The Volokh Conspiracy
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Monday Open Thread
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Greetings from Venice (Italy)
First to the post and from Italy no less (we all know it wouldn't be Venice FL).
Greeting back. Traveling or resident?
Don't drink the Water
If you're not going to do your job as governor/mayor and will just sit back and allow federal property and people to be endangered with ANTIFA essentially acting as privateers on your behalf then the President has the right to intervene and protect his people. The people screeching about the President's actions as if it came out of nowhere on completely innocent ANTIFA sitting around minding their own business are truly reprehensible. They know all this but gaslight the false narrative anyway.
WTF are you talking about?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15161993/portland-protests-trump-newsom-national-guard-rally-ice.html
Yes, people are angry about the President sending in armed forces to persecute their fellow residents, and are protesting against the Regime.
There was a time when Americans had a right to free speech. Remember that? That was nice.
They can protest all they want. But not violently interfere to protect illegal criminals (of crimes in addition to coming over here illegally)
Does your "free speech" include shooting at ICE facilities as in Texas and killing and wounding migrants?
No.
Is Portland in Texas? Has Trump sent the National Guard to Texas?
"Has Trump sent the National Guard to Texas?"
Unlike in Portland in most instances the police in Texas do their job.
Yes, that's definitely the [d]ifference.
That is the first sensible thing you've written today, and might be the only sensible thing you write all day, even though you didn't mean it that way.
Texas authorities are not impeding the enforcement of federal law as compared to chicago and portland authorities behavior
What ANTIFA?
So everyone was a pedo. Then everyone was an antisemitic terrorist. Now ANTIFA?
Perhaps someone can explain ANTIFA because I don't know what the hell people are talking about. Is there an actual headquarter, a leader, or is most of ANTIFA just taking up residence in the minds of people.
As far as I am able to discern, ANTIFA is just an ideology.
You can't conceive of anything between a strictly regimented organization, and non-existence? Like maybe the cell system that revolutionaries have been using since, oh, about the French revolution?
So like militias? The Proud Boys and the Three Percenters and the Oathkeepers and the Boogaloo Boys? Like that?
Honestly, my experience with militia groups was confined to the early 90's, and those groups didn't make any effort at all to hide their identities or obscure chains of command, because they didn't understand themselves to be doing anything the least bit illegal.
Maybe the newer groups are different in that regard, but I wouldn't know.
Ludicrous
What does a rapper have to do with this?
You're thinking of "Ludacris" one of My Hometown's contributions to Music, along with ARS (if you have to ask...), Collective Soul, Confederate Railroad, Indigo Girls, Outkast, Starbuck (yeah, I know, but who wasn't humming along to "Moonlight Feels Right" in 1976?)Tag Team (of "Whoomp Dere it is!" fame) and right up the 316 In Athens you have 2 local groups that might become famous some day, the B-52's and R.E.M. (what was that Frequency Kenneth?)
Ironically Vicki Lawrence, (Who was born Vicki Axelrod, more in a moment) who had Billboard #1 hit in 1973 with "The Night the Lights went out in Georgia" (I just realized Vicki is the one who shot Andy) ISN'T from Atlanta, but California (Inglewood) and is 1/2 Jewish, but somehow got left out of Adam Sandler's "Chanukah Song" (Couldn't find a rhyme with "Lawrence"??? Warrants, Torrents....OK, maybe he knew what he was doing.
Frank
Care to elaborate?
Anyway, joining any of those organizations is just an overly complex way of reporting yourself to the government, which largely took them over almost immediately, and continued them in operation as honeypots.
Something any sane person with a speck of intelligence would have anticipated, and stayed far away from them.
I mean, didn't we learn that from the Proud Boys prosecution? Half their leadership were government informants! I expect the same is true of the rest of them.
No, pretty much not at all. The Proud Boys and Oath Keepers have, or had (before they were crushed by the Autopen administration), well-defined structures and leaders. None of them has the history of serial criminality that Antifa has.
What the leftists fail to understand is that ICE is fully capable of both obtaining and carrying enough ordinance to get themselves out of any situation without the assistance of local police -- and when in extremis, can and will use it to save their own lives.
For example, a few Claymore mines strapped to the sides of ICE vehicles would effectively defend ICE guys trapped inside said vehicles, albeit at an atrocious cost. This is what Portland and Chicago are asking for in letting ICE twist in the wind.
Oh, right, I'd forgotten why I'd muted you before. Getting old is hell.
Back on the list.
Oh come on, muting Dr. Ed is like watching the 3 Stooges with Curly's lines edited out.
Can you explain why none of the people who claim this is happening were willing to testify to it in court?
