Monday Open Thread

What's on your mind?

Comments

[not guilty]

On yesterday's open comment thread, I called attention to Donald Trump's unhinged diatribe on Truth Social:

Just in: Documents show conclusively that Christopher Wray, Deranged Jack Smith, Merrick Garland, Lisa Monaco, and other crooked lowlifes from the failed Biden Administration, signed off on Operation Arctic Frost. They spied on Senators and Congressmen/women, and even taped their calls. They cheated and rigged the 2020 Presidential Election. These Radical Left Lunatics should be prosecuted for their illegal and highly unethical behavior!

https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115432378654253078?ftag=YHF4eb9d17

This screed curiously omits identification of any particular "illegal . . . behavior" that Messrs. Wray, Smith and Garland of Ms. Monaco engaged in, for which any of them should be prosecuted.

Since neither Trump nor any MAGAt commenter here has identified any such criminal conduct, this topic deserves further discussion. How about it, MAGAts?

[Kazinski]

Anyone, especially a lawyer, who is looking for any legal edification from a Trump Truth Social post is a fool.

If and when any of them get indicted then you can ask the question again, after we read the indictment.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Kazinski — A fool? I am not qualified to opine with any confidence, but maybe lawyers who know more can refresh us on the concept of judicial notice, and whether stuff published by litigants out of court can affect the outcomes of cases.

[David Nieporent]

I am curious as to what you think judicial notice is, and how you think it is relevant to anything.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Nieporent — My question was what you think judicial notice is, and what it can be applied to. Care to answer?

Seems like you demand a lot of deference to the legal profession, but don't know quite how to handle it when you get it. Not Guilty seems better prepared to accept deference than you are. I think it could be because he seems free of ideological blinders. Those seem to trouble some of your replies.

[not guilty]

Per Rule 201 of the Federal Rules of Evidence:

(b) Kinds of Facts That May Be Judicially Noticed. The court may judicially notice a fact that is not subject to reasonable dispute because it:

(1) is generally known within the trial court’s territorial jurisdiction; or
(2) can be accurately and readily determined from sources whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned.

(c) Taking Notice. The court:

(1) may take judicial notice on its own; or
(2) must take judicial notice if a party requests it and the court is supplied with the necessary information.

For example, a court could judicially notice that the American Civil War began in 1861 and ended in 1865 or that Barack Obama is the first black man to serve as President of the United States, because those are matters of common knowledge.

As for stuff published by litigants out of court, if the content of the publication is being offered against the party who published it, that is admissible (if relevant), but the proponent of the evidence would need to lay a foundation for its admission. The provenance of the publication may be reasonably subject to dispute, so a court may hesitate there about taking judicial notice.

[ali567]

Judicial notice is a rule of evidence that allows a court to accept certain facts as true without requiring formal proof. Typically, a judge may take judicial notice of:

Facts that are generally known within the court’s jurisdiction (e.g., that the sun rises in the east), or

Facts that can be accurately and readily determined from sources whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned (e.g., a government publication, a date on the calendar, or a statute).

In U.S. courts, this is governed by Federal Rule of Evidence 201, and most states have parallel provisions. https://mybrattextgenerator.com/

[Drewski]

Obvious ChatGPT answer is obvious.

[not guilty]

Pursuant to Article II, § 3 of the Constitution, the President has a duty to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." It is not too much to expect that, before calling for criminal prosecution of any individual, the President should "take care" to ensure that a crime has been actually committed.

The mere act of having displeased Donald Trump is no crime. Why can't the MAGAts acknowledge that simple truth?

[Martinned]

The mere act of having displeased Donald Trump is no crime.

Are you sure? It was enough to get Canada on the wrong end of an emergency and a 10% tariff.

[DDHarriman]

It didnt take long for the Left to come out in support of foreign countries meddling in US elections.

[David Nieporent]

The ad has absolutely nothing to do with elections. It's about tariffs.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Right! It's the tariffs which have to do with elections.

[Reallynotbob]

Foreign nations run ads in the US all the time to advocate for their interests.

[Martinned]

What do you mean the Left? Doug Ford is a populist right winger. And in this case he and I are agreeing with Ronald Reagan. How did Reagan end up as a figurehead of "the Left" in Trumpland?

[Joe_dallas]

NG - just another inane rant to to hide your distaste for the discovery and reporting of illegal acts by your fellow leftists.

Normal people would condemn the illegal acts, but not NG

[Nelson]

Which illegal acts, exactly? You seem long on rhetoric and short on facts.

[Joe_dallas]

John has a good response to your inane comment

JohnSmith97 55 minutes ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
Yes, I can remember back in the Biden and Obama admins that all of their social media posts contained footnotes and links.

[not guilty]

No, that is not responsive to Nelson's question at all.

What "illegal acts by [my] fellow leftists" do you contend that I find the discovery and reporting of to be distasteful? As to each such allegedly illegal act, please specify the who, what, when and where.

Does being called upon to provide actual facts cause MAGAts to break out in hives?

[not guilty]

Still waiting, Joe_dallas.

What "illegal acts by [my] fellow leftists" do you contend that I find the discovery and reporting of to be distasteful? As to each such allegedly illegal act, please specify the who, what, when and where.

[not guilty]

Still waiting, Joe_dallas.

[Joe_dallas]

Tells us when Biden or Obama provided links , citations or other evidence to their posts? or tweets?

[David Nieporent]

When did Biden or Obama tweet wild-eyed accusations that someone committed a crime?

[Joe_dallas]

WV Attorney provided the info to you

Are you being dense , double standard , inane?

Still awaiting adult behavior from NG

[not guilty]

Which federal criminal statute(s) did wvattorney13 list as having been violated by Wray, Smith, Garland and/or Monaco, Joe_dallas?

No matter how closely you examine this comment thread, the search for any such entries -- whether by wvattorney13 or by any other MAGAt -- will be as fruitless as that of a blind man, sitting in a dark room, searching for a black cat, that isn't there.

[not guilty]

Still waiting, Joe_dallas.

What "illegal acts by [my] fellow leftists" do you contend that I find the discovery and reporting of to be distasteful? As to each such allegedly illegal act, please specify the who, what, when and where.

[wvattorney13]

It is a one paragraph post and the alleged illegal behavior is stated right in the middle of it:

"They spied on Senators and Congressmen/women, and even taped their calls. They cheated and rigged the 2020 Presidential Election."

Now, of course Trump did not attach the investigatory files to his post, so we are unable to determine whether he has enough evidence to prove these allegations. You are free to believe that he does not have enough or any such evidence. But the allegations are not a mystery.

[Stephen Lathrop]

wvattorney13 — More often than not, Trump's allegations do turn out mysterious. Help me out. What does it take to keep lending them credence? Is there any point where allegiance to default presumptions ought to give way to experience? Or is it the point of a default legal presumption to assist malefactors and opportunists to blow up the judicial system?

[Michael P]

No level of detail ever provides enough "particular" to satisfy the sealion that a leftie can be prosecuted. Conversely, when it comes to conservatives, a federal indictment need only recite the bare elements of the crime to provide sufficient notice (according to the sealion).

[Sarcastr0]

To the real MAGA handmaids, Trump's constant evidenceless statements are just proof of how much evidence he's already provided!

[Life of Brian]

Not exactly sure why I'm feeding this troll, but the entire point of the thread you parachuted into is that social media posts aren't legal proceedings.

[Magister]

"Social media posts aren't legal proceedings" is pretty clearly not even a major point of the thread, but it is entirely reasonable that social media posts by the President could affect legal proceedings, like when Richard Nixon declared that Charles Manson was guilty.

[John 4]

“the entire point of the thread” — what? The entire point of this thread is a question: “What illegal conduct?”

The fact that you degenerates tried to turn it into “it’s ok if Trump makes stupid, careless statement about prosecuting people because it’s not a legal proceeding” doesn’t change that. Dear heavens.

[Life of Brian]

Man, it's like trolls to trollpaper around here!

This particular thread was ackshully discussing the quite sensible response to the initial sealioning: "Now, of course Trump did not attach the investigatory files to his post . . ."

[Joe_dallas]

Very simply - this thread has become the usual cesspool of leftists attempting to justify illegal behavior by their fellow leftists

[not guilty]

"This particular thread was ackshully [sic] discussing the quite sensible response to the initial sealioning: 'Now, of course Trump did not attach the investigatory files to his post . . .'"

No, LoB, you lie. The discussion on this thread is whether Messrs. Wray, Smith, Garland and/or Ms. Monaco violated federal criminal statutes.

If you and other MAGAts are bereft of evidence that they did, man up and say so.

[Life of Brian]

Thus saith the initial sealion. A very apropos bookend to the thread.

[not guilty]

No, social media posts aren't legal proceedings. No one is pretending that they are.

But a baseless call by someone in Donald Trump's position to criminally prosecute an innocent person is thoroughly despicable.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Sarcastr0 — Keen insight, that.

[JohnSmith97]

Yes, I can remember back in the Biden and Obama admins that all of their social media posts contained footnotes and links.

[not guilty]

It is a one paragraph post and the alleged illegal behavior is stated right in the middle of it:

"They spied on Senators and Congressmen/women, and even taped their calls. They cheated and rigged the 2020 Presidential Election."

Now, of course Trump did not attach the investigatory files to his post, so we are unable to determine whether he has enough evidence to prove these allegations. You are free to believe that he does not have enough or any such evidence. But the allegations are not a mystery.

To call for a specific person to be criminally prosecuted should presuppose the existence of probable cause to believe that the accused committed a specific crime -- unless the prosecuting authority is channeling Lavrentiy Beria, the head of the Soviet Secret Police: "Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime."

How about it, MAGAts? Which federal criminal statutes did Wray, Smith, Garland and/or Monaco violate, whether before, during or since the Biden administration? What is the nature and cause of the accusation that the Sixth Amendment requires that the alleged offenders be informed of?

[wvattorney13]

How would I know? I'm not Kash Patel. I know exactly what you know which is what Trump posted. Nobody else on this board would know anything further. I'm not sure what point you are making.

[not guilty]

"How would I know? I'm not Kash Patel. I know exactly what you know which is what Trump posted. Nobody else on this board would know anything further. I'm not sure what point you are making."

wvattorney13, of course I mean based on what information is publicly available.

But my larger point is that Wray, Smith, Garland and Monaco ran a clean administration, even if Garland dragged ass about appoint Smith as Special Counsel. Neither Donald Trump nor Kash Patel is fit to shine their shoes.

[hobie]

As president, Trump has a duty to re-open the stolen 2020 election cases. I whole heartedly endorse bring it all back to light.

[not guilty]

Trump's north star appears to be that he was criminally prosecuted, ergo, the folks who brought about that prosecution should be as well -- probable cause be damned.

Whenever I read the phrase "tit for tat," I invariably think of Dennis Miller's joke:

What is tat?
Where can I get it?
And how can I exchange it for the other?

[ReaderY]

Since Trump was in charge during the 2020 election, the Biden -Administration would not only had to possess a time machine, they would have had to violate temporal consistency, to go back in time in order to bring themselves into being. As a matter of logic, the statement is complete nonsense.

This may well be intentional. Trump wants a power so absolute that, like the totalitarian states in Orwell’s 1984, it requires people to surrender all of their own ability to sense reality and for their reality to be exclusively what he says it is.. As O’Brien said to Winston Smith in Room 101, if the Party says 2 + 2 equal 5, then two plus two equals five and that’s that.

The lies and the nonsense are not some weird personal quirk. They are essential. They are a critical test o whom he can rely on. Trump identifies who is loyal to him by identifying people not only willing to repeat his lies and contradictions of logic, but believe them.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Another keen insight. This thread is going okay.

[Riva]

Again? Maybe you should educate yourself on the disclosures related to Arctic Frost, disclosures involving an ongoing investigation, rather than engaging in yet another absurd effort to excuse something for which you have no real understanding? Tthis massive weaponization of federal law enforcement under the Biden administration targeted President Trump and 92 Republican groups and individuals, including Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA. Did the thug Smith unlawfully obtain the records, which let’s not forget included the phone records of eight Republican senators? Well if the thug lacked probable cause, the future looks bleak for him.

And beyond any criminal liability, exposing these gross abuses for the purposes of reform is just as, maybe even more, important.

But you engage in some asinine sealioning variation to preemptively discredit and/or foreclose any investigations and resulting liability for something that, from what is known, makes Watergate pale in comparison. What a fucking amateur troll clown show this comments section has become.

[ReaderY]

Impervious to logic, are we?

[not guilty]

Riva, what federal criminal statutes do you claim that Messrs. Wray, Smith, Garland and/or Ms. Monaco violated?

If and to the extent you are relying upon this (heavily redacted) document, what crime(s) does it evince? https://www.grassley.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/arctic_frost_toll_analysis_of_us_senators.pdf

[not guilty]

Still waiting, Riva.

[Riva]

So there is no whistleblower testimony, documents revealing the targeted phone metadata collection on Republican lawmakers AND other groups and individuals, FBI files, or disclosures about White House involvement? All there is that one document? Like I wrote above, what a fucking amateur troll clown show this comments section has become.

[not guilty]

Once again, Riva, what federal criminal statutes do you claim that Messrs. Wray, Smith, Garland and/or Ms. Monaco violated?

Who, what, when and where as to each violation?

Which statute(s), if any, do you contend that "targeted phone metadata collection on Republican lawmakers and groups" violated? Federal criminal prosecution requires, you know, an applicable statute.

Will your next comment be to kvetch that you are tired of talking about this topic?

[Riva]

Asinine sealions do lack self-awareness.

[not guilty]

Being accused by Riva of lacking self-awareness is akin to being called a horndog by Bill Clinton.

[Riva]

You should ask yourself, and the other POS trolls here ranting almost daily about authoritarians, why the gross authoritarian abuses of power already exposed are of no apparent concern? It’s almost like you’re all just engaging in typical leftist projection.

And on Wednesday, you’ll probably start the same thing over again. Completely ignorant of the facts disclosed you’ll pretend nothing was disclosed. Then you’ll ignore any response, and argue that there is no federal criminal or civil law that could ever by implicated by the revelation of the abuses. Nothing exists apparently to address deprivation of rights, unauthorized surveillance, abuse of power/misuse of government resources, and likely false statements/obstruction. And of course, exposing and implementing reforms for something that is starting to make Watergate look like amateur hour is really of no interest or importance. Especially to trolls in general whining about authoritarians and “no kings.”

Like I wrote above, what a fucking amateur troll clown show this comments section has become

[not guilty]

No, Riva, Donald Trump has not identified any criminal conduct by Christopher Wray, Jack Smith, Merrick Garland or Lisa Monaco. Neither have you identified it. Neither has any other MAGAt commenting on these threads.

And resort to whataboutism is a sure sign that a commenter is stone cold out of ammunition.

You have got nothing other than incessant repetition of the Big Lie.

[jay.tee]

So NG, based on your responses, you’re ok with the FBI and an illegally appointed, rabidly partisan “special counsel” pulling phone records of Democratic senators, congressmen, candidates, and affiliated groups?

[Sarcastr0]

You have a terrible habit of coming in hot with slanted or straight-up wrong facts, and demanding why people don't agree with your GIGO conclusions.

You have not established illegally appointed, nor rabidly partisan. Not your implication that the records pulled were all from one side of the aisle.

Bare assertions won't get you much engagement.

[jay.tee]

You have a bad habit of combining mendacity with your asshole personality to protect your partisan shibboleths.

You have not established illegally appointed

You’re right, I did not. A court ruling did. I hope you’re not that ignorant.

rabidly partisan

Again, are you so ignorant to not be aware of Jack Smith’s illustrious history including a unanimous rebuke from SCOTUS?

records pulled were all from one side of the aisle

Please share which Democrats were targeted by Arctic Frost? I’m not aware of any, but always open to new information.

You have a terrible habit of coming in hot with slanted or straight-up wrong facts, and demanding why people don't agree with your GIGO conclusions.

Sarcastr0, bare assertions won’t get you much engagement except to point out the obvious: you’re a mendacious asshole.

Back to our regularly scheduled programming:
So NG, how about it? Are you ok with this same level of corruption being pointed at Democrats?

[Sarcastr0]

Taking judge Cannon as authoritative is...a choice. Not a good one!

I don't recall the Supreme Court all getting together and telling Jack Smith he was rabidly partisan.

It's not partisan targeting that all those involved with seeking to overturn the 2020 election had ties with the GOP.

I give you some small credit for trying, albeit in a supercilious way, but you have met the burden of establishing none of your assertions.

You believe a lot that isn't so.

[David Nieporent]

You’re right, I did not. A court ruling did. I hope you’re not that ignorant.

A universally panned court ruling, but even if that ruling that ignored binding court precedent had been upheld on appeal, it would put his appointment on the same level as Alina Habba's. Do you go around calling her "illegally appointed"? How about Lindsey Halligan?

Again, are you so ignorant to not be aware of Jack Smith’s illustrious history including a unanimous rebuke from SCOTUS?

There was no "rebuke" from SCOTUS, and while one of the convictions he secured was overturned by an 8-0 SCOTUS, there was nothing about it that even remotely suggested that there was anything partisan about it, let alone that it was "rabidly" so.

[not guilty]

"So NG, based on your responses, you’re ok with the FBI and an illegally appointed, rabidly partisan “special counsel” pulling phone records of Democratic senators, congressmen, candidates, and affiliated groups?"

Assuming arguendo that that happened (it didn't), whether I am or am not personally "ok with [it]" matters not one whit. I am quite confident based on decades of experience parsing statutes, however, that it would not constitute a federal crime.

A federal criminal prosecution requires a federal criminal statute.

Can you identify any such statute(s) that you contend were violated, jay.tee? If so, please give title and section of the United States Code.

[jay.tee]

Taking judge Cannon as authoritative is...a choice

Yes, an un-appealed judgement on the issue was in fact authoritative. Once again, you’re not that ignorant, are you?

It's not partisan targeting

Garland and cronies lost all sense of propriety with their overtly partisan targeting of parents, Catholics, and others who had the temerity to publicly contradict the Biden Administration.

I don't recall the Supreme Court all getting together and telling Jack Smith he was rabidly partisan.

Unsurprising. You’re probably also unaware he attempted to prosecute people for Constitutionally protected speech in coordination with Lois Lerner when he was, ironically, DOJ Public Integrity Section Chief?

records pulled were all from one side of the aisle

Please share which Democrats were targeted by Arctic Frost? I’m not aware of any, but always open to new information.

Have you abandoned this line of…inquiry? It appears to be as valid as the other straw men in your post.

[jay.tee]

A universally panned court ruling

A self-own, David. Reveals your sources of “news” and “legal analysis” lack any sort of diversity or intellectual honesty.

You should step outside your insular, close-minded circles.

[jay.tee]

Assuming arguendo that that happened (it didn't), whether I am or am not personally "ok with [it]" matters not one whit.

I see. Shame that you support DOJ weaponization when it targets people you don’t like and rail against it when you think it targets people you do like. Not very principled.

Can you identify any such statute(s) that you contend were violated, jay.tee? If so, please give title and section of the United States Code.

I’ll answer this like I have before: you can fuck off with your pathetic little asshole law professor persona.

[David Nieporent]

Yes, an un-appealed judgement on the issue was in fact authoritative. Once again, you’re not that ignorant, are you?

Hey, Siri: Is a single district judge's decision on a question of law binding on any other judge or court anywhere? Is it even binding on the same judge in another case?

(Also, Siri: Can a ruling be called unappealed even after it was appealed?)

[David Nieporent]

I see. Shame that you support DOJ weaponization when it targets people you don’t like and rail against it when you think it targets people you do like. Not very principled.

That's because "weaponization" is a content-free word that just means "stuff I don't like." I support law enforcement being "weaponized" — if that's the term you want to use — against real crimes and real criminals in good faith, and I don't support law enforcement being "weaponized" against people in bad faith. There's no double standard, any more than there's one between supporting judges in striking down laws that actually do violate the constitution and not supporting judges in striking down ones that don't.

[not guilty]

Still waiting, Riva/ What federal criminal statutes do you claim that Messrs. Wray, Smith, Garland and/or Ms. Monaco violated?

Who, what, when and where as to each violation?

Which statute(s), if any, do you contend that "targeted phone metadata collection on Republican lawmakers and groups" violated?

[Riva]

See above. And you didn’t even wait until Wednesday.

[not guilty]

Riva, you are tap dancing furiously. If you have no answer to what I have been asking say so.

Federal statutes are typically cited by title and section of the United States Code or, occasionally, by reference to Statutes at Large. Why have you declined to do that?

And nothing that you have stated upthread identifies any statutory violation.

[Riva]

The facts known to this date implicate multiple criminal violations. That’s probably why Smith’s deputies are taking the 5th amendment. And of course there’s civil liability and the small matter of exposing the corruption with the goal of implementing reforms to prevent such abuses in the future.

If you want this comments section not to be a troll clown show, stop contributing to the effort.

[Sarcastr0]

When asked to specify statutes and crimes you come out with 'multiple criminal violations.'

That's not specifying anything. It's thus yet another failure to engage with the comments.

You writing checks you're not interested in doing the work to cash is not you being surrounded by trolls, it's a you problem.

[Riva]

I guess the thug’s deputies and the thug himself have nothing to fear if that’s true. I’m looking forward to their testimony. As soon as they stop hiding behind the 5th amendment. Because there are no crimes here. Deprivation of rights, unauthorized surveillance, abuse of power/misuse of government resources, and false statements/obstruction. Nothing illegal about that.

[David Nieporent]

“I once asked, ‘If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?' Now I know the answer to that question. When your family, your company, and all the people in your orbit have become the targets of an unfounded, politically motivated Witch Hunt supported by lawyers, prosecutors, and the Fake News Media, you have no choice.”

One can probably guess from the mentally ill word choices and bizarre capitalization who said that.

[Riva]

The primary victim and target of lawfare does apparently share something in common with the lawfare abusing thugs who disgraced themselves and the government institutions they corrupted. Even Smith and his thugs enjoy rights under the Constitution they despise.

[not guilty]

"The facts known to this date implicate multiple criminal violations."

Then why in the hell are you unable to identify the offending conduct, Riva, including specification of which statutes were violated? All you have shown is incessant, ipse dixit repetition of the same Big Lie.

Do you recall who wrote the following?:

Propaganda must not investigate the truth objectively and, in so far as it is favorable to the other side, present it according to the theoretical rules of justice; yet it must present only that aspect of the truth which is favorable to its own side. (...) The receptive powers of the masses are very restricted, and their understanding is feeble. On the other hand, they quickly forget. Such being the case, all effective propaganda must be confined to a few bare essentials and those must be expressed as far as possible in stereotyped formulas. These slogans should be persistently repeated until the very last individual has come to grasp the idea that has been put forward. (...) Every change that is made in the subject of a propagandist message must always emphasize the same conclusion. The leading slogan must, of course, be illustrated in many ways and from several angles, but in the end one must always return to the assertion of the same formula.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_in_Nazi_Germany

[Riva]

Why are you incapable of directly addressing any of the points I raise?

[not guilty]

If and when you make a point, I will address it. Ipse dixit assertions don't feed the bulldog.

"Because there are no crimes here. Deprivation of rights, unauthorized surveillance, abuse of power/misuse of government resources, and false statements/obstruction. Nothing illegal about that."

