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Eugene Volokh | 10.17.2025 11:04 AM
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In a per curiam order filed yesterday, a panel of the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals (mostly) denied the government's application for a stay of the District Court's October 9, 2025 temporary restraining order blocking President Trump from deploying National Guard troops in Chicago. https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/26189193/trumpnguardilca7opn101625pdf.pdf
The District Court's opinion and order is here: https://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/illinois/ilndce/1:2025cv12174/487574/70/0.pdf
The Court of Appeals appropriately recognized the fact bound nature of the District Court's determinations, based on the record developed at this preliminary stage:
Because we conclude that the district court’s factual findings at this preliminary stage were not clearly erroneous, and that the facts do not justify the President’s actions in Illinois under [10 U.S.C.] § 12406, even giving substantial deference to his assertions, we deny the administration’s motion for a stay pending appeal except to the extent we continue our stay of the portion of the order enjoining the federalization of the Guard.
Fed.R.Civ.P. 52(a) states in relevant part:
(a) Findings and Conclusions. (1) In General. In an action tried on the facts without a jury or with an advisory jury, the court must find the facts specially and state its conclusions of law separately. The findings and conclusions may be stated on the record after the close of the evidence or may appear in an opinion or a memorandum of decision filed by the court. Judgment must be entered under Rule 58 (2) For an Interlocutory Injunction. In granting or refusing an interlocutory injunction, the court must similarly state the findings and conclusions that support its action. * * * (5) Questioning the Evidentiary Support. A party may later question the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the findings, whether or not the party requested findings, objected to them, moved to amend them, or moved for partial findings. (6) Setting Aside the Findings. Findings of fact, whether based on oral or other evidence, must not be set aside unless clearly erroneous, and the reviewing court must give due regard to the trial court's opportunity to judge the witnesses’ credibility. [Emphasis added.]
(a) Findings and Conclusions.
(1) In General. In an action tried on the facts without a jury or with an advisory jury, the court must find the facts specially and state its conclusions of law separately. The findings and conclusions may be stated on the record after the close of the evidence or may appear in an opinion or a memorandum of decision filed by the court. Judgment must be entered under Rule 58
(2) For an Interlocutory Injunction. In granting or refusing an interlocutory injunction, the court must similarly state the findings and conclusions that support its action.
* * *
(5) Questioning the Evidentiary Support. A party may later question the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the findings, whether or not the party requested findings, objected to them, moved to amend them, or moved for partial findings.
(6) Setting Aside the Findings. Findings of fact, whether based on oral or other evidence, must not be set aside unless clearly erroneous, and the reviewing court must give due regard to the trial court's opportunity to judge the witnesses’ credibility. [Emphasis added.]
Review for clear error is highly deferential to the trial court's factual findings. A factual finding is “clearly erroneous” when although there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed. Bose Corp. v. Consumers Union of U.S., Inc., 466 U.S. 485, 499 (1984) (quoting United States v. United States Gypsum Co. 333 U.S. 364, 395 (1948). As one panel of the Seventh Circuit has opined: “To be clearly erroneous, a decision must strike us as more than just maybe or probably wrong; it must … strike us as wrong with the force of a five-week-old, unrefrigerated dead fish.” Parts & Elec. Motors, Inc. v. Sterling Elec., Inc., 866 F.2d 228, 233 (7th Cir. 1988), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 847 (1989).
NG, let me ask you a question about this.
The predicate isn't there, so no Nat Guard allowed. I am not certain a fed judge is really capable of making that determination, but leave that aside.
Suppose the protestors turn violent, and kill Fed LEOs, or ICE officers detaining illegal aliens. Does that provide the predicate?
C_XY, The answer is simple. Let Chicago burn. Like the phoenix it will rise from the ashes.
Concur; let CHI stew in their own juices.
A federal judge is capable of determining issues in a civil lawsuit based on evidence submitted by the parties. Keep in mind that:
The purpose of a preliminary injunction is merely to preserve the relative positions of the parties until a trial on the merits can be held. Given this limited purpose, and given the haste that is often necessary if those positions are to be preserved, a preliminary injunction is customarily granted on the basis of procedures that are less formal and evidence that is less complete than in a trial on the merits. A party thus is not required to prove his case in full at a preliminary injunction hearing, . . . and the findings of fact and conclusions of law made by a court granting a preliminary injunction are not binding at trial on the merits[.]
University of Texas v. Camenisch, 451 U.S. 390, 395 (1981) [internal citations omitted.]
As to what factual predicate is sufficient under 10 U.S.C. § 12406, that is initially a determination to be made by the President, but the underlying facts are subject to (deferential) judicial review based on evidence if and when a lawsuit is filed and injunctive relief is sought.
Is violent protest toward, or direct attacks upon, fed LEOs enough to be a predicate? To me, that is one bright line. Can't do that. You don't attack the cops. You don't kill fed LEOs executing the enforcement of laws passed by Congress. Doesn't matter who is in office.
It is illegal to attack law enforcement officers. That does not mean that the president can call in the army every time someone throws a sandwich at an ICE agent.
Sure it does. He can call in the Army to look for a stolen gallon of Strawberries if he feels like it.
"Is violent protest toward, or direct attacks upon, fed LEOs enough to be a predicate?"
That depends. There are not bright line rules.
Is the United States, or any of the Commonwealths or possessions, is invaded or is in danger of invasion by a foreign nation? That's not this case by any stretch of the imagination.
Is there a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States? Not unless Lewis Carroll's Humpty Dumpty is defining the word "rebellion."
Is the President unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States? There was an evidentiary hearing on that question, among others, where the Trump administration's scanty evidence was weighed in the balance and found wanting.
As the Seventh Circuit opined, determination of:
what constitutes a “rebellion,” and what it means to be “unable with the regular forces to execute the laws[,]” 10 U.S.C. § 12406.[,] . . . are matters of statutory interpretation, a function that is “precisely the business of the judiciary.” Seggerman Farms, Inc. v. Comm’r, 308 F.3d 803, 806 (7th Cir. 2002);see generally Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. 369 (2024). Our interpretation of the statute is de novo even on a motion for a stay. See Tully [v. Okeson,] 977 F.3d [608,] 612 [(7th Cir. 2020).]
Disputes like this are the reason we build courthouses, Commenter_XY. As SCOTUS has cogently opined:
when presented with claims of judicially cognizable injury resulting from military intrusion into the civilian sector, federal courts are fully empowered to consider claims of those asserting such injury; there is nothing in our Nation's history or in this Court's decided cases, including our holding today, that can properly be seen as giving any indication that actual or threatened injury by reason of unlawful activities of the military would go unnoticed or unremedied.
Laird v. Tatum, 408 U.S. 1, 15–16 (1972). The Seventh Circuit's discussion of what is -- and more importantly, what is not -- a "rebellion" for purposes of § 12406 is germane here:
we emphasize that the critical analysis of a “rebellion” centers on the nature of the resistance to governmental authority. Political opposition is not rebellion. A protest does not become a rebellion merely because the protestors advocate for myriad legal or policy changes, are well organized, call for significant changes to the structure of the U.S. government, use civil disobedience as a form of protest, or exercise their Second Amendment right to carry firearms as the law currently allows. Nor does a protest become a rebellion merely because of sporadic and isolated incidents of unlawful activity or even violence committed by rogue participants in the protest. Such conduct exceeds the scope of the First Amendment, of course, and law enforcement has apprehended the perpetrators accordingly. But because rebellions at least use deliberate, organized violence to resist governmental authority, the problematic incidents in this record clearly fall within the considerable daylight between protected speech and rebellion. Applying our tentative understanding of “rebellion” to the district court’s factual findings, and even after affording great deference to the President’s evaluation of the circumstances, we see insufficient evidence of a rebellion or danger of rebellion in Illinois. The spirited, sustained, and occasionally violent actions of demonstrators in protest of the federal government’s immigration policies and actions, without more, does not give rise to a danger of rebellion against the government’s authority. The administration thus has not demonstrated that it is likely to succeed on this issue.
we emphasize that the critical analysis of a “rebellion” centers on the nature of the resistance to governmental authority. Political opposition is not rebellion. A protest does not become a rebellion merely because the protestors advocate for myriad legal or policy changes, are well organized, call for significant changes to the structure of the U.S. government, use civil disobedience as a form of protest, or exercise their Second Amendment right to carry firearms as the law currently allows. Nor does a protest become a rebellion merely because of sporadic and isolated incidents of unlawful activity or even violence committed by rogue participants in the protest. Such conduct exceeds the scope of the First Amendment, of course, and law enforcement has apprehended the perpetrators accordingly. But because rebellions at least use deliberate, organized violence to resist governmental authority, the problematic incidents in this record clearly fall within the considerable daylight between protected speech and rebellion.
Applying our tentative understanding of “rebellion” to the district court’s factual findings, and even after affording great deference to the President’s evaluation of the circumstances, we see insufficient evidence of a rebellion or danger of rebellion in Illinois. The spirited, sustained, and occasionally violent actions of demonstrators in protest of the federal government’s immigration policies and actions, without more, does not give rise to a danger of rebellion against the government’s authority. The administration thus has not demonstrated that it is likely to succeed on this issue.
If and to the extent that "the President is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States," I hardly think that the agents of ICE are drawn from the ranks of lily-livered, hothouse flowers who are prone to heebie jeebies.
Cut and pasting excerpts from the Federal Rules of Procedure may make you feel informed NG, but it doesn’t make the underlying decision of the District Court correct. Nor the appellate court that upholds them. Ask the Supreme Court emergency docket.
Insightful.
Being called uninformed by Riva is akin to being called ugly by a frog.
Pretty audacious comment from a clown playing with the law who believes cut and pasting whole excerpts of text can substitute for an actual argument. I suppose that’s an improvement over your usual reliance on dicta or overruled cases.
The deference to findings of fact is a reason the most important cases with disputed facts should be decided by a three judge District Court. Whether Pritzker or Trump wins the battle of the egos is not important.
Most of the real issues are not factual, but the judge's opinions about the need for the National Guard. She believes that the fact that "ICE’s enforcement activity has resulted in significantly higher numbers of deportations and arrests in 2025 as compared with 2024," means that the National Guard isn't needed. Nobody can disagree with the quoted fact, but her baseline for need is a personal invention. She believes "vigorous enforcement" is not necessary for a community traumatized by a history of the Chicago PD's excessive use of violence, but the Chicago PD stands willing and able to help. (So long as state and local law do not prevent it from doing so)
I do agree with her opinion that 500 National Guard members is de minimis (though not sure where that number came from), but that works both ways. She's extrapolating great harms from the deployment from small numbers, while denying any benefits. A more judicious recent opinion from a California District Court judge that went against the administration on related issues conceded that some benefits had been achieved from National Guard deployment since June.
Also she disagrees with the 9th Circuit's decision in Newsom v. Trump, which is obviously an issue of law.
First, the DOJ argued the decision to deploy the guard under the statute is not reviewable. That argument is a loser. The DOJ is making this argument more and more and its a concerning argument to me when the framework here is Congress delegating some of its authority to the President. After all, its a statue passed by Congress that is being employed by the Executive branch. I don't understand the argument or why they keep making it other than to say, "The President IS the law and when he/she decides to act to deploy the US military against its own people the decision is final and unreviewable." A pretty terrible argument to make in a system of separate and competing powers of branches of govt. Especially in the context of making the argument against the wishes of the State where the troops are being deployed (i.e, triggers federalism concerns).
Second, section (3) of the statute has a condition that must be met for the deployment to be lawful: The President is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States.
The factual recitation in the first several pages of the ruling goes into great detail how the IL State Police, county police and local police have and continue to have control of the protests and set up a joint command to coordinate crowd control and other measures. At no point, has the protests been so unruly or out of control that these entities have not been able to maintain control. In addition, throughout the term of the enhanced federal crackdown, has ICE or CBP been unable to effectuate arrests and continue their mission. All of which goes to show that the condition in subsection (3) has not been met.
The administration has this recurring problem. They go on T.V. and Fox News and brag about their success. They boast of arresting 1,000 or more illegals in Chicago. That bragging directly contradicts their legal arguments that they are unable to enforce federal law. Ultimately, the district court (among others) cannot take the DOJ's arguments seriously nor find their arguments credible when its contradicted by Dept Heads who go squawking to the news contradicting their own lawyers accounts to federal judges. Judges are not rubber stamps. When it involves deploying soldiers against citizens the judges, who claim they need to be deferential to the President, should actually be deferential to the citizens. The US Military is not at war against their own people. Treating protestors like enemies on the battlefield is MASSIVELY overkill and most people with more than one brain cell understand this simple fact as well as the danger of precedent that would be set that the President can call out the fucking Army against its own people every time their feelings get hurt.
The troops don't deserve to be pawns in these stupid games. Trump has no respect for the troops and devalues their service by sending them to do protest monitoring. Not to mention the huge cost. Lastly, F Trump and Hegseth and the DOJ for even arguing that disagreeing with the President's agenda and exercising 1st amendment protected activity deserves a military response. That is showing massive disrespect for fundamental American values and is anti-American in itself and should be called out.
The first Antifa terrorist prosecution has been filed:
US prosecutors bring first antifa terrorism charges in Texas police shooting case.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-prosecutors-bring-first-antifa-terrorism-charges-texas-police-shooting-case-2025-10-16/
A good start but we need more robust Antiterrorism legislation to break up rings like that get access to the data on their phones and not hide behind the "so called" right to remain silent.
The actual indictment is here: https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2025/10/prairieland-texas-ice-attack-antifa-material-support-terrorism-indictment.pdf
Who is the unidentified flying ringleader labeled "Coconspirator-1"? And why has he not been charged?
I am not sure that this indictment comports with the Sixth Amendment requirement that the accused be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation. The conduct of Messrs. Arnold and Evetts is nowhere set forth in the indictment. While they are charged with aiding and abetting the perpetrator, allegations as to what they are alleged to have done or failed to do are remarkably absent.
Well it could anyone of three things, and the jury can just agree that it's any one of those three things.
Problem solved!
That’s your logic? A criminal indictment is questionable only because a co-conspirator hasn’t been charged? Why, that’s never happened before. One would think such a legal mastermind such as yourself would understand that is generally policy, based on underlying constitutionalconsiderations, not to name uncharged persons. And that there are a variety of strategic, evidentiary, and procedural reasons why this might have happened here. One of the scumbags may even be cooperating.
I am suggesting that this particular indictment fails to put the defendants on notice of what conduct they are accused of. The indictment is not the only means of satisfying the Sixth Amendment requirement that the accused be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation. The Court could order a bill of particulars.
I just find it curious that the main perpetrator -- whose conduct is described to some extent -- is uncharged, while alleged aiders and abettors are.
You’re rather confused. There is no requirement in an indictment to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. The indictment is more than sufficient as a charging instrument.
"You’re rather confused. There is no requirement in an indictment to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt. The indictment is more than sufficient as a charging instrument."
I don't think this particular indictment satisfies the requirement of being "a plain, concise, and definite written statement of the essential facts constituting the offense charged" as required by Fed.R.Crim.P. 7(c)(1). Legal conclusions are not facts.
Riva, could you read this bare bones indictment and, without resort to any other source of information. tell me what conduct Messrs. Arnold and Evetts are being called upon to answer?
The other defendants have been held on a complaint. On October 6 the government moved for an extension of time to file an indictment because "both parties believe that the case may be resolved pre-indictment." See case 4:25-mj-00452 (N.D. Tex.) at https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/70726200/united-states-v-arnold/.
The present indictment is under 4:25-cr-000259 at https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/71664444/united-states-v-arnold/
Thank you for the links. The complaint does give considerably more detail.
Maybe this has something to do with it:
https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/attorney-general-ken-paxton-launches-undercover-operations-infiltrate-and-uproot-leftist-terror
As for co-conspirator, could it be this guy:
https://www.khou.com/article/news/crime/12th-suspect-charged-shooting-alvarado-police-officer/287-a3ca3e10-b1b4-48cc-99df-6a0e3e433b28#:~:text=On%20Tuesday%2C%20July%2015%2C%20the%20Johnson%20County%20Sheriff%27s,of%20discharging%20a%20firearm%20during%20a%20violent%20crime.
Up until now they were saying Song was the one who shot the officer. Was he a plant? Guess we'll find out.
NG We are all Curious if ANTIFA doesnt exist, then why was Keith Ellison promoting ANTIFA?
https://www.facebook.com/DonaldTrump4President/posts/-keith-ellison-just-claimed-antifa-doesnt-exist-you-cant-make-this-upminnesota-a/1232737885548905/
After a trial in TX, before a jury of their peers, these cretins will be found guilty. And sentenced to do hard time.
There were actually 10 people arrested. I expect more indictments.
Seeing as ANITIFA does not exist and has no members, this little legal expedition should be quite amusing. However, violent, pro-Nazi, antisemitic organizations such as Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, Young Republicans and Turning Point do exist. But to be fair, the latter two have not engaged in violence.
>Seeing as ANITIFA does not exist and has no members, this little legal expedition should be quite amusing.
If a male identifies as a woman, you believe that male is a real woman. If the same male ALSO identifies as an ANTIFA member, you believe he vanishes from reality.
They are at least consistent in their denial of reality.
Or maybe that's the most they can claim.
Your evidence is protestors sometimes dress in black (when they don’t dress like scary frogs) and there are websites with Antifa in the title.
Maybe the DoJ has more than that, but you sure got nothing.
Is that really all you think exists out there in the human reality/universe for evidence of ANTIFA? Does your kind live in a different reality than humans?
People dressed in black and websites with titles?
How many full time jobs are you holding? 3 like those other govies? Is gaslighting and obfuscating online one of them?
The indictment talks about ANTIFA. Basically it conflates marxist anarchists and black bloc activists together and calls them all anti-fascist. Which is not quite right to me. Like in the anarchist libertarian space; they come in many varieties. There could be loose filaments that would make antifa more sympathetic to anarchists in some contexts compared to say... MAGA republicans. But that doesn't mean they are the same, have the same ideologies or goals.
Anti-fascists have not declared war on America. They oppose fascism. If America isn't fascist, there is no problem. Anarchists oppose all states/govts. Black Bloc seems to be a tactic employed by groups when actively protesting. Conflating it all together so that any marxist/socialist = antifa is fucked up because marxist state's could also have fascist tendencies or be fascist which would be diametrically opposed by anti-fascists.
Basically, the DOJ is in way over its head here. In an effort to simplify complex relationships and belief systems: any socialist, marxist, anarchist, or protestor is 'antifa' and therefore a domestic terrorist would wants to destroy America which is completely and totally made up bullshit. And a huge red flag that the DOJ is not being serious here but using national security laws in total bad faith to pursue other aims. I.e, weaponization of the law they swear up and down they are totally committed to not doing. If they say it enough maybe they will convince their 25% of dedicated supporters its true but nobody else should be so naive.
It seems the thread is drifting from "ha ha -- Antifa doesn't exist" to "ha ha -- you haven't defined Antifa super-precisely enough."
The pragmatist in me struggles to understand how either somehow erases the facts on the ground that groups of bad dude/ttes are doing bad dude/tte things. Here, should the indictment be dropped?
Antifa exists in small groups on a city-by-city basis. And yes, they engage in terrorism. But, the problem is the administration is pushing the narrative that it is well organized domestic terrorist organization that is the driving force behind the anti-ICE and No Kings protests (which many in the GOP have called the hate-America rally). That's authoritarian bullshit aimed at silencing dissent.
"Antifa exists in small groups on a city-by-city basis."
So its organized by cell.
"A clandestine cell system is a method for organizing a group of people, such as resistance fighters, spies, mercenaries, organized crime members, or terrorists, to make it harder for police, military or other hostile groups to catch them. In a cell structure, each cell consists of a relatively small number of people, who know little to no information concerning organization assets (such as member identities) beyond their cell." wikipedia
There are no cells because there is no organization, clandestine or otherwise, amongst them.
Antifa exists in small groups on a city-by-city basis. And yes, they engage in terrorism.
Doesn't it begin and end right there? If you engage in terrorism, the conversation is over. That isn't peaceful civic dissent, that is violent anarchy against civil society. You don't get a veto over civil society. You get detected, detained, and incarcerated.
You are confusing peaceful dissent with domestic terrorism. One is ok (and I heartily endorse), the other is not.
“ Doesn't it begin and end right there? If you engage in terrorism”
No. If you say something is an organization that is, demonstrably NOT an organization, you are lying in your criminal indictment. I’m sure the bar frowns upon such things, but I’m equally sure Ken Paxton will continue to have a license, since none of the various and sundry other corruptions and falsehoods that he has engaged in have convinced the Texas Bar to strip him of his license.
"no organization, clandestine or otherwise, amongst them"
How do you know this?
We have communication devices we carry around. Easy to coordinate these days.
Substitute "Trump is" for "You are" and you hit the nail on the head.
See point #1 in this article to support the conclusion the local groups aren't coordinating.
