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Eugene Volokh | 9.22.2025 3:07 PM
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Senior U. S. District Judge Steven Merryday has entered a sua sponte order striking Donald Trump's 85 page complaint in the matter of Donald J. Trump v. New York Times Company, et al. To quote from the order:
[A] complaint remains an improper and impermissible place for the tedious and burdensome aggregation of prospective evidence, for the rehearsal of tendentious arguments, or for the protracted recitation and explanation of legal authority putatively supporting the pleader’s claim for relief. As every lawyer knows (or is presumed to know), a complaint is not a public forum for vituperation and invective — not a protected platform to rage against an adversary. A complaint is not a megaphone for public relations or a podium for a passionate oration at a political rally or the functional equivalent of the Hyde Park Speakers’ Corner. A complaint is a mechanism to fairly, precisely, directly, soberly, and economically inform the defendants — in a professionally constrained manner consistent with the dignity of the adversarial process in an Article III court of the United States — of the nature and content of the claims. A complaint is a short, plain, direct statement of allegations of fact sufficient to create a facially plausible claim for relief and sufficient to permit the formulation of an informed response. Although lawyers receive a modicum of expressive latitude in pleading the claim of a client, the complaint in this action extends far beyond the outer bound of that latitude.
[A] complaint remains an improper and impermissible place for the tedious and burdensome aggregation of prospective evidence, for the rehearsal of tendentious arguments, or for the protracted recitation and explanation of legal authority putatively supporting the pleader’s claim for relief. As every lawyer knows (or is presumed to know), a complaint is not a public forum for vituperation and invective — not a protected platform to rage against an adversary. A complaint is not a megaphone for public relations or a podium for a passionate oration at a political rally or the functional equivalent of the Hyde Park Speakers’ Corner.
A complaint is a mechanism to fairly, precisely, directly, soberly, and economically inform the defendants — in a professionally constrained manner consistent with the dignity of the adversarial process in an Article III court of the United States — of the nature and content of the claims. A complaint is a short, plain, direct statement of allegations of fact sufficient to create a facially plausible claim for relief and sufficient to permit the formulation of an informed response. Although lawyers receive a modicum of expressive latitude in pleading the claim of a client, the complaint in this action extends far beyond the outer bound of that latitude.
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flmd.447437/gov.uscourts.flmd.447437.5.0.pdf?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
The offending pleading is here: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flmd.447437/gov.uscourts.flmd.447437.1.0.pdf
The complaint in a federal lawsuit is not a vehicle for self-aggrandizement of the plaintiff. Its purpose is to advise the defendant(s) of what conduct they are being called upon to answer and to apprize the court of the nature of the plaintiff's legal theories and the basic factual underpinnings of such theories in the case at bar.
After reading the complaint, I noted last week that the wording was just an amateur jeremiad without every bothering to employ legal reasoning
An opinion issued by a federal judge is “not a megaphone for public relations or a podium for a passionate oration at a political rally or the functional equivalent of the Hyde Park Speakers’ Corner.” Funny how that keeps happening. Even more hilarious when the legal profession cheers it on, while pontificating on objective justice and constitutional order.
A federal judge issuing an opinion, even for an improper purpose, is not subject to sanctions. Attorneys in a federal civil action who present to the court a pleading, written motion, or other paper—whether by signing, filing, submitting, or later advocating it—are certifying, inter alia:
(1) it is not being presented for any improper purpose, such as to harass, cause unnecessary delay, or needlessly increase the cost of litigation; [emphasis added] (2) the claims, defenses, and other legal contentions are warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law or for establishing new law; (3) the factual contentions have evidentiary support or, if specifically so identified, will likely have evidentiary support after a reasonable opportunity for further investigation or discovery; and (4) the denials of factual contentions are warranted on the evidence or, if specifically so identified, are reasonably based on belief or a lack of information.
(1) it is not being presented for any improper purpose, such as to harass, cause unnecessary delay, or needlessly increase the cost of litigation; [emphasis added]
(2) the claims, defenses, and other legal contentions are warranted by existing law or by a nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law or for establishing new law;
(3) the factual contentions have evidentiary support or, if specifically so identified, will likely have evidentiary support after a reasonable opportunity for further investigation or discovery; and
(4) the denials of factual contentions are warranted on the evidence or, if specifically so identified, are reasonably based on belief or a lack of information.
An attorney who trifles with the court by presenting a matter contrary to these requirements is subject to monetary and/or nonmonetary sanctions.
A federal judge issuing an opinion, even for an improper purpose, is not subject to sanctions.
…other than impeachment.
I guess neutering CBS news and 60 minutes did pay off for Larry Ellison...
https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-china-trump-social-video-platform-oracle-cbffc62506b3f4533ed327a37ac38ad3
Actually its Ellison's son David's company Skydance that acquired CBS.
If you look up David Ellison Skydance then you see 58 contributions to (D)'s, zero (R)'s. Looks like he gave $10,000 to every state Democratic campaign committee, among other contributions, and those are just the ones he had to declare.
https://www.opensecrets.org/donor-lookup/results?employ=Skydance&name=David+Ellison&order=asc&sort=D
Yes, I'm sure David Ellison's business affairs are just as independent from his father's as Trump's son's are.
...or Biden's son was.
LOL. You guys are going to keep saying that until someone believes it.
I'm glad you still feel some shame about having voted for the most corrupt president in US history. Otherwise you wouldn't need to make up such nonsense to clear your conscience.
+1
Hey Boy disagrees.
So to be clear, you believe that Ellison and Trump's sons business decisions are directly connected to their fathers but Hunter was a savvy, successful independent business man?
That's (D)ifferent, of course. And the business decisions and success of Joe Biden's brother obviously were not affected by his father's political interests or connections, either.
No, I think Hunter Biden is a terrible businessman who traded on his father's name.
I guess the sad part is that I'm not sure which president you are talking about - seriously, which one is the most corrupt?
Yes, that is sad.
I doubt he voted for Biden
I thought I was clear about not having voted for Biden.
Somin is at it again with importing people as though they are chattel.
Going after the colleges and their over-hyped worth is more important. More so too is the excessive indulgence given to native Americans. Make public schools teach basics and get rid of the touchy feely molly coddling stuff. Spartanize the youth again and make them hungry. Religion and self-control too. Our nation must absorb those already here. If these new people are worth keeping , then OK.
This weekend far-right thugs in The Hague did battle with the police and attacked the headquarters of the centrist D66 party.
https://www.dutchnews.nl/2025/09/anti-immigration-arrest-total-hits-37-four-police-officers-hurt/
On Saturday even the far-right leader Geert Wilders condemned these riots. But yesterday the finance minister was already on TV expressing outrage that D66 was "politicising" the attack.
...and obviously nobody will be surprised to learn that Twitter on Saturday was full of stories about how a peaceful protest by concerned citizens had been disturbed by Antifa troublemakers. People were shocked that somehow the right got blamed for this mess, when all they did was march down the street with NSB flags, shouting antisemitic slogans, making Nazi salutes, set fire to police cars, throw rocks at the D66 offices, etc. If a concerned citizen can't even do that, what can they do in a free society?
That looks like the “mostly peaceful” Black Lives Matter riots protests.
Perspective.
That's not perspective. That's you deflecting to carry water for violent neo-Nazis.
You don't need to do that. One might think you consider them on your side.
This story will amuse some people here:
ABN Amro, one of the major Dutch banks, is recruiting a new chairman. And one of the job requirements is that it has to be a man. By law at least a third of the supervisory board has to be made up of each gender, and with the male current chairman stepping down, they will have too few men unless they recruit a man to replace him. (Currently the supervisory board has four women and three men.)
Similar to the rather ridiculous requirement on the NFL that for major hires like Head Coach and GM, at least one minority has to be interviewed.
Its ridiculous because even when the team has already 100% decided who they will hire if they are available before they have interviewed anyone, they still have to go through that charade, which seems to me is belittling, interviewing a Black coach for a position only to check a box.
Clear example of that is when the Chargers hired Jim Harbaugh in the off-season. If he wanted the job it was his, nobody else was going to ace the interview and snag it. But they still had to drag someone in to check the box that they interviewed a minority and pretend they had a shot.
Is that really similar?
Well, obviously there's a slight difference: The NFL's immutable characteristic quota kicks in at the interview stage, while the bank's requirement kicks in at the hiring stage.
That actually makes the NFL's quota more defensible, because they're still allowed to make the final decision meritocratic, while the bank is absolutely constrained to make sex a deciding hiring criterion.
Well, the quota is 1/3, so a lot of the time it is not a binding constraint. That's exactly why this situation was noteworthy enough to make the newspaper.
That's not a slight difference; that's a massive difference.
Also amusing:
The newly appointed French prime minister Sébastien Lecornu got busted lying on his CV. He always claimed to have an LLM, but now it turns out he dropped out after one year.
In many countries a politician would have to resign over something like this. My sense is that in France he might survive, in part because the French care less about little lies like this, and in part because the French prime minister's job is to navigate the space between the president and the parliament, and as long as he does that successfully, nothing else really matters.
Maybe like Senator Poke-a-Hontas he has 1/1024 of an LLM
One thing I noticed of note at Charlie Kirk's funeral today was Elon Musk in Trump's skybox, that was about an hour or so before Trump spoke. As far as I know that's the first time they have spoken since Elon flaked out a few months ago.
The other thing that stuck out is after Erika Kirk in her speech said she forgave "that young man", Charlies Killer, Trump said: "I hate my opponent and I don't want the best for them."
In a little fuller context this is what Trump said: "He did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them. That's where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent and I don't want the best for them. I'm sorry. I am sorry, Erika. But now Erika can talk to me and the whole group and maybe they can convince me that that's not right. But I can't stand my opponent. Charlie's angry. Look at that. He's angry at me that he wasn't interested in demonizing anyone. He was interested in persuading everyone to the ideas and principles he believed were good, right and true."
I can see why the Russian Orthodox Church has already started the process of making Charlie Kirk a saint...
https://x.com/kadmitriev/status/1969498768585155032
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/us/charlie-kirks-legacy-finds-a-place-in-russian-orthodox-church-publication-assassinated-tpusa-co-founder-honored-for-contributions-to-christianity-with-deepest-respect/articleshow/124023627.cms
I see that the leader of the Bosnian Serbs was also deeply spiritually moved by Kirk's death. Noscitur a sociis...
https://srna.rs/novost/1332830/dodik-lit-candle-in-serbian-russian-church-in-memory-of-charlie-kirk
And Cardinal Dolan saying he was like St. Paul? Not sure if the Cardinal was talking about Paul before or after he found Christ?
There is no need to recite the piety that Charlie Kirk should not have been murdered, every time his supporters renew advocacy of Charlie Kirk's racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-labor, religiously bigoted policies. Those supporters revisit Kirk's murder with an eye to advance those policies. That is called waving the bloody shirt, and it is a political tactic as old as violent politics itself. To whatever extent Kirk's life may have had dignity and virtue, that kind of advocacy by vicious policy advocates detracts from remembrance of it.
No, your piety that you are constrained to recite is the bit about accusing him of being racist, sexist, blah blah blah. YOUR piety requires you to speak ill of the dead, if they were political foes.
You treat disagreement with your own views as a moral failing, and then expect the people who disagree with your views to agree with your moral assessments. That's amazingly silly. But I guess it does have the 'advantage' that you never have to worry about being opposed to somebody who is a good guy...
lathrop and his fellow travelers are dancing on the grave.
Do you want me to link to the Carter thread again, Brett?
Spare us all your falls pieties and high-horse condemnations. You find evil commie liberals behind everything you don't like, governmental or no.
I got one praised Carter.
And I voted for him twice.
Charlie Kirk smiled and showed a pleasant demeanor while spewing his bile and vitriol.
I am sorry for his family and friends, and I empathize with the loss felt by those who grieve him, but the content of Mr. Kirk's message showed that he was by no means a noble character. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/11/charlie-kirk-quotes-beliefs A rattlesnake at least gives fair warning when it is about to strike.
Brett,
You treat disagreement with your own views as a moral failing,
Pot. Kettle.
Anyway, do you truly think that it's not possible to have actual dismay, even disgust, at Kirk's murder while criticizing his views?
These are two different things. I was much dismayed by the murder, but am not much inclined to adopt or even respect his opinions.
I see nothing inconsistent there.
Sure, it's possible. It's also possible, and on display, to treat ordinary and peaceful disagreement on topics where large portions of the population disagree with you as so morally disqualifying that you can't talk about a guy being publicly assassinated without mentioning how despicable you thought he was.
He wasn't a serial rapist, pedophile, or cannibal. He dared to disagree with you on topics on which a hell of a lot of people disagree with you.
I don't see how we continue to have a civil society if the list of topics where you can't tolerate being disagreed with is that huge.
He wasn't a serial rapist, pedophile, or cannibal
Your low bar kinda betrays what you want to get away with.
Meanwhile if I like DEI I'm an anti-white racist....As bernard11 noted, you got a pot/kettle issue.
“ is the bit about accusing him of being racist, sexist, blah blah blah”
He was. Objectively and by his own words.
The fact that you don’t want to accept that he was a bad person doesn’t make it so, just like the fact that he was brutally murdered doesn’t make him a good person.
Explaining why dei is racist is racism? Exposing racism is racism?
Because DEI isn’t racism. It might give equally qualified minorities a slight advantage over others in the employee pool. A company’s desire to have a diverse workforce isn’t racist. It’s something that they believe has value for their company.
Claiming that any minority hired at a company with DEI is unfit or unqualified, however, is unambiguous racism. The idea that the last white guy is competent, but the first minority isn’t, is indefensibly racist.
Charlie Kirk didn’t expose racism, he promoted it. He may have been a “those people” bigot, but a bigot nonetheless.
Stephen, That comment is beneath you. You actually know better; I've seen that there many times.
His comment seemed accurate and relevant to me.
Its all good, there should be some die hard haters around to keep decent peoples outrage stoked up at least until the modterms.
Since Trump’s side isn’t typified by decent people, you may want to rethink your desire for decent people to remain outraged.
Stephen, That comment is beneath you.
It's cute that, after all this time, you still think there is anything that is beneath Lathrop. And even if you were new to his ramblings, the fact that he said it...knowing full well that it's based on bullshit propaganda...is a pretty clear indication that it's not even remotely beneath him.
Nil nisi bonum
Imagine WWII history if that the defining principle.
Please, continue slandering the dead.
You cannot even avoid slandering the dead. How fucking low are you?
Truth is a defense to allegations of slander.
You wouldn't know the truth if it bit you on your fat ass. If there were any lingering doubts of just what a thoroughly dishonest piece of shit you've become (or have simply revealed yourself to be, having been one all along) those doubts have been vaporized like a piece of tissue paper at ground zero of a nuke test.
These kinds of populist political movements often make use of martyrs to rile up the faithful and get them ready for whatever comes next.
You do seem riled.
"You wouldn't know the truth if it bit you on your fat ass."
WuzYoungOnceToo, how do you claim to know the configuration of David Nieporent's ass?
And death is a bar to an action for slander.
“ Please, continue slandering the dead.”
Accurately identifying the various bigotries and anti-American advocacies of Charlie Kirk isn’t slander. He was a shitty person.
So are you, but I suspect many people avoid mentioning that at innapropriate times.
Really? Please, show me the various bigotries I have expressed. And please quote me, don’t just tell me I’m a lefty, Marxist, God-hater.
Well, to start with, you just called a guy a shitty person right after he was shot.
What a slanderous opinion!
Wait....
"He did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them. That's where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent and I don't want the best for them. I'm sorry. I am sorry, Erika. But now Erika can talk to me and the whole group and maybe they can convince me that that's not right. But I can't stand my opponent. Charlie's angry. Look at that. He's angry at me that he wasn't interested in demonizing anyone. He was interested in persuading everyone to the ideas and principles he believed were good, right and true."
Donald Trump cannot resist making every event about himself. I wonder whether that need is pathological. It would have been fitting if Mrs. Kirk had gotten up and slapped him silly.
Yeah, Erika Kirk showed herself to be classy and gracious and decent. Trump was, once again, none of those things.
Who will be the next Prime Minister of Japan? The race started today - five LDP politicians are running in the party leadership election.
Mr. Kobayashi, former economic security minister, argues in favor of income tax cuts; he also proposes increasing defense budget, abolishing the "temporary rate" of gasoline tax (which, despite its name, is permanent); and as NHK reports, he's also in favor of laws reducing immigration and criminalizing "foreign disinformation".
Mr. Motegi is the only candidate who explicitly named the parties he would invite to the next cabinet - Ishin and DPFP, both centrist-to-center-right parties. He suggests giving trillions of yen to local governments that they can freely use (I suspect most of them just write checks to their residents); he also supports gasoline tax cuts, and is open to discussions on sales tax reform.
Mr. Hayashi, the current Cabinet Secretariat, is proposing what appears to be a refundable tax credit for low- and middle class, though reports are unclear. He also says he would bring back multimember districts in the lower house election, reversing 3-decades-old practice of single-member districts.
Mr. Koizumi, the young politician now heading the Ministry of Agriculture, proposes tying tax brackets to inflation; immediate abolition of the "temporary" rate; subsidies to rice farmers; and immigration control - but backs out on relaxing labor laws, something he was criticized for last year.
Ms. Takaichi, also a former economic security minister, proposes refundable tax credits; temporary rate abolition; relaxing wage and hour laws; and some right-wing policies - like 100% energy self-sufficiency; anti-espionage laws; committee on foreign investment; and strict immigration enforcement. If elected, she would be the first woman to lead the party.
Could you explain the process for choosing a new leader? Is it a vote among MPs, or do the members (if any) of the LDP also have a say?
Both have equal voice in the first round - the 295 MPs cast their ballots; and another 295 votes are proportionally distributed according to members' choice.
If someone gets a majority, they win; if not, then a second round is triggered - 295 MPs, plus 47 representatives from each prefecture's branch. Whoever gets the plurality wins.
Ms. Takaichi, if elected, would be Trump's best friend. She proposed shutting down TV stations for biased reporting a decade ago!
Do they call that the “Nuclear”Option?
I suspect China is a bigger issue.
That strikes me as an assortment of choices which suggests Japan is drifting back toward its former status as a strange foreign land. I do not oppose those on principle. I think they add to the interest of living with global awareness.
There is cause to worry when ideologues advocate interventions with an eye to "encourage," American-style politics abroad. Of course, the more threatening American-style politics become, the more dangerous that kind of intervention becomes.
If you were to assign them sumo rankings, who would you say are yokozunas, ozekis, maegashira #14, etc.?
RE: H-1B fee of 100K
Q: Will tech companies pay it? Yes or no?
Q: If not, how many fewer H-1B visas will be issued (currently 85K annually), how many H-1Bs will be issued with the 100K fee?
Q: How many companies will simply bribe Trump to get a waiver instead?
All of them. That’s the grift.
Q1. Some will, especially if it's a one-time fee. $100,000 over six years is just ~$17,000 a year. For high end tech positions, that's very do-able, especially if salaries are already well into six figures.
Q2: That's a more interesting question. Right now there's a lottery (never ideal) for the supposed "high demand" jobs. Only 20% of applications are actually filled.
Many of them go to consulting/contracting firms that have fairly low average pays for the supposedly high demand position. (~$68,000 a year I've seen). They basically import cheap workers for 3-6 years, then let them go back. At a $100,000 fee...that starts to be a less viable model. But, still, there's actually 5 times the amount of applicants for these visas.
You might actually still fill all the positions. I'd guess at least 50% of the visas still go through.
To put this into a little bit of context....if a company hires someone through a recruiter, there's typically a substantial fee: 15-30% of the employee's first year salary. So, for a $100,000 a year job, the company will be spending an extra $15,000 to $30,000 to the recruiting company to bring the person onboard. If it's a $300,000 a year job, you're looking at $45,000 to $90,000 in recruitment fees.
It's for high demand positions, but it's clearly a viable model. If I had to take a guess, that's how Tata and other large contracting companies work. They apply for a large number of H1B visas. Pay the modest fees (a few thousand). Then send them off to a job that's recruited them for the recruitment fee ($10,000-$20,000, or more). And it make Tata a nice profit.
Now $100,000 is a somewhat more than that. But the H1B in some ways "locks in" the employee to 3-6 years at the company. So for high-end high-demand positions, it may well be worth it.
I'd guess all 85K still get filled, but it might be a close thing.
It will certainly decrease the attractiveness for lower quality consulting jobs, which is probably a good thing, although that probably could have done just through salary prioritization. The overall set of changes will pretty strongly favor the big tech companies getting nearly all of the H1-B visas each year, which may be problematic for other types of roles such as health care.
The big tech companies can quite easily offshore the bulk of these jobs.
Yeah, that's the risk with this approach. Would we rather have Google or Facebook or Microsoft hire an engineer from India in the US or in India? Making it harder and more expensive to bring the engineer into the US probably means you get more of the later, not more US engineers in the US.
JB — Don't rule out more American engineers working in India. If everyone is going to get paid less, maybe the smart guy goes for the lower cost of living.
"The big tech companies can quite easily offshore the bulk of these jobs"
Yes...but also no.
They could in theory offshore them now. They could be paying an Indian $20,000 a year to do the job in India. Instead, they're paying a $5,000 to bring the Indian to the US to pay them $70,000 a year here. So, the question is...why aren't they? Why are they paying an extra $300,000 (plus more with employment taxes) to bring an Indian over to the US to work? And does another $100,000 on top of that really change the calculus that much?
So, 8.5B to the US gov't. What should they do with the money?
“ Some will, especially if it's a one-time fee”
It isn’t, it’s an annual fee.
“ That's a more interesting question.”
Recall that there is a pay-to-play clause in there. For a company that kisses the ring, the government can eliminate the fee. That will be the route most take, since kissing Trump’s ass is about publicly displaying fealty, not doing anything that costs money.
I spoke too soon. The fee applies to all applications and renewals and an H1B visa is for three years. So 33k a year per application, regardless of whether or not the applicant wins one of the visas in the lottery.
They changed the EO from the initial reports, seems like.
I also saw an annual fee that first day, but when I checked yesterday it was not.
My guess is that you and others saw "12 months" in the general vicinity of "$100,000" and ran with it. Here are snapshots from two different archives from 6:35 ET and 7:02 ET on the evening he signed it.
That makes sense, The reference to 12 months is in this part, which doesn’t refer to the duration of an H1B visa, which is 3 years: “This restriction shall expire, absent extension, 12 months after the effective date of this proclamation, which shall be 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on September 21, 2025.”.
The fee is for each application and the term is three years, not one. The fee is charged regardless of whether the applicant gets a visa or not. The lottery for H1B visas awards roughly 20% of applicants with visas.
So if a company is paying for the application fees, it would average out to $165.000 per year per H1B visa (five applicants with a 20% chance will result in one approval for a 3 year visa, so the three-year cost to obtain one worker would be $500,000 divided by the three year term).
That's the static analysis, sure. But I would have to think the current 20% odds would rather rapidly increase as the applicant pool self-selects toward non-cookie-cutter positions.
The fee is paid one time, not annually. It's still worth bringing in an Indian who will work for $120K instead of hiring an American who wants $160K, if you expect the Indian to be tied to your company for three years or longer. Naturally there will be some price elastiticty.
Based on the State Department's summary, it's a fee to apply for a visa and not a fee to get a visa. Applicants are not guaranteed to get anything in return for $100,000. For a big company the risk averages out.
https://www.state.gov/h-1b-faq/
They're also switching to salary-based prioritization, though, so I think this will squeeze out most of the consultancies who use H1-Bs primarily to get cheaper labor from India.
But that also makes your point stronger. If the salary is $250k, having a one-time $100k fee is not going to be that big of a deal.
I think its a reasonable policy response to a real problem:
Recent graduate unemployment by major data shows that: "For computer science and computer engineering, the unemployment rate in those fields was 6.1% and 7.5%, respectively — notably higher than the national average."
The point of H1 visas to provide a foreign source of workers where domestic supply is unavailable. Domestic workers are available.
Not all computer weenies are interchangeable. For example, an H1-B to hire a UC Berkeley or Stanford graduate with a masters and specialty in AI is going to be far, far rarer than Cleetus in OK who just graduated from a coding bootcamp and gets confused when you ask him about third normal form.
But this study is talking about college graduates that majored in computer science and computer engineering, and while I agree the quality can be uneven, it definitely is not the same as bootcamp mills.
And if the specialty is that rare and valuable then 100k shouldn't be an insurmountable barrier, its not a total ban.
The $100K fee is just a tax on importing talent. The Trump administration loves raising taxes so this follows the pattern. This risk here is that rather than pursue advanced computing research in the US, firms may decide to locate those labs overseas and just use the regular code monkeys for the local labor in the US. Think of it as just one more industry the GOP tax schemes are pushing out of the country.
See above in regards to current onshoring.