You are correct that there are no crimes here by Christopher Wray, Jack Smith, Merrick Garland and/or Lisa Monaco. As the maxim goes, even a blind hog finds an acorn occasionally. Since you are unwilling to do so, I shall attempt to identify some federal statutes which I surmise that you are fecklessly trying to rely upon.

You yap and yammer about "deprivation of rights." I surmise that this is an ignorant attempt to refer to 18 U.S.C. § 242 -- deprivation of rights under color of law -- or if you are claiming conspiracy to violate federal rights, to 18 U.S.C. § 241. These statutes require specification of the particular rights that are alleged to have been violated, or the deprivation of which is the conspiratorial objective. The accused is entitled to fair warning of what rights, and whose rights, are at issue.

Criminal liability under § 242 may be imposed for deprivation of a constitutional right if, but only if, in the light of pre-existing law the unlawfulness under the Constitution is apparent. United States v. Lanier, 520 U.S. 259, 271-272 (1997). This is akin to the "qualified immunity" standards applicable in civil litigation under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and Bivens v. Six Unknown Fed. Narcotics Agents, 403 U. S. 388 (1971).

Riva, whose rights do you claim that Christopher Wray, Jack Smith, Merrick Garland and/or Lisa Monaco violated or conspired to violate? What authorit(ies) gave these officials fair warning that such rights were, at the time of the offending conduct, "clearly established" for purposes of §§ 241 and/or 242?

What do you claim constituted "unauthorized surveillance" by these former officials, and what federal statute(s) do you claim criminalized that conduct? Law enforcement authorities' mere "surveillance" of a person, without a search or seizure, requires no "authorization" and violates no statute.

You have previously kvetched about Arctic Frost and complained of "illegal wiretapping" -- which didn't occur. Wiretapping without a warrant is generally prohibited by 18 U.S.C. § 2511, but per § 2510, that offense requires actual interception of the contents of a conversation.

I am unaware of any federal criminal statute which generically prohibits "abuse of power/misuse of government resources." If there were a statute drafted that broadly, application thereof to Wray, Smith, Garland and/or Monaco could be unconstitutionally void for vagueness. Due process requires that all "be informed as to what the State commands or forbids," Lanzetta v. New Jersey, 306 U.S. 451, 453 (1939), and that "men of common intelligence" not be forced to guess at the meaning of the criminal law. Connally v. General Construction Co., 269 U.S. 385, 391 (1926). As SCOTUS has opined:

As generally stated, the void-for-vagueness doctrine requires that a penal statute define the criminal offense with sufficient definiteness that ordinary people can understand what conduct is prohibited and in a manner that does not encourage arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement. [Citations omitted.] Although the doctrine focuses both on actual notice to citizens and arbitrary enforcement, we have recognized recently that the more important aspect of the vagueness doctrine

"is not actual notice, but the other principal element of the doctrine -- the requirement that a legislature establish minimal guidelines to govern law enforcement."

Smith [v. Goguen, 415 U.S. 566,] 574 [(1974).], Where the legislature fails to provide such minimal guidelines, a criminal statute may permit "a standardless sweep [that] allows policemen, prosecutors, and juries to pursue their personal predilections." Id. at 415 U.S. 575.

Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U.S. 352, 357-358 (1983).

I am similarly unaware of any federal criminal statute which generically prohibits law enforcement officials from making false statements. Indeed, the Supreme Court has opined that trickery and deception are sometimes permissible police tactics. See, e.g., Frazier v. Cupp, 394 U.S. 731, 739 (1969) (falsely telling a suspect that his codefendant had confessed did not make an otherwise voluntary confession inadmissible).

Making false statements under some circumstances can be a federal crime, but you have not identified the existence of any such circumstances as to Wray, Smith, Garland and/or Monaco. None while under oath or in a 28 U.S.C. § 1746 declaration under penalty of perjury is alleged to have stated or subscribed any material matter which he did not believe to be true in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1621. None while under oath or in a § 1746 declaration under penalty of perjury is alleged to have knowingly made any false material declaration or made or used any other information, knowing the same to contain any false material declaration in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1623. None is alleged to have made any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or representation or made or used any false writing or document, knowing the same to contain any materially false, fictitious, or fraudulent statement or entry in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a).

Several federal criminal statutes prohibit specific actions or omissions which, if done with a culpable mental state, obstruct justice, but Wray, Smith, Garland and/or Monaco are not alleged to have committed any such actions or omissions.

[not guilty]

IOW, Riva, for all your inept flailing, there is no there, there. All you have is incessant repetition of the Big Lie.

[Riva]

Operation Arctic Frost was, unfortunately, not a lie. It was one aspect of the sick abuses of power characterized by the Biden administration. You can switch between pretending it didn’t exist to attempting to preemptively excuse the corrupt abuses in a dozen more postings until you exhaust your available bandwidth. It won’t change the facts as known.

And you still haven’t explained why you think no potential criminal or civil liabilities that could ever attach to these facts, when occasionally you acknowledge that Arctic Frost was real. Nor have you explained why you are so resistant to investigations and reforms. You just blather on with ignorant assertions of ipse dixit coupled with an insult.

As noted above, if you want this comments section not to be a troll clown show, stop contributing to the effort.

[David Nieporent]

Arctic Frost was indeed real. It just wasn't an "abuse of power," or any wrongdoing at all. It was a legitimate law enforcement investigation of one of the worst crimes in American history.

[BrotherMovesOn]

You have mistakenly posted to this blog/thread, as an attorney. With attorney-ish questions.
Haven't you gotten the message that your kind is not welcomed here?

[Stephen Lathrop]

BrotherMovesOn — Folks who quote Trump trouble Trump/MAGA types. Folks concerned about Trump welcome the quotes. Make it a point to notice that, BrotherMovesOn, then try to figure out why it happens that way.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Yesterday, I was accused of fabricating an incident of a police dog being rescued by Narcan.

Well, here's what a major vet college had to say:
"Dogs that work with police and other agencies are being exposed to deadly drugs in the line of duty. During an opioid overdose, handlers can quickly and easily administer the antidote, which is naloxone, also sold as Narcan. Taking this action on the scene will potentially stabilize the working dog, allowing for transport to the treating veterinarian for evaluation and continued care."

https://vetmed.illinois.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/opioid-emergency-protocol.pdf

Bleep you, David...

[Drewski]

Specifically, you lied and claimed that a police dog had absorbed fentanyl through its paws. If you started drinking less you might have a better memory of the things you've said.

[David Nieporent]

Just tone clear, I said he was a liar about babies, not dogs. I just mocked him about dogs. But the best part about this is that his triumphant post above, which he apparently spent all night googling for after saying he wasn’t going to do that, doesn’t actually cite any instance of it happening.

[Armchair]

You know that they make fentanyl patches that are transdermal, right? IE, you slap it on your skin, and get a dose of fentanyl.

[David Nieporent]

Yes, I know. And those work incredibly slowly. (Otherwise people would be dropping dead from touching them, let alone wearing them.)

[Dr. Ed 2]

What's the difference between beer and Barcardi 151?

Think the patches might (a) have diluted fentanyl and (b) something to delay absorption over hours instead of all at once?

[Armchair]

"Otherwise people would be dropping dead from touching them, let alone wearing them."

" Young children, in particular, have died or become seriously ill after being exposed to a skin patch containing fentanyl,"
And, indeed children have been seen to have accidental overdoses from finding and putting a fentanyl patch on their skin

https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/accidental-exposures-fentanyl-patches-continue-be-deadly-children

[Frank Drackman]

Last I checked all Fentanyl patches are Transdermal, I mean you get the occasional idiots like Dr Ed or Queenie who try to smoke or swallow one…..

Frank

[David Nieporent]

*Just to be clear.

[Dr. Ed 2]

How do you think a dog gets it if not through paws?

A disciplined dog is not going to be licking anything, not going to be sucking in enough air to inhale it sniffing, what????

[David Nieporent]

I don't think a dog gets it, and you've presented nothing to the contrary. But if it did, it would be from ingesting it, yes.

[wvattorney13]

If this is your contention, would you agree that a probationer, for example, who fails a drug screen for fentanyl should always get a free pass because it is transmitted so easily? That the positive screen does not indicate use?

[Drewski]

86 47

[Kazinski]

Must be frustrating to be wishing so hard for something you'll never get, and if you actually did get it, then you'd get JD Vance too.

[Frank Drackman]

Oh, we're doing disembodied threats that aren't really threats? I'm Game!
"You never hear the bullet"

Frank

[TwelveInchPianist]

426947

[Reallynotbob]

I need brain bleach now.

[Kazinski]

CPI came out late this month and everyone who isn't actively rooting for higher inflation was pleasantly surprised.

And the stock market responded appropriately.

BLS said the CPI was .3, and Core CPI was .2. Both numbers were 3% y/y.

These are the Core CPI numbers as published by the St Louis Fred, from the BLS data. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CPILFESL

date - index - m/m % change
2024-10-01 321.688 0.27%
2024-11-01 322.619 0.29%
2024-12-01 323.296 0.21%
2025-01-01 324.739 0.45%

2025-02-01 325.475 0.23%
2025-03-01 325.659 0.06%
2025-04-01 326.430 0.24%
2025-05-01 326.854 0.13%
2025-06-01 327.600 0.23%
2025-07-01 328.656 0.32%
2025-08-01 329.793 0.35%
2025-09-01 330.542 0.23% 1.79% 2.68%

Annual CPI 3.03%

Biden Months (Oct24-Jan25) annualized 3.65%

Trump Months (Feb25-Sep25) annualized 2.68%

I calculated the numbers a little differently this time using the delta in the index divided by the base period, since that is what BLS does, rather than use the monthly change rounded to 10ths of a percentage that they publish in their monthly report, there is too much accumulated rounding error using the monthly numbers to calculate a year over year figure.

[Drewski]

Snivel all you want, people know what they spend and they're spending more to get less.

[Kazinski]

I don't think that word means what you think it means.

Maybe boast, brag, gloat are more what you are thinking about, I'm not the least upset about the CPI numbers.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Kazinski — Went for a tour of the meat museum at my local market yesterday. They had great beef specimens on display. Valuable too. Assessments for rib roast were running twice those for halibut in the nearby fish case.

Never saw beef much higher than halibut before. The very best beef—the prime stuff which was twice-weekly table fare when I grew up lower middle class—had recently been running about the same per-pound as halibut fillet. But that beef was always sold bone in, making the halibut a more affordable luxury. Now it's not even close.

Hard to tell whether Trump's farm policy is strangling his foreign policy, or vice versa. If it keeps up, maybe look for a few notable red state election returns.

[Kazinski]

Must be frozen halibut, last time Costco had fresh halibut it was 28$ lbs, but my wife just picked up some wild rockfish that was under 4$ a lbs, had that tonight, it was pretty good. I baked it whole, I didn't want to fillet it.

Pork and chicken are still cheap though, and the Australian leg of lamb is going at Hamburger prices.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Kazinski, nope. This is New England. Rarely frozen halibut, even when it comes from the Pacific. Most folks want to think it's local, so they won't buy frozen. A little bit of it still is local, sometimes, if you know where to look. Tends to run low $20s to the pound no matter where it comes from. It was just under that yesterday. The beef I was looking at was above $40 per pound. Impressive.

What species do you suppose that, "rockfish," was? In the Chesapeake Bay area that's a local name for striped bass. Not likely that, at $4 per pound. But I have seen small stripers sold live in Asian-style markets in the U.S. Those would be too small to be legal to keep if wild caught around here. I hear that out west they do cultivate stripers in fresh water sometimes.

In New England we get new opportunities to buy oysters with evocative local names, suggesting distinctive flavors for shellfish from different bodies of water. I don't think any of it is wild harvested; all farmed.

Just in general, market names for fish species are all over the place. Probably several times as much not-red snapper gets sold as actual red snapper. Turns out red coloring is commonplace among fish species which hang out at depths similar to those where red snappers live. Red is the first color to fade to grey as light levels attenuate with depth. Might have something to do with that.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Kazinski — Because I cannot afford rack of lamb, leg of lamb is my favorite cut of meat. But here in New England it is getting increasingly hard to find fresh leg of lamb anywhere. Most of what does show up is closer to mutton, and comes out of a cryovac bag stinking to high heaven.

That's mysterious to me. When I ask the meat department managers they say that locals always get outbid for the real lamb by middle eastern immigrants, so go look in middle eastern specialty markets. That seems to be particular to New England. In the middle Atlantic states, no such problem. Maybe not so many middle eastern immigrants there?

[Frank Drackman]

Used to be a place in downtown Omaha, "Joe Tess Fish Place" where the specialty was fried Carp.
Inside was a Lounge/Restaurant that looked just like the one where Billy Bats told Tommy to go get his Shine Box.
Went there frequently in the early 70's when Dad had a staff job at Offutt, only day Joe was closed was Mother's day.
Went by there on business trips 2013, 2022,
Unfortunately Joe went tits last year, "Because Covid"
Oh, and Sleepy Joe's Inflation, those Carp don't swim there themselves (be pretty cool if they did though)
Anyone know a place that serves Carp? (Don't want to smell up my one kitchen)

Frank

[Commenter_XY]

Kaz: We're still 50% above target = 2% CPI. This is light years better than The Cauliflower.

No need to lower rates, yet. We can wait a little. One of the big mistakes made in the 70's and 80's was taking the foot off the inflation brake too soon. That is a danger here.

[Poxigah146]

Agreed. The 3% is better than the 9% under Biden, but it's still bad.

Also, the mania in stocks also has the potential to destabilize the economy. Call it what you will, but every indicator is that the stock market is at or near the most expensive ever. Buffett indicator of 224%. P/E at 31. Schiller P/E at over 40. Retail leverage at record highs.

Call it what you want, and people can come up with whatever justifications they want for these valuations (from auto 401k buying, to the tech "ecosystem," to "AI advances") but these factors have the potential to turn an orderly correction into a cascade for the exits, which could destabilize the banking system and the economy. Perhaps the Fed shouldn't have let these bubbles get so pervasive in the first place.

[Kazinski]

Fed decision Wednesday.

I don't think interest rates are too high, but I think a rate cut is needed to get the housing market started.

Another million housing units a year, to lower the entry price for a new home, and rents is needed.

Housing starts have been in a slump since the 2008 recession.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/HOUST

[Poxigah146]

Who exactly was pleasantly surprised? First, OER was miscalculated because of the shutdown, making it artificially lower. Second, setting "expectations" at 3.1% so that you can gloat about 3.0%, which is still a full 1% over target, is not impressive. It's the same as "analysts" setting expectations for public company earnings low so that they can "beat them" every time.

Other than the top 5% with large stock portfolios that don't really care about America, the status quo, and the last 5 years, during which we had cumulative 25% inflation, no one is happy.

[Kazinski]

There was another peace deal Trump helped broker over the weekend:

"Thailand will release Cambodian prisoners and Cambodia will begin withdrawing heavy artillery as part of the first phase of the deal.

Regional observers will monitor the situation to ensure fighting does not restart.

"We did something that a lot of people said couldn't be done," said Mr Trump, who has previously taken credit for the ceasefire between the two nations.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet called it a "historic day", and Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said the agreement created "the building blocks for a lasting peace".

The ceremony was Mr Trump's first event after arriving in Kuala Lumpur for the ASEAN summit."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-10-26/donald-trump-lands-in-kuala-lumpur-ahead-of-asean-summit/105935552

Not that this will resolve the underlying issue in the conflict, which is that Thai nationalist parties need a conflict with Cambodia to use as a domestic political issue against Thai populist parties, so the military revs it up as an issue when they lose an election.

[Martinned]

Hahaha!! You're funny!

[Kazinski]

My wife is Cambodian, and I can tell you Cambodians don't think its funny, they think the only reason there is a ceasefire and they are getting their prisoners back is Trump's intervention.

Here's a editorial from about a month ago talking about the prisoner issue, and ASEAN, and UN inaction:
"What is most troubling is the silence. Why has the international community not applied real pressure on Thailand to release these men? Why has ASEAN, so quick to tout the “ASEAN Way” of consensus and dialogue, failed to demand adherence to international norms in its own backyard?

The United Nations Security Council has mechanisms to address violations of international humanitarian law, yet there has been no urgency. Western governments that regularly champion human rights have offered little more than platitudes. This silence is complicity. Each day of inaction tells Thailand that it can hold human beings as hostages without consequence."

https://cambodianess.com/article/hostages-of-peace-why-cambodias-detained-soldiers-must-be-released

[Martinned]

Cambodians don't think its funny, they think the only reason there is a ceasefire and they are getting their prisoners back is Trump's intervention.

I'll take "Things that didn't happen for $500", Alex!

[Malika la Maize]

At Tulane University, early decision isn’t just a process. It’s practically the brand of its admissions department...

So when Tulane quietly placed Colorado Academy, a private high school in Denver, on an early-decision suspension for one year, it set off alarm bells. The ban prevented the high school’s next senior class from applying early decision after a student there backed out of an early-decision agreement at Tulane last year…

Experts say universities not only shape their classes with early decision but also benefit financially. By locking in students early, they stabilize enrollment and secure tuition dollars, often before students have the chance to compare financial aid offers from other schools. Critics have long argued that the system favors wealthier applicants and deepens inequality in the college admissions process.

Those criticisms are now part of a broader legal fight. A new antitrust lawsuit filed by five current and former students in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts accuses 32 top colleges and universities, along with two major college application platforms and a private consortium, of illegally working together to enforce early-decision rules and inflate college costs. The lawsuit argues that these institutions share admissions and financial aid information in ways that reduce competition and hurt students.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/26/business/tulane-early-decision-colorado-academy.html

[Stephen Lathrop]

Interesting. Sounds like a potentially useful investigation, no matter how it comes out.

[Commenter_XY]

In other news.....NJ governor race now a toss-up, LMAO!

Incredibly, Mikie 'Money Hungry' Sherrill continues her self-immolation tour throughout the People's Republic of NJ. I cannot believe her political ineptitude. /smh

This race has changed from Labor Day. I still thinks she squeaks by, but a couple more public self-immolations, and she is done.

[Josh R]

The two latest polls from realclearpolitics are from pollsters that are biased (statistically, not necessarily politically) 2-to-4%-points towards the GOP. For Trump, those pollsters have done better. But otherwise, they do worse.

[Malika la Maize]

Premiums for the most popular types of plans sold on the federal health insurance marketplace Healthcare.gov will spike on average by 30 percent next year, according to final rates approved by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and shown in documents reviewed by The Washington Post.

The higher prices — affecting up to 17 million Americans who buy coverage on the federal marketplace — reflect the largest annual premium increases by far in recent years. The higher premiums, along with the likely expiration of pandemic-era subsidies, mean millions of people will see their health insurance payments double or even triple in 2026.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/10/24/obamacare-premiums-rise-30-percent/P

[Michael P]

If you like your health insurance/doctor, you can keep your health insurance/doctor. Right?

[Martinned]

You can, but not if you elect a president and a congress whose sole animating purpose is to set it all on fire.

[Frank Drackman]

It's amazing Sleepy Joe didn't set himself on fire.

[Malika la Maize]

Says person who can’t master third grade English.

[Frank Drackman]

What error did I make, oh Great Queen???
And even with my Grammatical Faux Paux’s somehow I’m multi-lingual, and you’re just mongoloid-lingual.

Frank

[Reallynotbob]

Possessives, how do they work?

I'm just saying it's poor racism to botch your own language while trying to sound superior. Do better.

[wvattorney13]

If by "set it all on fire" you mean not infuse the program with hundreds of billions of dollars of cash, you are right. But that wasn't what the ACA was supposed to be. It's there in the name of the act: the "affordable" care act.

Remember when we were going to have scores of insurance companies competing for our business, keeping costs down? Pepperidge Farm Remembers.

[Sarcastr0]

Affordable wasn't about the program's operations cost, it was about the cost for the consumer.

You act like the ACA including subsidies was some big secret.

[Life of Brian]

Affordable wasn't about the program's operations cost, it was about the cost for the consumer.

Now there's some shameless revisionism. Remember how many rounds of contortionist manipulation the legislation had to go through to be able to pretend it wasn't going to increase costs and shove it through via reconciliation?

[Magister]

It was all about bending the cost curve, which it did. Nobody pretended it wasn't going to cost more, and various sources of revenue were promoted to pay for it.

[Life of Brian]

It was all about bending the cost curve, which it did.

On that we agree, but the promise was to bend it DOWN, not further up.

[Magister]

It bent it down; health care costs increased at a slower rate.

[Life of Brian]

Slower than what, exactly?

[Magister]

I am glad that you recognize that your previous comment was wrong. Slower than the previous rate of increase, obviously.

[Life of Brian]

What was the previous rate of increase, and what was the rate in the years following passage of the ACA?

[Magister]

4.3% after, 6.9% before.

[Life of Brian]

Cute keystroke combinations, particularly the 6.9. How about an actual source so we can check your work?

[Magister]

There's a thing called an internet search.

[Life of Brian]

There's a thing called being full of shit. Put up or shut up.

[Magister]

OK, you are not willing to do your own internet searches, and you are full of shit.

[Sarcastr0]

It's a particularly shitty brand of sealioning - asking for proof of non-contentious things and declaring that you're lying until you do.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Why? It should be easy to provide proof of non-contentious things.

[Sarcastr0]

Sealion defends sealioning.

News at 11.

[TwelveInchPianist]

One weird trick to avoid having to provide evidence for your claims. News at 11:01.

[Magister]

Another trick is to demand links to proof and then more links and then quibble over the sources, unrelated statements, a footnote, a typo, or whatever, usually combined with misrepresenting what was said.

[Life of Brian]

asking for proof of non-contentious things

LMFAO. If it's so non-contentious, it should be super-duper easy to provide one of the many, many sources who apparently all agree. You even could have done it yourself instead of tagging in for your fellow troll.

[Bwaaah]

Magister made a mistake and got the numbers reversed. It was 4.3% before, and 6.9% after.

[Magister]

Poor Bwaah, who is wrong and apparently just another incompetent at internet searches, desperate to protect Life of Brian.

[not guilty]

The irony of Life of Birdbrain challenging anyone to "put up or shut up" is rich!

[wvattorney13]

Subsidies for the poor were part of the ACA and those subsidies will remain if nothing changes. The Dems want to extend subsidies for EVERYONE, even Jeff Bezos.

And this is required to keep the ACA afloat because even if you make a six figure salary, health insurance premiums are absolutely crippling without them. If you are 25 years old and make a good living it is getting to the point where it might be a reasonable financial choice to opt out of the system. And that will cause a death spiral.

This is certainly not what was promised in 2009. That is 1984 stuff right there to suggest that premiums would be astronomical, but no worries, there will be generous subsidies. That simply never happened. This was supposed to be a market based plan, devised by Republicans it was said, that would use competitive forces to bring down costs. It hasn't happened. My premiums have tripled in 10 years.

[Sarcastr0]

This is nothing like what's going on.

https://www.kff.org/affordable-care-act/aca-marketplace-premium-payments-would-more-than-double-on-average-next-year-if-enhanced-premium-tax-credits-expire/

1. Bezos isn't shopping on the ACA marketplace, nor is his income within 400% of the poverty line

2. If nothing is done, these subsidies WILL expire; there is no 'extend subsidies to everyone'

3. Health insurance is not coming from the marketplace for folks making six figures. It's coming from your employer.

You know an extraordinary number of things about the ACA that are not so. Whatever sources you got that stuff from, I wouldn't trust them anymore.

