Mostly law professors | Sometimes contrarian | Often libertarian | Always independent
Politics
Eugene Volokh | 8.31.2025 3:00 AM
Start your day with Reason. Get a daily brief of the most important stories and trends every weekday morning when you subscribe to Reason Roundup.
NEXT: Grand Jury Nullification in the District of Columbia?
Hide Comments (340)
Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason at any time. Comments may only be edited within 5 minutes of posting. Report abuses.
President Trump has made the bizarre claim that George Soros and his son should face charges under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act "because of their support of Violent Protests, and much more, all throughout the United States of America”. https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5474433-trump-soros-racketeering-charges/
Two years ago Trump and his then-attorney Alina Habba were ordered to pay sanctions in the amount of $937,989.39 for, among other things, bringing a groundless civil RICO action against Hillary Clinton and a passel of other defendants. https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Trump-v-clinton-order-sanctions-usdc-southern-florida.pdf
Some folks never learn.
Irony much?
Placing ads in Craigs List to pay rioters to burn our cities is not free speech. It is conspiracy. Soros is also funding the Hamas advocates on campus, disrupting education.
I wondered why the Soros family is still alive and rich. At the very least, its assets should be seized in civil forfeiture.
Lend me your laptop an hour, I can get you decades in fed stir and $millions in fines. Everyone commits 3 federal felonies a day, down to toddlers. Why is Soros not being investigated, at least?
In Residency, back in the early days of AlGores Internets, there was this Prick Attending, his pet peeve was peoples not logging off their computers, and he'd blather on about how you were responsible for whatever Internet sites got visited under your log on... One day HE forgot to log off, and I wasn't allowed to be in the room (I was the look out), but several of the Senior Residents signed him up for every Gay Porn site they could, in the course of 15 minutes, before he came back to make sure he'd logged off (of course "He" had by that point) He's probably still getting "Hot Boy Shafts!!!!!" pop ups.
Frank
That's funny. That harkens back to the days of people returning post cards to sign up for magazines in someone else's name, or subscribing them to the Columbia record club. Perhaps you're too young to remember that.
I did that for the Prick Principal who suspended me for a week in 8th grade (I hit this other students fist with my face) "Mr. Leck" (who's name is coincidentally half of a commonly used German profanity) Had one of those Columbia Record Club memberships myself (How I ended up with Peter Frampton's awful follow up to "Frampton Come's Alive) Friends of mine would get them for fictitious names (You know, "Hugh Jass", "Jack Mehoff", and the always popular "Amanda Blow") and an address for one of the base houses that was being renovated. I never had the balls to do that, I'd just not pay and throw away the dunning notices
Then there was the dimwit blonde who you could get to go around the cafeteria asking if anyone had seen Mike Hunt. And, for bernard11: "The Lion's Revenge" by Claude Balls.
I remember doing that.
We used names like I.P. Freeley (author of "The Yellow River,") and Ben Dover.
Juvenile, but fun.
Can the judge sanction the US attorneys for bringing a frivolous criminal case, aside from dismissal or directed verdict?
Per 28 U.S.C. § 530B(a):
An attorney for the Government shall be subject to State laws and rules, and local Federal court rules, governing attorneys in each State where such attorney engages in that attorney’s duties, to the same extent and in the same manner as other attorneys in that State.
28 CFR § 77.3 requires:
In all criminal investigations and prosecutions, in all civil investigations and litigation (affirmative and defensive), and in all civil law enforcement investigations and proceedings, attorneys for the government shall conform their conduct and activities to the state rules and laws, and federal local court rules, governing attorneys in each State where such attorney engages in that attorney's duties, to the same extent and in the same manner as other attorneys in that State, as these terms are defined in § 77.2 of this part.
A federal court can accordingly refer a government attorney to disciplinary authorities where the court sits and/or where the attorney is licensed for investigation and potential imposition of disciplinary sanctions.
The Supreme Court has held that a federal court has the power to control admission to its bar and to discipline attorneys who appear before it. Chambers v. Nasco, Inc., 501 U.S. 32, 43 (1991); Ex parte Burr, 9 Wheat. 529, 22 U. S. 531 (1824).
Independent of statutes or rules, a federal court has inherent authority to impose sanctions. As SCOTUS opined in Chambers:
There is, therefore, nothing in the other sanctioning mechanisms or prior cases interpreting them that warrants a conclusion that federal court may not, as a matter of law, resort to its inherent power to impose attorney's fees as a sanction for bad-faith conduct. This is plainly the case where the conduct at issue is not covered by one of the other sanctioning provisions. But neither is a federal court forbidden to sanction bad-faith conduct by means of the inherent power simply because that conduct could also be sanctioned under the statute or the rules. A court must, of course, exercise caution in invoking its inherent power, and it must comply with the mandates of due process, both in determining that the requisite bad faith exists and in assessing fees, see Roadway Express, [Inc. v. Piper, 447 U. S. 752,] 767 [(1980).] Furthermore, when there is bad-faith conduct in the course of litigation that could be adequately sanctioned under the rules, the court ordinarily should rely on the rules, rather than the inherent power. But if, in the informed discretion of the court, neither the statute nor the rules are up to the task, the court may safely rely on its inherent power.
501 U.S. at 50. While Chambers is a civil action, nothing in the opinion of the Court precludes its application to criminal cases as well.
Hmm. Who was the focus of all the corrupt and malicious investigations and abuses of federal and state prosecutorial powers? Hard to understand your now "principled" stance favoring measures to combat alleged bad behavior when you apparently have embraced the corrupt weaponization of intelligence and lawfare abuses patented by democrats. Actually not that hard. At its core, just more ridiculous leftist projection and distraction.
Riva, how do you fancy such an inane comment to be on topic?
A Japanese Student asked, "Can the judge sanction the US attorneys for bringing a frivolous criminal case, aside from dismissal or directed verdict?" I identified some of the available mechanisms for a federal judge to do so. Those measures would be available to the Court no matter who the offending prosecuting attorney is or who the wrongly targeted defendant is.
What does your blather have to do with any of that?
I thought it was obvious. My comment was directed at you and your lack of principles or standards, except for the double ones.
It’s only programmed for whataboutism, and initially accused NG of distraction! Proof of lack of self-awareness.
Riva, do you dispute the substance of anything I have said here? Yes or no? If so, on what basis?
Do you dispute the corrupt weaponization of intelligence purposed to target President Trump and undermine his administration? Yes or no? On what basis? Did you support the efforts to investigate and bring accountability for that corruption, well as the abusive lawfare that targeted President Trump with the intent to imprison him for the rest of his natural life? Yes or no? On what basis?
Again, Riva, do you dispute the substance of anything I have said here? Yes or no? If so, on what basis?
And I did indeed support the investigation and prosecution of Donald Trump. In marked contrast to the bullshit Trump and Pam Bondi are now pursuing, every prosecution there was supported by boatloads of evidence and was timely.
To the extent you cut and paste excerpts from statutes or court opinions above, there is nothing to dispute. Agreeing with the application of these rules to any particular case would depend on the context so I don't quite understand your tantrum.
But I do dispute your casual dismissal of the investigations currently underway regarding the repulsive and corrupt abuses of power during the Biden and Obama administrations. And speaking of bullshit, you have pointedly gone out of your way to ignore the facts. I guess it's more enjoyable for you to fantasize than let the real world intrude on your little political delusions.
See? It’s not programmed to respond.
And of course an appeal is pending. And in actual news of present consequence, some are now taking a closer look at the questionable financial antics of the democrats and their supporters. Ask ActBlue. Just don’t ask the “influencers” democrats are paying up to $8000 a month to lie.
What facts and legal theories are there that even a buffoon like Donald Trump could think would support a RICO prosecution of George Soros and his son? (Trump did not specify which of four sons that he referred to.)
What is the "enterprise" for purposes of 18 U.S.C. § 1961(4)? A RICO enterprise is “a continuing unit that functions with a common purpose.” Boyle v. United States, 556 U.S. 938, 948 (2009). An association-in-fact enterprise must have a structure. In the sense relevant here, the term “structure” means the way in which parts are arranged or put together to form a whole and the interrelation or arrangement of parts in a complex entity. Such an enterprise must have at least three structural features: a purpose, relationships among those associated with the enterprise, and longevity sufficient to permit these associates to pursue the enterprise's purpose. Id., at 945-946.
An “enterprise” must have some longevity, since the offense proscribed by § 1962(c) demands proof that the enterprise had “affairs” of sufficient duration to permit an associate to “participate” in those affairs through “a pattern of racketeering activity.” Boyle, at 946.
Moreover, the existence of an enterprise is an element distinct from the pattern of racketeering activity and “proof of one does not necessarily establish the other.” Id., at 947, quoting United States v. Turkette, 452 U.S. 576, 583 (1981).
What predicate acts evince the “pattern of racketeering activity” within the meaning of §1961(1) and (5) as required for a criminal conviction? When, where and by whom were such predicate acts committed?
Trump is just talking out of his ample ass.
As Brandeis once wrote. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. The Open Society Foundations now has the opportunity to be open about its dealings.
A criminal defendant or prospective defendant doesn't have to do a damn thing, Riva.
What do you believe to be adequate predication for investigation of George Soros and/or any of his children?
I should have said that a criminal defendant doesn't have to do anything other than appear at his trial.
I suspect that their predicate will be far more than a "dossier" fabricated by a foreign actor hired by the Hillary campaign to smear a political opponent.
And, Not Guilty, what facts exactly are you basing your claim that there is no adequate predicate here?
Since Riva is unable to answer regarding adequate predication for a Soros related RICO investigation, does any other MAGAt dare to try?
I'm not holding my breath.
Sealioning is a form of online trolling where a person, under the guise of sincerity, relentlessly asks for evidence or clarification to exhaust, frustrate, and demoralize their opponent.
Since Not Guilty is unable to answer regarding any basis to conclude that there is no adequate predication for a Soros related RICO investigation, does any other leftist troll dare to try?
Isn't there some case in Georgia, a RICO case against Trump ? What is the enterprise in that case ? What is the pattern of racketeering ? Purpose, relationships, and longevity to pursue ?
Going after Soros is dubious, but it's worth a look since there's an on going conspiracy against the American People via Trump since 2016.
Harm to our country is very real and it's been foisted by those in government to this day against our purpose and our current administration. You yourself are harmed by the BS as it distracts from going forward.
There is an indictment pending in Fulton County, Georgia which charges state RICO violations. It does not allege any violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1962.
If you are curious about the particulars, I strongly suggest you read Count One of that indictment, NvEric: https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2023/08/CRIMINAL-INDICTMENT-Trump-Fulton-County-GA.pdf
Whataboutism doesn't feed the bulldog.
One purpose of having an indictment is to enable the accused to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation, per the federal Sixth Amendment.
Now do you care to take a stab at the predication for any Soros related federal RICO investigation?
Do you care to enlighten everyone as to how you came to conclude that the government lacks any factual basis to justify an investigation? Are you privy to some internal communication where staff say, yeah we got nothin'? Now, when you're ready, take a stab at justifying your BS.
Riva, I have not asserted "that the government lacks any factual basis to justify an investigation" of George Soros and/or his son. I have challenged those who claim that there is such predication for an investigation to stop singing it and start bringing it.
The DOJ and FBI have strict policies against disclosing such details. Again what makes you think they have no basis? What facts could possibly support such an assertion. As your response indicates, none whatsoever. Pathetic.
The fact that similar accusations against powerful political enemiss have helped bring such enemies down and thereby helped acquire and/or consolidate power in many previous authoritarian regimes. And so far as theory is concerned, I think the move’s grounding in theory of power is extremely solid. What other kind of theory could possibly be relevant?
For example, Putin’s used the tactic extensively in moving potential political rivals from being powerful pillars of society to being imprisoned, dead, exciled, or others taken down. His use of it was extremely effective, indeed vital, in moving from a mere president of a democracy to an absolute.
I think the factual and theoretical grounding for the use of such propaganda tactics against other sources of power in enabling a strongman to transition from mere head of state to all-powerful supreme leader is so solid that frankly only a fool or a buffoon could question its effectiveness.
And as to the Open Society Foundations, who is it here who likes to write “sunlight is the best disinfectant” ? I guess not with the Open Society Foundation.
When they say "open society", they mean open borders, not open books or doors or minds or markets.
Trump doesn’t support open borders. But you’re completely right about the other points.
They mean open jails too.
Like pardoning the Jan 6 rioters?