"See point #1 in this article to support the conclusion the local groups aren't coordinating."
Oh, unknown group says something. How do they know there is no communication?
"ACLED receives financial support from the United Nations Complex Risk Analytics Fund (CRAF’d)."
UN funded, of course.
I think it's safe to say the state and federal infiltrators would coordinate, at least indirectly through their handlers.
Federal infiltrators? Handlers?
JR - Our Texas AG has said openly announced a program of infiltrating leftist terror cells, in an official press release. Infiltrators by definition have handlers.
As for the feds, I would just assume. The FBI has a long history of planting people in right wing militias and it's hard to imagine they weren't doing the left wing even in the previous admin, and more so under Patel.
I'd go so far as to say Patel would be incompetent if he wasn't doing informants/infiltrators. What makes it right or wrong is whether the infiltrators are trying to head off incidents or trying to create incidents.
So what that the infiltrators have coordination and handlers. The so-called "cells" do not.
“ It seems the thread is drifting from "ha ha -- Antifa doesn't exist" to "ha ha -- you haven't defined Antifa super-precisely enough."”
No, dumbass. It has always been, and still is, “Antifa isn’t an organization”. MAGA and the hard right are convinced that it is, but much like ghosts and Sasquatch, they insist that without any evidence whatsoever.
Antifa is exactly the same as hard-right militias. It is a general category that covers numerous groups that share a general ideology (in this case, opposing fascism).
Exactly like calling militias “a group”, calling Antifa “a group” is a lie. But Ken Paxton and Greg Abbott are quite accomplished at openly ignoring facts and lying directly to their constituents’ faces, so it’s par for the course.
If you believe Antifa is a group, you are either a liar. Or an idiot. Or so invested in far-right narratives that you can’t recognize reality. Or all three.
If it’s a paleocon saying it, it’s guaranteed to be all three.
MAGA isn't an organization either, so it doesn't exist to all the people who say Antifa doesn't exist.
Antifa is a label to describe all those people out there who self identify as 'Antifa' and have shared 'Antifa' beliefs, and do 'Antifa' activities together.
Who gives a shit if it's some structured organization or not. You people are just lying and gaslighting trying to obfuscate from the very real idea of 'Antifa' that pulling many people into alignment on thought and on action.
“ MAGA isn't an organization either, so it doesn't exist to all the people who say Antifa doesn't exist.”
MAGA is a faction of the American conservative political party, the Republicans. The GOP is an organization.
The lack of seriousness of MAGA supporters is mindboggling.
“ Who gives a shit if it's some structured organization or not”
If it doesn’t matter, stop saying it. But you keep saying it, so obviously it is important to you and your fellow travelers.
Life of Brian: Let me illustrate an example for you. Let us just say there is an ANCAP (or anarchist capitalist) that is pissed off that the US Govt under Trump keeps buying stakes in companies; or is absolutist on free trade and is pissed off at tariffs. Not unrealistic for someone who is both capitalist and anarchist.
That person, due to their avowed anarchist association, is lumped in with ANTIFA and marxist/socialist anarchists.
While there is a thing in common (anarchism) the two are wildly different. But both are now domestic terrorists.
Words have meaning and definitions are important. Plenty of people identify with anti-fascism because they hate fascists. But not all ANTIFA are anarchists or black bloc tactic supporters nor all people opposed to fascism socialists. Like me. I say, Fuck All Fascists and am economically moderate. I am not an anarchist. But ALL of us are lumped together as domestic terrorists? F all that. A definition that all encompassing is designed intentionally for massive abuse.
I get that you're disputing the academic grouping. What I don't get is why it matters on a practical level. You think mislabeling allows individuals to be prosecuted for crimes they committed, whereas under proper labeling somehow they couldn't be?
As I have said before, "Antifa" is not really a thing, but they do have a banging theme song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRG0PdVzNro&list=RDmRG0PdVzNro&start_radio=1
Wach' auf, ruff' dich die Stimme
Keith Ellison thinks otherwise
Don't forget Ellison's son who is a Minneapolis city council member https://sovereignnations.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/jeramiah-ellison_840x480-768x439.jpg
lot of fraud under MN AG 's watch Ellison hobnob'd with many of the players https://www.justice.gov/usao-mn/pr/56th-defendant-pleads-guilty-feeding-our-future-fraud-scheme
Minnesota AG Keith Ellison seems to believe Antifa exists.
https://www.bizpacreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Screen-Shot-2019-07-01-at-1.57.59-PM.png
That's a book.
It's not a well-funded nationally coordinated organization being covered for by left-wing judges and prosecutors.
Such a weak attempt at denial
They are so so so very invested in denying Antifa exists. Makes one wonder why?
Because truth matters. I know you disagree.
Because unlike MAGA and their paleocon allies, most people think that if you claim something is an organization, it should be, you know, an organization.
People know that militias exist, but no one insists that it is an organization. Why you idiots insist that black is white and up is down is beyond me, but that is the level of dishonesty anyone who claims Antifa is an organization is engaging in.
If this were the Biden administration and Antifa were political opponents, they’d be in deep shit. At the very least, one or more Biden thugs would be spying on them full time. Just ask some Republican senators.
Just like Brett below, you have to make up scary stories about Democrats.
I wish the sick abuse of power known as Operation Arctic Frost really didn’t exist. Unfortunately it did. And the thug Smith has some explaining to do.
Anyone want to say why John Bolton ought not be indicted?
No.
John-Boy was very naughty, and will now go to the Big House.
Yes. We can't have people criticising the Great Leader, can we?
Eurotrash....
Does John-Boy do a perp walk? And does John-Boy go to the Big House?
If you share classified information with people not authorized to see it, you're toast.
LOOOOOLLLL!!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_prosecution_of_Donald_Trump_(classified_documents_case)
A prosecution that was dropped.
John-Boy's prosecution won't be dropped. He'll have to experience the legal process, up close and personal. One weeps.
It was dropped because Trump ran out the clock until cretins like you voted him back into office, not because he was innocent or because he didn't belong behind bars.
It was dropped because it was an engineered setup and the conspirators lost their grip on authority.
It was dropped because it was an engineered setup
Stop lying.
Jesus. You’re not just a virulent racist, you’re delusional in multiple other areas, too. Of course you are deeply conservative and a Trump supporter. Are you a Holocaust denier, too?
It was dropped in large part because President Trump had ( and does again) the authority to declassify whatever he damn well pleased and the simple act of ordering documents sent to Mar-a-Lago creates the defense that they were declassified making a conviction before a fair court extremely unlikely.
Cool story, bro. Now do the obstruction of justice count. Please explain how returning a small package of documents and instructing your attorney to certify ' after a thorough search, this is all the documents responsive to the subpeona' works when there are like 15 more boxes full of documents responsive to the subpoena being moved around and hidden. Love to hear that explanation.
Not only are you wrong on the facts and law, but you're wrong about what the charges were and what happened in the case.
1. The act of ordering documents sent to Mar-a-Lago in no way creates any such defense. 2. The main charge was about national defense information, not classified documents. 3. The second charge was about obstruction relating to documents with classification markings, not classified documents. 4. The case was dismissed by Cannon because of her refusal to follow binding Supreme Court precedent about Smith's appointment. 5. The appeal was dismissed by the government because Trump was elected president and OLC says that sitting presidents cannot be prosecuted.
But not because he was innocent.
That (lack of innocence) is an opinion, not a fact. Different rules apply to a POTUS. That was always a big sticking point.
That (lack of innocence) is an opinion, not a fact.
Yes, but I did not assert his lack of innocence, only that the case was not dropped because of Trump's innocence, as you well know.
Different rules apply to a POTUS.
Nor was that the reason it was dropped. Different rules apply to Trump when an SC justice and a Trump=appointed judge decide that they do,
Uh huh. The fact is, the case was dropped. I know, you're crestfallen.
John-Boy's case won't be dropped. John-Boy should prepare to spend time behind bars, and make peace with his Maker. The sooner the better; John-Boy has much to atone for. At his age, any sentence (heck, even a plea bargain with reduced time behind bars) could effectively be life in prison, or a death sentence.
His best move is to cop a quick plea.
So you were wrong about what SRG2 wrote.
Rather than owning up, you make a weak attack on him and then pivot to some 12-year-old nickname bit with your usual gloating about the misery of people.
What attack? John-Boy made his bed on cable tv; now he lies in it. Looks like a very uncomfortable bed right now. He did to himself out of arrogance and vanity.
Bolton's options are very few. He isn't a billionaire. He isn't young. He has few friends in high places. Emails and email content doesn't lie. Time behind bars at Club Fed represents life opportunity lost. A prolonged fight wears away at your mental and emotional state, and your family around you. Takes a physical toll, too. I've laid out a pretty pragmatic picture where John-Boy is right now.
His best move is to cop a quick plea. Maybe you recommend something else, from a legal and life perspective. But he won't win a fight against the fed gov't w/o vast resources.
The funniest part is that John Bolton is a rock-ribbed conservative (like Liz Cheney), just the wrong kind of hard-right conservative these days.
Please, MAGA, keep winnowing away the moderate and reasonable conservatives from your coalition. In a perfect world it will leave the GOP as an extremist party and the normal, sane people will form a center-right party that doesn’t denigrate and disparage America and our Constitution.
In the most perfect world they would be joined by the center-left and form a centrist party that comprised the 44% of registered voters who don’t like either party.
I think the new "off with their heads" C_XY is overstating the risks.
1. Pretty good chance of an acquittal or hung jury in that part of Maryland. Both the liberals and the beltway pre-MAGA Republicans are candidates for holdout juror.
2. Even if found guilty on some counts, the chances are he would get probation as a first time non-violent offender.
3. If sent to prison, and with motions and appeals that wouldn't happen prior to 2027, he's very likely to get a commutation if not pardon effective January 2029. I imagine Cruz, Rubio, DeSantis, Newsom, Pritzker, Shapiro would all spring him, albeit for different reasons. Only plausible candidates I could see keeping him in are Vance or Donald Jr. So really two years at the outside.
ducksalad....Bolton is 76 years young. When John-Boy goes to the Big House, there is more than a passing chance he leaves the Big House feet first. A year is a year...a year in the Big House at age 26 is not the same as a year in the Big House at 76.
Cop the plea, John-Boy.
Never have liked Bolton, but he strikes me as a person inclined to double down, even when it's not in his best interest. Not very likely that you'll get some scene where he grovels in front of a judge and says how much he regrets what he did and please can he have a light sentence.
But in this case it wouldn't even be in his interest to cave. He's got a good chance of getting off completely. The grand jury probably heard that he gave classified information to unnamed third parties, calling up a mental image of documents stamped top secret and clandestine meetings. The trial jury will hear that the classified info was his own diary notes and the third parties were his wife and daughter seeing that diary.
Perhaps if DoJ could get him to cave if they stooped to the level of threatening to arrest his wife and daughter. I don't think that'll happen, if for no other reason than Bondi has family of her own and knows that the tables could be turned in 2029. But who knows.
Innocent or not, it was one of myriad initiatives to get a political opponent that, butfor being an irritating presidential opponent, would never have seen the light of day.
I keep pointing out the reason for things like the 4th Amendment aren't because the government might plant evidence, but because anyone with enough wealth and power to challenge those in power, tyrant kings historically, have their fingers in many pies, and those tyrants, corrupt themselves, know they need only filch through mountains of financial paperwork and they're guaranteed to find something.
Hence you are stuck faceting concern for rule of law, a cover story for good old fishing expeditions.
'member with Bill Clinton and the shoe was on the other foot? Yay, special prosecutor not afraid to follow that daisy chain of illegality wherever it leads!
Here, they merely play the game. The same game you played for eight years.
My sigh is nobody will learn. Again. Eventually it will be back to business as usual.
Faceting again?
I noted its use twice in the same post as bad form, as I composed it, but then wth'd.
Is a special prosecutor going after Comey, Bolton, etc? Or is it directly the DOJ?
Appears to be directly the DOJ. Which raises potential conflict of interest/ethical concerns I would think.
Because of an idiot Trumpist judge.
You mean your King Pederaster?? I've been criticising him the last few days and I don't even know who he is.
And, from those ranting irresponsibly about the Trump administration, I love to see some criticism of Mamdani’s threat to illegally arrest Netanyahu. Nothing authoritative there I guess, as long as power is abused to attack jews. An old story with the left.
So you don't like people who mishandle classified docs, eh?
No, or stealing Valor, might want to fix that.
I don't know why you rubes turned on Bolton. He has been a lib-owning hardline conservative his whole wretched life
War mongering neo-cons have found their homes on your side of the aisle now. That's why the Democrats are in such uproar over his indictment. He's Team D now.
We don't claim Bolton at all. He's a completely eat-you-own own-goal for MAGA. Ya'll can do whatever you like to him.
MAGA doesn't exist.
Because John Bolton was and remains a war-monging asshole
I don't know why you rubes turned on Bolton
Same reason once he did something to piss off Trump, CNN put this hated war hawk on a Greek column and pointed fun laser light shows on him.
Trump's scorched earth behavior on former supporters was long since a joke by that point, but so, too, was CNN's behavior to pull up quick and retrieve it.
Maybe the question should be the judgement of a President that would hire a man like John Bolton?
That was a bad choice, I agree
Yes = bad choice
He was a compromise choice after POTUS Trump went through a mini-slew NatSec Advisors.
It wasn't a compromise choice Trump saw Bolton on Fox TV and since the President is functionally illiterate he is asked Bolton to take the position. Trump was fine till he found out he Bolton wasn't the ass kissers he like to surround himself with. No compromise, no mistake just bad judgement.
sorry, it was not that Bolton is not an ass-kisser. He is a dangerous ideologue plus an asshole on a personal level. He violated the rules that he sign when given clearances. Let him twist in the wind.
You nailed it. Bolton damn near screwed the pooch on Iran and N Korea while in 45's administration.
Yes he was dangerous and if President Trump could read he would have known that fact. Instead he just takes what he sees on Fox News.
I thought Trump and Fox had a parting of the way.
Just because he was stealing all the Fox air time talent.
He probably did it. He probably wouldn't be prosecuted if he was politically aligned with Trump. The next few years will make a good contribution to the case law on vindictive prosecution.
He probably wouldn't be prosecuted if he was politically aligned with Trump
Not only would he certainly have not been prosecuted under Trump, if he'd been prosecuted under Biden, the prosecution would have been dropped, and if he'd already been convicted, Trump would have pardoned him.
I have heard reporting that the Bolton indictment was the result of an investigation begun in 2021 by the Biden DOJ and that career prosecutors are much more comfortable with it than with the Comey charade, so maybe it is legit. We'll see what develops.
MSNBC is reporting that the US Atty for Maryland, Kelly Hayes -- who just indicted John Bolton at Trump's behest -- is herself "bracing for being fired" by Trump when she refuses to indict Adam Schiff.
https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/news/trumps-doj-punitive-firings-public-scoldings-pressure-prosecute-foes-rcna237622
Always more, always worse.
If Hamas is going to have public executions, why can't we just follow with a drone strike? It would put an end to this....
Why would you want to? Arabs killing other Arabs, might as well try to get Dogs to stop chasing cars
Bark Weiss took her first scalp at CBS news, and it was probably a good place to start: the head of Standards and Practices.
"The head of CBS News’ standards and practices unit — who presided over some of the network’s recent controversial, woke reporting — is out as new boss Bari Weiss looks to bring more balance to the left-leaning network.
Claudia Milne, who ran the division responsible for the moral, ethical and legal implications of CBS programming, is the first senior executive to leave the network since Weiss arrived as editor in chief earlier this month."
https://nypost.com/2025/10/16/media/woke-cbs-news-standards-chief-is-bari-weiss-first-scalp-as-new-boss-remakes-network
"...moral, ethical and legal implications of CBS programming,..." Other than legal, what is the purpose of this position to a network which purports to report the news rather than opinion?
I normally have as little patience for standards & practices in US TV stations as you seem to, but this doesn't seem like a great signal. Even if this person was a complete idiot, making them the first person to get fired sends the message that CBS News under Bari Weiss is going to be run pretty much the same as her previous company, i.e. with zero interest in quality or ethical journalism.
Milne resigned. "According to sources on Thursday morning’s editorial call, Milne announced to staff that she had resigned. While giving thanks for her time at the network, Milne did not offer a reason for her exit. Sources added that Weiss was not part of the editorial meeting." https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/cbs-news-head-of-standards-quits-bari-weiss-b2846838.html By the way, what is "ethical" journalism" and when was the last time CBS practiced it?
That's quite possibly even worse. If this person truly resigned, instead of "resigning", it's a signal that they don't believe Bari Weiss will practice ethical journalism.
It's like Admiral Holsey resigning because he doesn't want to be in the murdering civilians business. Resigning is a way for someone with convictions to not just talk the talk but also walk the walk.
Remember, voters having access to independent media is one of the criteria for free and fair elections...
Just virtue signalling on Milne's part. By the way, the coverage of this story goes to my point about modern "journalism". Most outlets coverage led even fairly intelligent people, such as yourself, to believe she was fired, rather than resigning. Bring back reporters and reporting.
Bring back reporters and reporting.
That would be good. But hiring Bari Weiss is the opposite of that.
"But hiring Bari Weiss is the opposite of that." You are entitled to your opinion but that's all it is. Time will tell if your opinion is true or false.
It's an opinion in the same way that gravity is an opinion.
As so often, John Oliver has already explained it much better than I ever could.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gieTx_P6INQ
"It's my opinion, I swear" "Here's John Oliver to tell you my opinion!"
lol
Martinned: "Bari Weiss is not a reporter. [That's] an opinion in the same way that gravity is an opinion."
That's a stupid, stupid remark. And it's stupid.
Watch the video.
She's written opinion pieces; never done any reporting.
And her job isn't, and hasn't been, being a reporter.
And Martinned's opinion bears no likeness to the certainty of gravity.
So you acknowledge "Bari Weiss is not a reporter" is a fact. It is not an opinion.
Your bluster does you no favors.
Regarding “wokeism,” there’s an interesting new explanation, the great feminization thesis, elaborated on by Helen Andrews at compactmag.com:
Wokeness is not a new ideology, an outgrowth of Marxism, or a result of post-Obama disillusionment. It is simply feminine patterns of behavior applied to institutions where women were few in number until recently.
As a little communist girl, you must have some opinions Sarcastr0.
"John Oliver has already explained it much better"
Good lord. A rock can explain things better than John Oliver.
John Oliver? Really? One of the worst of the hacks.
https://reason.com/2025/10/14/what-john-oliver-gets-wrong-about-bari-weiss-and-cbs-news/?nab=0
That's a really weak story.
His arguments are: 1) Oliver should have made fewer arguments 2) The media is liberal so opinion journalists leading newsrooms is good actually, if they're conservative.
It reminds me of the comments we've been getting lately about schools - it's okay to wreck things if you decide some part of them is too liberal.
First, the link does not support the claim that Oliver is a "hack." Second, I didn't think that was a very good rebuttal to Oliver at all. (I have seen Oliver sporadically, but I rarely if ever have sat through a whole show. The Bari Weiss one was no exception; I watched about the first half of it before I was called away, and never came back to finish.) Oliver's point (at least as far as I got into his show) was not merely that she has worked on the opinion side (that is a relatively weak criticism of her hiring), but that she has never worked as a news reporter. And that the Free Press is not very good at reporting.
In any case, the main point is that (pace Soave), Barri Weiss is not an interesting or heterodox thinker at all — as several current or former Reason people have pointed out in recent months/years.
So is having media that are honest and thorough, not perpetrating frauds and deliberately keeping the public in the dark about important matters.
It appears to me that Milne leaving for the wrong reasons isn't a conclusion for you, it's a premise. And an unshakable one; You're simply not willing to consider that Milne might have needed to be gotten rid of.
You're simply not willing to consider that Milne might have needed to be gotten rid of.
Wait, I thought we'd just established that she resigned? Which is it?
You think resigning is incompatible with needing to be gotten rid of? I don't see how.
No, I think it is incompatible with being gotten rid of.
But I didn't say Milne was gotten rid of. I said that she might have needed to be gotten rid of.
Many who need to be gotten rid of aren't, many who don't need to be gotten rid of are. They're different things.
You're not familiar with the concept of "I'm going to be fired for cause tomorrow, so I'll resign today so I can say it was my choice"?
Meanwhile, NBC actually fires 150 DEI editorial staffers. https://pjmedia.com/bryan-s-jung/2025/10/17/leftist-advocates-panic-as-nbc-news-to-terminate-nearly-150-dei-editorial-staff-n4944914
don't worry Martin. those have been missing for years at cbs
The first of many, many scalps, Kaz.
I smiled at the position title, Head of Standards and Practices. What standards, lmao? The standards that lead to multi-million dollar payouts for false reporting?
The standards that lead to multi-million dollar payouts for false reporting?
I don't think it's her fault that she couldn't stop her bosses from bribing Trump.