[wvattorney13]

1. & 2. Income within 400% of the poverty line is the standard subsidies that have been around since day one of the ACA. In 2021, Biden passed the enhanced subsidies for EVERYONE for 2 years. In 2023 they were extended another 2 years. They expire at the end of this year. It would default back to the 400% level.

3. That assumes that everyone has an employer. Many small business owners, including me, buy their plans on the ACA marketplace. My own personal knowledge is evidence that this statement is untrue.

The ACA subsidies have saved me thousands of dollars over the last 4 years. If nothing changes, I will see no subsidies next year. That's why I say, this isn't a traditional Dem bill. They typically are not concerned with people making six figures. They are in this particular case because the vaunted ACA will crumble without it.

ETA: Your own link says exactly this.

[Sarcastr0]

My linked article disagrees with you.

And your concentration on the self employed as the central population is misplaced.

[jay.tee]

My linked article disagrees with you.

Sarcastr0, this is literally the first paragraph of your linked article:

Affordable Care Act (ACA) enhanced premium tax credits are set to expire at the end of this year. Enhanced premium tax credits were introduced in 2021 and later extended through the end of 2025 by the Inflation Reduction Act [sic]. The enhanced tax credits both increased the amount of financial assistance already eligible ACA Marketplace enrollees received as well as made middle-income enrollees with income above 400% of federal poverty guidelines newly eligible for premium tax credits.

In other words, Sarcastr0’s own article contradicts Sarcastr0 in the first paragraph. Mendacity or lack of basic reading comprehension?

[ReaderY]

Under Obama, yes. But that was a long time ago. Trump is in office now. Trump is responsible for what happens now. Lowering the subsidies aand changing the rules, and then blaming Obama for the consequences, is just the sort of behavior we’ve come to expect of Trump. And his shills.

[Michael P]

That wasn't even true under Obama, you liar.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2013/12/13/250694372/obamas-you-can-keep-it-promise-is-lie-of-the-year

Those of us with brains pointed out before the bill was passed that Obama's claims about this could not be delivered, and that Obama's administration would break those promises even if they could keep them. People like you insisted otherwise.

[hobie]

"Those of us with brains"

[ThePublius]

Wrecking the health care system takes time, and it started with ACA under Obama and a Democratic legislature. It could take decades to undo the damage, if anyone had a will to try to do so, and stayed in power long enough. ACA, for example, gave birth to the enormous healthcare coding industry, which sucks billions from the system every year to no benefit to the consumers of health care, and to the great consternation of providers.

[Malika la Maize]

I’m. I can of the ACA but health insurance was a mess before that The doctor thing is pretty silly too, Obama got was wrong or lied about keeping your doctor but people were increasingly being pushed towards in-network doctors and such well before.

[Life of Brian]

Time to look for new dictation software.

[Malika la Maize]

How’s that defense of Lex going?

[Life of Brian]

Wow, that's not even related enough to masquerade as a whatabout. You seem to be slipping.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Also, the notion of the ACA wrecking the healthcare system had a point, but not the point ACA critics suppose. Those advocates tend to be found among a blinkered privileged minority—those who stood to be advantaged by the best corporate-provided health plans. Those are still the critics today.

Such ACA critics mostly do not realize how much their plans were subsidized by transfers of wealth that the insurance industry imposed on other insureds, especially insureds in small group markets. For many years, personal costs for healthcare in that market segment had shot upward at astounding annual rates—passing a breaking point years before the ACA passed. People were, "voluntarily," dropping coverage who were fully employed at medium-sized institutions which had always offered health care coverage.

In that market segment, employees' personal share of expenses—premiums, plus co-pays, plus exclusions—was bankrupting them. It got to where to stay employed at someplace like a parochial school, you had to have a spouse who enjoyed family coverage insurance from a major corporation. That way, you could drop the school coverage, enabling the school to keep you on payroll.

At one such school where my wife worked, we figured out that even though we were not personally high risk at the time, the cost to the school for her health insurance had gone larger than all the rest of her compensation combined. That was something we had to figure out for ourselves. I think the school was prohibited by law from mentioning it. After we researched it on our own—the school answered quantifiable questions forthrightly—it became obvious my wife's employment could not continue on that basis. Luckily for us, that personal crisis came at the moment we first qualified for Medicare, so by dropping the school health plan, my wife's career was enabled to continue until the Covid pandemic ended it.

That kind of thing was happening even after small-group employers, going all in, had taken increases to their premium share so large that it was bankrupting the employers, whether for-profit or non-profit. With no other choice, they began to pressure valued employees to leave, especially if they suffered expensive-to-treat ailments like cancer. The insurance industry for small groups was holding each small group plan to a standard to pay back in premium increases whatever losses the insurance company suffered from that specific employer. I have no idea whether that was legal—someone told me it was not, and of course nobody said outright that it was happening—but it was happening. Nobody in sight had any power to stop it.

Actuarial principles were out the window. It was a horror show, all done to position the insurance companies to better compete in the lucrative big-corporate market—where the insurance companies could count on research-savvy human resources departments to lay off high risk employees before they got sick.

Thus, early lay-offs had turned into another baleful national trend—HR-engineered early retirements from major corporations for talented employees in their late 40s to early-50s. You could not legally discriminate on the basis of age, but you did nothing illegal if you packed the older employees into divisions which management later decided were unnecessary. Those employees thereby became unemployable by any business like the one which laid them off. They took huge pay hits to stay employed at all, in jobs which made no use of their training or talents.

Many instead applied in despair for disability benefits from Social Security—a move that was of course not formally justified, but really was. Being a big corporate employee aged late 40s or above had become a career-ending disability.

ACA has not fixed that trend entirely, of course. But it has slowed it down. Single payer is really the only way to go, as nations across the world demonstrate, making the U.S. look health-policy stupid. How stupid is question to be detailed in a different long discussion.

There will be no solution until American politicians grasp one peculiar nettle: the subsidy which pays for hospital losses from providing routine health care in emergency rooms. Across red state America, that has enabled a dodge to socialize bad-quality health care for the poor.

For them, it seems a better deal financially than being required to pay modest premiums to a single-payer entity to get in return full-life health insurance not tied to employment, which could not be taken away. That's what they already get—making any political corrective a paradoxical-looking sales pitch. But they pay for it in sub-standard health outcomes nobody tells them better policy would correct. An emergency room is incapable to deliver most kinds of specialty care.

That is the foundation on which a giant political fraud has built its program—enabling politicians to denounce socialized medicine, while demanding it for their own constituents, while condemning their constituents to horrific but avoidable health sacrifices. Not a pretty picture. But it is the American healthcare system as we do it now. That, plus extortionate prices for pharmaceuticals, also enabled politically.

[SRG2]

The GOP had 40 years to formulate their own healthcare plans, but instead, preferred to undermine Democratic attempts - from Hillary in the 90s.

Before his first term, Trump promised a cheaper and better healthcare system. Then he tried to repeal ACA without offering a replacement.

But sure, it's the Democrats' fault.

[Martinned]

The GOP had 40 years to formulate their own healthcare plans

They did formulate their own plan. It was called Romneycare, and it was a great success.

[David Nieporent]

No; that was the Massachusetts Democratic Party's plan.

[Drewski]

My mom did medical coding in the '80s. You're cracked.

[Life of Brian]

I very much doubt that the present-day "revenue optimization" consulting segment was (or needed to be, which I took to be TP's point) a thing back in the 80s.

[Drewski]

That's not really relevant to medical coding existing as an industry but absolutely they did that. HMOs were fairly new and hugely controversial. I don't know if you're a kid or a foreigner but you don't know what you're talking about.

[Life of Brian]

Huh. That's an interesting approach to defending "I know how this industry works today 'cause my momma worked in it 40 years ago."

The number of procedure codes in the ICD-10 is nearly 20x that of the ICD-9. The ACA mandated the use of ICD-10 codes for medical billing. There's plenty of material for the intellectually curious describing the utterly predictable nightmare that resulted, and similarly it doesn't exactly take a rocket scientist to grasp how that change skyrocketed the... erm, "market opportunity" for billing consultants like the one I linked.

[Davy C]

Are you saying we *don't* need nine different codes for injuries caused by being bitten, struck, or otherwise contacting a turtle?

[Frank Drackman]

You nailed it with the coding, we Docs don’t even call things by their actual medical names anymore, it’s “I won’t be shooting hoops today, my M54.16 is acting up”

Frank

[Reallynotbob]

"We docs don't even call things by their actual medical names anymore..."

That's accurate, but only because if it's not a string of unpronounceable capital letters, docs don't prescribe for it.

[Reallynotbob]

That's a pretty broad attack on CPT and ICD coding. Medical coding long pre-dated the ACA, by the way. And it turns out, precise coding has some useful benefits for research, continuity of care, value-based care systems, and price setting.

[Sarcastr0]

Haha Michael, your but Obama instincts did not serve you well his time!

[Bwaaah]

In health care, you have a range of expensive, specialized, technical, laborious products and services. And you're trying to make them FREE. So you've added a huge number of [needy] consumers for whom you guarantee unlimited free consumption at the unlimited expense of others.

And then you let in millions of uninsured immigrants who can't afford any health care. What do you think happens when they show up at emergency rooms that are required to provide treatment regardless of anybody's ability to pay?

Your considered strategy to address that is to assure an uninterrupted, unlimited availability of money (that you don't have and therefore need to borrow) in order to cover your unlimited, increasing costs?

If only good intentions were enough to solve our problems. But you stand there with a pile of poop in one hand, want in the other, waiting to see which one will get filled first. (ht to your nemesis)

Good intentions. Good intentions. Good intentions. And aside from that, pretty much nothing.

[Sarcastr0]

First, you disproved Medicare and Medicaid. Congrats on proving too much.

Second, none your anti-immigrant song and dance has anything to do with the GOP refusing to fund SNAP.

There's money there - it was in the contingency planning doc (https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/fns-2021-contingency-plan.pdf).

This reversal puts SNAP funding's lapse is at the foot of the GOP. Not the Dems, not the immigrants, not anyone else.

[Malika la Maize]

Remember his “I’m just a liberal that’s been disaffected by them going to far” act?

[Armchair]

The contingency funds can't cover the shortfall in SNAP funding.

Democrats need to not filibuster the CR in order to get people fed. They've chosen not to. They're using the filibuster to cut off people's food stamps. That's evil.

[Sarcastr0]

Good lord you're desperate.

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5572490-usda-snap-funding-impasse/
"There is between $5 billion and $6 billion currently in that fund, experts say. That’s not enough to cover the estimated $8 billion in SNAP benefits due out next month, but it would allow for partial payments to help low-income Americans defray food costs. "

[Armchair]

Me: "The contingency funds can't cover the shortfall in SNAP funding."

Sarcastr0's post "That’s not enough to cover the estimated $8 billion in SNAP benefits due out next month"

Pass the CR. Feed the hungry. It's not hard. Don't be evil.

[Sarcastr0]

If it's not 100%, what's the point, eh?

What a silly little man you are.

Maybe go accuse DMN of threatening the President again.

[Armchair]

Pass the CR. Feed the hungry. Feed the hungry 100%. It's not hard. Don't be evil.

[Malika la Maize]

Didn’t the GOP cut this program in the OBB? Where were you then?

[Armchair]

So, the Democratic response is "Well, no one gets food."

Pass the CR. Feed the hungry. It's not hard. Don't be evil.

[Harvey Mosley]

Assume for the sake of argument you are right. The Democrats could still vote to pass the clean CR and then it wouldn't matter. I'm not saying the Democrats are worse than the Republicans regarding SNAP. But at best they are no better.

[Magister]

Thinking that anyone in the US ever tried to provide every form of healthcare for free pretty clearly shows an ignorance of reality. Other countries have workable healthcare systems, you know.

To end the shutdown, Republicans could offer any number of compromise positions just to address the concerns expressed: restore ACA subsidies for citizens in return for eliminating emergency treatment (probably too unpopular to be suggested), funding and national IDs to make checking citizenship always as quick and certain as Justice Kavanaugh thinks it is (probably also too unpopular), or fund ICE being stationed at emergency rooms to apprehend for deportation any illegal aliens who come for emergency care (ICE already unpopular).

[David Nieporent]

And then you let in millions of uninsured immigrants who can't afford any health care. What do you think happens when they show up at emergency rooms that are required to provide treatment regardless of anybody's ability to pay?

Emergency rooms are not "required to provide treatment." EMTALA requires emergency rooms to make sure that people who come in are stable before they're discharged. The bare minimum.

EDIT: For the avoidance of doubt, yes, that can require that ERs provide treatment under some circumstances. But it's not a generalized requirement to treat anyone who comes in.

[wvattorney13]

"So you've added a huge number of [needy] consumers for whom you guarantee unlimited free consumption at the unlimited expense of others."

This is a fundamental problem in this area, housing, appointed criminal defense counsel, etc., basically any area where something valuable is free at the point of payment. The stated purpose is to equalize the poor and those not poor. The idea goes that if you can write a $1000 check for this procedure, but I can't, then giving it to me for free puts us both on an equal footing. It doesn't.

What this model misses is that while you can pay the $1000, it is not nothing. It is money that you could have used elsewhere. You will treat the service as valuable and not misuse it. Whereas for me, it is free; there is no opportunity cost. Whether I need 1 or 100 it makes no difference to me because I'm out absolutely nothing.

Far from putting us on equal footing, it favors me and punishes you for following the rules. Now you get to pay your $1000 and pay mine, all because I have a supposed need that you aren't that far from as well. It is unsustainable that millions of people can consume for free what inherently costs money.

[Sarcastr0]

The unvirtuous poor will just use up all the public defenders? That seems reductive to the point of no longer making sense.
Who gets housing for free? Secon 8 ain't free.

You're 100% right about the value people put on something they pay for vs. when it's free. But economics is a lot more complicated than a single effect. And I'm not sure you're up on the policy landscape you're analyzing either.

Your idea of opportunity cost is not right - you need to examine the opportunity cost of the policy you advocate for - where the poor need to spend more money on the things you want them to and thus can't spend their money on something else? If you care about number go up, subsidies that the poor use have an incredible multiplier!
SNAP for instance - Each $1 spent by SNAP generates between $1.50 and $1.80 in economic activity.

https://www.ufcw.org/press-releases/ufcw-urges-usda-secretary-rollins-to-fund-snap-benefits-for-november/

[wvattorney13]

You're on to something. We should redistribute wealth even more and we would really get the economy humming.

[Absaroka]

"Each $1 spent by SNAP generates between $1.50 and $1.80 in economic activity."

For some orthogonal trivia, I searched Amazon for "snap ebt eligible foods". Some of the hits:

Red Bull
Four Sigmatic Calm Organic Elixir Mix (whatever that is)
Mamma Chia Organic Vitality Squeeze Snack
Maison Perrier Forever Peach Flavored Sparkling Water
Wonderful Pistachios No Shells, Roasted & Salted Nuts
Nutella & GO! Bulk 12 Pack, Hazelnut and Cocoa Spread

These are not things I bought in my starving student days.

Searching for "snap ebt eligible food advent" shows a variety of SNAP eligible Advent Calendars because ... everyone knows those are the frugal shopper's way to get maximum nutrition per dollar???

[Sarcastr0]

First, irrelevant to the argument I made.

But second, your objection shows a really terrible contempt for the poor. I'ma dig into that more.

Poor people getting choices is not some decadence. As noted, the numbers show the program is not some super inefficient boondoggle.

It would be quite authoritarian if we were to dictate exactly what they spend their money on!

The dignity of allowing choices, including some indulgences, is part of how treating people as humans.

Not so much you, but I sometimes feel like there's a segment of comfortable rich conservatives that want the poor to suffer, as though that's what they need to be incentivized to find the virtue to no longer be poor.
I should smuggle a modest proposal into the next GOP campaign plank - 'Lets give the poor big toughs filled with gruel till they pick themselves up by their bootstraps!' It'd go over like gangbusters with the dehumanize the poor crowd. (eg the ones 'Let them die' crowd from the 2012 campaign)

We have no stats on how often people on SNAP choose the some fancier stuff, even. Is it just the *option* that's an issue?

[Armchair]

Well, thanks to Democrats, these individuals won't need health care. They'll be too busy trying to get food, as the Democrats have filibustered the funding that would get them food stamps and other nutritional assistance.

[Malika la Maize]

Didn’t the GOP cut this program in the OBB? Where were you then?

Transparently disingenuous.

[Sarcastr0]

Your desperate mania to blame the Dems is sure something to see.

It's not working well, perhaps hence the desperation part.

https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3938
"45 percent of registered voters think Republicans in Congress are more responsible for the government shutdown, while 39 percent think Democrats in Congress are more responsible."

[Armchair]

" hence the desperation part."

Feeding the hungry is key here. If you just want to call feeding the hungry "desperation"...sure I'm desperate. To help people.

Pass the CR. Feed the hungry. It's not hard. Don't be evil.

[Sarcastr0]

No one on here thinks you give a rats ass about the hungry. Or about not being evil.

You only want to yell at Dems.

Alas for you, most of America isn't going along with who you want to blame. So you're trying to post enough to change that.

Good luck with that.

[Armchair]

I've been calling to pass the CR since before the shutdown.

If you want to continue to be evil, that's on you. Just understand...that's what you're doing.

[JohnSmith97]

“I mean, shutdowns are terrible, and of course there will be, you know, families that are going to suffer,” Clark, the No. 2 House Democrat, told Fox News. “We take that responsibility very seriously, but it is one of the few leverage times we have.”

Gaslighto can't even call out the (D) party when they admit the game.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"Your desperate mania to blame the Dems..."

The Dems are the ones voting against the CR.

[Malika la Maize]

For months, companies and officials throughout Asia have been waiting for President Trump to address a question that cuts to the heart of his disruptive plans for global trade.

How will he decide the origin of goods in a world where virtually all the things we buy, from computers and phones to sofas and cars, contain parts that come from different countries?

The determination that the Trump administration makes on the so-called rule of origin could blow up laboriously negotiated agreements. That is because if a product is shipped from one country but does not meet the origin criteria, it will be hit with a hefty special tariff, which Mr. Trump has warned will be 40 percent.

Trump administration officials have been vocal about setting one rule-of-origin target for the region. They have focused on 30 percent: Any product containing more than that level of foreign parts or content sent to the United States would face the special transshipment tariff. While discussions are fluid, one thing is clear: For much of Southeast Asia, such a low figure would be difficult to meet.

Even if the administration clarifies a final number, for many companies and governments there are many more questions. What counts as foreign content? Does it include foreign investment in a factory? A foreign-branded machine? Foreign workers? In recent years, many factories from China have moved some of their operations to countries like Vietnam but have created local supply chains and employ local workers.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/25/business/trump-tariffs-southeast-asia-transshipment.html

[ReaderY]

Why should he give a shit about that?

[Malika la Maize]

Well, if you’re going to have different tariffs on products from different countries but lots of products have inputs from many countries Incan see why you’d have to establish how to classify goods to determine what country they “come from.”

[Martinned]

I'm sure Trump has been working feverishly on a 1000-page rulebook establishing a coherent set of Rules of Origin. What else do you think he does all day?

[Frank Drackman]

Probably doesn't diddle little boys like your Kingie-Wingie (I know, he's "Divine")

[Magister]

Infrastructure Week Part II!

[ReaderY]

Why? The purpose is to use shock and awe, and threats, to change what other leaders and markets do and get them to do what he wants. Long lists of rules tend to be very, very bad at that. Very bad.

Completely useless. Totally irrelevant. No shock and awe or threat value at all. The sort of stupid shit only low-level pencil-pusher bureacrat and tax collector types worry about.

He’d be a complete idiot to give a shit about whether low-level people can implement his tarriff threats workably. And he’s no idiot.

[Mr. Bumble]

"Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends
We're so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside...
Come inside, the show's about to start
Guaranteed to blow your head apart
Rest assured you'll get your money's worth
Greatest show in Heaven, Hell or Earth
You've got to see the show, it's a dynamo..."

[Nelson]

Karn Evil 9? Nice.

[Mr. Bumble]

Yes, and I thought it was a perfect fit for the open thread.

[ReaderY]

We are seeing in Trump not an ordinary mild authoritarianism, but elements of the kind of absolute totalitarianism described in George Orwell’s 1984. In Orwell’s novel absute power meant power to control people’s minds, to get people to believe whatever they wanted to believe. Followers were required to surrender any independent ability to observe and to think, and to so absolutely surrender themselves to the Leader that not just their thoughts but their perceptions would be what the Party says they are.

Trump’s systematic use of lies and logical nonsense are not personal quirks or signs of mental incapacity, but are elements of a strategy to develop and extend a cadre of followers willing to completely surrender their minds to him. He can know whom to rely on as followers by identifying the people willing to fervently repeat his lies. And as he gains power, he can punish those who articulate a different version of reality.

Punishing Canada for speaking truth is simply a more advanced version of a strategy we saw when he insisted that the audience at his 2017 inauguration was the largest in history.

As Orwell presciently observed, truth and logic are tbe enemies of absolute totalitarianism. They are Trump’s enemies. And he has so far been very effective at chipping away at America’s tradition of respecting them. It is no coincidence that the class whose influence he is seeking to diminish in this country is exactly the class that values them.

[Michael P]

Get help, dude. Donald Trump is not shipping people to concentration camps in freight cars, he's not organizing two minutes' hate, and he's not even ripping the context away from a press secretary explaining that the new White House ballroom is Trump's top priority among White House renovation work.

[David Nieporent]

Donald Trump is not shipping people to concentration camps in freight cars,

Right; he's doing so in airplanes. Much better.

he's not organizing two minutes' hate,

He absolutely is organizing two minutes' hate, and by two minutes I mean two years. Or more.

[Mr. Bumble]

Deporting illegal aliens is not sending people to concentration camps no matter what the mode of transit is.

[David Nieporent]

Ordinary deportations, no. But deporting them to prisons without trials where the operator brags that nobody gets out, on the other hand…

[Brett Bellmore]

I think that's actually a fair complaint, and if Democrats could concentrate on complaining about that, and not the deportations themselves, you'd get a hell of a lot more traction.

[Mr. Bumble]

"Ordinary deportations, no."
Then say that instead of implying that every being deported is going to concentration camps.

[David Nieporent]

One has to love how the defense of Trump is, "You're being misleading. Trump is only sending some immigrants to concentration camps."

[Mr. Bumble]

He's not sending any illegal aliens (the proper term) to concentration camps.

[Armchair]

Trump is not sending anyone to "Concentration Camps". But if these lies are all you have, well.

[Sarcastr0]

https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/24/politics/navy-building-ice-detention-facilities

"The new detention centers are likely to be primarily soft-sided tents and may or may not be built on existing Navy installations, according to the sources familiar with the initiative."

"One of the sources said the goal is for the facilities to house as many as 10,000 people each, and are expected to be built in Louisiana, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Utah and Kansas. "

con·cen·tra·tion camp
/ˌkän(t)sənˈtrāSHən ˌkamp/
noun
a place where large numbers of people, especially political prisoners or members of persecuted minorities, are deliberately imprisoned in a relatively small area with inadequate facilities, sometimes to provide forced labor or to await mass execution.