Large anti-immigration 'flag' demonstrations today in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, and across the country today despite the PM calling them Neo-nazis.
https://www.9news.com.au/national/anti-immigration-protests-chaos-expected-cities-around-australia/32dfd6d9-7d5a-4ecb-864a-dad7b2d62b6f
Smaller but continuing demonstrations in the UK. But both countries are in the same boat, it will be years before there needs to be another general election.
In the UK the Reform Party has gone from 15% in last years election to over 30% in the polls, while the Labour party Has gone from 45% to 20%, Conservatives have gone from 24% to 16%.
Noticeably absent, anything similar in Canada.
My impression is that Canada is not quite so far gone. But maybe it's just that they're the cultural descendants of the people who didn't revolt back in 1776?
We were the revolting ones
From your cited source:
Thomas Sewell, a self-proclaimed white nationalist was given the prime speaking spot from the steps of parliament.
"Today our men stood at the front of the march and when the Palestinians and the communists came charging at the Aussie flags it was our men that fought back," he said.
He was flanked by dozens of members of his *Neo-Nazi National Socialist Network* who led a crowd of thousands down Bourke Street
Emphasis mine
It's "Sowell" and pretty sure he's not a White Nationalist. But hey man, done lost my job, how I sposed to pay dis Rent? You think you can let me slide it on??
You’re replying to me, doltish persona.
Also, as usual, you’re wrong.
Thomas Sewell (born c. 1993) is a New Zealand-born Australian neo-Nazi activist and organiser,[1][2] known for controversial public activism, violent criminal conduct, and promotion of National Socialism.[3] He is the leader of the National Socialist Network, the European Australian Movement and the founder of the Lads Society. The groups led by Sewell focus on promoting white supremacy and far-right activism in Australia.[4]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sewell_(neo-Nazi)
Lacking the “Sarcasm recognition” gene I see, you got the Ass-burgers too?
Frink
You write like a retarded child and yet are also surprised your communications are misunderstood.
I take offense at your comment, retarded child.
Here's the thing: If all the parties but the nutcases abandon a popular issue, guess who has a popular issue?
It’s hardly been abandoned.
https://www.thinkvisa.com.au/immigration-news/how-australian-immigration-is-changing-in-2025-what-migrants-need-to-know
"For the 2024-25 financial year, the government has allocated 185,000 places to the permanent migration program, slightly reduced from the 190,000 slots available in the previous year."
When you're doing something the public really doesn't like, a 2.6% reduction in how much you're doing it isn't really going to cut it.
That’s, of course, not the only reform mentioned.
“Stricter eligibility criteria and prioritization of employer-sponsored and skills-targeted migration”
More likely hypothesis since politicians generally like to get elected: maybe it's not a popular issue.
Yeah, it's interesting that Kaz tries to make the claim that the government is calling them neo Nazis. No, that's what they call themselves. And good old Kazinski is here to amplify their message.
In fact the Labour Party has not fallen from 45% to 20% in the UK in the year since the last election. It only got 34% in the last election but still won nearly two thirds of the districts.
The interesting difference between the UK and other European states where the rightest wing party is doing well in current polling is that the UK uses first past the post rather than proportional representation. Hence Reform has a considerably bigger chance of actually forming a government with a majority of its own than do other right wing / anti immigration parties in Europe.
With other parties splitting the other 70% but none getting much more than 20%, 30% for Reform would be plenty good enough for a parliamentary majority.
It is clear foreign students living in US do not have the right to free speech if they can be deported for their political speech. Do they have the right to religion the way US citizens have? Or is theirs a pared down version of religious rights - 10 days of Ramadan fasting is ok, but full 30 days reeks of fundamentalism?
They have the right to leave, like Kill-more Garcia.
You listen to too many cranks. Foreign students are free to speak on political matters here in the US. Advocacy of terrorism is where they are likely to run into issues.
Conflation, is there anything it can't do? "Conflation is the merging of two or more sets of information, texts, ideas, or opinions into one, often in error. "
Rümeysa Öztürk, a Tufts University doctoral student and Turkish national, was released from federal custody on Friday, hours after a judge in Vermont ordered the Trump administration to free her. Accompanied by her lawyer, Öztürk walked out of the immigration detention center in rural Louisiana where she's been detained for more than six weeks, since masked federal agents picked her up on a suburban Boston street as part of the Trump administration's crackdown on pro-Palestinian student activists.
At a bail hearing earlier in the day, Judge William K. Sessions of the U.S. District Court for Vermont said that her arrest and detention appeared likely to have been carried out solely in retaliation for an op-ed she wrote in a campus newspaper criticizing her school leaders' response to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
https://www.npr.org/2025/05/09/nx-s1-5393055/tufts-student-rumeysa-ozturk-ordered-freed-from-immigration-detention
What does this have to do with Vermont, out of interest ?
Rümeysa Öztürk was arrested in Massachusetts and then transported first to New Hampshire, then to Vermont and then to Louisiana. Government officials refused to disclose information about her whereabouts to her attorney, who filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus in Massachusetts.
The District Court in Massachusetts determined that the petitioner had been present in Vermont at the time the petition was filed and ordered transfer of the action to the District of Vermont. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.vtd.39304/gov.uscourts.vtd.39304.42.0_1.pdf
Thank you.
So if they'd flown her directly from Massachussetts to Louisiana, and she'd been there when her petition was filed, the case would be in Louisiana ? Looks like poor planning by ICE.
“ Advocacy of terrorism is where they are likely to run into issues”
What examples do you have of “advocacy of terrorism”?
While you’re looking into it, Google “begging the question”.
"Free speech as long as they don't say things we don't like" is another way of saying that they don't have free speech rights.
They have the same fee speech rights that Peter Harisiades did.
Free speech doctrine has evolved since the 1950s. Being a member of the communist party is now recognized as being constitutionally protected.
Moe-hammed Atta and his 18 thieves were "Foreign Students living in US" Well the ones who flew the jets were, and going back into the Grooveyard, Sirhan Sirhan was a "Foreign Student" (he's still a Jordanian Citizen) Only reason California hasn't released him is Gavin New-Scum is running for President and knows it wouldn't play well. (Did you know California has more prisoners on Death Row than any other state? and that 30% of them are Black? not really in line with the Demographics (OK, maybe in line with the Demographics of murderers)
Who can say whether there is any question among a Supreme Court majority whether their decision in Trump v. United States was an epochal blunder? Unless the justices really intended overthrow of American constitutionalism, they ought to see and regret that they have promoted constitutional overthrow by accident.
I do not think the Court intended when they decided that case to strip from the Constitution every check on Executive power except the impeachment power. Certainly they did not state any such intent. But that is what happened.
Trump's opportunistic, hyper-energetic response has shown that has been the decision's practical effect. Only the congressional power to impeach a president—a remedy never before used successfully—now stands in the way of Trump's caprice, and he has demonstrated that to be no barrier at all. That is at least partly because the Court's decision showed likewise that a president so empowered gains aggrandized capacity to meddle in congressional elections, and thus to dictate compliance from a relatively dis-empowered Congress. Plainly the Court did not foresee what Trump so quickly demonstrated.
Assuming American constitutionalism even survives the Trump administration, that will be the newly-enabled extent of Executive power for every president to come. Whether Trump succeeds or not, the strife unleashed in future administrations, combined with an outlandish increase in stakes for every future presidential election, will shortly tear American constitutionalism apart.
So if there are regrets on the Supreme Court now, what should a regretful majority do? Not sit and wait to see how things play out. Not hope that fate will deliver unforeseeable restoration of regular judicial order, regular congressional order, and regular executive order. Such blessed results will not arrive unassisted.
The Supreme Court ought to act. Act to restore Supreme Court legitimacy. Act to safeguard the future of American constitutionalism. Act to say forthrightly that when the time came to decide Trump v. United States, they failed to say rightly what the law was.
Trump is not rightly a king. Surely by now, the Court ought to recognize that consequences of tempting Trump to act the royal part have been too damaging. The Court's blunder has proved unprecedented in scope and consequence. Nothing like it has been seen before from the Court, let alone from any American Executive.
So must the solution be unprecedented. While the Court still retains power to say what the law is, it must use it with unprecedented initiative. The right forum to do that already exists. It is the Judicial Conference of the United States, a body stemming directly from a congressionally-created precursor more than a century ago, and continuously active since. Chief Justice Roberts presides.
Roberts ought to convene an emergency meeting of the Judicial Conference of the United States, and announce a forthright purpose—an emergency need to reopen Trump v. United States, and review the Court's decision, to open and answer the question whether that case was rightly decided. The answer from the Conference ought to be a resolution to say that the Court's abiding Constitutional jurisdiction to decide cases and controversies, in this extraordinary case, does enable the Supreme Court to immediately reopen and reconsider the decision in Trump v. United States.
From there the Court can act with knowledge that whatever tantrums may result from Trump and his MAGA allies, the Court does not need any longer to confront an adversary beyond the reach of the criminal law.
Sunday Sermon by Lathrop.
Sunday, unhinged hate speech by verklempt dirty lawyer, Lathrop. I explain this pathology by location. One cannot overcome surrounding culture. Lathrop is from a crazy deep blue location. Crazy is contagious by human imitation. Lathrop attended law school and had his intellect and ethics destroyed by the lawyer education. He has supernatural beliefs ,like mind reading, future forecasting, and that standards of behavior should be set by a fictitious character. Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, ding.
Supremacy Claus, why do you think that Stephen Lathrop is a lawyer? He and I have each been commenting on this blog since the Disqus days, and to my knowledge he has never identified himself as a lawyer or mentioned having gone to law school.
Nor shown even a scrap of knowledge about the proper role of courts in our system of government.
Spoiler: The Court doesn't know you from Adam, and has no interest in maintaining your good opinion of it by taking unprecedented actions to attack a sitting President.
They're more likely to do that to go after judges who are ignoring the Court's own recent precedents to attack that same sitting President.
Bellmore — While responding, try to avoid grammatical blunders which reverse the intended meaning of your tantrum.
I assume that, as a newspaper man, you can diagram my sentence, and helpfully point out to me the grammatical error?
I will quote it:
"the Court's own recent precedents to attack that same sitting President."
Or is that what you intended? Is it your impression that the Supreme Court has been attacking Trump?
That's not a sentence, it's a sentence fragment. Here's the part you omitted:
"They're more likely to do that to go after judges who are ignoring "
No grammatical error, just a guy who's as bad at parsing standard English as your average newspaper man.
Misplaced antecedents are errors, Sometimes trivial, sometimes serious. It's a serious error when it reverses the meaning of your text. The best a person can do while parsing your text generously is guess which of your ambiguous meanings is the intended one.
Shouldn't he convene the Sovereign People's Grand Jury first?
What would a grand jury have to do with reversing a Supreme Court decision? No point in pretending to be stupid on purpose.
I agree that Trump v United States was a poor decision. But it was hardly an epochal blunder in the sense of Gotterdammerung for the American Republic.
Presidents can pardon themselves and their acolytes as they please. Presidential immunity changes nothing.
It is not worth the effort to point out the absurdities of your “constitutional” arguments. Nor is it necessary. The absurdities speak for themselves.
Stephen, Why do you think that the Conference has any actual precedential authority in this matter? You are talking yourself into a panic. The U.S. is far from the mortal danger that you imagine. Trump's present modus operandi was encourage not so much by SCOTUS as by the lawfare that was conducted against him after 2018. He is determined to maintain the initiative on his side.
Nico, the comment you respond to was conservative in tone, and bi-partisan in intent.
Following your advocacy one of two things would ensue:
1. The Supreme Court would continue to indulge Trump, but only Trump, with royal prerogative.
2. The Supreme Court will treat Trump v. United States as precedent, and extend the same prerogative to all future presidents.
Both results are terrible, and threaten continuation of American constitutionalism. The second is worse than the first.
Stephen, You did not answer my question which was under what Constitutional authority could the Judicial Conference carry out the program that you advocate? I accept that your comment was meant in a bi-partisan spirit, but I also think that your fears are exaggerated. That only means that I am more optimistic and have more confidence in the American public to limit authoritarian impulses even though their effectiveness as a brake on Presidential overreach has displayed several decades of less than success.
Yeah, none of that is a thing. Trump v. U.S. was an awful decision which I believe will one day be in the anticanon with Dred Scott, Plessy, and Korematsu, among others. But that doesn't change the fact that neither Roberts nor SCOTUS as a whole has any legal authority to do any of that. And the Judicial Conference literally has nothing to do with anything; Roberts could just as validly convene a meeting of the board of directors of the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame to make such an announcement.
Is the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a Congressionally authorized part of the judicial system?
Nieporent, please say what limits Congress placed on the Judicial Conference, and its various committees. No doubt you have a sense of what those limits ought to be.
