, which is the basis of your misinterpretation.
Here, of course, is Wilson's further extension of that thinking, with regard to American constitutionalism:
There necessarily exists, in every government, a power from which there is no appeal, and which, for that reason, may be termed supreme, absolute, and uncontrollable . . . Perhaps some politician, who has not considered with sufficient accuracy our political systems, would answer that, in our governments, the supreme power was vested in the constitutions . . . This opinion approaches a step nearer to the truth, but does not reach it. The truth is, that in our governments, the supreme, absolute, and uncontrollable power remains in the people. As our constitutions are superior to our legislatures, so the people are superior to our constitutions. Indeed the superiority, in this last instance, is much greater; for the people possess over our constitution, control in act, as well as right. The consequence is, the people may change constitutions whenever and however they please. This is a right of which no positive institution can ever deprive them.
I have put that up quite a few times. You must be incapable to understand it. Maybe you do not know what, "positive institution," meant in founding era context. You at least ought to be able to understand, "whenever and however they please." Which is to say, "at pleasure." Meaning, "without constraint." Pre-existing rights, if they existed, would, of course, be constraints on constitutionalism.
As you can read above, Wilson expressly denied any such constraints. Thus, the purpose of the Declaration, as Wilson who not only signed it, but also inspired it in critical part understood, was to announce to the world a new conception of sovereignty, shared jointly among American citizens. They intended that sovereignty would empower them to decree and protect whatever rights they pleased. And not incidentally, to omit claims to rights they disapproved—such as claims by any person to rule as a sovereign by divine right.
If you want to assert anything to the contrary, please come to the table with something beyond repetitions of empty blather. Use founding era citations to critique Wilson, if you think you can.
Or, just point out that you continue to misunderstand Wilson's statement, which is obviously the only thing you know about him.
Maybe at a fifth grade level when you went to school, but even post-graduates of the current indoctrination system can't figure that out. After all, they "think" men can become women - - - - - - - -
Happy 4th of July Stephen.
I'll go with that, and to you and all.
Agreed. Let’s take at least one day to marvel at the amazing country we live in and the incredible document that started it all.
In the American system, the joint popular sovereign would ideally prove incapable to harm the interests of the subjects without harming itself.
You're a well-known vox populi vox dei guy.
The US system is no such thing. The People knew demagogues with the gift of gab could sway them, so girded all operations of government to thwart them, and make their self-motivated agglomeration of power difficult.
In a state of nature, rights remain unimaginable.
Sez you! In your defense of vox populi vox dei, as argument to empower demagogues.
It is at that point of political evolution that the notion of rights gets invented, and may take hold. A right gets defined as a commitment by a sovereign
How putridly, vilely wrong and historically evil. Your rights are not a gift from anyone, you have them inherently.
They are not a gift from a king.
They are not a gift from the rich.
They are not a gift from the powerful.
They are not even a gift from the The People.
They are inherent in you, and The People institute governments to secure those rights.
Why do you start from a notion The People must get on bended knee to the powerful and beg to be granted rights by someone else?
We know why. Vox populi vox dei, not because of concerns for The People, but so the demagogues might hot air that into growing their power under cover of vox populi.
Krayt — If you want to make up pretend history, nothing says you have to do it with empty blather. You could do it better. Make up pretend citations. Consult an AI. Tell it to string together your imaginary sources, and serve up some kind of hallucinatory narrative.
That way, your verisimilitude would improve. An AI could also mimic judicious consideration, to help you keep your emotional upsets out of sight. You could even tell it not to be gratuitously rude.
Happy Treason Day!!!
LOL!
As always, you just assert lots of things that are wrong based on your very confident but utterly unsupportable notion that you have a better understanding of history than everyone else.
Yes, that is one existent theory. It's just not the one that the founders based their ideas on.
Nieporent — Unsupported contradictions. Anyone can read my comments about history and see founding era texts which make points I discuss. Anyone can read your comments about history, and see . . . nothing but your own sense of incredulity that the texts I mention say what they say. If you want to engage on historical subjects, do it on the basis of historical evidence you cite. Got something to critique James Wilson? Show it.
"If you want to engage on historical subjects, do it on the basis of historical evidence you cite."
You haven't shown your citations. As such you could just be writing whatever you pleased. Something along the lines of: THOMAS JEFFERSON, DRAFT OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE (1776), reprinted in THE LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON 172–73 (Henry S. Randall ed., 1858).
You're the one giving your unsupported opinion until you cite your verifiable sources. 🙁
My critique, as expressed many times, is not with Wilson, but with your misunderstanding and misuse of him.
Nieporent — What nonsense, when the comment of mine you cite demonstrates at least two kinds of historical knowledge superior to your own. First, it showed a small sampling (but broader than you credited) of detailed knowledge about Wilson and his contemporaneous influence. Second, my knowledge of historiography-derived scholarship techniques, of which you seem not even aware.
Here is a hint on that second point. The notion was discredited as long ago as the late 19th century that a historian equipped with superior English language skills is thereby qualified to discern accurate contextual meaning for an antique text.
A fatal weakness in that approach turned out to be absence of any basis to prevent reliance on present-minded reasoning. Lapses of that kind guarantee conclusions based on inferences impossible for the long-ago creator of the text to have relied upon, because no one can ever be influenced by future occurrences.
But future, (and thus irrelevant occurrences) in founding era context, turn out to have been past and powerfully formative occurrences in modern cognitive context. That makes the historical task to unravel past context from present presumption about as straightforward as a challenge to get paradoxes out of science fiction tales about time travel.
Yet among almost everyone today—except some historically trained professionals—myriad post-founding occurrences form almost the entire content of present-era cognition. That is part of the normal human condition; just as being born ignorant of legal reasoning techniques is part of the normal human condition.
Thus, it is a normal human plight you find yourself in. You are stuck in it. Stuck there along with almost all the commenters on this blog, along with the legal community generally, and even along with what appears to be a dwindling majority of professional historians, who still practice the old, "peer at it and guess the context," methods, and get predictably unreliable results for their pains.
To count anyone historically insightful today, that person must master systematic methods better historical professionals began to develop at least a hundred years ago, to prevent reasoning errors founded on present-minded presumptions. Those are laborious methods, but indispensable.
Like everyone not well-trained in historical research, you do not even know what methods exist to do that, let alone how to practice them. A short take is that they involve systematic means to make historical survivals critique each other, and add other systematic means to purge influences attributed from everything which happened later than the era under study.
But don't worry, there are still many bad historians who practice the older erroneous techniques, and just as you do, suppose good English language comprehension empowers them to read antique texts accurately. Like you, they still suppose they can guess usefully about the influence of contemporaneous context, instead of showing it. And if existing bad professional practice is not reassurance enough to console you, maybe plentiful company can. Almost everyone among your legal peers, and among interested legal laymen, including commenters on this blog, also struggles alike with you. As you wander together about the bogs of historical interpretation, you all get trapped alike in that same morass of historical futility—the trap of present-minded presumption. So your fate is no worse than that of the others.
I have told you previously what to read to begin to lift yourself out of those difficulties, and you ignored the advice. So struggle and sink as you please.
Anyone else interested in avoiding Nieporent's sad fate ought to consider beginning with historiographer Michael Oakeshott's magisterial long-form essay, "On History."
You sir, are a tiresome, self-important pompous ass.
Another wall of text that relies on nothing but your own self-image as a historian.
Nieporent — Well, I have so far explicitly said in this thread that I relied on Wilson, and Jefferson, and showed that work. And I added historiographer and philosopher of history, Michael Oakeshott.
In other previous posts I have cited methodological influences from various academic history professors with especially prestigious reputations. Two whose work I especially recommended were Professor Edmund Morgan, and Professor David Hall. Another to whom I owe a debt of methodological insight, and whom I have not previously mentioned, was history Professor (and later Lawrence University President) Richard Warch.
And of course my comments have cited for specific references more or less the entire roster of leading founders, plus many other leaders of pre-founding colonial places, institutions and events, with special emphasis on contributors from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and the Caribbean. Not to mention the escapades of various American founding era leaders of diplomatic missions abroad, with special emphasis and citations to the contributions in England and France of Benjamin Franklin.
Nor have I omitted quotations from Locke, Hobbes, and various British monarchs and anti-monarchists of various stripes. I have cited historians of English extraction, including the famous E.P Thompson and Eric Hobsbawm—both as much respected for methodological rigor as they were questioned for leftist politics.
I think that on the whole, I have done more to bring historical specificity to these threads than any other commenter who has contributed during the time I have participated.
What specific academic historical sources have you relied upon?
"my knowledge of historiography-derived scholarship techniques"
Well that caught me.
On the one hand, your point is unexpectedly interesting, particularly regarding the problem of "present-minded presumption" in consideration of history. That is a [big] problem. But even after you've cleared away all identifiable methodological flaws in historical analysis, you are still left with the inherent ambiguities of language under the best of circumstances, and [barring as-needed retrospective mind reading] the unavoidable incompleteness of the original record.
Even if I granted that you had a legitimately scientific framework within to describe structural noise in historiography, and even if you excluded those mechanisms of introducing noise, you would still be left with inescapable "original noise" which precludes you from being able to produce anything other than speculation about history.
Consider the present in which we have a dramatic increase in evidence being introduced into the historic record, including all kinds of video and audio and commentary from near and distant perspectives. It's still pretty much impossible to answer the question, "What did Trump mean when he said "[fill in the blank]" yesterday? Even if Trump added his own explanation of what he meant, that retrospective [including whatever spin] would contribute to noise and uncertainty when we're trying to determine what he really meant. The noisiness of the record isn't substantially improved by more disciplined, restrained, by-the-script speakers and their efforts to "clarify the record."
It seems to me that any telling of history is more or less speculative. You and DMN both exhibit an arbitrary confidence in your tellings of history that exaggerate your signal-to-noise ratios. My understanding of the world is much more uncertain than yours; I have dumbed-down perspectives of things. (There's some modesty buried in here somewhere, like, seriously, I don't know shit about history.)
I think this is correct. While it is of course impossible to completely remove our present day biases and viewpoints from our historical analysis, it seems pretty objectively true that most if not all the founders strongly believed in individual rights that existed prior to the British Constitution and Parliament. Perhaps this was just rationalization on their part, allowing them to argue that their actions were justified. We cannot read their minds, we can only read their surviving written words.
Bwaah, thank you for an interesting and attentive comment. Permit me a point or two in reply.
First, historiography as I understand it is far from science. It is best understood as an art, with the imperfections that implies, and with the artists' typical aspirations toward perfection to go with it.
Second, you are right, right, right about the noisiness of the historical record. You understand accurately that incompleteness of the record will predictably thwart all but one ambition anyone can bring to the study of history. Which means it will remain all but useless to expect to mine history for guidance on present policy. On that basis alone I count myself an anti-originalist, and urge that stance for others.
The one ambition which historical investigation can reasonably fulfill, at least sometimes, is to approach as near as inferences from historical survivals permit to accurate descriptions about what happened in the past, and to interpret those in some simulacrum of contemporaneous context.
That is hard to do, but better methods reward diligent practitioners. Wise diligent practitioners leave it at that. They emphatically do not insist on historical insights as evidence in support of any present insight, project, ideology, or ambition. But contrary to your take, wise historical practitioners insist with well justified confidence against familiar classes of erroneous historical reasoning.
The great historian Edmund Morgan told a tale of being presented by a sociologist with a form full of queries, and a polite request that Morgan fill it out in the voice of James Madison. Morgan, the soul of politeness himself, replied, "You can't do that." It was not a hesitant rebuttal. Morgan explained he did not mean it was not permitted to do such a thing. He meant it was impossible for anyone to do.
To understand those points is to know that assured statements (your, "arbitrary confidence") about what history cannot do are more likely correct than assured statements about what history has shown. Which is why historical novices are the ones citing history in support of this or that positivist notion. Historical veterans—the ones with good judgment, at least, like Morgan—are content to present historical survivals in a narrative context tailored to assist them in a task to critique each other, and leave it at that.
I should add that I count myself a member of neither group. I got professional historical training from excellent teachers, but did not go on to become a professional historian. That training sufficed to warn me away from groundless assurance. But it equipped me with tools useful to identify egregiously bad analytical methods, and to be confident to rebut ambitions to make history do what no historian is capable to accomplish.
All sensible.
Just to clarify my point: the fact that history is noisy doesn't negate the fact that there is often discernible, relevant and accurate meaning to be found in it. In my signal-to-noise characterization, I admit that there is real signal amid the noise in history.
Also, despite the fogginess of history, in interpretation of law, the inquiry should always begin with an approximate understanding of law at the time it was passed. This is not to spark a debate over originalism, but to acknowledge the critical significance of intended meaning over mere malleable interpretation of words.
Though truth may never be absolutely clear, the pursuit of truth is invaluable.