There were no payouts for false reporting.
No, Paramount settled the suit to avoid discovery which might have shown false reporting.
It did not in fact do any such thing. It paid a bribe to Trump to approve the Skydance merger. There was no "discovery which might have shown" anything, because all the facts about their report are already publicly known: they interviewed Harris and aired a condensed version on 60 minutes. The longer version and transcript are already public, so discovery can't "show" them. Also, that case was never getting to discovery. It was subject to dismissal in about six different ways.
You know that is a bribe? Immediately report this to the FBI and DOJ, David = It paid a bribe to Trump to approve the Skydance merger.
David Notsoimportant still believes he's the smartest guy in the class because his parents told him he was gifted.
Yes, I know that it was a bribe.
XY, 120,000,000 Americans think it was a blatant bribe, in order to grease the wheels for the merger. Are you really this naive, or just pretending to be, in this particular case? 🙂
I'd like to find one attorney not on Trump's payroll who thinks this suit could've survived a motion to dismiss.
That must be quite a Christmas card list you have.
So will the DOJ be pursuing bribery charges against Paramount? Discovery would reveal more than just the tapes and transcripts, like who was responsible and why. Internal memos could be a bitch.
Any word on whether Gaylord Felcher will be her replacement, or is he sticking at NBC? Relatedly, how many times will the words "cat anus" be spoken on CBS now?
https://www.reddit.com/r/30ROCK/comments/pxaeys/just_a_friendly_reminder_that_the_head_of_the_nbc/
Here's a question: As a matter of US domestic law, can Congress declare a war that is (plainly) not a war?
I mean, the war on drugs was legally only a methaphorical war. And the war on terror can be thought of as an authorisation to engage in a potentially unlimited but very real armed conflicts. So the "war" aspect of the war on terror isn't the problem.
But what if Congress used its war powers to purport to authorise the president to blow up any ship he believes to be carrying drugs in the Caribbean? Would that be a valid authorisation of military force? Summary execution is plainly something very different than war.
This potentially matters because members of the military normally have legal immunity when they kill someone. After all, that's the whole point of war. You can't prosecute a soldier for killing an enemy on the battlefield, that would be crazy.
But if a member of the military murders people based on an unlawful order in the context of a situation that is plainly not a war, it's difficult to see why they shouldn't be prosecuted under UCMJ art. 118, i.e. for murder. Obviously the current Regime wouldn't do that, but we can still hope that someday democracy and the rule of law will be restored in the US.
This question is, frankly, kind of silly. So let me ask a similar question that might clarify for you why:
As a matter of US domestic law, can Congress declare a TAX? Even though it doesn't exist? The only answer to that is, um, yeah, of course they can.
Congress is given the power to declare war. Declarations of war don't just recognize existing wars. Often they function to create a war where there previously wasn't one.
A declaration of war absolutely creates a war where previously there wasn't one. That was an unstated premise behind my question. If there is an existing war, for example because the US has been invaded, Congress doesn't need to declare it.
But that doesn't mean there aren't limits on Congress's ability to create a war where previously there wasn't one. The thing it's purporting to create still has to be a "war" in some minimally plausible sense.
Eurotrash, maybe you'd like to tell us where in the Constitution it says, 'Yes, but' wrt Congress declaring war. I don't see it.
The constitution says "war". Words mean something.
For example, Congress couldn't have literally declared a war on drugs and authorised the president to shoot drug dealers on sight. No amount of Congressional action can make the war on drugs a war the way the civil war was.
The definition seems pretty simple. war /wôr/ noun 1. A state of open, armed, often prolonged conflict carried on between nations, states, or parties. 2.The period of such conflict. 3.The techniques and procedures of war; military science.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition • More at Wordnik
Yes. Shooting at civilian ships that are not engaged in any conflict does not fall under that definition.
I am pretty sure that, if somebody is shooting at you, you're involved in a conflict whether or not you want to be. It only takes one to make a war, you know.
So, yes, Congress can declare a war regardless of whether anybody else thinks they should, and having done so, there is, for purposes of domestic US law, a "war", because the Constitution gives the power to declare war to Congress, and nobody else.
It's a plenary power, nobody else is entitled to second guess them on it.
That reduces to the claim that Congress can authorise the President to shoot at anyone it likes whenever it likes wherever it likes, which sounds like a fishy idea to me.
"Congress can authorise the President to shoot at anyone it likes whenever it likes wherever it likes"
So long as it is not on US soil, yes it can.
Well, it's true, as long as they're not on US territory. Congress could authorize the President to invade Ontario, and while it would be a terrible idea, it would be legal.
Didn't you guys get (rightly) mad at the droning of that American citizen by Obama?
Sure, he was an American citizen, and outside a war zone. I'm sorry, weren't we discussing when Congress can declare war? I don't recall Obama, (Or Trump for that matter!) being Congress.
Brett, quietly going from engaged to involved sure is some low-key disingenuousness.
The Tripoli Pirate ships that Jefferson built the US Navy to shoot at?
I don't see any limit on the power of Congress to define what is a war.
I don't know where you're getting these limits from. The only limit I'm aware of is a majority vote by a quorum of Congress. It's not like a declaration of war could otherwise violate the Constitution.
You're desperately groping around for some excuse why the elected branches aren't really allowed to make policy choices you disapprove of. But, they are!
As per the above: words have meaning. Congress can declare war, not cheese.
Words have meaning, and sometimes the meaning is, "Somebody with the appropriate authority said so."
Thank you Dr. No.
Note that your comment here is 100% inconsistent with your areaman approach to constitutional interpretation.
You lack the appropriate authority, so does your "No" mean anything?
Meaning does not flow from political authority.
LEGAL meaning often flows from political authority.
Legal meaning of words in statutes is not divorced from actual English meaning.
Your example wherein it's not a massacre if the politicians say it's not by itself shows how immoral your stance can be.
"Legal meaning of words in statutes is not divorced from actual English meaning."
I'll throw that in your face the next time you're defending living constitutionalism.
"Your example wherein it's not a massacre if the politicians say it's not by itself shows how immoral your stance can be."
What the hell do you think "war" is, if you believe that war and massacres are mutually exclusive?
I said statutes, Brett, but nice try.
WRT the Constitution, you're still barking up the wrong (executive) tree. And also just discarding your longstanding BrettLaw take, as DMN pointed out.
Finally, it's telling how you need putt massacres into a war to find moral legitimacy. That is, of course, not true of all massacres. Insisting on that constraint is rather giving the game away.
What moral legitimacy? I'm only arguing LEGAL legitimacy here, and only then if Congress declares war.
Let's be clear: I am taking issue with Martinned's suggestion up thread that somebody disputing whether a war Congress declares is really a war might have any legal significance. It would not.
My personal opinion is that in an ideal world we'd end the war on drugs. (Though even THEN smuggling Fentanyl would still be a crime.) And in a somewhat more plausibly less idea world, we'd have captured them and put them on trial.
I am NOT defending the use of the military in this manner, I am just taking issue with Martinned above thinking that Congress' power to declare war can be limited in a particular way.
Congress's power to declare war is limited to declaring wars. Nobody can decide whether it's wise for Congress to declare war in a particular situation. But Congress cannot point to an apple orchard and say, "War against fruit trees is hereby declared." That just isn't a declaration of war, because that's not what the words "declaration of war" mean.
Brett is literally doing a 1984 bit but doesn’t see it.
No, if anybody is, you are.
Government says there's a war, and they're shooting at people, and you're all "Nah, man, this is Peace!"
Yes, the government shooting at people does not make a war.
Under your 1984 theory, government massacres of civilians must be a war because it's got too much bang bang to be peace?!
Yet again you prove to be the worst libertarian. Just a towering level of authoritarianism.
And there you have it, you're the 1984, Humpty Dumpty guy:
"The government shooting at people does not make a war."
Realistically, if the government is shooting at people, and says there's a war, screw you, there's a war. Whether there shouldn't be doesn't have any relevance, there IS one.
Words mean things.
Being mowed down by bullets doesn't make you a soldier, and a massacre isn't a war.
This is true whether or not the government says otherwise.
Sarcastr0: "Words mean things."
Bwaaah....what we have here is a Sarcastrism (words mean things); sort of like pretzel logic.
It's an argument that eats itself. And he, the remaining waste.
Hey, if three people in puppet costumes blocking a road makes Portland a "war zone," then a cop shooting a bank robber is actually a declaration of war.
Bootlicker Brett strikes again.
I don't LIKE Trump bombing these boats! Ideally, they'd be captured and put on trial. Super-ideally, we'd give up on the war on drugs.
But that doesn't make having the military bombing shit not "war".
I don't LIKE [...]
The perfunctory pretense at libertarianism.
But
And there it is.
I don't LIKE Trump bombing these boats! Ideally, they'd be captured and put on trial.
Ideally? There 's nothing unrealistic about that, is there? Trump is doing what he's doing because he wants to. Tell me something, Brett.
Give that he's not going to what you prefer, what is your second choice, just shooting them as he's doing or leaving them alone?
"But what if Congress used its war powers to purport to authorise the president to blow up any ship he believes to be carrying drugs in the Caribbean?"
I don't see why it would. Even if there were a more traditional war, I don't see how civilian drug smugglers are legitimate targets. Congress could change the UCMJ, but that would be different.
" don't see how civilian drug smugglers are legitimate targets"
Why not? Drug smuggling gangs [aka cartels] use violence, are armed, kill Americans via the drugs they send into the US.
Congress can reasonably conclude they are a clear and present danger to the security and welfare of the US.
It's not really any different legally from dealing with piracy on the high seas.
All those civilian pirates?
Hostis humani generis was a thing a long time ago. The law has changed a lot since then, and even then you needed evidence.
And it it is no longer a thing.
Yoo disagrees, but he's kind of a psycho.
Really? Many pirates were in fact captured, tried, and hanged if found guilty.
And many were not = captured, tried, and hanged if found guilty
...and now reside in Davey Jones' locker.
Congress has to speak to it, for it to matter.
And, what did I say above? That ideally they should be captured and put on trial.
Time for my general statement: Most of the time Trump is pursuing ends I approve of, using the worst possible means.
But you still defend the means.
tut-tut and then bending English, logic, and facts to defend the thing you claim to disapprove of is revealed preference, Brett.
No, I still defend the ends.
I'm NOT defending blowing up those boats. I don't think they should have been blown up. I don't even like the war on drugs!
But on the specific question as to whether, under the Constitution, Congress could delegate to the President the authority to do that sort of bad crap, yes, they could. Did they? No, I don't think they did. But they could, constitutionally.
Now, what's your opinion about Clinton blowing up a pharmaceutical plant, or Obama bombing a wedding reception? Good idea? Constitutional?
When it comes to civilian targets blown to hell by Presidents, drug running boats barely moves the needle compared to some of the stuff we've seen from past Presidents, and when the wolf is really at the door, man are you ever going to be hoarse.
What ends? And are there any means that you think would not be acceptable in pursuit of them? Where you would prefer leaving them alone?
It is different from dealing with piracy because the Navy is committing piracy. Or would be, if the definition weren't rigged to exclude state action.
Yeah, and the police would be committing kidnapping when they arrest you, if it weren't for the same thing. And don't even get me started on the scale at which the IRS commits extortion.
No, Brett, it isn't the same at all. The definition of kidnapping doesn't exclude police officers, and sometimes they do get charged, like in South Carolina earlier this year.
Together Congress and the President have full power over foreign affairs and the law of the sea. Unless a person outside of the United States has constitutional or statutory rights he's fair game. Trump can't (shouldn't) blow up boats on the Hudson River for fun because the occupants have rights. The courts decided, ad hoc, that detainees in Guantanamo have rights. But if Congress says designated narcoterrorists in international waters are fair game notwithstanding the general prohibition on murder, bombs away.
If the attacks are war, precedent says Congress does not need to recite the magic word "war." An authorization for use of military force is sufficient. Trump calls the drug smugglers terrorists. In 2001 Congress authorized military force against terrorists related to the 9/11 attacks. (That AUMF may be repealed soon.)
The United Nations is free to disagree. Under the U.S. Constitution domestic law can overrule international law. Trump might be proud to be kicked out of the UN, not that it would happen while the United States has a Security Council veto.
I explicitly (and intentionally) didn't ask about international law. If the Congress and the President agree that a bunch of murders are war when they plainly aren't, does that protect the participants against a subsequent prosecution by a different President, the way a lawful war would?
We don't have common law crimes at the federal level. If murder is illegal a statute makes it illegal. Congress can make exceptions to statutes.
Maybe a future US government will go the route of postwar Germany and prosecute people for going along with a previous government's policy. If this happens – Congress says bombing is legal and a future government has second thoughts – the Supreme Court will have to come up with a constitutional principle to allow prosecution. "You should have known better" with Latin words added. Due process is hereby extended to the high seas and due process requires a broadcast on 2182 KHz and 156.8 MHz with a surrender demand before opening fire. You should have known that. No immunity for you.
I think in such cases the people responsible would subsequently have to ve very picky about what foreign countries they visit. US law might protect them but not international law.
US power would protect them. We already have a statutory authorization to use force in place.
Not against countries who arrest US citizens for violations of international law.
Then we act without statutory authorization.
No country is going to try a high level former US official.
"he's fair game"
Yes, Congress can say we are at war with Dutchmen who make inane comments on US legal blogs and it would be constitutional and legal.
If more than half the country wants a war, even if it's a war on corn syrup, they are going to get it. If people don't want a war, they can vote their congress critter out.
Anyway, more often than not (since Jefferson), the President leads us into hot action, Congress follows.
Because I know that people here care passionately about free speech (as long as it doesn't involve criticising the Great Leader), I thought I'd note that an English court has held last week that no, there is still no crime of blasphemy in English law, not even if you classify it as harassment contrary to s. 5 of the Public Order Act 1986.
2. There is no offence of blasphemy in our law. Burning a Koran may be an act that many Muslims find desperately upsetting and offensive. The criminal law, however, is not a mechanism that seeks to avoid people being upset, even grievously upset. The right to freedom of expression, if it is a right worth having, must include the right to express views that offend, shock or disturb. 3. We live in a liberal democracy. One of the precious rights that affords us is to express our own views and read, hear and consider ideas without the state intervening to stop us doing so. The price we pay for that is having to allow others to exercise the same rights, even if that upsets, offends or shocks us.
2. There is no offence of blasphemy in our law. Burning a Koran may be an act that many Muslims find desperately upsetting and offensive. The criminal law, however, is not a mechanism that seeks to avoid people being upset, even grievously upset. The right to freedom of expression, if it is a right worth having, must include the right to express views that offend, shock or disturb.
3. We live in a liberal democracy. One of the precious rights that affords us is to express our own views and read, hear and consider ideas without the state intervening to stop us doing so. The price we pay for that is having to allow others to exercise the same rights, even if that upsets, offends or shocks us.
R. v. Hamit Coskun
(There was an offence of blasphemy in English law before 2008, but it only protected Christianity, and I don't think it was prosecuted very often.)
Here is the UK Human Rights blog on the same case: https://ukhumanrightsblog.com/2025/10/17/koran-burning-conviction-overturned-blasphemy-law-cannot-be-introduced-via-the-back-door/
Personally I would have preferred it if the courts had set the bar for prosecution for harassment a bit higher still...
You failed to mention that while Coskun was initially fined, the person who attacked him with a knife was given no jail time, only probation. Some support for free speech.
People who fail to learn from history might want to look into why Nathan Bedford Forrest did what he did....
Because he was a racist POS traitor.
I wasn't aware, but it doesn't necessarily seem strange to me. Particularly if they were a first offender, that doesn't sound like the sort of thing that gets you jail time. Getting jail time is actually quite hard for a first offender outside the United States.
On the 29th there will be a general election in the Netherlands, and in the last few days the campaign has really taken off. If people want to read a short update on where things are, Gordon Darroch's blog is a good place to start, with the caveat I usually put when I mention him here, which is that I can generally vouch for his facts but not his opinions.
https://wordsforpress.wordpress.com/2025/10/17/can-the-centre-hold-the-travails-of-henri-bontenbal/
My summary: It's a weird election.
It's very likely that the far right will come first, and it's even more likely that nobody will want to work with them. The mess that the far right made in the last government gives everyone all the excuse they need. Even politicians who fundamentally do want to work with the far right are forced to say that they won't.
But the result of that is that, as Darroch says, it's a pretty safe bet which four parties will form the coalition after the election. Unless voting intentions shift dramatically, it'll be the Christian-Democrats, the centre-right liberals, the centre-left liberals, and the Labour/Green party. Which makes everything the leaders of those parties currently say about who they will and will not work with after the election very weird.
The net effect is that the only real question left to be decided is who will be prime minister. That job will probably go to the leader of the party that comes out as the biggest after the far right. And so, as Darroch says, there is scope for weird dynamics. Labour leader Frans Timmermans is irrationally hated by the right-most third of the Dutch electorate for reasons that I've never understood. If it looks like he will be prime minister, that might swing a lot of voters to whichever party out of the centre four might beat him. On current polling, that would be the christian-democrats. The big losers out of that dynamic? Everyone else on the right.
But that's a lot of 5D chess. So the results of the election are still difficult to call, even though the broad outlines of the next government are not.
"Labour leader Frans Timmermans is irrationally hated by the right-most third of the Dutch electorate for reasons that I've never understood. "
Just a general question, asked out of no particular knowledge of your politics; Kind of related to Chesterton's fence.
If you don't understand the reasons, how do you know they're actually irrational?
If I did understand them, they wouldn't be irrational. There are lots of arguments that I understand but don't agree with. They are almost by definition not irrational.
"If I did understand them, they wouldn't be irrational."
That hardly follows. If you're like me, there are lots of things that you don't understand, but they're not irrational. It's not like I've got the built in understanding of all rational things, after all.
And there are plenty of irrational things that I understand. As a matter of human psychology, of course...
"There are lots of arguments that I understand but don't agree with. They are almost by definition not irrational."
That's not the definition of "irrational"!
No, that's not the definition of irrational. I didn't say it was. (Hence the "almost".) But "I understand this logic" is a definition of "rational".
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rational
Logically sound; not self-contradictory or otherwise absurd.
I would argue that there you're using "understand" in a different way. I understand the laws of gravity, and I understand many principles of human psychology. But that's not the same as what we were talking about before.
Well, what I mean is that if somebody constructs a logical argument, and you disagree with them about one of the premises, the argument can be logically sound, and they can be rational, no matter how much you disagree with that premise.
You can even not understand how anybody would disagree with that premise, and they're still being rational about the argument.
After all, if you shared all their premises, you'd probably BE one of them, no?
Oh no, that's the most obvious example of a rational argument I don't agree with: one that logically follows from the premises, but where I don't agree with one or more premises.
what I mean is that if somebody constructs a logical argument, and you disagree with them about one of the premises, the argument can be logically sound, and they can be rational, no matter how much you disagree with that premise.
Odd definition of "rational." The argument may be formally valid, given the premise, but if the premise is absurd - the earth is flat - then the person making it is not in fact rational, at least about the particular subject.
That doesn't mean anyone supporting a premise I agree with is irrational, only those whose premises are truly ridiculous, with no basis in reality.
I forgot who it was — and I can't find the quote — who noted that madmen often don't suffer from a deficit of reason; they suffer from an excess of it, to the exclusion of all else. They've derived perfectly logical, reasonable conclusions… from insane premises.
"A madman is not someone who has lost his reason but someone who has lost everything but his reason'." G.K Chesterton
Thank you. That was bothering me. I couldn't quite get the phrasing close enough in my head for google to deliver for me.
But then you have to establish by logical argument and shared premises that the premise(s) in question really are irrational, not just that you disagree with them.
Rationality isn't about being right, it's about being right if your starting point is right.
A lot of the time the premises in question aren't even CAPABLE of being 'wrong', they're opinions!
It is interesting that you don't list empirical evidence as a way to establish that the premises are irrational. But then, you are in the school of libertarianism that regards empiricism as useless.
This exchange reminded me of an immigrant I know asking in 2016 why so many people hated Hillary Clinton.
That's a good analogy. She had the same effect on many US voters that Timmermans has on many Dutch voters. If you were to psychologise it, the way Brett suggested, you'd probably say that those voters (against evidence) feel that this politician looks down on them, and hate them for it.
Sounds to me that you are heading for a civil war. Disenfranchise a plurality of the electorate and watch them respond outside the system.
Tell me you know nothing about the Dutch political system without telling me you know nothing about the Dutch political system. In a system with so many parties, "plurality" means fuck all.
As a student of history, including 20th Century European history, I know what happens when a statistically significant portion of the populace feels alienated from the system. Ever hear of a man named Hitler?
I have. Have you?
You're not a student of history.
He didn't say he passed the exam.
...and in more Grim Reaper news: Ace Frehley, founding member of rock band KISS, dead at 74.
Fed Gov Shutdown....day whatever.