Explain what proves you correct. Explain why you would continue correct if Roberts and a Court majority acted as I urged. What superior authority is properly empowered to say otherwise?
If it happened, should Congress impeach and remove the justices who did it, to protect from reconsideration a partisan decision a current tiny majority in Congress approves? What harm would that do which the original decision has not already inflicted? If you do not like my proposal, say what harm you fear from it.
Because impeachment and removal of Justices under present political circumstances is impossible, a Trump administrative response to re-imposed criminal law constraint might include redoubled pressure to thwart the next election. That might seem like a big risk. But because the prospect that will happen anyway is already sky high, my proposal barely budges the risk needle.
Before offering my original comment, I had to consider carefully whether I thought it wise to encourage an unprecedented capacity in, for instance, an overtly partisan Court with politics I disapprove. Which is what I proposed doing. My conclusion was that doing what I suggest would cause no greater harm than is already manifest, but would also open a presently non-existent route to possible better outcomes.
To say, "none of that is a thing," after I repeatedly urged its unprecedented character just announces intent to bypass my argument, instead of engaging it. Nobody says you have to engage any argument of mine. Suit yourself.
But except for hoping for the best while doing nothing, what do you propose to reduce the dangers created by judicially enforcing an evil anticanon? Another Civil War would not be an unprecedented result. Do you think that makes a Civil War preferable, on procedural grounds?
I think the current Supreme Court is forcing the nation to play in a corrupt game for existentially high stakes. My hope is that after consideration some justices may think it wiser to at least lower the stakes. They need a means to do it. Maybe my proposed means are not the right ones. Say what yours are.
It is as much a court as the Judicial Conference is.
The Supreme Court has no authority to randomly find old decisions it disagrees with and announce that it's changing its mind.
"When Can Lawyers Be Punished for "Undignified or Discourteous" Criticism of Judges?" Why is it that amongst all of our elected or appointed officials, those in the presence of even the lowliest judge are expected to rise and stand until given leave to sit?
Like a lot of the things that involve judges, it's because judges are calling the shots.
Not dead, just taking another weekend off!
President Donald Trump was photographed heading to play golf on Saturday after baseless rumors that he had died went viral on social media after certain reports said he hadn't been seen in public for several days.
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-playing-golf-baseless-viral-death-rumors-2122068
Remember, Trump spent a lot of time criticizing Obama for playing so much golf as President but once he was in office proceeded to….play golf so much!
Umm, Queenie, it is a Holiday weekend, fur cryin' out loud. Congress hasn't been in their Orifices for weeks, have you noticed??
Seems he found time for this: "President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he will issue an executive order to require voter identification from every voter."
More unconstitutional EOs - that you cultists will defend.
How is it unconstitutional?
Because they are issued by Trump. The real un-Constitutional EOs issued by Obama and Biden don't count.
"WHATABOUT??? WAAAAH!!!"
Article I, § 4 of the Constitution states:
The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.
There is no role prescribed for the Executive in regard thereto.
NG responded. I merely note your evident ignorance of the Constitution - typical for cultists,
Um, because the president doesn't have any constitutional authority to issue any such order? He might as well issue a so-called executive order that all dog owners must call their dogs "Spot."
Wouldn't you rather have Trump out playing golf, rather than musing about his next EO, or the next person he should fire?
It’s interesting how his supporters don’t see the hypocrisy. I guess fish don’t notice water…
Between golf, basketball and sneaking smokes when did Obama do much of anything?
https://didtrumpgolftoday.com/
Donald Trump has golfed 56 days out of 224 days since returning to office (25.0% of the presidency spent golfing).
Gee, then where does he find the time to be such a threat to our democracy?
Swoosh!
Actually he signs EOs from the golf cart. He multitasks.
That’s professional!
In between writing lies on his scorecard.
It’s called multitasking
If you think this is an effective counter to one of the most ambitious and successful presidential terms in decades if not ever, then you’re welcome to your view. I hope all those trolling for democrats emulate your irrelevant silliness. And it looks like my hopes are being fulfilled.
Is bot talking about Trump’s criticisms of Obama playing golf? Bad programming.
If anyone here is a bot it's not Riva, it's you!
I know you are but what am I! lol.
Why is the left so full of cranks? Cenk Uygur believes that the Iran-backed Houthi terrorists, who have made the Suez Canal to Gulf of Aden practically impassable for most ships, run Yemen.
https://x.com/cenkuygur/status/1961853233896603661
Stupid is as stupid does.
Liberalism is a mental illness.
Should there be a policy against creating serial accounts to evade bans, mutes, or whatever? Queenie seems to have moved on to account #5 (at least).
Mikie has a sad. Needs his safe space.
Over the past year, the price of beef has been steadily increasing, leaving consumers in sticker shock at checkout.
Ahead of Labor Day weekend, when many Americans may plan to fire up the grill for a final summer gathering with burgers or steaks, the cost of the red meat proteins may mean a menu reset for the holiday weekend.
https://abcnews.go.com/amp/GMA/Food/shoppers-beef-prices-continue-rise/story?id=124840751
8/9/24: “Starting on day one, we will end inflation and make America affordable again, to bring down the prices of all goods.”
NBC Montana, Trump Rally in Bozeman, MT, YouTube (August 9, 2024).
"U.S. beef retail prices, as of mid-2025, are at record highs, with ground beef averaging $6.12 per pound and steaks at $11.49 per pound, according to AP News. These price surges are driven by a combination of factors, including a shrinking U.S. cattle herd, high feed costs, increasing demand, and supply chain challenges. Consumers are experiencing increased costs for various cuts, and while demand remains strong, the high prices reflect a fundamental imbalance between supply and demand."
"Reasons for High Prices Shrinking Cattle Herd: The U.S. cattle herd has been declining, reaching its lowest point since 1951. This scarcity directly impacts beef availability.
Rising Feed Costs: The cost of feed for cattle has increased, adding to the overall production expenses.
Strong Demand: Despite the high prices, consumer demand for beef remains robust.
Supply Chain Issues: Ongoing issues within the supply chain contribute to higher costs for meat processing and consumers."
You can stupidly blame Trump, or recognize that there's such a thing as elasticity.
Stupidly blame the guy who said he would fix this on day one?
Campaign rhetoric can't be taken to the bank. And this is but one type of product in the entire grocery cart.
How about blaming Biden that we still have cancer with us, after his repeated promises to cure it during his administration?
I don't mind paying what I must for steak (which I love), given all of the things that Trump is doing that I approve of.
“And this is but one type of product in the entire grocery cart.”
So is it you or Trump that doesn’t know what the word “all” means?
If he’s going to repeatedly promise something and fail to deliver he’s fairly on the hook for it, if you’d get off your knees from worshipping Dear Leader you’d realize that maybe.
By the way, he didn't say he'd fix this on day one. According to the quote you supplied he said “Starting on day one, we will end inflation and make America affordable again, to bring down the prices of all goods.” Starting on day one.... Not completing on day one. Get it?
So you also don’t understand “steadily increasing” as well? Lord, your slavish devotion to this guy knows no bounds.
So, you'd prefer Biden, or Kamala to what's going on now?
I’d prefer we not elect a fool who makes such foolish promises.
Like Biden, right?
But Biden!
That's right. What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
You're on this tiring drumbeat of bashing Trump, for many of the very things that Biden did but about which you (and your ilk) were silent.
Biden said he’d lower prices on day one? And end the war on day one?
No, he said he'd cure cancer.
Cite? Is it this?
Around the 13-minute timestamp on the original stream, he is heard saying: “One of the things I’m always asked is: You know, why, why Americans have sort of lost faith for a while on being, being able to do big things.” Biden went on to say, “’If you could do anything at all, Joe, what would you do?’ I said, ‘I’d cure cancer.’ And they looked at me like, ‘Why cancer?’ Because no one thinks we can. That’s why. And we can. We can end cancer as we know it.”
""I promise you if I'm elected president, you're going to see the single most important thing that changes America," Biden announced. "We're gonna cure cancer." https://www.livescience.com/65717-biden-cancer-cure.html
I’ll note Biden doesn’t give an exact timeline but I’ll grant it was still a very silly statement. It’s a good thing the Democrats didn’t renominate him.
They tried to, but ended up nominating Harris, who said she wouldn't have done anything differently.
Trying counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. They ended up not nominating him. The GOP knew about the goofy claims Trump made and just doubled down.
And saying you wouldn’t do anything differently is not echoing everything Biden said on the campaign trail in 20.
It's "close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades".
"They ended up not nominating him."
Yes, as I said, they nominated Harris, who said she wouldn't have done anything differently. So she basically promised to cure cancer too.
Yes. I'd prefer that the Oval Office sit empty to any of those choices, but yes, if those are the options, yes.
Stupid to prefer your partisan vibes over basic supply and demand economics.
Partisan vibes? Did he promise to bring down the prices or not? And did they come down. Someone’s being stupid with vines here!
And maybe he has. Prices might have been even higher than they now are. You see when one engages in fantasy as your are and my previous sentence is doing, then anything is possible.
Nico, leaving possibilities aside, I don't like some of the actualities.
I shop the local supermarket chain which had long offered the most cost-effective pricing in my region. I was grateful that where bargains were possible, they for years favored their less-prosperous customers by continuing the bargains.
One such was a beef cut called chuck blade steak. It consists of unusually good meat, with a formidable strip of unusable gristle down the middle of every small steak. That is waste; it has to be cut out before cooking, or struggled with on the plate. I still have some of it in my freezer marked at a price of 3.99 per pound, bought less than a year ago. Two years ago, it was $2.99 per pound. In this week's shop I bypassed it at a price of $8.99 per pound.
Inflation has been general, but I cannot help noticing that throughout the market chain I relied upon, and at others, cost inflation of the least expensive items has run far ahead of inflation for the more expensive ones. That has happened across all grocery categories, not just meat. It is evident that a marketing strategy is under way to gouge the poor to avoid discomfiting the more prosperous. The top-end meat prices have increased about 10-15% during the same interval.
Supposing that some kind of free market logic justifies that pricing tactic does little to make me trust free market advocacy. More the reverse.
Oh, now we're going to actually try to figure out the cause of problems rather than just blaming who happens to be President? Seems like you only put your thinking hat on when the obvious signals don't match your political preferences.
Worth looking at some of these points.
Shrinking herds and rising feed costs make sense. (But why are feed costs rising? Could the rise result in smaller herds? )
Strong demand? You mean inelastic demand. Has the demand curve shifted?
Supply chain issues? What issues? Are they new?
Apparently, every .001% of inflation was all Biden's fault, but Trump is blameless.
Look, the whole thing can be explained by rising costs (why?) and the fact that demand for beef is somewhat inelastic.
So the thing that needs explanation is why those costs are rising. Apparently there are lots of reasons, of which tariffs on imported beef is one, but far from the only one. I'd guess drought is the main cause, since it impacts both the cattle and the feed costs.
No matter who or what you want to assign blame to for inflation it's ratcheting effect is the real culprit. Prices that rise due to inflation seldom if ever come down to their previous levels.
Pure, trimmed, fat-free stew cubes are about $6 a pound as of yesterday when I, not a paid servant, or "Chef", went shopping. This is ridiculous as a product, but reasonable as a price. I would expect $10 a pound.
As a product, fat-free, pure red trimmed cubes of beef for stew or chili are an abomination. You wanna boil that shit for 8 to 10 hours minimum, start it in the morning for the evening dinner.
You want all the fat and crud, throw in joints as the connective tissue is what releases the umami flavor, but this takes many hours. Grotesque cubes are just what the doctor ordered. They are also way cheaper because they are gross scrapple and no labor intensive trimming needed.
My fellow fat-free meat enthusiasts, you are the problem.
Anyway, I would expect clean, trimmed stew cubes to be a lot more than $6 a pound at this point. It ever was a profit center for supermarkets to leverage idiotic customer pecadillos.
The best thing Trump could do to increase beef production is to end the ethanol mandate, that would have a twofold effect: lower feed prices by increasing the supply available and having some farmers decide to convert farmland to beef production.
He can also reverse BLM policies that have reduced grazing cattle on public lands.
But it takes about 2 years for a calf to mature into a steak.
Russia carried out “a massive strike” on Ukraine overnight, launching 537 drones and 45 missiles, the Ukrainian Air Force said Saturday morning.
https://abcnews.go.com/amp/International/russias-massive-strike-ukraine-overnight-kills-1-injures/story?id=125119384
AUGUST 2024: “Before I even arrive at the Oval Office, shortly after I win the presidency, I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled,” Trump told a National Guard Conference.
