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Eugene Volokh | 9.26.2025 3:00 AM
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Well I think the controversial question of "what is a woman" has been decided, at least in Fairfax County Virginia:
"Right now, registered sex offender Richard Cox is in an Arlington court hearing where women are testifying that they saw Cox naked in Arlington high school girls locker rooms.
Cox says he’s a woman and asked the judge to tell the prosecutor to stop misgendering him. The judge said no.
One woman testified when she walked in an Arlington girls high school locker room after swim class for her young daughter she saw Cox masturbating in a shower stall with the curtain open. She said her young daughter was with her when she saw Cox touching his erect penis.
Arlington Public Schools allows people to use locker rooms and bathrooms based on their gender identity."
Cox (heh), is being charged in Arlington, but Fairfax County, that conduct doesn't meet probable cause, according to the Police Chief, as you can see in the embedded news video at the link.
https://x.com/NickMinock/status/1971247626755752396
"WATCH: New video shows a registered sex offender visiting a water park for kids with disabilities and a playground at a Fairfax County rec center, a place that also has a preschool.
Fairfax County police knew about it, but didn’t file charges."
"One woman testified when she walked in an Arlington girls high school locker room after swim class for her young daughter"
A lot of states wouldn't allow this, i.e, non-school-employee adult in locker room.
Learned that the hard way did you?
Good one, Frank.
No, I was a district employee.
Jeez, I need to get me one of those jobs.
The court is in Arlington County, not Fairfax County, although as you mention he may have offended in both (and FFX officials are cool with him hanging around children).
We were assured that this kind of thing never happened by All The Best Minds Of The Left. What went wrong?
It's always nice to come to the comments section of the Volokh Conspiracy and see a discussion free of silly strawmen.
They can’t compete with the Eurotrash (Redacteds)
Do the anklebiters ever say anything of substance, or are they still all limited to ad hominem attacks and empty assertions?
Mikie has to ask because he’s in his safe space.
I mean, what more needs to be said about Mikie than that he’s replying to Frank about unserious anklebiting commenters? He’s just an insanely partisan nut.
Arlington county did charge him for offenses in Arlington County, but Arlington schools still let's him roam free.
Fairfax County didn't charge him, even though there is clear video evidence he has violated registered sex offender restrictions.
He clearly can’t get a fair trial in Fairfax, change of Venue to Danville.
It's even worse than that:
Cox was accused of exposing himself in the women’s locker room at a Fairfax County Planet Fitness in June 2024. [Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve] Descano didn’t prosecute him. In that case, Descano’s office told 7News they do not prosecute cases when a defendant chooses not to have an attorney. A judge ultimately dismissed the case.
https://wjla.com/news/local/registered-sex-offender-richard-cox-fairfax-arlington-county-virginia-timeline-case-history-exposed-rec-center-womens-locker-washington-liberty-wakefield-high
Several of the convictions listed towards the end of that article are "Sex offenses prohibiting proximity to children".
https://law.lis.virginia.gov/vacode/title18.2/chapter8/section18.2-370.2/
In the UK, those children and mom's would be arrested for being intolerant.
Descano’s office told 7News they do not prosecute cases when a defendant chooses not to have an attorney.
That's a cool get out of jail free card.
SOME WOMEN HAVE ERECT PENISES, YOU SCIENCE DENYING BIGOT!
Yes. But that doesn't mean they get to commit sex crimes. Or are you somehow under the impression that those laws only apply to men.
I'm not sure why any of this is confusing.
You're not sure about a lot of things, Dutch. But, to help clarify it for you, that dude pretending to be a chick is actually still a dude. Disney lied to him. Wishing upon a star doesn't work.
that dude pretending to be a chick is actually still a dude
Because some rando on the internet says so? I know nothing about this case, but I do know that Swede425 isn't in charge of anyone's gender identity except their own.
I don't view this as a gender identity issue. Even if you concede that the defendant is a "woman" by whatever modern definition you would like to use, the individual is still present in a high school bathroom as a registered sex offender and masturbating in the shower stalls. That is going to be a violation no matter what gender he claims.
2nd quarter GDP was revised up by .5% to 3.8% in the final revision, it seems the Trump recession hasn't materialized and we may have fallen into an expansion.
Probably a good thing the number came out after the Fed lowered the fed rate last week, but a I'm not sure if they might have already known at the time. Jobless claims were down too, which also might have caused the Fed to wait longer.
CNBC has the whole roundup of economic news:
"Key Points: Jobless claims totaled a seasonally adjusted 218,000, down 14,000 from the prior week’s upwardly revised figure and significantly less than the consensus estimate for 235,000.
Gross domestic product posted a gain of 3.8% in the second quarter, up half a percentage point from the prior estimate due to an upward revision to consumer spending.
Spending on long-lasting items such as airplanes, appliances and computers increased 2.9% in August, compared with the forecast for a decline of 0.4%"
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/25/jobless-claims-tumble-to-218000-well-below-estimate-despite-fears-of-labor-market-weakness.html .
Not to worry Kaz, the resident economic geniuses will be along shortly to tell us how the upward growth revision is a bad thing. That is because they know so many things that just aren't so.
Not to worry Kaz, the resident economic geniuses will be along shortly to tell us how the upward growth revision is a bad thing
This is one of the more serious cases of projection I've seen recently. All of the kvetching about economic data revisions I've seen for the past couple of years have come from the MAGA crowd. I guess this one is cool, though?
I thought all the economic numbers were rigged?
Be pretty hard to do for more than a quarter or so, there are too many private economic indicators that the government doesn't control.
Things like consumer confidence, ADP payroll report, existing home sales, etc.
When they’re good for Trump they’re right and when they’re bad they’re rigged.
Uh, that means the Biden economy was very strong even though Republicans whined for 3 years that a recession was imminent. The issue for 4 years has been inflation and Trump’s tariffs have exacerbated inflation and yet you don’t care?!? So weird.
Dear Senator Schumer and Congressman Jeffries....Please shut down the government so we lose tens of thousands more non-essential bureaucrats and don't have to pay for them anymore. Go ahead, make our day. 😉
Signed, The American Taxpayer
I hope President Trump accepts Schumer and Jeffries proposal for a bipartisan government shutdown.
And I am very disappointed in Majority Leader Thune and Speaker Johnson's partisan efforts to fund the government until November.
Shutting down government will provide a needed opportunity to identify nonessential government employees and help them find more productive employment.
No. That's just as chaotic and stupid a way to "identify nonessential government employees" as the DOGE approach. And it negatively impacts those who are essential. Of course you don't care about that, since it wouldn't affect you.
FAFO
I will happily FAFO, in the case of getting rid of non-essential federal bureaucrats.
Talk is cheap. Don't come crying to me when your social security checks stop coming.
You've learned Dem scare tactics well.
Since the Republicans somehow do and don't control both houses of Congress, I guess we might find out.
It’s been all Direct Deposit for umm 20 years or so, Idiot.
Person who doesn’t know how English capitalization works calls other person idiot.
Your one trick pony is lame.
You’re an incredibly stupid person. I mean, let’s put aside your routine falling for right wing outlet nonsense (“there is no 10 year old who needed an abortion,” “110% of voters!, etc) or your saying insanely stupid things like Bill Clinton was “on his knees” getting a blow job from Lewinsky, but as to this Francis Fakeman is one of *many* commenters here I mock, so “one trick pony” is, well, really dumb. You do know you’re dumb, right?