This is not to spark a debate over originalism, but to acknowledge the critical significance of intended meaning over mere malleable interpretation of words.
To suppose words have discernible intended meanings somehow independent of acknowledged malleable interpretations of those same words, seems peculiar. As a cautionary example, consider alternative proper contextual interpretations of the word, "tuberculosis," in modern context, and in founding era context.
In founding era context, it seems fair to conclude, that word meant, "death sentence." In modern context, in the United States, at least, it means something akin to, "an uncommon but curable disease characteristic of impoverished places, and overcrowded living quarters, mostly in other nations."
I think it reasonable to speculate that legal implications of those quite different contextual understandings inflected past judicial practices, and judicial practices today, but differently. And you can also be confident that one point of likely differing inflection would be a legal question at either time, whether in some particular case habeas corpus should be suspended.
For instance, how likely would it be that a colonial court facing a question to incarcerate, or not incarcerate, Samuel Adams, would have found it wise to risk likelihood of afflicting him with deadly disease? The court would require months for its request for trial guidance to arrive back from Britain. How outraged would Adams' thousands of political allies have been had Adams suffered that fate while languishing in jail. What might those thousands have done in response?
Does that line of argument strike you as novel, maybe even contrived? It ought to, because I do not think there is anything in the historical record to support it explicitly.
But you can find records to show colonial Massachusetts governors acknowledging tuberculosis in the jails as a pressing problem. And you can find records showing one colonial governor pressed to the point of despair by agitations fomented by Adams, and complaining that if arrested the governor would have to endure months of administrative uncertainty, before he could discover whether Adams was to be tried in Boston, or returned to Britain for trial. And it is a fact of history that despite near-universal local awareness that Samuel Adams was behind countless agitations which intimidated colonial governments to the point of inaction, Adams was never arrested.
So the question why Adams never faced arrest looms as a pivotal unanswered question about American revolutionary history. Especially set against a background of loudly bruited allegations of British tyranny, it all looks incongruous, and inexplicable. The apparent improbability of it can make a modern historian itch.
But of course the modern historian comes to the question with present-minded cognitive furniture from which a notion of tuberculosis is disproportionately un-salient. Compare that to all society's acute consciousness of tuberculosis during the founding era.
So in that example, you may be seeing a key contextual determinant of historical import, which had a contextual interpretation then unlike its contextual interpretation now. And which thus masks from modern consciousness an explanation potentially so obvious at the time it was accepted tacitly.
Multiply that kind of example by the number of life-changing occurrences during the interval between the founding era and today, and you begin to get new insight to show how problematic it is to suppose any, "critical significance of intended meaning over mere malleable interpretation of words."
Interpretation of words is mostly a matter of context. Context changes dynamically, again and again, with each such occurrence. At a chronological remove as great as the one between the founding era and now, it would be startling if that era—viewed from this context—did not often appear strange to the point of incomprehension of the very words on the pages handed down to us through time.
I think history understood in contemporaneous context is typically found to be far stranger than modern non-historians suppose it to have been.
As a cautionary example, consider alternative proper contextual interpretations of the word, "tuberculosis," in modern context, and in founding era context. In founding era context, it seems fair to conclude, that word meant, "death sentence."
As a cautionary example, consider alternative proper contextual interpretations of the word, "tuberculosis," in modern context, and in founding era context.
In founding era context, it seems fair to conclude, that word meant, "death sentence."
That seems unlikely, since it would've been called "consumption" at the time.
Thank you for the correction, Nieporent. I did a bad job with the non-distinction you cite.
"To suppose words have discernible intended meanings somehow independent of acknowledged malleable interpretations of those same words, seems peculiar."
Of course I begin my understanding of what I hear by considering what the speaker meant in saying it, completely aside from the infinite possible interpretations that may be applied. Intent exists separate from interpretation, however ambiguous it may be. The fact that there are an infinite number of uncertain interpretations does not justify throwing away what clear intent may be present.
It seems "peculiar" to begin one's understanding of words anywhere other than with the discernible intent of the speaker.
A much better read than Lathrop's poo stirring post today.
What the Declaration of Independence Said and Meant It officially adopted the American Theory of Government: First Come Rights; Then Comes Government to Secure These Rights.
https://reason.com/volokh/2025/07/04/what-the-declaration-of-independence-said-and-meant-7/
No government is necessary to "enforce" or "coerce" freedom of speech, or conscience, or association, etc. These are freedoms that only governments take away.
These are freedoms that only governments take away.
On the contrary, there are plenty of sources of power that are non-governmental who may do that - who may punish speech they dislike, for example.
Uh, yeah. If someone goes around shooting people that say things that they disagree with, they are depriving them of their freedom of speech.
Or, for that matter, shouting them down in a forum where the shouter isn't entitled to speak.
Do you suppose it is wise for people who control forums where not everyone is empowered to speak alike, to invite in powerful outsiders to enjoy a speaking privilege denied to others?
Leaving questions of law aside, why does that valorize the decision to set things up that way?
Had some bad news, finally, on the economic front for Trump, the June employment report came in better than expected, the unemployment rate dropped to 4.1% from 4.2%, and employment increased by 200,000 jobs.
The reason it's bad news is it will take a little pressure off the Fed to lower interest rates, and the pressure has been building because of continued modest inflation, And lackluster, but by no means bad previous jobs reports.
And now with the OBBB passing then the economy will likely start showing even more signs of growth even without a rate cut.
Funny how Republicans were blasting the idea of MMT a few years ago but seem to be fully embracing it now.
Also funny how a year ago high interest rates were decried as such a drag on the middle class, but now they're just a cost of doing tax cuts, I guess.
That's not what the Right is saying about high interest rates.
They're saying Powell is being a typical Democrat and intentionally hurting millions with high interest rates to serve political purposes, namely undermine the Trump administration and to influence the upcoming midterms.
Sure, this is why the Fed jacked up the rates in Biden’s term!
It's why Powell cut rates heading into the election.
You mean the several cuts heading into the 2020 election? Lol.
Responding to economic data is a leftist conspiracy? Ooooookay.
Kazinski just wrote above that the OBBB would make it less likely the the Fed cuts rates! Maybe read the post I'm responding to for context?
Also, who appointed Powell to be Fed chair? I'm struggling to remember which Democrat was involved.
Yes, because there is no reason to cut rates when you are already getting at least average or better growth with low inflation and full employment.
Not to mention interest rates are only high in context of 2009-2022 rates, as Google AI might put it:
"The average mortgage interest rate since 1971, when Freddie Mac began tracking them, is just under 8%, according to Freddie Mac. Specifically, the median 30-year mortgage rate is 7.33%. While rates have fluctuated significantly, with peaks in the early 1980s and lows in 2021, the long-term average provides a good benchmark."
We are slightly below that now.
While we all might long for 2.5% mortgages again, do we really want to go through a global financial crises (liquidity crises specifically, not an inflation crises, currency crises, oil shock, or pandemic or other crises) to get them?
"While we all might long for 2.5% mortgages again, "
I don't. As a soon-to-be retired person I long for a decent safe return on investment (by which I mean growth at least a couple of points higher than inflation).
They're saying Powell is being a typical Democrat
Powell is a Republican.
Is being, not is.
It all depends on what the meaning of "is being" is being.
Not to mention a reasonably sensible, responsible, person. Rare in the upper reaches of government these days.
We aren't embracing MMT, and you can tell that because next years deficit will be smaller (as a percentage of GDP) than this years deficit, and please note this year is Biden's last budget and began in October.
employment increased by 200,000 jobs.
…almost all government jobs. Non-government employment did very poorly.
Got a cite? Numbers I saw said 147,000 private sector jobs. Also April and May were revised upward.
Check out my new paper "Evidence and Belief: David Hume in the Library of Babel": https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5243003
I've received my first government propaganda email:
"Social Security Applauds Passage of Legislation Providing Historic Tax Relief for Seniors
The Social Security Administration (SSA) is celebrating the passage of the One Big, Beautiful Bill, a landmark piece of legislation that delivers long-awaited tax relief to millions of older Americans.
The bill ensures that nearly 90% of Social Security beneficiaries will no longer pay federal income taxes on their benefits, providing meaningful and immediate relief to seniors who have spent a lifetime contributing to our nation's economy.
“This is a historic step forward for America’s seniors,” said Social Security Commissioner Frank Bisignano. “For nearly 90 years, Social Security has been a cornerstone of economic security for older Americans. By significantly reducing the tax burden on benefits, this legislation reaffirms President Trump’s promise to protect Social Security and helps ensure that seniors can better enjoy the retirement they’ve earned."
The new law includes a provision that eliminates federal income taxes on Social Security benefits for most beneficiaries, providing relief to individuals and couples. Additionally, it provides an enhanced deduction for taxpayers aged 65 and older, ensuring that retirees can keep more of what they have earned.
Social Security remains committed to providing timely, accurate information to the public and will continue working closely with federal partners to ensure beneficiaries understand how this legislation may affect them."
It isn't even a law, yet!
What are the odds Trump is going to veto it?
He said he will sign it today on July 4th.
So you still have a few hours to continue your bizarre claim that the 2016 tax rates, that were superseded by the the 2017 TCJA tax cuts, are still current law.
Quadrupling down now... So sad.
Sad is dying on the hillock where Jeffries gave his epic speech, after you've lost the war.
As I explained in the other thread, though perhaps the thread was dead by the time I did so, you are confusing current rates with current law.
I'll repost that comment:
The problem is that you are failing to distinguish between current rates and current law. The current law says that in 2025 the rates will be 10% and in 2026 the rates will be 15%. (Numbers made up for the sake of example). If Congress passes a law saying, "In 2026, the rates will be 10%," this maintains the current rates by changing current law.
The problem is that you are failing to distinguish between current rates and current law.
The current law says that in 2025 the rates will be 10% and in 2026 the rates will be 15%. (Numbers made up for the sake of example). If Congress passes a law saying, "In 2026, the rates will be 10%," this maintains the current rates by changing current law.
He's not confused.
Are you new to Social Security? Government activity will of course dictate how many of those they send out each year but its usually about 1 a year in addition to the "Social Security Statement" email.
Now the Medicare emails... that's where the excitements at Jack. (Smile) 🙂
If you want to pay more taxes, feel free. Don’t take any deductions or credits, including the SALT deduction. That’ll show ‘em you’re not taken in by the “propaganda.”
These people never seem to voluntarily pay more taxes, yet always demand others be forced to.
By most moral frameworks, that's wrong. It's wrong to demand others to do what you won't freely do yourself.
That it is propaganda is not in question. I'm sure previous Administrations have issued similar press statements directly to voters (or, as in this case, to anyone with an email in the SS database). I'm not sure any of them have been quite so blatantly political, though.
The bigger issue, of course, is that it is intentionally misleading, which, coupled with its undeniable political aspect, makes it "election interference" if nothing else. Welcome to the New America.
I think "accurate" is the word you're looking for, not misleading.
But good to see you generally don't support exploiting social security as a campaign issue. Though it doesn't seem that democrats got the memo.
Another CAPTCHA fail by Riva-bot.
ObviouslyNotSpam — It's also jiggery-pokery. According to the Congressional Budget Office approximately 70% of seniors are already paying no income taxes on Social Security Benefits. Depending on what, "nearly 90%," means, that will not likely be a change to revolutionize the well-being of seniors. To the extent it matters, it will benefit only the best-off seniors anyway, mostly those with substantial income in addition to their benefits.
Also? Be on the lookout for a repeat of Trump's first-term scam, where he trumpeted lower withholding rates as if they were tax benefits, and hurt suckers who did not understand that lowering their withholding had nothing to do with the size of their tax burden—a burden which in blue states tended to go up, not down, because of changes to the mortgage interest deduction. Result, less taxes withheld, more taxes owed, and a huge surprise hit at tax time. I partly saw that coming, and told my employer not to lower my withholding. I was still blindsided by the mortgage hit.
According to the Congressional Budget Office approximately 70% of seniors are already paying no income taxes on Social Security Benefits.
I think I will call BS on that one. The taxes come out, either monthly by SSA or quarterly by the recipient (to avoid penalty).
Commenter_XY, if your aggregate withheld benefits are so small that your personal deduction exeeds them, you get it all back after you file your return. Net payment, zero. Apparently, that already applied to most seniors on Social Security.
Well now, seniors do even better now, under this bill. Seniors receive stackable tax deductions which, in the aggregate, insures that ~88% of seniors pay no effective tax.
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/big-beautiful-bill-delivers-relief-social-security-tax-cut-ushers-new-era-seniors-what-you-1737503
Adding it up... 31.5K standard deduction (MFJ) 6K senior deduction 2K charitable donation deduction At a minimum, the first ~40K income is effectively tax free. That is the big headline for seniors.
It represents a golden opportunity to convert 401K into Roth at a lower fed rate, or possibly at zero fed rate. That is significant for middle class America.