Publius: Well, by before he meant before his expected third term!
Not sure I understand. You’re criticizing the president actually working very hard towards a peaceful resolution? Didn’t Biden, or whoever was pulling his strings, want to continue and expand the war? Is that what you wanted? Were you hoping for WWIII?
+1
This bot has not been programmed well if it can’t see the criticism is his recklessly foolish and false claim to fix this before he even took office.
This is a pattern with this guy. His supporters really don’t care about his unhinged lies.
It is "reckless" to work towards a peaceful resolution? But not to continue and expand the war? Maybe more strikes into Russia would be better? Do you think knocking on the door of WWIII is the best geopolitical strategy to pursue?
Bot doesn’t get it was the promise that this was easy to do and would be done in a day that was reckless. Bad programming.
Although a lesser troll grazing on the democrat troll farm, the trolling of Malika the whatever is a useful example of the idiotic democrat strategy to oppose every policy of President Trump, regardless of the obvious merits. They now embrace global war abroad and crime domestically. Keep it up. Democrats are only amusing in the minority. We don't actually need another world war. Two were quite sufficient.
Notice the bot didn’t address my point (again) at all. Hence, bot.
I must have missed it where you actually addressed my points. How exactly is it "reckless" to pursue peace? Is it preferable to continue and expand the war? Maybe more strikes into Russia would be better? Do you think knocking on the door of WWIII is the best geopolitical strategy to pursue?
The next response will be another non-substantive regurgitation of "bot" something. The troll is on a loop. Almost like a bot. Weird huh?
Yeah nothing robotic about Malika the whatever.
You’re criticizing the president actually working very hard towards a peaceful resolution?
He's not working hard toward a peaceful resolution. He's offering his boss, Putin, whatever he wants. That's easy.
Whatever happened to all those sanctions he was going to put on Russia if they continued their attacks? Guess they got lost under the Alaska snow.
"He's not working hard toward a peaceful resolution. He's offering his boss, Putin, whatever he wants. That's easy."
That's scurrilous bullshit. If Putin was Trump's boss, why would Trump continue to arm Ukraine?
why would Trump continue to arm Ukraine?
He's not arming Ukraine. He is selling arms to the Europeans, with which they are arming Ukraine.
I guess he likes bringing in the money.
If Putin is not his boss where are the sanctions he promised.
Mr. Trump said on Monday [July 28] that he would give Russia about 10 to 12 days to end the war before imposing “sanctions and maybe tariffs, secondary tariffs,” a reference to tariffs on countries that trade with Russia.
This story was published on July 29.
He has repeated these threats several times. TACO.
If Putin weren't Trump's boss, why would Trump keep kneecapping Ukraine?
Pentagon has blocked Ukraine from striking deep inside Russia – report US defense officials have blocked Ukraine from using US-supplied long-range missiles to strike targets inside Russia since late spring as part of a Trump administration effort to get Vladimir Putin to engage in peace talks , according to a report on Saturday. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Pentagon has blocked Ukraine from using US-made Army Tactical Missile Systems, or Atacms.
Pentagon has blocked Ukraine from striking deep inside Russia – report
US defense officials have blocked Ukraine from using US-supplied long-range missiles to strike targets inside Russia since late spring as part of a Trump administration effort to get Vladimir Putin to engage in peace talks , according to a report on Saturday.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the Pentagon has blocked Ukraine from using US-made Army Tactical Missile Systems, or Atacms.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/23/pentagon-ukraine-russia-missiles
"Pentagon has blocked Ukraine from striking deep inside Russia – report"
So Putin was Biden's boss too? Or maybe he hacked the autopen.
From the same article:
Ukraine was previously given authority by the Biden administration to use the missile system against targets inside Russia in November after North Korean troops entered the war. Before the inauguration in January, Trump told Time magazine that the decision to allow Ukraine to use US weapons systems to attack targets inside Russia had been a mistake. “I disagree very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds of miles into Russia. Why are we doing that? We’re just escalating this war and making it worse. That should not have been allowed to be done,” he said.
Ukraine was previously given authority by the Biden administration to use the missile system against targets inside Russia in November after North Korean troops entered the war.
Before the inauguration in January, Trump told Time magazine that the decision to allow Ukraine to use US weapons systems to attack targets inside Russia had been a mistake.
“I disagree very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds of miles into Russia. Why are we doing that? We’re just escalating this war and making it worse. That should not have been allowed to be done,” he said.
"Oh no, WWIII!" is misinformation from Russian trolls. Russia would not start WWIII as their dictatorship kleptocracy would end, and that's not part of the business model.
Shame on any western buffoon who takes the notion seriously.
Quadruple double dumb ass on anyone who thinks the free west should cow down when defending against aggression in Europe because of this bully threat.
"Oh no! Let him roll his tanks! If we resist, he might start WWIII over it!"
Good lord. We were pushing them back supplying Ukraine like an RTS.
Until Republicans, not just Trump, curiously got in the way. Remember "Thanks, Gramps!", Russian state TV mockingly thanking the old Republicans, especially Mitch McConnell, for cancelling some of this?
Eternal shame on anyone who thinks this. It's stupid patter from Russia.
"Oh no, WWIII!" is misinformation from Russian trolls.
And per The NY Times, it was also a real fear of the Biden administration. However, the Biden administration blatantly lied about it to the public.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/03/29/world/europe/us-ukraine-military-war-wiesbaden.html
It’s a pretty interesting article, including exposing the joint CIA-Ukrainian center in Germany. Some interesting quotes:
At the White House, Mr. Biden and his advisers weighed that argument against fears that pushing the Russians would only lead Mr. Putin to panic and widen the war. When the generals requested HIMARS, one official recalled, the moment felt like “standing on that line, wondering, if you take a step forward, is World War III going to break out?”
Note: this was in June 2022
With Wiesbaden’s points of interest and coordinates, as well as the Ukrainians’ own intelligence, HIMARS strikes into the ops box helped defend Kharkiv. The Russians suffered some of their heaviest casualties of the war… The unthinkable had become real. The United States was now woven into the killing of Russian soldiers on sovereign Russian soil.
Given the delicacy of the mission, was it unduly provocative to call targets “targets”? Some officers thought “targets” was appropriate… The debate was settled by Maj. Gen. Timothy D. Brown, European Command’s intelligence chief: The locations of Russian forces would be “points of interest.” Intelligence on airborne threats would be “tracks of interest.” “If you ever get asked the question, ‘Did you pass a target to the Ukrainians?’ you can legitimately not be lying when you say, ‘No, I did not,’” one U.S. official explained.
Define "shortly."
Recall, Biden not only invited Russia to invade Ukraine (a 'minor incursion') [1], he fueled the war with billions in aid to Ukraine, and made no effort at all to end the conflict. I suspect it was because both he and Zelensky were enriching themselves by siphoning off aid money.
At least Trump is trying. He's met with Zelensky twice, I think, and met with Putin, and convened the world leaders of Europe in the oval office in efforts to end the conflict. Biden did nothing at all like this.
[1] "During his long, rambling Jan. 19 press conference, President Joe Biden made yet another major policy misstep. Russia, he suggested would face but minor consequences if it restrained itself to but a “minor incursion” into Ukraine.
Unsurprisingly, the suggestion that an invasion—if properly sized—would draw only a wrist slap left officials in Kyiv gobsmacked. So, too, were officials across Europe, as well as many in the U.S. political, foreign policy, and defense establishments."
https://www.heritage.org/global-politics/commentary/joe-bidens-minor-incursion-russia-remark-history-proves-it-was-mistake
“Define "shortly."
Omg, he’s this slavish!
Whatever shortly means in your mental gymnastics do you know what “before” means?
MARCH 2023: “But it’s a very easy negotiation to take place. I will have it solved within one day, a peace between them,”
MAY 2023: “They’re dying, Russians and Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying. And I’ll have that done — I’ll have that done in 24 hours,”
Publius: Define a day! Define 24 hours! Dear Leader exists outside time so a day to him might be years to us!
ThePublius is not usually this much of a bad faith MAGA poster. Biden did not, of course, "invite" Russia to do any such thing. Biden was asked what the U.S. response would be would be of a Russian invasion of Ukraine, and Biden said — entirely reasonably and correctly — that it would depend if it were a full-scale invasion or a minor incursion. Unsurprisingly, Heritage's commentary is a fabrication.
At least Trump is trying.
…to help Russia win. You are correct that Biden did not do anything like that. Instead, Biden rallied the world to support Ukraine.
You are aware that Russia has invaded Ukraine twice during (D) administrations?
Of course, saying that the US would be ok with a "minor incursion" is not an invitation. It is somehow (D)ifferent than an invitation.
Maybe an explanation of what "a minor incursion" is - and how it is not an invitation - is in order, David.
Biden did not say that the US "would be OK with" a minor incursion, so this is yet another MAGA lie. (It would still not be an "invitation," of course, even if it had been said.) He said that the U.S. response would be different for a minor incursion.
What are you proving. Trump admits he was wrong to be so optimistic about ending the war against Ukraine. Talk about something useful for a change
With the passage of the One Big, Beautiful Bill, the deficit will grow more than any other spending bill in history, possibly even surpassing the total deficits incurred by the emergency pandemic spending and the “supplemental” spending on the Iraq War.
Is it important to reduce the deficit?
If so, is the ultimate goal to try to reduce net deficits each year, or is it to balance the budget completely?
Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid accounted for almost 3/4 of mandatory spending in FY2025 (almost 45% of all spending). In order to control the deficit, should those programs be reformed?
If so, how should they be reformed?
Interest on the debt is a larger expense than either Medicaid or defense, and almost as much as all non-defense spending combined. If spending is cut in some areas, but the deficit increases, is that fiscally responsible?
"Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid accounted for almost 3/4 of mandatory spending in FY2025 (almost 45% of all spending). In order to control the deficit, should those programs be reformed?"
Define "reformed." If you mean reducing benefits, no. If you mean routing out fraud and corruption, and rolling back benefits to those who really shouldn't receive them - like Medicaid for illegal immigrants, then yes.
s/routing/rooting/
“ If you mean routing out fraud and corruption”
That wouldn’t make any appreciable difference in the cost. If you think otherwise, you have no idea what you’re talking about.
“ like Medicaid for illegal immigrants”
That isn’t a thing. While there are those on the hard left who think it should be a thing, they are the same people who think wealth taxes and 70% corporate taxes are a good idea, and those people are ignorant and stupid. Like paleocons, but on the left.
“ If you mean reducing benefits, no”
That’s one option (and the one that will automatically happen if SS becomes insolvent). But there are numerous other approaches, some more radical than others, that could reduce the net cost of Social Security.
The cost of Social Security is massive, solely because of the size of the cohort drawing on it and the huge change in life expectancy since the program was created almost a hundred years ago. Waste, fraud, and abuse is a rounding error. Social Security, as designed, costs too much.
"“ like Medicaid for illegal immigrants”
That isn’t a thing."
It certainly is! For example:
"As of August 2025, California offers full-scope Medi-Cal benefits to all income-eligible residents, including undocumented individuals, through state-funded programs. This coverage includes: Children: All children up to age 18 are eligible for full Medi-Cal regardless of immigration status. Adults (19 and older): All adults are eligible for full Medi-Cal, provided they meet income requirements. Pregnant people: Eligibility includes full coverage during pregnancy and for one year postpartum. "
"States offering state-funded health coverage to undocumented immigrants include California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, and Washington. These programs often target specific populations, such as children, pregnant individuals, seniors, or all adults, and can be limited in scope or funding. For example, California offers coverage to all adults regardless of immigration status, while New York provides coverage to seniors aged 65 and older."
Stop your lying!
And before anyone jumps on this part
California offers full-scope Medi-Cal benefits to all income-eligible residents, including undocumented individuals, through state-funded programs.
California funds Medicaid for its illegal aliens with money CMS pays it to match its provider Medicaid tax. California taxes providers who accept Medicaid, refunds that to the providers, then counts the refunds as a Medicaid expenditure. The feds then dutifully reimburse California for (I believe) 60% of the refunded amount. That’s how California uses federal funds to pay for services that would otherwise be barred from reimbursement.
And if that is a loophole in the law, maybe it should be reformed.
That’s my point. There are reforms that can decrease the burden on the federal deficit. I would agree that this (the formula used to reimburse states for Medicaid expenditures) is ripe for reform.
I would actually argue that the reimbursement formulas and services that can be reimbursed would be the first place that Medicaid could be reformed to save money.
"state-funded programs" impact federal spending? What if undocumented immigrants with some disease like measles cause outbreaks among the rest of the population? It might make sense from a public health point of view for those states.