Does that work for you?
Just a heads up, Queenie Done lost my job, how I sposed to get money to pay dis Rent? You think you can let me slide it on?? I'll have it for you tomorrow, next week, I don't know
Frank
Social security checks are essential services unaffected by a shutdown.
They require a sufficient and competent staff to get them out.
The kind that won't be there if everything is burned down.
You haven't through things through at all, eh?
So you're saying if there is a "shut down" next week SS checks won't be going out?
He knows better than to say it, so he just insinuates and suggests.
more argument by dishonest distortion
Open questions on Comey indictment:
Does Jim Comey do a perp walk? Does Jim Comey get a mugshot? Does Jim Comey get bankrupted? Does Jim Comey get jail time?
Now he will experience the judicial process from the other side. One sympathizes, almost.
One sympathizes, almost.
In your case I don't think there is any risk of that. (Much less of you worrying about a politicised criminal justice system.)
Team D made the rules, eurotrash. Now the rules are being enforced by Team R.
Now the rules are being enforced by Team R.
LOOOOLLL!!!
We know you don’t have any principles, you don’t have to keep reminding us.
Principle:
Hold Democrat Supremacist feet to the fire today so they won't mass murder us tomorrow.
Not entirely the same thing. This is justice. Admittedly something that may confuse democrats.
Is Comey above the law?
Hillary has apparently popped open a bottle of champagne to go with her vodka!! Unfortunately the case against Comey is weaker than the Durham prosecutions which pissed off judges because they were so weak. So Durham wanted Biden to fire him before he started the prosecutions but Biden wisely allowed them to go forward…I think Trump wants a judge to dismiss the case before it gets to trial so he can blame an Obama judge for undermining justice.
Not that I agree with your assessment but it is rather difficult these days to find a federal judge who isn’t undermining justice, in certain jurisdictions at least.
How about this;
Does Jim Comey use this opportunity to put Trump on trial with him?
No. Yes. No. No.
So the new US Atty who has never prosecuted any case, let alone a federal case, and is apparently on her own on this one within the office. Comey is being represented by Patrick Fitzgerald. She’s going to be in way over her head with no support and no federal criminal trial experience.
Poland is a NATO member that has just explicitly threatened to shoot down RUS drones and airplanes in their airspace.
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/poland-russia-karol-nawrocki/2025/09/25/id/1227864/
My understanding is Congress declares war. If Poland shoots down a RUS aircraft, RUS responds and Poland in turn invokes article 5, what is the role of the Congress?
The war would have started, and we're in it w/o a Congressional vote.
From a legal perspective, what is Congresses role in declaring war when America has treaty obligations like NATO? Can they say, 'Nope'.
1. The Senate ratified the NATO Treaty.
2. What each NATO member state does, exactly, when art. 5 is invoked is still up to them. Which is exactly why the Polish will avoid doing anything if they can avoid it, because they don't want Russia to see that the American security guarantee is dead letter. Better to leave Russia in doubt.
I am genuinely surprised that Putin is still alive.
I’m surprised you are. Are you? I mean besides your Brain.
Looks like Trump's vicious prosecution of Former FBI Director James Comey will likely blow up even worse than Trump's feckless persecution of Jimmy Kimmel did. MSNBC has reported that the Justice Department had evidence of Comey's innocence when it got him indicted. If so, it is hard to imagine the grand jury saw that evidence
Comey had been previously investigated with regard to the same subject—allegedly lying to Ted Cruz during a Congressional investigation—and that previous investigation not the Congressional investigation) allegedly turned up proof the charges were false. The charges involved Cruz questions about whether Comey had authorized a subordinate to leak information to the Wall Street Journal, which Comey denied in sworn testimony.
Lawrence O'Donnell and other MSNBC commenters asserted on air yesterday that during a previous investigation Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was identified in a 2018 Department of Justice Inspector General (IG) report as having made an unauthorized disclosure to a Wall Street Journal reporter, and confessed he had done it, McCabe further denied to the IG that Comey had authorized the leak.
Taking that history as information already in possession of the Justice Department, and accepted by it, it looks as if Trump and AG Bondi can only be predicating Comey's prosecution on a likely evidence-free assertion that McCabe lied. Or maybe McCabe has now been extorted, to change his story.
Trump has previously made evidence-free public demands for Bondi to prosecute Comey not for this alleged offense, but for anything, especially including the Russia investigation. It is hard for me to see how a judge could conclude that a verdict of guilty beyond reasonable doubt based on that history is even legally possible.
However, if I were a journalist covering the case, I would start rummaging among the various former Justice Department employees whom Trump fired for not indicting Comey. I would want to know whether McCabe might have been secretly indicted, and if so when.
1. Comey's legacy is that he gift-wrapped the election for Trump when he (a) broke protocol and publicly announced a bullshit investigation of Hillary on the eve of the election, while ALSO (b) deliberately deciding to hide from the American voters that there was already an ongoing investigation of Trump for possibly colluding with Russia. So...fuck him. 2. In spite of my general "fuck him" sentiment, above, this prosecution is, of course, simply obscene, and deserves all the scorn it's getting. 3. Comey will have the chance to go to court and get the case bounced. So, we'll see what we'll see; I'll hold off on full outrage until I see what hidden evidence the govt might actually have. (I agree with the legal commentators that the evidence that's been shown so far is less than nothing. But that does *not* mean that prosecutors do not have undisclosed evidence that the media and the public have not yet been given access to.) 4. Is there anything Trump does where he does not bend over backwards to look as awful as humanly possible?
See, this sums up his mistake.
After Lynch was caught holding a secret meeting with Clinton's hubby, she delegated the (non) prosecution decision to Comey, to create the appearance that she had insulated the decision from her publicly compromised judgement.
Comey was tasked with white-washing Clinton, but he had a self-image of somebody principled to maintain. How to square that?
Well, he could have done the genuinely principled thing, and just gone ahead under normal procedures and prosecuted Clinton. Maybe held a press conference to explain what Lynch had directed him to do.
He could have done the job he knew he'd been given, and properly whitewashed her, announcing that she was innocent, and the DOJ wasn't in the habit of prosecuting innocent people. But, self-image as principled!
So he split the difference. She wouldn't be prosecuted, but he'd let the public know that she was, none the less, guilty, it wasn't innocence that was sparing her prosecution.
And as a result, nobody likes him. My side doesn't like his corruption, your side doesn't like that he couldn't be reliably corrupt.
It's an object lesson: Sometimes you really need to pick sides instead of splitting the difference.
None of this matters.
This is a targeted prosecution , commanded by Trump, with insufficient factual predicate. The DoJ after Nixon created a manual of practice basically about not doing this. It’s a new low.
You’ve found a combo of delusions and cynicism that allows you to ignore the open corruption of important civic institutions.
For the rest of us, those who believe in America, this is tragic.
Gaslighto, Justice shredded the rules going after Trump, and now the devil turned.
So, what's your basis for assuming insufficient factual predicate? You were on the grand jury, maybe?
The fact that Trump had to force out the career prosecutor who said there wasn't enough evidence and install his former defence lawyer all the way posting messages on social media that directly point to his goal to pervert justice.
As the saying goes, a grand jury will indite a ham sandwich. The fact that other trumped up charges have failed even that near impossibly low bar isn't a reason to think highly of this attempt.