[Armchair]

Sure, if you want to redefine "concentration camp" to cover basically every prison and jail in the US...

Biden sent the J6 prisoners to concentration camps.

[Life of Brian]

"according to sources"!
"may or may not be"!
"as many as"!
"expected to be"!

All that cagey weaseling, to get you in the neighborhood of... 60,000. Such contrived drama.

[Bob from Ohio]

"redefine "concentration camp"

Despite its Boer War origins and the generic definition, he is just making a Nazi allusion since that is the common public understanding of what a "concentration camp" looks like.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Then say that instead of implying that every being deported is going to concentration camps.

Mr. Bumble— Can't afford that. We need some principle to predict who goes to the camps, and who not. Let Trump/MAGA learn that principle, and abide by it for a while, and then check back to see what gets said. Until then, it's insanity not to suppose anyone and everyone could be at risk of the camps.

After a while, when different things get said, don't expect them to say, "Oh great, thanks for concentration camps!"

[Mr. Bumble]

There are no camps!

[Michael P]

Your incessant screeching about Trump doesn't count as him running two minutes' hate, it just shows that you treat him like Emmanuel Goldstein.

[David Nieporent]

Jack Smith, Tish James, Jim Comey, and others say hello.

[Michael P]

Their incessant screeching about Trump doesn't count as him running two minutes' hate, it just shows that you all treat him like Emmanuel Goldstein.

[Sarcastr0]

Bare denial alongside a pretty strained 'I read 1984 too!' ref.

I'm at a loos to describe what it would look like if Trump's were training MAGA hate at disfavored people and groups.

[David Nieporent]

Their incessant screeching about Trump doesn't count as him running two minutes' hate,

Right, but Trump's endless screeching about them does.

[Michael P]

If you're going to double down on 1984 analogies, it would help if you actually knew the first thing about what you are talking about.

The whole point of the Two Minutes Hate was that it was an obligatory audience-participation event, where refraining from angry shouting was a quick ticket to Room 101.

[Sarcastr0]

Great argument - it can't count as Two Minutes Hate if you're super into the Two Minutes Hate!

You're really missing the novel's point about totalitarianism and social complacency if you think the mandatory bit was the sinister part.

[Michael P]

No new goalposts. The claim was "the kind of absolute totalitarianism described in George Orwell’s 1984", and you're trying to rewrite it to say "if you merely ignore all the elements that are actually given as examples of absolute totalitarianism in George Orwell's 1984".

[Sarcastr0]

Those aren't new goalposts - they're the point Orwell was making. Everyone is complacent in the hate - the mandatory bit is just because everything is regimented and mandatory.

You're pushing on an ancillary detail so you can literally apologize for hatemongering.

[Michael P]

Okay, you win. Donald Trump is a 1984ish totalitarian dictator to almost the same extent that Bill and Hillary Clinton were. Remember the supposed conspiracy that inspired this blog's name?

At least Trump hasn't tried to amount his unelected wife to run a major government body.

[not guilty]

"Okay, you win. Donald Trump is a 1984ish totalitarian dictator to almost the same extent that Bill and Hillary Clinton were. Remember the supposed conspiracy that inspired this blog's name?"

Michael P, that is not the explanation for the name of the blog that Professor Volokh has given. If I recall correctly, it is a tongue in cheek reference to most of the original blog writers being Jewish. Bigots have historically been quick to accuse Jews of conspiring with one another, a la The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

I surmise that Volokh and Company wanted to own the accusation ironically, in a manner similar to how LGBT folks embraced the epithet Queer in order to take the sting out of it.

[Michael P]

As usual, not guilty is confidently wrong.

In the following months, the blog added several other libertarian-leaning voices and became The Volokh Conspiracy—a nod to Hillary Clinton’s line about being hounded by a “vast right-wing conspiracy.”

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/the-volokh-conspiracy

[not guilty]

In Professor Volokh's own words:

Conspiracy struck me as unusual, memorable and a little (okay, only a little) amusing. First, I liked the incongruity of a conspiracy actually publicly announcing itself as a conspiracy. Second, it echoed "The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy," to which we belong, and also "The Jewish Conspiracy," to which most of the charter members and since then many of the more recent members have also belonged. But at the same time, as a self-chosen label, it also slightly mocked the term (just as many conservatives' embrace of the label "The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy" slightly mocks the term, which was apparently popularized by Hillary Clinton).

https://reason.com/volokh/2020/11/17/why-do-we-call-ourselves-the-volokh-conspiracy/

[Sarcastr0]

Good on Michael for finding a source!

He did come in a too hot, though.

ng's predictions may not always pan out, but you come at his description of past events you best not miss - the man always has receipts.

[Michael P]

It's just embarrassing for you all when his own "receipts" show that I'm twice as right as he is.

And when you have to defend a comparison to 1984 by emphasizing that your "the kind of absolute totalitarianism described in George Orwell’s 1984" really just means "a politician saying mean things".

[not guilty]

"He absolutely is organizing two minutes' hate, and by two minutes I mean two years. Or more."

With Hillary Clinton filling the role of Emmanuel Goldstein.

And the blastocystophiles and right wing Catholics comprise the Junior (and Senior) Anti-Sex League.

[Swede425]

LOL!
What are these people going to do when Trump leaves office after this term?
Poor President Vance. He's going to get 8 years of "Everything He Does Is Fascism!" by these victim larpers.
I wonder does President DeSantis get the same thing or will age/health issues weed out these performative clowns?

[ReaderY]

If he does things like raise tarriffs on a close American ally because it puts out an ad that truthfully quotes Ronald Reagan disagreeing with him and insists the truthful quote is a lie, or firing career prosecutors because they say there is no evidence a political enemy he wants indicted has committed a crime, then I can only hope that this country will remain free enough that people are still allowed to express this kind of criticism. He would RICHLY deserve it.

[Swede425]

LOL!
Imagine being "a close American ally" and putting out an ad directed at Trump.
I wonder if that ally's cabinet was like "Hey, know what would be a good idea? An ad!".
That ally, like a spoiled child being whiny while getting sent to bed, is still going to bed. Hope it was worth it!
And you won't have to worry about being "free enough that people are still allowed to express this kind of criticism", drama queen. Your "NO KINGS" drama festival prevented that from ever happening. Well done!

[David Nieporent]

Imagine being "a close American ally" and putting out an ad directed at Trump.

Um, Canada didn't put out that ad. A provincial government did.

[Malika la Maize]

Swede should really respond with LOL!

[Josh R]

Steve Bannon says Trump will be serving a third term. And I suspect he would have to for this fascist turn to continue. Democrats may call Vance a fascist, but he isn't (likely) one and would steer clear of Trump's shit (while enabling it for now just like the rest of the GOP does for their career goals). Even if Vance were a populist fascist, he doesn't have the charisma to get away with it.

[SRG2]

Donald Trump is not shipping people to concentration camps in freight cars

Yet. And if he did, you'd defend it, as would pretty much every cultist here.

[Michael P]

Congratulations to Javier Milei, La Libertad Avanza, and the people of Argentina for the solid plurality won by Milei and his party in their midterm elections. This is a positive sign for the country, and a way for them to continue to build strong institutions.

[Malika la Maize]

Nothing says strength like being propped up with US aid!

[Area Man]

Better than being propped up by Chinese aid, which apparently everyone on the left is just fine and dandy with. Truth is, Argentina has been run into the ground for so long by leftists that it’s been more difficult to overcome that one hoped it would be. But the important thing is that it’s on the right track now, and if it needs a helping hand to continue improving it’s better it’s ours than China’s.

[Malika la Maize]

Forty billion helping hands!

And some old fashioned what-aboutism!

[Area Man]

Yes, national budgets are often in the billions, if not trillions, nowadays. Not sure what the point of your comment pointing that out is supposed to accomplish. Also, unsure how what I said is what-aboutism.

[Malika la Maize]

Better than being propped up by Chinese aid, which apparently everyone on the left is just fine and dandy with.

[Sarcastr0]

I'm actually all for some Truman Doctrine-type aid.

That's what USAID did.

Don't pretend there's any strategy here. You're claim is that this move by Trump is about competing with Chinese aid? It's purely doleing out American wealth to someone the President likes.

More like the actual operation of the supposedly leftist Chavez regime than you'd like to admit.

[Area Man]

Liberals: "We need to give aid! Trump is evil for cutting back aid!"

Also liberals: "When we give aid it's bad if it's to a non-leftist!"

And I don't really give a shit what Trump's motives were here. It's going to a good project, and it will only help us at the expense of the Chinese influence. That is only a good thing.

And who is the "supposedly leftist Chavez regime"? Are you talking about the long-dead Hugo Chavez? If so, he wasn't "supposedly" leftist, he was actually and openly so, and so is his successor. Only a 12-year-old would think otherwise.

[Sarcastr0]

Some aid is good so all aid must be good?

What a terrible and stupid argument.

And then you follow up with the postulate that all foreign aid hurts China equally?!

Are you a simpleton or just very very ignorant?

Chavez talked leftist and in practice just used state resources to help their friends. Which had the benefit of getting him a lot of powerful friends kissing his ass.

In practice, exactly what Trump's doing.

[Area Man]

"Some aid is good so all aid must be good?"

I didn't say anything like this, you stupid simpleton (see? I can be a name-calling child too).

"And then you follow up with the postulate that all foreign aid hurts China equally?!"

I didn't even sort of say that, you fucking idiot. You cancer on this comment thread.

"Chavez talked leftist"

So he was a leftist. Got it. Of course you'd understand that if you weren't a low-functioning mongrel.

(Man, this is fun. I'm going to stoop to your mentally challenged level more often.)

[Sarcastr0]

Above you posit an inconsistency in the left, because some aid is good and some is bad.
Come on, man.

You say the aid to Argentina is well spent because it hurts China. As though that aid money couldn't more effectively hurt China elsewhere. Opportunity cost is a thing!

You made a very bad post; it's there for everyone to see. Now you deny it said what it says.

Chavez talked leftist talk, but governed like a strongman. Trump talks rightist talk, but governs like a strawman.
If you find the comparison offensive (and I am being facile to make the point), point out a flaw in the comparison.

[Krayt]

There's a famous meme pic of Hugo Chavez holding up a Noam Chomsky book the way college dopes in the West held up little red books from Mao.

"Supposedly", my Ozempic-reducing ass.

[Krayt]

BTW, insofar as it was "supposedly", it was in perfect accordance with the Fundamental Theorem of Government: Corruption is not an unfortunate side effect of the wielding of power. It is the purpose of it from day one.

He used Chomskian memery to pacify and get useful idiots on board. These techniques, like appealing to Nazi sentiments, are proven to find purchase.

He thence proceded to start putting check boxes on each of the common tools of tyrants. I monitored and listed them in real time.

Jail oppositional papers. Take oppositional media off the air. Dissappear people. Gains emergency powers to deal with an emergency, which are used to solidify power and are never given up. Finally, the grandest golf club of all in the tyrant's golf bag, the driver, the power to pass laws by decree. This is the dictate part of dictator. He speaks the law into existence.

And the palaces roll on.

[Frank Drackman]

Any Lou Christie fans out there? Just saw he passed earlier this year (I didn't even know he was sick)
Biggest hit was "Lightning Strikes" Dec 1965 (and featured in one of the most bizarre "Party Scenes" ever in the 1981 Slasher Flick "Strange Behavior" (AKA "Dead Kids" "Small Town Massacre", "Shadowlands" not a good sign when a movie has to keep changing its name)
Filmed in New Zealand, for what it's worth

Frank

[Mr. Bumble]

Great falsetto voice from the 60's.

[Ska]

With the number of times I heard that song as a kid (my parents were forever playing CBS 101 oldies at home and in the car), I always pictured it as Ben Franklin singing with the crazy falsetto. I think I have a new AI project to work on...

[Mr. Bumble]

Maybe include Frankie Valli another great falsetto voice.

[Frank Drackman]

Loved when he went to Hollywood.

[Sarcastr0]

I was a weird kid and CBS 101 was my station of choice growing up as well.

Till my senior year in HS when a hipper friend introduced me to Ben Folds and Sublime.

I still have a huge gap in my musical knowledge for the 1980s.

[Mr. Bumble]

You have a "huge gap" in your knowledge of everything.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Ben Folds and Sublime."

You're the boy in the Taylor Swift song listening to an indy record way cooler than hers.

[Sarcastr0]

Funny you thought the point of my comment was to look cool.

I was sharing nostalgia with Ska about a NY oldies station.

Cousin Brucie was pretty great.

[Ska]

I can still hear the "eeEEEeeeee" shtick.

My wife, an LA native, introduced me to Art Laboe, who seems to have been the west coast version.

[Bwaaah]

I never heard of the guy. I'd probably have died never again hearing one of those songs. And yet, a quick trip to YouTube and I see that those tunes are as familiar now as they were back then. A real holy-shit-remember-THAT-one? moment.

[Armchair]

Thanks Democrats...

https://www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-26-at-5.58.27%E2%80%AFPM.png

[ThePublius]

Error 1011 Ray ID: 9951e13e3da79035 • 2025-10-27 11:33:40 UTC
Access denied
What happened?
The owner of this website (www.powerlineblog.com) does not allow hotlinking to that resource (/ed-assets/2025/10/Screenshot-2025-10-26-at-5.58.27%E2%80%AFPM.png).

[Mr. Bumble]

Link worked for me.

[Life of Brian]

Fails most of the time, but occasionally loads. Strange.

In any event, it's front and center in this article.

[Brett Bellmore]

We flew out to Sedona (By way of Phoenix) Friday for my niece's wedding. No problems. Flew back Sunday, and while our first flight was running late, so was our second.

Wish they'd told us that BEFORE we sprinted the length of the airport at Nashville...

No indications that the flight delays Sunday were due to flight controllers, they were weather related.

Sedona, by the way, is very nice, and my wife wants to go back some time when we actually have time to sight see.

[Life of Brian]

This was to be a root-level post, I take it?

I spent a day or two driving around the Sedona area way too many years ago. Really beautiful territory.

[Brett Bellmore]

Nah, the article made reference to the shutdown disrupting air traffic control, I was just confirming that it hadn't in any of the airports I passed through.

[hobie]

Yeah, link doesn't work for me either. I will note that the homepage is festooned with Charlie Kirk silver coin adverts. I'm sure Kirk would approve the grift

[SRG2]

This should do it: Mendacious cartoon

[Armchair]

Huh.

Here's the parent post.

https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2025/10/schumers-shutdown-starts-to-bite.php

[Dr. Ed 2]

Gotta love Trump
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7m6vmx4nEs

[Area Man]

Looks like Argentina has retained its sanity. Way to go Milei! Though, he better not let Trump hear that his stated goal is to “put an end to populism.”

[Martinned]

Plague on all their houses. It makes sense that the corruption and mismanagement of parties like the UCR would make even an authoritarian lunatic like Milei look good.

[Area Man]

Milei: I want to reduce government and end populism so individuals, and in turn the country, can flourish.

The Left: He’s an authoritarian lunatic!!!!

Jesus, you people are parodies of yourselves.

[Martinned]

That's certainly one way to summarise Milei. Not a correct way, mind, but *a way*.

[Bob from Ohio]

I'll bite, how is he authoritarian?

[Martinned]

Search for "bypass Congress".

https://argentinareports.com/javier-milei-pushes-to-bypass-congress-and-rushes-a-new-imf-deal-for-argentina/3875/

[Martinned]

Like this: https://www.batimes.com.ar/news/argentina/milei-amended-almost-100-laws-by-decree-in-first-year.phtml

And this: Argentina’s Javier Milei to bypass senate to name supreme court judges by decree

[Martinned]

Not to mention his near Trumplike love of criticism:

https://argentinareports.com/mileis-government-cracks-down-on-pensioner-protests-brawl-breaks-out-in-argentinas-congress/3880/

https://www.pen-international.org/news/argentina-serious-deterioration-of-freedom-of-expression-under-javier-mileis-government

[Mr. Bumble]

Might want to change your screen name.
"Area man threatens Pam Bondi"
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2025/10/area-man-threatens-pam-bondi.php

[Area Man]

"Area Man" is a reference to the Onion, which is a reference to old newspapers' description of the typical everyman living in the newspaper's reporting area. So, no, I'm not going to change it.

[Ska]

Why should I change my name? He's the one who's the asshole!

[Stephen Lathrop]

Area Man — You ought to change it. You are not going to jiu-jitsu the character of the reference. When the Onion made it famous, it invited scorn for people so lackadaisical it never occurred to them to use personal agency to relieve ignorance. That's how folks understand it today.

I hope you knew that, and are displaying bad judgment to suppose you can get around an enduring meme. The alternative, that you thought the Onion was lauding everyman . . . ?

[Life of Brian]

Wow, what appears to the casual reader to have been a joke by Bumble has taken on a life of its own....

[Mr. Bumble]

Too many people here are way too serious.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Mr. Bumble still wins best screen name for a commentor on a legal blog, hands down.

[Area Man]

I understand the Onion's joke. Jesus Christ, you people are fucking idiots today. More so than usual.

[Stephen Lathrop]

Apparently you not only understand the joke, you have made up your mind to be the joke. I'll give you this, nobody can say that isn't a choice, or that you didn't make it. If you suppose that makes you seem authentic, maybe consider dropping the pseudonym altogether.

[TwelveInchPianist]

This is 1874, you'll be able to sue the Onion!

[BrotherMovesOn]

Good one

[Bwaaah]

Martinned: "Plague on all their houses."

You might want to hide your fangs, lest the many come to know the contempt you hold for them.

"Vote for the Martinned plan, and the plague you deserve."

[hobie]

Amusing to see the MAGA faithful now moved to tears over a country they didn't give a shit about their entire lives. Jonestown level koolaid drinking

[Area Man]

1. I'm not MAGA (indeed, my comment itself makes a poke at Trump).
2. I care about other countries.

Sorry your ad hominem backfired.

[Martinned]

Catherine Connolly has won the Irish presidential election in a landslide. I haven't been following Irish politics as closely as I did when I lived there, but I don't think I would have voted for her if I had been Irish. Sinn Fein in all but name.

That said, Heather Humphreys has all the charisma and leadership skill of a wet dishtowel, and the Fianna Fail candidate, Jim Gavin, dropped out before the election even started, because he failed to repay €3,300 owed by him for several years to a former tenant. (Imagine that.) So there wasn't much to choose from.

Presumably, that's why 12,9% of voters spoiled their ballot, which is a crazy high percentage in a system without mandatory voting. I saw mentions of people voting for Postman Pat and Donald Trump.

I don't know that it was a big loss to the Irish nation that Conor McGregor and Michael Flatley didn't end up with enough nominations, and Maria Steen (who ended up three nominations short) seems to be so reactionary that even Mike Pence would say she should loosen up a bit. So I'm not sure who in the Irish body politic would have hypothetically gotten my support in an ideal world. But it doesn't matter, because Catherine Connolly is who they've got. She will be sworn in on St. Martin's day.

[Mr. Bumble]

Meanwhile what's the outlook for the Dutch elections this week?

[Frank Drackman]

I heard their King's 20 points ahead in Iowa, and Florida is "Too Close to Call"

[Michael P]

Based on what I hear (from Frank Drackman), the election is likely to result in still being ruled by a king with a history of being accused repeatedly of pedophilia, necrophilia and oenophilia.

[Bwaaah]

(I hadda look that last one up.)

[Malika la Maize]

Nice to see Mikie, who complains he has to mute puerile comments, and bwaah, who says he’s just a long time but recently disaffected liberal, continue to stan Francis.

Disingenuous from dusk to dawn, folks.

[not guilty]

Is love of wines a bad thing?

[Martinned]

The polls are popping up and down, but the basic result remains unchanged: 4-party coalition involving the centre-right, the centre-left, and whatever the christian-democrats are.

So the question is still which of those 4 is going to be the biggest, and will therefore most likely supply the PM. The Christian-Democratic leader Bontenbal, who was the favourite for that honour, lost his part five virtual seats last week (from 25 down to 20) because he said on TV that religious schools have a constitutional right to teach that homosexuality is wrong. Which may well be right as a legal matter, but isn't very popular in a country where hardcore bible thumpers have their own parties to vote for, and don't tend to vote for the main christian-democratic party.

[JEP41]

I'm just a curious layman. Apologies if this has already been discussed; if so, I missed it.

Since Trump seems to be claiming he intends to serve a third term as president and virtually all the commenters I have heard simply say it's impossible because of the 22nd ammendment, I am wondering how he might accomplish that despite the 22nd ammendment. I realize that the 22nd ammendment appears to prevent Trump from serving a third term, but have I begun wondering if the ammendment really does that.

As I understand the 22nd ammendment, it actually says (with a few qualifying statements) you can't "run" for the office of president, if you have already served two terms as president.

So does that mean that Trump cannot appear on state ballots for president? How would that be enforced ... especially if the Congress favors Trump being president at the time? And if Trump is prevented from appearing on any ballots, what about write-in votes?

A thornier question in my mind: if Trump managed to get enough votes for president to win the election (and the Congress favored Trump being president), who could take what action to prevent him from actually serving.

[I believe Trump has children who are qualified to run for president, so I suspect he might support having one of them run, then become the de facto president if the child won the election.]

[Life of Brian]

Since Trump seems to be claiming he intends to serve a third term as president

Do you happen to have a serious cite for this, or is "seems to be" carrying the load?

[gVOR08]

https://politicalwire.com/2025/10/27/trump-would-love-to-run-for-third-term/

He is, but his usual both sides of his mouth maybe I am, maybe I’m not, take me seriously but not literally crap.

And if he does, it all comes down to Dread Justice Roberts and his accomplices.

[Life of Brian]

I saw the tidal wave of froth over the words "I'd love to."

That's why I included the word "serious" in my inquiry.

[Longtobefree]

Easy as one, two, three.
1. Other republicans run and win.
2. Trump is appointed speaker of the house.
3. The president ad vice president both resign.

[Magister]

You'd also need a step where enough Republicans who are down with this plan (to appoint an 82 year old as president over Republicans who won the presidency on their own) form a majority in the House.

[David Nieporent]

You'd also have to find a GOP president and vice president who — having been elected — agree to resign.

[Life of Brian]

Great, so it sounds like we agree that there isn't a realistic path to a third term and thus the latest paranoid media buzz about it is a waste of cycles.

[Malika la Maize]

So why does Trump not just say it’s not realistic? He’s the President, leader of this country, he can quash this right now.

[Life of Brian]

he can quash this right now

Oh, LOL. Have we suddenly entered an alternate universe where the frothy frothers would actually take Trump at his word?

Seems to me that's precisely why he said "you'll have to tell me" to the reporter -- just acknowledging that's exactly what they'll do no matter what he says.

[Magister]

Trump keeps bringing it up (his Trump 2028 hat when meeting with Democrats over the shutdown, for one example) or his surrogates like Bannon bring it up (touting a secret plan to get Trump a third term). The likely objective is not a third term (he'll be 82 in 2028, and his health does not seem good) but to avoid the irrelevance of being seen as a lame duck.

[Life of Brian]

his Trump 2028 hat when meeting with Democrats over the shutdown, for one example

Man, I hadn't seen that one before. That's hilarious.