If the new $6K senior deduction is the difference between paying 0% and paying 10%, we're talking about $50 a month. No doubt important if someone has no other sources of income, but I wonder what percentage of folks live this close to the edge?
According to The Hill, the percentage of seniors effectively owing no taxes on their SS benefits goes up from 64% to 88%. But note, like no tax on tips or overtime, these provisions sunset after 2028.
There will of course be pressure to keep them, but the effect of keeping them on the debt is not included in this bill. The same held in 2017 for the tax cuts that were made permanent in the OBBBA. And yet for qualification of subjecting the law to reconciliation, the Senate computed the impact on the debt relative to current policy (assuming the tax cuts did not expire after this year), not current law (the tax cuts expire). Bottom line: in the combination of 2017 and 2025 bills, the Senate never accounted for the impact of the tax cuts on the debt from 2026 on.
Yep. You're basically loaning the government your withholding without interest until you file your return and get a refund.
The taxes come out, either monthly by SSA or quarterly by the recipient (to avoid penalty).
No. They don't have to if you don't owe them.
All the various withholdings, estimates, etc. are not what you owe, they are approximations of what you will owe at the end of the year. When you file you get any excess back.
I thought everyone understood this, but I guess not.
Yep, Bernard has it correct.
The whole “withholdings” thang is just a tool to keep the Sheeple in line, thinking they’ve put one over on Uncle Sammy when they get their “refund” (which the Pawn/Jewelry Shop I’m a “Silent Partner” in will gladly give you early, with a slight “Service” Charge, Insurance, and of course Interest) Yes Queenie, I’m a Doctor who likes to dabble in Diamonds and Money Lending, it’s in my genes, like your people and Basketball I pay my taxes Quarterly, lets you see exactly how far Sammy’s got his hand up your (Redacted)
Frank
Withholding was designed to hide how much in taxes you pay. Most people only look at their net paycheck so don't see how much is taken out and even when they look they have been, as you point out, conditioned to think of the refund ( which is really just an interest free loan to the government). Nor do they often look at the total paid in taxes until they actually file ( at which point they are distracted by the refund( interest free loan the government is finally repaying).
If folks had to write a check once every April, I suspect that support for a lot of government spending would plummet...
Even a monthly check would likely cause support for government spending to crater as people would look at it as more like a monthly bill.
I assure you, it wasn't the first!
Well, I just searched my Inbox, thinking I must have received something from the US government at least during Covid, but I found nothing.
Nope, this was the first.
I got that, too. It was eerie.
The curious case of Department of Homeland Security v. D. V. D. seems to be over. The Supreme Court stayed a district court judge preliminary injunction forbidding DHS from deporting 6 criminal illegals from other countries to South Sudan.
The district court judge then citing Sotomayors dissent, said "not withstanding" the courts saying of the injunction it was still in effect.
The Supreme Court was not amused.
"On June 23, we stayed the April 18 preliminary injunction pending disposition of any appeal and petition for writ of certiorari. Later that day, however, the District Court issued a minute order stating that the May 21 remedial order “remain[ed] in full force and effect,” “notwithstanding” our stay of the preliminary injunction. ECF Doc. 176. The only authority it cited was the dissent from the stay order."
"Our June 23 order stayed the April 18 preliminary injunction in full. The May 21 remedial order cannot now be used to enforce an injunction that our stay rendered unenforceable."
Notably Kagan wrote a concurrence to the latest order, after she joined Sotomayor's original dissent.
Orders are orders.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a1153_2co3.pdf
Good for Kagan, anyway. Sotomayor and Jackson, instead, essentially took the position that the Court should let the lower court ignore the stay because the majority had been wrong to issue it in the first place.
Activists not jurists.
How could the Court even be wrong, without an opinion to say on what basis it decided? Maybe that establishes a new judicial principle: totally arbitrary is always right.
Have you ever seen a lower court use a higher courts dissent to ignore an order from the higher court?
It lifted the injunction, it didn't say why.
Obviously Sotomayor was dissenting against something.
It just shows how full of themselves some district court judges are.
A ninth circuit recently had to "clarify" its order that a Washington district judge "mistakenly" construed t0 allow 130,000 asylum seekers to come to the US from abroad, when at most it was a couple of hundred.
https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/pacito-order.pdf
I guess these district court judges don't see if they flout higher court rulings, it leaves their own authority weaker, not stronger, because without backup from higher courts their own rulings, against the administration at least, are toothless.
If the Administration sees that lower court judges can flout the Supreme Court, then why should they follow orders they don't like?
I hope Randy does his annual re-posting, but if not here's an interesting read on today:
https://reason.com/volokh/2024/07/04/what-the-declaration-of-independence-said-and-meant-6/
When I think about America, I often wonder what was the defining factor in our becoming the greatest country that humanity has ever known. For me, it boils down to having our written Constitution, and the American civil ethos of doing our best to remain faithful to it. It is, in many ways, a contract between the Founders and Americans today (and the future).
There is no other country that gives as much, does as much, sacrifices as much, for the betterment of humanity on this planet than the United States of America. This place, America, is almost miraculous; you can come here with nothing, and become a billionaire. Or a Constitutional law professor. And that doesn't depend on the POTUS in office, or political party in power. We've been around for almost 250 years, doing fantastically. The next 1,000 years looks pretty good to me, considering the last 250 years.
I hope our distant great, great, great grandchildren retain that passion and zeal (e.g. American civil ethos) for our written Constitution that we still possess today. And yes, we Americans still possess that ethos. Consider, The Volokh Conspiracy is evidence of that (and you're reading this); why?. Our fidelity to that written Constitution made us what we are today; I am so proud of America, and what we Americans have accomplished.
May God bless America and everyone in it.
Happy Independence Day!
Too bad you couldn’t have been the first to comment here.
Back when National Pubic Radio wasn't just the Media outlet for Ham-Ass, the Mobile AL station would play Patriotic tunes every July 4th, including all 4 Verses of the Star Spangled Banner (gets a little dark with "No refuge could save the hireling and slave, from the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave..."
Which pretty much sounds like the 2025 Atlanta Braves season so far.
I have a dream, that during one of those sports events where they bring in a guest singer to sing the national anthem, they belt out the first stanza as usual, the band stops playing, and the singer continues on to the next. The band hastily resumes playing, and all four get heard for the first time in years.
I was at an Atlanta Falcons game once where the anthem singer started by asking everyone to join them in the anthem, and they did. brought chills to hear tens of thousands of folks singing it out loud instead of lipsynking.
One of my favorite moments of someone singing the national anthem was at a Portland Trailblazers game when the very young ( 13 years old) lady forgot the words. But the Portland Trailblazer coach, Maurice Cheeks, came to her rescue and stood beside and helped her along with the crowd sing the tune. He may not have been a great coach but that moment made him a great man in my eyes. Btw it is on youtube.
In our junior high, we always sang the third verse. Much more positive.
My local NPR classical station is playing patriotic music and Americana all day. As they always do on the 4th. Have you any actual evidence they're an outlet for Hamas?
This would be a good time to put out my theory on the difference between the US system and the European parliamentary systems.
The US was birthed in a unique circumstance of busting free from tyrant kings. They (literally) enumerated the abuses, and went about creating a government where those things were blanket forbidden, or if necessary, like criminal investigations, gated before warrant requirements and habeus corpus.
Europeans grew under millenia of corrupt kleptocratic dictatorship, right back to caveman days, and finally said...
Not "Nope, that kind of infinite power is wrong!"
No, they said "We The People need to get ourselves some of that for us!"
It was a half step, and no proper kleptocrat would ever let that go to waste and allow themselves to be so girded. Put Vox Populi on a pedestal, shine lights on it, and then wield infinite power anyway.
Can't have actual rights getting in the way of anything.
The difference is that the US now appears to have just taken two steps, instead of one.
George Washington refused the crown -- he would have been king had he wished. And then he didn't run for a 3rd term.
“ For me, it boils down to having our written Constitution, and the American civil ethos of doing our best to remain faithful to it.”
I agree, but I would add that the Enlightenment philosophies embodied in the Constitution; individual rights, skepticism of religious rule, the subordinate position of government vis-a-vis rights, and the intentional elimination of an unchallengeable government, are equally responsible. Skepticism of God and Man is what has made us strong, but flexible, as a nation.
I hope you have a wonderful holiday and are enjoying some of your favorite recipes with family and friends.
This place, America, is almost miraculous; you can come here with nothing,
…and then have a bunch of racist assholes decide you did it the wrong way and be thrown into a concentration camp.
Congress has laid out the right way to do it, and the USCIS has extensive websites and online forms with instructions.
Plus there is the annual diversity visa lottery, if you don't qualify for family or H1b visas.
For me, it boils down to having our written Constitution, and the American civil ethos of doing our best to remain faithful to it. It is, in many ways, a contract between the Founders and Americans today (and the future).
Yes; you almost approach an insight here, one that completely escapes the nativist camp: it's our institutions, not the people who happen to be born here (let alone where their ancestors originally came from) that make America great.
So those countries that have copied American institutions are just as great? Nope.
No, but it’s like pros and amateurs. If we don’t keep trying to do liberal democracy better every day, sooner or later someone’s going to catch us.
But yes, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
in case anyone is tempted, how about taking a break today from the trolling TDS BS today? I guess if you’re being paid OT trolling rates today, it will be hard to resist.
Most of these are paid foreign actors and do not share this holiday.
Another prime example of every accusation….
and of course there's the made up fictional characters, like you
Well, Trump is the antithesis of most things the Framers stood for, so you really can’t celebrate America and avoid pointing out Trump is a buffoon and a wanna-be tyrant at the same time.
A Big Beautiful Bill?? on my Birthday!?!??!? You Shouldn't have!! OK, maybe there's some things I wouldn't have included, it's like when I was 8 and my Aunt Ethel gave me a Righthanded Baseball glove, it's the thought that counts, and here's hoping for another 250 Uncle Sammy!!!!
Happy birthday, Frank.
Happy 4th! A day I hope everyone will have some good eats, though food prices have continued their climb (“day one” indeed!).
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPIUFDNS
Most Amuricans could do to eat a little bit less anyway, peoples pay other peoples to deliver them Taco Bell for crying out loud, and think they're being "Green" because they didn't drive there themselves
Kind of hard to tell from that very tip of that graph of a 100 years of monthly urban food price inflation, that the last 4 months of food price inflation has average. 0.2%.
This might be an easier source to see what the recent data is.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cpi.pdf
I could have sworn Trump promised to lower food prices, not reduce the percent change increase, on day one. Has the CPI for food been lowered?
We will always have eggs.
Or an even better Republican slogan, "we are all going to die".
(Too soon?)
“As he runs for mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani has made his identity as a Muslim immigrant of South Asian descent a key part of his appeal.
But as a high school senior in 2009, Mr. Mamdani, the Democratic nominee, claimed another label when he applied to Columbia University. Asked to identify his race, he checked a box that he was “Asian” but also “Black or African American,” according to internal data derived from a hack of Columbia University that was shared with The New York Times…
In an interview on Thursday, Mr. Mamdani, 33, said he did not consider himself either Black or African American, but rather “an American who was born in Africa.” He said his answers on the college application were an attempt to represent his complex background given the limited choices before him, not to gain an upper hand in the admissions process. (He was not accepted at Columbia.)“
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/03/nyregion/mamdani-columbia-black-application.html
At least he didn't cite high cheek bones.
A-rabs are Caucasians, in fact the word "Aryan" is derived from the original name of Ear-Ron.
His parents are from India.
...and he was born in Uganda. Does that make him an African-American or does that only count for blacks?
Your comment is irrelevant as to whether he is Arabic.
As your comment that his parents are from India is irrelevant as to whether he is Arabic.
He is a liar, trying to leverage claims of being black and asian to get into Columbia.
Plenty relevant. Arabs are .56% of the population of India. His mother is Hindu and his father Gujarati, not Arabic.
“He is a liar, trying to leverage claims of being black and asian to get into Columbia.”
There you go again with your jump to accuse people of lying. He’s a citizen of an African nation and the child of Asian parents, so where’s the lie?
"He’s a citizen of an African nation and the child of Asian parents, so where’s the lie?"
He said black. Being a citizen of an African nation doesn't make you black. My grandfather was from South Africa, so can I say I'm black?
Correction: he checked off "Black or African American." Both of these are untrue in his case. We know what Black is, and he's not black. And we know what African American is, and he's not that, either. Just coming from Africa and becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen doesn't make you African American, any more than my Dutch South African grandfather was African American, or Elon Musk, for that matter.
Oh no, it looks like *you’re* the one lying:
“Asked to identify his race, he checked a box that he was “Asian” but also “Black or **African American,**”
Emphasis mine
Yes, I corrected that before you replied. But you fail to note that he is neither Black nor African American.
Don't worry, he has a cognitive out. Even though it is still incorrect, since you made an error, he doesn't have to contemplate your claim.