Why pay to bring an Indian to the US at $70,000 a year, when you could keep them in India for just $20,000 a year?
So what should the gov't do with the money (potentially 8.5B)?
By this logic, why shouldn't the government just nationalize all those companies?
THINK OF THE PROFITS!
President Trump is ignoring the applicable language of Article I, § 7 of the Constitution: "All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills."
Congress surrendered most of their prerogatives to the Executive years ago and Trump has taken most of the ones they had left (and spit in their face afterwards).
This is mostly the result of overhiring during COVID (in general, companies prefer to slow down future hiring versus firing people, but they're doing some of both) and AI limiting hiring demand for entry level roles. I'd guess it's a fairly temporary blip.
But I doubt this meaningfully addresses the problem, anyway. It's probably not going to meaningfully change the behavior of the big tech companies, and I don't think the consultancies will start hiring Americans--they'll just use more offshore engineers. If you really wanted to fix the problem, you'd require that US-based employers be willing to train entry-level US citizens rather than hiring someone from another country with a few years experience, but that would probably be a nightmare to enforce in practice.
What does President Trump contend authorizes him to impose fees unilaterally on H-1B visa fees?
Perhaps an employer should pay the fee under protest and sue for a refund.
The hunters becoming the hunted: antifa
FBI-Dir Patel has announced a robust effort to identify, disrupt and detain antifa members in the US, in response to the Kirk assassination.
My question: What's the federal charge? Conspiracy? Sedition?
How can you tell that someone is an Antifa member? Special tattoo?
Own a bicycle chain? Antifa! Or at the very least, a vicious leftist getting in the way of real Americans driving cars.
If antifa were real, it would be obvious. They have to be able to recruit etc. If I had violent right-wing emotional problems I'd know how to become a Proud Boy or Oath Keeper or whatever. If all it means to be an antifa is to put on a black shirt and run amok, that's not an organization. Who are you gonna go after, manufacturers of black shirts?
"By their fruits..."?
So your proposal is to arrest everyone who succeeds in interfering with fascism in America? Interesting...
A fine knack you have there of putting your words into other people's comments.
Feel free to explain what you meant by "By their fruits..."? That way I don't have to guess.
Playing stupid is beneath you. "The phrase "by their fruits" refers to the biblical teaching that a person's true character can be judged by their actions and behaviors, similar to how a tree is recognized by the fruit it produces. This concept is found in Matthew 7:16-20, where Jesus warns about false prophets and emphasizes that good trees bear good fruit, while bad trees bear bad fruit."
Yes, that's how I interpreted your comment. The good tree bears good fruit, so your proposal is to arrest all the trees that bear good fruit. What am I missing here?
Failed horticulture!
I think what you're missing is that we don't regard smashing windows, looting stores, setting cars on fire, beating people up, and so forth, as good fruit.
January 06.
September 20
https://www.dutchnews.nl/2025/09/riots-in-the-hague-blended-far-right-with-football-hooliganism/
Yeah, and I'd be glad to lump the Proud Boys in with Antifa.
Martinned, it would be inappropriate to tar broad associations like "the left" or "the right" with the violence committed by distinct groups on their extremes.
It is NOT inappropriate to tar those distinct groups with the violence they commit.
Antifa is such a distinct group, where people band together just exactly to commit violence.
A whole summer of Burning, Looting, and Murdering -- and Gaslighto worries about a rowdy frat party.
@Brett: That's exactly the point. Antifa is only a "distinct group" in far right talking points.
Martinned, it is quite distinct. But since they benefit the Left, the Left will deny it.
SOME political violence is bad to them, as we have learned. Assassinations are peachy to Dems. Antifa is as well.
Brett, let's assume for the sake of argument that there is no antifa. That is, imagine Trump et al had declared their target to be the far-left Boogeymen.
What do you think happens?
a) They do some honest investigating, realize that there are no Boogeymen, and let it go?
or
b) Accuse a bunch of politically vulnerable people - along with a handful of politically high-profile people - of being Boogeymen with no real evidence, gin up charges, and go on an arrest-and-rough-up spree?
Hint: They're already doing B.
Randal, all you're doing here is announcing in advance that you're going to reject anything they find.
No, I'm going to look at the evidence skeptically, as should you.
We've got Trump directing prosecutions and firing his own people when they say that the evidence is lacking. If that doesn't inspire you to at least take a skeptical view of whatever they ultimately claim to turn up, then you're just a fascism enabler.
@Brett -- I'd trust what they'd find more if they'd show transparency in the things they already have on hand--like the Epstein files.
“ Antifa is such a distinct group”
Really, Brett? So who are their leaders? Where are their membership rolls? Where are their organizing events? Where is their website or mission statement or organizing principles or … well, any details besides “the right says that guy is Antifa”.
Calling “Antifa” a group is like calling “militia” a group. It’s a broad, general category under which various specific groups are collected.
The Oathkeepers are a group. The Proud Boys are a group. The Three Percenters are a group. The Boogaloo Boys are a group. They are all militias (specifically violent right-wing militias).
See how that works?
ANTIFA can just start calling themselves - and also pretend to be - the Oath Keepers or Proud Boys. No one will be able to tell the difference.
Yeah, that's a head-scratcher. It's not like they have a flag or anything.
You cannot. That's the point.
If it was obvious, you couldn't do the amount of general harassment and chilling they're intending to do to your average Democrat grass-roots organization. If they want to win the mid-terms, they need to drive the opposition party into bankruptcy and jail its leaders.
And since when does the Regime need something as mundane as charges? Just ship them to some foreign gulag, no criminal charges necessary.
Well, of course, shipping you to a foreign land doesn't require criminal charges, when the US itself is a foreign land for you.
But I will admit that shipping people direct to foreign prisons when they haven't been convicted of crimes is an inexcusable addition to deportation.
Look, Antifa is a terrorist group. You can deny that they're an "organization", adopting a loose cell organizational structure is meant to enable that claim, but they ARE terrorists. And the government isn't obligated to take the claim that they're not really an organization on faith. Maybe they actually ARE an organization that just uses a deniable front end to protect the leadership, you'd never know if you didn't try to find out.
But they ARE terrorists, whatever you say about their organizational structure, and I'm not going to weep if the same government that was finding excuses to lock people up for praying in front of abortion facilities starts looking for excuses to lock up terrorists.
Here's a really weird idea: Try debating your foes, instead of dressing in black and beating on them!
Once the government has decided that it doesn't really need to prove that in a court of law, that becomes a fictitious requirement.
What's the point of debating people who aren't interested in truth, facts, or logic, but only in power?
I will agree that, for deportation, you need at the least enough due process that a person who's actually a citizen will have the opportunity to prove it. That due process is a lot less than a criminal trial, though.
"What's the point of debating people who aren't interested in truth, facts, or logic, but only in power?"
You've got that backwards: The point of declaring that your opponents aren't interested in truth, fact, or logic, but only power, is that it spares the need to debate them; You can get right down to caving in their skulls with bike locks, or whatever.
The key point of deciding that it's OK to punch Nazis, is that once you've decided that, the working definition of "Nazi" inevitably becomes "Anybody I'd like to punch".
I will agree that, for deportation, you need at the least enough due process that a person who's actually a citizen will have the opportunity to prove it.
Given that that's not the world we're living in, what's the point of having this conversation? The only due process that the Regime will accept is no due process.
Sure, "inevitably".
But, why should I concede that point? I don't think we actually ARE living in this dystopian world where ICE are just picking up people at random, or enemies of the regime, and shipping them off to foreign gulags.
I think we're actually living in the rather less dystopian world where ICE are picking up people who presumptively ARE illegal aliens, and occasionally making mistakes.
Of course, people who don't want illegal aliens deported in the first place aren't going to be too eager to make that distinction...
Now, I will concede this much: I think that Trump is doing this in a somewhat abusive manner, in an effort to strongly motivate illegal aliens to self-deport without forcing us to find them. I don't approve of that.
What do I keep saying? I generally approve of Trump's ends, he is pursuing them using terrible means. Well, I never did say he was a conservative, just that he was trying to make conservatives happy with him.
He's trying in a non-conservative manner, but any actual conservative President would be pursuing the same ends.
The means are the point, Brett. The left doesn't mind deporting people using the correct means. Obama famously deported enormous numbers of people.
The Nazis probably had some reasonable ends in mind like German economic expansion, a strong military, social unity, etc. The abusive means are where it all falls apart. That's why the Constitution has so much process in it.
"The left doesn't mind deporting people using the correct means."
Like hell you don't. "Sanctuary" cities and states aren't exactly a right-wing thing.
"Obama famously deported enormous numbers of people."
Prior to Obama it had not been the practice to report as "deportations" illegal aliens caught near the border who didn't resist being ejected. Obama started calling these "deportations" to goose his deportation numbers and hide the fact that actual deportations, as previously reported, had declined a lot.
"The abusive means are where it all falls apart. That's why the Constitution has so much process in it."
We agree about that! I've repeatedly complained that Trump is using the worst possible means to pursue the ends he ran on.
I understand on an intellectual level why he's doing that, don't mistake that for approval.
I mean, if Obama wanted open borders, it kinda seems like the fact that he deported a crapload of illegals caught near the border isn't the way to do that.
I know, I know, the evidence Obama wasn't an open borders guy is just proof Obama was covering his tracks as a sekret open borders guy.
You can go all out when you're doing something that's popular, or even where public opinion is largely divided, but when you're doing something as unpopular as flooding a country with illegal aliens, you can only go so far and still retain enough deniability to remain politically viable.
Obama, like Biden after him, knew that the public actually WANTS immigration laws enforced. That limited how wide they could open the spigot.
Biden clumsily opened it wider than that...
I don't get this attitude. I'm sure people understood what Mussolini was doing on an intellectual level and didn't approve... but if you do that and then defend and vote for the guy anyway, you're enabling fascism. Right?
You're saying you prefer the guy who disregards the Constitution because you like his policies. You're sick. You need medical attention.
This is just another rendition of the "I didn't vote for this" crowd.
You voted for Trump. You knew in advance the kind of person he was. You knew he was a liar. Whatever he does in his second term, he does in part because of your vote.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
I've repeatedly complained that Trump is using the worst possible means to pursue the ends he ran on.
If you are not willing to renounce the outcomes you by definition support the means, no matter what you claim.
Saying, "Hey, I love it that all these people being deported, even though the means , are despicable" is self-absolution BS.
There's plenty of room at Gitmo for terrorists.
QED
Bellmore — You write:
You can deny that they're an "organization", adopting a loose cell organizational structure is meant to enable that claim, but they ARE terrorists.
Seems like you ought to at least notice that your show of concession in your opening clause deprives of any antecedent your subsequent use of, "they." You are pointing your finger at nobody. Maybe that works as agitprop. It goes off the rails as criminal-law advocacy.
Typical Lathropian failure of logic.
I have conceded that YOU can deny they're an organization. This doesn't imply that I have made this concession, and I'm the one pointing the finger.
At the organization that wants people to think it isn't one...
I mean, you're not pointing the finger.
You're just repeating Antifa like a mantra, with specifics about what's the upshot to this grand pronouncement.
with NO specifics, of course.
The upshot to this grand announcement is that the DOJ is going to be actively TRYING to unravel Antifa chains of command and funding sources, and prosecuting members who break laws as members of a criminal conspiracy, not isolated criminals.
Lots of confidence.
No soecifics.
You want an awful lot of specifics out of a simple brief announcement.
My point is it's nothing to crow about until there's a well-defined practical upshot.
As of right now, I just see crowing.
That's the most creative misspelling of "profound relief that we're finally taking some tangible steps to pierce the cocoon of plausible deniability this awful group operates under" I think I've ever seen.
There. is. no. chain. of. command. There. are. no. members. Do you seriously not grasp what "not an organization" means?
Some people did something.
Do you seriously not grasp what "We're not convinced it isn't an organization" means?
Claims to have no chain of command. Claims to have no members. We're not convinced these claims are TRUE.
There. is. no. chain. of. command. There. are. no. members.
You have personal knowledge of this?
Well, as the head of Antifa, yes, I do.
Antifa is organized enough, and has a consistent enough brand, to produce a board game that glorifies their violent and destructive proclivities. Stab a fascist, violate federal computer laws, and deface local landmarks: what is there to object to?
Meme board games are the new RICO predicate, I hear.
I must confess, I had a similar reaction. You hardly have to be a real organization for somebody to produce a board game about you.
Two things can be true, though: That this isn't evidence Antifa is a real organization, and Antifa being a real organization.
I like your critical thinking, but find your standard for when you're convinced something is proven remains quite selective.
Antifa is organized enough, and has a consistent enough brand, to produce a board game that glorifies their violent and destructive proclivities.
That's convincing in the exact same way that the card game "Illuminati" (Steve Jackson Games, circa 1975; I played it in the 1980s as a teenager) proves the existence of Orbital Mind Control Lasers.
Still my fave card, btw.
How many federal courthouses have the Illuminati besieged?
Even today, Portland Police will not enforce the law against Antifa rioters because there are too many of them and they are too ... organized.
Cool new goalposts.
And what are you talking about re: Portland?
Here they are attacking in 2020.
And again the next year.
Yeah, we know you don't understand de-escalation tactics.
But here, Michael used present tense.
After somebody tries to set fire to a building with people in it, the appropriate response isn't "de-escalation tactics". It's prosecution for attempted murder.
What a nice new anecdote you switched to.
Quit dancing.
Trying to set fire to a building with people in it. Repeatedly. Just an anecdote, don'tcha know.
You're pretty casual about attempted murder, you know that?
What's your beef on this one? Above it sounded like you were mad they didn't do mass arrests and trials from 2020.
Now you want...what, a dragnet to find the arsonist?
Again, you're dancing. And when I call you on it you appeal to outrage.
I think there was bad guy doing a crime there, but I also think you're using it to...I have no idea what your thesis even is anymore. Portland bad because attempted arson didn't result in every liberal being jailed as suspected Antifa?
And, yes, there were virtually no prosecutions over this:
MultCo DA’s Office won’t prosecute some protest-related charges
Even the charges he said would be pursued almost always got dropped before they went to trial...
Almost all federal charges also got dropped after Biden took office.
"The cases the office said it would not prosecute are ones where the most serious offense is a city ordinance violation or where the crime(s) do not involve deliberate property damage, theft or the use or threat of force against another person. Such crimes include"
This is anodyne.
You're just looking for shit to turn into a liberal plot
Yes, and as I noted, even the charges they said they would pursue ended up dropped almost all of the time.
Well then maybe drop a link about that.
For instance:
Cumberland County DA drops charges against BLM protestors
I'm not at a place where I can click through, but I note your link says 'protestors.'
“ Antifa is a terrorist group”
Do you have any details about this “group”? Who are their leaders, for example.
Or are they just the most brilliant secret terrorist group ever to exist, stymieing every facet of the US Government from finding out even the smallest bit of detail about their vast organization?
Perhaps, maybe, it isn’t a group at all but a general ideology shared by numerous specific groups.
Nah, they’re obviously the most brilliant organization ever to exist, since no one seems to know anything about them.
"My question: What's the federal charge? Conspiracy? Sedition?"
Statutes? We ain't got no statutes! We don't need no statutes! I don't have to show you any stinking statutes!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VqomZQMZQCQ
The question was asked in good faith.
If an antifa member is 'caught in the act', there are a raft of available fed, state and local charges. If an antifa member supports others in the commission of crimes, there are a raft of available fed, state, and local charges.
Membership? I am less sure. Hence, my question.
Well, Antifa is typically deploying its violence in order to keep people from exercising their rights of assembly and petition, so 18 U.S. Code § 241 - Conspiracy against rights seems the appropriate charge.
"If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same; or
If two or more persons go in disguise on the highway, or on the premises of another, with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege so secured—
They shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both; and if death results from the acts committed in violation of this section or if such acts include kidnapping or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, they shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for any term of years or for life, or both, or may be sentenced to death."
I think membership in an organization known to be engaged in such a conspiracy is sufficient here, because it is membership in the conspiracy.
Brett, since you conflate membership in "Antifa" with participation in a criminal conspiracy, to what members are you referring? Please name names or, in the alternative, admit that you are blowing smoke.
Who are the "person(s)" -- not "people," BTW -- that the conspirators intended to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate in their exercise of their rights of assembly and petition? Please name names or, in the alternative, admit that you are blowing smoke.
When and by whom was the conspiracy formed? When did any other co-conspirators join therein? Please name names and identify dates or, in the alternative, admit that you are blowing smoke.
When, if at all, was the conspiratorial objective accomplished? Please identify dates or, in the alternative, admit that you are blowing smoke.
What conspirator(s) committed overt act(s) in furtherance of achieving the conspiratorial objective? When and where did each such act occur? Please name names and identify dates and locations or, in the alternative, admit that you are blowing smoke.
You seem to think it's some kind of gotcha that I can't present in a comment here a complete case for prosecuting specific individuals, when all we're doing is discussing this in general terms.
It's not the gotcha you think it is. It's not any kind of gotcha at all, really.
It's actually pretty sad that you've got so little in the way of an argument that you'd resort to something stupid like that. Its even sadder that you'd think anybody would be persuaded by it.
I will take that as an admission that you can't name names and identify dates and locations, such that you are blowing smoke. Thank you for your candor.
Those of us who have actually tried lawsuits know that they require, you know, at least one actual defendant.
Mere membership would not suffice; conspirators have to commit an overt act in furtherance of the conspiratorial objective, if I read not guilty's comment correctly. Therefore membership alone would not suffice (except maybe in a hypothetical where membership required or was itself an overt act to advance the conspiratorial objective).
A sufficient retort with respect to Antifa is that there's no organization, which makes it hard to have membership, and no conspiracy.
Prosecuting a conspiracy (where the statue requires an overt act) only requires one conspirator to commit an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy. That might be shooting a mortar-style firework at a federal building, setting fire to a police precinct, shooting up an ICE facility, or even just pre-positioning rocks at the site of a planned riot.
For further discussion, see https://www.bajokalaw.com/conspiracy/2020/7/24/the-four-elements-required-for-criminal-conspiracy-charge
So other than the paranoia about bricks, what above hasn’t been prosecuted that will be now?
Like Brett, you hand waive and spookily invoke some very broad set of anecdotes and intone “Antifa!” but when the rubber meets the road you’ve got no upshot.
As I have said before, I suspect that asking MAGAts to identify facts underlying their foolish claims causes them to break out in hives.
This reads to me more like they don't know which way to jump until the admin figures out how exactly they plan to go after ze libs for Kirk's killing.
"A sufficient retort with respect to Antifa is that there's no organization,"
Which is exactly the claim that's disputed...
You've not effectively disputed it, though.
You've done plenty of ipse dixit. You've claimed there's a uniform, though it was pointed out your specifics were mighty general. When asked for specifics you said you couldn't provide, but it didn't matter.
Who knows what abuses Trump will come up with, but your take on Antifa is shapeless menace has no criminal justice upshot.
It's not an organization you describe, it's a boogeyman.
You haven't effectively disputed that it IS an organization! You've just asserted it, over and over.
The burden is on me to disprove your undefined nonsense?
Your undefined vibes are not my problem.
Your position is that Antifa isn't an organization, and that this is so obvious that Trump proposing to have the DOJ go after them for their crimes is presumptively just an excuse to attack random political enemies.
I'd say that puts the burden on you! What makes you so certain that Antifa isn't an organization?
I'll grant you that, at least on the front end, they use a deliberately obscure cell structure like revolutionary movements have been using since at least the French Revolution. But that's hardly the same thing as not BEING an organization. It's just being a particular SORT of organization.
Whether or not anyone in this thread proves Antifa is not an organization won't change what the Trump administration does. It's way easier to prove that an organization exists than that it doesn't exist, so no proof is likely to satisfy the cult believers -- the antifa organization will always be hidden around the next corner or under the next rock, and anyone who says it's not an organization must be part of the conspiracy to hide it.
Still, people more credible than Donald Trump have said it's not an organization; for example (from 2020):
FBI director says antifa is an ideology, not an organization
I think the lack of any indicia of there being an organization is pretty good evidence, though of course you can't prove a negative so your burden shifting is rather overdetermined.
As Randal said above, "If antifa were real, it would be obvious. They have to be able to recruit etc. If I had violent right-wing emotional problems I'd know how to become a Proud Boy or Oath Keeper or whatever. If all it means to be an antifa is to put on a black shirt and run amok, that's not an organization. Who are you gonna go after, manufacturers of black shirts?"
Meanwhile, we can't even nail you down on what counts as an organization. Useful if you don't want to be debunked. Not great if you want to not look like a weasel.
“ Your position is that Antifa isn't an organization”
You seem to be confused about where the burden of proof lies. If you say that something exists, the onus is on you to provide at least a specific detail or two to support your contention. Saying, “You have to dispute my made-up thing” doesn’t actually shift the onus away from you, the person making the claim.
“ Which is exactly the claim that's disputed...”
When one side has no facts or evidence or data to support their contention, it isn’t a dispute. It’s baseless paranoid delusions vs. reality.
"Mere membership would not suffice; conspirators have to commit an overt act in furtherance of the conspiratorial objective, if I read not guilty's comment correctly."
Actually, 18 U.S.C. § 241 -- which Brett fecklessly referenced -- does not require an overt act as an essential element. But Brett's inability to identify any overt acts in furtherance of a conspiratorial objective is a strong indicator that no conspiracy exists or has existed.
Thanks for correcting my misunderstanding. Is at least one overt act required by some conspirator for a conspiracy?
In general, at least one overt act required by some conspirator is required to prove a conspiracy, such as a conspiracy prohibited by 18 U.S.C. § 371. Section 241, however, is an exception. United States v. Skillman, 922 F.2d 1370, 1375–76 (9th Cir. 1990).
Commenter_XY, I recognize that your question was asked in good faith. I give you props for that.
You’re confusing a legitimate federal investigation and law enforcement with the democrats’ lawfare. And what is the phrase someone is fond of quoting? Oh yeah. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
"FBI-Dir Patel has announced a robust effort to identify, disrupt and detain antifa members in the US, in response to the Kirk assassination."
This despite so far finding no link between Robinson and antifa.
I guess since he turned out to be cis it's getting hard to use him as a pretext to persecute trans people, so Patel will go after some different unrelated group instead.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/antifa-very-real-and-organized-terror-threat
Time will tell, jb. Discord DMs will be revealing. But I think there are other Leftist groups out there that will be examined quite closely. The shoe is on the other foot now.
In the meantime, Robinson gets the needle, or Old Sparky. IDGAF if Robinson was antifa or not. He is a murderer who will forfeit his life.
You do realize that the way this is supposed to work is the other way around? First you find the Discord logs that implicate some organization and then you go investigate the link. Not: first you decide who you want to blame and then go looking for evidence.
How do you suppose you find things without first looking for them?
This isn't that hard.
Good investigating: Hey, we see this killer was using Discord. Let's see who he was talking to!
Bad investigating: Hey, we really want to blame this murder on antifa. Let's go investigate antifa and see if we can find any ties to the killer.
In the good model, you start with evidence from the crime and the criminal and work out. In the bad model, you start with who you want to blame for it, and try to work your way back to the crime. (This is, by the way, often how innocent people end up getting framed for crimes and therefore a good way to make sure the actual culprits get off.)
Good investigating: "We notice that this murder was committed by a guy wearing typical Antifa garb, maybe we should look at his Discord to see if he was Antifa, and if anybody else was involved in the murder."
Bad investigating: "Antifa isn't an organization, so no point in looking."
"Antifa garb" just means "black clothing."
Uh, oh!
All black garb, all the time, for me. It's not distinctive. Common, actually.
Well, I did habitually wear black jeans for a couple years after my prostate surgery...
"We notice that this murder was committed by a guy wearing typical Antifa garb"
That would actually be okay investigating if it applied. But other than having a black shirt on, there was nothing "typical antifa" about what he was wearing. And the shirt wasn't even all black! It had a giant American flag on it.
...and just what is "typical antifa", a group that doesn't exist?
Something could be "typical punk clothing" or "typical BoHo chic" without there being an organized group associated with either of those things.
But "typical antifa" doesn't look anything like what Robinson was wearing.
XY, the ZeroHedge article you link names only one individual, John Hacker, as being a member of the dreaded "Antifa." Andy Ngo references a civil suit which was apparently resolved in favor of the defendants by the jury.
You can't have a trial, civil or criminal, without at least one named defendant.
As the late Clara Peller said in the Wendy's commercials, "Where's the beef?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0aKKFybRNM
Do you really think an site that uses loaded words and demonizing rhetoric in their headlines and stories is a credible news source, as opposed to a political propaganda organization?
jb, we've seen the Left justify and celebrate a political assassination.
We do not trust any of you. We're going to defang you. The nice guy who wanted to debate --- your side murdered him than justified and celebrated the act. Hell, some are attacking his wife for God's sake.