Also, too, https://abcnews.go.com/US/prosecutors-memo-new-us-attorney-recommended-plans-charge/story?id=125925246
We've actually recently seen that juries in this particular area will not, in fact, indict a ham sandwich. Repeatedly. So I'd have to say that there is at least SOME factual predicate.
And indeed we know that Comey and McCabe's statements under oath conflict on this exact point, and when you have two people testifying to the opposite under oath, you've got the factual predicate for prosecuting at least one of them for perjury.
Sure, he had to force out a career prosecutor to get it done. Maybe the career prosecutor was too reluctant to prosecute this particular sort of crime, lying to Congress under oath being regarded within the DOJ as a job perk?
Lynch met with a former President, compromised! Trump demands prosecutions and fires career prosecutors who won’t, okey dokey!
Anything to keep those Confederate statues up!
Yes, Lynch secretly met with a former President in a third party's jet parked on the tarmac at an airport, and nobody would have known if somebody hadn't spotted them going out to it, and tipped off a reporter. She went out of the way to secretly meet with the husband of somebody under investigation.
It's not like they ran into each other in the VIP lounge and chatted briefly. They did everything but break out the portable cone of silence to keep the discussion secret, because the meeting was an ethics violation.
And that's why she had to, at least for public purposes, recuse herself from the decision.
Woosh!
Jesus your standards are so openly partisan.
I'd say have some dignity, but you seem to have no idea you're doing it.
Which may be sadder than the bomb-throwing emptyheads like Commenter and Michael.
Maybe the career prosecutor was too reluctant to prosecute this particular sort of crime, lying to Congress under oath being regarded within the DOJ as a job perk?
This from the guy who never assumes good faith on the part of his opponents (yet occasionally delivers a lecture about what a terrible practice that is).
Maybe there really isn't a case there, do you think, Brett? Is that remotely possible.
You need to stop wasting your talents as an engineer and start writing fiction. You sure can invent a plot.
The difference is that this is justice. Comey isn’t above the law. (Now where I have I heard that before?)
By the way, the “targeted prosecution” bullshit would play better if you hadn’t cheered on the Obama and Biden corruption and weaponization of the DOJ. And their weaponization of intelligence of course. Just wait until we get some accountability for that.
Whataboutism as predicted. Bots be bots.
None of that is correct. Lynch didn’t have a secret meeting with Clinton and she didn’t delegate anything to an individual that had no prosecutorial powers. Obama made 3 major mistakes as president—he appointed the 3 Bush Republicans Comey, Bernanke, and Gates to placate Republicans and they turned out to be incompetent although Bernanke’s incompetence happened under Bush.
It was a secret meeting until they got caught
How could it have been kept secret?
They attempted to keep it secret - What part of basic logic and common sense are you unable to comprehend?
Wow Brett, you should win the Hugo Award for fantasy! Your storytelling has become so baroque, just throw in a little sexual intrigue and you'll have a hit on your hands rivalling Game of Thrones.
Ha. I've tried writing fiction. Can you say "expository lump"? Yes, I thought you could.
Comey didn't announce a the investigation right on the Eve of the election, it had been going on for months.
And he publicly cleared her about July 6, 4 months before the election, even though it was the DOJ's responsibility, but AG Loretta Lynch had compromised herself, so it was kind of a stealth recusal.
What Comey announced right before the election was that Hillary's top secret emails had been found on Anthony Weiner's laptop just a week before the election, the same laptop that he had been sexting a 15 year old girl.
Comey decided because he had previously publicly cleared Clinton, even though he determined she had broken the law he had an ethical obligation to disclose the additional information uncovered, and wrote a letter to Congress 2 days before the election.
Hillary didn’t break any laws and we know from Trump’s impeachment that use of unofficial digital messaging was commonplace by 2017…which makes perfect sense for State because their job involves communicating with foreigners that don’t want to communicate via official email. Now Defense communications should always be via official email and so Hegseth according to you broke the law.
The issue was not just the use of her own email and server, it was having top secret data in those in securely stored emails, emails we later determined were hacked by the Chinese.
Wait it's Hillary's fault that the Chinese hacked her email but not Hegseth's fault that he actually sent his top-secret info to the Atlantic himself? How does that work?
Well those are two different things at two different times. Did you realize that?
lol, analogies, how do they work!
Sam Bankman-Fried 2 hours ago "Hillary didn’t break any laws ..."
Repeating an obvious and discredited lie doesnt make it true no matter how often it gets repeated in the leftist echo chambers.
Comey went out of his way to tarnish Clinton when it was found the case anger was a big nothingburger. Meanwhile the FBI was tight lipped about all the Russia ties in Trump’s campaign.
The MAGAns got a gift with a career GOP leading the investigation (imagine if it had been a career Democrat appointee) and still cry sour grapes. Now Trump is clearly pushing this politically motivated prosecution and the MAGAns here are still talking about Lynch “compromising” herself. Disingenuous or ignorant, you decide.
They were a nothing burger for Clinton, anyone else would be in jail:
From Comey's report: "From the group of 30,000 e-mails returned to the State Department, 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. Eight of those chains contained information that was Top Secret at the time they were sent; 36 chains contained Secret information at the time;"
https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/statement-by-fbi-director-james-b-comey-on-the-investigation-of-secretary-hillary-clinton2019s-use-of-a-personal-e-mail-system
They were a nothingburger. A career GOPer had to conclude there was nothing there. He went on to break FBI protocol to harm his political opponents side (of course the FBI had been leaking damaging stuff about Clinton for a while as they were sitting on damaging stuff about Trump).
I don’t actually think you’re this dumb, you know this but eggs have to be broken to end DEI and keep those Confederate statues up, amirite?
What comey omitted was the 30k emails that could not be retrieved because they had been destroyed, bleachbitted, etc.
of course the extensive destruction of evidence is not evidence of a crime! sarc
I'm not expert, but I have read DMN walking through the whole butter emails thing, and the 'anyone else would be in jail' is not true.
This was a case of bad server etiquette, not suborning top secret files (as some current Presidents have done)
Your excerpt ignores when and how those e-mails got classified.
It's worth remembering that, while she WAS permitted to use private email, even to maintain her own server, a condition of this was echoing all her emails to the official system for archiving and indexing. Which she did NOT do.
So she'd have been in violation of the relevant rules even if she'd used it for nothing classified.
This, specifically to avoid what DID happen, which is that none of her work related emails showed up in a FOIA search, (Which is how this was exposed in the first time.) and when the feds needed to review them, they had to get them from her, and she had an opportunity to 'curate' them before handing them over.
Having a private server was, and I expect you understand it, a pain in the ass that Hillary undertook for exactly the purpose it eventually served: It could be wiped when a subpoena showed up.
It's worth nothing how CAPS doesn't change how in the weeds you are, and how that contrasts with the Trump admin's behavior off the break with personal phones and Signal chat and hiding secret docs.
No one claims she did nothing wrong, just that it wasn't the huge blowup that the right made it out to be.
Which is underscored by the right just straight up ignoring constant, obvious, easy to understand, much much larger violations up and down the current administration.
Right, it was sufficiently bad that even Democrats had to admit it was bad. Just not bad enough to have any consequences, of course.
Given how evil and bad faith the Dems who live in your head are, that’s really bad!!
She was secretary of State. I have had two clients that worked at State/foggy bottom. Both have told me that there are extensive and frequent discussions regarding obligations, duties, requirements, etc on protecting classified info. Including signing documents acknowledging the classified document protection rules.