“Yes, I corrected that”
Why did you lie at first?
I didn't lie, I made an error. There's a difference. Filling out a form and checking a box that doesn't apply to one is not an error, it's a lie.
Why is an error on a form a lie but your error (about the same thing here) not?
" but your error (about the same thing here) not?"
Where did TP make an error? African American is a subset of black. By claiming you are African-American, you are claiming you are black.
If I ask if you’re stupid or disingenuous is one necessarily a subset of the other (and he’s conceded he was in error anyway)?
"he’s conceded he was in error anyway"
And you've conceded he's fallible.
He made an error. He thought he was wrong when he wasn't.
I linked to a definition of African-American below that shows it includes black. Can you support your claim that it doesn't?
"African American is a subset of black. By claiming you are African-American, you are claiming you are black."
Wrong.
I recall representing a black defendant on an appeal from his rape conviction. The State's serologist testified as to the percentage of African-American men having a similar DNA profile to the defendant. I put a footnote in my brief pointing out that the witness did not point out how citizenship can be determined from a DNA sample.
Well the faded anecdote by a disrespected lawyer sure puts a nail in that coffin!
I'm not sure how he thinks his anecdote is inconsistent with my comment.
"African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group who as defined by the United States census, consists of Americans who have ancestry from "any of the Black racial groups of Africa".[3][4] African Americans constitute the second largest racial and ethnic group in the U.S. after White Americans.[5] The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of Africans enslaved in the United States.[6][7]"
So, your argument is that "Black or African American" actually just means "Black", so the "African American" part of it has no meaning other than "Black", and was included to (a) confuse people or perhaps (b) to placate black people who didn't like being called "Black"?
If I had been an American high school kid born in Africa, I can assure you I would have self-identified as "African American" all fucking day long. If that's not what the university "had in mind" when they drafted their mandatory racial classification questionnaire (to facilitate the sorting of applicants along racial lines), perhaps they should have taken more care in drafting the questions?
(And yes, Elon Musk is an "African American", unless you want to be racist about such things.)
"So, your argument is that "Black or African American" actually just means"
Oh for fucks sake. Everybody in the US knows what "African American" means, and it's not white or Indian.
...and we're left with the always persuasive "everybody knows" argument.
But it is frankly hilarious to see you and all your MAGA buddies bend over backwards to defend the "sanctity" of mandatory racial classifications for college admissions, though.
Definitely worth the price of admission!
It's fine...
Everyone knows the richest African American in the US is Elon Musk. Elon Musk is proof that African Americans can be super rich and successful.
"...and we're left with the always persuasive "everybody knows" argument."
Sigh. No, I've linked to a dictionary definition, as has Malika. All I'm saying is that if you find yourself on the internet arguing that African Americans aren't black, it's a good time to sit down and try to figure out where your life went wrong.
My favorite African-American actor is Charlize Theron.
Listen TIP, if you play stupid games you win stupid prizes...
The Columbia University "Rassenreinheit" acknowledgement form allegedly used the words, "Black or African American". That implies the two terms are not identical (for purposes of the form). Your preferred interpretation was to ignore the "African American" category entirely, because it is allegedly already "a subset" within the term "Black".
As a fallback position, you now insist that the term "African American" (despite being irrelevant) has a precise definition which "everybody knows" excludes white Africans who are American. This, despite the Miriam-Webster dictionary definition (which you have acknowledged, possibly without reading it) mentioning that aspect as being a mere specialization of the term: "an American of African and especially of Black African descent".
As I said above, my teenage self's reaction to this kind of mandatory/not mandatory Rassenheit test would have been to shove it far, far up Columbia's exhaust. But you embrace it. You revere it. Curious...
"Listen TIP, if you play stupid games you win stupid prizes."
You're the one trying to claim African American doesn't mean black.
"an American of African and especially of Black African descent"
It's not every well written, but I don't think it means what you think it means.
Yes. (b), obviously, not (a). Not sure whether you're old enough to remember this — not being snide here — but Jesse Jackson began pushing AA heavily in the late 1980s as a replacement for black, for various reasons which I can get into if you want. Unlike some other terms over the years, both of those stuck around and had support from the black/AA population.
(Obviously Jackson wasn't the only one, but he was by far the biggest single voice in the black/AA community in that era.)
Yes, I was around in the 1980s--Reagan received my first presidential vote.
However, my point was rhetorical; the reason for the grammatically ambiguous construction of the Columbia racial classification form is secondary to my point that a skeptical high school senior like I was (no idea about Mamdani, who may have had lesser motivations for his actions) would have felt highly motivated, if not entitled, to attempt to destroy such a disgusting, racist system by turning its own flaws against it.
But our resident MAGARINO loyalists can only see the "swarthy looking" leftist target in front of them, haplessly defending Columbia's reprehensible Rassenreinheit enquiry form in the process. Or maybe they don't consider it wrong at all...
Oh, come on. The farfetched idea that it was some sort of political protest against the liberal diversity process is belied by the fact that
A) he was a 17-year old, applying to college; B) doing that on a private form wouldn't make such a statement; C) nothing in his career suggests he holds such views; and D) he has not offered that as a defense even today. Instead, he has offered a defense that reflects buy-in to that diversity ideology.
I couldn't care less about an admitted socialist like Mamdani, David. The Mayor has little power--even in a huge city like NYC--and if New Yorkers are so stupid and/or irrational as to make a socialist their mayor, they frankly deserve whatever they get.
I'm obviously defending the principle of hoisting "benign racists" on their own petards.
Yeah, that's a cunning plan that wouldn't raise questions at all.
I know your threshold for what's believable is really low but this is pathetic.
Is Mamdani black? That's what he claimed.
And I don't know the details of the Columbia questionnaire, but there's a difference between East Asian and South Asian. Did it distinguish or specify these?
He’s African and he’s American. Neither of these is untrue.
Even if there’s some crazy classification a la David Bernstein system where Asians born in and citizens of an African American nation who then come to live in America are not in some technical sense African American it’s certainly possible he reasonably applied to him. You just want to jump to ascribe “lying” to anyone who is ultimately incorrect about anything and who you disagree with.
"He’s African and he’s American. Neither of these is untrue."
That doesn't make him African American!, any more than Elon Musk is African American. African American has a very specific meaning, and it's not just having come from Africa to America.
"Gerard Kassar, chairman of the state Conservative Party, accused Mamdani of exploiting affirmative action to try to gain college admission.
“Mamdani has got a lot of explaining to do. This is part of the fraud he has perpetrated on New Yorkers throughout the primary campaign,” the Brooklyn resident fumed.
“His focus was to get admitted to Columbia on affirmative action. It just didn’t work out. He was trying to get into a school by lying about his racial background. Race is a scientific specification, not the country you’re from,” Kassar said, adding that Mamdani, whose father was a Columbia professor, knew exactly what he was doing.
His father, Mahmood Mamdani, is a professor of anthropology, political science and African Studies at the Ivy League, while his mother, Mira Nair, is an Oscar-nominated filmmaker.
“Being from Uganda doesn’t make you black. You can’t assume it makes you black,” Kassar charged."
“African American has a very specific meaning, and it's not just having come from Africa to America.”
Dude, you were wrong about the form saying just black, so maybe a little grace for someone who was literally both born in Africa and then an American checking a box that says “African-American.”
“Being from Uganda doesn’t make you black.”
Holy shit, you compound your lie by quoting a partisan opponent of Mamdani who says he claimed to be black (rather than black *or African American!*). Is there no end to your lying?
At the end of the day it is you, Malika, who is wrong, and Mamdani who has lied. Calling me a liar is pretty thin gruel as arguments go.
No, you are not African American by virtue of having come from Africa to America. Don't you get that you are making a mistaken syllogistic argument?
Let me ask you, is Elon Musk African American? Is he a potential beneficiary of affirmative action? Is he eligible for reparations? Are the Afrikaners who immigrate to the U.S. African Americans? For that matter, are wealthy black Ghanans who immigrate to the U.S. African Americans?
"He’s African and he’s American."
His race/ethnicity is African-American? How so?
And I guess Elizabeth Warren is Native American because she was born in America, amirite?
"Holy shit, you compound your lie by quoting a partisan opponent of Mamdani who says he claimed to be black (rather than black *or African American!*)."
Sounds like your the one who is lying. Dictionary.com's definition of African American:
noun an American with Black African ancestry.
So claiming to be African-American is claiming to be black.
Is there no end to your lying?
Elon Musk is an African American.
And for the purpose of clarity, Malika is a shit-talker.
“Calling me a liar is pretty thin gruel as arguments go.”
It’s just sauce for the gander. You claim Zohran must have lied by checking a box las African American (when he is both African American) but you are not a liar when you concede you were in error about what he checked.
See, when you or someone you agree with is wrong you say they were “in error” but if someone you don’t agree with is wrong you scream “liar!”
For someone wrong as much as you you may want to check that kind of approach.
"when he is both African American"
Sigh. He's a liar because he is not African-American.
“ Sounds like you’re the one who is lying. Dictionary.com's definition of African American:”
I see your Dictionary.com and raise you a Merriam Webster
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/African%20American
an American of African and especially of Black African descent
So given dictionaries disagree and literally it says African American claiming a guy who is literally African and American *must* have lied to check that box is a stretch worthy of Plastic Man.
How do they disagree? Thanks for providing another source that proves my point.
And in any event, he is not of African descent.
Now you're denying he's African? He was born on African soil (albeit probably not in a dirt-floored hut).
Does "blood and soil" mean nothing to the new generation?
There's another dude that thinks that him calling himself African American is misleading.
So sad to see you whimper out like this.
Maybe next time, eh?
I guess you guys are just OK with excusing your candidates lies. Just like on Trump's side.
What makes you think Mamdani is "my candidate"?
Pathetic reading comprehension fail...
I don't care how he identifies. Mamdani advocates Marxist policies that have never worked wherever they have been tried. That is a fact. Don't believe me? Fine, ask North Koreans how Marxist policy is working out for them.
NYC, be careful about the choices you make, you'll have to live with them. How many billionaires do you want to leave? All in...one billionaire pays the equivalent amount of taxes as thousands of lower income citizens put together. Try replacing that if more billionaires leave. You deserve the representation you elect, remember that.
And the left had no problem with Warren lying about her race to get hired at Harvard, so we know they won't have a problem with this either.
They only go after less powerful people who lie about their race.
I think your timeline might be slightly off, but I happen to think Trump's nickname for her was (unusually) appropriate.
Trump didn't invent it, and was too stupid to get it right. He kept calling her Pocahontas, but the funny/accurate nickname was Fauxcahontas.
Trump's fifth-grade vocabulary would not have prepared him to understand that name.
By way of contrast, Warren's "Rassenreinheit" transgression occurred years after she had been a tenured law professor--not as a high school senior applying to colleges. Moreover, she was already a vocal advocate of the racial classification system she sought to exploit (although there is little evidence that she benefitted from doing so). It is possible that she was genuinely under the impression that she was "part-Native American", but a law professor should have understood the serious implications of "winging it" in the way she did.
Bottom line is that we don't even know what Mamdani's motivation was at the time--he very well may have had immature libertarian impulses when he was young and impressionable. Obviously, he snapped into line as a hardcore leftist when he grew up, and that requires dogmatic adherence to "benign Rassenreinheit" testing and classification, so if evidence emerges that he maintained his "African American" identification after high school, he won't be able to pass it off as merely innocent or cheeky.
Trumpists complaining about Democrats lying. Droll.
Yeah, somehow he makes you all sink to his level.
Almost impossible.
And checking the wrong box is a far from Trump's endless stream of fabrications.
Why don't you just call it lying?
The statute of limitations has probably expired. I got to thinking of Kousisis v. US from the recent Supreme Court term. Is lying about disadvantaged business status a crime when there is no financial loss?
A federal judge in Massachusetts ordered a pimp to pay $1.5 million restitution to the prostitutes he managed. This may represent the income he got by renting them out. It's hard to tell from the press release. https://www.justice.gov/usao-ma/pr/court-orders-over-15-million-restitution-survivors-convicted-sex-trafficker
The California Appeals Court ruled that prostitutes were entitled to restitution under Penal Code §1202.4. The trial judge had declined to order mandatory restitution for "value of the victim’s labor or services" because legally sex work has no value. H.B. v. Superior Court 97 Cal.App.5th 341 (2023).
Children could use the same technique to legally get paid for sex videos. A contract to make child pornography would be void as against public policy. Federal law allows minors to sue for $150,000 if they are used in child pornography. So it's like a flat rate per performance set by law. As with the prostitution cases, this only legalizes the income if somebody is willing to risk prison.
The trial judge had declined to order mandatory restitution for "value of the victim’s labor or services" because legally sex work has no value.