[Martinned]

to avoid the irrelevance of being seen as a lame duck

To avoid being put in prison, fined, or having the proceeds of his crimes taken away, you mean? There is a limit to how much crime you can do before you have no choice but to make sure you only leave office feet first.

[Magister]

Being seen as a lame duck would probably lead Republicans to move on from Trump, which could hasten those other consequences.

[Moderation4ever]

Here is my question, how do you get two bootlickers to both resign? My guess is that if person is craven enough to agree to run they are also greedy enough to hold the power once they have it.

[ducksalad]

Resignation is just one of the three ways the bootlickers can leave office. They could die or be impeached.

And impeachment isn't unrealistic under the constitutional chaos we'd be in....all it takes is for the presiding officer of the Senate to delay swearing in a dozen Democrats while "allegations of election irregularity are investigated" for a few weeks in January while the impeachments are rammed through.

[Moderation4ever]

It all seems pretty Rube Goldberg to me. While it may make sense on paper I don't think there is any likelihood it could work in the real world. Simple too many ways for it not to work as planned.

[Bob from Ohio]

JD Vance and Marco Rubio both just give up the Presidency, just like that.

It has a negative probability.

[Moderation4ever]

I agree here wholeheartedly. Two people who have enough appeal to win the Presidency and Vice Presidency are not going to give it up once they have the offices.

[Frank Drackman]

I-ANAL but it's pretty simple (If I can understand it, it's simple)
22nd Amendment only says a POTUS can't be "Elected" more than 2 times. Here's the exact words:
"No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once."
So the way I understand it is "45/47" runs as Vice President with JD, they win (could happen, especially with a CA/NY Ticket such as New-Scum/Man-Damn-He (who really is ineligible being a native of Uganda))
JD resigns, Voila', 45/47 becomes "49"
where it gets weird is if JD steps down before he becomes POTUS.

Want some real weirdness?? what happens if a "POTUS-Elect" dies before the Electrical College meets??? Can Erectors vote for a Dead Candidate??? (Cue Sleepy Joe Joke)
OR even more weird, if there is no Electrical College Winner and the Erection goes to the House (voting by states, who said the Founding Fathers didn't have a sense of humor?) and THEN one of the Candidates dies....
Cue 20th Amendment, which addresses the ish-yew directly

"The Congress may by law provide for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the House of Representatives may choose a President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them, and for the case of the death of any of the persons from whom the Senate may choose a Vice President whenever the right of choice shall have devolved upon them"

Of course Congress has never made any law, and it's only been 90+ years

Frank

[OpinionsVary]

But the 12th Amendment says, "But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States."

So, once being term limited out as president, Trump couldn't serve as Vice President.

[Frank Drackman]

How is a POTUS constitutionally ineligible to be POTUS?

[OpinionsVary]

Not getting you here?

We're talking about a third term here, not what he is right now.

You suggested that Trump, while barred from running for the Presidency due to the 22nd Amendment, could instead run for vice-president. He could then get a 3rd Presidency term by Vance resigning.

My point is after is current 2nd term - per the 12th Amendment - Trump is also barred from becoming vice-president. Since the 22nd means he can't be elected president and the 12th applies that to the vice-president too. As such, the plan your outlined here is also unconstitutional - just via a two step process 22nd to 12th rather than just the 22nd alone.

[TwelveInchPianist]

The 12th Amendment's language about constitutionally ineligible to the Office of the President refers to Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the Constitution:

No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

Trump is not constitutionally ineligible to the Office of the President, he just can't be elected. If the framers of the 22nd Amendment wanted to make him ineligible, they could have used that language.

The 22nd amendment distinguished between being elected to the Office of President, holding the Office of President, and acting as President, and they chose only to disqualify people from being elected President.

[ducksalad]

they could have used that language....they chose only to...

Well, I agree that by convention and out of necessity we need to assume they meant what they said.

However, if the authors of the 14th, 15th, and 22nd had had time machine access to 2025 legal op-eds at the VC and saw what various people are now claiming, they probably would have worded some things more clearly.

(The authors of the 6th Amendment would be stumped, though. "We said all. How can they not understand all? There isn't any clearer word...")

[wvattorney13]

That is the so called "loophole" that has appeared in articles. The 12A says he cannot be VP if he is ineligible to BE president. The 22A says he cannot be "elected" President. Two different things.

If you think that is a distinction without a difference, ask Gerald Ford. He was president, but not elected. In fact, many men in the past have BEEN president without being elected to the same: John Tyler, Andrew Johnson, etc.

[Frank Drackman]

and some would say Sleepy Joe.

[Davy C]

The 12th can't come into play, though. If he's constitutionally ineligible to be President, the rest of whatever plan there is to get him back in is irrelevant; he's *already* constitutionally ineligible. (And if he's not ineligible, then the 12th doesn't apply.)

But hey, nobody said we can't change how we measure time! You know how we add an extra hour to our clocks every fall? We could instead add an extra 35,064 hours in November 2028. If he wants another term after that we can add 1,460 leap days to December 2028. Foolproof!

[Josh R]

what happens if a "POTUS-Elect" dies before the Electrical College meets???

Jeff Greenfield wrote a very good novel on this subject.

[Swede425]

He's getting rid of elections because you don't elect kings.
A king rules by divine right.
Elon Musk is working on a cyborg body for him so that he can remain king forever!
LOL! Sleep tight, liberals.

[Frank Drackman]

Divine Right was nominating Common-Law Harris after receiving exactly ZERO Votes in the DemoKKKrat Primary.
Worked out well for them, didn't it?

Frank

[Bob from Ohio]

"Trump seems to be claiming he intends to serve a third term"

He's playing you cats. And the more you cats foam about it, the more he will play.

You don't have to chase the pointer.

[Sarcastr0]

"they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. "

[Life of Brian]

That might be a pretty weighty quote, if only you were actually talking about a crowd actually dedicated to solemn, rational discourse rather than a crowd chasing pell-mell the next bloodbath headline like a bunch of rabid lemmings.

[Malika la Maize]

His President doesn’t have to be serious about things because the meanies who don’t like him aren’t.

The party of personal responsibility!

[Bob from Ohio]

A joke about running for a 3rd term is exactly like Jew hatred.

Dumb even by her increasingly deranged comments.

You should go to another Halloween party, the Sunday one didn't mellow you at all.

[Sarcastr0]

The antisemite in Sartre's piece isn't really about hating Jews.

"if the Jew did not exist, the anti-semite would invent him."

It's a really insightful piece as applied to a certain set around here - embracing bad faith and indulging passions and a rejection of rationality; maintaining the pretense just to play.

[Bob from Ohio]

Whatever. Degenerate French philosophers might appeal to you.

[Sarcastr0]

I'm into that work of Sartre.

The rest of his stuff is hit or miss. He was a man of his time.

[Moderation4ever]

I agree here. So much of the talk of a third term seems designed to irritate more than talking about anything realistic.

[wvattorney13]

Agreed. And what is funny is that no matter how many times he does it, the left bites. It's like telling someone that they have a spot on their shirt and when they look down flicking them in the face. And doing it and having them fall for it 300 consecutive times.

[ducksalad]

So just hypothetically....

Someone posts on Facebook that if (but only if) Donald Trump runs for a third term, he intends to use his sniper rifle (photo helpfully attached) to take out both the President and First Lady.

What is your position:

1. The whole thing is just a continuation of the joke, and since there is zero possibility of Trump running, this cannot possibly be a true threat. Not only no FBI investigation, but even seeking a warrant is a criminal violation of the poster's free speech rights.

2. It's a true threat because Trump might do that. The FBI needs to show up at his house, ask questions, and once they're sure they have the right guy he leaves in handcuffs, to face indictment, conviction, and some number of years in prison.

Or something in between?

[wvattorney13]

You are conflating the POV for the threat here. It doesn't matter whether Trump is serious or joking. It also doesn't matter whether the Facebook poster is serious or joking.

What matters is how a reasonable person would view the FB threat and whether it would be considered a true threat.

Further, a conditional threat is only excused if one has the privilege of acting on the condition. E.g. "If you break into my home and try to harm my family, I will kill you." Privileged. The threat is conditional and I am privileged to act if the condition happens. E.g. "If you date my sister, I will kill you" Not privileged. If you and my sister choose to date, I'm not permitted to harm you.

This FB poster would not be permitted to commit his proposed act even if Trump were elected to a third term.

[not guilty]

"Further, a conditional threat is only excused if one has the privilege of acting on the condition. E.g. "If you break into my home and try to harm my family, I will kill you." Privileged. The threat is conditional and I am privileged to act if the condition happens. E.g. "If you date my sister, I will kill you" Not privileged. If you and my sister choose to date, I'm not permitted to harm you."

Let's flesh that out a bit, wvattorney. Robert Watts said "They always holler at us to get an education. And now I have already received my draft classification as 1-A and I have got to report for my physical this Monday coming. I am not going. If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is L.B.J." Watts v. United States, 394 U.S. 705, 706 (1969). SCOTUS opined that, as a matter of law, this was not a "true threat", and as such it was protected by the First Amendment, such that the trial judge erred in denying the defense motion for judgment of acquittal.

Do you contend that Mr. Watts, if he was made to carry a rifle, had "the privilege" of putting the President in his sights?

[JoeFromtheBronx]

A thornier question in my mind: if Trump managed to get enough votes for president to win the election (and the Congress favored Trump being president), who could take what action to prevent him from actually serving?

There is a traditional line about "parchment barriers" not being enough that comes to mind. A court challenge probably won't work.

There have been lower court opinions that kept constitutionally disqualified presidential candidates off the ballot. For instance, someone under 35. These arose for non-entities who had no realistic chance of winning.

When a state tried to do that to enforce a barrier found in the 14th Amendment involving engaging in an insurrection or rebellion, Trump v. Anderson, the Supreme Court blocked it.

The reasoning was rather dubious, and the justices didn't even show up to hand down the opinion. It was realistically a prudential choice to avoid the issue. The 22nd Amendment question is not completely the same, but some similar concerns arise.

If Trump ran in 2028, some state election officials and Trump opponents would try to stop putting him on the ballot. There would be lawsuits. The text of the 22nd Amendment should warrant keeping his name off the ballot. But who would be surprised if a Supreme Court majority said otherwise?

If Trump actually won and Congress agreed, the Supreme Court would probably find a way to keep out of it. Say it was a political question for Congress.

The realistic way to stop a third term is popular and political opposition to it. Total ridicule of even doing it would help.

Or Trump being unable physically to run again in 2028. Or not wanting to do so for some other reason.

[Mr. Bumble]

Like I posted above;
Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends...

[Life of Brian]

When a state tried to do that to enforce a barrier found in the 14th Amendment involving engaging in an insurrection or rebellion, Trump v. Anderson, the Supreme Court blocked it.

This seems to me to be the point where the conspiracy train falls off the rails. A state tried to invent its own subjective interpretation of that text in the 14A, and SCOTUS said that wasn't a state prerogative. It seems an irrational stretch to suggest that the same thing could happen to the objective criteria of the 22A.

[ducksalad]

Are you claiming that the SC is incapable of irrational stretches?

[JoeFromtheBronx]

We had a "subjective" interpretation, but with the 22nd, it would be "objective"? If Trump actually tried it, people here would suddenly find ways to parse the text. One federal appeals judge already suggested in a separate opinion that it was not a totally straightforward question.

(The opinion was from months ago. It was referenced in comments.)

[Life of Brian]

One federal appeals judge already suggested in a separate opinion that it was not a totally straightforward question.

If you find that, let me know, but as I recall the "not totally straightforward" part was whether there was any scenario where someone could end up as President after having served two terms.

Here, I understood you to be taking on the very straightforward path, directly addressed in the 22A, of being elected to be President more than twice. If that's not objective, not much in life is.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Trump v. Anderson did not turn on the merits of Trump being engaged in an insurrection. It avoided that question.

It removed Colorado's ability to remove Trump based on alleged federal exclusivity. It didn't turn on it being a "subjective" question to determine the meaning of engaging in an insurrection. Even if SCOTUS was correct (I doubt it), its ruling was far from blatantly obvious. It split 5-3-1 on the details.

("Because the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the States, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates.")

The per curiam opinion noted in language quite applicable to the 22A:

Because federal officers “‘owe their existence and functions to the united voice of the whole, not of a portion, of the people,’” powers over their election and qualifications must be specifically “delegated to, rather than reserved by, the States.”

The concurring opinion joined by the liberals specifically flagged this:

Similarly, other constitutional rules of disqualification, like the two-term limit on the Presidency, do not require implementing legislation.

A straightforward approach is for the courts to decide that they had no power to overturn Trump being on the ballot, no matter how blatantly obviously wrong it might seem.

==

I saw online a clip of Trump being asked if he could run as vice president & become president again that route. He said he could but wouldn't do it. He is known to change his mind.

See also:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/01/31/trump-defy-constitution-third-term-00200239

Since the original person dealt with the scenario of "he intends to serve a third term as president and virtually all the commenters I have heard simply say it's impossible because of the 22nd amendment," all the possible scenarios would be relevant.

===

The judge responded to a comment that "The Twenty-second Amendment, however, mandates that President Trump cannot be elected to another term after the current one."

https://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/sites/ca10/files/opinions/010111187673.pdf

[Life of Brian]

It removed Colorado's ability to remove Trump based on alleged federal exclusivity. It didn't turn on it being a "subjective" question to determine the meaning of engaging in an insurrection.

Whether it used the word subjective or not, federal exclusivity prevents states from making their own individual judgment calls on whether a candidate is an "insurrectionist." As the Sotomayor concurrence/dissent put it, allowing Colorado to make that call would "create a chaotic state-by-state patchwork, at odds with our Nation’s federalism principles."

The concurring opinion joined by the liberals specifically flagged this:

Similarly, other constitutional rules of disqualification, like the two-term limit on the Presidency, do not require implementing legislation.

Nor does the 22nd Amendment explicitly grant Congress “power to enforce [the Amendment] by appropriate legislation.” I don't see the apparent conflict.

A straightforward approach is for the courts to decide that they had no power to overturn Trump being on the ballot, no matter how blatantly obviously wrong it might seem.

As I mentioned above, the two-term restriction is just as objective (and thus incapable of ending up in a patchwork of state-by-state judgment calls) as the 35-year-old requirement that states have been gatekeeping for most of our lifetimes. IMO, dark predictions about SCOTUS just abandoning any restrictions, however objective and straightforward, are just borrowing trouble.

Bottom line: Trump isn't going to be on the ballot for a third term. Bookmark this, and I'll do the same.

[wvattorney13]

I agree. Whether one is guilty of "insurrection" requires fact finding and will generate a massive difference of opinion. We could have a 400 page thread on whether J6 qualifies and we would never settle it.

The question of whether a person had already been elected twice, at least in a hypothetical Trump case could be judicially noticed. I would love to see the argument that Trump was not elected in both 2016 and 2024.

[ducksalad]

I would love to see the argument that Trump was not elected in both 2016 and 2024.

This suggests an alternate strategy for getting a third term:

Some generous unknown benefactor pays for a left-wing flake to file a lawsuit saying the 2016 election was invalid.

Team Trump arranges to either "lose" the lawsuit, or to "settle" it by "conceding" that the 2016 election was invalid. Sort of like how CBS pretended to think Trump's lawsuit against them had merit.

You'd want to see the arguments but sadly it's all gibberish from the flake, and "We agree and do not contest this point" over and over from Trump's lawyers. (Kind of the reverse of Trump versus CBS.) The carefully venue-shopped federal judge approves the settlement.

The current, genuinely-elected in 2024 Trump pardons himself for impersonating the president from 2017-2021. He also goes on TruthSocial and mocks the idiots who ever believed it, with particular attention to "that foolish sucker Mike Pence". Dutiful MAGA supporters and confused Democrats answer telephone polls and within a few weeks 50+% agree in polls 2016 wasn't valid.

The court-endorsed settlement papers combined with public opinion are then used to get ballot access in states that try to enforce the 22nd on him.

[wvattorney13]

Such a sham settlement would have no preclusive effect on any other party.

[David Nieporent]

The question of whether a person had already been elected twice, at least in a hypothetical Trump case could be judicially noticed.

Was Trump elected twice, as you claim, or three times, as he claims? (2016, 2020, and 2024)?

[Swede425]

Can we just be real for a minute?
You guys are going to have to take The Resistance to the hills, or perhaps the Ice Planet Hoth, where you can bravely resist by resisting bravely because you are the Rebel Alliance now.
WOLVERINES!!!

[ducksalad]

Other commenters have explained one path, exploiting the choice of words in the 22nd amendment. This path is interesting to students of constitutional loopholes, and to a certain subset of Trump apologists who like to argue that he's technically in the right. The problem is too many moving parts and getting people to reliably vote for the designated resigner.

Of course in other countries there are many examples of presidents staying when their time is up. In order from more legalistic to less legalistic:

1. "The Colorado Argument": our SC could take the position that Congress has not passed enabling legislation, and states can't enforce the 22nd themselves, just like Colorado couldn't enforce the disqualification clause of the 14th. They would also rule the electoral count is a political question and not justiciable. Therefore he can't be kept off the ballot, and if Congress counts his electoral votes, nobody can do anything to prevent it.

2. "The Bolivian Maneuver": In Bolivia, Evo Morales' men on their supreme court declared that the explicit term limits in their constitution conflicted with Evo's equal human right to run for office. Similarly, our SC could try to claim there is a conflict between term limits and Trump's 14th amendment right to run for office, and resolve it in favor of the latter. Throw in some verbiage about respecting democracy and the people being the ultimate enforcers of terms limits, etc. (Of course it's complete bullshit, but sometimes courts do complete bullshit.)

3. "The Palestinian Authority Method": Trump could try to have the election delayed due to an emergency and claim that he is not taking a third term, just temporarily and reluctantly extending his second one until the emergency is over. What is the emergency? That's easy - the Democrats are plotting to rig the election and everything is in chaos and we have to get it sorted out first.

4. "FYTW": Even in the most backward third world countries, they usually go to the modest trouble of declaring an emergency for form's sake. However, a true strongman doesn't even need that. To paraphrase Jefe talking to El Guapo, "you want the third term, you take the third term".

[Martinned]

5. The Supreme Court finds, based on careful originalist analysis, that the 22nd amendment only forbids more than two *consecutive* terms.

[Life of Brian]

our SC could take the position that Congress has not passed enabling legislation, and states can't enforce the 22nd themselves, just like Colorado couldn't enforce the disqualification clause of the 14th.

As I just mentioned in the other thread, SCOTUS holding that a state can't create its own subjective measurement of "insurrection" isn't even in the same galaxy as holding that a state can't count to 2. This is the same sort of objective criteria as candidates needing to be at least 35 years old, which states have been gatekeeping unmolested for many moons.

[ducksalad]

I fully agree that's it not the same. Nevertheless, you and I can each name many, many cases in which the Supreme Court has said stuff we think is outrageously and obviously wrong.

Note the scenario in which it would likely happen. It would not be lone wacko Trump arguing against universal public opinion. There'd be mass protests by Trump supporters making the democratic absolutist argument: that their right to vote for the candidate of their choice outweighs all other considerations. There'd be open threats to pack the court or impeach justices if they "overturned democracy". There'd be multiple lawsuits alleging that the Democratic candidate is also somehow ineligible, and it would be awfully tempting to just say that no court will declare either candidate ineligible, it would look fair and Roberts loves to look fair.

PS Wasn't ignoring your other comment, I'm a slow typer and it came up when I was writing my first one.

[Life of Brian]

There'd be mass protests by Trump supporters making the democratic absolutist argument: that their right to vote for the candidate of their choice outweighs all other considerations. There'd be open threats to pack the court or impeach justices if they "overturned democracy". There'd be multiple lawsuits alleging that the Democratic candidate is also somehow ineligible, and it would be awfully tempting to just say that no court will declare either candidate ineligible, it would look fair and Roberts loves to look fair.

You're envisioning a scenario where not many rules at all would matter, so at that point just about anything could happen -- say, Obama rising up like the Joker and calling Antifa sleeper cells into service to preemptively wipe out the entire conservative federal judiciary just for safety's sake.

Or, most likely, we'll just have another normal election year.

PS Wasn't ignoring your other comment, I'm a slow typer and it came up when I was writing my first one.

Oh, sorry, I didn't take it that way. When the same topic is going on in multiple threads, I often just refer to earlier responses where I may have gone into something in more detail so I'm not cluttering up a thread repeating the whole thing.

[ducksalad]

You're envisioning a scenario where...

What part is unrealistic? We've already had mass protests from people who thought Trump was being cheated. We've already had (from Democrats) threats to pack the court. We've already had bogus lawsuits (from both sides, recall the Birthers) challenging POTUS candidate eligibility.

I'd bet money on all three things happening if Trump declared for a third term.

The unlikely part is him trying. He's obviously declining and some part of him knows it.

[Life of Brian]

What part is unrealistic?

1. Getting very much critical mass at all for the notion that Trump should be able to be on the ballot for a third term just 'cause, much less mass protests if that doesn't happen.
2. Conservatives threatening to pack the court if their current 5-1-3 majority (on a bad day) doesn't declare that black is white, simply because liberals have threatened to pack the court because the court doesn't have its preferred ideological balance.
3. SCOTUS taking on a truly pretextual eligibility challenge at all, much less using it a "fairness" counterweight to justify a challenge based on a basic, unambiguous Constitutional requirement.

The unlikely part is him trying.

Talk about burying the lede! I agree wholeheartedly.

[wvattorney13]

Wouldn't that be the same as any potential third term president and his supporters? The argument would be "Look at all these people who really want this guy to have a third term. You cannot deny them their democratic choice!"

And the answer would be yes we can. The very point of the 22A is to deny people who would want their guy to have a third term to have that choice.

[ducksalad]

Yes, that is the purpose of the 22nd Amendment, and yes, the argument against it is bullshit.

I'm talking about a scenario where the president is trying to circumvent a constitutional provision and making bullshit arguments. He has a track record of both.

Again, this is all just spitballing. Most likely he won't want to run in 2028, and even if he did try, it would all hinge on Vance playing along. Vance is the one man he can't fire, Vance has ambitions of his own, Vance knows where lots of skeletons are hiding, and Vance has a few options under the 25th Amendment. I don't think he's as loyal as he appears.

[Commenter_XY]

POTUS Trump has already ruled out another term. This is it for him. He has directly said as much.

He is doing the world's biggest troll thing talking about running in 2028.

[ducksalad]

He is doing the world's biggest troll thing talking about running in 2028.

Bannon et al are trolling.

Trump has declining cognition and has mostly loss the ability to consciously troll. Trouble correctly sticking to his talking points, trouble with names. He can no longer keep complex issues (e.g. Israel/Gaza, tariff policy) in his head and thus gives emotional, instinctive, and inconsistent responses when answering questions or even making decisions.

So perhaps he dimly he recalls that floating a third term was one of those effective jackass things he liked to do, but can't remember why it was good trolling and isn't sure himself if he means it.

And to answer the obvious comeback: sure he's still way better than 2024 Biden. Maybe comparable to 2021 Biden.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"In Bolivia, Evo Morales' men on their supreme court declared that the explicit term limits in their constitution conflicted with Evo's equal human right to run for office."