She said you should forgive us. You're doing it wrong.
I'm sure you think this is somehow responsive to what I wrote, but other than the fact that I can tell you're throwing a tantrum, I'm struggling to figure out how it is.
I guess since he turned out to be cis
When did a romantic relationship between 2 males become "cis"?
Since the boyfriend was "trans", they're absolutely committed to pretending that he was a girl, hence, it was a relationship between a guy and a "girl", and objective facts don't enter into it.
For literally the entire time cisgender has been a word.
Cisgender people are people whose gender identity matches the body they were born with. Transgender people are people whose gender identities don't match the body they are born with.
Heterosexual people are people who are attracted to people of the opposite sex. Homosexual people are people who are attracted to people of the same sex.
So who Tyler Robinson is in a relationship has no bearing on whether he is cisgender or not. Cisgender people can be homosexual, and most homosexuals are cisgender. I presume Robinson's situation is harder to pin down than just heterosexual vs. homosexual, but no one except for dummies who don't know what words mean thinks he's anything but cisgender.
Uh... "CIS" has nothing to do with sexual orientation. Two dudes born with XY chromosomes and who fuck each other are CIS-gendered homosexuals.
This isn't hard.
I thought they were homos.
So, basically you're depriving the term of any meaning in order to gain unfalsifiability?
You just want to pretend what it means isn’t a thing.
What are you talking about? It's just a term that has nothing to do with who you are attracted to. It means a very specific thing; just something that you apparently don't understand.
Robinson is a queer (of some sort, we don't exactly know), cisgender man. There's zero tension between the queer part and the cis part.
To try to be generous here: you seem to not understand what the word means. What do you think it means that somehow creates tension between your definition and Robinson being into his roommate?
Apparently you've created for yourself some private definition of "cis" that has nothing at all to do with how the term is used in practice.
Yeah, he has it exactly right in practice.
What do you think it means?
It's in the dictionaries that way, apparently for a decade; it's the opposite of trans in contexts like chemistry and biology, so cisgender is a perfectly natural word to coin as the opposite of transgender.
“ Apparently you've created for yourself some private definition of "cis" that has nothing at all to do with how the term is used in practice.”
Are you really doubling down ln stupid? That is literally what cisgender means. There has never been any other definition of cisgender.
It’s exactly how the word is used in practice because it’s the only way the word is used in practice, unless the person saying it is ignorant about its definition. Like you.
It's in the dictionaries that way, apparently for a decade
Newspeak is... well, new. Amazing.
So words should have meanings and definitions, but if you don’t like the definition of a word you just … what? Ignore it?
I think my position might more fairly be stated that it takes a lot more than a recent en vogue definition of a word added to a dictionary to accommodate a small but hyper-vocal minority to support the assertion that the new definition is and should be common parlance.
"So words should have meanings and definitions, but if you don’t like the definition of a word you just … what? Ignore it?"
It's the Humpty Dumpty theory of linguistics, taken from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass (1871). That theory has many proponents on the comment threads of this blog.
There's a lot of history behind transgender as a word, which entered dictionaries much earlier. Not allowing the word cisgender might indeed be the Newspeak thing to do, in the hopes of suppressing the concept. Lexicographers have standards for recognizing new words which guard against recent en vogue definitions; I'm pretty sure that the Oxford English Dictionary is not some woke liberal conspiracy.
A new word being recognized by lexicographers because it's widely used and understood is a totalitarian conspiracy to control thought? Not having a word for "being the opposite of transgender" would seem more in the spirit of 1984's Newspeak.
Not having a word for "being the opposite of transgender" would seem more in the spirit of 1984's Newspeak.
Thank you for so succinctly capturing the absurdness of it all. The need for a word to denote the opposite of a fanciful, fabricated concept is just as fanciful and fabricated as the concept itself.
There are plenty of words for more fanciful, fabricated concepts; the word transgender has been around for a long time but not as long as what it describes.
There are plenty of words for more fanciful, fabricated concepts
OK, name some of these fanciful words that each led to a successful campaign to establish yet another fanciful word to denote its opposite.
Again Life of Brian reads something that was not written; I did not say anything about the opposites of such words. Maybe you should take a break from commenting to work on your reading comprehension.
“ So, basically you're depriving the term of any meaning in order to gain unfalsifiability?”
What are you talking about? Cisgender means your gender matches your biology. How is that hard for you to understand? You can’t get a much more clear meaning than that.
I'm confused by people's responses here. "Cis" is just a woke word for someone who isn't trans.
So if you're a dude schlonging another dude, you're "cis" but you're not the worst thing you can be, which is "cis-het."
I guess if your boyfriend transitions, that makes you ex-gay.
I don't know about the "woke" part of your comment but, yes, it's just a word that means "not trans." It makes it possible to describe someone's "not trans" gender without using a negative. I don't see the big deal. The dictionary is jammed full of words and phrases that mean the same thing; pick what works for you. I'm personally in favor of bigots outing themselves so if that's where you want to go with this, that's your call.
The interesting thing you (accidentally?) bring up is the tension between your bigoted "worst thing you can be" CIS Heterosexual and the other thing which is your partner transitioning and how it might impact your own sexuality. If a CIS Heterosexual's partner transitions to their own gender does that mean they're no longer Cis hetero? I think the answer to that is if they still want to be in that relationship then, yes, they probably weren't heterosexual to begin with. But I'd also say what matters is people not feeling compelled to stay in or leave a relationship because of any labels that might be applied to them after.
"If a CIS Heterosexual's partner transitions to their own gender does that mean they're no longer Cis hetero?"
Of course. That's why you don't hook up with someone who's gender fluid. Even if things are right at the beginning, they might drift over to the other side during the act. Then you're gay for life. And you might not even know.
I really hope you're happy about the price of popcorn futures skyrocketing in direct response to this post.
“ antifa members”
Antifa members, you say? Since there isn’t an organization called Antifa, how can it have members?
This weird obsession of the right to insist that Antifa is a group like the Three Percenters and not a general heading for groups sharing the vaguely similar ideologies like militias is as transparently false as it is baffling.
I can point to various militia groups like the Oathkeepers, the Three Percenters, the Proud Boys, and the Boogaloo Boys and say, “these are violent militias” without insisting that all militias are the same as those.
Why can’t you identify the specific Antifa groups you claim are violent without pretending that they all are the same or that Antifa is a group?
Because I know immigration law is a topic that is dear to everyone's heart here, from the weekly summary of the UK Human Rights Blog:
The UK Government enforced its first deportations under its controversial “one-in-one-out” asylum-seeker agreement with France this week, despite an interim injunction on Wednesday temporarily blocking the removal of one Eritrean national. Home Office sources reported the deportation of asylum seekers of Indian, Iranian and Eritrean nationality under the scheme; one deportee’s challenge at the High Court on human rights grounds failed upon Mr Justice Sheldon’s finding that, as a fellow signatory of the European Convention, France would afford the applicant the same human rights protections as the UK. Earlier in the week, a 25-year-old Eritrean man had succeeded in being granted an interim injunction temporarily staying his removal to France, after it was argued that the applicant required more time to make representations on his claim to be a victim of modern slavery. The ruling had prompted the newly appointed Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to accuse asylum seekers of making “vexatious, last-minute claims” that “make a mockery of this country’s generosity”, and to issue new guidance to the Home Office slavery assessment team. The UK-France Dangerous Journeys Agreement was presented to Parliament last month, and is set to run until June 2026. It provides for the forced return of individuals entering the UK illegally from France, in exchange for the same number of asylum seekers who do meet UK immigration rules. The first French arrivals under the ”exchange” are now set to enter the UK over the next week.
I wonder whether a UK judge would be so willing to assume that another signatory of the ECHR would afford the applicant the same human rights protections if that other signatory was, say, Turkey or Serbia.
It also strikes me that this entire policy ignores the fact that the asylum seeker might have personal reasons for applying for asylum in the UK rather than France that are relevant for the analysis. Most obviously, the asylum seeker might have family members already living in the UK such that his right to family life under art. 8 ECHR is engaged. Shipping him off to France to have his asylum claim assessed there might already interfere with his ECHR rights in a way that the French authorities would not be able to remedy even if they were willing.
"the asylum seeker might have personal reasons for applying for asylum in the UK rather than France"
Asylum is supposed to be for "anywhere is better than home" situations. If don't want to live in France because your family is in England you're a migrant.
I would make a concession for cases where two destinations were equally a single hop away from home, but, yeah: Once you've reached refuge, if you keep going you're just a migrant.
That may well be your view, but it's not the law. More importantly, it's no longer relevant once the asylum seeker in question has already reached a specific country. The courts of that country then have to decide on the case based on the applicant's circumstances as they are.
Well, you'd like it to not be the law, anyway.
No, it's not in fact the law.
Asylum law does not require you to apply for asylum in a specific place (e.g. the first safe country you reach).
If you are unsafe in country A, and leave for country B, where you are safe, then how can you have a subsequent valid asylum claim in country C? "If you send me back to B...nothing bad will happen to me."
I think you're stretching the definition of 'home country' beyond what it can take here.
Such a dumb policy. No difference in numbers allowed in, just changing bodies.
The objective is to discourage people from paying organised crime groups for transport by (small) boat across the Channel.
Without delving into the specifics of the UK/France agreement, it does seem reasonable that countries might want to coordinate on their treatment of refugees. In theory you'd want a system where countries like Turkey or Greece don't get stuck dealing with all of the refugees and the load could be shared across a broader set of countries.
Hungary might disagree ;<)
Yes, and the EU has such a system, but after Brexit the UK is no longer a part of it.
https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/policies/migration-and-asylum/asylum-eu/country-responsible-asylum-application-dublin-regulation_en
Here's an interesting document: list of convictions for criminal insult in Japan, July 2022-June 2025. https://www.moj.go.jp/content/001446563.pdf
"Criminal insult" is a crime for insulting someone in public, with or without stating facts; the punishment was increased, from 10k yen fine or up to one month in jail, to up to one year in jail or 300k yen ($2,000) fine, in 2022. The document lists all sorts of derogatory remarks, made both online and in person; for example, no. 111 is for a person who shouted the F-word inside a bus and was fined 9,000 yen ($60).
Though some of the cases have questionable basis. People on Reddit talk about how posting negative reviews could get you in trouble - and there's one entry on the list, where someone who commented about the doctor allegedly lying to patient was fined 9,000 yen (no. 114).
I don't favour such laws, but this comment illustrates why Americans often misunderstand them. In other countries getting in trouble with the criminal justice system doesn't necessarily mean that the powers of the state are being used to destroy your life as you know it. Sometimes you just get a $60 fine and you go on with your day.
So, as long as the punishment is subjectively light, violating rights is no big deal.
I hereby claim that deporting illegals to wherever we want and under whatever conditions we choose is subjectively light compared to feeding them to alligators.
Sort of. Whether a particular criminal law violates a particular human right can legitimately turn on how severe the sentence is. A maximum sentence that is too severe might be a disproportionate intereference with a right, while a lesser maximum might be a prioportionate interference with a legitimate objective.
Insulting people in Portugal is also considered a serious crime.
Everyone in Lisbon is a poopyhead.
Poopyhead = super genius in Portugese. So that won't cut it.
Yeah, in the kingdom of the blind...
So how much time did you get?
Watching Face the Nation yesterday I discovered my customarily insular world view had deprived me of awareness of Emmanuel Macron. In an interview with Margaret Brennan what stood out for me was not Macron's substantive policy advocacy, although I tended to agree with it. It was Macron's talent to frame in English subtle political distinctions, using sentences arranged in complete, thought-out paragraphs. I doubt any American leader since Lincoln has matched that talent to use unscripted English which Frenchman Macron put on display.
Enarques have that effect on people...
Herr Starmtrooper strikes again: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ce800enrglzo "Sir Keir Starmer has announced the UK's recognition of a Palestinian state, in what represents a significant change in government policy." https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/3817734/hamas-calls-uk-recognition-of-palestine-a-victory/
"The terrorist organization Hamas, which led the attacks against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, declared the United Kingdom’s decision on Sunday to recognize Palestinian statehood was a “victory” and “justice” for their cause. They also said it sent a “clear message” to Israel.
“These developments represent a victory for Palestinian rights and the justice of our cause, and send a clear message: no matter how far the occupation goes in its crimes, it will never be able to erase our national rights,” said Mahmud Mardawi, a senior Hamas official."
You realise that this merely makes the UK one of 151 of the 193 UN Member States to recognise Palestine, right? And that's not even counting France, which will formally recognise Palestine at the UNGA meeting this week. No need to get hysterical.
...and which government do they recognize; Hamas or the PNA?
They are recognizing the State of Palestine. You are conflating Hamas and the state as the same. Would be the same fallacy if you were to say that support for America is synonymous with supporting MAGA
States have one government at a time.
Do they? Sometimes they have no government, sometimes there are at least two entities with an arguable claim of being the lawful government.
Gaza isn't a place called "Sometimes." Hammas is the one and only government in Gaza. Carry on, Obfuscation Boy.
But, of course, Gaza isn’t Palestine, it’s one part of Palestine. Like Texas isn’t the United States, it’s one part of the United States.
Gaza is a tiny part of Palestine. The West Bank comprises the majority of Palestinian territory (and hence, the Palestinian state).
You are conflating Hamas and the state as the same.
No, he's asking who they recognize as the governing body of the state in question. Is simple English really that difficult for you?
Saying, “This is Country X” isn’t connected to saying, “This is the government of Country X”.
Do we have to reestablish that the United States is a country every time the White House changes hands or the majority flips in the House or Senate? No, because that would be absurd and idiotic.
But to answer your question, I believe that the Palestine Liberation Organization represents Palestine in all international relations and the Palestinian Authority (a PLO group run by a faction called Fatah) nominally governs the West Bank.
But both Gaza and the West Bank have been militarily occupied by Israel since the 1967 war, so effectively Palestine doesn’t have a sovereign government.
They don't necessarily recognise any government.
Apart from Russia no government in the world currently recognises the Taliban government of Afghanistan. Don't ask me why. But every country in the world, as far as I know, recognises the state of Afghanistan.
You're conflating geography with government. Governments recognize other governments, not territory.
You're conflating your understanding of how the term ought to be used with how foreign governments choose to use it.
Governments recognize all kinds of stuff from official state flowers to the contributions of Mother Teresa. If they want to recognize a piece of geography as deserving a state, without specifying a government, there's not much you can do about it. Alternatively, they could recognize some government you've never heard of. Pouting and stamping that they must mean either Hamas or the PA doesn't make it a fact.
Your error is called false dichotomy.
So when will the UK be sending an ambassador to "Palestine"?
Presumably when it is possible to do so without that person being shot at by the IDF.
The UK of course already has a diplomatic representative to the PA; the person just didn't have the title of ambassador because Palestine wasn't recognized. (I assume Netanyahu is likely to retaliate by expelling this person.)
They can appoint one whenever they feel like it, which could be anytime from today to never. They (the UK) are an independent country and not bound by your ideas of consistency.
As a practical matter, the Israelis control physical access and would likely just refuse to let any ambassador enter. The UK has also signaled that the PA has a serious legitimacy deficit, so they might decline an upgrade until they get concessions like holding an election.
The recognition was of the "state" of Palestine, not the geographical location. A state means a government. Which, right now, consists of Hamas in Gaza, and the PA in the West Bank. Both terror supporting, corrupt governments.
Could the UK or France decide to recognize the "state" of Antarctica. Sure they could. Everyone would understand that its a silly, empty exercise.
I think we all know it's an empty exercise in that it neither reflects nor changes facts on the ground.
But the Israelis don't think it's silly or empty. They fight this stuff tooth and nail, and act like every toothless UN resolution is an existential threat.
Which is exactly why the UK, France, Canada etc think this is a useful way to inflict consequences without actually having to bomb, sanction, or tariff anybody. It's a diplomatic spanking.
No, it's a reward to terrorism and Muslim voters in those countries who support it. And short-sighted. The world has now learned that if you want something, you commit terrorism to get it. If those leaders think that London and Paris will be immune, they have another thing coming.
So you think the "world" is greatly affected and educated by a diplomatic statement that you've declared empty and silly, but failed to notice the fact that Hamas's actions cost them control over most of their territory, tens of thousands of casualties, and complete ruin of their infrastructure?
Do you think the "world" will say, hey, Starmer issuing a recognition is totally worth sacrificing my own life, the lives of my family, and loss of the land Starmer is recognizing! I wasn't going to do terrorism, but now that I know the benefits, I'll go ahead and start!
You don't understand the "world" or what it thinks.
Go read what I wrote again. Recognizing a geographic area is silly. Recognizing a state is not. They recognized the "state" of Palestine, which currently consists of Hamas and the PA.
So does the US. The other day it vetoed a UNSC resolution calling for a ceasefire for the fifth time.
In other words, Mr Bumble is correctly describing long-established international law and practice, which happens to be inconsistent with the desires of some posters here. And I'd love to know what territory those posters think is being recognized. Is it Gaza and what the PLA sort of controls in the West Bank? The British boundaries of the Mandate? Something else entirely? This is ALL theatre, designed to mollify domestic constituents, and has no bearing whatsoever on what will happen on the ground.
No, Bumble has his own ideas about what recognition entails, which are in no way linked to the real world.
Recognition of the Palestinian state does not entail recognition of any specific Palestinian government, or of a specific map outlining the territory that might someday belong to the Palestinian state. I don't know why this is confusing.
So like antifa a Palestinian state in and "idea"?
is an "idea."
All states are an idea.
Bumble, Palestine is currently a polity in a geographic region where no power holds sovereignty. None of, Hamas, the PA, nor the IDF rules Palestine. But a Palestinian people continues, tenuously, to reside there. That makes Palestine a set-up for genocide, which the Netanyahu government of Israel is apparently attempting to accomplish.
Have I covered your bases?
These countries speak softly, but do not carry a big stick.
When the US helped pilot the goofiness of recognizing a new government out of whole cloth over a century ago, they at least had warships sitting in the harbor.
When the Holocaust was a burning issue, France was totally on board with that, too.
Europe has a habit of being on the worst possible side of most issues.
I guess French and UK leaders saw that the UN got invited to go rape Jews, murder their babies, and kidnap some for later, and wanted in on some of that. Maybe they'll send Prince Andrew and rape the babies for efficiency.
I wonder if he thought it completely through:
"Keir Starmer's controversial Palestine decision could cost £2tn in reparations Legal experts have warned the Prime Minister that his latest move could spark demands for the UK to pay huge reparations to the Middle East"
https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/2111415/keir-starmer-warned-recognising-palestine
Experts have warned!
Said experts are, of course, not named.
"You realise that ...:" so what. Starmer is still rewarding Hamas terrorism.
Maybe Israel should try genocide.
I thought your preferred final solution was a nuke?
Nuke might be a little too much, try a bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol, maybe 2 bottles just to be safe. And DON'T call me in the morning.
Frank
It is rewarding terror.
A palestinian state next to Israel is not happening. Judea and Samaria will now be annexed in response.
And hamas will be defeated and expelled from gaza.
What you're describing definitely would be a reward for terror.
Correct....a palestinian state next to Israel isn't happening.
I agree Israel has no choice but to ethnically cleanse the West Bank and Gaza. Call it the Second Holocaust.
Will their reputation ever recover from such an evil course of action? Maybe, but it'll take generations - along with a lot of high-profile internal purgation of Likud - just like Germany.
The purgation that needs to occur is of Hamas. The Palestinians, to have any hope of self-rule, have to surrender, de-Hamas/PLA, and then find their Adenauer. We, in turn, should then be in the forefront of helping that vision of a Palestine succeed. But without those first steps, a massive forced migration is seemingly likely.
No. Even if all that were to happen, Israel's never going to let a Palestinian state form for defensive reasons. The geography just doesn't work. (Maybe if Israel pushes them all into a tiny few square miles on the border with Jordan, but that's practically ethnic cleansing already.)
"The geography just doesn't work. " Bravo, Randal! That should have been obvious to everyone 80 years ago. Palestinian Arabs have never favored "two-states" in area.
By the way, people should ask themselves why Jordan did not want the West Bank returned to its sovereignty.
That should have been obvious to everyone 80 years ago.
Well, and most of all to Israel. Why have they let this charade go on for so long? That's Israel's greatest sin.
They did not let it go on. It has been the Arabs, who refused deal after deal. Israel accepted every one. However, you may be suggesting that Israel should not have chosen to exist. What we have seen for more than 80 year's is that the despite is not one over territory but over the Jewish people having any state. It was the Brits and the French (who created this mess) who said in the early 40s that the conflict was irreconcilable and hence turn over partition to the UN which also came up with an unworkable map. Finally in 1965, Arafat made up the idea of the Palestinian State. And throughout the entire 80 years, neighboring Arab countries refused to admit Palestinian Arabs, preferring them to remain in place to be labelled refugees–a highly cynical move. The "two-state" solution was always a hoax in the eyes of the Arabs.
Your talking points are contradicting each other.
The talks were always a hoax in the eyes of Israel too, as we just agreed above... Israel would never accept a deal either, for geographic defense reasons. They pretended like they might, but there was always a poison pill.
I'm not saying no Israel, just that it should've finished the job 60, 80 years ago rather than oppress generations of Palestinians for no reason.
Because a permawar with Israel seemed like a bad idea?
No, because they did not want the large number of Muslim Brotherhood members there to be part of Jordan
That didn't happen with the IRA, either.
Indeed. My proposal to solve two problems with one remedy never got anywhere. It was to separate Jews and Palestinians on either side of a borderland national refuge for Irish Protestants. For some reason, no one thought that a clever idea.
"A palestinian state next to Israel is not happening. Judea and Samaria will now be annexed in response."
And absorbing that number of Arabs, if it happens, will do what to the Jewish identity of Israel as a nation/state?
The Dr. Ed 2 solution has moved from nuking to genocide recently.
NG, Why don't you explain to all of us why NO Arab country as ever wanted to accept Palestinian refugees.
But the answer to your question is that those who can and wish to will leave and those who stay will learn to become good citizens of Israel as 2 million Arabs already do.
You would think that the Israeli far right would worry about that more...
Maybe yes, but the far-right as you call it already accepts 2 million Arab citizens in Israel. They actually serve in the IDF unlike the ultra-Hasidim,
the far-right as you call it already accepts 2 million Arab citizens in Israel
I don't know that I would go that far. The Israeli far-right takes every opportunity to create a two-tier society between Jews and non-Jews in Israel proper too.
To add, David Allen Greene's blog post about the recognition of Palestine includes Sir Keir Starmer's letter, which seems to be addressed to President Abbas: https://davidallengreen.com/2025/09/recognition-of-palestine-is-ultimately-a-political-not-a-legal-question/
The UK government's statement includes:
Having recognised the State of Israel in 1950, the government believes it can no longer credibly continue to support the two-state solution without recognising both States. The decision does not remove the demands the government has made of the Palestinian Authority to conduct extensive reform. President Abbas has committed to this reform, including organising new elections within a year of a ceasefire. The UK will continue to provide technical and financial support to the PA as it delivers these reforms and builds the State of Palestine, including through the work of UK Envoy for Palestinian Authority Governance Sir Michael Barber, who is enhancing the PA’s delivery and governance capabilities.
Having recognised the State of Israel in 1950, the government believes it can no longer credibly continue to support the two-state solution without recognising both States.
The decision does not remove the demands the government has made of the Palestinian Authority to conduct extensive reform. President Abbas has committed to this reform, including organising new elections within a year of a ceasefire.
The UK will continue to provide technical and financial support to the PA as it delivers these reforms and builds the State of Palestine, including through the work of UK Envoy for Palestinian Authority Governance Sir Michael Barber, who is enhancing the PA’s delivery and governance capabilities.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-formally-recognises-palestinian-state
Starmer expects Abbas to reform when he has continually failed to do so for more than 20 years.? You and he cannot be that gullible. He is just catering to the far-left of Labour and the Islamist immigrants
President Macron's speech to the UNGA is here: https://www.elysee.fr/emmanuel-macron/2025/09/22/80e-session-de-lassemblee-generale-des-nations-unies-a-new-york-premiere-journee
(I saw an English translation on the website of Le Monde, but most of it is paywalled.)
The speech mentions the Palestinian Authority, but only in the context of Macron's plans for what should happen after the defeat of Hamas.
Le deuxième temps est celui de la stabilisation et de la reconstruction à Gaza. Une administration de transition intégrant l’Autorité palestinienne, la jeunesse palestinienne accompagnée de forces de sécurité dont nous accélérerons la formation, aura le monopole de la sécurité à Gaza. Elle mettra en œuvre le démantèlement et le désarmement du Hamas, avec le soutien des partenaires internationaux et les moyens qui seront nécessaires à cette mission difficile. La France est prête à contribuer à une mission internationale de stabilisation et à soutenir, avec ses partenaires européens, la formation et l’équipement des forces de sécurité palestiniennes. Dès lors que la négociation le permettra, le Conseil de sécurité pourra décider le déploiement d’une mission de soutien civil et sécuritaire, en liaison avec les autorités palestiniennes, avec le consentement des autorités israéliennes.