Can you explain why Homeland Security’s own FPS logs were introduced by Oregon and Portland to corroborate that this isn’t happening?
You tell a lot of big stories. If the people who tell these stories actually believe them, why are they chickening out of telling them in court? Why is not a singe witness willing to come forward and testify to it?
New term for the SC starts today. Will the calender be filled with emergency appeals?
And in other SC news:
"A New Jersey man was arrested after allegedly toting a Molotov cocktail outside a Washington, DC Catholic church that was hosting a special mass to celebrate the start of the Supreme Court term, according to authorities.
Louis Geri, of Vineland, New Jersey, was cuffed on the steps of the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle shortly before 6 a.m. Sunday after setting up a tent full of “suspicious” items and refusing to leave, according to the Metropolitan Police Department."
https://nypost.com/2025/10/05/us-news/new-jersey-man-arrested-for-having-molotov-cocktail-outside-dc-church/
This comes after a judge gave wanna be Kavanaugh assassin only an eight year sentence (the recommendation was 30 years)
in part because he identifies as a woman.
The US does free speech so much better than other countries!
Donald Trump Issues Ultimatum to American Flag Burners
"The president’s executive order does not establish new criminal penalties for flag burning; rather, it directs the Justice Department to more aggressively prosecute cases under existing laws and to refer possible violations to state and local authorities when applicable.
According to the official White House fact sheet, the order also seeks to clarify the limits of the First Amendment surrounding acts that incite violence or threaten public safety. The order also calls on the secretaries of state and homeland security to take immigration-related actions, such as denying visas or pursuing removal, for foreign nationals who engage in flag desecration."
You forget, Führerbefehl hat Gesetzeskraft.
Gesundheit!
Which is just how the cultists like it
Didn't SCOTUS say it would have been permissible to prosecute the flagburner for theft - it was a USPS flag he stole.
So, anyway, the US is, sadly, capable of doing free speech much better than other countries, AND doing it somewhat badly on an absolute scale. Because other countries are typically just that bad.
If that is your version of better, you can keep it. In other democracies where people are arrested for their speech, at least they don't end up in prison for a year.
Except when they do.
31 months in prison. For speech. In Europe.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp3nn60wyr6o
Well, thanks for admitting that people DO get arrested for their speech in other countries, and sometime speech that wouldn't even get you a hostile glance here in the US.
Hell, in the UK you can get arrested because a cop suspects that you're mentally praying. Well, Orwell WAS talking about England in 1984, after all, so ThoughtCrime is right on brand.
But allow me to point out to you that the above year in prison doesn't apply to speech, but instead to burning a flag. And once you get into the details, as opposed to the hyperbolic announcement, you find it's only for burning a flag under conditions where doing so is criminal and not 1st amendment protected.
Do I LIKE the fact that our current President makes such hyperbolic announcements? No, I don't. And the fact that the underlying policy is generally more reasonable does not make me like it any more.
OTOH, I've had nearly 67 years now to get used to not liking the way Presidents act, or to get burned out on it anyway, so don't expect me to freak out every time Trump says something stupid. The last President I actually LIKED was Reagan, and that was only until I learned about Iran Contra.
Honestly, I am nearly 67, I'm tired, I'm gradually disengaging from politics, and all I ask from the government is that it mostly leave me alone. And maybe they can hold off the civil war until I'm safely dead?
Trump is willing to mostly leave ordinary people like me alone. I think that's the source of a lot of his popularity: Normal people view him as in the tent and pissing out, even if they'd really prefer he zipped it.
Seriously, you're bringing up the praying guy again?
Why not talk about Palestine Action? Because that really is an outrage.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/oct/05/police-to-get-new-powers-to-crack-down-on-repeated-protests-says-home-office
Why wouldn't I bring up the praying people (There wasn't just one.) again? It's outrageous, and they actually DO it.
"Why not talk about Palestine Action? Because that really is an outrage."
So, you don't get outraged at people being arrested for peaceably praying, you're tired of it being brought up? But you do think it's a real outrage if the government goes after a terrorist group that commits crimes in support of Middle Eastern genocidal maniacs?
NEWS BRIEF There appears to be a limit to just how liberal the Dutch are: This week a court sentenced to 30 days in prison a 44-year-old man who “intentionally insulted” King Willem-Alexander.
A Dutch man was sentenced to 30 days for calling King Willem-Alexander a murderer, rapist, and a thief.
https://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2016/07/dutch-king-insult/491498/
Gosh...maybe the US does do free speech better.