Only an extremely partisan idiot would believe she did not know she was intentionally violating those rules.
There was also this:
There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position, or in the position of those government employees with whom she was corresponding about these matters, should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that conversation. In addition to this highly sensitive information, we also found information that was properly classified as Secret by the U.S. Intelligence Community at the time it was discussed on e-mail (that is, excluding the later “up-classified” e-mails).
Amy normal person who got caught doing something like that would have been fired and debarred. Clinton only escaped prosecution because she was so connected.
So when is the Hegseth indictment expected to land?
You have to realize Mikie is just being disingenuous. Gotta keep those Confession statues up!
Confession statues?
Hey Queenie, your Autocorrect is showing. And "Confession" shouldn't be capitalized.
Like they say, from these people, every accusation is a Confederate.
randal - do you understand the difference between accidental vs intentional?
Comey/ethics Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!
It's very hard to disentangle effects during an election, but the polling makes a very good case Comey did cost her the election:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-comey-letter-probably-cost-clinton-the-election/
More accurately, Hillary cost herself the election, Comey merely failed to sufficiently shield her from the public being aware of her own actions.
After all, it's not like he invented anything, he just told the public what she'd done. Was she somehow entitled to have them ignorant of it?
You and Kaz should get on the same page, but MAGA's never cared about a consistent story. Just chaff from all angles will do.
Look at Sarc touting the importance of groupthink and everybody in their group telling the same story. That explains his life as a Partisan Zombie Clone.
Hey Bwaaah, what’s become of your “I’m just a disaffected honest to God liberal” act? I mean, it wasn’t some pathetic performance you were doing was it? What liberal values are you worried about under Trump?
Was she somehow entitled to have them ignorant of it?
Yes, just as Trump is entitled to have us ignorant of whatever's in the Epstein files. Just as Homan was entitled to have us ignorant of Biden's bribery sting. (Note how Biden's FBI leaked neither. It's not hard to be principled and competent, if you're a Democrat )
It's bad fascist news to have a law enforcement agency with subpoena power also be in the habit of leaking those investigations for political gain. So yes, people are entitled not to have the FBI dig up dirt about them and then leak it.
When I used to have the power to demand information with the power of the UK government behind me, leaking information carried a prison sentence of 2 years...
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2002/40/section/245
leaking info - Which is why comey should be subject to similar prosecution, albeit the statute of limitations has expired (5 year sol?)
The true wild card here is the No Such Agency and what it may have.
Comey's been dirty for a very long time, and people say the damnedest things on cell phones, somehow thinking that they are secure,
My guess: they've got something....
The NSA, even if they had audio of every second Comey was on the phone, are not going to release it for use in a trial.
First, because it would be inadmissible.
Second, because they'd be admitting to illegally spying on Americans.
At MOST they might slip it into the right hands for a bit of parallel construction, but I think you're a little optimistic about which side they'd pick if they picked sides.
The full indictment is here.
IANAL, and haven't read all that many actual indictments, but it looks awfully thin, and seems to take the same tone as the suit recently filed (and quickly dismissed) against the NYT. That said, at least it is brief and to the point.
Anyone with significant legal experience care to comment?
Yeah, it's pretty minimalist. Doesn't stop them from adding detail if it goes to trial, and it's enough to get the job done, but it's not exactly riveting stuff.
Or here: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/71459120/united-states-v-comey/.
The indictments in Trump's cases were quite verbose. Comey's indictment gives enough information for him to understand what he allegedly did and why the alleged act is criminal.
SL - are you trying to argue that Comey did not commit perjury?
There was a time when the US was trying to contain Chinese expansionist policies. And it might have done so by supporting the attempts of its ally Australia to make a defence treaty with Papua New Guinea.
Today, on the other hand, the Australian PM can't even get a meeting with the US president. So stuff like this happens: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/17/australia-png-defence-treaty-delayed-anthony-albanese-papua-new-guinea
Here's a map for the geographically challenged, to understand why an Australia-Papua New Guinea defence treaty might be in the US interest: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/30/Japanese_expansion_april_1942.svg
I want t know why all the Generals and Admirals are being told to show up in Virginia next week. That's unprecedented.
Presumably to make it easier for the Russians or the Chinese to blow them all up.
Surprised that there haven't been comments on this topic, Ed. Kind of "night of the long knives" vibe, IMO.
I know it is fashionable among idiots to compare everything a conservative does to the Nazis, but you apparently have no clue what the Night of the Long Knives was: who perpetrated it, how it was planned, who the victims were, or what the effects were.
What the Nazis did was kill a bunch of paramilitary (SA and SA-aligned) Nazis to reduce stem street fights with communist front groups like Antifa, and to keep the military proper from straying.
Unless you think Hegseth is planning on summarily executing a bunch of these generals and admirals for some reason, there's nothing here that is even remotely reminiscent of the Night of the Long Knives. And of you think that, you need psychiatric help.
O, look, Michael thinks Hitler did the right thing during the night of the long knives, and he makes his case by magically distorting everything that happened. Swell!
I thought this was particularly funny: "street fights with communist front groups like Antifa".
What's funny about that? Antifa WERE communists. They weren't fighting for freedom, they were fighting the fascists over who would get to take everybody's freedom away.
These days it's common place to observe that revolutionaries securing their power kill off their most fervent followers, because they know that they're the people who'd actually be willing to overthrow the government, and THEY are now the government. But it was a new enough practice to blindside the paramilitary in Hitler's day.
You should probably admit, though, that Hitler actually WAS killing Nazis, which IS supposed to be a Good Thing. Pity he didn't do a more comprehensive job of it, would have saved everybody a lot of trouble.
But the relevant point is that on the night of long knives, people actually got killed. It's a bit melodramatic to refer to a staff meeting where somebody might get fired by that phrase. Even if it has become cliche.
Yes, Hitler killed a bunch of Nazi's who might have turned out as insufficiently loyal to his personal rule. Which is some way away from what Michael P said.
And Trump, as Commander in Chief, has issued some orders to the military, and some of those generals have been a bit lax, shall we say, in actually following those orders.
That IS ordinarily considered job ending in the military, or at least expected to result in an unpleasant posting
To see which ones won't bother showing up?
My guess is he is going to publicly relieve some of them of command for flouting the new DEI prohibition and make an example of them.
Pretty poor understanding of geopolitics there...
From your post, there's nothing about the US President,
In terms of defense agreements, seems like Papua New Guinea is playing off China versus Australia, to see what it can get a better deal from. As it well should. Seems Australia's deal isn't good enough.
Seems Australia's deal isn't good enough.
And if the US throws Australia under the bus, you can see how Papua New Guinea might think that.
But then who needs allies anyway?
"And if the US throws Australia under the bus,"
No evidence for that.
You mean other than Australia's inability to even get a meeting, or its inability to convince it's next door neighbour that it's better to have an alliance with (notional) US-ally Australia than with a communist tyranny?
The meeting business is irrelevant.
It speaks volumes about Trump's interest in parts of the world where people don't buy him airplanes.
Martin, Why does being snubbed by Trump, prevent Albo from making treaty with Papua New Guinea? Trump did not need Albo for getting snap-back imposed, so no meeting. Trump does need Macron for snap-back, hence,Macron gets a meeting.