Huh. An interesting test of the "unconstitutional constitutional amendment" theory.

And we know that Trump already has one vote on the Court, right? I mean, if a constitutional amendment can't remove Sotomayor from office, how could it prevent a person duly chosen by the People from having his third term?

I mean, I don't buy the theory, but I'm not on the court.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Link to Justice Sotomayor's roundabout endorsement of the constitutionality of a Trump third term here.

[ducksalad]

Somehow I don't think you can rely on her commitment to intellectual consistency.

[ReaderY]

Easy. The 22nd Amendment says he can’t be ELECTED to a third term.

He runs on a ticket with Vance as candidate for President and himself as candidate for Vice President. Vance, shortly after he gets sworn in, resigns as President. Trump, the elected Vice-President, then becomes President, and this occurs by a means other than an election. Trump then appoints Vance Vice-President.

It could all be done in a few minutes, while the Chief Justice is still at the podium to do a second swear-in. Doesn’t even need a new inauguration ceremony.

That is, as long as thieves have honor and Vance doesn’t double-cross him…

[Krayt]

They say the same thing after every guy who makes it to 8 years. They said it of Reagan, of Clinton, of Obama. Not George W. for some reason.

It's said as an irritation to the other side.

Insofar as some people have been serious over the years, there is no loophole. States would leave him off as ineligible (no person shall be eligigible for VP who is not also eligible for P.) It would go to the SC, who would rule The People and The Several States were crystal clear in their intent.

Furthermore, these deep rationalizations to work around the Constitution are Weasel Incarnate, and we are anti-weasel.

And that's the Royal We, the only royal allowed around here.

[ducksalad]

Yes, that's why the Speaker of the House route, with designated resigners for both POTUS and VPOTUS, is the "better" weaseling.

[windycityattorney]

It's Steve Bannon. He keeps bringing it up to stir shit and distract from other real issues. Claims there is a 'secret plan' that will only be disclosed when the time is right. It's all bullshit. Like Qanon and the 'storm' of arrests and military tribunals and execution of Hillary Clinton and all the democrats... Remember the first rule: 'trust the plan.' And when it keeps not happening...'god works in mysterious ways...keep trusting the plan." "Good will triumph over evil in the end.' Vague bullshit to keep stringing the rubes along and maybe grift on the side.

[Life of Brian]

It's Steve Bannon. He keeps bringing it up to stir shit and distract from other real issues.

I mean, there's always the option of the entire media machine not going absolutely apoplectic apeshit over stuff like this for days every time.

If there are really all these "other real issues" they actually need to be covering, that is.

[windycityattorney]

Oh I imagine there are plenty of things to cover. But its about what drives clicks. Bannon's bloviations tend to do that. To the detriment of everything else.

[Life of Brian]

Oh I imagine there are plenty of things to cover. But its about what drives clicks.

Exactly. Which is why it matters not one whit what Bannon says or doesn't say. They'd just fall back on stuff like Trump getting an extra scoop of ice cream with his dessert.

[Michael Resanovic]

Not so much an answer to you as to the repliers generally, but common sense and legal reasoning aren't supposed to be at odds with one another. Common sense furnishes an easy answer to the main question here.

[not guilty]

"A thornier question in my mind: if Trump managed to get enough votes for president to win the election (and the Congress favored Trump being president), who could take what action to prevent him from actually serving."

That is an interesting question. Multiple lawsuits alleging that President Obama was not a natural born citizen were dismissed for the Plaintiffs' lack of standing.

I haven't done a deep dive into the hypothetical, but the candidate getting the second highest number of electoral votes might have standing.

[Life of Brian]

[JEP41]

"Do you happen to have a serious cite for this, or is 'seems to be' carrying the load?"
Frankly I think the question is just as interesting without any reference to Trump's plans.
I said "seems to be" since it's difficult to know just what Trump's intentions are. But I think you should have no problem locating articles on the subject, if you really think that's of value.

[Mr. Bumble]

...and in shut down news:
"The country’s largest union representing federal workers on Monday called on Senate Democrats to end the government shutdown immediately by passing a short-term spending measure."
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/oct/27/federal-workers-union-demands-end-government-shutdown-ups-pressure/

[Dr. Ed 2]

Where does the 13th Amendment come in to play?

[Mr. Bumble]

WTF are you talking about?

[Swede425]

The youngest just completed BCT and is now ensconced in Monterey at the DLI for the next 72 (ish) weeks for 35P training. Beautiful area and the base (campus?) is quite nice as well.

[ThePublius]

I have no idea what you're talking about.

[Malika la Maize]

He doesn’t either.

[DDHarriman]

His youngest son just finished Basic Combat Training (BCT) aka "boot camp" and he's getting trained at the Defense Language Institute (DLI in Monterey) for the next year and a half (ish) for his new job as a Cryptologic Linguist (MOS= 35P).

If I recall my Army-ese correctly.

[santamonica811]

DDH. Thank you for translating gibberish into something coherent.

[Dr. Ed 2]

.

[Dr. Ed 2]

It technically is a "Presidio" -- probably because it originally was a Spanish fort.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The argument is ridiculous, but Dear Leader supports it so ...

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/nearly-all-republican-ags-add-firepower-trumps-birthright-citizenship-push

[Dr. Ed 2]

The flip side of this is what I call the Deathright Citizenship -- no alien related by blood or marriage to anyone granted birthright citizenship shall ever be permitted to set foot on US soil while alive.

And no person who obtains Birthright citizenship shall be issued a US passport.

So you will never see your child again...

[ReaderY]

You would really completely prohibit American citizens from travelling internationally?

[Dr. Ed 2]

If it is legal for the IRS to do so, it is legal to do so here as well.

[David Nieporent]

Spoiler alert: it is not "legal for the IRS to do so."

[ducksalad]

So just out of curiosity, when did you get naturalized and what was your original citizenship?

Or did you get US citizenship at birth and you've conscientiously refrained from applying for a passport?

[Dr. Ed 2]

My family has been here since 1674.

[David Nieporent]

So, in other words, you're a birthright citizen.

[not guilty]

Dr. Ed 2, what Native American tribe are you descended from?

[M L]

The argument is not ridiculous.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Let's have a few more 100-comment threads with people spelling out why they are ridiculous in response to the same old arguments that they aren't. Always fun.

[M L]

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5140319

[JoeFromtheBronx]

No, I said comment threads.

Experts on the question have called out that guy a lot, too.

[David Nieporent]

Yes. For instance:
https://publications.lawschool.cornell.edu/lawreview/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/07/Birthright-Citizenship-and-the-Dunning-School-of-Unoriginal-Meanings-by-Bernick-Gowder-and-Kreis.pdf

[ReaderY]

In Trump’s foreign policy, there are two kinds of nations: Great Powers and dependent nations. Every nation that is not a Great Power is a dependent country under the thrall of one Great Power or other.

In this rubric Canada is in the same class as the countries of Latin and South America. It is not a Great Power. It is a dependent nation, like British colonies or Eastern Europe under Russia in the previous century, and frankly like Latin and South America under the United States in much of the previous century as well. If he can’t actually conquor and annex it, he will at least make it clear that its relationship with the United States is not in any way voluntary, and there will be severe consequences if it tries to behave as if it were actually our equal rather than the subordinate protectorate it is.

Only other Great Powers get negotiated with or treated with respect. Dependent “allies” get treated quite differently, invaded or with coups fomented against their governments if they step out of line. And if Trump doesn’t yet have the power to do that, he will do the most he can with the powers he has (or is able to claim to have.)

[Swede425]

LOL!
Yes. Yes, Trump is unique in this view as president.
All the other presidents have recognized Canada's maple syrup empire and hockey superiority as placing them on the same stage as America.
If your country can be invaded and defeated by the Texas National Guard, fat as they are, you are definitely not on the same footing. Destroying Canada's product protectionism and opening their market to American goods is the price you have to pay when realpolitik is the rules of the game. Canada doesn't like it, and neither do you, apparently, but oh well.

[Malika la Maize]

Trump is certainly unique in antagonizing a long term ally like Canada. But I imagine Swedish Meatball constantly antagonizes (an ever dwindling number of) people and thus identifies the more.

LOL!

[Bob from Ohio]

Canada needs us much more than we need them.

[Malika la Maize]

That’s nice. Lots of people need more from me than I them but I don’t needlessly antagonize them.

[Mr. Bumble]

"...but I don’t needlessly antagonize them."
You save that for here.

[Swede425]

LOL!
Canada has a prime minister that ran, and won, on "Elbows Up".
He's going to stand up to Trump, you see.
Now what?
Trump will get what he wants. Which is good for America.
Canada won't. Which is simply the new reality.

[Malika la Maize]

He was going to lose to a much more Trump friendly candidate who would have given us much but he needlessly antagonized Canadians over his stupid comments. Sure, we’ll get so much more having to claw it back over that! LOL!

[Swede425]

LOL!
You're exactly right. Pierre was definitely on track to win.
And Trump messed it up for him.
Carney is going to have to eat every word he said about Trump during his election. He's already getting full.
The lesson rarely works unless it's painful.
And when Pierre wins the next election, he'll get to be the guy who got Canada back into America's good graces.
But, either way, Trump still gets what he wants from Canada.
With any luck, Canada will be a little smarter this next time.

[windycityattorney]

I thought Canada was to be the 51st state? Which Canadian politico is going to deliver that?

And if Trump's policies put a lot of Canadians out of work and wreck their economy... how exactly is running on "we need to get back into America's good graces" going to be a winning election strategy? I would think at that point, running on "fuck America with a ten foot pole" would be more to their avg voters liking.

[Voize of Reazon]

It would be really interesting if Canada decides the US is no longer a reliable partner and feels the need to cozy up to another major power to counterbalance. China, maybe?

[Dr. Ed 2]

Alberta very well may become that.

[ReaderY]

I think your response expresses and embodies the viewpoint very well. As you say, from this viewpoint the ONLY consideration in how to treat another country is whether or not we are powerful enough to beat it up or not. So my suggestion that maybe Canada should be treated with some respect is, to you, synonymous with saying we aren’t easily capable of beating it up. And since, in your view, we are, my suggestion that Canada should be treated with some respect comes across as silly. Why respect those you can bully?

Exactly my point.

There was once a time when, rather than judging their personal self-worth by who they were able to beat up, Americans despised bullies rather than seeking to become the biggest of them, and instead saw themselves as leaders of an alliance of weaker countries that was collectively more powerful than the bullies, and which had soft power because people wanted to be part of it rather than being forced to.

No more. I’ll just say that all morality aside, I doubt the practical success of the new viewpoint. Both China and India have far larger populations than we do and Russia has much more land. I don’t see how we can sustain being the biggest bully on the block for very long, especially once our former allies leave us in disgust, take advantage of the naivety of our taking them for granted, cut a better deal with some other country, and begin arraying their economic and military power against us.

Individually we can defeat each one. But what if they find a leader willing to array them together against us? The very strategy that made much more powerful than our individual population, resources, and land mass would warrant could, if we abandon it and begin bullying smaller countries rather than cooperating with them, easily be used to defeat us.

For our own survival, it doesn’t seem a very good strategy. But of course, why should Mr. Trump give a shit about America’s long-term survival? As Louis XIV put it, “Apres moi, le deluge!” Will we last as long with such an attitude as France’s monarchy did with Louis XIV’s?

[wvattorney13]

" As you say, from this viewpoint the ONLY consideration in how to treat another country is whether or not we are powerful enough to beat it up or not. "

That has been a consideration about how one state treats another state since the dawn of civilization. You say it like it is a secret, hidden bad thing.

[Bob from Ohio]

"Great Powers and dependent nations."

10,00O year norm in international relations

[Malika la Maize]

One thing people like Bob loves is the naturalistic fallacy. Not that they wouldn’t get eaten in a second in a zombie apocalypse, but authoritarian leaders gotta have authoritarian followers.

[Bob from Ohio]

Democratic [more or less] 19th century/early 20th century countries like US and UK subscribed to the Great Powers and dependent nations theory.

[M L]

For those interested in happenings at the White House, follow this link, scroll down to "Major Events Timeline" then click the right arrow to flip through the timeline.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/the-white-house/

[M L]

This is worth checking out!

[Armchair]

Much has been written about Trump's aggressive actions towards drug runners on the ocean.

But, let's really consider. I think we can all agree that running drugs like this is morally wrong. Indeed, article 108 of the UNCLOS says that " All States shall cooperate in the suppression of illicit traffic in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances engaged in by ships on the high seas contrary to international conventions."

Drug running, especially of items like illegal, highly deadly, items like fentanyl presents a severe reason to suppress this trade in drugs. Deaths due to fentanyl sit at more that 70,000 per year in the US. As recently as 2011, this was under 3,000 per year. It's a major cause of death in the US. To put it in context, those dying of AD were "only" at 114,034 in 2023.

An analogy can be drawn to slavery (another moral evil). During the 19th century, the British navy came down hard on the slave trade...whether or not those slave trading ships were going to or from British ports. It didn't matter. The flag of the ship didn't matter. The Brits suppressed it everywhere. Did they have the "legal authority" to do so? In fact, the British went so far as to bombard the port of Lagos, in order to reduce the slave trade.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduction_of_Lagos

Imagine saving more than 70,000 lives per year in the US...and all that was required was interdicting an illegal drug trade that basically didn't exist 15 years ago. Wouldn't that be worth it?

[ducksalad]

A partial listing of the problems with your comment:

1. "aggressive actions towards drug runners....running drugs like this is morally wrong" - You are assuming one of the points in contention. It's disputed that all the boats were smuggling drugs.

2. To save all 70,000 of those lives you'd need to shut down all the fentanyl sources, and to even make a dent you'd need to target the largest sources. Instead, we're targeting countries whose rulers Trump would like to topple.

3. In any case hermitically sealing the border is not feasible, especially in the case of fentanyl, which is so potent that several thousand lethal doses can be concealed in a body cavity and several million in a single fake lawnmower engine or spare tire.
We can't even successfully keep drugs out of prisons.

4. But suppose you could perfectly seal the border. It still doesn't save 70,000 lives because domestic production could and would easily ramp up if the price was right.

5. You mention the UNCLOS as authority. The US is not a party to the UNCLOS. I understand you are making a moral argument rather than a legal one, but Team Trump joyfully pisses on the idea of international law and can't really be taken seriously when using it as a moral argument. Especially parts of international law our country has rejected.

6. And even if we concede that it's the right thing to do, there would be a right way to go about it. You get specific authorization from Congress, you give announce the conditions and locations under which you are going to sink a boat so that legitimate boats know what to avoid, etc. You don't shout "British Lagos Analogy!" and claim that makes it all official.

[Armchair]

1. "It's disputed..."
Not seriously.

2. "To save all 70,000 of those lives"
-I'll settle for just going back to 2011 levels. All...near impossible. Getting back to 2011...very doable.

3. "In any case hermitically sealing the border.."
-Hence more proactive measures.

4. "But suppose you could perfectly seal the border."
-Fentanyl production isn't backyard-chemistry easy. The precursors are easy to track. The chemistry isn't simple and easy. It's only because it can be made overseas in unregulated environments that it becomes cost effective. Again...back to 2011 levels. (FYI, fentanyl has been around since the 1960's.)

5. "You mention the UNCLOS as authority." You can also throw in the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs and UN Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances if you want treaties the US is signatory too.

6. "there would be a right way to go about it." Sure. The way Obama did Libya in 2011. The way Clinton did Sudan. Use your national security authority.

[ducksalad]

Question. I'll take your answer on faith.

Did you agree with, or disagree with, Obama and Clinton's justifications on Libya and Sudan? I was against, and only supported presidential candidates who were against. So the national security argument carries negative weight with me. It was wrong when they did it, and therefore it is wrong when Trump does it, and for the same reason.

But maybe you sincerely and consistently believe it and supported Obama and Clinton. I'm asking.

[Armchair]

Good question. Allow me to elaborate

Do I believe that the President requires Congress's full support for each and every military action that the President takes, a priori? No. I believe that would be too constricting on the President's authority. Certain limited actions should be able to be taken without full Congressional approval. On the other hand, there are certain larger actions. And on occasion, Congress (or one of the houses) passes a resolution AGAINST the President performing a certain action. In times like these, I believe the President should abide by Congress's resolution.

In Clinton's strike on Sudan, it was...in hindsight...probably a poor idea. However, I believe Operation Infinite Reach was within Clinton's authority as POTUS.

Libya is a different story. Libya was not a limited operation, it went on for 7 months. The House of Representatives expressly passed a resolution on June 3rd calling for the withdrawal of US Forces from the Libya conflict. Obama disregarded that resolution. Obama also just blatantly disregarded the War Powers Act which required withdrawal after 60 days, as he argued the bombing of Libya wasn't "hostilities". Obama's "justifications" were, in my opinion, bunk, and he violated the Constitution.

The current hostilities that Trump has engaged in are very limited, and far more akin to the Clinton strikes than the extended war Obama engaged in. There has been no congressional resolution against Trump's actions. So, I believe the current actions are well within standard POTUS powers.

Hopefully that answers your question.

[ducksalad]

Thanks. We're in agreement on Libya.

I disagree on Sudan. There needs to be either an imminent threat of military attack, or an emergency involving Americans requiring a rapid military response. Examples of the latter would be rescuing hostages, evacuating Americans from a war zone, etc.

Long term chronic problems like manufacture and trade of weapons or opioids don't count, in my opinion.

[Armchair]

" There needs to be either an imminent threat of military attack, or an emergency involving Americans requiring a rapid military response."

Again...I feel that is too restricting. And because of that, what you'll get are open ended Congressional authorizations or a foreign policy that is simply hamstrung.

Let's give some examples....
Imagine a Chinese attack on Taiwan. Can the US respond? Currently, yes, the President can authorize intervention immediately. But under your proposal...maybe (even probably) not. The US has no treaty with Taiwan. You surely don't propose the President can respond to "any military attack, against anyone, anywhere" He would instead need to call Congress, get a bill passed, which takes time...even days, when hours are critical.

History is replete with these types of nebulous situations...the Cuban Missile Crisis, for example, where fast response was necessary.

[ducksalad]

The Chinese attack on Taiwan, IMO, is a great example of an issue on which there is (currently) plenty of time for Congress to consider the issue and either accept or reject a treaty-level commitment to defend them.

The Cuban Missile Crisis is a closer call. At the time it appeared to need an instant response because it changed the balance of deterrence and there was a substantial fear - but not firm knowledge - that the USSR would immediately cash in the moment they were launch ready. Now with submarine mounted weapons and rogue states with nukes it all seems kind of beside the point.

Lately I've come around to a new view on government emergencies: there should, in general, not be any emergency clauses at all. We pass laws saying no torture for any reason, no first strikes without congressional declaration of war, every penny of revenue goes into the treasury and zero pennies comes out without a congressional appropriation.

We don't need to codify the rare exceptions because we have the pardon power and we have trial by jury. If a real emergency comes up, an actual ticking time bomb, violate the law if you need to, man up, face the charges, and if you did the right thing your successor will pardon you or a jury will nullify the charges. And even if they don't then it's still true that saving 1,000,000 citizens from a nuclear holocaust is more important than your own freedom.

If you aren't willing to take those chances and accept the judgment of others, then I suggest it wasn't really an emergency.

[Armchair]

Re Taiwan:

While there is plenty of time, what you propose actually limits US diplomatic capabilities. What benefits the US right now is "strategic ambiguity". The "maybe we will, maybe we won't" defend Taiwan type of situation. This allows the Chinese to save face. A full commitment by the US that said "Taiwan is independent and we guarantee their security" wouldn't allow that (and might in turn spark an invasion immediately). Alternatively, if Congress decided not to approve a treaty, that would mean China would be free to invade.

There are, unfortunately, plenty of these "in between" situation. The Cuban Missile Crisis. Libya strikes in 1986. The Flying Tigers in China in 1941. A hard "yes military/no military" needed from Congress in most situations is very limiting on US Diplomacy and any graduated response. It also telegraphs US intentions a bit too directly

[ducksalad]

Those are very fair points.

Note that they're all a critical part of being an important powerful country that can and does throw its weight around. I'm well aware of the real advantages of being the biggest and strongest player around. But maybe that's less important to me than it is to you.

In particular I don't think an imperial presidency is a price worth paying, largely because it's hard to constrain the imperial part to foreign affairs only. It leaks over through the "national security" justification for all kinds of domestic stuff.

[Armchair]

"But maybe that's less important to me than it is to you."

That's a very different issue. Here's what I'll say there. Power abhors a vacuum. The US is not perfect, by any means, as the proverbial global leader. But it is far preferable to the primary alternatives, Russia or China. Russia...speaks for itself. China is actively engaging in genocide within its own borders.

Personally, I consider the difficulties in restraining the imperial-ish presidency a price worth paying, in order to maintain the US as the global leader, and not a country that actively engages in genocide.

[hobie]

Since we obviously know exactly where the boats are and what they carry, should be easy enough to intercept them and place them into custody

[Dr. Ed 2]

Seeing them from the air and getting them to stop on the water so you can board them are two very different things.

[Davy C]

Could we at least *try* to board them before blowing them up?

[David Nieporent]

But, let's really consider. I think we can all agree that running drugs like this is morally wrong. Indeed, article 108 of the UNCLOS says that " All States shall cooperate in the suppression of illicit traffic in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances engaged in by ships on the high seas contrary to international conventions."

That makes it legally wrong, not morally wrong.

[Armchair]

While this may be a foreign concept to you, often we write our laws such that items the we consider to be morally wrong are also legally wrong.

[Estragon]

DOJ materially misrepresents FPS numbers with respect to Portland. Some discipline might be appropriate, but I won’t hold my breath.

https://legacy.www.documentcloud.org/documents/26197240-oregon-v-trump-material-facts-9cca/

[loki13]

It's only shocking at this point when the DOJ isn't lying in court.

Which, if you've actually litigated against the government before, is shocking and horrifying. The DOJ was not perfect (no human institution is) but had a well-earned reputation for probity and truthfulness that had taken scores of decades to build.

And has been torched in ten months.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Merrick Garland was chosen to bring back integrity to the Justice Department. The usual suspects laugh at him actually doing that. Others acknowledge, even if they disagree with him on policy, that it was a good choice on those grounds.

History might deem the Garland Justice Department a failure for not addressing Trump and related issues in a strong enough manner. I think it had a lot of help, if that is true.

But President Biden was right to want to return integrity to the Justice Department.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Tell Mark Houck about Garland's "integrity," you shill.

[David Nieporent]

I know nothing at all about Houck; I see from googling that he was prosecuted for blocking abortion clinics but was acquitted. What does that reveal about the integrity of the AG at the time of his prosecution?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Persecuting an innocent man doesn't reflect on Garland's integrity?

[Magister]

Prosecuting someone is not persecuting them; acquittal does not always mean innocence. His lawsuit against the Department of Justice was dismissed because it failed to demonstrate a lack of probable cause.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Probable cause is not the same as beyond a reasonable doubt.

For some reason, the local authorities in Philadelphia refused to file charges against Houck. It was only Garland's gestapo who claimed to see violent interference with the abortion clinic.

Which is more likely - that Philadelphia authorities have a bias in favor of pro-life demonstrators, or that Merrick Garland prostituted his office to serve as an enforcement arm of the abortion industry against peaceful protesters?