See my post above. California, among other states, use sophistry to bilk the feds out of excess Medicaid “reimbursement.”
Great case for deportation. Thanks!
“ What if undocumented immigrants with some disease like measles cause outbreaks among the rest of the population?”
This is a general type of argument used to lump “possible” and “likely” together to make more fringe treatments (like trans surgeries for minors) seem lime they are much more relevant than they are.
The chance that someone might get a disease is the same whether they are illegal or not. It doesn’t justify extending federal coverage to illegals. In my mind, it doesn’t even justify extending state coverage for illegals, but that isn’t a federal deficit issue.
Where an outbreak can be prevented by wider vaccination, it seems foolish to exclude a significant number of people. There are arguments on both sides, but states are able to make their own decisions on such issues (or at least used to be able to).
The application of limited resources requires judging likelihood and impact of various different spending options. The likelihood of a measles outbreak coming specifically from an unvaccinated illegal immigrant is negligible. The massive expense involved in expanding Medicaid for such a tiny possibility is fiscal malpractice.
And states can evaluate the costs and benefits for themselves.
“ through state-funded programs”
Like I said, it isn’t a thing. If California has chosen to expand coverage to illegals, that is on their dime. While I think it’s a terrible idea, it doesn’t impact the federal cost of Medicaid one penny. But keep lying.
“ States offering state-funded health coverage to undocumented immigrants include California, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, and Washington”
Like I said, not a thing. What a state chooses to do isn’t a cost at the federal level. And the deficit is a federal thing, not a state thing.
If you are pissed because the more economically successful states choose to spend their money on dumb ideas, you are shaking your fists at the clouds. Federalism os and always will be a thing in America.
All of that state-level spending doesn’t impact the federal deficit at all.
If and when the federal Medicaid program allows illegals to claim benefits, come back and talk to me. I’ll be on your side of the issue. But my concern is about the federal deficit, and states doing stupid stuff with their money doesn’t impact the federal deficit at all.
"While I think it’s a terrible idea, it doesn’t impact the federal cost of Medicaid one penny."
You're either naive or deliberately obtuse. States get reimbursed for Medicaid expenditures by the federal government.
Then, like I said above, perhaps the reform you would suggest would be to tighten ip the reimbursement rules.
I was asking for solutions, not whining.
Just a drop in the bucket, I suppose:
"Medicare Total improper payments: The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) reported different improper payment rates for different parts of the Medicare program in fiscal year 2024: Fee-for-service (FFS): 7.66%, or $31.70 billion. Part C (Medicare Advantage): 5.61%, or $19.07 billion. Part D (Prescription drugs): 3.70%, or $3.58 billion. Estimated fraud: Independent estimates suggest that a significant portion of improper payments is criminal fraud. A 2025 analysis by Growtha estimates annual losses from Medicare fraud at $60 billion, though the precise figure is impossible to measure. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) actively works to recover stolen funds, though much fraud goes undetected. Medicaid Total improper payments: In fiscal year 2024, CMS estimated the improper payment rate for Medicaid was 5.09%, amounting to $31.10 billion. Documentation vs. fraud: The majority of these improper payments (nearly 80% in 2024) were due to insufficient documentation and not necessarily fraud. However, fraud, such as phantom billing or billing for medically unnecessary services, is still a major problem. State-level enforcement: State Medicaid Fraud Control Units (MFCUs) play a key role in combatting fraud. In fiscal year 2024, MFCUs across the country reported over $1.4 billion in combined criminal and civil recoveries. Social Security In contrast to the health care programs, Social Security has a very low improper payment rate, with fraud being a small component of that already small figure. Payment accuracy: The Social Security Administration (SSA) maintains a payment accuracy rate of over 99%. Only 0.3% of Social Security benefits are improper payments, and these are often caused by mistakes or delays. Improper payments vs. fraud: While the SSA OIG estimated $72 billion in improper payments from fiscal years 2015 to 2022, this is less than 1% of the total benefits paid and includes overpayments resulting from administrative errors or delayed self-reporting by beneficiaries. Extent of fraud: Instances of deliberate fraud, such as falsifying information to gain benefits, are much rarer and are a primary focus of the SSA OIG. In 2016, estimates of improper payments related to deceased individuals and the very old amounted to only $3 million per year out of over $900 billion in total benefits."
"...some estimates suggest the total amount of annual healthcare fraud, including Medicaid, is significantly higher. The National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association, for example, estimated annual fraud losses for both Medicare and Medicaid to be in the tens of billions of dollars annually, and potentially as high as $100 billion."
Yes, a drop in the bucket. There is a point below which finding and eliminating fraud costs more than the savings involved. In business, the consensus is 5%.
Your assumption that it’s easy and free to lower fraud more is completely false. No one has ever eliminated fraud completely, and no one ever will. The system is too big and there are too many people who are involved.
Just look at the figure with the largest percentage: Fee For Services. There are literally hundreds of thousands of service providers from doctors to hospitals to physical therapists and more.
You will never be able to stop that many people who have chosen to commit a crime from doing so.
So even if we assume that your ridiculous premise of zero fraud with zero added cost were possible, you are talking about tens of billions of dollars. The deficit from the OBBB alone is likely to be close to $5 trillion. Not even 1%.
See how your “all fraud, no reform” idea is laughable and unserious?
Yes; as I noted in an open thread the other day, the optimal amount of fraud in a program is not zero. But as you subsequently point out, it would still be a drop in the bucket even if they could magically eliminate all of that at no cost.
Not to mention SS disability fraud.
"The extent of social security disability fraud is significant, though difficult to quantify precisely, with nearly $72 billion in improper payments made between FYs 2015 and 2022, mostly overpayments, a figure that includes various types of errors and fraud, with an uncollected balance of $23 billion by FY 2023. While the majority of allegations reported to the Social Security Administration Office of the Inspector General (SSA OIG) involve scams and impersonations rather than direct disability fraud, fraud is a substantial management challenge that the SSA has struggled to effectively address with unimplemented recommendations from the OIG. Types of Fraud and Mismanagement Applicant fraud: . Individuals falsely claim a disability to receive monthly benefits. Imposter scams: . Scammers impersonate SSA officials to trick people into providing sensitive information or money. Middlemen fraud: . Service providers or other third parties engage in fraudulent activities related to benefit claims. Improper payments: . Not all improper payments are due to fraud; they also include errors such as payments to the deceased or overpayments of other types. Scale and Financial Impact From FYs 2015 to 2022, the SSA paid out nearly $72 billion in improper payments, with a significant portion representing overpayments. At the end of FY 2023, the SSA had $23 billion in uncollected overpayments. The SSA's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) highlights that many of its recommendations for preventing and detecting improper payments have not been implemented, contributing to continued losses."
See above. You are arguing that less than 1% reduction in the deficit would make a difference, with the impossible premise that zero fraud is possible with zero added costs.
I was hoping for serious discussion, not rhetoric and nonsense.
Thank you for making some sense. It is in short supply these days.
Nelson — Yes, it costs too much in relation to the taxes which support it, which are too small.
Of course, when government is short of money, and must have more money, the only place to get it is from people who have money.
Revisit the benefits issue after the people who have money get taxed on every cent they earn at the same rates that wages are taxed. Then try a slight increase of tax rate on that expanded base. That will probably make the program solvent without cutting benefits, at least until AI-related unemployment increases blow up the tax base for the safety net.
“ Revisit the benefits issue after the people who have money get taxed on every cent they earn at the same rates that wages are taxed.”
I find “Do X first, then we can discuss actually solving the problem” to be facile and empty logic.
I agree that one of the reforms necessary would be to remove all caps on FICA and tax all income the same (so unearned income would pay FICA line wages do).
Nelson — Nothing empty or facile in a proposal to prioritize one kind of solution, and see how effective it is, before invoking another solution to help out. Doing it that way makes it easier to quantify the need to rely on the harsher second remedy. You seem to demand the harsher remedy first—or maybe we disagree about which remedy is harsh, and which more benign.
In other words, you couldn't give a fuck about the deficit, and are just looking for some innumerate talking points. That would have exactly zero effect on the deficit.
Neither party is serious about balancing the budget. We can't possibly raise taxes enough or reduce social welfare spending enough to be politically palatable to enough people who would vote in the next election.
Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid were horrific mistakes to start in the first place and unless anyone has a wonderful solution will end up causing a default and mass economic instability.
To address some common arguments, there aren't enough rich people to tax to make a difference nor is there enough "waste, fraud, and abuse" in these systems to help but a drop in the bucket.
At some point in time the country needs to get real and address these problems but when you have a large number of voters who have their hands out in a "give me" posture, it won't happen under this system.
“Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid were horrific mistakes”
The problem was not adapting these as the population aged, the way their based (with today’s workers taking care of yesterday’s) it was crazy.
"...it was crazy." And still is.
"problem was not adapting these as the population aged," Indeed, neither party dared increasing the retirement eligible age, or changing the cap on payments.
It is true that the Boomers refuse to pay for their lifestyles and expect that their parents and now their children solve all of their problems, yes. We probably have to wait for them to get old enough they physically can't run the country any more to clean up the mess.
By and large the Boomers have already aged out of politics. Sure you have Trump but almost all of the Congressman are not Boomers. Where is this grand plan of younger generations to "clean up the mess"? What are the specifics of this mess cleaning we are doing to do to restore the country to fiscal discipline?
The average age of a Senator is 64. Still mostly Boomers, including the leaders of both parties. The House is a bit younger with fewer Boomers, but the rules there basically make it impossible to take any action not endorsed by Johnson (and therefore Trump).
Not sure I like generational essentialism but you are wrong.
I’m on vacation so this is lazy AI but…
The medium age in the House is approximately 57.5 years, while the median age in the Senate is around 64.7 years.
The youngest Baby Boomers are currently 60 years old.
Plus boomers sure do vote.
"I’m on vacation so this is lazy AI but…" Seems like your regular douchery.
Someone born in 1965 is a boomer? Remember that term comes from "post-war baby boom."
By 1965 rates were down about 20% from their mid-50's peak.
Maybe because Boomer's a made-up Bullshit term, sort of like how in the Middle Ages people didn't say "Wow, we're living in the "Middle Ages"!!" and unless something very unusual happens, there will never be a POTUS born in the 1930's (and it's not looking good for the 1950's) not sure if there's another Decade that went without producing a Prez*.
* 1810-1819 also got a "Bagel"
The Baby Boom generation is generally those born from 1946 to 1964. Those born in late 1964 are 60 years old right now.
I'd say 1945 to 1960. Obama was not a Boomer. Most of those born after 1958 were not Boomers, judged either by temperament or by experience.
To be a proper Boomer you needed conscious connection to vivid cultural memories of WW II, like being born into an economy still subject to war-related rationing and price controls, the controversy over invention and potential use of the hydrogen bomb, remembered experience of the McCarthy era, the onset of Rock and Roll, vivid childhood memories of the black civil rights movement, the beginning of the space race, and vulnerability to being drafted during the Viet Nam War.
If you were born after '58, you did not really become Boomer-culturally aware until about '64 at the earliest, and that was too late. Most kids that age were still too protected to even remember first-hand the Cuban Missile Crisis. By that time, they had already enlarged the school systems, so you didn't have to start school in classes of 40+ students.
That's not enough first-hand cultural experience to make a real Boomer.
Why do you think you should have your own personal definition of a common concept?
Sarcastr0 was clearly using the most common definition; the name of the Baby Boomers came from the increased birth rate between 1946 and 1964, not from the shared cultural experiences of their childhood, with its significance as a generation because of its numbers.
Anyone who judges a man by the group is a Pea-Wit (HT J. Chamberlain) I've seen 85 year olds who are nothing but contemptible Toss Pots and not worth a warm bucket of (redacted) (HT J.N. Garner) and 25 year olds who are decorated Combat Veterans and continuing their service as First Responders. And contradicting myself just a bit, (Sorry Colonel Chamberlain) but for a Shyster to cast aspersions on ANY (I know, I'm shouting) group is total (Redacted)
Who the fuck are you to criticize an entire generation out of hand. If you have to pay to sustain the boomers, boohoo. You are expecting your younger generation to support you.
Neither party is serious about balancing the budget.
You seem to have forgotten that we had a surplus at the end of the Clinton administration. Yes, that was a long time ago, but the GOP's strategy of two Santa Clauses has consistently been in use even longer.
You seem to have forgotten that we also had a Republican Congress.
Which repeatedly claimed that Clinton's tax increase would be economically disastrous.
You seem to have forgotten that we had a surplus at the end of the Clinton administration.