What have we learned? Well, we learned that much of fed gov't is non-essential, and isn't missed. Over the next three years, those non-essential parts of Fed Gov't will be unceremoniously lopped off.
And wouldn't you know, the budget deficit came down for the first time in a while. The upward spending arc has been bent downward. That is a major achievement.
The Administrative State will be tamed.
What have we learned?
That the US is a failed state, where the government increasingly can't get anything done?
Are you under the impression that nothing is being done?
Tell that to the druggies out in the Gulf of America, LOL. They might differ with eurotrash on nothing being done.
They're shark shit by now.
Yes, the government can still murder people. Did you ever consider that you're an evil person?
They took their chances, accepted money to smuggle poison to the United States, and paid the price for their choice. They knew we were out there, and took their chances.
Their actions don't make me an evil person.
Did they? How do you know? And since when does the government get to summarily execute people if they do crime?
"when does the government get to"
Since we started doing it.
Bob, since you’re dumb as fuck, I’ll help. The underlying meaning in the question is, “How can anyone with any sense or intelligence believe the American system of law allows for this?”
I understand you weren’t the intended audience, you being a dumbfuck, but come on. Try.
You're making up facts, and in any case, that's the same logic as saying that the Ukrainian refugee shouldn't have ridden that train in Charlotte if she didn't want to be murdered, so the guy who killed her isn't evil.
No, your actions — or your support for evil people's actions — do.
Your basis for this is the word of a pathological liar, who has provided zero support for his statements. On that basis you cheer for murder - no arrest, no trial, no evidence, nothing.
And yes, that cheering does make you an evil person.
Kindness to criminals is cruelty to their victims.
Were they criminals? Because no one actually knows.
Trump said so, but that’s stronger evidence that they weren't than they were.
Barbs aside, how about some explicit affirmative evidence to the contrary? If they're really wiping out boat after boat of totally innocent fishermen who all totally coincidentally and amazingly won a six-figure go-fast boat or a seven-figure submersible in a lottery and were just taking them for a spin, the headlines would write themselves.
Burden of proof is on the prosecution. But killing people without proof that they were committing a crime, let alone that in some way involved the United States, is unlawful.
They murder people all the time. IIRC I used to argue (the topic hasn't come up recently) that the DPC should apply extraterritorially.
The only difference between the drug boats and the North Korean fishermen, and other incidents that haven't seen the light of day, is that we are doing this openly.
That's a significant difference, but it's not the only one. The servicemen who killed the North Korean fisherman did not set out on a mission to murder people. They were on a non-violent mission, and they killed in (mistaken) self-defense. Here, Trump ordered some people to be murdered without any justification, purely premeditatedly.
Self defense against what? NK's legitimate exercise of its sovereign authority?
Yes.
So not different in any mitigating way. Got it.
You mean the accidental killing of people in international waters vs. the intentional killing of people in international waters?
Are you claiming that they didn’t know they were killing people outside of American territory? They just made the same mistake … five times now?
"You mean the accidental killing of people in international waters vs. the intentional killing of people in international waters?"
No, I mean the intentional killing of people in foreign waters vs. the intentional killing of people in international waters.
"Are you claiming that they didn’t know they were killing people outside of American territory? They just made the same mistake … five times now?"
No, I'm not claiming that.
"The servicemen who killed the North Korean fisherman did not set out on a mission to murder people."
Then why bring guns?
The drone folks were only going to kill people if they saw people that they thought were drug smugglers. The SEALs were only going to kill people if they saw people who they thought were going to jeopardize the mission or exfiltration.
What's the difference?
“ people that they thought were drug smugglers”
That’s the new standard? Someone thought that someone else was a bad person?
I don't know. DMN appears to be arguing that you can kill people that you think are non-hostile military in their own territory, but not people that you think are drug smugglers in international waters.
The difference is that those sent to infiltrate North Korea had a realistic chance of encountering the North Korean military, and were only going to use weapons in self-defense. Trump is sending out troops for the purpose of murdering people that he claims are drug smugglers, which would not be legitimate even if those claims were right.
You're suggesting that the SEAL team would have a legitimate claim of self-defense if their belief about the fishermen was correct? Why?
You said "anything".
I mean, obviously, you disagree with the present administration about what SHOULD be done, (To a lesser extent, so do I.) but clearly things ARE being done.
A "failed state" is a state that can't do things, not a state that chooses to do things you don't like, and refrain from doing things you do like.
We don’t really know what’s being done other than we are killing people. It’s quite something how utterly you trust the government to just tell you these people are guilty with no evidence or even evidence of a process.
By all accounts they could well be just sinking whatever ships they feel like.
I know my mail is being delivered, for instance. I don't think that involves killing very many people.
Increasingly is doing a lot of work here. "The last time Congress passed a full budget on time was in 1997. Since then, Congress has frequently relied on continuing resolutions and omnibus appropriations bills to fund the government." Duquesne University Pew Research Center
Reading about Rom Braslavsky in captivity, I have rarely been more proud to be a Jew. https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/416365
What a testament to faith.
this is hillarious. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KvpHHBqEws
The "this" that Dr. Ed refers to is an episode of Gutfeld, and that Dr. Ed thinks it's hilarious is the only funny thing about it. He opens with a bunch of fat jokes, and laughs at his own jokes because nobody who isn't paid to do so would.
Gutfeld gets way more eyeballs than any of the other late night talking heads.
Let me guess, you know no one who watches anything else?
Gutfeld is not a late night talking head, so the phrase "other late night talking heads" is misplaced. Gutfeld is on in prime time, not late night.
Imagine thinking this is a healthy response. “Durrr the guy isn’t funny and makes really bad jokes, but durrr he’s real popular!”
What the hell is wrong with you people?
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Cultists hardest hit
US congressman from Ohio says swastika flag in office was 'ruse' that targeted Republicans
In an emailed statement Oct. 16, (Ohio Rep. Dave) Taylor, whose district includes Clermont and other southern Ohio counties, said multiple Republican lawmakers were "targeted" with the flags, altered to include the Nazi symbol.
"New details have emerged from a coordinated investigation into the vile symbol that appeared in my office," Taylor's statement read. "Numerous Republican offices have confirmed that they were targeted by an unidentified group or individual who distributed American flags bearing a similar symbol, which were initially indistinguishable from an ordinary American flag to the naked eye. My office was among those that were subjected to this ruse."
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/us-congressman-from-ohio-says-swastika-flag-in-office-was-ruse-that-targeted-republicans/ar-AA1OCNEa?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=68f213685e6744fd8c7c9bbff038ca2d&ei=60
" . . . which were initially indistinguishable from an ordinary American flag to the naked eye."
HE AND HIS OFFICE COULDN'T TELL A REAL US FLAG FROM ONE ALTERED TO INCLUDE THE SWASTIKA?!?
GTFO
Golly, how does all this pro-Nazi chat, support and iconography keep showing up everywhere in the MAGA-scape? Someone needs to look into who is doing this to MAGA!
Are ANTIFA trannies planting all this stuff?
ANTIFA doesn't exist, therefore trannies don't exist either.
The term is Trantifa.
Yeesh.
Well, to be fair, while it would be a bit Mission Impossible ish to do, it's not facially impossible to fabricate an American flag that initially passes a superficial inspection, and then later has a swastika appear on it.
Slow acting bleach. Invisible ink. Concealing stickers that fall off after a while. Dichrotic or holographic fabric that looks different depending on the angle you observe it from.
I think you could work out a way to pull it off. And there are news reports that there was some kind of coordinated effort to get swastika flags into Republican congressional offices earlier this year. They weren't ALL discovered instantly.
The thing about this is, absolutely nobody with enough political awareness to reach Congress would think displaying a swastika in their office was something you'd do, even if you WERE secretly Nazi inclined.
I mean, it's like, you might spend your private fun time with dead girls or live boys, but you'd still know better than to be found in bed with them.
So, yeah, I'm inclined to think it was somebody's idea of a prank.
That's a mighty peck of mental gymnastics you engaged in there, Brett. With all the Nazi-ism throughout MAGA, can't we just do Occam's Razor on this one?
Well, with Red Guardism throughout the left, does it automatically follow that if you start finding hammer and sickle flags in Democratic Congressional offices, they're not the result of a prank?
But they haven't found hammer and sickle flags in Democratic Congressional offices.
Brett has to make up stories.
That just means that Republicans aren't much into pranks.
So, you're contradicting yourself?
"So, yeah, I'm inclined to think it was somebody's idea of a prank."
I'm not contradicting myself, it wasn't Republicans pranking, it was Republicans being pranked.
Wait I thought the Young Republicans chat logs weren’t a big deal, because it was just kids doing pranks?
If it was a prank, the pranksters are likely to have been staffers. They would have the access needed, and we know that are Republicans who are Nazi sympathizers.
We know that A LOT of Republicans are Nazi sympathizers. The receipts of it are now legion.
I've been in Lib political circles for 30 years. No one has ever advocated for Chinese communism. Where are you getting all your fantasy intel from, Brett?
Specifically Chinese communism? Eh, perhaps not. Communism in general? Better break the news to Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mandami.
Democratic socialism isn’t Marxist socialism isn’t communism.
Redbaiting gets sloppy as well as making things up.
They're all fruits of a poisonous tree = Democratic socialism isn’t Marxist socialism isn’t communism.
Not surprising you chirp in here; just like a moth to flame.
"Democratic socialism isn’t Marxist socialism"
All socialism is Marxist.
"Democratic socialism" is just a brand name.
Your second and third lines contradict one another.
Not at all. But because you are being contrary today.
"Democratic socialism" is just a brand name for a type of Marxist socialism.
[fyi, brand name is a just a marketing device]
Reading is fundamental.
"All socialism is Marxist."
Actually socialism long predated Karl Marx if the New Testament is to be believed. The followers of Jesus practiced socialism following his death and resurrection.
From chapter 2 of Acts of Apostles (RSV):
41 So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. 42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And fear came upon every soul; and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common; 45 and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they partook of food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
From chapter 4 of the same book:
4 But many of those who heard the word believed; and the number of the men came to about five thousand. * * * 32 Now the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had everything in common. 33 And with great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. 34 There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of what was sold 35 and laid it at the apostles' feet; and distribution was made to each as any had need.
4 But many of those who heard the word believed; and the number of the men came to about five thousand.
32 Now the company of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things which he possessed was his own, but they had everything in common. 33 And with great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. 34 There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the proceeds of what was sold 35 and laid it at the apostles' feet; and distribution was made to each as any had need.
Guy literally talks about seizing the means of production. Sarcastr0: "Doesn't mean he's a communist!"
Yeah, you do love to hump that one quote.
It's not part of his platform, but you love to conjure commies because you like to play good guys and bad guys.
"not part of his platform"
This campaign!
Well, ever since the age chicken moved away...
“ Guy literally talks about seizing the means of production. Sarcastr0: "Doesn't mean he's a communist!"”
You mean Trump? Because he’s the only one who’s actually doing it.
One more person who doesn’t seem to understand words, such as seizing, have defined meanings.
Would you prefer extorting?
Them two are socialists, Brett. And yes, socialism is a big thing in lib politics. You should live in a socialist country as I did. It's quite pleasant
Fine, go back. Feel free to leave the American hellscape. Do you need a set of luggage?
You counter people noting you make things up with…asserting there are Commies everywhere in the Dem party.
Why isn’t reality good enough for yiu?
Mamdani seems a good representation of Democrat reality. The man is a marxist pig.
Zohran has a plan to bring down the cost-of-living through city-owned grocery stores, universal childcare, and other bold proposals, and he knows exactly how to pay for it, too. Zohran’s revenue plan will raise the corporate tax rate to match New Jersey’s 11.5%, bringing in $5 billion. And he will tax the wealthiest 1% of New Yorkers—those earning above $1 million annually—a flat 2% tax (right now city income tax rates are essentially the same whether you make $50,000 or $50 million). Zohran will also implement common-sense procurement reform, end senseless no-bid contracts, hire more tax auditors, and crack down on fine collection from corrupt landlords to raise an additional $1 billion.
Hahahahahaha
I know, right?
Well Zohran Mamdani seems to be winning suggesting maybe people are accepting of some Marxism. After all MAGA accept this country's government taking partial ownership of a number of companies. What is that if not Marxism?
NYC had a Commie congressman in the 1930s. Long history of radicalism in NYC that is not viable in the US.
New York City: bastion of radical communism for nearly 100 years!
MAGA becoming more and more of a joke.
I said "radicalism". Its the most left wing major city west of California.
"west of California"
Oops, east.
Though it is "west" if you go on a long enough trip.
Yeah, the joke that controls the Congress and White House.
Ha, ha.
Socialism was once an accepted political ideology in the US. Milwaukee, WI had three socialist mayors in the 1900s. Emil Seidel (1910–1912), Daniel Hoan (1916–1940), and Frank Zeidler (1948–1960).
Sweet fuck Brett you just make shit up at the drop of a hat.
Holographic fabrics? Invisible ink? This isn’t a novel.
It's amusing, isn't it. The sad thing is Brett is one of the 'saner' ones here.
He has a working moral compass, which is why he needs to lie to himself to justify the stuff he supports.
I can literally buy this stuff off Amazon if I want, so what's your problem? I was just stating that the claim isn't facially impossible, that you really could pull it off with some effort.
I was just stating that the claim isn't facially impossible
Just like Obama being born in Kenya!
Also, not where you ended up. You ended up: "I'm inclined to think it was somebody's idea of a prank."
The conspiracy theories you're known for generally start with speculation of what could be and end up with you convinced your speculation is true.
The alternative being that a US Congressman had a legit stealth Nazi flag in his office? Isn't that speculation too?
No, it’s what has been proved to be true. The “he isn’t a Nazi sympathizer” story is the one that’s pure speculation. Only a credulous fool would think it sounded legit.
Well, yeah, Obama being born in Kenya wasn't facially impossible, it was just wildly, wildly unlikely. Don't freak out just because I won't pretend that wildly unlikely events are logically impossible.
Cromwell's rule
"Cromwell's rule, named by statistician Dennis Lindley, states that the use of prior probabilities of 1 ("the event will definitely occur") or 0 ("the event will definitely not occur") should be avoided, except when applied to statements that are logically true or false, such as 2 + 2 equaling 4.
The reference is to Oliver Cromwell, who wrote to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland on 3 August 1650, shortly before the Battle of Dunbar, including a phrase that has become well known and frequently quoted:
I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.
As Lindley puts it, assigning a probability should "leave a little probability for the moon being made of green cheese; it can be as small as 1 in a million, but have it there since otherwise an army of astronauts returning with samples of the said cheese will leave you unmoved". Similarly, in assessing the likelihood that tossing a coin will result in either a head or a tail facing upwards, there is a possibility, albeit remote, that the coin will land on its edge and remain in that position. "
there are news reports that there was some kind of coordinated effort to get swastika flags into Republican congressional offices earlier this year.
"News reports." From where?
The Bee hits the nail on the head
https://babylonbee.com/video/actual-nazi-struggling-to-stand-out-now-that-everyones-a-nazi
Hmm. False flag operation
Damn, how'd I miss that? It was right there...
Well done, sir!
Apedad -- The US Flag went from 48 to 50 stars in 1959 with the addition of Alaska and Hawaii. Yet intrepid Boy Scouts are *still* finding 48 star flags in meeting halls and churches -- that no one else noticed.
Back when Marijuana was illegal, one favorite trick was to toss some seeds outside a police station and there are documented cases where there wound up being full grown plants outside the police station which none of the officers noticed because they weren't expecting it there....
When is the last time you checked both license plates on your car to make sure they were the right ones and that no one had switched them?
If you put the proper US flag in your office when you set it up, you're going to presume that it is still there -- you aren't going to presume that someone might have stolen it and replaced it with something else. No, there is a flag in the corner and you are busy...
I like how Dr. Ed makes up some fictional anecdotes, follows them up with a silly hypothetical,¹ and then changes the facts here to create yet another hypothetical that might exonerate the gop.
¹For the record, I don't think I have ever checked the license plates on my car to make sure that no one had switched them. Because that isn't a thing that happens. However, I routinely look at the license plates on my car when I'm trying to find it in a parking lot.
“ you aren't going to presume that someone might have stolen it and replaced it with something else.”
And yet, other than the Nazi … I mean Congressman … himself, no one has said anything about a nefarious plot by unnamed parties to secretly switch flags inside his office. A place with just a little bit of security, or so I’ve been told.
Also, if you’ve seen the picture, it is glaringly obvious that it isn’t a genuine American flag and the swastika is equally obvious.
Speaking of the one person who could act as a negotiating partner for Israel in true peace negotiations:
The most prominent Palestinian prisoner, Marwan Barghouti, was beaten unconscious by Israeli prison guards on 14 September, his family has said. The 66-year-old - serving life for planning deadly attacks against Israelis - was allegedly assaulted by eight guards during a transfer between Ganot and Megiddo prisons. The Israel Prison Service told the BBC: "These are false claims (fake). The Israel Prison Service operates in accordance with the law, while ensuring the safety and health of all inmates". Barghouti's son, Arab, told the BBC the family had received testimony from five separate detainees who were released this week who heard Barghouti's account of the attack. He said the family was "horrified". Barghouti was allegedly handcuffed by the guards, put on the floor, kicked and beaten. "They focused on the head area, they focused on the chest area and also on the legs," he said. "He stayed unconscious for hours, he was bleeding, and he could hardly walk." Arab said he believed the attack took place as his father was transferred between the two prisons, which are in southern and northern Israel, because there were no surveillance cameras to capture it. Barghouti is serving five life sentences plus 40 years after being convicted by an Israeli court in 2004 of planning attacks in which five civilians were killed.
The most prominent Palestinian prisoner, Marwan Barghouti, was beaten unconscious by Israeli prison guards on 14 September, his family has said.
The 66-year-old - serving life for planning deadly attacks against Israelis - was allegedly assaulted by eight guards during a transfer between Ganot and Megiddo prisons.
The Israel Prison Service told the BBC: "These are false claims (fake). The Israel Prison Service operates in accordance with the law, while ensuring the safety and health of all inmates".
Barghouti's son, Arab, told the BBC the family had received testimony from five separate detainees who were released this week who heard Barghouti's account of the attack. He said the family was "horrified".
Barghouti was allegedly handcuffed by the guards, put on the floor, kicked and beaten.
"They focused on the head area, they focused on the chest area and also on the legs," he said. "He stayed unconscious for hours, he was bleeding, and he could hardly walk."
Arab said he believed the attack took place as his father was transferred between the two prisons, which are in southern and northern Israel, because there were no surveillance cameras to capture it.
Barghouti is serving five life sentences plus 40 years after being convicted by an Israeli court in 2004 of planning attacks in which five civilians were killed.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpwvr2xpkz0o
Unrelated
On 12 June 1964, eight defendants were sentenced to life imprisonment; Lionel Bernstein was acquitted. Unsubstantiated evidence suggests that Hanson, in a private hearing with de Wet, persuaded him to commute the death sentence for high treason to life imprisonment. There was no surprise in the fact that Mandela, Sisulu, Mbeki, Motsoaledi, Mlangeni, and Goldberg were found guilty on all four counts. The defence had hoped that Mhlaba, Kathrada, and Bernstein might escape conviction because of the skimpiness of evidence that they were parties to the conspiracy, although undoubtedly they could be prosecuted on other charges. But Mhlaba too was found guilty on all counts, and Kathrada, on one charge of conspiracy. Bernstein, however, was found not guilty. He was rearrested, released on bail, and placed under house arrest. Later he fled the country.
On 12 June 1964, eight defendants were sentenced to life imprisonment; Lionel Bernstein was acquitted. Unsubstantiated evidence suggests that Hanson, in a private hearing with de Wet, persuaded him to commute the death sentence for high treason to life imprisonment.
There was no surprise in the fact that Mandela, Sisulu, Mbeki, Motsoaledi, Mlangeni, and Goldberg were found guilty on all four counts. The defence had hoped that Mhlaba, Kathrada, and Bernstein might escape conviction because of the skimpiness of evidence that they were parties to the conspiracy, although undoubtedly they could be prosecuted on other charges. But Mhlaba too was found guilty on all counts, and Kathrada, on one charge of conspiracy. Bernstein, however, was found not guilty. He was rearrested, released on bail, and placed under house arrest. Later he fled the country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivonia_Trial
Barghouti is as much of a negotiating partner to Israel as you are a conservative. Not at all.
An agreement requires adherence to terms. When has hamas done so? When has the PA done so? Never. And hamas is in violation of their ceasefire agreement now, with the tacit support of the PA. Just ask the palestinians themselves, they'll happily tell you (and do).
If the terms of an agreement are not fulfilled, then there is no agreement. The arab nations are presumably the agreement guarantors, and are doing precisely nothing, aside from picking the fuzz out of their belly-buttons. They're covering for hamas.
The truism holds: The palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. What a surprise.