Well, that's illogical. You're not legally allowed to sell cocaine, but that doesn't mean that cocaine "has no value." But no restitution should be owed to the sex worker unless the allegation is that the sex work was forced.
Federal law allows minors to sue for $150,000 if they are used in child pornography. So it's like a flat rate per performance set by law.
For clarification, it's not "per performance", it's "per viewer". A victim whose exploitative child pr0n vid is viewed by 10 people can sue each viewer for $150K, potentially netting $1.5M. Viewed by 100 people, $15M. Viewed by 1000 people (easy in the internet age), $150M.
Minus legal fees - easy work for the lawyers, though. And lots of perps are insolvent. Even after serving their time, they can't get jobs above minimum wage, or use computers ... but they're on the hook for $150K for each identifiable victim discovered in their pr0n stash.
The liberal elites of the day in Britain supported independence. The conservatives did not - and those liberal elites also supported abolition
See, e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedgwood_anti-slavery_medallion
Seems a bit relevant on a day we celebrate for breaking with a King…
“Attorney General Pam Bondi told tech companies that they could lawfully violate a statute barring American companies from supporting TikTok based on a sweeping claim that President Trump has the constitutional power to set aside laws, newly disclosed documents show.
In letters to companies like Apple and Google, Ms. Bondi wrote that Mr. Trump had decided that shutting down TikTok would interfere with his “constitutional duties,” so the law banning the social media app must give way to his “core presidential national security and foreign affairs powers.”
The executive branch has the power, as a matter of prosecutorial discretion, to choose not to enforce laws in particular instances or to set priorities about what categories of lawbreaking they will prioritize when resources are limited.
Previous presidents have occasionally made aggressive use of that power, including when President Obama temporarily shielded from deportation undocumented immigrants who had been brought to the country as children. But the Obama administration also said such “deferred action” could be revoked and did not claim it made their presence lawful, nor cease to enforce immigration law against others. In her letters, Ms. Bondi went far beyond that. Because of Mr. Trump’s order, she said, tech firms that acted contrary to the statute were breaking no law, even in theory, and the department was “irrevocably relinquishing” any legal claims against them — including under future administrations.“
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/03/us/politics/trump-bondi-tiktok-executive-power.html
So, all of a sudden, an executive exercising prosecutorial discretion is a king?
No one thinks this is a case of prosecutorial discretion.
Because zero people are being prosecuted.
Not even Bondi tried to make that argument.
It's as much prosecutorial discretion as DACA is.
Lol, It’s exactly not as much, if you could read!
“But the Obama administration also said such “deferred action” could be revoked and did not claim it made their presence lawful, nor cease to enforce immigration law against others.
In her letters, Ms. Bondi went *far beyond that*. Because of Mr. Trump’s order, she said, tech firms that acted contrary to the statute were breaking no law, even in theory, and the department was “irrevocably relinquishing” any legal claims against them — including under future administrations.“
What happened when Trump v1.0 tried to revoke DACA?
Goalposts moved again.
"Deferred" in DACA proves the aphorism that there is nothing more permanent than a temporary program.
Professor Jack Goldsmith has observed that it is hard to find a plaintiff with standing to sue to test the President’s action here, linking to Alan Z. Rozenshtein's February 14, 2025 article in Lawfare. https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-tiktok-ban-withers-away?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Zero people being prosecuted can certainly be an outcome of the exercise of prosecutorial discretion! What are you talking about?
Everyone claims the sophistry it's about making some prosecutions low priority, because of limited resources.
Then they go about proudly blabbering why, as a good policy, to ignore this or that law.
This is what politicians do for a living: do things for a secret reason, then issue a cover justification.
For some reason, people think this is ok. Well, they tell us that it's ok.
"Are you lying?"
(Read in the voice of Withers) "No."
"Is that a lie?"
"No."
"Ok, but was that a lie?"
Are we to add can’t read to your proclivity of lying?
“Previous presidents have occasionally made aggressive use of that power, including when President Obama temporarily shielded from deportation undocumented immigrants who had been brought to the country as children. But the Obama administration also said such “deferred action” could be revoked and did not claim it made their presence lawful, nor cease to enforce immigration law against others. In her letters, Ms. Bondi went far beyond that. Because of Mr. Trump’s order, she said, tech firms that acted contrary to the statute were breaking no law, even in theory, and the department was “irrevocably relinquishing” any legal claims against them — including under future administrations.“
They refused Trump v1.0 the power to revoke DACA, remember?
It was the first case in US history where a previous President bound a future President.
So Lex is your sock puppet? See the answer I gave him/you, but I also add it was an APA reversal and certainly not the first one.
No. Didn't happen. They rejected how he tried to do it.
Yes, it established that something created by executive order can only be removed if you follow every single bit of the APA. Or you can consider it the "but Trump" rule.
Yes, it established that something created by executive order can only be removed if you follow every single bit of the APA.
Not unreasonable, though I guess Congress can remove it.
Prosecutorial discretion is saying "we don't feel like prosecuting people who spit on the sidewalk, kill socialist Democrats, or fail to report small amounts of cash income." The acts are still illegal but you got away with it this time, or until a new prosecutor takes over. Bondi went further and said Trump can make illegal acts legal by declaring them to be obstacles to his goals.
No. Did you bother to read before responding?
Probably not.
...and the cultists agree.
Also note yet another “defense” that is 100% pure a whataboutism attempt. If principles were water they could carry theirs in a net.
It's another day, so it's another impeachable act by King Trump.
Got another high crime or misdemeanor in mind?
Marijuana is still a Schedule I substance, illegal under Federal law.
That law is not being enforced.
Didn’t that get changed under Biden?
NO.
That sucks, I thought they moved it off of Schedule One a year or two ago. Was it just suggested, but not done?
and Cocaine, Fentanyl, and Oxycodone are only Schedule 2, Vot a Country!!!!! OK, as a reformed Pot Head (it's for the Glaucoma, I have a Medical Card!!!) Cocaine, Fentanyl, and Oxycodone are more useful for Anesthesia during a Rhinoplasty, Open Heart, and the pain with terminal Cancer. When Leatherface takes out the Chainsaw to saw through my Sternum, I'd rather have 2000 mcgs of Fentanyl occupying my Mu receptors than the buzz from some fresh "Northern Lights"
The quasi-strike by public defenders in Massachusetts continues. The Supreme Judicial Court recently activated the "Lavallee protocol" in two counties. Defendants who do not get appointed counsel must be released from jail within seven days and have charges dismissed without prejudice within 45 days.
The public defenders who are on strike are contract workers, paid $65 per hour for a misdemeanor up to $120 per hour for a homicide. They want the pay scale to start at $100 per hour. The minority of public defenders who are state employees are still on the job. They are taking on the more serious cases so violent criminals don't have to be released.
In Suffolk County, hundreds of people are unrepresented, including dozens in custody, according to the Committee for Public Counsel Services. Of those in custody, more than 20 have been detained for longer than seven days. The situation is similar in Middlesex County, where hundreds of people charged with crimes still didn’t have lawyers as of this week. Of those, more than two dozen are in custody, including six people who have been held longer than seven days, according to CPCS.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/07/03/metro/bar-advocate-strike-explainer/
I expect we'll find that prosecuting crimes isn't as important as society thinks. Tens of thousands of drug test results were ruled inadmissible and life went on. Tens of thousands of breathalyzer tests were ruled inadmissible and life went on.
Just deport them.
What if they have no criminal records because charges were dropped?
Sounds like a "you problem", amirite?
I think that whether prosecuting crimes is as important as society thinks is very dependent on the crime in question.
The solution is simple -- let ANYONE take the bar exam. I've seen some of these contract attorneys, they're incompetent and not worth $65/hour.
Janitor who can't even clean floors well thinks himself competent to opine on legal services.
Dr. Ed’s role here seems to be to post such fact-free things, interspersed with fantasies of oncoming civil war, that he makes the rank idiocy of paleocons like Jesse and Mother merely look incredibly stupid by comparison. Because as mindbogglingly idiotic as paleocon “logic” is, Dr. Ed makes them look like amateurs.
$65 an hour? For a lawyer? Wow.
I mean, soon they're going to be paying lawyers under minimum wage at those rates.
10,000 untested rape kits jn Detroit 15 years ago, not so cool.
You get what you elect, patter meisters intent on cutting everything except direct handouts and projects for their connected cronies, so their family fortunes skyrocket at multiples of their servant-of-the-people salaries.
Happy 4th of July!
"10,000 untested rape kits jn Detroit 15 years ago, not so cool."
I've never understood why people think every rape kit should be tested. It's easy to imagine scenarios where they're not likely to lead to useful evidence, or that expending resources in other ways is more likely to lead to useful evidence.
Probably because rape is arguably only second to murder as the most heinous crime in society (although a strong argument can be made it’s the worst) and those are the sort of criminals that every conceivable effort should be made to catch the perpetrators, even if it means letting some jaywalkers and abortion providers get off Scott free.
"... (although a strong argument can be made it’s the worst) ..." Not making light of rape (both male and female) but how so?
Murder involves suffering for a relatively short period of time. My father was raped by a priest in the mid-1940s and it was something that he still remembered, and was haunted by, when he died a few years ago.
Rape causes damage that is deep and enduring. People who inflict that sort of suffering are the worst people in the world.
But I’m not actually sure if I would call it worse. Because I have seen and suffered the fallout of rape, but never of murder, I could be biased.
Sounds like you missed the part where is said some kits are "...not likely to lead to useful evidence..."
I'm sure there are some kits where the perp has already pled guilty, or is dead, or the victim has recanted, or the prosecutor thinks the resources are better spent canvasing the area looking for witnesses, etc.
So don’t worry about the rest? Your points, while possibly accurate, don’t help the ones that got no justice.
Microsoft fired 9,000 US workers while applying for 14,800 H1-Bs.
This is what happens in every company taken over by Indian management.
H1-B needs to go. Pajeets are horrible workers with a garbage culture. Brahmans are a different chaste and have Aryan blood, but H1-B doesn't distinguish between Brahmans and the human and literal garbage that is the rest of India.
are a different chaste
Maybe they’re hiring those folks because they can spell caste, unlike some white supremacists here?
As mentioned below:
Do they pay you for typo-pouncing? Or was that a freebie to Jing?
Ah, he”s upset now!
We do not need the Brahman H-1B workers either.
There are problems not adhering to the rule of exhausting local talent before importing H1Bs.
But thanks for the racist diatribe! Thanks for helping!
Right? Even when he makes a good point, it makes your skin crawl to agree with someone like him or Misek.
I was going to respond to the first false claim, but reading the rest of the comment just made it clear how little it was worth it.
We should also remember on this day that 2.5 years ago President Biden had a nationwide speech where he declared Trump supports to be enemies of Democracy. All 79M of them.
Trump supports to be enemies of Democracy.
Lol
lol, they are the same, pathetic.
Biden was a puppet President. That was truly anti-democratic. He occupied the office while others did the job.
Biden was wrong; Trump supporters are hostis humani generis.
What proportion of them simp for Hamas?
Not as high a percentage as MAGA supporters of Vladimir Putin.
Narrative fail.
Leftists claim that no illegal aliens are receiving Medicaid benefits. Yet, 20 states are suing to prevent DHS from using Medicaid data to find illegal aliens.
"Those controversial Medicaid cuts come from two basic categories: cutting off able-bodied men who refuse to work, and not using Medicaid to provide health care for illegals. Democrats downplay the first and deny the second is happening at all, despite massive evidence to the contrary. But a funny thing happened this week that largely went unnoticed--a number of states are suing to prevent the federal government from using Medicaid data to find illegal aliens."
You couldn't make this shit up.
https://hotair.com/david-strom/2025/07/03/oops-narrative-fail-n3804448
"cutting off able-bodied men who refuse to work,"
So employers should be required to hire them?!? I don't think that there is a large number of employers who would want to, some people are simply unemployable.
But eliminate their medicare and what happens when they can call 911 (on their Obamaphone) for free? Free....
Nobody is required to employ them. https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/a-closer-look-at-the-medicaid-work-requirement-provisions-in-the-big-beautiful-bill/
Congrats to the DOJ turning P Diddy into a sympathetic figure
Yes. He is currently being held in jail without bail, even though he was only convicted of paying adults for consensual sexual relations.
Federal felony sentencing is quite harsh. Mann Act convictions have a presumptive sentence of two years or so. If sentenced close to guidelines he has a year or more left to serve, accounting for credit for time in custody awaiting trial. Keeping him locked up is the legally correct move.
I'm missing the part where he left a young woman to asphyxiate (NOT "drowned", there's a difference) when he drove his Oldsmobile off a bridge
The woman was not taken across state lines. That's the difference. Plus Diddy did not hurt anyone, or at least was not convicted of hurting anyone.
The original post is a grey box, so I can’t see what he said, but am I to understand that you are defending Diddy as some sort of non-violent john railroaded by the system?