No we did not. The debt has risen every year since 1957.
https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/historical-debt-outstanding/historical-debt-outstanding
I'm not sure how you are interpreting the raw numbers at that site, but see https://www.factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-under-clinton/
Factcheck is lying. The national debt by definition cannot increase with a budget surplus. The US Treasury is the official source for information on the debt, deficit, etc., not the CBO.
Pretty sure the Clinton administration withheld required Social Security funding and redirected it to general spending to create the illusion of a surplus while still creating a net increase in the debt.
From the Treasury’s data (I included one year before and after Clinton):
9/30/2002 $6,228,235,965,597.16 9/30/2001 $5,807,463,412,200.06 9/30/2000 $5,674,178,209,886.86 9/30/1999 $5,656,270,901,615.43 9/30/1998 $5,526,193,008,897.62 9/30/1997 $5,413,146,011,397.34 9/30/1996 $5,224,810,939,135.73 9/29/1995 $4,973,982,900,709.39 9/30/1994 $4,692,749,910,013.32 9/30/1993 $4,411,488,883,139.38
In the last 50 years, the federal government budget has run a surplus four times, most recently in 2001.
The Department of the Treasury disagrees with you. (The 2001 budget was signed by Clinton; George W. Bush hadn't had the chance by then to impose unwise tax cuts.)
How does anything on that page conflict with the US Treasury’s own data?
I quoted the portion that disagrees with you, you dishonest blithering moron; "run a surplus four times". Your US Treasury data includes Intragovernmental Holdings, as I pointed out below when you actually provided a link. Stop spewing this misleading garbage.
Stop spewing this misleading garbage.
Which is misleading: 1) looking at the entire debt, as the US Treasury does, to really understand total obligations; or 2) not count some obligations to hide our true level of indebtedness to make political points
On its face, #2 is “spewing misleading [] garbage.”
Intragovernmental Holdings is what the government owes to itself. By the same accounting, my current debt is a trillion dollars larger than last year but I owe it all to myself. And the Treasury Department explicitly said there were four years where the federal government ran a surplus.
You are incapable of understanding that the Treasury Department statement completely rebuts your claim.
I’ve noticed the least informed here can often be the most strident in their arguments. You’re a perfect example.
Do you really think the US Government doesn’t have to repay Intergovernmental Holdings? That debt to the SSA isn’t really debt? If you do, you’re wrong.
So stop being an asshole and educate yourself.
https://www.freefacts.org/resources/whats-the-difference-between-debt-held-by-the-public-and-intragovernmental-debt
In September 2023, gross intragovernmental holdings stood at roughly $6.8 trillion. The most well-known form of intragovernmental holdings are the Treasury bills in the Social Security trust funds. When the Social Security trust funds earn interest, that interest is paid by the federal government through either borrowing from the public or tax revenue from taxpayers.
ah... But that was more than 25 years ago.
My solution would be a total budget freeze where the total dollars spent remains the same every year and the only way program A receives more money is if it takes that money from another program. For example if you want to increase highway spending you cut from education, defense or welfare ( or all three). Then economic growth shrinks the deficit year by year. No immediate cuts just no increase in spending either
In recent decades, congressional Democrats have been more fiscally responsible. They have supported costly legislation in various cases, but (partially because they needed the support of Blue Dog Democrats) made some effort to pay for it reasonably.
Republicans made more of a show of being for small government and unfair taxation, so they had more to answer for on that front. As with military and other matters, they had some unwarranted "cred" in that area when their policies were fiscally irresponsible.
A small government libertarian would have little cause to like either of them, but of the two, a pretty good case could be made to lean the Democratic way. Republicans, for that reaso probably, tend to focus on other issues, like "illegals" or something.
I've not seen the Democrats address reducing the deficit or balancing the budget at all. When they propose massive new social spending they feign to pay for it by "taxing billionaires" or "making the rich pay their fair share" but they never have any numbers about how their vague new taxes will even pay for the new social spending, let alone make any meaningful deficit reduction or balanced budgets.
I think you give them too much credit.
I’d agree with this. A real problem with them is that throwing money at a problem is rarely disagreed with.
"A real problem with them is that throwing money at a problem is rarely disagreed with."
Democrats regularly have to deal with people in their caucus, not limited to Joe Manchin, opposing spending money. The Affordable Care Act, a basic piece of legislation, was more limited than many Democrats wanted because of this. The need for sixty votes in the Senate and thin margins in the House gave significant power to more fiscally conservative-leaning Democrats.
The money is also not just "thrown at" things. There is a real effort at serious policy to address social problems.
Not just "throwing money" at them. The disdain for such expertise is a major threat today.
Yes, the system also puts a major responsibility in opposing Democratic policy-making on the Republicans. Also, Democrats support social spending as a whole. Again, libertarians would not like them too much. But neither should they like Republicans.
I’ve no disdain for expertise but Democrats all too often think appropriating more money is the solution for everything. They also tend to not be focused on the fact that they need to be wise stewards of taxpayer money, instead focusing on the well being of the recipients of help. That’s not a terrible intention but it needs to be balanced with the former (and any “tie” needs to go to the former). One should be very hesitant to spend other people’s money even for good causes.
This comes off as not much more than vibes.
Is this somehow "Democratic"?
Is spending money for the military, let's say, done by Republicans but with significantly more stewardship?
We can talk about some general tendency, but again, Democrats ALSO are policy wonks. They believe in expertise and government workers with the skills to responsibly spend money. They believe in regulation. So, public schools, instead of just providing voucher money.
People can complain about "the government" here, but it isn't just about "throwing money" at the problem.
I'm not going to do all the math again, but I posted the numbers a few weeks back: since at least Reagan, every Republican President left office with a bigger deficit than the one they inherited, to and every Democrat left office with a smaller one.
The fact is that Democrats do actually pay for their spending whereas Republicans just cut taxes without cutting spending. It's probably true we need to both cut spending and raise taxes to fix the deficit at this point, but with full control of the government, we can see that MAGA is fundamentally uninterested in doing anything to restrain the deficit that they can't sell as some part of their culture war.
You seem to be conflating "deficit" and "debt".
Conflation is confusing one thing for another. Deficits are causes of debts, thus different things, and no confusion.
You are cherry picking statistics and I don't have the inclination to unpack them all. It is enough to say that the three Dem Presidents (Clinton, Obama, and Biden) took over at a time of an economic downturn where government deficits were artificially high and things returned back to a new normal through the natural course of events. Are you really giving Biden credit for "reducing the deficit" when his baseline was the 2020 Covid massive spending, for example? That is completely disingenuous and not conducive to reasoned debate.
The fact is that the Democrats do NOT pay for their spending any more than Republicans do.
The Democrats appeal to their base by proposing shiny new spending and Republicans propose shiny new tax cuts.
A fair look at the numbers shows that realistically, like it or not, there must be massive reductions in social welfare spending to even begin to get a handle on the problem and return to fiscal sanity. Neither party will ever do that.
Assertions are easier than parsing the numbers.
It's easier when answering my comment (I don't claim expertise over parsing such numbers / "showing work" is not something many do in these comments anyhow), granted.
I'd add that, yes, people don't want to limit social spending. Protecting it reflects popular will. One party also wants to protect social spending more. The other knows the public likes public spending, so bullshits about how much they threaten it.
Of course the public likes social spending---that is the problem I have been discussing! I like getting free stuff. The problem is that we can't afford to keep giving away free stuff.
Yes, the public likes sanitation, health care, public schools, public libraries, and so on. Stuff that is paid for by taxes and provides many benefits.
The proper way to do this, including not giving undue benefits to wealthy corporations and others in the process, continues to be a major concern of the government.
We can provide social spending. Other nations manage to.
Of course this assumes that the federal government should be all things to all people rather than concentrating on those thing prescribed by the Constitution and leaving the rest to the states.
Where does "Condoms for Gaza" fit into your Great Society?
Both parties like spending. Democrats have traditionally paid for the spending with a greater relative lean (than the GOP) on taxes and Republicans with debt. The tariffs are a switch with an influx of new tax revenue. Time will tell (if they are permitted by the courts) how much damage tariffs cause.
1) How can I be "cherry picking numbers" when I'm using the entire durations of administrations? Feel free to propose your alternative numbers, but just because the numbers don't match your political preferences doesn't mean that they're not real.
2) You seem to be saying that Democrats consistently have to (successfully) clean up the messes created by Republican administrations. I'll grant you that, but not sure why you think it's an argument against Democratic leadership.
3) An alternative view is to look at signature pieces of legislation rather than the holistic view. Biden's Inflation Reduction Act included tax increases to offset its spending, and decreased the deficit. Trump's tax cuts (both times) didn't offset with (very many) spending cuts and massively increased the deficit. The ACA included vareious tax increases to offset spending, and decreased the deficit. The Bush tax cuts didn't offset with spending cuts and massively increased the deficit. It's not a coincidence that deficits go down when Democrats are in chrage--it's a feature of how they govern versus Republicans.
-In 2008, Bush's last year in office, the Federal Deficit was $458.55 billion. -In 2016, Obama's last year in office, the Federal Deficit was $584.66 Billion.
"Feel free to propose your alternative numbers"
Sure. Debt to GDP ratios by year. This really indicates whether or not Democrats "paid" for their spending.
1988: 49.2% 1992: 60.94% 2000: 54.5% 2008: 67.0% 2016: 103.42% 2020: 124.1%* (104.3% in 2019) 2024: 119.9%
From the chart it's pretty clear. Bush I had a modest increase. Clinton had a modest decrease. Bush II had a modest increase. But really, Obama blew up the debt to GDP ratio by more than 30%. Trump did a number (21% increase), but it was primarily due to a singe year, 2020.
Firstly, the baselines aren't the last year in office. Most of the next year is due to policy choices of the outgoing administration.
1989: 51.6% 1993: 62.4% 2001: 54.8% 2009: 82.1% 2017: 104.3% 2021: 123.8% 2025: 125.0% (estimated)
While COVID was the reason for the jump under Trump, the economic collapse in 2008 was the reason under Obama (who along with Bush43 purposely grew the debt through 2011 but did nothing to lower it after that).
Sure, let's go with your numbers.
Accordingly, once again Obama has a jump in GDP to debt ratio. (2009 to 2017). And now Biden also has smal jump in GDP to debt ratio .
So this claim that "Democrats pay for their debt" falls flat even more.
Obama and Democrats kept the Great Recession from becoming a second Great Depression; he paid off a lot of Bush's debts and forestalled more. Biden had to deal with the badly mishandled Trump pandemic.
"Obama and Democrats kept the Great Recession from becoming a second Great Depression"
Now we're just quibbling without numbers. Suddenly the "Democrats always" bit falls flat.
Talk about cherry picking, since these are fiscal year numbers that allow you to ignore the last six months of W's Presidency, including >$300B in TARP expenditures.
Change in deficits are a much more interesting number because as each Republican administration explodes the deficit it creates a higher deficit and debt baseline that the next administration has to deal with. Bush I started his term with a surplus so if he would have just left things be debt to GDP would have continued to decline. Instead, by the time he left office he was running a significant deficit. Even if we accept your FY 2008-2016 for Obama above, he would have ended the administration with roughly the same deficit:GDP ratio that he inherited and managed to significantly expand healthcare coverage in the meantime. Trump got that same ~3% of GDP deficit and turned it into 4.5% in 3 years.
"Talk about cherry picking, "
That was your cherry picking. I just posted the actual numbers. You never did.
" including >$300B in TARP expenditures." -Technically the TARP made money. It was a loan. To somehow include it as evidence of "fiscal mismanagement" (and I don't know if it was in these numbers or not) is deceitful.
"Change in deficits are a much more interesting number "
Which...you haven't posted. Debt to GDP numbers are better, because they are inclusive of the entire presidency. If a President has massive deficits the entire presidency, then suddenly lowers them the last year, they didn't really do a good job. If by contrast, the President hit a bad year his last year in office, but all the other years were pretty good, just looking at the last year isn't good either.
"Bush I started his term with a surplus so if he would have just left things..." George W got hit by the dot.com bust. It wasn't going to continue.