Because presumably Albo's argument to Papua New Guinea is "We, with our US-supplied weapons and our access to Five Eyes, will help you in case you get in trouble with the Chinese". If Papua New Guinea thinks that the US isn't really interested in fighting off the Chinese, that offer becomes a lot less appealing.
Another lawsuit claims racial bias and other illegal actions in immigration enforcement. This one is in D.C. Plaintiffs' lawyers have read the tea leaves and attempted to plead around the Supreme Court's recent orders. Their request for relief includes vacatur of the government's "policy and practice of making warrantless immigration arrests without making a pre-arrest, individualized assessment of probable cause that the person poses a flight risk."
If the policy in D.C. is sufficiently concrete to be subject to the APA, vacatur is a statutory remedy and there is no doubt that a court can grant it. I have my doubts about the applicability of the APA here.
The lawsuit also seeks injunctions on behalf of defined classes of people who "have been or will be arrested in this District for alleged immigration violations without a warrant and without a pre-arrest, individualized assessment of probable cause that the person is in the United States unlawfully and that the person poses a flight risk."
The lawsuit conspicuously does not allege Fourth Amendment violations. Injunctions requiring obedience to the Fourth Amendment are disfavored. Plaintiffs' lawyers think that the statutory requirement of probable cause ("reason to believe") will do the job.
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/71452519/escobar-molina-v-us-department-of-homeland-security/
Shockingly, it turns out those Trump bibles that the state of Oklahoma bought for all of its public schools only contain half the constitution. They left out the bits about ending slavery, women voting, term limits for presidents, etc.
https://www.news9.com/story/68d4bddb5cea03f8db8ee0f6/why-is-an-oklahoma-teacher-concerned-about-state-approved-bibles-
Do any of the MAGA chuckleheads want to defend what Oklahoma is doing here? I mean other than a XY “the bad side made the rules so now we gets to do the things we complained about when they did so!!!”?
The account makes it sound as though specific amendments were nefariously missing. But it's actually everything after the 10th amendment, it's a founding era Constitution. It's also got the Declaration of Independence.
It's not "burying history" to only include documents from the founding era when studying the founding.
Still, while any even vaguely comprehensive school library should have a Bible, and a Koran, too, a combined Bible and founding era Constitution seems a bit odd to me. The claim is that it's for studying the influence of religious texts on the founding, and it's true that if you're doing that you hardly need to include the Koran or Torah, because they didn't have any influence.
But I think they'd have been better off with the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers.
Why would you use a bible to study founder era documents? It's just a little bit older than that. It might provide some context but many of the Founders had rather hetrorthox religious views (see Jefferson Bible). And either way, if you want to study the Founders, wouldn't it make more sense to start with Founder documents and then includes explanatory biblical material as appropriate? Not start with the bible and then add some founding era documents into it?
Again, these people can’t be this dumb. This is an attempt to insert Christianity into public schools. They get this, they just need those transgenders put in place and those Confederate statues maintained.
The argument is that the Constitution and Declaration of Independence were influenced by the Bible. While I'm sure that's true to SOME extent, realistically this is just an excuse to put Bibles in the classrooms, and have students read them.
Like I said, if you want students to understand the founding, the Federalist and Anti-Federalist papers would actually be a lot better.
It would probably also be good to teach students about *the entire* constitution at some point.
Sure, but why would you do that while studying the founding era? That would be more appropriate for civics class, or maybe cover each of the amendments as you cover that period in American history.
For instance, it would be appropriate to bring the 22nd amendment into the mix when studying FDR, as he was the reason it got adopted. You'd study the 18th and 21st amendments in the section on Prohibition.
Why would you study the founding era anywhere other than in history class? And why would you need a bible for that? You're reaching...
Did you miss up above where I stated that this was realistically just an excuse to have kids reading the Bible in class? Don't mistake me for supporting this, my only quibble is that there was nothing nefarious about omitting all the amendments after the original 10 if you are presenting students with the founding era Constitution.
Funnily enough the passage of the Reconstruction Amendments are arguably the most directly influenced by and related to Christian fervor.
“As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free.”
They’re not technically legal textbooks or case digests, although the real law is fundamentally spelled out there.
Fortunately, we will not be subjected to bad dystopian fiction about ICE holding five-year-olds hostage.
https://freebeacon.com/media/nbc-said-ice-held-a-5-year-old-autistic-girl-to-pressure-her-father-to-surrender-he-actually-abandoned-her-while-fleeing-law-enforcement/
You'd think Maura Healey, a former AG, wouldn't have fallen for this.
Free Beacon, TownHall, can we get a Brietbart to get Mikie Nutty Conservative Outlet Tic Tac Toe?
This media outlet seems to be acting as a stenographer for ICE.
Oh please turn your brain on Pichael. That doesn't even make sense.
A lawsuit against the National Shooting Sports Foundation alleges that the organization improperly used personal information from warranty cards in its lobbying efforts.
The data initially came from decades of warranty cards filled out by customers and returned to gun manufacturers for rebates and repair or replacement programs. A ProPublica review of dozens of warranty cards from the 1970s through today found that some promised customers their information would be kept strictly confidential. Others said some information could be shared with third parties for marketing and sales. None of the cards informed buyers their details would be used by lobbyists and consultants to help win elections.
The lawsuit does not seek damages from sellers of guns. The only claim is unjust enrichment by NSSF.
https://www.propublica.org/article/gun-owners-privacy-lawsuit-nssf https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/71422703/cocanour-v-national-shooting-sports-foundation-inc/
"Others said some information could be shared with third parties for marketing and sales. None of the cards informed buyers their details would be used by lobbyists and consultants to help win elections."
I think marketing and sales is easily broad enough to cover lobbying. And if the manufacturers violated a promise on the warrantee card, that's clearly on the manufacturer, not the NSSF.
But this probably isn't one of those "filed to win in court" lawsuits, anyway.
A left leaning org tries to put a gun org out of business with a frivolous lawsuit. In other news...
That was a convenient edit! What about the previous sentence?
A ProPublica review of dozens of warranty cards from the 1970s through today found that some promised customers their information would be kept strictly confidential.
I wasn't trying to hide anything.
As far as the earlier warranty cards are concerned, the manufacturers don't have a leg to stand on. I think they DO at least have a leg to stand on in regards to the later ones.
But my chief point is that the promise was between the manufacturers and the customers, NOT the NSSF and the customers. They're suing the wrong people.
And doing it deliberately.
The “Punishment” is the Indictment, although maybe a few hours in the DC jail would wipe that shit-eating smirk off Comey’s face. Don’t really want him to go to Prison, he’ll write another book.
It's the same issue as with Trump -- where could he serve time???
Same place that Wetback Judge was gonna send Trump.
Hillary Clinton would like us to know that we need to stop all the finger pointing, scape-goating and demonization, which has always mostly come from baskets of deplorables.
https://x.com/townhallcom/status/1970827219712012564
Yes. Are you suggesting she is wrong? Deplorables like you are fucking up the country, and she would like you to stop. Frankly she's being pretty polite about it.
He prefers his “I hate my opponents” stuff straight up. What a phoney Mikie is.
See: https://vortex.plymouth.edu/tropical/AL/2025/08/track.png
And there are possibly two more behind it.
Click bait Ed?
No, Ed is serious. Maybe wrong but North of Cuba and West of Bermuda is a bad place, and the front that would push it offshore is going through today, i.e. too early.
There's something I didn't have on my bingo card.