The war will resume if the agreement terms are not met. As for the arab guarantors, they would do well to remember that Israel is more than capable of kicking their ass. Just ask Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Hezbollah, hamas, and Iran about Israel's capability to deliver a major ass-kicking. The arabs have their chance now to avert war.
Absent a major concerted effort by hamas and their arab guarantors to locate and return the bodies of the hostages quickly, the ceasefire ends. Time is running out.
I have not seen the ceasefire agreement, only inconsistent thirdhand commentary. What does the actual text say, and how has Hamas violated it?
Please see points 4, 6 and 13.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c70155nked7o
For point 4, it was known ahead of time that not all the bodies would be returned immediately if ever. I don't know if that was acknowledged in the full agreement.
That isn't what the agreement says.
4. Within 72 hours of Israel publicly accepting this agreement, all hostages, alive and deceased, will be returned.
What does 'all' mean, legally? You tell me.
Well, according to the Supreme court, "whenever convenient".
I can tell you if the agreement includes an impossibility, it's was never an agreement at all.
Luckily, you don't need to read agreements like that as though you were an idiot.
If you agree to do something you can't do, it was never an agreement?
That would be news to a lot of people.
That's not "the agreement." That's Trump's "proposal."
That is in fact the agreement, David. The hostages, all of them, are to be returned to Israel within 72 hours of the start of phase 1 (a week ago, last Friday).
That is not, in fact, the agreement. Repeating it won't make it so. You are citing to something Trump announced, not anything Hamas agreed to.
That's not the final agreement. That was what Trump announced after meeting with Netanyahu, the latter making last-minute changes. Further negotiations with Hamas, mediated by Qatar and Egypt, resulted in a final agreement that I have never seen (but heard includes some Annexes to what you posted).
I can see Hamas refusing to disarm. But, why would they intentionally not release the bodies?
An agreement requires adherence to terms. When has hamas done so? When has the PA done so? Never.
Well no. Hamas are unreliable terrorists and the PA is powerless. My whole point was that you need to need to put someone in a position where they can grab the power to speak for their people before you can negotiate with them. Leaving Barghouti incommunicado in prison achieves the opposite. (Which tracks, because I see no evidence that Israel is interested in good faith peace negotiations, because they think they hold all the cards.)
Eurotrash, you concede there is no partner for Israel to negotiate with. = Hamas are unreliable terrorists and the PA is powerless.
Remind me, to which organization did Barghouti belong? The powerless PA?
The failure to honor the terms of an agreement means there is no agreement. The war will resume.
So Israel sees no point in negotiating and will just keep bombing until Gaza is cleansed.
The ceasefire agreement was negotiated, and agreed to. The terms are crystal clear: within 72 hours of starting phase 1, all hostages, living and dead are to be returned. We are in the implementation phase, John F Carr, the negotiation was concluded last week. And hamas is deliberately impairing the implementation of the agreement that they made.
After a period of time, not much more though, the war will resume if hamas refuses to honor their agreement. There is nothing to haggle about like one would in an arab bazaar; turn over the dead hostages, immediately, as agreed. The arab guarantors have little time.
Israel honored the terms of their agreement; hamas, being the human animals that they are, did not. They are sadistic, jihadist animals; the hostage accounts of their captivity bear that out. At this point, I don't have a problem with Israel systematically hunting down every hamas member they can lay their hands (or bombs) upon, and killing them.
And if hamas sympathizers want to be stupid enough to join them on the one-way paradise train, so be it.
Easy way or hard way, it will be resolved.
The ceasefire agreement was negotiated, and agreed to.
It was negotiated between the US and Israel, which is no way to settle anything.
It was negotiated between Israel and hamas, with the US, Egypt, Qatar, Turkey as guarantors of the agreement.
Get the facts straight, eurotrash.
there is no partner for Israel to negotiate with
Exactly. And so what Israel needs to do if it actually wants to negotiate is get out of the way so that someone, most likely Barghouti, can assume the leadership of the Palestinian people.
This is not news. I gave the example of Mandela, and the other day I mentioned Sinn Fein. There are many other examples. As long as the parties are not interested in making peace, they try to make sure there is no one who can lead their enemies. Anyone who might take up that role gets killed or emprisoned. But at some point you have to let Mandela out of Robben Island.
Whether you believe that he did crime is irrelevant. There's a war on. You probably weren't that fussed about the standard of proof when you put him away, and frankly he probably did do lots of things. He wouldn't be much of a leader of his people if he hadn't.
You make peace with your enemies, not with your friends.
You just got through telling me the PA is powerless. I agree with you.
Barghouti belongs to what organization? Yes, the powerless PA.
The PA cannot win elections, Abbas is now serving the 20th year of his 4 year term. The PA has less popular support than hamas.
Who is that credible partner again?
It's in Israel's interests (assuming it wants to live in peace while respecting Palestinian self-determination) to assist in creating a partner. Instead, the lack of a partner is a pre-text seized upon by Netanyahu to kill a Palestinian state because his end goal (and yours) is annexation and ethnic cleansing.
It is the responsibility of the palestinians to honor the agreements they make. If they do not honor this agreement, what agreement would they honor?
Maybe you believe in this 'live in peace side-by-side' utopia. Recent history has shown that the myth of living in peace side-by-side with the arab palestinians is a remarkably naive, and deadly view.
The party not honoring the agreement is Hamas. They (of course) aren't the partner.
Cut the shit. You have never supported living in peace side-by-side. I'll wager you opposed the Madrid conference, the Oslo accords, and all negotiations that would lead to a Palestinian state. You want the Palestinians to be enemies opposed to living in peace so you can grab the land and kick them out.
Can you tell me who the palestinian partner is, then?
Hamas cannot be, yet they have broad palestinian support. The PA cannot be, b/c they are powerless.
I favor voluntary, incentivized emigration. It is the most humane solution.
There isn't one now. But Israel (along with international partners) should be cultivating one. It might take time. It took us 7 years of occupation to rebuild Japanese institutions, thus creating that partner. Gaza could be the test case, so long as during that long period there is no settlement activity of any kind in the West Bank.
The problem remains Netanyahu (and Israel for the years before the Oslo accords) wanted occupation to lead to annexation (and no, incentivized emigration is ethnic cleansing).
Judea and Samaria will be settled by Israelis; they are territories that were formerly in dispute. No longer. Six time losers like the palestinians don't dictate the terms of peace. Or anything else, for that matter.
None of this would have happened had he been executed.
The failure of Israel to adopt death as a punishment for terrorists seeking to launch another Shoah boggles the mind.
They have a law to execute Nazis, Barghouti and Hams and Fatah and the rest are no different from Eichman in intent, just current capacity.
"son ... told the BBC the family had received testimony from five separate detainees ... who heard Barghouti's account"
How much hearsay is that? And zero reliable sources.
I guess you gotta love a well-rigged election:
Mohammed Ben Sulayem will stand unopposed for another term as the president of the FIA, motor sport’s governing body. (...) The regulation in question requires any presidential candidate to submit six prospective vice-presidents, one from each of the FIA’s global regions. Extraordinarily, the person who has unwittingly found themselves at the heart of the issue is the Brazilian wife of the former F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone, Fabiana Ecclestone, who is the only world council representative for South America and has already declared for Ben Sulayem.
Mohammed Ben Sulayem will stand unopposed for another term as the president of the FIA, motor sport’s governing body. (...) The regulation in question requires any presidential candidate to submit six prospective vice-presidents, one from each of the FIA’s global regions.
Extraordinarily, the person who has unwittingly found themselves at the heart of the issue is the Brazilian wife of the former F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone, Fabiana Ecclestone, who is the only world council representative for South America and has already declared for Ben Sulayem.
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2025/oct/16/mohammed-ben-sulayem-set-to-remain-fia-president-after-tim-mayer-fails-to-meet-requirements
International sports organizations are about the only things as corrupt as Donald Trump.
Have to agree; I am thinking of FIFA, in particular.
I hope you're using a VPN, that's a criminal post in the UK. To make such a heinous racist allegation against a very important brown POC is intolerable in a modern free society like the UK.
Ben Sulayem kept changing the rules to make it functionally impossible for anyone to challenge him. The latest,IIRC was the requirement that every candidate had to submit a list of deputies or whatever the title is, but no deputy could be on more than one list.
He also said a while ago that he didn't see why drivers got paid so much more than administrators
“ He also said a while ago that he didn't see why drivers got paid so much more than administrators”
Roger Goodell’s ears just perked up. He wants to know that as well about quarterbacks.
I was just reminded that we recently passed the 30th anniversary of the publication of Industrial Society and Its Future in September, 1995. One writer remarks (link), "Thirty years after Ted Kaczynski published his manifesto, many of his predictions about technological dependency resonate eerily with the state of AI in 2025."
Obama endorses Spanberger, attacks Republicans in Virginia governor's race ads
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/obama-endorses-spanberger-attacks-republicans-virginia-governors-race-ads?msockid=3f45b79942a86e303701a11e43ad6f7c
And in related news Pres. Trump does NOT endorse the Republican candidate, current Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears.
Notably Earle-Sears and Trump have had a strained relationship since she declined to support his 2024 presidential bid, calling it “time to move on.”
How did a sane person win a Republican primary?
After failing to convince three different grand juries to indict Sydney Reid for felony assault, the Government tried her for misdemeanor assault, and the jury acquitted. The docket is here: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/71196710/united-states-v-reid/
The instructions to the jury included a section on self defense (instruction #22), which concludes:
Ms. Reid is not required to prove that she acted in self-defense. Where evidence of self-defense is present, the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Ms. Reid did not act in self-defense. If the government has failed to do so, you must find Ms. Reid not guilty.
Reading on a little further:
Instruction # 26: DEFENDANT’S THEORY OF THE CASE It is the defendant’s theory of the case that she did not assault Agent Bates because she never touched Agent Bates, never attempted to touch Agent Bates and because she involuntary reacted in response to what was happening to her. Even if you found that Ms. Reid did touch and assault Agent Bates, the government must then prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that she did not act in self-defense to Officer Liang’s assault on her. They have not. You have no information about Officer Liang’s intent and why he believed that he was permitted to exert this amount and kind of force against her. Because you cannot find both that Ms. Reid assaulted Agent Bates and that she was not acting in self-defense, you must acquit.
Instruction # 26: DEFENDANT’S THEORY OF THE CASE
It is the defendant’s theory of the case that she did not assault Agent Bates because she never touched Agent Bates, never attempted to touch Agent Bates and because she involuntary reacted in response to what was happening to her. Even if you found that Ms. Reid did touch and assault Agent Bates, the government must then prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that she did not act in self-defense to Officer Liang’s assault on her. They have not. You have no information about Officer Liang’s intent and why he believed that he was permitted to exert this amount and kind of force against her. Because you cannot find both that Ms. Reid assaulted Agent Bates and that she was not acting in self-defense, you must acquit.
Wow. It appears that the Government didn’t even attempt to prove this part of their case. (The last sentence is a bit confusing; the point is that the jury must find that the jury must acquit unless the Government proves that the defendant was not acting in self defense.) The only reason that the case went to the jury at all was that the defense didn’t file a motion to dismiss for insufficient evidence.
Either the prosecutors in this case are downright incompetent, or this case was filed for political reasons. Perhaps both.
You're reacting to the defense attorney's biased argument. That may or may not be a fair view of the evidence.
What part of "failing to convince three different grand juries to indict" or "the jury acquitted" do you not understand?
I didn’t quote the defense attorney; I quoted the judge’s instructions to the jury.
"Defendant's theory of the case."
If the jury doesn't believe the part of the testimony suggesting self-defense then the prosecution wins.
Well, not exactly; you've shifted the burden of proof. And also, again, we know that the prosecution lost.
As David Nieporent notes, you are shifting the burden of proof, even though I quoted two different portions of the of the jury instructions both saying that the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Ms. Reid did not act in self-defense.
What’s almost unheard of is for a judge to follow a statement that the prosecution must prove X with the blunt statement, “They have not.” It’s the job of the jury to evaluate the evidence. A judge can write a statement like this only if the prosecution has not introduced any relevant evidence for the jury to evaluate.
In other words, the prosecution not only lacked proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt; they lacked any proof at all. If they had bamboozled the jury into convicting, the judge would have thrown out the verdict on the grounds that the evidence was insufficient for a reasonable juror to vote to convict. Barring an almost unbelievable level of incompetence on the part of the prosecution, the prosecution knew this before the trial began but went ahead anyway.
Literally says the source right there in his post, and you still got it wrong.
The DoJ is eating a lot of shit lately.
The process is the punishment folks sure seem quiet about this little evidence of abuse.
According to the article below, the Government charged Reid with assaulting both Bates and Liang. However, the Government only called Bates to the stand, and conceded that it had presented no evidence that Reid had assaulted Liang. As a result, the judge granted a Rule 29 motion to dismiss the assault charge pertaining to Liang. After that, it was probably inevitable that the judge would conclude that the Government had failed to prove that Reid wasn’t acting in self defense in her interactions with Liang.
https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/legal/sidney-reid-trial-fbi-agent-ice-arrest-dc-jail-evidence-issues-day-2/65-00adaa91-ae04-4c0c-afcf-d4696478f95c
So the Government charged Reid with assaulting Liang based on zero evidence. It sound like the Government didn’t even trying to pretend that this was a legitimate prosecution.
It's what happens when you appoint a drunken crone DA
OR the deep state sabotaged the prosecution.
Public Service Annoucement #2
How long can you stand on one leg? The answer may reflect your age
A good rule of thumb is to be able to hold the stance for about 30 seconds or longer for those 69 and younger, about 20 seconds for those 70 to 79 and 10 seconds for those older than 80, he added.
https://www.9news.com.au/national/time-standing-on-one-foot-reflects-your-age-new-study-finds/42a08b7b-0cb0-4a65-8344-466677bba0d2
I'm 60+ and went over 30 seconds.
I saw a Mr. Beast challenge yesterday where three contestants stood on one leg for 16 minutes
Why?
Why? As in why would I watch Mr. Beast? Well, he's entertaining sometimes. Or is it 'why' would these contestants stand on one leg for 16 minutes? Because they want to win money.
I do that all the time Stand on one leg I mean, it's a great exercise you can do anywhere (OK, I do get some "looks" when I do it in the Aisle of a 767) It's one of those secrets Doctors won't talk about because then you'd be in better health and we wouldn't have to replace your Knees, Hips, ...... Same with Pushups, Crunches, oh, and this great new piece of "Fitness Equipment" I think they're called "Stairs" Most of the upscale hotels have them. I will use the moving walkways at some of the bigger airports, but only because there's so many Fat Schlubs clogging the main walkways. You know how you know you're really fat?? You stand on the moving walkway. And if you hear a loud "Hey ! Hey! Hey!........" that can't be precisely localized because I say it with a Risus Sardonicus like I'm friggin Edgar Bergen, That's me. See, when I see someone really, really fat, I'll do that Bill Cosby "Fat Albert" bit Hey, Hey, Hey................!!!!
Frank
The former.
When standing in line I make a practice of standing on one leg while moving my other around, just to keep my balance trained, and monitor the undeniable decline in my reflexes. Probably looks goofy, but I think it's worth doing.
I'm 66, going on 67, and I can still do it, but it's absolutely a lot harder than when I was younger. But then, when I was younger I could do one legged deep knee bends, too, and I sure can't do those anymore.
I'm 70, got bored at 2 minutes.
Wish you hadn't posted this. Thought it would be trivial but the last 10 seconds were a struggle.
Further to the Young Republicans debacle. If you've ever had the displeasure of reading a 4chan thread, you could recognize all that chat talk. It is the same unmistakable juvenility, wickedness and savagery. The you have Charlie Kirk's assassin pulling 4chan lines, and also MAGA's bizarre flirtation with Q-Anon. Even the comments here from you supposedly professional hayseeds are starting to stink of 4chan. God help us if this is the evolution of MAGA.
God help us if this was the origin of MAGA.
FTFY
For my own sanity's sake, I'm going to try and forget what you said.
But, yeah, these large, bearded 'children' (as Vance beclowned himself by labelling them) didn't appear from a vacuum. Someone taught them to be this way. In my view, the 4chaning of the Republican party started in 2008 with the election of Obama. Apparently the 4chan website first came online in 2003, and these children are on average about 25 years old.
Yes. We all heard you the first time.
MAGA is a registered trademark of Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.
Don't care about a tiny group chat.
Thanks.
MAGA evolved out of the TEA Party. I was at CPAC in 2010 when the Young Republicans and the Tea Party split.
The YR had an Ann Coulter event but only for "Under-30" at the same time as the Tea Party event.
‘Back off!’ GOP senators fire back at Trump after attacks on colleague
A number of prominent Senate Republicans are pushing back on President Donald Trump’s attacks on Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), telling him to “back off” his push to coerce the senator into compliance on changing a Senate tradition.
On Tuesday, Trump demanded that Grassley eliminate a Senate tradition known as the ‘blue slip,’ a tool for senators to block judicial nominees that would ultimately serve in their districts. Trump went on to reshare several posts on Truth Social labeling Grassley a “RINO,” or ‘Republican in name only,’ as well as another post suggesting Grassley “must hate America.”
Now, a number of Republican senators, among them some of Trump’s most loyal allies, are urging Trump to drop the issue.
https://www.rawstory.com/trump-2673795886/?utm_source=msn
Why doesn't Trump just slough off to Mar-a-Lago, get some hookers, and enjoy the rest of his life in sinful luxury?
I've got a better idea, why don't you "Just slough off" to whatever shithole you came from.
How come Trump gets hookers but not me?!?
Hookers don't go to shitholes?
Because, depending on who would be in charge of the country instead, that would create a risk of either prison or having his wealth taken away. It's basically the Putin problem. Once you pass a certain threshold of autocracy, you have no choice but to die in office.
Your King is a no good deviant homosexual buggerer and has stupid hair. You gonna defend him?? I mean I'm sort of pushing it with the hair.
How about Trump resigns in exchange for no criminal or civil actions against him for anything he has done since announcing his presidential bid in 2015. And, we can give him the Nobel Peace prize as well as part of the deal.
There's no one to sign such a deal. There are 50 different states that could independently go after him on criminal charges and 350,000,000 Americans who could in theory file a lawsuit.
Better plan: He agrees to move himself and his wealth to his extensive property in Qatar. He can fly there on the gift plane, and keep it as part of the deal.
Note that we do not have an extradition treaty with Qatar, so that should give him some security. The tax advantages of renouncing his US citizenship can be explained to him (his decision of course).
The Qatari government can be plied with arms, trade deals, and protection from Iran/Israel/Saudi Arabia in exchange for making sure things stay quiet.
We can't coerce the Norwegians; however, Qatar can fix up their domain name servers so that whenever Trump goes online to look at Fox News he get directed to a news story that he won the Nobel Prize yet again. Every year.
GOP is trusting that Dems return the favor of continuing blue slips.
Wise or unwise?
https://afj.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/2023_0208_BlueSlipFactSheet.pdf
From 2001-2002 and 2007-2008, Senator Leahy (D-VT) was as chairman of the SJC, during which time he did not permit any nominees who did not receive two positive blue slips from home-state senators to advance in the nomination process.
However, during Senator Hatch’s chairmanship tenure from 2003-2004, while he claimed to give “great weight” to negative blue slips, in some instances he allowed the committee to consider nominees who were opposed by the homestate senators—particularly for circuit court nominees.
From 2009 to 2018, it was the policy of both Senator Leahy (SJC Chairman from 2009-2014) and Senator Grassley (SJC Chairman from 2015-2018) to not advance any nominee without two positive blue slips from the nominee’s home-state senators. Notably, from 2009-2014, when the Democrats controlled both the Senate and the White House, the SJC still maintained the two positive blue slip tradition.
In 2018, Chairman Grassley scrapped the blue slip policy as it applied to circuit court nominees, claiming that “a negative or unreturned blue slip won’t necessarily prevent a circuit court nominee from receiving a hearing, unless the White House failed to consult with home-state senators.” after Minnesota Senator Al Franken refused to return his blue slip for the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals nominee, Justice David Stras. ----
Tricolor collapse (subprime auto lender): https://news.dealershipguy.com/p/tricolor-the-messy-collapse-of-a-subprime-auto-lender-explained-2025-09-16
For context: Since 2007, Tricolor has specifically marketed to customers excluded from traditional banking systems, like undocumented immigrants.
But the business of underwriting loans for this cohort (typical among smaller subprime lenders) has become riskier during President Donald Trump’s second term.
In a bond deal this year, Tricolor disclosed that 68% of its borrowers had no credit score, and over half didn’t hold a driver’s license.
Shocked, shocked I say that a lender lending to people without documentation was fraudulently double pledging the loans as collateral.
What shocks me is that all those bright overseas analysts and H1B visa holders at JP Morgan missed it.
Oh wait, not shocked about that either.
If they weren't a criminal conspiracy, it was only by a technicality. So it's hardly shocking to find there wasn't even a technicality to hide behind.