As I mentioned above, the presence of any budget surplus is pure fiction per the official keeper of the national debt and deficit, the US Treasury. Every single president and Congress has run a deficit since 1957: https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/datasets/historical-debt-outstanding/historical-debt-outstanding
Pasting the data here:
9/30/2024 $35,464,673,929,171.69 9/30/2023 $33,167,334,044,723.16 9/30/2022 $30,928,911,613,306.73 9/30/2021 $28,428,918,570,048.68 9/30/2020 $26,945,391,194,615.15 9/30/2019 $22,719,401,753,433.78 9/30/2018 $21,516,058,183,180.23 9/30/2017 $20,244,900,016,053.51 9/30/2016 $19,573,444,713,936.79 9/30/2015 $18,150,617,666,484.33 9/30/2014 $17,824,071,380,733.82 9/30/2013 $16,738,183,526,697.32 9/30/2012 $16,066,241,407,385.89 9/30/2011 $14,790,340,328,557.15 9/30/2010 $13,561,623,030,891.79 9/30/2009 $11,909,829,003,511.75 9/30/2008 $10,024,724,896,912.49 9/30/2007 $9,007,653,372,262.48 9/30/2006 $8,506,973,899,215.23 9/30/2005 $7,932,709,661,723.50 9/30/2004 $7,379,052,696,330.32 9/30/2003 $6,783,231,062,743.62 9/30/2002 $6,228,235,965,597.16 9/30/2001 $5,807,463,412,200.06 9/30/2000 $5,674,178,209,886.86 9/30/1999 $5,656,270,901,615.43 9/30/1998 $5,526,193,008,897.62 9/30/1997 $5,413,146,011,397.34 9/30/1996 $5,224,810,939,135.73 9/29/1995 $4,973,982,900,709.39 9/30/1994 $4,692,749,910,013.32 9/30/1993 $4,411,488,883,139.38 9/30/1992 $4,064,620,655,521.66 9/30/1991 $3,665,303,351,697.03 9/28/1990 $3,233,313,451,777.25 9/29/1989 $2,857,430,960,187.32 9/30/1988 $2,602,337,712,041.16 9/30/1987 $2,350,276,890,953.00 9/30/1986 $2,125,302,616,658.42 9/30/1985 $1,823,103,000,000.00 9/30/1984 $1,572,266,000,000.00 9/30/1983 $1,377,210,000,000.00 9/30/1982 $1,142,034,000,000.00 9/30/1981 $997,855,000,000.00 9/30/1980 $907,701,000,000.00 9/30/1979 $826,519,000,000.00 9/30/1978 $771,544,000,000.00 9/30/1977 $698,840,000,000.00 6/30/1976 $620,433,000,000.00 6/30/1975 $533,189,000,000.00 6/30/1974 $475,059,815,731.55 6/30/1973 $458,141,605,312.09 6/30/1972 $427,260,460,940.50 6/30/1971 $398,129,744,455.54 6/30/1970 $370,918,706,949.93 6/30/1969 $353,720,253,841.41 6/30/1968 $347,578,406,425.88 6/30/1967 $326,220,937,794.54 6/30/1966 $319,907,087,795.48 6/30/1965 $317,273,898,983.64 6/30/1964 $311,712,899,257.30 6/30/1963 $305,859,632,996.41 6/30/1962 $298,200,822,720.87 6/30/1961 $288,970,938,610.05 6/30/1960 $286,330,760,848.37 6/30/1959 $284,705,907,078.22 6/30/1958 $276,343,217,745.81 6/30/1957 $270,527,171,896.43 6/30/1956 $272,750,813,649.32
That table includes Intragovernmental Holdings, which increases the apparent debt; you should only be looking at Debt Held by the Public, which did indeed go down in the second Clinton administration.
Are you a liar, a fool or both?
As I posted above, you’re the one attempting to whitewash some of US governmental indebtedness for political reasons.
For the purposes of this discussion, which is meant seriously as I've not dug so deeply into the specifics...does intergovernmental holding include bonds purchase by the social security administration as a way to store the finds collected from payroll taxes?
Thanks.
Yes, the most obvious examples are bonds and interest owed to SSA and Medicare.
"I'm not going to do all the math again,"
I'll do it for you.
So, Obama left office with a larger deficit than the one he inherited.
It wouldn’t surprise me if it went up, but are your figures adjusted for inflation?
“ I've not seen the Democrats address reducing the deficit or balancing the budget at all.”
Vibes from someone who does not follow appropriations bills varying.
Did I miss the Democratic balanced budget plan in those negotiations? Or was it just a fight against the Trump tax cuts? Was it part of an overall vision that would address my concerns?
Oh your demand is a balanced budget plan?
GTFO with that nonsense.
Dems make hard spending tradeoffs and decisions all the time. You don’t notice because you don’t follow actual events just what Powerline tells you.
Grey box here: Your douchery is boundless.
The day in Supreme Court History segment has not been around for some time. Let's look back on one such moment.
Michael Hardwick grabbed a beer on the way out of the bar where he was installing insulation. He tossed out the beer outside but was still arrested for drinking in public.
If he didn't pay the ticket ($50, a sizable amount in the early 1980s) on time, he would be arrested.
The ticket had a typo (right day, wrong day of the week), and he missed the due date. The police officer who ticketed him came to his house with an arrest warrant. He wasn't there. Hardwick found out, paid the fine, and the warrant was dismissed.
The police officer came at a later date, thinking he had never paid, to arrest him. The officer (either let in or the front door was open) came in and eventually found Michael and another (married) man having sex. They were arrested for "sodomy" and for some marijuana in plain view.
The police officer told others at the station what they were there for. using a "c" word. Hardwick was able to post bail quickly, but his friend, [who is mostly forgotten] was there for 12 hours.
The local DA decided not to prosecute "unless further evidence arose" (or some such language). There was a policy not to prosecute such cases. (At the Supreme Court, however, the government was unable to explain why it was not prosecuted.)
Hardwick sued anyhow, arguing he was still at risk. He won at the Court of Appeals (the opinion written by Judge Frank Johnson, famous for his civil rights opinions) but lost 5-4 at the Supreme Court. Judge Johnson partially noted that same sex relationships had some of the same benefits as marriage.
The invasion of his bedroom & arrest were barely referenced at the SCOTUS oral argument, which is particularly notable since Justice Powell was concerned about any criminal penalty.* How about the married man required to stay in a hold cell for 12 hours?
Laurence Tribe, arguing his second homosexual related case in front of the justices, wanted to focus on general privacy issues, downplaying the homosexual angle.
The earlier case was a free speech case that he basically won 4-4. Oyez.com has both oral arguments. This opinion was handed down June 30, 1986.
Years later, it came out that the "Michael Bowers" of Bowers v. Hardwick was having an affair. Adultery is a crime in Georgia.
Also, apparently, he was performing the same sexual act as Hardwick. The law in question didn't turn on the sex of the parties. There was a stronger constitutional claim regarding protecting heterosexual sexual relationships, but significantly less so when they were adulterous.
Lawrence v. Texas (2003) overturned Bowers. A contributor (Dale Carpenter) to this blog suggests that in that case, the two guys probably were not even having sex when they were arrested.
==
* A notable thing in the case was that it had been decades (according to Bowers) since Georgia prosecuted a sodomy charge.
People nationwide had been prosecuted, at times for sizable sentences. Nonetheless, the usual punishment was akin to here.
The embarrassment and other hardships arising from arrest, followed by at most a fine or prosecution for public indecency or some such thing. Similar "strategies" are used today in various cases against disfavored groups.
The crime on the books, even if (like here) it was officially for everyone, was also discriminatorily applied against LGBTQ people.
Michael Hardwick was joined in bringing the suit by John and Mary Doe, a married couple acquainted with Hardwick. They claimed that they desired to engage in sexual activity proscribed by the statute but had been "chilled and deterred" by the existence of the statute and the recent arrest of Hardwick. Hardwick v. Bowers, 760 F.2d 1202, 1205 (11th Cir. 1985), rev'd 478 U.S. 186 (1986).
The Court of Appeals agreed with the District Court that Hardwick had standing, but the Does did not. Id., at 1206-1207.
Doe v. Duling, 603 F. Supp. 960 (1985) was an opinion that provided a constitutional right to heterosexual fornication.
The Court of Appeals [Doe v. Duling, 782 F. 2d 1202 (1986)] overturned. "Plaintiffs, however, failed to show even a remote chance that they are threatened with prosecution under these provisions."
For the first ten years of my married life, my then-wife and I committed a felony punishable by five to fifteen years imprisonment every time we had oral sex.
I still can't fathom what business of the State of Tennessee that was.
Sex should solely be for the purpose of creating babies, you sybarite!
It was probably the Ball Gag and Studded Barbed Wire Dildo that constituted the "Felony" and why your Then-Wife is now your Ex-Wife
Decades ago the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts heard a case seeking to abolish the sodomy law ("crime against nature"). The state argued lack of standing – nobody was being prosecuted. The court, which would a few years later create a right to same sex marriage, wanted to strike down the law. So it proceeded to decide the case. It didn't say the law was unconstitutional. The court purported to reinterpret the law to allow exactly the act it was intended to prohibit.
The SJC has more turnover than the U.S. Supreme Court because there is a mandatory retirement age. Two decades before the sodomy and marriage cases the court had upheld the criminal adultery statute as constitutional.
It was a PR stunt?! Tell me it isn't so!
https://www.nydailynews.com/2025/08/29/pamela-anderson-liam-neeson-relationship-pr-stunt-naked-gun/
Is it a trademark infringement to register a redirect-only domain name with a trademark? According to a recent opinion from Tokyo District Court: no, because the webpage itself is only a redirect (thus no contents are shown) and DNS data is not an article or advertisement that you can put a trademark on. Cybersquatting is actionable under Japan's Unfair Competition Prevention Act §2(19), but requires proof of malicious intent.
Opinion (in Japanese) https://www.courts.go.jp/app/files/hanrei_jp/422/094422_hanrei.pdf - the trademark in question is "2ch", which the defendant allegedly used to redirect to 5channel. And no, I'm not ready to explain the complicated factual history (and its relations with 4chan.)
In 2017 Father John Misty's song "Total Entertainment Forever" began "Bedding Taylor Swift every night inside the Oculus Rift..."
In 2025 Reuters reports "Meta created flirty chatbots of Taylor Swift, other celebrities without permission. The bots will offer to meet up in real life and send sexy pictures on request.
Sexbots are probably within the right of publicity under California law. For whatever that's worth. It's hard to stop students from cheating with AI and it's hard to stop people from using AI to make celebrities more accessible.
In the other direction of AI image processing, Politico asks "AI is unmasking ICE officers. Can Washington do anything about it?". For years already government-grade surveillance platforms have been available to those with enough money or influence. If we have to accept spy cameras on poles looking at our houses the government has to accept citizens spying on government agents visible from a public place.
In the other direction of AI image processing, Politico asks "AI is unmasking ICE officers. Can Washington do anything about it?"
From the link:
ICE says its agents need to wear masks to prevent being unfairly harassed for doing their jobs.
More like:
"if you're the police, where are your badges?
"Badges? We ain't got no badges! We don't need no badges! I don't have to show you any stinking badges!"
I've been saying this at every stage of the growing technological panopticon, long before AI or computer analysis.
It shouldn't be built. Do not build the tools of tyranny, then they cannot be abused. This is a, arguably the, most important design principle of the Constitution.
But if politicians do so, then the only defense against this as tyranny is for The People to have it available, too, and monitor politicians and people using it against the population.
We shoudn't be here, but here we are.
Rumors on the internets that there's going to be a deportation. That's the basis for an emergency order in the predawn hours today to prevent removal of unaccompanies minors to Guatemala. I believe the overnight order was ex parte. The docket says "The Court received notification that putative class members are in the process of being removed from the United States. The hearing previously set for August 31, 2025, at 3:00 p.m. in Courtroom 14 has been rescheduled to August 31, 2025, at 12:30 p.m. in Courtroom 14 before Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan." So as I write this a more substantial hearing is underway.
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/71240524/lgml-v-kristi-noem/ https://apnews.com/article/immigration-unaccompanied-children-trump-deportations-guatemala-3790909d69f19fd8cd8edffb6b3215c3
Fron the complaint: "On August 29, 2025, several media outlets reported that Defendants are planning to imminently remove hundreds of Guatemalan unaccompanied minors to Guatemala."
In other news, there is a federal judge named "Sparkle Sooknanan." She has emergency duty in the District of Columbia this weekend so whether it's a frivolous lawsuit or an attempt to undermine the rule of law, she gets to referee.
Update: By the time I finished typing this the hearing ended and a broad order against removal issued.