(Note the distinction between "Autorité palestinienne", with a capital A, at the top, and "les autorités palestiniennes", the Palestinian authorities, with a small a, at the bottom.)
Macron lives in fear of his Muslim minority which has a history of violence in France. His capitulation after the original formative French complicity is in the 1930's and 40s.
Yes, everybody knows that Muslims in France have an outsized influence on politics! That's why things like a headscarf ban would never happen in France!
Watching the Charlie Kirk funeral, I concluded we are on the cusp of another Great Awakening.
What does this mean for Catholics and Jews?
Why would it mean anything for Catholics and Jews? Isn't the whole point of the far right to protect the Judeo-Christian way of life? So why would Jews and Christians have anything to worry about? Or are you suggesting that this whole Judeo-Christian BS is just a figleaf to cover up deep rooted antisemitism?
Why be an A-hole?
You're the one who asked the question. I was just trying to figure out WTF you were talking about.
The first Great Awakening was caused by a Diphtheria epidemic in New England in the 1730s and it led to the American Revolution in two ways, first the principles of individualism that were reflected in the Declaration of Independence took root, and second the Patriot/Revolutionary cause was championed in the pulpits of countless Protestant churches.
Historians generally believe that the First Great Awakening was a major contributing cause to the American Revolution.
Watching Charlie Kirk's funeral yesterday, I saw the Fourth Great Awakening being born. It's going to be a focus on Husband/Wife/Child and a few other things including a belief in the moral superiority of American culture.
Like the First Great Awakening, it is going to be a rejection of the teachings of the mainstream Protestant denominations. My question was what happens in the Jewish and Catholic faiths when there are "new lights" who disagree with established theology?
What established theology do they disagree with?
The Fourth Great Awakening will last several weeks. Then its "believers" will move on to some other crisis of the month. Venezuelan fentanyl invasion, antifa conspiracy, Greenland, NBC needs to bend the knee, who knows.
The first Great Awakening was caused by a Diphtheria epidemic in New England
Well, with RFK in charge of vaccines, we're likely to see another one of those soon!
Who do you think disagrees with Husband / Wife / Child? I don't think you're going to find much opposition to that. If you think the "mainstream Protestant denominations" are anti Husband / Wife / Child you have a notably bizarre worldview. But I guess we knew that.
This is yet another example of right-wing strawman boogeyman. They're coming for your nuclear families! Lol.
Yesterday I posted about a man that had committed a drive by shooting of an ABC affiliate in Sacramento, California. He was arrested and almost immediately released on bail on state charges. The FBI has now arrested the perp and he is not bail eligible.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2025/09/abc10-shooting-suspect-freed-on-bail-back-in-custody-within-hours/
The man suspected of firing 3 shots into the window of an ABC affiliate in California after the Kimmel decision is a former teacher's union legislative director whose X feed is full of far-left rhetoric encouraging escalation. pic.twitter.com/rxwVi7cg4u
... and the man accused of attacking a wedding reception at a New Hampshire country club, killing one and injuring six others, reportedly yelled "free Palestine" during the attack.
https://kfor.com/news/man-charged-in-deadly-shooting-during-wedding-at-new-hampshire-country-club/
The state AG is trying to spin that as an attempt to create chaos.
He's also saying that the bystander who hit the perp over the head with a chair "saved lives" -- whereas in Massachusetts, they probably would be trying to prosecute him.
The perp is a former employee who has been gone for about a year, which appears to be about when new management came in, and my guess is that this is more of the motive.
Must admit, my first reaction was, "What's unusual about an ABC being shot up?"
It is baffling that states like CA demand more gun control laws --- and then will not actually punish anybody who commits crimes with guns.
Their demands are null and void. Gun control is never happening. I'd prefer repealing the NFA.
It's not the tiniest bit baffling. Punishing people who commit crimes with guns would lower the crime rate, and those crimes are their excuse for taking away the guns.
"Excuse", not "reason".
Brett's telepathy uncovers yet another conspiracy.
Incredible mind, that Brett. He's so wise, no one disagrees with him in good faith!!
Perhaps you could explain why people such as the Sacramento shooter was released then? He is obviously a danger to society.
First, as an initial point, it's flat bonkers to believe that liberals are letting criminals out so they can pass gun control laws.
We don't live in a political thriller.
As to your specific question, that's one for California criminal law, and California voters. I do know that 'obviously a danger to society' is not the threshold for if there's gonna be bail. And that using 'obviously' is a sign you don't really have an argument, just vibes.
So do you consider it a fair point to oppose new gun control laws until the other laws on the books concerning the illegal use of guns are more strongly enforced? For example should the use of a firearm bring a more severe punishment and tougher bail before more restrictions on firearms are even considered? Especially before more restrictions are placed on otherwise law abiding gun owners?
What? No. Legislation and implementation/execution are in dialogue, but not coterminous.
Would you think it a fair point to oppose new border security laws until the current laws are being exercised to their maximum extent?
Though apart from your bad argument, I'm generally opposed to new gun control laws, as I find there's an individual right to self defense including via firearms. I'm especially against sentence enhancement, since as a matter of policy those are more allowing prosecutorial gaming than any kind of deterrent.
I would favor a registration law, however.
Why add new laws when the old laws aren't being enforced? What is the point in adding new laws if they won't be enforced? Btw you mention the border security laws without understanding that that situation proves my point. Without any new border security laws being added the Trump Administration has managed to almost completely bring illegal border crossings to zero. His administration has also been able to increase deportations without adding any new laws. This after the Biden Maladministration claimed that new laws were needed to get the border even marginally under control.
Also do you know that there is a large group of people whom it would be unconstitutional to require to register their guns? That would be anyone who can not legally own or possess a firearm. Mainly criminals in other words. This was a 7-1 decision by SCOTUS Haynes vs the USA. So the only people who could be required to register their firearms are those who are already law abiding gun owners. So what does registration accomplish?
Sarcastr0 — I favor federalizing gun control laws. It could not be more evident that gun controls lax enough to satisfy the needs of Idahoans will be too lax for Massachusetts. That is more about geography, population density, and customary gun-related activities than it is about politics.
When I lived in Idaho, I was an enthusiastic gun owner and avid hunter. When I moved to Massachusetts it quickly became self-evident that there was nowhere safely and non-disruptively to practice any activity of that sort. It has never felt to me like a loss, just a difference—a difference I am now happy to defend as a long-tenured Massachusetts resident.
It is for that reason that I do think there is an urgent need for at least one new gun control law. I think states ought to be empowered separately to pass or not pass what I call, "peaceable assembly," laws. Those would ban carriage of firearms at political assemblies, and make the penalty for violation a suspension of gun rights. The nation is too close to massive outbreaks of armed intimidation in politics, and that ought to be addressed before it happens.
To anticipate gun-advocate's objections, try to notice that the historical record makes clear that the 2A really was about the militia right. Otherwise, other gun uses were at that time regulated variously among the states, and that was a major reason not to broaden the 2A during the founding. It would not have been possible at that time for the Constitution to impose a uniform gun regime nationwide without forcing unwanted changes on some states. That was true regardless of what nationwide gun regime might be proposed.
I am simply calling for a return to that original understanding.
Hey, it’s more streamed lined than your crystal ball and just as effective.
To review, Brett thinks liberals are letting violent criminals out so when they do crimes there's a better case for gun control.
You're a pretty wacky dude, so I don't know - do you believe this to be a plot liberals are currently carrying out?
Trump is going to announce a major Autism breakthrough today.
Interesting: Basically two breakthroughs in one:
1. It looks like, in susceptible children, prenatal tylenol can cause autism. This, and not just diagnostic changes, might be why it's become so much more common.
2. A possible drug to treat symptoms, and by drug, I mean a common supplement, calcium folinate.
Of course, this is all rather preliminary.
A caution, of course, is that "autism" is defined by a VERY loose collection of symptoms, which were formerly recognized as distinct syndromes, and just got swept together for convenience. "Autism" is probably composed of multiple problems with multiple causes.
Will the guidance be to take calcium folate with acetaminophen?
1. I'll be interested if they point to any actual science, NIH has been utterly compromised in it's analyses and recommendations.
2. The drug is a a cancer and anemia drug, with a single clinical trial touted in the Daily Mail. 14 patients, only 12 were fully monitored https://emergentdivergence.com/2025/02/19/why-leucovorin-is-not-a-breakthrough-treatment-for-autism/
The guy pushing Leucovorin for autism (Frye) works closely and repeatedly with the guy who pushed heavy metal chelation for autism (Rossignol), a practice that has actually killed children.
At least it's not antivaxx shit.
"1. I'll be interested if they point to any actual science, NIH has been utterly compromised in it's analyses and recommendations."
For a lot longer than you care to recognize...
"2. The drug is a a cancer and anemia drug, "
The chemical, the calcium salt of B-9, is a normal dietary constituent available as an OTC nutritional supplement, which happens to have use in ameliorating some side effects of chemo drugs, and is used in treating anemia because anemia can result from a deficiency of it. You might as well declare green leafy vegetables to be a chemo drug.
It's actually pretty common for dietary supplements to be prescribed with actual drugs to relieve side effects. For instance, if you're on statins you're advised to take Co-Q10.
Yes, this is all very preliminary, as I said myself, and even if it works, it's likely to only work in a limited subset of 'autism' cases, because, again, 'autism' is a grab bag diagnosis.
Yeah, I know you don’t know what scientific integrity means because you see leftists everywhere.
The White House shouldn’t be touting very preliminary anything to the public as a cure.
This is actually an ironic case for you to be yelling about scientific integrity, because folate was involved in one of the government's more scandalous violations of scientific integrity.
Spinal bifida can be almost entirely prevented by maintaining proper folate levels during pregnancy, and the NIH has for decades recommended that any woman who has any possiblity of becoming pregnant make sure of getting enough of it, because the window during which this happens is before the woman would be aware she was pregnant.
OTOH, they set the minimum consumption at roughly half the amount the science determined was enough to reliably prevent spinal bifida...
For most of that time the FDA was labeling as "fraudulent" any claims by supplement manufacturers that folic acid helped prevent spinal bifida. Because their only definition of "fraudulent" was, "We didn't give you permission to say that!".
That's the same reasoning that got Cheerios classified as a drug.
"Vitamin C is good for you" – vague health claim that needs to be backed by at least one scientific study "Vitamin C prevents scurvy" – specific health claim that needs FDA approval (unless it's a grandfathered pre-FDA drug like aspirin)
I'm still pissed about turpinhydrate -- like asprin, it was grandfathered except that the FDA demanded it be tested for effectiveness and as it wasn't patentable, no one wanted to spend the money to do this. Hence an effective expectorant was lost.
I do find irony that you think the NIH was bad up until its communications got openly taken over by nonscientific politicals.
they set the minimum consumption at roughly half the amount the science determined That's not scientific integrity. That's just Brett's take disagreeing with the NIH.
the FDA was labeling as "fraudulent" any claims by supplement manufacturers Of course, you'll be supporting the full of integrity supplement manufacturers vs. the NIH.
Scientific integrity is a *procedural* safeguard. You're focused on outcomes, because you always are. You don't understand internal controls at all. Never have.
"I do find irony that you think the NIH was bad up until its communications got openly taken over by nonscientific politicals."
Why would the people vote in nonscientific politicals to take it over if it wasn't bad? This is a democracy.
They didn't vote for nonscientific politicals to take it over. A pandering politician invited every grievance group and the kitchen sink to jump on the bandwagon to assemble a coalition government, and this was the price.
Snake oil scare tactic intimation experts? Welcome aboard!
That's your takeaway from me reminding you that the NIH has been bad for a long time? It's not like I claimed they'd gotten better after Trump took over... That's just you doing your usual "reading into" thing.
""they set the minimum consumption at roughly half the amount the science determined" That's not scientific integrity. That's just Brett's take disagreeing with the NIH."
No, dufus, that's the NIH disagreeing with the NIH.
""the FDA was labeling as "fraudulent" any claims by supplement manufacturers" Of course, you'll be supporting the full of integrity supplement manufacturers vs. the NIH."
I'll be supporting the people who have science on their side, and the manufacturers were citing scientific studies, while the FDA was shouting, "We didn't say you could say that!".
Yeah, Brett - you say you didn't like NIH's analysis (based of course on BrettScience), but now you seem to be posting their big announcement for truth.
Not hard to see what's going on here.
I'll be supporting the people who have science on their side, I do not believe this will be true, based on your comments just now. You're already picking and choosing what you call the science, and including plenty of RFK Jr.'s insanity.
Brett being confident does not science make.
The rule, Brett, is that you can't be both a supplement and a drug. If the supplement manufactures want to be drug manufacturers, and subject to the regulations thereof, they should do that. But as supplement manufacturers, they can't sell drugs.
That policy is set by Congress. Don't blame the FDA for enforcing the law as written.
That's not remotely a rule.
Wow, really letting your ignorance flag fly today Brett! Good for you.
https://drugabuse.com/blog/drugs-vs-supplements-whats-the-difference/
To be fair, I didn't know either.
But I looked it up.
https://www.fda.gov/food/information-consumers-using-dietary-supplements/questions-and-answers-dietary-supplements
"Generally, the dietary supplement definition excludes ingredients that are approved as new drugs, licensed as biologics, or authorized for clinical investigation under an investigational new drug application (IND) that has gone into effect, unless the ingredient was previously marketed as a dietary supplement or as a food. In the case of ingredients authorized for clinical investigation under an IND, the exclusion from the dietary supplement definition applies only if "substantial clinical investigations" have been instituted and the existence of such investigations has been made public."
You're not pro-science, Sarc. You're anti-right. That's what brings you here, to this topic, now.
Don't conflate regard for science with your partisan core. You're just another leftist gatekeeper guarding a popular collection of received truths. You go silent where appropriate, science be damned.
"You're anti-right. That's what brings you here, to this topic, now."
Exactly. He rails against "negative partisanship" but does it regularly.
Same crap about avoiding sunshine as if its all risk and no benefit.
And while decline in smoking is the biggest single factor in the 90% decline in heart attack deaths since 1970, I'll bet the government no longer pushing margarine and plant based transfats as a healthier alternative to butter and lard was probably a factor too,
Nobody has ever said "avoid sunshine." They've said "avoid excessive sunshine without protection."
You guys and your strawboogeymen.
"I'll be interested if they point to any actual science, NIH has been utterly compromised in it's analyses and recommendations." And your bureaucracy has not? You are so predictable.
Its not hard to find the study.
"The study was published August 14 in BMC Environmental Health. Andrea Baccarelli, dean of the faculty at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and professor of environmental health, was senior author. The study was led by the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and also included co-authors from other institutions."
https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/using-acetaminophen-during-pregnancy-may-increase-childrens-autism-and-adhd-risk/
The irony here is that Tylenol replaced aspirin to avoid Reye's Syndrome.
And calcium folinate is a derivative of the folic acid that we already say that pregnant women need.
It's almost like you're taking a big risk any time a pregnant woman or child consumes anything that wasn't a part of our diet during our evolutionary history.
during our evolutionary history
Naturalistic fallacy.
Modern diet is a ton more healthy than caveman times. Evolution is a 'good enough' process, not an optimizing process.
This kind of nonsense is a pet peeve of mine. Like evo-psyche, it's not science; it's pseudoscience at best.
Don't you have a degree in pseudoscience?
Modern diet is a ton more healthy than caveman times.
I suppose you're not really trying to say that dill pickle and sriracha potato chips washed down with Mountain Dew and followed by Rocky Road ice cream with caramel syrup is "a ton more healthy" than meat and plants.
But it does leave the reader to wonder exactly what you ARE saying -- and how it might be relevant to the current discussion of modern synthetic drugs.
And you don't have to go back to cave man days to have evolution. Half of all babies died as children into the 1800s, as late as the 1930s it was one in four -- you can look at 18th, 19th, and even early 20th Century diets.
Conversely, the post-war Baby Boomers were the first generation not to have children taller than they were.
Look, I know you have this spinal reflex to interpret as stupid anything somebody you typically disagree with says, and it largely overrides your ability to parse English sentences, but try to reason about this.
To the extent the modern diet is healthier than during most of our evolutionary history, it's a matter of proportions and subtraction. For instance, stomach cancer is pretty rare because people aren't eating moldy food. Probably NOT because of anything novel in our food.
But it remains that, if a compound was often encountered during our evolutionary history, or even similar compounds were, we have evolved to deal with it.
Introduce novel compounds we didn't encounter the like of during our evolutionary history, and you have an elevated chance that our bodies won't have any way to detoxify it.
You can see that in recorded history, populations that had no prior exposure to alcoholic beverages suddenly encountering alcohol. It has not gone well, they are still in the process of evolving defenses.
That's all I'm saying: Compounds we have not been regularly exposed to during our entire evolutionary history represent a higher risk.
stomach cancer is pretty rare because people aren't eating moldy food. Probably NOT because of anything novel in our food. Not counting preservatives.
if a compound was often encountered during our evolutionary history, or even similar compounds were, we have evolved to deal with it. Again, this is the naturalistic fallacy. You're positing an emergent effect for a substance based on no evidence other than some caveman vibes!
We don't detoxify stuff that isn't toxic. Or isn't sufficiently toxic to cause selection pressure (see: carcinogens)
You can see that in recorded history, populations that had no prior exposure to alcoholic beverages suddenly encountering alcohol. We don't really know the specific deal there, but you're for sure mixing up social and biological. Monkeys get wasted all the time; I guess there's a statute of limitations on being able to deal with fermented stuff?
Compounds we have not been regularly exposed to during our entire evolutionary history represent a higher risk. This is also not true. Plenty of poisons in the natural world that are still deadly.
Caveman vibes are not science, Brett. It's a good story. But given its scope it's never going to be science. You're making a broad prediction based on selected anecdotes and vibes. It's unfalsifiable. Like, what experiment would you do to prove you're right, scientifically?
I'd been thinking, "You can't be that stupid." I'm rethinking that.
Yeah, alcohol wasn't a good choice of example there, Brett. Humans and primates have been exposed to alcohol for millions of years. A "population" with low alcohol tolerance actually shouldn't exist according to your evolutionary theory.
Humans and primates have been exposed to alcohol for millions of years.
Well that was a fun little rabbit hole. So one rando dude came up with a theory about 20 years ago, and it's now officially part of the Super-Sacred Sciencey Catechism?
Indulging it for a second, the most aggressive estimate I see is that primates sitting around eating overripe fruit all day would get about two standard drinks' worth of ethanol spread over the course of a day.
That doesn't seem at all mutually exclusive with certain Asian subcultures having trouble drinking a beer over the course of an hour or so.
It's not just animals getting actually drunk, as fun as that is. The larger point is that alcohol is naturally occurring in food. It's something that animals are going to get exposed to a lot, even if it's in amounts that aren't going to get them drunk. Unlike, for example, lead or glyphosate or whatever.
Anyway, my comment was intended to point out that Brett's theory is stupid... not that it's correct but for the alcohol example. There are tons of compounds that are both present in food / nature and remain toxic. Arsenic, mercury, even alcohol really.
Anyway, my comment was intended to point out that Brett's theory is stupid... not that it's correct but for the alcohol example.
I think there may be a word or two missing from this -- really not sure what you're saying.
In any event, what I was responding to was your prior statement: "A 'population' with low alcohol tolerance actually shouldn't exist according to your evolutionary theory."
And what I said was that monkeys ingesting small amounts of ethanol over long periods of time by eating mildly fermented fruit isn't at all inconsistent with having a low alcohol tolerance.
What Brett actually said, after all, was "no prior exposure to alcoholic beverages," which I think a reasonable person would interpret as having a non-trivial ABV. Your monkeys are ingesting the functional equivalent of O'Doul's, if that.
Are you endorsing or rejecting Brett's little theory? I'm having a hard time following your logic. Or are you ambivalent to whatever Brett's trying to get across and just want to disagree with my take, no matter what it may be?
I think if you look back through the thread you'll find I've very clearly explained what points I was addressing and why. I thought there was some potential to clear things up, but it seems to me at this point you're standing on your head trying to read Brett's rather straightforward and (for most people) uncontroversial point in some sort of contorted way just so you can tilt at it. Carry on.
Ok well, to clear up any confusion, when I said that Brett's theory is stupid, that's what I meant. It's not even self-consistent... we'd been eating mold for millions of years, why were we still getting stomach cancer that whole time? When you tally up all the exceptions and caveats (e.g. not alcohol, alcoholic beverage) you end up with... nothing much, as far as I can tell. I mean, you agree with it, how would you articulate Brett's "straightforward and uncontroversial point" in your own words? Is it anything more than the extremely trite "we've evolved to eat the things we eat and to avoid the things we can't?" I think he tried to make a stronger point than that, but if we agree to ignore some of his wilder claims, maybe we can agree on that one inane kernel of truth.
Human evolution probably wouldn't operate much in the time frame of humans consuming alcohol; at most it could be natural selection (if those with a poor tolerance for alcohol died from using it, or from missing out on some benefit it conferred). And evolution doesn't address every weakness; there's a limit to what is possible or a tradeoff to get one possible advantage.
Aspirin actually WAS part of cave man diet -- they chewed on some shrub that had it.
Acetaminophen is the worst and I hate it.
You: "Of course, this is all rather preliminary."
The Admin: "The FDA is approving Leucovorin for treatment of autistic children"
By your own standard, this is vastly hasty and bad.
Ohio Democratic party kicked out of county fair for displaying buttons that say "8647" and "is he dead yet."
https://redstate.com/bobhoge/2025/09/21/ohio-dems-booted-from-family-friendly-county-fair-for-shilling-86-47-buttons-other-hateful-merch-n2194194
A little FJB on the part of dems. I take it you're supportive?
So fuck Joe Biden is comparable to wishing the current POTUS dead?
Well, if we're suddenly being ultra literal, then I would say that threatening to rape Biden anally is equally bad.
"8647" does not mean "kill Trump". Happy to help.
And "is he dead yet" means what?
The squiggle at the end of those words indicates that it's a question; someone is seeking information. (If I write, "Are the Giants eliminated from playoff contention yet?" do you think I'm threatening to do something to cause them to be eliminated?)
The "I'm only asking a question" gimmick has been popular on the right for some time now.
Ouch! An inadvertent instance of friendly fire.
LOL. Not at all. Maybe re-read.
I re-read it several times, and still can't help but notice the word "gimmick."
...and just what does it mean?
see below
"Among the most recent senses adopted is a logical extension of the previous ones, with the meaning of “to kill.” We do not enter this sense, due to its relative recency and sparseness of use.
"I hate to see the guys always getting eighty-sixed," she said, using military jargon for killed in action. "Not fair.” — John Kifner, The New York Times, 3 Feb. 1991" From your source.
John Fifner may have been unaware of earlier usages. In the 1970s in Idaho to get eighty-sixed was commonplace slang to denote getting thrown out of a bar.
Yes, it does. Trying to be cute with language does not change that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/86_(term)
The main meaning is not to kill - though if it were presumably you'd have condemned people wearing 8646
Republicans clearly didn't think 86 meant kill when referring to their political opponents like Biden.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/matt-gaetz-insists-86-distinct-143018794.html
Somebody needs to be sued for violating the First Amendment.
Would be an interesting lawsuit for the Democrats to file. "Yes your honor , we claim the right to wish death upon people we don't like is protected by the 1st Amendment. And Republicans need to take it down a couple of notches."
"Eighty-six is slang meaning "to throw out," "to get rid of," or "to refuse service to." It comes from 1930s soda-counter slang meaning that an item was sold out. There is varying anecdotal evidence about why the term eighty-six was used, but the most common theory is that it is rhyming slang for nix."
https://www.merriam-webster.com/wordplay/eighty-six-meaning-origin
1930s soda-counter slang
I had no idea that the Ohio Democratic Party was composed of 1930's soda jerks.
Is the Ashland County Fair run by the government?
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-shares-unfounded-conspiracy-theory-claiming-biden-was-executed-2-rcna210244
Seems like wondering if Presidents are dead is a bipartisan issue.
Also, you have to be either dishonest or a complete idiot to continue to think 8647 means wishing anyone was dead after the discussion on the topic back in May.
2022 - "Trump intensifies attacks on McConnell with 'death wish' remark on his social media platform"
2024 -"Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump’s suggestion Thursday that former Rep. Liz Cheney should stand “with nine barrels shooting at her”
2024 - "Trump endorses idea he should be able to assassinate opponents without being prosecuted"
YAWN!