I had a quick look, but I couldn't find the judgment online. So I can't say whether the sentence in question is suspended or not. (That's a detail that's pretty important for the offender, but which the press tends to ignore.)
Either way, I support specific protection for the King, because the Constitution prevents the King from participating in the public debate, or at least severely limits his ability to do so. Because the law prevents him from making a reply, it is only fair that it protects him in some other way.
If you think this is the same thing as a one year sentence for flag burning, you're funny in the head.
"Either way, I support specific protection for the King"
OOOOHHH... So much for actual free speech.
I support laws against defamation too. Does that make me an enemy of free speech too? Does it help that I think you should be able to swear on TV?
Seems to me that when it comes to insulting the symbol of someone else's country, you're all about free speech. But when it comes to insulting the symbol of YOUR country, suddenly you're like "I support specific protection"
Makes you look like a hypocrite at best.
By my count, almost half the posts here today so far are from you. Is this actually your job? Does it pay well to troll for a living? Who pays you? Is this something that slipped by after ending the USAID grifting ?
Here is another clip of the President's personal thugs picking a fight with an opposition politician: https://bsky.app/profile/eric-reinhart.com/post/3m2crwovop226
Also of interest to people here who still naively believe that being a citizen means a person is safe from Trumpist persecution (as if that makes everything OK):
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2025/10/01/trump-immigration-crackdown-lawsuit-courts-citizens-latino-alabama/256f259c-9eeb-11f0-af12-ae28224a8694_story.html
Being a citizen didn't make you safe from Bidenist persecution, why would it make you safe from Trumpist persecution?
Poor you. It must have been tough having a president you disagreed with. Clearly you had no choice but to vote for a corrupt fascist thug.
Brett isn't in the UK and so didn't vote for Herr Starmtrooper.
Oh sod off, you bore.
I did have a choice: I could vote for the Republican, the Democrat, one of the candidates who had no chance at all, or 30 minutes of extra free time. That last option gets more attractive every election.
See my comment above: I've NEVER had a President I agreed with!
Maybe if the Democratic party would just puke up a candidate who wasn't openly hostile to a basic civil liberty I might treat voting Democratic as a realistic option.
He was stopped for less than an 1/2 hour. No jail. Not even put in a police car.
Oh, that's fine then.
It's pretty weak sauce for supposed "persecution".
Repeatedly being detained for half an hour isn't exactly a Terry stop, is it?
"Repeatedly" meaning he was stopped once, then stopped a couple weeks later, likely by a completely different set of agents.
Just coincidence or unlucky.
The man had a valid ID and so he should not have been stopped at all.
How were federal agents supposed to know it was more valid than this one? https://nypost.com/2025/09/30/us-news/new-york-issued-drivers-license-to-migrant-but-didnt-require-first-name/
And...how are you supposed to verify that ID without stopping the person?
You could at least implement an "Already checked out, release immediately" list.
Meanwhile, the new French PM, who only just announced the "new" cabinet, has now resigned after less than a month in office.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/06/france-pm-sebastien-lecornu-resigns
So, scotusblog is dead now? Looks like the domain is parked.
The only thing that is current is the calendar.
Are we done yet?
This week is Nobel Prize announcement week.
Meanwhile, in Ireland the Fianna Fail candidate for the presidency dropped out after it emerged that he had failed to return a rent overpayment of €3,300 (£2,865) when he was a landlord about 16 years ago, when he was in financial difficulty.
Let that sink in.
That leaves two candidates, given that the period for nominations is already closed:
The British authorities said early Sunday that they were investigating a fire at a mosque on Britain’s southern coast as a suspected arson attack and treating it as a hate crime.
Firefighters were called to the mosque in the town of Peacehaven just before 10 p.m. on Saturday night, the Sussex police said in a statement. It said the blaze damaged the front entrance of the building and a vehicle parked outside, but no one was harmed.
The attack came at a time of heightened anxiety after a deadly terrorist attack at a synagogue in Manchester on Thursday, and as anti-Muslim hate is on the rise in Britain.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/05/world/europe/peacehaven-arson-mosque-england.html
Enter President Donald Trump. At no point, in his time in public office, has Trump ever acted as if he were president of the whole United States. He acts, instead, as if he is president only of Red America, and even then, only those states that backed him in the presidential election. Like too many Americans, Trump sees the binary color scheme of our quadrennial Electoral College maps and thinks that it corresponds to reality. He seems unaware that he has equally passionate supporters in the “blue” state of California and in the “red" states of the Deep South.
This week we’ve seen both him and his White House speak and act in ways that demonstrate their contempt for those Americans who opposed his 2024 campaign for the Oval Office.