MINUTE ORDER: The Court has reviewed the Plaintiffs' Complaint, Motion for Temporary Restraining Order, and Motion to Certify Class. Given the exigent circumstances, it has determined that an immediate Order is warranted to maintain the status quo until a hearing can be set. The Plaintiffs have satisfied the four factors governing the issuance of preliminary relief, including irreparable harm from transportation outside the United States. In light of the Plaintiffs' 2 Motion for TRO and the Plaintiffs' 6 Motion to Certify Class, the Court further ORDERS that the Defendants shall not transfer, repatriate, remove, or otherwise facilitate the transport of any Plaintiff or member of the putative class from the United States for 14 days absent further Order of the Court. The Court ORDERS that the Defendants cease any ongoing efforts to transfer, repatriate, remove, or otherwise facilitate the transport of any Plaintiff or member of the putative class from the United States. The putative class includes all Guatemalan unaccompanied minors in Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement custody as of 1:02 AM on August 31, 2025, the time of the filing of the Complaint, who are not subject to an executable final order of removal. "[B]ecause courts may issue temporary relief to a putative class, [the Court] need not decide whether a class should be certified as to the detainees' [] claims in order to temporarily enjoin the Government from removing putative class members." A. A. R. P. v. Trump, 145 S. Ct. 1364, 1369 (2025) (citing 2 W. Rubenstein, Newberg & Rubenstein on Class Actions § 4:30 (6th ed. 2022 and Supp. 2024)). Signed by Judge Sparkle L. Sooknanan on 8/31/2025, 12:37 PM. (lcak)
Interesting case.
https://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblawg/2025/08/teeing-up-sullivan.html
That website is moving soon.
Two more children sacrificed on the bloody altar of 2nd amendment absolutism.
Jerk. What's your solution? He had an AR-15, a shotgun, and a pistol. Ban all three types?
What we have is a mental health problem, not a gun problem. This didn't happen 40, 50 years ago, before the era of psychological drugs for children, over-diagnoses of ADHD, etc., and hormones and surgery for the gender dysphoric.
Shit, when my uncle returned form WWII he carried his M1 on his shoulder in the NYC subway. When I was in high school we had a rifle team with a range in the building.
Times have changed. Mental health is the problem. One should blame the AMA before the NRA.
Why are suicide rates higher for the age groups 85+, 75-84, 65-74, than for 15-24 year olds if our mental health issues are due to these recent treatment approaches in young people?
Because old people suffer ailments they choose to not live with anymore.
But it's suicide you bring up, when we're talking about school shooters. You don't see age groups 85+, 75-84, 65-74 shooting up schools and churches.
Feeble try at deflection on your part.
Sorry Charley, all other age groups other than younger than 15 had higher suicide rates than 15-24 group. Ailments too?
“But it's suicide you bring up”
In a discussion about mental health, yeah
Suicide is just self administered assisted dying, in many cases. But you're O.K. with state sanctioned assisted dying, I suppose?
As punishment for Capital Crimes, yes. OK, and for Red Sox fans
Talk about feeble attempts at distraction!
You’re positing that recent trends in treatment of children such as ADHD over diagnosis, psychiatric drugs, etc. has somehow damaged their mental health and led to these increased (and yet still very rare) school shootings but this mental health crisis wouldn’t manifest in suicide rates? That’s just goofy. Since you’re into “50 years ago” the suicide rate for 15-24 year olds was 11.8 then, it was 13.5 in 2023, a very slight increase. Interestingly, it was quite lower (9.9) in years like 2002 (which was well into “ADHD over-diagnosis, psychiatric drugs used for kids” and such.
“But you're O.K. with state sanctioned assisted dying, I suppose?”
Yes I support adults consensually exercising autonomy over their bodies and consensual adult associations to that effect. I own my body, who do you think owns yours, slaver?
But you're opposed to suicide? Not consistent.
And where does "slaver" come from?
Slaver is for people like you who value government control over individual autonomy. A first libertarian principle is you own yourself.
I’m against people (in the sense of I’d like to talk them out of it) committing suicide when it’s done out of desperation (though I wouldn’t criminalize it), but when it’s done by an informed consensual decision especially when verified by witnesses and doctors about what’s best for a person in their eyes then of course I’m not against it.
But I'm not in favor of government control over individual autonomy. Quite the opposite.
And yet you think government should tell people when they can die.
No, I don't! Where did you get that?
You think the state should stop you from entering into a consensual decision to get a life ending prescription from a consensually approving doctor and pharmacist, right? The state should tell you when you can go.
I never said that. You're making that up.
I’m not making anything up, I’m inferring from your comment above.
But you're O.K. with state sanctioned assisted dying, I suppose?
If my inference were wrong you could e said as much.
"But I'm not in favor of government control over individual autonomy. Quite the opposite."
So you support abortion rights vis-a-vis the government, TP? Yes or no?
"Sorry Charley"???? Wow, I thought I was the one with Cultural References dating back to the Carter Error. It's "Sorry Charlie" or rather was, as in the Starkist Tuna Advertising Campaign from 1961-1986 starring "Charlie the Tuna" who was forever stood up by Starkist, because while he might have had "Good Taste" he didn't taste good. Please, leave the Cultural References to the Experts (me)
Why don’t you just capitalize everything? What a moron.
Here’s the thing either this persona performed here, which claims to be a MD raised and schooled in the US, lacks the knowledge of capitalization, punctuation, etc., that a third grader does or he’s literally trying to write in this bizarre, disordered Trumpian fashion. Which is more pathetic is a tough question.
I forget what DSM diagnosis it is where peoples perseverate over the grammatical habits of others, it's not as bad as Coprophagia, but it's the same Ballpark (HT V. Vega) but whatever the diagnosis I can't remember is, you have it (HT Y. Berra) Would love to see what Mick Jagger would have said when you told him "Gimme Shelter" would never be a hit with that spelling error (would "Gimme Shelter(inc)" be better?) and speaking of Persona's whats with "La" vice the previous "The"?? Did someone's account get an Angry-Gram from EV??? (I've gotten them myself)
What DSM diagnosis applies to someone who randomly capitalizes words and can’t master basic punctuation in a pathetic attempt to write like a deranged elderly politician he worships who can’t spell his own name?
Ah, you DID get a Nasty-Gram from EV, well changing your name won't help, and I don't worship "a 3 letter word, J-O-B-S" Sleepy Joe, who's probably responsible for putting more of your kind in jail than Buford Pusser, Dirty Hairy Callahan, and Joe Friday combined.
My kind? People that Don’t write like This(
lol.
"What we have is a mental health problem, not a gun problem."
A popgun paraphilic disorder? A paranoic fear of emasculation if deprived of one's venerated inanimate object?
Get lost with that bullshit.
As I asked on an earlier thread, a hit dog will holler? https://linguaholic.com/linguablog/a-hit-dog-will-holler/
With apologies to Laurence Tureaud, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJnKm6ftPu0 , I pity the fool whose manhood depends on possessing an inanimate object.
So you pity the Secret Service?
When you chop off Young Male's Dicks (Chemically or the Old Fashioned (Love Old Fashioneds) way) they tend to react angrily.
Give it a rest, NG. We all already know you live in a bubble and don’t respect the rights of others.
This didn't happen 40, 50 years ago,
It didn't?
Only 1,038,998 more and it'll equal the number killed in 2024 by Abortion (and those aren't my numbers, they're the Guttmacher's Institute) Maybe "Robin" wouldn't have been so hateful if he hadn't had "Little Robert" chopped off by Surgeons providing the "Gold Standard". He should have taken his anger out on them.
Oh he’s going to start his wailing over the black baby holocaust now I guess. What a pathetic edgelord wannabe.
Where will be get the next generation of Criminals if we keep killing them before they even get a chance??
Hilarious to see him try to square his tears over the poor zygotes with his attempts at edgy racism. The inability to write (“be get the” lol) in doing it is the cherry on top (or as he’d put it the Cherry on Top).
You're the Race-ist, Ass-suming I was referring to a particular race. How about the Asians? What will the McGarrett's of 2055 do with out a "Wo Fat" to match wits with? Oh, I'm sorry, "Wo Avoirdupois-ly Challenged"
We’re nowhere near absolutism yet. But the more people like you, authoritarian-espousing politicians, and ideologically driven judges shit on an enumerated natural right, the less tolerance the rest of us will have for infringement.
If this doesn't get the ATF abolished, perhaps nothing will:
"“Take a look into our world. This is a scenario @ATFWasington frequently faces when combatting violent crime and maintaining public safety. Many people attempt to conceal firearms on their person or belongings which puts everyone involved at risk. #MakeDCSafeAgain #ATF,” the ATF tweeted on X. "
https://x.com/ATFWashington/status/1958153475071639730
Of course, the page isn't there anymore.
I love Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (in moderation of course, well except for the Firearms)
This definitely should have immediately led to the elimination of ATF along with prosecution of a bunch of its agents and managers:
https://saf.org/atf-swat-raid-that-killed-arkansas-man-raises-more-questions-of-excessive-force/
Wonder what EV thinks of this little experiment? Can the world survive back to back open threads?
Rejoice! A Sunday without Somin.
I read early today in the newspaper that a plane about to take a load of immigrant children to Guatemala was halted on the runway by a judge. Sending children off with no plan for them is atrocious. There is no doubt that Americans will look back at the recent treatment of immigrants as shameful. This period will be seen as our country's failure, like Jim Crow, and our treatment of Japanese Americans during WWII.
The judge said she was awakened at 2:30 a.m. to address the emergency filing from the children’s lawyers, who wrote in bold type that flights might be leaving within the ensuing two to four hours. Sooknanan spent hours trying to reach federal attorneys and get answers, she said.
“I have the government attempting to remove unaccompanied minors from the country in the wee hours of the morning on a holiday weekend, which is surprising,” Sooknanan said at the midday hearing, later adding: “Absent action by the courts, all of those children would have been returned to Guatemala, potentially to very dangerous situations.”
https://apnews.com/article/immigration-unaccompanied-children-trump-deportations-guatemala-3790909d69f19fd8cd8edffb6b3215c3
A major problem is the lack of due process. I am speaking both in a legal sense & in the sense that the whole process is a mess.
Some of the children apparently are going back to rejoin their parents. The status of others is disputed. The process in place invites mistakes, trauma, and overall a bunch of problems.
"The status of others is disputed. The process in place invites mistakes, trauma, and overall a bunch of problems." Like releasing unaccompanied minor and losing track of them?
'member when Republicans were furious about the wrongness of sending latino kids back to rotten dictatorships and kleptocracies?
And Democrats waxed on the holy propriety of it?
You are all goal-oriented, evil, power monger shits. I suppose we'll see a flip back again in another quarter century.
That seems about a correct ballpark granularity. It was about 25 years ago when Republicans touted rule of law on their fishing expeditions to git Clinton, carried through to impeachment, to the Democrats doing the same thing.
I forgot my flowery description above already. Something something something shits.
Oh, yay! Navy ships amassing off Venezuela. Speak softly and carry a big stick? No more wars! Or no more no more wars!
With inflation rising, the Epstein files still closed off, the failed talks with Putin, the government healthcare departments melting down and with his own failing physical and mental health, President Trump is doubling down on crime. Something pretty far from the job of the President. Flag burners will be locked up and no noncash bail for minor offenses. Just waiting for the Court to say the jails are too full. The President is not the top cop his job is to support police and not just the bad cops, he needs to support the good ones.
Inflation's down, nobody gives a shit about Epstein (Now Horshack's Files I'd pay to see), Putin talks failed because Europe pulled their usual Pussy Bullshit, getting rid of the dead weight at CDC, HHS, is a "Feature not a Bug", and if being mentally agile and physically active at 79 is "Failing" give me an "F". Flag burners should be deported to Uganda, and your qualifying "For Minor Offenses" tells me you know you're full of Feces, POTUS is the "Top Cop" I remember seeing it on "Schoolhouse Rock"
Where do you get your information? Inflation for the year so far Jan to July 2025 is annualized at 2.61%. from a starting point of 3% in Jan. What do you expect the "Epstein Files" to reveal and what effect will that have on any important issues. As for "failed" talks with Putin; it takes two to tang. How many talks did the Biden administration have over four years? What "healthcare" departments are melting down? I doubt that you could keep the schedule Trump does and Biden certainly never did. Like Biden, he has the best possible medical care in the world and his supposed decline is wishful thinking on your part.
President Trump is doubling down on crime.
Committing it, anyway.
Like which crimes?
Good night, everyone. Enjoy the Labor Day holiday tomorrow.
Please log in to post comments
Mute this user?
Ban this user?
Un-ban this user?
Nuke this user?
Un-nuke this user?
Flag this comment?
Un-flag this comment?
Jacob Sullum | 9.2.2025 12:01 AM
Jacob Sullum | 9.1.2025 4:45 PM
J.D. Tuccille | 9.1.2025 7:00 AM
Katarina Hall | From the August/September 2025 issue
Katherine Mangu-Ward | From the October 2025 issue