"2024 -"Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump’s suggestion Thursday that former Rep. Liz Cheney should stand “with nine barrels shooting at her”
You guys keep hurting yourselves by claiming these ridiculous things. Sort of like the "very fine people" hoax. Trump does enough to screw up to get the middle to turn against him but you all keep lobbing these unfair attacks against him such that people believe him when he claims he is being unfairly treated.
In case it needs repeated, Trump did not suggest that Liz Cheney should be shot. Anyone listening to it knows that. Trump's point was that it is easy to declare war sitting in your office and not so easy to fight one personally. But I think you knew that.
Well, since the author of the article lies and claims that 86 means murder, I don't see why we'd trust anything else he said.
"I hate to see the guys always getting eighty-sixed," she said, using military jargon for killed in action. "Not fair.” — John Kifner, The New York Times, 3 Feb. 1991" From your source. Like all slang, meaning evolves and expands.
Which part of "sparseness of use" confuses you?
Most people would assume it means the thing that everyone else thinks it means, not the usage that is so rare they tell you why they don't include it.
It's also not like the Left has any real qualms with assassination of their foes.
2021 - "Marjorie Taylor Greene indicated support for executing prominent Democrats in 2018 and 2019 before running for Congress"
2019 - "Greene has also mused about executing FBI agents who were part of the imagined “deep state” working against Trump, at one point liking a comment that said “These Traitors need to be put to death as an example of what will no longer be tolerated in our country!!!”"
MTG is one of the stupidest people in American politics.
This web site hoping for the death of Margaret Thatcher survived for years before she finally died: https://www.isthatcherdeadyet.co.uk. You can hope for the death of Trump, Thatcher, Obama, or Biden without soliciting murder.
So the FCC won't let me be Or let me be me, so let me see Lets go and shut it down, the agency.
"In a turn of events, Democrats embrace free speech and join with republicans to eliminate the very unnecessary FCC."
--news you'll never see.
Sure, Republicans in power are terrible on free speech (whats new), but the Dems just look like hypocrites embracing it.
What, exactly, have Democrats done that is comparable to what the current Regime does?
"Regime " It's called an Administration here, Martin
That's what you would call it in a democracy, yes.
And that is what we have in the US. Wise up. And criticize the Labour government for >12,000 arrests for thought crimes.
And that is what we have in the US.
Do you? Let's hope so. I guess we'll find out in November 2026. So far the signs aren't good. Opposition-controlled cities occupied by the armed forces, opposition politicians arrested, critical journalists taken off the air. It's like Russia 20 years ago.
"Opposition-controlled cities occupied by the armed forces, opposition politicians arrested, critical journalists taken off the air." Sounds like you've cranked up hyperbole to 11.
Tell me what part of that didn't happen.
None of it unless you're talking about the UK.
"Sure, Republicans in power are terrible on free speech (whats new), but."
Lotsa that going around.
Sure, the Republicans in power are terrible on free speech, but they're better than the alternative.
It is what it is.
FCC (or another radio regulator) is definitely necessary. There are good alternatives - such as making them actually independent of the President (through constitutional amendments), or at least requiring 5-0 vote before they can revoke a license for non-technical reasons.
Maybe the FCC was needed when airwaves were scarce and there were 3 color channels and 2 UHF channels full of reruns. Now, with broadband and chooser streaming platforms, the FCC has no relevance.
Airwaves are still scarce. Broadcast is not cable.
EVERYTHING is scarce, at some level. Might as well have the government nationalize and regulate the use of paper, because there are only so many trees.
No, the broadcast spectrum is not like paper.
You have opinions about so many things you clearly know nothing about.
They're both economically scarce resources. As is cable. And especially cable networks.
Ugh, the first sentence is quoting Sarcastro. Don't want anyone to think I would say something like that!
In fairness, the electromagnetic spectrum is not only finite, but under increasing demands.
Paper, ink, and cable are also finite.
No. You can not mathematically calculate the total number of them.
You CAN calculate the maximum number of wavelengths. (Technology does enable narrower bandwidths, but that is a different issue.)
I could set up Ed's Factory to produce more ink, paper, or cables. The supply of those is not finite.
"In fairness, the electromagnetic spectrum is not only finite, but under increasing demands."
So are land and mining rights. Have auctions and maintain an ownership registry to record sales, fine. Recording property rights/ownership is one of the oldest functions of government. You don't need a whole five-person commission for that.
sigh. You can't produce an infinite number of cables.
As if you are any better. Your "take down" is so dishonest that it is pathetic. No wonder you couldn't hack it as a physicist.
Or a lawyer. Had to flee to the civil sevice, the last refuge.
Maybe he thought about doing title searches in rural Ohio for a couple of minutes, but decided D.C. had better people and better food?
Which is why he moved to Whitelandia?
Sarcastr0 — Time was when newsprint shortages during Canadian paper mill strikes figured in all kinds of nefarious maneuvers among rival publishers in the U.S. Every small publisher which did not already own sufficient paper to get through a strike became vulnerable to commercial extortion. For a small weekly, the minimum purchase required (at multiples of standard prices) would be about a year's supply—far too much for most publishers to lay out in advance of need.
Speaking from personal experience. When that trick was tried on me, it resolved when the guy trying it asked, flabbergasted, "Where did you get the paper?"
What happened when and how is too long a story to recite here, but it's a good one.
Part of the reason broadband works is because of the FCC regulating the use of spectrum, though.
Not saying it's necessary for the FCC to decide what sort of content should be allowed, but just like it's useful for the government to keep track of where land boundaries are, it's useful for the government to limit who is using different chunks of spectrum so that it's not just chaotic cross-talk everywhere.
"Part of the reason broadband works is because of the FCC regulating the use of spectrum..."
Spectrum is a scarce resource just like any other property. Having the government regulate spectrum is no different than having the government decide that X roll of newsprint belongs to me, Y printing press belongs to you, the land on which a particular newsroom belongs to someone else.
The newspapers, much less the broader economy, couldn't function without the government deciding who gets to use scarce resources.
But we can do so without regulating content, and there's no reason spectrum should be different.
Seems like a long-winded way of saying that we agree?
I was taking issue with dwb88's suggestion we somehow don't need the FCC anymore, and specifically said "not saying it's necessary for the FCC to decide what sort of content should be allowed".
If we don't need the FCC deciding what sort of content should be allowed, the FCC would be so different and diminished that you might as well say we don't need the FCC anymore, we need something different and a lot less intrusive.
I think you are very confused about what the FCC spends most of its resources doing today.
Don't they spend most of their resources holding up SpaceX's Starship test launches?
FAA, sounds like?
You could be right. It's pretty neat - the FCC does need to approve launches for frequency interference purposes. It's a lot like terrestrial signal coordination except much much worse with an additional dimension because place in orbit and signal power are part of the mix.
And place in orbit is dynamic, unlike location in the USA.
First fourteen words were OK, but then you lapsed into serious levels of ignorance. You're confusing what Brendan Carr spends his time on with what the agency spends its time and effort on.
A lot of their spectrum management, technical regulation, equipment certification, and non-broadcast licensing is worthy of criticism. One could legitimately propose that much should be replaced with industry standards, a property rights model for spectrum usage, or just accepting a bit more disorder as the price of freedom and innovation.
But you didn't do that. Instead you incorrectly imagine that 1,700 people are employed in making news and comedy more or less woke depending on who's in charge.
"Seems like a long-winded way of saying that we agree?"
I was not disagreeing with you, to be clear.
Which IS what happened before there was Federal regulation.
The US Navy reserved the low frequencies, and everything else was the wild west. And remember that frequencies will create interference with multiples of the frequencies.
Back in analog days, Boston & Bangor Ch 5 interfered with each other in the Gulf of Maine.
....well, up until very very recently, it wasn't thought necessary to get a constitutional amendment to ensure the FCC was at least somewhat independent of the President.
However, we've had the wonderful perfect storm of stupid conservative jurisprudential theory being enacted ... just in time for Trump's second term, with Trump's second term.
See, here's the thing about about the way the law evolves. It did so for a reason. Small "c" conservatives understand that you need to be really careful when re-examining what came before, because there might have been a good reason for having it there.
...as we are quickly learning.
" or at least requiring 5-0 vote before they can revoke a license for non-technical reasons."
Hopefully the court will fix the error they made in Red Lion and recognize we can't allocate spectrum based on content any more than the government can regulate paper based on what people print on it.
Hopefully we'll finish disentangling content from broadcasting, finishing up the process of having the spectrum licensed to common carriers.
As long as there's a ton of people eager to call the FCC when they see a hint of nip on network TV, and the 'won't someone think of the children' crowd, we're not getting rid of FCC's content policing.
I agree it sucks. But the base demand is conservative busybodies, and this administration loves having that hammer to abuse.
Maybe next administration.
The point is, "TV" in the sense of a broadcast medium that the government has even the tiniest excuse to regulate, is on its way out. Once all that spectrum is being used for cellular networks acting as common carriers, the only appropriate response to a hint of nip would be "Why did you subscribe to the clothing failure channel, anyway, then?"
Maybe; maybe not. We're talking decades out still.
having the spectrum licensed to common carriers.
You think we should eliminate broadcasts entirely? I'm not sure that's great. There are some good things about broadcasting.
Anyway, allocating a scarce resource like spectrum doesn't necessitate an FCC to police the use of that resource. Just allocate it to the highest bidder, if you don't want to actually privatize it. Or let the states have more of a say.
The 2020 Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded for innovations in auction theory which was then specifically applied to FCC spectrum auctions, with wild success.
https://www.science.org/content/article/economics-nobel-honors-pioneers-auction-theory
"Broadcasts" are an absurdly inefficient way to use spectrum compared to cellular systems. Probably still makes sense in niche applications, but for transmitting video?
I think you mean that broadcasts are absurdly efficient because they don't require any additional resource consumption for each additional viewer of the broadcast. You have to get down to a very low number of viewers before a per-viewer transmission gets more efficient than a broadcast transmission.
But there are other reasons for broadcasts. They don't require the viewer to enter into any contracts. And AM radio at least requires very little hardware in order to receive, just a capacitor, a diode, a magnet, and some wire, really. (And you can do without the capacitor if you're really good.)
So now you want the FCC to be the spectrum efficiency police
FCC is mostly relevant for telecommunications, not so much for over the air broadcast.
Currently only 18% of Americans use OAB for TV, although that has doubled in the last 10 years with cable cutting.
I do use over the air TV, but 95% is for watching football, I get a great HD signal and I don't need to pay for cable. But there is really nothing else on I want to watch, although I will occasionally continue watching after the game broadcast is over. If fact that's why I saw Jimmy Kimmel's suicide monologue when it aired after Monday night football last week.
Where do you get that from?
Note that the spectrum isn't just used for broadcast TV.
Jimmy Kimmel's suicide monologue Way to blame the victim!
Not actually suicidal, as it turns out.
Which is what Kimmel did in doubling down. He's back on ABC. But don't expect his contract to be renewed.
So many people not understanding science here.
Spectrums are scarce because you can't produce more of it as the demand increases. You can make more paper or lay more cables. But we can't really make a new bandwidth available. Our advancement in radio has enabled use of higher frequencies, but these are only really useful for astronomy or near-distance communication like Wi-Fi (because physics).
Another property of radio spectrum is that, unlike physical property, they cannot be "possessed". Without a regulator anyone can broadcast anything, whether that's "American 2100, cleared for takeoff", or just a random signal to disrupt communications.
Then, there's the problem of hoarding. Someone owning a spectrum without using it. Or, someone using it for questionable purposes. Sure, you could make a radio station that broadcasts advertisements 24/7, but is that really a good use of the scarce resources? What about numbers stations?
No. land and mining rights work the same way. The oldest function of government is to record and enforce property interests. There is no need for anything more complicated than recording who owns what wavelength and where.
People own mines and farms without using them too. People buy options to develop properties (and may or may not exdercise them). People store oil for future use. Eventually, the economic incentives are high enough that they get used.
"Spectrums are scarce because you can't produce more of it as the demand increases."
That's not what scarce means.
And we can, effectively, produce more of it as demand increases. We can create technology that uses it more efficiently, and we can use suboptimal bandwidths. And we have done quite a bit of that.
Now that President Trump is openly firing prosecutors who refuse to indict political opponents and critics on trumped-up charges along with a long list of other punlic officials who refuse to go along with lies such as doctors and scientists who refuse to put their names behind quackery, I think the public needs to think about stepping in and helping. Some provision needs to be made both to support the families of people committed to truth and constitutional order.
In addition I think courts need to deal with any new prosecutors - and I think it’s inevitable Trump will find some and the Senate will confirm them - willing to press bogus charges.
I think courts need to come down very hard on prosecutors who press charges that have no probable cause or basis in fact against critics of the regime who were made subjects of investigation solely because they were critics. I think lawyers who put their names behind such damagingly frivolous charges need, among other sanctions, to be barred from practicing before federal courts for a very long time, if not for life, and it needs to be made clear to them that they will need to expect to find some other line of work. The courts need to send a very, very clear message that this will not be tolerated. Victims of this sort of lawfare persecution need to press for sanctions very, very aggressively. The courts need to purse avenues, such as civil sancitions, that lie outside the President’s pardon power.
I realize some folks will deflect — “what about X case” or “courts are political too.” But the core point isn’t partisan: indictments need probable cause, period. At minimum there needs to be a clear perception of probable cause — and an honest acknowledgement when evidence weakens it. Otherwise the whole system just looks rigged.
Feom Mr. Trump’ point of view it’s pretty obvious the system is rigged. I mean, the evidence of sedition, treason, lese majeste, insulting the dignity of the ruler - couldn’t be more obvious. And yet instead of taking these people and putting them on the rack until they confess to treason like they do in decently-run countries, these swamp prosecutors and libtard judges keep mumbling all this mumbo-jumbo bullshit about probable cause,First Amendment, Due Process.
How much more rigged could the system be than that?
Of course it’s going to look rigged from Mr. Trump’s point of view — anyone run through a string of investigations would see it that way. Mr. Siebert seems to think the case is weak. Ms. Bondi, who reportedly went to bat for him briefly, I can’t really speak to.
From where I sit, I just wonder how someone with a technocratic mindset manages to work under leaders whose compass is almost entirely political — especially when that compass keeps whipsawing from side to side over time.
Jokes aside, our system was 100% rigged against kings and other types of authoritarians. To Loki's comment above, we've fiddled with some of that at our peril. And so here we are with a would-be dictator and our checks-and-balances, having not been oiled in years, have seized up from rust.
But in this case for Cook and James, they have released the original documents the investigations are based on and they are damning.
There is a lot more than smoke there, and anyone who takes the time to read the referral and documents can clearly see it.
He is not firing anyone who refuses to target political opponents. You’re confusing this administration with the Biden administration. I’m sure you were quite the profile in courage denouncing that.
President Trump is the chief magistrate. He controls the executive branch, not one or even many federal prosecutors. If these prosecutors are letting politics influence their decisions or otherwise not performing their duties consistently with the policies of the one party who is constitutionally in charge, the prosecutors should be fired.
Except that in a Constitutional Democracy unelected government employees are responsible to the Constitution and laws of this country and not to the President. The President can direct the executive branch he can not ask members of the government to break the law. Following orders is not a defense and that fact was established at Nuremburg.
"Except that in a Constitutional Democracy unelected government employees are responsible to the Constitution and laws of this country and not to the President. "
If they're not responsible to BOTH, then a great deal of the point of electing Presidents goes away.
No Brett, the President sets the direct and has tremendous power in that regard. What he does not have is the authority to tell government employees to break the law.
And what law is the President breaking even with a direct order to prosecute Cook or James?
What an odd response to, "he does not have is the authority to tell government employees to break the law."
I think its a given that he doesn't have authority to tell employees to break the law, but the insinuation is that he has told federal employees break the law.
What laws has he told federal employees to break?
Kazinski, what do you think you are trying to do? Explore for some loophole in the notion of probable cause?
Not sure what "Constitutional Democracy" you're referring to but in this constitutional republic, the president is vested with all executive power. His subordinates don't get to make up their own "constitutional" agenda. And, the removal of insubordinate or incompetent officers in no way implicates anything, legally or historically, related to Nuremberg, Your analogy is ridiculous offensive.
Not only have the people he’s fired said otherwise, even Fox News says it.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-force-out-virginia-prosecutor-amid-pressure-indict-letitia-james.amp
The standard people want to enforce is that Trump's political opponents should not be prosecuted even when there is ample evidence of guilt.
One thing that keeps coming up though is people seem to think telling a loan originator that you may not be using the property as you are contracting to is exculpatory. The article you link to explains why that isn't so:
A housing and finance banker familiar with the investigation into James told Fox News the mortgage fraud case against her is viable and that she is under scrutiny for, in at least one instance, declaring an investment property she owns as her primary or secondary residence, which would give her better loan terms.
"One thought, the banker said, was that Siebert could have been overlooking, whether intentionally or unintentionally, the mortgage originator's role in James' case. The banker, who has worked in both the public and private sector, said the mortgage originator could have been intentionally manipulating the underwriting system and could be on the hook for any potentially fraudulent loan."
But that makes it a conspiracy, not an innocent mistake, there isn't an excuse for a lawyer or financial professional to falsely attest to a material fact on a legal document to obtain an advantage, no matter who tells them its OK.
I read an article over the weekend that I think had an interesting take on it, that I largely agreed with.
Basically it's this- Trump's approval ratings are getting worse. This isn't shocking. I think most people have a strong suspicion that they will get much worse (with a floor of true believers)- if you know much about economics, you know about lag effects, and what we are seeing happening is just the beginning, and will likely continue to worsen (and if there is a big shock, look out).
Anyway, the point of the article is that Trump is in a race to consolidate power before things get too bad. Because on the one hand, you have the people that are true believers- that will support what he wants no matter what. But even among his sycophants, a lot of them are just in it for the money. They will go along with the unlawful, the illegal, and the corrupt - so long as they believe Trump will maintain power.
But they also know that they don't want to be left holding the bag if Trump doesn't maintain power. That's the position that someone like Bondi is in. At this point, Trump isn't even being subtle about the corruption and lawbreaking- he's literally telling Bondi to get people in to prosecute his enemies, after the people he already installed told him there was no evidence.
So it's a simple race- will he get the power before the defections become too much, or not?
Unfortunately, I am not confident in our civil institutions.
Saw that.
In the Atlantic.
By David Frum!!
Yeah, David Frum is something like Case zero for TDS...
"Basically it's this- Trump's approval ratings are getting worse."
President Trump Job Approval
In reality, Trump's approval rating has remained in the range of 45-48% since mid March, and a very narrow range from 45.2-46.3 since July. Rather than "getting worse", it's remarkably consistent.
Rasmussen's Daily Presidential Tracking Poll generally tells the same story, though there's an interesting 4-5 point positive spike over the past few days.
"it's remarkably consistent.'
And higher than the first term
Trump has a strong base and that is the source of his political power, but we are seeing the independents shift and that could change things in the midterms.
He has a strong base, and he has a strong anti-base. That's why he, like ANY modern President, is doomed to an approval rating somewhere near 40-50%.
In the modern era, Presidents automatically get approval ratings from the opposition in the single digits. They, excluding a very brief honeymoon, have a ceiling of about 50%, and they have to reach stellar approval ratings from their own party to get that high.
Trump being in the mid 40's tells us nothing but that about half the electorate are Democrats, and that Republicans are not fanatically in Trump's court. THIS is what a GENUINELY unpopular President's numbers look like.
Here's Trump's numbers, instead. Not appreciably different from zero among Democrats, but normal "popular President" approval ratings from Republicans.
Citing a Bushie! Dude wrote 2/3 of a famous speech line.
Any port in a storm
Care to share a link to the article?
This is possible but let me suggest an alternative. Something happened during the Alaska trip and Trump was affect either physically or mentally or both. This is resulted in more erratic behavior. I would note that physically Melania and Barron Trump are now much closer to the President. I think this is by design to keep tabs on him should his health fail more.
You have an active imagination
No more of an imagination than those that think Trump is just fine.
He's just fine for a guy who's nearly 80.
We should have an upper age limit for public office. Maybe 60 or so.
So by the metric that matters, you think he's not fine?
Sure sounds like it, but I think we all know where you'll come down.
No, on any absolute scale I think he's definitely not fine. I think nobody his age can be expected to be fine on that scale, aside from the rare guy fated to make it over 100.
He's not as "not fine" as Biden was, but he is absolutely more compromised than we want Presidents to be.
I'm just saying that he's not unusually not fine for his age. Anything more is up to his own cabinet and the 25th amendment, but I figure he'd have to be in a lot worse shape than evidence suggests before you could reasonably invoke the 25th amendment, given that his age was factored into voting for him.
One size does not fit all. Everyone ages mentally and physically at different rates. The things that are "not fine" about Trump are not age related.
Mr. Bumble — Sure they are age related. And they will continue age-related until Trump begins to act like an adult.
Again, I don't think 'fine for his age' is a metric that matters for the President.
If you think he's not fine you should want him out of office.
You thought Biden was fine.
No and if you look at my past comment I did not want either a septuagenarian or octogenarian for the Presidency. I voted for younger people in both the primary and the general election.
Trump is no different than the first term. He actually seems to have more energy.
They may have doubled his meds.
If so, then that worked.
Every President tries to get as much done as he can during the first two years because its almost for certain he will lose at least one house of Congress in the midterms.
"Since 1980, the U.S. House of Representatives has flipped party control in 1980, 1994, 2006, 2010, 2018, and 2022. Control of the Senate has also changed hands in 1980, 1986, 1994, 2000, 2006, 2014, 2020, and 2024."
So you'll notice every year the House has flipped its been an off year election, with the exception of 1980.
So its pretty likely Trump will lose the house and be stymied for his last two years just like he was in 2018, and just like Biden was in 2022.
".S. House of Representatives has flipped party control in 1980"
Incorrect. It was just the Senate in 1980. Dems won the house every election from 1954 to 1992, finally losing it in 1994. Thanks. Newt!
That's AI for you.
I actually remember the others pretty clearly.
Sounds like some pollsters are about to be getting all kinds of trouble, from tax audits and permit denials to prosecutions. I think expecting Mr. Trump to simply sit back and allow these lies to continue about our great President that he and every right-thinking American know everybody loves, may be expecting a wee bit too much of him.
Despite Loki's perception the polls aren't moving much, yes currently his RCP disapproval is 52.6, but it hit 52.7 in July, 52.4 in April.
The aggregate seems to be oscillating in a narrow range, although individual polls are all over the map.
And to put that in context same time 8 years ago his disapproval was somewhat higher at 56.7, and his favorable were below 40%.
https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/donald-trump/approval-rating
I would strike "openly". The termination of Comey was out in the open.
Reports appear to confirm Mr. Homan accepted a bag of cash — but they don’t say whether he actually kept it, or if agents recovered it on the spot. And if he did keep it, was it declared as income and taxed? Any insight on that?
That gap in the reporting is just as important as DOJ’s “no quid pro quo” rationale.
If the bag of cash wasn't given in return for anything then it may have been a gift. The donor has to pay tax, not the recipient.
Do consult a tax lawyer before accepting almost-but-not-quite bribes. They might be taxable despite not being criminal. Or they might be gifts.
What I'd like to know now is how large a budget the FBI has for these kind of "gifts", how they select the fortunate people who get targeted for these investigatory gifts, and if there is a limit on how much each recipient can receive.
I'm now thinking maybe the crime wasn't selling influence. The crime could be a corrupt FBI agent giving his accomplice Homan $50K, presumably with some of it kicked back to the agent. And the gravy is that Biden's taste for lawfare against Trump's team provided the ideal cover.
Maybe there’s a lottery for who gets picked — more Publisher’s Clearinghouse than sting operation.
There was a Short Circuit case where an appeals court had to decide whether the recipient of a payment committed extortion. The cash was provided by the government. There is no such crime as "extortion of the government" because the government is not a person. On the particular facts and jury instructions of the case, intent had not been proved for the attempted crime. So a lot of convictions were tossed out on appeal.
So if the FBI “gifted” it, does that mean the Bureau has to file a 1099? Do they pay taxes on their own sting money?
Seriously though, that cash is evidence and the F.B.I. has the responsibilty for it.
It sounds like he kept it as the plan was to keep monitoring him to see if he did try to deliver once he was back in the administration (which wouldn't really work if he was tipped off about the investigation).
I agree, it's vague whether he still kept the bribe after Emil Bove killed the investigation.
Fun NFL Sunday with a special nod to special teams.
Somewhat less fun for Jets and Giants fans.
TCM aired the Bill Murray comedy Quick Change last night. I think it is fittingly counted as a "classic."
Spectacular but unnecessary runback for the Eagles. Just fall on it.
Eagles had a "Block Party" and invited the Rams!
To my Fellow Tribe Members: L'shana Tovah tikateivu v'teichateimu
(May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year); 5786.