And on Wednesday, Russell Vought, head of the Office of Management and Budget, announced that he would use the government shutdown to defund Democratic-led states and cities of federal investments in infrastructure and green energy. “Nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being cancelled,” Vought said on X, naming 16 states that backed Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. Vought also said the White House would be withholding $18 billion in funds for infrastructure projects in the New York metropolitan area.
Trump, as well, warned that if Democrats do not support the Republican bill to continue to fund the government, his administration will cut Democratic priorities. “We can get rid of a lot of things that we didn’t want, and they’d be Democrat things,” he said on Tuesday.
With his threats to cut their funds and occupy their cities with armed forces, Trump seems to see Democratic-led states — and the people in them — less as constituents to which he has a set of larger obligations and more as enemies to be pacified and defeated. For Trump, there is no whole people of the United States. There are only his people and his states.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/04/opinion/trump-responsible-president-job-military.html
A boat "carrying about 10 civilians" but no aid. Was the idea to reinforce Hamas with the people on board?
https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/s-f-man-captained-gaza-aid-vessel-now-held-21084289.php
Where was the part about aid to Hamas?
The war on the rule of law in the US continues:
https://time.com/7323442/south-carolina-judge-diane-goodstein-house-fire-trump-political-violence/
So you've already determined (from several thousand miles away) that this was an arson?
I have not. I have simply referred you to an article in Time.
Fair enough, but that opening line should have given away the game.
"... was set on fire after she had reportedly received death threats."
Set on fire? Reportedly received death threats?
Set by and reported by whom?
And who lit it, and why.
No one else was upset with the judge?
Another in the string of murders and political violence from the right wing in 2025.
FWIW looks like gold might break $4000.00 today (currently $3944.59).
Who or what is driving the price surge?
Historically US Treasuries were the safe asset of last resort. Whenever the world got risky, that's where the money went. Paradoxically that even used to be the case if it was the US government that had people worried. But now the Regime has pushed that mechanism over the edge, and investors are looking for something that is safer than US Treasuries. I'm not sure why they would think gold is the answer, but a substantial group of investors do.
I guess gold was the crypto before there was crypto: there is no assets backing the yellow metal, it just derives value from human perception
Good point. What gold has that crypto doesn't is history. You can hold gold, something you cannot do with crypto.
It also has actual uses, which puts a floor under its value. While crypto has no floor.
I'd compare crypto to tulip bulbs, except that you could plant those and get nice flowers.
"... it just derives value from human perception."
isn't that the case with everything?
Pretty much, yeah.
Well, yes and no.
At the limit, I guess you could say that food and water derive all their value from human perception, because people could in theory at least decide there wasn't any point in not starving to death.
But I think we can break things down into three rough groups:
1. Existential needs that have value to anyone not suicidal.
2. Items with mundane utility.
3. Items that neither address existential needs nor have mundane utility.
Now, in principle at least, crypto could function as a real currency, and thus exhibit mundane utility. But I don't think any of the existing cryptocurrencies actually are that useful as a currency, having too large of transaction costs.
So it's all tulip frenzy.
Only in a frivolously reductive sense. Things normally have value if they are useful and/or scarce. Bitcoin has no inherent utility, and its scarcity is artificial. In contrast, gold is naturally (relatively) scarce and it has chemically useful properties that would give it value independent of its perceived beauty. Even tulip bulbs were more useful than Bitcoin.
Uncertainty, erosion of value of dollar = Who or what is driving the price surge?
I read an interesting editorial in my local newspaper the Wisconsin State Journal by Russ Castronovo, Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin. He spoke about the impact of today's environment stifling speech on campuses That pressures from both the right and the left that makes student and professors reluctant to speak. I would note that watch lists like those started by Charlie Kirk have contributed to the stifling environment. But what struck me most in the essay was Prof. Castronovo point that while so much time and energy is spent talking about speech on campuses, the impact of campus speech by students or professors is really minimal. It is really the vast amount of material on the internet that creates the greatest threat. We have not had shooting or bombing based on something heard in a lecture hall. We have had far too many based on weak minded individuals influenced by things read or heard on-line.
That reminds me, both Ohio and Wisconsin are poised to redraw their congressional districts for the next election cycle. Gonna be a lot of lost MAGA seats
Last analysis I saw said that, if every state turned up gerrymandering to the max, Republicans would be the big winners, because the Democratic states are largely already gerrymandered.
Let me guess, every district will include part of Cleveland?
Funny that "45/47/(48?)" won Ohio by 600,000 votes, gonna be hard to spread enough of those Knee-Grow Votes among 15 districts that currently are 10-5 Repubiclown.