After an exhaustive prosecution, Diddy was only convicted of nonviolence acts. He has a right to be considered innocent of the other charges.
Except for the video of him beating a woman to a pulp. Was he convicted? No. Is he actually, in reality, a violent man? Yes.
So you are correct, but I don’t see him as some innocent, overcharged victim.
I was commenting on the Inanity of a certain Late Senator from Massachusetts who got away with leaving a young woman to Asphyxiate (not drowned, there's a difference) while P. Diddy gets the entire force of the DOJ thrown at him because he likes to let his Freak Flag fly. I missed the part where Diddy shared classified material with Fang-Fang
When was the last time anyone was prosecuted under the Mann Act and has it ever been challenged as to Constitutionality?
The constitutionality of the Mann Act was unsuccessfully challenged in Hoke v. United States, 227 U.S. 308 (1913).
Chief Justice Marshall famously opined in Gibbons v. Ogden,Gibbons v. Ogden, 22 U.S. (9 Wheat.) 1, 3 (1824), that "The power [of the Congress] to regulate commerce extends to every species of commercial intercourse between the United States and foreign nations, and among the several States." After all, "Commerce, undoubtedly, is traffic, but it is something more: it is intercourse." Id., at 189.
Per Wikipedia, On 29 December 2021, Maxwell was convicted by a jury in US federal court on five sex trafficking-related counts carrying a potential custodial sentence of up to 65 years' imprisonment: one of sex trafficking of a minor (maximum: 40 years), one of transporting a minor with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity (10 years) and three of conspiracy to commit choate felonies (15 years total). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghislaine_Maxwell Counts One and Three alleged conspiracy to violate the Mann Act, and Counts Two and Four charged substantive violations thereof. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/US_v_Ghislaine_Maxwell_Indictment.pdf
Also in 2021 R. Kelly was convicted of Mann Act violations and of RICO charges predicated thereupon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._Kelly
In federal court, denial of bail pending appeal is the rule. Granting bail after conviction is the exception.
That makes sense, as the defendant in the case was proven guilty.
And here we are
50th Anniversary of Arthur Ashes upset Wimbledon win over Jimmy Connors (not surprisingly JC is still my favorite player(McEnroe was second) Left handed, Frank(get it?) speaking, played every match to the bitter end, Only win Arthur had against Connors Sadly died too young, caught the Hiv-ie from a tainted blood transfusion during bypass surgery (tell me again why gays should be allowed to donate blood?)
"McEnroe was second"
It didn't quell your enthusiasm when he insulted Serena Williams by saying she was the best women's tennis player of all time?
Not an insult.
You'd think.
Well she's a man, so that's a bit of an "Advantage" (get it?, An "Advantage"? in Tennis??)
"tell me again why gays should be allowed to donate blood?"
Because homosexuality is not transmitted through blood. But also, people with [known] blood-borne infections, such as AIDS, are not eligible to donate blood. And all donations are screened for HIV.
Anybody can unwittingly infect a recipient through their blood donation. But in weeding out risky blood donors, we try not to cast a net so wide that it catches us all.
I suspect you know this better than me.
There's also an unknown time interval between when peoples become able to spread their Hiv-ie, and when they actually test positive.
Interesting. It's hard to assess relative risk of various blood borne pathogens. But HIV transmission through blood transfusion is a known, potentially fatal risk. IV drug users are expected to wait 3 months since last IV usage before donating to provide a margin of safety for the potential risk interval you describe. That 3 month wait also applied to "men having sex with men" up until 2023. In 2023, all advisories for men having sex with men were dropped by the Red Cross on advice from the FDA. It looks to me like that decision was primarily driven by a desire to make the process "more inclusive." (That's usually a catch phrase used to describe lowering standards and letting more bad shit happen.)
However, the new screening questionnaire asks everybody if they have had any new sex partners within the past three months, and if the answer is "yes," it goes on to ask if contact included "anal sex." If the answer to that is "yes," they are "deferred" for 3 months to create a safety interval.
So they've switched from identifying men having sex with men to people who have recent new anal sex partners. That sounds to me like a pretty good proxy for vector of transmission.
"So they've switched from identifying men having sex with men to people who have recent new anal sex partners. That sounds to me like a pretty good proxy for vector of transmission."
Not necessarily. An inquiry about a man having sex with men would not include men having anal sex with women.
Yes. And that's why the inquiry into recent anal sex partners sounds to me like a pretty good proxy for vector of transmission. I don't see what your difference is.
Happy Yankees Not in First Place Day to all that celebrate.
The Yankees now play the Mets (oh look, another pitcher is hurt!) in a "Subway Series." The subway to take is the 7 train.
Today's game starts at 3:10. The Red Sox got the holiday games started and are already playing.
Congrats to Francisco Lindor for being selected as starting shortstop for the All-Star Game.
https://sny.tv/video/francisco-lindor-honored-and-proud-of-first-all-star-selection-as-a-met
Some British politicians, including Jeremy Corbyn, want to form a new political party to the left of Labour. More payments to poor Britons, fewer payments to Israel. The Labour Party is down almost a third in popularity since gaining power. Thirty years ago John Major's Tories also had double digit percentage point loss of support.
I wish the American political parties would fragment. I wish we had a political system that allowed parties to fragment. In modern times the national parties have too much money. The Supreme Court will decide in its next term whether to allow limits on coordinated spending between parties and candidates. If members of Congress felt inclined to undermine the system that brought them power, unfavorable tax treatment of large political parties would be a start.
You know, our federal republic system is terrible, until you realize the other representative systems are truly atrocious.
What is the tangible benefit of fragmented parties? What do we gain in such a system? The EU has coalition gov'ts and they're busy throwing out electoral results or just muddling through. There is no dynamism to be had in the EU. Israel's system is positively poisonous. After that it is majoritarian, authoritarian and totalitarian regimes.
I'll keep our terrible system. 😉
“ What is the tangible benefit of fragmented parties? What do we gain in such a system”
It prevents us from constantly electing the least-awful person. In America, the three questions are:
1) Is one of the candidates so awful I feel obligated to vote against them? 2) Can I stomach voting for either of them? 3) Am I so disgusted that I just stay home? (Millions chose this in the last election, which is why there was such a drop off in voters)
Most people aren’t enthusiastic to vote for anyone who makes it through the primary process. So people here don’t really vote for anyone, they largely vote against candidates.
This is one of the many reasons why Ranked Choice Voting is such a great idea. If the two parties can’t assume that they will benefit from just being the less-bad option, they’ll have to start representing their constituents because if they don’t it will be very clear they don’t have a mandate (indicated by a majority vote total in the first round) and there’s a real possibility that if both are awful that one of the major parties could come in third, especially in state and local elections.
Anything that forces our representatives to vote their constituents’ priorities, not their national party’s, is a good thing.
“ The EU has coalition gov'ts and they're busy throwing out electoral results or just muddling through.”
But that is a post hoc fallacy. Just because one happens, it doesn’t mean the second follows (nor even that the first cause the second).
“ I'll keep our terrible system.”
Democracy? Abso-fucking-lutely. First-past-the-post elections and two major parties that limit ballot access for anyone else? Absolutely not. We can do better. We should do better.
Ranked choice is total BS; statistical sophistry in lieu of actual enumeration.
You literally have no idea what you are talking about. You got this wrong before, and you're proving that again. RCV is not "statistical" anything; it is actual enumeration.
And blatantly Un-Constitutional, under "1 Man-1Vote" so in NYC you could vote for up to 5 candidates, Lets say, you have Hitler, Stalin, Castro, Khomeni, Zoran Ramalama-Ding-Dong, and Curtis Sliwa, No way I'm going to rank anyone except Sliwa, so I'm effectively limited to 1 Vote, all of the Zoran's peoples get 5. RCV's a bad idea, like SSM, it just needs a good case to go the Surpremes, like Mullah Zoran getting erected and declaring Sharia from the steps of Gracie Mansion
so I'm effectively limited to 1 Vote, all of the Zoran's peoples get 5.
You're not limited. You limited yourself. And Mamdani's supporters don't get to vote for him five times.
Why do you criticize things you plainly don't remotely understand?
The two party system and massive barriers to ballot access are bullshit. RCV is a better system all around, plus it makes the untrue “I have a mandate from the voters” … who were only given two choices … painfully obvious if the candidate doesn’t win on the first ballot.
Anything to blunt the power of the two parties is welcome, the fact that RCV is better in all ways is just a bonus.
Hell, the fact that any runoff wouldn’t require a new, costly election is enough to get me on board. But I’m a deficit hawk, so there’s that.
There's also a split on the right. A recent poll showed the Reform Party at 34%, Labour at 25%, and Conservative at 15%. If an election were held this year we might see PM Nigel Farage. But Starmer has four more years to mess things up or save his party.
One of my favorite lines from "Dazed & Confused" (there's so many)
Ms. Ginny Stroud: "Okay guys, one more thing, this summer when you're being inundated with all this American bicentennial Fourth Of July brouhaha, don't forget what you're celebrating, and that's the fact that a bunch of slave-owning, aristocratic, white males didn't want to pay their taxes."
Meanwhile, for those wondering how Rudy Guiliani is doing ...
President Donald Trump’s Homeland Security Advisory Council — a group that includes Rudy Giuliani, cop-turned-actor Bo Dietl and the founder of Bikers for Trump — held its first meeting on Wednesday to discuss the top threats facing the nation.
The conversation quickly turned to New York City mayoral candidate Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani.
https://www.thecity.nyc/2025/07/02/trump-homeland-security-council-zohran-mamdani/
https://www.dhs.gov/homeland-security-advisory-council-members
Curtis Sliwa got an endorsement while Eric Adams is "kind of our candidate.” Zohran Mamdani did not receive a lot of love.
Noem is open for ideas:
“The Department of Homeland Security has authorities that have never been utilized before … and I’m going to need some good minds on how to use those authorities,” she said.
Nazi Barbie at it again.
"I’m going to need some good minds"
In the context of the Trump administration, I read this and think about the scarecrow in Wizard of Oz. "If I only had a brain."
I think you're selling several members of the administration short. Rubio for one has been a standout.
“ and I’m going to need some good minds”
Well then, you’d better start looking outside MAGAworld because those guys are the most scary combination: angry, petulant, powerful, and clueless.
Their Lives.
Their Fortunes.
Their Sacred Honor.
And people today think they have problems?
No tax on overtime -- what is going to happen when people realize that police officers and governmental bureaucrats are getting six figures of tax-free income? Six figures...
While the person working two or three jobs pays tax on his income. And now Trump is not going to deal with the illegal aliens working in the hospitality and food industries -- thus preventing those wages from rising. Thus preventing the American working three job from making more money.
Trump has gone to the dark side, just like Reagan did in his second term.
I'm sure there is a lot to dislike in the bill. We need tax simplification, not vote-buying payouts. Unfortunately, when the Democrats come into power they won't do any better.
I oppose the bill, but only $12,500 single/$25,000 joint is deductible from overtime. Still dumb, but it's not going to be six figures. And it's not exempt from FICA.
"Six Figures" really isn't that much anymore, and if you don't like "45/47"'s Second Term, it's better than Prostatic Joe's was and Common-Law's First would have been. and besides, he'll have a Third Term to fix any remaining problems.
BREAKING: In a new case, Judge Randolph Moss issued an administrative stay this morning blocking the Trump admin from "moving, transferring, or removing from U.S. custody" the eight men the U.S. wants to send to South Sudan while the stay remains in effect. More to come at Law Dork: lawdork.com
Judge Moss has scheduled a hearing in this new habeas action for 12:30p. I tried to secure remote access but have been unsuccessful. Because it's an immigration habeas case, the filings are not publicly accessible on PACER but the orders are. The case is Phan v. DHS (Docket No. 25-cv-2147).
Randolph Moss is a piece of shit. He also ruled that pardoned 1/6 defendants are not entitled to a refund of fines. He may be right on the law, technically, but he's ruling this way because he is a Democrat Party appointee and probably thinks the defendant was justly prosecuted for "insurrection."
A federal judge ruling based on the law?!?
The sheer audacity!
Except he wouldn't have ruled this way had the shoe been on the other foot. I know the way Obama appointees think.
Read the below. He was clearly biased.
"On July 19, 2021, Moss sentenced Paul Hodgkins, a Florida man who participated in the 2021 United States Capitol attack to eight months in prison. Moss acknowledged that this man was part of a larger mob, but said that "Although you were only one member of a larger mob, you actively participated in a larger event that threatened the Capitol and democracy itself." At the time of his sentencing, Hodgkins is the third person to be sentenced for their participation in the January 6 riot, and his sentence is the longest thus far."
What is that supposed to prove?
“ Except he wouldn't have ruled this way had the shoe been on the other foot. I know the way Obama appointees think.”
Are all white supremacists psychic, or is it just you?