Heres an idea: Lets let car makers get back to making inexpensive cars so people don't need to borrow money. I mean I like all my little sensors and seat heaters, but I'd also like a car that I can fix in my driveway, where I don't have to worry about reprogramming an ECU just to change a light bulb.
Fun fact: we are a big exporter of used cars, those too expensive to fix here.
The auto industry is ripe for deregulation, which would result in cheaper cars, and fixable cars.
Also, I am frustrated that many state and local regulations prohibit the use of inexpensive "around town" vehicles on public roads, vehicles like golf carts and tiny EVs.
Car safety and emissions standards have been one of the successes of regulation, to anyone who actually studies policy.
Seat belts were one of the first case studies in my program management class - really cheap per life saved.
Markets are incredible engines for efficiency. But humans being bad at risk analysis, they often fail to properly valuate not killing people. Similarly, markets fail to deal with externalities without someone noticing and making sure it gets priced in.
Note that even regulated markets still have the optimization engine working, so regulated markets are still bangers.
I don't know much about the deal with no golf carts in town, I only know country music does love the trope of driving a John Deere on the highway.
...and what car did you finally decide on?
UTVs might pass muster = street legal. They ain't too cheap, though.
Last Car I had you could sort of "Fix" in your driveway was my 1978 LTD Police Interceptor, even with a 460 V-8 there was room to maneuver a socket. Now my 94 Camaro on the other hand, did the Water Pump/Distributor once, just once, Step 1 in the worthless Chiton Manual? "Remove everything from the front of the Engine" Step 2? "Remove whatever you're replacing" Step 3? "Put everything back together"
Seriously, check out Youtube for "LT1 Optispark/Waterpump Replacement"
Fixing my son's friend's Miata in the driveway just yesterday. Swapping out the belts. Admittedly, it's an older one.
Not the Timing Belt I'm guessing
No, NOT the timing belt.
And they were having a bad time of it until I pointed out that they were trying to undo the wrong screw on the alternator. 😉
Lots of legitimate businesses make money by having specialized knowledge that enables them to do business that people with only common knowldge of the situation would consider too risky. Posessing specialized knowledge enables them to make a more sophisticated and (at least in their opinion) a more accurate assessment of the risk.
Lots of businesses on Wall Street do this. Morgan Stanley is one of them. These firms pay people with specialized business knowledge, sophisticated risk assessment models, etc. big bucks to help them find investments to make.
So if Tricolor hadn’t been double dipping on its collateral, I don’t see anything inherently fraudulent about its basic business model. Whether people have drivers’ licenses of not, their auto is an asset that can be used as collateral for a loan. And if you collect additional information about “unbanked” people that banks don’t know about, you can get a better estimate of their ability to pay.
I don’t see that it’s any more a crime for a bank to accept it as collateral than it would be to accept, say, a classic car that isn’t roadworthy. It has value, it can be sold. It’s legitimate collateral.
Both error and arrogance are human, and business executives are well known for an abundance of both. Thinking one has specialized knowledge and knows more than everyone else when one actually doesn’t is a very common cause of business failure. It happens all the time. No business investment is ever completely safe. As the fine print on prospectuses says, investing always involves risk.
How is enabling an unlicensed driver to drive different from enabling a drunk driver to die?
No. I work at one of those "specialized companies"
You need a drivers license to drive. So essentially, half their customers were on the road illegally.
You also need insurance. Id like to see stats. I bet those without a DL also didnt have insurance.
They were lending to people in the country illegally, those driving illegally, and then pledging the collateral fraudulently.
Alls well that ends in chapter 7, or something.
In the years before being anti-Trump was trendy, Massachusetts considered requiring a driver's license to buy a car from a dealer. That may even be the law now. For many years insurance has been required to register a car in Massachusetts. I register my cars legally and my insurance company checks my license status. I never tried to by a car without a driver's license.
"Yes, you can buy a car in Massachusetts without a driver's license. However, you cannot legally drive it. You will need a licensed driver to take the car off the dealership lot.
Key Considerations Identification: While a driver's license is not required to purchase a car, you will need another acceptable form of government-issued photo identification, such as a state photo ID, passport, or military ID. Registration: You can register a vehicle in Massachusetts without a driver's license by providing proof of ownership, insurance, and a valid form of ID. The Massachusetts Registry of Motor Vehicles (RMV) does not require vehicle owners to have an active driver's license for registration. Insurance: In Massachusetts, you can get auto insurance without a driver's license, but it can be more challenging and potentially more expensive. Insurance companies may require you to list a licensed driver on the policy who will be the primary operator of the vehicle. The insurance rate will be based on that licensed driver's information, not yours."
You need a drivers license to drive.
You do. (Or at least to drive on public roads.) You do not, however, need a drivers license to own a car.
"So if Tricolor hadn’t been double dipping on its collateral, I don’t see anything inherently fraudulent about its basic business model."
You should look more closely, then. They securitized loans they made and sold them to financial institutions, often misstating the value and underlying risk, not properly reporting defaults, and so on. There was lots of fraud there, not just double-pledging assets for loans.
Perhaps you should look more closely at what I said. How is any of that part of the “basic business model?” The basic business model was just to sell securitized loans.
Also, it is not clear to me from the article whether these loans were to finance the purchase of a vehicle, or if they were just loans that were secured by an already-owned vehicle.
The double pledging stuff doesn't make a lot of sense either. Wouldn't there be UCCs on file showing the already-existing liens? Also, I thought these sort of deals usually worked through lockboxes, where all the cash goes straight to the secured lender (i.e. the entity to which the receivables were pledged). Unless these were actually subordinated tranches (in which case there is no fraud), the whole thing seems impossible to pull off.
A lot of these are illiquid deals and very hard to find the original docs for, even on Bloomberg. A lot of the docs are kept confidential as attorney-client work product and not publicly disclosed. Only the bank and Tricolor would have access to Tricolor's credit support annex showing what was pledged as collateral. Very easy, unfortunately. The other thing that tends to happen in these deals: Smaller lenders see J.P. Morgan (Goldman, BoA, Wells Fargo, etc) in the mix and figure the big playas have done their due diligence, so it must be good!
CIA and B-52 bombers being deployed to Venezuela. Sigh. So we have another republican president invading another petrostate under the guise of terrorism. The refineries in the Houston ship channel are ideally equipped to process the heavy crude that Venezuela has.
This is a complex and complicated issue. Venezuela has some of the dirtiest crude oil on the planet. In better economic times, it was shipped to the US to be refined and both countries made money hand over fist. When the commies took over, they failed to realize how important American expertise was in bringing a their product to market. The resulting economic disaster in Venezuela made things much worse. The American made drilling and pumping equipment was not only expensive, it also required skilled peeps to operate it. Once the commies kicked out (or arrested) these skilled American workers not only did the equipment fall into disrepair it was also subject to being stolen and sold for metal salvage at pennies on the dollar. Venezuela has gone from a country with the highest standard of living in South America to a communist wasteland bleeding human capital. Literally millions of its' best and brightest have left.
Oh yea, Trump is also putting a big hurt on the drug trade Venezuela is now engaged in.
First, it's sulfur in their crude, and that poisons the catalysts in the refinery. Only specially defined US refineries can deal with it.
"Sour", not dirty.
You think some banana heads running around in Venezuela represent some major artery of the drug trade? And we can take them out with B-52s?
Seems like a slap on the wrist (if that) to me. It does bring to light the issue of how to deal with young violent perps.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/teens-involved-in-attack-on-ex-doge-staffer-sentenced-to-probation/ar-AA1OxKw2?ocid=BingNewsSerp
There are reports of a huge military extravaganza being planned to honor the 250th anniversary of the marine corps that will involve shutting down I-5, a major California artery, as well as firing live missiles.
Questions:
1. If this takes place during the government shutdown, does the President have authority to spend money not appropriated by Congress for an event as non-essential as a parade, especially as the troops in the parade will go unpaid?
2. Although taxpayers do not normally have standing, would people who would lose time or money as a result of shutting down I-5 have standing to sue? For example, gas station and convenience store owners heavily dependent on I-5 traffic.
3. If there is standing, although a court normally does not have jurisdiction to rule on military questions such as troop deployments, could the expenditure of money be separated or would there be an exception?
4. Finally, is a future parade during a future shutdown sufficiently speculative that a plaintiff would have to wait until the parade actually starts to sue, or is the question ripe and a suit justiciable beforehand?
If a frog had wings could it stop busting its' ass every time it hopped? Asking for a friend.
Perhaps Congress can come to some kind of agreement by EOY. That is always a possibility.
Nov 10 is the date of the anniversary.
Born in a Bar, fitting.
What makes you tink Trump doesn't have the authority to do what he damn well pleases? All the cultists, from the SC 6 down to the denizens of these pages, seem to think he has.
That's just your cult's brainwashing speaking.
Have you ever argued that Trump did anything beyond his authority?
The SC 6? Seriously?
"We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges. What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them." -- Chief Justice John Roberts
What's next, the Fed 1770?
(approximately 1,770 authorized judgeships across the 209 courts in the United States federal court system)
Didn't you hear? Those Fed 1770 are all rebelling against the Regime, and are therefore Enemies of the People. Only the Trumpists on the Supreme Court are Doing What's Right.
I know that's what Roberts said, and at the time he may well have meant it, but certainly since Trump v USA and, e.g., Cannon's slow-walking the secrets prosecution, it's no longer the case.
Oh please. The Republic is alive and well, and will be around long after The Donald is gone. And the sun did rise in the east, and set in the west.
First of all it's Marine CORPSE, you need to pronounce it that way, in honor of our First 1/2 Black President, Barry Hussein Osama. And I'll answer your objections Seriatim (that mean's in order) Just pretend the Jarheads are "No Kings" Protesters and you'll be fine.
If civilians can shut down I-5 without notice, I am sure the Marines can shut down I-5 with notice.
"the 250th anniversary of the marine corps"
It's the birthday. The Marine Corps is not married.
The Constitution is neither a set of ideals nor a holy bond. It is not a light to discern the truth nor an instrument by which right can triumph over wrong.
Rather, it is at its most basic a much lower and humbler and more worldly thing. It is a kind of cohabitation agreement, that enables both the right people and the wrong people to work out their differences and shack up together in peace, not necessarily ever getting along perfectly, but tolerating each other enough to get by.
“The law is not a light for you or any man to see by. The law is not an instrument of any kind. The law is a causeway upon which, so long as he keeps to it, a citizen may walk safely.”
Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons
As the law is to a citizen, so the Constitution is to the Nation.
Lots of videos of ICE agents shoving women to the ground, spraying protestors and police with mace...and many of them seem to be enjoying it. Exactly who is ICE recruiting? Because they seemed to be experienced in this type of behavior. It's like I've seen all this before somewhere...hmmm
I don't quite understand it, but I've heard some women enjoy it rough.
I've seen it in college towns -- that's where they learned it.
Jeezo, if I get reincarnated I'm going to one of those Screw-els
Trump's J6 militia looks an awful lot like this Trump militia. So I'm wondering if ICE has been preferentially recruiting from the same violent nazi rednecks. They (the rednecks) get to play out their civil war fantasies under the protection of QA.
So perhaps QA may not work. There is a federal consent decree that is operative in the 7th Cir (including all Chicago metro) that the Court seems to think the agents are violating. If they are on notice of the consent decree; and are intentionally violating it while also violating people's rights... i think an argument to get around QA could be made.
That is in addition to a separate temporary restraining order a different judge issued against ICE. See e.g, https://abcnews.go.com/US/profoundly-concerned-judge-orders-ice-official-testify-after/story?id=126585221
Is QA a typo for QI? Or am I misunderstanding the discussion?
Any links to those videos?
https://www.google.com/search?q=videos+of+ICE+agents+shoving+women+to+the+ground&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
I think he meant the "Women liking it Rough" Videos
O.K., that's one, hobie proxy.
Hobie said "Lots of videos of ICE agents shoving women to the ground, spraying protestors and police with mace...and many of them seem to be enjoying it."
Lots.
Oh, TP.
Check that link again.
Yeah, I see lots of videos in the link.
Is Justice Brown Jackson as stupid as she appears to be?
I've never seen you but I imagine you do. (look as stupid as you sound)
She does not appear to be stupid. Except to someone who sees a black face and thinks "stupid."
In the context of Trump's possible war on Venezuela - would Trump be a combatant?
All lawful combatants are legitimate targets in war. It's perfectly legit to bomb a hangout of rear-echelon generals. Civilians - as we know - are not legitimate targets in and of themselves.
So is the president a civilian? It is commonly said that the US military is under civilian leadership, and there is no doubt that Hegseth is a civilian. But the president is, constitutionally, a military leader. The Constitution gives the president the military title of commander-in-chief and hence as CinC, Trump is part of the military - bone spurs notwithstanding, he's a combatant. (I'd bet he'd love that idea and might even commission a special uniform - perhaps Hugo Boss could design something. Though he'd also want medals to go with, so perhaps a uniform wouldn't work.)
Ergo, if he does go to war against Venezuela, the Venezuelans may rightly regard him as a legitimate military target. Whether it's wise to do anything about it is a separate matter. And it probably isn't.
If you pick up a gun to fight the US, which the drug cartels did, then POTUS Trump is fair game to the drug cartels.
OTOH, the drug cartel leaders have no idea of what we know wrt their personal whereabouts. I'm sure the electronic surveillance is rather substantial.
In a shooting war with VEN, the POTUS is always a target. That is how you win wars, by killing off the opponent's leadership.
If you pick up a gun to fight the US, which the drug cartels did
By the same argument, anyone who attacks any LEO or government agent is actually fighting the US, which seems something of a stretch.
Normally the Head of State is not a lawful target. (Nor are civilians generally.)
Even military leaders like General Yamamoto are arguably protected by the rule against regicide.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Vengeance#Legacy
You're taking this "Divine Right of Kings" way too seriously. Hint, nobody else does. Ask Charles I
"Even military leaders like General Yamamoto are arguably protected by the rule against regicide."
I hate to tell you this, but he may have lost the argument.
Yes, even civilian heads of state are legitimate targets if they participate in hostilities.
That seems wrong to me. Yamamoto was a uniformed member of the Japanese armed forces. As such, he was surely a legitimate target in wartime. No?
The only distinction that could possibly be made would be lawful combatant versus unlawful combatant and the former's protections under the rules of war.
If a lawful combatant were to ass assinate the POTUS, this could get legally interesting -- IF we wished to permit it to get that way. But I don't see how a lawful combatant could ever get a chance of doing this.
"legitimate military target"
What does "legitimate" have to do with anything? If they decide to attack him, they will.
Watched the NYC Mayoral Debate, and I hate to say it, but I can't believe such a loathsome piece of shit is running. Yes, that Andrew Cuomo is pretty loathsome. I'd vote for Sliwa, but he comes across as a Knucklehead, if it wasn't for his wanting to Cook me in his Betty Crocker Easy-Bake Oven I'd vote for (the) Zoran, maybe he's a Double Agent like Eli Cohen.
Giving myself a Dope Slap. Of course Eli Cohen wasn't a "Double Agent" He was just a regular Spy, I should have had a clue, as the Netflix Drama about him was called "The Spy" Sacha Baron Cohen should have gotten an Oscar, or whatever you get for a great performance on Netflix
Agree with you about "The Spy"
Cuomo was a loathsome barely engaged dud. But Zoran didn't hide his anti-capitalist, socialistic, I'm-going-to-be-magnanimous-with-everybody-else's-money fangs. And Curtis's signature puts him as little more than an animal rights advocate.
The only positive light in this election is that I will be a poll worker on election day. And then, if all goes as expected, I'll begin planning my move out of New York. It will end up being one of my buy-high-sell-low moves in life. Not a win. Just reducing potential forthcoming losses.
Anyway, this time, socialism is going to work. (I gotta go clean up my puke.)
Sorry for your financial loss. One of the hardest lessons to learn is: Cut your losses early, and move on.
The People's Republic of NJ (was/is) like that for me. Head south.
I can assure you that you are not safer as a Jew by going south
Nobody's safer going South, we have large numbers of a (Blacks) Demographic (Blacks) Group (Blacks) that commit (Blacks) violent (Blacks) crimes (Blacks) at much (Blacks) higher rates (Blacks) than any other (Blacks) Demographic (Blacks) Group (Blacks), even more than the Hispanics (who can be of any Race)
Yep, got plenty of neegroes down south, Frankie. But I'm talking about all the unfiltered MAGA in the south: the biggest antisemitic hate group in American history
Hobie: "I can assure you that you are not safer as a Jew by going south."
You're probably thinking about all those Hamas-helping anti-Zionist protests in the south where they harassed Jews.
On second thought, you're probably not thinking.
The polls are close in the NJ gubernatorial race and Murphy barley won in 2021 (just over 3%-points).
Mikie 'Money Hungry' Sherrill will win, despite her best efforts to self immolate on the debate stage and campaign trail.
The People's Duma will remain solidly blue.
https://www.wcvb.com/article/malden-massachusetts-woman-charged-with-threatening-federal-agents/69060657
This is the other side of ICE.
So one side of ICE is abusing people… and the other side is making up fake accusations against them? Yes, that tracks.
Susan Stamberg, one of the original and great NPR All Things Considered anchor people, died yesterday. She was of a time when the program lived up to its name. (Cokie Roberts, who died in 2019, was an excellent political correspondent who worked along side her.)
RIP.
Not to speak ill of the dead, but both were awful. Love how'd they have a panel with a US Senator, Foreign Ambassador, General, and then they'd ask Cokie's opinion like anyone cared.
Stamberg brought us her Mama Stamberg's Cranberry Relish annually (not anally) at Christmas time.
Not to speak ill of you, but you speak ill of the dead.
I make it so often, there was request to skip it at this year's Thanksgiving.
It must be really good! 🙂
Her annual presentation of that recipe was a seasonal rite of which I became very fond. At the same time, it was a recipe that, no matter how many times I heard it, I asked myself, "Why would anybody make that stuff?"
Nothing against you here. That you know of it suggests you view it with similar fondness. Make it again despite the request (or for the first time if you never did). They can still enjoy the benefit of not having to eat it, and some incidental story about Mama Stamberg.
It's an excuse to have a second Thanksgiving where I cook a turkey breast, my favorite stuffing (it's rice based!), and Mama Stamberg's relish.
Enjoy! (sincerely)
Cokie was more a news reader than a political correspondent or analyst. She often (usually?) read something that someone else wrote, that other person having done the analysis, correspondence, or reporting. I have a relative who sat in at SCOTUS and wrote copy for Cokie to read on air.
Come on, man.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cokie_Roberts
"Roberts began working for National Public Radio (NPR) in 1978, working as the congressional correspondent for more than 10 years...Her coverage of the Iran-Contra Affair for that program won her the Edward Weintal Prize for Diplomatic Reporting in 1988 ... Roberts went to work for ABC News in 1988 as a political correspondent for ABC's World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, continuing to serve part-time as a political commentator at NPR. She appeared as a panelist for many years on ABC News' Sunday morning broadcast This Week with David Brinkley."
Her life certainly included reading the news. It also included a plenty of reporting and analyzing.
Nepobaby.
Any idiot can read stuff on camera. What in her education or training or experience qualified to "analyze" anything?
"Edward Weintal Prize"
Everyone in left media gets a participation award sooner or later.
Oh, the "Iran Contra Affair"!!!!! so bad Reagan had to resign, hmm, funny, don't remember that. So he used money from selling weapons to the Ear-ronians to fund Anti-Communist groups in El Salvador??? Good! Not really up there with Barry Hussein murdering Civilians, but if it makes you feel smart, you do you.
'Did you ever notice how every institution became leftist? Surely it's not me who is radicalizing!'
"Every institution." Yeah. Said nobody.
I'm going to call my mother today and tell her I've been accused of "radicalizing." That'll give her a laugh.
One day, it'd be notable for you to write a comment that's responsive to me, and not to them. Until then, I'll enjoy my non-person status in your cartoonish world.
First, there are plenty of people on this website even who post about how every institution from schools to silicon valley to the Republican Party has been taken over by leftists.
Second, my point is that you assume NPR moved, not that you moved ideologically. We've all moved ideologically since we were kids.
It's the old cliche about how SNL had it's peak when you were in your teens/early 20s.
"First, there are plenty of people on this website.."
Yes, many people. But not me. And nobody said "every institution." That's why you narrowed it here to "from schools to silicon valley to the Republican Party." I appreciate your modest attempt to step down from hyperbole. For further example, consider that I may not be "radicalized."
I don't "assume" NPR moved. I observed NPR having moved. Read Uri Berliner's take. He was an insider.
Interjecting a comment about race every three minutes is a new thing for NPR News, and a new attitude (about race, and about balance). They only started biting their tongues last year. Their new attitude about race hasn't changed. They're just hiding it now because it looks really bad when your audience likes to think of you as being balanced. (You have that same attitude about race.)