Wisconsin was a lot closer, and to Cums-a-lot's credit she actually cam-pained in the State, unlike Hillary Rodman (might explain things) but there's only 2 Repubiclown seats to "lose"
Frank
You mean watch lists like those pushed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and similar groups, which have been listing normal people alongside KKK and similar groups for longer than Charlie Kirk was politically active.
https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/virginia-man-sentenced-25-years-prison-shooting-security-guard-family-research is an example of what SPLC inspired.
For those who don't yet think that the masked, unidentified ICE agents are now America's secret police I believe the September 30th raid in Chicago should remove all doubts. The military style raid, the rounding up of people regardless of their status, the treatment of children, and the trashing of property all seem consistent with secret police. it really is time to start thinking about dissolving ICE and moving their work to regular law enforcement.
Actually, it is time to tell ICE to ramp up deportation activities. They're woefully behind schedule.
Which takes priority over the Constitution. citizens' rights, etc.
Provided the goon squads only go after "those people", you don't care.
I saw on the news last night President Trump talking about Portland burning which it doesn't seem to be doing. Is it time for JD Vance to step in and send the President off to a nice memory care facility?
A non-political topic, for a change.
I saw the Violent Femmes last night in Baltimore and last weekend I went to the Oceans Calling festival in Ocean City. Both were awesome, although the monsoon we suffered through last Saturday kinda sucked.
Anyone else out there gone to a good show or festival recently?
Biden-appointed judge slammed by conservatives for 'lenient' 8-year sentence in Kavanaugh assassination plot
Attorney General Pam Bondi said that Department of Justice plans to appeal the sentence
Judge Deborah Boardman, a Biden appointee, sentenced Roske to eight years in prison Friday for attempting to assassinate Kavanaugh in June 2022 in the weeks before the Supreme Court’s landmark Dobbs decision.
The sentence is more lenient than what the Department of Justice (DOJ) had sought. Prosecutors said Roske should face at least 30 years, while Roske's defense team had asked for eight.
"@TheJusticeDept will be appealing the woefully insufficient sentence imposed by the district court, which does not reflect the horrific facts of this case."
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-appointed-judge-slammed-conservatives-lenient-8-year-sentence-kavanaugh-assassination-plot?msockid=3d266fb79d526e810dec79ca9cc86f11
Can the govt appeal a sentence?
I don't think so according to this federal law: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/3731
"Either side in a criminal case may appeal with respect to the sentence that is imposed after a guilty verdict."
https://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/types-cases/appeals
Given that the sentencing hearing ran for seven hours, the sentencing memorandum ran to 34 pages in recommending a 30 year sentence and the judge spoke for an hour on the defendant's claim to be a woman, referring to him as her, might there be grounds for an appeal?
I think Brett called it the other day, saying something like that Roske entered a Bradley Manning plea.
If referring to a defendant as him or her is an established error in the law, then, yes, that would be grounds
What is overlooked in all those hysterical right-wing cries is that in the ordinary definition of the word, there was no attempt at all. Only by legal definition was there an attempt - kind of like how in some states, DUI includes being "in control" of the car without actually driving it - it's merely a legal definition, not a common definition.
Because the cultists only see the word "attempt", they think that 8 years is too little.
Next Dem president has a lot of neat new powers to employ. Blacklisting MAGA law firms, bankrupting and suing MAGA universities and religious schools, pouring federal troops into states that practice bigotry towards gay people. In fact, gay and woman justice should be our semitism. Has your institution or movement (Turning Point) been bigoted towards gay people?
I can see why all this extrajudicial lawfare stuff excites you MAGA. Just thinking about plying it makes me happy also.
Win elections first. 😉
And we'll have no gnashing of teeth from you either, XY, when we get all these firms to bow to tranny power. Because you will remember it was all well and good before.
"Next Dem president ..."
But will you still be around to see it?
They are willing to create the next Jefferson Davis if that's what it takes.
Jefferson Davis was a better man than Gavin Newsom.
The "Night Stalker" Richard Ramirez was a better man than Gavin New-Scum. (Has Gavin let him out yet?)
Frank
What a vile POS you are.
Feel better?
Zoran Ramadan-damn-he,
NOT a Jew,
but guess who is?
Baseball Hall of Famer Rod Carew (he converted)
Frank
Rumours of a Trump $1 coin have spread.,,
It is entirely consistent that Trump would want one, and for the regime to decide it's a good idea, but apparently it's not true - at least, not so far.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/fact-check-white-house-did-112823820.html
(I am 99.9% sure that it it were true, the cultists here would approve, the law regardless.)