And what a year (5785) it was. Lebanon was bitch-slapped. Hezbollah utterly defeated. Syria defeated, Assad deposed. Iran, defanged and emasculated. Yemen was bitch-slapped. And gaza will soon be free of hamas.
Shortly, Judea and Samaria will be annexed. And then we will say: From the river to the sea, Israel is now free.
Here in America, a more mixed picture. Antisemitism is very much alive and well, and actively practiced by the Left (see college campus demonstrations); in the halls of Congress, and the streets of our major cities.
And Shana Tova to you and other appropriates!
Antisemitism is very much alive and well
Yup. People cheered on the man who said this:
"Jewish donors have been the No. 1 funding mechanism of radical open-border, neoliberal, quasi-Marxist policies, cultural institutions and nonprofits. This is a beast created by secular Jews and now they're coming for Jews, and they're like, "What on Earth happened?" And it's not just the colleges. It's the nonprofits, it's the movies, it's Hollywood, it's all of it.:
“Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them,”
“the philosophical foundation of anti-whiteness has been largely financed by Jewish donors in the country.”
Nice repetition of classic anti-Semitic tropes.
Smooth start, as if to suggest you were concerned about antisemitism. (Just kidding. Klutzy as always.)
And Sha Na Na to you too.
I am concerned about anti-Semitism on both sides. It's nonetheless traditional for the left to accuse the Jews of being ultra-capitalists, while the right accuses the Jews of being communists.
I think we seriously have to distinguish between 'accusing Jews', and "accusing someone who's a Jew".
Being Jewish can't immunize you against being accused of some wrongdoing, even if it happens to be wrongdoing anti-Semites might typically accuse Jews in general of. If there's evidence of wrongdoing, being a Jew doesn't clear you.
I'm pretty sure some Jews actually ARE ultra-capitalists, some actually ARE communists.
Maybe even both, if their name is "Soros". 😉
In theory you're right. In practice, not so much. First, Soros is a real person but he also is being used as an anti-Semitic stereotype - a wealthy foreign and globalist banker, and it is my default though not irrebuttable position that criticism of Soros is in fact anti-Semitic. but deniably so.
Second, are the accusations consistent? IMO if Gym Jordan had been Jewish or black, his political career would have long since been over owing to his involvement in a HS sexual abuse scandal. Are we really supposed to believe that only blacks and Jews in Hollywood are guilty of sexploitation? So yes, condemn Weinstein, for example....Epstein was a vile man who should be rotting in prison, and Ghislaine Maxwell should be rotting in a real prison not Camp Fed...but mysteriously no other person seems to have been prosecuted. Funny that.
I must compliment Kash Patel, though. He is clearly way over his head, and realises it, and his attempts at defending the "nothing to see here" findings are truly laughable, but I can't fault his taste in supporting Liverpool FC
Yeah, y'all just lucked out that the Koch brothers ain't Jewish.
Jim Jordan's wrestling sex abuse scandal was at Ohio State University; you might be thinking of Dennis Hastert, whose wrestling sex abuse scandal was at the high school level.
Yup, my bad
Wow, nice out-of-context quotes there.
This is a practice you will not like when done to your side.
But, I have few assumptions that you would not happily try and kill me. Your side has a problem with that.
Except they're not. I provided the quotes. Why don't you show why they're not what they appear to be? Burden is now on you.
As far as "side" goes, :I am on the side that is not cultist. That includes everyone from the Lincoln Project to the Squad
A year or so ago I linked to Molly Ringwald's essay on how her children shouldn't see her 1980s movie appearances which are not politically correct by 21st century standards.
Here's a story on prosecutors getting in trouble for quoting from Sixteen Candles.
In some of the emails, O’Sullivan and Bradley compared Choy’s nephew to Long Duk Dong, a character in the movie “Sixteen Candles” who is the subject of ridicule. Bradley and O’Sullivan said those emails were attempts at humor and not motivated by racial bias.
A judge granted a new trial when the emails came to light several years ago. A bar discipline committee recommended that both lawyers be suspended.
I think the email exchange was fifteen years ago. Motions for new trials move at a glacial pace. In a first degree murder case in Massachusetts an appeal from the first motion for a new trial is often combined with the direct appeal from conviction, reaching the Supreme Judicial Court five years or so after the conviction. The appeals are almost always unsuccessful, so why rush?
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2025/09/20/metro/racist-emails-prosecutors/ https://www.bc.edu/bc-web/sites/bc-magazine/winter-2021/features/freedom-fighters.html
Such movies should be seen and then discussed in a context of changing times, and why.
Banning them is part of a political domination mechanism, to enforce lemming-like behaviors driven by fear, expected virtue signaling for the approval by others, rather than by recognizing sentient agency agreeing with the position as big boys and big girls.
Is Molly giving back her paychecks?
That's my question.
You may find it offensive, Molly, but you cash the residual checks regardless.
Wrinkle I hadn’t seen before — and the optics are interesting. Cantor Fitzgerald was/is making offers to buy up companies’ rights to possible tariff refunds, paying them a fraction now in exchange for whatever they might get back later if the courts rule the tariffs invalid. Basically a way to turn refund uncertainty into upfront liquidity. Worth a read: https://www.ainvest.com/news/cantor-fitzgerald-offers-20-30-trump-tariff-refund-rights-2507/
Apparently this has been out for a while — I just hadn’t come across it until now.
When Silicon Valley Bank collapsed investors were buying accounts at a discount. Your startup has $10 million in the bank. You can't get to it. Do you sell it to the vultures for $7 million or do you hang on and hope for a government bailout?
Good point — if there’s a need and the incentive is there, someone with resources will step in to fill it.
!!!!!
It's rare I get to post one link to It's a Wonderful Life in a thread. Two is beyond belief!
if there’s a need and the incentive is there, someone with resources will step in to fill it.
50 cents on the dollar!
Lol. Glad I could help out.
It's not a new idea.
Yeah, not a new idea — but interesting in passing, I think.
Factoring tariff refunds. I know the Inflation Reduction Act made energy credits sellable. Typically there have to be regs that narrowly allow it, not the other way around. I'd have to think CF spent enough on legal opinion to conclude that this would stand - or they're structuring it as debt, and COD income would just replace reversing deductions for the original recording of the tariffs as expenses.
How come no one yet has been able to identify the Phillies Karen?
Don't worry, if they haven't figured it out by now I'm sure your secret is safe.
Maybe because she didn't shoot anybody
I'm sure Spirit Halloween stores are mass producing six cent wigs as quickly as they can.
Link to the opinion in the case posted yesterday where a judge claims that is violates the students' first amendment rights for a school board to name a school "Stonewall Jackson High School".
Is there anyone who thinks this is remotely defensible?
Yeah, it was kind of crazy. The judge even conceded that opinions about the name were mixed.
By the judge's reasoning, it's unconstitutional for any public school to have a name more controversial than "District 1245". That would really look spiffy on a blazer!
Not necessarily going to defend the decision, but what's MAGA's obsession with naming things after traitors?
It was the school's name long before Trump.
Well, sure. And then the school board changed it because they realized it was problematic. And then a new MAGA school board took over and decided that it was really important for this school to be named after a traitor. So...why?
" So...why?" Tradition? Be that as it may, the ruling was bullshit and without merit.
“Tradition?”
Yes, it is indeed important to remember the traditions of people like Albert Pike, whose statue is being re-erected by order of the Trump Administration:
"the white race, and that race alone, shall govern this country. It is the only one that is fit to govern, and it is the only one that shall."
But not all traditions are equal, I guess. The removal of the iconic photograph “Scourged Back” from several NPS sites might suggest that some traditions are more important than others.
That is a terrible quote. Very bad man.
Much like the following contemporary views:
"I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races—that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermingling with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which will ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together, there must be the position of superior. I am as much as any other man in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.:
Interesting point. Serious question though: has the Trump administration been putting up Lincoln statues? I may have missed that.
"If we would have said that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative action picks, we would have been called racists. Now they’re coming out and they’re saying it for us … You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously."
"new MAGA school board took over'
Seems like the people wanted the name restored. Why do you hare democracy?
Sounds like a case of rabbit partisanship.
Bravo!
Mean hate.
Cursed thread
Meant to say "hate"
My question was why MAGA people worship traitors, not whether or not they're allowed to.
If one considers the point of view of a modern Confederate, would General Stonewall Jackson be a "traitor" or a "righteous man" from your own perspective?
Can "the point of view of a modern Confederate" be separated from abject racism and advocacy of treason in support of human chattel slavery?
I don't think so. That is what the nineteenth century Confederates were about, and it remains what twenty-first century Confederates are about.
Until it wasn't. And then was again.
If we're going to be precise, the obsession is with restoring names of traitors that had been removed earlier.
I honestly think it's less about liking Stonewall Jackson and more about owning the libs. It's the same thing as Putin restoring statues of Lenin in parts of the Ukraine. It's not that he's a devout communist, it's that he wants to give a big "fuck you" to the idea of western democracy.
I think it's more of an obsession, if you want to call it that, with establishing that you yahoos don't get to rename everything every time you momentarily happen into positions of power.
It's amazing how easily the right can ignore treason and slavery, and see some swirly concept thing as the REAL issue here.
It's amazing how the party that DID the whole slavery thing feels they have a leg to stand on about anything.
You STILL support slavery. Like right now.
And the party that UNDID the whole slavery thing is now re-erecting statues of Albert Pike! Isn’t it funny how times change?
“you yahoos don't get to rename everything”
The lack of self awareness from the Gulf of America crowd is really something. I have more examples.
Yes, he was properly mocked for that, you think you should be spared?
If you think not wanting to rename schools in honor of treasonous slavers is deserving of mockery, that says a lot about you.
Yeah, I think the urge to rename things that have long had a name is properly deserving of mockery.
It grants more significance to names than we should accord them.
Yes. It's a show of good taste, a performance, in lieu of concern about something substantive that matters.
He defends the victims of wrong statues and names. YEAH!!!
This retreat into knowing cynicism is as hackneyed as it is predictable. Whenever I start asking for a substantive defense of the proposition that we should be honoring someone like Albert Pike it’s all LOL it doesn’t matter.
But then in the same very thread we have the same people railing against “iconoclasm” and “soon you’ll be tearing down the Washington monument.” Bellmore can’t quite seem to square this circle… maybe you’ll have better luck? What’s so great about Albert Pike?
You mistake me for somebody who cares about that. And you either mistakenly believe most people care about that, or you simply don't care that they don't care about.
Either way...you might want to keep your thing with people who care, e.g. intellectual class Democrats. Good luck convincing others you've got your eye on what matters.
“You mistake me for somebody who cares”
Must be a very comforting way to go through life. Bless your heart!
As I said, "You mistake me for somebody who cares about that."
You resorted to misrepresenting my statement in order to put forth a false, dumb characterization of my position.
But don't let me distract you from statues and names. Keep your eye on the ball.
Same goes for all the founders - treasonous slavers, and not just naming things after them but everything their name is on, including the Constitution and the system of government it created. If you disagree that says a lot about you.
“including the Constitution”
That’s right. The constitution was not a perfectly conceived document at the beginning. Certain sections are rightly viewed as problematic today. Which is why it has been amended— much to some people’s chagrin, it seems.
Exactly. So, we have a helluva lot more renaming and removing and smashing to do eh comrade? Glad you agree
“you yahoos don't get to rename everything every time you momentarily happen into positions of power.”
If we don’t re-name schools to honor people who committed treason in defense of slavery— THE LIBERALS WIN!
Once again revealing, for the zillionth time, the one true philosophical lodestar of the entire MAGA movement. You are not serious people.
How does your theory cover "Gulf of America" ?
The real scandal is that it took Democrats coming into power for it to happen; it should've been bipartisan.
FDR too?
Dems also named it originally, it should be noted.
The problem is that the Democrats' urge for iconoclasm, (And renaming things is just a manifestation of that.) knows no stopping point. Instead it's subject to an arms race of escalating offense and demands.
If we don't oppose it, eventually you'll be tearing down the Washington monument.
Ah yes, telepathic slippery slope.
Truly you have no choice but to support our country venerating enslaving traitors.
If we don’t name high schools after Stonewall Jackson and raise up statues to founding members of the KKK, iconoclastic liberals will win! History will be erased! But also, renaming is silly and names don’t mean much.
I am glad that my undergraduate alma mater, whose classrooms were desegregated in 1962 and whose athletic teams were desegregated three years later, has long abandoned its former use of Nathan Bedford Forrest icons and prohibited its band from playing Dixie at athletic events. The building housing the ROTC program, however, is still named Forrest Hall.
I don't know. I don't see it as much different than people wanting to name things after FDR despite the Japanese internment.
Are you aware of any cases where FDR's name had been dropped, then reinstated years later over (and because of) the objections of internee's descendants?
Heck, I'm not even aware of any cases where FDR's name has been dropped.
No, that's been reserved for the Roosevelt who DIDN'T put Americans in concentration camps.
This particular concern troll has a scope problem.
FDR did a ton of stuff; he's vitally important to modern America. A modern America most folks recognize as wildly successful. Except for a few cranks.
No, his legacy is not untarnished. But it's pretty reasonable to venerate him, if you like modern America.
By contrast, confederate generals are known for one thing: treason in service of maintaining American slavery. Their legacy is not deep; there is nothing to tarnish. It is all shit.
I know you think liberals are all into cancelling all who are impure. But you're wrong.
Which leaves you out there comparing FDR to like General Longstreet. It sure makes you look like a brainless fan of the Confederacy, and all it stood for.
“General Longstreet”
And he was the best of the bunch! Take a look at Albert Pike’s military and post-war career sometime.
"Longstreet enjoyed a successful post-war career working for the U.S. government as a diplomat, civil servant, and administrator. His support for the Republican Party and his cooperation with his pre-war friend President Ulysses S. Grant, as well as critical comments he wrote about Lee's wartime performance, made him anathema to many of his former Confederate colleagues."
Neat!
I still wouldn't put up a statute of him.
OK, then why are you guys removing statues of Thomas Jefferson?
Wrong place
"FDR did a ton of stuff; he's vitally important to modern America."
I hear he made the trains run on time.
"FDR did a ton of stuff;"
Wow, that's right up there with "things happened" when it comes to rousing defenses.
Read all of my comment, don’t post contextless phrases like a dick.
Yeah, I should strive to be a better person than you.
"No, his legacy is not untarnished. But it's pretty reasonable to venerate him, if you like modern America."
By contrast, confederate generals are known for one thing: treason in service of maintaining American slavery. Their legacy is not deep; there is nothing to tarnish. It is all shit."
You see, this is your double standard. If guy is on your side, and has gotten any wins for your side, any horrible things he might do merely 'tarnish his legacy', but he's still worth venerating. Deifying, almost, if he contributed enough to the expansion of the federal government and the defeat of constitutional limits on federal power.
If somebody isn't on your side, and they've done anything wrong, that IS their legacy, all of it. Everything else must be crammed down the old memory hole, denied to even exist. Everything is reduced to that one sin.
"Their legacy is not deep; there is nothing to tarnish. It is all shit."
Was there ever a man whose life was that simple? Really? No. You beclown yourself by writing that.
People contain multitudes, so we have to rename schools after Stonewall Jackson and raise up statues to Albert Pike to show “you yahoos”? Do I have that right?
I drew an explicit contrast between the legacy of FDR and Confederate generals.
Somehow from that you get: "If somebody isn't on your side, and they've done anything wrong, that IS their legacy, all of it."
Brett, I'm talking about fucking Confederate generals. Not 'somebody,' Confederate. Generals.
Your bloviating comes off really shallow and maybe even disingenuous until you fund an example that isn't a slavery-defending traitor.
And talking about fucking FDR. Not just anybody. F. D. R! (See, I can emote, too!)
You know, the guy who threw 120 thousand Americans in prison camps? Didn't even mind them losing everything they'd owned?
The guy who was so scary that they amended the Constitution only after he was safely dead, to term limit Presidents?
The guy whose command economy, wage and price controls, forced cartelization of industry, put the Great in Great Depression, stretched it out for decades?
I guess all that means that he didn't do anything good.
Yeah, I know you drew a contrast between FDR and the Confederate generals. And I pointed out the basis of that contrast.
FDR is YOUR biggest villain. But that's your special problem. It's pretty incontrovertible that his legacy/reputation contains a lot more depth and complexity than Confederal generals.
By contrast to your FDR hate, Confederate generals' suckage isn't some idiosyncratic view I have.
Sure, confederate generals are bad (notice how Brett can’t bring himself to say that!!) but what about my FDR argle bargle? Checkmate, lib!
I'm pretty sure FDR never took up arms against the US, so it doesn't seem very much like that at all. I don't see anyone advocating for the James McFarlane Middle School or John Walker Lindh Park.
I'm pretty sure he took up arms against at least 120,000 Americans.
And that would be a legitimate thing to say if we were renaming things after FDR today. In fact, were such a renaming proposed, I would expect that a discussion of how FDR’s legacy was impacted by interment to indeed take place. Which is a good thing!!
As an aside, I would encourage all of the Alligator Alcatraz fanboys around here to take a trip to Manzanar sometime. Bracing stuff. But what’s old is new again, I suppose.
You're claiming that detaining illegal aliens is equivalent to detaining American citizens based on their ancestry? That's the type of extreme open-borders claim that even most Democrats disavow. But everyone is entitled to their opinion.
Where did I say that? I am sorry that the prospect of visiting Manzanar upsets you so. But it is intended to be upsetting. Any semblance to current internment camps is for you to determine and contemplate.
I note, apropos of nothing, there appears to be a hunger strike at Angola ongoing. Conditions seem dire if the reporting is accurate.
https://www.wdsu.com/article/nineteen-ice-detainees-angol-hunger-strike-inhumane-conditions/67982108
Hunger strikes are the dumbest thing. Like holding your breath when you are a toddler.
"If he dies, he dies". Ivan Drago [or Donald Trump]
Ah, yes, the intellectual touchstones of the modern MAGA movement: Ivan Drago and Conan. You are truly serious people.
There’s a little teenage arrested development going on at a psychological level. I am always reminded of this gentleman:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gnXBeQwmmrc
“Being able to say ‘white power’ is fun!”
So, too, at my Alma mater in the Northeast where a certain… racially homogeneous… fraternity took great pride in throwing a “Stonewall Jackson’s birthday” party every year on MLK day. Shortly after I departed, this particular frat was derecognized by the college when it emerged that they were forcing new members to ingest certain bodily fluids as part of an initiation ritual. I will leave it to the reader to speculate upon the connections between these two things.
As I posed in yesterday's Open thread, the compelled speech part of the analysis (distinct from the remedy) is consistent with the analysis in this case won by Eugene.
To be clear, I agree that there's a colorable argument that schools can't compel students to wear the school's name on uniforms.
But the rest of the case is just bonkers.
I don't see a colorable argument that this prevents schools from changing their names, and I don't buy the judge's claim that the facts in this case are sui generis such that only this school can't change its name.
The mere naming is not the concern.
The student argues that taking part in extracurricular activities at the school, with the name (including uniforms), given the full context of the naming, is an unconstitutional practice of coerced speech. The Supreme Court has been somewhat doctrinaire about such things. I can understand a judge being strict here.
A school uniform, such as "the Wolverines," would not have a similar ideological content. Ditto something like "John Adams High School," though at some point, you can argue that naming a school after people will have some ideological content.
(For example, an Asian-American student might oppose wearing a "FDR High School" uniform, or a pacifist might argue that "LBJ High School" furthers war. A conservative might not like "Barack Obama Junior High" and so on.)
I think there is possibly a hard line-drawing issue there. Not that it would likely hold up given current law, but students would have a stronger claim arguing it was a "badge of slavery" under the Thirteenth Amendment.
I don't think the result is patently asinine & the overall principle will not just apply to schools named after Confederate heroes.
"A school uniform, such as "the Wolverines," would not have a similar ideological content..."
I think the judge undermined that argument when he tried to make it. After all, the School Board's choice to name the school "Mountain View High School" was an expression of the Board's disapproval of Stonewall Jackson. Why should students be compelled to broadcast the school's message in that instance?
As I said, I think there's an argument that students have a right to cover up the school's name on their uniforms.
But the idea the judges get to decide what schools are allowed to name themselves because the name appears on extra-curricular activity uniforms is patently asinine.
"Is there anyone who thinks this is remotely defensible?"
Have you read the memorandum opinion, TwelveInchPianist? Yes or no?
I asked the question 16 hours ago, and TwelveInch still hasn't answered. I submit that we can take that silence as an admission of not having read the memorandum opinion. Is anyone surprised?
Jeez, I've got a life you know. Yes I've read the opinion.
Did you read it, and do you find it remotely defensible?
Of course I read it. It is a straightforward application of the compelled speech doctrine.
Wow. That's dumb even for you. You don't think it's funny that no one noticed that the compelled speech doctrine prevents schools from changing their name? Or at least, prevents schools from changing their name in one "unique" case where the judge doesn't like the new name?
Just as every tub must stand on its own bottom, every lawsuit must be determined according to its own facts. That is why litigants develop evidentiary records.
As a general proposition, the compelled speech doctrine prevents schools from changing their name. Under the facts of this case, however, both the 2020 change of name and the 2024 reversion to the original conveyed an expressive message by the respective school boards. The earlier action signaled that the historical figure Stonewall Jackson is unworthy of admiration; the later action by subsequently elected board members signaled that Jackson is indeed worthy of admiration.
The student-athlete plaintiffs here showed that they do not wish to convey the latter message on their uniforms and other regalia -- treason in service of human chattel slavery is not something that decent people want to celebrate -- and that the action of the school board required them to convey a message that they disagree with.
If you have indeed read the memorandum opinion, how did you manage to misunderstand it so flagrantly, TIP?
Bullshit. That would apply to your opinion of the case and the decision.
Have you read the memorandum opinion, Mr. Bumble? How is my description of the judge's reasoning inaccurate?
I did read it and I'll modify my comment to say that the judge's opinion is bullshit. That you agree with it is not a surprise.
How do you know that something which you admittedly have not read is bullshit? Where did you get that kind of hubris?
The words I see on my screen are "I did read it." Did you happen to actually read his comment before you replied?
"I did read it and I'll modify my comment" sounds like he only just read it after previously declaring it bullshit.
If he had previously read it, he wouldn't have needed to modify his comment or he would have said "I reread it".
I'd say there's better evidence that not guilty read Bumble's comment.
There were two other remedies available short of changing the school name: 1) removing the name from all uniforms and 2) removing the name from the uniforms of the objecting students. The judge's reasoning in rejecting those remedies is not well developed.
He claimed the school rejected the former (the school maintains the names are critical to the uniforms) and the objecting students rejected the latter (the students feel they are not full members of the team with a different uniform). OK. But, does that prevent the judge from crafting a remedy that one of the (or even both) sides does not like?
Loved "45/47/(48?)" going all FDR (more accurately, going "Fala") yesterday, honestly admitting he doesn't want the best for his enemies.
"These Republican leaders have not been content with attacks on me, or my wife, or on my sons. No, not content with that, they now include my little dog, Fala. Well, of course, I don't resent attacks, and my family don't resent attacks, but Fala does resent them. You know, Fala is Scotch, and being a Scottie, as soon as he learned that the Republican fiction writers in Congress and out had concocted a story that I'd left him behind on an Aleutian island and had sent a destroyer back to find him – at a cost to the taxpayers of two or three, or eight or twenty million dollars – his Scotch soul was furious. He has not been the same dog since. I am accustomed to hearing malicious falsehoods about myself ... But I think I have a right to resent, to object, to libelous statements about my dog."
The week of Kristallnachten begins at the UN. Seeing Macron caving Sunday to France's Islamist immigration, it is easy to understand why the French surrendered after six weeks in 1940.
Great thing about French (and Italian, and Polish and Egyptian, and Syrian, and Iraqi) Surplus Military Rifles, "Never Fired and only dropped once!"
A German WWi rifle fires a .30-06 round?
I don't think so...
Alot of them were converted to 30:06 Knucklehead. Seriously? you're going to question my Gun Knowlege?? Why don't you stick to your area of "Expertise", being an Ignoramus Oh I'm sorry, "Dr" Ignoramus
Well it's claimed Mrs. Macaroon has all the balls in the family.
And in the UK, the PM who claims to have "extended family in Israel," is also stabbing the country of his extensions in the back to cower before his islamist and groomer gangs. The country of Winston Churchill is no more.
More pedo gangs, Don Nico?
What a jerk you are hobie. Yes, there are pedo gangs in the UK. They even rape Muslim girls
When you use pejoratives, I know I've won
Yeah hobie. You're a winner.
When YOU use pejoratives I know I'VE Won, Hayseed.
"When you use pejoratives, I know I've won"
Wow! How do you handle losing so many arguments.
You won nothing hobie. When you deny the rape of young women to try to make a weak political point, that is being a jerk.