I understand I've moved ideologically. But still, it is new for NPR correspondents to adopt the position that "balance" in journalism is an unjust thing. Onward, warriors! (Don't try to pee on my leg and tell me it's just raining.)
I mean, you claim NYC has changed not you. And NPR. And you seem unwilling to consider that your baseline changing might be part of the mix.
I mean, the fact that you cite the Free Press's opinion on NPR is pretty overdetermined, no? Their whole raison d'être is the thesis that liberals used to be cool but now they've taken it too far.
Interjecting a comment about race every three minutes is a new thing for NPR News and a new attitude (about race, and about balance). They only started biting their tongues last year. Their new attitude about race hasn't changed. They're just hiding it now.
This is vibes. Exaggerated vibes and some telepathy to make it super clear you're coming from your ideology not anything objective. NPR has changed and will continue to change. I'm sure being conscious about race came up post-2020. But you're not saying that, you're saying they've become rabidly leftist. Your super one-sided take on what that means, and how they've changed is saying a lot about you, and only some about NPR.
I liked a conservative radio show from California for years and years. Round about January 2017 I couldn't do it anymore. I don't feel like I'd changed, but given the way events shook out, I'm pretty sure it was 100% me, not them.
Maybe there's something about being conservative and shying away from admitting your takes could be biased, I don't know. But you're way too confident in your partisan judgement being objective.
Sarc: "you cite the Free Press's opinion on NPR"
And that's an example of how structurally dismissive you are. That was Uri Berliner's opinion, not the Free Press's. (You're like those morons who feigned concern over the "ambiguous" line between Tom Cotton's opinion and the opinion of the New York Times.)
What's the point of systematically dismissing differences with such cheap rubbish as that?
It's a dog bites man opinion. I remember when it came out. Financial producer at NPR publishes an opinion exactly like the Free Press likes in the Free Press.
Boomer claims the left left them. Many such stories.
It's an opinion. You're welcome to join it, I'm welcome to not.
But your thesis is a factual one - it's observations about what you hear. So I'm not sure why you're mixing an opinion piece in and claiming I gotta treat it like fact or I'm dismissive.
Opinions are supported with arguments; they are not facts. You really need to get better at distinguishing.
NPR lost 7 million listeners, almost 25% of its audience, since 2017.
I'm just a vibey idiot who can't look at himself in the mirror.
And you are Mr. Fact.
And now you assume causality. Which is wrong regardless of if you're talking fact or opinion.
You're so sure you're correct you've allowed your thinking to get really muddy.
If you just said 'NPR has gotten more liberal over time' that'd be fine. But no, you gotta go hard to the paint and insist it's the worst leftist leftism that ever lefted. This kind of self indulgence is what critical thinking helps prevent.
"But no, you gotta go hard to the paint and insist it's the worst leftist leftism that ever lefted."
You made that up. You craft every line as if all that matters is to win an argument. You're a very disingenuous person.
Copy/paste a comment where I implied any such thing.
I direct you to your previous comment:
"Interjecting a comment about race every three minutes."
And then you say they're keeping their race agenda secret because it's so unpopular.
You can't play calm now, you already went off.
That remark about them interjecting race every three minutes was an observation. (Play back their 2020-2023 news programs. It's there to observe yourself.) It was a striking fact. But no, I never suggested there was some "secret race agenda." (That's you conjuring me as a conspiracy theorist.) It's just regretful liberals trying to show their sensitivity to "Black" people.
And that sentiment hasn't changed. But they got so much negative feedback that they cut back the rhetoric. Remember systemic racism and white supremacy? They didn't go away. We just don't talk about them that way now because it sounds amateurish.
Pretend these comments of mine are controversial, or that you differ with me substantially about the facts. You don't. Despite your protests, nothing you say indicates substantive differences between us about the significant facts.
You have no interest in any inconvenient perspective such as mine, Sarc. Stop acting like this is about who's right.
"Under a May 2025 policy issued by Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy, roadside inspections must now begin in English, and drivers suspected of lacking language proficiency may face a two-step evaluation. Failure results not just in a citation but immediate out-of-service designation.
The policy has sparked backlash from industry groups, civil rights organizations and trucking companies, which argue that there is scant evidence that English proficiency reduces crash risk. Critics also say the rule disproportionately burdens immigrant and Latino drivers.
In an escalation of the policy dispute, the U.S. Transportation Department announced it will withhold more than $40 million in federal highway and safety grants from California, accusing the state of failing to enforce the new English standard. Additional funds, up to $160 million, are being threatened for continued noncompliance."
https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/donald-trump-truckers-english/2025/10/16/id/1230635/
Yes, but, there is a federal regulation that has been in place for decades that commercial vehicle operators be proficient in English. There is certainly a reason for this, especially for safety, as the test for proficiency includes the ability to read and understand traffic signs! Are we supposed to suspend safety measures to avoid burdening immigrant and Latino drivers?
Don't tell the Civil Rights Organizations about Commercial Aviation then, where a Kazak Pilot, Iranian Enroute Air Traffic Controller, and Arab Tower Controller, with a jet full of Germans all talk to each other in Engrish.
We set up the ATC system after WWII....
the test for proficiency includes the ability to read and understand traffic signs
Leaving to one side the wild racism of your world view, which seems to equate being able to carry out a stressful conversation in English with being able to understand road signs: Have you considered not putting words on road signs?
https://travel.stackexchange.com/questions/177363/why-dont-american-traffic-signs-use-pictograms-as-much-as-other-countries
Reading is racist, according to eurotrash...who knew?
First of all, there's nothing at all racist about me or what I wrote. So bugger off.
Second, I don't make the laws and regulations!
And it's not just the traffic signs. It's the ability to keep a driver's log that enforcement officers can read, converse with officers, explain what you're hauling and where you are going, and so on.
Why don't you invite these English-illiterate folks to drive trucks in the U.K. or Holland?
there's nothing at all racist about me
"Never go to events likely to draw a lot of blacks."
That's not racist, it's self preservation based on knowledge of these events.
Good advice, even more so today than when Derbyshire said it.
"Obtaining a Dutch Commercial Driver's License To drive a truck professionally in the Netherlands, you must have a Code 95 indication on your driver's license. This "Certificate of Professional Competence" is obtained by passing an initial qualification exam with the Central Office for Motor Vehicle Driver Testing (CBR). The exam for this initial qualification, as well as periodic training required every five years to retain the certification, are offered in Dutch. For those seeking to become a driving instructor in the Netherlands, a good command of the Dutch language is required because the examination is only available in Dutch. "
"English proficiency requirements for U.K. commercial drivers To operate a commercial vehicle in the U.K., you must have a level of English proficiency that allows you to safely and effectively perform your duties. This requirement is in place for several reasons, including road safety, regulatory compliance, and workplace communication."
"Driving Commercial Vehicles in Italy To operate a commercial vehicle in Italy as a resident, you must pass a written and practical test for an Italian driver's license. The written portion of this exam is typically offered only in Italian."
And on and on....
Code 95 is a European Union directive that applies to professional drivers of trucks and buses (C and D license holders). It ensures that these drivers receive initial and periodic training to maintain a high standard of road safety, environmental awareness, and professionalism.
A Code 95 certification is mandatory for all professional bus and truck drivers working within the EU.
https://www.ag5.com/certifications/code-95/
Last time I checked, Netherlands and Italy are part of the EU.
(Note, there is a para about extra NL practical training.)
Actually most of our signs are a unique color/shape. Stop -- red octagon. Yield -- red/white triangle (was yellow). School -- yellow pentagon. Speed -- white rectangle etc.
The three places where this REALLY is important are (a) construction sites where they have the blinking orange signboards, (b) accidents where they want to know what is (and isn't) in your truck, and (c) emergencies where they need to creatively detour you (i.e. drive on the wrong side of the interstate).
I was grandfathered back in 1988 which meant I only had to take a written test to convert my state license to a federal one -- and what I noticed was a full third of the existing drivers had to have the test read to them. Nationwide, it was about a third -- and these were guys already on the road and with a good safety record.
But ability to speak English was a big problem with the now shut down Fung Wa bus company which ran between BOS and NYC.
There is certainly a reason for this, especially for safety, as the test for proficiency includes the ability to read and understand traffic signs!
Then what's the problem? These CDL holders all passed the test, didn't they?
Apparently they all didn't.
No, they didn't! Corrupt DMV folks issued licenses regardless of standards.
[Citation needed.]
How about a cite for your claim that they all passed?
Do you mean the "claim" that I ended with a question mark?
Am I the only one who appreciated Nancy the P's Foster Brooks impression? Am I the only one who remembers Foster Brooks? I have to admit, as much as I disagree with Fancy Nancy, she's carrying this "Method Acting" a bit far, I almost believed she was falling over drunk.
Frank "Shawt Ushp!
Question for Real Estate lawyers familiar with NJ state law....Would you ever advise a couple in retirement to become landlords in the People's Republic of NJ? What kinds of questions do you tell your clients to think about, when they contemplate this choice.
Mrs. Commenter is thinking of renting our NJ home in lieu of selling it, for income. Commenter_XY is not at all excited by the prospect of becoming a landlord in retirement, living 700+ miles away; he is more the 'take the money and run' type.
Is NJ an especially inhospitable place for landlords, legally speaking?
If your wife wants to be a landlord, sell the NJ home and invest the proceeds in rental properties nearby your new home. Hire a good management company and enjoy the income. Also, see Lucretia James new book "How to Save on Your Mortgage and Provide a Home for Felon Relatives", out soon on Amazon.
"Is NJ an especially inhospitable place for landlords, legally speaking?"
IANAL, but the answer is no. In Ny, NJ, and similar places the landlord is the bad guy. Impossible to evict people, responsible for repairs even in tenants do the damage, restricted security deposits (1.5 times monthly rent), control of rent increases, etc., etc. Don't do it! I recommend sell the house and put that money into an indexed fund. Too bad you didn't sell last year and buy gold! (about 56% increase).
Eh, the items you cite are impacted by the size of the property. A single family home is not going to be subject to rent control (though who knows what the future holds). The eviction issue is real. The repairs and maintenance issues are real, though more because the property owner is going to be living 700 miles away.
I don't think it ever makes sense to self-manage a property that you can't cheaply and easily travel to. I wouldn't want to rent to someone I didn't personally know if I was so far away, and even if I knew the family renting it adds a different complexity (e.g. what happens if they don't tell you about necessary repairs or make lasting changes you don't want). You can have a lot of this spelled out in lease agreements, but enforcement will be costly and time consuming.
If you really want to be a long distance landlord I'd look at investing in REITs or something similar as a better alternative. If you qualified for the tax exemption on gains from sale of your primary residence even more so. I reside in a building I co-own, and even with good, vetted tenants, a good commercial tenant, and very specific leases, I still have to address issues, real and imagined, at least once a month, sometimes more. It's the most active form of passive income you will earn.
Certainly didn't work out for me in Michigan, living in SC; Michigan is fairly landlord friendly, but fat lot of good that is if they skip town without a forwarding address after trashing the place.
One comment about gold. If you buy gold to add to portfolio return over a long period, keep in mind the real benefit of holding physical gold in a portfolio doesn't happen for a half century or so. If you bought gold 25+ years ago at ~$300/oz, you're happy right now. It is a boost to total portfolio return over the long haul (2000-2025). Twenty five years hence, where will gold be? 40K/oz? Who knows.
I shy away from market timing. The notable lifetime exception was 2022-23, when Commenter_XY bought into intermediate term bond index funds at a greatly increased rate. That was a truly historic decline in the bond market, in 2022.
I bought my Gold because it's pretty.
Nose ring? Doesn't seem like it'd be you.
"Twenty five years hence, where will gold be? 40K/oz?"
Probably, but that will only be $4K in today's dollars...
IANAA but understand rental housing.
It's Friday afternoon, snowing, and your tenant calls you and says that the heating system isn't working. Or that they just accidentally broke the toilet tank and water is gushing down the staircase. Or daughter and her boyfriend come up with the bright idea of putting an entire bag of stale pretzels down the garbage disposal (they expanded into wet mush requiring the physical removal of the drain line).
What you gonna do???
BTW -- the above all really happened. And the time there was "blood" running across the basement floor -- the tenant's son had jumped on the oil burner and broken off the feed line, and heating oil is dyed red.
You do not want to rent without a trustworthy and competent person within an hour's drive -- unless you take a hit on the rent you charge so you can rent to such a person and have responsibility in the lease.
Pope Leo XIV is set to disband Opus Dei.
Dunno much about that stuff but it's causing quite a stir.
No, not disband, restructure.
https://thecatholicherald.com/article/report-claims-opus-dei-faces-sweeping-reform
"Dunno much about that stuff ..." Add it to the list you don't know much about and yet expound upon.br> It's why you are Il Douche.
In other news: The world Anglican Communion has definitely split in two. A formal schism was announced this week, with the largest body of Anglicans no long recognizing the Archbishop of Canterbury as "primus into pares" and will no longer participate in the Lambeth Conference.
That's what happens when your clergy are mainly atheists and you get on every far left ideology train.
Antifa-linked professor arrested for bringing loaded gun to anti-ICE protest
"Elias Cepeda, a professor at Northeastern Illinois University (NEIU) in Chicago, was recently arrested at a pro-illegal immigration protest against Immigrations, Customs, and Enforcement (ICE), according to a Department of Homeland Security press release.
Cepeda was arrested on Sept. 26 outside an ICE facility while carrying a loaded firearm and multiple magazines, the department announced.
Authorities say Cepeda has suspected ties to Antifa and has previously posted content online glorifying violence against federal law enforcement."
https://www.campusreform.org/article/antifa-linked-professor-arrested-bringing-loaded-gun-anti-ice-protest/28774
Ignoring the 'authorities say' of it all, and pretending there are no lies and spin, what's the crime here?
-Doing a pro-illegal immigration protest -Carrying a loaded firearm -Having suspected Antifa ties -Posting content online glorifying violence against federal law enforcement
“Elias Cepeda has suspected ties to the domestic terrorist organization ANTIFA and has a history of glorifying violence against—and the killing of—our brave law enforcement,” said DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin. She added that the arrest came just two days after an attack on an ICE facility in Dallas, praising law enforcement for preventing potential harm.
This is some openly false tying of one thing to another. It'll work on willing suckers like TP, but it's pretty badly executed for anyone else.
So you support this guy and the things he espouses?
My comment was specifically about the DHS lying. I don't approve of that.
You can take your false choice and shove it.
Unrelated to this particular guy and these particular Trump lies, I have for decades hated the words "links" and "ties." They don't have any meaning. (Or, rather, they can mean just about anything, which amounts to the same thing.) One can be a member of, employed by, employer of, friends with, related to, roommate of, classmate of, etc. a person or entity. Those all have pretty clear meanings. But "ties" doesn't. ("Suspected ties," used above, just compounds the problem.) The word is used for guilt-by-association without ever bothering to define the association. It's at best lazy and at worse dishonest.
I get your point, and I spent a few moments trying to come up with a more specific term myself. It's not even really association. Or correlation. It's just mentioning 2 things near each other and hoping some tools pick up the implication and don't think too hard.
He was arrested Sept 26th. It's Oct 17th. What's the update? ICE arrested two others for having guns while protesting at the same facility and it turns out they were released later and not charged (at least with federal firearm charges not sure about any other charges) because they possessed the guns legally (with CCL and FOID which are required in IL) and never brandished or displayed the guns.
What about Mr Cepeda? Did they find the gun after detaining him and patting him down? Did he point the guns at the snipers on the roof of the Broadview facility? An arrest signifies nothing when so many are arrested violently and then released quietly when nobody is around to see.
I don't see anything in the article that proves the professor has 'suspected ties to the domestic terrorist organization ANTIFA'. Just another Baghdad Bob saying so. So where are you getting your proof on this?
"He was carrying a loaded firearm and multiple rounds of ammunition. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), federal partners supporting Operation Midway Blitz, seized the gun."
I presume ATF had grounds to seize the weapon.
Minneapolis Public Schools Prohibit White and Asian Students From Taking Classes on ‘BLACK Culture’ and ‘BLACK Queens’ ‘It is extremely hard to imagine how this could possibly be legal,’ civil rights attorney says
https://freebeacon.com/america/minneapolis-public-schools-prohibit-white-and-asian-students-from-taking-classes-on-black-culture-and-black-queens/
What the hell is wrong with these people? This is openly, blatantly illegal.
"Black Queens"?? OK, after La Queef-a, I'm drawing a blank.
Coming soon to Netflix, and that's no joke.
This is one of those things that is obviously illegal,¹ and yet the complaints themselves are almost certainly in bad faith. What white and Asian students are actually looking to take these classes? ¹ It's not clear which would be more mindboggling: that they consulted with lawyers who told them this was ok, or that they didn't consult with lawyers at all.
Assuming for the sake of argument that Whites and Asians wouldn't want such courses, it would be kind of redundant to prohibit them from attending, wouldn't it?
You just want to wave away racism committed by your side, so you can get back to the important task of attributing racism to a sinister Other.
How would gutting Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act affect the election? I don't have access to this article, but this chart and this chart, both taken from the article, are eye-opening.
"Gutting?" No bias there. 🙂 But, after all, many believe, myself included, that the forced creation of "majority minority" districts is racist in of itself.
Here's the article, a gift to you:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/upshot/supreme-court-voting-rights-gerrymander.html?unlocked_article_code=1.uE8.3xB4.Yq5_Z87ZN5-a&smid=url-share
Thanks. Cohn has the same bias as me:
While state laws restricting gerrymandering have mostly been enacted by Democrats in blue and purple states, Section 2 is the main legal limitation on gerrymandering in many red states, particularly in the South.
For example without Section 2 you end up with no blue districts in LA, MS, TN, SC and AL. That's a gerrymander intended to dilute black votes.
Well, no: It's an absence of gerrymanders intended to concentrate black votes.
Isn't the algorithm something like this:
1. Crack to see if you can run the board. 2. If not, create one (or another) opposition district and pack. 3. Take remaining districts and go back to Step 1.
Democrats get about 35-40% of the vote. If you have all Red districts even though there are at least 6 districts in each state and a total of 43, you have partisan gerrymandering (which SCOTUS says is just peachy keen) that had the intent and effect of diluting the black vote.
"gerrymander intended to dilute" democrat votes you mean
Intending to dilute Democratic votes by diluting black votes.
Very simple, delicious Friday dinner: sautéed scallops over fresh pasta. Sautéed in butter and some white wine, a bit of salt and pepper.
I live in New Bedford, the busiest seafood port in North America by value, and it's mostly scallops. [1] I live about a mile from the port. There's a big wholesaler here that also runs a retail store for locals, and the prices used to be about half the supermarket price. No more. Oh, well.
Fresh pasta is key. It was on an outrageous sale a few weeks ago, and I loaded up the freezer with various kinds. From freezer to boiling water, done in two minutes, and far, far superior to dried pasta.
I just have to pick up a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc and a baguette (fresh baked at the seafood store) and I'll be all set. Maybe some fresh parsley.
[1] The busiest fishing port in North America is New Bedford, Massachusetts, by value and Dutch Harbor, Alaska, by volume. New Bedford is the nation's top commercial fishing port in terms of monetary value, largely due to its lucrative sea scallop fishery, and has held this title for over two decades. In contrast, Dutch Harbor, Alaska, is consistently the top port by sheer volume of seafood landed, with its landings dominated by species like pollock.
[2] "Rana offers fresh pasta in tagliatelle, pappardelle, fettuccine, and linguine varieties, with the primary difference being the width of the flat pasta ribbons. All are quick to cook (around 2 minutes) and are designed with a specific texture to hold sauces well. The brand's products, like those from Giovanni Rana, are made with fresh ingredients like eggs and wheat and can be served with various sauces." I got the fettuccine, pappardelle, linguine, and tagliatelle in 9 oz. packages for about a buck a package on sale. The list price is $3.99, today they're on sale for $2.50. Highly recommended. By the way, for just me I only cook about a third of a pack at a time, so 30¢ worth of pasta will do it. The only thing better is when I make my own fresh pasta - just egg and Semolina. Yes, I have a pasta machine. 🙂
They drag for scallops where they dump the NYC sewerage.
Oh, fuck you!
"Fresh pasta is key. " Indeed, It is better if you make it yourself. Use that pasta machine!
"An interesting phenomenon is taking place. We have certain politicians that are having a really hard time making their fundraising goals for the first time ever. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that a whole bunch of NGOs and Planned Parenthood stopped receiving hundreds of millions of dollars annually from the taxpayers. Yeah, because turns out that certain politicians, rather than asking for your money, would take it, in the form of taxation, and then give it to their ideological allies within the NGO and abortion industry, and then get a bunch of campaign contributions in return. I guess it was like a, a finder's fee. Or what's the other word that. Embezzlement. Yeah, they're finding now that it's much more difficult when people have to voluntarily give you money, instead of just stealing it from them through taxation."
https://www.facebook.com/NickFreitasVA/videos/politicians-not-meeting-their-fundraising-goals-for-the-first-time-because-of-on/706762445678093/
"I wonder if" becomes "turns out" within 1 sentence. Becomes "embezzlement" shortly after that.