Microsoft cuts services to Israel Defense Ministry over Gaza surveillance fears Microsoft has cut off services it was supplying to Israel's Defense Ministry, after finding that they were being used for mass surveillance of Palestinians. In August, The Guardian reported that the Israeli military is conducting mass surveillance of Palestinians, by gathering troves of phone call data from civilians in Gaza and the West Bank, and storing it on Microsoft servers in Europe. In a blog post Thursday, Microsoft President Brad Smith said that an internal review has "found evidence that supports elements of The Guardian’s reporting," including details relating to Israel's use of Azure storage in the Netherlands and use of AI services. Smith said that Microsoft's terms of service prohibit the use of its tech for mass surveillance of civilians. He said the company has therefore ceased and disabled certain subscriptions and services it was supplying to Israel's Defense Ministry, including their use of specific cloud storage, and AI services and technologies.
Microsoft cuts services to Israel Defense Ministry over Gaza surveillance fears
Microsoft has cut off services it was supplying to Israel's Defense Ministry, after finding that they were being used for mass surveillance of Palestinians.
In August, The Guardian reported that the Israeli military is conducting mass surveillance of Palestinians, by gathering troves of phone call data from civilians in Gaza and the West Bank, and storing it on Microsoft servers in Europe.
In a blog post Thursday, Microsoft President Brad Smith said that an internal review has "found evidence that supports elements of The Guardian’s reporting," including details relating to Israel's use of Azure storage in the Netherlands and use of AI services.
Smith said that Microsoft's terms of service prohibit the use of its tech for mass surveillance of civilians. He said the company has therefore ceased and disabled certain subscriptions and services it was supplying to Israel's Defense Ministry, including their use of specific cloud storage, and AI services and technologies.
https://www.politico.eu/article/microsoft-cuts-services-israel-defense-ministry-gaza-surveillance-concerns-brad-smith/
https://blogs.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2025/09/25/update-on-ongoing-microsoft-review/
Microsoft caved to last month's worker intifada.
They haven’t cut my service, maybe I’m a Moe-Saad.
Along with basic English, this guy doesn’t know how the reply button works. Conservative populism, folks!
Great post!
If you work in a large corporation, your annual performance is graded on a bell curve. 68% of employees will get "meets expectations," or 3 of 5. Less than 16% get higher rating. About 16% get a lower of 1 or 2. Senior managers hold calibration sessions to ensure this distribution is enforced.
Most people work just hard enough to keep their 3, there's no upside in doing any extra effort or being innovative.
Last year zero out of the 200 people in my department got promoted. There was one woman who very much deserved to be promoted, but she was denied. Because costs.
The latest group think in management is AI. Talk about reversion to the mean...
AI produces below average results for analysis and reports. So if you are in the bottom 40% of the Bell curve, in management's eye, you can be replaced with AI.
I think all we are exposing here is that management was never managing talent for innovation in the first place.
Will that change? I got my first employee performance review written by Copilot, and my first batch of resumes written with AI. I very much doubt it.
The other new group think is return to office 4 days and make sure people are in their cube 8 hours a day. If that is all you manage, That is all you will get from your employees.
Your indictment of capitalism is pretty on point.
That's a dumbass post that says that all large corporations have similar review processes. They don't.-
But your contempt for capitalism is noted. You usually try to hide that. (Remember: you're ashamed of your strongest political inclinations and need to keep them on the downlow. You want to win elections.)
The advantage of large organizations -- businesses or government or whatever -- is economy of scale. The major disadvantage is coordination overhead, to minimize principal/agent disconnects. There are always compromises in the trade between them, and big organizations will usually fail in different ways, as they try to avoid making the mistakes that were publicized the last ten times in their peer group.
"There are no solutions, only trade-offs." - Thomas Sowell
(Yes, occasionally a situation is far from the Pareto frontier or a Nash equilibrium or whatever term one wishes to use, but that situation usually doesn't last long.)
While still a generalization, yours (unlike dwb68's) is a salient description of a predicament of large corporations.
District Judge Margaret Garnett is upset by public statements from the Justice Department related to the prosecution of Luigi Mangione. The Trump administration is suggesting he is part of vast left-wing conspiracy. Judge Garnett ordered
The Government is also directed to advise the Deputy Attorney General, for dissemination within the Department as appropriate, that future violations may result in sanctions, which could include personal financial penalties, contempt of court findings, or relief specific to the prosecution of this matter.
My understanding is, the comments about how Mangione is a guilty antifa terrorist do not come from people who have signed papers in the case or appeared in court. The rest of the government is making inappropriate statements.
US rules (and habits) around public officials talking their mouths off about pending criminal cases are incredibly lax, so it makes sense that at least occasionally a judge loses their patience and tries to enforce what little rules there are.
Republicans: Let's just pass a clean continuing resolution for 7 weeks to fund the government. Shouldn't be a problem, this happened like 13 times under the Biden Administration. Keeps government funding at current levels, while we negotiate and figure out the budget. Entirely reasonable.
Democrats: Uh uh. We're going to fillibuster that. Add a trillion dollars plus of spending or else we shut down the government.
Republicans: What? You're the minority party. You're demanding more than a trillion dollar of new spending to just keep the government open? For 7 weeks?
Democrats: Yes. And it's your fault if the government shuts down. Because you won't negotiate
Republicans: But the entire point of the CR is to give time to negotiate,....
Democrats: It's your fault if the government shuts down. Because we're mad about other things you did in the past. We want this fight.
Republicans: So "we're" shutting down the government because we won't give in to your demand for more than a trillion in new funding for 7 weeks of government normal operations? 7 Weeks that are meant to negotiate?
Democrats: Yes.
Democrats: you want to shut down the government!!!
Republicans: yes. yes we do.
Democrats are the ones filibustering budget bills and now the continuing resolution. Republicans are trying to fund government.
Look at this pathetic dance. These guys have celebrated shutdowns forever but are in some lizard like way aware it’s a bad look so now they want to do this “the Dems are going to shut down the government (which I’ve long favored!) dance. It’s pathetically disingenuous. And this guy cries about “trolls!”
I agree, it IS pathetically disingenuous to claim Republicans are shutting down the government, when it literally is the case that the only reason it would shut down is that Democrats are filibustering the continuing resolution.
Malika....
Imagine the situation was reversed.
Dems held majorities in the Senate, House, and the Presidency. Dems tried to pass a 7 week CR. Republicans said "Unless you cut a trillion dollars worth of spending, we're not doing it, fillibustering, and shutting down the government"
What would you say?
That they should negotiate. That's what you do if people who control veto points disagree.
LOL. Sure. If the GOP demanded a trillion dollars worth of cuts, in the minority, just to keep the government open, you would say.. "yeah, the Democrats should negotiate. This CR (which gives time to negotiate) is a bad idea.
Sure... Tell another stinker.
That's what the Democrats have done literally every time this has come up before.
In that situation, the Democrats would (both because it's sensible without regard to politics, and because it's good politics) ask the Republicans to specify what they want to cut, and require them to take ownership of those cuts. How many times did Republicans since Reagan propose budgets with magic asterisks to hide the unpopular details of what they want?
Democrats are willing to say where they want the spending, to achieve things other than the only Republican goals, holding power and cutting taxes for the rich.
You keep skipping over what the spending is.
Hell I don’t know where you got the number from even. It’s just big number.
Don’t be such a tool.