“ Although you were only one member of a larger mob”
So since it’s only ever possible to be one person, you think that because he was part of a large mob of rioters, rather than a small group of violent rioters, that he shouldn’t have been convicted and sentenced?
“ He also ruled that pardoned 1/6 defendants are not entitled to a refund of fines.”
That’s because they are criminals who did illegal things, but their Leader made it so they can pretend they weren’t violent rioters who smashed their way into the Capitol and assaulted law enforcement officers. Fuck those guys.
Plus I’m assuming you are only referring to the ones who aren’t already back in jail, often for child pornography charges. Nice folks, those J6 rioters.
Back up to the Supremes?
more: https://substack.com/inbox/post/167532909
The post now includes a link to the complaint. Plaintiffs claim to be in a shipping container in Djibouti.
https://www.lawdork.com/p/breaking-judge-issues-administrative
My first impression is the plaintiffs lost in one court and are trying again with a different judge hoping the Supreme Court can't act quickly enough.
This is the 2nd time this judge has decided to ignore SCOTUS.
This is a threat to Democracy.
If they had filed in Maryland then they would have gotten that guaranteed 2-day TRO.
This is the same case that just lost in Boston, with the Supreme Court staying the preliminary injunction twice in one week, now they refile their case in DC, with a different judge, and the judge obliges.
July 4 (Reuters) - A federal judge briefly halted the Trump administration on Friday from placing eight migrants on a plane destined for conflict-ridden South Sudan, to give lawyers for the men time to make their argument to a court in Massachusetts. U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss in Washington made the ruling at an emergency hearing on July 4, when courts are otherwise closed for the Independence Day holiday. The group of migrants had filed new claims on Thursday after the Supreme Court clarified that a federal judge in Boston could no longer require U.S. Department of Homeland Security to hold them."
They are playing Calvinball.
Maybe the judge is waiting for a unanimous decision. (first time 6-3; second time 7-2)
Case was transferred to Judge Murphy who subsequently denied the plaintiff's motion as being substantially similar to the preliminary injunction that SCOTUS already stayed twice.
I guess Judge Murphy decided that going 0-2 against SCOTUS was enough for him.
Paul Hodgkins ...
The judge also said he was "less convinced" that Hodgkins simply lost his bearings for a short period of time. He noted that Hodgkins traveled by bus from Tampa to Washington, D.C., carrying goggles and other gear with him.
"Hodgkins entered the Capitol wearing a backpack containing protective eye goggles, rope, and white latex gloves, among other items," Assistant U.S. Attorney Mona Sedky wrote in the memo. "He made his way to the heart of the proceeding that he has pleaded guilty to obstructing – the Senate chamber – where he took 'selfie-style' photographs and saluted others who were shouting and cheering from a nearby raised platform in the well of the chamber."
In one sense, the government believes that Hodgkins belonged to a select group of U.S. Capitol breach defendants, as one of the roughly 50 people in a group of 800 who made it all the way to the Senate Chamber on Jan. 6th.
https://lawandcrime.com/u-s-capitol-siege/more-than-a-simple-riot-florida-man-will-spend-eight-months-behind-bars-in-first-felony-sentencing-for-the-u-s-capitol-breach/
Who cares? They didn't do anything other than simple trespassing. Unlike your BLM Democrat friends who rioted and burned down fast food restaurants.
Well, except for all the smashing doors and windows, assaulting law officers, and trying to breach defended positions (the action that got Ashli Babbitt exactly what she deserved). Other than the rioting and smashing, how was the peaceful obstruction of Congress?
By that logic, all the BLM protesters were guilty of murder because there were more than a few murders associated with those protests.
Meanwhile, this guy was specifically accused of ... interstate travel with goggles.
I said nothing about murder. What a strawman.
Your insinuation that I somehow think that the people who rioted and smashed things at BLM protests shouldn’t be prosecuted is ridiculous. ANY rioter should be prosecuted, I don’t care whether you think your cause is just.
But Ashli Babbitt was amongst a group that was warned that they were trying to breach a position defended by armed guards. They tried anyway.
The fact that she was an idiot as well as a violent rioter doesn’t change anything. She was warned, she ignored the warning, she got ventilated. She got exactly what she deserved, as well as what she asked for.
She was a shitty person when she was alive. The world is just a small bit better off with her dead.
Suicide by cop isn’t murder.
“ Meanwhile, this guy was specifically accused of ... interstate travel with goggles.”
While participating in a violent rioter. You apologists always seem to forget that it was a riot.
MAGA surely laments this unprecedented attack on 'free speech' in a "real authoritarian shithole", the United Kingdom: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jul/04/ban-on-palestine-action-to-take-effect-after-legal-challenge-fails
I predict an imminent and lucrative re-branding exercise...
I better run out a virtue signal my disapproval so you won't look down on MAGA!!!
I guess those of us that want aggressive enforcement of immigration laws should thank the activists organizations and judges that tried to block the early, undermanned efforts to deport illegals. Now that the upper courts have had a chance to weigh in and clear many of the hurdles, like 3rd nation deportations, what due process is needed to meet habeas requirements, now the decks are cleared for the real effort enabled by funding from the OBBB:
ICE will now "be supercharged on a massive scale:
- $45 billion to more than double ICE detention capacity to roughly 100k beds. - $14 billion for transport & removal. - $8 billion to hire 10,000 additional ICE personnel, more than doubling current 5k deportation officers.- $1.3 billion for ICE OPLA (additional attorneys & support staff). - $858 million for signing & retention bonuses. - $787 for state/local participation in ICE/DHS efforts. - $700 million for technology enhancements. - $650 million for 287g/local ICE cooperation. - $600 million for recruitment, hiring, & onboarding. - $200 million for fleet modernization. - $20 million to detain aliens with their children."
https://x.com/BillMelugin_/status/1940595458126295092
Thank God the GOP is so committed to cutting spending and balancing the budget. Oh, right.
"Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."
- Barry Goldwater
I've posed the question several times whether the enormous surge of illegal immigrants under Biden was a deliberate policy, or merely incompetence.
But now that Trump is in office, many of those that insisted that Biden was doing his best to enforce the law, are advocating Trump deliberately stop enforcing the law.
Congress disagrees, and has now given the administration the tools to robustly enforce the law as Congress intended.
In 2024 Trump specifically ordered his minions in Congress to kill a bipartisan attempt which had threatened to bolster the failing US immigration infrastructure that had been overwhelmed and which hampered Biden's enforcement efforts.
But, as in all other things, Trump's main goal with regard to immigration was to ensure that only he benefitted from any proposed legislative solutions. (That observation really shouldn't be controversial, but we'll see...)
Just get over it, there's a long history of fake immigration reforms that get a few Republican squishes to sign on, and that one was no different. It's been analyzed here multiple times, on occasion by me, and you know what was wrong with it.
We got where we did on illegal immigration because of administrations deliberately not enforcing existing laws, and new laws can't fix that.
And especially not new compromises, where we know the enforcement end will be ignored, and the part the other side gets will be upheld.
Until it's proven that immigration laws will be enforced, there's no basis for compromise, and if they are enforced?
There's no need.
Just get over it, there's a long history of fake immigration reforms that get a few Republican squishes to sign on, and that one was no different.
Except it was entirely different. Once again: this was a proposal by a hardline Republican, not some moderate compromise by Susan Collins or something.
"the failing US immigration infrastructure that had been overwhelmed and which hampered Biden's enforcement efforts."
That's such a bullshit claim. Nothing substantive in statute changed either when Biden entered office and the numbers shot up, or when he left office and the numbers plummeted. The crisis of illegal immigration was entirely manufactured by the Biden administration acting to reduce and impede enforcement.
It's so much "bullshit" that most of the BUB's new spending is supposedly to address exactly that...
Well, a Barry Goldwater quote says something, that’s for sure.
I would ask you about this purported “massive surge” of illegal immigration. Biden was second only to Obama in how many people he deported. Obama was the king, with 91% of his total deportees (a record number that hasn’t been matched since) being criminals. Trump is a distant third in volume and % of criminals deported.
Am I wrong to long for the Obama approach, where large numbers of criminal illegals were deported? Am I wrong to be frustrated by the Trump Administration, which makes a huge show of its “efforts” to deport illegals, but fails miserably in both volume and criminality?
It’s not like we don’t know that it can be done better, since Obama was fantastic. So why can’t Trump get the same results? Is it perhaps because they want to be intentionally cruel and beat their chests in some sort of macho display rather than actually, effectively getting rid of illegals?
What’s your thought? Why is Trump the least effective at deportations of the last three Presidents?
The Dems' leadership and spokeshoples seem to think so.
Making the Gestapo the biggest law enforcement organization on the planet, all for no legitimate law enforcement purpose.
David, illegal aliens do not belong here. It is perfectly legitimate to remove them. Congress passed the laws.
Congress passes lots of dumbass laws.
Why do you disagree with laws about deportations?
Because I'm a libertarian! I thought I've made that clear. Victimless crimes ought not to be crimes. I have no problem deporting violent criminals (or people who commit serious non-violent crimes). I don't think someone who comes here and supports him/herself and his/her family has done anything meriting deportation, regardless of how the person got here.
We have to maintain control of immigration. I agree that the cruelty just highlights the awfulness of the people involved, the lack of concern about whether they are actually illegal is legally offensive, the lack of efficiency and effectiveness deserves mockery, but that doesn’t make open borders a good idea.
Increase legal immigration. Create migrant worker programs that allow those who wish to come here gain credit and reputation as hardworking and law-abiding. But just letting anyone come in is a terrible idea.
I often find myself agreeing with you, but this isn’t one of those times.
Isn't it depressingly refreshing when two libertarians can have a polite disagreement about something relating to a current issue like this?
If only there were some place where that could happen regularly...lol
Illegal border crossings are not 'victimless crimes', David. We pay for them. Money spent on criminal illegal aliens is not spent on American citizens who need our help.
You are as libertarian as you are Egyptian.
Illegal border crossings are not 'victimless crimes', David. We pay for them.
We do not, in fact. (On the other hand, funding ICE is a crime that we pay a lot for. But that's a self-inflicted wound.)
Money spent on criminal illegal aliens is not spent on American citizens who need our help.
Which part of libertarian do you not understand? "We" — meaning the government/taxpayers — should not be spending money on any of them, aliens or citizens.
'Jews do not belong in Germany. It is perfectly legitimate to remove them. The Reich passed the laws.'
Commenter keeps making Good German arguments.
What a pathetic POS you are.
Projection, again. You elevate law over human rights.
The MAGA cult's vilification of illegal aliens is simply satiating their need to have a class of people to look down on, akin to the subjugation of black folks under Jim Crow.
In reality, most Americans benefit from the presence of (otherwise law abiding) aliens who have entered or remained here unlawfully. Without them, grocers, restaurateurs and hotel/motel operators would likely raise prices significantly.
Yeah, right, Laken Riley (who Prostatic Joe called "Lincoln Riley") really benefitted from the piece of shit who murdered her being here.
Very great point!
Frank, what part of "otherwise law abiding" do you not understand?
They are not at all the same. The 'black folks' (your term, rather peculiar at that) were citizens who appropriately used the Courts to obtain justice, and vindication of their rights as American citizens.
Illegal aliens are criminals who do not belong here.
Exactly. Minority MAGA-types seem to think MAGA (or whatever follows it) will never turn on them...
More than $70B for mostly pointless cruelty. An utter waste.
The cruelty is the point.
Cruelty has a point. It just is not a good one.
The poin t is protecting us, especially white girls, from their crimes!
Michael Madsen, "Mr. Blonde" of "Reservoir Dogs" has died, Mr. Pink still isn't tipping.
One of the great movie bad guys. The song "Stuck in the Middle with You," by Stealer's Wheel, in the warehouse, with Mr. Blonde helping a cop to a close shave.
Scary thing is I didn't think Madsen was acting. (the mark of a great Actor)
What an awesome movie. I believe that of everyone that had a camera pointed at them through the whole movie, only one didn’t die.
Obama's tweet today is just a reminder why he's the biggest self-absorbed piece of shit this country has seen in generations.
Won't link to it because it's so disgusting.
Give him some credit. Obama encouraged Trump to run for President. Without that, where would we be?
Talk about dodging a bullet, probably 2 terms of Hillary Rodman
As long as Trump is living, everyone else will be fighting for a distant second.
I doubt even Trump would elevate his campaign slogan to be on par with "We the People".
He's garbage.
Trump probably associates the phrase with Dutch Mantell's Zeb Colter character in the WWF.
I mean, Trump chose a Nazi slogan as his slogan. Though for you, that's probably a plus.
Sorry, I'm a Jew, but I've used "Arbeit Macht Frei" for years. It's true, and if it's a "Nazi Slogan" so is the Bible, which is where it came from.
What's so terrible about this?