Watch them go, folks - it's a speculation-to-conspiracy-theory speed run!
Irony: Calling yourself Sarcastr0 and being unable to detect sarcasm or tongue in cheek in a very normal way speaking.
Guess I have to spell it out. The sarcasm part is the pretending it's "wondering" or speculation when it's just facts.
Planned Parenthood advocacy and political organizations spent a combined $69.5 million in the 2024 election cycle on campaign activities, ballot measures, and voter mobilization. https://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/pressroom/statement-from-planned-parenthood-action-fund-on-presidential-election-results
A Brennan Center for Justice analysis reported a record $1.9 billion in dark money spending in federal elections in 2024, with much of that routed through nonprofits that do not disclose their donors. "the $1.9 billion figure reported in this analysis necessarily — and perhaps substantially — underestimates the true scale of dark money spending in 2024." https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/dark-money-hit-record-high-19-billion-2024-federal-races
So the argument being made only by implication is that money is fungible, so funding to Planned Parenthood to do something specific is the same as funding them for lobbying or political donations.
As for the dark money, the right made the dark money bed; using it to bootstrap your way into conspiracy theories seems disingenuous.
Note that there's exactly zero evidence presented for the premise itself!
Don Lemon Urges Minorities: ’Get a Gun’ to Fight off ICE
During a Tuesday appearance on “The Left Hook with Wajahat Ali,” former CNN host Don Lemon suggested black Americans should arm themselves to fight off ICE.
FOX News quoted Lemon saying, “If you believe in the Second Amendment, if you believe in the Constitution, Black people, Brown people of all stripes, whether you’re an Indian American or a Mexican American or whoever you are, go out in your place where you live and get a gun legally. Get a license to carry legally.”
He added, “Because when you have people knocking on your door and taking you away without due process as a citizen, isn’t that what the Second Amendment was written for?”
https://www.breitbart.com/2nd-amendment/2025/10/17/don-lemon-urges-black-americans-to-arm-up-to-fight-off-ice/
Thank goodness Breitbart is here to quote Fox News to quote the latest on the deeply important Don Lemon sounding like every poster in a gun thread on this blog!
Yes. And note that they took three words he actually said ("get a gun") and then just added random words after it that he didn't say.
Yawn. Do tell us how Lemon was not saying to get a gun to fight off ICE.
It's actually pretty difficult to say anymore what the Second Amendment was written for. Whatever it may have been then, it's not the case now.
I just asked the AI's: "How does one join the organization called ANTIFA?"
Both the MAGA-programmed Grok and Google Gemini admonished me saying ANTIFA is not a centralized organization with formal membership rolls, headquarters, or a hierarchical structure like a political party or club.
So how do you indict someone as an ANTIFA terrorist? And how can you designate ANTIFA as a terrorist organization when it isn't an organization? It seems to me you are making thought or preference a crime.
Poor MAGAts. You've been throwing every piece of shit you can pick up against the old wall. You came out blazing in January that all the Mexican rapists were TERRORISTS. But your voting bloc needed the terrorists to pick radishes, so that died off pretty quick. Then everyone under the sun was ANTISEMITIC TERRORISTS. That got old. Then TRANNY TERRORISTS were shooting up every school and Nazi podcaster they could find. That didn't work out.
So this month, it looks like everyone is a member of an imaginary group: ANTIFA TERRORISTS. I think you rubes are running out of bogeymen, unless you're planning to recycle the older ones.
I just want to reiterate something from last week: it doesn't even matter whether it's an organization for the purposes of that question, because there's no such thing as designating a domestic group as a terrorist organization. There are legal provisions for designating foreign groups as terrorist organizations, but none such for domestic ones. Trump can namecall antifa as a "terrorist organization," but not "designate" it as such, even if were an actual group.
Looks like Trump is already starting to squawk that he alone will be responsible if the Ukraine war ends. Let's be crystal clear, the only one responsible would be the Ukrainian people. They've fought their hearts out and died. They've created their own drone army and missile systems, destroyed the Black Sea Fleet, and are smashing Russia's oil facilities to smithereens. Their little country is doing what the entire free world couldn't do in 70 years: bring Russia to its knees.
I would find it the height of insulting if our Little Man took an ounce of credit from the brave Ukrainian people. Especially after he and Vance trashed and sabotaged them.
Let me bring up a subject that is dear to my heart - the loss of the subjunctive case. It seems, nowadays, rarely to be found, and then, largely in judicial decisions - "if it be the case" - from only a very few older judges. Whilst I am not a hard-core prescriptivist, I do like it, and I try to keep using it. I doubt it is even taught, nowadays.
But I will continue to use it, even as the invasion of the barbaroi is largely complete, and the gates a rusted wreck.
It's still alive and well in German. Gott sei dank!
You must have been in heaven a month ago when Talk-Like-A-Pirate Day rolled around.
If I were you, I wouldn’t cry too hard about it.
Please distinguish the subjunctive from the conditional case.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/atlantas-city-run-grocery-sees-early-success-sparking-debate-over-governments-role.amp
What’s next, free buses?
Given that the story comes from Fox News, it's all the more remarkable. I'd like to see how long it lasts - 2 months seems too soon to judge.
It’s not one of my usual sources, but it does make it perhaps slightly more likely that the Marxist panic crowd might engage with it.
The article just asserts the store is "thriving" but says nothing really factual.
"We sell a little more fruit than average" doesn't say much.
As I have said here many times, here in the hood, food deserts are very real. Grocery stores are so far away that most people just buy and eat whatever is at the convenience store.
In the article they make a valid gripe that a low price, government-funded grocery store could undercut private grocers. I suppose that would be true if any private grocers were actually in the hood. But they ain't. I mean, is it so awful that this little bit of socialism gets decent food into hungry mouths?
"As I have said here many times, here in the hood, food deserts are very real. Grocery stores are so far away that most people just buy and eat whatever is at the convenience store."
And why is that? Could it be that the crime is so bad - robbery, shoplifting, etc. - is so bad that no one wants to invest in these communities? If the residents there would straighten out their act, maybe grocery stores would invest in their communities. Until then - well, sucks to be there.
Do you consider people's blanket estimation of MAGAs such as yourself as racist antisemites to be unfair?
So, your response is to call me a racists and antisemite? What a dick.
Its not true. There are real grocery stores all over the east side of cleveland
Local chain called Dave's, Aldi, Mejer has a store in Fairfax, others.
Sav a Lot has many, its not a great store but not a convenience store either.
The super-high priced Meijer/Fairfax store is 21 long city blocks away. The nearest Save-a-Lot on Superior is almost two miles away. I take it you have a car, Bob. My old ladies here don't.
I take it you've been able to get a job without discrimination. When your peeps died there was a funeral home that would process their bodies, and a cemetery to bury them in. Until about 1985, that wasn't the case for my people. I take my old ladies down to the neegro graveyard by the metro tracks every month. Shame on you motherfuckers that think these people's plight is a joke.
No, you're the joke. The fact that these people live far from grocery stores is no one's fault but their own.
Aren't there buses there?
When I was a kid we'd haul groceries home in one of those shopping carts, that almost everyone in the Bronx had. It sucks to be poor, but you make out. Or, you could have your stuff delivered, for a nominal charge and a modest tip.
As I have said here many times, here in the hood, food deserts are very real.
Reason has repeatedly pointed out otherwise.
Now don't you start with me, David. I can absolutely prove to you what I am saying is the truth.
What do they need grocery stores for, anyway? You told us they don't know how to cook, it's all microwave and fast food.
Maybe instead of state run groceries we need education for these folks, in "home economics."
You are correct. But it's a weird dynamic. The young mothers make no attempt to learn from their elders. Everyone makes the same mistakes. So I don't hang with them...just the grandmas. And all the kids end up with the grandmas. So I ask my grannies why they always raise the kids of their kids. And they say to me, 'Because I was stupid as a kid. But now that I'm older and settled, I can at least raise these grand kids right.' But you wouldn't understand this shit.
What do you mean I wouldn't understand? It's multi-generational cultural rot. They should strive for familial stability, self reliance, and stability. But they're stuck in this cyclical rut. It's truly unfortunate. I feel there would be resistance to trying to change it, reform it, as if it were racist or wrong to try.
The US has defeated the UN-China-EU Global "Green" Shipping tax.
"A landmark deal to cut global shipping emissions has been abandoned after Saudi Arabia and the US succeeded in ending the talks.
More than 100 countries had gathered in London to approve a deal first agreed in April, which would have seen shipping become the world's first industry to adopt internationally mandated targets to reduce emissions."
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c3vnl0yxg53o
The tax was designed to force conversion of the global commercial maritime fleet to green washed fuels like ammonia or methanol which are not only less energy dense, but take more carbon emissions to produce than they save.
And here I thought they were going back to sails. Bring back the Cutty Sark.
Jay Jones waited too long to pretend to regret his death-wish texts: https://www.newsweek.com/jay-jones-chances-winning-virginia-attorney-general-race-texts-10890072
In wednesday’s oral argument in Louisiana v. Calais, Justice Alito floated two remarkable propositions.
First, he said that seeking partisan advantage was a perfectly legitimate legislative goal that should be accepted by the courts as a historically legitimate justification for apportionment legislation.
Second, he said that as long as a legislature’s goal is a legitimate one, there is no violation of the 15th Amendment.
It’s worth noting that these two positions taken together would justify every single practice 19th and 20th Century Southern Redeemers ever used to disenfranchise blacks. Grandfather clauses, poll taxes, literacy tests, everything. Every single one of these practices could be described as intended to keep Republicans out of office, a legitimate legislative goal, and merely incidentally affecting blacks because blacks tended to vote Republican.
Why anyone should be surprised that the South-Shall-Rise-Again party and their judges would rule any differently is naïve.
I'm not sure what you mean. The rationale is simple. A literacy test designed to ensure educated voters is fine. A rigged literacy test which is applied unequally to blacks is not fine.
Everything done in the Jim Crow south was done for the sole purpose of disenfranchising blacks. That doesn't pass Alito's second test because none of them are legitimate goals.
Is your complaint that one could more easily hide a racially discriminatory purpose under the guise of a facially neutral law? That is always a concern with every act and courts decide those questions.
A literacy test to vote would be fine.
So would separate by equal, then?
It's hilarious to see some idiot here keep posting what an LLM hallucinated to him, as if LLMs know anything about the real world rather than whatever was allowed into their training data.
Outsourcing your thinking to a computer will make you look dumb.
"...will make you look dumb." No, it will confirm it.
I admit a similar take on the absurdity of it. When someone prefaces a remark with, "Here's what ChatGPT says," I interpret it as, "SKIP to next remark." It's a little like Wikipedia, but ground up and rearranged to have only a faulty resemblance to any actual basis.
And what does that say of people who copy/paste LLM output? That it's not important to them to get what they're saying right.
That's a notably uncompelling way to preface any remark.
Everyone got their pussy hats from 2017 out of storage and ready to attend the big marches tomorrow?
Vaya con Dios!
You borrowed that from me, hayseed. I told everyone here the last No Kings rally that I wore my pink pussy hat. You do remember why we wear pink pussy hats, don't you?
Because you're pink pussies, Duh.
Because it reminds you of the last time you touched pussy?
I agree BfO....No Kings Boomers, knock yourselves out tomorrow. Exercise your 1A rights. Keep it non-violent. Don't trip on your cane. 😉
“trip on your cane”
You sure you want to be channeling Steven Miller?
Why do the pictures of the last No Kings rally or these other Lefty protests look so White and not diverse like America is?
I see mostly old White boomers or young White retards.
I can answer that for you, Adolph. My neegro neighbors have tried for 200 years to try to make a difference for themselves. But nothing works. It doesn't work so badly that the biggest white supremacy movement since reconstruction now holds all government power. It's called learned helplessness, asshole.
No wonder you got your "N" card. You suffer from the same affliction in your $200,00 mansion.
"My neegro (sic) neighbors have tried for 200 years to try to make a difference for themselves."
Well, maybe not. Are they single-mom households on welfare? Where are the men? Where are the wage earners, the achievers?
Oh, and where do you get 200 years from? It's 160 years since the end of the civil war.
Hobie frequently gets lengths wrong.
So I just found out a deeply disturbing fact, especially for my state, which has a large agriculture sector.
In years past, China purchased between 1/4 and 1/3 of the soybeans grown in America. Soybeans are the largest crop in American agriculture.
Since May, due to the tariffs, that number is zero. Literally none. They are buying from Brazil (our nearest competitor in soybean production) and Argentina.
That business isn’t coming back as long as the new suppliers can continue to supply the demand from China.
So the tariffs directly cost soybean farmers their largest customer and handed most of that business to their biggest competitor, Brazil.
This is what winning looks like to Donald Trump. To farmers, it looks like losing.
https://www.agrinews-pubs.com/business/2025/10/12/trade-battle-with-china-puts-us-soybean-farmers-in-peril/
“Argentina”
Wait, not the same Argentina that we are bailing out for $20B?? Or is it now $40B?
Don’t worry— I have heard that this money will not go out unless the friend-of-Trump chainsaw wielding, CPAC going, dog cloning crypto scammer president wins legislative elections. Any bailing out of Scott Bessent’s hedge fund buddies is purely coincidental.
America first!
Argentina first!
Bonus footage:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ya5hMPkSnk
Are we sure we want this dude spending our $20B?
You have to break some eggs to make an omelet. It's unfortunate, but it's not forever, and it's not all of their crop.
Do you expect things to always remain the same?
“break some eggs to make an omelet”
I would pay good money to see you say that to a North Dakota soybean farmer’s face. It’s the Jodi Ernst theory of agriculture and economics I guess… “we are all going to die.”
Sure, I'd say it. Grow something else.
Sure, Jan.
What does that mean?
I’m expressing skepticism. I’m saying it is a lot easier to glibly tell someone whose livelihood is at risk to restructure their life and business as if it were as easy as changing a pair of socks when you are sitting behind a computer posting anonymously.
And I do not believe you would actually say that to a real live human being standing in front of you— because it would be offensive and you do not strike me as someone who has the balls to seek out real-life confrontation in this fashion.
To quote Orwell: "Yes, but where is the omelet?"
Yes, it is amusing to me that we give $20B to Argentina to prop up their soybean farms while our farmers rot in the field. But...hey...own the libs
Wow. A lot ringing true for me here. Haven’t read the full paper yet:
“Our findings highlight the limits of countering misinformation directly, because for some people, literal truth is not the point.
For example, President Donald Trump incorrectly claimed in August 2025 that crime in Washington D.C. was at an all-time high, generating countless fact-checks of his premise and think pieces about his dissociation from reality.
But we believe that to someone with a symbolic mindset, debunkers merely demonstrate that they’re the ones reacting, and are therefore weak. The correct information is easily available, but is irrelevant to someone who prioritizes a symbolic show of strength. What matters is signaling one isn’t listening and won’t be swayed.
In fact, for symbolic thinkers, nearly any statement should be justifiable. The more outlandish or easily disproved something is, the more powerful one might seem when standing by it. Being an edgelord – a contrarian online provocateur – or outright lying can, in their own odd way, appear “authentic.”
Some people may also view their favorite dissembler’s claims as provocative trolling, but, given the link between this mindset and authoritarianism, they want those far-fetched claims acted on anyway. The deployment of National Guard troops to Washington, for example, can be the desired end goal, even if the offered justification is a transparent farce.”
https://theconversation.com/winning-with-misinformation-new-research-identifies-link-between-endorsing-easily-disproven-claims-and-prioritizing-symbolic-strength-265652
"During last year’s presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, Trump said violent crime was rising. ABC moderator David Muir immediately fact-checked him, claiming, “President Trump, as you know, the FBI says overall violent crime is coming down in this country…”
Nearly every major media outlet echoed that narrative. National Public Radio ran the headline, “Violent crime is dropping fast in the U.S. – even if Americans don’t believe it.” The Wall Street Journal declared, “Violent Crime Rate Falls Sharply After Pandemic Surge.” Vox insisted, “Violent crime is plummeting.” Axios reported, “New data shows violent crime dropping sharply in major U.S. cities.”
However, a new Bureau of Justice Statistics report, which includes data through 2024, shows that Trump was right during the debate when he said, “Crime here is up and through the roof.” The National Crime Victimization Survey shows violent crime surged 59%, with rape and sexual assault up 67%, robbery up 38%, and aggravated assault up 62%. That’s the largest four-year increase in the survey’s 52-year history.
Why, it’s almost as though Muir, NPR, WSJ, Vox, and all the other outlets were just pushing a narrative convenient to the Democrats, rather than reporting the news."
“President Donald Trump incorrectly claimed in August 2025 that crime in Washington D.C. was at an all-time high.”
“What matters is signaling one isn’t listening and won’t be swayed.”
Heh. Very elegantly demonstrated. Well done.
Do you deliberately refuse to link to the things you quote to make it harder for people to see how full of shit you are? Here's the actual report in question:
https://bjs.ojp.gov/document/cv24.pdf
What the report actually shows is that violent crime was higher compared to a cherrypicked date of the lowest year in recorded history: 2020. But that crime was not up in 2024.
Your criticisms are correct, but to be clear: the claim was “highest ever” in August 2025.
I just love when the copy pasta is self-refuting! Demonstrating, in all its glory, the upshot:
“Some people may also view their favorite dissembler’s claims as provocative trolling, but, given the link between this mindset and authoritarianism, they want those far-fetched claims acted on anyway. The deployment of National Guard troops to Washington, for example, can be the desired end goal, even if the offered justification is a transparent farce.”
B-I-N-G-O
TP's cherry picking on this exact stat has been pointed out to him for at least a year now.
Dude doesn't care.
“The correct information is easily available, but is irrelevant to someone who prioritizes a symbolic show of strength.”
It’s like the authors had him in mind!
...and in case you missed it: Trump commutes George Santos sentence.
Truly a despicable individual who will reap his eternal reward. Scamming desperate pet owners is lower than low.
Everyone agrees he's a scumbag. And in a nod to you, he's a bit tranny. So you should probably dislike this pardon.
He wasn't pardoned, his sentence was commuted.
He needed something to take the news off the "No Kings" rally. Also to distract attention from the news that the Duke of York got his pink slip. British seem to take the Epstein stuff a bit more serious than Mike Johnson does.
Hey, remember how MAGA sycophants like to pretend that Trump cares about corruption and wants to drain a swamp?
https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/17/politics/george-santos-sentence-commuted
You think a first term Congressman, expelled from Congress represents "the swamp"?
Well Santos was pretty swampy. Kind of encapsulated the worst traits of the Republican party. A gay confidence man hit a lot of buttons.
As was quite predictable, Trump LOVES to pardon the swamp.
Santos is the 10th convicted Congressperson to get clemency from Trump.
Chris Colins - insider trading Duncan Hunter - campaign corruption Steve Stockman - campaign corruption Rick Renzi - corrupt land-swap deal Robin Hayes - lying to the FBI Mark Siljander - obstruction of justice and acting as an unregistered foreign agent Duke Cunningham - bribery Michael Grimm - tax evasion John Rowland - corruption
“at least Santos had the Courage, Conviction, and Intelligence to ALWAYS VOTE REPUBLICAN!”
We’re letting people out of jail because they vote republican now?
Who would waste a perfect Fall Saturday (College Foo-bawl, Playoff Beis-a-Bol) for some Bullshit "No Kings" Rally (call me when they have the "No Moose-lums" one, preferably in February, when there's no sports worth watching (and I'm including the Super Bowl, with Sad Bunny or whatever the fuck his name is)
Frank have been seeing how Wisconsin Football is going? And the Brewers are down 0-3 in playoffs.
I was talking "Real" College Foobawl, i.e. SEC, and the Brewers still have a chance, Ya Gotta Believe!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!(HT T. McGraw) OK, even I don't believe that last one.
I'll be at the rally, Frankie. Someone has to save you Jews from MAGA, the Proud Boys, the Young Republicans, all the neoNazis in Turning Point identified by the ADL, the Texas Republican Party, aaand etc.
I stopped at five examples because I know this is difficult for you, Frankie. But if you want me to continue into infinity...with citations...I'm happy to oblige. I know it sucks for you, Frankie. You want to watch the world burn, but you care about Judaism...as do I. So what do we do with a party that wants to watch the world burn while simultaneously despising the very-non-Christian Jews?
ICE has become Trump's Gestapo. 86 47.
Here’s a particularly vile specimen:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZtVUG6l780
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Jacob Sullum | 10.17.2025 4:00 PM
Autumn Billings | 10.17.2025 1:31 PM
Jack Nicastro | 10.17.2025 1:15 PM
Eric Boehm | 10.17.2025 1:00 PM
Joe Lancaster | 10.17.2025 12:45 PM