"Hell I don’t know"
Because you haven't looked up the easily available information, and don't know anything. You're just blathering on. Facts don't matter to you.
In the case of Il Douche, "If ignorance is bliss, ti's folly to be wise".
I would say everything you say on this subject is disingenuous. You champion shutdowns. Full stop.
Two things can be true at the same time:
1. The minority party wants a trillion dollars in new spending as the price of not shutting down the government. And, yes, it IS the minority party shutting things down.
2. A large faction of the majority party aren't terribly upset about being thrown into that briar patch.
Why do you need the Democrats to vote in favour of anything? They are the opposition! (theoretically) If the Trumpists have a budget they want to pass, just pass it. At least that's a heck of a lot more democratic and legal than Trump just summarily abolishing government departments.
And yes, if you need one or more Democratic votes to pass something, the Trumpists should make (serious) concessions to buy those votes. That's how negotiating works.
Because, and I'm fairly certain you know this, in order to end debate and actually hold the vote to pass the spending bill, the Senate requires a 60 vote supermajority if anybody objects to ending debate. Which means that the minority CAN block passage of something the majority supports, at least until the majority get ticked off enough to abolish the fillibuster.
Which I think is where this is going.
They don't need Democratic votes to pass anything, but they need Democrats to not object to holding a vote.
No they don't. The rules about the filibuster can be changed with a simple majority.
And if the Trumpists don't want to do that, I already noted what they can do instead: negotiate and offer concessions. It's not the Democrats' job to make the Regime's life easy.
"It's not the Democrats' job to make the Regime's life easy."
It's the Democrats job to ensure the government works. Debate on bills is important. If Democrats are willing to throw away that privilege over something so minor....when in the minority. It's unwise for them to do so.
It's the Democrats job to ensure the government works.
With Trump as president there's very little risk of that. Given his unwillingness to be told what to do by either lawmakers or courts, the only appropriate approach is to vote against everything the Regime wants unless there's a very good reason to do otherwise.
See, you really need a basic education in American politics, and not the MSNBC education.
It seems to me that your education about American politics is a lot more urgent. For one thing, you're an American voter, so you can do more damage than I can. (And have already done more damage.)
There is no better testament to this guy’s disingenuousness.
I do like that he’s self-identified as Armchair. A completely unserious person. Gotta keep those Cionfederate statues up!
Concessions in return for not shutting down the government.
But you're right, the filibuster can be eliminated with a simple majority vote, and I think that's probably where this is going.
But possibly not before the Democrat forced shutdown provides an excuse to let go of, not just lay off, a large part of the bloated federal workforce.
If the Republicans want to abolish more government departments, all they need to do is legislate. That way America can find out the hard way how bloated the federal workforce may or may not be.
"Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." - H.L. Mencken.
You will not find me defending the GOP. They're pathetic.
I may understand why they're pathetic, but that they're pathetic IS the bottom line.
I just happen to think the Democratic party is worse than pathetic.
Please! Abolish the filibuster! Throw us into that briar patch, if you dare.
"Why do you need the Democrats to vote in favour of anything?"
1. This is 'Merica. "Favor". Not favour. 2. Because this is 'Merica, one of the long-standing rules in the Senate is the right to discuss bills. Even for the minority party. And in order to stop debate on a bill, it requires a supermajority. Typically 60 Senators. They don't need to vote in FAVOR of the bill. But they do need to vote to end debate on the bill.
No they don't. The Regime has already wiped its ass with all other "long-standing rules" in the US, so why not this one?
You really don't know much about the US, do you...
Tell me why I'm wrong.
So we had this discussion 2 days ago, and it turned out you didn't know what you were talking about.
Here you are back again, with zero new info. Do you have the Memento memory issue or something?
I mean...you can lie if you have no actual good arguments. I suppose that's your last resort now.
I had them 2 days ago. They were very effective. You shut up pretty quick try at time.
Why would I bother redemolishing your bare and wrong assertions again?
A link to your brilliant winning argument? (This I'd like to see.)
IT's the XY playnook. Because the GOP used to do this, it's ok for the Democrats to do it. Except XY only reasons like this when the parties are reversed, of course.
IF the Democrats scent political advantage from a shutdown, absolutely they should let the shutdown happen. This is completely obvious, because that's how the game has been played for 30 years.,
Whether I think it's a good idea for the US is a separate issue.
XY is a purely tribal person, no principles. Perfect MAGA.
I am seeing reports that Trump claims that if there is a shutdown he will fire lots of federal workers he can deem non-essential. He has basically dared the dems to allow the shutdown to happen so he can tell a bunch of federal workers to bend over and take it with no lube.
He can do that anyway. Since when has he needed an excuse?
Thank god for Tyler Cowen who can explain to us that Milei doesn't need a bailout because Tyler Cowen was wrong, but only because Milei didn't follow Tyler Cowen's advice and/or because the Argentinian people didn't.
Why is Milei begging for a bailout? There are two primary reasons. First, he pegged Argentina’s real exchange rate too high, hoping this would appease voters by getting inflation down more quickly. That was a miscalculation. It also was a violation of market or libertarian principles. The problems here are not an instance of market failure, rather Milei forgot his own principles. Second, the opposition did very well in a recent election. So everyone is afraid the reign of Milei, or like-minded leaders, is not going to last for so long. That precipitated a crisis in the markets. But that is hardly an argument against Milei, even though it happened on his watch. It is an argument against the likely alternatives to Milei. So it is a mistake to read recent events as somehow a repudiation of market or libertarian principles.
Why is Milei begging for a bailout?
There are two primary reasons.
First, he pegged Argentina’s real exchange rate too high, hoping this would appease voters by getting inflation down more quickly. That was a miscalculation. It also was a violation of market or libertarian principles. The problems here are not an instance of market failure, rather Milei forgot his own principles.
Second, the opposition did very well in a recent election. So everyone is afraid the reign of Milei, or like-minded leaders, is not going to last for so long. That precipitated a crisis in the markets. But that is hardly an argument against Milei, even though it happened on his watch. It is an argument against the likely alternatives to Milei.
So it is a mistake to read recent events as somehow a repudiation of market or libertarian principles.
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2025/09/why-is-milei-begging-for-a-bailout.html
Tyler Cowen is only to be listened to when he is attacking DEI.
So, California's recently passed a couple of...interesting...laws. It's no surprise that CA doesn't like some of the recent federal actions.
These laws that purport to mandate that ICE agents cannot arrest suspects in State Courthouses, nor legally wear masks. Seems interesting...state laws that directly impede the ability of federal law enforcement agents to do their jobs.
Do the legally minded people see any issue with this? Any potential obstruction of justice claims?
Would there be any difference if CA passed a law that prohibited federal excise agents from collecting tariffs from goods going through California's ports?
.state laws that directly impede the ability of federal law enforcement agents to do their jobs.
How are ICE agents stopped from doing their jobs if they can't wear masks? Police seem to have no problem, nor the FBI.
For 50 years the Supreme Court kept telling states that abortion was legal, but the states kept passing bills restricting it anyway
Armchair happily jettisons federalism when it doesn't cut in his direction. It's almost as if nothing he says is in good faith.
Could California pass a law saying ICE agents can't use guns? Can't wear body armor? Can't arrest anyone? Can't go into the state?
Inquiring minds want to know.
"recently" is doing some work here, as the law about courthouses was passed during the first Trump administration.