[Sarcastr0]

You're writing stories. A sure tell you don't have the evidence to lay out what's going on, and so need to resort to speculation.

The legal lay of the land between federal law and state law is different. You can't draw much of a conclusion about the legitimacy of federal charges from that.
Just like you can't draw much of a conclusion about the legitimacy of charges from an acquittal.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

A Democratic jurisdiction ignored evidence of a violent pro-life disruption against an abortionist? That's the story you're peddling.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

I'm a "shill," so YMMV, but I specifically noted that people can disagree about his "policy," including specific prosecution decisions.

He was prosecuted under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. A federal law.

https://www.justice.gov/usao-edpa/pr/bucks-county-man-indicted-federal-charges-assaulting-reproductive-healthcare-clinic

(Isn't this the local prosecutor's decision, not Garland specifically?)

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/04/pennsylvania-primary-2024-houck-fitzpatrick-abortion-planned-parenthood.html

The federal law was passed because it was determined that local prosecutions did not adequately address the situation. City/State prosecutors don't prosecute individual cases in this area for a variety of reasons.

Can someone name me a federal prosecutor who didn't bring a case that people can debate they should not have, including a case that overlaps state and federal jurisdiction, like many federal cases do?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

You're speaking in very general terms, but understandably you don't discuss this particular case. Indeed, you prepare an avenue of retreat by putting distance between Garland and the federal prosecutor who handled the case. If only the Czar knew what kind of misbehavior his subordinates were up to!

[not guilty]

"Can someone name me a federal prosecutor who didn't bring a case that people can debate they should not have, including a case that overlaps state and federal jurisdiction, like many federal cases do?"

Yes, quite easily. Leon Jaworski didn't indict Prick Nixon.

No prosecutor indicted Anna Chennault and he cohorts for treason.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Leon Jaworski never indicted anyone in his entire life, unless he served on a grand jury.

[not guilty]

Jaworski advised the grand jurors not to indict Nixon, but instead to name him as an unindicted co-conspirator.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

The only way you can indict anyone is to be part of a grand jury. The prosecutor isn't *part* of the grand jury, (s)he gives them evidence and recommendations.

[Magister]

Probable cause is not the same as beyond a reasonable doubt.

The first means the prosecution was not persecution; the lack of the second means he was acquitted.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I believe the probable-cause question is under appeal, but whatever...

Nothing to see here - just a routine law-enforcement decision by Mr. Integrity, who was able to sniff out pro-abortion violence where even the Democratic Party authorities in Philadelphia couldn't detect it. That's how bursting with integrity he was!

If anything, it's *Garland* who is the victim here: his own local party apparatchiks wouldn't back him up, and a lawless jury turned loose a dangerous prolife demonstrator. He's the one being persecuted!

/sarc

[David Nieporent]

Which is more likely - that Philadelphia authorities have a bias in favor of pro-life demonstrators, or that Merrick Garland prostituted his office to serve as an enforcement arm of the abortion industry against peaceful protesters?

Your question exhibits the fallacy of the false dichotomy. There are differences in resources, priorities, and applicable statutes between federal and state prosecutors, all of which can lead to different prosecutorial decisions between the two levels.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

A Democratic-dominated local government can't find the resources to prosecute a guilty prolifer? What's the point of being a Democrat, then?

Or maybe his innocence was clear enough, even to local Democratic officials.

[David Nieporent]

Or maybe you're not even pretending to argue in good faith.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

You're the one defending the guy whose version of reality was repudiated by his own party's local officials, and by a jury.

[David Nieporent]

You're the one defending the guy whose version of reality was repudiated by his own party's local officials, and by a jury.

Like I said: you're not even pretending to argue in good faith.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

The jury *did* acquit, and Dem-dominated municipal/state authorities *didn't* charge him.

Reality has a bias in my favor.

You want to attack a wrongly-accused man of whose existence you weren't aware a day ago, and call him a potential felon, without evidence, all for the sake of defending a hack politician.

[Magister]

Again, acquittal does not mean wrongly accused. Lots of reasons why prosecutors might make different decisions for reasons having nothing to do with partisan considerations. (OK, that's no longer true of the current federal DOJ.)

[David Nieporent]

The jury *did* acquit, and Dem-dominated municipal/state authorities *didn't* charge him.

Neither of which have anything to do with the topic, but you do you.

You want to attack

Lie.

a wrongly-accused man

Unsupported.

of whose existence you weren't aware a day ago, and call him a potential felon,

Lie.

without evidence, all for the sake of defending a hack politician.

Lie.

Like I said: bad faith all the way down.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Can't you keep track of what you say from one day to the next?

"David Nieporent 20 hours ago
Flag Comment
Mute User
I know nothing at all about Houck" etc.

Piss up a rope.

You lie and claim that this wrongful prosecution doesn't reflect on Garland's integrity. It does.

I think you know that, but you are a lying liar.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"acquittal does not mean wrongly accused"

In this case it does.

[David Nieporent]

Can't you keep track of what you say from one day to the next?

I can. Which is why I don't contradict myself. The word "lie" didn't refer to your claim I didn't know who he was; it referred to your claim that I called him a potential felon. I did not. In fact, ctrl-f shows that you used that phrase repeatedly and nobody else did.

You lie and claim that this wrongful prosecution doesn't reflect on Garland's integrity. It does.

I think you know that, but you are a lying liar.

Nope. I just understand that (a) the AG does not have any involvement in low-level prosecutions by US Attorneys, so it doesn't reflect on Garland at all; and (b) you have not presented one shred of evidence remotely suggesting the prosecution was "wrongful."

[The Margrave of Azilia]

More lies.

If a federal jury acquits a black man in Jim Crow Mississippi of federal charges presupposing rape, and if the state and local authorities in Mississippi refused to charge rape, that is plenty of evidence that the feds were trying to railroad the black man.

If a the authorities in a prochoice jurisdiction fail to bring charges against a prolife demonstrator, and the feds bring charges and this results in an acquittal, then that is enough to show the feds are trying to railroad the prolifer. The acquittal by itself is suggestive, but the failure of the prochoice authorities in Democratic Philadelphia to bring charges is the icing on the cake.

You're using the good-czar-bad-ministers excuse by which Garland isn't to blame for the misconduct of federal prosecutors. By the same phony logic, he shouldn't be taking credit for what his prosecutors do, either, and he shouldn't be highlighting their "achievements" on his department's Web page. Yet you or one of your associates provided a link to the latter.

[David Nieporent]

then that is enough to show the feds are trying to railroad the prolifer.

That's just stupid. On so many levels. As revealed by your analogy. The notion that Philadelphia's relationship to pro-lifers is somehow like the relationship between blacks and the Jim Crow south makes me wonder whether you've actually ever been to the United States.

And, as I already tried to explain to you, the feds and local prosecutors have different resources, priorities, and available statutes to use. You are pretending that the Philadelphia DA said, "Yeah, we don't think this guy did anything wrong," and then the feds came in and prosecuted. But that never happened (as far as I know —and I'm sure you would have trumpeted it if it had). Instead, you are basing your claim solely on the fact that the DA didn't prosecute.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"The notion that Philadelphia's relationship to pro-lifers is somehow like the relationship between blacks and the Jim Crow south makes me wonder whether you've actually ever been to the United States."

Mississippi had its Sovereignty Commission, Philadelphia has its Reproductive Freedom Task Force:

"The Reproductive Freedom Task Force formed in October 2024 to identify and address emerging threats to reproductive healthcare in Philadelphia. The Task Force consists of over thirty members, including providers, legal experts, advocates, and *leaders of various City departments*." [emphasis added]

This is from the City Council Web site in the City of Brotherly Love.

https://phlcouncil.com/advocates-call-on-city-to-restore-funding-for-reproductive-healthcare/

You are pretending that the Philadelphia authorities, who had their attention called specifically to Houck's "crime," did not prosecute because the matter simply slipped their mind, and that Houck could still be totally guilty.

[David Nieporent]

You are pretending that the Philadelphia authorities, who had their attention called specifically to Houck's "crime," did not prosecute because the matter simply slipped their mind,

I am not. Why are you lying when my words are above? I gave multiple possible reasons why a state might decline to prosecute even when the feds want to, and none of those reasons were "slipped their mind."

and that Houck could still be totally guilty.

I mean, of course he could be. But that is not in fact what my point has been.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

You want me to take seriously your excuse-making on behalf of Merrick Garland?

Yeah, the local government in Philadelphia simply wouldn't prioritize prosecuting a guilty prolifer - they simply are too busy with other things, like setting up a TASK FORCE to promote abortion.

And they don't have the resources, even though they have the resources to set up the aforementioned task force.

And *of course* you're suggesting Houck may be guilty - who do you think you're fooling? Only by saying Houck's guilt is an open question can you plausibly carry water for your crush, the goosestepping hack Merrick Garland. On the other hand, if you acknowledge Houck's innocence, *Garland's* guilt is exposed like a baboon's ass.

[David Nieporent]

You want me to take seriously your excuse-making on behalf of Merrick Garland?

I made no excuses on behalf of Merrick Garland, as Merrick Garland needs no excuses wrt this situation. I want you to take seriously everything I say. I don't, however, expect you to do so, but then again that's mutual.

And they don't have the resources, even though they have the resources to set up the aforementioned task force.

Resources required to set up a "task force": none. Resources required to undertake criminal prosecutions: extensive. Do you think that municipal district attorneys have the personnel and budgets to prosecute every simple assault that occurs in that municipality? If so, you might want to re-familiarize yourself with the United States. The vast majority of low-level misdemeanors are not prosecuted.

And *of course* you're suggesting Houck may be guilty - who do you think you're fooling?

Um, nobody. Me: just one post above: "I mean, of course he could be."

Only by saying Houck's guilt is an open question

False. Completely and utterly 100% false. Unequivocally so. Whether anything that a US Attorney — again, not fucking Garland, you person-with-a-zygote-sized-brain — or any prosecutor did was improper is assessed at the time of the prosecutor's action, not based on whether the person was acquitted. Even if I were 100% convinced at this point in time that he was innocent, that would have no bearing on any of my arguments. At the time the prosecution was initiated, was there probable cause?

[The Margrave of Azilia]

More lies and projection. Of course I've repeatedly discussed why Houck was framed, and of course it's not just the acquittal. When you lie like that it's understandable that you want to project your dishonesty on others.

[Kenneth Almquist]

To see what real evidence of prosecutorial abuse looks like, look at what is occurring under Trump.

Take the case against Ashleigh Brown, charged with assaulting a federal officer. A grand jury refused to indict, which strongly suggests that the prosecution didn’t have a case. The prosecutor reduced the charge to a misdemeanor, allowing him to indict without grand jury approval. During discovery, the prosecutor failed to disclose the purported victim’s criminal history or provide a copy of the purported victim’s personnel file. The defense independently discovered three criminal convictions of the purported victim, including most significantly a 2021 assault conviction, and argued that the prosecution had violated its discovery obligations. At that point the prosecutor dismissed the case with prejudice.

Or consider the case against Sydney Reid, accused of assaulting two federal agents. Three separate grand juries told the prosecutor there was no case. The prosecutor indicted for a misdemeanor. After the prosecution rested it’s case, the defense contended, and the prosecution conceded, that the prosecution had failed to present any evidence at all that the defendant had assaulted one of the two officers. As you would expect from the grand jury results, the jury quickly acquitted Reid of assaulting the remaining officer.

[David Nieporent]

Minor quibble: prosecutors don't indict. Reid was charged with a misdemeanor, not indicted for it.

But that's just a quibble; the point you were making stands, and there have been a whole bunch of other incidents in the past few months.

[Kenneth Almquist]

Thanks for the correction--the fact that the charging documents consisted of a “complaint” and “information” rather that an “indictment” should have clued me in. 🙂

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"To see what real evidence of prosecutorial abuse looks like, look at what is occurring under Trump."

Or to paraphrase: "Denial isn't working, let's try deflection."

[David Nieporent]

Persecuting an innocent man doesn't reflect on Garland's integrity?

1) In what way was Houck persecuted? Were you attempting to be cutesy, or was that just an autocorrect typo for prosecuting?

2) Assuming the latter, Garland didn't prosecute him. The relevant US Attorney did. Is there any evidence that Garland had even heard of Houck, let alone directed his prosecution?

3) Describing an acquittal as "p[ro]secuting an innocent man" begs the question. The point of the trial is to determine whether someone is innocent. (Sort of. Trials determine whether guilt can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, not whether someone is "innocent.") Otherwise, you're left with the insane proposition that every acquittal ipso facto means that the prosecution engaged in wrongdoing. (That is not, of course, to say that some acquittals don't reflect wrongdoing. But that requires an assessment of whether the prosecution had a good faith basis for prosecuting.)

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Shorter David:

"A guilty prolifer managed to con the Democratic local authorities *and* a federal jury and got away Scot-free!

"But just to hedge my bets, let me specify that Garland doesn't bear responsibility for what subordinates in his department did."

[David Nieporent]

That is indeed shorter, but not even a little bit accurate.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Of course not, but it's what you'd have to believe in order to avoid asking inconvenient questions about Mr. Integrity.

[Sarcastr0]

For whatever reason, you appear to have adopted A Cause.

And the pushback you're getting about how you're irrationally devoted to your cause has gotten to you.
So now, injured, you are begging the question harder and harder while calling people names.

It's not a good look.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Anonymously denouncing a devoted husband and father, and courageous champion of the unborn, as a potential felon, when you admit you only heard about him today, isn't a particularly good look.

What do you know that the jury, and Garland's fellow-Democrats in the Philadelphia government, didn't know? Why do you double down on calling Mark Houck a potential felon?

It's because he defends the unborn, and because you feel the need to (metaphrically) perform unspeakable intimate services upon an overrated political hack who whored himself out to the abortion industry.

[David Nieporent]

You are literally the only person who called him a potential felon — a phrase with no meaning. Every single person on the planet is a potential felon.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

He was charged with a felony. He was innocent. But you try to insinuate the charge could be accurate, because you want to suck up to Garland.

[David Nieporent]

He was charged with a felony. He was innocent. But you try to insinuate the charge could be accurate, because you want to suck up to Garland.

Yes, I am desperate to suck up to Merrick Garland. You have caught me. I hope that one day this 72 year old will be re-nominated to the Supreme Court and confirmed, and it will greatly benefit my career that he is.

Setting aside your confusion about what an acquittal means — I don't want to go all Arlen Specter, but it's not a finding of innocence, and it certainly isn't a finding that a prosecution was illegitimate — I did not "insinuate that the charge was accurate." I said — not insinuated — that there's no evidence that the charge was brought in bad faith.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I've already explained this matter to you. Should I be using shorter words? It's not the acquittal by itself, as I've mentioned repeatedly.

You have ideological reasons to suck up to Garland. You aren't holding out for a bribe, you come pre-purchased.

[David Nieporent]

Oh, ideological reasons. Why didn't you just say so? Yes, I joined the Libertarians for Merrick Garland Institute in 1995, and I've been waiting the last 30 years for the chance to implement the organization's mission statement.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

You belong to the Gullible Libertarian Caucus where the activities of pro-abortion government officials are concerned.

[jay.tee]

My biggest issue with the Mark Houck incident is the way he was detained.

Despite his attorney offering for Houck to turn himself in, the FBI played stormtrooper and swarmed his house to intimidate him and his family. Their actions, like countless other LE LARPing, significantly elevated the risk someone would end up dead. Perhaps that was the goal; fortunately, in this case, no one was injured.

But they sure did “send a message“!

[David Nieporent]

That's unfortunately all too common; sometimes it just reflects that cops are cowards, and other times it reflects — as you say — the desire to "send a message." For example, the sandwich thrower in DC was originally RORed, but then they decided they wanted to make an example and sent 20 officers to his house to re-arrest him.

[jay.tee]

I agree with you here David, and it’s insanely dangerous to the targets, bystanders, and the police themselves.

ATF in particular seems to have a penchant for killing innocent people (and dogs).

[The Margrave of Azilia]

"dangerous to...the police themselves"

Yet somehow the police survived their harrowing encounter with Houck, his wife, and their young children.

[ducksalad]

Ahem.

Loki13 made a valid point about the apparently new phenomenon of regular DoJ courtroom personnel making up numbers, lying about what they've already done or not done, and lying about what is possible and what is not possible. And I believe he meant that this was not a thing in the past even under pre-Biden administrations, so it could not be something Garland was brought it to stop.

The specific problem Loki is bringing up is different from integrity or lack of it among the high level political appointees, who aren't usually in a position where they have to lie to a judge, but can do plenty of other mischief. IMO there is a long record of dishonor at the AG and deputy AG level, including Garland.

RFK, who as the president's brother should not have been AG at all.
Ruckelhaus and Bork and the Saturday Night Massacre.
Ed "the Sleaze" Meese with too many scandals to list here.
Janet Reno, who took ownership the Waco disaster, and had a sickening prior record of whipping up child abuse hysteria. Also contempt of congress.
Alberto Gonzalez, who was a pretty good candidate for war criminal.
Eric Holder, flagrant contempt of congress, Operation Fast and Furious with all the attendant lying, and defending extrajudicial executions of US citizens in drone strikes.
Loretta Lynch, with that meeting on the tarmac and protecting HRC from investigation.
William Barr, quite obviously hired to do the things Jeff Sessions resigned rather than carry out. Lying to congress, contempt of congress, protecting Trump's criminal associates like Cohen.
Merrick Garland, who tried to federalize everyday unruliness at school board meetings, and engaged in contempt of congress.
And now Pam Bondi.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

But...but...you're criticizing *both* parties! That's bothsidesism!

[ducksalad]

Maybe not. I'm actually a hard-core Libertarian partisan, and if we had our own list of disgraced former AGs, perhaps I would have whitewashed them, just like the other partisans here would do.

I can't claim to be better than the rest of you until the opportunity arises.

[loki13]

I think that the position of AG is necessarily a political position in many aspects, but generally there is always some push and pull between the political position and the institutional DOJ position. Or, from a less cynical perspective, the AG should be in a position to correctly advise the President on what the law is and then advise the President on the President's policy issues and how they might be accomplished within a good-faith understanding of the law, and not simply do whatever the President what regardless of the law.

I'd also add that the very nature of the AG position means that it is nearly impossible for any AG to be universally loved and respected- it's similar to being the vice principal of a school (or the Dean of Students at a College)- the person in the position will naturally become the focus of ire.

With all of that out of the way, Bondi is ... BY FAR ... the worst AG we have had in living memory.

[ducksalad]

I agree Bondi is in a category by herself. A lot of it is the brazen way she doesn't even pretend to care. And enforcing her culture of corruption all the way down to the rank-and-file level.

Whether she's the worst....keep in mind the competition. Gonzales helped put together the legal justification for an entire network of torture facilities. People hanged at Tokyo and Nuremberg for similar administrative acts. As far as I know Bondi hasn't done anything that would deserve a hanging, at least not yet.

[loki13]

I'd say that Bondi is the worst for three main reasons-

1. The others didn't destroy the institutional legitimacy of the DOJ- whatever you might say about the AG, the integrity and probity of the rank and file wasn't an issue.

2. I've never seen anything like Bondi's spurious support of ... I dunno, saying Trump has inter alia, a dispensing power (the ability to suspend laws for favored entities). As much as I can point to specific issues with specific AGs, they don't compare to an AG who will simply justify whatever the executive wants, whenever the executive wants it.

3. Finally, past AGs did pay some attention to the institutional norms. They understood that when the DOJ took a position- that matters. If the DOJ is going to state a new position, it has to be carefully considered, not simply a matter of political expediency. Now? Not so much.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

As an addendum to my comment, I think the first Trump Administration had problems, too.

I think AG Barr corrupted the Justice Department to some degree. Things are a lot worse now.

But there was integrity to bring back in 2021. That is why Biden wanted someone like Merrick Garland, who Republicans put out as an ideal SCOTUS choice in part because there was wide agreement on his integrity.

It will be much more important the next time.

ETA: Some will just suggest everyone is a problem, such as "Merrick Garland, who tried to federalize everyday unruliness at school board meetings, and engaged in contempt of Congress."

The first thing is some b.s. concern, especially compared to all things Bondi (including being Trump's former defense attorney and benefiting from Trump's business investments), is involved with.

It's one of those things FOX News or something latches on to, and it suddenly doesn't amount to much.

Compare this to hiring Barr specifically to interfere with the Mueller Investigation. It's simply not the same thing. But it is cited as if it is the same thing.

It's a reason why we are where we are. A lack of perspective. As to the "contempt of Congress" thing, I don't know exactly what is involved there.

It sounds like a typical thing in recent decades, where Congress wants something and an executive official declares privilege or something. It was not taken to some special bad level, as you note, is the state of the current Trump Justice Department.

Yes. Ahem.

[ducksalad]

JFtB, if your definition of "bring integrity" is "limit misconduct to offenses that could be considered minor compared to those of your predecessor", then fine, according to your definition he brought integrity.

My standards are a bit higher. I expect an AG to refrain from even the appearance of a partisan lean in choosing who to prosecute, and I expect an AG to give forthright and direct answers to questions from Congress. There should not be even the appearance of protecting the administration's wrongdoings from being revealed, or the appearance of using criminal investigation as a political tool.

If you want me to affirm that Bondi's demeanor sets a new record for awfulness in this regard and totally beats Garland by orders of magnitude, sure, I agree enthusiastically.

If you want me to say Garland was good enough, no, he wasn't. Resisting congressional oversight and involving himself in Loudon were not good looks.

[not guilty]

"1. The others didn't destroy the institutional legitimacy of the DOJ- whatever you might say about the AG, the integrity and probity of the rank and file wasn't an issue."

John Mitchell may not have destroyed the institutional legitimacy of the DOJ, but that was not for lack of trying.

[not guilty]

Bondi's competition for worst attorney general includes John Mitchell and Edwin Meese. What a Rogues' Gallery!

[Bob from Ohio]

"president's brother should not have been AG at all"

Knee jerk reaction. A man with the complete confidence of the President, so ideal in my opinion.

[ducksalad]

And this is really the crux of the whole problem. Let me try to put it politely and steelman the opposing argument:

Some people think the highest duty of a cabinet official is to carry out the will of the president, since the president was elected and therefore represents the will of the people, and the executive power is vested solely in the president.

Others think the highest duty is fidelity to the Constitution and laws passed under it, and if necessary to maintain that fidelity in defiance of both the President and overwhelming popular opinion.

While agreeing in general with the president's legitimate policies is obviously an important qualification, it's not as important as willingness to objectively recognize when the president is suggesting something illegal and to push back. Maybe RFK had the integrity to push back on JFK if it became necessary, but the whole purpose of conflict-of-interest law is to avoid relying on the kind of moral heroism that can go against family when duty requires. RFK should have turned down the job.

[Brett Bellmore]

What I think the duty of a cabinet member is, is to carry out the will of the President unless he can't, and to resign if he can't morally carry it out.

[Sarcastr0]

That isn’t an originalist position, looking at how founding era cabinets operated.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

It wasn't RFK's fault that he was JFK's brother.

It *was* his fault that he illegally wiretapped Martin Luther King, Jr. RFK did this because he was pressured into it by one of his own subordinates, the deep-stater J. Edgar Hoover. Although supposedly "ruthless," RFK was intimidated by someone who was his inferior in rank.