In course of Israel history the move into Lebanon in the early 1980 proved to be disastrous for Israeli with condemnations from both within and outside the country. I think that the Netanyahu government is making the same mistake in prolonging the conflict in Gaza. More countries are recognizing the Palestinians and Israel will face greater isolation. While there is no doubt the Israeli had the right to take action after the 10/7 terrorist attack, prolonging the conflict in the absence of clear military objectives is hurting their cause.
Israel finally decided that "never again" really meant never again.
So, a final solution?
No retard. Never Again. The response to Hitler's failed final solution.
When "Never Again" becomes the basis for indiscriminately killing off a lot of people, you don't have to be Nietzsche to see something relevant.
"indiscriminately killing off a lot of people" And that is NOT happening in Gaza. Terrorist Kool-aid is bad for your health.
So "anybody in Gaza", even aid workers and press, is a discriminate way of killing?
They are in a war zone and Hamas tries to keep them there as human shields. They get warnings of attacks from the IDF. Israel tries to limit civilian casualties. Hamas tries tomaximized the number of shahids.
Israel tries to limit civilian casualties.
Does it, though? Seriously?
"More countries are recognizing the Palestinians and Israel will face greater isolation." Sure, Anti-semitism is worldwide. What you are suggesting is Israeli surrender to terrorism by an ethnic group which has never accepted peace with a Jewish state.
What I am suggest is that Israeli no longer has any real military objectives. It has won the conflict and now is the time to start addressing the after the conflict. Failure to do this is hurting the Israeli image.
Have the hostages been released? If not, it's not over.
And Gaza has not surrendered.
What authority in Gaza is left to surrender? Again no military objectives left. The Netanyahu government is simply filling time to stay in power and that is not acceptable for a democracy.
A bunch of countries just recognized Palestine as a nation. That means that some authority must have the ability to decide war or surrender.
That's two of you with this inane "recognition must mean..." argument. Was it in some talking points e-mail this morning?
Recognition means a politician - and not anyone in Gaza - signed some proclamation.
It does mean that Gaza can end the war at any time.
"simply filling time to stay in power " only the Israeli left believes that. In fact, that claim makes no logical sense. What is not acceptable for a democracy is the extralegal intervention of Israel's supreme court and the "attorney general" to prohibit the effective prosecution of the war.
M4e, Unfortunately, that is incorrect. Gaza is is still loaded with Hamas enclaves. It remains far stronger than the PA, not only in Gaza than in Judea and Samaria. The PA would lose any election in the so-called Palestinian State, the proposed boundaries of which leave Israel in an indefensible configuration. Image is far less important than the survival of the Jewish people.
Unfortunately, that is incorrect. Gaza is is still loaded with Hamas enclaves
If that's true after two years of siege and unrelenting Israeli air and ground attacks, it suggests that Israel cannot achieve its stated objective through military means.
Maybe it just means that it takes longer than two years.
They held off occupying Gaza City because that is where the remaining hostage are. Since hamas is no longer negotiating, time is now before the rest die anyway from mistreatment.
They held off on occupying because of the remaining hostages? They didn't hold off on carpet bombing despite the hostages being there. They already control the area so what will occupying get them that their bombing campaigns will not besides risk more Israeli lives?
No David it does not mean that. When Herzi Halevi was IDF chief of staff, he never wanted to occupy Gaza City. He only believed in commando raids. Finally the IDF is doing what should have bee done initially, even though the Attorney General tries to handcuff the IDF by ordering that the IDF cannot order Gazans to leave Gaza City. That play right into the hands of Hamas, that tries to compel non-combatants to stay as human shields.
The PA would lose any election
Every once in a while, it's worth remembering *why* Hamas and Hezbollah have been more popular than the PA/PLO. And no, it's not just some insane lust for bloodshed among the civilian population.
Hezbollah's prestige came from successfully forcing Israel out of Southern Lebanon. The PLO, by comparison, turned tail and fled from Beirut under US protection, and failed to protect their own women and children from a massacre about as big as 10/7/23 by mercenaries working under Israeli supervision.
Hamas's prestige came from successfully forcing Israel out of Gaza. The PA, by comparison, engaged in talks which were rewarded, every single time, by more land being taken for settlements.
Just like anywhere else, success is rewarded at the ballot box (or would be if they ever held an election). Now that Hamas has been mostly routed, their prestige and influence will decline accordingly. Hezbollah's mediocre performance last year is already costing them in Lebanon, where the other factions in the government are now challenging them openly.
If the PA was perceived as having won anything of value through talks and cooperation and the UN lobbying circuit, they'd be more popular. All they've actually done is allow literally decades of settlement expansion. Although it has to be acknowledged that their internal corruption did most of the damage.
ds, you have told only half of the truth. It is also because of the gross corruption of the PA and its lack of interest in Palestinian democracy in the West Bank.
To my friends of the "Hebrew persuasion," as Nixon would have put it, L'Shanah tova u'metukah. It will not be an easy one.
It is fall and the time I set up my flu vaccination. Normally I set up both flu and Covid at the same time. Two pokes that take about 15 seconds of my time. Well this year the clinic has not yet planned for the Covid shots. So two trips for me. Take you Robert Kennedy Jr. for nothing.
I like RFK, but I will also get a flu and a Covid vaccination.
I'm not all that impressed with RFK, but, while I haven't yet made up my mind, I'm inclined to just get the flu vaccination.
I'm not entirely sure to what extent current Covid vaccination advice is scientifically grounded, and to what extent it's a hangover from Branch Covidian doctrine. The insanity of medical authorities during Covid really soured me on taking their word for anything.
What I do know is that the original Covid was nothing more than a bad head cold for me, and I hear that the new Covid strains are not very severe compared to the one I got.
“I’m not entirely sure to what extent current COVID vaccination advice is scientifically grounded.”
I can’t imagine why?
I don't have to imagine why, we discussed it for several years.
I got flu vaccines regularly for 20 years, but haven't had one in at least 5 years, I think I have all the antibodies I need.
Covid just isn't severe enough to worry about getting vaccinated, and I just had my second bout a year ago, so I have relatively fresh natural antibodies.
Kaz, "I think I have all the antibodies I need." That is likely not true. At least it is not for me. If I don't get a flu vaccine I almost always get a very bad case that year.
Well, if all it takes is an extra trip, that's not too bad.
The problem comes if getting the COVID shot at all is difficult and/or if it is no longer free of charge. It is a pleasant convenience to be able to just go to a drug store & get vaccines.
I will schedule mine for October. Takes a little extra time for me, including scheduling and waiting.
The ACA mandates that all qualifying plans have to 100% cover any vaccine on the CDC's recommended list, so unless you're self-insured, it should be free of charge.
I thought the whole problem was that it's off the list for most people.
This is RFK's version of "you can keep your doctor..." yeah, if you've got the cash.
No, if you're 18 or older it's still on the list. They took it off the list for children.
All the reporting I've seen says it's only recommended now for > 65 or otherwise unhealthy people. Is there some nuance I'm missing? Why can't Erick Erickson's wife get it? Is she a child?
This NPR article suggests there were some ambiguities in the prior guidance for ages 18-65 that Erickson's wife may have been caught up in or was just academically fussing about (don't know; don't really care), but it seems to be sorted now.
I see. It's an FDA vs. CDC thing.
I don't know what I can say, beyond that I went straight to the CDC's website.
CDC: Vaccines by age
"Parents of children ages 6 months to 17 years should discuss the benefits of vaccination with a health care provider."
"CDC recommends an updated COVID-19 vaccine for most adults ages 18 years and older."
And it's my understanding that the ACA's mandate covers all vaccines recomended by the CDC.
I had them a week apart in the same arm (COVID was Pfizer this time). Very sore for several days now!
I never get the flu vaccine. Getting the flu vaccine only guarantees some other strain spreads. The flu vaccine is incubated based on a forecast of possible strains. So, we all the vaccine for strain X, we are all immune to strain X, therefore strain Y spreads, and the vaccine for Y cannot be made in time.
Except one time in Covid, never got it and never got the flu.
One flu shot for the Hong Kong flu (1969). Got the flu. None since then and I have not had the flu.
Depends on genetics and lifestyle, I would typically get the flu every few years (not counting when my daughter was in elementary school, where it was much more often). During that time, I never got the flu shot. Fast-forward, I started getting the shot and I have not had the flu in about 12 years.
Kimmel will be back on the air tomorrow.
It is as I have foreseen...
Should be interesting to see what he has to say.
Why? Has he ever said anything interesting before?
Disney probably did more for Kimmel's ratings by canceling and bringing him back than any joke Kimmel has ever told. People will watch to see what the fuss was about.
See also: Streisand effect.
"People will watch to see what the fuss was about." For how long?
Always hard to say. Its his audience, if he can hold onto it.
One of the problems was that he wasn't holding on to his audience. That can only go on for so long. Wonder how the owners of the affiliate stations (who precipitated his suspension) feel about him coming back?
unless he has more than a 2 week rating bounce, he is likely not to get renewed.
First night maybe, it will fade quickly.
I'm sure we'll have plenty of folks talking about how ironic that he's on national TV complaining about being censored.
They love to do that.
He's just asking questions. He's a harmless fuzzball.
Our long national nightmare is over!
Is Kirk coming back too?
So the hard way?
Kimmel ought to apologize for one thing, but one thing only: insinuating without evidence that Robinson was part of the MAGA gang. But, it would be very bad if walked back his comment that the MAGA gang was scoring political points off of Kirk's murder. And, he ought to continue full force with his nightly dump on Trump.
And may the Streisand Effect boost his ratings.
"Kimmel ought to apologize for one thing, but one thing only: insinuating without evidence that Robinson was part of the MAGA gang."
Except that Kimmel didn't do that. His barb was directed to the MAGAts' desperation in trashing Tyler Robinson before his identity and political proclivities, or lack thereof, were known to anyone. The point is that facts matter to the MAGA cult not one whit.
That is despicable.
"We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them" insinuates that Robinson is a MAGA gang member.
Even a "I did not intend to insinuate he was a MAGA gang member, but I understand how some people thought I did. For even giving that impression, however unintended, I apologize."
Innuendo is where one puts an Italian suppository, Josh.
Jimmy Kimmel said what he said. If the MAGAts took umbrage, that's on them. Southern wisdom teaches that a hit dog will holler. https://linguaholic.com/linguablog/a-hit-dog-will-holler/
Jimmy Kimmel does not have a damned thing to apologize for.
not guilty — To my mind southern wisdom is like bluegrass music. Both respond to shortages so profound that if you could not turn the shortage into an amenity you would have no amenities at all.
Kimmel's statement was pretty good:
I posted a message on Instagram on the day he was killed sending love to his family and asking for compassion, and I meant it. I still do. Nor was it my intention to blame any specific group for the actions of what it was obviously a deeply disturbed individual. That was really the opposite of the point I was trying to make. But I understand that to some that felt either ill-timed or unclear, or maybe both, and for those who think I did point a finger, I get why you're upset. If the situation was reversed, there's a good chance I'd have felt the same way. I have many friends and family members on the other side who I love and remain close to, even though we don't agree on politics at all. I don't think the murderer who shot Charlie Kirk represents anyone. This was a sick person who believed violence was a solution and it isn't.
Well, shoot! I guess the "ABC and affiliates had no choice but to bend the knee to Herr Carr" hot take didn't pan out after all, and they actually did pull the show for the painfully evident business-related reasons they clearly articulated at the time.
I want my Friday back.
At most, ABC and affiliates bend with the wind like a weather vane, now responding to widespread criticism by backing off (Trump's victory lap looks kinda stupid now; I do hope that the people who work on that show, especially those with no influence on the content, were still paid during this time).
Life of Brian is correct to want to take back his Friday comments, when he was sure ABC et al were just doing this because Kimmel's show lost them too much money and not because their licenses and mergers were endangered by an authoritarian administration. But he will probably just assert that the PR storm of kowtowing to authoritarians would cost them more, and go on to demand evidence otherwise.
Have you ever considered turning over a new leaf and actually trying to make sense? It's never too late.
"As I said yesterday, Kimmel's contract was almost up anyway. Before this week, it's not hard to imagine them deciding that intangible PR factors outweighed the cash burn and that it was a net plus to limp him along for the last few months.
Then he took a flamethrower to those PR factors."
You doubled down on this over and over and over again.
So now we're at which is more likely:
1. ABC/Disney kowtows to the administration, but reverses once the public outrage becomes a problem, AND makes it clear that the Admin targets them to it's own political peril
2. ABC/Disney was stoked to get rid of Kimmel, they were just worried about PR. Then he 'took a flamethrower to those PR factors.' But somehow all was forgiven after less than a week. --- You doubled down over, and over, and over again.
Now you're trying to claim you don't look like a dipshit. No, it's everyone else who looks foolish.
Um, yeah? They took him off the air. The big brains repeatedly assured me that had everything to do with Carr and nothing to do with Kimmel being a shithead.
In support of it not being Carr, one of the many things I pointed out was that Disney had spent a considerable part of Tuesday trying to get Kimmel to at least pretend not to be a shithead so the show could go on that night, but he refused. Looks like a week later there's finally been a meeting of the minds.
It's just mind-blowing (who am I kidding -- really it's just boringly predictable) that you would somehow try to contort this into the "bend the knee to Carr" crowd somehow being correct.
On the bright side, I was assured that pulling lying jerks off the air wasn't a step towards fascism but a sure sign it was already here. I am waiting eagerly to see those people celebrate that fascism isn't here now.
Or maybe those people are all busy shooting ABC stations or sending violent threats to those stations. That behavior had more to do with Kimmel getting that broadcast slot back than Brendan Carr had to do with Kimmel losing the slot.
It is good that the likes of Ted Cruz did the right thing and Kimmel is back on the air. But it remains the case that Kimmel is but one tree in a forest of opponents Trump wants to silence. And yes, that's fascism.
Trump's supposed fascism is represented by a metaphorical forest, where those trees still stand.
Actual fascism is reflected by countless acres of stumps left after Democrats got people fired over the past decade. (Plus cases like Charlie Kirk's.)
Acres of fired people!
Man, what a vibe.
Trump has been open about his desire to silence his critics. There is nothing metaphorical about Trump's actions against Paramount, Disney, the NY Times, the Wall Street Journal, Harvard, Monarez, Siebert, a bunch of law firms and many more people.
Citations for those countless acres of people? And again, Democrats were not responsible for Kirk's death.
Super-weirdly, Trump is the only person on that list who has ever actually been silenced.
The rest of it is just the same sort of breathless what-ifing we've been subjected to over the past week over Kimmel.
Monarez and Siebert were fired. Paramount and other universities besides Harvard (e.g. Columbia and Brown) caved. So did a bunch of law firms.
Do you deny that Trump has openly attempted to silence his critics? If so, should we write it off as "what-ifing"? Does that include open DOJ investigations of Trump's targets identified in my link?
Monarez and Siebert were fired. Paramount and other universities besides Harvard (e.g. Columbia and Brown) caved.
Setting aside the fact that Siebert claims he resigned and that "caved" doesn't say anything specific enough to address, this just makes my point that you're using "silenced" as general shorthand for "outcomes someone didn't like but that didn't actually impair their ability to communicate at all."
Life of Brian is again unable to read; Trump desires to silence his critics and attempted to silence his critics, as Josh R said. Trump took a victory lap over cancelling Colbert's and Kimmel's shows (and Kimmel has been silenced the past week). That Trump is an incompetent authoritarian (see failed coup, 2021), and that there are still a lot of staunch supporters of the 1st amendment, some even among Trump supporters, are why he's failed to achieve his desire.
Paramount canceled Colbert so the FCC would approve its merger with Skydance. Columbia and Brown agreed to limit views on DEI in order to receive federal funding. Law firms agreed not to take cases against Trump and provide pro bono services to cases he wants pursued. All of those are examples of the chilling effect of Trump's war against his opponents.
Paramount canceled Colbert so the FCC would approve its merger with Skydance
If this is more than another rain-dance argument like we just suffered through with Nexstar and Kimmel, please provide whatever evidence you think you have.
Columbia and Brown agreed to limit views on DEI in order to receive federal funding.
If conditioning federal funds on not engaging in brazenly discriminatory behavior is now all of a sudden supposedly "silencing critics," that should be a tell there's something just a touch wrong with the analysis.
Law firms agreed not to take cases against Trump
I have to say I hadn't heard this one before, but quick look seems to rather pragmatically demonstrate this was just another bit of breathless speculation. Do you ever sanity-check stuff like this?
Do you deny that Trump has openly attempted to silence his critics?
Since I'm not accepting your redefinition of the word "silence" (which I already flagged and you didn't address), absolutely.
No way this is an attempt to silence his critics:
I have read someplace that the networks were 97% against me, again, 97% negative, and yet I won and easily. They give me only bad publicity [and] press. I mean, they're getting a license. I would think maybe their license should be taken away.
So after all that, now we're down to individual TV stations that don't take seriously their obligation to serve the public interest in exchange for the license to broadcast on the public airwaves? Maybe you could start by identifying which of the speakers on the network in question would be "silenced" when, worst case, every last word of their rabidly partisan viewpoints would continue to be presented via cable, internet TV services, and all the social media channels, and just not on an individual, regional, broadcast TV station.
For bonus points, explain who would be "silenced" if the broadcast station simply made the responsible decision to serve the public interest of its viewers by airing additional programming that's not so rabidly one-sided.
According to Trump, anything bad said about him isn't in the "public interest."
Not believing Trump wants to silence his critics is right up there with believing trump didn't try to steal the 2020 election.
And this from Trump:
He is yet another arm of the DNC and, to the best of my knowledge, that would be a major Illegal Campaign Contribution. I think we’re going to test ABC out on this. Let’s see how we do. Last time I went after them, they gave me $16 Million Dollars. This one sounds even more lucrative.
Clearly, Trump is just looking out for the public interest.
Did I miss somewhere your response to who which particular speakers would be anywhere remotely close to "silenced" in even your worst-case scenario?
You can of course use whatever words you like, but you can't expect others to automatically buy in to your bespoke, outcome-oriented definitions.
That the public outcry against their action outweighed Carr's threats and the desire to curry favor with the Trump administration doesn't mean the latter two did not exist.
I've seen no evidence that Kimmel agreed to make any changes to his show, so the meeting of the minds might only have been Disney regretting its previous decision. I'm looking forward to finding out tomorrow.
3. ABC/Disney realized that, while they might piss off fewer people by getting rid of Kimmel, the people they'd be pissing off think it's reasonable to just up and KILL anybody who pisses them off, while the people putting Kimmel back on the air will just stop watching ABC/Disney.
For fucks sake ABC didn’t decide to bring Kimmel back because they’re afraid Amtifa will get them. Your melodramatic clownishness sure can amaze.
Oh, you were in the boardroom at the time?
Did they serve any snacks? We've got a fridge with those mini cans of assorted sodas in ours.
More likely that Disney responded to the number of people cancelling their streaming service. Note also that Brendan Carr is no longer threatening ABC licenses, so they don't have to worry about that:
Carr denied on Monday that he threatened to revoke ABC’s local station licenses because of Kimmel’s remarks. “Jimmy Kimmel is in the situation he’s in because of his ratings. Not because of anything that’s happened at the federal government level,” Carr said at the Concordia Annual Summit.
Carr denied on Monday that he threatened to revoke ABC’s local station licenses because of Kimmel’s remarks.
“Jimmy Kimmel is in the situation he’s in because of his ratings. Not because of anything that’s happened at the federal government level,” Carr said at the Concordia Annual Summit.
So the threats from the right/Trump administration have proven to be all talk; that's not a reason to believe that your imagined violence from the left is their motivation now.
Just like you weren't in the room fo Obama's birth?
Your standard of disproof sure can become silly when you've got a melodramatic Evil Libs take.
It's funny: I use the fact that I wasn't there, to justify reserving a tiny quantum of uncertainty about it.
You use not being there as a basis for absolute certainty about what didn't happen.
You can't be sure Obama wasn't born in Kenya, and you can't be sure ABC didn't have a board meeting about how afraid of Antifa they were.
Planty of stuff you are sure about, including the True Meaning of the Constitution. But not those 2 things!
Your lack of metaphysical certitude is inconsistently applied.
So Kimmel's show rose again in 3 days...
Aren't you clever?
in 3 days
I grant you that's probably a lot closer to mathematical reality than any guv'ment work you've ever been involved in, but come on.
It looks like Disney/ABC is finally showing some spine. https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Culture/jimmy-kimmel-return-air-tuesday/story?id=125828315
And Brendan Carr remains a degenerate thug.
Is your definition of "spine" pulled from the same dictionary as the one that led you to repeatedly and condescendingly instruct us that "Jimmy Kimmel LIVE!" meant it was directly broadcast from a camera in real time? Here's what your article actually says:
"Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to avoid further inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country. It is a decision we made because we felt some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive," the company said in a statement.
https://queensda.org/bronx-man-charged-with-first-degree-murder-and-arson-for-killing-elderly-bellerose-couple-in-their-home/
I have today learned that, when selling stolen phones, one should not show one's actual ID to the buyer. And if making purchases using stolen credit cards, one should not try to earn points by using one's own loyalty rewards card.
Assuming of course that the facts alleged are actually true...
Stay & cert before judgment granted in the FTC case. That's a death warrant for Humphrey's Executor - one issued postmortem.
Federal law enforcement has a long and storied history of using undercover agents and informants to create the opportunity for incredibly stupid and desperate people to engage in conduct that constitutes a crime. While often on the edge of entrapment, it usually does not qualify, because the target is an incredibly stupid person. I'm generally dubious of such law enforcement tactics because it results in a very harsh punishment for what is just pure stupidity.
But if you are an immigration hard-liner who wants mass deportation, you should care deeply if the immigration czar accepted a bag of cash from someone for potentially illegal acts. Because if its remotely true, it means one of the point people on your preferred policy is very dumb. Like it doesn't matter if it was a Biden DOJ lawfare frame-up or perfectly legal or even that you don't care about corruption. The guy who accepts the bag is probably too stupid to be trusted with anything important.
All gender bathrooms:
My house. An airplane. Gas Stations
Don't know how all the hayseed women have been able to survive all these years
You've somehow managed to just randomly pull examples out of a hat that all ended up being single-occupancy. What are the odds?!?!?
Point being, these big, fat, violent buffaloes we call women these days are perfectly able to absorb some lady boy that just needs to take a piss
That's awesome! Have you told them?
You know, I truly believe I can finish out my life without the first twinge of regret that I don't understand what it might mean for a woman to "absorb" a lady boy at all, much less in a single-occupancy bathroom.
It's as I've been saying. Nobody wants the ladyfolk to have to bear the burden of sharing their sacred spaces with either hairy trans men's actual penises or trans women's hypothetical penises, or the wandering eyes of butch lesbians either, or Blacks or those scary Muslims. So all we need are two bathrooms: Straight White Cis Female Christians and Other.
I have seen a few people claim that there is no evidence Lisa Cook or Letitia James received a benefit from falsifying the occupation status on their mortgage documents. Because I am a licensed MLO and have access to a mortgage loan pricing engine, I decided to run and compare the two scenarios for Lisa Cooks condo loan
540K loan value, 20% down, Credit rating 740
1. Owner Occupied: FNMA 30 Yr Fixed 7.00% - 7.125% APR - 735.00 Borrower Pts, and estimated monthly payment principal and interest of 3619.25
2. Second Home Freddie Mac 30 Yr Fixed 7.625% - 7.977% APR - 12148.00 Borrower points and estimated monthly payment principal and interest of $3850.40
These are the lowest APRs that were available for each of the 2 scenarios, and note that the second home required an extra 12k in points to get an the interest rate with an APR under 8%.
Bottom line the difference is a $230 a month higher payment, and 12k more in closing costs with the second home.
And I can't even get a loan estimate from the engine without designating whether its a owner occupied, investment, or second home. Non-residident co-borrower isn't an option on my pricing engine so I couldn't run that scenario.
This of course is just current market conditions and rates and they are more than 3% higher than what they were in 2021, but I think they adequately portray the relative difference in terms both Lisa Cook and Letetia James would have seen between the loan they got and their original estimates when they told the truth.
[rests chin on hand] That is fascinating
This is all just fluff.
Trump has to prove that Cook knowingly falsified those records. And so far, there hasn't been any actual evidence of fraud presented. It's starting to look a lot like Trump's other lawsuits related to the "rigged election."
Based on the District Court judge's ruling, Trump could not remove Cook by proving that she knowingly falsified those records. "For cause" does not include "committed a crime in the past." If on appeal the "for cause" standard is expanded, who knows if it will include a specific intent requirement.
Thanks, yes. I was referring to criminal charges in general, not removal.
I'm confused. Other than a crime committed in the past, what other crime could there be? One happening in the present, or perhaps a future crime?
You know full well that JFC meant "crime committed before the person was appointed".
Don’t overestimate his capabilities, Martinned.
That's an easy lift.