AIUI, that only applies to ICE arresting people using administrative warrants. California can exclude ICE from their property in those cases just like any other landowner could. If ICE has a judicial warrant they can still arrest people.
Not sure why anyone think that the ICE goon squad needs to mask up to do their jobs. The rest of law enforcement seems to do fine without them and with some notion of accountability.
Because there's a faction on the left who are encouraging people to physically attack ICE, (You know, by calling them "goon squads", and such...) which is not usually the case for law enforcement enforcing laws Democrats approve of.
A bombshell report has come out about the January 6th incident at the Capitol.
The FBI had 274 plainclothes agents there within the crown. 274.
Supposedly 2000 - 2500 people made it inside the capital. The FBI undercover agents within the crowd represent more than 10% of that number.
https://justthenews.com/accountability/fbi-bombshell-274-agents-sent-capitol-j6-many-later-complained-they-were-political
As they always say: "Last year's rightwing conspiracy theory is this year's headline."
Curious that the words undercover and the number 274 do not occur in the document, and the word plain only once.
Almost as if "just the news" was planning on people not actually reading the document....
You should go in there and read at how sickened the rank & file were at the politicization of the FBI under Democrats.
It's genuinely sickening.
Just The News!!!
And this is why no one kowtows to your demands for links.
There is no link with enough authority for you to believe any fact that's counter to your narrative programming.
No video. No audio. No reporting. No website. Literally nothing come overcome your programming.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/fbi-embedded-275-plainclothes-agents-111534839.html
"274" is shown in the report as the total number of "agents" who "responded to the Capitol grounds as well as inside the Capitol" on January 6. As with all attending law enforcement agencies that day, I would expect the number who responded to be much larger than the number who were initially there.
I find it interesting that so much of HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. time is spent on investigating autism links to medications and vaccines while ignoring one specific area, the environment. The rise in autism is mostly affected by better information and diagnosis techniques. But if you are going to look for minor agents of causation I would think that environmental pollution should be high on the list. For many years coal fired power plants emitted heavy metals into the air. Cars and truck continue to emit organic PAHs into the air and inner cities have increasingly high concentrations. Medication and vaccine have been cleared and the Trump administration is simply tracking over old ground, and wasting money doing this. If you want to research minor agents of autism I think the research dollar would be far better spent in environmental studies. I suspect this is an road the administration does want to travel down.
Cui bono?
If the causative factors are environmental, then a multivariate correlation study of rates in say 100 countries ought to reveal the plausibility of that hypothesis. That approach work for SARS-CoV-2 and debunked a number of claims of public health officials and suggested others that had not been noted by the CDC or EU agencies.
Look at how gently and carefully you're willing to stick your foot into 'no-no' thoughts.
The rise in autism is mostly affected by better information and diagnosis techniques. But if...
That hedging won't save you from retribution if the Democrat Supremacists ever gain social power again.
Ah, OK, FEMA is still working hard to keep America going:
The records show that Noem quickly expedited more than $11 million of federal money to rebuild a historic pier in Naples, Florida, after she was contacted by a major financial supporter last month. The pier is a tourist attraction in the wealthy Gulf Coast enclave and was badly damaged by Hurricane Ian in 2022. Frustrated city officials had been laboring for months, without success, to get disaster assistance. But just two weeks after the donor stepped in, they were celebrating their sudden change of fortune. “We are now at warp speed with FEMA,” one city official wrote in an email. A FEMA representative wrote: “Per leadership instruction, pushing project immediately.”
The records show that Noem quickly expedited more than $11 million of federal money to rebuild a historic pier in Naples, Florida, after she was contacted by a major financial supporter last month. The pier is a tourist attraction in the wealthy Gulf Coast enclave and was badly damaged by Hurricane Ian in 2022.
Frustrated city officials had been laboring for months, without success, to get disaster assistance. But just two weeks after the donor stepped in, they were celebrating their sudden change of fortune. “We are now at warp speed with FEMA,” one city official wrote in an email. A FEMA representative wrote: “Per leadership instruction, pushing project immediately.”
https://www.propublica.org/article/kristi-noem-fema-florida-naples-sinan-gursoy
It's almost as if electing the most corrupt president in US history has consequences...
Yesterday we had some MSNBC analysis say the way to stop the Democrat Supremacist reign of terror is to give them what they want.
That's no different than the Democrat Supremacist in Congress saying give us a trillion dollars for illegals and trannies and our donors or we're shutting down the government and harming tens of millions of people.
Is it too late to Indict Hillary Rodman for the murder of Vince Foster?? I'm not saying she did it, but is it to late to indict her? I know there's no Statue of Limitations (I know it's "Statute" but I love the image of a "Statue" of Limitations running) for Murder, but is that even correct?? Sounds like one of those things that everybody ass-umes is true but isn't. Would have been a great Perry Mason or Columbo episode (would love to see Perry or Lt Columbo spar with the haughty Hillary) Asking for a "Friend"
We all have better things to do with our time.
Given that cancelling people is apparently OK again, here are some people everyone might like to cancel:
Participating comedians [at the Riyadh Comedy Festival include], among others: Aziz Ansari, Hannibal Buress, Bill Burr, Jimmy Carr, Dave Chappelle, Pete Davidson, Maz Jobrani, Sam Morril, Mark Normand, Nimesh Patel, and Tom Segura. Tim Dillon was scheduled to perform but said he was fired after he joked on his podcast about Saudi Arabia’s poor human rights record.
https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/09/23/saudi-arabia-riyadh-comedy-festival-whitewashes-abuses
Vance: So I think in a lot of ways the Democrats and the media, because they so hate the idea of a real border, are engaging in a kind of blood libel against ICE agents. ——- The cheapening of blood libel continues.
This statement came out around the time a video showing a large ICE agent just throwing a crying woman into a wall and onto the ground was circulating.
One of the more traditional stances is that men who use brute force against women are insecure assholes and thugs. JD can say what he wants but res ipsa Ioquitur.
Pete Hegseth has declared that the soldiers who earned medals of honor for the Wounded Knee Massacre will keep them. Here are some of his comments:
“ Such careless inaction has allowed for their distinguished recognition to remain in limbo until now. Under my direction, we're making it clear without hesitation that the soldiers who fought in the Battle of Wounded Knee in 1890 will keep their medals, and we're making it clear that they deserve those medals.”
They deserved them. lol.
“This decision is now final, and their place in our nation's history is no longer up for debate.”
Not how history works.
“We salute their memory, we honor their service, and we will never forget what they did.”
What they did was murder a bunch of unarmed people as part of an ethnic cleansing campaign and get themselves killed in friendly fire.
So I’ve long been concerned that Trump would pardon Robert Bales. I think that is absolutely coming as the administration is getting way more comfortable justifying civilian deaths. But now I’m wondering if he’ll get a medal.
If you're living in the US of A, you're living on land "taken" from the In-juns. Oh wait, are you Lizzie "Poke-a-Hontas" Warren?? 1/1,024th full blooded Cherokee?? My Bad (I know I'm "appropriating" an Ebonics Phrase) Of course you're just Law "Talking" Guy and not Law "Practicing" Guy
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Liz Wolfe | 9.26.2025 9:30 AM
Steven Greenhut | 9.26.2025 8:15 AM
J.D. Tuccille | 9.26.2025 7:00 AM
Brian Doherty | From the October 2025 issue
Charles Oliver | 9.26.2025 4:00 AM