[Brett Bellmore]

To be fair, Hoover WAS into blackmail, and RFK was apparently very subject to blackmail. So Hoover had a lot of pressure available to apply.

This is less defense than explanation, though. A better man would have told him to publish and be damned, and and even a less better man wouldn't have been subject to blackmail in the first place.

[Dr. Ed 2]

Garland didn't help...

[loki13]

Well, to make a substantive comment about that particular lie.

It shows (obviously) why this administration just keeps trying to avoid having actual facts. Both because they lie continuously, and because the actual facts are never good for them.

Here, the lie ALMOST got them everything they wanted, until it was discovered and now the stay is back in place... for now. Will there be a lesson learned? Well, other than keep lying, and lie longer? Probably not. After all, it might not change the actual result (we will find out this week).

However, it is just more evidence as to why federal courts ... ESPECIALLY the trial courts, are turning against the DOJ. Over and over again, we have seen this administration and the DOJ do two things-

1. Lie and obfuscate. All those presumptions that district courts had about the government's statements are now ... no longer valid. Judges know that they can't trust what the DOJ attorneys say in court. While we haven't gotten to the point of them being called out repeatedly (although it's been a close call in some litigation), if you review transcripts of these cases you will see, over and over, that judges aren't accepting the DOJ attorneys' statements any more than they would some rando attorney representing a shifty litigant.

2. The sheer ineptness of the attorneys is also becoming an issue. If you followed the James arraignment, it was more of the same- the Judge genuinely being shocked and having to press the DOJ's attorney (some dude from Missouri brought in because Halligan can't lawyer her way to the correct side of the courtroom when she's not busy texting reporters) about basic issues in criminal procedure. It was embarrassing.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

June Lockhart, well-known classic TV mom and doctor in Petticoat Junction, who replaced the mom when the actress died, has died at age 100. Is there a good website that lists really old celebrities (like Dick Van Dyke) so that we can keep track of who is still alive?

Interesting angle.

https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/june-lockharts-cougar-past-resurfaces-after-death-her-wholesome-reputation-was-not-full-story-1750060

NYT touched upon political views:

A political liberal, Ms. Lockhart had no illusions about the good old days. In a 2004 interview with The New York Times, she recalled a connection “Lassie” script writers had with McCarthy-era blacklisting.

“When people come up to me and say, ‘Well, sure wish we had wonderful American shows like that the way we used to in the 50s,’ I say: ‘Let me tell you who wrote those scripts.’ Yes, they were good Americans, and they were in jail.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/25/arts/television/june-lockhart-dead.html

[The Margrave of Azilia]

Paywalled - who were the political prisoners who contributed to Lassie?

[Moderation4ever]

The Hollywood Ten were Alvah Bessie, Herbert Biberman, Lester Cole, Edward Dmytryk, Ring Lardner, Jr., John Howard Lawson, Albert Maltz, Samuel Ornitz, Adrian Scott, and Dalton Trumbo. All were jailed for contempt of Congress for refusing to testify during the McCarthy Red Scare.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

I know who there were, but I'm more vague on their role in 50s sit-coms.

[Moderation4ever]

It is hard to say as they may have written scripts but their credits left off or they wrote under pseudonym. A common practice at the time. June Lockhart was living in that time and I will defer to her opinion unless it can be proven wrong.

[The Margrave of Azilia]

She didn't refer to the specific people you listed, unless the reference to "good americans" who were locked up narrows it down sufficiently.

[JoeFromtheBronx]

The obit links to an earlier article regarding that comment.

Some of the "Lassie" scripts came from writers who had been blacklisted after refusing to name names in the heyday of McCarthyism and the House Un-American Activities Committee.

She mentioned Adrian Scott, one of the Hollywood 10 who went to prison for contempt of Congress. His wife, writing as Joanne Court, attended story conferences and gave her husband notes so he could do rewrites. She also mentioned Robert Lees, who was listed in the credits as J.E. Selby. (He was murdered during a break-in at his home in Hollywood in June. He was 91.)

"So when people come up to me and say, 'Well, sure wish we had wonderful American shows like that the way we used to in the 50's,' I say, 'Let me tell you who wrote those scripts,"' Ms. Lockhart said. "Yes, they were good Americans, and they were in jail."

("At Lunch With June Lockhart, Jon Provost and Lassie" By James Barron)

[The Margrave of Azilia]

It doesn't really bother me, because I don't think even the most crafty Communist could insert successful Marxist propaganda into episodes of Lassie.

And here is an irony: Lassie was literally a running dog.

[Dr. Ed 2]

for refusing to testify

That's completely unrelated from writing scripts.

[Voize of Reazon]

Here's a list though it hasn't been updated since Lockhart's death.
https://parade.com/celebrities/old-celebrities-over-90

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Thanks.

[Bob from Ohio]

"they were good Americans"

Never take info from actors or actresses. This is an objectively false statement.

I also doubt these movie writers wrote Lassie scripts either but perhaps.

[Dr. Ed 2]

It's easier to write about values you don't have.

[Brett Bellmore]

Per the Mitrokhin archives and Verona intercepts, there were plenty of people in Hollywood at the time who legitimately WERE working for Russia.

But the left wants us to believe that working for the KGB was materially different from working for the Gestapo, so going after them was somehow wrong.

[Magister]

McCarthyism destroyed the lives of a whole bunch of people who had nothing to do with the KGB, or even communism. McCarthy then, ICE now, and the Gestapo have far more in common.

[Brett Bellmore]

DeNazification destroyed the lives of a lot of people, too. Probably some of them were innocent.

The left have long pretended that almost everybody accused of being a communist during the McCarthy era was innocent. The Rosenbergs, for instance. The sources I mentioned above put the lie to that, but the lie was already too deeply planted for the left to give it up willingly just because of evidence.

[Sarcastr0]

Thoughtcrimes. Turning in your neighbors. Aggrandizing an alcoholic liar.

Brett's gonna destroy freedom in order to save it.

Can't have a Communism if you get out ahead of it and do the permanent revolution and purges yourself!

[Sarcastr0]

Plenty of people!

FFS, you're so bad at being pro-liberty.

[Krayt]

Sometimes I go to this site, it warns me it's not secure, which means Chrome cannot detect https support, and so it's just dangerous http, no 's' for secure.

But...

It's no longer a risk, because it immediately finds the 's' it couldn't a moment before. A semi-regular hiccup or super-good malware?

[Sarcastr0]

I saw Don Trump getting a test at Walter Reed.

His MRI was perfect.

/Ah-hoo

[windycityattorney]

"The best the doctor had ever seen."

That is the second clue he was lying. The first being that MRI's are routine at some annual check up. Third being that he also said if something bad (with his health)was happening, he would tell the media that as well. [Most transparent president in history as his people like to brag.]

So to sum up: something was found during his routine physical that required an MRI and the MRI found something.

Could be the big macs and his heart/blood flow, could be the never ending bruise on his hand and why it won't seemingly ever heal even though his ear allegedly did in like 5days...could be a STD from fucking porn stars with no protection... just a lot of possibilities here. Bottom line: I don't think we have to worry about that 3rd term talk.

[Dr. Ed 2]

He's the freaking POTUS -- do YOU want to be the person who didn't order a MRI that you didn't think he needed?

He's 79 years old, I'd be surprised if he wasn't hurt when the USSS tackled him during the shooting. MRI is great for back and spinal cord. Or checking for prostate cancer. Or who knows what.

[Brett Bellmore]

OK, seriously, an MRI is not a routine physical procedure for most people. But the only reason it isn't is that it's EXPENSIVE.

If I had even a tiny fraction of Trump's money? I'd be getting whole body MRIs at least annually. They're not invasive, they're not painful, and they can catch some things early.

[Sarcastr0]

You, the guy who sees a conspiracy behind every shadow, hearing about an out-of-cycle 'annual' physical that happened to include an MRI and saying there's nothing to see here?!

[Life of Brian]

And the flipside is true as well -- you're just itching for something to be wrong.

My wife went in with an indescript pain a few weeks ago, and the doc wanted to run an MRI just to rule some things out. As Brett said, they're not cheap, and that of course affects how often they're used in the normal course. But Walter Reed doesn't have that sort of price pressure.

[windycityattorney]

I don't want my comment to be misconstrued. Trump is the one who brought it up. I just assume, on good evidence, the opposite of what he says. So if he says 'it was great!' I assume it wasn't great.

What that means...whether serious health issue or not...wasn't really my point. It could be nothing. Or its possible he didn't even have an MRI and just said he did. Maybe it was a cat-scan and its been confirmed that there in indeed a giant anus where his brain should be. Whatever. We won't ever get the full or accurate story either way and the source is unreliable.

[Martinned]

I wonder if that MRI can explain this:

Trump: You take a little glass of water and you drop it on magnets. I don't know what's going to happen.

[Martinned]

...or Trump being confused by a military brass band until the Japanese PM showed him the way out of the room: https://bsky.app/profile/acyn.bsky.social/post/3m47pq35a7k2r

[Martinned]

Here's another angle of Trump stumbling through (ironically) a ballroom. https://bsky.app/profile/ronfilipkowski.bsky.social/post/3m4aqu76b722k

[Armchair]

Yet another war stopped by President Trump. He truly deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/white-house-claims-9th-war-ended-under-trump-gamestop-declares-end-console-wars

[Armchair]

And in other news, the Federal Workers Union ( American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE)) has called on Congress to pass a clean CR to get the government going again.

You know, the same type of clean CR that the GOP has tried to pass 12 times in the Senate and that the Democrats have filibustered each and every time.

When Dems have lost even the federal government workers union...what's left?

https://thehill.com/business/5574613-federal-workers-union-demands-end-shutdown/

[Moderation4ever]

The shutdown is in its third week. The Democrats want a restoration of health care subsidies and Republicans say they will negotiate on the subsidies. So why have they not been taking this time to negotiate so that they can pass the two bills together or close one after another?

[Armchair]

"The shutdown is in its third week."

Seriously? Even basic facts like this you get wrong.

[Moderation4ever]

Not yet four weeks more than three? Point is still the same they could be talking and working out the issue.

[Armchair]

Let's talk about the issue then.

Should people who are making $300,000 a year get subsidies from the government for health care? Is it worth cutting off people's food stamps in order to ensure those people making $300,000 get their subsidies from the government?

What's your view there?

[DDHarriman]

Do Democrats believe SNAP and other forms of welfare should make people live comfortably for the rest of their lives without having to work?

Or do they believe it's a short term band-aid to help people who have fallen get back up on their feet?

[Moderation4ever]

I doubt anyone getting SNAP benefits is living comfortably. SNAP benefits help low income workers. They are not living large just living.

[A Japanese Student]

Or, maybe things aren't as simple as that?

If the job market is providing high-wage jobs, people who actually can work would choose that over welfare programs. There are so many people who are denied disability benefits because they can work at a hypothetical job offering that doesn't fire employees for having less-than-perfect performance or attendance.

[Moderation4ever]

I agree. The reality is that everyone knows a goldbricker. Most people are smart enough to know that these people are few and there is little you can do to get rid of them. I don't understand the mentality that would deny so many because a few low lives will slip through.

[DDHarriman]

>If the job market is providing high-wage jobs, people who actually can work would choose that over welfare programs.

A fantasy market where all jobs are high-wage jobs...

>There are so many people who are denied disability benefits because they can work at a hypothetical job offering that doesn't fire employees for having less-than-perfect performance or attendance.

A strawman on top of an abuse of definitions. 'disability' means you are not able to work. It doesn't mean you are not working at a dream job that totally isn't a strawman.
---

You just gave some emotional platitudes. You seem to think disability benefits should be given for life and for people who simply don't try hard enough to find jobs that they personally prefer.

To me, that mentality is gross and historically has shown repeatedly to do more harm than good.

[Kazinski]

The news from a yesterday was Milei had a "landslide victory".

Now the seat totals have been reported, and his party got over 50% of the seats contested:

"His party, La Libertad Avanza, won nearly 41% of the vote, taking 13 of 24 Senate seats and 64 of the 127 lower-house seats that were contested."

That still doesn't give him a majority because only half the seats were being contested, but it does give him enough to sustain his vetos.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gw8qpyvqdo

[NvEric]

More J6 pipe bomb news ; Get tomorrows news today !

https://justthenews.com/government/security/monfbi-lab-report-contradictory-witness-interview-offer-new-mystery-unsolved-j6

[JoeFromtheBronx]

Trump Says a Recent M.R.I. Scan Was ‘Perfect,’ and He’d ‘Love’ a Third Term

https://archive.ph/3t9BZ

The article ends with this and includes a link to a longer story talking about Bannon's comments.

Last week, Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s former strategist, said that he was part of “a plan” to help the president get elected to a third term.

“Trump is going to be president in ’28, and people ought to just get accommodated with that,” he said.

The earlier article notes:

“At the appropriate time, we’ll lay out what the plan is,” said Mr. Bannon, without elaborating. “But there is a plan.” He added that Mr. Trump was an “instrument of divine will,” echoing, as Mr. Trump himself has, the language of the divine right of kings.

There are other articles linked if you follow the breadcrumbs regarding Trump talking about a third term. Sometimes, it is labeled a "joke" or something to help deal with him being a lame duck. But it is talked about, in various degrees of seriousness.

[not guilty]

In the criminal prosecution of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Judge Waverly Crenshaw has issued what amounts to a partial gag order on the United States Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security, among others. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.tnmd.104622/gov.uscourts.tnmd.104622.182.0.pdf

The Court further ordered:

To assist DOJ and DHS employees going forward Government’s counsel of record shall provide them a copy of this Memorandum Opinion and Order to understand their obligations under L. Crim. R. 2.01(a). Their compliance will ensure that any future statements will not “pose a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing this proceeding.” With knowledge of the Local Rule, any future statements that pose a clear and present danger to Abrego’s fair trial rights may subject the speaker to sanctions.

Memorandum opinion, pp. 7-8.

IOW, if Pam Bondi and/or Kristi Noem wonder about what will happen if they continue to yap and yammer, FAFO.

[not guilty]

In another order, Judge Crenshaw has directed the government to produce various documents for in camera inspection related to the defense motion to dismiss for vindictive prosecution. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.tnmd.104622/gov.uscourts.tnmd.104622.185.0.pdf

[David Nieporent]

And it was reported yesterday that, rather than produce discovery (and potentially produce Todd Blanche for a deposition), they're just going to punitively send Abrego Garcia to Liberia.

[Life of Brian]

No doubt criminals the nation over are rejoicing at the progress toward a world where, after they successfully fend off a prosecution or deportation effort, they're effectively untouchable for anything else they may have done.

[Sarcastr0]

No one said anything like your strawman here.

And what a bad strawman - these aren't criminal proceedings, and yet you pretend there's an avoidance of criminal proceedings going on here.

[Life of Brian]

these aren't criminal proceedings

Please try to keep up: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/70476164/united-states-v-abrego-garcia/

[David Nieporent]

No idea what you're talking about here. First — if the report is correct — the government is intending to refuse to let him stand trial; they're deporting him so that they won't have to present their laughable non-evidence of his crimes.

Second, the issue isn't deportation. The issue is the choice of destinations. All of Abrego Garcia, the govt, and Costa Rica have agreed that Costa Rica is an available option. But they want to pick some place in the third world where he doesn't speak the language and the conditions are terrible, because the issue is not removing someone who is here illegally; the issue is making him suffer.

[Life of Brian]

Your use of "punitively" made me think some 3L bleeding heart must be working on some sort of a corollary to his pending MTD on vindictive prosecution and I'd missed it.

Xinis had enjoined his deportation last I saw, so if that's not a barrier now then why in the world wouldn't they proceed with their original plan?

I read a couple of takes on the hearing and neither said the government has agreed that Costa Rica is an option -- feel free to pass on if they've said it since the hearing.

[Absaroka]

"where he doesn't speak the language"

FWIW, the official language of Liberia is English.

[Martinned]

I haven't mentioned the ICJ's advisory opinion on UNRWA yet, even though it came out last week, because frankly it's kinda boring. I don't know what the UN General Assembly hopes to achieve with all those advisory opinion requests about Israel. Clearly Israel, or at least the current Israeli government, has long since decided that it doesn't care about what's legal, and that it doesn't have to.

Anyway, the ICJ explained Israel's obligations, which are basically to facilitate the humanitarian relief work of UNRWA and not to impede the humanitarian relief work of UNRWA. Whether Israel had violated these obligations was not a question that was before the court. (And, in my view, couldn't be, given that it was an advisory opinion procedure.)

As ever, Marko Milanovic has the full write-up:
https://www.ejiltalk.org/the-bottom-line-of-the-icjs-unrwa-advisory-opinion/

https://www.ejiltalk.org/a-follow-up-on-the-icjs-unrwa-advisory-opinion/

[ThePublius]

You mean the UNRWA, several of whose employees participated in the Oct. 7th attack on Israel, that UNRWA? I see.

[David Nieporent]

There are many reasons UNRWA sucks, but that "several" of its employees engaged in (extreme) misconduct isn't one of them. There are 13,000 UNRWA employees in Gaza. (Indeed, that may be one of those "many reasons" I just alluded to.) "Several" employees of WalMart probably committed some crimes in the U.S.

[Armchair]

The organized rape and slaughter of innocent Israeli civilians is not just "extreme misconduct" or "some crimes."

It's symbolic of the fact that "Of UNRWA’s approximately 13,000 employees in Gaza, Israeli security documents revealed that 440 are active in Hamas’ military operations, 2,000 are registered Hamas operatives"

That is absurd.

[Sarcastr0]

This is you pounding the table.

Outrage is not an argument.

[Mr. Bumble]

Il Douche makes a douche comment.

[Armchair]

Indeed. Once again, his pro-Hamas sympathies come out.

[Martinned]

Another update on a topic that I've mentioned here in the past:

The Dutch supreme court has given judgment in the litigation about export licenses for the sale of parts for F-35s to Israel. The law (the Arms Trade Treaty and relevant EU law) requires that such an export license should be refused if there is a real risk that the weapons in question will be used for human rights violations. And, the courts below reasoned, whatever one might think of the situation in Israel, that real risk threshold seems to be met.

Another tricky part of the situation was that it did not concern new export licenses, but an argument that the state was required to reassess the export licenses that it had already given in the past.

The supreme court has now decided that a reassessment is not legally required (but somehow ordered one anyway). It also said that the courts have to be extremely careful when opining about matters of national security.

So now the government has six weeks to carry out a reassessment. It has already written to parliament suggesting that it is unlikely that this reassessment will lead to arms exports to Israel resuming.

https://verfassungsblog.de/f-35-a-judicial-compromise/

[M L]

Oversight Committee Releases Report on the Biden Autopen Presidency

https://oversight.house.gov/release/oversight-committee-releases-report-on-the-biden-autopen-presidency/

The Biden Autopen Presidency will go down as one of the biggest political scandals in U.S. history. As Americans saw President Biden’s decline with their own eyes, Biden’s inner circle sought to deceive the public, cover-up his decline, and took unauthorized executive actions with the autopen that are now invalid.

Our report reveals how key aides colluded to mislead the public and the extraordinary measures they took to sustain the appearance of presidential authority as Biden’s capacity to function independently diminished. Executive actions performed by Biden White House staff and signed by autopen are null and void. We are calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to conduct a thorough review of these executive actions and scrutinize key Biden aides who took the Fifth to hide their participation in the cover-up. The D.C. Board of Medicine must also review the actions taken by President Biden’s physician to hide his true condition.

[Sarcastr0]

Not much difference between linking this and Breitbart, in terms of credibility.

Given the risks of any precedent being applied to Trump's current state, I somehow doubt we'll see much actual challenging of pardons or anything like that.

Though you never know - bad judgement and assuming the GOP will forever be in power do seem the order of the hour these days.

[M L]

The news is isn't that some Biden autopen actions are, in fact, null and void. The news is that the House Oversight Committee is investigating and making these allegations.

I agree that partisan allegations like this (from either side) generally don't, by themselves, move the needle much on credibility of the allegation.

On the other hand . . . given what the whole world witnessed as to Biden's obvious decline, this seems like a legitimate issue.

In terms of credibility, not much difference between a GOP house committee and a Dem house committee? Probably true, but with the edge to GOP given the craziness of Dems recently.

And in terms of credibility, is there not much difference between Breitbart and other right wing sources, compared to far left sources like CNN, WaPo, MSNBC, CBS, etc? Disagree more with that one, left wing media is more likely to be dishonest from what I've seen.

[Sarcastr0]

In this admin, the House Oversight Committee just says stuff.

In previous admins of both partis, Congressional committees took their duties seriously. This admin, the committees don't - they're all engines of baseless political press releases to rile up the base.

Congrats on your rile, BTW. I'm sure the tools on the Committee are pleased.

And your conflation of institutions with transparency and internal controls with Breitbart just says how serious a person you are.

[jay.tee]

In previous admins of both partis [sic], Congressional committees took their duties seriously

This is laughable - unless you believe their “legitimate duties” include Hollywood-level theatre and outright fabrications.

[David Nieporent]

1) As always, one should completely ignore as garbage the press releases that accompany GOP reports; they routinely lie about what their findings are, and so it's not worth looking at any particular one to see if it's accurate.

2) Looking at the actual report, it is of course partisan tendentiousness. Serious people do not title a legitimate report, "The Biden Autopen Presidency: Decline, Delusion, and Deception in the White House." And the entire report is written in a similar tone. And it makes accusations of a conscious coverup even though it actually finds that Biden's aides generally didn't think Biden was cognitively impaired. It gets around this problem by just insinuating without evidence that they're lying. (The report briefly acknowledges the distinction between age and mental decline, but then goes back to treating them as the same thing.)

That covers the first 2/3 of the report. The remaining 33 pages are just politics. Needless to say, the staff of the House Oversight Committee do not actually get a say in determining whether the actions of a previous administration are legally valid. Moreover, their claims are basically that they think there should've been more of a paper trail on decisions, but no such paper trail is legally or constitutionally required. Some of the committee recommendations may have practical merit as a forward-looking matter, but they have no legal significance as a backward looking one.

[TwelveInchPianist]

"...but no such paper trail is legally or constitutionally required."

No, but it's the burden of people who claim to have been pardoned to show that they have been pardoned. Lack of a paper trail makes it hard to do that.

[David Nieporent]

No, but it's the burden of people who claim to have been pardoned to show that they have been pardoned. Lack of a paper trail makes it hard to do that.

They can go to the White House's website and print out the pardon certificate that includes their name. Burden satisfied.

[TwelveInchPianist]

Unless the government can show that the document isn't genuine. Testimony from the government that they're unsure of the document's provenance might do that.

[David Nieporent]

The document's provenance is the White House website.

[ThePublius]

Brilliant.
Stephen Kruiser:
“As Weiss casts her eyes about for what needs to be fixed at CBS News, 60 Minutes would be the most obvious place to start. It’s the clogged toilet of bias at CBS News and it needs to be addressed. The program has been awful since, well, forever. I honestly can’t remember a time when 60 Minutes wasn’t merely a televised fan club for the Democratic National Committee.”

https://pjmedia.com/stephen-kruiser/2025/10/29/the-morning-briefing-pondering-how-much-magic-bari-weiss-can-work-at-cbs-news-n4945363#google_vignette