One, she admits she got a loan estimate first, which would show she knew the advantage she would received by changing the occupancy status.
Two, if you look at page 46 of the Pulte Referral you will see the affidavit of the attorney who conducted the Fulton County closing attesting that he covered all the terms and conditions of the loan with Cook.
Three, item 6 of both mortgage loan contract, executed 20 days apart state Cook shall establish her primary residence within a period of 60 days, and at least for a period of 1 year.
And the evidence shows she never attempted to establish her residence in Georgia at least, nor does she show any change in circumstances that would justify a waiver, or any attempt to obtain a written waiver as required.
One, did she in fact get a better rate? Not that the bank's testimony would necessarily be determinative; Deutsche Bank employees said one thing but were contradicted by a former employee's testimony in Trump's civil fraud trial.
Two and three, have you ever been at a closing where you purchased a property with a mortgage? I promise you that the process does not entail reading every page, and the closing agent describes multiple pages very briefly and points out where to sign. I am aghast at the criminal exposure I must have risked the five times I've done such a closing, but fortunately I'm not significant enough for the Trump administration to go after.
I expect this sort of bad faith argument from some here, but not so much from you. Anyone who has ever bought or refinanced a home knows how the process works:
1. Fill out loan application. 2. Provide supporting documentation (e.g., paystubs, survey, proof of homeowner's insurance, title search, etc.) as requested by the bank. 3. Bank does its internal assessment, gets a property appraisal, etc., and then approves loan on certain terms. 4. Closing: bank sends over someone — a lawyer, paralegal, etc., depending on the state — with a stack of documents, with little post-it flags showing where signatures are needed. Purchaser grabs the stack and starts signing. (Some of those signatures get notarized.) Nobody reads those documents before signing. (Okay, I did, but that's because at one time early in my career I handled real estate closings.) At most, they check to make sure the loan amount and the length of mortgage are correct. When everything is signed, the funds are disbursed and everyone walks away.
There is no evidence that Cook intended to trick the bank into giving her a lower rate — in fact, the evidence is the opposite, since she told them it was a vacation home when she applied. And no evidence that she actually got the lower principal residence rate. No evidence that she read the specific paragraph of the document before signing it. No evidence she intentionally misrepresented anything.
No one argued that there would be no benefit in the hypothetical that there was an intentional material misrepresentation.
What a long way to strawman.
That's not true, here are an example from last Monday's thread:
"windycityattorney 1 week ago If she told the lender it was a vacation condo/home and never applied for the tax exemption where the condo is located as if it were a primary residence; where is the fraud? What benefit does she receive?"
Just thought I would show my work, as well as make it plain how much the potential benefit would be from a .5-1% lower interest rate.
OK, that's a deep cut but fair enough I suppose; hoisted by my own superlative.
Still this is a weird argument to coma back to a freaking weak later. This is the same irrational to the bitter end-ness as insisting that shooter was connected to Walz.
Do you still think that?
I'd been thinking about doing that since last week so today as I was at the computer working logged into a mortgage pricing application, I took 5 minutes to take a look at how much she would save if she pulled the same thing today.
And it was worth a look, I was frankly surprised by the points she'd have to pay to get a rate that much higher.
You might have seen someone say that. Probably it was someone like you trying to fight with a straw man, though.
The reason why people are saying Lisa Cook didn't commit mortgage fraud is not because she didn't receive a benefit, but because she didn't claim two places as her primary residence:
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/lisa-cook-federal-reserve-bank-documents-mortgage-fraud-allegations-rcna230964
I have no idea what the deal is in James's case. We'll see if this new insurance lawyer can come up with some evidence that the actual experienced prosecutor couldn't find. Maybe the whole case got stuck because he wasn't aware of this difference in rates. You should have given him a call--maybe you could have saved his job!
You know what's missing from NBC's report?
A copy of the documents NBC reportedly viewed.
Anybody that cares to look can see the two contracts she signed, with the clearly false statements.
Its pretty obvious that right now they are just trying a PR defense, with no substance behind it, otherwise they would be providing the documents.
I don't want to rehash all the mortgage fraud Trump has been accused/sentenced on...it would be unseemly. I mean, seriously, dude. The only more obvious crime you could accuse someone of and be oblivious to the fact that your boy was far worse would be rape
I mean, for real, you are worshiping a rapist. Not only has he been convicted of it, but he actually admitted on tape that he rapes women. And knowing all this...you still worship him!
Cmon (Man!) Bill Clinton’s almost 80, has a bad heart, and still has to put up with that annoying Hillary Rodman. Kathryn Wiley wanted “Little Willy” anyway
Oh, actually: this is why Kazinski is bringing this up when no one made the argument in the first place! He's setting up the "what Trump did wasn't fraud because no one was harmed by it", whereas these mean black women swindled the bank out of a few thousand dollars by making much less significant misrepresentations.
Imagine all the time poor Kaz has to spend trying to justify voting for Trump! I'd almost feel sorry for him if it wasn't entirely self-inflicted.
See above, and there are other instances I'm not going to waste my time looking for.
But I am glad you are acknowledging that she received a benefit for changing the occupancy status, that is an element of fraud, along with the false statements, and shows a clear motive.
I am glad you are acknowledging that she received a benefit for changing the occupancy status
You just strawmanned again.
Not the sign of someone who has confidence in your arguments. And yet here you are, compelled to continue, no matter how bad it makes you look...
740 Credit Score? That should be disqualifying for a Fed Official
Hey all you TDS losers, The 2028 Repubiclown VP nominee will be Erika Kirk (if “45/47” turns down JD’s offer, see, the Term Limits Amendment only says you can only be ELECTED to President Twice, it doesn’t address a Twice Elected POTUS being elected VP and taking Orifice upon the Death or Disability of the POTUS. Not sure if she’ll be 35 by 1-20-2029, doesn’t matter, she won when she forgave her husbands killer (which doesn’t spare him the Death Penalty, will actually get him to the Afterlife sooner, and he still has a chance to Repent and attend a Charlie Kirk rally in Heaven)
You know, Frankie, one of the biggest tells in all the eulogies for Kirk is that he was a 'great supporter of Israel'. 'He was so supportive of Israel'. No where do they mention love of Jews...especially American Jews...who almost unanimously support Democrats.
Which is interesting considering Conservatism's long hatred of Jews. Supporting Israel fulfills the doomsday cult prophesy. Supporting Jews themselves doesn't do much...does it?
You’se guys love to claim how all the “Segregationists” moved to the Repubiclown side (they didn’t) but the Anti-Semites have certainly taken that Left Turn at Albuquerque (HT B Bunny) Let’s see, Mullah Ill-hand Omar, Hakeem the bad dream Juffuhson, Priapism Slap-a-Jap, and you didn’t pick the one VP who might have carried PA because, umm, you know why. As odious as Rafael Cruz is, I’ll take any friends I can get
I realize you feel safe for now, Frankie. This iteration of white nationalism is currently making gay people the 'Jews' . And as long as we demonize them and blame them for everything...things will be safe for Frankie. It ain't gonna last
Just checked, you Homos, EK is 36, a Businesswoman/CEO, Could possibly run for Mark Kelly’s seat next year (who ironically might be the current VP if a certain former VP with a grating laugh hadn’t picked a prancing Forest Sprite for her running mate) And what a life boat she threw to her Husbands cowardly killer, does he accept her forgiveness and maybe dodge the Firing Squad? Or go Full Mangione and tell her to fuck off? Umm I’ve heard Provo Juries love blood, and have short attention spans (I think it’s the “Holy Undergarments”)
It's a shame she has to stay in the home and be subservient as Kirk dictated. Otherwise she could have very well been those things you claimed she could have achieved
Watch and learn Fuck-Face(HT B Ripken)
Doesn't Mrs. Kirk now need to find another rich man to whom to be subservient? After all, that's what Charlie wanted for her.
Wikipedia indicates that the decedent had one sibling, a younger sister Mary, so his widow can't follow the Old Testament tradition of marrying her deceased husband's brother. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Kirk
Maybe Charlie's parents should get busy fucking to see whether they can now produce another son.
"Doesn't Mrs. Kirk now need to find another rich man " No, but she might not need to try to find one.
That's just the sort of ugly shit that will help get her elected, not that anyone cares about what you think though.
But you can bet Mark Kelly is going to be on his best behavior when talking about Charlie and Erika Kirk.
What’s ugly about holding someone to the standards they profess?
Words to be muted by. Your political allies here stain what remains of their pretense to honor by not calling out your absolutely terrible behavior more often.
So you're saying that Charlie Kirk wasn't always right?
Wow, you really are scum, aren't you? I guess I don't need to read any more of your raving.
Of course he is. Decent people don't lose their law license for stealing from clients.
not guilty: “This is what Charlie Kirk’s words mean.”
Brett: “You’re awful for showing how gross Charlie Kirk’s worldview was when said aloud!”
Justin Driver's new book, "The Fall of Affirmative Action: Race, the Supreme Court, and the Future of Higher Education," is an interesting and productive read.
A big part of it is conceding (which he doesn't personally believe) that race-based affirmative action programs in college admissions are a bad thing, and arguing the SCOTUS opinion is still counterproductive.
He wrote a longer book about the Supreme Court and education. This book is part of a quick-read series.
Seems as if Kimmel's return has hit a bump in the road with Sinclair Broadcasting (40 stations including the Washington DC affiliate) saying it will not air the show.
I guess that tells you that Sinclair is more afraid of the Regime than of its customers.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/11/sinclair-is-exploring-mergers-for-its-broadcast-business.html
Maybe they don't want to piss off their customers; Kimmel isn't exactly universally popular at this point.
If ratings are a measure he hasn't been (popular, universally or otherwise) for a while.
Amazing how you see noncapitalist partisan agendas in every business decision other than the openly partisan one.
Why would he need to be 'universally popular'? He just has to be popular with his actual viewers, who are a small subset of the universe. There is no evidence that any actual viewers are upset.
I'd suspect that some people watch it just to be upset. But I guess they'll be happy if he continues to upset them, and happy that they won if he doesn't upset them as much as he used to.
Disney/ABC will not only survive Kimmel being preempted in some markets, they will surely learn their lesson from all the Kimmel fans cancelling subscriptions: https://arstechnica.com/culture/2025/09/kimmel-censorship-fiasco-shows-that-protests-still-matter-and-can-still-work/
Yesterday the ICC published the charges document regarding former Phillipine President Duterte, that the Office of the Prosecutor filed with the Pre-Trial Chamber in July.
https://www.icc-cpi.int/sites/default/files/CourtRecords/0902ebd180c95032.pdf
Count 1: Murder as a crime against humanity in Davao City during the Mayoral period of the 19 victims of Incidents 1 to 9, between 2013 and around [REDACTED] 2016, pursuant to articles 7(1)(a) and 25(3)(a) (indirect co-perpetration) and/or 25(3)(b) (ordering and/or inducing) and/or 25(3)(c) (aiding and abetting); Count 2: Murder as a crime against humanity of ‘High-Value Targets’ in locations across the Philippines during the Presidential period of the 14 victims of Incidents 10 to 14, between around [REDACTED] 2016 and [REDACTED] 2017, pursuant to articles 7(1)(a) and 25(3)(a) (indirect co-perpetration) and/or 25(3)(b) (ordering and/or inducing) and/or 25(3)(c) (aiding and abetting); Count 3: Murder and attempted murder as crimes against humanity in barangay clearance operations in locations across the Philippines during the Presidential period of the 45 victims (43 murders [REDACTED]) of Incidents 15 to 49, between around [REDACTED] 2016 and [REDACTED] 2018, pursuant to articles 7(1)(a) and/or 25(3)(f) and 25(3)(a) (indirect co-perpetration) and/or 25(3)(b) (ordering and/or inducing) and/or 25(3)(c) (aiding and abetting).
Count 1: Murder as a crime against humanity in Davao City during the Mayoral period of the 19 victims of Incidents 1 to 9, between 2013 and around [REDACTED] 2016, pursuant to articles 7(1)(a) and 25(3)(a) (indirect co-perpetration) and/or 25(3)(b) (ordering and/or inducing) and/or 25(3)(c) (aiding and abetting);
Count 2: Murder as a crime against humanity of ‘High-Value Targets’ in locations across the Philippines during the Presidential period of the 14 victims of Incidents 10 to 14, between around [REDACTED] 2016 and [REDACTED] 2017, pursuant to articles 7(1)(a) and 25(3)(a) (indirect co-perpetration) and/or 25(3)(b) (ordering and/or inducing) and/or 25(3)(c) (aiding and abetting);
Count 3: Murder and attempted murder as crimes against humanity in barangay clearance operations in locations across the Philippines during the Presidential period of the 45 victims (43 murders [REDACTED]) of Incidents 15 to 49, between around [REDACTED] 2016 and [REDACTED] 2018, pursuant to articles 7(1)(a) and/or 25(3)(f) and 25(3)(a) (indirect co-perpetration) and/or 25(3)(b) (ordering and/or inducing) and/or 25(3)(c) (aiding and abetting).
The relevant definition here is
For the purpose of this Statute, “crime against humanity” means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack: (a) Murder; [...]
combined with
“Attack directed against any civilian population” means a course of conduct involving the multiple commission of acts referred to in paragraph 1 against any civilian population, pursuant to or in furtherance of a State or organizational policy to commit such attack
I usually disagree with Freddie de Boer (unsurprisingly), but this seems right:
The “autism as trendy identity signifier” problem will deepen and grow, anyone who opposes it will be called a Trumpkin, and the people who suffer the most will be those who are too disabled to be able to yell on BlueSky.
I'd say that analysis is too terminally online to be very relevant to real life.
As far as trendy identify signifiers, us Aspies are actually kind of annoyed at having our distinct syndrome just dumped in the "autism" bin.
Hakeem said yesterday on a news program that if Democrats win an election, they will prosecute DOJ folks in Trump's Administration.
Weird the fainting couches haven't been pulled out by the usual suspects.
https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1970183745924645011
His remarks were targeted at people who are "flirting with the Trump administration or doing the bidding of the Trump administration".
Trump can pardon people. He can't save them from other retaliation.
I thought retaliation was a bad thing that only Trump would do.
You thought wrong. *State* retaliation against people for, say, criticising the Regime is a bad thing that only Trump would do. Private citizens retaliating, for example by cancelling their Disney+ subscriptions, is a good thing.
Wait until you get a load of this:
https://thepostmillennial.com/breaking-google-admits-biden-admin-pressured-them-to-censor-youtubers-will-reinstate-banned-accounts
>BREAKING: Google admits Biden admin pressured them to censor YouTubers, will reinstate banned accounts
Yeah, just yesterday I saw an account from somebody on Youtube who suddenly, after months of youtube being unresponsive as to why they'd had their account locked, got restored control of it. And, yeah, they'd posted something about Covid...
So who was in charge of twitter months ago during the initial locking?
Tight ship over there on X, the everything ap.
Is Twitter in charge of whose Youtube accounts get locked?
Welp, fair enough.
Though I'm still not sure I buy your implication - as someone who watches a decent amount of YouTube when I exercise, their being arbitrary and uncommunicative seems the consensus explanation, not that there's some Covid push at this late date.
Isn't the entire Executive branch doing the bidding of the Trump administration? If they aren't, are they not insurrecting?
I think his real slip up was when he said an "independent DOJ" and then "independent House under control of the Democrats".
He equates being controlled by Democrats as being "independent". Which is a frightening belief, because that clearly extends beyond the DOJ to people writ-large.
What a sick perverted worldview Democrat Supremacists must have to believe that independence, and thus freedom, comes from being controlled by them.
> "Isn't the entire Executive branch doing the bidding of the Trump administration? If they aren't, are they not insurrecting?"
Very little of the Executive branch is innate, what we could think of as the Executive equivalent of original jurisdiction. Most is created by Congress and, when Congress creates the departments, offices etc, it sets rules about how they should operate. You may only do x, if y and so on. For example, there are very strict rules about when and how the Internal Revenue Service can conduct or terminate an audit.
As such, if the president is telling his subordinates to do things not allowed by the law, the correct response is to refuse. This isn't 'insurrecting'. Outside those areas of 'original jurisdiction', the Executive department can only do things Congress has allowed after all. This may seem a bit academic but it becomes clear if we look at it in terms of, say, criminal justice. Keep people locked up in prisons is clearly an executive function but the President can't order the prison service to take a person off the street and keep them in a cell without going through the process set out in law.
No. That's not what the word means. This has been yet another episode of Simple Answers to Stupid Questions.
Supreme Court allows FTC Commissioner to be fired. Humphrey's Executor has entered the hospice... https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/09/supreme-court-allows-trump-to-fire-ftc-commissioner/
Ugh... the EMA, the European Medicines Agency (the EU equivalent of the FDA) has already felt obligated to issue a statement based on the latest Trump autism lunacy.
Use of paracetamol during pregnancy unchanged in the EU Paracetamol medicines can be used in pregnancy, in accordance with official recommendations In the EU, paracetamol (also known as acetaminophen) can be used for reducing pain or fever during pregnancy if clinically needed. There is currently no new evidence that would require changes to the current EU recommendations for use. “Paracetamol remains an important option to treat pain or fever in pregnant women. Our advice is based on a rigorous assessment of the available scientific data and we have found no evidence that taking paracetamol during pregnancy causes autism in children.” EMA’s Chief Medical Officer, Steffen Thirstrup As included in the product information for paracetamol in the EU, a large amount of data from pregnant women who used paracetamol during pregnancy indicates no risk of malformations in the developing foetus or in newborns. In 2019, EMA reviewed available studies that investigated the neurodevelopment of children exposed to paracetamol in utero and found that the results were inconclusive and that no link with neurodevelopmental disorders could be established.[1][2] When needed, paracetamol can be used during pregnancy. As with any medicine for acute treatment, it should be used at the lowest effective dose, for the shortest possible time and as infrequently as possible. Pregnant women should speak to their healthcare professional if they have questions about any medication during pregnancy. As for all medicines, EMA and the national competent authorities in the EU will continue to monitor the safety of medicines containing paracetamol and promptly evaluate any new data as they emerge. Regulatory actions will be taken as necessary to protect public health. [1] “The European Network of Teratology Information Services, ENTIS: Position statement on acetaminophen (paracetamol) in pregnancy”, October 3, 2021, https://www.entis-org.eu/entis-news/official-entis-position-statement-paracetamol-acetaminophen-apap-use-in-pregnancy. [2] Ahlqvist VH, Sjöqvist H, Dalman C, et al. “Acetaminophen use during pregnancy and children’s risk of autism, ADHD, and intellectual disability” JAMA, 2024;331(14):1205–1214. doi:10.1001/jama.2024.3172
Use of paracetamol during pregnancy unchanged in the EU
Paracetamol medicines can be used in pregnancy, in accordance with official recommendations
In the EU, paracetamol (also known as acetaminophen) can be used for reducing pain or fever during pregnancy if clinically needed. There is currently no new evidence that would require changes to the current EU recommendations for use.
“Paracetamol remains an important option to treat pain or fever in pregnant women. Our advice is based on a rigorous assessment of the available scientific data and we have found no evidence that taking paracetamol during pregnancy causes autism in children.”
EMA’s Chief Medical Officer, Steffen Thirstrup As included in the product information for paracetamol in the EU, a large amount of data from pregnant women who used paracetamol during pregnancy indicates no risk of malformations in the developing foetus or in newborns.
In 2019, EMA reviewed available studies that investigated the neurodevelopment of children exposed to paracetamol in utero and found that the results were inconclusive and that no link with neurodevelopmental disorders could be established.[1][2]
When needed, paracetamol can be used during pregnancy. As with any medicine for acute treatment, it should be used at the lowest effective dose, for the shortest possible time and as infrequently as possible.
Pregnant women should speak to their healthcare professional if they have questions about any medication during pregnancy.
As for all medicines, EMA and the national competent authorities in the EU will continue to monitor the safety of medicines containing paracetamol and promptly evaluate any new data as they emerge. Regulatory actions will be taken as necessary to protect public health.
[1] “The European Network of Teratology Information Services, ENTIS: Position statement on acetaminophen (paracetamol) in pregnancy”, October 3, 2021, https://www.entis-org.eu/entis-news/official-entis-position-statement-paracetamol-acetaminophen-apap-use-in-pregnancy.
[2] Ahlqvist VH, Sjöqvist H, Dalman C, et al. “Acetaminophen use during pregnancy and children’s risk of autism, ADHD, and intellectual disability” JAMA, 2024;331(14):1205–1214. doi:10.1001/jama.2024.3172
Source: https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/news/use-paracetamol-during-pregnancy-unchanged-eu
It's not lunacy, stupid. See this paper from Harvard's School of Public Health:
Using acetaminophen during pregnancy may increase children’s autism and ADHD risk
Interestingly, it doesn't matter whether you believe the EU or the Harvard study, because the advice for how to use acetaminophen is basically identical. Here's what the Harvard researchers recommend, which you can compare to the EU advice above:
The researchers noted that while steps should be taken to limit acetaminophen use, the drug is important for treating pain and fever during pregnancy, which can also harm the developing fetus. High fever can raise the risk of neural tube defects and preterm birth. “We recommend judicious acetaminophen use—lowest effective dose, shortest duration—under medical guidance, tailored to individual risk-benefit assessments, rather than a broad limitation,” they wrote.
I don't know why Tylenol is still on the market, as it's responsible for 35% of the liver failure in the U.S. It's especially dangerous if you're a drinker.
Tylenol is on the market because it's an effective pain reliever with an extraordinarily wide safety profile.
"May be" is an extremely low bar, and is not the traditional standard of proof for making rules about medicine. It is, however, a sufficiently low bar to allow an infinite number of unsubstantiated assertions to pass through. Consider that everything that hasn't been authoritatively disproved may be true. (See California Proposition 65 for an example of a giant pile of useless stank that this kind of thinking justifies.)
It would be pretty easy to prove, with a carefully constructed study over a few years, that the correlation is significant. But just like typical anti-science Charlatans, we're going to take action as if we have reasonably conclusive evidence, even though we don't. (Greta has lots of this kind of stuff.)
To add to this, I've been in the hospital for heart problems and in other places for surgical procedures, like cataract surgery, and they are constantly pushing Tylenol on me. I've told them innumerable times that I don't take Tylenol/acetaminophen, because I'm a drinker, and don't want the liver damage. Yet, they persist. When I ask "how about ibuprofen?" they reluctantly reply "well, O.K." I'm convinced that Tylenol is heavily lobbying and compensating the medical field to push this stuff.
I stick with aspirin. Works for me. Old enough to remember when that and APCs were what was available. Did Tylenol fund the studies that linked aspirin to Reye's syndrome?
Aspiring? OMG! Your stomach must be bleeding!
Aspiring? Did you take spelling lessons from Frank? Never had a problem. For one thing I don't take any medication and aspirin only rarely for a headache. Also, there are enteric coated aspirin.
He's aspiring to one day spell aspirin correctly.
I never aspired to any such thing.
Until now.
Far better than aspiring to aspirate aspirin.
I aspire to spell aspirin, not to aspirate it.
I was kidding about the bleeding risk from aspirin. I was mocking that knee-jerk refrain from the popular aspirin-isn't-safe-like-they-used-to-say contingent.
Aspirin, like acetaminophen, has an extraordinarily wide safety profile.
...and it's cheap.
The big preference for acetaminophen prescribers seems to be that it doesn't cause thinning of blood as do aspirin and ibuprofen, and therefore poses less of a bleeding risk. Especially in pre/post-operative analgesia, they tend to favor acetaminophen for that reason.
"Well O.K." is a "YES" to your preference. (I also prefer ibuprofen.)
Bring back laudanum.
Oh, baby, yes. I once had a Dilaudid IV drip after a surgery. They gave me a handheld push-button to meter out self-dosing. "Stay ahead of it," they said of the pain. And so I did. I spent that night floating a cool 8 inches above the bed, feeling no pain and nothing but smoothness.
A nurse would occasionally check in and ask, "How you doing?" I'd hold up my button, give it a demonstrative press, and say, "Stayin' ahead of it. Way out over it. Doin' f i n e."
I'm friends with someone at BARDA, and TP is kinda right- Tylenol would be an over the counter med if it was being evaluated today. Due to overdosing risk, apparently.
But it's not up for evaluation today, and public health is a complicated mix of policy and perspectives and wrangling the public. Imagine if they took it off the shelves! That cost/benefit isn't there. But it does point to how public health is hard, and anyone pretending it's easy is selling you something.
To the subject at hand, I did find the longitudinal study and result interesting. But nevertheless, any link to autism is in its early days - too early for the government to responsibly push it as a settled result.
This is like a satire of what the right accused the CDC of doing with Covid. Except this time it's real, and driven not by a crisis but a President and HHS director that do not care about science or public health.
Trump is back to Ukraine's original borders, and maybe more.
At least no one ever accused him of being consistent.
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