Independence Day is a reminder that America is not the project of any one person. The single most powerful word in our democracy is the word ‘We.’ ‘We The People.’ ‘We Shall Overcome.’ ‘Yes We Can.’ America is owned by no one. It belongs to all citizens. And at this moment in history—when core democratic principles seem to be continuously under attack, when too many people around the world have become cynical and disengaged—now is precisely the time to ask ourselves tough questions about how we can build our democracies and make them work in meaningful and practical ways for ordinary people.
Or are you just distressed at the thought of one of those people being more articulate than Dear Leader?
You're acting like Barry Hussein (Peace be upon Him) wrote that himself. Love to hear him try to read that (redacted) he and Sleepy Joe stutter worse than "Spider" from Goodfellas and Porky Pig combined.
Wait, that’s what he has his panties in a wad about? Jeesh!
Weird that of the 21st Century Presidents, Obama is by far the best. It says a lot about where our parties have gone in the past two decades or so.
Good showing by the Mets today.
RIP Michael Madsen.
In a career spanning more than 300 movies and television shows, Mr. Madsen was frequently cast as volatile, trigger-happy tough guys. Tall and ruggedly handsome at 6-foot-2, he landed small roles in a few big movies, including “WarGames” (1983) and “The Natural” (1984), before playing a violent ex-boyfriend in the John Dahl thriller “Kill Me Again” (1989), starring Val Kilmer.
I liked him in Species. His sister is also an actress, Virginia Madsen. She wasn't in quite that many things but has been quite busy.
also had a small part in "The Doors" playing one of Jim Morrison's drinking buddies, he and Val are gonna be closing down every Bar in Heaven.
What kind of horrible fascist state removes citizenship from its own citizens because they accept an award?
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/04/world/europe/nobel-physicist-dutch-citizenship-revoked.html
A country that restricts dual citizenship, without being horrible or fascist. The United States has had a pending amendment for over two centuries that would revoke citizenship from anyone who accepted a title of nobility without the consent of Congress.
"pending", meaning "not enacted". In other words, that's a country more xenophobic and fascist than the United States has ever managed to be, from the enslaving Founding Fathers to the native-massacreing Jackson, past the imperious Lincoln and the cowboy diplomacy of the Better Roosevelt, through the internment camps and government diktats of the Lesser Roosevelt, even until Donald Trump, the US has decided against enacting a milder form of that rule.
This is a weird response; the U.S. has in fact stripped people of citizenship for their conduct throughout its history. Federal law provided that a whole host of acts constituted automatic renunciation of citizenship. It wasn't until Afryoim v. Rusk in 1967 that SCOTUS ruled that the government couldn't do that unless (in essence) the person intended to give up his citizenship with those acts.
David Lieporent gets ever dumber and dumber in his false equivalences and wrong citations. It was 1980's Vance v. Terrazas which held that renunciation of citizenship had to be intentional; Afroyim v. Rusk only held that it must be due to a voluntary act (in that case, a naturalized citizen voting in a foreign election).
That is not in fact what Afroyim v. Rusk held. If it had, the case would've come out the other way. You misunderstood the case.
No, I understand it quite well. It was a blatant abrogation of stare decisis, overruling a nine-year-old precedent on primarily policy grounds ("a source of controversy") with minimal treatment of the merits ("we deem it unnecessary to treat this subject at great length") in order to avoid fracturing the majority. It recognizes that history showed that "the only way the citizenship it conferred could be lost was by the voluntary renunciation or abandonment by the citizen himself" and proceeded to entirely ignore the "abandonment" prong of that in order to strike down the law in question -- which, even so, was much narrower than the Dutch rule in the case here.
I don't deny that Afroyim overruled a recent precedent, but neither that, nor your belief that it didn't address the merits with much detail — you leave off the first half of the sentence you quote, which said "In view of the many recent opinions and dissents comprehensively discussing all the issues involved,⁷ we deem it unnecessary to treat this subject at great length." (Emphasis added) — change the holding of the case, which was that Congress lacked the constitutional power to strip people of citizenship merely by passing a law that said, "By doing X, one is forfeiting one's citizenship."
Before Afroyim, Congress passed a whole bunch of laws that said exactly that, listing a lot of actions that were deemed to be incompatible with citizenship and thus resulted in a loss of citizenship. Afroyim made clear that the relevant question was, "Did you intend to renounce your citizenship?"
2A stuff
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/trump-s-big-beautiful-bill-sparks-gun-group-lawsuit-within-hours/ar-AA1I12z6?ocid=msedgntp&pc=ASTS&cvid=1b50c8beecf94a8ab2b5b1533a9c0eb2&ei=76
Ah, the GOA: It's the principled 2nd amendment organization the NRA pretends to be.
Legally, they should absolutely win. But it isn't legal principle that drives the Court on gun cases, so I suspect they'll lose even with the DOJ on their side.
So nice, by the way, that that is likely.
As a life member of the NRA who competes on a regular basis at the events at my local NRA range I am compelled to put in a good word for the NRA. The range master at every NRA range I have ever been to is way stricter than any range officer I encountered in the military. For very reasonable prices ($US100/year) I get access to my local range with seven dedicated ranges, including a 300 yard one. Every weekend there is a different event to compete in with an entry fee between five to ten dollars. An NRA membership is required to use the range along with a background check. Importantly the NRA also includes six or seven figures of insurance (remember the NRA court case in NY where the NRA sued because the NY government was trying to bully insurance companies to quit covering the NRA).
Historically the NRA was started by two Union officers just after the civil war because they were appalled by the poor marksmanship of Union soldiers and wanted to promote improved marksmanship via the NRA. Bottom line is if you want to train and compete an NRA membership is almost mandatory, and the price is quite reasonable. Not sure about the politics.
any that allow Full Auto fire? and before you answer, like a good Shyster I only ask questions I already know the answers to.
https://www.airgundepot.com/hatsan-blitz-full-auto-pcp-air-rifle.html
Oh, they're great at stuff like range safety. They're just crap when it comes to consistently defending the 2nd amendment. Like, when they tried to sabotage the Heller case because they thought it was a loser. Or made excuses for Dingle voting for the '94 AWB. Or more recently signed off on that damned bump stock ban.
I was about 20 feet from Neal Knox at the Philly convention when they cut off his microphone in mid speech. That night they undid most of the Cincinnati reforms. The next morning I went out and peeled the NRA sticker off my truck. They haven't gotten a cent from me since.
NRA board elections are a rigged joke now, with that nominating committed nominating exactly as many candidates as there are positions; The USSR often did a better job of pretending to be a real democracy than that!
You know, when Bush banned the importation of a rifle I was about to buy, I spent the money instead on an NRA life membership. I've regretted that ever since.
My OP did say there were questions about the NRA's politics. On the other hand stuff like range safety and affordable events and affordable insurance cover a multitude of sins for someone who trains and competes on a regular basis. For me it is a question of 'don't let the perfect be an enemy of the good'.
Why does it take so damn long for this page to reload?
A flight carrying eight men who had been held for weeks on a U.S. military base in Djibouti landed in South Sudan just before midnight Friday, officials said, bringing an end to a six-week legal battle that was resolved by an emergency intervention by the Supreme Court.
It remains unclear whether South Sudan’s government in Juba has detained the men, or what their ultimate fate might be.
The 13-year-old country is on the brink of a civil war; the State Department has warned against travel there because of the risk of “crime, kidnapping and armed conflict.”
In court on Friday, a Justice Department lawyer read from a diplomatic note that said South Sudan would give the men immigration status to allow them to remain there at least temporarily.
The eight men had been shackled for weeks inside an air-conditioned shipping container on a U.S. military base in Djibouti, in the Horn of Africa. Before coming to the United States, the men came from Vietnam, Mexico, Laos, Cuba and Myanmar.
Just one is from South Sudan, a violence-plagued country. All had been convicted of serious crimes in the United States, though many had either finished or were about to finish serving their sentences.
https://archive.ph/YivWH
Finally, the charade is over. This batch of murderers and rapists received the process that they were due and they are no longer our problem.
Amen to that.
The charade that you have any human decency is indeed over. These people — unlike most of Trump's victims — merited deportation. That does not mean that they merited having the government deliberately pick a place where they're likely to be tortured and/or killed to send them to. (Just as a citizen who commits a crime merits imprisonment, but not torture.)
Seems part of the problem is their own countries refusing to accept their deportation.
At least one of the people that Trump was trying to send to South Sudan — one of the Burmese ones — was eligible to go back to his home country and yet (shades of Abrego Garcia, though in reverse) the administration was too incompetent/lazy/zealous to figure that out and was sending him to South Sudan anyway.
But yes, you're correct that a country's unwillingness to accept deportees can cause logistical problems for the U.S., but that is actually what diplomacy is for, and in any case our convenience does not justify human rights violations.
Wonder what the "Abrego Garcia was just sitting around drinking Margaritas" crowd thinks about the treatment alleged by his lawyer.
No doubt XY is cheering.
I admit, having to drink anything with Congressman Van Horrible is inhumane.
Chronic liar and abuser of legal system makes outlandish and unsupported claims. News at 11, sadly, because nobody should indulge this sad grab for undue attention.
Chronic liar and abuser of legal system makes outlandish and unsupported claims.
We're talking about Abrego Garcia, not Trump.
Note that what he alleges is consistent with the limited information available about the prison, and Bukele refuses to let observers in or prisoners out, which he would do if he wanted people to have confidence that there was no mistreatment going on.
Nothing outlandish. All perfectly plausible given what we know about CECOT and Bukele.
When St Abrego's lying, wife beating, human trafficking ass is shipped out (again), I will be cheering. Our country will be materially safer without St Abrego in it.
And the millions who will follow him.
Our country will be materially safer without St Abrego in it.
Abrego Garcia has lived here for more than a decade without being arrested for or charged with any crime. Even with the full resources of the federal government being diverted from legitimate issues to focus on prosecuting him now, the only thing they've charged him with is the victimless crime of driving illegal aliens around. How will we be safer in any way without his presence?
So much rationalization, David.
People here illegally should be removed.
Transporting illegal immigrants is not a victimless crime. There's no such thing as a victimless crime, for that matter. In this case these people take jobs from legal residents, consume resources, like emergency medical care, ICE resources, and maybe even continue to break the law by taking SNAP, voting, and so forth.
That's just repeating the premise, not justifying it.
Transporting illegal immigrants is not a victimless crime.
Who's the victim?
There's no such thing as a victimless crime, for that matter.
No rational human being can believe that statement, and nobody would agree with it. Every single person, from doctrinaire libertarian to hardcore authoritarian, can go through the penal code and find some things that are criminal but harm nobody. An obvious example from a libertarian perspective: I grow marijuana in my backyard for my personal use. (Editor's note: I do not. Either part of that sentence.) Who is the victim?
In this case these people take jobs from legal residents,
They do not, for multiple reasons, including the fact that one's job is not one's property such that it can be taken, and the fact that there is not a fixed amount of jobs.
consume resources, like emergency medical care, ICE resources, and maybe even continue to break the law by taking SNAP, voting, and so forth.
"It's not a victimless crime because we're wasting money on ICE to prevent it" is textbook chutzpah. If you don't want them to consume ICE resources, the solution is to stop spending on ICE.
Also, "they could 'maybe' commit a real crime with a real victim" doesn't make the actual crime (if any — as we've talked about, overstaying a visa isn't a crime) victimful.
I look forward to the usual suspects ranting incoherently that this law enforcement action shows how much Trump and his MAGA supporters demonize illegals. After all, somewhat less than 1% of those swept up in it are alleged to be unlawfully present in the US.
https://nypost.com/2025/07/05/us-news/sweeping-federal-operation-nabs-264-suspects-including-migrants/
I'm actually kind of puzzled here. Are you under the impression that Trump ran on suspending the enforcement of all federal law except immigration laws? What possible significance is there that an effort to round up violent criminals solely on the basis that they were violent criminals mostly rounded up people who were citizens?
Did Trump ever promise that he'd leave rapists and murderers alone so long as they were citizens?
I don't think he did any such thing, but I strongly suspect that leftists will overlook Trump being consistently anti-crime in their fervor to accuse him of xenophobia and racism.
Pardoning the violent J6 rioters (including a startlingly large number who have been subsequently arrested for child porn) would be an indication that no, he doesn’t care about crime. His own history of criminal behavior both as a human and as a businessman would support that analysis.
Trump is a performative clown that his followers think is a serious person.
If he really wanted to fight crime and immigration, he would approach immigration like Obama, who deported more people (91% of whom were criminals, as opposed to 41% of Trump’s deportees).
He wants to be seen to be doing things. Whether those things are actually effective is completely irrelevant to him.
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Jared Dillian | 8.20.2025 3:20 PM
Christian Britschgi | 8.20.2025 2:20 PM
Eric Boehm | 8.20.2025 2:00 PM
Autumn Billings | 8.20.2025 1:34 PM
Reem Ibrahim | 8.20.2025 11:20 AM
